Learn the English Phrases "an open mind" and "in the open"

Read along to practice your English and to learn the English phrases AN OPEN MIND and IN THE OPEN

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase an open mind. When you have an open mind, it means that you're willing to listen to other points of view. It means that even if you've decided you think something is a certain way, you're willing to listen to other people say that they think it's different. Here's a good example. When I was young, I remember that we had garbage day, but we didn't have recycling day and the town decided that we were going to start recycling. But before that they wanted everyone to come for a special meeting. And I remember my dad saying, I'm going to go to the meeting. I don't think recycling is going to really be a good thing. He was wrong. But I'm going to keep an open mind. I'm going to have an open mind when I go to the meeting and I'm going to listen to what other people say, because maybe it is a good idea. So when you have an open mind, it means you think one thing, but you are willing to discuss an alternate thing as well with other people.

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The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is in the open. Sometimes people do things in secret, but sometimes they do things in the open. A good example of this would be when Jen and I are working at market. We're working in the open. People can see us make the bouquets while we're at market. But the night before, Jen works at home in her flower studio and then she's not really doing it in secret, but you can't see her make the bouquets. Sometimes people do things in the open so that people can see it. Sometimes when they count votes, after a vote, they will do it in the open so that it's all done fairly and correctly.

So to review, when you have an open mind, when you keep an open mind, when you go somewhere with an open mind, it means you're willing to hear a different point of view. And when you do things in the open, it means other people can see you doing it. There's some things you shouldn't do in the open, by the way. There's some things you should always do in secret.

I'm not going to go into too many details, but let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Natalia. Hi, Bob. Do your dogs have their own dog houses or kennels? It should be relatively warm there. And my response, they sleep in the garage at night and on days when it is too cold.

So yes, our dogs, they don't actually have.... well, we had a dog house, but it blew down or it blew away. And we don't have a kennel for them, but they are allowed to go in the garage at night. We often have our dogs in the garage at night. In the winter especially... actually year round, they just sleep in the garage and they both have their own little crate, we call it, which is like a little pen, I guess they could go in, but we don't close the door. And they also can go in the barn sometimes. So it's not the nicest place to go. But we will take the dogs out to the barn and then that's a little warmer for them.

Hey, I'm at the fire station. I've been here before, but I haven't been here for a while, so I was just going to walk up. You can see me in the window. You can sort of see in, in our town, the fire trucks are red. In some towns, in some cities, the fire trucks are actually yellow, but ours are red. And it looks like they're ready to go. If there was a fire or a car accident, that's when our firefighters actually go out. Now, we operate in this town with volunteer firefighters. We don't have full time firefighters, so if there's a fire, they are notified and the

Transcript

In this English lesson, I wanted to help you learn the English phrase an open mind. When you have an open mind, it means that you're willing to listen to other points of view. It means that even if you've decided you think something is a certain way, you're willing to listen to other people say that they think it's different. Here's a good example. When I was young, I remember that we had garbage day, but we didn't have recycling day and the town decided that we were going to start recycling. But before that they wanted everyone to come for a special meeting. And I remember my dad saying, I'm going to go to the meeting. I don't think recycling is going to really be a good thing. He was wrong. But I'm going to keep an open mind. I'm going to have an open mind when I go to the meeting and I'm going to listen to what other people say, because maybe it is a good idea. So when you have an open mind, it means you think one thing, but you are willing to discuss an alternate thing as well with other people.

The other phrase I wanted to teach you today is in the open. Sometimes people do things in secret, but sometimes they do things in the open. A good example of this would be when Jen and I are working at market. We're working in the open. People can see us make the bouquets while we're at market. But the night before, Jen works at home in her flower studio and then she's not really doing it in secret, but you can't see her make the bouquets. Sometimes people do things in the open so that people can see it. Sometimes when they count votes, after a vote, they will do it in the open so that it's all done fairly and correctly.

So to review, when you have an open mind, when you keep an open mind, when you go somewhere with an open mind, it means you're willing to hear a different point of view. And when you do things in the open, it means other people can see you doing it. There's some things you shouldn't do in the open, by the way. There's some things you should always do in secret.

I'm not going to go into too many details, but let's look at a comment from a previous video. This comment is from Natalia. Hi, Bob. Do your dogs have their own dog houses or kennels? It should be relatively warm there. And my response, they sleep in the garage at night and on days when it is too cold.

So yes, our dogs, they don't actually have.... well, we had a dog house, but it blew down or it blew away. And we don't have a kennel for them, but they are allowed to go in the garage at night. We often have our dogs in the garage at night. In the winter especially... actually year round, they just sleep in the garage and they both have their own little crate, we call it, which is like a little pen, I guess they could go in, but we don't close the door. And they also can go in the barn sometimes. So it's not the nicest place to go. But we will take the dogs out to the barn and then that's a little warmer for them.

Hey, I'm at the fire station. I've been here before, but I haven't been here for a while, so I was just going to walk up. You can see me in the window. You can sort of see in, in our town, the fire trucks are red. In some towns, in some cities, the fire trucks are actually yellow, but ours are red. And it looks like they're ready to go. If there was a fire or a car accident, that's when our firefighters actually go out. Now, we operate in this town with volunteer firefighters. We don't have full time firefighters, so if there's a fire, they are notified and they drive to the fire station and then they jump into the fire truck and they go to the car accident or fire and do what they need to do. So even though we have volunteer firefighters, though, they still do get paid. It's a little confusing and hard to explain, but that's how the system works here. You can see the nice Canada flag right there and the fire station behind me.

Anyways, thanks for watching. Have a good day. I'll see you in a couple of days with another short English lesson. Bye.