Learn the English Phrases ITCHING TO DO SOMETHING and SCRATCH YOUR HEAD

4,732 views ・ 2020-05-12

Bob's Short English Lessons


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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So, I don't know about you, but in our part of the world,
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we have mosquitos, and sometimes the mosquitos bite me,
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and then it itches.
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I have an itch because a mosquito has bit me,
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so then I want to scratch that itch, right?
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But the word itch, we use as well in a phrase
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itching to do something.
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If I am itching to do something,
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it means I have a strong desire to do it.
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Right now, I am just itching to get back to work.
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I'm itching to go shopping in Toronto
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with Jen for a weekend.
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I'm just itching to do these things.
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So in English, when you say
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that you are itching to do something,
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it means that you really, really want to do it badly.
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I think pretty much everyone in the whole world right now
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is just itching to go outside,
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and they are just itching for life to go back to normal.
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So again, an itch is something where you want to scratch it,
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but we also use it in the phrase itching to do something.
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01:01
Speaking of scratching, I wanted to teach you the phrase
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scratch your head as well.
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In English, we use the phrase scratch your head
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when we are trying to figure something out.
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So maybe you have a riddle that someone has told you
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and you can't think of the answer to the riddle,
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so you might actually scratch your head
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as you're thinking about it.
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You might actually do it.
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But usually in English, we just use the phrase.
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We describe things that we can't figure out
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as things where we needed to scratch our heads.
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So I could say, the other day,
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I was trying to fix my lawn mower,
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and I couldn't figure out how to do it,
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and so I was scratching my head
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while I was trying to figure it out.
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So anyways, to review, if you're itching to do something,
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it means you want to do it really, really badly,
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and if you scratch your head,
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it means you're trying to figure something out.
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Anyways, Bob the Canadian here.
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Hope you're having a good day.
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I'll see you on Thursday with a new English lesson.
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