Learn the English Phrases A MIND OF ITS OWN and TO MAKE HEADS OR TAILS OF IT

In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase,

a mind of its own.

This is a phrase we use to describe a machine

that starts doing things that you didn't tell it to do,

or starts behaving strangely.

Sometimes my camera has a mind of its own.

Sometimes it focuses on me and then sometimes it focuses

on something behind, and that can be a little bit annoying,

but sometimes my camera has a mind of its own.

Sometimes when you're driving a vehicle,

and when it starts to go off in one direction or the other,

you might think, oh no,

my car has a mind of its own all of the sudden.

So it's like a thing, it's like a machine suddenly starts

to think a little bit for itself,

when you say that it has a mind of its own.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase,

to make heads or tails of it.

When you can't make heads or tails of something,

it means you can't figure it out.

We almost always use this phrase in the negative.

In fact, I should've put that in front of here.

I should've put, to not make heads or tails of something.

We use it like this.

I could say, y'know, the car won't start

and I can't make heads or tails of it.

I can't figure out why it won't start.

You could say, you know, I'm trying to make a video,

and I could say, y'know, my camera just won't work.

I can't make heads or tails of it.

I've set everything the way I normally set it,

but it just isn't working right.

I can't make heads or tail of it.

Luckily that never actually happens to me.

Usually my camera works really well.

I should knock on wood right now

to make sure that keeps happening.

Anyways, to review, when you say

that something has a mind of its own,

you're talking about a thing, usually a machine,

that starts acting strangely

in a way that you didn't want it to behave or to act.

And then when you can't make heads or tails of something,

it means you can't figure it out.

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

This comment is from, I think, Natalia.

I think I'm remembering this correctly.

And Natalia says, "I have cold feet in the winter,

"so I have to wear thick socks.

"I got cold feet before I flew on a plane

"for the first time."

This was a comment from the video about the phrase,

to have cold feet.

And my response was this.

"Great use of both the literal and figurative meanings

"of the phrase, Natalia."

So Natalia has given us two really cool example phrases

that will help you understand what we mean

by the literal meaning of something

and the figurative meaning of something.

Literally, she has to wear thick socks

because it's cold in the winter,

and she doesn't want her feet to get cold,

so she wears thick socks.

That's the literal meaning of having cold feet.

And then the figurative meaning, the more of a,

like a metaphor or simile or talking about something

that actually means something else is to say

that she had cold feet before she flew for the first time.

Well thanks Natalia for that comment.

I have to laugh because I'm not sure if you noticed,

but going back to the phrases from the beginning,

my camera just had a mind of its own.

It just stopped recording

when I was in the middle of a sentence there,

and that's why you saw the little fade to black

and then the fade back there.

I had to kinda stop it and reset it.

So ironically, my camera just had a mind of its own today

while I was teaching the phrase for something

to have a mind of its own.

And now I'm not even sure

how many minutes I've been recording.

I think I have about 30 seconds left,

so I'll just talk for a little bit.

Everything has really started to melt here.

You really can't see it all, but we'll spin for a sec.

You can see the driveway behind me.

You can see there's still a little bit of snow

on the ground, but honestly,

I think all of that will be gone by Tuesday or Wednesday.

It's certainly not going to last.

Anyways, Bob the Canadian here,

another little short English lesson for you.

I'm enjoying these.

I really like responding to the comments.

I really like helping you learn English.

I'll see you in a couple days

with another short English lesson.