Learn the English Phrases A WAKE-UP CALL and WAKE UP!

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn

the English phrase, a wake up call.

Now a wake up call can mean a phone call

that they give you when you stay at a hotel

to wake you up in the morning.

But we also use this phrase to talk about something in life

that happens that reminds you to do something.

Here's a good example.

Maybe in your city, there was a car accident

and someone got hurt because

they didn't have their seatbelt on.

We would say that that would be a wake-up call for you

if you don't regularly wear your seatbelt.

So a wake up call is any time something happens

that brings your attention to something

that maybe you're not doing in life

that you should be doing.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase, wake up.

Now this can simply be what someone yells to someone

if that person is sleeping and you want them to wake up.

But we also use this to tell people

that they should do something

or they should pay attention to something.

Here's an example.

Sometimes I'll have a student in my class

that thinks they're doing a really good job

but they're failing all their assignments.

So they think they're doing good but they're actually not.

I might say to them, hey, wake up.

You're not doing a very good job in my class,

you need to do better work.

You need to hand in your assignments on time.

I know you think you are doing good, but wake up.

You really need to try harder.

So to review, a wake up call is anything

that happens in life that reminds you

that you should do something

or that you should pay attention to something.

And if someone says wake up,

it might be because you're sleeping on the bus,

they actually want you to wake up,

but more likely they might be just telling you

that you need to change something you're doing in your life.

You need to wake up.

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

This comment is from Jeff Green.

And Jeff says, funny you should say

that when you are done teaching,

you want to be in peace and then LMAO.

And my response was this,

teaching is an interesting profession.

It has its ups and downs.

I love 90% of the job but the end of each semester

can be very hectic especially the second semester.

The end of the second semester is the end

of the school year.

It can be extremely hectic,

it can be a real challenge for me to get all my work done

and to finish things that I need to finish

at the end of the school year.

I wanted to talk a little bit more about a wake-up call.

If you look at the river today,

I'm not sure how well you can see this

but there's all kinds of algae in the river.

Now, the algae itself isn't a problem

but it's kind of a wake-up call because the algae grows

when there's pollution in the river.

And the algae grows when the pollution is from,

let's say human waste or fertilizer runoff from farms.

So it's kind of a wake-up call the algae itself isn't bad

but it's a sign that there are too many nutrients

in the water.

And I think when I say human waste and nutrients,

I hope you know what I mean.

There's actually a lagoon really far that way.

And then do treat the wastewater,

they do treat the sewage but they only treat it once.

And then when the lagoon is full,

they release it into the river.

So all of you who thought that Canada

was this beautiful pristine country with no pollution,

well, we do kind of have some problems.

We do have to take better care of all of our waterways

and we just don't do that good of a job sometimes.

So it's a bit of a wake-up call.

I want to go to the person in charge of all this and say,

wake up you're releasing sewage,

partially treated sewage into the water

and it's causing all of this algae to grow.

Please don't do that, wake up.

Anyways, Bob the Canadian here.

I hope you're enjoying these little lessons.

I know I certainly am.

Have a good day, I'll see you in a couple of days

with another short English lesson, bye.