Slang in English - BREAK

Hmm.

Hi.

James from engVid.

I'm just going to take a break from this right now, and I want to teach you something.

I'm going to do a slang.

We're talking about mastering slang.

Slang I feel is basically shortened language, and this is a great lesson because to make

shortened language, what you need to do is break words and put them together.

Hence, slang is for a short language, and we're going to break.

Let's look at what the basic meaning of break is.

If you look at break, I have it into two parts.

It means to cause, to separate into pieces.

When you break something, you make it into pieces.

Now, usually we think of breaking glosses or breaking something, so smash, explode.

You broke my thing, and that usually is suddenly a violent, but the basic meaning of to separate

into pieces is what we want to work with today because we use it a lot in slang.

Let's do the first one.

It's very, very popular if you ever watch the program Friends.

On the program Friends, there are two people called Rachel and Ross.

They're in love.

Well, they have a separation in their relationship, but it's not really a separation.

It's a break.

They take some time apart, and they say, "Okay, we're not going to be together for now.

We're going to separate into pieces, but we're kind of still connected."

Sometimes, when someone says, "We were on a break," that was the famous line.

It means we're breaking our relationship up for now, but we have the intention to getting

back.

If you know Ross and Rachel, and Rachel says, "Okay, I want a break," or, "We're on a break,"

it means we're kind of together, not really officially.

We don't talk and communicate, but we're going to come back.

That's what you hear slang over here when we say, "On a break."

What about the next one?

Can you break a 10?

Let's say you have some money.

I don't have any money.

Give me a second.

Maybe I got some money.

Do-do-do-do-do.

Damn, I got money.

See this?

Money.

Now, funny thing about this.

This is the new Canadian 100.

Don't copy it.

Okay.

However, if you go to a store and say, "Can you break this?"

You will have a hard time, and you need to break it because nobody in Canada will let

you use it.

Unfortunately, you can't tear these things.

All right.

So, break.

So, when we say, "Can you break?"

If you hear that in Canada, they mean, "Can you give me change, coins or smaller bills

because the money is too large to spend regularly."

Okay?

Can you break a 10?

How about the next one?

Here's my favorite one.

Where is it?

Give me a break, man.

Oh, man.

Give me a break.

Can you give me a break, please?

Give me a break has two.

Now, you notice these ones only have one because it's quite common.

But if you hear that, you have to listen to the way that they say it.

If I go, "Please give me a break, please," it means, "Please give me an opportunity or

a chance to do something."

Okay?

Give me an opportunity or a chance.

Now, if they say, "Oh, just give me a break," for five seconds, usually they mean, "Give

me a rest."

So, here, you notice, "Oh, give me a break, will ya?"

Total slang.

And what it means is, "Give me" means, "Give me."

And "will ya," it means, "Will or would you?"

All right?

"Will ya?

Just give me a break, will ya?

I'm tired.

Give me a break, will ya?

Let me rest."

Or, "Give me a break.

Come on, please, officer.

I'll be good."

All right?

"Give me this opportunity to be good."

All right?

Next one.

"I had an acne breakout after I ate the pizza."

Well, do you remember we said separate a cause to break into pieces?

Acne is pimples, acne, or zits, things that come on your face when you have too much grease

or oil.

Sometimes, it's a genetic condition.

Wink, wink, genetic.

Okay.

Teenagers, usually, this happens, too, so they get a breakout.

Okay?

Now, a few years ago, they had a program called Prison Break.

Well, when criminals get out of prison illegally, they're supposed to stay, but they break out.

We say it's a breakout.

The prisoners are escaping.

There's a breakout happening.

But breakout can mean to bring out, right?

Get out, it means to get out.

So, if you say, "We're going to break out the good china for my friends," it means bring

out or get out the good stuff.

Okay?

Or, it can mean get out as in leave.

So that was breakout.

And finally, we have breakup.

Remember, we took a breakup here?

Boys and girls, listen very carefully.

If your partner says they need a break, you can almost guarantee you will breakup.

Breakup means to end the relationship, break into pieces, usually violently and suddenly

and completely into pieces.

But we also say breakup, breakup, and we mean groups.

So if there's 10 people, we say, "We need to breakup into groups of three," it means

to get into groups.

That's that pieces.

Okay?

So, we've hit all five.

Our common slang word today is break.

I want to make sure you remember them, so we'll go quickly through them.

When we use break as a noun, okay, it usually means for relationships to take a short pause

or rest period and then intention of getting back.

When we use break as a verb, we mean to change money as, change it, make smaller bills, smaller

denominations.

A denomination means a smaller piece of something.

In the case of money, there's larger denominations, 10, 20, 50, smaller denominations, $1, $2,

and coins, which don't change.

Now, we have idioms.

This is an idiom.

"Will you give me a break?"

"Can you give him a break?"

"Give us a break."

It only means rest or opportunity.

Watch the tone and the context.

That'll help you.

And then finally, oops, sorry, before I break up this little party, breakout is a phrasal

verb.

It's got a particle plus a verb or preposition, depending on who's teaching, right?

And finally, another phrasal verb we have is to break up, okay?

That can be groups or relationships.

Anyway, I am going to break up this little party.

I'm going my way.

You're going your way, but you're going to come back.

That's another video.

Check it out.

Five common spoken mistakes.

I'm sure you'll find it.

So we got all five.

Thank you very much.

But where are you going to come to?

I mean, obviously, you need a break from the other lessons you're taking, and you want

to have a little bit of fun with us.

Why don't you come to www.engvid.com, okay, where you can learn more English.

And when you take a break from learning, come to us.

We'll teach you.

Have a good one.

www.engvid.com.