Learn the English Phrases TO KEEP IT TOGETHER and TO EARN YOUR KEEP

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase,

"To keep it together."

If you say to someone, "Hey, you need to keep it together,"

it means that that person is having

some kind of emotional outburst.

Maybe you play on a sports team,

and you've won the championship,

and you're cheering and shouting and you're super happy,

but one of your teammates starts to cry a little bit.

They're so overcome with emotion.

They're starting to cry.

You might say, "Hey, keep it together.

"We need to go and get the trophy.

"Don't start crying now.

"You need to keep it together, smile,

"and show a positive, happy face."

So when you say to someone

that they need to keep it together,

you're telling them to stop being emotional.

The other phrase that I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase, "To earn your keep."

When you earn your keep, it means you do work

so that people appreciate having you around.

The best example I can give for this

is when my son comes home from university,

he helps do certain jobs on the farm

because we want him to earn his keep.

Sorry, I changed the word your to his in that situation,

but we want him to earn his keep.

We don't want him to come home

and just eat our food and lay on the couch and use our Wi-Fi

without doing something in return.

So when you have a situation

where someone is earning their keep,

or where you say to someone, "You need to earn your keep,"

it means that they need to do some things to contribute

to whatever the living arrangement is.

So let's review.

When you say to someone that they need to keep it together,

it means that they need to calm down,

they need to stop being emotional,

and they need to be a little more serious

or a little more happy.

You need to keep it together.

Stop crying, Jim.

Just because we won the championship

doesn't mean you should get all emotional.

Try to keep it together.

And then the second phrase, "To earn your keep,"

is simply when someone does a little bit of work

to help pay for food and lodging and all of the other things

that go along with living somewhere.

When my son comes home, we make sure that he earns his keep.

Se doesn't just get to sit around.

That wouldn't be very good anyways, would it?

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

and this comment is from Benoit.

And Benoit says, "It doesn't matter if it's three

"or four a week."

Benoit is talking about the number of lessons

I do each week.

"As we all say, what matters is not the quantity

"but the quality.

"Anyway, Bob usually does a great job.

"Thanks a million."

And my response was, "I'll keep the quality high."

So two words in there that Benoit has shared with us.

Thanks for the comment, Benoit.

Quantity and quality.

So quantity refers to the amount of something,

like how many videos did I make a week?

Well, the quantity of videos I made per week was four.

And quality refers to how good something is.

So the quality of the videos I made each week,

well, I thought it was okay

and most of you think was really good.

But the quality let's just agree was high, okay.

I'm a little embarrassed saying that.

I think it was medium-high, okay.

So the quantity was four a week and the quality was okay.

Now, I'm gonna do three videos a week,

so the quantity has gone down,

but the quality, I guarantee you,

will stay absolutely the same.

Hey, the snow is melting a little bit

out here in Ontario, Canada.

And what that means is the snow is packy.

If you look behind me,

it's kind of hard to see because it's white,

but my kids have started,

I'm slipping here,

my kids have started building

what you would call a snow fort.

Let me run behind it for a sec.

(snow crunching)

Ha ha.

(snow crunching)

Glad I didn't hit the camera with that snowball.

Anyways, the snow is melting.

Spring is just around the corner.

It's actually like a month away,

but in my mind I'm thinking it's just around the corner.

Anyways, see you in a couple of days

with another short English lesson.