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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SCARRED FOR LIFE and THAT'S GOING TO LEAVE A MARK / SCAR!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase scarred for life. Now, this is a more serious phrase, and we use it to talk about when something traumatic happens to someone and it's something that they will remember for the rest of their life. I guess the best example would be this. When I was a kid, we were sitting, waiting for a lift, bridge to come down, and a, person hit us from behind. And in some ways, in a very small way, I was scarred for life. I'm always afraid when I'm stopped somewhere now that someone's going to hit our car from behind. Luckily, when I was a kid, when that happened, no one was hurt. We had a really big car. The people who hit us, though, were injured quite badly. And I do remember I was probably 9 or 10 years old seeing the ambulance come to take those people out. So in a small way, I mean, other people have far more serious things happen to them. But in a small way, I was scarred for life.

I don't teach serious phrases very often. But I think it's important.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is that's going to leave a scar or that's going to leave a mark. This phrase is sometimes used in a humorous way. Here's an example. Let's say you're watching a soccer game or a football game. Someone kicks the ball and it hits another player in the face. You might react by going, ooh, that's going to leave a scar, or, oh, that's going to leave a mark. Basically what you're saying is, there's probably going to be a bruise or something after that happens. You can also use this figuratively when something happens to someone that isn't an actual action. Maybe at work you get fired and you can say, you know, that's going to leave a mark. That's going to, going to leave a mark for that guy or for you. Because, yeah, losing your job is not fun.

To review when you are scarred for life. It means something traumatic happened when you were younger and you still at times think about that in a negative way. You have negative emotions, and then that's going to leave a scar or that's going to leave a mark simply means that something physical has happened or something, you know, an action has just occurred that will, you'll remember it for a long time.

Let's, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I'm not in the right mood to teach serious phrases. It's a tough thing to do, you know, I want to do an English lesson about death at some point, but I don't know how to do it well. So I just never do it. But maybe someday. This is from Zerevan. That old car needs a lot of gas. It's tough to have an old car. And my response, for sure, I'm surprised how much better on gas our new car is, although I am comparing it to my minivans, which are older and bigger, so maybe not a fair comparison. Thanks, Zerevan, for that comment.

But, yeah, yeah, there was a car, in a video the other day a couple days ago. Whoa. That was a fast turn, Bob. And it was huge. It was enormous. What surprised me is many of you commented about the car, which was cool, but no one commented about the huge family of kids that walked by. At the beginning, I didn't realize they were behind me. I was in the zone when I was making that English lesson. And then when I sat down to edit it, I was like, how many kids are in that family? There was, like, one kid, two, three kids, four kids, five kids. It was a big family. So I'm glad my camera blurs people in the background out a bit, because I don't want to inadvertently put people in

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PUT A DAMPER ON SOMETHING and A WET BLANKET

In this English lesson, I wanted to teach you the English phrase to put a damper on something. When you put a damper on something, it means that you make it not fun. Or something can also put a damper on something else. Right now, the weather is putting a damper on Jen's ability to plant things. It's been raining for two days, and that has, certainly put a damper on progress on the farm. This can happen at work, too. Maybe your boss, decides that everybody has to work on Saturday, and that really puts a damper on your weekend plans.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a wet blanket. A wet blanket is a term we use to describe someone who makes something no fun. If your boss makes you work Saturday and that puts a damper on your weekend, we might say your boss is a wet blanket. A person who makes something, not fun. So they are someone who steals the joy from something. You might know someone who, if you invite them to a party, they're a wet blanket. And they don't add any fun or joy to the party. They just complain all the time.

So, to review, to put a damper on something means to make something not fun, in the way that, you know, something or someone makes it not fun. And then a wet blanket would be a term used to describe someone who puts a damper on things. They're kind of related, aren't they?

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Sibelk. Thanks a lot. And your farm looks so peaceful. And my response, it is nice, but a bit rainy and cold the last few days. That's really putting a damper on things. Thanks, Sibelk, for that comment. And that was me using, the phrase in the comment. So I hope you enjoyed that. You do know that's where my phrases come from, right? I interact with people in the world and then I use what they say, to create English lessons for you.

So what was I going to show you today? Well, we're walking out here in the rain. There are puddles along the driveway. I put these little French drains in. I think I showed you this last year. And they're kind of working to keep the puddles away. But I feel like I need to add, another one here. I took the shovel out this morning and I dug one temporarily. But you can see as it rains, the water is all flowing this way and creating these puddles, which, I don't enjoy having. I like it when, the driveway stays dry. I don't mind rain. I don't mind water. But I do really like it when the driveway stays dry.

And then. Yes, this is putting a damper on things. Jen would love to be planting flowers and even harvesting some flowers. But in order for flowers to grow and bloom, you need sunlight and you also need warmth. Like, it has to be a somewhat warm day. Here you can see some water again, just trickling. I was going to show you that I wore mismatched shoes this morning. I just put my running shoes on because, I don't know why I should have put normal shoes on. I'm kind of on my way to work, so I do have to go back in the house and change my shoes, before I head out.

So, Jen just said we're in a rainfall warning. We already got an inch of rain today and, since yesterday. And, yeah, hopefully it stops soon. I don't have crops out in my big field yet. My neighbor did come and work up the field, but, we're going to have to wait on that as well, for a week or more until everything dries up. So there you go. The trees love it. The grass loves it. Way out there, you can see Walter. Walter, come on. Pup. Walter Walter. He's not rea

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PUT TOGETHER and TO PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to put together. When you put something together, it means there are pieces. And then you attach all the pieces together with glue or screws or nails or something like that.

If you're wondering what the noise is, Jen's driving by in her gator, which kind of cracks me up because one of the last comments was that there was too much noise when I make these videos in town and some, someone wanted me to do them on the peaceful farm. And I thought I should do that. But, then there was still some traffic, wasn't there?

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Anyways, when you go to Ikea and you buy a bed, it comes in a box and then you need to put it together. When you get home, you need to use the tools and the screws that they give you. Or maybe you need to get your own screwdriver and you take all the pieces. And when you're done, after you put the bed together, you have a, bed. So when you put something together, it's in pieces and then when it's done, it's whole.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to pull yourself together. I might have taught this one before. All of a sudden I just thought, maybe I have, but I'll teach it again. Anyways, if you are emotional, if you are sad or upset or crying, you might need to pull yourself together. Let's say you're at a wedding and it's beautiful and maybe someone you know is getting married and you're, you're just crying a little bit, but they're tears of joy. And then you have to go up and give a speech. You need to pull yourself together before you go up and give the speech. You need to get control of your emotions. You need to calm down.

So to review, to put together, to put something together means, oh, here's another good example. If you ever played with Lego, you get a Lego set. And then you need to put together all the pieces to build what you are building. And to pull yourself together simply means to calm yourself down when you're in an emotional state. When you're in a heightened emotional state. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from ksenom. I never get up on the wrong side of the bed. There's a concrete wall. What's the difference between make the bed and assemble the bed? Dandelions grow here in Finland too. However, this spring, the night temperatures have been unusually low, so the flowers haven't appeared. Yet. And my response, when you buy a bed from a store, you assemble it. You do this once, you put it together. When you make the bed, you tidy up the blankets.

So thanks ksenom. for that comment. And hopefully you understood the difference. When you use the verb to make the bed, it's to put all the blankets flat. But if you were to get wood and cut the wood and like, not assemble it, like you are literally going to build it, we could use the verb make as well. But generally, 99% of the time when you make the bed, it means you're putting the blankets on nicely.

Today I wanted to talk about shade. The shade has returned on my farm, on my property. One of the problems with making videos in town is that you don't get to see all of the changes here on the farm property. So you can see that hopefully I'm not rotating you too quickly. You can see that shade has returned. I'm standing in the shade of this tree and it is beautiful. And hopefully, cross my fingers, the weather is beautiful on the first Saturday of June. And I can sit here. You'll recognize the view in a moment. I can sit here and do my l

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET UP ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE BED and TO MAKE THE BED

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to get up on the wrong side of the bed or to wake up on the wrong side of the bed or to get out of the wrong side of the bed. There's a lot of different variations to this phrase, but basically it means that you're in a bad mood. If I was crabby and cranky, Jen might say, hey, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed? I wanted to make sure I said this version of the phrase, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? And that would simply mean, wow, did you not sleep good, did you have a bad sleep, and now you're in a bad mood.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is simply to make the bed. This is what you do after you get up. You put the pillows nice at the top of your bed and you put the blankets nice and flat. We have what's called a sheet, and then we have a comforter. And we just kind of make the bed every morning after we get up. So we put all the blankets nice and flat and tidy.

So to review, to get up on the wrong side of the bed or to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, or to get up out of the wrong side of the bed, however you say it, it means you're in a bad mood. And to make the bed simply means. Yeah, to put all of the blankets and sheets flat so they look nice.

So let's look at a comment from a previous video. If you're wondering why I'm out of sorts, it's so bright out here, I have to find my sunglasses. You know, you'll notice I can hardly keep my one eye open. I'm not sure if the camera communicates that.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ismail. Hi, Bob. That sign that says more points, more ways on the gas pump, I think it's about a rewards program like getting points when you buy gas. But I wasn't sure how it works exactly in that place. Just curious, what's it all about? And my response, yes, you get points when you buy gas. This is from the video from a couple days ago at the gas station. You can then use the points to get 4 cents a liter off your purchase. I think you need about 4,000 points to do that.

So thanks, Ismail, for that question. Yeah, at our gas station and at a lot of places, you get points if you buy certain things and then you can use Those points like money. I don't know how many points you get for a tank of gas, but I do know that every once in a while I have enough points that I can get 4 cents a liter off.

So what am I doing here? I wanted to show you dandelions. So we are in prime dandelion season. Dandelions are, of course, these little yellow flowers that show up in lawns probably in a lot of different places in the world. I'm kind of curious whether you have dandelions where you live or not. For the next week or so, there will be a lot of dandelions around. Like, this is a local soccer field. They do a lot of work here to make sure the grass is nice and green. But the dandelions, they still come. They are pretty good at growing almost everywhere in Ontario, Canada.

I don't want to go over there, but in the distance, there's actually some sort of school event. It's not my school. I wonder if it's a track and field meet. A track and field meet is where you run the 100 meter, the 800 meter. You do long jump and triple jump and all those other kinds of events. Because there's children involved. I don't want to walk over there. They want their privacy and just not a good idea. If I'm in a public place, like when I'm at the publ

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SUGARCOAT and A COAT OF PAINT

Hi. I'll teach the phrase in a moment. I just got to get my gas pumping here. And then I will get started on the phrase to sugarcoat. Let me see here. Almost ready. There we go.

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Well, hi. In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to sugarcoat. When you sugarcoat something, it means you're giving someone serious news, but you're making it sound not serious. A great example would be if you go to the hospital, maybe you were in an accident and they do some X rays and the doctor comes out and says, well, I'm just gonna say it won't be very long before you're feeling a lot better. You might say to the doctor, please don't sugarcoat it. Just tell me exactly what's wrong. And then the doctor might say, well, you broke your leg and your arm and you're going to have a long recovery. Something super serious like that. So to sugarcoat means to make something serious sound not serious.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a coat of paint. If you look here, this looks like it has a fresh coat of paint on it. My van could use a fresh coat of paint. When we talk about a coat of paint, it's as if when you put the paint on, it forms a coat. Sorry, there's a big, huge truck going by if you're wondering what the loud noise is. But anyways, a coat of paint is just the paint that you put on in one layer. Sometimes you put on two coats of paint, sometimes three.

So to review, to sugarcoat something means to make it sound better than it is. And a coat of paint simply refers to a layer of paint that is on something like a van or this post here.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me check my gas for a sec. $70 already. Wow, it's expensive. This comment is from Meng. Daffodils in England were in full bloom a month or two ago, and now they are past their prime. Oh, I'm done pumping. I should hurry up. And then I responded by saying, I guess you're ahead of us then. Also, great use of the face... of the phrase past their prime. Yeah, it's a good phrase. When something's past its prime, it means it isn't. Isn't doing well anymore. It's getting old and not in its. Well, in its prime. I was gonna say in its heyday, which is another way of saying it.

So how much is gas here? Let me have gas is $1.35.9 cents. Gas in Canada has gotten a little bit cheaper. But honestly, I have a bit of a dilemma because if I go to the city, gas is right now 10 cents a liter cheaper in the city for some reason. I don't know why, but it's 10 cents a liter cheaper. So the problem I have is do I drive to the city and use extra gas to fill up my van so that it's cheaper? Or do. Or do I just buy the more expensive gas?

So hey, some of you might be wondering, I think in a previous video, I don't know on which channel, I talked about how this van had to go to the garage for some work. It smelled like gas. It ended up being something fairly simple. It was less than $200 to get it fixed. So I'm happy that my little blue van is still on the road and still doing well. Hopefully it lasts a long time because we need it to. So yeah, I tanked it up with gas and it's good for a little while yet. By the way, only I drive this van. My kids have decided they like the newer car better and the red van is, I think, more reliable. So it's just me now. Me and my blue van, which some people think is gray, but I think it's blue. Maybe let me know in the comments below what color you think this van is.

Anyways, thanks for watching. I'll see you in a

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO COVER YOUR TRACKS and TO COVER ALL THE BASES

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to cover your tracks. Now, if you do something and you don't want anyone to know you did it, you might want to cover your tracks. Let's say there are cookies in the kitchen and I'm not supposed to eat them. I might go to the tray of cookies and eat two and then I might move the other cookies so it looks like they're filling the plate. Still. I'm trying to cover my tracks. You also hear this phrase when you watch a show where there are criminals. After a criminal commits a crime, they might try to cover their tracks. They might put everything back the way it was. Let me see, let's say they were stealing money from a safe. They would probably close the safe and make everything in the place where they are stealing the money from look the same way as when they got there. They try to cover their tracks.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to cover all the bases. This means to make sure that you do everything in a situation. Let's say you're working on a project at work. You want to make sure that you cover all the bases. When you work on that project, you want to make sure that manufacturing goes well. You want to make sure that design goes well. You want to make sure that you have thought about and taken care of all of the aspects of the project. You want to cover all the bases.

So to review to cover your tracks means to make it look like you haven't been there. I've actually done that after I've eaten cookies before. I rearranged them on the plate so it looks like the plate is still full. And then to cover all the bases means to make sure that you take care of all aspects of a project.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Minosmil. I can imagine Bob and Jen going on a trip, but I'm not able to picture Bob the Canadian without pizza. And my response it would be hard! Right now. We make homemade pizza for supper once a week. It's my favorite night. Yes. So thanks Minosmil for that comment. Yes, I can imagine going on a trip. If I go on a trip, I'm hoping wherever I go that there's pizza there because I still like it. What an amazing food. Crust, cheese, sauce, some meat on top of it's just amazing. Hey, what was I going to say? I was going to say something else. I can't remember Jen and I going on a trip. That should happen at some point in our lives, probably.

So here's what I wanted to show you. We're a little behind right now in this part of Ontario, Canada. If you look here on the lilac tree, you'll see they're just starting to get their little flowers. And usually this has happened already. I should pause a little bit and stop moving so you can see. And then over here we have some purple ones. There's actually not a lot on this tree either. Hopefully I'm not too close. Hopefully you can see, if I go too close, it doesn't focus. So hopefully in the next little while things warm up a bit.

Jen and I need to start our farmers market in four weeks and things aren't growing as fast as they normally grow. We had a burst of growth, like the daffodils started growing really well. If you look over here, you can see there are some daffodils there. These aren't ones that we grow and sell, but definitely it needs to warm up a bit around here. The trees are starting to get leaves, so that's cool. But, yeah, it's like, you can see I have my sweater on again today. So it's another cool day here. And yeah, we need the su

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BELT OUT and TO TIGHTEN YOUR BELT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to belt out. So a belt is something you wear on your pants so your pants don't fall down. But it's also a verb we use to talk about someone who's singing very, very loudly. You can belt out a song. Let's say you go to a karaoke evening somewhere and you choose your favourite song and then you get the microphone and as the words show up on the screen, you start to belt out the song. So kind of a unique verb, but it is a verb that you will hear quite often. Sometimes people will say, wow, the singer could really belt out the songs. It was very cool to listen to.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to tighten your belt. When you tighten your belt, it means you're trying to save money. So let's say Jen and I wanted to go on a trip in six months, but in order to do that we would have to save up some money. We might need to tighten our belts. So we might need to tighten our belts. That means that we decide to not go out to eat. We're not going to order pizza, we're going to make all of our food at home. How else would you save money? Maybe we're going to cancel Netflix. We're going to decide to tighten our belts so that we can save some money.

So to review, to belt out simply means to sing something loudly with lots of energy and enthusiasm. And to tighten your belt means to decide to not spend money on extra things for the next little while.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Freddy Wolf and the comment is. Here we go. Thanks, Bob. While your temperatures are currently quite low and a bit chilly, we are experiencing very high temperatures up to 30. This is in France, by the way, for the month of May. This is a record since weather forecasts have been taking measurements. Sand from the Sahara is even predicted to come up to us. Our cars will all be sand colored. Mandatory wash in sight. See you soon. And my response. Oh, wow, that's a long way for the sand to travel. I've never experienced something like that. I hope it doesn't last long.

I think I forgot to put the T on last in that comment. There's a little, there's a little error there you'll have to correct if you see it. But yeah, thanks Freddy for that comment. Sand from the Sahara or the Sahara, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to pronounce it. Even English speakers sometimes don't know how to say the words properly, so. But that's interesting. That's a long way for the sand to travel. It reminds me of when we had the wildfires in northern Canada and the smoke traveled all the way to New York City in the United States. That was kind of incredible.

But hey, where am I today? Well, I'm just out walking in a typical Canadian subdivision. If I show you, that is a very large dog. Yes. I'm not always a big fan of dogs. I'm just going to walk quickly. Now. This is a typical Canadian subdivision. Every once in a while I do come and make a lesson in a subdivision. I always hope that the people who live in the subdivision, if they see me, don't mind. I also have a sense that there might be a car coming up behind me. Oh, no, it's turning. So I'm safe. I have to be hyper aware of my surroundings when I come and make an English lesson in a place like this. But there you go. You can see that a lot of Canadians have more than one vehicle. One vehicle there. When you see a vehicle in the driveway, there's often another vehicle in the garage. And then someone even has a boat over there. I wo

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A REAL HEADACHE and A SPLITTING HEADACHE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the phrase a real headache. Now this can have two meanings. The actual meaning is that your head hurts and maybe you need to go to a pharmacy to get some medicine so that you don't have a headache anymore. Maybe you have a real headache, an actual headache. But we also use this to talk about a situation that isn't easy. Right now I don't think I want to go to the United States because I think crossing the border would be a real headache. I think they might ask me too many questions. If you didn't know the US and Canada aren't getting along very well right now. So I'm not sure I want to cross the border because it might be a real headache. You might go for an interview for a job and you might say, oh, the job interview was, it was a real headache. Like they asked me questions for two and a half hours. So sometimes when it's not an actual headache, we still use the word real to describe a situation that is kind of annoying and kind of difficult.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a splitting headache. This is an actual headache. If you have a splitting headache, you will probably go to the pharmacy and get some acetaminophen or ibuprofen to help with your headache because you have a splitting headache. Sometimes people go out and they drink too much, they have too many alcoholic beverages and the next morning they wake up with a hangover and they have a splitting headache.

So to review, a real headache can be an actual headache or it can be a difficult situation. And a splitting headache is when you have... your head just feels like it just feels awful. It's not very nice at all.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ünsal. I've noticed there usually aren't many people around in the videos you film in town. Is that because of the time and place you choose to shoot? Or are those calm, peaceful streets just part of the vibe where you live? Thanks for filming outside. Even with the strong wind, it's always such a joy hanging out with you. Thank you so much for this useful lesson. Have a great day. Bye. And my response? I'll try to find a place today in town with more people. A lot are still in their cars because it is early spring. The warmer weather will come soon.

And you've probably thanks Ünsal for that comment. And you've probably noticed as I stood there, there were a lot of people driving by and there still are, but there aren't a lot of people walking by. That gentleman does have the window of his truck open. And I'll show you what Canadians do sometimes. Sometimes Canadians, at this time of year, we don't start spending time outside. We just stay in our cars. So this is the Tim Hortons. Drive through and you'll see that there are quite a few people lined up to buy some food, to buy some coffee, maybe some donuts and those kinds of things. If you look way over there, you'll see people going from their car into the Tim Hortons restaurant. But, yes, I would say that it's still maybe a little bit too chilly for people to actually be outside.

Oh, there's someone over there. So I'm gonna guarantee you that that person. Oh, I thought she was maybe gonna go into the drugstore, into the pharmacy, because maybe she has a headache. But no, it's still a little. Oh, she did. She did go. I should have kept the camera there. Anyways, Ünsal, you wanted to see more people. I think I showed you three. But, yeah, I think it's mostly due to the weather. Li

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT'S THE SPIRIT and A KINDRED SPIRIT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase that's the spirit. When we say that's the spirit to someone, we are encouraging them or recognizing that they did something cool or that they're excited about something. I'm not sure I'm explaining this well. Let me explain. If I said to someone, I want to go for a hike tomorrow, but it's going to rain, if they said, I'll just wear a jacket and bring an umbrella, I would say to them, that's the spirit. They are showing a positive attitude towards something that might be hard. If I said to a student, the exam is going to take three hours, and if they responded by saying, well, then I'll just study for three weeks, I would say, that's the spirit. They are showing a positive attitude when something difficult is going to happen.

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It's very windy out here today. I'll show you in a minute. Hopefully I don't blow away.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is a kindred spirit. A kindred spirit is a person you meet who is very similar to you and has a lot of the same interests. I have a good friend, and that friend and I both read science fiction books when we were teenagers and we often talked about them. We were kindred spirits. When I was at university, I met people who I really enjoyed hanging out with. We were kindred spirits.

So to review that's the spirit is used to basically recognize that someone is being positive in a situation that might be negative. And when you say a kindred spirit, you're talking about someone who thinks a lot like you, likes a lot of the same things as you.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Pedro. Talking in person is different. It brings back a kind of warmth you don't get through a screen. Have a great weekend, Bob. And my response? Yeah, I like in person better than online. So that was a reference. Thanks, Pedro. That was a reference to the last lesson where I talked about face to face and in person.

Let's walk over here and see if we can see. Oh, I was going to say one more thing. I used to have to do parent teacher interviews online during the pandemic and I didn't like it at all.

Okay, I'm not sure if you can see this tree. It was moving quite a bit more earlier. I'll just point like this for a bit. It's just really, really windy out here. I'm gonna walk this way so the wind is at my back. That's better for the microphone. Then the sound, the audio quality should be pretty good, but I'm just walking in what I would call a typical Canadian neighborhood in a small town. Notice some of the driveways are gravel, some of the driveways are concrete, and some of the driveways are pavement.

Last time I did a video like this in town, a lady ran out of her house and wanted to know what I was doing. So I don't know if that will happen again, but people are quite protective when they see someone with a camera. Although the last time it happened, the person thought that it was some sort of sensor that I was looking for gas leaks or something like that. This person must be getting ready to go camping. It's a little early for camping in Ontario, Canada, but you can see they have their pickup truck hooked up to their camper and it looks like they're getting ready to hit the road and maybe find a campground that's open. I don't think a lot of them are yet. They usually don't open till the middle of May.

Anyways. Again, a view of the trees moving in the wind. A nice view of a typical Can

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms FACE-TO-FACE and IN PERSON

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term face to face. When you meet someone face to face, it means that you're in the same room, you're in the same spot. It's not the same as meeting them online. If I was talking to my boss and I had a complaint, maybe I'm talking to my boss on the phone, I might say, hey, maybe this would be better if we do it face to face. Can you hear that loud bird? It's definitely spring here. Maybe it's better if we meet face to face. When you talk to someone face to face, you can read their facial expressions and you can read, you know, their body language and what they're actually thinking. But sometimes online it's a little hard. So face to face means that you are talking to the person in the same room like you're physically in the same spot.

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The other term I wanted to teach you is in person, which means exactly the same thing. If I was talking to my boss and I was was talking on the phone and said, hey, I really want a raise, I don't think I get paid enough. And my boss was like, I don't know, I might say, hey, can we talk about this in person? Can I come to your office later today? And can we talk in person? Because I would just be more comfortable doing that.

So to review, when you meet someone face to face, when you talk to someone face to face, it means they're right in front of you. You can see their face. And when you meet someone in person or you talk to someone in person, it means you're not online, you're not on the phone, you're not just doing it via a messaging system. You're actually in the same place in the same room.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Sorry. The birds. It's beautiful, but it's a little bit annoying. It's not quite as loud now. This comment is from Tacagero. Mr. Bob told us that he is not going to read the full comment, but he did. Politicians often do what they do not mention to do. So a little. I'm getting called out a little bit here. This made me laugh, by the way. And I said, haha, you got me. I did do the opposite of what I said, politics here I come.

So in the last lesson I said, oh, by the way, thanks Tacagero for that comment. In the last lesson I said the comment was too long. I'm not going to read the whole thing. And then I did read the whole thing. So, yes, maybe the world of politics is for me, maybe I am someone who can not tell the whole truth all the time. Sorry, I'm making it sound like all politicians are bad. They're not all bad. Some I think are very, very nice.

Hey, I was gonna show you that there are daffodils. This has become a yearly routine, I think, on this channel. These are a little late this year. We're actually surprised because normally daffodils would be blooming already, like two weeks ago. Oh, and I think there's a little ladybug on there as well. I think I just put a shadow on it. But yeah, the daffodils are blooming. It's actually quite nice out here.

But we... I would say the growing season is a little bit behind. Like it's April 24th today. The trees are just starting to bud out. And I think last year they were already quite... They were like leafed out quite a bit already. If you're wondering what this is, we're just killing off the weeds in this area so that we can plant some things. I think we might actually put some vegetables in this year. Some of you have asked before if we grow vegetables. I think my son might try to grow some vegetables. So we'll see how that goes. But I can't wait for the leaves t

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY and IDENTITY CRISIS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase a case of mistaken identity. When you say that something is a case of mistaken identity, it means it's a situation where someone thinks someone is someone else, but they're not. So maybe as you're walking along, you see someone from behind and they have hair just like mine and it's the same colour and I'm about the same size. And you run up and you say, Bob! And the person turns around and it's not me. That would be a case of mistaken identity. I used this phrase in a comment below the last video because someone said something like, you never answer my question. You just answer the questions like, how are you doing? Or you talk about what equipment you used. And I'm like, this must be a case of mistaken identity, because I answer almost every question.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase identity crisis. When someone has an identity crisis, it's like they don't know who they are. So here's a good example. Sometimes people who are 17 or 18 go to university. They don't know what they want to be. They kind of have a bit of an identity crisis. They don't know if they want to be a doctor or maybe they want to be a teacher or maybe they want to be an engineer. They're kind of lost and they don't even really know who they are. They're having an identity crisis, a crisis where they're not sure what they're supposed to be or even who they are right now.

So to review, when there is a case of mistaken identity, it means that, let's say the police arrest someone and then they're like, oh, wrong person, sorry, it was a case of mistaken identity. You matched the description of the person we were looking for. And when someone has an identity crisis, it means they're, you know, they're just not sure who they are or what they're supposed to be in life. Sometimes people have this in the middle of their life as well, where they're just. They don't like their job and they're just sort of unhappy and they have a bit of an identity crisis.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I'm not going to read the whole comment, but you can pause and read some of it. It's from Alaa Ahmad. Hello, Mr. Bob. Yesterday I dreamt that you became the Prime Minister of Canada as a successor to the former Prime Minister. Justin. I was proud, pointed to you telling my family that you are one of my best Canadian teachers. But then I stopped doubting that you will recognize me as a follower after becoming the Prime Minister. I was surprised to see you using the word prime in my last lesson. What a coincidence. Be honest, Bob. Are you planning to be a politician? And my response? Maybe when I retire, I'll become Prime Minister. It looks like the job of leadership is going to quite old people if you look at the U.S. the United States. So thanks, Alaa Ahmad, for that comment.

And actually, no, I don't have any plans to go into leadership or to be a politician. But yeah, I guess in the United States, if you're over the age of 75, you can be the president. That's how it works in that country. I guess I have a few years to go before I do that.

Hey, I wanted to show you a sign of spring here. I think I showed you this last year and my videos are getting a little bit repetitive, but that's okay in my book. I think these are. I think even in the last video I didn't know what they were then. I think Jen said they were forsythia. Not 100% sure, but some beautiful yellow for your sp

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases PAST THEIR PRIME and PRIME TIME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase past their prime. When you say someone is past their prime, it means they peaked at whatever they do well and now they aren't as good at it. We usually use this to talk about athletes, a professional athlete. Often when they are in their 30s, they start to not be as good at the sport as they used to be. And then we might say when they're 35 or 36, that they are past their prime. It's not a nice phrase, is it? I do not look forward to the day where I'm teaching a class and some parent says, Bob, that guy is past his prime, it's time for him to retire. I don't think I'm anywhere close yet, but that would not be a nice thing to hear. But often used to talk about professional athletes when they're in their 30s. It's common to read a news article or hear someone on TV say that they are past their prime. Again, not very flattering, not very kind.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is prime time. This is kind of an older phrase. This refers to TV shows that are on between 8 and 10 or 7 and 11. There's a bit of a... There's a... There's a couple different ideas as to what it means, but it means the time where people normally, I guess, used to watch TV. Now there's streaming and YouTube and all kinds of other things to do from 7 to 11. But prime time meant a TV show that was on between 7 and 11 at night. So for me it's usually game shows from 7 to 8. So there's Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. And then at 8 o'clock I don't often sit down to watch a TV show anymore. I might watch a Blue Jays game, but those are on at prime time sometimes as well. They start at 7 or 7:30 at night. Anyways, prime time, the best time to get a lot of viewers to watch something.

So to review. When someone is past their prime, it means that they were good at something and now they're not as good at it because they're getting older, they've peaked and now they're kind of going downhill. And then prime time would be any TV show that's on between 8 and 10 or 7 and 11, whatever you choose.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from. Know that as for your example of the shirt with the hole in it, Bob, if it were one of your favorite shirts, you could possibly wear a sweater over it in a pinch. Assuming of course that the weather is right for a sweater and how many holes it has, how big they are and where. I know that was just an example and as always, a really good one from you. Thank you so much, Bob. You're awesome in so many ways. Have a great day.

And my response, yeah, I've done that from time to time. In fact, I'm doing it right now. Yeah, I went and found what is my favorite shirt. It's too bad that shirts get. The shirt is past its prime there. I could use the example as well. It's too bad when things get old. This doesn't have holes in it, but it's actually. It's just starting to wear out a little bit where you can't see. So I can't wear it unless I wear a sweater or a top like this over top of it.

So anyways, the lawn chairs are back out. You might have noticed that in a previous video. We put them back out a week or two ago. This has just become a beautiful spot to sit in the spring, summer and fall. For Jen and I. It's shady in the morning right now. It's about 9am so it's nice. We put them away for the winter and now they're back. We've also removed one row, one row of the little markers from the driveway. We have to remove these at some point. The dogs were starti

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A TEXTBOOK EXAMPLE and TO SET A BAD EXAMPLE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase a textbook example. When something is a textbook example, it's something in real life that could have been in a textbook, maybe. Let me explain a little bit better. A textbook is a book you use in school to learn new things. And a textbook example is something that happens in real life that maybe could have been taught in a textbook, but we sometimes use it in a funny way. Here's a good example. If you're watching a football game or what I call soccer, and there's a corner kick and the person kicks it and the ball bends nicely and goes right into the top far corner of the net, we would say, that's a textbook example of how to do a corner kick. That's how, if there was a textbook that taught you how to kick the ball, that's what they would teach you. To kick it in a way where it bends and hooks right above the goalie or goaltender and goes into the net. That would be a textbook example.

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So the other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to set a bad example. Now, if I was to wear jeans to school or really old shirts with holes in them, that would be a bad example. I would be setting a bad example for the students. When we have students in school that don't behave, that sets a bad example for the other students. They might think because that one student is misbehaving, they can misbehave as well. So when you set a bad example, you do something that encourages other people to do the same, even though it's a bad thing. If I speed in my van, I would be setting a bad example for my own children.

So to review a textbook example is like something that happens in real life that's done so well. You think, oh, they could. If they taught this. This is how they would teach it in a textbook. A textbook example. And to set a bad example simply means to do something that encourages other people to do that bad thing as well.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from the paper got all crumpled in my pocket. I've been a number of places between school and here. Here we go. From Bryce. It's nice to see you, Unc Bob, which is short for uncle. And my response, it's good to be back in action. So, Bryce, thank you for that. I picked that one because I always giggle a little bit because in some places in the world I'm apparently known as Uncle Bob. In some Asian countries, I think it is what we call an honorific. It's a term we use when we respect someone. We might call them uncle, even though they aren't technically our uncle. So I'll take it. If you guys want to call me Uncle Bob at some point, that's fine. I have the gray hair to be like an old wise uncle, so we'll go with that.

Where am I today? I'm getting water. Some of you have been here before with me. This is the place where I come to fill my water jugs. I've already filled them. You can see here that it says small container fill station. Please push and pull handle slowly. Although they've replaced it with a switch now. And then you can read that if you want to take the time, hit pause. And then also, they don't like it when people hook a hose up directly to the tap. So that's where I am today. I just filled the jugs. And so we have a little bit of drinking water again for the rest of the week.

We don't drink as much in the in the late winter, early spring as we do in the summer. But it is important. The water we have at home is not really good to drink. It's in the cistern. We do keep it clean enou

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases MUTUALLY BENEFICIAL and THE FEELING IS MUTUAL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you understand the English term mutually beneficial. When something is mutually beneficial, it benefits both people. The other day in my lesson I used the term win win. When something's a win win, it means it's good for both people who are involved in whatever is happening. You could say the same thing here. When something is mutually beneficial, then both people are... both countries benefit. I will say this, I don't like to get political, but tariffs don't seem to be mutually beneficial. The world's a little crazy right now. Again, I don't like to comment on too much of the political spectrum, but I'm not sure everything is mutually beneficial right now in the world.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the feeling is mutual. When someone tells you what they think about you or how they feel about you. And if you respond by saying the feeling is mutual, it means you feel the same way. If one of you didn't like me and said, Bob, you're not very nice and I thought the same about you, I would say, hey, the feeling is mutual. You can also use this to talk about, like if two people think the same way about something, you could say the feeling is mutual. Like if one of you said that you don't like tariffs, I could say, oh, the feeling's mutual. It means I don't really like them either. I hope I don't get too many comments from this lesson. But anyways, to review when something is mutually beneficial, it's good for both people or both parties or both countries. And when the feeling is mutual, it means that you and another person or a group of people and another group of people feel the same way about something.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Mohd Ags. It's so good to see you Mr. Bob. Thank you for the useful phrase sight unseen. And thanks to the student that used it naturally, they basically taught us the phrase too, eh? Correct use of "eh" by the way. And my response? Yep, the people around me are unaware that they are inadvertently teaching all of you. So thanks Mohd Ags for that comment.

And yeah, I've explained this before, haven't I? That what I do in order to figure out what to teach you today is I just listen to people and someone actually used the phrase mutually beneficial today. And then usually the second phrase, I just look for something that's kind of related. It doesn't always mean the same thing, but it usually has the same word in it or some version of that word.

So yeah, what was I going to talk about today? Not politics. I'm not going to talk about that at all. Or did I already do that? Maybe a little bit. I know someone else commented, and I didn't have this comment on the screen that in the last video I was probably talking faster than I did in previous lessons on this channel. And that could be true. I'm a little out of practice In English, when you say you're out of practice, it means you haven't done something for a while, so you're maybe not as good at it or not doing it in the same way that you used to do it.

So maybe I'm a little bit out of practice. I just intentionally started speaking a little bit more slowly, 10% more slowly than normal, and pronouncing all my words correctly. So we'll see. Now I feel like I'm thinking about it too much and adjusting how I speak too much. So I'll try to go back to normal. The idea with this channel is that I do speak close to my normal speed for the last two minutes, so hopefully I'm gettin

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Preply is a great way to find an English conversation partner. Use this link http://preply.sjv.io/e1gM5D to get 50% off your first lesson or use code BOB50 at checkout. In my experience Preply is a great way to take your language learning to the next level.

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SIGHT UNSEEN and OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase sight unseen. Now we use this when we're talking about buying something that we haven't looked at. Here's an example. If I was to go online on Facebook Marketplace, it's a popular place to go when you're trying to buy something used. And if I saw a car and I called the person and I said, I'm going to send you $10,000 over the Internet for that car, I would be buying it sight unseen. What that means is I didn't go and look at the car before I bought it. If I saw a house online and the price was really good, and if I was a multimillionaire, which I'm not, I might call the realtor and say, I want to buy that house. And I would then buy it sight unseen. Meaning that I didn't even bother to go and look at the house to see what it looked like. I bought it sight unseen.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase out of sight out of mind. When there are no cookies in the house, I don't eat cookies because when something is out of sight, it's not in your mind, it's out of sight, out of mind. If I see cookies, then I want to eat cookies. So it's best for me. Sorry, I'm trying to keep my back to the wind. Let me shift a little bit here. It's best for me if things are out of sight, out of mind. If I don't see cookies, if I don't see cake, if I don't see donuts, then I don't crave them and I don't eat them.

So to review, when you buy something sight unseen, it means you buy it without going to look at it. It's always best to look at something before you buy it. But sometimes you might buy it sight unseen. And then when something is out of sight, out of mind, it means you can't see it. So then you don't think about it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Duncan Kim. Thanks for watching. Thanks for teaching and my response. You're welcome.

So what Duncan's saying there is I often at the end of my videos will say thanks for watching. But Duncan feels that I deserve thanks. And this goes back to when I taught the phrase. By the way, thanks Duncan for the comment when I taught the phrase when something's a win win. I've mentioned this before. I like making these videos. It's really nice to be outside making a video today. And you like watching them. It's a win, win. We both benefit. And just so you know, I do get a little bit of money from YouTube. There are ads and you watch the ads and I get a little bit of money. But it's, it's a win, win situation. So I do thank people for watching and people do thank me for making the videos. So it's a, it's a win, win. We both say thank you and we both say you're welcome.

Anyways, what can I say? It is really nice to be out here making a video again. It is really nice to be feeling a lot better. I'm not going to go into any details, but yeah, I took a little bit of a break if you didn't notice. And it's good to be back. I was excited because today I heard a student use the phrase sight unseen and I was like, there's the phrase. It's time to get things going again on this second channel. So again, you shouldn't buy things sight unseen, but maybe you're the kind of person that likes doing that.

So anyways, what else was I going to

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases MY HEART SKIPPED A BEAT and A HOP, SKIP, AND A JUMP

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English expression my heart skipped a beat. Now this can be used in a couple of ways. It can be used in a romantic way. Like I could say, the first time I met Jen, my heart skipped a beat, meaning that I found her attractive and I was excited to see her. So my heart skipped a beat. Like ba bump, buh bump, buh bump, buh bump. It can also be used for something that's a little bit scary, though. As a parent, if the phone rings in the middle of the night, my heart skips a beat because it makes me think that maybe one of my children, maybe something bad has happened to them. If you are my age and if you have teenage children and if they are supposed to come home at midnight and it's one in the morning and the phone rings, usually my heart skips a beat. So when you say my heart skipped a beat, it's the past tense. It means that something exciting happened or something a little bit scary happened.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a hop, skip and a jump. I think this comes from triple jump in the... the Olympic sport where you hop, skip and jump, but we use this to refer to something being not far away. I could say my brother just lives a hop, skip and a jump from here. That's not true, actually. My sister lives a hop, skip and a jump from here. My brother lives a little bit further away. So it's used to talk about distance and it means not very far.

So to review, if you say my heart skipped a beat, it could mean that something exciting happened or it could mean that something scary happened. And if you say something is a hop, skip and a jump from here or a hop, skip and a jump away, it means it's really, really close. If you hopped and then did a little skip and a jump, you would be there.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit. Let me get it open here. Or Aerosmith77 as she also goes by. Thanks for this short video, Bob. I hope it doesn't mean that you skip tomorrow's video though. I was happy to hear that you are getting ready to make a live stream on Friday. I am looking forward to it and my response I'm getting ready to go out and shoot the lesson now, so no skipping. I guess I'm in the middle of shooting the lesson. Thanks Judit for that comment. Yeah, I am definitely out here making a lesson and putting this lesson up for Wednesday morning. So this will be ready to go. I'll do a little bit of editing on it as when I go back in the house and it will be ready for all of you to watch.

So a little update. I have switched from a winter coat to a spring jacket. I might have referred to this as my fall jacket last year. It's kind of funny how the same jacket, when worn in a different season, gets a different name. So I put my fall jacket away, wore my winter coat for the entire winter season, and now I have my spring jacket on, which looks exactly like my fall jacket. It's beautiful out here. Jen and I are really excited to get started on doing little things on the farm. Now, I do say it's beautiful, but it's very brown, isn't it? Like no leaves on the trees. The. I should really pick that gate up, shouldn't I? At some point. Yeah. I am looking forward to the return of green. But this is nice. It's 12 degrees right now, Celsius, so I'm really, really enjoying it.

I have a list of little chores I have to do later today. It's spring break and I have a few things to do. I'll show you one of them. I don't know if I'll get to this

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT'S THE WAY IT GOES SOMETIMES and IT IS WHAT IT IS.

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English expression, that's the way it goes sometimes. This is an expression we use when you know life. Things just happen in life and there's nothing you can do about it. I picked this expression or phrase because this is exactly what I said when I lost my voice last week. I had just done a video saying that I'm bound and determined to put out videos somewhat on a regular schedule. And then literally the next day I lost my voice. And then I couldn't make a lesson for last Friday, but I'm bound and determined to put one out today. It's Monday today. So kind of this expression means, well, that's life. That's the way things go sometimes. That's the way it goes sometimes. I just said it subconsciously. I said the phrase even though I wasn't looking at the phrase. I don't know if you caught that, but it just came out automatically. So this is a really authentic English lesson.

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The other phrase is it is what it is. This is another phrase that means, well, that's life. Or in French we would say c'est la vie, or that's the way it goes sometimes. Yeah, it is what it is. Do you like having a lesson on a Monday? Hey, it is what it is. It's better than no lesson. So to review, when you say that's the way it goes sometimes, or when you say it is what it is, it's just a comment on how life is going. If your car breaks down three times in a row, you might just say, hey, that's the way it goes sometimes, or, hey, it is what it is.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Vitor. Technical question. Bob, if you stop posting for one or two weeks, does your channel perform worse in terms of the YouTube algorithm? I mean, having a defined schedule is good not only for views, but also for the algorithm. Sometimes I feel like this platform treats its creators like machines. The great thing about your channel is that it has evergreen content. It doesn't matter the time. It's always useful. Thank you, Bob. And my response? The short answer is yes, if I stop making videos for a couple of weeks, then my graphs all start to go down. And that can be a little concerning.

So you do realize that I love doing. Thanks, Vitor, for that comment. I love doing this, but I also work less in order to do YouTube. So therefore, I do need to earn some money from YouTube. Like, I don't have the luxury of just working three quarters of the week at my real job. And then YouTube is nothing. So I do notice it. When I take a break, my views go down and all of those things. And of course, the amount of money I earn goes down. Here's what I would say. What's really cool about English lessons and about youtubers like me is that the same things that benefit you benefit me as a creator.

What I mean by that is this. If you watch the entire lesson, and then if you watch the entire lesson the next day, that is really beneficial for you as an English learner. Watching the video twice is just a good idea. But it's also good for me as a YouTube creator, if you watch my video twice. And if you watch the Entire video, then YouTube thinks, oh, this video is very helpful. I will show this video to other people who are learning English. So that's kind of the. The longer version of the answer. If you wanted to help me and inadvertently help yourself, the best thing you can do is watch the entire video. Like, don't watch half and then stop watching. And then the second thing would be watch it again later that week. Like

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BOUND AND DETERMINED and TO BE BOUND TO

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase bound and determined. When you are bound and determined to do something, it means you are going to do it. It means you are serious about doing it. It means that you are committed to doing it. The best example I could come up with today, even though I don't like to be political, is to say that President Trump is bound and determined to put tariffs on Mexico and China and Canada. He's... I'm pretty sure today he's going to do it. You're watching this on Wednesday so you'll know the results. But he seems bound and determined. He seems committed to doing it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to be bound to. This means that you are most likely going to do something. If you're walking on ice, you're bound to fall. If you're not good at walking at ice, if it's something you've never done before, you're bound to fall. It means you are most likely to fall. If I go into a Tim Hortons restaurant, I'm bound to buy a cookie. That means I'm most likely going to buy a cookie. Sometimes I don't have any self control.

So to review when you are bound and determined, it means you have decided you're going to do something and you are not going to change your mind. You are bound and determined to do it. And if you're bound to do something, it just means you are likely to do it. Most Tuesdays I'm bound to make a lesson. I usually go out and I do one, sometimes I do two.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video and it is in my coat pocket today and it is from Know that. And the comment is... Let me get this open. Although it is quite windy, the weather does not look too bad, Bob. Even the sun is out to play. Enjoy it while it lasts. Thanks again for making all your regular videos for us this week. It would have been easier and less stressful for you to just skip some of them and that would have been completely understandable. So thank you for that, Bob. You know it is much appreciated. Have a great day. And then my response using today's phrase, I'm still bound and determined to only skip lessons if I'm sick. So far so good. So thanks Know that for that comment.

And yes, I'm not sure if you were aware of my... I guess you might be able to call it a New Year's resolution. But but I did make a decision at the beginning of this year 2025 that I am going to try and stick to putting out the same number of lessons every week on both channels. When I looked at 2024, I realized that there were many weeks where I just took a week off, and sometimes it was maybe because I was sick or because I was busy. So this year I decided, you know, I'm not going to do that.

I'm going to, at the very least, put out the same number of videos every week. That might mean that a short lesson comes out on a Saturday or maybe even a Sunday. Some weeks it might mean that my Wednesdays with Bob Members Only video on my other channel might come out on a Thursday. I don't think that's happened yet. But yeah, I'm bound and determined to do that for a couple of reasons. One, when I looked at my stats from last year, when I looked at my my views and everything from 2024, I realized that it's probably disappointing when a video doesn't come out.

And it also made me realize you don't actually care what day the video comes out. If I put a video out on a Saturday, one that normally comes out on a Friday, just as many people watch it. So I thought, you know what? There's seven days in a week, and if

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English words AIRHEAD and AIRBALL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English word airhead. Now, this is not a nice word. This is a word you use to talk about someone who isn't very smart, someone who makes a lot of mistakes. You might call them an airhead. Actually, it's more like someone who doesn't remember things. You might call them an airhead. Maybe at work, you have to work with someone and you teach them how to do something, and an hour later they can't remember how to do it. If you were being mean and if you wanted to insult them, you would say that they are an airhead. This happens in school sometimes, too. I just the other day had a student complain because they said the other people in their group that they were working with, they thought they were a bunch of airheads. So basically, that student was saying the other students weren't very smart.

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The other word I wanted to teach you today is airball. This is a very specific and unique word. This refers to the game of basketball. When you shoot the ball and if it misses the basket completely, it doesn't hit the rim. Like, it doesn't hit the edge of the basket. It doesn't go in the basket. It goes right past the basket. We would say that's an airball. We sometimes in English might use this to talk about an idea that didn't work out. You know, we might say swing and a miss, or we might say, oh, that was a real airball. But mostly, 99% of the time, this word is used to talk about someone in a basketball game shooting the ball at the basket and it misses it completely.

So to review, an airhead is a person who isn't very smart. And an airball is a ball that you shoot towards a basket in the game of basketball, and it doesn't go in.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let's... I don't think I have one. Where'd it go? I thought I printed it. Okay. I don't have it. Yeah, okay. Sorry. That was the grouchy... Did you see the grouchy Bob there for a minute? I'm... I'm a little bit annoyed with myself. I was at school. I printed this, and I thought I printed a comment from a previous video. Maybe I didn't. Okay, there's no comment today.

And I didn't do... I didn't do that on purpose so I could say that I'm an airhead. That's... That's not why. I literally... Maybe it's in my van. Sorry. I know you don't watch these videos to see Bob wandering around. No, it's not okay. No comment from a previous video today.

But hey, I'm here in town it's a beautiful February day and it feels like February is ending for sure. We've been in deep, deep cold for so long. Just walking around out here with no coat on. The parking lot... By the way, you can see there is snow piled up over there. We should go have a look at it. In countries that get lots of snow, you have to put the snow somewhere. So sometimes you lose parking spots because you have to put the snow somewhere. So these piles were probably a lot bigger a couple days ago.

But yeah, it's definitely a lot warmer. It's probably not warm enough to just walk around outside with no coat on. But hey, I'm enjoying it. It's... It's been... It's been a long winter. I know I complained about it in another video on my other channel. I do still love winter, but this feels really nice. I'm looking forward to the weather getting a lot better.

Anyways, thanks for watching. Sorry about the no comment thing. No comment, yes. I guess I'm a bit of an airhead today. Anyways, thanks for watching. See you in a couple days with another short English lesson. Bye.

englis

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN THE DARK and A SHOT IN THE DARK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase in the dark. When you are in the dark, it means you don't know about something. I use this example a lot, but if someone was planning a surprise party for me, they would want to keep me in the dark. They would want to make sure that I don't know about the party. If they were planning like a surprise birthday party, they would all talk amongst themselves, but they would try to keep me in the dark. Sometimes governments do this as well. They do things that they know the citizens won't like, but they try to keep them in the dark. They don't let the press or the newspapers know, and they try to make sure people don't know what's going on. They keep them in the dark. Not a very good thing.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a shot in the dark. Now, a shot in the dark is simply a guess. If you were to say to me what's 10 times 11 and I didn't know the answer, I might say, it's shot in the dark. It's probably around 110 or something like that. Anyways, a shot in the dark, that's a bad example. A shot in the dark is a guess. If you were to ask me how many English lessons have I made, I would say, and it's just a shot in the dark. At least over a thousand. Maybe close to 2000 if you combine the two channels. But that's just a shot in the dark. That's just a guess because I don't know the actual answer.

So to review, when you are in the dark, it means you don't know about something. It means other people know, but you don't know. And a shot in the dark is simply a guess about something.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Klopcyna. Dear Bob, do your students know you are a successful YouTuber? Do they watch your videos? This question's come up before my response. Most do know, but few watch them. I think when they find out, it's cool and unique. But after a while it's just a normal thing. Yeah, once. Thanks, Klopcyna, for that comment. Once I'm their teacher and I start assigning homework and I start checking their homework and doing all the things that teachers normally do, like telling them to stop running in the hallway. I think they forget that I'm a YouTuber and that I'm doing quite well on YouTube.

So yes, most of them know I think most of them think it's pretty cool. But the other thing I would say is this YouTube isn't as big a deal for them as some of the other social media apps they use. I don't consider YouTube necessarily a pure social media app or platform. I mostly use YouTube to learn new things and obviously to teach things. But for my students, I think it's a little more of the like TikTok, Snapchat, BeReal. All of those kinds of things are more important in their lives. So yeah. Do they know? Yes. Do they care? Maybe a little bit. I don't know. It doesn't really matter to me. I just hope that they learn something from me in the classes that I teach.

So hey. Yep, it continues. Once again, I was not going to talk about the weather, but yeah, it's a little warmer as you can see, I'm able to be outside without a winter hat or gloves, but it's still definitely winter. I haven't had to clean the driveway again. I think what I miss the most is the sun. Like you can kind of see it up there behind the clouds. But I'm looking forward to not necessarily warmer weather. I don't mind if it stays a little bit cold. I think I'm looking forward to just a little more sunshine. I've been taking my vitamin D pill every day because I'm n

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WISHFUL THINKING and TO THINK BIG

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is when you think positively about something, but it probably isn't going to go the way you think it will. Here's a great example. If you don't study and you have an English test in a few months and you just think, ah, I'll just watch YouTube videos and I'll pass that English test, that's probably wishful thinking. You probably aren't doing enough. You're thinking that you're going to pass the test by just watching YouTube videos, but you should really be practicing your speaking and your writing and your reading and all of that stuff as well. So it might be wishful thinking. So hopefully you understand. It means you think a positive thought about something, but you're probably wrong.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to think big. So sometimes at work someone will have an idea for a small change and then someone will say, why don't we think big? Instead of doing the small change, why don't we do something even bigger? So an example would be maybe a teacher says, my classroom isn't big enough so I'm going to remove a couple desks. And someone else might say, hey, why don't we think big? Why don't we instead spend millions of dollars and build you a bigger classroom? That's something that doesn't usually happen, but it could.

Anyways to review. Wishful thinking is when you hope for something positive, but it probably won't happen. You're just being really, really optimistic. And to think big is to dream bigger than you would to solve maybe a small problem.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I wasn't going to talk about the weather today, but it's minus 15 right now, minus 21 with the wind chill. It's about, it's about as cold as it gets. This comment is from. Let's see here. Let me get my glove back on. Paper and gloves are a bit of a challenge. This comment is from Tolik. Thank you for the lesson, Bob. You have really nice boots. I like them. Have a nice day and I said I love my boots. I hope they last forever. But alas, I think that is wishful thinking.

So yeah, I've had these boots for a while. I really, really like them. They are really, really nice boots. But to think that they might last forever I think would be wishful thinking. So a positive thought for something that most likely won't happen. So Tolik thank you for that comment, let me see If I can get this off here.

Yeah, I wasn't going to talk about the weather, so I'll try... I'll try not to do that at all. So, anyways, I had a beautiful family day Monday. Yesterday for me. Two days ago for you. I think that is just the best holiday. My kids and I and Jen, we actually went and we played some badminton at the school. We went out to a little cafe afterwards and had a little treat. Uh, we spent some time as a family. We watched the TV show Jeopardy.

I'm not sure if you know what that show is, but Jeopardy is a trivia show, a quiz show where they ask questions and then the contestants have to try and answer them. By the way, Jeopardy is probably a great way to learn English if you could find a way to watch that show. Uh, so we had supper together. Uh, we watched Jeopardy together. It was a fun evening, and it's fun just to have a day where you decide to spend the day with your family. So I really enjoyed it.

Right now, though, I'm going to go back inside. It's a little too cold this morning for me, and I think I need to go warm up. Than

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WORK WELL WITH OTHERS and A TEAM PLAYER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to work well with others. When you are working and you are working with other people, either you work well with others or you don't work well with others. Some people work better by themselves. Some people enjoy working with others and they work well with others. I'll explain what I am in a bit. You might be surprised, but hopefully you are someone who works well with others. If you were applying for a job, they might say to you in the interview, do you work well with others? And hopefully you can say, yes, I work well with others. I enjoy working with other people.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a team player. If you work again with a lot of other people, hopefully you're a team player. You're someone who is easy to work with. You help other people. You are kind. Hopefully other people help you as well. Hopefully you are a team player. By the way, this doesn't mean you have to be on a sports team. You can be a team player at work. Like at work, I try to be a team player. I try to be helpful. I try to work well with others.

So to review when you work well with others, I'm just laughing because you're going to. I'm going to read a comment in a sec that you might laugh at as well. When you work well with others, it means you are kind and nice and it's easy to work with you. And when you are a team player, it means essentially the same thing.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Tammy. Your English lessons are amazing and you don't need to have a heavy hitter to collaborate with you. And my response Thanks. I don't really work well with others anyways.

So thanks Tammy for that comment. And let me now explain. I work well with others if it's the right people. I hope that makes sense. I hope that doesn't make me sound kind of like a jerk if I'm working with the right people. I think people also enjoy working with me, but my preference is to work by myself. I think that's one of the reasons why I became a teacher. So again, I do actually work well with others, but if I am given a choice, I prefer to work by myself. It's one of the reasons why I think YouTube works for me. I have an idea. I make a lesson, I edit the video, I put it online. I don't have to rely on anyone else.

So I'm home again. It's a Thursday and it's a snow day. So it happened. I'm not sure if Brent had a snow day. I know he mentioned in his Members Only video that he had heard I might have a snow day. So I'm wondering if over there in Maine they had one. We got again quite a bit of ice. So a lot of freezing rain you can see here. Like I'm not sure if it shows up really well on camera, but there is a layer of ice on this tree. I'm gonna try and remember to go a bit slower when I show you stuff like this so you get a good chance to see it.

And what that has done is it's made it... You can hear the snow as well. Like it's. There's a layer of ice on top of the snow. Not sure how well that shows up, but yes, a little bit slick out here. There's some icicles even on this tree here. You can see some tiny. Where's my hand? There's some tiny little icicles and you can see that. My driveway. You can see my footsteps from my walk this morning. But it's. Yeah, it's kind of like ice. Like it's. There's a layer of water underneath but there's this thin layer of ice on top.

So another snow day. Woohoo. I love them. Anyways, I hope you work well with

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms HEAVY HITTER and HEAVY HEART

In this English lesson, I'd like to help you learn the English term heavy hitter. When you say someone is a heavy hitter in a certain area, it means they are like the most famous or most powerful person in that area. If I was to have a guest on my YouTube channel, if I could convince Lucy from English with Lucy to come on my channel, she would be a heavy hitter. She would be one of the most successful and a pretty awesome English teacher to have on my channel. I should send her an email and ask her if she wants to do a collaboration again. But she would be a heavy hitter. If I needed to find a guest speaker for my class, someone to come and talk to students, if I got Matt Damon to come in, that would be a heavy hitter. That would be a pretty cool and impressive person to come and speak to my class. So a heavy hitter, a very important person or a very famous person or a combination of the two.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is heavy heart. When you have a heavy heart, it means you are sad. We often use this phrase after someone passes away. After someone dies, you might say something like I have a heavy heart since my grandmother passed away, I am sad. I am feeling grief. I have a heavy heart.

So to review a heavy hitter is someone important or famous or powerful. And when you have a heavy heart, it means that you're sad. Really sad. Because something in your life isn't... didn't go the way you thought it would.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Joy. The comment is. We also had a snow day a few days ago. Might as well stop all tasks and build a snowman like a kid. And my response? I wish we had the right kind of snow for that. Unfortunately it is too cold for snowman snow. So yeah, you need... Thanks Joy for that comment.

You need a certain kind of snow. Oh you should have a look at this. This morning has been pretty cool. Everything's just a little bit. I don't know how to describe it but it's. It's like we had frost overnight a little bit and it has formed on the trees and branches. So pretty cool. Anyways, yeah, we don't have the right kind of snow to build a snowman. In order to build a snowman the snow has to be not melted but it has to be like 0 degrees or 1 degree or minus 1 somewhere in that range and then the snow will stick to itself. Right now the snow will not stick to itself. The snow is very, very cold.

I'll give you a look at the snow in a moment. I'm just distracted by these trees.

The snow is very, very cold. And so for some reason, when the snow is that cold, the snow will not stick to itself. When you make a snowman, you have to roll the snow. And as you roll the snowball, it gets bigger and bigger. And that's where comes from for something to snowball. If you start rolling a snowball when conditions are right, as you roll it, the snowball sticks to the snow you roll it onto, and then it slowly gets bigger and bigger. It's a pretty unique thing. The next time we have snow that is the right kind of snow for making a snowman. I should make a snowman for you so you can see how it works.

By the way, when you make a snowman, when the weather's right for that, it's also a good day to make a snow fort. Snow forts are fun. I built a lot of snow forts when I was a kid. A snow fort's like a little mini house that you build outside out of snow. It's not an igloo. That's something different again. But, yeah, snow forts. And then we would have snowball fights. I miss those days.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases MIGHT AS WELL and FREEZING RAIN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase might as well. We use this phrase when we're saying that we should do something. I think a good example is this. If you're driving in your car on the highway and you pull over to get gas, you might as well get something to eat as well. Since you're already getting gas, you should eat at the same time because you don't want to stop later. Let's say that I'm stuck at school waiting for one of my kids to be done, whatever they are involved in. Then I might as well grade some student work since I'm at school anyways. I should grade some student work because I'm waiting for my kids. So when you might as well do something, it means you should do it usually because it's just a good idea to do it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase freezing rain. It's a snow day. I'm recording this on a Thursday because we had freezing rain last night. I talked about this in my lesson about weather a week ago. Freezing rain is when it's raining but it's still below zero. It's kind of a weird phenomenon, but you end up with things like this. I'll show you the ground here. You end up with all these little... You can't quite see them, but there's these little tiny. I can't pick them up. They're frozen. Basically. Yeah. You end up with this. Hopefully it's in focus and hopefully you can see you end up with a lot of ice on the ground. So it's a snow day, I get to stay home.

So to review when you might as well do something, it's something you should just do. Let's say it's 4:00 and Jen and I are sitting down to have a snack and we have to go out later. We might as well just have a big meal and then we don't have to eat later. And then freezing rain is when it rains and it freezes when it hits the ground.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Ginny. Isn't it cold in the early morning? The dogs behind the screen seem very energetic, especially the black one was running like a horse. Yes, Walter tends to do that. And my response, it was cold, but not too bad. The dogs sleep in our garage and were just let out. They're usually quite energetic first thing in the morning. So yeah, the dogs, when they first get up are very, very energetic. Gonna show you a few. Thanks for the comment, Ginny.

A few things that happen when there's freezing rain. You can see this is all frozen. So I do have to go somewhere later today. But the windshields on our vehicles all have a thin layer of ice on them. As well... Walter's not as energetic this morning. The ground, it's a little bit slippery. It's actually not too bad. But we have to be careful because the dogs can slip and fall and that's not good because they can hurt themselves. So we're trying to make sure they don't run around on the driveway and instead run around on the grass.

You can see this car here, too, just has all these little ice pellets. Maybe I could actually pick one up this time. It's frozen to my finger. No, I dropped it. Yeah, all these little ice pellets, they all fell as rain and froze as they were coming down. And then now we have a situation where the car is just covered in a thin layer of ice. It's kind of beautiful, though. And I don't mind having a snow day today. Actually, I never mind having snow days, but it wasn't that important of a day, so it's kind of nice just to be home and relax. Jen made pancakes for the kids because they're home from school. So it's just a nice day, relaxing at home.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English words ONE and the phrase A GOOD ONE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn some interesting ways to use the word one. We can use the word one sometimes in sentences like this. You could say, that was one amazing movie, that was one awesome song. That was one amazing cool concert. So somehow the word one ends up in the sentence, if someone was in a car accident and they didn't get hurt at all, you might say, oh, that was one lucky man. He could have been hurt really badly, but man, he was one lucky guy. So it's kind of a strange use. I don't actually know the details of what's happening there. Obviously we're using the word one to emphasize something, but hopefully you think this is one amazing English lesson.

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The other word I wanted to teach you today or the other phrase is a good one. So this is similar where you can say, oh, that movie, that was a good one. Or that song, that was a good one. I went to a concert last summer and it was a good one. So simply using the word one to refer back to the thing that we were talking about.

So to review, you can use the word one for a little bit of emphasis. You could say that is one gigantic airplane. There's no airplanes in the sky right now. You could say that is one enormous boat. And you can also use the phrase a good one. That car? Oh, that's a good one. What did you buy? I bought a... a Toyota RAV4. Oh, that's a good one. You bought a good car.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Eman. Thank you. The conversation after comments are important for me. It helps me learn more. And my response, I'm happy to help. I'm sure they work well for listening practice. So thanks, Eman for that. Eman, for that comment. Yes. So some people really enjoy this part of the video where I just walk and talk. And I can understand why because I often say to Jen, if there was a French teacher on YouTube who did this, I would certainly watch these videos for this part right here because it's kind of random. I randomly talk about all kinds of stuff.

Right now I'll just mention that I'm out here early in the morning. I don't know why I'm up and outside this early. I don't need to be. But I woke up and I couldn't sleep. So I thought, you know what, I might as well start to get some work done. If you're wondering what the sound is, that's the sound of crunchy, crunchy snow. Since My video that you might have watched on my larger channel yesterday, where it was frozen, the temperature has gone up and everything melted a little bit and now it's gone back down again.

The nice thing, though, about early morning, I really enjoy the views like that is one beautiful view there, isn't it? The sun is probably up, but it's a little bit cloudy, so you can't see. But I just love how beautiful it is first thing in the morning. If you're wondering what time it is, it's not that early. It's like five to seven, I think right now. Five after seven, maybe. So, I mean, not abnormal for me to be out and about at this time.

The other day I was going to show you. Let's walk this way. The other day I was sitting at my computer working and all of a sudden there was a knock at the door. Not sure if you can see the footsteps that go to the fence. Actually, I'll show you the footsteps over here. There's a set of footsteps in the snow because all of a sudden there was a knock at the door and someone said they needed some gas because their snowmobile had run out of gas on the river. So that's a big spin. That is one fast spin. So I actuall

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO EDGE OUT and A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to edge out. When you edge someone out, it means you pass them. Maybe at work you and a colleague are both trying to get a promotion, but there's only one spot. And maybe because you know a bit more, you can edge out your colleague because you're just the better choice. Sometimes when teams are playing towards the end of their season, they edge out someone who's kind of at the same spot as them they win a game and the other team, maybe in a different city, loses a game. And that helps them edge out the other team. It helps them surpass them.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is a double edged sword. So of course a double edged sword would be a sword that is sharp on both sides. But in English we use this to describe a situation that both benefits the person but also is negative in some way. The classic example is always to say fame is a double edged sword. Being famous is a double edged sword. Sure you have lots of money and you can do whatever you want, but you can't just go to a normal grocery store because people all want your signature. So fame is a double edged sword. It has an advantage. It has a lot of advantages probably, but it also has a disadvantage in that you can't do what normal people do in life.

So to review, to edge out means to surpass. I think that the best example is the sports team. You know, they can edge out the competition and then maybe finish in a better spot. And a double edged sword is any situation where there's both like a positive or many positives and negative and a negative or many negative aspects to it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Cecilia. Good luck, Bob. And then a nice four leaf clover emoji. Thanks. It went extremely well. So Cecilia is referring to the fact that yesterday I'm going to stop trying to do this. Yesterday or two days ago for you was the first day of second semester for me and it went really well. In fact, it's Thursday morning right now as I record this and I'm realizing that it's very enjoyable to get up, to go for a walk and then to make an English lesson for all of you.

I think I'm at my best in the morning. I think this time of day, right now it's about quarter to nine, I think. I think this time of day is just a better time of day for me. And for a full year I've been teaching in the morning. And then coming home to make YouTube videos and lessons for you in the afternoon. And now I'm realizing that I get to get up and when I'm fresh, when I have lots of energy, that's when I'll be making YouTube lessons. So I think that this is a win win for you guys. I think. I don't know for sure, but I think the English lessons will get better. I think I'll be a little more creative. I have plans to still make sure I do one of these short lessons in town once a week, but I just feel a bit more relaxed.

In fact, I keep looking at the clock this morning and realizing it's way earlier still than I thought it was. For some reason I was getting ready to go to work and I had this kind of feeling like I was late for some reason, which I'm not at all. I think I'm actually going to get to work earlier today than I need to. I probably need to be at work around 10:30 every day. As many of you know, I'm 70%, so I don't work full time. So yeah, I'm gonna get up, work on YouTube. You might see me replying to comments at a different time of day on this channel, but either way I think it should be fo

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English words SCHEMOZZLE and BAMBOOZLE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the word schemozzle. When there is a schemozzle, it means that something is a mess. Let's say you're at work and you need four truckloads of, I don't know, flour in order to make bread that day. Maybe you work at a bread factory and only one truckload showed up. That would be a real schemozzle. Or maybe instead of four truckloads showing up, eight truckloads show up. That's a schemozzle. It's a funny word. I don't even know if I'm quite saying it correctly, but I heard a colleague say it today. They said, wow, there's just a real schemozzle. And I won't give you the specifics, but whenever you use this word, it means something is a mess. It means it's not going the way it's supposed to or it isn't the way it's supposed to be.

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The other word I wanted to teach you today is bamboozle. This means when you trick someone, usually for financial gain. By the way, I just. I like the funny words today. Schemozzle and bamboozle. When you bamboozle someone, it means that you trick them into buying something that isn't worth what you think it is. If Jen was to bamboozle people at market, eventually people would be annoyed with us because she would be tricking them, maybe selling them, you know, 10 flowers in a bouquet and saying there's 30 in there or something like that. She would be bamboozling them.

So to review. Oh, I already put the words away. A schemozzle is a mess. And when you bamboozle someone, you trick them, usually because you want to get money from them somehow.

Oh, it's getting a little cold out here. Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Sajonara. Hi, Bob. By the way, did you fasten the seat belt around the bottle? And my response? I did indeed. I learned my lesson a long time ago when a bottle fell over in my van and the lid came off. Yeah, that was a... That was a mess. I was going to say schemozzle, but that doesn't really describe it. But yes, I did have that. Thanks for the comment, by the way. I did have that once... By the way. I put a water bottle in my van in the last video. And after I put it. Or in my car, and then after I put it in there, I did put the seat belt through the handle and fasten the seat belt, because that's a good Way to prevent it from falling over.

So. So anyways, how's everybody doing? I have to admit I'm a little bit nervous. It's the first day of school or first day of second semester tomorrow. That's probably why I'm talking so quickly. I'm just gonna go over here out of the wind a little bit. It's. It is quite a bit colder than I was expecting out here. Sorry. I was just looking at the ground here because it's a bit of a different color. And this is where my van was parked, so I better check the oil in that van. I don't think it's oil. I don't know. What do you think it is? You see how the. It's a little darker there than it is over here. I think, though, that might just be from yesterday. Things melted a bit and so the vehicles all have, like, salt and sand and stuff on the side from the roads. And maybe that just kind of slipped off.

So can I venture out into the cold again? Yeah, probably. I'll do that. So. Or maybe not a little colder than I was expecting. I was gonna. Expecting. I was gonna show you this as well. We had a windstorm that was not there the other day. That actually came from. I think it came from over there. We have a bit of a junk pile over there. You've probably seen it in a few videos. I do really need to clean that up.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BOTTOM OUT and FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to bottom out. So whenever something is going down, like the price of a stock on the stock market, eventually it will bottom out and then it will start to go back up again. So to bottom out means kind of to hit the bottom. This can also happen with a car. If you drive an old car over some railroad tracks, tracks, or a really big bump, sometimes the shocks compress, but they compress all the way, and then it's just this really loud bang. And we usually say that's when a car bottoms out. I used to have a car where if I drove it too fast over a bump, it would bottom out. You would just hear it go bang. In fact, my blue van is starting to do that as well.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is from the bottom of my heart. This is usually a way to thank people. It usually goes with the phrase thank you. So I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for watching my English lessons. Sometimes we associate the heart with gratefulness, thankfulness, love. I am just extremely grateful. So thank you from the bottom of my heart for watching my English lessons.

So to review to bottom out means when the price of something or a graph is going down, eventually it hits the bottom and starts to go back up again. Well, hopefully. And then from. Oh, and a car can do it as well. Bang. That's what it sounds like when your car bottoms out. And then from the bottom of my heart is usually a phrase we say when we say thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Konstantin. Not only Canadian technique though. That's the pulling glove on with mouth. We all use it now and then. Well, teeth are for chewing after all. Sticking are not only for chewing after all. Stick and carrot policy is common at school. The challenge is to find a balance. Oh, you know the ropes. Sorry. Any chance of sharing your teaching of sticks? My response, my main stick is to put a zero in the grade book and then message the student and parents and say it's not too late. I can Always replace the 0 if you hand something in. So I'm not sure if the words matched what you saw on the screen because when I printed it didn't print everything. So there might be a little bit of a discrepancy. So, Konstantin, thank you, fellow teacher, for sending that comment.

Yeah, what am I going to do next? Well, you see that big thing back there? That's a water tower. I'm actually here with my water jug because I need to go to this tap here, and I need to fill up this water jug. We fill our water jugs up in town. That didn't work so good. I think that's what this little. Whoa. That is frozen solid. There we go. Hopefully you were able to see that. Now I can do this, and then I can flip this tap here, and it will fill up my jug.

We do not drink the water from our cistern. It's collected from the rain that falls on the roof of our house. So we get our drinking water from town here. There's a filling station. You can pause and read that if you want. If you want to read the fine print. There's also a camera on me right now somewhere. Oh, it's almost full. I need to stop it. Oh, it overflowed a little bit. That's probably why there's so much ice on the ground here. People haven't stopped it in time. But now I have in my pocket, if I didn't lose it, my little blue lid. This is really hard to do with one hand. And then I will put it in my car. There we go. T

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE CARROT AND THE STICK and TO STICK YOUR NECK OUT

Sorry, I had to put my glove on using my mouth. It's a Canadian technique. I think I showed you that before. But super cold out here today. In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase the carrot and the stick. So the carrot and the stick refers to a way to motivate people. I think it comes from the idea that a long time ago, if you wanted a donkey to move forward, you could hit the donkey on its butt with a stick, or you could use a carrot to make it want to walk forward. So the carrot is a reward method for getting people to do something, and the stick is a punishment method.

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Here's a good example. If your boss wanted you to work on Saturday, he could say, you have to work Saturday. And if you don't, I'm gonna make you work on that job that no one likes doing. So that's kind of like the stick. If you don't work Saturday, something bad will happen. Or your boss would say, I want you to work Saturday. And if you do, I'll give you double pay for every hour you work. That would be more like a carrot, something positive. So the carrot is like a nice way to motivate someone, and the stick is a not nice way to motivate someone.

The other phrase I wanted to look at today. Wait, am I holding this up wrong? Yeah, sorry. The carrot and the stick. Here we go. And did I have it up right the first time? I'll have to check. The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to stick your neck out. When you stick your neck out, it means you do something risky. Let's say your boss gets angry really easily, but your boss is doing something wrong. You might have to stick your neck out and tell your boss, but there's a risk that your boss might get mad at you. So when you stick your neck out, it means that you do something risky at work or in life.

So to review, hopefully I held this up right the first time. If I didn't, this is just the lesson. I'm not doing this one twice. The carrot and the stick refers to a nice method to motivate someone. That's a carrot or a not nice way to motivate someone. That's the stick. And to stick your neck out means to. Yeah, to do something risky must be from.

Yeah, I'm not sure where that phrase originates from, but hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video before my ears freeze off. This comment is from Vitor. A short lesson from Bob on Saturday. I can't complain. Thank you, Bob. You're the best. And then my response, Yeah, I got a little bit behind last week with the semester ending and all.

Yeah. So the semester is ending. Let me get my glove back on here. We'll go for a walk. The semester is ending. The school year is half over and the semester is ending. So I have like kind of a nice week this week, but last week was a little bit busy. For those of you that have been around for a long time, you know that we have the semester system in my part of Canada. So students have class for about 90, 93 days and then they have exams and then we start brand new courses next week, Wednesday. For students, it's really, really stressful right now, but for teachers it's a little more relaxed. I only have to go to work three days this week out of five, so I have a little more time to get a few things done around the house. Jen and I are going to work on filing our taxes for last year and obviously I'll get some more YouTube work done as well.

But, yeah, what was I saying? Oh, I can't remember. My ears are so cold. I can't remember what I was saying. Do you know what temperature it is rig

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE CALM BEFORE THE STORM and TO STORM OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to teach you the phrase the calm before the storm. Now, you can use this literally to talk about the fact that there's going to be a storm later today. But it's actually quite calm and peaceful out here right now. And that's actually true. It's really warm outside. I'm just wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap. It's like 5 degrees or something and raining a little bit. But this is the calm before the storm. Later today, it's supposed to drop to -9. And for the next week it's going to be like minus 8 or minus 10 every day. So it's going to be super cold. So this is kind of the calm before the storm. We use this in real life as well, though. Let's say you're a student and you have exams coming up in a week. Right now it's the calm before the storm. It's peaceful now, but it's going to be really, really busy in just a little while. Maybe you have this at work. You're working and it's just a nice day at work. But you know, it's just the calm before the storm because a big project is due soon.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to storm off. By the way, this is a repeat of a lesson from 2020. I think it's the first time I'm doing the same two phrases in the same lesson. I haven't done that before, but I really wanted to talk about to storm off. When you storm off, it means you're angry and you leave. So maybe you're in a store and you're like, you charged me too much for this. I'm annoyed. And then you leave. That's probably not exactly how you would say it, but when you're angry and you're so angry, you leave the situation. We say that you storm off. So he was so angry that he stormed off.

So to review, the calm before the storm is any time of peace and calm before something bad happens or something more intense happens. And to storm off means to leave a situation because you are not happy.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Pedro. It looks like you guys are getting more snow than last year. Bob, Love to see it. My response. We have a bit. I hope we get more. So we'll see. Thanks for the comment, Pedro.

We have had more snow than last year. I think at this time last year, it was... I think it was kind of warm out last year, but. But we'll have to see what actually happens the next few days. It's supposed to get really cold, like I said, but I don't know if we're going to get a lot of snow. I really hope we do. I don't enjoy this. I like seeing everything white in the winter. I don't like it when my... I can see my lens is getting raindrops on it. There should be snowflakes falling out of the sky, but hey, it's just the way it goes.

You can see down here on the driveway, we have a little bit of ice underneath water, and that's actually quite slippery. But I think this will all probably melt today before the temperature starts to drop. We'll have to see. Who knows?

The other thing I don't like about this is when it goes from wet to really cold, it can be quite dangerous to drive on the roads because the rain hits the road and then when it freezes, it forms a layer of ice. And that's just not nice. I'd rather drive in snow than in ice. I'm not sure if all of you are aware of the difference. When you drive in snow, you slip and slide a little bit. When you drive on ice, it's really, really slippery. Like, I'd rather drive on a road that's packed down with snow then drive on a road that is icy. Ice is just super, super dangerous.

So we'll see ho

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO LAY LOW, TO LIE LOW, and A LOW BLOW

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrases to lay low or to lie low. This is one of the situations where we use lie and lay in the same way, and it means to hide. Usually you will hear these phrases if you're watching a show where the police are chasing some criminals and the criminals might decide to lie low or to lay low. Sorry, lie low, lay low. I should say them in the right order. Lay low. Sounds kind of funny when you say it, though. It kind of rolls off the tongue in a funny way. Anyways, the criminals might decide to lay low or to lie low. That means they're going to hide somewhere where the police can't find them.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a low blow. So a low blow in boxing is if you punch below the waist. Like if you punch below the belt, it's considered a low blow. But we also use this phrase to talk about any behavior or action that's not really nice. So for instance, if I lent my brother $100 and told him, you can pay me back in a year, and then if I asked him for the $100 back tomorrow, that'd be a low blow. Like I'd be doing something that's not very nice and not very kind.

So to review to lay low or lie low means to kind of hide out. Maybe you've stolen something and the police are after you, so you hide out at your cousin's place. You decide to lay low. You decide to lie low. And a low blow is anytime you do something to someone that's just not very nice and not something they were expecting.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I'm just going to read the beginning of this comment from Know that for the sake of time. It's a great comment, but I'll read the... we'll get the gist of it from Know that every now and then you squeeze the recording of your videos lessons for us into your lunch break. Bob, I was wondering if you plan these, let's say, trips or if you do them more spontaneously, depending on what's on your to do list for the day and then you can read the rest. But my response sometimes it is on a whim, sometimes it is intentional, sometimes it is just convenient. There isn't a rhyme or reason most of the time. Sometimes it just depends on the weather.

So thanks Know that for that comment and that question. Yeah, sometimes it's just, you know, how I'm feeling that day. Or maybe I'm doing an errand. So I just jumped out of the van and do an English lesson as well. Today. I came out this way because it's just a nice area to do it. I know that some of you like seeing views of the farm and some of you like seeing little glimpses of Canadian life. You like seeing trucks drive by and you like seeing what's happening in my local town. So yeah, sometimes I do it intentionally.

If you watch my Members Only video on my other channel today I did that intentionally. There's a new bakery in town, so I decided to walk past it. I didn't go in, but I do know that sometimes some of you like seeing just a little glimpse of Canadian life.

There's a glimpse of Canadian life coming towards me right now. There's someone walking three dogs. So I think I might actually move into this driveway and let them go past. So I'm not afraid of dogs. But do you remember that one video where a dog almost bit me? That wasn't very enjoyable. Hi. How you doing? Good. There you can see the dogs going by. If I sounded extra cheerful with my hello, that's because I recognized that person. It's a former student of mine, so I didn't want to say her name, but she was a good student. V

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases YOU'RE SEEING THINGS and SEEING IS BELIEVING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase you're seeing things. We say this to someone when they describe something and you find it really hard to believe. If we were driving along and Jen said, I just saw 50 airplanes in the sky, I'd probably say, ah you're seeing things. It's all in your imagination. I don't believe what you are saying. If Jen phoned me and said, hey, come to Tim Hortons right now, donuts are free, I would say, oh, you're seeing things. Basically what I'm saying is, I don't believe you.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase seeing is believing. If I said to you that the A W is the best place to eat hamburgers and you said, no, I don't believe it, and you actually came there, you might say that you now believe me because seeing is believing. Sorry, that's a bad example. Because probably when you taste it that you will believe me. Let me think of a better example. Let's say if I said the A and W has the best window decorations in the entire town. By the way, I'm standing in front of the A W restaurant. If I said they have the best window decorations, you might say, nah. And then if you actually came there, I would say, seeing is believing. So when you actually see it, then you believe what I said.

So to review, if you tell someone you're seeing things, it means you're telling them you don't believe what they say they are seeing. And if you say seeing is believing, it means that when you actually see something for yourself, then you believe that it is true.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis. Thanks a lot for the lesson, Bob. The Great Lakes region is an incredible place. Have you had a chance to visit them all? And my response, I have not visited Lake Superior, but I have visited the other four. Someday Jen and I will make a trip way up north to see it. So thanks, Denis, for that comment.

Yeah, Lake Superior is pretty far away. I have not seen Lake Superior. Let me just move this camera a little bit so it's in the center. It's a little bit of a drive. I know that other teachers from my school have been that far north, either for a camping trip or if we have student athletes or if we have a team that does really, really well. Sometimes we have to go way up north to play other schools in the provincial championships. So I know some teachers have been that far north and they have experienced that.

It is a busy day here in town. I'm not sure if you can tell. The other thing is it's extremely bright out today. I'm always surprised at how bright the winter sun can be. I think it has a little bit to do with the fact that the air is thinner in the winter. That would be my guess, that in the winter the air in the sky is thinner. And so you get this. I'll just put it in the camera for a sec. This extremely bright sunshine in the winter, but I'll take it. We went for weeks and weeks with hardly any sunshine at all. So it's quite nice to have a little bit of sunshine now. I'm moving into the shade again. See, it's nice to have evergreen trees in the winter because they allow for a little bit of shade for me to stand in. But, yeah, I'll take it.

What was I saying? Yeah, we had days and days on end where it was just kind of gray, like cloudy every day and not very bright. Your ability to create vitamin D is related to being out in the sunshine. So I do enjoy being out here for a bit. I know I probably need to be out he

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE SIDES and FROM ALL SIDES

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to take sides. Now I'll tell you this. It's actually better to not take sides. When you take sides, it means you agree with one person when two people are arguing. So let's say two of my kids are arguing, I usually try to not take sides. I don't try to say she's right and he's wrong. Instead, I try to resolve the situation without taking sides. So when you take sides, it means you agree with one person in a situation where two people are arguing or more people. Like there might be a hundred people that think one way and 100 people that think another way and you say, I'm going to take sides. I'm going to agree with these 100 people over here. But in my opinion, it's usually best not to take sides.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is from all sides. Sometimes you get in trouble from all sides. If we had leftover pizza in the house and I came home from work and no one was home and I ate all the pizza, I would get in trouble from all sides. Jen would be annoyed with me. My kids would be annoyed with me. Because in our house, leftover pizza is kind of considered super yummy. People usually like it when they come home and there's some pizza leftover in the fridge. But if I ate it, I would probably get in trouble from all sides. Everyone would be annoyed with me.

So to review. To take sides means to agree with one side of an argument. At school, when I see students arguing, I don't take sides. I usually try to help resolve the situation without taking sides. And from all sides means that everyone is annoyed with you. Sometimes the government does something and then they get in trouble from all sides. Everyone is annoyed with them.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from... I printed this at school, so it's hard to get this completely open. From Yulia. Bob, good morning. Thank you for this lesson. Please tell me which province you are from and my response? I am from Ontario, Canada. I live north of Lake Erie and south of Lake Ontario, outside the city of Hamilton, Ontario. So thanks, Yulia, for that comment for that question.

Hey, we're going to walk out for a bit but it's windy so I hope the audio stays okay. Yeah, I live north of Lake Erie. It's one of the Great Lakes. I've actually featured Lake Erie in some of my English lessons and I live south of Lake Ontario. So Lake Ontario is to the north of me, I live south of it. Lake Erie is to the south of me, I live north of it. I actually live almost exactly in the middle of the two. So it's about a 45 minute drive to Lake Erie and it's about a 45 minute drive To Lake Ontario.

And I do like living between the two lakes. It's pretty cool. If you drive to Lake Erie, there are nice sandy beaches and you can go swimming. If you drive to Lake Ontario, there's usually a cool northern wind in the summer that kind of cools off as it comes across the lake and it makes for a really nice visit. It's a nice place to... There's a few nice restaurants along Lake Ontario. So yeah, that's where I live, right in the middle of what's called the Niagara Peninsula.

Actually, If I drive 45 minutes east, I end up at the border, the border with New York State. The city of Buffalo is that way to the east of me. So it's a pretty cool place to live. I think I mentioned in another video that as I was growing up I could watch Canadian TV and I could watch American TV as well because the antenna that we had on o

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SINK IN and SINK OR SWIM

In this English lesson, I want to try and not freeze my butt off and also teach you the English phrase to sink in. When something is allowed to sink in, it means that you hear it and eventually you will understand it. Sometimes when you're in school, the teacher will teach a lesson and it might take a while for what the teacher taught you to sink in. Sometimes you hear the teacher say it, you go home and you do your homework, and then eventually you understand it. You've given it some time and it was able to sink in. I hope that when you watch my lessons, eventually what I'm teaching you will sink in. Eventually you will understand it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase sink or swim. This means to either succeed or fail. So sometimes students are doing badly in a class and they have one more assignment to do and then it's a time where they will either sink or swim. So if you imagine this, when you sink, it means you go underwater. And when you swim you are above the water and you can still breathe. So we use this phrase to talk about somebody or something that will either succeed or fail. Sorry, I should say fail or succeed, shouldn't I? When you sink, you fail. When you succeed, you are swimming. So sink or swim.

So to review, when you allow something to sink in, it means you allow yourself to think about it for a bit and then understand it. And if you say a situation is sink or swim, it means you are either going to sink, fail, or swim and succeed.

But anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment I think is from Vino. Hey Bob, could you please teach me the meaning of the phrase let that sink in? And my reply, sure, and I kind of just did. The let that sink in phrase though is more. It means the same thing, but it's more of a saying you would say to someone. So you would say to them, let me think. Let's say I got stopped for speeding and the police officer said if you get one more ticket you're going to lose your license. Let that sink in. Basically what the police officer is saying is think about that for a bit and make sure you understand completely why you shouldn't speed anymore.

But hey, I don't really speed a lot. I did get a ticket almost exactly a year ago, so I was bringing my son back to university and of all places, I got a ticket in my local town, which was a little bit disappointing. It was the beginning of a four hour trip and I got a ticket right at the beginning of the trip. That was rather disappointing. Needless to say, I was in a bad mood for the entire trip.

You might be wondering why I'm sticking close to the shed. I'm gonna turn around here because it's quite windy today. I always think it's funny when there are no leaves on the trees. You really can't tell that it's a windy day, but it's a little bit cold. It's minus three and I don't know if you've watched Jen's videos on her channel, but she was just videotaping me videotaping this lesson. I'm not sure why. I think she wants to put a clip in her next video. You'll have to go check that out. Her channel is called @myflowerfarm. If you put an @ sign and then type myflowerfarm with no spaces in the search bar of YouTube, you'll find it.

Anyways, I was just telling Jen when you go outside to make a video in the winter, it's always best to dress warmer than you need to because you might be out there for longer than you were expecting. And that's certainly the case today. I'm only wearing a T shirt under my winter coat. I probab

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase HAPPY NEW YEAR and the word GINGERLY

Well, in this English lesson I just want to say Happy New Year. I do have another phrase or word here to teach you. There's a couple couple geese flying over. They're probably excited because of the water behind me, but Happy New Year. This is not what it normally looks like on January 1st in my part of the world. Normally there's snow everywhere. Right now it is 3 degrees outside and the river is flooded. I'll show you that in a moment. But anyways, Happy New Year. I hope that 2025 is a great year for you. 2025? Wow. That's incredible. It feels like time is really flying, but it's already 2025, so happy new Year.

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The other word I wanted to teach you is the word gingerly, which I mentioned in my last non English lesson. Gingerly means to simply do something carefully. If you injure yourself, let's say you hurt your foot or your ankle. When you start to walk again, you're going to walk gingerly. You're going to walk kind of like very carefully because you don't want to re injure yourself. The other day I was on some ice and so I was walking quite gingerly. I was walking carefully because I didn't want to fall.

So to review, Happy New Year. I hope you're having a great day. January 1st for me is usually quite a relaxing day. Nothing is open in my part of the world on January 1st, so you can't go anywhere. So you just stay home and play games and hang out with your family and do things that are fun. And gingerly, hopefully you aren't doing things gingerly. Hopefully you are healthy and excited for the day and able to do things well.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Ünsal. Ünsal says it may sound cliche, but since the next video will be on the first day of the year, I'll ask. I'll ask just for the sake of formality. How was 2024 and what are your expectations from 2025? Happy New Year to you and your family. And my response. I really enjoyed 2024. It was a busy year. But alas, that is my current era in life, the dad era. It's fun for Jen and I to see our kids growing up. I'm still enjoying work and YouTube and I'm still quite excited about archery, which I started in August. My plans for 2025 are quite boring, simply more of the same.

So thanks for asking, Ünsal. Yes, those are my plans for 2025. I am not an exciting person. Year to year I'm pretty much doing the same things. So my plans for 2025 are to keep working. My plan for 2025 is to keep doing YouTube. So I'm going to keep teaching at the school where I'm at. I'm going to keep making YouTube English lessons. I think I'm going to try and be a little more consistent this year. When I looked back on 2024 and looked at my... my output, I was a little lacking, I think, in my own estimation. So I'm going to try and be a little more consistent. And we'll see, I think it'll be a fun year. I'm looking forward to already making the next video for my next for my bigger channel and doing a live stream.

So anyways, if you look behind me, you can see this is not typical for this time of year. There are geese all over the place because the river is flooded. As I mentioned yesterday on my other channel, I did a live stream. The power was out yesterday because we had a wind storm. And that wind storm also brought with it a lot of rain. And right now the ground is actually a little bit frozen. Even though it's nice and warm out here, the ground is a little bit frozen, so the water can't penetrate into the ground. And so what it does is it just flows into ditches and creeks and streams and eventually into the river.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English term NO-SHOW and the phrase TO SHOW UP

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term no show. When you say someone is a no show, it means you planned to meet with them somewhere and they didn't come. Maybe you and a friend are going out for coffee and you go to the coffee shop at the time that you said you were going to meet at 7pm and then that person doesn't show up. You would say they are a no show. They decided not to go to the coffee shop and probably didn't tell you either because usually if someone tells you they're not coming, then you know why they're not. So if someone is a no show, it means that you planned to meet them somewhere and for some reason they never arrived.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to show up. If someone is a no show, it means that they didn't show up. When you show up somewhere, it means you arrive. I show up at work every day at around quarter to eight right now and some of my colleagues show up around 7:30. They get there earlier than me. But to show up means to arrive. So if you planned to meet with someone for coffee tonight at a coffee shop at 7pm, hopefully they would show up at 7pm and you would have a cup of coffee with them. Hopefully they wouldn't be a no show.

So to review a no show is a person, a term we use for a person who doesn't arrive. If I flew somewhere on an airplane and someone was supposed to pick me up at the airport and they didn't come, I would say they were a no show. My ride was a no show, they didn't come to pick me up. And to show up means to arrive somewhere. So hopefully if I go somewhere on a plane someday my ride will show up and pick me up and not be a no show.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Axel. Black T shirt on Bob. Something new. And my response, yes, many of you noticed this. It's actually an official school shirt that I wear when I take students somewhere. Today we went on a walk to town to study local businesses. So I wear my black school shirt. I actually should have put so I wore my black school shirt. I kind of switched tenses on you there. That was a little bit of a mistake. So scratch that out. And instead it should say so I wore my black school shirt.

Yes, we're encouraged as teachers when we go somewhere with students outside of the school day, that we wear school gear or school, it's not really a uniform. It's just a shirt with the school logo on it so that if people see us in town with a whole bunch of students, they know who we are.

I'm just trying to stand with my back to the wind. You can see that winter has arrived. Should I pan around? Yeah, let's give you a good view of this. So, yeah, I was wearing a black shirt the other day. Not by choice. It's kind of required, I guess. It's not really required, but I think it is good when you take a whole bunch of teenagers out in public, especially if you're the teacher in charge that you wear something so it's easy to identify who is in charge of that, that trip and who's in charge of those students. Yeah, it's not actually that cold. My ear's a little bit cold right now, but it's definitely windy, so I'm trying to stand as much as I can with my back to the wind.

You'll see there's a nice little bit of snow on the ground. It was almost a snow day today. Yesterday, there's a website called this called the Snow Day Predictor, and if you punch in your address, it tells you what they think the chance is of you having a snow day. And it said 99% yesterday. It said th

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS and MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, it's none of your business. So I was walking out of class today, and there were two students in the hall. And the one student said, what did you get on your math test? And the other student said, it's none of your business. In English, when you say it's none of your business, it's very informal and it's a little bit rude, but you're basically telling the other person that they're asking a question you don't want to answer. They're asking for information that you don't think they need to know. A test is a great example. If I took a test and you said to me, if you were a friend of mine and said, hey, how did you do on your math test? I'd probably say, hey, it's none of your business. Basically, what I'm saying is, I don't want to tell you. Maybe I did really good. Maybe I didn't do very good at all. But in any case, it's none of your business. So remember, it is a. It's a little bit rude. It's very direct. It's not a kind way of answering someone.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase mind your own business. This means exactly the same thing. And I think I taught this already about four years ago. If someone said to me, hey, Bob, when are you going to buy a new car? I would say, mind your own business. Again, a little bit rude, very informal, and very direct. Like, it's not a happy way of saying it. If someone said, hey, Bob, when are you going to buy a new car? And I said, oh, I don't know. I haven't really thought about it, But I actually had. That's kind of a nicer way to do it.

So anyways, to review, it's none of your business and mind your own business, they mean the same thing. It's a way of telling someone that the questions they are asking are too direct. They're asking for more information than you're willing to give them.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Denis Pizza ut. It's a product placement in Bob's short. And my response, they should sponsor me. Yeah, I think in the last video, there was... I was walking around town, right? So you saw probably Pizza Hut and Gino's Pizza and... No, not Gino's Nino's. There's a Gino's pizza and a Nino's pizza in my town. But yeah, lots of pizza places. In fact, Smithville, the town of Smithville, has five pizza places. A little bit strange.

Anyways, you can see here it's this time of year. It's the time of year when we put the little markers along the driveway and we bought some extra ones this year and there's some on this side as well. We put these along the driveway because eventually it's going to snow. And then eventually it gets very, very difficult to see where the driveway is both when driving in and out, when there's a bit of snow on the ground, but also when using the snowblower. I need to know where the driveway is so that I don't go off the driveway and into the lawn. So not sure if you can see them very clearly. We bought some bright orange ones and then this type here we have a few of these. I think we have four of these now. This one is actually a reflector. So the light coming from your headlights or from your reverse lights lights that up.

And by the way, if you didn't know what headlights were, the headlights are on the front here. We call those fog lights. I don't really always use them in the fog. And then on the back you have these, which are your reverse lights. So when you drive backwards or when you drive in reverse, you can see a lit

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HIT THE SPOT and IN A TIGHT SPOT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to hit the spot. Sometimes you are craving something. Sometimes you really want something to eat or to drink. And then after you eat or drink it, you say, oh, that hit the spot. When something hits the spot, it means it satisfies you. For me, right now, this is kind of a bad thing. I've become a little bit addicted to diet soda. I know it's not good for me, and I know it has strange ingredients in it instead of soda or instead of sugar, but I find when I drink a diet ginger ale or a diet root beer, it tends to hit the spot. I feel very satisfied. Jen doesn't like it, though. She doesn't like artificial sweeteners. So I only have one a week. But right now it's really seeming to hit the spot for me. I really, really enjoy it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a tight spot. When you are in a tight spot, I should have put the word in there because you're often in a tight spot. It means you're in a difficult situation. Let's say that I'm trying to think of an example here. You borrowed someone's car and you put a dent in it. You're kind of in a tight spot because now you have to tell them that you did something to their car. Let's say that you owe someone a thousand dollars and you also have to pay all of your bills and you're not going to have enough money. You are then in a tight spot. So you're in a difficult situation.

So to review to hit the spot means something is very satisfying. When I have a chocolate bar, it really tends to hit the spot. And then when you are in a tight spot, you are in a very, very difficult situation.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Rosario and the comment is: Great Bob. Sometimes I like to push it too far and I eventually get in trouble. And my response, it happens to us all.

I think we all, at some point in our lives, push it a little bit too far. We work a little too hard, we stay up a little bit too late. We maybe should rest and we don't. Maybe we work over the weekend. We push it too far and then you get into a little bit of trouble. Maybe you get sick, maybe you're just exhausted. For me, when I push it too far, it often results in me taking a sick day. So it's like, it's kind of counterproductive.

But hey, someone asked, I think in a previous video whether my town had Christmas decorations up yet. There's some in this window. You can see there. That's not the town though. And if you look across the street. Let's walk this way. I think you'll get a better look if I go this way. I think they look much better at night. I think there are these really tiny, small snowflakes. If you look up on this pole up by the green light there. And then if you look at the other side of the road, I bet you you guys can hardly see them.

Let me flip around. I bet you you guys can hardly see them. But I'll get as close as I can and then you'll be able to get a better sense. Again, I think they look much better at night. You can see right here there is a bit of a snowflake. There's a little chicken below it too. Because this town is known for having a of poultry farms around. In fact, we used to have... I'll walk backwards here. We used to have a festival called Poultry Fest in this town. We don't anymore. It used to happen every year in June. It was pretty fun, but I think they were having trouble getting organizers and so eventually we didn't have it anymore. So yes, there are some Christmas de

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PUSH THROUGH and TO PUSH IT TOO FAR

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to push through. This past weekend, Jen was sick and I was a little bit sick, but I decided to push through. I took one day off work and I probably went back to work one day too early because I decided to push through. When you push through, it means you do something when you're not quite strong enough or have enough energy to do it. When you're training for a sport, when you're lifting weights the last 10 or 11 times you do the weight, you might have to push through. You have to give a little extra energy. And sometimes when you're sick, you just decide to go to work and push through. And sometimes that's a bad idea. It actually led to me not getting as much work done as I wanted to this week. So to push through simply means to kind of just dig deep, find the energy somewhere to do something maybe you don't have the energy for or you're just a little bit too sick to do.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to push it too far. This is what happens when you push through. Sometimes you push it too far. Let's say this past week, if I had done everything that I wanted to do, I probably would have lost my voice. I would have pushed it too far. When you push it too far, sometimes things go wrong or sometimes things break. Let's say your car is making a funny noise and you're like, I'll get that fixed in a week or two. Maybe you are going to push it too far and the whole car is just going to stop working.

So to review, to push through means to find the energy somewhere to do something even though you don't have the energy for it. Or maybe you're a bit sick or you just don't have the enthusiasm. You just decide to push through. And to push it too far means to simply keep doing something or keep using something beyond when you should have stopped or gotten that thing fixed, or if it's like your throat looked at by a doctor. Anyways, I feel great now by the way. I took the hood off because can you hear the. I just thought it was probably making a funny sound with the microphone.

But hey, let's look at a comment from from a previous video from Brent. From American English with this guy or with Brent. Oh, very cool. Your students are allowed to leave campus during lunch. Not true for my students. They are stuck bringing a lunch from home or eating school lunch. Thankfully, our school lunches are edible. And then Konstantin, who does the same job as Brent as I, as Brent and I. Same here, Brent. Our school students can leave school only if we have written or phone permission from their parents. And then my response, it's age related here. The lower grades must stay at school. The older grades, grade 11 and 12, are allowed to go to town. So my school is in a town, but it's on the edge of town and sometimes we refer to the center of town as the town. But thanks, Brent and Konstantin, for giving me a bit more insight into how your schools work.

Yes, our older students are allowed to go. In Canada when you are in grade 11, or what the Americans would probably call junior year or the 11th grade, that's usually the year where you get your driver's license. At some point you get your learner's permit or beginners around grade 10 into grade 11. And some students in grade 11 right around now are starting to get their driver's license. So their age, I think age 16 and then 8 months. If you went to driver's education school at age 16 years and 8 months, you can get your driver's license

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN A LITTLE BIT and IT'S GOING TO BE A WHILE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase in a little bit. Now, when we say in a little bit, we mean a small amount. And we can be talking about time or an actual thing. Here's a good example. Let's say that my mom is coming over to visit and one of my kids says, when will Grandma be here? I could say, she'll be here in a little bit. If we're having a nice meal and someone says, oh, there's a really nice pie for dessert and I'm feeling really full, I could say, oh, I'll just have a little bit, meaning that I just want a small piece of it. So I don't know why we use this phrase. It is used quite commonly. I heard it a few times this week. But when we're referring to a small amount of time or a small amount of something, we sometimes just say a little bit.

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And then something that's kind of the opposite in terms of time would be the phrase it's going to be a while. If one of my kids said, when is Grandma coming? I could say, oh, it's going to be a while. And if I said it quickly, I would say, oh, it's gonna be a while, meaning that she's not coming in the next five or 10 minutes. It will probably be a bit longer. This is a common response that parents give to children when driving in a car going a long ways. If the kids say, are we there yet? We often say, oh, it's going to be a while. It's going to be another hour or two before we're there.

So to review, if you say in a little bit, you mean a small amount of time or a small amount of something. And if you say it's going to be a while, it means that it's going to be probably like an hour or two hours.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from MRfisheri. MRfisheri, I'm not sure how to say it. And the comment is this hair wise and beard wise someone needs a bit of a trim and then a smiley face and just the word joke. So I think MRfisheri is joking. My response soon, although I might grow it out a bit more.

So I'm assuming you're talking about the scruffy beard I have and the hair is getting a bit long for me. But thanks for that comment. Yeah, I think I'll get a haircut soon. I'm not 100% sure when. I was thinking about growing it out a bit more, I haven't done that for a long time, like letting my hair grow longer. And then I was wondering, do I need to start to part it in the middle or on the side? Because when you have longer hair, you have to start to comb the hair. And I don't actually comb my hair. I just get up, have a shower and dry my hair with a towel and off I go. So we'll see. The beard, though, I think I need to trim. There's some stray hairs sticking out here and there.

But hey, anyways, I'm back where I was last Tuesday night. I thought it would be fun to come back here and shoot a video in the daytime. I did a lesson last week, Tuesday night, I think I did by day and by night, and I did that at night. And my camera was actually struggling to stay nice and crisp. The image was a little bit fuzzy because of the low light conditions. But today it's the opposite. I'm actually having trouble seeing because it's so bright. But the other thing I can show you, though is that Tim Hortons definitely has people going through the drive through.

If you remember from the video from last week, it was quite empty. I think there were just some parents and kids selling things as a fundraiser at the front door. But other than that, it was pretty full. I bet you some of these cars have my students in them because it's lunchti

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English ending -WISE and the term WISE GUY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn how to use the suffix wise. A suffix is something that comes at the end of a word and when we use wise it means in relation to something. So if I was to say this, temperature- wise, it's a really nice day today. If I look in my wallet though, money- wise, my wallet's a little bit empty. Or if my boss said, is that project on time? I might say, ooh, time-wise, that project isn't going very well. So it's a little word or suffix we put at the end of a word that means that you are talking about that thing or in relation to. In relation to. So once again, temperature-wise, it's really nice out here today. I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt. Time-wise, I have a lot of time today. I'm done work for the day and I'm just home making this English lesson.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today or term is wise guy. A wise guy is someone who makes a lot of jokes and a lot of sarcastic comments. You could say, ah, Uncle Joe is such a wise guy. He's always cracking jokes and making sarcastic or funny comments.

So to review, when you put wise on the end of a word, it means you are talking about something in relation to that word. Again, time-wise, I'm having a nice day. I went to work on time, got all my work done, I got home on time. So time-wise, the day is going well. And a wise guy is someone who tells a lot of jokes. Also, a wise guy can be a criminal in a criminal organization. Sometimes we call them wise guys. If you watch a movie, you might see that.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd. How come Mr. Bob never showed us the little area in front of the barn extension? I briefly saw it in a members video before. There's definitely some decoration going on there with all those rotary blades mounted on sticks. But he never talked about it. Which begs the question, is Bob trying to hide something from us? My response? Hmm, it's our secret art installation. Maybe I'll talk about it in the next video. We'll see.

So here's the plan. We got some of these things from Jen's dad, actually. Actually, I'll turn you around. That's maybe a better way to see this. Hold on, I'm going to spin you. Okay, so these are parts from a cultivation machine. Cultivation machine called a rotary hoe. So this is actually something that normally you would see a whole bunch of these on a machine in a row, and they would spin and they would weed the soil. That's kind of the idea. It's called a rotary cultivator or a rotary hoe.

But we thought they kind of look like flowers. And because we live on a flower farm, we thought we would put some in front of the barn as decoration. So we put them there. We're not done yet. We have to get a little piece of steel for that one as well. And there's one over there. And this whole area, just in general, is going to be a flower bed. But if you watch Jen's videos on her channel, the goats got out once and they kind of chewed and ate the leaves. So those plants aren't dead, but they certainly will grow back. But overall, though, this is just an area in front of where we have the floral coolers and stuff.

We might actually turn that window into a door someday and make it maybe into a small shop. We've talked about that from time to time. Whether that actually happens or not, we'll see. I mean, there's always plans for the future, and sometimes they get done and sometimes they don't. If you look behind me, there's still a big pile of stone that I have to di

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BY DAY, BY NIGHT, and NIGHT OWL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrases by day and by night. I'm a teacher by day and a YouTuber by night. So when you use by day and by night, you're describing when something happens. You often hear this in a superhero movie, Superman is Clark Kent by day and Superman by night. Or is that Batman? Batman is Bruce Wayne by day and Batman by night. Yeah, that makes more sense. Batman does more work at night than Superman. But when you say by day and by night, you're talking about when it happens.

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I hope you can see this. I'm testing out the low light capabilities of my camera.

The other phrase or term I wanted to teach you is night owl. A night owl is a person who enjoys being out at night or working at night. I'm not a night owl, by the way.

So to review, when you do something by day and by night, it means that's when you do it. Maybe you're. You're a hard worker by day and a party animal by night. I don't know what you're like, but maybe that's you. Or to review as well, night owl would be a person who enjoys doing things at night.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Lidepla. I've noticed two more interesting expressions in this lesson. I felt a little bit off and on top of things. Thanks. And my response? Yes, I'm glad you picked up on those. There are often extra phrases that just come out naturally. So sorry if I'm not speaking smoothly and fluently tonight. Maybe because it's late in the day, but thanks. Lidepla. I think I said that right for that comment. Yes. Quite often in my videos there's a couple extra little phrases that are kind of a bonus that you can learn.

Yeah, I'm here in front of the grocery store. It's nighttime. There's definitely people out who are night owls and I'm not. By the way, if you're wondering why I'm out here making a video, it's not because I'm a super dedicated YouTuber. It's because I'm on my way back to work for parent teacher interviews. So it's actually only like quarter to six. But it's dark here already. Or wait, let me check my watch. Sorry, it's quarter to seven and it's dark here already.

So yeah, I'm not a night owl. I enjoy doing things by day. I enjoy. Like I would rather get up early and go do things than stay up late to do things. That's just my personality. There's no way you'll catch me joining volunteer activities or committees that meet at night. That just does not interest me at all. I would rather go to a meeting at 7 in the morning than at 7 at night. So things like parent teacher interviews are a little bit not annoying for me. Like, I don't mind them. I think they're good and they're practical and they help parents and students know what they can choose to do to do better. But certainly it's not my favorite thing. In fact, I'll probably. I'll probably not sleep very well tonight because when I go home, I'll still be kind of heightened. Like I'll have some adrenaline going and I'll still have lots of energy.

Normally by this time of night, I'm just watching some YouTube videos or possibly reading a book or doing something that's just a little bit more relaxing. So anyways, let me check my time here. Oh, we're good. I'm trying to walk far enough so that you can see the Tim Hortons. Sometimes people enjoy seeing the Tim Hortons. There's definitely a Tim Hortons over here. There's a bunch of people in front of it. Not sure what they're doing. I think it might be like Girl Guides selling cookies or something l

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I BEG TO DIFFER and IT BEGS THE QUESTION

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase I beg to differ. This is a phrase when someone says something and we don't agree with them, we might start by saying, I beg to differ. If someone was to say, I think that, let's see, France has the best football players in the world, I might say, I beg to differ. I think Canada has the best football players in the world. So it's a way to introduce kind of the opposite thought. If someone said that Ford makes the best cars in the world, I might say, I beg to differ. I think that Toyota makes the best cars in the world. So it's a way to nicely tell someone that you disagree with them.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is it begs the question. This is how we introduce a thought after making a couple statements. Here's an example. If I said, taxes keep going up, taxes have gone up three times in the past year. So it begs the question, what is the government doing with all the money? Or you might say this. You might say, oh, Bob hasn't made a video for six weeks. So it begs the question, where is Bob? I don't think that will ever happen. But if it did happen, it would certainly beg the question, where is Bob?

So to review, if you say I beg to differ, it simply means that you are going to disagree with someone. If you say cats are the best pets in the world, I might say, I beg to differ. I think dogs are the best pet. And when you say it begs the question, it usually means you're asking something after a while. If you say something like this, all of the milk is gone and I didn't drink it. So it begs the question, who drank all the milk?

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ozdeniz and the question is, or, sorry. And the comment is the best teacher. And my response: Am I though? I would beg to differ. I think the best teacher is always yourself. You know yourself and how you learn. And I agree with that. And I do like the compliment, by the way, that I'm the best teacher.

By the way, you can read that compliment two ways in English. If it had a comma in it. If it said the best teacher, it would mean that the lesson I did was the best. But if there's no comma and it says the best teacher, it means that you think I'm the best teacher, which I don't think I am, I'll have to say, I have to say I think I do an okay job. I'm not going to stand here and say I'm the best teacher. I think I do the best job I can do and people seem to like the lesson, so I'll accept the compliment. But I am not going to claim I am the best teacher. But thank you for the comment anyways. And did you see how I used the phrase? I beg to differ. I like to try every once in a while to actually use the phrase in the comment that I'm leaving.

Well, this week it's Friday. Sorry, you're watching this on a Friday. It's Thursday. This is one of those weeks. I think I've taught you that phrase before when you say ah, it's one of those days. Or this is one of those weeks. I just can't get all my work done for some reason. I had a day where I felt a bit off and I didn't get as much done as normal. But wow, it's starting to feel like one of those weeks.

In particular, I have a whole lot of photos to take from emails to get ready for a live stream on Saturday on my bigger channel. I requested people to send photos and I've gotten hundreds of photos. Well, at least a couple hundred. And they're great. I love them. But it's going to take me a little while to get all of t

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO RUB OFF ON and TO RUB SOMEONE'S NOSE IN IT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase To rub off on. Now we use this phrase to describe when the behavior of one person starts to be mimicked or copied by another person. Sometimes one person can rub off on another person. So here's a good example. If your boss is mean to everyone, that can rub off on you. And you might start to be mean to other people. Maybe one of your kids or a nephew or niece is hanging out with a bad kid and the bad kid's behavior is starting to rub off on the kid that you know that's not a good thing. You don't want bad behavior to rub off on the other kid. You don't want that kid to copy what the bad kid is doing. So when we describe someone's behavior, it can rub off on someone else. This can be a good thing too. When new teachers work with excellent, veteran, well qualified teachers, you hope that the older teacher's knowledge and wisdom will rub off on the younger teacher.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to rub someone's nose in it. So this means to mention someone's failures or mistakes over and over again so they feel bad about it. Let's think of an example here. Let's say that I accidentally drove my van, it's sitting over there, Let's say I drove my van into the barn wall and every day Jen mentioned it, day after day she would be rubbing my nose in it. When you rub someone's nose in something, it means they did something embarrassing or something that was a mistake and you just continually mention it. Not a very nice thing to do. To review. To rub off on means when someone's behavior starts to be copied or mimicked by someone else's. And to rub someone's nose in it means, you know, we all make mistakes, but you don't need someone to constantly rub your nose in it. You don't need them to constantly mention the fact that you made a mistake over and over again. Once is enough.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Padma. Colorful trees behind you are so beautiful. Amazing nature. And I said yes, it was a beautiful fall day.

And it still is. You can see a little bit of color here. I'll give you a little bit of a color tour if you look here. Oh, where is that? There it is. This tree. Let me walk this way so you can see the whole thing. These trees look amazing right now. These are the trees in front of my house. Let me pivot slowly and walk forward again. If we walk far enough. I'm walking backwards now. You'll be able to see them nicely in front of my house. They look beautiful. But if we turn all of the leaves from these trees are pretty much on the ground.

If you look in the distance where I was in a previous video, most of those leaves are on the ground. This tree, a lot of the leaves are on the ground. This tree here, a lot of the leaves have fallen on the ground and created a carpet. I think by my house it's a bit of a micro climate. I think what that means is it's a little warmer in front of my house. Maybe it's a little less windy and a little warmer and I think those trees just turn color a bit later. Or Jen was mentioning this the other day. They might just be a different variety. It's.

Can you hear the crunching? I'll show you the ground again. They might just be a different variety. So here you're going to see my crocs. If I do this, I'm wearing my old. We actually call those the barn crocs. I don't know if you know what crocs are but those are the slip on shoes that are just made out of plastic that are really. You don

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BAD ATTITUDE and POSITIVE ATTITUDE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term bad attitude. If someone has a bad attitude, it means they think something's going to go badly before it even starts or even while it's happening. Here's a good example. Maybe you go to watch your favorite sports team, and as the game is starting, you say, ah, they're going to lose tonight because the best player is injured and the other team's too good. That's just a bad attitude. It's not a very positive way of thinking to just say, oh, we're going to lose because of that. It's best to wait and see. Sometimes students have a bad attitude. They might say, oh, I'm going to fail this class because the teacher doesn't like me and there's too much homework, and I don't feel like doing what I'm supposed to be doing. That's just a bad attitude. As you can tell, I don't like it when people have a bad attitude.

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I like it when people are a little more positive when they have a positive attitude. Now, you might have thought, as I teach this phrase, as I teach the opposite, that I would say good attitude. And we do sometimes say that, that, oh, you should have a good attitude. But often, more often, we say a positive attitude. I'm not sure why we don't say negative attitude, but we usually encourage people to have a positive attitude. Even though the best player is injured, I still think my team is going to win tonight. I'm going to have a positive attitude. I'm going to think happy thoughts and good thoughts about my team. I was going to say something else about this good attitude. Positive attitude. There's another term. It's not coming to my mind right now. Maybe I'll think of it later.

Anyways, to review a bad attitude would be to say something like this, oh, I don't know if I'm going to make an English lesson today. Hardly anyone's going to watch it. Maybe I'll just not do it. Bad attitude. But a positive attitude would be to think, you know, I'm going to make an English lesson today, and some people will watch it, and those people will hopefully learn a little bit of English.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. It's in my back pocket here. Let me see if I can find it. The comment is from Emerson. Oh, it's from the last lesson isn't more or less outdated. So I taught the phrase more or less in the last lesson. And my response, not at all. Almost every phrase I choose for these lessons is from real life, and I heard someone use it just four days ago.

So, no, not at all. In fact, I did a little bit of research. I'm not sure if you know what Google trends is, but Google trends kind of identifies the things people search for. And if you look in a moment, probably right now, there should be a graph on the screen for the phrase more or less, and you can see it's actually going up. Now, this doesn't mean people are actually using it when they talk. It simply means people do still search for that phrase, more or less. So, to me, that graph probably means that people are still using that term.

And then Emerson as well, just so you know. Yes, I do. Listen as I go through my day and I try to hear people using phrases and or sometimes I observe behavior, and that helps me decide what I'm going to say or what I'm going to teach in the next lesson.

So you might wonder, where did bad attitude and positive attitude come from? Well, I want to keep that a secret, but as you know, I'm a teacher. Sometimes I see students in my classroom, and sometimes they have a bad attitude, and s

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases MORE OR LESS and LESS IS MORE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase more or less. In English, when we say more or less, it means almost or sort of. If you asked me if I was done cleaning my house, I might say more or less. That means I have most of the work done. Maybe there's a couple little things here and there that I still need to clean up, but I'm kind of done cleaning the house, more or less. Another example would be, if I was packing for a trip, you could say, hey, are you done packing? And I could say more or less. This means that I got out my suitcases, and I packed my clothes and some soap and a toothbrush, and I'm pretty much done packing. I'm close to being done packing. I'm more or less done packing, but I probably still want to check things. So when you say more or less, it means something is kind of done or sort of done. I was going to say more or less done, but I don't want to use the term to define the term.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase less is more. In English, when we say less is more, it means that sometimes doing a few simple things is better than doing a whole bunch of complex things. A good example would be to wash your vehicle. Sometimes just a little bit of water with some soap in it is all you need. You don't need a whole bunch of expensive products. Sometimes less is more. You can use this to describe a job as well. Sometimes in teaching, if I try to do 20 or 30 things with a class, they might not remember all of it. So sometimes less is more. Sometimes it's better to do about two or three things well, and then everyone remembers what you did. So sometimes less is more.

So to review, more or less means almost or sort of. So, are you almost done this video, Bob? More or less? Actually, less than more on that one, that was probably a bad example. If it was close to the end of the video, I could say more or less. And if you say less is more, it simply means that sometimes doing two or three parts of a process well is better than doing ten or 15 things badly. Sometimes less is more. Did I say more is less? Less is more.

It's a little distracting out here, but, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is all crumpled up in my pocket. Let me find it here. This comment is from can't get the paper open. See, I'm struggling here. Hello. How are you? Good. How are you? Good. How do I get to Service Ontario. I think I've driven past it. How do you get to service Ontario? It's actually right over there, just on the other side of the pharmacy. So I can park here? You can actually, if you go out the back of this parking lot and go around, there's a little parking lot right there. And then walk back to this road and it's right on the corner. Thanks very much. Yep. You're welcome.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Sometimes you have to help someone find Service Ontario. That's where you renew your license. This is from the.user-kun. As always, the optimistic Bob, wonderful lesson. Thumbs up for you. And my response, you're welcome.

So, yes, optimism. I am a fairly optimistic person. I think I've mentioned this a lot on my live streams. Sometimes people will say, Bob, you seem very positive. You seem like a very optimistic person. And my response is always this, as long as I'm eating healthy food, as long as I'm getting eight or 9 hours of sleep every night, and as long as I'm getting some exercise, either walking or shooting my bow and arrow, that's good exercise, by the way

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FALL COLOURS and BLACK AND WHITE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase fall colors. If you live in a country where the leaves on the trees turn a different color in the fall, in the autumn, we call those the fall colors. I'm not sure if you can see behind me, this tree is still green, but way in the distance, we'll walk over there later. You can see that there are some fall colors. Those trees are starting to turn orange and brown and yellow. So we call those fall colors. So when you see trees that have brown leaves and orange leaves and red leaves and yellow leaves in the fall, in the autumn, we say, those are the fall colors.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is black and white. And I'm pretty sure you know what this means. A long time ago, TV used to only be black and white. When you took a picture, it was black and white. I think, in the... Well, I'm not going to say the date, but when I was a kid, we had a black and white TV for a little bit, and then our other TV was color. We had two TVs. One was on the computer, I think, and it was black and white, and then the other one was color. But black and white simply means there is no color.

So to review, fall colors refer to the beautiful fall colors. If I move way out of the way, maybe you can see them. Maybe they'll come into focus. And when something is in black and white, it has no color. So old photos are sometimes black and white, and old movies are sometimes black and white, and they're really nice to go and watch.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video about this. Let me find the comment, and maybe we can get Oscar. Oscar, can you come over here? Oscar, come here pup. Hey, Oscar. Oscar, come. Come here. No, not you. I don't think it's going to work. But, hey, this is from Mohd. I kept looking at the chair in the back over and over, and I couldn't make out whether that was a pumpkin or a basketball. Wait, maybe it was just Oscar all curled up in there. Oh, no, you didn't dye his fur orange, did you, Bob? Poor are Oscar like, I know you're crazy about that color and all, but that'd be some next level madness. And my response, it's a pumpkin.

Yeah, it's a pumpkin. I think my son got it. I think when he was walking out of the grocery store, if you gave a donation, a food item for the food bank, they gave you a pumpkin. So very cool. So thanks, Mohd, for that comment. And by the way, Oscar is kind of a brownish orange. I didn't dye him. And Walter is black and white. He's a black dog with some white spots.

We're getting some nice fall wind out here. So anyways, I said I would walk this way. Let's have a look over here across the river. You can see some orange. It's actually nicer when it's a sunny out. Right now it's starting to rain, so it's harder to see the fall colors. If I do this, maybe you can see them a bit better. Take that lens off. Way in the distance, I can see some really nice fall colors. I'll zoom in when I go back inside and edit this. Put my wide angle lens back on, but I'm not sure how well you're going to be able to see it.

Maybe we'll walk over here and have a look as well. Fall colors. Jen and I have not gone for a hike yet to see the fall colors. We might do that this coming weekend. I'm also going on a school trip this week, so with my students, maybe we'll go and see some of the fall colors. Here's some trees that have some yellow leaves. There are some leaves in the air as well, just slowly starting to fall. If you're wondering why

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the phrases TO BREEZE THROUGH and TO SHOOT THE BREEZE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to breeze through. When you breeze through something, it means you do it quickly and easily. At school, I had a whole stack of student work that I needed to look at. Well, that truck's pretty loud. I'm not sure if you can hear it. I had a whole stack of student work that I needed to look at and I thought it was going to be hard, but I was able to breeze through it. It actually was really easy to look at all the work and give them each a grade out of ten. So when you breeze through something, it means you do it quickly and easily and it's not very difficult at all.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to shoot the breeze. So when you shoot the breeze, it means you talk with someone. Sometimes after work, as I'm walking out, another teacher will be walking out and we might shoot the breeze for a few minutes. We might just stand and talk about our day. We might stand and talk about a student who wasn't behaving. I don't know. Do we? Do teachers do that? Sometimes, but we sometimes just shoot the breeze. We also sometimes say shoot the bull. It means to just talk about everyday things.

So to review to breeze through something means to do it easily or to do it without difficulty. That would maybe be a better description. To do it quickly and with very little difficulty. And to shoot the breeze or to shoot the bull means simply to talk to someone. So even though it has the verb to shoot in it, it doesn't mean that at all. It means to just have a conversation.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from keen student. I am the first to leave a comment. You were actually, I've almost got my teacher's degree, but I am still learning. Thank you for the lessons. They are very helpful and needed. And my response, that's awesome that you almost have your degree. I hope the rest of your studies go well. So thank you keen student. I do hope things go well for you. It's cool. When I hear about people who are becoming teachers, I just think it is awesome.

By the way, it's really windy out here. I'm not sure if you can see that with my paper flapping around a little bit or if you can see it in the trees above me, but it's definitely a windier day than I was expecting. But that's okay. Got my jacket on, I'm dressed for the weather and like I mentioned earlier this week, it feels like we are shifting into fall 100% sure that's what is happening.

I'm not sure if you can see Walter behind me here. He's feeling a lot better. I don't know if you watch Jen's videos. Hi, Walter. Hey, Pup. Oh, he's very interested in something. I'm not sure if you watch Jen's videos, but Walter had a sore paw, and we ended up taking him to the vet, and he was on antibiotics for two weeks. He hurt like, the little nail on his paw, and he's definitely doing a lot better now. As you can see. He must have gotten a scent of something. He must smell a squirrel or maybe some other small rodent or animal, and he's off hunting away, so.

But anyways, the bad part about that is it's really expensive to go to the vet. For us to go to the vet for a 20 minute visit was $375. That was a little shocking. When Jen came out, I stayed in the van. Jen went in, and it was like, oh, that's a lot of money. But, hey, when you have a dog and you love your dog, you pay whatever you have to pay to keep your dog healthy. And by the way, Oscar, you probably can't see him. He's just having a nap over there.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms DOUBLE WHAMMY and DOUBLE DOUBLE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term double whammy. When we say something is a double whammy, it means two bad things happened right in a row. And I have a good example for you. I was really busy at work, and then when I was done being busy at work, I got sick. I got a stuffed up nose and a sore throat. It was a double whammy. If you haven't noticed, there hasn't been any English lessons on this channel for a couple of weeks because of that double whammy. Because I was really busy at work and then I got a little bit sick. And it's kind of hard to make English lessons when you have a sore throat. I tend to get sore throats quite a bit, I think, because I talk for a living. But anyways, a double whammy. Two bad things that happen in a row.

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And then the second term, which I think I've taught before, is double double. This is a Canadian term. This is a way to order coffee if you want two scoops of sugar and two creams in it. So I guess two shots of cream. I'm not sure how they put the cream in, but if you drive through a Canadian coffee shop, drive thru and say, I'll have a large double double, it means you want a large coffee and you want two sugars and two creams in it. I don't actually like double doubles. They're too sweet.

So to review, a double whammy is when two bad things happen in a row. Like the example I gave. I was busy and then I was sick. A double whammy and a double double. By the way, you can use it as a noun. You can just say, can I have a double double? It means you want a coffee with two creams and two sugars. Very sweet, very rich.

Hey, I don't actually have a comment from a previous video ready to go. I'm a little behind and I'm slowly getting back into this YouTube thing. I wasn't super sick, but sick enough that I couldn't get anything done. It was a little bit annoying, but hey, that's the way life goes sometimes. As Jen always says, when you're sick, you're sick. There's nothing you can do about it. It's not your fault. It's just something that happens to us all.

I think, though, it's pretty normal for teachers to get sick at the beginning of October. We spend most of our summer by ourselves. We spend most of our summer with family and friends a little bit, but then we go back to school and there's, like, all kinds of people around us. I see over 100 people every day. There's almost 350 people in our building. So it's not surprising that teachers get sick at the beginning of October. And then the second reason is because we use our voices so much, you naturally get a bit of a sore throat just because, just from use, because you're talking so much. And then I think what happens is it... it's easier to get sick when that happens.

So anyways, what was I going to talk about today? It is starting to feel like fall. You can actually see, I'm not sure if Jen wants to be in the video, but in the distance you can see that things are a little more brown than they are green. By the way, you have to look in the distance to see the brown. Everything here is actually quite luscious. Is that the word? Luscious? I'll have to look that up. Lush. That's the word I was looking for, quite lush. Lush just has a slightly different meaning. It's quite lush. Everything's still quite green, but you can tell it's almost time to start wearing a jacket. It's that time of year where it's like, oh, what do I wear in the morning? Do I step outside and see what it's like?

Anyways, thanks for watching. Sorry that I haven't been

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the phrases TO PLUG AWAY and TO PULL THE PLUG

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to plug away. When you plug away at something, it means you work out it slowly and methodically until it's done. It doesn't necessarily mean it's something exciting, either. Sometimes you plug away at things that you don't actually want to do because you just want to get them done. A great example would be this. Sometimes I give my students a test, and then I have 25 tests to grade, and I don't really enjoy grading tests. But if I plug away, if I work at it slowly and methodically, eventually I will be done. I don't have to work at it quickly. I just have to plug away so that I can finish the task that I don't find that enjoyable.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to pull the plug. When you pull the plug on something, it stops working because it doesn't have electricity. But we use this to talk about other things as well. If I'm working on a project at school and it's not going well, me and the other teachers, we might decide to pull the plug, or should I say, the other teachers and I might decide to pull the plug. Sorry to use informal English there. When you pull the plug on something, it means you stop working on it. I'm really enjoying making lessons on this channel and on my other channel. So I'm not going to pull the plug on either channel anytime soon. As I've said before, at least three or four more years, maybe longer.

So to review, to plug away means to work at something so that you get it done, sometimes slowly and methodically, and without taking breaks. And to pull the plug on something means to quit doing it.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I have the comment right here. I'm kind of laughing because I've been talking for two minutes, hoping a truck would go by related to this comment. I think there's one coming now, but actually, it looks like he's turning. Anyways, from Béla. Hello, Bob. I have always wondered why the trucks are different in Europe and in North America. Do you know anything about it? And my response, I think it has to do with length. Here, there is less of a limit on length, so the cab can be longer.

So, yeah, we still don't have any trucks going by. But, Béla, my understanding is this. In Europe, many of the trucks have a flat front. Maybe I should put a picture up here. Whereas in North America, many trucks have a long snout or nose on the front. And my understanding is that the basic reason is the laws are different. Here in North America you can have really long trucks. I think the trailer can be 54ft long. And I don't know if there's a limit on the tractor. That's the front part of the truck. But I think in Europe they have laws governing the total length of the truck.

By the way, I'm still laughing that no trucks have gone by because honestly, I've been making videos in town for the last couple of weeks and I usually find it a little disturbing because there are so many trucks. But that's my understanding that I guess in North America we just have laws that are a little more forgiving in terms of length of truck.

Now there's a truck coming here. It's not the type of truck I normally talk about. And I think he's turning as well. Way in the distance there, you can see that truck. It's a garbage truck. Yeah. I'm not sure if it's too far in the distance for you to see. When I'm done with this English lesson, I might have to wait for a bit and try to get some footage of the different kinds of t

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms ON GOOD TERMS and ON BAD TERMS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase on good terms. When you're on good terms with someone, it means that when you talk to them, they're happy to see you. It means that if you see them in the street and they see you, they'll wave or they'll come and talk to you instead of walking the other way. When you're on good terms with someone, it means you have a good relationship. Sometimes people are married and then they get divorced, but they are still on good terms with their spouse or their ex spouse, I guess ex wife. Ex husband. I don't think we say ex spouse, but they might still be on good terms. This means that maybe they have children and the husband has the children on the weekends and the wife has them during the week, and they talk amicably to each other. They're nice to each other. When they talk, they're on good terms.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is on bad terms. Sometimes when a marriage splits up, they can then be on bad terms. They can leave on bad terms. This is the opposite. This means that they don't like each other, they don't talk to each other, they are not nice to each other. It's just kind of a mess. Maybe if you are on bad terms with someone and they see you from across the street, they just kind of pretend that they don't see you because they don't want to talk to you because you're on bad terms.

So when you're on good terms with someone, it means you're able to talk to them and have a nice conversation. And when you're on bad terms, it means that you just don't really talk to each other. There's probably something bigger wrong than we actually realize if people are on bad terms.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Meng. I wonder what time you get off work. The sun is still so bright by the time you get home. And my response right now, I work about 70% of full time. I work from about. I work from about 7:30 until about 2:30. But sometimes I pop out and make a video while I'm at work just to get it done. That's what I'm doing right now. And that's okay. I'm allowed to do that. Also on Thursdays, I'm allowed to leave a bit earlier during the market season.

So, yeah, it's kind of hard to describe. Thanks, Meng, for that comment. It's kind of hard to describe all the ins and outs of how my job works as a teacher. I'm a salaried employee. I'm not paid by the hour. I am allowed to come and go as I please as long as I'm getting my work done and doing things properly and spending a good amount of time at school. About 70% of a normal workday. So yes, and on Thursday, when I made that video last week, I was home a bit earlier, so it was nice and bright.

But I did want to show you these. This, us, Know That asked about these in a previous video and a few of you have commented on them. These are hanging baskets. So my town has hanging baskets. They look better from far away. Actually, if you get close up, they're kind of starting to look a bit brown inside. But if you walk through my town, you will see hanging baskets. There's one there, obviously, and then way over there, there's one as well. You will see these hanging baskets. The town puts them up and then someone comes and waters them, probably every other day or something like that.

In Canada and in most parts of the world, we want our town to look kind of nice. So we have things like hanging baskets. We have things like this flower bed here. Now this doesn't look amazing, but there is some woo

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the phrases "BETWEEN JOBS" and "ODD JOBS"

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase between jobs. When someone says they are between jobs, it means they don't currently have a job. It's kind of a nice way of saying that you're unemployed. If someone says they're between jobs, it means somehow their last job ended. Maybe they got fired, maybe they got laid off, maybe they quit and they are looking for another job. So they are between jobs. Again, it's simply a nicer way of saying that you don't currently have a job. I have. Let me just put it this way. There's someone I know who is often between jobs because whenever they find a job after a month or two, they usually get let go. They get fired because they're just not a very good worker. So they're often between jobs looking for a job.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is odd jobs. When we say there are odd jobs to do around the house, it means little things like fix the bathroom sink or put a new rug in the entranceway. There's just little things that you need to do. When I was a kid, I used to visit my grandparents. And when I visited my grandparents, my grandpa had a whole bunch of odd jobs to do around the house and we would help him. We would do some odd jobs outside too, like rake the leaves, weed the garden. I remember one time we changed light bulbs in a couple rooms where the light bulbs weren't working. Just odd jobs that needed to be done.

So to review, if you're between jobs, it means you don't have a job and you're looking for a new one. And if you are doing a bunch of odd jobs, they're just simple, small jobs that you need to do around the house.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video after we look at the really loud car at the gas station. Let me put this back on the tripod. Hopefully that sound ends soon. This comment is from... I think this is more interesting. I think they got the car going. I think everything is okay now.

This is from Konstantin. By the end of a school day, my voice gets so strained that even lozenges hardly help. I sometimes can't shoot the breeze with my friends. A blessing in disguise. This little frog in the throat gives your ramblings a unique charm. Bob, big thanks, Bob. Take care of your professional tools, my voice, and enjoy the indian summer. My response? It's par for the course for us, I guess, mine is doing better. Yeah, my throat feels way better than it did the other day. But thanks, Konstantin, for that comment. It usually just takes a week. Voice is a little strained and then it goes back to normal.

But hey, I did want to show you the gas station because something has changed here and it made me a little bit sad. You used to be, this is probably normal for all of you, but you used to be able to pull up, fill your car with gas, and then if you wanted to, you could go in and pay. But now there's a sign here that says prepay before fueling. And I know that's probably a normal thing for most of you. It's a normal thing in most big cities in Canada as well. You can't put gas in your vehicle and then pay afterwards.

So usually I pay at the pump, but today I have cash with me, so I had to go in, I had to tell them I want $50 worth of gas. And then I was allowed to put that gas in my vehicle. So small towns used to just trust people. I guess we're now more like a big town. You have to pay before you put gas in your vehicle. Do I sound a little annoyed? It was just a little bit inconvenient. I'm used to the old way. There's a gas station close to my

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SIT IN ON and TO SIT OUT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to sit in on. It's a nice phrasal verb with two prepositions at the end, which makes it a little confusing. This means to go to something like a class to observe rather than take it. At work, sometimes the principal needs to check if I'm teaching properly and so the principal will sit in on one of my classes. When you visit a school and you're thinking about going there, you might sit in on one of the classes to see if you like it. Maybe your town has a meeting and it's open to the public. And if you want, you can go sit in on the meeting. So it means you go to something to observe it. It doesn't mean you're going to participate or ask questions. You basically are just going to sit and watch and listen. You're going to sit in on whatever's happening.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to sit out. This means to not do something. Sometimes a player on a team will be injured and they will sit out for a game or two. Sometimes it's a minor injury and if they just sit out for a game or two, it will get better. So it simply means to not do something. In fact, if you're part of something where you can volunteer whether you want to do it or not, sometimes you can say, oh, I'll just sit this one out. That means you're not going to do it.

So to review to sit in on something means to go to something like a meeting or a class. Just to listen and watch and to not participate. And to sit out means to simply not participate in something. It's not fun when you're on a team and you're hurt and you have to sit out for a game or two. You just sit on the bench and watch everyone else play.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from MRfisheri. Wow, Bob got contacts to get a plane flying above for a video. Puntastic! And my response. Yep, it cost quite a bit. So that's in reference to my last lesson where a plane flew over and I made a pun about puns while a plane flew over. And some of you not necessarily questioned whether a plane actually flew over, but suggested maybe that it was just some sound effects. But it wasn't. A plane actually did fly over. I promise you in the future, any time a plane flies over during a lesson, I will spin the camera around and show the plane to you. Even if it's a tiny dot in the sky.

Well, what am I doing today? Well, I am walking to the drugstore to get more of these. It's the second week of school, and as usual, I'm using my voice too much. Actually, that's not necessarily true. I think I'm speaking too loudly so I don't have a sore throat. And this does happen at the beginning of every school year. I just feel like it's strained a little bit. So I like to buy throat lozenges to just kind of soothe my throat while I'm teaching, and at the end of the day. So I'm on my way to this drugstore up here. Not the dollar store. They don't have very good throat lozenges. I'm on my way to this drugstore to buy a few, and interestingly enough, they're not very cheap anymore.

I feel like maybe my school should buy them for me, but then they might question how much talking I do on my YouTube channel as well and whether I should be resting my voice. But anyway, it's just one of the things that happens when you're a teacher. You talk a lot. You talk like, I don't yell, but I talk just a little more loudly than I normally would talk when I'm teaching my classes. You say a lot of things like, hey, could I have your attention, please? And all thos

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the phrases "no pun intended" and "pun intended"

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase no pun intended. Now, first, I should explain what a pun is. A pun is when you say something and it's funny because maybe one of the words has two meanings. So sometimes you say something and you realize after you say it that it's funny. I could say something like this, I'm going to go out on the river in my kayak and I'll probably end up bobbing up and down, no pun intended. Because my name is Bob and we have a verb to bob. After I said it, I might realize that it's funny. If I'm going to go in my kayak, it's likely that I'm going to bob up and down, no pun intended. So I didn't realize it was going to be a play on words until after I said it.

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Now we also have the phrase pun intended. If I was to say, I'm going to go out in my kayak today, I'm going to bob up and down, pun intended. It means that I realized that what I was going to say was going to be funny because of the play on words. By the way, a play on words is when words have two meanings and it ends up being a little bit funny.

So to review when there's no pun intended. So if I was to say, right now, this is going to be a plain English lesson, and then I hear a plane flying over because the word plain and plane sound the same, I could say no pun intended. This is just going to be a plain English lesson, no pun intended. And then if I knew that the words were funny before I said it, I would say pun intended. Hopefully that made some sense. I do highly recommend you look up the meaning of both those phrases on the Internet so that you're 100% sure.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from I'm just going to say nghivotan, I don't have a lot of time. Your shorts are so helpful. Thank you, Bob. My response I'm glad you're enjoying them. They are meant to be a bite sized lesson that is easy to watch and re watch. Have a great day.

So yeah, I don't often talk about why I do these lessons, but they started a long time ago because I was waiting for my kids to get in the van before school. So I would get a up, I would have breakfast, I would get ready to go to work, and then because I drive my kids to school, I would wait and I thought, hey, I have a phone and I have a few extra minutes here. Why don't I just teach a quick little English phrase?

And then they progressed from there to be about four minutes long, usually give or take a few seconds. And so the point of this was twofold eventually. One to teach you a couple of phrases, but two to give you kind of like an insight into my life where I'm speaking candidly about things I'm doing as I go through my week or go through my day. A little bit more of contact for you with a native English speaker who's talking in the way they normally talk and showing you things that they normally do.

So that's what this has evolved into, a nice little short four minute lesson twice a week where you can learn a couple of phrases and you can hear me ramble on about everyday things like, for instance, two days of school are done now. I'm actually shooting this on a Wednesday. I know you're watching it on a Friday because I got to get ahead of my work. We have market tomorrow and Friday is rather a busy day as well. But yeah, I'm shooting this a bit early. I lost my train of thought there.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little lesson where there were a few puns about me bobbing in the river. I hope that made some sense. What was the second pun? Oh, the one ab

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO FLIP-FLOP and TO DO AN ABOUT-FACE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English verb to flip flop. When you flip flop on something, it means you change your mind. Usually it means you change your mind to the exact opposite. Let's say your boss said everyone is going to get Friday off this week. And then the next day your boss says everyone has to work on Friday. We would say that your boss flip flopped. Your boss, for some reason, decided to flip flop on their previous statement. First they said everyone was going to get Friday off. Now they're saying everyone has to work on Friday. So they decided to flip flop. They changed their mind and said the exact opposite.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to do an about face. And this means exactly the same thing. Let's say the government says you can start driving at age 15 next year. And then the next day they say, no, you have to be 16 to start driving. We would say that they did an about face. When you do an about face, it's actually the same as to flip flop. It means you change your opinion to the exact opposite. So to review, to flip flop, to do an about face, it means somebody says one thing, and then very quickly after that, they say something that's completely the opposite and completely different.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit or otherwise known as Aerosmith 77. And the comment is rhyming pairs. Great. There are many of them. Thank you for the video and my response. I think I'll add them to the lineup for future videos. So thank you for that comment Judit.

Yes, in the past lesson I talked about rich rich and reach and pitch and peach. And I think that maybe I'll add more things like that to these short lessons. I've been doing a lot of verb phrases in these lessons. I've been doing a lot of sayings and idioms. Maybe I'll start broadening a little bit and do some other things. Or maybe I'll flip flop. Maybe I won't change anything. We'll see. Who knows?

Hey, I'm out here for a walk down this really nice path. It is the first day of school. Well, for me, the first day of school is actually over. I taught my classes this morning. I worked at school for a few hours, and now I am out here making a video for all of you. The first day went really good. I was really happy. I went to each of my classes. I was well prepared. I taught my lessons. I met some new students. And I also have some students that I've taught other things in the past, so it was nice to see them again and say hi. But all in all, how would I phrase this? I still got it. I still know what I do, what I'm doing. I still did a good job teaching the class.

Sorry, there was. It just sounded like a car was coming down this path, but this is a walking path, so I'm not sure what that sound was. And I was a little worried because my tripod is way over there. This is a really nice town, though. Normally people don't steal my tripod, but it's always a little worry that I have.

But anyways, what was I saying? I still got it. It's kind of an informal way of saying you think you're still good at something. It sounds a little arrogant when you say it about yourself, but, yeah, I think I still got it. I think I can do this job still. It does help that I'm able to do it part time. So a full load of teaching is three classes a day. I teach two classes and I do a couple other little things. So I'm really close to, like 75%. That's my workload. And it's nice to have a little time in th

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Read along to practice your English pronunciation of the words REACH and RICH, PEACH and PITCH

In this English lesson, I wanted to talk about the difference in pronunciation between reach and rich. This is actually from a question that's from a viewer that I'm going to read later, but I'm going to answer the question first. At the beginning of the video, when you reach for something, you reach for something with your hand. It's kind of a longer e sound. You reach for something, I can reach towards the camera. Hopefully that didn't scare you too much. So reach. When you have a lot of money, you are rich. So a rich person has worked really hard in their life, or maybe their parents just gave them all their money and they are just really, really rich. So you can reach for something or you can have lots of money and be really, really rich.

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The other two words I wanted to talk about are peach and pitch. And I'm not going to talk about beach and the other word because it's not really a good word. But you can eat a peach. Right now it is peach season here in Ontario, Canada. I have been eating a peach every day. They are really, really yummy. We buy them at market. We leave them on the counter so they ripen. And then I eat one peach every day. If you don't eat your peaches when they're ripe, sometimes they go bad and then you have to pitch them. When you watch a baseball game, the pitcher will throw the ball and we call it pitching. They will pitch the ball. You can also pitch a tent, by the way, so you can eat a peach and you can also pitch it if it's not very good, if it has gone bad.

So to review reach and rich, I'll say them slowly. You can reach for something or if you have lots of money, you're rich. And then you can eat a peach and you can pitch a baseball.

But hey, let's look at that comment from a previous video. I have it right here in my pocket and it is from Ladepla. Hi Bob, can you explain to us the difference in pronunciation of the words reach and rich. In this video you often say reach and it sounds quite short, so I couldn't tell it from rich if not for the context. And my response, I'll make a point of talking about this in the next video, which I already did.

So thanks for that comment, Lidepla. I hope I answered your question. And if you need to, you can go back and listen to those parts of the video over and over again until you get a sense of the right pronunciation and then do some shadowing as well. Shadowing is when you hit pause and you say what I just said. And then you rewind and play it again and listen. And then you say what I just said. It's a great way to practice your English speaking when you don't have an English speaking partner.

Well, hey, I'm just kind of walking down here. We had a fire the other day and there are still some remnants here of the fire. I did want to say, I'm happy to let you know that I did put some new screws in the picnic table. So I think I mentioned this last year a few times. You can't see where I'm pointing, but I actually finally put some new screws in. And so our old picnic table that was kind of falling apart is now usable again, but it's a little bit dirty. I feel like I need to refinish the seats. Let me show you those. The seats are quite mossy. When it's dry, you can sit here and your shorts don't get stained. But when it's wet outside, it's not the nicest place to sit.

So reach, rich, peach, pitch. And then there's also beach. You go to the beach and there's lots of sand. And then there's another b word, which is actually not a very nice word. So I'm not going to say it out lou

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OUT OF REACH and OUT OF TOUCH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase out of reach. When something is out of reach, it simply means when you try to grab it, it's a little too far away. Sometimes in the kitchen, there are things on the top shelf and they are out of reach. You can't reach them, but it can also mean that something you want to do is something you'll never be able to do. I will never be prime minister of Canada. That is out of reach for me. I would have had to have started my political career years ago in order to get to that point in my life. So becoming prime minister is out of reach. So something can physically be out of reach, but something you want to do can also be out of reach for you.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase out of touch. When someone is out of touch, it means that. Oh, sorry, this is one of the first times I forgot to teach something. You can also say you're out of reach when someone can't get a hold of you. If I was to go on vacation really far up north, I would be out of reach for a few days because phones don't work that far north. Now, let's move on. The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase out of touch. When someone is out of touch, it means that they don't really know what the current way of doing something is. So you could say that old people are a little bit out of touch. They don't use their phones to watch things on social media. They still watch things on a computer. Maybe instead of, I'm trying to think. Maybe instead of taking an Uber, they still take a taxi because they're out of touch and they don't realize there's a new way to do it.

So to review when something is out of reach, it means it's hard to actually grab. When something is out of reach, it means it's something you won't be able to do. And if you go on vacation, you might be out of reach for a while. And when you're out of touch, it simply means that you don't know what's hip and cool anymore. You've just gotten too old and you don't know. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis. Thanks a lot for the lesson, Bob. As you get older, you get stuck in your ways. Just as you become stiffer physically, you also become stiffer mentally and more narrow minded, unless you make a conscious effort to keep yourself flexible. That's from Viggo Mortensen, a quote from a famous actor. And my response: I'll try to stay flexible on all fronts.

You know, there's some truth to that. Like, you become physically quite stiff as you get older. Like, it's hard to bend and touch your toes and do things like that. And mentally you kind of get stiff as you get older. It's kind of unfortunate. It would be nice if we could stay really open minded and not become as stubborn as we get older. And it would be nice if I go and run 5 km, if I could walk the next day instead of sitting for the whole day waiting to feel better. I did that a couple weeks ago, by the way, with my son, and I was very stiff the next day. I'm not sure it was a good idea. I was able to run the whole race. I got one of my worst times ever, but still I was able to do it.

But yeah, it would be nice if we weren't. But there is always some advantage. I think we need people who want things to change and people who want things to stay the same. And then I think together we actually get a nice balance. We get something in the middle and I think that's a bit of an advantage. We don't want the new idea people to always get thei

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases STUCK IN YOUR WAYS and TO BE STUCK ON SOMETHING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase stuck in your ways. When you're stuck in your ways, it means you do certain things a certain way, and you will not change the way you do it. You are stuck in your ways. I'm stuck in my ways for some things. Like, for instance, many people have suggested that I stop using a piece of paper, that I should get an iPad or something else that I bring outside. But I'm kind of stuck in my ways. I like bringing the piece of paper outside. I do recycle all of these, but for me, it's just, it's a little simpler to use paper sometimes. So I'm a little stuck in my ways.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to be stuck on something. So this is when you don't understand something. If you remember when you were in school, or maybe you are in school, and if you're doing math sometimes, you might be stuck on a problem. You don't understand what to do next. As you learn English, there may be times where you're stuck on something. You just don't understand how to create a certain phrase. So when you're stuck on something, it means you don't know or understand what to do next.

So to review, when you're stuck in your ways, by the way, usually older people are stuck in their ways. I say that as if I'm not old. I'm not really old. I'm middle aged. But when you're stuck in your ways, you like doing something a certain way and you don't want to change it. And then when you're stuck on something, it simply means that you don't understand it.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. Teacher Bob is really a jack of all trades. He can teach, he can build, he knows computers, and his most valuable skill is he can do any sound effect in the world. And my response? Well, mostly I'm just good at watching YouTube videos to learn new things. So thanks for the compliment and the comment there, Ruslan.

I'm not, I don't know. I wouldn't consider myself that good at that many things. But I think one of my best skills is that I like to try new things. I like to learn new things. And YouTube is, like, the greatest thing in the world for that. So I would attribute a lot of the things I've done to the fact that if I want to learn how to do something, I just sit down at my computer or pull out my phone, do a little search on YouTube, and I find a whole bunch of videos. And then usually I watch two or three to get a sense of which person actually knows what they're talking about and which person isn't.

So yes, even though I said I'm a little bit stuck in my ways, I do like to learn new things. And whenever I'm stuck, whenever I don't understand something, I find a YouTube video to watch and it explains it to me. So, like laying those pavers by my house or even how to properly prune a tree or any of those kinds of things, I don't know what I would do anymore without YouTube. It's just amazing. So I know I'm a youtuber and there are probably, there are probably other ways to learn new things.

When I was a kid, I did like books. Books, I think were amazing as well. But in this day and age, sometimes it's just easier to watch a quick video than to go to the library and try to find a book. So anytime I do something new, like the other day, I was using a chainsaw.

Oh, actually, I can show you. The other day I was using a chainsaw. And before I started using the chainsaw, I watched a little video to refresh my memory on how to use it. Yeah, I

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ALL DONE! and BEEN THERE, DONE THAT!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase all done. Now, you probably know this phrase. It's a pretty common one. It means that you've done a job and the job is finished. You are all done. I love it when I finish something and I can say that I'm all done. I'll give you a better view of that later. But I worked on this for a long time, and now I'm all done. I started the project, I worked on the project, and now I'm at the point where it's completely done. All done.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase been there, done that. So this is kind of a phrase we use in a funny way or a sarcastic way when someone's describing something they've done and we've already done it. So if someone said to me, oh, I went to Toronto and saw a Blue Jays game, if I was like, it's kind of funny, but also a little bit mean, or it can mean that you're not interested in what they're saying, I could say, ah, been there, done that. Basically, I'm saying, I don't really need to hear about your experience because I've already gone to a Blue Jays game and it was very, very exciting. Been there, done that. So kind of funny, but kind of rude at the same time.

So to review, when you do something and when you finish it, you can say all done. Or you can even use a complete sentence and say, I'm all done. And when you say been there, done that, it's kind of a dismissive way to express yourself when someone's talking about something they've done that you've already done and experienced. Been there, done that.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. You're probably anxious to see the work behind me, but this is from Ünsal. Hi, teacher Bob. I can't wait to see the results of your exhausting work. Thank you so much for the amazing lessons. Have a great day. Bye. And my response? I feel like I'm running out of time for my summer jobs. Thanks, Ünsal, for that comment. Yes, I feel like I'm running out of time, but that's okay. There's always more time in the fall.

So I don't know if you remember what this used to look like, but now it looks like this. I was able to take some time to remove a whole bunch of dirt and stone with my tractor and of course with a shovel as well. My son and I spent a great deal of time out here and then I laid what's called interlocking block, or pavers, or simply patio stones. Let me get in the shade here so you can have a better look. This was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed doing this. Underneath, we put down coarse stone and then finer stone that you can spread easily. And then we chose a pattern that was kind of the hard part, actually choosing a pattern so that it looked really, really nice.

But as you can see now, I have room. Oh, yes, we also put lots of new stone down over there. I have room to park both my vehicles. And Jen and I can sit out here in the morning and have a cup of tea if we want. Maybe I'll try to find a link to an older video where you can see what this used to look like.

But I am very, very happy because for a couple of reasons. Number one, we wanted to do all this, or have all this done professionally, but this was cheaper. I did it myself. Secondly, the interlocking block, the pavers that we used were actually used. My son got them from somewhere. He paid very sorry, there's a spot here that's not level. I'm very particular. He paid very little money for them, so they weren't free, but they were very, very cheap.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO RUN OUT OF STEAM and TO BE STEAMED

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to run out of steam. When you run out of steam, it means you're really tired after working for a long time or maybe hiking all day or doing something that is a bit exhausting. Yesterday I worked really long. I worked till it was really late last night and I ran out of steam. At around 7:30 I thought, you know, I should just go in, have a shower, maybe watch the Blue Jays game, because I was starting to get... I was just exhausted. My muscles hurt. I was laying blocks by the house. I'll show you that job when it's done. But I definitely ran out of steam. So to run out of steam means to be out of energy, but usually because you did something that was physically exhausting.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to be steamed. When you're steamed, it simply means you're angry. Like you could say, oh, I was late for work five days in a row, my boss was steamed. It just means that your boss was really, really angry. When you say someone is steamed, it means they are not happy and sometimes not happy with you.

So to review, to run out of steam means to be tired or exhausted, to be physically and mentally just done like you have no more energy left. And to be steamed simply means to be angry. Or maybe you eat your vegetables that way. The other day I ate steamed broccoli. The broccoli was steamed. So obviously it has other meanings as well.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Vitor. Hello Bob. When you and Jen are at the market, do you notice what kind of flowers people like the most? I mean, different strokes for different folks. I don't think people will have preferences because all the flowers you produce are beautiful. You know, maybe it is good to know if one kind of flower is selling more than another. Thank you, Bob.

Mohd chirps in: I'm also wondering what their best seller is. Probably peonies and lizzies.

And then my response: It changes as the season progresses. People love to see the bouquets slowly change week to week. Like see different flowers in them. If we had the exact same flowers every week, people would get a bit bored. So sunflowers all season long, but peonies, then zinnias, then dahlias and then lisianthus are how the season progresses and changes.

So thanks Vitor for that comment. And yeah, so we do have flowers that kind of, as the season goes along, become more popular. And people do like variety. People do like to see different flowers. So at this point in time, the Lizzies are starting to bloom. The dahlias are actually starting to bloom at the same time. But the question is, which is the most popular? You know, variety is the most popular. People like to see different flowers from week to week. They don't mind, like zinnias, lizzies dahlias. They don't mind buying the same flower.

I think I just walked through a spider web with the camera.

They don't mind buying the same flower for a few weeks, but not longer than three or four weeks. And then they're, you know, we're humans. We like to see new things. We like to experience new things. So certainly sunflowers, we just use all the time. They're kind of like a mainstay. You would say it's a pretty common flower. But throughout the rest of the season, people do like to see a little bit of variety and a little bit of change, especially towards the fall. They like to see more what we would call fall colors, colors like browns and deep oranges.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO THIN OUT and TO SPREAD YOURSELF TOO THIN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to thin out. Now, this has two meanings or two ways that you can use this. One is kind of when you see something thin out and then you can actually thin something out. Let me explain. If you were to go up a mountain, at the bottom of the mountain, there might be trees, but as you go up the mountain, the trees will thin out. There will be less trees as you go up. For every hundred meters you go vertically, there will probably be less trees and they'll get smaller as well. So the trees will start to thin out. Out in the flower field, sometimes we grow flowers and there's too many in one spot. So Jen will take out every other flower. She'll actually snip them with the pruners. She will thin out the flowerbed so that the flowers have a better chance to grow and thrive. Because if there's too many, they kind of compete for nutrients. So when you go up a mountain, trees can thin out, and you can use this for other things as well. But if you have something like flowers, you might thin out the patch so that there are less. So the ones that remain can do well.

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And the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to spread yourself too thin. So if you are really busy, if you agree to do too many things, we sometimes say that you are going to spread yourself too thin. Sometimes in the fall, I spread myself too thin. I'm back at work. I'm doing YouTube videos. I'm helping Jen on the flower farm. I'm bringing my kids back and forth to work. Oh, but I don't have to do that as much because they have their license now. But I'm too busy. I have spread myself too thin. Just like when you spread butter or peanut butter on bread, sometimes you spread it too thin. You can also spread yourself too thin.

So to review to thin out means to see less and less of something. Maybe when you're walking in a field of plants, there's a spot where they didn't grow well and it will thin out. And then sometimes you will thin something out. Some people, I think people thin out their hair sometimes. When I was a kid, I had lots of hair and the barber would use like a special scissors to thin out my hair. And then to spread yourself too thin means simply to be too busy to agree to do too many things.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd Ags. Oh, yeah, those cargo shorts with more pockets that I care to count and infinite storage space are an essential part of the dad look. That's how someone like me looks. Also, nice illustration of all the growth stages of sunflowers. I'm this close to taking an interest in farming, thanks to you. And my response? It's called succession planting. I'm not sure I mentioned that it's the secret to having sunflowers every week. I knew nothing about this until Jen explained it to me years ago.

So yeah, in the last video. Thanks for the comment Mohd. In the last video, I showed you the sunflowers and how Jen actually plants sunflowers each week. And that way you have sunflowers throughout the growing season. So early on, they're kind of little. They don't grow that well because it's not warm enough. But we start with sunflowers a few weeks ago, and because we've planted them every week, we then have sunflowers to harvest every week. It doesn't always work perfectly. Sometimes there's a little bit of a dip and we don't have lots of sunflowers, but generally it works pretty good.

So anyways, I'm out here just taking a little wa

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DEAL WITH and A GOOD DEAL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to deal with. When you need to deal with something, it means you are going to take care of it. You are going to take responsibility for maybe solving something or doing something. Here are two examples. Let's say at school there's some students, a teacher sees some students far away that are misbehaving. I could say, oh, I'll walk over there. I will go deal with it. That means I'm going to go talk to those students and tell them to stop doing whatever they're doing. Let's say at work there's a huge pallet of things that needs to be kind of put in different parts of the store. Sorry, I'm trying to think of an example. You work at a store, there's a big pallet with things that need to go on the shelves. You could say to your boss, oh, I'll deal with that after lunch. So when you deal with something, it means you decide you're going to do it. If I say I'm going to deal with it, it means I'm going to take care of it.

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The second thing I wanted to teach you today is the term a good deal. Now, this has two meanings. I could say this. I bought a car the other day for $500. It was a good deal. That means that I paid less than what the car was worth. I benefited in the transaction. You can also use this to mean a lot. I could say we've had a good deal of rain this year. That means that it's rained probably more than it normally does.

So to review, to deal with something means to take care of something or to do something. And a good deal would be anytime you pay less money than you think you would have to. When you buy a bouquet from Jen, I think it's a good deal. I think she should charge more and we can use it to say a lot. If you buy a bouquet from Jen, you get a good deal of flowers in the bouquet.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I put it in one of these pockets. I should just get shorts with one pocket, shouldn't that? This one has 1 2 3 4. I should get a one with a few less. This is from Ruslan. Thanks for a great lesson, teacher Bob. The flower fields are beautiful and the whole landscape really looks like the Shire from Lord of the Rings. And my response, no hobbits here, though, at least none that I've seen. And I think I've actually made that comment before. I think Ruslan or someone else has mentioned that this area looks a little bit like the Shire. There was another comment as well, by the way. Thanks, Ruslan, for that comment. There was another comment as well, saying people would like to see more of the flower fields in the next few videos.

So here are the dahlia beds. They're not quite blooming yet. They'll be blooming soon. A lot of our flower beds look like this because when you grow flowers, you harvest the flowers and then you sell them. Over here, you can see the Lisianthus are starting to bloom, though. I'll get you a nice shot of these. I don't know if you're familiar with this flower. I usually show them every year. They look a little bit like a rose. And they are starting to bloom nicely as well. You can see a few pink ones down there. And these front ones here are a little bit more like an antique look. But yes, things have been growing well. We have had a good deal of rain. It's been nice. Here we have some sunflowers.

Let's have a look at these as well. Bit of a garden tour. These are sunflowers that haven't bloomed yet. Although if we go far enough along, you will see one bloom right here. There you go, one bloom. This is more of like a lemo

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English saying TWO CAN PLAY THAT GAME and the term TWO-FACED

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English saying, two can play at that game. This is a phrase we use when someone does something, maybe not a nice thing, and you think to yourself, hmm, two can play at that game. And then you do something similar. Let's say you're playing a game of hockey and it's non contact. That's when you're not supposed to check or hit each other. And then someone checks you a little bit, you could think to yourself, hmm, two can play at that game. And then you start to hit or check the other player as well. And this doesn't have to just happen in sports. Maybe at work, someone starts doing something to get their work done quicker. Maybe they're cheating a little bit or something, and you can think, hmm, two can play at that game. And then you start to do a similar thing. So you also have an advantage.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is, well, not a phrase, but term is the term two faced. When someone is two faced, it means sometimes when you talk to them, they're nice, but then sometimes they talk to other people, and maybe you hear them not being nice to you. So when someone's two faced, it's like they're nice to you when you talk to them, but, you know, when they talk to other people, they don't speak kindly of you. So they're kind of two faced, right? They have a nice face when they're talking to you, and then they have a mean face when they're talking to other people. They're two faced.

So to review, two can play at that game is usually not something you say. It's kind of something you think like, hmm, two can play at that game... And then you start to do what the other person was doing to you. And then if someone is two faced, it simply means that they kind of have two personalities. They're nice to you when you're talking to them. And then later you might hear from someone that they were saying really mean things about you because they're two faced.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from June. This is true here in Korea, too, especially during the rainy season, super humid, sticky and muggy. And my response, hot and muggy are two of my least favorite words. So that comment from June. Thank you, June. Is in response to the video last week where I talked about how hot and muggy it was here. It was definitely hot and muggy.

I don't like hot and muggy. I love this. It's just raining a little bit. It's about 23 degrees celsius out here. I probably should go in in a bit before my camera gets too wet. But it's just a beautiful day. I love being able to show you things like these zinnias. I'll give you a spin around view.

We are just experiencing a really nice year on the farm. Things are just growing really well. A lot of it is because, of course, Jen really knows what she's doing. She's a really good farmer. She's a really good grower. But also because it just rains a lot. And plants really like rain, they just grow really well. So the zinnias are just abundant. When you say something is abundant, there's just lots of them. And the leaves are a really nice green color. We can tell from the color of the leaves when a plant is healthy. So we are just experiencing a really, really beautiful, nice year here on the farm. We're very thankful.

Some years it. It doesn't rain as much and I have to irrigate a lot. So I've had more time to do things I want to do because I haven't had to irrigate as much. And then the other thing that has allowed me to

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English saying IT'S NOT THE HEAT, IT'S THE HUMIDITY and the phrase TO BEAT THE HEAT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English saying, it's not the heat, it's the humidity. So it is really, really hot out here in Ontario, Canada right now. The last few days have been over 30 degrees celsius, and today it's going to be over 30 degrees celsius again. And something we kind of say jokingly when it's this hot is, hey, it's not the heat, it's the humidity. Basically, what we mean is the heat isn't what is oppressive. It's not the heat that's making you feel really hot, it's the humidity. By the way, humidity is the amount of moisture in the air. So we say it jokingly, but it's also kind of true. When you're somewhere where there's a really hot day and no humidity, it's a lot nicer because you can sweat and your sweat evaporates. But when you say it's not the heat, it's the humidity, you're usually in a place where when you sweat, it doesn't really evaporate and cool you off. Sweating doesn't work the way it's supposed to. So we just kind of get through it by saying, hey, it's not the heat, it's the humidity.

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The other phrase I wanted to help you learn today is to beat the heat. So this is something that rhymes. And we say this to talk about things that help you cool down when it's hot like this. To beat the heat, I will go into a restaurant at market every hour just to cool off for five minutes because they have air conditioning. Maybe to beat the heat, Jen and I will get some ice cream around five or six o'clock this afternoon at market to cool down a little bit. So we use this kind of fun little rhyming phrase to talk about the things you do to cool down. If we had a pool, I could jump in the pool to beat the heat. That would be really nice.

So to review kind of a fun joking phrase to say when it's really hot and humid is to say, it's not the heat, it's the humidity. And when it's really hot and you want to relax and cool down, you do something to beat the heat. Jump in a pool, have a drink of cold, cold water, all of those kinds of things.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Eugene. Hi, Bob. I could be in the wrong, but it looks like your powerline pole needs a support. And my response we'll have a look in the next video. I think it's fine, but worth checking.

So behind me there is what we in Ontario, Canada. I've never done this before. Let me walk backwards as I talk. In Ontario, Canada, at least in my part of Ontario, Canada, we call that a hydro pole. I think in some parts of the world they would call that a telephone pole, even though they're electrical wires or an electrical pole or a power pole. It has a bunch of different names. We call it a hydro pole. This one is leaning a little bit and I think that's what Eugene was talking about. Let me spin you around and give you a little bit of a better look at it.

It is leaning, but I can tell you a few things. One, the base of the pole is in concrete, so I think that helps it stay stable. And it has been leaning like this my whole life. Like even as a kid I remember this pole has always had a lean to it. And if we look around on this side, you'll see these little things here. They come and inspect the pole. So the last time in 2002, they came and had a look at the pole and they said that everything was a okay with the pole.

So hopefully the pole doesn't fall over. Hopefully the concrete holds it in the ground nicely. And hopefully I don't have any problems because if the pow

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET THE WRONG IDEA and TO BE IN THE WRONG

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to get the wrong idea. Now, we usually use this to talk about when someone interprets what someone else says or does and they interpret it wrong. And it usually happens in a situation where someone is just being friendly and the other person might get the wrong idea and think that they're interested in them romantically. Sometimes this will be part of the story in a movie where there's a guy and girl, and the guy is really friendly and the girl happens to get the wrong idea. She thinks that he's being nice because he likes her in a romantic way, but he just wants to be friends. So hopefully you've never been in that situation. You can use this for other things as well. Like, you can say, hey, I'm helping you, but don't get the wrong idea. I'm not going to help you for free every weekend. Like maybe you're helping someone do some work around their house or something. Hopefully I explained that well. I'm trying to rush here because I'll show you the line of dark clouds in a moment. And there's a little bit of thunder over there. I know there's sun behind me.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to be in the wrong when you are in the wrong. It means that you're the person who made the mistake. Sometimes we use this formally to talk about a car accident. When one car, when one car hits the other, we usually say one person was in the wrong. Okay, that person didn't signal and they turned, or that person crossed into the wrong lane. And so we would say that that person is at fault. That person is in the wrong.

So to review to get the wrong idea means to interpret what someone does or says and to be wrong in your interpretation. And to be in the wrong simply means that you are guilty of doing something. You're the person who didn't signal when they turned, or you're the person who maybe drove into the wrong lane.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Berevilson, a very, very much a longtime viewer. Hi. Great teacher. Bob, I don't have any clue what you're talking about. Kkk, it's not true. Thanks a lot for your amazing job. And I said great use of the phrase. So that's the phrase to not have a clue. And Berevilson, thanks for that comment. Was using that in a good example sentence.

So it looks like we might get a storm today. I'll show you a couple of things. One is if you look in the distance, you can see that the sky is very gray in that direction and it's also very gray in that direction. And if you look on the ground here, you'll see lots of sticks and branches from a week ago. I'll put a clip in here from Jen. Jen caught some, got some footage of the storm. We had quite a storm roll through last week and I hope this one that's coming isn't the same. I'm actually on my way outside to tell Jen that I just looked at the radar and it looks like this storm might hit us. Sometimes a storm will go past, but this one, it's kind of all around us. It's in every direction. You can see the dark clouds. The sun has gone away now. I don't think this storm is going to hit us anytime soon.

Both dogs just barked at me, thinking I'm some strange person. They decided they recognized me and they're going the other way now. But we'll have to see if that storm hits us or not. I think it will. It said on the forecast that there was a 40% chance of rain today. And I can sense it in the air. I feel it in my bones that it's

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO CLUE IN and TO NOT HAVE A CLUE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to clue in. When you clue into something, it means you've heard some small facts about something and then suddenly you realize something has happened. Jen's at market right now and I'm home today. I think Oscar has finally clued in that Jen has gone. He's checked outside a few times today. He's gone to look in the flower field and he can't find her. But I think now, because he looks really sad, I think he's finally clued in that Jen is at market. She'll be home in a little bit. So to clue in means you realize something after you find a few clues. Maybe there's a few things that let you come to the conclusion that something is a certain way. You've clued in to that fact.

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The other phrase I want to teach you today is to not have a clue. We use this to talk about someone in a very mean spirited, negative way when they are just not understanding something. So you might have a boss like this. A boss who keeps giving you instructions that don't make sense and you can't help but do the job poorly because your boss just doesn't have a clue. When you say your boss does not have a clue, it means that maybe your boss doesn't really understand the job you do. Sometimes you might have a co worker who does not have a clue and they just don't understand how things work.

So to review, to clue in means to figure something out. After getting a few little clues, you know what clues are like when the police investigate a crime, they look for clues, little hints as to what had happened. So when you clue in, you finally understand something. And then if you say that someone does not have a clue, it means they don't understand what's going on.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from MohdAgs at minute 3:26. Yeah, that's a cool little spot indeed. If only you could hang a hammock there. Oops, I said it. Hehe. Sorry Mister Bob. I guess I've been watching far too many Canadians lately and I might have started to pick up some of their passive aggressiveness. And my response? Hint taken. I clued in to what Mohd was talking about. Let's see what I can come up with in August for a video / hammock holder.

So Mohd sent me a gift last year. It was a hammock and I never got around to actually setting it up. I didn't hang it from a couple of trees. There are some nice trees on my property. I was going to build like a little frame to hold it, and I never got around to that as well. But I think I'm going to try that in a couple weeks. I want to do a lesson on tools and woodworking, and I have an idea for something to build. I had this idea last year, and I promised this last year already, but it will happen after this project's done.

You might be wondering, Bob, what are you doing to your house? Well, we had some drainage problems here, and so what I've done is I've dug a ditch all the way out to there. Let me give you a little bit better view of this. So I've dug a ditch, I'm not quite done yet, but I've dug a ditch all the way out to here where the ground is lower. And my plan is actually to dig that ditch even a little bit deeper yet, and then that will have all the water drain back this way.

And then if you look behind me, I've also been kind of clearing out the stone and I'm trying to get it to slope ever so slightly away from the house. It used to do that, but I think over time, the concrete in front of my house kind of settled and the driveway kind of

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE SHORT TERM and THE LONG TERM

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase the short term. When we say the short term, we're talking about for the next day or the next few hours or the next week, like a short amount of time between now and a future situation. Sometimes we fix things for the short term. We know that for the short term the fix will last. Maybe you put some tape on a piece of clothing. No one does that, do they? If I had a little tear here, I could put some tape on there so that for the short term it is wearable. That's a bad example. But anyways, I think you get the point when you do something for the short term, or when you refer to the short term, you're referring to a short amount of time. Sometimes your vehicle is broken and there's like a short term fix. So in the short term you might just put a little bit of air in a tire that's actually slowly going flat. Flat. That's a better example.

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Anyways, the other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the long term. The long term means for a long time. So let's use the tire example again. If your tire is leaking air, you can put some air in for the short term. But for the long term you want to replace the tire or get the tire patched and repaired. So the short term would be like a quick fix, something that works but isn't the best fixed. And then a long term fix would be something that is more permanent.

So to review, let me try to explain these again. When you do something for the short term or in the short term, it means for a short amount of time. And when you do it for the long term or in the long term, you do it for a longer amount of time. Let me use that in and for phrase a bit. So in the short term, putting air in will fix the problem. In the long term though, you should get it replaced or fixed. So putting air in the tire will last for the short term. Notice I used for there. But getting the tire replaced or fixed is better for the long term. Hopefully I explained that well.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comet is from Vitor. That reminded me of when one of the windows in my parent's house was broken. I had the brilliant idea of removing the last pieces of glass and using adhesive tape to fill the empty space. The other day the window was full of insects. Haha. We didn't have money to replace glass, so I thought I was going to save us some money using adhesive tape. It was certainly not a good idea. And then my response, sometimes things work in the short term, but not in the long term.

So now you know the source of the topic for this lesson. I was answering that comment. Thanks, Vitor for that comment, by the way. And I used those two phrases and I thought, I don't know if I've taught those two phrases before. I think I just stepped in some mud. I hope it was mud.

Anyways, I hope you are all doing well. I'm having a rare day off, so I've been walking a lot and exercising a lot and doing a lot of physical labor on the farm. And today I'm trying to do nothing. And as things go for me, I haven't succeeded. I've actually done a number of things this morning. I responded to all the comments on the new lesson on my main channel about buying large purchases. I responded to all the comments from the previous video on this channel. I made my Wednesdays with Bob video. I went out and made that, hey, this is a cool little spot here, isn't it? And then now I'm outside making this short lesson.

So I'm trying, though, not to

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GO OFF ON SOMEONE and TO GO OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to go off on someone. When you go off on someone, it means you get angry. It means you're annoyed with them. They've done something that has really, really annoyed you, and then you are angry. You might even be yelling. Sometimes people have a really mean boss and they're afraid to talk to their boss because their boss might go off on them. That's not a nice thing to do, and you shouldn't ever do that. I know when I was a kid, there was a teacher at my school where students were afraid to talk to that teacher because that teacher might go off on them. That teacher had a tendency to go off on people. That teacher would get really angry and yell for the silliest reason. So I don't do that. I don't go off on people very often. It's pretty rare for that to happen.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is just to go off. I didn't want you to be too confused. An alarm clock can go off. A timer can go off. Maybe you're making something in the kitchen and you set the timer for ten minutes. When ten minutes is up, the timer will go off. It simply means that it will start beeping. When an alarm clock goes off, it starts beeping. And then when a timer goes off, it starts beeping to tell you that time is up.

So to review to go off on someone means to get mad at them, to yell at them, to be angry and to not be very nice to them. And then to go off simply means for a device like an alarm clock or a timer to start making a beeping sound.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Know that. And it says here, it's great that despite the constant rain, you were able to complete the installation of the new windows as planned and without any major problems or delays and hopefully without any injuries, Bob. How many windows did you replace? All in one area, floor, or in different parts of your house? Thank you, sir. Have a wonderful day. And my response, we replaced five windows and a door. I'll show the door in the lesson today.

So, yes, we got some windows replaced. The windows were 41 years old. So thanks Know that for that comment. Let me show you at least one window here, down in our basement. Maybe you can see this. There is a brand new window, all nicely installed and ready to kind of help us feel good during the coming winter months. It will certainly be nice to have a window that keeps the cold out, and then that window was replaced a few years ago.

But we also have a new door, so I'm very happy to have a new door. This door was quite drafty. I'm not sure if you know what drafty means, but when something's drafty, it means it lets the cold air in when you don't want cold air to come in.

So we have a new door here, and then we also had several windows replaced in other parts of the house. I bought this house from my parents, and the windows we replaced were the original windows from when the house was built in the early eighties. They were quite rotten and they were kind of falling apart.

So it's nice to see something new. It was nice to have a little bit of money to be able to afford to replace some of those windows. We do have one window left to replace, but yes, if you look down here again, you'll see a really nice brand new basement window. And over here, a second one. And then a few other windows replaced in other parts of the house. So I'm just super happy. Hopefully we save some money on heat this winter as well. Our hous

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO FEEL AT HOME and THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to feel at home. When you go somewhere else, somewhere that's not your home and you really enjoy it. You can describe it by saying that you feel at home. Sometimes when you go and stay at a friend's house, maybe it's just really relaxing and really enjoyable. And you can say, well, when I'm at Joe's place, I just feel at home. What you're saying basically is that you have the same calm feeling you have when you're in your own apartment or in your own house. And then there's an extension to this when you visit. Sometimes people say, make yourself at home or come on over. I hope you feel at home as you visit me. So a nice feeling when you are somewhere else, the feeling that you normally have when you're at home.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is there's no place like home. So this is a phrase that you sometimes say after you've been away and you're home again. I'm feeling this right now. There's no place like home. I am having a very enjoyable summer. I am just enjoying being at home. And I would describe it by using this phrase, there's no place like home.

So to review, to feel at home means to have that warm, fuzzy feeling that you have when you're at your own home, but have that feeling when you're at someone else's place. And when you say there's no place like home, you're simply saying that you really enjoy being home in your house. Usually after a trip, you walk in, you set down your suitcase and you say, ha, there's no place like home.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Meng Ying Zhang. The river has flooded a little bit again. It seems that the water swells every once in a while each summer. Anyways, have a good day. And my response, it's been incredibly wet this past few weeks. I hope the rain stops soon. It's starting to feel a bit like last year.

So yeah, it is wet here. Like when I say wet, like concerning. It just keeps raining every single day. If you look here down at this puddle, you'll see that there are little raindrops hitting it right now. And honestly, I hope it stops soon. This is getting a little bit crazy. We haven't gotten as much rain as other parts of Ontario. Out where Jen's parents live. They're getting horrible amounts of rain. Fields are flooding in some areas. It's just not very good at all. So we're thankful that we're not in that kind of situation.

But if you look over here as well, you'll see that the river hasn't quite flooded. And I really hope it doesn't because I did plant a late crop way in the distance. There's a field way over there and hopefully the river doesn't jump its banks. But yeah, from the comment Meng, definitely the river is higher than it normally is this time of year and not overly concerning.

But you know, I was out in the flower field this morning putting posts in for Jen, like pounding posts into the ground. And everywhere I stepped, I would get a soaker. A soaker is when you step in a puddle and then your shoe gets filled with water. So right now I'm actually wearing my rubber boots. But I did realize that my rubber boots, my one rubber boot has a hole in it. So I'm probably going to end up getting a wet foot as I make this video as well.

But yeah, hopefully it stops raining soon. In fact, it rained so much the other day, I mowed lawn in the rain. You can see I left a whole bunch of little tufts of grass because I was mowi

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HAVE A REPUTATION and YOUR REPUTATION PRECEDES YOU

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to have a reputation. When you have a reputation, it means that something about you, one of your character traits is so strong that people think about you when they think about that character trait. Let me try to explain this a little bit better. I think I'm a nice teacher. I think I have a reputation as being a nice teacher. You'd have to ask my students to find out for sure. But when people think of me, I hope that I have a reputation of being very nice and kind. You might know someone who's just really mean, and they have a reputation of being mean. So you might have someone in your neighborhood who always yells from their front porch or is never happy, and they have a reputation of being kind of grouchy all the time. So when you have a reputation, it means that your strongest character trait is something that is very obvious about you.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is your reputation precedes you. What this means is that you know something about someone before you actually meet them. If I was to meet the prime minister of Canada, his reputation precedes him. He seems to be a nice person, although right now some people don't like him and we might be having an election in a while and I'm not sure he'll get in again. But I think his reputation is that he's somewhat kind and nice to people. We'll see if Canadians find their way into the comments below and disagree with me. But anyways, when your reputation precedes you, it means that before you even meet someone, you kind of know something about them.

So to review to have a reputation means that you're known for a certain thing. Maybe you're known as being very athletic and very aggressive when you play sports, you have a reputation of being a good athlete. And then your reputation precedes you. Simply means that people know something about you before you meet them. If Wayne Gretzky came to play hockey with me, his reputation precedes him. I already know he's going to be a better hockey player than me.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, an extremely crumpled up comment. The pockets in my shorts are very small, so the comment gets crumpled. From Ruslan I guess teacher Bob had no road rage because all drivers know if they mess with teacher Bob, they will never pass the ielts test. And then Judit or Aerosmith77 has a good laugh. Ha ha ha. And then my response is, my reputation precedes me. So now you can see how I come up with the ideas sometimes. So, as I responded to Ruslan's comment. Thanks, by the way, Ruslan, I had the thought, oh, I should do a lesson on the phrase my reputation precedes me.

Well, hey, we just got done getting a lot of rain. I was going to use an inappropriate word there, but maybe I should do a lesson someday on inappropriate words. We just got a lot of rain. In fact, we got, I think, two and a half inches. If I spin you around, not sure you can see all the way across the river, but there's water in the field over there where there's normally not water. Somehow the rain came endlessly. So, as I mentioned, it was Hurricane Beryl. We got the remnants of it. So the last little bit. So it rained most of the day yesterday. It was kind of an interesting day. At one point thought, I hope it stops raining soon. When it started, I was happy because it will make everything grow nicely. But at a certain point, I was like, okay, this is getting to be a little bit much. A little b

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ALL THE RAGE and ROAD RAGE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase all the rage. When something is all the rage, it means everyone is doing it or everyone is wearing it. In my world, people who are my age, it's all the rage to wear dad shoes. I'll put a picture here of what dad shoes look like, but they're all the rage. But something funny happened because now those shoes are also popular with young people. So it's all the rage to wear New Balance shoes. But it used to be a white pair of New Balance shoes was considered a pair of dad shoes, and they were all the rage for people my age, but now they are for younger people, too. So when something's all the rage, it's very, very popular.

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And then the term road rage. I didn't experience any road rage on my way home from visiting Brent. I was on the highway for about ten or 11 hours. It was quite a long drive and no one got angry with me. Road rage is when you cut someone off or when you do something to make another driver angry. And then that anger that they experience we call road rage. So I myself did not get angry at anyone, nor did anyone get angry at me. So there was no road rage on my trip.

So to review when something's all the rage, it means it's very, very popular. And then let me think of something else that's all the rage. I imagine when they invented sunglasses many, many years ago, they were all the rage. I imagine everyone was wearing sunglasses the year they were invented. And then road rage would simply be anger that is taking place while you're driving. Usually someone gets angry with you and you call it road rage.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Tammy. Tammy says you both look like twin brothers. Have a safe trip all the way to Canada. Please take a coffee break if you like. Thank you both for this new video. And my response: I stopped multiple times on the way back. I left really early, but as the day went on, I found I needed breaks more often. I still made good time, though, and was able to return the car rental before 05:00 p.m. that day. So, Tammy, thanks for that comment.

And yes, I did take breaks, quite a few breaks. So I started. For those of you that don't know, I was visiting Brent and I left at 05:00 a.m. last week, Friday. And I actually drove for some pretty long stretches. I drove from five till eight without stopping. Then I drove from eight till about noon, 1130 noon. Two really long stretches. But after that I started to get a little bit, not drowsy, but I just got physically tired. Like between you and me, I'll just tell you, my butt was getting sore from sitting in the car for so long.

So I started to stop like every hour or even less than every hour. So I think I stopped at every single rest stop in New York. Well, no, I think every other. Okay. And I didn't always buy anything. And usually I just walked. I probably looked kind of funny. I was the guy doing loops at the rest stop. But hey, it's really good to be home. It was nice too, because like I said, I was able to return the rental car and I saved myself $30 by bringing it back the same day I drove home instead of the next morning. So that was kind of nice. And what else was I going to say? I was really tired the next day. It surprised me how simply sitting in a car and really doing nothing can be quite tiring. So last week, let me get this all straight, the days in my head. Last week, Saturday, I didn't do much. I was pretty lazy. I just kind of... I did go for a walk to kind of loosen up my legs again. But yeah, it was a good drive back and I

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HOMEWARD BOUND and A STRAIGHT SHOT

Hey, it's been a lot of fun hanging out with Brent. Today's the day where I might be leaving later today. I might be leaving tomorrow morning. I'm gonna be homeward bound. So homeward bound means that you are on your way home. Right, now, so do you think that you're going to stop along the way? It's a twelve hour drive. Maybe you'll get tired and stop halfway. I might stop halfway, or I might do it in a straight shot. So that would mean that I'm going to drive for 11 hours straight. I don't think that's going to happen, but you probably should know that word anyway.

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So later today or tomorrow I will be homeward bound. I think there's a song homeward bound. There is. It's by Simon and Garfunkel. It's a great song. Is it the name of the song? It is, yes. I think there's a book or a movie that involves animals. Oh, there might be a dog that runs away from home and then eventually is home but, anyways, there's definitely a song. There might be a movie with that little phrase in it. And then this one's a little more obscure, maybe. I don't think a lot of people use this, but I might do it in a straight shot.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. You can talk if you want, Brent, while I look for the comment. Yeah, I'll talk about straight shot. I think we almost just use that with travel and a lot of times with driving. Yes. Like with a plane, you would use like layover. You would use different terminology. Definitely. Yeah. Because often you'll be like, it's a three hour drive. I'm going to leave at six and do it in a straight shot. I'm just going to go straight there.

From Maxim Dear Bob, I hope you are doing well. I want to thank you for your amazing English lessons on YouTube. I watched all of your episodes when I was living in Ukraine. Your lessons helped me learn English and prepare for that ielts exam. Now I live and work in London, Ontario, Canada. And I think you might have been on a live stream recently mentioning that. Thank you so much for your help and teaching. It made a big difference in my life. Best regards, Maxim and my response. So cool that you're living in London. Welcome to Canada. I'm actually out that way every once in a while. Congrats on passing your ielts.

So two things there. Ielts. That's a pretty good accomplishment. Absolutely. Sounds like a dream come true. Very cool. Congratulations on that. And then London, Ontario. Have you ever been there? I've not. When I hear London, I automatically think England. Yes. There's a lot of places in Canada and the United States that kind of harken back to England. So it's kind of a funny thing. Let's walk this way. I'm supposed to walk and talk during this part of the lesson. I almost forgot. Love it. London, Ontario. There's also a Stratford, Ontario. There's a Stratford in England as well. The Stratford in Ontario also has a theater. And you can go watch Shakespeare there and, yeah, definitely you can see the origins of those countries.

Brent. Yep. Where are... what are we standing in front of? What is all this? So my brother loves wood and he has a lot of wood that he chops up. Some he sells to other people, some he actually uses to heat his house in the winter. Oh, yeah, we're in Maine. And if you look over here, this makes sense to me. Lots of firewood back there and then back over there. Lots of trees. Definitely. Pretty cool. Um, I noticed though that this. So Brent lives in a city? Yeah... Town? City? ...small city. Yeah, large town. So in a real city, there's lots of pav

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FINALLY DONE and FINELY DONE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase finally done. Now, I used this phrase, actually, in yesterday's video. I think I said something like, the school year is finally done. And this simply means that something that you want to be finished has actually finished. And maybe you've been waiting for that for a long time. Maybe you're studying English and you're finally done studying for an exam that you have coming up. Maybe you're working at a job on a big project and it's taken months, but you're finally done and you're happy because you can move on to something new. So when something is finally done, we often use that phrase. We just say, oh, it's finally done. Or I'm so happy that the school year is finally done. That would be another good example.

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The second phrase I want to teach you today is finely done. Now, that might sound the same to you, but it's not. Finally done. Finely done. There's one less syllable here. When something is finely done, it means it's done with a high degree of precision, and it's just done really well. The best thing I can think of is if you buy an expensive car and it has a leather steering wheel. The work on the steering wheel is very finely done. They've probably stitched it very precisely. It's probably done in a way where it looks really, really good. You would say that it's finely done.

So to review, when something is finally done, you're just happy that it's over. Sometimes I'm sad, though, when the school year is finally done. But mostly I'm happy. Actually, that's not true. I'm usually not ever sad when the school year is done. And when something is finely done, it means it's done well. Like, if you think about the stitching around the pockets of your pants, it's very finely done. It's done with precision and accuracy. So one more time, just so you can hear the difference. Finally done. Finally done. And finely done. Finely done. I know to your ear they might sound very similar, but they are definitely different in pronunciation and meaning.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ünsal. Hello, teacher Bob. I'm so glad to see you. I will be looking forward to your trip to the USA, and I'm already curious about what you will do with teacher Brent. Have you made any plans for what you will do together, or will it be spontaneous? Have a great day. Bye. And my response, we haven't made any specific plans yet, but I'm sure we'll think of something.

So, no, we haven't really talked too much about this trip. Brent's actually been on a trip of his own and so it hasn't been like a good time. I've been busy. He's been away to Iceland and Poland and Turkey, I think were the three places that he went. I'm pretty sure he's on his way home now. I did text him a little bit yesterday and we finalized some little parts of the plan, but no, I'm not sure yet what exactly we will be doing. It should be fun. We'll have to see. I'm excited to go, though. I think it will be a lot of fun. But I have a few things to do around here before I head out next week and then I'll be on the road. I will hit the road and drive to Maine, so that will be fun.

A few things around here, though, that I wanted to show you, in particular, I love it when flowers really start to take off, when they start to bloom. In English, when you say something is taking off, it means it's doing well or growing well or things are just going well. So you can see here sunflowers, they grew like crazy. These aren'

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases MAKES SENSE and DOESN'T MAKE SENSE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase makes sense. When something makes sense, it just means it's logical. If it's something that someone designed, they design it in a logical way. In a way that makes sense. There's a store in North America called Costco. It's a large store and everything there makes sense. The size of the shopping carts makes sense. They're larger than a normal store. The way the parking lot lines are put out makes sense. They leave extra room between vehicles, probably because the carts are wider. The way the store is laid out makes sense. Everything just makes sense when I go there. It's a really cool place to go. It's designed to be efficient and logical, and I'm usually happy when I'm shopping there.

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But you know what doesn't make sense? Government offices. I'm sure this is the same in every country around the world. I went to a government office today to renew one of my cards. You know how you have driver's license and health cards and all that kind of stuff? I went to renew a card and the way that that office was set up just doesn't make sense to me. There were numbers like I got a number, but my number was like PC 801. But then there were numbers that started with t and s and all different letters. And then for a while there, everyone with numbers with the same letters in front as me. We didn't get called up. I was there for, I think it was almost 3 hours. Sometimes stuff just doesn't make sense. I'm not sure how well that place was designed.

So to review when something makes sense, it's very logical and easy to understand. When something doesn't make sense, it's just very confusing and you don't understand why it was designed that way. Anyways, I got everything done I needed to, but I was a little frustrated.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aerosmith77 also known as Judit. I loved when I could take the long way home, but not nowadays. Thanks for the lesson. I gotta go. And my response, from my understanding, you have quite the commute now. I hope it's going well. So Judit, thank you for that comment and for using the phrase long way home from the previous lesson. Very cool. But yeah, I understood from another comment you made. I think you changed jobs and I think you drive for over an hour each way now to work. That's a long ways to drive, so hopefully you have lots to listen to, some good music. Maybe you listen to a few podcasts on your way there. I just hope it's going well because that's, that's a pretty long drive to, to go every day.

But hey, what was I going to talk about today? Well, I can talk about my commute. It's exactly eleven minutes every day. My commute, because I live out in the country and I work in a town, not a city. There's just not a lot of traffic out this way, there was just a big tractor that went by. Those sometimes slow down my commute a little bit. But I have appreciated the fact that there's no real commute where I live. It's just awesome. So I feel bad.

I did, though, a few years ago. A few years ago, like over 20 years ago, I worked at a school. Okay, that's exaggerating. About 18 years ago, I worked at a school in a nearby city just for a couple of years. And it was a 45 minutes drive and the road that you drove down, you couldn't pass anybody. It was just like one lane each way and you couldn't pass. And so you would drive the speed limit all the way to work and all the way home from work. And that didn't make se

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WHY THE LONG FACE? and THE LONG WAY HOME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, why the long face? This is a question you might ask someone if they look sad. Like if their face looks sad, if they look sad, you might say, hey, why the long face? Now, I haven't actually used this question a lot lately, but I did hear an older person use it the other day. So it might be an older phrase. If you see someone who is the opposite of happy instead of smiling, they have a really long face. Trying to... my acting skills aren't the best. I tried to make a dirty look the other day and I don't know if I pulled that off, but this is a long face. So when you're very, very sad, we say you have a long face. And if you see someone, you can say, why the long face?

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the long way home. Sometimes when you go somewhere, you take the shortest path possible, or you take the shortest way possible. But sometimes you take the long way home. So think about this. If you're going to see a movie, you drive there quickly. You get there on time. But when the movie's done, you might take the long way home because there's other things to see and you're not in a hurry anymore. So when you go somewhere, you go as quickly as possible. But when you're done, you might take the long way home. You might take the scenic route. That's another way to say it.

So to review, if you were to say to someone, why the long face? You're asking them why they look sad. And if you take the long way home, it means you go a direction or you go a way that isn't the shortest, but maybe it's more enjoyable.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. Cool baseball cap and sweatshirt teacher Bob light gray suits you very well. Your style is beyond compare. Well, great example phrase as well. By the way, beyond compare, my response, the shirt is a sunshirt. I like wearing those instead of putting lots of sunscreen on. The hood and long sleeves really help block the sun. So thanks, Ruslan. Yes, beyond compare was the last phrase and great use of it. But yeah, these shirts. Jen and I both wear these shirts. In fact, you can see Jen over here way in the distance. She's planting dahlias, she's wearing her shirt, and I'm wearing mine. By the way, these shirts are nice. You don't have to put sunscreen on when you wear these. And it does have a hood that you can put up to cover your ears as well. So if we're going to work outside a lot, we often wear these shirts.

Um, yeah, there's some chickens behind me. Should I give you a better look? A few weeks ago, we got some fencing. This isn't electric fence. It can be electrified, but we don't have it electrified. And we put our chickens outside. They're in this, which is called a chicken tractor. You might want to call it a chicken coop, but because it has wheels and you're able to move it. For some reason in English, we call this a chicken tractor. So we've been moving this along. We've been using the chickens to kind of combat some of the problems we have. They are loud, aren't they? Um, so they go out and eat something called a cut worm. Jen's very happy about that because the cut worms like to eat the plants and that's not very nice.

So we have this chicken tractor. The chickens, I think, like being outside more than they like being inside anyways. I think they're really enjoying their time outside. They're a little... I hope you guys aren't scared of chickens. They're a little timid right n

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English saying ABOVE AND BEYOND and BEYOND COMPARE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase above and beyond. When you go above and beyond, it means you do a really, really good job. If at work, my boss said to me, Bob, can you work on this project? And if I worked on it for like, ten or 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for three weeks, he might say, wow, you really went above and beyond. You did more than I was expecting you to do. Maybe you're studying for English, and you, one week you decide instead of studying 30 minutes a day, you're going to study for 2 hours a day. You would then be going above and beyond. You're doing more than you expected even yourself to do.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase beyond compare. When something is beyond compare, it means it's just awesome. My sister makes really good desserts, and they are beyond compare. It basically means that no one else I know makes desserts that are as good as the desserts that my sister makes. That was a little bit of a tongue twister. So when something is beyond compare, it means it's like the best. It's like the best version of whatever it is that you're doing or eating or whatever you are not comparing.

So to review, when you go above and beyond, you do more than what people are expecting you to do, or even more than what you're expecting yourself to do. You go above and beyond. And when something is beyond compare, it simply means that it's awesome.

That's. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from... I'm laughing because it's very early in the morning and I kind of lost track of what I was doing. But hey, let's look at a comment from Silvia. Hope you have a fantastic time at the market. The peonies are just gorgeous. And it's incredible to think about all the hard work that goes into growing those beautiful flowers. Jen's dedication is truly remarkable, by the way. Here in Argentina, we do have personal days, and it depends on the jobs and the contract you sign. And then my response, personal days are something new for me. We only started to have them a few years ago. Sometimes I feel guilty taking one, but hey, it's in the contract now.

So, yes, a couple things to respond there to Silvia. The market was good. That was already a week ago now, almost. But yes, the market was awesome. We did well. We really, really enjoyed it. And about personal days, yeah, that is something very, very new for me. Personal days didn't exist till about six or seven years ago where I work. So it still feels a little funny saying to my boss, hey, can I take a day off next week, Thursday? And then the boss just says, okay, you have one personal day left. It's no problem.

But, hey, here I am walking on the path that I created so that we can get down to the river every year in our field. If I turn, you can see where I am on the property. The house and barn are up there. But every year we try to mow a path down to the river so that we can come down here with the dogs, or we can come down here with the kayaks when we bring the kayaks to the river. And it's just a little easier than walking through the deep grass. So I'm just kind of giving you a sense of what it's like for me to walk down to the river on, like, a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday afternoon.

It's just nice to have the grass nice and short. And then we usually also mow this area down here. It's a little brown now, but it will green up again. I think I cut the grass a little short, and the river is a

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expressions phrases TO PLAY DIRTY and A DIRTY LOOK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to play dirty. When you play a game, maybe you're playing soccer or what most of you call football, or you're playing a board game. If you cheat or if you use tactics that aren't good, we say that you are playing dirty. When you play dirty, it means you cheat at something. I'm going to tell you a little story quick. Years ago, I was a defenseman on a soccer team or football team, and someone from the other team got past me with the ball. And so I was chasing him down, and I was faster than him, but I couldn't quite catch him, so I tripped him and I got a yellow card. Good thing it was only a yellow card. But at that point in time, you could say that I had decided to play dirty. I knew that I couldn't catch the person with the ball. I knew I couldn't get the ball away from them. So I chose to do something that would be considered not very nice. And I tripped him. And then he said to me, is that all you got? Which is kind of like a put down to me. I think I responded and said, yeah, that was it.

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So anyways, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is a dirty look. When you give someone a dirty look, it means you look at them in a way where you're expressing that you don't like what they're doing or you might even be a little bit angry. If I was in class and students were talking and I said, please, please stop talking, and they didn't, I might give them a dirty look, like definitely not smiling. The opposite. I would probably look at them like this. That's about as mean a look as I can give. By the way, I think I taught this phrase before. It's starting to come back to me. I think three years ago, I might have taught this phrase and given you the same look. So anyways, a dirty look is when you look at someone and you make kind of a serious face so they know that, that you don't like what they're doing.

So to review, to play dirty means to cheat, or at least to do things that aren't really cool in the game that you're playing. And if you give someone a dirty look, it means you look at them kind of like this in disapproval. And by the way, we usually say to give someone a dirty look. That's the phrase that we use.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Francisco, and the comment is very useful one I don't know exactly how to translate into Spanish, but I got it. Lol. And my response languages are interesting, aren't they? Sometimes something has an equivalent phrase in another language, sometimes not. So that was Francisco responding to the no harm no foul that I talked about in the previous lesson.

So hey, guess what? It is the first day of market today. We are heading off to sell flowers. We are loading the van. I actually took a personal day from work. I don't know if you have those where you are. I'm allowed to take a day twice a year where for no real reason I can take the day off. It's just part of my contract as an employee. So usually on the first day of market of the year and the last day of market I take a personal day. So Jen and I are heading off to market this afternoon. Hopefully we sell lots of flowers.

If you look here, I've been in the peony patch a bit lately. You can see that the peonies are blooming. These aren't quite ready to pick. We usually wait till they're a little bit soft. I think I've explained that before in a video as well. This one's probably ready. Actually, they feel a little bit like a marshmallow. This one is definitely ready. It might actual

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English saying NO HARM, NO FOUL! and the term FOUL LANGUAGE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English saying no harm, no foul. This is a saying we use when we do something that maybe could be bad, but if nothing bad happens, then no foul has occurred. A foul is like a negative thing in life or in a sports game. If you do something wrong, you could get a foul. Let me think of a good example. Let's say I borrowed my brother's car without asking him and I just went to his house. I grabbed the keys, I drove it all day, I filled it up with gas and I put it back at his house later that day. And if he came to me and said, hey, you borrowed my car and you didn't ask, I could say, hey, no harm, no foul. No harm, no foul. Let me pronounce the words right. Basically what I'm saying is I didn't get in an accident. I filled your car back up with gas and I brought it back and everything was fine. So why are you upset? Now, he probably has a right to be upset. If I did something like that, my brother could be upset with me. But you can understand how, because nothing went wrong. I don't feel like I should be... I don't feel like my brother should be annoyed with me.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is actually just a term, foul language. So foul language is simply swearing. In English, we have a number of swear words. I've never made an English lesson about swear words because I don't actually want to say them. I always want my lessons to be safe to use at work, safe to use in schools. But foul language. Sometimes I hear students using foul language. They'll use the how can I describe these? The f word is how we describe the word that starts with f and ends with k. That's probably one of the most common ones. So we refer to swearing using bad words as foul language.

So to review, no harm, no foul is something you say, like maybe you ate something from the fridge at work and then you quickly replaced it before the person knew you ate it. Maybe you ate someone's yogurt and then you quickly bought a new one before the end of the day. If that person knew you did that, you could say, hey, no harm, no foul. I replaced what I took and then foul language is simply swearing. Bad language using swear words.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous viewer or, sorry, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Aleksey. Hi, Aleksey. Hi, Bob. I have a hunch based on watching Jen's channel. If you ask her to find a new camera position, that ugliest place on the farm might turn into the most beautiful. And my response, so true. Manure and compost are gold to a farmer. Jen certainly likes her manure and compost. It really helps the plants grow. For sure.

Hey, what was I going to talk about today? Oh, thanks, Aleksey, for that comment. That's awesome. What was I going to talk about today? Well, I am kind of at loss for words because yesterday I worked one of the longest days I've worked in my life. Okay, not in my life. I'm exaggerating a bit. But I worked from seven six thirty am, seven am all the way till about 09:00 last night. I was still working. Not on YouTube, you can tell because this video is coming out a bit late. But as it gets close to the end of the school year, there are days where... How do I phrase this? I think I've mentioned this before. There's no putting something off till tomorrow at this point in the school year and at this point in the semester. Like, there's things that I just had to do yesterday, on Tuesday. I couldn't leave them for today.

Yesterday, I cou

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expressions I HEAR YOU and I GOT YOU

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase I hear you. Now, this can simply mean that you can hear someone. But we also use this when we agree with what someone said and we want to let them know that we think the same way as them. So someone might say to you, hey, the boss was really mean to me the other day. You could say, I hear you, man. Yeah, he wasn't in a very good mood, was he? Or someone might say, wow, the weather around here is just not very nice. And you say, I hear you. Basically what you're saying is, I agree with what you're saying, and I think the same way I hear you. I understand you.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase I got you. And this is used in kind of an informal way to mean that you are helping someone. Let me give some examples. If I was walking along and I started to fall down, Jen might grab me and say, hey, I got you. Sometimes I hear students say this. One student might say to another, I got you, bro. Like, hey, I don't have a pen today. Someone might say, hey, I got you. And then they lend them a pen. So it kind of means that you're helping someone, you're supporting them in some way. And it's a little bit informal. It's kind of slang, at least the way I've been using it.

So to review, I hear you simply means that you understand what someone is saying and you agree with them. You could say, Bob, these lessons are getting a little bit boring. And I could say, I hear you. I'll try to make them a little more exciting. And the phrase I got you simply means that you are able to help someone. I don't know if I'm explaining this really well. Let me think of another example. If Jen was to say to me, oh, both vans are almost out of gas, I could say, hey, I got you. I'll run to town and fill each van up with gas today.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. It's a little distracting out here today because it's a little bit windy. I don't know why that distracts me. I think it's the little sounds that I hear. This comment is from Konstantin. Hello, teacher. I was once a public, shy person, but at this stage, due to my occupation, I have to cope with it. Yeah, the school is finished in five weeks. Hooray. I'm so glad to see you in such a good mood. And my response, I hear you. If you pick a job like teaching, you just have to get used to being up in front of people from time to time.

Nice use of the phrase at this stage there. And to cope with, by the way. So thanks, Konstantin, for that comment. That was a good one, by the way. Yeah. Sometimes you choose a certain job, and if you pick that job, you just have to be good at being in front of people, or at least used to it. If you become a politician, if you become a teacher, if you become someone who needs to be upfront, that's what you need to do.

Hey, I'm out here in kind of the uglier part of the farm today. I wanted to show you the big pile of mushroom compost. So we use a lot of mushroom compost on the farm. This is what's left over. Oh, by the way, this is the area where all of the manure from the cows used to go when I, when my parents had cows. So if you're wondering what this big concrete area is. But anyways, yes, mushroom compost.

So when they grow mushrooms indoors here, they use a mixture of horse manure and a few other things to make, I think they call it a substrate. There's a new word for you. And they grow the mushrooms inside. And then when the mushrooms... when they've harvested the mushr

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AT THIS STAGE and STAGE FRIGHT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase at this stage. Now, this is something you can use to talk about life. You can use it to talk about a project, and you use it to talk about the part that you're in right now. So here's a few examples. At this stage in my life, I'm really enjoying the fact that my kids are older. I liked having little kids, but it's a lot more work. St this stage in life, it's really nice because my kids can feed themselves and three of them can drive. It's just really, really handy. If you're working on a project and the boss says, how far are you? You could say, well, at this stage, we're just done, I don't know, installing the wheels. I don't know what the project is. I'm trying to come up with an example and that sounded a little bit silly, but your project might have stages. It might have stage one, stage two, stage three. You might even name the stages. So you might say, at this stage, we're working on installing the wheels. Let's leave it at that.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase stage fright. Now, this is a slightly different meaning of the word stage. A stage is a raised area at the front of an auditorium or a place where you go to see a show. And when you have stage fright, it means you don't like standing in front of a crowd. Many people have stage fright. If I need to go and talk in front of the school, it's not too bad. I've done that a lot, but I might have a little bit of stage fright. Certainly, if you're an actor who has to memorize lines and perform them, you might have stage fright on the evening of the performance.

But hey, to review at this stage is simply a way to refer to a moment in time inside of a bigger moment in time, like your life or a project. And then there's stages in it, and stage fright is simply to be afraid to go on stage.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, oh, I printed it really big today. When I print at school, it comes out really big. From Sunrise Wang. The landscape is beautiful out there. And what kind of plant is that under the tree? And my reply, I'm not sure. I'll have to ask Jen.

So let me put this away. Jen told me, I think someone asked this before, so I should have known this, but Jen said, this is a spirea. And I think the particular type is bridal wreath spirea. Has these nice little white flowers that you can see. Very, very cool. So it's kind of fun to have stuff like that here on the farm.

What was I going to talk about today? I was just going to talk about how much I have been enjoying feeling better. If you didn't notice, there was a pretty long break from both channels. I don't know what I had. I don't even want to guess. But, man, I just did not feel good for two or three, almost four weeks. And you know how when you're sick and then when you eventually get better, you realize how sick you were? Well, I certainly was good and sick. That would be a good way to describe it.

And now, man, I just wake up in the morning full of energy. I'm having a fun time through the day. I'm laughing a lot more. It helps that the school year is done in five or six weeks as well. But, yeah, I am just happy to be feeling better. And it's good because we have a lot of stuff to do here on the farm. I love showing people the peonies. If you notice over here, it's kind of fun, eh? How much they grow. It's just kind of insane. And these will start blooming soon. We will have to start ha

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expressions TO GIVE SOMEBODY THE SLIP and TO SLIP THROUGH YOUR FINGERS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to give somebody the slip. If you give somebody the slip, it means you escape. It means for some reason, they were trying to catch you and you managed to get away. You will most likely hear this phrase, to give somebody the slip if you're watching a TV show and the police officers on the TV show are trying to catch a criminal, and sometimes that criminal will give them the slip, the criminal will simply disappear. They'll run down an alley, or they'll go a certain direction, or maybe they'll drive away really fast in their car and they'll give the police the slip. They'll just evade being captured, and they will escape.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to slip through your fingers. When something slips through your fingers, it means it was going to be something you would have, and now you don't have it anymore. It means something got away from you a little bit. And this can be something as simple as a job. Maybe you are looking to get a job somewhere, and it kind of slipped through your fingers. You applied for the job, and maybe they called you back to offer it to you and left a message, and you didn't get the message, and you forgot to call them back, and then it just kind of slipped through your fingers and it never happened. Maybe you were going to buy a car for really cheap from a relative, and then for some reason, you didn't communicate properly, and the whole deal just didn't happen. It kind of slipped through your fingers. So it means that something good that could have happened didn't happen. It just sort of went away. It's always a sad time when something like that happens.

But, hey, to review, to give somebody the slip means to escape from them. And to have something slip through your fingers means that you could have had it. But somehow it just. I'm putting my hand up because it's like when you have sand and the sand goes through your fingers, it's like that thing you wanted is the sand, and it just kind of went away. That would be sad.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. Thank you for the nice, sunny lesson, Teacher Bob. Such a beautiful landscape. It looks like the Shire from the Lord of the Rings. And my response... My response? Yeah, a little bit. No hobbits or wizards around here, though.

No. At least I haven't seen any hobbits or wizards. By the way, if you don't know what the Lord of the Rings is, the Lord of the Rings is a fantasy novel series by J. R. R. Tolkien, and it also was made into some movies. But, yeah, it's certainly beautiful out here today. There's things like this. I'm sure if I was a hobbit, if I was a tiny person who lived under the earth in a little house, I would probably have plants like this outside. I would probably have big trees like this, full of leaves or like this one over here.

It's just gorgeous out here tonight, by the way. I'm out here in the evening. Normally I do these videos during the day, but I was out and about today. One of my kids is on the track and field team. So track and field is where you do the 100 meters dash or you do the long jump or triple jump where you throw the shot put. Actually, you don't throw the shot put. You put the shot put. But I think you know what I mean.

So Jen and I, after I was done work today, we went and watched my son participate. He did okay. He just was one place too low, though, to go on to the ne

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP SOMETHING UNDER WRAPS and IT'S HUSH-HUSH!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to keep something under wraps. Now, if you're told to keep something under wraps, it means you're supposed to keep it a secret. You're not supposed to tell anyone about it. Maybe at work there's a new project that three people are working on and someone tells you about it, but they say, hey, you need to keep this under wraps for now. We're not telling anyone else at work. We're not telling any of our customers. It's a secret project. You need to keep it under wraps. So that would mean that you need to keep it a secret.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, it's hush hush. Now, I did teach this phrase about three or four years ago. Maybe some of you saw that lesson, maybe some of you haven't heard about this phrase yet, but it means the same thing. It means that something's a secret. Let's say I'm planning a party for my mom and I tell my sister, but I just say, hey, it's hush hush. Don't tell any of mum's brothers and sisters yet because we think it might be a secret party. It's hush hush. Don't tell anyone about it at this point in time.

So to review. To keep something under wraps means to keep it a secret. And if you say that something is hush hush, if you say it's hush hush, it means the same thing. It means that you need to keep that thing a secret.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from a viewer. There's no name on this comment. And the comment is this. Thank you very much, Bob. Is it always cloudy like this where you live? And by response, no, but it has been quite cloudy lately.

Hopefully we get some sunnier weather soon and we certainly have that today. It is a beautiful day out here today. It's nice and warm. It's about 20 degrees celsius right now. I don't know what that is in fahrenheit. 52, double it and add 40. I don't know, 70. You'll have to use an online converter. I used to be able to do that in my head, but for some reason it's slipped my mind right now. But, yeah, it's a gorgeous day today. I can actually hear my neighbor mowing his lawn. If you hear kind of a lawnmower in the background, you might have heard that or you might hear that.

So you might be noticing I'm wearing something new today. I don't often spend money, but I bought a Blue Jays hat. The Toronto Blue Jays are the local baseball team here. Canada just happens to have a team in the American baseball League. I guess it's the North American League. Major League Baseball, it's called, and the Toronto Blue Jays are the team that is in Toronto.

Jen and I went to see a few games last year. It was a lot of fun. Baseball is kind of a unique sport. It's not like anything else in the world because it moves a little more slowly than other sports. It's kind of fun to watch a baseball game because you can think for a bit, you can eat a hot dog, you can kind of just enjoy the weather. The times we went last year, we went twice. The roof of the stadium was open, so we could actually enjoy the weather and the sunshine as well. So that was really nice. Yep. I got a hat. I have to wear it in my video so I can write it off as a business expense. Sorry, I'm just kidding about that. But I probably will actually write it off as a business expense now that I think about it.

So anyways, yes, beautiful weather here. It's the third week of May. It feels like summer today. What a great feeling. It's just so nice to be outside a

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Here is the link to Jen's Youtube channel about the flower farm: http://www.youtube.com/@myflowerfarm

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expressions TO CRY WOLF and TO WOLF DOWN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to cry wolf. Now, this phrase comes from a fable, a story from long ago, about a boy who kept yelling that there was a wolf attacking his sheep. And then the villagers would come and help him and there would be no wolf. And he did it two or three times. And then eventually when he yelled wolf, nobody came because no one believed him. So we now use this phrase in English to talk about someone who says something bad is happening when it's not happening. If someone ran up to your house and said, there's a fire in my house, and you went to help them, and then when you got there, there was no fire, and for some reason they just laughed about it because they tricked you, you would say that they were crying wolf. So it's simply a phrase that means someone for some reason, is saying something bad is happening and it's not actually happening.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is to wolf down. Now, I might have taught this phrase before, but to wolf down means to eat really, really quickly. Teenagers tend to wolf down their food. When I was a teenager, if I sat down to eat some hot dogs, I would eat three or four hot dogs really quickly. I would wolf down my food. Basically, it means I would eat as if I was a wolf. I guess if you were to watch a wolf eat, they eat really, really quickly.

So to review, to cry wolf means to say something is happening when it's not actually happening. I can't think of other good examples, but definitely the story of the boy with his sheep and him yelling wolf and the villagers coming to help and then there's no wolf. That would be a great example. And that is where the phrase comes from. And to wolf down simply means to eat your food really, really quickly. Sometimes when I'm hungry, I still wolf down my food, but it's always best to, to chew everything carefully before you swallow it. Wolfing down your food isn't very healthy.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aerosmith77. Thanks for the phrases. Will you ever appear in Jen's videos longer than a few seconds? And my response? Yes, for sure. But at this point it's mostly her because I'm still at work. I'm sure I'll be in here and there throughout the summer.

So, yeah, that was a comment related to, there was a video the other day on Jen's YouTube channel where I briefly appeared driving my tractor and dumping some compost. So yeah, when the summer comes I'll have a little more time to help Jen on the farm, of course, and to do more work with her. And then I'll show up in her videos just a little bit more. And for those of you that don't know, Jen has a YouTube channel. I'll put a link in the description below and you can have a look at it.

So. But anyways, yeah. How are things going here on the farm? Pretty good. It's been a little bit wet. We're mostly planting flowers. We aren't harvesting a lot of flowers yet, but you can see things like where there were daffodils. There are no longer daffodils because we harvested some of the blooms and sold them. There are some really pretty flowers over here, though. I'll show you. I'm not sure what these are called. These are really nice. I know, we'll be picking a few of these. We have some of these out in the bigger field as well. So we'll be harvesting some of

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PULL OUT and TO PULL THROUGH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to pull out. Now, this has a number of different meanings, but the meaning I wanted to focus on today means to withdraw from something. So let's say you signed up to play in a badminton tournament and the tournament is in two weeks, but at the last minute, you might decide to pull out. You might decide to withdraw your registration for that tournament, you might decide not to do it. So in that sense, to pull out can mean to decide not to do something. This also is used to describe things like when a country invades another country, eventually that country might decide to pull out. So if one country sends soldiers into another country, they might decide to withdraw, they might decide to pull out of that country. So it has a couple of different meanings, but that's the meaning I wanted to focus on today. To withdraw or to decide not to do something.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to pull through. Now, this is a very serious phrase. We use it to talk about when someone gets injured. And when we say they're going to pull through, it means that they're going to survive. So it's something you talk about after someone has a really bad car accident. You might say, oh, Joe had a really bad car accident. He's very badly injured, but he will pull through. That means that the doctors think that he will heal the, they'll probably do some surgeries or something to help him feel better. But when you say someone is going to pull through, it's used to describe a serious situation where someone was hurt and they're not going to die, they're going to get better, they're going to pull through.

So to review, to pull out means to withdraw or decide, or to decide not to do something. And to pull through means that you were hurt very, very badly, but, but you're going to get better. So if you were in a car accident and someone said, oh, he was injured badly, but he's going to pull through, it means you're going to get better.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from know that. Hello, Bob. So do you have special clothes for working on your farm, like overalls or something like that? Or do you just use some of your old shirts and pants? By the way, that reminds me of something you mentioned once, that you don't like it when your dogs jump on you in the morning because you don't want your school clothes to get dirty and then you have to change again. Thanks for the new lesson. Bob. Have a great day. And my response? That is correct. I have different clothes for the farm. They are a collection of older clothes and specific farm clothes. Sometimes I wear older jeans that aren't good to wear in public anymore on the farm.

So, yeah, that's a good question. I talk about school clothes and farm clothes, like, without really explaining it. I've just used those terms before. But yes, I do have different clothes. So on a day like this, when I come home, I just come outside in my school clothes. I call these my school clothes to make a quick video for you. But then I will change into my farm clothes later because I have to, I have to help Jen do a few things out here in the flower field. So, yes, my farm clothes, I have a few specific things. Like, I have really good work boots that I use on the farm. I have, most of my t shirts are just old t shirts that I don't wear out in public anymore. And most of my pants are just old jeans that I don't wear. Maybe they have a little

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expressions SOUNDS GOOD! and SOUNDS BAD!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English expression sounds good. Now this is something we say to people when we are agreeing with them. If a friend of mine said, hey Bob, do you want to meet at the restaurant tomorrow at 08:00 in the morning for some breakfast, I might say, sounds good, I'll see you then. Sometimes Jen needs help with some work when I get home from school. And if Jen says, hey, when you get home tomorrow, can you come out and help me with something? I might say, sounds good. As soon as I get home I'll put my farm clothes on and I'll come out and help you with that. I usually don't wear my school clothes when I'm working on the farm. They would get muddy and my shirts wouldn't last as long. I'll talk about that more in a moment.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today, or term or expression actually is sounds bad. And we also sometimes just say, that doesn't sound good. And this is something we say when something isn't good. So if I knew someone who went to the hospital and they needed to get x rays, I might say, oh, sounds bad. Do you think they broke a bone? If someone says to me, I wrote an English test a couple weeks ago, I haven't got my results back yet, but I don't think I did very well, I might say, oh, that sounds bad. Notice sometimes we put that in front that that sounds bad. Hopefully you did okay.

So to review, when you say sounds good, it means you're happy about something, you're looking forward to something, you think it's good. Hey Bob, can you make a video next week for us? Sounds good. I'll get right on it. And if someone says, sounds bad, it usually means you think a situation isn't good. If someone says, there was a windstorm the other day and lots of trees fell over, you might say, oh, sounds bad there. I hope things will be okay. Sometimes the electricity goes out too and it sounds worse than it is, so. But you still might say, ooh, sounds bad. I hope the electricity comes back on soon.

So to review... Oh, did I review already? I think I did, didn't I? Oh, I'm losing track of what I'm doing. Let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let's do that instead. And if I did forget to review, then, oh well, I didn't do it this time. I think I did though. Anyways, it's been a long week. This is how my brain works. This is from Ünsal and Ünsal, I shortened your comment a bit. I hope that's okay with you. It was a great comment. I just didn't have time to read all of it.

Ünsal says hi teacher Bob, all your shirts look brand new. How do you manage to preserve to preserve your shirts for many years? I'm saying the word wrong. How do you manage to preserve your shirts for many years without fading or wearing out? If you don't have several of the same ones, can you share the secret? And my response? I have slowly cycled through some of them, but I do have shirts that are 20 years old. This one is in fact that old. They are good enough to wear underneath a sweater, but not quite good enough to wear by themselves because I usually wear blue plaid, many of them might look similar in my videos. So thanks Ünsal for that.

Yeah, my blue shirts. So one of the things I've noticed is that because I work inside and I'm not in the sun, and because as a teacher, I don't do any physical labor. Like, I'm not lifting things or moving things throughout the day, I think my shirts just last longer. My clothes that I wear on the farm do not last as long as the clothes I wear for work at school. And also, I'm not in

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms SPACED OUT and SPACE CADET

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term spaced out. Now you can have things spaced out. You can see these trees here are spaced out. When Jen and I planted those willow trees years ago, I think they're about three paces apart. We spaced them out. You can also see along my driveway here the little markers so people don't drive in the snow are spaced out. But when you say someone is spaced out, it means that they're not paying attention. It means that things are happening in the world and they are not aware of what's happening. They're kind of thinking about other things. They're a little bit spaced out. So two meanings. One meaning that things are set out in an orderly fashion the same distance from each other. When we put plates on the table, they're spaced out. And then it can also mean kind of daydreaming a lot and not really knowing what's going on.

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If you enjoy these lessons please consider supporting me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadianThe other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the term space cadet. This isn't used a lot anymore, but you might hear it in an older tv show or movie. When you say someone is a space cadet, it means that they again aren't really aware of what's happening around them. A student who's sitting at the back of class and doesn't know there's a test or quiz that day could be called a space cadet. Oh, that person's such a space cadet they never know what's going on.

So to review, when things are spaced out, they're orderly. When a person is spaced out, they are not orderly. They're kind of disoriented and unaware of what's going on. And if you call someone a space cadet, it simply means that they don't... they're not really aware of what's happening around them.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from MRfisheri. Nice sunglasses, coach Bob. And then my reply. Thanks, I like them too. So these sunglasses have lasted a while. I'm quite happy that I haven't lost them. I haven't sat on them. Sometimes I leave sunglasses on the seat in my van. Again, as all of you know, I buy cheap sunglasses from the dollar store. So I'm just very happy that these have lasted so long and they work well on days like this.

This would have been a great day for an eclipse. Unfortunately it was a little cloudy yesterday. Today it's just bright sun. It's a beautiful day. You can see I'm outside in my short sleeved shirt. So that is a big change from a few weeks ago. It's definitely... feels like we're jumping ahead to summer instead of having spring. So hopefully it cools off a bit now, but it is nice to feel the sun on my skin. It's nice to be outside and just enjoy the day. Jen is loving it because she's getting lots of work done on the flower farm and I will be helping her as well a little bit. Anyways, as I was mentioning in my other video, my busy time was last week and a little bit of this week. It's slowly coming to an end and hopefully life just goes back to normal.

I did notice this though. One of my kids must have put extra weights on the basketball net. The basketball net fell over a few weeks ago, in the wind and it's not quite a circle anymore. I'll have to straighten that out when summer comes and it looks like in order to prevent that from happening, this bottom is filled with sand so it should be heavy enough to prevent it from falling over. But perhaps.... Well, it was really windy. I don't see any damage other than the bend like nothing's broken. So that's good. Yep. So I'll just have to straighten that out in the summer when I'm more in farm work mode. The basketball net coun

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So today's English lesson is going to be a little different. I'm going to tell you a joke, and the joke is this, how does the moon cut his hair? I'll let you think about that for a bit. You'll understand why I'm asking this joke in about 3 seconds. How does the moon cut his hair? Eclipse it. And this is kind of a little bit of a play on words. An eclipse is when the moon goes across the sun, which is happening in a few days here. But it sounds like, he clips it. So when you say eclipse it or he clips it, it almost sounds the same. So the joke is just a little play on words. How does the moon cut his hair? Eclipse it.

Hey, I don't have a comment to respond to today. Sorry about that or a second phrase. I just thought I'd pop out and talk to you for a bit about things that are happening. So yes, I am going to try and do a live stream on my other channel on Monday, April 8 about the eclipse. So hopefully you can make it to that. It's not the best time of day for most of you. It's at three. I'll probably livestream from about 03:00 until 04:00 the eclipse will have already started, but I think we have total darkness from 3:20 until 3:24, something like that. So I'll try to start at a good time. I might start a little earlier than 02:00 but it's happening right here. So I'm really looking forward to that. Why don't I have a comment to reply to?

And why don't I have two phrases today? Well, because if you ever listen to my... when I describe my year, this is another busy time. If you want to guess. Why is Bob busy right now? It's midterms. So midterms would be the middle of the semester. That means that I just spent this week making sure all my students had everything graded. I put grades in for midterm grades. I had to write a little comment for every student. That's done as well. So it makes my week a little busy. It's not overwhelming, but it was busy enough that when I got to this point in the day, I thought, you know what, I'll just go outside and tell a joke and kind of explain my busyness.

I used to apologize when I'm busy. I don't do that anymore because many of you have said, don't apologize, Bob, you make lots of really good lessons for us. And sometimes having one or two lessons late or sometimes skipping a lesson isn't a big deal. I don't really like skipping them. But anyways, I hope you're having a good week. I hope you have a good Friday. I hope that you understood the joke and hopefully you can tell it to someone else. And I hope to see you on Monday in the chat. I'll have my eclipse glasses on so I'm not sure if I'll be able to read the chat, but hopefully I see you there. I'll probably schedule the live stream sometime... I'll schedule it Sunday with the exact time that I'm going to start on Monday and be prepared that I might start a bit early. I don't know a lot about eclipses so I'll have to kind of play it by ear. There's a good phrase for you maybe look that one up. I have to play it by ear.

Anyways, thanks for watching. See you in a couple days with another short English lesson. Bye.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FAIR SHARE and NO FAIR!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase fair share. When you get your fair share, it means something has been divided up and everyone got an equal amount. Let's say I'm sitting in my kitchen and I'm about to eat a piece of pie, and all of my children come into the kitchen. I might cut the pie up into exactly eight pieces so that everyone gets a fair share. But that wouldn't actually be a fair share because that would mean I still get a piece tomorrow because there's only seven people in my family. But when you divide something up so everyone gets a fair share, it means they all get an equal amount. If I had a class of 30 students and I brought 90 candies to class, I would give every student three candies and everyone would get their fair share.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase no fair. And we sometimes say, not fair. This is a complaint you make when people don't get their fair share. So if I brought 90 candies to class and gave all 90 candies to one student, the rest of the students would probably yell, hey, no fair. Or they might say, hey, that's not fair. Notice we sometimes use no or not. It does mean the same thing. If I was to bake a pie and sit down and eat half of it, my kids might say, no fair. We wanted some pie, too. Why did you eat half of it? Hmm. That'd be yummy. Apple pie is good, by the way. I don't think I would eat an entire apple pie or half an apple pie. Sorry, I'm getting a little distracted here. Let me get back to the phrases.

To review, when you get your fair share, you get an amount that you think is good and equal to the other people who are getting an amount. And when you say no fair or when you say not fair, it means you don't think people were given what they should have been given. Things weren't equal. Things weren't fair.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit, also known as Aerosmith77. Thank you for the small lesson. It was a nice walk. And my response, it's not the safest area to walk. Lots of big trucks and no sidewalk. But it's pretty quiet, so I wasn't too worried. And I was referring. Thanks, Judit.

I was referring to the industrial park that I was in when I made my last video. And another viewer made a comment, too that I found interesting. They said in their country there would be sidewalks and bike paths in an industrial area. In my industrial area, there are none, which is kind of too bad. It would actually be kind of nice if there were bike paths and sidewalks in that area.

It looks like a goose flew over, and the goose seems to have lost its feather. So I'm not sure when that happened. I'm sure. Oh, maybe this is the goose. Oh, you know what this is actually, you probably can't see it. I think that's actually a bald eagle flying there. It's just a tiny dot in the sky. I'm supposed to report that we have a bald eagle living close to our farm because they're... they're kind of rare. I think they're endangered. I'd have to look that up. Maybe they're not, but I'm supposed to let people know so that they can record that on a map that there's a bald eagle living close to us. But that's pretty cool.

Anyways, goose feathers, bald eagles flying by. There's also some smaller birds flying by, but that's not a big deal. I was going to show you this. You saw this in the video on my bigger channel. My son cleaned up someone's yard for them, and they had all of this wood, by the way... like, this is giant. Like, it's up to

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms TO TAG ALONG and TO PLAY PHONE TAG

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to tag along. When you tag along with someone, it means you go with them. If Jen said that her and her brother were going to see a movie, I might say, hey, can I tag along? I'd like to see that movie as well. So it does have a positive sound to it. When you tag along, it can be a positive thing, but we sometimes use it to talk about a little more of a negative situation when we talk about kids. Sometimes your little brother or sister wants to tag along every time you go somewhere. And that's a situation where you might not like that. If you think back to when you were 16 and if you said to your mom and dad, when you were 16, I'm going to go see a movie with my friends, they might say, hey, can your little brother tag along? Can you take him with. And you might think, no, I don't want my little brother to tag along. I just want to go out with my friends. Maybe that was your situation. Maybe you let your younger siblings tag along. I don't know.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to play phone tag. So I think I might have taught this. Sorry, did I just say lesson? The other phrase I want to teach you today is to play phone tag. I probably said it correctly. Who knows? It means to call someone and leave a message, and then they listen to the message, and then they call you and leave a message because you didn't answer the phone. And then you listen to their message and then you call them and leave a message. So when you play phone tag with someone, when you have a little bit of phone tag going on, it means that you're calling, leaving messages, calling the other person, leaving message, and it just goes back and forth because you never quite connect.

So to review, to tag along means to go with someone. A couple of weeks ago, I made a video at the mall and you were able to tag along virtually. You were able to come with me. And to play phone tag means to phone someone and then leave a message. And then they phone you and leave a message. And then you phone them and leave a message. I think you get the point about what phone tag is.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from ksenom. I... I just wave to people. I don't know who that was, but I thought it would be nice to wave. The phrase a regular haunt was new to me. It sounds like a place where ghosts go frequently. These words I had to look up in the dictionary, toboggan is a sled, finicky, demanding divot, a torn up piece of turf, like from golf and then some life events in my past have also come back to haunt me in the present. But that's another story. And my response, this is a great example of making your own homework after watching a lesson. Great work.

So thank you. ksenom, sorry I didn't read the whole comment. I don't want to take up the whole video. But it was a great comment, and that is a great example of making your own homework. What I mean by that is, when you're done watching a lesson, it's a good idea to do other things to help you practice what you learned. So you made a comment, you made some notes, you looked up some other words. That's all awesome, and I hope a lot of you do that. Anyways, thanks for that comment.

Where am I? I'm in the industrial park. So in our towns, we have different areas. We have residential areas where there are houses. We have commercial areas where you find stores, and then we have what we would call industrial parks. So this is an industrial park. T

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A REGULAR HAUNT and TO COME BACK TO HAUNT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase a regular haunt. So, haunt is a word we use to talk about ghosts. Like, ghosts can haunt a building, but when you say something was your regular haunt, it means it's a place you used to go to a lot. So this used to be my regular haunt. 25 years ago, I played soccer. I didn't play a lot of soccer, but I played on a soccer team, and this was one of my regular haunts. That simply means it was a place where a couple of nights a week, you could find me here, either, practicing my soccer skills. I played defense when I played soccer. I'm making it sound like I played all these sports when I was younger. I didn't play a lot, but I did certainly play on a soccer team when I was.... I think I was 30. It's when I started to feel old. But this soccer field here was one of my regular haunts, a place where I could be found.

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When you say to come back to haunt, we use this phrase to talk about something you did in the past that might bother you in the future. A good example would be this. When I played soccer, I ran really hard, I played defense, and I was always trying to stop the person. And I think now it's come back to haunt me a bit because my knees and ankles get sore sometimes. So things that I may have injured in the past have now come back to haunt me a little bit. Not in a major way. I do know, though, that I used to go tobogganing a lot, and I think from jumping over little snow ramps with my toboggan, it hurt my back a bit. And I think that's going to come back to haunt me someday. It's basically something that you did in the past that might negatively affect you in the future.

So a regular haunt is a place where you go a lot. Maybe there's a restaurant that you go to every Friday, and it's one of your regular haunts. And when something comes back to haunt you, it means that it's something you did in the past that may affect you negatively in the future.

I'm just going to move a little bit before we look at a comment. I'm going to try and get out of the wind. I hope the microphone's working pretty good. I'm going to stand by this sign. I don't know if that will help. We'll see. It might be worse. Who knows? Anyways, this comment is from an anonymous user. I hope you don't forget your tripod. After this short lesson. And I replied, thankfully, it was still there when I got back. Someday I think someone will swipe it. That's another word for steal, by the way. But little do they know it's a bit broken, and only I know the little tricks to make it work right.

So, yeah, that's from the last video. I was in town and I just kind of walked away, right? And as I'm doing right now, I just randomly leave my tripod somewhere as I walk away and talk a little bit to you. So maybe someday someone will swipe it, but it is a little bit finicky. That's a word we use for it. Oh, I'm going the wrong way. I was going to show you something else. Well, we'll go this way and I'll show you. It's like a $30 tripod. It was a super cheap tripod, and if you don't quite know how to use it, it doesn't work properly. But I kind of know how to turn certain things so they click right and stuff like that.

Anyways, I was going to show you this. This is the lock that keeps the park. That's a nice sound, I guess... that keeps the park closed in the winter. So our parks, especially our parks that have a lot of grass and soccer fields, they're usually locked in the winter because you can damage the soccer fie

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms YOU'RE ONE TO TALK! and LOOK WHO'S TALKING!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, you're one to talk. This is kind of a sarcastic phrase that we use to kind of make fun of someone when they're being critical of other people, but they are doing the thing, they're being critical of themselves. That sounded a little confusing. Let me explain. If I was eating a doughnut and if I said to you as I ate the donut, those people eat too much, and I pointed to some people across the street, you could then say to me, You're one to talk! You're eating a donut. If I was to say, people in the world should eat healthier food, and then I started on my second donut, you could legitimately say to me, you're one to talk, to kind of make fun of me because I'm judging other people, but I'm doing the same action myself.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, Look who's talking! This means exactly the same thing. The two phrases are identical today. Well, that is a loud truck, eh? Let's have a look at that. A big truck full of chips. People eat too many chips. And then you could say, look who's talking as I sit at night and eat a big bowl full of chips while I watch a basketball game on TV. That was kind of timely to have a chip truck go by. It's hard to believe a whole truck is just full of chips.

But anyways, to review: You're one to talk! or Look who's talking! are both phrases we use to kind of make fun of someone when they are expressing an opinion that they are guilty of themselves.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Konstantin. Great time, Bob. We say free cheese is only in a mousetrap. Our mowing season is yet to come, but we're getting our trimmers ready, too. And my response, I like that phrase. I'm going to start using it. Yeah, free cheese is only in a mousetrap. That's related to my lesson the other day about how there's no such thing as a free lunch. So I'm just out in town. Oh, by the way, Konstantin, thanks for that comment.

I'm just out in town. Once again, pop out of work. I guess I could show you things like this. This is a sketchy alley, which you may have seen in a previous video. Behind me, though, is a really old building. I'm not sure if that building is going to last. I don't know if it's going to be torn down. This whole area here, let me give you a little bit better. Look at it. Let me spin you and let me cross the street safely here. We'll look this way and then we'll look this way. Look safe. Here we go.

This whole area here, there was a sign up here that they're going to build something here. I don't know if they're going to build some houses or if they're going to do something else, but I think this building, this old building did have a little yellow sign in the window, which usually means that it's going to be torn down. So usually in Ontario, Canada, if they're going to tear a building down, especially in town, they have to tell everyone so that you have time to complain about it.

So let's say I loved this building, and if it was scheduled to be torn down in a year, there would be a process where you could write letters to the town to kind of say, hey, I like that building, please don't tear it down. Or my friends and I have lots of money, we'll donate it to the town to keep that historic building open. So again, I'm not 100% sure. I'm not sure if it's going to be torn down, but I do think I remember seeing that little yellow notice sign in the window a couple of months ago. So m

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DO LUNCH and THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to do lunch. If you say to someone, hey, do you want to do lunch tomorrow? It simply means you want to have lunch with them. You want to go to a restaurant and order some food and sit and eat it together. You could also say, hey, do you want to go have lunch tomorrow? It means the same thing. But do lunch is usually something you say to a colleague, like I don't ever say to Jen, hey, do you want to do lunch tomorrow? But if I'm at work, I might say to someone, hey, we need to talk about this new project. Maybe we can do lunch tomorrow and we can talk about it while we eat. So to me, at least, it's like asking someone if they want to have lunch, but you're kind of talking about work, like a work meeting at lunch.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is, there's no such thing as a free lunch. You can say this other ways, like, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. The way I say it is there's no such thing as a free lunch. And this simply means that nothing in life is actually free, even if it says it's free. If I get a letter in the mail and it says that I'm going to be given something for free from a business, generally there are strings attached. That means they want me to buy something. So when we say there's no such thing as a free lunch, we simply mean, even when something is said to be free, nothing in life is actually free. There's usually something else going on.

So to review, to do lunch simply means to have lunch with someone. And when you say there's no such thing as a free lunch, it simply means that nothing in life is actually truly free.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Francisco Brainiac is also a supervillain in the DC Comics. He's the enemy of Superman and the Justice League. His name is a portmanteau of the words brain and maniac. And my response? Ah, yes, I just looked him up. I didn't realize that. So I didn't realize that. I think I talked about Lex Luthor the other day in one of my videos as being the arch enemy, but I didn't know that there was another one.

By the way, portmanteau is when you put two words together, probably the best example I can think of is brunch. So you take the word breakfast and lunch, and you combine them. Breakfast is in the morning. Lunch is at noon, but brunch is around ten or 11:00 a.m.

So anyways, not sure if you can see the gentlemen working across the river. I will zoom in. But every year they come out with their four wheelers and a little trailer and their chainsaws and they cut up all the wood that kind of floated onto their land. In previous videos you've probably seen the river flooded onto that piece of land and they're out there today chopping up all the little pieces of wood. They'll probably end up using them as firewood.

And it's another beautiful day here, so it's a great day to do that. Jen and I will probably clean up parts of the yard this morning as well. We'll probably try to get things in tip top shape before the grass starts growing soon. Not really soon, but soon we will have to start mowing the lawn. So we do like to clean up all of the sticks and everything else that's kind of fallen onto the lawn so that it's nice and clean when we do start mowing. We actually had our lawn mower serviced. Our riding mower is all ready to go. Blades are sharpened, oil has been changed. It starts up really well and runs really well. So we'll

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms A NO-BRAINER and A BRAINIAC

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term a no-brainer. When we say something is a no-brainer, it means it's very obvious, it's very easy. There's not a lot of thought that needs to go into the decision to do it. Here are a couple of examples. Jen loves growing things. Jen loves flowers. So it was a no-brainer for her to decide to start a business where she grows and sells flowers. She didn't have to think about that a lot. She didn't have to stress about whether she was good at it. She already knew that she was good at it. So it was a no-brainer. For me I always loved computers and still do. And I've been talking in front of people in a classroom for a long time, and I am a language teacher, so it was a no-brainer for me to decide that I should start making English lessons on YouTube. So when something's a no-brainer, it means it's a really easy decision, because everything's fallen into place already for you to make that decision.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is the term a brainiac. Now, this isn't an insult. It is informal. It's not always flattering, but it's used to refer to someone who's really, really smart. So I have a cousin who's a brainiac. I hope they're not watching this video. Someone who's just really good in school, someone who gets 100% on every test, someone who goes to university. We would describe that person as a brainiac. Someone who is really good at thinking.

So, to review, a no-brainer, by the way, did you notice both these terms have the word brain in it? And I think I taught this one a couple of years ago, maybe four years ago. But a no-brainer is something where you don't really need to use your brain much to make a decision. And a brainiac is used to describe a person who's really, really smart. Yeah, I have some really smart cousins on my mom's side of the family. My dad's side of the family has some smart people, too, if you're watching. But there are certainly some brainiacs, a few university professors on that side, I think even some crazy stuff like that.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video from Qiu Park. Amazing spring day. I can feel it even through the screen. Thanks, Bob. And then my response, it certainly is starting to feel that way. If you listen, there's actually birds chirping right now. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be quite nice, like today and tomorrow. I'll use your comment in the next video to remind myself to talk about it.

So yeah, it's really nice out here today. I have a sweatshirt on and I don't think I need it. By the way. I feel like I do get a little repetitive in my videos. I feel like every spring when the daffodils come up, I come out here and show you. So here are the daffodils. They are popping out of the ground. They will start blooming in a few weeks. And then, as I mentioned, if you listen, you can hear some birds chirping. I'm not sure if you can hear it. I hope you can. So all of that together makes it feel like spring.

I'm trying to get closer to this bird here. It's actually up here in the tree. See, how, uh.... How close can I get to it? It's up there on the branch. I would say it's a robin, but I'm not 100% sure. It kind of looks like one. I'm not... I'm not 100%... I'm not a tree expert necessarily. So it's spring. Soon we'll have to clean all the sticks up off the ground. Soon the trees as well.... I'm not sure if I can get to a close branch, but you can see that the trees will soon leaf out. They're budding a

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO EYE SOMETHING and TO HAVE AN EYE FOR SOMETHING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to eye something. When you eye something, it means you look at it usually because you want it. It can have other meanings as well, but usually when I eye something, it means I want it. If I'm sitting in a room and there are cookies on a plate, I will eye the cookies while I'm talking to people because I'm thinking, hmm, those look yummy and I want to eat one. So I will eye the cookies. This happens sometimes at school as well. Sometimes we're having a staff meeting and there will be treats for us to eat when we have our coffee break and I will eye them during the meeting. I'll think, do I want a cookie or a doughnut when we have our coffee break. So when you eye something, it means you look at it.

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Now, the second phrase is to have an eye for something, and it's slightly different. And I think I explained this one in a previous video. When you have an eye for something, it means you're good at it. And we're usually talking about something visual. Some people have an eye for home decorating. Some people are just really good at choosing paint colors and making a room look really good. They have an eye for it. As I said in my previous explanation of this phrase, I think Jen has a real eye for making bouquets. She knows what flowers to put together and how many of each flower and what colors look really good together. She has an eye for it. So when you have an eye for something, it means you're good at something, but it's usually something visual. You have an eye for decorating a room. You have an eye for making bouquets. You might have a real eye for something like art. You might use that phrase as well.

So to review to eye something means to look at it because you want it. And to have an eye for something means to be really good at something visual, something that people can see. But anyways, let's look at a phrase from a previous, uh... let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Mohd Ags. Back to where it all started. Under the backdoor of your van on a rainy day after seven full years Learn English with Bob the Canadian has come full circle. Good phrase by the way. Man, so many amazing memories came flooding back to me. Very cool. My response. Yes, except this time I actually got really wet. When I went back to work, a few people gave me a funny look. I guess I should start to carry an umbrella with my video gear in the spring.

So that's something I don't do. By the way, Mohd. Thanks for the comment. I don't carry an umbrella with me. I should start doing that. I think it's really common in Britain to carry an umbrella. In Canada, umbrellas actually aren't that common, I think, because we're just used to if it's bad weather, you just get in your car as quickly as possible and then you get into your house or get into your building at work as quickly as possible and just try to avoid the weather. Maybe Canadians don't walk as much as they should and so we don't tend to always have umbrellas with us.

What was I going to talk about today? It is spring break for me. As you watch this, I'm making this video on a Thursday evening. I just finished my last day of work and I am now on break. So it's Friday. If you're watching this, that's when this video will come out. My first day of spring break. I'm really looking forward to it. Some people go away during spring break. Jen and I will be going away for a couple of days, but most of spring break we will

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO MAKE EYE CONTACT and TO MAKE CONTACT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to make eye contact. When you talk to someone, you can look directly into their eyes. You can make eye contact when you talk to them. But often when you're having conversations, you do look away occasionally as well. There's a little bit of lightning there. I hope I can get this video done safely. Anyways, when you make eye contact, it means you look at someone. If you look straight at my eyes right now we're making eye contact kind of through the Internet, I guess. In North America, it's okay to make eye contact when having a conversation with someone. In some cultures, it might not be, but where I live, it's common. The way I talk to you on the camera is the way I talk to people normally. Sometimes I look away. Sometimes I make eye contact for a little bit. Sometimes I look away again. So what you see when you're watching these videos is how I actually talk to people.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to make contact. When you make contact with someone, it means that you call them or you text them or you send them a letter. Maybe you have an uncle who moved away and you want to make contact with him to invite him to a family event. You might send him an email. You might send him a quick text on the phone. You will make contact however you can so he knows that something's going on.

Anyways, to review, to make eye contact means to look at someone directly in the eye. Eye to eye. And to make contact means to contact someone.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Konstantin, and it is... Duplex. Looks like a townhouse, but only for two families. Thanks for showing around and keep having a nice, warm weekend. My response? Yes. When there are more than two units, we usually call them townhouses. I'll try and make a video in front of some of them.... ...in front of some next time.

I'm having trouble reading English today, so that's where I am. And the rain has stopped a little bit, so we can go on a little tour. These are townhouses, so every house is very similar to the house beside it, and it's probably a little hard to see, but there are four separate residences in each building. There's a little gap down here that you'll see in a minute, but there's a door here. Number 67, number 65, number 63, and number 61. This whole building, actually, I think there's six in here. Did you see the lightning in the sky? I should get back in my van, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.... There's actually eight in this one. So there are eight separate families or eight separate people, sets of people living in this house. They don't have to be families, of course, and each one has their own residence.

So we would call this a townhouse. I think it might be called row housing in some places, but we would call them townhouses. This one's for sale. If you're moving to Canada, you could move into this townhouse right here. I have no idea how much it costs. I'm going to guess it probably costs around $600,000 or maybe a bit less. I might be on the high side with that guess. So, yeah... Townhouses. There's a whole street of them here. They're considered one of the cheaper ways to buy a house. I know I just said $600,000, but when you're looking to buy a house, often you will buy a townhouse if that is the first house you're buying, because they're on the cheaper side of what houses cost here in Canada.

So, anyways, townhouses. I'll let you see them i

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BUGGER OFF and TO DO BUGGER ALL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to bugger off. Now, this is definitely an informal phrase. You wouldn't use this in a formal situation, but when you say someone is going to bugger off, it means that they are going to leave, and it usually means that you probably didn't want them to leave. A good example would be this. If I had a car accident, if someone hit me, I wouldn't want the other guy to bugger off. I would want that person to stay until the police come. And this does sometimes happen. Sometimes people have a car accident and the person who hit them will bugger off. They'll just drive away. And if the police do catch them, they'll get in lots of trouble. I think having a dash cam is a good way to catch people on camera after a car accident before they bugger off.

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The other phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the phrase to do bugger all. So if someone does bugger all, it means they haven't really done anything. And again, this is a very informal phrase, but if I came home from work, let's say I'm working on a project with another teacher and we are supposed to be doing it together and I do all the work, I might come home to Jen and say, oh, today, Joe didn't do bugger all on the project. He just sat around and talked while I did all the work. So when you do bugger all, it simply means that you aren't doing anything when you're supposed to be doing some work.

So to review, to bugger off means to leave. And the accident example is probably the best one. If I was to get in an accident, I wouldn't bugger off, and I wouldn't want the other person to bugger off either. And to do bugger all simply is a very crude way, a very informal way to say someone is doing nothing. Jen would get really mad at me in the summer if she was working hard and I didn't do bugger all. She would be like, get to work. We got to sell these flowers.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Gabriella. I hope I'm remembering that right. Hello, Bob. This way of teaching by telling your life story is simply fantastic. Thank you. And then a big wave. And my response. You're welcome, Gabriella. So thank you for that comment.

Yeah, I do enjoy talking about myself and I'm glad that you all enjoy listening to me. So, first of all, I wanted to mention something about, again, my life. Can you hear the wind chimes? I don't see them, but there's definitely wind chimes here.

Anyways, the other day, I was bringing my son to a friend's house. That friend lives way down this road. You can see my van there. But that was the other day, and I noticed on this side of the road that there was all kinds of new houses that I had never seen before. So I feel like this subdivision just showed up. I swear. First of all, I don't think I've been down this road for two or three years, and I think that the last time I drove down this road, I don't think these houses existed. I think they were all built probably during the pandemic or maybe a year after it, but they looked really new, and I wanted to show you.

This is what we call a duplex. So one house is on this side, and one house is on the other side. So this garage door belongs to one person. This garage door belongs to another person. And they aren't attached between. So it's one building right here, but there are two houses in this building. So there's a wall down the middle separating the two houses. And you would either live on one side or the other side of the dupl

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE OFF and TO BACK OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the phrase to be off. Now, this has a few meanings. The one I'm going to focus on today simply means to leave. If I said to Jen, I'm off. I'm going to go to town and buy some gas. It means that I have my keys in my hand. It means that I'm about to go out the door and I'm going to drive to town. So when you say that you are off, it means that you are going somewhere. The other day, Jen said, well, I'm off. See you at 4:00 and then I responded by saying, oh, where are you going? And she said, oh, don't you remember? I said I was going to go pick up the kids from school, so I'm off to go get them. So it simply means to leave.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to back off. Now, this can mean to physically back off from someone, but we also use it to talk about if you're talking to someone and it's obvious they're upset, you might back off a little bit. Especially in situations where as a parent, sometimes if I'm talking to one of my kids and it's obvious they're upset about something, I might back off a little bit. Instead of saying, why did you come home so late? I might say to them, oh, you're obviously upset. We'll talk about it later. So I might back off. Instead of saying, you're supposed to be home by 11:00 p.m. You broke your curfew, you're grounded. You can look all those words up, by the way. Instead, I might think, oh, my child seems a bit upset. Maybe they didn't have a good evening. I'll back off. Instead of being a harsh dad, I'll back off. And then maybe Jen will go talk to them about it.

So anyways, to review, to be off simply means to leave. Like after this video, I'm off to town to go have supper with my family. And to back off means to kind of step back a little bit, either physically or just in a conversation so the person has some time to think and calm down from the situation.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. Thank you for the cool lesson, dear teacher Bob, so much snow, it looks like you went beyond the wall, Bob Snow. And then my response, I showed the clip to my mom and she laughed. She loved the snow piling up on my head. By the way, nice Game of Thrones reference.

So Ruslan there, thanks for that comment. Made a little reference to Game of Thrones. I don't know if you've watched that. It was a TV show a few years ago. It's a fantasy show, and part of the show was in the northern parts of that area, there was a large wall made of ice. And then if you went beyond the wall, it was a very scary place. I think there were. Were they called White Walkers? I can't remember. It's been a while since I read the books and watched that show.

But anyways, I'm out here. I'm going to cross the road safely once again, looking both ways twice. Before I cross the road, I wanted to show you that there are tractor tracks here. Farming has begun in Canada. Just a little bit of farming. If you look behind me as I walk, you'll see that every few feet there are tractor tracks. What they've done here is they've done some frost seeding. They probably planted clover in this field. Clover is a seed that you can plant this early in the year and it will eventually grow. I don't think you'll be able to see any. I can see some on the ground here. I don't know how close this camera will go, but there should be some little, almost like freckles on the snow if you can see them. And what those are, are most likely clover seeds. And they will sink through

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BLOW OFF STEAM and DON'T BLOW IT!

So I thought we'd start this video by watching the sander truck go by backwards. We're getting a little bit of snow here, so that's a little bit of fun. So I'll start the lesson in just a sec. Let me get set up. I wasn't quite ready.

Well, there's a little bit of snow on my lens, but hopefully you can see this. In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to blow off steam. Now, when you need to blow off steam, it usually means you go do something physical to relieve some stress you might be experiencing. Here's a great example. If I have a really stressful day at work, I might go for a walk to blow off steam. Let's say at work, I'm not getting along with my boss, and I really like playing basketball. That night I might go and play some basketball to blow off steam. So it's an activity you do, usually a physical activity that helps you to reduce the amount of stress you're feeling. Have you ever exercised when you're stressed and when you're done, you're usually not as stressed. Hey, is the snow the same color as my hair? It probably is. So anyways, to blow off steam means to do a physical activity to help yourself relax, help to reduce the stress that you are feeling.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase don't blow it. So when you blow something, it means you mess it up. So sometimes when you're going to do something that takes some skill, someone might say, don't blow it. It's not a nice thing to say. Basically they're saying, don't mess up. Don't screw up. Don't blow it. When you do that. The very first time I did a live stream, I was a little bit worried. I thought I was going to blow it. I thought I was going to mess up, and it wasn't going to go very well, but it ended up going okay. And the way I look at it is you got to do one so that you can get better at doing the ones that you do later.

So to review, to blow off steam means to physically exercise or do something to relieve anxiety and stress. And when you say to someone, don't blow it, you're basically saying, don't make a mistake for whatever the thing you're doing. Don't make a mistake.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I think this is the most snow that's fallen during a video. I'm kind of cracking up. This is from Tammy. I am prone to eating too much, so I avoid going to the kitchen. And my response that's a good strategy. We try to not buy the bad food so it isn't in our house. But it doesn't always work with kids. Have you ever noticed that? I don't know if some of you are in the same situation as me, but when you have children you tend to buy a lot of snack food. And then at least in my situation, I tend to eat lots of that snack food. But hey, anyways, thanks for that comment, Tammy. That is something I'm prone to do as well.

Anyways, again, I hope you can see this. I see little flakes of snow landing on the lens. We are finally in a winter wonderland again. And you know that this makes Bob very, very happy. I really enjoy a good winter. I was starting to get worried that maybe we wouldn't see snow again. It certainly is nice to get a little bit of snow so it can land on my head and on my face, I guess a little bit. But yes, certainly appreciating this. It isn't so cold that the creek is frozen. You can see some ducks swimming over there.

Actually, you can see one right down here. I think there's a few more coming through, but it's certainly cold enough for us to have a little bit of snowfall instead

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE WIRED FOR and TO BE PRONE TO

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be wired for. We sometimes say to be wired to, but I actually use for more often. When you're wired for something, it means you're naturally good at it. If you think about a professional hockey player, they're wired for skating on the ice. It just seems like their brain already knew how to do that. Like, if you can picture wiring in your brain that tells you how to do certain things, they're wired for it. They're just very, very natural at it. I think Jen is wired for growing flowers. She really likes caring for things that are living, like plants and animals. She's just wired for it. So it means that you're good at something in a very natural way. Like you didn't necessarily just learn how to do it. You already had a natural ability to do that thing.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to be prone to. Now, to me, this phrase sounds similar, but I usually use it to talk about negative things. So to be wired for is about positive things. To be prone to can be negative. Like he's prone to falling off his bicycle. He's prone to eating too much food. When you're prone to something, it means you're likely to do it. And it's sometimes a mistake. Like he's likely to come to class with no pen or pencil to write with. So he's prone to. He's likely to. It's something that will probably happen.

So to review to be wired for something means to have a natural ability to do that. Hopefully you're wired for learning English. That will help you a lot. And to be prone to means to regularly make mistakes. I'm prone to making mistakes when I speak French. Quand je parle français, je fais des fautes. Hopefully I said that right? But I am prone to making mistakes.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. It's a little colder out here than I expected, and I didn't wear my gloves or coat. This is from Dhiraj, I think. Dhirajlama. Very useful phrases. Thank you, teacher. Actually, I have a request for you to make the next video on. Somebody is wired to and somebody is prone to. I hear them a lot, but slightly confused with them. Sometimes they seem similar to me, or maybe I don't have any idea about these two. I would be very delighted if you could work on this request, please. And my response? I'll do that today. Wait, I'll do it today. Not that I'll do it today. See, I'm prone to making mistakes when I speak English as well. Well, thanks for that comment, Dhirajlama. Yes, I did it. I'm done. I made that lesson and hopefully my explanation made some sense to you.

Well, hey, like I mentioned, I'm out here today without my coat on. I probably should have worn it. I think I've just gotten used to mild weather and I just leave the house now with no coat on. But I should have worn it. Anyways, some of you have seen this place before. This is my local community center. I'm sure in your country you have things that are similar to this. Our community center has a walking track. It has an ice rink. It has a basketball court that you can also play volleyball or pickleball on. I don't know if you know what pickleball is. It's a new sport that people are starting to play in Canada.

It has... this section here is actually the library. I'm not sure if I've ever shown you the inside of that, but it is a very nice place. It took a while for them to get all the money together to build it. And they did have to take down the old arena, which is back. It was back there behind me where th

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GIMME A BREAK! and GIMME A SEC!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase give me a break. Which is the short, informal way of saying give me a break. This is a sentence or phrase we use in a couple situations. One is when you really need a break. Let's say Jen and I are putting flowers in the van and Jen is trying to get me to work faster. I might say to her, give me a break. I'm working as fast as I can. I'm expressing my frustration a little bit. I'm expressing that I want to go slowly and methodically. I don't want to go fast because I might make a mistake. So I might say, oh, give me a break. You also use this phrase when someone tells you something that just annoys you. So let's say your cousin likes to borrow things and your cousin hasn't returned all of the things that they borrowed from you and they call to borrow something again, you could say, oh, man, give me a break. You still haven't returned my saw and my hammer that you borrowed last week. Give me a break. This is really frustrating.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase give me a sec, which is short for give me a second. This is simply a way to tell someone to wait. If I was doing something and I felt like I needed to sit down for a bit, I might say, hey, give me a second. I'm just going to sit down and maybe have a drink of water. In the summer when it's really hot, you might hear me say this to Jen, hey, give me a sec. I just need to have something to drink. If you're on the phone and someone says, hey, can you tell me how many flowers someone ordered last week? You could say, okay, give me a sec. I'll look up that information. So it's just another way of saying wait.

So to review, give me a break is a phrase you use to express frustration in any certain situation. And give me a sec simply means that you need a second or two to do something. You need that person to wait.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from.... I think it's from Natalia. Let's see here. Yes, Natalia, this is my guess. The barbed wire is tilted towards the park. By the way, I'm there again, if you want to look, the barbed wire is tilted towards the park, probably protecting the road from animals that might run out of the park. And my response, possibly Jen thinks there might have been a train station there. There used to be train tracks, but they were removed years ago. Maybe I'll go back and investigate.

And so that's what I'm doing right now. If you're wondering what that loud truck noise was, there's a water truck right there that's leaving. Anyways, I am back here, and I think I do have it figured out. I'm not sure what was behind this fence, but it probably was related to the fact that there used to be train tracks here. If you look across the road, you see those big rocks over there? That's where the train track used to be. And years ago, they removed the train track. And if you look behind me, where these houses are, that's where the train track used to go. So I hope I'm not confusing you.

That's why I think we have this really tall chain link fence here. I think it's because there was either a train station or a train refueling station or something here. And obviously a long time ago, because if you look, you'll see that the tree has grown into the fence. And there's another one down here. I'll show you, which is basically part of the fence. So obviously this fence has been here for a very long time. I'm gonna make sure I don't step in any dog poop. T

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A TWO-WAY STREET and THE WORD ON THE STREET

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase a two-way street. Now, the street behind me is a two-way street. You can drive that way on that street or you can drive the other way. But this phrase also has a different meaning. It's used to describe a relationship or situation where things go both ways. Let's think about respect. When two people respect each other, it's a two-way street. I respect to Jen and Jen respects me. In order to be respected, you have to respect other people. It's a two-way street. I think this happens as well with trust. In order to trust someone, they need to trust you. It's a two-way street. You can also use this to describe a situation like this. Sometimes Jen doesn't have enough flowers, so we get some from another flower farmer, but it's a two-way street. When they don't have enough flowers, we sell them flowers as well. So we help each other out.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, the word on the street. This is what we use when we talk about information that we've heard from someone else. It doesn't have to be information you heard while walking along the street, but you could say to someone, hey, word on the street is you're expanding your business. Or you could say, hey, word on the street is you took an English test and you passed it. So when you hear something from someone else, you would say, it's the word on the street. It's what people are talking about, about that person.

So to review, a two-way street is that street behind me, but also any relationship or situation where things go both ways. And the word on the street is a phrase we use to talk about information we've heard or things we've heard about other people.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Andres. Oh, volunteer firefighters. Interesting. If you were a firefighter, were you allowed to interrupt your lesson at school, jump in your car and go to the accident/fire? Will this affect your performance as a teacher? And my response? I'm pretty sure volunteer firefighters have an agreement with their boss that they can leave. It's for the greater good, after all. So thanks, Andres, for that comment.

And I did actually look this up, and it's actually a law in Ontario, Canada. Let me read a little snippet of the law to you. It says, no employer shall without good cause prevent a person who is a volunteer firefighter from leaving for work to attend any kind of fire or accident or other firefighter related incident. They may either leave work or fail to appear at work for those situations. So it's the law. If you're a volunteer firefighter, it means you can get out of work when you need to.

Hey, I'm going to cough for a sec. It's just a little cold out here.

I wanted to show you this fence. I find this fence interesting. We're actually at a park. Okay. But this park has this really tall chain link fence. We call this a chain link fence. And at the top it's kind of bright in the sun there. It actually has barbed wire. This is the kind of fence you would more likely find at a prison. You don't normally find a fence like this at a park. Now you can just come in the park down there. I'm not sure why this fence is here. I have a funny feeling that maybe this used to be something else. Maybe this park used to be some sort of power station or some sort of small water pumping station for the town. And then maybe the park part came later. But yeah,

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AN OPEN MIND and IN THE OPEN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase an open mind. When you have an open mind, it means that you're willing to listen to other points of view. It means that even if you've decided you think something is a certain way, you're willing to listen to other people say that they think it's different. Here's a good example. When I was young, I remember that we had garbage day, but we didn't have recycling day and the town decided that we were going to start recycling. But before that they wanted everyone to come for a special meeting. And I remember my dad saying, I'm going to go to the meeting. I don't think recycling is going to really be a good thing. He was wrong. But I'm going to keep an open mind. I'm going to have an open mind when I go to the meeting and I'm going to listen to what other people say, because maybe it is a good idea. So when you have an open mind, it means you think one thing, but you are willing to discuss an alternate thing as well with other people.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is in the open. Sometimes people do things in secret, but sometimes they do things in the open. A good example of this would be when Jen and I are working at market. We're working in the open. People can see us make the bouquets while we're at market. But the night before, Jen works at home in her flower studio and then she's not really doing it in secret, but you can't see her make the bouquets. Sometimes people do things in the open so that people can see it. Sometimes when they count votes, after a vote, they will do it in the open so that it's all done fairly and correctly.

So to review, when you have an open mind, when you keep an open mind, when you go somewhere with an open mind, it means you're willing to hear a different point of view. And when you do things in the open, it means other people can see you doing it. There's some things you shouldn't do in the open, by the way. There's some things you should always do in secret.

I'm not going to go into too many details, but let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Natalia. Hi, Bob. Do your dogs have their own dog houses or kennels? It should be relatively warm there. And my response, they sleep in the garage at night and on days when it is too cold.

So yes, our dogs, they don't actually have.... well, we had a dog house, but it blew down or it blew away. And we don't have a kennel for them, but they are allowed to go in the garage at night. We often have our dogs in the garage at night. In the winter especially... actually year round, they just sleep in the garage and they both have their own little crate, we call it, which is like a little pen, I guess they could go in, but we don't close the door. And they also can go in the barn sometimes. So it's not the nicest place to go. But we will take the dogs out to the barn and then that's a little warmer for them.

Hey, I'm at the fire station. I've been here before, but I haven't been here for a while, so I was just going to walk up. You can see me in the window. You can sort of see in, in our town, the fire trucks are red. In some towns, in some cities, the fire trucks are actually yellow, but ours are red. And it looks like they're ready to go. If there was a fire or a car accident, that's when our firefighters actually go out. Now, we operate in this town with volunteer firefighters. We don't have full time firefighters, so if there's a fire, they are notified and they

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS and TO JUMP THE GUN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to jump to conclusions. When you jump to conclusions, it means you think something is true before you actually have all the facts or know for sure that it is true. Let me think of an example. Let's say you came to school and you went to my classroom and there were no students there. You might jump to conclusions. You might think, oh, Bob must have kicked all his kids out of class and he's not teaching them today because he's angry. You might jump to conclusions and think that maybe all of my students are on a field trip, but the reality is, the truth is there just wasn't any school today. So when you jump to conclusions, it means you see some evidence or you know some facts and you think something is true before you know all of the details.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to jump the gun. When you jump the gun, it means you do something before you're supposed to do it. Let me think of an example. Let's say Jen was harvesting flowers and she had 100 Lisianthus sitting in buckets here. I might jump the gun and start selling them to people without talking to Jen. So I might do something before I know I'm actually allowed to do it. Another example would be, let's say I was making an invitation to a party and we hadn't quite decided on the date, and we had a draft version of the invitation, and I decide to print it and send it to everybody before actually talking to the people organizing the party. I would be jumping the gun. So when you jump the gun, you do something before you're supposed to do it.

So to review to jump to conclusions means to think something is true before you have all the facts. And to jump the gun means to do something before you're supposed to do it. I don't often jump the gun. I'm pretty good at doing things when they're supposed to be done.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Aquiles. At minute 4:05. Wow, the cat is running outside with that weather. He's not even wearing a sweater. And my response, our cats are quite furry and well adjusted to the winter weather.

So, yes, sometimes people voice their concerns when they see our dogs or cats outside in the winter when it's -15C or even -20C but rest assured, our cats all have an extra thick layer of fur. Our cats grow lots of hair when the winter is approaching. I think it's a very natural thing for animals to do Oscar and Walter as well have winter coats on right now. They grow extra fur, they're furrier and it just helps them be outside. Now we are cautious with our dogs outside when it's really cold because their paws. You don't want their paws on frozen ground if it's -20C. But the cats do live in the barn. They have lots of cozy places in the hay and straw where they can hang out. So it's not too bad.

So anyways, guess what? As you are watching this, I am teaching as you watch this. It's Tuesday today, but you'll be watching this on a Wednesday. It's the first day of classes and someone asked me today if I was nervous for tomorrow and I just said, I'm not nervous for tomorrow, I'm nervous for the day after. The first day of school is rather easy. You hand out textbooks, you learn the students names. You kind of get them enrolled in the different online software packages that you use. The first day of school is actually quite easy and the classes are also a little bit shorter because we meet as a school in the morning just to have an assembly, we would ca

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO FREEZE TO DEATH and TO BE FROZEN IN TIME

Hey, I'm going to start this lesson by showing you how Canadians put gloves on with one hand. You have to use your mouth.

Anyways, in this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to freeze the death. To freeze to death. Sorry, I'm having trouble talking because it's so cold. We use this phrase sometimes to exaggerate. I mean, to use the word death to exaggerate something isn't very nice, but we do often use it in this phrase. For instance, if my son was going outside today without a winter hat on, I would say, put a winter hat on, you're going to freeze to death. I don't actually mean that he's going to die. That would be horrible. And that's something that I don't even want to think about. But we do sometimes use the word death when we exaggerate. If my son was going outside wearing shorts today, I would say, put some pants on. You're going to freeze to death if you don't.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to be frozen in time. When something is described as being frozen in time, it means that it hasn't changed. Probably the best example I can think of is that when my parents lived here, the house was frozen in time. They built the house and then they never painted any rooms, they never bought different furniture. The house was literally frozen in time the whole time that I lived here as a kid. It's hard to hold these with big gloves on. By the way, I'll explain why I'm wearing my big gloves in a moment. But yeah, the house was frozen in time. I think the same was true when I think about my grandparents' house. They lived in a house in town after they retired from farming, and that house was frozen in time. It had old brown wallpaper and all kinds of other things that just made you feel like they never changed anything. My grandpa had the same chair the whole time when I was a kid. I think I'm doing the same thing now. I think my studio office in the house is frozen in time a little bit, too.

Anyways, to review, when you say someone is going to freeze to death, one of the mean it can literally mean freeze to death. But we do sometimes use it as an exaggeration to talk about how cold it is. And when something is frozen in time, it means that it doesn't change.

Now let me see if I can find the comment from the previous video. It's right here. Get my glove back on again. The commemt is from Konstantin. Nice shades Bob, my son's just finished reading Two Against the North. Farley Mowat, Canadian author by the way. And there's an episode where the guys suffer snowblindness due to not wearing sunglasses. Cool story. And the sequel isn't bad too. Keep yourself warm. And my response it can get so bright. Sun in the sky, sun reflecting off the snow. So much light. So yeah, thanks Konstantin for that comment. It can get that bright. It can get so bright. It was actually that bright when I first came outside and it might get that bright again. We'll see as I finish making this English lesson.

Anyways, why the big gloves? Well, it's -17 today and it's windy. This is about as cold as it gets. If it gets colder than this, then I would probably be making the English lesson inside. This is cold enough that when I went for my walk this morning, I wore my balaclava, I wore my ski mask. I'll put a little picture here of what that looks like. And I wore multiple layers this morning. Man, it was a chilly walk. But what was I going to show you? Oh yes, this is a day where it's actually hard to move my fingers.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT'S COLD! and TO STOP COLD

In this English lesson, I wanted to teach you the English phrase that's cold. This is a phrase we use to describe when someone does something that's kind of mean, something that's not very nice. Here's a good example. Let's say your cousin is dating someone and he decides to break up with your cousin. So he sends her a text message saying, I don't want to go out with you anymore. We would say, oh, that's cold. Because when you dump someone, when you end a relationship with a text message, it's very impersonal. It's not very kind or nice. It would probably be nicer to say to the person in person, hey, I don't think it's working out. So when you dump someone, when you end a relationship with a text message, this is a great way to describe it. That's cold. That's not a very nice way to do it, although I hear that's the common way to break up with people now for younger people.

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But anyways, the other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to stop cold. If I was doing the lesson and all of a sudden I stopped like that, I would describe that as stopping cold. Maybe I heard something, maybe the dog barked, but I stopped cold. When you stop cold, it means you stop what you're doing very quickly. When I'm walking outside at night, sometimes if I hear a scary sound, I might stop cold because I'm not sure if it's someone stealing something from the barn or something other weird... or some other weird thing that's happening out here.

So to review, when you describe something by saying, that's cold, you're describing an action by someone that's kind of mean and not very nice. And when you stop cold, it means that you stop what you're doing very suddenly in order to listen or look around or do something else.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, I think, Tara. Yes. In Russian, it's to move like a turtle, referring to yesterday's lesson or the previous lesson, what have you done with the snow? It vanished. Here in Ukraine, everything is covered with snow and it's minus twelve. Well, it's exactly the same weather at my place right now, Tara. It is minus twelve out here and everything's covered with snow. My response is, it's back again today.

So, yes, the snow has kind of come and gone a few times here. And one of the things that I find interesting is I had to find my sunglasses yesterday because even though if you look up in the sky, the sun is not very, very bright. Oh, it's over there. But because of the snow, it's very hard to see. Like if I take my glasses off, I have to squint in order to see the camera. So I dug out my sunglasses. They were in the van, buried under all kinds of junk. By the way, I don't keep my vehicles very tidy on the inside. I've never shown that on camera, but definitely a messy person when it comes to vehicles. So I dug around, I found my sunglasses, and now we're all set.

I know I show you geese a lot, but this is kind of fun. The river has frozen a little bit. I'm not sure how many geese are down there, but it is a lot. So they're standing on the frozen part of the river, but they're also swimming in the non frozen part of the river. Sorry, I stopped cold there for a second because the camera wasn't turning around. So, yeah, our yearly winter visitors, the geese, they don't seem to mind the cold at all. They're definitely similar to me. I'm out here, it's minus twelve. I don't even have a winter hat on. And I'm not cold at all. In fact, on my walk this morning, I had too many layers on,

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AT A SNAIL'S PACE and TO PACE YOURSELF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase at a snail's pace. Now, I'm not going to tell you what this means right away. I'm going to give you a few seconds to think about this. If you know what a snail is, there's a good chance you know what a snail's pace is. So let me just go one, two, three. Let you think about it for 3 seconds. It means to go very, very slowly. If you're driving your car in an 80 kilometer an hour zone and the person in front of you is doing 60 kilometers an hour, would say that they're going at a snail's pace. Do you know what a snail is? It kind of looks like a slug, but it has a shell on the back and it goes really, really slowly when it moves. I hope my mom's not watching this, but sometimes when I ride with my mom, she goes at a snail's pace. She's a very slow and cautious driver, so that's probably a good thing. But when I'm in a hurry, if someone in front of me is going really slow, especially if they're below the speed limit and they're going at a snail's pace, it gets me a little bit agitated. I'm like, just get going, man. It's time to go. I need to get to where I'm going.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to pace yourself. You can pace yourself in a number of different things. If you're running a race and you normally take a certain amount of time to run a kilometer, you want to make sure that you pace yourself and you run each kilometer about the same speed, maybe the last kilometer a little faster. But you can pace yourself doing other things as well. If you're going to eat a big meal, maybe you should pace yourself. Instead of eating really fast, maybe eat slowly, have some conversation, eat a little bit more. You might need to pace yourself to get it done. If you have a lot of work to do in a certain day or week, it's nice to pace yourself instead of working really quickly, just kind of lay out the work for the week in a logical way and get it done one little bit at a time until the end of the week comes and you're done. It's nice to pace yourself.

So to review at a snail's pace means to go very, very slowly. And to pace yourself means to kind of do something in an organized, logical, timely fashion. I had a lot of work to do this week, but I paced myself and I got it all done.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Silvia. Seven years ago, you took your camera and started to make lessons. You have succeeded. You have a special natural style. When I see your videos, I feel like a Canadian friend is sharing with me his daily life. Double dipping is not polite and is considered gross here in Argentina, too. That's from the last lesson. Yesterday's. Yeah. Seven good years. Here's to seven more.

You think I can do it? Seven more years. Can you guys watch for seven more years? Seven more years of me showing you the river whenever it floods. This is a rare occasion. If you look way in the distance, there's actually a lake over there at the provincial park. But the river has almost risen so much that it might actually connect to the lake. Not sure how well you can see this behind me, but it's definitely flooded. If we look over here, you'll see that these trees are actually in the water. So the river has really come up. It's almost touching that big, round, concrete thing down there. That's one of the things we look at to kind of measure how much the river has come up. So definitely flooding.

I'm laughing because Walter was just doing his

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DOUBLE DOWN and TO DOUBLE DIP

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to double down. When you double down on something, it means you work harder at it. This week at school, even though the semester is almost over, I need to double down on some of my work. I'm a little behind in my grading. I have some student work that I need to look at, so I need to double down. That means instead of coming home at the end of the work day, I might stay for an extra hour. Instead of getting up late in the morning, which I never do, I might get up extra early because I need to double down on getting that work done. This is sometimes used to talk about sports as well. A player who is having a bad year might need to double down at practice. They might need to work harder and get stronger so that they can perform better when they're out on the field.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to double dip. Now, when you double dip, you know, when you eat chips and there's a bowl of dip or hummus and you dip, you take a brand new chip from the bag and you dip and you bite half of it and then it's not considered polite to then dip again with the piece that you already had part of in your mouth. I hope that makes some sense. If you take a piece of bread and it's straight from the bowl and you dip it into some hummus and you bite it, you're not supposed to dip again because the bread's touched your mouth. And so we call that to double dip. So sometimes my kids will say to one of my other kids, hey, no double dipping. That's gross.

Anyways, to review, to double down means to work harder. Sometimes when the new year starts, people who like to exercise, they will double down on their exercise and start going to the gym a lot more. And to double dip means when you're sharing a bowl of food with someone and you're dipping chips or pitas or bread into the bowl, you should always dip once and then eat the whole piece of bread. Don't dip a second time. It's considered a little rude, at least in North America. I'm curious to hear what it's like in your country.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ünsal. Hi teacher Bob. I don't know if it's just me, but in the modern age, time passes so quickly and is so inadequate. If it is decided to do something, it should be started without wasting any time. There is truly no time like the present. And my response well said. I agree 100%. 2024 is the year to do the thing you've always been dreaming of. And thanks Ünsal for that comment.

I was listening to a podcast the other day and it was a guy who was, he was 56 years old, or 57, and he talked a little bit about how there's no time like the present because eventually we all get old. And he talked about things like he wanted to go and climb a certain mountain. And he said if he thinks about his mom, his mom is in her 80s, she can't climb a mountain anymore. He's in his fifties and he's still able to climb a mountain. So he said at some point he's going to be the same age as his mom, so there's no time like the present. Eventually he won't be able to climb the mountain that he wants to climb, so he needs to do it now.

I think I felt the same way a little bit when I started my YouTube channel. I think I felt like I really needed to kick out a lot of videos really quickly in those early years because I was so old. I mean, I was 47 or 48 at the time. I wasn't that old and I don't feel old at all now, but certainly at the time I felt like

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THERE'S NO TIME LIKE THE PRESENT and TO BE PRESENT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase there's no time like the present. This is a phrase that we say to people when they're talking about starting something new or they're starting about maybe restarting something. You might say, hey, there's no time like the present. So let's say my brother said to me, I'm thinking of going to the gym again. I haven't gotten to the gym for a couple of years and I'm thinking of going to the gym again. I might get a membership. I think I might do that sometime in the new year. I could say to him then, hey, there's no time like the present. Basically what I mean is, why don't you go and do that today? Why don't you go to the gym today and get a membership? You could also use this when talking about English. Maybe you need to increase the amount of English studying that you're doing in 2024. Well, you know what? There's no time like the present. You could get started today.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to be present. Now, this kind of has two meanings. When I take attendance in my class, the students are present. They even say to me present when I say their name, and it means that they are there. So to be present means that you are somewhere physically sitting or standing in that space. But it could also mean to be listening to someone. If Jen is talking to me and I'm on my phone, I'm not really present. It's important for me to be present when Jen's talking to me, both physically, like actually standing or sitting, but also to not be distracted by other things. It's nice to be present when people talk to you.

So to review, there's no time like the present simply means it's just a little saying that means, hey, why don't you start on that thing you're talking about today? Today is a great day. Right now is a great time to start on it. And to be present means to be physically present, but also to be mentally present, to be paying attention to someone.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video before I get too cold out here. It's a little chilly today. It's minus seven right now. Can you believe it? I have gloves on, but no, toque. This is from Francisco. I need to pull my socks up with my English. I woke up with good intentions. And my response, there's no time like the present. Now, you know where I got the idea for that phrase from.

And it's true, right? Like sometimes it's easy to talk about doing something. It's easy to. In English, sometimes we say, oh, he talks big. If someone says to you that someone talks big, it means that the person talks a lot but never actually does what they're planning to do. With the example of my brother. If my brother said, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to get a membership, I might just say, he's just talking big. He's not actually going to do it.

Hey, another boring lesson out here in my yard. But I did want to show you that. Sorry, I'm using my new camera and I keep pushing the power button to spin the camera around. I did that in another video before, but there are some geese swimming across the river. A little hard to see. I'll zoom in a bit when I do the edit and then if we look over there as well, there are a whole bunch of geese across the river on the neighbor's property. Let's see if we can see these again. Kind of curious to see if my new camera, whether I can do a nicer zoom when I zoom in when I do the edit, we'll have to see.

No, we haven't burned the pallets y

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PULL YOUR SOCKS UP and TO BEAT THE SOCKS OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to pull your socks up. Or you could also say to pull up your socks. Both work. It simply means to work harder and work better. I think I did teach this phrase in a lesson on my bigger channel at one point. But when you say to someone, you need to pull your socks up or you need to pull up your socks, it means they're not doing a good job. It means they're not working hard. Let's imagine a younger Bob working at a greenhouse, moving pots and the boss coming and saying, you're not working fast enough or hard enough, you need to pull your socks up. Or you need to pull up your socks. That didn't actually happen, by the way. I've always been a pretty hard worker, unless I'm not feeling well. I'm usually working hard and usually working fast, but I could imagine maybe that could have happened in the past at some point. I'm trying to use some could phrases for you.

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Anyways, the second phrase I wanted to teach you is to beat the socks off of. When you beat the socks off of someone, it's usually a sporting event and it means obviously that you won the game. Last night, the Raptors beat the socks off of the Cavaliers. They won their game. It was really exciting. They got two new players and it was really cool to see them win. They really beat the socks off the other team. So to review to pull your socks up means to work harder and faster and better. And to beat the socks off of means to win a sporting event handily. By the way, there's another phrase to knock your socks off. If you are someone who has drinks, beverages that have alcohol in them, if the alcohol is really strong, you might say, oh, this is going to knock your socks off.

But anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from sanoakley. Hi, Bob, what kind of breed is the black one, please? Thanks for the lesson, by the way. And my response, he's mostly black lab with a bit of something else I can't remember. I'll ask Jen and mention it in the next lesson.

So his name is Walter. He was just out here with me and he has kind of disappeared a little bit. Not sure where he went. He might not appear in this video. We'll see. Yeah, so he's part black lab and part chocolate lab. I'll try to find pictures of both of those for you. And there's a little bit of something else in him and I don't know what it is so part black lab, part chocolate lab, which is like a brown lab. And lab is short for Labrador, by the way. Oh, I thought I heard him, but I didn't. But that is what he is.

And he also has a good dose of happiness in him. He's one of the happiest dogs we've ever had. He's happy to see strangers. He's happy to see people we know. He's happy to see me. He's just happy all the time, which is good. But you do want your dogs to bark when strangers come as well.

I mentioned in the comments to some of you that we have a little bit of snow here. You can see some over there in the yard as well. As well as behind me here. We would call this a skiff of snow. I mean, not a lot of snow, but some snow. So that's nice.

And if you're wondering what that is, that is some wood that my son brought here that we will eventually burn. It's actually a bunch of old skids. Do you know what skids are? We sometimes call these pallets or skids. And I think he cleaned up someone's yard and he brought them all here. We'll probably burn them later this week so that they are gone. We don't burn a lot of stuff. We only bu

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN A JIFFY and BEFORE YOU KNOW IT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase in a jiffy. This simply means that something happens very, very quickly. It's an older phrase. I don't actually use it that often anymore. But I did hear my mom use it the other day. She said she was going to be back in a jiffy. We were playing a board game and she went to get something out of her purse and she said, oh, I'll be back in a jiffy. So it is something that is still used, but maybe by older people. If you're watching an older movie or an older tv show, you might hear the phrase in a jiffy. When someone talks about doing something really, really quickly.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, before you know it, this means the same thing. To do something very, very quickly. The other day I was at the garage and I needed a new windshield wiper. And you know what? Before you know it, they're done installing that. They do it very, very quickly. I actually went to talk to the mechanic, and the other mechanic installed the wiper before I knew it. So I got to change the tense here a little bit. But he popped the old one off and he put the new one on. Sometimes I do it myself, but with my blue van, it's not as easy as you would think. So sometimes I just have the mechanic do that for me, even though it's an easy job.

So to review, when you do something in a jiffy, it means you do it very, very quickly or almost instantly. And if someone does something before you know it, it means the same thing. When you're in a restaurant, sometimes you order food and before you know it, the server comes back with the food. That's always nice. A colleague of mine went to a restaurant a few days ago and waited 2 hours for his food. That's definitely not quick at all.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis. I miss the old days when I could learn English with short lessons and then the little, few dots at the end and then my response, I'm back.

Yeah, thanks, Denis, for that comment. It's been a while, hasn't it? It has been a while since I have made little short lessons on this channel. And many of you have told me before, don't apologize when you take a break. But I do feel a little bit bad. But it's nice to be back at it. It's nice to be doing it again. It's nice to come outside on a rainy December day. It's kind of strange. And to make a little lesson for you and teach you a couple of phrases. My plan is to keep going from now on.

I think that I have started doing everything again. I've done live streams again. I've started walking quite regularly again. I'm caught up on all my schoolwork, and I think it's time for this channel to start rolling again. So you'll get a lesson today. It's Friday today that you're watching this. I'm making it on a Thursday, by the way. And as well, next week, Wednesday, and Friday. For the foreseeable future, you should be seeing lessons.

Hey. Yeah, so no snow. If you've been watching my other videos, you've seen that we did get snow one day. That was kind of nice. But we're kind of in this zone right now. It's flooding. It's December 28 today, and the river is flooded. In fact, way over there, I have a nice field of wheat. And there were Canadian geese eating my wheat this morning. I didn't like that. I was about to go out there with Walter and Oscar to chase them away. But, yeah, it's just that kind of year.

I can show you this direction as well. If you watch my videos a lot, y

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In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to shake things up". When you shake things up, it means that you change things. Sorry, Walter just came running here. There he is. That scared me a little bit. I don't know if I jumped or not, but anyways, when you shake things up, it means you change things, hopefully so things get better. Here's a good example. I watch the Toronto Raptors and last year they decided that they were going to get a new head coach. They wanted to shake things up a bit. They also got rid of one or two players to shake things up a bit. So they changed things so that hopefully this year the team has a winning season. You might have this happen at work. Sometimes at work you might come in and they'll say, yep, Jim and Joe are gone. The boss fired them because the boss wants to shake things up a bit. I think I use a bit a lot when I use that phrase. They want to shake things up a bit. So it means to make a change.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to shake on it". When you shake on something, it means you agree on something. It means you actually shake hands with someone. I have someone coming to look at a water pump tonight and hopefully they want to buy it. And hopefully we can shake on it when we agree on a price.

So to review when you shake things up, it means you make changes to something, hopefully so that things go better. And when you.... To shake on it means that you shake hands with someone after you agree to do something.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I hope this guy doesn't show up while I'm making this English lesson. This is from Andres. Mr. Bob, does YouTube provide you with metrics about how many users watch 10 seconds of your videos and how many users watch the entire video? And my response yes, although I don't usually pay it much attention, I make the video to satisfy a need. It doesn't matter to me how long people watch it for, so I can't see how long specific people watch it for. I do know that people watch about 60% to 70% of my videos before they give up and decide to do something else. But what that actually means is that most people watch the whole video and some people only watch the first 40% or 50%. I don't know the details, but anyways, yes, I do see metrics, but I do not pay a lot of attention to them because I just like making the video.

Hey, this is the pump. Do you think someone will buy it. We bought a different pump this year. We have two irrigation pumps. We bought an irrigation pump that has a pressure regulator on it so it turns on and off automatically. That pump just pumps water. It doesn't turn on and off. It just pumps water. As long as it's on, it's pumping water until you unplug it. But we like to use pumps where when it gets up to 50 psi pounds per square inch, the pump turns off.

So I'm actually waiting right now. The guy said he would be here around 5:30. It's 5:25 right now. And I thought, well, I'll kill two birds with 1 stone. I'll go outside and make a video while I'm waiting for him to show up. And then when he arrives, we'll have a look at the pump, and hopefully he offers me a price that we agree on and we can shake on it. And then hopefully, he gives me some money and he takes the pump away. I always like to sell things that I'm not using anymore because there's really no point in keeping things that you don't need otherwise, they just sit in your shed or sit in your garage. and kind of waste away.

So, anyways, thanks for watching this short English lesson. I'll see you in a few days with ano

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE IN THE KNOW and FOR ALL I KNOW...

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to be in the know". When you are in the know, it means that you know something is going to happen. Here's an example. If I was planning a surprise birthday party for my mom and if someone said, who all knows about this? I could say, well, my brother and sister are in the know. That means that they know that this party is going to happen. Maybe you're helping plan something at work and it's a top secret project and only certain people are supposed to know about it. Only certain people are allowed to be in the know about the project. That means you would have to make sure that you don't talk to the people you shouldn't talk to about the secret project.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is "for all I know". This is a phrase we use before we say something that we're not sure about. For all I know, it could snow tonight. I haven't checked the weather. I don't have enough information to actually know if it's going to snow tonight. So I could start that phrase by saying, for all I know, it could snow tonight. For all I know, some of you only watch the first 10 seconds of my videos. I don't actually know if you watch the entire lesson. For all I know, maybe you just watch the first little bit and think, this one seems a little bit boring.

So to review to be in the know means that you do know about something that's going to happen, and it kind of implies that there's people who don't know what's going to happen. And for all I know is a phrase we use to introduce something that we're not sure about. For all I know, these leaves might all blow away tonight if it gets windy. I don't know if it's going to be windy or not, but it might be.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Tammy. Yes, you always go to great lengths to make online lessons for us and all your lessons are a token of generosity. Thank you for your hard work. In my response, I do my best, but oddly, I just took a huge break on this channel. I'm back at it now.

So yeah, I took a little bit of a break. Many of you have told me, I'm just putting the comment back in my pocket. Many of you have told me, don't apologize when you take a break, that I deserve to take breaks once in a while. So I'm not apologizing this time, but man, that was a long break. It was a week and a half, I think. But I got lots of work done. I'm in kind of a little bit of the tail end of a busy stretch at work.

I do have parent teacher interviews tonight. We sometimes call these learning conferences as well. So I do have to go back to school. I'm just home to make this video and have a little bit of supper and then I'll head back in. I've talked about parent teacher interviews before. This is where parents and sometimes students come in to talk about their learning. We're at about the midway point of the semester. I do work in a semester system, we would call it. So we're at the halfway point.

Grades went out last week, so students are aware of how well they're doing in their classes. But yeah, tonight. But I only have three, so maybe that means I'm doing a good job. Maybe that means no one wants to talk to me. I don't know. By the way, I think there's like 15 time slots and I only have three interviews tonight. So my colleagues are a little jealous. Some of them have a full slate this evening. That means they have interviews from, like, I think, seven till nine and I just need to go in at ten to

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE GREAT OUTDOORS and TO GO TO GREAT LENGTHS

In this English lesson. I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "the great outdoors". Well we're in it. We're in the great outdoors. This is simply a fun way to refer to being outside in nature. When I made my video on my other channel the other day, I was in the great outdoors. I went for a hike. It was a lot of fun. It's fun to be in the great outdoors. And we use this phrase a lot. We'll say things like, oh, it's nice to be out in the great outdoors. I love to go camping in the great outdoors. I love to go hiking in the great outdoors. I love to go fishing in the great outdoors. All very common ways to talk about being outside in nature. And why do we say it? I don't know. Because it's great. I think that's my simple explanation. It's great to be outside. It's great to be in the great outdoors.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to go to great lengths. Now, when you go to great lengths to do something, it means you work extra hard and extra long and you focus on it really, really precisely and strongly. When I plan my lessons, I go to great lengths to make sure the lessons are good. I come up with the idea. I usually make a whole list of notes. I highlight all the words that I want to teach in the lesson, and then I take my paper with me because I like to go to great lengths to make sure that the lesson is done well and that all of you benefit from it.

So to review, the great outdoors is simply this. I'm in the great outdoors right now and it's really nice. And to go to great lengths means that you just work really hard. You put a lot of effort into something to make sure it is good. I go to great lengths to make lessons that I can do outside or in other places. I go to great lengths to make sure that happens.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I know I seem distracted. There's sounds around me, but you can't hear them probably. I'm not sure what they are. Like a clunking sound. I should do that lesson on sounds at some point, shouldn't I? This is from Ricardo. The good mood is directly related to the brightness. It is a kind of chain reaction. The blue sky implies the sun. The sun implies vitamin D in our body, and the vitamin D contributes to generating endorphins. And eventually these give us a feeling of happiness. Closed circle. And my response, I guess there is an explanation for it.

And I think Ricardo is referring to how when you are outside, it is nice and beautiful and awesome and you just feel better. And a lot of that is because of things like the blue sky, the fresh air just being away from the sounds of traffic, although I can hear a large dump truck going by right now. So thanks, Ricardo, for that comment.

It is nice to come outside and get some sunshine, to get some fresh air and to allow my body to make some vitamin D. It's one thing that here in Canada, people often take vitamin D supplements in the winter. We're close to the time of year where the days are the shortest. We're about a month and a half away from the shortest day of the year. Not my favorite day. It will start to get dark at like 4:30 in the afternoon. Something that I guess for me is normal, but I guess in some parts of the world that would seem really, really strange.

But I guess on the flip side, in the summer it's light out till 10:00 at night in June. So, yeah, you get, what is it, six of one, half a dozen of the other. I think that might be the English phrase. You get a little bit of both. So I

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE FOR GRANTED and TO BE TAKEN ABACK

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to take for granted”. Now you can take something for granted, or you can take someone for granted and it means you don't recognize or notice them. Here's a great example, and it's coming up in the comment later. The sky where I live is very, very blue, but sometimes I take that for granted. That means I don't always notice how blue the sky is behind me. My mom worked really hard when I was a kid to feed us and make sure we had clothes and all the things that moms do. But I kind of took her for granted in the past tense. When I was a kid, I didn't really notice all the work that my mom was doing. So when you take something or someone for granted, it means you just don't notice how cool that thing is or how cool that person is.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase “to be taken aback”. When you're taken aback, you're I'm kind of acting it out. You don't actually back up like this, but when you're taken aback, it means you're surprised or shocked about something. You might go to buy a new car and then you're taken aback at how much the car costs. Maybe I was taken aback the other day at the gas station because the gas was $1.38 the Thursday before the long weekend, and then it was $1.62 on the long weekend, the Thanksgiving long weekend. So I was a bit taken aback by the high gas price because when I had driven by the day before, it was much lower.

So to review, when you take something or someone for granted, it means you don't notice how awesome that thing is or that person is. And to be taken aback means to be surprised or shocked at something that you see.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Know that and Know that says I would say that you are always well framed in your videos, Bob, even without adjusting anything on your camera. But I think after so many years and experiences making videos, you have developed a natural feeling when you are not. And by the way, the background at the end of the video is breathtaking. The landscape, especially the sky with the clouds and the sun looks really amazing. Thank you for the new lesson. It's always a pleasure to watch. I wish you a wonderful day Bob.

And my response? It's... It really is a time of year when the sky looks amazing. Well, not today, I take it for granted usually because I see it every day. Sometimes our international students at school will comment on how blue the sky is in Canada. I'm sure it's the same way in most rural locations around the world. But in the big cities, maybe not so much.

So thanks Know that for that comment. Yes, I think the sky does look amazing behind me most days, and I think I do take it for granted quite often. And honestly, I didn't realize it until I started making these videos and until we started getting international students at our school.

Some of our international students, they come from really, really big cities in other countries, and they come from some cities where there's lots of pollution and the sky doesn't look as nice as it looks out in the countryside. For those of you that live out in the countryside, you probably enjoy the same clear blue skies that I do.

They're quite nice, but today, as I mentioned, it's a little different. It's just a little bit overcast. It's kind of a gray, dull day. It's spitting a little bit out here. Let me see if I can get to a puddle and I will show you. And

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DILLY-DALLY AROUND and TO ASK AROUND

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to dilly-dally around." Now, this is an older phrase, and you won't hear it very much anymore, but my mom said it the other day. My mom said that when she goes down for lunch, she lives in an old age home, she doesn't dilly-dally around. She just goes down as quickly as possible, because if she dilly-dallies around, she doesn't get there in time, and she doesn't get the good food, or something like that. So hopefully you can understand that to dilly-dally around means to not move quickly. It means to just kind of be lazy for a bit or not in a hurry. Jen and I don't often dilly-dally around when it's market day. We usually load the van and Jen gets there as quickly as possible. When my workday ends, I don't dilly-dally around on market day. I usually get there as quickly as I can to help Jen sell flowers.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to ask around." When you ask around it means you need to know something, and you ask a whole bunch of different people about it. So you go and maybe you ask your neighbor, maybe you ask your other neighbor. Maybe you ask a relative. If I was at market again and if someone said, "Is someone here selling garlic?" I might say, "I don't know, "but if you ask around, maybe you'll find someone who is." So it just means to ask a whole bunch of different people.

So to review, "to dilly-dally around" means to be lazy, to not be in a hurry, to be in no rush to do something or get somewhere, and "to ask around" simply means you have a question and you just ask a whole bunch of different people.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I'm not sure if I'm framed the way I normally am. Maybe that's a little bit more normal. It's taking some getting used to here. This comment is from Patrick. "I enjoy lessons like this, where phrases like 'back up to speed' pop out naturally. "My students enjoy them too." And my response, "That's why I like the last two minutes of each lesson, because even I don't know "what I'm going to say. "It's very natural."

Yeah, I haven't at any point sworn in a video though, have I, so that's pretty good. But hey, I wanted to show you something interesting about this time of year. If you look down here, you'll see the grass is turning yellow, and these flowers over here definitely are saying that it is fall. They're definitely saying that it's not summer anymore.

But if we go over here, it's kind of interesting, these dahlias, let's spin you around again, these dahlias are going strong we would say. In fact, they're doing so well that we aren't even harvesting all of them anymore to sell them. By the way, we usually don't harvest them when they're this big. We usually harvest them when they're like this, or like this, or like these over here. But definitely, the dahlias are going strong and doing well. There's another phrase that just popped out, and Jen and I are still harvesting and selling. It's kind of odd. It's almost the middle of October and we are still harvesting flowers and selling them, so that's nice, 'cause the year was a little weird earlier.

We also have things like this that were ready a little bit too late. This is a variety of broom corn, and you can see it's a little bit green. We like it when it is more, let me see if I can find one, more like this. And we didn't have a lot of this ready for the last market last week. By the way, in this lesson, I mentioned th

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE ALL OVER SOMETHING and ALL OVER THE PLACE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to be all over something”. Now, in English, when you say that you're all over something, it means you know a lot about it. Or it means at work that you're doing the job you're supposed to be doing. If my boss said to me, Hey, we need someone who knows a lot about computers, I could say, Oh, Dan is all over that. He knows a lot about computers. I could also, if my boss said to me, Is someone organizing the field trip, I could say, Oh, I'm all over that. Meaning that I'm the person who's responsible for doing it. So it kind of has two different meanings.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "all over the place". When something is all over the place, it's everywhere. Sometimes Walter gets into our recycling bin, and then the next morning there is recycling all over the place. He has taken the recycling out during the night and chewed it up and spread it around our lawn. And then I have to clean it up because there's just recycling all over the place. That is never a fun situation.

So to review, to be all over something means either to know a lot about something, to be an expert in that field, or it can mean that you're on top of it. You're directing a project or doing a project, and you have everything going the way it's supposed to go. If I had to organize a field trip, I would be all over it. I would phone the company where I have to rent busses. I would make sure that I sent a letter home to parents. I would be all over organizing that trip.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Dulio, I believe. Let me check here. Yes, Dulio. Hello, teacher Bob. How have you been? Good. I wanted to know if Canada is also facing the same scorching heat wave that we have that we do now here in South America. Have a great weekend. And my response? We did have some pretty hot weather a couple of weeks ago, but lately it has been really nice. Highs around 20 degrees Celsius during the day and about ten or 15 at night. I hope your heat wave has passed.

Heat waves are not fun like we had a heat wave the first week of school and that was not enjoyable at all. The heat wave was it was 32 degrees Celsius every day, which doesn't sound very high. It's probably much warmer where you guys are. And then at night the temperature didn't drop. That sometimes makes it worse when the temperature doesn't drop at night, it can be a little more challenging.

Well, hey, I'm using my new camera today. I know I was going to be using my phone, but I kind of decided after playing around with an action camera that the new DJI Action 4 might be a better camera for what I want to do. It has a wider field of view. Things in the background should be much crisper than when I was using my DJI Pocket 2. That's what I normally use to make videos on this channel.

The screen's bigger on the front, so I can see it a lot better. You won't see me like, squinting and trying to see how many minutes I have left. I know that I've been recording for exactly 3 minutes and 16 seconds and that I can record for a bit more. It also allows me to do this, to walk towards the camera. I was never really able to do this. Now you might be wondering, what if I want to turn you around and show you the driveway while I can still do that. I don't think that was that much different than what I used to do with my other camera. Just a little bit more of a manual turn.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SPREAD THE WORD and SPREAD OUT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase. “Spread the word!” Now, this is something we tell people when we want them to tell other people about something. Every year the farmer's market opens at the beginning of June and we tell people, Spread the word. The first day of the market is June 2nd or something like that. Spread the word. This means that we want people to tell other people that the market is starting. I recently started uploading English lessons to a website called Bilibili in China, and in the comments I keep telling people to spread the word so that everyone in China will know that they can watch my videos on my channel instead of all the other channels where my videos happened to be... it’s always ah... an interesting thing when I see that.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase “spread out”. When you tell someone, a group of people, to spread out. It means they're all standing really close together and you want them to stand further apart. I do remember my physed teacher, my physical education teacher, saying this a lot in physed class. At the beginning he would say, Spread out, and then we would all stand, I think, arm length apart for our warmup exercises. I don't really remember what those exercises were.

Anyways, when you tell someone or a group of people to spread the word, you want them to tell everyone they know about something important. When you tell a bunch of people to spread out, it means you want them to stand far from the people around them. By the way, you can also use this verb for other things. You can spread things out on your table when you get home from grocery shopping to see what you've bought. And there's other uses as well.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Claudia. And the comment says, You can tell I printed this at school again, It's on a gigantic piece of paper. Every morning we have the most beautiful class where we can better ourselves learning English and enjoying amazing landscapes. Thank you a lot. Teacher Bob, it makes my day and my response. You're very welcome, Claudia.

So, yes, amazing landscapes sometimes, but sometimes I'm just standing in front of a place like this where I'll show you in a sec what they do here. I have to look both ways before I cross the railroad tracks, though there's usually never any trains coming. Railroad tracks in this town aren't used very often anymore, but you can see behind me that they have lots of wood and lumber here. But it's all put together into what are called trusses. When they build houses in Canada, when they build the roof, they put trusses on. So a truss is an engineered product that they stand every 24 inches apart or every 16 inches apart. And then it makes a really, really strong roof.

So this is actually a place where they make trusses. My uncle actually used to work there. He was really good. He ran the whole truss making division. He was really good at getting people to be very efficient. I'm not sure if he was a good boss. He was certainly an effective boss, but he could get people to make trusses really fast and he could get them to do a really, really good job as well. I think usually what he did is to have each area that was making trusses compete with each other to see who could build the best trusses and who could build those trusses the fastest.

Anyway, once again, I'm on the train tracks. I'll just show you again that I'm not in danger here. You

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BETTER YOURSELF and BETTER OFF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to better yourself”. When you better yourself, it means you do something that makes you a better person. Sorry, I'm defining the phrase by using a word in the phrase. That's not a good way to do it. Let's say you don't have a very good job. You might decide to go to school at night to better yourself so that you can get a better job. You might go to school so that you know more so that you have a better chance of getting a better job. I'm using the word better a lot aren’t I... to describe this. Let me think of another example. You're actually doing this right now. You've decided to better yourself by learning the English language. Learning a language is not an easy thing to do, but as you become more and more fluent, you have better job opportunities. You might be able to visit another country and speak the English language. You're definitely doing something that will better yourself.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase “better off”. So this is when you're just... I keep using the word better, but let's say you were dating someone and that person wasn't a very nice person. And eventually you broke up. A friend of yours might say, Hey, you're better off without that person. It simply means that your life is going to be happier. Your life is going to be a lot more fun if you aren't dating that person. I'm better off when I don't eat a lot of food on the weekend. I find that as the weekend goes by, I eat a lot of cake and I... I go to places where there's lots of food, but I'm better off not eating a lot of food. I'm better off just standing and saying, You know what? I'm just going to have a small stack to... snack today, not a big one, because I'm better off not eating a whole bunch of food.

So to review “to better yourself” simply means to do something so that you are more educated or you know more or you're kinder. You do something to make yourself a better person. And when you're better off, it simply means that the situation you are in is more pleasing than the situation you were in. It's hard to define this without using the word better. I should probably do a whole English lesson on that word.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from fellow teacher Konstantin. Nice spacey classroom you have. Not all of ours are so vast and echoey. Pretty handy, by the way, as you don't have to repeat some words and phrases to your students. Echo does it for you. Cheers, teacher. And my response? Yeah, it is quite echoey. It's much better when the students are there. 30 students with their backpacks helps deaden the echo quite a bit.

So thanks Konstantin, for that comment. We have a variety of classrooms I just happened to have, I think one of the nicer classrooms, the building I'm in or the part of the building I'm in doesn’t look great from the outside... kind of looks like a barn, actually
from the outside. It doesn't look like a school, but the classrooms are actually the biggest classrooms in the school. So I'm kind of lucky because I get one of the bigger classrooms and yeah, and there's no one above me. It's a single floor. So I don't hear like students above me. In the other part of the school, there's two stories and then if you have a class above you, sometimes it's really, really loud.

Well, hey, we're uh... we're not winding down the flower farm. We're not wrapping things up for the season yet, but we're getting clos

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO RACK YOUR BRAIN and TO PICK SOMEONE'S BRAIN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to rack your brain”. When you rack your brain, it means you're trying to remember something. Sometimes, when summer ends and school starts again, I run into students on the first day or during the first week of school, and I have to rack my brain a bit to remember their name. Sometimes this happens at market as well. Customers who we get to know over time and whose names we know. Sometimes when the market season starts, we have to rack our brains to remember who they are. So when you rack your brain, it simply means you're trying to remember something. You know that you know it, but you just can't quite remember it. When you're speaking English, sometimes you might need to rack your brain to remember a word that isn't coming to you when you're having a conversation.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase “to pick someone's brain”. This is when you ask someone for advice about something or ask someone what they think about something. Maybe I want to buy a new car and my friend is an expert on cars. I might want to pick his brain. I might say, Hey, can I pick your brain for a bit? Give him a phone call and say, Can I pick your brain? I'm thinking of buying a new car. What do you think of this one? And then he might tell me. So when you pick someone's brain, it means you ask them for advice. You ask them for information, or you ask them what they think about something.

So to review, to rack your brain simply means to try and remember something. You probably have this every once in a while, and to pick someone's brain means to ask them... again... ask them for advice, ask them what they think, ask them for their opinion on something.

But let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from nucleonord. When the COVID 19 outbreak started, buckwheat, sugar and toilet paper were flying off the shelves. In addition, protective masks were selling like hotcakes, at least in Russia. And my response, we had the same thing here with toilet paper. It was a bit of a panic. Thankfully, it slowed down. The strange thing is that Canada produces a huge amount of toilet paper and so I'm not sure why people were so worried.

So thank you for that comment. And by the way, excellent use of both phrases “to fly off the shelves” and “to sell like hotcakes”. So yeah, I did find it a little confusing. Canada, I looked it up. We are the sixth biggest producer and exporter of toilet paper in the world. So when the pandemic started, I'm not sure why people were so worried about running out of paper. We literally produce it in mass quantities, like we produce a lot of it.

Hey, I'm in my classroom. It's a little echoey. I'll try to fix the audio for you. It's early morning, so students have not arrived yet. And I just thought I would show you again what my classroom looks like. Some of you have seen this before, especially if way back when you used to watch the livestreams that I used to do in this room. But yeah, I'm set up for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So I have enough room here for 28 students. My largest class is close to that. I think I have 27 in my largest class. And then my other class is quite small. I only have nine students right now, which is a little abnormal. Generally, our classes are anywhere between 15 and 30 students. I know next semester I have a class with, I think 30 students in it.

Um, got my projector fired up over the

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO FLY OFF THE SHELVES and TO SELL LIKE HOTCAKES

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to fly off the shelves”. If you are in a store and they are selling something, maybe it's on sale and people are just grabbing it and buying it as fast as they can, we would say that that product is flying off the shelves. Sometimes at market we bring a certain kind of flower that people really like and it will just fly off the shelves. So the phrase to fly off the shelves simply means when something sells really, really quickly at a market or in a store or in a shop. We're really happy when our flowers fly off the shelves. It's a nice feeling when there's people lined up to buy them.

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The other phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase “to sell like hotcakes”. Now, you should go and watch Brent's video. I'll put a link up here or here. I don't know where it goes. Brent talked about this the other day in one of his short lessons. He went to buy air conditioners and they were selling like hotcakes. In English when we say that something is selling like hotcakes, it means the same thing. It means something is selling really, really quickly. And by the way, you'll have to go listen to Brent's lesson to find out what a hotcake is. It might not be what you're expecting. I'm not going to tell you here. Anyways so there's a link somewhere, or there will be in the description as well.

So to review when something flies off the shelves, it means it's selling really, really quickly. And when something sells like hotcakes, it means the same thing. It means that it is selling really, really quickly.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I have the comment right here. I'm at school... when I print the comments at school... or I'm at school today... they come out really big and in color. So here we go. From Write Winter: Is the meaning of “to take a load off” the same as “to let my hair down”? And my response? They are related, but slightly different. “to take a load off” makes me think of someone sitting on a couch and relaxing. “to let your hair down” makes me think of someone dancing and having fun.

So yeah, they both mean to not work, to do something that's not work. But one has an element of relaxing to it. One means, you know, you're just going to take a nap or sit on the couch and watch some sports. And the other one means that you're going to do something fun, something that's not work.

Anyways, I'm out here today going for a little walk. I thought I would come back to this bridge. This is kind of a fun place to make a video. And I usually come here at the beginning of the school year to make a video. I think I did it last year as well. Hello? You're not in the video. I'm videotaping myself. But it's a nice place, as you remember, because sometimes the water is running, sometimes it's dry. But today you can see that there is water and it has this beautiful sound. I like the sound of water. You can see as well, you can see some water running down there. It's just a beautiful place to come. So I thought I would show it to you again. I might make my Wednesdays with Bob video here as well. In just a few minutes.

There are a lot of people out and about today, but for some reason, when I started recording, they all disappeared. I thought you were going to be able to watch people walk behind me. There's people out walking their dogs. There's people just out for a stroll. I saw a few people with strollers, strollers, a small little thing you push with whee

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE A LOAD OFF and TO TAKE A BREATHER

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to take a load off”. When you tell someone to take a load off or when you decide to take a load off. It means you're going to relax usually after working. The last few days, I've come home and I just need to take a load off. I take off my shoes when I walk in the house and I just sit on the couch for about half an hour. I usually have a cold drink. Teaching is going great, but we're in a heat wave here. It's 32 degrees Celsius right now in September. So my classroom is just stiflingly hot. So when I come home, I just need to take a load off. I just need to sit and relax a little bit in the air conditioned house before I get back to work. By the way, my classroom is not air conditioned. It would be nice if it was.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to take a breather. Now this means to relax as well, but it usually means to stop doing something for a bit because you're out of breath or because you're exhausted. So if you're playing a sport, you might need to take a breather halfway through the game. If you're playing a game where you have to run a lot, you might need to take a breather. Let's say you're out hiking with someone and they're really fast and you're out of breath. It's hard for you to keep up. You might say, Hey, stop for a minute. I need to take a breather.

So to review, to take a load off means to relax a little bit. Usually after working hard for a... for a period of time and to take a breather means that you're actually physically exhausted, usually you're out of breath a little bit and you just need to sit for a bit or stop doing what you're doing so that your breath, your ability to breathe, returns.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ünsal. So there's people I think paddling in the river will go look in a sec. Hi. Have you ever had rose jam? If you like peanut butter and jam sandwiches and you think this sandwich needs a little something to make it taste better, I suggest you try it with rose jam. In my opinion, it tastes much better this way. Thank you so much for this wonderful video. My response? I'll have to find some and try it. I do like peanut butter and jam sandwiches, so I'll probably like it.

So yes, I probably should see if I can find that somewhere. It doesn't seem to me like it's a common type of jam that I know of. Um, I'm not familiar with rose jam. I'm sure that I'll be able to find it somewhere. I... maybe I'll look at market tomorrow. That might be a good place to start.

So there's someone yelling over here. Oh, I see. There's someone going by on a paddleboard in the river way down there. And there's a man in a kayak as well. Oh, there's two people on paddleboards. So I guess they're enjoying the hot fall day. It's... it's not really fall yet, but it certainly feels like fall. And they're just out having an enjoyable time on the river. Soon, though, it'll be cold and those types of activities will definitely stop.

I’m just checking my time here. It's a little bit hard to see. I think I need my reading glasses to check the time. Oh, it says only 3 minutes. Well, hey, let's have a closer look at the people on the river. They volunteered to come down here, so they get to be in the video now. So that's a stand up paddleboard on the left. I think the girl in the middle is on a stand up paddle board as well, but not standing. And the man is in a kayak, a red kayak. So I think stand up paddle

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A LITTLE SOMETHING and A LITTLE OFF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “a little something”. This is a phrase we use to describe something when we don't quite know how to describe it. If you watch this English lesson to the end, I added a little bit of music. I thought that my videos needed just a little something. I didn't know quite what it was, but I thought, you know, I need a little something at the end. And then I finally decided the answer was to put a little bit of music there. It's music that I used earlier this summer, I think, with the video... I forget... When Brent was here I think I used that music in one of those videos, but I thought, you know what? It just needed a little something. Sometimes when you eat something, that's how you might describe it as well. You might say, Mmm, this cookie tastes good, but it needs a little something and maybe that something is salt or sugar. I don't know.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is “a little off”. When you describe someone or something as being a little off, it means that they're not behaving normally, if it's a person, or it's different or strange if you're talking about a thing. A few weeks ago I visited a friend and my friend seemed a little off. And so I said to him, You know, what's wrong? And he shared with me something that was happening in his life. So if a person seems a little off, it means they're not as happy as they normally are or they're not behaving the way they normally do. The other day I ate a cookie. I bought a cookie from Tim Hortons and something was a little off. It didn't taste very good at all. The cookie tasted old and stale. There was definitely something a little off.

So to review a little something, this is how we describe when we know that something needs something or... or we want to put something somewhere, but we don't know quite what it is. We just say, Oh, it needs a little something or I'm going to put a little something there. And when you say something is a little off or a person is a little off, it just means that it's different than normal or the person is acting different than normal.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Here is a comment from Know-that: Your lawn looks nice, tidy and freshly cut Bob, just like your new haircut. It's back to school time, so I had to get it cut. By the way, as always, it looks great on you. And I believe you. I can imagine that it's not that easy or possible to have a big channel and on the other hand, respond to all the comments you get even if you wanted to, because YouTube is not the only thing in your life you have to take care of. You have your job, your farm and your family, and they all need the same care and attention. On that note, thank you for spending some of this time with and for us. I appreciate that you always try to reply to all our comments... all of our comments. I wish you a wonderful day, sir. You know, you're awesome. So I did read the whole thing. Wow. And then my response: I firmly believe that YouTube is meant to be just that YOUTube. I capitalized you. If you want success here, you have to put a little bit of yourself into it. I do that in the comments. It's fun to connect, and I think it makes the experience much more real for me and the viewers.

And I do firmly believe that. I believe that sometimes people try to be successful on YouTube, but they forget that part of this whole thing is you have to share a little bit of yourself. I mean, you have to be personable. You have to be f

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases COULD BE WORSE and TO GO FROM BAD TO WORSE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “could be worse”. Now, this is a phrase that we use in two different situations. If you said to me, Hey, Bob, how's it going? I might answer. Could be worse. This is a response to that greeting that means nothing's really bad in my life, but nothing's really good. It's a very neutral answer and kind of a funny one. So you might say, Hey, Bob, how's it going? And I could say, Ah you know it could be worse. The other way we use this or the other situation we use this in is when someone's talking about something bad that's happened and you want to kind of reassure them that it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Here's a good example. The other day it rained a lot and there was... there was a lot of water on our property. And Jen said, you know, it could be worse. The roof of the house could have started leaking. That would have been way worse than what was happening. So it's used to just introduce a thought about how the situation could have been worse.

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The other phrase I want to teach you today is “to go from bad to worse”. This is used to describe maybe your day starting out badly, and then as the day goes by, it just gets worse and worse. You could say, Oh, my day went from bad to worse. On the way to school there was a traffic jam and I was late for work or on the way to work there was a traffic jam, but I was late for work. I know you don't all work at a school. And then when I got to school, I had to fill in for Joe because he was sick that day. So my day went from bad to worse.

So to review “could be worse” could be used as a response to a greeting. Like, How's it going? Ah, could be worse. Or to describe how a situation could actually be worse. And to go from bad to worse is used to describe usually a day that starts out badly and then just keeps getting worse as the day goes on. Those are not fun days.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis. There are so many comments under this video. That is cool. And my response, I'm happy that it never gets to be too many, that I can't answer them all. Someday, though, it might. So thanks, Denis, for that comment.

Yes. A little secret here. I really enjoy answering the comments on this channel. And one of the things that makes that possible is that there's usually only 30 or 40 of them. And I. I do want this channel to grow. That would be exciting for me. It would be exciting to get a silver play button someday for this channel. But at the same time, I do really enjoy the fact that I can respond to all the comments. Like it's... it's not a lot of work.

One of you once asked how fast I type, so I'll tell you a little story. Years ago in university, I decided, this is way back in the late eighties, early nineties, I decided that typing on a keyboard might be important. So I sat down at a computer and I taught myself to type and eventually I could type over 80 words per minute. And to this day, I can still type that fast. That really helps me reply to comments. Sometimes, too, I use an app or an extension in my browser that lets me use voice, but sometimes typing is just faster. So yes, my typing speed is really high and that certainly helps me answer a lot of comments.

And it's fun because I actually kind of get to know some of you on this channel. Whereas on my bigger channel, I try to respond to all the comments that I can on a Tuesday morning when the video comes out. But eventually the

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN HINDSIGHT and HINDSIGHT IS 20/20

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “with hindsight”, or sometimes we say “in hindsight”. And this simply means when looking back in time. So I could say this, “With hindsight we know that dumping garbage into the ocean is a bad idea.” If we look back 50 or 100 years, we know that some of the things we did were bad. So with hindsight, when we look back in time, we realize that those are bad things. You can use the phrase, too, to talk about your own personal life. You could say, in hindsight, I should have taken the job at the factory. Maybe everyone at the factory just got a $50 a day raise and you're still at your old job because you decided not to work there. But you could say, “In hindsight, I should have taken the job.” So when you look back in time, you think, Oh, I should have made a different decision.

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And then we also have this phrase in English. Hindsight is 20/20. So this is interesting because hindsight refers to looking back in time and 20/20 refers to how good your eyesight is. If you have 20/20 vision, it means that you don't need to wear glasses to read or just to see things. So when you say, “Hindsight is 2020.”, you're basically saying that when you look at a situation in the past from the future, it's pretty easy to see clearly if you made a good or bad decision.

So to review “with hindsight” or “in hindsight” simply refers to looking back in time from your current place in time and realizing that something was a good or bad decision, and saying that hindsight is 20/20 simply refers to the fact that it's much easier to see now if a decision you made a long time ago was good or bad.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Sorry these shorts of weird pockets, it's hard to get things in and out, it’s all crumpled. Sorry, This comment is from DimbikeY. Such a poor little tree behind you. R.I.P. Mr. Tree. That means rest in peace. And my response? I'm sure it will come back strong next year.

So yeah, in the last video I showed you all of the beautiful trees, but one tree was kind of sad looking and I do think it will come back. I'm not too worried about that tree. I'm sure that it will look beautiful in the future. We just have to wait a year. Anyways, I'm out here. Thanks for the comment, by the way, I’m out here walking along, the flowerbeds are in full bloom.

Sorry. My battery went dead there. That's never happened before. I'm using my old trusty camera, but I haven't used it for a few weeks because I've been using my new gimbal and my phone. So sorry I've charged it up. I'm kind of holding a battery pack here while I use it. I'm sure it will last for another minute or so. So I'm just out here by the flowerbeds. They look beautiful. Jen has done a wonderful job this year. We have been harvesting flowers like crazy. We have been selling a lot. And I thought it was time for me to kind of give you a little bit of a look at what they look like. These are the zinnias. These are a very, very popular flower. People are always wanting zinnias.

Oh, What do we have here? Oh, Did it fly away? Oh, it's coming back. There is a butterfly. Oh, this is a rare treat. I hope that it's in focus and you guys can see. Oh, there it goes. Oh, this is kind of fun. Sorry if I'm getting distracted by this butterfly. It's not often that we have things come and join us when we're doing an English lesson, so that's pretty cool.

Anyways, flowers are doing well. We have about six or seven weeks left here to ha

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A CLEAN SLATE and CLEAN AS A WHISTLE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “a clean slate”. When you start something with a clean slate, it means it's brand new and no one's aware of you or the mistakes you've made in the past. Let's say you have a job and you quit. When you start your new job, you would start with a clean slate. No one at the new job knows that you've made mistakes in the past. I know you guys haven't made mistakes, but you would start with a clean slate. No one would know any of the problems or things that you've done wrong in the past. I actually get to do this every semester. So twice a year I get to start my classes with a clean slate because our semesters are about four and a half months long, close to five months long. At the end, the students leave and I get new students and I start with a clean slate. So I'm looking forward to that in a couple of weeks to start with a clean slate.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase clean as a whistle. So at our school we have a janitor. We also call that person a custodian. And their job is to clean the school. Right now, my classroom is clean as a whistle. I walked by the other day and I noticed that they had cleaned the carpets. They had had a professional carpet cleaner come in. So my classroom is clean as a whistle. I don't have any video to show you. I'll be at school next week and I'll maybe do a lesson there. The carpets are clean, the walls are clean. There's actually not even any desks in the room. So it just looks very empty and definitely clean as a whistle. So this simply means that something is as clean as it possibly can be. I don't know why it's clean as a whistle. I don't know the origin of the phrase.

But to review when you start something with a clean slate, it means that you're starting new and no one knows anything about your past or things you've done before. And when you say something is clean as a whistle, well, you don't have to whistle when you say it. It just simply means that it's really, really clean.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from I'm just going to say KA, I am enjoying watching Bob struggle with technology and my response, Haha. Yep. It's the best way to learn. Dive in and figure things out.

So yeah, in my last video I was struggling a little bit with my new gimbal, new camera, new gimbal, and I think that is definitely the best way to learn new things. Just dive in. If you have never had an English conversation with someone, just schedule one, Go on Preply or one of those other sites and book one. Just dive in. I always think struggling with something new is the best way to figure it out. So I would say do that.

I do that with technology all the time. I see something that I think might be useful. I buy it and then I struggle for a few days to figure it out. But here's my secret. I learn as much new stuff as I can during the summer. I don't know for those of you that have been around a while, you might have recognized this. I learn a lot of new things in the summer, and then I get into a routine for about nine or ten months during the school year, school year here on YouTube. So I don't often try to learn new things when I'm when I'm busy teaching. Then it's just routine. I try to do the same thing every day.

Let me see my time here. Oh, I got like 30 seconds left.

Awesome. Hey, I have never seen it so lush here. I've talked a lot about the rain, and I've talked about it in a negati

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FLAT OUT and FLAT BROKE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “flat out”. When you go flat out, it means you're going as fast as you can possibly go. When Usain Bolt runs the hundred meter, he runs flat out. He can't go any faster. We also use this phrase to talk about things like work. For the last few days, I've been working flat out. I've been working really, really hard. Jen and I have both been working flat out. There is no way I could have worked any faster. School’s starting soon, so I have a lot of work to get done, so I'm definitely working flat out so that when I go back to school, I don't have to worry too much about some of the YouTube things I want to get done.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase “flat broke”. I think I may have taught you this phrase before. It means that you have no money. When I was a university student, there were a few times when I was flat broke. There was even a time where I ate oatmeal for a few days because I didn't have enough money to buy other food. But I had a big bag of oatmeal. So I was flat broke, but I still had at least some food to eat. I think I ate bananas too at the time. I think even when I'm flat broke, I find a little bit of money to buy bananas.

So to review, when you go flat out, it means you're going as fast as you can possibly go, even in a car. If you were to drive your car 160 kilometers an hour, you would probably be going flat out. And then if you say that you are flat broke, it means that you don't have any money. It's not a nice situation to be in.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from let's see here.

I'll just say KS. I had to look up the word gimbal in the dictionary and encyclopedia. Thanks for teaching some technology not only phrases Teacher Bob. And my response. It certainly is an interesting device. I find that the world of technology is very fascinating.

So thank you KS for that comment. And yes, I'm not actually using that right now because I have it right here because I wanted to be able to show you guys a little bit about how this works. It's it's kind of wild. Like, I don't remember what all the buttons do, but I can spin it so that the camera’s sideways and what it does... here... let's let's actually turn this on and then maybe I'll show you the footage from this when it’s ah... let's see here. I have to go here. I shouldn't be using technology while I'm trying to make an English lesson. I might run overtime here, but let's see if we go to there and then it connects. There's a it's a little more complicated than you might expect. Let's see here. So we're going to flip the camera and we are going to flip it this way How do I do this now... there we go.

Are you enjoying watching Bob struggle with technology? So now you'll see, no matter how I tilt this, the phone is always pointing at me. It's pretty wild. I will see if I can get this clip and I'll mix it in or edit it in with this video. But yeah, it's been fun. I'm not sure 100% yet how I'm going to use this. I mentioned that in my last video, but I just have my phone on it. And which way does this go? There we go. Let me put this back. So there you go. A little bit of new technology. I don't think I actually hit the record button while I was doing that. So you won't see that footage.

But hey, I'm forgetting to walk around. I'm over here at the local what we call a strip mall because it's all in one long row. I'm back in town because I need to stop by at scho

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP UP and FOR KEEPS

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, “to keep up”. So you might notice that if I move over here, my camera follows me. And if I move over here, my camera follows me. I bought a gimbal because I feel like I need to keep up. I don't want to get behind. That would be the opposite. I want to keep up. When it comes to technology, I don't like to spend a lot of money on technology, but sometimes I feel like it's just a good idea. I did have something that did this before..., my last camera, but it was a little too. Yeah, it wasn't perfected. This gimbal with my phone, I think, works a little better, so it's nice to be able to buy it to keep up. I want to make sure I have some of the latest technology to make English lessons for you.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, “for keeps”. When you give someone something, if you don't want it back, you've given it to them for keeps. Sometimes kids will lend stuff to each other that means you want it back. And one of the kids might think that the other kid gave it to him for keeps. That would mean that they thought the other kid gave it to them and they could keep it forever. Which is maybe not what the kid meant. We've had this happen when our kids were little before where one kid would give something to another and one the other one would think it was for keeps, but they were just hoping to get it back.

Anyways to review “to keep up” means to be current. If you're running, you try to keep up with the person in front of you. But in life, sometimes it's important to try and keep up as well. And “for keeps” means permanently. If I was to give you something for keeps, it means that you can keep it forever.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis. Bob, when you left your place to shoot the last part of the lesson, did you think about the safety of your breakfast? And I responded by saying I wasn't too worried. It's a pretty small town and I didn't think anyone would try to grab it. So yeah, in my last lesson, I was sitting in the outside portion of a restaurant. I was sitting kind of on the patio and I left my breakfast to walk way, way, way back and to kind of show you the front of the lesson.

So you'll notice I'm trying a couple of things out here. I have my wireless mic which lets me do things like this, like I can walk over here and point at this bike. Sorry, this is a bit of a technical lesson as well. And I can do things like this, like I can bend down and it will... and I can point that stuff on the ground. And I guess if I had something to climb up on, I could do that as well and it would follow me.

I could grab that chair over there and try that. Let me do that. So I ran away so fast it wasn't able to follow me. But here we go. Let's see if this camera works. Let's... ooh... this is not a very safe chair, but I'll try it anyways. Oh, yeah, that's pretty wild. So I'm standing here up on this chair and the camera was able to see me. Let me move this ugly chair out of the way.

So like I said, I don't know how I'm going to use this new technology yet or if I'm going to use it a lot. It's not something I normally do. It's like having a cameraman or a camera person. This is new for me. I could walk over here and say, Look at these beautiful leaves. So as I said, I'll have to think about this. I have to figure out how do I make a lesson with a camera that can follow me in a way that just makes better lessons for you? And t

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases CAN I...? and COULD I...?

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, “Can I...?” This is how you start a question when you're maybe at a restaurant ordering something or maybe asking if you can do something. This morning I went to this little bakery and I got a coffee and I said, “Can I have a decaf coffee with cream and sugar?” I also got this really yummy croissant here with egg, cheese and bacon. And when I ordered that I said, “Can I get a croissant with egg, cheese and bacon and just a little bit of butter?” Sometimes when my kids want to do something, they'll asks... a question, starting with these two words. They'll say, “Can I go to a friend's house today?” So it's another way to order food or a way to ask if you can do something.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, “Could I...?” This is the same as “Can I...?” I forgot to mention this on my bigger channel when I did the lesson at the drive-thru. You can say, “Could I...?” But you can also say, “Can I...?” They are very much the same. So I could have said, “Could I have a decaf coffee?” or. “Could I have a croissant with egg, cheese and bacon?” And it would mean the same thing. And the same with my kids. If my kids wanted to go somewhere, they could say, “Could I go to a friend's house today?” Or “Could I buy a brand new car once I save up enough money?” And I'd be like, “No, that that's a bad idea.”

So to review “Can I...?” is a way to start a question when asking for permission to do something and “Could I...?” is exactly the same thing. They both mean exactly the same.

So anyways, so let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aleksey, and Aleksey says, Let's see here, diversify or don't put all your eggs in one basket. I believe that you still use this proverb in English, just like we do in Russian. Personally, I have no reason to complain about the weather this year. I mainly grow tomatoes, not for profit, just for fun and family.
As usual, I planted half of them in a greenhouse and the other half in open ground. Both ways have worked this season. Thanks for the video and have good weather. And my response? Yes, we still use that phrase and it is a good one. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Sometimes it is tempting to just grow one or two flowers that are the most profitable. But in a year like this, we're glad we haven’t. That would have been a mistake. So thanks, Aleksey, for that comment.

I'm going to pop up here for a sec and give you a tour. Yes. It's always good to diversify. It's always good to make sure that you have a variety of things on the go. Sometimes it's even good to have more than one job. When I was younger, I had a few part-time jobs. Actually, one time I had three part-time jobs at the same time. That way, if things slowed down or if I didn't get a shift at my one job, at least I knew I had the other two jobs. By the way, that's the café / bakery where I bought the coffee and the croissant. I haven't started eating them yet. I want to finish this English lesson first before I get started on that. But yeah, thanks, Aleksey, for that comment. That is a good idea.

So I'm not driving as much anymore. My..., the kid I was bringing to work got their license so I don't have to drive as much. So I only drive a couple of times a week instead of five times a week. So I'm not going to be in this town very often anymore. So I thought I should make one last little English lesson here. I do have a few weeks left. There mig

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases LIKE CRAP and PIECE OF CRAP

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase like crap. Now, sometimes when you're learning English, you need to learn phrases, not to use them, but just so you recognize them if you read them or hear them somewhere. This is a very vulgar way of speaking, a kind of a informal, rude way of speaking, but we do use this phrase, I use this phrase, and it just means something like this. If I say I slept like crap, it means I did not sleep very well. If I said I feel like crap, it means I don't feel very well at all. By the way, you'll have to look up what crap means. It's similar to the S-H-I-T word that I don't like to use, but I think it's just become an informal way to say something wasn't very good, like, oh, that car runs like crap, or I slept like crap, or I feel like crap.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase piece of crap. This is used to describe something that isn't working well or that breaks all the time. You could say, "Joe bought a car, but it's a piece of crap. It's rusty. The engine doesn't run very well. It drips oil whenever he parks it somewhere. It's just a piece of crap." You could say that, "Fred bought a used guitar for $50, and it's a piece of crap. It's not very well made. He should have spent a bit more money for a better guitar."

So again, informal phrases not to be used, but you should recognize them. When something is described as being like crap, it just means it's not very good, and when you say something is a piece of crap, it means it is not very good at all. It's a very negative, negative phrase.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me find the comment here. This comment is from Tara or Tara. There's two pronunciations of that name. "You messed up with this lesson because the sound was bad, but the lesson itself was as great as always. Thank you." And I responded by saying, "Yeah, sorry about that. The sound was very distracting."

So in both ways, and oh, thanks Tara, in the last video, the sound was distracting for a couple reasons. One is it was windy, so the mic didn't necessarily pick up the audio very good, and then it was, I just have to do this so Mohd can see the sunflowers and then also the car noise. The traffic noise was very, very distracting for me.

By the way, in the last video Mohd asked if the sunflowers were blooming and they indeed are. It is definitely that time of year here. But it's interesting in the field, there aren't very many sunflowers because we pick them and then all you see is little stems with the flower removed. But I'll show you that sometime as well, sometimes as well.

But yeah, the traffic noise was distracting. I'm back here on the farm making a video now. It's a lot more peaceful here as you can see. It has been though a strange year. I've complained about the rain too much, but it just won't stop. It's actually starting to damage crops a lot. We have certain flowers we just can't harvest because they're just dying from mildew or you know, fungus, all that kind of stuff loves the cold, wet weather. It's actually not that cold, but it's cold and damp at night and I just think it's not a good year, but we're getting through it.

I mean, we grow sometimes more than we need and we do have a wide variety. Sometimes when you diversify, when you have a wide variety of things, then it's easier to keep going and keep selling. So we do have some flowers that love wet weather, not very many, so that helps

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO MESS UP and TO MESS AROUND

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "to mess up." When you mess up, it simply means that you've made a mistake. Sometimes I mess up when I'm driving. Just the other day, I was driving to see my brother-in-law and I messed up. I forgot to get off the highway at the proper exit. I messed up. I made a mistake. Sometimes people do this when they're at work. Sometimes the boss gives them a job and they do it wrong. They mess up and then the boss is really, really annoyed, especially if it made the company lose money. So when you mess up, it simply means to make a mistake.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today, is the phrase "to mess around." By the way, I hope you can hear me today. It's rather loud out here. When you mess around with something, now this has a number of different meanings, but when you mess around with something, it means you change the settings or you move things. Sometimes my kids mess around with the thermostat in my house. They think the house is too cold or too warm and so they mess around with the thermostat. I don't like it when they mess around with the thermostat. I like it when they just leave it where it is.

So to review, hello, to review, to mess up means to make a mistake. Sometimes when you're driving, you mess up, and hopefully you don't mess up too bad and cause an accident. And to mess around has a lot of meanings. The one I'm focusing on today, means to change something, touch something, like a camera. Sometimes my camera doesn't work right and I think, does someone mess around with this? It's not working the way it's supposed to.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from SG. "You two have taken the bored out of the learning journey with your wonderful teaching style." And my response, "That's the plan. Make lessons that are as entertaining as they are educational."

So SG is referring to the fact that Brent was down for a few days and that was a wonderful time. I did really enjoy making videos with another English teacher. So Brent, if you're watching, thanks again for coming. It was a lot of fun. And thanks for helping me make so much content, it's pretty cool.

Anyways, I'm out here by the highway. Hopefully the audio is okay today, because it's a little bit windy and that messes with the microphone. So sorry about that. I came out here because, I sometimes come here to remind myself that even though there are some things about living in the country that I don't like, like I don't like that I can't get pizza delivered to my house, there are things that make it wonderful. Like, my drive to work every day is about 11 minutes long. Whereas for some of these people, their drive to work might take forever, especially if there's a traffic jam or something else slowing them down.

That's the second person. I don't know if you heard that, that was the second person honking and there's now another person honking. I think people enjoy it when they see someone videotaping, and they like to, or maybe they're trying to mess up my video by honking. I'm not a hundred percent sure

Anyways, it's always a good reminder that I live in a place where there is no traffic. So even though sometimes at night the power goes out, actually that doesn't happen very often. I'm having trouble thinking of good examples. There are down, oh, I'm trying, I can't even remember the right word. There are drawbacks to living in the country and when I co

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT'S BEEN A BLAST and I HAD A BLAST

• In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the phrase, it's been a blast. I am Bob the Canadian, and I call myself Bob the Canadian, because I'm Bob and I'm Can, and I'm, and I'm Canadian. I just wanted to pretend I was you for a second.

• Who am I then?

• You're just some little small YouTuber named Brent.

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• Oh yeah. I'm just, I'm Brent. So anyways, it's been a blast.

• Yeah, it's been a blast. And I would like to talk about my time here, as it's been a blast. That's another way to say you have had a lot of fun. We got a lot of work done.

• We did. We had fun.

• But when you're having fun, it doesn't feel like work.

• Exactly. Is there another phrase I should teach?

• Yes, but it's upside down.

• Or are you Bob? Let me see if I can do this. I also wanted to teach you the phrase, I had a blast! Which means the same thing as, it's been a blast, but we think it's used equally as much. So I would say the same thing. I had a blast or it's been a blast. Both work. It's been a fun two days. I think we maybe packed too much in to two days. Maybe we worked too much and we should have played more. Although, you know, if you only have two days to get stuff done, you might as well get stuff done. As I said to Brent earlier, you're going home at some point. Let's get as many things done for everyone out there as we possibly can, so.

• Can I teach a third phrase? This is the first time.

• Yeah, absolutely.

• Yeah, you go.

• This has never been done before. Okay. And it has nothing to do with blast, but I don't want to overstay my welcome.

• Ah, yes.

• So if you overstay your welcome, that means you've been invited somewhere, but you stay longer than the host wants you to stay.

• Yeah. I do that to people sometimes.

• I don't wanna overstay my welcome. I wanna still get out while Bob likes me.

• Yeah and I do still like him. It's no problem. Should we review?

• Sure.

• So you're gonna do, it's been a blast.

• All right. We just learned it's been a blast. It's another way to say that you've had a lot of fun.

• And I did the phrase, I had a blast, which is just a kind of a more personal way to say that you had a lot of fun. So we had a blast. I had a blast. It's been a blast. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from two videos ago. So I'm gonna stand a little closer to Brent, 'cause the comment has to go on the screen somewhere, but he's gonna read it.

• Okay. Can I pretend I'm Bob the Canadian again?

• Yeah, go ahead.

• I'll say it with a Canadian accent, which is kind of like my accent. So this comment is from Mohd Ags, and he says, this lesson looked kind of familiar to me because Brent, my man, it's another way to say a good friend, Brent, my man, once did an English lesson at a used car lot. And I'm leaving this comment to thank him. But also I'm thinking ahead of time here, because I know you two are going to meet very soon.

• Yeah, so this is from a few days ago.

• So if you're planning on doing a short l

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases UP AND AROUND and TO GO AROUND IN CIRCLES

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase up and around. This is a phrase that we use after someone has maybe been sick or in the hospital, maybe they've had surgery, and when they are starting to feel better, eventually, they will be up and around. So you might say to someone, "Oh, so Uncle Joe was in the hospital. How long before he'll be up and around?" It's similar to saying, "When will he be back on his feet?" That's another English phrase. So if you know someone who was in the hospital or someone who was just sick for a while, you could inquire and say, "When will they be up and around?" When will they be feeling better enough to walk around and start to do things?

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to go around in circles. Now, there's many variations on this. You can run around in circles, you can go around in circles but it basically means that you're talking about something and you're never reaching a conclusion. You're just going around in circles. So maybe someone at work suggests that you do something a different way and someone else disagrees and everyone talks about it for an hour. Eventually you might say, "Hey, we need to stop going around in circles. We're not solving anything here. We need to come up with a solution as soon as possible."

So to review, up and around means to be feeling better. It's similar to being back on your feet. If you're sick, then eventually, you will be up and around and feeling better. And to go around in circles means to discuss something meaninglessly for a long time and to get a little bit frustrated.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is in my pocket. By the way, I'm using a different microphone so I can back way up here and you should be able to still hear me as easily as if I was standing right up here by my phone. We'll see when I go back in whether that worked. This comment is from Ünsal. "Hi, in one part of the video, you say, 'Jen and I hope that our van lasts a long time.' What other verb or verbs can be used instead of the verb last in this sentence? Thank you so much. You're welcome." My reply, that's the only way I can think of saying it. Often when you buy something, you hope it lasts a long time.

So yeah, I bought a new microphone. Part of it is here. The other part is stuck to my phone. I can't show you that part but I hope this microphone lasts a long time. Thanks Ünsal for the comment by the way. I hope that this microphone lasts a long time.

I hope that my van lasts a long time. This is a 2008 Uplander, I think it is. I hope it lasts a long time, but we'll see. It's not on its last legs yet. It still seems to be working quite well. And then my red van over there, it's a 2012 Dodge Caravan. I hope it lasts a long time too. We'll see though. You can see I lost another hubcap. I'm a little annoyed by that, that I lost that hubcap.

Sorry, I'm not sure where I was going there. Oh, I was going to walk this way. It rained last night. It rained a lot. So we've gotten, let's see, 10 centimeters of rain, four inches of rain over the last two days. That's a lot of rain. That's way too much rain. There's water everywhere but I wanted to show you the problem we have because of this guy. Walter decided that the rain gauge would be a great thing to chew on. So our rain gauge only goes up to 2.5 inches or six centimeters now. So we had to ask the neighbor how much rain they got so that

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A NICE SET OF WHEELS and ALL SET

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “a nice set of wheels”. Sometimes we even say “a new set of wheels”, and this simply means a car or another type of vehicle. Sometimes you drive a car and eventually you need to buy a new one, and so you might say to someone, I need a new set of wheels. You can see I'm in front of a car dealership. I thought this would be a great place to teach this phrase. You might say to someone, I need a new set of wheels, and then you might go buy that new car. And then when your friend sees it, they might say, Oh, that is a nice set of wheels. So again, we often almost always use the word nice or new with this phrase. Either you need to get a new set of wheels or someone sees the car you bought and says, Wow, nice set of wheels.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase “all set”. When you're all set, it simply means you're ready. This morning, I was getting ready to bring one of my kids to work, and so I got my camera and I got my phrases and I got my comment. And then when my kids said, Are you ready to go? I said, I'm all set. This simply means that I was ready. I had everything I needed in order to leave the house and be able to do an English lesson out here in front of this car dealership.

So to review, here we go. “A nice set of wheels” or “a new set of wheels” refers to a car or other vehicle, a van or truck that's really nice. Jen And I hope that our van lasts a long time. We hope that both our vans last a long time because we're not ready to buy another set of wheels anytime soon. And the phrase “all set” simply means to be ready. It's important in the morning that you are all set before you leave for school or before you leave for work. It's a nice feeling when you're all set and you're prepared and ready to do something.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohamed. You have a good yard to start beekeeping. Why don't you do that? It is just a suggestion. And my response? There are only so many things that we have time for in a day. Maybe someday if one of our kids wants to help farm with us when they are older, they can take up beekeeping.

So yeah, we do have a nice property for beekeeping. If you think about it, there are lots of flowers on our property, so that's one cool thing. The other thing is there's lots of room for the bees to roam, so they would certainly have a great home. But again, there's only so much you can do in a day. There's only so much time in the day and at the end of the day we don't have enough time to have bees. So beekeeping is something that maybe one of our kids will do in the future.

So let me give you a better view here. This is what we call a car dealership in Canada. I usually don't buy my cars from a car dealership. Usually you come to a car dealership if you want to buy a brand new car. And as you know, I usually buy used cars. I usually buy cars used from one of my local mechanics. They usually have a few cars for sale in front of the garage where they fix cars. But I was driving by this the other day and I thought this would be a great place to make an English lesson about the phrase a nice set of wheels. So there's definitely a lot of really nice cars in this parking lot.

I think this car here oh, this is actually a used car. It's a 2016. I think this car here would be a little small for Jen and I. I think we always we always buy vehicles that will hold all of our kids. It's important, I think, t

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ON TOP OF THAT and TO TOP IT ALL OFF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "On top of that". This is a phrase we use when we're talking about something that's in addition to something else. I could say this, "That I have to renew my license, and on top of that, I have to renew my license plates." So I've mentioned one thing and then I've mentioned another thing that I have to do. I could say this as well, "I have to go to market today, and on top of that, I have to go and pick up one of my kids later." So it's when you're talking about one thing and then there's another thing that also needs to happen. So, I have to make this video, and on top of that, I have to go in and edit the video.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "To top it all off." This is similar but this is the phrase we use just before mentioning the last thing, usually a bad thing. Here's a really good example. I could say this, "I was driving home with my car and I got a flat tire, and then after I got it fixed, to top it all off, I ended up running out of gas." So, I mentioned one thing, and then a really bad final thing. You could say this, you could say, "I'm scheduled to take an English test. And when I went to take the English test, I failed the test. And to top it all off, I'm not allowed to take the test again for three months." I don't know why that would be but maybe there's some sort of restriction. So, it's when you mention something that's kind of bad after mentioning something else that's a little bit bad.

So to review, when you say, "On top of that" you're adding to a list of things that you're doing. You know, I have to make this video, and on top of that, I have to go to market today. So I'm mentioning two things I need to do, neither positive or negative. But when we use the phrase "To top it all off" we're usually talking about one negative thing that happened at the end of some other bad things. You know, I went to work today and students were really mean to me, and to top it all off, my family was mean to me when I came home. By the way, neither of those things actually happened.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I do have my comment today, not like the other day when I was doing the lesson at the spur of the moment. Here we go from Dmitry. "Hey Mr. Bob, thanks for the lesson. By the way, can we use squeeze in, in terms of taking a seat between two people that sit really tight? I hope you understand what I meant. Have a great day." And my response, yes, you can. That is another way to use it. Sometimes on the bus you have to squeeze in between two people. Great example, Dmitry . So, this is from the previous lesson where I talked about squeeze in and squeeze out, and those are both... Sorry, and that was another good additional meaning of squeeze in.

So, as you can see, I'm back at home and I'm making a video at home for a change. I have been making videos out and about. I will do more of those as I am out and about a lot right now, but today is, kind of, a little bit of a crazy day. I make this video on a Thursday, it's also market day. So it feels... It's also the day where I speak with my French speaking partner. So, I feel like I'm squeezing in a lot of stuff today. If I could use the phrase again. So, it's kind of silly that I make this video today. It does fit. I mean, I'm not rushed or anything like that, but I think maybe I should make this video late in the day on Wednesday, because on Wednesdays I have lots of time right now.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SQUEEZE IN and TO SQUEEZE OUT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to squeeze in”. Right now I am squeezing in an English lesson. I have just finished bringing one of my kids to work and I finished going for a walk. I actually ran a little bit too. And I have just a minute or two before I have to be somewhere else, so I thought I would squeeze in an English lesson. When you say “squeeze in”, it means you do something in that little bit of time between when one thing ends and something else begins. Sometimes you just have a little bit of time and you can squeeze in an English lesson. Maybe you can squeeze in a level on Duolingo. Sometimes I do that because I'm trying to redo the French tree on Duolingo, so I try to squeeze it in. So to squeeze in to kind of do something between two other things.

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And the other phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase “to squeeze out” when you squeeze something out. It's the same as squeezing something, but obviously something comes out. If you have an orange, you can squeeze out the juice. When you have a tube of toothpaste, you can squeeze out the toothpaste. So “to squeeze out”, to have stuff come out of something.

So to review when you squeeze something in, it means you do it between one thing and another. And it usually implies that you don't have a lot of time to do it. I have just enough time to squeeze in an English lesson. And to squeeze out means to, you know, press on something so whatever is inside comes out.

So anyways, I don't have my papers with me. You might have noticed that. And I don't have a comment with me either, because I'm squeezing this lesson in kind of spur of the moment. I was here, I had a little bit of time. I didn't bring my paper with and I didn't bring a comment with. So let me say a few things. Number one, I love it when you guys leave comments. I'm happy that now I have time to respond to most, if not all of them. That is something I like to do, but as the school year was busy last spring, that was getting harder and harder to do. So I'm happy that I can do that again.

So what am I doing? I'm at my local park. As I said, I brought one of my kids to work. I went for a walk / run. Sometimes I run a little bit now. It's hard on this 52 year old body, but I do do it.

Oh, did I just reveal something? Maybe I did.

Anyways, I was here going for a walk / run and I had my new phone with me. So my old phone died. My old phone, the battery started to grow and the case started to get bigger. Not very nice at all. Very dangerous as well. My son said, “Dad, that could start a fire! Make sure that it's not heating up. Don't charge it any more. And you need to get a new phone.” So I got a new phone. I thought I could get my phone fixed, but they could fix it at the repair shop, but they can't get the battery for it. So I bought a new phone. So this is me trying out my new phone as well to see how well it works.

It's not windy out here, but it's very, very sunny. So I'm curious to see how well this phone does recording a video with me just walking around at my local park. I hope it does a good job. I hope when I get home I'm happy. I don't have like something to hold the phone on. That's why you... when I switch, you see my hand kind of come in on the camera lens there a little bit. So if I do use this phone for making the videos on this channel, I might actually go home. I do have a little like phone holder with a handle that I could use, so maybe I'll do that.

Anyways. What time i

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases JUST HAPPEN TO and IT HAPPENS TO THE BEST OF US

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “just happen to”. This is something you say if you just happen to have something. I'm having trouble thinking about how to describe this term without using this term. Let me give you some examples and that might help. Let's say you said, hey, I need to open this box. Do you have a knife? I could say, hey, I just happen to have one, reach into my pocket and pull out a small jackknife. Let's say that you were walking and it started to rain and you said, Oh, no, we're going to get wet. I could say, Oh, don't worry, I just happen to have an umbrella. So anyways, when you use this phrase, it's like kind of you need something and it's a surprise that you have it or someone else happens to have it. You just happen to have what somebody needs.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is: “It happens to the best of us.” So when something bad happens to someone, let's say someone twists their ankle and they feel dumb because it was their own fault, they they turned really fast while walking. In order to make them feel better about it you might say, Hey, it happens to the best of us. Basically saying, you're not silly. It's not a dumb thing that happened to you. It could have happened to anybody. It happens to the best of us.

So to review, when you just happen to have something or you just happen to... Yeah. When you just happen to have something, it's like someone needed something and you're like, Hey, I just happen to have one right here. And when you say, “It happens to the best of us”, you're simply saying that if something silly or bad or dumb happens to you, don't don't worry about it. Don't feel bad. It happens to everybody. It's just something that's normal when you're a human being.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Tara or Tara. I have never thought that grapes can be grown in Canada. I thought the climate is too cold out there. Beautiful scenery. It reminds me of Crimea with all the vineyards. Thanks for the lesson. And my response: There are three places in Canada where you can grow grapes. I just happen to live close to one of them. So thank you, Tara, for that comment.

Yeah, there's another grape growing area out in the province of British Columbia, and there is a grape growing area in eastern Canada, I think in the province of Nova Scotia. And there's one in Ontario, and I just happen to live close to it.

Anyways, I'm in a small Ontario town right now. I'm actually parked in the parking lot of what's the grocery store in this town. It's called No Frills. It's the kind of grocery store where the food is really cheap. When you say no frills in English, it means that there's nothing extra, there's nothing special. They don't have. I think you even have to, like, put a quarter into the handle of the shopping cart in order to use a shopping cart so that you make sure you remember to bring it back.

What else is here? Just a couple of small stores, a little cafe. Across the road, though. There's a small bakery and those... that bakery makes really good donuts. Sorry, I was already starting the sentence. Those donuts from that bakery are amazing. They're very, very tasty. They make them in an old, traditional Dutch way. I think the people who started the bakery were originally from Holland, so it is a really nice place to get donuts. In fact, I think I might get donuts there to celebrate my birthday. Or maybe I already did get d

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO NOT SIT WELL WITH and SIT BACK AND ENJOY!

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to not sit well with”. And we almost always use this... I think we always use this in the negative. When something doesn't sit well with you, it means you don't like it. Maybe your boss says that you have to work Saturday and that just doesn't sit well with you. That means that you're not excited about working on Saturday. You're kind of a little bit annoyed even. Sometimes the government will make a new law, and the law does not sit well with people. People get angry and they protest because they don't like the new law. So when something does not sit well with you, it means you don't like it. You're not happy about it and you're kind of annoyed about it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase “to sit back and enjoy”, or this is actually the imperative form, “Sit back and enjoy!” I guess I'm telling you what to do when I say it this way. Sometimes when you're at an event, people will say, Hey, sit back and enjoy. When you sit, you relax. When you sit back, you relax even more. So if there was a nice chair, I could sit in that chair and I could sit back and enjoy a TV show. I could sit back and enjoy a YouTube video, I could put some headphones on and just sit back and enjoy some music.

So to review, “to not sit well with” when something doesn't sit well with you, it means you don't like it. You don't like it at all. And if someone says sit back and enjoy, they mean that it's time for you to relax and just enjoy life a little bit or enjoy whatever's happening in that moment.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis. Bob, do you pay your friends from France for speaking practice? And my response, I have a friend who is learning and practicing English. We spend 30 minutes speaking French and then 30 minutes speaking English. It is a great exchange. We've been doing it for over three years.

So no, I do not pay for my French practice lessons, my speaking practice lessons, and it is wonderful - probably the best way to get some experience, to get some practice speaking a language is to find someone who wants to learn your language. I have an advantage because many people in the world want to learn English and many people in the world want to learn French. So I kind of trade. I trade my English speaking skills for my friend's French speaking skills, and we help each other. It also helps a lot because we're both teachers and specifically we're both teachers of languages, so we know how to teach each other well. And we started talking during the pandemic and we've continued since then.

So where am I today? I'm in a vineyard. I don't know if I've ever shown you this, but in the area where I live. So if you look behind me, there is a big what's called an escarpment. And then on the other side of me, sorry, there was a fly on me there, a deer fly, far in the distance is the lake. And what happens in this area is that it's a certain temperature. It's always a little warmer than the rest of the area I live in. So they can grow grapes in this area.

If we look over here, let spin you around, you'll see that there are vines in the vineyard and they are growing lots and lots of grapes. I think these grapes are for wine. I don't know if I ever told you that. Close to my house. There's something called wine country. And so here I am out in wine country. Why am I here? One of my kids has a job near here, so I thought this would be a fu

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases NO NEED TO and TO NEED TO GO

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, No need to. This is just a quick way to start a sentence that we would normally start by saying, “There is no need to.” But often in English, in spoken English, we'll say “No need to...” instead. Maybe you're going to a party and you say, Hey, should I bring some food? The person might respond and say, No need to bring food. There will be lots. Maybe... Let me think of another example. Let's say my brother was coming over to help me do some weeding. The weeds are growing really fast here on the farm. If it rained or if it's raining, I might text him and say, No need to come over today. It's too wet to work outside. So again, it's just a short form of the phrase, “There is no need to... ” or “There's no need to...” but often in spoken English or when we text, Sorry, the geese are honking. We say, “No need to...” just to shorten things up a bit.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase Sorry, there's something crawling on me. There's lots of bugs too, is the phrase, “to need to go”. Now, this can simply mean that you have to do something. You can say, I need to go to the store. But the meaning I wanted to teach you today is the meaning that refers to having to go to the bathroom. Let's say you really need to go pee. You might say to someone, Can we stop the car at the next rest stop because I need to go. When we were driving, when we were younger and our kids were younger, sometimes one of our kids in the back of the van would say, Can we stop? I need to go. And what they meant is that they needed to go to the bathroom. So it's a very nice way of saying that you need to use the washroom or you need to go to the bathroom.

So to review, “No need to...” simply means, “There is no need to... ” No need to watch this video twice, if you understand it the first time. And the phrase, “to need to go” can simply mean that you have to go somewhere. But we also use it to mean that you need to go to the bathroom.

Hey, let's look at a comment from I'm not sure why I did that little dance. I think that's what little kids do when they need to go, anyways. Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Brenno. Hi, Bob. Thanks as usual. We always have more than enough knowledge with you to go around. Enough said. Have a good weekend. My response? Thanks. You too. Yes, Brenno, I hope you have a good week. And that was an excellent use of both phrases from the previous video. Good job.

Well, hey, I don't have a lot to talk about today. I am out here. It's a nice sunny day. You'll see that in a moment as I walk into the sun. I got up really early. I went for a walk. The only thing I would say is I have actually started to be a little bit bored. This is the fourth day of my summer vacation. And I mentioned to Jen the other day that somewhere around four or 5:00, all of a sudden, I was a little bit bored.

It's rare for me to be bored. So that was something new and it's a good thing. When I'm bored then new ideas come to me. When I'm bored, I start to think of new ways to teach English in particular. And I have some ideas that I've been mulling over in my head for ways that I can make new videos or little posts I can do on my community tab and those kinds of things. So yes. Bob, the Canadian, after months of being a little bit too busy, was actually bored for just a little bit.

But I won't be bored later today because it is actually market day. We're loading the red van, we’ll b

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ENOUGH SAID! and ENOUGH TO GO AROUND

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, Enough said. This is a phrase we use when we're done talking about something, and it's time to actually do the work or do something. When Jen and I talk about what we're going to work on, on the farm each day in the morning. Eventually one of us might say, okay, enough said. Let's get to work. It can also be something you say towards the end of an argument. Maybe you're having an argument with someone and you finally just say, Look, enough said. I don't think we're going to agree on this. So it simply means that the time for talking is over in that situation. And it's time to either do the work or maybe just stop talking about what you're talking about. Enough said.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase enough to go around. So this simply means that you have as much as you need so everyone gets something. When I go to a party, sometimes I bring food and when I get there, they might say, Oh, you didn't need to bring food. We had enough to go around. So it means the same as enough, but it also implies that you are sharing. My sister's having a birthday in a few weeks and she said she's having a party and we should come over. And I said, Should we bring some food with us? And she said, No, no, I'll have enough to go around. This simply means that she's going to buy all the food. She's going to prepare it. We do not need to bring anything because there will be enough to go around. Again, it just means the same as enough. But it also means that you are sharing with more than one person.

Anyways, to review when you say enough said, it means that the discussion is over or it's time to get to work. And when you say there is enough to go around, it means that you have enough so everyone gets something. If you buy 12 donuts and there are 12 people, you have enough to go around.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Irina. Thank you dear teacher, Bob, for your amazing lessons. Have a great day. And my response? Thank you. I hope you have a great day, too.

So I wanted to use that comment because I do pick all different types of comments and sometimes I do like to just pick the one that says thank you and have a good day and I like to focus on the “Have a good day!” part of it. It's nice when people say, Have a good day. It's nice when people are positive. So thank you Irina for that comment. Thank you for being a positive person. I appreciate that. That is what teaching English for me is all about, me being positive and people who are watching the lessons also being very positive about life. There's no reason to be annoyed about anything. It's good to just be happy.

Having said that, I was going to do the lesson today on the phrase Enough already! and Enough is enough! because it's been raining here a lot and I'm at the point where I want to say enough is enough. We have received since Let me see, the last video you watched was last Friday. Since last Friday, we have received three and a half inches of rain. That's a lot of rain. That's too much rain. I was outside saying enough is enough. I was yelling at the sky this morning. Not really, but kind of in a joking way. But it has just been raining and raining and raining. I think now the sun might come out in a little bit.

Let me check my time here. Oh, I have 30 seconds. The sun might come out in a little bit and that would be really nice. We like the soil can't take this much rain. It

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SEE FOR YOURSELF and TO BE FULL OF YOURSELF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "to see for yourself". When you need to see for yourself it means someone has told you something and you might believe them or you might doubt them, but you want to try or experience what they've told you for your yourself. You want to do it. If someone said to me, "Hey, skydiving is the most exciting thing you could do in life." I would say, "You know, I'm going to have to see for myself." Of course, I have to change yourself to myself because I'm talking about me. I would say I'm going to have to see for myself. That means that I want to do it. I want to go and do that activity so I can form my own opinion of it. Maybe someone says to you, "Hey, you should go see the latest "Spider-Man" movie. It's the best Spider-Man" movie ever!" You might say, "Hey, you know what? I'll go, but I'm going to have to see for myself." I want to experience the movie and then I'll decide if it's the best one.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "to be full of yourself". When we say that you are full of yourself we mean that the person we are talking to is arrogant. If I was to say, and I'm gonna switch from your self to myself and himself, but if I was to say "I am the best YouTuber in the whole world," you would say, "You know, Bob's really full of himself." So yes, I have to change the yourself to himself, basically meaning Bob's really arrogant. He's not the best YouTuber in the whole world. By the way, I don't think that at all. I am not full of myself. Yeah, I had to change the yourself to myself. Sorry, I do have to flip these phrases around so they make sense.

So to review, to see for yourself means that you want to do something yourself in order to determine whether you think it is a certain way or not. And to be full of yourself simply means to think you're the most amazing person. It means to be really, really arrogant.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, I believe it just says user. I liked it better when I could see the names, but the comment is, "You can check the weather forecast on your phone, although sometimes it may not be accurate." In my response, "Yes, you have to look at your phone and the horizon and then you'll get a better sense of what is coming."

So we do rely on weather forecasts here, and you're right often they are wrong, but usually they're somewhat accurate. Accurate enough for us to prepare if we think it's going to rain. But sometimes it's simply better to look at the horizon. Now, interestingly enough, if you look at the horizon here I'm not sure how well you can see it, but we are now under a smoke alert again, a smoke advisory. So it is smokey here again, there are fires to the north of us and the wind is coming from the north, so you can smell a campfire smell in the air. And we're told not to do vigorous activity outside right now. So I'll be at market later today. I'll just try not to sell flowers vigorously. But we do have to sell the flowers, so hopefully the smoke is not too bad.

And by the way, I used the word alert and Noriko and Aleksey were talking about the word alert in the comments from the last video. You can get an alert on your phone and it can mean the same as a notification. But right now there is a smoke alert right now. They're sometimes are weather alerts and those are a little more serious. There's a fly on the lens. Okay, Mr. Fly, don't land on the lens. I'm trying to teach

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms BINGE-WORTHY and PAGE-TURNER

In this rainy day English lesson I'd like to help you learn the English term binge-worthy. This is a term we use to describe a TV show that's so amazing, you watch episode after episode until you've watched a whole season, maybe in one night or one weekend, maybe there's eight episodes in a season and you watch them all on one night. One Saturday night you sit down and watch all of them. We would certainly say that that show is binge-worthy. It's worth binging. Binging is when you, when you binge on food you eat a whole bunch of food at once. When you binge on a TV show, you watch a whole bunch of it at the same time, or one after another. So if there is a TV show that you love and you have it on a streaming service where you can watch one episode after another, we would say it is binge-worthy. And you might even tell a friend, "Oh you should watch this show, it's binge-worthy."

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is the term page-turner. We use this to refer to a book that's really, really good. If you are reading a book and it's so good, you're just turning pages one after the other as quickly as possible and reading as fast as you can, we say that it is a page-turner.

So to review, if you're watching a TV show and when you're done watching one episode you click play to watch the next one right away, we would probably say that that show is binge-worthy. And if you're reading a book and you can't put it down, you are just reading it as fast as you can, we say that it is a page-turner.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Oh, it's stuck in my pocket. The papers are a little wet 'cause it is raining a bit right now. This comment is from Daniel. "I really like to shop online because oftentimes prices hit rock bottom and I'm able to buy many things I need. Thanks for the lesson teacher Bob." And my response, "I like getting an email alert when something is on sale."

So yes, it is fun to shop online. You can often get really, really low prices, and sometimes I will sign up on a website, on a shopping website and say "Hey, send me an email when this particular item goes on sale." So thanks for the comment, Daniel.

I want to show you that I've been sitting in the house waiting for the rain to stop. Once again, I have on my rubber boots. So you can see here that the driveway has a lot of puddles. You can probably also see maybe a little bit that it's wet out here. Probably better if we look over here. You can hear me splashing through the puddles but you can actually see the water running down the driveway a little bit here, it is awesome. We have had a few days of rain here. We've actually had enough at this point. If it was to stop raining, I would be fine with that, but we weren't expecting this little extra bonus rain. We had already received some rain yesterday. We received some rain this past Saturday. And so this is, I would just call this bonus rain, the soil still had the ability to absorb this rain so it's not like we've had too much.

And if the sun wanted to come out now that would be awesome and fine with me. But once again, as a farmer, you can't really predict these. I think the sun's coming out right now. Oh, well look at that. I can't really shine my camera up there but there's just a small hole in the cloud and the sun came out. I guess maybe I can command the weather now. No, I'm just kidding, I can't do that. Anyways, nice big puddles. Everything is very, very happy. Flowers and crops are going to grow well over the next

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ROCK BOTTOM and SOLID AS A ROCK

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, rock bottom. Now, when we talk about someone's life, and if we say that they've hit rock bottom, it's kind of a sad thing. It usually means they're out of money and maybe they've lost their job and they don't know what to do next. They don't have anything to use to buy food and they don't know how to earn a living. Sometimes we'll say that they've hit rock bottom. Sometimes when we talk about someone whose life has gone kind of off the rails, we would say maybe they're doing drugs or something that's just ruining their life and at a certain point they might hit rock bottom. That would be the point in their life where they just aren't doing anything healthy anymore. They've hit rock bottom. This does have a bit of a positive meaning as well. You can talk about prices when they hit rock bottom, that's good for you at a store. If you could say, this store has rock bottom prices, that means you can buy things there really, really cheap.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase solid as a rock. When something is solid as a rock it's just that, it's immovable. If I was to lift weights all summer my muscles would get really big and they'd be very firm and you could say, Bob is solid as a rock. Maybe you are, let me see, maybe you're buying something like a wheelbarrow for your garden and the wheelbarrow is made out of metal. You still might say, yep, this thing is solid as a rock. That means it's well built and it will last a very long time.

So to review, when someone hits rock bottom it means they're at the worst part of their life, not a nice time for them. And when you say something is solid as a rock, it means that it's built well or that it's just, well here's an example, this tree right here is solid as a rock. It's a very solid tree, solid as a rock.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Abdula. Now they changed how names work on YouTube, so it gives me a very long name with numbers at the end. So hopefully from this point on, I say names right. Thanks Bob, it's really useful. What is the meaning of off-white? And my response, it means that something is white but has a tiny shade of another color in it.

We often use the term off-white. Thanks for the comment by the way, Abdula, we often use the term off-white to talk about paint in a house. When Jen and I paint a room, sometimes we'll paint it off white and it'll have a little shade of blue in it, a little tint of blue, or we'll paint something off-white and it has a little bit of gray in it. So it's very difficult to have pure white in the flower world. Sorry, I've switched subjects here slightly. Jen and I grow a number of white flowers, but most of them are off-white. So when someone calls and says can I have a bunch of white flowers? We usually say we have some off-white, towards green. We have some off-white with a tinge of pink in it or a tinge or a shade of pink in it. We have off-white that has just a little bit of purple in it, so it's very difficult to find pure white in the natural world. I think almost everything is off-white to some degree.

Anyways, I'm just walking out here in the shade, trying to get outta the wind again. I feel like I'm always trying to get outta the wind. It's a very nice day. It's a Thursday right now. I'm just wrapping up this lesson and I'm going to be heading off to market. Jen is already there with one of my kids selling flowers and I had a few thing

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms TLC and IT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the acronym TLC. In English, if you say something needs some TLC, it means it needs some tender loving care. Tender loving care. We never actually say tender loving care, though. We use this to talk about, maybe, if you buy something old that just needs some rust removed, you might say, "Oh, it just needs some TLC." Maybe you buy something at a thrift store or at a garage sale. You buy something used, and you just need to fix a few little things on it. You would say, "Oh, it just needs some TLC." It just needs some tender loving care, and then it will be just like new again, and ready to make me happy.

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The other short acronym I wanted to teach you today is IT. In English, when we say IT, we mean information technology. It means computers, and networks, and all of that digital stuff. If you say, "Oh, my cousin works in IT." You know, I really should have put, like a period after the I and the T, that would've been a good thing to do, 'cause we normally do that, and it means information technology. "My cousin works in IT," that means that your cousin works with computers. Maybe they set up computers, or they write programs for computers, or they connect computers together with networking. They work in IT, information technology.

So to review, TLC means some tender loving care. When you give something some tender loving care it's ready to use again. I'm trying to think. I bought an old piece of farm equipment once, and it just needed some TLC. It needed a new tire, I needed to fix where it connects to the tractor a little bit, and I sanded it, I sanded the metal and put some new paint on, I gave it a little bit of TLC, and it was as good as new. And IT, remember, there should actually be a period after the I and T, simply means information technology, the world of computers, and all the stuff that goes with it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Aleksey. "Film an English lesson first thing in the morning and..." I think that's a Mark Twain quote about a frog. "Do you know that quote from Mark Twain?" Yes, I do. "Seriously though, sir, it looks like you've got too much on your plate again. Take care of yourself, please. Enjoy your morning walk and run." And then, "PS in the Dark Kahn version you are a good kickboxer. Punch! kick, kick, kick, kick, kick. Punch! Bump elbow! Punch! That's the soundtrack stuck in my head. And that 'Slap ah' at the end. And your face!" Yeah, I'll put a link to that music video below for this, underneath this video as well. My response, "There is a certain amount of energy that comes with the end of the school year. I'm harnessing it well. I'll be able to relax quite a bit over the next couple of months, so no worries, but I will for sure take care of myself. PS, that song is still making me laugh."

So a couple of things there. One, I appreciate the concern. Many of you who watch most of my lessons know more about my life as I go through each week, and you know and can sense when I'm busy, and when I'm less busy. And yes, I am pretty busy right now. It's the last two weeks of the school year, this is exam week. So my students wrote an exam today, and we're having a bunch of retirement parties at night as well, so there is a busyness, but I am taking really good care of myself right now. I am exercising almost daily. I am walking. I'm eating very, very healthy. And although I am busy, none of it is like, stressful busyness. I hope you know the difference. Like, I'm not so busy that I'm up

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SCRAPE BY and TO SCRAPE UP

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to scrape by. Now, when you scrape by it can mean you're talking about money or succeeding at something, but just succeeding by a little bit. Here's a good example. You might say, my cousin doesn't make a lot of money at work, but he has enough money to scrape by. That means he can pay all his bills, but he doesn't have a lot of money left over to do anything fun. That would be kind of disappointing, wouldn't it? It's always nice to have a little extra money. When you just have enough money to scrape by, life isn't as enjoyable. You could also say this, he passed his exam, but he just scraped by. I'm using the past tense now, he just scraped by, that means the person probably got 51% on their exam, so they just did good enough to pass.

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The second phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase to scrape up. When you scrape up, it means you kind of gather stuff. If I was to go to work today and if I didn't bring a lunch, and instead I wanted to bring money, I might have to scrape up some money in the house. I might have to look for some change or look for some bills. I might need to scrape up some money so I have enough. If Jen gets a call from someone and they say, do you have any peonies? And if Jen doesn't have a lot, maybe she has three peonies flowers, but she knows she can go out to the field and scrape up a few more. It means there's hardly anything left. There's hardly any peonies left, but she knows if she goes around and cuts a few, and gets a few out of the cooler, she can scrape up enough to make a bouquet.

So let's review, to scrape by means to just have enough money to live or it means to just succeed at something by a little bit. And to scrape up means to kind of gather together money or some other things.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. If you wonder why I'm laughing, it's because it's really early in the morning here, I just crawled out of bed to make this video. It's early Thursday morning, one of my busiest days of the week, and I got up at 6:00 AM, and it's 6:10 right now. So I probably look, Do I have bags under my eyes? and my hair's a little bit messy. I should have shaved today too, but oh well, I needed to get an English lesson done, so that's the way it goes.

This comment is from Know That. "Hello, Mr. Bob, I noticed that you have switched the side you wear your fitness tracker on. if I'm right, you usually wear it on your left wrist", yes, "But as far as I can remember, you said that you always do this in the summer so that you can get an even tan to avoid a brighter part. Thank you for the new phrases, sir, I wish you a nice day." And my response, that is, correct, I switch it each day so that I don't end up with a white band on my arm, very perceptive of you.

So yes, I do tan a little bit in the summer, and if I wear my fit... I don't know, I probably don't have a white band here now, but I do switch it from arm to arm. Let's see how quickly I can get this put back on. I do switch it from arm to arm, because otherwise I end up with my arm being tanned. And then there's this white area where my Fitbit would be. Now it's not telling me the time. So yes, thank you, Know That, that was very perceptive of you. I do still switch it every day in the summer when I go for my walk in the morning.

And by the way, I have been walking a lot lately. I don't know what's gotten into me, I have started walking and even running a little bit. I'm not a runner. Y

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OH WELL! and WELL, WELL, WELL!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "Oh well!" This is a phrase we use when something happens, but it's not something that we're upset about or angry about. It's something that just happened. I could say this, "I came outside today and it rained and my camera got a little bit wet, but oh well, it's not a big deal." This camera's a little bit waterproof. Maybe I'm doing a job at work and I drop something on the floor, and even if it breaks or something, I could just say, "Oh well," if it's not a big deal. Maybe I dropped something that's old and it was kind of junk anyways. I might say, "Oh well, I dropped that. It's not a big deal." So notice I'm also using the phrase, "It's not a big deal." That's probably a phrase that means the same thing. "Oh well, it rained. It's not a big deal." "Oh, well, my camera got a little bit wet."

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By the way, it rained here. I'm pretty happy about that.

The next phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase, "Well, well, well." And this is a phrase we sometimes say a little sarcastically when we discover something or when we catch someone doing something. I might walk into a classroom and a student is trying to eat at the back of the room when they're not supposed to be eating. I might say, "Well, well, well. What's going on here? Why are you eating during class?" So it's kind of a way of saying you've just seen something or discovered something. I'm trying to think of another example. When you come home, if you have a dog, when you come home and the dog has eaten your shoe. You might say, "Well, well, well. What's happened here? Who ate my shoe?" So it's kind of a way of just saying that something happened. I think detectives must say this a lot. When they find a clue, they might go, "Well, well, well. What's this on the floor? It looks like the criminal left behind their tools," or, I don't know. I'm not very familiar with how criminals work. I think they have tools, but I'm not sure.

Anyways, to review. When you say, "Oh well," it means something's happened and it's not a big deal. You're not upset or concerned. And when you say, "Well, well, well," it means you've discovered something or you've seen something, and you kind of, before you talk about it, you just say that to indicate that maybe you're surprised a little bit.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Maritza. "So cute, Walter! But I wonder, where is Oscar? I haven't seen him for a long time. I hope he is well. Thank you for another valuable lesson." And my response, "Oscar's doing well, but as always, he is mostly with Jen. He sticks to her all day." You could also say he sticks with her all day. "Walter tends to wander. Oscar is Jen's friend. Walter is everyone's friend."

And that is very true. Walter does bark when people come over, but he's very quickly their friend. He's supposed to be a bit of a guard dog. He's supposed to bark when people come over and protect the property and protect Jen. But very quickly, he just likes to lick people. If people are wearing shorts, he likes to lick their legs, which is kind of strange. But dogs do strange things, right? Oscar, on the other hand, loves being with Jen and is most often just found with Jen.

So I will get some video of the two of them, and I'll overlay it. As I'm talking right now, you can see the peonies, but I'll also just talk a little bit and put a video in here of the two dogs. They are both doing well. Oscar has actually lost a bit

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases YOUR GUESS IS AS GOOD AS MINE and I NEVER WOULD HAVE GUESSED

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase: Your guess is as good as mine. This is something you say when you don't know the answer to something, and the person you're talking to maybe knows the answer maybe doesn't either. We ordered some stuff from Amazon yesterday and it said that the delivery is supposed to come today, but honestly, your guess is as good as mine whether that happens or not, I mean, it might come today. Often when I order something from Amazon, it comes the next day because we live relatively close to Toronto. But whether it actually comes or not, your guess is as good as mine. So when I use that phrase, I'm basically saying I don't really know if it will come today. If you think it's going to come today, you might be right. If you don't think it will come today, you might be right as well. So anyways, your guess is as good as mine.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase I never would have guessed. This is something you say when someone tells you something and you didn't know that that was true. If I said to you, I'm only 40 years old, you might look at me and say, Well, I never would have guessed because you look much older. Or if I said to you, I am 60 years old and you think I look a lot younger, you might say, Oh, I never would have guessed. You look so much younger than 60 years old. So it's something you say when someone tells you something and you didn't realize that that was true or that that was a fact.

So to review, Your guess is as good as mine!, is something you say when you don't know whether something will happen and the person you're talking to probably doesn't either. Whether or not it will rain this weekend. Your guess is as good as mine. I hope it does, though. And if you say I never would have guessed, it means that there's a situation that you're: Oh, you didn't actually know that something was true. If I was to say to you something like this, this is Walter right down here. He's huge now. And you might say, Oh, I never would have guessed that he would have grown so fast.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Andres Padrón. There is a utility pole that has an electric transformer in front of your house. Is that the only one... Is that only for your property? It was my first impression because I did not see many cables connected to the transformer. My response? That is correct. The high voltage comes in from the road and is converted for our house, shed and barn.

So, yes, very observant of you. Andres, thanks for that comment. If we look over here, first of all, we'll see this fun dog down here. Say hi, Walter. That's Walter kind of saying hi.

But if we keep walking, you'll see this pole over here. Also, I don't know if you can tell, but it's quite hazy in the distance. The forest fires way up in northern Ontario are actually causing it to smell like smoke here, even though they're hundreds of kilometers away. So right up there, there is a transformer. I think a bird is building a nest in it.

And those cables there, those wires there go to the road. That's where the hydro or electricity comes from. And then this one goes to our barn and it's also connected to our house. So once again, very observant of you, Andres.

But yeah, I'm not sure. I wasn't going to talk about this too much today because it went away earlier this afternoon. But it's back. But it smells like smoke. And you can kind of see sm

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English term FIRST IMPRESSION and the phrase UNDER THE IMPRESSION

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term first impression. Your first impression is what you think of someone or something the first time you see them or see it. A good example would be this if you were to introduce me to someone in your family. My first impression would probably be that they are a nice person just like you. So however, I think about the person in the first few moments that I meet them would be my first impression. Maybe you want to buy a house and when you walk into a house that you might buy, maybe you're looking at a house, your first impression might be it seems really nice. So a first impression is simply that first, that very first thought that you have about a person or about someone.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is under the impression. And this means that you think something about someone, but you're not sure if it's true or not, but you kind of thought it was. I could say this to you. I was under the impression that you are the oldest in your family. I was under the impression that that guy had worked here for ten years, but he just started last week. I was under the impression that this house was only going to be $250,000, but this house is $400,000. I'm just imagining that I'm looking at a house. My first impression was that the house was really nice, and then I was under the impression that it would be a lot cheaper than it actually is. So I think under the impression you think something, but you might actually be wrong as well.

So to review your first impression is the first thing you think when you first watched one of my videos, I would assume if you're still here, that your first impression was, I think this guy's a pretty nice English teacher. And when you are under the impression it means maybe without facts, you think something about someone or something. So I could say something like, I was under the impression that these videos would be 5 minutes long, but they're only 4 minutes long.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me get it out of my pockets. And this is from Aleksey. I also like to have a free hand. Even if things get out of hand, I can always say that my hands were tied. Pun intended! And my response haha. Great series of phrases there. Aleksey, nice work. So that's from Aleksey Thank you very much.
Good use of a number of different phrases with the word hand in it.

So I can't walk too far today because it's quite windy out. Actually, it's kind of settled down a bit, but what I wanted to show you is we're a little concerned right now. If you look here, you can see that some of the grass in our driveway is starting to turn brown.

The reason this is happening is because it has not rained here for about two and a half weeks. And this is the time of year where we really need rain. Let me show you over here as well. This is very minor, but you can see that the grass in the middle of the driveway and along the edges is starting to turn brown. The grass in those areas is usually the first to go.

That's the first area to turn brown when we're going into what feels a little bit like a drought. I hope we're not entering a drought, but Jen and I have been watering flowers far more than we normally do this time of year. Usually in May and early June we have timely rains. It usually rains every week, but this year looks like it might be a dry year. I don't know for sure how long it will last. There's no rain in the foreca

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HAVE A FREE HAND and TO HAVE FREE REIN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to have a free hand. Now, when you have a free hand, it means you have the freedom to do what you want in a certain situation. My job's really nice, because I have a boss, but when I'm in the classroom, I have a free hand to do pretty much anything I want to, within reason of course. So when you have a free hand, you can do what you want. When you're your own boss, you have a free hand to do whatever you want all the time. Jen is her own boss here on the flower farm, so she has a free hand, she can decide to do things or not do things or do things anyway she wants to.

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The second phrase I wanna teach you today is to have free rein, and this actually means the same thing as to have a free hand, but notice there's no a. So when you have free rein, you can do things any way you want, when you have a free hand, you can do things anyway you want. But the one phrase has this word in it, the letter A, a, and this phrase does not, so you have free rein. I love doing YouTube, because I have free rein to do whatever I want, I don't have a boss telling me what to do. And again, I do like my job, because I pretty much have free rein to do what I want creatively in the classroom.

So to review, to have a free hand or to have free rein, they mean the same thing, it means to have freedom in any kind of situation. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, this comment is from Qiu Park, and the comment is, "Jen is awesome, she did a great job, it's fascinating to be a flower grower, she grows beauty." And my response, "Jen always says she grows beautiful things and they make people happy. I make English lessons and they make people happy, it makes us happy when we help people be happy."

So I guess Jen and I kind of are in the happiness business. Thanks Qiu Park for that comment, that was great. Yes, in the last video, I'm going to walk out here to the peonies again. I know it gets a little repetitive, but the cool thing is, is they are really close right now to blooming. In fact, some of them have been harvested already, so you'll be seeing some plants that don't have any flowers on them. And I know it might look like they're not blooming yet, but we do cut the peonies before they actually bloom. And there are mosquitoes out here, which reminds me of Mohd Ags made a comment in the last video about wanting to be a fly on the wall on the farm.

See, this one is already gone, Jen has harvested it. We usually pick them when they feel a little bit like a marshmallow, so that one's almost ready to go. This one is not quite ready to go, but we pick them, yeah, at what we call the marshmallow stage. When they're at the marshmallow stage, when you squeeze them, they feel a little bit like a marshmallow. You know what a marshmallow is? It's one of those white things, they come in a bag, if you roast them over a fire, they end up tasting really, really yummy, you can make something out of them called s'mores, but we haven't done that yet this year, we'll do that in a few weeks. There's definitely something flying around here, but I don't think they are mosquitoes, they must be something else.

So yeah, actually, let's go to the end, and then I'll flip you around and we'll walk back, so you can see me walking through the peony row. Let's do that, let me flip you around. There we go. So we'll just kinda fly through here. Hopefully, it doesn't shake or move around too much for you. I had to stop there for a se

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HIT A WALL and I'D LIKE TO BE A FLY ON THE WALL

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to hit a wall. When we say in English that you hit a wall, it means you've hit an obstacle or even a feeling that makes you stop doing something. If I'm working really hard on a video and I can't think of other ideas to finish the video, I could say that I hit a wall. If I'm running a long distance, if I run for more than two or 3 minutes, eventually I hit a wall. Basically, I can't breathe fast enough to actually keep running. So I would say that I hit a wall. We often describe runners who run long distances when they get to a point where they can't run anymore, we say that they hit a wall.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, I'd like to be a fly on the wall. This is a phrase we use when we know people are talking about something in a room, maybe at work or maybe in your house and you're not in the room, but you would like to be in the room. You would say, Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that room, or I'd like to be a fly on the wall. This happens mostly at work when the boss is meeting with someone else. A lot of the teachers are like, I wonder what they're talking about. I'd like to be a fly on the wall in that room, or I'd love to be a fly on the wall so I could just kind of hear what they're saying and see what they're doing.

So to review to hit a wall means to hit an obstacle that stops you from being able to do something. Here's something that happened to me. In university I took one year of math. I took calculus. But during my second year of calculus, I hit a wall. I wasn't able to understand it or do it well. That's about the limit of my math knowledge. Calc II in university is where I hit a wall. And I'd like to be a fly on the wall simply means that people are meeting somewhere and you would just really love to hear what they're saying.

But anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Know that. Hello Mr. Bob. A warm welcome back from my side too. You really are a hard working man, but we know that. It's very nice of you that you lend a hand and take care of the grade nine French class. Your school is very fortunate to have someone like you, just like we do here. Anyway, I'm glad that you're at good health and back on track. Thanks for the lesson, sir. And my response: I'm happy to be back on track too. I'm looking forward looking forward to making today's lesson. Thank you. Know that for that comment. For some reason, I'm having trouble talking today. I don't know why.

Hey, we are out here having a look at the wagon. So this is the wagon that, as I've explained before, is a little bit like a greenhouse. And you can see that there are still a lot of seedlings in here that need to be planted. There are some down here getting full sun on the ground and more over here as well. And I'll show you where I'll leave you guys walking this way. You don't need to see me when I go for a walk, do you? We'll walk over here and I'll show you where some of them are getting planted.

So over here we have what is actually our first flower bed. When we started farming, this was the first flower bed that we created. You have some flowers growing here. We sometimes put down black fabric to kill all the weeds or plastic. This is actually plastic. So the heat of the sun and then the lack of sunlight will kill the weeds. And you can see here Jen's getting ready to plant. She has drip line here to water. And over here there aren't

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SIGN UP and SIGN IN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the phrase sign up. When you sign up for something, it means that you want to do it and the person organizing it is asking for people to write their names down on a piece of paper, or maybe to send their name in via the computer, maybe an email or an online form. At school, sometimes there are sports at lunchtime and students and teachers can play if they want to, but you need to sign up. The day before or the week before they start playing basketball or volleyball or whatever the sport is they usually have a sign up sheet and you can sign up to play that sport. I don't normally do this, although last year I did play a little bit of baseball. I signed up (Past Tense) to play baseball. It was quite enjoyable. I hadn't played baseball for a very long time.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase sign in. Now, this is similar to log in if you're talking about a computer or something like your email. I have to sign in to check my email. When I turn my computer on, I need to sign in. I can also say log in. I need to log in to check my email. I need to log in once I turn my computer on. And it simply means to enter your username and your password. But we also use this for paper and pen things as well. My mom now lives in a retirement home. When I go to visit my mom, I need to sign in when I get there. They actually have a book at the entrance and I need to write my name and the time that I arrive and here's a bonus I need to sign out as well when I leave. I need to kind of write down what time I leave.

So to review, when you sign up for something, it means you put your name on a piece of paper or you give your name to someone who's organizing something. You sign up because you want to do that thing, and when you sign in, you can either sign in to a computer or a piece of software or a website or your email, or you can sign in like I described at an old age home or another place like that where they need to see your name when you get there.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Hopefully I remember how to do this still. This is from Berevilson. Thank you so much, Teacher Bob. How I like that landscape, it’s starting to look pretty nice here. Really amazing. Or as you like to say, awesome. Thanks a lot and my response. You're welcome. I'm replying to this 14 seconds after you typed it. I'm speeding to speed today

So that was actually two weeks ago. I was speedy that day, but then I wasn't very speedy or responsive after that, was I? So I do want to thank Berevilson, thank you so much for that comment. That is awesome.

And, you know, I always like to explain when I take a little bit of time off what I've been doing, not that you guys need to know, but a few things. One, I had some stuff I had to take care of normal things, like I had to file, finish filing my taxes. And then there was some additional paperwork afterwards that I had to take care of. We didn't get audited, but something similar to that. We had to provide some additional receipts.

And then a couple of things to somehow I agreed to teach an extra class at school just for the last few weeks of the school year. I can't give you all the details about why that happened, but there was a French class and I'm now the teacher. So instead of teaching part time, I'm a little closer to full time again, but just for a few weeks. And don't worry, it's pretty manageable. It's a grade nine French class, something I've taught many times befor

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT'S THAT! and THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, “That's that!” This is a funny little phrase we say when something is over or when something is done. When the workday is done, you might say, “Well, that's that! Time to go home!” When you're done having a conversation with someone, you might say, “Well, that's that! See you again tomorrow.” So it's just a way to kind of sum up that something is over. It's kind of a way to end something. I could do this when I'm done my videos as well. I could say, “Well, that's that. The lesson is over.” It's not over, though. Stick around. There's a little bit more to go.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, “That's more like it!” This is something we say when someone starts doing something in a better way or when something turns out to be better. Let me think of a good example. If I was doing something wrong, let's say I was watering the plants wrong and then Jen said, “No, no, turn the hose this way and go slower,” She might then say, “That's more like it!” to tell me that I'm now doing it correctly. So if someone's doing something wrong and then you show them how to do it right and when they do it right, you might say, “Hey, that's more like it!” You might get this when you're learning to pronounce an English word. When you do say it right, your tutor might say to you or your English coach might say, “That's more like it!”

So to review, if someone says, “That's that!”, it's just a way, kind of a funny little phrase to say when something is over or ending. And if someone says, “That's more like it!”, it must mean whatever you're doing, you're doing it right.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. It's in my back pocket. Oh, my wallet's in this back pocket, this is my wallet and this is my phone in my front pocket. And these are my keys because I just got home. I don't know why I'm showing you all that, but that's what's in my pockets today. Where's the actual comment? Here it is. This is from Revolution. Thanks for this valuable information. I don't know how to pay you. And my response? You do not need to worry about how to pay me. YouTube is a win-win situation. You watch my videos, I get advertising revenue. You learn English. It's a great system.

So I often mention... Sorry I dropped the comment. I often mention this to people. Some people want to thank me somehow or they want to pay me somehow for my lessons. If you want to be a member, you can, but it's not required.

There are some things you can do though, that help me here on YouTube, and those would be good things to do if you did want to thank me. Number one. Watch my video from start to end, especially on my other channel. If you do that, then YouTube knows it's a good video and they're more likely to show other people the thumbnail. The other thing you can do is watch the video twice. By the way, watching my entire video helps you and me. The second thing you can do is watch the video two or three times. This also helps you a lot because the repetition helps you to remember. And it also tells YouTube that my video is a good video.

By the way, don't do these two things if the video isn't a good video. If it's a boring video, just stop watching it. But if you did want to thank me, that would be a good way to do it.

What else could you do? You could tell other people about this channel or my other channel. That also helps me a lot because the more people that watch, and the more of you th

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A SLIP OF THE TONGUE and A SLIP UP

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase: a slip of the tongue. A slip of the tongue is when you say the wrong word by accident, or you use the wrong name when you're talking to someone. If I was talking to my brother John, and I called him Dave by accident, that's my other brother's name, I would say it's a slip of the tongue. I've made a mistake and I might not even realize it. Sometimes when you have a slip of the tongue, someone else will tell you that you made a mistake. So if you're ever talking and you use the wrong word in English or even in your own language, we would simply call it a slip of the tongue.

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And we also have something called a slip up. A slip up is just a small mistake that someone might make. Let's say my van needed to go to the garage and they said bring it in on a Tuesday and I brought it in on a Monday. That would just be a slip up. I got the dates wrong. That would be a little mistake that I made. This actually happened a couple weeks ago where I brought my vehicle somewhere on the wrong day, but it was just a little slip up.

So to review a slip of the tongue refers to when you use the wrong word or the wrong name, when you're saying something out loud, you have a little slip of the tongue. Sometimes when I'm talking to students, I'll call a student by the name of another student, and it's just a slip of the tongue. And when you make a small mistake, we simply call it a slip up. And we usually use the word little in front to we say, Oh, it's just a little slip up. It was just a small mistake.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. The comments actually laying in my van by here, I'm standing under or I have the camera under the back of my van because it's raining just a little bit here. But this comment is from Nutshell Collecttor. Thank you for the lesson. There is a gas tank behind you. Can you explain a bit about that? What is that for? And my response, it is full of propane and is used to heat our house. There is a line buried underground from the tank to our house and connected inside to a furnace. The furnace burns the propane.

And that makes heat for our house. So if you go back and watch the last lesson, you'll see that there is a green tank behind me in that lesson. And that tank is full of propane. It's not natural gas, but it's like natural gas. I think propane is a little bit of a different chemical makeup, and that's what we use to heat our house. It comes in a big truck and they pump it full and it's just full of propane. And then that goes through this little line underground to our house and it makes our furnace go.

So, hey, I'm walking outside here in town. I just popped over to another small park. I did make a video in this park once, a long time ago, a couple years ago. But I thought I would come here quick because it is spitting just a little bit. In English when we say that it's spitting, it means it's raining just a little bit. And I was going to show you some of the signs at the park. It says, Welcome to the township of West Lincoln's community park. So that means the town owns this park.

And then there are some rules. You must throw your garbage away. You must have your dog on a leash. You must pick up your dog's poop. No drinking, no driving, four wheelers or other ATVs and no smoking. Those are the park rules. And then what does it say down here? The township of West Lincoln is not responsible for damage or theft to vehicle or contents.

So if you

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In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "a walk in the park". When we describe something as a walk in a park, we mean that it's going to be very, very easy. If I say that tomorrow I'm going to go for a 20-minute walk, that's a walk in the park for me. Oh, it's a bad example. I'm using the literal example of walking to talk about this. I usually go for a 45 to 60-minute walk. If I have to walk somewhere and it's only 10 minutes, it's a walk in the park. It's really easy. Let me think of a better example. If I had to write an English test, it would be a walk in the park for me because I speak English. It would be something that's really, really easy.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is "a cakewalk", and this means exactly the same thing. If you needed to take an English test, it might be hard for you, but I'm not trying to brag here. If I needed to take an English test, it would be a cakewalk. Well, hopefully if it was advanced grammar, I might have some difficulty, but especially if they were asking for the actual names and terms. I'm not a a super expert on grammar if you haven't noticed, but a cakewalk would be how we refer to anything that's really, really easy. If Jen needs to grow something, it's a cakewalk for her. She's really good at doing that.

So to review "a walk in the park" and "a cakewalk", both these terms are used to refer to something that's really, really easy for someone to do. When a team that's really good plays a team that isn't so good, usually you expect it to be a walk in the park when they play that game, you expect them to win easily or you expect it to be a cakewalk.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Vítor, I believe. "I think it's good for Bob to be a teacher. The students learned a lot from the teacher and vice versa. And I say for sure, I learn so much from all of you."

There's some truth to that. A teacher teaches students, and students learn from the teacher, but I would say vice versa makes sense here because often, I learn things from my students as well. As I talk to students, they teach me things. In fact, one of the things that's true about being a teacher is that you learn your subject better than you would if you were a student. Let me explain this a little bit. As I teach you the English language, I actually learn more and more about the English language myself. I become more of an expert, because in order to teach what I want to teach, I have to really know what I'm teaching. Hopefully that made some sense. Anyways, thanks Vítor for the comment.

I wanted to give you a look here. I usually like to show you things that are in bloom so we have not only the dandelions down here in the lawn, but we also have these beautiful daffodils. We'll probably be harvesting some of these, although it's a little late to sell daffodils, and here we have some where they haven't quite bloomed yet. That's really it for right now. There's not a lot of other stuff blooming here on the farm.

It will be a few months, probably about a month and a half before the peonies start popping up and probably a good two months before we're in the full swing of things here on the farm. When you're in the full swing of things, it means that you're working from sunup to sundown. That's what I would say. On a farm, when we're in the full swing of things, we work sunup till sundown. And I'm looking forward to a bit of shade. I use shade a lot in the summer to make my English lessons. There's always a nice shady spot to stand. Right now, I don't have any shade. Hopefully, it's com

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases VICE VERSA and ON THE OTHER HAND

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, vice versa. I think this is actually a Latin phrase and it means the opposite, or the other way around. Let me explain. If I was to say I don't like my sister and vice versa that would mean my sister also doesn't like me. By the way, my sister and I get along really well. We like each other a lot. That was just an example. Sometimes I say, you should watch my English lessons with the subtitles on and then watch them with the subtitles off, or vice versa. That means the opposite. You could watch the video with the subtitles off and then watch it with them on. So when you say vice versa, it means you can do it the other way around and it's just as good as the first way it was mentioned. Or it can change the meaning to mean in both directions like the first example.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, on the other hand. This is when you add other information that might contradict what you've just said. I could say this, I'm a little worried that it might rain today, but on the other hand, if I look that way I see the sky is clear, so it might not. So you're introducing a new fact that might slightly contradict what you just said. If I said to you, you should watch these videos with the subtitles on in order to understand more what I'm saying. On the other hand, if you listen to them or watch them with the subtitles off,it's better for your listening skills so maybe you should do both.

Anyways, to review, vice versa simply means the other way around at the end of a sentence. And when you say, on the other hand, you're introducing new information to the discussion that might actually contradict what you've just said.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Iryna, I believe. "Your video is cool. "It is very good that you are helping your wife to grow flowers." And my response, many hands make light work.

Thanks Iryna, for that comment. Yes, I try to help Jen out as much as I possibly can. I just think it's nice for her to have help on the farm. The more help I give, the easier it is for everyone. And I always laugh at the English phrase, "Many hands make light work." It makes me laugh because we have another phrase, "Too many cooks spoil the broth." I think I've explained both before. The first phrase, many hands make light work, means if lots of people work on something, it's easier. The second phrase, too many cooks spoil the broth, means if too many people work on something, it can actually ruin the thing you're working on because too many people are doing things different ways or the wrong way.

Anyways, where am I today? I am out. Hopefully the wind's not blowing too much on the microphone. I am out here on our local soccer fields. I'll try to hold the the camera here so the mic's outta the wind a bit. Soccer has started. We do have to wait until the fields are dry a little bit. They are drained really well. But yeah, soccer starts. You can actually, I'm not sure if you guys can see this, but in the distance, the city workers are actually here mowing the lawns, trimming the edges. I'm sure they'll probably put the lines down for soccer. They were down last week, but I think it rained because the soccer lines are just made out of chalk. Oh, and the sun's coming out now as well.

So anyways, soccer will begin. I think when I drove by yesterday there were actually little kids having a practice here so I think it has begun. Maybe I'm

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP COUNT and TO LOSE COUNT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to keep count". This simply means to count something while you're doing it. When I put flowers in a bucket for Jen, sometimes Jen says, "Put 100 flowers in each bucket." So as I do it, I need to keep count. I put in one flower and then two flowers and three. And as I do it in my mind, I try to keep track. I try to keep count of the number of flowers that I put in so that I don't put in too many. Because if I put 105 flowers in a bucket and Jen sells it, then we gave three, or sorry, five flowers away for free, I'm having trouble doing math today. So when you keep count, it simply means to count something while you're doing it.

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Now to lose count, this is something that happens to me when I am putting flowers in a bucket. Sometimes I put in 50, 51, 52, and I get distracted and then I lose count and I forget how many flowers I've put in the bucket. I think that was 52, maybe 53. And then I have to count again so I know how many are in there. So when you lose count, it simply means that you got distracted, which often happens to me. And even though you were trying to keep count, you lost count because you were thinking of something else.

So to review, to keep count means to simply count something. There's an airplane going by today. If I was to keep count during the day, I would say about seven or eight airplanes fly by. And when you lose count, it means you were counting something and then you forgot how many you did. Sometimes I walk up and down the driveway when the weather's bad and I try to keep count how many times I've done it, but often I lose count. So I will make little marks on the van to help me keep count. Well, I think I just use both phrases a bunch of times there.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from UIF. To miss out, yes, FOMO, fear of missing out. You are correct is my response. That is exactly what FOMO means. This is a newer phrase or a newer term in English. FOMO, fear of missing out. I think it started a few years ago, but I've been hearing it a lot more lately.

By the way, I was gonna show you how I keep count on the van. Do you keep count this way? I think it's dirty enough for me to do this. I'm not sure if you'll be able to see that. It's probably out of focus, but this is a method of counting that we quite often use. Maybe I'll do it down here and spin you around. That way I can see it as well. I should really wash my van. I'm not sure, do you keep count that way? Like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It's a very simple way of keeping count. The other day I was bringing compost to the flower beds for Jen and she wanted 10 in each flower bed so I had to keep count. I didn't wanna lose count, so I used that method on the tractor. I would make little markings to keep count.

Anyways, I think I've just lost my train. Good thing I'm not trying to count something today, because I just lost my train of thought and I'm not sure what I was counting. What I was counting, what I was doing. Boy, this is turning into Bob making mistakes while he speaks English.

Anyways, here are many of our small flowers. I think these are actually weeds, but these are Lisianthus. I will definitely show you all of these out in the field in a couple of months. If we go over here as well. And some of you sometimes ask why we have this wagon. So if you see the little door, that door folds up and this door folds up so light can get in through the ceiling. It's a little bit dirty up

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO MISS OUT and TO MISS THE POINT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you understand the English phrase, to miss out. When you miss out on something, it means you don't go to that thing or do that thing. Here's a good example. If I knew that tomorrow if I stayed after work, I would get free supper, I would say, I can't go. I'm going to miss out, because I have other things that I have to do. If someone said to me, hey, we're going to go see a Toronto Raptors game next week, Thursday night, this is fictional by the way, the Raptors aren't actually playing anymore, but I might say, oh, I'm going to have to miss out because I have other things that I need to do. So when you miss out, it simply means that you can't do something because you have to do something else, and then you miss out. You don't get to do it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to miss the point. When you miss the point, it means you don't understand something. Sorry, there was a loud truck there. You don't understand something or you misunderstand it. When you miss the point. If I said to my students, let me think of a good example here. If I said to my students, you should study chapter one, just in case, they might miss the point, and think that they're studying chapter one just because it's fun, when the point was there might be a quiz or test on it. Don't think I'm explaining this one really good. But when you miss the point, it means you don't understand something or you understand it wrong. If you watch this lesson, thinking that you are just going to learn two phrases, you've kind of missed the point. 'Cause the point of this lesson is to learn two phrases and to practice your listening skills and to watch me walk around and show you the town and to get to know me a bit better. So hopefully you don't miss the point.

So to review, to miss out means you don't do something because you can't go or you have other obligations. And to miss the point is to simply misunderstand something or to understand it wrong. Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aline. "Hi Bob! Thanks a lot for another really nice video! And yeah, it's amazing to see and hear nature around you during the lessons." And my response, "Today's lesson will be in town, so no nature to speak of!"

But certainly, loud pickup trucks. I think that might have been in your field of view. I'm not 100% sure, there was a loud pickup truck there. Hey, today, by the way, thank you for the comment, Aline.

So today, I'm in front of an old building. This is actually an old feed mill. In fact, I think it says that somewhere way up there. I'm not sure if you can see it. It says Niagara Grain and Feed. This was a place that made feed for chickens and cows and pigs. But it has been abandoned for a long time. In fact, you can tell it's abandoned by looking at the flower beds in front of it. You can see they're a little bit overgrown. There's not very many nature sounds here. There's a lot of truck sounds. You can see it's overgrown. You can't even use the stairs.

There are signs here like no smoking and no dumping. So they don't want people to dump their garbage here. That's why there's a no dumping sign. But anyways, we used to get feed from here when my parents were dairy farmers. This was one of the places. You can see a big green grain bin, as well. This is one of the places where we got our feed, and it's right in town, by the way. It's smack dab in the middle of town, because it's located, on the other side of this,

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DIE FOR and TO DIE OF BOREDOM

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to die for. When you describe something as being to die for, it just means it's really, really good. I know it has the word die in it, which is a sad word, but if you were to go to a restaurant and order a chocolate dessert and it was amazing, you might tell your friend, "You need to order the chocolate dessert, it is to die for." It just means that it's really, really good, it's like the best chocolate dessert you've ever had in your life, it's to die for.

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The second English phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to die of boredom. We sometimes use the word die, and I'm not sure why, because obviously death and dying is a very serious thing, but sometimes people will describe something as it was so bad that they were going to die of boredom. Sometimes I think my students might describe my classes this way. I hope you don't find my English video lessons this way, where you're thinking, "Oh, I'm gonna die of boredom, if I sit and watch this whole lesson." But I know there have been times in my life, where maybe I've gone to see a movie, that someone said was to die for and I actually find it extremely boring and I would say, "You know what? I almost died of boredom while I was watching that movie."

Anyways, to review, when you say something is to die for, you are saying that it is amazing, when you say that you're going to die of boredom, it means you're at something or watching something and it's just not interesting, you feel like you're so bored that you're going to die, not literally.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Anaya. "Hi Bob, iconic place, love it so much. The greenery and daylight boosted my mood way too much. Thanks for that." And my response, "You're welcome, Anaya. I'm always happy to share the view." And I am, I'm always happy to share the view.

And some of you noted as well, that it has turned quite green here. It happens rather quickly, I'm always a little bit shocked at how quickly we go from winter and cold to things looking quite green. I'll spin you around in a sec to see the other side here. Yes, I still have to fix this picnic table, I'll get to it eventually, but if we walk over here, I'll spin you around and you'll see we do not have leaves on the trees yet, but we do have the grass turning nice and green.

You'll notice that the daffodils over here are starting to bloom and just all in all, it is a nice spring day. I really enjoy this, if I'm quiet once again, I just hear birds chirping. It is a nice time. I should show you this though. Last fall, Jen and I, our order for tulips didn't come in and so we only ended up with a small amount of tulips. Usually we have a lot more, you can see that they're in what we would call a raised bed here and they are starting to pop out of the ground and they will bloom in a bit, but usually this is much longer, it's usually about four or five times longer than this. But yeah, a little bit of a mix up last fall, that's okay. If we look here, you can see that on the maple trees, we are close to the leaves popping out.

So anyways, beautiful spring day, it's to die for this day. Anyways, thanks for watching. I'll see you in a couple days, sorry, this one's late. I'll get back on track eventually, hopefully, bye.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AS FAR AS I CAN SEE and TO SEE SOMETHING THROUGH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "as far as I can see." Now this doesn't have anything to do with seeing a long ways. It has nothing to do with me being able to see something that's far away. It basically means "as I understand something." So I could say this. As far as I can see, YouTube is a good way to learn English. As far as I can see, learning how to do something can only help make you a better person. So basically as I understand it, as far as I can see, those things are a good idea. So I guess I'm trying to think of another way to explain this. Like my understanding of the situation lets me say that I think this is a good idea. So as far as I can see, hiring someone to help you speak English once a week for 30 minutes? As far as I can see, that's a good idea. It has no drawbacks in my mind.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to see something through. When you see something through, it means you work at it to make sure that it happens and that it is finally completed. At work, sometimes we're working on a project and other people might wanna quit, but I like to see it through. I like to make sure the project is finished. I want to make sure we take it to completion. So I like to see it through.

By the way, this is different than seeing through something. That's a little bit different. If I lie and you see through my lie, it means you knew that I wasn't telling the truth. Sorry, hopefully I'm not confusing you there. To see something through and to see through something have completely different meanings. Hopefully you understood them.

Anyways, to review. "As far as I can see" simply means "as I understand it." As far as I can see, planting more trees in the world will just make the world a better place. And to see something through means to make sure it gets done. If I said my neighborhood is going to plant 1000 trees and I'm going to see it through, that would mean I'm going to make sure it actually does happen. That would be cool if we did that. Maybe I should start that initiative. The Bob the Canadian Tree Planting Initiative. We'll see.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. from Setayesh. "Thanks. If you don't mind, can I ask, are you the owner of all that land?" And I replied by saying, "I'll show you in the next video what Jen and I own."

So when I say own, I always like to also say basically what Jen and I purchased by taking out a large loan from the bank and paying them back every month. So it's not like I bought all of this farmland from my mom because I had lots of money. We did go to the bank. We do pay a hefty amount every month for it. But let me show you what we do own. If you look across the river, we do not own that land. If you look this way where you can see the barn and then you look at the land on this side of the river, we do own that land. So we have a field where we grow crops in the distance. We usually grow soybeans or wheat or corn.

Down further, I think I'm pointing to the right spot, we have a place where our goats go out on pasture. If you squint, you can see Walter down there right now. He's on his way to the river, maybe to go for a swim. And way in the distance there is a piece of land where we have hay that the neighbors actually cut and bale that every year and they give us some hay for our animals as well. But yes, this is what we own. We do not own that. We just look at it and appreciate it. It's a beautiful piece of lan

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A CLOSE CALL and TO CALL OFF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "a close call." When something is a close call, it means that something bad almost happened, but it didn't happen. Here's a little story. Once when I was younger, I was working, I was about 17. I was working on a building on scaffolding. You know, what they put along the side of the building? And lightning struck the ground about a kilometer from where I was. But me and my coworkers saw little bolts of static electricity go from the scaffolding to the building. So we quickly climbed down and ran inside. That was a close call. I didn't get hit by lightning but it was certainly a close call. I was happy that the lightning hit far away.

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So the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to call off." When you call something off, it means you cancel it. This happens sometimes when it snows a lot in Canada. They'll call off school, they'll cancel school for the day. Sometimes this happens when two people are planning to get married and then they start to not like each other. Sometimes they call off the wedding, they decide not to have it.

So to review a close call is whenever something almost happens that would be bad. Like if you almost hit someone with your car. If two cars are driving and almost hit each other, we would say that that is a close call and when you call something off, to call off means to cancel something.

So, hey, I don't have a comment today. I have to apologize. I've had a really busy week and I did not have a chance to respond to all the comments and it's close to raining out here. So I ran outside quickly. I'm not sure if you can see the storm approaching. There are actually some small raindrops hitting me right now. If you don't believe me, I'll show you the puddle. You might be able to hear the thunder as well.

Whoa, that's upside down. That's not how that's supposed to work. Here we go. You can see maybe some drops hitting that puddle there. Let's see if we can get this turned around. I'm not sure if you can hear the thunder. I probably should just go inside now instead of staying out here.

So just a short lesson today. Busy week, haven't had time to reply to comments. I'll get back at that as soon as possible. But I thought I should still jump outside and make a quick lesson for you. Hopefully you learned a couple phrases and I better get back inside now. I don't want to tell another version of the lightning story after this lesson. So, have a good couple days. I'll see you in a couple days with another short English lesson. Bye.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BY WEIGHT and DEAD WEIGHT

In this English lesson, I'd like to help you learn the English phrase "by weight." When you buy something, you can either buy it by weight. You pay a certain amount per pound or per kilogram, or I think the opposite is by volume. When I buy gas, I pay per liter. But when something is sold by weight, you pay for a certain number of pounds or kilograms or whatever other measure of weight they are using. When we sell bouquets, we sell by quantity. You buy 12, sorry, you buy 12 flowers in a bouquet, so you're buying I guess by volume but I would say by quantity. When I buy gas, it's by volume, and when I buy things like bulk food at the grocery store, where you scoop it yourself and put it in a bag, often you pay by weight. We actually have a store called Bulk Barn in Canada where you can buy everything by weight, candies, chocolate. I like buying chocolate by weight, although the scoop I make usually ends up costing more than I'm expecting.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "dead weight." This refers to anyone who isn't doing their job. We also would say they're not pulling their weight. If you watch a sports game, if you watch a football game and one person isn't running very fast and they don't play very good defense and they never score a goal, you might say that they're dead weight. You would describe that person as being dead weight. Not a very nice way to be described, but if you're dead weight, it means you're not really doing anything.

So to review, when you buy something by weight, you're paying by the pound or by the kilogram depending on how you measure things in your country. And when someone is dead weight, it means that they're not contributing the way they should to a team or at work or someone else.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Axmed. "Hello teacher Bob the Canadian. "Is this phrase correct? "'I met the President, or I met with the President'?" My response, both are correct, but with slightly different meanings, so I'm glad you brought this up. "I met the President." This means you saw him or her once briefly, maybe shook his or her hand and maybe got your picture taken. "I met with the President," this means you probably sat down for a bit of time and talked with the President.

So thanks for that comment by the way, Axmed. Yes, you can see from my response, slightly different meanings. The first one simply means that maybe you were somewhere and the President was there and you said "hi" and got a selfie taken with the President, and then the second one would mean you actually had a meeting. You actually sat down and you talked about things. You probably must be a very important person if you had an actual meeting with the President, although everyday people sometimes can meet the President or Prime Minister.

Someone I work with actually met the Prime Minister and got his picture taken. I was surprised. He didn't meet with the Prime Minister. He met the Prime Minister at like a meet and greet in a park I think that's where it was. So I was a little bit jealous. I thought, Bob the Canadian should someday get a picture with the Prime Minister. That would be really, really cool, of Canada.

By the way, did you know that's one of my dreams, which will probably never happen? I would love it if the Canadian Tourism Board hired me as an ambassador for Canada promoting this beautiful country. I thought, wouldn't it be cool if when I retire from teaching, if the Canadian government sent me a

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A SPLIT SECOND and TO SPLIT UP

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase a split second. When something happens in a split second, it means it happens in less than a second. It happens instantly. It takes hardly any time at all. The other night I had to hit my brakes in a split second because a deer ran out on the road in front of me. That happens sometimes in this part of Canada, so I hit my brakes in a split second. My foot went from the floor of the van to the brake pedal in a split second. It went immediately like no time passed at all. It was definitely less than a second. I don't usually move that fast, but in situations like that, you need to react in a split second.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to split up. Now you can use this to talk about dividing something up. If I had ten candies and I split up the candies among my children, I would give each of them two. I would put the ten candies on the table and make little piles of two, and I would give each kid two candies. You can also use this to talk about relationships. Sometimes people will split up. Sometimes Frank and Kim have a relationship where things aren't going well and they decide that they want to split up. This means that they are no longer together. They have gone their separate ways.

So again, to review when something happens in a split second, it happens immediately.It happens very, very quickly. And when somebody splits something up, it means they divide them up like candies. And if two people split up, it means they are no longer in a relationship.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd Ags, and my response is pretty long, so this might take a while. I'll try to read clearly and quickly. Mohd says, I really like learning useful phrases like to make a day of it as simple as it might seem, you will most likely only hear native speakers use it because advanced English learners are busy learning some odd fancy words like obfuscate and elephantine. Thank you, Mr. Bob.

And my response again, kind of long sorry. Honestly, sometimes I don't know what to think about the advanced English lessons some of the other YouTube teachers create. I'm not one to speak badly of others, so I don't really talk about it much, but sometimes they teach words that simply aren't used very often at all. I think it might be time for me to statistically analyze what I hear every day in the English speaking world. Sometimes simple isn't just better. It's literally the most common and correct.

So again, I don't like, thanks Mohd for the comment, I don't like to speak negatively of what other teachers do. I think everyone does a great job. Everyone has their own approach. But sometimes I do think some of the advanced vocabulary being taught isn't very common at all.

I think you're better off learning the more common vocabulary and then focusing on vocabulary that has clearly been labeled as important for like an IELTS test or another English test. That can kind of be a really cool way to know if the advanced vocabulary you're learning is important.

But yeah, sometimes I'm not sure there are words like I can't even think of some. There are words. Sometimes people will ask me in a live stream and I'll say, You know, I don't think I've ever used that word. I might have read that word somewhere, but I don't know if I've ever used it. So learn to be fluent with all of the simple vocabulary and then slowly build from there by listening to what act

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AT THE END OF THE DAY and TO MAKE A DAY OF IT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase at the end of the day. Now, this can literally mean at the end of the day. At the end of the day, I go home. Well, at the end of my workday. But we also use this the same way we use the word ultimately. To kind of sum up a thought. When you're working hard at the end of the day, you can only do so much. When you are helping someone out. At the end of the day, you can only do so much to make their life better. So ultimately you can only help someone so much before they need to help themselves. So we use the phrase at the end of the day to kind of sum up to kind of clarify a thought that we're having. I don't think I'm explaining this very well. Let me try to think of another example. At the end of the day, all I can do is make the best video lessons I can and hopefully they help you. So ultimately, all I can really do is make the lessons as good as I can. So it's not exactly the end of the day, but it's kind of summarizing a thought.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase to make a day of it. When you make a day of something, it means something wasn't going to take the whole day. But you add one or two things to make a day of it. If we go to visit Jen's parents, sometimes we just go for a cup of tea. But sometimes we decide to make a day of it. We go for a cup of tea. We help Jen's dad on his farm a little bit. We help Jen's mom do some work in her garden, possibly, instead of just going for an hour or two, we decide to make a day of it.

So to review at the end of the day simply means ultimately, or to summarize or my final thoughts on something and to make a day of it means to plan to do something that will take most of the day instead of just a little part of it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Marcio. How are you, Professor Bob? I'm Brazilian and here the autumn season has already started. I really like you and your videos. Thank you. I'm very happy with the new season in your country because you will be able to make video lessons for us without freezing. Hehehe. A hug for you and your whole family. And my response. My favorite type of day for making videos would be cloudy, mild and no wind. Hopefully there are lots of those coming up.

So thanks, Marcio, for that comment. Yes, this is literally my favorite type of day for making a video, although it is a little bit windy. I'm hiding by the shed so that the wind doesn't hit the microphone too badly. But my favorite kind of day for making an English lesson would be cloudy. When it's cloudy, the camera can focus really well and the video just looks nice. The cloud kind of diffuses the sunlight. That's how we would describe it in English. So clouds create really nice light for a video. When it's mild then I don't get hot or cold.

When we say that it's mild outside, we mean it's like ten degrees or 15 degrees Celsius, something kind of nice. And then what's the last one? No rain. I didn't mention that one. I don't like rain. Oh, no wind. Yeah, wind messes with the microphone. You can't see the microphone, but it's right here. When it's windy, you get that funny sound when I'm outside and it's not very, very pleasant.

So yep, that's my favorite kind of day. A day just like today. If we look at the sky, it's overcast or cloudy, we would say. It's a little bit windy, but I have the shed behind me to kind of block the wind and it's mild. I'm outside just wearing my sweat

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE IN THE WAY and TO GET OUT OF THE WAY

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be in the way. When you are in the way, it means someone is trying to go somewhere and you’re blocking their path. Sometimes at the grocery store when I go down an aisle, there will be someone in the way and I'll have to ask them to move because I can't get my cart through the aisle. So when you are in the way, with... you think someone is going to be in the way it means they're going to be in your path when you're trying to get somewhere. I'm trying to think of another good example. Sometimes when I'm trying to get into my classroom, there will be students in the way. They'll be standing in the doorway and I'll have to ask them to move so that I can get into my classroom. So to be in the way simply means to block someone's path when they're trying to get somewhere.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to get out of the way. I'm offering the solution to the problem from the first phrase. When you see someone in the way, sometimes it's nice to ask them to get out of the way. Sometimes we even say this directly. We'll say, Get out of the way! You might even yell it if your car was rolling along with no one driving it and there was someone walking, you might yell, Get out of the way! to them so that they will be safe, meaning that they need to get out of the way of the vehicle. They need to not be in the path that it is traveling down.

So to review, to be in the way means to yeah, be in the way. I can't define it by using the phrase. But if I was standing in my driveway and Jen wanted to leave, I would be in the way. And so I would need to get out of the way so that she could leave.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me see which pocket I put it in. Here it is right here it is from Andrey or Andrey. Maybe I'm pronouncing it wrong. Such a comfy place on your farm where you're filming the video. And my response? It was a nice little corner. I might have to find another one. It's going to be really windy all this week.

So it's a little windy right now, but not too bad. But I found this little corner because I wanted to show you that yes, spring is definitely starting. One of the first signs of spring for me is when Jen starts to put the little baby plants outside. So you can see it's warm enough here today, you can see quite a few of them, that Jen has some of the plants out. So she's decided that it's warm enough today that the plants can be outside for a little bit. So what was I saying? Yes, I picked that comfy corner. I had a nice comfy corner over there the other day.

It's not as windy right now, though. This morning it was super windy, so I was worried that I wouldn't be able to find a good place to do this. Anyways, what was I going to talk about? Spring is starting. Here's another little look down here. You can see that the daffodils are just starting to pop out of the ground. Another sure sign that spring is coming. And I was going to show you all the geese in the river, but they all flew away. But there's definitely a lot of Canadian geese and there is either white geese or swans. I'm not sure which it is because I haven't been able to get close. I know they were flying overhead the other day, but I can just sense right now that spring is just around the corner.

Actually, it did start yesterday. Yesterday was the first day of spring. I guess I should have mentioned that one of the reasons I'm talking about spring is becaus

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GIVE IN and TO GIVE OUT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to give in. Now, this is kind of the opposite of the phrase to put your foot down. Sometimes you need to give in when someone asks you if they can do something. Sometimes when my kids ask for something, I put my foot down and I say no. But sometimes I give in and I say yes. This happened a few years ago when they wanted to buy a Nintendo Switch. I put my foot down and said, No, it's too expensive. But they said they would pay for part of it if I paid for part of it. So eventually I was able to give in. Eventually, I decided that it was okay and we went and bought a Nintendo Switch. And by the way, that was a good decision. It's a lot of fun to play games with them. I like Mario Party and Mario Kart the best.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to give out. This is a phrase we use to talk about something that's going to break or something that's going to break down. If I drive my van for another ten years, eventually it's going to give out. Eventually the engine is going to give out. Eventually the wheels are going to give out. Eventually the whole van is going to give out. It's going to stop working.

So to review, to give in means to finally say that someone's allowed to do something. Sometimes my classes ask me if they can, I don't know, walk the town for a field trip and eventually I give in and plan something like that instead of saying no. And to give out means to simply break down. Now, both of these phrases have other meanings. Those are just two of the meanings that I wanted to teach today.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I think I have it here in my pocket. Here we go. The comment is from Pristine Horizon. Dear teacher Bob, I wish I had wings to reach there to sit in the classroom there. How beautifully it's designed. And my response? I have to admit, the schools have been getting nicer here in Canada. My favorite thing is that the newer parts of the building have more windows to the outside and more natural light.

So that's actually thanks... for the comment for Pristine... that's been a common trend. I don't... Not just in Canada, I think in a lot of parts of the world, buildings have more windows to let more natural light in. Not this barn it’s quite old. There aren't very many windows at all. So in our school, the newer parts of the school are really nice because they have floor to ceiling windows in some spots. It's really, really cool.

Hey, you might be wondering, what am I doing standing here? What am I doing wearing a T-shirt? Well, it's spring break. It's really windy, and I had to find a place where I could stand to make this video. So I'm kind of hiding in this kind of gross corner by the barn.

I wanted to show you this, though, while I'm standing here. This is the sign that my dad put up when we had animals. It says Stop livestock at work, please obtain authorization before entering. And then this is the name of a feed company. Shur Gain. Back when my parents were farming, it was just starting to become a concern that you didn't want too many people visiting a farm. There are more and more diseases that spread between chicken farms and cow farms or cattle farms and pig farms, and it's just more of a concern. So I think back in that era, the feed companies decided they would start to give farmers signs like that one to put up to tell people, please don't go in this building without first asking if it's okay, without first asking

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PUT YOUR FOOT DOWN and TO PUT UP A FIGHT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to put your foot down. When you put your foot down, it means you're not going to agree with someone. Let's say that my kids said that they wanted to have ice cream and I said no. And then they asked again. And then I said no. Eventually I would just put my foot down and say, Stop asking. The answer will always be no. So when you put your foot down, it means you're in charge of something or you're the one that can make a decision and you're not going to change how you feel about it.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to put up a fight. When you put up a fight, it doesn't mean that you're actually, you know, punching and hitting. It means that you're not going to give up on something. When I tell my kids they can't have ice cream, they tend to put up a fight. They keep asking. They don't want to give up. They just keep asking me about it because they..., they want to put up a fight. They want to discuss it, they want to argue. They want to try and make me change my mind.

So to review, when you put your foot down, it means you're saying no to something. I guess it doesn't have to be “no”, it could be, yes. But normally it's no you're saying no and you're not going to change your mind. And when you put up a fight, it means you want to change someone's mind and you're not willing to take no for an answer. You're going to argue and want to discuss it until they change their mind.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Irina. Hello, Bob. Thank you so much for this video. Usually I am full of energy without coffee and sugar. The river and the fields in the background of the video always calm me down. Oop! I'm somewhere else today. And my response? Right now the river is full of geese. There are probably over a thousand.

Yes. It's interesting right now because the river is super, super full of geese. In fact, if you go to my other channel and look for my stories, I did a little video of them. Maybe I'll see if I can do that here as well in the next video if they're still visiting.

But hey, I'm at school. It's nighttime. One of my kids had a club that they had to go to, so they're playing basketball right now. So I thought I would show you lockers and combination locks and one of the entrances. And if you look behind me, you can even see a classroom. This isn't my classroom, by the way. My classroom is in a completely different part of the school that's closed right now.

But this is what a school looks like. You can see the recycling bins behind me. And if you look behind me, you can see the long, long hallway. This is a pretty traditional school in Canada. Our schools in Canada are usually hallways, lots of lockers. Students can have an upper locker or a lower locker. They prefer the upper locker. They're required to keep their lockers shut, but sometimes they leave them open. Hopefully there's nothing valuable in there.

Our newer classrooms have windows, so it's just more of an open concept. We've been building more and more. When we build onto schools in Ontario, Canada, we often build rooms that have more windows. So you can see what's going on. Not all the teachers and students like that. We've had windows in the doors to our classrooms for a very, very long time. That's been pretty normal. But in the last ten or 20 years, we've been adding more and more windows to the walls just to give it more of an open feel.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE WIRED and TO HOT WIRE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be wired. When we say someone is wired, it means they're a little bit nervous or they're a little bit energetic. We usually use this when we talk about the effects of coffee on people or the effects of sugar on kids. You might hear someone say something like this, Oh, I have a lot of energy today. I'm really wired because I had three cups of coffee this morning. So to be wired means that you can feel the effect of the caffeine on you. Sometimes people have trouble sleeping at night because they're just too wired. They've had too much coffee that day. And sometimes little kids, when they have lots of sugar, they're just wired. They run around and they have lots of energy because they've just eaten way too much sugar. So to be wired simply means to have a higher level of energy and maybe even a little bit of nervousness or anxiety as well. There's a couple of different feelings you could be having when you're wired.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to hot wire. I don't really know anything about this phrase. I don't know how to hot wire a vehicle, but I thought it was worth mentioning because you might hear it if you're watching a show about the police or something like that or a movie. When you hot wire a vehicle, it means you start it by just touching wires together instead of turning the key. I think it's harder on modern day vehicles to hot wire them, but I think on older vehicles, if you know what you're doing, you can pull the wires out of the dash and put the right two wires together or three and the car will start without keys.

So to review, to be wired, when you are wired, you are just feeling very energetic because you've had something that has stimulated you like caffeine or sugar. And when you hot wire a vehicle, it means you start it illegally without keys.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Janith. Hi, Bob. Sir, is there a difference between headlight and fog light? And my response? Headlights put a bright white light and are the main light on the front of a car. Fog lights are lower on the front of the car and put out an orange or yellow light.

So great question. It's too bad we don't have a vehicle to look at. Oh, wait, we do. So for me, I would call this the headlight. This is what puts out the very bright light that you need to see at night. And this would be what I would call a fog light. I think this is also the signal light on my vehicle. I think it does double duty. I think it does both things. Some people have special fog lights that they mount on the front of their vehicle after they buy it. We would call them aftermarket fog lights, but they're also lower down and they're usually orange or yellow.

So, hey, many of you have been commenting about how you've been enjoying the change of scenery with the videos - using the phrase from the last video. I've been doing many of these short lessons in town, and I've been really enjoying that. The reason I have been doing them in town is because my schedule changed. So I teach in the morning now and then when I'm done teaching, I'm in town and I usually bring my camera with me and I just go and find some place to shoot a video.

Today, though, I'm at home, a little bit of a different day today for me. I had a different sort of schedule this morning, so I'm home now. Let me check the time here. Oh, I have 30 seconds to talk, but that's why there's been a bit of a

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO CHANGE THINGS UP and A CHANGE OF SCENERY

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to change things up. Now this just means to change things. But we use this phrase a lot in English when we talk about something that we do a certain way, and then when we just do it a different way, one or two days, just to make it a little more exciting. Let me try to think of a good example. The last video, I changed things up a little bit. I just did a quick short video outside. I didn't follow my regular routine. Sometimes when I'm teaching a class, I like to change things up because I don't want students to get bored with what I'm doing. So the other day, in order to change things up a bit, I decided we were going to walk to town instead of staying in the classroom. I'm teaching a business class, so it's okay to walk to town and look at businesses and study how they do business. So anyways, I decided to change things up.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase a change of scenery. Did I spell that right? Yes, a change of scenery. We usually use this to talk about when someone moves. The reason for moving might be because they want a change of scenery. They might want to go somewhere where they live and can see other things around them. If you live in the city and you move to the country, you might do it because you want a change of scenery. Maybe you're tired of listening to traffic and hearing people yelling in the night. I don't really know what it's like to live in the ci..., in the city. Maybe you need a change of scenery so you move to the country where things are a little more pleasant, at least in my opinion.

So to review, to change things up simply means to change something. If you have a routine and you do something different. On a certain date, we would say that you have decided to change things up and a change of scenery would be when you decide to move somewhere else. It's usually related to moving. Sometimes people use it in a slightly more minor way, but it usually means you've decided to live somewhere else because you just want to see different things around you.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Oksana. Sometimes it's better than a regular lesson, or at least definitely not worse. Take care. And my response? I think it's good to change things up every once in a while.

So Oksana was referring to my sliding down the hill lesson, which, by the way, I did actually end up falling. I don't know if you saw my short lesson on my other channel, but yes, I did actually end up falling. I just hurt my knee a little bit. Wow. Well, I did actually slip and fall, didn't I? Just a little bruise. Nothing major. Hey, anyways, Oksana, thank you for leaving that comment.

By the way, I just wanted to show you today. Let me spin you around. I've been trying to find a place in my local town where they're actually building new buildings. This is a multi dwelling house or a multi-unit house that would be a house where more than one person is going to live. At a certain point, you can see this house is almost done. They just need to put the siding on the outside.

I'll try to find a house that's earlier in the construction phase because I wanted to show you how primarily we build our houses in Ontario, Canada, out of wood. We have a lot of wood in Canada, so we build a lot of our houses out of wood. Let's do this. I'll keep talking while I give you a bit of a better look.

Trying to walk as fast as I can so tha

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AN UNWRITTEN RULE and A HARD-AND-FAST RULE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase an unwritten rule. Now, this is exactly what it sounds like. It's a rule, but it's not written down anywhere. There are a lot of unwritten rules when you are speaking English, because sometimes when you're in an English speaking country, not just the language is different, but the culture is a little bit different. And not everyone writes down those rules. A great example would be the questions that were in my lesson from yesterday on my bigger channel. There are certain questions that you just don't ask when you're having a conversation in English. But there's nowhere to go to find that rule, it's not written down any where. It's just an unwritten rule. It's a rule that we have all agreed to, but no one's actually written them down in a rule book. It's not actually the law. It's just an unwritten rule.

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The other phrase I want to teach you today is a hard-and-fast rule. Now, a hard-and-fast rule is a rule. It is written down. And if you break the rule, there are consequences. Consequences are what happens after you break a rule. Let's say at your job there is a hard and fast rule that you do not... Let me see... Trying to think of... That you do not. I'm drawing a blank here. Let me come up with a different example. Let's say at the movie theater, there's a hard-and-fast rule that you can't chew gum in the movie theater. That means because it's a hard-and-fast rule, if you're caught, they'll kick you out of the movie theater. Like, there are immediate consequences if you break that rule.

So to review an unwritten rule is a rule that everyone kind of knows about, but it's not written down anywhere, someone has to tell you about it. And a hard-and-fast rule is a rule where if you break that rule, you will.. you can expect consequences immediately.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Vítor and Vítor says, Hello, Bob. It is interesting how we can come up with new ideas nowadays. If one day you run out of ideas or topics for your lessons, you can try crowdsourcing or even A.I.. With crowdsourcing, you can ask your viewers for new ideas or topics they think are gripping for people. In another case, you can try something like ChatGPT or another AI. I do not know if that technology is able to do such a thing, but you can give it a try someday. In the future I think we are going to have a smorgasbord of technology doing things for us. By the way, thank you.

And my response? I will keep that in mind. Right now I am around so many people, I just listen for interesting words and phrases. Maybe when I'm older and around less people I'll need some other tools.

So yes, AI is becoming quite cool I think. I was playing around with it the other day in one of my classes and my students and I really enjoyed using it. It was kind of fun to play around with it. We even talked a little bit about what would be good jobs to do in the future, jobs that AI couldn't do. And we decided that teaching is probably one of those jobs, although I wasn't sure I agreed with them.

But they said that during the pandemic, online learning wasn't fun, and they think for the next ten or 20 years, people will actually prefer to have actual teachers, human teachers in their classrooms doing the teachings, doing the teaching, not teachings the teaching. And I think they might be right. I think the pandemic and remote learning gave us this little view of online learning or remote l

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO COME UP WITH and TO COME AND GO

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to come up with. But before I talk about it, sorry, I know you've been enjoying the lessons in my local town. Today I'm just out here in the countryside. Or am I? What if I was to turn the camera? You would then see that I'm actually on the edge of town. I kind of tricked you a bit. But anyways, back to the lesson. We'll walk in a bit.

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To come up with means to think of something. When you're talking with someone, sometimes you have to come up with topics. You have to think of things to talk about. Sometimes in school, the teacher will ask students to come up with new ideas or to come up with the answer. So the phrase to come up with simply means to think of something. I have to regularly come up with ideas for these English lessons. I sit. Usually if I'm sitting somewhere and I'm bored, I spend the time just thinking so that I can come up with some new ideas.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to come and go. When you say that something is going to come and go, it means it's going to happen and then go away. Probably the best example I can give of this is pain. Sometimes when you have pain, it will come and go. I folded this up. I should show you. Sometimes when you have pain, it will come and go. Is that the right side? Yes, it is. I had this a lot a few years ago when I was having some medical problems. I had pain and it would just come and go. Sometimes I would have pain and then sometimes it would go away, and then it would come back. It would come and go.

So anyways, to review, now that I've crumpled up my paper, when you say that you are going to come up with something it means you're going to think of something. Maybe you're going to try and come up with a funny thing to say in your next conversation. And when we use the phrase to come and go, we're talking about something that happens and then doesn't happen and then happens again. Pain's a good example. I'm trying to think of another one. You can use it for people as well. Like, Oh, he just kind of comes and goes as he pleases. That would be one.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit. Thanks for the view of a Canadian town and my response? I'll try and find another good place to go today.

I am enjoying finding places to go. It's really no worry and no bother. I am enjoying finding different places in my town to just pop pop out from work for a bit and make a little video. So today we're once again in another what we would call subdivision. By the way, this is the playground in the small park. And you can see here some of the houses. These are somewhat big, actually. I thought they were smaller. Maybe I drove too far. My plan was to show you some more modest size houses today. Some houses that are more the size that Jen and I would be able to afford if we decided to live in town, which will probably never happen by the way. We're too happy living out in the country.

Oh, and here's a sign for you to read. I'm sure you can figure out what this means. It means if you drive down this road, there is no way to get out at the other end. You'll have to turn around. We would actually call this a cul-de-sac in English. So as you go to the end, there's just a circle. I'm not sure I'll get there fast enough to show you. But if you look at the end, there's just a few houses, and then you can kind of turn your vehicle around and come back out again. So technically, there

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DOUBLE-CHECK and A REALITY CHECK

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English verb to double-check. When you double-check something, it means you check it and then you check it again. If you don't know what it means to check something, it means to make sure it's there or to make sure it's in a certain place. Here's a great example. When you pack to go on a trip, you put everything in a suitcase, and then when you're done packing, it's good to double-check. It's good to open the suitcase again and make sure that your toothbrush and your deodorant and your underwear is all in the suitcase. I don't know why I used that example, but you should make sure you bring all that stuff. So to double-check means to check again. It means to make sure that everything is where it needs to be before you go on a trip or before you do something else.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase a reality check. Now a reality check is when something happens and it makes you realize that maybe things are a certain way and you thought they were a different way. I better think of a good example. Think of a sports team that thinks they are the best. Maybe at the beginning of the season, your favorite sports team thinks they are the best and then they play a team that's really weak and they lose. That would be a reality check for them. It would make them realize that even though they thought they were the best, they're not. It's definitely a reality check. So whenever something happens that reminds you of reality, that is something we would call a reality check.

So to review, when you double-check something, it means you check again. I often, when I go on a long trip, I will check the oil in the van and then just to be sure, I'll check again. So I'll double-check the next day to make sure the oil in the van isn't low. And usually I'll make sure it's gassed up as well. And a reality check is whenever something happens that makes you realize again, that not everything is the way you think it is.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aleksey. Hi, Bob. Thank you. Finally, it happened today. I did not make a single mistake while transcribing the first part of the lesson. The trickiest sentence was at the 52 second mark. My students were so much work today because, you know, it doesn't look grammatically correct. And this pause... because I paused when I said that... so I have a hunch you wanted to say something different about your students that day. And my response? You are correct about the pause. I changed what I was going to say mid-sentence because I was going to say something a bit more harsh. I was going to say something mean about my students. Congratulations on getting things right and for noticing my speech pattern change. Very advanced. Yeah. Good work, Aleksey. That's awesome.

Yeah. You know, as I make these videos, I talk, and sometimes as I'm talking, I have to think about what I'm going to say. And sometimes I have to change what I'm going to say while I'm talking. You just experienced that right there. I don't have a script. When I make these videos, I just come outside, I teach the two phrases, and then for the last bit I just talk. And so yeah, I'm not reading anything. I don't have it scripted. I just come up with it on the fly - off the top of my head.

There's another phrase for you. But hey, anyways, we are walking in a typical Canadian subdivision. These are houses that are actually much nicer than what Jen and I could afford. We're in a little bit of a pricier part of to

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WIPE OUT and I'M WIPED!

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to wipe out. Now I used this phrase in my last lesson to talk about slipping on the ice and falling down. When you wipe out, this is the verb we use to describe slipping and falling. If you've ever gone skating, usually you stay on your skates and you don't fall down, but if you slip and fall, we would say that you have wiped out (in the past tense). When you wipe out, you slip and you fall. You can wipe out walking on ice. You can wipe out walking on anything that's slippery. So be careful. You don't want to wipe out too often because if you land wrong, it can really hurt.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase I'm wiped. This is a phrase we use simply to talk about being very tired or exhausted. After a long day of work. I might come home and say to Jen, Oh, I'm wiped. I'm so tired. My students were so much work today. That would be how we would describe it. I'm wiped. So I'm really, really tired. I'm just not very energetic at all.

So to review, when you use the verb to wipe out, it means that you slip and you fall down. Both actions must happen, you must slip and you must fall in order to wipe out. That truck’s a little bit loud. And when you say I'm wiped, it simply means that you are really, really tired. It means that you are exhausted.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Nikie. The older you get, the faster time whips by. And my response? This is very true. When I was a kid, summer seemed to last forever. Now it whips by.

Yes, I noticed that when I was a kid summer lasted a really long time. If you're wondering why I'm in my van, you'll see in a moment when I get out. It's raining here, but I'm going to brave the weather. When I was a kid, I definitely felt like summer lasted forever. I felt like school would end when I was ten or 11, and I would have basically two months, but it seemed like forever. It seemed like summer just went on and on and on. So, yes, now time just whips by. It goes by too quickly.

Anyways, I'm just out walking. I came here today because there's lots of people, there's been people in my videos lately, but I came here today not expecting it to be this rainy. I knew it was going to rain, but this is a little more rain than I expected. So I'm walking towards.... there's an overhang here that I can stand under while I walk and talk. What's sad for me is that it's raining, but it's February. It should be like minus five degrees right now, and then this would all be coming down as snow. And it might have even been a snow day possibly.

Ah, I got to get away from this music or I'll get a copyright strike on my video. Sorry, outside that restaurant, there was some music playing to attract people to come in. Anyways, I'm just walking here. I'm under the overhang now. Let me give you a look. So now it's a little nicer because I am out of the rain. That's how we would describe that in English. So I'm out of the rain. I'm going, Oh, a big drop just hit me. I walked outside of the overhang just for a split second there.

Anyways, you guys like to see people? Maybe I'll spin this way. I'm in front of the Tim Hortons restaurant. There are people in the drive thru, there are people walking in. It's just a very busy and vibrant town, much different than it was a few years ago when we were still locked down. That was no fun. I think I have repressed those memories. That means that I'm trying not to remember them.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WHIP BY and TO WHIP SOMETHING UP

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to whip by. This is a phrase we usually use to talk about something that happens quickly. I usually use it to talk about time. I feel like the days in January just whipped by using it in the past tense there. I find that at this point in the winter, time seems to whip by. It tends to go very, very quickly. I can't believe it's already almost the middle of February. Okay, it's not quite the middle of February. I think it's February 7th, the day you're watching this. But time does seem to whip by at this time of year, I think because I've started a new semester and I'm a little bit busy. I really feel like time is whipping by. You can also say that a car whips by, like, you can use it for things as well, but I usually use it to talk about time.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to whip something up. We usually use this to talk about making food quickly. This past weekend, Jen's sister and brother-in-law came over, so I whipped up some pizza. I made some dough in the bread machine, and I quickly made some pizza for them. I whipped it up. So we use this to talk about doing something quickly, usually preparing food. We almost always use it to talk about making food. Like I'm going to whip up some snacks for later tonight so that Jen and the kids and I can have a fun evening while we watch the Raptors play basketball.

So to review, when you say that something is going to whip by you mean that it's going to go quickly. When you say that you are going to whip something up, it means you are going to make it quickly. By the way, do you know what a whip is? It's like a leather thing that I think they used to use when they were chasing cows or something like that. I'm not sure exactly all the details.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from let me get it out of my pocket here. This comment is from Francisco. Out of sight, out of mind. I always wanted to be out of the line of sight of the teacher in order not to be asked L.O.L. And then my response. When you're in a big class, it's nice to sit at the back if you're going to have a snooze.

Now... Thanks, Francisco, for that comment. Good use of out of sight. You shouldn't do that, though. You shouldn't sleep in classrooms. I'm not recommending that. I'm not advocating that as a teacher. I recommend that you sit at the front and that you pay attention and you do all the work. But yes, sometimes if you are in a class that's boring, you want to sit at the back so the teacher can't see you, so you're not in their line of sight.

Hey, I'm out here just for a little walk on this path in town, you can see. Let me show you it. It's actually a little bit dangerous walking out here right now because it's melting a bit, but there is ice on the ground. And what that does, I think I've explained it before, is it makes things very slippery. Whenever ice is a little bit wet on the top, it's extra slippery and it's a lot easier to slip and fall. Now, as a Canadian, I'm used to walking on ice, but I still need to be careful. But I'm sure if you're from a country that doesn't have winter and if you were walking on that ice, you would have a little bit of trouble.

Yeah, I'm pretty good at walking on ice. I've been walking on ice my whole life, but there are still times where it's a little too slippery and sometimes I almost wipe out. That's the phrase we use to describe that. Hey, you've seen this creek before. I'm out

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OUT OF SIGHT and LINE OF SIGHT

In this English lesson. I wanted to help you learn the English phrase out of sight. You can see this right now, but now it's out of sight. It literally means what it says when you can't see something. It is out of sight. Often people who are doing something illegal, they try to do it out of sight or if they're carrying something illegal and they see the cops, they'll put it out of sight. They'll put it in their pocket, in their back pocket, or they'll stick it in a bag. They'll put it out of sight. So that the police officers can't see it. So it's a very simple phrase. It simply means to put something where someone can't see it or to put yourself where someone can't see you. I can even be out of sight if I want. When I duck down, I'm out of sight.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase line of sight. So line of sight is an imaginary line between my eyes and what I'm looking at. So between myself and the camera, this is my current line of sight. When I'm sitting in my classroom at the back and a student’s doing a presentation. If another student sits in front of me, they're in my line of sight. I'm not able to see the person at the front. So it's simply an invisible line. If I look at that car driving by. It's in my line of sight. I'm able to see them.

So to review when something is out of sight, it means you simply can't see it. And when you talk about your line of sight, it's the imaginary line between you and the thing that you're looking at.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Shuvra. Thanks, sir. Yes, you should have brought your sunglasses. And then my response next time! You can see I'm wearing them right now. So thanks for that comment. I did remember them. I did find them back they were actually in my van. They were kind of between the seats. Sorry it's really windy out here. They were between the seats and they were kind of covered with some stuff. Hey, I'm not going to walk around today because it is extremely windy. You saw just there.

I got blown a little bit. If we turn this way, you can see the tree moving in the wind. So I'm going to just stand and talk in one spot. It's very gusty. I don't know if you know what the word gusty means. When it's gusty outside, it means the wind is blowing and it speeds up every once in a while.

So as I was sitting in the house, I thought I could make this English lesson inside or I could just go outside with my good camera, with my really big wind protected microphone. I've never shown you that have I? I'll take a picture of this tripod when I go back inside so that you can see it. But it is windy today.

Let's turn this way and then maybe you can see a little bit. I can't help but show you things. That tree is moving. But even though there are no leaves on it, that tree is still moving quite a bit in the wind. So anyways, too windy to make a video, but I'm out here anyways. By the way, speaking of weather it's supposed to get super cold here, wait for it.

I'm going to tell you what the temperature is going to be tonight. Drum roll, please. -22 degrees Celsius tonight, Friday night, the same -20, -25. Extremely cold weather. It's actually dangerous to go outside when it's that cold. So I don't go outside at night anyways. I sleep in my nice cozy bed inside my house, but it's going to get super cold here.

I’m kind of looking forward to it. That's kind of cool. Anyways, see you in a couple days with another short English lesson bye. Whoa!!

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English words WHATSOEVER and SOMEWHAT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English word whatsoever. This is kind of an interesting word, and Konstantin asked if I could explain it. When you use the word whatsoever, it means at all. If I was to say, "There isn't any traffic behind me whatsoever," it would mean that there are no cars or trucks behind me. By the way, sorry if I'm squinting a lot. It's very bright out here. I tried to stand in the shade, but it's still hard to keep my eyes open. I should have brought my sunglasses because there aren't any clouds in the sky whatsoever right now. It's a clear blue sky, and it makes it hard to see.

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The second word I wanted to teach you today is the word somewhat. This means the same as a little bit. You could say, "It's somewhat cold out here today." It's minus two degrees Celsius, so it's not super cold. It's just somewhat cold. It's a little bit cold. When I make my English lessons, I'm sometimes somewhat talkative, so I'm a little bit talkative. I talk a little bit too much.

So to review, when you use the word whatsoever, it means at all. So there's not a cloud in the sky whatsoever. Today there weren't any students at school whatsoever, because we don't start teaching until tomorrow, which is actually today for you. Wednesday is the first day of second semester. I'm making this video on a Tuesday. And when you use the word somewhat, you mean a little bit, so I talk somewhat loud when I'm teaching my classes. I'm kind of a loud talking teacher. I'm somewhat loud, so it means I'm a little bit loud. I don't yell at my students, but I'm somewhat loud.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Padma, and Padma says... I can't get my paper open, 'cause I got my gloves on. It's somewhat difficult to get the paper unfolded. Padma says, "When I watch your video, I always have a feeling that I am hanging out with a good friend of mine." And my response. "That's a very nice way to describe it. Thanks for the kind words, and good use of the phrase from the last video as well."

It is kind of like hanging out a bit. I try as best as I can to be myself when I'm making my videos. I don't try to put on some sort of fake personality. The Bob that you are seeing and hearing right now is the same Bob I am when I'm at home, and so I can understand that. It's fun for me to talk to you. It's fun to read comments from all of you and respond to them. It's fun to get to know you a little bit. So in a certain way, we are hanging out a little bit. We're somewhat hanging out. I guess you could use it that way.

Anyways, I'm walking through my downtown right now. I just thought I would come out here on this bright, sunny day. I'm not sure where my sunglasses are. I thought they were in the van, but they're not. But I'm just taking a little stroll here, just having a look around. You can see the intersection behind me is somewhat busy, so that means it's a little bit busy. It's not crazy busy, but it's definitely somewhat busy. I'm gonna keep walking. I think you have seen parts of this town before. Behind me is what's called a credit union. Actually, no, this is an actual bank. Sorry, I got that wrong. A credit union and a bank are kind of the same thing. There's a bank behind me.

This is the place you go if you have to renew your driver's license or your license plates. It's called a ServiceOntario. It's a little place where you go when you need to do that. I'm just gonna walk over here in the shade, so that I can see how much time I hav

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HANG OUT and TO HANG BACK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to hang out. When you hang out with someone, it just means that you are with them. You can go to someone's house and you can hang out. Jen and I are really good friends with our siblings. Sometimes we go to my sister's house and we just hang out for a bit. Sometimes we go to visit her sister and we just hang out for the afternoon. So when you hang out with someone, when you use that verb in English, you simply mean that you're going to be with the person. Maybe you'll sit and have a cup of tea. Maybe you'll sit and chat about things. You'll just spend the afternoon or the evening hanging out. You'll just spend the time together.

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The second phrasal verb I wanted to teach you today is to hang back. And this is a little different. When you hang back, it means other people leave and you don't. So let's say a bunch of people are going on a trip and everyone's leaving at 9:00 AM you might say, hey, I'm just gonna hang back for a bit and make sure that everything is turned off in the house. So when you hang back, it means other people are leaving for something, but you are going to go, but you're not going right away. You're just going to stay behind for a little bit. You're going to hang back.

So to review, to hang out simply means to be with someone. By the way, you don't have to just hang out in person. When you talk to a bunch of people on Zoom or on FaceTime, you could also say that you are hanging out. That's a legitimate use of it as well. And to hang back simply means to stay behind for a little while. Maybe everyone's going to go hiking and you are having trouble getting your shoes tied. You might say, hey, I'm just gonna hang back for a bit. You guys go on without me, I'm just going to tie my shoe and then I'll catch up. There's another verb for you.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Misael. Hi Bob, do you have a video about the verb to hang out? Thank you very much. My response, I think so. If not, I'll make one. Let me look for a sec. I can't seem to find one. I'll make one next week. And then Misael says, thank you so much. And then Bob promptly forgot to make the video. But I did reply and say, oops, sorry I forgot about this one but it's done now. If you look at the time difference on my replies, one is from six days ago and one is from one second ago. So there you go. I did just do a lesson on to hangout.

Hey, you might be wondering where I am. I'm in my classroom. I'm getting ready for the next semester. You can see behind me that all the chairs are up on the tables. Some of you don't like that you've said in the past that that's unsanitary, but it makes it easier for the janitor to vacuum and to deep clean the carpets before the next semester starts. A little tour of my room. You can see my TV. This is the main screen that I use to put things up for students, but I also have a projector up there that projects onto that wall. That's very handy as well. And I usually have things on both screens when I'm teaching.

And if you wonder what subject I teach, well normally I teach French. You can see the flag there. But this coming semester I'm going to be teaching a business class, just a little bit different than what I just did this semester, which was to teach French. And I taught some computer studies. So anyways, yes this is a typical Canadian classroom, a door, a TV screen. Not every teacher has a projector as well. I think maybe I'm special. I'

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE A STAND and TO HAVE A STANCE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to take a stand. When you take a stand on something, it means you say your opinion out loud and publicly. Maybe in your town, they're going to build a new bridge, and you don't like where they're going to put the bridge, so you might take a stand. You might go to a city council meeting and read a list of reasons why they shouldn't build a bridge there. You're going to take a stand. You're going to express your opinion publicly so that people know what you think. When you take a stand, it usually has to do with something that's happening in the world, some sort of issue or some sort of something that's going on that you oppose or you agree with, and then you take a stand if you disagree with it.

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Which is different than the phrase to have a stance, slightly. When you take a stand, you have a stance. Let me clarify. Someone could say to you, "What's your stance on this new bridge they're gonna build?" and you could say, "You know what? I don't like it, and I'm going to take a stand." So I'm kind of confusing you a bit here. You have a stance on something. What's your stance on the new bridge they want to build? You know what? I don't like it. That's my stance on the new bridge, and you know what? I think I'm going to go to a meeting and oppose the new bridge. I'm going to have a stance, and my stance is that I'm against it and I'm going to take a stand by expressing that. But hey, to review, when you take a stand, sorry, I got distracted, because there's a vehicle coming towards me. I'm not on the road.

But to review, when you take a stand, it means that you have an opinion on something and you express it to people, and when you have a stance, it simply means that you have an opinion on something. So I picked this road because I thought it would be very quiet and different from my previous videos where I'm in town, but yep, there's still people out here.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Dhiraj. "Teacher Bob, recently I came across this phrase, take a stance, but there is also another phrase, take a stand. They both sound alike to me. Would you mind making a video on this, too? I'm eagerly looking forward to it." So yes, and my reply, "I'll do it in the next video."

So you can see there's a slight correction there, Dhiraj. You would have a stance on something, but you would take a stand on something. That would be the difference between the two. So yes, slight difference. And by the way, for those of you that sometimes submit comments asking me to do lessons, you can do that, and I will usually try to make a lesson about it if it's a good suggestion. So Dhiraj, that was a great suggestion.

So yes, I'm out here in the middle of nowhere. I'm out here by the woods. We might call this a forest, but I would just call it the woods. We might actually just call it the bush in Canadian English. I thought I would come out here so that there would be a bit of a juxtaposition between my previous video and this one. A juxtaposition is when something is completely different. So the last few videos I made in town, and I do plan to do more of those, and this video I'm making out here in the middle of nowhere. In fact, it's kind of funny, because even though I'm in the middle of nowhere, one of my neighbors is way there in the distance, walking towards me.

I was trying to make a video where no one would see me, where I could say, look at this wilderness that I live close to.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases NONE OTHER THAN and NONE OF THE ABOVE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, none other than. This is a phrase we use when we introduce someone somewhere where it might be a surprise to people but you do know who the person is. Let me explain a bit better. If I was doing a live stream and I said, "I have a surprise guest, and it's none other than, none other than Brent from Speak English With This Guy," it would be a surprise, but you do know who he is. Maybe you're watching a show and there are police officers. I think there's a police officer behind me again, There seem to be cops following me around. On the show, they might say, "We've captured the thief, and it's none other than the mayor of the town." That would be a surprise, but you do kind of know who it is.

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The second phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase none of the above. This is a phrase you'll see when taking a test that has multiple choice questions, a question and then A, B, C, D, and maybe the answer is actually D, none of the above. But we use this in conversation as well. I could say to you, "Are you having a good day or a bad day or an okay day or none of the above?" I could actually say that in a conversation. You could say, "Yeah, it's kind of none of the above."

So to review, when you use the phrase none other than, it's something you use to introduce someone where it's a surprise, but the people do know who it is. By the way, it's none other than the local police officer. And when you say none of the above, you mean that there are a number of possible responses, but none of them are actually what you're talking about.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I printed this one really big today. It's huge, but this comment is from Roman, "Thank you for the tour of new places. The building is so huge that I thought it was a shopping or business center," and my response was this, 'Our old arena was just that, an arena, one skating rink.' This new one is more of a multipurpose building. I like it a lot because it has a walking track around the ice rink for people to exercise, a place to walk that's nice and cool."

So yeah, when you walk around the top part, it's awesome because... If you're wondering what I'm doing, I'm throwing the papers in my van. When you walk around the top part, you're actually in the arena. And when you're in the arena, it's nice and cool because there's ice, but it's fun to walk. By the way, I just happen to come here because it's the fire station. I didn't realize there would be another police officer in one of my videos. I don't think they're following me around. Anyways, it is a beautiful building. I'm very happy that our town built that building. It's kind of cool to be able to see, to have a building where you can go to the library, you can play some basketball, you can go to the arena, you can go for a walk, et cetera, et cetera.

But yeah, this is our local fire station. So it's kind of cool because in our local town, we have what are called volunteer firefighters. So they are people who have normal jobs, but when there is a car accident or a fire... Let me turn around here so you can see one of the fire engines. When there is a fire or when, I'm not sure if you can see through the glass, or a car accident, they will leave their jobs and they will drive very quickly to the fire station and then they'll jump in the fire trucks and they'll head out. So our firefighters in our town, they.. They're volunteer but they do get paid a little bit. It's

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GO YOUR OWN WAY and MAKE YOUR OWN WAY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to go your own way. When you go your own way, it means you do something the way you want to do it. A lot of teachers will create lessons, and they'll make handouts, and they'll give 'em to their students, but sometimes I decide to go my own way. I think of a creative way to teach that's a little different than the normal way to do it. So when you go your own way, it means you do something in a way that is unique to how you do it. Maybe there's a traditional way of learning English where you take a night class, but you've decided to go your own way. You've decided to learn English by using YouTube videos and by using an app. So you've decided to go your own way.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to make your own way. Now ,this looks very similar, but it's not. When you make your own way, it means that you have a job, and you earn money, and you can pay for the things in life by yourself. We often hope that as our children get older they will eventually decide to make their own way in life. I would say to one of my sons, as they get older, "It's time for you to make your own way in life. It's time for you to get a job, pay your rent, it's time to stop living at home and eating my food, It's time for you to make your own way."

So to review. When you go your own way, it means you do something in a way that you thought of. So you've decided you're gonna go your own way and you're going to walk to work, instead of driving like everyone else. And when you make your own way, it means that you have a job, you earn a living, you can pay for all the things you need to pay for in life yourself.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, I believe, Vladimir. "You reply to the comments of the same people." And my response, "Yes, sometimes, but I do try to pick at random as well. There are a few people who are regular commenters, so I do like to pick those a bit more often. Either way, I do try to reply, in writing of course, to all the comments. I just might not feature it in the video."

So yes, people have mentioned this before. They've said, "Hey, Bob, you always pick the same comments when you're making the video. You always choose the same people." And it might seem like that sometimes, but there are a few people that I do pick more often than others, possibly because they comment more often than others. If you were to keep track, there are what I call regulars. People who come to this channel, watch these videos, and leave comments almost every time I make a video. And I really like people who do that because I get to know them a little bit, as they ask questions and as they share a little bit about their own life, I share a little bit about mine and we become more of a community. So thank you to all of you who do that, who comment regularly. I do appreciate it. It makes this a little more fun for me.

So I'm here at what's called the Community Center, but it's also the arena and the library, and there's a basketball court if you want to do that as well. You can come here and hang out. Jen and I were actually here last night. We came to the library to get a few books. So that was kind of fun. And if you look over there, I think a couple of the police officers in my town are having a little meeting. They're parked over there, I guess, just briefly to talk about what's happening in the town possibly. Maybe there's something going down that t

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases CAN'T BE BOTHERED and NOT A BOTHER

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase can't be bothered. When you can't be bothered to do something it means you don't want to do it. It means you don't see the point in doing it. So you don't do it. It means you have no desire to do it. When it snows here a lot and if the weather forecast says that it's going to be above zero the next day I can't be bothered with cleaning the driveway. I don't want to do it. I don't see the point. Sometimes students when they are preparing for exams they can't be bothered to study. That means they don't want to study and they have no desire to study, but they should study. They should definitely study when they have an exam coming up. If you have an English test coming up in the future and you can't be bothered to practice your reading, writing, listing and speaking, you should make sure you do that. It's always good to study.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase not a bother. When you tell someone that something's not a bother, oh, that's not a bother. Nope, it's not a bother. It means that you are willing to do it and it's not annoying to you. If one of my kids said I need to stay after school late tomorrow because I have a practice, is that okay? I would say, yeah, it's not a bother. I'll pick you up at five or 5:30 whenever you're done. So when you say to someone, not a bother, nope it's not a bother. It simply means that you're okay with it, you're happy about it, you're not annoyed about it.

So to review, when you say you can't be bothered it means you don't want to do something. You can't be bothered to do it. And if you say something is not a bother, it means that it doesn't annoy you and you're quite happy to do it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd. Mohd Ags says when you said this is from the last video, when you said I don't have a lot to talk about, I was like, no way. That doesn't sound like Bob the Canadian Babbler. By the way, a babbler is someone who talks a lot. Haha, but it makes me happy to see you relaxed like this and in a good mood, all the best to you and your students. And I like the emojis, happy face pizza bird 'cause we were kind of joking about birds, banana and donut. I do like donuts too. My response, the day I run out of stuff to talk about will be the day I stop doing YouTube. So like probably never.

I, interestingly enough, am a very quiet person. Thanks for the comment Mohd. I'm actually a very quiet person, but for some reason when I'm teaching and I do consider making these videos teaching I do talk a lot. I do like talking to my students at school and I do like talking to the camera. I do like talking to all of you. In my mind, I can kind of picture some of your names. The live streams help a bit on my bigger channel because in some ways in the chat get to know some of you a little bit. But yeah, I said I like talking to the camera but I very much like talking to you. I feel like I'm looking in a lens, but I'm actually talking to all of you. So anyways, yes, I'll keep talking. So I'll keep making YouTube English lessons for you.

Hey, with the continuing saga of the internet I'll just show you now. They came again yesterday and yesterday they put another antenna on my silo and now my internet is way better, way better. I can't tell you how many letter A's I put in the word way when I say way better. In fact, it was so good that yesterday I tried a new piece of software. I did a little live st

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms HIGH POINT and LOW POINT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term, "high point." When you talk about something you've done and you mention the high point, you're talking about the best thing that happened while you were doing it. Let's say you went on a trip to France. You could say, "The high point of my trip was that I got to see the Eiffel Tower." Let's say you're talking about your career, you're talking about your job. You could say, "You know, the high point in my career so far was when I got that promotion five or six years ago." So, when you talk about the high point of something, you're talking about the best thing that happened while you were doing it. "One of the high points that Jen had while flower farming was that she got to be in the local newspaper. They came and took a picture of her, and they wrote an article. And that was certainly one of the high points of her time as a flower farmer."

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Now, the other phrase I wanna teach you today is the opposite, and it's "low point." And I think you can probably guess what this means. The low point would then be the worst thing that ever happened to you, or one of the worst things that happened to you. So if you were talking again about your job, you could say, "The low point in my career was when I got fired." Or "The low point of the trip was when Joe fell getting off the bus and twisted his ankle." So, low point is then the not nice thing that happened in an event or an experience that you had.

So to review, when you talk about the high point of an experience, it's the best thing that happened during that experience. And when you talk about the low point of that experience, you're talking about the worst thing that happened during that experience. High points are definitely better than low points.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me see if I can dig it out here. This comment is from Janith. "Hi Bob, sir, how do you pronounce 'gauge'?" And my response, "I'll mention it in the next video." So I just did. I have to kinda gauge how much time I have left here. Oh, I have two minutes left, so that's good. But yes, that's how I pronounce the word gauge. I think that's the only pronunciation. I know there's a couple of different spellings. I think you can spell it without a "u" as well, but I spell it the way you just saw it on the screen in Janith's comment. So thanks for that comment, and that's how I would spell or say the word "gauge." Ha, and that's how I would spell it as well. And I did give you an example sentence. Every once in a while, I look at the time on my camera because I want to gauge how much time I have left. I wanna kinda get a sense of how much time I have left.

So I don't have a lot to talk about for the last minute of this video. That's not true. I always have lots to talk about. It is January, and what that means for me at work is that things are winding down for this semester. I think some of you know this but maybe not all of you. In Canada, sorry, in my part of Ontario, I should say, we have a semester system in our high schools. That means that we teach for about four and a half months, almost five months, and then the semester is over. Students take four classes a day. And then when the semester's over, they write exams at the end, and then they start the next semester, and they take four more classes.

So for me, I have about eight days left as of today. In eight days, regular classes are finished, and then we have a week of exams. And here's a little secret. Teache

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO STOP AT NOTHING and STOP-AND-GO

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to stop at nothing." When you say that you will stop at nothing to do something it means you'll do anything you have to to get that thing done. It's raining right now, but I will stop at nothing to get a video made for all of you. So even though it's raining and it's a little bit cold, I don't mind coming out to get this done because I like to get the English lesson done. It's just something I like to do so I will stop at nothing to get it done. You could use this to describe other things as well. Maybe someone really likes to visit people at Christmas and they will stop at nothing in order to make that visit happen. That means even if there's a snow storm or the electricity isn't working, they will still visit someone at Christmas.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "stop-and-go." Now, we usually use this to talk about traffic. If you're driving and you're on a highway and you stop and then you go and then you stop and then you go because there's a little bit of a traffic jam, we would call it stop-and-go traffic. But you can describe anything as stop-and-go. You could say the rain today has been kind of stop-and-go all day. It was raining this morning and then it stopped for a bit and then it started again. The rain has been stop-and-go.

So to review, when you will stop at nothing to get something done, it means no matter what obstacle is in your way you will get that thing finished. I hope that you stop at nothing when you keep when you are learning English. I hope nothing stops you from getting it done. And when you say something is stop-and-go, it means it starts at one point and then it stops for a bit and then it starts again. Sometimes my English lessons are like that, but not this one. This one isn't stop-and-go. I talk for the whole four minutes.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous lesson. This comment is from Stanislav and Stanislav says, "it is great weather in Canada. We have a lot of snow too today." And my response is we did have a lot, but unfortunately it's all melted now.

And you can probably see that behind me already. Let's go for a little tour. Things are very different than the last video. So the last video was actually shot a few days ago, but since then things have warmed up quite a bit here in Ontario, Canada. In fact, the other day, two days ago, it was 11 degrees. Everything melted. You can see that everything behind me, it kind of looks like spring again in some ways. And then today is four degrees. I was out earlier this morning shooting a video for my other channel, my "Wednesdays with Bob" video, and yeah, it certainly doesn't look like this. Here, I'll put a little clip in of what it looked like during the storm a week and a half ago. I'll start that right now.

It's like this outside right now. I'm not sure if you can see behind me. It is just coming down out here and it is windy out here.

And then I'll come back again. So you could see in that clip that we were getting hammered. That's how I would describe it. We were getting hammered with snow, but it certainly slowed down quite a bit. But yeah, it's just kind of weird. Like, I'm wearing a winter coat, but I don't really need a winter coat right now. I could probably come outside in just a light jacket. In fact, Jen and I went shopping the other day and I just wore a jacket. Yesterday, actually. So yes, kind of disappointing. You know Bob the Canadian loves sno

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A PIECE OF MY MIND and IN ONE PIECE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "a piece of my mind." Now, we usually use this phrase with the verb to give and I could say, "I'm going to give someone a piece of my mind." That means I'm angry with them and I'm going to tell them exactly what I think. If you were angry with your boss at work, you could say, "Tomorrow I'm going to give my boss a piece of my mind." I'm going to tell him or her exactly what I don't like about my job or exactly what I don't like about how things are going. I'm going to give them a piece of my mind. So again, it means you're angry, it means you're upset and you're going to tell someone exactly how you feel.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "in one piece." Now, this is kind of a weird phrase. "We just had a storm here, but we made it through in one piece." "The other day I heard on the news that someone had a car accident, but they made it through in one piece." So what I mean by it being a weird phrase is it kind of sounds weird if you think about the alternative. We don't think about that when we use it in English, though. We use it to mean when something bad has happened and we are still feeling good and no one was hurt. "So we had a bad snowstorm, but Jen and I made it through in one piece." The alternative, I'm not gonna talk about the alternative. We made it through in one piece. And again, when we use this in English we aren't thinking about something gruesome. We're just saying that everything is okay.

So to review, "a piece of my mind", if I was to give you a piece of my mind I would tell you exactly what I think about something and I might even be angry while I'm doing it. And when you make it through something in one piece, it means that everything went well and everyone is doing okay.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit. "Nowadays, I drink a cup of hot chocolate every day. I love it too. Snowstorm? Wow, I hope you and Brent will survive." And then I said, "We all made it through intact." And when I replied to this comment, Judit that's when I thought of the phrase in one piece. We all made it through intact. We all made it through in one piece.

Let's have a look around though. You might be surprised to know that we went through what they were calling a blizzard, but we don't actually have that much snow on the ground. The snow was everywhere. You couldn't see across the river, you couldn't even see across the road. I went out to check our mailbox that day and there was so much snow blowing I couldn't see in either direction. So I actually decided to just not cross the road. It was far too dangerous. But if you look, you'll see that you can still see little blades of grass sticking up. You can see that we did get snow, my camera, my camera doesn't like the cold. We did get snow, but not an outrageous amount.

Let's spin this way a bit so you can see the farm yard a bit better. So you can see my tracks, you can see the grass, you can see the peonies still sticking up, the little stubble from the peonies. If you look in the distance you can see an ominous sky, though, the sun above, but this very very dark cloud. It's not coming this way. When I looked on the radar this morning that storm is actually moving that way, so it's not coming here.

But yep, we had two days of really really bad weather the day before, so it was the 23rd and the 24th, yes. Our power went out. We ran the generator for a bit, so we were a

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PARK IT and TO HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to park it. When you park it somewhere, it can mean that you're parking your vehicle, but it can also mean that you're going to sit somewhere. I could say to Jen, "I'm gonna drop the kids off at the mall and then I'm just gonna park it on a bench for a little bit." That means I'm going to sit on a bench. It doesn't mean I'm gonna drive my vehicle and try to put it on a bench. That doesn't even make sense, does it? But when you say that you're going to park it somewhere, it means you're going to sit somewhere. We also use this as a command. Sometimes parents will say to kids who are misbehaving, "Okay, just park it for a sec, and I'm going to talk to you about why your behavior is bad." That means you want the child to sit down if you tell them to park it, 'cause kids don't have cars, do they?

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Hey, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to hit it out of the park. Now, I may have taught this phrase in the past. I can't remember. It is a very popular one. When you say someone has hit it out of the park, it means they did something and they did a really, really good job. Maybe a friend of yours had to play a musical instrument in front of other people and they did an amazing job. You could say, "Oh, you should have seen Patrick play the violin. He hit it out of the park." This means that during the performance he played every note perfectly and he just did an amazing job. He hit it out of the park.

So to review, when you say you're going to park it, it can mean that you're just going to sit somewhere. When I go to the mall, sometimes my kids shop and I just park it. I sit on a bench and I wait for them to finish their shopping. And when you hit it out of the park, it means that you do a really, really good job. I hope that whatever you're doing next, whether it's a performance or a test or something like that, I hope that you hit it out of the park.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis, which in English we would say, Dennis, by the way. "Bob, when it's cold outside and it's snowing and you're sitting in your comfortable chair and look out the window, what kind of drink are you prefer to sip? Or what kind of drink do you prefer to sip? Hot cocoa, mulled wine, or maybe grog." And my response, I prefer hot chocolate. It's especially good when you come in from the cold and need to warm up. So yes, hot cocoa, hot chocolate, that would be my favorite drink. We more commonly call it hot chocolate here, although hot cocoa is also a correct term. So thank you, Denis, for that comment and for that question. I definitely like when I come in from the cold, I like to have a nice cup of hot chocolate. That's my favorite.

So, guess what is going to happen here. It is Thursday today and they're calling for a blizzard. They've actually updated the term that they're using. When I say they're calling for, it means the weather people are forecasting that we are going to get a lot of snow starting halfway through the day tomorrow. They originally said it was going to snow. Then they said lots of snow. And just this morning they have now said it's going to be a blizzard. If you don't know what a blizzard is, a blizzard is a gigantic snowstorm. This snowstorm is so big that I think Brent from Speak English With This Guy and myself will be getting the same storm, even though he lives hundreds of kilometers away from me. So it's supposed to last for a good 24

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WORK AWAY and ASK AWAY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to work away. When you work away at something, it means you're working on something that will take a long time to finish and you're doing it little by little. A great example of this would be if you are doing a jigsaw puzzle. If you have 1,000 or 2,000 or 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle, you need to work away at it. You're not going to finish it in 10 minutes or in 15 minutes. When you open the box and you dump the pieces out, you need to work away at it. You need to take some time to put every piece in slowly. At school, it's the week before Christmas and parents keep sending big boxes of chocolates to the staff, to the teachers to eat and we work away at each box of chocolates. We don't eat them all at once, but there's so many that we have to work away at it until the box is empty. I've eaten way too much chocolate lately, by the way. I need to slow down.

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But the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, ask away. This is a phrase that we say sometimes as teachers when someone asks if they can ask us some questions. If a student says to me, "Can I ask you a few questions about my project?" I'll respond by saying, "Sure, ask away." This is simply giving the person permission to ask you lots of questions. Maybe a friend is visiting you and they say, "Hey, can I ask you a few questions "about what it's like at work for you, "what your job is like?" You could say, "Sure, ask away. "I'm happy to talk about work."

So to review, when you work away at something, it means you get it done slowly but surely. There's another English phrase for you. A jigsaw puzzle is a great example. You just need to work away at it, and eventually it's done. And the second phrase, ask away, is something you say when you're giving someone permission to ask you a lot of questions. A politician might be walking along and a journalist or reporter might say, "Can you stop and answer a few questions for me?" And they might say, "Sure, ask away." Or they might run because they don't wanna answer any questions. That could happen too.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from U Bean. Hi, Bob. I heard that Canadians don't like to use umbrellas when it rains. Is that true? And my response, it's an interesting thing and there might be some truth to it. I can only speak from my own experience, though. I don't use one. I own one, but I rarely use it.

So I know that umbrellas are these amazing things. They're really cool. When it rains, you open your umbrella and it keeps you dry. I own two umbrellas, actually, not just one. And we sometimes use them when we're at market. We sometimes use them when we go somewhere where we will be forced to be outside in the rain for a while. But we don't use umbrellas quite, we don't use umbrellas regularly to walk from our vehicle into a building. When I say we, I mean Jen and I. I think there are Canadians that do use umbrellas. But yeah, I don't take one with me every day. If I drive to school in the rain, when I get to work, I just run from my van to the front door. I don't use my umbrella. So, interesting. I might have to go to the city sometime and see how many Canadians actually use their umbrellas. We'll see.

Hey, it's not snowy here. It's a little disappointing. Christmas is only a few days away, and most people who live in Canada really like it when we get lots of snow. But it sounds like we might get some snow this weekend. It sounds like Friday and Saturday

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A ROOKIE MISTAKE and AN HONEST MISTAKE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase a rookie mistake. Now, this is a term we use when we're talking about someone who's new at something and then they make a mistake. At school, oh, by the way, a rookie is someone who's new at something. When you play a sport, you can be a rookie. It means it's your first year. But we use this in other things as well. At school, sometimes we hire a new teacher and we call that teacher a rookie for the first year. And a rookie mistake as a teacher would be to try and use the photocopier right before the school day starts. That's the busiest time. If you need to photocopy something in a school, don't do it right before school starts because there will be a lineup of teachers all making the same mistakes, including the rookie. So anyways, a rookie mistake is a mistake that someone who is new at something ends up making.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase an honest mistake. Now, an honest mistake is just a mistake that anyone would make, and it's a mistake that doesn't really harm anyone. A good example would be this. Sometimes I'll teach a student and then a few years later, I'll teach their brother. So I'll teach two brothers, and then a few years later, again, after they've graduated I'll meet one of them somewhere and I'll use the wrong name. And that's just an honest mistake. Sometimes brothers look a lot alike, especially after they graduate from high school. If you meet two brothers in their 20s, they can sometimes look quite a bit alike. So it's just an honest mistake if I use the wrong name when I run into one of them.

So to review, a rookie mistake is a mistake made by someone who's new at something. A rookie mistake for a farmer is to try and work up the soil before it's dry enough. That's a rookie mistake. And an honest mistake is just a simple mistake that anyone would make, and it's not a mistake that harms anyone or costs money or anything like that. So I make a lot of those, actually.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit. "Thanks for the video. It was quite short, as usual. "Christmas is coming as well as the eagle season "in North Florida, check them out." And my response, "I'll have a look."

And I did, I actually just spent a little bit of time reading about bald eagles. And I wanted to show all of you something as well. So the bald eagle is native to North America. It's an eagle with a white head. I think it's the national bird in the United States. But if you look behind me here, there's a really tall hydro pole right there. We call 'em hydro poles in Canada. And at the very top, sometimes in the summer we'll see a bald eagle. There is a bald eagle that lives on our farm. I'm sure it's gone now, though, because I'm sure it's gone south for the winter where it's a bit warmer. But interestingly enough, Judit, thanks for that comment. I did read a little bit about bald eagles, and again, there's one that sometimes perches right at the top of that hydro pole. You might call it a utility pool if you are in America, or something like that.

By the way, I'm out here in the rain. It's a little bit slippery out here. Let's see if... So I actually ended up staying home today. We had, I guess we would call it technically, we would call it a snow day, but it's actually more accurate to call it an ice day. We woke up to freezing rain. It was very, very dangerous to walk outside. It was very, very dangerous to dri

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BACK OFF and TO GO BACK ON

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to back off. Now, when you back off, it means you stop arguing with someone. It means you stop trying to convince them that you are right. Let's say that Jen and I are having an argument. At a certain point, I might back off because I might be starting to say things that are a little bit mean. Maybe we're trying to decide what to have for supper and I really want pizza, and Jen really wants hamburgers and I just keep saying things like, "We should have pizza. We never have pizza. Pizza is the best thing in the world." Eventually, Jen might get a little bit tired of my behavior and it might be important for me to back off. When you're arguing with someone, if you don't back off or if the other person doesn't back off, sometimes, you can start to have hard feelings for each other. You can start to be annoyed with each other. So, sometimes it's just good to back off.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to go back on. Now we usually use this phrase when talking about a promise. Sometimes, you can go back on something that you've said and it means, you don't do it anymore. Let's say I promised Jen that I'm going to put gas in the van today and then when I get home, I say to Jen, "You know what? I promised to put gas in the van, but I didn't. She could say, Hey, you went back on your promise. Notice I had to go to the past tense here. You went back on your promise. That's not fair." When people go back on their word or go back on their promise, it's not a nice thing. If you promise to do something, you should do it, I think. I think that's always the best thing to do.

Anyways, to review, to back off means to stop arguing or stop fighting with someone. Sometimes, it's important for you to back off so that your relationship is good and to go back on something, to go back on your word or to go back on a promise simply means to not keep it. It means that you say you're going to do something and then you don't.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Lorenzo. "Hi, teacher Bob, still no snow in Canada and my response just a tiny bit now, hopefully more in the weeks ahead."

So yes, thanks, Lorenzo. What's happening here is at night, it goes below zero. So every night, the temperature goes down to minus four or minus five, and sometimes it snows. But if you look around me, you'll see that there isn't any snow on the ground at all. There is no snow to speak of, we might say in English. So, yeah. Oh wait, I think I found some. Let's look. If you look the back of this bench down here, you could see a little bit of snow, so we do not sure what my lens is doing. It's going crazy now. Let me see if I can get it to, there we go, my ca- Apparently my camera's not used to making English lessons either, but yes, so there's a little bit of snow on our vehicles in the morning. There's a little bit of snow on the ground sometimes but then by midday, it's plus three or plus four and most of it has melted, so just kind of sad.

Hey, you know what I was gonna talk about for the end of this video? This is something I mentioned every, every December I think. I can't wait for school to be done. I have over a week and a half left of school and I can't wait for Christmas break. It is one of my favorite times of year. I get to slow down a bit. Obviously, I don't have to work, but I should stay focused. I should stay focused, do my job well, and eventually, it will be next week, Friday and

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE SOMETHING FOR A SPIN and TO SPIN YOUR WHEELS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To take something for a spin." Now, usually, this refers to a vehicle. Maybe a friend of yours has a new car. You could say, "Hey, could I take your car for a spin?" That means you want to drive it for a little bit. Maybe a different friend bought a brand-new sports car and you've never really taken a sports car for a spin. You could say, "Hey, could I take your sports car for a spin? Could I go and take a little drive around town and see what it feels like to drive it?"

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is, "To spin your wheels." Now, I'm having a funny feeling I may have taught both of these phrases before, but I'm gonna reteach them anyways because it's been a little while since I've made one of these videos. When you spin your wheels with a vehicle, it means they go around really fast and you don't move forward. Maybe you're in mud or something, but in life, you can also spin your wheels. This simply means you're not making progress on something. Maybe you're working on a project at work with some colleagues and you haven't made very much progress. Your boss could come and say, "Hey, are you guys going to keep spinning your wheels? I think you guys need to get something done, so please start getting more work done. Start to make some progress. Stop spinning your wheels." Sorry, I'm not using the exact phrase, but I'm a little out of practice on this.

Anyways, to review. To take something for a spin is to go and drive it for a little bit. You can take a car for a spin. You could even ask someone if you could take their new phone for a spin or their new computer, although that's less common. And when you spin your wheels, it simply means that you are not making progress. Whatever it is you're doing, you're not making any progress. You're just kind of stuck in one spot.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video if I can find it. Did I put it in a pocket? It's not in that pocket, it's not in that pocket. What did I do with it? I don't think I have it with me. I'll be right back. Okay, I'm back, and I found it. This is from Ok. Hello, Bob. All the expressions are interesting, but there are too few examples. And my response, I'll see what I can do about that.

So yeah, I try to describe... By the way, thanks for the comment. I try to describe and explain the current expression or term in about a minute. Sometimes, I give one example, sometimes I give two. I will try my best to give more examples in the future.

Anyways, I'm back. I'm back at it. I know I took a little bit of a break there. Life was busy, but I was also not feeling well. I was close to losing my voice a few times, and I thought I just need to rest it for a few more days. I need to make sure that I don't overdo it because if I lose my voice, I can't make YouTube videos, I can't go to work, I can't do what I'm supposed to do. So I was able to rest my voice. I basically just took some Advil, went to work, didn't talk too much at work. I tried to rest my voice as much as possible. And even though I was a little bit sick, I did get better.

So it is nice to be feeling a lot better now and it's nice to be doing this again. I have to admit, taking a week and a half off from making short videos, I kind of forgot how to do it. Obviously, I forgot to bring my comment out with me. I haven't actually even prepared in my mind what to talk about for the last two minutes. I'm just kind

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ON THE FAST TRACK and FAST-FORWARD

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, on the fast track. Now, there's two ways to learn English. You can study at home on your own time or if you wanna be on the fast track, you can move to an English speaking country and live with an English speaking family, then you would definitely be on the fast track. So, this phrase then means to take a route that's faster. Sometimes someone starts working at a company and they do a really good job, and they work extra hours, and they just really want to get a promotion, you would say that they are on the fast track if they manage to do that. They impress their boss by working long days, doing things successfully and just making the company better. You would say, "Oh, they're on the fast track to getting a promotion." So, anytime you're on the fast track, it means you're going faster than other people.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase fast-forward. Now, this is a button that you use to speed up a video but we also use this when we talk about our lives. I could say this, five and a half years ago, I only had a few subscribers, but fast forward a few years and I had a hundred thousand subscribers. Fast forward again and a few years later, I had over a million. This is on my other channel, by the way not this channel, this channel is cool and small and that's the way I like it. So, you can use the word fast-forward to talk about events in your life as well.

So to review, when you're on the fast track, it means you are progressing in a faster way than other people at something like learning English or getting a promotion at work. And when you use the phrase fast-forward, you can use this to talk about different parts of your life. When I was a kid, I didn't like pumpkin pie but fast forward a few years and it became one of my favorite kinds of pie. So you can just use the phrase to talk about an advancement in time.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, this comment is from Giovanni. "Yeah, I'm pulling for Canada this year, since I was born, Canada hasn't been qualified and this year you guys did. Sure thing, I'm stuck to the sofa this afternoon to watch the match, and then I'm responding a little while later saying I was sad when we lost to Belgium yesterday, oh well, c'est la vie."

So, thanks Giovanni for that. Yes, the World Cup is happening. Yes, I did actually watch a little bit of it yesterday. We watched it at school. So, we were able to get the match on the screen. We watched a little bit of the match between Canada and Belgium and we were sad when they scored a point on us and then we were sad at the end of the game when we lost. But hey, it's nice that, I think they're in Round Robin play right now, where you play a number of teams in your pool. So, hopefully when Canada plays its next game, we can have a little more success.

So anyways, I don't have a lot more to talk about today but I will just reflect on my week. My week so far has been really busy, but as of today, I don't have as much to do. But the funny thing is, when I'm busy, I get more work done and when I don't have a lot to do, I get less done. I sat and talked to Jen this morning for half an hour instead of getting this video done right away. I kind of moseyed outside. In English when you say that you mosey somewhere, it means you go there really, really slowly. For some reason, on days where I have a million things to do, I get up, I get at it, I start early, I get as m

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases C'EST LA VIE and DÉJÁ VU

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase c'est la vie or is this actually a French phrase? By the way, there are French phrases that we use in everyday English and c'est la vie is one of them, and it means, that's life. Sometimes you have a situation where something goes a certain way and there's no real way to explain it. So in an English conversation you would just shrug and say, "Well, c'est la vie." And basically what we're saying is, "That's life." Life has its ups and downs. Sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things happen. Sometimes it's hard to understand why those things happen and then we just say, c'est la vie.

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By the way, there's another French term we use and that's deja vu. In English, people often forget to put the accents on it, by the way, but deja vu is a situation where you feel like you're experiencing something that happened before. In English, you would say, "Oh, I just had deja vu. I felt like I've already done this." Maybe you're reading a news story, and you feel like you've read the story before or maybe you just have a weird moment in your day where you think, "I think I've already done this." In that situation, you would say you're experiencing deja vu. By the way, in French, this actually is the past participle of the verb voir, and this means already so it kind of roughly translates as already seen.

Anyways, enough of the French lesson. To review, in an English conversation, you may use this phrase, c'est la vie. You can also say that's life. Either one will work and people will understand what you're saying. You just say, "Hmm, c'est la vie." Or, "Oh, that's life." And if you experience deja vu, it means you have had a situation in life where you feel like you've already lived that moment that it's already happened to you. It can be very, very strange to experience deja vu.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. Thank you for the lesson, dear teacher Bob. I love that nice, quiet neighborhood you were walking around in this video. Everybody has such a small fence around their houses so I guess house robbery does not happen in this area. And my response, it does happen, but not too often. It is a very peaceful neighborhood.

So thanks Ruslan for that comment. Let's talk a little bit about crime in Canada. We do have crime. Houses do get robbed. We are like every other country in the world. We try our best to keep our crime rate down, but there are still bad people and things still do happen. So yes, people do have their house houses robbed from time to time. We don't tend to have a lot of fences, but a lot of houses have security alarms or alarm systems and we probably in smaller towns have a very low crime rate. It's probably more of a worry in the bigger cities like Toronto or Edmonton or Calgary. So yes, we do have crime. It's even sometimes dangerous out in the countryside where I live, although people steal different things when they're out there. People tend to steal things like snowmobiles and four wheelers and farm equipment. So yes, there is crime. We do our best to stop it.

Hey, I'm out here at our local soccer fields because as I understand it, the W

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase I OWE YOU ONE and the French Phrase Merci beaucoup!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase I owe you one. This means the same thing as saying thank you, and I want to say to all of you, I owe you one. I had a lot of fun reading all of the comments on the last video, where I asked you for ideas. Sorry, I said all the comments. I haven't read all of them yet, but I think as of this morning, there's 144. I've read many of them. There's far too many for me to respond, but I've certainly enjoyed reading them, so I owe you one. Thank you for your thoughts. Thank you for your ideas. It's a lot of fun to read through and to kind of see what you guys were saying, so thank you so much for that. So once again, when you say, "I owe you one," it means the same thing as saying, "Thank you."

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today isn't an English phrase. It's merci beaucoup, which is just a French way of saying thank you as well. So thank you very much, I owe you one, merci beaucoup.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me see what I have in my pocket here. I did respond to one of the 144 comments, and I said, oh no, wait, let's read what Judit had to say. "Yes to all of your questions, and the length, when I have time, it is too short. When I don't have time, it is too long, but I manage. I miss you responding to my comments, though." And my response. "I miss that, too. It's one of my favorite things about this channel." Don't worry, I'll resume doing that with this video.

So yes, I've been a little slow to reply to comments, haven't I? And I'll try to make sure that I get on that. And it isn't a burden for me. I do really enjoy responding to all of your comments. It's a lot of fun to read them. I think my response average is pretty good. I do usually find the time to respond to most of them, and it helps that there's only 30 or 40. When there's 144, like there were on the previous video, it gets a little challenging to be able to do that. So anyways, thanks once again. I will get back to that, Judit. It's a lot of fun, and it helps me connect with all of you.

Hey, as you can see, there is a skiff of snow. I don't know if you can see on all the roofs here, but let me spin you around. You can see that the roof on some of these houses is white, and if I walk over to this park, you can see that we've had, I guess you could call it our first snowfall. I mean, it's not huge by any stretch of the imagination. Let me spin you back around. But certainly we have had snow. It's been snowing on and off, but the snow hasn't stayed on the ground. Early in the fall, the the ground is quite warm, and so sometimes we'll have snow, but as soon as it hits the ground, it will melt. But this time, we had snow during the night and it seems to have taken the time to remain, so we can see that it has not melted yet, so that's really cool.

Anyways, I'm not sure what else to say. It's only three minutes, and I usually talk for four minutes, don't I? I must have done the beginning part of the lesson very, very quickly. So let me go on a little bit more about some of the comments yesterday. Most of you said everything's just right. I like it when people say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That should be the phrase maybe that I teach you today as well. That's a saying we use when something is working well, and then when someone wants to modify it or change it, sometimes we'll say, "Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it," meaning nothing's broken, everything's working

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Well, hello and welcome to this not a short English lesson with Bob. Don't worry, it's not bad news. I'm not quitting or anything like that. But I did want to make a different sort of video for this channel because I wanted to ask you a few questions.

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I'm also not feeling very well, so I took some Advil. I feel better now. I thought I'd come outside and make a couple videos quick. It's nothing serious, by the way. I'll be fine by tomorrow.

But I wanted to ask you a few things about the lessons on this channel. Number one, do you like them? That's a pretty general question. Let me be more specific. Do you like that I teach two phrases? Do you like that I walk around for a minute or two at the end? Do you like that I respond to a comment each week? Do you like the length? Do you wish they were shorter? Do you wish they were longer? I can't promise major changes because it kind of works for me. It's a really easy video to make, an easy lesson to make for you. But I am curious. I would like to know what would you like to see different if I was to add something or remove something.

And you won't hurt my feelings In English when you hurt someone's feelings, when you say you hurt their feelings, you make them feel sad. I like being incredibly analytical about the things I make, and I'm not very emotional about it. So if you all overwhelmingly said, "Ah, we don't like it when you reply to a comment," I would maybe think about not doing that or doing it differently. Or if you said, "Two phrases is too many, just teach one and make the video three minutes instead of four." I would think about that. Or if you said, "Make the video 30 minutes long." I probably wouldn't do that. That's too long. I don't have time for that.

Part of the beauty of the lessons on this channel is that I do them in one take. They don't need to be edited. So you'll notice even if I make a mistake, I just keep going. I usually correct myself. And four minutes is about the right length, I think. I can teach a couple things, I can respond to a comment, and I can kind of walk around. So anyways, if you have ideas, let me know. If you have things that you don't like, let me know. If you have things where you think if I change something a little bit, let me know, and let me know all of this in the comments below. I'll be happy to read through them.

I do wanna apologize that I have not been replying to comments as much as I normally do, but I'll explain all of that towards the end of the month. I've been busy for a number of reasons. One of them, I'll tell you now, my mom is moving. So that's one of the reasons I've been a little extra busy with my life right now because my mom is moving. So my brothers and sisters and I, we've been spending a lot of time helping her get ready to move, so that that takes a bit of time. You should always help parents move when they decide to move. So I've been doing quite a bit of that lately.

So anyways, if you have any ideas, let me know. If there's something you don't like, let me know. If you don't like this channel at all, if you're like, "This is a waste of time, stop doing it," then maybe this isn't the channel for you. Maybe there's other things that you could watch, but I think most of you who are here are quite regular viewers. So once again, let me know what you think, and I'll get back to the regular lessons in a little while. You'll have a new one by Friday, like in a couple of days. I'll do the traditional paper one as well.

And if there's specific topics you want me to cover, if you're like, "Bob, just do phrasal verbs. Stop doing all these other weir

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BOOK IT and TO CLOSE THE BOOK ON

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to book it. Now, this has nothing to do with books. It's kind of an informal slang phrase that we use to talk about driving quickly or running quickly. Sometimes when I'm late for work, I have to book it in order to make it to work on time. Sometimes when I'm late for class, I have to book it from my work area to my classroom because I want to get to class on time. So anytime you drive fast or anytime you run fast, because you're a little bit late, we sometimes use the English phrase, to book it. It's not good when you're late for work to book it, because there's a good chance you're going to get a speeding ticket. But sometimes I do have to book it to get to work on time.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to close the book on. When you close the book on something, it means you're no longer talking about it, you're no longer discussing it. Let's say you're having a fight with a friend and you've decided to kind of come to an agreement. You decide that you're going to close the book on your disagreement. When the government is talking to another government, when a country talks to another country, if they disagree, eventually they might come to an agreement, and then they'll close the book on their disagreement. That means they won't talk about the things that they disagree on anymore.

So to review, when you have to book it, it means you have to go really fast. Sometimes I do need to book it. There's just no choice. If you're late for work, you gotta drive a little bit faster, not too much over the speed limit though. Just a little bit, a tiny bit. And when you close the book on something, it means you no longer talk about it. It means that everyone has come to an agreement and the discussion is over.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Konstantin. Warming up three times, right you are, winter has hit us a couple times here but has withdrawn now. And my response is it will probably hit you hard in a few weeks.

So thanks, Konstantin, for that comment. At the end of the last video, I said, when you get firewood, it warms you up three times. And what I meant by that is... Good morning. What I meant by that is when you cut firewood, because it's physical activity, it warms you up. The act of actually cutting it warms you up, because when you work hard, it warms you up. And then when you stack it, it warms you up again. And then when you burn it in your stove, it warms you up one more time.

By the way, I came out here in the middle of nowhere to make a video, and still somebody walked by. I didn't expect that.

Anyways, so when you use firewood to heat your home, it warms you up three times.

I brought you out here to show you this field where the crop is harvested. This was a field of soybeans, and then to show you this field where the soybeans were harvested, and then they actually planted winter wheat. We have a crop here in Canada called winter wheat. Instead of planting wheat in the spring, we most often... Let me turn so you can see it again. We most often plant our wheat in the fall. It germinates. It grows a little bit.

And when winter comes, it goes dormant. When you say something goes dormant, it means that it stops growing. It goes into a state of rest for a little while. So quite often in Canada, you'll see fields like this where the farmer harvested soybeans and decided not to grow whe

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET AROUND TO and TO RUN AROUND

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to get around to. When you get around to something it means that you do it usually after doing a bunch of other things. Sometimes I have a lot of things to do during the day and it takes a while before I get around to doing the last thing on my list. Sometimes we use this in the negative and we'll say, I didn't get around to it. If you noticed last Friday, there was no lesson for you, I didn't get around to it. There were too many things on my plate last week, it was an extremely busy week for some reason and I didn't get around to it. So once again, when you get around to something, it means that eventually you do it and when you don't get around to something it means you didn't do it or you didn't get a chance to do it. So sorry about that, but I think that was okay. There's lots of videos for you to watch, isn't there? And I did do my videos on my other channel.

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Anyways, the other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to run around. Now, sometimes little kids will run around, it means they're excited and instead of walking, they run everywhere. When I was a little kid, I would run around a lot. But we also use this to describe a busy day. You could say, oh, I got a lot of running around to do today. I need to run around and do some errands this afternoon. I'll be home late because I need to run around and get a few things done in town before I come home. So you can use it as an adult as well or you can just use it to describe children who run around, who run all over the place.

So to review, when you, to get around to means to eventually do something. And if you use it in the negative, it means that you were going to do it but you didn't, you didn't get around to it. And when you run around, it means you do a whole bunch of things. So, usually on a Saturday I run around a lot. I go to the feed mill, I go to the grocery store, I run around a lot and I do a lot of errands.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Vítor. Hi Bob. I'm not that busy now so I thought I'd watch and check out some of your videos. I think I missed one or two short lessons. A bit of free time is always good, and spending that time watching your content is really enjoyable. Thank you. And my response is, good to hear you're taking the time to catch up. It's probably good that I took a day off from making lessons on this channel. So hopefully for Vítor that worked out that I didn't do an extra video last week or a video last Friday, it's easier for him to catch up. So thanks for that comment, Vítor, and I'm glad to hear that you have some free time and that you're able to catch up.

So I wanted to show you how much of a difference a week makes. So I think it's been about a week since I made a video right here and you'll see that the tree behind me has no leaves left on it. And on the ground, that beautiful carpet of leaves they've all kind of dried out and you can hardly see them. In fact, it's gonna be a little bright, but I'll show you across the river, you'll see that almost all of the leaves in this area have disappeared.

What's that sound? Oh, it looks like my neighbor. I'm not sure if you'll be able to see this but it looks like my neighbor is out with his tractor and chainsaw, and it looks like he has a four-wheeler with a little cart behind it. Hopefully I can zoom in and show that to you. It looks like a tree either fell over or died, and it looks like they're takin

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ON A MISSION and MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

In this English lesson I wanted to teach you the English phrase, on a mission. When you say someone is on a mission it means they're working hard at something, they're diligent, they're getting a lot of stuff done, they are on a mission. It kind of comes from like in the Army, people go on missions but we use it to talk about people in real life as well. You could say this, my daughter wanted to get her driver's license and she is on a mission. She is studying for her test, she is getting ready to go and do her driver's test, she is on a mission. She studies like every minute of the day to get ready for that, she's on a mission. So when you wanna talk about someone who's very determined and working very hard on something you could say that they're on a mission.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, mission accomplished. This is something we sometimes say in a joking way, when we finish a large task. Sometimes we'll say to someone, mission accomplished. Someone might say, hey, did you get that project done at work? You could say, oh, mission accomplished, it's all done and ready to go. Maybe someone says to you, did you get all the groceries and did you get all of your errands done? You could then say, yep, mission accomplished, all of that is done. If you wonder why I'm laughing there's a cat down here, I'll show you for a sec. It's running away now, there's a cat down there and it keeps kind of going around my feet.

Anyways, to review, when you are on a mission you are bound and determined to get something done. There's another phrase for you, you're bound and determined to get it done. And when you say mission accomplished it means you've done something, it's all done, and you're kind of celebrating a little bit by saying, mission accomplished. That's what I say, after I'm done, all of my videos for the day, I say mission accomplished.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Noriko, if I'm remembering correctly. It's getting more common here in Japan to wear reflective belts when people go for a walk or jog at night. Please keep wearing your reflective vest when you walk so that you feel more safe and everyone who visits Ontario can find you easily, thanks. My response I might even buy a reflective toque, that's a winter hat in Canadian English, and gloves.

Yeah, I'm trying to be as reflective as possible. Thanks for the comment, Noriko. I think it's becoming more and more important to be as reflective as possible. It's cool to hear that in Japan, people have reflective belts, I should look into that. In English, when you look into something, it means you research it a little bit.

I just about tripped on a cat here, let me let you have a look here. This is the cat that has been following me around while I make this video. I'm not sure what it wants, there's also a cat over there by the van, by the way and you might even be able to hear one meowing. I think the cats haven't been fed yet today. But anyways, what was I saying? I lost my train of thought there. There's another phrase, but yes, reflective vest. Maybe I should get one of those too. Maybe that would make me highly recognizable on the side of the road.

Well, hey, it is a nice Tuesday morning here. I usually make these the day before and I'm having a very pleasant day at home. As I mentioned there was a little break from school last week, there was a convention and all kinds of fun stuff. Yesterday we went back to work and we're tea

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO STICK OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB and STICK WITH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase stick out like a sore thumb. Now, this is my thumb, and to stick out like a sore thumb doesn't really have anything to do with thumbs. It has to do with things like this orange vest I'm wearing, or dressing in a way that's different than other people. If I was to wear this orange vest and I went to a basketball game and I was in the crowd, I would stick out like a sore thumb, because no one wears a vest like this to that kind of game. By the way, I have this vest for walking along the road when I go for a walk for exercise, because I think it's just a good idea to be... It's a good idea to stick out like a sore thumb when you're walking along the road, so I wear this vest.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase stick with, and in particular, to stick with someone. Jen and I decided long ago when we got married that we were going to stick with each other. That means that we are going to stay together. In fact, often when people get married, it's one of the promises that they make to each other, that they will stick with each other, no matter what happens. If life gets rough, if life gets bad, they will stick with each other, they will stay together. If life is good, they'll also stick with each other, because it's fun to stick with someone when life is good. You could also use this to talk about something like where you bring your car to get fixed. I brought my car to a mechanic years ago, and I liked him, so I'm going to stick with him as my mechanic. I'm not going to take my car somewhere else.

So to review, when you stick out like a sore thumb, it simply means to be different than all of the other people around you. If I wore this vest to school as a teacher, I would stick out like a sore thumb. And to stick with someone simply means to stay with them, to not leave them.

I forgot the comment in the house. I'm going to run in and grab it. I'll be right back. Okay, I got it. This comment is from Abdullrahman, and it says, "You speak quickly, teacher. Slow down, please." And my response. "You can always try slowing the video down a bit. If you slow it by 10%, it will still sound clear, but you'll be able to understand a bit better."

So I do sometimes get comments from viewers that they would like me to speak more slowly, and I think one of the things that I usually say, which you just heard me say, is that if you slow down the video in the YouTube player, if you slow it down to 90% or 85%, it still sounds the same, but it's a little bit easier to understand. I think it's better to do that than for me to start speaking more slowly, because I do speak a tiny bit more slowly in these videos, but I speak pretty close to my normal speed, and I think that's good for a lot of viewers. They do actually enjoy the practice of listening to an English speaker who's speaking almost at their normal speed. So anyways, thanks for the comment. What I do suggest a good way to understand me a bit better if you think I'm speaking too fast is to simply slow the video down.

Hey, I'm out here watching. Watching? I'm out here walking. You can probably hear the leaves crunching under my feet. I wanted to show you that this piece of ground over here actually has tiny little plants coming up in it. I showed this to you a few weeks ago. I'm not sure if you'll be able to see this, but we put in what's called winter wheat. That is a crop of wheat that will grow in the fall, and then it

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BOTH FEET ON THE GROUND and TO COVER A LOT OF GROUND

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase both feet on the ground. Now we usually use this phrase with the verb to have or to keep. We say it's good to have both feet on the ground or it's good to keep both feet on the ground, and this means to stay calm, to think clearly in any kind of situation. Maybe you've just lost your job. It's important to keep both feet on the ground as you think about what you're going to do next. You don't want to all of a sudden do things in a crazy way. You don't want to become really emotional and make bad decisions. You want to keep both feet on the ground. You want to think logically. You want to plan in a good way, and you want to get through that situation with everything the way it should be. So you want to keep both feet on the ground.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to cover a lot of ground. So this can literally mean to start hiking and try to hike 10 or 20 kilometers in one day. You want to cover a lot of ground, but we also use this when we talk about when we're doing work. Sometimes when I start my class, I'll say to my students, "Hey, get in your seats. Get your books open. We need to cover a lot of ground today." That means that I have a lot of stuff that I need to teach. It means that during our 70 minute class, we need to work for every single minute of the 70 minutes. We need to cover a lot of ground. So it's important when you have a lot of stuff to do that you make sure you plan to cover a lot of ground.

So to review, when you keep both feet on the ground or when you have both feet on the ground, it means that you are grounded. That's another term we use in English. It means that you're going to stay calm and think logically and plan well. And when you say that you need to cover a lot of ground, it means whatever you're doing that day, you need to get a lot of it done. You need to work hard to get it finished.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Doaa. "I had a conversation with a native tutor on Cambly the other day, and it was a breeze. That was the first time I felt comfortable having a conversation in English. To be honest, I was over the moon. Hard work pays off. Thank you so much, Bob, for making these videos. They're really beneficial." And my response, "That is great news. It makes me happy to hear a success story like this. Awesome."

So Doaa, that's awesome. Good work. I'm glad to hear that you did well in your conversation. That is just awesome. I always am happy when I hear people do well, especially after watching my videos, although that's not the important part. I just like hearing when people study and they work hard and they do well.

I was going to show you this tree today, because just a few minutes ago, the leaves were falling off in droves. Did I teach that phrase yet? In droves. Man, it is really sunny today. I'm going to move over this way, so I could show you a different angle. But it stopped. Maybe if you go back in the video at the beginning of this lesson, you'll be able to see the leaves falling off like crazy. And I joked the other day, let me spin you around. I joked the other day that we don't rake our leaves, but I think there might be too many leaves here. I think, now the leaves are falling off. I think I might have to rake these leaves up. I think there might just be too many of them on the ground.

Anyways, I was also curious to know if any of you live somewhere where this

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English term A BREEZE and the phrase TAKE THE EASY WAY OUT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term "a breeze." When we say something is a breeze, or something we did in the past was a breeze, we mean it was really, really easy. A few days ago, I did some work around the farm, and it was a breeze because I used the tractor. I had to move some dirt and instead of using a shovel, which would've made it really, really hard, I used the tractor and that made it a breeze. So when you say something's a breeze, it means it's really, really easy. I hope the next time you have an English conversation, I hope it's a breeze for you. I hope the next time you take an English test, I hope it's a breeze. I hope it's really, really easy and you just enjoy it while you're doing it, because it's so simple and easy to do. I hope it's a breeze.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "take the easy way out." So I know the two phrases aren't really related today. I mean, when you say something's a breeze, it means it's easy so it's kind of related, but when you take the easy way out, it means you do the easiest way possible when you're doing something. I could have moved the dirt with a shovel, but I took the easy way out and used the tractor instead. That was just a lot simpler, and I wasn't as tired as I would have been if I had used the shovel. Maybe when you're studying English and you don't understand what you're reading, you take the easy way out and you copy and paste everything into Google Translate to see what it is in your own language. You take the easy way out. It's not always good to take the easy way out. Sometimes it's a good idea, but sometimes it's better to do it the hard way.

Anyways, to review, when you say something is a breeze, it means that it is easy. It's a breeze for me to make these videos usually. Today, it's a little cold though. I'll talk about that in a while, in just a little bit. And when you take the easy way out, it means you decide to do something in the easiest way possible. It's good to do that sometimes.

I don't think I- I did bring the comment out. Once again, I'm losing track of where I put the comment. Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from write Winter. "I like the view behind you. Fall is the proof that change may be beautiful." And my response, that's a great quote. And it is, the last video was a lot of fun. I was able to walk around in the town where I work and give you a little bit of a view of what fall looks like.

Fall on the farm continues as well, and I would agree with that quote. I mean, the change that I see around me right now, if you think about it, is beautiful, but it's also a little bit sad because we're looking at things that are actually going to sleep and disappearing for the winter. So as much as it's beautiful, the change is easier to take I guess, because it is beautiful.

You can actually see there's a carpet of leaves behind me. I'm gonna take the easy way out with these leaves. I'm just just gonna let them blow away instead of raking them up. I'm just gonna take the easy way out. We don't often rake our leaves, by the way, because yeah, there's no need to. They just blow away eventually.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO FALL INTO YOUR LAP and A FALLING OUT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To fall into your lap." When something falls into your lab it means you get it or it happens to you suddenly, and it's usually a good thing. Someone might say something like this to you, "Oh, I hear you got a job at the new factory. Did that just fall into your lap?" That would mean you didn't apply for the job, you weren't looking for the job. They just called you and asked if you wanted to work there. The job just kind of fell into your lap. So again, when something falls into your lap it means you get it for free or unexpectedly. This sometimes happens with things as well. You might get a car because your aunt all of the sudden didn't need it anymore, and she just gives it to you. And you would say, "Well, the car just kind of fell into my lap."

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And the other term I wanted to teach you today is the term, "A falling out." When you have a falling out with someone it means you no longer get along. Sometimes in a family, two brothers might not enjoy talking to each other anymore. They might have a big fight, and then we say that they had a falling out. When you have a falling out, it's not a nice thing. It's not nice when two people, two friends, or two members of a family have a falling out because it just makes things very uncomfortable for everyone else in the family, and I think family should get along.

So to review, when something, when you say that something fell into your lap or when you say something is going to fall into your lab, it means you're going to get it unexpectedly or for free. And when you have a falling out with someone it means that you had a big argument, you had a big fight, and now you no longer talk to each other. I guess you could say you don't see eye to eye anymore. It's just not a nice situation.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit. "Come to think of it, I may not have heard this phrase before." And my reply, "Well, I'm glad I could teach it to you then."

So thanks for that comment, Judit. Yeah, sometimes I do find phrases that people have not heard before. That's always an exciting time for me. I'm always happy when I find things, and in the comments people let me know that it was somewhat of a new phrase for them. Because some of the phrases I teach are rather familiar. So thanks for that comment, Judit.

Well I'm out here walking on a path, we've been out on this path before on these lessons, but I thought I would come out here today because you can now see the fall colors are in full display or on full display. A little mistake there, on full display. As we go into the middle of October you can see that the leaves have turned from green to some yellows, some nice dark, burnt red, we would probably call this. It's just a beautiful time of year out here. And you can also see that when you walk along the paths, there's nice leaves on the ground. It's a nice, beautiful display as well. It's just a really cool time here in Ontario, Canada.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT... and COME TO THINK OF IT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase who would've thought. In English, we use this phrase when we're about to mention something that surprised us. Maybe you went to school with someone named Jim and they didn't do a very good job in school and they became a scientist. You might say to a friend who would've thought that Jim would become a scientist. He didn't even do his homework in high school. Maybe you had a tree and it's a very solid looking tree and then during a windstorm it blew over. You might say, who would've thought that that really big tree would blow over in the windstorm? That's something that surprised me. So when you talk about something that's kind of a surprise something that you didn't expect to happen you might use the English phrase who would've thought to start the sentence.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase come to think of it. This is a phrase we use when we've suddenly thought of something. You could say something like this. Come to think of it, that tree didn't look very healthy. So it doesn't surprise me that it blew over in the windstorm, you could say come to think of it, Jim didn't do any homework in school but he always got high marks or high grades on all of his tests. So whenever you think of something, when a thought comes to mind during a conversation, you can introduce it by starting the phrase with come to think of it.

So to review, when you say who would've thought it means that something has surprised you. Who would've thought that these videos would come out two days every week? Who would've thought that? Well, I thought that, but anyways that shouldn't be a surprise. And if you say come to think of it you introduce something that you just thought of.

So come to think of it. I should probably read a comment from a previous video. Let me find that for a second. It's in my pocket somewhere. I know that I remember putting it in there. This comment is from Tan. Good morning, Dear Professor Bob, the Canadian, you know you teach not only English but also teach us to love this life. Make us love this life, enjoy this life, love our work. I do get a lot of positive energy from your videos. And my response, I'm glad to hear that, Tan. I think life has a lot to offer. I do most days love life and always have. I'm glad to hear that comes across in my lessons sometimes.

So that's very touching Tan. I'm glad that as I'm teaching English, that people do feel kind of a bit of a connection, that they kind of sense that I do enjoy life and I think it's important to enjoy life. I will say though, that I wasn't always this way. I think I have been much more positive since I had heart surgery a few years ago. I think when you have, I've talked about this before when you have a major medical problem and you have a surgery and you come through the surgery and you feel a lot better and you are just in way better shape, you think about life in a different way. So my goals in life are to try to be happy each day to think about the things that are good in my life and to give in some way. That's why it's nice for Jen and I to sell flowers.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases "to have a ways to go" and "Way to go!"

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to have a ways to go. When you say someone has a ways to go, it means it's going to be a long time before they get somewhere or before they finish something. Maybe you're on a long trip, and someone says, "How much further before we get there?" You can say, "Oh, we have a ways to go. It's going to be another three or four hours." Maybe you're working on a big project at work, and your boss says, "Will you have that project done soon," you could say, "No, sorry, boss. We have a ways to go. It will still be another two or three days before we done it." Before we done it? Before we're done it. Please ignore that mistake there. That was not proper English. So anyways, to have a ways to go means you have a long ways to travel. You have to go a long way before you get somewhere, or you need more time to get something done.

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But this phrase, way to go, looks very similar, but it means something completely different. This is something I would yell when someone does something really well. If I was watching a sports game and my team scored, I would be like, "Yeah, way to go! Way to go!" because I would be happy that they did something good. Maybe you're watching someone from your family run a race or do something athletic, and they win or they do really well. You would yell, "Way to go!"

So to review, to have a ways to go means you need to travel for a while or you need more time to either get somewhere or finish something, and if you yell, "Way to go!" to someone, it means that they've done something and you think it's really cool that they've done something well. Way to go. I could say this about all of you with your English learning. Every time you have a little bit of success, I could say, "Way to go. Good job."

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Maria. "I hope you and Jen have good luck harvesting and selling the flowers, and that everything goes well. We'll miss you, but that's okay. We'll wait until October 12th. Greetings from Venezuela." And my response is a simple, "See you soon."

Yeah, it is good to see all of you again. It's good to be out here making videos. We did have a very nice end to our flower season. It's still going a little bit, but the main thing is that the farmer's market is done and we did get quite a bit of frost. So we are doing things like this. This used to all be flowers. The frost killed the flowers, so we tilled this up so that those flowers are in the ground now. They can decompose and this bed can rest for the winter, and we can grow something else there next year. The farmer's market is done, but we still have a few sales here and there. There were a couple of things that actually survived the frost. Some of the dahlias, we put irrigation on them in the night, so that they would stay a little warmer than the ambient temperature outside. We also covered some things, but market's done.

But we do save a few things, and we sell 'em to people here and there. But as you can tell, I think I'm just quite excited that the season, the growing season is mostly over. We don't have to work crazy hours. I once again have lots of time to make YouTube videos, which is obviously something I like doing, because I keep coming back to this. So once again, thank you for watching. Thank you above all for being patient, for allowing me to take a couple weeks off. I know all of you posted really nice, positive comments about me taking a break, but

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TIME OUT and DOWN TIME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase time out. Now you may have heard this phrase before if you watch sports. Sometimes the coach will say, "Time out," and then the ref will blow the whistle. And then they will all stop playing for a little bit while the coach talks to the player. But did you know that teachers and parents and other people sometimes use this phrase as well? When I see two students arguing, sometimes I just say, "Hey, time out. Just stop arguing for a little bit. Let's try to resolve this situation in a different way." When my own children would be fighting or arguing, sometimes I would say, "Hey, time out. Let's just stop for a minute." Stop arguing, stop wrestling, whatever they were doing. Just, "Time out. Let's just stop and try to resolve this situation in a different way." So it's not just a phrase for coaches on sports teams.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is actually just a term, and it's the term down time. Down time refers to any time when you just relax and don't work. Jen is busy flower farming right now, but in November, she's looking forward to some down time. She will have some time in November where she doesn't have to work. Right now, Jen is putting in 12, 14, sometimes 16 hour days. She's very, very busy. So she's definitely looking forward to some down time. So hopefully that comes soon.

So to review, when you say time out, it means just stop what you're doing. Usually there's a conflict, and you want people to just take a break from it. And when you refer to something as down time, it's just a time where you relax and don't work for a little bit. I could use some down time as well in the future.

Hello. Hi. You're not in the video, just so you know. It's just me in the video. Just some people walking by right there.

But hey, let's look at a comment from another video. This comment is from Eduardo. "Hi, Bob. Good morning. Hope everything's going well over there." And then my response, "It's a good day so far. I just went for a good walk. Now I'm taking the time to respond to comments. I hope you're having a good day."

And then when I was done replying to comments, I came out here. So yes, there were just a few people walking by there. Anyways, what was I gonna say? Oh yeah, I've had a good morning. I went for an hour and a half walk. That was awesome. I just loved it. And thanks, Eduardo, for that comment. I hope you're having a good day as well.

Hey, you might think I'm out here in the wilderness in Canada, but surprisingly, if I turn, you'll see there is a walking path. You just heard some people go by on the walking path. And then if I turn again, you'll see that I'm actually on the edge of town. So this is probably one of the coolest places to live in this town. People probably prefer these houses because the back of your house faces this creek down here. So if you live out this way, you have this beautiful view. If this was your house, your backyard faces this. It's actually the creek that I've showed you in other videos as well.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GETTING NOWHERE and GET IT IN WRITING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase getting nowhere. When you say that you're getting nowhere in English, it means you're doing something, but you aren't making any progress. Maybe you've been studying English for over a year and you don't feel like you are learning a whole lot. You could say you feel like you're getting nowhere. Sometimes during the summer, I have a lot of work to do. I have a big list and as I do jobs from my list, new jobs get added and I feel like I'm getting nowhere. So in English, when you say you're getting nowhere, it means you feel like you're not making any progress. When I look around right now, I'll show you in a second, there's jobs I didn't get done, so I kind of feel like I'm getting nowhere, but that's not entirely true. I got a lot of stuff done this summer.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is get it in writing. Sometimes you make an agreement with someone, and it's a verbal agreement, and someone might say, "Did you get it in writing?" Maybe you're going to buy a car from your cousin, and your cousin is not really trustworthy, and your cousin says, "You can have the car for $5,000," and you know the car is worth 10,000. When you talk to someone else, they might say, "Did you get it in writing?" When you get something in writing, it kind of means that it's more formal. It's more legally binding. It's an agreement where it's more than just words that have been said. You've actually gotten it in writing, and so it's, yeah, it's just a little more believable.

So to review, when you're getting nowhere, it means you're just not making a lot of progress on something. I hope you don't feel that way with your English learning. I hope you feel like you're getting somewhere. That's a good phrase, too. And when you say that you want to get something in writing, to get it in writing means to actually have it written down, and usually people will sign. If you are going to buy a house, you get it in writing, and you sign the agreement that you are buying it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Roman. "Hi, Bob. If I won a journey around the world, I'd feel like a million bucks," and my response, "That would be a great feeling."

So thanks for that comment, Roman. Yes, that would be a great feeling, wouldn't it? If you all of a sudden were able to travel all the way around the world, that would be super exciting and super fun. So by the way, Mohd Ags mentioned in a previous video that this would be my 700th video. I didn't double check that, but I've been making these for a while, and I kind of chuckled when he said that, because the only reason I started this channel is because I would go to my van in the morning to get ready to leave for work, and I have to give my kids a ride to school and I would be waiting for them. And I had a few extra moments, so I started making little one minute videos.

Just a moment here. Not sure if you can see the bird. I don't know what kind of bird that is. That is a very unique sound. Let me point the microphone up. Hmm, I'll have to figure out what kind of bird that is later.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET A FEEL FOR and TO FEEL LIKE A MILLION BUCKS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to get a feel for something. When you get a feel for something, it means you do something until you know how to do it better. Here's a couple of examples. When I first made a cake and I put icing on the cake, I didn't do a very good job. I needed to do it a few times to get a feel for it. When I was younger, I worked for my uncle and he poured concrete and you would use a trowel to smooth out the concrete, and it took a while to get a feel for it. It took a while to learn how to do it well. So when you try to get a feel for something, it means you're doing something that's new to you and you're going to do it over and over again until you understand how to do it really, really well.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to feel like a million bucks. I feel like a million bucks today. I slept really good last night and I feel really, really good. This is just one way that we describe when we're feeling energetic, when we're feeling well rested. When you just feel really, really good, you say I feel like a million bucks. Often if you're sick and then when you start to feel better, eventually you feel a lot better and you would say, I feel like a million bucks.

So to review, when you get a feel for something, it means you do it over and over again until you're good at it. Maybe it's a task that you do with your hands. I'm moving my hand a lot when I'm talking about this because there are a lot of things where you need to get a feel for it like icing a cake or smoothing out fresh concrete. And when you say that you feel like a million bucks, it means that you just feel really, really good. You're having a good day. You're well rested and you just feel awesome. You feel like a million bucks.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Snazzy. The flowers are awesome. I wish I could touch and feel them and probably smell them. Amazing lesson as always. And my response, it's fun to see them, but it's also nice once they're all gone and it's December and I'm just sitting in my warm house watching the snow fall.

So thanks, Snazzy, for that comment. And I do truly mean that. We love flowers. We love growing the flowers. We love harvesting and selling them, but after a long season, we do look forward to the time where we're just sitting in the house with our feet up, watching snow fall outside and just enjoying the winter season. We don't want that yet though. Like I mentioned in my other videos, we do want flowers to keep growing for a few more weeks, but certainly it is a nice feeling when it's all done and we don't have to worry too much about what's happening outside and we can just relax a little bit.

Hey, I came to this creek last spring, I'm trying to turn my camera around and it was flowing. There was lots of water flowing over the little weir that they have here, but you can see now there's just a tiny bit of water flowing. We've been getting quite a bit of rain. So I'm kind of surprised that it's not a torrent of water right now, but it certainly is drier than I expected.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OPEN UP A BIT and KEEP THINGS TO YOURSELF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, open up or open up a bit. When you get to know someone, you start to share things about your life. You start to open up a bit. Sometimes you meet someone and you're not their friend yet but you slowly start to spend time together. And eventually you become friends because eventually you'll start to open up a bit when you're talking to each other. You'll talk about your families and your feelings and what's going good in life and what isn't going good. You'll just open up a bit and start to share. This often happens when people start dating each other. At first, they're more reserved and they don't talk about their personal life too much, but eventually they open up a bit and they start to talk about other things that are happening in their life that normally they would've kept private unless they're talking to someone that they trust. When you talk to someone you trust it's easy to open up a bit.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to keep things to yourself. This is the opposite of open up a bit. When you keep things to yourself, it means you're a very private person. It means when you talk to other people, you don't talk about everything in your life. Maybe you talk about simple things, but you don't talk about how you're feeling. You don't talk about the fact that you had a bad day at work. Instead of opening up a bit, you tend to keep things to yourself. I usually keep things to myself when I first meet someone, especially someone who I don't know very well at all. Well, because I just met them. I'm not making sense there, am I? Let me rephrase. When someone new starts at work, I tend to keep things to myself for a while before I open up a bit, because I like to get to know someone before I talk about other things besides just work or the weather.

Anyways, to review, when you open up or when you open up a bit it means you start to talk about more things because you're comfortable talking to that person. And when you keep things to yourself it means you're just a little more private. You're a private person and you don't want to talk about everything.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mahdi. Hi Mahdi. Hello Bob. Wow, the flowers are blossoming nicely. I think Jen has a lot of hard work to do in the upcoming few days. And my response, yes, for sure. The last few weeks is when we harvest like mad and sell like crazy. We're always hoping too that frost doesn't happen. We don't like to lose some of the crop near the end.

So yes, because I live in Canada and because we have winter and we have fall, there is a possibility that the weather will turn early in the fall. Right now it's actually September 12th today. I'm making this video a little bit early. And it's 31 degrees that is abnormal for this time of year. Normally around this time of year it's about 20, 25 degrees at the most. So that's a little warm and we're happy about that. That will just keep things growing nicely.

What we're worried about is frost. We don't want it to go below zero or down to zero at night. Thankfully the nights are still quite warm in this area. But towards the end of September and the beginning of October, we start to get a little bit stressed and we start to get a little bit worried. Because if it goes to -1 or if it goes to -2, some of our flowers don't like that. Some of our flowers are fine, but some of them will die if it gets that cold. And it's no

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SCHOOL SOMEONE and TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to school someone. This is a slang phrase, and it means to totally dominate someone when you're doing something together, usually a sport. Maybe you're going to play basketball with your younger brother, and you're going to school him. That means that you're going to play against him, you're going to win, and probably win by a lot of points. And it means you're gonna show him how basketball is played. You're going to school him. It's definitely something we say. And it's definitely slang when we're talking about doing something and just doing it really, really well so the other person sees how good we are at it. So when you school someone, you're not just winning. You're also kind of showing how good you are at it. You're just kind of showing off a little bit.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase too cool for school. This is an old phrase. I think it's from the 80s. I don't even know if anyone says it anymore, but it's a phrase we use to talk about someone who dresses really well, like, in a really hip way, who maybe just looks really good and they just look super cool. You might say, "Oh, they're too cool for school." It rhymes, so it's kind of fun to say. And again, it's a phrase that I'm just throwing in here for fun. Not a lot of people say this anymore, but if you watch movies from the 80s, you might hear someone use the phrase too cool for school.

So to review, when you school someone, it means you play a sport against them, or even something like chess, and you play really well, and you kind of show them how the game is played. We would say that you are schooling them. And when you say someone is too cool for school, it simply means that they're really, really cool. They're too cool for school.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Mohd, Mohd Ags. "I think when Mr. Bob first started this channel the plan was to do a video every day or so. It was just a matter of time before he was brought back down to earth. Now he's settled for two videos a week, and I'm happy about that. P.S. Please let us know how your first day back at school went." And my reply, "Yes, I certainly bit off more than I could chew back then. Also, my first day went great."

So I know you're watching this on a Friday. It's actually Wednesday when I'm, can't figure out how my tripod works. There we go. It's actually Wednesday right now when I'm making this video. So I am done, my first day of school. But let me back up a bit and reply to Mohd. Yeah, you know, I think I was a little bit naive when I started this channel. I think I was a little bit, I think I thought it was easier than it really is to make four videos a week. I would make them on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and that ended up being quite a bit of work. So eventually I started doing, I think, I did three a week for a bit, and I settled down for two. And Mohd, thank you for the comment.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BRING SOMEONE BACK DOWN TO EARTH and BRING TO A CLOSE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, bring someone back down to earth. This is a phrase we use to describe when life goes back to normal after someone thinks something's going to be amazing. Sometimes, students start school and they think, "Oh, it's going to be so easy, "I'm going to get 100% on every assignment," and then they write their first quiz and get barely a passing grade, and that brings them down to earth, it brings them back down to earth. Maybe sometimes when people get married, they think for the first few weeks that marriage is gonna all be awesome and amazing, which, it is, for the most part, but eventually, they might have their first fight and that might bring them back down to earth. It might make them realize that marriage is fun, but marriage is also something you need to work at, so that it goes well.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, bring to a close. When you bring something to a close, it means you are ending it. It means, it's getting a little windy, I'm gonna move while I talk, when you bring something to a close, it means that you have decided that maybe the meeting is over, and so you decide to bring the meeting to a close. Maybe you're doing something like making an English lesson video, and you might want to bring the lesson to a close when we get close to the four minute mark. So when you bring something to a close, it means you've decided you're going to end it.

So to review, when you bring someone back down to earth, or when someone is brought back down to earth, it means that they're reminded somehow, something happens that reminds them that whatever they're doing or whatever they're involved in is not as amazing or won't be as amazing all the time as maybe they think it would have been. And when you bring something to a close, it means that you bring it to an end.

So this part of the lesson, I'm bringing to a close, because it's time to read a comment from a previous viewer. This comment is from Manju. "Hi, Bob, happy Teachers' Day. "In India, we celebrate September 5th as a Teachers' Day. "Once again, thanks for teaching English," and my response, "Thank you. "It's nice to feel appreciated."

So I'm actually making this video on September 5th, I'm making this a little bit early, because I'm trying to get ahead. I have a very busy week, so I'm trying to pre-shoot some videos, but thank you for that comment. I do find it interesting how often people say, "Happy Teachers' Day" to me, because I think, I've mentioned this before, every country in the world has a Teachers' Day, I think, and a lot of them are all on different days. So when I started teaching on YouTube, I didn't realize that almost monthly, someone would say, "Happy Teachers' Day," and it feels really nice. So I do really, really appreciate it.

Anyways, if you notice, by the way, thank you for the comment, if you notice I did get a printer, that's the wrong piece of paper, I think, one moment here. Let me find the other piece of paper. I did get a printer, so no more handwriting. You've seen my printing, you've seen my cursive writing, from now on, hopefully, this printer will do a good job. I decided not to go cheap and not to go expensive. I bought a printer that's right about in the middle, in terms of price.

If you're wondering, it was just over $200 Canadian. And if you feel bad, if you think, "Oh, Bob had to spend all this money "so he could print for his YouTube channel,"

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT BEING SAID and ENOUGH SAID

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "That being said". Sometimes we say, "With that being said". This is a phrase we use after we've said something, and then we say something kind of the opposite. You might say something like this, "I don't like drinking pop or I don't like drinking soda, but with that being said, when I go to a party sometimes I have a can of Coke". I could say this, "Life is really busy with five children. It's a little crazy sometimes. But that being said, I do really enjoy having lots of kids. It is a really fun time most of the time. 99% of the time, it's a lot of fun".

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "Enough said". This is a phrase we use when we're done talking about something and it's time to actually do something. When Jen and I talk about going to market, today we're going to market. Actually for you, it's yesterday. Sometimes we talk about what flowers we're bringing and how we're going to put everything in the van. But eventually we say, "Okay, enough said, let's actually start doing the work". So when you say, "Enough said", it means that you've talked about something and you've talked enough, and now it's time to actually do what you said you were going to do. Anyways, enough said, I should get on with the lesson.

To review, when you say, "That being said", or, "With that being said", it's when you introduce kind of a contrasting view or an opposite thought to a current discussion. And when you say, "Enough said", it means that you should stop talking and start actually getting some work done. Sometimes it's important to know when to stop talking, so that you can actually get something done.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aleja or Aleja. I can't pronounce your name. Hopefully, I didn't mess it up too badly. "Reading the comments directly from your phone is okay. No need to print it. It's environmentally friendly. I love your videos and have learned a lot from them. My response, perhaps I'll do that more often, but I do like how reliable paper is".

And I would like to repeat that, "I love how reliable paper is". In fact, one of the reasons why I usually print things to bring them outside is because it's completely reliable, it's weatherproof. I'm worried if I did everything from my phone that sometimes I would forget my phone. I might be outside and suddenly I don't have my phone, and it's time to read the comment. Then I would have to stop the video and go back in. So, paper is super reliable.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER and TO MAKE AN OFFER

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to have something to offer." When you have something to offer, it means you have a skill or you know how to do something that's a benefit to someone else or to an organization. I like to think that at work, I have something to offer. I know how to speak French, I know how to use computers. I think one of the reasons they have me there, one of the reasons they hired me, is because I have something to offer. When I was in college, I often got chosen to be in groups that were doing group work, that were going to do a presentation, because I had something to offer back then. I knew how to make PowerPoint presentations, so I definitely had something to offer, and people usually wanted me in their group.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to make an offer." When you make an offer, it means that someone is selling something, and let's say they're selling it for a thousand dollars and you decide to offer them 800. We would say that you're going to make an offer. Maybe my friend is selling a car and he wants $5,000 for it. I might go and I might make an offer. I might say, "Hey, will you take $4,000 for your car?" So I might make an offer.

So to review, when you have something to offer, it means you know how to do something, you have a unique trait, or you're able to do something that other people maybe can't do, and you are a benefit to someone else or to a group. And when you say that you're going to make an offer, it means that someone is selling something and you're going to offer them some money.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit. "Repetition is the road to learning, "even though it is very monotonous." And my response is, "Monotonous is a very good word to describe it." So yes, Judit, repetition is awesome, but it is monotonous.

And I was reading that off my phone, and you might have noticed that I hand wrote the words today. Well, something weird happened over the weekend. The power went out very briefly, and I didn't think anything of it. It was a fairly normal thing. Sometimes the power goes out. But then today when I went to print, my printer didn't work. I think it's shot, which was a phrase I taught you a few weeks ago. The two green lights come on and they don't blink, they don't do anything. I can't access the printer on the network. I think it's shot. I don't think my printer is going to work anymore. So I'm going to troubleshoot it over the next couple of days. I'm gonna try and figure out what was happening.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms A HARD PILL TO SWALLOW and TO BE HARD HIT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a hard pill to swallow. Sometimes we say a tough pill to swallow. When you have an experience in life that you describe as a hard pill to swallow, it means it's a difficult situation, or it's something that's just not very nice. The other day, I talked about needing to get something fixed on my van. The mechanic said it was going to be $1,000. That's a bit of a hard pill to swallow. The other day, I was driving my van, and I saw someone on the side of the road, and there was steam coming out from the front of their vehicle. That might be a hard pill to swallow, especially when they go to get it fixed. It might be really, really expensive. So when you're describing something that isn't pleasant, or something that you don't actually enjoy, you might say that it's a hard pill to swallow.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to be hard hit. So when you're hard hit by something, it means that it's very, very difficult or trying. You could say this, a lot of restaurants were hard hit during the pandemic. They didn't have a lot of customers, and it was very, very difficult for them to make money. They were hard hit during the pandemic. By the way, I can switch the words as well, and I can say the restaurants were hit hard during the pandemic, and it means exactly the same thing. So you could say restaurants were hard hit during the pandemic. They weren't allowed to be open, and they didn't have a lot of sales, and it was very difficult for them. Or you could say they were hit hard as well.

So to review, when you say that something is a hard pill to swallow, or a tough pill to swallow, it means it's something that you don't wanna do. It's something that you're experiencing that isn't very nice. And when you say that something is hard hit or hit hard, it means that they've taken a bit of a wallop. It means they went through a time that wasn't very good for them.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis, or in English, we would say Dennis, but it usually has two N's then. The comment is this. "A very good lesson, I will listen to it in a couple of hours for repetition." And my response, "That's a great plan."

So I've mentioned this a lot of times as I teach English. I think repetition is very, very valuable. The problem with repetition is it's not very enjoyable. So it's one of those things in life that's valuable, but not enjoyable. Think of it this way. If you read a book, it's very difficult to reread the book right away. If you watch a TV show, it can be fun and enjoyable and you just love it, but thinking about watching it again immediately, it's not as exciting, is it? You won't have the same experience if you watch it for a second time, it will be something where you...

Sorry, there's a vehicle driving in. I'll show you for a sec. It looks like there's a van driving in, now they're backing up. And then now they're going to drive out. So maybe someone was here for flowers.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AS GOOD AS GOLD and TO HAVE A HEART OF GOLD

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase as good as gold. Now this can be a phrase we use to talk about behavior, usually children's behavior or just something that's good again, here's a couple of examples. When our kids were little, sometimes my sister would babysit for us. And when we came home, my sister would say, your kids were as good as gold all night. That means that the children behaved. They listened to her. They weren't mean, they didn't do anything bad. They were as good as gold. They were really good. Our kids were usually as good as gold. That's not actually true. We also use this to talk about something that is whole again or good again. I actually twisted my ankle and someone asked about it in the comments and I replied and said, oh, it's as good as gold now.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to have a heart of gold. When someone has a heart of gold, it means they're really kind. It means they're very truthful. It means they're just a really, really good person. Whenever I think of someone who has a heart of gold, I always think of my grandmother. When I was a kid, my grandmother has passed away by the way. But when I was a kid, my grandmother definitely had a heart of gold. She was always kind, she always gave us candy. She was always ready to listen if we wanted to talk to her, she was a really, really nice person. So my grandmother had a heart of gold.

So to review, when you say something is as good as gold, it can mean that someone's behavior is really good or it can mean something that was broken or sore is now better. And when you say that someone has a heart of gold, to have a heart of gold means that you are very kind, you are very pleasant and you are very helpful.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Brent from Speak English With This Guy. And Brent says no way, just yesterday the guy who fixed my car said the tire was shot when I picked it up, and my reply, I hope it didn't cost too much to get it fixed.

So once again, the video from, or the lesson from a few days ago, I talked about the phrase, it's shot. And Brent is saying that when he went to the garage, the mechanic said his tire was shot. So obviously Brent got it fixed. And hopefully it didn't cost him too much.

Hey, we have a couple vehicles and sometimes we get things fixed on them as well. This red van just recently went in for an oil change. That's all done now, there was one other thing wrong with it. The ignition, when you turn the key, it doesn't always work properly. So instead of just telling the mechanic to fix it, I said, why don't you give me a quote? So he's going to figure out how much that would cost. And then he's going to let me know how much it's going to be. I didn't wanna say, go ahead and fix it 'cause I thought it might be really, really pricey.

My blue van is right here. My blue van has been very, very reliable. In English, when we say something like that, like something's been reliable. We also then say, I should knock on wood. Maybe I should go to the tree here and knock on wood. When you say something has been going good or it's been very reliable and then you say you should knock on wood. It's for good luck 'cause I don't want something to go wrong with it right now.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms IN ONE SHOT and IT'S SHOT!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase in one shot. When you do something in one shot, it means you are successful the first time you attempt to do it. Believe it or not, these short English lessons, I usually do them in one shot. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I say something wrong or I mess up and I start again. But usually, I make the video in one shot. That means I hit record and I talk for a full four minutes without stopping. Usually I do it in one shot. One time I found a phone in my classroom and I thought to myself, I should try and unlock this phone to see who it belongs to. And so, I guessed the password in one shot. I punched in one, two, three, four and that was the person's password and the phone was unlocked. I got it in one shot.

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The other phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase it's shot. When you say something is shot, it means it's broken. It's completely useless. This is my old phone. It's shot. It doesn't even turn on anymore. In fact, the screen, only half the screen worked for a bit and then it just stopped working, it's shot. So when you say something is shot, it means it's completely broken. Our last van, not one of the two I have right now, we eventually got rid of because it was shot. It just didn't start anymore. It was really starting to rust. It was shot.

So to review, when you do something in one shot, it means you do it the first time you try it, you succeed the first time you try it. I think right now, I'm probably gonna be able to finish this video in one shot. Everything seems to be going really good. And when you say something is shot, when you say ah, it's shot, hey, do you wanna buy my car? I'm not buying your car. It's shot. That simply means it's no good anymore. It doesn't really work and it's not useful to anyone. It's shot.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Noriko. It's a bit of a long one, here we go. "Hi, I'm always wondering "when you usually upload a new video. "I mean, the time when you upload "is sometimes in the middle of the night there in Canada. "Do you set a timer to upload a video automatically "or wake up before the crack of dawn? "I'm not tech savvy, so this question might be dumb. "Anyways, thanks."

And my response, "Yes, that is correct. "I upload the video the day before "and I set it to go live at around 3:00 a.m. my time. "This gives me a bit of a buffer "in case I think of something I need to change. "It's also the time of day "when most English learners around the world watch videos.

So I don't, Noriko, get up at the crack of dawn. Thanks for that comment, by the way. I don't get up at the crack of dawn. I am able to upload the video the day before. On YouTube, I can set it to go live at a certain time. And when I looked at when most people around the world are learning English, it's usually between 3:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. in the afternoon. That seems to be the most popular time. Sorry, I got, I think I just walked through a spider web. That seems to be the most popular time to watch videos to learn English. Which makes sense. Most of North America is awake at a different time than the rest of the world and most people in North America already speak English, so they don't need to really learn.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO POINT OUT and SHORT AND TO THE POINT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to point out. Now, when you point something out, it can mean that you're using your finger. Like I could point out that the sky is really beautiful today. I could point out that the grass behind me is quite green. I could actually point, but when you point something out, it doesn't actually require that you use your finger. If you are in a meeting, wow, there's a lot of lawnmowers driving around right now. I'd like to point out that there are a lot of lawnmowers driving out right now. When you use it in that way, it simply means that you are mentioning something.

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Sometimes when I'm in a meeting, someone will say something, and I'll say, I'd like to point out that we did that last year. Sorry, I don't actually raise my finger like this. I could just say, I'd like to point out that we already talked about this last year, or we already did that last year. So to point out can simply mean to mention something.

The other phrase I wanted to mention today, and help you learn is the phrase short and to the point. When you talk in front of a whole bunch of people, oh, I'd like to point out that the lawnmowers have stopped making noise. Wait, I hear another one going now. Anyways, when you are short and to the point, it means that you're talking, and you're going to, it's usually not this loud when I make my videos, you're talking, and you're going to talk for a short amount of time, and you're gonna talk about the subject at hand. You're not going to talk about other things that aren't important. You're gonna keep it short and to the point. When I go somewhere and someone is talking up front, it's nice when they keep it short and to the point. That way, no one in the audience gets bored.

So to review, when you point something out, it means you mention it. I'd like to point out that normally I make videos when it's very quiet outside. I'm not even sure if you can hear the lawn mowers, but usually that's how I make videos, when it's quiet. And I usually keep these videos short and to the point. I don't know if you've ever noticed, but I do not stray from the topic very much, and I usually only talk for about four minutes.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Hasib. "Why do you always keep your hair short, Bob? Is there any reason behind it?" And my response, "A long time ago, I had a motorcycle, and I had longer hair. When I took my helmet off, my hair looked funny. I had helmet head. So I started to cut it short. I liked it so much, I've just kept doing it."

So I have mentioned that before, actually in the past, people have asked or I've voluntarily talked about my hair, but yes, I just like it short, it's much cooler to have short hair, like actually cooler. I guess it's kind of cool and hip as well, but I meant like in the summer when it's hot, it's much cooler to have short hair. So I've just always kept it that way. And I really, really do enjoy it.

Hey, I've mentioned this a few times, but I'll mention it again. I'm finding it hard to keep my thoughts in order, because it's August 16th today, school is starting soon. I feel like every day, I'm making a list. I talked about lists before in one of my members only videos about how much I like lists. I find that my life isn't too busy as long as I stay on top of things. And one of the ways to stay on top of things, of course, is to make a nice little list. So I've been making quite a few lists lately,

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN A RUT and IN A RUSH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, in a rut. When you describe your life, and if you use the phrase, I feel like I'm in a rut, it means that you're doing the same thing every day, and it's not that exciting anymore. Maybe your job makes you feel like you're in a rut. You get up every morning, you have breakfast, you go to work, you do the same thing all day, and you come home, and then you do the same thing the next day. You feel like you're in a rut. Sometimes we use this phrase to talk about relationships. Maybe you're dating someone, and you kind of like them, but you're not sure if the relationship is going anywhere, and you just kind of see each other every weekend, and there's no spark. You might feel like you're in a rut. The second phrase I wanted to teach you today, I think someone drove in, and the dogs are barking.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, in a rush. When you are in a rush, it means that you are in a hurry. It means that you're probably late. You need to be somewhere on time, and you're running behind, and you're just trying to get in your vehicle to go. You are in a rush. It just means that you are in a hurry.

So to review, when you are in a rut, it means that you feel like you're doing the same thing every day, and it's not super enjoyable. And when you are in a rush, it means that you are in a hurry.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me see if I can find this here. This comment is from Yaroslaw, and we have, "One question comes to my mind. I know that in our part of the world, it is not common to gift an even quantity of flowers. So it should be an odd quantity, so it should be an odd quantity in bouquets. How about Canada? I know in the UK, it doesn't matter. By the way, your beard and mustache are very cool. Ha, my parents and relatives always insist on shaving mine, but I am continuing to struggle with them."

And then my response is this. "Thanks for the kind words about my beard and mustache. I think it's my preferred look right now." This is my preferred look. "The most common amount of a single flower to buy is usually a dozen here, like a dozen roses. Although, when we make mixed bouquets with all different flowers in them, we usually make them with an odd number, because it just looks better."

Isn't that interesting? When you make bouquets, if you put an even number, like if you put eight or 10 flowers in it, doesn't look as good as it would if you put, sorry, I'm trying to walk through the sunflowers here. It doesn't look as good as it would if you put nine or 11 in. I'm trying not to step on the flowers while I walk out here.

So yes, when you buy a single, by the way, thanks Yaroslaw for that comment. When you buy a single kind of flower, usually, you will buy a dozen, a dozen zinnias for instance, or a dozen sunflowers. Sometimes people will buy half a dozen, but when people buy a mixed bouquet, usually when we design it, we try to put an odd number in, just looks better. So we put in 15, or we put in 11. It just makes a nicer bouquet. I think there's a better balance. And we usually try to put three of each kind of flower.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO RIP OFF and A RIP-OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to rip off. Now, if you're wearing a bandage and you're done wearing it, you can rip off the bandage. But that's not the meaning I was meaning to teach you today. When you say that you rip off someone, it means that you steal something from them or you give them a really, really bad deal. If you were buying a bouquet of flowers from me, and I said, "There are 12 flowers in this bouquet," and then later when you got home, you realized there were only eight, you could say, "That person ripped me off. I got ripped off by that person. They said I was going to get a certain number of flowers and I got way less."

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By the way, Jen and I never rip people off. It's a bad thing to do in business. It's not a nice thing to do at all. We do not ever rip people off. If you buy a bouquet from us and we say there's 12 flowers in it, there's probably actually 13 or 14 flowers in it. We like to give a little bit extra.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a noun, and it's a rip-off. I think I taught this one a couple of years ago. A rip-off is the way you describe when someone has ripped you off. So I'm going from verb form to noun form. You could say, "I bought this bouquet of flowers from Bob and there's only six flowers in it. He said there was going to be 12. This was a rip-off." So I got ripped off, verb form, or it was a rip-off, noun form. There's just a little bit of a difference there when you describe the situation.

Anyways, to review, when you rip someone off, it means you steal from them or you lie in some sort of transaction and then they don't get what you said they were going to get. You could also use it for stealing. Like if someone took my trailer, I could say someone ripped off my trailer. That's outright stealing. And the noun form, you can call something a rip-off. My videos, I think, are a pretty good deal. I don't think they're a rip-off. They're free, and I think you always get what you're expecting, or usually.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Sid. "Are there any venomous snakes in those bushes, Teacher Bob? Have you ever seen any? I don't know, outta the blue, this question came in my mind, so I asked. Loved today's episode. Thanks." And my response was, "There are no venomous snakes in my part of Canada."

So when we walk around on the farm and when you see bushes like this, have no fear. Areas on the farm that we don't mow, where it's just all weeds, there is nothing living in here that is dangerous. One of the coolest parts about the part of the world I live in is that there really isn't anything dangerous here. Skunks are a little bit annoying. If skunks spray you, it really, really stinks. Sometimes there's animals that have a disease called rabies. So you might have a rabid dog or a rabid fox or something like that. And if they bite you, you have to get, I think you have to get some kind of medicine for that, some kind of needle. But generally, we're fairly safe here.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SHAKE ON IT and TO SHAKE THE HABIT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, shake on it. When you sell something to someone, especially something used, when you agree on a price, you might shake on it. That means you'll literally shake hands. And this means that you've both agreed on the price, and you are both going to make sure the deal actually happens. The other person's gonna give you money, and you're going to give them the item. So you shake on it. It kind of shows that you have formalized the deal. By the way, I'm not sure with the pandemic, whether we're going to come up with a new way to do that, whether we're going to keep doing that here in North America. But when you agree to sell something, you usually shake on it. When you buy a car from a dealership, you'll often shake on it when you agree to buy it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to shake the habit. We also say to kick the habit, and often, we shorten this to I'm trying to shake it. Do you still smoke cigarettes? No, I'm trying to shake the habit. I'm trying to kick the habit. Is he still, let me see. I'm trying to think of something else people do. Let's stick with the cigarette theme. Is he still smoking cigarettes? No, he's trying to shake it. He's really trying to shake the habit.

So to review, when you shake on something, it means that you agree. So when you make a deal, you will shake on things with someone. And then to shake the habit means to simply quit doing something that you shouldn't do, because it's bad for you.

I feel like I'm talking really fast today. Sorry about that. For some reason, I'm a fast talker today. I'll try to speak just slightly slower.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Francisco. "YouTube is a game changer for people who want to learn English, especially with your channel." And I say, I respond with, "I agree, it's the best thing ever for learning any language."

So thanks, Francisco. By the way, I was saying that I think YouTube is the best thing ever for learning any language, not my particular channel. I do like my English learning channels, but they aren't the most amazing things in the world. I just think I do the best job I can, and people seem to like them. But yes, YouTube is a game changer.

I know for myself, learning and practicing French, it's just amazing. I just remember years ago, if I wanted French videos, I would have to order them, and it would take two or three weeks for the videos to show up. Now I can just go on YouTube, and watch a video. Similar to books. The internet has revolutionized my ability to buy books in French. I know you're learning English, but I'm practicing my French. I can just go on Amazon, and I can say, show me all of the French books, and I can just buy an ebook for my Kindle, just like that. And it arrives. So it's very, very cool, and very, very awesome.

I'm not sure if you can see this. I'll give you a look across the river. I know I mentioned that a tree blew down on our property, well, a tree also blew down across the river. Not sure if you can see it. I will zoom in when I do the edit here, but there's a tree down over there. And if we go this way, we'll walk along here. You can see all of the cool things that grow in the wild in Ontario, Canada.

If we go down this way, you'll see that the neighbor has already been out with his chainsaw across the river there. There's another tree that went down, and he is in the process of chopping it

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms GAME CHANGER and FAIR GAME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a game changer. Game changer is a term we use, sorry, it looks like the garbage truck is here, picking up the garbage. I'll try to continue the lesson. Something is called a game changer when it makes the situation way better. Years ago, we didn't actually have garbage pickup on the farm. When I was a kid, we had to take our garbage to the dump. But when they started to do garbage pickup with the truck, it was a game changer for my parents. It meant that they had more time to work on the farm. They didn't have to drive to the dump once a week to drop off the garbage, so it was a game changer.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase fair game. When something or someone is fair game, it means it's okay to criticize or joke about them. Politicians are fair game. A lot of times comedians will make fun of politicians, because we consider them fair game, that it's okay to make jokes about them. Well, I guess that depends on what country you live in, but I'm not gonna get into that. For my English lessons, pretty much everything is fair game. Although, I usually don't do lessons on politics or religion. I avoid those. So I guess not everything is fair game when it comes to my lessons.

Anyways, to review, when something is a game changer, it means that it changes the situation, or changes your life in some way, that makes it a lot better. And when something is fair game, it means that it is okay to make fun of that person, or that thing, or to criticize them.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mahmood. And I actually ran out here quickly to do this, Mahmood. "Hi, teacher, Bob. Thank you for the useful lesson. Why don't you take us near the road? Thank you, Mr. Bob." And my response, "I'll go out near the road today, when I make Friday's lesson, maybe."

So I am out here, and I ran out, because I really wanted to catch the garbage truck. As coincidence, as, sorry. The coincidence was that as I came out to make this lesson, I'm having trouble speaking English today, did you notice that? I saw the garbage truck down the road. So I ran to the end of my driveway, because I wanted to catch the garbage truck on the video. But yes, I'll do a video out here by the road, for sure. We look this way, we can see there's a truck going by.

If you look here, you can see all of our recycle bins on the ground. And the green bin is actually for compost. So in Ontario, Canada, you can put your compost at the road, your kitchen scraps and all those kinds of things, as well. The road is a little bit busy today. You can see there's a couple cars coming behind me, and there's a couple cars coming towards me as well. It's usually not this busy, but I guess people have a lot of stuff to do today. So they're out and about.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IF ANYTHING and ANYTHING GOES

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase if anything. This is a little phrase we use when we introduce the opposite to the current idea. Here's an example. If Jen and I brought flowers to market and we didn't sell a lot, you might think we should bring less flowers, but if anything, we should probably bring more flowers, so that our display is more colorful and people are more attracted to it, and come and buy more. So it's when you introduce the opposite idea. You might think to yourself on a hot day, it's a good idea to spend a lot of time in the shade, but if anything, it might be better to spend a lot of time in the hot sun so that you get used to it. That's kind of a bad example. Don't spend more time in the hot sun, but you get the point. I was introducing an idea which was kind of the opposite of what was being said.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase anything goes. This means that there are no rules or expectations. At work, you might have to wear a suit and tie, but your friend might work somewhere where anything goes. They can wear whatever they want. You might say to someone, "Are there any things you don't like when you get a pizza?" and you can say, "Oh, no, anything goes. I like all of the toppings. Put them all on." I've never had a pizza like that. I should try that someday. But anything goes means that there's no rules or expectations in a current situation.

So to review, if you say, "If anything," it means that you're going to introduce a contrary or opposite idea to the conversation, and when you say, "Anything goes," it means that there's no rules or expectations or things that you have to do in a certain situation. Anything goes.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from D.Harish. "After completion of exams, we have to wait and see whether we will pass or not." And my response. "That's your only choice. You just have to wait and see."

As a teacher, I'm keenly aware of this. When I give an exam, my students just have to wait and see what their grade is. Usually I grade exams very, very quickly, though. I'm a fast grader. On a day when students write an exam, I usually have it graded the same day. I don't like to make students wait, so I try to do it as quickly as possible.

Anyways, you can see behind me, I have some equipment lined up here because I'm selling some farm equipment.

So this is a plow. This plow is for sale. I'm asking $750 for it, but I don't think I'll get that much. It's in rough shape. It's a little bit rusty and it needs some parts.

This is a mower that goes behind my small tractor, and I don't need this anymore because my son actually has a couple of lawnmowers, and he does it as a little business, so he mows some of my lawn now, so that's handy. So that's for sale, too. I'm asking $1,600 for this, but you can see a person came to look at it this morning, and they didn't like all of the rust on it, so they weren't willing to pay that much, so that's okay.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WAIT AND SEE and WAIT FOR IT!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to wait and see. Sometimes you don't know what's going to happen, and so you want to wait and see what happens. And we even call this the wait and see approach. Maybe you're someone who likes to invest money in the stock market, but right now, you're going to hold onto your money, because you just want to wait and see what will happen. You don't feel like investing your money now, because you're not sure if the market will go up or down. So you might take a wait and see approach. Sometimes when you're looking to buy something, you think to yourself, you know what? I might just wait and see if the price will go down, or I'll wait and see if the price will go up. So it just means to wait, and to eventually see what happens, to see what change takes place.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, wait for it, that's kind of how you say it. Wait for it. This is a common phrase. When you're watching short video clips on TikTok or Instagram, sometimes they'll show someone walking along, and then they'll have the words on the screen, wait for it, which means that something's going to happen. Maybe that person is going to get caught in a rainstorm. Maybe that person is going to slip and fall. And when they say wait for it at the beginning of the video, they're telling you that something's gonna happen, and you should wait. It's actually become a pretty common phrase on those platforms.

Anyways, to review, when you wait and see, it means you wait, because you think something will change, and you're not sure what that will be, but you're going to wait and see what that change is. And when someone says to you wait for it, it means that something exciting is going to happen, and they want you to be ready to see it. Maybe someone's showing you a clip from a sporting game, and they say, and you're like, this is kind of boring. And they might say, wait and see, or wait for it. Sorry, I used the wrong phrase. Wait for it. And then something exciting will happen in the game.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Lemoncute. Hi Bob, in my place, the roads are quite flat and long, so it's very suitable for jogging. It's pretty cool. And my response is it probably also makes it easier to see traffic coming.

So yes. Thanks, Lemoncute, for that comment. I'm just laughing, 'cause a goat is actually yelling over here. Maybe we'll go see it. But yes, when roads are flat, it probably makes it nice for walking and jogging as you said, and that's probably really cool. 'Cause you can see if there are cars coming.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO CATCH ON and TO BE A CATCH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to catch on." Now, I taught this phrase a while ago, and I said it meant to understand something. When you're in a class and the teacher teaches something, eventually you catch on. But it has another meaning as well. When you say that something is catching on or that something is going to catch on, it means that everybody's going to start doing it. I wear blue shirts with a collar, and someday, maybe this will catch on and everyone around the world will wear blue shirts with collars. I doubt that will happen, but anyway, stay tuned because the comment this week uses this phrase. We'll talk about that in a sec.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is "to be a catch." Now, this is kind of a funny statement. When there's a guy or a girl who's really attractive or wealthy or a lot of people think they would make a good partner, we say that that person is a catch. If someone was to marry someone who's a doctor and has a lot of money and drives a fancy car, you might say, "Oh, he's a real catch. He's a catch." Or maybe someone in your family's dating someone whose family is wealthy, and you might say, "Oh, she's a catch."

Anyways, to review, when you catch on or when something catches on, it means that it becomes popular and a lot of people around the world start doing it. And when you say that someone is a catch, it means that they are attractive and people really, really want to date them.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd Ags. "You're completely ahead of the game, Mr. Bob, not just one step ahead. You're in a league of your own, I'd say." Thank you. "P.S. I like how people are starting to adopt the three emoji thing at the end of their comments." And my response, "I've noticed that as well. The three emoji thing is catching on."

So I used today's phrase when I replied to Mohd. Thanks, Mohd, for that. Yes, people are starting to put three emojis. I don't know why I started doing that. I usually try to pick three emojis that make some sense. Sometimes, it's just random, but usually, I try to have them make some sense.

Hey, I'm standing in my shed. This is the location. I'm gonna walk out into the sun in a sec, so I'll need my sunglasses. But this is the location, it doesn't look like much now, where the flower shop will be. By the way, the road is right there. Oh, they're loading a big piece of equipment up. But right here is where the flower shop will be. I have to put a stone driveway in here, and I have to kind of build a storefront. That's where the wall that's being built from a fence will go. But anyways, just thought I'd show you that. It needs to be cleaned up quite a bit. It's quite messy. But I will get to that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO BE ONE STEP AHEAD and TO STEP OUT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be one step ahead. When you run a business like Jen and I do, when you run a flower business or any other kind of business, you want to be one step ahead of your competition. You want to do things that are innovative or new, and you want to do them before the other people, who do the same thing as you, do them. We've done a few things over the year to stay one step ahead, to be one step ahead of our competition. A while ago, we stopped using plastic. We use paper to wrap our flowers, and all those kinds of little things. We just are always, through the winter, looking for ways to be one step ahead of our competition. They usually catch up. Sometimes the competition is one step ahead of us, then we look at what they're doing, so we can do it too.

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The second phrase I wanna teach you today is the phrase to step out. When you step out, it means to leave a room for a little while. Sorry, it's gonna get loud in here, 'cause I'm in the cooler. I'll show you the flowers in a second. Sometimes when I'm in my classroom, the principal will come to talk to me, and I will step out and talk to him for a little bit. It means I'll just go in the hallway and talk to him. Maybe you're at a friend's place or a relative's place, and your phone rings, and you say, "Hey, I'm just gonna step out and take this call." That means you're gonna go outside of their apartment or outside of their house in order to take the call. To step out means to simply go out of the room that you're in, usually outside.

So, to review, to be one step ahead means to be doing things that are better than what other people are doing. You can be one step ahead of your colleagues. You can be one step ahead of another business. You can always do little things to be innovative and one step ahead. And to step out means to simply leave a room, just for a little bit, usually to chat or to talk with someone.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from ünsal. "Hi, dear teacher Bob. How are you doing? What a blessing it is to raise kids in a place where you have childhood memories. I wish you and your family a healthy, peaceful, and long life there. By the way, I wonder if you bought the farm from your parents. If it's not too private of a question, can you tell the story of it? Have a great day. Love from Istanbul. Bye." And my response, "Sure, I'll tell the story in the next video."

Yes, Jen and I actually bought the farm from my mom. My dad actually passed away, so it's kind of a sad story. My dad passed away, and my mom didn't wanna live on such a big farm, so Jen and I moved here, and we lived here for a few years, and we rented it from my mom. But then eventually we decided that we wanted to buy it, so we went to the bank and we got a mortgage. You can't live on a property this beautiful and not eventually buy it.

Anyways, where am I standing? Well, I'm standing in the flower cooler. It is market day, and Jen has a lot of flowers ready to go. We have peonies and snapdragons and yarrow and feverfew and things that I don't know. And down here, you'll see there are all kinds of bouquets ready to go to market today. Over here, some flowers. It's actually a slow flower week for us. There aren't as many flowers as we would normally have.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms A POWER TRIP and A GUILT TRIP

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term a power trip. A power trip is when someone who is your boss, or in authority over you, starts to use that authority sometimes in a bad way. This can happen once in a while when someone is a new boss, they might go on a power trip. They might decide that they're allowed to tell everyone what to do. They can do whatever they want. They can make you come into work early and work late. They just go on a power trip. So it's when someone in authority, like a boss, decides to use that authority to tell other people what to do. It's not nice when someone goes on a power trip.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is a guilt trip. A guilt trip is when someone makes you feel guilty in order to convince you to do something. I don't want to name names, but there are people in certain families of mine who will give you a guilt trip if you say you can't come to a family event. Sometimes there's a family event planned, and you're not able to attend, and they will say, oh, you didn't come last year and the year you came two years ago, you only stayed for one hour. It'd be really nice if you could come. That's called a guilt trip. So they're making you feel bad. They're making you feel guilty because you're not doing something. It's not very nice when someone gives you a guilt trip.

So to review: A power trip is when someone who is your boss, or in authority, starts to tell everyone what to do and they're not very nice about it. And a guilt trip is when someone makes you feel guilty in order to convince you to do something. By the way, they can both be used as verbs as well. You know, he was power tripping yesterday or don't guilt trip me, I told you, I'm not able to come.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Hary300. Bob. I am wondering how you started learning about gardening. Were you an agriculture student in college? And my response, no. Jen and I did both grow up on farms however, you could say it's in our family.

So thanks Hary for that comment. Yes, Jen and I both grew up on dairy farms. I think I've told many of you before this large barn behind me used to be a dairy barn. When I was a kid, this barn was filled with cows and my parents were dairy farmers. So we milked cows. This is actually the elevator where we would put hay up into the hay loft. But yeah, this is definitely where I grew up. Jen also grew up on a dairy farm. So we both grew up knowing what it meant to take care of animals, but also knowing a little bit about how to grow crops.

So Hary, that's what's given us a little bit of insight into how to farm. We didn't grow up on flower farms but we understand fertility and irrigation and how to use equipment. I know how to drive a tractor. I've been driving a tractor since I was about 10 years old. I still remember the first time I drove a tractor. It was quite a bit of fun. Anyways, wo we grew up on farms. That's how come we know a little bit about farming and that certainly, that knowledge we got as children certainly helps us a lot.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO CLAM UP and the word BASICALLY

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to clam up. Now, this simply means to stop talking, and it's usually used to talk about when a conversation just stops because someone's mentioned something or brought up a topic that no one wants to talk about. Maybe they started talking about politics, and everyone just clams up because they don't want to talk about politics. Maybe they start talking about some other uncomfortable topic, and everyone will clam up because they don't want to talk about it. So, it simply means to stop talking. It simply means a situation where people are having a conversation, and then someone says something, and then everyone else stops talking, they clam up.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is actually just a word, and it's the word basically. Mark Cooper requested that I talk about a couple of words, the first one is basically. Basically just means the the simple things you need for something to exist, or for something to happen. I'm not describing this very well, so let me get back to the basics. If you wanna make bread, basically you need flour, water, yeast, and salt. If you want to be healthy, basically you just need to go for a walk every day, eat healthy food, and relax a little bit. There's probably other things you can do, but those are the simple ingredients or the simple things you need to do. When we say basically, we're basically just saying the only things you need. For me, basically, if I wanna make an English lesson, I need a piece of paper, a camera, and a good idea, and I'm ready to go.

Anyways, to review, to clam up simply means to stop talking. Sometimes when they arrest someone, the police bring him into the police station, and the person will clam up when they start asking questions about the crime that was committed, and the word basically is simply used basically to talk about the simple things you need for something to exist. In order to grow flowers, basically you need dirt, seeds, and some sunshine and some rain.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I hope it didn't fall outta my pocket. Here it is. This is from Vítor. Mr. Bob is such a nice teacher. Thank you. Do your children know how to swim? And my response, yes. All of our children have had swimming lessons, and we often swim at a local park and at a relative's house. So yes, all of my children have had swimming lessons, and they do know how to swim, so that's really, really cool.

Hey, a couple of things I wanted to talk about today, I need to keep an eye on the time here. One is people have noticed that I've been wearing more t-shirts lately. Yes, it's summer. In the summer, I wear more t-shirts. I have a little bit of a relaxed approach to the day. Instead of wearing a nice shirt with buttons and a collar like I do when I go teach every day, I relax a bit, so I tend to wear a few more t-shirts. They say Champion, it's the brand name. It doesn't mean I think I'm the champion.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase SUCH AS and SUCH A

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, 'such as', but before I do that, I actually want to read a comment from a previous video from my other channel from Mélodie. Mélodie says, hello teacher, can you make a video about how we have to use 'such as'? Please have a nice day. And my response was, I'll do this for next week's short English lesson. So thanks Melody for that request.

And I will now talk about the phrase 'such as'. This simply means for example. When we mention something, and then we give examples of it, we might say such as. Here's a great example. Jen and I grow flowers, such as sunflowers, dahlias, lisianthus. So when I mentioned that we grow flowers, I then use the word 'such as' to describe some of the specific flowers that we grow. I could say this, my kids really, really like fast foods, such as McDonald's, Harvey's, and A&W. So it's just a way to give examples about something you just started talking about.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase 'such a', and this might seem like a bit of a strange one. It's used to emphasize something. It's such a nice day out here today. I had such a nice time at the party. I went to a concert the other night and it was such a good time. It was such a great concert. So 'such a' is just a really weird little phrase we use to emphasize things. It is such a nice day out here today. It's not sunny, it's not raining. It's relatively cool. It's such a nice day.

Anyways, to review, when you use such as, it's when you're going to give examples. I like to exercise. I do exercises such as lifting weights and walking. Those are the exercises I do. And when you use 'such a', it's to emphasize something. I have such a good day if I exercise in the morning.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a different previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. Thank you for the cool lesson teacher, Bob. The river is quite wide. It must be great to have a paddle board or a jet ski, and have fun out there. And my response, it certainly is quite busy on the weekends with all kinds of watercraft, such as boats and canoes, and jet skis, and paddle boards, and all that kind of stuff. By the way, that was a comment from the video where I was out by the really big river in a town that's close to me.

By the way, I did a lesson in that town a long time ago. The 'Let's Learn English Downtown' video. It was filmed in that town as well.

But yes, that river is very, very busy, especially on the weekends. There was a boat ramp or a boat launch in the park where I was at, I should have showed that too. Maybe I'll go back and do a video there in the future, but it's definitely a busy place on the weekend. Lots of motorboats. If you go early in the morning, people will be there with their fishing boats. So people like to fish really, really early in the morning.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase CAUGHT OFF GUARD and CAUGHT IN THE ACT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase caught off guard. Have you ever been caught off guard? When you're caught off guard, it means something happens and you haven't planned for it. Here's a great example. Maybe the weather forecast says it's supposed to be a beautiful day, and you decide to go for a two-hour walk, and in the middle of your walk, it starts to rain. We would say that you were caught off guard. You thought it was going to be a nice day. You didn't bring your umbrella, because the weather forecast said it was going to be beautiful, but you were caught off guard when it started to rain. So when you're caught off guard, it just means something happens and it's something that you didn't know was going to happen.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase caught in the act. When you're caught in the act, it means you're caught doing something while you're doing it. Usually we use this phrase to talk about people who are committing a crime. When someone is stealing a boat, maybe. You can notice behind me, there's a nice river. When someone's stealing a boat, and as they are stealing the boat, the police pull up. We would say that they are caught in the act. I know once when I was a kid, I was taking cookies. I often stole cookies as a child, and one time, I was caught in the act by my mom. I literally had my hand in the cookie jar and was stealing a cookie.

So to review, when you are caught off guard, it means that you didn't plan for something to happen, and then it happened. Sometimes students at my school will go to their first track and field meet, and then they don't wear suntan lotion and they're caught off guard. They think it's going to be a cloudy day. They don't wear suntan lotion, and they're caught off guard and they get a really, really bad sunburn. The other phrase, to review, caught in the act simply means for someone to catch you while you're doing something, usually something that you're not supposed to be doing.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from May. "Hi, Teacher Bob. I'm from Myanmar. I was not good at using phrasal verbs, but after watching your videos, I don't have to think a lot, and I can use them naturally without thinking. Thank you so much." And my response, "You're welcome, May. I'm glad I can help."

And yes, I am glad that I can help. You know, part of what I'm trying to do here with these lessons is I'm trying to create a lot of content for people to listen to, so that even if you're not actively trying to learn, the fact that you can listen to my videos a couple times a week, and listen to my longer videos on my other channel, hopefully everything starts to sink in. In English, when we say that stuff sinks in, it means that after being exposed to something for a long time, your brain just naturally learns how to use it. So hopefully as you listen to me talk, a lot of things will sink in.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO FREAK OUT and CONTROL FREAK

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to freak out. When you say that someone is freaking out, or sometimes when you say an animal is freaking out, it means they're going crazy and doing all kinds of abnormal things. Let me explain a little bit. When someone drives in our driveway, sometimes our dogs will freak out. That means they'll bark and jump around and they'll be all excited because someone has arrived at our place and maybe they don't know who it is so they freak out. Sometimes when a person finds out some exciting news, they might freak out. They might jump for joy or scream or they might be really excited. They might freak out because they're really, really happy about something that's happening. It can also mean a negative emotion. Like sometimes when I'm walking at night and Jen will say something from a dark room or something like that, by the way that doesn't happen very often, but you get my point. If someone was to jump out and scare me, I would freak out. I would scream a little bit and I would maybe run away a little bit. I would freak out. So it's any time you express a lot of emotion, positive or negative, in a way that's a little bit uncontrolled.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase control freak. This is something that we call someone who always wants to be in control of a situation. I have a certain relative where when I make food at their house, they kind of watch me and tell me what to do because I don't think they trust me when I make food. They're kind of a control freak. They wanna make sure I measure everything correctly and I fry everything for the right amount of time. They're a bit of a control freak. Sometimes you might have a boss who's a bit of a control freak. They kinda watch you all the time and they're always telling you what to do and telling you when you do something wrong.

Anyways, to review, when you freak out, when you say, "Oh, if I win the lottery tomorrow, I'm going to freak out," it means you are going to have an outburst of emotion, either positive or negative. If you won the lottery, it would be positive. And when you say someone is a control freak, it means they want to be in control of any kind of situation.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Jalal. "You are so kind, Bob "I assume when you are angry, you don't shout. "I think making lessons on YouTube calms you down. "Thank you." And my response, "Oh, I shout sometimes. "I'm mostly calm, but I'm human, just like everyone else."

In fact, the other night, my son was mowing lawn really late just outside the window of our house. And I do appreciate when he mows our lawn, but it was really loud and I was trying to work and I got a little bit angry, a tiny bit angry. Sorry, there was a tree there I had to duck under. And I shouted a little bit. I didn't say anything mean. I said something like, "Hey, stop making so much noise. "I'm trying to work. I'm trying to think."

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BANG ON and A BANG UP JOB

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase bang on. In English, when we say something is bang on, we mean that it's perfect, and I think this might be a North American saying. I'm not sure, but I hear this all the time. Let's say I went to a party for my sister's birthday last week, and my brother-in-law planned the party, and the planning was bang on. That means he did a really, really good job planning the party. Let's say my van needed to be painted and I want the paint job to look perfect. I would go to a certain person I know who paints vehicles, because the job they do is always bang on. So when you say something's bang on, it just means that it's done perfectly. I try to make sure my English lessons are bang on whenever I make them. I wanna make them current and I wanna make them something that helps you learn a bit more English. I want them to be bang on.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase a bang up job. Now, bang is actually a word that means when two things hit together, right? Like one car can bang into another. But in these two sentences, we're using bang to talk about something good. A bang up job means a really, really good job. Sometimes people do a bang up job when they're making supper for someone else. If I go and eat at my sister's place, I know that she's going to do a bang up job when she prepares dinner. She's just a really good cook. She knows how to use just the right amounts of salt and pepper and spices to make almost anything taste amazing. She always does a bang up job.

So to review, when you say something is bang on, you mean that it's perfect. When I come outside, I always think to myself, the work that Jen does is bang on, and I'll show you some of her work in a bit. And when someone does a bang up job, it's kind of similar, isn't it? When someone does a bang up job, it means that they've done something really, really well. I hope when you go to work, you do a bang up job everyday.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Andres. "I really enjoy the weekend. When Friday morning arrives, I feel that the weekend is so close that I can taste it. Recently, I've been taking an online course about engineering, completely in English. I could take it in Spanish, but I just want to get a taste of studying in English. Thanks, Mr. Bob." And my response was this. "Your usage of both phrases is bang on," and then in brackets, "That means correct."

So I used the phrase I taught earlier to respond to Andres. Yes, your use of both phrases from the video before, the phrase to get a taste of, and oh, I just forgot the other one. It slipped my mind. What was the other one? To get a taste of, and so close that I can taste it. I should have remembered that one. Anyways, bang on. You did a bang up job on those two.

Hey, I was going to show you over here today, we have been planting a lot of flowers into the field, but we still have a lot more to plant. So behind me, you can see what's kind of this covered wagon. We call it our greenhouse wagon because light can come through. I'll give you a little peek inside here for a minute. So you can see, we have some stuff on the ground here. I actually think these are gourds, some mini pumpkins. And then over here in our greenhouse wagon, we have a lot, oh, these haven't done so well. That happens sometimes when you farm. We have a lot of things that we need to plant. You can see all of these seedlings in here. We have quite a bit of work

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase I CAN TASTE IT and TO GET A TASTE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the phrase it's so close I can taste it. This is a funny phrase we say in English when something that we're really excited about is going to be happening soon. For me, that would be summer vacation. It's so close I can taste it. I should probably add the word that in there if I wanted to make this grammatically correct. But sometimes we say it and sometimes we don't. It's so close I can taste it or it's so close that I can taste it. I'm really excited about summer vacation. Maybe you're buying a new car and you get that car on Thursday. Maybe you went to the car dealership and you paid for it and you're like, "Ah, I get my new car on Thursday. "It's so close I can taste it." So once again, this is just a phrase we say in English when we're excited about something that's going to happen.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase to get a taste. When you get a taste for something, it means you try it and you find out that you actually like it. It doesn't have to be food, by the way. I should have mentioned this. The word taste is the sense you have when you eat something. Things taste good. So with both phrases, we're using the word taste in a slightly different way. We're not talking about food. But this one can be about food. Maybe you tried some chocolate cake and you really liked it and now you have gotten a taste for it. So when you try it, you get a taste for it. But you can also use it for other things. Maybe your brother-in-law has a sports car and he let you drive it. And now you're getting a bit, you're starting to get a taste for fancier vehicles. So again, whenever you try something and you really like it, we say that you're starting to get a taste for it.

So to review, when you say it's so close I can taste it, it means that you're really excited about something. Maybe you're going to a concert and it's next week. It's so close you can taste it. And then when you get a taste for something it means that you've tried it and you kind of like it, and it doesn't just have to be food. It can be almost anything. I think some people have gotten a taste for my lessons and they kind of like them.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Letícia. "Hi, Bob, I definitely don't like the hot summer "but I have to deal with it almost all year round "because I live in the tropics." And my response was this. "I don't mind the heat in the middle of the summer. "I need a few weeks, though, to get used to it. "Right now is too soon."

So I've whined in the past about how I don't like the heat. That is true, but a funny thing kind of happens, doesn't it? When you first have a hot day in the spring, if you live somewhere like I do where it's cold and then it gets warm, those first few hot days are really hard to take. They're very difficult because your body is not ready for hot weather. And so I would say that by the middle of the summer, usually I've adapted a little bit. My body has gotten used to the heat and it's not as bad anymore.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE THE HEAT and CAN'T TAKE THE HEAT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to take the heat. When you take the heat for something, it means you're the one who deals with people's anger or criticism in a certain situation. Sometimes at work, because I work at a school, parents might be angry with a certain teacher, but my boss decides to take the heat. That means he'll be the person that talks to the parents. He'll explain to them what happened. And instead of the parents talking directly to the teacher, he'll take the heat, especially if it's something where the teacher really didn't do something wrong. Sometimes with Jen and I, our children are angry with us, and I say to Jen, "Hey, I'll take the heat on this one. I'll go and talk to them. They're really annoyed about something. I'll go and see what's wrong, listen to them, and hopefully I can fix it."

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase can't take the heat. When you say someone can't take the heat, it means they can't handle criticism. It means they don't like it when people are angry with them or when people are very, very critical. Sometimes when you make a mistake, it can be hard to take the heat. It's not nice when you do something and then people get really annoyed, and then maybe at some point you're like, "I'm gonna quit doing this job because I can't take the heat. I can't take people getting angry with me all the time." This happens sometimes with professional athletes. Sometimes people get really annoyed and they write mean comments online, and eventually they retire or they quit playing the game because they can't take the heat. And I don't blame them. It's not very nice when people are really, really critical.

Anyways, to review, to take the heat means to kind of take the blame, to take the criticism, to handle the angry people if you're in a certain situation. If you're the person who takes the heat, you're the one who talks to them. And when you say that someone can't take the heat, it simply means that in a stressful situation, it's not very good for them. They eventually leave that situation because they just can't take the heat. But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.

This comment is from Unsal. "Hi, Teacher Bob, how are you doing? The plate that appears on the pipe behind you at the end of the video, is the solar panel? Have a great day, thank you for all your amazing lessons, loves from Istanbul." And my response, "You're welcome. No, it's not a solar panel. It's actually the bottom of a birdhouse. The rest of the house rotted and fell off and we just haven't replaced it yet."

So, yeah, at the end of the last video, there's a pipe in the ground with a flat board on top. There used to be an entire birdhouse up there, but at one point the birdhouse kind of rotted and the wind blew it off. And we picked it up, and we were gonna put another birdhouse on top, and we just haven't done that yet. It's just kind of sitting there, so, oh, well. Maybe that's something I'll do this summer. But thanks, Unsal, for that comment.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO MAKE SOMEONE and IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to make someone or to make something. Now this isn't what you think. This isn't using the verb to make in the sense that you're creating something. This is using the verb to make meaning to force someone. When I was a kid, my parents would make me eat my vegetables. When we sat down at the table, we would have meat and potatoes, and green beans. And I didn't always like eating my vegetables. So my parents would make me eat my vegetables. So they would force me to eat my vegetables. And you can also use it to make something. So this is in the sense of if I'm trying to put something together and it doesn't fit, I might force it. I might make it go together by pushing on it. Sometimes I make the door of my van close by shutting it really, really hard. It's not a great example, but I think you get the point.

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So, oh, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today. Sorry, that was already two phrases, and there's another one on the other side, is it makes no difference. This is a phrase we use when we're okay with something. So let's say someone says to me, do you want vanilla or chocolate ice cream? I could say, ah it makes no difference to me, either is fine. If someone said to me, do you like driving your red van or your blue van? I could say, well, it makes no difference. I like driving both of them.

So to review, to make someone do something is to force them to do something, sorry, there's a tractor right there. We'll go look at it in a bit, hopefully. And to make something, do something is to force it as well. And when you say it makes no difference, it simply means that it's fine with you. Do you like my short lessons, or my long lessons? You might reply, and say, ah, it makes no difference. I like both of them.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Dúlio. Hi, teacher Bob, what time of night did you record this video? It's quite interesting that it's quite bright out there. Have a nice weekend. And my response was, I think it was at about 7:00 PM, right now, though it is light out until almost 9:30 PM here. One of the benefits of living in a northern country, and then Dúlio responded again, wow, that's so cool.

So thanks, Dúlio. Yeah, it's interesting in Canada. In December, we have these really short days. And then in the summer, we have these really nice long days. So in the month of June, especially this time of year, it's actually quite light out 'til 9:30, almost 10 o'clock at night. It's quite amazing actually. It's really nice for us because on the farm, we can get a lot of work done at night. I'm very, very thankful that the days are really long in the summer, and then we're less busy in the winter. So having shorter days doesn't really matter. It also makes me a lot happier in the summer. It's just nice to be able to do a lot of things outside when you get home.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT DOESN'T HURT TO and THE TRUTH HURTS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "It doesn't hurt to." This is a phrase we say when we're recommending that someone does something that will actually benefit them. If you're studying for an English test, it doesn't hurt to study every day for weeks on end. So even though I'm using the word hurt, which normally means something painful, I'm actually recommending you do something that's good for you. So if you're learning English, it doesn't hurt to write down the new words that you learn. When you come outside at night, like this at this time of year, it doesn't hurt to wear a little bit of mosquito spray. They're starting to bite my ankles a little bit. So it doesn't hurt if you wear some mosquito spray. The same with when you go out in the sun, if you burn easily, it doesn't hurt to wear a bit of sunscreen.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "The truth hurts." This is something we say in English when, you know, when you tell someone something that's true and it makes them sad, or it makes them upset, we're kind of like, you know, the truth hurts. Sometimes people will tell you the truth because they care about you. Let's say you're not eating healthy and you're not exercising, and you're gaining a lot of weight, and maybe your mom or a relative tells you that you really need to take care of yourself, that might offend you a little bit. You might be like, "I can't believe they told me that I'm overweight, or they told me that I'm not healthy," but we might say, "You know what? Sometimes the truth hurts." When you go to the doctor and the doctor says, you need to exercise more, even if you don't like the advice and it makes you sad or upset, the reality is the truth hurts.

So to review, when you say it doesn't hurt to, you're actually recommending people do something. And like I said, it doesn't hurt to write down a few words or phrases that you learned today. And when you say the truth hurts, you're simply saying that sometimes when someone tells you something that's true, it doesn't always make you happy, but it's still the truth.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. I can't get this in my pocket. I'm actually wearing shorts right now. I don't know if you guys have ever seen me in shorts. Ruslan says, "What beautiful peonies, Teacher Bob. My Granny used to grow them in her summer garden once. The bush was very big and the stems were long. I like these flowers very much." And my response was, I love them. Not only are they beautiful, they smell great too. It doesn't hurt that people like to buy them as well.

So a kind of a funny thing. Thanks, Ruslan, for that comment. So kind of a funny thing happened when I was replying to Ruslan's comment. I'm not sure if he saw me correct it, but as I was typing Ruslan's comment, Jen came in the room and she said the downstairs toilet was running through. When a toilet runs through, that means the water keeps running after you flush it. And I said, oh, that's strange. That normally doesn't happened to that toilet. But I had my text to speech going as I said that. And that ended up in the original comment I left for Ruslan. So, Ruslan, if you saw the first comment before I edited it, that's why I was talking about a toilet running through. And for those of you that don't understand what I was just saying, when you flush a toilet, the water sometimes doesn't stop running and you have to jiggle the handle a little bit and then the w

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO END UP and UNTIL THE BITTER END

In this English lesson. I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to end up." This is a phrase we use to talk about the thing that eventually happens. I think the best way for me to explain it is to give you a few examples. Today my son was playing basketball after school and Jen was going to pick him up, but she got really busy, so I ended up picking him up. So past tense there. So instead of Jen, it was me. So it can be used to talk about a situation where something happens that maybe you weren't expecting or not the way you thought and it's kind of the conclusion. Another way to use it is in a sentence with if. I could say, if you don't work, you're going to end up with no money. So the situation that results from not working is that you don't have any money, so you end up with no money.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "until the bitter end." Sometimes people go and watch a basketball game and they leave early because their team is losing, but sometimes people will stay until the bitter end. Sometimes we even just say til. They stay til the bitter end. Jen and I, when we go to see something, we always stay until the bitter end. We are not the kind of people to leave early from something, usually because we want to get our money's worth so we usually stay until the bitter end. Even when we go to market to sell flowers, sometimes other vendors will leave early but we always stay til the bitter end because we wanna sell as many flowers as we can. We'll go have a look at them in a bit.

Anyways, to review. When you end up doing something, it means it's the end result. If you watch this video, you might end up learning some English. And when you do something until the bitter end, it means you do it until the very end. It means you don't quit early. It means you keep doing it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Noriko. "Welcome back, sir. Seems like you're better now. Shadowing what you speak does the trick for practicing my speaking muscle, thanks." And my response, shadowing is a great technique. I'm glad it does the trick for you.

So great use of the phrase, Noriko. And yes, shadowing, which is when you watch a video or listen to audio and then you pause it and you repeat what the speaker has said, so if you watch my videos, if you were to practice doing shadowing, you would hit pause right now and then you would say "practice doing shadowing" and then you would hit play again. Something like that.

Hey, I promised that I would show you these when they were blooming, and they are definitely blooming. So the peonies have definitely started to bloom. You can see that we have some pink, or we might call this fuchsia. Over here, you can see one that's about to pop open. It's about to burst into flower, I guess. Sorry, I lost the train of thought there. And over here, you'll see a big row. Normally we would have harvested all of these. We've harvested quite a few, but we're a little behind and it has been raining a bit here.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DO THE TRICK and TO PLAY A TRICK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to do the trick. When we say that something will do the trick, we mean that it will work in a certain situation. Here's a good example. Sometimes when I'm eating a bag of chips, I don't eat all of them and I want to close the bag, so I just put a clothespin on it because a clothespin will do the trick. A clothespin will keep the bag of chips closed, and then I don't have to worry about the chips going stale. So when you say that something will do the trick, it simply means that it will work. It will do something in a certain situation to help you out.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to play a trick. When you play a trick on someone, it means that you do something to trick them. Here's a little trick we play on people at school. Sometimes teachers will accidentally leave their keys somewhere, so if I find another teacher's keys, I put them in the freezer in the staff room. I like to play a trick on my colleagues. So it's just something silly and funny that I do. And there's other things like that that people sometimes do at work. Sometimes we call them practical jokes as well. But when you put someone's keys in the freezer just for fun, and then on the board, we write, "Cool keys." There's a little whiteboard in the staff room. We write, "Cool keys," to give them a hint that someone is playing a trick on them.

So to review, when something will do the trick, it means it will work in a certain situation. I could put the words on the screen, but having a piece of paper does the trick for me. And when you play a trick on someone, it means you just do something funny, something to make maybe yourself laugh, and hopefully them laugh a little bit as well.

Hey, let's look at a comment, though, from a previous video. This comment is from Olivia. "Hi, Bob," or, "Hi, Teacher Bob. Drink more water and take care of yourself. I hope you feel better soon." And my response is, "I drank lots of water and lots of tea with honey. That seemed to do the trick."

See how I used the phrase there? Anyways, thanks Olivia for that comment. And that was a comment from my last video, where I basically just said, "Hey, I'm gonna be making lessons again starting on Friday," and that's hopefully when you're watching this.

So it's an election day in Ontario, Canada. Today, there is an election. If we walk over here, you'll see that this person supports the NDP party. It looks like Dave Augustyn is running for the NDP party. And if we go way over here, in just a moment, we'll see another sign. People in Ontario sometimes will put signs on their yard, kind of letting people know who they're voting for. The candidates have all done, there's been debates. The candidates have all visited various towns and cities in Ontario to kind of get their message out and to ask people to vote for them, and today is the day where we need to vote. I'll be voting later today. It's cool to be able to go and vote.

There's another guy right here. So this is the Progressive Conservative Party, and this is the person who's running there. He doesn't live here. This is just a house where someone who supports that party is going to vote for that person, so they've simply put a little sign on their lawn so that their friends and neighbors can see that that's the person they're going to vote for. It's kind of just a way to give them some support.

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In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase picture this. This is a phrase we say before we're going to describe something to someone. And when we want them to picture it in their minds, we want them to imagine they can see what we're describing to them. So I could say to you picture this, you're in Canada, you're walking along the shore of a lake. There's beautiful sand under your feet as you walk along the beach. Because I said picture this, it means I want you to try, and see all of the things that I'm describing in your mind as I'm saying them. By the way, you should come to Canada, and you should walk along a beach somewhere on one of our shores, I think you'd really, really enjoy it. So, but if I was telling you about it, I would start by saying picture this before I described it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase out of the picture. This is a phrase that we use to describe, sometimes a person who is no longer around. Here's a good example. Let's say that my cousin was dating someone, and then they broke up. If someone said, where's your girlfriend? He might say, oh, she's out of the picture. Or if I said to my uncle and aunt, hey, where's Joe's girlfriend, I haven't seen her lately. They could say, oh, she's out of the picture. That simply means that they're no longer dating, and you probably won't see her around anymore.

Anyways, to review, when you say picture this, you say this before you describe something, so that people know they should try and picture it in their minds. And when you say someone is out of the picture, it means that they're no longer around, that you won't be seeing them. We often use this in a situation where people are dating, and then they break up. We say, oh no, he's out of the picture. You won't see him at family reunions anymore.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Suun, I saw you wore a T-shirt, but another YouTuber wore a down jacket in Canada. And my response, it's a big country. If you go far enough north, it's still pretty cold.

And it also depends on the time of day. When I'm out in the middle of the day like right now, it is 9:15 in the morning. It's a little bit chilly still. I'm actually a little bit cold, even though I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt. But if you were in Ottawa, or if you were in one of our Northern cities like Edmonton, Alberta, it's probably even colder, and you would probably be wearing a jacket. So it depends what part of the country you're in at this time of year.

Hey, I'm out here at one of our local soccer fields. Wow, the sun is really bright today. I was going to make this video here. I was a little worried, because they're mowing the lawn right now. So it's a little bit loud. I'm not sure if you can see them or hear them. But this is where I used to play soccer a long time ago when I was younger, when I was in my early 20s, I was a soccer player for a few years.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DUMB DOWN and DUMB LUCK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to dumb down. Now I think you know what the word dumb means. It's kind of an insult for someone who's not very smart. If you say he's dumb, you're saying that that person isn't intelligent. So it's not a nice thing to say. But we do use the phrase to dumb down to talk about making something simpler, and easier to understand. Think about it this way. Sometimes you read a book, and it's a really good book, and it's very complex, and a little bit hard to understand, and then they make it into a movie, and then they dumb down the story a little bit, so it's easier for people to understand. Sometimes too they'll make instructions for something, and the instructions might be really hard to understand. So they might say to someone at that company, hey, before we ship that product, someone needs to dumb down the instructions. You need to make them simpler, and easier to understand.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase dumb luck. So luck, when you're lucky, it's just means that something goes your way for no reason. And dumb luck is the same thing basically. A good example would be this. Normally I take a certain road to go to work, but the other day I took a different road, and then I ended up finding out the road I normally take, there was an accident there, and I would've been stuck. So it was just dumb luck that I took the right road. There was no reason when I got to the end of my driveway, I decided to go one way and not the other. It ended up being dumb luck that I just ended up going the way where there was no traffic, and no accident that would have held me up.

So to review, when you dumb down something, when you are going to dumb something down, it means you're going to make it simpler, and easier to understand. And when you have dumb luck, it just means that things went your way for some reason, usually just 'cause you got a little bit lucky.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Gill. Thanks, Bob, I like lilac. In Russian, we call it a bush, not a tree. Could you tell me what you call the color of that cat of yours in Canadian English, ginger or red? My response, we also sometimes call it a bush, lilac tree, lilac bush. I think it depends on how tall it is. Also, we would say it is an orange cat. So yeah, technically the lilac trees that I showed you in the last video, technically I think they would be a lilac bush. They look more like a bush than a tree, but we've always called them lilac trees, I think because they are taller than me.

And the cat, yeah, we don't usually call a cat like that a ginger cat. We would usually just say it's an orange cat. And the other name we have for it is Tabby. I think Tabby refers to the pattern of the fur on the cat. So I would've called that an orange Tabby cat.

Hey, an interesting thing is happening at work. For some reason, we are trying to figure out how we used to do all kinds of things in May and in June. Last year in May and June, we were learning from home. Two years ago in May and June, we were learning from home. So there's all these little activities, and things that we can do now that we can do in person. And as a staff, as teachers, we're trying to figure out how we used to do certain things. I was in a meeting this morning where a lot of people were saying, well, how did we do it three years ago the last time we did it? Or how did we do it three years ago? Who was in charge back then, an

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase SUCH A and NO SUCH THING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase such a. This is a little phrase we sometimes add to a sentence when we want to emphasize something. I could say to you, "It's a nice day today," but it's actually a really nice day, so I could say, "It's such a nice day today. It's such a nice day." If I was insulting someone, and you shouldn't do that, but here's an example anyways. If I was insulting someone, I could say, "He's a jerk," but if I wanted to emphasize that, I could say, "He's such a jerk." And you can even use this for experiences. You could say, "Oh, I went to the Ed Sheeran concert, and I had such a good time. It was amazing."

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase no such thing. When we think something doesn't exist, we'll say, "Ah, there's no such thing." If someone was to say, "Last night I was walking in my house and I saw a door open by itself. I think there's a ghost in my house," you could say, "There's no such thing. Ghosts don't exist." If someone said, "Oh, I was driving last night, and I saw strange lights in the sky. I think it was a UFO, an unidentified flying object," you could say, "There's no such thing as aliens, and there's no such thing as UFOs."

So to review, when you use the phrase such a, it means that you're emphasizing something. It's such a nice day today. He's such a jerk. By the way, don't use the insult. I think I already told you not to do that, but you do need to know insults, don't you, in case you hear them on TV. And when you say there's no such thing, you're simply saying that you don't think something exists.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Sidd. "We didn't get enough time to observe that beautiful tree in the back. Thanks a ton for these short and simple episodes." And my response. "You're welcome, Sidd. Good to know you watched until the end."

If you don't know what Sidd's talking about, it means you didn't watch 'til the end of the last video. In the last video, I was running out of time, but I was standing by a beautiful tree, so I quickly just said, "Here's a beautiful tree," or, "Here's a really nice tree." It was such a nice tree, by the way. You should go back and maybe watch it. But it's just a little thing I noticed. If I do something funny at the end of the video, sometimes I look for a comment so that I know people watched all the way to the end.

By the way, if you wanna see nice trees, oh, let's do it this way. Let me flip you around. These are our lilac trees. We have three lilac trees. This is a white lilac tree, and it smells beautiful, and then we have my favorite lilac, which is this light purple lilac tree. I really enjoy the lilacs. I know we live on a flower farm, but you might be interested to know, we don't actually sell lilac. Kind of stuck out in the trees here. We started to a long time ago, but they don't last very long when you put them in water.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE A CRACK AT and TO CRACK OPEN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "To take a crack at." When you want to take a crack at something, it means you want to try it. Let's say you have a jar and you can't get the lid off. Your friend might say to you, "Hey let me take a crack at it. Let me try. Maybe I'm stronger than you." Maybe you are trying to change the tire on your car and you have the wrench on the lug nut and you can't turn it. Your friend might say, "Hey, let me take a crack at it. "Step aside, let me take a crack at it. I've been working out lately and I think I have the strength to actually get that lug nut off." So when you want to take a crack at something, it means you want to try it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "To crack open." This is an example, again, of sometimes in English, we use an extra word and we don't need it. This simply means to open, but you might be driving and it's hot. And you might say, "Hey I think I might crack open a window." Maybe you are teaching in your classroom and you just want some airflow, you might crack open the door. Maybe you've just done something amazing in your life and you want to have some champagne. You might crack open a bottle of champagne. In all those examples, I could have just used the word open, but at least with window and door, when I think about crack open, it usually means to open a little bit, okay. But when you crack open a bottle of champagne, you usually open it completely 'cause there's no way to kind of do that partially. I hope I'm making sense today. I feel like my thoughts are not connecting well but let's continue the lesson.

To review, when you take a crack at something, it means you want to try it. Maybe you've never ridden a horse before and you say to your friend, "Hey, get off that horse. Let me climb on and take a crack at it." Hopefully that ends well. And then to crack something open, when you crack open a door or crack open a window. For me it means to open the door a little bit or the window a little bit. But it can also mean just to open.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Dimitri. And Dimitri says, "So your neighbor plants the crop for you and you do what for him? I don't think he just does that for free and for fun." And my response, "You are correct in your assumption. He does it as a business and I pay him. I'm a little worried this year because of the price of diesel fuel. I think it's going to be an expensive year to grow crops."

Yes, I think it's definitely going to be an expensive year to grow crops. So yes, my neighbor has a chicken farm, but he also has a business where he plants his, well he plants his own crops, but he also plants crops for other people. So he does that as a service and as a business. He will just take care of all of the planting for me. I don't even need to buy the seed anymore. Years ago, I needed to buy the seed, but he also sells seed. So that's really handy.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase A MOMENT IN THE SUN and I'LL BE WITH YOU IN A MOMENT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a moment in the sun. When we talk about a moment in the sun, we're talking about a time when you were maybe a little bit famous for a day, a good example would be this. A few years ago, someone came to market from the newspaper and took a picture of Jen in her booth, selling flowers. And then the following week, Jen was on the front page of the town newspaper, not a big newspaper, just a small newspaper, but that was Jen's moment in the sun. It was her moment for a few days to be just a little bit famous. It was her moment for just a little while for people to know who she was. Maybe you'll have the same thing someday. Maybe someone will take a picture of you somewhere and you'll be in the newspaper for a day, and you'll have your moment in the sun.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, I'll be with you in a moment. Did I spell this right? I'll be with you in a moment. Yes. This is a phrase you often hear when you're waiting in line somewhere. Let's say I had to renew my driver's license, I would go to the renewal office. And when I walked in the person at the desk might say, I'll be with you in a moment. What that means is that they're busy doing something else. And if you just wait a little while they'll start to help you in just a little while. So it's a very common thing to hear, especially when you go somewhere like a license renewal bureau. You might hear it in a restaurant as well, if the server is really busy, they might say just have a seat over here, I'll be with you in a moment.

So to review, when you have your moment in the sun when you have a moment in the sun, it means that you're famous just for a little while. And when someone says to you, I'll be with you in a moment it means that they will help you or assist you in just a little while.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Snazzy, and Snazzy says, my handwriting is quite good on paper but when I write on a whiteboard with a marker, it becomes horrible, interesting lesson, thanks. And my response, I think if I needed to do more handwriting it would be better. One of the problems is I'm just not used to it anymore.

So that is one of the problems. Isn't it? When you're used to something it's easy to do but when you don't do it for a while you kind of aren't good at it anymore. I guess that's the best way to describe it.

Hey, you can see behind me that I'm in town again but what I wanted to show you is that if I turn, across the road you'll actually see huge empty fields. And the reason I wanted to come and make a video out here is because we're really close in Canada to the time when tractors and farm equipment will be out in the fields starting to get ready to plant things. In fact, you'll see equipment go by like that. That might have been a whole bunch of seed.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase I WASN'T BORN YESTERDAY and WERE YOU BORN IN A BARN?

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "I wasn't born yesterday." This is a funny phrase we use when someone says something and it's like they think we don't know how to do something. If someone said to me, "Bob, can you send me an email? Um, you do know how to do that, right?" I could say, "Hey, I wasn't born yesterday. Of course I know how to send an email." If someone said to me, "Hey Bob, here's a new mouse for your computer." Maybe at work the tech guy gives me a new mouse. And if he says, "Do you know how to hook it up?" I could say, "Hey, I know how to plug in a mouse. I wasn't born yesterday." So it's just kind of a funny phrase we use when someone says something and it makes us think they don't think we know how to do something. You say, "Hey, I wasn't born yesterday." It's funny, but at the same time it's quite direct, so be careful when you use it.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "Were you born in a barn?" Now, this phrase is old. No one uses this phrase anymore except maybe my mom. I hope my mom's not watching this video. It's a phrase that I heard often when I was a kid, and it would be something my mom would say if I left the door open to the house. If I came in the house really fast and left the door open, my mom would say, "Hey, were you born in a barn? Close the door." So basically it's kind of a slightly insulting phrase that means, "Hey, are you like kind of a messy person who doesn't know how to close doors or clean up after yourself? Were you born in a barn?" And again, a barn is that huge building back there. A barn is a place where you keep animals. So it's kind of like, "Hey, are you acting a little bit like an animal? Were you born in a barn?" Again, no one uses that phrase anymore. I'm just teaching it to you for fun.

To review, if you say "I wasn't born yesterday," it's kind of a fun way to let someone know that yes, you do know how to do something that maybe they thought you didn't know how to do. And if you say, "Were you born in a barn?" to someone, if you ask this question, you're basically saying, "Close the door." That's what my mom meant whenever she said that to me. And again, don't use that phrase. That was just for fun because I like to have the same words sometimes in each phrase. When I saw the word born, or I saw the phrase born in a barn, I thought, "Ah, I should talk about that just for a sec."

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Alaa. "Hello, Teacher Bob. Do you think it is possible to see Bob the Canadian giving a traditional English lesson using a whiteboard and a marker? Haha, I just want to see your handwriting. Is it good or as terrible as mine?" And then my response, my handwriting is horrible. My handwriting is horrible.

In my classroom, I don't write on the board very often. If I do, I usually print. So we have cursive, where all your letters are connected together, and then we have printing, where you use straight lines and circles to do your writing. If I do write on the board I print because yeah, it's hard to read. It's barely legible, we would say. When I was younger and I was in penmanship class, in elementary school, we had penmanship classes, I would usually get a really low grade. I did okay in other subjects, but penmanship was not a good class for me. I am not a very neat or tidy person when it comes to handwriting. It's awful, it's atrocious. Do you know that word? It's terrible, it's horrible. My han

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase I HOPE SO! and I HOPE NOT!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, I hope so. The English phrase, I hope so, is a phrase we use when we really want something to happen. Let's say you're watching a game and your favorite team is playing. If someone asked you this question, "Do you think your team will win?" You would probably respond by saying, "I hope so." Let's say you're taking an English test and someone asks you this question. "Do you think you'll pass the test?" You would most likely respond by saying, "I hope so." So it's another way of saying, yes, but you're emphasizing it a little bit. You're saying that you really, really hope that whatever is going to happen will happen.

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The second phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase, I hope not. And this is completely the opposite. This is when you don't want something to happen. Let's say you're watching a game and someone says, "Do you think your team will lose?" You'll say, "I hope not." Let's say you're taking an English test. And someone says, "Do you think you'll fail?" You would say, "I hope not." So when you don't want something to happen and you want to emphasize it, you would use the phrase, I hope not.

So to review, when you really, really want something to happen, you say, "I hope so." And when you really don't want something to happen, you say, "I hope not."

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from DK. Cool glasses. And my response was, I found out later they were my daughter's sunglasses. I thought they were mine.

These are mine. I felt kind of silly after the last video, because I was wearing those sunglasses. And I kept thinking I was wearing my nice, cheap, Dollar Store sunglasses. By the way, the Dollar Store is way up there, where you can buy sunglasses for $1, or $2, or maybe $3 at the most. So I was wearing these really cool sunglasses in the last video. And I was basically, in my mind, thinking that they were mine, but they weren't. These are actually mine. These are not my daughters.

What ended up happening was my daughter borrowed my camera bag last fall. And she left her sunglasses in a pocket in the side. And when I found her sunglasses in my camera bag, they kind of looked like mine. And so, I just assumed they were, but they weren't.

So anyways, enough about my sunglasses. I'm once again out here in town. I don't have to show you. I was pointing out earlier that we have a Dollar Store. The interesting thing about Dollar Stores in Canada is that eventually they won't be Dollar Stores. They used to charge $1 for everything. And then eventually, they had some things that were $2. And now, I think they're going to charge as high as $5 for some items. Everything seems to be getting more expensive here in Canada. I'm sure it's true around the world as well. I'm not sure where it's all going to end.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase IN RETROSPECT and HINDSIGHT IS 20/20

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, in retrospect. When we use the phrase, in retrospect, it means we're talking about the past or thinking about the past. For me, it's usually a phrase I use when I'm thinking about a decision I made in the past that was bad. Here's an example sentence. I'm out here today wearing my spring jacket, but it's a little cold, in retrospect, I should've grabbed my gloves before I came outside. So I'm talking about a decision I made in the past that was probably a bad decision. So in retrospect, I should've grabbed my gloves. I'm actually home today, because a lot of teachers at my school have COVID right now. So in retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to have a staff meeting last Friday. I think that's maybe where it spread around, but who knows? So, in retrospect means to think about the past or to look back to the past when you're talking about something.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is hindsight is 20/20. This is kind of a funny phrase we say when we're talking about how when something goes wrong, if we had thought about it earlier, we probably could have prevented it. But hindsight is 20/20. When you look back, it's easier to see that you made a bad decision, than it might have been in the moment when you made it. When you can see without glasses, we say you have 20/20 vision, and hindsight is the act of looking back in the past. So we often say, hindsight is 20/20. It's very clear when you look backwards in time, where you made bad decisions in your life, but at the time, it might not have been.

So to review, in retrospect is a phrase we use when we're talking about the past. I actually just used it when I replied to Mohd Ag's comment the other day on the last video, and that's when I thought of this phrase. And hindsight is 20/20 is kind of a funny phrase we use to laugh about how, when you're talking about the past, and bad decisions you've made, when you look at it from where you are in time right now, you know that it was a bad decision, but at the time, you really didn't.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Denis. When I hear the phrase, let's look at a comment from a previous video, my heart starts beating faster. Qiu Park says, maybe your turn? And my response was, are you hoping that it's yours?

So yeah, I wonder sometimes what it's like to watch these videos. I don't really know, because I'm the one making them, but I'm sure for some of you, you're wondering, did Bob pick my comment? So this time, Denis, I picked your comment, so hopefully you enjoyed that

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase WITH A FINE-TOOTH COMB and IN DROVES

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase with a fine-tooth comb. When we say that we do something with a fine-tooth comb, or when we go over something with a fine-tooth comb, it means we look at it very carefully. I'm not sure what this hand motion means. A good example would be this though. When the police arrive at a crime scene, they go over it with a fine-tooth comb. This means that they go over it very carefully. They look at every single piece of evidence that they can find. They don't just walk around, and step on everything, and do something in a really bizarre unorganized way. They come and they go over the crime scene with a fine-tooth comb. They might even make little squares with rope, and look at each section of the area where the crime was committed in order to gather as much evidence as they can.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase in droves. And I know my phrases are usually related. Today, they're not. When you say that something happens in droves, it means it happens with great quantity. We use this a lot to talk about people. When there's a sale at a store, people arrive in droves. That means lots of people arrive at the same time. A lot of times when there are concert tickets, when they are selling tickets for a concert, people will line up in droves to get the tickets. They'll be so excited to get the tickets, they'll even line up before the ticket office is open. They had come in droves. They arrive in droves to buy their tickets.

So to review, when you go over something with a fine-tooth comb, it means you very carefully look at it in an organized way. And when people arrive in droves, it means a lot of people all arrive at the same time.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me figure out what pocket that comment is in. This comment is from Albert. I guess below the belt is a boxing term, and my response, I think you're right.

So in my last video, I talked about the phrase below the belt. And interestingly enough, I didn't really mention where the phrase came from. And after a bit of research, I realized that a couple of people in the comments were correct. Below the belt is originally a boxing term. You shouldn't punch people below the belt during a boxing match. I don't often look at the history of the phrases I teach, because that doesn't always give a lot of meaning. Sometimes in the case of below the belt, it does. But sometimes the meaning has lost its original meaning, or its original use. And we use it in a completely different way. So I like to always explain the most common way we use it.

Anyways, I'm out for a bit of a walk here in a typical Canadian subdivision. There's a large dog barking over there. I hope he doesn't come to visit me. This would be a typical Canadian subdivision. A subdivision is an area in a town or city where people live in houses. Notice there are no apartment buildings here. They live in houses, and each person has a small lot with their house on it. Let me spin you back around. Jen and I obviously don't live in a subdivision. We live on a farm out in the country, and I am in my local town right now, just taking a bit of a walk.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase BELOW THE BELT and ABOVE BOARD

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase below the belt. When someone says something to you that's not very nice, especially if it's really, really nasty. You might say that it's below the belt. When you describe an insult or an action as being below the belt, it means it's really, really hurtful. It's really, really negative. I think the phrase below the belt comes from, for guys especially, if you get kicked down there below the belt, it hurts quite a bit. And so I think this phrase is a similar idea. If someone says something that's just really rude or really nasty, or they do something that's really rude or nasty, we would describe it as being below the belt. It's definitely not nice to do things that are kind of below the belt to people. It's just not a good thing at all.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase above board. When something is above board, it means it's done in the right way, and it's done legally, and it's done well. Let's say that two teams are trading players. If they do everything above board, they will announce the trade, and they will follow all the rules. Let's say the Toronto Raptors are trading one of their players with another team in the NBA. They wanna make sure everything's above board. They wanna follow all of the league rules, when they make the trade, they don't wanna do something illegal or sneaky. So they wanna make sure it's done, above board.

Anyways, to review. When someone says something that's insulting or does something that's not very nice. If it's really, really nasty and mean, we say it's below the belt. And when you do things above board, it means you take the time to do them properly. You follow the rules, you do it the right way. So that yes, hopefully so that you don't get in trouble for doing it the wrong way.

But anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Daniel. I've noticed you are a sport enthusiast, Mr. Bob. Please tell us your favorite sports and teams. I guess hockey is the favorite one of most Canadians. And my response, I have come to love watching NBA basketball, I like the Toronto Raptors. Hockey is very popular in Canada, but I don't actually watch it. Don't tell any of the other Canadians that.

Yes, I have become, just during COVID, during this pandemic, Jen and I have become Raptors fans. We started watching them actually, I think the year before the pandemic, they were in the playoffs and they actually won the championship. But we weren't really fans. We just jumped on board, because they were doing so well that year. But then during, I forget at what point, but at a certain point in the winter we started watching Raptors games quite regularly. We would watch one a week and then maybe two. And now the Raptors are actually in the playoffs. Sorry, bit of a loud truck there. And we have watched, I would say a couple games a week for most of the season. We are a little bit sad right now though, because, yeah, they just lost three games in a row, against Philadelphia. And it's a best of seven series. So if they don't win four straight, their season is going to be over.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase I'M AFRAID THAT.. and I'M AFRAID NOT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "I'm afraid that." This is a phrase that we use when we're telling someone bad news, or when we're telling them something that might disappoint them, and it kind of shows that we're being nice as we say it to them. Here's a good example. Let's say you had a trip planned and then someone might call you and say, "Hey, I'm afraid that I have to tell you "that your trip has been canceled." When you say "I'm afraid that," it kind of softens the blow a little bit. It makes the bad news, it's like you're saying it in a way where you're trying to be as kind as possible while you give them bad news. So you might hear something like, "I'm afraid that your team "has traded the best player to another team." That would be not very nice news, would it? If you had a favorite player and someone said, "Oh, did you hear, "I'm afraid that they're trading him to another team."

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The other phrase I wanna teach you today is very similar, and it's the phrase "I'm afraid not." This is similar to the first one, but it simply means no, and it's the same thing. You're trying to say it in a nice way. If you said to me, "Hey, did the Toronto Raptors "win their basketball game last night?" I would say, "I'm afraid not." Basically no, they didn't win their game. Philadelphia beat them hands down. It was not a good game to watch. It was kind of sad actually. I feel really bad about it. But if you were to ask me if they won, I would probably say, you know, "I'm afraid not." And you can see, I'm saying it in a way where I know that you don't want to hear that bad news, so I'm trying to soften it a little bit.

Hey, let's review though. The first phrase, "I'm afraid that" is used to give someone bad news. "I'm afraid that your COVID test came back positive," or, "I'm afraid that your team "has decided to trade all the players away "and just have rookies next year." That would be an interesting season. And the phrase "I'm afraid not" simply means no, but you're saying it in a way where you're trying to be a little bit aware that it is not nice news for the other person to hear.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. "Thanks for another great lesson, dear Teacher Bob. "I noticed that you cover the plants with black film. "What is this for? Very interesting." And my response was, "It stops the weeds from growing."

So we should walk over there maybe. It's a little windy today, but we'll take a walk anyways. I have this microphone right now which is supposed to work a little bit better in the wind. You can see there's snow on the ground, by the way. It was kind of a strange turn of events yesterday. It went to minus five, it snowed in the night. It definitely doesn't feel like spring, which makes me laugh, because the video I just put out a couple days ago on my other channel is all about spring.

But let's take a look here, spin you around. You'll see that these plants, we cut circles into the black fabric, and then we have peonies in here. There's a few that are coming up I think if we go this way. Yeah, just a couple popping out of the ground there. So yes, we use this black fabric to prevent weeds from growing.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase BY ANY STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION and THE FINAL STRETCH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "by any stretch of the imagination." Now, your imagination is when you use your mind to think about things, to imagine things. When you say something in the negative, and then you add the phrase, by any stretch of the imagination, you're just emphasizing the point. I better give some examples. Let's say there's a team that's not very good at soccer. They're not a very good football team. You could say they are not a good team by any stretch of the imagination. So no matter how you think about that team, they are a bad team. So we used this phrase to emphasize that. I used it I think in the other day where I said, I'm not rich by any stretch of imagination. This simply means that I am not someone that has lots of money in the bank. So in order to emphasize that, I add the phrase, by any stretch of the imagination. I'll use this phrase at the end of this video, or when I reply to the comment too, you'll see.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "the final stretch." Whenever you do something and you only have a few days or weeks or months left, when you're at the, kind of close to the end, you might say that you're in the final stretch. Right now at school, we have about two and a half months left, so the school year is about 10 months long. I feel like we're in the final stretch right now. We're in the last part of the school year. Just a few more weeks, pretty soon it'll be May, and then it'll be June, and before you know it, the students will be writing exams and the school year will be over, so I feel like we're in the final stretch.

So to review, when you use the phrase, by any stretch of the imagination, it's used to emphasize a negative point. That's not a very nice car by any stretch of the imagination. You would be emphasizing that it's not a nice car. And when you say that you are in the final stretch of something, it means that you're in the last part. When I get close to the four-minute mark when I'm making these lessons, I'm in the final stretch of the lesson.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Parkash. Nice weather and nice video too. And my reply was it was a beautiful day. Not like today. Today, the weather is miserable.

So I would say that it's not a nice day by any stretch of the imagination. That was the part where I was going to use that phrase. Right now, it's kind of strange out here. It is warm, but it's really, really windy. I'm not sure if you can see it. I actually, I think it's calmed down a bit since I started making the video, but this tree was just moving in the wind like crazy earlier. And it's spitting rain a little bit.

The ground is sopping wet. I don't know if I've ever used that phrase before. When you say the ground is sopping wet, it means it's rained a lot. I am wearing my rubber boots again because the ground is sopping wet today. It's certainly a miserable day out here, not the nicest day in the world, but still, not a bad day to make a video compared to way back in January when it was snowy and lots of wind and freezing cold and my hands would, it would feel like my hands were freezing off.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase A SLAP ON THE WRIST and A SLAP IN THE FACE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "a slap on the wrist." When we say something is a slap on the wrist, it means someone was punished or disciplined for something, but the punishment or discipline was very minor. Here's a great example. Maybe someone on a sports team you like did something they weren't supposed to in a game, and so they fined the player $10,000. Sorry, it's a little loud here 'cause I'm in town. Maybe that player makes a million dollars a year. So a $10,000 fine would just be a slap on the wrist. So, basically, maybe the player did something in a game or outside of the game that they weren't supposed to do. And so they were given a really small fine and it was just a slap on the wrist.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "a slap in the face." Now this is completely different. A slap in the face is an insult. Maybe at work, you and another person both want the same promotion. Maybe you've been at the job for 20 years and you've worked really hard and you think you deserve it. And the other person has worked there for 15 years and they worked really hard and they think they deserve it. And then they give the promotion to the boss's son. That would be a slap in the face. That would be a bit of an insult because both of you were probably way more qualified than the boss's son.

So, to review, a slap on the wrist is when you are disciplined for something and it's a very minor discipline compared to what you did. And then a slap in the face is basically when a situation is such that it's insulting, that you feel insulted by what has happened.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Sorry, I'm a little distracted with all the traffic, but I'm sure you're enjoying it. We'll take a little walk in a bit and you'll see some campers. This is from Aquiles, "Nice video, teacher Bob. Here in Mexico, spring break just began, so I'm going to take a break from English the next two weeks. See you later, everyone. Take care." And my response was, "I hope you have a nice break. Enjoy it, I'm sure it will go fast."

So thanks, Aquiles, for that comment. Yes, breaks are always nice, aren't they? It's nice. We just actually had our spring break a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure I actually mentioned that on any of my videos, but I did have a week off from work, and it was very, very enjoyable. So Aquiles, I hope you have a good break, as well.

Anyways, I'm out here by this camper van place where you can buy basically camper trailers and camper vans and all sorts of campers that you can use, if you go camping. Now, Jen and I actually don't own one of these. We will probably never own one of these and we usually don't go camping. I think you can probably guess why. There are two reasons why we do not camp.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO MAKE A LIVING and A LIVING WAGE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to make a living." When you say that someone is getting enough money from work to make a living, it means they have enough money to pay all of their bills. I make a living by going to work and teaching and by doing YouTube and between the two, I have enough money every month to pay all my bills. So it's really nice to be able to make a living doing something that I like. It's nice to be able to earn enough money from my teaching job and from YouTube to pay all my bills. It's kind of satisfying to sit down once a month and pay all the bills and just make, and just have enough money to do it. So I'm not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I do make a living by going to work every day and by doing YouTube, and, of course, the flower farm as well.

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The other English phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "a living wage." So a living wage in Canada is about $18 or $19 an hour, and working about 40 hours per week. If you earn that much money in Canada, we call it a living wage. That means it's enough money to rent an apartment and to pay your bills and to live a somewhat okay life. It's on, a little bit on the low end maybe. It might sound like a lot of money to you, but Canada is an expensive place to live. I mean, milk at the store is $7, so making about $18 or $19 or $20 an hour, we would call that a living wage, but by the time you've paid rent and paid your taxes, which are really high in Canada, and bought groceries and maybe a little bit of money left over to do something fun, it's, it doesn't go very far. In English, when you say, money doesn't go very far, it means you spend it and then it's gone fairly quickly.

So, to review, to make a living is to work and to have enough money to pay all your bills. And if you make a living wage, it means the place where you work pays you just enough money for you to be able to have a life where you can pay your bills, but you're not gonna be able to save a lot for retirement on a living wage, but you'll be able to pay all your bills.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Vitor, and from the last video where I was in town. Vitor says, beautiful houses, Bob. Nice pair of colors. Dark brown walls are matching the roofs. Indeed, a top-notch place to live and a calm park for kids to play. Now that things are getting back to normal, it is a great idea to hang out with your kids to have some quality time. By the way, thanks for the lesson. And my response, yeah, I'm liking the colors as well. This was a newer row of houses in my local town and they were bought up quick.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO HIT YOUR STRIDE and TO TAKE SOMETHING IN STRIDE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to hit your stride. When you hit your stride, it means you're very comfortable and efficient doing something. Here's a good example. Eventually, Jen and I will bring flowers to market, not yet though, because winter has just ended and spring is just beginning. We don't have flowers yet, but eventually we'll go and the first week or two at market will be a little bit rough, but eventually though, we will hit our stride. This means that eventually at market, we will feel comfortable, we'll remember how to sell flowers at the market. We'll remember how everything goes in our van and how we set up, eventually we will hit our stride and everything will go smoothly.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to take something in stride. Now, when you take something in stride, it means something happens to you and it doesn't really affect you much at all. Here's a good example. Sometimes in my classroom, a student will ask a question without putting their hand up or a student will speak when I'm speaking and I just take that in stride. I don't get mad. I don't get angry. Sometimes I'll just calmly remind the student to please be a little bit more polite, but I don't react in an extreme way, I just take it in stride. Once in my classroom, a student threw something at the board and instead of yelling and getting angry, I just took it in stride and I just turned and said, with no emotion I just said, please don't throw things in class. I'm not a very mean or strict teacher, but usually when I ask for things, students do listen, so I'm thankful for that.

Anyways, to review, to hit your stride means you're doing something and you've become comfortable doing it again. At the beginning of the school year after a few days of teaching, I usually hit my stride and I like doing it again and to take something in stride means to not react emotionally, to not get angry or anything like that, but to just kind of not react at all when something happens.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Iris. Hello teacher Bob, thank you for the amazing lesson every time. I have a question. What does it mean, this week has been a zoo? Is it kind of this week has been busy? Thank you in advance. And my response, it means it has been crazy and busy.

So that was from my last lesson. In my last lesson, I mentioned that my week had been a zoo. So when you say that something has been a zoo, it means it's been crazy. If I said to Jen, hey, my class today was a zoo. It means that the students were loud and jumping around and crazy and things didn't go as planned. It would just mean that it wasn't calm and peaceful in the way it normally is.

But hey, let's look at a few things here. Over here, you could see that I'm at a park and maybe you could see the soccer goals, soon kids will be playing soccer again. We're really close, it's going to start in a few weeks. You can see here too, that there is a sign. It says, dog on leash, stoop and scoop, pick up after your pet and then there's a little thing here that says, if your dog poops, you should pick it up. It's always a kind thing to do. When you share a public space with someone, it's always kind to clean up after your animals because no one wants to accidentally step in dog poop. That's something that usually annoys me quite a bit. I hate it when I'm at a park and someone hasn't cleaned u

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO COVER FOR and COVER TO COVER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to cover for". Now this phrase has two meanings. It can mean that you lie for someone when they do something bad. Maybe my brother, when I was younger, would like to steal cookies and I would cover for my brother by telling my parents that the cat was eating the cookies. That didn't actually happen. That was just an example. But we also use the phrase "to cover for" to talk about doing someone else's work for them if they're missing. At work, sometimes another teacher is sick, and then I will cover for that teacher. My boss will come and say, "Hey, can you cover "for Joe today because he's out sick? "Can you spend half an hour in his class?" We when cover for each other at school, as teachers, we each take turns doing a little bit of someone else's class in our spare time, 'cause we don't teach for the full eight hours. We only teach for about six.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "cover to cover". When you read a book cover to cover, it means that you really, really liked it. If you've just recently read a book and you really liked it, you could say, "Ah, the book was amazing. "I read it cover to cover." Now when you read a book cover to cover, it means you read the whole thing, but when you read a book, you usually do read the whole thing. So it's, I guess, just a way to emphasize that you're reading the whole thing. The last book I read, I definitely read it cover to cover. It was an excellent book. It was called "Ringworld" by Larry Niven, I think was author, a really old science fiction book, but definitely a good one. So I reread it just recently, just last week.

Anyways, to review, when you cover for someone, it means you lie for them so that someone doesn't know what they're doing, or it means that you do their work for them at work. Oftentimes when, let's say there's ten people at work and one person is sick, the other nine people will cover for the other person. And when you read a book cover to cover, it means that you just like the book so much, you read it from the very, very beginning, all the way to the very, very end.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Arya. "How are you doing, sir? "Are you all right?" And my response was this, "Yes. "Sorry, the week got busy and I missed Wednesday. "There will be a new lesson tomorrow, though." "Thank you, sir, for letting me know," was Arya's reply.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase FOR THE BIRDS and the term BIRDBRAIN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase for the birds. When we say something is for the birds, we mean that it's useless, or that it has no worth. I guess I could say that it's worthless. When you say, hey, that English lesson the other day, that was for the birds. That would mean that you thought the English lesson wasn't very good, it wasn't very valuable, you didn't get a lot out of it. It's not a nice thing to say necessarily when you say something is for the birds, because you're basically saying you don't like it, and it's worthless. I watched a TV show the other day, and, honestly, it was for the birds. It wasn't very well put together. It was kind of confusing actually, and it just wasn't very useful to me. So I would say that that TV show was for the birds.

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The other phrase or term I wanted to teach you today is the term birdbrain. This is something that means that someone isn't very smart. You could say that birdbrain means that you are dumb or stupid. I usually use this word to talk about myself. The other day, I lost my keys, and I'm such a birdbrain, my keys ended up being in my coat pocket. I had put my jacket on instead of my winter coat, and I couldn't find my keys. I'm such a birdbrain though, I usually put my keys in my pocket, they were just in my other jacket, so I was a bit of a birdbrain. So I guess I can use this term, it's a bit of an insult to talk about myself, but I would be a little worried about using it to talk about other people, because they might feel insulted.

So to review, when something is for the birds, it means it is useless, it means it has no value, it means it is worthless. And then when you call yourself a birdbrain, you're simply saying that you're not being very smart in that moment.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd Ags. I've asked Mr. Bob to show us Oscar's house a couple of times. And although each time he said he'd show it in the next video, he never did. I just commented yesterday that Mr. Bob has never disappointed me, but I guess there's a first time for everything. Eduardo then says it's always a pleasure to see you here, my friend, Mohd Ags, nice to see community in the comments. Very cool. And then my response, ha ha, I keep forgetting. In my defense, it's been quite wet where his house is.

So Oscar does have a house, definitely, Mohd Ags. And I know I promised actually, it might have been two or three times, I promised to show his house in a video, and there it is. He does not use his house very often. In fact, the house is way out here in the flower field, because Oscar really only uses his house in the summer. Let's take a bit of a closer look at it. He uses it, because he likes the shade. So it's actually a little bit wet inside right now. We have to clean it out, and put some dry straw in it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BITE YOUR TONGUE and BITE YOUR TONGUE!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to bite your tongue. Now, sometimes you're chewing food and you accidentally bite your tongue, and that doesn't feel very good. It hurts quite a bit. But we use the phrase to bite your tongue to talk about when you try not to say something in a certain situation. Maybe your boss is telling you that you've done something poorly and you want to say something back to your boss. It's probably not a good idea. It's probably a good time to bite your tongue. I had this when I was a kid as well. Once my dad was a little bit annoyed with me about something, and then I said something, but I should not have done that. When I think back, I think, it probably would have been a better idea to bite my tongue than to say something, because it just made my dad a little bit more annoyed.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the same phrase, but as a command. You can say to someone, "Bite your tongue," and it basically means that you want them to stop talking. So, if someone is talking to you and they're not being very nice and you want to tell them to shut up. That's kind of a mean thing to say. You could also say, "Bite your tongue," but it's not a nice thing to say to someone. When you say, "Bite your tongue," it's very direct. It's very, it's definitely a command. It's maybe something a parent would say to a child, if they're very, very frustrated or annoyed with their child. They might say, "Bite your tongue," and it's also used a lot when people use bad words, like a parent, if a child said the F-word, for instance, a parent might say, "Hey, bite your tongue. Don't use swear words. That's bad."

Anyways, to review, to bite your tongue is simply to stop yourself from talking. I guess, if you actually did bite your tongue a little bit, that does stop you from saying something, doesn't it? And when you tell someone to bite their tongue, or if you say, "Bite your tongue," it means that you want them to shut up. It means that you want them to stop saying whatever they're saying.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Liu. "After spending an afternoon at a social event, I was tuckered out. I'm not good at socializing. It's always hard for me to find topics and to keep the conversation going." And then my reply. "Social events can be exhausting."

Now, I've mentioned this before a few times, that as much as I seem like this happy, friendly person here on YouTube, and that you might think that I'm really outgoing and love social events, I'm actually similar to Liu. When I go to a social event, it can be a little bit draining. We learned the English phrase to be tuckered out, which means to be really tired. Sometimes when I go to social events, at the end of it, I'm just really, really tired and exhausted, more like mentally exhausted, if you know what I mean. My favorite kind of event is the event where there's just a few people, not a lot of people just, I don't know, three or four people sitting around a campfire. That is my favorite type of event.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TUCKERED OUT and BENT OUT OF SHAPE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase tuckered out. Tuckered out is just another way of saying that someone is really, really tired, or saying that they are exhausted. We used to use this phrase a lot when our kids were little. At the end of the day, if we let's say visited their grandpa and grandma, at the end of the day, the kids would be tuckered out. It just means that they were really, really tired. Sometimes we do use it to talk about adults, too, though. When Jen and I work on the farm, at the end of a long day on the farm, sometimes I'm tuckered out, especially if I did a lot of manual labor. If I did a lot of physical labor, like shoveling or forking stuff, at the end of the day, I'm usually quite tuckered out. I'm usually quite exhausted, and I'm usually quite tired.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase bent out of shape. Now, if I move a little bit, I'm not sure how well you can see it. You'll see that that tire is not straight. It is bent out of shape. So literally, when you say something is bent out of shape, it means it's bent, but we also use this to describe people. You could say, if someone you know got angry, you could say, "Ah, he got all bent outta shape about it. I borrowed his car, I brought it back, and I didn't put gas in the tank, and he just got bent out of shape." Just means that that person got angry. That person was just annoyed, and not very happy with you.

So to review, when someone is tuckered out, it just means that they're really tired. You can even use this word to talk about pets. Sometimes Oscar runs around all day, and then he's tuckered out at the end of the day. And when you say something is bent out of shape, it could be something like a piece of equipment or machinery, but it could also be a person. You could say that that person got really angry. They got bent out of shape.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Silvia, and the comment is, "Thanks for the class. I want to know if the following sentences are correct. I ran out of milk. I'm out of milk, and the milk ran out. I'm a bit confused how to use the phrasal verb run out." And then gotyk1 says, "All of them are correct." And then my response. "All are correct. The first two are the most natural way to say it."

So yeah, they're all correct, but I would definitely say the first two, you know, I ran out of milk. Oh, I just forgot what it actually said. I'm out of milk, and I ran out of milk. Those would be the two most correct ways to say it in my opinion, as an English speaker.

I know I've taken you out here to see the field a few times. I'm just gonna kind of pan and let you have a look behind me. I am eagerly waiting for things to turn green. Right now, we are just starting to see a touch of green. You can see that the grass is greening up a little bit, we would say. So we're starting to see just a little bit of green here and there, and that is really, really cool. I guess I would say I'm quite eager for spring to arrive. All of the sudden today, I started thinking that. I'm quite eager for spring to arrive.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BLEEP OUT and TO BE OUT OF SOMETHING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to bleep out. Have you ever been watching a TV show or a movie and then sometimes the person says a bad word, like fu*% or sh%#, and instead of hearing the word, you just hear a beep, like I just put in this video? That's what we call bleeping out. When you say bad words on TV especially, sometimes they will bleep out the bad word, because they don't want people to hear the bad words. So there's a whole list of bad words that you're not allowed to say on TV. And if someone does say it, they will definitely bleep out the bad word. They don't do this as much in movies. Usually when you watch a movie, if you rent a movie, or watch it on Netflix, do people still rent DVDs? I'm not sure. They usually don't bleep out the bad words, but if you're watching something on TV and it has a bad word in it, often they will bleep out the bad word.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to be out of something. This is kind of a funny phrase, because if you said to me, "Bob, can I have a glass of milk?" I might say, sorry, I'm out. If I say I'm out of milk, if I say I'm out of something, it means I don't have any more of it. So the other day, one of my kids was like, "We're out of milk," and I said, how can we be out already? That doesn't make sense. I just bought milk the other day, but I guess my kids drink it really quickly. And after a few days, we were out of milk.

So to review, when you bleep something out, it means that, or when something is bleeped out, it means you're watching something and instead of hearing bad words, you just hear a beeping sound, or a bleep. Beep and bleep are kind of the same thing. And to be out of something means that you don't have any more of it. And again, you can say thing like we're out, or you can say we're out of milk. You can actually mention the thing that you don't have anymore.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Athenasios. "Thanks for these phrases, Teacher Bob. Yesterday, I saw a driver who double parked, but it was just to pick up his child. I got the wrong idea about him." And my response was it's easy to jump to conclusions.

So that was from the video the other day, where I talked about the phrase to have the wrong idea, or to get the wrong idea about someone. And Athanasios used a phrase in there as well, "Double parked." When you're double parked, it means there's a car on the side of the road and someone parks beside that car, and then that first car can't get out. It's considered rude and it's actually illegal in Canada to double park. And then I used a phrase too, didn't I? I used the phrase, jump to conclusions. When you jump to conclusions, it means that you think something is true with only a tiny bit of evidence, or not very much evidence at all. It's not good to jump to conclusions. It's actually a bad idea.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET THE WRONG IDEA and A ROUGH IDEA

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To get the wrong idea." When you get the wrong idea about someone, it means that you've seen them do something and so you think they do that all the time. You kind of judge them. Here's a good example. Let's say I'm driving down the road and it's really warm so I roll my window down. Actually, you just push a button now, don't you? Anyways, I have the window down and maybe there's some garbage in my van and the wind inside the van makes it blow around and it flies out the window. My neighbor might see me and they might get the wrong idea. They may think that I'm someone that doesn't care about the environment and someone who just throws things out their window all the time. So when you get the wrong idea about someone, you make a judgment about them, you think they are a certain way because of an action they've seen you do. Certainly I do not throw garbage out the window when I drive, but if some blew out while I was driving accidentally, someone might get the wrong idea about me.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "A rough idea." So a rough idea is like an estimate or a guess about how much or how long something will take or how far something is. If someone said to me, "Bob, do you have a rough idea how long it takes you to get to work?" I would say, "It takes about 10 or 15 minutes." I don't know exactly how long it takes, but I have of a rough idea how long it takes. So a rough idea is just an estimate. If I was getting something fixed on my house and if the person said, "I'm not sure how much it's going to cost," I might say, "Hey, can you just give me a rough idea? Will it be $1,000 or $1,500? Just give me a rough idea." So, not an exact amount, but at least something that is in the ballpark. There's another phrase for you to look up.

Anyways, to review, to get the wrong idea. When you get the wrong idea about someone it means you think they are a certain way because of something you've seen them do. And when you want to have a rough idea it can mean kind of an estimate or a guess or an approximation of something.

The geese are certainly flying around today, aren't they? I don't know if you've seen them yet. We'll go look at them later, but first let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aria, "I have a hunch that these short lessons are made for me and people like me. I am relatively new here and I am absolutely enjoying it. I like to riff on the two phrases that you come up with until the next video is out. Thank you, Bob the Canadian." And my response, "You're welcome. I'm glad to hear you are riffing on the phrases."

So I don't know if you saw the video where I talked about riffing. When you riff on something it means you come up with different ways to use it. So for instance, if I say, "I'm going to talk about the word idea today," and then I riff on it, it means I come up with a few different phrases that have the word idea in it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET SOME SHUT-EYE and TO HAVE A HUNCH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to get some shut-eye. Now this is your eye, and this is your eyes shut. And when we say that you need to get some shut-eye, all we really mean is that you need some sleep. Let's say that it's been a long day, and it's 9:30 or 10 o'clock at night. I might say to Jen, ah, you know what, I'm really tired. I need to get some shut-eye. Basically, all I'm saying is that I need to get some sleep. This happens a lot more often in the summer when I'm doing physical labor on the farm. A lot of times I'll work really hard all day, using my muscles, and then at the end of the day, I really feel worn out, and I need some shut-eye. So it basically just means that you need some sleep.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to have a hunch. Now I have a hunch I might have done this phrase already in the past. When you have a hunch, it means that you think something is true, but you don't really have a lot of facts, or details to prove it. Sometimes when police are investigating a crime, they'll have a hunch. You'll hear this a lot on police TV shows, they'll have a hunch. That means they don't necessarily have clues or facts about how to solve the crime, but their brain is just kind of telling them what they should do. I have a hunch that Jen will be home soon actually, because she left about an hour ago, and she just went to do a few errands. So I have a hunch that she'll be home soon. I don't actually know if she'll be home soon. I just think she will be based on a few feelings that I have, and a couple things that I know. So I, she hasn't texted me, and said I'll be home in 10 minutes, but I have a hunch she'll be home soon.

So to review, to get some shut-eye means to simply get some sleep. And it's kind of funny, isn't it? To get some shut-eye, you shut your eyes, and then you sleep. And then to have a hunch means that you think something is true. Not because you have a lot of facts, but simply because you have this feeling, you have a hunch.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Bhardwaj. Hello, Mr. Bob, really appreciate your hard work in preparing these videos. It has helped me gain confidence, and improve my fluency in English. And my response, I'm happy that I can help, Bhardwaj.

So I appreciate the thank you, and I do think these lessons are kind of, I would say they're an acquired taste. In English, when we say something is an acquired taste, it usually means that it's not for everybody. And you have to kind of find a way to use that thing in a way that helps you. So these videos aren't necessarily for everybody, these short English lessons, because I do talk a little quicker for the last two minutes, because I do teach two phrases really, really quickly. And for some people, that's not enough phrases. They wanna learn like 20 phrases at once, but they are fun for me to do. And I'm glad that people do appreciate them. I've never expected this channel to become really, really big, but it is fun for me to do these lessons.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GOOD TO GO and READY TO ROLL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase good to go. In English, when you say you are good to go, it means you are ready. Sometimes when Jen and I are leaving for a trip, Jen will say, are you ready to go? And I'll say, yep, I'm good to go. I'm all ready to leave. I'm all ready to go to our destination. Sometimes it even means just to be prepared to do something. At the beginning of the school year, someone might say to me, hey, Bob, are you good to go? Do you have all of your lessons ready? Are you ready for the first day of school? And I might reply by saying yes, absolutely. I am good to go. A lot of times when I get home from work, I still have to make a little video like this. So I grab all of my camera gear, and then once I have my paper, and my comment, and my camera gear, then I am definitely good to go.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase ready to roll. Now, I think I already taught this phrase about six months ago, but it kind of matches good to go. Good to go and ready to roll are both ways to say that you are ready to do something. So when Jen says, Bob, are you ready to go? I can say, yep, I'm ready to roll. I got my keys, I got my wallet. I got my watch, I got my wedding ring. What else do I usually bring? My phone, I'm ready to roll. So basically, just another way to say that you are ready to do something. And I would even say this at the beginning of a school year. Bob, do you have your lesson plans ready? Are you ready for the first day of school? And I could reply, and say, yep, I'm ready to roll.

So to review, when you are good to go, when you are ready to roll, sorry, the paper's not working right. When you are ready to roll, it means that you are completely and totally ready to do something. I should have worn my mittens today. I guess I wasn't totally good to go when I came out to do this video. I guess I was a little bit good to go.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit. On Monday, we got an unexpected snowstorm here in Hungary. Not only the snow had fallen, but the wind also blew. And now we are looking forward to spring. I have read a lot of idioms with spring. As I got a client for massage on Friday, I can't join you live, but definitely will watch your lesson afterward. And my response, I'm sorry to hear you can't make Friday, but I'm happy that you can watch it later. So thanks, Judit, for that comment.

Yes, sometimes people who like to watch my Friday lesson on my other channel, sometimes they're not able to make it. And that is totally understandable. We are all very, very busy people. I know that for myself, I make sure that I schedule my week as best I can, but sometimes there are things where I'm just not able to make it, where I'm just not able to do it. So I'm glad that when I do my live lessons, it actually is recorded. And then later in the week, people can actually watch it when they have a bit more time. I do still really enjoy doing those Friday lessons, so I'm glad that people are able to enjoy them, and watch them.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PUT INTO MOTION and TO GO THROUGH THE MOTIONS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to put into motion. In English, when you say that you are going to put something into motion, it means you're going to start doing it. Usually it means that you have some new plans, or new ideas that you're going to start to do. A good example would be this. When the school year starts, I have a lot of ideas that I want to put into motion. I have a lot of planning to do. I have a lot of things that I want to get started on. So I think about those new things over the summer. What do I wanna do in my classes this year? And then when the end of August comes, the beginning of September, I put into motion all of those new ideas.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to go through the motions. When we say that someone is going through the motions in English, it means they're just basically doing the bare minimum, maybe at work, or in a relationship. If I was to describe a colleague who was going through the motions, they would come to work, they would do their job. They wouldn't do a good job, they wouldn't do a really bad job, but they would be there. And then at the end of the day, they would go home. They would just be going through the motions. In a relationship, sometimes a husband and wife don't get along anymore, but instead of getting separated or divorced, they just go through the motions. So they still live together, they still eat together. Maybe they just don't do anything fun anymore. And that's kind of sad, but they just go through the motions.

So to review, when you put something into motion, it means that you get it started. Sometimes the government will decide on new things that they want to do. Here in Canada, we don't have to show a vaccine passport to go to a restaurant anymore. So, the government has put into motion the plan to ease the restrictions, so that's kind of cool. And to go through the motions means to just kind of do the basic actions at work, to not do a good job, but not do a bad job, or in a relationship to just kind of stay together, but there isn't really anything there anymore. It's kind of sad, isn't it?

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Alaa. Hello, Mr. Bob, thanks for the lesson. You said that your hayfield is covered by water. Do you grow hay by certain type of seeds, or it grows by itself? And my response was it is a hayfield, so it grows back every spring by itself.

And I picked this comment, because that answer isn't 100% correct. It's mostly correct. When we plant a hayfield, when I plant a hayfield, I do plant it using seeds. And then that hayfield, not sure if you can see it way in the distance over there, that hayfield will grow back every year for about five or 10 years. But it's usually a good idea after about four or five years to work up the ground again, and to plant the hayfield again.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE SCARED STIFF and TO BE BORED STIFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be scared stiff. When you're scared stiff, it just means that you're really, really scared. It means something's happened, and you went kind of like this, like your whole body is stiff as a board. Now I'm exaggerating a bit. We use this phrase, even if your body didn't go like that. I think I told you the story before of how, when I was younger, I hid behind the tree at night. And when my sister walked by, I jumped out, and said boo. And she was definitely scared stiff when I did that. She was also very angry with me. So don't do that. I don't know how many of you like to play practical jokes where you scare people. It's not very nice. And when you do it, sometimes people get so scared, you would describe them by saying that they're scared stiff.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to be bored stiff. Now, I certainly hope this doesn't happen in my classroom. When you're bored stiff, you look like this. It's when you're in a class, or you go watch a movie that's really boring, or you're doing something in life that's just not very exciting or enjoyable. You would say that you're bored stiff. It's just a way of emphasizing that you're really, really bored. You could say that the movie was really, really boring, but you could also say, I was bored stiff during that movie. It just was not very good.

So to review, when you are scared stiff, it means you're really, really scared. And when you are bored stiff, it means that you're really, really bored. I don't know why we have so many ways of saying things in English. Sometimes I feel like we should have less, but it's just another way of saying it. And by the way, I heard both of these phrases in the last week. So they are something, phrases that are very common in English.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Alex. Every time you pick the paper to read out a previous comment to us, it sounds like for me, and the Oscar goes to, and my response is ha ha, I should maybe have music start playing when I have 10 seconds left to talk.

So I'm not sure if you're familiar with the Oscars. The Oscars are awards that are given out in Hollywood for people who did a really good job making a movie, or starring in a movie, or doing the writing for a movie. And when you win an Oscar, the person at the front opens an envelope, and says, and the Oscar goes to. And that's kind of what Alex was talking about there. Whenever I go to read a comment, I reach into my pocket, and I pull it out. And for him, that reminds him of when he's watching the Oscars, and they say, and the Oscar goes to.

And my joke there was that maybe I should have a timer where after I talk for a certain amount of time, the timer goes off, or on the Oscars what happens is the microphone goes down I think. I think when you've talked for too long, the microphone starts to go down. So maybe I should do that. I'm trying to find a spot here where it's not too bright, and not too windy. Maybe I should do that for my videos when I get close to the four minute mark, maybe the microphone should start to go down, or maybe the camera should start to move down. And that would indicate to me that it's time for me to stop talking.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HOLD DOWN THE FORT and TO HOLD OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to hold down the fort." Now a fort is like an old building, like in history when you study when they first settled in Canada, they built forts, these big places where they could stay safely. But nowadays, when we say "to hold down the fort," we mean the person who stays behind when someone else goes somewhere or when other people go somewhere. Here's a good example, later this semester, there may be some class trips at our school. Some students might go on class trips, but I probably won't go. I'll probably stay behind and hold down the fort.

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Sometimes when Jen goes to market, she doesn't need help at market. So I'll stay home and hold the fort. So when you say that you are holding down the fort, it simply means you are one of the people or the person who stays home or stays at work when other people go somewhere. I usually like to be the person who holds down the fort, especially at work. When a lot of people leave and I'm one of the only people in the building, it's very quiet and very peaceful.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to hold off. And in particular, the meaning of hold off that means to delay or wait. Sometimes I have a really good idea and I want to do extra things for my YouTube channel but I hold off because I think I don't want to get too busy. So I just hold off for a bit. That means I wait, that means I delay. Sometimes there's things I want to do outside on the farm. But sometimes when it's the middle of winter I tend to hold off for a little bit. I wait a little while until the weather gets a little bit nicer.

So to review, to hold down the fort means to be one of the people who stays at home or stays at work or stays wherever while other people go somewhere. You just stay back and hold down the fort. And to hold off, one of the meanings of to hold off is to simply wait or to delay before you do something.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, wow, I really folded this one up today, just a minute here. This is from Olrait. "So we could say that during first wave of COVID, we all stayed put, each in his or her home." And I said, that is correct. At the beginning of the pandemic, the governments of the world wanted everyone to stay put. Great example.

So yes, that was from the phrase the other day, to stay put. Kind of similar to hold down the fort, isn't it, when you stay put. It also could be that you're hold, it's not exactly the same meaning, but it also could mean similar to holding down the fort.

Anyways, it is starting to get a little nicer here. The sun is shining. It's a balmy seven degrees today. I know for you, that might be quite cold. We've been getting a lot of rain and snow and rain and snow. at this point in time in Canada, it's usually quite cold at night and quite warm during the day. And so it causes strange things to happen.

Like if you look out at the river, you'll notice that the river, it's flooded and kind of frozen and then it melted and then it froze again. And right now it's kind of half melted. So we're kind of stuck in this little in between time where, yeah, during the day, quite nice. I think I'm pushing the wrong button here. During the day, quite nice. Even wearing a winter jacket, I feel quite warm, but at night, extremely cold. So we'll have to go through this for a few more weeks and then spring should arrive, that

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO STAY PUT and TO STAY OVER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to stay put. When you stay put, it means you stay in one location, and you don't move. I'm using this phrase, because I heard it while I was watching the news last night. They said that the truckers in Ottawa are going to stay put until their demands are met. So you could just use the verb stay, like you could say they're going to stay until their demands are met. But when you say stay put, and, it emphasizes the meaning just a little bit more. Sometimes when you have little children or pets, you want them to stay put while you do something. You don't want them to crawl around, or move, or in the case of an animal, interfere with what you're doing. So you're like, you just need to stay put. Sometimes I say that to Oscar. I'll say, Oscar, just stay put for a minute. I'm going to get you a treat. So, to stay put means to just stay in one location.

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The other verb or phrase I wanted to teach you today is the verb to stay over. Now this simply means to sleep at someone's house. Sometimes our kids will go visit a friend, and sometimes they will stay over. That means they're going to sleep at their friend's house. Jen's parents actually live far away, and sometimes when we drive there, it's such a long distance that we might stay over. So when you stay over, it simply means that you sleep at someone's house for the night.

Sorry, it's a little windy out here, and it's a bit distracting, but let's review. To stay put means to stay in one spot, and to not move. And to stay over means to sleep at someone's house for a night, like, it's been a while actually. We haven't stayed over at Jen's parents' place for a while, mostly because of COVID. When we visit, it's usually really quick, and we usually stay outside.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohammad. Thank you, teacher Bob, for the videos. I have a question. Where do you collect the phrases from? And I responded by saying this. I listen throughout the day. And when I hear someone use a phrase, I make a mental note to create a lesson about it. I usually then search for another phrase that uses a similar word. And you'll notice that today, right? I taught the phrase to stay put, and then I looked for another phrase with the word stay in it, or the word put, just so that you have a little bit of connection between the two. But thanks, Mohammad, for that comment.

Yes, I do teach English lessons that are very, very relevant, if I do say so myself. I am on the lookout all day when I have conversations with other people, when I watch the news, whoa, I'm falling in the snow again. When I watch the news, when I hear students talking, or colleagues talking, when I hear a unique English phrase, I usually take a moment, to use the phrase from yesterday, I take a moment to make a mental note. Sometimes I actually do write it down though, or I email myself. Do you ever do that to remind yourself of something? Email yourself. And then I will make a little lesson on it. And then I do usually look for another phrase that is somewhat related, either using the same words, or maybe even has a similar meaning or connection.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO MAKE A MENTAL NOTE and ON A SIDE NOTE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to make a mental note. When you make a mental note of something, it means you make an extra effort to remember it. Sorry if I'm squinting a lot today, it's brighter out than it looks. I should've worn my sunglasses. I'll make a mental note to bring my sunglasses out next time I make a video when it's sunny. So when you make a mental note like I just did in that example, you don't write it down so that you remember it. You just try really hard to remember it without writing it down, without putting it on a list, without typing it into your phone, or some other way to remember it. After school today, I have to actually go and pick up my daughter from school, from a different school. So I need to make a mental note about that, so I don't forget to do it.

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And on a side note, I'm not sure if you noticed, I did get a haircut. And that is the second phrase. The second phrase is on a side note. When you say on a side note during a conversation, it means you're adding information that's not about the main topic. If you're having a discussion, let's say you're having a discussion about Canada, and you're talking about how you want to have, you want to go on a trip to Canada someday, and you like Canada. And then someone might say on a side note, I think that it's a bad time to visit Ottawa, because there's a big protest there. So it's adding, it's a phrase we use to add a little bit of information to a discussion that maybe isn't part of the main topic that you're discussing. So, like I used it, on a side note, I did get a haircut, and now it's a little colder than I thought out here.

Anyways, to review, to make a mental note of something is to just try and remember it. And when you say like on a side note, before you say something during a discussion, it means you're gonna add some information. Maybe that's important, maybe that isn't important to the discussion that's happening. So on a side note, I did get a haircut. I think I mentioned that three times now. I should stop talking about my haircut.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Bonita. Bob, you're funny today. Thank you for the lessons. And my response, you're welcome, Bonita.

So I guess what I'll say is this. A few things have happened in my life. I wouldn't say that I'm funny, but I would say I'm in a good mood. I've been in a good mood lately for a number of reasons. Number one, I feel way better than I did a few weeks ago. Way better. Number two, I've been walking every day again for about the last five or six days. I get up every morning, and I go for my walk. That just makes me feel good. Number three, the new semester.

Sorry, I'm sinking in the snow here. The new, on a side note, I'm happy I wore my boots today, because the snow, I thought I could walk on top, but I'm kind of crunching through it with every step I take. I'm not sure if you can see that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT'S UNDERHANDED and HANDS DOWN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term that's underhanded. This is a phrase we would use to describe something that's kind of sneaky, maybe even a little bit illegal. When something is underhanded, it means someone's doing something they're not supposed to do, in order to achieve something. Here's a great example. If a politician is in an election, if they are running for office, and if they were to pay people to vote for them, you would probably say that's underhanded. Basically, when you have an election, people are supposed to freely go out and vote for who they think is the best person for the job. And if someone pays everyone they know $5 to vote for them, we would say that's underhanded, meaning that it's deceitful, they're deceiving people, and it's also illegal.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase hands down. When you say something is, well, here's the example. If I was to say, "These are the best cookies I've ever eaten, hands down," it means like decisively. It means like for sure. If you are a fan of a sports team, and they beat the other team hands down, the score, if it was football or something, was probably like 5 to 1, or 10 to 8. If it was basketball, it might be like 105 to 80. You would then say that that team won hands down. So it means like decisively, that there's a clear winner. It means that they for sure accomplished what they were trying to do.

Anyways, let's review. When you describe something by saying "that's underhanded," you're basically saying that's illegal or that's wrong, or someone isn't playing by the rules. I should do that phrase, shouldn't I? To play by the rules. I'll do that in a future video. And if you win something hands down, or if you say something is the best, hands down, it means decisively, it means for sure, it means absolutely.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. It's always a mystery to me where these comments are, it almost fell out of my pocket. This comment is from Helinä. The comment is, "By the way, your hair looks awesome." And my reply, "Thanks, I feel like it's getting a bit long. I might get a haircut this weekend. I like it short."

So I don't talk about my appearance very much, but I have mentioned to many of you in previous videos, that I do like my hair short. That when I was much younger, I had a motorcycle, and when I wore my helmet, when my hair was longer, it would look funny when I took my helmet off. So I ended up getting a really short haircut and I liked it, and I've just kept it that way ever since.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BACKHANDED COMPLIMENT and TO FISH FOR COMPLIMENTS

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term backhanded compliment. A compliment is something you say to someone that's kind of nice. Like if you said, "Your haircut looks good. Your new haircut looks good." Or, "Wow, you look really good in that shirt." But a backhanded compliment is when you give a compliment, but it's actually an insult. Here's a really good example. I use a lot of technology when I make these videos, but I'm also old. So a younger person could give me a backhanded compliment if they said, "Wow, you make really good videos for an old man." So basically they're saying something that sounds nice. "You make really good videos," but then they add the little phrase, "for an old man," which is kind of a little bit of an insult. By the way, no one's ever given me that backhanded compliment, but that would be a good example of what one would sound like.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to fish for compliments. When you fish for compliments, it means you're trying to get someone else to compliment you. You might say something like, "How's my hair look?" Or, "Hey, do you notice anything different about me today?" Both of those phrases would be considered someone fishing for compliments. So when you fish, you go to a river or lake and you try to catch a fish. When you fish for compliments, you say things to try and encourage the other person to say something nice to you. So you could say something like, I could say, "Hey, this is a pretty good video today, isn't it? Let me know in the comments." But you don't have to do that. That would just be me fishing for compliments.

Anyways, to review, a backhanded compliment is a compliment that sounds nice, but is actually an insult or kind of a little bit of an insult. And when you fish for of compliments, it means that you try to get someone else to give you compliments. Yeah, I do it sometimes. Sometimes when I get my haircut, I'll do it. Hey, I'm just putting my gloves on for a sec. It's a little colder than I thought out here.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Noriko. "Wow. Those phrases are really funny. Your camera decided to just go upside down, but the wheels didn't fall off. It kept recording the nice view. Keep yourself warm, sir." In my response I said, "A long time ago, I used to cut out segments like that, but now I feel like it makes the video more authentic."

Yeah, when I first started doing these short videos, I would actually, if I made a little mistake like that or if the camera did something weird, I would edit that out because I thought, "Oh, I want my videos to be really, really good." Here, just a sec here. Oscar, hey, puppy. How you doing? There a little bit of a look at Oscar. Anyways, I used to cut those segments out, but now when something goes wrong while I'm videotaping these little lessons, I just keep the camera running because I feel like it's more authentic.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO THROW SOMEONE UNDER THE BUS and THE WHEELS FELL OFF THE BUS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to throw someone under the bus. Now, this sounds horrible, but it's not something you actually do. You would not actually throw a person under a bus, but if you and someone else do something, and the other person blames you for it, they would be throwing you under the bus. Sometimes this happens in workplaces. Sometimes people work on something, and something goes wrong. And the boss says, who did this? Whose fault was it? And maybe it's two people that did it, and the one person says he did it. They throw that person under the bus. They pretend that they didn't do anything wrong, and they basically say that the other person did it. It's not nice to throw someone under the bus, but it definitely does happen at some workplaces. And it sometimes happens with students too. They'll blame another student for something, they'll throw them under the bus.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the wheels fell off the bus. We use this to describe any situation where things start to go wrong. We sometimes use this to talk about a sports team when they're losing. You could say they were playing really great in the first half, and then the wheels fell off the bus. And in the second half the other team got way more points than they did. So anytime you describe a situation where something's going badly, you could say the wheels fell off the bus, or the wheels are falling off the bus as it happens.

So to review, to throw someone on the bus means to, sorry to throw someone under the bus means to blame them for something that went wrong, maybe at work, or maybe if you're a student doing a group project. And when you say the wheels fell off the bus, it means that something went wrong, and now things aren't going well. Sometimes we just say the wheels fell off too. You could say, oh, in the second half, the wheels fell off.

Let me get the comment out of my pocket here. Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from IOT. Hello, dear teacher, wear a tuque, please. It seems it is cold there, and my response, I will make sure to wear one in the next video. I will make sure to wear one in the next video. Let me make sure I read that right.

Yes, I'm wearing one in this video, because it is severe winter out here right now. You can see that my van is covered in snow. Look how deep this is if I put my hand in here. I could even write on here if I wanted to. I could write hello. Okay, that's not the greatest, but you can see what I'm saying. If we walk along here, let me just do the little spinny thing.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN CHARGE and TO GET A CHARGE OUT OF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, in charge of. When you are in charge of something, it means you're the boss, it means you're the person who has authority. As a teacher, I am in charge of my classroom. I am in charge of the students who are in that room. I have the authority. In some ways, I'm the boss. When you go to work, your boss is in charge of you. Your boss has authority. Your boss can tell you what to do. Your boss is definitely in charge when you are at work.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to get a charge out of. Sorry, I'm a little distracted. There's cats meowing here. I'll show you in a moment. They're waiting for Jen to come home and feed them. Anyways, when you get a charge out of something, it means it's exciting for you. When I go skating, I get a charge out of skating. It reminds me of my youth. It's exciting for me. I do really love to go to the arena and do some skating. I definitely get a charge out of it. So when you get a charge out of something, it means it's exciting for you. It's something you'd like to do. It's something that you enjoy.

So to review, when you are in charge of something, it means you're the boss. You're the person who has the authority. You're the person who can tell other people what to do. You are in charge. And when you get a charge out of something, it means that you're doing something that's exciting for you. Some people get a charge out of maybe driving fast on the road, maybe that's exciting for them. You should never do that. But did I just wave my finger at you? That's a real teacher move. Don't do that. When you get a charge out of something, it's exciting for you, and you enjoy doing it.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. Sorry, I'm laughing at my, don't do that. That's definitely a real teacher move to use your finger like this, to say, don't do that, that's wrong. But let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd Ags. Judging by your energy in this video, I'd say you're feeling 100% now, maybe even 110%. I mean, you were walking into a headwind through some snow while holding the camera and talking. Thank you, strong, Mr. Bob. And my response, I am definitely feeling 100% now, although I still have a short nap in the afternoon.

Yeah, I definitely feel 100%. I feel great. I have to say that I don't feel even the least bit sick anymore. I'm gonna show you some of the cats that we have here as I walk. There's a cat here, there's a cat here. There's a couple of cats here. What has happened, Jen has left to get some groceries. She'll be back probably in about 15 or 20 minutes. But right now is the time when she normally goes to the barn and she feeds the chickens and she feeds the cats. And she usually feeds Oscar around the same time.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO LEND A HAND and A SHOW OF HANDS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to lend a hand. Sometimes you see someone trying to do something. Maybe they're trying to get their groceries into their car in the grocery store parking lot, and they maybe look like they need some help, and then you could lend a hand. When you lend a hand to someone, it means you help them do something. Before I was able to clean my driveway myself, many, many years ago, when we moved here, my neighbor would sometimes come and lend a hand. I just had a small tractor, he had a big tractor, and he would lend a hand, he would help me clean my driveway. I really appreciated that. Good neighbors are awesome, by the way.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is a show of hands. Sometimes when I'm in a meeting, when we're trying to decide something, the person leading the meeting will say, well, let's have a show of hands, who thinks we should do this? And then if you think you should do whatever you're talking about, you put your hand up, and that's called a show of hands. So it's quite often when I'm in a meeting with other teachers, when we're trying to decide something, the person leading the meeting might say, you know what, let's vote on this. Could I see a show of hands for all the people who are in favor of doing whatever we're trying to decide to do.

Anyways, to review, to lend a hand means to give someone help, to help someone out. When you can see that they need someone to help them, you can lend a hand, you can give them a hand as well, by the way. And when you vote on something in a meeting, we sometimes call that a show of hands. I actually hope the audio is working okay. I see my microphone fluttering in the wind here. So I hope that everything is working okay. We'll see when I go back in, and edit this.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Eduardo, cool snow view. By the way, is it possible that it snows, even though the sun is so bright? I saw that in the last seconds. And my response, I think the snow was blowing off the roof of my shed.

So no, it doesn't usually snow when it's sunny, although sometimes there's clouds above, and then you can see the sun in the distance. But what I think was happening the other day, Eduardo, I'm not sure if you can see it, maybe I should walk out further, but sometimes the snow ends up on the roof of my shed. And then when it's really, really windy, that snow blows off the roof onto the driveway, and onto people who are just kind of standing there.

It's a little windy today. I have to go out here, and grab my recycle bins. By the way, in Canada, we have our recycling, and our garbage gets picked up by a big truck, the recycling truck or the garbage truck comes. And you can see out at the road there, my recycle bins and my compost bin are laying there. We also have truck that picks up our compost. So as soon as I'm done this video, in about a minute, I will grab those, and I will bring them back into the house. It's actually, I might have to clean the driveway actually today.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO EASE BACK INTO and TO BE AT EASE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to ease back into. when you ease back into something, it means that you were doing it and you stopped doing it. And you're going to slowly start doing it again. You're not going to jump in with both feet and start doing it like a crazy person. You're going to slowly start doing it again. You're going to ease back into it. The example I'm sure you're expecting from me is this. I'm going to ease back into making videos on this channel. I'm planning to do a couple this week and I'll do a couple next week. I'm going to ease back into it. I'm not going to jump right in and start doing three a week. I'm just going to ease back in. I'm going to slowly, but surely start making videos again on this channel, so expect one today and I'll do another one for Friday. And then maybe next Wednesday again.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to be at ease, when you are at ease, you are calm and you are relaxed. Sometimes when I come home from work, after a stressful day, I will have a cup of tea and I will sit on the couch and watch the news and then eventually I will be at ease. I will just feel calm, I will feel pleasant. I will feel like the day has been a nice day and that I had a good day and I will be at ease.

So to review, when you ease back into something, it means that you were doing it, you stopped doing it. And then you're going to slowly start doing it again. You're going to ease back into it and to be at ease simply means to be calm and to be relaxed.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from actually, I don't think I remembered to bring the comment out let me check my time here a minute 46. Okay, I'm going to have to run to the house and grabbed the comment, I know it's from Snazzy, but I seem to have left it in the house. As I'm easing back into this, I seem to be forgetting some things. I'll be right back, okay, I'm back. And I have the comment it's from Snazzy and Snazzy says nice to see you back. And my response is, thanks Snazzy, it's good to be back.

So yeah, my last video from two weeks ago was me declaring that I was back at it, me saying that I was making videos again and that I was back at it and I was going to make lots of videos for you. Here you wanna see where I'm walking? It's actually quite snowy out here, but yes, in the last video I proudly declared. I was back at it and then I promptly got sick and didn't make videos for two and a half, three weeks. So sorry about that but now again, I'm going to ease back into it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BACK AT IT and BACK IN THE DAY

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase back at it. You can see here I have the entire sentence, I'm back at it. When you say you're back at something it means that you were doing it and then you stopped doing it and now you're doing it again. I was definitely making short videos on this channel. I was making short English lessons and then a couple of weeks ago I took a break and now I'm back at it. So my plan, this video, you're watching it on a Wednesday. There'll be another one on Friday and next week there'll be one on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I'm back at it. You'll get short English lessons three times a week again for the rest of 2022. There might be the odd week here and there where I take a day off, but for sure you'll be getting three a week, but don't I take one day a month off? I think I do. I'm back at it, but I'm a little rusty. It's hard to remember how to do this.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase back in the day. When we say back in the day in English, we're talking about a time a long time ago. So I could say back in the day I used to smoke cigarettes. When I was in my early twenties, I was a cigarette smoker. So I could say back in the day when I talk about that. I can say back in the day I was a really good student when I was in school. So the phrase back in the day is used to talk about a time that was a long time ago. And usually you're remembering things fondly, but it doesn't have to be I guess. You could say back in the day I used to drive without my seatbelt on. Can you believe that? That was when I was a teenager, I don't do that anymore. I always have my seatbelt on when I drive now.

Anyways, to review, when you say I'm back at it, it means that you were doing something, you've, you stopped doing it for a little while and now you've started to do it again. So I'm back at it when it comes to English lessons here on this channel and on my other channel too by the way. And when you say back in the day, you're simply talking about a time long ago when you're remembering something that you used to do.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ekaterina. I am sorry, but where is the snow? And my response, you'll see in the next video.

So I know it's been a couple of weeks and things have changed a little bit around here. As you can see behind me, we have certainly moved into the winter season. It's January, there is snow everywhere. In fact, you might like this. Let me spin you around. On this tree here you can see there's beautiful little layers of snow on the branches. We certainly are now in full winter mode. It's minus seven right now. I know I'm outside with no gloves and no winter hat, but I'm hey, I'm Canadian. We're kind of used to this. And I'm not going to be outside for too long.

You can see behind me that the river is a little bit frozen. I don't want to walk too far out because it's quite windy. So I'll try to stay where I'm sheltered from the wind and still give you a little bit of a view of that. So the wind, the river has frozen, but the ice is nowhere near safe to go on right now. The ice is very, very thin. In fact in some spots you can still see a little bit of water.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET AN EARFUL and TO GIVE AN EARFUL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "to get an earful". When you get an earful, it means that you've done something wrong. and someone in authority over you, someone like your parents or someone who's in charge of you, tells you that you did something wrong, you get an earful. So you were maybe told not to do something and you do it anyways, and then you get an earful. When I was a kid, let me turn this around. When there were puddles like this in our driveway, I remember there was a time where I stomped through the puddles and then I went in the house and I got the floors all muddy. I didn't take my boots off when I came in and did I ever get an earful from my mum? My mum was quite angry with me and I definitely got an earful from her. So when you get an earful, it means you do something that you're not supposed to do, and someone tells you that you did it. I think you get to see Jen in the background today.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is "to give an earful". And I kind of find myself on the other side of the coin now. I am now the parent. So the other night, one of my kids went out and they came home at two in the morning, and so I gave them an earful. I didn't actually do that. I mean, when you say, give an earful, it means you're kind of being a little bit mean. I think I'm actually a fairly nice dad. I just kind of said, Hey, that was pretty late. Try to be home on time next time. So it didn't really give that, my kid an earful. I think when you give someone an earful, you speak loudly and you're maybe a little bit angry, even.

So to repeat, when you get an earful, it means you've done something wrong and someone tells you about it, usually a parent or maybe a teacher. And when you give someone an earful, you're the person telling someone else that they did something they weren't supposed to do.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Padma. "Of course, spending time with family has to take center stage during Christmas vacation. By the way, a blue sky and a snowy white backdrop looks wonderful. Wish you and your family, a Merry Christmas in advance." And my response, "Thanks Padma. I agree visiting with family should take center stage." You know, especially during holidays.

Like the holiday season is a great time to, oh, that's bright. Is a great time to spend with family and friends. Here, gatherings will be quite small because of that pandemic thing that I don't really enjoy talking about anymore. But we are still going to have some gatherings. And I think it'll be good to spend a little bit of time with family and friends. There will be nowhere near the normal size parties that we normally have like two years ago. Most gatherings will be only about five or 10 people, and most people will do things safely, but I am looking forward to spending a little bit of time with my mom and with my siblings. That should be a lot of fun.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases LEFT, RIGHT, and CENTRE and TAKE CENTRE STAGE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase left, right and center. We use these three words, you know, you have your left hand, your right hand, and then there's obviously the center of something, but we use these three words, we use this phrase to talk about something that's happening a lot or something that's happening quickly. Sometimes when we go to market the bouquets are really beautiful and people buy them left, right, and center. Basically, what we're saying is people are coming from every direction and they're buying them. Lately in Canada they're handing out rapid test kits for people to test for COVID before Christmas break, before they get together with their families, and people are grabbing them left, right, and center. When you go to the places where they're handing them out, people are grabbing them left, right and center. Everyone's grabbing them from every direction.

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The second phrase I wanted to take, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase take center stage. When something or someone takes center stage they are the main thing or the thing that you focus on. Let's say I go to a party and I've gotten a promotion at work, and someone at the party announces that they just got engaged to be married. I would let that take center stage. Instead of mentioning my promotion I would just think, "Oh, I'll just be quiet for a bit and let them enjoy this moment. Because announcing that you're engaged to be married should take center stage in a situation like that. I'll tell everyone about my promotion later."

So to review, when something is happening left, right, and center it means it's happening a lot. It's happening quickly, and in a way it's happening in every direction. And when you let something take center stage, you let it take priority. You let it be the main focus of that situation.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from write Winter. "When I was young I saw the phrase late John Smith, and believe that Mr. Smith was being late all the time. Thanks for your teaching." And my response. English speakers choose their words carefully so as to avoid confusion. When we say the late John Smith, it means he has passed away or he's died. The John Smith who is always late refers to the person with that name who is late a lot.

So kind of a reference, write Winter, back to the last lesson when I talked about the phrase of late. And yes, you have to be careful as an English speaker which phrase you use, because if you say the late Joe Namath, is that a football player, he hasn't died. I shouldn't even mention real names. The late Joe Smith would refer to someone who has passed away. And the Joe Smith who is always late would refer to a Joe Smith who just can't be on time ever.

Hey, I'm just walking around out here. It's a nice afternoon here in Ontario, Canada. There's a beautiful layer of snow. For those of you that watched my live lesson on Saturday, you'll know that there was a little bit of snow coming down. It did actually all melt and now it did come again in the night. So that's been kind of nice.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OF LATE and MY LATE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, of late. Now, this is just another way in English of saying lately. It's another way to talk about something that's been happening in the recent past. I could say something like this, I've really been enjoying teaching of late. That simply means that in the last few weeks, I've really enjoyed teaching. I could say something like this, I haven't been feeling well of late. So that simply means that I've been feeling a little bit sick for the last few days or the last few weeks. By the way, I'm not feeling sick. I actually feel really, really good. So when you say of late, it's just simply another way of saying lately or something that's been happening recently. The geese have been back of late, by the way. I can't show them to you because it's too windy to record over there. But the geese of late have been back and they're getting really loud again.

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Anyways, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is a sad phrase. And it's the phrase my late uncle or my late father or my late brother. It's a way to talk about someone who has died. When you use the word late in English and then you mention a person, you're talking about someone who's passed away. You're talking about someone who's died. So you might hear people say things like this. My late father used to really enjoy Christmas, or my late uncle was really, really funny when we would sit around the campfire in the summer. So when you use the word late and you talk about a person, you're referring to someone who has passed away. You're referring to someone who has died.

So to review, when you say of late, you simply mean recently. Like it's been really windy of late here. I'll show you that in a minute. And when you use the word late to talk about a person, you're talking about someone who is no longer with us on this planet. So kind of a sad way to use the word late.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Julia. Hi, dear teacher. Didn't you ever think of installing a portable generator to keep your home running when the power goes out? It probably couldn't keep the whole house, but at least the most important items like fridge and light so your lifestyle won't be disrupted that much. And my response was this, we usually only think about that when the power is out, then the power comes back on and we go for a year or two with no power outages and forget.

So, yes, Julia, I think that's kind of a funny thing about buying a generator. They're not incredibly expensive. I only think about buying one when the power goes out and then when the power comes back on, I just kind of forget, and I don't actually go buy one.

So anyways, if you're wondering why I'm just walking along my shed here, it's because it's incredibly windy out today. It has been really windy of late. I'm not sure why. It's supposed to be winter like I've mentioned in my other videos. But lately, we've been having these wind storms. You can even see, I have to fix this door on the shed. It's kind of pushed out a little bit. The wind is pushing it out. So I'm just kind of walking along my shed and talking today.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases DON'T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET and A NEST EGG

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." This phrase means don't rely on one source of money for your life or don't rely on one thing in order to have a livelihood. Here's a good example. Jen and I grow flowers and we sell them at the farmer's market, but we also sell them at the road, we have a little roadside stand and we have people come to the farm and buy flowers. We have multiple different ways to sell our flowers because we don't want to put all our eggs in one basket. We don't want to rely on just the farmer's market in order to make money so we have diversified the amount of places from which we get money when we sell our flowers. So when you say don't put all your eggs in one basket, it means don't rely on one place for a source of income or for something else that you need.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, a nest egg. A nest egg is simply an amount of money that you've put away. Sometimes when you work, you have enough money to pay your bills and there's nothing left over, but sometimes you have a little bit leftover and you could put it in an envelope and keep it in your house or maybe you put it in a savings account in the bank. We would call that money that you are saving a nest egg. It's just a small amount of money that you set aside each week or each month for something you want to buy in the future or maybe even for retirement or a time in the future when you know you'll need more money. So it's always nice when you make a little bit of money, a little bit more money than you need so that you can have a nest egg.

Anyways, to review. When you say, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket", it means don't rely on one place or one thing for all of your income or something else that you need. And a nest egg is, of course, when you put some money away, maybe under your mattress, of your bed, we don't keep money under our mattress, but usually it means you have a savings account at the bank or another place where you save some money.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Andrew. When you encounter a snake, look at its eyes. If the pupils are round, it isn't a dangerous one. If the pupils are like cats have, run away. And my response is "Thanks for the advice. If I see a snake though, I don't think I'll be getting that close. LOL." So thanks Andrew for that comment.

I think you were being a little bit funny because I'm not sure anyone would really want to get super close to a snake in order to figure out what color or what the pupils of the snake's eye looked like.

Anyways, I'm just going for a little walk. There's two things I wanted to mention today. I think in my lesson last Friday on my other channel, I mentioned the word intense. We are having some intense sunlight here today. When you say something is intense, it means it's very, very bright. The sun is definitely very intense today. And we also had a bit of a windstorm. You'll notice over here, I was planning to cut this dead tree down anyways, but you'll notice that the wind kind of took care of that for me. Let me get my shadow out of the way. You'll see that this tree, which was dead, decided to fall over.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GO ON AND ON and TO GO BALLISTIC

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to go on and on. This is a phrase we use sometimes when we're talking about someone who talks a lot and won't stop talking. You could say, oh, whenever I talk to him, he has a tendency to go on and on. He just talks about stuff, and he never stops talking about it. Sometimes when people are upset, they'll go on and on when they talk to you about it. You could also use this to describe a trip or a movie. Like you might be watching a movie that's four hours long, and as you sit there, you might think, is this movie going to go on and on forever? It should end soon, shouldn't it? So when you say that something goes on and on, a conversation or a movie, it just means that it doesn't seem to ever stop.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to go ballistic. So the word ballistic comes from, I think, bullets or missiles. Like it's the trajectory of how they fly. I don't know. I don't know the science, but when you say that someone goes ballistic, when you say that guy, sometimes he has a tendency to go ballistic, it means they get really, really angry. When someone goes ballistic, it means they're not just angry. They're like level 10 angry. They're just losin' it. They're just saying all kinds of things and yelling and screaming and just, yeah, they're going ballistic.

So to review, when someone goes on and on, or when you say that someone tends to go on and on, it means that they talk and don't seem to stop, or if you're describing a trip like, wow, this trip seems to go on and on, it just means that it doesn't seem like it's ending, and when you say that, the phrase to go ballistic simply means to get really, really angry.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. So this is harder in the winter when I try to get the papers in and out of my pocket. This comment is from Alex. Bob, I'd probably be scared of snakes in a place like that, especially by the riverbank. It's a good place for snakes in tropical countries like the one I live in. I don't know about there in your neck of the woods. Have you ever seen any snake or scorpion there? And my response is this. I actually live in a very safe place when it comes to wildlife. We only really have one small type of snake in this area called a garter snake, and it isn't dangerous, no scorpions either. Besides winter, this is a fairly safe place to live.

So yeah, as some of you might know, as you watch these videos and get to know me a little bit better, I really don't like snakes. I'm scared of snakes. So I'm quite happy that I live in a country where the only snake we have is this tiny little snake, maybe up to 20 centimeters long, maybe 30. It doesn't bite. It's not, I was gonna say poisonous, but I think I'm supposed to say venomous. Actually, it does bite. I got bit by one as a kid, but it's not dangerous to get bit by them. They're tiny. They kind of live in the grass, and they don't really bother anybody.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DROP EVERYTHING and EVERYTHING COMES TO THOSE WHO WAIT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to drop everything. When you say to someone that you're going to drop everything, it means you're going to stop what you're doing, so that you can go and do something else. If my mom called me, and said I'm not feeling well today, can you pick me up, and take me in to have a COVID test? I would drop everything. If I was working at home, if I was making supper, whatever I was doing, I would turn the oven off. I would jump in my car. I would drop everything. I would drive over there, pick her up, and take her in to get a test, or just take her to the doctor. Luckily that's never happened. I've never had to drop everything, because my mom was sick. But I think you can see the point. If you drop everything, it means you stop doing what you're doing to go and do something else.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is actually an old English saying. And it's the saying everything comes to those who wait. So this is a saying about patience. It basically means that if you wait long enough, eventually you will get what you want. Sometimes you must feel this way when you're learning English, you must think how long is it going to be before I can think in English? Well, everything comes to those who wait. So if you just work hard, do what you need to do, eventually you'll be able to think in English, and have amazing English conversations.

So to review, when you drop everything, it means you quit what you're doing immediately to go and do something else. By the way, if you are cooking, and you need to drop everything, make sure you turn the stove or the oven off before you leave to go do something else. And the phrase everything comes to those who wait simply means that if you are patient, you will eventually get what you want. If you work hard, then eventually you will get it. Sorry, I'm not sure if you can hear the dog barking, it's a little distracting for me, but I doubt you can hear it.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Biruk. Teacher Bob, is it possible to be an English teacher on YouTube when I become fluent? And my response is for sure, anything is possible.

So thanks for that comment, Biruk. I do think that's possible. In fact, some people have done that. Some people have actually learned a language so well that they eventually teach it. I have to be careful as I walk here. What I was gonna mention is this. Even if you don't become a YouTuber with your English skills, even if you just learn English well enough to make videos of yourself speaking English, it's a great thing. I'm walking through the woods here, I'm gonna trip. It's a great thing to do to practice your English. They say that one of the best ways to really know if you know something is to try and teach it. So even if you don't become a YouTuber, I would certainly recommend to all of you that you try to teach an English lesson, and record yourself on video, just to see how it goes. You might be surprised how well it works, and how much it helps you remember, because you have to do a lot of preparation in order to teach something.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WALK AWAY WITH SOMETHING and TO GET AWAY WITH SOMETHING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to walk away with something". Now this phrase has two meanings. The first meaning means to win something easily. Maybe if you think about your favorite football team, if they won a game eight to one, we would say that they walked away with it, that they walked away with the win. It was really easy for them to win. But this phrase also means, the phrase "to walk away with something" also means to steal something. A few years ago, Jen and I had some flowers for sale on our roadside stand. We had a few bouquets out there and someone walked away with a few of them. That means they came, they took the bouquets and they didn't pay for them. So when you say someone walks away with something, it can mean that they've won something easily or that they've stolen something. So that's the meaning of that phrase.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "to get away with something". When you get away with something, it means you do something you're not supposed to do, and you don't get caught. Sometimes this happens at school. Sometimes students do things they're not supposed to do and they get away with it. Maybe they cheat while they're taking a test and the teacher doesn't catch them. In that situation, we would say that they're "getting away with it". They're doing something they're not supposed to do, and no one is catching them doing it. Sometimes this happens when people walk away with something. They actually end up getting away with it because no one actually catches them doing it.

So to review, when you walk away with something, it can mean that you won something easily, or it can mean that you stole something. Well, not you. Well, hopefully you don't steal things. I know you guys don't steal things. That wouldn't be good. And to get away with something simply means to do something you're not supposed to do and to not get caught, to not suffer the consequences of doing something you're not supposed to do. It does happen once in a while in school, by the way.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Eugene. Hi, Mr. Bob. I am a little bit confused. Your favorite season of the year is winter, but you want to be a bear and sleep through it. You definitely should be a polar bear. And my response was this. I like winter for two reasons. It's really nice to be outside in the snow, but it's also really nice to be inside in a cozy house. That's where the desire to sleep comes in.

So yeah, I know it might sound a little bit confusing. It might sound confusing for someone who says they like winter to then say that they want to be a bear and sleep, but yes, there are two really cool things about winter. The first thing is it's awesome to be outside in all the snow. And the second thing is that it's really nice to be inside a really warm house, especially if you have a wood stove or something else that heats the house in a way that makes it super warm and super cozy. Anyways, I wanted to, oh, by the way, thank you Eugene, for that comment.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT'S GETTING OLD and OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "That's getting old!" Now I should mention, I think I did this phrase a couple of years ago, but I did just hear this the other day again. It's something we say when someone tells the same joke over and over again, and it's not funny anymore. Or they're saying something, that's getting old, the geese flying by making noise. That's getting old. It's when you refer to something that was maybe nice, or amusing or funny, or didn't bother you at one time, but because it happens over and over again, you're getting tired of it. You would then say that's getting old. I once worked with a guy that always called me Bub instead of Bob. It was kind of a funny thing that he did, but eventually I just said, hey, you know what? That's getting old. My name's Bob, not Bub, just use my real name.

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Anyways, oh, I'm losing track of where I am. The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "Old enough to know better". So we use this phrase when someone, usually a younger person who is a teenager, or maybe in their twenties, when they do something and they should have known not to do it. Maybe they drive their car too fast and they go in the ditch or something like that. We would say, man, they were old enough to know better. They did something that they were old enough they should have been wise enough as well not to do that thing. Sometimes I see teenagers do things like that. They do things where you're like, you know what? You're old enough to know better. You're old enough to know what you're doing is wrong or that you shouldn't be doing it.

Anyways to review, when you say that's getting old, you're referring to something that is no longer funny. Like those geese going by, that's getting old for me. I mean, I like the geese. It's cool to hear them honk sometimes, but they seem to do it every time I start making a video and that's getting old. And when you say that someone is old enough to know better, it means that they have gotten to the age where, when they do certain things, they should know whether it's good or bad to do that.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Dúlio. Blackbirds singing in the dead of night. It's what they sing in the song Blackbird by the Beatles. And my response was great reference to a great song.

So Dúlio was referring to a song called Blackbird where they have that line in the dead of night, which is a lot like the phrase I taught you in the previous video, right? In the dead of night or in the dead of winter. So thanks Dúlio for that.

I'm not gonna walk around too much today because it's extremely windy out here. And if I was to say something about something that's getting old, I would also say that trying to make videos when it's windy is getting old. I do love going outside, but sometimes it's just a little too windy.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE DEAD OF NIGHT and THE DEAD OF WINTER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase the dead of night. When we say the dead of night, we mean the very middle of the night. Like the darkest point of the night. When I go to bed at 10 o'clock at night, sometimes I get up in the middle of the night, because I have to go to the washroom, or I'm really thirsty. So if it's like one or two o'clock in the morning, or three o'clock in the morning, you could say it's the middle of the night, but you could also say it's the dead of night. They sometimes use this in movies or TV shows that are really scary. They'll say like I saw something when I was walking outside in the dead of night. So in the dead of night simply means the middle of the night

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Right now it's snowing outside. And the second phrase I wanted to teach you is the dead of winter. Notice it's the same phrase almost, but instead of the evening or the night, I'm talking about a season. Right now, it is just about December. I think you're watching this on December 1st actually. I'm recording it on November 30th. It's actually the beginning of winter. It's not the dead of winter yet. When we get to the end of January, when it's really cold, when it's -15 Celsius outside, and there's three feet of snow, we would say that that is the dead of winter.

So to review, when you say it is the dead of night, it means it's the middle of the night. When you're old like me, you tend to get up once or twice in the middle of the night, usually to go to the bathroom. But yeah, that's kind of a funny thing when you get old. When I was younger, I just slept through the night. Now I usually get up at least once to go to the bathroom. And usually I get a drink of water, which makes me have to go to the bathroom a few hours later. Maybe I should stop doing that. Anyways, and when you talk about the dead of winter, you're talking about the middle of the winter, usually in January, right now, it's just the beginning.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Jesús. Hi, teacher Bob, regards from Mexico. Why do you say is actually a term, and not only is a term? Why actually, thank you. Have a nice snow day, and God bless you. And my response is this. It is an extra word that is used to emphasize something. In this case, I used it to subtly point out that I had made, that I had misspoke.

So in the last video, I did say that, let me walk for a little bit. I did say, oh, this is actually a term, because initially I had said it was a phrase, but it's not actually a phrase. Wow, this is really low down. I should crank my camera up a little bit. You're gonna go for a little ride here. I wanted you to be able to see out the window. So there we go. So in the last video, I showed one word, and I initially said phrase, but one word isn't a phrase. A phrase is a collection of words. So I said something like, it's actually a term. I used the word actually to kind of emphasize, and subtly point out that I had misspoke, that I had made a mistake.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AS WHITE AS SNOW and SNOWBIRD

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, 'as white as snow'. When something is really, really white, when it's pure white, we describe it as being 'as white as snow'. Can you see why? Snow is incredibly white. This morning, when I woke up, I looked out the window and I saw that we had a fresh blanket of snow outside. So I quickly grabbed my new hat, which says Canada on it, by the way. And I grabbed my camera. I had been waiting to teach this phrase for awhile. It kind of ties in with this Friday's, this past Friday's lessons, lesson on color. Sorry, it is early in the morning, I'm having trouble talking. When we see something that is really, really white, we often say it's 'as white as snow'. And I think you can see why.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is actually a term and it's a Canadian term. It's the term 'snowbird'. A snowbird is an older Canadian who goes and lives in Florida or in the Southern United States during the winter. Right now, it's the time of year, where many snowbirds, older Canadians who are retired, who don't really like this so much, who don't like the cold weather and the snow, they often get in their cars and they drive to Florida in the winter. So a snowbird is a Canadian who goes and lives in Florida or in another Southern state in the winter. Last year, they didn't go. They weren't able to cross the border, but this year they are definitely able to go. And they're heading out in droves right now, the older people who like to go to Florida, the snowbirds are definitely heading out this month and next month to go to Florida and to enjoy some of that good, good sunshine that we don't seem to have today.

Anyways, to review, when you say something is as white as snow, you mean that it's very, very white. It's basically this color that you see behind me. And a snowbird, this is a very Canadian term. It's a term for a person who is retired, who doesn't like winter and who goes and lives in the United States, in the Southern United States where it's warm during the winter months.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Magdalena. 'Bob, you have really beautiful spruce trees. I really like them.' And my response, 'I agree. Spruce trees are really nice. I wish we had planted more of them years ago.'

So yes, I am going to walk over there now. Thanks Magdalena for that comment. I do wish that years ago, Jen and I had planted more spruce trees. In the winter, as I mentioned, they just look really beautiful in the snow. You'll notice that as I walk towards them, the ground around the spruce trees is nice and white from the snow. And you'll notice that the spruce trees themselves have a really nice kind of a little layer of snow on them. And so, yes, it is really nice to have trees like this on our property. Let me get them in the frame a little better. The camera really wants to look at me, it doesn't want to look at the trees.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HAVE AN IMPACT and TO HAVE A HAND IN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to have an impact. Normally you have an impact on someone. You can have an impact on something as well, but the most common usage of this phrase is to say that you have an impact on someone, or someone has an impact on you. This means that they have influenced you. They have helped you during your life in some way. Here's a good example. When I was in high school, a teacher said to me, hey, you're really good at French. Maybe you should become a French teacher. That teacher had an impact on me. That teacher influenced decisions I made in my life. So definitely that teacher had an impact on me. Hopefully that makes sense, that's what that phrase means.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to have a hand in. When you have a hand in something, it means you means you are involved in it. Let's say you're planning a party for someone in your family. And you are the person who goes to get all of the snacks and treats. You would say that you had a hand in planning that party. So when you have a hand in something, it means you are involved in it. It means you are one of the people who is planning it, and doing work so that it happens.

Let's review though. When you have an impact on someone, or when someone has an impact on you, it means that one person is influencing the other person, usually in a positive way. And when you have a hand in something, it means you are involved in planning it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I know it looks nice on the camera for you, but it's actually getting dark out here. It's a little late. This comment is from Padma. Except Christmas trees, all other trees have lost leaves. It seems they too are ready for winter. And my response is yes, we had a lot of rain and wind the last couple of weeks, and most of the leaves have blown off.

So a little bit of a tree tour. Let me lean back a bit. Yes, you could see that all of the trees behind me, the leaves have fallen. In fact, you can see where they've fallen in just a moment. They have all fallen on the ground, but you can see in the distance, Padma was referring to these trees, I think, on my property. These are what are called blue spruce. Blue spruce trees do not lose their leaves. We have three of them here. I don't know if you can see the other one in the background there. They do not lose their leaves, and they look a lot like Christmas trees. It is very nice in the winter when it snows a lot. And when the spruce trees, we also have some pine trees on other parts of our property. I'm not sure if you can see them. It's really nice when the spruce trees and the pine trees, and we don't have a lot of fir trees here, but when those three types of trees are sitting, like when it snows, and the ground is all white, and these nice green trees are sitting in a nice white landscape, it just looks really, really beautiful.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms LET SLEEPING DOGS LIE and DOG-TIRED

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, let sleeping dogs lie. This is a phrase we use to talk about a situation where there was a conflict or an argument, and it's now settled down, and there's a bit of peace. And then, if someone wants to start arguing again, we say, hey, it might be best right now to let sleeping dogs lie. If you're having a moment of peace, if two people are getting along, it might be a good idea to just let sleeping dogs lie. No need to start the argument again. No need to say something that annoys another person. No need to start to do things that are annoying when you have a little bit of peace. So, if you were fighting with someone, and you guys came to a resolution, and you weren't fighting anymore, and then if the other person wanted to start fighting again or arguing, you could say, hey, let's just let sleeping dogs lie, let's just enjoy this moment of peace.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, dog-tired. I was hoping Oscar would be in this video, but he's running around over there right now, maybe we'll catch him later. When you're dog-tired, it means you're really, really tired. At the end of a long day's work, sometimes I'm dog tired. Sometimes I'm just really tired at the end of a long day. I'm gonna turn a little bit here. Oh, that's a little bit too bright, sorry. Oscar is out there, we'll see him in a bit.

Anyways, to review, when you say let sleeping dogs lie, it means that there was a conflict, and it has now ended, and if someone says something to start the conflict again, in order to tell them that you don't want them to, you say, hey, let's just let sleeping dogs lie. And if you are really, really tired, if you worked a long day, and you have done a lot of physical labor, you might say, oh, I'm just dog-tired right now. It's just a way of saying that you're really, really tired.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Qiu Park. The river level now is a bit lower than usual, right? It looks like a winter view already, appreciate your lesson. And my response was, yes, it is much lower. We were able to clean up the electric fence, and put away all our irrigation pipes. We're almost ready for the first snowfall here. Just a couple of more things to do.

So thanks, Qiu Park for that comment. Yes, the river, it's a little bright, and it's a little far away, but if you can see in the distance, the river is at a more normal level right now, and we're almost ready for winter. In a minute, you'll hear some crunching sounds, because if I spin you around, you'll see that there's no snow on the ground, but we do have ice. We have a little bit of ice on the puddles around here. It definitely went below zero last night.

I'm gonna walk this way, and see if we can see Oscar. Maybe I'll call him. Mm, whistling isn't working, because my lips are so cold. I'll try just calling them. Oscar, come here, pup. Come on! Come on, boy. Come on. When he gets here, he might be dog-tired. Come on, puppy, come on. Oh, he sees that I have the camera. He's not too happy about that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A SLIM CHANCE and BY ANY CHANCE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "a slim chance". When you say there is a slim chance that something will happen, it means that it might happen. It means that there's a chance it won't happen, but there's also a chance that it will happen. A slim chance. Today, it said that there is a 10% chance of rain today. That's a pretty slim chance that it will rain. There's actually more of a chance that it won't rain, but there is a slim chance that it will rain. There's also a slim chance that as you watch this English lesson, you might not understand me. I might speak too quickly at a certain point in time. There's always a slim chance when I make these lessons that I'm going to speak too quickly. I try to speak clearly. I don't speak super slow, but I don't speak super fast but there is a slim chance that I might actually talk a little too fast during this lesson.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "by any chance". Now I use this when I ask a question to make the question somewhat polite. I'll sometimes say things like this, "You don't, by any chance, know how to get to the airport." "You don't, by any chance, know how to get to the museum." It's a little phrase I add that basically means, is it possible that you know this? And it makes the question a little bit more polite. I used to ask this question a long time ago, because I used to smoke. And I used to say every once in a while to someone, "You don't, by any chance, have a light, do you?" And that would mean I was asking if someone had a lighter. By the way, I smoked cigarettes when I was a lot younger for a couple of years, it was really bad. I shouldn't have done that. Smoking is bad for you. So, but during that time, I would sometimes say to people, "Hey, you don't, by any chance, have a lighter, do you?" You see how the question is formed? It's kind of weird, eh? You wouldn't, by any chance, have a lighter. Or you don't, by any chance, have a lighter, do you? We kind of put the negative at the beginning and then by any chance, but it's a polite way to ask something.

So to review, when there's a slim chance of something happening, it means that it might happen, but probably not. And when you use the phrase, "by any chance", when asking a question, it makes the question a little bit more polite. You might actually ask this question to someone. You might say, "You don't, by any chance, speak English, do you?" And if they say yes, you could have a cool English conversation.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Shahd Ammar. "OMG, Bob, is that a lake behind you?" I wanna see it, it's amazing." "Nope, not a lake, just a river." This is my response. "It's really nice and peaceful to walk along the banks, especially in the early spring, sometimes in the winter it freezes thick enough that snowmobiles drive on it. That isn't as peaceful."

I think I've talked about this before. One of the interesting things about living along the river is that people use it for recreation. Recreation is when you do something for fun. So I don't mind when people come in a small boat and fish. I don't mind when people go by in a canoe. But sometimes people go by on their jet skis or Sea-Doos and they're really loud and they disturb the water. And in the winter, a lot of people come by on their motorcycles, which are really loud, and they like to go by in the middle of the night when I'm trying to sleep. My bedr

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SECOND-GUESS YOURSELF and GUESS WHAT?

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to second-guess yourself. When you second-guess yourself, it means you've made a decision, but now you're doubting whether that was a good decision. Right now, I'm wearing a jacket, and it's a little colder than I expected. So I'm starting to second-guess myself. I'm starting to think about the decision I made to put on a jacket, and wonder if that was a good decision. It would have been a better decision, I think, to put on a winter coat. It's a little chillier than I thought. So when you second-guess yourself, it means you made a decision to do something in life, and now you're kind of wondering if that was a good decision, if it was a good idea that you made.

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The second phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase guess what? This is a phrase we use when we're talking to someone when we have news to share, but we want the person to try and guess what that news is. I could walk into my sister's house, and say, guess what? And she could say, I don't know, you're going on a vacation? And I would say, nope. And she might say, ah, you're buying a new van? And I would say, nope. And she might say, ah, let me see. I'm trying to think of something that I am doing. She might say, oh, you're going to go visit mom today? And I would say, yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. So when you say guess what, you're being kind of playful with someone. You want to tell them about something you're going to do, but you don't want to tell them right away. You want them to try and guess, to try and maybe take a few guesses at what you're going to do. Hopefully that made some sense. I was having trouble explaining it there at the end.

But let's review. When you second-guess yourself, it means that you've made a decision, and now you're having doubts. You're wondering if it was a good decision that you made. And when you say guess what to someone, you're basically saying to them, I have news to share, but I don't want to tell you exactly what it is. So I want you to try and guess. So let me know what you think the news is. And then I'll tell you if you're right or wrong.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohsen. Hey, Bob, thanks for the lesson. Why don't you make a video while driving to school, or central city for a change? And my response, it's a little long. I'm hoping to get out more once the pandemic slows down, cases were dropping in my area, but now they are on the rise again. Our school was in outbreak for two weeks, because we had four cases. But now, thankfully there are no more. Once the cases are much lower in my area, I'll start to do more videos in other places.

So if you go way back in time, you'll realize that I've made a lot of English lessons before the pandemic in a lot of different places. I went to a grocery store. I went to a bunch of different restaurants, and I have plans. I have ideas for videos where I go to more places, but then this, I was gonna say this stupid pandemic. It's not nice to say it that way, but then this pandemic happened, and now it's not easy to go places. So I've been doing a lot of videos here on the farm. By the way, I probably, Mohsen, won't do a video driving to school, because you can get a ticket for distracted driving if you're videotaping yourself. But I guess I could have one of my kids holding the camera, that might be allowed, I'll see.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ON PURPOSE and BY ACCIDENT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "on purpose." When you do something on purpose, it means that you meant to do it. It means that you planned to do it. You might have noticed that there was no short English lesson a couple of days ago. This past Monday, there was no lesson and you might have thought I forgot, but I did it on purpose. I've actually decided that the same weekend where I don't do a live stream on Saturday on my bigger channel, I'm going to also not do a video for that Monday. Instead of taking part of the weekend off, I'm taking the whole weekend off. So there was no video yet a couple of days ago, and I did it on purpose. I hope you don't mind. You'll still get one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, about 11 videos a month, sometimes 12, but once a month on a Monday, there'll be no video. I did it on purpose.

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The opposite of on purpose is a phrase that we use "by accident." When something happens by accident, it means that something occurred, something happened, and you didn't plan for that to happen. It was just an accident. Like you could say this. "I went to the store the other day and I ran into my sister by accident." That doesn't mean you drove your car into your sister's car. It could just simply mean you didn't plan to run into your sister. You didn't plan to see her, but you met her by accident. It was just a happy coincidence.

So to review, when something happens on purpose, when you do something on purpose, it means that you planned to do it. You were like, you know what? In a few days, I'm gonna take a day off and not do a short English lesson. That's something I did on purpose. And when something happens by accident, it means that you didn't plan for it to happen. It just kind of happened. It just happened out of the blue. It happened by accident. It wasn't something that you were planning to do.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Valéria. "Hi, teacher Bob. Thanks for the lesson. Have you ever tried to eat pancakes with jelly made of fruit like plum cherry or apricot? It tastes really good." And my response, "Yes, I have. In fact, I like eating leftover pancakes the next day, cold with butter and jam on them. Delicious."

So yes, Valéria, I definitely like eating pancakes with fruit and those types of things on it, jam and everything else, jelly, but I do like them cold when I do that. So I like hot pancakes with butter and syrup and I like cold pancakes the next day with butter and jam of some kind, usually quite yummy.

Hey, so we are finally starting. I know the bikes aren't put away yet. A few of you have commented that winter is coming. I should be cleaning up. We have started to slowly clean up this past week. We started putting bikes away. There's a couple out here yet, but we put about three or four bikes away in the barn. I'll spin around here so you can see. We put a lot of things in the barn in the winter. It's not a spot that doesn't freeze. It does freeze in the barn, but it is a good place to store a lot of things.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FLAT AS A PANCAKE and FLAT BROKE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, flat as a pancake. Do you know what a pancake is? A pancake is something that we fry in a frying pan. It's made out of flour, and water, and butter, and I'm sure there's sugar in it too. And it's very, very flat. In North America, we eat them with butter and syrup on top. They're really, really yummy, but because a pancake is flat, we also have this phrase, flat as a pancake. If you look behind me, there is a soccer field, and the soccer field is flat as a pancake. We like to have our soccer fields really, really flat. The other day, I drove over a pop can in my driveway, a soda can, and I crushed it. And after I drove over it, it was flat as a pancake. It no longer looked like a can. It was flat, it looked a lot more like a pancake. Of course, there's no way I would mistake it for a pancake, but it certainly was flat as a pancake.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase flat broke. This is actually a repeat phrase, but you know how I like to match the phrases, right? When you are flat broke, it means you have no money in your wallet. You have no money in the bank. You do not have any money at all. Sometimes when people get paid on Fridays, by Thursday, they are flat broke. On Thursday, they've spent all their money, and they have nothing left, and they are flat broke. That's probably not a very nice feeling. I do remember when I was younger, at one time I was flat broke, and I remember putting $5 into the bank machine. No, I put $2 into the bank machine, so I could take out $5. 'Cause I had a little over $3 in the bank, and I thought that would be a good way to have a little bit of money for the evening.

Anyways, to review, when you say something is flat as a pancake, it means that it is really flat, okay? And when you are flat broke, it means that you have no money in your wallet. You have no money in the bank, you have no money at all, but hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aleksey. It would be more acceptable to lose an hour in the spring, if time change happened at like 4:00 PM on Friday. And my response was that is the best idea I've ever heard.

So Aleksey is referring to time change from the previous lesson. The idea that in the fall, we put the clocks back an hour, in the spring, we put 'em ahead, and I would 100% agree, Aleksey. If we could, in the spring, move the clock ahead while we're all still at work, we would all get to go home an hour early. Could you imagine if in the spring, I'll have to watch it here, it's a little wet, if in the spring, your boss came in at four o'clock, and you normally work 'til five, and your boss said, hey, we are going to move the clocks ahead. It's now five o'clock, you can all go home. That would be very, very, very cool.

Sorry, there's kind of a weird light on, not sure what this means. Oh, I know what that means. It means my SD card is almost full. Hopefully I get this whole video done before it is full.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms TIME CHANGE and INTERNAL CLOCK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term time change. We just had time change this past weekend. Time change happens in countries that observe Daylight Savings Time. We have one time during the summer months, and then mid fall, we shift our clocks, and then we have a one-hour difference, and time change happens usually in the middle of the night between Saturday and Sunday. So this past weekend, we put our clocks back an hour. We ended up getting an extra hour's sleep. So time change is something that happens every fall and every spring. In the fall, we move our clocks back an hour. In the spring, we move them ahead an hour. That's actually worse because you kind of lose an hour. So this time change this past weekend was the lesser of two evils. That's how I would describe it because my internal clock is messed up.

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The second phrase that we're looking at today or the second term is the term internal clock. We all use watches to tell time, but we also have an internal clock. We can kind of sense around what time it is, and right now, my internal clock is messed up. I'm making this video at around 3:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and it feels like 4:30 to me. In a little while, it's going to get dark at about five o'clock, and that just seems way too early to me. So my internal clock is a little bit messed up, my sense of time that I naturally have in my head. I mean, I can't tell you exactly what time it is, but right now, it doesn't feel like 3:30 to me. It feels like around 4:30 or quarter to five. Anyways, my internal clock is messed up.

To review, this past weekend, we had what we call time change. There was time change this past weekend. So we switched our clocks, and now my internal clock is a little bit messed up. It takes about a week or two for my internal clock to adjust to the new time.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Maria. I look forward to seeing your Christmas tree. It's so big, but be careful getting the ladder, Bob. You know accidents always happen close to home, and my response is I might have to buy a couple more strings of lights.

So yes, climbing up on a ladder can be a little bit dangerous, can't it? Whenever I work at heights, whenever I climb up a ladder, I'm usually extra careful. In fact, when I go really high on a ladder, I usually ask Jen to hold the ladder for me and vice versa. If Jen goes up on a ladder, usually, I will hold the ladder for her. Sometimes, we go up on the ladder to clean the eavestroughs on our house, the eavestroughs. I think they're called gutters in other countries. We call 'em eavestroughs. They get full of leaves, so sometimes I have to go up on a ladder to clean the eavestrough, and then Jen will hold the ladder so that the ladder doesn't slip while I'm at the very top of it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO MAKE LIGHT OF and TO FEEL LIGHT-HEADED

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to make light of. When you make light of a situation, it means you are less serious than you should be in that situation. You might say things that you even think are funny when something serious has just happened, you make light of the situation. Again, it's not always a good thing to make light of a situation. Here's an example of a bad situation. My dad, when I was young, my dad backed into my uncle's car in the driveway and put a big dent in it. So we all got in the car, my dad put the car in reverse and he didn't know my uncle's car was behind us. So he backed into it and he put a big dent in it. And I tried to make light of the situation. I said, at that point in time, I said, "You know what they say, accidents always happen close to home." Let's just say that my dad didn't think that was funny. It wasn't a good time to make light of the situation. He thought it was pretty serious. For some reason, I thought it was funny.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to feel light-headed. This is something that happens sometimes when you stand up really quickly, you feel a little bit dizzy. I had this once when I didn't eat for most of the day because I was really busy, and then when I stood up really quickly, because I hadn't eaten, and because I stood up quickly, I felt a little bit dizzy, I felt a little bit light-headed. So it's not a nice feeling to feel light-headed. You can also feel light-headed just before you pass out or before you faint. I've only fainted once in my life, I fainted when I was a teenager once, I still don't know why. I got out of the shower and I fainted, and I woke up or I came back to, that's what we say after you faint, you come to, and I was laying on the bathroom floor. It was a weird experience. I still don't know why that happened.

Anyways, to review, when you make light of something, it means you tell jokes or you are less serious than you should be in a serious situation. And when you feel light-headed, it means that you feel a little bit dizzy and it can happen just before you faint or pass out.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Padma. "Waste not, want not. What a wonderful saying. I think very much needed in today's use-and-throw era." And my response was, "It seems like we live in a world where everything is disposable, it's kind of sad."

Yeah, you know, I do sometimes worry that we live in a world where we buy things and we use them for a few months or a year, and then we throw them away. In particular, right now I'm a little bit sad because there are so many masks in the ditch when I go for a walk. So the ditch is the area along the road. When I go for a walk, you know, before the pandemic, there were no masks in the ditch, but now there are a lot of masks in the ditch when I go for a walk. It's really, really sad. Yeah, I wish we didn't live in a world where things were so disposable. I think sometimes even I'm at fault. You know, sometimes I buy a new phone and then very quickly, within two years, I feel like I need a new phone. I don't always buy one though. Usually I hold onto my phones for quite a while, but when I get a new phone, it's not because the old phone is broken, which is kind of sad.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HASTE MAKES WASTE and WASTE NOT WANT NOT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, haste makes waste. This is an English saying, you could even call it an English proverb, that means that if you do something really quickly, it's not always the best way to do it. Sometimes haste makes waste. When I was younger, I worked for my uncle, and we built houses. And I know that sometimes we carefully cut the wood to build the house, because we knew if we went too fast, if there was a lot of haste, we also had a lot of waste. That means if we worked quickly, we wouldn't always cut things the right length, and then that piece of wood would be kind of useless for building the house. By the way, we always had a saying, measure twice, cut once, when we were building houses. I think that's another good saying. So anyways, when you say haste makes waste, it means that when you do something really fast, you're probably going to be inefficient, and maybe even create some waste while you're doing it.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is another old phrase, or saying, or proverb, and that is waste not, want not. My mum used to say this a lot when I was a kid. When I came home from school, if I hadn't eaten my lunch, and if the banana had gotten mushed, or the apple was no longer good to eat, because I had sat on my bookbag on the bus, she would say, hey, waste not, want not. And basically what this phrase means is if you don't waste anything in life, if you are good at using all of your groceries, and everything you buy, you will probably not want a lot of things in your life. Basically, that's not quite what I mean to say, when you don't waste things, you actually save money. That's basically what the phrase means. So when you don't waste, it's like you're saving money at the same time. Because if you do waste things, you end up spending more money. Hopefully that made some sense.

Anyways, to review, haste makes waste simply means if you do something fast, you might do it inefficiently, and you might actually waste some things. And waste not, want not means that if you make sure you don't waste things, you will actually be better off financially, I guess, in terms of money.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Andrew. The comment is this. We have an absolutely identical phrase in Russian, to freeze your butt off. I can elaborate on the topic. As an expert at freezing, I can testify. Yes, in winter, if you sit in the snow or on ice, steel, et cetera, the first part that freezes off is your buttock. In the standing position, it can happen when your jacket is short, but often it is your hands and feet that suffer first. Walking can help warm your feet. Plus putting hands into your armpits, definitely, criss-crossed will save them. Men should consider another item. Also your face, especially your nose and cheekbone areas, gets a severe cold blow if uncovered, and exposed to cold windy conditions. My response, that's why I like having a longer winter coat that covers the small of my back and my butt. My current coat is a bit too short. It doesn't quite go down long enough. It really helps to stay warm when you have a longer one.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET DUMPED and DOWN IN THE DUMPS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to get dumped, or to dump someone. When you get dumped, it means you were in a relationship, and the person you were in a relationship with told you they didn't want to be with you anymore. So we would say that you got dumped. So when you get dumped, it means you probably get a phone call, or a text, or you're out with your significant other. That's the phrase we use to refer to a boyfriend or girlfriend. And they say to you, I don't want to go out with you anymore. When you get dumped, when you're in a relationship, and someone ends it, it's not a very nice feeling. You usually feel very, very sad, so I'm sure this has happened to everyone at some point in their life. It's not always nice to get dumped, but sometimes you might be the one who dumped someone else, and maybe that's good for you. I dunno.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase down in the dumps. Now, I did teach this phrase a couple of years ago, but I thought, since I always like to use similar words in my phrases, I will teach it again. After you get dumped, you might feel down in the dumps. When you are down in the dumps, it simply means that you are sad. So you might be sad after your team loses a game. You might be down in the dumps if your team makes it to the championship. I think that's the example I gave in my last lesson two years ago. Your team goes to the championship, and they lose, you might be down in the dumps for a few days. You might be very, very sad for a few days after that happens.

So to review, when you get dumped, it means that you were in a relationship, and someone ended it. They said they didn't want to be with you anymore, and then because of that, you might be sad. You might be feeling down in the dumps. When you're down in the dumps, you just aren't having a good day. You're not happy. It's not a good thing. I'm not down in the dumps very often, but it does happen sometimes.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Andres. Mr. Bob, would you bank on the fact that there's no crocodile in the river? Julia Olis says, could this little fence be probably some sort of trap for crocodile. And my response, you can bank on it. It's far too cold here in Canada for them. In fact, there are no animals in the river that are dangerous to humans.

What is dangerous on my farm for humans though, is the weather, it's getting rather cold out here. I'm actually hiding right now beside this wagon, because if you look behind me here, it's gonna get really bright. You can see the wind is blowing the trees quite a bit. If we look this way, maybe you can see it a little bit more. Let's go for a bit of a walk, and you can see some of the fall colors.

So it's definitely fall here. It's definitely getting a little bit chillier. It's beautiful to see the leaves on my property on the trees are all starting to turn color. Let me flip this around again. And it's just a nice time, but I have to start thinking about what I'm going to wear each time I go outside, I'm gonna run over here by the wagon again, where I'm out of the wind. I'm wearing my jacket today, I didn't wear gloves. I'm just wearing one thin shirt underneath my jacket.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BANK ON and TO BREAK THE BANK

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to bank on. When you can bank on something, it means you can be sure that it will happen. Let me think of an example. Maybe when your favorite athlete plays your favorite sport, you can bank on the fact that they will score a goal. You know that they almost score a goal every time they play, and you can be sure of it, you can bank on it. We also use this phrase in the negative. We'll say things like, "Don't bank on it." So if someone was to say, "I think that the Toronto Maple Leafs will win their next game, someone else might say, "Don't bank on it, I don't think they will." It's not something that you can be sure will happen. So you can kind of use it both ways. When you can bank on something, you can be sure it will happen, and when you say "Don't bank on it," or, "I wouldn't bank on it," it means you doubt that it will happen.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to break the bank. There's a little bit of mud on my sign. I think when I walked out here today, I got a little bit of mud on it, but to break the bank means to buy something and to use up all the money that you have. If I bought a used van right now, I think I have enough money to buy one, but if I bought a brand-new van, I think that would break the bank. That would mean that I would have no money left in the bank if I bought a brand new van. In fact, I don't even have enough money to buy a brand new van. I think if I bought a used van that might actually break the bank as well. So when you break the bank, it means you buy something and it was so expensive, you use all the money that you had available.

But let's review. To bank on means that you can count on something happening. You can reasonably be sure that something will happen. A lot of times when I watch basketball, I can't bank on whether the Raptors will win or not. I wish I could bank on it. I wish I could be sure of it. And, oop, there's a mosquito in my ear, one sec. I think it's out now, whew. There's still insects, and it's almost November. Actually, you're watching this on November 1st, aren't you? To break the bank means to buy something and to spend every last penny, every last dollar that you have when you buy it.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is a fun comment. It's from Alaa Ahmad. The comment is, "Hello, Bob, could you please go closer to the river, to the bank of it so that we can get a better view? Thanks a lot." And my response, for sure I'll do that today.

Well, it doesn't really look like I did that today, does it? Oh, I'm sorry, everyone. I was supposed to make the comment match what I was doing in the video. I am actually by the river. Sorry, that was like a little bit of a trick there. Let me get the full view for you.

So you can see the river is very flooded, and let's spin this way so you can see it in the other direction. You can see that the river is so big right now, it actually looks a little bit like a lake. When I walked out here, I was surprised how close to my fence.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I CAVED and MAN CAVE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, I caved. When we say I caved in English, it means that you didn't wanna do something, but then you changed your mind. Here's a good example. You can see that the letters are very nice and dark and black on here because I caved. I didn't wanna put a new toner cartridge in my printer. I was wanting to use it until all of the toner was completely gone. But the other day, my daughter had to print something for school and she wanted it to look nice, so I caved. So it means I changed my mind. It means I gave in. So I took the new toner out of the box, put it in the printer, and now the printer prints with nice black ink again, or toner, sorry, it's not really ink, against a white sheet of paper. By the way, I do recycle all of these, so just so you know. So when you say I caved, it means you didn't wanna do something, but you changed your mind.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase man cave. Now I don't have one of these, but some men, in their houses, will have a man cave. This is a room where a man might have a huge television for watching football. In my mind, when I think about a man cave, I usually think about an American man, I don't know why, who has a room in his house and he has all football, like football jerseys and a football on the wall and posters and a big TV, and then on Sundays, he goes and watches football in his man cave. I think that's the image I have from watching too much American television. But a man cave would be a room in a house that a man has all to himself where maybe his wife and kids aren't allowed to go. I don't have a man cave. I have an office. It's not really my man cave.

Anyways, to review. When you say I caved, it means you give in. Here's another good example. Last night, my kids said, "Dad, the Raptors basketball team is playing." We're watching the game and my kids didn't have school today. So last night they said, "Can we have ice cream?" And I said, "No." But then they asked me a couple more times, and finally I caved and I said they could have ice cream. And to review this term, a man cave is a room in a house that a man uses usually to watch sports, maybe drink beer. I don't really know a lot about man caves, but you will hear that phrase on TV and in movies every once in a while.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Elena. Sometimes it seems to me that I know you personally. Your lessons aren't artificial. It's all about everyday life. It's amazing. And my response, I'm pretty much the same person on camera as I am in real life. I could never be an actor unless they needed someone to play a character just like me.

So yeah, I think I could do a really good job as an actor if they needed someone to act like Bob, the Canadian. If they had a show where they needed a 50 year old guy with slightly gray hair, actually maybe more than slightly gray, to just do normal things. Maybe if they had a show about a teacher and the teacher's name was Bob, I think I could do a really good job acting in that show. I think that's really the only kind of show that I would be good at.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE WORKS and IN THE WORKS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase the works. When you ask for the works when you're ordering something, it means you want every possible option that's possible. If you go to a restaurant and you order a hamburger and they say, "What would you like on it?" If you say you would like the works, it means you want ketchup and relish and mustard and lettuce and tomato and onions, and maybe bacon and cheese. When you order the works, it means you want everything. I actually saw this phrase the other day because I drove by a car wash and it said "Basic wash, Wash with Wax," and then it said "The Works," and the works had all kinds of really cool things they would do to your car if you got a car wash there. So the works simply means that you want every option possible when ordering something.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase in the works. When you have something in the works, it means that you are planning to do it. Sometimes at school, I say to my students, "I have a few things in the works. I'm thinking about what we're going to do this next week, and I have a few things in the works." That means I might be planning a class trip or a field trip. It means I might be planning to bring in some food. Actually, we can't bring food in 'cause of COVID, but we definitely can go on little field trips. So that's something I might have in the works for my class.

So to review, when you ask for the works when you order something, it means you want every possible option that is possible. If you were buying a brand-new car, I certainly wouldn't say "I'll take, give me the works," because that means you're gonna pay thousands of dollars extra for a whole bunch of things that maybe you don't need. And then when you have something in the works, it means that you are planning to do something. Sometimes for my YouTube channel, I have a few things in the works. I think about what should I do in a month or two that's a little bit different or more exciting. Sometimes I have some things in the works.

But let's look at a comment from a previous video. Sorry if I'm talking fast today, it's misting out, like it's drizzling a little bit, and it's really cold, actually. This comment is from Khalil. "Hi, Teacher Bob, what is the difference between it is time and it's about time?" And my response is this. It is time simply means the time has arrived to do something. It's about time means you are frustrated that something took so long to happen.

So let me maybe explain that a little bit better. When you say it is time, like right now, it's time for me to walk and talk for a little bit. It's time for me to do that. But if I was to say it's about time that I start walking and talking, that would mean that you were waiting for that a long time, and it wasn't happening. And you're like, "Come on, Bob, it's about time you take the camera off the tripod and walk for a little bit." Anyways, hopefully that made some sense. Thank you so much for that comment.

What should I show you today? Well, you know what? Banged my camera a little bit. Let me spin you around and show you what life is like here. It has been raining. You'll see that I have my rubber boots on. It has been raining here for days. It just keeps raining. The puddles in my driveway are gigantic. If we go and try to have a look in the distance at the river, you'll notice that the river has flooded. I know I talk a little bit too much sometimes, let me ge

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TIME TO and TO FIND THE TIME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase time to. This is actually a short form of the phrase it's time to, or it is time to, and we use this whenever something needs to be done, or when we're telling people to do something. A lot of times in the morning, I yell to my children, time to get up. I could say, it is time to get up, but that just takes too long. So I say, time to get up. If you look closely at the words on my paper, they're not as dark as they used to be. So I think it's time to order some new toner. It's time to order some new toner so that my printer prints in dark black again. My printers actually said order toner, 0% toner for about three weeks, and I just keep holding off because it just keeps printing. So, hopefully you can still see it. So when you say time to, it means that it is time to do something, that the moment has come for that thing to be done.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to find the time. When you talk about finding the time, it means you need to do something, you're already busy, and somehow you need to find the time to do something. Sometimes at work, I have a lot of stuff to do all day and my boss asks me to do something extra. And I will say, I don't know if I can find the time to do that. I don't know if I have a moment in my day where I can do something extra. I'm going to have to find the time, maybe after work. I might have to stay longer than I normally do. So it simply means that you're busy and you need to find some time to do something.

So to review, when you start a phrase by saying time to, it means you're saying that at that moment, you need to do something. So, a few minutes ago, I finished replying to the comments from yesterday's video, and I thought, time to go outside and make the next lesson. And to find the time simply means to set aside some time to do it. I'm not busy today, but if I was, I would have to find the time to make this English lesson. Luckily, I had time to do it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, I can't remember, from Noriko. The comment is, "Wow, that's surprising and makes sense. In North Japan, doors of downstairs are covered with snow in the winter, so they have a second, they have a second entrance upstairs, sorry, a little fixed there. It it a common thing in the world? Thanks a lot, Mr. Bob." And my response, we do not have doors like that here, but I imagine in Northern Canada, they do.

So I'm not familiar with what they do in Northern Canada where there is a lot more snow than there is where I am. But I'm going to guess, there's a few things that we do here in Southern Canada. For one, we put snow tires on our vehicles. So later this month, I need to have these tires taken off, and snow tires will be put on. But what we don't do, one thing I know they do do in Northern Canada is they have an electrical cord on the front of their vehicles so they can plug them in in the winter when they're not driving them. I have cords like that on my tractors, I think because my tractors are diesel engines and diesel engines are harder to start. But I do not have a plug on the front of my van to plug in at night so that it can stay just a little bit warm. But that is definitely something that they do in Northern Canada.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BEATS ME and BEAT-UP

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase beats me. This is actually a really simple phrase. It simply means I don't know. I remember once I was at a school event, and there was a car in the parking lot, and the alarm was going off, the car was going beep, beep, beep. And my boss came to me, and said, do you know whose car that is? And I said, beats me. Basically, all I was saying is, I don't know. Sometimes I have this in class as well. I'll say to a student, what's the answer to this question? And the student might shrug, and say, I don't know, beats me. So they might say, I don't know, and beats me, basically, those things mean the same, those phrases mean the same thing, but they might say both just to make sure that I really know that they don't know what I'm talking about. They'll just say beats me.

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Anyways, the other phrase I wanted to teach you today is kind of more of a way of describing something. It's beat up. So you might be familiar with the phrasal verb to beat up, which means to like beat someone up with your fists, or to hit them, not a nice thing to do. But when we say that something is beat up, it means that it's not in good shape. You can say this, my brother bought a car. It's not a brand new car. It's a used car, and it's a little bit beat up. He bought a car that's a little bit beat up. That would mean it has some dents in it. It has some rust on it. It's just not in perfect condition. It's a little bit beat up. A lot of the farm equipment that I buy is older farm equipment. And sometimes it's a little bit beat up, and then I have to do a few repairs on it.

So to review, if someone says to you beats me, it simply means they don't know the answer to whatever question you are asking them. And if you describe something as being beat up, it means that it's getting old. If it's a piece of equipment that can rust, it might be a little rusty. If it's a car, I could even use it to describe my first camera, the first camera I bought used, and the camera was a little bit beat up. It had some scuffs around the edges, and it was definitely not in perfect condition.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment, if Google Translate serves me correctly, this comment is from Roman. The soil has already frozen to a depth of one shovel in our location in Russia. And my response, we're not quite there yet. We'll probably have another month or so before that happens. So for those of you that aren't aware what the world is like in the winter. I know some of you live in countries where there is no winter. When we have winter, eventually the ground freezes. Here in Ontario, Canada, the ground freezes to a depth of two or three feet, almost a meter deep, the ground will freeze in the winter.

And that's why we put things like fence posts, this fence post here. If you can see it, hopefully that's in the frame. I think it is.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BACK-BREAKING WORK and TO BREAK OUT

In this English lesson, I wanted to teach you the English term back-breaking work. Now, this is your back, and it's something that gets really sore when you do back-breaking work. Back-breaking work is any kind of physical labor. If you see behind me here, we have the dahlia patch, and it is pretty much done for the season. Now, what makes dahlias different than other flowers is that there is a root that we have to dig out in the fall. We have to start digging out the roots, and that is back-breaking work. We have to go in, and we have to dig out every single root with a shovel. So I know it looks like there's lots of flowers here. They aren't actually in that good a shape if I zoomed in. These flowers are almost done for the season, and there's going to be a lot of back-breaking work in the next few weeks as we dig them all out.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to break out. Now, this has a lot of different meanings, but I'm gonna use it in this way. In order to dig up these dahlias, we are going to have to break out the shovel. In English, when you say you're going to break something out, it means you're going to get it out, okay? It's just a funny phrase we use. Maybe you are going to go to someone's house for a party, and they're celebrating something, you might want to break out the champagne if you drink champagne, but definitely, in order for us to dig up all of these dahlia roots, we're going to have to break out the shovel. We're gonna have to get in here and just dig them up by hand. There's no nice machine... Oh, the shovel just fell. There's no nice machine to do this in a nice, easy way. Actually, there is one, but it's really expensive, and this patch isn't big enough for us to afford that.

So to review, any kind of work where you might hurt your back is work that we would say is back-breaking work. So this is definitely going to be back-breaking work, and to break out means to get something out, to use it or, if it's something like champagne, to drink it.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Reza. The comment is the phrase that I learned from this video was swatting a mosquito, and then my reply is the secret is that you have to swat them before they bite you.

Thanks, Reza. That was from the previous video where I was being attacked by mosquitoes as I was making the video. Thankfully, it has really cooled off here, particularly at night. The days are still quite warm. You can see I'm still wearing a short-sleeve shirt, but it has really cooled off at night, and it seems like most of the mosquitoes are gone for the season. I was out last night, and it was very, very nice. There were not very many mosquitoes at all. It was very pleasant.

Wow, that sun is really bright, though, isn't it? Let me turn a little bit. So anyways, yes, let me give you a better view of all of these dahlias. They are beautiful, but at the same time, it's hard for you to see, maybe. I'm not sure if this will focus, but they're all slightly imperfect. We had some frost last night.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I'M GAME and GAME PLAN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, I'm game. This is a phrase that we use when we are willing to do something, when we agree to do something. It could be a game, but it could be almost anything else. If my brother says to me, "Hey, do you want to go to the shopping mall this afternoon?" I could say I'm game. That sounds like fun. If a friend of mine said, "Hey, do you wanna go on a hike later today?" I could say you know what, I'm game. That sounds like something I would really enjoy doing. So when you say I'm game, it simply means that you're willing to do it. Now, of course, it can be used for a sport. If someone said, "Hey, do you want to play badminton this afternoon?" I could say I'm game. And it would simply mean that I do want to do it, that I'm excited to do it and that it would be something I think would be fun.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase game plan. A game plan is a plan you have for any situation. It can be a plan that you have for a game. Maybe you are playing a sport and you have a plan to try and win the game, but it can be used for anything. When I go into my classroom every day, I have a game plan, I have a lesson plan, I could also call it a game plan though. When I run my clubs after school, I'm involved in a couple of different clubs, I usually have a game plan. Maybe when you go on vacation, you talk to your spouse or you talk to the friends you're going on vacation with and you come up with a game plan for the trip, you come up with a plan. I don't know why we put the word game in front of it, the more I think about it I think you could just say plan and it would mean the same thing, wouldn't it? But it's quite common, sorry there's mosquitoes out here I'm just swatting one. It's quite common in my work when we start something together as a team of teachers, for someone to say, "Okay, what's the game plan?"

So to review, when you say I'm game, it simply means that you are agreeing to do something, you're willing to do something. "Hey Bob, can you make three videos a week on this channel?" And I could say I'm game if somebody asked me that question. And if you have a game plan, it means that you have a plan before you do something. I have a game plan for this channel, my game plan is to make three videos a week.

But hey , let's look at a comment from a previous video as I get eaten by mosquitoes out here. Snazzy says sometimes your farm seems like a jungle, lots and lots of trees and grass, really nice and calm, thanks for the lesson. My reply said it is a bit like a jungle . Some of the trees I showed you have thorns on them so it's really hard to walk there. And I'm going to actually take you to have a look at some of those trees. We're gonna go, I guess you could call it, bushwhacking is the old fashioned word for it. We're gonna walk out here and I'm going to show you that there are trees, hopefully I can find some, there are a lot of trees in here that have thorns on them. This area, interestingly enough, it used to be a lot easier to walk here because the cows, when my parents were on this farm, I'm not sure if this will focus, but you can see there's a really sharp thorn right there. Let me get it in camera.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BUMP INTO SOMEONE and TO BUMP HEADS WITH SOMEONE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To bump into someone." Now, this can mean to literally bump into someone. When you're standing in line and you're standing really close, if you step forward without looking, you might bump into the person in front of you. But we also use this to mean to run into someone, or to meet someone randomly when you go somewhere. I could say something like this, "Jen, I went to the grocery store and I bumped into my brother while I was there." This simply means that I wasn't expecting my brother to be there, but while I was at the grocery store, I saw him and I had a conversation. It doesn't mean that we actually walked into each other. It simply means that we bumped into each other. We met each other randomly without expecting to see each other there.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to bump heads with someone. Now, this has quite a bit of a different meaning. This means to get into an argument, or into a fight with someone. When you bump heads with someone, it means you don't agree with them. You might have someone that you work with and you just never agree with them, and you're always bumping heads with them. You would say, "Oh, the other day I was talking to Joe at work and we were bumping heads again. I bumped heads with him, because we just could not agree on the same thing." So when you bump heads with someone, it means that you disagree with them.

So to review, when you bump into someone, it means that you meet them randomly, or unexpectedly, and when you bump heads with someone, it means that you get into an argument with them, that you get into a disagreement with them.

So let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Andrew, and Andrew says, "Hi, Teacher Bob, happy Thanksgiving." It was a nice day, by the way, a couple of days ago. "I got a question. A year ago, you told us your family was about to buy another puppy, but the prices were through the roof. Two to $3,000 for a pup. Has the dog market changed after all this crazy quarantine stuff?" And my response is this. "We're thinking that we might get one this coming spring. Prices have come down a bit, but not enough yet."

So, yeah, it was kind of weird, during the middle of the pandemic, dogs or puppies were very, very expensive, so we didn't get one. We might still get one later this fall, but I doubt it, because it's easier to train a dog once the winter is over. So we're thinking now we might get a puppy later this spring.

I'm looking up because I'm walking this way, so you can see that the leaves have started to change color. Let me do that thing once again, where I spin you guys around and let you have a look here. You can see that we have some reds, and we have some yellows, maybe even a few tinges of orange starting to come. It's really nice at this time of year, when the leaves start to turn color.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I'VE HAD IT and TO HAVE IT OUT WITH SOMEONE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, I've had it! Now simply used, this simply means that you have had something. If someone says, have you had pizza? You could say I've had it and I liked it. But we also use this phrase to describe a situation, when you want something to stop. It's been raining a lot here lately, you can maybe see some puddles on the ground there and I've had it. I've had it with all the rain we've been having. That means that I wish it would stop. Sometimes I use this phrase in the classroom too. When students are talking too much, I can say, hey, I've had it with all of the talking there in the back of the room, please stop. So, in English when you say I've had it, it means you want something to stop. I've certainly had it with all this rain. It's just way too wet out here, it's gotta stop soon or it's not going to be a very nice rest of the fall.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to have it out with someone. When you have it out with someone, it means that you're annoyed with someone about something and maybe they're annoyed with you about something, and eventually you argue about it or you discuss it strongly would be a good word. When you have it out with someone, it usually means that there's a little bit of arguing, maybe some yelling involved as well. Maybe my sister is doing something regularly that annoys me and I don't want to say anything, but eventually I want to have it out with her. I'm going to tell her what she's doing that's annoying me, and we're going to have a conversation about it. And hopefully after we argue and fight a little bit, we come to a resolution. By the way, I don't really actually fight with my sisters they're very nice people, and that was just an example.

Anyways, to review when you say I've had it, it simply means that you are done with something, you want something to stop. My example was that I've had it with all this rain I hope it stops soon. And then when you have it out with someone, it means that you argue with them, you fight with them. You talk about whatever the two of you have been disagreeing about, you just have it out with them and then hopefully you resolve it.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mat, and the comment is this. Oscar thinking, I can't be bothered to say hello to everyone. This is from the video a couple of days ago, where Oscar was kind of grouchy and sitting on the picnic table. My response, he's like that sometimes when I'm out with the camera. He does the same thing whenever someone has a camera and tries to take a picture of him. He does not like the camera at all.

So Oscar is a unique dog. He, well, maybe there's other dogs like this as well, but he certainly does not enjoy the camera. The camera when I bring out my video camera, when any of my kids try to take a picture of him, he usually tries to hide or he goes away or he acts a little bit grouchy. Now, the other day he was acting that way because Jen was on her way to market. And he knows when Jen is leaving, and that makes him really really sad.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO FIT IN and TO BE FIT FOR

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase: to fit in. When you fit in, it means that you are compatible with another group of people. It means that you have some of the same interests. When I meet people who I don't know, I don't know if I'm going to fit in until I start talking to them. And then if I find out they like teaching, or they like science fiction movies, or they like reading, then I start to feel like I fit in a bit more. When students start at a new school, they really hope to find friends and they hope that they will fit in. So when you fit in, it means that you just get along with other people.

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The other phrase, sorry, I'm laughing 'cause Oscar's just sitting here. He's very sad today because it's market day and he knows that Jen is leaving, but let me get back to the lesson.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase: to be fit for. When something is fit for something, it means it's good for that. A good example would be this. If you had some food that was still good, you would say it's fit for human consumption. It's okay for people to eat it. And let's look at the opposite. If you had some fruit that had become rotten, you would say that it's no longer fit for human consumption. It's not fit for humans. It's not good for them to eat it.

So to review, in order to fit in, you want to be able to get along and have conversations with other people and enjoy some of the same things. I think that if all of you got together in one place, you would probably fit in because you all are learning English and that's something you have in common. And when you say something is fit for something or not fit for something, it means that it can be used for that purpose. The best example is the fruit one. When fruit goes bad, it's not fit to eat. It's not fit for human consumption. Notice I used fit to eat and fit for. There must be two uses of it.

Let's look at a comment though from a previous video. Oscar, do you wanna read the comment? Oh, he's come alert because he heard a vehicle start. This comment is from Aleksey. "To understand a teacher, you have to walk a mile in their shoes. I know this is impossible for me. I always shake even in my own boots when I visit school as a parent and imagine myself working there. Happy Teacher's Day." My response, that comment made me smile and you'll know why because of my response. The pandemic has really changed the minds of parents about how much work teaching is. Having their own kids at home for certain stretches of time and trying to help them learn remotely has opened their eyes a bit. Thanks, Aleksey, for the comment.

An interesting thing happened during the pandemic. We had a lot of different stretches of remote learning and during those stretches of remote learning, parents either had to teach their kids or help their kids learn, and some of them found out that teaching is actually quite challenging. I will never say that teaching, Oscar, you wanna say hi? I don't think he wants to say hi. I will never claim that teaching is the most difficult profession in the world. There are parts of the job that are hard and there are parts that are very enjoyable and easy. I think it's like any other job. Certain people are well suited to it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases EVERYONE AND THEIR DOG and THE TAIL WAGGING THE DOG

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, everyone and their dog. Now, this is a funny phrase that we use to talk about a situation where there are a lot of people. Maybe there's a new store opening in town. And when I go there, it's really crowded. I could say, wow, everyone and their dog is here. It doesn't actually mean that people brought their dogs. It just means that there's a lot of people, that it's very, very crowded. I might come home, and Jen might say, how was the store opening? I could say it was so crowded, everyone and their dog was there. So it's just a funny way of saying that there are a lot of people.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the tail wagging the dog. Now, normally a dog wags its tail. The tail doesn't wag the dog. But if there is a situation in life where someone is controlling the situation who doesn't have the authority or power to do it, we say that the tail is wagging the dog. You'll sometimes see this with parents, with little kids, sometimes little kids actually control what their parents are doing. They make their parents buy them candy. They make their parents get them everything they want, or they have what we would call a fit. And so we would in that situation, say that the tail is wagging the dog. Sorry, mosquitoes are out in force. Even on October 5th, there are mosquitoes out here.

So to review, when you say that everyone and their dog was somewhere, it simply means that there were a lot of people there. And when you say that the tail is wagging the dog, when you say the tail wagging the dog, it means that the person who shouldn't have power or authority is actually controlling the situation.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, and I have to warn you. This is the longest comment I've ever read. And it's from Sabrina. We don't teach to get rich, but to enrich others. To all teachers, Happy Teacher's Day. Teaching is the most noble profession in the world. It serves as the pillar of our society, since it institutes other professions as well. Every fifth day of October, we celebrate World Teacher's Day, a day where the struggles and hardships of our teachers are appreciated and rewarded. Being a teacher will never be easy, because teaching will never be their sole task. Even the things that aren't listed in their job description, they do because of their love and passion. There are times when they will get tired, but after a little rest, they will continue to move on, and promote the future of their students. And my response was very simple. Thanks, Sabrina, for these words of understanding and support.

Yeah, thank you for that. I think teachers, depending on what country you live in, I think teachers for the most part are appreciated. And I do thank you for that. I don't find the job to be too challenging, but I have been doing it for quite a while, but thank you for the appreciation. What I do have to say, and what makes me smile, is that one thing I didn't realize would happen when I became a teacher on YouTube is that people would wish me Happy Teacher's Day quite often, because if you look on Google, if you search for teacher's day, there's actually different teacher's days in different countries around the world.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WEAR OUT YOUR WELCOME and WEAR AND TEAR

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to wear out your welcome. When you wear out your welcome, it means you're visiting someone and you've stayed longer than they wanted you to stay. Here's a good example. If I was to visit my sister, and if she said, "Hey, you can stay two nights." And if I stayed for a whole week or two, I would definitely be wearing out my welcome. So when you wear out your welcome, it means you go somewhere and you stay too long or you eat too much food or you do something that means that changes the situation and you're no longer welcome there. It's not good to wear out your welcome at someone's house. By the way, this phrase came from Aleksey Konkov. Thank you so much for talking about this phrase in the comments in a video a couple days ago. I realized that I hadn't taught it yet.

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The next phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase wear and tear. In English, when something has a lot of wear and tear, it means it's getting old. We usually use this to talk about something like a machine or an appliance or a device. So your phone can have a lot of wear and tear. If you drop your phone a lot and if you use it for two or three years, it starts to get scuffed on the corner. Maybe the glass on the front is cracked a little bit. It has a lot of wear and tear. When humans use machines or devices or appliances or any of those kinds of things, they usually have a lot of wear and tear on them. They start to wear out a little bit after awhile. There's a phrasal verb that kind of means the same thing. So it's not good, but it's just part of how the world works, isn't it?

So to review. When you wear out your welcome, it means you go somewhere and you either stay too long or you eat too much food or you do something that makes it so you're not welcome there anymore. It's not a good thing. And when something has a lot of wear and tear, it means that it is starting to look old. Maybe it's scuffed. Maybe it's rusty. Maybe it's even a little bit broken. I know my one van is starting to show a lot of wear and tear because we've been using it for so long.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ricardo, and Ricardo says, "All us adventurers are used to running risks. "What would life be like without risks? "Honestly, I don't know, but for sure, pretty boring." And my response was this. "Sometimes you have to take a risk." So a few of you mentioned that in the last lesson, in the comments, a few of you mentioned that sometimes in life, it's good to take risks. Sometimes in life, taking a risk can be exciting. Maybe you want to start a business and you're not sure you want to take the risk. Sometimes it's good to take the risk. Sometimes it's good to try something brand new just to see if it will work, and I would agree. I took a risk a long time ago making a YouTube channel. I think it was a good idea.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO RUN THE RISK and AT RISK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to run the risk. This is a phrase we use when we're talking about something that might happen if you don't do something else. Here's a good example. When you get in a vehicle, if you don't put your seatbelt on, you run the risk of getting a ticket, or even worse, you run the risk of getting injured if you're in an accident. So when we say, "To run the risk," it means that you are at risk. I know I'm using the same phrase I'm gonna teach later, but there is a danger or a possibility that something might happen because of a choice you're making.

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I just used the second phrase. The second phrase is the phrase at risk. You could use this phrase in the same way. Let's say you go to a coffee shop and you buy a cup of coffee and you take a big gulp. You take a huge sip without determining if it's too hot or not. You are at risk, at that point, of burning your throat. You're at risk of burning your tongue because you didn't take a little sip at first.

So to review when you run the risk, it means that you do something and there's a possibility that something else might happen if you do that. If I go to class without a lesson plan, I run the risk of the students being all crazy and not knowing what to do. Classes usually get out of hand really quickly if you don't have a plan. And the similar phrase at risk, to review, if I went to class without a lesson plan, I would be at risk of the principal getting annoyed with me because the class was not well run. So to run the risk and at risk, two very similar phrases that talk about something that might happen if you do something else. There's usually a relation between the two.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, sorry, I'm having trouble putting the papers in my pockets today. This comment is from Natalia, and I picked this one because I thought this would be funny. Natalia says, "Bob, You're more than welcome to pick my comment for the next video. It will be interesting to see how you politely refuse." And my response was ah-ha! I didn't actually say that, but ah-ha, "Natalia, maybe I won't refuse. Maybe I'll choose this one. Who knows."

So that was just a little fun for me and hopefully for Natalia, thanks so much for leaving that comment. How do I pick the comments? Well, I just read through them and usually there's one that makes me laugh or smile, or it's just a great question or it relates to the past lesson. There's really no rhyme or reason to how I pick them. I just pick ones that strike me as being kind of cool or interesting. And I try not to pick the same person every day. I always try to pick someone new. There's kind of a bit of a rotation. I actually keep track. If I choose a comment from someone, I won't choose their comment again for a few days, because I feel like it's good to have some variety in the comments I choose.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases YOU'RE MORE THAN WELCOME and WELCOME ABOARD

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase you're more than welcome. Now, this phrase might already be familiar to you because when someone says thank you in English, you often respond by saying you're welcome, or you're more than welcome. But we can also use this phrase to tell people what they can do. Here's a great example. If you were having a snack at my house, and I had a plate with a bunch of cookies on it and you ate one cookie, I could say to you, "Hey, you're more than welcome to have another one." So it's kind of this polite, nice way in English to introduce an idea. It's not quite a command, but it's a suggestion, maybe. So I could suggest to you, "Oh, if you had one cup of coffee, you're more than welcome to have another cup." Or if you had one cookie, "You're more than welcome to have one or two more."

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase welcome aboard. Now, this might sound like it's a phrase you would use when someone comes on a boat, and you probably would. But I don't have a boat, and that's not how I use this phrase. I use this phrase to welcome a new coworker at my work. And it's a very common phrase at English-speaking businesses. If someone is hired, they'll say welcome aboard. And it basically means welcome to the company, welcome to the school. In my case, you are welcome here. So when you say welcome aboard, you're not necessarily on a boat. You could just be at a place of work.

So to review, when you say you're more than welcome, you can use this to introduce a suggestion to people. You're more than welcome to watch a few more videos when you're done watching this one. They don't have to be on my channel, but you're more than welcome to stick around and watch a few more. And if I say welcome aboard, it could be that I'm welcoming a coworker. I would even say this when a student joins my class. I might say, "Hey, welcome aboard." The semester's kind of started already. Maybe a student joins a few days late. I might say when they walk in, "Hey, you're new to the class, welcome aboard. Here's the course outline for you."

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Valéria. "Hi, Teacher Bob. Thanks for this lesson. Our Mother Earth is a sleeping giant. We play a dangerous game with it." And my response was, that's a great example of the phrase sleeping giant. "The earth seems to be getting a bit angry lately. I think it was a sleeping giant, but it's waking up."

So I was actually wondering about this myself. It's kind of an interesting time we live in. The weather seems to be getting more extreme. I watch the French news quite often at night, and on the French news, they were showing forest fires all over different parts of Europe this summer. In Canada, there were really bad forest fires out in Western Canada and also in Northern Ontario. The coronavirus, I know it's not something that everyone likes to talk about, the pandemic. It kind of makes it feel like the earth is angry with us. And I have to wonder if are we somehow as human beings contributing to all this? I mean, we certainly are having some kind of effect on the planet. So thanks for that comment, Valéria. It does seem like maybe the earth was a sleeping giant, and we're kind of poking it a lot, and it starting to wake up.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms GENTLE GIANT and SLEEPING GIANT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term gentle giant. A gentle giant is someone who's really tall and really big, but actually very, very kind. Sometimes when you see a really large man, someone who maybe works out at the gym, someone who's over six feet tall, not like me, I'm under six feet tall, but someone who works out, over six feet tall, and you might think they're very, very mean. Maybe they have big tattoos on their arms and they just look like they're someone who's just not very nice, but if you get to know them, they're actually very kind. We would call that person a gentle giant. I actually have an uncle who I would say is a gentle giant. If you didn't know him, if you just looked at him, he looks big and mean, but if you get to know him, he's a very, very kind person. He's definitely a gentle giant.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is the term sleeping giant. We use the term sleeping giant to talk about an organization, or usually a country, that's very quiet and doesn't seem very powerful until someone provokes them. And we would say that then they kind of wake up. So a sleeping giant is a country that has a lot of resources, they have a lot of hidden power and no one really knows until they tick them off, until they make them angry. We would say that they are a sleeping giant. And then when someone does tick them off, you realize that they're actually quite powerful.

So to review, a gentle giant is a very, very big person, usually a man, it's almost always a man, who's like over six feet tall, works out at the gym, maybe drives a big motorcycle and has tattoos, and you think they are mean, but when you actually get to know them, they are super, super nice. And a sleeping giant, usually used to refer to a country that doesn't seem very powerful until someone provokes them, and then you realize they're actually quite a powerful country.

So, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, I think, Regina, Google Translate said, and the comment is this: "I created a manual with links to different resources. It is about my experience, how I learned English, and I would like to inform you that I included both your channels in the list of my favorite YouTube channels about English." Thank you so much. And my response, "Thank you, thank you so much for adding me to the list. I promise to continue working hard to provide English-learning content."

So I do really appreciate that. Every once in a while, people will let me know that they've added me to a list of website links, or they've added me to a handout in their classroom, they've put links to my YouTube channel or channels somewhere so that other people can find me. And I just really, really appreciate that. I appreciate it when people let other people know about my English-learning content. I really like making it, and it seems, I don't know, a little bit, I don't know what the exact word is, I really like it when people watch my videos and I really like it when people share them. Not only does it help you, but it helps my channel as well.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases UNCHARTED WATERS and TO TEST THE WATERS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, uncharted waters. We sometimes also say unfamiliar waters. The literal meaning of this is to be out in a boat somewhere where you don't know how deep the water is. It's an area that's uncharted. But we use this phrase a lot more to talk about a situation that is unfamiliar to us. When the pandemic started, all of us were in uncharted waters. We were all in a situation where we had no previous experience to help us. People were in that situation. Governments were certainly in uncharted waters. They were in unfamiliar waters when they were trying to decide how to make new laws and rules to handle the pandemic. So, uncharted waters or unfamiliar waters refers to any situation that's brand new to you and you don't know exactly what to do.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to test the waters. When you test the waters, you want to do something, but instead of doing all of it right away, you just do a little bit of it. I'm trying to think of a good example. Let's say, I thought it would be a good idea to have a huge family gathering at my farm, but I want to test the waters before I do that, so I kind of ask my sisters if they would be comfortable coming over because of the pandemic. I ask my brother, "Hey, if we have a little party, would you want to come over?" So I want to test the waters a little bit. I want to kind of, another phrase is to put feelers out. I wanna kind of get a sense if that's what people want to do. So, to test the waters is to kind of try something a little bit before you do the whole thing. I hope that explanation made sense.

So to review, if you are in uncharted waters or unfamiliar waters, you're in a situation that you've never been in before. And when you test the waters, it means that you kind of try something a little bit just to see if people like the idea or if it will work. Sometimes the government will test the waters. They'll have like a partial new law and they'll see how people react before they do the real one.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Natalia Illusion. And Natalia says, "Living in a big city, I'm used to having a lot of people around, therefore very little elbow room on any plane or bus is not a problem for me." And my response. It's a bit of a long one. "I guess if I move to the city someday, I'll have to get used to that. Way back when I lived in the city, it was hard for me to get used to the crowds and the noise of traffic all night. Someday though, when I'm old, I'll end up there again and I'll have to adapt."

So yeah, you know, you can't live on a farm forever. Now, obviously, Jen and I are a long ways away from moving to the city. But when we're old, we might have to. In fact, later today on my bigger channel, I'm doing a lesson on aging. That should be an interesting one.

Hey, I'm gonna spin you all around though for a sec, because we are walking on a really nice bridge in my local town. I thought because the lesson had the word water in it I should come to this walking bridge and I should show you that it's been raining so much that the stream is quite swollen here. Let's look at the other side as well. You can see the water just flowing like crazy. It's actually quite a bit bigger than it normally is.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms ELBOW GREASE and ELBOW ROOM

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term, elbow grease. Now, this is your elbow and grease is a lubricant that you put on machinery so that when metal moves against metal, it's nice and slippery. But elbow grease, the term elbow grease simply means hard work that you do by hand. Maybe you've bought an old car and it's a little bit rusty, and you wanna kind of sand all the rust out with sandpaper and paint it. You could say, oh, it just needs a little bit of elbow grease. Maybe you've bought something that needs to be fixed up. Maybe you bought an old machine from someone and it just needs a new belt or a new pulley or a little bit of electrical work. You could say, it just needs a little bit of elbow grease and it will be working again. So again, there's no such thing as grease that you put on your elbows. It's simply a term that means to work hard on something, usually with your hands.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is the term elbow room. So elbow room is simply the amount of room. that you have around you. We almost always use this in the negative. We say things like, oh, I was on an airplane the other day, and it was really squishy, there wasn't very much elbow room. Or I went to the mall to do some shopping and there were so many people there. There wasn't hardly any elbow room. So elbow room is simply the room that you have around you. I guess because you can't move your elbows, you don't have a lot of elbow room.

So to review, elbow grease is simply hard work. If you just work hard on some things, you can get them working again, or they can just do better than what they're doing before with just a little bit of elbow grease. We even use this for cleaning. If your dishes are really dirty, with a little bit of elbow grease, you can get them clean again. With a little bit of hard physical labor. And elbow room is simply the amount of room you have around you. Usually used in the negative.

If you wonder why it seems like I'm speaking fast, it started raining, for some reason. So I will try to slow down. Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Is that too slow? This comment is from Andres Padrón. And the comment is, thank you, Mr. Bob. I like the introduction. That's upside down, isn't it? Yeah, in the previous lesson, I had my little paper upside down. I was wondering, what happens at the farm when the winter arrives? Does the winter stop the growing of all kinds of flowers and wheat? Or is there still something that the farm can produce in the heavy Canadian winter? And my response is winter is a time to relax and watch the snow fly on the farm. It is a nice change of pace.

So yes. Yes or no, I don't know how to say this. No, we do not grow anything on the farm in the summer. I guess I could say, no, I'll stick with no. No, we don't grow anything on the farm in the summer. In the summer, in the winter. Now I'm speaking so quickly I'm not even answering the question properly. No, we don't grow anything on the farm in the winter. The winter is definitely a time where we take a little bit of time to relax.

Now I still go to work, I still teach every day. I still make YouTube videos, but definitely winter is a time where the farm is at rest. And Jen gets to rest a little bit as well. Jen actually puts in really long hours right now.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THERE ARE PLENTY OF FISH IN THE SEA and THAT SOUNDS FISHY

In this English lesson, I want it to help you learn the English phrase... That's upside down, isn't it? In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase there are plenty of fish in the sea. This is something that you can say to someone after they break up with their boyfriend or girlfriend. Sometimes people are together and sometimes they date for a while and sometimes they break up. Sometimes it doesn't work out and then one or both of them might be sad and if you know one of them, you could say, you know, hey, there are plenty of fish in the sea. This means that even though they are no longer with that one person, there are still lots of other men and women in the world that they could potentially date someday. So when someone breaks up, it's not always a nice thing to say. Sometimes they're really sad and they don't want to hear this, but you can say to them, hey, don't be so sad. There are plenty of fish in the sea. There's lots of other people that you could date.

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The other phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase that sounds fishy. We sometimes say that smells fishy or even that's fishy. It means that you don't believe something. If my brother said to me, hey, I know this guy and if we each give him $1,000, he will give us $3,000 in a week if we invest money with him, I would probably say, you know what, that sounds fishy. That doesn't sound like it could be true. That sounds like it might be something illegal. That sounds fishy. I might say that smells fishy or the whole thing seems fishy to me. It would mean that it's something, it's a situation where I don't really trust what's happening. Certainly if someone said to me, hey, Bob, give me $1,000 and if you invest it with me, in two weeks, I'll give you $5,000 back, I would probably say, no, I'm not gonna do that. That sounds fishy.

So to review, when you say there are plenty of fish in the sea, you're telling someone that if they break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend, there are lots of other men or women in the world that they could date. And if I say to someone that sounds fishy, it means that whatever they're telling me doesn't sound truthful, it doesn't sound real, it doesn't sound possible. It sounds a little bit fishy.

So I just realized I forgot to print out the comment for this video, so I'm just gonna run back to the house for a minute, so hang tight. I'll be back in just a few minutes. You won't notice the delay, but it's gonna take me a little while. I'm pretty far out in the flower field right now. So I'll be right back.

Okay, I'm back. Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan and the comment is this. "Thank you for the lesson, Teacher Bob. "It was nice to see the town. "I am very fond of small, cozy, and tranquil towns "where people are never in a hurry. "Please show us more of your town from time to time." My response, "our town is small and tranquil "until around 4:30 in the afternoon, "when everyone is coming home from work. "Even our little town has rush hour."

So, yes, my plan would be to go to town at least once a week. I have time during my workday. Sometimes I step in little holes when I start to walk. I have time in my workday to pop over to the town and to make a little video. So I'll probably do that at least once a week, just so there's a little bit of variety.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A TOUCH OF CLASS and WORLD CLASS

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "a touch of class." When you do something with a touch of class, it means you do something in a way that makes it cooler than normal. Let's think about maybe you're making a dinner for someone special in your life. And you think to yourself, "If I put some candles on the table for this romantic dinner, it will add a touch of class." So when you add a touch of class to something, it means you add something that makes it a little more special than it normally would be. I thought when I bought these sunglasses that even though they were only a dollar, they add a touch of class to how I look in my videos. And it's nice to have them on a sunny day, but they also add a touch of class.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "world class". When something is world class, it means it's super, super good, or if someone is world class, it means they're super, super good. Think about your favorite athlete, they are probably a world class athlete. There are hockey players in Canada that could play on any hockey team in the world because they are world class athletes. They're some of the best in the world. There's some restaurants in Toronto that are world class restaurants. They serve food that's just really, really good, and people really, really like it, and it's some of the best food in the world.

So to review, when you do something with a touch of class, you do it in a way where it's just a little extra special, or when you add something to something, you can add a touch of class by adding things like nice candles for a romantic dinner. And if something is world class or if someone is world class, they are like the best in their field.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is in my pocket somewhere, and it is from Sherly. And Sherly says, "I always loved the last part of the video, where teacher Bob takes us on a tour of his well organized farm." And my response was, "You'll be surprised then in the next video, as I'll be walking around my town."

So let's do that for a bit. Let's walk around my town. I thought that I should do some of these videos on location. In English, when you do something on location, it means you do it like out in the town or out somewhere. Normally, I do my videos on location on my farm, but I thought it would be fun to come downtown and shoot the video here. I should walk this way, actually. Sorry for spinning you around like that. I hope you didn't get too dizzy. Let's walk a little bit down the sidewalk here. This is a small town, so I'm not too worried about someone taking my tripod, although that could happen, but I doubt that it will.

I like the little town that I live close to. I'll be honest, I haven't gotten out here much because of the pandemic, but it's a nice quaint little town. There aren't that many people here. In fact, we only have about two fast food restaurants and a few pharmacies. We don't have a hospital. The city or the town isn't big enough for that. But it has all of the things that you would need if you wanted to get things. There's a grocery store, like I said, there's a few fast food restaurants.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS and IN THE LONG RUN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "in the grand scheme of things." This is usually used to talk about something negative that doesn't really affect you in your entire life or in the thing that you are doing. Maybe that didn't make a lot of sense. Let me give you a specific example. Let's say you usually get an A+ on every single test, but you get an F on one test. If you have 10 or 12 tests during the school year, in the grand scheme of things, that one failure doesn't really matter because everything will average out and you'll still get a really good grade. We also use this to talk about things like eating sweets. If you eat something sweet maybe once a week, in the grand scheme of things, it's not going to cause you to put on weight. It's when you start eating sweets every day where that starts to happen. So when you say "in the grand scheme of things," it means over a long period of time, or when you look at your whole life as a whole

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is, "in the long run." We use this to talk about things where over time, something might happen. Here's a good example. If you used to go to a drive-through every morning and buy a coffee, if you do that, then in the long run, you're going to end up spending a lot of money. So basically over a period of time, that's going to end up costing you quite a bit. In the long run, it's actually quite expensive. Each day, it might not seem that way. Spending a dollar or $2 for a cup of coffee doesn't seem too expensive, but if you look at it in the long run, it's going to add up and be quite expensive.

So to review, when you say that something is in the grand scheme of things, it kind of means over a large portion of time or in your life in general, and when you say in the long run, it's somewhat similar. It refers to a long period of time. I hope those definitions made sense. I'm a little tired from teaching today so hopefully there's no confusion.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Jacques and the comment is, "Hi, Bob. The next time your siblings want to be in control, you could remind them of the saying, 'Too many cooks spoil the broth.' Best regards." And my response was, "Or I could say, 'Many hands make light work.'" I always find it funny that we have two sayings and they mean the opposite of each other.

Yes, we definitely have those two sayings in English and it is kind of funny, isn't it? One of the sayings is "Too many cooks spoil the broth," which means that if too many people try to cook a certain dish, it might not turn out very good. And the other saying is "Many hands make light work," which means if a whole bunch of people work on the same thing, it makes the job easier. So interestingly in English, we have both phrases and you can use whichever one you want, depending on the situation.

Hey, surprisingly, I don't have a lot to talk about for the last minute of this video. I'm usually quite a talkative person. Usually, I talk about all kinds of things, but just today, it felt like a really long day. So maybe I'll talk about that for a bit. I taught all of my classes. One of my classes was maybe a little louder than normal, and I had to talk louder than normal to kind of keep control. But overall, the students worked hard and were learning things.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OUT OF MY CONTROL and TO BE IN CONTROL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "Out of my control." There are things on this farm that are under my control. There are things that I am in control of, but there are also things that are out of my control. Things like how often it rains, that's out of my control. Sometimes we get too much rain. Sometimes we don't get enough rain, but I can't make it rain. Okay? It is out of my control. I wish sometimes that it was though. I wish sometimes we could just go on the internet and order rain. Like, "We would like one inch of rain tomorrow, preferably in the afternoon." But we can't because the rain is out of my control. This morning it's Saturday, today that I'm making this lesson early. This morning I did a live lesson, and the wind was out of my control. It was quite windy, but I think people could hear things just fine.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is "To be in control." A lot of people want to be a leader. They want to be in charge of something. They want to be in control. We have this even in my own family. Sometimes when we organize an event, a few of us really like to be in control, even if it's something like a small party for my mum or a family gathering. Sometimes my brothers and sisters, and I argue a little bit because all of us like to be in control. We like to be the person in charge. We like to be the person doing the planning, and buying everything, which is kind of silly. It's actually far easier to not be in control of a situation. It's far easier to let someone else be in control. But hey. that's the way it goes sometimes.

So to review. When something is out of my control, it means that I cannot make it happen. Okay? If I'm driving on the highway, and traffic is slow, it's out of my control. I can't make people in front of me go faster. And to be in control is the same as to be in charge, to be the person who is responsible for something that is happening.

But hey. Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from and the comment is this. "Hello, your grass is nice with a wonderful green color. You really know how to take care of it. The weather seems fine for mid September, have a nice day." And my response, "The only thing we do to make our grass look good is that we don't cut it too short. Cutting grass too short makes it unhappy. Rain helps, but that's outside of my control.

Notice I use the phrase there that I just taught you. But yes. Let's have a look at the grass. Let me hold this as high as I can. Our grass right now is very nice and very green. We have been very happy here on the farm. It was dry for a while, and then it started raining again. But we don't fertilize our grass.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, TRY, TRY AGAIN and FIRST THINGS FIRST

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. It's a bit of a long one, isn't it? We actually sometimes just say the beginning of this phrase, we say, if at first you don't succeed, and then people might respond by saying, try, try again. And it's a phrase we use to talk about how in life, sometimes you just need to try to do something more than once before you have success. You might have this with learning English, maybe your first English conversation didn't go very well. But the secret to success when learning a language is, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. We also had this on our farm with some of the things that we grow. We've tried to grow certain things in the past, and maybe the fertility in the soil wasn't right. Or maybe that certain type of plant got too much water, or not enough water. And our motto has always been, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. I, as a teacher, would insert in there, if at first you don't succeed, do some research, and then try, try again.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase first things first. This is a bit of a repeat. For those of you that have been around for more than two years, I did teach this phrase a couple of years ago. It means when you're going to do something, there are a number of things you probably have to do. Do the most important things first. A good example of this would be if you're going on a trip, first things first, you should make sure the car has gas in it. You should make sure the car has had a recent oil change. You should make sure that if it's winter, you have snow tires on your car. First things first means that you do the most important things first. Once all that's done, then you pack your things in the car, and you get in the car, and you start driving. But first things first, you might want to make sure the car is ready to go.

So to review, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again is a funny little phrase we say, and we do say this. I think my mom just said it the other day. It just means that when you try something, it doesn't always go well the first time. So you should make sure you don't quit. You should make sure you try again. And when we say first things first, it simply means that if you're doing something, and there are five things to do, do the most important one or two things first.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Turong, and the comment is my English learning goals for this week are to watch at least one short video in English, and write a short comment on it every day. I hope to be able to make it. My response was make it happen, you can do it.

I used to watch a show called Star Trek, and Jean-Luc Picard was the captain, and he would say make it so, and that basically means do it, get it done. You can do it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I MADE IT and TO HAVE IT MADE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "I made it". Now you can use this literally. If you made a cake and someone said, "Who made that cake?" You could say, "I made it." But we also use this to say that we've gotten to the end of something difficult, or we've gotten to the end of a journey. So I could say this, "I made it. I made it to the end of the school day today. I taught my first day. School started today, and I made it." I think this is really a short form of saying "I made it to the end of the day", or "I made it through my day." But "I made it." It was a good day. I really, really enjoyed it. I had a good time and it was a lot easier than I was expecting. I think that sometimes I feel like I'm a little rusty, but when I get back in the classroom, everything just comes back to me. So it was a long day. It was an enjoyable day. I made it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to have it made." "To have it made", this looks like some of the same words, but when we put them in this order, it means that someone has a really easy and good life. Let's say you have a friend and their job is to count cars going past their house, and they get paid $100 an hour to do it. No one has a job like that, but you would definitely in that case say, that person has it made. You would say, "Oh, you know what? If you wanna have it made, you should get the same job as this guy. He gets paid $100 an hour to count cars." You would really have it made if you had that job. It would be really easy. You would just sit in a chair. Again, I don't think that job exists.

But to review, when you say "I made it", it means you've gotten through your day or to the end of a journey. I don't think I explained this, but you can also use this phrase when you get somewhere. So when I went on a trip last week, when I got there, I could text Jen and say, "I made it." I'm in the town that I was driving to. And when you have it made, it simply means that you have a really easy and good life. Your job isn't very hard. You have a really nice spouse and really happy children. You have it made. It's always a nice feeling probably. I don't have it made. I have a nice life, but I wouldn't describe it at that level. It's a good life, but I don't have it made. I still work hard every day.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd Ags, and the comment is this. Have to laugh a bit because the subtitle person always makes Mohd Ags' name into "mode eggs", like the egg. So anyways, Mohd Ags. "It's interesting how you will soon change from free as a bird to busy as a bee. Don't worry, Bob, you're a great teacher. You got this. Everything will be hunky dory." And my response is "Thanks for the encouragement. It goes a long ways." I do really appreciate it, by the way. By the way, as I respond to this, I've actually finished my first day back. It went great.

So Mohd Ags used the phrase "hunky dory". I love that phrase. When everything's hunky dory, it means everything's really good. It means everything's going well. And certainly today went really well. I know I've talked about this a little bit already, but it was just really nice. It was nice to get back in the groove, to do some lesson planning.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO FREE UP and AS FREE AS A BIRD

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to free up. This is a phrase that we use when we want to make space or time available to ourselves. Let me give you a few examples. In my classroom, I have a bookshelf and there were a lot of books on there that I didn't need anymore. So I got those books and I put them in the recycling because I wanted to free up some space. I wanted to make some space available on the bookshelf for other books. The other way you could use this is to talk about time. Tomorrow, I have a dentist appointment. If I canceled that appointment, it would certainly free up some time for me to do some other things. So when you free up something in English, it usually means to make some space or some time available to you.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase as free as a bird. It's a little windy out here today. When you are as free as a bird, it means you have no obligations. Tomorrow I don't actually have a dentist appointment. That was just an example. Tomorrow is actually a holiday here in Canada and I'll be as free as a bird tomorrow. I don't have to go to work, I don't have to do anything. In fact, Jen and I are taking the day off. I'll be as free as a bird. Tuesday though is the day that school starts so I'll be back at work. If you think about the school year in Canada, at the end of the month of June, when the school year ends, I'm also as free as a bird. But that's gonna end quickly in just a couple of days.

So to review when you free up space or you free up time, you make it available again. Maybe you take some books off a bookshelf to free up space. Maybe you cancel an appointment to free up time. And when you are as free as a bird, it means that you don't have any obligations. You don't have anything to do for a certain period of time. You are free as a bird in the sky.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. And this comment is from Roberto and Roberto says, "Hi, Bob. I knew the expression, same old but only used once not twice. Why did you use it twice?" And my response was it's just another way of expressing the same thing. But in a more general way, if someone asked how was work, I could respond and say, you know, same old, same old. Or I could say, you know, same old lesson planning, same old boring colleagues or coworkers, sorry. By the way, my coworkers aren't boring.

But that was just an example, but great question, Roberto. In English there are many ways to say different things. So one way with same old, same old, it's just a little more general. And then with same old, you usually need to specify what is the same.

Anyways as I mentioned in a couple of days, I think you'll be watching this on Monday. I'm actually recording this on the weekend. On Tuesday of this week, I will be back at school. The school year will begin. We have a nice holiday on the Monday of this week. It's called Labor Day. So again, I'll be free as a bird because I don't have to do any work. But for you, if you're watching this on Monday, the day after today, Tuesday is the first day of school. I will be back at work.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SAME OLD SAME OLD and I'LL HAVE THE SAME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, same old, same old. No, this is not a typo. We do sometimes say this. We say this when something was the same as the last time we did it. Today I had my first day of work, actually, my second day, I'll explain that more later. And if you were to say to me, Bob, how was your day at work? I would say, you know, same old, same old. We did the same things as we did last year at this time. Same old, same old. I was in meetings. I had to wear my mask all day. It was basically the same old, same old. You can use this for any situation. Maybe you're watching a TV show and someone says, oh, did you see the last episode? And you could say, yeah, it wasn't that great. It was just the same old, same old. It was the same story and it was kind of boring.

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The second phrase I want to teach you today. I'm kind of embarrassed by this phrase because it's quite simple when I look at it. The phrase is, I'll have the same. I think you probably all know this phrase. It means that you'll have the same thing that someone else is getting usually in a restaurant. I was actually in a restaurant recently with my brother, and he ordered a hamburger with fries and I said, I'll have the same. And I thought I should teach you this phrase. But now when I look at it, I think this is actually a pretty easy one, isn't it? Well, maybe it's your lucky day. Instead of two hard to understand phrases, you got one somewhat easy to understand and one really easy to understand phrase. So if you say, I'll have the same, it means you'll get the same thing as someone else in a restaurant.

So to review the phrase, same old, same old, means that something is the same. And work definitely was the same old, same old today. Same people, same classrooms, like I said, same masks, same little lines on my face at the end of the day from the strings on the mask, when they go around my ear. So it was definitely the same old, same old. And if you say in a restaurant, I'll have the same. After someone you are with orders their food, it means you want the same order as them. It's an easy way to order stuff in a restaurant.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, drum roll, please. So sometimes we say that in English to be funny, like we're waiting for a drum roll. It's from Alex. Alex says, "I got confused when you said around age 65, she decided to retire without subtitles on. I heard around 865, she decided to retire. And my response is, maybe you heard correctly. And my mom is over a thousand years old. Just kidding. Actually, when I went back and listened, it did sound like that a bit. I was speaking quite quickly."

So thanks Alex for that comment. Yes, in my previous video, I was talking about my mom and she retired at age 65. And if you listen to it a certain way, you might have heard it as me saying that she retired in the year 865, sometime, I guess, in the middle ages.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP BUSY and BUSY WORK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to keep busy. This is a phrase that we mostly use when talking about people who are retired. My mom is retired. She worked for a long time, and around age 65, she decided to retire, but she likes to keep busy. In English, when you say that someone wants to keep busy, it usually means they don't have a job, but they still like to do things. My mom, in order to keep busy, volunteers at what's called a thrift store. A thrift store is where people donate clothes, and then the people who work there put prices on them and sell them and the money's used for a good cause. So in order to keep busy, my mom likes to work at the thrift store. We could also say she likes to keep herself busy. That's another way of saying it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase busy work. Busy work is any kind of work that you do that isn't really productive. It's work that you do for the sake of doing the work. Here's the best example I can think of. Sometimes, when I give my students lessons, I try to make it very, very effective. I want them to learn a lot. I don't want to just give them a bunch of busy work. If I was to give them busy work, that would mean I would make them practice things they already know. I would make them do things that weren't teaching them anything new. I would be giving them busy work. It would just look good. If the principal came in the classroom, it would look like my students were working, but they would just be doing busy work. If I was making them review things that they learned last year, or if I was making them do something over and over again, it would just be busy work.

So to review, to keep busy, or to keep oneself busy, means to do things similar to work, to stay active, to do activities, especially when you are retired or when you don't have a job, maybe you just don't need to work. Maybe you have so much money, you don't need to work, but in order to keep busy, you find little things to do. And busy work is any kind of work that just isn't productive. It's work that you do for the sake of work. I hope that makes sense.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Roman and the comment is this. "Hi, Bob, many people shy away from public speaking. "So do I, thanks for the lesson." And my response was, "The funny thing is that once you've done it for a while, "it becomes a lot less stressful. "I think a lot of things in life are that way."

So the funny thing is when I replied to Roman, my first reply, I actually said, "Once you've done it for a while, "it becomes a lot more stressful." I typed the wrong word, so I corrected it, but I thought Roman would probably have a bit of a laugh or maybe be a little confused by that initial response.

But yes, there are many things in life that are just easier once you do it for a while. It doesn't mean it's easy to do that thing. It doesn't mean that there's no stress involved. Usually, there's lots of stress, but I have found that if I can push myself, if I can get to a point where I convince myself to do something stressful, instead of shying away from it, great use of the phrase, by the way, Roman, sometimes, you just do it for a while and you become good at it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases JUST SHY OF and TO SHY AWAY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, just shy of. When you are just shy of something, it means you're almost there, but not quite. I'm actually five foot, 10 and a half inches tall. I'm just shy of being six feet tall. Maybe you watch sports, and there you have a favorite athlete who might break a record. Maybe the record is 100 goals scored in a season, but your favorite athlete scores 98 or 99 goals. You would say that they were just shy of breaking the record. So when you are just shy of something, you're almost there but not quite.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to shy away from. When you shy away from something, it means that you avoid it. It's something you don't like doing. Some people don't like speaking in public, so they shy away from it. That means if someone asks them if they want to speak in public, if they want to do some public speaking, they usually say no, they shy away from public speaking. I try to shy away from bad foods. I try to not eat them, but sometimes I fail at that. I'm not that good at shying away from certain things.

So to repeat, when you are just shy of something, it means that you're almost there but not quite, In a few months, I hope, on my bigger channel, I will be just shy of a million subscribers. Right now I'm around 820,000 or something like that. So I'm not close yet, but if I was at 999,000 subscribers, I would be just shy of a million. And of course, again, the phrase, to review. To shy away means to avoid something. I shy away from being outside in bad weather, especially if there's lightning. If there's a freak storm, I don't like to be outside.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I'm having trouble with my pockets today. Let me get this out. I know it's from Russlynn and the comment is this. Russlynn says, "Thank you for the cool lesson, teacher Bob. Your phrase, fall is coming, reminded me of the 'Game of Thrones' motto, you know our words, winter is coming." My response was, "ha ha, I never thought of that. Yes, fall is coming."

So "Game of Thrones," it's actually, I read the books and then I watched the TV shows. It's a really interesting fantasy series. It has knights, and it has big battles with swords and horses and everything. And one of the phrases in that show is "winter is coming," because that's something that everyone, I think in that land, winter only comes every few years. So every once in a while, they'll say "winter is coming."

And yes, fall is coming here. The trees are not quite turning color yet, but that will actually be happening soon. It's been very, very dry and that kind of speeds things up, but you can see behind me, we actually did get a little bit of rain. So I'm glad that- There's a little bit of thunder right now. It just finished raining a few minutes ago, so maybe I should have waited a little bit to come outside. I usually shy away from making videos in the rain. I don't think it's gonna rain again, but anyways, fall can come very quickly here. Even though it has been very warm lately and it feels like summer, it's been over 30 degrees for many days, it feels like in this part of Canada, in just, in a heartbeat, it can be fall.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG and TO TIP OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase the tip of the iceberg. Now an iceberg is a gigantic block of ice floating in the ocean. And you can see the top of it, but there's a lot more below it. So we use the English phrase, the tip of the iceberg, to talk about things where you can see a little bit of it, but there's a whole lot more that is hidden. Here's a good example. Sometimes I'm sitting and I'm grading some student work, and I have a pile about this big, and another teacher might say to me, oh, that's not very much grading. I could say, it's just the tip of the iceberg. There are three more piles of grading in my classroom that I have to go and grade later today. So when you say something is the tip of the iceberg, it means you can see a little bit of it, but there's a whole bunch more to it that is hidden.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to tip off. When you tip someone off, it means you tell them a secret, or you tell them something that was supposed to be a secret. Let's say my sister is planning to have a surprise party for me, and my other sister tips me off. My other sister tells me about the party. We would then say that she has tipped me off. She told me about something that was supposed to be a secret.

So let's review. The tip of the iceberg is any time you can see a small part of something, and maybe not realizing there's a whole bunch to it that's hidden as well. And when you tip someone off, it means you let them know something that was kind of supposed to be a secret.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Valeria, and Valeria says, hi, dear teacher, Bob, thank you for the new lesson. I've never heard about a fruit cellar. Is there a special place in the basement for fruits? And my response is this, yes, in the basement of our house, there is a fruit cellar, many houses in Canada have them. It is a room that stays somewhat cool all year round. We actually don't use ours that much anymore, as a fridge is more convenient.

So yes, fruit cellars, an interesting thing that all houses use to have, and most houses still do, but not everyone uses them to store fruit anymore. They were really handy, because they were below the ground, and so they stayed somewhat cool. So if you look right here, you'll see that there is a basement below my house. We have rooms in the bottom floor of our house below the ground. And because they are below the ground, they stay somewhat cool. And long ago, people used to harvest apples and pears, and they would keep them in the fruit cellar. It wasn't as cold as a refrigerator, but it was cold enough to keep things relatively cold, somewhat cold compared to what it was like outside. And they were especially good in the winter, because they never froze.

So because they were below ground, they would stay somewhere around, I'm gonna say 55 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know what that is in Celsius. Let me see if I can do the math really quickly. Probably around 10 or 11 degrees Celsius. I hope that's right. Double it, and add 30. 10 is it? Yes, somewhere around there, around 10 or 11 degrees Celsius. That's my quick math.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SQUARED AWAY and READY TO ROLL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "squared away." If I say that something is squared away in English, it means that it's properly organized, it means everything is in its place. If I had something squared away, it would mean that I'm ready for something. I spent the last few days getting squared away for the new school year. I have everything squared away for the school year, which starts two weeks from today actually. So I'm really happy because I have everything squared away. Notice you can use this two ways. I can say, "I'm squared away," or I can say, "I have everything squared away," or, "Things are all squared away for the start of the new school year." I'm pretty happy about that. I'm glad that I could take this little break to get ready because being ready for the new school year just makes me a little more relaxed.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "ready to roll." Now, I couldn't remember if I've already taught you this phrase, but I am ready to roll. In English, we use this phrase somewhat informally to just say we're ready for something. When it comes to the new school year, I'm ready to roll. If my boss said to me, "Bob, are you ready for the first day of school?" I would say, "I'm ready to roll." It's kind of a funny phrase. I think it's related to, we use the word roll when we're talking about driving. Like when I'm driving down the road, you could say I'm rolling down the road. I don't actually say that, younger people might, but when you say that you are ready to roll, it means that you are prepared, it means that you are all ready to do something.

So let's review. If you have everything squared away or if you say, "I'm squared away," it means that everything is in its proper place. You are organized and ready for something. I have everything squared away and I'm ready for the new school year. And when you say that you are ready to roll, it means that you are just completely and totally ready to do something.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from a Maritza and the comment is this. "Hi, Bob. Lisianthus are really beautiful flowers, but I wonder if you have any fruit trees on your farm? So far, I haven't seen any. By the way, I'm a cheap person too. I love to drive a hard bargain. Have a good day." And my response was this. "We do not have any fruit trees. There used to be a pear tree at the bottom of the hill behind my house, but it died years ago. We've thought about getting an apple tree someday."

So one of the things that's unique about fruit and not everybody knows this is that you need a certain kind of soil to grow certain kinds of fruit trees. Where I live here in Ontario, Canada, we have very hard clay soil and so the only two types of fruit trees we can grow, we can grow apples and we can grow pears in this soil. I'm not sure if you can see it, but way down the hill, there is a dead tree and that is the tree that used to have pears on it.

When I was a kid, we would go down the hill and we would pick pears off the ground and we would feed them to some of our animals, but we would also keep all the good ones and we would put them in the fruit cellar in the basement and then we would eat them during the winter. They were quite yummy actually. We've thought about getting an apple tree.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WHAT A STEAL and NERVES OF STEEL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, what a steal. This is something we say when we buy something and the price was really, really low. Notice this word, steal, usually means to take something without paying, but when we buy something that's really, really cheap, when we buy something where it's on sale and where the price is really good, we sometimes say, "What a steal," or we say, "It was a steal." Let me tell you, I just bought this t-shirt today. Normally, it was $15, but I bought it for $8. What a steal. These sunglasses I bought the other day, normally $5. I bought them for just $1. What a steal. I know. I'm pretty cheap, aren't I? These are dollar store sunglasses. They're from the store where everything in the store is about $1, but I've told you before, I'm pretty cheap.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, nerves of steel. Notice this is the other word, steel. This one has two Es in it. It's different than this one. When we say steel, when we use this term, we are referring to the metal. And when you say that someone has nerves of steel, it means that when something is going wrong, they are very calm and they're able to handle the situation really, really well. My dad was like that. When something would go wrong on the farm, when there was an emergency, he had nerves of steel. He would just calmly do what needed to be done to fix the problem or the emergency. It was really awesome.

Anyways, to review, when you say, "What a steal," you're saying that something was a really, really good deal. These sunglasses were a real steal, and this t-shirt, I think, was a real steal. I'm really happy that I got some new clothes. And then when you say nerves of steel, you just mean that someone, they don't get angry, they don't get upset, they don't start crying in a bad situation. They just calmly do what needs to be done.

But hey, let's look at a comment. I have to check the time on the camera here. Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Yaroslaw, and Yaroslaw says, "You know what? Recently, I realized that I understand almost all English jokes, especially when you're joking. It is a very new feeling to me. It's cool. Could you please make an English lesson someday about jokes slash telling jokes? By the way, Oscar laying on the table is adorable." Yeah, he's not around right now. Sorry about that. My response was this. "It's always cool to realize you've understood something in another language without working hard to understand what was said. When understanding starts to come freely, it's a great step.

So congratulations, that is an awesome step." When that happens when you're learning a language, it's just an awesome feeling. I think I've talked about this before where I've watched television in French, and then all of the sudden, at a certain point, I'll realize I just watched 15 or 20 minutes of the show and that I understood everything that was happening. Sorry, it's a little hard to walk without tripping. It is a very, very cool feeling to completely understand what someone is saying in another language. So, very awesome that you are able to do that when I'm joking and when you're hearing English jokes, very cool.

And yeah, Oscar laying on the table, yeah, that was very cool, but he's not around right now. I think it's too hot out here for him today, so he's just hanging out somewhere in the shade. Let me check my timer again. I have 3

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms THE BIG SCREEN and THE SMALL SCREEN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term, the big screen. The big screen is simply another way of saying the movies. There might be an actor that you know really well and you see him quite often on the big screen. This would mean that that actor often plays roles in movies. So sometimes when you read a book, it might be adapted for the big screen. They might take that book and then make a script out of it and then make it into a movie and then you can go and see the same story that you read in the book, you can go see it on the big screen.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is, of course, the small screen. The small screen is simply another way of saying the television. Now I'm not 100% sure if this also means Netflix or your phone, but definitely in the past, and even still a little bit now, we would say the small screen, and we would be talking about the television. You might have a favorite actor who used to be in movies, but lately, that actor has started to do more, to play more roles on the small screen. That would mean instead of being in movies, that actor is now normally seen on television.

So to review. The big screen simply means the movies and the small screen simply means the television. I think you can understand where these terms come from, right? The movie theater has a very, very big screen, and your television, I guess is somewhat big, but not nearly as big as the movie theater.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Lolly Lolly, I think.

By the way, Oscar's just kind, gent-- Nicely sleeping there. Oh, now he just kind of looked at me. I think he knows he's on camera. Shh, don't say anything.

The comment from Lolly Lolly is this. Hello from France. Do you think that some of your children will follow in your footsteps on the farm? Thanks, Bob. My reply is I'm really not sure. We're taking a wait and see approach. We're not pressuring any of them. Right now, it seems like they have a lot of other interests.

So that's a great question, Lolly Lolly. Often, it's hard to know as a farm dad and farm mum, it's hard to know if any of the kids are interested in working on the farm. Should we pet Oscar for a sec? Hi, puppy. And we don't want to pressure them. We don't want to try. We don't want them to think that they have to do it. We know they have lots of other interests. They like computers. They like music. They like sports. There's all kinds of things that children are naturally interested in and we don't want to force them. We don't want to say you have to take over the farm, so we're taking a wait and see approach. A wait and see approach is exactly what it sounds like. You wait and you see what happens. So they're still quite young. We'll see what happens in a few years. What often happens with kids who grow up on farms is, later in life, when they're in their 20s or 30s, they start to have fond memories of what it was like to be on the farm.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HARD TO FOLLOW and TO FOLLOW IN SOMEONE'S FOOTSTEPS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "hard to follow." Hard to follow simply means that something is hard to understand or it's hard to keep track of what's happening when you're watching something or reading something or when someone is talking to you. Hopefully, when you watch my videos, they're not hard to follow. Hopefully, they are easy to understand. I know sometimes when you watch an English movie or English TV show, it might be hard to follow. You might have to pause and rewind and maybe turn the subtitles on every once in a while, because sometimes people just speak too quickly and it's hard to follow.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is "to follow in someone's footsteps." When you follow in someone's footsteps, it means you do the same thing as they do. Usually this is between generations, like when children do the same job as their mom or dad, we say that they are following in their footsteps. Often, this happens on farms. Often, farms are taken over by the next generation. Sometimes the son or daughter of a farmer will follow in their parents' footsteps and they will do the same thing as their parents. They will also become farmers.

So to review, not sure I explained this one good enough, but when something is hard to follow, it's simply hard to understand. Again, I really hope my videos aren't too hard to follow. I hope they are easy for you to understand. And when you follow in someone's footsteps, it usually means that you do the same thing as an older family member. Sometimes grandkids will follow in the footsteps of their grandparents. Maybe their grandfather was a mechanic and one of the grandkids has decided to become a mechanic as well. We would say that they are going to follow in their grandfather's footsteps.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, I think, Yellow DQ 1989. And the comment is this. "You just need a Clarkson's Lamborghini tractor." And my response was, "That would be amazing. I love that show. So fun to watch."

So what Yellow is talking about is a show on Amazon Prime called "Clarkson's Farm." "Clarkson's Farm" stars Jeremy Clarkson. He was a presenter on "Top Gear" and "The Grand Tour," an automotive show, for a very long time. I think he still does "The Grand Tour" but he also has a little show now called "Clarkson's Farm" where he farms in England and he has a tractor that's made by Lamborghini. A very cool tractor. I'm assuming it's made by some of my Italian friends in Italy. And he is just learning how to be a farmer on his big farm. Maybe I should have a Lamborghini tractor.

I'm not sure if you can see my tractor down there. My big tractor is also broken. I have two broken tractors right now. My small tractor and my big one. So hopefully the repairman comes to fix my big tractor. It's down there in the field. It's really little. Maybe I'll try to zoom in on it when I edit this video. Hopefully the repair person, hopefully the tractor mechanic comes today and he's able to fix that one. The tire on my other tractor is still not repaired. I have to go get that later today. Hopefully, within a couple of days, both my tractors are working again, but it's not a rush.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT'S NOT SET IN STONE and STICKS AND STONES

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, it's not set in stone. If something isn't set in stone, it means it might not happen. Maybe you're making plans for something, but all the details aren't in yet. So you're not even sure you're going to do the thing that you are planning. You would tell people that it's not set in stone. We also sometimes say, it's not written in stone or it's not etched in stone. And we almost always use this phrase in the negative. I can't think of any time where I've said something is set in stone. I almost always say something is not set in stone. So maybe you're thinking of having a party, but you're not 100% sure you want to have one. You might say to your friends, hey, I'm thinking of having a party this weekend, but it's not set in stone. That means it might happen, it might not happen. It's not permanent. The decision hasn't been made yet as to whether it happens or not.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, sticks and stones. And this is a shorter version of a phrase that kids say, which is sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. This is a phrase I used the other day because someone said, do you ever get negative comments on your YouTube channel? And I was like, wow, you know, sticks and stones. And what that means is that people do sometimes leave negative comments, believe it or not, sometimes I get really negative comments and I just delete them. I always, I think to myself, sticks and stones and then the whole rest of the little nursery rhyme. Words, negative comments do hurt a little bit, but I'm glad I'm older. I'm glad I'm an older YouTuber. I think I have a thick skin at this point in my life.

Anyways, to review, when you say it's not set in stone, or it's not written in stone, or it's not etched in stone, it means that the plan is just an idea and it's not permanent at this point. And when you say sticks and stones, you're basically saying yes, sometimes people say negative things, people say mean things, but you don't let them affect you. Words do hurt sometimes though. I think when you're younger, it's a lot more challenging, right?

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Franco The Tutor and Franco says, first comment, i'm a teacher from Peru, thanks for being an inspiration to me. And then a little smiley face. And my response was, hey, it's no problem, Franco, I love doing it, I hope your teaching is going well, have a great day.

So that's an example of a really nice comment. I mostly get really nice comments on my videos and I appreciate them. But going back to the sticks and stones thing, I was a little surprised when I first started doing YouTube, I almost tripped there, how many people would leave negative comments. And I think this is my opinion of negative comments. I feel bad for the person who's leaving the comment. I feel like that person is not having a good day and they're having a such bad day that they just wanted to leave mean comments on someone's YouTube channel. I don't know why people do that. It doesn't really help the world to leave mean negative comments.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN YOUR DREAMS and DREAM ON

I think maybe we should start today's lesson by going for a walk, because there are people driving their boat in the river. So I'm just going to walk over here for the beginning of the lesson and hopefully we can catch them driving by. Let me flip the camera around, so that you can have a look. So they're driving their boat. They're having a fun time. Maybe they'll do some fishing later, who knows.

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In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "In your Dreams." This is a phrase that we say to people when they say they're going to do something really, really amazing. And we don't think they're able to do it. We would say, "In your dreams." A good example would be this, Maybe a friend of yours bought a guitar and they're going to learn to play it. And they say to you, "I'm going to be the most famous rock star in the world in one year." You might reply by saying to them, "In your dreams." Basically what you're saying is you doubt that, that's going to happen. Even though maybe your friend will learn to play guitar. It's probably going to be really hard to become the most famous rock star in the whole world. So it would be a good time to skeptically say, "In your dreams."

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today means the same thing. And that's the phrase, "Dream on!" Let's say a friend of yours bought a car and they're going to turn it into a race car. And they say to you, "I am going to be the best race car driver in the world in about five years." you might say to them, "You know what, dream on." You might even say, "Dream on buddy." That's kind of a derisive. Is that the word? It's kind of a little bit of an insult, but you could say to them, "Dream on." This means that you highly doubt that they're going to succeed at what they say they're going to do.

Sorry, I'm a little distracted because the people in the river are talking. I don't know if you can hear them.

Let's review though. If you say, "In your dreams" to someone, or if you say, "Dream on" to someone, you're basically saying you doubt that they're going to be able to do what they say that they were going to do. It's not a nice thing to say, but sometimes with friends, you can say things like in your dreams or dream on. And they understand that you're just kind of bugging them a little bit.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. That's not it, that's something I'm going to talk about in a moment. This comment is from Vito. And Vito says, "I totally agree that it is important to have a day off just to recharge our batteries. You work with your voice, even though you already had the experience teaching for a long time now, for a long time, and know how to preserve your voice, a day talking a little bit less is really important. By the way, thanks for the lesson and have a nice day Bob." And my response is this. My plan is to talk to my friend who is a music teacher and get some advice. he has been helpful in the past. He is a semi-professional singer and knows a lot about how to take care of one's voice.

Thanks Vito for the comment, by the way. I want to talk a little bit more about my voice. I don't exactly have a sore throat, but I feel like I'm using my voice too much.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO COME OUT OF THE WOODWORK and TO COME ALIVE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, come out of the woodwork. This is what people do after you win the lottery. They come out of the woodwork. This is a phrase that means that people show up, or it could be animals, or something else, but things show up, people show up after something good has happened to you. Here's a good example, we'll talk about the lottery. If you won the lottery, I'm sure that people would come out of the woodwork. Friends that you haven't seen for years, relatives that you didn't even know you had, they would come out of the woodwork because they would want money from you. I think this phrase is similar to when you drop some food on the floor and insects, ants and stuff, come out of the walls of your house to eat it. They come out of the woodwork, literally, and people come out of the woodwork if you win a lot of money.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to come alive. People come alive when, if they normally don't do a lot of things where there's a lot of activity and then suddenly do them. A good example would be this, when I was a kid, I had a little fish, so it can be more than just people, I had a fish in a fish bowl, and it would kinda swim around slowly until I fed it, and then it would certainly come alive. It would swim up to the top of the bowl and eat all the food. Sometimes, I've noticed at wedding receptions, after the wedding ceremony there's a reception, and sometimes they play music, and older people might come alive when they hear a song that they knew or that they used to listen to when they were younger. They come alive, they might even dance a little bit.

So anyways, to review, when people come out of the woodwork, it means they show up, usually after something good has happened to you. I think if you were to become the mayor of your town, old friends and relatives that you didn't even know you had, might come out of the woodwork and try to get you to do favors for them. And then the phrase to come alive simply means to act in a lively fashion, usually after not acting very lively. So you come alive. I usually come alive as soon as I hit the start button on the camera.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Yaroslaw, and the comment is this, "I miss your Geoguessr lesson, teacher Bob." And my response was, yeah, sorry about that. I've had to make a decision about that, and I probably won't be doing them again anytime soon. It was just one thing too many.

So I think all of you are familiar with the fact that in life you decide to do certain things, and sometimes you decide to do one thing too many. So when I was doing the Geoguessr lessons, I was noticing that I was talking a lot every week. I was doing a lot of live streams, a lot of videos, and so I thought to myself, I need one day a week where I don't do a lot of talking, maybe two. So I've decided that on Sundays and Tuesdays, those would kinda be my days off from doing anything where I needed to talk. So, sorry about that. There will probably be no Geoguessr for the foreseeable future. Maybe in the fall if I have a bit more time and my throat, my throat's just a little bit sore all the time, and I don't know why. Hopefully that gets better soon.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English Phrases TO THROW SOMETHING TOGETHER and TO THROW OUT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to throw something together. When you throw something together, it means you do it really quickly, maybe you don't do it as carefully as you normally would. You just do it as fast and as quickly as possible. This morning, I realized that it was Monday morning and I had a really busy weekend, and I didn't put a video out on this channel yet. So I thought I should throw something together. I thought I should still quickly make a video for all of you so that you could learn at least one or two English phrases this morning. And I did it a lot more quickly and not quite as carefully as I normally do. I just was able to throw something together so that you could watch it. Sorry, it's late.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is not really a phrase, but it's the difference between throw away and throw out. I've had this question quite a bit lately, and because I have the word throw in my first phrase, this popped up in my little English phrase spreadsheet as something I should teach. When you throw something away or when you throw something out, it means the same thing. I don't know why we have two verbs for throwing something away. By the way, when I've done these videos, I do not throw away the paper. I do not throw out the paper. I put it in the recycle bin and it gets recycled. So, throw out and throw away mean exactly the same thing. Sometimes when we're done using something, we will throw it out. Usually though, we try to recycle everything that we possibly can.

Anyways, to review, to throw something together means to do it quickly. Maybe you were asked to do a speech at your brother's wedding, and he asked you on the very day of his wedding. You would then throw something together quickly. You would quickly write a speech so you could read it at the wedding. And when you throw away something or throw out something, it means that you're just getting rid of it. Sorry, there's flies biting me this morning. It's the weirdest feeling.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Paul. I'm moving my feet around. I'm wearing shorts and they're biting my ankles. Paul says, "Thank you, Bob. Is it a bother for you to tell us more about your business classes?" And then my reply was, "It's not a bother. I'll do that in my next video."

So Paul is using the phrase, is it a bother? In the last lesson I talked about the phrase, whether something is a bother or not a bother. So I responded by saying it's not a bother. It means that it's not a problem for me to do that. So yes, I teach a variety of classes. I teach computer classes. I teach business classes. Mostly though I teach French classes. I teach a business class because I ran a computer tech support business for 20 years while I was teaching. I was a part-time teacher and I also ran a business where I provided tech support for different schools. So because of that business experience, I was asked to teach a business class years ago. As many of you know, Jen and I also have a flower farm. I should walk out and show you some of it. As you know, we also have a flower farm, and because of that, the principal at my school also thought I would be a good choice to teach a business class.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I CAN'T BE BOTHERED and IT'S NOT A BOTHER

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase I can't be bothered. This is a phrase that we use when we don't feel like doing something, we don't want to do something, or we don't think something is important. Here are a couple of examples. I exercise because I think it's important. If I didn't, I might say, you know what? I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered to exercise. It just seems like a waste of time to me. Another good example applies to me right now. I don't wash my car. I don't wash my van right now. I can't be bothered because it rains every day so there's no reason to do it. So in English, when you can't be bothered to do something, it means you don't feel like doing something or you don't see why it would be important to do that.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is it's not a bother. We use this phrase the same way we use the phrase it's not a problem. So if someone said to me, Bob, thank you so much for making these videos. I can say, ah, hey, it's not a bother at all. It's not a problem at all, I have lots of time to do this kind of stuff. It's not a bother. So in English, when you reply to someone by saying it's not a bother, it can sometimes be after they thank you for doing something. Like if someone said, hey, thanks for making that beautiful meal for us the other night. You can say, oh, it was no bother. Or it's not a bother, I had lots of time and I like cooking for people.

So to review, when you say I can't be bothered, it simply means you don't feel like doing something or you don't want to do something because you don't think it's important. And when you say it's not a bother, it's very similar to saying, ah, it was no problem or it's no problem. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Michael. And Michael says, "Bob's pronunciation is very nice. Can anyone tell me if he has a Canadian accent or an American accent?" And I thought I'll answer this one. And my response was I have a Canadian accent. It is very similar to an American accent. Well, at least it sounds a lot more American than British or Australian English.

So yes, I very much have a Canadian accent. As I've mentioned before, Canadian accents are very similar to American accents. I do say words like sorry and about a little differently than my American cousins, but certainly my accent is a lot more American than British. It definitely sounds a lot more American. I think it's because we live so close to the United States and I think I watch a lot of American television, as most Canadians do, so our accents are very similar.

Hey, I wanted to talk a little bit today about going back to school. It's crazy, by the way, if you are going to watch my live stream on my other channel later, or if you're gonna watch it later today, it's about school. It's the middle of summer, but something funny happens to me in the middle of the summer. When the month of June ends, I start to think about school. When the month of June ends, I know I still have another whole month of summer vacation, but I start to think about school. I start to check my school email a little bit more, I start to think about the classes that I'm going to be teaching.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HERE'S THE DEAL and BIG DEAL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, here's the deal. This is a phrase that we often say in English right before we explain something to someone or right before we tell someone something. I could say to Jen, "Hey, here's the deal. Later today, I'm going to go to the grocery store, I'm going to go to the library, and I'm going to take the kids to the pool to go swimming." So basically, any time you're going to explain something to someone, you can start by saying, "Here's the deal." In my classroom, I do the same thing with my students. I might say to them, "Okay, here's the deal. We're gonna start with a little quiz today. Then we're going to do some reading and then we're going to do some listening activities." So then they know what we're going to do that day.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is more of a term, but it's the term, big deal. When something is a big deal, it means it's really important to someone. When you graduate from school, it's a big deal. When you get married, it's a big deal. When you get your first job, it's a really big deal. So we'll use this phrase in English to talk about something that's really important and really cool that's happening to you in your life. We can also use it to describe a person. Sometimes you describe a famous person by saying they're a big deal. Matt Damon is kind of a big deal in Hollywood. He's a very famous actor.

So to review, when you say to someone, "Here's the deal," it's just a little sentence you use before you're going to explain something or tell them something. And when something is a big deal, it means it's important. It was a big deal to me when I bought my first car when I was younger. It was a big deal because I was then driving a car that belonged to me and not my parents. It was a pretty big deal for me.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Andres, I believe. And Andres says, "Good explanation, Mr. Bob. Just to get the picture about wheat harvesting, if the quality of the wheat was low, that means that you have lost money or the wheat for animals is also profitable. Thank you." And my response was this. "It means I got a bit less money, but still profitable."

So yes, I was talking about my wheat harvest the other day, and I had promised all of you that I would show you. Oh, by the way, thank you, Andres, for the comment. I promised I would show all of you the baler when it came, but I missed that too, so you don't get to see that. But things around here have been a little wet. Many of you asked questions about the quality of the wheat. Why was the quality of the wheat so low? And the reason it was low is because it has been too wet here. The wheat had a lot of mold on it, it had a lot of fungus on it, and it just didn't have enough protein for them to use it, to make things like flour and bread.

You can see there's a puddle right there. If a car goes by in a moment, you'll hear that it's very wet out here. I think there's a truck coming right now that you'll get to see. So you can kinda see that it is wet out here. It rained today. I think I've mentioned this a number of times in my videos lately. It just seems to be raining all the time lately. It's really good for the crops. If you look in the distance, the crops across the field are doing really, really well.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PICTURE SOMETHING and TO GET THE PICTURE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to picture something. We also sometimes say to picture someone. When you picture something, or when you picture someone, it means you close your eyes, well you don't have to close your eyes, but it means you can see them in your mind. Or you can see the thing that's being talked about in your mind. If I was to describe to you what Niagara Falls looks like, that there's thousands of liters of water going over a waterfall. You might be able to picture that in your mind. If I described my brother to you, if I said, my brother looks a lot like me, but he has a bigger beard, and he's a lot taller. You might be able to picture him in your mind. So when you picture something in your mind, or when you picture someone in your mind, it means you can kind of see it in your mind's eye. You can see the image in your mind.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to get the picture. To get the picture simply means to understand something. When you describe something to someone, or when you're explaining something to someone, and if at the end of the explanation, you say, okay, do you get the picture now? Do you get the picture? It basically means, do you understand? So if I was to tell someone to do a job on the farm, if I said, you need to dig a hole, it needs to be this deep. It needs to be big enough for us to plant a tree. Do you get the picture? Basically what I'm saying to them is do you understand the instructions that I've given to you?

So to review, when you picture something, or when you picture someone, it means you can kind of see that thing in your mind, or you can see that person in your mind. And when you get the picture, it means you understand something. Sometimes people don't get the picture. And that means that they don't understand something, but hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Stella. And Stella says this. My husband needs to lose weight for his health, but he doesn't like exercise. I want him to change his tune. I talked to him so much, and tell him what to do so often, he tunes me out. And my response was this, that's the way it goes sometimes. I know I talk to Jen a lot about my YouTube channel. And sometimes I talk so much that she tunes me out, and just nods her head. I think she nods her head, and it makes me feel like she's listening to me, but I know sometimes she has tuned me out.

And I think that's what happens sometimes. I agree, Stella. Sometimes when you talk to someone for a lot, for a long time about one thing, sometimes they will tune you out, because maybe you've just mentioned it too many times.

Hey, I have to apologize to you. The combine came and combined all my wheat a few days ago, my neighbor came, and this entire field was harvested. That's what I mean when I say combine, you can see that I'm stepping through these large wind rows of what's called straw, and another neighbor will come in a few days, and will bale all the straw. I'll try to catch that on camera. Although it did rain yesterday, so it's a little bit wet out here, but yeah, I feel bad, because I know I mentioned that when the combine came, when the wheat was going, when the wheat was harvested, I'm pretty sure I said, I would run out with my camera, and make a small video, but it ended up being combined while I was out doing something else. By the time I got home, it was almost dark, and my neighbor w

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO CHANGE YOUR TUNE and TO TUNE OUT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to change your tune. When you change your tune about something, it means you change how you think about it. Here's a good example. Maybe when you were a student in school, you didn't like doing homework, but you noticed that students who did homework got really good grades. You might then change your tune about homework. You might start to think that homework is actually a good thing to do. Here's another example. Maybe you don't think exercise is important. And then you go to the doctor and the doctor says, "You need to lose 20 pounds and you need to start exercising," and you do. And you noticed it does make you feel better. You might change your tune. Instead of thinking that exercise is silly, you might start to think that exercise is good and important.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to tune out. When you tune out, it means you ignore everything around you. Maybe when you read a book, you tune out. Maybe the book is so interesting, the story is so interesting, you don't notice anything else that is happening around you. You tune out. You can also tune somebody out. Sometimes I think when I was a teenager, I would tune out my mum. My mum would talk to me so much and tell me what to do so often that eventually I kinda stopped listening to her. I would tune out my mum. That's not very nice, is it? But I think a lot of teenagers do that for sure.

Anyways, to review, when you change your tune, it means that you start to think differently about something, usually in a positive way. And if you tune out the world around you, it means you don't hear or see anything because of what you're doing, or if you tune out a person, it means that you ignore them.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Snazzy, and Snazzy says, "Air quality is low, but the education quality is definitely high. I am sure the air quality will also become as high as the education soon. Nice lesson, Bob." And my response was this, "Yes, the air quality is much better today. It rained overnight and that really made things a lot better. It's also a lot cooler." So yes, we were happy to get rain because it was quite hazy and smoggy, and there was smoke from the forest fires, but we weren't happy to get rain because we didn't need rain, actually.

In fact, I was making this little video by the lawnmower. Our lawnmower has been used more during this month of July than any other month in the past. Usually in the summer, the grass stops growing. Well, it doesn't stop growing, but you don't need to mow it as much. But now, everything is growing. The pumpkins that I showed you I think a couple of weeks ago are much bigger. I did weed this, but I left some of the weeds here because they're actually good to put in bouquets. And if you look over here, you'll see that the lawn just keeps growing like crazy.

We have been mowing far more than we ever mow during this month. It's a little bit out of hand. But we wanna keep the property very nice and tidy because when people come to buy flowers, we want them to appreciate the property as well. When they come here to buy flowers, we want them to appreciate the trees and everything else that is around us.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WITH FLYING COLOURS and WHEN PIGS FLY!

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To pass with flying colors." When you take a test and if you get almost every single answer right, if you get almost every single answer correct, we would say that you were able to pass the test with flying colors. So maybe you went to take a driver's test and you did everything right. You made all of the correct turns. You did everything that the tester asked you to do. We would say that you were able to pass that test with flying colors. Maybe you've just taken an English test and you got almost every answer right, if not all of them, we would then say that you were able to pass with flying colors. So it simply means to do really, really well on a test.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "When pigs fly." This is a phrase that we sometimes say in English. It's a little bit of an older phrase. I haven't heard it a lot recently, but I did hear it on the news the other day. When you say, "When pigs fly," you're saying that something will not happen, okay. If you said to me, "Bob, do you think that someday you'll jump out of a plane with a parachute?" I would say, "When pigs fly." That basically means that that will never happen. I have no plan to ever jump out of a plane with a parachute. I'm afraid of heights. It just does not interest me at all. If you said to me, "Bob, are you gonna go parachuting tomorrow?" I would say, "Well, that's not gonna happen tomorrow." And I would say, "When pigs fly, that's the day when I'll go parachuting."

So to review, when you pass something with flying colors, it means you do a really good job on a test, and you get a really good mark or grade. And if someone says to you, "When pigs fly," they're basically saying that something is never going to happen.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from my buddy, Brent from "American English With This Guy." "I totally agree about the short days in the winter. I always dread that time of year. Why can't summer last forever?" And my response was this, "Yeah, it's weird when you're coming home from work at four o'clock in December and it's already getting dark."

Yeah, I think I forget what it's like to live in the place I live in terms of the seasons and the length of the days. I really enjoy the fact that the days are super long in the summer. We can get up early in the morning. We can enjoy a full day of rest or work or whatever we're doing, and it doesn't get dark till nine or 10 at night. The third week of June, it's still light out at 10:00 p.m. here, light enough to be able to be outside and do stuff. So I think, I just think that's normal.

I forget that many of you live closer to the equator, and you probably have day lengths that are very similar all the time. But for us here, yeah, it's kind of cool. But as Brent said, Brent from "American English With This Guy," that's his YouTube channel, by the way, in the winter, in the dead of winter, it's not as enjoyable. You end up coming home from work at four o'clock or 4:30, and by the time you get home, it's already dark out and you can't do anything outside. So that's the drawback, okay? The advantage is we have really long days in the summer. The disadvantage is that we don't have very long days in the winter.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English Phrases TO LOSE YOUR SHIRT and TO LOSE TOUCH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to lose your shirt. Now, this can mean that you've actually lost your shirt. Maybe you went to the beach and you took your shirt off and then you lost it and you don't know where it is anymore. But we also use the phrase to lose your shirt to talk about losing money. If someone invests in a company and the company's not very good at doing business, there's a chance that that person might lose their shirt. You might lose your shirt if you invest in a company that's not trustworthy. Another example would be this, I could say, "Oh, my brother's going to the casino next week. "He's not a very good gambler, "he's going to lose his shirt." So when you lose your shirt, it simply means that you've lost a bunch of money. It can mean that you've lost your actual shirt, but we generally use the phrase to talk about a situation where someone loses some money.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to lose touch. Now, this happens when you know someone and then maybe you move to different cities and slowly you just stop communicating with each other, you lose touch with them. It happens a lot with university friends. When you go to university, and then, after you graduate, you tend to move to different cities in the world, and then eventually you lose touch with them. Maybe you send the odd email. Maybe you're still friends with them on Facebook, but because you live far away, you start to lose touch with them. This can also happen with families, and then that's kind of sad. You can lose touch with your brothers and sisters or even lose touch with your parents, which means you just don't spend a lot of time talking anymore. You're not sure what they're up to in their life. That would be sad. It's okay, I think, to lose touch with friends from university or college, I think that's only natural, especially if you live in different countries, it's hard to keep in touch then.

But hey, to review, when you lose your shirt, it means that you've lost a lot of money, or all your money, doing something like a bad investment or gambling. And when you lose touch with someone, it means that you slowly just communicate less and less, almost to the point where you don't communicate at all anymore.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Liu and the comment is this. "Having dinner with family outdoors is awesome. "May I ask, is that picnic table "big enough for your whole family? "Also, do you use camping lanterns at night "when you have dinner in the yard?" So yes, it is big enough for all of us, but we have to squeeze in. So we fit three on a side and then sometimes someone will sit in a lawn chair. We don't use a camping lantern because it's actually light out here until almost 9:30 p.m. right now. One of the benefits of living in a northern country in the summer. So yes, it is big enough. Sometimes four people sit on one side, three on the other. Sometimes someone just stands and eats their pizza or grabs a lawn chair. But the table is definitely big enough for all of us. We certainly fit and we enjoy sitting there and we enjoy eating.

And then the other part of the comment, it is really cool to live in a northern country in the summer. Right now, the sun will go down tonight at 9:00 p.m., I think at 8:54 p.m., the sun will go down. So it's light out here very late in the day.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE IN HOT WATER and TO MUDDY THE WATER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be in hot water. We sometimes also say to get in hot water. When you are in hot water, you are in trouble. When you lie to someone and then they find out that you lied to them, you might be in hot water. If I was to say to Jen that I was going out to visit a friend, and instead I went to the casino and started gambling, if Jen found out, I would definitely be in hot water. By the way, I would never do that. I would never lie to Jen. That's just a bad thing to do when you're in a relationship. But certainly, when you do something that someone doesn't want you to do, that person could certainly be annoyed with you and you would then be in hot water. Not a good situation to be in.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to muddy the water. When you muddy the water, it's when there's a conversation and you introduce new information that makes everyone a little bit confused. Here's a good example. Let's say we were trying to figure out who stole something from the kitchen cupboard. Well, stole is a strong word. Who took something from the kitchen cupboard. My example is usually the last cookie. We're trying to figure out who took the last cookie. Well, if I said to my son, "Did you eat a cookie last night?" and then I said to my daughter, "Did you eat a cookie last night?" and then if my other son started to talk about how much he likes brownies and whether we should be buying brownies, and if we had brownies instead of cookies, then this wouldn't be a problem, I would say that he is starting to muddy the waters. He's starting to introduce information that has nothing to do with the current conversation, and it's making everyone a little bit confused. So he's starting to muddy the water. We also sometimes say, and I just said it, to muddy the waters.

Anyways, to review. When you are in hot water, if you are in hot water, or if you get in hot water, it means that you are in trouble of some kind, usually because of something you did, maybe a lie or maybe just something that you did to someone. And when you muddy the water, it means that you introduce information that kind of confuses all the people who are having a conversation or a discussion.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Athanasios, and the comment is this. "Thanks for these useful phrases, Teacher Bob. I have a funny feeling that Teacher Bob is going to buy a pizza for the whole family tomorrow at night. LOL! Bon appetit, sir." And my response is this. "Your guess is very close, although it might actually be tonight," which today is Friday, if you're watching this on Friday. "We usually buy pizza on Friday nights, about two times per month. It's the most reasonably priced food from a restaurant."

So thanks, Athanasios. That was a great use of the phrase a funny feeling or the term a funny feeling, but that was excellent. Yes, good job. I was gonna talk a little bit about the pizza that we get every once in a while. I've talked about from time to time, that sometimes, about twice per month, we'll go and we'll buy pizza. I get it from the restaurant that I went into when I made my video of how to speak English at a restaurant on my other channel, because I feel like it's a good idea to support them. They helped me make a video that was quite successful, so I like to go there and buy pizza at least twice a month, sometimes longer.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms FUNNY BUSINESS and FUNNY FEELING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term funny business. Funny business is a kind of behavior that we don't like. Let me give you a few examples. Sometimes when I'm driving in my car, in the back of the van, I want my children to behave. I don't want any funny business. I don't want them to fight or argue or try to take things from each other. I want them to be happy. I want them to be kind. I don't want any funny business. I also could use this term when talking about students. If I step into the hallway to talk to another teacher, I might say to my class, "Please continue working. I don't want any funny business." That simply means I don't want them to throw things at each other. I don't want them to start fighting with each other, either just by arguing or actually fighting. That never happens, by the way, but I certainly don't want any funny business.

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The second term I wanted to teach you today is the term a funny feeling. When you have a funny feeling, it usually means you think you know what's going to happen in the future. Here's an example sentence. Even though it's a nice day out, I have a funny feeling it might rain today. The wind is blowing a certain way. The clouds in the sky look a little bit strange. I have a funny feeling that it might rain later this afternoon. So a funny feeling is a way to describe your ability to maybe predict the future just a little bit.

Anyways, to review, funny business is any kind of behavior that you don't like to see, either with your children, or if you have students, if you're a teacher, or even with maybe the government. You don't want the government to get up to any funny business. You want them to do their job well and rule the country in an appropriate way. No funny business. And a funny feeling is simply you think that you know how something is going to turn out. I had a funny feeling that Italy was gonna win the soccer game, and I was actually right. I had a funny feeling. I'm not that good at predicting the future, but for some reason, I had a funny feeling that they would win.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Rajendra, and Rajendra says, "Hi, Bob. How are you? Another nice and short lesson from you. Again, I'm mesmerized by the beautiful view behind you. Please bear with me. What is that small hut kind of thing behind you?" And my response was this. "That is actually a wagon that we can close up. We use it a lot in early spring to allow small plants in trays to harden off. This means to get used to colder temperatures, but we don't want them to freeze at night, so we close the wagon." So at a certain point in the year, it's nice and warm during the day here in Ontario, Canada, but it's still quite cold at night, so we have one wagon where we bring small seedlings out to kind of get used to being outdoors. We do start growing them in the house, and this wagon is open.

So you can see, we use it quite a bit at this time of the year, but we have this wagon over here, which is what I think you were referring to, Rajendra. I think you were referring to this wagon. Let me go to the other side.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English Phrases TO BEAR THE BRUNT OF and BEAR WITH ME

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to bear the brunt of." When you bear the brunt of something, it means you get the worst part of the situation, or the worst part of what's happening. Here's a little story. When I was younger, I took my younger brother shopping with me and we stayed out really late. And I knew when we came home that I was going to bear the brunt of the punishment that my parents were going to give. Because my little brother didn't have any choice but to stay out late. I was the one who was driving and so I knew when we came home late, my parents would be annoyed and that they would have some sort of punishment. Probably I would get grounded, but I knew that I would bear the brunt of that punishment. I would be the one who would get almost all of the punishment. I would bear the brunt of it.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "bear with me." This is a phrase we use when we want people to wait while we do something else. A very common time for this to happen is during my live English lessons when I have technical problems. Sometimes I'll say, "Oh, something's not working right. Bear with me while I fix it." So it's simply a way in English to ask people to just be patient and to wait while you solve a problem or fix something.

So to review, when you bear the brunt of something, it means that you are getting the worst part of a situation that is happening, okay? Sometimes in a city, people who don't have money bear the brunt of new changes that the government in the city might make, because, sometimes, they just don't have influence over the decision-making process, and they bear the brunt of it. And two, when you say, "Bear with me," it simply means, "Please be patient while I fix something," or, "While I figure something out." And it does happen quite a bit... Well, not quite a bit. It does happen once in a while during my live streams.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. If you sense that maybe I'm feeling a little off making this video, it's 'cause I'm standing in the rain. My camera is under the overhang of my barn, but I'm actually standing out here in the rain, the crazy things I do to make English lessons. Anyways, this is from Aleksey. "This time, the lighting was perfect for filming. The depth of field allowed us to get a good look at the LG. Yeah, the temptation to swim has gone. Hopefully it's temporary." And my response is, yes, I'm quite happy with this camera I'm using for the short lessons. It has very nice stabilization when I walk and talk, and it also has a really good depth of field that has everything in focus so people can see what's behind me. It's great.

So speaking of that, let's take this camera for a little walk. I wanted to mention a couple things. One is, yes, this camera has very nice depth of field. That means that, usually, as I walk, you can see what's behind me relatively clearly. I'm quite happy with that. Because as I've said to people before, either the lesson will be interesting or the things that are behind me will be interesting. That's usually my goal when I come out to make an English lesson for you, either I'll be entertaining, or the things you see behind me will be entertaining. One of the two will be true.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A WAKE-UP CALL and WAKE UP!

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a wake up call. Now a wake up call can mean a phone call that they give you when you stay at a hotel to wake you up in the morning. But we also use this phrase to talk about something in life that happens that reminds you to do something. Here's a good example. Maybe in your city, there was a car accident and someone got hurt because they didn't have their seatbelt on. We would say that that would be a wake-up call for you if you don't regularly wear your seatbelt. So a wake up call is any time something happens that brings your attention to something that maybe you're not doing in life that you should be doing.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, wake up. Now this can simply be what someone yells to someone if that person is sleeping and you want them to wake up. But we also use this to tell people that they should do something or they should pay attention to something. Here's an example. Sometimes I'll have a student in my class that thinks they're doing a really good job but they're failing all their assignments. So they think they're doing good but they're actually not. I might say to them, hey, wake up. You're not doing a very good job in my class, you need to do better work. You need to hand in your assignments on time. I know you think you are doing good, but wake up. You really need to try harder.

So to review, a wake up call is anything that happens in life that reminds you that you should do something or that you should pay attention to something. And if someone says wake up, it might be because you're sleeping on the bus, they actually want you to wake up, but more likely they might be just telling you that you need to change something you're doing in your life. You need to wake up.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Jeff Green. And Jeff says, funny you should say that when you are done teaching, you want to be in peace and then LMAO. And my response was this, teaching is an interesting profession. It has its ups and downs. I love 90% of the job but the end of each semester can be very hectic especially the second semester.

The end of the second semester is the end of the school year. It can be extremely hectic, it can be a real challenge for me to get all my work done and to finish things that I need to finish at the end of the school year.

I wanted to talk a little bit more about a wake-up call. If you look at the river today, I'm not sure how well you can see this but there's all kinds of algae in the river. Now, the algae itself isn't a problem but it's kind of a wake-up call because the algae grows when there's pollution in the river. And the algae grows when the pollution is from, let's say human waste or fertilizer runoff from farms. So it's kind of a wake-up call the algae itself isn't bad but it's a sign that there are too many nutrients in the water. And I think when I say human waste and nutrients, I hope you know what I mean.

There's actually a lagoon really far that way. And then do treat the wastewater, they do treat the sewage but they only treat it once. And then when the lagoon is full, they release it into the river. So all of you who thought that Canada was this beautiful pristine country with no pollution, well, we do kind of have some problems.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HOLD ON and TO GET A HOLD OF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, hold on. There's two ways that I use this phrase most commonly when I speak English. the first would be, if I was driving a snowmobile and you were sitting behind me, I would probably say, hold on before I started to move forward, because I wouldn't want you to fall off the back. We also use the phrase, hold on when we want someone to stop or to wait. Let's say that Jen was leaving for market and she had forgot her wallet. I might run out of the house and I might yell, hold on, hold on, don't leave yet. You forgot your wallet. So we can use this phrase two ways. We can use it to tell someone to hold on to someone or we can tell it to, we can say it to someone to mean that they should wait.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to get a hold of. When you are trying to get a hold of someone, it means you're trying to phone them or text them and they're not responding to you. Sometimes my son is at work and I'm trying to get a hold of him during the day. I'm trying to get a hold of him so that I can tell him to stop at the grocery store and get some things before he comes home. So when you tell some, when you are trying to get a hold of someone, it means that you are trying to contact them. You're trying to get a hold of them using either your phone or via text or even via email.

So to review, when you tell someone to hold on, when you yell, hold on, it means you want them to stop or wait. When you tell them to hold on, let's say, if they were riding behind you on a motorcycle, it means you want them to hold on either to you or the motorcycle, so they don't fall off the back when you start going. And when you try to get a hold of someone, it simply means that you are trying to contact them. Sometimes I'm trying to get a hold of someone and they don't respond and it can be a little frustrating. Can't it? When you're trying to get a hold of someone and they don't answer you.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Yusuf. And the comment is this, "Yo, hello, Mr. Bob, Did you cut the tree that was not thriving?" And my response is, "I have not done that yet. Summer has really just begun for me, and there are lots of little jobs waiting for me on the farm. I'm just getting started with my summer work list. It's exciting."

So I do really enjoy working on the farm, but I kind of just started on summer vacation last week. So the tree that Yusuf is talking about is actually right here. If you wanna have a look at it, you can see that it's definitely not thriving. It has a dead branch here. It doesn't really look healthy at all. So I'm sorry to say once again, I know people were sad last time I mentioned it. It's time for this tree to go. So it's one of the jobs that I do need to do here on the farm. If we look at this side, you can see it's even worse. There's just lots of dead branches. So I'll get that eventually.

There are many things that I need to do on the farm. And it's probably one of the healthiest things I do in life. I know sometimes people say that you should take a break from work, but for me, when I'm done teaching, when I'm done, especially this year, using all the technology and interacting with people, this gives me peace, okay. It's very peaceful for me to do farm work. It's something I really enjoy doing.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English Phrases TO FALL FLAT and TO FALL INTO PLACE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to fall flat. When something falls flat, it means that it doesn't work out. It means that it doesn't happen. Last spring when COVID was starting, many people knew that their travel plans were going to fall flat, because they weren't going to be allowed to travel. Maybe you have plans for later this year, but you're not sure if your country will open up, if there will be less restrictions. So your plans might fall flat later this year because you won't be allowed to do what you want to do. It's never very nice when your plans fall flat. I like it when you make plans and you're able to actually do what you wanted to do.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to fall into place. When things fall into place, it means they do happen. Maybe you're planning on going on a trip, and so you booked a hotel, you got plane tickets, you have time off work, everything is starting to fall into place. All of the things that you need to do so that you can travel later are actually falling into place so that you can do them. So when you have a plan for the future and all the little parts of that plan are working out, we say that things are starting to fall into place.

So to review, when things fall flat, when something falls flat, it means that you had a plan and it just didn't work out, it just didn't happen. And when things fall into place, it means that you had a plan and everything is working out nicely. That's usually the best way to have things.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Qiu Park, and Qiu Park says, "In my native language, we have an idiom with the same meaning. Three-foot-thick ice didn't freeze in a day." Thanks a lot, have a good one. And my response is this, "That sounds like a Canadian phrase, but we don't have that one. I'll have to try and add it."

So that was a take on the phrase, Rome wasn't built in a day, and that's a great phrase, three-foot-thick ice didn't freeze in a day. I would love it if that was a Canadian saying, that would be really, really cool. Hey, I'm just gonna walk a little further here into my wheat field.

There's a couple things I wanted to talk about today. First of all, thanks, Qiu Park, for that comment. This wheat field, I've been talking about it a lot in some of my videos, it's almost ready to harvest. We are about 10 days away from being ready to harvest this wheat field. I'm just trying to find a little path here in the wheat where I can walk so that I can get further in, and I am super excited about it. This crop has grown really, really well. The wheat looks really, really good, so I'm super happy that the combine will come soon and this will be harvested.

The other thing I wanted to mention today is I'm wearing my Captain America T-shirt. It's actually July 4th today, I'm making this video on July 4th. So it is a holiday in the United States, it is the Fourth of July. So to all of my American friends, including Brent from "American English With This Guy," that's his YouTube channel, by the way, I hope you're having a great day over there in the United States.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ROME WASN'T BUILT IN A DAY and TIME WILL TELL

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, Rome wasn't built in a day. I think you're familiar with the city of Rome. It took a long time to build the city of Rome, and we use this phrase whenever we talk about something that isn't going as fast as people might want it to. Sometimes people want things done quickly, and you'll say, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day. Let's think of something that takes a long time. You can see the peonies behind me. When we plant these, they're very small, and we don't actually harvest flowers off of them for about four to seven years, so it's something where you really need to wait until you have some that you can sell, and this would be a good phrase to say, to describe it, you could say, you know, when you grow peonies, it takes a while before you have something to sell. Rome wasn't built in a day.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, time will tell. Sometimes you have to wait a certain amount of time to see if something you did works out. What would be a good example of this? Maybe you buy a car and you put in some new parts because you want the car to run better, but when you start it up, you're not sure everything's working right, but time will tell if everything is working right. It basically means if you wait a certain amount of time, you will eventually see if something is working well.

So to review, when you are talking about anything that takes a long period of time, and if someone is being impatient, you could say, Hey, just be patient, Rome wasn't built in a day, like please remember that sometimes it takes a long time to get things done, and then the second phrase, time will tell, simply means sometimes you need to wait a while to see if something is working. If you're watching my videos to learn English, and you're wondering if they're helping you, well, time will tell. Watch them for a few months or a few weeks, and time will tell if they are a benefit to you.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Dmitry. Once again, my comment is all crumpled up in my pocket. Sorry about that. Dmitry says, "Hi, Mr. Bob. "The filter that you used "this time making the video looks kind of weird. "The picture seems unnatural "and a little gloomy in my humble opinion, "but maybe I'm the only one who thinks so. "Anyways, thanks for the lesson." And my response was this. "I have to admit I'm not an expert "when it comes to making videos, "but I'm learning slowly, but surely. "I think this video looks a lot better."

I hope this video looks a lot better. No, the other day when I was out here, Dmitry, it was very sunny, and if you know anything about cameras, I had my camera set to let a lot of light in, and so, the video had too much light, and then I tried to correct it when I was editing it. While I was editing the video, I tried to change settings so that it looked more natural and I just kept making it look worse, and that was kind of, I was kind of running late, so eventually, I just published it. So again, yeah, the colors weren't great. I think this video, hopefully, the colors are a lot better. It is still quite sunny out, but I set the camera to automatically adjust certain settings based on the light.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases NOTHING MUCH and NOTHING REALLY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "nothing much." This is a phrase that we use to answer questions like this. Hey Bob, what are you doing this weekend? Nothing much. Hey Bob, what are you doing today? Nothing much. It simply means that you don't have a lot planned for the time that someone is asking about. What am I doing this summer? I would love to say nothing much, but I actually have a lot planned. And by the way, when you say this quickly, it ends up sounding like nothing much, okay? Hey Bob, what are you doing this weekend? Ah, nothing much, just hanging around at home. We might have a little campfire. So you're not doing anything important? No. There's nothing much going on this weekend.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase, "nothing really." This is a very similar phrase. It means exactly the same thing. If you said to me, hey Bob, what are you doing this afternoon? I could say, ah, nothing really. I'm just sitting around doing nothing. By the way, none of that is true. I rarely respond to that question by saying nothing much or nothing really. Although they are accurate answers, I'm usually quite busy and I don't usually respond by saying, nothing much or nothing really.

So to review, if someone says to you, hey, what are you doing this weekend? You can respond by saying nothing much, which means you're not up to a whole lot. You're not doing a lot of things. Or you could say, nothing really. I'm just kind of sitting around at home twiddling my thumbs. Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Did you know that phrase "twiddling your thumbs?" When you're doing nothing in English, we sometimes say you're twiddling your thumbs. You don't actually twiddle your thumbs. It's just a saying.

This comment is from Eduardo. And Eduardo says, "Great phrases, Bob; thanks so much. By the way, do you practice basketball? I haven't seen the little basketball court before. Have a beautiful day. And my response is, "I try to help my son practice a few times a week. Mostly he takes shots and I run to get the ball."

So thanks Eduardo for that comment. Yes, we do have a small basketball court over here. And I'll walk over there and I'll kind of describe how basketball practice goes at our house. My son likes taking shots. I like running and getting the ball and passing it to him. So he gets practice, shooting the basketball and I get to get a lot of exercise in. He gets the ball in a lot. When he first started practicing, he would miss quite a bit. But lately, he's been getting a lot better at it. Sorry, the new camera's a little heavy. So I'm kind of shaking around a little bit.

So yes, over here, we have a basketball net. Hopefully you can see that. And then we even painted the free-throw line and we painted a three-point line as well, so that my son would be able to practice his shots from all three locations. Let me sit down here for a sec. It has been... There we go. It has been a lot of fun having a basketball net. When I was a kid, as I mentioned in another video, I practiced baseball a lot. I wasn't that into basketball, I was into baseball. So it's kind of fun to see my son take an interest in basketball. He practices a couple of times a day. He's super excited. He really hopes he can make the basketball team this fall at school. I hope there is a basketball team.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BOOT and TO BOOT OUT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to boot. This is a phrase that we add to the end of a sentence sometimes, and it means in addition to. So I could say this, it's windy out today and it might rain to boot. Or I could say I bought a new camera and they gave me a camera bag for free to boot. That means that it's windy, but it's also going to rain, so in addition to the wind, it's going to rain. And then in addition to the camera I got, I got a camera bag to boot. So it just means in addition to, or something extra that happened or that you got. So that's what to boot means.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to boot out. When you boot someone out, it means you ask them to leave or you tell them they have to leave. If you stay in a store until closing, eventually they will boot you out. They will tell you that you have to leave. They don't actually kick you, I think this phrase comes from, you know the act of kicking someone so that their boot would hit you in the butt. But definitely when you boot someone out, it means that you are telling them they have to leave. Sometimes at the end of the school day, around five o'clock, we are closing the school and so we boot out, any students who are still there. We tell them, you need to leave now, because we are locking up the building.

So to review, when you say to boot at the end of a sentence, it means in addition to. So you could say something like this, my mom gave me a free meal the other day, she gave me a pizza, and she gave me some apple pie to boot. That means in addition to the pizza, she also gave you apple pie. And the phrase to boot out, simply means to tell someone that they need to leave and then ensure that they do leave. So definitely if you go out to eat and if the restaurant closes at 11:00 PM and you're still there, they will probably boot you out.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I can't find my comment. I have too many pockets in my shorts. This comment is from Alexi. Alexi says, but be careful, there are people who will tell you the whole long story of their life, if you ask them, what's new? This is from the lesson the other day on the phrase, what's new, and what else is new? And the most dangerous thing would be to ask them at the end of the monologue, what else is new? And my response was this, in English, we would say that person is hard to get away from. Or we might say, they'll talk your ear off. I haven't been in many social situations for the last year, but I remember a few people that would fit that description.

So yes, there are definitely people in the world who are hard to get away from. That means that when you engage them in conversation, when you start talking to them, it's hard to leave. They just never seem to stop talking and the conversation doesn't seem to end. That can be very challenging. And we also say that that type of person will talk your ear off. I have to admit, I can be that kind of person. In small social situations, I don't like big social gatherings, but in small social situations, if I'm just sitting around a campfire, talking with people I know well, there's a chance I might talk your ear off. You might leave that gathering and say, wow, it's actually really hard to get away from Bob. Once he starts talking, it's a little hard to get away from him.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WHAT'S NEW? and WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, what's new? Today was the first day that I went back to work after many, many weeks of being at home. And the first question someone asked me was this. They said, "Hey, Bob, what's new?" In English, when you say to someone, "What's new?" You're asking about whatever they've done for the last little while. It's usually a question you ask when you haven't seen someone for a while. You'll say, "Hey, John, what's new? Hey, Bob, what's new?" And then you'll usually tell them what's been different in your life, what you've just done, what's been new in your life. And then usually you respond at the end by asking them what's new as well. So today someone said to me, "Hey, Bob, what's new?" I told them all of the new things that have been happening to me. And then I said to them, "What's new?"

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The other question I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, what else is new? Now, this may seem a lot like the first phrase, what's new, but we usually ask this later in the conversation. So maybe Jim at work has told me a couple of new things in his life and I've told him a couple of new things in my life. And then as the conversation kinda settles down, at a certain point, you might say, "Hey, so Bob, what else is new?" Or, "John, what else is new in your life?"

So the two questions to review when you haven't seen someone for a very long time, you might say, "Hey, what's new?" And then they'll tell you about several new things that they've probably done in their life, or maybe new things that they have purchased. And when the conversation is starting to slow down, you might say to them, "What else is new?" And then they'll tell you some other new things that have been happening in their life.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd Ags. And this comment is, "I see you're getting used to the new camera, excellent. I loved listening to your smooth buttery voice backed by the rustling of the tree and some bird song. Thanks for the video, Mr. Bob." And I replied by saying this, "I'm getting used to it for sure, but I've also purchased another smaller camera that I'm going to be using in my next video." I'm actually using it right now. "It has some tricks up its sleeves, you'll see."

So this camera, thanks, Mohd Ags, by the way, for the comment. This camera that I'm using right now has some tricks up its sleeves. What do I mean by that? Well, if I move, this camera follows me. It's kind of an interesting new thing. I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to use this in my videos. I'm not sure if I'm gonna use it a lot or just a little bit. We sort of bought this camera for the farm so we could show people different parts of the farm on that Facebook page and other places. But for now, I'm just out here kind of trying this new camera that follows me as I turn. So if you wanted to see the tree that Mohd Ags was talking about, it's actually behind me over there. If I wanted to walk this way, I think it forgot where I was. Let's see if it's got me again. Oh no, I think it doesn't know where I am anymore and it doesn't know how to track me. Oh, I have to go the other way. Maybe it was at the limit of how far it could turn. Sometimes you have to learn new things. There we go.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English Phrase SUPER DUPER and the word SUPER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, super duper. Now, this is kind of a funny couple of words. We use this when we want to emphasize something. Like, this morning, I was super duper excited to do a live stream. By the way, I'm recording this on Saturday because tomorrow is Father's Day and I won't have time, so it's a couple of days early. I know you're seeing this on a Monday, but I was super duper excited to do a live stream this morning. And I don't know why we have this word. It kinda sounds like a kid's word, but honestly, I do use it all the time. Sometimes I'm super duper hungry at the end of the day, and I drive home really fast because I want to get home to have supper because I'm super duper hungry. Sometimes at night, I'm super duper tired, and I just want to go to bed early. So whenever we want to emphasize something, sometimes we add the word super duper. You can add this to your English vocabulary, but you don't have to use it if you think it sounds a little bit silly, but I do.

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The other word I wanted to teach you is the word super, which you probably already know, but I wanted to talk about this because we use this word a lot. There are so many times that we use the word super. So all the examples I just gave, you could use the word super as well. Sometimes I'm super hungry, sometimes I'm super tired. Right now, I'm super, super sore. I just used it twice, didn't I? We must do that sometimes, too. I'm super, super sore because this past week I did a whole bunch of physical challenges. One of the phys ed classes was challenging people to do stuff, so I did a lot of exercise that I normally don't do, and I'm super sore.

So to review, super duper is used to emphasize something. Sometimes you'll say that was a super duper cake. I was super duper hungry. I was super duper excited to go to the concert. I think when COVID is over, people are going to be super duper excited to go out again. And then the word super can be used to emphasize things as well. I think people will be super excited to go out when COVID is over. I think people will be super excited to go to things like concerts, and restaurants, and all of the fun things we normally do as human beings.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, and this comment is from Athanasios. "Thanks, Teacher Bob. Fake story. Yesterday, I went to the grocery store, and saw a couple of chocolate glazed donuts. I couldn't help myself, teacher. Also fake, I baked a cake, dear Bob. Help yourself, it's scrumptious." So my response was this, "Chocolate glazed donuts are yummy. Also, nice use of the word scrumptious."

So great example sentences there, Athanasios. Great job using the phrases from the previous lesson. Nice work.

So, what was I talking about? The fact that I am sore. I'm even having trouble holding the tripod. What did I all do this past week for this physical exercise challenge? Well, on Monday I got in almost 11,000 steps. On Tuesday, I went for a walk/run. What I mean by that is that I walked most of the time, but I also did some running. Sorry, it's a little bright if I walk out here. Maybe I'll walk out, and I'll just change this. That will help.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I CAN'T HELP MYSELF and HELP YOURSELF!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase I can't help myself. This is a phrase that we say when we can't resist doing something, when we just have to do something. Sometimes at work, people will bring yummy snacks to school. Maybe they'll bring cupcakes or some kind of cake or muffins or cookies, and they'll put them in the staff room, and then I just, I can't help myself. I have to take one and I have to eat it. I can't resist sweets sometimes. Usually what I try to do is not go in the room where someone has put yummy treats, because I can't help myself. I can't resist them. I usually take them and I eat them, usually one or two, sometimes three. If they're there all day, sometimes four. It's really bad, isn't it, but I can't help myself.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase help yourself. When you say to someone, "Help yourself," you mean that they can have something, and we use this a lot with food. In my previous example, if someone brings food to the school and puts it in the staff room, they might put a little note on the board in the staff room that says "Help yourself. I made some cookies last night. If you want one, just help yourself." This means that you can simply take a cookie if you want one.

So to review, when I see snacks, I can't help myself and I usually eat one or two or three. Usually not four. Well, sometimes four, but I try not to, but I can't help myself. So when you say that you can't help yourself, it means you can't resist doing something. And then if you say to someone, "Help yourself," we almost always use this with food. You can use it with other things as well, but it's most commonly heard when someone puts food out somewhere and says to people, "Hey, if you want some, help yourself." It means that you are permitted to take some food, if you want to have some.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me get it out of my pocket here. This comment is from Gaurav, and Gaurav says, "Hello, teacher. Can you teach me how to play hockey, please, eh?" And Roland responds and says, "Or create a lesson about excuses for bad hockey playing," and my response is this. "I haven't played hockey for many years. I still usually skate two or three times a year, but I haven't picked up a stick or put on hockey equipment for decades. I'm pretty sure I could still play, though, if I tried, but I would certainly be sore the next day."

So thank you, Gaurav, for that comment. No, I have not played hockey for a very long time. Sorry, I have to get through the leaves here. It's like I'm in the jungle. When I was younger, when I lived in Quebec City, what I really enjoyed was they had outdoor hockey rinks. So I would go to the outdoor hockey rink, usually during the day, and I would skate a little bit. I worked in a restaurant. I had a night shift job, and so during the day I would skate and practice my hockey, and then with my friends here in Ontario, Canada, as well. By the way, I lived in Quebec for about nine or 10 months. That's what I was talking about. With my friends was around here, we used to play hockey quite a bit, but things have changed, though.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms A TRIPLE THREAT and A DOUBLE WHAMMY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term, a triple threat. A triple threat is a term we use to describe someone who's good at three things. If you think about a hockey player, if I was to describe a hockey player as being a triple threat, it would mean that they're probably a good skater, a good passer, and really good at shooting the puck. They're a triple threat. You might describe a celebrity as a triple threat if they are an amazing actor, singer, and dancer. They can do three things at the same time and do them all well. That person, we would describe as a triple threat.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today or the other term is the phrase, a double whammy. A double whammy is when two bad things happen at the same time. If you were driving your car and you got a flat tire and ran out of gas at the same time, we would call that a double whammy, two bad things happening at the same time. I hate it when two bad things happen at the same time. And this did just kind of happen to me the other day. I had the button on the front of my shorts pop off while I was walking, and then I got a hole in my shoe the same time. Or this at the same time. So it was a bit of a double whammy for me.

So to review, a triple threat is a term we use to describe a person who's good at three things, like really good at three things. I think my hockey player example was a good one. Someone who can skate really fast, shoot the puck really well on the net, and pass to other players. We would certainly call a triple threat. And a double whammy is any situation where two things go wrong at the same time. Never any fun when you get a flat tire and run out of gas at the same time.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous viewer. This comment is all crumpled up in my front pocket. Look at that. That's not very good. This comment is from Julia. And it's actually a comment from my video on my bigger channel from yesterday. Julia says this, I forgot to mention your smile, and beautiful flower farm, and your brilliant stories. And I love to listen to every, that I love to listen to every Wednesday. And my response was this, I'm bragging a little bit here, I said, I'm a triple threat. You might have to look that one up. Although I did say, maybe I'll do my short English lesson about that phrase today. And that's what I'm doing right now.

So thanks Julia for that comment. It's quite crumpled up. I'm putting it back in my back pocket. It doesn't go in very good, there we go. Thank you so much for that comment. I'm trying not to brag. I don't actually think I'm a triple threat. I just try really hard to do a good job whenever I do something. And I think a lot of you are recognizing that, that part of my character, part of what makes me who I am, part of what makes me tick is that I really like doing a good job whenever I do something. So I'm glad that all of you appreciate that I'm putting a lot of hard work in, teaching these English lessons. Jen, as well. You can actually see her in the distance there, is working hard on our flower farm. Both of us just really enjoy what we do.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ALL KINDS OF and KIND OF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, all kinds of. When we say all kinds of in English, we simply mean that there were a lot of something. If I say I went to the grocery store, and there were all kinds of people there, it means that there were a lot of people at the grocery store. If I say there were all kinds of cars in the parking lot, it means there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. If I say I have all kinds of time today to make this English lesson, it means that I have lots of time to make this English lesson. But if I add the word different to the end, if I say there were all kinds of different cars in the parking lot, it means that there were big cars and little cars and old cars and new cars. It means that there were a variety of cars in the parking lot. So if you say all kinds of, it means a lot of something. If you add the word different, it means that there is a variety.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase kind of, and this is kind of an interesting phrase. I just used it there, I don't know if you noticed that. But we use this when we are feeling a little bit of something. If I say I'm kind of hungry, it means I'm not starving but I certainly am not full. I could certainly eat something. If you are kind of hungry, you could eat a snack or a small meal. If you say to someone that you are kind of happy, it means that you're not super happy, but you're not sad. You're somewhere in the middle, more towards being happy than sad. So when you use kind of, it kind of, I just used it again there, when you use kind of, it means a little bit of something. So I'm kind of happy with my new camera, I think I'll be a lot more happy once I learn to use it better. And then we also use it just to fill in, in sentences. You know, it's kind of a word that we use every once in a while. It's kind of something that we like to use in everyday speech. It's kind of something that just makes a sentence go better than it would if you didn't have kind of in there. I hope you understood what I just said.

So to review, when you have all kinds of something, it means you have a lot of it. If you add the word different, it means you have a variety. And if you are feeling kind of happy, it means you're more happy than sad, but you're not super happy, you're kind of happy. And I do wanna point out, as I was saying this, the word of often comes out with the ah, sound. So all kinds of, there were all kinds of cars in the parking lot. And, I'm feeling kind of hungry right now. Notice how of, kind of sounds like a.

But hey let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment, I almost thought I lost it again. Sometimes the comments try to blow away. This comment is from Linda. Happy for you that you got the new camera. Well, if it's heavy to hold, you kill two birds with one stone, bulk up your arm muscles while recording spectacular videos. And my response to Linda was, that's true, I won't have to lift weights anymore, I'll just carry my camera around.

So thanks for that comment, Linda. Yes, I do have this new camera, and so far, I am quite happy with it. I bought a wider angle lens, so you can see a lot more behind me when I'm making these videos. And today I wanted to show you, if you noticed in the last video, there were white, fluffy things blowing past me while I was making the English lesson. This tree is a Willow tree behind me, and it has these little fuzzy things on it right

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WHAT MAKES SOMEONE TICK and TO TICK SOMEONE OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "what makes someone tick." When we talk about what makes someone tick, in English, we talk about what makes them do the things they do or what makes them want to do the things that they do. Sometimes it's interesting to try and figure out what makes someone tick. Sometimes when you see people in public at the mall or somewhere else, and they're doing strange things, you wonder to yourself, what makes that person tick? I think this might come from a clock, like a clock ticks. And we know that a clock ticks because it has a mechanism inside. And I think when people do strange or odd things, we sometimes wonder what makes them tick.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "to tick someone off." When you tick someone off, it means you make them angry. Sometimes when I come home late, I'm really loud and it can tick Jen off. Sometimes my kids go out at night and they come home really late. And they're really loud when they come in. And then when I'm laying in bed trying to sleep, I wake up and then I'm ticked off. So when you tick someone off, it means you do something that makes them annoyed or makes them angry. Sometimes people do the strangest things, and sometimes it can tick other people off.

So to review. When you talk about what makes someone tick, you're talking about what makes them do what they do. It means you're trying to understand what they're thinking about when they decide to do certain things. And when you tick someone off, it simply means that you are making them angry or annoyed. I try really hard with my English lessons to not tick people off. I don't ever want to tick people off on this channel. I think the best way to teach English is to be happy, don't do anything controversial, and make sure that people are enjoying learning the language.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Xavier, and Xavier says, "Definitely learning English can be exasperating, especially when you don't know a word; and trying to carry on with the conversation, you end up making up a kind of new English, Spanglish in my case." And my response is this. "I do this quite a bit when I'm speaking French. Sometimes my speaking partner gives me a funny look and says, 'That's not a word.'"

I think everyone who is learning to speak a language has done this in the past. They have made up words as they're trying to speak the language. They kind of mixed together a word from their own language and they make it sound kind of English. Or in my case, I make it sound as French as possible. And then hopefully you get away with it. Sometimes the person you're talking to will understand, but sometimes, like I said, with my speaking partner, they will just look at you and smile and kind of let you know that you've made a mistake.

Sorry that I am so close to the camera today. I don't if you've realized this, but I have bought a new camera and I'm waiting for a better lens to come. The camera's also a little heavier than my last camera.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO MAKE UP and TO MAKE OUT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you understand three meanings of the phrase, to make up. There's probably more, but we should get started if I have to explain three in less than a minute, the first meaning of this verb is to tell a story that isn't true. Often kids will make up a story when you ask them about something. They might not always tell you the truth. The other way we use this phrase is to talk about catching up on work or something that you missed. Maybe you usually work eight hours a day and one day you only worked six, you will need to make up those hours later in the week. So you might have to work for 10 hours a day later, or a couple days later. And then the other way we use this phrase is when two people who are romantically involved with each other have a fight and after the fight they will make up. When you make up with someone, it means that you were having a disagreement but you still like each other or love each other. And you decide that you're going to make up.

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The second phrase I wanna teach you today is the phrase to make out. Now, I'm going to teach you two meanings of this phrase. The first is when you ask someone how something went. You can say, you can ask this question. "How did you make out?" So let's say my son is going to go do some work for me on the farm. When he's done the work, I could say to him, "How did you make out with that work?" And basically I'm just asking them how things went. And the other one is a little more I might blush as I'm talking about this but to make out means to kiss someone. So if you know a couple who are dating, they probably, sometimes park on the side of the road somewhere and make out. That means that they kiss each other. I just don't know how to explain that any differently. I'm starting to get embarrassed. I don't know why love and romance is all around us. And sometimes people want to kiss. Sometimes they want to make out.

So to review, to make up can mean to create a story that isn't true. It can mean to catch up on work that you missed. And it can mean, Oh, I forgot the third meaning, it can mean when you have a fight with someone who you are in a relationship with you might make up later. And then to make out can mean to kiss someone. Maybe if you have ever dated someone in your life you're familiar with the phrase to make out. And it can also be used in a question when you say, "How did you make out?" When you're asking someone how something went.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video as we do that I should say I shouldn't try to explain phrases that have two or three meanings. It takes a long time, but let's keep going. Alexi has this comment, "Luckily, after years of learning English, I know the meaning of the word exasperate. Well, it's about time. Thank you for the lesson, Bob. It was interesting to know about the silos as well." My response was this, "Learning English can be exasperating." So thank you Alexi for that comment. Yes. Learning the English language can be extremely exasperating. I'm glad that you were able to learn that word a long time ago and I'm glad that you were able to use the phrase, it's about time while you were making your comment. Good work all around.

I'm walking this way because in my video on my bigger channel yesterday, I was showing you that the farmer across the river was baling hay and they are now done.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT'S ABOUT TIME! and AHEAD OF TIME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "It's about time." This is a phrase that we say to someone when they finally arrive somewhere, or when they finally do something that they should have done. Let's imagine that you're waiting for your brother at the mall, and he said he was gonna be there at one o'clock and it's already 1:30. When your brother arrives, you would probably say, "Oh, it's about time you got here. It's about time that you got to the mall. You said you were gonna be here earlier." So it's definitely not a happy phrase when we say it's about time. We also use this to talk about when someone does something in life that they should have done a long time ago. You could say maybe your cousin never went to high school and finally got their high school diploma, you could say, "Oh, it's about time that they got to their high school diploma."

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "Ahead of time." When you do something ahead of time, it means you do it earlier than when it needs to be done. When I get up and get ready to go to work, I like to get a lot of things ready ahead of time. I make sure my keys, and wallet, and phone are by my computer, ready to go. I don't look for them the very moment I need to leave. I like to have them ready ahead of time. When Jen is preparing to go to market, she doesn't make all of the bouquets just in the few minutes before she needs to leave. She makes sure she has all of them ready ahead of time. She makes sure that they're all ready to go well before she needs to have them ready.

So to review, when you say to someone, "It's about time," you say it in a kind of a spirit of exasperation, you're exasperated. I'm not sure if you know that word, you should look it up, but you say, "Oh, it's about time you got here." It's about time you started learning English every day, instead of every other day. I'm not sure if that's what you're doing, but it might be a good idea. And the second phrase is the phrase ahead of time. When you do something ahead of time, you do it before the time that it is needed. It's always good to pay your bills ahead of time. It's always good to arrive ahead of time when you go somewhere. It's just a good idea. It's better than being late, for sure.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Francisco. And Francisco, in French, says, in French. And this is the French equivalent of the English phrase, "Rain or shine." So thanks, Francisco, for that. By the way, Francisco, from time to time, will tell me what the French version is of the phrase and I really appreciate that, Francisco, thank you. My reply was this, we also have another phrase. that means the same thing, almost, but it has a swear word in it, and the phrase is, "Come hell or high water."

So sometimes people will say they're going to do something, come hell or high water. Now again, the word hell is considered a swear word in English, so be careful. But if someone says they're going to do something, come hell or high water, kicking my tripod here, it means they're definitely going to do it, okay? If someone says, "I'm going to get," ah, let me see, I'm having trouble thinking of an example right now, "I'm going to drive this car for 10 years, come hell or high water," it means that you're going to do that, no matter what happens. It means you're very determined to do it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms RAIN OR SHINE and MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, rain or shine. In English, if you say that something is going to happen rain or shine, it means it's going to happen if it rains, it's going to happen if it's sunny. It doesn't matter what the weather ends up being, that event is going to happen. Right now, Jen is at the farmer's market selling flowers. And on Facebook, it said that the market was going to be open today, rain or shine. So that basically means that if it started raining, the market is still going to be open. Luckily, it's actually a very nice, sunny day right now. So the shine part is what's happening. It's not raining. Although when I look way that way to the north where the market is, there are some dark clouds. I hope it's not raining. You just don't sell as many flowers at the market when it rains.

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Hey, the other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a farmer phrase. You may hear this phrase occasionally in English, but farmers say this the most often. And it's the phrase make hay while the sun shines. So when you have to make hay, you need to do it when the sun is shining and when the weather is nice. Rain actually ruins hay. And if you're wondering what hay is, there's a big field of hay right here. In a few days, I will need to cut that hay and it will need to lay in the sun for about three days before I can bale it with my baler. And so often in English, when you say you gotta make hay when the sun shines, you're not just talking about farmers making hay, you're talking about any kind of opportunity where the time is right to do it. So you'll even hear this in regular, everyday English once in a while. Although I must say the phrase is pretty rare. Me and the other farmers jokingly say this once in a while. We'll say, "Well, you know what they say, you gotta make hay while the sun shines."

So to review, when an event is planned to be outside, and if it says it is going to happen rain or shine, it means it's going to happen if it's raining and it's going to happen if it's sunny. It doesn't matter what the weather is, the event's gonna happen. And when you say make hay while the sun shines, you're basically saying, do something when the time is right to do it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Guillaume. And Guillaume says, "Hey, Bob, yes, it'd be interesting if you showed us more of your work on your farm. Thanks for the video. Have a good day." And my response is this. I'll try to remember to do that. The problem is that when I go out to do work, I don't always remember to bring my camera. And I'm afraid of breaking it by accident. Maybe I should get a durable action camera. Let me think about it.

So I've thought about that a little bit. I thought about maybe getting a GoPro or some other type of action camera, something that's a little more durable, something that I can clamp onto a part of my tractor when I'm doing tractor work. I might get one. I've looked at a few. Jen is interested as well, because it would be kind of cool when we're trying to show people parts of our farm. Or if I was out here in a few days, cutting this hay, it would be nice to have an action camera so that you could see me doing that. So I'll look into it. I do think it's important to buy new equipment every once in a while so that the videos that you're making on YouTube are even cooler. You can't just use the same equipment all the time.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I'M TORN UP and I'M TORN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, I'm torn up. If you say in English, I'm torn up or I'm torn up about something, it means that you are emotionally sad. That you're upset that you're just feeling really, really bad about something. If someone was to say to me I just broke up with my boyfriend and I'm really torn up. If they said I'm torn up, it means that they're sad about it. They're not sure what to think about it. They might even be crying a little bit because they're just emotionally not feeling very happy. So when you say I'm torn up it means that you're sad and just not feeling very happy about something that's happened in your life. Usually we use this phrase when two people break up, sometimes the one person wanted to break up and the other person didn't and the person who didn't might be a little bit torn up about it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase I'm torn. So when we remove the up from the end of this verb. If I say I'm torn, it means I'm having trouble deciding what I think. And I'll tell you what I'm torn about right now. They might open schools, they might not. And some people have said to me, Bob, do you want schools to open again? And I'm torn. I'm torn about it because there's only two or three weeks, I think two and a half weeks left in the school year. So I feel like going back to in-person learning for about nine or 10 days doesn't make a lot of sense. But at the same time I feel like it might be good for the students. So I'm torn. I don't have an opinion one way or the other.

So to review, if you say to someone I'm torn up, if you say, oh, I'm really torn up about this. It means that you're feeling sad and emotional about it. And if you say I'm torn, it's simply means you're having trouble deciding how you feel about something. So yes, I'm very much torn about whether schools should go back to in-person learning just for a couple of weeks, we'll see.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Paolo and Paolo says, would it be possible to say, where are you at? This is from the lesson the other day on the slang phrase where you at. And my response was, yes, for sure. This is also very common. People might say, where you at, where are you at, where you're at, I made a little contraction out of it there. All of those are correct in informal speech. Great question Paolo. So again, I do wanna remind you that those were examples of phrases we use that are very informal. They are almost slang, they would be considered slang. So just be a little bit careful when you use those in written English, you wouldn't use those. You wouldn't say where you at unless you're writing a story or something very interesting that someone could read. And you wanted the character in your story to use a little bit of English slang.

Anyways, I'm walking out here and I'm showing you this piece of ground right here. We just recently worked this up with the rototiller. So I drove on this with the tractor with the rototiller behind. I should have probably made a little video of it. That would have been quite interesting but this is where we will probably be growing dahlias next year. We're currently growing the dahlias way over there. I'll show you that later.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WHERE YOU AT? and WHERE IT'S AT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, were you at? This is a slang phrase of asking the question are you. Let's imagine my brother is out driving his car and it breaks down on the side of the road. He might phone me and say, hey can you come pick me up, my car has broken down. And I might respond by saying, where you at? Basically, what I'm asking him is, where are you? I don't know why we use this phrase, it doesn't save you any time to say where you at instead of where are you, but I would probably say that. I'd probably say, yeah no problem, where you at bro? I don't always call my brother, bro, but it sounded cool there, didn't it? So anyways, when you say, where you at, it means where are you? You could also use this with other nouns, you can say, where is he at or where is she at, as well. All of those work perfectly well.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, where it's at. When you say something is where it's at, it means that it is cool. If someone was to say, where did you get those flowers? And if someone responded and said, I got them from Jen's flower farm, that's where it's at, if you want to by flowers. So when you say something is where it's at, it means it's the cool place or the awesome place or the neat place to be if you want to do a certain thing. Right now in Canada, nowhere is where it's at because you can't go anywhere. But if you do ever visit this area, Niagara Falls is where it's at. That is a very cool place to visit.

So to review, when you say to someone, where you at, you're simply asking, where are you, what is your location? We don't ever say that by the way, we say, where are you or where you at? We don't ever say, what is your location, that sounds very formal. And if you say to someone that something is where it's at, it means that that's the cool place. In a school, the students might say, what's the best place to be at lunch time, and someone might say, oh, the gym is where it's at. That means that that's the fun place, the cool place to be at lunch time.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, this comment is from Anna, and Anna says, those store-bought cakes are very convenient, I like to bake from scratch as I can get a sense of fulfillment out of it. And cakes made by myself are healthier I guess. And my response is this and you're right, store-bought are convenient. Back when we had guests come over, like before COVID when you were allowed to have guests over, we'd sometimes buy store-bought cookies if we were pressed for time but normally we would try to make something ourselves. So thanks Anna for that comment. Yes, definitely there is a sense of fulfillment when you make something yourself. It's kind of fun to make your own things, isn't it? So thanks again for that comment.

Hey, I wanted to show you something behind me, we have to walk over here a little bit. You may have thought that there was snow behind me when I was making the first part of this lesson. Oh, my tripod hit the ground. But there is not snow behind me, but these trees have white blossoms all over them. Let's get a little bit closer so you can see. And these are cool, but I also find them kind of annoying.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms FROM SCRATCH and STORE-BOUGHT

In this English lesson, I wanted to teach you the English term from scratch. When you make something from scratch, it means you make it from the basic ingredients. In our house, we have an oven, and the oven broke, and then when we got the oven fixed, my kids started to make cookies again from scratch. That means they got flour, and they got sugar, and they got chocolate chips and all of the ingredients that they needed, eggs and a little bit of water and some baking powder, I think. I don't know exactly how to make cookies, although I did do a video about that once, didn't I? Anyways, they've been starting to make cookies from scratch, and it's been yummy, but it's been bad for my waist size. I think I'm getting bigger again. I need to stop eating all of the cookies that my kids are making from scratch. So again, when you bake something from scratch, you use all of the basic ingredients in order to make it.

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Which is completely different than when you have something that is store bought. So we also sometimes have store-bought cookies in our house, and I think you understand what that means. Those are cookies that you buy at the store. Now, I have to say this. I have not enjoyed eating store-bought cookies for quite some time. I think when I was a kid I really enjoyed store-bought cookies. I think the box was full of cookies, and I think the store was getting cookies from a factory that made cookies with really normal ingredients, but I find store-bought cookies now don't taste as good as I remember them tasting when I was a child. I feel like they taste a little bit artificial now. I don't like them near as much, so I don't have a problem with store-bought cookies. I don't eat them uncontrollably, but I certainly have a bit of a problem with cookies that are made from scratch.

So to review, when something is baked or made from scratch, we're usually talking about something like a cookie or other baked good, and it's made using all of the basic normal ingredients that you would use when you make something, which is different than something that is store bought, which refers to something that is purchased from a store and usually made in a giant factory somewhere. I'm sure there's cookie factories somewhere in Toronto, and that's where all of the store bought cookies are made.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Linda, and Linda says without realizing, you taught also oldie but a goodie. Nice expression. Loved it, thanks, and my reply was it just kind of slipped out.

Yes, in the last video, I think I said something was an oldie but a goodie. Whenever you say something is an oldie but a goodie, you're referring to something that is old but is still really, really cool or awesome or has value. Probably the best example of this would be songs by a band called The Beatles. Whenever a Beatles song comes on the radio, you can certainly say, ah, this is an oldie but a goodie. It's kind of a funny phrase. It sounds funny when I say it out loud, as well

But anyways, I wanted to walk for a bit and talk. I forgot to do that when I started just ad libbing a little bit there, but what I wanted to show you is a couple of things. One is this is actually a bed of sunflowers, and those will be ready to harvest in about six weeks, I think, but the main thing I wanted to show you is actually way in the distance. So way back here, you can see my field of wheat.

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In this English lesson, I wanted help you learn the English phrase, to horse around. This is a phrase we use usually when we're talking about children who are just acting all crazy. In fact, I remember as a kid, my parents often saying to me, stop horsing around. So when you horse around, it means as a kid, you jump around, you make lots of noise. Maybe you scream a little bit. And usually parents don't want their kids to horse around when they're somewhere out in public. So sometimes at the grocery store, my brother and I would be horsing around. We'd be grabbing boxes off the shelf or jumping around and making lots of noise. And my mom would be upset because she didn't like it when we horsed around at the grocery store. So, to horse around simply means to act like how kids probably should act just in a way that parents don't appreciate when they're in public.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, hold your horses. An oldie, but a goodie. We would say in English. You probably know this phrase when you tell someone in English to hold their horses. If you say, whoa, hold your horses. What you're basically saying is please wait. It's a very simple way. Wait is actually a simpler way to tell people to wait, but we do actually say this quite a bit. It surprised me because one week at school, I kept track and I actually heard the phrase I think seven times in one week from teachers, from students as well. They would say to someone else, "Hey, hold your horses. No running in the hallway", or "Hey don't go past me in line, hold your horses. Get in line and just wait for your turn." So hold your horses means to wait. So to review, to horse around means to jump around. Usually children do this, scream, yell, giggle, laugh. Everything that kids do, horsing around is probably one of the most common things that kids do. And if you say to someone hold your horses, it means that you want them to wait.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Sorry, there's always bugs out here right now. In fact, the video I made the other day, there's actually a bug crawling around on my forehead. I don't know if you notice that on my other channel, the video I made about my childhood. In the first few seconds, there's actually a black fly climbing around on my head.

Anyways, this is from Qiu Park. How cute the baby Bob is. When I was a kid I spent a lot of time horsing around. My parents made me buy groceries and I hated it a lot. My response was I spent a lot of time horsing around as well. Sometimes it drove my parents up the wall.

So this is the first time I've done this. I actually took Qiu Park's comment from my other video about my childhood, because I loved it that they use the phrase horsing around correctly. And I thought I would respond and also use the phrase to drive someone up the wall. So yes, definitely kids, sometimes horse around and they do sometimes drive their parents up the wall. By the way, if you didn't watch that video, maybe I'll put a link up here to it. I'm sure most of you did. I showed some pictures of my childhood. It was a lot of fun to me. But I was gonna mention this. If you look way over there, it's the goat pasture. It's not a horse pasture. We have never had horses on this farm. I do know though that my grandfather, who had a farm down the road had horses when he first moved here from Holland and he loved horses. He was a horse person, for sure. I think he had horses on his farm in Holland. And when they immigrated to Canada, one of the first things he did was I think he bought, well, he wo

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Read along to practice your English and to learn about the Canadian Holiday VICTORIA DAY and the English phrase LONG WEEKEND

In this English lesson, I wanted to talk about today. Today is Victoria Day. This is a holiday in Canada. I have a holiday today. It's kind of nice, which is why I'm making this lesson this morning instead of yesterday because yesterday we had a little bit of a party here to celebrate Victoria Day. By a little bit of a party, I mean, my mom and sister came over. We invited two people over. We are still under pretty strong restrictions here in Ontario, but you're allowed to have just a couple people over, and the good thing is all of us are vaccinated as well. So it was a safe party, but it is Victoria Day. We sometimes call this the May Two-Four weekend, not the May 24th weekend. We actually say Two-Four. We say this because Victoria Day normally happens right around the 24th of May. Today it happens to be exactly on the 24th, but other years, sometimes it's a bit earlier, so it is a holiday today. It is the May Two-Four weekend.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase long weekend. We would call this a long weekend in English. A long weekend is when you either have the Friday or the Monday off work, so instead of just Saturday and Sunday off, you also have an extra day. So it is a long weekend here in Canada. I have to be honest though, it doesn't really feel like a long weekend because I'm home all the time, so when you're home all the time, it doesn't seem that different, but it's definitely a long weekend here in Canada because we have the extra day off today on Monday.

So to review. Just something interesting about Canada for you. Today is Victoria Day, also called the May Two-Four weekend. Usually this, the other reason we call it the May Two-Four weekend is because in Canada if you buy a case of beer, it has 24 bottles or cans in it, and we refer to it as a two-four. So people will often say, I'm going to go to the beer store. We have special stores to buy beer in Ontario to get a two-four of beer. So it's kind of like a funny name for the weekend but it also refers to the size of a case of beer in Canada. And then, also, it's a weekend where a lot of people go to open up their cottage if they have a cottage up north. And as I mentioned, this is a long weekend. It is a little bit longer by one day than a normal weekend.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Brent, and Brent says, "Ah, poor tree."
And my response was, "Don't worry. "We usually plant a few more every fall."

So Brent was talking about, in the last video, I talked about a tree that we are planning to chop down, but don't worry. I know it sounds kind of, yeah, extreme to chop a tree down. Many of you in the comments were saying "just leave the tree, don't chop it down. "It's not harming anyone." But Jen and I do live on a big property and we do plant trees regularly. In fact, this is one of the first trees that Jen and I planted. We planted this here when we moved here. Why don't I turn this way, and as I walk, you'll see how big this tree is now. It's quite a large tree. We're pretty happy that we planted it many, many years ago. I think you can see it in the background there. It's one of the trees that I sometimes sit under when I do my live streams. So don't worry. When we chop down a tree, we usually do plant one or two or three more in the fall.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I HAVE TO HAND IT TO YOU and TO HAND IN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, I have to hand it to you. We also sometimes say, "I gotta hand it to you," or "I've gotta hand it to you," or "I have to hand it to you." There's a couple of different variations, but they all mean the same thing. It's something you say after someone does something really well. So when a student does really well on a test, I might say to them, "I have to hand it to you. You did a really good job on your test." Or maybe someone has an old car and they fix it up all by themselves. You might say, "Hey, I have to hand it to you. You did a great job fixing up that car." Or, "I gotta hand it to you. You did a great job fixing up that car." So when you say I have to hand it to you or I've gotta hand it to you, or I gotta hand it to you, it simply means you're recognizing that someone did something and they did a great job on it.

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Is there a bug on my head? Sometimes there is.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to hand in. This is a phrase we normally use in schools almost all the time. And it means when a student gives their work to the teacher. So I will say to my students, you need to work on this project. You need to hand it in. You need to hand in the project next week, Tuesday. So we're going to start on it today. It's due next Tuesday. That is the day when you need to hand it in. When you hand something in, it's usually paper but now we do it electronically as well. Students on Google Classroom, is what we use at our school, they can click a button that allows them to hand in the work that they've done.

So to review, when you say, I have to hand it to you or I gotta hand it to you, you're simply saying, Hey you did something and you did a really good job on it and I recognize that you did a good job. And when you hand something in, it usually happens at school. And it usually means when you give the teacher the work that you've done. If any of you are taking night classes, there's probably times where you need to hand in some of the work that you've done.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Dmitry. Haha, we wanna see more acrobatic tricks in Mr. Bob's performance. Have a great flexible day. And my response is this, Haha, I'm not so sure about that. It would certainly be a lot of physical comedy.

So thanks Dmitry for that. That's in the last video where I tried to show my ankle, like kicking my leg up in the air. I almost fell over by the way, when I did that. I'm not as flexible as I used to be. But when I was younger, I say that a lot too, when I was younger, I really liked playing something called Hacky Sack. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with what Hacky Sack is. Hacky- I'll put a little picture up here, actually. Hacky Sack is this fun game that I used to play with my roommates at university where you kick a little beanbag around. And believe it or not, I was really, really good at it. So anyways, Dmitry, thank you for that comment. It kind of reminded me of the fact that yes, maybe I used to be a little more acrobatic, a little more flexible than I am now.

Hey, I wanted to show you something that makes me a little bit sad today.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DIG UP SOME DIRT and TO DIG IN YOUR HEELS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to dig up some dirt. When you dig up some dirt on someone, it means you look for things that they've done in the past that weren't good things to do. A lot of times, people who are running for office, if they wanna be mayor or prime minister, the people who don't want them to be will dig up some dirt on them, or they'll try to dig up some dirt on them. So they'll try to find out if they did anything when they were younger that people would frown upon. When you frown upon something, it means it's something that you shouldn't have done. And they might even try to dig up some dirt on them in the sense that they are trying to find out if they did something illegal. That would be bad. It's really hard to get into office. It's really hard to become mayor, or prime minister, or president if you did something illegal in the past. So sometimes they'll try to dig up some dirt on people who are trying to be in a position of power.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to dig in your heels, when you dig in your heels, so your heel is like, I don't know if I can get my leg up that high, I can't. Your heel is at the back of your foot. When you dig in your heels, it means that you stubbornly refuse to agree with someone, or you stubbornly refuse to do what someone is asking you to do. Our children, at least one or two of our kids, often dig in their heels. One of my kids will definitely dig in their heels quite easily. If I say, "You need to clean your room," sometimes they say no, which, kids shouldn't do that, should they? They shouldn't disagree with their parents. But when I think back to when I was a young Bob the Canadian, I would often dig in my heels when I was arguing with my mom and dad. I was a good kid. I was definitely pretty stubborn.

So to review, when you dig up some dirt on someone, when you go to dig up some dirt on someone, you're trying to discover things they did in the past that were either illegal, or just not very nice. And when you dig in your heels, it means that you stubbornly refuse to do what someone is trying to get you to do.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohammad, and Mohammad says, "Thanks, dear Bob, useful lesson. By the way, I really enjoyed playing 'GeoGuessr.' My mom watched it. It was 3:30 AM here. So we were at our wit's end." My response was this, "Wow. That is really early in the morning. I'm impressed that you stayed up so late, or maybe you got up early. I'm glad you liked it. Thanks for watching."

So, yes, I've been playing "GeoGuessr." By the way, thanks, Mohammad, for that comment. I've been playing "GeoGuessr" on Sunday evenings. It is a pretty fun thing to play. I have been enjoying it. It's a game where you travel using Google Maps and you try to guess what country you're in. And so I've been playing it most Sunday nights. We just played last Sunday night. There's about 90 people or so that show up and it's a lot of fun. I've enjoyed it. We had a streak of 19 correct answers a while ago. So that was a lot of fun. So anyways, if you're interested, "GeoGuessr." It's hard to hold this camera. Sorry if I'm making you a little seasick. "GeoGuessr" Sunday nights.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HAVE A TASTE FOR and TO DO SOMETHING TASTEFULLY

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to have a taste for. When you have a taste for something, it means that you like it. And it can mean food. It can be used when talking about food, let's say that I used to only eat standard North American food, like hamburgers and hot dogs and pizza, but I'm starting to have a taste for Indian food. Maybe I've started eating Indian food. And I really like it. I'm starting to have a taste for it. You can also use this about other things besides food. Maybe you've been in charge of something. Maybe you were elected mayor of your town and now you have a taste for power. You liked being in charge of other people and now you have a taste for it. So when you have a taste for something it means that you've experienced it. You like it. And you want more of it. Whether it's food or something like power.

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The other phrase I want it to teach you today is the phrase to do something tastefully. When you do something tastefully, you do it in a way that is very pleasing for people, in a way that doesn't offend people. Sometimes when people decorate for, let's say a wedding, they want to decorate tastefully. They want to decorate tastefully, so that people enjoy the decorations. They enjoy what everything looks like. You don't want to decorate a place in a way that offends people or annoys people. You want to do it tastefully. You want to do it in a way when, so that when people look at it, they're like, this looks really cool. This looks really nice. There's nothing offensive about how this has been done. Hopefully I explained that well. I tried to do my videos tastefully. I don't know if you've noticed that. I try to make sure I don't say things or do things that annoy people. I try to make the videos as tasteful as possible. I try to do them tastefully.

So to review, when you have a taste for something it means you like it. You like doing it. It's enjoyable for you. You have experienced it and you want more of it. And when you do something tastefully it means you do it in a way that pleases people. When they look at it, when they hear it, when they see it they just enjoy what you have done.

But Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, I thought for a second there it fell out of my pocket. Did you see me go like this? It's in my back pocket. It was in my right pocket, not my left one.

This is from Ðhin. And the comment is this. While I was watching your video my mum gave me a heads up that the water was going to boil. I often do something else when cooking. So, and then thanks for the lesson, Bob. And my response is this a watched pot, never boils. This is an old English phrase that my mum used to say when I was waiting for something.

So thanks Ðhin for that comment. And yes, that is a phrase. When I was a kid, sometimes I would be waiting for something. Sometimes I would be waiting for a delivery truck to come or waiting for something to arrive that I wanted. And my mom would always say, Hey, Bob a watched pot, never boils. And what she meant by that was that when you're waiting for something, it takes longer for it to actually happen. We, we say this to our kids now, jokingly we say a watched toaster never pops up because sometimes our kids are waiting for the toaster to pop up and it can take a very long time.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GIVE SOMEONE A HEADS UP and TO FILL SOMEONE IN ON

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to give someone a heads up." When you give someone a heads up, it means that you tell them something that maybe they weren't aware of. A good example would be this, a couple of weeks ago, someone made a website and was asking people to give them money and then they said they would give the money to me and then Brent, thankfully, Brent sent me an email because he wanted to give me a heads up that someone was doing this, and a couple other people did as well. So they wanted to let me know that something was happening that maybe I didn't know about it. It was really nice that they were able to give me a heads up. It was really nice that they were able to let me know so that I could kind of take care of that. So when you give someone a heads up, it means you tell them something that maybe they weren't aware of. It's always a good thing to do. It's nice when you can give someone a heads up about something. Thanks, Brent, by the way.

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The other phrase I wanted to tell you today is the phrase "to fill someone in on." I don't know why we have two prepositions at the end of this sentence, but when you fill someone in on something, it means you tell them about it. But it's more of like a formal thing that happens maybe at work or when you're talking about an event. If someone said, "Hey, I don't know anything about this Friday. We're supposed to be having a meeting. Can someone fill me in on the details? Can someone tell me about what's happening?" Or you could say this. Maybe my mom's having a birthday party and I don't know what day it's on. I should know what day my mom's birthday is. I don't know what day it's on and I don't know what time to arrive and I don't know what I'm supposed to bring. I could say to my brothers and sisters, "Could someone fill me in on all the details about mom's birthday party?" By the way, my mom's birthday is coming up in a month and a half but we're probably not having a party. Things won't be open yet here in Ontario, Canada.

Anyways, to review, and hopefully I make some sense. When you give someone a heads up, it means you tell them about something, usually one thing, that maybe they didn't know about. And when you fill someone in on something, it means you give them all the details about something because maybe they were wondering what exactly was going on or what was happening. I hope those explanations made sense. Sometimes when I listen to these lessons later, I think, oh, I did actually make sense. So hopefully that made some sense to you.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Voiretvisite and Voiretvisite says, "Hello. It is a nice and beautiful landscape." Usually is. It's kind of nice. "Who takes care of the goats during the day? See you soon." And my response was this. "Jen lets them out in the morning and we bring them back in at night."

So the goats go out in the morning, they go out on the pasture. I did mention, I was going to try and walk and talk more. Let's see if this will work. I'm going to take my camera and walk and point. So way over there is the pasture. We let the goats out in the morning. We let them back in at night. Isn't it weird that we say in the morning and then we say at night? Why do we use different prepositions there? I don't really know. Anyways, they're out there somewhere. I'm not sure if you can see them.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO STRIKE ME THAT or TO STRIKE ME AS and TO STRIKE A BALANCE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, it strikes me that. This is a phrase that I used yesterday a couple of times when I was talking about the emojis that I like to choose, I said, well, I just choose emojis that strike me as cool. When something strikes you when you describe something as striking you in English, it literally means something hitting you, a ball can strike me in the face, hopefully that doesn't happen. But when something strikes you in the way that I used it, it means that you notice it or you've decided that it's cool. So I pick the emojis based on ones that strike me as cool, ones that I notice are cool or ones that I just think are cool when I see them. So they strike me as being cool.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to strike a balance. When you try to strike a balance, you're trying to create a solution to something. Usually you're trying to get two people to agree on something in a way where they're both happy but they don't both get exactly what they want. Sometimes there's three cookies and I have five children that want the cookies so in order to strike a balance, I cut the cookies in pieces and everyone gets a half and then I get a couple cookie halves too. But anyways, I'm not sure my math is correct but I think you understand what I mean when you strike a balance. If I wanted to strike a balance, I create a situation where everyone gets some of what they want, but not exactly what they wanted and hopefully everybody's happy.

So to review when something strikes you, it can be something that physically hits you like if my, one of my kids kicked a ball at me it could strike me in their head but it can also be used to talk about something that you've noticed. It might strike you as a little bit funny that there are goats behind me, I'm not sure you can see them today. Is that a goat right there? It might be. I know some of you noticed them yesterday. And of course the phrase to strike a balance means to create a situation where everyone gets a little bit of what they want but not exactly what they wanted but hopefully everyone's happy.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is a comment from Judit. And Judit says, thanks a lot, cameraman. My response was you're welcome. My camera moving skills are great when I want to show something but not so great when I want to put the camera back in the exact spot I took it from, this time it went quite smoothly.

So in my last video, I actually moved the camera while I was doing the lesson and I thought that maybe I should do that more. Maybe I should actually move the camera a little bit more so you can see more of the things that are happening right around me. I think maybe I scared the goats, maybe not. By the way, some of you thought they might be sheep, they do look a little bit like a type of sheep called a Dorper sheep but they are actually Boer goats.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP SOMETHING STRAIGHT and TO KEEP AT SOMETHING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To keep something straight," or, "To keep things straight." When you want to keep something straight or you want to keep things straight, it's the opposite of being confused. Sometimes when Jen plants a lot of small plants, she puts labels on things because she wants to be able to keep things straight. I know I'm using things instead of something here, sorry about that, there's kind of two phrases, but she doesn't want to be confused later. Sometimes my mom has trouble keeping things straight, she has trouble remembering which of her sons has which name. Sometimes she calls me John, and my name's not John, but sometimes my mom has a little trouble keeping our names straight between my older brother and my younger brother and I, sometimes my mom has trouble keeping our names straight. I hope my mom's not watching this, maybe she is, it's not a big deal.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is, "To keep at something." When you keep at something, it simply means that you keep doing it. In fact, I'm not sure why we have the phrase, "To keep at something." If I say to you, "I go for a walk every day, and I'm going to keep walking every day," I could also say, "I go walking every day, and I'm going to keep at it," it means exactly the same thing, when you keep at something, it means that you keep doing it. Jen and I, as you know, grow flowers, and we're gonna keep at it. We like doing it, so every year we're going to grow more, and every year hopefully we sell all of them, we'll see.

And so anyways, to review, "To keep something straight," means the opposite of being confused, it means to keep things in an orderly fashion in your mind, and, "To keep at something," simply means to keep doing it. So I like doing these little English lessons, I'm gonna keep at it.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video, and this no comment is from Mohd Ags, and it is this, "If you don't mind me asking, why do you always use three emojis in your replies?" And my reply was this, "I like to pick one with a smiley face and two others that either relate to the lesson or strike me as cool. Today, I'm using four." So yes, for those of you that actually read the comments and ask and leave comments, you'll notice that I regularly end my comment with three emojis. Usually the first one is the smiley face of the guy with sunglasses, 'cause he kinda looks like me, a big round head with sunglasses on, and sometimes just a regular smiley face. And then I usually pick two that maybe relate to the lesson, maybe they relate to something I saw that day, maybe they relate to, I don't know, it's just something that strikes me as a cool one to choose. So thanks, Mohd Ags, for that comment.

To talk about it a bit more, I don't know why I choose three, probably 99% of the time I choose three emojis, sometimes I choose four, sometimes I just put one, but most of the time it's three, so I don't know.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP AN EYE ON and TO KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to keep an eye on. In English, if you are going to keep an eye on someone or keep an eye on something, it means you're going to watch it. A good example is this. If you put a pan of water on the stove to boil the water, you want to keep an eye on that pot of water, because when it starts to boil, you wanna take it off the stove. Maybe you are in charge of some children. Maybe you've gone to the park with your kids or a niece or nephew, you want to keep an eye on them while they are playing, because you don't want them to accidentally get hurt or do something that they're not supposed to. So in English, when you keep an eye on someone, or when you keep an eye on something, it means you're going to watch them or it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to keep an eye out for. This is a little bit different. And I actually used this phrase in yesterday's lesson. And I think I used the wrong one. I think I should've said, "Keep an eye on." And instead I said, "Keep an eye out for." When you keep an eye out for someone or something, it means you're waiting for them or you're waiting for that thing. Here's a good example. When I order something online, sometimes I will keep an eye out for the delivery truck. So that means while I'm working on my computer, I look outside every once in a while, I keep an eye out for the delivery truck, because I'm waiting for the delivery truck to come. Maybe, another good example would be this. Maybe in your neighborhood, bad things have been happening. And the police have said, "Please keep an eye out "for suspicious activity." What they're saying is that they want you to kind of look outside every once in a while to see if anything bad is happening.

So to review, the phrase to keep an eye on someone or to keep an eye on something means to watch. You know, usually like you're in charge or you're doing something and you want to watch it to make sure nothing goes wrong, to make sure that, again, the example with the water boiling, you want to keep an eye on it, because you want to take it off the stove when it's done. But when you want to keep an eye out for someone or something, it means that you're waiting for them to arrive, or you're waiting for that thing to happen. So you want to keep an eye out for it. Hopefully that made some sense. That was, I think, a pretty good explanation, but maybe when I get inside to edit this, I'll think differently, but I think it was pretty good.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, and I love this comment. It's from Snazzy. And the comment is this, "Keep smiling, stay safe." And my response is you too.

So thank you, Snazzy, for that comment. I wanted to use this comment, 'cause I wanted to make sure that people knew that I don't always choose the longest comments or the comments that are the best example of English writing. I don't look for comments that where I'm like, "Wow, this person is awesome and amazing at English. "I'll use their comment." I like all comments. So this comment from Snazzy is short and sweet. It's to the point. It's probably one of my favorite comments this week. Keep smiling and stay safe.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GO OFF THE RADAR and TO BE ON SOMEONE'S RADAR

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to go off the radar. When someone goes off the radar, it means they kind of disappear for a little bit. And I kind of just did that. So I do want to apologize to all of you. On my bigger channel normally there's a new English lesson every Tuesday and yesterday I didn't put a new video out. And then on this channel, there should have been a new video lesson for you a few hours ago already but there wasn't one because I kind of went off the radar. When you go off the radar, it simply means that you kind of disappear for a little bit. And I kind of disappeared for a day and I did explain on my other channel what happened and I'll explain on this channel a little bit as well. It's nothing serious by the way. But when you go off the radar, it means that a person kind of disappears for a day or two or maybe longer. So sorry, I was kind of off the radar for a bit.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to be on my radar or to be on someone's radar. This means that you are aware of someone or something. This happens a lot when you're a teacher. Another teacher might say to me, hey, watch out for Johnny, he's been acting a little suspiciously lately, keep them on your radar. I'm going to keep him on my radar as well. So you can be on someone's radar or you can keep someone on your radar or you can keep something on your radar. That just simply means that you are aware of it and you are watching carefully just in case something happens. So what is radar? Well, radar is something they use in the military and it kind of helps them see things from far away.

So to review, if you say that someone has gone off the radar or the phrase to go off the radar it means to disappear for a little bit without telling people where you're going. And then when someone is on your radar or if you say that someone is you're going to keep someone on your radar, it means you're going to kind of keep an eye out for them.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video and this comment will lead into the rest of this lesson. Natalia Illusion says, does anyone know where Bob is? And Julia Olis says, same question. And my reply was I'm right here, sorry to go off the radar for a day. Just getting back on track now.

So yes, I do want to apologize to all of you. It wasn't very nice of me to just kind of skip a day without mentioning where I was. There's no problem with me not making a video for a day but I know a lot of you just, well, you kind of liked me and I like you too so it's not nice to disappear for a day without at least putting a message on my community page or on Facebook letting you know what was up. So what was up? I explained this in my other video on my bigger channel. I just felt blah, is that a good description? I felt blah, I felt under the weather. I said to Jen, I felt kind of meh. That's not a real English phrase by the way but I didn't feel energetic and I thought maybe even that I was getting sick.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET CARRIED AWAY and TO GET RILED UP

In this English lesson, I wanted to teach you the English phrase to get carried away. When you get carried away with something, it means you get so excited about it, you don't actually think straight. You start to do things you normally wouldn't do. Probably the best example of the phrase to get carried away, for me, would be when I go to the grocery store when I'm hungry. When I go to the grocery store when I'm hungry, I sometimes get carried away and I buy too many cookies and I buy too many candies and I buy too many chocolates. I kind of lose control of what I would normally do. Because I'm so hungry, everything I see looks really yummy and I get a bit carried away. Sometimes when I'm watching a sports game and my team does really well, I jump up and cheer and maybe I'll knock something over by accident because I get carried away. So when you get carried away, it means you get super excited about something to the point where you do things you normally wouldn't do.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to get riled up. Now this is similar to getting carried away, but in a bad way, in an angry way. Sometimes people get riled up. That means that they are really, really angry about something. Right now, and I won't mention why, there are a lot of people in the world really, really angry about different things. It's really easy to get riled up when you are upset about something in life. Maybe things aren't going well for you. Maybe things in your life just aren't as nice as they should be, and you're just getting riled up. You're getting very, very angry about something. This also happens with sports fans. Sometimes when there is a championship game and the team that you love loses, sometimes you might get riled up. In fact, in some cities, people get really riled up when their team loses. They get really angry because their team has lost. They get riled up.

So to review, when you get carried away, to get carried away means to be very excited about something, where you kind of let the emotion of being excited take over what you're doing. And to get riled up would be similar, but it would mean that you're letting anger take over your life. You're so angry about something that you're starting to do things you normally wouldn't do. Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comic, comment, it's not a comic. That'd be cool if it was a comic, but this is a comment. This comment, comment, is from Alex. I love the birds singing in the background. I do love the farm. Bob, is it cloudy all day long like that in the video? And my response was that day it was. Today is a much nicer day. I think we're in for some nice weather coming up.

Yeah, we're definitely in for a nice stretch of weather, it looks like. And thanks, Alex, for leaving that comment. Not comic, comment. That was very nice of you. Yeah. It looks like we're into a good stretch of really nice weather, which I'm happy about because it's just nice to be outside when you're in a lockdown like this.

I'll tell you this. Jen and I went out today to get some groceries, and the world has a very different feel now than it did a few months ago. As you know, COVID cases in Ontario, Canada are pretty high. So we went to the grocery store. We had to wait in line before we could ge

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT'S MY TREAT or TO TREAT SOMEONE TO SOMETHING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "it's my treat." A couple of days ago we looked at the English phrase "it's on me" and "it's my treat" means the same thing. If you say to someone, "It's my treat," it means you're going to pay for it. I could say to a friend of mine, "Hey, let's go to Niagara Falls for the day and let's do all of the attractions. Let's go on the zip line. Let's go on the," I was gonna say Maid of the Mist but I think the boat has a different name now. And then I could say, "It's my treat." That means that I'm going to take my friend to Niagara Falls and I'm gonna pay for everything. So if you say, "It's on me," or if you say, "It's my treat," it means that you're planning to pay for whatever activity you're going to do. By the way, these videos, they're my treat to you, okay? It's on me this time.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to treat someone to something." When you treat someone to something it means you are buying something for them. A great example of this would be sometimes when we visit Jen's parents, Jen's dad will actually treat us to ice cream or he'll treat us to a meal or he'll treat us, a long time ago, he used to treat us to a round of golf. I'm not an avid golfer, but a long time ago, every once in a while, Jen's dad would treat us to a round of golf with him. He would take us to the golf course and he would pay for everything. We didn't have to pay for anything. It was really nice.

So to review, if I say, "It's on me," like we did a couple of days ago, or if I say, "It's my treat," it means that I'm going to pay for something. And if you say that you are going to treat someone to something, it means the same thing. It means that you are planning to pay for it. So, often, as a parent, I do this. I often treat my children to different things. In fact, we bought something the other day, it's a bit of a surprise. I can't tell you what it is right now but we are treating our kids to something in the next few days. I'll let you know what it is when it arrives. It's not a big thing, it's just a small thing.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from the Qiu Park and Qiu Park wrote a little two-part conversation here. The conversation is this: Person A says, "Hey I know a wonderful restaurant. Let's go out to eat there. It's on me." And person B says, "Oh, that's news to me. You've never treated me, have you?" And my response was this: "Nice, I liked that you used the phrase to treat someone. I should teach that phrase." I just did. "Sometimes, after a long day of work on the farm, Jen and I will take the kids and treat them to an ice cream cone at the local ice cream shop."

We used to do that more. There used to be an ice cream shop closer to us but that one closed down. Now we have to go quite a ways to find ice cream but anyways, Qiu Park, thank you very much for that comment. And for kind of introducing me or reminding me of another phrase, to treat someone to something, that I could teach. That was a lot of fun, but I talk a lot about going out to eat, and I want to say a couple of things about that.

One, Jen and I don't actually go out to eat a lot. We don't actually treat our kids to a meal in a restaurant very often because it does cost quite a bit of money. And also right now, you can't actually do that. There aren't really any restaurants open.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase IT'S ON ME and THAT'S NEWS TO ME

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, it's on me. If someone says to you, it's on me, it means they're going to pay for something. Sometimes this happens when you go out to eat with someone and as you're getting out your wallet at the end of the meal, the other person might say, "No, no, don't worry about it. It's on me." When they say that, what they're mean, what they mean is that they're going to pay for your meal. It's awesome. People might even say this before you go out to eat or before you go do something I can say to my brother, "Hey, do you want to go see a movie tonight?" And if my brother was like, "I'm not sure." I could say, "Come on. It's on me." That means if we go to a movie, if I say, "It's on me," it means I'm going to pay for him. I don't usually ever do that, though. If my brother and I go see a movie, he pays for his own movie. I don't usually say, "It's on me." Sometimes when I go out to eat, I do though.

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Hey, the other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase that's news to me. When you say, "That's news to me," to someone it's usually after they've told you something that you didn't know about. If someone said to me, "Hey the hardware store in our local town is closing." I could say, "Oh really? That's news to me." What I mean when I say that is that I had not heard that before. If someone said, "Hey, did you hear," if my sister said to me, "Hey, did you hear mum sold her house?" I would be like, "What? That's news to me. I didn't even know she was planning to sell it." My mom hasn't sold her house, by the way. It's just an example.

So to review, if someone invites you to go out to do something and it costs money and they say, "It's on me," it means they plan to pay for it. And if you are already out doing something and when you go to pay for it with your wallet, someone says, "No, no, it's on me." It means they're going to pay for you. That's kind of cool. And if someone says to you, "That's news to me," they're basically saying that whatever you just told them, they hadn't heard before. It's something new for them. It's news to them.

Hey, let's look at a comment, though, from a previous video. This comment is from Sutopa and Sutopa says this, "Sir, can you explain last fall, late last fall. So in the previous lesson I referred to the season of fall by saying last fall and then I corrected myself to say late last fall. Here's my response Sutopa to explain that. Sure, last fall for us in Canada refers to the time from about mid September to mid December, the entire season of last year. So if I say last fall, I'm talking about the season of fall that we just experienced a few months ago. Late last fall would mean sometime in November or December of last year or the last part of the fall last year.

So when I'm referring to the season of fall, I'm not just referring, when I say last fall, I'm referring to the entire season that occurred last year. When I say late last fall, I'm talking about the last few weeks of the season of fall. If I said early last fall, I would be referring to at the time of this video, September, October of 2020. But if say late last fall, I'm talking about the last part of the fall so end of November, beginning of December. I hope that made some sense.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO RAMP UP and TO SCALE BACK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to ramp up. This is actually a phrasal verb that means to increase production. Probably the best example of this in the world right now would be the companies that are making vaccines. They are trying to ramp up their production. They are trying to increase their production. They're trying to make as many vaccines as they possibly can each and every day. A long time ago, they were producing a certain number every day, but because they've been able to ramp up their production, they can now produce more vaccines every day than they could last fall or late last fall, or that they could just a few months ago. So they have definitely been able to ramp up their production.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrasal verb, to scale back. Which actually means exactly the opposite. Eventually, I'm going to assume that these companies will need to scale back their production. When you scale back your production or when you scale something back, it means you reduce the amount that you are producing.

For Jen and I here on the farm, just to review, in the spring and summer we ramp up our production of flowers. We grow more and more flowers all the time. And as fall approaches, and the cold weather approaches, we tend to scale back. We tend to reduce the number of flowers that we are producing. Actually, we don't choose to scale back. The weather just sort of causes that to happen.

So again, to review quickly. To ramp up means to increase the production of something, and to scale back means to reduce the production of something. Now, this doesn't always have to do with producing things. You could ramp up the amount of exercise you're doing every week. You could scale back the amount of exercise you're doing every week. So, both phrases do apply in other situations as well.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd Ags. And it's from the lesson where I talked about cracking a joke, and his response or his comment is this. "He cracked a smile. Then cracked a joke thinking it'd crack the audience up. Unfortunately, nobody laughed, and he instantly realized his joke is not all it's cracked up to be." And my response was, "Nice work, Mohd. That's perfect." So, Mohd Ags, that is a great example of using a whole bunch of different phrases with the word cracked in it: cracked up, not all it's cracked up to be. You obviously learned a lot in the last lesson or it was at least a good review for you. So thanks for that comment.

Hey, so, I was just gonna mention a couple of things. Winter went away again. So, I know last week I was making videos and it was quite cold. Last Friday, I didn't even go outside to make a video because it was so cold. Now I'm outside again. And the world has returned to its beautiful green color. So, the snow melted. It's actually 14 degrees Celsius right now. So, a little warmer than I was expecting. So, a little bit of an update on the weather.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases NOT ALL IT'S CRACKED UP TO BE and TO CRACK A JOKE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "not all it's cracked up to be." When we say that something is not all it's cracked up to be, it means that it's not as fun, it's not as good, it just isn't what you thought it was going to be, or what people told you it was going to be. Sometimes people have this with things like the job they do. Sometimes they become a teacher and then they find out it's not all it's cracked up to be. That means someone told them it was a great job, but when they actually started doing it, it wasn't that great for them. And sometimes this happens, too, when you go to see a movie that someone told you is amazing, and then you go to see it and then it's not all it's cracked up to be. It's not as good as you thought it was going to be.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is a simpler phrase, "to crack a joke." When you crack a joke, it simply means that you tell a joke. Sometimes people get in trouble when they're in school because they're always cracking jokes. I have a one , I have one or two students right now that crack jokes regularly in class. They just really like to crack a joke every once in a while to make everyone laugh, and I'll be honest, sometimes it makes me laugh, too.

So to review, when something is not all it's cracked up to be, it means that you were kind of told something was going to be good or awesome or cool, but when you did it, it actually wasn't as good as how the person explained it to you. So, it's not all it's cracked up to be. And when you crack a joke, it simply means that you are telling a joke, so you tell a joke.

Sorry, you're probably gonna hear my children right now, because they don't know that I'm recording a video inside today, but why am I recording inside today? Because the weather is not very nice. As much as I often say how much I like cold weather, it is windy, it is cold, it is wet outside. There's water and snow everywhere. It's just not a good day to make a video outside. So sometimes making a video outside isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from American English with this guy otherwise known as Brent. And he says this. "Getting snow this time of year is just wrong. "I've never wanted to be top dog at school. "This year has only solidified that notion. "I like flying under the radar at school." And my response is this. "I agree, this year has really made me realize "that being in charge isn't all it's cracked up to be."

So I kind of use the phrase that I just taught you today in my response there. That's actually when I thought of it. So thanks, Brent, for that comment. Brent's talking about the lesson on being top dog and the response from Padma, I think yesterday, on how sometimes being top dog isn't all it's cracked up to be, right? Sometimes it's nice not to be in charge. And I would agree with Brent. This year in particular with people who are leaders, either government leaders or people who are bosses at different businesses or in charge of people, it hasn't been an easy year being top dog.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase GET ON TOP OF THINGS and STAY ON TOP OF THINGS

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "Get on top of things." When you are busy in life sometimes you get behind. You know you have a lot of things to do and you don't have enough time to do them, and then you get behind. And that's not a good feeling. And then you need to get on top of things. The last couple of weeks, I was really, really busy and I kind of got a little bit behind on the farm, at school, with YouTube. But now as of today, I was able to get back on top of things. I spent a lot of time over the last few days getting back on top of things. So, when you get on top of things, it means you get caught up. It means you finish a whole bunch of work that you needed to get done so that you could just feel good again.

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Hey, there's two other phrases I wanted to teach you as well. "To be on top of things" or "To stay on top of things." So there's kind of two phrases here, right? Let me cover this one up. "To be on top of things" or "To stay on top of things." When you are able to stay on top of things, when you are on top of things, for me, at least, life feels really good. It means that I have everything done that I need to get done. By the end of each day, it's really nice for me to be on top of things, okay? As I go through my week, it's really nice to stay on top of things. I don't like being behind. I don't like knowing that there is a pile of work that I need to do in order to get back on top of things. So anyways, let's review these two phrases. When you need to get on top of things, it means you're a little bit behind in your work and you need to do extra work so that you can be on top of things. And it's always really nice to just stay on top of things. I can't even express how nice of a feeling that is when you finish your week, when it's Saturday afternoon and you were able to stay on top of things all week and you're just totally on top of everything in your life. It's a really good feeling.

Hey, but let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Padma, and Padma says this, "To be top dog in life is everyone's dream "but sometimes it becomes a burden "or you are overwhelmed with that responsibility. "So being second banana sometimes may give you "some breathing room." And my response was this. "Exactly. I agree 100%. "Sometimes being in charge is very stressful."

So thanks Padma for that comment. And I do agree with you 100%. In fact, I used to run a computer tech support company, as well as teach. So for a number of years, I was a part-time teacher and I also did tech support for a couple of schools. And I was really, really busy. But what I'm trying to say is this. When I was in charge of my own company, when I was top dog, it had a lot of responsibility. Now that I just teach full time and someone else is top dog, it's a lot easier. It's a lot easier in life to not be the top dog. I have less responsibilities. My boss, especially over this past year, has had far more responsibilities than just regular teachers, making decisions about COVID protocols at school, making decisions about how to communicate to all of the parents and students what we're doing as a school. Being top dog for the last year and a bit has not been easy for a lot of people. They've had to make some really tough and hard decisions. So Padma again, once again, I totally agree.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TOP DOG and SECOND BANANA / FIDDLE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase top dog. If you are the top dog somewhere, it means you have the most power or you are the best. If you think about a sports team, for example, the person on the team who scores the most points every game and all season, we would call that person the top dog. If you look at something like the place where you work, your boss is the top dog, they are the person that has the most power in that organization. So when you refer to someone as the top dog, it means that they are the most powerful person, the person who has the most power, or the person who performs the best in some sort of situation, like a sports team or at a place where you work.

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Which is a little different than second banana. If you are second banana, it means there's one person who's a little bit better than you. We also sometimes use the phrase second fiddle. So maybe you have a sports team that you like to watch, and your favorite player was the top dog for many, many years, but now they've hired a new younger player who's much better, and now your favorite player has become second banana. They're not top dog anymore, now they're second banana or they're second fiddle, which probably isn't a good feeling. I think when you're really good at something, when you're the best on a team for a long time, when you're top dog for a very long time, it probably doesn't feel very good when some new younger person comes in and suddenly you are second banana or second fiddle, not the greatest feeling in the world.

So to review, if you refer to someone as top dog, it means they are the best in an organization or maybe they have the most power in an organization. And when you say that someone is second banana or second fiddle, it means that they are now outclassed by one person. Sometimes we even say that they play second fiddle, but sorry, I was looking for the comment from the last video in my inside pocket, but it's actually in my side pocket.

So let's look at a comment from a previous video. And this comment is from Judit, who is a long-time viewer of my channel, I really appreciate Judit, she has been around for a very long time and leaves really, really good comments. And the comment that Judit left is this. "Great explanation and I'm happy you helped Jen." And my response was this, "It's nice to help Jen, and to get out and do physical work as well. There's a saying in English, you can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy. This means that kids who grow up on farms usually remember it fondly."

So thank you, Judit, for that comment. Judit, I think it's good that you appreciate that I helped Jen. I think that this flower farm is kind of, it's a job for two people, and I need to help out as much as I can because there's just things where, you know, many hands make light work, when two people do certain jobs, it just goes a lot better. And the phrase, yeah, it means that, a lot of times, kids who grow up on farms, when they move to the city, they miss living on the farm, not all children who grow up on farms are that way, but I certainly can identify with this phrase, you can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy, because I know when I lived in the city when I was in university, I found the city very loud.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases DOWN TO A SCIENCE and IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase down to a science. When you have something down to a science, it means you have every step of a process figured out and you do it smoothly and efficiently. When you have something down to a science, it means you're really good at it. Jen has growing flowers down to a science. She knows how to start the seeds, she knows how to plant the tiny baby plants in the ground, she knows how to grow them so they look beautiful. She has the whole process down to a science. So when you have something down to a science, it means you're pretty good at it. It means you've learned every step and you know how to do it really well.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase it's not rocket science. Now, I taught this phrase actually in a previous lesson I think about a year ago, but it had the word science in it, so I thought I would throw it in here as well. We say this to someone if they're having trouble figuring out how to do something simple, we say, "Ah, come on, it's not rocket science." So let's say someone's trying to fill a glass of water from the tap and they can't get the water to go in the cup. It's such a simple process. In that situation, you might say to the person, "Come on, it's not rocket science, put the cup under the tap so the water goes in the cup." So it's not a nice thing to say, but when you say to someone, "It's not rocket science," what you're saying is, "Hey, that task you're doing or whatever you're doing, it's actually really simple."

So to review, when you have something down to a science, it means there's a number of steps and you have every step working really well or you just know how to do each step really well and efficiently. And when you say to someone, "It's not rocket science," you're basically saying to them, "Whatever you're doing is really simple and it shouldn't cause you too many problems."

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Cida, and Cida says, "Bob, I love your lessons, but with the cat, it became more than interesting. I love animals. By the way, where's Oscar?" So that's from a previous video from a few days ago where the cats were visiting me during the lesson. My reply was this: "I think the cats have finally figured out that I don't have treats on me. It will be hit or miss if they appear in the videos. PS: Oscar is always with Jen at this time of year."

So yes, you've probably noticed a couple of things. One is that the cats seemed to be around me as they were in the last video, but they've, I think, figured out that it's not me that has the treats, it's actually my daughter, so now, today even, there are no cats here at all. I don't see a single cat.

And at this time of year, Oscar is always with Jen. Jen is very busy out in the flower fields. In fact, one of the reasons I didn't do a short English lesson a couple of days ago is because I was helping Jen for a couple of days, just starting to get the farm ready to plant flowers and to grow flowers. So at this time of year, Oscar spends a lot of time with Jen. He loves being with Jen because he finds little mice, he chases other animals.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ALL SET and TO BE SET ON SOMETHING

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, all set. All set is something we say when we are totally ready to do something. Let's say that I'm heading out for work and I'm trying to make sure I have everything, Jen can say to me, hey, are you all set? And I can say, yep, I just need to find my keys and then I'm all set. So when you say that you are all set it means that you are totally ready to do something. You will hear this phrase a lot in English. Sometimes teachers will say to each other, hey, are you all set to teach this afternoon? And that teacher who is answering the question will say, yep, I'm all set, meaning that they are totally ready to do what they need to do. When I come out to make a video I make sure I have my papers and then I know that I'm all set, get my papers, get my camera and then I'm all set to make a video.

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Hey, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to be set on something. When somebody is set on something it means that they are committed to doing it. It means that they have decided to do it. Let's say, let me give you an example. When I was a teenager, I decided I was going to buy a motorcycle. I was set on buying a motorcycle. My mum and dad did not want me to buy a motorcycle but I was set on it. When you are set on something it means that you are absolutely planning to do that thing that you are thinking of doing. I didn't ask the cats to come out today, they just happened to be here. I know in the last video people were happy 'cause there was a wasp I think, yeah, wasp or hornet. But yes, the cats just appeared. I don't make them be in the video. If I did I might have to pay them I think.

Anyways, to review when you are all set it means that you are ready to do something. If you are buying a new vehicle, you'd want to make sure that you have enough money and you'd wanna pick out a video, a video, a vehicle and then you would be all set to buy that vehicle. And if you to be set on something means that you have decided to do something and you're not going to change your mind, you are absolutely 100% going to do it.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video and this comment is from Daniel. And Daniel says this, what's the difference between a wasp and a hornet. And my response was we regularly use either word for the same insect although scientifically they are different, I think hornets are bigger.

So thanks Daniel for that comment referring once again to the hornet that flew by or the wasp that flew by a few videos ago. I think it was a wasp, I think hornets are bigger but I have to confess I don't know a lot about the insects that are around us. I know enough to say that it wasn't a bee, it was definitely a wasp or a hornet. I'm pretty sure it was a wasp because I think hornets have a lot more color to them. I think they have rings of black and yellow on the back of their body but I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure that a wasp. I've almost said hornet. I'm pretty sure it was a wasp.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BREAK IT DOWN and TO BREAK UP

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To break it down." If you say to someone that you're going to break something down for them, or if you're going to break it down for them, it means you're going to explain how to do something in smaller steps. Let's say you wanted to get your driver's license. I could break it down for you in the following way. The first thing you need to do is get the booklet that tells you how to be a good driver. Then you need to take a written test, in Ontario we call it your Beginners, and once you've passed your written test, you're allowed to drive with someone else in the car for awhile. And then eventually you go and take your road test. So if you wanted to get your driver's license in Canada that's how I would break it down. That's how I would explain to you how to do it in a bunch of smaller steps.

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Hey, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today also has the word break in it, and it is the phrase, "To break up." This has a completely different meaning. This means that you and someone that you like are romantically involved, you are dating and you've decided to go your separate ways. You've decided to break up. You've decided to end the relationship. So a completely different meaning compared to our first one, but also a phrase that has the word break in it. So if you break up with someone, it means that you are dating, it means that you are seeing each other, but you've decided to end the relationship. You have broken up. Sometimes it's sad. Sometimes it's a good thing.

Anyways, let's review. When I use the English phrase, "To break it down," it means that I'm going to explain something in a series of smaller steps so it's easier for you to understand. And when I use the English phrase, "To break up," if I say that I think that couple is going to break up it means that I think they're going to stop dating. They're going to stop seeing each other some time in the future.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Alex. And Alex says, "At the timestamp 3 minutes and 27 seconds, "that was a wasp." And my response was, "I think so. "At first I thought it was a bee, "but now that you mentioned it, it was probably a wasp."

So I will put the video up here in the corner, or maybe I already did. In my last video, Alex is talking about a part in the video where something flew past me and I thought it was a bee but when I watched the video again, I think it was probably a wasp. I think when I look around the farm there are a lot of wasps nests. There's a lot of geese still, too. There's a lot of wasp nest. And I think that the wasps are starting to come out of their little nests after a long winter, and I think that's what it was. I couldn't zoom in far enough to see exactly what it was. But I think Alex, that you are probably right. I think it is a wasp.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase YOU GOT ME

In this English lesson I wanted to help you understand the English phrase, "You got me". When you see this phrase and it is a question, it basically means "Do you understand me?" If I saw some students running in the hallway, I could say, "Hey, if I see you running again, "you'll need to go to the principal's office, "you got me?" I'm basically saying, "Do you understand me?" So, when it is in its question form, when you say, "You got me," you're basically saying to the person, "Do you understand me?"

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The other phrase I wanted to help you understand today is the same phrase, but it ends with an exclamation mark or a period. When you say, "You got me" in this form, it has a lot of different meanings. The first one might be, if someone tricks you, if someone plays a trick or practical joke on you. When you realize what they've done, you could say, "Oh, you got me," like, "You tricked me, you got me." Maybe you're playing a game with someone.

Maybe you're playing a board game, and you're playing a game like chess, and they finally get you into checkmate. You could say, "You got me!" Basically meaning you did an action in the game that allowed you to win, "You got me." So those are two meanings it has.

I have to check my list because there's so many meanings. Let's see here. Oh, it can also mean you don't know the answer to something. So if I said, "What's the capital of Russia," and if you didn't know, you could say, "I don't know, you got me," like, "You got me, I don't know."

So basically, "You got me" has a whole bunch of different meanings, and there's one last meaning which is just a fast way of saying "You've got me," and it's when you're talking to someone who maybe loves you and you love them, and you could say, "Hey, you got me," which basically means, "I'm in your life," which is just a shortened form of the phrase, "You've got me." Notice I added the verb "to have" in there. But we do say that sometimes, "Hey, you got me." I think that's even a line in a song or a movie. "You've got me, you got me, babe." I dunno, anyways, now I'm just not making any sense. To review, if you ask this as a question, if you say, "You got me," it means, "Do you understand?" And if you say, "You got me" with an exclamation mark or a period, it just means a whole bunch of different things.

You heard my teacher voice in this lesson a little bit. Did you hear that? When I said, "Hey, no running in the hallway. "If you do it again, you'll have to go "to the principal's office, you got me?" That's my teacher voice. I don't use that very often, but it has a little bit more of an air of authority to it.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aleksey, and Aleksey says, "It was worse, it was worth," referring to my last video where I was having trouble saying English words. "What a crazy language. "I'm still struggling with this couple of words. "They look and sound so close together. "Now, one thing calms me down. "I'm not the only one struggling with this. "Even Bob has a problem sometimes. "Thank you, Teacher, for the lesson, "and your slip of the tongue. "Is the phrase slip of the tongue, correct in this case." And my response is this. "Yes, that is totally the correct phrase, "and yes, words that ended th can be hard, even for native speakers.

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Read along to learn the English phrases TOO LITTLE TOO LATE and BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase too little too late. When we say that somebody does something and that it's too little too late, it means that they're not doing enough, and they're starting to do it later than they should have. Many people in Ontario, Canada right now believe that the current lockdown that we're in is too little too late. That means that they don't think the government has closed enough things, and they don't think that the lockdown started early enough. There's many things in life where people believe that it is too little too late. So not enough is being done, and the time when that has been started is too late in people's opinions. So I think it's fine, but some people think it's too little too late.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase better late than never. Now, I did teach this phrase a couple of years ago but I thought it was worse... It was worse. I thought it was worth reviewing. Better late than never applies to this video in particular. Sometimes it's better to do something late than to not do it at all. You'll probably notice that this English lesson is a few hours late. It's actually early Monday morning right now. I usually do these the day before, and they come out in the night when I'm sleeping, but I thought it's better late than never. I thought I should get up, get outside, and do this English lesson, so you at least have a Monday English lesson to watch. So definitely this is a situation where it's better late than never. It's better to do it than to not do it at all.

So let's review. When you say too little too late, you're referring to someone or some organization that does something, and what they're doing isn't enough, in your opinion, and you also think they're doing it later than they should have. And when you say better late than never, you're basically saying sometimes it's better to do something than to not do it at all. Sometimes when people show up somewhere late, they'll say, "Well, I'm here, but better late than never." Basically what they mean, "It's better that I came instead of just staying home and not coming at all."

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Reder. I'm hoping I'm pronouncing your name correct. I'm hoping I'm pronouncing your name correctly. And Reder says this. "I'm wondering why the way you pronounce Niagara is so different from online English dictionaries." And my response was this. "I have a bit of a regional accent. People in my area, when speaking quickly..." Hello, cat. "Say it that way. It is the same with Toronto. When we say it quickly, we forget a few letters."

So I have, thanks Reder, by the way, for that comment. I have a Southern Ontario accent, probably an Ontario accent. That's the province I live in, and it comes out a lot when I say the names of local areas. So a lot of you are familiar with Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls is close to my house, but when I speak quickly and when I speak normally, I say Nagra Falls. I hardly... I hardly. I hardly pronounce the N-I-A. It sounds more like an A, Niagara Falls. So I go to Niagara Falls a lot. When people visit me from far away, I take them to see Niagara Falls.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SELF ISOLATE and CONTACT TRACING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase self-isolate. When you self-isolate, it means you stay home, you do not go out, and you do not see other people. You are in self isolation. When you are told to self-isolate, you go into self-isolation. I am currently in self isolation. Before you get too worried, I don't have COVID, I don't feel sick, but I am currently self isolating. I need to self isolate because there was a student in one of my classes that has now tested positive for COVID. So I was sent home a couple of days ago and told to self-isolate. I'll tell you a little bit more about that in a moment.

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Because the other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase contact tracing. Contact tracing is what they do, what medical people do after they identify someone who has COVID. They try to figure out all of the people that have been in contact with that person. They do contact tracing. So when they found out that a student in one of my classes had COVID, they did what's called contact tracing, and a couple of days ago, I got a phone call saying, you need to self isolate because through contact tracing, we have identified that you were in the same room as this person for an extended period of time.

So, to review, I think you get the point. When you self-isolate, it means you stay home and you don't go out, because they are worried you might have COVID. I don't have COVID, at least I'm pretty sure I don't. And they tell you to self-isolate after they do some contact tracing. So, like I said, I am self-isolating right now because due to contact tracing, I have to stay home.

Hey, I don't have a comment from a previous video today. I thought I would read you part of a letter that I got two days ago, and you'll see that these terms are actually used in official documents. This letter was from the Niagara Region Public Health, and it says this.

Dear staff member, this letter is to inform you that Niagara Region Public Health was notified of a COVID-19 confirmed case at your school. You have been identified as a high risk contact and will have to self-isolate for 14 days from the exposure date indicated below. Date of exposure, March 26th. So it's been a week already. And then it continues, sorry if this is boring, but it continues. The projected last date for the self-isolation period is April 9th, 2021, household members are advised to stay home while you are isolating, except for essential reasons, i.e. attend work or school, medical appointments, groceries, et cetera. You and your household members may return to regular activities on April 10, 2021.

So, I'm home for a week, I am self-isolating. I have actually separated myself from the rest of the family. The room where I do my live streams is now the room where I live for a few days. I have been living there for about three days now, two or three days, yeah two and a half days. I have my own bathroom, so I am not using the same bathroom as Jen and the kids.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FEELING DRAINED and BRAIN DRAIN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "feeling drained." When you are feeling drained, it means you have no energy. It's the opposite of saying that you're feeling energetic. I was feeling drained when I came home from work today but then I had supper and I feel a lot better. I'm not feeling drained anymore, but that is why I picked this phrase because I was feeling drained. It comes from the word drain. The drain is where the water goes down at the bottom of the sink. So when you take the little plug out at the bottom of the sink, the water gets drained out. So it's kind of related to that. When you're feeling drained, it's like all of your energy was drained out of your body and you just don't have any anymore. But yeah, I'm not feeling drained anymore. I'm actually feeling really energetic. I think it's 'cause I had a really nice supper. I had a really nice meal and that just pepped me up a little bit.

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Anyways, the next phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase "brain drain." A brain drain is when smart people from one country move to another country. It's when people get college degrees or university degrees and then they move from their country to another country. Canada actually has a brain drain all the time. Many of Canada's finest and smartest people go to university in Canada and they get a degree and then they move to the United States. We have constantly had a brain drain in Canada. In fact, many years ago, Canada had a really good aerospace industry, actually aeronautical industry. I'm not sure if I'm using the right words. We had really smart people who designed airplanes and then a program was canceled and they all moved to the United States to work for NASA in the space program, so we had a massive brain drain. That was a long time ago but it happens to other countries as well. People get an education and then they move away. It's kind of sad. I didn't do that though. I'm still in Canada. I think I'm pretty smart. I hope so. So my brain did not end up going to another country and working there.

Anyways, to review, when you are feeling drained, it means you are not energetic, it means you are very, very tired. And when there is a brain drain, it means that people move from one country to another country. So yes, I'm not feeling drained anymore but I think I'm feeling a bit silly and I hope I'm making sense.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Eduardo. "Hi Bob, because of this pandemic, we need to stay at home. We can't visit family, friends, or someone else. We are in the same boat. Thanks, Bob, for the phrases." And my response was this. "That's probably the best example. The whole world is in the same boat right now," because of this pandemic, of course.

So there's a lot of bad with a pandemic. It's a horrible thing. But if there's one small thing that is maybe good about it if you could say that, it's that the whole world is in the same boat right now. So Eduardo, thanks for the comment. Great use of the phrase from the last lesson, to be in the same boat. The world is definitely in the same boat right now. We are all experiencing the same things. We are all trying to get through this pandemic together and I hope that it goes well. I hope we can be out of this in a few more months. I don't know how many times I've said that in a video now. I seem to say that quite regularly.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO MISS THE BOAT and TO BE IN THE SAME BOAT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to miss the boat. In English if we say that someone has missed the boat it means that there was an opportunity for them in life and somehow they missed out on it. Here's a great example. When I was younger, a friend of mine applied for a job. And while he was waiting to hear back as to whether he got the job or not, he decided to go on vacation. While he was on vacation, they couldn't get ahold of him and so they gave the job to someone else. That is a perfect situation where I would say that someone missed the boat. There was an opportunity in his life and he totally missed out on it. It would have been a really good job too. I always felt bad for him but he ended up getting a better one later.

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The second phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase to be in the same boat. When you are in the same boat as someone else it means that you're experiencing the same thing. You're in the same situation. And it's usually not a good situation. We usually use this term to describe a negative situation. Here's a good example. If I didn't take care of my car eventually it would break down. It would just not run anymore because you need to take care of vehicles. If you don't take care of your vehicles you'll be in the same boat. You'll be in the same boat as me because your vehicles eventually will break as well. It's always a good idea to take care of your vehicles because if you don't, eventually they break down. But it does cost a lot of money, doesn't it?

Anyways, to review. When you say that someone has missed the boat, when you use the English phrase to miss the boat, it means that there was an opportunity in life and somehow that person missed out on it. And when you say that you are in the same boat as someone else, it simply means that you're in the same situation, maybe for the same reasons and it's usually not a good situation.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Padma and Padma says this, the environment in this community is so cordial and relaxed that you always feel free to leave any comment without any hesitation. I love this community. My response was this. I really appreciate the community surrounding the lessons on both my channels. It's really nice to have regulars that aren't only here to learn but also to contribute and help others. Thanks for being awesome people.

Thanks for the comment Padma. And that thanks is to Padma as well as everyone else who makes these YouTube videos even better by being part of the community, by leaving comments below, by joining in the live lessons on Fridays and Saturdays on my other channel, all of you are just awesome. I never dreamt that I would have lessons on YouTube that would create a community of people who just enjoy learning and enjoy interacting with each other and with me. So it's really nice. So Padma, it's cool that you recognize that , it certainly is an awesome thing. And I thank all of you for that, it's not me that made this. I just make the silly lessons that you watch, your the people who actually join in and make the community a lot more fun by leaving comments and by joining in, on the live lessons on the other channel. So thanks for that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase FEEL FREE and the English term FREE-FOR-ALL

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase feel free. If we say to someone feel free, we're basically saying go ahead or sure or yes. If my brother said to me, hey, can I use your van tonight? I could respond and say feel free. I'm basically saying, go ahead, it's no problem. If you want to borrow my van, feel free to borrow my van. We also sometimes start sentences like this. I could bring pizza into the staff room at school, if I brought in a huge pizza and I didn't need to eat all of it myself, I could say, hey, feel free to take a slice of pizza if you want one. So feel free simply means go ahead or if you want to do something you can do it. Feel free. You can feel free to watch these videos whenever you want. You don't have to ask permission, you can just do it.

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Hey, the second phrase I wanted to look at today is more of a term than a phrase but it's free-for-all. When something is a free-for-all it means that a bunch of people are doing something and there's no rules involved. I'm trying to think of a really good example. If I brought a bag of candy to my classroom and if I started throwing the candy onto the floor, it would become a free-for-all. That would mean that students would be jumping out of their desks trying to get the candy off of the ground. They would probably push each other out of the way. It would definitely be a free-for-all. So a free-for-all is any situation where there are a number of people and they're just behaving based on what they want to do right away in that moment instead of according to rules or any kind of guidelines that I would give. Does happen sometimes. I once had a grandparent visit one of my classrooms and start throwing candy around and it turned into a free-for-all. Yes, students were jumping under their desks to get the candy.

Anyways, let's review. If you say to someone in English feel free you're basically saying go ahead or it's fine with me or yes. The example I gave was if my brother wanted to borrow a vehicle, I would say, hey, feel free. Anytime you need to borrow a vehicle feel free and just come and get one. And a free-for-all is any situation where a group of people behaves in a way basically doing what they want right in the moment instead of maybe obeying laws or rules. So free-for-alls can get a little bit dangerous. I don't recommend throwing candy to large groups of teenagers. They go a little bit crazy.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Natalia if I did the translation right. Hi Natalia, thanks for the comment. "See you on Monday", question mark. So this is actually a question from Natalia because in the last video, the one that you watched Wednesday morning, I said see you on Monday. I don't know why. For some reason I got my days mixed up. And Julia actually responded and says "it seems Friday got the boot this week" which was one of the phrases I taught in that lesson. Aleksey says "maybe Bob is right. It's time to stop working and have a nice rest until Monday. Hope my boss will not give me the boot." And then my response was this, "oops, my bad, I'm still adjusting to the time change I guess. There will be a lesson on Friday as well as Monday."

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SHAKING IN YOUR BOOTS and TO GIVE SOMEONE THE BOOT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to shake in your boots. If you say that someone is shaking in their boots or if you are shaking in your boots, it means that you are scared. There are two things that make me shake in my boots. The first is heights. I don't like going up to the top of tall buildings. I am afraid of heights. I don't like going to the top of towers in big cities, it makes me afraid. It makes me shake in my boots a little bit. I don't know where this phrase comes from though. But I can imagine someone standing and they're so scared that they're shaking and maybe they were wearing boots. And someone started using this phrase that when you're afraid you shake in your boots. The other thing that makes me shake in my boots, snakes. I do not like snakes. They are my least favorite animal in the entire world. Snakes make me shake in my boots. They make me afraid. I don't like them, I don't like them at all.

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The next phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase, to give someone the boot. Sometimes people don't do a good job at work and eventually the boss will give them the boot. That means that they are fired. It means they've lost their job. I know in my life, a few people that I've worked with have gotten the boot. Not from my current job, but from jobs when I was younger. I worked with someone who instead of doing the work we were supposed to do, he would just sleep all the time. And eventually that person got the boot, okay? So notice I flipped the phrase there. The boss would give someone the boot. The person who is losing their job we would say that they got the boot, okay? There's no boot involved at all. But if you give someone the boot, I think it's like you're kicking them out the door. That's probably where the phrase came from. And if you got fired from somewhere, maybe it's like you got kicked in the butt and you lost your job, so you got the boot. So two different versions of the phrase.

Anyways, to review, to shake in your boots means to be scared or to be afraid. And if you give someone the boot it means that you are firing them, that they are no longer working for you. And if you get the boot, it means that you have been fired by your boss and you no longer work at the place where you worked.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Alexei. And Alexei says this, "I love your term, bite-sized lesson. A bite-sized lesson that anyone can chew," thanks again. And my response was, "It's a great phrase. We often refer to smaller things as bite-size or bite-sized."

You could probably use both terms, I think. Yeah, we refer to a lot of things in English as if they are food. When you refer to smaller things you can say that they're bite-size. Maybe you have a few bite-sized tasks to do before you go to work tomorrow, maybe you have a few little chores to do. We say things like food for thought. We say things like, "Oh, I need to chew on that for a bit." Alexei kind of mentioned that phrase here as well. When you're thinking about something you can say that you need to chew on it before you make a decision. So yeah, we use a lot of verbs and words referring to food when we talk about other things.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases RUFFLE A FEW FEATHERS and LIGHT AS A FEATHER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase ruffle a few feathers. We also sometimes say, "Ruffle some feathers." When you ruffle a few feathers, it means you're going to do something or say something that's probably going to upset some people or bother them. If my boss at work said that everyone was getting a pay cut, that we were all going to get paid less, that would definitely ruffle a few feathers. A lot of my coworkers, and myself included, would be very upset if my boss suddenly said that everyone was getting a pay cut, everyone's getting paid less after today, that would certainly ruffle a few feathers, it would certainly upset quite a few people. It would probably upset everyone, I think everyone would be upset if my boss said that.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is just the phrase light as a feather. I thought I'd use the word feather again for the second phrase. This is the most common way to describe something or someone that's really light, we say they're light as a feather. Maybe there's a big bag of groceries in your car, and you go to pick it up and it actually isn't very heavy at all, you would describe it as saying, "Wow, that's actually light as a feather," because feathers, of course, I should've explained this, feathers come from birds, like birds and chickens and those kinds of animals have feathers, and they're very, very light, so we often use the word feather when we're talking about something that is very, very light. Usually when it's unexpected, when you think something's heavy and you pick it up, you could say, "Oh, wow, it's light as a feather." And we do describe people sometimes like this, we could say, "Wow," you could pick up a small child, right, maybe your nephew or one of your kids, and you're like, "Wow, you're light as a feather," basically saying they don't weigh very much.

Hey, to review, when you ruffle a few feathers, it means you say or do something that upsets a lot of people, and I think the example I gave was a really good one. If your boss said that everyone is getting paid less starting next week, that would ruffle a few feathers. And when you describe something or someone as being light as a feather, it means that they don't weigh very much, it means they're very, very light, and we often describe a person or thing then as being light as a feather.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me get the comment out here. This comment, ah, I don't know how to pronounce the name, I should've looked this up, but I didn't. I will do this later and I will put it on the screen, but thank you for the comment anyways. The question, or the comment is this, "I have one question for you today, "do you especially make your videos' durations four minute?" Sorry, "Do you especially make "your videos' duration four minute and seven seconds? "Vast majority of your last videos have such a duration." And my response was, "Yes, "I actually make them exactly four minutes long "and then add the ending slides. "I do this because I want the lesson "to be just the right size for quick viewing, "but also giving a good amount of English learning."

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases QUIT WHILE YOU'RE AHEAD and DOESN'T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, quit while you're ahead. When we say to someone, "You should quit while you're ahead," we're basically saying things are going good for you right now, but they might start to go badly. So you should quit while the thing that you're doing is going good. Probably the best example of this is someone who is gambling, someone who is betting money, maybe at a casino. Maybe they've won some money, but you would go up to them and say, "Hey, you know what? Maybe you should quit while you're ahead." Because we all know with gambling, if you win some money eventually, you're probably going to lose it. Generally, the casino has the odds in their favor. That's why I don't go to casinos. So when you tell someone to quit if you say, "You should quit while you're ahead," basically you're saying things are going good now, maybe it's time to stop.

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The other phrase I want it to teach you is the phrase, doesn't know when to quit. When someone doesn't know when to quit, it means maybe they're doing something that's bothering someone and the person they're bothering is eventually going to get angry. Or maybe they're just telling little jokes about someone or making fun of someone and that person is starting to get a little bit angrier and angrier. We would say the person who is telling the jokes, the person who is bugging them, maybe doesn't know when to quit. And the risk here is that the person they are bugging might get angry, might get really angry. I see this sometimes with students. I see it sometimes with my own children, where one person is bothering another person or bugging another person and then, they don't know when to quit. If someone doesn't know when to quit, they push it too far and then eventually the other person gets really, really angry. That's not very nice.

So to review, when we say that you should quit while you're ahead, it means things are going good, but you should probably stop before they start going badly. And if you know someone who doesn't know when to quit they do kind of little things to bother people or to make fun of people. But they go a little bit too far. They go too far and they make someone really upset. So those are those two phrases.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Yaroslaw. and the comment is this. "Hi teacher, Bob. Does this phrase up to also mean that something, often, some decision depends on somebody's choice? For example, I could call for help, but it's up to you." And my response is this. Yes, that is another meaning. If someone said, "Which movie do you want to go see?" I could say, "It's up to you." This means the other person can decide.

So thanks Yaroslaw for that comment. That was from yesterday's lesson or the lesson from two days ago, with the phrase up to, where I talked about a different meaning of it. But it also can certainly mean that. Sometimes when Jen and I go to buy groceries, I'll say to Jen, "Which store do you wanna go to?" And she'll say, "Oh, it's up to you," and that means it doesn't matter to her. And I can simply decide to go to whichever store I want to go to. So sometimes it's up to me, sometimes it's up to Jen. We often make decisions like that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SOMETHING'S UP and UP TO

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase something's up. If two or three police cars went by my place with their lights on, I would probably think something's up down the road. It means that I think something's going on. It means that I think something is happening. It means that I think something's up. You can also use this when you're talking about a person. Maybe your sister has been behaving strangely lately and you're talking to your brother. You might say, "Hey, I think something's up with our sister. I think something is happening in her life that's making her behave just a little bit differently." Sometimes I see students standing and talking to each other, and I wonder if something's up. I wonder if they're planning to do something bad. Usually they're not, but sometimes you wonder.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase up to. This has a couple meanings. The one I want to focus on mostly today is when you think someone is doing something. Usually we have the word no good with this as well. We'll say we think someone is up to no good. But you can use it just as up to as well. You can say, "What are you up to tonight?" and someone could say, "Oh, nothing. Do you wanna go out and have a coffee?" You can say, "I want to know..." You could say, "What are you up to this weekend?" and the person can say, "Oh, I'm really busy this weekend. I have a lot going on." So when you use up to, it simply means what the person is doing or what they have planned or what they're going to do.

So to review, when you use the phrase something's up, basically, you're talking about the fact that something is happening or something is going on, and when you use the phrase up to, you're talking about what someone is doing. Like right now, what am I up to right now? I'm making an English lesson.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. That's usually what I'm up to after work. What do I do after work? What am I up to? I'm usually making an English lesson. Today I could sit nicely at the picnic table.

Hey, this comment is from Ivan, and Ivan says, "Dear Bob, would you consider making a channel about flowers? With kind regards." And my response was, "Jen and I have talked about this, but aren't sure if there is enough time in our week to do this. It certainly would be very nice."

So as many of you know, I live on a flower farm. Jen grows flowers. I help grow the flowers. Jen does more of the work that I do, but it is a beautiful place to live, and especially in the summer, the colors are amazing. It's just a really cool place to be, and Jen and I have talked about whether we should make another YouTube channel where we make videos about the farm and show everyone lots of flowers. We might do that, but I doubt it. It's a lot of work making videos. Maybe we'll make one or two videos this summer to kind of show what's happening on the farm, but for now I would say, yeah, thanks for the comment, Ivan, and thanks for the suggestion, but I think for now, we probably won't be doing that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A MIXED BAG and TO BE MIXED UP

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term a mixed bag. When we say something is a mixed bag it means it's a little bit of one thing, a little bit of something else, and maybe a little bit of a third thing, or fourth, or fifth thing. When I go to buy shirts it's kind of a mixed bag at the store. There are short sleeve shirts and long sleeve shirts, new shirts, expensive shirts, old shirts, there are shirts that are on sale. It's a mixed bag. It's kind of a mixed bag when it comes to buying shirts. My mechanic sells different kinds of vehicles and when you go and look at the lot where he has all the vehicles, the parking lot, it's kind of a mixed bag. He has vans, and cars, and pickup trucks, there's all different sorts of vehicles, all different kinds of vehicles. It's definitely a mixed bag.

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But hey, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to be mixed up. When you are mixed up it means you're a little bit confused about something. And sometimes it means you're confused about two different things. Sometimes when people are coming over they come late because they got mixed up. They weren't sure what time they were supposed to come. Maybe when my sister's having a party, maybe my brother goes to my other sister's house because he was mixed up, he didn't know which house he was supposed to go to. So he was mixed up. He was mixed up and he wasn't sure where to go he was a little bit confused.

So, to review, when something is a mixed bag it means that it is a variety of things. Our flower farm is kind of a mixed bag. We sell flowers, we also sell flower seeds, and we sell the bulbs. You can buy cut flowers, you can buy flowers in a pot, it's kind of a mixed bag. And when you are mixed up it means that you are confused. It doesn't have to be about two different things but we usually use it when we're talking about that. He bought one kind of bouquet for his wife but it was the wrong one because he was mixed up he wasn't sure which one he was supposed to buy.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. And, I think it's in the pocket inside my sweater so give me a second here. I thought it was in the pocket of my jacket. I thought I forgot it for a moment there.

This comment is from Roland and Roland says, " "Inception" is one of the most mind-blowing movies I have ever seen in my life. The concept of time travel can really blow your mind. My response was that movie really had me thinking. It was hard to keep track of all the dreams within dreams." So Roland is using the terms mind-blowing and blow your mind the terms and phrases from the last lesson. Excellent use of both of those Roland thank you for that comment.

The movie "Inception" definitely blew my mind. It was hard to get my head wrapped around what was happening in that movie. It was mind-boggling. It blew my mind. Definitely excellent uses of all those phrases and terms to describe that movie. In that movie people go to sleep and then when they're asleep they can go into other people's dreams. But then they can have dreams inside of the dream and it gets a whole lot more confusing than that. And by the end I wasn't sure what was going on.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT WAS MIND BLOWING and IT BLEW MY MIND

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, it was mind blowing. You could also say it is mind blowing or it's going to be mind blowing. The tense doesn't actually matter. But when you talk about something that is mind blowing, you're talking about something that's amazing and hard to understand and it's just something that you're just not sure how to comprehend it. That was a pretty difficult explanation, I think. Let me rephrase that. If I go and see an amazing movie with lots of special effects, I could say the movie was mind blowing. It was mind blowing. I was just amazed and in awe at all the special effects that they used. If I think about the pandemic ending, I think that the first concert I go to is going to be mind blowing because it will be so much fun to be with other people listening to music again.

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Hey, the other phrase I wanted to teach you is very similar and it's it blew my mind. So we can say something was mind blowing, but we can also say it blew my mind, and it means exactly the same thing. If I watch a really cool movie, I could later say to someone, "Oh, it blew my mind. "The special effects in the movie were amazing. "The story was amazing. "There were so many awesome car chases. "It blew my mind." Basically, it means you were just amazed. It was hard to take it all in. It was very exciting. It's just an expression we use when we think something was really awesome or cool, but it can also mean something that's hard to understand. I gotta be careful here how I define it. 'Cause you can also say something like this, you know, "It blows my mind to think that the whole world is going through the same experience "right now with this pandemic." So that's not a positive use of the phrase, but it certainly reflects something that's hard to understand or comprehend or something that's amazing.

So to review, if I say that it was mind blowing or if I say it blew my mind, I'm talking about things that are just hard to understand or comprehend. Hey, let's look at a comment, though, from a previous video. Let me find it. It's in my pocket here.

I got a new sweater by the way. I got two of them. I got a darker one and a blue one. I'm very happy. They were on sale. They were only $20 each. That's a good price.

But here's a comment from Athanasios. Athanasios says this, "Thanks, Teacher Bob. "I'm trying to get my head around how this blender works. "I can't make heads or tails of it." And my response was this. "I've always been a big fan of reading instructions. "Some people throw them out without reading them, "but I find they're a good way to get your head around "how to use something new."

So thank you Athanasios for that comment. I'm not sure if you're reading the instructions for the blender that you're talking about, but I will tell you this. In life, I have always been an instruction reader. I don't know if that's part of the personality of someone who becomes a teacher.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO COME AROUND and TO GET YOUR HEAD AROUND SOMETHING

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to come around. Now, this phrase has a lot of different meanings. I think it has five or six meanings, but I'm gonna talk about just one meaning today. When you are waiting for someone to come around, it means that you are waiting for them to think the same way as you about something. Maybe you think getting the COVID vaccine is a great idea, I do too, but maybe you have a friend who doesn't think it's a good idea and you just hope that eventually they come around to thinking it's a good idea as well. So when you are waiting for someone to come around, you're waiting for them to agree with you or to think the same way as you.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to get your head around something. When you are trying to get your head around something it means you are trying to understand it. You might notice that I'm wearing a jacket today and just a single shirt. I'm really trying to get my head around the fact that winter is probably over. I'm trying to understand and believe that spring is here, I'm just trying to get my head around it. Sometimes it takes me a while to get my head around it because I'm always worried that it's gonna really snow hard and get really cold next week. Spring is kind of weird, March is a weird month that can happen but definitely I'm just trying to get my head around the fact that spring is here. I'm trying to believe that it's here, I'm trying to understand that it is spring.

So to review, when you are waiting for someone to come around to your point of view, when you're waiting for someone to come around, it simply means that you're waiting for them to think the same way as you do about something. And then when you are trying to get your head around something, it simply means you're trying to understand it or believe it.

But hey let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Vito, and Vito says and he wrote a little like a play here starring Bob and the cat. Vito says, "Bob, if I give you a sardine later, can you run by on the video?" And the cat replies, "That's fine with me." Maggie gives a couple of smiley faces and my response was this. "That's how it goes, ha ha. "I bribe the animals to make appearances "so the lesson is more interesting." I was laughing at that one Vito, thanks for that comment Vito. Yeah, it did make me laugh and it made me smile.

I don't know why sometimes the animals appear and why sometimes they don't. I do know this, if I make my video later in the day and if it's close to the time when Jen normally feeds Oscar and feeds the cats, if I make the video around four o'clock, I think sometimes the cats think I'm Jen or they think I'm going to give them some cat food. And I'm not the one that feeds them, that's not my job.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT'S FINE WITH ME and I'M FINE WITH THAT:

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, that's fine with me. This is a phrase we use when we are saying that something is okay with us. If my son was to say to me, "Dad, I wanna go out with my friends tonight. "Is that okay?" I could say, "That's fine with me." It basically means that, that's okay with me if he does that. I won't be bothered if he does that, that's fine with me. He can totally go out and see his friends tonight. Actually, he can't because there's COVID. But if this was a normal world right now, and my son wanted to go out with his friends, I could say, "Hey, that's fine with me, go ahead."

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, I'm fine with that, which means exactly the same thing. If you don't mind having cats run by in the background when I'm doing lessons, I'm fine with that too. It basically means that that's okay with me, it doesn't bother me, I'm fine with that. That wasn't the exact example I was going to give. I was going to use the same example as before. I could say, if my son asked if he could go hang out with his friends, I could say, "Hey, I'm fine with that, no problem." I could also say, "That's fine with me." And it would mean exactly the same thing.

So I don't know if I need to review these phrases now, but let's do it anyways. If I say to someone, "That's fine with me," it means that it doesn't bother me, it means that I'm okay if they do something, it's totally fine with me. At work, someone could say, "Do you mind if I use your chair "while you're teaching in your classroom?" I would say, "That's fine with me." If someone came to the room and said, "Can we take three desks out of your room?" I could say, "Oh, that's fine with me." Or I could say, "Yeah, I'm fine with that, no problem." So basically it just means that you're okay with something someone else is doing.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from the previous video. I actually forget who this comment's from. I put it in my pocket earlier today. This comment is from Xavier. "Roughly a month ago, I took up learning how to brew coffee. "I would never have thought that brewing good coffee "could be so hard, and sometimes I think of quitting "and just drinking bitter coffee again." So that's, Xavier's talking about from the lesson where we looked at, to take something up which means to start doing something. My response was, "I'm actually experimenting "with drinking tea instead of coffee, so far, so good." So thanks Xavier for that comment.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TAKE UP and TO TAKE OFF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To take up." Now, this phrase has a few meanings, but I'm just going to talk about one of them, and it has to do when you start a new hobby. Maybe you decided to take up tennis. Maybe you decided to take up piano. It means that you've decided to learn something new. I haven't taken up a new hobby in a long time. Maybe this spring or this summer when I have a little bit more time, which never happens, I should take up a new hobby. That might be a good idea. We also use this phrase in the classroom. Sometimes when students are done their work, I take up their work with them. I'll say, "Hey, we're gonna take up "the questions from yesterday." And it just means, as a teacher, that we're going to go over them. It also means that you're using someone's time. You can take up someone's time as well. But I don't wanna go over all of the definitions. The one I meant to talk about was if you are starting something new, if you're going to take up a new hobby.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is, "To take off." So, we use this phrase in the same way as the phrase, "To get going." Sometimes when I'm talking to a friend, I might say, "Hey, I need to take off." Or I might say, "Hey, I need to get going." It simply means that it's time to leave the situation that you are in. Sometimes at school, I'll stay late and I'll talk to some of the other teachers. And then I'll realize that my kids are waiting for me in my van. And then I'll just say, "Oh, hey, I need to take off. "I need to get going. "I need to go home."

So, to review, when you take up something, it means you start something new, and those other two definitions that I gave you as well. I should stop apologizing for English. It's kind of a fun language, but I do apologize that sometimes phrases have more than one meaning. And the phrase, "To take off," simply means that it's time to go. At the end of the video I could say, "Well, that's it for now. "I need to take off."

But I'm not doing that right now. Don't leave. I am going to look at a comment from a previous video, and this comment is from Natalia. I think this is the second comment I've picked from Natalia this week. She's getting special treatment for some reason, I think because this comment made me laugh. So Natalia said this, "If someone told me before this video "that we need to clear the air, "I would think it smells here." And Vito gave some smiley faces and the other Natalia, Natalia Belgrade, gave some smiley faces as well. And I responded by saying this, "We can use it that way as well. "Sometimes when I walk into a classroom, "the room smells from the previous class "and I'll open the window for a bit to clear the air out. "We also say to air out the room or to air the room out. "And probably we would use those last two phrases, "those would be the most common way to say it."

But certainly, sometimes, you know, people have certain smells. And sometimes when I walk into a classroom after there has been, you know, a teacher and 30 students in there, especially right now because our classes are two and a half hours long, sometimes the room has a certain smell to it and I'll open the window to clear the air out. Notice we do add the word out, though, to that phrase. So, I would open the window to clear the air out or I would open the window to air out the room or to air the room out. Yep, that's just part of being human, isn't it? Sometimes there's cer

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO CLEAR SOMETHING UP and TO CLEAR THE AIR

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you understand the English phrase, to clear something up. When you have to clear something up with someone, it means that you said something to them, and maybe they didn't understand it. Maybe they are confused and you just need to clear something up with them. Sometimes when I'm teaching my classes, they don't understand exactly what they're supposed to be doing. I'll give them an assignment, and I'll hear students whispering, and I'll realize they don't understand what they're supposed to be doing. So I just need to then clear something up with them. I just need to explain everything again so that they are not confused. I have to do this quite a bit, actually. I don't think I'm the most logical person sometimes when I'm explaining things to students. And sometimes I just need to clear something up with them so that they understand.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is, to clear the air. We use this phrase when two people have had a disagreement, or when two people aren't getting along, and then one of the people might clear the air with the other person. Let's say that me and a coworker, or sorry, a coworker and I got into an argument. I could go to work the next day and I could say to them, hey, I just want to clear the air a little bit. I want to apologize for what I did or said yesterday. It's when you want to make things normal again. Sometimes when you're not getting along with someone, or when you've had an argument or a small fight, you might need to clear the air before you can have a normal relationship with them again. Sometimes it's a nice thing to do to just say, hey, we had a bit of a disagreement yesterday, let's just clear the air. I want to apologize. Let's work better together from now on.

So to review, when you need to clear something up, it simply means you need to explain something or clarify something. That's a great way to describe the meaning of this phrase, when you need to clarify something. And when you need to clear the air, it means that you've had kind of a argument or a disagreement with someone, or you're not getting along, and you just want to make things right again. That's probably the best explanation I can give.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, Athanasios, also used to be known as Nathan GR, I think, but Athanasios, I really liked saying that name, Athanasios, by the way. When you're in the live lessons, it's kind of fun because I get to answer your question and I get to say your name. Anyways, thanks for these phrases, dear teacher. Something is going on with my headphones. I can't make heads or tails of it. My old cell phone, many times had a mind of its own. That's why I bought a new one. And my response was I had a phone like that once. It would hide on me and then it was hard to find it back. It had a mind of its own.

So thanks Athanasios for that comment. Excellent use of both the phrase, to make heads or tails of something, or to not be able to make heads or tails of something, and the phrase, when something has a mind of its own. So thanks again for that comment. Excellent use though, of both phrases. Good job. Yes, I was joking a bit there, right? I had a phone once that that would hide on me.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A MIND OF ITS OWN and TO MAKE HEADS OR TAILS OF IT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a mind of its own. This is a phrase we use to describe a machine that starts doing things that you didn't tell it to do, or starts behaving strangely. Sometimes my camera has a mind of its own. Sometimes it focuses on me and then sometimes it focuses on something behind, and that can be a little bit annoying, but sometimes my camera has a mind of its own. Sometimes when you're driving a vehicle, and when it starts to go off in one direction or the other, you might think, oh no, my car has a mind of its own all of the sudden. So it's like a thing, it's like a machine suddenly starts to think a little bit for itself, when you say that it has a mind of its own.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to make heads or tails of it. When you can't make heads or tails of something, it means you can't figure it out. We almost always use this phrase in the negative. In fact, I should've put that in front of here. I should've put, to not make heads or tails of something. We use it like this. I could say, y'know, the car won't start and I can't make heads or tails of it. I can't figure out why it won't start. You could say, you know, I'm trying to make a video, and I could say, y'know, my camera just won't work. I can't make heads or tails of it. I've set everything the way I normally set it, but it just isn't working right. I can't make heads or tail of it. Luckily that never actually happens to me. Usually my camera works really well. I should knock on wood right now to make sure that keeps happening.

Anyways, to review, when you say that something has a mind of its own, you're talking about a thing, usually a machine, that starts acting strangely in a way that you didn't want it to behave or to act. And then when you can't make heads or tails of something, it means you can't figure it out.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, I think, Natalia. I think I'm remembering this correctly. And Natalia says, "I have cold feet in the winter, "so I have to wear thick socks. "I got cold feet before I flew on a plane "for the first time." This was a comment from the video about the phrase, to have cold feet. And my response was this. "Great use of both the literal and figurative meanings "of the phrase, Natalia."

So Natalia has given us two really cool example phrases that will help you understand what we mean by the literal meaning of something and the figurative meaning of something. Literally, she has to wear thick socks because it's cold in the winter, and she doesn't want her feet to get cold, so she wears thick socks. That's the literal meaning of having cold feet. And then the figurative meaning, the more of a, like a metaphor or simile or talking about something that actually means something else is to say that she had cold feet before she flew for the first time.

Well thanks Natalia for that comment. I have to laugh because I'm not sure if you noticed, but going back to the phrases from the beginning, my camera just had a mind of its own. It just stopped recording when I was in the middle of a sentence there, and that's why you saw the little fade to black and then the fade back there. I had to kinda stop it and reset it. So ironically, my camera just had a mind of its own today while I was teaching the phrase for something to have a mind of its own. And now I'm not even sure how many minutes I've been recording. I think I have about 30 seconds left, so I'll just

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OUT COLD and COLD FEET

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase out cold. The driveway behind me is very icy right now. If I slipped on it and hit my head, I would probably be knocked out cold. When someone is out cold, it means they are unconscious. Sometimes when you're watching a boxing match and people are fighting, the one boxer might punch the other boxer and then the other boxer might be knocked out cold. So when you say that someone is out cold, it means that they are unconscious. It means they have been knocked out. That's another way that we say it. So again, the driveway behind me was all snow, but things are melting now, so there's ice with a thin layer of water on top. It's very, very slippery. If I slipped on it and hit my head, it would probably knock me out cold. That wouldn't be very good.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today also has the word cold, and it's the phrase cold feet. Now, you can use this phrase literally. You can say, "I have cold feet because the house is not warm enough," but we usually use this phrase to talk about when someone is nervous about doing something, maybe nervous to the point that they don't do it. We could say this. Let's say a friend and I were planning to go skydiving. We were going to jump out of a plane with a parachute, and then the day of the event, the day when we were going to do it, if I was at the airport and my friend never showed up, I could say, "Oh, he must have gotten cold feet." So he must have gotten to the point where he was just too afraid to do it. We sometimes use the phrase cold feet to talk about people when they're about to get married. Sometimes the bride or groom on the day of the wedding might start to get cold feet. That means they might start to think about, "Do I really want to marry this guy?" or, "Do I really want to marry this person?" Usually they do, but sometimes on the morning of their wedding, they might start to get a little bit of cold feet. So again, you can say that they have cold feet or you can get cold feet. You can say it either way.

To review, when you are knocked out cold, it means you are unconscious. Clunk, hit your head, out cold. I have actually been out cold once in my life. I'm not sure why that happened again. I hit my head really hard and I was out cold for a little bit. And when you get cold feet or when you have cold feet, it means you're nervous or a little bit worried about doing something.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Maggie, and Maggie says this. "When my junior high school daughter has finished her assignments for school and is doing nothing except browsing her phone, I ask her to earn her keep. For example, doing the dishes. Sometimes it's hard to keep it together, though, when I lose my temper." I think the comment got cut off a little bit there. I don't have the rest of it here, but I'll put it on the screen anyways. And my response was this to Maggie. It's good for kids to help around the house and to earn their keep. Someday they will be adults, and if they don't learn how to cook and clean now, who will teach them?

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP IT TOGETHER and TO EARN YOUR KEEP

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To keep it together." If you say to someone, "Hey, you need to keep it together," it means that that person is having some kind of emotional outburst. Maybe you play on a sports team, and you've won the championship, and you're cheering and shouting and you're super happy, but one of your teammates starts to cry a little bit. They're so overcome with emotion. They're starting to cry. You might say, "Hey, keep it together. "We need to go and get the trophy. "Don't start crying now. "You need to keep it together, smile, "and show a positive, happy face." So when you say to someone that they need to keep it together, you're telling them to stop being emotional.

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The other phrase that I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "To earn your keep." When you earn your keep, it means you do work so that people appreciate having you around. The best example I can give for this is when my son comes home from university, he helps do certain jobs on the farm because we want him to earn his keep. Sorry, I changed the word your to his in that situation, but we want him to earn his keep. We don't want him to come home and just eat our food and lay on the couch and use our Wi-Fi without doing something in return. So when you have a situation where someone is earning their keep, or where you say to someone, "You need to earn your keep," it means that they need to do some things to contribute to whatever the living arrangement is.

So let's review. When you say to someone that they need to keep it together, it means that they need to calm down, they need to stop being emotional, and they need to be a little more serious or a little more happy. You need to keep it together. Stop crying, Jim. Just because we won the championship doesn't mean you should get all emotional. Try to keep it together. And then the second phrase, "To earn your keep," is simply when someone does a little bit of work to help pay for food and lodging and all of the other things that go along with living somewhere. When my son comes home, we make sure that he earns his keep. Se doesn't just get to sit around. That wouldn't be very good anyways, would it?

But anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video, and this comment is from Benoit. And Benoit says, "It doesn't matter if it's three "or four a week." Benoit is talking about the number of lessons I do each week. "As we all say, what matters is not the quantity "but the quality. "Anyway, Bob usually does a great job. "Thanks a million." And my response was, "I'll keep the quality high."

So two words in there that Benoit has shared with us. Thanks for the comment, Benoit. Quantity and quality. So quantity refers to the amount of something, like how many videos did I make a week? Well, the quantity of videos I made per week was four. And quality refers to how good something is. So the quality of the videos I made each week, well, I thought it was okay and most of you think was really good. But the quality let's just agree was high, okay. I'm a little embarrassed saying that. I think it was medium-high, okay. So the quantity was four a week and the quality was okay. Now, I'm gonna do three videos a week, so the quantity has gone down, but the quality, I guarantee you, will stay absolutely the same.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THREE DAYS A WEEK and THREE DAYS PER WEEK

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase three times a week. Well, not actually the phrase three times a week, but the use of a. Sometimes when we're talking about how often we do something, we use the word a in the phrase. So you might exercise five days a week. You might go to the store one day a week. I make videos four days a week. Sometimes you do something three days a week. So it's simply a way to talk about how often you do something. I used to go visit Jen's parents once or twice a month. So sometimes we stick the word a in when we're talking about how often we do something.

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We also sometimes use the phrase three times per week. Or more importantly, the word per. This is kind of a more formal way to say the same thing. Sometimes you need to take two pills per day, or you need to go to the doctor three times per year. So you can use a or per, almost interchangeably. In my everyday speech though, I often just use a. I often say things like I go to the dentist a couple times a year. I make these videos four times a week. So that's how you use per and that's how you use a. So to review, if you want to talk about how often you do something, you can say that you do it a certain number of times a day, a certain number of times a month, a certain number of times a week, or you can also use the word per and sound a little bit more formal.

Hey, why am I talking about this though? And why am I not reading a comment to you right now? Well, because I picked this phrase because I'm making a slight change on this YouTube channel. Before you get too worried though, I'm not going to stop, I'm definitely going to make videos on this channel for a very long time. But right now I am very, very busy. I'm busy because last semester I was teaching one less class than I am now. At work right now I'm teaching three classes a day. Notice how I'm using the word a, as well. I teach three classes a day, and I was teaching two classes a day last fall. So I'm very busy. I was a little bit part-time last fall, and now I'm full-time again. And because I'm busy at work, I don't have as much time to make English lessons for all of you.

So here's what I'm going to do. I am going to start making three videos a week on this channel, instead of four. I know that might make some of you sad but it's just a change I need to make so I have a better work-life balance. Does that make sense? So I'm gonna make three videos a week instead of four. I was making an English lesson for you every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. I'm going to switch it up and there will be a new video every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

If I do that, it gives me a little bit more time to make my bigger video for my other channel, for my bigger channel. It gives me a little bit more time to prepare for my Friday morning livestream on Fridays, and it will just make my life just a little simpler. So again, I apologize that you will get one less video a week, one less English lesson a week. I'm still using the word a there, did you see that? But I think it will be good.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English term DILLY-DALLY and the phrase TO GET MOVING

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term "dilly-dally." Now, this is an older word that sometimes old people say, but Jen and I actually use this term a lot. When you dilly-dally, it means you move slowly, or you, if you're supposed to be working, you're just laying on the couch. Sometimes our kids dilly-dally around when they're supposed to be cleaning their room. So that means instead of cleaning their room, they're just on their phone, or they're just laying on the couch doing nothing. It's not good to dilly-dally around. Oftentimes when I was a kid, my mum would say "Don't dilly-dally around, get to work, get your work done," and then I would get it done. So an older phrase, kind of a funny thing to say, or an older term, kind of a funny sounding term, but you should not dilly-dally around. When it's time to study English, don't dilly-dally, just get studying.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "get moving," and this is the opposite of dilly-dallying around. If you are doing nothing and you need to get a job done, you need to get moving. This is similar to the phrase, "Get a move on." I think I taught that phrase a few months ago. When you say to someone, "Get a move on," you want them to get starting, get started. When you say to someone, "Hey, get moving," it doesn't mean like physically moving. It can, but it usually means you need to get started. When I was a kid working on the farm, my dad would say, "Hey, let's get moving. "Let's get this job done. "The sooner we get started, the sooner we're finished." So I needed to get moving.

To review, the term "dilly-dally" is to sit around and do nothing when you're supposed to be doing something, and the phrase "get moving" means that you need to get started or you need to get going on a job that you need to do.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Cat's English and Cat's English says, "I have a knack for writing stories. "I have written some stories "based on my daughter's school life." And my response was, "That is awesome. "Writing is an awesome talent to have. "I wish I had time to write more."

So Cat, thank you for that comment. That is cool that you are a writer, or that you enjoy writing. For me, writing is something that I do enjoy doing as well, but it takes a lot of time. When I write something, I never feel like it's good, and I want to rewrite it a whole bunch of times, because I want it to be perfect before I let anyone see it or before I read it to someone. So I have done a little bit of writing, but probably not as much as you have, so very cool. I hope a lot of you out there enjoy writing. The enjoyment of writing goes along really well with learning English. It's good to have that skill when you're learning a language like English.

Hey, I have to apologize for yesterday's video. For some reason, the video got cut short. When something gets cut short, it ends before it's supposed to end. I'm not exactly sure what happened yesterday. As I was reading the comments, I noticed some people saying, "Hey, the video got cut short," or, "The video ended early." So I went and looked and there is like 12 seconds missing or something like that. I don't know what happened. I'll make sure that doesn't happen with this video today, though. I'll make sure that it doesn't get cut short.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO HAVE A KNACK and the term KNICK-KNACKS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to have a knack. When you have a knack for something, it means you have a natural ability to do it. Some people have a knack for playing certain sports. Some people have a knack for playing certain musical instruments. Some people have a knack for just talking to people. You probably know someone who, if they're somewhere out in public, they just have a knack for meeting new people and talking to new people. I don't have a knack for that. It takes me a while to get to know people and to enjoy talking to them. But certainly, if you say that somebody has a knack for something, it means that they're really good at it. My brother has a real knack for programming computers. He's just really good at using computers. He has a real knack for it. My sister has a real knack for taking care of people. She's actually a nurse. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that before.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today, it's actually more of a term, is the term knick-knack. Knick-knacks are a little things that people keep in their houses, usually on shelves. My mom has a lot of knick-knacks. She has small figurines. I'll put some pictures up here. She has some nice rocks that she found. Knick-knacks are just little things, you might even use the word trinkets. They're just little things that people have either bought or that they've found that they kind of keep. Sometimes when people go on a trip, they'll buy a souvenir, they'll buy some kind of small thing to remember their trip. And we might also call that a knick-knack. You could say, "Oh, she has a lot of knickknacks on her shelf. She has a mug from Niagara falls and various other things."

So to review, when you have a knack for something, when you say that someone has a knack for something, it means that they have a natural ability to do it, okay? Different from, well, they could also learn to do it, but usually it means they're learning to do it, but they also have a natural ability to do it. Like they were born to do it. And then knick-knacks, or a knick-knack, is just some kind of small thing that someone keeps on their shelf or somewhere else in their house, just because they like it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video here. This comment is from Vito. Let me get it out and read it to you. Vito says to work as hard as you is sometimes not a good idea. I know that we need to try our best to be better at something, but we can also lose energy and enthusiasm. I know the term burnout. These two phrases are new for me. Thanks Bob. So thanks Vito for that comment. My reply was, I have in my life experienced burnout or near burnout. It is not fun. The first time it happened I ended up being so worn down from work, I was working 70 hours per week in my thirties, that I ended up getting pneumonia. It wasn't fun. So Vito, thanks for that comment.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PETER OUT and TO GO ALL OUT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to peter out. When a person peters out, it means they run out of energy. When I was younger, when I was in elementary school I used to run cross country races. I was on the cross-country team, and we had to run three or five kilometers, I can't remember. And after about halfway, I would start to peter out. I would start to lose energy, I couldn't run the whole distance. So I would walk a little bit and then I would start running again because running that far was really hard and eventually I would peter out. I would run out of energy. We also use this phrase to describe things. If someone let's say someone wants to become the mayor of their town and they're running in the election, but eventually they just don't have enough energy to keep making speeches. Eventually they might peter out, and then maybe they won't win the election.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to go all out. Now, I'm pretty sure I taught this phrase a year ago or two years ago, but it has the word out in it. I try to make the phrases match a little bit. When you go all out, it means you give it all of your energy. Also, when I was younger, I used to run 100 meter dashes. The 100 meter sprint is a very short race. When you run a short distance race like that you go all out. You use all your energy in that 13, or 14, or 15 seconds that it takes you to run that race. It's a lot different than running in a long distance race. When you run short distances, you go all out. When you run long distances, you try to conserve your energy so that you don't peter out.

That worked pretty good, anyways to review to peter out means to slowly lose your energy or to slowly lose momentum, and to go all out means to use all of your energy in a short period of time, to just do your best, to go as fast as you can, and to work as hard as you can. It has a lot of different aspects to the meaning. You can use it for a race, or for work, or anything else like that.

But hey let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Eduardo, and Eduardo says, good morning Bob, always when someone says you are the best teacher, you say I don't think I'm the best teacher. Here's the deal. You always try to explain the best way possible. We really appreciate that, and you make the lessons funny and interesting. Don't sell yourself short. Thanks so much Bob have a great day. And my response to Eduardo was, thanks for these words Eduardo. They mean a lot to me, I appreciate it.

So thanks Eduardo. I do appreciate all of the positive comments that you guys give to me, again even though Eduardo said I shouldn't sell myself short, I don't think I'm the best teacher on YouTube but I will tell you this. I really like doing this and I'm always looking for ways to make my English lessons on YouTube even better. I'm always trying to think of new ways to edit, new ways to shoot the videos and new ways to do things. So even though Eduardo maybe you're suggesting I'm the best teacher on YouTube.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE REAL DEAL and HERE'S THE DEAL

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, the real deal. When you say that someone is the real deal, you mean that they are really good at something, and you're kind of giving them a compliment. Sometimes when you're watching a sport, there might be a new, younger player that starts to play. And after they score one or two goals, you might say, "Wow, he's the real deal," or "She's the real deal." So when you say someone is the real deal you mean they're really good at it. Maybe you're watching a singing competition, and someone comes on the stage and they start to sing, and it's just amazing. It sounds beautiful. You might say, "Wow, she's the real deal." Or "He's the real deal."

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, okay, here's the deal. This is a little phrase we sometimes say as English speakers before we explain something. So if you're wondering why snowmobiles went behind me, I can tell you this, here's the deal. The river freezes every winter. And then if there's a little bit of snow on the ice, the snowmobilers really, really love it. So that's the deal. So we're not talking about a deal where you buy something. It's simply a little phrase we say before we explain something. Sometimes in my classroom, I'll say to students, "Okay I got to plan for today, here's the deal, the first thing you need to do is read this story and then you need to answer these questions."

So to review, if you say that someone is the real deal, it means that they are really good at something and you're giving them a compliment. So if you say, "Wow, that skier is the real deal. I saw him ski down the hill in the Olympics, and he's the real deal. He's awesome." And if you say to someone, "Okay, here's the deal." It's a little phrase you use just before you start to explain something. So sometimes I do this in my live streams, as the live stream is starting, I'll say, "Okay, here's the deal, everyone, please use English in the chat." So even I use the phrase quite often. In fact, I heard it the other day. Jen was explaining something to me and she said, "Okay, here's the deal." And then she explained what we had to do that day.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Koke. I think that's how you pronounce your name. And this comment really made me smile. The comment is this. "You look like Ned Stark from the "Game of Thrones" series. I'm a dedicated follower of your channel. Absolutely, I like your content so, so much. Thank you for that compliment. My reply was, "It's a real compliment to say that you think I look like him. Ned Stark was a very honorable character as well. I really liked him. Unfortunately, he met an untimely end not only in "Game of Thrones," but also when he played Boromir in the "Lord of the Rings."

So thank you, Koke, for that compliment. I'll put a picture up here of Ned Stark, or Sean Bean is the actor actually. I'm not sure I look like him. He's a very handsome man, but thank you for the compliment anyways. In my response I use the phrase that he met an untimely end. When someone meets an untimely end it means they die way too young. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen to me, but certainly that happened to Boromir in the "Lord of the Rings" if you've read those books or if you've watched those movies. And certainly that happened to Ned Stark in "Game of Thrones," it just was not a good scene for him.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PUSH SOMEONE'S BUTTONS and DON'T PUSH IT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to push someone's buttons. If you push someone's buttons, it means you know how to make them upset. It means you know how to make them angry. Usually this happens a lot between people that know each other. I know when I was a kid, my brother really knew how to push my other brother's buttons. My one brother knew how to make my other brother angry. In fact, one of my brothers as well was really good at pushing my parents' buttons. He knew exactly what to say, and he knew exactly what to do in order to make my parents very, very angry. I hope my brother is not watching right now. I'm kind of giving away some family secrets, but the phrase to push someone's buttons means you know exactly what to say, you know exactly what to do to make someone you know get really upset and really angry. It's not a nice thing to do.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase don't push it. When you say to someone, "Don't push it," it usually means you've warned them to stop doing what they're doing, and they've started doing it again. This sometimes happens in the classroom. Sometimes a student will be behaving a certain way, and I'll say to them, "Hey, this is your first warning. You need to stop talking." And if they start talking again, I might say, "Hey, don't push it," and what I mean that is, "You've already been warned once. The fact that you're doing it again means you might have to leave the classroom or you might have to go talk to the principal if you don't listen to what I'm saying."

So to review, when you know how to push someone's buttons, it means you know what to say and you know what to do to make them very upset and angry. By the way, there are students that know how to push their teacher's buttons, too, to make their teacher upset. And if you say to someone, "Don't push it," it means they need to stop what they're doing, because otherwise they're going to get in trouble. By the way, this lesson isn't because I had a bad day at school. It's not because I had bad students in my class. In fact, I have really nice students this semester. I almost always do, but this semester I have really, really nice students. So it's not an English lesson based on my experience today or anything like that.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Mohammad, and Mohammad says, "Hi, Bob. I want to be honest. I thought that my last comment was good enough to be shown by you, but it seems that Aleksey has stolen the show. Anyways, I'm going to leave a comment every day to show off in order to reach my goal." And my response to Mohammad was this. "All the comments are good. Sometimes it's hard for me to choose one. Sometimes I pick one at random, but mostly I look for one that can benefit everyone. This one is great, because I can teach the phrase good enough." So thanks Mohammad for that comment. I know you were looking forward to seeing your comment on the screen, so hopefully this made you smile. It's a good comment. I love that you used the phrase good enough. When something is good enough, it means that it's exceptional enough or it has enough good qualities that it is chosen for something, or it's ranked as the best. So I'm not saying your comment was the best, but it was a really good comment, and I'm glad that you left it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO STEAL THE SHOW and TO SHOW OFF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to steal the show. If someone steals the show, it means that they do something that makes you look at them, instead of the person you're supposed to be looking at, if you're watching a video or a show or a play or something like that. Here's a really good example. In my last English lesson, Oscar stole the show. Oscar was in the background and he was rolling around on the ground. And many of you in the comments said that you were watching Oscar, instead of listening to me and paying attention during the lesson. So sometimes when I make videos, I have to be careful because I don't want Oscar to steal the show. So again, to steal the show means, to draw your attention to a different person than the person that you're supposed to be watching or listening to. Oscar is around here somewhere. Maybe he'll come back and steal the show later.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to show off. And this goes along with the phrase, to steal the show, a little bit. When someone shows off, it means they do something so people will look at them. Sometimes young people, when they get their driver's license, they'll buy a really fancy car and they'll drive around and they'll take off really fast at a stoplight or they'll turn their music really loud in their car because they want to show off. They want people to look at them. Sometimes when someone is playing a sport like basketball, they do really fancy moves on the court because they want to show off a little bit. They want people to look at them while they do something that makes people want to look at them.

So to review. To steal the show, if you could imagine a play where there's a really famous actor, but then someone in a minor role in the play does such a good job that you're more interested in watching them, we would say that they are stealing the show. And when you show off, it means you do something so that people will look at you.

Let's look at a comment though, from a previous video. This comment is from Aleksey, and Aleksey says, "Thanks, Bob. Experience shows that if you don't eat chips and ice cream after supper, your face will become thinner but sadder." And this is paraphrased quote. This is a paraphrased quote from a famous Russian actress. "Enjoy your meal, everyone." And my response was, "I like that thought. I think food makes people happy, especially in the winter. I find it easier to eat healthy food in the summer because we have a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables available to us."

So thanks, Aleksey, for that comment. That was a good comment, and I do agree with that. I think that the less food you eat after supper, it probably will make your face thinner and you probably will look a little sad. I do like food. That's kind of why I agree with that. But right now, I'm trying to exercise every day and make it a point to eat healthier every day. Because I feel like winter has allowed me to put on a few pounds and I need to get back in shape because we will be farming again soon. And what I mentioned earlier about, in the summer, it's easier for us to eat fresh fruits and vegetables because there are more available to us.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE and MIDDLE-AGED

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "caught in the middle." When you are caught in the middle, it means that two people aren't getting along and you're not one of them. Let me give you a better example. Let's say that your sister and your brother are fighting. Your sister and your brother are arguing. And you really like your sister, and you really like your brother. And they keep telling you to tell the other one something for them. So you're caught in the middle. Maybe your sister says, "Hey, you need to call our brother "and tell him that he's not being nice to me." And then you call your brother, and your brother says, "Well, tell her that she's not being nice to me either." So you would definitely, in that situation, be caught in the middle. Sometimes you're caught in the middle at work. Maybe two coworkers don't get along, but certainly being caught in the middle is not an enjoyable place to be.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today also has the word "middle" in it, and it's the phrase "middle-aged" or the term "middle aged." Now, I am a middle-aged man. When you are middle-aged, you are over the age of 40 or 45 and you're probably younger than 60 or 65. You're somewhere in that area. I would be described as a middle-aged man because I'm older. I'm almost 50. My hair is a little bit gray. Maybe it's more gray than I think, but I would definitely describe myself as being a middle-aged man. So I am in my late 40s. That makes me middle-aged. I'm still trying to believe it because I still think, in my mind, I still feel like I'm 25.

So to review, when you are caught in the middle, it means that two people aren't getting along or two groups of people aren't getting along and you're kind of the person that acts as a go-between. There's another English phrase for you. You're the one who tries to make peace or help those two people communicate. And if you are middle-aged, it simply means that you're older than the age of 40 or 45 and you're younger than 60 or 65. It's kind of a vague age range. It's not an exact age range.

Let me get my comment out here. You'll notice that I'm not complaining that it's cold today, but it's cold. It's just not windy. That makes it a lot nicer. The windier it is when it's cold, the harder it is to be outside. This comment is from Julia. Julia says, "Hi, dear teacher. "Two months ago or so, I made it a resolution not to eat "and drink after six in the evening, "and I'm still kicking butt, "but there were several times when I quit, "so I had a good reason to kick myself, as well." And my response was, "That's a good thing to do. "I try not to eat after supper, but it doesn't always work".

Well, thanks, Julia, for that comment. Nice use of the phrase "kicking butt" and the phrase "to kick yourself" or "to kick oneself." Yes, I do the same thing. I try not to eat after supper. They say that it's not good to eat after your last meal of the day, but it really depends for me on what day of the week it is. A lotta times on Friday and Saturday evenings, we have supper and then the kids and I will watch a movie. Right now, we're rewatching all of the Marvel movies like, let me see, "Ant-Man". The last one we watched was "Captain America: Winter Soldier." And then we usually have chips. Sometimes we have ice cream.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KICK BUTT and TO KICK ONESELF

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to kick butt. Now, I think you all know what kicking is. It's something you do with your foot, and your butt is below your back. That's probably the best and nicest way to describe it. But the phrase to kick butt, doesn't actually refer to going and kicking people in the butt, it refers to winning. We use this a lot to talk about sports teams. We'll say that, you know, I'm going to watch my favorite team play today. I hope that they will kick butt, basically you don't mean they're gonna go on the field, and kick the other players in the butt, what you mean is that they're going to play the game. They're gonna play really, really well. And they're gonna win by a lot of points. So, if you were to say, I hope that they will kick butt, it means that you hope they will win. And if you were to say, my team really kicked butt yesterday, it means that they played hard and they won the game by a lot of points.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to kick oneself. Sometimes I kick myself when I make a mistake, sometimes you think about something, like maybe pizza was on sale last week. It was a two for one special, and I didn't buy it. I could say, oh, I just keep kicking myself, because I should've bought that pizza, it was such a good deal. Maybe you're making a video and you say something wrong. And then when you get in the house and you start to edit the video, you see that you made a bunch of mistakes. I'd say, oh, I just keep, just kicking myself, because I made the video and I made a bunch of mistakes. By the way, there's no mistakes in this video, just so you know. But anyways, when you kick yourself, or to kick oneself means that you did something wrong and you're just kind of annoyed with yourself that you did it.

Anyways to review, to kick butt does not mean to actually go out and kick someone in the butt. It means that you are maybe on a sports team and you win by a lot or any other thing that you can win, you can say that you kicked butt. And to kick oneself, to kick oneself is simply to describe a situation where you did something where it could've went better, and you kind of regret that it didn't. And so you're kind of kicking yourself about it.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Once again, if you're wondering why I keep stopping while I'm talking it's because my ears are getting cold. I don't know why I didn't wear a hat. I never dress for the weather when I come out to do these videos.

Anyways, this comment is from Adam, and Adam says, Bob, you seem to be getting a kick out of winter. And my response was this, I do get a kick out of it. It's so beautiful to see the whole world covered in a layer of snow, I love it. It's very pleasing to my eye.

So as you can see, yes, I am enjoying myself out here, even though my ears are really cold, I'll be done in a minute, so I'll be fine. But Adam, thanks for that comment. Yes, it's just beautiful. I love seeing all of the snow everywhere. Let me give you another better view. Like when you look around right now, it's just beautiful. I don't think I would really enjoy living in a country that didn't have winter, as much as I'm complaining about my ears.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TOUGH SLEDDING and A BIT NIPPY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase tough sledding. Sledding is of course what my kids are doing behind me right here. They're going down the hill on sleds. If you stick around 'til the end of the video, I'll take you down on a sled. So this is a real English sentence, or a real English phrase, or, sorry, it's a real Canadian phrase. When we say something is tough sledding, we mean it's hard work. Sometimes at work, I might have a project that I have to work on and I know it's going to be difficult, and I might say, "Oh, this project's going to be tough sledding." So tough sledding simply means that something's going to be hard to do. We use this in life as well. We could say something like, you know, "Jim and Joey aren't getting along right now. Their friendship isn't going very well. It's real, it's tough sledding for them right now." So again, tough sledding means that things aren't going well or that it's really hard.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase a bit nippy. This is a kind of a funny phrase that we use when we describe the temperature outside. If you go outside and it's a little bit cold, we'll say, "Oh it's a bit nippy outside," or, "It's a little bit nippy outside." So it means it's not really cold. If it's really cold, we would say it's freezing cold outside, or it's freezing outside. But sometimes in the fall or spring, you go outside, and you expect it to be warm, and it's actually a bit nippy. So it's just a little colder than you were expecting.

So once again, tough sledding is whenever you have a time in life or at work where things are a little bit hard or a little bit rough or a little bit tough, when the going is just a little bit difficult. And if you say a bit nippy, it means that it's a little bit cold outside.

You should stick around, though. I will, I'll take you down sled in a minute, but let's look at a comment from a previous video. Hopefully I have it here in my pocket. Pretty sure I did. It's from Natalia. I remembered that much, but I got my gloves on again, so it's hard to get it open. Here we go. Natalia Illusion says, "I remember I worked in one company and it was obligatory to go to corporate parties there. Colleagues were angry and were not interested in each other. I only attended one party there, and I slipped out in the middle of the party." My response was, "Work parties can be interesting. I do not really enjoy them myself. I enjoy having coffee with coworkers, but parties can be awkward."

So Natalia, using the phrase slipped out. So she kind of, without people knowing, she slipped out of the party and she probably went home or maybe to a better party. And then I used the phrase, I used the word interesting, but not in a positive way. Sometimes in English, when you say something is interesting, you just mean it's curious or it's weird or strange. So I said, "Work parties can be interesting, but they can also be awkward." I don't enjoy work parties. I really don't. I really like just having a cup of coffee with a couple coworkers or colleagues. I like small meetings. I don't like really big meetings, because I find it's hard to talk and it's hard to have good conversations.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SLIP OUT and SLIP UP

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase slip out. So this actually has three meanings. The first meaning means to leave somewhere maybe secretly. So if I'm at a party and I say to my friend, "Hey, I'm gonna slip out, don't let anyone else know. I need to go home. I need to go to bed early because I have to work tomorrow." So you can say I need to slip out. That means to leave somewhere somewhat secretly. The second meaning slip out can mean that you're going to take off an article of clothing. You can say to someone, "I'm just gonna run upstairs and slip out of my work clothes and put on some jeans and a T-shirt." So you can use slip out to mean that you're taking off your clothes. The third meaning of slip out can mean that you say something by accident. Maybe you have a secret you're supposed to keep and you might let it slip out while you're talking. So you accidentally say what you're not supposed to say.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase slip up. When you slip up, it means you make a mistake. And I think I did a little lesson on this a year or two ago. I did the phrase goof up and slip up. When you slip up, it means you make a mistake. Sometimes at work, I slip up and I forget to do something that I'm supposed to do. I think everyone has that every once in a while where they slip up at work, or they slip up at home, or they slip up in a relationship. If I forgot to say happy anniversary to Jen on our anniversary, I would say, "Oh, I slipped up." It kinda means I forgot. It means I made a mistake.

So to review, to slip out means to, if you are somewhere and you leave, you could say that you are slipping out. I'm going to slip out and grab something. I'll be back in a sec. If you are taking off your clothes, you can say that you are slipping out of your clothes. I'm going to go slip out of my work clothes and put on some jeans and a T-shirt. Or maybe you accidentally say something. You could say, "The other day I was talking to my mom and I let slip out that we were having a party without her." That would be mean, wouldn't it? To have a party without your mom? You should always invite your mom, shouldn't you? And then a slip up, or to slip up means to make a mistake. By the way, this is a verb and a noun. I can say that's a real slip up, or I can say, "Wow, he is going to slip up." So you can use it both ways.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. There's snow coming off the roof behind me. If you're wondering why I, every once in a while, close my eyes. Let's get this lesson done though. This comment is from Javier. Javier says, "Pull up your socks, Bob." I think this might be more British, it's not, I don't think. I think we all use it, but anyways, "You'd better step up your game, because the quality of your videos are definitely going south. Obviously I was totally kidding. Your short lessons are still out of this world and we're really lucky to take advantage of them. Thanks a bunch, buddy. Take care." And my response was, "Ha ha. There's always room for improvement. I know you were kidding though. Joking aside, I'm glad my lessons are helpful and that was a wonderful use of a lot of English phrases in your comment, good work."

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases STEP IT UP and TO STEP ON SOMEONE'S TOES

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, step it up. If you tell someone they need to step it up, it means that they're working at this level and they need to work harder. At work sometimes my boss will say to us, "Hey, everybody, you need to step it up, you're not working hard enough." He actually doesn't say that very often. I have a really nice boss! But if you are at work and someone isn't working hard enough, they might be told that they need to step it up. We also sometimes say you need to step up your game. So if you're working with someone and they're not working very hard, you might say they need to step it up. The phrase to step up means something similar, so if you are someone who doesn't have a certain responsibility and suddenly you need to take on that responsibility, we would say that you need to step up, so it's slightly different, but it has a similar meaning.

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The second phrase I wanna teach you today is the phrase to step on someone's toes. If you step on someone's toes, it means you do something that they were supposed to be doing. This can also happen at work. Sometimes at work, a colleague will do part of your job and you can say to them, "Hey, don't step on my toes, that's my job to do." It's not a nice thing to say, it's kind of direct if you say, "Hey, don't step on my toes." But when you step on someone's toes, it means you do something that they were supposed to be doing.

So to repeat, to review, if you need to step it up, it means you need to do a better job, it means you need to work harder. We might even say you need to step up your game. And if you step on someone's toes, it doesn't mean that you're actually stepping on their toes, but it means that you are doing something that they were supposed to be doing. And it might even be something they like doing. Let's say your sister loves planning a birthday party for one of your parents, and then one year you do it without talking to her. She could say, "Hey, you're stepping on my toes. That's something I normally do."

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I actually have a couple comments to look at today. The first one is from Andrew, and Andrew says, "Five years ago, I bought two pairs of long johns and they've served me well," and I replied by saying, "Long johns are awesome. Also, nice work using the phrase served me well perfectly." So thanks, Andrew, for that comment. Yes, long johns, they are also called long underwear, and you wear them under your pants in the winter if you live in a very cold country, and they help keep your legs warm. I love wearing long johns when I'm outside in the winter. I forgot to put mine on today, and I probably should have. It's not as cold as last time, but it's definitely cold. And when Andrew says that "the long johns served him well," what he's saying is that they have been an excellent thing for him to have. They haven't broken, they don't have holes in them, they've worked every time he's used them, so anyways, Andrew, thanks for that comment again. That was a great comment.

I do have a second comment today. I liked this comment, this comment is from Naomi and Naomi says, "Hi, Bob, how can you make Oscar come inside?" Oscar's my dog, by the way. He's around here somewhere. "When you tell him to do that, does he understand and obey right away," Naomi. My response was when he hears the printer start, he goes to the door and waits for me. When I'm done my video, he runs to the door and waits to go back in.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases JOIN THE CLUB and MIND IF I JOIN YOU?

In this English lesson, I wanted to teach you the English phrase, join the club. "Join the club," is kind of a funny thing that we say when someone is having something happen to them that isn't enjoyable, and we're experiencing the same thing. So here's a good example. This morning, Jen said, "Oh, I'm really tired. I didn't sleep well." I could respond and say, "Join the club." It's like we're pretending there's a little club for people who didn't sleep well. You could have someone say, "Oh, my boss is really mean to me all the time," and you could respond by saying, "Join the club. My boss is not a very nice person, either." So when you say, "Join the club," there's no actual club. A club is a group of people that meets because of a certain topic or a certain thing, but you kind of pretend there is. So if someone says, "Oh, it's really cold out here and my hands are freezing," I could say, "Join the club."

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is, mind if I join you? "Mind if I join you?" is a polite way of asking if you can sit with someone. Maybe, let me think here. When I eat lunch at work, sometimes there are some teachers sitting at a table, and there's an extra chair there, and when I walk up with my lunch, I say, "Mind if I join you?" because they might be having a meeting, and they might not want other people to sit with them, or they might just be having a relaxing time, eating their lunch, and I could say, "Mind if I join you?" and the response from them would probably be, "Sure, have a seat," or "Yeah, no problem. Have a seat." So when you say, "Mind if I join you," you're simply asking if you can sit with people, and we usually say this when there's an empty seat and there's already people there, and we're wondering if we can sit there.

So to review, "Join the club" is a funny phrase we use. When someone is having something not so good happen to them, and we have the same experience, we might say, "Join the club." And if you say, "Mind if I join you?" it's something you say when you see people sitting somewhere at a table, and there's an extra seat, and you're wondering if you can sit with them, so you would say, "Mind if I join you?"

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. If I seem out of sorts today, it's because it is cold today. You can tell by what I'm wearing that it's really cold. So let's look at a comment. This is from Qiu Park, and Qiu Park says, "Your sunglasses are really cool," and my response is, "Thanks. I can't remember where I bought this pair, but they have served me well." So I wanted to talk, first of all, Qiu Park, thank you for leaving that comment, and then I do want to talk about the phrase, I'll just... I can't get this in my pocket, 'cause I have my big gloves on.

I'll talk about the phrase, "Served me well." In English, when you say something served you well, it means that you bought something and it worked for a really long time, and it was worth the money you paid for it. So my camera that I'm using has served me well. I bought it used a few years ago. Every time I go out to make a video, it works really well. It has served me well. These sunglasses, they have served me well.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases RECIPE FOR DISASTER and DISASTER STRIKES

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "recipe for disaster." Now, a disaster is a really bad thing that can happen and a recipe is something you use when you bake something or make something in the kitchen. So a recipe for disaster is a situation where everything is just going wrong and something really bad is going to happen. Here's a good example. Let's say you have a really old car and that car has tires that needed to be replaced a long time ago and the car also is not very good mechanically. We would say that's a recipe for disaster because the tires aren't good and the car's just not in good shape, there's a really good chance that you're gonna go in the ditch or have an accident. So a recipe for disaster is a situation where a few things make it so that you just know something bad is gonna happen.

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The second phrase I wanna teach you today is the phrase "disaster strikes." When you say in English that disaster strikes, it's the point when something bad really happens to you. You could say, "I was driving down the road and then I was worried because the tires were bad that disaster might strike." So again, when disaster strikes, it's when something really bad happens. It's the exact moment when that bad thing happens. I don't think disaster is going to strike today. I think the only small disaster that might happen today is I came outside with no gloves on and it's colder than I thought.

Anyways, to review, a recipe for disaster is when there's a few things that are happening that together might cause something really bad to happen, something we would call a disaster. And when that disaster happens, you would describe the moment that it happens by saying, "Disaster has struck," or, "Disaster strikes."

Hey, let's look at another. Let's look at a comment from a previous video.

Sorry, I got distracted 'cause a car was pulling into my driveway but they're turning around now. I don't know if you can see them way over there and they're going in a different direction. I think they were just using my driveway to turn around. Now my camera's a little bit off kilter. There we go.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Roberto and Roberto says, "If you hire me and let me be your sidekick, I promise I will bring something good to the table and I will pull my weight. I am no slacker." And my response was, "I'm glad to hear you aren't a slacker.

Slackers definitely don't pull their weight." So Roberto's using a couple of phrases there. The phrase "to bring something to the table" and the phrase "to pull my weight." And then he uses a word that some of you maybe don't know and that word is slacker. In English, if you call someone a slacker, that you are saying that they are lazy, you are saying that they aren't pulling their weight, if you wanna use the phrase from the other day as well. Slackers are not enjoyable people to work with. When you work with a slacker, you're often frustrated because you're working really hard and the person who is a slacker is not working very hard at all.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PULL YOUR WEIGHT and TO PULL A FAST ONE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to pull your weight. When you pull your weight, it means that you are on a team and you are doing the same amount of work as the rest of the team. Or you are working with a group of people and you do the same amount of work as everyone else. So when you pull your weight, it's a good thing. Sometimes when you are on a sports team everyone else plays really hard and you don't and we would say that you aren't pulling your weight. Sometimes at work you're on a team with three people and everyone does the same amount of work. We would then say that you are pulling your weight. So it's always good to pull your weight. People really appreciate it when they work with other people that pull their weight. I think it's super important. I've worked with people that don't pull their weight and that can be really, really frustrating.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to pull a fast one. When you pull a fast one on someone it means you play a trick on them or you play a practical joke on them. Sometimes I pull a fast one on Jen. I play little tricks on Jen but usually in a good way. I do it like this. Sometimes there's a job that Jen needs to do on the farm and I will tell her that the job's not done even though I already did the job so that when she goes to do the job she sees that it's done and then she kind of laughs. So I let her think she still has to do the job even though I already did it. I do this sometimes with our vehicles too. I'll pull a fast one on Jen. I'll tell her that the van needs gas. So if she's going to the grocery store I tell her you need to stop and get gas as well even though I already filled it up. And then when she gets in to leave she notices that the fuel gauge or the gas gauge is on full and I think that makes her smile. So sometimes I pull a fast one on Jen. I played little tricks but in a good way.

So to review, when you pull your weight it means you do your job well, you do the same amount of work as everyone else in the group or on the team. And when you pull a fast one on someone it means you trick them or you play a practical joke on them.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Tan. And Tan says, hi, Bob, sorry, my bad I haven't had time to watch your videos in recent days because I've been preparing for my examination. Thank you once again for your awesome lecture. And my response is, I understand life gets busy sometimes. I wish you all the best. So thank you Tan for that comment. And that's absolutely no problem. There is no obligation to watch these videos. It's totally understandable. Life does get busy sometimes.

I have the same thing, even though it looks like I easily put out all these videos. Sometimes it's a little challenging because life gets busy, right? There's things to do. Places to go, people to see, we sometimes say in English. So totally no problem. And I do want to wish you all the best on your examination. I'm not sure if you did it already or if it's coming up?

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT and HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, the customer is always right. Now this might seem like a funny sentence to you. It's something that businesses say in Canada because they want to make sure that they are doing a good job when they run a business. But how can the customer always be right? Don't customers sometimes complain when they shouldn't complain? Well, let me put it this way. If you were someone who was running a McDonald's restaurant, if someone came up and said this hamburger doesn't taste good, it's actually better for you to give them a free hamburger than it is to argue with them. Because business is really about making the customer happy, it's not about the thing you are selling them in that moment. So when you say the customer is always right, what it means is that if you take care of your customers, they'll come back and buy more things from you, over and over again. But if you make them feel unappreciated, they'll never come back again.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is another business related phrase and it's this, honesty is the best policy. So I know in the world of business, there are people who lie, cheat and steal in order to sell things, to make money. There are people that will tell untruths in order to have a more successful business. But I firmly believe that honesty is the best policy. When Jen and I run our flower farm in the summer and when we sell flowers to people, if they say, how long will these flowers last? We usually say three or four days if we know those flowers will last three or four days. We'll say a week and a half if we know those flowers last a week and a half. We feel like honesty is the best policy when we're selling something to someone. Because again, that also keeps the customer happy and happy customers come back over and over again.

So to review, many businesses have the policy that the customer is always right, even sometimes when the customer is wrong. It's better to treat the customer as if they're right, especially if it doesn't cost you very much money because then everybody's happy. And if you say honesty is the best policy, it simply means that being truthful and being honest in business can actually be a really good thing for your business to do because in the long run, your business will just do better.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Daniel. Daniel says, let me know, let me know when you throw this money party, Bob, I'd love to be there. And my response was I'll make sure you're invited, haha. So this was from the video where I taught the phrase to lay your cards on the table or to put your cards on the table and I talked about, you know, someone having a party but the real reason to have the party was to give some money away.

And this was actually based on a true story. A friend of mine had an old uncle, who came to visit during the summer and he was from Europe. Okay, so he was from far away and he invited all of his cousins and nephews and nieces and brothers and sisters to come to what's called a family reunion. So this was an older uncle. He had never been married and he didn't have any children. And he came to Canada to visit family that he hadn't seen for a while. So my friend wasn't sure he wanted to go and he kind of hummed and hawed.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BRING SOMETHING TO THE TABLE and TO PUT YOUR CARDS ON THE TABLE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to bring something to the table." If you say that someone brings something to the table, it means they have an ability that makes a team better or makes a group of people better. At work, if I was working with some other teachers, and we were working on a project that required someone to make a video, I could say, "Hey, that's something I can bring to the table," because I'm really good now at making videos because I think I've made about 700 of them. That's a lot of videos, isn't it? You can also use this when talking about a sports team. You can say that your favorite player brings something to the table. Maybe they're a really fast runner. Maybe they're really good at scoring goals. And that would be something that they bring to the table on the team.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to put your cards on the table." When you put your cards on the table, it means you reveal something that was a secret. Maybe you were planning something, but you weren't really telling people what you were planning. If you were to put your cards on the table, we also say, "to lay your cards on the table," it means that you would then reveal what your plan was all along. Maybe you're planning a party and the party is to celebrate something, but you also want to have a party because you want to give everyone in your family a whole bunch of money. That would be your real plan. So if someone said to you, "So is this just a party, or is there something else going on?" you could say, "I guess it's time for me to put my cards on the table. The real plan is that I'm going to give everyone lots of money." I've never actually been to a party like that. That would be a really fun party to go to, wouldn't it, a party where someone just gives everyone lots of money? Those don't happen very often, I don't think.

Anyways, to review, to bring something to the table means that you have an ability or a talent that helps the team or group of people you're working with do their job better. And to put your cards on the table or to lay your cards on the table means to reveal a secret or to reveal something that other people didn't know, maybe a motive or a plan that you had.

Sorry that the camera's moving around a little bit today. It's a little windy out here. I'm just trying to get this video done before I blow away.

But let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit, and this is Judit's second comment. And so she's continuing here by saying, "And I'll share a joke with you. Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was out standing in his field. Why couldn't the bicycle stand up by itself? It was two-tired. I guess you knew these." And my response was, "I had heard them before, but they still made me smile."

So I'm not going to try and explain the jokes. When you try to explain a joke, it's not as funny. But thank you, Judit, for those jokes. They did make me smile. They are good ones. The only thing I will say is that when you are out standing somewhere, that means you're outside and you're standing up. But when you're outstanding, when it's one word, it means you're really good at what you do. So great jokes.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO STAMP OUT and TO PUT YOUR STAMP ON SOMETHING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to stamp out. The most literal meaning of to stamp out is when you have a fire outside and you use your feet to stamp out the fire. You actually stomp on the fire, that's a different verb, but it means the same thing. So literally, it means to stamp out the fire. But we also use this when we're talking about other things. I really hope that we can stamp out the Corona virus. I hope we can stamp it out. It means that you extinguish it or end it. A lot of people would love i if we could stamp out violence in our cities or stamp out violence in our societies. So when you stamp something out, it means you end it. I really hope that we can stamp out all of the bad things in the world, but especially the Corona virus. I really hope we can stamp it out.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to put your stamp on something. When you put your stamp on something, you add your own unique style to it. A good example of this would be, I have a room that I use in the house as my office. Jen painted the room and we put some furniture in the room but I kind of put my stamp on it. When you put your stamp on it, it means you hang up your own pictures. You decorate things in a way that you like. You put your stamp on it. You kind of use your personality to help decorate it. You can use this to talk about a room. You can use this to talk about something that you're creating. When you're making food, maybe you use a certain kind of spice because you want to put your stamp on it.

So to review, when you stamp out, the phrasal verb to stamp out means to stop something, to end something, to extinguish it. And when you put your stamp on something, it means you add something to it that makes people able to see that you were involved in decorating it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Padma, I have it in my pocket here. And Padma says this, "At the start of the pandemic, I was in denial that it was really happening. But as it progressed, I had to deny myself my freedom of traveling. Luckily, things have started improving slowly." And my response was this. "I think we were all in the same boat back at the beginning. I was in denial as well for a bit until I started to hear about people I knew getting sick, then I took it seriously."

So first of all, Padma, thank you for that comment. This was from the lesson I taught the other day on the phrases, in denial, and to deny oneself something. So Padma, you did an excellent job of using both those sentences. Those are just great example sentences in your comment. And then I do want to talk about the phrase, to be in the same boat. When you're in the same boat, it means that everyone is experiencing the same thing.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN DENIAL and TO DENY ONESELF

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be in denial. If someone is in denial about something, it means that there are a lot of facts that show that something is true, but they still don't believe it. There are a lot of people in the world that are in denial about climate change. There is a lot of scientific evidence that climate change is happening but a lot of people are in denial. So when you are in denial about something it means that there are lots of facts. There's lots of scientific information that proves something is true but you still don't believe it, so you are in denial. Sometimes people have this in life as well. Maybe they love someone and that person doesn't love them back, but in their minds, they think that they are still having a romantic relationship. We would say that that person is in denial because they are not believing that the other person doesn't love them anymore. That's kinda sad.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to deny myself or to deny oneself. If I deny myself something it means I don't allow myself to have it. Right now I'm trying to deny myself ice cream, I thought I should stop eating ice cream. It sometimes makes my stomach upset, it's full of sugar and fat and it's really not good for you. So I'm trying to deny myself ice cream. When you deny yourself something when you say I'm going to deny myself this thing or that thing, it means you're not going to let yourself have it.

So once again to be in denial means to not believe something that is scientifically true. And when you deny yourself or when you say I'm going to deny myself something it means you're not going to allow yourself to have it.

I think I'm in denial a little bit about the weather right now. It's actually cold out here, my hands are cold and I don't have my gloves or my hat, 'cause I think I'm in denial that it's actually cold. It's been warm for so long. I think I'm just in a little bit of denial.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Patty, and Patty says this hello from France. Hi, I so agree with you Bob, I'm 57 and so far so good but I love studying things and I always use my brain a lot. One of my biggest fears is also if one day my brain isn't with it and my response is bonjour Patty I use a little bit of French there. My mom does Sudokus for her brain. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right by the way but I say Sudokus, Sudokus. Sudoku's I'm going to start doing them too.

So Sudoku's, if I'm saying it correctly our little math puzzles where you have a grid of numbers by the way, thank you Patty, for that comment, it's a good one. And it's from the video where I was talking about being with it. I wanna make sure when I'm old that I'm with it and in that video as well, I think or a comment from that video as well from Julia was that she likes learning a language because it's good for your brain as well. So Patty, yes, I think that you do need to make sure that you do things with your brain so that you stay with it. It's good to always use your brain a lot. And Julia as well from that previous comment said learning a language is a good way to keep your brain active. I'm gonna try and do both. I'm gonna try and start doing crossword puzzles and Sudoku's I think that's the right pronunciation. It's kind of a relatively new kind of puzzle here in Canada. It's only been around for about 20 years, maybe more but I'm gonna try to do those as well.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SORT SOMETHING OUT and OUT OF SORTS

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to sort something out. This usually means that you need to understand a problem and then solve it. If my brother said to me, Hey, can you come over today and help me with something, I could respond and say, yes but not right away because I need to sort something out. That might mean that I have a problem. Maybe there's a pipe leaking in my basement and I have to figure out why it's leaking. I have to understand why it's leaking and then I need to fix it. So when you say to someone that you need to sort something out, it means that you have some kind of problem you need to understand that problem and then you need to solve it. So hopefully you don't have a lot of things today that you have to sort out.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase out of sorts. If I say that I'm feeling out of sorts it means that I'm feeling not normal. I might be feeling grouchy or unhappy. I might be feeling just a little bit blah, that's another word we use in English. But when you're feeling out of sorts you're basically saying you aren't your normal happy self. The other day, I was trying to make a video and I was having trouble talking. And I said, Oh I'm just feeling a little bit out of sorts today. The wind was bothering me that day. I couldn't get my camera set up right. I was feeling frustrated. I was a little grouchy and annoyed. So I described it by saying that I was feeling out of sorts. So when you're feeling out of sorts, you're just not feeling your normal happy self.

So to explain one more time, when you sort something out it means that you have a problem. You need to understand the problem, you need to figure out the problem and then you need to solve it. And when you are feeling out of sorts, it means you're just not feeling like your normal happy self. Hopefully your normal self is a very happy person.
Anyways, let's look at a comment from another video. This comment is from Iryna, and Iryna says, "My English is as good as it gets but I hope it will be better in the future. I do realize that the vocabulary I've learned so far will not stay in my head for good, and I need to practice it all the time." So excellent use Iryna of the two phrases from that lesson. This is from the other day, the phrase as good as it gets, and the phrase for good, perfect use. My response was awesome use of both phrases Iryna, good work.

So I like to see that, it's really cool when you guys in the comments sometimes try to use the phrases. It's really neat to see that you see the phrase or you've learned the phrase that I've taught, and you try to learn it. I was going to mention again too that when you practice the phrase right away, it's just a good idea. Practicing in the comments is good. But if you have an English tutor that you meet with once a week, it would be really good if you try to use these phrases with them. Because I'll be honest in the comments most of you use the phrases that I teach correctly, but sometimes some of you do make small mistakes and I don't have time to correct everybody. In fact, I'd usually don't correct people because it's just... I feel like you need to be comfortable speaking and not always having your sentences corrected. So I would say in the comments, 90% of the time everyone uses the phrases that I teach correctly, But sometimes there are a few small mistakes. So anyways, I think that's just a great thing to do when you learn a phrase.

And in order to remember these phrases, I know some of you have said

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FOR GOOD and AS GOOD AS IT GETS

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn a particular use of the English phrase "for good." In general terms, you can do things for good or for evil, but that's not the meaning I want to talk about today. We also use the English phrase "for good" to talk about something that's permanent. Here are a few examples. If someone said, "Does your brother still live with you?" You could respond and say, "No, he moved out for good." That means he moved out and he's not coming back. You could also say to someone, "Oh, are you still dating that girl?" And the person could respond and say, "No, we actually broke up, "and we broke up for good." That means that they have broken up and it's permanent. So in English, when you use the phrase "for good," it can mean a situation that is permanent. "Did Joe move to France?" "Yep, he moved there for good." That means he's not comin' back.

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The other phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the phrase "as good as it gets." This describes a situation that isn't going to get any better, and probably isn't going to get any worse. It's as good as it can get. So let's say, ah, let me think about this for a sec. The road that I live on, they fix it every once in a while. I would love it if they would fix it to be way better than it is, but this is about as good as it gets. This is about all I can expect from the town that fixes my road. The road right now is as good as it gets. That means it's not gonna get any better. It's pretty much gonna be the same old road all the time with a few holes here and there. That's about as good as it gets. So it's not describing something as being amazing, it's not describing something being really bad, but it's about as good as it gets, as good as you could hope for.

So to review, if something is "for good," it can mean a permanent situation. You could say, "He moved to France for good." That means that he has moved to that country permanently. And when you describe something as being "as good as it gets," it simply means that it is in a situation or state, and it's not gonna get any better. It's kind of risen to the point where it's just not gonna get any better than what it is. I'm not explaining this one very well, but hopefully you understood it.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Julia, and Julia says, "I hope I will still be really with it when I am 97. "Age is not kind, "but they say that learning a language is really helpful "if you want to be with it for a long time." And my response was, "One of my fears in life "is that when I'm really old, I won't be very with it. "I hope aging is kind to me."

So thank you, Julia, for that comment. I only used the first part of your comment. Thank you though, for leaving the comment yesterday. It was, and it was on the English lesson about the phrase "with it."

I'm a little afraid that as I get older, I won't be as with it as I am now. You know, life is kind of funny. When you're young, you are very healthy. You are physically healthy and your brain works really good, but you're maybe not very wise. As you get older, you get wiser, but physically you're not in as good a shape, and mentally, sometimes you can, things can deteriorate as well.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WITH IT and I'M WITH YOU

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, with it. When you are talking about a person and you say that person is with it, you mean that their brain is working really good and they are mentally competent. Here are some example sentences of the phrase, with it. I could say, I'm not really with it this morning because I haven't had my coffee yet and I really need caffeine so my brain works. You could say something like, my grandfather is 97 years old and he's still really with it. So when you use the phrase, with it to talk about a person, you're basically talking about how well their brain is working. So for me, I just know that if I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm not very with it the next day. I'm kind of off my game a little bit.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, I'm with you. So when you say I'm with you it means that you agree with that person. If you were to say to me, the sun is a beautiful thing to see every day, I would say, I'm with you on that. I really think that a sunny day is a beautiful day, except if it's over 30 degrees then I don't really enjoy it. But when you say to someone I'm with you it means that you agree with them. If someone was to say, football is the best sport in the world, you might reply and say, ah, I'm with you. I keep wanting to say soccer, that's why I'm making an S sound. Football is amazing. It is the best sport, I'm with you.

So to repeat, if you say that someone is with it it means they're alert, their brain is working really well and they are just energetic and thinking clearly. If you say I'm with you, it means you agree with someone. I feel like I was making a few or almost making mistakes as I'm recording this because for some reason I'm not really with it today. I was really with it but I came outside and it's extra windy and it was hard to find a place to record a video. So if you'll just excuse me, I'm a little out of sorts. I'm not totally with it right now. I will a moment though. Let me just refocus.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. And this comment is from Xavier. And Xavier says, "in Spain the electric bill "has risen by 28% so far in January. "They may think we are made of money. "That's not a good way to make our day." And my response was, "ouch, that's a pretty steep increase "to make matters worse, you're probably at home "using a lot of electricity."

So Xavier, thank you so much for that comment. This is from the video yesterday, where I looked at the phrase, to be made of money and I looked at the phrase, it made my day. So yes, costs of electricity. So in Ontario, Canada, the government has actually frozen the cost of electricity for this month and they actually lowered it to a lower rate. Now, I like that, that's really nice because we're all home it's nice to have a little bit cheap electricity. I'm sorry Xavier, if in Spain it's getting more expensive. I don't mean to brag but in Canada they've lowered the rate but I'm worried that over the next five or 10 years in Canada we'll all have to pay a lot more taxes to the government because the Canadian government is borrowing lots of money in order to get the country through this epidemic, through this COVID pandemic. And so I feel like the more money we borrow the more taxes we're all going to have to pay over the next 10 years but I'll take it. I don't mind having electricity a little bit cheaper especially in the winter.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT MADE MY DAY and I'M NOT MADE OF MONEY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase it made my day. If I say to someone, "It made my day," I'm saying that something made me really happy and something made me smile. Probably a great example would be this. If someone sent me a birthday card, and then later, I was talking to them, and they said, "Did you like the birthday card?" and I could say to them, "It made my day." Basically what I'm saying is the birthday card made me happy. The birthday card made me smile. It made my day. I think when I watch the news, and I see how crazy things are in the world, I always think to myself, it would be so nice if everyone had something each day that made their day for them, and then they could all be happy and say, "It made my day."

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase I'm not made of money. This is a phrase that I sometimes say to my children. Do you realize that a lot of the phrases I teach you are actually phrases I use when I'm talking to my children? And when you say, "I'm not made of money," you say this to someone who wants you to buy something for them. Often my children think I'm made of money, and they want me to buy things for them, and 99% of the time, I say no. I don't feel like a bad parent. I actually think when I'm saying no, I think I'm being a good parent. So when you say to someone, "I'm not made of money," basically what you're saying to them is I don't have a lot of money and I can't buy that for you. So sometimes my kids want a new toy, or they want something new, and they'll come to me and ask if I can buy it, and I'll say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not buying that for you. I'm not made of money."

So to review, if you say to someone, "It made my day," basically you're saying whatever the it is referring to, you're saying that it made you happy, it made you smile, and it made you glad. And when you say to someone, "I'm not made of money," you're basically saying to them that you don't have a lot of money and you're not going to spend money on what they want. You could have this happen when you're out with a friend, and if your friend wants you to pay for their meal, "You could say, "Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not made of money. Let's each pay for our own meals."

But hey, let's look at a comment from another video. This comment is from Roberto. By the way, Roberto leaves lots of really good comments, and I'm happy that I could choose one. Roberto says this. "Drop by in British English would mean pop in or pop over." And my response was this. I gave a lot of example sentences. "Yes, sometimes I pop in to see my mum. Sometimes I pop over to see my mum. Sometimes I stop by to see my mum. Sometimes I dropped by to see my mum. All of those work and mean the same thing."

By the way, I could also add, sometimes I stop in to see my mum. That would definitely work as well. So pop in, pop over, stop by, drop by, and stop in all mean almost exactly the same thing. It means to visit someone. Some them have the... Might somewhat mean that it's unannounced. Like when you drop by, it can be unannounced. In English, when we say something is unannounced, it means you didn't tell someone that you were going to do it. But Roberto, thank you so much for leaving that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases NAME DROPPING and TO DROP BY

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase name-dropping. Name-dropping, or to drop names, means that you mention famous people or popular people when you're having conversations with other people. So, name-dropping would be something like this. If I was having a conversation with you and if I said something like, I was talking to Drake and Justin Bieber the other day, and they were just saying that they're really happy that the winter isn't as cold as it could be. So that would be name-dropping. I would just casually be mentioning famous people in my conversation, so that other people would be impressed that I have such famous friends. I don't actually know Drake or Justin Bieber, but if you drop names, or if you are doing what's called name-dropping, it means you mentioned famous people just casually when you're having conversations with someone else.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to drop by. When you drop by someone's house, it means you visit them, sometimes without letting them know that you're coming. You don't just have to drop by someone's house, though. You can drop by someone's office at work, you can drop by someone's desk at work. It simply means to visit someone or go over and talk to them. Sometimes, not right now because of COVID, but sometimes when I'm in the town where my mom lives, I might just drop by to see how she's doing. So it means maybe I'll call before I go, but maybe I won't call. Maybe I'll just drive, and if I see my mom's car outside of her house, I'll just drop by and see how she's doing.

So, to repeat: name-dropping, or to drop names, is to just casually mention a famous person's name as if you know them, in a conversation. Usually you do know them, though. Maybe not. I don't know Drake or Justin Bieber. I did mention that, didn't I? And to drop by means to visit, sometimes without letting the person know that you're coming over.
But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. And this comment is from Seowoo. Sorry, I never know how to pronounce your name correctly. It's very challenging. So I will just say, Seowoo. Hopefully that's correct. And the comment is this, "It's absolutely worth my while watching your video. Is it worth your while teaching us English or teaching English to us?" Both are correct, by the way. "Thanks, Bob." And my response is this: Yes, absolutely. I enjoy every minute of it. I wish I had more time to read and respond to comments though.

So I wrote my response because I wanted to use two phrases. I wanted to use the phrase that I enjoy every minute of it. Sometimes when we like doing something in English, we'll say that we like every minute of it. Did you like the show? Did you like the movie? I liked every minute of it. So that's another phrase. Sometimes I like to teach more than two phrases. And then I wanted to use the word though in as many responses as I possibly could. So over the next few days, I'm gonna try and add that a lot and you'll see that I said, I wish I had more time to read and respond to comments, though. So I do wish I had more time to respond to comments. I've become a little overwhelmed with the number of comments, especially on my bigger channel, but on this smaller channel as well. Sometimes there's a lot of comments. I do read them all and I do try to respond to them all. But sometimes I get a little bit behind. I hope that you can forgive me.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WORTH YOUR WHILE and A WASTE OF TIME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, worth your while. If you say that something was worth your while, it means that you liked doing it and it was worth doing it. You got some benefit out of it. When I go for a walk every day, it's definitely worth my while. It is worth the time spent because I become healthier because I do it. So when something is worth your while, it means that it's worthwhile. That's another word that you could use to describe it. It means that you spent time doing it, you don't regret spending time doing it, and in fact, it was a benefit to you to do it. So I hope that when you watch these videos that they are worth your while, I'm pretty sure they are.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is one that you probably already know, and it's the opposite of worth your while, and it's this, a waste of time. If something is worth my while, it means I like doing it, and it was definitely a good thing to do. It was a benefit to me. If it wasn't, then it was definitely a waste of time. There are many things that I do in the day that I think are a waste of time. One of them is sometimes I spend too much time on social media, on Instagram or Facebook or YouTube as well. I tend to watch too many things and it's definitely a waste of time. Sometimes I tell myself that it's good for me to do that. I almost dropped my paper. Because I need to research how people are using those platforms to do things to make my own YouTube channel better, but sometimes, it's just a waste of time.

So to review again. If something is worth your while, it means that it's worthwhile. It means that you didn't mind spending time doing it because it was a benefit to you. And if it wasn't, it was probably a waste of time.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video, and this comment is from Anton, and Anton says, "Hi, Bob. "If it's possible, please tell us a bit about the situation "in the United States. "I mean the fighting between the Democrats and Republicans. "Could it really end up in Civil War in the USA, "and how are Canadians feeling about these unusual events?" Pretty serious question actually, Anton. My response was I'm sure they'll work it all out soon. It's just a little bit crazy right now.

So yeah, a couple of questions in there. First of all, do I think the United States will end up having some kind of Civil War? No, I don't think that at all. I think that just right now is a little bit of a unrest. We would call it a little bit of people being annoyed because the person they voted for didn't win, but I don't think it will end up in civil unrest beyond what we saw yesterday. How do Canadians feel about it? Well, that's an interesting question. How would I describe how Canadians feel about it? So Canada and the United States have been friends for a very long time. Our two countries have been friends for a very long time, and I would describe it this way. Sometimes you have friends or you might have a friend who starts to act a little bit strangely. You might have a friend who has been a good friend for a long time, and all of a sudden, they start to do things that make you just a little bit uneasy or concerned for them. And so, what you do as a good friend is this.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A REAL NAIL-BITER and TO HIT THE NAIL ON THE HEAD

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a real nail-biter. This is a phrase that we use to talk about a situation that makes you really, really nervous, or that causes a lot of anxiety. We usually use this when we're talking about a sports game, and usually a sports game that takes place during the championship. So if you watch a game and your team is doing really well and then they're not doing well and then they're doing well, we would say that the game is a real nail-biter. I hate to admit this, but Canada just lost the World Junior Hockey Championships. The last game was last night and it was a real nail-biter. I couldn't even watch parts of it. I watched a little bit here and there. We lost to, of all people, the United States of America. Canadians are never happy when they lose at hockey, and we're not happy at all when we lose to the United States. It was a real nail-biter.

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Hey, and the second phrase I wanna teach you today is to hit the nail on the head. So this is a different type of nail. Just to go back a bit, a nail-biter, it refers to the act of biting your nails, because you're so nervous, you're biting your nails, but when you hit the nail on the head, it means that you are absolutely right about something. And I think it comes more from the literal meaning of hitting a nail on the head with a hammer. So if you have a hammer and nails, you hit the nail on the head. If you are totally right about something, we would also say that you have hit the nail on the head. It's always nice to hit the nail on the head, especially when you're in a situation where it's just nice to be right, it's nice to be totally and absolutely right. It's really nice to hit the nail on the head.

So to review, when you refer to something as a real nail-biter, it means that while it was happening, you were very nervous about the outcome. And when you hit the nail on the head, it means you are absolutely and completely right.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, I think, Al-Ahmad, and Al-Ahmad says, "Thank you Mr. Bob. I think that the phrase get through also means to contact someone by phone. I tried to phone him many times, but I can't get through. Is my example correct? Anyway, thank you again." And my response is this, "Yes, exactly. The phrase get through can be used when talking about trying to contact someone by phone. Sometimes you can't get through. If you can't get through, it's usually because they don't pick up, or you get a busy signal."

So, yes, you are exactly correct, Al-Ahmad. It definitely, the phrase get through can be used when you're talking about phoning someone. And it can be a little frustrating, right? Sometimes you try to phone someone and you can't get through. So maybe you get a busy signal. That doesn't happen very often anymore. Usually you will get the person's voicemail, and sometimes the person just doesn't have their phone on, or they don't have their phone with them. There are times when I really need to get a hold of Jen, and when she's out in the field working on her flowers, she might not have her phone with her, or her phone has gone dead, or she just isn't able to answer at that time, and so I can't get through. So definitely, the phrase to get through can certainly refer to phoning someone.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD and IT'S ALL IN YOUR HEAD

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase: get it through your head. If I say to someone, you need to get it through your head, it means I want them to understand me and I want them to agree with me. As a parent, I often use this phrase. My kids eat bread. They make sandwiches from bread. And sometimes there's one or two slices of bread left in the loaf, and they'll open a new loaf of fresh bread instead of finishing the last two slices. You will then hear me as a dad say something like this to one of my children: You need to get it through your head that you need to eat the last two old slices of bread before you can open up a fresh new loaf of bread. So when you tell someone they need to get it through their head or if you say, you need to get it through your head, it means you want them to understand you and you want them to agree with you.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase: it's all in your head. We use this phrase to talk about things that people are imagining and that aren't real. Maybe your brother thinks that your cousin doesn't like him. Maybe your brother says, "Well, my cousin, our cousin hasn't phoned me in a week when I borrowed his car, and when I brought it back and said, thank you, he didn't say you're welcome. I think our cousin doesn't like me anymore." And you could say: You know what? It's all in your head. That would mean that you think they're imagining it. You would think that your cousin likes them just fine and that it's not a problem. So when you say it's all in your head, you're basically saying, I think you're imagining that.

So to review, if you say to someone, you need to get it through your head, you're basically saying you need to understand what I'm saying and you need to agree with me. And if you say to someone: it's all in your head, you're basically saying, I think you're imagining what you think is true.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Julia, and Julia says this: "Hi, dear teacher! Happy Monday, everyone." This is from yesterday, by the way, when it was Monday. It's definitely better to be asleep at the wheel while doing a job than while literally driving. Let me reread that. "It's definitely better to be asleep at the wheel while doing a job than while literally driving." And my response was this: "Yes, for sure. It is really dangerous to literally fall asleep at the wheel while driving. You'll end up in the ditch," that's if you go off the road, "or hitting someone. It's always better to pull over at a rest stop and buy a cup of coffee." So thanks, Julia, for that comment. By the way, I absolutely agree with you that if you are asleep at the wheel at work, it's less dangerous, oh, it could be dangerous, but if you are literally asleep at the wheel in a car, that is really, really dangerous. So definitely a good time to pull over, stop and maybe get a cup of coffee.

I just wanted to explain the word literally. When we use the word literally when talking about English phrases, we mean what it actually means if you took every word at its actual meaning. So when you fall asleep at the wheel driving, it means that you're in a vehicle and you fall asleep while driving. When you fall asleep at the wheel at work, it's kind of a figurative example. You're not actually driving a vehicle.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL and SOUND ASLEEP

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase asleep at the wheel. When you are asleep at the wheel, it means you're not doing your job. It comes from the idea that when you're driving a vehicle, you should not fall asleep while you're holding onto the steering wheel. But we use it to describe anyone who is not doing their job. We say that they are asleep at the wheel. We actually use this a lot to talk about people who are in charge of something. Maybe someone at your work is in charge of a project, and they're not doing their job. We would say that they are asleep at the wheel. Certainly it's not something that you want to do. You want to be alert. You want to be doing your job at all times. You don't want to be asleep at the wheel.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, sound asleep. I'm not sure if you knew we had this word in English, asleep. When you sleep, it means you close your eyes, and you go to sleep. But then we would say that you are asleep. Last night, I was asleep all night. It was a great night. When someone is sound asleep, it means that they are in a very, very deep sleep. Sometimes when we go driving, our children, our younger children, will fall asleep if we go on a long trip. And when we get to the place where we are going, they will be sound asleep. We'll say their names, and that won't even wake them up. So when you are sound asleep it means that you are in a very, very deep sleep, usually a very restful sleep as well.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mauro. And Mauro says, "Hi teacher, Bob. You were lucky to find a pair of boots, 50% off. And we were lucky to find a good teacher like you. So we are all happy." And my response was, "And I'm 100% off. There is no charge for my lessons." So thank you, Mauro, for that comment. I don't wanna talk too much about the fact that I make these lessons for you at no charge, because I do really like doing it. And I do get a little bit of money from the advertisements at the beginning of the video. So in the end, this is a win-win situation. I like making English lessons. I like putting them on YouTube. You like watching them. You get some benefit from this, and I get a little bit of money from the advertising. So it all works out in the end, and I am happy and you are happy. So that makes everybody happy, I guess. So anyways again, Mauro, thank you so much for that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO PUT SOMETHING BEHIND YOU and TO PUT UP WITH

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to put something behind you. In English, when you put something behind you, you can physically put it behind you, but that's not what I'm here to teach you today. The meaning of the phrase I wanna teach you today, it means to forget about something. So when you put something behind you, it means you don't think about it anymore. I think the year 2020 is a great example of this. I can't wait to put the year 2020 behind me. So when you put something behind you, it means that you try to forget about it. You try not to think about it anymore. There were some really good parts to the year 2020, but there were also some parts of the year 2020 that I would just like to put behind me and forget about.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to put up with. When you put up with someone, it means that, even though they are annoying, you try to still be nice to them, and you try to still work with them if you're working with them. Sometimes, you will have this with young children. Sometimes, young children complain a lot, and they get upset, and it's just a situation where you just need to put up with them. You just have to be patient. You just have to be kind, and even though they might be really upset about something, maybe they want candy, and when you don't give it to them, they start to cry and yell. At that point in time, you just have to put up with them.

So to review the first phrase to put something behind you simply means to forget about something in the past or to not think about it anymore, and to put up with someone means that you are just patient and kind with them, even though they might be a little bit annoying.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Bahare, and the comment is this. Hi, your boots are really cool, and I replied by saying I like them a lot. They were 50% off. I couldn't believe my luck that they still had my size.

So let's talk a little bit about buying things in English. First of all, do you wanna see my boots again? I went to a store called Canadian Tire, which actually sells a lot more than just tires, to look for a new pair of winter boots, and I was happy because when I got to the aisle where they had boots, there were two pairs of boots that were on sale, and they were both 50% off. They were both $100 on sale for $50. So I was really excited. The first pair, though, I tried. I like to buy a size 10. My feet are size nine, but when I buy winter boots, I like to buy one size bigger so that I can wear bigger socks or double socks in the winter. So the first pair I tried on, they only had size nine and size 11. They didn't have it in my size. They didn't have that boot in my size. So I was a little bit disappointed, but then I checked, and the other pair that was on sale, they actually had a size 10. I tried it on. I tried the other one on. I walked around the store for a little bit, just up and down the shoe aisle, and I decided that they were very comfortable and that I really liked them. So I was really happy because they were 50% off.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BACK IN THE SADDLE and TO BE SADDLED WITH

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "back in the saddle". You might've noticed that I haven't done an English lesson since Friday. I took a little break, but today I'm back in the saddle. When you say that you are back in the saddle, it means that you've started doing something again that you took a little break from, so I'm back in the saddle. I'm not literally on a horse, a saddle is something that you put on a horse if you were a cowboy, you would put a saddle on a horse and you would sit in the saddle when you ride the horse, but we use this phrase just to talk about things that we have started doing again after taking a break. So you'll notice there was no video on Monday but today I'm back in the saddle and there is a new English lesson for you.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to be saddled with". When you are saddled with something or saddled with someone, it means you have to do a job or you have to do something with that person or with that thing, even though it might not be enjoyable. Sometimes at work, you have a project that you need to do and you might be saddled with a coworker, that means your boss might say, "You need to do the job with Jimmy." And maybe you don't like working with Jimmy. So you would then say, I was saddled with Jimmy. When you are saddled with someone, it means that you have to work with them, you have to do something with them even though it might not be ideal.

So to review when you are back in the saddle, it means you are back at something again. So today I am back in the saddle I'm outside on this beautiful December day making an English lesson for you, I am definitely back in the saddle. And when you are saddled with, when you are saddled with someone or something it means that you have to do something with someone and it might not be ideal.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Athanasios. And Athanasios says, "Thank you teacher Bob, great phrases, now I think it's a good time to get over this bad 2020 and keep going, out with the old, in with the new. Let's be optimistic about the upcoming year, don't forget, even if it's not true many times the best is yet to come." Well thanks Athanasios, that's a very positive and great comment. My reply was, "I think this is a great attitude for 2021, it's time to put this year behind us and to be positive about 2021."

So I know you're watching this on Wednesday, December 30th, I know we still have a day and a half or so left in 2020 but I think it's a good time as Athanasios says, it's a good time to put this year behind us and start to think positive thoughts about 2021. I hope whatever you're doing on Thursday evening, I hope you have a great New Year's Eve, and I hope you have an amazing start to the year 2021. It's definitely a good time to put some things behind us. When you put something behind you, it means that you kind of forget about it or you just stop thinking about it a little bit. And there's parts of 2020 that I do want to put behind me. There's parts of 2020 that were amazing but there are definitely parts of 2020 that I would like to put behind me.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HAPPY CHRISTMAS and MERRY CHRISTMAS

So as you are learning English you'll probably hear people say Happy Christmas. And sometimes you'll hear people say Merry Christmas and you might be wondering which is the correct thing to say at Christmas time. Well, here's how it works. If you are learning British English, you will probably say Happy Christmas around this time of year. If on the other hand you are learning Canadian English or American English, you are more likely to say Merry Christmas. So that's the only difference. They mean the same thing. It's simply something people say at this time of year. They will say Merry Christmas or Happy Christmas depending on which kind of English you are learning. I generally say Merry Christmas to people.

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And I actually wanna end this video, this is just a short lesson by the way by saying Merry Christmas to all of you. I just wish all of you a good Christmas season. I'm not sure if you celebrate Christmas or not or if you get time off from work or not but I just hope that wherever you are in the world and whatever you are doing over the next few days that you just have an enjoyable time. I hope you find time to spend time with family or friends in a safe way. I hope that you enjoy a little bit of time off work. I hope that you just find time to relax a little bit and reflect on life. And certainly I wish you this, I wish you the very best end to the year 2020. I do wanna thank all of you as well as I look back over the past year of making videos on this short English lesson channel.

I made a little change in the summer where I started to make the videos longer. And many of you obviously really enjoy that. I know a few people still miss the really short English lessons but I think four minutes, isn't too bad. And I can tell when I look at the amount of people watching each lesson that people do enjoy them because the graph seems to be going up which is really cool. So again, I just wanna thank all of you for helping make this channel successful. I do wanna thank the people who have become members who have joined and support me in the work I do to make these videos. That's awesome as well but mostly I just wanna say, thanks for watching. The more you watch it kind of gives me energy and makes me excited to make more lessons.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HAVE CHEMISTRY and TO CLICK WITH

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to have chemistry. Now, chemistry is something you can study in school. You can take chemistry class. But this phrase actually has to do with relationships. When you go on a date with someone and if you really get along well, and if you enjoy each other's company and you find each other attractive, we would say that you have chemistry. When people start to date, when people go out on dates, they always hope that they'll have a good time and that they'll have chemistry with the other person. Sometimes people go on a date and they don't have any chemistry. And then usually, they don't go on a second date but sometimes people go on a date with someone and they really just enjoy themselves. The person is interesting. The person is attractive. The other person finds you interesting and attractive. And we would then say that you have chemistry.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to click with. When you click with someone it simply means that you get along well, it's not romantic. It's not the same as having chemistry with someone. It's used more to talk about people who are friends or becoming friends. When I first went to university, I met a bunch of people and there were a few people that I just clicked with. When you click with someone it usually means you have the same interests, you like doing the same things. And when you click with someone, there's a good chance you will become good friends with them. So when I started university, the first day I didn't know anyone. The second day I met a few people and there were a few people that I clicked with and they ended up becoming my good friends.

So to repeat, and to review, when you have chemistry with someone, it means that you find each other very, very attractive. You find it very enjoyable to spend time with each other. And you both have the same feeling. You have chemistry. When you click with someone, it simply means that you get along with them. I'm sure that many, many of you, if I met you in real life, and we had a cup of coffee, I'm sure I would click with you. I'm sure we would have an enjoyable conversation and it would be a lot of fun.

Speaking of someone who I click with, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Brent, otherwise known as American English With This Guy. And Brent and I have a lot in common and we've never met in real life, but I think if we did, I think we would click. In fact, I think when the pandemic's over, we're still hoping to have a cup of coffee halfway between Maine and Ontario.

But anyways, let's get to the comment. Brent says, "That's why these lessons are so good, natural spoken English. Even when you break the rules, you're showing learners how to correctly speak." And my response was this. "It just goes to show how strange this language can be. There are so many written rules that aren't followed in everyday speech. I guess we'll just have to keep explaining things."

So one of the cool things for me and not cool for you is that there are an endless amount of topics for me to talk about when it comes to teaching English. But that can make you feel a little bit overwhelmed. But I would just say this, keep working at it. It's not impossible to learn a language. People do it all the time. If you're feeling discouraged because there are so many things to learn, just keep at it. You'll do fine. I think for sure.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GET PAST and GET OVER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase get past. In its simplest form, it simply means to get by somebody or to get by something, to get to the other side. Maybe you're at a party and there is a snack table on the far side of the room. You might say to your friend, "I'm going to try and get past these people so that I can get some snacks." The other meaning I wanted to talk to you about, though, is best described by giving you some example sentences. You could say things like this. You could ask a friend, "Did you buy that red car you were looking at?" And your friend could say, "No, I couldn't get past the fact that it gets really bad gas mileage." Your friend could say, "Did you ask that person out on a second date?" And you could say, "No, I couldn't get past the fact that they chew with their mouth open." So I think that helps you understand that phrase.

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The second phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the phrase to get over. So again, two different definitions. If you are sick, you could say that it took you awhile to get over the flu, or it took you awhile to get over your cold. You could also use this, though, to talk about a time in your life that was very, very difficult. You could say, "After I broke up with my girlfriend, it took me a while to get over the breakup. It took me a while to feel normal and happy again." So again, two different definitions.

So once again, to get past something can mean to literally try to get by something to get to the other side, or it can mean that it's something you couldn't stop thinking about when you were making a decision. Again, I didn't buy the red car, because I couldn't get past the fact that it gets bad gas mileage. And to get over something can refer to a sickness, like it took me a while to get over the last cold I had. My nose was stuffed up for a long time. Or you could say, "It took me a long time to get over the breakup I had with my boyfriend or girlfriend."

Let's look at a comment, though, from a previous video. This comment is from Javier, and it was a great comment. Javier says, "Hey, Bob, don't teach us bad English. You just said in the video, there's too many people there. I'm joking. I know you natives do this every single day, despite people being plural. It's only natural, so it's normal we get used to hearing it. Have a nice day and jolly holidays as well." So interestingly enough, when we say there are, the contraction of there are in informal English speech, it's very informal, is there's. We go back to the singular. I'll give you some examples in a minute. My response was this. "Yes, you are right. In informal English, it is very common to shorten there are to there's. It is technically incorrect, but has definitely moved into everyday speech. I will continue to be natural."

So I do try to use as natural English as possible in these lessons, and from time to time, I use very informal English, which is technically incorrect, but is used all the time. Here are some examples with there are.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases EVERY SINGLE TIME and IT'S TIME TO...

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase every single time. When we use the phrase every single time, we're referring to something that happens over and over again and we add the word single when we talk about it to emphasize it. So you could say things like this, every time my brother borrows the car, he forgets to put gas in it, or if we wanted to emphasize it, we could say, every single time my brother borrows my car, he forgets to put gas in it. You could say this, you could say, every time we go to the park, there's too many people there. But if you really wanted to emphasize it, you could say every single time we go to the park, there are too many people there. So when you use the phrase every single time, it's for something that happens repeatedly, and when you want to talk about it in a way where you emphasize it.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase it's time to. This is a phrase that I often say when I'm in the house. I'll say, oh, it's time to go outside and make a video. It's time to go to work. We use this phrase usually to remind people of something. Parents use this phrase a lot when they're talking to their children. So you might say it's time to go to bed. It's time to brush your teeth. It's time to go to school. It is probably one of the most common phrases that parents use when they're talking to their children. It's time for you to get a job. I added for you in there, but sometimes when your kids get older, you say, Hey, it's time to get a job. It's not time to play video games. It's time to get a job.

So to repeat, to review. When you say every single time, it's the same as saying every time, but we add the word single just to emphasize what we're saying, and when you start a phrase by saying it's time to, you're simply indicating that right now is the right moment to do something.

So it's time to read a comment from a previous video. Did you see how I just used that phrase? Sorry. Sometimes I think I'm really, really funny and I'm probably not, but it's time to read a comment from a previous video. Let me see if I can find it. I put it in one of these pockets. I thought it was in my coat pocket. Nope, it's in my back pocket. Here we go.

This comment is from June, and June says, I tried to memorize the word umpteenth for the umpteenth time, but for some reason, it escapes me all the time. And my response was, this is one of the best example sentences based on a previous lesson that I've ever seen. Good work, June. So yesterday's lesson, I taught you the word umpteenth, and June has just a great example sentence there of how to use the word umpteenth. I do feel bad, though, yesterday, because I didn't teach the word umpteen. So we have the word umpteen and the word umpteenth, and here's the difference between the two. I could say that I've done this umpteen times, okay, or I feel like I'm doing this for the umpteenth time. Do you see the difference there? I can say things like it feels like I've done this for the umpteenth time. That's the word from yesterday. Or I've done this umpteen times, so there are two different words, I should have taught both of them. That would have been a good page flip yesterday if I had taught umpteen and umpteenth, but anyways, at least I had a small chance to explain it to you today.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English word UMPTEENTH and the phrase TO SLEEP LIKE BABY

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English word umpteenth. When you do something for the umpteenth time, it means that you've done it many, many times. You've done it so many times, you might not even remember how many times you have done it, so we use this word umpteenth. It doesn't represent an exact number. It simply means that you've done it many, many times. When I see the milk on the counter in the house, the milk's supposed to be in the fridge, I say to my kids, kids for the umpteenth time, put the milk away after you pour yourself a glass of milk. So, umpteenth is simply a word that is kind of like a number, but not an exact number. It just means a whole bunch, a whole bunch of times. It represents a really big number, but not an exact number. I hope I explained that well.

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The second phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the phrase to sleep like a baby. Now, this phrase has always been kind of funny to me, because to sleep like a baby means that you slept really well. If you say to someone, oh, last night I slept like a baby, it means that you had a very deep and restful sleep, but babies don't often sleep very well. Babies often cry in the night and don't sleep very well. But if you sleep like a baby, that means that you've slept well. If you work out, if you go for a run and you lift weights, you will probably sleep like a baby that night, because your body will be really tired and you'll have a nice deep and restful sleep.

So, to review when you do something for the umpteenth time, it just means you've done it a lot, and you're exaggerating a little bit, or just not giving an exact number. And then when you sleep like a baby, it means that you sleep really well. You just have a good, deep sleep and you wake up in the morning refreshed and ready to start your day.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ario, and Ario says, oh, sorry, my bad. This is from the video the other day about the phrase, my bad. Oh, sorry, my bad. I have used the word yupper, slang word, with my teacher. She says, are you ready? Me, yupper, and my response was this. My students have many ways of saying yes too. They say yup and yuppers and yeah and yepper and every version of the word yes that you could think of. They say yeah, they say okay, they say yoop, they say uh huh, they say, there are so many different ways that students respond in a positive way, saying yes. Usually I think it's yeah. That's probably the most common one. Did you do your homework? Yeah. Did you do your homework? Yup. Did you do your homework? Oh yeah. Yeah, sometimes they say no, though, of course. So, I should do a video someday on the variations on the word yes in the English language, because there are a ton of them. There are a ton of variations on that word.

So, thanks Ario for that comment, which it's actually laying on the ground over there. I let it go, so it's just laying down there now. Anyways, thanks for that comment, that was a good one. By the way, thank you to all of you who are regularly leaving comments.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases COMES WITH THE TERRITORY and TO COME ACROSS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, comes with the territory. When something comes with the territory. it means it's something that you can expect to be somewhere when you do something. Or, let me think here. There's gotta be a good example I can think of right now. Let's listen. If you can hear geese, you should know that when you make videos outside in Canada, hearing geese in the background comes with the territory. So when you say something comes with the territory, it means that something that you can expect. When you are a teacher, you will have students who listen to you and you will have students who misbehave. Having students misbehave in class is just something that comes with the territory. So when something comes with the territory, it's just normal for that situation. Can you hear geese? I really hope you can hear them. It just comes with the territory.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, come across. There's a number of different meanings for this phrase. The one I want to use refers to how someone seems to you or how someone appears to you. When you meet someone they can come across as a nice person. They can come across as not a very nice person. When I make videos using a camera, I try to come across as naturally and as authentically as possible. So when you come across, it's how you communicate either through a device or how you communicate to someone in person. It's what they think of you after you talk to them. So usually when I meet people, I try to just be myself. I want to come across as normal and authentic. I just want to be me. So I try to make sure I come across that way.

So let's review. When you say that something comes with the territory, it means it's normal for that situation. And when you come across a certain way, it's how people think or what people think you are like after they listen to you or talk to you. By the way, come across has about five or six different meanings but that's just one of them. Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.

This comment is from voiretvisite, a French name. And the comment is this. Hello, I am a teacher and I have an English speaking class. One of my students made a mistake and she said to me, "Oh, my bad!" She should not use this expression when she is speaking to her teacher, right? Because this expression is not formal. And my response was this, "Students will use this phrase sometimes." By the way, especially in a high school. It's not considered rude, but it's not polite either. It's sort of in between. In my upper level classes where I teach students who I've known for four years, it would not bother me. With new students, I would expect more respect.

So this is a tricky one. With young children, you probably wouldn't expect them to say, "My bad." With high school-aged students or university students, you might actually hear them use that phrase once in a while. By the way, thanks voiretvisite for that comment. This is from the lesson yesterday where I talked about the phrase, my bad, as a way to informally apologize for something. I do hear this phrase all the time.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expression MY BAD and the phrase FROM BAD TO WORSE

In this English lesson, I'd like to help you learn the English expression my bad. In English, if I say my bad to someone, it's an informal way of saying I'm sorry, or an informal way of saying it's my fault. If I was to be walking through the kitchen and I accidentally stepped on Jen's toe, and if she said, "Ouch, you stepped on my toe," I would say, "Oh, sorry, my bad." So I guess I added sorry in front of it, you don't always have to add sorry, but when you say my bad to someone, you are admitting that you did something wrong and you're kind of in an informal way, apologizing to them. Let me think of another example. If I was driving a grocery cart in the grocery store and I accidentally bumped into someone in front of me, I could say, "Oh, sorry, my bad." I guess I do say sorry when I say my bad, it's probably because I'm Canadian. You don't have to say sorry in front of it, you can just say my bad.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase from bad to worse. Sometimes in life things don't go well, and then something even worse happens and things go from bad to worse. A good example would be if you were driving your car and all of the sudden you got a flat tire, and while you were changing the flat tire, someone hit your car from behind. We would say that things went from bad to worse, okay? It was already bad enough that the tire on your car was flat, now someone has hit you from behind and now you have to get your car fixed as well. So in that situation, we would say that things went from bad to worse.

So to review, if you say to someone my bad, it's a very informal way of apologizing. If you say to someone, "Oh, my bad" you're basically saying I'm sorry, or whatever just happened was my fault. But it's very informal. You would use it with friends and siblings, like people in your family, you probably wouldn't use it at work. And the phrase from bad to worse is something we use when something is already not going well, and it starts to go even more badly. So things go from bad, like the situation where your tire was flat, to worse, the situation where in addition to the tire being flat, someone has hit your car from behind.

But, hey, let's look at a, let's look at a comment, I almost said concept. Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Azamjon, and Azamjon says, "Hey, how are you doing? I recently started following you, and the reason is you're concise and to the point." And my response was, "Thanks for noticing. I try to be as clear and concise as possible." So thank you Azamjon for that comment. And thank you for noticing that I do try my best to be as concise, which means use as few words as possible to explain something clearly. I try to usually define each of my phrases in less than a minute. I don't want these lessons to be super long. I don't want to do a 20-minute lesson where I only teach one or two phrases. I like to keep my videos, my English lessons as concise as possible. So I only try to use as many words as I need to, to explain the current concept at hand, or the lesson, the topic of the lesson. I do that on my other channel as well. I've been trying to make sure that I don't make really, really long videos. I know that you are all very busy people. I don't want to make an extremely long video if I don't have to. So I try to be as clear and concise as possible.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase OR SO and the suffix -ISH

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "or so." The best way for me to explain this phrase is to use it in a sentence. Let's say I was going to the store and as I'm leaving Jen says, "Hey, I need some apples." I could say, "How many apples do you need?" And she could say, "Oh, I don't know, around 10 or so." So when you say you need "around 10 or so," it means nine would probably be okay, 11 would be fine, maybe even 12. It means that Jen didn't need exactly 10 apples, she needed 10 or so. We also use this when we're talking about time. If my brother was coming over to visit and if he said, "What time should I come over tomorrow?" I could say, "Oh, I don't know, "around 10 or so, around 11 or so." So basically that means some time around 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock, and that he didn't have to be there at exactly 10 o'clock or 11.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today isn't actually a phrase, it's actually a suffix that we sometimes add to the end of words, and let me give you an example. Let's say you were looking at my van and you were trying to decide if it was blue or gray. It's, my one van is actually kind of in between those two colors. So you could say the van is bluish. You could say it's a grayish van. We also use this when we're talking about time. In the example where my brother was thinking of coming over, if he said, "What time should I come over?" I could say, "Why don't you come over around 10ish, "why don't you come over around 11ish?"

So you can see how both of these, let's review them, kind of mean the same thing. So if I was to say, "You need to get 10 or so apples," or, "You need to get about 10ish," that would be somewhere around 10. Maybe nine or 11 or 10 or 12, 13 or 14 would probably be too many. But anyways, these are two phrases we use when we're trying to talk about numbers but we don't need to be precise.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Let me get the comment out, it's in my back pocket. This comment is from Berevilson, and Berevilson says, "Hi Teacher Bob, you did an awesome job. "Even when having problems it is good for us, "because this way we are learning how to fix our mistakes. "Thanks a lot for your amazing work." And then my response was, "I decided on this channel "that you would always get the whole video, warts and all. "I think that just makes it more real for everyone. "Even English teachers make mistakes." So I used a little phrase in there, "warts and all." That's a phrase I don't think I've taught on this channel, but when you get something warts and all, it means you get the good parts and the bad parts. You get the pretty parts and the beautiful parts, and you get the ugly parts. When you get something "warts and all," you get the whole thing, and that's what I decided I would do on this channel.

Sometimes when I make these English lessons, I'll start recording a few times, but once I actually get going, once I'm making the video like I am now, I just let the camera run for four minutes, and you get the video warts and all. You get the English lesson warts and all. Do you know what warts are? Warts are things things that grow on your skin sometimes. I actually have a wart right here somewhere, I'm not showing you that. But warts are like a little brown bump, or I forget what we would call it. But it's just a place on your skin that has a little bit of a different color and maybe the skin is raised a little bit, so it's called a wart.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN COMMON and THE COMMON COLD

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase in common. When you have something in common with someone, it means you share the same experience or you share the same characteristics, here's a good example. One of the things that Jen and I have in common is that we both grew up on farms. So you can see that there's something about each of us that is the same. One of the things that all of you have in common, if you are watching this video, the thing you have in common is that you are all learning English. So in English, when you say that you have something in common with someone, it means that you're doing the same thing, or you share the same thing or the same experience. Let me try to think of one more example. One of the things that I have in common with many men who are my age is that my hair is starting to turn a little bit gray. So when you have something in common with someone, it means that there's something similar about the two of you.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase the common cold. In the winter, especially in Canada we get sick sometimes. One of the things we get is we get a cold, we get the cold so often, or we get a cold so often, sorry, a little mistake there. We get a cold so often that it is probably the most common thing for you to get in the winter here in Canada. So we call it the common cold, if you aren't sure what a cold is, a cold is when you have a stuffed up nose, maybe a little bit of a cough, I'm supposed to cough in my sleeve now, and you just don't feel well so you're a little bit sick. It's different than the flu. Where, when you have the flu, you usually have a fever and a stuffed up nose and a sore throat. When you have the cold, when you have a cold, or when you have the common cold, you can see why I'm making the mistake, right? Because we say, oh, I have a cold or you refer to it as the common cold. So the common cold is the most common illness for you to get here in the winter in Canada and in most places in the world.

So to review, when you have something in common with something I'm really having trouble speaking English today, aren't I? I think it's because it's so bright out, I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open. Let's review, when you have something in common with someone, it means that there's something similar about the both of you, there's something that is the same. Either an experience or how you look or something else. And the common cold is how we refer to the most common illness that you get in Canada in the winter and in most places in the world.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I'm laughing at myself because I feel like I'm doing a really bad job today, but I'm just gonna keep going. So hopefully you don't mind a slightly low quality lesson today. Anyways, here is a comment from Qiu Park. This is from yesterday's lesson where Qiu Park says, I like English musicals, and I have not listened to them for a long time. I'm gonna find some and listen to them, thank you Bob. And my response was musicals are awesome, Jen and I have only seen Mamma Mia. We'd love to start seeing more in the future. So if you don't know, a musical is a play, but where people sing during the play, and there are many musicals that you can go see, usually in the city of Toronto.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY and NEXT DOOR

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, window of opportunity. A window of opportunity is a period of time. It's an amount of time. Here's an example, I make these videos late in the day, but the days are getting really short right now because it is winter. So when I get home from work, there's a small window of opportunity where I can make this English lesson before it gets dark. There's only a certain amount of time where I can make this video. Another example would be this. Maybe your uncle works somewhere and you are looking for a job. And he knows that there is a job available at his company. He could say, Hey, they're going to advertise that there's a job. But there's a window of opportunity right now where you could apply for the job before they advertise. Before everyone else knows there's a job there. So a window of opportunity is just a period of time.

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The second phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the phrase, next door. I thought, since we talked about windows, we should talk about doors or at least a phrase with the word door in it. When you say that someone lives next door, it means that they are your neighbor. They basically live in the house right beside you. In fact, if you call someone your next door neighbor, they are the person that lives immediately beside you. Because you can have a neighbor that lives one or two doors down from you, but your next door neighbor is the person who lives right beside you. You can also use this phrase to refer to a building that's right beside another building or a store that's right beside another store. When we're shopping, if I was in a store and Jen says, "I'm just gonna go to the store next door, I'll be there when you're done shopping here." So you can refer to stores and buildings as well as being next door. So it simply means the next building beside you or the next house beside you.

So to review a window of opportunity is a period of time. The window of opportunity for me to make a video is slowly coming to an end out here. You can see I'm in the shadows. It's a little sunny over there, but it's gonna be dark in about an hour. And when you say that somebody lives next door, it means that they live right beside you or that they are your next door neighbor, which means they live right beside you as well.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from ILSUR and the comment is this, "By the way, Katy Perry has a song wide awake. And my response are yes. Sometimes when this song comes on the radio, we sing along, I'm wide awake." I was gonna try and sing it there, but I'm not a good singer. Thank you ILSUR for that comment. This was from the previous lesson where I talked about the phrase wide awake, which means to be completely and totally awake. And yes, Katy Perry has a song and the chorus or the refrain in the song is she sings, I'm wide awake. When this song comes on the radio though, the kids and I sometimes make up new phrases, we sing things like I baked a cake, instead of saying I'm wide awake or the leaves fell down we need to rake instead of I'm wide awake. I know it sounds silly. We're a bit of a silly family. So sometimes when the Katy Perry song comes on the radio, we make up new lyrics for it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WIDE OPEN and WIDE AWAKE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase wide open. We use this to describe something that is open, but that's all the way open. Once I came home from work and the front door to my house was wide open. Someone had left the house and they forgot to close the door, so the door was wide open. In my classroom, sometimes it gets really warm and students will have the window wide open when I walk in the classroom, and I'll say, "Close the window. You're wasting all of the heat." So when you say something is wide open, it means it's all the way open. We also use this phrase in a sport. So maybe you're playing a game like soccer and your teammate has the ball and you have none of the other team players around you, you could yell, "Pass to me, I'm wide open." In a sport, when you say you're wide open, it means no one is around you from the other team.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase wide awake. When you are wide awake, you are really, really awake. You know sometimes when you're sleeping and you have a bad dream and you wake up all of the sudden, usually at that point in the night, you are wide awake. You are more than just awake, you are really, really awake. I remember once I was driving, when I was younger, I was driving at night and I was on a really long trip, and while I was driving I got a little bit drowsy. When you're drowsy, it means you're almost falling asleep. And while I was driving, my head went like this, and it popped back up, and my eyes were wide open and I was wide awake. Did I just use wide open there? I did, didn't I? Well, that was really good. Anyways, after that, I was so scared, I was wide awake for hours.

So to review, once again, when something is wide open, like your eye, it means it's really, really open, or a door or a window, or if you're playing a sport and there's no one of the other team around you, you could yell to teammate, "Pass the puck to me." Yeah, see? If you're playing hokey. "Pass the puck to me, I'm wide open." And of course, wide awake means to simply be really, really, really awake.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Reniel. And Reniel says, "Hi, Bob, amazing English lesson. Thanks for sharing with us. I'm a Canadian like you, but French Canadian. Greetings from Montreal, Quebec, Canada ." And my response was, "You're welcome. Cool to hear from a fellow Canadian. I hope you're having a good day over there in Quebec." So thank you, Reniel, for that. I hope I'm saying your name correctly. Very cool to hear from a fellow Canadian.

By the way, that's how you refer, in English, to someone who is from the same country as you. If you were from the United States, you would refer to someone from the same country as you as a fellow American. When I talk about other Canadians, I talk about fellow Canadians. So it means they're from the same country as me. Cool that Reniel is from the French-speaking part of Canada.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases DUE TO and IN DUE TIME

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase due to. A little while ago, in a comment on a previous video a viewer named Hassane, asked me to talk about the word due. Due to means that you are doing something because of something. Due to the bright sun and the snow reflecting the light, I am wearing sunglasses and a hat with a brim. I'm doing that due to the fact that it's really, really bright out here. I'm doing that because it is really bright. So when you do something due to something else, it means because of. It's a direct replacement, pretty much. So, due to the very bright conditions out here, I am wearing sunglasses and a ball cap with a brim so that I can see. 'Cause otherwise I have to squint. Like it's really bright. The snow really reflects the sunlight and it's just really hard to see. So that's better. Anyways, due to means because of.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase in due time. So another phrase for you Hassane with the word due in it, when something happens in due time, it happens at the correct time. So let's say students say to me, "When are you going to hand back that test that we did last week?" I would say in due time. What that means is that I'm going to take the right amount of time to grade the test and I'm going to hand it back, not late, not early, I'm going to hand it back in due time. I'm going to do a good job. I'm going to thoroughly look over the tests and I'll hand them back in due time.

So to review when something happens due to something else, it means that it happens because of something else. And when something happens in due time, it means that it happens at the right time I think. Sometimes I think to myself, students want their tests back immediately, but then I would end up grading them really quickly, and I probably wouldn't do a good job. So it's best to hand them back in due time.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. It's all crumpled up in my pocket, sorry. This is from Natalia Illusion. It's crumpled up due to the fact that I had it in my pocket. There, another good sentence for you. Natalia, hi Natalia. By the way, we should chat some time again Natalia. Natalia and I talked during the summer via Zoom. It was really fun. But I hope things are going well for you over there in Russia. Natalia says, "No one strikes up a conversation with Bob calling them, "Hey Bob, the Canadian. Because everyone around Bob knows English, so they probably don't subscribe to this channel and most importantly, they are Canadians too." And my response was, "That's true, most people in Canada don't have any idea that I have a YouTube channel. I like it that way." So, you know what's unique for me being a YouTuber is that most people in my town, most people in my area don't even know I have a YouTube channel. I would never claim to be famous, but I do have a few subscribers on my YouTube channel, on the bigger one, but people don't usually recognize me. And I kind of like that. I like the fact that the vast majority of my viewers are from other places in the world. Because I didn't start this YouTube channel to get millions of subscribers.

I didn't start this YouTube channel so people would know who I am. In fact, I'm more comfortable with people not knowing who I am. I'm a very private person. When you describe someone in English as being private, they don't like being out in public.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases STRIKE UP and STRIKE ONE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, strike up. We use this phrase mostly when we're talking about starting a conversation with someone. If I go somewhere and I see someone I know on the other side of the room, I might walk over and strike up a conversation with them. If I'm at a party and there's a person that I really want to talk to, at some point I might walk over and I might strike up a conversation with them. So again, when you strike up a conversation with someone, it means simply that you go and you start having a conversation with them. You go and you start talking to them. If I was in an airport and someone recognized me and said, "Bob, the Canadian," I would probably strike up a conversation with them. That would be really cool, by the way, if I ran into someone who knew who I was. That's never happened. Even though I have many, many subscribers on YouTube, no one has ever yelled out in public, "Hey Bob, the Canadian," and then struck up a conversation with me.

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Anyways, the second phrase I wanna teach you today is the phrase, strike one, and also strike two and strike three. Baseball is a sport where you have a number of chances to hit the ball. But if you swing and miss it's strike one. We use this phrase when we're talking to people as well. I actually use it with my students when they're not behaving well in class. I'll say to a student, "Look, you really need to stop talking and you need to get your work done. And because I need to warn you that's strike one." Okay, then the student knows that if I catch them talking and not doing their work again, it will be strike two. And then when we get to strike three, I'll probably make them go and talk to the principal.

So once again, to review, when you strike up a conversation, it means you start having a conversation with someone. And when you use the strike system, when you tell someone that, "That's strike one," you mean that they have been warned. They have two more chances and then something's going to happen that they probably won't like.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. Sorry, I'm sitting out here sort of in the rain. I'm actually underneath the hatch of my van right now, because it's raining a little bit. So my camera's out of the rain, but I'm still kind of in it. But let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Padma and Padma says, "Hello, teacher Bob. When I see certain," sorry, "When I see certain titles of your videos, I always think these phrases are so unusual. But then on the TV show, "Friends," I hear many of them. And I say, "Oh, they are so common." And my response is this. "I'm happy to hear that. I get all of my phrases from everyday conversations. I'm always on the lookout for phrases that native English speakers use when I'm talking to them. And then I write them down quickly so that I can make a lesson about it. It has left me thinking that English is a bit of a strange language." So yeah, that one of the side-effects of teaching English is that as I study the English language, in order to teach it to you, I've been starting to realize that the language is kind of strange. Sorry, I forgot to thank Padma. Thanks Padma, for the comment.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SPOKEN FOR and YOU'RE SPEAKING MY LANGUAGE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "spoken for." If something is "spoken for," it means that someone has claimed it or someone has said that they want it. Here's a good example. If I had two cookies on a plate, and if my son said, "I would like the cookie on the left, but I need to do some homework first I'll come back and get it later." And then if my daughter came and said, "I want the cookie on the left," I would say, "you can't have it." It is spoken for. What I mean by that is my son already said he wanted it. So he has claimed it or asked for it for himself. So when something is spoken for, it means that someone has said that they want it and someone just can't take it at that point in time. When we sell things at market, sometimes someone is interested in a bouquet and as they're looking for other things, someone else wants it. But we say, no, no, that one's spoken for. Someone else has already said that they want it.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "speaking my language." When you say that someone is "speaking your language," it means that they are agreeing with you, or they're saying something you like. It doesn't mean that they're actually speaking your language. I mean it can mean that. If I hear someone speaking English, I can say, hey, you're speaking my language. But what we usually use this for is if someone says something we agree with. If someone says to me, "Bob, we should go have something to eat, I'm hungry." I could say, "ah, you're speaking my language." If someone said, "Bob, we should maybe go and visit Niagara Falls sometime, and we should spend a good day there looking at all of the sites." I could say, "ah, you're speaking my language." So in English, when you say that someone is speaking your language, or if you say you're speaking my language, it means that you agree with them, that they are saying something that you are also excited about.

So to review, if something is spoken for, it means that someone has claimed it. Someone has already said that they want it. And if you say that someone is, if you say, hey, you're speaking my language. It means that someone is saying something that makes you excited and that you agree with.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Jil or J-I-L and Jil says, "does keep up refer exclusively to physical speed? I mean, could I use it to tell someone to work as hard as I do or do as I do?" And my response was this. It can refer to other things as well. If two people are doing the same job, one can try to keep up with, with the other. So that was from J-I-L. Thank you so much for that comment. And this was from the lesson on the phrase to keep up. Again when you try to keep up with someone, you try to go the same speed as them, and it can apply to a whole bunch of things. It can, of course apply to walking. If I'm walking fast, I can tell someone to try to keep up with me.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases KEEP UP and KEEP OUT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, keep up. When you tell someone to keep up it means you want them to go the same speed as you. Often times when I'm walking somewhere my children walk a little bit more slowly than I do, and I'm often saying to them, try to keep up. Try to walk the same speed as dad. Most times I slow down a bit. I'm not a mean dad, but sometimes they just walk a little too slowly. They dawdle a little bit. There's a new word for you probably. So, when you tell someone to keep up it means you want them to go the same speed as you. Maybe you're driving somewhere in two separate cars and you might tell your friend who is driving in the other car, try to keep up with me. I don't want to get separated when we're on the highway. So, when you try to keep up with someone it means that you're trying to go the same speed as them.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, keep out. You will often see this phrase on signs and it means that you should not enter whatever has this sign on it. If a building has a sign that says keep out don't go in that building. If a place that you are visiting has a sign that says keep out, don't enter that property. It's just a place where you are not supposed to go. Sometimes the sign will say, do not enter. Sometimes the sign will say, keep out. Sometimes the sign will say, no trespassing. But, they all mean the same thing. It's a place that you are not supposed to go into or visit. So, if you were to come to my farm, if I had a sign that said keep out, it means that you shouldn't come on my property. I don't have a sign like that though. Maybe I should get a sign like that someday. Not a lotta people visit way out here in the country, so it's not a problem right now.

Anyways, to review. If you tell someone you want them to keep up it means you want them to go the same speed that you are going. And if you tell someone to keep out or if you see a sign that says keep out, it means that you should not enter.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Vladimir and Vladimir says, how is it going, Mr. Bob? Tell me please what's your favorite exercise for learning French and why. Thanks. And my response was this. My favorite thing is to watch French TV. I usually watch a good series every month. Right now I'm finishing up Dix Pour Cent which is a French show, by the way, which is really funny. After that I would say having a conversation each week with my French friend. We talk for 30 minutes in French on Zoom and then for 30 minutes in English. So Vladimir, thank you so much for that comment. I think this is actually a comment from a couple of days ago. But, thank you for that comment. It's a good one.

I think it's always good to know what people's favorite thing to do is when they're studying a language. It was cool to see the results of the survey that I did a little while ago on my other channel. It was cool to see that a lotta people liked certain things and other people liked other things. And yeah, I think listening is my favorite thing to do. Certainly watching French television shows and listening to French music are two of my favorite things. But, I really like talking to my French friend every week. We've been talking since last spring. It's a great exchange. If any of you can find a language exchange partner, it's just a wonderful way to practice your English while you're teaching someone else your native language. So, it works really well.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English term HUSH-HUSH and the phrase THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term hush-hush. If I say something to you and then say, don't tell anyone else, it's hush-hush. Or if I say it's very hush-hush right now, it means that you shouldn't be telling it to someone else either. In fact, I probably shouldn't have told you in the first place. So when something is hush-hush, it means that it's a secret. Right now, we're talking at school about the possibility of having a longer Christmas break than normal. So the teachers are talking about it, but it's very hush-hush right now. We don't want to tell the students that we might be doing that because we don't want them to get too excited about it. But as teachers, we're starting to think about maybe having a longer Christmas break, but right now it's hush-hush. It's very hush-hush right now. As teachers, we're not supposed to talk to the students about it, because if we do, they'll plan trips and they'll plan to do things that they're not supposed to be doing. So it's kind of a secret. It's hush-hush.

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Why am I making a video about it then? Because it's something that might happen. It isn't for sure. So if you are my students, watching this video, Christmas break is the same length as normal, as of now, okay? It's not gonna be any longer. We don't think it will be. We'll see. Who knows what will happen?

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the long and the short of it. I used this in my video yesterday for my members only. I said, well, that's the long and the short of it. When you talk about something and you describe it in detail, you've described the long and the short of it. And we often, in English, will finish talking about something by saying, well, that's the long and the short of it. So if I was to teach you an English lesson on a certain topic, and if I was done teaching that lesson, I could end by saying, well, hopefully you understood the lesson. That's the long and the short of it. Basically what I'm saying is that's everything you need to know about this topic. So that's the long and the short of it for teaching you two terms today.

Again, hush-hush means that something is a secret. If something is hush-hush, or if you say it's very hush-hush right now, it means that it's a secret and you're not supposed to talk about it. And when you end talking about something by saying, that's the long and the short of it, you're basically saying, you've talked about everything that you needed to talk about.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Lay. And Lay says, I drank a lot last night and now I am paying the price. Is it correct? And my response was, yes. Great work. Totally correct. So yesterday's lesson was on paying the price, or when you pay the price for doing something. How it can mean more than just money. And Lay's example here is about drinking. So sometimes if you go out, if you are someone who consumes alcoholic beverages, if you drink too much, you definitely pay the price the next day.

Many of you gave examples in the comments of things you pay the price for. Some people said things like, I went to bed too late last night, and today I'm paying the price. Or, some people said I didn't study hard enough for a test, and now, today I'm going to write the test, and I'm gonna pay the price. So I think you understood the concept of paying the price. It doesn't always have to do with money. Sometimes it's just a matter of you do one thing in life and it ends up costing you in some way later.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE PRICE YOU PAY and PAY THE PRICE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "the price you pay." When we talk about price, we're not always talking about money. Sometimes we say things like this, "When you are a rock star and you go out, there are usually lots of people at the end of your driveway who want to take your picture. That's the price you pay for being famous." Sometimes we say things like this, "When you are in government, when you are a government official, maybe you are a prime minister or a president, people will often complain about the things that you do but that's just the price you pay when you are a leader." So we're not talking about money but when you describe something as the price you pay, it's a different kind of cost for that sort of thing. One of the prices you pay as a parent is that you often do many things for your children and they don't always say, "Thank you." That's just the price you pay for being a parent.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is similar but a little bit different, and it's the phrase "pay the price." The best example I can think of for this phrase is this, "When I exercise really hard, I usually pay the price the next day." What I mean by that is this. If I exercise really hard, the next day I'm really sore. All of my muscles are really sore and I have a lot of aches and pains. So you would say that when you exercise hard one day, you pay the price the next day. So again, we're not talking about paying with money. There's other kinds of costs in the world. So when you exercise hard, usually you pay the price the next day. In fact, if I was to go and play hockey or go skating right now, I would definitely pay the price tomorrow. I would feel really sore tomorrow if I went skating today. I should do that soon though, shouldn't I?

To summarize the two phrases again, "the price you pay" is usually when you describe something that has a cost other than money. Again, the price you pay for being a parent is sometimes your children don't say, "Thank you," for things. And then the second phrase, "to pay the price." Sometimes when you do something, you pay the price the next day. So another way to say this would be, if you're just mean to people your whole life, eventually you pay the price because people start being mean to you.

So let's look at a comment though from a previous video. This comment is from Om, and Om says, "It's a very nice view behind you with the snow falling during the lesson." So this was from yesterday's lesson where it was snowing. And my response was, "Sometimes the background is more interesting than the lesson LOL." And then I put a little snowman and a snowflake and my little emoji of me wearing sunglasses.

Thanks Om for that comment. Yeah, so it was snowing yesterday. You can still see some snow behind me on the ground. I like it when it snows and the snow stays. I don't like it when it all melts right away.

But yes, I decided long ago that if I was going to make English lessons on YouTube, two things were going to be true. Either the lesson was interesting or what was behind me would be interesting. So at least people would like watching the video. I think usually I'm fairly interesting. The lesson is usually fairly interesting. And what happens behind me or what is behind me is also a little bit interesting. But a while ago someone said I should stop doing my English lessons outside.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases UP TO ME and UP IN ARMS

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, up to me. If something is up to me, it means that I get to decide it. If something is up to you, it means you get to decide it. Right now, if I wanted to go eat in a restaurant, it's not up to me. The government has said that we're not allowed to. Another thing about the phrase, up to me, is when our children have a birthday, it is up to them to decide what we have for supper. So my son is having a birthday this month, and he gets to decide what we eat for supper on his birthday. It is up to him. So, if something is up to me, it means I get to decide it. If something is up to you, it means that you get to decide it.

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The other phrase I wanted to look at today is the phrase, up in arms. When you are up in arms about something, sorry, I'm trying something new with my papers today. When you are up in arms about something, it means you are really, really upset about it. Right now, still in the United States, many people are up in arms about the results of the election. They are very upset about the results. I think if I told my son on his birthday that he wasn't allowed to decide what we have for supper, he would probably be up in arms about it, he would be very, very upset that he didn't get to decide what we got to eat.

So, to review once again. If you say something is up to me, it means I get to decide. So, sometimes things aren't up to me though. But if something was up to me, it means I get to decide. If something was up to you, it means you get to decide, but sometimes it's up to the government to decide, or it's up to your boss to decide. That's not always the most enjoyable, but I think overall rules and laws are good. The other phrase, again, was the phrase, up in arms. When you are up in arms about something it means you are really, really upset about it. By the way, I'm not up in arms about the weather today. I'm actually kinda happy about it. It's one of the first little snow falls, here in Ontario, Canada.

Let's look, though, at a comment from a previous video, this comment is from Alex, and Alex says, "Hello, teacher Bob. "I had noticed the kitten behind your back as I was watching the video. "It looked nice, is it yours?" And my reply was, "Yes, technically it is mine, "but it really is my daughter's. "She's the one who spends time with it. "I'm the one that buys the cat food." I think you probably understand what I'm saying there. Technically, I own the cat, but I'm not the one that plays with the cats every day. So, I'm the one who buys the food, I'm the one who buys things to take care of the cats, but it's really my daughter who plays with the cats. So in the cat's mind, my daughter is their owner because the cats don't really like me that much.

By the way, that was from a previous video. Thanks Alex, for that comment. Yes, in the previous video at the beginning, there's a kitten that walks past, and then it walks past again just a little while later. And I think that kitten's name is Pumpkin. So there are actually two kittens that look exactly alike, they are both kind of that orange color. So my daughter, I asked her earlier, I said, "What are the names of those two little kittens?"

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO TOY WITH and LIKE A KID WITH A NEW TOY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "toy with." When you toy with something, it means you are thinking about it. Sometimes I toy with the idea of not working. I toy with the idea of maybe learning a new language. When you toy with an idea, it means you kind of play around in your mind with that idea. You think about, what would life be like if I spoke three or four languages? What would life be like if I had a different job? So you toy around with the idea in your mind. I think that's why we have the word toy in this phrase, because you're playing around with the idea. Maybe some of you toy with a lot of different ideas. Maybe you toy with the idea of working somewhere else. Maybe you toy with the idea of maybe starting a business someday, or you toy with the idea of maybe speaking more than two or three languages.

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The next phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase "like a kid with a new toy." When you say that someone is like a kid with a new toy, it means that they've bought something, and they're so excited about it, they're like a little kid. The best example I can give is this. There are many people in my area that drive pickup trucks. They like to drive pickup trucks. And when they get a new pickup truck, even if they are 30 or 40 or 50 years old, they are like a kid with a new toy. So even though they've spent 60 or $70,000 on their pickup truck, they're so excited, they're like a kid with a new toy. They're just, they talk about it, they drive it everywhere, again, they can't stop talking about it. They're like a kid with a new toy.

So to review, when you toy with an idea, it means you're thinking about it and playing around with it in your mind, and when you describe someone as being like a kid with a new toy, you're describing an adult who has just bought something, and they are so excited, they seem like they're a child again.

Hey, let's look at a comment from yesterday's video. This comment is from the video where I talked about the phrase "nowhere to be found," and this comment is from Jacques. And Jacques has a great comment, he says, "Hi, Bob, your keys were nowhere to be found. Did you look in every nook and cranny? Did you search high and low? Best regards." And my response was, "Yes, when my kids are nowhere to be found, I search high and low, I look in every nook and cranny. Great phrases, Jacques. Thanks for sharing them." So yes, thank you very much, Jacques, for sharing those phrases. I don't think I've talked about the phrase "high and low." When you look for something, sometimes in English we say that we, like, I looked high and low. I looked in all the high places, and I looked in all the low places. Sometimes we say when we are looking for something that we looked high and low. I think I might have talked about the phrases "nook and cranny" before. If I did, I'll put a link up there. It's probably a short lesson from a year or two ago, but definitely, when you are looking for something, you look in every nook and cranny, and you definitely search high and low for it.

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Read long to learn the English Phrases NOWHERE TO BE FOUND and IN PLAIN SIGHT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, nowhere to be found. When something is nowhere to be found, it means you can't find it. I'm not sure why we don't just say that we can't find it, but we often will say that it's nowhere to be found. Sometimes when I'm leaving for work, I can't find my keys. I look in every room in the house and I say to Jen, "Jen, my keys are nowhere to be found. Have you seen them?" So it's simply a way of describing something that you can't find. I also use this phrase quite a bit when I'm looking for the remote control when I want to watch TV. I'll say to my kids, "Guys, the remote control is nowhere to be found, who used it last and where did you put it?" So when you say that something is nowhere to be found, it means that you can't find it. And you could use this with a person as well. Like if someone disappeared, you could say that they are nowhere to be found

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase in plain sight. Sometimes when my keys are nowhere to be found, when I do eventually find them, they're usually somewhere in plain sight. They're usually just laying on my desk, beside my computer or just laying on the kitchen table. When something is in plain sight, it means that it's not hidden, it's not hard to find, it's right there where you are looking. So often when I lose my keys, which does happen once in a while by the way, when I do find them, they are just laying somewhere in plain sight. Usually the kitchen table, sometimes by my desk. It's rare that I actually lose my keys permanently. Although that did happen once in my life. And I had to get new keys for everything. That was not enjoyable. Anyways, to review, when you say that something is nowhere to be found, it simply means that it's lost. And when you say that something is in plain sight, it means that it's laying somewhere and it's completely obvious, if you walk by, you would just see it.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Renald. And Renald says, "I'm 59 years old and I think it's never too late to learn new languages. And it's very good to keep my brain healthy." My response was this, "That's a great point, Renald. For sure, learning a language helps keep the mind sharp. I plan to learn another language someday, other than French and English for that very reason." So thanks Renald for that comment. And that was from the lesson yesterday or two days ago where I talked about saying it's never too late to start learning English, or it's never too late to start something new. So Renald makes a good point though. When you learn a language, especially later in life, it's really good for your brain. It helps keep your brain sharp. If you only do the things that you always do and you never try something new, that's not good for your brain. It's really good for your brain to do new things all the time.

So what's my plan? As Renald said, he's 59 years old, I think when I'm that old in about 10 or 11 years, I'm not gonna tell you exactly, I would love to start learning a third language, maybe even a fourth language, but I don't want to get too far ahead of myself. I certainly think that when I'm that age, I hope that I will be working a little bit less and I hope that I will have some time to do something like learn a new language. What language? I'm not sure.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT'S NEVER TOO LATE and RUNNING LATE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, it's never too late. This is a phrase that we say when someone thinks maybe they're too old, or they just don't feel like starting something because they don't think they'll get done on time. And then we'll say it's never too late. Recently, I've had a number of questions from viewers who have said, "I'm 50 years old," or "I'm 60 years old. Is it too late for me to start learning English?" And my reply is, "It's never too late." It's never too late, in my opinion, to start learning a language. I think learning the English language at a young age is awesome. Learning the English language when you are older is also just as awesome. I know some of you are semi-retired or retired. And I think that I would say to you, it's never too late to start learning the English language or to start perfecting your knowledge of English.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase running late. The reason I want to teach you this phrase is because I'm running late right now. It is Monday morning. I know you're watching this on a Tuesday. And I need to be at work in about 15 minutes, but I thought I would come outside and quickly make this video so that it was done. But I think, right now, I'm running late. If you don't know what this means, I think you're starting to understand. When you are running late, it means that you are going to be late for something. I might be a little bit late for work today. We'll see. I might drive a little fast. Not necessarily over the speed limit, but I might drive a little fast on the way to work.

So, anyways, to review, when you say to someone it's never too late, you're simply encouraging them that it's a good time. That any time is a good time to start working on something or to start doing a project. And when you are running late, it simply means you're late. You're not actually running at all. You're just simply late. So, hopefully I'm not late for work. Although, you know what, if I am, I don't think it's that big of a deal. I have been late for work, maybe three times in my life. I'm hardly ever late for work. I'm sure it will not be a problem.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Arefe, and Arefe says, "It's interestingly," oh, sorry, "Interestingly," sorry. I'm having trouble speaking English today. "Interestingly, the first phrase is the opposite of the second phrase. Thanks a lot." So yesterday, I looked at the phrases, on my mind. And what was the other one? Slipped my mind. And they're kind of the opposite, right? Slipped my mind means you forgot something. On my mind means you're thinking about something. My reply was yes, they do mean the opposite of each other. I was a bit forgetful over the weekend. So the first phrase was one that I used on Saturday. The second phrase I chose simply because it also has the word mind in it. I like to make the phrases match a bit, even if the meanings are completely different.

So just a little bit of insight, again, into the process I use to create these videos. I'm always on the lookout for a phrase. On Saturday, I was supposed to do something and I forgot to do it. And then later in the day, Jen actually asked if I had done what I was supposed to do. And I said to her, "Ah, no, it slipped in my mind." And then as soon as I said, "It slipped my mind," I went to my computer and I added that phrase to the list of phrases that I wanted to teach.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT SLIPPED MY MIND and ON MY MIND

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "It slipped my mind." When you say it slipped my mind, what you're really saying is that you forgot something. Let's imagine that it was my mom's birthday yesterday. It wasn't, but let's just imagine it was my mom's birthday. And let's say I forgot to call her and I forgot to wish her a Happy Birthday. Today, Jen could say to me, "Hey, did you call your mom yesterday, it was her birthday." And I could reply by saying, "Ah no, it slipped my mind." Simply meaning that I forgot to call her. You can emphasize this a bit more by saying things like, "It totally slipped my mind" or "It completely slipped my mind." But certainly if you say, "It slipped my mind." you're simply admitting that you forgot something.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, "On my mind." When you say that something is on your mind, it means you are thinking about it. When you say that someone is on your mind, it means that you are thinking about them. So if I was to say that, all of my viewers, all of you who are learning English, "You're always on my mind, when I'm thinking about "what to teach you next." I'm always trying to figure out, what would my viewers like to learn next. What should my next English lesson be about? So, at certain points during the week, all of you are certainly on my mind. So to review, if you say to someone that something slipped your mind, if you say, "Ah, that totally slipped my mind", or if you say, "Ah, that completely slipped my mind." It means that you just forgot about it. And if something is on your mind, or if someone is on your mind, it means that you are thinking about them.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This was a great comment, this was from Eduardo. And Eduardo said, "I need a new notebook, nice phrases Bob." and then a thumbs up. And I said, "Nice, you've filled one already? "That's great." So that was great to hear Eduardo, thanks for leaving the comment and letting me know that. It's cool to hear that, if I'm understanding you correctly, it's cool to hear that you've already filled up a notebook. That as you are studying English and as you watch my videos and probably other videos, you're kind of keeping notes. You're writing things down as you continue to learn new things. So, I do feel bad that you need to go buy a new notebook, because you have to spend some money, but at the same time, I think it's really cool that you've filled a notebook. I think I'm understanding you correctly. Hopefully your dog didn't chew up your notebook, hopefully you didn't lose your notebook. Hopefully you need a new notebook because you've been learning lot's of phrases from me and from other people. So, anyways, awesome Eduardo. Thanks for leaving that comment.

By the way, for the rest of you, do leave a comment. I do read all of them. I don't always answer all of them, I don't always have time, but it's really nice when you take the time to leave a comment. And it's good practice for you, it's good writing practice.

You might be wondering what I'm doing sitting in my house today. As you know, I usually do these short lessons outside. I don't think I've done very many in my house. I think I can count on one hand the number of short English lessons I've done for this channel in my house, but here I am in my house.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GRASPING AT STRAWS and THE LAST STRAW

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, grasping at straws. When you are grasping at straws, you want something to be true or you want something to be right but you know you have very little chance of proving it or getting it. Here's a great example. Let's say you answered a question on a math test and the answer was eight and you wrote six instead of eight. If you went to the teacher and said, sir, I wrote six instead of eight but if you look at the six, it's sort of looks like an eight or if the student said, you know sir, I wrote six but I meant to write eight. Now that I know the answer was eight, I really meant to write eight. We would say that that student is grasping at straws, they're trying to find ways to prove something was right and they have very little evidence and it just isn't true. So when you are grasping at straws, you are trying to make something seem like it was correct when it wasn't.

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The second phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase, the last straw. The last straw, I guess the best way to look at this is if you have an argument or fight with someone, you usually have it right after the last straw, something was the last straw. Maybe you have a friend who constantly says things about you that bother you a little bit. And they say things all the time and you never really mentioned it, they kind of maybe like yesterday, I said they make fun of your hair or they say unkind things about you and then one day you just it's the last straw, they do that one last thing that really upsets you and you just yell at them or have an argument with them, we would say that that is the last straw.

So to review, when you are grasping at straws, you are trying to desperately prove that something is true when probably even in your own heart you know it's not true. So you're using any argument you can to try and prove it's true. And when something is the last straw, it's like that last thing that happens before you get angry or before you have an argument, it's the last straw.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Vladimir and Vladimir says this, "Hi, Bob, how are you doing? "I would be grateful if you could explain "the difference between the words bald and bold. "How do you pronounce them? "These words have similar pronunciation "but various meanings, thanks for answering "and have a great weekend." And I said, I will do this at the end of my next video. So this was from yesterday's video. I thought this was a great one to talk about.

So first of all bald, bald, I'm not bald, you can see right here though. I'm not sure what's happening here. I think this is just gray hair but it could be the beginning of my hair falling out, maybe in a few years when you're watching Bob The Canadian, I might be bald. I don't think that's happening yet. But a bald person is a man that has no hair. Generally women don't lose their hair. Actually I don't much about men and women who go bald so let's just stick with the fact that I can tell you this.

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Read long to learn the English Phrases BUILD SOMEONE UP and TEAR SOMEONE DOWN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase build someone up. When you build someone up, it means you say nice things about them. It means you say things that make them feel good about themselves. When students in my classes do really good work, I tell them. I say things like, "You did a good job on this project, "this is an excellent poster that you made." I say positive things to make them realize that they did excellent work, I do that to build them up. You can also do this when you give compliments to people. If someone gets a haircut and you really like it, you could say, "Hey, I really like your haircut." This might build someone up. It might make them feel just a little bit more confident and a little happier about themselves. So when you build someone up, it means you say nice, positive things about someone or something they did so that they feel better about themselves.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the opposite, and that's the phrase tear someone down. And this is exactly the opposite. When you say things that make someone feel bad about themselves, we say that you're tearing them down. Let's say you hear two students at school or two kids talking to each other, and one says, "I think your hair is ugly," or, "I think that you are just not a very nice person "and I don't like you." Those would be phrases that would be tearing someone down. Recently, I don't wanna name names, but recently there was someone in politics who tended to say negative things about other people, he tended to tear people down a bit. So when he was talking on the news, it was quite common for him to tear someone down. It was quite common for this person to say negative things about other people.

And I like the other phrase better, to review, I think it's always better to build someone up. Now, this doesn't mean you would lie to someone, but it means that when someone does something good or when they create something that's awesome, you tell them. You say that it is good, you say that to build them up. And then, if someone is mean, sometimes they say things that tear other people down. It's not nice to tear someone down, I think you know me well enough from watching my videos that I prefer to build someone up. I don't like it when people tear each other down, it's not very nice.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Rose, and the comment is this, "What kind of camera are you using? "The quality of the video is really good." Well, thanks, Rose, and my response was, "I use a Canon SL2 "with a 10 to 18 millimeter wide angle lens. "It isn't an overly expensive camera, "but it does the trick." So I used a little English phrase in there, did you hear that? It does the trick. A few years ago, I was just using my cellphone to make these little English lessons, and my son, who is an avid photographer, when you're avid, when you're an avid photographer, it means you really like taking pictures, he said, "Dad, "you wanna buy my used camera? "I'd like to buy a new one."

So I bought this camera that I'm using now, it's a Canon SL2. I think it has a different name in some other parts of the world, I think it's a Canon 200D if you're in Europe or somewhere in Asia. But it wasn't expensive, but it does the trick. When you say in English that something does the trick, it means it does what you need it to do. So it's been a reliable little camera for me, I think I've made quite a few videos using this camera now.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ENOUGH ALREADY and ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "Enough already." This is a phrase that we say sometimes loudly when we're frustrated and we want something to stop. A great example would be when my kids are fighting, sometimes I'll say, "Enough already, enough already. "It's time for you to stop fighting "and it's time for you to be nicer to each other." Right now, whenever I turn on the news, it's about the United States, it's about the election and how they're still counting ballots, and I just wanna say, "Enough already." In fact, the other night, last night, I wanted to watch the news. I thought I'll watch the BBC news. Instead of the Canadian news, I'll watch the news from the United Kingdom, from Britain, and when I turned it on, it was about the U.S. election. I was like, "Ah, enough already." Basically what I'm saying is I've heard enough. I'm sure there's other things happening in the world and I'd like to know about that instead of the U.S. election.

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The other phrase I want to teach you today is very similar, and it's the phrase "enough is enough." This is exactly the same phrase. Let's use both examples again. When my kids are fighting or arguing, I could say, "Hey, enough is enough. "It's time for you to stop fighting." I don't usually try to figure out who was wrong when my kids are fighting. I usually just try to make them stop fighting. Because if you have children, if you ever try to figure out who started the fight, it's pretty challenging. So sometimes I just say, "Hey enough is enough. "Stop fighting, quiet down, and just apologize to each other "and let's move on." And the same is true for me right now. Sorry, I just wanna apologize to Brent because I love the United States, it's a great country, but right now when I turn on the news and it's about the election again, I just wanna say "Enough is enough." When I see people protesting, I just wanna say "Enough is enough everybody. "Just, let's just let this election finish, "let's see who won and move on from here."

So to review, if you say "Enough already," or if you say "Enough is enough," you are basically frustrated, and you're saying this expression 'cause you want people to stop whatever they're doing.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Qiu Park, and Qiu Park says, "If I do my homework very well, "I would not get worked up, thank you, Bob." My response was, "Very true. "The opposite is also true. "If you don't do your homework, you might get worked up." So this was from yesterday's lesson where I talked about the phrases "do your homework," meaning more than just a kid doing their homework. When you research something you can say you're doing your homework, and that you get worked up if things don't go your way. Sometimes you get upset, either frustrated, emotionally upset, like crying or angry. There's a lot of different ways to get worked up.
There's some cats fighting over there. I don't know if you heard that. Here, I'll use an English phrase. Cats, enough already, okay. Enough is enough. Stop fighting with each other. I don't know what it is. The cats have been fighting with each other lately. I don't know why. Sometimes the cats are just not very happy and they fight quite a bit.

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Read long to learn the English Phrases DO YOUR HOMEWORK and WORKED UP

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase do your homework. Now, you might think that homework is something that children do at night after the school day is over, and that's true, but we use the phrase do your homework to talk about other things as well. Let's say you're going to buy a new vehicle. before you buy that vehicle, you're going to want to do your homework. That means you'll want to research whether it gets good fuel mileage. You'll want to research whether it's expensive to repair that vehicle. You'll want to know a lot about the vehicle before you buy it. You'll want to do your homework. Before Jen and I go to sell flowers at different markets in different towns, we do our homework. We want to figure out how many people live in that town and whether we think we'll sell a lot of flowers there. So when you do your homework, it means you do your research, it means you investigate something before you make a decision.

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The next phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase worked up. When you are worked up or when you get worked up, it means that you are upset about something or worried about something. Sometimes when you know that you have a test coming up, you might get worked up about it. You might get really frustrated, or you might have a lot of anxiety because you're really worried about the test. So we would say in that situation that you are getting worked up. Sometimes when people get worked up, they get very emotional. They might even start crying when they're worked up. So when you are getting worked up or when you are worked up, it means you're upset about something or worried about it, or just being really, really anxious.

So to review, when you do your homework, it doesn't just mean you're a student doing your work at night that the teacher assigned you. When you do your homework, it simply means that you research something before you make a decision. And when you get worked up about something, it means that you are very upset about it. In fact, right now in the United States, the election was yesterday, or two days ago for you when you're watching this, and they still don't know, as of right now, when I'm recording this, they still don't know who won the election in the United States, and so some people are getting pretty worked up about that. They're getting very angry about it. They're getting upset about it. They're getting annoyed about it. They're getting really worked up. Hopefully, they have the results soon and we'll know who the winner was. We'll see. I'm not gonna make a prediction. By the way, I don't live in the United States, so I'm just watching the election from afar. And I just hope it goes well and that the country as a whole, whoever wins, just has a good four years ahead of them. That was very political of me, wasn't it?

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Andrey and the comment is this: "This is more than just some crazy guy speaking English. All of us are crazy in one way or another." And my response was, "Ha-ha, I agree. I just feel a bit extra crazy when I'm out in public with my camera. It's easy record on the farm." It's easy to record on the farm. "But when I'm out in public, sometimes people give me a funny look." They're like, "What's that guy doing?" That's what they do. Anyways, Andrey, thank you very much for that comment. By the way, that was something I said in the video yesterday. I said I'm more than just... This is more than just some crazy guy speaking English.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HAVE IN MIND and DO YOU MIND

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "have in mind." We usually use this phrase in two questions. You might hear the question, what do you have in mind? And you might hear the question, who do you have in mind? Here's an example. Let's say Jen says, "Hey, I think we should go out this Saturday night." I can say to her, "What do you have in mind?" What I'm asking is, what are you thinking we should do? Or what are you planning? What do you think would be fun for us to do? So I would say to her, "What do you have in mind?" Let's imagine another situation. Maybe Jen wants to hire someone to work on our flower farm. I could say, "Who do you have in mind?" And basically what I'm asking her is, who is the person you are thinking of hiring? So when you say to someone, "What do you have in mind?" It means, what are you thinking? And when you say to someone, "Who do you have in mind?" We're asking, who are you thinking about?

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "Do you mind?" This is a polite way to ask someone if they can do something. Sometimes in my classroom, I'll say to a students, I'll say to a student, sorry, "Do you mind closing the window?" Or, "Do you mind opening the window?" It's just a polite way to ask someone to do something. Sometimes in the kitchen, Jen will say, "Hey Bob, do you mind handing me a fork?" Or, "While you're up, do you mind getting cups for all of the children?" So when you say to someone, "Do you mind?" and then you ask them to do something, it's just a polite way to ask them to do it. So to review, when you use the phrase, "Who do you have in mind?" or "What do you have in mind?" you're asking basically what the person is thinking about or who they are thinking about. And when you say to someone, "Do you mind?" and then you ask them to do something, it's just a really polite way to ask them to do something for you. So I always say things like this, "Do you mind clicking the thumbs up on this video?" Or actually I usually say, "Would you mind?" in that case, don't I? Yeah, interesting, 'cause you can use both. I could say to a student, "Would you mind opening the window?" And I could say, "Do you mind opening the window?" Both work.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aleksey and Aleksey says, "Thumbs up and only then watching the video over again. Listening to Bob's voice, reading the subtitles, and speaking aloud at the same time 'cause there's no time for farting around." Great use of the phrase, by the way. "Finally writing the comment. This is my simple plan for learning English which I follow step by step with my favorite teacher. Thank you very much." And my response to Aleksey is this, "This is an awesome plan. I'm glad you recognize the importance of combining different modes of learning. You've got reading, writing, listening, and speaking all happening from one video. Great job Aleksey." So I do wanna talk about that for a bit. Thanks for the comment, by the way, Aleksey. Aleksey, you've kinda keyed into what I think is a very important aspect of learning the English language and I'm going to sound a bit like a broken record here because I say this all the time, you really need to work on all the areas.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FARTING AROUND and OLD FART

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, farting around. Now, I'm not gonna talk about what the word fart means. You'll have to look that up. It's something that our bodies do sometimes when we have lots of gas. But what I wanna talk about is the phrase farting around. When children, especially, are farting around, it means that they are goofing off, or it means they're doing silly things that they're not supposed to do. A great example would be when I'm driving and in the back of the van, my kids are laughing and yelling and throwing things at each other. I might say, "Hey, stop farting around back there. I'm trying to concentrate and drive the van." Sometimes in the classroom, students at the back of the room, instead of doing their work are just farting around. So I would say, when I say they're farting around, they're probably throwing little pieces of paper at each other. They're probably laughing and giggling and maybe making fun of me. So, when you are farting around, you aren't doing what you're supposed to be doing.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the term old fart. So this has the word fart in it too. An old fart is just an old person, usually an old person who's kind of grouchy and isn't very much fun. I hope no one calls me an old fart. We usually use this to talk about an older man in particular. I know that sometimes people will say, "Oh, you know that guy that lives there, he's a real old fart. He doesn't like the internet. He has a car that's 30 years old. He doesn't have anything modern. And he's always annoyed that young people are doing silly things. And he's no fun." We would say, "Oh, that guy's a real old fart."

So, to review, if you say that someone is farting around, it means that they're laughing and giggling and being silly and they aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. They're just farting around. And if you describe a person, particularly an older man as an old fart, it means it's a person who isn't very much fun anymore, who's just kind of grouchy and angry about life all the time.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. And this comment is from one of my favorite viewers. His name is Brent and he is American English with this guy. By the way, he does have a YouTube channel. You should check it out. And from my last video where I talked about pop, Brent said this, "We call it soda where I live. The Midwest calls it pop though. In the American South soda is Coke." What kind of Coke do you want? I'll take a Sprite. Crazy, I know. And my response to that is I think this is an important thing for English learners to know. There are regional differences in English in North America, but they aren't so crazy that we can't understand each other. So thanks Brent for that comment. That's a great one.

And it highlights something I think that's really important for those of you who are learning English. North American English, Canadian English, and US English is very, very similar. Even though Brent might call something soda and I call it pop, we actually know each other's words. There's a few words like this, where you just know because of the context, what the person is talking about. Certainly if I was in the American South and someone had a can of Sprite and said, "Would you like a Coke?" I would probably just say, "Sure." I probably wouldn't say "That's a Sprite, what are you talking about?"

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases MAKE UP MY MIND and GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase make up my mind. When you're making a decision, you're also trying to make up your mind. Sometimes when I'm trying to decide what I want to make for supper, I have trouble making up my mind. So I've used the phrase a couple of different ways there. Anytime you are trying to make a decision, you are trying to make up your mind. Often when Jen and I go out to see a movie, which we don't do very often right now, but when we go out to see a movie, I usually need to make up my mind when I'm deciding which movie I want to see. And sometimes it takes me a long time to make up my mind. Sometimes that's annoying for Jen 'cause she'll say, "Well, there's really only two good movies. Will you please make up mind quickly so that we can go in the theater and see it?" So when you're trying to make up your mind or if I say I'm trying to make up my mind, it means I'm trying to decide something.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase great minds think alike. This is an English phrase we say when you have the same idea as someone that you really like, maybe your brother or your sister or a friend or maybe even your spouse, when you say, "Hey, we should have pizza for supper." And if Jen says, "I was thinking the same thing," we might express that by saying, "Hey, great minds think alike." The other day I was talking to Rod, by the way, Rod's YouTube channel is now called Rod the Brazilian English Teacher. You should check it, out by the way. Rod and I were talking the other day and Rod had some good ideas and I thought to myself, "You know what? Great minds think alike." So that means that Rod and I had similar ideas about how to teach English and we were both kind of patting ourselves on the back saying that was a good idea.

So to repeat, when I say I need to make up my mind, it means I'm trying to decide something. And when I finally do decide, I would say that I have made up my mind. So if I need to make up my mind, once I've decided I would say that I made up my mind. Notice it's in the past tense then. And then when two people have similar good ideas, we sometimes just say, "Hey, great minds think alike."

But hey, let's look at a comment from another video. This comment is from Mat and Mat says, "What's the difference between every once in a while and from time to time? Thanks a million." And my response was this, they mean the same. Every once in a while, I have a can of Coke. From time to time, I have a can of Coke. It means I don't drink it regularly but I do drink it occasionally. So we have a bunch of those little phrases in English, by the way, thanks Mat for that comment. We have a bunch of those little phrases in English where they mean kind of the same thing. So for instance we have, sorry, I'm just, Jen's driving up on the lawnmower so it's distracting me a little bit. So every once in a while, while I'm doing a little English lesson, Jen will drive up on the lawnmower from out the field or from time to time when I'm trying to record an English lesson, Jen will drive up on her lawnmower from out in the field. So they're just little phrases we use and they just mean occasionally. So it's not something that happens regularly. If you go back to, when I say "From time to time, I have a can of Coke," or, "Every once in a while I have a can of Coke."

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Read long to learn the English Phrases ME TIME and PEACE AND QUIET

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase me time. Me time is how we refer to time spent by yourself. I love my kids, I love Jen, but sometimes I need some me time. I'm actually feeling that quite a bit today. When you say me time, you mean time spent just sitting by yourself somewhere, maybe just sitting, watching television by yourself, maybe sitting outside, reading a book, although it's a little cool for that right now. But sometimes in your life, in spite of the fact that you love your family and you love your friends, you just really want some me time. I don't often have this. Probably every few months or so, I, I just really crave some me time. I just need a little bit of time away, maybe a little bit of time outside by myself, enjoying the beautiful nature around me or reading a good book or doing something else like that.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you, it's kinda related. It's peace and quiet. So peace is when there is no war or when it's really calm out, and obviously quiet is when it's not noisy. And sometimes I crave me time but I also crave peace and quiet. In fact, jokingly, my kids one year said maybe that's what I wanted for my birthday. They said, "Dad, what do you want for your birthday?" And I said, "I don't know." And one of my kids said, "He wants peace and quiet." I think a lot of dads feel that sometimes. When you have a bunch of kids, your house can get loud every once in a while. It was especially hard for me last spring when I was working from home, I often really wanted peace and quiet so that I could do my work. But at the same time, kids will be kids. My kids had every right to be loud and play around me at certain times. So maybe I just need to build a little shed outside and use that as my office.

So to review, sometimes I need a little bit of me time. I might just go for a drive today and think about life and reflect on that. So me time is when you crave time by yourself. And I also really like peace and quiet every once in a while. Sometimes it just gets too loud and too crazy and noisy around me.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Francisco. Francisco says, "I hate lesson plans. "I prefer to follow the syllabus and improvise an activity "or a game in relation with the topic. "My students love it. "It's never boring, even for me." And my response is this. "For me, lesson plans aren't the worst. "The worst part of teaching for me "is when I have to grade a pile of student work. "Sometimes I get behind. "I don't mind grading when I'm on top of things, "but I do not enjoy it when I get behind." So thank you, Francisco, for that comment. I would somewhat agree with you. I do like having a bit of a plan when I go into class. It's not extensive. I don't write paragraphs in my planner before I go in, but I usually make a list of the things I wanna get today. For those of you that aren't teachers, before you teach a lesson, you usually create a lesson plan. But I do agree, improvising, coming up with little games and things on the spot can be a lot of fun as well. And it keeps things exciting for you and for your students.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THINK IT OVER and GET BACK TO ME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "think it over." When you propose something to someone, sometimes you want an answer right away, but sometimes you want people to think it over. When you say that people think something over, it means that they take some time to think about it before they make a decision. Maybe you want to go to a movie, but because of COVID, you aren't sure if your friends will want to come with. You could say to them, "Hey, let's plan on going to a movie on Wednesday night, but don't tell me right now if you wanna go, think it over a little bit and then let me know what you decide." So sometimes you want people to answer you right away. Sometimes you actually want people to take some time. You want people to just think about all of the consequences. Think about all of the ramifications. There's two really big words for you right now, before they make a decision. You want them to think it over.

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And then when you want them to answer you, you could say, "Get back to me once you've decided." So tied in with the phrase "think something over," is the phrase "get back to me." So you could say this, "Hey, let's go, let's think about going to a movie on Wednesday night. Why don't you think it over and then get back to me once you've made a decision?" So if you want someone to get back to you, it means you want them to call you or text you. I'm pretending this is my phone. Or just let you know what decision they have made. I've used another phrase in there too, I don't know if you've noticed, I've said, "Let me know." So I could say, "Hey, think about whether you want to go to a movie on Wednesday night and then let me know what you decide or get back to me once you have decided."

So to review, when you want someone to think something over, or if you say, "Hey, think it over," you just want someone to take some time, maybe a day or two, before they decide something. And when you say, "Get back to me," it means that you want them to call you or text you or just let you know what they've decided.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mamy Mimma and Mamy Mimma says, "Thanks, now I know how to describe how I was feeling yesterday, sick as a dog." And my response was, "I hope you're feeling better today." So thanks Mamy Mimma for that comment. And yes, yesterday's lesson, we talked about the phrase "sick as a dog." That's how you describe being really, really sick. Apologies to all dogs. It's not a very nice thing. But there was a really good comment as well from someone explaining the history of it. I think it was Vinicius, but I can't remember. But anyways, yes, I hope that you're feeling better today.

Let's talk about some of the sentences we use when people say they aren't feeling well. If someone says to me, "I'm feeling sick," if it's one of my children, I might say, "What's wrong? What hurts?" Or, "What are you feeling?" And then they might say, "I have a headache," or, "I have a stomachache," or, "I have a sore throat," or, "I have a stuffed up nose." And usually when someone says they're sick, we wish them well. We say things like, "I hope you get better soon. I hope you're feeling better soon. I hope that you fully recover. I hope that you're feeling better tomorrow. I hope that it doesn't last very long."

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WORRIED SICK and SICK AS A DOG

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, worried sick. When you are worried sick, it means that you are so worried, you're so stressed about something that you actually feel a little bit sick. When you are worried sick, you're not just worried, you're really, really worried. Probably two examples come to mind of this, two situations where I could say that I was worried sick. And the second one where Jen was worried sick. Normally, when my children go out at night, they come home on time, but sometimes they don't. I know I use this example a lot. If my son goes out and he doesn't come home when he's supposed to, sometimes I'm worried sick. Because like all parents, I'm worried that something bad has happened to him so I'm worried sick. When I went to the hospital to have heart surgery, during my surgery, Jenn was worried sick. So when you are worried sick, it means you're really, really worried about something.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase sick as a dog. I don't know why we add dogs into the mix when we talk about being sick. But if you're really sick, sometimes we say that you are sick as a dog. I might say to my boss, "Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't come to work yesterday. I was sick as a dog." You might phone your boss and say, "Oh, could I have a sick day? Because I'm sick as a dog." So sometimes you say sick as a dog, and you can also say as sick as a dog. So I could say, "Oh, I'm as sick as a dog." So by the way, I'm not sick. In fact, I haven't been sick for a very long time. I think because I always wear a mask right now. I just don't get sick for some reason. So I should knock on wood though, so that I don't get sick.

Anyways, to repeat, when you are worried sick, it means you're really, really worried about something or really, really stressed about it. And when you are sick as a dog, it simply means that you're extremely sick.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video and this comment actually has the word sick in it. So let me read it. This is from Brent or as we all know him, American English with This Guy. By the way, he has a YouTube channel, you should check it out. And American English with This Guy says, "We are the opposite in that respect. I prefer driving, if not, I often get car sick." And my response is, "Interesting, I don't get car sick when riding in a car, but I do get a bit car sick if I try to read. I also get a bit of motion sickness when I sit backwards on a train." So this is in reference to the video from the other day where we were talking about how I didn't like to drive. I do like to drive like little short trips, but if I go on a long trip, I don't like to drive. I like to take the train. I like to fly in planes. And Brent, who is American English from This Guy, is saying he likes to drive because if he doesn't drive, he feels a little sick to his stomach. That's something that we call car sickness or he gets car sick. We also call it motion sickness. And I definitely get that if I go on the train and if I choose a seat where I'm sitting backwards on the train, I usually get kind of a funny feeling in my head and in my stomach, I get a little bit of motion sickness. So anyways, Brent, thank you very much for that comment. That was awesome of you.

I do have to apologize to all of you who commented on that last video. I didn't have time to read all of your comments or respond to any of them. I only responded to Brent, which is abnormal. Usually I take the time to respond to almost all of you.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP and TAKE A BEATING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase don't beat yourself up. When we say don't beat yourself up, it means that you shouldn't think bad things about yourself after you fail at something. Let's say that you've just gone to take your driver's test. Maybe you're a young person who wants to get their driver's license, and you've gone to take the test and you failed. You did not pass your driver's test. We might say to a person in that situation, "Hey, don't beat yourself up. It's not a big deal. If you work hard and practice your driving, I'm sure you'll pass the next time." So when you say to someone don't beat yourself up, it means don't be sad about that thing that happened. Don't dwell on it. Don't think about it over and over again. When we say don't beat yourself up, we mean just relax, take it easy. If you failed your driver's test, just practice a bit. You'll probably pass the next time.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase take a beating. And I don't actually know how to describe this. So, let me give you some example sentences. You could say, "Wow, the house really took a beating during that storm." Maybe there was a really bad storm, and there was lots of rain and wind, and maybe parts of the house got damaged. You could say, "Wow, the house really took a beating during that storm." Maybe your favorite team was playing a game, and they lost really, really badly. Maybe the score was 10, nothing in a football game. That's a pretty bad score. You could say, "Wow, my team really took a beating during that game." So when something takes a beating, I guess what we're saying is that things go badly, things don't go well. If you're talking about a thing, maybe there was some damage. If you're talking about a team, it simply means that they didn't win and they got beat by a large margin.

So, to review, when you say don't beat yourself up, it means, don't think bad things about yourself. Don't be negative about yourself after a failure. And when we say that you take a beating, it means that things go badly for you and you definitely didn't win. And if we're talking about a thing, maybe it got damaged just a little bit.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Reza, and Reza says, "Seeing a weaving driver," that's someone who drives like this, like really fast between a whole bunch of cars. "Seeing a weaving driver who cuts me off is when I experience road rage," or "When I'm running late for an appointment and hit a traffic jam." Traffic jams are not fun. My response, is this. Traffic jams are the worst. It's why I almost always take the train when I go to Toronto. I can just sit and relax during the trip. So thank you, Reza for that comment. That is a great comment and great use of the phrase road rage, as well. And thanks for talking about traffic jams.

I don't like traffic jams. And I usually go to Toronto every year around this time, usually towards the end of October and beginning of November, I make a trip to Toronto. And this year I'm not able to do it. But, normally when I go, I take the train. There's something called the GO Train. So I drive for a little bit and I jump on the GO Train. I buy a ticket and I jump on the GO Train, and I take the go train to Toronto. And it's just really nice.

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Read long to learn the terms ROAD RAGE and SWEET SPOT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term "road rage." Road rage is anger that's caused by bad drivers. Let's imagine that you're on the highway and everyone around you is driving really fast and they're weaving in and out of traffic and maybe they're almost causing an accident and you might get really, really angry. If you get to the point where you roll your window down, I guess you might have power windows, so if you roll your window down and you start yelling at people, we would say that you are experiencing road rage. Road rage is just anger that you feel because you are just annoyed with other drivers because of how they're driving or even if they do things that just bother you. Like maybe they're driving really slowly in front of you. That might cause road rage as well. So when you get to the point where you're actually yelling out your window, we would say that is road rage.

The other phrase I wanted to have you, or term, the other term I wanted to teach you today is the term "sweet spot." So the sweet spot is any situation where things are just perfect. I use this phrase in a comment that I replied to. Someone said that they had 45 students in their class and I said, "Wow, that's a lot." I said, "The sweet spot for me is around 24 students." That means that if I have more than 24 students, I don't like it, and if I have less than 24 students, I don't like it, so the sweet spot for me is around 24. That is the optimum amount of students to have in a class. Sometimes when Jen and I are putting prices on bouquets that we're going to sell, if we charge $5, it's not enough. If we charge $20, not enough people buy them because they're too expensive. But if we charge $12, sometimes that's the sweet spot. The sweet spot then being the spot, the price point where we make a good amount of money, but people are also happy to buy that item.

So to repeat, road rage is when you get angry at other people when you are driving on the road and a sweet spot is any situation that is near perfect. So definitely the sweet spot for me when I am teaching a class is around 24 students. And when we sell flowers, sometimes we try to price them so that we make money and people are also happy to buy them. Hey, let's look at a comment from another video. This comment is from Fersken, and Fersken says this, "Hello teacher Bob. Personally, it takes courage for me to give a piece of my mind to someone who makes me angry or sad. I guess the reason is that I don't want to sound harsh. However, I think it is sometimes necessary to let such emotions out so that I can forgive and forget, which can lead to peace of mind." So Fersken, this was an excellent piece of writing by the way, thank you very much for that. And yes, sometimes letting it out gives you peace of mind, doesn't it? My response was this, "Great response Fersken. Sometimes it's best to express yourself and then forgive and forget so you can have peace of mind."

In English, we have another phrase, "Sometimes you just have to let it all out." What that means is that you have emotions and sometimes if you keep the emotions inside, it's not a good thing. Sometimes it's better to express those emotions. So in the goal of having peace of mind, sometimes it's best to let it all out because then eventually you can forgive and forget. By the way Fersken, that's another phrase that I taught earlier. I was happy to see that you learned that phrase and that you learned it correctly.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A PIECE OF MY MIND and PEACE OF MIND

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase a piece of my mind. If I give someone a piece of my mind, it means that I am angry with them and I'm going to tell them about it. If I see somebody do something that I don't think they should do, and it makes me angry, I might say, "I'm going to give that guy a piece of my mind." I am going to go and tell that person that they are making me angry, and I'm gonna tell them why they are making me angry. I'm going to give that guy a piece of my mind. I'm gonna give that person a piece of my mind. So basically, like I said, it means you're angry, you're upset, you're not just going to tell the person that you're angry, you're also going to tell them why you are angry. When you give them a piece of your mind, you certainly just let them have it. That's another way we say that in English.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is peace of mind. Now don't get confused here. Notice the spelling change, a piece of my mind means I'm going to tell someone I'm angry and why, but peace of mind, this is the word peace, in a peaceful, calm and pleasant way. When you have peace of mind, it means that you are relaxed and you are calm and you feel really good about life. When I am done all of my work for the week, and when I don't have any other work to do, I have peace of mind. I feel really calm, I feel really relaxed. I feel really happy. It's really nice to have peace of mind. When you get in a vehicle and the gas tank is full, you have peace of mind because you know you aren't going to run out of gas.

So to repeat, if you give someone a piece of your mind, or if I give you a piece of my mind, it means I'm angry and I'm gonna tell you why, I'm gonna tell you all about it. But if you have peace of mind, you just feel calm and pleasant and peaceful and relaxed. So by the way, the second one is much better than the first one. I think you understood that, though.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Shaya, and Shaya says this, "I can count on one hand the number of times I have had a meal in a restaurant." And then Shaya continues with, "When my class has more than 35 students, things get out of hand." So this was from the lesson yesterday on get out of hand, and I can count on one hand. So great use of both phrases, Shaya. My response was, "This is very true. The more students I have in a class, the more likely it is for things to get out of hand." So quite common in classrooms when you get lots of students, oh, by the way, thanks Shaya for that comment, that was a great one.

It's very common in classrooms that as you get more students, it's more likely for things to get out of hand. When I teach about 15 or 20 students in a class, things are usually fairly calm and fairly relaxed, and things go really well. When I have 30 students in a class, that's a lot. And every once in a while, I might have 32, maybe 33 students in a class, and then things can get a little bit out of hand. They can get a little bit out of control. Now that's uncommon here in Ontario, Canada. Most class sizes are between, I would say on the low end 15 or 20 students, but usually closer to 25 or 30. I would say an average class size for me, the total number of students I have in a class, is usually around 25 or 26, sometimes 30, every once in a while 31 or 32, but that's pretty rare. I actually like the classes to be a little bit bigger.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OUT OF HAND and I CAN COUNT ON ONE HAND

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase out of hand. When we say that things have gotten out of hand or that things might get out of hand, we're talking about things getting out of control. We're talking about things not going well. A great example of this would be sometimes university students will have a party and they'll invite about 10 people over and sometimes 200 people will show up. We would say that the party is getting out of hand. We would say that when that many people show up, things can get out of hand. And what we mean by that is things are definitely not in control. I mean, a party with five or 10 people is one thing, a party with 200 people can quickly get out of hand. It can quickly become something that's no longer fun for anybody who's there.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase I can count on one hand. Sometimes in English, when we're talking about things we've done in life, and if we've not done it very much, we might say, you know, I can count on one hand the number of times I've been skiing, or I can count on one hand the number of times that I've gone to a movie and didn't like it 'cause I normally like movies. So, in English, when we say that we can count something on one hand, it means that it's something that we probably only did twice, maybe three times. You could also say something like this, I can count on one hand the number of times I've made soup. So you can always use this to talk about anything that goes somewhere between the number two and five, okay. So if it's more than five, you obviously can't count it on one hand and we don't ever say I can count on two hands, it's always on one hand. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen elephants in real life, so, there you go, there's another example.

Again just to review when something is out of hand or when something gets out of hand, it means it is no longer under control. Sometimes things get out of hand and people need to call the police, that's how you restore order sometimes. And if you say that you can count on one hand the number of times you've done something, it means you've done it once, maybe twice, maybe three times, maybe five times, definitely not six.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Prankitt, and this is a comment from the video where I taught you the English phrase keeping up with the Joneses and Prankitt says this, "My grandma said, "forget about keeping up with the Joneses. "The people who matter in your life will respect "and love you because of who you are, "not because of what you've got "or what sort of car you drive." And my response to that was this, "Your grandma said a very wise thing in my opinion. "At the end of the day, it isn't the fancy car you drive "that people will remember. "It's how you treated them and how you made them feel." I think that this is very, very true in life, I think it is nice to have nice things, I won't say it's not but when I think about all of the good memories I have in life, most of my good memories have nothing to do with things and have everything to do with time that I spent with certain people, so Prankitt, thank you so much for that comment and that was a very wise thing that your grandma said for sure.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES and THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." When we say that someone is keeping up with the Joneses or when we say they're trying to keep up with the Joneses, it means they're trying to buy all the same things that their neighbors have. Let's use this as an example, imagine you live in a neighborhood and everyone buys a brand new car and then because you see that everyone has a brand new car, you go out and buy a brand new car. We would say that you are keeping up with the Joneses or you're trying to keep up with the Joneses. It's an older phrase. I didn't think it was used very much anymore but I actually heard it used today. By the way, Jones is a very common North American name a very common American name, actually. So it's just the name we use for this phrase. So when you say that you are keeping up with the Joneses, it means you're buying all the same stuff that your neighbors are buying or all of the people around you are buying.

The other English phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "the grass is always greener." You probably know this phrase and I did already teach it in an earlier lesson. When you say the grass is always greener or the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, it means that everything your neighbor has looks better than what you have. So when you look at your neighbor's house, you think oh, their house is so much nicer than mine. Maybe they have beautiful well behaved children, and they just have an awesome spouse and they have beautiful cars, expensive cars in the driveway. When you look at your neighbors things, belongings, and the people in their family and you think everything's better than what you have, we say that you're just thinking that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, because you don't really know what it's like. Maybe their marriage isn't so good. Maybe they fight all the time. Maybe the kids look really nice but they're actually not very well behaved. Maybe the fancy cars belong to the bank or they have a huge loan. So when you say the grass is always greener, it's kind of a cautionary thing saying things might look really good from far away, but you don't really know what they're like.

So once again when you say that you are keeping up with the Joneses it means you're trying to have the same stuff as all your neighbors or friends or family. And when you say the grass is always greener, it's just a phrase we use to talk about how things might look better from far away but it doesn't always mean that they are.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from A A and A A says, "Excuse me, I would like to ask a question, when someone says that is awfully nice of him, does this have a good or bad meaning?" Well, this has a good meaning. And that was actually my response. It is a good thing. So we have the words awful and awfully and awful sounds bad, but we sometimes use it to talk about something good. So I can say this is awfully good ice cream or that was awfully nice of him. Those are positive statements. If I eat some really yummy tasty ice cream and I say, "Oh, this is awfully good." It's a good thing. It means that I really like it. If someone does something really nice and I say, "Oh that was awfully nice of them." It means that they did a good thing. So A A, thank you for the comment. When you use awfully in a sentence like that, it's definitely a positive thing. It's definitely a nice thing.

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Read long to learn the phrases TO BE ON THE LOOKOUT and LOOK OUT!

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be on the lookout. When you were on the lookout for something or someone, it means that you are actively looking for them. Here's a great example. I like teaching you little English phrases every day, so I'm always on the lookout for new English phrases. Every day, I listen to all the conversations around me, I listen to the radio, I listened to television shows that are in English, when I'm watching the news in English. I'm always on the lookout for new English phrases that I hear so that I can teach them to you. Another good example would be this. When the police are looking for a criminal, they are on the lookout for that criminal. That means when they drive around in their police cars, they're actively looking all the time. So yes, once again, when you are on the lookout for something, you are trying to find it, or you're trying to find that person.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase look out. This is a phrase that we yell or shout at someone, maybe when something's about to hit them. Imagine you are at a football game and the ball is heading towards your friend's head. You would say, look out. When you yell look out in English, it means that the person should pay attention. The person should look around them because something is about to happen that might not be very good. So once again, when you are on the lookout for someone or something, it means that you are actively looking or listening for that thing or that person, okay. It can be both listen and look. You can do both, actually. And when you yell look out or when you show look out, it means that someone should just immediately look around them, because maybe they're gonna get hit by a ball or something else bad is going to happen.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Rose and this was a great comment, and it has a couple of followup comments as well. Rose says, "In some families, "there is a get together every weekend. "So it is a lot of work "for those who have it in their house." Then Roman replied and said, "It's true." Then Maggie replied, and I love Maggie's reply. Maggie said, "Tell me about it." That is an awesome phrase, Maggie. Great job using that phrase. Basically what Maggie is saying is I agree with you, and you could just talk about that and I would continue to agree with you, because Maggie probably has some experience with having get togethers. My response was this. "Very true. "Before COVID, my mum would often "have a small get together on Sundays, "and it was a lot of work for her. "She misses the social time, "but doesn't miss the cleanup." So yeah, when you have people over, when you have a small get together, sometimes you have to provide food, and then afterwards you do have to clean up as well, and that can take quite a bit of time.

Hey, I did want to read a second, oh, by the way, thank you so much, Rose, for that comment. That was an awesome one. Just a sec. Sorry, I had to check something. Yes, thank you Rose for that comment. Sorry, I briefly forgot who made the original comment so I had to pick my paper up off the ground again.

I wanted to look at a second comment today, because I wanna talk a little bit about school. Lara says, "Do your students attend school "or do they have remote learning?" My response was, "Right now, "we have four days of in school learning "and one day of remote learning. "It seems to be going well so far." So again, I know I give you a lot of updates about my life and my job. Things seem to be going well here in Ontario, Canada, so my school has decided that we will have in class learning.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English PUT TWO AND TWO TOGETHER and GET TOGETHER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase put two and two together. When you put two and two together, you don't just get the number four. Sorry, that was a bad joke. But in English, when we say that you put two and two together, it means you figure something out. Oftentimes, when the police are trying to solve a crime, they will find clues, and eventually they'll put two and two together, and they'll figure out who committed the crime. Another good example would be this. If I went in the house and all the cookies were gone and my son had cookie crumbs on his shirt, if I put two and two together, it's pretty obvious that my son is the one that ate all the cookies. So in English, when you put two and two together, it means you figure something out.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the English phrase get together. It is Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. It is a holiday today. I know you're watching this on Tuesday, but I'm making this on Monday. And normally, my family would get together. We would all go to my sister's house and we would have Thanksgiving dinner. But because of COVID, we can't get together. I did want to point out, though, that we use this as a verb. We say that we want to get together, but we also use it as a noun, because usually my sister has a get together. So did you hear the difference there? Usually we get together at my sister's house because my sister has a get together. So to repeat, when you put two and two together, it means you solve something or you figure something out, and when you get together with someone, it means that you meet at the same place. I'm a little bit sad this year, because it's always nice to go to my sister's for Thanksgiving dinner. Oh, well. There's always next year.

Hey, let's look at a comment from another video. This comment is from Mohamad, and he says, "The view behind you is picture perfect." It is, isn't it? This is from a video from last week. My reply is this. "Yes, very true. Soon, it will all be gone, though. One good rain and some wind and all the leaves will fall down." So you can kind of see behind me just a little bit, that that is starting to happen. We are starting to see some of the leaves fall off. We did have a little bit of rain last week. We did have a little bit of wind, and when that happens, the leaves start to fall off. So yes, Mohamad, the view behind me is picture perfect, but eventually it will all fall down, and then we'll just have bare trees. So anyways, thanks Mohamad again for that comment.

Hey, just a few more things before I go. One is thank you so much for being patient with me as I took a small break. I know it was almost five or six days without a video on this channel, but I knew that you guys would understand, and it wouldn't be a big deal. And I do want to talk a little bit about Thanksgiving. So in Canada, it is Thanksgiving Day. Normally we would be having turkey. We would be having potatoes. We would be having gravy. We would be having different kinds of vegetables. But because there is a pandemic, and because we are under a Stage 2 lockdown again in Ontario we can't go to my sister's place and we can't enjoy Thanksgiving dinner together, so that is a little bit sad for me and for my kids. But we were able to go out yesterday and do a little bit of hiking. We were able to go out a couple of days ago and we visited my son.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms PICTURE-PERFECT and PERFECT STRANGER

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term picture-perfect. If you describe something in English as being picture-perfect, it means that it has no flaws. You could say, "The other day I went fishing and it was a picture-perfect day." That would mean the water was calm. The sun was shining. The temperature that day was probably amazingly perfect. You would say, "It was a picture-perfect day to go fishing." Sometimes we even describe families as picture-perfect. Sometimes there are families where the mom and dad are very attractive and the kids are all really cute. And we just say, "It's a picture-perfect family." So when something is picture-perfect, it means it is without flaw. I guess it just means it's perfect, but we like to say picture-perfect to emphasize it a little bit.

The second phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the phrase perfect stranger. When you meet someone who you don't know and you you've never, ever seen before, we say that they are a perfect stranger. It's kind of a weird little phrase. Here's a good example though. Here's something that happened to Jen and I one time. We were at the mall and we were in the food court at the mall eating food with all five of our kids. So the food court is the place at a shopping mall where you can buy food. There's lots of restaurants. And we were sitting there, all seven of us, eating food and a man walked up and he was a perfect stranger, neither Jen or I had ever seen him before in our entire life, and he gave Jen $50 and he said, "It's really cool to see a big family like this. Normally people only have one or two children now. And I remember when I was a kid, I grew up in a really large family." So he was a perfect stranger. We had never, ever seen him before in our life. He was a perfect stranger and he gave us $50 because he thought that because we had so many kids it was really cool.

So anyways, two little stories there for you. So once again, if something is picture-perfect, it means that it has no flaws and it just looks amazing or is amazing. And a perfect stranger is a stranger but kind of a stranger who you've never, ever seen before. Sometimes you'll see someone on the street or you'll see someone at work who is a stranger to you, but a perfect stranger is someone that you've never, ever seen before in your entire life.

Hey look, let's look at a comment from a previous video. And this comment is, I think, from Cat's English, at least that's what Google translate told me that your name was. So thank you Cat for this comment. "Knowing the meaning of really something and something else is really something." So this was a little play on words by Cat from the lesson that I just did on the phrases, really something and something else. And it's a great English sentence. So basically what she's saying is, if you know those two phrases, it's really something. So again, knowing the meaning of really something and something else is really something. And my reply was, "Haha, awesome use of both phrases."

So just so you know, sometimes in my comments, I reply with, "Haha." It doesn't mean I'm laughing at you. Simply saying, "Haha," simply means you made me smile, okay? So thank you Cat for that comment. That was a great comment from that video. I'll put a link up there to that video if you haven't seen it yet.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases REALLY SOMETHING and SOMETHING ELSE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase. Really something. When you say that something is really something it means that it is amazing or that it was amazing. Let's imagine that you went and watched a soccer game or a football game, and it was an amazing game. You could say that game was really something. It simply means that you were in awe that you were impressed that you had a great time watching the game because the players played so well. So you would say, wow, that game was really something. That goal was really something. That guy is really something. So when you say something is really something it just means it's amazing. And sometimes we don't say the ing part we just say something. So you could say, wow, that game was really something. That guy is really something. He is an amazing player or that goal was really something.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase something else which means exactly the same as really something. So using the same examples again you could say that game was something else. That guy is an amazing player. He is something else. That goal that he scored was something else. So once again when you say that something is something else it simply means that it is amazing. And then once again you probably heard me say it a few times. I say something else. That was something else. So something else is the proper way to pronounce it. But generally when I say it quickly I say something like that game was something else. That lesson that Bob did the other day it was something else.

So to review when you say something is really something like if you say, oh, that car is really something that brand new Ford Mustang that car is really something. It means that it's amazing and if you were to say that Ford Mustang is something else it means also that it's really amazing.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. I have a comment here from my last video where I set a slightly bad word. It's not considered a swear word in English. It's considered a bad word. Let's put it that way. But Judit, it says, hi Judit by the way. It wasn't a big Deal, you got a bit wet. It was funny though how you jumped up from the chair and raced into the building. And at least I heard you say a bad word. And my response was in the end I really didn't get too wet at all. It did rain hard for about a minute and then it was pretty much over. The weather has been like this all week very unpredictable it's even unpredictable right now. The weather has been strange this week. It's sunny and then it rains. But let me get back to the comment. Thank you, Judit, for leaving a comment. That was nice of you.

I hope most of you didn't mind hearing the use a bad word. I am not someone who swears regularly in real life but every once in a while, I do say a bad word. Sometimes they just come out. We always say in English, some people don't swear until they hit their, their thumb with a hammer by accident. A lot of times when you are working with a hammer and nail, you accidentally hit your thumb. And I think most people in the world at that point in time say some kind of bad word. Maybe it's a very mild bad word, but people do when they hurt themselves or apparently with me when it starts raining. We, we do say bad words every once in a while.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases ON THE SAME PAGE and TURN THE PAGE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase on the same page. When you are on the same page as someone else, it means you are thinking the same thing. It means that you agree with each other. Today at work I was talking with a colleague, I was talking with a coworker, and we were in charge of planning an event, but we decided that we can't have the event because of COVID. We hadn't talked about it, but today when we talked, we realized we were on the same page. We realized that when we were talking and thinking about that event that we were thinking the same thing. So in English, when you are on the same page as someone else, it means that you are thinking the same thing and that you agree with them.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase turn the page. When you turn the page, it doesn't mean you're turning a page in a book necessarily. It could mean that you're, it's starting to rain, shit. Sorry, should I just continue the lesson? Was that funny for you? I was sitting there and all of a sudden it just started to rain. So anyways, I'll sit here in my junkie shed. And you also heard me say the S-H-I-T word, which I normally don't say very often, but anyways, sometimes in life you turn the page. It means that you're doing one thing and you decide to start doing something different. Sometimes when we're having meetings at work, my boss will say, "Okay, we've talked about this enough. "It's time to turn the page and let's move on."

So once again, when you are on the same page as someone in English, it means that you are thinking the same thing, and when you turn the page, it can mean that you are turning a page in a book, but it can also mean that you are just starting to do something differently. Sometimes in class, I'll say this as well. I'll say, "We're done with this part of the lesson. "We're gonna turn the page "and we're going to do something different now." So it simply means that you're doing something different.

Hey, let's look at a comment. Sorry, I'm still laughing because I wasn't expecting it to rain. That was kind of funny. I should turn around, shouldn't I, and show you the actual. Sorry, I'm knocking the camera all over the place today. But yeah, there's definitely drops coming down. Let me sit down here again, sorry. Today's comment is from Julia, and Julia says this. "It's not as big of a pain when cheap things get broken, "compared to expensive things. "Two years ago, I bought an expensive pair of boots," sorry, "two years ago I bought expensive boots "which I expected to wear for two or three years, "but that same winter they were completely ruined. "The leather cracked and the sole came unstuck. "Maybe it happened because of the reagents "sprinkled on the street. "That was real buyer's remorse then." My reply was, "I feel bad for you. "It is never fun when you pay for something "and it doesn't last as long as you expected."

So thank you Julia, for that comment. I feel bad for you. We have the same problem here in Canada. There's a lot of salt and a lot of de-icing things that they put on the ground and on the road during the winter, and it can really wreck your boots and your shoes, so I'm sorry. And then I'm glad you used the phrase buyer's remorse. Buyer's remorse is when you buy something and then later you regret buying it. So you buy something and you're happy with it maybe for a little while, but then eventually either it breaks or you don't like it, or maybe it didn't fit if it's an article of clothing, and you have some buyer's remorse because you didn't actually like it.

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Read long to learn the YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR and ON THE MONEY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "You get what you pay for." This is something we say to someone after they buy something where they didn't spend as much money as maybe they should have. A great example would be this. Let's say your friend is wanting to buy a used car, and they're looking at a Honda Civic. And a Honda Civic, let's say it is a 2010 Honda Civic. It's a complex story. And normally, 2010 Honda Civics go for $4,000, and your friend buys one for $1,000 and then a week later, it breaks. We would say, "Well, you know, you get what you pay for." So when you say the English phrase, "You get what you pay for," you're basically telling someone, if they are cheap, and if they don't spend enough money on something and it breaks, "Well, what were you expecting? "You didn't pay enough for the thing you bought. "You get what you pay for."

The other English phrase I wanted to talk about today is the English phrase, "On the money." When you say that someone is on the money, you are saying that they are correct. Let's say you are in a meeting at work, and you say a few things during the meeting that everyone agreed with, you say a few things during the meeting that were very true and very accurate. After the meeting, someone might say to you, "Hey, Bob, in that meeting, "what you said was on the money. "You were on the money "when you said what you said in the meeting." So when you say that someone is on the money, it means that they are saying something that's true or accurate or correct. Oh, and to review, if you say you get what you pay for, you simply are saying to someone, "Hey, if you only pay $10 for a $50 item, "and later it breaks or it doesn't work right, "what were you expecting? "You get what you pay for."

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from the video where I talked about the phrase, "Free rein". And this comment is from Oleg. It's a bit long, but let me read it. Oleg says, "The expression free rein originated "as horseback riding jargon, "referring to the act of holding the reins, "that's my little holding the reins action, "the straps by which a rider controls the horse loosely, "so as to allow the horse to freely move along "at its own pace and in its desired direction." By the way, that comment from Oleg, I have to give you the footnote, it is from the Merriam-Webster dictionary. And Panthera Nori responds and says, "Great note, thanks." Hi, Panthera. And then my response was, "Awesome, "thanks for researching the origin of this phrase. "It can really help people picture it "in their minds, good work." So sometimes when I teach phrases, I try to give the origin if I know it, but the funny thing with English is, there are so many phrases, and we don't know all the origins, and sometimes they don't even matter. Isn't that weird?

We think about things like when we say, "Hold your horses," which probably means to pull the reins of the horse, or to give someone free rein, which is probably from the action of giving the horse freedom with the reins, as Oleg mentioned. By the way Oleg, thank you for leaving that comment. So the origin of these phrases and these idioms sometimes is a mystery even to us as native speakers, so it is cool to see sometimes the origin of where something came from. It's just really cool to see that.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE and FREE REIN:

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "The best things in life are free." We use this phrase in English to remind ourselves that the best things in life are free, to remind ourselves that you can buy a lot of things with money, you can buy fancy cars, you can buy large homes. If you are really, really rich, you can buy a lot of things but the best things in life are actually free. Conversations with a friend are completely free. A hug from someone is completely free. If someone gives you a compliment and says, "You look really good today," or "You're a really smart person and I think that that's really cool," that compliment is free, and those are some of the best things in life. So in English, when we say the best things in life are free, we're simply reminding each other that money isn't everything. I mean, it's helpful, but I do agree the best things in life are free.

The second phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the English phrase, "Free rein." When someone gives you free rein over something, it means you are in charge of it. So at my school, I am a teacher in my classroom, but I do have a boss, but my boss gives me free rein in my classroom to teach the way I think is best. My boss doesn't tell me that I must teach a certain way. My boss gives me free rein to teach in the way that I think works well with the students I have. So when someone gives you free rein, it means they've given you complete control over the situation. Maybe at your work you're in charge of a large project. And if your boss gives you free rein, it means you're in charge of how much you spend, you're in charge of hiring people to help on the project, it means that you are kind of a mini boss on that project.

So anyways, once again, the saying, the best things in life are free is a saying we use just to remind ourselves that we should appreciate the beautiful trees, we should appreciate nature, we should appreciate the people around us because relationships and the beauty of nature are some of the best things, and they're totally free. Oh, and free rein of course means you are in complete control of the situation.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Maz. And Maz has great video bob, "Staying up late in the long run kills off brain cells and that's fact, going to bed early prevents that." "So getting wiser is kind of a true statement, but I'm not sure about getting wealthier." And my response was, "Maz, that is very perceptive of you, I've never thought about it that way." So this is from the video where I taught the English phrase, early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. And what Maz is saying is that, if you do go to bed early, it could keep your brain cells alive longer, and you might actually be wiser, but it's hard to prove that going to bed earlier and getting up earlier makes you wealthier. I think that's true, I think you would need to do a large scale scientific study Maz, in order to figure that out. But anyways, Maz, thank you so much for the comment.

I did want to remind all of you that even though I don't respond to all the comments, I do read them all. And if you leave a comment, it might be the comment that I choose for the very next video.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases DON'T COUNT YOUR CHICKENS BEFORE THEY HATCH and EARLY TO BED, EARLY TO RISE, MAKES A MAN HEALTHY, WEALTHY, and WISE:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase don't count your chickens before they hatch. When we say in English that you should not count your chickens before they hatch, we mean that you shouldn't expect something to happen before it actually happens. You shouldn't hope that something happens before it actually happens. Here's a good example. Maybe you went to three different job interviews and you're hoping that you get a job at the company that you really want to work at. You shouldn't then go and buy a car and rent a really expensive apartment and spend all kinds of money, thinking that you will get the job. If you went to the job interview, you should wait patiently to hear back as to whether you did get the job or not before you spend too much money. Because you don't want to count your chickens before they hatch. This literally means if you have six eggs, don't think in a few weeks you're gonna have six chickens. Who knows?

The next phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. I almost forgot the whole phrase, but we do say this sometimes in English by the way, the don't count your chickens before they hatch phrase. I did just hear the other day, but it's kinda rare now, it's kind of an old-fashioned phrase. And the phrase early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise is kind of an older phrase too, but I thought I should teach them to you. I'm not sure if this phrase is true. I have gone to bed early my whole life and I do get up really early and I'm fairly healthy now. I'm not wealthy. I don't know if wise would be a good word to describe me. I think I'm fairly intelligent, but I wouldn't say that I'm wise. So here's what I can tell you. Early to bed and early to rise, I think makes you healthy. I'm not sure if it's gonna make you wealthy or if it's going to make you wise. But hey, it's worth a try.

So, to review, don't count your chickens before they hatch simply means don't expect something is going to happen until it actually happens. And if you say, "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," it's just a good recommendation to take care of yourself because it might benefit you in the long-run.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Natalia and Natalia says, "I see Oscar at his usual job. He walks around the lawn and sniffs the grass to determine if there were any strangers." And my reply is, "He is really good at that. He is the perfect dog in a lot of ways." So this is from the last video where Oscar is in the background and then a little while later a cat goes by. And Oscar simply walks in the background, looks, and then keeps walking. He doesn't even look at the camera, he's just kinda checking to see if anyone has been around or if anyone's on our property. So, thanks Natalia, for that comment by the way.

Yes, Oscar is a perfect dog in a lot of ways. We've had a few dogs in our time here on the farm and Oscar's definitely one of the perfect, most perfect dogs that we have had. He barks when strangers come on the property, he's a really good friend for Jen when she's working in the flower field. He actually sits on her lawnmower sometimes, maybe I'll put a picture here of him sitting on the lawnmower seat. So we have a small tractor that we use to mow the lawn called a lawn tractor or garden tractor and he sits on the seat sometimes. He's just a really good dog, he's super nice. So he's not too old, he's not too young.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BITE THE DUST and TO LET THE DUST SETTLE:

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to bite the dust. When we say something is going to bite the dust, it means it's going to stop working. Maybe you have a computer and it's really, really old. You could say to someone, "I need to buy a new computer because this computer is going to bite the dust." That means someday in the near future, you're going to want to use your computer, and maybe it won't turn on, or maybe you'll be in the middle of something important, and all of a sudden, it'll just turn off and maybe it won't start up again. We would then say that your computer has bit the dust, or if it's still working now, you could say, "My computer is going to bite the dust."

The other English phrase I wanted to teach you is the English phrase to let the dust settle. Sometimes you have an argument or a fight with someone and instead of going to them right afterwards and trying to apologize, sometimes you wait a little bit. Sometimes it's important to let the dust settle. In English, when we say let the dust settle, it means that you just wait a little bit before you try to fix something. You wait a little bit before you go and try to make something better. When two countries fight against each other and when they want to make peace, sometimes it's important to stop fighting, and to just wait a little while before you start to talk with each other, because it's important to just let the dust settle. So to review, when something bites the dust, when you say, "My car is going to bite the dust," it means that your car is going to stop working. It means it's going to die. And when you say that you want to let the dust settle, it means you want to just take some time before fixing something that was wrong with another person, or even with another country.

Hey, let's look at a comment from another video. This comment is from the video the other day, and it is from Nasrin. And Nasrin says, "Hi, Bob, thanks for the lesson. It is so good that you gave us an example in context from your real life about the flowers." And my response was, "Real life is the best source for learning." So thank you, Nasrin, for that comment. Yeah, I talked about how Jen and I dodged a bullet the other day in yesterday's lesson. When the, at night it got only a little bit cold and not really cold, so the flowers are still alive. And I used an example from my life and I used the phrase in context. When you use something in context, it means you use it as you would normally use it in a real life discussion or conversation. And I like to teach that way. As you know, from watching all of my videos, I most often outside. A lot of times I will go somewhere to teach a lesson because I like to teach all of my lessons in context. If I'm going to show you a restaurant, I might as well go to a restaurant. If I'm going to talk about travel and tourism, I might as well go to Niagara Falls. It's really fun for me to get out and to just do the videos as you would, to teach you the English in the location where you would need to use it. So I like to teach things in context. So again, thanks for that comment. That was great.

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Read long to learn the English Phrases DODGE A BULLET and MAGIC BULLET

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to dodge a bullet. In English, when you dodge a bullet, it means you avoid something that would have been bad. There are no actual bullets or guns involved so don't worry about that. But normally in English, if you say that someone dodged a bullet, it means that something bad could have happened to them, but it didn't. A great example of this is something that happened to Jen and I this past weekend. We grow flowers and they were saying on the news that the temperature at night was going to go down to zero degrees. As it turned out, the temperature only went down to about four or five degrees. Not sure if you know this, but at zero trees, flowers die, at four degrees they don't die. So we dodged a bullet. There was the potential that something really bad could have happened, but it didn't. So we dodged a bullet.

The other phrase I want to teach you today is the phrase magic bullet. Now the phrase magic bullet is kind of funny because it's not this thing, I'll put a picture up here. There is a blender now that's called a Magic Bullet. But we also use the phrase magic bullet to talk about a solution that solves all the problems. Here's a great example. Some people wish that a vaccine could be created really quickly for COVID and that that vaccine would be the magic bullet. So a magic bullet is something that just solves all of the problems that you are facing in that moment. That's probably the best example I can come up with right now. If all of the sudden there was a vaccine that was 100% effective against COVID and they distributed it to everyone in the world-- Sometimes I have trouble speaking English too. It would be a magic bullet. So hopefully they find something like that.

So once again, when you dodge a bullet, it means you avoid something bad. And a magic bullet is like the perfect solution to a really big problem.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment made me laugh quite a bit. This is from Ario and Ario says, I'm sitting here or I'm standing here? So in my last video, I actually used this phrase. I said, I'm sitting here and then I went on to continue my thought. And Ario is asking whether I was sitting or standing when I made that video. My response was it's hard to tell, but I was actually sitting on a stool when I made that video. So most of you, you probably don't know. So take a moment to guess. Am I standing here right now or am I sitting here right now? Lemme give you three seconds to think about it. Three, two, one. Well, I'm actually sitting. So if you're wondering what a stool is, this is a stool. I often sit on a stool when I am making my videos. Generally, when I make my bigger videos, I walk around and I stand and I'm active. But when I make these short videos, I'm usually sitting on a stool. You may have noticed I also sometimes sit at the picnic table, I also sometimes sit on my bench. Let me show you the bench for a sec. It's over here. So sometimes I sit on the bench. Sometimes I sit on the picnic table, but most of the time I sit on a stool. I have two stools. Actually I have a small blue one as well. Let me try to get the camera back where it was. That's always the tricky thing when you go for a walk with the camera, it's tricky to get it back in the location where you needed it.

So anyways, I'm a little worried because with the temperature's dropping that low, it starts to make you think about winter. I mean, it's only fall right now.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO NOT GIVE SOMEONE THE TIME OF DAY and CALL IT A DAY

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to not give someone the time of day. If you don't give someone the time of day, it means that you are ignoring them. I mean, on a simple level, it means if they asked you what time it was, you would not tell them the time because maybe you're annoyed with them, but we use this phrase all of the time to refer to when one person does not want to talk to another person, they don't want to talk to them on the phone and they don't want to see them. Often, this can happen after two people date for a while. So maybe they are involved romantically and they go out on a few dates and then they break up. Sometimes, one person doesn't even wanna give the other person the time of day after that, because maybe the breakup didn't go well, maybe there are hard feelings between the two people, and so one person maybe wants to just ignore the other person and they don't want to give them the time of day.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, call it a day. It's late here on a Monday, you can see that there's a long shadow behind me, and I think, after this video, I'm gonna call it a day. In English, when you say that you are going to call it a day, it means that you're going to stop working, it means that you're done all the work for the day and it's time to just have a good meal and relax. So I'm sitting here at the end of a long day, thinking, "I think, after this video, "I'm gonna call it a day." Again, when you say that you're going to call it a day, it simply means that you're going to end your day of work and begin your day of relaxing or just enjoying yourself. So after this video, of course, I'm gonna call it a day, I'm going to have supper, I think I'm gonna just relax after supper and watch the news. I'm definitely gonna call it a day as soon as I hit the stop button on this camera.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video, this comment is from, I'm not sure how to say your name, but Google Translate said your name was Here, or in French, we say. So from Here is this comment, "Maybe you shouldn't give those annoying people "the time of day. "Never let anyone else get you down." And my response was, "That's true, sometimes when people say annoying things, "it's best to just ignore them." So you'll notice that, in this comment, the viewer used the phrase, don't give them the time of day. Let me read it again, "Maybe you should not give those annoying people "the time of day. "Never let anyone else get you down." I think this is great advice, it's difficult to do sometimes, but I think it's important in life to not always listen to people who are negative.

I know sometimes it's hard, sometimes people have opinions about what you are doing and it's hard to not listen to them. I like the fact that the vast majority of the comments on my videos on both of my YouTube channels are positive. I actually really like reading the comments on my videos, they are overwhelmingly nice, you are all very, very nice people, and so I love reading them.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GET TO THE POINT and BOILING POINT:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase get to the point. Are you ever in a conversation where someone's telling you a story or they're telling you about something they did the day before, and they just go on and on? In English, when we say that someone is going on and on, it means they're telling a story that should take about 30 seconds, but as you're listening to them, it's probably gonna take them about 5 or 10 minutes to tell the story, In that situation, you could say, "Hey, get to the point." It's not a nice thing to say. I guess you could say it in a nice way. When my children are telling a long story about something, sometimes I say, "Hey, get to the point." If you wanted to say it politely, you could say, "Hey, I'm running a little short on time. Could you please get to the point?" But when you say to someone "Get to the point," basically, you wanna know the end of the story. You don't wanna know all the details along the way.
WANT MORE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN"#englishlessons #english #englishphrase #speakingenglish #bobthecanadianThe other English phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase boiling point. Notice both of my phrases have the word point in it today. I usually do it that way, I think. But boiling point is of course, the point at which water starts to boil. When you heat water up, when it gets to 100 degrees Celsius, that's the boiling point. It starts to bubble in the pan. But that's not why I'm teaching you this phrase today. We also use the phrase boiling point to talk about the point at which someone gets angry. So if you are frustrated and you are aggravated and someone's just bothering you, at a certain point you reach your boiling point. And you might, at that point, yell something like, "Just get to the point." So anyways, to review, when you say to someone "Get to the point," you want them to tell the end of the story, instead of telling the whole story for a very long time. And when you reach your boiling point, it's the point at which you go from being quietly annoyed to actually being angry and maybe, even the point at which you start yelling at someone. Hopefully that doesn't happen.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Lolly Lolly, a longtime viewer on both by channels. Lolly Lolly says, "Hello from France. My boss is driving me nuts. So it's time for me to find another job and turn over a new leaf. Thanks, Bob." And it's not on here, but she also said her boss was driving her crazy or driving her bananas, I think. My reply was bosses can be that way sometimes. I have to admit, sometimes it's hard to appreciate the work a boss does because they always seem to be telling us what to do. So thanks for the comment, Lolly Lolly. I'm not sure if you would agree with me on that. I think that bosses are interesting people. I mean, in order to have a job, you have to have a boss, but bosses sometimes can be just a little bit annoying. They always seem to find the things you are doing wrong instead of always telling you all of the good things that you are doing right. So when you have a job, obviously you work hard and you try to do the best job possible. But anyways, Lolly Lolly, that was a great use of two different phrases, the turn over a new leaf phrase, and also the phrase that your boss was driving you nuts.

I think I might do a video on all the different phrases that you can use when you're frustrated. Hmm, let me think about that. Anyways, it's a really nice day here today.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT DRIVES ME NUTS and TURN OVER A NEW LEAF:

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase it's driving me nuts. You may have heard the phrase it's driving me crazy, or it's driving me up the wall. We sometimes also say it's driving me nuts. It means that you don't like something or it's bothering you. I've been doing these phrases on a piece of paper for a very long time. And I know that for some of you, you don't like it that I waste a piece of paper every day to make this English lesson. And you might be saying to yourself, "It's driving me nuts! Bob keeps wasting a piece of paper every day just to make this English lesson." So I thought maybe I should try something new. I haven't quite decided what to do yet. Sorry, there's something just landed on me. I haven't decided what to do yet, but I think maybe since it's driving so many people nuts, maybe I should do something a little bit different next time.

Maybe I should turn over a new leaf. In English, when we say that we are going to turn over a new leaf, it means that we're going to start doing something differently. Sorry, I think I just, just have a hair here. Let me see if I can find it. Do you ever have that, where, I don't know, I live with a lot of people, sometimes there's just a hair on me for some reason. Let me keep going though. Maybe it's time for me to turn over a new leaf. Maybe it's time for me to find a different way to do this. In the comments, someone suggested I just put the phrase up in the corner now. I used to do it on paper because I used to do the videos vertically, but maybe it's time to turn over a new leaf and do it a little bit differently. So once again, when you say it's driving me nuts, you're talking about something that's bothering you or something that you don't like. Drives me nuts when people throw garbage in the ditch behind me, by the way. And then when you decide to turn over a new leaf, it means you're going to change your ways. It means you're going to start doing things in a better way, or you're going to start doing something where it's just gonna be better for everybody. So we'll see, maybe I'll turn over a new leaf and stop using paper. We'll see.

I actually use two pieces of paper every day 'cause I print out the comment, too. I'll have to find a new way to do that as well probably. Let's look at a comment, though. This comment is from Roman L.N. and Roman says, "Hi, Bob. The first step is the hardest. Thanks for the lesson." And my response was, "That is very true. Sometimes if you take the first step, you'll be on your way." So thanks, Roman, for that comment from yesterday's video, it's very true. When you are trying to change how you do something in life, when you're trying to become a better person or when you're trying to learn something new, sometimes the first step is the hardest, but you just need to take that first step, and then usually everything goes a lot better.

So anyways, we'll see, maybe going forward, maybe I'll take that first step towards not using paper every day. You know, the other reason I use paper though, is it makes it easy. I can't remember which two phrases I want to teach each day, so bringing a piece of paper out helps me quite a bit. I don't know why you would think I'd be able to remember two phrases really, really easily, but sometimes I can't.

So, hey, anyways, I hope you're doing well wherever you are. I'm excited because there is no COVID in my school yet. We're having beautiful weather here in Ontario, Canada. I'm outside in a short sleeve shirt and I'm just, I'm enjoying the weather. I'm enjoying the day. By the way, tomorrow I'm doing a lesson on fall or as we sometimes say, autumn, there'll be a live lesson.

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Read long to learn the English Phrases GET YOUR FEET WET and MORE BANG FOR YOUR BUCK:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, get your feet wet. When we say that someone needs to get their feet wet, it means that before they do something big, they just do a smaller version of it. A good example would be this. My son is learning to drive. Before he starts to drive for a long time or before he goes for a long drive or before he drives on the highway, it's good for him to get his feet wet by going for shorter drives from time to time. So we actually go out once a day for about 10 or 15 minutes, and he practices his driving because I think it's important for him to get his feet wet. So again, instead of driving on the highway or driving across Canada, which would be a really big thing to do, he's just going to get his feet wet by doing short drives from time to time. I think this phrase comes from when you wanna get into a swimming pool. Sometimes if you get your feet wet, it's easier to jump in.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, more bang for your buck. When we say that you can get more bang for your buck, it means that you get more value for the dollar that you pay. Let's think of an example here. I'm trying to think of an example with apples, for instance. If you go and buy an apple, one apple costs $1, but if you buy a whole bushel of apples, you get more bang for your buck. Basically what that means is you're gonna pay less than $1 per apple if you buy a whole bushel of apples. You can say the same thing if you are buying a car. Maybe there are two cars that have the same price tag, but one car has more features. Maybe it has power windows and air conditioning. You would say that because the cars are the same price and the one has more things in it, it has more features, you would get more bang for your buck if you bought the car with air conditioning and power windows.

So again, when you get your feet wet, it means you just try something by doing a little bit of it instead of all of it. And when you get more bang for your buck, it means that for the same dollar value, you get more things or more features or you actually get more of the items.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Archer Chen, and Archer says, "My life philosophy is if you are not able "to change it, then just let bygones be bygones. "You don't have to forgive and forget, "but it's better to learn something "from the bad experiences, "figure out how to do better next time and then move on." And my response to Archer Chen was, "This is very wise advice, Archer. "It can be hard sometimes, "but I agree that there is something "to be learned even from bad experiences." So that was from the video that I just did on forgive and forget, the phrase, forgive and forget, and the phrase, let bygones be bygones. So thanks, Archer, for that comment. And I do agree. If possible, if you can forgive and forget, or if you can let bygones be bygones, it is healthy, I think, to be able to do that, but not always easy.

Hey, I'm in the barn today. I haven't done a video in the barn for a really, really long time. This is what we call the haymow Some people call it a hayloft, and it's where we keep hay for our sheep and goats. But I had to come in the barn today because I was outside earlier today and made a short video, but then it got really windy, and I couldn't find a spot where I didn't wanna be in the sun and I didn't wanna be in the wind.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases FORGIVE AND FORGET and LET BYGONES BE BYGONES:

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, forgive and forget. When you forgive someone, it means that they did something you didn't like, they apologized and then you forgive them. Basically, if they say, I'm sorry, you say something like, hey, it's no big deal or hey, don't worry about it. So when you forgive someone, it means that you no longer are annoyed with them for doing something wrong. When you forget something it means you simply don't remember it anymore. So we have this phrase in English that we say to people, it's always best to forgive and forget or it's good to forgive and forget. That means if someone does something to you that's annoying, it's probably best just to forgive them and then just forget about it, it's not easy to do. Sometimes it's easy to forgive but it's not easy to forget, sometimes it's easy to forget and then you kind of don't forgive because you're not thinking about it anymore but usually if you can forgive and forget, it's the best way to go.

The second phrase I wanted to talk about is let bygones be bygones. This is an older phrase but it's still used in English, you'll hear it from time to time. If you say to someone, let bygones be bygones, it means that if something happened to them that they didn't like, maybe it happened a long time ago, they should just try not to think about it and they should just forgive the person who did that to them. This is a tricky one because if it's something simple like if you stole my lunch when I was in elementary school, one or two times, I would probably if I met you today and we're both the same age and we're old now, I would probably say, hey let bygones be bygones. I'm not even worried about the fact that you used to steal my lunch in school.

So again, if you say forgive and forget, it means that it's probably best if you can to forgive somebody for wrong doing and then try to forget about it and then when you say, let bygones be bygones, it means that you just want to let something that happened in the past be forgotten and to not worry about it anymore.

Hey, let's look at a comment that we got and this comment actually has the phrase let bygones be bygones in it. This comment is from Jacques Vernier and Jacques says, "Hi Bob, I'm French and I'm addicted to your lessons. "Thanks to you, I learned that I'd been a class clown "in my youth. "I used to throw pieces of chalk at the board behind "my teacher's back." I shouldn't be laughing at this, should I? "But let bygones be bygones, "it was 60 years ago." And my response to Jacques was, well, you must have a great memory to remember so far back. I agree though, let bygones be bygones as it was so long ago. So there is a great example of how to use the phrase, let bygones be bygones.

But I do want to talk a little bit more about forgiveness and forgetting. Phrases like forgive and forget can seem so simple. Like, oh, just forgive and forget. And I know there are small things in life that happened where it's really easy to forgive and forget but I'm also aware that people can be extremely mean to each other.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BREATHE NEW LIFE INTO and BREATHE A SIGH OF RELIEF:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to breathe life into, or we also sometimes say, to breathe new life into. We use this phrase whenever someone or something makes a situation better. Here's a great example. Let's say they are fixing all of the roads in your town, but they're running out of money. If the government suddenly decides to give your town more money to fix the roads, that money would breathe new life into the project. When you think about a person, let's think about a party that's really, really boring, and if a person comes to that party who's really happy and excited, we would say that that person would breathe life into the party or they would breathe new life into the party. So, when you have the phrase, to breathe new life into something, it simply means that someone or something makes the situation better.

The second phrase I wanted to look at is, to breathe a sigh of relief. A sigh of relief sounds like this. And a sigh of relief is something that you do when you were worried about something and now you are no longer worried about it. Probably the best example I can give is from my own childhood. When I was a teenager, sometimes I would stay out late and my mom would actually stay up and wait for me to come home. And when I came home, I think my mom would breathe a sigh of relief. Basically, my mom would have been worried when I was out with my friends, and when I got home and she knew I was home and that I was safe, I'm pretty sure she would breathe a sigh of relief. So she would just sit there and probably go, "Oh, good, Bob's home." So anyways, to review, when you breathe new life into something or when you breathe life into something, it means that you make a situation better or something makes a situation better. And when you breathe a sigh of relief, it means that you were worried and now for some reason you are no longer worried and you can just breathe a sigh of relief and be happy again.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from the video I did on what a class clown is, and this is from Qiu Park, and Qiu Park says "Every class has a class clown." And my response was, "You are right. I think every class I've ever been in as a student and every class I've ever taught as a teacher had a class clown in it." So I just want you to read that sentence again on the screen. That's a pretty complex English sentence, but it's a great model sentence for talking about the past. So again, I said, "I think every class I've ever been in as a student and every class I've ever taught as a teacher had a class clown in it." So anyways, I'm sure some of you are class clowns. I know in the comments on that video, some of you shared that you were class clowns, some of you shared that you weren't class clowns, but you certainly found class clowns funny.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English term CLASS CLOWN and the Phrase TO CATCH ON:

So in this English lesson, I wanted to teach you the English term class clown. A class clown is a student that is often not doing what they are supposed to be doing in a classroom. A class clown is a student that often tells jokes, sometimes at the expense of the teacher. When you do something at the expense of someone else, it means that, well, you're doing it kind of to make fun of them a little bit. So a class clown is a student in a class who often tells jokes. They're often out of their desks, making other students laugh by doing funny things. Class clowns are very interesting. I think every classroom has one. When I was a student in high school, I was not the class clown, but I certainly know there were a lot of class clowns in my classes when I was a student.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase to catch on. And this comes from being in a classroom as well, or when you have something explained to you. If you don't understand something and someone explains it to you, eventually you catch on. Eventually you understand what they are explaining to you. Eventually you understand what they are saying. So if you're listening and someone is explaining something new, eventually you will catch on. If I explain this a number of times, and if I explain it in a number of different ways, I hope that eventually you will catch on. Eventually you will understand what I am talking about.

So again, a class clown is just that funny student in a classroom. Some of you were probably class clowns when you were younger. Some of you may be weren't class clowns, but you certainly knew quite a few class clowns. And when you use the phrase to catch on, it means that you understand something. So if you explain something to me and I'm like, "Ah, I get it." I've caught on. I would say that I was able to catch on to what you were saying.

Let's look at a comment from yesterday. This comment is from Zen J and Zen J says, "Hi, Bob, you said in this video," that would have been yesterday's video, "the last little while and the last little bit. "Could you please explain those phrases "and how to use them?" And my response was, "For sure, "I'll use this comment in the next video "and explain both of them." Well, thank you, Zen J, for that question. That's a great question. That's a great comment to leave. The phrase the last little while simply refers to the last few hours or the last few days. If I say, "You know, for the last little while, "I've really been enjoying being outside "because the weather has been nice." If I say, "For the last little bit, "the weather has been really nice here in Canada," it can mean just the last day, maybe the last two days, maybe the last three days. We often also just say, "You know, "for the last little bit, I've just really liked the cats. "They've been really fun. "They've been really nice to me during my videos. "They haven't meowed a lot." By the way, yesterday, that was a bird that was meowing. So when we use the phrase the last little while, or the last little bit, it simply means, you know, the last day or two, or the most recent amount of time that has passed. So for the last little while, a lot of my lessons have been about school-related things because I'm back at school. Anyways, thank you, Zen J, again, for that comment. That's awesome of you to leave one.

By the way, many of you left comments yesterday with recommendations on how to prevent my glasses from fogging up when I was wearing a mask. I think the best recommendation was to simply wear the glasses is a little more forward. That worked, actually. There was a recommendation that I just breathe less, or stop breathing.

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Read long to learn the English Phrases I DON'T HAVE THE FOGGIEST IDEA and FOG UP:

So in this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "I don't have the foggiest idea." There's actually two forms of this phrase. You can say, "I don't have the foggiest," or "I don't have the foggiest idea," and it simply means that you don't know something. Let's imagine that Jen has lost her keys. She could say to me, "Hey Bob, have you seen my keys?" And I could say, "I don't have the foggiest idea "where your keys are." That sounded kind of mean, didn't it? I would try to say it nicer. "I don't, I'm sorry, Jen, "I don't have the foggiest idea where your keys are." So again, you can say, "I don't have the foggiest," you could just say, "Hey, I don't have the foggiest," or you can say, "I don't have the foggiest idea." You can also say, "I haven't the foggiest idea." Sorry, I just thought of that now, but the more common phrase in my area is to say, "I don't have the foggiest idea." So, if you don't know where something is, or if you don't know the answer, you can say, "I don't have the foggiest idea."

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "fog up," because today, what's happening here, oh, my mask fell down here. Let me just grab that for a sec. So today at work, I needed to wear a mask, and as you know, sometimes I need to wear reading glasses. But sometimes, I don't know if you can see this, when you wear a mask and glasses, your glasses fog up. So right now I can't see out of my left eye because my glasses are fogging up, or, as you would say, "My glasses fog up when I wear a mask." So, if any of you have any suggestions, if any of you are people who are wearing glasses regularly, and you are wearing masks, and if you know how to prevent them from fogging up, if you could tell me how to stop my glasses from fogging up, I would really appreciate it.

So to review, if you say, "I don't have the foggiest idea," or "I haven't the foggiest idea," it means you don't know the answer, and if something was to fog up, it means that it gets kind of some moisture on it, especially with glasses and you can't see out of it. Sometimes in the morning when you take a hot shower, the bathroom mirror will fog up, and sometimes when you get into a vehicle when the temperature outside is different than inside the vehicle, the windshield can fog up.

So, do you know why I'm talking about fog? Because it's actually quite foggy right now. It's been quite foggy all over Ontario the last little bit. The weather is changing, so the ground is really warm, the river is really warm, but the air is really cool, and that starts to cause a lot more fog. So it's just been a lot foggier than normal.

But hey, let's look at a comment. I've also lost that piece of paper. One moment. Everything, everything is blowing away today. Anyways, this comment is from Fahmida, and Fahmida says, "All the best, Teacher Bob. "Wish you good luck for your first day of school "in this pandemic." My reply was "Thanks, Fahmida." So yes, thank you very much for those, for wishing me well. That's very nice of you. Many of you in the comments the last little while have been wishing me well, knowing that I'm heading back to school.

So again, yesterday was our first day of school, today, it's actually Wednesday evening right now, I just finished my second day of school, and it went really well. I feel quite comfortable being in school. You know, I have my mask, as I showed you. We have to wear these disposable masks. I have to wear two a day and then I need to throw them away at the end of the day, and the school provides them, thankfully, because I don't know if I could afford to keep buying maths every day, and I think it's gonna work.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SWEPT AWAY and SWEPT OFF YOUR FEET:

So in this English lesson I want to help you learn the English phrase, swept away. You can be swept away by something like a river. Yesterday I showed you the river that was in the background. You can be physically swept away. If the current in a river is really, really strong. But you can also be swept away emotionally. You could say that whenever you see a field of beautiful flowers, you're just swept away. Maybe you have visited a place in your country, that's just really beautiful. Maybe there's a mountain, or maybe there's a large beach or ocean. And whenever you see it, you're just swept away. So in English you can be physically swept away. I'm actually sitting here huddled against the barn because it's extremely windy today. And I didn't want to be swept away by the wind. But you can also be swept away emotionally.

The other phrase I wanted to look at today is the phrase to be swept off your feet. Now, this has to do with the emotion of love. When you meet a person in life that you just really really like. And after spending some time with them, you fall in love with them. We could say that you have been swept off your feet. So this often happens in older movies. You'll see a scene where the girl or the guy meets someone and very quickly they enjoy each other's company. And then they fall in love and they are swept off their feet. So when you are swept away by something, you can be physically swept away by the current in the ocean. You could be emotionally swept away by something that you see that is beautiful. When you are swept off your feet, it simply means that you have fallen in love with someone.

So I hope that at some point in your life, you can see something beautiful and be swept away. And I hope that all of you, at some point have been swept off your feet by someone So it's really cool experience to know that someone really loves you.

Hey, let's look at a comment from yesterday's video. This comment is from Brent, who is American English with this guy on YouTube. And he says, "I think that's true about a body of water recharging us. Thankfully, I only live about 30 minutes from the Atlantic ocean, but each time I visit, I have almost a renewed spirit. And my response was I have a similar experience when I'm at the lake. I think the waves are what I like the best. The sound of waves is one of my favorite sounds." Well, thank you for that comment Brent, this comes from a video a couple of days ago, where I'm sitting in front of the river. Might've been yesterday's video. And I was mentioning how water just kind of soothes my soul. And Brent is kind of mentioning the same thing here. There's something about large bodies of water. There's something about the ocean or a river for me, it's definitely the sound of wave. So anyways, thanks Brent for that comment. It is beautiful to just go and to hear things like the ocean.

Hey, I did wanna leave you with this though. I got a haircut today. If you are watching this, I guess you're watching this on Tuesday. It's actually Monday right now. This is the first day of school. So I have got my first day of school haircut. I'll tell you a little secret. I'm a little worried about school because when I wear a mask, students will not be able to see my facial expressions. I'll show you some of my facial expressions. This means good job. This means you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English term PEP TALK and the phrase PEPS ME UP:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term, pep talk. A pep talk is a talk that someone gives you that makes you more excited about something. As the new school year approaches, we find that we are giving each of our children a little pep talk. We're just kind of encouraging them that we think they'll do well when they get back to school because we want them to be excited. So again, when you give someone a pep talk, it's a conversation that you have with them where you are trying to make sure that they are excited about something that they are doing or that they are going to do. Often, coaches of sports teams will give their team a pep talk before they play a game. If you watch my video from earlier last week, where I was encouraging you to keep working hard as you continue to learn English, you could say that that video was a pep talk. In that video, I was giving you a pep talk encouraging you to do well as you continue to learn English.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase peps me up. So we have this word pep, and when we say that something peps me up or when I say that something peps me up, it means it gives me energy or it makes me excited. When I drink coffee in the morning, it peps me up. It literally gives me energy. I think the caffeine in coffee is known to do that in people. So if I say that something peps me up, it means that it gives me energy and makes me more energetic, makes me more excited to do what I'm doing. If I was talking about another person, I could say, "When he drinks a can of Coke, it peps him up." So notice I changed it from peps me up to peps him up.

So again, if you give someone a pep talk, it's a conversation or a talk that you give to get them excited for something they are doing or going to do. And if you say that something peps you up or if I was to say that something peps me up, it means that it is something that gives me energy or gives me excitement or it makes me just super energetic to do what I'm going to do.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Lolly Lolly, and it's from the video I did on bear a grudge, and Lolly Lolly says, "Hello from France. "Bear a grudge and hold a grudge equals the same meaning? "Thanks, Bob." And my response was, "Yes, I should have mentioned that. "Oops, it didn't occur to me at the time." So yes, it's weird in English. Sometimes we have two phrases that mean exactly the same thing. If you bear a grudge or if you hold a grudge, it means you are annoyed with somebody because of something that they did. I think I might bear a grudge or hold a grudge against the bird that keeps chirping over there while I'm trying to make my video. In my area of Ontario, Canada, I think we use the phrase bear a grudge more often, so I didn't think of the phrase to hold a grudge at the time. It might be more American. I know I've heard it many, many times on television shows where somebody does something to someone and then the other person will hold a grudge or bear a grudge against them. So, yeah, I think I said that, right? I think say bear a grudge, but I think hold a grudge might actually be more common.

So anyways, just a little bit of, I'm just gonna talk a little bit about the river behind me. It's a beautiful day here. And I have to say, I feel very lucky to live beside a river. I think that all of the people in the world that live beside a body of water, like the ocean or a lake or a river or even a stream, there's something really special about water.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BEAR WITH ME and BEAR A GRUDGE:

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase bear with me. When you say to someone, bear with me, you are asking them to be patient with you. Here's a great example. You'll notice that on this YouTube channel, I often reply to all the comments, but yesterday I didn't and today I didn't, because I'm really busy because school is starting again. So a great thing for me to say to you right now is "I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond to all the comments. Please bear with me because I'm very, very busy right now." So again, when you say to someone, please bear with me or bear with me, it basically means please be patient, please just relax and don't get upset. For me in my case because I'm really busy right now. I didn't realize how busy the start of school was going to be. By the way students come back next Tuesday. But we have been in meetings all week. So please bear with me.

I'll start responding to all comments again in the near future because I don't want you to bear a grudge. When you bear a grudge, it means that you get upset with someone and you remain upset with them. So when you bear a grudge, it means that maybe you and a friend got along really well. Maybe your friend did something that you didn't like, and now you don't like talking to your friend anymore. And you're actually not friends because you are bearing a grudge. Basically, whatever your friend did has upset you so much that now you don't want to talk to them because you are currently bearing a grudge. So I hope that you can please bear with me. Please be patient. And please be kind as I will be having trouble responding to all comments for the next few days. And please don't bear a grudge. I know you won't. I know from the comments in the past that all of you who leave comments regularly are super nice people. I really appreciate the comments that you leave.

So again, please bear with me as I go through a very busy week or two in my life. So please be patient and please don't bear a grudge, which means please don't be annoyed or angry or upset with me because I'm not responding to comments. By the way, it is one of the highlights of my day to respond to comments on this channel. On my bigger channel, I try to respond to comments for the first hour or so after a video comes out, but there are so many comments. It's hard to keep up, but on this smaller channel, it is kind of fun just to have a smaller group of people.

So let's look at a comment. This comment is from Roberto and Roberto says, "Talk the talk and walk the walk. It reminds me of put your money where your mouth is." And my response was "Yes, exactly. Nice work, Roberto." Well, thank you Roberto, for that comment. And yes you are exactly right. The English phrase, he needs to put his money where his mouth is or put your money where your mouth is means that if you are gonna say you're gonna do a certain thing, make sure that your actions are related to or actually model what you have been saying. Sorry, that sounded a little complex. Basically, if you say you're gonna do something, do it. Don't just talk about it, actually go out, do it.

Hey, I'm going to spend the last minute here just telling you a little bit more about my life. I will be completely honest with you. And if my boss is watching this, I hope he doesn't I get upset. We really aren't ready to start school here in Ontario. We are really rushing the start of school.

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Read long to learn the English Phrases TALK THE TALK, WALK THE WALK, and ALL WALKS OF LIFE:

So in this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, he talks the talk, but does not walk the walk. When we say this about someone, when we say someone talks the talk, it means that when they're talking, they say they're going to behave a certain way, they say they're going to do certain things in the proper way or in the right way, so we say that they talk the talk, but when they walk the walk, it means that they actually do what they said they were going to do. So you might know someone like this in life. There are people in life that talk the talk, but they don't walk the walk. A good example would be someone who says I have been a criminal my whole life, and I am now a different person, I am no longer going to steal things from people. We know now that when people talk the talk, they don't always walk the walk. Sometimes they do. So if someone did say that, you would hope that they wouldn't just talk the talk, you would hope that they would also walk the walk. And that would mean that they would actually stop doing the bad things they said they were gonna stop doing.

The other phrase I wanted to look at today is the phrase all walks of life. When you say that people come from all walks of life, it means they come from all different levels of society and from all different parts of society. A good example would be if you were talking somewhere and people came to listen to you, and one of the people that came was a plumber and one of the people that came was a really rich person, and one of the people that came was a bit of a poor person, you could say that people from all walks of life came to listen to you talk. So to review, when someone talks the talk, but does not walk the walk, it means they say they're gonna do something, but their actions are actually different from what they said they were going to do. And when people come from all walks of life, it means that they come from all different backgrounds, different countries, different jobs, etc., etc. You could say this, people from all walks of life watch my videos on YouTube.

So anyways, thanks for watching, guys. I really do like that. Let's look at a comment from a previous video. And this comment is from Quaim Hussain, and Quaim says, "Today's phrases were very interesting." And my response was this, "I'm glad you liked them. Every phrase I teach is a phrase I actually hear at some point the day or week before the lesson." So I'm not sure if you know this, but first of all, let me thank Quaim, thanks for leaving the comment.

I don't know if you guys know this, but the phrases I teach on this channel are not from a book. The phrases are not from a long list of popular phrases or idioms that I found and that I'm teaching you them one by one. Here's what I do. I actually listen to all of the people around me at work, I listen to everyone in my family, I listen to everyone who talks on the television, and when I hear a phrase that I think would be a good phrase to teach all of you, I quickly write it down and I have a little list in a spreadsheet. So the phrases that I just taught you today were actually two phrases that I just heard at work earlier today. Someone actually used the phrase that people came from all walks of life, and someone actually used the phrase, well, yeah, he talks the talk, but does he walk the walk.

So again, the lessons you are getting here are pretty authentic. This is not some situation where I just go look up weird English phrases and teach them to you because I need a good idea for that day. This is actually me carefully listening all the time to every English conversation I have, and then making a little lesson out of it for you.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases YOU'RE NUTS and TO BE NUTS ABOUT:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "You're nuts." When you say to someone, "You're nuts," it means you think that they are crazy. Maybe they have told you that they are going to do something that you think is dangerous. Maybe your friend says to you, "I'm going to go skydiving," or, "I'm going to start mountain climbing." You might say to them, "You're nuts," because maybe you are someone like me who is afraid of heights or who is scared of heights. I do not like being up high, so if a friend of mine said to me, "Hey, I think I'm going to go skydiving, "I'm going to jump out of a plane with a parachute," I would probably say, "you're nuts." If I had a friend who said, "You know, I think I might take up mountain climbing, "I might buy all the equipment I need "and I might go climb mountains," I would probably say, "You're nuts," because to me, that is only something that someone would do if they were a little bit crazy. I would never do those things.

The second phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the phrase, "To be nuts about." When you are nuts about something or when you are nuts about someone, it means you really, really like that thing or you really, really like that person. So here's a good example, I'm nuts about pizza. Whenever I think about what I want for supper, I usually think, I think I want pizza. I'm just nuts about pizza, that means I really, really, really like pizza. Or you could think of a situation where one person likes another person in a romantic way. You could say, "Oh, she's nuts about him." That means that she likes this person, she likes him a lot, she really, really likes him. So if you ever hear someone say, "Oh, yeah, did you hear, "Joe and Mary went out the other day "and I talked to Joe, "and Joe is nuts about her." Basically that means that Joe really, really likes her.

So to review, if someone says, "You're nuts," it means they think you're crazy. Crazy in the way where they think you're gonna do something that a logical person wouldn't do. And if you say that you are nuts about something, it means that you really, really like it.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video, this comment is from xiuqin ou, and xiuqin says, "Hi, Mr. Bob, "thanks for your lessons. "Today I learned the word broth "and it's use in an idiom. "I wonder, what is the difference "between broth and soup." And my response is, "Soup has noodles, vegetables and sometimes meat in it, "broth does not have anything in it." So thank you for that comment xiuqin, this is from the video where we talked about the phrase, "Too many cooks spoil the broth."

So yeah, soup is usually a broth that has many other things in it. Usually vegetables, sometimes noodles and sometimes meat, and broth is simply a not quite clear liquid. Just so you know, every week we cook a chicken, and after we cook the chicken, we make broth out of it. We use the chicken to make broth, and the chicken broth is this really yummy, tasty brown liquid that we use later to make soup out of. So broth is simply a very thin, usually made from chickens , usually, sometimes made from beef, sometimes made from vegetables, and it's used in a lot of different recipes. Many recipes will call for broth when you are making it. When a recipe calls for something, it means that it is required.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SPOILED BRAT and ROTTEN APPLE:

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term, spoiled brat. A spoiled brat is a child who gets everything they want all the time. So you probably know families like this, where the parents have lots of money and whenever the child wants something, they get it. Maybe the child has a birthday coming up and they want a really, really expensive gift, a gift that might cost hundreds of dollars. And if their parents buy them that gift, and if their parents regularly buy expensive things for their child, you might call that child a spoiled brat. It usually also refers a little bit to their behavior. When a child is a spoiled brat, they're used to always getting what they want and they get really upset when they don't get what they want in life. So a spoiled brat is a child who gets everything they want, all the time from their parents.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, rotten apple. Technically a term, not a phrase, but the term rotten apple refers to someone who's not a good person. So you might have friends of your family, maybe they have five children and one of those kids is not a good person. They are regularly getting in trouble. They get in trouble at school, they get in trouble maybe with the law, maybe they commit crimes, but they also make other people do bad things with them. We would say that that person is a rotten apple, because a rotten apple tends to make other apples rotten. So if you know a person who is a rotten apple, they are a bad person, they do bad things, but they also convince other people to do bad things with them.

So anyways, a spoiled brat is a rich, sorry, is a child of rich people who gets everything they want all the time, and a rotten apple is a person who does bad things and convinces other people to do bad things with them.

Let's look at a comment from previous video. This comment is from Julia Olis and Julia says, "Hi, dear teacher, thank you for these phrases. In Russian, we have something like, seven nannies can't look after a baby." So this is from the lesson on too many cooks spoil the broth, that I did the other day, and my response was, "That makes sense. Too many people taking care of a child might make the child grow up to be a spoiled brat." So you see what I did there? I used today's phrase in my reply to that comment. Actually today's phrase came from my reply to Julia's comment. So thank you Julia for that comment. Yes, sometimes if you think about children, if they have too many people taking care of them and they get too many things, they can become spoiled. They can become spoiled brats. Not a good thing.

Let me tell you something, though. When I was a kid, I was not a spoiled brat. You might see this farm and think that this is really cool and it's really big and it's awesome, and Bob grew up on this beautiful farm, but when I was a kid, we lived on this farm, but we didn't have a lot of money. We had a lot of land. My parents owed the bank a lot of money and it was a good life, but it was filled with hard work. I did not get anything given to me by my parents very quickly or very easily. I was not a spoiled brat in that sense. If I wanted something for my birthday, that was really expensive, sometimes my parents would pay for part of it and they would make me work to earn money to pay for the other part of it.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase LONG STORY SHORT and A LIKELY STORY:

So in this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, long story short. This is a phrase we use when we're telling a story and when it's taking us way too long to tell the story. Sometimes when I'm telling Jen about something happened at work, sometimes she starts to look a little bit bored. And so instead of telling the whole story about what happened at work, I will just say, "Well, long story short, the boss is really happy with the job that I did." So if you're ever telling a story in English and the person looks like they're starting to not listen to you, if they look like they're starting to get a little bit bored, you can just say, "Long story short, my boss is really happy with me." Or long story short, the man stole the chocolate bar. You can also say to make a long story short. So there it is a longer phrase, but I often just say, long story short, the boss is really happy with me.

The second English phrase that I wanted to teach you is the phrase a likely story. If you say to someone that's a likely story, or if you say likely story, it means you don't believe the story that they are telling you. Sometimes my kids will tell me about something that happened at school and Jen and I will say to each other, "Well, that's a likely story." Which means that we don't really believe the story that they've told us. They're not exactly lying, but we're not sure it's the whole truth. So a likely story is a story that someone has told you that you don't really believe.

So once again, when you say long story short, it's something you say when you're telling a story and you wanna get to the end quicker. You say, "Well, long story short." And then you give the ending. And then a likely story is a story that you don't necessarily believe, necessarily believe.

Hey, before I go to the next part of the video, I wanted to show you the clouds today. So let me just kind of pan the camera up for a sec. The clouds for some reason are in a beautiful pattern up there in the sky.

So I thought you might want to see that. And now let's move on and look at a comment from one of the previous videos. This comment is from Ali Alfayed. And Ali says, "Hello Mr. Bob. Do you mind letting me know what the difference is between fill in and fill out? I am still perplexed between these two phrasal verbs. Thank you in advance." And then my answer is you can fill in a hole in the ground with dirt, you can fill out a form, you can also fill in a form. I hope that helps. But I'm not sure that does help. Does it, Ali? I mean, in some ways phrasal verbs can be more confusing the more you try to understand them. So let me just explain again, if you dig a hole in the ground and you want to put the dirt back in the hole, we would say you would fill in the hole. But fill out and fill in, when it comes to forms, like if I go to renew my license, I need to fill in a form. I can also say that I need to fill out a form. Now, it probably has a whole lot more, a whole lot of more meanings than that. Boy, I'm really having trouble speaking English myself today but definitely fill in, has to do with physically filling in a hole and then fill in and fill out is something you can use when you are looking at a forum.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SHAPE UP OR SHIP OUT and JUMP SHIP:

So in this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase shape up or ship out. If someone ever tells you that you need to shape up or ship out, it's not a good thing. It means that you need to improve your performance, or you need to work harder, or you need to play harder if you are playing on a sports team. If someone says you need to shape up or ship out, it means that you need to get better or else you need to leave. So the leaving part might be you deciding to leave, or you might be told to leave. Let's say you have a job and your boss says, "Hey, Bob, you really need to shape up or ship out." Basically what he's saying is that you you need to work harder, you need to work more efficiently and you need to do a better job, or either you'll need to decide to leave or you'll be told to leave. So if anyone ever says to you shape up or ship out, it's not a good thing. And hopefully this is not phrase that you ever hear yourself. Maybe you'll have to use it with someone. Hopefully that doesn't happen to you.

Anyways, the second phrase I wanna look at today is the phrase jump ship. Let's say you have a favorite athlete. You are a huge fan of a certain football player, and you've heard that he might jump ship. This means that he might leave the team that he is on and join a new team. Maybe in the world of business, you know that there is someone at another company who's really good at their job and they might jump ship and come and work at your company. So there's no actual ship. No one's actually jumping in the ocean when you use this phrase. We simply use this phrase to talk about someone leaving one organization or business or a team in order to join another. This often happens in the National Hockey League in the off season. Sometimes you'll hear about a player who's going to jump ship. That means he's going to leave one team and join another.

So to review, if someone says shape up or ship out, it means you're not doing a good job and you better start doing a good job, or you might be asked to leave. And if you decide to jump ship, it means that you decide to leave wherever you are at to go work somewhere else or play somewhere else if you're a professional athlete.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from another day. This is from the last video, and Ken T. has this comment. And Ken T. says, "Long story short, I like your video." So this was from the lesson where I taught the phrase long story short and the phrase likely story. And Ken, this is a perfect comment. You used the phrase perfectly. Your comment was even short. And basically, when you say long story short, instead of telling a really long story, you just tell a really short and simple one and you get to the point right away. Thanks, Ken, awesome comment. My response was, "Awesome use of the phrase, Ken. Perfect." So thank you so much for that comment. Remember, leave a comment below and I might choose yours for the next video tomorrow. We'll see.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English sayings TOO MANY COOKS SPOIL THE BROTH and MANY HANDS MAKE LIGHT WORK:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase too many cooks spoil the broth. Now, a cook is someone who cooks food in a kitchen and broth is like a very thin soup with not a lot of stuff in it. And basically, what the phrase means is if too many people try to make broth at the same time, the broth might not turn out the way you were expecting it to. It might not go very well. And we use this phrase to describe any job where too many people are working on the same task. You could say this at work. You could say ah, too many cooks spoil the broth when we all work together on the same job. And I picked this phrase because it kinda makes me laugh because there's another phrase I'm going to teach you in a minute that means the exact opposite. I might have mentioned this before but certainly, when you say too many cooks spoil the broth, it means that if too many people work on a certain job, that job might not turn out the way you were expecting it to. You might end up doing a bad job.

And this brings me to the second phrase. Many hands make light work. So too many cooks spoil the broth means if too many people work on something, the job might go badly, but if you say many hands make light work, it means that if a lot of people work on the same job, the job might be easier to do and might turn out better. So in English, we have two little phrases that mean the exact opposite. For me and Jen, there are many jobs on the farm where when we work on it together and even when some of the kids help, I would say many hands make light work. You all have jobs like this in your life. Around the house, in the yard, maybe even at work where if a lot of people work on it, if two or three people do the job instead of one person, you could say many hands make light work. So just to review. Two completely opposite meanings today. Too many cooks spoil the broth means that if too many people work on the same job, it might not go very well. And many hands make light work means if a lot of people work on the same job, it might go really, really well.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Fahmida Jahan and Fahmida says: My husband and I do work together to make short work of certain things. Sometimes our kid also participates. Thank you, Teacher Bob. And my response to Famida was that's great. There's nothing like working together to get something done quickly. I like working with Jen or the kids on the big jobs that I don't like.

So I find on the farm, and even when we are trying to clean our house, the jobs that I don't like doing are the jobs that I like to do with other people. On the farm, there are some jobs that just aren't fun. One of those jobs is unloading hay from the wagons so that we can put the hay in our barn. It's a job you do in the middle of the summer when it's really hot. It's not fun because you get all kinds of dust on you while you're doing it. So that would be a job where I would say many hands make light work. So anyways, thank you so much for the comment. That is awesome. It's so cool when people can work together to get a job done that they need to get done.

Hey, I'm standing out here kind of in a dark area of the farm because it's really windy today. We've been getting just strange weather lately. It rained again last night.

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Read long to learn the English Phrases MAKE SHORT WORK OF and DETECTIVE WORK:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase make short work of. If you want to make short work of something, if you say that in English, it means you want to get a job done quickly and efficiently. Sometimes Jen and I have jobs to do on the farm, and in order to make short work of them, in order to do them quickly and to do them efficiently, we will work together. If there is a job that would take one person an hour, sometimes if two people do it at the same time, they can make short work of it. They can do it much more quickly and they can do it much more efficiently. Although, I will admit something here. Sometimes when Jen and I do jobs together, we don't get along so well, we're better off doing jobs separately sometimes. We do get along really well 99% of the time, but sometimes when we're trying to make short work of something by doing it together, we end up getting in little arguments. I guess we're just normal people like everyone else in the world.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase detective work. So a detective is someone who works at the police department and investigates crimes, but sometimes in English, we ourselves do a little bit of detective work. Here's a good example. Let's say I walk in the kitchen and let's say there was some leftover food in the fridge from the night before. Let's say we had pizza and there were two slices left and I was planning to eat them, but when I go to look they are missing. I might need to do a little bit of detective work to figure out which of my children ate the leftover pizza. So it's not just detectives who work at the police department who do actual detective work and investigate crimes. Some days, normal people like us have to do a little bit of detective work if we're trying to figure something out. So two phrases with the word work in it. If you make short work of something, it means you get it done quickly and you get it done efficiently. And sometimes you need to do a little bit of detective work to figure out who did what in your house, or maybe at your place of work.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video. The comment today is from Amy Du, and Amy says this. "Hi Bob, thank you for your video. I was confused with the pronunciation of why don't you at the 33-second mark of this video. It sounds like why don't you or why don't you? I just would like to make sure that it's a common contraction. Looking forward to your reply." And then my reply to that comment is, "Yes, I do actually say 'why don't you'. I'll use this comment in the next video and explain more." So in that I think I said something like, "Hey, why don't you come inside?" What I'm really saying is, "Hey, why don't you come inside? Hey, why don't you come and visit?" But let's have me talk at normal speed for a little bit. Hey, why don't you come inside? Hey, why don't you come inside? Hey, why don't you come inside? Yeah, that's weird. We do really compress that as native speaker, don't we? Hey, why don't you come on over and we'll watch some Netflix? Hey, why don't you, why don't you come on over? So I've said that a number of times. Sorry about that. Why don't you, it's a reduction, I guess. It's as a result of speaking really quickly.

We sometimes say, "Hey, why don't you come on over? Why don't you get a dog? Hey, why don't you get a cat? Hey, why don't you get all kinds of pets?" By the way, I don't know why I'm giving pets as examples, but yes, we do seem to say that rather quickly. So Amy Du, thank you so much for that comment.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE GRAND TOUR and TOURIST TRAP:

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, the grand tour. This is something we say kind of jokingly. I think it's we just say for fun when we are showing someone our house for the first time. If my sister bought a new house and I went over to visit her and I had never seen her house before, I might say, "Hey, can you give me the grand tour?" Basically, what I'm asking for her to do is to show me all of the rooms in the new house that she bought. If someone came over to my house and if they had never visited me before, I could say, "Hey, why don't you come on in and I'll give you the grand tour." So when you tell someone you're going to give them the grand tour, it just means you're going to show them everything in your house, all of the rooms, and all of the things that are in your house. So that would be the grand tour.

The second phrase I wanted to help you learn today is the phrase tourist trap. I wanted to teach you this phrase because I actually went to Niagara Falls today and I made an English lesson there. It'll be up on my other channel tomorrow. But a tourist trap is an area that's designed to try and get tourists to spend their money. When you go to Niagara Falls, there are many stores that are tourist traps. They have lots of big signs and they're very colorful and they try to lure tourists in so that the tourists will spend their money. So can describe things in a touristy area as tourist traps, if they're designed to try and get tourists to spend their money.

So to review, the grand tour is simply showing someone your house. You can give them the grand tour. And a tourist trap is an area in a touristy part of a city that's designed to try and get tourists to spend their money. If you ever go to Niagara Falls, there are a lot of tourist traps there.

But let's look at a comment from another video. This comment is from the video about the phrase jump ship, which means to leave your place of work or to leave an organization. Now, the comment is from Silent Night. Silent Night says, "I'm going to jump ship from my current job." And then my response is, "I wish you all the best." That's a very common response in English. If someone says that they are going to leave their job, or if they're going to make a change in their life, you'll often say, "Hey, I wish you all the best." So that was my response. Natalia also had a response. Natalia said, "I did jump ship last month. This was my best decision last five years." And my response to that was, "I'm glad for you, Natalia." So Natalia did jump ship. Natalia did leave her job and did start a new job. I think she's talking about her job and she now has probably a better job or is in a better place, and she's saying it was the best decision that she has made in the last five years. So very cool for you, Natalia. I'm glad for you. So thanks for the comment, Silent Night. I hope that if you are planning to jump ship from your current job, I hope it goes well. I do wish you all the best. I think sometimes change in life is good. It's good, sometimes, when something isn't exactly what you want and if you have an opportunity to change, you should do that.

Okay, I need to talk really quickly for the last minute here so that you can see how excited I am. I was able to go to Niagara Falls today. I went to Niagara Falls this morning. I took my camera with. I made an entire English lesson about travel and tourism while I was in Niagara Falls, and that video, I'm almost done editing right now.

(Transcript shortened due to Podcast description length restrictions.)

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