Learn the English Phrases LESS IS MORE and MORE OR LESS - A Short English Lesson with Subtitles

In this English lesson

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, less is more.

Whoa, I kind of stepped in a hole there for a sec.

I shouldn't walk while I'm trying to teach English.

Anyways, in English when we say less is more,

it's kind of a funny phrase,

but it means that if you have fewer of something,

if you have less of something

it can overall just feel like things are better.

I'm not explaining it very good,

but let me give it a shot.

Let's say you have a wall in your house

that you want to decorate.

If you put two nice paintings on the wall

it might look really, really nice.

If you put a whole bunch of things on the wall,

if you put up pictures and photos

and calendars and paintings,

if you put up more it just won't look good.

So in that situation, when you are decorating,

you could say less is more.

If you just put fewer things on the wall,

the overall effect is a wall

that is a lot more pleasing to look at.

So sometimes less is more.

Now I thought I should

also teach you this phrase in English, more or less.

More or less just means approximately, or almost,

or pretty close to.

So if I said to someone, did you go to the store

and buy the 100 loaves of bread that I told you to get.

If they bought 97, or they bought 101 they would say,

yeah, more or less.

If someone is doing a job and you asked them,

hey did you finish that job I asked you to do,

they could reply and say yeah, more or less.

So that means they did finish it.

They might not have done a perfect job,

but they're pretty much done the job.

They've done the job more or less.

So, again, less is more.

If you are a minimalist you will understand this phrase.

Having less of something can also

just be a nice way to have more of something.

I hope that made sense

and when you are almost done something,

or you did most of it you could say

that you are more or less done.