Hey everybody, welcome to another phrasal verb episode.
I hope you're doing great.
I hope your English learning is going well and I hope that you feel like you know a lot more phrasal verbs now, since you started listening to these phrasal verb episodes.
And in today's episode, we're going to look at two phrasal verbs.
The first one is block off.
And the second one is blow away.
So let's first define these two phrasal verbs.
Block off means to obstruct or block some area using a barrier.
So for example, I could say part of the central square was blocked off for the special event.
So what I'm saying here is that the authorities maybe blocked part of this central square using some type of barrier maybe that police tape or some other type of barrier so that people couldn't pass and go through or go around that barrier because they were having a special event there.
So they blocked it off.
And the other phrasal verb is blow away.
So this means to impress someone greatly.
For example, I could say, the last part of the movie blew me away.
What I'm saying here is that the end of the movie was just really incredible in some way.
It really impressed me, surprised me, it moved me in some great way.
It blew me away.
Okay, now I'm going to talk about a couple different things and while I talk, I'm going to use these two phrasal verbs over and over again so that you can get accustomed to hearing them in different sentences, get a feel for them and hopefully, by the end of this episode, you'll know these phrasal verbs well.
So I'm first going to talk about a real story that happened recently and I'll embellish it a little bit, meaning I'll add some details that aren't exactly true, just to exaggerate a little bit.
But the story itself actually happened.
And that is when we were in Mexico a few months ago and we got stuck at the top of this big hill in a town called Atlitsko.
And I talked about this in a normal episode, actually.
What happened was that we got to the top of this hill and then...
A raging thunderstorm arrived.
It touched down at that exact moment that we reached, not the very top, but a high point on this hill, and luckily we had some cover over us.
There was, like this, part of some type of roof, let's say, where we could stand under for a while, but it was a really bad thunderstorm and we weren't even that protected under this roof.
And after a while we were able to talk to one of the workers that was in the area.
He was the guy who delivers water to the different parts of the town, I think, because he had a bunch of water supplies jugs in the back of his truck.
A jug is like a big container of water and we asked him if he could drive me and my kids, my young kids, down the hill.
Uh, it was uh like we were trying to uh plea with him, meaning uh Ask him for mercy, because we had these small kids and we didn't want them to be exposed for that long to this raging storm.
And he agreed.
And so my kids and I got in the car and we drove down these winding streets to get down the hill.
However, some of them were blocked off.
So there was a street that we needed to turn on to get to the main street.
And it was blocked off because there was a car there that had gotten stuck.
I don't remember if it had stalled, like it just couldn't move or what happened.
But there was a car there.
And so they had blocked off that street turn that we needed to make.
Uh thankfully, the driver knew the town well and so we took a detour, meaning we went a different way to reach the same destination, so we had to go in the opposite direction and come back on another street.
However, that street had also been blocked off and due to flooding.
So there was a lot of flooding because of this storm and they blocked off this other street so nobody could turn on it, and so that was the second street that was blocked off.
And thankfully, the driver knew another way to get to the bottom, get to the middle of the town.
And so we took another detour.
We went further in a different direction.
And we were going to turn on another street.
And that street was blocked off, believe it or not.
So we ran into three different blocked off streets along our way.
We couldn't pass due to flooding.
And then of course, the first time it was due to that car that had gotten stuck.
So all of these streets had gotten blocked off.
They blocked them off so that people wouldn't get stuck in the deep water.
If they hadn't blocked them off, then I think some cars would have gotten stuck because of how deep the water was, That's how much flooding there was, And the driver knew the town really well.
And he found a final way around all the barriers and blocked off streets.
And we finally found... some other streets that weren't blocked off that we were able to take.
They were still kind of flooded.
It's not like they were dry, but nobody had blocked them off yet, or maybe they were just better streets that didn't flood as easily.
Whatever the reason, they weren't blocked off, so we were able to take them and arrive at the bottom, in the center of the little town.
And my kids and I had to wait for my wife and my dad to walk down the hill.
So there was no room for them in this truck.
And so my kids and I had taken that to the bottom and But my wife and my dad had to walk, so we had to wait for them.
Thankfully, they made it down safely.
And that was a really awful experience due to the fact that my young kids were there and we only had one small umbrella there.
It was not good, but thankfully we survived it.
I'm exaggerating a little bit here.
Of course we survived it, but thankfully we made it out and nobody got sick or anything like that.
But this is what happens when cities are hit heavily by storms.
Streets get flooded, trees fall down, and what happens is they need to block off some different streets.
They need to block off some different turns and exits if there are hazards that could potentially put people in danger.
A hazard is something that poses a threat or a risk to someone else.
It's something that could possibly be dangerous to you.
So when there are hazards due to heavy storms, streets get blocked off and it can be really hard to make it back home.
I've had that happen more than once in Mexico, particularly where it rains very heavily during the rainy season, in the middle of the country, where it takes a long time to get home because of all the Streets that are blocked off or flooded or whatever.
It gets pretty crazy when storms are heavy and there's a lot of rain.
So that was the first story I wanted to tell.
Now let me talk about something else.
Let me talk about Christmas lights because...
At the time of recording this, it's actually December 20th.
And this is way before this episode will be released.
So by the time you listen to this phrasal verb episode, Christmas will be way in the past, but right now, Christmas is what everyone is focused on at the time of recording this, and one activity that we really like to do here in the US is go and look at Christmas lights.
And specifically, we like to go to certain neighborhoods around the city where all the houses decorate The front yard with amazing Christmas lights and decorations.
There are several specific neighborhoods that are known for this.
They have made it a tradition.
So like almost all the houses do that.
And it's really cool to go there, especially with kids.
Kids love this.
It's almost like a fairy tale land of just amazing, incredible sights all around you.
So it's really fun, even for adults.
So we have gone to three so far this year.
I think that's all we're going to go to.
Maybe not, but we've been to three this year, and all three of these neighborhoods blew me away.
I was blown away by the creativity.
First of all because these people that live in these neighborhoods know that tons of people are going to come and bring their kids there and walk around the neighborhood or drive through it and they want to be impressed and they don't want to just see the same thing that they see in other places.
So the people that live there, they go all out with their creative designs and decorations.
When you go all out, it means like you put 100 of your effort into that.
And so the people there go all out with the creativity.
There are some really creative things in these neighborhoods that will blow you away.
If you see them, it's like how did people ever think of doing this?
That's something that i ask myself when i'm walking around these neighborhoods.
I'm like, how do they think of this idea?
How do they think of that type of decoration?
It really blows me away how creative these people are And they probably spend a lot of time thinking of ideas for the next year.
And a lot of them kind of do the same thing year after year.
But some of them add new stuff, new creative things.
So I'm not saying that everything is new every year, but there are certain new creative elements that they add and it's really cool.
It'll blow you away if you go and walk through these neighborhoods.
And each of these places that I've seen this year has blown me away in terms of the originality.
Like people want to be original and not just do the typical stuff, and so they're creative but they're also original.
Like they might be the first one to have done that, And I can think of a few houses where I go.
Wow, these people are probably the only people that have ever put this type of decoration up or this arrangement of lights or something.
So their originality blows me away, and just the effort blows me away.
How much effort they put into all that they do with their houses.
It really does blow me away.
It's amazing.
There are a couple houses in particular where I'm just trying to calculate in my brain how long it took them to set all of this up.
And there are some really cool things that you'll see that probably took a lot of effort to make.
There are these tunnels that people will put up over the sidewalk.
So you're like walking through tunnels of lights and things like that.
There are these huge inflatables, almost like big balloons.
There are things like singing lights, like a couple houses have these lights that will look like faces that are singing, like the mouths are moving while music is playing and it's perfectly synced so that the mouths are moving with the the words of the song.
It's really really cool.
And a couple houses have like train sets, these huge sets of like train tracks where there's a train going along there.
Kids love this, of course.
So there are tons of things that really just blow you away when you see them.
Really, the creativity, the originality, the effort And just the overall experience can really blow you away, especially if it's your first time going.
Like if you visit the US for the first time and you go to one of these neighborhoods, the experience will probably be even more incredible for you.
So I can't imagine ever doing this with my house.
I can't imagine ever. having that much creativity and putting that much effort into all this.
So hats off to them, meaning I applaud their effort.
They do a really good job.
I wouldn't be able to do that.
So if you visit the U.S. around Christmas time, make sure to go see these neighborhoods.
Do a quick search for neighborhoods in your area where you're visiting, where you're staying, where they have Christmas lights and go.
Take your family there and you'll be blown away.
You'll really like it, I promise.
So do that if you visit the U.S. during Christmas time.
All right, hopefully as I was talking, you heard these two phrasal verbs many times.
And hopefully, if you feel like you know how they're used now you've got a good feel for them.
Maybe you can use them in your own sentences.
So I also want to remind you to check out my advanced podcast episodes.
This will be the next step for your listening.
This will help you get accustomed to real English spoken fast.
So check those out.
The link to sign up is down below.
That's patreoncom listening time and also check out my us conversations podcast, because in this podcast i talk to other native speakers from around the country.
We have really interesting conversations and it's great practice to help you get accustomed to listening to more than one person speaking normal speed.
Okay, so check that out as well.
The link is down below.
That's patreoncom slash us conversations.
All right, thank you so much for listening to this phrasal verb episode and I'll talk to you in the next one.
