English Lesson — Monday Morning: Talking About Git, Rebase & Code Review

Good morning! Monday means Technical English — today we’re talking about the vocabulary you actually use when you git rebase, resolve a conflict, or leave a comment on a pull request. If you’ve ever frozen for a second trying to explain why you rebased instead of merged, this one’s for you.

Word of the Day: Rebase

• IPA: /riːˈbeɪs/
• Vietnamese: rebase — viết lại lịch sử commit bằng cách “gắn lại” các commit của bạn lên trên một nhánh gốc mới
• Example sentences:
  1. “I rebased my branch onto main before opening the PR, so the diff is clean.”
  2. “Can you rebase instead of merging? I want to keep the commit history linear.”
  3. “The rebase went smoothly — no conflicts this time.”
• Listen & practice:
  • Cambridge Dictionary — pronunciation lookup
  • YouGlish — hear “rebase” in real videos

Vocabulary Table

Phrase	Vietnamese	Example
merge conflict	xung đột khi gộp nhánh	“We hit a merge conflict on the config file — let’s resolve it together.”
squash commits	gộp nhiều commit thành một	“Squash your commits before merging so the history stays readable.”
force push	đẩy code đè lên lịch sử cũ (buộc)	“Never force push to main — only to your own feature branch.”
leave a comment	để lại bình luận (trong code review)	“I left a comment on line 42 — can you take a look?”
approve the PR	phê duyệt pull request	“Looks good to me, I’ll approve the PR now.”

Pronunciation Guide

Focus word: rebase /riːˈbeɪs/

• Break it into two syllables: re- (/riː/, like “ree”) + -base (/beɪs/, like “base” in baseball)
• Stress falls on the second syllable: re-BASE, not RE-base
• Common mistake: Vietnamese speakers often flatten the diphthong in “-base” — make sure you glide from /eɪ/ clearly, like in “case” or “face”

Practice sentence (read aloud 3 times):

“I rebased my branch, resolved the merge conflict, and squashed the commits before asking for review.”

Say it slowly the first time, focus on stress the second time (RE-BASED, MERGE, CON-flict, SQUASHED), then say it at natural speed the third time.

Exercises

Exercise 1 — Fill in the blank

Choose the correct word: rebase, conflict, squash, approve

1. “Before you open the PR, please ______ your five small commits into one.”
2. “There’s a merge ______ in package.json — two people edited the same line.”
3. “I’ll ______ this PR once the tests pass.”

Show answers

1. squash
2. conflict
3. approve

Exercise 2 — Translate to English

Translate this sentence into English: “Tôi đã gộp nhánh của mình lên main và giải quyết xong xung đột, giờ có thể review được rồi.”

Show answer

“I rebased my branch onto main and resolved the conflict — it’s ready for review now.”

Idiom of the Day: “Back to the drawing board”

• Vietnamese meaning: quay lại từ đầu, làm lại từ con số không (khi kế hoạch trước đó thất bại)
• Examples:
  1. “The approach didn’t scale under load, so it’s back to the drawing board for the caching layer.”
  2. “After the failed migration, the team went back to the drawing board and redesigned the schema.”

Recommended Watching

• Fireship — Git Explained in 100 Seconds — fast, clear, and great for picking up natural phrasing around git commands
• The Coding Train — friendly explanations, good for hearing technical English at a comfortable pace
• YouGlish channel-specific search: try “merge conflict” or “code review” on YouGlish to hear these exact phrases used by native speakers in tech talks

Today’s Challenge

Next time you open a pull request today, write your PR description in English using at least two phrases from this lesson — try “squash commits,” “resolve the conflict,” or “approve the PR.” Small, real practice beats a big study session.

See you at noon for today’s phrase session! 🚀