15 Awesome IDIOMS for Daily Conversation Work From Home
Well hey there I’m Emma from mmmEnglish!
Today I’ve got some very common English expressions
and idioms to help you talk about working from home,
something that many of us have been getting used to
lately, right?
Are you working from home?
What do you think about it so far? Do you love it?
Do you hate it?
Do you feel like you’re being very productive?
Let me know about it in the comments. I’m curious.
In the meantime, I’ve got fifteen English expressions
for you to learn to help you talk about working
from home and doing things professionally at home.
Now some of them are informal but you can definitely
still use them in a professional context, especially
if you’ve got a good relationship with your clients,
and your team and your customers.
So if you all like to have a laugh together
and make each other smile,
then these are some really great idioms to use.
So let’s get started!
Lockdown and working from home has shown
millions of us around the world
that we don’t necessarily need to be in the same room
to feel like we’re together and to connect
with each other.
And even though video chat is nothing new,
it’s funny how we’ve all been getting used to having
conversations by a video
in ways that we didn’t really do before.
So being able to see each other is so easy now and it
makes such a difference.
You probably know that I’m a huge fan of Lingoda,
the online language school that offers
everything you’ll find in a traditional language school
but with the flexibility of everything being online.
And what’s so great about it is that when you study
with Lingoda, you’re studying with real people
who are just like you via video.
You can see them, you can hear them,
you can read their facial expressions, their tone of voice,
their mood, all of these things that are so important
to great conversations.
Yeah there are language apps that you can use
and they’re good for some things
like learning vocabulary
but interacting with a robot on your screen,
it really isn’t the same.
Hello Emma shall we enjoy a walk in the apartment?
What?
Joining live online classes with Lingoda,
with native teachers and real classmates is so much
better and being online means that you can easily study
from home at a time that suits you.
Each Lingoda class is a small group class
so you’ll always have the chance to participate
and get personal feedback at every step along the way.
If you haven’t tried Lingoda before well now is a really
great time to see what it’s like studying from home
and there are a couple of ways that you can try it out.
The first is to sign up for their free offer
which includes three group classes
that you have to take within seven days
or alternatively use this code to get
a thirty euro discount off your first payment.
I’ll put the details and the link to join in the description
below. If you go and check them out
let me know what you think.
So we’ve all been through quite a bit of change lately,
haven’t we? Adjusting our social lives obviously
but we’ve also had to learn new skills and get organised
so that we can actually work effectively from home
and when our teams are apart.
Now perhaps you’ve had to be a little creative
getting your workspace set up so that you can actually
do your work effectively.
So let’s start with some really common idioms
that talk about learning new things.
Anyone feel like they’ve been
thrown in the deep end lately?
You might also hear this expression as ‘thrown in
at the deep end’ as well. Either’s fine.
But this is a really common idiom especially in
a professional context because it describes that
moment when you’re forced to do something unfamiliar
or perhaps something that’s quite complex and
without much help from anyone else.
You’ve just got to sort of try and work it out on your own
which is why this idiom is so relevant now
because so many of us have been thrown in the deep
end recently because working from home is a very
new and different experience.
Often at a new job, this happens right? When you’re
put in an unfamiliar situation and you’re just
expected to work it out or to get good results.
Your manager might throw you in the deep end
to see how you respond under pressure.
Something to note about this idiom is that you’ll often
hear it used in the passive voice.
It’s good to be thrown in the deep end.
It’s the fastest way to learn.
But by using the passive voice here,
we make the experience the most important part
in the sentence. It doesn’t really matter who
threw you in the deep end right? Doesn’t matter.
But that’s why using the passive is a really good option
with this idiom.
This is a really great, really common expression
‘to get the hang of something’
and it really just means to learn how to
do something, especially when it’s not obvious
or it’s not simple.
Don’t worry, I’ll teach you how to use the software.
You’ll get the hang of it soon.
So that just means you’ll learn how to do it soon
and then it’s not going to be a problem for you.
Now if you’ve only just recently started
working from home,
you might still be getting the hang of it
but a lot of us have been working from home
for a few weeks now or a few months. Perhaps you’re
getting comfortable with it.
So I want you to think about the tense that you
should be using with this expression right?
Is it happening now or did it happen in the past?
It wasn’t easy to sell products to customers on Zoom.
It took a while for me to get the hang of it.
Or eventually, I got the hang of it.
So I want to know, have you been
getting the hang of something lately?
Definitely share it in the comments. I’m curious.
Use it in a sentence!
So another idiom with a very similar meaning
to that one is ‘to get your head around something’
which means to understand something that is
challenging or confusing.
So have any of you had to teach your parents
or your grandparents how to use Zoom
or Skype in the last few weeks?
I think they’ve been some painful moments
for all of us right?
It took my grannie a few attempts to get her head
around it but now she loves it.
And you can definitely use this expression in
all sorts of contexts,
anytime that you’re learning something new.
Bryan ran me through the process yesterday
and I think I’ve got my head around it now.
I think I’ve finally got my head around how this works.
And there’s a couple of variations on this idiom as well.
To wrap your head around something
or to get your mind around something
which is a bit less common but you’ll
hear those different variations from time to time.
To take a hit.
Now this is an informal expression that’s used to
talk about when something suffers damage or loss.
So for example, the hospitality industry right now
has taken a huge hit due to the corona virus.
Same with the tourism industry.
Some companies may have noticed that employee
productivity took a hit over the past few months
as everyone adjusted to their new
home working environments.
So can you think of a way to use this expression
in a sentence? You know, can you think of
something else that has taken a hit
over the last few months? So it has been negatively
affected or negatively impacted.
And maybe you’re thinking: you know what, Emma?
Surprisingly this transition, you know, of
working at home now.
It’s not been as difficult as I was expecting.
Then this expression is the one to use.
It’s been smooth sailing.
Now it’s used as an adjective to say that something
is easy or it’s manageable,
that everything is going according to plan.
There’s nothing you need to worry about.
If you’re a school teacher or a university teacher,
I’m sure when you first found out that you needed
to take online classes, you’re a bit worried.
Maybe you were worried about the technology
or maybe you were worried if your students would even
participate in online classes but hopefully,
to your surprise,
there haven’t been too many problems at all.
So when someone asks you “Hey how’s it going?”
You could answer
“Surprisingly, it’s all been smooth sailing.”
When the schools closed,
it was a difficult transition for the kids.
But once we got a routine in place,
it’s been smooth sailing!
And you can definitely use this same expression
in the negative form to express the opposite idea right?
You can say “It hasn’t been smooth sailing.
The team’s found it really hard to collaborate remotely.”
I love this one. A madhouse.
Now this is a place where there is no order
and no control whatsoever.
I’m wondering if this expression could be useful
to help you talk about your home office. It’s a really
humorous expression, you know,
when you’re trying to make a joke about how crazy and
frustrating a situation is. So if you’ve got your kids
and your partner and a dog and you’re all at home,
you’re all stuck inside working, studying, eating, cooking,
working out in the same space,
you could joke with your colleagues about how wild it is,
you know, when they’re asking you
“How’s it going over there? How are you coping?”
You can just laugh and say
“It’s a madhouse! I will be glad when all of this is over!”
Or when you’re on a video call
when you’re talking to a colleague and you know,
your kids burst in.
“I’m so sorry about the disruption.
It’s a madhouse around here!”
But always use the expression with humour you know,
when you’re smiling and you’re making a joke okay.
Hopefully, they understand.
So if you’re cooped up somewhere, you’re in a small
closed space,
a space that you can’t escape from.
I hate being cooped up inside working
when it’s a sunny day outside.
Or maybe a little more relevant to you right now.
There are five of us cooped up inside this
one tiny apartment!
This is a really great idiom to learn
and start using regularly.
You can use it to say that you are really annoyed
or you’re really frustrated about something
and you want it to end or stop.
Like
the neighbour that I have on the other side of this wall,
he’s learning to play the trumpet and
it wasn’t so bad before but now he’s home all the time
and he practises so much like I don’t know
when he’s getting his work done,
he’s just playing the trumpet all the time.
And I’m sick of it.
Are you sick of being cooped up inside all day?
If your kids are disrupting you while you’re trying to work
tell them you’re sick of it!
If you’re frustrated because your internet speed has
halved since everyone is now working at home,
call the phone company
and tell them that you’re sick of it.
So it’s a really good one to use when you are frustrated
and you’re annoyed
and since we’re talking about being so frustrated
and annoyed, let’s talk about work meetings by video.
There are so many annoying things about online
meetings. Mute yourself if your kids are yelling in the
background or there’s a dog barking.
Everyone else in the meeting can hear it.
Or if you’re working a little later in the evening
when everyone else is watching Netflix,
how annoying are all of the connection problems?
It’s like overload right so you get video and audio
problems which are pretty frustrating when you have an
online meeting.
So I’ve got some expressions to help you talk about that
The first one is to freeze or to be frozen, right?
This is, you know, when your connection is bad.
Hang on, you’re frozen!
Or you keep freezing! We can’t hear you!
Another useful one is to say that there’s a lag
or there is a delay which is really annoying.
So you know when someone’s mouth is moving but
the voice is behind it so it’s really frustrating
to try and understand what’s going on.
And the last one is to say that the connection cut out.
It cut out.
I didn’t hear you there, I missed something that you said.
So all of these are really useful expressions
when there are connection problems in online meetings.
And this idiom is another one that’s really useful
in this situation. Hit and miss.
So if something is hit and miss, you can’t rely on it right?
You can’t confidently say that it’s gonna be good quality
and accurate and perfect.
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
So you could say
“I’m really sorry, my internet connection has been a bit
hit and miss today.”
Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad.
But you can also use this same expression to talk about
something else, the quality of something, you know.
The coffee at my local cafe is a bit hit and miss.
Sometimes it’s good,
sometimes it’s bad, depends on who makes it.
Now I want to share a few expressions that will help you
during meetings, online meetings or in-person meetings
down the tracks.
But ‘hold that thought’ is a good one
because the chances of getting disrupted while you’re
working from home are quite high, right?
Your kids might wander into the room. Your dog
might stop barking. The postman might
ring the doorbell. The phone might ring.
So it’s really hard to avoid these distractions
when you’re working from home, right?
So this expression is a really good one
to let someone know that you
want them to remember what you were talking about
and you want to keep talking about it when you
come back in a couple of moments okay
so you’re asking them to hold that thought.
Keep it in your mind while I
duck off and take the kids out of the room.
I’m so sorry my son is calling me from the bathroom.
Hold that thought, I’ll be right back.
This is a really great set of expressions to learn, given
all of the distractions that we’ve been talking about.
When you’re in an online meeting,
you want to make sure that you all stay focused, right?
You need to keep focused on what you’re doing,
you need to stay on track and try not to get off track.
So on track is when things are happening
as they should be, there’s no problems at all.
And if something is not happening as you want it to
and you want to change it,
that’s when we use the expression ‘to get back on track’
So logically if something is not on track, it’s off track.
It’s not happening as it should be, right?
So I want you to imagine this.
You’re meeting some of your colleagues to discuss
a project that you’ve been working on
but halfway through, someone’s cat walks across
the screen, across the keyboard and everyone starts
laughing and talking about how
hard it is to work from home.
They’re talking about their kids and what they had
for dinner last night and
anything else except what you should be talking about
in the meeting.
So you might want to just interrupt the conversation
and say “Guys we’re getting off track.
We’ve only got ten minutes left
until the end of the meeting and we haven’t even
started talking about the marketing budget yet.”
We should have completed the project last week
but we got off track with a few technical issues.
Hey have you heard this expression before
about brownie points?
It’s quite a funny expression, a humorous expression
as well just like madhouse.
It’s relevant now but you can use it at any time
because you earn brownie points by getting
praise or approval for something that you’ve done.
So if you do something good, you earn or you get
brownie points, right?
So I’ve got a good example to share from just yesterday.
I had a funny conversation with one of my
team members, Kat.
She overslept and missed a meeting which
I wasn’t too worried about because she works so hard
and I said to her “Don’t worry Kat,
you’ve got enough brownie points to sleep in once.”
But she was like
“I know, but I don’t want to lose my brownie points”
But the funny thing is that these points are not real,
you know, they don’t get you anything except
someone else’s good opinion of you.
But having brownie points is definitely a good thing.
It’s really important to have someone’s good opinion
of you, right? So you would
probably earn brownie points with your neighbours
if you left a cake on their doorstep for them.
Or if your partner cooked a meal and cleaned the whole
house for you, you might be a little suspicious and think
why are you trying to earn brownie points with me?
So can you think of something that would earn you
brownie points with someone in your household
at the moment? What could you do
to earn some brownie points?
Hang in there! Everything is gonna be okay.
It will become easier, you will get used to it.
So this expression is really useful
when you want to tell someone not to give up
even though it’s hard, even though it’s difficult.
So if you’ve got friends or you’ve got family members
or colleagues who are having a difficult time
adjusting to this new situation that we’re in
and you know, they’re sharing their troubles with you
about how their kids keep interrupting their online
meetings, tell them to hang in there.
Or if you know health care workers and they’re
exhausted and they’re anxious, tell them
“Hang in there. You know this won’t go on forever.”
So this is the new norm my friends
or the new normal.
You know and we use this expression, it’s quite informal
to talk about when our circumstances have changed
you know, and we have to get used to a new situation
and get comfortable with it.
Obviously, it’s a really relevant expression to use
right now but you can also use it in other contexts
as well when your life circumstances change.
So for me, I had a friend who has just had a baby
and I was saying “I just don’t know how
you function with only three hours sleep”
and she said “Emma, it’s the new norm in our house.
We’re just having to get used to it.”
It’s the new norm.
So I hope you’re hanging in there my friends and that
you’re getting used to the new norm.
I would love for you
to think of any other English idioms that are relevant
to working from home. It’s really important right now
to find ways to express ourselves to talk about
working from home and some of these challenges.
Like I said, if you can think of some others
definitely add them in but what I want you to do
is to choose a few of the ones I talked about today,
practise them, pause the video right now.
Write your sentences, add them into the comments
below because I’m gonna be down there checking,
giving some feedback and making some corrections
if you need it.
But this really is the best way to try and remember
these idioms and these new expressions, right?
Put them into practice.
So that’s it my friends! Stay safe, take care of yourselves
and I will see you in the next lesson
here at mmmEnglish.
Bye for now!