student asking question

What's "been meaning to" mean? Do people commonly say this?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

Yes, it's a commonly used expression for when you want to say that you were planning to do something, but haven't done it yet (due to not having time or some other reason). In this video, the speaker jokes "I've been meaning to stack those chairs" to express that he was intending to stack the chairs, but not having done it yet (you can see that someone did it unintentionally for him, by throwing the chair). "Been meaning to X" is similar in meaning to "am/was planning on X." Ex: I've been meaning to visit the doctor, but I've been too busy lately. Ex: I've been meaning to sleep earlier at night, but I keep getting distracted by social media.

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