Learn the English Phrases "a split second" and "to split up"

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase a split second.

When something happens in a split second, it means it happens in less than a second.

It happens instantly.

It takes hardly any time at all.

The other night I had to hit my brakes in a split second

because a deer ran out on the road in front of me.

That happens sometimes in this part of Canada, so I hit my brakes in a split second.

My foot went from the floor of the van to the brake pedal in a split second.

It went immediately like no time passed at all.

It was definitely less than a second.

I don't usually move that fast, but in situations like that,

you need to react in a split second.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase to split up.

Now you can use this to talk about dividing something up.

If I had ten candies and I split up

the candies among my children, I would give each of them two.

I would put the ten candies on the table

and make little piles of two, and I would give each kid two candies.

You can also use this to talk about relationships.

Sometimes people will split up.

Sometimes Frank and Kim have a relationship

where things aren't going well and they decide that they want to split up.

This means that they are no longer together.

They have gone their separate ways.

So again, to review when something happens in a split second, it happens immediately.

It happens very, very quickly.

And when somebody splits something up, it means they divide them up like candies.

And if two people split up, it means they are no longer in a relationship.

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

This comment is from Mohd Ags, and my response is pretty long, so this might take a while.

I'll try to read clearly and quickly.

Mohd says, I really like learning useful phrases like to make a day of it

as simple as it might seem, you will most likely only hear native speakers

use it because advanced English learners are busy learning some odd

fancy words like obfuscate and elephantine.

Thank you, Mr. Bob.

And my response again, kind of long sorry.

Honestly, sometimes I don't know what to think about the advanced

English lessons some of the other YouTube teachers create.

I'm not one to speak badly of others, so I don't really talk about it much,

but sometimes they teach words that simply aren't used very often at all.

I think it might be time for me to statistically analyze what I hear

every day in the English speaking world.

Sometimes simple isn't just better.

It's literally the most common and correct.

So again, I don't like, thanks Mohd for the comment,

I don't like to speak negatively of what other teachers do.

I think everyone does a great job.

Everyone has their own approach.

But sometimes I do think

some of the advanced

vocabulary being taught isn't very common at all.

I think you're better off learning the more common vocabulary

and then focusing on vocabulary that has clearly been labeled

as important for like an IELTS test or another English test.

That can kind of be a really cool way to know

if the advanced vocabulary you're learning is important.

But yeah, sometimes I'm not sure there are words like I can't even think of some.

There are words.

Sometimes people will ask me in a live stream and I'll say,

You know, I don't think I've ever used that word.

I might have read that word somewhere, but I don't know if I've ever used it.

So learn to be fluent with all of the simple vocabulary

and then slowly build from there by listening to what actual English speakers use.

Hey, North America’s a funny place.

So behind me is a storage area.

You can rent a little storage garage or storage

area here for all of your extra stuff.

Some people in North America have too much stuff.

I don't know what's wrong with us.

I think we need to live simpler lives and have less.

But if you have too much stuff, you can rent a little spot here

and keep some of your stuff there.

Anyways, thanks for watching. Hoping you're having a good day.

I'll see you in another couple of days with a little English lesson. Bye.