Bob's Short English Lessons
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Learn the English Phrases "to sit in on" and "to sit out"
Bob's Short English Lessons
09/11/24 • 4 min
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
Learn the English Phrases "no pun intended" and "pun intended"
Bob's Short English Lessons
09/06/24 • 4 min
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
Learn the English Phrases TO KEEP BUSY and BUSY WORK
Bob's Short English Lessons
09/01/21 • 4 min
Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP BUSY and BUSY WORK
In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to keep busy. This is a phrase that we mostly use when talking about people who are retired. My mom is retired. She worked for a long time, and around age 65, she decided to retire, but she likes to keep busy. In English, when you say that someone wants to keep busy, it usually means they don't have a job, but they still like to do things. My mom, in order to keep busy, volunteers at what's called a thrift store. A thrift store is where people donate clothes, and then the people who work there put prices on them and sell them and the money's used for a good cause. So in order to keep busy, my mom likes to work at the thrift store. We could also say she likes to keep herself busy. That's another way of saying it.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase busy work. Busy work is any kind of work that you do that isn't really productive. It's work that you do for the sake of doing the work. Here's the best example I can think of. Sometimes, when I give my students lessons, I try to make it very, very effective. I want them to learn a lot. I don't want to just give them a bunch of busy work. If I was to give them busy work, that would mean I would make them practice things they already know. I would make them do things that weren't teaching them anything new. I would be giving them busy work. It would just look good. If the principal came in the classroom, it would look like my students were working, but they would just be doing busy work. If I was making them review things that they learned last year, or if I was making them do something over and over again, it would just be busy work.
So to review, to keep busy, or to keep oneself busy, means to do things similar to work, to stay active, to do activities, especially when you are retired or when you don't have a job, maybe you just don't need to work. Maybe you have so much money, you don't need to work, but in order to keep busy, you find little things to do. And busy work is any kind of work that just isn't productive. It's work that you do for the sake of work. I hope that makes sense.
But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Roman and the comment is this. "Hi, Bob, many people shy away from public speaking. "So do I, thanks for the lesson." And my response was, "The funny thing is that once you've done it for a while, "it becomes a lot less stressful. "I think a lot of things in life are that way."
So the funny thing is when I replied to Roman, my first reply, I actually said, "Once you've done it for a while, "it becomes a lot more stressful." I typed the wrong word, so I corrected it, but I thought Roman would probably have a bit of a laugh or maybe be a little confused by that initial response.
But yes, there are many things in life that are just easier once you do it for a while. It doesn't mean it's easy to do that thing. It doesn't mean that there's no stress involved. Usually, there's lots of stress, but I have found that if I can push myself, if I can get to a point where I convince myself to do something stressful, instead of shying away from it, great use of the phrase, by the way, Roman, sometimes, you just do it for a while and you become good at it.
Learn the English Phrases TO BE IN HOT WATER and TO MUDDY THE WATER
Bob's Short English Lessons
07/16/21 • 4 min
Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BE IN HOT WATER and TO MUDDY THE WATER
In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be in hot water. We sometimes also say to get in hot water. When you are in hot water, you are in trouble. When you lie to someone and then they find out that you lied to them, you might be in hot water. If I was to say to Jen that I was going out to visit a friend, and instead I went to the casino and started gambling, if Jen found out, I would definitely be in hot water. By the way, I would never do that. I would never lie to Jen. That's just a bad thing to do when you're in a relationship. But certainly, when you do something that someone doesn't want you to do, that person could certainly be annoyed with you and you would then be in hot water. Not a good situation to be in.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to muddy the water. When you muddy the water, it's when there's a conversation and you introduce new information that makes everyone a little bit confused. Here's a good example. Let's say we were trying to figure out who stole something from the kitchen cupboard. Well, stole is a strong word. Who took something from the kitchen cupboard. My example is usually the last cookie. We're trying to figure out who took the last cookie. Well, if I said to my son, "Did you eat a cookie last night?" and then I said to my daughter, "Did you eat a cookie last night?" and then if my other son started to talk about how much he likes brownies and whether we should be buying brownies, and if we had brownies instead of cookies, then this wouldn't be a problem, I would say that he is starting to muddy the waters. He's starting to introduce information that has nothing to do with the current conversation, and it's making everyone a little bit confused. So he's starting to muddy the water. We also sometimes say, and I just said it, to muddy the waters.
Anyways, to review. When you are in hot water, if you are in hot water, or if you get in hot water, it means that you are in trouble of some kind, usually because of something you did, maybe a lie or maybe just something that you did to someone. And when you muddy the water, it means that you introduce information that kind of confuses all the people who are having a conversation or a discussion.
But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Athanasios, and the comment is this. "Thanks for these useful phrases, Teacher Bob. I have a funny feeling that Teacher Bob is going to buy a pizza for the whole family tomorrow at night. LOL! Bon appetit, sir." And my response is this. "Your guess is very close, although it might actually be tonight," which today is Friday, if you're watching this on Friday. "We usually buy pizza on Friday nights, about two times per month. It's the most reasonably priced food from a restaurant."
So thanks, Athanasios. That was a great use of the phrase a funny feeling or the term a funny feeling, but that was excellent. Yes, good job. I was gonna talk a little bit about the pizza that we get every once in a while. I've talked about from time to time, that sometimes, about twice per month, we'll go and we'll buy pizza. I get it from the restaurant that I went into when I made my video of how to speak English at a restaurant on my other channel, because I feel like it's a good idea to support them. They helped me make a video that was quite successful, so I like to go there and buy pizza at least twice a month, sometimes longer.
Learn The English Phrases TO DUMB DOWN and DUMB LUCK
Bob's Short English Lessons
05/20/22 • 4 min
Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO DUMB DOWN and DUMB LUCK
In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to dumb down. Now I think you know what the word dumb means. It's kind of an insult for someone who's not very smart. If you say he's dumb, you're saying that that person isn't intelligent. So it's not a nice thing to say. But we do use the phrase to dumb down to talk about making something simpler, and easier to understand. Think about it this way. Sometimes you read a book, and it's a really good book, and it's very complex, and a little bit hard to understand, and then they make it into a movie, and then they dumb down the story a little bit, so it's easier for people to understand. Sometimes too they'll make instructions for something, and the instructions might be really hard to understand. So they might say to someone at that company, hey, before we ship that product, someone needs to dumb down the instructions. You need to make them simpler, and easier to understand.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase dumb luck. So luck, when you're lucky, it's just means that something goes your way for no reason. And dumb luck is the same thing basically. A good example would be this. Normally I take a certain road to go to work, but the other day I took a different road, and then I ended up finding out the road I normally take, there was an accident there, and I would've been stuck. So it was just dumb luck that I took the right road. There was no reason when I got to the end of my driveway, I decided to go one way and not the other. It ended up being dumb luck that I just ended up going the way where there was no traffic, and no accident that would have held me up.
So to review, when you dumb down something, when you are going to dumb something down, it means you're going to make it simpler, and easier to understand. And when you have dumb luck, it just means that things went your way for some reason, usually just 'cause you got a little bit lucky.
But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Gill. Thanks, Bob, I like lilac. In Russian, we call it a bush, not a tree. Could you tell me what you call the color of that cat of yours in Canadian English, ginger or red? My response, we also sometimes call it a bush, lilac tree, lilac bush. I think it depends on how tall it is. Also, we would say it is an orange cat. So yeah, technically the lilac trees that I showed you in the last video, technically I think they would be a lilac bush. They look more like a bush than a tree, but we've always called them lilac trees, I think because they are taller than me.
And the cat, yeah, we don't usually call a cat like that a ginger cat. We would usually just say it's an orange cat. And the other name we have for it is Tabby. I think Tabby refers to the pattern of the fur on the cat. So I would've called that an orange Tabby cat.
Hey, an interesting thing is happening at work. For some reason, we are trying to figure out how we used to do all kinds of things in May and in June. Last year in May and June, we were learning from home. Two years ago in May and June, we were learning from home. So there's all these little activities, and things that we can do now that we can do in person. And as a staff, as teachers, we're trying to figure out how we used to do certain things. I was in a meeting this morning where a lot of people were saying, well, how did we do it three years ago the last time we did it? Or how did we do it three years ago? Who was in charge back t
Learn the English Phrases TO STRIKE ME THAT / TO STRIKE ME AS and TO STRIKE A BALANCE
Bob's Short English Lessons
05/12/21 • 3 min
Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO STRIKE ME THAT or TO STRIKE ME AS and TO STRIKE A BALANCE
In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, it strikes me that. This is a phrase that I used yesterday a couple of times when I was talking about the emojis that I like to choose, I said, well, I just choose emojis that strike me as cool. When something strikes you when you describe something as striking you in English, it literally means something hitting you, a ball can strike me in the face, hopefully that doesn't happen. But when something strikes you in the way that I used it, it means that you notice it or you've decided that it's cool. So I pick the emojis based on ones that strike me as cool, ones that I notice are cool or ones that I just think are cool when I see them. So they strike me as being cool.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to strike a balance. When you try to strike a balance, you're trying to create a solution to something. Usually you're trying to get two people to agree on something in a way where they're both happy but they don't both get exactly what they want. Sometimes there's three cookies and I have five children that want the cookies so in order to strike a balance, I cut the cookies in pieces and everyone gets a half and then I get a couple cookie halves too. But anyways, I'm not sure my math is correct but I think you understand what I mean when you strike a balance. If I wanted to strike a balance, I create a situation where everyone gets some of what they want, but not exactly what they wanted and hopefully everybody's happy.
So to review when something strikes you, it can be something that physically hits you like if my, one of my kids kicked a ball at me it could strike me in their head but it can also be used to talk about something that you've noticed. It might strike you as a little bit funny that there are goats behind me, I'm not sure you can see them today. Is that a goat right there? It might be. I know some of you noticed them yesterday. And of course the phrase to strike a balance means to create a situation where everyone gets a little bit of what they want but not exactly what they wanted but hopefully everyone's happy.
Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is a comment from Judit. And Judit says, thanks a lot, cameraman. My response was you're welcome. My camera moving skills are great when I want to show something but not so great when I want to put the camera back in the exact spot I took it from, this time it went quite smoothly.
So in my last video, I actually moved the camera while I was doing the lesson and I thought that maybe I should do that more. Maybe I should actually move the camera a little bit more so you can see more of the things that are happening right around me. I think maybe I scared the goats, maybe not. By the way, some of you thought they might be sheep, they do look a little bit like a type of sheep called a Dorper sheep but they are actually Boer goats.
Learn the English Phrases "to miss out" and "to miss the point"
Bob's Short English Lessons
04/19/23 • 4 min
Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO MISS OUT and TO MISS THE POINT
In this English lesson, I wanted to help you understand the English phrase, to miss out. When you miss out on something, it means you don't go to that thing or do that thing. Here's a good example. If I knew that tomorrow if I stayed after work, I would get free supper, I would say, I can't go. I'm going to miss out, because I have other things that I have to do. If someone said to me, hey, we're going to go see a Toronto Raptors game next week, Thursday night, this is fictional by the way, the Raptors aren't actually playing anymore, but I might say, oh, I'm going to have to miss out because I have other things that I need to do. So when you miss out, it simply means that you can't do something because you have to do something else, and then you miss out. You don't get to do it.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, to miss the point. When you miss the point, it means you don't understand something. Sorry, there was a loud truck there. You don't understand something or you misunderstand it. When you miss the point. If I said to my students, let me think of a good example here. If I said to my students, you should study chapter one, just in case, they might miss the point, and think that they're studying chapter one just because it's fun, when the point was there might be a quiz or test on it. Don't think I'm explaining this one really good. But when you miss the point, it means you don't understand something or you understand it wrong. If you watch this lesson, thinking that you are just going to learn two phrases, you've kind of missed the point. 'Cause the point of this lesson is to learn two phrases and to practice your listening skills and to watch me walk around and show you the town and to get to know me a bit better. So hopefully you don't miss the point.
So to review, to miss out means you don't do something because you can't go or you have other obligations. And to miss the point is to simply misunderstand something or to understand it wrong. Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aline. "Hi Bob! Thanks a lot for another really nice video! And yeah, it's amazing to see and hear nature around you during the lessons." And my response, "Today's lesson will be in town, so no nature to speak of!"
But certainly, loud pickup trucks. I think that might have been in your field of view. I'm not 100% sure, there was a loud pickup truck there. Hey, today, by the way, thank you for the comment, Aline.
So today, I'm in front of an old building. This is actually an old feed mill. In fact, I think it says that somewhere way up there. I'm not sure if you can see it. It says Niagara Grain and Feed. This was a place that made feed for chickens and cows and pigs. But it has been abandoned for a long time. In fact, you can tell it's abandoned by looking at the flower beds in front of it. You can see they're a little bit overgrown. There's not very many nature sounds here. There's a lot of truck sounds. You can see it's overgrown. You can't even use the stairs.
There are signs here like no smoking and no dumping. So they don't want people to dump their garbage here. That's why there's a no dumping sign. But anyways, we used to get feed from here when my parents were dairy farmers. This was one of the places. You can see a big green grain bin, as well. This is one of the places where we got our feed, and it's right in town, by the way. It's smack dab in the middle of town, because it's located, on the other side of
Learn the English Terms GAME CHANGER and FAIR GAME
Bob's Short English Lessons
07/29/22 • 4 min
Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms GAME CHANGER and FAIR GAME
In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a game changer. Game changer is a term we use, sorry, it looks like the garbage truck is here, picking up the garbage. I'll try to continue the lesson. Something is called a game changer when it makes the situation way better. Years ago, we didn't actually have garbage pickup on the farm. When I was a kid, we had to take our garbage to the dump. But when they started to do garbage pickup with the truck, it was a game changer for my parents. It meant that they had more time to work on the farm. They didn't have to drive to the dump once a week to drop off the garbage, so it was a game changer.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase fair game. When something or someone is fair game, it means it's okay to criticize or joke about them. Politicians are fair game. A lot of times comedians will make fun of politicians, because we consider them fair game, that it's okay to make jokes about them. Well, I guess that depends on what country you live in, but I'm not gonna get into that. For my English lessons, pretty much everything is fair game. Although, I usually don't do lessons on politics or religion. I avoid those. So I guess not everything is fair game when it comes to my lessons.
Anyways, to review, when something is a game changer, it means that it changes the situation, or changes your life in some way, that makes it a lot better. And when something is fair game, it means that it is okay to make fun of that person, or that thing, or to criticize them.
But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mahmood. And I actually ran out here quickly to do this, Mahmood. "Hi, teacher, Bob. Thank you for the useful lesson. Why don't you take us near the road? Thank you, Mr. Bob." And my response, "I'll go out near the road today, when I make Friday's lesson, maybe."
So I am out here, and I ran out, because I really wanted to catch the garbage truck. As coincidence, as, sorry. The coincidence was that as I came out to make this lesson, I'm having trouble speaking English today, did you notice that? I saw the garbage truck down the road. So I ran to the end of my driveway, because I wanted to catch the garbage truck on the video. But yes, I'll do a video out here by the road, for sure. We look this way, we can see there's a truck going by.
If you look here, you can see all of our recycle bins on the ground. And the green bin is actually for compost. So in Ontario, Canada, you can put your compost at the road, your kitchen scraps and all those kinds of things, as well. The road is a little bit busy today. You can see there's a couple cars coming behind me, and there's a couple cars coming towards me as well. It's usually not this busy, but I guess people have a lot of stuff to do today. So they're out and about.
Learn the English Terms "bad attitude" and "positive attitude"
Bob's Short English Lessons
10/25/24 • 4 min
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
Learn the English Phrases "past their prime" and "prime time"
Bob's Short English Lessons
04/18/25 • 4 min
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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How many episodes does Bob's Short English Lessons have?
Bob's Short English Lessons currently has 478 episodes available.
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The podcast is about Language Learning, Learning English, Podcasts and Education.
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The episode title 'Learn the English Phrases "to back off" and "to go back on"' is the most popular.
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The average episode length on Bob's Short English Lessons is 4 minutes.
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Episodes of Bob's Short English Lessons are typically released every 2 days.
When was the first episode of Bob's Short English Lessons?
The first episode of Bob's Short English Lessons was released on Aug 26, 2020.
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