Learn the English Phrases "in a little bit" and "it's going to be a while"
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In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "in a little bit." Now, when we say "in a little bit," we mean a small amount. And we can be talking about time or an actual thing. Here's a good example. Let's say that my mom is coming over to visit and one of my kids says, "When will grandma be here?" I could say, "She'll be here in a little bit."

If we're having a nice meal and someone says, oh, there's a really nice pie for dessert and I'm feeling really full, I could say, oh, I'll just have a little bit, meaning that I just want a small piece of it. So I don't know why we use this phrase. It is used quite commonly. I heard it a few times this week. But when we're referring to a small amount of time or a small amount of something, we sometimes just say a little bit.

And then something that's kind of the opposite in terms of time would be the phrase, it's going to be a while. If one of my kids said, when is grandma coming? I could say, oh, it's going to be a while. And if I said it quickly, I would say, oh, it's going to be a while. Meaning that she's not coming in the next five or ten minutes. It will probably be a bit longer.

This is a common response that parents give to children when driving in a car going a long ways. If the kids say, "Are we there yet?" We often say, "Oh, it's going to be a while. It's going to be another hour or two before we're there." So to review, if you say, "In a little bit," you mean a small amount of time or a small amount of something. And if you say, "It's going to be a while," it means that it's going to be

Probably like an hour or two hours. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Mr. Fishery. Mr. Fishery. I'm not sure how to say it. And the comment is this.

Hair-wise and beard-wise, someone needs a bit of a trim and then a smiley face and just the word joke. So I think Mr. Fisheri is joking my response soon, although I might grow it out a bit more. So I'm assuming you're talking about the scruffy beard I have and the hair's getting a bit long for me, but thanks for that comment. Yeah, I think I'll get a haircut soon. I'm not 100% sure when.

I was thinking about growing it out a bit more. I haven't done that for a long time, like letting my hair grow longer. And then I was wondering, do I need to start to part it in the middle or on the side? Because when you have longer hair, you have to start to comb the hair. And I don't actually comb my hair. I just get up, have a shower, and dry my hair with a towel, and off I go. So we'll see. The beard, though, I think I need to trim. There's some stray hairs sticking out here and there. But hey, anyways...

I'm back where I was last Tuesday night. I thought it would be fun to come back here and shoot a video in the daytime. I did a lesson last week, Tuesday night. I think I did by day and by night. And I did that at night. And my camera was actually struggling to...

to stay nice and crisp. The image was a little bit fuzzy because of the low light conditions, but today it's the opposite. I'm actually having trouble seeing because it's so bright. But the other thing I can show you though is that Tim Hortons

Definitely has people going through the drive-thru. If you remember from the video from last week, it was quite empty. I think there were just some parents and kids selling things as a fundraiser at the front door. But other than that, it was pretty full. I bet you some of these cars have my students in them because it's lunchtime.

at school right now, and some of them will come out this way. Usually they go get pizza, but sometimes they'll go to Tim Hortons, although it's kind of rare. But yeah, certainly.

this parking lot is a lot fuller than it was last week. And again, there's a pet store, a drug store, a dance school, a laundromat, a dollar store, the post office, and a bunch of other things in what we would call a strip mall. So anyways, thanks for watching. I hope you learn a couple new phrases and I'll see you in a couple days with another short English lesson. Bye.

Hi, Bob the Canadian here. Thank you for listening to this English podcast lesson. If you would like to support me in the work that I do as an online English teacher, please visit patreon.com slash bobthecanadian.