Bob's Short English Lessons 6w6a2c

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 that English test, that's probably wishful thinking. You probably aren't doing enough. You're thinking that you're going to 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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 bton 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 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 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 the show

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English 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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 es away. After someone dies, you might say something like I have a heavy heart since my grandmother ed 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. the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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. the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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 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 sur them. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 sur. 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 it 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. the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 . My ears are so cold. I can't what I was saying. Do you know what temperature it is rig the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 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 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" ✅If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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. the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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 , it is a. It's a little bit rude. It's very direct. It's not a kind way of answering someone. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian 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 the show

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. WANT FREE ENGLISH LESSONS? GO TO YOUTUBE AND SEARCH, "BOB THE CANADIAN" If you enjoy these lessons please consider ing me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian And then something that's kind of the opposite in 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 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 the show