Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases DON'T BEAT YOURSELF UP and TAKE A BEATING

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase don't beat yourself up. When we say don't beat yourself up, it means that you shouldn't think bad things about yourself after you fail at something. Let's say that you've just gone to take your driver's test. Maybe you're a young person who wants to get their driver's license, and you've gone to take the test and you failed. You did not pass your driver's test. We might say to a person in that situation, "Hey, don't beat yourself up. It's not a big deal. If you work hard and practice your driving, I'm sure you'll pass the next time." So when you say to someone don't beat yourself up, it means don't be sad about that thing that happened. Don't dwell on it. Don't think about it over and over again. When we say don't beat yourself up, we mean just relax, take it easy. If you failed your driver's test, just practice a bit. You'll probably pass the next time.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase take a beating. And I don't actually know how to describe this. So, let me give you some example sentences. You could say, "Wow, the house really took a beating during that storm." Maybe there was a really bad storm, and there was lots of rain and wind, and maybe parts of the house got damaged. You could say, "Wow, the house really took a beating during that storm." Maybe your favorite team was playing a game, and they lost really, really badly. Maybe the score was 10, nothing in a football game. That's a pretty bad score. You could say, "Wow, my team really took a beating during that game." So when something takes a beating, I guess what we're saying is that things go badly, things don't go well. If you're talking about a thing, maybe there was some damage. If you're talking about a team, it simply means that they didn't win and they got beat by a large margin.

So, to review, when you say don't beat yourself up, it means, don't think bad things about yourself. Don't be negative about yourself after a failure. And when we say that you take a beating, it means that things go badly for you and you definitely didn't win. And if we're talking about a thing, maybe it got damaged just a little bit.

Hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Reza, and Reza says, "Seeing a weaving driver," that's someone who drives like this, like really fast between a whole bunch of cars. "Seeing a weaving driver who cuts me off is when I experience road rage," or "When I'm running late for an appointment and hit a traffic jam." Traffic jams are not fun. My response, is this. Traffic jams are the worst. It's why I almost always take the train when I go to Toronto. I can just sit and relax during the trip. So thank you, Reza for that comment. That is a great comment and great use of the phrase road rage, as well. And thanks for talking about traffic jams.

I don't like traffic jams. And I usually go to Toronto every year around this time, usually towards the end of October and beginning of November, I make a trip to Toronto. And this year I'm not able to do it. But, normally when I go, I take the train. There's something called the GO Train. So I drive for a little bit and I jump on the GO Train. I buy a ticket and I jump on the GO Train, and I take the go train to Toronto. And it's just really nice.