Learn the English Phrases STRIKE UP and STRIKE ONE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn

the English phrase, strike up.

We use this phrase mostly when we're talking

about starting a conversation with someone.

If I go somewhere and I see someone I know

on the other side of the room,

I might walk over and strike up a conversation with them.

If I'm at a party and there's a person

that I really want to talk to,

at some point I might walk over

and I might strike up a conversation with them.

So again, when you strike up a conversation with someone,

it means simply that you go and you start

having a conversation with them.

You go and you start talking to them.

If I was in an airport and someone recognized me and said,

"Bob, the Canadian," I would probably strike up

a conversation with them.

That would be really cool, by the way,

if I ran into someone who knew who I was.

That's never happened.

Even though I have many, many subscribers on YouTube,

no one has ever yelled out in public,

"Hey Bob, the Canadian," and then struck up

a conversation with me.

Anyways, the second phrase I wanna teach you today

is the phrase, strike one,

and also strike two and strike three.

Baseball is a sport where you have a number of chances

to hit the ball.

But if you swing and miss it's strike one.

We use this phrase when we're talking to people as well.

I actually use it with my students

when they're not behaving well in class.

I'll say to a student, "Look, you really need

to stop talking and you need to get your work done.

And because I need to warn you that's strike one."

Okay, then the student knows that if I catch them talking

and not doing their work again, it will be strike two.

And then when we get to strike three,

I'll probably make them go and talk to the principal.

So once again, to review, when you strike up a conversation,

it means you start having a conversation with someone.

And when you use the strike system,

when you tell someone that, "That's strike one,"

you mean that they have been warned.

They have two more chances

and then something's going to happen

that they probably won't like.

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

Sorry, I'm sitting out here sort of in the rain.

I'm actually underneath the hatch of my van right now,

because it's raining a little bit.

So my camera's out of the rain, but I'm still kind of in it.

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

This is from Padma and Padma says, "Hello, teacher Bob.

When I see certain," sorry, "When I see certain titles

of your videos, I always think these phrases are so unusual.

But then on the TV show, "Friends," I hear many of them.

And I say, "Oh, they are so common."

And my response is this.

"I'm happy to hear that.

I get all of my phrases from everyday conversations.

I'm always on the lookout for phrases

that native English speakers use when I'm talking to them.

And then I write them down quickly

so that I can make a lesson about it.

It has left me thinking that English

is a bit of a strange language."

So yeah, that one of the side-effects of teaching English

is that as I study the English language,

in order to teach it to you,

I've been starting to realize

that the language is kind of strange.

Sorry, I forgot to thank Padma.

Thanks Padma, for the comment.

Again, I've been starting to realize

the language is pretty strange.

Especially when I'm teaching phrasal verbs

or when I'm teaching phrases

where I'm not even sure what they mean.

Like literally, I know what they mean in usage

and it just seems to me like it's a strange language.

But I know I've mentioned this several times to all of you,

I think everyone who knows me in life,

knows that I'm constantly on the lookout

for really good English phrases

to teach on my YouTube channel.

So even at work, sometimes people will come up and say,

"Have you taught this phrase yet?"

In fact, yesterday's phrase, "spoken for,"

was a phrase that Jen used at breakfast the other day.

And so I was like, "Oh, that's a good phrase.

I'll add it to my list."

Anyways, Bob, the Canadian here.

Sorry if I talked a little too fast today.

I think the rain falling on my head

made me want to get done quickly.

Anyways, thanks for watching.

I'll see you in a couple of days

with another small English lesson.