Learn the English Phrases TO BRING SOMETHING TO THE TABLE and TO PUT YOUR CARDS ON THE TABLE
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Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO BRING SOMETHING TO THE TABLE and TO PUT YOUR CARDS ON THE TABLE

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase "to bring something to the table." If you say that someone brings something to the table, it means they have an ability that makes a team better or makes a group of people better. At work, if I was working with some other teachers, and we were working on a project that required someone to make a video, I could say, "Hey, that's something I can bring to the table," because I'm really good now at making videos because I think I've made about 700 of them. That's a lot of videos, isn't it? You can also use this when talking about a sports team. You can say that your favorite player brings something to the table. Maybe they're a really fast runner. Maybe they're really good at scoring goals. And that would be something that they bring to the table on the team.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase "to put your cards on the table." When you put your cards on the table, it means you reveal something that was a secret. Maybe you were planning something, but you weren't really telling people what you were planning. If you were to put your cards on the table, we also say, "to lay your cards on the table," it means that you would then reveal what your plan was all along. Maybe you're planning a party and the party is to celebrate something, but you also want to have a party because you want to give everyone in your family a whole bunch of money. That would be your real plan. So if someone said to you, "So is this just a party, or is there something else going on?" you could say, "I guess it's time for me to put my cards on the table. The real plan is that I'm going to give everyone lots of money." I've never actually been to a party like that. That would be a really fun party to go to, wouldn't it, a party where someone just gives everyone lots of money? Those don't happen very often, I don't think.

Anyways, to review, to bring something to the table means that you have an ability or a talent that helps the team or group of people you're working with do their job better. And to put your cards on the table or to lay your cards on the table means to reveal a secret or to reveal something that other people didn't know, maybe a motive or a plan that you had.Sorry that the camera's moving around a little bit today. It's a little windy out here. I'm just trying to get this video done before I blow away.But let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Judit, and this is Judit's second comment. And so she's continuing here by saying, "And I'll share a joke with you. Why did the scarecrow win an award? He was out standing in his field. Why couldn't the bicycle stand up by itself? It was two-tired. I guess you knew these." And my response was, "I had heard them before, but they still made me smile."So I'm not going to try and explain the jokes. When you try to explain a joke, it's not as funny. But thank you, Judit, for those jokes. They did make me smile. They are good ones. The only thing I will say is that when you are out standing somewhere, that means you're outside and you're standing up. But when you're outstanding, when it's one word, it means you're really good at what you do. So great jokes.

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