Read along to practice your English and to learn the phrases "BETWEEN JOBS" and "ODD JOBS"

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase between jobs. When someone says they are between jobs, it means they don't currently have a job. It's kind of a nice way of saying that you're unemployed. If someone says they're between jobs, it means somehow their last job ended. Maybe they got fired, maybe they got laid off, maybe they quit and they are looking for another job. So they are between jobs. Again, it's simply a nicer way of saying that you don't currently have a job. I have. Let me just put it this way. There's someone I know who is often between jobs because whenever they find a job after a month or two, they usually get let go. They get fired because they're just not a very good worker. So they're often between jobs looking for a job.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is odd jobs. When we say there are odd jobs to do around the house, it means little things like fix the bathroom sink or put a new rug in the entranceway. There's just little things that you need to do. When I was a kid, I used to visit my grandparents. And when I visited my grandparents, my grandpa had a whole bunch of odd jobs to do around the house and we would help him. We would do some odd jobs outside too, like rake the leaves, weed the garden. I remember one time we changed light bulbs in a couple rooms where the light bulbs weren't working. Just odd jobs that needed to be done.

So to review, if you're between jobs, it means you don't have a job and you're looking for a new one. And if you are doing a bunch of odd jobs, they're just simple, small jobs that you need to do around the house.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video after we look at the really loud car at the gas station. Let me put this back on the tripod. Hopefully that sound ends soon. This comment is from... I think this is more interesting. I think they got the car going. I think everything is okay now.

This is from Konstantin. By the end of a school day, my voice gets so strained that even lozenges hardly help. I sometimes can't shoot the breeze with my friends. A blessing in disguise. This little frog in the throat gives your ramblings a unique charm. Bob, big thanks, Bob. Take care of your professional tools, my voice, and enjoy the indian summer. My response? It's par for the course for us, I guess, mine is doing better. Yeah, my throat feels way better than it did the other day. But thanks, Konstantin, for that comment. It usually just takes a week. Voice is a little strained and then it goes back to normal.

But hey, I did want to show you the gas station because something has changed here and it made me a little bit sad. You used to be, this is probably normal for all of you, but you used to be able to pull up, fill your car with gas, and then if you wanted to, you could go in and pay. But now there's a sign here that says prepay before fueling. And I know that's probably a normal thing for most of you. It's a normal thing in most big cities in Canada as well. You can't put gas in your vehicle and then pay afterwards.

So usually I pay at the pump, but today I have cash with me, so I had to go in, I had to tell them I want $50 worth of gas. And then I was allowed to put that gas in my vehicle. So small towns used to just trust people. I guess we're now more like a big town. You have to pay before you put gas in your vehicle. Do I sound a little annoyed? It was just a little bit inconvenient. I'm used to the old way. There's a gas station close to my

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO SIT IN ON and TO SIT OUT

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to sit in on. It's a nice phrasal verb with two prepositions at the end, which makes it a little confusing. This means to go to something like a class to observe rather than take it. At work, sometimes the principal needs to check if I'm teaching properly and so the principal will sit in on one of my classes. When you visit a school and you're thinking about going there, you might sit in on one of the classes to see if you like it. Maybe your town has a meeting and it's open to the public. And if you want, you can go sit in on the meeting. So it means you go to something to observe it. It doesn't mean you're going to participate or ask questions. You basically are just going to sit and watch and listen. You're going to sit in on whatever's happening.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is to sit out. This means to not do something. Sometimes a player on a team will be injured and they will sit out for a game or two. Sometimes it's a minor injury and if they just sit out for a game or two, it will get better. So it simply means to not do something. In fact, if you're part of something where you can volunteer whether you want to do it or not, sometimes you can say, oh, I'll just sit this one out. That means you're not going to do it.

So to review to sit in on something means to go to something like a meeting or a class. Just to listen and watch and to not participate. And to sit out means to simply not participate in something. It's not fun when you're on a team and you're hurt and you have to sit out for a game or two. You just sit on the bench and watch everyone else play.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from MRfisheri. Wow, Bob got contacts to get a plane flying above for a video. Puntastic! And my response. Yep, it cost quite a bit. So that's in reference to my last lesson where a plane flew over and I made a pun about puns while a plane flew over. And some of you not necessarily questioned whether a plane actually flew over, but suggested maybe that it was just some sound effects. But it wasn't. A plane actually did fly over. I promise you in the future, any time a plane flies over during a lesson, I will spin the camera around and show the plane to you. Even if it's a tiny dot in the sky.

Well, what am I doing today? Well, I am walking to the drugstore to get more of these. It's the second week of school, and as usual, I'm using my voice too much. Actually, that's not necessarily true. I think I'm speaking too loudly so I don't have a sore throat. And this does happen at the beginning of every school year. I just feel like it's strained a little bit. So I like to buy throat lozenges to just kind of soothe my throat while I'm teaching, and at the end of the day. So I'm on my way to this drugstore up here. Not the dollar store. They don't have very good throat lozenges. I'm on my way to this drugstore to buy a few, and interestingly enough, they're not very cheap anymore.

I feel like maybe my school should buy them for me, but then they might question how much talking I do on my YouTube channel as well and whether I should be resting my voice. But anyway, it's just one of the things that happens when you're a teacher. You talk a lot. You talk like, I don't yell, but I talk just a little more loudly than I normally would talk when I'm teaching my classes. You say a lot of things like, hey, could I have your attention, please? And all thos

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Read along to practice your English and to learn the phrases "no pun intended" and "pun intended"

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase no pun intended. Now, first, I should explain what a pun is. A pun is when you say something and it's funny because maybe one of the words has two meanings. So sometimes you say something and you realize after you say it that it's funny. I could say something like this, I'm going to go out on the river in my kayak and I'll probably end up bobbing up and down, no pun intended. Because my name is Bob and we have a verb to bob. After I said it, I might realize that it's funny. If I'm going to go in my kayak, it's likely that I'm going to bob up and down, no pun intended. So I didn't realize it was going to be a play on words until after I said it.

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Now we also have the phrase pun intended. If I was to say, I'm going to go out in my kayak today, I'm going to bob up and down, pun intended. It means that I realized that what I was going to say was going to be funny because of the play on words. By the way, a play on words is when words have two meanings and it ends up being a little bit funny.

So to review when there's no pun intended. So if I was to say, right now, this is going to be a plain English lesson, and then I hear a plane flying over because the word plain and plane sound the same, I could say no pun intended. This is just going to be a plain English lesson, no pun intended. And then if I knew that the words were funny before I said it, I would say pun intended. Hopefully that made some sense. I do highly recommend you look up the meaning of both those phrases on the Internet so that you're 100% sure.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from I'm just going to say nghivotan, I don't have a lot of time. Your shorts are so helpful. Thank you, Bob. My response I'm glad you're enjoying them. They are meant to be a bite sized lesson that is easy to watch and re watch. Have a great day.

So yeah, I don't often talk about why I do these lessons, but they started a long time ago because I was waiting for my kids to get in the van before school. So I would get a up, I would have breakfast, I would get ready to go to work, and then because I drive my kids to school, I would wait and I thought, hey, I have a phone and I have a few extra minutes here. Why don't I just teach a quick little English phrase?

And then they progressed from there to be about four minutes long, usually give or take a few seconds. And so the point of this was twofold eventually. One to teach you a couple of phrases, but two to give you kind of like an insight into my life where I'm speaking candidly about things I'm doing as I go through my week or go through my day. A little bit more of contact for you with a native English speaker who's talking in the way they normally talk and showing you things that they normally do.

So that's what this has evolved into, a nice little short four minute lesson twice a week where you can learn a couple of phrases and you can hear me ramble on about everyday things like, for instance, two days of school are done now. I'm actually shooting this on a Wednesday. I know you're watching it on a Friday because I got to get ahead of my work. We have market tomorrow and Friday is rather a busy day as well. But yeah, I'm shooting this a bit early. I lost my train of thought there.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this little lesson where there were a few puns about me bobbing in the river. I hope that made some sense. What was the second pun? Oh, the one ab

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