Learn the English Phrases TO DODGE A BULLET and MAGIC BULLET - A Short English Lesson with Subtitles

In this English lesson I wanted to help you

learn the English phrase to dodge a bullet.

In English, when you dodge a bullet,

it means you avoid something that would have been bad.

There are no actual bullets or guns involved

so don't worry about that.

But normally in English,

if you say that someone dodged a bullet,

it means that something bad could have happened to them,

but it didn't.

A great example of this is something that happened

to Jen and I this past weekend.

We grow flowers and they were saying on the news

that the temperature at night was going to go down

to zero degrees.

As it turned out, the temperature only went down

to about four or five degrees.

Not sure if you know this, but at zero degrees, flowers die,

at four degrees they don't die.

So we dodged a bullet.

There was the potential that something really bad

could have happened, but it didn't.

So we dodged a bullet.

The other phrase I want to teach you today

is the phrase magic bullet.

Now the phrase magic bullet is kind of funny

because it's not this thing, I'll put a picture up here.

There is a blender now that's called a Magic Bullet.

But we also use the phrase magic bullet

to talk about a solution that solves all the problems.

Here's a great example.

Some people wish that a vaccine could be created

really quickly for COVID

and that that vaccine would be the magic bullet.

So a magic bullet is something that just solves

all of the problems that you are facing in that moment.

That's probably the best example

I can come up with right now.

If all of the sudden there was a vaccine

that was 100% effective against COVID

and they distributed it to everyone in the world--

Sometimes I have trouble speaking English too.

It would be a magic bullet.

So hopefully they find something like that.

So once again, when you dodge a bullet,

it means you avoid something bad.

And a magic bullet is like the perfect solution

to a really big problem.

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

This comment made me laugh quite a bit.

This is from Ario and Ario says,

I'm sitting here or I'm standing here?

So in my last video, I actually used this phrase.

I said, I'm sitting here and then I went on

to continue my thought.

And Ario is asking whether I was sitting or standing

when I made that video.

My response was it's hard to tell,

but I was actually sitting on a stool

when I made that video.

So most of you, you probably don't know.

So take a moment to guess.

Am I standing here right now or am I sitting here right now?

Lemme give you three seconds to think about it.

Three, two, one.

Well, I'm actually sitting.

So if you're wondering what a stool is, this is a stool.

I often sit on a stool when I am making my videos.

Generally, when I make my bigger videos,

I walk around and I stand and I'm active.

But when I make these short videos,

I'm usually sitting on a stool.

You may have noticed I also sometimes sit

at the picnic table, I also sometimes sit on my bench.

Let me show you the bench for a sec.

It's over here.

So sometimes I sit on the bench.

Sometimes I sit on the picnic table,

but most of the time I sit on a stool.

I have two stools.

Actually I have a small blue one as well.

Let me try to get the camera back where it was.

That's always the tricky thing

when you go for a walk with the camera,

it's tricky to get it back in the location

where you needed it.

So anyways, I'm a little worried

because with the temperature's dropping that low,

it starts to make you think about winter.

I mean, it's only fall right now.

Yesterday or two days ago was the first day of fall

here in Canada

and I think in most of the Northern hemisphere.

But when you start to think about being outside

and when it starts to go down to zero degrees at night,

you wonder when will the first snow fly

because I've had it pretty good.

I just go out, make videos.

I don't have to worry about the weather right now,

but eventually it's gonna snow.

Hopefully not for two or three months, but who knows?

It could come sooner than we are expecting.