Learn the English Phrases TO HIT YOUR STRIDE and TO TAKE SOMETHING IN STRIDE

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase,

to hit your stride.

When you hit your stride, it means you're very comfortable

and efficient doing something.

Here's a good example.

Eventually, Jen and I will bring flowers to market,

not yet though, because winter has just ended

and spring is just beginning.

We don't have flowers yet,

but eventually we'll go and the first week

or two at market will be a little bit rough,

but eventually though, we will hit our stride.

This means that eventually at market,

we will feel comfortable, we'll remember how to sell flowers

at the market.

We'll remember how everything goes in our van

and how we set up, eventually we will hit our stride

and everything will go smoothly.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today

is to take something in stride.

Now, when you take something in stride,

it means something happens to you

and it doesn't really affect you much at all.

Here's a good example.

Sometimes in my classroom, a student will ask a question

without putting their hand up

or a student will speak when I'm speaking

and I just take that in stride.

I don't get mad.

I don't get angry.

Sometimes I'll just calmly remind the student

to please be a little bit more polite,

but I don't react in an extreme way,

I just take it in stride.

Once in my classroom, a student threw something at the board

and instead of yelling and getting angry,

I just took it in stride and I just turned and said,

with no emotion I just said,

please don't throw things in class.

I'm not a very mean or strict teacher,

but usually when I ask for things, students do listen,

so I'm thankful for that.

Anyways, to review, to hit your stride

means you're doing something

and you've become comfortable doing it again.

At the beginning of the school year

after a few days of teaching, I usually hit my stride

and I like doing it again

and to take something in stride

means to not react emotionally, to not get angry

or anything like that, but to just kind of not react at all

when something happens,

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

This comment is from Iris.

Hello teacher Bob, thank you for the amazing lesson

every time.

I have a question.

What does it mean, this week has been a zoo?

Is it kind of this week has been busy?

Thank you in advance.

And my response, it means it has been crazy and busy.

So that was from my last lesson.

In my last lesson, I mentioned that my week had been a zoo.

So when you say that something has been a zoo,

it means it's been crazy.

If I said to Jen, hey, my class today was a zoo.

It means that the students were loud and jumping around

and crazy and things didn't go as planned.

It would just mean that it wasn't calm and peaceful

in the way it normally is,

but hey, let's look at a few things here.

Over here, you could see that I'm at a park

and maybe you could see the soccer goals,

soon kids will be playing soccer again.

We're really close, it's going to start in a few weeks.

You can see here too, that there is a sign.

It says, dog on leash, stoop and scoop,

pick up after your pet

and then there's a little thing here that says,

if your dog poops, you should pick it up.

It's always a kind thing to do.

When you share a public space with someone,

it's always kind to clean up after your animals

because no one wants to accidentally step in dog poop.

That's something that usually annoys me quite a bit.

I hate it when I'm at a park

and someone hasn't cleaned up after their dog,

just kind of annoying.

Anyways, the other thing I wanted to show you,

I'm not sure if you can see,

but that house over there has solar panels on top of it

and the sun is just starting to come out more and more

in Canada.

We are seeing houses with solar panels on them.

I know you can see out where I live

that there are a lot of wind turbines,

but we are also starting to see a lot more solar panels

which is kind of cool

because eventually we can use less coal and natural gas

and nuclear power to create electricity.

Anyways, thanks for watching this little English lesson

and I'll see you in a couple days

with another one, bye.