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
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
that junk food while he was watching TV.
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
to duck out, I do that.
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
away means to work hard.
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
to use later.
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
jumping but Sandra chickened out last-minute, great.
Now the last one we have is quite similar from where we started fish for means to try
to get something in an indirect way and ‘fish out’ means to take out something from either
a liquid or a container or a pile of something. For example you could say Emma fished out
for a piece of paper from the pile kept on her desk. So fish out means to dive deep and
take out something from a pile, okay? Fish out means to take out something.
Now with that we've come to an end of this lesson where we have learned vocabulary from
animals. So do you see how much animals have to teach us. Well thank you for staying with
me. I hope this was fun, you learned something new and you also had fun. Thank you, see you
very soon with another lesson till then have fun, bye-bye.