Learn the English Terms "high point" and "low point"

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn

the English term, "high point."

When you talk about something you've done

and you mention the high point,

you're talking about the best thing that happened

while you were doing it.

Let's say you went on a trip to France.

You could say, "The high point of my trip

was that I got to see the Eiffel Tower."

Let's say you're talking about your career,

you're talking about your job.

You could say, "You know, the high point

in my career so far was when I got that promotion

five or six years ago."

So, when you talk about the high point of something,

you're talking about the best thing that happened

while you were doing it.

"One of the high points that Jen had while flower farming

was that she got to be in the local newspaper.

They came and took a picture of her,

and they wrote an article.

And that was certainly one of the high points

of her time as a flower farmer."

Now, the other phrase I wanna teach you today

is the opposite, and it's "low point."

And I think you can probably guess what this means.

The low point would then be the worst thing

that ever happened to you, or one of the worst things

that happened to you.

So if you were talking again about your job, you could say,

"The low point in my career was when I got fired."

Or "The low point of the trip was when Joe fell

getting off the bus and twisted his ankle."

So, low point is then the not nice thing that happened

in an event or an experience that you had.

So to review, when you talk about the high point

of an experience, it's the best thing that happened

during that experience.

And when you talk about the low point of that experience,

you're talking about the worst thing that happened

during that experience.

High points are definitely better than low points.

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

Let me see if I can dig it out here.

This comment is from Janith.

"Hi Bob, sir, how do you pronounce 'gauge'?"

And my response, "I'll mention it in the next video."

So I just did.

I have to kinda gauge how much time I have left here.

Oh, I have two minutes left, so that's good.

But yes, that's how I pronounce the word gauge.

I think that's the only pronunciation.

I know there's a couple of different spellings.

I think you can spell it without a "u" as well,

but I spell it the way you just saw it

on the screen in Janith's comment.

So thanks for that comment,

and that's how I would spell or say the word "gauge."

Ha, and that's how I would spell it as well.

And I did give you an example sentence.

Every once in a while, I look at the time on my camera

because I want to gauge how much time I have left.

I wanna kinda get a sense of how much time I have left.

So I don't have a lot to talk about

for the last minute of this video.

That's not true.

(Bob laughs)

I always have lots to talk about.

It is January, and what that means for me at work

is that things are winding down for this semester.

I think some of you know this

but maybe not all of you.

In Canada,

sorry, in my part of Ontario, I should say,

we have a semester system in our high schools.

That means that we teach for about four and a half months,

almost five months, and then the semester is over.

Students take four classes a day.

And then when the semester's over,

they write exams at the end, and then they start

the next semester, and they take four more classes.

So for me, I have about eight days left as of today.

In eight days, regular classes are finished,

and then we have a week of exams.

And here's a little secret.

Teachers love the end of the semester,

but students find it very, very stressful.

The reason that is, is because teachers are almost done

all of their work.

I have to make an exam for them to write.

That's done, ready to go.

It's photocopied, but students have to do all the studying.

So, my job gets a little easier,

and their job gets a little harder.

Anyways, thanks for watching.

I'll see you in a few days

with another short English lesson.

Bye.