Learn the English Phrases MAKE UP MY MIND and GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE

In this English lesson

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase

make up my mind.

When you're making a decision,

you're also trying to make up your mind.

Sometimes when I'm trying to decide

what I want to make for supper,

I have trouble making up my mind.

So I've used the phrase a couple of different ways there.

Anytime you are trying to make a decision,

you are trying to make up your mind.

Often when Jen and I go out to see a movie,

which we don't do very often right now,

but when we go out to see a movie,

I usually need to make up my mind

when I'm deciding which movie I want to see.

And sometimes it takes me a long time to make up my mind.

Sometimes that's annoying for Jen

'cause she'll say,

"Well, there's really only two good movies.

Will you please make up mind quickly

so that we can go in the theater and see it?"

So when you're trying to make up your mind

or if I say I'm trying to make up my mind,

it means I'm trying to decide something.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase great minds think alike.

This is an English phrase we say

when you have the same idea as someone

that you really like, maybe your brother

or your sister or a friend or maybe even your spouse,

when you say, "Hey, we should have pizza for supper."

And if Jen says, "I was thinking the same thing,"

we might express that by saying,

"Hey, great minds think alike."

The other day I was talking to Rod,

by the way, Rod's YouTube channel

is now called Rod the Brazilian English Teacher.

You should check it, out by the way.

Rod and I were talking the other day

and Rod had some good ideas and I thought to myself,

"You know what? Great minds think alike."

So that means that Rod and I had similar ideas

about how to teach English

and we were both kind of patting ourselves on the back

saying that was a good idea.

So to repeat, when I say I need to make up my mind,

it means I'm trying to decide something.

And when I finally do decide,

I would say that I have made up my mind.

So if I need to make up my mind,

once I've decided I would say that I made up my mind.

Notice it's in the past tense then.

And then when two people have similar good ideas,

we sometimes just say, "Hey, great minds think alike."

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

This comment is from Mat

and Mat says, "What's the difference between

every once in a while and from time to time?

Thanks a million."

And my response was this, they mean the same.

Every once in a while, I have a can of Coke.

From time to time, I have a can of Coke.

It means I don't drink it regularly

but I do drink it occasionally.

So we have a bunch of those little phrases in English,

by the way, thanks Mat for that comment.

We have a bunch of those little phrases in English

where they mean kind of the same thing.

So for instance we have, sorry,

I'm just, Jen's driving up on the lawnmower

so it's distracting me a little bit.

So every once in a while,

while I'm doing a little English lesson,

Jen will drive up on the lawnmower from out the field

or from time to time

when I'm trying to record an English lesson,

Jen will drive up on her lawnmower from out in the field.

So they're just little phrases we use

and they just mean occasionally.

So it's not something that happens regularly.

If you go back to, when I say

"From time to time, I have a can of Coke,"

or, "Every once in a while I have a can of Coke."

I don't drink a lot of pop,

we call it pop here, by the way,

Brent from American English With This Guy

probably calls it soda.

I don't drink a lot of pop, it doesn't interest me.

I'm not a pop drinker. I'm not a soda drinker.

I used to be a long time ago,

I used to drink like five or six cans of Coke a day.

When I was younger

and when I could drink something with that much sugar in it,

I would drink quite a bit.

And I used to drink a lot more coffee too.

So that was back in the days where I was fueled by caffeine,

especially when I was at my summer job.

I would just drink a lot of Coke

when I was at my summer job,

by the way, Coke is Coca-Cola

but I'm pretty sure that you got that,

so anyways see you in a couple of days

with another little English lesson.