THINK and SPEAK in English

Are you ready to think and speak in English today? Let's do it. If you've ever watched an English movie or TV show, I'm sure you've heard people ask, hey hun, how was your day? But have you ever asked this question to yourself? If not, that changes today. Over the next 30 minutes, you are going to be immersing yourself in English and learning how to describe your daily routine and your vacations in English so that you can think in English and speak in English. And like always, I have created a free PDF worksheet for you with all of today's important vocabulary, expressions, ideas, definitions, sample sentences. And at the bottom of the worksheet, you can answer Vanessa's challenge question so that you never forget what you've learned. You can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today. All right, let's get started by talking about your daily routine and a phrase that you can use to talk about the beginning of your day. If I'm lucky, first thing in the morning, I'll hear my alarm, maybe push snooze and get up slowly. But if I'm not lucky, I'll hear one of my children screaming, mommy, and I have to get out of bed first thing. I used this expression first thing two times. The first time was at the beginning of a phrase. First thing in the morning. Make sure that you don't add first of the things or first of the... It's only first thing. First thing in the morning, I hear my alarm. Or we could use it at the end of a phrase, like you just heard me say. I might say, I wake up and make coffee first thing. I make coffee first thing. Actually for me, I don't make coffee. I don't even know if I know how to make coffee. I always make tea. I am quite a amateur, maybe say newbie, or maybe clueless when it comes to coffee. My husband, Dan, likes coffee, but I could say, I wake up and make tea first thing. Beautiful phrase. Let's go to the next part of my morning. After I'm awake, I head to the kitchen and start to make some breakfast. Sometimes my kids and I read a book or play a little game at breakfast because not everyone in our house is a morning person. Sometimes at least one of us will wake up on the wrong side of the bed. So having a little bit of fun lightens the mood and helps you to start your day off right. Do you know what a morning person is? A morning person is someone who wakes up happy, ready to start the day. Are you a morning person? Or maybe you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. This is a little bit metaphorical. There's not really a good side of the bed and a bad side of the bed, but it means that you wake up grumpy, maybe a little cranky, maybe not so happy. You could say, oh, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. I need some coffee or tea if you're me. Then after breakfast, I drop my son Theo off at preschool. This phrasal verb, to drop off, can be used for people or for things. So you heard me use it for people. I drop my son Theo off at school, or we could put it together. I drop off my son at preschool, but we could also drop something off. I dropped my computer off at the repair shop. Make sure that you don't forget the word off because if you just say, I dropped my computer at the repair shop, it means your computer fell on the ground, broke. Luckily you're at the repair shop, but it means something really different than to drop off. So make sure that you say, I dropped off my computer at the repair shop, or I dropped my computer off at the repair shop. Then I come home to start my work day. Usually I catch up on some emails. I go over any lessons that I'm going to have for my students. And sometimes I just call a friend to catch up. This phrasal verb, to catch up or to catch up on, is often used in daily life. And you can probably use it in your life too. Let's take a look at some situations. Let's imagine you've had a super busy week and it's the weekend and you look around and your house is a disaster. Right now my couch is covered in blankets. This table has papers and everything all over it. Oh boy, I need to catch up on chores. I need to catch up on some cleaning that I didn't do during the week. Can you guess what this means? There's something that you've delayed doing. Maybe you don't want to, or you don't have time, and now it's time to do it. So I could say, I need to catch up on some emails, or I need to catch up on some cleaning. But I also use this to talk about my friend. I call my friend to catch up. Well, it kind of has the same idea. I haven't talked to my friend for a while, and now we're talking about everything that's happened since we last talked. So if you see someone, maybe you're in the grocery store and you run across someone who you haven't seen for a while, you might say, hey, you want to go get some coffee and catch up? That means I haven't seen you for a while. I want to hear everything that's been happening. Let's catch up. I also said in my little story that I'd go over some lessons, and this is simply a really common way to say review. You can use this in the workplace a lot. You might ask someone to help you out. You could say, hey, could you go over this email before I send it? Maybe you're writing a really important email and you want to make sure you have everything right. You could ask a coworker, hey, when you have a second, could you go over this email before I send it? I would really appreciate it. That's so polite. And also if the other person is a kind person, they might feel kind of good about themselves. Oh, you think my opinion and my ideas are important and worthwhile? Sure. I'll go over that email for you. I will give it my stamp of approval. When I finish my work, I pick up my son from preschool and we head home. This verb, to head somewhere, is used all the time. Let me give you a couple situations. You might say, like I just did, I'm heading home. That means you're going in the direction of home. You're not there yet. You're not stopped, but that's where you're going. I'm heading home. Or if someone calls you and says, what are you doing? You could say, I'm headed to the store. I'm headed to the store. In American English, the store usually means the grocery store or the supermarket. You're going to go buy some food. I'm headed to the store. Or if you're ready to go and everyone else is just taking their good old time, you could say, all right, it's time to head out. This phrase, to head out, means out of the house. Come on, it's time to head out. Let's go. A great way to use to head, to head out. When we get home, sometimes my son and I have a little tea party together and chat about his day. Usually as we're eating and drinking, he kind of opens up about his day. And if he doesn't open up while we're eating, sometimes I ask some specific questions like, how many holes did you dig today? Did you jump in the leaf pile? He goes to an outdoor nature school, so they play outside all day, all weather, any season. They're pretty tough. They have lots of good warm clothes, but asking these types of specific questions can help him to kind of review his day in an easier way. You might hear people in movies and TV shows using the phrase, tell me about your day, or what did you do today? Or what did you learn in school today? Even worse. These types of broad questions, usually we don't really like to answer, especially at the end of the day, you feel like you just want to detox, decompress. And it's tough to summarize your day in just a few words like that. So maybe when you were a kid, if your mom asked you, what did you learn in school today? You probably said, oh, nothing, because it's just too hard to summarize your day. So if you have a significant other, if you have kids, if you're just asking someone about their day, I recommend, first of all, doing something together, spending some quality time together. You don't have to have a tea party, although I highly recommend it. Very fun. All you need is some tea, maybe a little snack, cut up an apple, have some nuts or dried fruit, whatever you like. And just spending quality time together can help someone to open up. This is a phrase we're going to use in just a minute. I want to tell you about it, but I recommend if someone doesn't open up, asking specific questions. This helps someone to recall the information that happened to them during the day, especially with kids, this is helpful because they're just living their life. They're not thinking about summarizing at the end of the day. So when you ask a specific question, oh, what game did you play at recess today? Oh, did you eat anyone else's food at lunch today? These specific questions can help your child to open up. And this phrasal verb to open up is beautiful. I love this concept. When you're talking with someone, usually at the beginning, there's kind of a wall. You don't immediately share your deepest thoughts. If someone says, hey, Vanessa, how are you doing today? No matter how I'm really feeling, I'll always say, oh, pretty good. What about you? Because I'm not ready to open up. In those types of passing situations, we're just not comfortable sharing our inner thoughts. So when you spend quality time together, that wall kind of drifts away a little more and someone might be more willing to be vulnerable. And that's the idea. When you open up, that means that you're willing to talk about your struggles, something difficult in your life, something really meaningful in your life, not just the surface shallow things. But when you really open up to someone, you're being your authentic self. So just remember these Vanessa tips the next time that you want someone to open up to you. All right, let's go to the next part of my day. When the weather's nice, usually our neighbors come over and hang out. Sometimes we have snacks, sometimes we play games, sometimes we just chat. But because my backyard is very sunny, it's a favorite hangout spot. And this word, to hang out, can be used in two different ways. It can be used as a verb. We love to hang out in the backyard. This means to casually spend time, usually with other people. We hang out together. Or it can be used as a noun. This is a hangout. Or as an adjective, so I guess we can use this in three ways, a hangout spot. So it's describing this location. What kind of location is it? It's a hangout spot. It's not a professional place. It's not a private place. Instead, it's a hangout spot. It's where we just go to spend time with other people. After hanging out with friends, as the sun starts to go down, usually we come inside and start to cook dinner. While we're eating dinner, we try to sit down at the table as a family. It's nice to try to have a little bit of quality time together. So we like to ask each other some questions, the most common questions. In fact, my four-year-old son, Theo, loves to ask these to us. He asks us one by one, what was the best part of your day? And when everyone has answered, he asks, what was the most challenging part of your day? And it's so funny the things that kids will say to these questions. So if you haven't done this in your home, if your kids aren't familiar with English, it's okay. You can ask in your native language. But asking these questions helps to kind of prompt conversation a bit. And when you're opening up about the best thing or the most challenging thing about your day, it kind of encourages the other people at the table to open up too. Oh, what a great phrasal verb that we just learned about. There are two phrases I want to share with you that I just mentioned. One of them is as a family. Now this just means the group, the whole group, the family group. But we can use the same structure in other ways. We could say, as a family, as a neighborhood, as a community, as a department, as an office. So it's talking about all the people that are in that group. So for example, you could say, it's important to spend some time together as a couple without your kids. So if you have kids, spending time without them is very important. So you could say, as a couple, just you and your significant other, it's important to be together without your kids occasionally. Another expression that I used is quality time. I already mentioned this when I was talking about the tea party. I think I might have mentioned it. If not, having a tea party is good quality time too. But it means that you're not just having a shallow experience together. It's not rushed. You don't have to go anywhere. You're just enjoying each other's presence. So I really encourage you to try to spend some quality time with someone this week. It means that you don't need to go anywhere. You don't have any kind of schedule. You have a full hour just to take a walk with a friend or to chat on the phone or to play a game with your kids. Something that's quality time. There's no agenda. You're just enjoying being together. After dinner, we clean up, we put the kids to bed, we tuck them in and tell them sleep tight. So one of these expressions that I used, you have to be very careful about. I said we put the kids to bed. This means that we help them sleep. So maybe we brush their teeth, we read some books, we sing some songs and we help them to relax. When you say we put the kids to bed, that's what it means. But you have to be very careful because if you change the word bed for sleep, if you put someone to sleep, it's very different. Usually this is a pet. So if we said, I had to put my dog to sleep last week, it means you had to euthanize, which is a nice way to say kill your dog. Maybe that means he was really old, he was suffering. It's a really tough thing to do, but it's often necessary. So make sure that you do not say, I had to put my kids to sleep. Instead, I had to put my kids to bed. Oh, much better. Of course, if you say your kids, people are probably going to understand that you mean you helped them sleep. But just to make certain that you're using the best expression, you can say, I put my kids to bed every night at seven o'clock. I put my kids to bed. Beautiful. The final thing that I say to my kids before they go to bed is sleep tight. What? Tight? This is a fun expression that's actually shortened from another full expression. It is, good night, sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite. Of course, we hope you don't have bugs in your bed. This is a very old expression. Sometimes we say that full expression, good night, sleep tight. Sometimes we say, good night, sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite. But oftentimes we just shorten that to good night, sleep tight, or just sleep tight. And it just means I hope you sleep well. So if you hear people say this in English movies or TV shows, or if you want to say this yourself, it's great. A very natural thing to say at the end of the night. After the kids are in bed, Dan, my husband and I have some precious downtime. Sometimes we get caught up on chores, maybe get caught up on a book that we're reading. Sometimes just chat about our day and decompress. This is a great expression, downtime. It means you have nothing else to do except decompress and relax. It's essential to have downtime, especially before you go to bed. If you're looking at Instagram while you're in your bed, oh no, no, no. Stop that right away. It's very bad for your sleep. You need to have some downtime. Give yourself a one hour pause before you go to bed to try to slow your mind down. Having some downtime with someone you love or just by yourself relaxing is essential. When the day's over, it's finally time to hit the hay. If I've had a really busy day, I might just sleep like a log, but if I'm feeling a bit stressed or there's a lot going on in my mind, I might toss and turn a bit before finally falling asleep. And fingers crossed that my children sleep all night so I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night to help them. And that's my day. Let's talk about some of those expressions I just used. To hit the hay does not mean that I'm a farmer and I have a last minute chore at the end of the day, I need to hit the hay. No, instead it just means sleep. I need to hit the hay. My head needs to go on the pillow. Oh, I need to hit the hay. And I also said that I might sleep like a log. Does a log move? Does a log make any sounds? Nope, it's just a tree that fell over. And there it is. Nice and silent and still. It means you slept very soundly, very quietly and peacefully. But to toss and turn on the other hand, the toss and turn means that you did not sleep peacefully or at least you didn't go to bed peacefully. Your body and your mind is too active. You tossed and turned. And what about the last one I used? Fingers crossed. This is just a fun way to say I hope that my kids sleep all night. Fingers crossed that my kids sleep all night. And me too. Thank you for joining me for my daily routine. I'm curious if your daily routine is similar to mine. Let's move on and advance your English skills to help you think and speak in English by talking about another important part of your life, which is vacation. I hope that you had a special vacation this past summer and I'd like to help you speak about it in English. So, I want you to hear about my vacation and learn some important words that you can use to help you think and speak in English. Let's watch. My family went on a four-hour road trip to West Virginia to meet up with Dan's side of the family. Unfortunately, Dan's brother got bronchitis so he couldn't come. A road trip is when you drive a long distance and usually the journey is also important. These are common trips in the U.S., maybe because the U.S. is so big. Let's take a look at another sample sentence. Some of my favorite memories from childhood vacations are taking road trips across the country. You also heard me use the phrase to meet up with. This is used when you are getting together with someone who you already know. Let's take a look at this sentence. We made plans to meet up with our friends while we were traveling in Spain. All right, let's continue with my summer vacation story. We rented a cabin in the woods that also had a hot tub or jacuzzi that my kids loved. The word rent is commonly used for vacations. You might rent an Airbnb. You might rent a car. Or maybe you could say we rented an RV so that we could take a road trip around the U.S. All right, let's continue. We went hiking and rock climbing. We made a bonfire and we ate amazing food, including a five-course wine tasting that Dan's parents put on. That was amazing. On our vacation, we did three common activities that we do outdoors on vacation. We went hiking, we went rock climbing, and we had a bonfire. I'm curious if having a bonfire is common in your country. I know sometimes this is really common, but sometimes it's almost unbelievable, especially if you live in a big city. But personally, I love having a bonfire, especially because I like to eat marshmallows. All right, let's continue with my story. Because it was the summertime and we were in the woods, we made sure that everyone wore bug spray and sunblock because nothing can ruin a vacation faster than lots of bug bites and getting a sunburn. I don't know if this is true in your country, but where I live, there are a lot of mosquitoes, so we have to wear bug spray often. And what happens if you don't wear bug spray? You get a bug bite. We also have to sunblock. Sometimes people call this sunscreen. What happens if you don't wear sunscreen? Well, you get a sunburn. Not good. Let's go on with my story. Well, we were having so much fun in West Virginia that we decided to extend our vacation and drive four hours further north to Dan's sister's house for five more days. And thankfully, our generous neighbor said that she could watch our cats, our chickens in our house for a little bit longer. Let's take a look at this word to watch. Yes, we can use to watch for. I watch TV. But it's also often used for taking care of something. I watched two kids over the summer. Okay. That means you were a babysitter or a nanny over the summer. You took care of those two kids. So we could also say, could you watch my house while I'm gone next week? That means could you take care of my house while I'm gone next week? All right, let's continue. In Pittsburgh, we hung out a lot together. We went to the zoo and you know what? I got stuck in the elevator at the zoo for 20 minutes. It was a little bit scary. This is a lovely phrasal verb that you can use at any time in your life. To hang out with someone is simply to spend casual time together. Hey, you want to hang out? Oh, it was great hanging out last week. Great phrasal verb to use. What about this one? To get stuck. This could be used physically. I got stuck in the elevator. He got stuck in traffic, but we can also use this mentally. If you're speaking in English and you just can't remember the words that you're trying to say, you might say, oh, I just got stuck and I can't remember the next word. You're not physically stuck, but your brain will not go to the correct word. So I hope this lesson will help you to find more words in your vocabulary so you can speak exactly the way that you would like. All right, let's continue my story. During our trip, my sister-in-law found out the gender of her third baby. It was quite a surprise and it was so fun to celebrate with her. This is another phrasal verb. To find out something means that you are learning a new piece of information. Let's take a look at this sample sentence. I found out about the surprise party because I heard them talking on the phone. Oops. All right, let's continue with my story. During the week, we rented a private karaoke room for Dan's sister's birthday and there were about 20 people there. Dan and his friend sang an improvised happy birthday song and it was hilarious and quite a crowd pleaser. This word, a crowd pleaser, means that everyone loves it. You might say this. I went to the circus and I saw a woman shoot flaming arrows from her bow with her feet. It was a crowd pleaser. It was incredible. All right, let's keep going. Then we went to our friend's wedding, which was actually at her mom's house and it was perfect. This was my kid's first wedding and I think it was the best wedding they could have gone to. The ceremony was blessedly short. They had homemade pizza made for each person and they had a blast dancing. This is a lovely expression, to have a blast, and it just means that you're having so much fun. You might say, we went to the beach last week and you wouldn't believe it. We had a blast just staying in our beach house, laughing and playing games. We only went to the beach two days. I hope that you have a blast on your vacation. All right, let's keep going. Something amazing happened at that wedding. Our friend, the bride, hired a silhouette artist to cut a silhouette for each of the guests. It was an amazing souvenir. I'll show it to you here. This is really something that I'll treasure forever. Can you believe she hand cut that by just looking at us in about 10 seconds? Incredible. This word, a silhouette, is a fun one. It usually means the outline of something. You might say, before I got glasses, I could only see the silhouette of the trees, and then when I got glasses, I could see the leaves. Amazing. Have you ever been traveling and gotten a souvenir for my son? You know what he loves to get as a souvenir? A rock. Wherever we go, it might be a rock from a parking lot. It might be a rock from a creek. His favorite souvenirs are rocks. All right, let's keep going. In both West Virginia and Pittsburgh, we had so much fun bonding and just spending quality time together. Both of these words, to bond with someone and to spend quality time with someone, mean that you are deepening your relationship with someone else. Let's take a look at this sentence. The COVID-19 pandemic was a really hard time, but my family got to spend a lot of quality time together, and in the end, we really bonded during that tough time. All right, let's continue and go to the end of my vacation story. Finally, after our eight-hour trip home, which ended up being something like 11 hours total, we made it home, and it was time to get back to the real world. This phrase, to get back to the real world, is one we often use at the end of vacation. You've almost been living in a fantasy world. Maybe you've been at the beach, maybe you went to another country, and then when you get home, boom, the real world hits. So you might say, I'm not ready to get back to the real world. Or on the other hand, you might say, you know what, I'm kind of ready to get back to the real world. This vacation was great, but it was long enough. Well, thank you for joining me for my summer vacation, and congratulations on leveling up your English skills to help you think and speak in English. Let me know in the comments, where did you go or what did you do for your summer vacation? Let me know, and I can't wait to read it and find out. Don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet with all of today's important vocabulary, expressions, definitions, sample sentences over this useful 30 minute lesson. You can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today. Well, thank you so much for learning English with me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait, do you want more? I recommend watching this video next, where you will learn advanced English in 30 minutes, including some important verbs that you probably know the simple meaning of, but you will learn how to use them in an advanced way that English speakers use all the time in daily conversation. Watch that video to find out, and I'll see you there.