Learn the English Phrases "to hit a wall" and "I'd like to be a fly on the wall!"

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to hit a wall.

When we say in English that you hit a wall, it means you've hit an obstacle

or even a feeling that makes you stop doing something.

If I'm working really hard on a video and I can't think of other ideas

to finish the video, I could say that I hit a wall.

If I'm running a long distance, if I run for more than two

or 3 minutes, eventually I hit a wall.

Basically, I can't breathe fast enough to actually keep running.

So I would say that I hit a wall.

We often describe runners who run long distances when they get to a point

where they can't run anymore, we say that they hit a wall.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase, I'd like to be a fly on the wall.

This is a phrase we use when we know people are talking about something in a room,

maybe at work or maybe in your house and you're not in the room,

but you would like to be in the room.

You would say, Oh, I'd love to be a fly on the wall in that room,

or I'd like to be a fly on the wall.

This happens mostly at work when the boss is meeting with someone else.

A lot of the teachers are like, I wonder what they're talking about.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall in that room, or I'd love to be a fly on the wall so I could

just kind of hear what they're saying and see what they're doing.

So to review to hit a wall means to hit

an obstacle that stops you from being able to do something.

Here's something that happened to me.

In university I took one year of math.

I took calculus.

But during my second year of calculus, I hit a wall.

I wasn't able to understand it or do it well.

That's about the limit of my math knowledge.

Calc II in university is where I hit a wall.

And I'd like to be a fly on the wall simply means that people are meeting somewhere

and you would just really love to hear what they're saying.

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

This comment is from Know that.

Hello Mr. Bob.

A warm welcome back from my side too.

You really are a hard working man, but we know that.

It's very nice of you that you lend a hand and take care of the grade nine French class.

Your school is very fortunate to have someone like you, just like we do here.

Anyway, I'm glad that you're at good health and back on track.

Thanks for the lesson, sir.

And my response: I'm happy to be back on track too.

I'm looking forward looking forward to making today's lesson.

Thank you.

Know that for that comment.

For some reason, I'm having trouble talking today.

I don't know why.

Hey, we are out here having a look at the wagon.

So this is the wagon that, as I've explained before, is a little bit like a greenhouse.

And you can see that there are still a lot of seedlings in here that need to be planted.

There are some down here getting full sun on the ground

and more over here as well.

And I'll show you

where I'll leave you guys walking this way.

You don't need to see me when I go for a walk, do you?

We'll walk over here and I'll show you where some of them are getting planted.

So over here we have what is actually our first flower bed.

When we started farming, this was the first flower bed that we created.

You have some flowers growing here.

We sometimes put down black fabric to kill all the weeds or plastic.

This is actually plastic.

So the heat of the sun and then the lack of sunlight will kill the weeds.

And you can see here Jen's getting ready to plant.

She has drip line here to water.

And over here there aren't green plants, but you can see them

going to switch to the other way again.

Where am I at? Oh, I have to talk quickly.

So anyways, when the plants are in the wagon, when they start to get too tall

and a little bit leggy,

we bring them out here and we plant them and of course in other places as well.

Anyways, thanks for watching.

See you with another English lesson in a few days. Bye.