Bob's Short English Lessons

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So anyways, what else was I going to

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#englis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So we'll see ho

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So I'm trying, though, not to

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few things around here, though, that I wanted to show you, in particular, I love it when flowers really start to take off, when they start to bloom. In English, when you say something is taking off, it means it's doing well or growing well or things are just going well. So you can see here sunflowers, they grew like crazy. These aren't

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So we have this chicken tractor. The chickens, I think, like being outside more than they like being inside anyways. I think they're really enjoying their time outside. They're a little... I hope you guys aren't scared of chickens. They're a little timid right no

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yesterday, I coul

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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