Learn the English Phrases TO DO THE TRICK and TO PLAY A TRICK

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase

to do the trick.

When we say that something will do the trick,

we mean that it will work in a certain situation.

Here's a good example.

Sometimes when I'm eating a bag of chips,

I don't eat all of them and I want to close the bag,

so I just put a clothespin on it

because a clothespin will do the trick.

A clothespin will keep the bag of chips closed,

and then I don't have to worry about the chips going stale.

So when you say that something will do the trick,

it simply means that it will work.

It will do something in a certain situation to help you out.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase to play a trick.

When you play a trick on someone,

it means that you do something to trick them.

Here's a little trick we play on people at school.

Sometimes teachers will accidentally

leave their keys somewhere,

so if I find another teacher's keys,

I put them in the freezer in the staff room.

I like to play a trick on my colleagues.

So it's just something silly and funny that I do.

And there's other things like that

that people sometimes do at work.

Sometimes we call them practical jokes as well.

But when you put someone's keys in the freezer

just for fun,

and then on the board, we write, "Cool keys."

There's a little whiteboard in the staff room.

We write, "Cool keys,"

to give them a hint that someone is playing a trick on them.

So to review, when something will do the trick,

it means it will work in a certain situation.

I could put the words on the screen,

but having a piece of paper does the trick for me.

And when you play a trick on someone,

it means you just do something funny,

something to make maybe yourself laugh,

and hopefully them laugh a little bit as well.

Hey, let's look at a comment, though, from a previous video.

This comment is from Olivia.

"Hi, Bob," or, "Hi, Teacher Bob.

Drink more water and take care of yourself.

I hope you feel better soon."

And my response is, "I drank lots of water

and lots of tea with honey.

That seemed to do the trick."

See how I used the phrase there?

Anyways, thanks Olivia for that comment.

And that was a comment from my last video,

where I basically just said,

"Hey, I'm gonna be making lessons again starting on Friday,"

and that's hopefully when you're watching this.

So it's an election day in Ontario, Canada.

Today, there is an election.

If we walk over here,

you'll see that this person supports the NDP party.

It looks like Dave Augustyn is running for the NDP party.

And if we go way over here,

in just a moment, we'll see another sign.

People in Ontario sometimes will put signs on their yard,

kind of letting people know who they're voting for.

The candidates have all done, there's been debates.

The candidates have all visited

various towns and cities in Ontario

to kind of get their message out

and to ask people to vote for them,

and today is the day where we need to vote.

I'll be voting later today.

It's cool to be able to go and vote.

There's another guy right here.

So this is the Progressive Conservative Party,

and this is the person who's running there.

He doesn't live here.

This is just a house where someone who supports that party

is going to vote for that person,

so they've simply put a little sign on their lawn

so that their friends and neighbors can see

that that's the person they're going to vote for.

It's kind of just a way to give them some support.

Anyways, I think I'm ending this video a little early.

What should I talk about?

I'm just out here walking by a park.

I'll show you the park for a sec.

The park is also by an old age home.

It's called Hank MacDonald Park.

And over here, it's a little bit hard to see,

but there's the entranceway for an old age home.

That's a place where older people go to live.

Trying to get my camera to flip around.

And actually the one, the really far one,

I helped put the roof on when I was younger

when I was a construction worker.

Anyways, it's good to be back making videos.

Thanks for watching this one.

I'll be back in a few days

with another short English lesson.

Bye.