Let's Learn English! Topic: Found in the Wild! ☔🌸🐦 (Lesson Only)

0:00 Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson,

0:02 which I've titled in the Wild Spring edition.

0:05 The idea for this lesson came about when I was

0:08 walking around outside and I was seeing and hearing things.

0:12 So it's not necessarily a lesson about spring,

0:15 but it's certainly a lesson about all of the things that you see.

0:18 In my part of the world,

0:20 when it is the season of spring, it's very beautiful outside.

0:24 I probably should be doing this lesson outside walking around with you,

0:29 but that would be impractical.

0:31 So we'll just do it inside,

0:32 and I'll teach you a lot of words and phrases that we use,

0:36 in my part of North America, in the spring,

0:40 in the wild, animals or plants seen in their natural habitat.

0:45 So I wanted to take a minute to explain why

0:48 I have given this lesson the title in the Wild.

0:52 It's because sometimes you see things, and maybe if you see an animal at a zoo,

0:57 that's not the same as seeing it in its natural habitat.

1:01 That's not the same as seeing it in the wild.

1:04 So when I was walking outside on my property property the other day,

1:08 I was noticing a lot of things out in the wild.

1:10 It doesn't mean I live in the jungle or the forest.

1:13 It just means outside.

1:14 It's kind of a fun phrase, to say that.

1:17 But I do want to explain that we use it in a funny way as well.

1:22 We use it when we are seeing a person outside their normal environment.

1:27 And it's a very informal phrase.

1:29 So here's Matt Damon.

1:30 Someone must have seen him out in the wild and took a picture of him.

1:35 Students sometimes will use this phrase.

1:37 If a student sees me at the grocery store.

1:40 If a student sees me at the shopping mall,

1:43 they might say to a friend later, oh, I saw Bob the Canadian in the wild.

1:48 I saw him at the shopping mall.

1:50 He's a real person.

1:51 So anyways, there is a funny version of the phrase,

1:54 but let's get to the core of this lesson.

1:57 Here we go.

1:59 Weeds.

2:00 Jen and I are always shocked at how quickly weeds start to grow in the spring.

2:07 So, a weed is a plant that you don't want.

2:09 When you have a garden, you plant the plants you want.

2:13 You put seeds in the ground, and then other plants just randomly grow.

2:19 They're weeds.

2:20 We don't want them.

2:21 They are things that we pull out.

2:24 I imagine every part of the world has slightly different kinds of weeds.

2:28 But, yes, number one, weeds.

2:31 And I do want to mention that almost all

2:34 of the words this morning are plural and end in S,

2:38 because that's how we talk about things in general.

2:42 I saw a lot of weeds outside.

2:43 I saw some snails.

2:44 There were puddles.

2:45 There were squirrels and wheelbarrows and rakes.

2:48 Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself.

2:49 So you'll notice the singular is, of course, weed.

2:52 There was a weed, but I'm going to be using

2:54 the plural for everything because it's how we naturally talk about stuff.

2:59 Worms.

3:01 So I went for a walk the other day, and it was raining a little bit.

3:04 And when it rains, the worms come out of the ground.

3:07 And, I noticed along the side of the road there were a lot of worms.

3:11 I am not someone who goes fishing, but if I was someone who went fishing,

3:16 that would have been a good time to collect worms.

3:19 Now, of course, worms are these wriggly, kind of slimy.

3:23 Like if you touch them, they're slimy.

3:25 They're not.

3:25 It's not nice to touch a worm and they wriggle through the ground.

3:30 And I think they eat organic matter and they make the soil better.

3:34 So worms.

3:35 We also sometimes call them earthworms.

3:39 Buds.

3:39 So the trees have buds.

3:41 Some of the trees have blossoms.

3:43 So buds are kind of this little tiny green part

3:49 of the tree before it opens and becomes a leaf or a blossom.

3:55 So when you walk around right now, there's no shade under the trees.

3:59 The sun can shine right through because there are only buds.

4:03 So far.

4:04 There are no leaves yet on the trees.

4:08 Blossoms.

4:09 So I'm not sure what part of the world you live in, but there

4:12 are some places where there are cherry

4:15 blossoms or apricot trees that have blossoms.

4:18 Blossoms are tiny, tiny flowers usually found on a tree or bush,

4:23 Although we use it for other.

4:25 In other ways as well.

4:26 But generally, if you were to say, oh, you should go to Washington, D.C.

4:31 the cherry trees are blossoming.

4:33 There are a lot of blossoms on the trees.

4:36 And the cool thing with blossoms is it usually smells really good too,

4:41 when you see a lot of blossoms.

4:43 A fun word to say, by the way, blossoms.

4:47 Long, long grass.

4:48 So I.

4:49 I searched and searched for a guy mowing his lawn,

4:53 where he let the lawn go for too long.

4:56 I would.

4:57 That's the phrase we would use.

4:58 He should have mowed this long grass a couple of weeks ago or more.

5:03 Now he's out there with his push mower.

5:05 I hope it's going well.

5:06 But when we see a lawn mower, we think, oh, it needs to be mowed.

5:11 We often say that there's long grass.

5:15 We sometimes say tall grass.

5:17 You might think that would be more common.

5:19 But Often we will say things like, oh, your grass is getting long.

5:23 While there's a lot of long grass in the backyard, it needs to be mowed.

5:26 So one of the things you will see out

5:28 in the wild at this time of year is long grass.

5:34 And then, of course, lawn mowers.

5:36 Let's zoom in on this one.

5:37 Another picture of someone mowing down some lawn.

5:40 Lawn grass with a lawn mower.

5:44 Those words are very similar, aren't they?

5:46 Long grass, lawn mower.

5:49 So hopefully you can hear the difference there.

5:51 Again, we call this a push mower.

5:53 I think, in my professional opinion, that's the wrong mower for the job.

6:00 There are a lot of things I'm not good at.

6:02 I'm.

6:02 I have a lot of experience cutting lawn, and if I was to cut this lawn,

6:06 I would be trying to find much bigger lawnmower.

6:09 But there are, yes, lots of lawnmowers out there at this time of year.

6:15 And then puddles.

6:17 Now, I noticed the other day I was walking outside,

6:19 and there were puddles, and I was wearing, a pair of crocs, which, normally,

6:26 if the water's only this deep, crocs are fairly waterproof.

6:29 But I think my crocs have a hole in the bottom.

6:32 If you don't know what crocs are, you'll have to search that up online.

6:35 It's kind of a plastic pair of shoes that you can put on quickly.

6:39 I wouldn't actually call them shoes.

6:41 Footwear.

6:42 We'll call them footwear.

6:43 And I stepped in a really shallow puddle,

6:45 so you can have a deep puddle or a shallow puddle.

6:48 And, my foot got wet.

6:50 I was surprised.

6:51 I wasn't expecting that to happen.

6:54 But, yes, definitely.

6:55 Outside right now, there are a lot of puddles.

7:00 Snails.

7:00 So I don't really like snails.

7:02 Snails are these little.

7:03 Oh, let me go back here for a sec.

7:05 Puddles are just little,

7:08 indentations in the ground or lawn that fill with water when it rains.

7:12 I should actually define the word that I'm teaching, shouldn't I?

7:16 I know it's pretty easy in this lesson because there's always a picture,

7:19 but I should for sure explain that.

7:22 Snails.

7:23 So snails crawl along the ground.

7:26 Snails have a little shell on their back.

7:29 And the same day I was walking and saw worms.

7:32 There were also a lot of snails, along the side of the road.

7:35 I don't know why the worms and snails are close to the road.

7:39 That seems dangerous to me.

7:41 Probably poor parenting at some point in their lives.

7:44 Sorry, that was a joke.

7:45 But snails they're also slimy on the bottom.

7:49 They crawl very, very slowly.

7:52 And there's just lots of them right now.

7:54 It's pretty cool.

7:56 Twigs and branches.

7:57 So trees are beautiful.

8:01 But when it's windy and when you have

8:04 a long winter and there's a lot of wind storms,

8:07 and snow sometimes puts weight on the trees,

8:10 twigs and branches sometimes fall off.

8:13 The difference between a twig and a branch is simply size.

8:16 They're all just parts of a tree.

8:19 But, when I was outside the other day, I noticed that there were some branches,

8:23 some pretty big branches laying on the ground, and there were some twigs.

8:26 So I need to clean those up before I mow my lawn.

8:30 So there are definitely twigs and branches outside.

8:34 Rubber boots.

8:35 As I mentioned, I went outside wearing my crocs.

8:38 I should have worn my rubber boots,

8:40 but I know my rubber boots have a hole in them.

8:43 Several.

8:44 And I need a new pair of rubber boots.

8:46 So, this is something, though,

8:48 you will definitely see out in the wild right now.

8:51 A lot of people will wear rubber boots.

8:53 Jen has been wearing her rubber boots for two

8:56 or three weeks as she begins working outside.

8:59 So that's very, very cool.

9:01 Wheelbarrows.

9:03 So this is one of the coolest inventions ever.

9:05 A, wheelbarrow is a little handcart, I guess,

9:08 with one wheel on the front and two handles on the back.

9:12 And you can fill it with all kinds of things,

9:14 and then you lift the handles and you can move stuff around.

9:18 You can drive the wheelbarrow.

9:20 I think, because there's a wheel,

9:22 it actually acts as a lever, if you know how levers work.

9:26 So it actually makes it easier to lift all of the stuff that's in there.

9:30 But you will definitely see wheelbarrows

9:33 at this time of year, almost everywhere.

9:35 I walked the other day, I.

9:38 I went through a.

9:39 Several neighborhoods.

9:40 I probably saw five or six wheelbarrows.

9:43 People are cleaning up twigs and branches.

9:46 People are just outside maybe moving some soil to a new area.

9:51 People are going to start planting stuff soon.

9:54 So definitely there are a lot of wheelbarrows out there.

9:59 Rakes.

10:00 So another thing you can use in the fall is a rake to clean up leaves.

10:05 But you don't always get it all done.

10:07 So sometimes you need a rake in the spring,

10:10 because there's just lots of stuff like leaves

10:13 that have kind of rotted over the spring.

10:16 A rake actually works really well to rake up twigs.

10:20 Don't try to rake up branches.

10:22 It doesn't work.

10:23 That's a little bit too hard For a rake.

10:25 But yes, a rake is a garden tool that you can

10:29 use to kind of gather things into a pile on the ground.

10:35 Very helpful for cleaning up your yard in the spring.

10:39 Melting snow.

10:40 So this might not be something that you see at this time of year,

10:44 but we often see melting snow at this time of year.

10:47 In fact, the other day I went to the grocery store,

10:50 and when I went to the grocery store, it was snowing in April.

10:54 This was this past weekend.

10:56 And when I came out, my vehicle had some snow on it,

10:59 and there was a little bit of snow on the ground,

11:01 but the sun came out and it immediately started melting.

11:05 So you can see here like, this picture shows it nicely.

11:09 You have snow, but you have green grass.

11:12 So this is definitely,

11:13 in my mind a, picture from spring or fall, most likely spring,

11:17 where the grass is starting to grow,

11:19 but you still have a little bit of snow melting.

11:23 We don't have any snow outside at all anymore.

11:27 But like I said, it does snow occasionally,

11:29 and then we do get a little bit of snow on the ground.

11:34 Mud.

11:35 So this person was very wise and wore their rubber boots.

11:39 Mud is simply dirt that has a lot of water in it, and it often gets very sticky.

11:45 And when you step in it, you can sink.

11:48 So when you step in mud, your foot goes into the mud.

11:51 You sink in the mud.

11:53 This person is not sinking too far.

11:55 But if you look at how high the mud is on their boot,

12:00 sure, they probably sunk in the mud earlier, before this picture was taken.

12:06 But mud, very, very wet soil that you find

12:09 when you are outside at this time of year.

12:14 Tire tracks or ruts.

12:16 I think I mentioned this once in another lesson.

12:19 One of the things that really bothers me is that at this time of year,

12:23 you will see where, everyone has driven on the lawn.

12:28 So when you drive on the lawn, you leave tire tracks,

12:31 which you see here in the lawn, or what we call ruts.

12:35 They're the same thing.

12:36 He drove on the lawn, and now there's tire tracks.

12:39 Or he drove on the lawn and now there's ruts in the lawn.

12:42 Very, very annoying.

12:45 He drove on the lawn.

12:46 Now there's tire tracks on the lawn.

12:48 Tire tracks in the lawn.

12:49 You can say both on or in.

12:51 There's ruts on the lawn.

12:53 There's ruts in the lawn.

12:54 I'd probably use in.

12:55 There's ruts in the lawn, but you could probably use both.

12:59 So tire tracks or ruts.

13:01 One of the things that makes Bob the Canadian very, very annoyed.

13:05 And I'm not going to Blame delivery drivers because I appreciate them the most.

13:12 And I know it must be hard to figure out where the lawn is versus the driveway.

13:16 But, if any of you are watching,

13:20 if you deliver to my house, please try to stay on the driveway.

13:23 Please don't go in the lawn and make room ruts.

13:27 Fog.

13:28 Almost every morning there's fog right now.

13:31 This is probably caused by the fact that it's

13:34 cold overnight and the ground is warming up.

13:36 Or the inverse, it might be warm overnight and the ground is still cool,

13:41 related to the air temperature.

13:43 Either way, not a weatherman.

13:46 There is a lot of fog, in the morning,

13:49 but it dissipates very quickly once the sun comes up.

13:53 So fog, definitely something I have been seeing a lot

13:56 of, as I get up and go out on these beautiful spring days.

14:01 By the way, fog is moisture in the air.

14:03 It looks a lot like that.

14:04 It looks exactly like that, actually.

14:07 Geese.

14:09 There are too many of these geese.

14:10 I think I have another picture coming up.

14:12 Yes, these geese are everywhere.

14:16 They honk in Canadian parks, in the city.

14:19 There's even geese.

14:20 I don't know if I would call that in the wild because they're in the city.

14:24 And sometimes geese will chase people.

14:26 And geese can be very, very mean.

14:29 Sometimes when we plant certain crops, the geese will eat the crop.

14:33 And then I have to go out and I, put up a little fence to stop the geese.

14:38 But this year, Jen said I can just fly my drone and scare the geese off.

14:43 The soybean field, we'll see.

14:45 But geese, it's.

14:46 This is, actually what we call, Canada goose.

14:50 Some people call them Canadian geese.

14:51 We use different versions, but it's a, pretty normal thing to see

14:55 in this part of the world at this time of year.

14:59 Robins.

15:00 So, interestingly enough, we do see robins.

15:02 A robin is a North American bird that looks like this.

15:06 It kind of has an orange chest, an orange or red chest.

15:10 And you can usually see them out getting worms,

15:13 although I actually think they migrate through this area

15:17 but spend most of the summers further north.

15:21 So we do see robins, but like I want to say we see them in the spring and fall,

15:26 But I'm not 100% sure that.

15:28 But we don't see them year round, that's for sure.

15:31 Squirrels we see all the time, though.

15:32 Whoa.

15:33 Squirrels we see all the time, though.

15:35 A squirrel is a small, furry animal like this.

15:38 It's probably a rodent.

15:39 It has a bushy tail,

15:41 gathers nuts throughout the year and stores them to Eat in the winter.

15:46 At least that's what they taught me when I was in school.

15:48 I should double check some of these things because some

15:51 of the things they taught me in school aren't true anymore.

15:54 So, chirping.

15:56 So this is something I hear a lot at this time of year.

15:59 I hear a lot of birds chirping.

16:01 And it's a beautiful sound, especially first thing in the morning.

16:05 If you go outside, you will hear birds chirping.

16:08 Birds are in the trees.

16:09 Birds are flying around.

16:11 So a chirp, it's like, that's not a chirp.

16:16 I can't make bird sounds this morning,

16:18 but a chirp is a sound that a small bird makes.

16:22 And you might be wondering, do geese make a sound?

16:25 Yes, geese honk.

16:28 So I hear a lot of honking.

16:29 At this time of year.

16:31 You can honk your car, but geese also honk.

16:34 I'm not going to try and make the sound.

16:36 It's kind of a weird sound.

16:38 But when you go outside, even this morning,

16:41 if I went outside, there are geese across the river.

16:44 You would hear them honking.

16:45 So it's definitely something you hear at this time of year.

16:50 And then dripping.

16:52 So it rains a lot in the spring when water falls, we call that dripping.

16:58 So it might be as simple as, like, drip, drip, drip, like very, very slow.

17:04 Or it might be like this, where there's just

17:06 a lot of water dripping from the eaves trough.

17:08 That's what we call that.

17:09 That little channel is called the eavesdrop.

17:12 So there's a lot of dripping.

17:13 And I.

17:13 Yeah, I don't have cups everywhere because the ceiling is dripping.

17:18 But when I was a kid, in our old house,

17:20 we had pans we would put out if it rained.

17:24 I don't know if any of you have ever experienced that.

17:28 That's, Our old house leaked when I was a kid, Sam.