Speaker 1: Have you ever been snowed under at work or in school?
Do you tend to bundle up before going outside in
a cold day? Have you needed to scrape off the
ice from your car windshield recently? Today, we're gonna warm
up your English with some winter frasal verbs.
Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast, coming to you from
New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.
Speaker 1: All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael
here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.
And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode seven eighty two.
Winter frasal verbs. Yep, winter frasal verbs. I have a
bunch of these that I'd like to share with you.
Let's start off with a little story. It snowed hard
last night and when I opened the curtains, the windows
were frozen over. It seemed like I was snowed in.
But because I'm so snowed under at work, I had
to make it to my office somehow, So I decided
to bundle up and head outside to start shoveling out
my driveway. The wind started to pick up as I
was doing that. Then came my car. I had to
work hard to scrape off the snow from the windshield.
That's when I realized that the car windows were iced over.
Once the car was clean, I started the engine to
warm up the car, and then I drove to work.
By the time I got there, the wind to die
down and the sun came out. That was a nice
little story, wasn't it all right? Let's start off with
two similar frasal verbs, freeze over and ice over. We
use freeze over when we talk about the surface of
something like a lake or a road becoming completely covered
with ice. Like the lake is frozen over and people
are skating on it. Now that's a winter scene. Or
the bird bath in Emily's backyard froze over after the storm.
I don't think the birds are gonna like that one.
We also use ice over to emphasize that something becomes
covered with a thin layer of ice. When I woke
up in the morning, the windshield of my car was
totally iced over, and the sidewalks iced over during the night,
so they're very slippery. Next up, where there's ice in
the winter, there's probably going to be snow, and that
brings us to snowed in and snowed under. While being
snowed in and being snowed under can cause a lot
of problems. Only one of them actually has to do
with snow itself, and that's snowed in. When you are
snowed in, you're unable to leave a place because of
heavy snow, like when Tom went skiing, he got snowed
in at his cabin during the blizzard. My aunt lives
in the countryside, so she always stocks up on food
just in case they get snowed in. So snowed in
means there's just two much much snow to be able
to go anywhere, But snowed under actually doesn't have anything
to do with snow itself. Snowed under means to be
overwhelmed because you have too much to do, like too
much work, too much homework, or too many responsibilities. Like
Scott is an accountant and it's tax season, so he
is totally snowed under with work. It seems like my
sister has a lot of parties coming up, so she's
snowed under with all of those holiday preparations. Speaking of snow,
when it does snow, you're going to probably need to
shovel out your driveway and scrape off the ice from
your car. Shovel out and scrape off. Shovel Out means
to remove snow from an area like a driveway or
a sidewalk using a shovel. My neighbor Fred shoveled out
his driveway so he could leave for work. I remember
that snowstorm. It took hours to shovel out the sidewalks
that day. And next up we have scrape off, which
means to remove ice or snow from a surface like
a car window. It seems like just about every morning
I have to scrape off the ice from the windshield
of my car. And this morning, when I got to
the stop sign at the end of my block, there
was a guy right there in the middle of the
road scraping off the ice from his windshield. And one
thing you definitely need to do on a cold day
is to bundle up. When you bundle up, you dress
warmly with layers of clothing to stay warm. Like when
I walk the dogs, not only do I bundle up,
but I bundle up my dogs in their little doggy
winter coats. I mean, if you don't bundle up, you're
gonna end up catching a cold. And finally, for today,
let's talk about what happens during winter storms. We use
pick up and die down when we talk about winter
weather like wind and snow. When the weather gets stronger,
we say that it picks up, like this morning. The
wind started to pick up just before the snowstorm, and
it was snowing lightly when I left the house in
the morning, but it picked up in the afternoon. The
opposite of pick up is die down. When something like
wind or a storm becomes less intense, we say that
it dies down. Usually when it snows, I wait inside
until the storm dies down before going out. It's been
really windy today. I hope the wind dies down soon.
I hope this English lesson didn't make you too snowed under.
With phrasal verbs, keep in mind the best way to
remember vocabulary like this and any other word or phrase
in English is to take that word or phrase, write
it in a sentence that's true for you or true
in your world, and then memorize your sentences. Did you
know You can get more practice using your English when
you join my podcast Learner's Study Group. There you can
make new friends, join us for live group lessons every
week where we practice these pods cast lessons together. Plus
you get access to the pdf transcript audio download for
every Happy English podcast in the past and in the future.
And on top of that, each episode has exercises where
you can practice this English point with speaking and writing
checked by me. To learn more, just visit Myhappy English
dot com and choose podcast lesson seventy eighty two. Remember,
learning another language is not easy, but it's not impossible,
and I'm here to help you on your journey.
Speaker 2: This podcast is brought to you by Happy English. Please
visit Myhappy English dot com. Show your support for Happy
English by leading us a review. Get English, get Happy,
Happy English es