Learn the English Phrases IN RETROSPECT and HINDSIGHT IS 20/20

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn

the English phrase, in retrospect.

When we use the phrase, in retrospect,

it means we're talking about the past

or thinking about the past.

For me, it's usually a phrase I use

when I'm thinking about a decision I made in the past

that was bad.

Here's an example sentence.

I'm out here today wearing my spring jacket,

but it's a little cold, in retrospect,

I should've grabbed my gloves before I came outside.

So I'm talking about a decision I made in the past

that was probably a bad decision.

So in retrospect, I should've grabbed my gloves.

I'm actually home today,

because a lot of teachers at my school have COVID right now.

So in retrospect, it was probably a bad idea

to have a staff meeting last Friday.

I think that's maybe where it spread around,

but who knows?

So, in retrospect means to think about the past

or to look back to the past

when you're talking about something.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is hindsight is 20/20.

This is kind of a funny phrase we say

when we're talking about how

when something goes wrong,

if we had thought about it earlier,

we probably could have prevented it.

But hindsight is 20/20.

When you look back,

it's easier to see that you made a bad decision,

than it might have been in the moment when you made it.

When you can see without glasses,

we say you have 20/20 vision,

and hindsight is the act of looking back in the past.

So we often say, hindsight is 20/20.

It's very clear when you look backwards in time,

where you made bad decisions in your life,

but at the time, it might not have been.

So to review, in retrospect is a phrase we use

when we're talking about the past.

I actually just used it

when I replied to Mohd Ag's comment the other day

on the last video,

and that's when I thought of this phrase.

And hindsight is 20/20 is kind of a funny phrase we use

to laugh about how, when you're talking about the past,

and bad decisions you've made,

when you look at it from where you are in time right now,

you know that it was a bad decision,

but at the time, you really didn't.

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

This comment is from Denis.

When I hear the phrase,

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

my heart starts beating faster.

Qui Park says, maybe your turn?

And my response was,

are you hoping that it's yours?

So yeah, I wonder sometimes what it's like

to watch these videos.

I don't really know, because I'm the one making them,

but I'm sure for some of you, you're wondering,

did Bob pick my comment?

So this time, Denis, I picked your comment,

so hopefully you enjoyed that.

A lot of you in the last video

mentioned how you enjoyed the fact

that I was making videos in town, and I did too,

but then a funny thing happened at school the other day,

we had a number of teachers gone

because they have COVID.

In fact, so many teachers are gone

that we can't have school in person right now

because there's not enough teachers.

I don't know why I'm laughing about it,

the people who have COVID, it's very mild,

but we got to a point

where there just weren't enough teachers to continue.

So it's a Thursday, and I'm actually home today,

so that's kind of unique.

You enjoyed it when I made videos in town

and now I'm actually at home for a couple of days,

and I can can't do that.

So what I'll show you instead

is this little mini greenhouse

that Jen and I have built.

We are trying, if you look here,

these peonies are growing nicely,

but we're trying to get the ones inside here

to grow even faster.

We're trying get the mini greenhouse

to kinda add some warmth to them

so that they think that it's time to grow fast and to bloom

and we'll see if that works out.

Anyways, I gotta check my time.

Oh, we're done.

Thanks for watching this little English lesson.

I'll see you in a few days with another one. Bye.