What does keep on trucking mean in English?

Keep on trucking – English expression

First of all, if you found this page by searching for keep on tracking, chances are that you misheard. Keep on tracking isn’t really an expression in English. You’re probably looking for the meaning of keep on trucking. If so, read on!

Keep on trucking means to continue or persist doing something — usually something boring, uninteresting, or tedious. You can say it about yourself, to show that you plan to persist with the task. But Keep on trucking is often said to encourage someone else who is doing a boring or unpleasant task. Here are a couple of examples:

Example 1. About yourself

Speaker one: How is the Henderson report coming along, John?
Speaker two: I’m making progress. It’s a massive job, but I just keep on trucking. I should be done in time.
Speaker one: Hang in there!

Example 2 — Encouraging someone else

Speaker one: How is the Henderson report coming along, John?
Speaker two: I’m making progress, but it’s a massive job. I hope I’ll be done in time.
Speaker one: Well, I’m impressed with what you’ve shown me so far. Just keep on trucking and I’m sure you’ll make it.

If those examples really don’t fit your context, and you think you heard keep on tracking after all, then it is possible that someone is creating their own playful English expression with the verb to track. For example, I found an article titled keep on tracking about a the remote water quality monitoring system being used by a water company. In the time of the coronavirus and discussions about contact tracking and tracing, it’s possible that more users of English are using this phrase in a similar way.

It’s also possible that a user of English is having fun playing with the phrasal verb to keep track (of something).

In any case, I want to congratulate you, learner of English, for taking the time to look up the meaning of a phrase that you weren’t sure about. I hope you found this explanation helpful!