Learn the English Phrases "could be worse" and "from bad to worse"

In this English lesson

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “could be worse”.

Now, this is a phrase that we use in two different situations.

If you said to me, Hey, Bob, how's it going?

I might answer. Could be worse.

This is a response to that greeting that means nothing's

really bad in my life, but nothing's really good.

It's a very neutral answer and kind of a funny one.

So you might say, Hey, Bob, how's it going?

And I could say, Ah you know it could be worse.

The other way we use this or the other situation we use this in

is when someone's talking about something bad that's happened

and you want to kind of reassure them that it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Here's a good example.

The other day it rained a lot and there was...

there was a lot of water on our property.

And Jen said, you know, it could be worse.

The roof of the house could have started leaking.

That would have been way worse than what was happening.

So it's used to just introduce a thought

about how the situation could have been worse.

The other phrase I want to teach you today is “to go from bad to worse”.

This is used to describe maybe your day starting out badly,

and then as the day goes by, it just gets worse and worse.

You could say, Oh, my day went from bad to worse.

On the way to school there was a traffic jam

and I was late for work or on the way to work

there was a traffic jam, but I was late for work.

I know you don't all work at a school.

And then when I got to school,

I had to fill in for Joe because he was sick that day.

So my day went from bad to worse.

So to review “could be worse” could be used as a response to a greeting.

Like, How's it going? Ah, could be worse.

Or to describe how a situation could actually be worse.

And to go from bad to worse is used to describe usually a day

that starts out badly and then just keeps getting

worse as the day goes on.

Those are not fun days.

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

This comment is from Denis.

There are so many comments under this video.

That is cool.

And my response, I'm happy

that it never gets to be too many, that I can't answer them all.

Someday, though, it might.

So thanks, Denis, for that comment. Yes.

A little secret here.

I really enjoy answering the comments on this channel.

And one of the things that makes that possible is that

there's usually only 30 or 40 of them.

And I.

I do want this channel to grow.

That would be exciting for me.

It would be exciting to get a silver play button someday for this channel.

But at the same time, I do really enjoy

the fact that I can respond to all the comments.

Like it's... it's not a lot of work.

One of you once asked

how fast I type, so I'll tell you a little story.

Years ago in university, I decided, this is way back in the late eighties,

early nineties, I decided that typing on a keyboard might be important.

So I sat down at a computer and I taught myself to type

and eventually I could type over 80 words per minute.

And to this day, I can still type that fast.

That really helps me reply to comments.

Sometimes, too, I use an app or an extension in my browser

that lets me use voice, but sometimes typing is just faster.

So yes, my typing speed is really high

and that certainly helps me answer a lot of comments.

And it's fun because I actually kind of get to know some of you on this channel.

Whereas on my bigger channel, I try to respond to all the comments

that I can on a Tuesday morning when the video comes out.

But eventually there are just too many of them.

And it's not... it's not possible.

It's not humanly possible.

That's how we would describe that in English.

So I love this channel because it's still...

it's a small, fun community of people who I can get to know and interact with.

So thanks for being here.

And let's hope it grows, but not too much.

Anyways, see you in a couple of days with another short English lesson. Bye.