Learn the English Phrases TO KEEP SOMETHING STRAIGHT and TO KEEP AT SOMETHING

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase,

"To keep something straight,"

or, "To keep things straight."

When you want to keep something straight

or you want to keep things straight,

it's the opposite of being confused.

Sometimes when Jen plants a lot of small plants,

she puts labels on things

because she wants to be able to keep things straight.

I know I'm using things instead of something here,

sorry about that, there's kind of two phrases,

but she doesn't want to be confused later.

Sometimes my mom has trouble keeping things straight,

she has trouble remembering

which of her sons has which name.

Sometimes she calls me John,

and my name's not John,

but sometimes my mom has a little trouble

keeping our names straight

between my older brother and my younger brother and I,

sometimes my mom has trouble keeping our names straight.

I hope my mom's not watching this,

maybe she is, it's not a big deal.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is, "To keep at something."

When you keep at something,

it simply means that you keep doing it.

In fact, I'm not sure why we have the phrase,

"To keep at something."

If I say to you, "I go for a walk every day,

and I'm going to keep walking every day,"

I could also say, "I go walking every day,

and I'm going to keep at it,"

it means exactly the same thing,

when you keep at something,

it means that you keep doing it.

Jen and I, as you know, grow flowers,

and we're gonna keep at it.

We like doing it, so every year we're going to grow more,

and every year hopefully we sell all of them, we'll see.

And so anyways, to review,

"To keep something straight,"

means the opposite of being confused,

it means to keep things in an orderly fashion in your mind,

and, "To keep at something,"

simply means to keep doing it.

So I like doing these little English lessons,

I'm gonna keep at it.

Anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video,

and this no comment is from Mohd Ags,

and it is this, "If you don't mind me asking,

why do you always use three emojis in your replies?"

And my reply was this,

"I like to pick one with a smiley face

and two others that either relate to the lesson

or strike me as cool.

Today, I'm using four."

So yes, for those of you that actually read the comments

and ask and leave comments,

you'll notice that I regularly end my comment

with three emojis.

Usually the first one is the smiley face

of the guy with sunglasses,

'cause he kinda looks like me, (laughing)

a big round head with sunglasses on,

and sometimes just a regular smiley face.

And then I usually pick two

that maybe relate to the lesson,

maybe they relate to something I saw that day,

maybe they relate to, I don't know,

it's just something that strikes me

as a cool one to choose.

So thanks, Mohd Ags, for that comment.

To talk about it a bit more,

I don't know why I choose three,

probably 99% of the time I choose three emojis,

sometimes I choose four, sometimes I just put one,

but most of the time it's three, so I don't know.

Like, when I look at this one, it's a smiley face,

it's a sunflower because the flowers are starting to bloom,

although sunflowers aren't ready yet,

it's a tree with leaves on it

because the trees are actually

starting to get some leaves on them,

so it's kind of nice, I'm happy about that

because I can do my live stream outside next week,

I think, if there's shade.

And then a lady bug because, well,

there's starting to be some bugs outside,

when you come outside,

April in my part of Ontario, Canada, is really nice

because there are no insects,

there are no bugs outside in vast quantities,

there are some, but the kinds that sting and bite

don't come out until the middle of May and later,

or in the early summer.

Sorry, I'm getting my, this is not a science lesson,

I mention that quite often.

Anyways, I just liked doing it, Mohd.

So bye, everybody, see ya in a couple of days

with another short English lesson.