Simple English Phrases to Describe a Bad Day

We all know that in life, sometimes things go wrong,

sometimes your day doesn't go smoothly.

That's another way we describe that in English.

We say, "My day didn't go smoothly yesterday."

In this English lesson,

I'll talk about a lot of the common things

that can go wrong in your day,

and I'll show you exactly how to describe them.

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One very common thing that can go wrong

actually happened to me this morning.

I forgot to set my alarm clock so I slept in,

I overslept this morning, this is not a good thing.

If you have this happen to you

on a work day or on a school day,

it can make the rest of your day a little bit complicated.

So, it's always good to remember to set that alarm clock

because you don't want to arrive

at work late and say to someone,

"I overslept this morning" or "I slept in."

And by the way, sleeping in is fun on a Saturday

when you don't need to be somewhere.

But when you sleep in on a workday, it's not a good thing.

A friend of mine lives in the city and he doesn't own a car,

he takes the bus and the train to work.

And one of the things that sometimes goes wrong for him is,

he'll say to me, "Yesterday I missed my bus."

Or, "Yesterday I missed my train."

When you need to be at the train station

or bus station at a certain time and you arrive late,

the bus or train will just leave without you

and you'll need to wait for the next one.

So, another thing that could go wrong,

you could say to someone, "This morning, I missed my bus."

Or, "This morning I was running late and I missed my train."

Sometimes your day doesn't go smoothly

because you can't find something,

this actually happened to me last week.

I was running around the house and Jen said, "What's wrong?"

And I said, "I lost my keys and I lost my wallet."

These are the two most common things that I lose,

and that's how you would describe it.

"I lost my keys," "I lost my wallet."

When I come home, I usually put my keys and wallet

in the same place every day, and this works really well.

But every once in a while, I put them somewhere else.

And then, the next day, I just can't find them.

And so I say to Jen, "Hey, I lost my keys,

I lost my wallet, can you help me find them?"

Sometimes you have problems with your car.

In fact, as I was making this English lesson,

I realized the list of things that could go wrong

with your car is actually enormous.

I could do a whole lesson on it,

but let's focus on a few of those.

Some are problems you would have with your car

and some are problems that arise

because of how you drive it.

You could say something like this.

"This morning, I got a flat tire."

"This morning, I ran out of gas."

"This morning, I got a speeding ticket."

Or, "This morning, my car broke down."

So, when you drive a car, sometimes you have problems.

It's always good to take your car to a mechanic regularly

for oil changes and to get small things fixed

because you want to avoid having problems.

And of course, you should always drive to the speed limit.

Sometimes I'm at work and when I go to eat my lunch,

I realize I didn't bring it to work.

"I forgot my lunch."

I talked about losing things,

probably the next most common thing that I do

that makes my day go badly is I forget things.

I just had this happen again a few weeks ago,

I was at work and I realized that I forgot my lunch.

This is also not a good thing to have happen

if you have forgotten your wallet

because then you don't have money to go buy lunch,

and you just have to go through the rest of the day hungry.

And a hungry Bob the Canadian

in the classroom is not a good thing.

I get a little bit grouchy when I'm hungry,

so I try my best to remember to bring my lunch

because if I forget my lunch, it's not good for anybody.

The other day I was working out and I pulled a muscle.

I was lifting weight and I pulled a muscle,

this is a common thing that happens

when you are someone who likes to exercise,

and it makes your day a little bit annoying.

In fact, it makes it a little bit annoying for a few days.

So, one of the things that can go wrong

if you are someone who works out,

if you are someone who exercises is you can pull a muscle

and then you'll have to say to someone,

"Ah, this morning, I pulled a muscle."

Or, "Last week, I pulled a muscle

in my leg so I can't exercise anymore."

That's never a good thing, I don't like to be injured

so I try my best not to pull a muscle.

Technology has become an important part of our lives.

We rely on our phones and computers to work all the time,

but sometimes they don't.

Maybe you're trying to text a friend and they don't respond.

The next time you see them they might say,

"Sorry, my phone died."

This means the battery in their phone was dead,

they didn't charge their phone.

Sometimes, I'll say to a student,

"How come you're not done your homework?"

"Why aren't you done your homework?"

And they'll respond by saying, "Oh, my computer crashed."

This means, as they were doing their homework,

their computer stopped working.

So technology, when it works well, makes our lives awesome.

But when it doesn't work properly,

it makes things a little bit annoying.

Well, hey, thank you so much

for watching this English lesson,

where I hope you learned some new phrases

that you can use in a future English conversation.

Remember, if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red Subscribe button over there,

give me a thumbs up, leave a comment.

And of course, if you have some time,

why don't you stick around and watch another English lesson.

(gentle bright music)