What does “you’ve been keeping him quiet” mean?

Old friends talk about love and marriage

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A2 English listening practice · American English · Curated for beginners

💡 Did you know?
keep someone quiet
Phrase for a secret you didn't share
to not tell people about someone — not about making them stop talking

Hearing about her friend’s new boyfriend, one woman says, “You’ve been keeping him very quiet.” She isn’t talking about noise. To keep someone quiet here means: you didn’t tell anyone about this person, you kept it a secret. It’s a gentle, friendly accusation: “why didn’t you mention him sooner?”

“Quiet” usually describes sound, but English also uses it for information you hold back: “keep something quiet” means not telling people about it, whether it’s news, a plan, or, as here, a new relationship. You’ll also hear “keep it quiet” for a secret in general: “Keep it quiet, but we’re moving next month.”

Vocabulary frequency

How common is the vocabulary in this A2 English listening practice listening practice?

94.6%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common English words
Based on this reel’s transcript, most of the vocabulary is high-frequency, everyday English.

General English frequency

89.9%
Top 1,000
94.6%
Top 2,000
98.2%
Top 5,000

Spoken English frequency

94.2%
Top 1,000
98.5%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Words above this video’s level

Quick glosses for vocabulary that goes beyond this video’s A2 level.

clubbing
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
going to nightclubs for dancing and socializing
persuade
1×
Rare / outside top 5,000
to convince someone to do something
congratulations
1×
Top 5,000Common in speech
expressions of praise for an achievement or success
used to go clubbing
1×
used to do something regularly in the past

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-US 2012 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.

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