American English Slang | Common Idioms

1. Course Introduction: For anyone learning a language, there's this frustrating feeling that comes. And it's the feeling that there are almost two languages. There's the language that you learned in the book, and then there's the one that people who speak this language really use, right? There's a spoken language and then there's the book language. And you probably want to learn the real spoken language, right? That's how I feel when I, when I studied Chinese. Well, this course is about learning spoken English, learning American English slang. My name is Luke and I'm an English teacher from America. I've been teaching for over eight years and I've helped thousands of students improve their spoken English. I've started to English language learning companies, Cloud English and Jolie. And I really, really love what I do in my years of teaching experience. One thing is very clear, you have to learn by doing, and that's what we're going to do in this course on American English, slang. This course will be focused on common English Idioms. Idioms are little phrases that people say in a language, in this case, in American English, that you can't quite guess the first time you see them. It's not obvious what they mean right away. Okay, So we're going to be focused on this kind of expression in this course. This course is part of a series of four courses. So if you're interested in learning more phrases and expressions, more common American slang, make sure you check out the other three courses as well. This one we're going to be focused on common idioms. So what makes this course special? This is not going to be one of those courses where we just fly through idioms and phrases and I tell you what they mean and then we just move on. No, no, no. I don't believe that's the right way to do it. As I said, the best way to learn is to do. So. We're going to go very carefully through each one. We're going to talk about what it really means, how it's used. Maybe it's used in several different ways. We'll talk about those different meanings. And then we're going to go through real life examples so that you feel at the end of each lesson like, okay, I really understand this one. And also if I heard someone say it, I would know what they mean. And also, I think I could use it. That's what I hope you take away from this course. You'll be able to use what you've learned in this course in real conversations in your daily life, which I think is the whole point of learning a language. So I will see you in the first lesson. 2. About This Course: Before we get started with this course, before we really start, we need to have a bit of a foundation. There are some things we need to make sure we understand that completely before we start with our first idiom. Now this course is about common idioms, but what is, what is an idiom? Exactly? Okay, So it's pretty simple. We're going to talk about what it is so that we're clear. And then we'll talk about how you can use the course, how you can actually practice each of the idioms we learn. And we're gonna talk about the structure of the course, the layout of the course, okay, So first, what is an idiom? And idiom basically is a phrase or a group of words. And sometimes you'll hear me use the word phrase throughout the course. Sometimes I'll say idiom, sometimes I'll say expression. What you won't often hear me use the word slang. Why not? This is a course about slang because we don't actually call each thing that we learned slang, each thing that we say slang, we don't say, Oh, I just learned a new slang. Usually we say I learned a new idiom. I learned a new common expression. Okay, So I'll use these three words, idiom, phrase and expression, not slang. And idiom is a group of words that has a certain meaning, okay? But the meaning of this group of words, this phrase is not obvious. If you just look at each word, if you say, Okay, I know that word, I know that word and I know that word. And you're telling me this means to die. Okay. I'm confused. Well, it's because it's an idiom. The meaning comes from not the words, but something cultural, maybe something historical. Sometimes we don't know the reason. In fact, usually when we're using idioms, we're not thinking about the original origin of the idiom. We're just using it as almost a word, right? People aren't thinking about the deep meaning or the history of the idiom when they use it. But to be clear, in this course, we're talking about ones that are American, ones that I know, ones that I use and other Americans use. We're not talking about Australian idioms. Now we share some, but there will be some things. For example, in the UK or Australia, other English-speaking countries, there will be some idioms that maybe they use, that I don't use. Maybe I don't even know. There'll be some that maybe I used that they don't use. The ones that I've selected for this course are ones that I really use, ones that people really use. So you don't have to worry as you go through this course that we're learning things that aren't actually used by real American native English speakers. Okay, all very common. Let's talk a little bit about the structure of each lesson. Each lesson is going to be pretty much the same in structure. The reason for that is because I want to focus more on the idiom we're learning and not on, oh, let's try a different way of learning it. Let's do something crazy. Let's keep the structure the same and focus on really learning here. Okay. Now we're going to spend a fair amount of time on each one. Okay? The reason we're going to do that is because we need to cover a few important things. If we're going to say that we really deeply understand a certain idiom. So at the beginning of each lesson I'm going to say the idiom clearly, very clearly. And then we'll talk about any variations. Can we change something here or not? Sometimes there are many possible variations. Variation means you can maybe change a word here or you can add something at the end or not, means it can't be changed. And for many idioms, they cannot be changed. They have to be exactly said like this. Have a ball, have a ball. Remember, an idiom means, you can't tell exactly what this means unless you know the background, unless you speak the language natively, or you take this course, right? Have a bombings, have a ball. No, No, It doesn't have a ball means to have fun to enjoy yourself. Oh, oh, okay. Well, okay. Then can I say have the ball have double? No, you can't. So you can't change that one? I had a ball. Okay. We can say it in the past. Yes, we can. Now we'll talk more about that idiom in the course. Don't worry, we'll go over examples were really, really get into it. But I just want to make it clear to you that when we spend more than five minutes on each one, we're learning deeply. So that's why we're going to spend a good amount of time with each one, because we need to explore it. We need to know pronunciation, we need to know variations. And then we're going to talk about the usage and the meaning. What does this really mean? How is it used? What kind of situation can I use it in? We need to know that that's very important. If I just say this means this, okay, Next. All right, well, what can I do with that? I know what it means now, but I have no idea how to use it. No, no. We need to deeply understand each one so that you can actually begin to use them. That should be our goal. Then after we talk about what each one means, we've gone over the pronunciation variations. We're going to look at examples, because examples are the things that allow us to feel, to feel how each one is used. How can I put this idiom into a real conversation, right? We need to know that that's the most important part maybe. So we'll be looking at examples that I've made for each one. Now, after we've gone through that, I want you to make your own examples. Because if you make your own examples, then you're not only getting input, you also have output. Input and output. Here's you, right. Here is u, this is u. And set look like you. I hope you don't look like an egg with two dots. But if you do, okay, that's fine. We can be friends. Input is one thing. Okay, so now we have this, maybe have a ball in your brain. You know it. Maybe if you hear it in a movie, great, you understand, good for you. But if you don't have output, you haven't completed the whole process of learning. For almost anything that you learn, input is only half, right? So you've got this half. Why would you stop there? You've got to have this half to, everybody knows you need to have output. You need to have output two. Practice your own examples and don't make them exactly like mine. If you really understand the idiom, you should be able to make one that's unique. And if you think through it, the more interesting it is, that process of thinking coming up with an example, that creative process is what helps you really understand how to use the idiom. So I would really encourage you to make your own examples. And I will be mentioning that through out the course. Okay, so now that we have this foundation, I think we can get started with our first idiom. 3. Over the Top: Let's get started with our first expression. The first expression is over the top. Now this is a very interesting one, which can help you say something that might otherwise be hard to say. But what does it mean over the top? Well, let's first make a line, and let's call this line normal. And let's say that everything under the line is normal, or at least below normal. And things above the line. Things that might be strange, things that might be excessive, things that might be a little bit ridiculous. These things, let's call these things, things which might be over the top. And if something is like that, you might just say, ha, that is pretty over the top, that is pretty quite vary. So these you can change and then over the top again, because this is an expression, we can't change this. You can't say over a top or anything like that. Above a top. No, no, no. You have to say over the top. Okay. Now here would be a simple example. You're invited to a wedding and it's one of those weddings. It's one of those weddings that's not too formal. Okay. And so everybody's wearing nice clothes, but not super nice, right? But one person comes to the wedding wearing a tuxedo. Now a tuxedo is the most expensive suit. It's black, it has long tails, It's shiny. It cost thousands of dollars. One person comes in a tuxedo. Now that people who see that person come in, they might say, Oh, I was kinda over the top. That's quite over the top. We might say a little as well. Now, helps make it a little softer, a bit softer. Anytime we want to make something softer, we can use a little. So that's also common. This would be something that's inappropriate. It's inappropriate to wear a tuxedo at this kind of event, so it's over the top. Here's another example related to a wedding. A father spends a $100,000.1, $100 thousand on his daughter's wedding to pay for his daughter's wedding on a private island. Now this is very expensive for a wedding, and it might be described as over the top, you spend a 100 thousand on your daughter's wedding. That is quite excessive. That is quite over the top. That he's over the top. That is a little over the top. Okay, let's look at a specific example for over the top, It seems like getting your daughter a Ferrari. It's a type of car for her 16th birthday, is pretty over the top, Shouldn't she? At least at least finish high school? That means before you get a Ferrari, you should probably be an adult. Probably not healthy to be a high-school student with a Ferrari. Okay. So it would be over the top to get your daughter one for her 16th birthday. Another example, she gave an over the top performance that got mixed reviews from critics. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she threw her microphone into the audience. Singers always put their emotions into their performances. But if that goes too far, if it becomes excessive, then it might be over the top and throwing the microphone into the audience might be over the top. So maybe this performer was being, being weird, being too crazy, bad crazy, not good crazy. Notice that I have these things which are called hyphens between words. Why? Because I've made this over the top into an adjective and you can use it that way. Well, that was a pretty over the top party or an over the top wedding. After over the top. There is a noun, in this case, over the top is an adjective. And adjectives generally have to be one word, so we have to put them together with hyphens, but it means the same thing. So hopefully that's clear. Try to make your own examples. Make, make some examples. That's what I did when making this course. I thought about it and then I made some examples that I thought would make this expression clear. Now you can do the same and that can help you really get a feeling for it. To make sure that you know it, to make sure that you can remember it. 4. Foam at the Mouth: foam at the mouth to foam at the mouth. Simply. This means to be furious, to be furious, to be very angry. All right, But why does it mean that to really understand this expression, we need to understand two words. We need to know the word literal, and we need to know the word figurative. All right, if something is literal, that means what we say is exactly what we mean. What we say is exactly what we mean. And if we say that it's figurative, it means what we say means something else. What we say. I don't mean sarcastic. What we say stands for something else. All right? Maybe a kind of a kind of metaphor, in some ways, and in other ways, maybe not. Depends on depends on the situation. So to foam at the mouth, foam is a kind of substance. All right. You might see foam along the seaside seafoam. We call it, call it sea foam. You might. If you're a guy and you shave your face, you might use shaving cream. Or sometimes shaving foam has a lot of air in it to shave. You might like a lot of milk foam in your in your lot in your cappuccino and you go to the coffee shop, the very light milk that is whipped and has air inside that is called milk foam or we often just call it phone. Would you like more foam in that? I used to be a a barista. That means I used to make blot Aisin cappuccinos. So don't get me started on coffee. I love coffee. OK, so if someone is foaming has foam coming out of their mouth, they are literally foaming at the mouth. There's actually foam coming out of their mouth. Maybe they have Rabies. Rabies is a kind of disease that we might get if were bitten by a wild animal. If you see a wild animal who say that that raccoon, that dog is literally foaming at the mouth, what I say is actually what I mean, it's really happening. If somebody says I'm literally starving, that means they're actually dying from hunger. Now you may hear a lot of young people, especially in America, say I'm like, literally, I'm literally starving. Nowadays. A lot of young people use the word literally, not literally, which is kind of funny and they say, I'm literally dying. I'm literally starving, but they're not literally starving. So it's kind of funny because that's not what literally means. If they were literally dying than they would literally be dying and they would be on the ground about to die. So anyway, figurative then means something else. And this meaning is something else. It is figurative, not literal. It is figurative, not literal. If someone is foaming at the mouth, they are very angry. When we're describing a furious person, we say she's foaming at the mouth. He's foaming at the mouth, so, so angry. It doesn't really mean that there's phone coming out of their mouth, but it is kind of about the idea of Rabies. If you have Rabies, you want toe, you want to bite someone right? It's almost like it's almost like someone has Rabies. They're so angry. Okay, so that's the basic idea. It just means furious, very angry, and it is not literally about having foam coming out of your mouth. If you're brushing your teeth, then you might literally have foam at the mouth. All right, so let's look at some specific examples to better understand how we can use this expression about anger. My mom was foaming at the mouth when she saw how messy my room waas. Or we could say my mom started foaming or to foam at the mouth when she saw how messy my room waas. Okay, so this is maybe a kid who's telling his friends how angry his mother was when she found out that her son forgot to clean his room or just didn't do it. She was so angry she was foaming at the mouth. This is more than saying she's just angry. She was. She was pretty upset. But if we say she was foaming at the mouth, it's going to be much stronger, much stronger. So, just to be clear, whenever you use this expression you're going to be talking about, if there's a scale of anger from 0 to 10 you're going to be talking about a 10 or maybe an 11 which isn't even on the scale. That's when you use it. And it works in all situations where you want to describe this level of anger, which again, hopefully is not a very common thing for you to see, because nobody wants to be furious or have someone be furious at them. I wasn't just angry. I was foaming at the mouth here. I want to really emphasize my level of angry. You know, I wasn't I wasn't just at I wasn't just at a nine or eight. I was at a 10. I was at an 11. Even though 11 isn't on the scale because I want to communicate how angry It made me whatever it's about. Maybe somebody cut me off in traffic, cut me off in traffic. Or maybe my boss made fun of me in front of all my coworkers, all my co workers. It made me so, so, so, so angry. I was foaming at the mouth. All right, Hopefully it's clear how to use this. I just hope that you never actually need to use it. By the way, if we learn an expression and you feel that you're just not clear on it, you don't really understand it completely. Ask, make sure you ask me on more than happy to help. You better understand Ah, specific expression or help you with your examples. I'd love to see your examples to see how well you understand the expressions that we're learning in this course, so don't be afraid to ask. Okay, so good luck with your examples. I'll see you in the next one. 5. Full of Himself: full of himself, full of himself, full of herself, full of themselves, herself, myself. So we can use. We can use these. Basically, we're talking about being arrogant, arrogant, arrogant. Sometimes we'll use the word cocky but cocky is really focused more on over confidence plus arrogance, right feeling superior to others and that you can do anything we say that is the meaning of cocky, cocky. But to be full of yourself is really Maura about this one. It's really more about being completely obsessed with yourself. You think everything you do is great. You think you're superior to all others. And maybe that's the reason why people feel uncomfortable around you. Why people maybe don't really want to talk to you. And when they talk about you, they might say, Well, this is kind of full of himself kind of full of himself. He's OK. He's nice, but he's sometimes he's kind of full of himself. People, maybe, who always talk about Onley themselves. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, very self centred, self centred. And usually we consider that to be a negative trait. Someone who can't focus on others, can't think about others, can't consider others. That means that means that they don't really know how to look outside of their own bubble. While we say this person might be full of themselves, full of himself, herself, myself, right, that's the basic idea. One way to remember this, maybe two. To think about a cup, the cup. And if you fill the cup, then there's no more room. If what's in the cup is everything you think about yourself and how great you are, then there's no more room. There's no more room or space. When did I write API their room or space for anything else so you don't have any more room to think about others? So this might be a good way to help you remember what full of yourself full of himself means. Can this ever be used in a positive way? Or is it always pretty negative? Yeah, it's not really used in a positive way. If people are using this expression, they're using it to criticize someone or describe someone who has the characteristic or trait or trait of arrogance to a level that we do not like to a level that we do not like. That maybe makes us uncomfortable. So it's a description of a personality type. Okay, But sometimes sometimes we can say a bit. We say a bit, then maybe it's not so bad. Yeah, he's a nice person. He's really funny, is interesting, is a bit full of himself. But, um, you know, I can forgive that it's OK, but still, that's usually a But that's usually that the negative thing, even if it's a small amount. Okay, so let's look at let's look at some examples. So here we have somebody who is boasting, and we'll talk about two ways that this this is actually meant to possible ways that this is meant. Nobody can beat me at Ping Pong. I'm the greatest. I'm the greatest. Well, you're pretty full of yourself, says another person. Okay, now, if this person is being serious, then this person is being critical to say you're arrogant. You shouldn't say that you should be more humble. What if this person is not serious? What if this person is being kind of funny or sarcastic? Sometimes people say I'm the greatest. I'm the greatest in a way that's joking around their friends. If that's the case, this person could still say this, but now, yes, it's still critical. It's just a little sarcastic, and it's kind of joking. It's like, Ha ha ha yeah, of course. Maybe they're not even that good. And they still say, I'm the greatest. Maybe they've only played once or twice, and they want to just say something kind of stupid to be funny. I'm the greatest. Nobody can beat me a Ping Pong. Of course, that's not true, right? So what should this person say? Wow, you're pretty full of yourself, huh? Let's play, you know, as a as a way to play in the conversation as a way to recognize that it's, Ah, goofy, goofy statement. So I think when you're learning English, it's important to recognize and pay attention to when things are 100% serious and when things can be often sarcastic or joking. Ah, lot of the expressions were learning can be used seriously or sarcastically or in a joking way, and I think it's important to have a feeling for both of those, so that when you find yourself in situations where you could use them where other people are using them, or maybe in movies you get it, you know what's going on and you're able to play in that conversation. If you're in a conversation, you're able to understand the humor if it's a movie, so that's very important. Know that know that there are many expressions that can be used in different ways, even if the meaning doesn't change, The meaning is the same, but one of them is not serious. Okay, so let's look at let's look at another example. Some people seem full of themselves. Seem I'm going to stress that when I say it, some people seem full of themselves, but actually it's just genuine confidence. I think there's a difference. I think there's a difference. Okay, what is the difference between genuine confidence and being full of yourself? Well, if you're full of yourself, you you just think you're the best. Do you think you're better then everyone and you're comparing yourself to others. That's the meaning of being full of yourself, right? Not Onley in skill, But maybe, maybe in ah, feeling off you as a person are better than others. That's kind of what that that is used to mean full of yourself, whereas confidence is more like I believe in myself. I believe I can. I can do well. I believe I can do well. I'm I'm prepared. I'm not afraid, not afraid. And that's usually a good thing. So we usually say that confidence is good. You're not afraid to compete against others. You're not afraid to to face others. You're not afraid to deal with other people. You're confident you feel good about yourself. You feel like you can do well. You feel ready to try your best. All of these things are usually considered good, but when that goes too far and it's not just that you feel you can do well. But it's that everyone else is very low and I'm great. Then it's a totally different thing. Then it's a negative, a negative feeling. So maybe if we were going to put that in terms of advice, we might say, Be confident, be confident in whatever you do, but don't be too full of yourself. Or more simply, be confident but not full of yourself. Be confident but not arrogant 6. Top Notch: top notch top notch. This means excellent or very high quality hi quality. For example, if you wanted to, if you wanted to rate this course and you wrote, this course is really top notch. I learned a lot of interesting expressions, and I feel I really understand them. I even used a few of them last week in a conversation I had with my American friend. Top notch course anyway. Top notch, excellent high quality. A notch a notch is something like that. So it's sort of like an indentation that's been carved into something like Would, you might make a notch so that you can tell where something is. It's sort of like a mark, and if we're looking at something that has many little notches, top notch is the highest one. The highest is the highest one, so it means it's the highest quality. If you have a meal that's very good, you can say it was a top notch meal. That meal is top notch. How was the meal? You can respond with just top notch, top notch or, if you want to include it in the whole phrase. That was a top notch meal that was a top notch meal. When you talk about what you like to maybe buy I only by top notch phones, I only by top notch products because I don't want to buy something that's going to break or not work properly. I want to buy something that is top notch, top notch up here up here. Basically, that's what it means. It could be used by itself as a reaction when you're asked how something was. How was the movie Top notch, Top notch or as a whole phrase that was a top notch film. Can it be used in casual and formal situations? Yes, yes, you can use it with friends. You can use it in more formal situations as well, and it can be used for all kinds of things services, products, even people. He's a really top notch, top notch person, right? Top notch customer service representative really understands, understands their customers and really cares about how they feel and really wants to help them solve their issue. You're a top notch customer service representative. You're a top notch Persson. You're a top notch chef, that kind of thing. Professions or people in general, Apple products are top notch, but they are also a lot more expensive than similar products from other brands. Now, if you if you don't agree with this, don't worry, it's just an example. I'm not even saying that this is my opinion. Just an example. Okay, Apple products are top notch. That just means they are very good, very high quality. Okay, but they are a lot more expensive. So expensive doesn't mean top notch. Expensive is different. We could have something that's top notch and not expensive, or something that's top notch and expensive. You could say another brand like, uh, Samsung or something. Samsung products are top notch, and they're quite a lot cheaper than Apple products, for example, so Apple products are are top notch weaken. Basically, take this in this case and replace it with the word high quality or sorry, the two words high quality or excellent? Excellent. OK, that's the idea. Let's look at one Morrell example. I only by top notch things I don't like to waste money. This is very general. We could be talking about anything furniture, food, close, whatever it may be, maybe electron ICS, computers, phones, things like that. Electron ICS. And, uh so that's what we mean by things. It's general. So we're talking about our consumer habits, Okay? Now, does this mean that this person has a lot of money? No. Maybe they just want to buy things that are going to last a long time. So the focus here is on quality, not on cost on quality, not on cost. Maybe that means it's more expensive. Maybe, but not always. Okay, we're focusing here on how good it is, how good it's is or if it's a person how good they are. They are right. I only hire top notch people here at this company because I believe that only the best people can can do what I really need done. I only hire top notch people. Okay, Wasting money here then, means what it means. You buy low quality things, you get what you Hey, four. This is a very common expression to you. Get what you pay for means if you buy very cheap things, you try to only get the cheapest thing. You're probably going to buy a low quality thing. That means you deserve what you get If you if you pay a little more and buy something that's good quality. Then it will last a long time. If you pay it just a tiny little bit for the cheapest possible thing, and it breaks after two weeks, then you shouldn't blame that thing. You should blame yourself for buying the cheapest, cheapest, cheapest, cheap, cheap, cheap thing. You get what you pay for and you say maybe to your friend. It broke. It broke. I can't believe it's already broken. I just bought it. How much did you pay for that? $5? You get what you pay for. Usually their $30. And there's a reason, because they're higher quality, gotta by top notch stuff. Top notch anyway, that's just an example. Okay, Justin example. So hopefully that one's clear right? An example of something that you think is very high quality. Describe it, describe it, talk about your connection to that thing and make sure to use the expression top notch in your description. 7. Out of this World: out of this world out of this world. Okay, so here's the world, and here's something that's out of it. Well, if something is out of it than its may be far from the world. So we can use this idea to imagine that something is really good. We talked about something being hands down the best work, by far the best. Well, we can also say this is out of this world. It is out of this world. It just means it is extremely good. We could be talking about a thing, for example, of maybe a painting or something like that. We could also be talking about skill. Someone could be so good at something that their their skill is out of this world like a genius. Maybe his knowledge, his skill or her abilities to would do whatever out of this world absolutely out of this world, Can it mean Can it mean like mind blowing a negative thing? It's terrible out of this world. No, generally, not sometimes people will use it to mean a strange thing, but actually that's really not common. So generally we're just talking about something that's very, very good. So let's look at a couple of examples. Your mom's cookies are out of this world. Cookies are sweet things, right? Sweet. They're kind of sweets, they're baked, and some people make them better than others. Right? And if we want to describe how well someone makes cookies and they're made by your mom, then I might say your mom's cookies. Your mom's cookies are out of this world, so amazingly good. We could say your mom's cookies are hands down the best cookies I've ever had. I've never seen something as out of this world as the tower in Dubai tower into by What's it called? It's called the Bars, Khalifa. Maybe I don't know how to say it correctly. Anyway, we're using it as here as basically as amazing, as amazing as as amazing as as great as as wonderful as so here. We're talking about something being amazing, something being completely unbelievable. It's Ah, yes, it's a good thing. It's amazingly tall. It's Ah, so it's It's so maybe beautiful or whatever you want to say whatever you mean by out of this world, probably that it's very, very tall, right? And it's it's fascinating to look at its less used like this as out of this world. As I've heard people say it like this, I don't usually use it this way. The grammar is a little funny. Here s so I would recommend just using it is out of this world. Wow. Have you seen the tower in Dubai? It is out of this world. So that's the most, by far the most common way to use this one. And it could be again for something great or amazing or the best anything like that. But it's always a good characteristic, okay? 8. Blow Your Mind: blow your mind, blow your mind or mind blowing mind blowing is an adjective very useful and to blow your mind, it's a verb. It's something that happens to you that you experience. It was mind blowing. It blew my mind It waas mind blowing. It blew my mind. It was mind blowing. It blew my mind. Okay, What does this mean? Does it mean if something is mind blowing well, it can be used in several different ways. But it is a very strong reaction, a very strong reaction. And usually usually it's used in a good way. It's positive. Okay, so it's usually positive. It can be negative, though it can be used in a negative way, and we'll talk about some examples. But first a visual. Here's a little person think that underdone thin, thin, thin. The A little person with some little glasses and a nose okay on this person listens to a song on some headphones, OK, and the song is so good. Song is so beautiful that they just can't believe it. Maybe this person is astounded, astounded, Okay, now that doesn't mean they're shocked by it, but it's so good that that it's kind of like that. It's sort of sudden the reaction. And so after they listen to it, they might say that was mind blowing my mind. My mind was blown. Now maybe maybe that's not so common to talk about music that way. His music is just music. But if it's that good, then you might say it's mind blowing now. This is usually used by younger people, I would say generally people under 35 maybe 40 years old and older people won't use this so much. It's very important to consider the age groups and the kind of people who use different expressions. So I'm trying to do my best to give you a feeling for who uses this so that you know, if it's right for you or not, has to fit your communication style, your speaking style. Right now, I think a perfect example is a magic show. Have you ever been to a magic show where you see a magician do something that you've never seen before, and you have no idea how it was done? So at the magic show, the magician makes an elefant float up into the air. The magician levitates an elephant. How did that happen? Amazing mind blowing. How is the magic show? Oh, it blew my mind. It blew my mind. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. OK, so it's a strong emotion. But what is it? Is it excitement? Well, yeah, kind of. Is it amazement? Yes, Yes. Is it astonishment? Okay, that kind of thing. But again, if something is just very, very good like a song, you can use it for that too. I mentioned also that this could be used for negative things. Bad things sometimes. Yes. Maybe it amazes you that this movie, which was so terrible, could have been produced that anyone would let it be seen in theaters. I can't believe it. It's like saying I can't believe it. I can't believe it. What can't you believe? I can't believe that someone could write a movie this bad And then other people would let it be seen in theaters. I can't believe that that could happen. It's unbelievable to me. It blows my mind. It's mind blowing. OK, so this is the same idea. Being unable to believe something is like mind blowing in this. In this kind of situation, we could also say, If it's something really bad, I can't believe I can't believe I killed so many people. Maybe some famous murderer, right? It's mind blowing how many people this person killed before they were caught. It's mind blowing. It blows my mind. Okay, I can't believe it. It's hard to believe. Okay, so I think now we should begin to feel that this expression has a kind of general feeling that it kind of means a lot of different things, depending on how it's used, right. It's a strong emotion. But which emotion is in excitement, amazement, disbelief. What is it? Well, it kind of depends on what you're talking about, so let's just look at some examples to get a better feeling for it. That movie was so good, I'll probably go see it again. The special effects in particular, blew my mind. Okay, go see it again means go to the movie theater or cinema to see it again. Okay, The special effects are the often written is FX effects. The special effects are the maybe things made by computers, explosions and things like that, things that you see that weren't there when they filmed it that they added later. Or maybe they added, but they used some technology to make it happen. Maybe they made an explosion. Okay, so in particular, that means especially that thing. That's the most impressive thing. The special effects in particular especially that blew my mind, blew my mind. Okay? And I could say were mind blowing. Same meaning just adjective form another example. Suddenly my dad started speaking fluent French to the immigration officer. My mind was blown. My mind was blown. I had no idea he spoke French. So when something surprises us and amazes us because it's surprising we can say my mind was blown. If you didn't know that your your father spoke French, you had no idea your whole life. And then one day thing he starts speaking perfect French. How will you feel what my mind was blown? Okay. Or it was mind blowing to suddenly hear my dad starts speaking French. It was so mind blowing. OK, try to make your own examples and make sure you look out for this one in movies. It's a very, very common phrase. And as mind blowing a very common word used in all kinds of movies and TV shows. You'll see it all over the place when you see it, write it down right out where was used, what was the situation? Then? Try to make your own examples. That's the best way to really get a feeling for it. And remember, not everybody says all things. Just because you know it doesn't mean you should use it. You have to consider Is it right for me? Is it the kind of thing I would say? I think that's important to consider as well. 9. Hit Rock Bottom: hit rock bottom hit Rock Bottom. Okay, so let's let's make a visual something we can use to remember this and understand it. Let's say there's Ah, lake. It's a big lake. Oh, no, It's a small leg and here's the water and this lake is life. It's the lake of life. It's the lake. It is the lake of life. And some people are up here doing very well swimming around. Some people are here, not doing so well. Some people are on a boat and, oh, it's a big boat and it's beautiful. Oh, they're doing very well. Very nice. Some people, though, are failing. They've had a terrible time where they've done something poorly or they haven't been as successful as they wanted to be. And they they're down here. They're at the bottom of the lake of life, and the bottom of the lake of life is is rock. I'm not really say bedrock bedrock. Okay, right there, right at the bottom. And when you hit that, whether it's for the sea or river or whatever, it's very solid and you can't go any lower. Once you've hit the bottom, you can't go down anymore. So When people have failed, they feel miserable in their lives. They feel like it can't get any worse and we say it couldn't it couldn't get any worse. They say, Maybe I've hit rock bottom. I'm down here now There's an interesting expression we can use to encourage. This person couldn't get any worse. I lost my job. I did all this bad stuff happened. Many bad things. I've hit rock bottom. So if we were going to then talk to this person whose feeling depressed down sad, we're going to try to encourage them, we might say, Well, look at the bright side. Look at the bright side. It can't get worse. This one is the same. But if we say it can't get worse, what does that mean? That means it can only get better so we could say it can't get worse in a positive way to sort of say, that means from here you can only go up OK. The the only way you can go. He's up. The only way you can go is up. It's all uphill from here, maybe, or it can't get any worse. Look at the bright side. Look at the bright side. It can't get any worse, so it's going to get better. Yeah, it's encouraging. All right, so we use this to talk about failure. Weaken. Describe a general situation this way. Things have hit rock bottom, and it could be for a company. It could be for a family. Could be for a person so that it's pretty general. It can be used in lots of different ways, but it always has the same basic meaning. It's negative, and it can't get any worse. Okay, so some examples. It's example. Time when you hit rock bottom, it feels like the sun has gone down and will never come up again. Feels like every decision you've ever made has been wrong, but at least at least can't get any worse. Okay, I think this one's pretty simple, and it's kind of depressing, agree, kind of depressing. But we all have low moments, and there's always a silver lining. That means there's always something good about everything. There's always a bright side, something you could look at so that maybe in the future things will be better. You were there for me when I hit rock bottom, and I'll never forget that you were there for me. What does that mean? You were there for me. It means you supported me. I was in a very bad place. I felt like the sun had gone down and would never come up. I felt depressed, but you you sort of understood. And you were an emotional support to me. Emotional support. And it really meant a lot that you would come over and and chat with me. I would always feel better when you did that, because I felt like somebody cared about me. Somebody wanted to help me. I'll never forget that. So if you're there for someone, it means you help them When they need help, you will support them when they need support. If they feel sad, you will try to make them feel better. If they feel down, you will maybe talk with them. Try to understand why. And it's sort of like having someone on your team. Someone on your team is there for you. And if we say I'll never forget that, it means we're very grateful to that person. I'll never forget what you did. I guess it could be the other side to I'll never forget what you did if you did something bad. But it goes both ways. That means if if you ever need help, I will be there for you two. Okay? I hope you never. I hope you never hit rock bottom. Hopefully not. But if you do look on the bright side, things will get better. 10. Hang by a Thread: hang by a thread or hanging by a thread, sometimes dangling, sometimes dangling by a thread. Okay, what does this mean? And how is it used? So to hang means you have something being held up by something else, right? And this thing is sort of free and could fall down, so we have to keep that in mind. Dangling is the same. Dangling is the same. A thread is something very thin that holds your close together. It's very thin. It's a little string. It's so small. It's like it's like, so, so small. It's a little thread. So what this suggests is something bad is close to happening, but it hasn't yet. It may it may not, but it hasn't. So the feeling we get is that all it would take for this bad thing to happen would be for someone to just touch the thread and it would break. And then, uh, there would be a crash and burn. We sometimes call it crashing, crashing and burning. But we use this pretty generally. When do you describe as bad? It could be a terrible result. Failure, right? The we could say the project is hanging by a thread hanging by a thread. And that would mean that if one thing goes wrong, one more thing. There have been so many problems along the way. One more thing happens, the whole thing will fail. It's hanging by a thread. But another way we could look at it is maybe how somebody feels. If somebody feels they're hanging from a thread, what might that bad thing be? Well, maybe Maybe they've. They've experienced a lot of bad things, and there they're close to feeling so depressed that they can't deal with life anymore. So they might say, I'm dangling by a thread. I'm hanging by a thread, right? And if I fall down, maybe I will become extremely depressed, for example. Or maybe it's stress that would work to And we could be talking about risk. Something very risky physical danger, right? My life was hanging by a thread. If something happens to you, maybe you get hit by a car and you're in the hospital and you almost died. You're very close. Say my my life Waas for two weeks this close this close. We even say this close. That is ah phrase to I was this close to going going here means dying. My life was hanging by a thread and we could talk about lots of other things like this to risk success, failure. Okay, Something that's good, that could easily go bad. Maybe the government was hanging by a thread. It was about to collapse. Collapse. And that doesn't mean that it does fail. Or it does succeed. Unless we're talking about it in the past. After a clear success, Who we made it, we finally did it. But for a while this was really hanging by a thread. We were dangling by a thread. We were this close. We were this close to collapse or this close to bankruptcy, bankruptcy, maybe financial failure. That's what this is. Financial failure. Okay, now we're doing okay. But who? We were hanging by a thread about 10 years ago before we became profitable again. The whole company was hanging by a thread. Okay, let's look at an example of this one. Work is so stressful. Recently, I'm hanging on by a thread. Okay. Now, for a person for a person we might often use on, we might add that we don't have to. She could say, I'm hanging by a thread or I'm hanging on by a thread. Work has been hard. She's got a job with a lot of pressure. It's very intense. She feels like she's about to have a breakdown. A breakdown is when a person collapses and you can't deal with the stress anymore. Some people who have a breakdown go into the hospital. Or maybe she just feels like she's this close toe having to quit her job because she doesn't like dealing with this much stress. I feel like I'm hanging on by a thread here. Falling might be quitting her job and doing something else because she doesn't like dealing with stress, so it doesn't focus on any particular result. Sometimes we have to guess what that result might be. Or maybe we don't know. In this case, we don't really know. Maybe she would leave her job. Maybe she would have a breakdown. Maybe she would just take a long vacation. We don't know, but the point is, it's not good and it's very close to being very, very bad. Okay, that's the basic idea. Making ends meet is tough. I'm hanging on by a thread this month. I'm hanging also by a thread. We could say that's just fine. Hanging by a thread. I'm hanging on by a thread this month. That means I'm close to not having enough money to live. Right? Maybe making ends meet is Aziz usually about not getting enough money to support yourself to cover your basic expenses? Basic expenses. So, uh, so we feel like we could almost fail and we might have to move in with our parents. Perhaps if we if we do fail, if we can't make ends meet, right, So we feel like we're that close. We're right here. We're a little person and we're holding on. This is our visual, by the way, this is just a little thread and this could easily be cut, and then we would do whatever that would be. 11. A Doozy: a doozy, a doozy, a doozy. That was a doozy. That was a doozy. What it does, he what a doozy. That was a doozy Off. Ah, meal was a doozy of a meal. So what do you think doozy means? I'm saying it with an excited tone. Is this a bad thing or a good thing? Well, in fact, it can be both, but usually it's for good things. If you say that something is a doozy, that means it's maybe amazing, Memorable, just great. Very good. Sometimes if it's very something, it could be bad to. If you hear if you hear about Ah, a war, for example, and it's a terrible war, right? Many people died, but it's a bigger war than other wars. That war was a really a doozy doozy that wouldn't was a big one. So it doesn't mean I'm happy about the war. It just means it's very big or sometimes very bad, very bad. And there was a pretty big mistake that was a doozy of a mistake, a doozy, doozy off a mistake, not a normal mistake, A doozy of a mistake, a special mistake, a mistake worse than other mistakes Okay, so let's look at some more examples. That was a doozy of a song. That was a doozy of a song. You have a wonderful voice. Nice job. Nice job. How was it? That was a doozy. That was a doozy. The song that you sang, you have a beautiful voice. You have a very nice voice. Was better than most songs that I've heard recently. It was great. It was amazing. Okay, I want to be clear that this does sound to me a little bit folky. It has a bit of a countryside tone to it. A feeling to it. So while people in cities will use doozy What a doozy. That's a doozy. They will, of course they will, saying a doozy of a something does have this sort of full country side thing. And when I hear this, what a doozy of a song I think of maybe someone in their fifties or sixties saying it more often than a younger person saying it. I feel that it's more of an older Do Z is more of an older word. And remember, words aren't the same for everybody, right? Amazing. It's something said more by people under the age of about 45 I would say maybe 50 but not by people who are maybe 70 or 80. Now that word is changing right and how it's used changes over time, doozy changes to say. Well, people do use it. It can have a kind of older feeling slightly, maybe a folk or countryside simpler feeling. And it may not be as common. For example, in America, on the East Coast, New York, you might not hear it as often, but I use it. I do use it. I should be clear. All of the expressions that we're talking about in this course I use regularly. And if I didn't then we wouldn't talk about it. Okay, I promise. I promise. I was very careful in in coming up with these these expressions. I wanted to pick ones that are actually useful. Okay. I wanted to pick doozies. That means ones that are maybe better than others. How about this one? This one? A doozy Is doozy. A doozy? This this one, this expression doozy is a reald Uzi. It's a really do see that feels very countryside. A real doozy makes me want to say it with a Southern voice. That's a really doozy. Okay, let's look at one more example. That math exam was a doozy. That math exam was a doozy. What does that mean? Well, it's something more than other math exams, right? Was it wonderful? Did I do a wonderful job on it now? Probably not. I probably wouldn't use doozy to say that I did a great job. Maybe I did. But the point is that maybe it's very long. That's probably the meaning or very difficult. So this could be the negative. Lt. This could be the negative meaning of doozy. A little bit exam that's very long is not fun. An exam that's very difficult is not particularly fun, right? And so after we finish it, we want to call out that it was not that fun. We might say. What a doozy. That was a doozy. OK, so just to be clear, it's not only for good things, but it is more commonly used. Four good things 12. Out of Hand: out of hand, out of hand. Now, if something is out of hand, it means it's basically out of control. Nobody can control it. Uncontrollable situation. Now sometimes it is for a single person. Sometimes it's for a large group, and it can be about physical things. Could be about wild animals. Can be about bad habits. Can be about huge crowds of screaming people. Just means something is no longer able to be controlled. Okay. And I think I think it is a simple way to to think about it. Uh, you have something in your hand. Okay. This is your hand. Okay? That my drawing of a hand person with a hand. What is that? Is that a hand? It looks like a weird thing. Anyway, this is a hand, Friends, this is a hand. Just trust me on then. This thing that we're holding in our hands, let's say it's a magical crystal, which gives us powers. And when we hold it in our hands, we are able to fly. We'll have to keep it in our hand very tight, right. But the power of the crystal grows, and as it grows, it becomes harder to harder to hold. It's too powerful for one person, so we release it and then the crystal starts to do other things. Maybe it starts controlling people's minds, and people start to become zombies. When you had it in your hand, it was in your control and it made you powerful a superhero. But now that it is out of your hands here, we just say, out of hand. But now, because you don't keep it anymore. Now it's causing problems for others for others. Okay, but we don't usually use it for magical things again. We usually use it to talk about habits. Maybe you gamble, play with money and you can't stop. You'd like to stop, but you can't because you're addicted. You're addicted. Can't stop. Uh, it happens. It's a real problem that people have. It's out of hand. Your gambling is out of hand. Or maybe there's a riot. 10,000 people in the streets, smashing windows. The the crowd is out of hand. That means the police maybe can't control them. But it's most often used as getting getting out of hand, getting out of hand to talk about the period between this and this when it's under control and when it's not under control, you could say I suppose I have this under control and then later it is totally out of control or it is totally out of hand. You could say that as two sides. But then in the middle, What's happening? How do you describe that? That's where we really need this expression, because we can say this and this in different ways. But this one getting out of hand is probably the best way to describe that change from under control. You can handle that. You can take care of it. You know how to prevent it from causing problems and complete chaos. No control. Losing all your money on gambling, gaining £200 because you eat too much, right? What's the middle getting out of hand? Maybe a friend will notice it. Gambling is really getting out of hand. I think you need toe need to try to curb it. To curb something is to limit it, to stop it, to stop it. Okay, so this is basically how it's used and that could be used for all kinds of different large and small things and things that are physical like crowds, things that are not physical like, have it. So let's look at some examples. People keep stealing from my shop. It's getting out of hand. So I'm a small shop owner. Maybe I own a convenience store, and if some people steal some candy bars or a few small things once or twice a month, maybe that's common. Maybe that's normal. That's called it's called shoplifting or petty petty theft. Of course, it's not good, but you would expect it. But if it increases and you start to really notice it become a problem and something happens every day people start stealing bigger stuff, form or stuff. Then it starts to maybe really affect your affect, your business. And maybe you tell the police and the police don't really do anything. You complain again. They don't help you. Finally, you get really frustrated and you talk about this to maybe a friend. You say I really it's really bothering me. Not only are people stealing, but I'm also losing a lot of money that I'm actually afraid that someone might come into my shop and point a gun at me. I'm actually scared. This is getting out of hand. It's really getting out of hand. It wasn't so bad before a few months ago. Just a little. A little bit. A few cases, no big deal. Now it's really a problem. It's getting out of hand. Or maybe you're talking to the police. Listen, this is getting out of hand. What are you going to do about it? What are you going to do about it? Basically, help me fix this problem. This is your problem. You're the police here. The police. It's getting out of hand. The problem off employees Tardiness was completely out of hand, so we had to put a really strict fine policy in place. Things are way better now, so here we're not talking about something happening before with the theft example. We're talking about a a sort of transition or a decline of the condition. And after that happens, then it's a new condition. Right? Things are terrible. I had to close my shop. Everything is bad. That's the condition. On the way there, it's getting out of hand here. Everything's already done. We're talking about the past. The condition waas everything Waas out of hand se condition. So what does that look like people start showing up late to work. That's what tardiness means. Being late for work. For example, tardiness being late, being late, being late. So so one person does to people three people. Then everybody starts coming late to work 30 minutes late, 40 minutes late an hour. Now it's an epidemic. It's an epidemic. It is widespread. If something is an epidemic, it has spread like a disease. We often use the word epidemic to talk about diseases, and so it's no longer getting out of hand. It is totally out of hand. So we had to make a change. We had to put a strict fine policy in place. Does fine mean good now? Fine has another meaning. Fine is up, Sort of money punishment. And maybe a workplace will charge you if you do something wrong or if you're late. I got fined today. I got a major Fine. Ah, $50 Fine. No, no. That means I was punished. And it was money that I had to pay as punishment. Similar to fee. But a fee is not for punishment. Fine is for punishment, Even if it's something simple, like the library, some books are late, so you have a late Fine. I was fined at the library. Oh, so for your example, think about something that before, in your own life was out of hand. Maybe it's a habit, a bad habit that you had before, which is not there now. Or maybe it's maybe it's something else. Maybe someone you know did something and that could be described as getting out of hand or being out of hand. Describe it, used the expression, and if you want to try to speak it, listen back. Take notes and then maybe try again. It's a great way to practice and become more aware of your pronunciation and your fluency. 13. Hold Your Horses: Hold your horses. This is an expression I actually use very often when I feel that someone is being too eager, they're a bit rushed and there may be not thinking carefully and they need to slow down a bit. Maybe they need to be patient, the patient. Then I might say, hold your horses. This is what hold your horses is used to express. This is what this expression is about. Hold. We can kind of picture it here. Hold is to keep something, right? Your horses. Let's imagine that we have, this is I think, a helpful way to understand it. Ten horses. Okay. These are horses. Horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, horses, legs, horse, horse, horse, horse. And we have we have some things that are holding the horses here, some harnesses, Right? And then we have our little cart sorry. Our little cart on wheels says Bad news. And all the horses are ready to go because they had lots of coffee today. I don't know why. And with the horses had lots of coffee and there they really want to go, right? And, uh, we are we don't want the horses to go yet. It's not time to go. So we're trying to hold the horses so that the horses don't start running down the street. So this is kind of the idea, except it's never used to really talk about horses. It's used for this kind of thing though. When someone is, let's go, let's go, let's do it. And you want to say, ho, ha, weight, be patient, be patient. Wait a moment. Okay. And again, this one is usually one you would use with people you know well, but let's look at some examples so that you can really get the feeling for hold your horses. All right, so we've got two friends, and one friend is at the other friend's house and they have a plan to go have lunch together, but before they go, one of them needs to do some work, send an e-mail. The other is very, very eager, very eager to go, right? Okay. So person number one, friend says, let's go, let's go, let's go, let's go. I'm hungry. I'm hungry, very hungry. This person is being a little impatient, correct? Little bit impatient. Friend to says, hold your horses. Hold your horses. Please. Wait. Hold on. Let me finish writing this email. So that means after I finish writing this e-mail, then we can go, then we can of course go eat. I'm hungry to basically. Now what's the difference between saying just wait, let me finish this email. Part of it is about the feeling and this kind of comes from the culture. If we say, hold your horses instead of weight, one, it does sound a little bit more gentle. So saying, Wait. Sometimes sounds too direct, and that can be the connotation of the word. Weight. Sounds a little too straight sometimes, but also, we're sort of recognizing that the other person is impatient. So it adds a layer of meaning. I'm showing you, I understand how you feel. I see how you feel. I recognize it. And I still need to tell you to be patient. I still need to tell you to wait. Even though you're very hungry, you want to go, I have to do something first. This is not rude. It doesn't show that you're impatient with them. When you say hold your horses, it just shows them that you are very serious about what you need to do before you go to eat. Let's look at another example. Again, we have two friends. One friend has an idea. The other friend is the type of friend who likes to support the idea right away and take action. All right, so here's the example. Friend number 1 for number 2, and friend number 1. Again, I am thinking about opening a restaurant. Great. Let's go look for places to rent downtown. Hold your horses. It's just an idea. Hold your horses. It's just an idea. This person is saying simply a thought, right? It would be nice to have a restaurant. Maybe this person likes restaurants and has always wanted one. This person, here's the idea and immediately wants to find the location where they should open the restaurant to rent means to find a place to pay every month for the restaurant. Let's go look for places to rent downtown. What things would you need to do before you actually decide to rent a place? But what type of restaurant is it? What's the business plan? How are you going to pay for things? Do you need to borrow money? Okay? Lots of things you need to do. That is of course, after you decide you're going to do it, right? It's just an idea, hold your horses. Now this one is a little different than this example. In this example, we're basically saying you're being a little bit too eager here. And I'm not telling you to wait because I may never decide to open a restaurant. I just want to tell you that maybe I appreciate your excitement. I'm glad you're excited about my idea, but I'm not ready to go that far. I'm not ready to jump on board with your excitement. Okay. So this very similar, related, but you're not, you're not waiting. It just means don't be so eager, don't be, don't be so eager. Don't be so eager to much. Your eagerness is over the top too much. Okay, so that's how we use that. It's not rude if you say it, hold your horses. It's not rude if you say to people, you know. Can you say it to people you don't know? Well, not as, not as often, but maybe you won't find yourself in this kind of situation with people you don't know. Very often, maybe it's better for people you don't know to just say please hold on just a moment, just a sec. When you need to ask them to wait. Hold your horses is again, something you use with people you know pretty well. Okay. So I hope that's clear. Make sure you're taking notes and you're making your own examples so that you can really get the feeling for these expressions, including this one, even if you're not going to use it yourself. 14. Jump the Gun: jump the gun. This one jumped the gun, I think will be very easy for you to remember because it comes from something very visual. Something you can picture. Something you've probably seen before. Okay, so let's talk about what it means and where it comes from first. So you know what a gun is. Okay, let me draw a terrible gun. Okay? You know what a gun is. OK, but you probably know in the Olympics they use a gun that isn't used for hurting people. But it's used to start races. OK, the beginning of a race, you have the have the sprinters, and they're all getting ready to run. And you have a man with a gun. He says on your marks, get set. And then he shoots the guns, called the starting gun. The starting gun. Now, if you're a runner, you're waiting for that starting gun. And you want to start as quickly as possible after the starting gun is fired. Right? Because if you are slow than the other runners will get ahead of you, obviously. Right? So if you jumped the gun, that means you were so ready to go that you actually started running before the gun was fired so people will actually say in that situation. Oh, he jumped the gun. He jumped the gun. So they have to start again. Everybody has to come back to the line and you need to get ready again. And then if you do the same thing, then that person will probably be disqualified if the same person jumps the gun the second time probably disqualified. Right? Okay. So why are we talking about this? How often do we talk about the Olympics? Well, we use this expression in lots of other ways. We use it all the time for many things. But I use this to explain it to you so that you can really remember it, because that's pretty easy to remember. Imagine, though that kind of thing for deciding something before you should, for maybe doing something before you knew the result and making yourself look silly, sending an email to everybody in the staff before your boss had the chance to look at it and make sure that all the information in the email was correct. Let's actually look at a couple examples. I don't want to jump the gun but I think I can call it for the Lakers. They're obviously going to win, So I'm going to bed. Okay, so here jumped the gun is about deciding something too early. OK, but this person is saying I don't want to jump the gun, so maybe they're not. They're just saying they don't want to do it. Okay, so let's let's just talk a little more about this situation. The Lakers, That's a basketball team. That's a basketball team. And let's say in a basketball game, if you don't know, there are four called 4/4 and let's say it's the third quarter, okay? And the score is the Lakers have AH, 110 points and whatever other team has 53 points. Okay, so if this team wins in only 1/4 that would be ridiculous. All right, so this person is saying it's pretty obvious to me that the Lakers are going to win. I've already decided that in my mind because I think it's reasonable. They're obviously going to win. I think I can call it for the Lakers. If you call something for someone or some team, for example, then you're saying they're going to be the winners or something will happen in their favor in their in their favor. Okay, so I'm calling it for the Lakers. They're definitely going to win these air kind of the same expressions. I think they're obviously going to win calling it for the Lakers. Okay, that's saying the same thing twice. So I'm going to bed. I don't need to watch anymore because if I keep watching, it's just going to be more Lakers winning. In my mind, The game is over now. I don't want to jump the gun, so we risk by deciding something or calling something early, we risk jumping the gun. If we did jump the gun, we would say, Oh well, they're definitely going to win and then we end up being wrong. We decided that too soon. We called it. We called it too soon and we ended up being wrong here. It's not like that because we don't want to do it, sort of recognizing that there's always the possibility of being wrong and we sometimes say this when we want to. When we want to recognize that we don't want to look silly, I don't want to look silly here, but I think I can go to bed knowing that the Lakers will win without looking silly tomorrow and, uh, finding out that they actually didn't. All right, if instead of saying I don't want to jump the gun But if this person had just said Good night, everybody, I'm going to bed. Basically, this game is over. The Lakers are obviously going to win. Have a good night. Okay? Another friend could then say, Hey, don't jump the gun, Don't jump the gun. You could be wrong. Then you'll be really embarrassed. Okay, now, in this situation, that's kind of silly because they probably won't lose. But this conf it all kinds of other things as well. Maybe, for example, we have some stocks in a company, and one person thinks that the stocks have reached their highest point and will begin to go down. And so here obviously is the best time to sell your stocks. And this person has said one person has said, Well, I'm going to sell now because it's all downhill from here. Then the other person says, Hey, don't jump the gun, you could be wrong. Then you'll really be embarrassed don't jump the gun. If you sell here, that would be maybe jumping the gun because maybe the other person thinks that the stock price will continue to go up. Right? So selling would be jumping the gun selling would be jumping the gun and anything that happens perhaps before it should might be described as jumping the gun, aren't you? Aren't you may be jumping the gun here. We're in love or absolutely in love. I know we only met two weeks ago, but we're in love and I know it In my heart It was love at 1st 1st site were absolutely in love and we've decided to get married. Haven't you Onley known each other for a couple weeks? Yeah, yeah, but But it's really we're in love, and nobody can tell us that we're not. Are you sure? That's the best idea? You might be jumping the gun a bit. You might be jumping the gun a bit there and you may regret it later. Usually you want to date for a while and then get engaged so that you can really find out if you're the best fit. No, we're in love getting married. OK, But don't say I didn't warn you. I think I think you might be jumping the gun. I don't think it would be jumping the gun to go on to the next expression. I think you've got this one. 15. Draw the Line: draw the line to draw the line there. I drew the line. Okay, but what does that mean? Yes, this is drawing drawing a line, but how can we use it? And what does it actually mean? Does it literally mean drawing the line? Yes, I suppose, But that's not how we use it, usually in daily English in daily English. This expression to draw the line means to to limit yourself, to limit yourself or someone else. And it's often used when there's some action that's a T action or behavior that's maybe not good. Or maybe unhealthy, unhealthy. So when you're doing something that's not healthy or not good, for example, eating too much junk food. Sometimes I do that you need to push draw line to stop yourself from doing that too much, you need to draw the line. Now. We sometimes say, draw a line, but when we talk about actually doing it, we say I need to draw the line About what? Well, about how much junk food I eat. I need to I need to limit myself limit how much I eat. Sometimes we don't say where we do it, though sometimes we just say you need to. You need to draw the line somewhere, and this might be for other people. Maybe a parent has a child who is playing too many video games. So we say you really need to draw the line somewhere and limit the number of hours that your son plays video games. You need to draw the line somewhere. That means it doesn't have to be one hour or two hours, but there has to be some kind of limit. So that's the basic idea. And when we talk about it, we talk about a line because it represents an end of something. Having fun is great, but you need to know when to draw the line. Balance is key. Balance is key. All right, so let's first talk about how we're using this. You need to know when to draw the line. What that suggests is, I think you don't know when to draw the line. All you do is focus on having fun all the time, and that means you you don't know maybe how to work hard and because of this bad habit of always wanting to have fun and never wanting to work hard, because of this, it's going to be hard for you to get ahead in life. Get ahead in life means to get success, get ahead. That's what that means. Get ahead means to get success. Why is it hard for you to get ahead? Because you don't know when to draw the line When it comes to having fun when it comes to is a great great phrase that you can use to express what we're talking about here. The kind of topic One thing can be about many things. This draw the line could be about gambling could be about schoolwork, watching too much TV, eating too much candy, working hard or rather not working hard, right? And when we want to say this is about this, we say when it comes to a great phrase, a great phrase when it comes to finances, spending money, you are really good at controlling yourself. But when it comes to having fun, you really don't know when to draw the line, right? So this is a great phrase here. All right, balance is key. Balance is key. That means balance is important. That's the key. If you ever hear someone say that is the key or balance is the key. Or maybe being patient is the key. That means it's very important. If someone says just key, that's OK. It means important. The key sometimes is about the important thing that you need to do specifically one important thing, but just saying key means just important. Okay, Hard work is key. Balance is key. Balance is the key to maybe having a happy and successful life, for example. Okay, so anyway, by drawing the line, we might limit how much fun we have and work a little harder. That's what we would do if we were going to draw the line. But I'm not going to draw the line for you. You need to know when to draw the line. Limit yourself. We might use that when we're talking about adults, because maybe a friend doesn't have power over another friend. But if it's apparent talking to a child, then we might say I am going to draw the line right here. OK, so here is a mom talking to her son who loves playing video games, but she wants him to do his homework, and he's not doing it or Maybe he's not doing it well because he plays video games too much . You've been playing too many video games. I'm going to draw the line or I'm going to have to. I'm going to have to draw the line. And then she might say what the limit is. You can play. You can play for two hours a day, no more. So now a limit has been created. She has drawn the line for her for her son. Again. If it's adults, we usually don't talk like this. Maybe a husband and a wife will will do that. We'll talk about drawing a line for someone else. But usually this is for parents and kids. Okay, I just like you to pay attention to you and the if we use a, we often use sand. Draw a line in the sand often, and the is just by itself. We need to draw the line. You don't know when to draw the line. Otherwise, we might change this a little bit. If it happened in the past and we say the line was drawn, the line was drawn or a line was drawn. We could also say, but generally speaking, we don't change this too much. It's usually said just like this 16. Go easy on...: go easy on Go easy on we could say go easy on you could say a person here Me, you, them, us. We could even say a thing. Here it we could change this to the past. Could say went, for example. But what does it really mean? Well, it sometimes means to do something with less intensity, whereas normally you would do, ah, 100%. That means you would try your best. You try really hard. Maybe going easy on someone, for example, in a competition would mean you would do only 70%. You would try less hard. You would not try as hard. For example, if you're playing a game of chess and you're playing against someone who's playing for the first time, you could easily beat them because you're very experienced. You might try a little less hard so that you don't completely destroy them when they're trying for their first time, and they don't feel devastated. You don't feel devastated. So sometimes when we say go easy on someone, it's It's about competitions, but sometimes it's about not being too harsh on them. You could be very critical. You could criticize them and say, Oh, you did this wrong. He did this wrong. He did that wrong. But maybe, you know that person is having a bad day. And so if you are very critical of them, they might feel even worse. You know, it might. It might devastate them. Sometimes it's best to go easy on them a little bit for the sake of their feelings for the sake of their feelings. All right, so we can use it this way. But we can also use go easy on something if we're talking about it, to mean to do it less. If you eat too much, maybe you eat too much cake, you might say, Well, go easy on the cake. Go easy on it, the cake. Go easy on the cake. Or I had to go easy on the cake because I'm trying to lose weight. I went easy on the cake today because I'm on a diet. That's the idea. So could be in a competition where you try a little less hard for someone else's benefit. Perhaps Maybe that's the reason that's a common reason. Or maybe we're less critical of someone when we can see that it might be bad for them. They might feel really bad or we do something a little bit less when we might normally do more. Go easy on it or then or go easy on me. Go easy on you. All right, Let's now look at a couple simple examples so that we can really understand this one. Are you ready? Sure, but go easy on me. Go easy on me. I haven't played in a while, so let's say we're talking about tennis and we know that this person, they both know that this person is good at tennis and they're about to start a game. This person hasn't played in a while, maybe a couple of years. And so this person is asking this person to not play to win. Just Ah, have a relaxing, maybe a relaxing tennis match or a relaxing, a relaxing volley, a relaxing volley back and forth. Go easy on me. I haven't played in a while here. It's a request, and as I mentioned earlier, this could also be about people's feelings. Go easy on Go easy on Tim today. I know he made a mistake, but he's having a rough time, maybe with his family maybe something happened with his family and he made a mistake because he's distracted about some family issue that he's having. So if you shouted him and make him feel terrible, it's not going to make him work any better. He made a mistake. He made a mistake. But there's a reason normally he wouldn't. So why don't you? Why don't you go easy on him? Why don't you go easy on him today? If you've lived in a single house before, I think that you'll understand this one. I grew up in a single house and in the house we had something called a called a water heater, and the water heater would need to fill up. And if it wasn't full well, you couldn't take a hot shower If you live in a big apartment building. The water heater is so big, you probably don't need to worry about that. But in a small home, you may need to worry about that. And so if you see someone using a lot of hot water, you might want to ask them to use less. If you need to use a hot water soon, so go easy on the hot water. I want to take a shower. I want to take a shower. Okay, so someone's maybe washing the dishes at home, washing the dishes, using a lot of hot water. Could you go easy on it? Could you go easy on it? I really want to take a shower. If you use all the hot water, you use it all. Then I won't be able to so use less. Basically. So we could say go easy on it here, or go easy on the hot water. And as I mentioned, we could talk about a lot of things like this when we when we want to do less of something . For whatever reason, trying to go easy on cigarettes. If you're smoke and you're trying to quit, maybe go easy on as I mentioned chocolate cake. If you're on a diet, gonna go easy on the chocolate cake. Just have a little, tiny, tiny little piece because I'm on a diet. I'm gonna go easy on it. All right? So hopefully this one is clear. Remember to make your own examples 17. Rise and Shine: rise and shine. Rise and shine, rise and shine, rise and shine. This is something that people will say in the morning, and basically it means get up. OK, this is something that my parents used to say to me almost every single morning when I was growing up. But it's It's a very nice way to say Get up. If you say to someone hate, get up, get up It means, you know, wake up, get out of bed. But it sounds kind of Well, it sounds a little harsh, right? Get up, get up. Sounds like that. It feels like you're being hit with a stick. But if you hear, rise and shine, rise and shine, as my parents used to say, I have very good memories of that. If they just said this, I wouldn't remember what they said. Probably. But they said this. It's very positive. It's very we could say, very optimistic, very optimistic, very positive. What does it mean? Rise will rise Means to come up right? So get get up. It could mean to get up to rise out of bed, shine, shine. Well, if you look out at the if you look out at the horizon in the morning, you see the sun rising and it gets higher and higher and higher and higher. I'm sure you've probably seen a sunrise. And hey, it's called a sun rise. It's called a sunrise, Same word. So it's sort of like comparing you to the sun. The sun rises in the morning. You should rise to the sun shines. That's the That's the verb that we use. That's the verb that we use. The sun is shining, the sun shines, Sunshine's and we're doing that too. So it's It's a way to say get up and be like the sun shine like the sun. That's why it's optimistic. That's why it's positive. Okay, so this is Ah, I think very American way of saying good morning. But also, I think, a very, very happy in a very friendly way. And when I want to wake people up in the morning, I will usually say, Hey, hey, rise and shine, rise and shine. So this is exactly what my parents would say. Rise and shine and they might say it. They might say it with an exclamation rise and shine. It's time to get ready for school. It's a good way to start the day. I think that might say they might say name. You could say rise and writing and like that shine, Luke Time, Time to get up like that. Okay, so this one's very, very simple, and it's really up to you whether or not you'd like to actually use it yourself, but now at least you know it. 18. Add Fuel to the Fire: add fuel to the fire or add fuel to the flames. This is the same as the expression generally. To make matters worse, it's about the same. We talk about doing an action which causes a bad situation to get worse than it was before . But usually when we talk about adding fuel to the fire, we're focusing on the thing that happened or could happen. To make matters worse, we might say I'm going to try to avoid making matters worse, which means talking about doing nothing. When we say add fuel to the fire we talk about usually the thing that we could do for the thing that we did to to cause this bad thing to be worse could add fuel to the fire. Be used to talk about good things, getting better, right to add fuel to the fire. Well, not usually not usually it's most often used to talk about bad things getting worse. Let's try to get a feeling for this first. What does it really mean? Well, fuel fuel is something which, which adds power or energy to, for example, a car, right? Put it in the car, you can drive the car farther, right? That's fuel. Well, if you put fuel in the fire, what happens? The fire goes from tiny little fire. This is my fire to a huge fire. Ah, very large fire. Okay, so we can remember it in this way. Can we say add wood to the fire? No, we don't say that. It should be right. It should mean that, but it doesn't. We say fuel, and we do sometimes replace the word fire with flames. Add fuel to the fire, Add fuel to the flames. So what kind of thing might that be? Well, think about think about it. Okay, let's say that you have a friend who's very upset, OK? And to make your friend feel better, you you start talking about the person who made your friend upset. You're trying to show sympathy. Maybe by talking about how terrible that person is. Well, you might be just adding fuel to the fire because maybe that person your friend was kind of cult about to calm down. And then you reminded them off of what happened again and they got upset again. So you've added fuel to the fire. Okay, sometimes, if we're talking about a crowd of people who might be upset about something. The thing that happens that causes them to be more upset and and start throwing things and smashing windows, that would be the thing which adds fuel to the fire. So we might say, I'm going to I'm going to stay out of it because I don't want to add fuel to the fire. Okay, so that's similar to I don't want to make matters worse, it's very similar to that. To add fuel to the fire, he started shouting at the baby who was already crying. And so the baby started to cry even more so we had to ask him to leave the room. Adding fuel to the fire could be about emotions, groups of people, situations, politics, any kind of thing that usually usually usually is negative or bad. Okay, let's look at some examples. Ah, huge mistake happened in a workplace. A huge mistake was made, but it wasn't one of those very simple mistakes where you could just point to one person and say he did it right. And then maybe that person gets fired, or at least we know exactly what happened. Maybe it's a little bit complicated. So something terrible happened and everybody's kind of upset and everybody's nervous and people are shouting, Maybe and, um, they want to find out who did it, But it's not just one person. So what's the best thing to do? Well, maybe the best thing to do would be to just work hard, work hard to fix it, Okay, Work hard to fix it. That would maybe resolve it. But But if people started saying, Well, maybe it was Kevin, maybe it was surely maybe it was Alex. Then they start blaming people that could make the anger the tension in this workplace get even worse. So blaming others is only adding fuel to the fire. We could say also is only going to add fuel to the fire or fuel to the flames. Trying to decide exactly who did it and then shouting at them is really only going to add fuel to the fire. Let's work hard to fix the issue and not worry so much about whose fault it is because this issue is too complicated. If we add fuel to the fire, we're not going to be able to actually resolve this because we'll just be fighting each other, shouting at each other, blaming each other, and that's that's not good. Have you ever seen something posted on social media that you really disagree with? Or maybe you see two of your friends discussing something in a thread on social media and, ah, the argument is getting a little heated. Whatever. Anyway, you disagree with something there, right? Well, you might say I really want to say my opinion and I want to share my opinion. I want to get involved and maybe that's fine. Do whatever you want. I'm not your mom. But you might say you might say, I don't want to add fuel to the fire, so I won't will not get involved. That means I won't add my opinion. I won't jump into this particular conversation because maybe it's getting heated. This sometimes happens to me. I see two of my friends arguing about something in comments back and forth, and I think I really have an opinion here. But you know what? I don't want the argument to get, you know, too serious, too heated, and so I'm gonna I'm gonna refrain. Refrain! That means I'm going to stay out of it. I don't want to add fuel to the fire. I won't. I won't get involved. 19. Pep Talk: pep talk. Pep talk. Okay, so first, let's talk about pep. Pep. By the way, we usually say, uh, pep talk. So pep is usually it means energy or sometimes excitement. Let's say energy and to, ah, to give someone pep to have Pepe's toe have a little energy or to add some energy. And there's another expression which maybe we don't need to focus on too much, but that that that put, put some some step in my step. This kind of this is kind of an old one, and that really means it gave me a little more energy. Maybe I had a cup of coffee. Oh, that put some pep in my step pep in my step. It rhymes anyway, but it's not that common. I just want to mention this one to show you that Pep is used in other places. Came, um, she's She's quite She's quite peppy. He's quite peppy, energetic, full of energy, right? Maybe even a little excited. Okay, Peppy. So that's the idea. Now a pep talk is when we need to talk to someone to encourage them, talk to someone to encourage them or to give them to give them courage energy when they lack it. So if you're feeling down and you're not feeling like you can do anything in your feeling like you're a failure someone, maybe your friend will talk to you and say, You know what? Things aren't that bad. You're You're doing well. You're doing fine. You've got a good job. Got a nice, nice girlfriend or boyfriend. Got a lot of friends, right? You just had this one little thing that happened. It's not a big deal. He'll be fine. Hey, you know what? Why don't we go for a walk? We'll talk some more. This is maybe a kind of pep talk. A conversation to lift, to lift my spirits, to lift my spirits. Thanks. Thanks for the pep talk yesterday. I really appreciate that. You know, I was really feeling kind of kind of down. Kind of depressed. Was feeling a bit down. I really appreciate the pep talk. Made me feel a lot better. You're welcome. That's what friends are for English. My English just sucks. I'm so disappointed. I always make basic mistakes. You know what? I make mistakes all the time. Nobody's perfect. Just try your best. Don't be afraid to talk. You'll gain confidence over time, you'll be able to correct yourself more and more. The more you practice, the more you listen to yourself. You get better, I promise. Don't feel bad about it. Just keep trying. Hey, hey, Thanks for the pep talk. Thanks for the pep talk. So the pep talk for a pep talk? Okay, The coach. The coach gave his team a great pep talk before the game, but that didn't seem to have much impact on the final score. Have you ever seen those movies about sports? Maybe there's a championship or something. And ah, the coaches in the in the locker room, where all the players air, changing into their uniforms, uniforms or what players wear. And, ah, there in the locker room. They're there in the locker room, and maybe it's It's the mid point of the game called halftime halftime, and the team is losing. The team is losing, and the coach gives them a very inspiring speech. Like in a movie, you can do it. We're gonna win, the coaches shouting and all the players air so excited. Yeah, yeah, So he's given them a pep talk. They were down because they're losing, right? They might lose the game If they don't do better, they need their spirits lifted their feeling kind of losing. We're gonna lose. No, we're not gonna lose. We're gonna win. You can all do it. You just need to try hard. You have to have confidence. You have to not worry so much about the other team. Just play your best, right? But that didn't seem to have much impact on the final score. That means yes. The players were excited. The coach gave them a great pep talk and encourage them. They felt very motivated. Inspired, but they still lost. Now you may be wondering, Why did you write an example where they lost? You could have said And they finally won, right? Because it's it's my example. I wrote the example. Well, I think my examples are like little stories, and I write the examples so that they will stick in your brain stick in your mind. I want you to be able to use them. So I try to make examples that are going to have impact. And sometimes, having, uh, disappointment a little bit can make something stay in your mind. So the coach gave them a great pep talk, but they still lost. That's too bad. It's too bad. 20. Make Ends Meet: to make ends meet to make ends meet. What could this be about? What are we talking about here? Actually, the meaning here is pretty simple. And it really just has one meaning to to basically have enough money to pay your bills. That's it. Toe. Have enough money to pay your basic bills. Your bills. We could say your basic living expenses. Basic living expenses, but not mawr. Usually usually when we mentioned this expression, we're talking about meeting this or not being able to meet it. Being in that area, struggling with money, struggling financially, struggling financially. OK, that's what we're usually talking about. Whether we're making it, we're not making it. And if we don't make it, if we can't make ends meet, then we may have to go into debt, go into debt or to borrow money to go into debt or borrow money, and that's basically it. And if we're struggling with this, if we're having trouble, we say I'm having trouble making ends meet. I'm struggling to make ends meet this month. I don't know if I can really make ends meet. I'm sorry. I can't I can't go out with you guys tonight It's really hard for me this month to make ends meet. I'm really struggling to make ends meet. I couldn't make ends meet, so I had to borrow $100 from my parents. Couldn't make ends meet. Okay, let's look at some examples. Many Americans with low salaries have trouble making ends meet. Low salaries means they don't make very much money, and they struggle to make to make ends meet. That means maybe they can pay for their food. Maybe they can. Maybe they can cover there. If they have rent, they may cover their rent. Maybe they can pay utilities. That's things like your gas, heat, electricity, pay for basic utilities on Duh, maybe maybe gas for the car. You know insurance. If there's an American family with a low income, if there's an American family with a low income and they are having trouble making ends meet on one of their kids, says, Can I have a new bike this month? I really want a bike. I haven't I don't have a bike. My bike is broken or something like that, they might say. I don't think we can afford it. We can't afford it. This month. We're really having trouble making ends meet. I don't think that's in our price range. They might say, if the kid is looking at a bike, I want that when I love that bike. I don't think that's in our price range. I don't think that's in our budget. That means we can't afford it. How about that one? Maybe it's 50% cheaper. Okay, because because they're having trouble making ends meet. But it's only for a limited period of time. Sometimes it's forever. We always had trouble making ends meet. Sometimes, though, it's only one month and then maybe the next month. It's OK, your 35 you can't even make ends meet living by yourself. That's very sad. That's very sad. This sad doesn't mean I actually feel sad. It means it's kind of pathetic and, ah, not impressive, not impressive, which basically means you should be able to support yourself. You live by yourself. You're 35 years old. If you don't have a job that can support you by age 35 what are you doing? What are you doing? That's a little bit sad. That's a little sad. Now, if you have 10 kids and you're having trouble making ends meet. We're having trouble making ends meet or you can't make ends meet. Then maybe it's okay that's reasonable if so many kids. Right? But this is a way to say, Can't even you can't even do that? Means you should be able to You should be able to, but you're not. So that's how we use, even if we want to say how how bad something is. My leg hurts so bad. My leg hurts so bad I can't even walk. It's like an example to tell you how bad it is. We often use examples to explain how serious something is, how bad something is, and we use, even, even can't, especially can't even to give that example. Okay, he's so drunk he can't even stand up, can't even stand up. Or, for example, I was in a really difficult math class, and I couldn't even understand the words that the teacher was saying. I couldn't even understand the words he was saying, let alone solve a problem, let alone solve a problem. I couldn't even understand the words, OK, so you could look up that one and, uh, study it a little more. See if you can make some examples, but hopefully hopefully this one is clear. You may wonder, how can I make an example if it's not related to me? Maybe I don't have trouble making ends meet. So how can I make an example to practice this expression I find a great way to do that is to imagine that everything you say is a little story, a short story. This will force you to use your imagination, come up with a little story, give your character and name, right, a little dialogue after a description. And not only will that help you with your ability to form sentences that look nice and communicate your idea, it will also It will also force you to think about how to fit the expression into whatever you're saying naturally, right? So, uh, think of yourself as a little story writer. When you're doing this, when you're making your examples, you don't have to use your own life. You don't have to use riel people. Use your imagination 21. Get a Grip: get a grip, Get a grip or you need to get a grip. You need Teoh yet? A grip. Okay. Someone has lost control in some way. Okay. Doesn't have to be anger just losing control. But it's something about habits or behavior, usually something about habits or behavior or emotion. And it is not under control, out of control, the lost control of that either You're very upset and you are crying uncontrollably because of the thing that happened. Or maybe you eat way too much and you can't stop eating. And you're just eating and eating and eating cake cake cake. Or maybe you Ah, you got scared. I'm so scared and you're shaking and you have goose bumps and you don't know why. You're just so scared and you can't even stand up. Your knees are weak, but then the other person who sees that maybe they hear you say something that tells them that you are that way or it's just obvious. Based on what they can see, they will say, please get a grip, get a grip, get a grip. So to grip something means to hold on to it, to grip, to grip, something Okay. Now that means you need to strengthen yourself and you need to get it under control. You lost control. Now you need to. You need to be strong and get it under control. Stop eating so much cake. Don't be so angry about this. Calm down, calm down. Why are you shaking? You need to stand up. Let's keep going. It's not that scary. Okay, so it's also like saying Get it under control or be strong. Be strong, be strong. You need to be strong. So is it rude? Well, not exactly. It is a little bit. It is a little bit blunt. That's a little bit direct, direct, a little bit direct, but it's also encouraging. And you'd say it to your friend. This is usually not something that you'll say to a stranger on the street. Okay, we'll say it to a friend in movies. Sometimes you even see it like this. One person is crying or upset, or they've lost control of their emotions in some way, and their friend, other person in the movie slaps them in the face. Get a grip. You need to get a grip to try to shake them out of that condition. So yeah, it's direct, but sometimes its helpful. That's what they need, right? You need that snap out of it. They often say to snap out of it. I need a little more space here. Snap out of it. We can say that, too. It's very similar to get, uh, grip. Sometimes it's a glass of water splashed in their face. You need to get a grip. Need to snap out of it. Control yourself, OK, drink a bottle of whiskey every day. You need to get a grip, Get a handle on your habits. You just snap out of it. You're sitting next to your friend on an airplane. Your friend is afraid of flying very afraid, and the plane starts shaking. That's normal, right? That's called turbulence. Turbulence and your friends starts getting really nervous. Ah, really nervous shaking. Is that turbulence? Ah, the plane is crashing. They go from turbulence to the plane is crashing in a few seconds. Right there. So nervous they think the plane is crashing. The plane is not crashing. Everything is fine. It's just a little turbulence, but they are beginning to lose control of their emotions. Hey, get a grip. Get a grip, get a hold of yourself, get a hold of yourself. Everything's going to be fine, going to be fine. Will you get a grip? Everything is going to be fine. So I think the the interesting thing about this expression and using it like this, you need to get a grip, get a grip. Everything's going to be fine. Is that it's It's kind of a way to express tough love. We care about our friends, the people close to us, our family members. We want them to be okay. And when they're behaving in a way that's out of balance or out of control, we sometimes need to be a little direct or tough with them to get them out of it, to make them snap out of it so that they can control themselves again. If we just say, Well, I don't know, do whatever you want is that really helpful? Sometimes it's better to be a little tough. Hey, get a grip. What's wrong with you? Be strong. Stop shaking like that. The plane is gonna be fine. We're not crashing. It's just a little turbulence. Okay, so hopefully this one's clear and I will see you in the next one 22. Let the Cat out of the Bag: let the cat out of the bag. Let the cat out of the bag. Okay, so this is an idiom. This is an idiom. And I think I think it's pretty visual. You have a bag, you have a bag and you have a cat. Okay? You have a cat and you have a bag. Who let the cat out of the bag is a common expression. Who let the cat out of the bag? Who let the cat out of the bag may be the most common way to use this. It's a question, but what is the question mean? Will the question means who spoil the surprise. Who? Who ruined or spoiled? The the surprise. Now this is usually a good surprise. Something is a secret. Something is a secret. Something is a mystery, and it's supposed to be a secret or a mystery. And then one person lets the cat out of the bag. One person reveals it. One person talks about it, ruins the surprise, okay, and then someone may ask who did that. Who is the one who revealed revealed the secret, the mystery and again, this secret or mystery is usually a good thing. that we're hiding because we want to give someone a surprise, a good surprise. And so when this person reveals this surprise, whatever it is we say, who let the cat out of the bag to blame them? We want to know the person who ruined the suspense. If you hadn't let the cat out of the bag, then this would have been a very good surprise. But you did let the cat out of the bag. You told somebody, so you ruined the surprise. Now there's no more suspense. And I'm angry at you for doing that. Okay? Now it could be for small things like birthdays. Simple things between just people. Friends. Right. But it could be for even a secret in the government, right? Someone is not supposed to tell the secret. Someone is supposed to keep it secret. But they didn't, but they didn't. So, for example, the moon landing the moon landing Some people believe that the moon landing is fake. That we didn't really go to the moon. No, I actually I don't I don't believe that. But if it were fake, if it were and someone said that someone who was part of that secret said it to maybe someone in the news. Then they let the cat out of the bag. Okay, so let's look at a couple of examples. I was going to surprise you about buying the car, but I guess someone let the cat out of the bag, Okay? I was trying to keep something under wraps. Maybe, for example, a husband buying a car, a new car and not telling his wife it's a secret. Because when she comes outside and sees it in the driveway Wow, that would be really a surprise. She had no idea. It's a total surprise. I tried to keep it under wraps. That means keep it secret. But maybe the husbands Mom accidentally talked about it to to his wife, for her daughter in law. And she said, Oh, what do you think of the car? 00 oops. She accidentally accidentally mentioned it. Uh, she let the cat out of the bag. In this case, the cat is Ah, car. Okay, I was going to surprise you, But then maybe she says to her husband, I heard we're getting a new car. I heard we're getting a new car. What color is it? What color is the new car? Oh, how did you hear about that? Oh, your mom told me. Okay, I think this kind of situation is pretty common when you have a secret you want to keep. And then someone you know talks about the secret. Even if it's by accident, they let the cat out of the bag, even if it's by accident. So there's a man talking to his friend about his plans. What plans? Well, he's going to ask his girlfriend to become his fiance. If you have a fiance, that means it's someone, someone who's going to get married. Now it's it's his girlfriend. And the moment when a girlfriend becomes a fiance is the moment she says Yes. After he says, Will you marry me? Will you marry me? You marry me. You've probably seen that in many movies before, right? And he will usually get down on one knee and then say, Will you marry me? Will you marry me? And then she might say Yes, hopefully. And if she says yes now she is his fiancee. She is his fiancee. They are engaged, engaged after she says Yes, well anyway, when we do this thing, this is all just a sort of a cultural point. When we do this thing, when we ask this question, it's usually secret and she can't know before. And sometimes the man will come up with a lot of plans and film it and ask people to help out. And it's usually very difficult to make it all work, and it's important that she not find out what's going on. It has to be a surprise to her. She can't know when it's coming. That's sort of Ah culture thing. Anyway, it's called proposing, I'm going to propose proposed to her. Okay, now I'm talking to my friend. Maybe my friend will help out with the whole thing. The proposal? Maybe not. But anyway, don't let the cat out of the bag. That means keep it a secret. Keep it a secret. OK, And again, the most common way to use this is the question. Who, who, who, who let the cat out of the bag 23. Turn the Tables: turn the tables turned the tables. This expression is about advantage, and what it really means is one side has an advantage, and then the advantage changes to the other side. So we say This person over here has turned the tables on this person. They had the advantage. Maybe now they have the advantage. The tables have been turned, and we often say it like this. The tables have been turned. This describes the whole situation. It's not saying who did it. The focus is on the shift in power, the shift in advantage. Think of it like think of it like a seesaw where you have one person standing here and they have the advantage and the other person is down here and they're disadvantaged. And then something happens, and maybe they do. This person does something. Now. This person doesn't have the advantage, and this person does. And now it looks like that. So this person has turned the tables on this person, Or we could say the tables have been turned to describe the whole thing. It's often used for sports. It's used for competition. It's used for advantage in relationships. It's used for games. It's used for dangerous situations. It's used in all kinds of places in spoken English. Okay. I want to be clear when we talk about this that we're talking about the person who has the disadvantage gaining the advantage. You would never say. This person turned the tables. Never. They have the advantage. They don't want to turn the tables. If they turn the tables, they now have the disadvantage. Okay, they have. They don't have the upper hand anymore. We say the upper hand. I have the upper hand. I have the upper hand. That means I have the advantage. I have power over you. Okay? It's this person who always turns the tables. Okay? This person might say I don't want to let them turn the tables on me. I don't want to let them turn the tables on meet. This person says I'm going to try to turn the tables. I'm going to try to turn the tables on the other person. Okay? And after that happens, then we'll say, Ah, the tables have been turned. And this person might say that with some satisfaction. Now I have the advantage. Now I have the upper hand, the tables have been turned. Okay. When I was a little kid, I used to I used to bully my little brother a bit. He was very little, and I was four years older than him. I'm still four years older than him. But I used to, uh, face to bully him a little bit. Nothing too bad. But just maybe because I was a little jealous because he was younger and cuter than me and people. I wanted to pay more attention to him. Sometimes I would bully him a little bit. Okay on. He couldn't resist. He couldn't fight against me. Why? Because I was. It was older than him. The big brother, right? So I had the advantage. And later he he started lifting weights. As as he grew up and became very strong. Now he has big muscles. So if he wanted to, he's very nice guy. If he wanted to, he could beat me up. He could bully me if he wanted to, because because he's stronger than me now, much bigger than me. Right? So the tables have turned, the tables have turned. I had the advantage before. I was bigger than him because I was older and I could I could maybe bully him a little bit . Maybe not very nice, but they get not too bad. Ah, and then he got bigger. Now he's bigger than me. The tables have turned. He could say Now that the tables are turned, you should be a little nicer to me Now. I want to be clear. I am. I am nice to my little brother. Okay, Just to be clear, this is just an example. But he could say that now that the tables are turned, you should be a little nicer to me. Because why? Because I have the advantage now. I'm the little brother, but I'm much bigger than you. I'm much stronger than you. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. OK, I'll be nicer. Okay, that's the idea. Okay, that's the idea. It's not like he was trying to turn the tables. Maybe he just wanted to lift weights, build muscle, But that's what happened. The tables turn. I thought they were going to win, but suddenly the tables turned. Thought they were going to win. But suddenly the tables turn. So you're watching a match or a game of some kind, and it looks like one person is very close to winning. And then there's a reversal. Things reverse on the other side, the other side, maybe winds or gets ahead and it's a lot closer. So you're watching a match. You're watching a game, whatever it is sports, maybe even chess. And it looks like B is clearly going to win. It's very close, right? Very close to the end, and it looks like B is going to win. Ha ha. But then there's a reversal. Things reverse and a gains the advantage. Now it looks like a is going to win. But again be then takes back mawr advantage from a and the tables have turned again again and be wins. Or maybe they just turn once in a wins. So you could say the tables. The tables have turned a one or the tables have turned again. Be one advantage, then advantage, then advantage again. OK, so it can go back and forth like that and you say the tables have turned again. Or you could you could talk about it as a knack. Shin bi turned tables a turned the tables be turned the tables again on one. I can't believe it. Amazing, Amazing. Okay, so it's really useful when we're talking about competitions 24. Look up To: Look up to, look up to, of course, that has a simple meaning, look up to the heavens. But that's not how the idiom, the expression is usually used. Here. Look up to, and some of you might know this one. If you do, that's okay. We'll talk about how it's used so that you can feel comfortable with it. Look up two means, admire, admire, okay? To admire someone. By the way, different than respect. We'll talk about the difference to admire someone is to see them as great. To admire. Some thing is to see it as great, genuinely, truly in your heart. It's so great, It's so nice, It's so wonderful. I think that's fantastic. I wish I was more like that person. If you really wish you were more like that person, or you think that the characteristics of that person are great. You might say you look up to that person. Now we can use admire more generally. Then we can use look up to, we often use look up to for people and admire for more kinds of things, right? We often admire actions, for example, but we don't usually say up to an action. We're usually talking about lookup to a person, some person, or a kind of person. But it's usually about people just to be clear. Just to be clear. All right? So why does it mean that? Well, think about it. If you admire someone, it's almost like they're high up on some pedestal here. And here it says great. And he can't read that. It says great. And this person, this person is standing there because they're so great and you're down here looking at them. So great. All right, so if you look up to them, the terrible drawing, the terrible drawing, but hopefully, hopefully that helps you to remember it, right? What it means, I think it's pretty easy to remember if you visualize this, this silly little person wearing roller skates. Oh, this is the worst drawing I've ever made in my entire life. Looking up to his hero, her idol. Okay, hero, Idle. Now, Hero an idol are a little, a little different. So these are not always connected because I, I look up to many people who are not a hero. To me, they're not my idol, but I look up to them because I like things about them. And I would like to have similar things in myself. I would like to have similar characteristics. Maybe I would like to have similar achievements. What's the difference between look up to and respect? This one is in your heart. This one can just be an action. Maybe it's in your heart, but you can show respect to people. Oh yes, please, please sit down. Oh, ever know, you can have an action in society around others that is respectful even if you feel nothing for them. So that's really the difference. One is a, a real feeling and one is sometimes just an action. But again, this can be a real feeling to respect, I really respect to u. That's a real one. But again, it can be an action. Let's look at some simple examples. I really look up to people who make important differences in the world, like Steve Jobs or make important, we could say contributions. To the world, contributions to the world. Either of those, that's fine. Like Steve Jobs, that probably means that I look up to Steve Jobs. Otherwise I wouldn't use him as an example. But this one allows me to talk about a kind of person, not just a person. I could say, I really look up to Steve Jobs, but then I'm not really talking about Steve Jobs characteristics. But if I use this one lookup to people who make important differences or make a difference or make contributions. Now I can speak more generally about the kind of person I admire, the kind of person I admire. So it's often used like this. I would say this is the most common way to talk about people who you admire probably. And I think this is probably better than just saying one person unless that's the conversation, that's the topic. Yeah, so what do you think about Steve Jobs? So yeah, I really, I really look up to Steve Jobs. Now you can use lookup, even if that person is gone, has passed away because you're talking about sometimes the idea of that person. So it's okay. Okay. You still look up to that person, even if that person isn't there? Although my brother is three years older than me, I have never really looked up to him. He isn't very mature. Now I want to be clear. And case my brother is watching this. I am not talking about my real brother. This is an example. My real brother is two years older than me, so it's not my real brother. This is just an example. Okay. I give you this one to show you that it's not about age. You can look up to people who are any age. We're usually talking about someone's character, the attributes of a person. The, as I mentioned before, the achievement, the achievements of a specific person, what they've done, what they've accomplished. Okay. Although my brother is three years older than me, I have never really looked up to him. He isn't very mature. Mature means that maybe you're able to take responsibility. You're able to maybe Live up, live up to your, your responsibilities, and not living up to your responsibilities. Not being very mature is generally not something people look up to, not something people look up to. So we can talk about the characteristics themselves. I don't really look up to immaturity. Immaturity, sometimes it's used to talk about the thing itself, not just the person, but it's usually part of a person's character. So we usually will use it for people. 25. On Top of the World: on top of the world on top of the world. Here's the world and here's someone on top of it. Aren't we all on top of the world? Okay, so this really is about emotion. Usually this is the way that it's usually used. It's to express an emotion as though everything is perfect. Everything is going my way. That's a common way to say today is perfect. Everything seems to be just fitting in just right with what I want. I've really happy, satisfied. I feel great today. So it's this very positive emotion that might be described as great or fantastic. And when we feel that way, like we're just having a great day, we might say I'm on top of the world I am. Or we might say, I feel like I am on top of the world. I feel like I'm on top of the world or I'm feeling we can also say I'm feeling on top of the world and this is how it's usually used. Now if you remember that movie Titanic, that classic classic movie, Uh, those two young people fall in love. Jack and Rose and Jack says, I'm king of the world. I'm king of the world, right. So this is kind of the same idea in that movie there, standing at the front of the boat, you know, And there's that song playing, I think. And, ah, it's to express this feeling of pure joy. Pure elation, Weaken. Say elation is a is an emotion of pure joy. Again, this is how it's usually used. But I feel like to get a better understanding of it. We should look at some examples s so that you don't only know what it means, But you also know really how you can use it in your life if you want to. I got a job offer and on the way home, a stranger on the street gave me a compliment. Oh, also, I have a date with a really cute girl tonight. I'm feeling on top of the world. Everything's going well in this example. Job offer. New job, right? Maybe more money for this person. Someone gave me a compliment like, Oh, you have very nice, Uh, whatever. Anything you want to say there, I don't care. And I have ah, date with a cute girl. So these three things 123 make up my great day and my wonderful feeling and the best way for me to say that is I really feel on top of the world. I'm feeling on top of the world, so this expression is pretty simple, but you have to keep in mind that it is quite strong. It's quite strong, and it's really only for when you're having that perfect day. Now here it's used a little bit differently. Let's read the example and then we'll talk about why it's a little bit different. Okay, you feel on top of the world now, but it can't last forever. So this is maybe one friend talking to this is a friend. This is what it looks like. This is what friends look like. This is a drawing of a friend says friends, smiling face. So this is one friend. Oh, that's not bad. This is one friend talking to another friend, And this this friend is said to the other. Nothing lasts forever. I know you feel on top of the world now. Okay? So what's going on here? Why she's saying this one might be to remind her friend that life goes like this. There are always ups and downs in life. There are always ups and downs in life ups and downs. Very common expression, right? Some things. They're very good. Sometimes it's very bad. Sometimes it's very good. And this friend is mentioning this for whatever reason. And the other friend might say, Hey, don't be a killjoy. A killjoy is somebody who kills joy. Joy means happiness, right? And this person is being a killjoy or maybe a downer. Downer is someone who mentions the bad in the good times, okay, Or maybe maybe there's something out of balance, maybe something out of balance here. Maybe the reason that this person feels on top of the world is due to something unhealthy. Almost so. Let's say that this girl's friend is addicted to gambling and the friend just won a bunch of money. $10,000. You feel on top of the world now, but nothing lasts forever might be a way to remind her friend, this is a dangerous thing. Gambling is not a healthy thing to Dio. You feel great when you win. You feel terrible when you lose and when you lose, bad things can happen. You might do something that hurts your family. You might lose your car. Whatever. So this friend might be trying to protect her friend from something by saying this to remind her friend Hey, hey, listen, this is not balanced. This is not good. You're doing something dangerous. You're doing something unstable. Okay? So it can be used in either of these ways. It's a very useful expression, in fact. 26. Not Big On: not big on. Not big on this one sentence. Maybe a little weird. So let me put it in a sentence first, and then you can see if you can guess how it might be used. Okay? I'm not big on celebrating birthdays. All right? What might this mean? Not big on. Not big on celebrating birthdays. All right, well, let's try taking out celebrating. I'm not big on birthdays, so at least we can see big on. Not big on. Could be about an action, a verb or a thing or a bunch of things kind of thing Right on out Could be used for either one. Can we also take out not and say I'm big on that? Yes. Now we may begin to get a feeling for what this is all about. I I dont know why thats there. I don't really like celebrating birthdays. And this probably means my own birthday, right? Each year my birthday is coming up, but who cares? Right? So I don't really like having a party, things like that. I'm not big on that same thing. So not big on something means that you're you're not very excited about it. Not interested. Not excited. You don't like it, but I want to be. I want to be very clear. It does not mean that you hate something. Unless you're really, really trying to downplay whatever you're talking about. Downplay means that we we say something, but actually, we mean it much more, right up. I'm a bit tired. In fact, the feeling is, uh I'm exhausted, but I say I'm a bit tired. I downplay the feeling. Okay, so maybe we could use it that way. But generally, if this is a scale of how much we like things and here zero and this is absolutely love it . 100% love crazy. I have a five day party on my birthday every year, and everybody needs to come even if they're in a different country. You must come to my birthday party because it's my day. Some people are like that on then. This is zero. Absolutely hate it. No. Awful. The worst. Okay. Birthday. Whose birthday? What do you talking about? Leave me alone. Okay, so these air two ends of the two ends of the spectrum, right? Okay. Where is not big on? Is it over here? Said here. Is it here? Where is it? I would put it. I would put it in this area. Okay. It's less than I don't care. It's less than zero. It's less than being totally neutral and closer to I hate it, but not that close to I hate it. Okay, if you hate birthdays, you could say I hate birthdays. I hate celebrating birthdays. This one is much softer. And we often say this when we want to gently say that we're not interested in something that somebody else is interested in. Man, did you see the game last night? Oh, man, maybe somebody's watching a basketball game or maybe a football match. And you didn't because you don't really like sports. You say, Well, I'm not really not really big on basketball, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm not really big on it, so it sounds very gentle. And I would like you to notice that I can use it for things now owns, even if it's more than one thing. And I can use it for verbs. Actions not big on professional sports. I'm not big on watching professional sports. Okay, so how about some examples? Yes, of course. Are you coming to my party this week? One friend asks the other says, Thanks for the invite. Thanks for the invite. This is a polite thing to say, but I don't think I'll make it. I don't think I'll make it to make it means to go. If you're gonna be late, you can say I'm not gonna make it. I'm not going to make it. Or I might make it a bit late. I might make it a bit late. Okay. I'm not big on parties. I'm not big on parties. Then we explain the reason I never know how to make small talk. We make small talk. So what a party You have. Lots of people. People mingle, people mingle, Mingle means you just sort of walk around and talk to other people. And what do you do when you mingle? Well, if you talk to people you don't know, it might be very simple conversation. What do you do? What do you do? Uh, how do you know? How do you know the host of the party? Right. Well, this is what this person doesn't know how to do. And this is why this person doesn't really like parties. So they say Thanks for the invite, but I don't think I'll make it where I don't think I am going to go. I don't think I'm gonna go. I'm not big on parties. Some people aren't too big on politeness, aren't are not too big on politeness. Or we could say here, being polite, being polite. Okay. But I am. But I am no matter what that means in every situation, no matter what means, it doesn't. Doesn't matter what happens. We could say also regardless, which means the same thing regardless. Okay, That means some people don't always feel like they need to be polite toe others. Some people, when they're talking to family members, they say they give me that. Give me that here. Right, Because it's your family. You don't have to be very polite. Some people say, but some people are big on politeness. I'm big on politeness or we could substitute big, sometimes with huge, huge on politeness. I'm big on politeness or we wanted to change it to a verb on being polite. Okay, Some people aren't too big on politeness, but I am no matter what I even say please and thank you when I talk to my virtual assistant . Hey, what's the weather today? The weather today will be 30 35 degrees. Oh, thank you. And I appreciate when when the assistant says I have no problem. It's great. It's great. S So I I am this person. I like to be polite because I think it makes the world more interesting. So I'm very big on politeness. Okay? You're big on something. That means you like it. If you're not big on it, that means you're not crazy about it. But it doesn't mean that you hate it. It's not that strong, okay? 27. On the Fence: on the fence on defense. I think you know by now that when possible, I like to try to give you a visual reference for the expressions that we're learning something visual to sort of picture or see in your mind to help the expression that we're learning stick. Being on the fence is very visual, and so I think it should stick. Once I connect the meaning to the visual, it should be so sticky in your mind that you should have no problem using it. Okay, so let's say there's a fence and let's just draw the fence. Okay? So here is a fence. Here is offense, Okay? And it's going to be It's going to be a beautiful fence offense, if you don't know is something that divides it. Divides maybe two two spaces. It often is used by people in the neighborhood. Two separate one yard or property from another. Okay. And so we use offense. Okay, so there's Ah, house over here. Let's call it home. A They have a yard, some grass. Uh, yard. Okay. And then there's home. Be over here. Home. Be some grass over here, too. Okay. Now, let's imagine that There's a person walking on the fence person walking on the fence that did that, that that that that that walking along on on the fence. So when they walk on the fence there, not in home A's yard and they're not in home, these yard right, they have to balance between the two. Okay, now the person comes out of homemade says, Hey, come over here and the person comes out of home be and says Hey, come over here. Which side of the fence should they come down on which side of the fence should they come down on? Pay attention to this. Come down on because once we are off the fence, we come down on the side of one or the other. Okay? So basically, when we're confronted with two choices two ways of looking at something, two sides, whatever it may be, it's often a decision, a choice. We and we have trouble deciding. We walk along the fence so we feel that we have trouble deciding. We may be indecisive, indecisive? I don't know. I don't know which one A B and we're walking along the fence kind of balancing right. So if this is the choice to work at a company may be called blobs, and this is another company called Globs, and we're trying to decide to work at blobs or globs were on the fence. And you might say, I'm on the fence about whether to take the offer from blobs or globs. I really don't know if I should work for globs, which has great benefits or blobs, which it really has a good salary. Just don't know I'm really on the fence. So when we describe this state of being indecisive, we say I I am really on the fence. We don't have to say, Really, you could say it or not say it And then when we want to talk about what it is about weather , weather, whether I should do this or whether I should do that, Okay, so that's how we use it. That's what it means. Remember someone walking along, trying to decide which one to choose once they choose. Then they come down on one side of the fence after really doing a lot of research and thinking about it. For several years I finally came down on the side of, and maybe this is a ah view. Maybe this is a, uh, opinion that you have about an issue or a topic. I came down on the side off, maybe Universal Healthcare. I finally came down on this side of the fence or that side of the fence. So when we're talking about those decisions, we talk about fences, and it's, I think, a really good example or a really good analogy. Four decisions. Analogy is a little example that helps us understand something more complicated. It's a really good little analogy for making a choice, because that's what it's like, isn't it? Should we be over here or over here? So let's look at a few examples. First example. Someone is trying to decide where to go for a vacation. This this can be. This can be very tough, right? Where should I go? Where should I travel? I'm on the fence about where to go for my vacation. Now we can talk about the two sides. I have a lot of friends in Canada. I could visit, so that would be fun. On the other hand, on the other side of the fence, we could say on the other side of the fence. But honestly, we do usually say, on the other hand, on the other hand, Thailand is warm and relaxing, so we're trying to decide whether we should go to Thailand or Canada. And at this moment we are on the fence about it on the fence, about where to go for my vacation. I think this is the most common way to use on the fence. The way to use it usually is to talk about these tough decisions, these tough decisions. And it could be it could be really two friends on either side in that case. In that case, sometimes we'll say, walking the fence between A and B. Let's say that you have two friends. This friend hates this friend. This friend hates this friend, but they both like you and your kind of in the middle. So you could say I'm kind of walking the fence between my two friends, and it suggests difficulty in keeping the relationship between both of these two friends who hate each other, keeping this relationship stable and staying in the middle. This one is not trying to decide. This one is trying to stay up, so that's why we say walking defense whenever we want to stay on the fence because going on one side would make something terrible happen on the other side. Whenever we want to stay on the fence, we say walking the fence. Whenever we want to come down on either side of the fence, we want to decide. Then we'll just say on the fence, Okay. Is that clear? One more time whenever we want to stay on the fence because going to this side are going to this side will cause a problem like this person will be angry at me because I I chose this person whenever we want to stay there and it's difficulty, we say walking the fence whenever we want to decide. But it's difficult, like this example going to Canada or Thailand for vacation. We want to decide. Then we just say I'm on the fence about it, okay, so I hope I hope that's clear. And when we finally decided, we say we came down on one side or the other. I finally came down on the side of Canada because I have so many friends I haven't seen in a long time. Now it's probably more common just to Satan. I decided to go to Canada, but you can use, came down, on, Came Down on might be used more often for a thing that we've been thinking about a long time. And it's an opinion view on an issue political thing or ah, topic that's popular in the news. After thinking about it a long time, I finally came down on this side or that side of the fence. Okay, let's look at one more example. You were on the fence about Alexis for months. Why do you suddenly like her so much? So let's say there are two people who maybe flirted with each other. That means kind of talking romantically to each other a little bit. And maybe they went on a few dates. A few dates, but they haven't really seriously dated. They're not girlfriend and boyfriend, right? And maybe maybe it's because, uh, uh, whoever this is is not really crazy about Alexis. And it's been a few months and, you know, he's just kind of on the fence, Okay, just kind of on the fence that I don't know. Should I should I say, Well, maybe we shouldn't, uh see each other anymore. Shouldn't go on any more dates. Or should I go to the other side and really become her serious boyfriend? Well, something changed, because now he's crazy about about Alexis, and he's met his friend and his friend has noticed it. Wow. You were on the fence about her for months. For a long time, you were kind of just in the middle. Now, clearly, you are crazy about her. Why do you suddenly like her so much now? What changed? Basically. So he came down on this side of the fence, the side of kind of being crazy about her liking her much more than he did for for whatever reason, maybe something in his life changed or whatever. And that could go for girls or boys or any kind of decision that takes a while. If you didn't notice it, this one really suggests that the deciding factor is emotional. Something happened emotionally to this person to make him change his mind or change his feelings about her about her. Okay. But again, you can use it in lots of different ways. I think because this one's kind of complicated. We've spent a while talking about it. It's very important for you to make your own examples. Try making examples similar to the ones I made and then try to move even farther away from my examples and really try to explore this thing's phrase because it's so common in every day in every day spoken English. 28. Goosebumps: goose bumps, goose bumps, goose bumps. Have you ever been really cold or maybe scared? And because you were cold or scared, you had some little bumps appear on your skin. This is an arm, and suddenly you have these little bumps on your skin that weren't there before because you're cold or because suddenly you got scared. You got scared. These air called goose bumps. These air called goose bums. And we have this expression. I got goose bumps or it gave me It gave me goose bumps or maybe see goose bumps by itself. So this one is used in a couple different ways. When we want to express that, we are chilled by something so emotionless that we feel we feel there coldness, and we can't We can't deal with it. We feel goose bumps. We have goose bumps. We say it gave me goose bumps when I heard him say that, or I heard her say that or maybe something scary happened and we were talking about it and we said, and I got goose bumps. I was so scared I got goose bumps or we see something that stirs us emotionally, something that's moving very moving emotionally or something that stirs us like the most beautiful painting you've ever seen or a beautiful work of art. It's not happiness. It's almost like the painting or the art or whatever it is. The song, the beautiful song that you love, touches you on a deep level and makes you feel suddenly that you have goose bumps. I love that song so much. Every time I listen to it, I get goose bumps. It touches me on a very deep emotional level. Okay, so this is how we use basically goose bumps. But when we are talking about it, usually we actually have those bumps on our usually on our arms are usually looking at our arms. And if we want to let somebody know how great this maybe musical pieces or how great this piece of art is or whatever we might say, see, see goose bumps, goose bumps. We might do that when we're scared to. Maybe, but usually this is when we're looking at something really moving or so impressive, so impressive. Okay, so let's look at a couple of examples. Watching scary movies gives me goose bumps, gives me goose bumps. This one gives me means. It's always true. This kind of thing makes me have this reaction makes me have this reaction so we can talk about it this way to It's not only that this happened to me in the past, but every time I watch a scary movie, I will have goose bumps. In fact, there's a famous Siris of Children or young teen books in America. You can search it. The name of the Siri's is goose bumps, and they're scary stories. I think about zombies and things like that. It's called goose bumps. Anyway, this kind of thing gives me goose bumps. Looking at a painting by Monet gives me goose bumps every time, not only in the past I lived alone in an old house in the middle of nowhere for three months, and I would always get goose bums whenever I heard a sound. But I didn't know what made it in the middle of nowhere means maybe there are no other houses nearby. Maybe the road is even far away from the house. It's not close to a city. It's maybe a few miles from a town. We say, Wow, this is really in the middle of nowhere. It's not really know where it is somewhere, but because it's far from cities and maybe not near other, maybe other people we can say in the middle of nowhere. Maybe there's one other house over there or one other house over there, but really not many people around. So we say it's in the middle off nowhere. One way to talk about something that happened in the past often is to say, would always this used to happen? Now it doesn't because I don't live here anymore. I would always get goose bumps whenever. Every time I heard a sound response, a cold chill would run up my spine. Run no, my spine. Another way to talk about being scared. Cold chill. A cold chill would run up my spine and I would get goose bums, cause I would think maybe somebody's in the house in the middle of nowhere. Maybe is a crazy murderer. What is it? Scary. Very scary. Okay, so anyway, that's how we use goose bumps. We talk about our goose bumps when we want to tell others that we have these strong emotions when we're emotionally deeply touched, or maybe when we're moved by an experience when we feel physically cold, physically cold or when we feel scared. Okay. Pretty simple to use, I think. And hopefully, hopefully this this lesson didn't give you goose bumps. Now, when you make your own example, think about an experience that was either deeply, emotionally moving or or scary. Describe it in detail, either by writing it down or recording it, and make sure to use this word in the example Goose bumps. Make sure to use it correctly. Okay, if you want more examples, search online. There's nothing wrong with doing a little a little searching to get mawr examples to even better understand words and expressions that we talk about in this course. All right, see you in the next one. 29. Hooked On: hooked on, hooked on or just hooked. Now, if you know the word addicted, then I think you can get the main idea for what hooked means. If you're addicted to something, it is it is very difficult, very difficult for you to quit. And it's often about something you want to quit. It were a good thing then you wouldn't want to quit. You wouldn't try to quit. It's usually a bad habit. It's usually a bad habit now for hooked. We really don't have to make it always about a bad habit we could use to be hooked on something as a way to say that we like it very much. We like it very much. Maybe these days these days, and we'll look at an example. But it could be something like a game that you're playing well. Is that really dangerous? Maybe not. You could say it's not great, but often when we're saying I'm hooked on something, we're saying I really like this thing right now. Maybe a game, maybe a TV show, maybe a type of food. Maybe that's not going to kill you. It's not that dangerous, and maybe you don't even really want to quit that so we could use it that way and we will look at an example. We will look at an example. So let's first just talk about why we're using the word hooked. Why are we saying to be hooked on something they hooked on? Ah, hooked on gambling. I got hooked on gambling and it took me 10 years to quit. Huh? Gambling means playing with money cards and things like that in casinos, slot machines. You know, those machines hooked on gambling, addicted to gambling, we say. Addicted to addicted to hooked on, we don't say hooked to we say we say hooked on addicted to well, imagine a hook. So I'd like you to think about a fisherman up here on a little boat to do through to do. And the fisherman's got a fishing line. Little Fishman here, and he's reading a book, going fishing. Okay. And down here we have a What's this thing called a hook? Not a very beautiful hook, but it's the thing that catches the fish's mouth, and you put a you put a worm on it. That's called a lure, not a very important detail, but that's called a lure, and fish bites it. And then they're hooked. I hooked a fish. The fish is hooked. Once you're on the hook as the fish, Is it easy to get off the hook? No, it's not. It's not off the hook, by the way, has a different meaning if you get off the hook off the hook. If you get off the hook, that means that you can avoid doing a responsibility that you don't enjoy. If you're on the hook, you have to do that thing. I'm on the hook for this thing. Somehow I got on the hook for this. Whatever organizing this dumb event. Oh, I got off the hook there. Canceled it. Great. I'm off the hook anyway. That's about responsibility. No connection to this. Okay, no connection. That's just too, by the way, anyway. So the fish is on the hook, and that means the fish can't get off. So it's not that the fish is addicted to the hook, but it's just that it's very difficulty to leave to get out of that situation, right? So that's the basic idea here. That's the basic idea here, and we're usually talking about again bad habits not only but usually bad habits. Okay, if we don't want to use hooked on, we could just say hooked by itself. I'm hooked, I'm hooked. And that one is often used in a good way. For example, you start reading Ah, Siris of books by a certain author. And you really like that author. You find that that authors the writer of the book is really good. After reading the first book, I was hooked. I was hooked. Now does that mean I want to quit reading this author? I'm addicted. No, it's fine. This is a very good meaning. This means I really like this author and I'm going to read more and more and more of their books. So I just want to be very, very clear that it's often used in a negative way. But many Americans will use it in a positive way when they find something new. And they want to do more and more of that thing often related to ah, certain category or a certain person like a certain authors books and you're hooked on that and we'll say it by itself. Yeah, I read the 1st 1 and now I'm hooked. Okay, so let's look at a few examples. I'm hooked on a new TV series called True Detective. I'm hooked on a new TV series called True Detective. I can't stop watching it. Does that mean I want to stop watching it? Probably not. I mean, if I really, really wanted to stop watching it, it's not like I'm chained to my sofa. I could stop. I could stop. But the point here is the real meaning. Here is I love this show. I love this show. Actually, it's not a new a new show. It's It's a little bit old, but I still really like it. This is a show I actually enjoy. If you haven't seen true detective, it's really good. It's a little dark, so if you don't like dark stuff, maybe don't watch it. But it's good. It's very good anyway. Basically, the meaning is I love this show. It's, um it's awesome, and I can't wait to see the next the next episode. Now I suppose it could have the meaning of I should quit. I need to do other things. I have homework to do. I have to goto work. I should be sleeping. All right, Maybe maybe it has the suggestion of not doing other things I should, because I really want to watch this show. But really, the focus here is on how much I love it on how much I love the show. And you could talk about many things like this, as I mentioned before, a series of books and that really has no negative meaning. Probably that's all about just how much you love that thing. Now this again I want to be clear, is less common than the other meaning, which is to get rid of bad habits. So now we'll look at an example of that before we do, though I just want to share one. One thing with you Binge watch to binge Watch is to watch episode after episode after episode of a TV show without stopping. Maybe you stay up all night and you watch one episode and you think I have to watch the next one. Then you watch another I I got to see the next one and then the next one. Now I really need to watch the next one. You binge watch. I just I I just binge watched all of season one in a single night. I'm so sleepy. I'm so sleepy. I didn't sleep all night. Binge watched the whole thing. OK, I think I think we mentioned that that before. But I just wanted to bring that up because we're talking about being hooked. How long have you been hooked on smoking? How long have you been hooked on smoking? About 20 years. I really need to quit. I really need to quit. So this is the more common usage we might be talking about. Drugs to drugs. Oh, he's hooked on drugs. That's not good. That's not good. You can't be very productive in society. If you're hooked on drugs, you need to go to rehab. Rehab is the place where we go to rehabilitate ourselves. We often just call it rehab. Rehab. We recover from addictions, alcohol, drugs, usually not smoking for rehab. But that's the same idea, trying to get off of this bad, bad habit because you're hooked and it has you in its hooks by the mouth. It's not good. I think we talked about kicking the habit before, so if we were going to adjust this when we might say I've been I've been hooked on cigarettes. You could say cigarettes or smoking for about 20 years. I really need to kick the habit. The habit of kick the habit of smoking. So you could say I've been hooked on cigarettes. The thing or I've been hooked on smoking for 20 years. Okay, Hopefully this one is clear. Check out, Check out. True. Detective, if you're interested in that kind of show, All right. Anyway, I'll see you in the next episode. I mean lesson. 30. Rings a Bell: rings, a bell rings a bell. We also say Ring a bell and ring any bells ring any bells. But what does this one mean to ring a bower? Does that ring any bells? Does it ring any bells? Does that ring a bell? Does it it ring a bell? It rings a bell. It rings a bell. What does that mean? It means Do you recognize it? It means to recognize something, and usually it's a name, a name or a specific word. And that doesn't mean that we know exactly what it is. It doesn't. It's just that it's familiar to us. Or if it doesn't ring any bells or it doesn't ring a bell, then it is not not familiar to us. And again, we're usually talking about names, usually of people or places, people or places or sometimes specific words, some certain some certain words. And when we want to know, if someone has heard this before, they know it. Then we say, Does it ring any bells with you, with you, with you? Does it ring any bells with you? Now? It doesn't ring a bell. It rings a bell. It rings a bell. But That doesn't mean that I absolutely know it. If I say it rings a bell, that means it's familiar. I know I know it, but maybe I still don't know exactly what it is. I've heard it before. I recognize it, but I don't 100% know exactly what you're talking about. So if you're asking me about a person and what that person's full name is and you say, Do you remember the lady at the party? We met Cathy, and I see rings a bell, it rings a bell. Do you remember her whole name? No, I don't remember her whole name. So I recognize the name. I remember who you're talking about. Maybe I can picture a face picture of face, but I can't totally remember. And I'm sorry about that. Okay? That's how this is used. Generally, before we look at the examples, I'd like to just give give you a quick visual because I like to try to give you a visual. If it's possible. We've got a person's head and a chin and a little mouthy and a nose and some eyes and some hair and ah year. There's another year on the other side. And inside this person's brain there's a tiny little bell tingling ending, tingling a ding ding, ding, ding, ding ding inside. And when this person says, Do you know this person? And this person says It rings a bell it says, though the word Kathy. You remember Kathy from the party last week? It rings a bell, it says, though the word Kathy travels through the air into this person into this person's ear and then makes the bell go. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding ding me Naming The answer is yes. Yes, it's familiar, I recognize it. But maybe there's no more information. The bell just goes ding, ding, ding. It doesn't say yes, and it's Her name is Kathy, blah, blah, blah, and she's from blah, blah, blah. It doesn't mean that it just means that it goes ding, ding ding. So the answer is yes, I'm familiar. Yes, I know. But maybe no more details, no more details. Okay, now we can look at some examples. Maybe some old classmates are at a a high school reunion. This is where classmates get together, maybe every five years or every 10 years to meet and talk about being in school because they knew each other when they were kids. Okay, so there's a high school reunion and one student or one person, they're not students anymore. Says to the other. Do you remember Mr Donner from third grade, Mr Donner? From third grade? Maybe. Mr Donner just taught for a couple weeks at the school. Okay, Maybe he was just a substitute teacher. Maybe he was just a substitute teacher. Mr. Donner. Mr. Donner, Sometimes when you're thinking you can repeat what the last person said, Mr. Donor. Mr. Donner. It rings a bell. Did he have? Did he have a mustache? Did he have a mustache? Yes. Yes. Oh, yes. I vaguely remember him vaguely. Vaguely means it's not a strong memory. It's not a strong memory. It's a very weak memory. It's there. It's very faint. It's very faint. So the name rings a bell. And then, after ringing the bell, Mawr details begin to come out. The name is familiar. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mr. Donner. Mr. Daughter. Oh, yes. Then you can start to maybe remember Mawr things. Maybe there's ah, husband and a wife talking and the wife says to the husband. I saw Jenny from Cranston at the supermarket. Maybe Jenny from Cranston is a person that they used to both? No. From maybe this place called Cranston a long time ago, maybe 10 years ago. Five years ago. Whatever. Okay, uh, and we can also say I ran into Ran into. If you run into someone, you meet them without planning to Without planning to or you bumped into. I bumped into. I bumped into, sir. That's a P. I bumped into Jenny from from Cranston at the supermarket today. Oh, it rings a bell. Remind me. Remind me. Remind me what remind me who Jenny from Cranston is. So this person, the husband knows the name. The name is very familiar, but ah, the details are just not there. He can't remember everything else. Who is she? How do we know her? It's very faint. The memory that I have I don't I don't know any of the details. Remind me this is a request. Basically, can you tell me who she is? Oh, we used to remember we used to have that book club and she was in the book club. Ah, yes, That's right. The book club. That was a long time ago. Yes, yes. But when you're when you're trying to remember that thing and it's familiar, you might say that it rings a bell to mean that you don't know zero things. Sometimes people will use this when they really can't remember anything, and they just want to say that they know a little bit, but they want the other person to tell them the details that rings a bell familiar, but that could be very, very faint. Or maybe not even they're not even their familiar faint by thinking about how to make your expressions very realistic. You're sort of forcing yourself to put yourself in that situation, and then when you actually face something like that, you'll be able to use it naturally if you want to. OK, good luck 31. Under the Weather: under the weather under the weather under the weather. Okay, under the weather does that mean I'm sitting under some clouds? What does that mean? We often will say I'm feeling a bit under the weather today Under the weather. That means I don't feel very well. I don't I don't feel don't feel very well. I don't feel so good. I don't feel so good now. This one is very casual and I wouldn't recommend using that one. I don't feel good. I don't feel well. I'm feeling a bit under the weather. It's not very strong, though. When you say it, it's not that you're violently ill. You're not violently ill. You're not about to die. You're not vomiting. Usually if you vomit blue means you're quite ill. You're quite sick if you vomit. If you have a very high fever of a very high fever, then maybe you wouldn't say You would not say under the weather. Usually if you say you're under the weather, you're just not your best. It could be better. You felt better. You don't feel perfect. You don't feel great. You're a little sick. Let's say it's 20 to 30% sick if we're going to put a number on it, 20 to 30 percent sick. If you had that feeling before, just a little slow. Maybe you have some fatigue. Maybe you have a very mild fever. Very mild light fever on. Maybe your stomach just doesn't feel good. You have an upset stomach given upset stomach, but it's not the worst. You can Maybe still goto work, Maybe maybe, or go to school. But if you want to explain why you don't want to go to work and you call your boss, you say I don't think I can come into work today. I'm just feeling really under the weather, feeling really under the weather. I'm going to I'm gonna take a sick day, if that's okay. Yeah. Okay. I hope you feel better tomorrow. Yep. See you tomorrow. Get well soon. Get well soon. Get well soon. Which is a very common thing people will say when another person is not feeling well. All right, let's look at an example. I'm feeling a little under the weather, so I don't think I can go to the movie. I'm feeling a little under the weather. So this is when we want to cancel. It's a really polite way to cancel. If you say I'm really, really sick, I'm dying. That's very strong. They might come over to your house to bring you soup. But if you're talking to your friend and you planned to go to a movie, you can use this one as a polite way to say that you can't go and then maybe you have to re schedule, reschedule, reschedule Whenever I feel under the weather, I sleep a lot and also take a lot of vitamin C. Whenever I feel under the weather. That means every time, every time that's what whenever means every time I don't feel well, I sleep. Sleep. Sleep is the best way to get over. Remember that. Get over, Get over. Maybe a bug. Ah, bug. A bug. Well, sometimes when we have the flu or some kind of virus, that makes us feel Not very well. We say I've got a bug. I've got a bug. I know that sounds weird. Like there's a little bug inside. Well, not really know, but we still say I've got a bug when we don't feel well, it could be very serious or not. Maybe we're very ill if we're very ill. We would not say under the weather. But if we've got a stomach bug, a stomach bug or a bit of a stomach bug sometimes to make it softer or more gentle, we say a bit of a bit of a stomach bug or I've got a bit of a flu or a bit of a cold. Then we say, Get over it to talk about it, no matter what it is. So in your example described the last time you were feeling under the weather, what did you do on that day? Did you stay home from school? Did you stay home from work, or did you goto work? And what was that, like trying to use the expression and I will see you in the next one. 32. On My Nerves: on my nerves on my nerves. All right. We can finally talk about on my nerves. I've been looking forward to talking about this one because I think this one's really interesting. It's a very useful and it is very visual, at least for me. It's very visual, basic meaning on my nerves. Something annoys me. It's annoying and it's annoying me more and more so. Usually we say it's it's getting, It's getting on my nerves And of course we can say on her nerves. His nerves, their nerves, nerves, nerves, nerves. OK, we're starting to get that would be OK to starting to get. So what's the visual? What is the visual here? What is the visual for something getting on your nerves? Well, the visual is a brain. Okay, so you have a brain here and the brain in there, okay? And this represents a person. But as you know, the brain has nerves that come out from it. Right there. Kind of spidery things, spidery things. Your body is full of nerves, right? Nerves, air, the things that connect to your brain. It's the reason you can feel something. It's the reason you can move your fingers, your toes, your legs, their nerves. Nerves are part of the nervous system and the brain is the center of the nervous system. The whole system goes all over your body. The nerves go all over your body and these little, so small they're tiny, tiny, tiny, many, many, many like a spider web. And they go up your spine, which is the thing in your back, and your spine protects them. They go into your brain. Now imagine. Imagine somebody Just imagine you're this thing. You're not even a person. You're just your nerves, OK? Just for this example. And imagine someone steps on your hand. Well, it's not your hand cause you don't have anything except nerves. You're just nerves, so that means you're very sensitive. You can feel every tiny little thing. OK, someone steps right here, and it's so painful. This is a good visual, I think. Does it mean that on my nerves is very painful? No, it doesn't. But it means there's something there right that's starting to bother you or make you upset or annoy you. And I think keeping this picture in your mind will help. You will help you use it and think about it and remember it. Most importantly, whenever I use this or hear it, I always think about this weird picture for some reason, even though it's kind of disgusting. Okay, so before I start getting on your nerves by showing you gross gross drawings, let's let's ah, let's look at some examples. It's example time. So let's imagine there are two people studying. Okay, study time late at night. You've been studying together for a few hours reading your books carefully writing down some notes. Big exam tomorrow. Very important to focus. And your study buddy, study or partner sometimes makes this sound while he's studying. That sound is starting to get on my nerves. Can you stop, please? That sound is starting to get on my nerves. Can you please stop? For that sound is starting to bother me Starting to bother me Annoy me If you have something that annoys you Ah, sound or a thing people do. Maybe it annoys you when people throw trash on the street. Then you have a pet peeve. Uh, pet peeve. A pet peeve is something that bothers you that other people do. Maybe doesn't bother other people. One of my pet peeves is when people do this when they're studying, it's a pet peeve. It really it really gets on my nerves. It's starting to get on my nerves. Could you stop? If you want to ask somebody to stop in a kind of polite, gentle way, just say this. Do you mind? Do you mind? Do you mind? That's all it means. Please stop. So there's a student and a teacher and class is over and the student is asking questions, asking questions. Can you tell me about this? I want to know about this. The teacher is maybe trying to check homework. Or maybe the teacher is getting ready to have another class or whatever. And then, after a few questions, the student begins to see that the teacher looks a little bit annoyed, annoyed like this. Yeah, well, yeah, So maybe just the facial expression and body language. So the student realizes this and says, I am I Am I getting on your nerves? Am I getting on your nerves? I can ask the rest of these questions later. I can ask the rest of these later. Okay, so here the student recognizes that they might be annoying the teacher. The teacher doesn't have to say yes. You're annoying me. They might say, Well, I do have I do have a lot of work to do. I I have Ah, a lot of ah, work to catch up on. You do have a lot of work to catch up on. Oh, yeah, sure. Of course. I'm sorry. I'll come back tomorrow. Is that OK? Yeah, of course. Of course. That's fine. All right. Thank you. See you. And I my getting on your nerves so a person can get on your nerves or a thing. He is getting on my nerves. She is getting on my nerves. They are getting on my nerves. That sound is getting on my nerves. So what gets on your nerves? Most right. A few examples. Or better yet, speak your examples and record them 33. Draw a Blank: draw a blank draw. Ah, blank. Okay. Blank means there's nothing there. If a piece of paper is blank, there is nothing there. And to draw something means to take it out. So if there there is a deck of cards, a deck of cards, each one of the cards, you might know there are 52 cards. Each one of the cards has something on it, right? A little picture. Diamonds, hearts, spades and clubs. Right. And each one you pick up. We say we draw draw card, draw one, draw one. Okay. Now, we would like you to imagine that you reach down to the deck and you draw card, and you look at it and you expect there to be a picture there. Do you think there will be a picture? Maybe it's a four of diamonds or a six of spades, but when you look at it, it's just white. The card is totally white. There's nothing on it. It is blank. Okay, so I'd like you to imagine a blank playing card that looks just like this. And there's just nothing there. Nothing there. Nothing there. Nothing there. This is our visual. OK, that's our visual, But does that mean picking up playing cards? Is that what this expression means? No, no, no. This is just a way to make you remember this expression to draw blank means to not be able to remember something like a name or a number or a word when you really need it. Or at the moment someone asks you. And when you are experiencing that feeling like I know it's in my brain, it's there. Where is it? You might say, Uh uh. What is it? I'm drawing a blank. I'm drawing. I'm drawing a blank on the name of that. That album. Maybe your friend asks you about an album musical album? Do you know that that elbow is really good? Remember the name of that album? Ah, spot. Yeah, Yeah, I'm drawing a blank. I'm drawing a blank. It means you know it somewhere in your little brain. But you're not able to find it right now. And you can say I'm drawing a blank on that. I'm drawing a blank on that. Okay, You could talk about it in the past. I drew a blank. I drew a blank when I met her. Now, sometimes people use this when you meet someone who's so beautiful or good looking that you can't think clearly right on. You can't even find your words and they ask you a question and you just can't get your thoughts together. This is something that you'll see. Maybe in a movie. I'm ah, really, uh I don't know. I'm drawing a blank for when you're describing it. In the past, I drew a blank when I met her or him even. Yeah, either way. Either way. All right, so that's that's the basic idea. And again, it can be for names of people, names of streets. Could be for, uh could be for ideas that you were supposed to remember and things you were supposed to do . Maybe lists that you made before you can't remember the list. You have to check something, all of that. All of that. Sometimes we don't even say the full expression. Draw blank. I drew ah blank or I blanked. I blanked, I'm blanking, I'm blanking. I'm blanking right now. I'm sorry. I'm so sleepy. I haven't had my coffee. I know that I know it, but I'm just blanking right now and I'm so sorry about that. I'm really just blanking. There's nothing here. It's not coming up. Okay, this is the basic idea. Let's look at some examples. Okay, So for the first example, we have two people trying to remember the name of a person. Remember the guy with the sideburns we met at the dinner on Tuesday? What's his name? What's his name? The other person says, Uh, I'm drawing a blank. I feel like it started with an M. I feel like it started with an M. I feel like it started. I feel like it was That's a way to say Maybe I remember. I have this impression, Okay, Melvin says. The other person was it. Was it Melvin? Yes, that's it. That's it. That's it. So this conversation has actually reminded the first person of the name. But first they had to ask the other person to get the first letter. They were drawing a blank, but just remembered the M than the other person remembered the whole thing right? Sometimes this expression is a good way to find an answer when you're talking back and forth, back and forth, and sometimes one thing, when little thing you might remember may spark the memory in somebody else. M yet, Melvin. Yes, yes, yes, that's what it waas. That's what it waas you helped me remember, Even though you drew a blank, this one is a person recalling an embarrassing experience. They remember the experience, but draw blank will be for something that happened during the experience. I was giving a talk about the environment, which is my area of expertise, expertise is what you know. Well, if you're a professor, you know, maybe a certain field. Well, if you're good at something that is your area of expertise right in the middle, I drew a total blank on the word emissions emissions. I don't know why I just couldn't located in my head. I really looked like an idiot. I really looked like an idiot. An idiot is a stupid person. This is so embarrassing. We need to be very careful about automobile or car E. This is a person who knows everything about this and can't remember the word emissions. Emissions are things that are released when maybe fossil fuels are burned. For example, uh, cars, cars drive, It has emissions. Emissions is coming out. The back of a car, so it would be embarrassing to not remember such an important word, right? I drew a total blank. Sometimes we'll add the word total total to make it a little stronger to emphasize it. Emphasize it, emphasize it. Okay, So make your own examples right or tell a story and recorded about a time in which you drew a blank. You drew blink. You couldn't remember something really important. Describe it in detail. Make sure to use this expression. 34. Beat Around the Bush: To beat around the bush or beating, beating around the bush. This is actually pretty simple. The meaning is pretty simple. But of course it will be important for us to go over a couple of simple examples so that we can really understand it. Basically to beat around the bush means to say something very indirectly. And often because we're a little nervous or afraid to say what we really mean. And that might make other people a little, a little frustrated if you're trying to say something, but you don't want to say it directly because you're afraid to say it directly. The other person might say, Hey, stop beating around the bush. Stop beating around the bush. That means just say what you want to say. I'm frustrated. That's basically the most common way that this is used. We may also say that someone who is beating around the bush is being a little bit evasive. They're trying to avoid giving a direct answer because of how it will make them seem. And we often criticized politicians for beating around the bush because if they say something very directly, we have a record of that. And then later we can say you said that very clearly. And then they can't say, Oh, no, I didn't. But if they beat around the bush and speak around the main idea, Here's the bush. The Bush is a shrub, right? This is what it comes from. It's a little, a little plant, like a little tree. And this is the main idea. And if someone is kind of going around here beating around the bush, they're suggesting it and kind of answering it and giving half answers. But they're really trying to avoid giving a very, very concrete answer because of how it might look to others or how it might damage their reputation. Okay, so that's basically what it means. It's pretty simple, either because we're being invasive or because we're nervous and we're just afraid to say something really clearly. So let's say there's a husband and a wife. And a husband and wife. Husband says to the wife, are you, are you sure you want to wear that hat today? Now the husband's real meaning is, I don't like that hat. So she has a hat. He doesn't like it. Okay. And maybe she feels a little annoyed that he's saying something that sounds a little bit indirect. And she doesn't really know what he means, right? So she says, don't beat around the bush. Don't beat around the bush. What are you trying to say? Okay, then he might say, well, I don't like that hat. I really don't like that hat. Can you please not where it can you can you not wear it? And then she might say, oh, yeah, oh, if you don't like it, I won't wear it. That's fine or whatever. But the point here is she didn't like that. He was saying something indirectly. He was saying something without saying it, kind of talking around a point. And sometimes we say that to talk around something. Remember the picture of the bush that I drew going around the bush means not really saying exactly that but talking around it. So beating around the bush, don't beat around the bush. We can often use this as a reaction to what other people say when they're not being direct. When we don't want to guess what they're actually saying, we don't want to guess their true meaning. We want them to say their true meaning. Because sometimes it's, it's tiring to guess someone's true meaning and, you know, it burns, it burns calories to have to try to think about what this person is really talking about. So this is, I think, a pretty common situation for someone who doesn't like to hear other people beating around the bush. I never like to give people bad news, but beating around the bush will only make them confused. It's better to just say it directly. What could we be talking about here? Well, maybe this is a doctor and maybe the doctor is giving a diagnosis. A diagnosis is when you find out what you have, your disease or the problem you have. And maybe this is a serious one. Sometimes doctors need to give very, very serious diagnosis to patients. And maybe this doctor is explaining to another doctor his policy, his rule for himself about giving bad news to patients. I never like to give people bad news. But beating around the bush, saying things indirectly will only confuse them. So if the doctor comes in and talks to the patient and says, well maybe, but maybe I don't know. The patient might just think it's something something wrong with me or not. I'm not clear what are you trying to say? So this expression can be used to describe the kind of communication that we like. We don't like, I like when politicians say things directly rather than just beating around the bush, I like when they speak directly, rather than just beating around the bush. So here we're describing a communication style. Okay, So hopefully this one is clear. Remember to try to make your own examples. And I would actually really like to see your examples as well. And if you feel you don't understand this expression or any of the others, make sure you ask, ask me, I'd be more than happy to help you and give you some direction. Alright, see you in the next one. 35. Rain Check: rain Check rain check. This word is often written as two words, sometimes written as one, and basically, the way that we use it now is let's cancel now. But reschedule later. That's the idea. Let's cancel now, for whatever reason. Reschedule later. This one comes from things being cancelled due to rain. If you had a ticket, you would go to some event and maybe the event was canceled. And then the place holding the event would give you a special ticket so that when they held the event again, you could go in because you bought a ticket before. So it's a rain check because something was cancelled due to rain. But we don't usually use it because of the rain. It could be it could be, but it doesn't have to be. Doesn't have to be anything. We need to cancel that. We want to make sure we reschedule later. Can use this expression. We usually will use it with friends, meetups with friends when we want to maybe meet up for coffee or a lunch date, maybe to see a movie to see a movie. Okay, we can use it for these kinds of things and When I say it, I can just say it. Ai. I think we have to cancel for today. Rain check rain check. So you often will explain the situation. Why you need to cancel what happened? Whatever it may be. And then at the end, you say rain check rain check. Which tells the other person I want to find another time to do this in the future. It doesn't mean that you need to come up with the time the next time. The rescheduled time right now doesn't mean that just means I want to. I don't want to cancel forever. I'm not trying to get out of this. Whatever we want to do together. Lunch date, movie forever. I just can't today. Okay, I have to cancel. So I really can't rain Check or can we do a rain check? Can I get a rain check? We could also say that Can I get a rain check? Okay. The person canceling will probably say, Can I get a rain check or Okay, rain check. Rain check. Let's look at some specific examples. All right, so let's say two friends were planning to go to a movie and then something came up, something important came up. This is always something unexpected. If something comes up, that means it's not expected you didn't plan it toe happen. Sorry, I can't go. Something important came up rain check. You could say it as a question. Or you could say as a statement, if you say it as a question rain check than the other person can say. OK, sure. All right. I understand. It's a terrible I. I understand now. This person may be they feel very badly about canceling. So they say, I really I really hate to cancel on such short notice, but something really urgent came up, and there's really nothing I can do to avoid it. Rain check. Yeah, sure. I understand, because they're good friends. So obviously they want to do something fun together. But they can't because something urgent came up. Another way to use this would be something like this. Let's do a rain check on on, and then the thing that we're planning let's do a rain check on the movie tonight. We could say, Let's do a rain check on the coffee. Let's do a rain check on whatever on whatever or you can just say, Let's do a rain check. I can't go. I can't make it. I won't be able to make it. Then the other person might say All, Really, Why not? Well, something urgent came up, and I have to deal with it. I'm so sorry about that. Okay, well, I understand. I understand. Next time, next time. And then I would say Yes, of course. Let's reschedule next week, and then maybe we can talk about when or not or not. So hopefully it's pretty clear how we use this. It's actually quite common, and it's a very simple way to express this idea of Let's cancel, but not forever. I definitely want to re schedule, so make sure to make your own examples. Look out for rain, check in movies, shows and things you're reading. If you'd like to get a better feeling for this expression, look it up on the Internet. See if you confined mawr examples and then make your own examples. Good luck with that, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 36. For Kicks: for kicks, four kicks or just just for kicks. We often put just here. Basically, this means for fun, for fun or something that we think will be exciting, right for fun, something we think will be exciting. And it's usually very casual, casual in the way that it's used and who you would use it with friends usually and casual in how it said. If there's something that's done for fun, but you're very serious about it, you enjoy it. You would say I do this because it's fun right then you might not use just for kicks. Just for kicks is almost like you. You don't you don't care about it too much. Didn't really care about it too much. I do it just just for kicks. It's almost like it's so easy to do that thing that you do it and maybe it will be exciting . Maybe it will be fun. Maybe it will be just interesting. Doesn't have to be. Super Fund can be just interesting, but it's not something that you work really hard for. Usually it's sort of a sort of thing. Okay, there's a famous song Get Your kicks on Route 66 Route 66 is a very old road that runs through America. I believe it was the first road to go from the Pacific Ocean to the East Coast, and the song goes, Get your kicks on Route 66. That means sort of do fun things. It's fun to drive on this road, and it's sort of Ah, classic, classic song. Now, um, about that about that road. Okay, so So when we talk about the reasons that we do things, we might say, I did it just for kicks. And usually it's when somebody asked us why we did something that's kind of unnecessary or maybe even unusual, and we did it just because it was kind of fun. So we say, I just, uh I did it. Just for kicks has that sort of feeling that feeling. That's the That's the connotation. A very a very casual connotation, Remember, connotation is the feeling that something creates, not not the actual meaning in the dictionary, always but the associated meaning. Maybe the cultural meaning of a word or an expression were an idea. Okay, so this is basically what it means. Uh, let's let's though. Let's look at a couple examples. I play video games just for kicks. I'm not too serious about it. It it you said video games. Okay, it is the general activity of playing video games, so we can still say it here instead of them usually. Okay, I play video games just for kicks. So maybe after school this person comes home. Turns the TV on turns on his or her PlayStation, whatever. Whenever you're watching this PlayStation 900 Ah, and and plays for 10 or 15 minutes and then does something else. Some people are serious. Gamers, gamers, gamers, air, serious people. They play video games. And that's their thing. My thing. What's your thing? I play video games. Is it fun? Yes, it's fun. But I'm also very serious. This person. Yeah. I play video games for a few minutes now and then now and then. I do, yes, but it's not a big deal to them. Why did you paint your room Blue? Why did you paint your room? Blue says one friend to another for kicks just for kicks. Why not? Why not? I got the paint for free from my uncle. Okay, So same thing here. It's almost like it was so easy to do. I thought to myself, Why not? And I thought maybe it would be interesting. Toe have a blue room. I wasn't passionate about having a blue room. I did it just kind of for fun. I thought it would be cool. And it was easy to do. I could do it kind of, by the way, because I got free paint. Okay, this is the feeling off for kicks. I do want to mention one thing. Sometimes people use for kicks. Sometimes people use for kicks in a sarcastic way, which means, actually, they're very serious about it. But they might say for kicks anyway, to suggest that they're not too serious about it. People might use it this way to kind of downplay, downplay how serious they are. Yeah, I study history, but I do it just for kicks. But maybe, in fact, they are very serious about studying history in their free time. Yes, but when someone asks them, they down play a little bit. They make it a little softer. And they might do that just because they don't want to maybe raise people's expectations of them. Because if you say? Yes, I'm very serious about history. I know everything that maybe you suddenly have the expectation that this person really does know everything. And and, uh, not everybody wants people toe have that impression that impression. I There's an eye there. I o n I might say about making videos. Why do you make YouTube videos? So I do it. I do it for kicks. I might say that. But in fact I am very serious about it. In my heart, I'm very serious about making YouTube videos. If you we haven't already make sure to go over to my my YouTube channel. I've got lots of videos over there, but I say for kicks in my heart, unm much more serious because I want to kind of downplay it a little bit. I don't want everybody to think I'm a you know, crazy YouTube YouTube person you may have seen in some movies, somebody say, maybe a character say, I'm That's how that's how he gets his kicks. Sometimes kicks means shoes. That's not what it means Here. Here Kicks still means what you do to entertain yourself or what you do for fun. But this one might be used well, it's a noun. It might be used for something terrible. Often it's a crime. What you mean he killed three people? Yes, well, it's how he got his kicks. That's how he got his kicks, his his excitement. So it's used kind of in the same way. But now it's a noun. And in this way it's often used to talk about bad things that people do. Unusual things that people do for their own entertainment. Their own pleasure. Hey, it could be used to talk about good things, too, like making videos. That's how I get my kicks. That's okay, that's fine. But you will see it this way, maybe even Mawr, often when it's used as a noun. 37. Last Laugh: last laugh. Last laugh. This one is kind of complicated, and I think it's difficult to understand if I just say what it means. So let me first give you an example. There was a musician and the musician won an award, won an award, and when she won the award, I think maybe it was a Grammy. She went on stage, and she thanked all of her haters and all of her critics. She thanked them, she said, because they were part of her success. She sold more albums, more albums because they had to buy them or at least pay for them in order to know what to be critical about what to hate on. Right? So she's basically saying, I have the last laugh You you wanted to hate on my my music. You wanted to criticize me, but to do that, you had to give me money. Now I'm I'm very rich. Hahahaha. So I have the last laugh, and this is the idea. This is the basic idea. It means there's maybe a low moment or low point. And during that low moment or low point, it looks like this person is, you know, down here and someone else is up here. And this person might be critical of this person to people one here, when here or this person or these people could be many people. Maybe it looks like they have sort of the advantage. Okay, But then later, because this person was down here and this down here could be almost anything could be about money. It could be about reputation. It could be about criticism. It could be about all kinds of different things after this person comes back up and maybe they come back up because off this, after they come back up, they can say I had the last laugh. You criticize me here, but I had the last laugh. You said this about me at this time, but I had the last laugh. That doesn't mean that you actually laugh. Ha ha ha. You could you could. But what it really means is I win in the end. I win in the end, and maybe I win in the end because of what you did to me. That was bad in the past. You helped me win. Or you thought you had one long ago when I was low and way down there at my low point in my low moment. But you didn't know what was going to happen. You didn't know that I was going to who rise up and succeed and win okay and win there. I use kind of generally now. I think it's not so clear when I explain it like that. It sounds kind of complicated. So just keep that example the first example in mind about that musician, and I'm going to give you a couple more examples so that you can have an even better feeling for this one. People who get bullied in school often have the last laugh. They're usually more successful then bullies. Okay, so what does this mean? A bully is someone who treats you badly because they are stronger and usually this is something that happens in school. There's a big kid and he beats all the little kids. So it's it's an abuse of power. It's unfair because the bully is stronger, right? So it's silly if you're a bully, right? Bullying is dumb because you're the strong person. Why do you need to beat up on the people who are not as strong right. Okay, so that's that's bully. But in this example, this person who was bullied, the little kid who got bullied this person studied hard, got good grades, went to a good university, got a great job, right? And maybe they became very successful. Maybe a doctor, maybe a brain surgeon, a lawyer, a great artist. I don't know anything successful. And the bully is still living in his mom's house. Still mean to everybody drinks. Too much beer, maybe. OK, so that's the idea. That's the idea. The last laugh is not that the that this person, the person who got bullied, it's not that they actually need to laugh or even meet the bully in the future. They don't They don't just means that. Finally, they in a way win. If winning is defined by success. Okay, One more example. Celebrities often deal with a lot of criticism when they do things their fans don't like, but they're extremely wealthy. So I guess they have the last laugh, right? So their fans maybe are so angry because they whoever this is Ah ah, on actor or even the CEO of ah, of a famous company. The person who likes these people or the people who like these people. They're the fans, right? The fans get angry about things. I can't believe you did this. Whatever it is, well, we might say, Oh, poor celebrity. Maybe they're treated so badly. But you know what? Maybe it doesn't matter to them anyway, whether their fans love them or criticize them. Maybe they don't care because they're extremely wealthy. So they have the last laugh. Now, this is something that I've heard. I want to be clear that it's not really It's not really my opinion here. I'm just making an example to help you understand the idea here. It's like saying, Well, if they criticise me, or if they don't criticize me, it doesn't really matter to me because, uh, I'm successful. Basically, that's what this one means Again. Criticism means telling somebody something, something you don't don't like. Something you don't like about them were maybe something they did. Okay, that's the idea. Maybe before people have made fun off your English. Maybe they made a joke about how well you speak will. Hopefully, after you finish this course and my other courses, you will have the last laugh That means people won't be able to criticize you anymore. And if somebody did before, then they will feel maybe bad that they did after they see how much you've improved. 38. Let's Go 50-50: Let's go 50 50. Let's go 50 50. So, of course, here we're talking about half, half 50 as in 50%. And you might see this written out as 50 50 as well, inwards. So either one is usually okay. But basically that means whatever it we're talking about is shared. Shared. Now, if you just see 50 50 we might be talking about chances. What is the chance that they will win? And the answer is 50 50 50 50? That means the chance that they will win one team will win is equal to the chance that they will lose right. Two teams playing in a championship. Who's going to win? I don't know. 50 50. So maybe they're both very good. The outcome is uncertain. It's up for grabs. It's 50 50 all right. But when we're talking about going 50 50 let's go 50 50. Now we're talking about sharing something 50%. That means you take half and I take half, and we're often talking about paying for something. Often. Dinner, or when we eat out often can be used for lots of things going 50 50. So generally this is about sharing the cost sharing the cost. I will pay for half and you pay for half. Now. Maybe you've learned that Americans say go Dutch when they go to dinner and they want to share the cost. No, we don't say that. We don't say it. Generally, we really don't. And you might have heard a a You want to do a No, no, no. The first time I heard this was when I left America to travel somewhere else and someone said, Hey, you Americans say a right. No, we don't say a, uh we say, Let's split the bill or check or let's go 50 50. That's what we say. That's what we say. When would you say, Let's go 50 50? Well, it's pretty simple. If I didn't say, Let me treat you for lunch, then it's probably going to be shared because I don't want to just pay for you in America, right? Usually friends will share the cost because that's that's fair. It feels weird if I always have to pay the bill where if we have to take turns paying the bill, take turns that in American culture is uncomfortable. So if I say let me treat you to lunch. Then you know, and I know I will pay right Or if I say when the bill or check comes, it's on me. It's on me, OK, that means I will pay. But in most other cases, unless you know one person has got a lot of money and the other has no money, and it's kind of understood because the restaurant is very nice. Unless it's something like that. Well, generally say one of these two things just to make it clear. Okay, so when the bill comes when the check comes, we might say, You wanna split the bill? Do you want to go 50 50? But it's not only for food. We could use it to talk about things that we might by, for example, there are two roommates, okay? And they wanna have a TV. They could each buy a small TV to put in their rooms right with their own money. Or they could go 50 50 on a huge TV for the living room. That would be much better, because then they've got a huge TV. Let's go 50 50 on ah, huge flat screen HD TV. That's the idea so it's not only for food, but it is usually usually about sharing cost. Sometimes people will say, I think that we should really do things 50 50 so that I don't feel like I'm doing all the work. In that case, it's not about money. Maybe it's about doing things at home. Maybe chores, chores, right, things we have to do at home. But the idea is still the same. So let's look at a few examples now. Me and a good friend have just finished a nice a nice meal, kind of an expensive meal. And, uh, one person asks me, I ask, How much is the bill? How much is the bill? How much is the check? Because maybe my friend got it from the waiter and, uh, he or she says $80.80 dollars Or sometimes we say bucks. 80 bucks. 80 bucks. Thats a kay. Sorry. 80 bucks. OK, Shall we just go 50 50? Now I know that we will. I know that we will, but it's still good to say. Shall we just go 50 50 or shall we just split the bill? Yeah, of course. Of course. Yes, of course. That means that is what I thought we were going to do to. But it's good to say just to be clear, it's sort of it's sort of Ah, custom that we have in America. Now you may be wondering as a cultural point. What about what about if it's three People can't say 50 50. Should we say, Shall we go 30 33 30 33 30 33 or 30 point for whatever? No. So there we could just say So we shall we split it? Shall we split it? So there you can still use split, but you can't use 50 50 50 50 is on Lee for two people. If we don't share responsibilities, 50 51 of us will be much more tired than the other. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? So this could be to colleagues, and one always feels exhausted because they have mawr, their workload ISMM or they have more responsibilities. And so maybe they've asked to the other the other person in the team to take on more themselves because they're not very busy. And that seems to be fair. And that person says, Well, I don't know That's kind of your stuff. And this person says, Yeah, but we both need to do this project. We have to get this done. Where? A team. Right? Is it fair for me to be tired all the time and you to just a watch YouTube videos? Is that fair? No, I guess not. We need to work together so that we can get this done by the deadline. So I think we should share responsibilities. 50 50. We should take on responsibilities. 50 50. Does that make sense? Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. All right, so this one is not about money. It's most often used for money. Things like bills checks on buying stuff together. But in examples like this, it's also very natural. I'd like you to just think about how that could fit into your own life and write down and description of a situation in which two people would go 50 50 either to share responsibilities or two to share, for example, the cost of something. Write down your own example and try to make sure to use go 50 50 or went 50 50. If you want to change it to the past tense or going 50 50. You can change that around, try to make sure to use it in your description or in your short example. 39. Speak of the Devil: speak of the devil. Speak of the devil. Speak of the devil. Okay, this one sounds bad, right? A Devil Devils. A kind of demon. The devil is the worst demon red with horns and a tail. This must be about a terrible person. In fact, it's not. It's not. This is something that is said in conversations. Someone who is being talked about suddenly shows up or appears to show up where they appear now. It could be that they call or somehow they appear. But it's not that there really there. Usually, I would say they're actually there. So I'm talking with someone else about person, A person. A is not here in the conversation, and we're talking about this, this person. Did you hear about this talking about them and it could be any kind of conversation. It could be gossip, which is usually kind of a negative thing, saying bad things about them. But maybe not. Maybe you were just mentioning them. Anyway. They come up to the conversation they approach, they appear here, they come, maybe were at a party or some event. And as they're walking toward us, one person might say, speak of the devil. Hey, speak of the devil. And then maybe and we were just We were just talking about you. We were just talking about you Speak of the devil. We were just talking about you. Can that person here that this person is coming, should we say speaking to let them know they're coming? We better stop talking about them before they get close enough to hear. No, it's not like that. You can say it loudly. You can say it as they come forward. It doesn't mean they're a devil. They're not a devil. We just say it as a way to say we were just talking about you. Then they know that that's the discussion. So now maybe we can continue in even more natural way. Oh, hey, John. Ah, Speak of the devil. We were just talking about you. Oh, yeah? What were you guys talking about? Well, I was I was telling clear about how we were golfing yesterday, and you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so it's friendly, it's conversational, and it's a way to bring someone into a conversation. It doesn't have to be that that person comes over here to the conversation. We might go over there, so, yeah, John was telling me, Wait a second. Speak of the devil. There's John right there. He's over there. Let's go talk to him. Let's go talk to John. Okay. So we might go over there. He didn't hear us. He didn't even see us. We saw him first. We went over to talk with him so we could use it that way to privately or when he can Actually here. So let's look at a few examples. So I'm talking to my friend Ellen. And Ellen is a designer. And when people know people who do things, they might recommend others to people who they know who do things right. And I heard I heard my friend Alice mentioned that she's looking for a designer. Now I'm talking to a designer. Right. So that's the situation. Okay. Alice is not here right now talking to Ellen. The designer Alice told me she knows someone looking for a really good designer like you. Now it's a pause. Speak of the devil. Speak of the devil. Alice. Alice, Alice. Alice comes over. Okay? How Everybody's together. Tell Ellen what you told me. The other day. You said your friend was looking for a designer. Right? Then Alice can say, Yeah, that's right. My friend is trying to find a designer for her, for her house. She's doing a project problem. Then maybe Ellen and Alice can talk. I've made the introduction. Okay, so it's a great way to bring Alice over here. Speak of the devil. Speak of the devil. Alice, come over here. Come over. Alice. You told me. Blah, blah, blah like that. Okay, Another example. You're at my house, and we're just having a conversation about whatever. Maybe we're talking about politics. Or maybe we're talking about current events and the TV is on, but there's nothing special on maybe just some some commercials, okay? And I mentioned in our conversation, I say Anderson Cooper has a really nice voice. Now he is a He is a news host on CNN, which is a news network. He's a host, and I say is he has a really nice voice. I enjoy his segments. One piece of news. We could also call it a news piece. One piece of news. It's an either one piece of news is called a segment, sometimes Ah, specific section of a news broadcast about something Maybe that's called a segment. So I just said that Anderson Cooper has a really nice voice. I enjoy his segments and then he appears on TV. Maybe CNN has just started. Or maybe he's on some other show being interviewed. But I just mentioned him, and there he is on. We didn't know that he was going to be on TV. We weren't planning to see him on TV. It's kind of weird that he suddenly appeared on TV. We weren't expecting it. So you might say, Speak of the devil. Speak of the devil. Anderson Cooper there is Oh, yeah, yeah. Wow, What a coincidence. What a coincidence. Coincidence is when an unlikely thing happens or two things happen at the same time. And those two things happening at the same time are unlikely. I'm sure that you've experienced that before. I mentioned Anderson Cooper big Suddenly he's on TV. What a strange coincidence. Speak of the devil. Okay, so hopefully this one is now clear. Keep in mind, this one is pretty much always used for people. OK, It could be in a conversation. It usually is, but it could happen over the phone could happen when someone else is mentioned. Ah, kind of appearance in this case on TV, and that's okay to That's okay, too. So hopefully it's clear. Try writing a little dialogue, including this expression, and I think doing that I think you'll find adds to your understanding of the expression and makes it stick in your mind. Okay, so I'll see you in the next one. 40. My Two Cents: my two cents, my two cents or his two cents or her two cents or their two cents. The meaning is pretty simple. Just my opinion. Just my opinion. Hey, it's just my opinion, okay? And we often say, I'm going to just throw in my two cents sense. What do we mean by sense? Is that money sense? Yes. Well, yes, since sense means two pennies a penny is one cent, a penny is one cent and you have 100 pennies or 100 cents in a dollar. And so let's imagine that there's a There's a bucket and that bucket is some issue, and we're all talking about that issue, and I I put in two cents into the bucket. I've now added something from myself. My my way of thinking, my perspective, my view, view perspective. I've added something to the bucket to the issue, and when when you want to say your opinion, you can say, Well, here's my two cents. Here's here's my two cents. Here's my two cents And then you say your opinion, I think, and you may wonder, can I say my two cents are that my to since are Yeah, usually not usually not. Usually the way we use two cents is to talk about the opinion you say, Here's my two cents and then you say, I think so. You don't replace, I think with two cents in that case or after you say your opinion. Then you say. But that's just my two cents, as though you're saying That's just my opinion, I think blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's just my two cents, which really means you can you can ah agree with me or disagree. Doesn't really matter. We have different opinions. That's okay. I'm just telling you what I think. I just want to explain my opinion. Now you may think, Is this common to people really say this. Yes, it is very common again. If it's not common, we won't talk about it. In this course, it is very common. I use two cents all the time, usually in those two ways. At the beginning. Here's my two cents. Well, I think, or at the end, La blah, blah and and that's just my two cents so you can take it or leave it, take it or leave it that means you can agree with my opinion. You can take my suggestion. Doesn't have to be Only an opinion about an issue could be a suggestion for how to maybe solve a problem. How should we solve this problem? I don't know. Well, here's my two cents. Okay? Or take it or leave it just my two cents. That means you can use my idea or not. I don't care. You can use my idea or don't use it If you don't like it, it's up to you. It's up to you. It's your choice. Its up to You could also say Take it, take that or take it with, Ah, grain of salt taken with a grain of salt means that maybe I'm not an expert. Maybe I'm not the most knowledgeable person about this topic, but I still have an opinion. So based on my opinion, you shouldn't just say Oh, yes, you're right. 100%. We agree. You should consider that there are many other opinions about this thing. You should consider that my opinion is not an expert opinion, not an expert opinion. And there may be many experts who have better opinions than me. I'm just sharing. It may be to give you a different perspective. I'm not even saying it's the best one. I always take her opinions. I always take his opinions with a grain of salt with a grain of salt. Just because I feel well, he's not an expert, so you never know. Sometimes he's right. Sometimes he's wrong. Anyway, that's how we use it. Let's look at our examples. Example. Time now in the examples, I'd like to just give you a couple of variations for how to use two cents I talked about. Here's my two cents and well, that's just my two cents. That's pretty easy. Let's look at a couple of other ways that you might see two cents being used a couple a couple of different variations, just just so that we have a really deep or broad understanding of this of this phrase. So if you want, if you want my two cents, you should say you're sorry. One friend is giving advice to another. The other friend has done something hurtful to someone else and is wondering if maybe they said the right thing or they should maybe apologize, even if it's even if it's not totally their fault. Maybe they should apologize because they said something hurtful. Be the bigger person, be the bigger person. That means be the one to say you're sorry. First, be the bigger person. If you want my two cents and then you just say it, then you just say it. So it's a way to introduce your opinion. Well, if you want my opinion, you should. Why are we saying then if you want my opinion? Well, it's just a way to really begin the opinion. Maybe maybe they don't really want it, but they don't have time to say Wait, wait, no, no, no, no. It's kind of a way to say, but you don't have to listen to me. But this is what I think about this, and this one is It's pretty common. Nobody asked for your two cents. Shut up, Shut up! Maybe someone is trying to offer their opinion when it's not needed or not appropriate. For whatever reason, you shouldn't say it in this situation. Or maybe you should say it and I'm the rude one. I just don't want to hear it. Maybe it's the right thing to say, but I I'm not willing to listen to any opinions right now. And if someone says their opinion, it's going to make me upset. So nobody asked for your two cents. Nobody asked for your opinion. Shut up again. This one works whether someone is saying their opinion in an inappropriate situation. Nobody asked for your two cents shut up or whether the person who is saying it just doesn't want to hear the opinion, don't want to hear your two cents. Shut up. Shut up! Okay, of course it's rude. Of course it's rude. Okay, so it's It's used in a rude way that way, nobody asked for your two cents. Quite rude. Quite rude. Necessary, maybe sometimes, maybe, especially if someone is saying an opinion when it's not appropriate, not appropriate. 41. Join the Club: join the club, join the club and what is a club while the club is is a group particular group, and it often has membership and not everybody is in the club. In a club that means you're a little bit special, right kind of special people who are in the club and people who are not in the club. It's a pretty general word. It could be just a group of kids who say we're in a club and no one else could be in the club and they feel cool because they have a special club. Or maybe it's in school and you play chess or something, and so that might be called a chess club. You do a particular thing, and that allows you to be in that group. So with any sort of club, there's something that allows you to be in it to be a member. And if you don't have that thing or do that thing, you can't be in the club. Sometimes you have something that proves you're in the club, maybe a badge, but not always, not always. Okay, so we have this idea of a club, something that is shared in a group of people and other people don't have that. But if we say join the club, does that mean I'm inviting you to join my my chest club or whatever? Well, I guess you can use it that way. But really, what it means as an expression is you're not the only one. You're not the only one to experience this bad thing. Me too. Me too. That puts us in a club that puts us in a club. Okay, So I'm not actually inviting you into a club when you use join the club. I'm not really sank. Please join my club. Here's the paper sign here or something like that. Here's your badge. No, no, Something bad happened to you. Something unfortunate. Something that disappointed you. Doesn't have to be terrible, can be very small, but its its not for good things. It's pretty much always for negative things. And you're complaining to me about it? You tell me about this is bad thing happened and I say, join the club. I am in the same situation already. I'm already where you just arrived. You were better than me. You had a good situation before things were going well. And then this happened. Now we're in the same boat now we are in the same boat, so I could say, Well, now we're in the same Not Bode. Now we're in the same boat. I could say that, but join the club is a simpler expression. It's faster as a way to say, Yep, me to basically, that's how it's used. Let me just mention quickly that while joined, the club is usually used almost always used to talk about some bad thing that happened some negative shared experience. Some people will use it to talk about good things and they'll say, Join the club, join the club. This is a good thing, or sometimes it's neither good nor bad and kind of in the middle, depending on how you look at it, right, so it could be a positive thing or a negative thing. It really depends on your view of that. And we might use this expression, join the club for that kind of thing, too. But I want to emphasize that most often it's for negative things. Okay, so let's look at let's look at some examples. I'm single again. Maybe she broke up with me. I'm single again. Then this person's friend says, Join the club. Join the club. This one's interesting, because is this a good thing or a bad thing? From one point of view? Maybe this person doesn't have to deal with a maybe a negative relationship. And from the other point of view, maybe it's very sad. This one, I think, suggests that this person is unhappy. Maybe he didn't want his girlfriend, too. Break up with him or leave him. But it happened. And now he's single. Now he's single, okay? And this person is single, too. And this person may be, is not happy is maybe lonely. And so it's like welcome to welcome to loneliness who helped him to loneliness. Join the party. Sometimes people will say that join the party joined the club. Okay, we're in the same boat now, but this one's interesting because it might. It might be used in some cases to say Now you're free. If you were in a relationship before and now you're not in it. That means you can do whatever you want, so there might be a positive aspect to it. Positive aspect. But it depends on who you are and your perspective right? This person then might say, join the club to recognize that there is this positive aspect even while this person is feeling a little sad now, rarely will you see this person say I'm single again and this person say, Join the club? No, usually not. But it's sort of recognizing, perhaps, that there are two sides to this at first there, maybe sadness, loneliness. But maybe that also means freedom. On the other hand, it could be all about this. Welcome to loneliness. And remember, it's usually this. It's usually I'm not happy. And now we're both not happy. Great. Where? In the club together. We're in the same boat. I only slept two hours last night. I only slept two hours. I'm exhausted. So tired, so tired. I can barely keep my eyes open. If you're very tired. Very sleepy. You can say I can barely keep my eyes open. This person? Yeah, well, join the club. Join the club. Me too. It's basically what it means on the thing that's interesting about this is that it tells a story. If you say yeah, well, join the club. There is a lot going on here, right? Why? What is the reason? And so join the club might be a good way to start a conversation to talk about why this person is also exhausted. Also very tired. Why didn't this person get enough sleep? Now? It's possible that this one is used for two people sharing an experience. Maybe they're working together on a team on a project, and they have to work around the clock or work overtime to a lot of extra work during this period of time. So nobody in the team is sleeping enough. People are going home for a couple hours and then coming back and working again, going home for a couple hours, getting a couple hours of sleep and then coming back here. It could be like saying, Don't complain about it. We're all in this together. We're all experiencing the same the same thing. Don't complain about it or you're not special. You're not special. You think your sleepiness, your exhaustion is unique. Get me to and him too, And her two and her two and him too. We're all working on this project. Don't complain about how tired you are. We know Everybody knows everybody is tired. So So in the first case, it was like saying, Hey, we're on the same team and maybe I'm trying to make you feel better. Maybe I'm trying to show empathy. And in the second case, I'm really just saying you're not special. You're one of us now. You were one of us before. Maybe don't complain about it. Of course, of course you're sleepy. Could be used in either case. And I think it also, as I mentioned, tells a good story could be the beginning point to a story. So next time you hear somebody say something unfortunate and you share that experience that's also true for you, whether it's their condition, how they feel, or something that just happened to them. Se join the club, join the club, and then you can have a conversation about how you both got into the club 42. Break the Ice: break the ice, Break the ice. Was this really about ice? Not usually mean. If you break ice, you can say break the ice. But actually we're talking about something social here, and I think this is a really good A really good visual because ice is cold, ice is cold and it's hard and it's hard right, and if you hit it with something, it will crack. It will crack, and when it cracks and breaks, you might see if it's for example, ice on a lake or a river. You will see the water underneath, which is flowing. Okay, so imagine. Imagine Your Honor River And this is this is just solid ice, just solid ice. And then you hit the ice with something and the ice starts to crack, and then it breaks and you look down and you see flowing water. Flowing water. Okay, so what could this be about? This is usually about social situations in which we don't know somebody well, and we want to get to know them. But there's some awkwardness. There's some awkwardness that means there's some social discomfort, some social discomfort. When you're in a social setting, a social situation Then you meet someone for the first time where a group of people for the first time, it can feel a little uncomfortable. What do I say? What do I do? How do I begin a conversation? Right? When you finally do that and you say something and a conversation get started, you've broken the ice. Now the conversation is flowing like water. So we say, I need to break the ice. Or what question can I ask to break the ice? Finally, finally, someone broke the ice by telling a joke. So maybe one person at this party, for example, is ah, braver than everyone else. And that's a pretty quiet party. And people are talking a little bit, but just a little bit awkward, a little bit uncomfortable. This person tells that joke, and then everybody starts laughing and it starts to feel more comfortable, and people start to get to know each other, get to know, get to know each other and the thing itself. The thing that this person said the joke is an icebreaker. Oh, that's a good icebreaker. That's a good joke. I like that one. That's a good a good ice breaker, something that can break the tension, the social, the social tension or awkwardness or discomfort that people naturally have. And when you want to make a new friend, you want to have a conversation with a stranger or someone you don't know well, or maybe someone you haven't talked to in a long time. You might need to know how to begin how to start a conversation so that it doesn't feel uncomfortable so that you can break the ice. Usually, this is for relationships between people. Sometimes it's used for beginning some other kind of thing, like a project. But generally speaking, we're talking about. We're talking about social relationships and tension. It's not clearly written here. I'll write it again. Tension, breaking, tension, getting rid of tension and making people feel relaxed. So one great way to break the ice in an awkward social situation is to simply ask someone what they do. If you find yourself in a social setting and you want to break the ice, all you do is ask, What do you do? Usually it's a great question. What do you do? A great icebreaker question. Very simple, and it's the most common and then people will say, I'm I'm an architect. I'm a student on the housewife. I'm a teacher. Then you can ask them another question. My personal recommendation for beginning conversations is to focus on asking Ask this question then, when you hear the answer, I am a software engineer. Oh, that's interesting. Ask another question. What kind of software do you develop or where do you work? How long have you been doing that? There are lots of questions, and this can help break the ice. Get to know each other. And this person may ask you some questions, too. I've found that having a broken arm is a great icebreaker. When I meet new people, they always ask me what happened. The story is actually hilarious. My broken arm has been a blessing in disguise. Maybe it's not a blessing that you broke your arm, but a blessing in disguise is when something looks bad. But maybe there's a good thing about it that perhaps happens later. So you've got a big a big cast on your arm, big cast on your arm. And people always ask you, what's that? So you don't have to think of a question They just say what happened and you can tell the story and they laugh because it's a funny story because you fell down the stairs because you stepped on a banana or whatever. And then and then now you're talking. Now you're having a conversation. It's a good ice breaker. Icebreakers can be stories, stories, questions, jokes, activities. And you may find if you're doing something with a large group of people for the first time , for example, a camp or some sort of, maybe conference, they might do an activity, a team activity as an ice breaker to get everybody to start talking to each other so that people can get to know each other, right? So this is This is usually how this expression is used again. Sometimes it means to just begin something for the first time outside of social settings. But really, this is the most common, the most common and the most important usage 43. Piece of Cake: Piece of cake, piece of cake. So we can say Piece of cake or a piece of cake. And this is an expression or an idiom which is very common and can't be changed. We can't say piece of the cake. We can't say Piece of cake. We can add here, but we can't put things in here generally, okay? It's an idiom that can't be adjusted and also has nothing to do with cake. Again, a lot of English expressions don't have anything to do with the words inside of them. A piece of cake. Okay, So we have a, we have a cake and then we take a piece out of the cake, and now we have a piece of cake, right? No, it generally has nothing to do with that. Actually, the meaning is so, so simple. And you know what? Maybe many of you know this one already, because it's one of those basic expressions, those basic idioms that you learn when you start studying idioms, it just means easy. And if it just means easy, then why don't we just say that's easy? And instead of saying that's a piece of cake, well, there are a couple different reasons. One reason is it's interesting to use different kinds of expressions instead of only using one word to say what you mean. When people ask me, Well, why don't you just save that then that's the simple meaning. Do you, in your language only use one word when you want to say that thing? No, there are expressions and idioms which give different feelings, different impressions. And so we use them to make our language more colorful, to make what we're saying a little more interesting. So we might say a piece of cake to maybe focus on the simplicity or ease even more than saying easy, even more focus on it. It really makes it quite strong like a phone. I don't even need to think about that. I don't even need to give a second of thought to it. That's how easy it is. That's often how a piece of cake is used. And now it can be used kind of like an adjective. Because if someone says, Oh, can you do this? The answer can be piece of cake, which is the same as saying easy, which is basically using it like an adjective. But we can make it a noun just by using a, that's a piece of cake. So now this is being used as a noun, but it still has the same, same meaning. All right, So when people hear Piece of cake, The feeling they're going to get is maybe. Even easier than if you were to just say, Oh, yeah, that's easy, that's easy. Same meaning, slightly different feeling. Let's look at some specific examples. Climbing Mount Everest was a piece of cake. I thought you said piece of cake means easy. What? Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. And climbing it is obviously one of the most difficult things that you can do. That's an S, that's an S there. That is an H. Well, this is this things as no good. T, H, I, N, G, S. One of the most difficult things you can do, but you say Piece of cake. Can you say that? Well, here we're being sarcastic. Often to be funny or sarcastic in English, people will use something like this, which focuses on the ease of something, to talk about, something that was very difficult. And that might make people laugh. If somebody climbed Mount Everest and then then come down. And some journalists say, how was climbing Mount Everest? Was it as hard as you thought it would be? And they say, No. Actually climbing Mount Everest was a piece of cake. Then all of the journalists may have, they might laugh, not like that. Maybe they will do real laughs instead of my fake laugh. So here it's being used sarcastically, sarcastic or sarcasm. Sarcasm, saying the opposite of what you mean. For some effect. Maybe to be funny, Maybe just to make people think more, or maybe as a way to say what you mean a little less directly. Nobody who hears this will say, really, everybody knows you're being sarcastic. Okay, let's look at one more example. How was the exam? This is the mom is a daughter. Daughter had a tough test, a tough exam or an exam, and she studied. The daughter studied a lot. So she thought, man, this is going to be a piece of cake because I studied so hard. Later, mom asks, How was the exam? By the way, this is a question that we often ask. How was the data? When someone comes home, it's very polite in, in American culture to say, How was work, How was school, How was the exam, how was the big meeting today? Things like that. When you use how was to get updates and show that we're interested in the people around us, our friends, family members. I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. That was what my idea was before. So we already know that it wasn't. If she says I thought it was a piece of cake, we know that she was incorrect because she said I thought, okay, if it really was, she would just say Piece of cake. So then you might ask, how do I know if that is sarcastic or not? Well, we would have to know the full situation may be and also listen to the tone in her voice. Piece of cake maybe means it wasn't a piece of cake. All right. So I was dead wrong. Okay. I was under the impression I had the idea it was going to be easy because I studied so hard. But maybe some things on the exam we're different than what I expected. I was dead wrong. Dead wrong means totally wrong. Totally wrong. It helps us to make that stronger. Doesn't have anything to do with being dead. Just makes it a little bit stronger. I was totally, I was totally wrong, by the way, very common. Okay. So we can use it this way as well. We can use it this way as well when we think something is going to be easy. This one is, I think, pretty simple and you'll hear it a lot. And actually I think anybody can use it. It's not formal, it's not informal. It's just a way to express that something is easy, or maybe to emphasize that it's very easy. Or sometimes to be sarcastic. When things are actually very difficult. 44. A Blessing in Disguise: Ah, blessing in disguise. A blessing in disguise. This this idiom, I think is so cool. And I'm going to explain what it means first so that we can have a pretty clear idea about why people use it. And then we'll look at some examples so that you'll know how to use it. Okay, so a blessing is a wonderful thing that happens to us. A wonderful, a wonderful thing in our lives in our lives. Oh, it's such a blessing. People say we used the expression Count your blessings, count your blessings. That is to say, Think about all the good things in your life, not the bad things, and appreciate them. Be glad for the things that you have that are blessings. Okay, Disguise. Well, Halloween Halloween is a special holiday. And on this holiday, people wear costumes. And when you wear a costume, you are in disguise in disguise. That means you're pretending to be someone or something that you're not. Maybe you're wearing a fake moustache and some glasses. Well, that is a disguise. Maybe you're wearing a mask. A mask to cover your face. Maybe you're dressed as a ghost. Whatever you are in disguise. So let's say here is a blessing. A little blessing with a tiny little a tiny little hat. Why? Ah, blessing is shaped like a peanut, but this is silly. Okay, here's a little blessing. I am a blessing and the blessing. You can't see the blessing. Why not? Because the blessing is wearing a mask. Andi, it's the Basque of a very scary Ah, very scary thing with crazy hair and ah, spaghetti arms. Okay. And this is hiding behind this. This is a mask. And I'm sorry for my terrible drawing, but, um well, I'm sorry. And when we take away the mask this terrible, terrible, ugly, disgusting, horrible mask we find uh huh. It's a blessing. Well, a blessing is a good thing. So it's a blessing in disguise when bad things happen to us in life. But because of those bad things, good things later happen. We say that a bad thing was a blessing in disguise. Will look at some examples, but that's the basic idea. Bad things happen. At first we think it's so bad, but later we find Oh, this wonderful good thing happened because of this bad thing. Okay, so it was a blessing in disguise. Let's look at some specific examples. My car accident was a blessing in disguise. A blessing in disguise. We can consider this as a kind of. Now, if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't have met my wife. So now this person is married And somehow because of this bad thing a car accident. Bad, bad event. He was able to get married. How could that be? Well, And this is an example from my own life. Someone gets in a car accident and they meet a nurse, they meet a nurse or they meet a patient, another patient. And either this person or someone, this person introduces this person to becomes their future wife. This is definitely a blessing in disguise. Because now this person is very happy now because they're married and they have a happy life. And it never would have happened without the car accident. In fact, Ah, car accident is the cause of my parents meeting. My father worked in the hospital and met someone who was in a car accident. And she introduced my father to another person who my father ended up marrying. That other person is my mother So I am here today talking with you and teaching you this expression and many others and sharing English videos on YouTube and whatever else I do, I'm alive because of a car accident. That's a blessing in disguise, A blessing in disguise. So I think that's hopefully a clear example of this expression. Bad things are often a blessing in disguise. You just need to be patient. That means just just wait Something good? We often say this to something good will come out of it. There is always a silver Oops. Sorry s I l ve are. There's always a silver lining. Let me write this down below silver lining Every cloud has a silver lining. Here is a dark, black, scary cloud and around the outside of the cloud is a shiny silver line. Every cloud has a silver lining. Many things are many bad things are just a blessing in disguise. Now, who can use this on when you can say any time this kind of thing comes up. It's a description of a kind of thing. It's not formal or informal. It can be used in all kinds of different situations. Maybe you use it when you're talking about the past, you're reflecting as I did when I talked about how my parents met, right? I looked back into the past and I describe this thing as a blessing in disguise. Or maybe you want to use this expression when your friend is going through something very difficult and they're struggling, and you want to say to them, It's okay, this may be a blessing in disguise. That means something good may come out of this. There may be a silver lining in all of this bad stuff that's going on. Just be patient and try to look at the good side of things. Something good will come out of it. Okay, so hopefully this expression is clear. Hopefully now you know how to use it. 45. Fishy: fishy, fishy. Usually we talk about phrases here several words together, but for this one, we're talking about just one word, and, ah, I'm sure you can see the word fish here. It's going to be kind of related to fish in a way, but a little bit more abstract, basically the way that fishy is typically used. The way that it's usually used is to say that something is suspicious or you doubt it. No, that's it. You Something just doesn't doesn't seem right. Doesn't seem right. And we often say, I don't know. I don't know. Whatever it may be about, I don't know it just just sorry, not fussed, just feels. Seems fishy. I don't know, just seems very fishy. Something weird is going on here. It's very suspicious. Have doubt. Have doubts in my mind. What's going on here, All right? Sometimes we describe things like food as fishy, literally. Something that smells like a fish is fishy. We say. What is that fishy smell? What is that fishy smell? It's not smelly. What is that fishy smell? Well, that's kind of where it comes from. That's why this is a little abstract when we smell something fishy, literally. That means that something smells like fish, but usually not in a good way. It's kind of a stink. Maybe there's a stink. Something stinks. And if we say something just smells fishy to me, something smells fishy in this way, right? Basically, we're doing the same thing, except there's really no smell. We're talking about our feelings, how things feel, how things seem. We can use the word smell here. If you meet somebody who gives you a great offer and maybe they have a deal for you that just seems too good to be true. You can save $400 on something if you only spend 100. I don't know, just smells fishy to me. Maybe you think you're going to be scammed. Maybe you think it's a scam. That means someone is trying to cheat you. To take your money just seems a little fishy. We also use fishy, sometimes to talk about the taste of fish being somehow mawr like fish. Usually we like fish or people usually like fish that's quite mild, not a very strong taste. But if it has that very strong taste, or you can really taste of the ocean or whatever that taste is, we say, uh, I'm not crazy about it. It's just a little too too fishy for me. And here we really mean taste like fish, but more like fish than other fish, even though we're talking about fish. So this one's a little weird. But for strong tasting fish, people might say this one. But I really want to focus on this, meaning something suspicious, something doubtful, something maybe that seems like a scam. Let's focus on this and look at a couple examples. I don't know what it is, but there's something fishy about this company. Something isn't right. So maybe you go somewhere for a for a job interview. And there's just something odd about the behavior of everyone there. Something odd you don't know what it is. You can't put your finger on it on the thing that seems just odd to you, it seems off you can say there's just something off about this place. There's just something fishy about this company, and maybe it's because they're gonna ask you to pay a fee to do the application, and it's not a real company. Or maybe there's nothing wrong. And you just feel that way for some reason and the people at the company or just overly friendly And it seems it seems fake to you seem like fakers. Well, maybe they're totally fine, and it's just how you feel about it. But anyway, something is off. Something is fishy. Something just isn't right. And usually when we say that something's fishy, we don't know the cause yet. If we know the cause, we probably won't use the word fishy this way. We'll just say, Oh, this is the problem. Oh, they This is a fake company. It's a scam. They're trying to get your money. Oh, okay. So you won't use fishy use fishy when you're not sure what's going on. There's something fishy about a BMW for only $3000. Something must be wrong here. Someone is trying to sell a BMW, right? And the price is only 3000. Well, maybe it doesn't work. Maybe it's going to work for two days and then break down anyway. It's fishy. Usually, maybe a BMW will sell for second hand 8000 or 9000. This one is only three. Something fishy. Something fishy about this thing. So we can say there's something fishy going on going on here, something fishy going on here. Something fishy about that or about him or her could be a person. We can use it in lots of different ways. I find it to be a very useful expression, a very useful word to describe that feeling because suspicious doesn't quite cover it. I feel. And also I think it's easy to remember, because when we walk into an apartment that smells very much like fish in a bad way, we say, Oh so fishy in here, right? Something is not quite right. Maybe maybe the fish has been sitting out for too long, so it smells very fishy. Smells very fishy. Something something smells fishy about a BMW for only 3000. So I think actually, thinking off a strange smell is a good way to remember this word. 46. Out of the Blue: out of the blue, out of the blue, out of the blue For this one. It would be very useful if I had colors here. I want you to imagine that my blackboard here is actually not black, but it is a a blue sky. You have to really use your imagination here. Imagine you're looking at Ah, beautiful blue sky. Okay. And suddenly, suddenly a rock a meteor falls out of the sky, church and lands and you see it and you go over there and you look at it and it's a It's a really rock that comes from space, but it suddenly came out of the sky out of what's guy out of the blue sky. Okay, this is the idea. This is the thing that can help you remember. This is our visual. Remember? Visual is something that can help us remember something in a sort of picture type way. So this is Ah, picture we can remember. And it really does come from this. You can use it for the actual sky and things that suddenly come from the sky because the sky is blue. A baseball came flying out of the blue and almost hit me in the head. I could have died. Baseball came flying out of the blue, out of the blue. Now what does blue here really mean? Why do we use this? Well, because it's It's the color of the sky. But really, it means we don't know the beginning point. That's the key thing here. Really, it's saying out of no where Out of nowhere, I don't know where it came from. That's the main idea. That's the main meaning here. The main meaning here is an unknown origin, and then it's like it suddenly in their origin, and it's like it's suddenly appeared. Okay, we could use it to actually talk about physical things like balls flying around in the air . We could also use it to talk about things that happen, things people say, and they don't seem to have a clear origin or cause. And then out of the blue, my wife just told me, Hey, I want to I want to move to South America. But we had never talked about that before. What are you saying this out of the blue? Why are you saying this out of the blue? Why are you saying this out of nowhere. We can really replace blue here with nowhere out of nowhere, she said, Out of nowhere the ball and then you say What happened? Okay, out of the blue suddenly, basically, is the idea. Okay, so let's look at a few examples so that we can have a better feeling for this one. We were sitting there having a coffee and out of the blue. She said, I want to buy a giraffe. Giraffe is an animal with a very long neck. Most people don't buy it. Giraffes, right? Some some crazy billionaires might have a giraffe, but out of the blue, she said, I want to buy a giraffe. And I said, What? What? Are you kidding me? What? We weren't even talking about giraffes. Now, why are you saying you want to buy a direct? What are you talking about? Where Where is this coming from? Where is this coming from? That means this is something I could say here as a reply. When somebody says something that seems out of nowhere or out of the blue, we can say, Where is this coming from? I don't know the source or origin or cause of what you're saying. We weren't having a discussion about billionaires or giraffes. So why are you suddenly saying this? I don't know. Where is this coming from? This shows my sort of confusion or dismay. My confusion or dismay, huh? Dismay. Okay, maybe dismay is a little strong. Let's say confusion. That's better. OK, this is the idea. Let's look at another example, though totally out of the blue, I got an email from an old high school classmate asking if I'd like to have dinner sometime . I hadn't talked to her in 25 years. Now we can say, then totally out of the blue before the thing happens or before we describe what happened. If I haven't talked to this person in 25 years, that means I'm definitely not expecting. I'm not expecting an email from this person, right? Why would they send me an email? And yet they sent me an email, but because I'm not expecting it, I might use out off the blue. I add totally to just give it a little bit more emphasis to give it a little bit more emphasis to maybe stress that it's shocking to me that this happened totally a surprise to me. It came out of nowhere. And if we wanted to move this to the end, I got an email from an old high school classmate asking if I'd like to have dinner sometime , totally out of the blue. That's okay, too. I hadn't talked to her in 25 years or we could make a new sentence here after we say all of this. All of this, then, is a sort of comment. Then, as a kind of comment about the whole thing, we might just by itself say, totally out of the blue, totally out off the blue, and then right. If I'm talking to someone and then they'll sage. Yeah, that's pretty weird. That's pretty weird. Okay, so this one's really common. I use this one very often when I have this kind of thing happened to me. And sometimes sometimes I'm using when I share examples. Sometimes I'm using examples from my real life so that you can sort of see how I use it so that you can have a better feeling for it. I'll give you a hint. Though I have not been out of high school for 25 years. I'm not that old, but I am old. But I'm not that old. Anyway, I will see you in the next lesson. 47. 24/7: 24 7 24 7 Well, I think you probably know this one already, but we still need to talk about how to use it. Let me just quickly explain 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week. That's why people say 24 7 and 24 7 can be used in different ways. We could say, for example, we are We are here 24 7 and some people will write it out 2024 seven. But usually we write it like this. We're here 24 7 and this could be literal or an exaggeration. And I think it's used probably 50 50 literally or as an exaggeration. For example, if we're talking about a place that's always open, then we might say we're here 24 7 And that really means someone is actually hear all that every day. 365 days a year. Okay, exaggeration. We're here 24 7 The feeling is we're always here now. We're not always here, but we feel like we always are. Feels like we're here in the office. 24 7 The amount of hours that we've worked overtime this week is crazy. We've been here 24 7 for the last week. Well, in fact, not, in fact, not okay, but it feels like that sometimes I feel I've been recording this course 24 7 for the past several weeks. Maybe true, maybe true. That's an exaggeration. It's not actually true, but it's a way to get across or communicate an idea. And the idea is, it seems like we've been here all the time. That's the feeling. I'm kind of tired a little bit, or I just have this feeling that this has gone on and on, on and on, on and on. Okay, that's the idea. We also, though, used this as a very simple adjective. For example, Uh, 24 seven Hotline, a 24 7 hotline. Okay, so that means you can always call day or night. All year 24 7 Hotline hotline is the noun. This is an adjective or a 24 7 store, 24 7 shop. What is a hotline, by the way? Well, this is It's just a phone line you can always call. They sometimes have hotlines related to ah, Police Department, and you can call and report a crime or abuse. Or maybe there's a ah hotline for a therapy suicide hotline. Suicide hotline. If you're feeling depressed, you feel like hopefully nobody feels like this watching this course. But some people feel like they want to kill themselves. They want to commit suicide. Well, there are hotlines to talk to people who are having those feelings, and they're very useful. You can call them, talk to people and feel better. Hopefully so. 24 7 hotline. Okay, so that's the idea. Let's look at some examples. Simple example. Most convenient stores are open 24 7 all day, every day, all day, every day. Or we could say around the clock around the clock. Sometimes people will say Always open. We are always open. Most convenient stores are always open. Ah, famous convenience store would be 7 11 7 11 Or maybe Lawson and, um, these air places. You can go to buy snacks or buy things any time. 24 seven. Listen, I cant talk on the phone. 24 7 I have other things to do now. This does not mean literally 24 7 but it means I can't talk on the phone too much. So maybe there's Ah, girlfriend or boyfriend, and either the girlfriend or the boyfriend is always wanting to talk on the phone and chat . But the other one is maybe doing a lot of work or doing something else and and doesn't want to spend that much time on the phone. So that person might say, I can't talk on the phone 24 7 I can't talk on the phone. Oh, the time I can't talk on the phone all the time too much. I have other things to do now. Is this polite? Can't do this 24 7? No, no, not really. Maybe it depends on the relationship. I think it could be a little rude here. This might make the other person a little upset, but to be very clear, it is an exaggeration. It's an exaggeration. That means it's not exactly what it means. They're not actually talking on the phone, 24 7 But sometimes when we want to make a point, we exaggerate things. I'm starving. I could eat a horse. I've been waiting forever. I can't talk on the phone 24 7 I have other things to do. One way I often use this one is to talk about thinking of ideas. I might say I'm thinking of ideas 24 7 24 7 This makes it feel like I never stop. I never stop, For example, thinking of ideas about videos. If you haven't seen my videos, make sure to check out my YouTube, my YouTube channel. I've got a lot of videos, free videos you can watch. But if I say I never stop, I never stopped. I do it 24 7 Is it really true? No, no, it's an exaggeration, but I'm saying it because I want to give other people a certain feeling doesn't mean I'm lying. I'm not lying. People know that. I'm not really thinking about it 24 7 but I'm trying to give people the feeling that I do it a lot, which is true, which is true. So it's just an exaggeration and exaggeration, and it makes people feel that this is either your passion or something that you're doing too much, something you're doing all the time. And it could be good or bad. 48. Status Quo: status quo. Status quo. Pronunciation kuo status quo. This means what is normal, the normal condition of things. We often just say the norm. And it's often used to talk about current affairs, business, maybe politics. And we say things like, Well, I'm kind of tired of the status quo. We really need to do something different. Tired of the status quo, the status quo, status quo, the status quo Usually, usually it will have that here like that. And for this one. If you want to use it for yourself, you could be talking about the condition of your life. But then we need to talk about usually the change that's going to happen to get out of the status quo. Is the status quo always a bad thing? No, no. Some people will say I'm really a fan, A fan of the status quo. Let's keep things as they are. The status quo is good. Let's not change it. Things are working Well, why do we need to change something that's working? Well, we have this other expression, this other expression, if it isn't and a lot of people right ain't if it ain't broke, uh, broke. Don't fix it. That's basically a way to say Leave the status quo as it is. Leave the status quo alone. Leave the status quo intact intact because it's working fine for everybody. Now maybe the status quo is working very well for these people. But these people want to change the status quo because it's not good for them. So maybe people who are really wealthy Status Co. Is good for them. The whole system is working to make them more and more wealthy. But these people are unhappy because they can't get wealthy because these people are too wealthy and they want to upset or change the status quo because they don't like the way things are. So usually we talk about the status quo as a system, the things that are going on in society and again sometimes in our own lives. So this is the basic idea. I think the hardest part about this one is the pronunciation quote Kwo kwo. I don't really have a visual for this one, but I think if we look at a few examples, it will be more clear. I don't want things to stay. The same change is crucial, upsetting the status quo is the only way to have progress in anything in anything. And that means again, uh, our lives, society, politics, whatever you want to say. Almost anything. Okay? Change is crucial. That means very important. So I think this one's pretty easy to understand. Upsetting the status quo we can imagine here a table and on the table is ah, as a vase with a flower in it. But this flower has always been there and we want to put a different flower in a vase here . So we knock the table over and the flower falls down. We have upset the status quo, the normal way of things, the normal condition. And now we can make a change. Maybe now we can have progress again. I wanted to be very clear. It's not always a good thing. It shouldn't always be that the status quo has to be changed. Right? We say that has always been the status quo. It has always been the status quo. Why change it? Oh, yeah. Good point. Maybe you're right. So it's not positive. It's not negative. It depends on the situation. And it depends on the perspective of whoever is talking about it. This example could be a good one for talking about keeping the status quo or maintaining the status quo. Maintaining the status quo is the only way to keep traditions alive. If everything is always changing, we will forget where we came from. So traditions are things that are in our culture that we we keep and we practice. Maybe holidays may be social norms, a music. Ah, and things like that. If we if we're always changing the status quote, we may forget where we came from. Maintaining the status quo. Let's keep it. Let's not change. Maybe change is not always good. Okay, maybe not. Maybe not. All right, Hopefully it's clear. Talk about in your own example something that you think should change and something that you think should not change. Make sure to use status quo in your example, whether it's written or spoken and recorded, and see if you can see if you can make it fit into the whole description. Naturally, if it sounds natural, then you're probably using it correctly. If you're not sure, look for Mawr examples online. That should not be too hard to find because it is a very, very common phrase 49. Eye-opener: I opener, I opener or I opening I opening, okay, and I open her. That's a noun. That's a known an eye opening is an adjective and then experience or something after it, for example, and I opening experience. That would be an adjective. That would be an adjective. Okay, so what does it mean? Well, this is there a couple different ways to use it. This is on a very simple level, something that makes you go like this thing. To be more awake, what could make you be more awake? How about coffee or tea? Ah, that's an eye opener. But this is really not common, so I don't want to focus on it. But if you drink a strong cup of coffee and you feel more awake, you could say this coffee was an eye opener, but really not as common as what I want. To focus on an eye opener is something that's not what I wanted to write down, something that makes you realize a new and important thing, something that you didn't know before. Something that maybe you didn't think about before. Something you didn't realize before. And you learn about this and it opens your eyes. What an eye opening thing. An eye opening thing. So, for example, practicing yoga for the first time, for me was a very eye opening experience. Now that doesn't mean that my eyes were more open, but it's kind of like the I in my brain was more open. I hadn't thought about myself in that way. Learning to do yoga poses helped me learn about my balance and how to use strength in different ways and breathe right, so the first time I did it was really profound. And profound and eye opening are often very similar. Eye opening and profound are in fact, synonyms. They can have the same meaning, a profound experience. Doing yoga for the first time was an eye opening experience, and after I do it, I can say, Well, that was That was an eye opener that was an eye opener. It could also thobe realizing something on an intellectual level. Maybe you read an article about something that you hadn't considered before or you thought this was true. And then, after reading the article, you realized the opposite was true. You say, Well, what an eye opener, What an eye opener. That was a very eye opening article that's very eye opening to read that my eyes were opened. Sometimes we say that to my eyes were opened. This article really opened my eyes and then we can add to the article opened my eyes to the maybe the seriousness of the economic issues happening now. So maybe there's some things happening in the economy and I didn't really think about it. Or maybe I thought, It's OK, not a big problem. Then I read an article and what? What I thought was true is not true. It opened my eyes to that. The article was an eye opener. Okay, that's the idea. So let's look at some examples. Visiting the slums was a re ally opener, visiting the slums, visiting. Doing that thing, Waas was so it's sort of like doing the thing is a noun. That thing is the action, but it's still kind of like a noun. Visiting the slums was a real eye opener. I didn't know that people really lived like that. It made me thankful, so slums are usually a very poor place where many, many people live, and maybe they don't have clean running water. Maybe people who live in slums, uh, they have to deal with basic sanitation and cleanliness. And maybe their houses are very, very small. And they don't follow the building codes, so that could be dangerous. Okay, well, I've been to some slums before, and it waas I opening. It was eye opening. It was an eye opening experience. It was an eye opener. It opened my eyes to the extremes of human living conditions. It made me thankful that I can live in a house with the bed and electricity, and I can turn on the heat when I want to. It made me thankful for what I have, because I don't think it would be very fun to live in the slums. So I just want to be clear before we go on to the next example that it's easy to make variations with this. The experience is an eye opener, but if you want to use the adjective, it is eye opening, or you can add announce. It is N. I opening experience or if you want to say it opened my eyes, it's more active. It's a verb. You can use that to and you can usually use all of them, depending on the example. I suppose there are some cases where one sounds better than the other, but you can usually use all of them and switch them out, depending on really what you prefer or how the rest of the sentences look. Maybe you want to use one. If you've used too many now owns in another sentence you might use. It really opened my eyes to make it feel more active. Or you might say it was an eye opener. If you want to just say it very quickly and call that an experience, it's really up to you. Watching a surgery was an eye opening experience. Now I understand how difficult it is to save a life. An eye opening experience. I was in high school, I watched a heart surgery and I had never seen anything like that before. In fact, I had never really thought about how difficult it is to be a surgeon and actually save somebody's life, fixed their heart and I watched it live. It was live. It was very eye opening. So the way I think of this expression is I think of it like opening little windows. You never thought about that before. You didn't really consider it before where you thought it was this way, but in fact it's not. And then someone introduces something to you. You see something that changes your initial feeling about that to the opposite, or if you never really thought about it before, opens a new window, it opens a little window and you say, Oh, that's a real thing. I didn't think about that before. Then you can say you realize something new. Your eyes were open. You open your eyes. I do want to say it opened. My eyes is often a more profound, profound one. Sometimes that's used for more serious examples. So if you're not sure, just say eye opening. Use it as an adjective or an eye opener. Use it as a noun. This one opened. My eyes, opened my eyes. It's just often a bit more formal and more serious. Something really big, maybe. OK, make your own examples. Talk about something. Before that was eye opening to you, something you realized for the first time. I try to make variations. When you make your examples, try to say the same thing. Three different ways. Use eye opening I opener and opened my eyes. OK, try to make variations. That will help you really explore the expression. Good luck. 50. Off the Hook: off the hook off the hook. This is similar to another expression you may know. Dodge the bullet to avoid something, maybe avoid responsibility or avoid punishment, or generally just to avoid something unpleasant. Avoid something unpleasant and there's a nice visual here. A nice visual. Let's imagine a hook on a wall like a like a hook that you would hang your coat on. And there's a person who's hanging here by their coat. OK, here's a person and they're hanging here on the hook. Legs there. I'm stuck on the hook. They can't get down. Okay? They're on the hook. They're on the hook. If they get off the hook, that means then they're no longer in this bad place. They're no longer in maybe pain or no longer going to face some some bad results of bad consequence. That's the basic idea. We sometimes use this one off the hook when we're talking about crime. Ah, criminal is accused of doing something, and then there's a trial and there's a jury, and the trial is the process. When they try to figure out, Is this person innocent? That's a cease, are innocent or guilty, innocent or guilty And so there's this trial and there's a jury. This is a group of people who will decide if this person who is accused of a crime is innocent or guilty and they will listen to evidence. They will argue there will be maybe witnesses. Witnesses are people who really saw the thing happen. They say he did it. Oh, maybe that's not so good. So, uh, if at the end nobody really knows what's going to happen the jury comes forward and says, We believe this person we call them the defendant anyway is innocent. That means they think they didn't do it, whether or not they did. The point is they got off the hook. Someone might might have been caught by the police. Right. And they were able to get out of maybe being taken to jail or punished or given a ticket. I got off the hook. Leslie, do you have to goto work? No, I'm off the hook. I'm off the hook. So here she's maybe avoiding something that she'd rather not do. She'd rather not go to work. And she thought she was going to have to go. But in the end, she didn't have to go, so she is off the hook. Sometimes we say get off the hook. Sometimes we say I am off the hook. We say we get let off the hook. So all of these, all of these work and it can really be for responsibilities. It could be for accusations. We might be talking about danger, Danger? You can get off the hook if you are in a dangerous situation and you get out of that, you could say, Well, we got we barely got off the hook. We barely got off the hook with that one and we can talk about it as though we're doing it to others. I will let you off the hook. I will let you off the hook. They let Charlie off the hook with a warning after he was accused of sending his identical twin, Leon on a business trip in his place so that he could stay home. This would be a very weird situation, but you have to twins who are identical. That means they look the same identical, they look the same. So here's Here's Charlie and Charlie works here, and that's they, by the way, they would be his his employers and Charlie supposed to go on a business trip. And this is Charlie's identical twin brother. They look exactly the same now. Charlie didn't want to go on this business trip, so he sent his brother instead and he got caught. He got caught. Now, if he got caught doing that, he could be fired from his job. Right? That's maybe using company resource is to just have a free vacation for his brother Leon. Well, Charlie maybe gets paid and stays home and plays video games. Sounds pretty good, but anyway, this is not cool, but he doesn't get fired. Maybe he should get fired, but he doesn't. He gets let off the hook. They let Charlie off the hook, They say, Charlie, Okay. We're not going to fire you this time. This was not cool. This was not cool. If you do something bad, someone might say not cool. You shouldn't have done that. But this is a warning. A warning means if you do anything else like this again, you will be gone. You will be out to be fired. We may even sue you for the cost and ah, using resources to give your brother a vacation. Not good, Charlie. Not good. Gonna let you off with a warning. So there are some kids and they get a snow day a snow day. They don't have to go to school because it's snowing a lot. That's a thing that happens in America. School would be cancelled. So they're thinking who we get to go play. We we got off the hook. That means we didn't have to go to school to do something we have to do usually. So we're going to go outside and play. But then, uh oh. One of their parents, mom or Dad, says, Don't think you're off the hook or getting off the hook just because school got canceled. You thought you could just play all day? I'm giving you extra assignments, get busy, get busy. So that means Mom or Dad gave them more school work to do because school was canceled. Wow, that is tough. So they thought they were off the hook. They thought they could avoid the responsibilities of school because it got cancelled. But it turns out No, no. Do you think you're off the hook? Sorry. You're not off the hook. you still have to do schoolwork. How terrible would that be? That would be so terrible. Finally, I think it would be irresponsible of me not to mention this. It has really nothing to do with the meaning that we talked about before, or any of the other examples. If somebody says this is off the hook, it means it's It's awesome. It's cool. It's a fairly new term. It's a fairly new way to say it. I honestly don't know why it means this. And I think you'll hear it more often among younger people, definitely more often among younger people, not older people. If something is cool or awesome or great, people will say this is off the hook Off the hook. This venue is off the hook of any was a place where maybe concerts happen for music shows. This venue is off the hook. I've never seen anything like it, Okay, so when you're practicing these, remember to make different kinds of examples that are very different to really push your understanding off this expression, and I'll see you in the next one 51. Barking up the Wrong Tree: barking up the wrong tree, barking up the wrong tree. Now this expression is very visual. You know how if we can we like to have a visual Because visual helps us remember the meaning of an expression. Well, this one is really visual. I want you to imagine a tree. No, don't imagine it. Just look at my beautiful drawing of a tree. Oh, what a beautiful tree. There's a little apple hanging from the tree, Caray. Okay, beautiful tree. And there is another tree. I'm gonna drop to trees. Nice. Oh, this was more beautiful. Okay, now a cat. A cat. Let's say there's a cat running rare and being chased by a dog. Also running kind of a dumb dog, though wherever that is barking that that sound root root that a dog makes is called barking. The dog is barking. Could be a now a dog's bark or barking. Okay, Now the cat runs up This street room runs up this tree and hides in the tree from the dog. Dogs can't climb trees, but the dog missed it. The dog didn't see the cat running up this tree. The dog thought the cat ran up this tree. Right? So the dog runs over here and is looking up the branches of the tree thinking the cat is up there trying to scare it so that it will come down or something. I don't know. The cat is over here. The dog is. Remember river barking at thisted tree. He's barking up the wrong tree. So you're trying to figure something out? You're trying to figure out an answer to a question, okay? And they're different areas that you can explore to figure out the answer. You can talk to this group of people. You can read these books. You can think in this way, right? You can maybe have this method or technique. You're trying all these things. The real answer is here. This is where the answer is. It's in this book in this particular maybe bookstore. You find that book, you read that page, you've got the answer. Or maybe it's talking to this particular old lady. If you're investigating something, you talk to her, you have a conversation, you find the answer. You're looking for whatever it is, But that's not what you're really doing. Your over here, you're over here talking to the wrong people in the wrong city. Even. Maybe finally, you figure out that you should be over here and again. This doesn't have to be People can be methods. Re sources can be locations. It can be strategies. So you've been talking to this group of people thinking who? Maybe I'll be able to find out what I'm trying to find out, and then you fail. After a couple months, you finally talked to this group of people. It's the right group of people. You find the answer, whatever it is, and then you say, W