Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases MAKES SENSE and DOESN'T MAKE SENSE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase makes sense. When something makes sense, it just means it's logical. If it's something that someone designed, they design it in a logical way. In a way that makes sense. There's a store in North America called Costco. It's a large store and everything there makes sense. The size of the shopping carts makes sense. They're larger than a normal store. The way the parking lot lines are put out makes sense. They leave extra room between vehicles, probably because the carts are wider. The way the store is laid out makes sense. Everything just makes sense when I go there. It's a really cool place to go. It's designed to be efficient and logical, and I'm usually happy when I'm shopping there.

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But you know what doesn't make sense? Government offices. I'm sure this is the same in every country around the world. I went to a government office today to renew one of my cards. You know how you have driver's license and health cards and all that kind of stuff? I went to renew a card and the way that that office was set up just doesn't make sense to me. There were numbers like I got a number, but my number was like PC 801. But then there were numbers that started with t and s and all different letters. And then for a while there, everyone with numbers with the same letters in front as me. We didn't get called up. I was there for, I think it was almost 3 hours. Sometimes stuff just doesn't make sense. I'm not sure how well that place was designed.

So to review when something makes sense, it's very logical and easy to understand. When something doesn't make sense, it's just very confusing and you don't understand why it was designed that way. Anyways, I got everything done I needed to, but I was a little frustrated.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Aerosmith77 also known as Judit. I loved when I could take the long way home, but not nowadays. Thanks for the lesson. I gotta go. And my response, from my understanding, you have quite the commute now. I hope it's going well. So Judit, thank you for that comment and for using the phrase long way home from the previous lesson. Very cool. But yeah, I understood from another comment you made. I think you changed jobs and I think you drive for over an hour each way now to work. That's a long ways to drive, so hopefully you have lots to listen to, some good music. Maybe you listen to a few podcasts on your way there. I just hope it's going well because that's, that's a pretty long drive to, to go every day.

But hey, what was I going to talk about today? Well, I can talk about my commute. It's exactly eleven minutes every day. My commute, because I live out in the country and I work in a town, not a city. There's just not a lot of traffic out this way, there was just a big tractor that went by. Those sometimes slow down my commute a little bit. But I have appreciated the fact that there's no real commute where I live. It's just awesome. So I feel bad.

I did, though, a few years ago. A few years ago, like over 20 years ago, I worked at a school. Okay, that's exaggerating. About 18 years ago, I worked at a school in a nearby city just for a couple of years. And it was a 45 minutes drive and the road that you drove down, you couldn't pass anybody. It was just like one lane each way and you couldn't pass. And so you would drive the speed limit all the way to work and all the way home from work. And that didn't make se

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases WHY THE LONG FACE? and THE LONG WAY HOME

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, why the long face? This is a question you might ask someone if they look sad. Like if their face looks sad, if they look sad, you might say, hey, why the long face? Now, I haven't actually used this question a lot lately, but I did hear an older person use it the other day. So it might be an older phrase. If you see someone who is the opposite of happy instead of smiling, they have a really long face. Trying to... my acting skills aren't the best. I tried to make a dirty look the other day and I don't know if I pulled that off, but this is a long face. So when you're very, very sad, we say you have a long face. And if you see someone, you can say, why the long face?

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the long way home. Sometimes when you go somewhere, you take the shortest path possible, or you take the shortest way possible. But sometimes you take the long way home. So think about this. If you're going to see a movie, you drive there quickly. You get there on time. But when the movie's done, you might take the long way home because there's other things to see and you're not in a hurry anymore. So when you go somewhere, you go as quickly as possible. But when you're done, you might take the long way home. You might take the scenic route. That's another way to say it.

So to review, if you were to say to someone, why the long face? You're asking them why they look sad. And if you take the long way home, it means you go a direction or you go a way that isn't the shortest, but maybe it's more enjoyable.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. Cool baseball cap and sweatshirt teacher Bob light gray suits you very well. Your style is beyond compare. Well, great example phrase as well. By the way, beyond compare, my response, the shirt is a sunshirt. I like wearing those instead of putting lots of sunscreen on. The hood and long sleeves really help block the sun. So thanks, Ruslan. Yes, beyond compare was the last phrase and great use of it. But yeah, these shirts. Jen and I both wear these shirts. In fact, you can see Jen over here way in the distance. She's planting dahlias, she's wearing her shirt, and I'm wearing mine. By the way, these shirts are nice. You don't have to put sunscreen on when you wear these. And it does have a hood that you can put up to cover your ears as well. So if we're going to work outside a lot, we often wear these shirts.

Um, yeah, there's some chickens behind me. Should I give you a better look? A few weeks ago, we got some fencing. This isn't electric fence. It can be electrified, but we don't have it electrified. And we put our chickens outside. They're in this, which is called a chicken tractor. You might want to call it a chicken coop, but because it has wheels and you're able to move it. For some reason in English, we call this a chicken tractor. So we've been moving this along. We've been using the chickens to kind of combat some of the problems we have. They are loud, aren't they? Um, so they go out and eat something called a cut worm. Jen's very happy about that because the cut worms like to eat the plants and that's not very nice.

So we have this chicken tractor. The chickens, I think, like being outside more than they like being inside anyways. I think they're really enjoying their time outside. They're a little... I hope you guys aren't scared of chickens. They're a little timid right n

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English saying ABOVE AND BEYOND and BEYOND COMPARE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase above and beyond. When you go above and beyond, it means you do a really, really good job. If at work, my boss said to me, Bob, can you work on this project? And if I worked on it for like, ten or 12 hours a day, seven days a week, for three weeks, he might say, wow, you really went above and beyond. You did more than I was expecting you to do. Maybe you're studying for English, and you, one week you decide instead of studying 30 minutes a day, you're going to study for 2 hours a day. You would then be going above and beyond. You're doing more than you expected even yourself to do.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase beyond compare. When something is beyond compare, it means it's just awesome. My sister makes really good desserts, and they are beyond compare. It basically means that no one else I know makes desserts that are as good as the desserts that my sister makes. That was a little bit of a tongue twister. So when something is beyond compare, it means it's like the best. It's like the best version of whatever it is that you're doing or eating or whatever you are not comparing.

So to review, when you go above and beyond, you do more than what people are expecting you to do, or even more than what you're expecting yourself to do. You go above and beyond. And when something is beyond compare, it simply means that it's awesome.

That's. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from... I'm laughing because it's very early in the morning and I kind of lost track of what I was doing. But hey, let's look at a comment from Silvia. Hope you have a fantastic time at the market. The peonies are just gorgeous. And it's incredible to think about all the hard work that goes into growing those beautiful flowers. Jen's dedication is truly remarkable, by the way. Here in Argentina, we do have personal days, and it depends on the jobs and the contract you sign. And then my response, personal days are something new for me. We only started to have them a few years ago. Sometimes I feel guilty taking one, but hey, it's in the contract now.

So, yes, a couple things to respond there to Silvia. The market was good. That was already a week ago now, almost. But yes, the market was awesome. We did well. We really, really enjoyed it. And about personal days, yeah, that is something very, very new for me. Personal days didn't exist till about six or seven years ago where I work. So it still feels a little funny saying to my boss, hey, can I take a day off next week, Thursday? And then the boss just says, okay, you have one personal day left. It's no problem.

But, hey, here I am walking on the path that I created so that we can get down to the river every year in our field. If I turn, you can see where I am on the property. The house and barn are up there. But every year we try to mow a path down to the river so that we can come down here with the dogs, or we can come down here with the kayaks when we bring the kayaks to the river. And it's just a little easier than walking through the deep grass. So I'm just kind of giving you a sense of what it's like for me to walk down to the river on, like, a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday afternoon.

It's just nice to have the grass nice and short. And then we usually also mow this area down here. It's a little brown now, but it will green up again. I think I cut the grass a little short, and the river is a

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expressions phrases TO PLAY DIRTY and A DIRTY LOOK

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to play dirty. When you play a game, maybe you're playing soccer or what most of you call football, or you're playing a board game. If you cheat or if you use tactics that aren't good, we say that you are playing dirty. When you play dirty, it means you cheat at something. I'm going to tell you a little story quick. Years ago, I was a defenseman on a soccer team or football team, and someone from the other team got past me with the ball. And so I was chasing him down, and I was faster than him, but I couldn't quite catch him, so I tripped him and I got a yellow card. Good thing it was only a yellow card. But at that point in time, you could say that I had decided to play dirty. I knew that I couldn't catch the person with the ball. I knew I couldn't get the ball away from them. So I chose to do something that would be considered not very nice. And I tripped him. And then he said to me, is that all you got? Which is kind of like a put down to me. I think I responded and said, yeah, that was it.

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So anyways, the second phrase I wanted to teach you today is a dirty look. When you give someone a dirty look, it means you look at them in a way where you're expressing that you don't like what they're doing or you might even be a little bit angry. If I was in class and students were talking and I said, please, please stop talking, and they didn't, I might give them a dirty look, like definitely not smiling. The opposite. I would probably look at them like this. That's about as mean a look as I can give. By the way, I think I taught this phrase before. It's starting to come back to me. I think three years ago, I might have taught this phrase and given you the same look. So anyways, a dirty look is when you look at someone and you make kind of a serious face so they know that, that you don't like what they're doing.

So to review, to play dirty means to cheat, or at least to do things that aren't really cool in the game that you're playing. And if you give someone a dirty look, it means you look at them kind of like this in disapproval. And by the way, we usually say to give someone a dirty look. That's the phrase that we use.

But, hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Francisco, and the comment is very useful one I don't know exactly how to translate into Spanish, but I got it. Lol. And my response languages are interesting, aren't they? Sometimes something has an equivalent phrase in another language, sometimes not. So that was Francisco responding to the no harm no foul that I talked about in the previous lesson.

So hey, guess what? It is the first day of market today. We are heading off to sell flowers. We are loading the van. I actually took a personal day from work. I don't know if you have those where you are. I'm allowed to take a day twice a year where for no real reason I can take the day off. It's just part of my contract as an employee. So usually on the first day of market of the year and the last day of market I take a personal day. So Jen and I are heading off to market this afternoon. Hopefully we sell lots of flowers.

If you look here, I've been in the peony patch a bit lately. You can see that the peonies are blooming. These aren't quite ready to pick. We usually wait till they're a little bit soft. I think I've explained that before in a video as well. This one's probably ready. Actually, they feel a little bit like a marshmallow. This one is definitely ready. It might actual

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English saying NO HARM, NO FOUL! and the term FOUL LANGUAGE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English saying no harm, no foul. This is a saying we use when we do something that maybe could be bad, but if nothing bad happens, then no foul has occurred. A foul is like a negative thing in life or in a sports game. If you do something wrong, you could get a foul. Let me think of a good example. Let's say I borrowed my brother's car without asking him and I just went to his house. I grabbed the keys, I drove it all day, I filled it up with gas and I put it back at his house later that day. And if he came to me and said, hey, you borrowed my car and you didn't ask, I could say, hey, no harm, no foul. No harm, no foul. Let me pronounce the words right. Basically what I'm saying is I didn't get in an accident. I filled your car back up with gas and I brought it back and everything was fine. So why are you upset? Now, he probably has a right to be upset. If I did something like that, my brother could be upset with me. But you can understand how, because nothing went wrong. I don't feel like I should be... I don't feel like my brother should be annoyed with me.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is actually just a term, foul language. So foul language is simply swearing. In English, we have a number of swear words. I've never made an English lesson about swear words because I don't actually want to say them. I always want my lessons to be safe to use at work, safe to use in schools. But foul language. Sometimes I hear students using foul language. They'll use the how can I describe these? The f word is how we describe the word that starts with f and ends with k. That's probably one of the most common ones. So we refer to swearing using bad words as foul language.

So to review, no harm, no foul is something you say, like maybe you ate something from the fridge at work and then you quickly replaced it before the person knew you ate it. Maybe you ate someone's yogurt and then you quickly bought a new one before the end of the day. If that person knew you did that, you could say, hey, no harm, no foul. I replaced what I took and then foul language is simply swearing. Bad language using swear words.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous viewer or, sorry, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Aleksey. Hi, Aleksey. Hi, Bob. I have a hunch based on watching Jen's channel. If you ask her to find a new camera position, that ugliest place on the farm might turn into the most beautiful. And my response, so true. Manure and compost are gold to a farmer. Jen certainly likes her manure and compost. It really helps the plants grow. For sure.

Hey, what was I going to talk about today? Oh, thanks, Aleksey, for that comment. That's awesome. What was I going to talk about today? Well, I am kind of at loss for words because yesterday I worked one of the longest days I've worked in my life. Okay, not in my life. I'm exaggerating a bit. But I worked from seven six thirty am, seven am all the way till about 09:00 last night. I was still working. Not on YouTube, you can tell because this video is coming out a bit late. But as it gets close to the end of the school year, there are days where... How do I phrase this? I think I've mentioned this before. There's no putting something off till tomorrow at this point in the school year and at this point in the semester. Like, there's things that I just had to do yesterday, on Tuesday. I couldn't leave them for today.

Yesterday, I cou

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expressions I HEAR YOU and I GOT YOU

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase I hear you. Now, this can simply mean that you can hear someone. But we also use this when we agree with what someone said and we want to let them know that we think the same way as them. So someone might say to you, hey, the boss was really mean to me the other day. You could say, I hear you, man. Yeah, he wasn't in a very good mood, was he? Or someone might say, wow, the weather around here is just not very nice. And you say, I hear you. Basically what you're saying is, I agree with what you're saying, and I think the same way I hear you. I understand you.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase I got you. And this is used in kind of an informal way to mean that you are helping someone. Let me give some examples. If I was walking along and I started to fall down, Jen might grab me and say, hey, I got you. Sometimes I hear students say this. One student might say to another, I got you, bro. Like, hey, I don't have a pen today. Someone might say, hey, I got you. And then they lend them a pen. So it kind of means that you're helping someone, you're supporting them in some way. And it's a little bit informal. It's kind of slang, at least the way I've been using it.

So to review, I hear you simply means that you understand what someone is saying and you agree with them. You could say, Bob, these lessons are getting a little bit boring. And I could say, I hear you. I'll try to make them a little more exciting. And the phrase I got you simply means that you are able to help someone. I don't know if I'm explaining this really well. Let me think of another example. If Jen was to say to me, oh, both vans are almost out of gas, I could say, hey, I got you. I'll run to town and fill each van up with gas today.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. It's a little distracting out here today because it's a little bit windy. I don't know why that distracts me. I think it's the little sounds that I hear. This comment is from Konstantin. Hello, teacher. I was once a public, shy person, but at this stage, due to my occupation, I have to cope with it. Yeah, the school is finished in five weeks. Hooray. I'm so glad to see you in such a good mood. And my response, I hear you. If you pick a job like teaching, you just have to get used to being up in front of people from time to time.

Nice use of the phrase at this stage there. And to cope with, by the way. So thanks, Konstantin, for that comment. That was a good one, by the way. Yeah. Sometimes you choose a certain job, and if you pick that job, you just have to be good at being in front of people, or at least used to it. If you become a politician, if you become a teacher, if you become someone who needs to be upfront, that's what you need to do.

Hey, I'm out here in kind of the uglier part of the farm today. I wanted to show you the big pile of mushroom compost. So we use a lot of mushroom compost on the farm. This is what's left over. Oh, by the way, this is the area where all of the manure from the cows used to go when I, when my parents had cows. So if you're wondering what this big concrete area is. But anyways, yes, mushroom compost.

So when they grow mushrooms indoors here, they use a mixture of horse manure and a few other things to make, I think they call it a substrate. There's a new word for you. And they grow the mushrooms inside. And then when the mushrooms... when they've harvested the mushr

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AT THIS STAGE and STAGE FRIGHT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase at this stage. Now, this is something you can use to talk about life. You can use it to talk about a project, and you use it to talk about the part that you're in right now. So here's a few examples. At this stage in my life, I'm really enjoying the fact that my kids are older. I liked having little kids, but it's a lot more work. St this stage in life, it's really nice because my kids can feed themselves and three of them can drive. It's just really, really handy. If you're working on a project and the boss says, how far are you? You could say, well, at this stage, we're just done, I don't know, installing the wheels. I don't know what the project is. I'm trying to come up with an example and that sounded a little bit silly, but your project might have stages. It might have stage one, stage two, stage three. You might even name the stages. So you might say, at this stage, we're working on installing the wheels. Let's leave it at that.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase stage fright. Now, this is a slightly different meaning of the word stage. A stage is a raised area at the front of an auditorium or a place where you go to see a show. And when you have stage fright, it means you don't like standing in front of a crowd. Many people have stage fright. If I need to go and talk in front of the school, it's not too bad. I've done that a lot, but I might have a little bit of stage fright. Certainly, if you're an actor who has to memorize lines and perform them, you might have stage fright on the evening of the performance.

But hey, to review at this stage is simply a way to refer to a moment in time inside of a bigger moment in time, like your life or a project. And then there's stages in it, and stage fright is simply to be afraid to go on stage.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from, oh, I printed it really big today. When I print at school, it comes out really big. From Sunrise Wang. The landscape is beautiful out there. And what kind of plant is that under the tree? And my reply, I'm not sure. I'll have to ask Jen.

So let me put this away. Jen told me, I think someone asked this before, so I should have known this, but Jen said, this is a spirea. And I think the particular type is bridal wreath spirea. Has these nice little white flowers that you can see. Very, very cool. So it's kind of fun to have stuff like that here on the farm.

What was I going to talk about today? I was just going to talk about how much I have been enjoying feeling better. If you didn't notice, there was a pretty long break from both channels. I don't know what I had. I don't even want to guess. But, man, I just did not feel good for two or three, almost four weeks. And you know how when you're sick and then when you eventually get better, you realize how sick you were? Well, I certainly was good and sick. That would be a good way to describe it.

And now, man, I just wake up in the morning full of energy. I'm having a fun time through the day. I'm laughing a lot more. It helps that the school year is done in five or six weeks as well. But, yeah, I am just happy to be feeling better. And it's good because we have a lot of stuff to do here on the farm. I love showing people the peonies. If you notice over here, it's kind of fun, eh? How much they grow. It's just kind of insane. And these will start blooming soon. We will have to start ha

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English expressions TO GIVE SOMEBODY THE SLIP and TO SLIP THROUGH YOUR FINGERS

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to give somebody the slip. If you give somebody the slip, it means you escape. It means for some reason, they were trying to catch you and you managed to get away. You will most likely hear this phrase, to give somebody the slip if you're watching a TV show and the police officers on the TV show are trying to catch a criminal, and sometimes that criminal will give them the slip, the criminal will simply disappear. They'll run down an alley, or they'll go a certain direction, or maybe they'll drive away really fast in their car and they'll give the police the slip. They'll just evade being captured, and they will escape.

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The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to slip through your fingers. When something slips through your fingers, it means it was going to be something you would have, and now you don't have it anymore. It means something got away from you a little bit. And this can be something as simple as a job. Maybe you are looking to get a job somewhere, and it kind of slipped through your fingers. You applied for the job, and maybe they called you back to offer it to you and left a message, and you didn't get the message, and you forgot to call them back, and then it just kind of slipped through your fingers and it never happened. Maybe you were going to buy a car for really cheap from a relative, and then for some reason, you didn't communicate properly, and the whole deal just didn't happen. It kind of slipped through your fingers. So it means that something good that could have happened didn't happen. It just sort of went away. It's always a sad time when something like that happens.

But, hey, to review, to give somebody the slip means to escape from them. And to have something slip through your fingers means that you could have had it. But somehow it just. I'm putting my hand up because it's like when you have sand and the sand goes through your fingers, it's like that thing you wanted is the sand, and it just kind of went away. That would be sad.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Ruslan. Thank you for the nice, sunny lesson, Teacher Bob. Such a beautiful landscape. It looks like the Shire from the Lord of the Rings. And my response... My response? Yeah, a little bit. No hobbits or wizards around here, though.

No. At least I haven't seen any hobbits or wizards. By the way, if you don't know what the Lord of the Rings is, the Lord of the Rings is a fantasy novel series by J. R. R. Tolkien, and it also was made into some movies. But, yeah, it's certainly beautiful out here today. There's things like this. I'm sure if I was a hobbit, if I was a tiny person who lived under the earth in a little house, I would probably have plants like this outside. I would probably have big trees like this, full of leaves or like this one over here.

It's just gorgeous out here tonight, by the way. I'm out here in the evening. Normally I do these videos during the day, but I was out and about today. One of my kids is on the track and field team. So track and field is where you do the 100 meters dash or you do the long jump or triple jump where you throw the shot put. Actually, you don't throw the shot put. You put the shot put. But I think you know what I mean.

So Jen and I, after I was done work today, we went and watched my son participate. He did okay. He just was one place too low, though, to go on to the ne

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