Idioms for Around the House in English
to talk about idioms that you can use
around
the house i chose a big list of
english idioms that i hope you can use
in your everyday life
to talk about simple everyday situations
i chose some that hopefully you haven’t
seen before
or maybe you have seen before but you’re
not sure about what they mean
so we will talk about them i have three
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up is facebook okay facebook okay good
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everyone is here so i’ll show you
today’s lesson boards
here are today’s lesson boards these are
the idioms i have chosen
i have chosen 13 i think uh i just chose
some that i think are really fun and
interesting and useful
that i use as well so these are all of
the idioms we’re going to talk about
today
and then i’m going to give a short
explanation
and some examples of each one but please
send me your examples
in the chat and also i was thinking too
if you have an
idiom that’s similar to the english
idiom in your language or in in a
language that you know you can send that
in the chat those are really fun to
compare i think so
let’s get started okay my first one
is uh which one did i say was gonna be
the first one
i forgot i have so many let me see
okay good uh let’s get to this one first
all right first list we’re gonna start
with something positive
for today first idiom for today comes
from baseball a lot of idioms
you’ll notice are kind of sports related
idioms so
this will be kind of a common theme in
today’s lesson
some sport related expressions so
let’s take a look at this first one this
one is knock
it out of the park to knock
it out of the park or to knock something
out of the park means to do
something extremely well to do
something extremely well to do something
very very well
so this expression is a baseball related
expression
yeah to knock something means like to
hit
something quickly usually like we can
say
i knocked my board over when i was
running by
for example however this knock
to knock comes from baseball like to hit
a ball
to knock a baseball out of the park
means outside of the baseball park
outside of the baseball stadium so
that’s a good thing
in baseball right like that’s the best
thing a home run
so that means when we use this
expression
we are referring to something that is
very good
very positive very very well done so
for example if you want to compliment
someone’s cooking
for example past tense knocked it out of
the park
or this dinner is amazing you knocked it
out of the park
that means you did something extremely
well so you can use this to compliment
someone okay good let’s go to the next
one the
next one is a really funny expression uh
this next one is back seat driver
back seat driver okay so a back seat
driver
it’s short right back seat so imagine a
car
yeah so in your car there’s a front seat
and a back seat
yeah in the front seat is that where the
driver
sits yeah in the back seat is the
passenger
so a back seat driver is someone who’s
not in charge
they’re not in control they give lots of
like
advice and instructions and you don’t
ask
for it it’s really like irritating so
we call that type of person a backseat
driver so in your life you can imagine
let’s say for example you’re cooking
something
and someone is in the kitchen they’re
not
helping you they’re not cooking but
they’re telling you what to do
like cut the onions this way or put this
in or don’t use that
that’s a backseat driver in your kitchen
so
you can use this expression to talk
about someone who is not in charge or
someone who is not in control of the
situation
but they give lots of unasked for advice
and lots of
like instructions and you’re like oh
it’s so irritating
so that’s called a backseat driver maybe
you have a backseat driver
in your house i i everybody does this
sometimes everybody does this sometimes
so
fun expression okay oh great lots of you
are writing uh good expressions with
knocking out of the park good
babna says we are here to work on
knocking it out of the park in english
great job
maria says you knock youtube out of the
park oh thank you that’s super nice
kanwajit says i had an english test and
i knocked it out of the park
perfect great job everybody um obama
also says my sister is a backseat driver
that’s pretty funny good examples
everyone okay
let’s go to the next one okay this next
one
i used this expression on my instagram
yesterday when i told you about today’s
live stream
i said you can join live or watch later
i said you can watch on youtube and then
i said
you know the drill you know the drill
this is a very common expression
and i use this expression a lot i think
i use this
a lot online in live streams on
instagram and so on
which means you know this routine so
a drill a drill means like a
concentrated practice so yes we have
like a drill maybe you know the tool we
use
for construction but this drill is
different
this means routine or like focused
practice or like the same thing you
always
do in this case our routine is
joining the live stream every week right
many of you have a routine
so it’s a drill uh we can we can use it
to mean sort of like
concentrated practice so when someone
says
you know the drill it means you
understand the routine
or i expect you understand this exercise
so in my example yesterday i said like
join live watch later
you can swipe up here for the youtube
lesson you know the drill
like you already know i expect you
already know
this experience so this is a very good
way
to express that you know someone else
knows a routine so
this is a very common uh expression you
can use
when you are doing something regular
okay i don’t see other questions so i’ll
continue
last one for this another very common
one
i use this in many different situations
this expression is to hit a wall
to hit a wall to hit a wall
means to reach a point where it’s
difficult
to continue to hit a wall so imagine
like
physically you could say you’re running
and you meet a wall
this doesn’t mean you physically meet a
wall
yeah it means mentally inside your mind
so for example
when you’re studying like maybe you’ve
tried to study for two hours
and you get really tired and at that
point
it’s difficult to continue you can say
uh
i hit a wall with my studies we use
with in this expression i hit a wall
with my studies
or maybe when you’re eating you’re
eating something super delicious
and it’s so good and you want to eat
more
but you’re so full you can say oh i hit
a wall
i can’t eat anymore so this is a great
expression to use in many situations
where you can’t continue it doesn’t mean
physically
hitting a wall i hope i hope you don’t
hit a wall physically
but it means the condition in your life
the condition in your situation
okay i’m looking for your questions
uh someone said where’s your instagram
my instagram i think is in the youtube
description
if not i’ll add it there later um
i hit a wall with my admissions in
university good example
uh i’m looking for other examples
someone on facebook is writing the same
thing don’t flood the chat don’t write
the same thing on facebook or
youtube please sunlight is hitting the
camera look at this beautiful ray of
sunlight
it’s very bright and beautiful here
today okay
so that’s our first list for today i’m
going to stop there and take a quick
break
and then we’ll continue on oh good
example
emed sorry on facebook said
in terms of economic crises some
countries
hit the wall good job nice one um
gabriel aj gabriel says i know the drill
to always turn
on these live notifications perfect
maria says so you can use hit in present
and
past tense yes the past tense of hit is
hit no change there great one right
okay let’s take a short break and then
we’ll go to group two for today
so in case you missed it uh as always
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i need to exercise everybody needs to
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there’s some good vocabulary here you
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joining today’s lesson
is about idioms we are talking about
idioms to use
around the house welcome if you are just
joining live
uh so we’re going to continue to part
two of course
please make sure to like and share the
video so other people
can watch today’s lesson okay i’ll show
you
again today’s lesson boards if you want
to take a screenshot get ready
here we go okay so this was group one
now let’s go to group two group two
continuing on all right great questions
and examples by the way
fantastic okay uh let’s go to this next
group
first one this expression another common
one
is to wake up on the wrong side
of the bed to wake up on the wrong side
of the bed
means to be in a bad mood to be in a bad
mood so this the
idea here to wake up on the wrong side
of the bed
i mean maybe if that happens to you it’s
unrelated but
this means it’s like saying from the
moment
your eyes opened in the morning
you were not normal like you were
mentally in a bad place so
to wake up on the wrong side of the bed
means to be in a bad mood
so sometimes you’ll hear like family
members ask someone like when i was a
little kid
and i was in a bad mood my mom asked me
she would ask me
did you wake up on the wrong side of the
bed today
so it’s asking are you in a bad mood
it’s kind of like but using this
expression is a little more
fun instead of saying why are you in a
bad mood
it’s like what happened like this is a
little more friendly and kind of cute so
you can use this
if you notice someone is in a bad mood
you can say did you wake up on the wrong
side of the bed today
to show you can see the other person is
unhappy
is that even english yes it is it is
very much english
okay i don’t see questions let’s
continue
next is get your house in order
to get your house in order so in order
in order means uh organized
like nice clean tidy yeah so to get your
house in order
of course we can use this to mean like
to clean
our home we can use it to mean to
organize our home
but we also use this to mean to organize
your life
like maybe you have many tasks to do
like you have to pay some bills and you
have to go to
like run some errands whatever you have
a few tasks you need to do
like it’s usually kind of small tasks
you need to take care of these you can
say i need to
get my house in order or he needs to get
his house in order
so generally we use it when we talk
about ourselves
like i i typically don’t use this
expression
to talk about other people’s lives i use
it to express
the things i need to take care of like
oh i need to get my house in order i
haven’t
taken care of these things in a week so
to get your house in order
means to organize your house and your
life
javier can i say i got up with the left
foot in english
no maybe in your in your language you
have that expression but we do not have
that expression i got up
with the left foot uh chosen says i woke
up on the wrong side of the bed today oh
no
so that means you are in a bad mood
i hope you’re not in a bad mood on that
on facebook says most of the time i wake
up on the wrong side of the bed
oh no oh no maybe you should have a
warm cup of coffee or tea in the morning
to improve your mood
yeah uh yeah interesting someone else on
facebook says
i wake up on the left foot is that an
expression what language is that
expression from we don’t have that
expression
in english the left foot expression i’m
very curious
okay um let’s go let’s go to the next
one the next one is an interesting one
to go out on a limb to go out on a limb
this word is limb what is a limb please
okay
limb imagine a tree so a tree
has branches right the word we use
to talk about a tree’s branches or
is limb a limb so
when we say we go out on a limb
imagine crawling out on a tree branch
dangerous right you might fall off you
you might make a mistake
this expression to go out on a limb
means to say something that might not be
true you’re not sure it might be wrong
it might be
bad you’re not sure so
you use this expression to mean i’m
going to say something and i’m
not sure about it it might not be right
that’s what this expression means so we
use this when we’re
like sharing new information like i’m
gonna go out on a limb here
is a very common expression i use this
i’m gonna
go out on a limb here so that here
means about this point i’m gonna go out
on a limb here
and say blah blah blah so means i’m not
sure
but also sometimes people use this
one sarcastically to me like they use
this before something they’re very
sure is true but they’d use it to be
funny
oh someone said what that expression was
from that was from spanish the left foot
is spanish expression oh
okay i learned something today so to go
out on a limb so what’s a good example
of this like
i’m gonna go out on a limb here and say
that that expression was from vietnamese
for example like i’m just i’m it’s like
i’m putting myself in a dangerous
situation or an
uncertain situation so i know it’s not
true
obviously but if i want to make a guess
i could
say this uh it’s not like fake
news caillou it’s not really about
it’s like when you want to uh like
something at work
maybe like i’m gonna go out on a limb
here and guess our project was cancelled
like or maybe that’s not the best
expression
so it’s kind of when we’re like uh we
feel like there’s some
risk in what we are saying like we’re
not sure about our
own uh idea so
we use it a little bit more uh to talk
about ourselves
uh yes it can mean like to take a risk
exactly exactly
okay very nice let’s go to the next one
this one another super common expression
something rings a bell so it rings a
bell or
that rings a bell that means it sounds
familiar sounds familiar something
sounds familiar like
i’ve heard that before so if someone
says
do you know so and so or have you heard
of
such and such thing you might say that
rings a bell
so that’s like saying maybe i’ve heard
it
i feel like i heard it somewhere but i
don’t remember
so this is super useful when you think
maybe i know that thing maybe i’ve heard
of that but i’m not sure
you can say oh yeah that rings a bell or
it rings a bell i’m not sure though so
that’s the feeling
you have when you use this expression
when you’re not sure
but you want to express that you feel
some kind of connection
that rings a bell that rings a bell
uh aurelia says are you going to save
this live video on youtube
yes all of these videos are saved on
youtube you can watch it at any time
um bhavna says english class 101 is
ring a bell so no is there english class
101
rings a bell for me these days
but that means english class 101 sounds
familiar
we use sounds familiar when we are when
we hear
about we hear the name of something like
we hear a musical artist or we hear of a
movie
we hear maybe of a youtube channel and
we just want to say
i think i’ve heard of that before
okay onward let’s continue
uh so it doesn’t just mean i know that
thing
we use it when we’re like refreshing our
memory kind of
okay on to the next one this one maybe
many of you are experiencing these days
to burn the candle at both ends
to burn the candle at both ends i have a
candle
i’m gonna grab it okay to burn the
candle at both ends
means first of all to work very hard or
to be
very busy so what does what is the image
here
so if you imagine a candle right i won’t
show the brand you imagine you have a
candle
usually you light one end of the candle
yeah
and it burns just one direction
when you light the candle at both ends
this
expression it’s like one side is on fire
and the other side is on fire so the
candle disappears
very quickly so this means
you are working very hard and you’re
very very busy
but your energy is going away
very fast so this means like you are
doing too much
so if you know somebody who’s working
really really hard or their life
super fast paced or something you might
say
he’s burning the candle at both ends
so it’s like it’s too much that person’s
energy is going away
too quickly like a candle lit
on both sides okay
all right uh i don’t see other questions
min says i was burning the candle at
both ends this year yeah i think
for a lot of people a lot of us had that
experience of
trying to do many things and using a lot
of our energy
this year maybe many people uh jasmine
says i’m burning the candle at both ends
with my school
oh yeah for sure super stressful but
good luck yeah
okay great examples everybody okay
let’s go to oh that’s it that’s it for
this one okay
we’ll take a quick break and then we’ll
go to the last group
of four last ones i hope these are
interesting and useful for you
right now okay um quick break and then
we’ll continue
to the last part of today’s lesson if
you’re just joining please make sure to
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people
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uh for if you’re watching on youtube
below the video above the video
if you’re watching on facebook what did
i show you
here are some other oh i showed you the
cooking one already i’m fond of the
cooking one
oh this one’s good time planning
planning your time we talked about
making steady schedules last week so
this could be a good refresher if you
joined last week’s live lesson
all right uh so let’s go to the last
part
i will show you today’s lesson boards
again you can take a picture
get ready you can take a picture now
uh this will be uh the last group right
here
we’re going to talk about four more
expressions you can use
hopefully in your everyday life uh let’s
continue all right so a few more idioms
to use
around the house oseas says can we use
the last expression
in whatever tense to burn the candle yes
like he burned the candle at both ends
yeah you could say that in past tense
we tend to use it in progressive a lot
like
he is burning the candle at both ends
like right now
okay onwards let’s go next expression
up for grabs up for grabs this is a
really fun one i like this one
something that is up for grabs so we do
not use this
really to talk about people i don’t know
maybe if you’re really
like a really aggressive dater i don’t
know but
usually we use this for objects for
objects and for
opportunities something is up for
grabs means something that is available
for anyone to take so grab this word
grab is a is a verb yeah to grab
something
means to quickly take something up
for grabs so grabs i know that sounds
weird grab is a verb
right but this is a set expression up
for grabs means it’s available to take
available for
anyone to take so you might say
about maybe some food you made like oh
yeah
i made a bunch of food and i brought it
to the party it’s all
up for grabs means anyone can take it
it’s all up for grabs or for an
opportunity
like oh did you hear she’s leaving her
job
that means it’s up for grabs so that
means
anyone can take it yeah this is a really
fun expression i like this one
it’s up for grabs okay
uh all right carrying on this next one
uh this one kind of similar to burning
the candle at both
ends to have irons in
the fire to have irons in the fire
this is a common again a common
expression
uh with an interesting image so iron
iron means like metal so imagine
imagine you’re making a sword yeah
imagine you’re making a sword
in order to make a sword we use metal we
put it in
fire to prepare it yeah we have to
prepare it
to make it for the making process we are
getting it
hot in order to make something so
this expression to have irons in the
fire
i might say i have irons in the fire
means
to be working on something or making
progress on something to be working on
something or making
progress on something so it’s like you
are
in the preparing stage for something
you’re getting something ready
to do something like making a sword in
this case
to have irons in the fire or i have lots
of irons in the fire
means i am preparing many different
projects
so you might hear someone say i have
lots of irons in the fire right now
which means i’m working on many things
or i’m preparing
about many things
okay good uh
too weird says we’ve got a bunch of
drinks up for grabs in the fridge
good nice yeah up for grabs good good
good
okay sounds nice uh someone said i
oh javier says there are some flowers up
for grabs on the way that could work
just make sure when you use up for grabs
it means like it’s okay to take that
thing
like this this is not about like
stealing stealing things
just make sure to use it when it’s clear
like it’s okay to take
that thing or it’s okay to try to get
something
okay uh
all right i have irons in the fire
uh to my homework ah good point
so irons in the fire we don’t use for
everyday tasks actually to have irons in
the fire
is something we use for like upcoming
projects or like an upcoming idea
so if you for example are thinking of
starting
you’re thinking of starting a business
or you’re thinking of starting
a new project and you just started
preparing you just started
like sending emails or you just started
building your team
that’s a situation we would say you have
irons
in the fire so it’s like behind the
scenes we don’t use this for
everyday tasks really
okay all right let’s continue
yeah irons in the fire can be a little
bit confusing
i would recommend like uh try a quick
google search to see the kinds of
situations that people
use this in for a little bit more
explanation
yeah okay
okay let’s continue to the next one
under
wraps under wrap so something that is
under wraps
is secret something that is secret so
imagine
this expression wraps maybe you know
wrapping paper like presents
yeah under something that is under
wraps is under like you can imagine
wrapping paper that means it’s secret so
we use this for plans like the upcoming
budget changes are under wraps for
example
or that project is under wraps all of
that is
secret so if you hear under wraps and
don’t forget this
s when you use this it means that
something is
secret something is secret okay oh
virginia has a great example on facebook
she says
i have many irons in the fire so i’ll be
burning a candle at both ends soon
i would say i’ll be burning a candle at
both ends
very soon maybe in the future nice
example virginia great work
um jose says does the up for grab
expression also
apply when you go somewhere and they
have candies available to be taken yes
that’s fine you could say hey all that
candy’s up for grab like
you can you can grab that stuff so the
key there is that it’s
clear there’s a clear opportunity to
take those things that’s the idea
all right let’s go to the last one oh my
gosh oh my gosh i’m late i have to go to
the last one
so the last one i chose this one for the
last expression
call it a day call it a day to call it a
day means to decide the day is done to
decide you’re finished
call it a day like today is finished
here
we use this at the end of the day like
at work uh maybe at school
you can use it at home too after
cleaning or
after making dinner whatever you are
finished
for the day you want to decide you’re
done
you say usually let’s call it a day
you can use this in command form too ah
call it a day you had a long day today
so this means finish to be finished with
the day
so we could say this i guess we wouldn’t
really say this for like the live lesson
we would say in this case call it good
or call it done let’s call it done
so let’s say it’s finished we can use
that
if it’s not the end of the day
phew all right that was a lot so i’ll
finish there for now
i’ll show you one more time today’s
lesson board so that you can take a
picture
here you are if you want to take a
screenshot this
is our list of idioms for around the
house
we talked about today so i hope that you
found something
that was useful for you i hope that uh
you picked up
a few idioms that you can use in your
everyday life
around your house with your family your
roommates co-workers
whatever um
i’m looking for your questions uh i
don’t see other questions
specific questions okay so we’ll finish
there so i’m
i won’t say i’ll call it a day because
today is depending on where you are
there’s different time zones right
so i’ll say i’ll call it good we’ll call
it good there so that means call it
finished i’m going to say this is
finished call it them
but next week of course i’ll be back
next week
uh here is next week’s lesson
information next week i’ll be back
november 11th
wednesday 10 p.m eastern standard time
that is new york city time please google
it
or set a notification so that you can
join
uh when you’re ready the topic will be
how to make basic comparisons i’m going
to do
some basic grammar review adjectives and
nouns i’m going to cover adjective and
noun comparisons
i have some videos on the english class
101 youtube channel
you can check it out you can review and
prepare for next week’s lesson so
you can send me your awesome questions
and example sentences
all right we are going to finish let’s
call it done there
thanks everybody for joining me again
live super fun as always
um couple questions at the end because i
have like a minute left
uh yes everybody’s saying let’s call it
a day good this is a good situation to
use that
if it’s not the end of the day as i said
use call it good
or call it then uh do you have instagram
yes check the youtube description
um maria says to have irons in the fire
could that mean irons like ideas in your
mind
yeah you could say that we usually use
irons in the fire for action for things
we’re actually making progress on
not just for ideas okay all right
i think that’s it so let’s finish there
thanks everybody for liking and sharing
the video thanks very much for your
great questions and your awesome example
sentences
i will see you again next week have a
great day have a great night and i will
see you again
next time bye