Most Common English Proverbs Basic English Phrases
okay we are rolling hi everybody welcome
back to our weekly live stream my name
is Alisha and today we’re going to talk
about some common English
proverbs if you’re not familiar a
proverb is kind of like a traditional
advice a piece of advice or kind of a
traditional like historical idea about
how to live life in a specific language
or a specific culture so you might find
in today’s lesson that there are some
things that are similar or the same with
your language and the advice in your
city or in your country but there might
be some unique things that you can find
in English proverb so today we’re going
to focus on this topic so as you join
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so if you’re just joining again today or
this week rather our topic will be
common English proverbs common English
proverbs so let’s get started Oh a
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review then for those of you just
joining today’s topic is English
proverbs English proverb so a proverb
proverb is the key word for today I
think proverb means like a short
expression that’s like a short piece of
advice from that culture so these are
really really common expressions ways
that people like try to communicate how
to live life or how to work and so on so
that will be the focus for today’s
lesson excellent
all right with that then let’s get
started in a minute no maybe yes no
shall I past that no pick okay no
problem we won’t share a picture this
week no worries okay so let’s get
rolling into today’s topic then I’ve
grouped them into just three proverbs so
I’ll explain each proverb on the board
you’ll see some text on screen too so
it’s the same but let’s get started with
the first the first proverb for today
first one the first one for today is a
watched pot never boils a watched pot
never boils
so here please notice we’re using this
watched watched form a watched pot never
boils
excuse me have a bit of gold a watched
pot never boils
means if you’re focusing
your attention on something you are
waiting to happen like there’s something
you really are excited about there’s
something you really hope is going to
happen it’s going it’s never going to
happen or it’s going to seem to take a
long time so imagine this expression
comes from cooking then so when you’re
cooking in the kitchen and you’re
waiting for water to boil if you stand
in the kitchen and watch and watch the
water and you wait for it to boil it’s
going to seem to take a long time if
however you move around you do other
things in your house while you wait for
the water to boil it will seem to boil
at a faster rate so this means if
there’s something you’re waiting for
don’t just focus on it while you wait
for it it means do other things as you
wait for it - so a watched pot never
boils is a key for today all right
good and if you have questions please
send them in the chat I will try to
check the chat a lot though I can’t
catch everything so good all right so
that’s our first one a watched pot never
boils a watched pot never boils
and please make sure your pronunciation
here not a watch pot but a watched
watched why is it watched think of the
passive form like the pot is being
watched by someone by you or someone
else maybe but the pot is being watched
so a watched pot that’s why we use the e
d form watched pot okay good let’s
continue on to the next proverb for
today then so the next proverb I chose
because I thought it would be really
good for you guys who are studying
people who are studying learning just a
nice reminder um oh are we gonna see
this if so that’s cool no okay all right
well I’ll go on to the next proverb the
next proverb that I thought was really
good for learners today is practice
makes perfect practice makes perfect so
everybody oh yeah we’ll see that in just
a second
see it um up above here perfect thank
you so practice makes perfect practice
makes perfect is great for study for
anything you are trying to improve I
imagine in your language you probably
have some kind of similar expression but
practice makes perfect means if you
practice something a lot it will become
perfect so like a lot of you asked like
how do i improve my english what should
i do in those cases it’s like the answer
is practice you have to practice so
practice lots and lots of practice makes
perfect so like to make something you
need to do something else before the
result so practice is the first thing
practice make something perfect so
practice makes perfect really short and
easy to remember but a good proverb for
studying in particular hmm okay oh do we
have subtitles in the lie that’s
exciting
alright good ok nice so practice makes
perfect is our second one for today
alright someone says I don’t believe
that practice makes perfect
oh really then what makes perfect if you
have a different suggestion what makes
perfect if practice does not okay
alrighty let’s continue on to the next
one next one is an interesting
expression next one I’ll break it down
in just a second the next expression is
hindsight is always 20/20 hindsight is
always 20/20 okay so first let’s look at
this word hind sight hind so this part
hind this part think of the word behind
so behind meaning like in fact of like
not in front of the opposite of the
front behind here we have hind sight so
sight refers to your vision yeah so hind
sight means looking back on your
activities looking back over your past
is hindsight so what did you do
yesterday thinking about that that’s
hind sight hind sight so hindsight
looking back over your past is always
20 20 20 so this refers to vision this
refers to vision so if you have visited
an eye doctor
an optometrist the kind of baseline for
like perfect normal regular vision is
20/20 so 20/20 is the measurement for
perfect vision for clear vision so
hindsight is always 20/20 means in other
words when we look back over the past we
can see everything very clearly like
everything seems very clear when we look
at it like when we’re looking back over
everything we’ve done before so
hindsight is always 20/20 here it is if
you can’t see the board hindsight is
always 20/20 here so 20/20 refers to
perfect like clear vision perfect and
clear vision okay
oh yeah it South Korea same proverbs
cool cool yeah okay um practice makes
perfect yeah people are talking a lot
about practice makes perfect for sure
great great okay um yeah and someone on
Facebook I’m in says hi well I would
like to improve my English what should I
do like we talked about this one
practice makes perfect is a great one
for those of you who like studying so
practice just you know you have to
practice for sure
okie dokie we are about 12 minutes in so
please yeah keep sending questions and
ideas too um but for now I think we’ll
move a log we do have a special that
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right here it’s hard to see now I think
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show but Oh special delivery looking
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this is a new PDF actually I know we
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but this is a new one that we have the
team made
lots of people asked like what should i
do how should I study so we made or the
team made rather a goals a goals cheat
sheet so you can see it here look at
that we got fancy camera action this
week
so like this is basically to help you
build a goal for your studies so like
first by asking the question like why
first like why are you learning English
what do you want to do with your English
in other words and then there are a few
ideas here so I want to travel to the US
I want to use it for my job I want to
speak to someone about someone special
in English for example other ideas here
on the other side like I like the
language I like the culture and so on so
it’s sort of meant to give you sorry
it’s sort of meant to give you oh I’ll
go back to that to give you some ideas
to help you build goals for yourself so
once you’ve done that making a plan what
are you going to do when are you going
to do it
sorry it’s difficult to see and then a
few patterns that beginners can use and
some grammar as well some key grammar
expressions so if your beginning or if
your if your beginning or if you’re just
thinking about how to move forward how
to make a study plan for yourself you
can take a look at this it might help
you and if anything if you want to
review like I just showed quickly the
grammar the grammar points down here
basic grammar points these are some
great basic grammar points for you to
begin with to understand so please check
this out this is available on the
website at English class 101.com
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all right let’s continue on great if you
are just joining today’s lesson I’ll
stand here there okay good okay so if
you are just joining today’s lesson
today we are talking about English
proverbs English proverbs proverbs are
like kind of historical traditional
advice I look fair I look kind of bummed
out they’re like what am I thinking
about anyway using proverbs how to use
them what they mean and so on yes it is
totally free on the website you need an
account but the account is free to
download the the PDF I just showed okay
sorry again I have a bit difficult break
time is over indeed one yes so if you’re
just joining please don’t forget to hit
the like button and share the video too
we appreciate it
all right let’s go to the second group
of Proverbs
for today today second group of Proverbs
let’s start with this one this one I
think about a lot actually this one
personally I really think about this one
the expression is actions don’t forget
this s actions speak louder than words
so again as here actions speak louder
than words actions speak louder than
words means the things you do are more
important than the things you say so
your actions the things you choose to do
with your time those things are more
important than just talking so actions
speak louder than words actions speak
louder so actions don’t actually speak
no but your actions communicate more
than just words like words are one thing
it’s easy to say words but taking action
making choices and making decisions
that’s different
so actions speak louder than words this
is a great one that I think about a lot
so here it is above me actions don’t
forget these s sounds at the end of
these two actions speak louder than
words also comparative form here this is
a comparative expression
actions speak louder than words so
actions here words are down here more
okay good nice all right so that’s one I
personally really like actions speak
louder than words
then let’s go to one that might not
quite the opposite but like a slightly
different idea a twist so a twist means
like a kind of change or like an
unexpected change in a story or an idea
the next one is the pen the pen so pen
literally means like the writing device
a pen so the pen is mightier again
comparative the pen is mightier than the
sword
the pen is mightier than the sword sword
if you don’t know is like an old weapon
a big weapon that people used to fight
swords so this expression means the pen
so writing in other words words writing
words we have the word mightier mighty
means strong or like effective like in
battle it means powerful for example so
the pen is mightier more effective
stronger more powerful than the sword
here the sword refers to fighting so the
pen is mightier than the sword means
words and communication that way are
more effective than fighting you the pen
is mightier than the sword the pen is
mightier than the sword so this is quite
a good one that people like to talk
about in times of like battle or in
times of war for example the pen is
mightier than the sword
or perhaps writers as well like to use
this proverb but - okay nice and if you
have any questions uh mode brews hi some
I’m really sorry I’ve mispronounced your
name if you change it to 50/50 this
expression hindsight is twenty-twenty to
5050 note it sounds very strange please
use 20/20 this expression okay yeah em
Rainey said 1 & 2 are opposite because
the sword represents an action and
penned two words so yeah so there’s a
bit of discussion you could have here
these two
kind of different like they’re kind
almost opposites you could say that
sword means specifically fighting
specifically like violence actually so
that’s one way that we could say it’s a
bit different anyway quite interesting
okay um let’s continue to the third one
for this group then flees the third one
here is you can’t judge a book by its
cover
you can’t judge a book by its cover okay
what does this mean so this expression
means you can’t determine a person’s
personality you can’t understand a
person based only on their appearance
based only on the way they look so here
we’re talking about a book you can’t
judge a book so the cover of the book is
the first appearance of the book I don’t
think we have a book in this room
okay let’s imagine oh no I don’t never
mind so if you imagine the cover of a
book there’s some artwork or something
on the cover but there’s a lot of
information inside the book in the pages
of the book we can’t understand all of
the information inside the book only
looking at the cover so in other words
don’t judge people based only on their
looks hmm so you can’t judge a book by
its cover
you can’t judge a book by its cover so
this is one that’s like trying to teach
people to be understanding and to kind
of try to get to know other people
before judging them before making a
judgement so to judge someone actually
to judge this is a word that means like
to make a determination so like a very
simple judgment is oh that person’s good
or that person’s bad so that’s a
judgement we judge we determine we
decide something so to judge a person or
to judge a book is to decide that person
that book is good or bad only by looking
at their
hereit’s so this is saying you can’t do
that it’s not possible to know
everything only by appearance quite good
someone on Facebook nah man Nubia
AutoKey no physical appearance might be
good but the context or pages inside
aren’t that good God said that’s
something to maybe the the appearance
looks amazing but inside is not so great
so there are a lot of different ways
that we can apply this proverb for sure
it’s quite interesting Aquila YouTube
says sometimes we say in Arabic the
content is known by its subject
interesting I want to know more about
that hmm interesting
okay fantastic great so those are the
next three I have three more for today
but I want to take another quick break
in case you missed it so I mentioned
before hmm
excuse me I mentioned before there’s a
new PDF available on the website you’ll
see a close up here in just a second
okay so this is the new PDF that’s up on
the website you can find the link to
English class 101.com
below the video on youtube in the
youtube description box or above the
video on Facebook so this is a kind of
way to make some learning goals for
yourself so by asking why are you
learning English and a few reasons why
you might be learning English maybe you
have a different reason this also
includes some question words to help you
make your plan like what do my what do I
want to do how often am I going to do it
who am I going to do it with a few
sentence patterns for beginners for sure
and some grammar points which I
mentioned earlier today but there’s a
third page that has a few data a few
proverbs sort of things so like this one
you can never understand one language
until you understand
two so this third page includes a couple
of Proverbs related to language and
related to studies so if
example a new language is a new life as
an example so these are just a couple of
ideas that hopefully can help you with
your motivation so check this out you
can find this on the website you can
find the link below the video are you do
above the video on Facebook yes we
always do have two small breaks because
I need a break it’s very warm in here
it’s very warm in here though
it’s good to take a break all right good
good let’s move on then yeah so check
this out definitely it’s free to
download you can download this for free
you do need an account on the website
but you can make it check it out all
right then we have only a few minutes
left
this was our most recent proverb we
talked about let’s move on to the last
three for today some good ones over here
let’s go to this side can you see okay
all right the first one on this side is
the expression if it ain’t broke don’t
fix it we usually use this ain’t what is
ain’t some of you probably are asking
this right now
ain’t is the casual extremely casual and
not technically I suppose if you want to
be specific correct way to say isn’t if
it isn’t broken so actually this part
ain’t broke this is grammatically
incorrect this is grammatically
incorrect but using this grammatically
incorrect form sounds kind of like rough
or cool but this is a situation where we
do it on purpose if it ain’t broke don’t
fix it yeah so this means if you have
something that is not broken like if
something is working well don’t make any
changes to it so like if at your job for
example everything in your job is moving
smoothly or experiencing success
everything’s going great don’t change
anything you should continue doing that
thing so don’t try to fix something that
isn’t broken don’t try to fix something
if it ain’t broke don’t fix it
if it ain’t broke don’t fix it hmm yes
okay that is correct it is not
grammatically correct ain’t ain’t you
might hear this in music actually
sometimes you hear this and yeah
actually a lot in popular music ain’t it
sounds kind of rough or kind of cool I
don’t use it because I’m not rough and
I’m not cool like ain’t is something you
might hear in media a lot and in this
proverb for example okay sounds good all
right uh let’s see
hi Costa Rica someone said say hi to
Costa Rica don’t have many theories from
Costa Rica at least you don’t write in
the chat okay anyway let’s continue on
to the next one the next expression
we’re running at a time the next
expression is this one another if clause
sentence if the shoe fits wear it if the
shoe fits wear it kind of strange maybe
but this means if something suits you
so suits means if something matches you
if you’re good at doing something and
that thing like fits you and fits your
lifestyle well you should do it so like
this expression uses a shoe if you have
a shoe and the shoe is the perfect size
for you it’s it’s a great fit you should
wear that shoe it’s great for you so the
same thing applies to your lifestyle so
if something in your life fits you if
something in your life suits you really
well you should do it so if the shoe
fits wear it
so this can actually mean like jobs it
can mean hobbies it can mean your
friends your personal relationships so
if you find something that fits you
really well you should go for it that’s
this piece of advice here if the shoe
fits wear it if the shoe fits wear it
it’s good one
okay good we’re running out of time so
let’s continue on I will I’m reading the
chat I don’t see many questions where is
the air conditioning we have a fan in
this room but if I turn the fan on
you’ll hear audio going you’ll hear like
an audio problem it’ll sound bad so we
don’t use it okay anyway let’s continue
to the last proverb for today the last
one for today it is strike while the
iron is hot strike while the iron is hot
this expression has an interesting
historical background strike while the
iron is hot this refers to metalworking
so use this imagine this is a hammer and
I’m making a sword okay so when working
metal when you’re making something from
metal you use fire you put metal in fire
and then it becomes softer the metal
becomes softer as it’s hot when it gets
hot it’s softer and easier to work so
someone who is making something with
metal if they strike strike means hit
strike is like a more formal way to say
hit or like attack so if you strike when
the iron iron is a type of metal strike
while the iron is hot means that if you
do this at the right time then it will
be more effective the it’s better timing
in other words so this means you should
take advantage of opportunities when
they are available so if you see a
chance you should jump you should attack
that chance you should take that chance
strike while the iron is hot so imagine
your opportunity or your chance is like
the iron in the fire like it’s ready
it’s in a good time for you to take
advantage of it to jump on it to do
something so it’s up to you to take the
chance to make the like to make the
situation good for you your timing so
strike while the iron is hot I like that
expression
- this is similar we have like another
expression that’s like to have a lot of
irons in the fire means you have a lot
of different opportunities going at the
same time I like that I think I think
I’m
that kind of person I like to have lots
of irons in the fire
so yeah that’s a really cool one I quite
like that expression yeah it means don’t
miss your opportunities take advantage
of things when you have the opportunity
when you have the time strike while the
iron is hot okay I don’t see any
questions in there can I give an example
about that in a situation sure uh so
like for example if you get a great job
offer it’s a really good job offer but
you already have a okay job then your
friend might say Oh strike while the
iron is hot like you need to take this
chance while you have it otherwise you
might miss it so that’s a situation
where it’s like oh you need to jump now
like you have to do it now so it’s one
of those like once in a lifetime chance
sort of things could be yeah I hope that
helps okay to make ends meet means to to
be able to cover all of your expenses
for something a little bit different hmm
yes it is lively Tarr on Facebook but we
are finishing up actually it is time to
finish perfect timing for your question
so I have to finish there for today but
thank you very much for joining today’s
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you sure oh great so we will be back
next week next week same time same
channel we’ll be here next week June Wow
already June 20th my gosh this year is
going so fast whew so next vehicle will
be back on June 20th the topic will be
improving your spelling improving your
spelling so how - yeah how to improve
your spelling in English
I’ll talk about a few tips and maybe
some things you can do that will
hopefully help you become a better
speller and therefore a better writer in
English so please join us next week
June 20th 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
Eastern Standard Time is New York City
time so if you don’t know your time
please Google it from this time ok
also if you missed it before as well we
do have a brand new PDF for you to
download from the website Oh shall we
look at it over here again ok so we do
have this brand-new PDF for you on the
website if you are trying to make some
goals for yourself or trying to make a
plan or are just starting this could be
a great place to begin with some basic
questions basic grammar points as well
and then a few actually proverbs 2 about
learning languages great alrighty so
with that we will wrap up today’s lesson
thank you very much for coming I hope
that you found something interesting
this was kind of different from what we
usually do but this was sort of an
exploration so I hope that you found
something new and interesting and maybe
you found a proverb that you have in
your language but now you can say it in
English that would be cool ok but for
today we will finish up there so please
join us again next week have a good day
have a good night too enjoy your weekend
and I will see you again soon bye