Learn the English Phrases GEARING UP FOR and HIGH GEAR - A Short English Lesson with Subtitles

- In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn

the English phrase gearing up for.

In English, if you say

that you are gearing up for something,

it simply means that you are getting ready to do something.

It's very common here in Canada in the month of August

for teachers to start to gear up,

teachers begin gearing up for the new school year.

All that means is that teachers start to create lessons,

they start to plan what their classes will look like.

They start to gear up.

They are gearing up for a new school year.

Jen, because she grows flowers,

obviously doesn't grow flowers in the winter in Canada.

But in the winter, towards the month

of January or February, she starts to gear up.

I would say that in the month of February

Jen is very often gearing up for the coming growing season.

So she's simply getting ready to grow things.

And because we're talking about gears,

I thought I would talk about the phrase high gear.

In a vehicle, high gear is the gear that you are in

once the transmission is done shifting

or it is the highest gear your vehicle can go in.

It is the gear that makes you go the fastest.

But in English, we also use the phrase high gear

to describe somebody who's doing something

very, very quickly.

Yesterday I was doing some work on the farm

and I was in high gear.

I was walking fast, I was connecting hoses

in order to water some of the flowers,

and I was doing everything really, really quickly.

If you wanted, you could describe

that yesterday I was in high gear.

I think some of you when you plan to take English tests,

you start to study really hard.

We could say that you are in high gear

when you are studying because you are studying

a long time and you are studying very, very quickly

in order to do as well as possible on your test.

So once again, when you gear up for something in English

or when you are gearing up for something,

it means you are getting ready for it.

And when you are in high gear,

it means that you are going very, very quickly.

I like this new segment.

We'll look now at a question that someone left

in a previous video.

The question that I'm going to look at today

is from Rod from VIPidp.

Rod, by the way, is a really nice guy.

I've actually talked to Rod.

Actually he was the one who won first place

in the contest for lessons with Bob the Canadian.

So hi, Rod. Hope you're doing well.

Rodrigo is his full name.

Anyways, Rod's question is this.

"Can I say I'm changing gears to finance

because I'm tired of doing what I do?"

So yesterday's lesson was on the phrase shifting gears

and this question is about can I use the phrase

changing gears instead of shifting gears?

And the answer is absolutely.

And then it continues,

"Thank you so much."

You're welcome, Rod.

So you can definitely use the phrase shifting gears

to indicate that you are changing

something you are doing in life.

And you can certainly use the phrase shifting gears

and changing gears.

Sorry, I made a little mistake there.

You can certainly use the phrase changing gears as well.

Just like in a car when you're in second gear

and you shift to third gear,

when you are in a car, you can also,

when you're in second gear, change the gears

and go into third gear.

So you can do the same thing in life.

You can say I'm changing gears.

So, Rod, your phrase is entirely correct.

Great question.

Thank you so much for asking it.

And then once again, just a reminder,

leave questions below.

If you are a member, I will pick your question possibly,

huh, if it's a good question

and I will use it in a future video.

But for now,

I just want to say thank you once again for watching.

I'm Bob the Canadian.

It's a beautiful, hot, hot Friday afternoon

here in Canada.

But it's going to be an enjoyable weekend.

We might get a little bit of rain tomorrow.

I'm really crossing my fingers.

That's what we do for good luck.

I'm crossing my fingers that it will rain tomorrow.

Anyways, have a good day.

I'll see you next week in another video.