make ends meet

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

Please check these sentences :-

  1. Some people barely make an ends meet.

  2. I need a good job to make an ends meet.

  3. I had to work at two jobs to make an ends meet.

  4. I saw an example :- Through better budgeting, I am learning to make both ends meet.
    It says “both ends meet” why did they use word both

In below examples they didn’t use “an” before ends, is that a mistake? :-
5. Her income was so low that she had to take a second job just to make ends meet.
6. He can’t make ends meet on his salary as it is, and he has a wife and two kids.

  1. I have a request
    Is it correct or we should say :- I request you.
2

Hi,

(1) The expression is ‘make ends meet’, which means to cope although there are problems in doing this usually through lack of money.

(2) ‘I have a request’ is an accepted expression. It depends how you want to use it.

Alan

3

“His parents both worked, doing their best to make ends meet.”
Is this sentence OK?

4

Yes.

5

Alan, I know (learned it) the meaning of “make an ends meet” I want a native English speaker should check my sentences which I made.

Would you or any other native English speaker please do that?

6

Hi Englover,

I can only repeat -

You cannot say ‘an ends’. The word is plural and can’t be used with the indefinite singular article ‘a(n)’.

Alan

7

Alright, as you’re saying so it must be true and now I’m rectifying in my notebook (it seems I (read) learned it in a wrong way).

  1. Some people barely make ends meet.
  2. I need a good job to make ends meet.
  3. I had to work at two jobs to make ends meet.

Hope now they all are correct in all the ways (sounds natural) and thank you so much for rectifying my mistake?

As you said ‘I have a request’ is an accepted expression. Does that mean the person whom we’re about to request, we’ve already expected in our mind that he would do that work.

And if we say ‘I request you’ then might be the person accepts our request or not it’s totally up to them. Isn’t it?

8

A request is something that you want someone to do for you and used as a verb sounds very formal or official. It is often used in the passive:

You are requested not to smoke in this area.

It is also used in formal invitations:

We request the pleasure of your company at the Annual Dinner to be held on …

As you can see. it has a limited use.

As you say, if you request someone to do something, it doesn’t follow that they will do it. It is simply a polite/formal way of asking someone to do something.

Alan

9

Thank you so much, especially for audio recording, I liked that.