Bob's Short English Lessons

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TIME OUT and DOWN TIME In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase time out. Now you may have heard this phrase before if you watch sports. Sometimes the coach will say, "Time out," and then the ref will blow the whistle. And then they will all stop playing for a little bit while the coach talk...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases GETTING NOWHERE and GET IT IN WRITING In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase getting nowhere. When you say that you're getting nowhere in English, it means you're doing something, but you aren't making any progress. Maybe you've been studying English for over a year and you don&a...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO GET A FEEL FOR and TO FEEL LIKE A MILLION BUCKS In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to get a feel for something. When you get a feel for something, it means you do something until you know how to do it better. Here's a couple of examples. When I first made a cake and I put icing on the ca...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases OPEN UP A BIT and KEEP THINGS TO YOURSELF In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, open up or open up a bit. When you get to know someone, you start to share things about your life. You start to open up a bit. Sometimes you meet someone and you're not their friend yet but you slowly start to spen...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SCHOOL SOMEONE and TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to school someone. This is a slang phrase, and it means to totally dominate someone when you're doing something together, usually a sport. Maybe you're going to play basketball with your younger brother, and y...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases BRING SOMEONE BACK DOWN TO EARTH and BRING TO A CLOSE In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, bring someone back down to earth. This is a phrase we use to describe when life goes back to normal after someone thinks something's going to be amazing. Sometimes, students start school and they think...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases THAT BEING SAID and ENOUGH SAID In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, "That being said". Sometimes we say, "With that being said". This is a phrase we use after we've said something, and then we say something kind of the opposite. You might say something like this, "I...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO HAVE SOMETHING TO OFFER and TO MAKE AN OFFER In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to have something to offer." When you have something to offer, it means you have a skill or you know how to do something that's a benefit to someone else or to an organization. I like to think that...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms A HARD PILL TO SWALLOW and TO BE HARD HIT In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a hard pill to swallow. Sometimes we say a tough pill to swallow. When you have an experience in life that you describe as a hard pill to swallow, it means it's a difficult situation, or it's something that&apo...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AS GOOD AS GOLD and TO HAVE A HEART OF GOLD In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase as good as gold. Now this can be a phrase we use to talk about behavior, usually children's behavior or just something that's good again, here's a couple of examples. When our kids were little, sometimes...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms IN ONE SHOT and IT'S SHOT! In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase in one shot. When you do something in one shot, it means you are successful the first time you attempt to do it. Believe it or not, these short English lessons, I usually do them in one shot. Sometimes I fail. Sometimes I say somet...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO POINT OUT and SHORT AND TO THE POINT In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to point out. Now, when you point something out, it can mean that you're using your finger. Like I could point out that the sky is really beautiful today. I could point out that the grass behind me is quite green. I...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IN A RUT and IN A RUSH In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, in a rut. When you describe your life, and if you use the phrase, I feel like I'm in a rut, it means that you're doing the same thing every day, and it's not that exciting anymore. Maybe your job makes you feel like you&ap...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO RIP OFF and A RIP-OFF In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to rip off. Now, if you're wearing a bandage and you're done wearing it, you can rip off the bandage. But that's not the meaning I was meaning to teach you today. When you say that you rip off someone, it means that you s...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SHAKE ON IT and TO SHAKE THE HABIT In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, shake on it. When you sell something to someone, especially something used, when you agree on a price, you might shake on it. That means you'll literally shake hands. And this means that you've both agreed on the...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms GAME CHANGER and FAIR GAME In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, a game changer. Game changer is a term we use, sorry, it looks like the garbage truck is here, picking up the garbage. I'll try to continue the lesson. Something is called a game changer when it makes the situation way better. Yea...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases IF ANYTHING and ANYTHING GOES In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase if anything. This is a little phrase we use when we introduce the opposite to the current idea. Here's an example. If Jen and I brought flowers to market and we didn't sell a lot, you might think we should bring less flow...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO WAIT AND SEE and WAIT FOR IT! In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to wait and see. Sometimes you don't know what's going to happen, and so you want to wait and see what happens. And we even call this the wait and see approach. Maybe you're someone who likes to invest money in th...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO CATCH ON and TO BE A CATCH In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to catch on." Now, I taught this phrase a while ago, and I said it meant to understand something. When you're in a class and the teacher teaches something, eventually you catch on. But it has another meaning as well...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO BE ONE STEP AHEAD and TO STEP OUT In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to be one step ahead. When you run a business like Jen and I do, when you run a flower business or any other kind of business, you want to be one step ahead of your competition. You want to do things that are innovative or new...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English terms A POWER TRIP and A GUILT TRIP In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English term a power trip. A power trip is when someone who is your boss, or in authority over you, starts to use that authority sometimes in a bad way. This can happen once in a while when someone is a new boss, they might go on a power trip. They...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO CLAM UP and the word BASICALLY In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to clam up. Now, this simply means to stop talking, and it's usually used to talk about when a conversation just stops because someone's mentioned something or brought up a topic that no one wants to talk about. Maybe t...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase SUCH AS and SUCH A In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, 'such as', but before I do that, I actually want to read a comment from a previous video from my other channel from Mélodie. Mélodie says, hello teacher, can you make a video about how we have to use 'such as'? Please have...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase CAUGHT OFF GUARD and CAUGHT IN THE ACT In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase caught off guard. Have you ever been caught off guard? When you're caught off guard, it means something happens and you haven't planned for it. Here's a great example. Maybe the weather forecast says it'...

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrase TO FREAK OUT and CONTROL FREAK In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to freak out. When you say that someone is freaking out, or sometimes when you say an animal is freaking out, it means they're going crazy and doing all kinds of abnormal things. Let me explain a little bit. When someone drives...