Problems, problems, problems… just so many problems, when you wake up, you have a problem
to face, when you are eating lunch, you have another problem and when you are going to
sleep there is another problem at your door knocking. How do you talk about all these
problems? In this lesson that’s exactly what you are learning with me. We are learning,
how to talk about dealing with problems, talking about situations and talking about your attitude
towards the problems. So stay with me, my name is Michelle as you already know and I
hope you have great fun in this lesson learning new idioms. So here we have the first one
with us, “take it in stride”. Do you know the meaning of the word “stride”? Stride
means ‘to walk’, alright? Walk like this. How do you walk? Do you worry when you're
walking or do you think about walking, do you count your steps, 1, 2, 3… you don't,
unless you're very bored, right? So when you're walking, you walk very carelessly and you're
not upset and you're not worried. The same way if you face a problem and you're not worried
about it, you're not upset about it then you take it all in your stride or you “take
it in stride”. If you want to prefer British English you could say, “Take it all in your
stride”. Take it all in your stride, if you want to speak the British Way. So you
could say that, ah… my friend, okay let me share an experience with you, so I have
this friend Sarah, who is an introvert okay, and at work she often faces a lot of problem
with the colleagues but she takes it all in the stride, which means that she does not
worry about it and she's not upset about it, she's so easy with the problem as if she's
walking. Alright, ‘to not worry about a problem’. So this is, take it in your stride.
Make sure you also take all your problems in the stride, as if you're walking not worrying
about them. The second idiom that we have with us is, “to weather the storm”. So
what do you think of when you read the word ‘storm’? Do you think of destruction?
Cars crashing, trees falling, maybe a volcano… That's exactly what happens when you have
problems in your life. You see a lot of destruction. But how do you face it? Do you face it with
failure or do you bear the problem? If you bear the problem and you face it with courage
then you “weather the storm”, because to weather something means to bear it. So
when you bear a problem, you weather the storm. Often this idiom is used to talk about an
experience where a person's reputation is being maligned. So let's say that the reputation
of our country’s president is being maligned by a lot of acquisitions, but he weathered
the storm, which means that his image was protected by his deeds and the actions and
the words that he said and he could weather the storms successfully. Alright, now we look
at the third one that we have “to come to grips with”, what do you mean by grip? Grip
means to hold something firmly. Do you remember going to the gym and wearing those gloves
and lifting up the dumbbells, why do you think you wear those gloves? You wear them so that
you can have a firm grip of the dumbbell and you don't drop it. The same way if you want
to hold on to your strength in a problem, then you need to come to grips with. So if
there is a situation that you need to identify in your life and sort it out then you need
to come to grips with. Well in my city there is a serious problem of waste disposal and
I think the government needs to come to grips with it, which means they need to start dealing
with it. Great! Now with this we look at the fourth one that we have “to sail through”
something. Where have you heard this word, ‘sail’? Um, you can't remember? Okay do
you know the word, ‘sailor’? Who is a sailor? The person who sails in the ship,
alright? Who is on the ship and the ship is moving in the waters. So when you're going
through the difficult waters or the stormy waters which means a difficult situation and
you go through it very easily that's when you sail through a problem. You know, I know
that interviews are really hard alright and even exams, but we all have this one friend
who always sails through the interview, which means that the interviews which are very difficult
for us are really easy for them, so therefore they sail through the interviews. Or they
go through the problems very easily. Alright, so when you go through a problem easily and
you sail through it that's when you're very, very strong, mm-hmm. Alright, so with this
we have looked at situations which are very difficult and how we overcome them, but the
next one that we have, here we are talking about your attitude or my attitude towards
a problem. What happens when I face a problem? Do I start crying, do I start feeling bad,
do I start cribbing about it, complaining about it to my friends or do I “grit my
teeth” and go through it? Do you know the meaning of “gritting your teeth”? Let
me show you, that's when, when you join your upper jaw and the lower jaw and you bring
them together with all the strength and determination. So if you're determined to overcome a problem
you will grit your teeth through it. So gritting your teeth means, determinations, to show
determination. So when you have a lot of meetings lined up in the coming week and you're quite
worried about it but you really don't have much choice what do you do then, do you grit
your teeth to go through it? That's exactly what you should do, grit your teeth and go
through it, like this. Okay, the next one that we have is “to grin and bear it”.
Right, so as I told you we can have different reactions to a problem either we can be sad,
upset or depressed but sometimes you can smile, alright and still bear a problem. Because
in some situations you really don't have much choice, let's say you're married to a person
who causes you some trouble sometimes but you don't have much option because obviously
you can't change that person, that easily so you grin and bear it. Go through a problem
happily. So chose to grin and bear through the problem or grit your teeth through a problem
these are really good ways and good approaches to deal with your problems. Let's look at
the next idiom that we have “to take the rough and the smooth”. So like I told you,
if you have a difficult partner in your marriage and you don't have much option, then you must
remember that you should take the rough with the smooth because not everything comes all
good, because there's always something little bad to everything, right? So you have to accept
the positive and also accept the negative and go through it with a grin on your face,
which means a smile on your face so go through the rough with the smooth, rough here means
the negative and smooth means the positive, smooth is something that you can easily go
through but rough is something which is very hard to go through. So accept the positive
and the negative. I feel that no long-term relationship comes all smooth, right? There's
always some rough and some smooth so take the rough with the smooth. Now we look at
the last idiom that we have, this is a bit sad because I believe that you know the worst
thing or the hardest thing that we can experience in our lives is the death of somebody, right?
But as what we have learnt we have to come to terms with such an experience as well.
In that case if someone has passed away we need “to come to terms with” it which
means that we need to accept it, even if it's hard we have to accept it. You may not be
able to grin and bear it because it's not that easy but you have to come to terms with,
slowly you need to accept what has happened. Alright guys, thank you so much for staying
with me and today you have learned, ‘different ways to talk about dealing with problems’
and I hope it gets easier for you to talk about it. Thank you so much for staying with
me bye-bye