THINK and SPEAK in English: your vacation

187,677 views ・ 2022-08-05

Speak English With Vanessa


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.  
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Can you think and speak in English about  your daily life? Let's talk about it. 
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If you watch English movies and TV shows,  you've probably heard people ask the question,  
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"Hey, how was your vacation?" but have you ever  asked this question to yourself? Well, if not,  
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that changes today. In this lesson, you will learn  19 common, daily life expressions that you can use  
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to talk about your vacation. I'll be telling  you about my summer vacation and I'll use these  
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expressions so I hope you'll be able to use them  too. Well, like always I have created the free PDF  
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worksheet for today's lesson with all of these new  words, sample sentences, definitions, and you can  
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answer Vanessa's Challenge Question at the bottom  of the worksheet. You can download this free PDF  
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with the link in the description. All right, let's  get started by talking about my summer vacation,  
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and I hope it will apply to you as well. My family went on a four hour road trip to  
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West Virginia to meet up with Dan's  side of the family. Unfortunately,  
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Dan's brother got bronchitis, so he couldn't come. A road trip is when you drive a long distance,  
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and usually, the journey is also important.  These are common trips in the U.S.,  
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maybe because the U.S. is so big. Let's  take a look at another sample sentence. 
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Some of my favorite memories from childhood  vacations are taking road trips across the  
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country. You also heard me use the phrase  "to meet up with", this is used when you are  
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getting together with someone who you already  know. Let's take a look at this sentence.  
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We made plans to meet up with our friends  while we were traveling in Spain. All right,  
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let's continue with my summer vacation story. We rented a cabin in the woods that also had a hot  
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tub or Jacuzzi that my kids loved. The word rent  is commonly used for vacations. You might rent an  
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Airbnb, you might rent a car, or maybe you could  say, "We rented an RV so that we could take a road  
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trip around the U.S." All right, let's continue. We went hiking and rock climbing,  
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we made a bonfire, and we ate amazing  food, including a five course wine tasting  
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that Dan's parents put on. That was amazing. On our vacation, we did three common activities  
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that we do outdoors on vacation. We went hiking,  we went rock climbing, and we had a bonfire. I'm  
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curious if having a bonfire is common in your  country. I know sometimes this is really common,  
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but sometimes it's almost unbelievable,  especially if you live in a big city.  
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But personally, I love having a bonfire,  especially because I like to eat marshmallows.  
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All right, let's continue with my story. Because it was the summertime and we were  
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in the woods, we made sure that everyone  wore bug spray and sunblock because  
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nothing can ruin a vacation faster than  lots of bug bites and getting a sunburn. 
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I don't know if this is true in your country, but  where I live, there are a lot of mosquitoes so we  
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have to wear bug spray often. And what happens  if you don't wear bug spray? You get a bug bite.  
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We also have to wear sunblock. Sometimes  people call this sunscreen. What happens  
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if you don't wear sunscreen? Well, you get a  sunburn. Not good. Let's go on with my story. 
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Well, we were having so much fun in West Virginia  that we decided to extend our vacation and drive  
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four hours further north to Dan's sister's house  for five more days. And thankfully, our generous  
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neighbor said that she could watch our cats, our  chickens, and our house for a little bit longer. 
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Let's take a look at this word, to watch. Yes,  we can use to watch for, "I watch TV," but it's  
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also often used for taking care of something.  "I watched two kids over the summer." Okay,  
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that means you were a babysitter or a nanny over  the summer, you took care of those two kids.  
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So we could also say, "Could you watch my  house while I'm gone next week?" That means,  
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"Could you take care of my house while I'm  gone next week?" All right, let's continue. 
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In Pittsburgh, we hung out a lot together,  we went to the zoo. And you know what? I got  
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stuck in the elevator at the zoo for  20 minutes. It was a little bit scary. 
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This is a lovely phrasal verb that you can use at  any time in your life. To hang out with someone  
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is simply to spend casual time together. "Hey,  you want to hang out?" "Oh, it was great hanging  
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out last week." Great phrasal verb to use. What  about this one? To get stuck. This could be used  
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physically. "I got stuck in the elevator." "He  got stuck in traffic." But we can also use this  
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mentally if you are speaking in English and you  just can't remember the words that you're trying  
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to say, you might say, "Ugh, I just got stuck  and I can't remember the next word." You're not  
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physically stuck, but your brain will not go to  the correct word. So I hope this lesson will help  
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you to find more words in your vocabulary so you  can speak exactly the way that you would like.  
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All right, let's continue my story. During our trip, my sister-in-law found  
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out the gender of her third baby. It was quite a  surprise, and it was so fun to celebrate with her. 
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This is another phrasal verb, to find out  something means that you are learning a new  
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piece of information. Let's take a look at the  sample sentence. I found out about the surprise  
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party because I heard them talking on the phone.  Oops. All right, let's continue with my story. 
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During the week, we rented a private  karaoke room for Dan's sister's birthday,  
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and there were about 20 people there. Dan and his  friend sang an improvised Happy Birthday song,  
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and it was hilarious and quite a crowd pleaser. This word, a crowd pleaser, means that everyone  
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loves it. You might say this. "I went to the  circus and I saw a woman shoot flaming arrows from  
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her bow with her feet. It was a crowd pleaser.  It was incredible." All right, let's keep going. 
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Then we went to our friend's wedding, which  was actually at her mom's house, and it was  
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perfect. This was my kid's first wedding, and  I think it was the best wedding they could have  
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gone to. The ceremony was blessedly short.  They had homemade pizza made for each person  
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and they had a blast dancing. This is a lovely expression,  
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to have a blast, and it just means that you're  having so much fun. You might say, "We went to  
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the beach last week and you wouldn't believe it.  We had a blast just staying in our beach house,  
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laughing and playing games. We only went to the  beach two days." I hope that you have a blast on  
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your vacation. All right, let's keep going. Something amazing happened at that wedding.  
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Our friend, the bride, hired a silhouette artist  to cut a silhouette for each of the guests.  
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It was an amazing souvenir. I'll show it to you  here. This is really something that I'll treasure  
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forever. Can you believe she hand-cut that by just  looking at us in about 10 seconds? Incredible. 
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This word, a silhouette, is a fun one. It usually  means the outline of something. So you might say,  
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"Before I got glasses, I could only see  the silhouette of the trees. And then when  
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I got glasses, I could see the leaves. Amazing." Have you ever been traveling and gotten a souvenir  
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for my son? You know what he loves to get as  a souvenir? A rock. Wherever we go, it might  
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be a rock from a parking lot, it might be a rock  from a creek. His favorite souvenirs are rocks.  
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All right, let's keep going. In both West Virginia  
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and Pittsburgh, we had so much fun bonding  and just spending quality time together. 
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Both of these words, to bond with someone  and to spend quality time with someone,  
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mean that you are deepening your relationship  with someone else. Let's take a look at this  
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sentence. The COVID-19 pandemic was a really hard  time, but my family got to spend a lot of quality  
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time together, and in the end, we really bonded  during that tough time. All right, let's continue  
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and go to the end of my vacation story. Finally, after our eight hour trip home,  
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which ended up being something like  11 hours total, we made it home  
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and it was time to get back to the real world. This phrase, to get back to the real world,  
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is one we often use at the end of vacation,  you've almost been living in a fantasy world.  
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Maybe you've been at the beach, maybe you went  to another country, and then when you get home,  
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boom, the real world hits. So you might say, "Oh,  I'm not ready to get back to the real world." Or  
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on the other hand, you might say, "You know what?  I'm kind of ready to get back to the real world.  
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This vacation was great, but it was long enough." So I want to know for you, what was your summer  
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vacation? Have you had your summer vacation  yet? Let me know in the comments and don't  
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forget to download the free PDF worksheet for  today's lesson with all of these wonderful daily  
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life expressions, definitions, sample  sentences, my story about my vacation,  
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how you can use them, and of course, you can  answer Vanessa's Challenge Question at the  
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bottom of the PDF worksheet. There's a link in  the description and you can download that now. 
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Well, thanks so much for learning English with  me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new  
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lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The next step is to download the free  
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PDF worksheet for this lesson. With this  free PDF, you will master today's lesson  
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and never forget what you have learned.  You can be a confident English speaker.  
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Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel  for a free English lesson every Friday. Bye.
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