Learn the English Phrases "to have a free hand" and "to have free rein"

3,137 views ・ 2023-06-02

Bob's Short English Lessons


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

00:00
- In this English lesson,
0
90
1020
00:01
I wanted to help you learn the English phrase,
1
1110
1890
00:03
to have a free hand.
2
3000
2130
00:05
Now, when you have a free hand,
3
5130
1440
00:06
it means you have the freedom to do what you want
4
6570
3300
00:09
in a certain situation.
5
9870
1680
00:11
My job's really nice, because I have a boss,
6
11550
2730
00:14
but when I'm in the classroom,
7
14280
1380
00:15
I have a free hand to do pretty much anything I want to,
8
15660
3300
00:18
within reason of course.
9
18960
1590
00:20
So when you have a free hand, you can do what you want.
10
20550
2790
00:23
When you're your own boss,
11
23340
1350
00:24
you have a free hand to do whatever you want all the time.
12
24690
3390
00:28
Jen is her own boss here on the flower farm,
13
28080
2400
00:30
so she has a free hand,
14
30480
1380
00:31
she can decide to do things or not do things
15
31860
2730
00:34
or do things anyway she wants to.
16
34590
2610
00:37
The second phrase I wanna teach you today
17
37200
2130
00:39
is to have free rein,
18
39330
1170
00:40
and this actually means the same thing
19
40500
1860
00:42
as to have a free hand, but notice there's no a.
20
42360
3510
00:45
So when you have free rein,
21
45870
1470
00:47
you can do things any way you want,
22
47340
1710
00:49
when you have a free hand,
23
49050
1320
00:50
you can do things anyway you want.
24
50370
1830
00:52
But the one phrase has this word in it, the letter A,
25
52200
2520
00:54
a, and this phrase does not, so you have free rein.
26
54720
4830
00:59
I love doing YouTube,
27
59550
1590
01:01
because I have free rein to do whatever I want,
28
61140
2610
01:03
I don't have a boss telling me what to do.
29
63750
2400
01:06
And again, I do like my job,
30
66150
1650
01:07
because I pretty much have free rein
31
67800
2070
01:09
to do what I want creatively in the classroom.
32
69870
3030
01:12
So to review, to have a free hand or to have free rein,
33
72900
3120
01:16
they mean the same thing,
34
76020
1260
01:17
it means to have freedom in any kind of situation.
35
77280
4050
01:21
But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video,
36
81330
2220
01:23
this comment is from Qiu Park, and the comment is,
37
83550
3847
01:27
"Jen is awesome, she did a great job,
38
87397
2453
01:29
it's fascinating to be a flower grower, she grows beauty."
39
89850
2820
01:32
And my response, "Jen always says she grows beautiful things
40
92670
3300
01:35
and they make people happy.
41
95970
1440
01:37
I make English lessons and they make people happy,
42
97410
2490
01:39
it makes us happy when we help people be happy."
43
99900
2910
01:42
So I guess Jen and I kind of are in the happiness business.
44
102810
4200
01:47
Thanks Qiu Park for that comment, that was great.
45
107010
3150
01:50
Yes, in the last video,
46
110160
1830
01:51
I'm going to walk out here to the peonies again.
47
111990
2460
01:54
I know it gets a little repetitive, but the cool thing is,
48
114450
3360
01:57
is they are really close right now to blooming.
49
117810
3420
02:01
In fact, some of them have been harvested already,
50
121230
2490
02:03
so you'll be seeing some plants
51
123720
2550
02:06
that don't have any flowers on them.
52
126270
2160
02:08
And I know it might look like they're not blooming yet,
53
128430
4920
02:13
but we do cut the peonies before they actually bloom.
54
133350
5000
02:19
And there are mosquitoes out here,
55
139080
1530
02:20
which reminds me of Mohd Ags made a comment
56
140610
3120
02:23
in the last video about wanting to be a fly
57
143730
3390
02:27
on the wall on the farm.
58
147120
930
02:28
See, this one is already gone, Jen has harvested it.
59
148050
3390
02:31
We usually pick them
60
151440
1890
02:33
when they feel a little bit like a marshmallow,
61
153330
3150
02:36
so that one's almost ready to go.
62
156480
2520
02:39
This one is not quite ready to go, but we pick them,
63
159000
4530
02:43
yeah, at what we call the marshmallow stage.
64
163530
3150
02:46
When they're at the marshmallow stage,
65
166680
1980
02:48
when you squeeze them,
66
168660
1680
02:50
they feel a little bit like a marshmallow.
67
170340
1710
02:52
You know what a marshmallow is?
68
172050
1050
02:53
It's one of those white things, they come in a bag,
69
173100
2583
02:56
if you roast them over a fire,
70
176790
1770
02:58
they end up tasting really, really yummy,
71
178560
2040
03:00
you can make something out of them called s'mores,
72
180600
2553
03:03
but we haven't done that yet this year,
73
183990
1620
03:05
we'll do that in a few weeks.
74
185610
2100
03:07
There's definitely something flying around here,
75
187710
2035
03:09
but I don't think they are mosquitoes,
76
189745
2375
03:12
they must be something else.
77
192120
1500
03:13
So yeah, actually, let's go to the end,
78
193620
2584
03:16
and then I'll flip you around and we'll walk back,
79
196204
3026
03:19
so you can see me walking through the peony row.
80
199230
3270
03:22
Let's do that, let me flip you around.
81
202500
2283
03:26
There we go.
82
206610
833
03:28
So we'll just kinda fly through here.
83
208890
2610
03:31
Hopefully, it doesn't shake or move around too much for you.
84
211500
4143
03:36
I had to stop there for a sec,
85
216570
1380
03:37
because I wasn't sure how much time I had left.
86
217950
3183
03:41
But yeah, we certainly grow a lot of peonies
87
221970
3570
03:45
and we will be harvesting a ton of them
88
225540
4320
03:49
over the next few days.
89
229860
1950
03:51
Anyways, let me check my time.
90
231810
1740
03:53
I'm done, thanks for watching,
91
233550
1620
03:55
I'll see you in a couple days with another one, bye.
92
235170
2600
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7