Meaning of IT SERVES YOU RIGHT and YOU HAD IT COMING - A Short English Lesson with Subtitles

Let's imagine that you are not a very nice person.

I know you are a nice person,

but let's imagine that you are not a nice person.

Let's imagine that you are someone

who steals things from other people,

that you are a thief.

If you were a thief,

and if you spent your life

stealing things from other people,

and then one day, you came home,

and all of your stuff was gone,

all of your stuff was stolen,

someone could say to you, "It serves you right."

In English, when you say, "It serves you right,"

it means that you are happy

that something bad happened to someone else.

It's not a nice thing to say,

and we usually only say this to people

who do bad things,

and then when something bad happens to them,

we say, "It serves you right."

So you shouldn't say this to someone

if you think they did something right,

you say this to someone

if they got what they deserved,

if they did something wrong

and something bad happened to them,

you would say, "It serves you right."

We have another phrase, too, you had it coming,

and this is a similar phrase.

If you were someone who was mean to a dog every day,

let's say you were not a nice person,

and you were mean to the dog every day,

and then one day, the dog bites you.

Someone could say to you, "You had it coming,"

or if you say it quickly, "You had it comin'."

Basically you say this when something bad happens to someone

when they should have known that what they were doing

would cause something bad to happen to them.

A little tricky to understand,

but just imagine a dog that you are mean to,

and one day the dog bites you.

I could then say to you,

"Well, ya know, you had it comin'.

"If you are gonna bug a dog,

"eventually that dog is gonna bite you."

So, if you say, "It serves you right,"

it means that something bad happened to you

and somebody thinks you deserved it,

and if you say, "You had it comin',"

it means almost the same thing.