English Conversation Lesson: Learn 3 advanced expressions

Dan: Hello.

Vanessa: Hello, hello.

Welcome to today's live English lesson here on the Speak English With Vanessa YouTube

channel.

I'm here with my husband, Dan.

Dan: Hi, everybody.

Vanessa: Today, we're going to be explaining three important expressions.

One of them is an idiom.

One of them is a phrasal verb, and one of them is kind of a slang expression, would

you say?

Dan: Yeah, definitely slang, but good slang.

Vanessa: Yes, slang that you can use in your daily life.

I hope that these expressions will be useful to you.

We're going to ask some questions, so make sure that you interact and try to make your

own sentences and use them.

That's the easiest and fastest way to remember is to use it yourself.

Please, answer our questions and participate.

Thank you, everyone, who's here live with us.

Do you want to say hi to some friends?

Dan: Yeah, we got people from India, I see.

Vanessa: Oh, yes.

Dan: Where else is everybody from?

I see some Korean.

Vanessa: Vietnam, Algeria, Brazil, Japan, Mexico.

Dan: All right.

Vanessa: Welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Dan: Around the world.

Vanessa: Yes.

Thank you for joining us live.

If you would like a notification about future live lessons, make sure that you subscribe

to my YouTube channel and click the bell notification.

You'll get a little notification when we're live and also whenever I have a new lesson.

Today, are you ready to start with the first expression that we're going to talk about?

Dan: Yes, I'm ready.

This is kind of like a sneak preview for our vocabulary lessons.

Vanessa: Yes because every month in the Fearless Fluency Club, which is my premium paid course,

we have about 15 to 20 new expressions that we explain together every month.

These are three of the expressions that are in the November lesson set, which is coming

soon in November.

If you join the Fearless Fluency Club now, you'll get the October lesson set, and then

November 1st, you'll get the November set, and learn 17 words, three from today, plus

14 others.

I hope that you enjoy this lesson and if you want more, feel free to join us in the month

of November.

Dan: Yes.

Vanessa: Are you ready for the first question?

Dan: I'm ready, yes.

We're going to put the vocabulary in a question.

Vanessa: Yes.

I want to know what are you going to do on your day off?

Dan: What am I going to do?

I'm going to make a day of something.

This is our expression.

Vanessa: Yes.

Dan: So, because it's October, I'm going to make a day of going to the pumpkin patch.

Vanessa: Oh, make a day of something.

This is the expression that Dan used here.

A lovely expression.

Dan: Yes.

Vanessa: What does this mean to make a day of going to, you can see our pumpkins here,

to the pumpkin patch?

Dan: Yeah, so first of all, a pumpkin patch is a place where you go and pick out a pumpkin,

usually for Halloween.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Dan: It's a common tradition in America.

Vanessa: Yeah, especially because tonight we're going to be having a pumpkin carving

party with our friends, so we had to choose some pumpkins to carve.

Dan: Yes.

If you make a day of something, this means that you're going to stretch out the time

you're doing something.

You could go to the pumpkin patch for ten minutes and get your pumpkin like that.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Dan: Get it really quickly.

Vanessa: That's fine, just buy a pumpkin, go to the grocery store, not a big deal.

Dan: But, in America, it's very common to make a day of it.

Vanessa: Yes.

Dan: You go to the pumpkin patch, you look at all the pumpkins, you take your children,

and they go on a hayride, so they're on a tractor, and they're riding on the hay.

Vanessa: Yes.

Dan: Maybe you drink some apple cider.

You could pick some apples.

Vanessa: Yeah, we also bought some apples, and played in some of the outdoor games.

This expression, to make a day of it, or to make a day of something, is an excellent expression

that you can use.

You can answer this question as well.

What are you going to do this weekend?

Today is Friday, so what are you going to do tomorrow?

Are you going to do some activity that you can do all day?

Maybe we're going to go for a hike and we are going to make a day of it.

I want to challenge you to write our question and also write our sample sentences in the

chat and in the description, or in the comments so that you can see it.

Vanessa: We're live, unfortunately, I can't add beautiful words on the screen.

That's one of the negatives about being live, but there are many positives as well.

I want to know, what are you going to do this weekend and are you going to make a day of

it?

I have a quick example, as well that I can use for this.

I recently had a doctor's appointment that was about 30 minutes away or so.

30 minutes isn't so far to drive, but I don't often drive.

I'm not a big fan of driving, so when I drove to the doctor's appointment, I thought, oh,

I'm in a new area, maybe I should make a day of it.

Vanessa: This doesn't mean that I'm going to stay at the doctor's office all day.

This means that I'm going to maybe go to a restaurant for lunch that's close to the doctor's

office.

I'm going to enjoy that area.

I'm going to take that event, going to the doctor's office, and I'm going to make more

of it.

I'm going to enjoy a park that's nearby.

I'm going to enjoy the restaurant.

Maybe I'll call a friend who lives nearby.

I have a doctor's appointment, but do you know what?

I'm going to make a day of it.

I'm going to enjoy that area and do as much as I can.

Dan: Yeah, so making a day of something, it doesn't have to be an extravagant thing.

You could even say, "I'm going to make a day of watching TV."

Vanessa: Yes.

Dan: I'm just going to stay home and watch TV.

I'll make a day of it.

Vanessa: Take a simple activity and just kind of prolong it a little bit.

I could be going to the doctor's office.

It could be going to the pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin.

Dan: It could be sitting on the couch and being lazy.

Vanessa: Yeah.

Dan: Who does that?

Vanessa: Yeah, or you could just watch TV all day and make a day of it.

It's rainy outside, it's cold, I'm going to make some coffee, maybe eat some unhealthy

snacks, and just make a day of it.

I'm just going to sit on the couch.

You might have noticed that Dan used this a lot when he said, "Make a day of it."

You could say, "I'm going to make a day of going to the pumpkin patch."

You could add that activity at the end, but if you already know the context, I'm going

to watch TV.

I'm going to make a day of it.

We already know that the context is watching TV.

You could just say, "Make a day of it."

And it resembles the activity that you're doing.

I'm going to make a day of it.

When we went to the pumpkin patch, we certainly made a day of it.

Dan: We did, yes.

Vanessa: I'd say, yes.

This is our idiom that we used today.

A lot of you are writing some excellent sentences here.

Dan: Oh, somebody said, "A couch potato."

Vanessa: Yes.

Dan: That's a good expression.

Vanessa: Yes, I'm going to make a day of studying in the library.

Beautiful sentence, [inaudible 00:06:51].

This is wonderful.

You're going to the library.

You're not just going to get a book and go, you're going to look around, maybe you'll

write while you're there.

Maybe you'll read the book.

Dan: Do some homework.

Vanessa: Do some homework.

That's excellent.

I'm going to make a day of studying at the library.

Provine says, "I'm going to make a day learning English with Vanessa."

All right.

Dan: That's a good day.

Vanessa: So, you're not just watching this video.

Maybe you're doing to watch it again when it finishes, you're going to write down these

expressions, you're going to make your own sentences, you're going to read them out loud,

that's what I recommend doing.

That's excellent.

Dan: You're doing to watch 100 Speak English With Vanessa videos in one sitting.

Vanessa: Oh, man.

Can you explain that expression, in one sitting?

Dan: In one sitting, that means you don't get up.

You don't go to the bathroom.

You don't get a snack.

It's in one sitting.

Vanessa: Yes, in one sitting, you watch ... I think there's over 300, maybe almost 400 videos

now on this channel, so you could spend a lot of time.

You could really make a day of learning English on my YouTube channel, certainly.

Dan: Yes.

Vanessa: All right, let's go onto the second one, which is a phrasal verb.

I want to ask you a quick question about helping someone.

I want to know when was a time that you needed to talk someone through something.

Dan: Our expression is, talk through.

Vanessa: That's the phrasal verb, talk through.

Dan: Or, talk somebody through.

If you say, "I'm going to talk somebody through something."

This would mean you're going to explain to them very thoroughly and help them.

Vanessa: Yes.

Dan: My example is when I worked at a coffee shop, I used to be a manager at a coffee shop

and I would have to train new people on the espresso machine.

Anybody here like coffee?

Vanessa: Not me.

Dan: Like your Americanos your latte's.

Vanessa: Dan's worked in so many coffee shops.

Dan: I have a lot of coffee experience.

Vanessa: I don't like coffee at all, so it's such a shame.

He gets so much free coffee.

Dan: I drink coffee all the time.

Vanessa: But, I can't benefit from it.

Dan: Anyway, I would have to talk to new people through making espresso.

So, learning how to put the espresso in the machine, how long to steam the milk.

I would have to show them step by step.

This would be talking somebody through, explaining it to them.

Vanessa: Yes, yes.

There's actually two expressions that mean the same thing and they're quite similar,

so I wanted to just share both of them through, with you.

You could say, "Dan talked the new employee through how to make espresso."

Or, you could say, "He walked them through the steps."

Dan: Walked them through.

Vanessa: This means, you are talking something through the steps, or you're walking them

through the steps.

This is the exact same thing.

You don't really have to be psychically walking, but it just means you're explaining step by

step, you're talking through every step so that the other person, the new employee can

understand exactly how to make a good espresso drink.

Dan: Yeah and you could even use this as a request.

You could say, "Hey, can you please talk me through this?"

Vanessa: That is so polite, yeah.

Dan: It'd be very polite.

That means, help me, talk me through, this is confusing, I need more details.

Maybe you have a math problem in your homework.

I used to ask my dad to talk me through the problem.

Vanessa: Me too.

Dan: Because it was confusing.

Vanessa: Every night.

Dan: Do you have an example?

Vanessa: Well, I could say, "Often, I get emails from you all, students, who are learning

English."

And maybe, actually the other day I got an email from a student who couldn't log into

to study their lesson set and this month we're studying the October lesson set and because

October is coming to a close, coming to a close means finishing soon.

Because October is finishing soon, this student wanted to make sure that they could study

all the material before November.

You can access all the material forever, but they wanted to make sure they could access

it, but they couldn't log in, and they couldn't find the right website, and couldn't find

their passwords.

Vanessa: I had to talk them through how to access the lesson set.

In my email I wrote, number one, do this.

Number two, do this.

Number three, do this.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me.

This really helped them step by step understand how to just access the material.

You could teach someone in that way.

Dan: Yeah, we'd usually use this is something more detailed.

It's not usually simple things.

Vanessa: Yeah, it's more detailed things.

I saw a great sentence here, Sule says, "I'm going to talk my patients through their problems."

I'm going to talk my patients through their problems.

I imagine maybe you're a doctor of some sort.

You have patients.

Dan: Maybe a therapist.

Vanessa: Maybe a therapist and you are explaining to them step by step.

First, we're going to check your heartbeat and then, we're going to check your pulse,

and then we're going to do this.

You're talking them through each step.

Dan: Or you're explaining after you check those things, what the problem is.

You have a heart condition and you have 25 days to live.

Vanessa: Oh, I hope that's not the case.

Dan: That was a little too harsh maybe.

Vanessa: Oh, I hope that's the case for you.

Dan: You have 25 years to live.

Congratulations.

Vanessa: Okay, that's a little bit better.

If you're a doctor, this is a great expression to use.

Let me talk you through the procedure.

Let me talk you through what's going on.

Like Dan said, it's an excellent question you can ask, if you need to use English at

your job, or maybe you interact with anyone who speaks English at work.

You can say, "Can you talk me through the new marketing plan?

Can you talk me through what happened at the meeting because I missed it?"

Dan: Yes, that'd be very useful.

Vanessa: So useful and it's really polite and professional.

It's not just saying "Can you tell me what happened?"

Dan: Yeah.

Vanessa: Can you talk me through it, please?

Can you walk me through it?

Dan: It sounds less helpless than, help me, please?

Vanessa: Yeah.

Dan: That sounds kind of desperate.

Maybe like you can't figure it out yourself enough and just, please help me?

So yeah, can you please talk me through this.

I saw a couple of other great expressions.

Nigah says, "You're talking us through this lesson."

Excellent.

We are.

Yeah.

Vanessa: We are.

Vanessa: We're talking you through this lesson.

Sebehat, I hope I said that correctly, said, "I'll talk through the chemical experiments

with my students."

I want to ask you, do you think we can put, talk through together if we have the person

at the end?

In the sentence, he said, "I'll talk through the experiments with my students."

Dan: I think I would understand that.

Vanessa: Yeah, but how would you say that sentence?

Dan: I'd probably say, "I'm going to talk my students through ... talk my students through

the chemical experiments."

Vanessa: So, the person who you're talking to needs to go in the middle of that phrasal

verb.

That's a really good grammar point because sometimes with phrasal verbs, they don't know,

can I split it up?

Should I put it together?

What should I do?

Thank you for writing that and for explaining it.

Dan: Right.

If you say, "I'll talk through the chemical experiments."

That probably means that you're just, you know, talking in detail about the specific

experiments, not necessarily helping your students.

Vanessa: Yeah, you're just explaining it in general.

Yes, thank you so much for everyone who is writing wonderful sentences.

I'd like to go on to our slag expression of the day.

It is, mind blown.

Dan: Mind blown.

Vanessa: Yeah, so I want to know when was a time that you were mind blown.

Dan: This is a very fun expression.

Vanessa: I love it.

Dan: Yeah.

Basically, if you are mind blown, this means you are just very, very, very amazed.

Vanessa: Yes, incredibly amazed.

Dan: Yeah.

Vanessa: So, your mind is your brain and blown means exploded.

It's kind of like your brain is exploding with amazement.

Dan: Yes.

Vanessa: Wow.

Dan: It's very vivid.

Vanessa: Yes.

Dan: You could even say, "It's mind-blowing."

Vanessa: Let's talk about this in an example.

When was a time that you were personally mind blown?

Dan: I've only been mind blown a few times, I'd say.

Vanessa: You got a high expectation of life.

Dan: Yes.

It has to be something very amazing.

When I was mind blown recently was when my baby was born.

When Theo was born, I was mind blown because you know what's coming.

The baby is going to be born, but the feeling you have when you see your baby, and he comes

out, and it's just there's a baby.

The baby was inside her and now the baby is here.

It's mind-blowing.

It's amazing.

Vanessa: If you have ever experienced your child being born, you understand that feeling.

You were mind blown.

Dan was mind blown.

I remember ... Dan: I shed a tear.

Vanessa: Yes, that precious moment when I held Theo the first time and I looked at you,

I was in a tub actually of really hot water.

I was in a tub and I was holding Theo, and I looked over at Dan and Dan was holding my

arm, and his face was so precious.

Dan: I don't know what I looked like.

Vanessa: Oh, you were crying, and you were just amazed.

I could tell by the look in your eyes that you were mind blown.

That's something that's really special to me that I'll never forget.

On a maybe less sentimental note, one time when I was mind blown was last year on August

21st.

In the US, I think it was kind of international news, there was a full, is it the solar eclipse?

Dan: Yeah.

Vanessa: Not the lunar.

Dan: It was a solar eclipse.

Vanessa: Full solar eclipse, total solar eclipse.

We got to see this.

If you have ever seen this, you know exactly the feeling when you see a full solar eclipse.

This is nothing like a lunar eclipse.

Dan: Yeah.

Vanessa: Everything was unlike reality because all of a sudden, in the middle of the day,

the sun of covered.

You can see just a bright crown of light around the sun.

It was mind-blowing.

Dan: It's like Twilight.

The moon was slowly coming over the sun and that's mind-blowing because there's the moon

over the sun.

It's crazy.

Vanessa: Yes.

I remember after that happened, it only lasted for less than a minute, I think.

Dan: Yeah, it was maybe a minute and 45 seconds.

Vanessa: Yeah, about ... it was pretty exact.

I remember after that happened, we went to the grocery store and I had a difficult time

looking around and realizing that this is the same world that we live.

This wonderful, amazing, mind-blowing experience just happened and we're at the grocery store.

Dan: Yeah, now we're living a regular life.

Vanessa: It felt so weird.

I'm curious for you, have you ever been mind blown?

When you have a mind-blowing experience, it's weird to go back to normal life because you've

had this thing that happened.

It's weird to see that real life is still continuing.

Dan: Yes.

Vanessa: I hope for you if you have the chance to experience, whether it's your child being

born, or a full total solar eclipse.

Those things are mind-blowing.

Dan: I think people are mind blown every day by your lessons.

Vanessa: Oh, I see.

Fazel says, "Your lessons are mind-blowing."

Dan: Mind-blowing, yes.

Actually, this phrase, you can use this in a kind of hyperbolic way.

Vanessa: Can you explain hyperbolic really quick?

Dan: It's not really, really mind-blowing, but you say it.

Vanessa: Exaggeration maybe.

Dan: Yeah, you're exaggerating.

If somebody tells you about something fun they did, you could say, "Wow, that's mind-blowing."

Vanessa: So, maybe just something simple like, oh, I hiked and I saw a bear.

Okay, it's cool, but it's not, you know, your child being born.

Dan: Or, if you think like ... if you went on a hike and you saw the view from the mountain

and you said, "Man, it was mind-blowing."

Yeah, it actually might be, but you could use that to just really let people know it

was really cool.

It was amazing.

Vanessa: Yeah.

You can exaggerate and use this.

I think this is something that people who speak American English, American's often use

exaggerations in speech, so it's pretty common that we might use something like the expression,

mind blown, for something that's a little bit less exciting, but we enjoy saying that.

Like, oh, it's mind-blowing.

Maybe for you, Nasima here says, "I agree.

Your lessons are mind-blowing."

Maybe this is a little bit of an exaggeration.

Dan: I don't know.

Pretty mind-blowing.

Vanessa: I'm glad that you enjoy them and I'm glad that you all enjoy them as well.

You might say, "Oh, my team ... " I see here, Guillermo says, "The Toronto Rapture's is

a mind-blowing team."

Dan: Oh, basketball.

Vanessa: For you, when you watch their skills, and you watch their ...

Dan: Donald Trump is mind-blowing.

Vanessa: Oh, maybe you think that he's mind-blowing.

Dan: I think the fact that Donald Trump is president is mind-blowing.

Like, what is going on in America?

Vanessa: Shocking, and surprising.

Dan: Mind blowing.

True statement.

Vanessa: So, Ganet here says, "My mind was blown when I heard something new."

This is an excellent way to use this expression and you can use it in different places in

the sentence and I think a lot of you are using that correctly, so congratulations.

If you enjoy learning these types of expressions, today we talked about to make a day of something.

This lovely idiom.

Talked about talking through something.

Today, we talked through these three expressions with you.

And to be mind blown.

We talked through how to use the expression, mind blown.

Dan: You don't even have to say sometimes.

You can just go like this and people will know what you mean.

Vanessa: Do you think someone who is 60 or 50 years old could do that?

Dan: Oh, well no.

Probably not.

They still might understand you.

Vanessa: Oh, they would understand, but I think that mainly younger people use only

the hand movement.

I think anyone can use that expression.

Dan: It's a joke.

It's, you know, it's not common.

Vanessa: But, you might see younger people just doing this and it means mind blown, like

whoa, I'm amazed.

How did that happen?

Dan: Yeah, that's the hand gesture.

Vanessa: Like an explosion in your brain.

If you see younger people do that, that's what it means.

If you're a younger person, you can do that, no problem.

If you're an older person, I wouldn't really recommend it.

It might be a little bit weird.

Dan: Yeah.

Vanessa: But, you know, it's up to you.

It's your personal choice.

If you would like to continue to learn English with us and learn 14 more useful expressions

like these today, I recommend that you join us in the Fearless Fluency Club.

You can join in October.

Now is October 25th.

Let's imagine, let's say that you decide to join October 25th, you'll get the October

lesson set and then in five, six days, you'll get the November lesson set, which includes,

to make a day of it, to talk through, to be mind blown, the November lesson set.

You'll be able to get two lesson sets within about one week.

Vanessa: If you use the coupon code, new, you can get it for just $5.00.

This is for the first month.

It's a really good deal.

You can get two different lesson sets.

Check out the course, if you like it, you can continue and get a lesson set every month.

If it's not a good fit for you, no worries.

It was just $5.00.

Dan: Yeah, it only cost $5.00 to be mind blown day after day.

Vanessa: If you are mind blown, you can stay in the course.

I'd like to share with you actually, what we're going to be talking about, some other

things that we're going to be talking about in November, so you can get kind of a sneak

preview of what we're going to do.

I'm going to share my screen with you here.

You can see that we are here on the November lesson set page.

In November, our topic is actually massage and relaxation.

I talked with my friend here, you can see in this quick little video clip.

Vanessa: You can see that I talk with my friend, Sarah, who is a massage therapist.

She explains about different types of massage that she does.

She works at a really popular kind of famous, almost, resort in my city.

We talk about here different massage techniques, and we talk about a lot of different expressions

like you can see here, to be draped.

We talk about this great verb, draping something.

We have a conversation.

Vanessa: What we've been doing today is the vocabulary lesson.

You can see, well, we have two different parts, actually.

You can see that Dan and I, just like today in this live lesson, explain for about one

hour these 17 different expressions so that you can learn about how to use them, and study

them yourself, and hopefully feel comfortable integrating them into your conversations.

You can watch the videos.

You can download them.

You can download the MP3.

A lot of my students choose to do this so that they can study on the train, or in the

car, or maybe if they're family doesn't want to listen to the lessons, they can just listen

to it on their headphones.

Vanessa: There's a full transcript as well so that you can catch every expression and

understand everything that we're talking about.

Every month as well, there is a grammar lesson.

This month in November, we're talking about something kind of nerdy.

A little bit for those of you who are interested, quite interested in grammar, we're talking

about how to use 'a', 'and', and 'the'.

In this grammar lesson, I explain in detail about using 'a', 'and' and 'the', hopefully

in a clear and concise way.

Vanessa: And then, we have the pronunciation lesson, where you get a chance to shadow,

and focus on pronouncing exactly like me and exactly like my friend Sarah, who is a native

English speaker.

You can enjoy the conversation.

We also have a story, which is a fun combination of all of these things that we've learned,

vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation.

It's a short story, about one page that includes all of these things together so that you can

practice them.

I hope that this will be useful so that you can just repeat the material and study it

as much as you can.

Vanessa: All right, thank you, everyone, for joining us today.

If you would like to join Dan and I in the Fearless Fluency Club to study about relaxation,

and massage, and vocabulary, and grammar, every month there is a new lesson set, so

if you join before November, you'll get October and November, or if you join in November,

and then eventually December's lesson set as well.

I appreciate your time.

Thank you so much for learning with us.

Dan: Thanks, everybody.

Vanessa: Yes and before we go, let's practice a little pronunciation for one of these expressions.

Let's go back to the first expression, make a day of it.

We're going to say the sentence a couple of times slowly, and I want you to repeat it

with us.

Can you do that?

It is, I'm gonna, we're going to link together going to, to make gonna.

I'm gonna make a day of learning English.

I'm gonna make a day of learning English.

Dan: I'm gonna make a day of learning English.

Vanessa: Yes, so I challenge you to say that as well.

When you say it out loud, you're using your pronunciation muscles, but you're also repeating

that vocabulary expression.

Let's say it together, are you ready?

I'm gonna make a day of learning English.

Do you want to say it with me?

I'm gonna make a day of learning English.

Dan: I'm gonna make a day of learning English.

Vanessa: I hope that you can say that out loud, practice it, and I hope it's true for

you.

You're going to make a day of learning English.

We talked you through a lot of expressions today.

Maybe you were mind blown at our explanations.

Thank you, Dan, for joining me.

Dan: You're welcome.

Vanessa: I appreciate it.

I hope that our explanations have been helpful to you and we'll see you again the next time.

Makes sure that you subscribe so that you can get notifications anytime there's a new

lesson and we'll see you the next time.

Bye.

Dan: Bye.