Weekly English Words with Alisha Most Common English Idioms
Hi everybody, and welcome back to Weekly Words.
My name is Alisha, and this week we’re going
to look at some common English idioms. Let’s begin.
The first word, or phrase rather, is ‘about to’.
‘About to’ means you’re going to start
something; you’re going to begin doing something.
For example, “I’m about to start explaining
this idiom to you”. Hey, hey.
Okay, the next word or phrase—idiom. The
next idiom is ‘by the way’.
The word here they’ve used is ‘incidentally’.
It’s a way to transition to another topic
that’s related to what you’re talking about.
For example, “This week I’m going to a party.
By the way, did you hear about the party happening
next week?” So they’re somewhat related.
Okay, the next idiom is ‘in a way’.
‘In a way’.“In a way, it was a good
thing that the burrito shop was closed, because
otherwise, I would have eaten way too much.”
And you can use this to show that there may
be two sides to a situation. Maybe some things
are negative, maybe some things are positive.
Next is ‘on the other hand’.
I hear this a lot. ‘On the other hand’
is a way of just saying “however”, or
to share two different sides of a story. For
example, “I think my co-worker is really
irritating. On the other hand, at parties
he’s really funny”. So you can show two
different sides to a point with this phrase.
Next is ‘as a matter of fact’.
‘As a matter of fact’ as an idiom. This
is a long way to just say “actually”,
or “really”. It’s a little bit more formal
sounding, so you might use it in a business
meeting, for example. Everybody at the business
meeting might feel a little bit unsure about
the previous month’s sales, and you can begin
your presentation by saying something like,
“I know everybody was a little bit unsure
about last week’s, or last month’s, sales
performance, but as a matter of fact, things
improved”.
And that’s the end. Those are some common
idioms that you might hear in English. Give
them a try, they’re pretty useful and you
might hear a lot of them in conversation.
Thanks very much for joining us this week
and we’ll see you again next time for more
information. Bye.