Learn the English Phrases BEAR THE BRUNT OF and BEAR WITH ME

In this English lesson

I wanted to help you learn the English phrase

"to bear the brunt of."

When you bear the brunt of something,

it means you get the worst part of the situation,

or the worst part of what's happening.

Here's a little story.

When I was younger,

I took my younger brother shopping with me

and we stayed out really late.

And I knew when we came home

that I was going to bear the brunt

of the punishment that my parents were going to give.

Because my little brother didn't have any choice

but to stay out late.

I was the one who was driving

and so I knew when we came home late,

my parents would be annoyed

and that they would have some sort of punishment.

Probably I would get grounded,

but I knew that I would bear the brunt of that punishment.

I would be the one who would get

almost all of the punishment.

I would bear the brunt of it.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today

is the phrase "bear with me."

This is a phrase we use when we want people to wait

while we do something else.

A very common time for this to happen

is during my live English lessons

when I have technical problems.

Sometimes I'll say, "Oh, something's not working right.

Bear with me while I fix it."

So it's simply a way in English to ask people

to just be patient and to wait

while you solve a problem or fix something.

So to review, when you bear the brunt of something,

it means that you are getting the worst part

of a situation that is happening, okay?

Sometimes in a city, people who don't have money

bear the brunt of new changes

that the government in the city might make,

because, sometimes, they just don't have influence

over the decision-making process,

and they bear the brunt of it.

And two, when you say, "Bear with me,"

it simply means, "Please be patient while I fix something,"

or, "While I figure something out."

And it does happen quite a bit...

Well, not quite a bit.

It does happen once in a while during my live streams.

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

If you sense that maybe I'm feeling a little off

making this video, it's 'cause I'm standing in the rain.

My camera is under the overhang of my barn,

but I'm actually standing out here in the rain,

the crazy things I do to make English lessons.

Anyways, this is from Aleksey.

"This time, the lighting was perfect for filming.

The depth of field allowed us to get a good look at the algae.

Yeah, the temptation to swim has gone.

Hopefully it's temporary."

And my response is, yes, I'm quite happy

with this camera I'm using for the short lessons.

It has very nice stabilization when I walk and talk,

and it also has a really good depth of field

that has everything in focus

so people can see what's behind me. It's great.

So speaking of that,

let's take this camera for a little walk.

I wanted to mention a couple things.

One is, yes, this camera has very nice depth of field.

That means that, usually, as I walk,

you can see what's behind me relatively clearly.

I'm quite happy with that.

Because as I've said to people before,

either the lesson will be interesting

or the things that are behind me will be interesting.

That's usually my goal

when I come out to make an English lesson for you,

either I'll be entertaining,

or the things you see behind me will be entertaining.

One of the two will be true.

Anyways, I wanted to show you this growing area today,

because one of the things that we have on the farm is weeds.

Weeds are kind of this thing, they're plants that just grow

where you don't want them to grow.

You can see a nice row of gourds here.

Actually, I think these might be small pumpkins.

And you can see over here, they're kind of small,

but you can see that we're growing what's called eucalyptus.

But in between, you'll see this carpet

of baby weeds that are growing.

So my job this week will be to hoe this.

The problem is it's been raining so much.

This is actually quite muddy.

Anyways, Bob the Canadian here,

I hope you enjoyed this short lesson.

I'll see you in a couple days with another one.