Name: Describing Bad Behaviour in English
Uploaded: 2025-10-08T21:01:20.000Z
Duration: 6 min 44 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...

Adverbs of frequency

So I'm not sure if you've noticed this, but people aren't always nice to each other.

Sometimes we're nice to each other, and sometimes we do things that make other people sad or unhappy.

To-infinitive

And the general phrase we use for this is to disappoint someone.

In this English lesson, though, I'll talk about seven other ones as well.

When you disappoint someone, you do something that makes them sad or unhappy.

If I told my class we were going to go on a field trip, we are going to go on a bus,

and we are going to go somewhere else to learn things.

And then if I came in the morning of the field trip and said it's canceled, I would certainly disappoint them.

So sometimes as human beings, we do things intentionally, sometimes not intentionally.

That make other people sad or unhappy or disappointed.

And in this lesson, I'll teach you eight phrases total, and I've already taught you one.

The next phrase is the phrase to let someone down.

When you let someone down, it means they were counting on you to do something.

They were hoping you would do something, and then you didn't.

If I told someone I would give them a ride to work and then I forgot to pick them up,

When you let someone down, they're expecting you to do something.

The person would be expecting me to do pick them up, and then I forgot.

And then if I kept forgetting, if it happened every day, I would really be letting them down.

So in English, when you say that you have let someone down,

it simply means that you were going to do something and you didn't.

And now they are disappointed. They are sad. They are unhappy.

The next phrase is the phrase to hurt someone's feelings.

And to hurt someone means to physically injure them.

But we also have this phrase, to hurt someone's feelings.

When you hurt someone's feelings, it means you do something that makes them feel incredibly sad.

Let's say I had five friends and I invited four friends to a party,

I would have hurt that person's feelings.

When you hurt someone's feelings, you do something like that where you leave them out.

You don't invite them to something, you hurt their feelings.

You might also hurt someone's feelings just by saying mean things about them.

If I said that another teacher was lazy and I didn't enjoy working with them,

and they happened to be standing where they could hear me, I would certainly have hurt their feelings.

So in English, when you hurt someone's feelings, you say something.

You can also do an action that hurts their feelings, that makes them feel sad and just not very good.

We also have the phrase to talk behind someone's back.

And this means to say mean things about someone when they aren't there.

If I was talking to my brother and I said, "Our cousin is not a very hard worker."

"Our cousin is not very good at his job. "

That would be me talking behind my cousin's back.

So when you talk behind someone's back, the person you are talking about is not there.

And you are saying mean things or insulting things about them while they're not there.

We also have a phrase to throw someone under the bus.

It's a very large vehicle that people go on to ride around the city.

And if you imagine throwing someone under a bus, that would be horrible.

But what we really mean when we say to throw someone under the bus,

it means to blame someone for something that you actually did, or maybe you did it together.

And you're simply saying that they did all of it.

When I was younger, I'm sure there were times where there would be cookies missing from the kitchen.

And if my mom said, "Who ate the cookies?"

And if I knew it was me and my brother that ate them, I might say, "Oh, my brother John ate them."

That would be me throwing my brother John under the bus.

Instead of me saying, "I ate the cookies," I'm simply blaming it on him.

it simply means to blame someone else for something that you actually did.

The next phrase is the phrase to take advantage of someone.

When you take advantage of someone, it means you use that person for your own benefit.

If I went to my brother's house every day, right when he was starting to eat supper,

and if every day he offered for me to sit down and eat supper with him,

and if I did that, day after day, I would be taking advantage of my brother again.

When you take advantage of someone, it benefits you, but it does not benefit them.

If I ate supper at my brother's house every day, he would be paying for my food every day of the week.

And that wouldn't be kind, and it wouldn't be fair.

you use that person in a way that benefits you and doesn't benefit them.

Another phrase is the phrase to use someone.

When you use someone, you're friendly with them because you want something that they have.

A good example would be if you were friendly with someone because they have a car and you don't.

And you know if you're friends with that person, they will drive you to different places.

When you use someone, they have something you want, it's something you don't have.

And so you act kindly and you act nicely,

and you're friends with them just so you have access to that thing they have.

Don't use people for the things they have.

If you're going to be friends with someone, make sure it's genuine.

And we also have the phrase to put someone down.

When you put someone down, it means you say something mean about them or or you insult them.

Maybe you're in a class learning English with other English learners.

And one of the people in the class, you say something like this, "Oh, his English isn't very good."

In that situation, it sounds to me like you are putting that person down.

So when you put someone down, you are insulting, you are saying mean things about them.

Well, hey, thank you so much for watching this English lesson.

If this is your first time here, don't forget to click the red subscribe button which is located somewhere around here.

And give me a thumbs up if this video helped you learn a bit more English.