Learn the English Phrases "to be off" and "to back off"

5,048 views ・ 2024-02-21

Bob's Short English Lessons


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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In this English lesson, I wanted to help
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you learn the phrase to be off.
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Now, this has a few meanings.
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The one I'm going to focus
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on today simply means to leave.
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If I said to Jen, I'm off.
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I'm going to go to town and buy some gas.
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It means that I have my keys in my hand.
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It means that I'm about to go out the
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door and I'm going to drive to town.
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So when you say that you are off,
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it means that you are going somewhere.
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The other day, Jen said, well, I'm off.
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See you at 4:00 and then I responded
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by saying, oh, where are you going?
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And she said, oh, don't you remember?
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I said I was going to go pick up the
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kids from school, so I'm off to go get them.
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So it simply means to leave.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you
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today is the phrase to back off.
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Now, this can mean to physically back off from
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someone, but we also use it to talk about
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if you're talking to someone and it's obvious they're
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upset, you might back off a little bit.
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Especially in situations where as a parent, sometimes if I'm
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talking to one of my kids and it's obvious they're
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upset about something, I might back off a little bit.
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Instead of saying, why did you come home so late?
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I might say to them, oh, you're obviously upset.
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We'll talk about it later.
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So I might back off.
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Instead of saying, you're supposed to
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be home by 11:00 p.m.
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You broke your curfew, you're grounded.
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You can look all those words up, by the way.
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Instead, I might think, oh, my child seems a bit upset.
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Maybe they didn't have a good evening.
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I'll back off.
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Instead of being a harsh dad, I'll back off.
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And then maybe Jen will go talk to them about it.
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So anyways, to review, to be off simply means to leave.
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Like after this video, I'm off to town
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to go have supper with my family.
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And to back off means to kind of step
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back a little bit, either physically or just in
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a conversation so the person has some time to
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think and calm down from the situation.
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But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.
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This comment is from Ruslan.
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Thank you for the cool lesson, dear teacher
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Bob, so much snow, it looks like you
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went beyond the wall, Bob Snow.
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And then my response, I showed the
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clip to my mom and she laughed.
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She loved the snow piling up on my head.
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By the way, nice Game of Thrones reference.
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So Ruslan there, thanks for that comment.
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Made a little reference to Game of Thrones.
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I don't know if you've watched that.
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It was a TV show a few years ago.
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It's a fantasy show, and part of the show
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was in the northern parts of that area, there
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was a large wall made of ice.
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And then if you went beyond the
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wall, it was a very scary place.
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I think there were.
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Were they called White Walkers? I can't remember.
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It's been a while since I read
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the books and watched that show.
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But anyways, I'm out here.
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I'm going to cross the road safely
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once again, looking both ways twice.
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Before I cross the road, I wanted to
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show you that there are tractor tracks here.
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Farming has begun in Canada.
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Just a little bit of farming.
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If you look behind me as I walk, you'll
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see that every few feet there are tractor tracks.
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What they've done here is
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they've done some frost seeding.
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They probably planted clover in this field.
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Clover is a seed that you can plant this
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early in the year and it will eventually grow.
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I don't think you'll be able to see any.
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I can see some on the ground here.
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I don't know how close this camera will go,
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but there should be some little, almost like freckles
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on the snow if you can see them.
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And what those are, are most likely clover seeds.
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And they will sink through the snow and they will sprout
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in March and April, and then they will start to grow.
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They'll germinate.
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Anyways, thanks for watching.
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Hope you enjoyed this view of a field and I'll see
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you in a couple of days with another short English lesson.
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Bye.
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