An English Lesson about Idioms and Tiny Things!

Hi, Bob the Canadian here.

Welcome to this English lesson

where I'm going to talk about,

a few really little things.

I'm going to talk about some tiny things.

And not only will I tell you what it is,

but I'm also going to teach you a few English phrases,

or a few English idioms

that use the name of that tiny thing.

(pop music)

Well hey, welcome to this English lesson

about tiny tiny things.

Before we get started though,

if you are new here,

please click that red subscribe button below

and give me a thumbs up if this video helps you learn

just a little bit more English.

(paper rustles softly)

One of the first small things I wanted to talk about,

is the dot on an i.

You can see here that this dot is rather large

because I printed out the word it,

in a really really large font.

But, one really tiny thing is,

the dot on the letter i.

And this reminded me of an English phrase,

to dot your i's, and to cross your t's.

Notice there's a t here as well.

So, this i has a dot

and this t is crossed.

When we say that someone dots their i's

and crosses their t's.

It means that they've done a job thoroughly

and completely,

and that they've done the job well.

We say that they did the job so well,

that they dotted all their i's

and they crossed all their t's.

So this is the salt shaker from my kitchen.

In English, we call this a salt shaker.

And you can see there's little holes in the top

and if I shake it,

then some salt will come out onto my hand.

These are called grains of salt

and they are really, really tiny.

And they make food taste really good.

But there's three phrases I wanted to talk about

that have the word salt in them.

I'll just put this salt down here.

The first is, if you describe someone

as being the salt of the earth,

it means that they are just a really

honest, hard working person.

I would describe my grandparents

when they were alive as being the salt of the earth.

They were people who worked hard,

and they were honest in all their dealings with people.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you

with the word salt in it,

is the phrase to rub salt in someone's wounds.

If you have something bad happen to you in life,

maybe you have a car accident

and then your friend keeps talking about the car accident

we would say that he is rubbing salt in your wounds

because the car accident was already a bad thing.

And you feel bad

because your car is wrecked.

But now your friend keeps talking about it.

So, we would refer to that as,

rubbing salt in your wounds.

It is not a very nice thing to do.

The last phrase I wanna teach you

with the word salt in it is,

to take something with a grain of salt.

So, if someone tells you something

and you are a little bit skeptical,

you don't really believe them right away,

we would say that you are taking what they say

with a grain of salt.

In English when you take something with a grain of salt,

it means you don't believe it right away,

but you take a little bit of time to think about it

to make sure that it is true information.

So this is a Canadian penny.

It is our one cent coin.

And, it actually has a maple leaf on one side

and then on the other side,

hopefully this focuses,

you can see that it has Queen Elizabeth.

So, a penny is worth one cent.

Here is a cool fact,

we don't actually use pennies in Canada anymore.

You can use them if you want.

But when you're at the store,

everything always rounds off

to the closest five cent mark now.

Anyways, a couple phrases

with the word penny in it.

The one is, you can say to someone,

a penny for your thoughts.

So let's say you are with a friend,

and they are not very talkative.

You could say to them,

hey, penny for your thoughts.

And basically what that means is, hey,

can you just tell me what you're thinking about?

I'll jokingly give you some money.

I'll give you a penny if you tell me

what you're thinking about.

So, if someone is sitting

and not talking much,

and you think they have something cool to say,

you can say to them, hey, penny for your thoughts.

And basically, you're just welcoming them

to kind of talk about what they are thinking about.

The second phrase with the word penny in it is the phrase,

a penny saved, is a penny earned.

And what this phrase means in English

and it would mean the same in any language is that,

if you don't spend money,

it is almost the same as making money.

So, if you have a penny,

and the weekend comes

and you don't spend the penny,

or maybe you're talking more like $10.

If you don't spend it,

it's almost the same as if you have earned an extra penny.

So a penny saved, is a penny earned basically means,

if you don't spend your money,

it's a lot like making extra money.

It's not exactly the same thing.

But I think you get the point.

So, this is my wedding ring.

The wedding ring by the way goes on the ring finger.

Oh, if you didn't know the names

of the fingers in English, I'll tell you.

This is your thumb.

This is your index finger.

This is your middle finger,

which is a bad thing if you turn this way

and only show this finger.

That's a bad thing in English.

This is your middle finger.

This is your ring finger,

and this is your pinkie or pinky finger.

By the way, a ring is a very tiny thing.

And, your pinky finger is also a very small thing.

There's two phrases I wanna teach you

with the word ring in it.

They don't have to do exactly with a wedding ring.

But the first phrase I wanted to teach you is,

to give someone a ring.

So, if you hear

that someone has given someone a ring,

it usually means that they are engaged,

to be married.

So, if I think about

when I was a much younger Bob the Canadian

there was a time when I gave Jen a ring.

I asked Jen to marry me and I gave her a ring.

But, you know, the same phrase,

to give someone a ring

means something else as well.

I could say that the other day I gave Jen a ring,

which means, that I gave her a phone call.

So the phrase to give someone a ring,

can mean that two people got engaged.

That one of the couple gave the other one a ring,

and they are now engaged to be married.

Or if you say,

the other day I gave someone a ring,

it means that you gave them a phone call.

So this is a pin.

In English, we call this a pin.

And we use this to hang things,

sometimes on the wall.

So, if you had a piece of paper

that you wanted to put on the wall,

you might put a pin in it

to hold it on the wall.

We also use pins sometimes

when we are sewing or tailoring clothes.

But this is a pin.

And the phrase I wanted to teach you

with the word pin in it is,

sometimes it's so quiet,

that you can hear a pin drop.

(pinging softly)

I'm not sure you heard that.

I was trying to be quiet while I did it.

So, if you are somewhere

where it's really, really quiet,

you could say to the person you are with,

it's so quiet in here,

you could hear a pin drop.

Which basically is just a way of describing

how quiet a place is.

So, do you wanna have another look at this pin?

Let me see if I can get it in focus.

It's a really cute pin

with a really nice pink head on it.

So, this is a seed.

It is a very tiny thing

that nature produces

when a plant reproduces.

It makes seeds.

And if you plant the seed in the ground,

it will grow into another version

of the same plant.

And there is one phrase, English phrase

that I wanted to teach you about seeds

and that's to plant a seed,

which I know you think means

to put a seed in the ground.

But, did you know that you can also,

plant a seed in someone's mind.

It means that you are giving them an idea.

So let's say, I really wanted

to get a raise at work.

I could plant the seed in my boss's mind,

by just mentioning

that other people who do the same job as me,

make a lot more money.

So when you plant a seed,

it means that you literally take a seed

and put it in the ground.

But, it can also mean

that you are giving someone an idea.

So hair, is another very, very tiny thing

and you can see that I got a haircut, this past weekend.

Many of you said it looked really good.

So thank you

for saying that in the last live English lesson.

There are three phrases

that I want to talk about that involve hair.

And the first is, what we call a bad hair day.

I will not have any bad hair days

for the next couple of weeks

because my hair is so short,

it just looks the same all the time.

But sometimes, you go out

and your hair gets blown around by the wind,

and it just doesn't look good.

And we would describe that as,

a bad hair day.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you

with the word hair in it is the phrase,

get out of my hair

or to ask someone to get out of your hair.

If someone is bothering you

while you're doing a job,

you can say to them, hey, just get out of my hair.

I'm trying to do something here.

This happens to me sometimes in the kitchen

when I am making supper.

Sometimes the kids are all in the kitchen with me,

trying to get a snack

or trying to get a drink

and I'll just say, hey,

can you guys get out of my hair for a little bit?

I need space.

I need the room

to make supper for you.

So please get out of my hair.

The third phrase I wanted to teach you

with the word hair in it is,

to let your hair down.

In English when you let your hair down,

it means that you have decided to relax.

So, if you come home from work

and you decide to let your hair down,

it simply means that you are going to relax

and enjoy yourself for a little while.

This is a cookie.

If I break the cookie in half,

there will be some crumbs.

You can see here.

I'm not sure if it will focus,

but there is a little cookie crumb there.

And a crumb, is a very tiny thing.

And I wanted to teach you a few phrases

with the word crumb or cookie in it.

The first one is the phrase,

that's the way the cookie crumbles.

This is a phrase that we say to people,

when life is just not great.

Or when something doesn't go the way they planned.

We will say that's the way the cookie crumbles.

It's basically the same as saying to them,

that's life

or that's the way it goes sometimes.

It's just a little English phrase

we say sometimes,

when someone is having a moment in their life

that isn't going well.

We'll just say well,

that's the way the cookie crumbles.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you

with the word cookie in it,

is the phrase tough cookie.

A tough cookie is a way we describe someone

who is physically strong

and emotionally strong.

So, if you know someone

who is just physically strong

and emotionally strong,

we would say that they are a tough cookie.

My mom is a tough cookie.

She is a physically strong person,

but she's also very emotionally strong

when things go wrong in life.

She is not someone

to get overly emotional about it.

She is very physically strong

and very emotionally strong.

She is a tough cookie.

And the last phrase I wanted to teach you

with the word cookie in it is,

to get caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

This simply means

that you get caught doing something

that you probably weren't supposed to be doing

while you were doing it.

So you didn't get caught afterwards,

you got caught while you were doing it.

You got caught with your hand in the cookie jar.

Well hey, thank you for watching this little English lesson

about tiny things.

And I hope you were able

to learn some cool new English phrases

while you were watching.

If you're new here, don't forget to click

that red subscribe button below

and give me a thumbs up if this video helped you learn

just a little bit more English.

And while you're here,

why don't you stick around

and watch another English lesson.

(pop music)