Hey everybody, welcome to another phrasal verb episode.
I hope that your English learning is going really well and that you're ready to learn a couple more phrasal verbs today.
In this episode, we're going to look at the phrasal verbs bet on and black out.
So let's start with bet on.
There are a couple different meanings that this phrasal verb has.
So let's look at both of them.
Bet on could mean to wager money on something, meaning that you risk money to try to win money.
Like, for example, poker and at the casino.
You bet on certain things or for sports, right?
For example, I could say, I bet on Real Madrid to win.
I'm saying that I risked money.
I wagered money thinking that they would win.
So hopefully I would win money.
So you can use bet on in that way.
And bet on could also mean, to be nearly certain that something will happen.
For example, he'll find a way to succeed.
You can bet on it.
Here, I'm not literally telling you to wager money on him succeeding.
I'm just saying you can be certain of this.
It will happen.
Trust me.
You can bet on it.
So that's the other meaning of bet on.
And how about black out?
Black out means to lose consciousness, like to faint.
So, for example, I blacked out after getting hit in the head.
This means that I lost consciousness.
Something hit me in the head and I was not conscious for several seconds or however long.
So that is consciousness. black out.
Okay, now I'm going to talk about a topic, and I'm going to use these phrasal verbs again and again.
And so by the end of this episode, you should have a better feeling for these phrasal verbs.
They should feel more natural for you and hopefully you'll be able to use them in your own sentences if you feel like it.
So let me talk about American football.
Let me first talk about a couple teams that I used to watch when I was a lot younger.
I used to be really into football.
It was my favorite sport for a while.
My favorite sport to watch, I should say.
So I loved watching American football.
I never bet money on football teams to win, and I'm glad I didn't, because if I had bet on different teams, I'm sure I would have lost money on most occasions, because that's what often happens.
And there were a couple teams that I supported.
One of them was always so frustrating to watch because they had a lot of potential.
They always seemed to be contenders, like they had good players.
You knew that they could win.
But you could always bet on them screwing up at some point.
You could always bet on them wasting this potential, this talent that they had.
Even though they had a great team for some years, you could always bet on them losing once when it mattered the most.
And that's why it was so frustrating being a fan of that team.
It was always something that always caused stress for me, back when I really cared about football and about that team.
Because, like I said, despite their talent, you could always bet on them Finding a way to lose in the big games where it really mattered, like in the playoffs, for example.
The playoffs are the tournament that happens after the regular season, where only the best teams or the teams with the best records get to play in that tournament.
And then the top two teams go to the Super Bowl, and then they play that final game.
So You could usually bet on this team finding a way to lose in the playoffs even games where they had the opportunity to win.
So there would usually be some big mistake.
You could bet on that.
There would be some type of error, some mistake that would cost them the game.
When something costs you the game, this means that it causes you to lose the game.
For example, I could say that dropped pass cost them the game.
That means because that player dropped the pass, they lost.
That was the reason.
So there would always be some big mistake and they would lose.
You could bet on it.
The other team that I supported after this first team however, was different, because you could usually bet on them finding a way to win games, even if they weren't supposed to win.
It was kind of the opposite.
I always felt like they could win even while they were behind in games.
Maybe the other team would be winning by quite a few points, but I always felt like this team could come from behind and win.
When you come from behind.
This means that you are losing points, some type of game, and then you actually Come back and win it.
So I always felt like they could come from behind and win, Even in games where they were losing.
And I'm sure some people won a lot of money by betting on these comebacks.
Maybe they were betting while the game was happening and this team was losing and they bet on them to come back and win.
I'm sure some people made a lot of money because this team would often do that.
They would often come from behind and win, even in really big games.
So you could usually bet on them finding a way to win despite the difficulties.
You could bet on them to come from behind, or at least make a good effort to come from behind and make it a closer game.
That... was usually the case.
I really can't remember many games where they lost by many points.
It's hard to remember any games like that because you could always bet on them making it a close game or winning the game.
That was just that team and how they were.
So I had a lot of fun supporting them.
And you could always bet on the coach of that team getting the most out of the players.
When you get the most out of someone or something, that means that you utilize that thing to make it look as good as possible.
It's as good as it could possibly be.
So he had a lot of players involved.
That weren't necessarily the most talented and highly rated players, but you could bet on the coach getting the most out of those players.
He usually got them to perform well. at their highest level, he was a good coach.
So that team was pretty fun to watch.
I had a good time supporting them.
Another football-related topic that I want to talk about is concussions.
This is that injury that people have when they get injured hit in the head.
I'm sure there are different ways you could get a concussion, but I think it often happens when you get hit in the head hard.
And this happens a lot in football.
This is a really controversial thing because as time goes on, There's more awareness about the really negative effects of getting hit in the head and all of the possible consequences of playing for many years and getting multiple concussions.
This can cause problems for people.
And as time goes on, people talk more and more about this when talking about football.
However, there's an issue because in football big hits are glorified, meaning people celebrate big hits.
They love seeing big hits happen.
Football, that's just the nature of the sport.
It's a very rough sport.
People are supposed to hit each other and because of that there are concussions.
That's natural when you have this type of sport and people can get hit really hard.
In football People can get hit so hard that they black out for a second.
Where they can't remember what happened to them some minutes later.
Like people can actually black out from how hard some of these hits are.
And I don't know how normal it is to black out from a concussion.
But at least for me that seems pretty serious when you lose consciousness, when you actually faint and can't remember what happened.
I think blacking out seems pretty serious.
I don't know.
I'm not a medical expert, but I would not like to black out from being hit in the head by someone running full speed at me.
Playing that type of sport doesn't appeal to me.
I don't want to get hit in the head, lose consciousness, possibly get injured like that.
I'm not saying that people black out left and right.
By the way, when we say that something happens left and right, it means that it happens all over the place, all the time.
I'm not saying that people are blacking out left and right.
Of course not.
But it can happen. and injuries happen all the time in football.
And I've never lost consciousness before.
I don't know what it feels like, but that idea is a little freaky to me.
The word freaky just means So that's a freaky idea to me to black out and maybe not remember what happened to me a few seconds ago.
But a lot of athletes, especially in American football, get injured, get hit in the head sometimes.
And it's a hard problem to solve in football, right?
This is something that people in other sports probably don't need to worry about too much.
But like I said, football is a sport where people are supposed to hit each other.
That's the nature of the sport.
Of course, they have helmets.
They have pads, meaning they have these things in their jerseys and pants that protect them from hits.
But even though they have helmets and pads, they can still get concussions and They can still black out from how hard they get hit.
These injuries are just hard to prevent.
You can make them less common and less likely to happen.
But when you play a sport like football, you're going to have injuries and concussions are going to happen frequently.
So it's a hard topic to really find a solution for because you can't take the hits out of football.
They have tried to stop people from...
Hitting people hard, especially using their own head to hit them really hard.
They will fine players for certain hits that they make.
When you fine someone, that means that you make them pay money because they did something wrong or bad.
So they try to get players to not hit other players in certain ways.
They'll fine them.
A lot of hits are not legal in the game.
So they try their best, but you can't really take this element out of the game.
You can't take the hits out of football.
Otherwise, people will probably stop watching because that is simply part of the game.
If you're on defense, part of what you're taught is how to hit the other players.
How that's going to continue on forever, I assume.
So I assume there will always be concussions in football.
I assume that there will always be serious concussions where the person blacks out and maybe has negative effects from getting that concussion.
So that's just one of the things that people don't like about football, but it's hard to completely solve the problem and you get the point.
It's a conundrum, meaning it's like an unsolvable problem in this context.
So I hope that, as I was talking about football, you were able to hear these two phrasal verbs used again and again.
Hopefully you have a better idea now of what they mean, how to use them, in what context they're used, etc.
And maybe you can try to use them in your own sentences as well.
And I hope this episode was good practice for your listening.
And I want to encourage you to try out my advanced episodes so you can try listening to real English spoken at normal speed.
That's your next step.
And I have these advanced episodes available for you.
So that's the perfect tool to help you start with that type of content.
So if you want those advanced episodes, go down and click on the link below in the description below this episode.
And also check out my US Conversations podcast, in which I talk to different native speakers from all over the US.
We talk about a lot of interesting things, including the different states of the country, the culture and the different regions, and all of that.
So it's a lot of fun, it's really interesting, and it's great practice for your listening.
So if you want that, the link is also down below.
All right.
Thank you so much for listening to this phrasal verb episode, and I'll talk to you in the next one.
