Bob's Short English Lessons

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases YOU'RE MORE THAN WELCOME and WELCOME ABOARD In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase you're more than welcome. Now, this phrase might already be familiar to you because when someone says thank you in English, you often respond by saying you're welcome, or you're more than welcome....

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms GENTLE GIANT and SLEEPING GIANT In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term gentle giant. A gentle giant is someone who's really tall and really big, but actually very, very kind. Sometimes when you see a really large man, someone who maybe works out at the gym, someone who's over six feet tall, no...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases UNCHARTED WATERS and TO TEST THE WATERS In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, uncharted waters. We sometimes also say unfamiliar waters. The literal meaning of this is to be out in a boat somewhere where you don't know how deep the water is. It's an area that's uncharted. But we use...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms ELBOW GREASE and ELBOW ROOM In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term, elbow grease. Now, this is your elbow and grease is a lubricant that you put on machinery so that when metal moves against metal, it's nice and slippery. But elbow grease, the term elbow grease simply means hard work that you do by...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THERE ARE PLENTY OF FISH IN THE SEA and THAT SOUNDS FISHY In this English lesson, I want it to help you learn the English phrase... That's upside down, isn't it? In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase there are plenty of fish in the sea. This is something that you can say to someone after...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases A TOUCH OF CLASS and WORLD CLASS In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "a touch of class." When you do something with a touch of class, it means you do something in a way that makes it cooler than normal. Let's think about maybe you're making a dinner for someone special in your...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS and IN THE LONG RUN In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "in the grand scheme of things." This is usually used to talk about something negative that doesn't really affect you in your entire life or in the thing that you are doing. Maybe that didn'...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OUT OF MY CONTROL and TO BE IN CONTROL In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "Out of my control." There are things on this farm that are under my control. There are things that I am in control of, but there are also things that are out of my control. Things like how often it rains, that&...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, TRY, TRY AGAIN and FIRST THINGS FIRST In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. It's a bit of a long one, isn't it? We actually sometimes just say the beginning of this phrase, we say, if at first you don...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I MADE IT and TO HAVE IT MADE In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "I made it". Now you can use this literally. If you made a cake and someone said, "Who made that cake?" You could say, "I made it." But we also use this to say that we've gotten to the end of some...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO FREE UP and AS FREE AS A BIRD In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to free up. This is a phrase that we use when we want to make space or time available to ourselves. Let me give you a few examples. In my classroom, I have a bookshelf and there were a lot of books on there that I didn't nee...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SAME OLD SAME OLD and I'LL HAVE THE SAME In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, same old, same old. No, this is not a typo. We do sometimes say this. We say this when something was the same as the last time we did it. Today I had my first day of work, actually, my second day, I'll explain...

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...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases JUST SHY OF and TO SHY AWAY In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, just shy of. When you are just shy of something, it means you're almost there, but not quite. I'm actually five foot, 10 and a half inches tall. I'm just shy of being six feet tall. Maybe you watch sports, and there y...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG and TO TIP OFF In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase the tip of the iceberg. Now an iceberg is a gigantic block of ice floating in the ocean. And you can see the top of it, but there's a lot more below it. So we use the English phrase, the tip of the iceberg, to talk abo...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases SQUARED AWAY and READY TO ROLL In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "squared away." If I say that something is squared away in English, it means that it's properly organized, it means everything is in its place. If I had something squared away, it would mean that I'm ready for...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WHAT A STEAL and NERVES OF STEEL In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, what a steal. This is something we say when we buy something and the price was really, really low. Notice this word, steal, usually means to take something without paying, but when we buy something that's really, really ch...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms THE BIG SCREEN and THE SMALL SCREEN In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English term, the big screen. The big screen is simply another way of saying the movies. There might be an actor that you know really well and you see him quite often on the big screen. This would mean that that actor often plays roles in mov...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HARD TO FOLLOW and TO FOLLOW IN SOMEONE'S FOOTSTEPS In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "hard to follow." Hard to follow simply means that something is hard to understand or it's hard to keep track of what's happening when you're watching something or reading somethi...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IT'S NOT SET IN STONE and STICKS AND STONES In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, it's not set in stone. If something isn't set in stone, it means it might not happen. Maybe you're making plans for something, but all the details aren't in yet. So you're not even sure y...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN YOUR DREAMS and DREAM ON I think maybe we should start today's lesson by going for a walk, because there are people driving their boat in the river. So I'm just going to walk over here for the beginning of the lesson and hopefully we can catch them driving by. Let me flip the camera around, so that you can have a loo...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO COME OUT OF THE WOODWORK and TO COME ALIVE In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, come out of the woodwork. This is what people do after you win the lottery. They come out of the woodwork. This is a phrase that means that people show up, or it could be animals, or something else, but things show...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English Phrases TO THROW SOMETHING TOGETHER and TO THROW OUT In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, to throw something together. When you throw something together, it means you do it really quickly, maybe you don't do it as carefully as you normally would. You just do it as fast and as quickly as possible. Th...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases I CAN'T BE BOTHERED and IT'S NOT A BOTHER In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase I can't be bothered. This is a phrase that we use when we don't feel like doing something, we don't want to do something, or we don't think something is important. Here are a couple of examp...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases HERE'S THE DEAL and BIG DEAL In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, here's the deal. This is a phrase that we often say in English right before we explain something to someone or right before we tell someone something. I could say to Jen, "Hey, here's the deal. Later today, I&ap...