200 Idioms PDF

(3) 200 Best American Idioms - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAUvvCuMBkA Transcript: (00:00) Buckle in has anyone ever told you to Buckle in maybe you were inside of a car but if someone tells you to Buckle in and you're not in a car they're not talking about your seat Bel they're telling you to get prepared to do something that's very difficult or challenging when I took biology in college at the beginning of the semester my professor told me to Buckle in and I had to study so much for that class it was so difficult so he was telling me to prepare for a difficult semester of a course when someone keeps just talking (00:35) and talking and talking and you want them to get to the point the main point that you need to know you might want to say cut to the chase now this idiom means get to the main point stop rambling but you got to be careful with this idiom because it can be a little bit blunt and rude especially if someone you know cares a lot about what they're talking about but you just want them to get to the point you just have to say cut to the chase now when you want to say that someone has thought of all the details of something and they haven't (01:10) forgotten anything you can say that they thought of the whole nine yards now this is a very strange phrase because in United States we usually use measurements of 10 but I guess in this phrase we're saying the whole nine yards and pretty much all native speakers would know what you're talking about when you use this phrase people in the United States go all out planning weddings sometimes so they think of where they want to have the wedding what it will look like what food they'll serve the guest what desserts they'll be (01:42) the whole nine yards this just means they think of all the details speaking of weddings they can really cost an arm and a leg now this is a very old classic idiom but it's still very common to use today if you say that something costs an arm and a leg it means it's very very expensive a wedding can cost an arm and a leg now I'm an English teacher but if you ask me do British people say this phrase a lot I will tell you you are barking up the wrong tree this phrase to bark up the wrong tree it means that (02:20) you're pursuing the wrong thing you have made a mistake in thinking that I would know what British people commonly say but I've never been to the UK I've only met a handful of British people in real life in the United States of course I've seen many online but I would not know what they say so you're just barking up the wrong tree so when you make a mistake when you inquire with the wrong person about something you might be barking up the wrong tree and of course I think this idiom comes from the idea (02:53) that dogs love to taste squirrels up trees and if they're looking at the wrong tree and the squirrel's not there there they're they're barking up their wrong tree they're trying the wrong thing the most common idiom to say that someone is sick in English is to say that they are feeling under the weather or you can simply just say Kayla is under the weather today that means that she's sick and yes I'm talking about myself in third person here there are of course other idioms to say that someone (03:23) is sick but this is the main one that I want you to remember and it's a very kind way to say that someone sick without giving too many details and typically we only use this phrase if someone is just going to be sick for one or two days they just have a small flu or a small cold now if someone is very sick maybe they have cancer or another disease you would not use this idiom under the weather you would just say you know they have a disease or they have an illness if you want to say that something is very common and easy to (03:57) come by you can describe it as a dime a dozen I think of this idiom describing cards so people collect baseball cards football cards and Pokemon cards there's all sorts of cards that people collect and the idea to collecting these cards is you buy a pack and you open it and you hope to get some rare card but typically you just get the common cards that are a dime azen so this is the idea that you could just buy you know these cards a dozen of them 12 for a dime which is very inexpensive so if you want to say that something is (04:35) just generally very common very cheap very easy to find you can say it's a dime a dozen now this idiom is very commonly heard in the United States especially on television shows and in movies but I don't personally say it a lot so you should know what it is cuz you'll hear it frequently the idiom is cat got your tongue if you want to question why someone is being silent or maybe you think that they don't have a response cuz they're feeling sort of guilty you can say cat got your tongue and this is a very sassy way of saying (05:08) like why aren't you speaking do you feel guilty do you feel bad so I think this is why you'll hear this on a lot of television shows and movies cuz people are being very dramatic in these situations if you need to say that there has to be two people involved to either solve a problem or cause a problem you can say it takes two to Tango and the Tango of course is a very popular dance that takes two people to do and we use this idiom to say you know it takes two people to do something so I have two children and if they are doing something (05:44) and they're kind of getting in trouble maybe one says it wasn't me I'll say takes two to tango this means that it takes two of you to get in trouble together you are both guilty so you could also say this to someone if you need their help if you need the assistance of another person you could say well takes two to tango get over here and help me it's kind of a funny phrase and it's used definitely more casually if you are very tough and you like working out and exercising in the gym I think that you'll like this next (06:13) idiom or very common phrase the phrase is no pain no gain so quite literally when you're exercising you know of course you're going to be sore after exercising very hard maybe you lifted really heavy weights and your muscles need few days to recover if you're sore and you have pain you're probably going to gain a lot of muscle now this idiom can also be used in situations where it just takes really hard work to do something like maybe you are taking a long time to finish a paper for school you're working very hard it's kind of (06:49) unpleasant but no pain no gain so that means if you don't work hard and make sacrifices you're not going to have gains or you know successes when you want to say that someone needs to confront a fear by doing something that they're scared of you should tell them to take the bowl by the horns now this is the idea that quite literally if if you're afraid of a bulll they have horns on their head and you know you could grab them and try to ride the bowl but this is obviously used very figuratively very (07:25) idiomatically let's say you're afraid of public speaking but you sign up for a speech class you are really taking the bowl by the horns you're facing your fears this next phrase is so common I use it all of the time when you're talking about someone and they enter the room and you were not expecting them to come into the room and you want to say you know I was just talking about you it's more common to say speak of the devil now you might see this as kind of rude but it's just so common here to say (07:56) speak of the devil and I think the full phrase is speak of the devil and they will appear so you're you're talking about this person and they come into the room unexpectedly you can use this phrase if you want to say that something is impossible to believe without actually seeing it for yourself you can say the phrase seeing is believing so I had a friend that had never been to New York City and they said I don't think it would be that great to ride the subway each day like I don't think it would (08:25) work very well I could say to them well seeing is believing once you see it you'll believe it because the public transportation in New York City is much better than anywhere else in the United States so if you go see it for yourself you'll understand what people are talking about instead of just telling someone to give up on something you can say that they should just throw in the towel so in fighting if the fighter is getting you know too weak and you can tell that they should not be fighting anymore your team or your coach will (08:55) throw a white towel that means you guys give up or Surrender so this phrase comes from that idea if you give up on something you can say well I'm just going to throw in the towel when I was a kid I really hated playing basketball at first my first few seasons I was really terrible I didn't find it fun and I just said I want to just throw in the towel but my mom went let me quit in the middle of the season so I couldn't just throw in the towel I had to keep going but I actually ended up really liking (09:22) basketball and I played basketball for many more years after that so I'm glad that she didn't just let me throw in the towel if someone is being very stubborn and not changing their stance on something or they won't change their idea very easily then you can say that they really are putting their foot down about something when my kids watch TV I'll say okay after one episode we're turning the TV off and I'm putting my foot down about that that means I'm going to be very firm very stubborn (09:52) about it there's no more asking hey can we watch one more episode because I think too much TV turns my children into to I don't know just kind of crazy kids so I put my foot down about that I'm very strict about it so in the United States the Kansas City Chiefs just won the Super Bowl now when a sports team here gets really good they get really popular and a lot of people start to become fans or they jump on the bandwagon this just means that when something becomes popular then you become a fan of it and typically when (10:25) someone in the United States is a fan of a team only because they're doing well we call them a bandwagon fan that means they're not a true fan they weren't a fan of the team when they were doing bad only when they're doing good and you can use this idiom to jump on the bandwagon when talking about other popular Things Not Just Sports if you're giving a presentation or a speech and something is happening in the crowd but you just ignore it and you keep going you could say that you didn't miss a beat during (10:57) your speech or during your presentation we say this to someone when they just continue on without being distracted by something so typically we use this idiom to give a compliment like even though there was a distraction you didn't miss a beat you just kept going one of my favorite ways to say that you're going to change your direction or you're going to change your approach to something when you're having a problem is to say wow you really flipped the script so let's say you are a teacher and you have (11:25) a student in your class that is failing the class they're doing really terrible and suddenly they start studying they start showing up to class asking a lot of questions you could say to that student well you really flip the script your grade is turning around and you're really trying now so this idiom to flip the script it means to just change your approach change your direction or even just changing your attitude when you talk to people who are Engineers they are very smart they're very passionate (11:56) about what they're doing but sometimes when you talk to them they can really just get into the Weeds on the topic and if you're not knowledgeable about their type of engineering let's say they're a computer engineer well you're not going to know what they're talking about and you're going to say all right you're getting a little bit into the weeds this means you're talking about really small technical details and I don't need to know all that because I don't understand (12:20) it so if you want to tell someone just to keep the conversation very general or you know very understandable for you you can say hey we don't need to get into the weeds here if if you are romantically interested in someone we usually say that's your crush and you're finally going to ask them out on a date or tell them that you like them you could say you're finally going to make a move so this idiom is used you know for love and dating but you can also just use it whenever you're going to finally (12:49) do something some take some big action on something that you've been waiting to do you're finally going to make a move instead of telling someone to keep something in mind which is also kind of an idiom a lot of people will say bear in mind this is one of my husband's favorite phrases he uses it all of the time so I have to teach it to you if you want to tell someone a story but you also need them to remember a detail for the story to make sense you'll use this phrase let me show you yesterday I took my kids outside to play (13:22) in the snow bear in mind it was freezing cold so I didn't stay out there for very long so instead instead of just telling you a story about playing with my kids outside the snow I need you to bear in mind or remember that it was very cold because it was pretty unpleasant to be outside even though my kids did not care they were having so much fun when you first learn English of course you'll just learn basic sentences basic verbs basic nouns basic greetings but down the road you'll need to know a ton of new (13:54) idioms and advanced phrases so this phrase down the road it means that later in the future it's very common to say hey down the road you'll need to do this that means in the future you'll need to do this and it's kind of like thinking about like driving your future is down the road before we had iPhones of course we only had just regular phones and some people just had a home phone but once we had iPhones it was a total Game Changer to our entire life so this phrase a game Cher it's used should describe something that (14:30) either really positively impacts things or you know it kind of throws a big challenge for things it's some detail that either changes things for the good or for the bad in the case of iPhones You could argue that it was a positive GameChanger because now we can communicate so easily but you could also say it's a negative GameChanger because people spend too much time on their smartphones so use this phrase Game Changer it's a really good one one thing that I say to myself when I feel stressed out when I feel you know just (15:00) kind of sad or angry but I need to just focus on what I'm doing I say Get It Together get it together Kayla this means just you know calm yourself down relax you need to do some work you need to get things done so you need to be careful using this phrase with other people you know because people can be very fragile in their emotions and you need to of course be like are you okay but when someone needs to just focus get their work done even though they're sad or stressed out you could say Hey you need to get it together this means you (15:31) know figure out your emotions try to calm down if you want to say that something happened quicker than you expected or it happened you know very fast you could say before you knew it or before you know it so I always thought it would take so long to become a teacher but before you knew it I had my own classroom and I had my own students and then before I knew it I was an online English teacher so life just moves really fast it means that even though things can feel like a long time you know the time passes quickly and (16:02) before you know it you're old it's really important when you're making a deal with someone especially if the deal seems really good for you to ask what's the catch or you could say there has to be a catch so in this case when we say there's a catch it means there's something that's unexpected that will actually make the deal very difficult or very bad for you and it's usually something that's very hidden so sometimes in in the United States you'll see very good deals advertised for brand (16:35) new cars but the catch is that you're going to have to pay a lot of interest on your car payments so the car is actually going to cost a lot more than you expect there's always a catch when a deal seems too good that means there's always something hidden that you will have to do that makes it challenging my favorite idiom to say that two people or two things go along very well together is to say they're like two peas in a pod and this is typically used just for people if you think that you know your (17:06) friends who are boyfriend and girlfriend just they work very well together they're good friends they're good in their relationship you could say you two are just two peas in a pod it's just a very cute phrase that means you go along together very well one thing that's really common on American television is Home Remodeling so they take somebody's house or a room in their house that's pretty ug ugly pretty basic and they actually transform it into a beautiful new room now they show the new room to (17:37) the person who owns the house and the person always says oh I can't believe my eyes or you know they're just saying I cannot believe it because it's so great and also you could use this phrase if something was really bad I can't believe my eyes how bad it is if you want to say this phrase to someone else you'll say can you believe your eyes that means it's either really good or really bad of course there's a lot of context to this phrase that's needed but it's very common to say when something is you know (18:06) astonishing you can't believe it the next two phrases are very common to say that you have two difficult choices and you don't even really want to choose between the two but you have to choose so the first phrase is to say I'm between a rock and a hard place and the second phrase is I have to choose between two evils these are both very common phrases to use when you have to make a choice but you don't really want to choose either option so maybe your mother and your girlfriend both want to spend time with you and if you say no to (18:39) your mom you're going to disappoint your girlfriend and if you say no to your girlfriend you're going to disappoint your mom so you could say I'm between a rock and a hard place now you wouldn't really say I have to choose between two evils because in this case you know both choices are okay but you're just going to disappoint someone if you have two bad choices that you know are going to have bad implications for people you have to say I have to choose between two evils when you want to say that someone (19:06) is telling a story but not giving you a lot of detail you can say wow you're leaving a lot to the imagination here this means you're not giving enough detail and I'm just imagining a lot of crazy things now if someone is giving you too much detail you can either say that's T Mi I or too much information or you could say that's not leaving much to the imagination here so it just means that you're giving way too much personal information about the situation so a lot of times when people (19:36) are telling really long stories instead of saying you know the ending they'll just say well and the rest is history this means that you can kind of guess what's going to happen in the story because you know it's so well known for instance in Cinderella you know the prince and Cinderella get married and the rest is history that means they just went on to live happy lives I'm not going to tell you the rest of their lives because that would be a long and just boring story so you hear this at the end of stories or the end of movies (20:05) in the United States the rest is history that means you can pretty much guess what happened so in the United States there was actually a show for a while about an Asian American family they had immigrated to the United States and the show was called Fresh Off The Boat now I feel like this could be pretty insulting to say to someone like oh you're fresh off the boat but I've heard people who have immigrated to unit States say this in a joking manner like oh I was fresh off the boat this just means I had just (20:35) come to United States or come to wherever and I hadn't acclimated yet I hadn't gotten used to everything yet I hadn't learned the language and of course this phrase is not so literal people are not actually coming to the United States on boats very frequently anymore most people fly but it's just kind of a funny joking phrase that's used to say I came here and I was not used to everything yet I was very fresh fresh off the boat if you want to tell someone that something is impossible and (21:03) not worth doing you can say don't even bother it just means that something is just going to be too challenging or not worth the effort so if you think that you need to learn every single word in the English language don't even bother because there's always going to be new words and there's so many words that even native speakers don't know so don't even bother when you have a to-do list for the day you probably want to just finish it quick and knock it out when you say that you know you knocked out a (21:32) task that means you just finish it quickly and got it done so usually in the morning I knock out getting my bed made I knock out unloading the dishwasher I try to knock out the annoying things that I don't want to do later so often times in the United States businesses will say how did you hear about us how did you hear to come to our store or how did you hear about our service and you know they'll say did you hear about us on a commercial did you hear about us on social media you could say no just Word of Mouth this (22:03) means that maybe you heard someone talking about them or a friend told you about the store or about the service so the phrase Word of Mouth means you didn't hear it anywhere officially or written just someone told you this phrase can be kind of confusing when you hear it for the first time when someone says it's go time it just means it's time to start let's get ready let's be motivated it's go time and this phrase is especially used in movies you know when you know at the end they have a big (22:30) plan maybe they're going to do something or rescue someone and everybody's ready they'll say okay it's go time let's go when you ask someone a question and you know they know the answer and you want to ask them a follow-up question it's kind of like you know you're testing their knowledge it might not be an official test it might not be a teacher saying this we say oh do you know this too bonus points if you can answer this question bonus points just means like you don't have to know this but it would (22:56) be cool if you did it's really common thing to say you know it's common in actual game shows and actual trivia competitions but we also just say it in our normal everyday conversations bonus points if you know where that was made you know it's just kind of saying this is a fun fact it's not absolutely necessary to know a funny phrase that I hear quite commonly is to say that someone had White Knuckles so if someone is afraid especially if they're on a roller coaster or if they're in a fast (23:26) car they might be gripping onto their seat or gripping on to their chair and they might be white knuckling so we use this as a verb it just means they're holding on very tight because they are afraid that they're going to fly off or crash in the car one thing that I really take pride in my life is a clean house I always try to have everything clean and tidy so that you know it just doesn't feel cluttered or disorganized but it's a lot of work cleaning your own house and keeping it clean so sometimes I have (23:54) to swallow my pride and I have to ask for help around the house you know I ask my kids to pick up after themselves I as my husband to help me with certain tasks I feel like it's my pride but you know I have to ask for help cuz I can't do it all myself and I feel like this phrase to swallow your pride is very common and you should also be very aware of what it means when you're learning a language sometimes you feel like I don't want to ask what this means but you have to swallow your pride and ask so that you (24:23) can learn the phrase or learn the new word and you can understand what's being said but can be kind of embarrassing or hard to ask for help sometimes but it's important just to swallow your pride you know say it's okay if I don't know and ask for help when a situation is starting to become chaotic you can say it's going off the rails think of this as a train that you know is about to just break it goes off the rails it's called derailing but if you want to just talk about a situation in life that's (24:55) starting to get chaotic or crazy you could say this is going off the rails when someone asks you a question like could I use your pen in English you can respond politely by saying yes or of course or certainly or you can use this next idiom you could say by all means this idiom is just used to give someone permission in a very polite way by all means yes of course so it's not you know it's not necessary to always say this phrase but it's just polite and you'll hear it commonly to say of course yes (25:30) you can do it you have permission there are two types of people in this world in my opinion there are those that when they travel they bring everything except for the kitchen sink and there are those that travel light so these are both idioms but the idiom that I'm going to teach you is to travel light when someone travels light it means they only bring essential things they don't pack too many clothes or they don't pack unnecessary things so people who travel light they often only have one backpack (26:02) to hold when they go on an airplane but people who bring everything on a trip they probably have a really big suitcase a backpack a purse a lot of different things so I personally try to travel light but it isn't always easy this next phrase is used pretty sarcastically in English so if you want to tell someone that they're thinking too highly of another person you can say it's like you worship the ground that they walk F so you're saying you know this person isn't that great you're like worshiping you're (26:35) you're thinking they're like a God and of course this phrase is not literal it's just an idiom but it's used to say you know you think highly of someone or if you're a big fan of let's say Lady Gaga you could say I worship the ground that Lady Gaga walks on and of course this is a very dramatic way to use the phrase but you get the idea in the United States there is an actual Baseball Hall of Fame it's a place place you can go in Cooper town and you can go and see pictures of really great (27:04) baseball players and all sorts of artifacts like baseball bats and baseballs it's called the Hall of Fame it's used to display the best players in the sport so this phrase is used in other situations besides literal Halls of Fame it's used just say that something is really good or it's the best another phrase that's really great to use when you want to describe something that is excellent or it's the best is to say it's world class so in the United States Chicago is known as a worldclass city they have some of the (27:39) best restaurants they have some of the best museums and they have some of the best sports teams so it's known as a world class City in a lot of different countries you know you might say we have world class whatever it is a certain type of food a certain type of dessert or a certain type of University whatever ever it may be the last few idioms in this English lesson are kind of gambling cards money related the first one is to hit the jackpot if you say that you hit the jackpot it means that something very (28:11) lucky happened to you something very big happened to you as well you know if you married someone very good you could say I really hit the jackpot with my wife or with my husband if you want to say that someone is risking everything for something you can say they bet the house this phrase means you use all your money to bet on something because you're pretty sure it's going to happen a similar phrase is to say I'm going to bank on it and I use this phrase all the time if you are going to go outside all (28:42) day you can say I am banking on it being very nice weather today that means you're pretty sure it's not going to rain it's not going to be cloudy you're banking on nice weather you're very sure it's going to happen and you're relying on it and if you want to say that something is going to probably happen you can say I think it's in the cards now in the opposite way you can say this is not in the cards for today so if someone says hey do you think that we can go out to dinner tonight you could (29:11) say I'm really tired I just don't think it's in the cards for me today that means it's probably not going to happen so you may have learned the word strong or durable when you were learning English but often times native English speakers will use this next phrase having heavy duty this is H this is heavy duty doc this is great now let's say you got yourself a new pair of boots you could say these boots are very durable you could say that you will often hear native English speakers using that word durable it's quite formal what (29:46) you'll hear instead is I got a new pair of heavyduty boots so you could say the boots are heavy duty or you can just use it as an adjective heavy duty boots or you could say I got a heavy Duty jacket or you could say wow that is a really heavy duty pair of pants maybe it's a pair of pants that's very thick that you know will protect you if you are working at a construction site or if you're going to a very cold environment when you get things that are meant to be very durable which means they can withstand (30:19) really harsh conditions like ice snow they can withstand wind or they could withstand you know a child trying to break it you can describe it as heavy duty if you buy something that's very cheap and you think it might break pretty easily you could say be careful it's not very heavy duty which means it could break easily a really formal word in English is acceptable which you will hear from time to time which means occasionally but native English speakers will often just say Ah that's good enough good enough and you may have (30:55) wondered you know what exactly does that mean why are we saying that so much if someone says something is good enough it doesn't mean it's actually really good it doesn't mean it's bad but it just means it's acceptable it will pass maybe if you are ever in college or university and the teacher says you know can anyone tell me the answer to this question and you raise your hand you say yeah here's the answer the teacher will say yeah that's a good enough answer but I will explain it a bit more meaning your (31:25) answer was correct it's acceptable but I I'll go beyond what you just said to give a more thorough explanation you can describe the quality of something as good enough I got a car and it's good enough to get me from what we say point A to point B which means two locations there's another bonus phrase for you if you want to say two locations you can say point a and point B so if your car is just good enough it means it's not a Ferrari it's not a Corvette it might not even be a brand new car but it's (32:00) reliable it can get you to where you need to go it's good enough hopefully when you were about to get married if you're married you were not thinking about if it was the right decision even after you committed to getting married in English we have a phrase for this we can say hopefully you are not having second thoughts any second thoughts so if someone has second thoughts about something they're reconsidering their decision now nowadays it seems like everyone likes to make videos to post on YouTube Tik Tok Instagram just any sort (32:35) of social media and a lot of people post videos in order to make money like a business some people do it just for fun so the phrase is Just For Fun For Fun For Fun which means it's not serious it's not official you're doing it not to win something just literally to have fun so maybe your friend says hey do you want to play poker which is a card game usually gambling involved and you say no I don't really have any money your friend might say well we could just play for fun this means we're not playing for (33:13) money it's not official we are just playing to have a game to have fun instead of just saying that something is of high quality Americans will often say something is topnotch which means high quality the the best topnotch maybe you've been to a really really good restaurant that is famous for its food you could describe that restaurant as topnotch or you can just give a compliment to someone trying to say you know you kind of make the best food your food is topnotch or my teacher is topnotch you can describe a lot of different things (33:50) as topnotch if you want to say it is the best or the best quality if you want to say that something is more relaxed it's not trying to have a lot of attention or be flashy you can describe it using the slang phrase in English as low key it's very lowkey we're having a party on Friday night but it's not going to be a big deal it's going to be pretty low key when I got married I had a party after but it wasn't like a huge expensive wedding it was very lowkey you can just say you're a lowkey person in (34:26) general which means you're relaxed you'll here American English speakers use this phrase all the time something is lowkey it just means it's relaxed you know you don't have to worry about dressing up or anything if something is lowkey a really good phrase that means that something is super unusual entric if you know what that word is or just not really the way that people usually do things is you can describe it as off-the-wall sometimes this phrase can also be used not to just say that something is kind of strange (34:57) but you know it's kind of bad if you're talking about a coworker you know maybe they had an idea in the meeting and the idea was really bad you're not really sure why they said it you could say that idea was just really off the- wall just means it didn't make sense I don't know why they said it Off the Wall now almost the exact opposite of calling something off thewall is to say that something is very run-of the- Mill run-of the-mill average worker so the phrase is run of the mill it means that something is conventional (35:31) or ordinary or if someone does something that's very run-of-the-mill it means they do it the way that it's always been done so this phrase again I'll break it apart run of the mill it's fun to say very quickly and I feel like that's how Americans typically use it in a conversation they say well that's really rof the- Mill maybe you went to a movie and you thought it was just an ordinary Roman it's a comedy movie you could say well the script or the story to that movie was pretty run-of-the- mill meaning (36:05) ordinary average traditional often times instead of just saying something is expensive in English you'll hear people say it's high-end high-end does basically mean that something is expensive but it can also mean luxurious as well for instance if you were going to rent apartments in the United States you can get just a normal apartment or you can get a very highend apartment which means it's expensive rent it's very nice building maybe you're by some really expensive shopping stores and things like that so we use this phrase (36:40) highend because I feel like Americans don't necessarily like to say it's expensive and brag they'll say oh it's it's very high-end which means the same as expensive but without saying you know it's worth a lot of money if you've ever seen someone react to something in a very exaggerated or dramatic way you can describe their reaction in English as overthe toop little over the top guys sometimes when people are going to propose in the United States you know maybe the man is going to say will you (37:12) marry me sometimes the woman really knows that he is going to propose it's not a surprise but they like to have an overthe toop reaction maybe they're crying and they're saying I can't believe it I didn't know this is such a surprise they're acting very Over the Top This Means just super dramatic and it's generally a negative thing to say that someone was being over the top about something they can also be you know too upset about something more upset than the situation actually calls (37:42) for or you know more excited or they can have a bigger reaction just to be dramatic and gain a lot of attention so if you're describing someone's actions or reactions as over the top you're just saying it's too much and insult salting phrase in English to use is to call someone a dead beat you big dead beat often times if there is a dad that doesn't take care of their children they're not involved in the child's life or they're not providing money for the child people will say as an insult they (38:13) are a deadbeat dad this is extremely insulting and just in general if someone is not working and they are able to work and you think they're being lazy and unproductive you could call them a dead beat or you might hear someone call someone else a dead beat be really careful with this phrase it is super insulting it's a very bad thing to call someone a dead be but sometimes the situation warns it and you need to know what it means a really nice phrase to compliment someone is to say that they are Next Level this is (38:50) next level so maybe you work with someone and every time they give a presentation their presentation skills are great their slide deck is really really professional they take questions from everyone in the room and have really good answers you could say your speaking skills or your presentation skills are Next Level this is just a way to compliment them saying like better than anyone else you're on the next level of your skills or if you have a food that is extremely delicious you could use this phrase as well you could say h that (39:26) cookie is next level your cooking is next level this movie was Next Level it's just saying something was really extremely good another really common way that we say that something is very relaxed in the United States is we can say it is laid back so just to casually tell someone hey like we're having a party next week it's going to be really laidback or we're just going to hang out later nothing too official we're going to be laidback this just means nice and relaxed nothing formal if you want to (39:57) describe someone who never really gets stressed out you know they're always pretty Pleasant and relaxed to be around you can say they're a really laidback person one phrase that I really like to use to say that something is strong solid and reliable is to say it's rock solid our marriage is Rock Solid we often say if we have a really good friendship with someone that their friendship with them is Rock Solid you they're a rock solid friend it just means are very reliable they never lie they never do things to hurt you they're (40:32) a great friend if you describe them as Rock Solid you can also just describe something that's very strong physically like could say this table will never break it is Rock Solid even if it's made of wood it's not made of rock you're just using this as an adjective to say Strong Rock Solid if you want to say that you are very excited about something you can say you are hyped for it a lot of times people are hiked to go to a Taylor Swift concert they're so excited it's going to be the Best (41:05) Concert of their entire lives the atmosphere is completely hyped this just means enthusiastic and very excited you can think of hyped as almost a abbreviated word for hyper again this is a very slang phrase you could say oh I'm really hyped for Christmas this means you're very excited for it you're awaiting the event if you want to say that someone is lacking decisive decisions you know they're always kind of changing their mind they can't decide on something you could describe them as wishy-washy I hate that it's so (41:41) wishy-washy you might say h my boss is so wishy-washy they can never decide on exactly how they want something done or you could even describe weather as wishy-washy it's cloudy outside but it hasn't really rained yet so so I'm not really sure what the weather is going to be like today it's wishy-washy it's generally pretty negative to call someone wishy-washy you know you're saying they can't make up their mind they can't make a clear decision to help you out a lot of my English Learners ask (42:14) me what this next phrase means when we describe something as cheesy we're generally saying it's tacky and over sentimental for instance you might post a picture of you and your husband or you and your wife on your Facebook or wherever it might be on social media and you might say oh I love this person so much they mean so much to me sorry for this cheesy post this just means like you're sharing way too many feelings for social media now cheesy can also mean you know it's kind of bad it doesn't (42:49) seem sincere but we can also use cheesy in this way that just says it's too emotional I like cheesy movies I like the notebook for instance I think it's good to have a release of motions while watching movies sometimes so cheesy this next word is a little bit outdated but you definitely will still hear it used from time to time and you can even try it out as well I wouldn't say it's so outdated where you can't use it the word is spiffy ooh very spiffy that's a lovely dress if you want to say that (43:22) someone looks spiffy it means they are neatly dressed and they look really nice you might say look at these spiffy new shoes I just got this means you think your shoes are new they're clean and you think that they're stylish so it's a compliment to use this word spiffy I definitely feel like I hear British speakers say this word all the time but you could use it in American English as well the word is Bonkers it's going to be Bonkers if you said that the crowd went Bonkers after your favorite soccer team scor (43:58) it means everyone went crazy and Loud Bonkers is just a slang word for crazy H you drive me bonkers this means you drive me crazy it's a negative phrase like you're very annoying but again I feel like British speakers use this a bit more than Americans but you'll hear it in both English speaking conversations when I was younger this word was definitely more popular but people my age will still say this all the time you can say that something is legit so legit is slang for legitimate but we use it in a bit of a different (44:31) way when we say Ah that's legit It generally means that something is very good and authentic the food at that restaurant was legit this means that it was very good it was legitimately food no it means it was very good food so usually in English when someone says that is so legit it means it's very good it's a slang word and it's generally not used by much younger people anymore more people my age and older edgy when you describe something as edgy it means it's very bold and unconventional often (45:05) pushing the boundaries of what's okay what's acceptable and what's appropriate the most common way we describe someone or something as edgy is artwork so you know maybe an artist is trying to make people talk about their artwork so they'll make something very edgy that almost seems kind of inappropriate even though it's technically maybe not but it's on the edge of being inappropriate or what people find to not be okay edgy here's another adjective that's a bit dated but again that I use this word (45:41) once in a while and you'll hear it on American television movies you'll hear older people use it for sure the word is snazzy pretty snazzy he if something is stylish or fancy we can say o those look snazzy so again you could say those shoes are snazzy that car that you just bought is really snazzy it just means it's very stylish this next term is definitely very negative to describe someone else so be careful with it but you need to know what it means if you describe someone as flaky it means they (46:12) are unreliable although hopefully not flaky everyone has a flaky friend I swear I don't know why it's just the way the world works the flaky friend that you have will be the type of person that says you know they can help you move one weekend but then an hour before they're supposed to come and help they call and say oh I'm sorry uh I forgot my dog had a veterinarian appointment or oh I'm sorry my car is not working and maybe their excuse is legitimate maybe it's a real excuse but often times they just (46:46) don't actually help when the time comes or maybe they'll cancel on you a lot when you're supposed to hang out so that's what we describe as someone who is flaky it's important that you know what it means when someone says that something or someone is trashy in English wow that was trashy so you can say that something is trashy when it's low quality or inappropriate or you know just kind of bad in general if you describe a person as trashy maybe they burp a lot and they don't say excuse me or maybe they uh (47:21) just dress with clothes that are super dirty or saying something inappropriate that's the way that we use trashy in English or if you are at a store and you describe a piece of clothing as trashy you mean that it looks cheap it doesn't look very good at all quite the opposite of saying that something is trashy is to say that something is bougie bougie is an absolute English slang word it's very fun to get to use if you're saying something as bougie you can mean that it's pretentious or it's very high in (47:55) class very fancy if if a restaurant has white tablecloths candles you know the waiter and waitresses are dressed up very nicely the food is very expensive you could say that restaurant is so bougie or if your friend buys a very expensive purse you could say wow that is a bougie purse you're just implying that it's very high class and fancy have you ever heard in English someone say that a person is floated this means that the person is very wealthy and Rich and usually we use this in extreme cases for (48:33) instance Warren Buffett is loaded that means he has a ton of money if you drive a Ferrari you must be loaded or you have a lot of dead if you want to say that someone is being super dishonest and you can't really trust them you can describe them as Shady that shady a lot of times when you're looking for jobs you'll just apply to anything that looks somewhat appealing and once in a while someone will call you back and they'll claim you know they have this job for you that seems too good to be true and you're thinking this seems a (49:08) little bit Shady it means that it doesn't seem like a real job it doesn't seem like the person's being honest maybe they want you to sell a product that's not a very good product that would be a super Shady job if you describe a person as Shady it means they are untrustworthy this next word in English English can be perceived as being a little bit inappropriate so be super careful how you use it if you describe someone's actions as being ballsy it means they are very bold and courageous again be careful when using this word (49:43) it's definitely sling it's definitely a bit inappropriate to say that someone or something was very ballsy for instance if you have a coworker and they say to your boss I think your plan seems like it really isn't going to work it does not seem like a good plan at all you could say wow that was really baly to tell him that meaning they were being very bold and courageous by standing up to your boss and saying their plan wasn't good yes she's she's emotional but but ballsy if you would like to learn a (50:13) slang word that means that something is a bit risky you can say that a situation is dicey marriage is a dicey thing at best now we think of dice as being associated with games and often when you play games like card games or casino games you're gambling you're rolling the dice to see if you can get the correct number so think of this and think about you're risking your money if you're risking something in a situation you can say a situation is dicey maybe you're traveling and you're unsure if you're (50:47) going to be able to make a connecting flight a connecting flight is when you fly to one city stop in order to fly to your final destination you have two different airplane rides if you're not sure if you're going to be able to run to your flight and connect to your flight you can say h it's a little bit dicey if we're going to make it on the airplane in time this just means it's risky it's uncertain so nowadays young teenagers or just you know young adults they're always talking about the chat so when (51:21) someone is streaming online they're going live usually there is a public chat that people start talking in now one thing that more adults have been saying is blank has entered the chat no sooner had Rick 9 plus entered the chat room so maybe after a long week you can say oh relaxation has finally entered the chat when you're using this phrase you're just saying something has finally arrived unexpectedly or after a long time maybe your friend is saying oh I'm on a really strict diet I'm eating very (51:56) healthy right now but you just bought them some ice cream you'll say well ice cream has entered the chat this means even though they weren't expecting to eat a treat you unexpectedly brought them this surprise ice cream this is definitely a really fun phrase that you'll hear especially on the internet if you're watching videos or social media posts this next phrase has been around for pretty long time and I've been saying it for a long time but I've noticed recently that it has increased (52:27) in its popularity and its uses and people are even using it in more and more different ways so when you say that something has popped off once you finally pop off it means that it's done really well so nowadays I'll hear younger people say my outfit really popped off last night this means that everybody complimented the clothes that they were wearing you know they felt really good they felt like they looked really good this is a newer use of the word I typically use this word when something is scoring a lot of points for (53:00) instance if I'm watching a sporting event and my favorite team scores a lot I'll say wow my team really popped off in this game or if one player in particular scored a lot of goals I'll say well they really popped off you could even use this in a business or financial sense you could say you know our sales numbers have really popped off this quarter it's kind of slang but it's so common that even older people will understand this phrase and maybe even will use this phrase as well if you want (53:32) to say that something has done really well you can say a popped off now I promised you 10 phrases in this video that English Learners will typically not know even if they're very Advanced and this next phrase is not slang but it is one of those that's really tricky for English Learners to use so we're going to master it right now together the phrase is by and large now these three words grammatically don't make a lot of sense together but as the phrase native English speakers know exactly what you mean when you say (54:08) something by and large when we're trying to say the majority or generally or typically we use this phrase so by and large people like Sunny warm weather this means the majority of people like this type of weather if you're trying to make a point or an argument and this phrase can be really useful to say something is in general more popular or more liked maybe your friend is trying to argue that the best sport in the world is cricket and you think the best sport in the world is soccer you can say by and large more people in the world (54:44) play soccer and this is just making a generalization or you're saying it's more popular more liked again we can use this phrase as saying the majority so by and large are day was really successful we just had a few minor setbacks so you're saying the majority of the day by and large the day was successful and then you're saying except for a few setbacks so you wouldn't use this phrase to say your whole day was good but if you want to say the majority of the day was good and then say besides or but a (55:18) few setbacks this is how you use the phrase by and large if you are an avid xuser formerly known as Twitter you may may have seen someone tweet this phrase hard stop so a hard stop typically means we have a deadline a time that we have to stop and move on to the next thing or the next activity or you have an appointment and you have to stop at that time or you will be late so this is typically how the phrase is used and more traditionally how the phrase is used but nowadays again I see people on social media say an opinion and then say (55:52) hard stop so someone might say Coke is better than Pepsi hard stop this means that there's no argument please don't even respond it's a hard stop I don't want to hear anymore so this phrase will be really useful if you are on social media or if you're just in the business or workplace or have a meeting with someone and you have to stop this meeting at a certain time otherwise you will not be able to meet your other obligations or go to your next appointment you can say we have a hard stop at 12:30 and this just lets the (56:26) person know you know you have a limited amount of time and it's more polite than just interrupting at 12:30 and saying I have to go you're warning them in advance when you want to say that something was unsuccessful kind of a failure or it just really didn't meet the expectations we say it was a flop it was a total flop so this is definitely a slang phrase but again very common amongst younger people and older people often times when people are really excited about a new movie coming out you know maybe they're saying oh I'm excited (56:58) for the new Star Wars movie the new Transformers movie the new Avengers movie you know movies that people get really excited about if it is a disappointing movie when people actually see it they'll say it was a total flop so when I cook dinner for my family and I'll get excited about making something especially if I try out a new recipe and if it doesn't turn out very good it's a flop so if you want to say that something just didn't meet the expectations and it didn't work it was a flop did you know in English we have a (57:32) phrase to explain the amount of time that someone can focus on something maybe you've heard of this phrase before the phrase is attention span kids don't have any attention span so young children do not have a big attention span meaning they can only watch something or look at something for a few minutes before they get bored and move on to the next thing now in theory adults have a really long attention span we can sit down and read a book especially if it's an interesting book but some people say social media is (58:07) ruining our attention spans it's making us not be able to focus on things for a long time before we get bored because we can just pull out our phone and look at things scroll through apps and social media so you'll have to let me know in the comments has your attention span gotten shorter as you've watched watched more social media or do you think it doesn't actually affect your attention span let me know your opinion in the comments this next phrase is really useful I find myself using it a lot if (58:39) you want to say that you just remembered something because someone brought up the subject or they started talking about the thing and then it helped your brain remember something you can use the phrase now that you mention it now that you mention it someone might say I'm thinking about going to lunch and you might say now that you mention it I'm pretty hungry too this means you weren't thinking about your hunger it wasn't something that you know had your attention at the moment but now that the (59:07) person is talking about food and going to get lunch now that you mention it I am hungry too and this would be a way of telling the person you know I should get lunch with you maybe you're talking about a party or a wedding or something and you know there's so many people at the party maybe you didn't talk talk to everyone individually but you were at the party and the next day your friend says hey did you see Jenny at the party last night and you might say now that you mention it I saw her but I didn't (59:38) get to talk to her so this just means you know helps you remember that you actually saw her at the party or you could say oh now that you mention it she wasn't at the party you didn't notice last night because there was so many people but now that the person has brought it to your attention or mentioned it you remember she wasn't there and so you call your friend and you say hey why weren't you at the party last night now that you mention it this is a very useful phrase many people learning English just by watching (1:00:06) television listening to music and maybe even watching YouTube videos this goes to show just goes to show gentlemen that you don't need a fancy English class just to become proficient in English did you hear the phrase in this sentence here this goes to show so we use this phrase just to kind of summarize our words and just to make a point so this phrase can be really useful when you're speaking to other people you can often use this phrase when you learn a lesson from something maybe you had a friend (1:00:39) that got into a car accident but they were wearing their seat belt so they walked away from the car accident and they had no injuries you could say this goes to show that seat belts and safety is really important in the car so you're just making a point or drawing a conclusion using this phrase the other day I was listening to a story about someone who grew up being a migrant Farmer in the United States and they became an astronaut for NASA this goes to show that no matter what your situation is if you have hard work and (1:01:11) determination you can achieve any goal or dream so this you know is using an inspiring story you're saying this guy worked really hard this go and got to be an astronaut this goes to show so this is a lesson that you can work work hard to achieve your goals one really casual phrase that I hear people say a lot is can't win them all well you can't win them all so this is just you know when you have a myor setback or something that just doesn't work out instead of getting angry you just say you know this (1:01:44) is just a minor error minor setback can't win them all so it literally doesn't have to be a competition to use this phrase maybe you are at your work office and you go to the copy machine machine and it says that the paper is jammed and so you'll have to come back be when it's fixed you'll might say well can't win them all I guess I'll try again later this just means like this didn't work out I'm moving on to the next thing and I'm not going to get upset about it it's just a very casual (1:02:13) phrase that Americans use a lot just to say you know no big deal not a big deal I'm just going to try again next time maybe your child has a sports game and they lose and they're a little sad and you say well you can't win them all this is just a phrase meaning you know play the next game you're not going to win every single game in your life one time my friend went on a hike in Arizona if you don't know a lot about the State of Arizona it's very hot it's a desert and they went hiking up a mountain as a (1:02:44) tourist and they did not bring hiking boots and they did not bring water so they were in their tennis shoes with no water bottle in the desert and after the hike they said I don't know what I was thinking I don't know what I was thinking we use this phrase I don't know what I was thinking when someone does something that seems kind of stupid basically so obviously you wouldn't want to go hike up a mountain in a desert with no water bottle wearing poor Footwear or shoes so you may have just you know thought you (1:03:20) could do it it wouldn't be a big deal and you realize afterwards you regret this you know you should have been more prepared you don't know what you were thinking maybe you might hear someone talk about something very expensive they bought maybe they bought a brand new Corvette which is a very expensive car they might say I don't know what I was thinking this thing costs so much money and I don't even have time to drive it so they're just regretting a decision that they made that now they think is a (1:03:48) stupid decision with more information we use this phrase all the time just to say you know oh we should have thought about this I should have had more information I should have made a better decision maybe you see your friend at an event that you're going to and you might have thought to yourself oh we should have gone together you may say to your friend I don't know what I was thinking I should have called you and we could have driven to the event together so we can use this for very minor situations as (1:04:15) well the first phrase is very common amongst English Learners the phrase is no matter what when you want to say that you're very committed to an idea you're very very committed to doing something you're very committed to liking something or disliking something you can say that you will do it no matter what so I have seen the movie The Sound of Music so many times throughout my life maybe a hundred times I watch it a lot around the holidays it's always on television around the holidays so even (1:04:48) though I've seen it 100 times no matter what I will still always like that movie just cuz it's so classic and it's so heartwarming if you are very committed to waking up early in the morning you can say I will wake up at 700 a.m. no matter what nothing can stop you meaning even if you're really tired and you stayed up too late you are going to be very committed to waking up early if you are very committed to a goal or a dream that you have you can say I will graduate from college no matter what (1:05:21) this means that nothing can stop you from reaching your goal of graduating from college even if it's challenging even if you want to give up you will do it no matter what if you want to say that someone really knows what they're talking about they're very knowledgeable they've studied something for a long time you can say you really know what you're talking about now this is an informal compliment so don't use it in a super formal context but if you're impressed by someone's knowledge you can (1:05:50) use this phrase so opthamologists they really know what they're talking about when it comes to eyes opthalmologists that word in English it means an eye doctor someone who has studied the eye who does eye surgery who can help you with any sort of medical eye problem so of course they really know what they're talking about when it comes to eyes if you want to reassure someone that someone else is knowledgeable you can say they really know what they're talking about if you've ever had a friend talk about a movie or a TV show (1:06:21) that you haven't seen and they just talk about how good it is and you say yeah you've got me there I really need to see it this phrase you've got me there it means it has a very valid point and this phrase is used when they're saying something that you should do or they're saying you're kind of wrong on that you can say yeah you've got me there so if you use this phrase you're just admitting that they have a good point or a good idea or they're giving you good advice that you should do so your friend (1:06:53) might be saying you haven't seen Game of Thrones it's such a good show everybody watched it I can't believe that you missed it and you can say well you've got me there maybe I should watch it if you want to tell someone that they have good style meaning they dress really well or they make really good choices when it comes to music or food or style of their house you can use this phrase they have good taste someone's taste can mean you know what they're eating but it can also mean their pref references what they like (1:07:27) it's the same exact thing as saying their style a funny way to use this phrase is if you see someone in public and they're dressed in the same way as you or you guys happen to be wearing the same shirt or the same shoes you can say oh I like your shoes you have good tastes and they might laugh cuz they realize that you are matching or you have the same thing maybe you know someone who always has a good movie or always has a good television show or always has good music to recommend to you you can say I always ask you for (1:07:58) your recommendations because you have good taste or you have great taste this means that you like their opinions of music movies and television shows one phrase that's incredibly popular in television shows movies and especially in books is in the blink of an eye when you say in the blink of an eye it usually means that something changes from one thing to another in a really fast way or it just feels like it happened so fast so if you're not careful when you're walking near traffic in the blink of an eye you could get (1:08:35) very hurt of course you know you have to be careful when you're crossing the street and things and look up or if you're texting while driving in the blink of an eye you can get in an accident this means you should pay attention to the road because an accident can happen so fast if you look down at your phone while you're driving which you should never do of course you can also use use this phrase in a positive way so if something happened really fast that was good to you you could say in the blink of an eye I was (1:09:04) promoted to manager after working at my company for only a few months so even though a few months time wouldn't be considered a short amount of time normally it might feel short because you promoted so quickly to manager you'll hear this phrase a lot in the media so keep an eye out for it this next English phrase is very useful you can use it in kind of two ways here the first way you can use it you can say you are going to drop a bomb on someone and of course this is an idiomatic expression so there (1:09:35) is no literal bomb or explosive being dropped but your words that you are saying to someone are going to be so heavy or they're going to you know be very sad or very dramatic news that it's like dropping a bomb on someone one example that comes to mind is if you've ever tried travels internationally you have to make sure to bring your passport and maybe you're traveling with a group of friends and you get to the airport and you realize you forgot your passport and now you have to tell your friends (1:10:08) you might say well I'm sorry to drop a bomb on you guys but I forgot my passport so this would be terrible news because now the trip might be ruined you might not be able to go get your passport in time to make it to your airplane or your flight another way that you can use this phrase is you can say your Bo going to drop a truth bomb which means you're going to bring attention to a fact or some knowledge that everyone kind of knows but it's really devastating and everyone tries to ignore it but you're going to drop the truth (1:10:39) bomb you're going to tell everybody so for instance you could say I'm going to drop a truth bomb on you guys and tell you that global warming will affect our planet and ruin our planet if we don't start changing our habits so this is some devastating news it's some news that we kind of already know but you're dropping the truth bomb you're letting everybody know and you're telling everyone to change their habits the phrase along the lines is incredibly useful in casual spoken English you will hear native speakers (1:11:12) say it all of the time if you want to say that you have an idea or just a general idea of something that you want to do or something that you want to have you can use this phrase along the lines so someone might say what you going to make for dinner tonight and you can say well I was thinking something along the lines of like meat and vegetables this means you don't know the exact recipe you're going to use and maybe you'll do chicken maybe you'll do beef maybe you'll do corn maybe you'll do carrots (1:11:42) but something along the lines of just meat and vegetables you will probably variate those two things a little bit if you just have an idea of what you want to do along the lines or if you're like me you never know what you're going to do on the weekend so someone might ask you what are your plans for the weekend and you could say well I was thinking something along the lines of going for a long walk and going to some Park so you're just talking very generally you're talking very vaguely and you're (1:12:12) not sure exactly what you're going to do but you know what you want to do a little bit along the lines of one thing that's important if you ever work in sales is to be assertive but not too pushy now this adjective pushy it means you're too assertive and you're trying to make someone buy something or do something and they don't like it so this adjective pushy it comes from the phrase to push something on someone so when you push something on someone else it means you make them do it or you make them (1:12:46) take it or have it or you make them accept a favor that maybe they didn't want to accept so for instance some people will push food and drinks on you when you go to their house they'll say have another drink no I insist go go go or they'll say here you need to eat some of this food I insist even if you say I'm full I don't want anything they will push food on you maybe you want to offer someone something maybe you want to offer them help or a gift or something but you're not sure if they want to (1:13:19) accept it so you'll say I don't want to push this on you but if you wanted to I could help you out on Saturday or whatever it is so to push something means to assert something or make someone accept something but if you use this in the way that you say I don't want to do it it just means you don't want to be pushy you're trying to be polite you let the person know that they can not accept what you're asking or what you're telling and your feelings won't be hurt if you say I don't want to (1:13:48) push this on you some people say that we are living in the peak of human existence right now this means that for as long as humans have been alive this is the greatest time to be alive but it might get worse after this I don't know if that's true but that's just the first example that came to mind when teaching this phrase to Peak when something Peaks so normally a peak in English means the top of a mountain the very very top now when we talk about someone peaking in life it means that their life is really (1:14:23) good they have accomplished really high things they're very successful but if we say they're peing it means they're not going to get better they're just going to get worse when you say that something has peaked you can say it has gotten as good it's going to get but it's not going to get any better it's probably going to get worse you might hear in the media someone say they reach the peak of their popularity so I picture music like Harry Styles like pop music you know it was really po popular a year ago his (1:14:56) music was and it probably peaked I don't know if it'll be as popular in the future but I couldn't be wrong some people say it's not good to Peak in life when you're young even though you feel like you want to be popular when you're young with your friends and you want to be very cool it's actually better to Peak as an older adult because things will get better then in your life and not just worse after being a kid have you ever listened to music and at first you didn't really like it or you thought (1:15:30) it was okay but you didn't see yourself listening to it a lot but then you grew to like it it became your favorite music well this is the next phrase to grow to like something or to grow to dislike something these phrases mean that you are changing your opinion over time so maybe you like something a little bit at the beginning but the more and more you do it or the more and more you're exposed to it the more you grow to like it which means you like it a lot when I first heard bad bunnies music I thought (1:16:04) it was okay I didn't see myself listening to it a lot but then I started listening to the album every day and I really really grew to like bad money in his music the next phrase I'm going to teach you is to dangle something now literally to dangle something would mean to hold it out in front of a person or an animal to try to get them you know you know to come to you or do a trick or something but we use this often metaphorically or in an idiomatic way as well so you could say I was dangling some candy or I was dangling a reward in (1:16:40) front of my kid in order to get them to clean their room this doesn't mean you were literally holding it but you were saying hey if you clean your room you're going to get a treat later so you can use it in this way or adults sometimes have things dangled in front of them in order to work harder for instance your boss might say hey you're going to get a pay raise at the end of the year if you do all this work and finish all these things and if you stay late every day so they're asking a lot of you but they're (1:17:14) promising something that not for sure but they're kind of dangling it in front of you and often times when this happens I feel like people are lying like they're saying oh it's going to be so great you just have to work really hard for it they're dangling a reward in front of you they're trying to get you to work harder this next phrase is incredibly common for native English speakers to say and I think it comes so naturally to say that we don't often notice that we're using this phrase the phrase is in (1:17:45) retrospect now this phrase is very simple to use if you want to say that you're reflecting on something that happened in the past knowing what you would know now in the present you can say well in retrospect I would have done this instead so for instance in retrospect many people would have invested in companies like apple 30 years ago knowing what they know now and now they would be millionaires because they would have made so much money you can use this in your own personal life too you could say in retrospect I would (1:18:20) have dressed warmer if I knew it was going to be so cold out today so this means you got up in the morning you got dressed not knowing what the weather would be later in the day in a casual English conversation you can use this phrase to bring in the big bucks if you want to talk about someone who's making a lot of money like a lot a lot of money use this phrase it's kind of funny so for instance at first Ed Sheeran I just watched the Ed shearan documentary I thought it was pretty good he was just performing on the street was what we (1:18:56) call busking he was asking for money for just playing his guitar and singing on the street he wasn't really bringing in the big bucks though this means he was not making very good money yet now he sells out stadiums with thousands of people so he is really bringing in the big bucks as an international pop star when you want to say that attention has been brought to something or some sort of event you can say that it has come into the spotlight so a literal Spotlight would mean to shine light on something on stage so that everyone (1:19:33) looks at it but if you're using this phrase in an idiomatic way you're saying that something has brought attention to a important issue or to a person so recently there was the tragic submarine accident the Ocean Gate submersible but that has really brought into Spotlight how dangerous the ocean can actually be I didn't know anything about submarines or going down under to see the Titanic until this accident so it really brought in the dangers of the ocean into the spotlight this means all the media and (1:20:09) all of the news has been focused on this event this next phrase can be used in a really funny way when you want to say that someone is being so bold so hypocritical they're being too assertive you can say wow the audacity so if you say that someone is audacious this is an adjective that means that a person is willing to take risks but usually this can be used in a positive way to describe someone but if you say I can't believe the audacity of this person it's used negatively you're saying they don't have a right to be so (1:20:50) bold or to be so assertive so for instance if you have a boss that shows up late every day to work and then they show up late and they say wow you need to get work done or you need to not take so long of a lunch you could say the audacity of saying that to me when you're the one that shows up late every day so you're saying it's kind of hypocritical it's kind of bold of them to say something bad about your own actions when their actions aren't perfect either another example that comes to mind is if your parents comment (1:21:25) on something that you don't think they have a right to comment on because they're not perfect either you could say you guys have the audacity to talk about my finances or you guys have the audacity to talk about where I live whatever it might be you're just saying that they are being too bold and they should stay out of your business when you want to describe someone that is very sad and they look very helpless you can use the phrase they look like a sad puppy whenever I watch a championship sports game the (1:22:01) losing team after the game they always look like sad puppies that means they always look so sad and defeated just like a puppy would be like if they were sad because you're like oh I feel so bad for them so you're saying like you have sympathy for someone if they look like a sad puppy you might hear this phrase used in television shows or movies as well this next English phrase is so common so pay close attention if you want to say that something is going to be mentioned or something is going to be talked about you can say it's going to (1:22:35) be brought up so to bring something up means to mention it or talk about it and you can say please don't bring this up in conversation for instance if someone just lost their job you might not to bring up finances or money around them because they might feel bad cuz they're going through a tough time or you can say I know Kelly's looking for a job so maybe you can bring up that your company is hiring that just means mention it very casually very quickly it doesn't have to be a super serious conversation (1:23:10) they say it's never polite to bring up politics at the dinner table so don't mention it don't talk about it another topic that we don't often bring up in the United States is someone's age so we won't ask them their age or we won't talk about how old they are unless they mention it themselves this next phrase is really great to use either in a business context or just in your everyday conversations as well if you want to say that something was solidified you can say it sealed the (1:23:44) deal so for instance you can seal the deal on your opinion this means you maybe didn't know how you felt about something before but now your opinion is solid you know exactly how you feel because it was sealed the deal was sealed so you could say I didn't know how I felt about snow before this winter but now it has really sealed the deal I don't like it so maybe the winter was really bad it was really harsh your opinion is formed now you could say I think that we have gotten the client to agree we just have to seal the deal by (1:24:20) signing it so this would be more literal you can say the deal is not complete or solid until they sign it even though we think they're going to agree to it the deal this next English phrase is a little bit confusing to English Learners when I say that someone is giving attitude it means they're behaving in a rude way or they're saying rude things or they're being difficult to work with now normally always say someone's attitude it just means the way that they act or feel towards another person or (1:24:54) towards a thing so you can have a positive attitude or you can have a negative attitude when we use this phrase someone is giving us attitude it means that they have a negative attitude they're being very difficult so if you have someone that you're working with and you're you're pretty familiar with them you know you wouldn't want to say this to your boss and they're just being super difficult they're not doing what you ask them to do or they're doing it but they're being very rude when they (1:25:22) respond to you you can say why are you giving me attitude on this this means why are you acting rude and being difficult here's the thing this next phrase is very important for you to learn the phrase here's the thing just means you're about to say something very important or you're about to say something that will give justification for something when we use this phrase here's a thing we're usually saying here's a problem that we need to focus on or here's an important piece of (1:25:55) information that we need to focus on and this is used all of the time in casual conversation so maybe you get asked to go to your friend's party but you don't have a car so you won't be able to drive there and maybe there's no bus that is running at the time of the party so you could say yes I would love to come to your party but here's the thing I don't have a car and there's no bus at that time so you're saying yes I want to come but the thing or the problem is your transportation or how you will get there (1:26:30) so maybe in this conversation you would solve the problem by saying I'm going to get an Uber or a taxi or someone can come pick you up this next phrase is rhetorical but it's used all the time in Daily conversation when you start your sentence with imagine having to you're asking someone to think of a situation but you're not literally asking them to imagine it or to tell you about it you're just saying like wow this would be a tough situation so maybe you're looking at someone who has a large (1:27:05) amount of kids maybe they have five six seven or even eight kids when I see a family like that I just say to myself H imagine having to feed all of those kids that means imagine the amount of food it's incredible so it can be something that's just very shocking or very awful you could say something like imagine having to replace all your things after you lose your house in a fire so it's a bad situation and you're saying imagine having to do that because you just think it's such a bad situation you can only (1:27:39) imagine it have you ever known someone who seems to spend money on their credit card and they're living in denial that they have to pay it back at the end of the month this English phrase to live in denial it means you do things without thinking about the consequences or you ignore what's going to happen in the end sometimes we eat unhealthy food and we're just kind of living in denial like the food is unhealthy we're just saying oh it's okay for us but it might not be good so when you're living in denial it (1:28:13) means you're doing things and you're ignoring the consequences or the bad outcomes that might come from doing these things and here's a bonus phrase for you ignorance is is bliss this phrasee is saying that it's good to live in denial which I don't know if I always agree with when you have two options that are equally as good as one another you can tell someone you can't go wrong with either of these options or you can just say you can't go wrong in general that means no matter what the person (1:28:46) picks it will be a good choice or a good option the first thing that comes to mind for this phrase is ice cream I love ice cream there's an American store called Cold Stone and it has tons of flavors of ice cream maybe like 20 or 30 flavors and honestly you can't go wrong with any of the flavors and you get to mix in candy too so no matter what you choose when you go to Cold Stone you just can't go wrong that means every ice cream flavor is really good there are so many ways in the English language to say (1:29:21) we're going to leave one phrase that I wanted to teach in this lesson is we're a or if you're not Contracting the first part of this phrase you can say we are a if you're working at an office and your coworker wants to go to lunch with you you can say let me just finish this email and then we're off to lunch that means we'll leave as soon as I'm done with this task or if you're in a casual conversation with someone and you're going to say we're going to leave now you're going to say okay yeah we're off (1:29:52) now this means we are leaving now it's a very casual way to say this one common stereotype about Americans is that we love guns and this next raise is a gun to your head I don't know if this stereotype is true to everyone I've heard that people that believe that stereotype or that idea and then come here from another country are always like okay it's not that big of a deal you guys don't all love guns so much so when you use this phrase gun to your head it means you have to make a decision like a gun is to your head like (1:30:28) someone is threatening you even though you don't have time to research or you don't have time to think about your options a lot so you can give someone a weird situation that they have to think about like a would you rather you could say would you rather freeze to death or would you rather burn to death and the person says I don't know those both sound awful you could say well gun to your head make a decision that means don't think about it too much just think about it as if I was threatening you (1:30:56) it's a really weird phrase but you will hear this in English conversation it's really important to be able to use this next phrase in a sentence when you're speaking English the phrase is to the extent of something this means you're talking about how wide something reaches either in its size or how many people it impacts or how long something is going to go so a really simple example is when there's a natural disaster like a hurricane a tsunami or a tornado you can say what is the extent (1:31:32) of the damage or you can say we're really lucky because everyone survived the disaster but the extent of the damage is you know lots of houses have been damaged maybe you're describing to someone the work that they have to do for their job you can say well you are in charge of getting the mail you're in charge of replying to emails and you are in charge of keeping clients happy that's the extent of your job though that means that's everything that you have to do your job doesn't reach any (1:32:05) further than those things that I just told you so the extent is the limit of something a really common phrase in English is if you stand for everything you stand for nothing so this phrase means that if you support everything your support isn't as important because you don't have the few things that you are supporting so you have to have really strong morals and you have to have really strong ethics now the phrase that I want to teach you is to stand up for someone so if you stand up for someone it means you defend them in a (1:32:43) situation where they're being bullied they're being harassed or people are talking negative to them one thing that's important to me in life is to stand up for people who are normally discriminated against so people with disabilities they might not have the accommodations that they need or they might not be able to do everything that everyone else does because of their disability so it's important to stand up for them to help them out and to tell people that they need to be included because it's really important to stand (1:33:14) up for people who cannot always defend themselves or they can't always advocate for themselves in a situation have you ever met some who talks a big game the classic example that comes to my mind when I think of this phrase is the UFC fighter Conor McGregor he used to say you know I will knock out this person in the first round you make his own predictions he would talk a big game usually when someone talks a big game it means they talk about their abilities or they talk about what they're going to do (1:33:49) in a way that's very dramatic and they won't actually be able to accomplish many of those things now the reason that he Conor McGregor got so famous is he talked a big game and he actually did a lot of the things that he said he was going to do so if you talk a b game you have to back it up that means your actions have to match your words if something is very difficult or challenging you might describe it as an uphill battle but it's going to be an uphill battle sometimes if you have children you clean your house you you (1:34:24) put everything away and then the kids get home from school and they just kind of mess everything up and get fingerprints all over and take out all the toys so it is an uphill battle keeping your house clean it just means it's very challenging and it feels like no matter how hard you work the challenge just keeps coming back learning English sometimes feels like an uphill battle no matter how much you study you might feel like you learned some words in a conversation that you hadn't learned before and I think (1:34:55) everyone feels like it's an uphill battle even if they're speaking really good English one thing in life that's very important is that when someone gives you an opinion about something and they're not an expert make sure to take it with a grain of salt it's important to take the future with a grain of salt this means that you shouldn't value their opinion a lot because it might not be as important as you think if you want to tell someone that you're going to share your opinion but you don't want (1:35:25) them to worry about your opinion too much you're not an expert on the manner you could say well take it with a grain of salt so what I'm saying you know don't place a lot of importance on it if you want to say you know someone is commenting about something in your life maybe they're saying you should be doing this you should be doing this in your career you should go back to school and get another degree but you don't think they're an expert you can say well I'll take take that with a grain of salt (1:35:55) meaning you'll place a small amount of importance on it and you won't really listen practice what you preach this is so important and it's a saying that I say all of the time I personally like to say lead by example or practice what you preach this means your actions should be the same as your words or advices so for instance maybe your boss is saying it's so important to be on time to work but your class is not always on time to work they do not practice what they preach so you could say to them well you should (1:36:29) Practice What You Preach practice what you preach a really strange idiom in English and I know a lot of different languages have a version of this idiom is you can't have your cake and eat it too you cannot have your cake and eat it too so this means you might have conflicting Desires in life maybe you want to get a promotion at work but you also want to enjoy your life and take a lot of vacations during the year so you can't always get your cake and eat it too this means you can't enjoy a lot of (1:37:03) vacations and get a promotion at your work hopefully you can hopefully you can enjoy your life but I know in a lot of jobs they are wanting you to be very serious not take a lot of vacation time in order to advance and get a promotion if you have some negative news to share or something very disappointing to someone who is very excited you might have to rain on their parade rain on your parade maybe someone is very excited to go to a concert that's at an outdoor venue you might say I hate to rain on your parade but the weather (1:37:37) is actually supposed to be very bad and I think the concert is going to get cancelled so you're sharing some really disappointing news when they are very excited about something Have you ever acted in the Heat of the Moment when we use this phrase in English we mean that someone is acting very impulsively or very emotionally eat the moment when two people are in the Heat of the Moment in an argument it means they're acting so emotionally and they might just say something that is really mean in the heat of a moment so this means it's a (1:38:11) very emotionally charged passionate moment and sometimes people don't think about what they're saying very much when they are so emotional and so charged up so we use this phrase to talk about making a decision when we were very emotional in English we have a lot of strange idioms that involve our feet can you think on your feet this is a very important skill if you can think on your feet it means you can react to things and come up with a plan very quickly without having to think about it for a long time for instance maybe you were (1:38:46) supposed to have a party or a wedding outside and again it starts raining so you have to think on your feet and come up with another plan maybe you need to change where you're going to have the wedding or get a big tent so not everyone gets rained on if you're giving a presentation and you have a slide show and your computer isn't working you might have to think on your feet and just give the presentation without your slides because it's not an option so thinking on your feet is thinking quickly making improvisations and just (1:39:17) doing what you need to do without having a lot of planning or Preparation it's important to work hard even when the going gets tough when the going gets tough the tough get going we describe a difficult situation as when the going gets tough and the full phrase or the full idiom for this is when the going gets tough the tough get going so this just is a phrase that we use when people need to be tough hardworking dedicated and not give up easily often times when people are in a marriage when the going gets tough they might get divorced so (1:39:55) you might need to say you know when the going gets tough you need to work through your problems in a marriage and not just get a divorce because that's becoming so common these days if you are in a very risky situation or you're very close to being in big trouble you might be what we describe as on thin ice you're on thin ice Garrison if it's winter time and very cold out the lakes and the rivers and the ponds they freeze and if you're not familiar with this you can actually walk on the ice usually but (1:40:28) if the ice is not frozen enough and it's very thin you could fall through and be in great danger in very cold water so using this as an idiom we describe a very risky situation as thin ice if you have been in trouble a lot at work and if you don't meet your next deadline on your project you'll be on very thin ice with your boss because you might get fire you're in a risky situation if you don't improve your performance an interesting way that we caution someone in English is not just be careful we say (1:41:04) Easy Does It Easy Does It so the other day I was moving a couch with my husband we were lifting it upstairs and I said easy does it cuz I didn't want to knock the couch into the wall so this is just a reminder that you can say to mean just be careful be delicate be gentle if you want to make sure that someone doesn't accidentally Curt themselves by Falling you can say Easy Does It Don't Fall many times in English instead of saying handle this in your own way people will say do your thing do your thing Tom so (1:41:44) this phrase is used really informally just to say yeah just do it the way that you want to do don't let me interrupt you often times if someone is just wanting to watch what you're doing they don't want to interact and they don't want to interfere maybe you are cooking something in a certain way and they say oh I don't want to help I don't want to get involved I'm just watching I'm trying to learn they'll say oh do your thing I'm just watching so this phrase do your thing it's really informal and (1:42:14) you wouldn't necessarily be able to guess exactly what it means but now you know if someone says oh just do your thing it means proceed don't stop don't let me interrupt or interfere instead of saying let's compete against each other English speakers will say let's go head to head you want to go head to head with me so when someone says let's go head to head that means let's have a competition let's go against each other often times if you are trying to do something really fast let's say one person is playing a (1:42:48) video game and you are playing the same video game now if you two want to compete instead of saying let's compete or let's go against each other you'll say let's go head tohe head and that means let's compete directly against one another to see who is better so often times if you want to see who's better at something they'll say I want to see you two go head to head that means compete against one another in the same competition or the same game in really casual conversations someone might say (1:43:19) to you hey let's link up soon this very very informal phrase to link up it means to get together or to hang out for a bit maybe you have an old group of friends and you guys have been trying to arrange a meeting or get together you can say hey let's text each other and try to link up sometime next week this means we're all going to try to meet at the same place it's the exact same as saying get together but again it's very informal and very casual to say oh do you want to link up sometime next week (1:43:53) and this is a phrase that we use with a friend that just means let's get together at a certain time to link up you may have previously learned in English you know we say I arrived late at the meeting now in English often times even formally people will say I showed up at the meeting late hopefully you weren't late hopefully I wasn't late but just for this example it is talking about the time that someone arrives or gets to a place the time that they show up so if something shows up it literally means to appear but we often use it (1:44:29) instead of saying we arrived what time did you show up at the party last night this

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