Learn the English Phrases LONG STORY SHORT and A LIKELY STORY

So in this English lesson I wanted to help you learn

the English phrase, long story short.

This is a phrase we use when we're telling a story

and when it's taking us way too long to tell the story.

sometimes when I'm telling Jen

about something that happened at work,

sometimes she starts to look a little bit bored.

And so instead of telling the whole story

about what happened at work, I will just say,

"Well, long story short, the boss is really happy

with the job that I did."

So if you're ever telling a story in English

and the person looks like they're starting to not listen

to you, if they look like they're starting

to get a little bit bored, you can just say,

"Long story short, my boss is really happy with me."

Or long story short, the man stole the chocolate bar.

You can also say to make a long story short.

So there it is a longer phrase, but I often just say,

long story short, the boss is really happy with me.

The second English phrase that I wanted to teach you

is the phrase a likely story.

If you say to someone that's a likely story,

or if you say likely story, it means you don't believe

the story that they are telling you.

Sometimes my kids will tell me

about something that happened at school

and Jen and I will say to each other,

"Well, that's a likely story."

Which means that we don't really believe

the story that they've told us.

They're not exactly lying,

but we're not sure it's the whole truth.

So a likely story is a story that someone has told you

that you don't really believe.

So once again, when you say long story short,

it's something you say when you're telling a story

and you wanna get to the end quicker.

You say, "Well, long story short."

And then you give the ending.

And then a likely story is a story

that you don't necessarily believe, necessarily believe.

Hey, before we go to the next part of the video,

I wanted to show you the clouds today.

So let me just kind of pan the camera up for a sec.

The clouds for some reason are in a beautiful pattern

up there in the sky.

So I thought you might want to see that.

And now let's move on and look at a comment

from one of the previous videos.

This comment is from Ali Alfayed.

And Ali says, "Hello Mr. Bob.

Do you mind letting me know what the difference is

between fill in and fill out?

I am still perplexed between these two phrasal verbs.

Thank you in advance."

And then my answer is you can fill in a hole in the ground

with dirt, you can fill out a form,

you can also fill in a form.

I hope that helps.

But I'm not sure that does help. Does it, Ali?

I mean, in some ways phrasal verbs can be more confusing

the more you try to understand them.

So let me just explain again,

if you dig a hole in the ground

and you want to put the dirt back in the hole,

we would say you would fill in the hole.

But fill out and fill in, when it comes to forms,

like if I go to renew my license, I need to fill in a form.

I can also say that I need to fill out a form.

Now, it probably has a whole lot more,

a whole lot of more meanings than that.

Boy, I'm really having trouble speaking English

myself today but definitely fill in,

has to do with physically filling in a hole

and then fill in and fill out is something you can use

when you are looking at a forum.

So again, phrasal verbs, the best way to learn phrasal verbs

is to memorize them and use them as quickly as possible.

And then look for the most common ones.

Don't get too worried about the fact

that there are a thousand or over a thousand phrasal verbs.

In my mind, I think we only use about 100

or 200 phrasal verbs regularly.

So don't get too worried

about memorizing a thousand phrasal verbs.

If you memorize 50 to a hundred,

I think that will be enough for you at least to get started.