Learn the English Phrases "to change things up" and "a change of scenery"

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to change things up.

Now this just means to change things.

But we use this phrase a lot in English when we talk about something

that we do a certain way, and then when we just do it a different way,

one or two days, just to make it a little more exciting.

Let me try to think of a good example.

The last video, I changed things up a little bit.

I just did a quick short video outside.

I didn't follow my regular routine.

Sometimes when I'm teaching a class, I like to change things up

because I don't want students to get bored with what I'm doing.

So the other day, in order to change things up a bit,

I decided we were going to walk to town instead of staying in the classroom.

I'm teaching a business class, so it's okay to walk to town

and look at businesses and study how they do business.

So anyways, I decided to change things up.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase a change of scenery.

Did I spell that right? Yes, a change of scenery.

We usually use this to talk about when someone moves.

The reason for moving might be because they want a change of scenery.

They might want to go somewhere where they live and can see other things around them.

If you live in the city

and you move to the country, you might do it because you want a change of scenery.

Maybe you're tired of listening to traffic and hearing people yelling in the night.

I don't really know what it's like to live in the ci..., in the city.

Maybe you need a change of scenery so you move to the country

where things are a little more pleasant, at least in my opinion.

So to review, to change things up simply means to change something.

If you have a routine and you do something different.

On a certain date, we would say that you have decided to change things up

and a change of scenery would be when you decide to move somewhere else.

It's usually related to moving.

Sometimes people

use it in a slightly more minor way, but it usually means you've decided

to live somewhere else because you just want to see different things around you.

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

This comment is from Oksana.

Sometimes it's better than a regular lesson, or at least definitely not worse.

Take care.

And my response?

I think it's good to change things up every once in a while.

So Oksana was referring to my sliding down the hill

lesson, which, by the way, I did actually end up falling.

I don't know if you saw my short lesson on my other channel,

but yes, I did actually end up falling.

I just hurt my knee a little bit. Wow.

Well, I did actually slip and fall, didn't I?

Just a little bruise. Nothing major.

Hey, anyways, Oksana, thank you for leaving that comment.

By the way, I just wanted to show you today.

Let me spin you around.

I've been trying to find a place in my local town

where they're actually building new buildings.

This is a multi dwelling house or a multi-unit house

that would be a house where more than one person is going to live.

At a certain point, you can see this house is almost done.

They just need to put the siding on the outside.

I'll try to find a house that's

earlier in the construction phase because I wanted to show you

how primarily we build our houses in Ontario, Canada, out of wood.

We have a lot of wood in Canada, so we build a lot of our houses out of wood.

Let's do this.

I'll keep talking while I give you a bit of a better look.

Trying to walk as fast as I can so that you can see.

So this house, I think, although it looks big, I think it's a house that's built

for more than one family or more than one residence.

I think there's at least two entrances on this side,

and I know that there are entrances on the back as well.

So it's not an apartment building, but it's definitely bigger than a house.

Anyways, thanks for watching.

I hope you enjoyed this short lesson.

I'll see you in a couple of days with another one. Bye.