Learn the English Phrases "to sink in" and "sink or swim"
04:21 Share

In this English lesson, I want to try and not freeze my butt off and also teach you the English phrase to sink in. When something is allowed to sink in, it means that you hear it and eventually you will understand it. Sometimes when you're in school, the teacher will teach a lesson and it might take a while for what the teacher taught you to sink in. Sometimes you hear the teacher say it, you go home and you do your homework and then eventually you understand it.

you've given it some time and it was able to sink in. I hope that when you watch my lessons, eventually what I'm teaching you will sink in. Eventually you will understand it.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase sink or swim. This means to either succeed or fail. So sometimes students are doing badly in a class and they have one more assignment to do, and then it's a time where they will either sink or swim. So if you imagine this when you sink, it means you go underwater.

And when you swim, you are above the water and you can still breathe. So we use this phrase to talk about somebody or something that will either succeed or fail. Sorry, I should say fail or succeed, shouldn't I? When you sink, you fail. When you succeed, you are swimming. So sink or swim. So to review.

When you allow something to sink in, it means you allow yourself to think about it for a bit and then understand it. And if you say a situation is sink or swim, it means you are either going to sink, fail, or swim and succeed. But anyways, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment, I think, is from Vino.

"Hey Bob, could you please teach me the meaning of the phrase, 'Let that sink in'?" And my reply, "Sure." And I kind of just did. The "Let that sink in" phrase though is more, it means the same thing, but it's more of a saying you would say to someone. So you would say to them, "Let me think.

Let's say I got stopped for speeding and the police officer said, if you get more, if you get one more ticket, you're going to lose your license. Let that sink in. Basically what the police officer is saying is think about that for a bit and make sure you understand completely why you shouldn't speed anymore. But Hey, I don't really speed a lot. I did get a ticket.

almost exactly a year ago. So I was bringing my son back to university and of all places, I got a ticket in my local town, which was a little bit disappointing. It was the beginning of a four hour trip and I got a ticket right at the beginning of the trip. That was rather disappointing. Needless to say, I was in a bad mood for the entire trip.

uh you might be wondering why i'm sticking close to the shed i'm going to turn around here because it's quite windy today i always think it's funny when there are no leaves on the trees you really can't tell that it's a windy day but it's a little bit cold it's minus three and i don't know if you've watched jen's videos on her channel but she was just videotaping me videotaping this lesson i'm not sure why i think

I think she wants to put a clip in her next video. You'll have to go check that out. Her channel is called My Flower Farm. If you put an at sign and then type My Flower Farm with no spaces in the search bar of YouTube, you'll find it. Anyways...

I was just telling Jen, when you go outside to make a video in the winter, it's always best to dress warmer than you need to because you might be out there for longer than you were expecting. And that's certainly the case today. I'm only wearing a t-shirt under my winter coat. I probably should have worn a sweatshirt as well. Anyways.

I hope you enjoy these little lessons. I know most of you do because lots of you watch them. So I'll see you in a few days with another one. Have a good weekend. 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.