Free English Class! Topic: Moving 🚛📦🚚 (Lesson Only)

Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about moving.

People sometimes live in one place and then they move to

another place. Sometimes they move because they have to start

a new job in a different city. Sometimes people move because

they need to go to school. There are a lot of reasons to

move. Sometimes children move out of their parents' house.

But we certainly people certainly do move from time to

time in their lives. Some people move more often than

others. I have an uncle aunt who have moved 19 or 20 times

in their life. Um personally I've only moved probably five

times in my life maybe six. I have not moved a lot. But

moving is when you live somewhere and then you decide

to take all of your things. You take everything you own and you

go to a different place and then you start to live there.

That's my best explanation of what moving is. Um it is

something that is stressful. We talked about it I think in the

lesson about stressful things. Um but it can be very exciting.

It can be exciting to decide that you want to live in a

different part of the country or you want to move to a

different country entirely or you just want to live somewhere

else for a time. So once again welcome to this English lesson

about moving. So the first slide I have has two verbs on

it. The verb to move and the verb to move house. In Canada

and I think in the United States when you move we just

say move. When are you moving? I move in three weeks. Um in

the UK though in Britain when I watch British TV shows they

often say move house. Um are can you come out do you want to

go out to eat this weekend? No I'm moving house or when are

you moving house in a couple weeks. So just kind of ignore

my explanation of the second phrase you'll have to look in

your British English dictionary to get a good description. But

in Canada we just say move. When are you moving? Or when

did you move? Um or do you need help moving? Uh I'm going to

move in three weeks. By the way I'm not moving. If you are

wondering if this lesson is like a secret way for me to say

I'm moving I'm not moving. I'm not moving for a very long

time. So we have two different phrasal verbs. To move in and

to move out. And obviously you can tell the difference. When

you move in it means that you are entering a place to live

there. Okay? So you could say to someone when are you moving

in to your new apartment? Or you could say when's your

move-in date? Which is kind of how we refer to the day you

move in somewhere. So that's the day that you would be

entering your new place. People can also move in with you.

Okay. When my son is done university he will move in with

us again. So that just simply means he's going to live here

again. And we have to move out which can be used the same way

as well. When someone moves out means they leave a place. So

you could say when do you need to move out of your apartment?

Uh what day do you need to leave? And you could say oh I

need to move out in three weeks. Uh I need to move out on

April 17th or something like that. So and as well when you

live with other people they can move out as well. I could say

oh my son is going to university in September. He's

going to move out at the end of August. So move in move out the

two directions of moving. And we have something called moving

day. So a lot of times when people are planning to move. Uh

they will refer to the day when they are going to move as

moving day. Uh they'll say oh yeah moving day's in a couple

days for me. So I need to get ready. I need to pack my stuff.

Or you might say oh you're moving. When's your moving day?

And you would say oh my moving day is April whatever. April

17th. I'm just using that date randomly. But the day when you

move is called moving day and people will often refer to that

with that to name. They'll say you know when's your moving

day? Oh I'm my moving day is not for a few more weeks yet so

I can relax. In English we use the word stuff and we use the

word things a lot. In fact Jen and I were laughing the other

day because we were having a conversation and we used the

word stuff so many times. It was making us laugh. But when

you move you take all your stuff. Okay? Before you move

you might need to pack all your stuff up. And you need to put

all your stuff in a car or in a van. And then you need to drive

your stuff across town or you need to drive to the next city.

Then you need to take all of your stuff out and put your

stuff in the new place. This is a very useful English word, the

word stuff. And we also use the word things. Like oh do you

have a lot of things to when you move do you have to take a

lot of things with you? Oh I need to get all my things ready

because I'm moving in a few days. So stuff and things. Just

very Yeah very useful English words to refer to all of the

things that you own. All of the stuff that you owned. Boxes.

When you move you're going to need boxes. You're going to

need a lot of boxing. Sorry not boxing. Boxing is this. You

don't need to do any boxing. You'll need a lot of boxes. Um

but when you move you want to put your stuff in boxes. It

just makes it more convenient. You want to put all of your

things in boxes. So you might go to a store and ask if they

have any old boxes. You can actually buy moving boxes.

Boxes that are made for moving. When you go to a company to

maybe rent a truck That company might also sell boxes and you

can buy some boxes in order to put your stuff in boxes so that

you can move them. And you of course will want to sort

things. When you sort things in English it's not just when

you're moving you sort things anytime you want things to be

organized. But when moving day is approaching in the days

leading up to your move-in date. You might want to sort

things. So you might want to get boxes and put all of your

books in one box. And put all your clothes in another that I

I like this picture because there's a box that just says

stuff. And you might want to put pillows in another box. And

that way you when you sort things you kind of put all the

things that are the same together and then it's a lot

easier to find later. Then once you move in when you're

unpacking it's easier to find the things you need if you took

some time to sort. We also have this English verb to go through

phrasal verb to go through. When you go through stuff it

means that you kind of let's say I had like a couple hundred

books and I'm moving. I might want to go through my books.

That means I'm going to look at each of them and decide which

ones I'm going to keep. Before I move I might want to go

through my clothing. Because there are things I don't wear

anymore. And it's probably a good idea to go through my

clothes and say okay I'm going to keep this one. I'm

going to get rid of this one. I'm going to keep this one. So

sorting is when you kind of organize things. When you go

through your stuff. When you go through your You're kind of

sorting but you're kind of looking for the things you

want to keep and the things that you don't want to keep.

And then of course you need to box things up. You need to box

up all of your stuff. Um this is kind of an interesting verb.

You could say I need to put my stuff in boxes. But it's easier

to say I need to box up my stuff. Have you boxed up your

stuff yet? When are you moving tomorrow? Have you boxed up

have you boxed up your stuff? No I haven't started. That

would be bad by the way. If you are moving tomorrow I hope that

you already have all of your stuff up. Hopefully you were

able to sort and go through all of your things and you were

able to box up what you're taking with you. To declutter.

So this is an interesting word. As you live somewhere you you

just have more and more things that you own. But you might not

need all of them. In particular if Jen and I were to move we

have a lot of mugs. So in order to declutter it means kind of

to sort through and get rid of things. So if I was to say oh

we need to declutter a bit. It means you have too many of

certain things and you want to get rid of them. A common thing

to do with extra stuff is to give it give it away. Give it

to family or friends or donate it to a thrift store or a

charity that will be able to resell those items in order to

make a bit of money. So when you declutter it means you

minimize the amount of stuff you have and it's just a good

thing to do before you move. To give away. I kind of mentioned

this. One of the things that you might do is you might give

away a lot of stuff. I know the one time that Jen and I moved

we kind of went through our stuff and we gave away a few

things. We gave some things to our neighbours. We gave some

things to my brothers and sisters. Um sometimes when

you're moving it's nice to give away things you don't need. Uh

so that the move goes easier. There's less stuff to put in

boxes. If you give away Some things before you move. And

then I like these three verbs here. To chuck, to throw out,

to get rid of. So all of these mean to just simply throw

something in the recycling or throw something in the garbage.

Although the last one to get rid of. You know that can also

mean to give to someone else. You know I'm going to get rid

of my car. I'm going to give it to my brother. But the first

two to chuck actually it's similar to throwing. So it's

the action of throwing something in the garbage or

recycling. Uh to chuck to throw out before you move. The more

stuff you can chuck the better. The more stuff you throw out

before your moving date is it's just really really helpful. Get

rid of as many things as you can before you move. That's my

recommendation if any of you are moving. To throw out your

back. I thought I would mention this one. Uh because this is

something that commonly happens when people move. People don't

heavy things everyday. But when you move you need to lift a lot

of heavy things. This guy is wincing in pain because when

you lift something heavy sometimes you throw out your

back. This just means that you suddenly have a pain in your

back usually when you're lifting something heavy and

it's not very pleasant. So this is not directly related to

moving but certainly when people move the chance of

throwing out your is higher because you have to lift

couches and refrigerators and other pieces of furniture and

big boxes. Um the chance of you throwing out your back is

pretty high. Okay so just the standard word for putting

things in boxes and putting things in suitcases is to pack.

When you are moving you need to pack your stuff. Okay. You need

to put everything in boxes. You need to put things in

suitcases. You need to put things in bags. Whatever you

are in order to move you need to put your stuff in there. You

need to pack. So generally we use this word as well when

you're going on a trip. Before you go on a trip or on vacation

you need to pack. Before you go before you move you also need

to pack. And then you need to label things. We had a picture

earlier where the boxes were labelled books and clothes and

those kinds of things. Um when you move it's just a really

good idea to label the boxes. Dishes from the kitchen, books,

bedroom, kitchen. So you either write on the box what's in the

box. Or you write on the box what room the box needs to go

into in the new place. This is a very cool thing to do. Or if

you were me I would write both. I would write like dishes put

in kitchen or dishes kitchen. And then the if people are

helping you move they know where to put the box when they

get there. You might even write fragile on the box. When you

say something as fragile you it means that it can break easily.

So if you have things like maybe you have like really

expensive dishes or you have maybe little figurines or

things that if you drop them they would break. You would put

them in a box you would probably put them in old

newspapers so that they're cushioned a little bit. Uh and

then you would write fragile on the box. I think some people

say fragile. I should check the pronunciation. I say fragile. I

should check if other people say fragile. Maybe I'll ask

Brent in the chat what he says. Fragile or fragile. Make sure

you look up that pronunciation. Um depending on where you live.

It might have a different pronunciation. Uh and it might

even say this side up. You might have things where you

don't want them to be upside down when they are being moved.

So you pack them all nicely in a box. And then on the outside

you would put a sticker that says this side up. It means

don't put this box upside down. Because there are things in

this box that must remain upright. You don't want them

upside down. They need to stay right side up or upright. Um I

can't think of anything right now but I'm sure there's some

things that you don't want upside down and you would put a

sticker on it like that. You might use packing tape. So

packing tape is just a special kind of tape that's really good

for putting on boxes when you close them. It's a little bit

wider and it sometimes comes in a nice tape dispenser and you

can just put that on the top of your boxes really quickly and

easily and it will hold your boxes shut very handy if you

are moving to close the boxes with some packing tape. And

then storage. So interestingly enough in North America some

people rent a storage locker or they rent space in a facility

that has storage. Uh and then what they do is instead of

moving everything to the new place they put some things in

storage. Sometimes people will move overseas or they'll move

to another country temporarily. I know that a friend of mine as

a teacher he went to teach in Japan for nine months. And so

he put a lot of his stuff in storage. So this is just a

storage locker. You can find and rent storage lockers in

most places. Um Most cities in Canada and the United States.

But sometimes when you move you have too much stuff and so you

need to put some stuff in storage. Um and that's how we

say it. We just say put it in storage. Yeah I rented a

storage locker. I'm going to throw some of my things in

storage while I go away for a few months. You might hire

movers. I've never done this. I have enough family and friends

that when I moved I just asked a lot of people for help. But

you might not know a lot of people. Or you might be moving

on a day where it's not convenient for people to help

you. So you might need to hire movers. Movers are people whose

job it is to help people move. You need to pay them obviously.

Uh but they will come to your house or apartment. They will

take all of your stuff and they will put it in their moving van

and then they will unload it at the new place. So really good

idea to label your boxes. So the movers know where to put

things when they get to the place that you are moving into.

They will have a moving truck or a moving van depending on

what vehicle it is. You would use a different name. But the

movers will come in a moving truck or moving van. They will

help you load all your things into the moving van and then of

course help you unload them. So yeah a moving truck is simply a

truck that's used by movers to help people move stuff. You can

also rent from places like U-Haul. You can rent a moving

van or moving truck and use that to move and then you don't

have to pay the movers but you have to pay to rent the moving

truck. And you might have something called moving

blankets. So moving blankets are really thick soft blankets

that you can put over things that you don't want damaged.

But they're too big to put in boxes. So let's say you had a

really nice table. Uh and you didn't want the table to get

scratched during the move. Uh it would be be a good idea to

use some moving blankets. So these are big soft blankets

that you could put over top of things. So that they don't get

scratched or dented or damaged during the move. Things get dam

when you move it's just it's just going to happen and you

just have to kind of prepare yourself for the fact that when

you get to where you're going a few things might have been

damaged on the way there but moving blankets certainly help

quite a bit to keep things from getting too damaged and you

might use what's called a dolly or a hand truck in my part of

Canada we would call this a dolly it's a two wheel dolly

and it just makes it a lot easier to move things I highly

recommend if you move, even though I haven't hired movers

before, I would hire movers if you can afford it, and I would

certainly recommend that you have a dolly to help you move

heavier things, it's just way you, you won't throw out your

back, if you have a dolly, or you're less likely to throw out

your back, but yeah, I would highly recommend, if you can do

it, make sure you have carts and dollies hand trucks if

that's the word you want to use and if you can hire movers hire

movers I know a few people who hired movers and they loved it

because four people just came in and carried all their stuff

out to a moving truck and then carried all their stuff into

the new house and they just thought it was the best

experience ever so I use this word I use the word to load

anytime in English when you are putting things into a car or

putting things on a truck notice the difference there you

could say put things in a truck but I would probably say the

movers are going to load your things onto the truck. Uh you

might load things into the car. This is the act of putting many

things into a vehicle. Okay. Before you go on a trip you'll

load your car with all your stuff. When you move you'll

load all of your things onto a truck. Uh so that they can

bring it to the new place. So you'll notice this guy he has a

dolly too on the far side there. The orange thing. Um

he's a smart person. And then I think those blue things in the

back of the truck it's a big stack of moving blankets. Uh

and then you certainly want to find people to help if you can.

Uh all of the times that I have moved. I've had people help me.

Usually brothers and sisters and friends. Um just people who

come and you can load their vehicle as well as load your

vehicle. Um I have helped a lot of people move as well. Uh

probably the most fun I had moving was a friend of mine and

his wife rented a U-Haul truck. They rented a moving truck. And

we moved all of the stuff from Toronto. Um so it was fun to

help them move. Me and a couple other friends helped them load

everything onto a big truck. Lots of fun. Uh and then at the

end of the day they bought us pizza. Which was really really

fun. To lend a hand is simply another way to talk about

helping. You might say hey I'm moving in 3 days. Can you lend

a hand? Hey I'm moving in three days. Can you help? So both

simply mean to help someone. Uh when my friend moved like I

meant earlier in the lesson. I was happy that I was able to

lend a hand. I was happy that I was able to help. Um so it's

kind of funny it's like you're letting them use your hands for

the day but obviously it just means to help. To unload we

talked about this a little bit. I mentioned that when you put

things in a vehicle you are loading the vehicle. When you

load a vehicle you put boxes in you put stuff in. Um and then

when you get to your new house or apartment you need to unload

the vehicle. So it simply means to take the things back out

again. Um you unload and you bring the things into the

house. So when you leave your current house or apartment you

will load a vehicle. When you get to your new house or

apartment you will unload your vehicle. And when you you're in

the house you'll need to unpack. So we talked about

packing. Packing is when you put everything in boxes when

you get to your new place. You will need to unpack. People

don't often unpack the same day they move. This is what I've

noticed in terms of when I move and when I help other people

move. They usually move all their stuff. They unload all

their stuff. They put all their stuff in their house. Like they

put all the boxes in. And then they usually just get a few

things out in the kitchen like some plates and then order

pizza and then usually they set up their bed and then they

sleep and then the next day they start to unpack

everything. Usually the next day is the day where they start

to take everything out of the boxes. And put it in the new

places where those things will go. And then we have this

interesting phrasal verb to get settled. Or verb phrase I guess

to get settled. Um sometimes it takes a while to get settled in

a new place. After you move the new place doesn't feel like

home right away. It feels like you're in someone else's

apartment or someone else's house. It can take a while to

get settled. When we talk about getting settled it means you

feel happy in your new place. It means you've put all of the

things in the right spots in your own place. Um so all of

the stuff is in the kitchen. All of the bathroom stuff is in

the bathroom. You've arranged the furniture in a way that is

pleasant for you. Uh when that's all done we would say

that you have you are able to get settled, okay? It can take

a few days or a few weeks or even a few months to to get

settled, to have that feeling like you are in a place you

would call home. Hey just a few random things here too. It's

quite common for older people to downsize. So we didn't talk

about this but one of the reasons people move is because

they're in a big house. Maybe they had four or five children

and they needed a big house. But all of the kids are now

older and have moved out. And so the older couple might then

downsize. When you downsize it means you sell a big house.

Because you don't need a big house anymore and you buy a

smaller house or you move into an apartment. So I know that

it's quite common. My mom Years ago she said I think I'm going

to downsize. All of you have moved out. I'm going to sell my

big house and buy a smaller house. So definitely a common

reason to move as well for older people is they simply

want to downsize. They want to live somewhere that's a little

smaller because they don't need lots of rooms. And we talked

about this earlier as well. Uh sometimes you need to relocate

because of work. Um as mentioned someone mentioned

that their bank manager or their dad was a bank manager

and moved every four years. So in that situation we would say

He needs to relocate every four years because of work. Or let's

say your dad or mom needed to relocate and you're starting at

a new school. Someone could say why'd you move here? You would

say oh my mom we relocated here because of my mom's job or

because of my mom's work. And then I'm not sure why this is

the last slide. I guess because it has the word vital in it. Uh

I should have put this earlier in the lesson in terms of the

theme of the lesson but when you leave wherever you're

leaving once you load everything in the vehicle you

usually do a final walk through. So you take everything

out of your apartment and you load it into a truck or car. Or

you take everything out of your house. And then before you

drive away it's always a good idea to do a final walk

through. This means you go back into the place you're out of.

Uh and you just walk and just check to make sure you didn't

forget anything. So you kind of look around to see oh did we

forget a box? Did we forget something somewhere? You do a

final walk through. Um I actually do this as well when

Jen and I leave a hotel. If Jen and I stay in a hotel when we

are the day we are leaving we pack all our stuff up. Uh and

then I usually just do a final walk through of the room. I

just check to make sure that we haven't forgot anything. Um

it's not nice to forget stuff when you are leaving a place

for another place because then you have to go back and try to

get it.