Learn the English Phrases A SLIM CHANCE and BY ANY CHANCE

In this English lesson I wanted to help you

learn the English phrase, "a slim chance".

When you say there is a slim chance

that something will happen,

it means that it might happen.

It means that there's a chance it won't happen,

but there's also a chance that it will happen.

A slim chance.

Today, it said that there is a 10% chance of rain today.

That's a pretty slim chance that it will rain.

There's actually more of a chance that it won't rain,

but there is a slim chance that it will rain.

There's also a slim chance that as you watch

this English lesson, you might not understand me.

I might speak too quickly at a certain point in time.

There's always a slim chance when I make these lessons

that I'm going to speak too quickly.

I try to speak clearly.

I don't speak super slow,

but I don't speak super fast (laughs)

but there is a slim chance

that I might actually talk a little too fast

during this lesson.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase, "by any chance".

Now I use this when I ask a question

to make the question somewhat polite.

I'll sometimes say things like this,

"You don't, by any chance,

know how to get to the airport."

"You don't, by any chance,

know how to get to the museum."

It's a little phrase I add that basically means,

is it possible that you know this?

And it makes the question a little bit more polite.

I used to ask this question a long time ago,

because I used to smoke.

And I used to say every once in a while to someone,

"You don't, by any chance, have a light, do you?"

And that would mean I was asking

if someone had a lighter.

By the way, I smoked cigarettes

when I was a lot younger for a couple of years,

it was really bad.

I shouldn't have done that.

Smoking is bad for you.

So, but during that time,

I would sometimes say to people,

"Hey, you don't, by any chance, have a lighter, do you?"

You see how the question is formed?

It's kind of weird, eh?

You wouldn't, by any chance, have a lighter.

Or you don't, by any chance, have a lighter, do you?

We kind of put the negative at the beginning

and then by any chance,

but it's a polite way to ask something.

So to review, when there's a slim chance

of something happening,

it means that it might happen, but probably not.

And when you use the phrase, "by any chance",

when asking a question,

it makes the question a little bit more polite.

You might actually ask this question to someone.

You might say, "You don't, by any chance,

speak English, do you?"

And if they say yes,

you could have a cool English conversation.

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

This comment is from Shahd Ammar.

"OMG, Bob, is that a lake behind you?"

(laughs)

I wanna see it, it's amazing."

"Nope, not a lake, just a river."

This is my response.

"It's really nice and peaceful

to walk along the banks, especially in the early spring,

sometimes in the winter it freezes thick enough

that snowmobiles drive on it.

That isn't as peaceful."

I think I've talked about this before.

One of the interesting things about living

along the river is that people use it for recreation.

Recreation is when you do something for fun.

So I don't mind when people come in a small boat and fish.

I don't mind when people go by in a canoe.

But sometimes people go by on their jet skis

or Sea-Doos and they're really loud

and they disturb the water.

And in the winter, a lot of people come by

on their motorcycles, which are really loud,

and they like to go by in the middle of the night

when I'm trying to sleep.

My bedroom in the house is on the riverside of the house.

I have a window facing the river.

So in the winter, when the snowmobiles are going all night,

when they're having their fun,

I'm laying in bed grouchy and angry and cranky thinking,

"Oh, why are those snowmobiles going by

at two o'clock in the morning?

Couldn't they do this at a normal hour?"

So anyways, what I should do is go down

in the middle of the night and say,

"Hey, by any chance, could you not snowmobile

during the night?"

(laughs) But there's a slim chance

of that happening because there's no way I'm getting up

in the middle of the night to go talk to snowmobilers.

Anyways, Bob the Canadian here.

I hope you enjoyed this little lesson.

Hopefully, you don't mind the wind

and I'll see you in a couple of days

with another short English lesson, bye.