I Messed Up Use this phrasal verb
hi I’m Vanessa from the website speak
English with Vanessa comm did you mess
it up
let’s talk about it in today’s video I
want to teach you a natural phrasal verb
that we use when there’s a problem so
you’re not perfect I’m not perfect we
all have problems in our lives and
sometimes it’s our fault
so this phrasal verb you can use in the
situation’s what’s the phrasal verb its
mess up mess up did you mess up this
means did you do something wrong today I
want to show you two things so that you
can more easily understand how to use
this phrasal verb the first thing is a
short clip from a video that I took of
my husband Dan playing pool with his
sister the second thing is a short story
from my childhood where I messed up
let’s take a look at the first thing in
this video you’ll see Dan playing pool
with his sister he has the final shot
and if he makes this shot he wins the
game so he’s going to use this
expression in a negative way he says
don’t mess it up let’s listen
yeah as you can see Dan’s pretty excited
that he won the game and at the end of
this video I want to show you his
victory dance but first let me show you
the second story so that you can see how
to use the word mess-up when my sister
and I were in elementary school we
wanted to bake cookies by ourselves for
the first time we’d always done it with
our parents but we wanted to do it alone
we were ready to do it by ourselves so
we mixed all the ingredients and the
final ingredient was baking soda baking
soda is a powder that you add to help
the cookies or bread or some other kind
of thing that you’re making rise up a
little bit so you only need a little bit
of it in fact you only need this much
this is 1/2 of a teaspoon this is an
American measurement that we were
supposed to use for the baking soda but
we probably me I didn’t read the
instructions carefully enough and we
added instead of 1/2 teaspoon we added
one half of a cup this is one cup we
added one half cup of baking soda now
what would happen if we added that much
well we were a little bit worried
because there wasn’t one half cup of
baking soda left in the container so we
asked my dad is there more baking soda
we finished it is there some more we can
use and when he saw how much we used he
said oh no I think you messed up the
cookies there’s no way to get it out of
the mixture now you’re just gonna have
to bake it and see what happened
and you know we messed it up we messed
up our cookie dough but we wanted to see
what was going to happen so we put it in
the oven and when we took it out it was
huge it was one giant cookie and my dad
he was the one who took it out of the
oven
he accidentally touched it on the
counter a little bit and it exploded I’m
not kidding these cookies were full of
air they exploded and it became one thin
huge cookie and of course they tasted
terrible so my sister decided to bring
them to school and let her friend try
them and her friend tried it and said
these are great she had no idea that we
messed them up so I hope this funny
little story about my first baking
experience will help you to learn how to
use the word mess-up I hope you don’t
mess it up now it’s your turn I want you
to be able to use this expression
naturally so in the comments below this
video I want you to answer this question
when was a time that you messed up
something when did you mess up something
small or something big let us know in
the comments below so that you can use
this phrasal verb I’ll see you again the
next time goodbye
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much for learning with me bye