American English Slang | Expressions for Daily Life

1. Course Introduction: As you may have learned, the hard way, spoken English and written English are not the same. You may say something that is correct, but totally unnatural. You may say something that's totally right. Grammar, pronunciation, correct. But still sounds weird or isn't as natural as what a native English speaker would say? Well, if you've ever felt that way, I think you're going to get a lot out of this course. This course is going to be focused on spoken English, American English, slang. In this course, we're going to talk about expressions for daily life. We're going to talk about things native English speakers from america say every day to each other. Those things that are more natural and not just correct, correct, and unnatural. That's what we're going to focus on. This course is part of a four course series about American English, slang. Slang just means things we more often say, then write. For example, someone could say, instead of, That's very funny, they might say, you're killing me, You're killing me. You're killing me. That means funny. Yeah, it does. But in the course we'll talk about not only what it means, but how people actually use it, how native English speakers actually use these expressions, which can make you sound more natural when you speak and also understand what other people are saying when they're talking to each other. My name, by the way, is Luke. I'm an English teacher from America and I've helped thousands of students improve their spoken English and I hope I can help you improve yours. One more thing about the style of this course. You'll be able to see my face for the whole course. And I'll also be using a blackboard so that you can follow along and learn more easily. Okay, I hope I can see you in the first lesson. 2. How to Take This Course: Hello there, My name is Luke and welcome to this course about American English expressions. In this first lesson, I'm just going to talk about some tips, some things I'd like you to keep in mind throughout the course before we actually get started learning these common expressions. Before we start with the tips, I want to very quickly just explain what an expression is so that we're very, very clear. So an expression is a small group of words, more than one word. And that group of words usually can't change. That means you can't just take a word that means the same thing and put it in the place of a word in the expression, usually not. And just like a word, the expression, this group of words usually has a certain meaning. So it's similar to a word in some ways, it has a clear meaning. They can't just change things around except it's more than one word. So that hopefully makes it simple. Now what about the difference between an idiom and an expression? The line between these two is not so clear. And sometimes in this course, I will talk about these as idioms. Sometimes I will talk about them as expressions. So forgive me if I use both words. It's just that actually they often mean the same thing. So let's go through these tips and I'm going to explain each one before we start with our first real lesson. Alright, The first one is, as we're going through these, I'd like you to keep an open mind. I've been teaching for quite a long time. And I've noticed that students who are very open-minded about what something means, generally, learn faster, can actually speak more naturally. So there are some students who may hear an expression and say, what? I can't mean that. What would it mean? Why is it this word went out, that word? Why, why, why, why, why? And all of those questions are good. If you're curious, it's good to ask questions. But if you have trouble accepting why it's this word and this word, you may get lost in that question. It might be better just to say, Oh, Americans use this expression to mean this. And this is one of the words in the expression. Okay, cool. How do you use it? Give me an example. Now we're actually learning something. So I hope that in the course you can keep an open mind. Be open to the examples, and try to think of your own examples. As we go along. Languages. A weird thing, it doesn't always follow clear rules. And maybe an expression in your native language just doesn't work. In English. That is actually very common. So we have to just be open to this being right? It's right. People say it, Okay, The next one is related to this. And that's that not everything makes sense. Sometimes will come across something that just makes no sense. I'm going to tell you, well, people use it to mean this. And you might think to yourself, what, why, why does this word and this word together means something completely different? That makes no sense. Hey, you know what? To be totally honest. It's just the way that languages are. It's not always clear why something is the way it is. And things absolutely don't always make sense. In many times they do, but not always. Context is very important. It's very important to know how something is used, not only what it means, I hope that's the main value of this course. If you learn what an expression means, that's great. You know what it means. But do you know how to use it? Maybe you know what it means and you use it in the wrong situation. That's very common. Sometimes a word or an expression works here, but not there. It works at a party, but not in the office. It works in the office, but not at a party. You have to know this stuff. This is why context is so important. And we will be talking about the context throughout this course. Not only what the expressions mean, but where you can use them. Are they formal or informal? So it's very important to keep in mind the context. The next one is kind of a personal thing. You need to know yourself, right? And you need to know the kind of things that you say in your own language. Now, when you're learning another language, should you completely change yourself? Say things in the other language, English that you wouldn't say in your own language? No. No. My grandma doesn't talk like me. I don't talk like my grandma. Right? Everybody speaks differently because everybody has a different personality. So as we're learning the expressions in this course, keep that in mind. Is this the kind of thing that I would say? If not, it's still useful to know because that might help you when you're listening to native English speakers having conversations or watching movies or TV shows. So it's still useful, but it may be. And it is in fact, very likely that not everything we learned in this course is actually something that you should say. Maybe it doesn't fit your personality. So watch out for that. Try to pay attention to when you see something that doesn't fit you and when you see something that does fit you. Finally, how do you actually learn these? Is it okay to just watch this course and then forget about it? Well, yeah, you can do whatever you want. I'm not sure mom, but, but if you really want to learn the expressions in this course, well, seriously, you should probably take notes as you're watching. Because by doing something, it's making it more memorable. It's sticking in your brain better. You may want to look up even more examples online besides the ones that I teach you. And very importantly, you should probably make your own examples. In other words, if you feel you understand something that we've learned deeply, you really get it. Make an example. Make a sentence by yourself. The process of input and output, getting something, thinking about it, and then putting something original out again is a great way to learn. You know, they say, you don't really know something until you can teach it. So when you're making your examples, imagine you're trying to make examples for a little kid who doesn't understand it. So create something with the expressions we learned and that will really help each of them stick in your mind. You've done something with them so they are more memorable. Alright, so those are the tips. Keep those things in mind. Now let's go on to the first actual lesson of this course. I'll see you there. 3. Keep Tabs On: To keep tabs on someone or something, keep tabs on. Basically, this just means, you know, where it is or they are, or what's going on with them, what's going on with them? Or it here we're talking about things or people. Someone, something, someone something. We could say also things or people could be more than one. But we keep tabs on that. So we're paying attention here. Paying, paying attention, it doesn't mean totally focused on something. That's not what it means. It just means that we know what's going on. It's in our awareness. And so if you have an assistant, your assistant VA, they buy stuff for you and you give them money or they maybe have a card, a credit card, and then 11 day you see the credit card bill is 5000 dollars and you have no idea why why is it $5 thousand credit card bill? My assistant why does my assistant spending so much money? Well, you would know if you were keeping tabs on them or keeping tabs on their spending or on them. You can say vim, the person or their spending, either one. So we can say keep tabs, keeping tabs, someone, something, some people, whatever. Okay. Basically, we know what's going on. So it's pretty simple. It's pretty simple. We often also say to keep track, keep track. I like to make sure I'm keeping track of the money that my Assistant spends with the credit card that I gave him or her. I need to make sure I keep track of that money. And if I do that, then when I get the bill, it's not a surprise to me. If I'm keeping tabs fits a surprise to me. Maybe it's because I was not keeping track of the spending or my assistant. I was not keeping tabs on my assistant. The spending, that's the idea. But we can use it in some different ways, I think to get a better feeling about it, we should look at some examples. So let's, as we usually do, look at a couple of real life examples. I have so many people in my family. Sometimes it's hard to keep tabs on everyone. And this is a real example for me. And I could say exactly this about my family. Every time I go home for Thanksgiving, There's a new baby and I have to learn their name and then I forget it next time. And then there's another one. This cousin is having a kid and that one's having a kid and that uncle is having another one and they got married to someone else. So it's hard to keep tabs on everybody to know who everybody is, their name and also what's going on with them. Because there are so many people in my family. This of course is my extended my extended family. Extended family is not your immediate your immediate family are, for example, mother, father, brother, sister, maybe dog. Or if you're a parent, your children. Okay. Immediate family, extended family would be aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents. And my my mom, for example, has five brothers and sisters, and they have kids, and their kids have kids. So it's hard to keep tabs on everyone. It's important to keep tabs on your children when they go to university, but not too much. What does that mean? Keep tabs on them. Well, we want to kind of know what's going on with them. We need to know, are they maybe still going to class? Are they doing their schoolwork? But we may also want to give them some space, give them space. So this is a good example because it gives us a feeling for what keep tabs on really means. Usually when we use keep tabs on someone, we kind of know what's going on, but it doesn't mean every single tiny little thing. It's often quite general. Okay. My daughter is still in school, at least she hasn't dropped out without telling me. I don't know if she has a boyfriend. I don't know if she's getting B's are C's. I don't know what she's eating for lunch every day, but I know she's there. I know she's going to classes usually, and I know she's turning in some of her assignments. All right. That's enough. She's safe. I'm happy. I'm keeping tabs on her, but I also want to be careful not to invade her privacy. And that's not what keeping tabs on is about. We invade someone's privacy than we know every detail. We're being very, very nosy, very nosy. Tell me everything. No, no, no. Just want to keep tabs on you to know what's going on. That's generally how we use it. Remember I talked about the assistant with the credit card. I don't need to know every tiny little thing you're spending money on, but I need to know generally how much you're spending, what kind of things you're spending money on. So that I'm not shocked when I see a $5 thousand credit card bill. Okay. So it's like knowing without knowing every tiny little thing and why do we use tabs? Well, we can think of we can think of files here. And when we have files, we have some different at the top, these things that we can grab onto. And each one is a page, right? And then you look at this one or this one or this one. We grab the tab to look at what's going on within each file. Well, that's the general, that's the general idea. And on your Internet browser, when you're looking around on the Internet, you have multiple tabs, open, okay. And on each tab you have maybe a Google search of video you're watching or whatever. So think about it kind of like that. I've got a page open for my daughter at school. I've got a page open on my browser for my assistant who's spending money with my credit card, I get I get what's going on. I'm keeping tabs on them. I'm keeping track of them. So when we're talking about expressions like this, it's very important for us to understand. Now what is the meaning of this? But understand the usage because it's the way that these expressions like this are used that tells us how we can use them. So look out for this expression when you're browsing online or watching movies or shows, so that you can have an even deeper understanding of how it is used. And again, keep tabs on is pretty much the same as keep track of. And sometimes it's used for more detailed things. But not usually. 4. Up to You: up to you up to you may be the most useful expression. When you want to avoid making a decision, you don't want to make the decision. So you ask other people to make the decision or you don't care. You don't care. Now a very casual way to say I don't care is to say, Well, I don't care or whatever, whatever. Or if it's about a person, whoever or if it's a place where ever I think you get the idea up to you. Actually, if we think about it makes a lot of sense. Imagine. Imagine you have here in a little box Oh ho, A little box, a little box. I'm gonna draw a little box, a little box and this box is called a choice. Oh, that's a choice. Okay? And inside the box there are two things and there are the two options that we have and a choice needs to be made on. Let's say it's the choice about where to go on vacation. Where to go on vacation. Two roommates in college are talking about this. Where should we go for our for our spring vacation also called spring break? Hey, we could go to Mexico or we could go to Columbia. Okay? No. Or we could go to Columbia. All right, now, friend. A asks friend be Hey, where do you think we should go for our spring break? Dude and B says to a You know, wherever up to you or it's up to you, think about it as though the choices in this little box in friend bees hand and he holds it up. He looks at it. Colombia, Mexico, Colombia, Mexico. And he doesn't care. So he doesn't want to choose. And so he holds the box with the two choices. The two options up to up. He holds them up in his hands to his friend friend A. And then he says, up to you up to you so we can remember it this way. It's really, I think, very visual. I think it's very visual. You can kind of picture it right, holding the little choice up in a box. Okay, so whenever you don't want to make a choice, whether it's going out to eat or what to do on a specific day or whatever, OK, you can say up to you when you want the other person to be the one to make that choice. Okay. And you can use it in almost any any situation where there's a choice. It sounds a little more formal. If you add, it's if you just say up to you. That's quite casual. Okay? Quite casual. If you just say up to you up to you. Okay. So maybe don't say up to you at work. Say, Well, it's up to you. You could add. Well, well, it's It's really up to you. Okay, Let's look at some examples. All right. So our first example is very similar to the example we talked about before. Maybe here we have. Well, we usually do. Boyfriend girlfriend. So it's a boyfriend and girlfriend. OK, where should we go for dinner? Where should we go for dinner? Going on a date? Maybe. An girlfriend says to know, Do know. What's that? That means I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Very common, but also casual. Meaning not formal. If your boss or your colleague asks you something and you say, you know, then you're probably being a little inconsiderate. And it shows that you're maybe not serious about whatever you're talking about too casual, so you can use that casually, you know? Yeah, you know, it's very casual. Okay, you know, it's up to you. Oh, sorry. That should be a capital capital. I apologize. It's up to you. You know, it's up to you or wherever it's up to you. Or we could just say up to you. So then this person might say, How about how about how about Thai food? Whenever you want to recommend something or suggest what to do or what to eat, or whatever you can say? How about it's a good way to suggest, suggest How about Thai food this month? This person, if they like the idea, then might say, OK, sure, sure, or that's that's fine with me. That's fine with me or, Ah, I don't feel like I don't feel like it Feel like something means you don't want to do that . I don't feel like it. Or maybe I'm not in the mood, not in the mood for Ty. But then this person might say, Well, then why did you say it's up to me? That's a common conversation, I think, between girlfriends and boyfriends, husbands and wives for sure as well. Okay, so let's look at one more example, because we can use this phrase a bit differently, too. We may use this expression up to you when we're talking about responsibilities, and we could be talking about specific responsibilities or we could be talking about very general responsibilities. This would be an example of a general responsibility, and then I can also explain how we could use it for specific responsibilities. It's up to you to work hard so that you can so that you can be successful at whatever you do. So this could be about becoming ah, bodybuilder. Or it could be about becoming, ah, an entrepreneur. Or it could be about boats bill that for you, entrepreneur could be about becoming an entrepreneur. It could be about whatever. Okay, but it's your responsibility to its up to you up to you to to because we use the word work , right. It's up to you to do this. It's up to you to fix the sink. That means it's your job. It's it's your job to do that. It's your responsibility. It's up to you to ask questions if you don't understand one of the expressions that we talk about in this course. It's up to you. That means I can't do it for you. You need to do it right. You need to. The responsibility is on you to say, Hey, I I don't understand what this means. Please help. Please explain, Right? That's up to you. It's up to me to explain each expression that we talk about in this course as clearly as I can, with lots of examples and lots of explanation and details. That's up to me. It's up to me to do that. So whether you're talking about your responsibilities at work or with your family or friends or in general, I think using it's up to you in this way allows you to talk about responsibilities in a way that sounds mawr native. You'll sound like a native English speaker, and I think it makes talking about responsibilities a little easier. It's more flexible because you can ask other people to do things. It's up to you. It's up to you or you can talk about your own things. It's up to me. It's up to me and you can use it for work or among your friends or in your family or in general, very flexible here. And I think it's a little bit less easy to understand than the 1st 1 right up to you means I don't care which one. Choose one right. It's a little more difficult to understand, but once you have a feeling for it, once you have a feeling for it, using it can, I think, make you more powerful with your use of English. Let me give you one more very quick example just because I want to really make sure you've got it. If it were up to me, I would say that we should just stay home and watch TV anyway. It's not up to me. So let's just follow Eriks lead. To follow someone's lead is to do what they say. They make the decisions. They make the choices right, so it's up to them. It's up to them. It's up to them. If it were up to me, that could mean if it were my choice or we could take this to mean if it were my responsibility. If it were my responsibility, I would say that we should just stay home and watch TV anyway. It's not my responsibility. So let's just follow Eriks lead. Okay? So hopefully this makes it a little bit more clear so that you can start using this one right away, which I hope that you do. 5. Your Call: your call. Your call. What does that mean? Your call. We often say it's your call. We don't have to. We could just say you're called. Does that mean someone is calling on the phone and it's mine? And I have to answer it? No, no, it doesn't mean that doesn't mean that if we have a phone call, we just say I need to I need to get this. I need to pick up the phone. We don't say usually my call, but when we use this, your call, my call, his call, her call and we can talk about later. Good call. Good call. We'll talk about that later. What we really mean is your decision. Remember, up to you, that means I'm giving the decision to you because I don't care. It's similar to that. We don't care. And so we give the decision to somebody else. We let other people choose, so we say your call. So if the question is, should we, um should we go out or just stay at home and watch a movie and we don't care? We would say your call your call the same as up to you. Same as it's your it's your choice to make. Except for this one. It's not Onley for when we don't care. This one can be for when it's the other person's responsibility. Or if it's our responsibility, we would say My call. You must choose, right? It's not up to me. You're the boss. You're the boss. It's not up to me. You're the boss. This is your team. I'm just in the team. Don't. Don't ask me to make the decision. It is your responsibility. It is your call. It is your call, We might say, for example, should we should we launch the product this week, or should we do it next week? We do it this week or next week. Well, I think next week would be better. But that's just my opinion. It's not my final decision to make its really your call. It's your call. And then maybe that person that manager would say, Well, uh, if if it were your call, what would you do? Oh, if it were my call, I would launch it this week. Okay, So maybe that will influence this person the boss, to to do that thing that I think is right. So when we talk about who gets to make the decision, we always use this expression. Your call, Michael. It's so, so common. And it could be used in formal situations. It can be used casually. It can be used in lots of different ways. Okay, so it's a very flexible phrase. Very flexible. Now, what if the decision that we made is a good decision? Can we say a good call? Well, that was a really good call. Yes, we can. What if it was a bad decision? Can we say that was kind of a bad call? Sorry about that. Yes, Yes. Can we say? Oh, I'm sorry. I think I made the wrong call. The wrong call. I made a mistake. Yes. Again, the answer is yes. So good call. Bad call Runkle. Right. Call your call, Michael. His call her call their call. Okay. So for our first example, let's say we have two roommates. So to people who live together and they're trying to decide what to do. Do you wanna one? It means one too casual. So it's two roommates you wouldn't use wanna often with your colleagues. It's quite casual. Do you wanna go out and see a movie or just hang out here and play games? Games here means, of course, video games. We often don't say video games. We just say games and it suggests video games, depending on the situation. Ah, whatever your call. So that means you decide. It's your decision. I've decided that because I don't want to decide. I'd like to see a movie. I've heard that. And let's say this is the name of the movie. I don't want to use the name because I think that is kind of pointless. Okay, I've heard that blah, blah, blah is supposed to be really good. If something is supposed to be really good, that means people say it is. It doesn't mean that it's actually supposed to do that. Like the universe has said all you need to be good. That's usually how we use supposed to write. I'm supposed to be home by six. Someone has told me I need to be home by six this way of using supposed to, which is not Onley in American thing. This way of using supposed to is to say, generally speaking, I've heard people say that people have told me that this is good. Maybe it isn't. But many people have said that it is. Maybe some websites have written good reviews about it. Okay, so I'd like to see a movie. I've heard that blah, blah, blah is supposed to be really good. Then later they do that. So? So this person has given up the decision to this person. This person decided to go to a movie. So then they did go to a movie. They went out this all movie in the in the theater or cinema, in the theatre or cinema. And then good call on the movie. That was great. This is after they watched it. Maybe they're walking home or taking the bus home or driving home to wherever they live. And this person has decided that it was a really good decision to not stay home and play video games. But to see this movie because the movie waas really good. Good call. Good call on the movie. That was great. Okay, so here we're using call in two different ways. But both ways mean decide or decision in this case as a noun. Okay, so let's just look at one more example with call. We have, ah, husband and a wife, and they're at a furniture store looking at furniture, maybe sofas, chairs, tables for their home. Okay. And maybe the husband doesn't really care so much and wants to let his wife choose that the furniture. Maybe it's more important to her. So she says to him, I want to buy this sofa, this sofa. Not that one. That one. Okay. Yeah. Okay. It's your call. It's your call. Yes. OK, that means I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. I'm okay with your decision. It's your call. It's your call. I'm not going to say what we should or shouldn't do. It's up to you now. What about when we're talking about the past for the future? What if we say something like it was? It was the best. The best call I ever made. So sometimes, yes. Sometimes people will say this. That was the best decision I ever made. It was the best call I ever made. But I think this one is much, much less common. Few people will use it this way in this situation. When we're talking about the past or the future will probably use decide or decision. When we're talking about things happening now, very casually, we will use often. Call and decision confound a little more formal. It's just that when we're talking about big life things, major major life changes, we often use the word decision because it suggests or feels more serious, more serious. Okay, and call doesn't feel very serious. It's very casual. It's sort of like, Yeah, like that, Choosing to go to a movie instead of staying home, picking a sofa, that one instead of that one. It doesn't matter. It's not so serious. One thing that you'll see in movies is make the call. Make the call, make the call, and that one means you need to make a decision could mean make a phone call. But sometimes it means you need to make the decision so you'll see that sometimes, too. In the far future, you won't see it very much. I don't know if I can make that call. Maybe sometimes it's just not as common as talking about things casually in our daily lives . In the present. That's how we usually we'll use. Call your call, his call her call Michael there. Call. Good call. Bad call. Wrong call. Right call. Okay, so hopefully that's clear. I think it might be a good idea for you to make some of your own examples for this one so that you can have a really good feeling for actually how to use it. Make your own examples. 6. I Have No Idea: I have no idea. I have no idea. This this one is really simple. Okay, very simple. So we don't need to spend too much time talking about this one. So simple. It means I don't know. I don't know. And sometimes we replace idea with clue. So these two are the same? I have no idea. I have no clue. What's the difference between I have no idea. I have no clue. And I don't know well in meaning there is no difference. But there is a difference in connotation. The feeling that we get when we use I have no idea. I have no idea suggests that we are absolutely unsure. And the feeling that we have when we hear I have no idea is zero percent certainty. Absolutely unsure, absolutely unsure. Whereas if we say I don't know, maybe we have 70% or I don't know, 50 or I don't know, 20 whatever. 2020%. 2%. We have some. Maybe some knowledge. Maybe, maybe. But we just can't say for sure. The answer. Well, I I read something about that, but, uh, I don't know. I don't know. Right. So in this one, we could definitely have some knowledge of whatever is being talked about. But if we say I have no idea, I have no clue. This is a totally new thing to me. Maybe I know nothing about it. I know zero about it, and it's better if you go and ask somebody else. It's useless to even ask me what I do know about this kind of thing. I have zero knowledge in this area, and so we want to make that very clear. So we say I have no idea. I have no clue. Okay, Sometimes it's used for simple things. For example, someone might say, Do you know when the meeting is for next week? I have no clue. I have no idea. And that is the same as saying I don't know, because that's a very simple thing. But again, when it gets a little more complicated and we say I don't know, someone might say, Well, do you know anything about this? We might say, Well, yeah, I know a couple things, but I just don't know the answer to your question exactly where, as when we say this one, it's like, don't even talk to me go talk to somebody else. So I hope that's that's clear. That's the difference in feeling here. What time is it? I have no idea. What time is it? I have no idea. I have no idea. Okay, so this is a simple one. Could we just say no idea? No idea. Yes, that's fine. Could we say no clue? What time is it? No clue. No clue. Yes, that's fine. Very natural. Very common. Okay, So when you want to simply say, I don't know in a very casual, casual way and in a way, which is a little bit stronger than saying I don't know, I don't know, to know or don't know if you want to do it a little bit stronger than you can say. No idea. No clue. No clue. Okay, but now let's look at an example that's just a little bit more complicated. One student in university asks another student in university how to book classes were register for classes for a semester. Ah, semester is a chunk of a school year in university, a chunk of a school year and we say there are two semesters. Well, it depends on the school usually two semesters in America, the spring semester and the fall semester. I guess I should write fall in spring. But anyway, that's the idea. And then there's also a summer semester. Some people will go to school in this summer, but anyway, do you know how we book classes for next semester? Do you know how we book classes for next semester? Or do you know how to book classes for next semester? Book means to To register to schedule. That's not very clear. Okay? I have no idea. I have no clue on. Maybe you can see in my eyes how confused I am. I don't know usually have this expression that sound. It's stronger than just saying I don't know. I don't know. Could be the same meaning it is the same meaning. But it just has that stronger feeling like that. Almost upset that I don't know. I have no idea. I have no clue. I was going to ask you I was going to ask you because I have no clue. You have no clue. We both have no clue. But you're asking me I was going to ask you. I'm so confused by the registration page. Maybe this is a website where we book or a range or register for classes for the semester. It's very confusing. It's very unclear. Or maybe I'm just not very smart. And so I have no idea. I have no clue. So to be clear, it can be used. When we want to tell somebody to ask another person, or when we maybe realize that each of us don't know something, we have no idea what's going on. We have no clue what's happening. We need to may be call customer support or we need to text some other students on campus and see if they know what's going on. But anyway, we're sort of emphasizing our lack are complete and total lack off knowledge. 7. Slipped My Mind: it slipped my mind. It slipped my mind. Or did it slip your mind? Did it slip your mind? Did it slip her mind? It must have. It must have slipped our minds. It must have slipped our minds. Basically, the meaning here is forget or forgot. You were supposed to do something you forgot. And then when you explain that you forgot you say, Oh, I guess who? Sorry, that slipped my mind. It slipped my mind. Or it slipped my mind too. And then say the thing that you forgot to do it slipped my mind to lock the door. That could be bad. Or it slipped my mind to go to the post office like I said I would. I'm really sorry. I'll go tomorrow. Hey, did you did you clean the cat litter box? Did you clean the cat litter box? If you have cats, then you have a box where they go to the bathroom. You put cat litter there. One person's responsibility is to clean that. Did you clean it? Ah, no. Sorry. I think it's slipped my mind. I think it slipped my mind. It's always an accident. To slip is to push accidentally miss something. If you're stepping on ice, your foot slips on the ice. So it's sort of like your brain slips past the thing that it was supposed to remember. So it slips out of your mind. Maybe that's not a visual. Maybe we can just remember that sound as a way to remember this one. It's lived my mind. So a very simple example. Did you buy milk? Oh, sorry. It totally slipped my mind. It totally slipped my mind. All I'll go now. I'll go now or I'll go tomorrow. I think this is very simple to use. Very easy. It totally slipped my mind to ask Jared for his number. I guess I'll have to find some other way of getting in touch with him. To get in touch with someone is to contact to contact them up. And that could be through phone or text messaging or emails or whatever, whatever to contact them. Get in touch. Maybe you were at an event and this person Jared was there and you talked to Jared. And before you went, you thought OK, I need to get his number because I need to talk to him later. about something. I want to make sure I have that. I want to make sure I have it. But then you went there. You talked to him. You were there. But you forgot to do the thing that you intended to do. So it slipped your mind. Maybe you were so involved in the conversation with him that you weren't paying attention to what you were thinking about before. Whatever it slipped your mind. So now you need to find some other way to get in touch. Maybe his email address, maybe his whatever. His ah, social media accounts. Some other way to talk with him. If you need to in the future, make sure you're watching American movies and TV shows. I could recommend some, but I really think it's more important to find something you enjoy if you like. Comedies. Watch a comedy if you like. Dramas, watch dramas, whatever. But when you are watching movies and TV shows, try to watch out for look out for Keep your eyes peeled for expressions that we've talked about in this course, including slipped my mind. It's very, very common. This one is very, very common. In fact, all of the expressions were talking about in this course are very common. Otherwise, we would not be talking about them. When you see them in movies, TV shows or even online, maybe in in videos, write down what you heard and then try to make an example that similar to that, having that input and then output is a great way to really learn an expression on the Mawr times. You see something the deeper you understand it, although I think this expression is pretty simple. 8. Burst Your Bubble: burst your bubble, burst your bubble or burst my bubble, my bubble, her bubble, his bubble there bubble usually not their bubbles. Usually their bubble people have a bubble that they share, maybe instead of each having their own bubble. One big bubble covering them. OK, so let's just talk about burst first means to break something to pop, something to break, to break something. Okay, something might burst open. First open the bubble is something that's round. It's a circle, and it's maybe made of soap. We often make bubbles with a with a kind of soap. We often blow bubbles, little bubbles flying around Any bubbles Bubbles. You might see bubbles in your bathtub when you take a bath at night. Maybe have bubbles there. Okay, so when you poke a bubble, it goes pops. Right. So what could this mean? Burst your bubble. We often say sorry to, uh, sorry to burst your bubble burst your bubble, but and then we say some news now it could be could be bad news. Or it could just be news. That's that's different from what this person thought. But the idea of a bubble, I think, allows us to have a nice little visual, All right, so we have a have a bubble made of soap, but it's a big one, and we've got a person in here. And this person thinks that he is going to get a new computer from his parents for his birthday because he asked for one where he asked for a new computer, and he usually gets what he wants. So he really, really expects to gets a new computer. But his parents didn't make as much money this year. Maybe they can't afford it. They can't afford a new computer, so they get him something. But they don't get him that. So now, later, after his birthday, he talks about his experience of finding out that this didn't happen. And it's is, though, when he did find out that he didn't get the computer, that he got something else. Not as good. It's as though this thing, this reality inside of the bubble around him, was popped or burst. The reality inside of here was, I'm going to get a computer. I'm going to get a computer. I'm going to get a computer. Then, on his birthday morning pop reality, no computer so I guess that's bad news. But really, it's just reality out here. And eventually a bubble being popped so that reality can come in here. Usually what's inside the bubble is not reality. It's maybe just this person's expectation. Sometimes they're private belief. So this person believes that they're getting a computer. Sorry. No, that really burst my bubble. I was expecting a computer. My parents totally burst my bubble. They bought me instead. A new skateboard wasn't as good. Or maybe his parents will say it directly. Hey, where I thought I was getting a new computer this year. Well, son, I'm sorry, too. I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but we weren't able to get you the computer. So we're just getting you a new skateboard and a new phone this year. Oh, that's terrible. Hate you. Maybe some kids are like that spoiled kids spoiled Kids get angry when they don't get exactly what they want. So that's just one example, and it could be used in lots of other ways. There is a false reality in this bubble, whether that's a simple belief, like I'm getting a computer for my birthday or whether it's a general life belief, right? I believe this thing is true. Whenever that is broken and we find out what really is going on. Doesn't matter how complicated or simple we say it really burst my bubble. You really burst my bubble. My bubble was burst, my bubble was burst so we can say that too. All right, so that's basically the idea. And sometimes we're talking about disappointment. All right? Disappointment, Disappointment. Okay, so let's look at a couple examples. I really hate to burst your bubble, but success doesn't come from saying you will be successful. It comes from hard work. It comes from hard work. So maybe maybe it's not even true. But someone said I'm gonna be successful. I will be. I'm going to love I'm going to all all talk, all talk. We could say someone is staying everything but doesn't actually put in the hard work to do what they say they're going to do to become successful. And so, uh and so someone may be speaking to them who has more experience, maybe more knowledge says I really hate to burst your bubble, but but success doesn't come from saying you will do something hate to burst your bubble means I don't I don't want to want to tell you the truth, because I know it will disappoint you. However, your incorrect in what you're doing now. This could be for a single person, but it could also be for a group. Maybe there's a general feeling that young people, high school students are very optimistic, and they think they can do anything. And that's good. Maybe there's a speaker, though, who wants to focus on the importance of hard work, and he comes out and says, All right, I hate to burst your bubble, but and it doesn't mean that all of them actually think that it may be just a way to make a point. I know that many people believe that being confident is the most important thing. But if you aren't able to put in the hard work, you won't be successful. Basically, that's the idea. So we're not always specifically disappointing One person. It's often used as a rhetorical tool, a rhetorical tool, torque all means used in making something clear or easy to understand or powerful in speech . When you're giving a presentation when you're explaining something to someone a rhetorical two. Okay, let's look at another example. In this example, we have two parents and there was a plan. The plan was to go to the zoo with their son Daniel. Their son Daniel is very excited to go to the zoo, right. Very, very excited. But something has happened, and they're not going to be able to go to the zoo. So you have little Daniel here in his bubble. Hey, can't wait to go to the zoo tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. The reality is it's not going to happened, but it's all out here, and he doesn't know this yet. So did you tell Daniel that we aren't going to the zoo tomorrow? Not yet. Not yet. I know 12 burst his bubble or popped his bubble, but I know I'll have to. I know I'll have to. So it's going to happen eventually. Mom or Dad is going to say, Listen, Daniel, we can't go to the zoo tomorrow because I know, I know we promised, but something really important has come up and we just can't go. But I promise we'll do it. We'll do it again soon. Ah, maybe Daniel is very sad. Okay, Same idea. Same idea. One is more general. The career one. Work hard that's more, more abstract. More like a rhetorical tool. This one Mawr specific. I don't want to burst your bubble, but I have to tell you something. I have to tell you something and you can describe it about yourself. You really burst my bubble. You really popped my bubble. It's really burst my bubble. Something that happened really burst my bubble. It's very, very useful. 9. You Know Better Than That: you know better than that. You know better than that. Okay. What does that mean? Does that mean one person is smarter than another? No. No, you know better than that or you know, better than to. And then we say some action or some behavior you know better than to go out at night by yourself. You know better than to do that. You know better than to go out. You know better than that. You know better than that. It's a way to tell someone that they shouldn't have done a dumb or wrong thing. Or if they're thinking about doing that, they haven't done it yet. But they might do it then. They shouldn't do a dumb or wrong thing, OK? And that could be for lots of different situations. One might be going out at night by yourself. Maybe you live in a city which can be dangerous if the city is dangerous and it's a little more dangerous at night, dangerous at night. Then you shouldn't go out. But you do for some reason You go out and you you come back and someone sees you. Maybe someone you know, your roommate, your friend, your Mom, Whoever did you have you been outside at night? It's 11. 30. You know, this neighborhood is not safe. Yeah, I was. I just went out to get something. You know, better than to do that. You know better than to go out by yourself at night. Okay, so that's kind of scolding, scolding, finger wagging, finger wagging to wag your finger to wag your finger. Ah, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do that. But it could also be for for something more formal, for example, is wearing the wrong clothes. I think you know better. I think you know better than to wear a straight tie to an event this formal. You should be wearing a bow tie. You should be wearing a bow tie. You know better. You know better than to wear straight tie to an event like this. This is a fancy, fancy party. You should be wearing a bow tie. So there it's not something that's very wrong, not something that's very dumb. But it's It's possibly something that could embarrass somebody. Maybe a faux pas, something that's kind of socially awkward. So it could be used for all of those different things It's a wide range, but the meaning, I think, is pretty simple. So let's look at a few examples. Trust me. I know better than to ask Vivian how old she is, especially in front of her friends, especially in front of her friends. We all know that that often it's not polite to ask somebody their age often, especially especially girls. So, uh, I would avoid I would avoid asking her that question. I know better. Trust me. I know better than to ask that if I ask, I think she will be very upset with me and also very embarrassed. So I know better than that. Which means I want to avoid making somebody feel bad. But again, I want to be clear. It can also be for life advice. Okay, now there is. There is another way that we use, you know, better than. But maybe it's not. You know better than that. Maybe it's you know better than me or you know better than I or you know better than her. So when we use it this way, it has. It has a different meaning. So let's actually look at one more example. That's a little bit different from this simple meaning. You know better than anyone how hard it is to make Alice agree to a photo. She's so self conscious, so self conscious. This is different before we say, you know better than to do that, whether it's about being polite or just being smart in general, to avoid danger or something, right? This this one, though, is about one person knowing more than another. And then it's usually about something else or about someone else about the truth. So if we're going to talk about some kind of truth or some kind of reality, we tell another person when we want to remind them that they've seen even Mawr examples than us, that this is true. This is true, and you have more experience about it than me. So you should definitely agree with what I just said. You know better than anyone how hard it is to make Alice agree to a photo. So maybe there's a husband and wife, and the wife has a sister named Alice. Alice really doesn't like people to take photos of her. She hates it. Some people are like that. They don't want anybody to take a photo. Many, many people. It's OK, of course, right, but the husband says to his wife, You know better than anybody. So that means the husband knows that Alice, his sister in law, his sister in law doesn't like it. But maybe maybe his wife has said, Oh, let's hope, let's we'll take a picture And maybe for a moment she forgot that. Actually, her sister doesn't like to take pictures. Then her husband says, You know better than anybody that she'll never agree to a photo, even if it's a big family photo better than anyone. Why, while they're sisters, they grew up together, so she has the most experience. Doesn't have to be better than anyone. You can say better than I. Sometimes people will say better than me. So we'll look at one more example with this with this basic idea, this basic usage Ah, and will use better than I better than I. And instead of it being about the reality or the truth of a person, it'll be about something more abstract. So let's look at one more example. Life is tough. You know that better than I. Life is tough, you know that better than I. So we're talking about difficulties, right? Struggles. And, uh, one person is telling another maybe not to worry about something, but I want to remind this person that they have mawr life experience than me. And maybe they've seen some really hard times. Maybe they've seen some really hard times. They've been through many difficulties, many struggles. They've been through a lot of things. So I'm giving them a reminder that you know, you know, you know how hard life is. You know better than I how hard life is. You know better than me. We could also say, you know better than anyone that might be a little too much, but better than I is pretty common, pretty common. And it could be used to remind someone about their own difficulties. Or it could just be it could just be that I want to give them credit for having a lot of life experience. And I also want to give them credit for remaining optimistic. You know, you're always you're always so optimistic. There was so positive. I'm really glad. I'm really glad that we know each other. You mean you know, you know better than deny how hard life can be. And yet you're always so positive. I don't know how you do it, especially with what happened last year. If that had happened to me, I would have been totally crushed. And I know that you were sad. But I think it's great that you're able to stay positive state positive. Maybe some tragic things happen to the other person. Some terrible things. Someone close to them maybe passed away. But still they're able to stay positive. Okay, so it's It's used like that. All right, so hopefully this one is clear. The first meaning, I think, is pretty simple, this one, which I wanted to just mention. Although it's not exactly the same expression, that's why I mentioned it later. It's a little more complicated, so try to make your own examples and look out for other examples. When you're watching movies or whatever 10. Haven't the Faintest: haven't the faintest Haven't the faintest. I haven't the faintest, I haven't the faintest idea. I haven't the faintest idea. And then we often add what when who works like that sometimes instead of faintest will say foggiest, some people will say Foggiest, E S t haven't the foggiest. Same meaning, no difference there. We can't change that. And we don't say I don't have the faintest. Usually we say I haven't the faintest. Some people will say it, but usually haven't. Okay. And sometimes we just say it haven't without I. That's pretty common to So what does it mean? It's like saying I really I really have no idea. I really have no idea. I don't know anything about that. And it's often a response to someone asking a question. Do you know what? Do you know what time we're supposed to be in the in the hall tomorrow morning? I haven't the faintest having the faintest haven't the foggiest. Haven't the faintest idea. I haven't the faintest idea. I don't have the faintest idea when we don't have to say when you could just say, haven't the faintest. That's the simplest way to say this one. Okay, or haven't the foggiest. And then you can add these other things. Sometimes we don't know something, but we know a little bit. This one, we don't even know a little bit. We know zero. It's like saying no clue. Same as no clue. Do you know no clue. I know 000%. 0% about this. I haven't the faintest idea what the professor is talking about. I haven't the faintest idea. So maybe you're in a lecture in university. And the professor, the professor is talking blah, blah, blah, blah about some topic. And you're listening. You're there. You're paying attention. But for some reason, maybe you don't know the topic well enough. Maybe the professor is not explaining things clearly. For whatever reason, you just don't understand. It happens, right? It could be also that you weren't paying attention. But maybe you're paying attention, and for some reason you just don't understand. Maybe the professor is kind of incoherent. You can't understand them because they can't be understood because their ideas are all over the place. And so it could even be that they're very quiet. Maybe. And so one of your classmates leans over and says, You know what the professors talking about and you say I haven't the faintest idea what the professor is talking about. I was going to ask you the same thing. I haven't written anything down in my notes. This is a very weird class that's going. Maybe the professor just doesn't know how to explain things. And the variation here would be if we wanted to say, I don't have the faintest idea. I want to make it clear whenever I say I feel like this one is more common than the other. That's based on my life experience, and it's based on what I've seen. So I just want to make that clear. I feel like I haven't the foggiest or haven't the faintest is more common than I don't have the faintest. So if you're going to choose one, I recommend choosing haven't because I feel that it's more common. If you use don't have, that's just fine. It's just fine up, but it's just my feeling that it's less common. But ah, in some other places, maybe other parts of the country. Maybe it's different, so I'm trying to be as clear as I can with these expressions. But there will always be cases or examples or expressions that are slightly different for me, then maybe other native English speakers. That's how language works. Although I will in this course, and I am trying to give you the broadest understanding that I can of each expression that we talk about. When was Abraham Lincoln born? I haven't the faintest idea. I haven't the faintest idea. I don't know when he was born. Okay. Actually, I I do. But this is just a example. I have the faintest idea. I think he was probably born in. I'm just gonna guess here. 18 09 That would be my guess. That's just a guess. I don't know the answer. You can look that up. When was Abraham Lincoln born? If it's 18 09 Yes. Or even close? Yes. Okay, But this person doesn't know. It's like saying I have absolutely no idea. I have absolutely no clue. Or uh uh, Sometimes we just say that when we don't know. Oh, and we shrug. This action is called a shrug. Shrug. What don't you know in your example? Describe something that you don't know anything about? If you can describe it a little bit and feel free to share your expressions with me. I'm more than happy to check them for you. I'd really be interested to see your examples. 11. On the Dot: On the dot. On the dot, on the dot is very simple, very, very simple and easy to understand. We won't spend that much time on this one because it's so simple, so easy. It means exactly on time. Exactly on time. Not early, not late, but I suppose almost late because it's exactly on time. Usually, we want to be we want to be early. Okay. So what's the picture? What's the visual for this one? To help us remember, I'd like you to think about a clock and then I would like you to think about the time, okay, So this is the minute hand right there. I'll just get rid of that. So imagine it's right there. Exactly. Okay. And maybe it's, let's say it's nine. Okay. So meet me at nine o'clock? Exactly. Meet me at Meet me at the library at nine o'clock in the morning? Exactly. Okay. I will and instead of numbers here, we have dots. Okay. We've got dots. So she arrived at nine AM on the dot. Why do we say on the dot? Because the minute hand is right there on that dot and the hour hand is right there on that dot. It's not after. Not before. No, it is on the dot. On the dot. Okay. Very simple. Let's look at a couple simple, easy examples. The train leaves at 623 on the dot on the DOD. Don't be late or I'll have to leave without you don't be late or I'll have to leave without you. I put this in all capital letters because we might want to say it more loudly. We might want to stress it to make sure that we're not misunderstood, to make sure that the other person, the person we're talking with gets it completely. There's no misunderstanding here. The train leaves at 623 on the dot. Don't be late because I believe I will leave on that train at 623 if you're not there, I'm sorry. I will have to leave without you. You're famous for being late. But if you're late this time, it will be all your fault and you are going to miss the concert and it will not be my problem. I will be enjoying the concert. Don't be late. Now you may be wondering, can I use on the dot to talk about times like 20 minutes. 20 minutes on the dot? Yeah. Yeah, You could do that sometimes. It's usually used to talk about a specific time like 623, nine o'clock, right? Sometimes we use on the dot to say, Wow, you've finished in 20 minutes on the dot. On the dot. Exactly, Exactly. Great. So you could say it like that. 22 minutes, 22 minutes on the dot, but it's usually only used this way when that's the time that we were trying to do it in the intended time was 22 minutes. And you made it exactly. The intended time was 20 minutes and you've got it exactly. Okay. So just to be clear, this is less common and usually only used when we're talking about hitting a target time. Hitting a target time, okay, Usually, Usually. Anyway, let's look at one more example quickly. Wow, you made it right on the dot. I thought you would be late. So let's say the friend is waiting on the train. The train is about to leave. And right at that time, 623, the other friend runs up the stairs onto the platform and into the train through the doors, sits down. Ha, I'm surprised you made it right on the dot. Great, great. So almost late, but not laid. Sometimes being on the dot is not a great thing because we often want to be early. So sometimes being on the dot feels like almost, almost late. Almost late. Okay. All right. So hopefully this one is clear. 12. Since when...: since when? Since when this is often a way to express surprise or disbelief, disbelief. And we sometimes say it as a simple question. Since when? When we find out some new information about someone who we thought we knew quite well you thought you knew someone very well and then you find out some new thing about them that you didn't know. And you say Since when? When did that start? When did that thing about you begin? For example, You see your good friend pick up a cigarette and start smoking and you might say, you smoke since when that means. When did you begin smoking? Yes, but it's expressing my surprise. My shock at seeing you do something that I didn't know that you do. Wow. What? Huh? You do, huh? Like that. It's that sort of feeling. And that's how it's usually used. We could say it just like this by itself, or we could say the action. Since when did we decide? Since when did something happen? Since when did you since when did we? Since when did they, for example? There's a store and this store starts selling something that you didn't know that they sold . Since when does Walmart sell guns? This big store called Wal Mart. Maybe you didn't know that they sold guns. They do. Since when? Since when did Walmart sell guns? This is a surprise to you. Since when did you guys start dating? Maybe two friends, boy and a girl. You know them both, and you see them holding hands. You guys were dating since when? But we often use guys to mean you people when we're talking with our friends. Doesn't matter if it's girls or boys. Okay, guys. Hey, guys, even if it's all girls, it's OK. We can use the word guys and it's used among friends. All right, so that's basically what, since when means as an expression, Let's look at some specific examples. I go over to my friend's house and my friend is preparing a big, delicious meal. But I always thought that my friend didn't know how to cook because I always see my friend eating out. We say eating out what that means is going to restaurants or picking up food eating out. So I say, Since when do you cook? Since when do you cook? So we can say do you if it's going on? If this is an action that they're still doing if we want to say did you, then we would probably say, Did you start since when did you start cooking? Since when do you cook? Since always. This is kind of a funny way to answer the question. Another way to say this would be I've I've always always known how to cook. Or maybe just say I'm a great cook without even saying when Just say I'm a great cook. You just didn't know. You just didn't know. Yeah, really comes as a surprise. It comes as a surprise. I'm shocked. Can we eat again? I come over to my friend's house and my friend is making some very healthy, some very healthy food. Maybe. Ah, smoothie. And this is not the kind of food that my friend usually eats. And then my friend says, Oh, yeah, well, David told me that smoothies are a great way to get all your daily vitamins. And I say, Since when do you care what David says? Because maybe I've always heard you criticized David. Whoever this David is, you've always said David, he knows nothing David Stupid David. David always gives useless advice, so I'm kind of shocked. I'm kind of shocked that suddenly you're taking David's advice because it's so different from what you've done before. Okay? And then you say, since he started giving awesome advice, that's when I started listening to his advice, maybe before his advice was bad. But when he started giving me really good advice, maybe about diet and nutrition, I started listening to David more. Maybe David doesn't know about other things, but David really knows about diet and nutrition, diet and nutrition. Nutrition is about, uh, healthy food food that we eat. Okay. And again, we could say this one just like we did at the very beginning. You listen to David's advice, since when we ask the first as a question. And the second that Benedetta data with that tone is smoke. Since when you listen to David's advice, since when you cook, since when? This is a way to show our surprise, and it's also probably the simplest way to do it. But make sure you have the right tone. Make sure your voice goes up in both sentences. Uh huh. Like that. All right, so this one's pretty simple, and you can use it usually with friends, not something you would normally use with colleagues or co workers. It's usually something that's more casual, something between friends. For all of the expressions that I'm teaching, I need to think of original examples. I have to really think about it, and that really helps me to clarify the expression so that you can understand it better. But you can do the same thing to remember it by really thinking about it and thinking about your own examples. Would it work in this situation? Maybe this example would work. Oh yeah, that sounds right. That can help you really make the expression stick in your mind. So always make sure to come up with your own examples so that when you're in a conversation , these things can just pop up and you don't need to struggle to try to remember them. Also, I'd love to see the examples that you make, so make sure to share them with me. I'd love to. I'd love to check them out 13. All Set: all set. All set. And this one can be by itself often as a question or an answer. All set, all set. All set. All set notice the tone goes up like this that I don't know as a question. What does it mean? Ready is what it means. Or as a question. Ready. Ready? Ready, Ready. All set. All set. So we can use it by itself like this or we can use it in other sentences. Are are you all set? I'm all set, I hope. I hope everyone is all set. If something is set, that means it is. It's in place. It's in the proper place. And if something or someone is in the proper place in the proper place, that means they're ready, right? They can do whatever they need to dio. For example, when you're watching the Olympics and you see some you see some sprinters getting ready to run a race. They say at the beginning, on your marks get set and then go, Go and they start running right. This gets set means get ready. And we can say that to So all set means Are all of you ready or are you completely ready? It could be for everybody. Toe. Ask if everybody here is ready or for one person to ask if they are totally ready. Everything that they can do to be ready is done completely. 100%. Okay, this one gets set. Means get ready. Get set. Get ready. Get ready. And if we say to someone Hey, everybody, get ready. Get ready. People will be doing things. They're not ready. They're in the process. Okay, Okay, okay. Okay. Now we can say all set already. Yep. All set. So it's sort of like the same thing, but one is before and one is after. One is movement. One is preparing. And then once everything is set, not moving, then we can say that we are ready. So it's really the same expression. It's kind of just two different sides to the same expression. And this one, I think, is extremely common in spoken American English. But let's look at some simple examples. I think I'm all set for my final exam. I studied like crazy. I think I'm all set now. We could say I'm all set for my final exam. This person maybe is being a bit more cautious because it's an exam and you never know for sure. There might be some surprises in the exam, right? So maybe it's better to just say, I think I think I'm all set now. Maybe a family is taking a taking a road trip together. And there are three kids Mom, Dad, and everybody's getting their things. Everybody's getting their bags. Maybe getting some some snacks for the road, snacks for the road. And finally, finally, finally everybody is in the car, right? They've They've made sure that the front door is locked, that the cat has enough food and water for two days, and everybody has their their books and their snacks and their bags. Everything is in the car. Everything is packed, everything is packed. Maybe the luggage, the luggage is all packed. And maybe Dad is at the steering wheel. And right before they leave, right before they pull out of the driveway. And then Dan says, it's time to go. Everybody all set, everybody all set again. That toned. And Anna is very important. And then everybody in the car might say, All set. All set. We're ready. We're ready. We're all set. We could say that too. He could just say all set. All said that would be fine. He could say also, is everybody all set? That would be okay. I think this is one of those those expressions that's just so common and so easy to understand. You can go out and use it right away. I don't even think you need to make your own examples to see if you really get it. If you really understand, I think you do. All set means ready. So next time you're talking with someone and they ask you if you're ready to go, you can just say all set, all set and it should fit into the conversation completely. Naturally, this one is easy. 14. I Can't Wait: I can't wait. I can't wait or weaken Sometimes. Say I can barely wait. I can hardly hardly hardly wait. This means you almost can't. It's very close if somebody says I hardly ever do that or I barely I barely ever drink beer . I hardly drink beer. It means almost not. Or never, Almost never. Okay, so this really means I can't wait or she can't wait or she couldn't wait. I couldn't wait. We could put this in the past tense. This really means we're looking forward to something excited about something on when we have that feeling of excitement when we're really anticipating anticipating something, maybe an exciting event or maybe just getting out of a situation we don't like whatever. We're just looking forward to it. We're excited to leave this not great situation and get into a better one, or we're excited to have some great thing happen in the future. Could be today could be in a year. I can't wait to do something. I can't wait until something happens. Okay, whatever. Basically, the idea is that we are excited. We're looking forward, and then we can say what we're going to do. The action that we're looking forward to after two, or we can say until and then we can describe the event. All right, so this one is pretty simple. Let's look at some Let's look at some examples so that we can understand it better. I can't wait to go home. I can't wait to go home. I'm so tired. I'm exhausted. Maybe after a long day, you just can't wait to get home, kick your shoes off, lay down, lay down on the sofa and watch TV with a glass of red wine. I can't wait. It's one something that were looking forward to, but also something we're looking forward to getting away. Sergi getting away from From what? Well, maybe the day, the long day at work, having to stay in the office for a long time. Whatever it may be, I can't wait to get out of here. I can't wait until I get home. I can't wait to leave. I can't wait until we're allowed to leave. I can't wait to go to Disneyland next year, so it's very flexible. You can use it for all kinds of things. Basically, you're just expressing that emotion of anticipation. anticipation. Anticipation. Let's look at another simple example. So there's a friend hosting a party. This will be the host, and this is the, uh is one of the guests. And the host maybe sends a text message to this person. Hey, are you coming to the party tonight? Are you coming to the party tonight To confirm It's always good to confirm. Right. Hey, are you Are you going to the movie later? Maybe a group of friends. They're going to see a movie, right? And one friend wants to know if the other will go. Okay, So they're just confirming this one. Yeah. Can't wait. Yeah, Can't wait. If you just say yeah. Yes. And that's it. Then this person will feel like, Oh, well, they're coming to the party, but they're not very excited. But if you say can't wait, Can't wait. Then this person feels good that they're going to have a fun party. That this person is excited to go to the party. If two people are talking about the party, they might say, I can't wait for the party tonight, So we can also say four. I can't wait four the party tonight. Okay, very flexible. What if it's something that may happen in 10 years? I can't wait until I get my PhD. Yeah, but you're just a freshman. Yeah, I know, but I just can't wait. I'm so excited. Yeah, that's OK. You can say that, too. So it doesn't matter if it's short term or long term, doesn't really matter. You can use it for both. I think it's more common for stuff that's happening very soon for short term stuff, but you can use it in the long term as well. 15. Now and Then: now and then now and then, we often say now and then very fast like that. We don't usually say now, end then. So sometimes to sound more natural, you want to run the sounds together and actually for this whole thing. If you want to sound really natural, don't stop. You're voice for the whole thing. Now, When? Then? Now and then Now and then Now and then now and then. Okay. All right. So what does this mean? Well, basically, now and then means sometimes. And it's used mostly, like sometimes. Except there are a few places we can use sometimes where we generally won't use now and then. So, for example, we sometimes shop online, putting now and then here might be a little weird. We now and then shop online. That sounds a little strange, so it's more about the position of it that matters. So we might say we shop online now and then. That sounds good. Or now and then we shop online now and then, comma, we shop online. Okay, so it's It's really more about where it is, where it is, but basically it's the same as sometimes or once in Ah, while once in a while is maybe less than now and then, but they could be used in pretty much the same way, all right, so that's what it means. And it's pretty simple. I think we really just need to look at a few examples so that you have an idea about how to use it. Although it is, I think, very simple now and then. I like Teoh eat out, but usually I cook at home. Okay, so basically, this is sometimes sometimes I like to eat at restaurants. That's what eat out means. To eat out means to go to a restaurant, order food and eat there. But usually I cook at home. Okay, some people will say now and then come. I like to eat out, but we don't need to have it here. And I think for this example, it's better simply, now and then. I like to eat out, but usually I or I usually cook at home. So maybe Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, cook at home, this cook at home, Thursday Thursday, uh, eat out, eat out. And then Friday, Friday, cook at home again. Maybe Saturday, maybe Saturday. Eat out on then Sunday cook at home now and then could be different for different people. That's the interesting thing about words of frequency, like sometimes it's very much based on context. That context is really important because to you sometimes might be very different than what I feel sometimes is sometimes traveling abroad, for you might be once a week maybe, Uh, and sometimes for me, maybe once a year or whatever. It's very flexible, I guess, for traveling abroad once a week is is not sometimes, but you get the idea. People used these words of frequency like now and then, sometimes rarely. They use them very differently. And it's also it's also based on the context, very much based on the context. What are we talking about? If someone says, I, um, I usually cook at home, Does that mean Does that mean every single day, except maybe one day a week? Or does it mean every day except one day a month? Okay, well, I would say maybe once or twice a week, that's my feeling. But another person might use it differently. And again, if we're talking about travel, that's something that's more serious. So sometimes might be more like once every few months because travel is something people do less often than then eating. So it really depends on the situation. You have to kind of get a feel for it. You can use expressions of frequency, kind of how how you want to use them. They're pretty flexible, like I mentioned before. Sometimes now and then is at the end of whatever is being talked about. So here it's going for a walk. You should go for a walk. So that's the recommendation here now and then. We can say you should go for a walk once in, ah, while you should go for a walk sometimes, okay, and it would be good for your health. Maybe one person is giving advice to someone else who seems unhealthy. Maybe it's having health problems, and maybe going for a walk would be a good way to get your heart rate heart rate up and maybe improve improve circulation, which means blood flowing through your body. Whatever it's, it's, it's healthy to be active, so you should go for a walk now and then. But maybe this really means regularly, because in English often we will underplay things of course. I hope that you will go for a walk every day. But saying it more casually like this, sometimes once in a while makes it feel a little bit more. Let's say gentle, a little softer, a little softer. Okay, now and then, once in a while, sometimes same thing. We can also use it as a response. So let's look at one more example quickly. Do you drink? Yeah, now and then, this is a simple response to the question. Do you drink when someone says, Do you drink? Does that mean grape juice? Milk, water? No. If someone says, Do you drink? It means, Do you drink alcohol? Do you drink alcohol like wine? Beer? Maybe. Ah, rum. That sort of thing right now and then means I drink sometimes. And again. That could be very different for different people. May be someone who used to drink a lot. Thinks now and then. Is Onley once a day, one glass of wine a day. Maybe it's possible, and maybe for some people now and then is once or twice a month, so it can vary widely the way that words of frequency are used. They vary widely, depending on who you're talking to, 16. On My Way: on my way. On the way. On my way on the way. Okay, Now this is used in 22 different ways. But let's talk about the basic. The basic meaning we started here. This is the starting point, and this is the destination. And when you're anywhere between this and this, you are on the way as long as you're moving. Now, if you stop here and have a cup of coffee, then you're no longer on the way. You're not on the way anymore. You have to be moving toward the destination, moving toward toward where you're going to have to be actually moving forward or making progress. I'm on the way home. I'm on the way home, and this one can be very useful for talking about a number of different things. We might talk about things that happened during the travel or the time that we were actually going from this place to this place. I was I was on my way home and I saw a coffee shop that I had never seen before. So I went in and I ordered a cup a cup of coffee. I was on my way home and I saw this. So I'm giving you the background. What's going on? And then I tell you what I saw. The story is about maybe this coffee shop. Okay? I waas I waas on my way home. Okay? Or, um, we're asking somebody to do something. Can you? Can you by me? A candy bar on your way home On your way back we often say back instead of home. So maybe where roommates, you're out. I know the year out. I don't want to go out. And I say to you, Could you buy me something? A candy bar on your way back? Please, please. Because I want something sweet. I want something sweet so we could also use it to make requests, make requests. If we don't want to use something like my or your or his or her, then we can say the We can always use the on the way home on the way home on the way back on the way back on the way to school on the way to my grandma's house on the way across the country, to Seattle or wherever. It can be a short distance during one day or you could be on the way for several days. For example, if you're flying somewhere far away or your maybe driving across the country on the way, we listen to that song about 500 times, and now we're sick of it. We're sick of it. OK, the other way that we can use this one is to talk about to talk about goals, but really isn't that different? Well, the goal is something in the future, and you might not get there. That's true, but it is still a kind of destination That's not clear. I'll write it again. Still a kind of destination, a place you want to go. It's just in the future instead of at some place, right? But it's the same idea. I I, uh I am on the way toward getting my Ph. D. On the way toward getting my PhD. So sometimes if you make a step in the right direction toward your goals, you can say, I felt that I was really on the way on the way. It doesn't mean you're very, very close. It doesn't mean you're very, very far just means that you're making progress toward that. Progress toward it so when you reach an important point in the progress or the sort of direction toward the goal than you can say, I'm really on the way, I'm on the way toward my goal. This is another important step on the way toward my goal, my dream of becoming a doctor. So let's look at some examples. In this first example. There are two people who live together. Let's say it's a husband and a wife and one is at home and one is or was at work. Okay. And one asks the other, Are you coming home soon? Are you coming home soon? So this person doesn't know if this person has left work already or not. So they're asking. Maybe it's a phone call. Maybe it's a text message. Whatever. Yes, I'm on my way home now. We could say I'm on the I'm on the way home now. Could you please pick up a few things from the store on your way back? So we could again say on your way home we could just say on your way or we could change it and say, on your weight back. I think this one sounds best. Okay, what do you need? Okay. What do you need that means? Tell me the things that I need to buy at the store store here means supermarket. Maybe supermarket Americans will often call the supermarket the store. Please go to the store and get a few things. The store, Even though that's a very general word. Usually we mean Super market supermarket. So I think this one is pretty simple. We're using it to check the status of someone where they are. Have they left? We're not. And we're also using it to make a request quest. Let's now look at an example for talking about career steps along the path of a career in this example will talk about something that happened in the past, and this is going to be about goals and a goal that was actually achieved achieved. And this person is talking about their road, the things they had to struggle with on the way or along the way. Notice for this one we're using on or along. And I think maybe maybe, ah, Long is better here. When we're talking about a journey in the past toward goals we might use a long instead of on, but we can use on. That's fine, too. Here we don't say my, though, when we're talking about goals, we almost never say along my way on my way. We say on the way, because it's a road and maybe it's not even our road. We know what steps we need to take, so the road is there, so we just say the anyway. Let's look at the example on the way or along the way toward becoming a professional. Cardiologists. Cardiologists is a heart doctor, basically a heart doctor. That's the simple way of saying what it is. If you see cardio, it's related to the heart and the cardiovascular system related to the heart and ologists. If you see that it's usually going to be some kind of professional or doctor, I faced many challenges that many of my peers were not strong enough to overcome. Peers are people your same age in your your age group. They're also trying to become maybe cardiologists. They're on the same road, but along the way they couldn't deal with the difficulty, and maybe they gave up and did something else. Did something easier. They quit along the way. They faced many challenges and they gave up. So many of my peers were not strong enough to overcome. If you're overcoming something, you're able to beat it. You face a difficulty and you beat it. You win against the difficulty you overcome difficulty. Okay? Persevering felt very gratifying. And now I have a rewarding career. So this person this person got there, they had to go was a very difficult thing. There were many, many struggles along the way or on the way, but they finally made it. And now they have a rewarding. She has a rewarding career. Okay, gratifying gratifying. Means you feel happy about it. Satisfied? Satisfied? F I de satisfied. Okay, that's the basic idea. And we don't use his her My we use the when you're making your examples for this one. Try to use both. Use it in both ways, talk about your goals and also talk about something that you did or something that you got or something that happened on the way to some other place on the way may be to your home or on the way, the way back to maybe your parents home or whatever, whatever on the way on the way. Try to use it in a couple different ways so that you can have a deeper feeling for the way that this expression is actually used in daily English because it is very, very common. 17. You Made It: You made it. You made it. You made it. Does that mean you made something with your hands? Like a cake? You made it. Well, yes. But that's just a simple description, right? We don't need to talk about that one. What is the expression? You made it. What does that mean? What is this phrase mean? Well, it generally means two different things. The way that it's usually used one is You arrived. You arrived at some place. And when you see that someone has arrived at your house, maybe they had some trouble getting there. You can say in a happy way that you're happy to see them. You made it. You made it. So it's often a good thing to say when people have completed a journey to see you or have just finished a journey. And they tell you that they got to where they were going. Finally got here. Has been spend three days of traveling. I'm glad you made it. I'm glad you made it. I'm glad that blab not blab, not blab. I'm glad you made it. That means I'm glad you got there. I'm glad you arrived. And if it was a long journey, we could say finally. Now that could have two different meanings. One meaning of I'm glad you finally made it is Yeah. It took you a long time to get to where you were going. You were traveling to a far away place. I'm glad you got there, even though it took a long time and was very difficult and tiring. But if I invited you to come over to my home or I invited you to meet me somewhere and I waited for an hour and you're very late when I say I'm glad you finally made it. There is a little bit of sarcasm there, and I'm saying I waited a long time. That's what it really means. I'm glad you finally made it. I waited here an hour. So the feeling there is, maybe you have inconvenienced me a little bit. You've inconvenienced me a little bit. Okay, that's the idea. Finally, when you're late, someone might say finally finally like that The other way that this one is used you made it is to arrive at a goal. Major success, a goal. And ah, Sometimes, instead of saying I made it will say I've made it or you've you've made it made it here suggests that we don't really focus on the time. But we're focusing on the success, the achievement. And it could be it could be success like becoming a ah, wealthy musician. That's common. I finally made it. I finally made it. Now I'm a successful musician. It was my dream for a long time. Or you made it or you've you've made it. Can we say you've arrived? You've arrived? Yes. Sometimes sometimes will say you have arrived. Meaning you've reached this goal but one other one other way that we use this that's not really not really appropriate for arrived is something like a like a marathon. Maybe you have this lifelong goal to run a marathon under a certain time. Marathon is a very long running race. And finally, finally you do it. Yes, yes. Finally, age 55. You run a marathon in the time that you wanted is your goal. Lifelong goal. You made it. You finally made it. Yes, Yes, I finally made it. I did it. I did it! So there I made it. And I did it are the same, but they're talking about a success. Usually after a long time, usually, especially when it is a goal or has been a goal for a long time. So let's look at a few examples. Maybe you get invited to a party and you're late because the traffic is bad. But that's the reason you say Maybe it's not really bad. But anyway, you're late and you arrive Finally, finally and the door opens and you see, everyone else is in the party and the host, the host opens the door, and the host is happy to see you. Hey! Hey! You made it. You made it. You arrived. I'm glad. I'm glad you could make it. I'm glad you could make it. And we will say this one to also very common. I'm glad you could make it. Hey, you made it. Yep. Sorry I'm late. Bad traffic, bad traffic, bad traffic. Maybe it's the reason. Maybe not so it doesn't always mean finally that they're upset that you're late. Not always. Sometimes they're just People are just happy to see you or your happy to see them. Oh, you made it. Glad you could make it. I'm glad you could make it After years of taking small movie parts, I finally made it. I got my first big role in a movie. So for this one, it's the second meaning that we talked about. Someone has a big dream, a big dream, a dream to become an actor or actress. It's a tough dream to become, ah, movie star to be in a movie and have a major role major role in a movie. Major role is you're an important person in the movie in the movie, and you're an important person in that movie of a major role. So you talk about first how difficulty it waas that you spent many years doing this trying to get there, and then finally I got there. I reached my goal. I became successful. I got really got paid a lot of money to do this. Okay, after years of taking small movie parts, a part in a movie is the same as a role in a movie. But maybe you're just on the on camera in the movie, and you don't get to speak. Or maybe you can only say one line. It's very small, and you take that part, you accept it you take that to same. Okay, I'll do this. But maybe you're not excited about it. You wish you had a larger role. You just take you just take, take that role. So after years of taking or accepting small movie parts again, parts and roles are the same Here. I finally made it. I got my first big role. Major role. Same thing. The role in a movie is the part that you play the character you play. Okay, that's the idea. You finally got your dream. You're finally successful. Or at least you reach the higher level, which is to be a maybe a movie star to have an important character, an important role in a movie. 18. Hold on a Sec: hold on a sec. Hold on a sec. Hold on a sec. This is like saying Wait, but it's much more polite, especially if we add please here or here. You can put it in the front or behind, and it's also more casual. You never want to say to someone. Wait, wait. Usually, unless you're very close to them, it's so direct, so direct. So saying hold on a sec is not as sharp as saying Wait. It's much more gentle, especially if you're using please, and it makes it feel like it's not a big deal like it's just going to take one moment for me to do this. Don't worry now does it have to actually take a sec with second short for a second? No, no, It's sort of like saying moment, and if you want to say, hold on a moment, that's okay. If you want to say hold on a second, that's okay. If you want to say Hold on a minute, that's OK. Could we say hold on an hour? Probably not. No, that's not very common. So moment, minutes second and mawr casually sec, sec. Okay, so that one is the least formal of all of the ones here. Okay, hold on a second. Or hold on a minute, please. Is very respectful. Very polite. So if you want to be more formal than maybe use Hold on a minute, please. Or please hold on a minute. Please hold on a second while I do this. But this has another way to be used. There's another way to use. Hold on a sec. It means Wait. What? You said something. You said something just now, and I can't believe it or I want Teoh. I want to confirm it. I want to confirm what I think. I heard you say now. It's not always about what you say. It could be about actions. That's okay too. But generally I'm showing surprise or disbelief, and I need to make sure that that's right. Now maybe that's a little hard to understand. So we will look at some examples, but it's like saying Well, what? Well, you, You you what? You what? Just to confirm it. It's also something will use when we hear some news. That's really disappointing. When you hear something disappointing, you almost want to say no. That can't be right. Can you say that again? Right. So we'll say, Hold on a sec. Are you saying? And then repeat what we think we heard and then hope that they don't say yes. That's right. Oh, no, because it's a bad thing. It's bad news. OK, now could it be used for good news? Someone says, Oh, this this great thing happened. Something wonderful happened. Hold on a sec. Are you saying this wonderful thing happened? Probably not. So it's usually used when we want to confirm something surprising, shocking or maybe disappointing. Disappointing. So let's look at our examples. Ready? Ready? Someone's asking me if I'm ready to go. Maybe we're leaving somewhere together. Hold on a sec. I need to get my key. Maybe I forgot my key. I need to go back and get it, but I want you to feel like it's going to be a very short time, right? I could say Wait, I need to get my key. But that hold on a sec really does make it feel like it's quick. No big deal. Don't worry about it. I'll be right back. I'll be right back. Be right back. And we could also say just a sec, just, uh, sec. That works, too. That's almost the same here. Pretty much exactly the same. You could say Just a minute, please. That's fine, too. But hold on really focuses on the waiting thing, and just a sec might focus more on what I'm doing. So I think hold on a second better when you're talking to others and you want them to wait for a short time. Okay, so this one's pretty easy thing. It's very easy. Just use it in place of weight. But let's look at an example for the other way to use this expression. So you're flying somewhere and you're at your connection. The connection is when you need to wait in the middle between one flight and another at the airport. Sometimes connections air long. Sometimes you have a layover that's several hours long. Connection is just where it is. The layover is How long the time, for example, a seven hour layover, a seven hour layover. So let's say there's bad weather at your destination on whether, and you find out that your flight to your final destination isn't leaving in several hours when it's supposed to, you get an announcement. And maybe the person you're traveling with tells you that they heard this announcement. Looks like the flight is going to be delayed until tomorrow night. Delayed until delayed until tomorrow night. You heard this news and you suddenly can't believe you're realizing it. Like move of Ah ha ha ha. What? You can't believe this new information that you've heard this bad information. It's surprising to you and you're still processing it. And you need to just confirm that it's true. Hopefully you heard the wrong thing. Hopefully what you thought you heard is not true. In fact, maybe it is true. Hold on a sec. So you use hold on a sec to say, Let me just confirm what I think I heard. Are you telling me we have to stay here for another 24 hours than your friend says? Yes, That's right. Oh, my God, I can't believe that. Now you could say, Hold on a sec. When you're doing something else that you want to confirm. Hold on a sec. Let me just confirm you said the number Is that that that that that But that's that's more like the first meaning this one is like, Let me just confirm what I hurt because what I think I heard is not good. Doesn't have to be news. It can be some other thing. Somebody says something that's just crazy. And you want to confirm that They said that crazy thing. Hold on a sec. Did you just Did you just say and then say what you think you heard, which is the crazy thing that they said, OK, think it's pretty easy, right? All right, so let's go on to the next expression. 19. Way to Go: Way to go. This is a very interesting expression because it has a genuine meaning and it has a sarcastic meaning. And we'll talk about both of those. But just quickly, the very basic meaning. When we say, which way should I go, we can point over there and say, oh, that's the right way to go, that's the way to go. That's the way to go. So we can sometimes just say that's the right way to go and that's the very basic meaning. Sometimes that can be a direction over there, over there, left, right, or sometimes in life, we don't know what road to take. I just don't know which way is the right way to go in my life. Changed jobs, that would be the right way to go. So I think this is so simple. This one is so simple that really, that's all we need to say about it for a direction in life or physically, where you need to walk or where you need to drive. But let's get back to this one because I think it's more interesting, sarcastic, and genuine meaning of way to go. This means we really mean what we say. And this means we don't mean what we say. We may mean the opposite of what we say. This can be a way to congratulate someone when somebody does something very well, we say, Hey, wait to go, way to go, great job. It's like saying, great job, great job, way to go. Congratulations, You did good. But the opposite of that would be saying the exact same thing when somebody does something that's terrible or bad. And you say, Great job, way to go as a way to say you did a terrible thing. Maybe I'm angry at you. That's the interesting thing. One is to really congratulate and one is to criticize. One is to criticize, to say, I can't believe you did that. Okay, so I think we need to look at some examples so that we can have a better understanding. Your friend gets hired for a job he really, really wanted to get and he went to five interviews. And it was a very difficult process. It was it was terrible, but finally, he made it, got the job. And you want to express your feeling of being happy for your friend. You want to express that. You are glad that he made it. You're glad that he got there. You don't envy him. It's real, a real feeling of happiness for him. Okay. So we can say, wait to go, way to go. We could just say that by itself, way to go, way to go. But we could put it in an expression, way to go on your new job, way to go on your new job. And we might follow that by saying, I'm really happy for you. I'm really happy for you, for you. Okay? So that's pretty simple, right? It can be. Inside of an example, and it can be by itself, both mean the same thing. Okay, let's now look at an example of the opposite. These sarcastic meaning or the meaning that we use to criticize, again to friends traveling together. Okay? And they go to the train station. At the train station, they're going to, you know, take a train to another another city. At the train station. The person at the ticket office says to them, sorry, you don't have any tickets. All of the tickets are sold out. You'll have to book in advance. Book in advance. That means you have to get the tickets before, right? We say book in advance. And they talked about this before. These two friends and one friend had said several days before, don't forget to book the tickets. The other friend had said, Oh yes, of course I won't. I will book them today, but he forgot. And now they cannot go to where they wanted to go because the tickets are sold out because they didn't book in advance. You forgot to buy train tickets. Says friend one looking at his other friend. Way to go. Idiot, idiot is stupid, stupid person. Way to go is like saying congratulations, but it's almost like congratulations for doing such a dumb, terrible thing. Idiot. Now this is of course rude when you're angry at your friend and you want to express that feeling of anger. And we use this expression as a sarcastic way of saying, I can't believe you did that terrible thing. I can't believe it unbelievable. We could also say, It's kinda funny that we use the opposite to express what we really mean sometimes in English. But in fact, it's very common. We might also say, oh, great, a great means good, right? Great as a good thing. But if you say it in this kind of situation, great. It means that's terrible. Okay, keep in mind, sarcasm is a very important part of English speaking culture. And if you do this kind of thing, you're being sarcastic sometimes to be funny, in this case, to show your anger toward your friend who forgot to buy train tickets. Idiot. That's pretty rude, but if your friend does something very stupid, sometimes you need to call them in idiot. All right, so hopefully that's clear. Checkout. More examples. Look for this expression in movies or TV shows that you watch, or even maybe books or stories that you're reading. If you keep an eye out and by paying attention to how they're used, you will have an even deeper understanding of them, okay. 20. I Told You So: I told you so. I told you so. This one is very simple, I think very easy to understand. It's really a response. It's a response. And you told somebody something. OK, so you said a and then person B said no, they don't believe you. And then moments later or later they come back and they say, Oh, you were right. Then you can say I told you so. I told you so, which means both. I was right and also a word which I'm not sure how toe right down. So it's kind of an attitude thing as though you're saying you you shouldn't have doubted me . You shouldn't have doubted me. I told you so. The thing I said was correct. You said, no, you shouldn't have doubted me, but it's sort of being a little bit comical sometimes. Sometimes you're doing it just as a reaction to be kind of funny, But sometimes you could be serious. Hey, you should listen to me. I told you so. I told you to do that. You could say the action directly. I told you a was going to happen, right? If you do this, she's going to be angry. No, you're right. She's angry. I told you she would be angry. I told you she would be angry. The thing that happened, I told you so. Okay. And sometimes we'll change it a little bit or we'll say this part before somebody does something. OK, don't Don't make me say I told you so. Don't make me say I told you so. That means I'm predicting that if you don't listen to my suggestion, my advice, you are going to regret it. You're going to be wrong, basically. Okay, so this is pretty simple. Let's look at a couple examples. Wow. Kyle and Sandra did break up. Yep, I told you so. So maybe we know these two Kyle and Sandra and they were dating. And then I said, Hey, did you hear Kyle and Sanda San Sandra. Sandra broke up, ended their relationship, and my friend says, No, that can't be true. They've been dating for three years. They wouldn't break up, and then then this person gets a phone call or talks to one of them, or finds out that it is true and comes back to me. That's why you focus on did Wow. Wow, Cailan. Sandra did break up my response. Yep. I told you so. I told you so we might We might give this emotion a term smug, smug, And you can look that up if you want, But it's kind of like like that I'm I'm right. I'm right. You shouldn't have doubted me. The library doesn't have that book. Just like you said. I told you so. Told you so. Okay, Now, this one is more casual than the last one. So it's not a big deal, but one person is going to go Look, maybe maybe two people are studying to university students, and one says, I need this book about something, and this person says they don't have it. The don't have it. And then this person says, Are you sure? You sure? And then this person said, Yep. Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. Now this person still wants to check. I'm gonna I'm gonna go check, just in case, just in case, just in case. Just in case. Then this happens. The library doesn't have the book. Just like you said. I told you so. But maybe this person is still reading. Still studying doesn't even look up from the book. I told you so. So it's a way to say you wasted your time. You wasted time. But that one doesn't necessarily have a strong emotion of Uh huh. I'm right and feeling happy about that. It's not as smug as may be. The one before, I guess it could be, but it depends on the personality of the person. So this one is very simple, I think. 21. It Serves You Right: it serves you right. It serves you right. Or we could say it would serve. You write. It would serve you right. Same idea. But if you say it would serve you right, then it's not riel. It's not riel. And it's maybe just an imaginary situation or a hypothetical hypothetical situation, not riel. Just something to talk about. Or maybe a possibility in the future. Okay, so what does it mean? Something serves you right. Well, it's first a response. Usually. Usually it's a response to something. Something happens, and the thing that happens is a bad thing and usually usually used for bad things. And we feel someone else feels that that bad thing was deserved, deserved, deserved. If you deserve something, it means you should get that. So let's say, for example, let's say, for example, there is Ah ah, father who never spends time with his with his Children and his Children maybe grow up and they don't have a very close relationship with him, even though now he would like to write. So maybe when they were growing up, he wasn't there very much. But after they've grown up, he wants tohave a better relationship but now they're They're often they don't have a very close, close bond with their father, and some would say it serves him right. It serves him right now, This maybe is a little bit harsh, but basically, it is what he deserves because he didn't put in the time when his Children were growing up to create a bond with them to really be close with them to develop a strong relationship with them. So hey, serves him right. My kids, they never call me. They never talked to me. Uh, I wish they would. Well, you know what? When you were raising them when we were raising them, you were always gone on business trips. It serves you right. Serves you right. This is the idea. This is the idea. And so usually it's like you deserve the punishment you got. You deserve the punishment you've got. So again, it's usually for negative things. Once in a while, you will hear this used for positive, positive things like, uh, like, you've got some great honor and someone says, Well, it serves you right. But that's usually used in a sarcastic, almost funny way to say you deserve this great thing, but I'm saying it as though it's a bad thing. So still were using it in a negative light. And it's often the people close to us who really understand the situation. Who will say it. It serves you right. But sometimes people will say it about themselves. Well, I guess I guess it serves me right. It serves me right when we're talking about things happening now and something hasn't happened. But we feel that someone would deserve something bad to happen. Then we would use Would it would serve you right. If you got fired, it would serve you right if you got fired. You're so lazy and you try so little. You just goto work and you just watch videos on the Internet all day. It would serve you right if you got fired. So let's look at a few examples. One person complains to a friend, I've gained so much weight. How did this happen? How did this happen? As though they're surprised to have become fatter and fatter. Gain weight means get fat. A nice way to say it is gained weight. Have you gained a little weight? You look like you've gained a little weight. I've gained weight. That means you've become mawr fat, fatter, fatter. Okay, well, you don't have a healthy diet. It kind of serves you right now. This is a little bit Maybe Maybe, maybe, maybe a little bit harsh. Just a tad. By the way, If I say a tad, that means a little, maybe a little bit harsh. Harsh means maybe too strong to direct. It Serves you right. I've gained weight. It serves you right. You don't eat healthy. But the basic meaning here is Of course, you've gained weight. You haven't put in the hard work to lose weight. You don't have a healthy diet. So being overweight is exactly what you deserve. Based on your actions, it's the right thing. This doesn't mean Ha ha ha. You're too fat. It means I'm not surprised by what happened. How? How could you be surprised? You shouldn't be asking. How did this happen? You're the one who eats hamburgers and french fries and pizza every single day, right? If you wanted to not gain weight, you should You should have a better diet. You should exercise. It kind of serves you right now. Adding kind of here definitely softens it. To soften something is to make it a little more gentle, a little less direct if we say Ha ha! Yes, that's right. It serves you right. Idiot! Loser! So that's really harsh. That's that's not good. But this is ah, kind of in the middle. So this one's OK. And this is something ah friend might say if they really want to be honest, to maybe help their friend have a better diet. Now, I can suggest some things to you. If you'd like to help you improve your diet, I'd like to help. I'd like to help. I actually know a few things about having a better diet. Would you like Teoh talk about it? Yeah, Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Right. So sometimes it's a way to give someone a wake up call, a wake up call to make them realize that they're going down the wrong road. If they continue down that road, things will only get worse and worse and worse. Whatever. That maybe it would serve you right if she broke up with you. You're not a good boyfriend. You're not a good boyfriend. Okay, so maybe there's a boy. Ah, boy or man. And he he's not not nice to his girlfriend, maybe. Really mean to her. Maybe he likes other girls sometimes and hangs out with other girls a lot and maybe even cheats on her. Okay, so he's not a very good boyfriend, right? So what does he deserve? Well, maybe he deserves. He deserves this. He deserves his current girlfriend breaking up with him. He deserves that. But she has not done that. So we use would hear it would serve you right if she broke up with you. That's what should happen. Maybe whether or not she does. So it's a good way to to again shake somebody, give them a bit of a wake up call. If you want to keep her around, you'd better start acting like a better boyfriend. Otherwise she's going to break up with you, and then you're not going to be happy. You're going to be alone. So it would serve you right. Be better. Do better. That's the idea. We often use it as a friend to make someone improve themselves or help them get back on the right track. Back on the right track. Okay, that's the idea. So hopefully this one is Hopefully this one is clear again. Rarely used in positive in a positive way. And if it is sarcastic, almost always used for when bad things are going on. Think about your own friendships, your own relationships and someone you know who maybe has a behavior that you think isn't great. And then write a short example of what? What could happen to them that would serve them right? Make sure to use the expression on. Make sure, Teoh, Make sure to send it into the discussion for this course, and I would be happy to take a look at it for you. I would really like to see your examples. 22. Get Over It: get over it. Get over it. Get over something that could say Get over something or you could say get over and then say the thing that you need to get over Get over my break up A break up is when someone, uh, and another person, maybe a boy and a girl separate after dating for a while. Okay, now it can be used in two ways. Generally, one is as a as a piece of advice. And often you have to be careful because it could sound very rude if someone says, I'm so sad. Uh and I say Get over it, just just get over it. Maybe I'm being very rude. So what does this mean? What does get over it mean? Get over. It means to recover from something to recover often, often emotionally, emotionally from some bad or tragic thing. Now bad and tragic could be very subjective. So this could be really a terrible thing or something that's very small. Let's say you break your favorite your favorite pencil of a pencil. It's your favorite, and it breaks, and then you feel you feel bad for a couple of minutes and your friend says you'll get over it, you'll get over it. You'll get over it. Okay, that's a way to describe what's going to happen now. This could be good. This could be good because you're sort of letting your friend know that this is something that will pass and that things will be fine eventually. So maybe that's good. Sometimes, though, this confound cold. If you say get over it. Sometimes it can be rude now for the pencil. Example. Breaking a pencil is not such a huge thing, usually so saying, Get over it or you'll get over it. The other person saying That is probably fine, probably fine. But sometimes if it is a very serious thing, then it is very rude to say it. So if somebody is talking about a break up and their friends says to them, you'll get over it. It may be a little bit insensitive. A little insensitive means you're really not thinking about how sad I feel, just saying, Get over it like that. I want help. I want you to console me, console me. I want to feel better. Just saying Get over it is like slapping me in the face, saying you'll get over it. I know I will, but I feel bad. Help me feel better. We also then use get over it or get over something to describe what did or didn't happen or what we think will or won't happen. I don't think I will ever get over this or the thing we're talking about. I don't think I will ever get over my break up. I don't think I will ever emotionally recover from that emotionally recover or I was never able to really get over that. I didn't get into Harvard. I tried to go to Harvard. I applied, and I don't think I really ever got over my failure to get into Harvard. After that moment. I really was kind of disappointed and still am. I've never really gotten over it. I'm still not over it. I'm still not over it. And then a friend might say, Are you still not over that? It was 10 years ago. Yeah, I just I never got over it. I'm still not over it. So we don't always have to use get or got. We could just say, Are you over it? Are you over it or I think I'm over it. I think I'm over it now. Can we ever use this in a physical way, like being sick? Yeah. Yeah, we can sometimes say, Ah, I I think I think I'm finally getting over over this cold and finally getting over this cold. I think I'm finally over this cold. You're starting to recover, so it's usually about emotional things, but it can be used for other things as well to get over a cold. Could we say an injury? I think I'm finally getting over this, this injury and for something physical like damage, it's not really not really used as much, We might say there to heal instead of or to recover instead of get over. But we could get over a cold. We might also get over an addiction. I'm finally starting to get over my my addiction to pain pain medication. Maybe someone got addicted to pain medication. I feel like I'm starting to finally get over it. So emotional, sometimes mental sometimes, um, sometimes physical if it's on illness, but usually not an injury, So can we have a visual for this one? I like to try to use visuals if I can. Let's imagine. This is life and there are ups and downs, ups and downs, Right? Life is full of ups and downs. Then there's a big up and something terrible happens. And there's a huge down down. Something bad happens. Okay, this is the terrible thing that happened. And to get over it would be to be down here and then climb out and continue and be okay after that. But if over here you're still thinking about this terrible thing that happened, then we could say you never really got over that, did you? You never really got over that, did you? Okay, let's look at a couple examples. My poor cat got hit yesterday. Now he's gone. I'm so upset. Uh, hit Hit by a car, right? That's very sad. If we say my cat got hit, my dog got hit. Means a car hit your dog or cat. Very sad. I've had many pets in the past, get hit and is it's really, really sad is one of the saddest things there is. My poor cat got hit yesterday. Now he's gone. Gone is a polite way to say dead. Grandma, my grandma was gone she's gone. Means dead or passed away. We usually use passed away for people and gone for animals. I'm so upset. I'm so sad. You'll get over it. Whoa! Where is your sympathy? Where? Where is your sympathy? I can't believe you would say that. Of course I will. Get over it. I will get over it. But saying this at this moment when I'm in pain because my poor cat died saying you'll get over it is dismissing me. Dismissing my agony, my pain, my suffering instead. Maybe you should say I'm so sorry to hear that. That's terrible. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry now. So sorry doesn't mean you hit my cat. It means I feel badly for you. And I I just want to show you that I feel sympathy. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do there Anything I can do? Is there anything I can dio that means what can I do to make you feel better? How can I help? I'm your friend. I'm showing sympathy, but get over. It is very here. Very harsh. Very rude. As I mentioned before. If you use you'll get over it or get over it for something very small. Maybe that's good, then, because you're saying that this will, this will go away. So it's interesting. You can't really say it for huge, terrible things, and you maybe should say it for very small things. It's a good thing to say for someone who broke their favorite pencil may be a bad thing to say for someone who had their favorite pet, their favorite animal. Get get killed, Get hit on the road by a car. So you just have to be careful and know when you can and can't use it. That's the basic idea, though. Use it for small things, not for big things. I never got over my divorce. Never got over my divorce. It's been two years. It's been two years. That means this person has been divorced for two years and they still haven't emotionally recovered from the blow. The blow is a terrible event that happens, a tragedy, a tragedy that happens. We say it was a terrible blow. It was a terrible blow. I never got over it, okay? And so the idea here is that we maybe want to recover emotionally, but we still haven't yet just a description of how serious this thing was. How much it impacted us was a terrible event, they say. They say You never really get over the loss of a child. They say you never really get over the loss of a child. That means if someone has a child, that that bond is so important. If that child dies, the parent may never recover. May never recover. If, if your child in your parent dies, you might recover. You might get over it eventually, right? A little more natural. But it's unnatural for a parent to have a child, and then the child passes away. You may never get over that. And when I say you I'm not talking about you, the person watching it, This is what we call the general. You, the general, you. It's very brought any person, any person. They say people, they say you so we can often use you in this way. Okay, talk about something that you struggled with before an emotional struggle, some some bad thing that happened to you. You can record yourself saying it. Make sure to use the expression, get over it. I got over it or I'm still not over it. Remember, you don't have to use the word get or got. You can just say I'm still not over it or I finally em over it. That's OK too. Okay, see you in the next one. 23. Good Luck: Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. OK. No, I think that most of you watching this will no good luck. I don't think this will be a new expression for you. Bye. Good luck. I mean, the thing that people say, not just the idea of good luck. Not that what I mean is the wish to others. Good luck on when we say it. So I think you know it. But I want to focus more on some of the nuances to make sure that you really get it. You know how it's used? Yes, it's simple. It's easy to understand. How is it used? How do people actually say it? What are the nuances? Nuances are subtle things, subtle ways that we use it. And there are some for this one. And that's why I want to talk about good luck, this very, very common expression. Okay, well, it's often used when somebody's going away and we want to wish them well in whatever they're trying to do. You're trying to do something and that could be successful or less successful, or it could fail. And maybe there are many degrees of success, right degrees of success and when? When they're going away to do that thing, we want them to do well. So we say Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. That basically means I hope you are successful. Does it really mean? I want you to be lucky. Well, okay, maybe. But what it really means is I just want you to be successful. That's the basic idea. And again, it's usually when people are going away to do that thing by good luck. By good luck, maybe it's tomorrow. Maybe you have a thing going on tomorrow. All right. See you. Bye bye. Good luck tomorrow. Good luck tomorrow. So we might add the time after it because the thing that you're going to dio is tomorrow maybe an exam, for example. An exam, for example. That sounds strange, but it's right. Good luck on your exam tomorrow. Oh, thank you. Thank you. See you. Okay, that's the basic way that it's used. By the way, we have another expression that means this one. If it's a performance or a presentation or something like that, sometimes people will say, break a leg, break a leg, break a leg. What it means Good luck, actually. Break a leg. We can't say. I hope you break your leg or break your legs. It has to be break a leg, which means good luck doing that thing. Usually it's a performance of some kind, not for exams. All right, So what about that? What about the nuances of this? Well, sometimes we say good luck with that, and this has a very different meaning. If we say good luck with that, it's often with this face. Good luck with that. We feel maybe that the thing that this person is doing or trying is unlikely to happen. Unlikely to to be successful or we don't support it or we just want to be sarcastic. Now. Sometimes it could be genuine or riel. Genuine means we really mean it. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. But usually when we say good luck with that, if we add this, usually it doesn't have a positive meaning and we're about to walk away because we think that that's not going to be successful. We think it's strange we don't approve of it. We don't like the idea of that happening. We don't agree with what you've tried to do we don't agree with the way you've tried to do it, and that's maybe the most common. Or we just generally feel we want to be sarcastic. And so he's a well, good luck with that. And then we go. So what about the way that we do something? What if we disagree about this? So maybe there is a film school, a school about making movies, and one student says, I'm gonna make a movie with my phone. I'm not going to use the professional cameras at the school that we have access to. I think it will be interesting to make a movie a good movie with my phone Right now. Everybody thinks that this person is crazy because they have all these great cameras. But maybe he has or she has a great idea. And phones phones these days are very good at taking videos. So maybe maybe right, but they might say this is a bad way to do this. I don't agree with the way you've done it. The teacher in this film class might say, Well, OK, you can do it, but good luck with that. Good luck with that. That means I don't think that's a good way to do it. And that doesn't mean that it isn't the right way. Maybe it's the right way. Maybe it works. Maybe it's the best film, but the teacher or whoever doesn't agree with that way, And that's actually very common. And you have that expression when you say it. Good luck with that. So now that we've talked about some of the different ways we use this, let's look at a couple simple examples. Good luck at the interview. Good luck at the interview. Thanks. I'll need it. Thanks. I'll need it. Thanks. I'll need it is a common response to someone wishing you good luck. If you have something very challenging coming up, maybe tomorrow you might need a little bit of luck. So we often say thanks. I need it or I'll need it. And it's almost like they are wishing, wishing you to have some of maybe they're good luck or some good luck from the universe or whatever. I guess we don't need to think about that too much, right? We could just say you have an interview tomorrow, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Good luck. Good luck. Thank you. thank you. I'll need it. I'll need it. A girl graduates from school and says to her father, Dad, I'm moving to New York to become an actress. I've decided to move to New York. I want to be an actress now. That's a very difficult job. That's a tough job because it's very competitive. Many other people want to do it, too. So maybe her father thinks it's a bad idea. He doesn't want his daughter to do that. He doesn't approve of the idea. So he says, Well, good luck with that. While good luck with that, to show his disapproval to show that he thinks it won't be successful now we could talk about whether whether that's a good thing for a father to say, it's just a example. But he's showing that he does not approve, does not approve and doesn't think it will succeed. So when you want to show that to someone when you disagree with how they're doing something or what they've decided to do, you could say, Well, good luck with that. Good luck with that. It's interesting that it's so different from the other meeting of good luck just by adding well and then good luck with that. That's the subtlety of every expression and how we use it. There's always a lot of subtlety in how we use very common expressions. There's almost always another way to use it. That's slightly different. That means something completely different, just like this one. 24. Hang in There: hang in there, Hang in there, Hang in there. This one's really simple, really easy to understand. Really easy to use. It is to encourage someone not to give up. We don't want someone to give up. Don't give up. Hang in there, right? It's like saying, Come on, you can do it. I believe in you Kind of like that. I believe in you. Basically, that's how it's used now sometimes people will say, I'm hanging in there, hanging in there and hanging in There is a sort of neutral response to how are you? If someone says, How are you or how have you been? How are you? How have you been? Hanging in there is like saying, All right, all right, I'm OK. And not bad. Not bad, but definitely not good unless you say it with a very bright voice hanging in there. But usually people will say him hanging in there. I'm hanging in there. I'm just OK. So I think having a visual can make this a little easier to remember, and then we'll do the examples. So let's say we have a tall tree. Okay, this is Ah, tall tree, and there's a tree branch. Okay. And some branches here. And there's more branches here. And so this is the tree. And you have a person hanging hanging from the tree like this, OK? And it's a long drop down. Okay? Now, if you're standing here and you want to encourage them, you want to tell them Don't let go. Basically, don't let go. If they let go, something bad will happen. That's not good. So you want to encourage them to keep going? I know it's difficult. I know it's hard. Usually when a friend is going through a struggle, you'll say, Hang in there. Hang it. You can do it. Keep going. Don't give up. I think you should hang in there. But if you're this person, how do you feel? You don't feel great. You're not down here on the ground, but still not great. You don't feel very happy. Maybe you're struggling. Life is tough. So, uh, I'm just I'm just hanging in there. I'm just hanging in there. Okay, So let's now look at the examples. I'm a dad and I'm on my way home from work, and my little son, who's eight years old, calls me and he says. I'm hungry. There's no food in the house. I'm driving. I'm driving home from work. Hang in there. I'm almost home and I bought junk food. Hang in there. I'm almost home and I bought junk food. So kids love junk food, right? Junk food is unhealthy food like chips and hamburgers and, you know, food. That's not good for you. Sweet stuff. Candy. Hang in. There means be strong. I know you're hungry. I'm on the way. So hang in There is sort of like Please wait, But also be strong. Be strong. I know you're hungry. I know it's not comfortable, but if you're strong for a few more minutes, if you can survive for a few more minutes without food, I will be home. I will be home, right? So it's kind of like encouraging someone to wait and at the same time be strong. But it can just be used to encourage someone to remain strong when they're dealing with some sort of struggle. Some sort of struggle. Okay, let's look at one more example. How are you? How are you? I'm hanging in there. I'm hanging in there notice. I'm not really saying hanging in there, I'm saying, hanging in there so native English speakers will often use hanging, hanging, and again. It's kind of neutral. It's kind of in the middle usually, and it also depends on the voice. So remember, whenever you say something that could go one way or the other, use your voice to tell people how you feel. If you say fine, you could say it like this. Fine, I'm fine. Or you could say it like this. Fine, fine. That's a big difference. One is really good. One is not very good at all. Okay, so keep that in mind. Remember that it's not only the words how you say the words, it's not only what you say but how you say it. Communication is about body language, facial expression, your hands, what you do tone of your voice and you communicate with more than just the words you say. Okay, so when you really understand an expression like this, you need to know that if you are encouraging someone, don't say hang in there, say hang in there and have a little power in a little passion behind it, because otherwise it's not going to encourage anybody 25. Go For It: go for it. Go for it. Okay. Now this one can be used in several different ways. One way is to encourage someone to do something challenging. So if you have a friend who's doing something that's difficult challenging and they're wondering, should I do it or not? I don't know. And you want to push them to do it? Because you know that if they do it, they will be glad that they did. You can say, just go for it. Just go for it. Do your best. But do it, do it, Go for it. So it's encouragement, okay? And we can talk about this in the past. I am so glad I went for it. Okay, This could be pretty general, like a career direction, but it could be something very specific. Were wondering if we should try to maybe apply to a great company. The great reputation and we're not sure if we can make it. Should we try? Go for it. Go for it. I'm so glad I went for it. So here it means tried. Sort of, like tried when we're asking someone else to do it, we're pushing them. Were encouraging them right But when we're doing it and we say I'm so glad I went for it. I'm going to go for it. It means I'm going to try to do it. I'm going to attempt it. Attempt it. Okay. Now, the other way that go for it is used is to give permission. Permission. And this one is very casual, often used between friends. Okay, Or maybe family members, or at least people who know each other well, when we say go for it here, one person is asking if they can do something and we're saying basically, yes, that's fine. Yes, that's fine. So a brother asks, Do you Do you mind if I borrow your camera? Borrow your camera, says one brother to another. It's OK. Go for it. That means yes, it's OK. No problem. You can do that. You can borrow it. Go for it. It's very casual, very casual. In schools in America, there are often performances that are put on by students in the school. So you have a chance to act in a musical or play play, okay? And so if you want to be in the play, you need to audition and maybe many other students at the school will audition to. And if you want to be a major role, if you want to play a major role, a major role in the play, you might feel nervous. So many other good students want the role to. Should I try or not? Should I try to be in this play or not? I feel a little scared. I need a push. I need encouragement. So this person's friend, let's say Jenny Jenny is thinking about this. Jenny is maybe 14 and is thinking about joining the school play. And Jenny has a friend and Jenny's friends. Name is Liz, and Jenny says, I don't know, Liz, I don't know. I don't know. Do you think I should try out for the school play or audition for the school play? Same thing we used Try out for two. Mean audition. Do we try out for jobs? Usually not. We say we apply for jobs, we apply for jobs and we interview for jobs. Yeah, go for it. Yeah, Go for it. Liz wants to push, push Jenny, and then she might give her some mawr encouragement yet Go for it. I think you'll get the part. I think you'll get the role. Or we could also say apart. You're really talented. There's such a good singer. I think you'll definitely get the part. You should go for it. What do you have to lose? What do you have to lose? That often means there's no reason not to do it. If you fail, it's not like you're going to lose anything serious, right? So, of course you should try. And I think you will get the part. A group of friends are are hanging out, hanging out at one friend's home, okay? And maybe they're college students. Okay, college college students and their playing video games. That's what college students do playing, playing video games. Okay. And they ordered pizza what college students eat in America pizza. And there's one slice of pizza left. One slice. Okay. And there are six people here, and they've all had plenty of pizza. They've had lots of pizza. Maybe they ordered three pizzas or four pizzas, right, But ah, finally. Finally, one person decides I want one more piece. They open the box, huh? One more slice left. Now, if you take the last of something it's sometimes considered rude to not ask if other people want that. If you just take it, then you look kind of selfish. The last one take it selfish, right? It might make you look a little, Ah, little self centered. And it might be a bit of a faux pas, something that makes people socially a little uncomfortable. So it would be polite, appropriate to say, Does anyone want the last piece of pizza? What it means is, I've stood up. I'm standing by the pizza box. I want it and everybody knows that's what that means. Does anybody want the last? The last slice of pizza, The last piece of pizza. Now one person over there, after a few seconds has recognized that nobody else has said anything and is now going to give permission to the last to this person to take the last piece of pizza. It's kind of an interesting cultural social thing, right about not taking the last of something asking first and then having one person after a pause, give permission. Then that person says, Go for it, go for it. I don't want it. And if anyone else did, they would have said Yes, I want it. Okay, so I say, Go for it. You can have it. Take it. We're kind of getting permission here. And it's also kind of like saying Just take it. So I think this way to use go for it is really interesting, and it helps us see something about the culture to in American culture. This is a kind of it's a kind of norm. It's a kind of social rule is pretty interesting. All right, so try to make your own examples and I will see you in the next lesson. 26. In Your Face: in your face in your face. Okay, Now this one could be ah, sort of insult Or perhaps an interjection when you have when you have defeated someone and you want them to feel bad about it. If you do something better than someone and they feel bad but you feel good, you might say in your face like that maybe you played a game with them. And you you say it is a way to say I win. You lose. Ha ha ha. It is in this way in interjection. Interjection is something like hot or what? Or oh, like that To express your your emotion right now is it always mean it always a mean thing. It sounds like if you say in your face I defeated you. I beat you. I want you lost your loser. It feels like it's kind of rude, right? A little harsh, maybe. Well, yes, it can be. It can be if you're very competitive and you beat someone you're competing with in in all kinds of different possible competitions. Maybe sports, maybe work, maybe school and you're the winner. And you say this to someone, it shows that you maybe are very harsh and disrespectful. In that case, we might say you are a sore winner. You're not good at winning. Maybe maybe if you say in your face to the loser, they feel bad, you're kicking them when they're down, kicking them when they are down. That means something bad happened. Somebody lost to you, and you want them to feel worse. You're really kicking them when they're down. That's not very nice, right? That's not very kind or gracious. And in that case, that might be called gloating. To gloat or gloating is to be proud of your victory too much so to the point where others feel bad and the perfect expression of that is in your face. But it is often used in a more joking way with friends. Let's say, for example, you're playing a game together, a board game. Now, this is not very serious. You're all having fun, right? And you make a successful move after 20 minutes. The game is not over, but the other person is now in a worse position. Because of that, you do something successfully in the game. Maybe you didn't win the whole game, but anyway, something good happened for you and bad for someone else and you say ha in your face that can also be very playful. Okay, so I want to be clear that it can be rude. It can be harsh. It can be kicking someone when they're down. It can be gloating, but gloating can also be playful if it's a kids game, if you're playing with your friends, if it's if it's all fun, nobody needs to get upset. So you might say this just to be funny. Okay, now the other meaning of someone being in your face is very different. Actually, if someone is in your face, they may actually be very close to your face. She she got right up right up in her face, right up in her face. That suggests that there's some kind of confrontation. Two people are arguing. One person is getting very close to another person right here, and maybe they're yelling at each other. Rara! They're shouting at each other, arguing, and so they're in each other's faces, and you could say that, too. They are in each other's faces. They're in each other's faces. But it might also describe a person and In that case, we would We would put hyphens between the words here and say he's a very in your face person or he has a very in your face personality. It's very important to put the hyphens there to let people know it's an adjective. Does that mean that this person always shouts it? Others? Well, it could be. It could be that there just confrontational or not afraid to argue or disagree with others . But it may also be that this person is just quite intense. So I want to be clear. It's not only about fighting, it's not only about shouting and arguing, although it can be, it can be can also be about this type of interaction or this type of person, which is more intense, more intense, someone who's not afraid to do what maybe other people feel a little timid or shy to do. Okay, And that can include actually getting up in someone's face and saying, Yeah, why? Why is that? Tell me. I want to know. Then maybe this person is in your face person. Is that a bad thing? It could be. It depends on the context. We might be complaining about them. He's really in your face and very intense, and it just makes me tired. So that would be negative. I mean it in a negative way, but because he's so in your face all the time, he's able to get so much done that we can't do and it's pretty impressive. I really admire him for that. Okay, so that could be a good thing as well. Maybe an aggressive sales person is very in your face. Doesn't have to be physical, could be on the phone. It's just a intense person who's may be bold and not shy, not afraid to say what's on their mind. Okay, so now that we have an understanding of thes two ways to use the expression in your face, let's look at our examples. She has a kind of overconfident in your face way of communicating, but I kind of like it. It makes her seem really genuine. Maybe whoever is saying this feels that most other people are a little bit reserved, maybe timid. They don't want to share their opinions. They're worried about what other people think. Most people but this person, she she is not afraid. She's over confident now that could be a bad thing. You're overconfident, but maybe for her, it works. It helps her to communicate with people, right, But I kind of like it. It makes her seem really genuine. I feel that she's a real person. Maybe these people seem kind of fake. You seem kind of fake sometimes, and I feel it's refreshing to see someone like this was willing to say exactly what she's thinking and isn't worried about what other people think. To be very clear, it does not mean that this person is actually in someone else's face. We can use that expression to describe two people fighting and being in each other's faces , but it doesn't necessarily mean that. Okay, just to be clear. Ha, ha! I win in your face in your face, Relax. It's just a game. It's just a game. Okay, now, this seems to be more serious. I said before that in a game it could be playful, just joking around in your face. Ha, It's just a joke. It's a way to say I win, you lose, but its its not so serious right. But here, the other person said, Relax, it's just a game that means this person feels that this person is maybe a little bit too competitive, right? And after they won, they celebrated too much. They got a little too into it to into it, to into it. And they're trying to maybe remind this person, you know, Hey, it's just ping pong. We're just playing Ping Pong here. You don't have to. You have to jump around and gloat after you win. It's not very useful. Calm down, calm down. We're just having fun. This one, though, is really casual. You would use it on Lee with friends to be clear, whereas Thea other one, the description of the person and in your face way of speaking or an in your face person that could describe anybody and could very well include business. It could include someone in the workplace. In fact, it may be even more common in more formal settings, although not only but I think it might be a little bit more common in more professional professional settings. Okay, so try to make your own examples with both of the ways to use this expression, and I will look forward to seeing you in the next one 27. You Can Say That Again: You can say that again. You can say that again for pronunciation. Notice how I don't stress the a here. I don't say you can say that again. I say you can, can, can, can, can. Sounds like a very light. A can, can not stressed. So just a quick point about pronunciation. This expression is used when we hear something we feel the same way about. Or we totally agree. We totally agree with what has been said and that's about it. That's what it means. That's how we use it. So this one will be pretty simple. And you can't really change it around. We can't say, I can say that again. We can't replace that. We can't replace that. We can't put things in here. We can't change this to it. We can't do that. We have to say, you can say that again or don't say it at all. So this expression really has no variation that I know of. It is only said exactly like this. You can put the word yeah in front of it or a yes in front of it. But this part, these words in order have to be just like this. And we might say it around friends, right? If somebody says something, someone were friends with, says something, and we feel really that that is right and that matches are feeling exactly. We use this one. It's often used for times when we may not expect somebody to say something and we were thinking that thing and then they send it. And we think, yes. Yes. Right? Exactly. You can Say that again. I don't think it's more commonly used for good things or bad things. It just means that you agree completely, okay, Totally agree. Let's look at some examples to coworkers are at work and they're working late. They're working overtime. When you work late, you work overtime, you work extra. And let's say this is let's say we have a Carroll and Linda. Carol and Linda, they may need to work over time and maybe they're both very tired and it's only Wednesday. It's only Wednesday. Right. So Carol says, I wish it was the weekend. There's nothing that can actually change when she says that it's not going to make the weekend come, but it's just an expression of her feeling of tiredness. Linda feels the same way. You can say that again. You can say that again. So notice here we're talking about feelings. These two feel the same way. It's not exactly a clear answer that they're talking about. It's just a shared feeling. Maybe Carol and Linda, maybe they. Like to hang out on the weekend. Sometimes. Hang out means do something together. Sometimes do something together. Sometimes hangout just means B, be somewhere. You could say I'm just hanging out at home to be in a place. So it's, it's pretty general, but it often means do something together. So they see a movie and Carol says, that movie was awful. That movie was awful, terrible. And Linda feels exactly the same way. Linda agrees. Linda also didn't like it. So she says, you can say that again. She could say, I completely agree. Alright, so that's pretty simple. We have the same feeling again. They wanted the weekend to come. Both of them had the same feeling. So we use this one. They didn't like the movie. One of them said they didn't like it. The other said, You can Say that. Again. We could also say here I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. And that's pretty common too. Okay. That's pretty common too. Maybe one thing you're wondering is, alright, can I use this only for feelings, or can I also use it for correct answers? It depends if the answer is a very specific thing, like a number, how many shipments did we get today? 42. You can say that again. No, not like that. We don't use it like that. It doesn't work. I agree completely here is more about shared feelings usually and not about a very specific correct answer, or a very specific answer. That is, maybe right. So it doesn't work for numbers, but for things that are qualitative, not quantitative, quantitative about numbers, but more qualitative things. We might be able to use it. We're having some problems in the HR department and I think we need to maybe change up the work schedules. Now this is a qualitative suggestion. That means we're not talking about numbers. We just need to do this idea. It's an idea. If we do this, then we'll solve the issue, whatever it is. Okay, I think we just need to maybe we need to focus more on sales, that kind of thing. One person says it, the other person, if they completely agree, they might say, you can say that again, maybe that could work. It's more commonly used for feelings, shared feelings, like the movie example, but it could work here. So I think we need to change up our work schedules and I think that might make people a little happier. You can say that again. I agree with what you just said. I have the same feeling. And there we could also use I couldn't agree more. I think we could use it there too. So it's generally for more qualitative, qualitative stuff. 28. What's up?: What's up? What's up? What's up now? I think that you probably know this one. You've definitely heard me say it before, but we really need to talk about it in some more detail because it can be used in lots of different ways to really understand it. We have to talk about the different ways that we use this very, very common phrase, this very common question. Okay, so we're going to go over each usage, each usage, and we'll talk a little bit about what each one means. And then we'll look at examples for each one. Okay, so let's get started. If you think you know all of them, write them down now Stop the video. Pause the video right down all of the meanings and uses you think what's up has and then see if you're right. It's a good way to test yourself. All right, So what's up first? Very simply. What's up means what are you doing? And I think we've talked about that one before. What are you doing now? What are you doing now? And this is It's something friends might say. It's something people in the family might say. It's something colleagues might say, Ah, and it's It's used to get at the other person to say what they are doing now. I'm I'm writing some. He mails you. You That means What are you doing? Okay. All right. So that's the simple one. You'll hear people say as a variation. By the way, what have you been up to? What have you been up to? That means recently. Okay, so it's not right now. It's recently. OK, now, what about the other way that this is used exactly the same and it still means What are you doing? But this one is a greeting, a greeting that doesn't need a serious answer. And for this one, we're really just saying hello. We're not really, really interested in what's up in what's going on with that other person in what the other person is doing. We say, Hey, what's up as a way to almost say Hey hello. Hi. Hi. Good to see you. Kind of like that feeling. So the answer for this one is more like nothing or not much? Nothing. Not much. You okay now? Maybe I'm busy doing something. I'm working, writing some emails, but you just passed by very quickly and you say, Hey, what's up? And I found nothing. I am doing something. But if it's meant to be a very quick thing, a sort of greeting, then I should know that. I don't need to say I'm writing some emails. See you later. No, no. If it's that two people walking past each other, sort of sort of situation, then people will say, What's up? Not much you? Nothing, nothing. Even if they are doing other things. So let's be clear about that. Many languages, I think, have this kind of phrase where you're saying it not because you really want to know the answer, but because you want to see the other person there and acknowledge them and let them know that you know they're there and kind of say hi, right? And that one is a little less formal. That one's pretty casual, pretty casual. You might use it for people you know very well, including people you work with, But classmates, friends, family. Okay. And then there's why are you talking to me? It's a new new usage. Are you talking to me? Okay, you clearly have a question and you want to ask me, and I want to know what your question is. So I'll say, What's up? What's up? Hey, I look what's up. What's up? What's your question or you call me on the phone and I want to know why you called. We said, Hey, how are you? How's it going? Oh, it's going pretty good. Then I say, What's up now? This What's up is not What are you doing now? This is a different What's up? This what's up is what are you intending to say to me? What do you want to say? Why are you calling? Why are you talking to me? Basically, it's not rude. It's not rude. If you don't say why you've come up to me to ask a question or you don't say why you've called me on the phone or you don't say why you've said my name with a questioning face, then I want to know the reason, and so I use what's up to get it. Then you should tell me. So we do a little small talk. Hey, how's it going? You know much. Um, So what's up? Oh, yeah, Well, I'm calling because I wonder if you can take care of my cats for a few days? Oh, yeah, sure, sure. Why are you calling? It's actually a little rude, if you say, Why are you calling? That doesn't sound good, but saying what's up does sound good. It's very polite. The last one is What's the problem matter? Issue. Okay, so you and you, we often had with By the way, what's up with that? There's an issue. There's something off. There's something wrong. It doesn't have to be very serious, but it could be very serious. Something is just off. So maybe I'm playing with the air conditioner in my house because it's not working correctly. And then someone walks up to me and says, What are you doing? They might say, What's up? And and I might say, then I'm just trying to fix the A C. I don't know what's up with it. I don't know what's up with it. I don't know what the problem is, Okay, Or what's up with the air conditioner? Why is it off? It should be on. What's up with the air conditioner, huh? What's the problem with that? Maybe it's something very general What's what's up with this country? You're talking about your whole country. What's up with weather these days? What's up with the weather these days? I wonder. I wonder what the problem is. The issue is, it's being weird. It's too warm. It's December. Why is it so warm in December? It should be cold where I live. It's very warm. What's up with the weather? What's up with that? So it's kind of like saying I wonder what the cause of this strange thing is. Doesn't have to be on Lee a problem. It could just be something that's kind of off, like the weather being too warm in the winter or strange off or strange. And it's very common to just say, Yeah, what's up with that? As a response to someone else's comment that re agree with about something that is off or strange, The weather is so warm, it's never like this in December. Yeah, what's up with that? Okay. Or you have very red eyes. For some reason, maybe it looks like you've been crying. I don't know, but I say, What's up? What's up with your eyes? What's up with your eyes? Why your eyes red. What's up with you? What's up with you? But sometimes that can be rude. What's up with you? What's your problem? It can sound like that. So you do have to be careful if you say what's up with you, Okay? These are basically the ways that we use. What's up? I know you might be surprised we use it in all these ways. Did you guess them all correctly? If so, Great job. But we should still look at some clear examples. So let's do that now. Answering the phone. Oh, hi. What's up? Nothing much. You? Not much. Just watching TV. One a, grab some lunch. Want to grab some lunch? Okay, so this is what we might call a formality. That doesn't mean it's formal. No, A formality is something you kind of have to do. You're just supposed to do that, because if you don't, it might make people uncomfortable. Don't get confused with formal, which is different. Okay. Something that you kind of have to do if you call someone and you just say when I grab lunch. Well, who's huh? What? It might be too sudden, so we often will have some small talk first and then some small talk first. And then we'll say why we're calling right. That is what is normal. That's kind of what you should do. Notice. This one is the common sort of. Hello, one. Hello. What's up? Nothing much. Not much. Then this one. You. This person has also said not much, but then has decided to add what they are actually doing. And you can say that to you can say not much or nothing like the basic greeting on then if you want to. If you feel like there's time in their space and you want to do it, you can say, Just watching TV. You can say what you're doing. I'm just writing a few emails. Just makes it sound like it's no big deal. No big deal. Not very important. Not very important. Okay, Okay. All right. So let's look at another example. What's up with him? What's up with him? There's someone over. There may be our friend like this, looking very gloomy looking very gloomy. Gloomy, upset, not happy. 00 m y o looking very gloomy and unhappy. What's up with him? He can't hear me. Maybe right Oh, he's just in a bad mood. He's just in a bad mood. We could say it for animals to you might have. Ah, dog and the dog. This looks very sad and you say, Oh, what's what's up with him? Oh, he just He got back from the vet today. He got back from the vet today, the animal doctor, and he's He's just in a bad mood. Oh, I see. I see what's up with him. Why is he upset? Okay, this one's pretty simple. When you see an issue and you see an issue you can use what's up with something? And remember, we can say also, what's up with that? What's up with fat? I don't know what the problem is. Why is that that way? That's crazy. That's crazy. And it can be for more urgent things. People are running around shouting. You allow Well, what's up? What's up? What's up? Tell me what's up. Tell me what's up. Tell me what's up. So that's more urgent. That one's not a question. You can have a variation there, so that's okay, too. That's okay. So it could be for very casual things. Could be for very urgent things that can be for slight confusion, wondering why something is off something very strange. Or maybe just something that concerns me like my friend, who looks very sad over there. What's up with him? What's up, guys? What's up, guys? Oh, we're talking about a movie. So there's there's, Ah, a couple of people here and one person walks up to these people. They know each other, right? And he wants to get in on the conversation. Get in on the conversation, Right? If you if you meet your friends, you might want to join them instead of trying to figure it out. You can just ask, What are you doing? But what you're doing here really means What are you talking about? Because you're having a discussion. Perhaps. And I want to know so that maybe I can participate. I can participate. I can join. So I say, What's up? Guys, Guys, I want to know what you're talking about in what you're doing. Okay. Doesn't have to be guys. Only men. No, no, no. Doesn't have to be guys. Could be two guys. B two girls can be a guy and a girl. It's OK. we can use guys for all of those. Okay? We're talking about a movie. We're just talking about a movie often would put just in there to to make it sound like it's not a serious thing. So there's a university professor sitting at her desk in her office. She just taught a class. But now she's back in her office. Student comes in and has a question. Come in. Ah, hi. It's the student. Am I interrupting you? Am I interrupting you? No, no, no student comes in And then she says, What's up? The professor says, What's up? That means what can I help you with? What question do you have? How can I help you? Why have you come in here? Why are you talking to me? But it's not rude at all. It's very polite. Very polite. I have a few questions about the class. Okay? Sure. Sure. Yeah, No problem. Now the class is the one that she just taught. Maybe the lecture, the lecture that she just taught. So, for this kind of thing, if you wonder why somebody is talking with you, you want to ask them politely. Just say OK, so what's up. What's up? How can I help? Just like I did, try to make one example for each of the different uses of what's up. I believe it is very, very important for you to have a great understanding of this simple phrase which is so, so common. Make a little dialogue between two people for each one fit. What's up into each dialogue? Make sure it has the correct usage. Pay attention to the differences. Okay? And I love I'd love to see your dialogues. 29. You Bet: You bet. You bet. All right, What does you bet mean? Well, to bet on something is too Predict an outcome on, then put some money on that prediction. And if you're right about your prediction, you get more money. And if you're wrong about that prediction, you get no money. Well, that's the basic meaning of you bet. And we say things like, you bet on the Yankees winning and you lost everything. So here, betting we're talking about gambling and we say things like, Mm. He bet his life savings in a card game. When we talk about gambling, we talk about betting. Placing a bet is saying what you think is going to happen. Including with with cards, poker, blackjack, things you would see in a casino. Okay, but saying just you bet as an expression has really nothing to do with that. Not really. That's not really how we use it. So this is a description of betting. But that's not really how we use this in everyday English. No. No. So forget about that, actually. Forget everything I just said. In fact, when we say you bet we might mean off course, we might mean You're welcome. And so here it's used casually in conversation, OK? And yeah, maybe there is a connection to the idea of betting, but don't really think about that. Because here, when we're saying, of course, or you're welcome, it doesn't really help to know that. So just know that you bet generally means, of course, or you're welcome. And to really understand it, I think we need to have some examples. But I'd like to talk a little bit about this one. We often use this one to confirm something strongly to remove worries. Okay, like, whoa! I can't even believe you asked me that. Yes, of course. Stop thinking about it. What, Are you kidding me? So if it's going to rain today and one person says to the other after they leave you brought the umbrella, right? You bet I did. You bet. Or you bet I did. You bet. Or you bet I did is like saying Yeah, of course I'm not stupid. So it's quite strong here. Okay, But it can also just be an enthusiastic way. Unenthusiastic way to confirm or to basically say of course. So if someone says, Hey, do you want Teoh go to a movie tomorrow and the other person says, Yeah, you bet. You bet. It's like saying Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course. So that just gives it an enthusiastic feeling. When we say you bet for you're welcome, it's it's quite casual. You're welcome. Can sound very formal. A little bit formal. Okay, I use your welcome a lot. Even with my my family members, I say you're welcome. But sometimes I say if it's very quick and it's not a big deal, I might say, Yeah, you bet. You bet, of course, also is another way to say you're welcome. So sometimes you bet means of course, which means you're welcome in a casual way. Let's look at some examples. So maybe a son asks his mom Hey, Mom, a little a little boy, right? Asks his mom, Can we go to the zoo tomorrow? And his mom wants to excitedly say yes, not, maybe not. Oh, yeah, Okay. No, she says. You bet you bet we can. You bet we can. And why would she be excited? Well, maybe she just wants to show a little enthusiasm about the idea of going to the zoo with her son. Or maybe you bet we can. It's your birthday. It's your birthday. Whatever you want, right? Because it's his birthday. His mom is willing to do whatever he wants to do. It's a special day for him. You bet we can. You bet we can. Maybe I bought tickets to go to a concert, but something something happened and so I can't go. So maybe I post Hey, I have some tickets to blah, blah, blah this concert if anybody wants them on Lee, $10 for each one. The original price was 40. I paid 40 and I'm going to give them to somebody for only $10 each. And so the person who buys them from me says thanks for the tickets after I hand them the tickets and I say, Yeah, you bet. Yeah, you bet. Yeah, of course. Yeah, sure, Yeah. No, no problem. Just a simple, casual, easy way to say you're welcome. Before we finish with this expression, I'd like to just share with you quickly. A couple of examples that fit the very first meaning I gave you about betting on something , predicting what's going to happen. In fact, we do use. We do use bet sometimes in that way to even, even if we're not betting money. Okay, so we say things like this. I bet he's nervous about the game. I bet he's nervous. So we're talking about maybe a player, and there's a huge game that the player is going to be playing in. And we feel pretty sure that this is true that this person, this player, is nervous about the game. So it's not really a prediction, because it would be true right now if it were true. It's just saying I I m quite sure, or I believe, that he's nervous about the game. I'm pretty sure that he's nervous about the game. In a simple way. To say that is, I bet he's nervous. I bet you're tired. It's also a way we can show empathy. If someone has had a long day and then you meet them, you can say I bet you're I bet you're tired. Here, let me let me order you. Ah, let me order you a drink and then maybe that person orders a drink. But we don't know. We don't have a confirmation. It's not confirmed. It's not confirmed. It's just saying, I believe that I'm pretty sure or it looks, it seems to me it looks like it seems, seems to me, although we wouldn't say it seems to me that you're tired. That sounds very strange and really weirdly formal. So don't say that that's just what it means. I'm quite sure also sounds too formal, but that's what it means. This is just much more casual, and sometimes people will replace. I bet with you bet right, But usually it will be I I bet a bet. He's nervous about the game. I bet you're tired. I bet you but you have a lot of interesting stories to tell after someone comes back from a trip. I bet I bet you might be saying Wait a second, wait a second. That's not grammatically correct. Shouldn't it be? I'll bet shouldn't be. I'll bet I'll bed would be correct. Well, yeah, that is right. This would be correct, I'll bet. But in fact, a lot of people will just say I bet even though the grammar is wrong, so I want to be clear. Yes, grammatically, you should say, I'll bet you have a lot of stories to tell. I'll bet he's nervous about the game, and people do say that. I'll bet. In fact, I usually say I'll bet. But sometimes I don't Sometimes I say the grammatically incorrect thing. And many, many other native English speakers in America say that, too. I bet. I bet, I bet. Okay, so just know that sometimes there are expressions that don't quite fit. The grammar is not quite right, But still you have to go with what people say most often what is natural. This is very correct. But nobody will say this and definitely nobody says that one. Now what about my bet? Tomorrow will be cold. So this looks a little weird and the grammar is not quite right. But it's just how it said my bet. We could say. Also, my bet is my dad is Tomorrow will be cold, but many people will remove it. I just say my bet. That means we're now We're talking about the future, and this is really more like betting like we talked about. We're not really gambling with money, but we are trying to predict the future. So I think tomorrow will be called. I believe that tomorrow will be cold and here we say instead of I bet as a verb. Now we're saying my bet as a noun. Okay, so I hope that's clear. It's a little bit complicated. Just keep in mind. Sometimes things that are natural aren't dramatically technically correct. And sometimes things that are grammatically technically correct are not common. People don't say them. That's how language works. It's weird. It's weird. Learning English is certainly strange, but I think if you just relax and say OK, people say that, cool then then you'll enjoy the learning process. And also just know that the things I'm sharing in this course I know I've said it before. All of these things are things people really say in everyday English things. I often say things you'll hear in movies and TV shows, not just new words and phrases that few people say, but they're just knew. No, these things are all very, very common 30. What's going on?: what's going on? What's going on or I don't know. I don't know what's going on now. I think many of you watching this will know basically what this what this very common expression means, and some of you may think you understand it completely. But actually there's a little bit mawr to this expression. So I want to make sure we understand very clearly how to use it. And of course, we'll talk about what it means. So basically, what's going on? What's going on? If you're saying it to a person, it could mean what is happening here. Please, please tell me the details. Okay, What's happening here? I should make a question mark here. Please tell me the details. It's a capital people. That's one. Or if you're saying it to another person directly and it's a friend and you say what's going on? It means really means What are you doing? What are you doing now? And this is a very conversational thing that friends say to each other when they when they start talking, they start a conversation or they begin maybe a phone call. Hey, what's what's going on? Okay. This one, though, means that I don't know what the situation is. I don't know what's happening. This one is about something being wrong. There's often a problem, and we don't quite know what the problem is. Maybe there's a lot of chaos. Chaos, chaos, cook notch chaos. It's CH, but often, CH says cast means everything is crazy around around us or in this situation. There are a lot of crazy things happening. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. I don't understand the situation. So here it means I don't understand. I don't understand. I need room to write. I don't I don't understand the situation, Okay, so with those meanings in mind, let's look at a couple of examples that can help us really get the feeling for how this is used. It's so common that I think it's very important that we look at it in some detail, especially the examples, because if you use this wrong, it might be very awkward for you. And you might, for example, use it to mean How are you? Which It does not mean what's going on does not mean how are you? Just to be clear, it's similar. It's used in the same kind of situation when you've just met a friend, but it doesn't mean how are you? Just to be clear, let's look at the examples. Okay, so we have to friends and this is going to be a phone call. Let's say we've got say, we've got Fred, Okay? And we've We've got Ted. Why not make it? Make it ridiculous? Fred and Ted, Maybe they're in a TV show called Fred and Ted. All right, so here's Fred. Hey, man, why not put man in there? What's going on? What's going on here? What's going on? Means what are you doing? What are you doing? Hey, what's going on? What are you doing? I'm just just makes it seem like it's no big deal. We often say, just when we want to downplay, downplay what we're saying. I'm just I'm just level about Jess. Bubba means whatever I'm doing is not so important. I'm just watching TV. You remember? If you say this one, you have to say it with this tone. Uh, you You OK? That means what's going on with you. And he could say this. I'm just watching TV. What's going on with? You could say that with you. A Not much, not much. Which is, by the way, a very common answer to the question between friends. If somebody says what's going on or what's up. In fact, the common answer is not much or nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Not much. It's almost a greeting. Not the same as how are you? How are you? I'm good. I'm fine. I'm great. I'm fantastic. I'm OK. What's up? What's going on? Nothing. Not much. Or I'm just watching TV. You? Yeah, Not much. One A wanna means do you want to? But it's a very casual way to say it. When we say one up. We're usually talking with friends. Wanna grab some lunch? Wanna get some lunch? Wanna go get some lunch? All of those air. Okay. Grab is a very casual thing as well. It suggests that it's going to be pretty quick when I grab some lunch. Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure. This is very casual. Sure doesn't suggest that you're excited. Usually Sure is. Just agreement. Very casual agreement. Friends will say this. Sure. Yeah, sure. Okay. I'm fine with that. I'm fine with it. I'm fine with that I guess that really suggests that it's no big deal. I don't care if we go or not. I will, but whatever. So this is a really common conversation between two friends, I think, especially for for guys in America. This is how many conversations will go first. You'll ask the other person what they're doing. They might just say not much. Then you might ask if they want to have some lunch or grab some lunch. So here, this one, What's going on? What are you doing? What's happening? What's up? Just a way to begin the conversation. And it's very, very casual, in this case, very casual. I want to help you with some of these bad habits you're trying to kick, but I don't know what's going on. You've got to let me in, so this one is very different. This one is about something being wrong. It's like saying I don't know what soups that should be here. I don't know what's the matter. I don't know what the problem is. I don't know the important details. I don't know the important details, So this one is not just what are you doing? This one is about some kind of problem. Remember? Bad habits you're trying to kick? We learned that one before trying to get rid of some bad habits. Kick, Remember, Means get rid of Okay. I want to help you. I want to help you. But before I can help you, I need to know. I need to know what's going on. But it feels like you're not telling me details. You're hiding things from me. You're hiding details. And those are the details that I need to actually give you good advice or whatever else I need to do to help you. You've got to let me in. Now. This let me in is like, open the door, but open the door. Could be literal or figurative opened. The door literally means I knock and you open the door of your home. Figuratively. This means I'm knocking. Please tell me what's going on so that I can help you. So this door is not a real door. This door is basically you not telling me things because maybe you're embarrassed. Or maybe you're to hurt or you don't want to be helped because you're kind of enjoying your bad habits. Whatever The reason is you've got to let me in and you hear friends and sometimes maybe boyfriend, girlfriend, husband and wife. You hear people use this expression. You've got to let me in when they want to really know a person when they want to know those personal details that might allow them to help that person. So this one again, this use of what's going on is quite different from the other. The other is quite casual and quite relaxed. Sometimes the answer is not much. This one is really what is the problem? What is the matter now? This last example is much more much more urgent. We want to understand the situation. This is not about a person. What are you doing? This is about trying to understand a situation. We want to know what's going on here at this time. And usually there's some reason to want to know. One person comes home and sees a bunch of police cars outside of his apartment building. And when he goes into his apartment and and sees his roommate, he says, What's going on? Why are the police outside the building? Then? The roommate says, there was a robbery robbery means someone broke into someone's house and stole some things . We could also say a break in a break in. There was a break in. Somebody broke into another apartment. So the police are here. Okay, now I know what's going on. If that person doesn't know, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. They could say that they don't know why the police air there. I don't know what's going on. So this is a very useful expression for understanding what other people are doing, whether it's a friend or someone close to you in a casual situation or in more urgent cases . 31. You what?: you What? You what? Notice the question tone. Here it goes, Uh, and you can tell from my face from the sound of that, Uh uh huh, that I'm shocked, right? I think I don't even need to explain this one. It's used to express shock, disbelief as a reaction to something that you just heard about. And it's your immediate reaction. You won't say it. 20 minutes later, you'll say it right away as a way to show that feeling you won't have a conversation and then later say you what? No, it's an immediate reaction, and really, what you're asking is for them to repeat, repeat what was said so they might actually repeat it again. That's right, I said, blah, blah, blah, not always. Sometimes it's just a way to express the shock and then maybe let me ah, calm down. Then we can maybe talk about it more. But really, it's asking for repetition, and it's quite common. It's quite common when you feel this feeling when your friend tells you something that you I didn't know about before that surprising or you think something is true and then you hear the opposite and that thing that's the opposite is something somebody did. And we'll say this usually. Usually this is about what someone else did. Not about some event that surprises us. For example, If we hear about some terrible disaster that shocks us, you know there was a plane crash or something like that, we won't say you what? No, this is when we're talking to someone, and the person we're talking to has done something that we don't know about yet. And then they tell us about the thing they did. And that thing is shocking. Then we'll say, you what if this is about someone else? We can change this to he what? She what They what? And it's always about their actions. Or sometimes the thing that they said. You said that? What? What? You what? And we usually only say this to friends because we know our friends well. And we know what things would surprise us that our friends have done right. If we don't know this person and they say something, we probably won't say you what unless it's something totally crazy that no human being would do usually right? Like for example, I just ate a bicycle you what, right then we would say you what to a stranger. But often most often it's for people we know. And it could be any sort of action that is different from their normal action, their normal behavior. So let's look at some examples. This first example is a little bit silly, but I guess it could happen. I just want to show you how this is really used. And sometimes using an example that's a bit more extreme and even a bit silly helps to make it memorable. So hopefully this will help make it memorable. Ah, girl calls her dad on the phone. Maybe she's off in university, and she says to him, Hey, Dad, I shaved my eyebrows or I shaved off my eyebrows. Now that's not so terrible. I guess it's not. It's not a bad thing. Maybe, but still, it's It's pretty weird. Maybe if if your daughter doesn't seem like the type of person who would just suddenly shave her eyebrows off if you don't know the context, if you don't know what the situation is and your daughter just says to you, Dad, I shaved my eyebrows off. You might say you what? You what? To show your surprise. Then maybe she explains why she did it. Some sort of new fashion trend where people are shaving their eyebrows off. Okay, maybe it makes sense now, so it doesn't have to be something horrible and shocking. It could just be something that's immediately surprising right from the start. And then, maybe later. It turns out not to be that crazy can be used in lots of different ways. And we can add, Did hear you did what you did. What and then she might repeat. I said I shaved off my eyebrows. Then Dad might say Why? Why? Because there's a new trend going going around on campus where people will shave their eyebrows off and then draw something funny in their place. Okay, well, that's I guess that's pretty weird. But I did weird stuff when I was in university, too, So Okay, good. Hope you're safe. Have a good one by right. So it could go like that. That could be a riel. Real conversation. Let's let's look at one more example. Mr. Davis left the company. He what? He what he did? What now? This might not be surprising if Mr Davis is just some guy at the company, Mr Davis left the company. He's just some manager. And then we might say, Oh, OK, But if Mr Davis is the maybe the founder who loves the company, who started it in his home 25 years ago and suddenly he leaves, then maybe the employees who are talking when they when they When one person says this to another, then it will be a shock. So it's always very contextual. The context is important here and again. It could be about lots of different things. It's It's really about the context, and it's quite subjective. Some random person leaving the company. Okay? The founder with no prior announcement, no warning suddenly left. I'm shocked. He what he did What? Okay, if there was, Ah notice. A month before, Mr Davis will be leaving the company due to all of a lot. He wants to focus more on other projects or whatever. Then when someone says he's leaving on Monday, people will say, Oh, OK, yes, I know. So it's all about the context. I think this expression is useful because it's a way to more naturally say I'm surprised. But when we're surprised, we don't always say I'm surprised. Sometimes we say I'm shocked. But even that can sound too formal, right? We could make sounds that show surprise, we might say, Huh? We might say, Are you serious? Are you serious? But this one is kind of cool because it's flexible depends on the situation, and it may be a way to ask someone to repeat something. This one is so simple that maybe you don't need to make your own examples, but look out for it when you're watching movies and TV shows. And next time you're in an English conversation with a friend and they say something that they did, that is not what they would usually do. Try it. Say you what you what? It should fit perfectly. 32. You Said It: you said it. You said it. So somebody says something and then I hear it. And then someone says, Who said that? And I say you said it. Is that what that means? No. Well, yes. But that's not what this expression means. That's not what we're going to talk about. This means I agree completely with what you just said. I agree completely with what you just said, huh? You said it. So this is similar to if you remember, you can say that again. Somebody says this is the worst movie I've ever seen. You can say that again. You said it. You said it. But you said it is often used for more positive things. Sometimes it can be used for negative things. So basically, it just means I agree with what you said. I don't need to say anymore. You said exactly what I was thinking, right? Perfectly. And I want to let you know that that's how I feel. And usually we're saying it with some enthusiasm. Notice that I put the exclamation mark right there. You said it. You said it. Okay, so I think this one's pretty simple, but we need to We need to look at some examples to really get the feeling for how to use it . So let's do that. This is the best concert I've ever I've ever been to. Yeah, you said it. Yeah, you said it. I totally agree. I totally agree. Yeah, you said it. Concert is a usually a large music show. It's live. That means there are other people, other people there, many other people there. It's live. It's a live show. If we say I've ever been to that means in my life in my life. Some people, many English learners, accidentally say, I've never been to know. We need to say I've ever been to This is the best, blah, blah, blah I've ever been to. I've ever seen. I've ever eaten. I've ever I've ever done whatever. OK, then we say, Yeah, you said it. You said it. I completely agree. Pretty simple. Let's look at one more example. There are two classmates talking about one of their professors, a girl and a boy, and the girl says to the boy, He's a very strange person. He's a very strange person. He's a very weird person. Who will the professor. He's very weird is very strange. What does that mean? Maybe he wears odd clothes that don't match or he has silly hair or sometimes in class. He just stops talking and looks out the window as though lost and thought Maybe weird can be many different things, depending on what you think is weird what you think is strange. But anyway, this other student this this boy agrees. You said it. You said it may be there speaking quietly. He's just strange person. So next time you're talking with a friend in English and they say something that you completely agree with and you feel like it's totally right and it says everything that you feel in that moment, you can say, Yeah, you said it, You said it and it should fit perfectly into the situation. 33. Who cares?: Who cares? Who cares? Who cares what other people think? Are we really asking? Who cares which people care? No, when we use this expression were not really asking. Who cares? What we're saying is, it doesn't matter, right? Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, or sometimes nobody cares. And usually this is a positive thing. We're not saying Who cares, as in, Nobody cares about me or I don't matter were usually saying, Let's do this because nobody really cares. Nobody is going to be looking at us and you shouldn't You shouldn't feel embarrassed. Let's just do it right or sometimes I don't know, I don't care. It doesn't matter. So let's just do whatever you want to dio. Basically, that's the idea. We often will use this by itself. When someone says something they're afraid to do or something, they're afraid off, and we want to tell them that they shouldn't shouldn't worry about that, that it doesn't matter. We say, Who cares? Who cares? It doesn't matter, or sometimes we put it inside a sentence and explain a little bit more So, for example, who cares? Who cares what time it is? Let's just have fun. That's just that Jay's supposed to be next to that. You one word. All right, So maybe someone has said, Oh, it's getting late. Maybe whom we should go home? No, no, Who cares? Let's just have fun to make the other person not worry so much or not be so up tight up tight means maybe someone is always thinking about how other people might feel. They're very cautious. Okay, this person might be a little bit up tight, so let's go over some examples so that we can really understand this expression. Who cares? Let's say to two friends, two girls go to a club club or go to a bar, and one of the girls is a really, really fun girl, and the other girl is a little uptight. One girl is always wanting to do something kind of cool or something a little bit crazy. And anyway, she's She's fun. The other one is always cautious, always says, Oh, I don't know about that right, but they're still good friends and one girl says to the other, Hey, let's let's dance, Let's go dance, right? Let's dance together and this girl says so I really I really can't dance. He's just kind of, Ah, shy, right? She doesn't really like dancing. She can't dance. The other girl, her friend, says. It doesn't matter. Nobody cares. Nobody is looking at you. Who cares? Who cares? It's fun. She might say that after who cares? It's fun. So clearly she isn't worried about what other people think. But this girl who's shy might be worried about what other people think. And when we want to encourage people who are shy or who are worried about what other people think when we want to kind of push them a little bit, we might say, Who cares? Nobody is really watching. It's just fun. Let's dance. All right, so this is something you might see in a movie. In fact, I'm pretty sure I have seen these exact lines in a movie before. I don't really like modern art, but who cares what I think that means, in my opinion, Modern art not that interesting. I don't really like it, but my opinion, my opinion, isn't isn't very important. It's a way to share your opinion, give your opinion, but also say you don't need to listen to my opinion, just giving you my opinion. If you disagree with me, that's fine. I don't know really what I'm talking about. It's just what I think. I don't really like modern art, but who cares what I think it's kind of a way to to protect yourself from someone criticizing you for giving your opinion. Honestly, if you say I don't like modern art, someone might say, What's wrong with you? Modern art is great, but if we say this, I don't really like modern art. But who cares about my opinion? Then the other people might say, Well, yeah, OK, that's your opinion. Fine. And it might not be so confrontational, so confrontational. If we want to avoid confrontation, we might add this to the end of an opinion. But who cares what I think it can help avoid confrontation in almost every case, when you give your opinion, it also makes you look humble and modest. Another example. Where should we eat? Says one friend. The other says, Who cares? Who cares? Just pick somewhere. I'm starving. This person is so hungry that it doesn't matter what they eat. It doesn't matter what this person chooses. McDonald's subway, Thai food, Japanese food, whatever. Whatever. And we could sometimes say Whatever. Just pick something, just pick somewhere. Something Somewhere in this case, we can use either one. Something would be some food somewhere would be someplace to eat. Maybe a restaurant like a Japanese restaurant or a Chinese restaurant. Or maybe an American restaurant or what? Whatever, whatever. Who cares? Who cares? This one is a way to push this person to decide quickly where to go. Because because this person is starving. This is something that we say, which is a little bit. It's a little bit exaggerated. I'm starving. Starving really means you're dying, right? Not actually dying. But we often exaggerate to make our point in a way which is a bit a bit stronger. We exaggerate and saying I'm starving is exaggerating. I could eat a horse is exaggerating. We still sometimes say that I could eat a horse or it took you forever. It took you. It took you forever. Of course it didn't take forever. You were waiting for someone. And finally they came. Ah, it's about time. It took you forever. That is also an exaggeration. All right, so hopefully this expression, who cares? Which basically means it doesn't really matter. Hopefully this is clear 34. So what?: So what? So what? So what? This expression, this phrase looks really simple, but it's not so simple. It's a bit complicated because of how it's used. And let's just go over basically what it means usually. And then we'll look at our examples and try to get a feeling for it, although it is kind of subtle. Uh, so basically, it means, Is that a problem? Is that a problem? Simply, is that a problem? And it's so common. You see it in movies conversations. It's so so common, and we often will use it when we feel we have been accused of doing something wrong. And maybe we feel that we did not. We feel we feel that we have been accused off doing something wrong or bad, but we don't think it's a problem. We think it's no problem. OK, so you say something that I did in a judgmental way away that's critical of me. I'm maybe, or at least at least there's a feeling that it could be critical, like you're bringing it up or mentioning it or saying it because it might be something that's not good that I did that you want to have answers about. You want to know why? Because it's a strange thing to do. And it could be for very simple things, but sometimes even more, uh, more complicated and maybe worse. And I sense that I feel that you're being critical of me, and I want to tell you that I think it's no problem like, Why are you asking me? So if there's a facial expression that goes with so what? It's like this, sometimes you're being critical of me. Are you going to judge me? Well, I don't care what you think like that. Yeah, I think it's fine. I don't think it's a problem now. Maybe this is where it gets complicated. Maybe I really have my feeling that I think it's not a problem, and I know that you think maybe it's a problem. Maybe I really feel that way, but maybe not. Maybe I'm pretending to feel that way, or show that I feel that way, even though I know you're right, even though I know you're right. So let's say there's somebody who doesn't approve of tattoos. Okay, let's talk about tattoos because that's a good example. Say they're someone. There's someone who doesn't approve of tattoos? Let's say someone's Mom doesn't like tattoos. You have a mom here. Mom thinks tattoos air bad. And this mom has a teenage son. And as we know, sometimes teenage sons are disobedient. Sometimes they like to defy their parents. Go against them. Rebel, right. And so Mom finds out that her son got a tattoo even though she told him he could not. He's not allowed, not allowed to get a tattoo, but he did it anyway. Did it anyway. So that doesn't mean that tattoos are bad. I'm not saying tattoos are bad, but just in this case, this mom doesn't like them. So they're bad between this boy teenager and his mom. They're bad. She finds out that he got a tattoo and she sees it. Is that a tattoo? Did you get a tattoo when I told you not to? Did you get a tattoo? A couple of different things he could say. I'm sorry, Mom. I just I don't know. I'm so sorry. I forget. You know, I just really wanted it. And you said you didn't like it, so I'm sorry he could do that. Or he could say Yes, I did. Yes, I did. I know that you don't approve, but I decided it's right for me. You could be very stable, but still disagree. Or he could He could have an attitude, an attitude, an attitude. That's defensive. And I think this is the perfect word to give us a feeling. About what? So what means defensive? If you say something against me, I will block you with an attitude with these eyebrows. And this this mouth like that. Okay. Did you get a tattoo when I said not to? Yeah. So what? Yeah. So what? Basically this feels like I did on purpose, even though I know you told me not to. Maybe because you told me not to because I want to go against you. Is that a problem? Is that a problem? It is a pretty bad attitude, right? But this is a classic example, and I think it helps to make it clear. Pretty clear, at least, So we use this expression in similar situations, but not always this strong. This is a strong one. Yes. So what? This this defensive kid with an attitude right teenager with an attitude, It's often a lot weaker than this, but still has this basic feeling of being defensive. And, um, I can't believe that you asked me or you asked me, but I don't care about your opinion or why are you asking me? Because I don't think this is a problem. But I see that you do. So I'm wondering why. Why you don't like it? Why you don't approve? Okay, that's the best I can do. Explaining this one. That's the best I can do. It's tough to explain. I think it's very subtle, because again, sometimes you mean it. Sometimes you seriously mean it. Like this teenager. He's very angry, is very upset. Sometimes you do it in a joking way. Maybe yes, so what? So what? And that means more. I don't care or doesn't matter. It's not a big deal. It's not a not a big problem. Okay, I think that but it's more of a casual, friendly, joking way, so it's not always that we're fighting against someone. It's not always that it's a major disagreement. It can be just a part of a normal, casual, relaxed, friendly conversation and it's it's ah, good way to express a simple idea of me having the thought that this is good, basically, or acknowledging that you don't agree with me. But that's fine. So we've got a boss and the boss's name is Let's see Rachel and we've got Steve down here who is kind of, Ah, lazy employees or not a great employee and does some weird things sometimes. And Rachel has given Steve some warnings before for his behavior being late to work. And just recently, there have been some problems with Steve. So he's he's been given warnings, and if he makes any more big mistakes or does anything else, then, um he's probably going to be let go, let go or fired. Let go is a nice way to say you got fired. Let goes a nice way to say it. So Rachel calls Steve into her office, and she says to Steve, You didn't show up to work yesterday and you didn't call in. That means you didn't go to work. And not only did you not go toe work, show up means to go somewhere to be their show up. You showed up there. You didn't show up to work yesterday and you didn't call in call in means you let someone know that you can't. I'm sorry. I can't go to work to that. Can't come in. I can't be at work today because something very urgent happened. I have to deal with it. I'm so sorry. That would be calling in calling in, basically letting your manager supervisor or boss? No, that you can't go in. So you give them a notice. Not great to do, but better than giving no notice. Right? Right. Sometimes you have to. When urgent, very urgent things happen. Now, Steve probably should say I'm so sorry I woke up late. I was feeling so sick. I just didn't call. And I'm really, really sorry about that. It won't happen again. Okay? Because his job is in danger. Instead, he's got a bad attitude, and he, uh he doesn't want to Ah, doesn't want to say sorry. He doesn't want to even really explain himself. So he says So what? So what? I had some important things to take care of. Okay. Had some important things to do to take care of things means you just do things, usually errands, errands are important things that you have to do. And why does he say so what? Here he's letting Rachel know his boss know that he doesn't care what she thinks. He has no respect, no respect for her authority. Remember when we used so what? It basically means, I think I think this is what I think. And I know you disagree. I know you disagree. So what? Here? Does this mean he really thinks it's ok to not go to work? No. He knows. He knows he's using. So what? As a as a signal to let Rachel know that he doesn't respect her authority. This is a little complicated, right? He's letting her know using this phrase. So what? So it's a way to tell someone without telling them Not I disrespect you. I don't respect you. It's a way to say I don't care about what you think. I don't care about your rules. I don't care about your authority. See this face? Huh? So what? Right. So I want to be clear that sometimes it's used to really mean doesn't matter. I think this You think that, as I explained earlier, but sometimes it's just a signal. A signal? OK, let's look at one mawr. Simple example. You spent $300 on a hat. Yeah. So what? Yeah, so what? Okay, now, this may be one friend talking to another friend, finding out that somebody spent this much money on a hat, which is a lot of money that is very expensive, very expensive for a hat. But this could now mean two different things. One meaning might be I'm being defensive. And that's because maybe I have a little guilt about spending so much money on a hat. I almost feel a little bit upset about it, because maybe I feel badly that I did that. And you're saying you did this and I go? Yes. So what, Almost to defend myself. The other one is basically like saying, Yeah, I don't care. I don't care about $300 because I have so much money. So one meaning is I'm being defensive. And maybe I feel a little a little guilty. I want to defend the fact that I bought this hat because I want to feel good about myself. The other is that $300 is not a lot of money to me, and I really don't care about spending $300.500 dollars. To me, that's like pennies. That means I have a lot of money if someone has a lot of money and they say you spent $2000 on that car, Yes. So what s so what? I'm not trying to defend myself. I'm not trying to show you any attitude. I'm just saying. Yep. I have a lot of money, and I'm care about money. No problem. And then you might say, Wow, cool. The 1st 1 you might say. Okay. All right. Okay, fine, Fine. If you say so. Okay, fine. All right. I see. Fine. If you say so and then kind of roll your eyes like you think I'm being very weird for saying yes. Oh, defending myself like that. And you just want to You just want to let it go. We're having a conversation. You just want to let it go. You don't want to argue with me? Fight with me. The other one when you say you spent $300 on a hat and I say yes. So? So what? By the way, you can just say yes. So you don't have to say So what? Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, what then? Here. You're just maybe amazed that I have that much money. Wow. Oh, I didn't know. Didn't know you were so wealthy. Cool. Cool. And then your reaction could be whatever you would feel if you find out somebody has a lot of money cause you don't see that they're defending themselves. They're just giving a simple explanation. All it means is yes. I don't care about $300. That is a very small amount of money. To me. It's like nothing. So I say, Yeah. So what? So what? With no attitude, probably. OK, so hopefully now the ways that we use this phrase are clear. Hopefully, I think to get a better feeling for it, you need to really watch out for it in videos, movies, TV shows that you watch. It's so common and yet quite hard to explain. I had to really think very carefully about how I was going to try to explain it. And I think the example of the teenager and the mom in the tattoo is a good one to give you a feeling. But I also hope that the hat example and these two about one about money and one about being defensive also gives you a feeling for it. Okay, I'll see you in the next one. 35. If You Insist: if you insist. If you insist and that's it, that's how we say it. Sometimes people will say if she insists if they insist, right, But it's often a response to a request. Somebody makes a request and maybe we don't really want to do that thing. We don't really want to obey or agree with the request, right? We kind of hesitant, maybe also reluctant if you're willing to do something, but you don't really want to do it and someone says, Please do it. Please do it and you say, Uh oh, okay, okay. You are reluctant. That's your feeling. You're reluctant, and if you want to say OK, I will in that kind of tone, listen to my tone. Okay, okay, I will, uh, you might say instead, if you insist, if you insist, it's like saying you are pushing me a little. You're pushing me to do something or agree to something, and I will. But But I don't really want Teoh. I'm not that excited about it. Now there's another way to use this that's almost joking, almost sarcastic and in fact, what it really means is I really want to, but I want to sound like I don't want to. Would you like to have another piece of cake? Would you like another piece of cake? Now, I shouldn't have another piece of cake because I already had a piece of cake. Right? So if I want to sound like I'm reluctant to accept the cake, then I should say, if you insist, But there might be a little smile on my face when I say it, I won't say Oh, if you insist, because I'm not actually reluctant. In fact, I really want the cake. I'm trying to show you I don't want the cake. I'll take it because you you're making me take it. But we both know that you're not making me take it. I am letting you know that I want the cake. But at the same time, I want to be a little bit playful by saying it this way. Oh, if you insist. And we often have that expression. So this one is not serious. Same basic meaning. But there's more of a social aspect to it. And you have to look at the person's face to see if they're using it in this way, really reluctant or in this way fake, reluctant, and you can usually tell based on the situation. If somebody says, Do you want this? If you insist, they're not insisting. They just said, Do you want this? So then it's probably going to be this one. Okay, so let's look at a few examples to students are studying in the library. One is wearing a crazy hat, very stupid yellow orange animals on it, flowers and the other student. She's trying to focus, and she finally looks over at her study partner and says, Please don't wear that stupid hat around me. It's distracting. That means I'm looking at it and I start thinking about it and it makes me think about exploring in the jungle. Or maybe it makes me think about taking drugs or something. It's too crazy for me. I can't I can't be around that hat. It's annoying. It's annoying. It's distracting. Then the other person says, If you insist and then takes the hat off because you asked me to do it, I will. Now they could do that seriously. Okay, I will if you insist. And actually they feel reluctant. They don't really want to. Maybe this silly hat is a lucky hat and helps them study right or they do it with a little bit of humor. Oh, if you insist to say, Yeah, I will. But again, I'm trying to show a little bit of sarcasm with the way that I say it to make it a little bit humorous, a little bit humorous, almost like I was wearing it just so that you would ask me, because I think that kind of conversation is funny for some reason. Ah, husband and a wife are talking at home, and the wife says to the husband, I'm going to go visit my sister, going to visit my sister. Let's go, let's go. You want to come with me now? Maybe maybe the husband is busy. Maybe he doesn't really want to. For whatever reason, he's just not that enthusiastic about it. Not enthusiastic, Not excited about it. Okay. Reluctant again. Reluctant. Perfect word. Whatever the reason is, we're not focused on the reason. But this is not the sarcastic, funny way to say this. This is the genuine way this person really doesn't want to go. Not really. I will visit your sister with you if you absolutely insist, but I'd honestly rather stay home. So what this means is if you really want me to go absolutely insist. Basically, she has to say, Really, I want you to go. Honestly, it's very important to me. If you don't go, I will be hurt. I will feel bad. It will be painful to me. OK, I'll go. Ok, I will go with you because you have insisted you absolutely have insisted. If you absolutely insist, I will. Okay, so we've made it stronger by saying absolutely stronger. Now we don't have to say it. We could say if you insist, I will go. Then she might say no, it's OK. You can stay home. No problem. We're just going to talk and have some tea. Okay? Or she could say it is really important to me. I insist you have to come. Okay. All right. And then maybe he will agree. So he here is just saying his preference and is trying to find out how important this is to her. And it may not be important. Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she doesn't really want him to go. I mean, she just wants to talk with her sister. So that's the idea for this one more serious, and it's a good way to talk about what we really want to do or what we don't want to do. And just to be clear, this one is more common than the other one, the more sarcastic, jokey one, the one that I explained earlier with the cake. That one is more complicated, but it's also less common, less common. Okay, so try to make your own examples and I will see you in the next one. 36. It's About Time: It's about time. It's about time. I really like this expression because it's a way to show impatience in a way that's playful. I like to sometimes joke around with a negative comment, but do it in a way that's not hurtful. So that's sort of playful. And this is a good expression to do that when you've been waiting for a long time for something that should have happened earlier. And finally it happens. And then you want to express, Hey, well, it happened but I waited a long time. So maybe something should have happened here. Let's say this is June and we waited and waited until September. And let's say we were waiting for a video game release or lunch. And this game company said they would release the game in. This is not written very clearly. Let me rewrite this. There we go. Launch. They said they would release it in June. They didn't waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. And on September finally, finally, the game comes out. So I'm happy that the game is out, but I want to express that I'm a little frustrated that I had to wait this long. And anytime that this kind of thing happens, you can use this expression. It's about time. And often we use that sarcastic tone. We use a sort of sarcastic hits about time, September, we'll look how many months passed since you said you are going to release the game. We can say it like this to finally, finally, and that's the same basic meaning here. So that's how it's often used. Now we'll look at an example for that. But there is another way that it's about time is used. The other way is about usually important events that need to happen now. And this one is often for life changes, often, not always, but often for life changes. And so for example, if a parent wanted to ask their child to move out of the house, get their own job, support themselves. By the way, very common in America for that to happen. The parent might say, well, I think it's about time. It's about time for you to move out and start supporting yourself. Not in a negative way, but as a way to say you've lived here long enough, we've supported you long enough. Now, you need to be on your own so that you can become independent. That's very important by the way, in American culture, usually. So this one doesn't have the meaning of, finally, this one usually doesn't have that meaning. This one just means this thing now needs to happen, this big change now needs to happen. These are the two most common ways to use it and to really get a feeling for it. Of course. We need to look at some specific examples as we always do. So let's look at some examples. So this is, I think, a fairly common thing that would happen between a husband, a husband, and a wife. Okay. Where they've decided to go out and maybe have a date or just do something. And the wife needs to put on makeup and get ready to go. And it takes it takes a while and the husband is waiting. This this happens to me sometimes, but sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes my wife is waiting for me and I'm doing some work and I won't hold on. I'm almost done. Then she says, it's about time. After I say, okay, I'm ready to go to express the emotion of I've been waiting longer than I should have waited. I'm a little bit annoyed by this. I'm a little annoyed. I'm a little annoyed. So let's say the husband says this to the wife. Wife was getting ready, putting on makeup, getting dressed, changing. Oh, I don't like this changing again and finally says, Okay, I'm ready to go. It's about time. It's about time. This is again, kind of a playful, playful way to show that you're a little annoyed that you had to wait longer than you should have. We could add. We were supposed to leave 30 minutes ago. Okay. We were supposed to leave 30 minutes ago. It only took you an hour? It only took you an hour now. Only usually means that's a short amount of time. I did it in only two minutes. It only took me two minutes. Wow. Only two minutes. So fast. So why am I saying only when I'm talking about an hour? This is sarcasm. This is what we call sarcasm. And sarcasm is a way of expressing the opposite of what we're really saying. Using tone. Really great, fantastic. What we really mean is the opposite thing. It's about time. It only took you an hour, meaning actually, an hour is a long time. I'm being sarcastic. Sarcasm is just a form of expression in native spoken English. And some people use it, some people don't. Sometimes it's funny. Sometimes it's not. Now a mom is talking to her son because her son hasn't been doing very well in school. He's getting he's getting poor grades. Poor grades, unfortunately, because he just not very into school. He's he's not into it. If you're into something you really enjoy doing it. Instead he's into, he's into football. Okay, loves playing football. But the problem is if he doesn't do well in school, then it's going to be hard for him to get good grades and then it's going to be hard for him to get into a better school, maybe when he goes to high school. So his mom is going to tell him that going to have a very serious a very serious talk with him and tell him that, Hey, you really need to be focused on this. Maybe she'll explain that if he does focus on schoolwork, there'll be able to get into a better school and play football there. So she might say something like that. But when she's going to express the idea, we want to say this is the time that it needs to happen. It's about time you started to be more serious about your schoolwork. It's about time you started to be more serious. It's like saying I've I've let it go as long as I can and I can't let it go anymore. We need to talk about this. You need to make a change. So again, this one is often used for those sorts of serious conversations when we need to really make a big change. And it's often something important. It's about time that we talked about moving to another city because I think we're missing many opportunities here. It's about time. We talked about that. That would be a serious conversation right now. Could we say it's about time we leave the party or at a party or it's about time we go home. Yeah. You can say that. You can't. It's okay. It's okay. But usually in that situation we'll just say, Let's go. Let's go, let's go. So this is more often used for those sorts of big moments in life or times when there is something that needs to be improved seriously. But of course, it can be used in other ways. I think this way it's just more common. Okay, So hopefully now you have a pretty clear understanding of it's about time and the two meanings, the two ways that we talked about, make sure you make your own examples so that you can really deeply understand how to use this expression and all of the other expressions that we're talking about in this course. Making your own examples is a great way to make them stick so that when you need them being there, there. All right. So I'll see you in the next one. 37. Thank Goodness: Thank goodness. Thank goodness or thank God, thank God. Now these air both ways to express relief, the emotion of relief. And when something happens that is scary or dangerous and we find out that after worrying and worrying or being afraid, it's finally OK, we might say Thank goodness we can also use thank goodness to express gratitude. But when I say gratitude, I don't mean saying thank you to someone directly. If somebody gives you a gift, you just say thanks. Thank you. I appreciate it. This is so kind of you, that kind of thing. This is a little different. This gratitude means ungh, lad. Something is like this. I feel grateful for whatever it is and will go into some examples and I'll try to explain clearly how we use how we use this expression. I think that saying it by itself is probably the most common, just saying thank goodness thank God by itself as a reaction after you hear that the cause of your worry or anxiety or fear after hearing that that is now gone, you might express your feeling of relief by just saying Thank goodness, thank God and nothing else or Oh, thank God. Oh, thank goodness. Some people prefer to use this one. Some people prefer to use this one. I generally will say this one. Now, do you need to believe in God to say it? No, you don't. It's OK. People say thank God or Oh, my God. Often written as OMG Oh, my God. And this is just a way to express a certain emotion. Different emotions, By the way, thank God being this 10 my God. Being surprise or shock or discussed Oh, my God. Strong emotions like that. Okay, so ah, danger, danger, danger, risk, risk, risk, risk, risk, risk! And now it's over. Ah, Relief. Thank God. That is all you need to know about that one. But we will look at an example for this one. You're very happy that something doesn't have to happen often. So as a quick example, I work at home usually and I live in New York, which in the winter has a lot of snow. So when I get up in the morning and I see people going toe work struggling, shoveling snow, trying to get out off, uh, the snow drifts and get into their cars. When I see that, I say, Ah, well, thank goodness I don't need to go out today. Thank goodness. I don't need to go out today. Thank God. I get to stay home and have my coffee and stay warm. Okay? I'm showing gratitude for the situation. I'm not thanking anybody in particular. You could thank someone. It's a thank goodness that you're here. Thank goodness you're here. But that's different than saying thank you very much for something, right? I'm showing gratitude for you being here. So I think we need to look at some examples to really understand how we should use this expression. Thank God we decided to keep our passports in the safe instead of in the room. If we hadn't, we'd be stranded in this country. Stranded means stuck by the way. Stuck Can't get out. Okay, now, this is a situation that really happened to me. We were, uh, in a another country, and we decided to put our passports in the safe, which is a place where you can lock things securely. And we almost didn't do that. But we decided to let's put them in here. And then the room was robbed and some things were stolen like money. Close. And I think there was, Ah, computer was stolen. Things were stolen. If our passports have been stolen, that would be terrible. Because then, well, then you're stuck or stranded in the country. You can't leave without your passport. So it's very lucky that we decided to do that. I'm very grateful that we decided to do that. Put our passports in here. Of course. I also do feel relief that my passport wasn't stolen. But here I'm expressing gratitude that we actually did this thing grateful to myself. In a way, thank God we decided to keep our passports in the safe instead of in the room. If we hadn't, we'd be stranded this expression. By the way, If we hadn't, we'd be. This is a very common way to express what might be different now if something had been different in the past. It's very useful, very useful. All right, so hopefully this one is clear. Hopefully, this one is pretty straightforward. Pretty easy to understand. Now let's look at how we can just use it to express relief. You know, mothers always worry about their Children. So a daughter visits her family, her parents at home, maybe for a holiday, and then needs to drive back to school back to university. She's a university student, and it's a six hour drive. Six hour drive and it's at night and it's in the rain. So, Mother, this is a mother. This is what mothers look like after her daughter leaves is so worried that something might happen, right? So finally, after six hours when her daughter says, Hey, Mom, I got home safely. She arrived at her university safely. Her mom says, Oh, thank goodness. Oh, thank goodness, By the way, moms, I feel I feel moms usually say Thank goodness more often. That's just my That's just my impression. Maybe that's just my mom. I'll thank goodness I was. So I was so worried. I was worried sick. I was worried sick. Okay, so these two both very common and pretty easy to use, I feel to express relief or gratitude. Now, remember, make your own examples so that you can really get the feeling for these so that you can start using them in your daily life. 38. I Can't Thank You Enough: I can't thank you enough. I can't thank you enough. We can change this to we A He they We can change that if this one is in the past than its couldn't. Otherwise, we leave it like this. Thank you. Enough. Thank you. Enough. So this one's pretty simple. And I think I don't need to explain this one too much. And we're not going to spend a lot of time on this one because it's so simple. This is just a strong way to say thank you or to show gratitude. And that's it. That's it. If somebody does something for you and your so grateful that you don't want to just say, Oh, thanks. You want to bake them a cake and give it to them and write a note. You want them to know how grateful you are, how appreciative you are. Then you should say, I can't. I really can't thank you enough. When someone goes out of their way or inconveniences themselves w or inconveniences themselves in order to help you, you might feel almost guilty that they've done that. At least I do. If somebody does a lot of stuff for me, I feel a little guilty and I want Oh, you know, buy them a cup of coffee or do something. And then I might say, Listen, I can't thank you enough for for helping me with this. I really, really appreciate it. And sometimes I'll say thank you twice like that. I can't thank you enough. I really I really, really appreciate it. I really appreciate it honestly. And that helps to make it strong. Now, maybe they feel like Okay, that's enough. But if you ever want to show a strong thank you, this is a great expression. This is a great expression. And if it's in the past, then we might say we couldn't thank them enough. This is two people talking about someone else or another group of people. Uh, and we can change this, I suppose, to them him her as well. Let's look at some simple examples. I can't thank you enough for letting me stay at your house a few days. Or we could end if we wanted to for a few days. But we don't have to. Can't thank you enough for then we say, what? Letting me allowing me allowing me to do this letting me stay at your house. I can't thank you enough for looking after my cat while I was on vacation. And I'd like to I'd like to give you this. Ah, this bag of cookies as, Ah, thank you as a thank you for helping with that. I really appreciate it. We were so grateful to the organization for everything they did to help our daughter. We couldn't thank them enough. We couldn't thank them enough. So this one is changing it to the past. Okay, this one is in the past, we've changed you to them. Why? Because we're talking about an organization. If you're talking about an organization, you can sometimes refer to it as a them or they okay, We may be is a mother and a father. Maybe a daughter got sick, and some organization was able to help in finding more help or whatever. And, uh, their grateful they're showing their gratitude. Four. The thing that happened. So the key word when we talk about gratitude is four grateful for everything they did. Okay, Now we could change this to the present if we wanted to. What's the difference? We could change this to are. We are so grateful and we can't thank them enough. It really depends. Sometimes you can choose if you want to say something in the past or now because it's true that before you felt grateful when they did whatever they did, so you couldn't thank them enough. You were so grateful. But you still now maybe feel very grateful. Even though it's several years later, you still feel the same emotions. Why not change it to the present? We could do that. We are so grateful because we still have this feeling. We can't thank them enough. Another way to express this. So notice here that we're not saying it to the organization and you can use. I couldn't thank him enough. I couldn't think her enough. When we're talking about someone else as a way to express the strength of our gratitude, right, we have that very strong feeling. So it's a description as well as something we can say directly to the person that we are thankful to 39. Have a Ball: have a ball. Have a ball. Okay, Have a ball. What does this mean? Have a ball? Does that mean I have I have a ball? Well, yes, I suppose. But that's not what it means. Here. Here have a ball. Means to have fun, to have a great time. A great time. Usually we're talking about something that is joyful. And it could be something that we do with many other people. In fact, it often is like a party or event. But it could, I suppose, also be used for talking about things we do by ourselves. So I'll give you a couple examples in a moment. But let's just talk about what kind of variations What kind of variations we can make with this one. Remember, variations means how we can change something. OK, so have a ball. Can we say have some balls? Can we say have the ball? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We can say, though I had a ball. So if very simply, somebody says, Hey, how was ah, how was the party and put in whatever you want here? Concert? Um, this sissy concert, Um maybe event, uh, conference. Even Now that's more formal, so it might not be so common there, but anyway, how was that? How was the party? Oh, I had I had a ball. We had a ball. Now for this one, it could be sarcastic, because sometimes conferences are a little dull. They're a little dry. They could be a little a little boring, right? And so if somebody says, how was the conference? And I say I had a ball. Maybe maybe I'm being sarcastic. Maybe I'm being sarcastic. Okay, That means I don't really mean what I'm saying. That's possible. Or maybe it was just a really fun conference. Having a ball doesn't mean that you're jumping around and drinking beer. It could be that you just enjoy yourself, right? It's just enjoyable. So I suppose you could have an enjoyable conference and you might maybe say I had a ball. What is a ball? Where does this come from? Why do we say the ball? Well, have you ever heard of ballroom dancing a ballroom, having a ball, a yuletide ball? So Ah, Balkan be this sort of huge party or this huge, glamorous event, and we still use it sometimes for for certain types of very fancy parties, very fancy parties. It's not that common, but still you will see it here and there may be in movies. There's some big event, some huge party. Everybody's dressed up in very nice clothes. They might call it a ball of some kind, and its related to that. It comes from that. But again, now it doesn't mean that we actually went to one of these. Now it just means that we did something fun or enjoyable. How about if we did something by ourselves? Like I stayed at home and I turned on some music, had a glass of red wine. I cooked by myself. I made a delicious meal. I had a lot of fun doing that, all right. Listening to music and dancing around the kitchen. It was so fun. Could I say I had a ball? Yes, of course. Yesterday I had a great day at home. I had to call off work because I was sick in the morning. But later on, I started to feel better, so I thought, Well, I've got the day off. I've got the day off. I'm gonna cook a wonderful meal for myself. So I had a ball having some wine, listening to music and cooking some delicious, delicious Mexican food. Okay, so that's the idea. Let's look at some examples. I'm going to South Africa next week, says one friend to another. Great. Have a ball so simple. Great. Have fun. Have fun, I hope. I hope you have a ball. Ah, great time. I hope you have a ball. I hope you have a great time. Great. Have a ball. It's basically like saying Enjoy your trip. How was work? Maybe, Ah, wife says this to her husband. How was work? 00 it was a ball. It was a ball. Oh, it was a ball. Now listen to the tone there. This response this one is clearly sarcastic because the ball is something that's more than just saying fun. It's It's, like, very fun, right? I had a great time. We often use those sorts of strong things to talk about the very opposite thing, right? We say great, great, but you have to notice the tone there. How it's said, it said in a sarcastic way away, which tells the person who's listening. I don't really mean what I'm saying here, I mean, the opposite of what I'm saying. It was not fun. It was a terrible day, a terrible day. And we often use Oh, here when we say something sarcastically Oh oh, and we may even roll our eyes like that. To roll your eyes is to sort of go like that. It was great. I can't wait to go back tomorrow and do it all over again. Luke. Okay, Sarcasm, sarcasm. Now, not every culture has this kind of humor. Maybe it's not even humor this way of communicating, but it's important to know about it in English. And a lot of the expressions were talking about in this course can be used sarcastically, so pay attention to it. Look out for it when you're watching movies for sarcasm and for this expression, have a ball. Have a ball 40. No Worries: No worries, no worries. Okay, Now this one can be used in two different ways. One way is to say that we don't worry about anything. So I have no worries And we could add maybe in life, I have no worries in life. I have no worries. That means you're a very casual, relaxed person. You have no stress, no stress. And ah, maybe you're You're very go with the flow type of person. Go. You go with the flow. Okay? Maybe you live in California and you like surfing and hanging out on the beach. Okay, it's NFL. Okay, so that's one way we could use it. But that's not, I think the interesting way This is basic. Now the other way we use this is to say, Don't worry about it. When we want to say you're welcome or it's OK, It's OK. I don't mind. I don't mind if we do something nice for someone and they feel very grateful. They feel very grateful and they say, Thank you. Think you think you'll thank you so much? I'm so grateful. I really appreciate it. We say you're welcome. No worries, no worries. That means don't stress out about being thankful. It's not a big deal for me. It's a way to show that you would like to help them. You're happy to be helpful. So we say. No worries. No worries. Don't worry about thinking. Oh, I owe them something. And I need to make cookies for them. And I need to do something for them later. No, no, don't worry about it. I'm happy to help, basically. Or maybe you cancel. You cancel. Maybe a appointment we had. And you feel bad about that? I'm so sorry. I canceled lunch. Something happened. Something came up, something came up. If something comes up, something unexpected happens. So I say it's okay. No worries. We can reschedule. We can do it another time. Do it later. We can reschedule. And when I say no worries, what I mean is you don't need to stress out about me being upset that you cancelled. Don't give yourself stress. I'm okay. I'm okay. No worries. So it's actually a very friendly thing to say in this kind of situation where the other person might be worried or stressed, or at least feeling like they owe us something. Because we did something nice for them. So that's how this one is used. OK, Example time. Two people have a flight there on the way to the airport. Okay. Driving, driving in their car. One person is driving. One person is the passenger. And they thought they had plenty of time before plenty of time before. And Ah, so they felt good. They left. They left three hours before their flight time. But then there was a traffic jam, a traffic jam when the car's all stop and for 35 minutes no cars moved. How did they feel? They probably were panicking. Probably were panicking. Uh, we're gonna be late. We're gonna be late. But then the cars start moving again. Cars start flowing. Traffic is going. So Okay, alright, it's OK. It's OK. I think we're going to make it. So we were both stressed about being late for the flight, missing the flight, losing hundreds of dollars. Then we say it's OK. No worries, No worries. It looks like we'll make the flight. Make the flight means be on time beyond time for the flight. We won't miss it. We're still on time. I was panicking for a while there because of the traffic. I was panicking for a while there while we were in the traffic jam. I was thinking we're not gonna make it. But then when the traffic changes, we can relax and I can say no worries. No worries. Which basically means don't feel stressed anymore. Don't panic. We will be there soon. It's OK now, As I mentioned before, this one can also be used to say you're welcome. But I want to be clear. If you use it to say you're welcome. It's usually quite casual, casual. That means you probably won't use it with your colleagues unless you know them very well. And you probably won't use it in more formal, more formal situations. Generally, you'll say it with people you have a casual relationship with. It could be for people you don't know well, but it's not like a formal situation. Okay, So maybe you help someone on the street and they say, Oh, thank you very much. You can still say that. No worries, no worries. Yeah, no worries. Thanks a lot for the advice. Yeah, No worries. Yeah, No worries. Very friendly, natural. Normal. Way to say you're welcome. 41. It's Nothing: It's nothing. It's nothing. It's nothing. When do we say this? Well, usually it is a response response. That means somebody says something and or maybe does something and we say something back. So we usually use. It's nothing to say something back. Sometimes it's a response to an expression. Somebody looking at us with concern or worry. And we say It's nothing. It's nothing. So what does this mean? How do we use it? Well, basically, it's nothing is used in two ways. One way is to say You don't need to be worried. You don't need to be worried. It's not a major problem. And this is when someone shows great concern for something. They see us hurt. They see us upset. They see us in a bad condition of some kind, and they say, Oh, are you okay? What's wrong? Huh? What happened? And we want to let them know it's It's not something they should be worried about because it's quite minor. It's quite minor. It's It's as we say sometimes. No big deal, no big deal. Don't worry about it. Don't be concerned. Okay. So someone says, Oh, my God! Are you OK? Are you OK, It's nothing. It's It's nothing. It's nothing can also be used to say Basically, you're welcome. You're welcome if you do something to help someone and they're very grateful, Grateful because you did a lot. Maybe you did them a favor. Perhaps maybe you did them. Ah, favor. They might say, Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I'm so grateful. Really appreciate it. I'm so grateful as a response to let them know that they don't need to be so thankful that they can, you know, relax. You can say, Oh, it's nothing, It's nothing. We sometimes, though, say it. Waas. It was nothing. It was nothing. But that's often when there was something difficult that we did, Ah, long time ago, right? I did that a long time ago. Wow, you did that a long time ago. That's amazing. And it's not so much to say. You're welcome usually, but it's used to say that what that at that time was not very hard. You rode your bicycle across America. It was nothing. It was nothing. So here, in that case, it was nothing. We might be downplaying. Remember, downplay. We might downplay something to make it seem like less than it really is when we say it's nothing here to say, You're welcome. Maybe it really is something. We did a lot of work, but we say it's nothing to be polite. It's a polite way to say I'm happy to do it. Basically, that's the idea. The basic idea of this one is I am happy to help you. I'm happy to do this. It's nothing because I don't feel inconvenienced because I would like to help you. Okay, so it could be used in lots of different places when someone says thank you. But usually it's when you did something quite difficult, quite hard. If it's something simple like, Can I borrow your pencil? Yeah, sure. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. So there. Maybe it's not appropriate to say Oh, it's nothing. You could You could say it, but, uh, maybe just saying yeah for sure. No problem. Very simple. Simple thing might be better there. Here. We've spent a day working outside mowing someone's yard because they got in a car accident and now they're at home recovery. And they say, Thank you so much for coming to mow the grass. Coming to mow the grass. I appreciate it so much. It's nothing. It's nothing. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Okay? Just another way to say you're welcome. Let's look at some examples. You see someone walk into the room and you see some blood here dripping down from their face. They're bleeding. They're bleeding. Bleeding is when you have blood actually coming out of a cut somewhere. What happened to your face? It's bleeding. What happened to your face? What happened? What happened? It's bleeding. You might say. What's up with your face? What's up with with your face? It's bleeding. It's nothing. It's nothing. I mean, don't worry about it. I know what the cause is. It's not a big deal. I just bumped its on the Cabinet. I'm fine. Just bumped it and be bumped. My head on the cabinet. I'm fine. I'm fine. So you don't need to do anything. You don't need to worry. You don't need to bring me any paper. I can take care of it. It's just a little blood. You shouldn't be too concerned. If it is a concern, then I might say, Yeah. Could you please get me a bandage. I'm bleeding quite seriously from my head. This could be serious. Maybe you need to call 911 and and have an ambulance come if it's serious. If it's serious And ambulance, call 911 Call 911 That's what we say if there's an emergency and we need maybe an ambulance ambulance. But in this case, it's not an emergency. It's nothing. You let your friend borrow your car for the weekend. They want to go on a trip. They don't have a car, you have a car. So they say, Is it okay if I borrow your car and then when they pick it up, they might say, Thanks for letting me borrow your car for the weekend. Could be before. In which case, we might say, it's nothing or yeah, of course. Happy to Ah, happy to help. Don't mention it. These are kind of similar. After they've borrowed the car, they might say thanks again. Thanks again. They said Thanks before. Now they're saying Thanks again. Thanks again for letting me borrow the car for the weekend, letting me borrow your car for the weekend. It's nothing. It's nothing happy to help Of course, don't mention it. Yeah, sure. We use a lot of different expressions to say you're welcome because they all have different feelings. This one feels very casual, gives the feeling of being glad to give assistance. And, ah, it's very friendly. And, ah, it's very even sometimes chipper. Although I suppose it depends on how you say it. You have to say it's nothing. It's nothing you say. It's nothing. Then, of course, it doesn't sound so chipper, but But it's usually used in casual situations. You might not use it around people you don't know. Well, you might not use it around. Colleagues at work professors, for example, people generally around you in public. If they, uh, see you do something nice for them and they say Thank you. Maybe it's better to just say, Of course or you're welcome. Those are a little more formal formal, your welcomes a bit more formal. Of course. You're welcome. Of course you're welcome. But if it's your friends, yeah, you can say that would help. Don't mention it. It's nothing. It's nothing 42. Feel Free: feel free, Feel free. This is often an invitation, an invitation on invitation to do what I often say. Feel free to and then we say something that you can do. Feel free to do that. Feel free to do this well, what does it mean? It means Do do that if you want to. And if you don't want to, don't do it. It's kind of like saying, Do what you like, do what you like and it's often used to be polite. When people come over to your home in America, feel free to have a seat. Feel free to grab a drink from the refrigerator. Feel free to grab a drink from the refrigerator. Oh, thank you, Thank you. Feel free to give me any feedback. Feel free to give me any feedback you might have, for example, about this course. If you if you have some comments about how to improve my next course, feel free to let me know. That means you can do that. Sure. Great. Feel free to ask questions. If you have any questions about this expression or any of the others or anything else from any of my other courses that I have, or maybe on my YouTube channel, Feel free to ask me questions. Feel free to contact me so you can do that if you want to. And if you don't want to, you don't have to. There's this thing in American culture about not pushing, not pushing, and it's not true. In every in every country, in every culture, in some countries people will push more, and that's polite to push a little bit more out. Here, take this. Please, please. Here, take it. Take it, please. I want to give you this to show generosity to show generosity. You might push someone a little bit to accept something to show that you really, really want to give it. That is not what happens in America with our friends. Before a host, someone comes to our home. We focus more on making people just feel comfortable and giving them the space to do whatever they want. So it's a different culture. We can say. Make yourself at home. It's a common thing to say Someone comes to your home. People might say, Make yourself at home and maybe that sounds a little strange. Make yourself at home. Would It just means relax. Relax. Just relax. You don't need to. I don't need to be careful about anything to sit down, grab an apple. Do what you want to dio turn on the TV. Sure, Go ahead. Make yourself at home. Feel free to watch something on TV, okay? And, uh, and use it for friends. Can use it for family members can use it for strangers. Any time you want to tell people like I'm telling you, feel free to give me feedback. Any time you want to tell someone that they could do that If they want use, feel free and probably feel free to. And maybe you can feel free to, or please feel free to. Sometimes as well. Let's look at a couple examples before we look at this example. I need to make sure you know the word baby sitter. Okay. This is a person who comes to your home to take care of your kid or kids. Child or Children? Baby sitter. Is it only for babies? No. Could be three years old. 10 years old, maybe even sometimes 15 years old. Hopefully not but a person who takes care of your kids and makes sure that they are okay. This is a baby sitter. So it's not only for babies. Let's just be clear. But we still call them a baby sitter. And a lot of young people, especially girls, will make money doing baby sitting. They will baby sit. They will baby sit for people that they know. OK, so here's the situation. We have a single mom, a single mom, okay? And she is going out to go to Ah, very important dinner. Something related to her job. Okay, She is a very important person. Whatever she needs to go out. She has two kids and her kids are staying at home. She's going out, Her kids are staying at home. And so she hires. She hires a baby sitter. She hires a baby sitter. Baby sitters Name is when Gwen all right. And she tells Gwen the baby sitter a couple things right before she leaves. And here's what she says. Feel free to watch TV or have whatever you like from the fridge. You can order a pizza if you want. I'll be back around 7 30 Also, feel free to text me if you need to feel free to text me if you need to. So basically eat whatever you want. If you want to get a pizza, you can call in order a pizza. Here's some money. Here's some money or I'll pay you back. If you do that, I will be back around 7 30 I will return around 7 30 Also feel free to text me if you need to sms basically send me a message on my phone If you don't know where something is you can't find the air conditioner You can't find the heater you can't find Ah, where some kids homework is and you can't help them or the TV remote. Whatever. Don't don't hesitate. Don't hesitate to send me a text if you need help. Feel free So sometimes feel free is the same as don't hesitate. So here we've used it twice, two times Feel free to feel free to Okay. And both of them are actions A look feel free to go to the next example now. Oh, yeah. Good idea. Great idea. I will. I kind of already said this one before but feel free now I'm talking to you viewer I'm talking to you. Feel free. Feel free to ask me any questions. Whenever you have them, you can ask questions. Feel free to do that. I would be happy to help. Not just happy. More than happy. More than happy to help you. Oh, and feel free to share your examples with me. You don't have to just make your examples in private. No. Share them. I'd like to see. I'd like to see your examples. The examples you make from from the examples that I made based on them. Or maybe if they're very different. Great. And I'm sure that other people taking this course might like to see your examples too. So, yeah, feel free to share them. OK, so you in the next one. 43. Kick the Habit: Kick the habit. To kick the habit. We could also say kick, I'll habit. We can replace the a with a. And if we're talking about a habit and we already know what it is, we can take out the word habit and we can say kick it. Or if we're talking about several habits or habits in general, we might say kick them, kick them, all right, so we can adjust this expression a little bit depending on situation, depending on what we're talking about. But what does this mean? So a habit, habit is something we do automatically. We do it without thinking and habits can be good or bad. A good habit might be something like going for a run every morning, you just do it. It's part of your routine. You don't even think about it. That's a good habit. Might also say a good habit would be not getting distracted. Not getting distracted. You're trying to work. You're trying to do something. You're not watching videos, you're not doing other things. You're focused. Maybe that's a good habit, bad habits, maybe smoking, eating junk food. Those are bad habits. Habits can be good or bad. And we say, good habits, bad habits. Kick here. I think you know the word kick to hit something with your foot. But kick here means to get rid of, get it out, get rid of it. So are we talking about good habits here? We're bad habits for this expression. We are always, always talking about bad habits, always, always, always talking about bad habits, habits. We want to get rid of habits, we want to stop. Now sometimes people just say, I really need to kick the habit and there's no other, no other context. We don't know anything else and we just hear that expression, kick the habit, kick justice, just kick the habit. And we don't even know what the, what the situation is that usually is about smoking. If you just hear it by itself, usually we're talking about quitting smoking because that's one of the common habits. But it's sort of just part of the culture. I really need to kick the habit. You must be talking about smoking. However, it can be used to talk about lots of other things, as well. As long as we know what the context is, what the situation is, what's being talked about. All right, so that's basically the meaning to get rid of bad habits. And we could say get rid of bad habits, but we might be talking about a specific one. And this is a very common natural native sounding way to do it. So let's look at a couple specific examples. One friend knows that another friend used to smoke and. Friend is wondering if if the other person has quit or whether they're still doing it. Okay. So we might ask, Do you still smoke? Still means this person knows that this person at least used to use to smoke and they're wondering if it's still going on. Of course, smoke means smoke. Smoke cigarettes. Okay. Yeah. But I'm trying to kick the habit. Yes, I do. But I am trying to quit. Trying to quit. We could say that as well. So here, quit and kick the habit. These two mean the same thing. Could we talk about several habits? Yeah, I'm trying to kick some some bad, kick, some bad habits. Maybe these habits are preventing this person from living a productive, balanced life. And so they wanted to kick some bad habits. So then the question might not be, do you smoke, but how are you how are you these days? Yeah, I'm okay. I'm trying to kick some bad habits, trying to quit smoking, trying to stop drinking so much, maybe trying to exercise more. One bad habit is I'm lazy, just lay around all day trying to kick some bad habits. We could also say kick, we'll have it kick a habit. It's a habit. I'm trying to kick. Yeah, I do, But it's it's a habit I'm trying to kick. So quite common when we're talking about bad habits. Let's look at another example. The next one is when we want to talk about bad habits in general, maybe someone's giving general advice to a group of young people about, about bad habits. It's best to kick bad habits. Notice, we can change this, kick bad habits. We can add bad if we want. This one is quite a flexible, flexible expression. It's best to kick bad habits as early as possible. Could say as soon as possible. What does that mean? It means if you have a habit, tried to get rid of it, tried to stop the habit as fast as you can. If you can't, it gets harder and harder to kick them, them, what is them? Them is bad habits and you may end up becoming a slave to them, to them. All right, So basically, this one is showing us the different variations of this expression we can use. We can add the word bad, we can add an S to habits. We can talk about them. Or it, as I mentioned, instead of saying habits, kick them, kick it. This still means the same thing. It means stop. It means get rid of an adding bad here is necessary because we're not specifically talking about smoking, we're talking generally about habits. So we have to add the word bad in here. It's best to kick bad habits. If we say it's best to kick habits as, as soon as possible. All right, but it's a little confusing because people might think kick, kick, good habits, what? Most people will not think that, but still, just to be clear, add the word bad in there if you're talking about habits in general, okay, can we use the word kick for other things besides habits? Well, sometimes, for example, we might say, someone might say, I got kicked out of my apartment. Maybe your landlord made you leave. You've got kicked out of your apartment. Okay. We got kicked out of the party. Of the party. We got kicked out of the party. We were forced to leave. So it could mean forcing someone out. If it's your habit, you're trying to force your habit out there, trying to get rid of you out of the apartment. They're trying to get rid of you to make you leave the party. They're trying to get rid of their bad habits. So it's all kind of the same idea. But this kick part, if we add out, if we add out, can be about or can be used in other situations as well. 44. Hit the Sack/Hay: hit the sack, hit the sack or hit the hay hit the hay thes actually mean the same thing. They both mean go to bed. That's it. We could stop here, I suppose, because that's really all it means. But if you don't really know how to use these expressions, what's really the point of learning them? Right? So let's learn how we can use hit the sack and hit the hay. Of course, we need to look at some examples, and I think I should explain a little bit more about why this might mean this. Okay, well hit. So hit is an impact, right? And you might hit something with your hand. Well, we could also hit something with our body. And if we hit something with our body and that thing happens to be a bed, what feeling does that give us? Well, it gives us a feeling that we're we're so tired, really tired were so exhausted that we can't even gently go to bed as a normal person. We just jump into the bed and and sleep right away. So it is often used that way. I'm so exhausted, I'm just going to hit the sack or I was so tired last night. I just hit the hay immediately without even brushing my teeth. So it often has that. That connotation a connotation, is a feeling that a word or phrase might have based on how it's used. It's often used that way, but it doesn't actually mean that it really just means go to bed. You could just say, I'm going to Ah, I'm going to hit the sack. Goodnight. Basically, that means I'm going to go to bed. Good night. And that doesn't mean you're so tired. You just fall down on the bed. So it just has that connotation often. Okay, Now, this is a casual, casual expression. It is not formal. It is really not formal. So you wouldn't say this to people you don't know. Well, you would use it casually with your family members with your friends. It's something that Americans use usually very casually. Okay, now what about hey or sack? What these two mean? What's this about? Well, this really refers to what we sleep on. This is about this is about the bed. Basically, Hey, is something that we, uh we have in a barn and It's yellow, and it is often in a big pile, right and many, many little pieces and their long and it kind of looks like grass. And it's often green or yellow, and you might see it being eaten by horses. Right horses. Horses might eat it that's in our horses might eat it. And you can imagine just being so tired that you dupe land on that and go to sleep. But beds a long time ago. Not now. So much beds used to be stuffed with hay. That's right. They used to put Hey inside of a large sack or we could say a mattress. And so that's what it comes from. Often, expressions come from something in the past. The idea of sleeping on a mattress filled with hay or sleeping on a on a sack, a sack filled with hay. A sack is a kind of, I guess it's a kind of bag, maybe filled with hay. Now, of course, we don't actually do that, but we still use the expression. We still use this idiom, and it still means go to bed. So hopefully that's clear. But I think we should look at a couple examples so that you have an even clearer idea about how to use these two expressions. I was so tired yesterday, so tired. Yesterday I went straight home and hit the sack so tired I went straight home and hit the sack. Maybe I didn't even brush my teeth. Maybe I didn't even take my shoes off. I went immediately to bed. Could this be sleeping on a sofa, for example? Yeah, sure, Really. It just means go to sleep in your home and it doesn't even say that you're laying down in a bed. It's really about the sleeping part. It's about going to sleep. It's not about actually being in the bed. Always, always. Sometimes when people say in the sack, you ever hear people say something is happening in the sack? Then they're probably talking about being in the bed. Sometimes we say people say it roll around in the hay. That one has, ah, sort of sexual meaning to roll around in the hay. I'm sure I don't need to explain that, but this one does mean in a bed, right? This one does mean in the bed. Well, it's probably time I hit the sack talk to you tomorrow. It's probably time I hit the sack or it's probably time for me to hit the Hey, talk to you tomorrow. Maybe you're on the phone late with someone, right? You're on a very late phone call late at night, and you're really feeling a bit tired. You feel like it's time to go to bed or you're just not really interested in talking with this person anymore. And going to bed is a good excuse. So you say it's time for me to time for me to hit the sack. Time for me to go to bed here exactly just means go to bed. So I want to make it clear that this doesn't always mean we're exhausted. Were very, very tired. It can just mean simply to go to sleep or to go into our bed and sleep. Also, I would like to just remind you that a lot of these expressions that we're learning, especially this one, are very American. This is an American expression, and I haven't really heard it elsewhere. It might be used sometimes in British English, but it's it's very much an American English expression, and of course it's just fine to learn an idiom or an expression very well and not use it. So we're learning a lot of a lot of things here in this course, but that doesn't mean you have to use them. And don't try to force them into situations. If you're always trying to force in very native sounding idioms like we're learning in this course, you might sound very awkward. In fact, I know a student who's always trying to do that. Sometimes I have to say, You know, it's not natural If you use idioms in every single sentence, it sounds really weird. Native English speakers don't do that right. We use them, but we use them at the right time. That's the reason why we're going through each one carefully with examples, because I don't want you to just go out there and start stuffing them into any situation that's not natural. Let them flow out at the right time. Or maybe don't even use them if it's not your style. If it doesn't fit you, that's totally okay. At least you will understand them deeply. You will understand what this one means deeply when you see it in a movie. When you read it in a book, maybe you see it on TV. Or maybe you hear it in a conversation with a friend. I think that's a very important thing to keep in mind. 45. Keep Your Eyes Peeled: keep your eyes peeled. Keep your eyes peeled. What could this mean? We usually use the word peeled when we're talking about fruit, right, we appeal. Peel an orange, for example. We might peel and orange. Basically. Basically, this means to pay careful attention to pay careful attention to something or to look out for something specifically something specific we could say as well. Something specific. Now, this basically is the idea of knowing what you're looking for. You know what you want to see, but you don't know where it is. So maybe you're on a boat and you're looking for signs on the water that there are fish nearby. So you're keeping your eyes peeled for that. You're watching out for that? What out for this? Watch out for this. We can also say Watch out for watch out. For now, watch out for also means to try to avoid something. Maybe there's a piano falling from the sky and we say, Watch out for the piano like that and then you would jump out of the way Watch out, watch out! But here, when we say peel, we're really focusing on something that we might see. We need to pay careful attention in case there is, uh is there in case we actually see it? Okay, basically, this comes from the idea of peeling your eyes. Imagine that you are a snake, and I don't know if you know about snakes, but I think they grow out of their skin. Right. So imagine if you grew out of your skin and you eventually had to climb out of your old skin and get into some new skin like a snake. Well, imagine if you had some sort of skin covering your eyes like a film, and it kept you from seeing very clearly. So maybe you have to peel that off of your eye. And I know that sounds disgusting, but it's like you have tow peel that off of your eyes so that you can always see very well . Now that's just a just a visual. That's just a visual. A gross kind of disgusting visual to help you remember it. But basically, we're talking about knowing what we're looking for and being on the lookout for that watching out for it or paying attention to our environment so that if it comes up, we might see it And this could be used in all kinds of situations. We might keep our eyes peeled for a particular sign beside the street We're walking along. We're looking for the name of a restaurant keeping our eyes peeled for that We know the name, but we don't know where it is exactly. But we can use it in a non physical way to keep our eyes peeled for things that we don't actually look at with our eyes like the prices of things for a particular item that we want to buy Hey, keep your eyes peeled for well, I'm looking for snowshoes, snowshoes, Our shoes you wear to walk on the snow They look like tennis rackets. Hey, um, keep your eyes peeled for snowshoes. I'm looking for a pair because I'm gonna go to We go to Siberia next month and I hear that there's a lot of snow there and I may need may need snowshoes to keep your eyes peeled for snowshoes. Watch out for snowshoes. If you see any, just buy them and then I'll pay you back. I will pay you back. Pay you back. Hey, you back! Ok, so that's the idea. Let's look at some examples. So maybe you're walking home with a friend and you want your friend to help you find something. Keep your eyes peeled for a bathroom. I really have to go. So we often use four. And then the thing that we want to find I know I want to find a bathroom. I'm keeping my eyes peeled and then the proposition that proposition is 44 Keep your eyes peeled for keep an eye out. Four is the same thing. Keep an eye out for a bathroom. I really have to go go to the bathroom. So if on Lee I'm looking for a bathroom, I might miss it. But if both of us are looking, then we'll probably see it if there is one. It doesn't mean that we're actually actively looking for a bathroom, though we could be just walking along. And as we go along, maybe on the way home as we go along, we make sure to pay attention to our surroundings in case there is one. So that's a very important thing to know. It's not the same as look for, because look for is actively trying to find something. Where is it? And walking around and going everywhere. But keeping an eye out for it just means paying attention in case it's there. So we're not going into restaurants and saying, Hey, do you have a bathroom? Haiti of a bathroom? No. We are just making sure that we're paying attention to our surroundings. Keep your eyes peeled for the subway. The subway. Maybe I don't know where the entrance to the subway is subways, The underground, the underground train. I don't know where the entrances. So we're walking along. I know it's nearby. I know. The subway is nearby. Keep your eyes peeled for the subway entrance. Okay? Okay. It is the same thing. We're going along anyway, making sure we pay attention in case the subway entrance is t