[Music] hi there teacher harry here welcome back to my english lessons where we try to help you to get a better understanding of the english language today we're going to focus on vocabulary and in particular we're going to look at vocabulary around weekend activities because weekends are the really important part of the week monday to friday all about working and all about waiting for that weekend to come saturday and sunday as always at the end of this particular lesson i'll give you my contact details and if you want to contact me you can do so any comments that you have be happy to hear from you okay so usually when we're talking about the weekend it might be something that we did in the last the previous weekend the last weekend or the previous weekend okay so when we use that we're typically using simple past yeah past simple simple past verbs because we're either asking somebody a question about the weekend or we're answering a question about the weekend and we're telling people simply what we did or what we got up to is another way to to express it for example did you have a nice weekend simple past did you have a nice weekend how was your weekend what did you do last weekend or what did you get up to last weekend so they're just simple ways of asking the question about somebody's weekend the one you know usually on a monday morning over the the first coffee that you have and all of them using simple past formats of the verb the follow-on questions that might lead to these when when you've got your answers well what did you do where did you go who did you see or you might ask somebody's opinion did you like it did you enjoy it is it worth going to or how did you like it how did you enjoy it so somebody could be talking about a visit to the zoo a visit to the circus a new park a new activity something that you they've tried that you haven't or something that you might like to try so you're looking for their opinion as to to whether you should or you shouldn't do it okay so previous weekend or last weekend usually simple past now if we're talking about our weekend plans what have we got planned for the weekend these are very typical small talk chit chat conversations over the coffee before the meetings when whenever you might do it okay so the very simple way of asking the question is do you have any plans for the weekend or do you have any plans for this weekend what are you up to this weekend okay and we often use going to in these circumstances and the reason why we use going to it's the continuous format but it's the continuous format looking to something in the future but looking at something in the immediate future yeah so what are you going to do this week weekend and the answer might be oh we're going to go here or we're going to go there or we're going to do some skiing or we're going to do some hiking or going to play tennis so it would be replied to or the response would be in that continuous format of going to also okay so often used going to to talk about future plans particularly for the most immediate weekend so the one coming in next few days or four days okay if we want to look at expressions that we would use when we're talking about weekend activities or days then you you might use expressions like ah i had a night in meaning i didn't go anywhere i didn't do anything i stayed at home i just had a night in in front of the fire a night in front of the tv a night in watching netflix i chilled out watching that series that you recommended i had a night in or the opposite off we had a great night out on saturday or we had a great night out on friday you should have been there was really really good fun okay so it means we went out and we had a uh some fun at some party or some restaurant or what clubbing whatever you were doing okay so i had a night in stayed at home we had a great night out or a great evening out when we went out and left the home and went somewhere else okay now let's look at some phrasal verbs connected with weekend activities okay i'll give them to you and then i'll give you some examples so here they are to clean up to tidy up to stay in to chill out to wind down to have someone over to flick through to meet up usually to meet up with to catch up with someone and to bump into or to run into they effectively mean the same okay so phrasal verbs connected with weekends and weekend activities now some of these might be quite mundane or ordinary but that's sure how weekends go so the first one to clean up so if somebody asks you what did you do for the weekend ah we decided to stay at home and clean up the garden ready for the winter so we cleaned up all the leaves that have fallen from the trees you know there just seems to be more and more for a couple of weeks and then there they're all suddenly disappeared or we decided to stay at home and clean up the spare room because our daughter is coming home for a few months so we need somewhere for her to to sleep so we decided to clean up the spare room to tidy up oh well you know what it's like at the beginning of spring we like to have a spring clean tidy up all the rooms get rid of the rubbish that we've accumulated over the previous year so we got the kids involved so we had to give them a little bit of an incentive we told them we'd take them to the park or we'd take them for a pizza afterwards provided they would tidy up their room so we set to it after breakfast and we worked for a couple of hours and then by mid-afternoon we had tidied up most of the rooms and then as promised we went off for a pizza and went off to the cinema okay so to tidy up the room to stay in well this is an activity that lots of people have for weekends you know they've had a busy week the weather's bad the weather's cold ah we just decided to stay in this weekend we've been traveling a lot over the last few weekends so we really need just to chill out so we chilled out and decided to stay in so we can link those two expressions together so we chilled out we sat in front of the tv we looked at a few movies with the kids you know they liked these action movies i don't like them so much but they can be a little bit of fun so we chilled out on saturday and then we went to the park on sunday so we stayed in all day saturday the weather was terrible anyway i'm sure it was the same way you were so we stayed in we had some little snacks and then we just chilled out in the evening and we watched those movies to stay in and to chill out to wind down well normally we wind down at the end of the week so we can't wait for friday evening to come so we can wind down and get ready for the weekend because what you don't want is to be feeling under pressure or thinking oh i should have done this i should have done that it takes up a bit of your thinking time on a saturday morning so if you can wind down on the friday you go home kick off the shoes get into your jeans or your little leisure suit and you sit around with a glass of wine and you just wind down you switch off the laptop you switch off the mobile phone hopefully and you spend a little bit of time relaxing to wind down and usually it takes a few hours or in some cases a few days to wind down so if you're planning a holiday you always find it takes a couple of days to wind down before you get into the holiday mood so to wind down means to get yourself ready to forget about all those troubles at the office to forget about the school work to forget about the studies just enjoy yourself and wind down to have someone over well to have someone over means to invite somebody to come to your home for either for a meal dinner perhaps or in fact even to have a meal and to stay over for a night or the weekend yeah so ah you know what kids are like they always like to have someone over you know they have their friends this weekend the next weekend they will go to their friend's house oh we like to have their cousins over because they they're really around the same age there's a couple of years between them so when the cousins come over and they stay we have they have a great time they watch the movies they play games ah there's a lot of shouting and screaming of course and there's a load of mess to tidy up afterwards but you know it's a bit of fun and they get to know each other better and i really think it's a great way to grow up so to have someone over means to invite formally or informally to have them over for a drink or we must have you over some time yeah so you meet the new neighbors you've just moved into the neighborhood you're parking your car they come and they introduce themselves to you and they're around the same age and they say you know what we will have you over some time oh yeah great great great so you just say we'll take a rain check on that and perhaps the next time you meet them they may invite you over for a drink to sort of welcome you to the neighborhood so to have someone over to flick through well you can flick through the tv channels you're sitting in front of the tv you're not quite sure what you want to watch but you know you want to watch something so you get the remote control and you flick channel 1 channel 2 channel 3. so you flick through the channels until you see something that's interesting then you watch it for a few minutes you get a bit bored and you flick through again to find it and then you you've suddenly land on a movie that you haven't seen for a while or you haven't seen before so you you settle with on that to watch it so you flick through in the same way you can take out an old photograph album and you can flick through photographs from years gone by to sort of a trip down memory lane yeah okay so flick through the pages click flick flick means to go through yeah usually to go through reasonably quickly until you land on something that that's of interest to you or you can flick through the netflix channel to see what particular episode you want to watch or is there one particular netflix movie that you think is really good that people have been talking about so you eventually find the one that you're looking for so to flick through to meet up well we usually like to meet up with our friends at various times or we might just ask the question would you like to meet up at the weekend why don't we meet up with our partners on on saturday why don't we all go for a pizza why don't we all go to the cinema why don't we meet up at the gym okay so to meet up you can arrange it formally let's meet up at two o'clock yeah let's meet up over the next couple of weeks why don't we meet up over the holidays so all of those situations where you have the opportunity to meet up with somebody to come together formally or informally to to celebrate or just to spend a bit of time together to chill out to catch up with somebody well when we want to catch up with somebody we mean we want to find out what's going on in their life and say you know i'd really like to catch up with you soon i don't have time now i'm in a bit of a rush i promised the missus that i'd get home early this evening so give me a call and we'll catch up over the weekend or we'll catch up for lunch yeah if you're if you're not so busy over the next couple of days why don't we catch up over lunch that new sandwich bar seems to be quite good everybody's talking about it we could meet there yeah sure why not i'll send you a text or i'll what's up you over the next few days so you can catch up with somebody for a meeting to find out what's going on in their life or simply if you see somebody walking along the street or you see somebody ahead of you in the park that you recognize and you haven't seen them for a while you run or walk more quickly to catch up with them yeah okay so you just do that you run or you walk quickly and you catch up with them okay so i'll catch up with you next week i'll catch up with you for the next lesson i'll catch up with you soon all ways of expressing that sentiment that you want to meet somebody and then finally as i said we've got these to bump into someone or to run into someone and the meaning is exactly the same it's usually means that it's not planned okay so if you it's not mean physically you bump into somebody hopefully not in in your car but if you bump into somebody or run into somebody it's usually when you weren't expecting to see them so you might be just doing a bit of saturday morning shopping you might be doing some late night shopping in the supermarket and you hear this familiar voice and you look around the corner into the other aisle and there's the guy you haven't seen for a long time ah fancy meeting you here fancy running into you here i didn't expect to bump into you here what are you doing yeah ah the same as you i'm just buying a few last-minute things for the party and uh or since i'm celebrating one of the kids birthdays so i need to get a few treats for all the kids that are coming across to our home okay so to bump into or to run into so when you go home you go back to your your wife or your your husband or your partner and you say you'll never guess who i bumped into when i was in the supermarket or you'll never guess who i run into in the high street i haven't seen her for ages we were in university together and we lost touch but she must be back home now so i really must give her a call and catch up with her soon yeah okay so bump into run into when it's uh something that happens unexpectedly unplanned okay so they're all phrasal verbs connected with weekend activities okay let me give them to you one more time to clean up to tidy up to stay in to chill out to wind down to have someone over to flick through to meet up to meet up with to catch up with someone and to bump into or to run into as i said phrasal verbs connected with weekend and weekend activities okay well hopefully that's given you some help and some indication as to how you can use those expressions and words and phrases in your english and if you need any other details well please contact me write to me and if you want to write to me well my contact details are www.englishlessonviaskype.com as i've said time and time again delighted to hear from you delighted to get some hints that something that you might like me to include in future lessons and i would love it if you could continue to subscribe to our channel and you can listen to my podcasts and if you check out my webpage you'll find lots of wonderful lesson plans waiting for you and if you want lessons on a one-to-one basis well we've got lots of teachers including myself only too happy to help you your family and your friends as always thanks for listening join me again soon