Learn the English Phrases TO TAKE A CRACK AT and TO CRACK OPEN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you

learn the English phrase "To take a crack at."

When you want to take a crack at something,

it means you want to try it.

Let's say you have a jar and you can't get the lid off.

Your friend might say to you,

"Hey let me take a crack at it. Let me try.

Maybe I'm stronger than you."

Maybe you are trying to change the tire on your car

and you have the wrench on the lug nut

and you can't turn it.

Your friend might say, "Hey, let me take a crack at it.

"Step aside, let me take a crack at it.

I've been working out lately

and I think I have the strength to actually get

that lug nut off."

So when you want to take a crack at something,

it means you want to try it.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is

the phrase "To crack open."

This is an example, again, of sometimes in English,

we use an extra word and we don't need it.

This simply means to open,

but you might be driving and it's hot.

And you might say,

"Hey I think I might crack open a window."

Maybe you are teaching in your classroom

and you just want some airflow,

you might crack open the door.

Maybe you've just done something amazing in your life

and you want to have some champagne.

You might crack open a bottle of champagne.

In all those examples,

I could have just used the word open, but at least

with window and door, when I think about crack open,

it usually means to open a little bit, okay.

But when you crack open a bottle of champagne,

you usually open it completely

'cause there's no way to kind of do that partially.

I hope I'm making sense today.

I feel like my thoughts are not connecting well

but let's continue the lesson.

To review, when you take a crack at something,

it means you want to try it.

Maybe you've never ridden a horse before

and you say to your friend, "Hey, get off that horse.

Let me climb on and take a crack at it."

(laughs) Hopefully that ends well.

And then to crack something open,

when you crack open a door or crack open a window.

For me it means to open the door a little bit

or the window a little bit.

But it can also mean just to open.

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

This comment is from Dmitry

And Dmitry says, "So your neighbor plants the crop for you

and you do what for him?

I don't think he just does that for free and for fun."

And my response, "You are correct in your assumption.

He does it as a business and I pay him.

I'm a little worried this year because of the price

of diesel fuel.

I think it's going to be an expensive year to grow crops."

Yes, I think it's definitely going to be an expensive year

to grow crops.

So yes, my neighbor has a chicken farm, but he also

has a business where he plants his,

well he plants his own crops,

but he also plants crops for other people.

So he does that as a service and as a business.

He will just take care of all of the planting for me.

I don't even need to buy the seed anymore.

Years ago, I needed to buy the seed, but he also sells seed.

So that's really handy.

Anyways, I'm out here in town.

I'm actually at the fire station.

Let's look this way.

There's the new fire station.

And you can kind of see the old one beside it a little bit.

But I wanted to come out here because in a previous video,

where I was in town

there were fences and someone made a comment about fences.

You can see here that there is a fence

all along the backyards of these houses.

If we look the other way,

you'll see there's a fence all along.

And if we look here, you'll see that between neighbors,

there's also a fence there.

I think you can see that, let me tilt you back a bit.

It's very common in Canada

for people to have fences between their properties.

Especially if you live in town.

Obviously I live out in the country.

I do not have a fence, but it is very common.

In fact, if we look this way

you'll see that there is a big fence there as well.

It's very common

because people want a little bit of privacy.

So they want to enjoy living in a busy town

but they also want their backyard

to have a little bit of privacy.

By the way, people build fences in their backyards,

not in their front yards.

Anyways, I think I've gone over time.

Yes, I'm done.

Here's a beautiful tree. Bye.