Learn the English Phrases "rock bottom" and "solid as a rock"

5,035 views ・ 2023-06-23

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
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I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, rock bottom.
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Now, when we talk about someone's life,
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and if we say that they've hit rock bottom,
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it's kind of a sad thing.
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It usually means they're out of money
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and maybe they've lost their job
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and they don't know what to do next.
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They don't have anything to use to buy food
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and they don't know how to earn a living.
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Sometimes we'll say that they've hit rock bottom.
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Sometimes when we talk about someone whose life
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has gone kind of off the rails, we would say
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maybe they're doing drugs or something
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that's just ruining their life
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and at a certain point they might hit rock bottom.
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That would be the point in their life
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where they just aren't doing anything healthy anymore.
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They've hit rock bottom.
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This does have a bit of a positive meaning as well.
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You can talk about prices when they hit rock bottom,
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that's good for you at a store.
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If you could say, this store has rock bottom prices,
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that means you can buy things there really, really cheap.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today
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is the phrase solid as a rock.
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When something is solid as a rock
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it's just that, it's immovable.
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If I was to lift weights all summer
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my muscles would get really big and they'd be very firm
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and you could say, Bob is solid as a rock.
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Maybe you are, let me see, maybe you're buying something
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like a wheelbarrow for your garden
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and the wheelbarrow is made out of metal.
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You still might say, yep, this thing is solid as a rock.
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That means it's well built
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and it will last a very long time.
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So to review, when someone hits rock bottom
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it means they're at the worst part of their life,
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not a nice time for them.
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And when you say something is solid as a rock,
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it means that it's built well or that it's just,
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well here's an example,
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this tree right here is solid as a rock.
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It's a very solid tree, solid as a rock.
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But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.
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This comment is from Abdula.
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Now they changed how names work on YouTube,
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so it gives me a very long name with numbers at the end.
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So hopefully from this point on, I say names right.
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Thanks Bob, it's really useful.
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What is the meaning of off-white?
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And my response, it means that something is white
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but has a tiny shade of another color in it.
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We often use the term off-white.
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Thanks for the comment by the way, Abdula,
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we often use the term off-white to talk about
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paint in a house.
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When Jen and I paint a room,
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sometimes we'll paint it off white
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and it'll have a little shade of blue in it,
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a little tint of blue, or we'll paint something off-white
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and it has a little bit of gray in it.
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So it's very difficult to have pure white
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in the flower world.
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Sorry, I've switched subjects here slightly.
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Jen and I grow a number of white flowers,
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but most of them are off-white.
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So when someone calls and says
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can I have a bunch of white flowers?
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We usually say we have some off-white, towards green.
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We have some off-white with a tinge of pink in it
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or a tinge or a shade of pink in it.
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We have off-white that has just a little bit
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of purple in it, so it's very difficult to find
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pure white in the natural world.
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I think almost everything is off-white to some degree.
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Anyways, I'm just walking out here in the shade,
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trying to get outta the wind again.
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I feel like I'm always trying to get outta the wind.
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It's a very nice day.
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It's a Thursday right now.
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I'm just wrapping up this lesson
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and I'm going to be heading off to market.
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Jen is already there with one of my kids selling flowers
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and I had a few things to do at work
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and I had a few things to do around here.
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So I'm just finishing those and I'll be heading out
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in just a moment to join her there and sell some flowers.
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Anyways, I hope you're having a good day.
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I'll see you in a couple days
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with another short English lesson.
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Bye.
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