Learn the English Phrases "to flip-flop" and "to do an about-face"

In this English lesson, I wanted to help

you learn the English verb to flip flop.

When you flip flop on something,

it means you change your mind.

Usually it means you change your

mind to the exact opposite.

Let's say your boss said everyone is

going to get Friday off this week.

And then the next day your boss

says everyone has to work on Friday.

We would say that your boss flip flopped.

Your boss, for some reason, decided to

flip flop on their previous statement.

First they said everyone was going to get Friday off.

Now they're saying everyone has to work on Friday.

So they decided to flip flop.

They changed their mind and said the exact opposite.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you

today is to do an about face.

And this means exactly the same thing.

Let's say the government says you can

start driving at age 15 next year.

And then the next day they say, no,

you have to be 16 to start driving.

We would say that they did an about face.

When you do an about face, it's

actually the same as to flip flop.

It means you change your opinion to the exact opposite.

So to review, to flip flop, to do an

about face, it means somebody says one thing, and

then very quickly after that, they say something that's

completely the opposite and completely different.

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

This comment is from Judit or

otherwise known as Aerosmith 77.

And the comment is rhyming pairs. Great.

There are many of them.

Thank you for the video and my response.

I think I'll add them to the lineup for future videos.

So thank you for that comment Judit.

Yes, in the past lesson I talked about

rich rich and reach and pitch and peach.

And I think that maybe I'll add more

things like that to these short lessons.

I've been doing a lot of verb phrases in these lessons.

I've been doing a lot of sayings and idioms.

Maybe I'll start broadening a little

bit and do some other things.

Or maybe I'll flip flop.

Maybe I won't change anything. We'll see.

Who knows?

Hey, I'm out here for a

walk down this really nice path.

It is the first day of school.

Well, for me, the first day of school is actually over.

I taught my classes this morning.

I worked at school for a few hours, and now I

am out here making a video for all of you.

The first day went really good.

I was really happy.

I went to each of my classes.

I was well prepared.

I taught my lessons.

I met some new students.

And I also have some students that I've taught

other things in the past, so it was nice

to see them again and say hi.

But all in all, how would I phrase this?

I still got it.

I still know what I do, what I'm doing.

I still did a good job teaching the class.

Sorry, there was.

It just sounded like a car was coming down

this path, but this is a walking path, so

I'm not sure what that sound was.

And I was a little worried because

my tripod is way over there.

This is a really nice town, though.

Normally people don't steal my tripod, but it's

always a little worry that I have.

But anyways, what was I saying?

I still got it.

It's kind of an informal way of saying

you think you're still good at something.

It sounds a little arrogant when you say it about

yourself, but, yeah, I think I still got it.

I think I can do this job still.

It does help that I'm able to do it part time.

So a full load of teaching is three classes a day.

I teach two classes and I

do a couple other little things.

So I'm really close to, like 75%.

That's my workload.

And it's nice to have a little time in the

afternoon every day this semester to make videos for you.

So anyways, thanks for watching.

I hope you're having a good day.

Whatever you're doing.

As summer ends and it looks like fall will start

in a few weeks here, I hope it's going well.

Thanks for watching. See you in a few days

with another short English lesson. Bye.