Learn the English Phrases OUT OF HAND and I CAN COUNT ON ONE HAND

12,550 views ・ 2020-10-19

Bob's Short English Lessons


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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In this English lesson I wanted to help you
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learn the English phrase out of hand.
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When we say that things have gotten out of hand
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or that things might get out of hand,
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we're talking about things getting out of control.
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We're talking about things not going well.
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A great example of this would be
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sometimes university students will have a party
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and they'll invite about 10 people over
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and sometimes 200 people will show up.
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We would say that the party is getting out of hand.
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We would say that when that many people show up,
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things can get out of hand.
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And what we mean by that is things are definitely
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not in control.
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I mean, a party with five or 10 people is one thing,
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a party with 200 people can quickly get out of hand.
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It can quickly become something that's no longer fun
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for anybody who's there.
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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase
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I can count on one hand.
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Sometimes in English, when we're talking about
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things we've done in life, and if we've not done it
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very much, we might say, you know, I can count on one hand
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the number of times I've been skiing,
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or I can count on one hand the number of times
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that I've gone to a movie and didn't like it
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'cause I normally like movies.
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So, in English, when we say that we can count something
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on one hand, it means that it's something
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that we probably only did twice, maybe three times.
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You could also say something like this,
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I can count on one hand the number of times I've made soup.
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So you can always use this to talk about anything
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that goes somewhere between the number two and five, okay.
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So if it's more than five, you obviously can't count it
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on one hand and we don't ever say I can count on two hands,
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it's always on one hand.
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I can count on one hand the number of times
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I've seen elephants in real life,
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so, there you go, there's another example.
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Again just to review when something is out of hand
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or when something gets out of hand,
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it means it is no longer under control.
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Sometimes things get out of hand
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and people need to call the police,
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that's how you restore order sometimes.
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And if you say that you can count on one hand
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the number of times you've done something,
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it means you've done it once, maybe twice,
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maybe three times, maybe five times, definitely not six
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but hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video.
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This comment is from Prankit, and this is a comment
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from the video where I taught you the English phrase
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keeping up with the Joneses and Prankit says this,
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"My grandma said,
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"forget about keeping up with the Joneses.
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"The people who matter in your life will respect
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"and love you because of who you are,
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"not because of what you've got
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"or what sort of car you drive."
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And my response to that was this,
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"Your grandma said a very wise thing in my opinion.
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"At the end of the day, it isn't the fancy car you drive
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"that people will remember.
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"It's how you treated them and how you made them feel."
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I think that this is very, very true in life,
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I think it is nice to have nice things, I won't say it's not
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but when I think about all of the good memories
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I have in life, most of my good memories have nothing to do
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with things and have everything to do with time that I spent
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with certain people, so Prankit,
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thank you so much for that comment
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and that was a very wise thing
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that your grandma said for sure.
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And just to go on a little bit, I do, like I said,
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in my last video think that the best things in life
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I think are free.
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Today we went for a hike with our kids.
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A lot of times when I'm enjoying myself in life,
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it's because I'm in nature or I'm going for a walk
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or I'm doing something which costs me nothing
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but it's totally free and it's just totally
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the best thing that day, so I'm not saying things are bad,
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it is nice to own things and to have nice things,
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but I do think the best things in life are free.
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