Learn the English Phrases "to mess up" and "to mess around"

- In this English lesson, I wanted to help you

learn the English phrase, "to mess up."

When you mess up,

it simply means that you've made a mistake.

Sometimes I mess up when I'm driving.

Just the other day,

I was driving to see my brother-in-law

and I messed up.

I forgot to get off the highway at the proper exit.

I messed up.

I made a mistake.

Sometimes people do this when they're at work.

Sometimes the boss gives them a job and they do it wrong.

They mess up and then the boss is really, really annoyed,

especially if it made the company lose money.

So when you mess up, it simply means to make a mistake.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today,

is the phrase "to mess around."

By the way, I hope you can hear me today.

It's rather loud out here.

When you mess around with something,

now this has a number of different meanings,

but when you mess around with something,

it means you change the settings or you move things.

Sometimes my kids mess around

with the thermostat in my house.

They think the house is too cold or too warm

and so they mess around with the thermostat.

I don't like it when they mess around with the thermostat.

I like it when they just leave it where it is.

(car honking) So to review, hello,

to review, to mess up means to make a mistake.

Sometimes when you're driving, you mess up,

and hopefully you don't mess up too bad

and cause an accident.

And to mess around has a lot of meanings.

The one I'm focusing on today,

means to change something,

touch something, like a camera.

Sometimes my camera doesn't work right

and I think, does someone mess around with this?

It's not working the way it's supposed to.

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

This comment is from SG.

"You two have taken the bored

out of the learning journey

with your wonderful teaching style."

And my response, "That's the plan.

Make lessons that are as entertaining

as they are educational."

So SG is referring to the fact

that Brent was down for a few days

and that was a wonderful time.

I did really enjoy making videos

with another English teacher.

So Brent, if you're watching,

thanks again for coming.

It was a lot of fun.

And thanks for helping me make so much content,

it's pretty cool.

Anyways, I'm out here by the highway.

Hopefully the audio is okay today,

because it's a little bit windy

and that messes with the microphone.

So sorry about that.

I came out here because,

I sometimes come here to remind myself

that even though there are some things

about living in the country that I don't like,

like I don't like that I can't

get pizza delivered to my house,

there are things that make it wonderful.

Like, my drive to work every day is about 11 minutes long.

Whereas for some of these people,

their drive to work might take forever,

especially if there's a traffic jam

or something else slowing them down.

That's the second person.

I don't know if you heard that,

that was the second person honking

and there's now another person honking.

I think people enjoy it

when they see someone videotaping,

and they like to,

or maybe they're trying to mess up my video by honking.

I'm not a hundred percent sure.

Anyways, it's always a good reminder

that I live in a place where there is no traffic.

So even though sometimes at night the power goes out,

actually that doesn't happen very often.

I'm having trouble thinking of good examples.

There are down,

oh, I'm trying, I can't even remember the right word.

There are drawbacks to living in the country

and when I come and see all of this traffic,

it reminds me that living in the country

isn't that bad at all.

I have a nice view and a lot of peace and quiet.

Anyways, thanks for watching.

See you in a couple days

with another short English lesson, bye.