Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases TO EDGE OUT and A DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase to edge out. When you edge someone out, it means you pass them. Maybe at work you and a colleague are both trying to get a promotion, but there's only one spot. And maybe because you know a bit more, you can edge out your colleague because you're just the better choice. Sometimes when teams are playing towards the end of their season, they edge out someone who's kind of at the same spot as them they win a game and the other team, maybe in a different city, loses a game. And that helps them edge out the other team. It helps them surpass them.

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The other term I wanted to teach you today is a double edged sword. So of course a double edged sword would be a sword that is sharp on both sides. But in English we use this to describe a situation that both benefits the person but also is negative in some way. The classic example is always to say fame is a double edged sword. Being famous is a double edged sword. Sure you have lots of money and you can do whatever you want, but you can't just go to a normal grocery store because people all want your signature. So fame is a double edged sword. It has an advantage. It has a lot of advantages probably, but it also has a disadvantage in that you can't do what normal people do in life.

So to review, to edge out means to surpass. I think that the best example is the sports team. You know, they can edge out the competition and then maybe finish in a better spot. And a double edged sword is any situation where there's both like a positive or many positives and negative and a negative or many negative aspects to it.

But hey, let's look at a comment from a previous video. This is from Cecilia. Good luck, Bob. And then a nice four leaf clover emoji. Thanks. It went extremely well. So Cecilia is referring to the fact that yesterday I'm going to stop trying to do this. Yesterday or two days ago for you was the first day of second semester for me and it went really well. In fact, it's Thursday morning right now as I record this and I'm realizing that it's very enjoyable to get up, to go for a walk and then to make an English lesson for all of you.

I think I'm at my best in the morning. I think this time of day, right now it's about quarter to nine, I think. I think this time of day is just a better time of day for me. And for a full year I've been teaching in the morning. And then coming home to make YouTube videos and lessons for you in the afternoon. And now I'm realizing that I get to get up and when I'm fresh, when I have lots of energy, that's when I'll be making YouTube lessons. So I think that this is a win win for you guys. I think. I don't know for sure, but I think the English lessons will get better. I think I'll be a little more creative. I have plans to still make sure I do one of these short lessons in town once a week, but I just feel a bit more relaxed.

In fact, I keep looking at the clock this morning and realizing it's way earlier still than I thought it was. For some reason I was getting ready to go to work and I had this kind of feeling like I was late for some reason, which I'm not at all. I think I'm actually going to get to work earlier today than I need to. I probably need to be at work around 10:30 every day. As many of you know, I'm 70%, so I don't work full time. So yeah, I'm gonna get up, work on YouTube. You might see me replying to comments at a different time of day on this channel, but either way I think it should be fo

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