Bob's Short English Lessons

By: Bob the Canadian
  • Summary

  • If you want to learn English with short easy-to-understand lessons then you've come to the right place. I'm Bob the Canadian and I make videos on Youtube (Just search for "Bob's Short English Lessons" on Youtube!) as well as podcasts right here to help you learn English. Four times each week I upload a short English lesson with a complete transcript in the description. During these lessons I teach one or two curious phrases from the English language and answer a listener question. Thanks for joining me and I hope your English learning is going well!
    © 2024 Bob's Short English Lessons
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Episodes
  • Learn the English Phrases "to push through" and "to push it too hard"
    Nov 22 2024

    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 supporting 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

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    5 mins
  • Learn the English Phrases "in a little bit" and "it's going to be a while"
    Nov 13 2024

    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 supporting me at: http://www.patreon.com/bobthecanadian

    And then something that's kind of the opposite in terms 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 remember 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

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    4 mins
  • Learn the English Ending "-wise" and Term "wise guy"
    Nov 8 2024

    Read along to practice your English and to learn the English ending -WISE and the term WISE GUY

    In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn how to use the suffix wise. A suffix is something that comes at the end of a word and when we use wise it means in relation to something. So if I was to say this, temperature- wise, it's a really nice day today. If I look in my wallet though, money- wise, my wallet's a little bit empty. Or if my boss said, is that project on time? I might say, ooh, time-wise, that project isn't going very well. So it's a little word or suffix we put at the end of a word that means that you are talking about that thing or in relation to. In relation to. So once again, temperature-wise, it's really nice out here today. I'm wearing a short sleeve shirt. Time-wise, I have a lot of time today. I'm done work for the day and I'm just home making this English lesson.

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

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

    The other phrase I wanted to teach you today or term is wise guy. A wise guy is someone who makes a lot of jokes and a lot of sarcastic comments. You could say, ah, Uncle Joe is such a wise guy. He's always cracking jokes and making sarcastic or funny comments.

    So to review, when you put wise on the end of a word, it means you are talking about something in relation to that word. Again, time-wise, I'm having a nice day. I went to work on time, got all my work done, I got home on time. So time-wise, the day is going well. And a wise guy is someone who tells a lot of jokes. Also, a wise guy can be a criminal in a criminal organization. Sometimes we call them wise guys. If you watch a movie, you might see that.

    But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mohd. How come Mr. Bob never showed us the little area in front of the barn extension? I briefly saw it in a members video before. There's definitely some decoration going on there with all those rotary blades mounted on sticks. But he never talked about it. Which begs the question, is Bob trying to hide something from us? My response? Hmm, it's our secret art installation. Maybe I'll talk about it in the next video. We'll see.

    So here's the plan. We got some of these things from Jen's dad, actually. Actually, I'll turn you around. That's maybe a better way to see this. Hold on, I'm going to spin you. Okay, so these are parts from a cultivation machine. Cultivation machine called a rotary hoe. So this is actually something that normally you would see a whole bunch of these on a machine in a row, and they would spin and they would weed the soil. That's kind of the idea. It's called a rotary cultivator or a rotary hoe.

    But we thought they kind of look like flowers. And because we live on a flower farm, we thought we would put some in front of the barn as decoration. So we put them there. We're not done yet. We have to get a little piece of steel for that one as well. And there's one over there. And this whole area, just in general, is going to be a flower bed. But if you watch Jen's videos on her channel, the goats got out once and they kind of chewed and ate the leaves. So those plants aren't dead, but they certainly will grow back. But overall, though, this is just an area in front of where we have the floral coolers and stuff.

    We might actually turn that window into a door someday and make it maybe into a small shop. We've talked about that from time to time. Whether that actually happens or not, we'll see. I mean, there's always plans for the future, and sometimes they get done and sometimes they don't. If you look behind me, there's still a big pile of stone that I have to di

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    4 mins

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