Learn the English Phrases TO STRIKE ME THAT / TO STRIKE ME AS and TO STRIKE A BALANCE

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.

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO STRIKE ME THAT or TO STRIKE ME AS and TO STRIKE A BALANCE

WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN"

✅If you enjoy these lessons please consider supporting me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian

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Previous Episode

Learn the English Phrases TO KEEP SOMETHING STRAIGHT and TO KEEP AT SOMETHING

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO KEEP SOMETHING STRAIGHT and TO KEEP AT SOMETHING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "To keep something straight," or, "To keep things straight." When you want to keep something straight or you want to keep things straight, it's the opposite of being confused. Sometimes when Jen plants a lot of small plants, she puts labels on things because she wants to be able to keep things straight. I know I'm using things instead of something here, sorry about that, there's kind of two phrases, but she doesn't want to be confused later. Sometimes my mom has trouble keeping things straight, she has trouble remembering which of her sons has which name. Sometimes she calls me John, and my name's not John, but sometimes my mom has a little trouble keeping our names straight between my older brother and my younger brother and I, sometimes my mom has trouble keeping our names straight. I hope my mom's not watching this, maybe she is, it's not a big deal.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is, "To keep at something." When you keep at something, it simply means that you keep doing it. In fact, I'm not sure why we have the phrase, "To keep at something." If I say to you, "I go for a walk every day, and I'm going to keep walking every day," I could also say, "I go walking every day, and I'm going to keep at it," it means exactly the same thing, when you keep at something, it means that you keep doing it. Jen and I, as you know, grow flowers, and we're gonna keep at it. We like doing it, so every year we're going to grow more, and every year hopefully we sell all of them, we'll see.
And so anyways, to review, "To keep something straight," means the opposite of being confused, it means to keep things in an orderly fashion in your mind, and, "To keep at something," simply means to keep doing it. So I like doing these little English lessons, I'm gonna keep at it.
Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video, and this no comment is from Mohd Ags, and it is this, "If you don't mind me asking, why do you always use three emojis in your replies?" And my reply was this, "I like to pick one with a smiley face and two others that either relate to the lesson or strike me as cool. Today, I'm using four." So yes, for those of you that actually read the comments and ask and leave comments, you'll notice that I regularly end my comment with three emojis. Usually the first one is the smiley face of the guy with sunglasses, 'cause he kinda looks like me, a big round head with sunglasses on, and sometimes just a regular smiley face. And then I usually pick two that maybe relate to the lesson, maybe they relate to something I saw that day, maybe they relate to, I don't know, it's just something that strikes me as a cool one to choose. So thanks, Mohd Ags, for that comment.
To talk about it a bit more, I don't know why I choose three, probably 99% of the time I choose three emojis, sometimes I choose four, sometimes I just put one, but most of the time it's three, so I don't know.

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Next Episode

Learn the English Phrases TO GIVE SOMEONE A HEADS UP and TO FILL SOMEONE IN ON

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GIVE SOMEONE A HEADS UP and TO FILL SOMEONE IN ON

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to give someone a heads up." When you give someone a heads up, it means that you tell them something that maybe they weren't aware of. A good example would be this, a couple of weeks ago, someone made a website and was asking people to give them money and then they said they would give the money to me and then Brent, thankfully, Brent sent me an email because he wanted to give me a heads up that someone was doing this, and a couple other people did as well. So they wanted to let me know that something was happening that maybe I didn't know about it. It was really nice that they were able to give me a heads up. It was really nice that they were able to let me know so that I could kind of take care of that. So when you give someone a heads up, it means you tell them something that maybe they weren't aware of. It's always a good thing to do. It's nice when you can give someone a heads up about something. Thanks, Brent, by the way.

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The other phrase I wanted to tell you today is the phrase "to fill someone in on." I don't know why we have two prepositions at the end of this sentence, but when you fill someone in on something, it means you tell them about it. But it's more of like a formal thing that happens maybe at work or when you're talking about an event. If someone said, "Hey, I don't know anything about this Friday. We're supposed to be having a meeting. Can someone fill me in on the details? Can someone tell me about what's happening?" Or you could say this. Maybe my mom's having a birthday party and I don't know what day it's on. I should know what day my mom's birthday is. I don't know what day it's on and I don't know what time to arrive and I don't know what I'm supposed to bring. I could say to my brothers and sisters, "Could someone fill me in on all the details about mom's birthday party?" By the way, my mom's birthday is coming up in a month and a half but we're probably not having a party. Things won't be open yet here in Ontario, Canada.
Anyways, to review, and hopefully I make some sense. When you give someone a heads up, it means you tell them about something, usually one thing, that maybe they didn't know about. And when you fill someone in on something, it means you give them all the details about something because maybe they were wondering what exactly was going on or what was happening. I hope those explanations made sense. Sometimes when I listen to these lessons later, I think, oh, I did actually make sense. So hopefully that made some sense to you.
Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Voiretvisite and Voiretvisite says, "Hello. It is a nice and beautiful landscape." Usually is. It's kind of nice. "Who takes care of the goats during the day? See you soon." And my response was this. "Jen lets them out in the morning and we bring them back in at night."
So the goats go out in the morning, they go out on the pasture. I did mention, I was going to try and walk and talk more. Let's see if this will work. I'm going to take my camera and walk and point. So way over there is the pasture. We let the goats out in the morning. We let them back in at night. Isn't it weird that we say in the morning and then we say at night? Why do we use different prepositions there? I don't really know. Anyways, they're out there somewhere. I'm not sure if you can see them.

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