Name: Learn 7 ways to use “OFF” in English
Uploaded: 2025-07-26T18:12:03.000Z
Duration: 9 min 7 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...

Past simple

And this probably will happen to you or happens to you or happened to you.

Present continuous

People will say things to you that you just really have no idea what they're talking about or what they mean, and maybe you will answer them in the wrong way.

If you make a mistake when you're answering somebody's question, don't worry.

I know that you get embarrassed, like, oh my god, that's in English.

But you have to understand that even if somebody asks me a question, I can give the wrong answer because maybe I wasn't listening to them, because I'm pretty bad at listening to people, or I just didn't hear what they said.

So don't feel bad, and I'm going to teach you some expressions that people might say to you, and now you can fix your mistakes and I can help you.

My friend was driving in a car, obviously, not an airplane, and he was going into a parking lot, and the parking attendant or the person that works at the parking lot said, hey, where are you off to today?

But he would never have said it that slowly or understandably.

He probably said, where are you off to today?

And my friend thought about it and said, oh, yes.

The parking attendant looked confused because he asked him a question, like, where are you going today?

What my friend thought, he said, which is kind of weird, is, hey, you have a day off today, or it's your day off today.

And my friend thought about it and said, why does this guy care, and how does he know that today's my day off, because it's a Monday, and most people work on Mondays.

So, you know, he calls me and says, Ronnie, I need your help.

What does that mean, where are you off to today?

He basically was asking where he's going.

So this is how I come and I help my friends, and I say, oh, let's do this.

The person wants to know, basically, where are you going, but they're just not going to ask you, hey, where are you going?

They're going to say, where are you off to today?

I can say to my friends or my family, say, hey, hey, I'm off to the store, okay?

We don't say, hey, mom, I'm going to the store.

In natural language, we say, I'm off to the store, I'm off to the races.

The first meaning, maybe you know, because you have, yes, a holiday from work, I got a day off.

Now, to have a day off means that you don't have to work, it's a day to relax or do whatever you like to do.

You'll also know the expression, I'm off tomorrow.

If you say, I'm off tomorrow, it doesn't mean where you're going.

Again, both of these expressions, we're talking about not working, okay?

I'm off tomorrow, yeah, or I got a day off, whoo-hoo, okay?

Where are you off to, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, it changes the meaning of it.

And you'll notice that this has a noun, and this is going to have a time marker.

So, I'm off tomorrow, you're talking about your schedule, but I'm off to some place, you're talking about going someplace.

Another way that we use the word off, let's say you wake up in the morning, you got your coffee ready, and you open the milk, and you poured it, oh, uh-oh, the milk seems a bit strange right now, and you, oh, and you smell the carton or the bag, and you go, oh, oh, wow, that milk is off, or this milk is off, but hold on, was the milk even on at some point?

It's not like a light in English that we turn on and off.

If something is off with food, it means it's not fresh, or it's not good to drink or eat.

Sometimes you open a bottle of wine, I open bottles of wine sometimes, and you smell it, and it's like, oh, oh, I think this wine is off.

So when we talk about food or drinks, we mean that it's basically just not fresh, and I don't recommend drinking the milk.

Now, the wine, I mean, you can still drink it.

I don't think it'll make you sick, but don't drink the milk, okay?

If you open up a bag of chicken, like, oh, oh, this chicken is off, it means it's not fresh.

Sometimes you're looking at something, and maybe your friend sees the letter B, and you see the letter D, and your friend says, wow, my eyesight must be off, on, off, on, off, because I see a different letter than you.

So eyesight is you're measuring the distance of things with your eyes, and like, oh, it's off.

Maybe your friend's hanging a picture on the wall, and it's crooked, and like, oh, guess what?

It means it's not perfect when we talk about measurement or eyesight.

Something that's, like, it might be crooked, which is the opposite of straight, but when we use it like this, it means, like, it's the wrong calculations, so be careful.

You don't want a crooked picture frame on your thing.

If that happens, what you're going to do is you're going to get one of these things.

And this makes sure that what you're hanging is straight.

If the bubble is off, not in the middle, it means it's not straight, so you got to be careful with the measurements, here.

And the last one, one of my favorites, maybe you see some guy and he's smoked a little bit too much crack for Tuesday, or they're just kind of acting strange, you can say, oh, that guy's a little off.

My grandmother used to say to people, she's off with the fairies.

But if there were fairies, please come take me away.

So, if somebody is a little off, it might mean they're a little bit crazy, or yeah, there's something that's not quite right about them.

And you know, that's just a really good excuse, so use it.

There's nothing really wrong with you, you're just a little off, you're feeling a little crazy, you're feeling a little not fresh in the morning, okay?