Learn the English Phrases "at the end of the day" and "to make a day of it"

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase at the end of the day.

Now, this can literally mean at the end of the day.

At the end of the day, I go home.

Well, at the end of my workday.

But we also use this the same way we use the word ultimately.

To kind of sum up a thought.

When you're working hard at the end of the day, you can only do so much.

When you are helping someone out.

At the end of the day, you can only do so much to make their life better.

So ultimately you can only help someone so much before they need to help themselves.

So we use the phrase at the end of the day to kind of sum up to kind of

clarify a thought that we're having.

I don't think I'm explaining this very well.

Let me try to think of another example.

At the end of the day, all I can do is make the best video lessons

I can and hopefully they help you.

So ultimately, all I can really do is make the lessons as good as I can.

So it's not exactly the end of the day, but it's kind of summarizing a thought.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you is the phrase to make a day of it.

When you make a day of something, it means something wasn't going to take the whole day.

But you add one or two things to make a day of it.

If we go to visit Jen's parents, sometimes we just go for a cup of tea.

But sometimes we decide to make a day of it.

We go for a cup of tea.

We help Jen's dad on his farm a little bit.

We help Jen's mom do some work in her garden, possibly,

instead of just going for an hour or two, we decide to make a day of it.

So to review at the end of the day simply means ultimately, or to summarize

or my final thoughts on something and to make a day of it means to plan

to do something that will take most of the day instead of just a little part of it.

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

This comment is from Marcio.

How are you, Professor Bob?

I'm Brazilian and here the autumn season has already started.

I really like you and your videos.

Thank you.

I'm very happy with the new season in your country

because you will be able to make video lessons for us without freezing.

Hehehe. A hug for you and your whole family.

And my response.

My favorite type of day for making videos would be cloudy, mild and no wind.

Hopefully there are lots of those coming up.

So thanks, Marcio, for that comment.

Yes, this is literally my favorite type of day for making a video,

although it is a little bit windy.

I'm hiding by the shed so that the wind doesn't hit the microphone too badly.

But my favorite kind of day for making an English lesson would be cloudy.

When it's cloudy, the camera can focus

really well and the video just looks nice.

The cloud kind of diffuses the sunlight.

That's how we would describe it in English.

So clouds create really nice light for a video.

When it's mild then I don't get hot or cold.

When we say that it's mild outside, we mean it's like ten degrees

or 15 degrees Celsius, something kind of nice.

And then what's the last one?

No rain. I didn't mention that one.

I don't like rain.

Oh, no wind.

Yeah, wind messes with the microphone.

You can't see the microphone, but it's right here.

When it's windy, you get that funny sound when I'm outside and it's not very, very pleasant.

So yep, that's my favorite kind of day.

A day just like today.

If we look at the sky, it's overcast or cloudy, we would say.

It's a little bit windy, but I have the shed behind me to kind of block the wind

and it's mild.

I'm outside just wearing my sweater and a short sleeved shirt underneath

and it's quite pleasant.

So I'm enjoying that.

And we do have birds. I'm not sure if you can hear them.

I mentioned these in another video earlier this week.

It's kind of fun because a couple weeks ago there were no birds outside and now there are.

Anyways, thanks for watching. Hope you're having a good day.

I'll see you in a couple days with another short English lesson. Bye.