Learn English with phrases invented by Shakespeare 1

18,717 views ・ 2017-11-10

Simple English Videos


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We have something different this week.
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We’re looking at phrases invented by William Shakespeare.
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Yeah, really.
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You’re going to learn from Shakespeare.
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William Shakespeare is the greatest English writer and poet who's ever lived.
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He died 400 years ago, but here’s the thing.
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We’re still using phrases and expressions that he invented today.
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So let’s look at some.
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First one.
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We often use this phrase when we’re telling a story.
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It means quickly and unexpectedly.
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Shakespeare used it to talk about how fast we can fall in love because that can happen
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quickly and suddenly.
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Falling in love is a nice surprise, but we can use this phrase with bad surprises too
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– things that shock us.
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For example, all of a sudden, an alarm went off.
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The lights went out and all of a sudden, I someone grabbed my neck.
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The lights went out and all of a sudden, I someone grabbed my neck.
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Next one?
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Shakespeare wrote a play about a man called Macbeth.
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Macbeth was a murderer.
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He killed four people and his wife, Lady Macbeth, encouraged him to do it.
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She said, 'Go on kill them.
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It’ll be good for us'.
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So he did, but after the murders, Macbeth felt badly about it and his wife wanted to
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comfort him, so she said 'What’s done is done'.
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Can you guess what she meant?
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We say this when we want to point out that you can’t change something that’s already
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happened.
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So if you spill some milk, there’s nothing you can do about it, and I might say ‘Forget it.
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Move on.
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What’s done is done'.
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That’s great, Sally.
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Bye.
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Sally’s coming to our party.
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You invited Sally?
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Yes.
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Oh no.
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What’s the matter?
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Well Peter’s coming.
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He hates Sally.
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She dumped him.
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Well it’s too late now.
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What’s done is done.
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What’s done is done.
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OK, here’s another expression from the play Macbeth.
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One of the characters gets tragic news – terrible sad news.
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All his family have been killed at once – all of them at the same time, in one go.
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And that’s the meaning of 'in one fell swoop'.
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We say it when a lot of bad things happen at the same time, as the result of a single
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action.
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I’ve got terrible news.
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What’s happened?
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You know I told you there's new management at the company.
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Yeah?
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Well, they let everyone go.
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Everyone?
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Yes.
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They laid off 300 people in one fell swoop.
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Oh my.
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They laid off 300 people in one fell swoop.
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Oh my.
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Let's have a happier phrase now.
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We use this expression to say something happened by chance.
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These days we normally say ‘as luck would have it’, so we drop the word ‘good’.
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It means by lucky chance.
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Let’s see it in action.
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IWe've had a difficult month.
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Yes.
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First the car broke down.
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That cost a thousand dollars to fix.
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And then we had medical bills.
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Another thousand dollars.
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We didn’t know how we were going to pay the electric bill.
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But as luck would have it, I won a prize in the lottery.
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Amazing!
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Two thousand dollars!
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But as luck would have it, I won a prize in the lottery.
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OK, I’ve got two more for you.
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Here’s one Shakespeare used in several plays.
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Now the word ‘fair’ here means treating people equally, in the right way.
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If a game is fair, then everyone has an equal chance of winning.
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And playing fair – that means following the rules of a game and not cheating.
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So if someone cheats, it’s not fair play.
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Oh hurry up Jay.
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Just a second.
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What are you doing?
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I’m looking in the dictionary.
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But that’s cheating.
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He has no sense of fair play.
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He has no sense of fair play.
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Our last phrase is the opposite of fair play and Shakespeare invented this expression too.
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Foul play is when you do something dishonest and unfair.
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Footballers are sometimes sent off because of foul play.
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But foul play has another common meaning today.
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If someone dies and it wasn’t an accident or natural death, it’s foul play.
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So it’s is some kind of violent criminal action that results in a death.
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What do you think?
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He’s dead.
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Yes, but what happened?
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Hmm.
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Maybe it was suicide.
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Really?
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I think there was foul play.
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You think?
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I think there was foul play.
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You think?
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Now there’s an interesting thing about all these phrases and expressions.
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Native English speakers just say them, and we don’t normally know that they come from
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William Shakespeare.
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And there are hundreds more phrases that he invented, so we’re planning to make another
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video on this topic.
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Let us know in the comments if that’s a good idea.
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And if you enjoyed this video please share it with a friend who’s also learning English.
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And make sure you subscribe to our channel so you don’t miss our future videos.
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See you next week everyone.
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