Hi friends my name is Sonia and I'm back today with anew lesson just for you. Well, I have
heard people being confused a lot about using these phrases that I have for you on the board.
Words like, clean out, clean off, cleanup. There's a lot of confusion and personally,
I don't feel that English is a confusing language. And I'm here to make your life much simpler
than it already is, so today we are going to do a lesson on the difference between Clean
out, Clean off, Clean up and Clean away. Let's get started and see, how this will work.
Now specifically when you talk about cleaning. Remember this always, there are two things.
One is the space that your'e going to clean, so for example, If you have a living room,
there's a different phrase altogether that you would use in order to talk about cleaning
your living room, which is a huge space remember this, however if your'e going to clean something
which is in the living room, like for example, If your'e going to clean some boxes, now those
boxes are some kind of mess. Something that's not required, so your'e not really cleaning
the space or the living room, you are going to clean something that's inside it, some
kind of dirt or some kind of mess. So the two things, when it comes to cleaning. The
first is the space that your'e going to clean and the second is the mess or the dirt inside
that space.
Now let's look at our very first phrase on the board, which is Clean out. Now clean is
a very simple word and out is also very simple and common word in English . I'm sure you
would agree. When these two words clean out are put together, What do they mean? Now they
mean to clean out means to clean the inside of a space to clean the inside portion or
the inside part of a space. Now my first example for you is, Clean out the cupboard. Now what's
a cupboard? For example, I have a really high cupboard in my bedroom a 6 feet cupboard,
It's really huge, so cupboard will always have doors. It's an enclosed space. Now when
I know that I've not cleaned my cupboard for a really long time. I need to open up that
cupboard and clean the inside portion of that cupboard, so I will say, Well, It's a weekend
and I need to clean out the cupboard that means to remove that dirt from inside and
literally clean out, clean out the cupboard.
Similar example would be to clean out your car. Again your car guys is an enclosed space,
It's a huge space but it's enclosed, so here you need to clean out the inside of your car.
You can't say clean away or clean up that would be incorrect and that's the kind of
mistake that we make quite often, which we need to change. So you'll always say something
like, I need to clean out the car, clean out the inside space, so remember this one. Another
example very common something that I'm sure you must be using to clean out the drawer.
Obviously a drawer is also an enclosed space. So if you have a drawer at your work station,
which is filled with papers go ahead and clean that drawer. That drawer is filled with papers,
It's an enclosed area. Now that needs to be opened out you need to clean out. Remove the
dirt from that space, so what you doing here is, you are going to clean out the inside
of a space. That space could be something like a cupboard, car or a drawer. So remember
this one you always clean out the inside of a space.
Now the next one that we have here is a very nice one and very interesting, It say's clean
off. Clean and off when you put them together, What do they mean? Clean off means to clean
something that is flat a flat surface. For example, To clean off a table. Now no matter
how fancy your table is or how lovely the design is, It's going to have a flat surface.
So when you want to clean something that's flat, you will say I need to clean off the
table. So i'm gonna write this down here, It means to clean a flat surface. So your'e
cleaning your house and you know there are so many things to do with house cleaning,
so you can say something like, I'm going to clean off the table. It's a flat surface and
I'm going to clean it off. Similarly you could say, Well this TV screen. Now what's a TV
screen? It's flat. It's a flat surface, so you could say, Well my TV screen is really
dirty. I can't really look at everything very clearly, so I'm going to clean off the TV
screen. The TV Screen that is flat, I'm going to clean it off.
The next one, Clean off the glass. Now if you have windows obviously you need to clean
them and the glass of a window is also flat surface, so you could simply say, Well we
need to clean off the glass. You cannot say, Clean out the glass. There's no space, your'e
not cleaning out something. You are cleaning off the flat surface. So clean off is used
to clean a flat surface. When your'e talking about cleaning a flat surface, you will say,
Clean off. So now we are done with Clean out and Clean off. Let's look at another phrase
on the board. The next one is, Clean up. Now what do I mean when I say Clean up? Clean
up means guys to clean a room or a large space. So for example, when you want t talk about
cleaning your kitchen. You would say, I need to clean up my kitchen, because the kitchen
is obviously a room. It's a big room or a small room, but it's a room. It's also a space,
so you would use the phrase clean up to talk about cleaning your kitchen, bedroom your
office space. These kind of things. The next example say's Clean up the staircase. Staircase
is large space, there are so many stairs which you need to clean. Not one particular portion
but the entire staircase and hence you will use the phrase clean up even with staircase.
The next one that I have on the board is, To clean up the playground. Now for example
if you are a responsible citizen and you want to do something good for the kids in your
neighborhood. You would gather up your friends and say, Well hey let's clean up the playground.
Now the playground obviously is a large space. When you want to talk about cleaning a large
space. You would say, Clean up , you will not say Clean off or Clean out. That would
then become incorrect. Remember this.
The final one I have for you very simple, but yet very important. It say's clean away.
Now what does clean away indicate? Clean away talks about the mess in a particular space.
Remember I told you this earlier, when you talk about cleaning there are two things.
A space or the mess or the dirt in it, so this talks about the mess or the dirt, so
let me put that down for you. To clean up the dirt in a space and that's why I have
written to clean away the mess. Because the mess is obviously in a particular space, It's
not the actual space, but It's a mess or the dirt that you need to clean. So you would
clean it away. The next example say's, To clean away the glass pieces. Now unfortunately
if someone broke glass and there are some glass pieces on the floor, which obviously
could hurt someone. So you will need to say, Hey let's clean away those glass pieces. And
finally you know you drop something on the floor, there's some liquid, some sauce or
some oil that's fallen on the floor. And that's something that you need to clean immediately.
So here also you will say, Let's clean away the liquid, because your'e not really cleaning
the entire space, but your'e just cleaning off that mess or that dirt that has fallen
on the floor.
So this is how guys you can use these four phrases differently, when you want to talk
about cleaning. Don't interchange them because it's extremely simple. Remember clean out
to clean the inside of a space. You can clean out something, Clean off to clean a flat surface
like a table or a TV screen. Clean up when you want to talk about a room or a large space
and finally Clean away, when you want to talk about cleaning the mess or the dirt in a particular space
These are the phrases that you should use, If you've been using them incorrectly all
this while, make sure you change that. This brings me to the end of the lesson. I hope
you enjoyed watching and keep watching the videos, keep practicing. I'll be back soon
with a new lesson. Till then take good care of yourself. Bye bye.