Name: English Tutor Nick P Idioms (257) Collect Dust
Uploaded: 2019-07-12T14:51:43.000Z
Duration: 2 min 15 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...

To-infinitive

Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Idioms 257. The idiom today is to collect dust.

Okay. Let's take a look at the note. Yeah.  If something collects dust,  it remains

Adverbs of frequency

untouched and unused for a long period of time. Yeah. This phrase is usually used

in humor. We're kind of making a joke and the fact that we haven't touched

something for a long time. We just say you know,  it just sits there and collects

dust. You know because of course that's what things do. If you never touch them

or move them. All right. So let's continue here. We can also use it as a noun phrase

by saying something is a dust collector.  Okay. All right. Let's continue.

Of course the idiom refers to the fact that if something is just left to sit on

a shelf and stored someplace without being touched or moved it actually does

collect collect dust over time. Sometimes quite a bit of dust or a lot of dust. So

again we're just making a joke out of this. So but here's some examples of

exactly the way we will use it. All right.  Let's look at number one here.

I haven't rode that bicycle for a long time. It is just collecting dust in the

garage. Yeah that's exactly the way we say it. Or number two. Well this is the

idea of using it as a noun phrase saying a dust collector. My bicycle is a

dust collector. Yeah. You could use it in that sense too. Just from the same idea

as the first one. Or number three.  I never pick up and read those old books,  they

are just collecting dust on the shelf.  Okay.  Or on that shelf. Okay and the last

one here.  I still have an old VCR machine that just sits in the attic and collects

dust. Yeah. This is exactly the way we use it and like I say we try to actually

usually be a little funny or a little humorous when we do.

Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope it  I was clear. Thank you for your time.