Learn the English Phrases BUILD SOMEONE UP and TEAR SOMEONE DOWN - An English Lesson with Subtitles

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase

build someone up.

When you build someone up,

it means you say nice things about them.

It means you say things

that make them feel good about themselves.

When students in my classes

do really good work,

I tell them.

I say things like,

"You did a good job on this project,

"this is an excellent poster that you made."

I say positive things to make them realize

that they did excellent work,

I do that to build them up.

You can also do this when you give compliments to people.

If someone gets a haircut and you really like it,

you could say,

"Hey, I really like your haircut."

This might build someone up.

It might make them feel just a little bit more confident

and a little happier about themselves.

So when you build someone up,

it means you say nice, positive things

about someone or something they did

so that they feel better about themselves.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the opposite,

and that's the phrase tear someone down.

And this is exactly the opposite.

When you say things

that make someone feel bad about themselves,

we say that you're tearing them down.

Let's say you hear two students at school

or two kids talking to each other,

and one says,

"I think your hair is ugly,"

or, "I think that you are just not a very nice person

"and I don't like you."

Those would be phrases

that would be tearing someone down.

Recently, I don't wanna name names,

but recently there was someone in politics

who tended to say negative things

about other people,

he tended to tear people down a bit.

So when he was talking on the news,

it was quite common for him to tear someone down.

It was quite common for this person

to say negative things about other people.

And I like the other phrase better,

to review, I think it's always better

to build someone up.

Now, this doesn't mean you would lie to someone,

but it means that when someone does something good

or when they create something that's awesome,

you tell them.

You say that it is good,

you say that to build them up.

And then, if someone is mean,

sometimes they say things that tear other people down.

It's not nice to tear someone down,

I think you know me well enough from watching my videos

that I prefer to build someone up.

I don't like it when people tear each other down,

it's not very nice.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.

This comment is from Rose,

and the comment is this,

"What kind of camera are you using?

"The quality of the video is really good."

Well, thanks, Rose,

and my response was,

"I use a Canon SL2

"with a 10 to 18 millimeter wide angle lens.

"It isn't an overly expensive camera,

"but it does the trick."

So I used a little English phrase in there,

did you hear that?

It does the trick.

A few years ago,

I was just using my cellphone

to make these little English lessons,

and my son,

who is an avid photographer,

when you're avid,

when you're an avid photographer,

it means you really like taking pictures,

he said, "Dad,

"you wanna buy my used camera?

"I'd like to buy a new one."

So I bought this camera that I'm using now,

it's a Canon SL2.

I think it has a different name

in some other parts of the world,

I think it's a Canon 200D if you're in Europe

or somewhere in Asia.

But it wasn't expensive,

but it does the trick.

When you say in English that something does the trick,

it means it does what you need it to do.

So it's been a reliable little camera for me,

I think I've made quite a few videos

using this camera now.

I have looked at newer cameras,

I actually, I think I mentioned this,

I bought a new camera last summer

and I ended up returning it the next day

because I wasn't happy with it.

And I think,

through the winter,

I'm just gonna keep my eye out for a sale or two.

When you keep your eye out for something,

it means you're on the lookout

or you're waiting for something.

So I'll keep my eye out for a sale on newer cameras

and maybe I'll buy a new one.

If not, I'll keep using this one

because it's super reliable.