Learn the English Phrases QUIT WHILE YOU'RE AHEAD and DOESN'T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases QUIT WHILE YOU'RE AHEAD and DOESN'T KNOW WHEN TO QUIT

In this English lesson I wanted to help you learn the English phrase, quit while you're ahead. When we say to someone, "You should quit while you're ahead," we're basically saying things are going good for you right now, but they might start to go badly. So you should quit while the thing that you're doing is going good. Probably the best example of this is someone who is gambling, someone who is betting money, maybe at a casino. Maybe they've won some money, but you would go up to them and say, "Hey, you know what? Maybe you should quit while you're ahead." Because we all know with gambling, if you win some money eventually, you're probably going to lose it. Generally, the casino has the odds in their favor. That's why I don't go to casinos. So when you tell someone to quit if you say, "You should quit while you're ahead," basically you're saying things are going good now, maybe it's time to stop.

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The other phrase I want it to teach you is the phrase, doesn't know when to quit. When someone doesn't know when to quit, it means maybe they're doing something that's bothering someone and the person they're bothering is eventually going to get angry. Or maybe they're just telling little jokes about someone or making fun of someone and that person is starting to get a little bit angrier and angrier. We would say the person who is telling the jokes, the person who is bugging them, maybe doesn't know when to quit. And the risk here is that the person they are bugging might get angry, might get really angry. I see this sometimes with students. I see it sometimes with my own children, where one person is bothering another person or bugging another person and then, they don't know when to quit. If someone doesn't know when to quit, they push it too far and then eventually the other person gets really, really angry. That's not very nice.

So to review, when we say that you should quit while you're ahead, it means things are going good, but you should probably stop before they start going badly. And if you know someone who doesn't know when to quit they do kind of little things to bother people or to make fun of people. But they go a little bit too far. They go too far and they make someone really upset. So those are those two phrases.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Yaroslaw. and the comment is this. "Hi teacher, Bob. Does this phrase up to also mean that something, often, some decision depends on somebody's choice? For example, I could call for help, but it's up to you." And my response is this. Yes, that is another meaning. If someone said, "Which movie do you want to go see?" I could say, "It's up to you." This means the other person can decide.

So thanks Yaroslaw for that comment. That was from yesterday's lesson or the lesson from two days ago, with the phrase up to, where I talked about a different meaning of it. But it also can certainly mean that. Sometimes when Jen and I go to buy groceries, I'll say to Jen, "Which store do you wanna go to?" And she'll say, "Oh, it's up to you," and that means it doesn't matter to her. And I can simply decide to go to whichever store I want to go to. So sometimes it's up to me, sometimes it's up to Jen. We often make decisions like that.

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