Learn the English Phrases ME TIME and PEACE AND QUIET - A Short English Lesson with Subtitles

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn

the English phrase me time.

Me time is how we refer to time spent by yourself.

I love my kids, I love Jen,

but sometimes I need some me time.

I'm actually feeling that quite a bit today.

When you say me time,

you mean time spent just sitting by yourself somewhere,

maybe just sitting, watching television by yourself,

maybe sitting outside, reading a book,

although it's a little cool for that right now.

But sometimes in your life, in spite of the fact

that you love your family and you love your friends,

you just really want some me time.

I don't often have this.

Probably every few months or so,

I, I just really crave some me time.

I just need a little bit of time away,

maybe a little bit of time outside by myself,

enjoying the beautiful nature around me

or reading a good book or doing something else like that.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you, it's kinda related.

It's peace and quiet.

So peace is when there is no war

or when it's really calm out,

and obviously quiet is when it's not noisy.

And sometimes I crave me time

but I also crave peace and quiet.

In fact, jokingly, my kids one year said

maybe that's what I wanted for my birthday.

They said, "Dad, what do you want for your birthday?"

And I said, "I don't know."

And one of my kids said, "He wants peace and quiet."

(laughs)

I think a lot of dads feel that sometimes.

When you have a bunch of kids,

your house can get loud every once in a while.

It was especially hard for me last spring

when I was working from home,

I often really wanted peace and quiet

so that I could do my work.

But at the same time, kids will be kids.

My kids had every right to be loud

and play around me at certain times.

So maybe I just need to build a little shed outside

and use that as my office.

So to review, sometimes I need a little bit of me time.

I might just go for a drive today

and think about life and reflect on that.

So me time is when you crave time by yourself.

And I also really like peace and quiet

every once in a while.

Sometimes it just gets too loud and too crazy

and noisy around me.

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

This comment is from Francisco.

Francisco says, "I hate lesson plans.

"I prefer to follow the syllabus and improvise an activity

"or a game in relation with the topic.

"My students love it.

"It's never boring, even for me."

And my response is this.

"For me, lesson plans aren't the worst.

"The worst part of teaching for me

"is when I have to grade a pile of student work.

"Sometimes I get behind.

"I don't mind grading when I'm on top of things,

"but I do not enjoy it when I get behind."

So thank you, Francisco, for that comment.

I would somewhat agree with you.

I do like having a bit of a plan when I go into class.

It's not extensive.

I don't write paragraphs in my planner before I go in,

but I usually make a list of the things I wanna get done today.

For those of you that aren't teachers,

before you teach a lesson, you usually create a lesson plan.

But I do agree, improvising,

coming up with little games and things on the spot

can be a lot of fun as well.

And it keeps things exciting for you and for your students.

I use the phrase, "I don't mind grading

"when I'm on top of things."

In English, when you're on top of things,

it means that you're not behind.

I give my students assignments and quizzes and tests.

And when they hand them in, I try to grade them right away.

We sometimes say, I try to mark them right away,

because I don't like to get behind,

I like to stay on top of things.

So another English phrase for you today,

when you try to stay on top of things,

it means that you do things regularly

so you don't get behind.

We try to stay on top of the dishes. (laughs)

We do dishes after every meal in the house

because you don't want to get behind doing the dishes.

That's just a big mess and a huge pile of dishes

that no one feels like doing.