Name: Short & Smart Phrases to Speak Fluent English - Phrasal Verbs -Animal Names - Learn English Michelle
Uploaded: 2020-03-21T23:10:42.000Z
Duration: 13 min 31 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Hi guys, welcome to a new lesson with me Michelle. I've got a question for you, so tell me, can

animals help you learn English? Well they don't speak in English, do they? They don't

Transition words & phrases

speak English. So how can they help you learn English? The truth is they can because we

have some very useful phrasal verbs in English that are from the names of different animals.

So let's get started and find out how animals can help us learn English.

Let's look at the first phrase that we've got today, so the first phrasal verb we have

is ‘fish for’. So have you ever fish for something? Well I hope you don't have because

fish for means to try to get something in an indirect way, okay? To try to get something

in an indirect way which is usually not nice. So it's more of a negative phrase. To try

to get something in an indirect way. Try this, it's sickening how James is always fishing

for compliments, which means how this guy James is always trying to get good compliments

from others and it's not nice for us, alright? So that's how we use fish for.

Now let's move to the next one even pig and teach us some English, well yes, it says ‘pig

out’. So pig out what image do you get in your mind when you think of a pig? Do you

think that he's just hogging the whole time? Hogging means eating the whole time? Yeah!

He's usually eating garbage and that's where this phrase comes from pig out means when

you're eating a lot of food, especially junk food, okay? So pig out means eating junk food

and a lot of junk food. So for this you could say that I saw Sam pigging out on pizza and

fries in front of the TV. Which means he was just hogging on it and he was eating all of

Our next phrase is ‘wolf down’. Did you see my expression? Wolf down, it means that

you quickly eat all your food maybe because you're tired, you're hungry and you just have

to eat or maybe you have to go catch a flight, so you quickly eat your food and rush for

your flight, okay? So wolf down means to quickly eat your food. So as an example you could

say that, Emma was so tired that she wolfed down her food and she took out the clothes

for next morning and dozed off. Dozed off means slept off, okay?

Now with that let's move forward and look at the next one ‘leech off’. So what do

you think is a leech? Well leech is a sort of blood sucking reptile. So what it does

is, it sticks on to your body and sucks out the blood. So can you think of a person like

that a person who sucks the blood out of you? Well that kind of person could be termed as

a leech but leech off means that somebody who uses you for their personal gains and

gives nothing in return. So leech off means to take something from you and give no returns.

So as an example you could say that, Branny always takes all his efforts into his hands

and he leeches off his success, okay? So this means that he takes all his compliments and

you know he takes all his praises and then he leeches or him off of it his success.

Okay with that we move forward to ‘monkey around’. So do you know what is monkey around?

How does a monkey behave? So monkey is always active energetic and playing around well so

when you see kids they're just you know playing and having fun you know light play that's

called monkeying around which means having fun. Sometimes you don't like your kids monkeying

around and you might want to tell them stop monkeying around and listen to me. Another

alternative for monkeying around is muck around, okay? Muck around possibly came from monkey

around it's like a shot version of it, which has the same meaning.

Okay the next one we have is ‘duck out’. Well as you just saw I went down and you couldn't

see me maybe you saw me but that's what duck out means. When you suddenly leave a place

without any prior announcement or without telling anyone, okay? So duck out is suddenly

leaving a place. So if you think whenever a duck is in the water you never know that

once it's on the surface within seconds, right in the blink of an eye it will duck in which

means that it will go inside and you won't even get to know and duck in, in if you if

you know about you know boxing ducking means to go down so that you can save yourself from

the punch. So that's what duck out means to leave a place without any announcement, great.

So for this you could say that I'll just duck out and grab a bite. Which means that I'll

just go out and grab a bite for myself. So if you're in a boring meeting you might want

Okay the next is ‘beaver away’. Have you seen a beaver? He's like really cute I really

like beavers that’s okay, they've got those really cute tooth you know front tooth which

are very cute. So that's how beaver is and I really like them. So but by character a

beaver is kind of very active and energetic and is always on to something you will never

see a beaver free a beaver is always occupied. Well if a person is working very hard you

could say that he or she is beavering away. For example you could say that she's beavering

away for her math exam. Which means she's working very hard for a math exam. Beavering

Okay now with that we move to the next one which is ‘ferret out’. So do you know

what is a ferret? Well ferret is the enemy of a snake. Do you know how it looks? It's

like really small and it hates the snake, okay? So ferret out. Now ferrets are experts

at finding out hidden information, you know? Possibly they are like the RAW agents and

they can find out hidden information. So ferret out means to find out hidden information.

So for this you could say that Uncle Vicky ferreted out about our lost car from the police.

Which means he found the hidden information from the police about our lost car.

The next one is ‘clam up’. Okay look at this, clam up. So this is how a shell looks,

okay? And you always see the pearl inside it. These are called clams and clam up means

when you suddenly become very quiet because you are shy or you're nervous. So clam up

means to become quiet  because you are shy or nervous. For this you

could say that, she always clams up whenever somebody talks to her about her boyfriend.

Which means she doesn't want to tell too much and she's very shy.

Okay the next one is ‘hound out’. So a hound is a wild dog, okay? A wild dog

and the best thing that a wild dog does is chase somebody. Because we are running away

from them and they're running behind us so they're chasing us. So if somebody has chased

someone, they have hounded someone out. For example the family hounded out the thief from

their house. Which means that they chased the thief away from their house. Hound out

means to chase someone out. S O stands for someone.

Okay the next one is ‘rabbit on’. Okay so this phrase means that someone is going

on talking, going on talking about something, okay? Which means that they're just blabbering

about a topic and nobody is interested in listening to them. Does this happen when people

give out really speak, really boring speech, yeah. So when somebody speaks a very boring

speech you could say that he was rabbiting on about the environment which means he was

continuously talking or giving out a boring talk or delivering a boring speech.

Our next phrases ‘squirrel away’. Okay so squirrel away, do you, what do you think

of when you think of squirrels? Where do they live? Well they've got tiny houses, they've

got hideouts you know maybe somewhere under the land or somewhere in the tree, you know

maybe in the trunk. Also they make those really small holes and get into them, those are their

hideouts. So that's the character of a squirrel and if you have hidden something to use later

that's called squirreling away. So you could say that by December I would have squirreled

away 300 dollars to buy my new car, okay? Which means you would have hidden something

The next phrase is ‘chicken out’, okay. This is a very interesting phrase, chicken

out means to at last minute you deny something for example you plan for a trip with your

friends and last minute you cannot go so you say that okay I can't come with you all. We

all have one person like that in our group you know who chickens out in the last moment

which means he says that I'm not coming. So chicken out means to say no for something

at the last minute. So you could say that we were going to, we were going for bungee