Learn the English Phrases "both feet on the ground" and "to cover a lot of ground"

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase

both feet on the ground.

Now we usually use this phrase

with the verb to have or to keep.

We say it's good to have both feet on the ground

or it's good to keep both feet on the ground,

and this means to stay calm,

to think clearly in any kind of situation.

Maybe you've just lost your job.

It's important to keep both feet on the ground

as you think about what you're going to do next.

You don't want to all of a sudden do things in a crazy way.

You don't want to become really emotional

and make bad decisions.

You want to keep both feet on the ground.

You want to think logically.

You want to plan in a good way,

and you want to get through that situation

with everything the way it should be.

So you want to keep both feet on the ground.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is to cover a lot of ground.

So this can literally mean to start hiking

and try to hike 10 or 20 kilometers in one day.

You want to cover a lot of ground,

but we also use this when we talk about

when we're doing work.

Sometimes when I start my class,

I'll say to my students, "Hey, get in your seats.

Get your books open.

We need to cover a lot of ground today."

That means that I have a lot of stuff that I need to teach.

It means that during our 70 minute class,

we need to work for every single minute of the 70 minutes.

We need to cover a lot of ground.

So it's important when you have a lot of stuff to do

that you make sure you plan to cover a lot of ground.

So to review, when you keep both feet on the ground

or when you have both feet on the ground,

it means that you are grounded.

That's another term we use in English.

It means that you're going to stay calm

and think logically and plan well.

And when you say that you need to cover a lot of ground,

it means whatever you're doing that day,

you need to get a lot of it done.

You need to work hard to get it finished.

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

This comment is from Doaa.

"I had a conversation with a native tutor

on Cambly the other day, and it was a breeze.

That was the first time I felt comfortable

having a conversation in English.

To be honest, I was over the moon.

Hard work pays off.

Thank you so much, Bob, for making these videos.

They're really beneficial."

And my response, "That is great news.

It makes me happy to hear a success story like this.

Awesome."

So Doaa, that's awesome.

Good work.

I'm glad to hear that you did well in your conversation.

That is just awesome.

I always am happy when I hear people do well,

especially after watching my videos,

although that's not the important part.

I just like hearing when people study

and they work hard and they do well.

I was going to show you this tree today,

because just a few minutes ago,

the leaves were falling off in droves.

Did I teach that phrase yet? In droves.

Man, it is really sunny today.

I'm going to move over this way,

so I could show you a different angle.

But it stopped.

Maybe if you go back in the video

at the beginning of this lesson,

you'll be able to see the leaves falling off like crazy.

And I joked the other day, let me spin you around.

I joked the other day that we don't rake our leaves,

but I think there might be too many leaves here.

I think, now the leaves are falling off.

I think I might have to rake these leaves up.

I think there might just be too many of them on the ground.

Anyways, I was also curious to know

if any of you live somewhere where this happens.

I know this is not unique to Canada,

but I also know that some of you live in countries

where leaves don't fall off the trees in the fall like this,

and you don't get to experience this incredible beauty.

You don't get to see trees, if I spin you around again,

you can see that the trees

are all starting to have a nice hue of orange.

Anyways, thanks for watching this short English lesson

and listening to me talk about fall again. See ya.