How to Respond to These Common "How" Questions in English

So originally, I wasn't going to make

an English lesson for this week.

We have a lot of work to do on the farm

and I was going to spend some time doing that

and just take a little break from making videos.

But then it kind of rained yesterday

and it rained again this morning,

so I can't really do any work on the farm,

so I thought why not pop outside

and let people know how my summer is going.

But then when I thought about that question,

"Hey, Bob, how's your summer going?",

I thought about all the different answers I could give,

and then in my mind I thought

I should just make a little English lesson about this.

So this is a little English lesson

where I'm going to talk

about how to answer questions like that.

How's your summer going?

How's your new job going?

How's your trip going?

When people ask you about how something is going,

I'll teach you about four or five ways that you can respond.

One of my favorite ways to respond

when someone asks me how something is going

is to use the English phrase, "So far, so good."

I like this phrase

because it doesn't mean that everything's been amazing.

It doesn't mean that everything's been going badly.

It means that up until this point,

things have been going pretty well.

So far, so good.

So from the beginning of summer until now,

if you were to ask me the question,

"Hey, Bob, how's your summer going?",

a good answer, an answer that I would probably give,

is to say, "So far, so good."

It's been a nice month so far of summer vacation for me,

and up until this point

everything has been going really, really well.

So far, so good.

Let's imagine you've started a new job

and someone says to you,

"Hey, how's the new job going?"

A great answer would be to say, "I can't complain."

It's kind of a funny answer, right?

I can't complain.

"Hey, Bob, how's the new job going?"

"I can't complain."

Hey, Bob, how's your summer going so far?"

"I can't complain."

what this means is that up until this point,

nothing bad has happened.

There's nothing to complain about.

It kind of implies that up until this point

at the new job or in my summer,

everything has been pretty good.

So another way that you can answer a question

that someone asks you about how something is going

is to simply say, "I can't complain."

"Hey, Bob, how's your summer going?"

"I can't complain."

Another way that you can answer questions like this

is to say, "Pretty good so far."

I've been walking a lot more this summer,

and I've even been going to the gym and working out a bit.

If someone said to me,

"Hey, Bob, how's your new workout routine going?"

I could answer by saying, "Pretty good so far."

"Hey, Bob, how's your summer going?"

"Pretty good so far."

When people ask you this type of question

and you say pretty good so far,

it means the same as so far, so good.

It means that you started something in the past

and you're still doing it,

and at this point in time

when you look at the things that you've done,

all of them have been pretty good.

There's nothing really bad that has happened.

So, "Hey, Bob, how's your summer going?"

"Pretty good so far."

So a few weeks ago I was at a family reunion

and I got to see some of my nieces and nephews,

who I haven't seen in a while.

And a question I asked them quite a bit was,

"How's school going?"

A lot of them are university students and they're studying,

so I said to them, "Hey, how's school going?"

And a common response from them was to simply say,

"Not too bad."

This is another really subtle way to answer the question.

It doesn't mean that school is amazing,

it doesn't mean that school is going badly for them,

it means that they're doing fine,

that they're probably enjoying it,

and it's not too bad.

So, "Hey, how's school going?"

A good answer would be, "Not too bad."

"How's your trip going?"

"Not too bad."

"Hey, Bob, how's your summer going?"

"Not too bad."

So to review, let me see if I can remember

all four of these phrases off the top of my head.

If you were to ask me this question,

"Bob, how's your summer going?",

I could respond by saying, "So far, so good,"

"I can't complain," "Pretty good so far," and "Not too bad."

I almost forgot the third one there.

Anyways, thank you so much

for watching this little English lesson.

If this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red Subscribe button,

and gimme a thumbs up if this video helped you learn

just a little bit more English.

And I just wanna say bye, and I hope you have a great week.