20 IMPORTANT IDIOMS Through STORY Native English Vocabulary Lesson
(upbeat music)
- Hello, lovely students.
And welcome back to English with Lucy.
Now if you are a member of my email list,
if you signed up to receive
my PDFs and my newsletters,
then you will know that we
have been doing a big focus
on idioms recently.
Lots of you seem really keen
to expand your vocabulary.
And an amazing way to do
that is to learn idioms.
Idioms are so hard because they
don’t have literal meanings.
You can’t read the words and
understand what they’re about.
So idioms are really hard to learn,
but they are much, much
easier to learn and process,
and retain if you learn them in context.
So this is how today’s
lesson is going to work.
I am going to read you
a story that I wrote,
and it contains 20 idioms.
For the first part of the
lesson, I will read the story.
You can practise your listening skills,
maybe improve your pronunciation,
but I want you to listen
and see if you can identify
all 20 idioms.
Hold your hands like this
each time you hear one,
stick your finger up.
Okay, see if you can get all 20.
After that, we will go through
the story phrase by phrase,
and I will help you understand
each and every idiom.
As always, there is a free PDF and quiz
that goes with this lesson.
If you’d like to download that,
just click on the link
in the description box,
you enter your name
and your email address.
You sign up to my mailing list,
and the PDF will automatically
arrive in your email inbox.
After that, you automatically
receive all of my lesson PDFs,
and all of my news, course
information and offers.
It’s a free service and you
can unsubscribe at any time.
There is also one other thing
that I wanted to discuss.
Before we start this lesson,
I am running an idioms challenge.
It’s a 30 day challenge.
Every single day,
you get a text containing
between six and 10 idioms.
You get a daily video from me.
I read through the text so you
can improve your listening,
and pronunciation skills,
and I talk about the meanings
of all of the idioms.
After you’ve read through the text,
you’ve watched the video,
you can take the exercises.
We have 20 daily exercises.
And as you go through the challenge,
I start to test you on what
you’ve learned in previous days.
This challenge starts
on the 1st of February,
so make sure you sign up.
Before then, this is a 30 day challenge.
It has 30 videos, lessons
and sets of exercises,
but you have lifetime access
so you can take it at any time.
For the pricing and enrollment,
just click on the link
in the description box.
And just ran a communications challenge
and these students loved
it, it was amazing.
We had such a great time, right?
Let’s get started with this idioms lesson.
As I said, there are 20
idioms in this story.
With your hands, see if
you can identify them all.
Obviously, I don’t expect
you to have 20 fingers.
You might have to do two lots.
I want you to use this as a
listening exercise as well
to see how much you pick up
because we’re going to go
through phrase by phrase.
If you do need the extra help,
you can turn on subtitles.
I woke up in the morning feeling
a little under the weather.
I took a deep breath and
tried to pull myself together.
You’ve got to bite the bullet
and attend the interview,
I said to myself.
I went downstairs to have some breakfast.
My mum asked me if I was hungry.
I told her that I could eat a horse.
She made me a big plate of
eggs and I wolfed it down.
I started to feel really
nervous about the interview.
Candidates like me are a dime a dozen.
To add insult to injury, I’d
been unemployed for six months.
Why would anyone hire me?
Perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree.
Or perhaps I should throw
caution to the wind and just go.
The ball is in my court.
I have to do this.
On the way to the interview,
my bus got stuck in a traffic jam.
I was really down on my luck.
To make matters worse, I
spilled some coffee on my shirt.
I arrived 10 minutes late,
but the boss said,
“Better late than never”.
She said that she would give
me the benefit of the doubt
which I really appreciated.
She was really on the ball
and asked me lots of relevant,
about my past experience.
I managed to give her some good answers.
So far so good, I thought to myself.
By the end of the interview,
I felt a lot better.
She said to me that her
decision was a piece of cake.
She wanted to offer me the position.
I was over the moon.
Finally, I had my dream job.
I told her that I would give her my all.
I was on cloud nine for
the rest of the day.
Oh, lovely, positive story.
Parts of that are actually true.
I did once spill coffee
all over my shirt before a job interview,
but I still got the job, yes.
I have been rejected from quite a few jobs
in my time as well.
I really wanted to work
at the makeup counter
in my local department store
when I was younger and
I applied three times,
and got rejected every single time.
So in the first part of the story,
I said, I woke up in the morning feeling
a little under the weather.
And to feel under the weather
or to be under the weather
is our first idiom.
This means to feel ill or unwell.
It doesn’t mean seriously ill.
It just means I don’t feel
as good as I normally do.
An example, I didn’t go into school
because I was feeling a
bit under the weather.
I hope to feel better tomorrow.
Not that serious, just
not feeling that great.
Okay, next I said,
I took a deep breath and
tried to pull myself together.
And to pull one self
together is our next idiom,
idiom number two.
To pull oneself together
is to recover control of one’s emotions.
Sometimes if I’m feeling
a bit weak or pathetic,
I don’t want to do
something, I tell myself,
pull yourself together, Lucy,
worse things could happen.
An example, calm down and
pull yourself together.
Screaming isn’t going to help.
In the next sentence, I
was speaking to myself.
I said, you’ve got to bite the bullet,
and attend the interview.
And to bite the bullet is our third idiom.
It means to decide to
do something unpleasant
that you have been avoiding.
Something unpleasant or difficult as well.
A big example of this
is with me and running.
I love running, but I like
running in nice weather.
And when it’s really, really cold,
I try to make myself go out
on a run, but I don’t want to.
It’s cold, it’s unpleasant,
it’s more difficult.
I try to make myself bite the bullet,
stop avoiding it and just do it.
An example, I’ve been avoiding
organising my finances,
but I need to bite the bullet
and open that spreadsheet.
When you hear the phrase bite the bullet,
think of Nike, okay, just do it.
Just do it, stop avoiding it, just do it.
That’s our Nike idiom.
The next sentence.
I went downstairs to have some breakfast.
My mum asked me if I was hungry and I said
that I could eat a horse.
I could eat a horse is our next idiom,
and it means I could eat
a lot or I am so hungry.
An example, after running the marathon,
I could have eaten a horse.
I was so hungry.
The next sentence in the story
is she made me a big plate
of eggs and I wolfed it down.
I wolfed it down.
To Wolf something down is
actually a phrasal verb,
but it’s also slang.
So we’re including it here as an idiom.
To wolf something down is to
eat something really quickly.
If you think how a wolf eats,
(chuckles) it goes down
your throat really quickly.
To wolf something down.
Now, if I’m talking about eggs, plural,
why did I say I wolfed it down?
This is because we’re
referring to the plate of eggs.
Mind that one there
as I often hear students
make mistakes with that.
An example, he wolfed down
two plates of lasagna,
and still had room for dessert.
That is my husband.
He just loves lasagna.
Italians I hope you appreciate
the British pronunciation of lasagna.
(laughing)
I do apologise.
Okay, next sentence.
I started to feel really
nervous about the interview.
Candidates like me are a dime a dozen.
A dime a dozen is our six idiom.
And it’s funny because we don’t have dimes
in the British monetary system.
That’s an American coin,
but we still don’t use it.
And a dime a dozen
means very, very common.
Candidates like me are a dime a dozen.
There are loads of
candidates just like me.
I don’t have anything special.
An example, I’m sorry,
but your stamp collection
isn’t worth anything.
Most of the stamps are a dime a dozen.
Most of them are really common.
All right, next sentence.
To add insult to injury.
I’d been unemployed for six months.
Why would anyone hire me?
So number seven is to
add insult to injury,
to add insult to injury.
I have specific connected speech there.
To ends in the vowel sound, o.
And the next word starts
with a vowel sound.
So we always put a little,
wa sound between it.
To add to injury.
If you want to learn more
about connected speech,
I’ve got a whole video about it.
I’ll put that into the description box.
If you want to look deeply at it,
you can try my pronunciation course.
The link is also in the description box.
To add insult to injury means
to make something bad, even worse.
If you look at the
phrase, insult to injury.
This means that you’re already injured,
and now you’ve been insulted
to the bad situation has been made worse.
An example, he broke up with me,
and then to add insult to injury,
he started dating my sister.
Bad situation, made worse.
The next sentence is perhaps
I’m barking up the wrong tree.
Perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree.
This is a really common
idiom here in the UK.
It means to be wrong about
the reason for something
or the way to achieve something.
For example, I thought that the best way
to hire a video editor
would be to put up posters
around my town but I was
barking up the wrong tree.
What I should’ve done is
posted on an online job board.
I was wrong about the
way to achieve something.
Another example, she thinks
that spending time apart
will solve her marriage problems,
but she’s barking up the wrong tree.
Maybe they need to spend
more time together.
If you visualise this
idiom, imagine two trees.
And there’s a squirrel up this tree.
The little dog is barking at tree here.
He’s barking up the wrong tree.
He’s never going to
achieve what he wants here.
He should go to the other tree.
Next sentence.
Or perhaps I should throw
caution to the wind and just go.
Idiom number nine is to
throw caution to the wind.
This means to act without
thinking of the consequences.
It doesn’t necessarily
mean to act without care
or to act carelessly.
Sometimes it’s used in
quite an inspirational way.
I’m not gonna think about the risks,
I’m going to follow my heart.
An example, I was worried
she would reject me,
but I threw caution to the
wind and asked her out.
Next sentence, the ball is in my court.
I have to do this.
If the ball is in your court,
it means you have to make the next move.
I can’t do anymore, the
ball is in your court.
Visualise two people playing tennis.
This person has the ball.
The ball is in their court.
This other person can’t do anything.
It’s used a lot in
professional situations.
I’ve done as much as I can.
The ball is in your court, you
have to make a decision now.
We are now halfway through the idioms.
Moving on to number 11, let’s
take a look at the sentence.
On the way to the interview,
my bus got stuck in a traffic jam.
I was really down on my luck.
So number 11 is to be down on your luck.
This means to be experiencing
a period of bad luck.
So this isn’t the first bad
thing that’s happened to you.
An example, I really hope
that things improve for you.
You’ve been down on your luck
and you don’t deserve it.
This could be me talking
to a friend who’s been
on three terrible dates.
They really deserve a good date,
but they’ve been down on their luck.
The next one.
To make matters worse, I
spilled some coffee on my shirt.
So this is number 12.
To make matters worse.
And it means almost exactly the same thing
as to add insult to injury.
It means we have a bad situation,
and what has made it
worse is the following.
An example, the thief stole my bag,
and to make matters
worse, he tripped me over.
So not only did I lose
my bag, I also fell over.
If somebody trips you over,
they make you fall down.
Next sentence.
I arrived 10 minutes
late, but the boss said,
“Better late than never.”
Better late than never is our 13th idiom.
It means that it’s better
to do something late
or after it should have been
done than to not do it all.
Sometimes we use it in a sarcastic sense.
If I handed my homework to my
teacher really, really late,
they might say, “Ugh,
better late than never”.
We like to be quite sarcastic in the UK.
An example in context, you
lose 10% of your marks,
if you hand in your coursework late,
but better late than never.
It’s better to lose 10% than to lose 100%.
Okay, next sentence.
She said that she would give
me the benefit of the doubt
which I really appreciated.
Oh, to give someone the
benefit of the doubt.
Idiom number 14.
This means to decide to believe someone,
even if you’re not 100% sure
that what they’re saying
is true or honest.
I don’t know if you’re lying to me,
but I will give you the
benefit of the doubt.
Sometimes if my students
hand in their homework late,
and they tell me they
had internet problems,
I don’t have any proof,
but I give them the benefit of the doubt.
I’ll believe them.
If they keep repeating the
same thing over and over again,
then I won’t give them the
benefit of the doubt anymore.
An example.
I’m not sure if he’ll be able
to deliver on his promises,
but I’m going to give him
the benefit of the doubt.
Next sentence.
She was really on the ball,
and asked me lots of relevant questions
about my past experience.
Idiom number 15 is to be on the ball.
To be on the ball.
This is something that you want to be.
This means to be organised and alert.
An example, you won’t be able to fool him.
He’s very on the ball when it
comes to new tricks and scams.
Sometimes if I make a mistake,
if I wasn’t careful enough with my work,
I tell myself, oh, I need
to be more on the ball.
I need to be more organised and alert,
and just in control of things.
Next sentence.
I managed to give her some good answers.
So far so good, I thought to myself.
(chuckling)
Number 16.
The 16th idiom is so far so good.
And this means everything
until now has gone well.
It means that you haven’t
finished something yet,
but everything along the
way is going positively.
Okay, next sentence.
By the end of the interview,
I felt a lot better.
She said to me that her
decision was a piece of cake.
She wanted to offer me the position.
A piece of cake, idiom
number 17 is very easy.
If something is a piece of
cake, then it’s very easy.
An example.
I thought that exam was a piece of cake,
we should all get full marks.
Next sentence, I was over the moon.
Finally, I had my dream job.
Idiom number 18 to be over the moon means
to be very happy, to be ecstatic.
An example, I was over the moon
when I found out that my
favourite band was playing
in my city.
Next sentence, I told her
that I would give her my all.
I told her that I would give her my all.
Number 19 to give something
or someone your all,
means to give something or
someone your full effort.
Your best try.
An example, I gave it my all,
but I didn’t manage to win the race.
I tried as hard as I possibly could,
I put in my full effort,
but I didn’t win the race.
And the final sentence.
I was on cloud nine for
the rest of the day.
And to be on cloud nine
means to be a elated,
very, very happy.
An example.
After our wedding day,
we were on cloud nine.
It was amazing to finally tie the knot.
To tie the knot is slang
for to get married.
It was amazing to finally get married.
To tie the knot.
Right, that is it for the
story and the 20 idioms.
Don’t forget to download the free PDF
that goes with this lesson.
And if you think you’d like
to do something like this everyday,
learning between six and
10 idioms every single day
with a short daily texts like this,
and a video from me and so
many practise exercises,
then I really recommend
my Idioms Challenge.
If you’d like to sign up,
click on the link in the description box,
all of the information
and pricing info is there.
Don’t forget to connect with
me on all of my social media.
I’ve got my website,
englishwithlucy.co.uk.
I’ve got a cool pronunciation tool there.
There are lots of extra lessons.
I’ve also got my blogging
channel, Lucy Bella
where we document our lives
here in the English countryside.
All of the blogs are fully subtitled
so you can use them
for listening practise,
and to acquire more vocabulary.
Don’t forget to connect
with me on social media.
I’ve got my Instagram at Lucy.
I’ve got my English learning page
which is very new @EnglishwithLucy.
And I’ve also got my Facebook.
I will see you soon for another lesson.
Mwah.
(upbeat music)