going to talk about words and phrases you can use in English

when something goes wrong in life. Life has a funny way of

going sideways sometimes we sometimes say. Um usually life

is smooth. Usually you have a good day. You have a good

night. You have a good day. But every once in a while things go

wrong. So in this English lesson I'll help you learn

those English words and phrases. Please listen to each

word as I teach it. And also listen to the phrases I use

when I talk about each individual word because I

sometimes add quite a bit more information as I'm talking

about it. So once again welcome to this English lesson about

words and phrases to use when things go wrong. So the first

word I have is crash. This is an interesting word because you

can crash into someone. Like if you're driving your car and you

hit someone else you can crash into them. But then we also say

that you are in a crash. So we kind of use it as a verb and a

noun. When you crash into someone it means you hit them.

Sometimes at the grocery store I'm driving my grocery cart and

I accidentally crash into something. Cos sometimes I'm

looking at food when I should be looking at where I'm going.

Uh I actually crashed into someone else's cart a couple of

weeks ago it was a little bit embarrassing. But to crash when

you crash into something it means that usually you're

driving a car or something else and you lose control. That's

another phrase we use. You lose control and then maybe you

crash. Hopefully you don't get hurt. And then this is one that

any of you who have children or hang around with children would

know and it's to spill. When you spill something like if I

take this cup and if I accidentally bumped into the

cup the water would spill out of the cup. And interestingly

enough We use this the same way. We use it as a verb. Like

you can spill the water. The water's spilled out of the cup.

And then you have a spill. So this little guy here he spilled

his milk and now there is a spill on the table and he is

wiping up that spill. Never fun when we had little kids. It's

never fun in the morning when you're trying to get out the

door to go to work and suddenly something goes wrong one of

your kids spill something and you have to clean it up. I Uh

topple if you've ever played this game it's called Jenga.

It's a game where you stack blocks and eventually the

blocks will topple. Uh you can also topple something over like

if you push a stack of things. But a good example would be if

you stack a whole bunch of boxes up. And the boxes aren't

very stable. Like if they kind of move back and forth.

Eventually the boxes will topple over. So it's similar to

fall. It's similar to fall down. Uh but it does have kind

of a unique case. When I was walking in from the barn a few

months ago I was carrying a whole bunch of buckets and then

they ended up they toppled over. Um which means they kind

of ended up falling. Um never fun. When something topple over

it's good that it's good if nothing breaks. Stuck. So this

is a good one for this time of year. Um when you talk about

things going wrong when it's winter one of the things that

can go wrong is that you get stuck. This guy is driving in

really deep snow and eventually he might get stuck. He might be

stuck right now. When you're stuck you can't move forward or

backwards. Your wheels spin. It makes this sound a literally

the sound you'll hear when you are stuck in the snow. Maybe in

your country you can be stuck in the mud. Maybe it rains a

lot and the soil gets really wet and you can end up getting

stuck in the mud. But it's never fun to get stuck. I

cleaned my driveway already this morning. Because there is

a truck coming today to deliver something. And I don't want the

truck to get stuck in the snow. That rhymes doesn't it? I don't

want the truck to get stuck in snow. Rip or tear. These are

very similar. Um you might be familiar with ripped jeans.

Sometimes people buy their jeans like this. For someone

old like me that doesn't make sense. But when you the other

day I was walking and my pants got caught on a nail and I

ripped my pants. So my pants ended up having a rip in them.

Notice once again I ripped my pants and I ended up with a rip

in it. We use the word tear as well but I think when you're

talking about jeans and clothing we usually talk about

rip. It's when there something happens that makes a hole in

the clothing that you are wearing. You could use the word

tear as well. Like oh I have a tear. There's a tear in the

sleeve of my shirt. That would be totally appropriate as well.

Break. Sometimes things break. This is probably one of the

most common ways to describe something when it's no longer

whole. Okay. We would say that when you throw a rock at a

window the window will break. When something break we then

say it is broken. Okay so when you break something it then

becomes broken. Um all of my windows in my house are in

perfect shape. I I have not I don't have any broken windows.

Although when I use the snowblower it shots snow at the

house. Um and when it does that it sometimes shoots little

stones. So I have to be careful because I don't want to break a

window. So sometimes your tire goes flat and sometimes your

tire goes flat because it is punctured. When something is

punctured it means it gets a hole in it. If you drive over a

nail a nail is a sharp piece of metal that you bang into wood.

But if you drive over a nail it will puncture your tire. The

nail will go through the tire and it will make a hole in it.

It will puncture your tire. Never a good never a good day

when you walk to the parking lot and see that somehow you

drove on a nail and it punctured your tire. And then

again we would call this a flat tire. So the puncture is what

caused the air to come out. But now we would simply call it a

flat tire. Fracture. So has Bob the Canadian ever broken any

bones. Yes I fractured my wrist once when I was really young.

Uh and I think that's it. I think that's the only time I've

had a cast on. I fractured my wrist. When you fracture

something it's another way to say that it is broken. Okay.

When you break a bone like if you do something crazy like you

go skiing and you break your leg. We would also say that the

bone is fractured. That you fractured a bone. Never a good

time when that happens. Definitely would be a good

example of something going wrong. Hey outside we have some

places on our farm where there is concrete. Where they have

poured concrete and then it gets hard and you have this

nice hard surface. But sometimes it will crack. When

you look at buildings in your town sometimes on the wall of

the building you'll see that the wall has cracked. Um when

something cracks it means it breaks. And we usually use this

to describe like the blocks in a wall are cracked sometimes or

some or concrete can crack but it simply means something is no

longer completely whole. It has these little lines where it has

broken, where it has cracked. So this is a flower with some

snow on it and this flower I think is frozen. Uh sometimes

things go wrong because of the weather. Sometimes the

temperature goes really low and things freeze. When things

freeze sometimes if it's something like a flower it

dies. So sometimes that can be a bad thing. Sometimes in the

winter some people have it where the pipes in their house

freeze. The pipes in their are frozen. Uh when a pipe freezes

the water turns to ice inside of it and the pipe can burst.

So sometimes one of the things in life where things go wrong

is when the temperature goes really low and things become

frozen or things freeze. Notice the difference in use between

frozen and freeze. And this this man is this has happened

to me before. When something splits it means it comes apart.

Um when you put a nut in a nutcracker it split the nut

open. This man bent over and his pants have split. He has

split his pants. This actually happened to me once where I was

working on something and I bent it down and my pants split at

the back. Very embarrassing. It Happened at work I quickly went

and changed into some shorts that I found. But never never a

dull moment when when something like this happens to someone

when you split your pants. Um and be careful. It can happen

to anybody. On fire. Yeah I don't know I'm not I don't know

why I'm laughing about this one but if this happens your

something is definitely going wrong. If your car is on fire

that is definitely a bad day for you. So one of the things

can go wrong in life is something might be on fire.

Hopefully not. But your house might be on fire. Your car

might be on fire. This is very rare. This does not happen very

often. But definitely this would be something going wrong.

And of course when something's on fire it means that someone

has taken a lighter or a match or maybe something has

malfunctioned that causes a fire to start and then

something is on fire. Never good never a good day when

something's on fire that's not supposed to be. And then of

course sometimes things are just busted. This is an

interesting word and it's very very common. People will say ah

my phone's busted. My computer's busted. Um ah the

light that I normally use is busted. Um oh that fan doesn't

work. It's busted. Um I think it's probably the most common

way to describe something that is broken. So you can use

broken as well but I this word a lot. Like students in class

will say ah my computer's busted or yeah I'm trying to

think of another example. Yeah definitely broken and busted.

But you could see this phone is busted. Definitely the screen's

all cracked. Uh and then broken as I said. So this car is

broken. Sometimes with vehicles we also say broken down. But

you could just use broken. This car is definitely broken. Um my

van was actually broken a couple of weeks ago. But it

seems to be fine now. So that's good. And again when something

is broken it means that something Has gone wrong with

it and it's not doing what it's normally supposed to do. If

your computer is broken or your car is broken it's not working

properly. So there's also things can go wrong when you

forget things. Sometimes Jen and I are shopping and Jen will

say did you turn the stove off? Or did you turn the oven off?

Um sometimes you forget things. Humans forget things. Um your

day can go wrong if you go to work and you forget to take

your briefcase or you forget to take your computer. I've

actually a few times in my life gone to work realized that I

forgot my computer at home and had to go back home to get it.

So sometimes you forget things and that can be another thing

that goes wrong. Sometimes things just fall over. Uh this

doesn't happen very often around me. But we did have a

windstorm a few months ago and then things definitely fall

over. Trees fall over. Um telephone poles fall over.

Sometimes when you're going somewhere rarely but sometimes

when you're going somewhere after a big storm you'll notice

that a lot of things have fallen over and then road crews

need to come and clean them up. And sometimes things fall down.

So people have asked why do we have the word down? Like why

don't you just say the hot air balloon fell. Why do you say

the hot air balloon fell down? I don't know why. It's just an

extra word. Um if something falls it's obviously going

down. But for some reason in English sometimes we like to

add an extra word. So sometimes maybe you fall down. That would

be a problem. That would be something going wrong in your

day. Uh but definitely sometimes things can fall down.

You could even use this with the tree. You could see that

say that the tree fell down or the tree fell over. Uh notice

fall becomes fell in the past tense. Um but yeah sometimes

things fall down and that can be something going wrong in

your day as well. So a broken heart. Sometimes you're

heartbroken. Uh sometimes you find someone and you fall in

love and then the relationship just doesn't work and then you

end up breaking up. And then maybe your heart is broken.