Learn the English Phrases TO CLEAR SOMETHING UP and TO CLEAR THE AIR

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you understand the English phrase,

to clear something up.

When you have to clear something up with someone,

it means that you said something to them,

and maybe they didn't understand it.

Maybe they are confused and you just need

to clear something up with them.

Sometimes when I'm teaching my classes,

they don't understand exactly

what they're supposed to be doing.

I'll give them an assignment,

and I'll hear students whispering,

and I'll realize they don't understand

what they're supposed to be doing.

So I just need to then clear something up with them.

I just need to explain everything again

so that they are not confused.

I have to do this quite a bit, actually.

I don't think I'm the most logical person sometimes

when I'm explaining things to students.

And sometimes I just need to clear something up with them

so that they understand.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is,

to clear the air.

We use this phrase when two people have had a disagreement,

or when two people aren't getting along,

and then one of the people might clear the air

with the other person.

Let's say that me and a coworker, or sorry,

a coworker and I got into an argument.

I could go to work the next day

and I could say to them, hey,

I just want to clear the air a little bit.

I want to apologize for what I did or said yesterday.

It's when you want to make things normal again.

Sometimes when you're not getting along with someone,

or when you've had an argument or a small fight,

you might need to clear the air

before you can have a normal relationship with them again.

Sometimes it's a nice thing to do to just say, hey,

we had a bit of a disagreement yesterday,

let's just clear the air.

I want to apologize.

Let's work better together from now on.

So to review, when you need to clear something up,

it simply means you need to explain something

or clarify something.

That's a great way to describe the meaning of this phrase,

when you need to clarify something.

And when you need to clear the air,

it means that you've had kind of a argument

or a disagreement with someone, or you're not getting along,

and you just want to make things right again.

That's probably the best explanation I can give.

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

This comment is from, Athanasios, also used to be known

as Nathan GR, I think, but Athanasios,

I really liked saying that name, Athanasios, by the way.

When you're in the live lessons, it's kind of fun

because I get to answer your question

and I get to say your name.

Anyways, thanks for these phrases, dear teacher.

Something is going on with my headphones.

I can't make heads or tails of it.

My old cell phone, many times had a mind of its own.

That's why I bought a new one.

And my response was I had a phone like that once.

It would hide on me and then it was hard to find it back.

It had a mind of its own.

So thanks Athanasios for that comment.

Excellent use of both the phrase,

to make heads or tails of something,

or to not be able to make heads or tails of something,

and the phrase, when something has a mind of its own.

So thanks again for that comment.

Excellent use though, of both phrases.

Good job.

Yes, I was joking a bit there, right?

I had a phone once that that would hide on me.

Yeah, the phone didn't actually hide on me,

I was just forgetful.

When I first got my first cell phone,

or mobile phone, or smartphone,

actually my first phone wasn't a smartphone,

but when I first got it, I would forget it

in a lot of different places.

I wasn't used to carrying a phone around with me.

It was a new thing at the time.

So that was interesting.

I'd be like, "Jen, have you seen my phone?"

And Jen would say, "I don't know,

"you probably left it somewhere."

And then I would look all over the house for my phone.

So, hey, I wanted to give you an update on the river.

I mean, I don't talk about the river lot

but if you have a look you'll see the river melted

and then it froze.

And now if you look that way,

you'll see that it's also flooded.

I think you can see that.

Anyways, fun times here when it's kind of still winter,

but also a little bit of spring.

I'll see you in a couple of days

with another short English lesson.