Learn the English Phrases "to belt out" and "to tighten your belt"
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- In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to belt out. So a belt is something you wear on your pants so your pants don't fall down, but it's also a verb we use to talk about someone who's singing very, very loudly. You can belt out a song. Let's say you go to a karaoke evening somewhere and you choose your favorite song and then you get the microphone and as the words show up on the screen, you start to belt out the song.

So kind of a unique verb, but it is a verb that you will hear quite often. Sometimes people will say, wow, the singer could really belt out the songs. It was very cool to listen to.

The second phrase I wanted to teach you today is to tighten your belt. When you tighten your belt, it means you're trying to save money. So let's say Jen and I wanted to go on a trip in six months, but in order to do that, we would have to save up some money. We might need to tighten our belts. So we might need to tighten our belts. That means that we decide to not go out to eat. We're not gonna order pizza. We're going to make all of our food at home

How else would you save money? Maybe we're gonna cancel Netflix. We're going to decide to tighten our belts so that we can save some money. So to review, to belt out simply means to sing something loudly with lots of energy and enthusiasm. And to tighten your belt means to decide to not spend money on extra things for the next little while. But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Freddie Wolf.

And the comment is, here we go.

"Thanks, Bob. "While your temperatures are currently quite low "and a bit chilly, we are experiencing very high temperatures, "up to 30," this is in France, by the way, "for the month of May. "This is a record since weather forecasts "have been taking measurements. "Sand from the Sahara is even predicted to come up to us. "Our cars will all be sand-colored. "Mandatory wash in sight. "See you soon." And my response, "Oh, wow, that's a long way for the sand to travel. "I've never experienced something like that. "I hope it doesn't last long."

I think I forgot to put the T on last in that comment. There's a little error there you'll have to correct if you see it.

But yeah, thanks, Freddie, for that comment. Sand from the Sahara or the Sahara? I'm not sure how I'm supposed to pronounce it. Even English speakers sometimes don't know how to say the words properly. So, but that's interesting. That's a long way for the sand to travel. It reminds me of when we had the wildfires in Northern Canada and the smoke traveled all the way to New York City in the United States. That was kind of incredible.

But hey, where am I today? Well, I'm just out walking in a typical Canadian subdivision. If I show you, that is a very large dog, yes. I'm not always a big fan of dogs. I'm just gonna walk quickly now. This is a typical Canadian subdivision. Every once in a while, I do come and make a lesson in a subdivision. I always hope that the people who live in the subdivision, if they see me, don't mind. I also have a sense that there might be a car

Coming up behind me, oh no, it's turning, so I'm safe. I have to be hyper aware of my surroundings when I come and make an English lesson in a place like this. But there you go, you can see that a lot of Canadians have more than one vehicle, one vehicle there. When you see a vehicle in the driveway,

there's often another vehicle in the garage. So, and then someone even has a boat over there. I wonder when they'll take that out to the lake. Anyways, thanks for watching. I'll see you in a couple of days with another short English lesson. And I'll see if I can find another unique place to go to make the lesson.

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.