Learn the English Phrases TO THROW IN THE TOWEL and TO GIVE UP

- In this English lesson,

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase,

throw in the towel.

When you say in English

that you are going to throw in the towel,

it means that you are going to quit something.

It means that you are going to stop doing something.

Here's a funny story.

The first year that I made YouTube videos, the first year

in early, I think it was in early 2017.

I started in January.

By March of that year, I was ready to throw in the towel.

I was ready to quit.

I wasn't feeling good.

Not a lot of people were watching the videos.

Some people were, but compared to today, no,

not a lot of people.

And so I was ready to throw in the towel.

I was ready to quit.

I was ready to stop doing YouTube.

I also got a little bit sick.

I got a little bit sick at that time,

and so I took, I think, eight or nine months off.

For about eight or nine months, I didn't do YouTube at all.

So I kind of gave up a little bit,

but I didn't completely throw in the towel.

The other English phrase I wanted to teach you today

was the phrase give up.

And this means the same thing.

When you quit something, when you stop doing something,

you can say that you give up.

So I didn't give up completely.

I did stop making videos for a little bit,

but the following year in 2018,

I started making videos again.

And then I started to not feel well again,

and then I was ready to throw in the towel again,

not because I was doing badly on YouTube.

I was getting quite a few views,

but because I wasn't feeling good.

So I was ready to give up.

I was ready to throw in the towel.

And so I ended up, long story short, I had heart surgery,

I took some time off again.

And then later that fall of that year,

after they had fixed things up,

I started making videos again.

And the rest is history, we say in English.

So in English, if you say

that you are going to throw in the towel,

it means that you are going to quit doing something.

If you say that you are going to give up,

it means that you are going to quit doing something as well.

Kind of a funny phrase, isn't it?

It has the word give in it,

but it actually means to quit something.

So anyways, hopefully you are not feeling disappointed

when you are learning English.

Hopefully you are not ready to throw in the towel

and hopefully you are not ready to give up.

Let's look at a comment from a previous video.

This comment is from Laura Diniz.

Laura says, "Hey Bob, could you help me

with pronouncing numbers?

For example, third, fourth, 40.

It's so tricky for me. Thanks in advance."

And my response was, "Sure, I'll use this comment

in the next video."

So Laura, thanks for that comment.

Yeah, here are some ways to pronounce numbers.

You'll just have to try and shadow what I say.

So the first video I made was in January 2017th.

2017, sorry.

I'm trying to teach numbers and I'm saying them wrong!

Today I put out my 15th video for "Wednesdays with Bob,"

which is for members only on my other channel.

But let's go with first, second, third, fourth, fifth,

sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth,

10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th,

15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th.

So there's your first 1 through 20 when you are talking

and using numbers in that way.

So anyways, I can't go over or do a complete lesson

on numbers, Laura, but hopefully that was helpful for you.

Certainly for English speakers saying numbers like sixth,

like the other day I had my fifth sandwich

and then I ate my sixth sandwich.

Sixth is a really hard word

for English speakers to say as well.

So even if you are a native speaker,

you still struggle sometimes with numbers.

And then you asked about the number 40.

So I'll just go quickly.

10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100.

There you go. I counted by tens all the way up to 100.

Anyways, hopefully this was a good little lesson for you.

Hopefully you're having a good day today.

I'm Bob the Canadian, thank you so much for watching.

If you're new here, subscribe.

It's a good thing to do.

You get notified when I make a new video.

See ya tomorrow.