Learning the English phrases 'to rack your brain' and 'to pick someone's brain'

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO RACK YOUR BRAIN and TO PICK SOMEONE'S BRAIN

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase “to rack your brain”. When you rack your brain, it means you're trying to remember something. Sometimes, when summer ends and school starts again, I run into students on the first day or during the first week of school, and I have to rack my brain a bit to remember their name. Sometimes this happens at market as well. Customers who we get to know over time and whose names we know. Sometimes when the market season starts, we have to rack our brains to remember who they are. So when you rack your brain, it simply means you're trying to remember something. You know that you know it, but you just can't quite remember it. When you're speaking English, sometimes you might need to rack your brain to remember a word that isn't coming to you when you're having a conversation.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is the phrase “to pick someone's brain”. This is when you ask someone for advice about something or ask someone what they think about something. Maybe I want to buy a new car and my friend is an expert on cars. I might want to pick his brain. I might say, Hey, can I pick your brain for a bit? Give him a phone call and say, Can I pick your brain? I'm thinking of buying a new car. What do you think of this one? And then he might tell me. So when you pick someone's brain, it means you ask them for advice. You ask them for information, or you ask them what they think about something.

So to review, to rack your brain simply means to try and remember something. You probably have this every once in a while, and to pick someone's brain means to ask them... again... ask them for advice, ask them what they think, ask them for their opinion on something.

But let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from nucleonord. When the COVID 19 outbreak started, buckwheat, sugar and toilet paper were flying off the shelves. In addition, protective masks were selling like hotcakes, at least in Russia. And my response, we had the same thing here with toilet paper. It was a bit of a panic. Thankfully, it slowed down. The strange thing is that Canada produces a huge amount of toilet paper and so I'm not sure why people were so worried.

So thank you for that comment. And by the way, excellent use of both phrases “to fly off the shelves” and “to sell like hotcakes”. So yeah, I did find it a little confusing. Canada, I looked it up. We are the sixth biggest producer and exporter of toilet paper in the world. So when the pandemic started, I'm not sure why people were so worried about running out of paper. We literally produce it in mass quantities, like we produce a lot of it.

Hey, I'm in my classroom. It's a little echoey. I'll try to fix the audio for you. It's early morning, so students have not arrived yet. And I just thought I would show you again what my classroom looks like. Some of you have seen this before, especially if way back when you used to watch the livestreams that I used to do in this room. But yeah, I'm set up for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So I have enough room here for 28 students. My largest class is close to that. I think I have 27 in my largest class. And then my other class is quite small. I only have nine students right now, which is a little abnormal. Generally, our classes are anywhere between 15 and 30 students. I know next semester I have a class with, I think 30 students in it.

Um, got my projector fired up over the

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