Hey English learners, welcome to another phrasal verb episode.
I hope you're doing well today and that you're ready to learn a couple new phrasal verbs.
In today's episode we're going to look at two phrasal verbs.
The first one is chicken out, and the second one is chill out.
So first, let me just give you the definitions of these phrasal verbs and an example of each one.
Chicken out means to decide not to do something you were going to do because you're afraid.
And be careful because it can be a little bit mean to say to someone that they're chickening out.
This is kind of a mean phrase, but we might say it about ourselves, for example, or you might be able to say it to a good friend if they have a good sense of humor.
So I could say this, for example, he told us he was going to ask her out, but he chickened out.
In this sentence I'm saying that he had planned on asking this girl out, meaning to ask her on a date, but he chickened out.
He got scared and didn't do it.
So that's chicken out.
The other one is chill out, which means to calm down or relax and stop being anxious or upset.
For example, just chill out.
Everything will be fine.
Here i'm telling the person to relax, stop worrying, stop being so anxious or whatever, and to just trust that everything will be okay.
Just calm down, chill out, all right.
So now i'm going to talk about a couple different things, and i'm going to use these phrasal verbs again and again, And I do this so that you can practice your listening.
And if you need the transcript, it's down below in the description below this episode.
So you can practice your listening while learning these phrasal verbs in a natural way by hearing them over and over again in different sentences.
So first, let me talk about some scary or intimidating activities.
One of the first ones that comes to mind is scary roller coasters.
When I was younger, I was a huge fan of roller coasters.
I was an adrenaline junkie, as we might say.
I was addicted to adrenaline and I loved scary roller coasters.
Uh, Nowadays, not so much.
And there are many people that can't handle scary roller coasters.
And sometimes people get in line for these roller coasters and they wait in line.
And then when it's almost their turn to get on, they chicken out. and they leave.
I don't know if you've ever done this or if you know someone else who has done this, or maybe you've seen a stranger do this.
They're in line and then, right when they get to the front, they decide to leave because they're chickening out.
They get too scared.
They don't want to go on the roller coaster after all, and they chicken out.
So that might happen sometimes.
I don't think I've done this nowadays if I don't want to go on the ride.
I just won't get in line.
I won't force myself to do anything like that.
Another activity that comes to mind is skydiving.
This is where you jump out of an airplane.
I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
I know that many people have probably chickened out at the last minute when they were supposed to go skydiving because maybe in the moment that you're talking about this with friends, it sounds fun.
You don't want to be the one person that says that they're scared.
So you all plan on doing it but then later on you start thinking more and more about it and you chicken out because you're just too scared to do it.
I'm sure many people have chickened out, maybe even at the last minute, like before they're gonna jump out of the plane, and maybe they chicken out.
So that's an activity that can be very intimidating.
Another one is bungee jumping, where you jump off of a high place like a bridge, but you have a that holds you to the bridge.
This can be a really intimidating or scary activity for many people.
And I think that I might chicken out if I decided to do this.
I might chicken out at the last minute because this seems like a very scary thing to do.
So I don't know if you would do it, but I think it looks really intimidating.
Another activity that might be intimidating for people is exploring certain places, like exploring a forest at night or an abandoned house.
I've seen videos of of explorations, of people exploring different places at night and it looks pretty scary.
I'll say, and I'm sure some people might chicken out when they see the abandoned house and it's dark And they don't want to go in.
I can understand why some people might chicken out.
And one other activity.
This is something that I almost had experience with.
I almost went to run with the bulls in Spain.
I don't know if you've seen this activity where people run with the bulls.
It's dangerous, of course, but when I was younger, as I said, I was an adrenaline junkie.
I liked these types of activities.
Had never done something like that before, but it seemed really fun.
Again, I was young.
Don't judge me.
And I didn't chicken out.
But it seemed like I chickened out because at the last minute we decided not to go to that city to do the run.
But it wasn't necessarily because I was afraid.
I wasn't necessarily chickening out.
It's because I had a really bad mosquito bite on my toe.
And it had gotten infected and it was really painful and I couldn't even wear normal shoes at the time.
And so I knew that I wasn't going to be able to run, especially with bulls.
And so I decided not to do it at the last minute.
So again, it might seem like I chickened out, but it wasn't like that.
Honestly, I had this problem and that's why I didn't do it.
But I'm thankful that I didn't go.
Maybe that saved my life, right?
Okay, now let me talk about one other thing.
I'm going to talk about driving through Mexico.
Back in 2021, I had to drive alone through about half of the country of Mexico, from the middle of Mexico all the way up to the top of Mexico.
And I was actually really anxious about this because at that time there were some dangerous parts of the country that I had to drive through.
And this is often seasonal, let's say, meaning sometimes certain places can be more dangerous and sometimes they're not so dangerous.
At that time there was a specific part of the country that I had to drive through.
That was pretty dangerous and I was especially anxious because I was moving up to another city in Mexico and I had a car full of all of our stuff and I had California license plates.
So it was clear that I was a foreigner.
My car was full of stuff.
I don't look Mexican, according to most people.
And so I was a little anxious.
And Normally, you expect people to tell you to chill out, relax, things will be fine, don't worry.
But in this case, that did not happen.
People were not telling me to chill out.
They were actually worried about me.
I remember my wife's uncle was telling me not to take a certain route because it was really dangerous at that time and I needed to go a different way and I did not feel good about this trip.
It was hard for me to just chill out and not worry and and just do it.
It was a very anxious time for me.
And once I got on the road when there weren't many other cars visible and I felt alone on the highway, I got anxious.
I got a little bit concerned and I needed to tell myself to chill out, relax.
And you might wonder why I had this anxiety about driving.
Well, I've known several people in Mexico that have had really bad things happen to them when they were driving, and so i'm not really that worried about walking around the cities or things like that for the most part, driving through places in the country where there aren't many people, where you're alone.
This is what can intimidate me more personally, because I've known people that have had problems when doing this.
And so I'm not telling you to be scared or whatever.
I'm just saying that this is something that I was anxious about.
And I constantly had to tell myself to chill out, not worry, just focus on driving to the next destination and not think about those things anymore.
And there were certain states that I had to drive through where I felt a little more anxious because there were some places that people told me were dangerous to drive through and I had to avoid, tell myself to calm down and chill out many times as I was driving through those places.
And I remember stopping at a gas station and I was talking to the worker there and I told him My concern and I was thinking that he was going to tell me that everything was going to be fine.
Chill out.
Don't worry.
People make that drive all the time.
But he didn't tell me to chill out.
He actually warned me and said.
Oh man, you're going through that part?
Oh, be careful.
It was not what I wanted to hear.
I was hoping he would tell me to chill out and relax, but he told me the exact opposite.
So that wasn't good.
And then when I went through checkpoints like oftentimes when you cross from one state to another in Mexico and maybe in other countries as well, I don't know
But there are checkpoints where you have to stop and maybe the military is there or some type of government law enforcement agency and they ask you questions and check your car sometimes and I did not like having to go through those checkpoints with my car full of stuff and California license plates.
I had to tell myself to chill out, not worry.
Uh, and thankfully nothing happened.
And, uh, finally I reached the border town.
Uh, that was uh my final destination before crossing into the U?
S, because I had to cross into the U?
S for different reasons.
Uh, but I got to this border town.
And I was finally able to chill out once I got there.
Before that, I was anxious.
I was just hoping to reach that border town quickly.
I was praying.
I was a little dramatic, let's say.
I think I'm probably exaggerating a little bit right now when I tell this story.
I was dramatic, but I probably didn't worry that much.
But I was anxious during many parts, like the checkpoints and the dangerous parts, and I just had to not think about it too much and chill out.
But that was easier said than done, meaning it was easier to tell myself to chill out than to actually chill out and not worry.
That was my time driving through Mexico.
And hopefully I don't have to do it again with a car full of items and foreign license plates.
So I hope that you enjoyed this phrasal verb episode and that now you can use these phrasal verbs effectively in your own sentences.
Remember that you can get my advanced episodes and my training by signing up for my membership.
That link is down below.
And you can also check out my US Conversations podcast, in which I talk to other English teachers from around the US.
It's a lot of fun.
It's great practice for your listening.
And you can find an English teacher there and take classes with them.
That link is also down below.
Thank you so much for listening to this phrasal verb episode, and I'll talk to you in the next one.
