130+ Advanced English Phrases for Everyday Conversations | English Vocabulary Help

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See mintmobile.com. If you know all of the phrases in today's English lesson, then you are a master at speaking English.

Let's get started. We're gonna start with some elementary English phrases.

Do you know what it means if something slips someone's mind?

Must have slipped my mind. I was gonna buy milk at the store yesterday, but it slipped my mind.

This means that you forgot it. So this is a pretty basic idiom of saying I forgot to do it.

And this is a great idiom to use. If you told your friend that you were going to call them and you wanted to talk to them, but you just got really busy and you just forgot, you unintentionally forgot.

You could say, I was meant to call you last night, but it slipped my mind.

This means it slipped through my mind. I forgot on accident.

Next, do you know what it means to make a difference?

I'm gonna make... There are lots of really great people in the world that are trying to make a difference.

If you are even just a super basic level of English, you might know that to make a difference means to change something.

But if you are working up your English level, you might know that when American English speakers use this phrase, we're going to make a difference, it means we're going to make a positive change or a positive impact.

We like to encourage people with this phrase.

So we may say, hey, it's important to recycle because it makes a difference for our planet or environment.

A lot of times if we're asking people to donate their time or money to charity, Maybe there's lots of hungry people and you say, hey, if you can donate some money, it would make a difference. meaning it would make a positive change or a positive impact for hungry people in this charity.

If you're watching this English lesson, chances are you're not an elementary English speaker because you can understand what I'm saying And you are learning lots and lots of advanced phrases.

So let's move on up to intermediate and see if you know these next two phrases.

To connect with someone. Do you know what it means to connect with someone?

You just have to find someone to connect with.

If you're thinking in just basic terms not in the idiom sense, if you're connecting with someone maybe you literally link arms you're connected now That's not actually what we mean when we use this phrase.

If you connect with someone, it means you talk to them or it means you get along with them.

If you're connecting with someone, it means you're forming a good relationship.

Good teachers really connect with their students.

They get to know them. They ask about their families.

They ask about their likes and their dislikes.

So when we say in English that we're going to connect with someone or we really want to connect with someone, it means we want to form a bond or a relationship with someone like a friendship. and a lot of times we use this phrase in a negative sense we say i just don't connect with them this means you don't have a good relationship You don't share a lot of good conversation or interests with the person that you don't connect with.

Sometimes if you are at work or if you have a big family, someone will get the idea to get a gift for someone else and they ask others to chip in.

What does it mean to ask people to chip in?

We all chipped in. This phrase, to chip in, it means to contribute, and it often means money.

We can talk about contributing our effort and our work as well.

So again, going back to my original example, if you were at work and it's your boss's birthday, sometimes all of the employees will chip in This means they will contribute a small amount of money so that you can buy a bigger gift together.

So everybody's working together with their money to get a better gift with everybody's contributions.

Or maybe you are cooking a really big meal, you're about to have a party, And you ask someone in your house, hey, could you chip in in the kitchen right now?

I really need help. So you're asking them to chip in some work. so that you guys can get ready for the party or for the dinner, whatever it might be.

This phrase is really common, but I wouldn't be surprised if you had never heard it before.

Do you know what it means to stall? So I'm not ready yet, can you stall? stalling not stalling if you are stalling it usually means you're delaying or you're stopping something So again, maybe you are about to give a big presentation, but your computer is not loading the slides that you need.

So you ask the person who's on stage or at the front of the room, hey, can you stall for just a minute?

I'm trying to... Fix my computer. I'm trying to get it ready.

So you're asking them to delay and kind of entertain everyone who's listening for a couple minutes so that you can figure out your problem.

Another way that we use this word stall, pretty frequently we use it this way, is if our car stops working and we're not really sure why.

Hey, my car just stalled. I had to... pull over and I can't go anywhere.

So usually you have to call a tow truck or you have to call someone to gets you some gas or whatever it might be to get your car going again after it stalls or it stops. if you think someone is purposely wasting time or trying to delay something you might tell them hey don't stall can you stop stalling this means stop delaying what we need to do Many of you watching this lesson are probably at the advanced intermediate level.

Let's look at some phrases that you might know if you're at this English level.

Has someone ever told you to keep something short?

And do you know what it means? No need. I'll keep this short.

This phrase, to keep something short, means to try to make a story or whatever you're about to say not take up too much time or make it brief.

If you know that somebody's busy, you might say, hey, I'm going to keep this short, but I have to tell you something really important.

This means you're gonna give them a quick summary.

You're not gonna tell them the long, full story right now.

So again, this common phrase is used When you're giving presentations or you're speaking to a group and you wanna make sure that you're being considerate of other people's time, we're gonna keep today's meeting short.

I'm gonna keep it short for you. Hey, could you keep this short?

We actually have to go by two o'clock. Has anyone ever popped in on you unexpectedly?

Do you know what this phrase means, to pop in on someone?

Think for a minute. If you pop in on someone, it means you visit them.

And usually this is an informal visit. It's quite often unexpected and it's very short.

If your family is going to visit you, maybe your family lives in a different city or a different state than you, and they come to visit for just a short amount of time and it's kind of unexpected or they didn't plan it very far in advance.

You might say, oh, my family just kind of popped in on me.

I wasn't expecting them. It means they show up, they visit for a very short amount of time.

Do you know what it means to hinder someone or to hinder something?

You shouldn't be hindered, you should be helped.

This phrase can be thought of as slowing down something or kind of ruining something.

Oftentimes, the weather can hinder our plans.

So for instance, if we're about to have a party outside or a wedding outside and it's raining, That is going to hinder our plans, meaning it's going to kind of ruin the plan or make make it not possible even.

If you are traveling and you have a lot of delays, you could say the delays really hindered our travel plans.

This means it ruined it, it slowed it down, it just made it worse than what we were planning.

So to hinder is usually used in a very negative way.

I hope that you've crushed the phrases from the different levels.

So far, let's move on to our advanced English lessons. phrases and words.

And the first phrase is really just a word and it's used in a lot of different ways.

Think if you know what it means when an English speaker calls something exotic.

Very exotic. When we say exotic, it can mean it's unusual or we haven't seen it before.

It's unfamiliar. Or we can even just mean that something is from a foreign place or a foreign country if we call it exotic.

I think AP can be kind of rude for English speakers to say, oh, that's exotic just because it's not French. from the United States.

But one way that we use this that I think is pretty acceptable is when we call food exotic.

To us, we maybe haven't tried these different meats, different flavors, different vegetables.

People think that The United States has a very bland diet, so when we have food from different places, sometimes to us, it feels exotic.

If you don't know this next phrase, give it a shot.

I'll give that a shot. Give it a shot. Okay. is to give something a shot.

Someone might tell you, hey, I know you've never tried this before but give it a shot.

This phrase, it means to give something a chance or to try it and to kind of go into it with an open mind.

So maybe you've never done yoga before and you think, I don't need to go to a class just to do stretching.

The person who likes yoga might say, hey, just give it a shot.

This means try it. Try it with an open mind because you might be surprised that you like it.

If you're going to try something but you don't believe that you can actually do it or you don't have a lot of belief that you will be successful, You might say, hey, I don't know if I can get this job, but I'm going to apply.

I'm just going to give it a shot. means I'm going to try it even though I might fail.

So it's a really positive phrase to mean that you're going to try something with an open mind or just very optimistically try something.

You're going to give it a shot. Do you know what it means when something is beneath you? or you say that something is beneath someone else.

Something about being beneath This phrase, we're saying that something is not worthy of us or we're too good for something.

Let me give you a couple examples to help you understand this phrase because, again, it's advanced.

This one gets... difficult to use in actual English conversation when you're not a native speaker and you're not used to this phrase.

Maybe you're starting out at a new job. You're an assistant and it's a business workplace.

And the boss tells you that it is your job to go get coffees for everyone.

You might think this work is beneath me, meaning I am too good for this work.

I have a lot of skills. Maybe you've gone to school for a long time and you've had a lot of work experience.

You should not be getting coffee. It's beneath you.

So you're saying like this work is for someone who's getting paid less or for someone who doesn't have experience like I do.

One thing about me is no work is beneath me.

I've always been a hard worker. In college, I had a job Cleaning up after concerts.

Yes, I was like a janitor. I cleaned the bathrooms.

I cleaned the floors. It was gross work.

It was really difficult work, but it was never beneath me.

There are a lot of people that think that type of work is beneath them, but In my opinion, everyone should have to work jobs that are difficult like this because it gives you true respect for the job and...

It makes you a hard worker. It makes you someone who is passionate about not having jobs that are beneath you.

So this means you respect the work. Nothing is beneath you.

Let's move into our fluent phrases. Do you know what it means when someone says they are all in on something?

I'm all in. I'm all in. This phrase means you are fully committed or dedicated to something.

So maybe the boss says, hey, we're going to try this plan at work.

If you want to say you're fully committed, you believe in it, you want to be very positive, you say, I'm all in, let's do it.

In English, a nice compliment to give people, especially pregnant people, is to say that they are glowing.

You're glowing. You don't have to use this phrase only with pregnant people.

We use it with a lot of different people.

This phrase just means that the person looks happy, they look confident, they look very healthy.

Oh, you're glowing. Maybe the person says, I just got back from vacation.

I feel very relaxed and I got a nice tan.

So you can physically be looking nice when you are glowing or you can just be looking confident and happy if you say that somebody is glowing.

Do you know what it means when an English speaker says, I can get along without it?

This phrase gets a bit complicated. This phrase means you can manage without something or you can be successful without something that normally you might need.

For instance, I can get along without coffee.

I can't get along without coffee. But some people, they don't need coffee to feel energized and to feel like they're not tired.

They can get along without it. How did I ever get along without you?

The next phrase is to have ties to someone or to have ties to something.

This phrase we use ties to mean connections to something.

So if someone is a criminal, We might say they have ties to the gangs or ties to the mafias, you know, crime organizations.

Or if you have a lot of connections in the career field that you're in, you might say, I have a lot of ties to different companies.

Now we're at the master level. I hope that these phrases in the master level are useful to you to learn.

They're very difficult so don't feel bad if you don't know them.

The first one is a slogan. Do you know what it means to have a slogan?

It's a powerful slogan. A slogan is a short and memorable phrase.

It's often used to advertise something. Or if you say, that is my slogan, it means It's words or phrases that are encouraging to you and you kind of live by.

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I'm sorry? It's French. Let's go. Some of the most popular slogans in the world are Nike, just do it, or McDonald's.

I'm loving it. A good slogan is one that you don't forget.

Or sometimes I think about The Rolling Stones, their slogan should be, you can't always get what you want because it's such a common phrase and it's such a popular song that they have.

Are you familiar with this next phrase? The phrase is to build rapport with someone.

Not just to build a rapport with me. If you build rapport, you're establishing trust in a relationship with someone.

So oftentimes when someone is trying to sell you something, they try to build rapport with you.

Maybe they start asking you personal questions.

Oh, do you have a family? Do you have a wife?

Do you have a husband? Do you have kids?

They're trying to establish a relationship and trust with you only to sell you something.

So I think it's kind of, you know... slimy when salespeople tried to build rapport just to get you to buy their product.

But it's important to build rapport in a lot of different other situations.

You know build rapport with your coworkers, build rapport with your boss, build rapport with just your neighbors.

It's establishing trust and establishing a relationship.

That's what we mean when we use this phrase to build rapport or to have rapport.

It means trust. A common phrase in English is the talk of the town.

This phrase, it means that something is very popular amongst a community.

It doesn't literally have to be the whole town or the whole city.

You can be at work and you can be like, everybody's talking about this.

It's the talk of the town. The new employee is the talk of the town.

They're so interesting. They're so good at their job, whatever it might be.

And you're the talk of the town, you two.

Our last phrase, if you are a master at English, you probably already know this phrase, is to keep something to yourself.

This phrase is used to mean to keep a secret.

We use this phrase exactly interchangeably, but, you know, it's kind of saying, you know, keep this to yourself.

We don't want to say secret because sometimes secret has a negative connotation.

If you're keeping secrets, maybe you're not trustworthy, or maybe you're kind of lying to other people.

So sometimes we just say, hey, just keep this to yourself.

This means don't tell everybody. Maybe you're going to tell people later.

But for now, it needs to be a secret. And it's a soft, gentler way to say keep this a secret.

Keep this to yourself. Keep this to yourself.

Starting out with a phrase that you've definitely heard floating around the internet.

I say this phrase all of the time so it doesn't just have to be online, the phrase is it's a flop.

So when we call something a flop, it means it didn't live up to hype. or expectations.

So you thought it was going to work. You thought it was going to be great, fun, successful, exciting.

And it did not live up to that or meet that expectation a lot. of times we say a movie was kind of a flop if we did not like it as much as we thought we would. especially when it's these big movies that are exciting to see in a series of Avengers or, you know, movies that you've just been excited.

You've been waiting for them to come out in theaters when they aren't very good.

It's kind of a flop. We learned it was a flop.

Being a teacher, sometimes I think lessons are going to go really great.

I'm like These words are really going to help my English learners.

They're going to love this activity. They're going to love this.

And if they don't get it. If they're confused and it turns out, I just didn't plan the lesson very well.

I would say off that lesson was kind of a flop, but.

Keep watching because this lesson isn't going to be a flop.

Let's move on to the next slang phrase. I'm unwell.

So we don't say this in a really serious manner at all.

It's kind of a humorous and overdramatic way to say I'm either shocked, I'm excited, I'm confused.

Let me give you a few examples. I used to be a huge Game of Thrones fan.

And some of the plot twists in that show left me unwell.

After I'd watched the episode, I'd be like, oh, I am unwell after that.

So obviously it's just a television show.

It's not that serious, but it's just a funny way of saying like, That plot twist was so crazy, so unexpected that I'm not doing well.

And we say it in this funny way. We say I'm unwell.

When my brother got engaged, him and his beautiful wife took these pictures in Hawaii of their engagement.

And they were so beautiful. The first time I saw them, I said, oh, I am unwell.

Those are so nice. So again, it's just...

A very dramatic way you'll hear people say, you know, they're surprised by something, impressed by it. whatever emotion it might be, they are unwell because the emotion is just so strong.

Let's talk about what it means to yap or yapping.

So this phrase, you know, to yap, It's been around for a while, but it has really increased in popularity recently. because we've just been using it in this new, exciting, creative way.

So normally when you see, you know, a little dog and they're like, We call that a yappy little dog.

That dog is yapping. So it's kind of annoying when you have a little dog that's barking like that.

They're yapping. Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yap.

Now, we can also say to people when they're just talking, they're not talking about anything serious.

They might actually be just kind of annoying not talking about anything important at all. we say they're yapping.

We've been saying this for a while, but it's just increased in popularity.

So you should definitely know how to use this phrase and how it is used because you'll see it on the internet all the time.

When girls are just making a video, doing their nails, doing their hair, doing their makeup, And they're talking about some things that just aren't very serious, just kind of some interesting things to make a video on social media.

We can say, oh, I'm just watching some girl yap.

If you have two people you work with, and you're good friends with them, remember, don't use these phrases with people who you aren't super familiar with because they are slang and they are informal language.

And your two coworkers are just talking, you know, about their weekends, nothing serious, but you're trying to get your work done.

You'd be like, Hey guys, stop yapping over there.

I'm trying to get my work done. So this is how we're commonly using this new phrase to yap.

It's new and it's old all at the same time.

A common slang phrase that seems to keep being popular is to take an L or for something to just be an L. And of course, the L in this phrase stands for loss.

So maybe your favorite band or your favorite singer is in town and you realize you didn't get to buy tickets.

You say, oh, That's such an L. I wish I would have bought tickets.

So it just means it's a bad situation. It's a loss.

You missed out on something. If you forgot to pack your lunch or you did pack your lunch and you forgot at home, you might be at work and you'll say, That's such an L. I forgot my lunch.

So again, it's just means that we missed out on something.

We made a mistake. We're calling it a loss.

This is the slang phrase that we're using to say that something is just unfortunate.

It's a mistake that we made. My husband hates when I use this phrase.

The phrase is to give someone the it. This phrase, it's definitely been popular for the last year or so, but I'm still using it.

When someone does something that gives you the ick, it can be you've lost attraction or for them because they've done something that just kind of either grosses you out or you can't really explain why, but it gives you a feeling like, oh, I just don't like this person when they do it.

Or it can be something that just turns you off to a person.

You don't really want to be friends with them anymore because they did this thing.

Some people really hate it when people talk in a little baby voice and they talk like a baby.

Oh, hi, how are you doing? I'm sorry if that just gave you the... So that definitely gives people the ick sometimes.

They're like, oh, did you hear her? She was talking in a baby voice or...

Did you hear that couple? They were talking to each other in baby voices and that just gives me the ick.

Just means it gives you just a feeling like, ugh, I don't like that.

It's cringy. Someone who brags about money, that kind of gives me the ick because it doesn't matter how much money you have, it just matters that you are a good person.

This next phrase, to catfish someone, this phrase has been popular for a long time, but it's still definitely relevant in the age of the internet.

It's to catfish someone. So maybe you've seen the show Catfish, it's about people who make this internet persona, they perceive themselves to be one way online.

Maybe they even perceive themselves to be another person online, like they're pretending to be a really attractive female.

But in reality, they are... Just some guy that's using someone else's pictures.

They're trying to catfish someone. So they're trying to make other people believe that they are this attractive female. even though they're absolutely not.

Back-to-back catfish situations. When people use dating apps, they will look at all the pictures and try to make sure they're not being catfished by someone.

So they're trying to make sure that the person online is going to be the person that they actually see in real life and not just a catfish.

So this slang is kind of complicated to use.

It's kind of an interesting one, but definitely relevant.

I use this slang phrase so much that I actually kind of forgot it's slang.

So when we say the OG, it means the original or it stands for original gangster but we just use it to say it's the original version of something it's the real og up in here So we might say, well, LeBron James is really good, but Michael Jordan is really the OG basketball GOAT.

So that means he's the original basketball legend, or I said go greatest of all time.

If you don't already know that slang, that one's popular as well.

Or you might say, you know, Nike is the OG of making nice shoes.

So if you like Nike shoes, They've been around for so long, they were kind of the first popular tennis shoes, so it makes them the original gangster, the OG of tennis shoes.

Here's another slang phrase that's been around for so long, but it's only considered slang recently because it's so popular.

We use the phrase it's giving, and then we kind of say a vibe.

We don't say what it's actually looking like.

So maybe somebody is wearing a nice red dress.

You might say, oh, it's giving so chic and elegant.

So these are adjectives so they wouldn't normally make sense with this phrase but when we use it in this slang and formal way we're just saying the vibe that the dress is giving.

Or maybe your friend says, OK, I'm going to practice giving my presentation for work to you.

And they seem really unprepared. You could be like, it's giving school project unprepared.

So you're saying, you know, it's giving off this vibe of not being prepared.

This is your feedback to someone on something.

Maybe your friend is singing in the car with you and they're singing so good, you might say, It's Giving Adele.

Your voice sounds so good. Your cooking really ate. you might be scratching your head right now thinking what the heck does that mean if you haven't already heard this phrase the phrase something ate We say this, but we want to compliment something that was done well or with style. you might compliment somebody's outfit or their clothing and you can say you ate with that outfit it looks so stylish or if someone Did a really nice performance.

You could say her performance eight. And again, if someone is really good at cooking and they make you a great meal you can say you're cooking eight so it's a total compliment to say that something that someone did eight if you don't feel like you can use the phrase eight because you know it feels just kind of awkward it's maybe too popular of slang for you, it's too hip, you can use the phrase, it's iconic, or you can call something iconic.

That outfit is iconic. Her cooking is iconic.

Her performance was iconic. Normally, iconic means something that was done in such a way that was so well that no one could ever top it or do as well.

But we also use this just in our everyday lives as slang to say that something was really good.

Iconic. One phrase that I love and I have totally been using for the last year is to say something lives rent free. in my head.

So when you want to say that something occupies your thoughts constantly or thinking about something all the time, You could say it lives rent free in my head.

And it doesn't literally have to be something that you're thinking about all the time.

But it could be something that you think about more than other people think about it.

Maybe you have a song that you can't stop singing in your head, you could be like, that song just lives rent free in my head.

Or maybe you think about a really embarrassing moment in your life.

Maybe you were at a party and you said something really embarrassing.

You could say, ah, I think about that embarrassing moment.

It lives in my head rent-free. This just means that you can't stop thinking about it because it was so embarrassing.

And usually when you say it lives in my head rent-free, you wish that it could go away.

It's like... think about when somebody's staying at your house if they're not helping pay the rent or you know pay for the house and they've overstayed their welcome you're like i wish they would get out it's like I don't want to keep thinking about this, but it's just either so just impressionable that I can't stop thinking about it.

It's living right free in my head. I can't get it out.

The last phrase that I want to teach you, it's talking all about body language.

When you give someone side eye, It's just a look.

You don't even have to say anything. So now we just say this phrase and we don't even have to say anything else.

This phrase just means, you know, We're kind of looking at you judgmentally because what you're doing is either so weird, so obnoxious.

It's just not good. Side-eye. If someone says something very offensive, you can just say, side eye, I'm giving you the side eye right now, or literally maybe somebody is talking and being rude while someone else is giving a presentation.

You could say, I am giving her the side eye right now because that is just so rude.

So you're being judgmental, but you're being judgmental for a good reason. when you give someone the side eye.

To make a beeline, when someone walks or even just kind of runs or even just quickly walks towards something very directly and they're very motivated to get there.

Sometimes we say they made a beeline to get there.

For instance, if you are super thirsty and you get into a building, you might make a beeline. for the drinking fountain.

You're moving very directly and you have a goal to get to that drinking fountain right away because you're very thirsty.

When people used to do Black Friday shopping, especially in the United States, there would be these insane deals on really big televisions.

They're getting a really good price for the television.

So people, as soon as the doors would open to the store, they would make a beeline and sometimes people would even start racing to get to the televisions.

Unlike you, I didn't make a beeline for the obvious.

To get off scot-free. Pay attention to the spelling and the pronunciation of this phrase because a lot of native speakers actually mispronounce or misspell this phrase.

So the phrase is scot free. If you get off scot free, This is a phrase that we use to say that you do something bad or even illegal and you have no consequences.

A lot of people think that if you are wealthy, you can get off scot-free with any crime because you can kind of pay your way out of things.

Maybe you're late to work one day and your colleague says, were you late this morning?

In this case, if you say I got off scot-free, It means you had no consequences and maybe nobody really noticed you late coming into the office.

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In English, when you have been talking to someone either over the phone or over email for a long time, we use this phrase.

The phrase is to put a name to the face.

So after speaking to this person virtually or on the phone, you finally get to see what they look like.

Maybe you haven't even seen a picture of them. you can say, oh, it's nice to finally put a name to the face.

So it's finally nice to see the person that I've been talking to or corresponding to for so long.

Another way that we commonly use this phrase is if we have one friend and they either talk about someone in their family or another friend quite frequently.

They have a lot of stories about this person. and you finally get to see them and meet them, you can say, oh, I've heard so much about you.

It's nice to put a name to the face. So it's nice to see you. in real life or in person as we say in English.

And put a name to the vase. Quite frequently, instead of saying that we really enjoyed something, in English, we use the idiom we got a kick out of it. okay okay i got a kick out of it we probably wouldn't use this phrase if it was just something very nice like oh i got flowers from my husband i got a kick out of it Here, this phrase is a little awkward.

It's more so something that we find a little bit funny and enjoyable or were amused by.

For instance, maybe your friend sends you a video and in the video they're doing a funny TikTok dance and not only did you think it was good or just funny, you just really enjoyed it.

It brought you, you know, kind of a laugh and a lot of joy.

You could say, I got such a kick out of your TikTok dance.

Or if our children think something is amusing and funny, we can say, oh, the kids got a kick out of that.

So you'll hear this phrase all the time when something is really kind of fun, amusing, and enjoyable.

It's a very positive phrase. Do you ever feel like when you have a lot of things going on, someone will tell you something important and immediately you forget it?

Well, you can use this English phrase. You can say it went in one ear and out the other.

So instead of remembering the information in your brain, it's like it just escaped immediately when you heard it or someone else you know doesn't seem like they're listening and you say hey what did i just tell you and they say i don't know i could say well Seems like it's going in one ear and out the other.

So it's not sticking in your head. You're not going to remember the information that I just. told you.

You could tell someone, hey, make sure you write this down.

I want to make sure that you can remember it and it doesn't just go in one ear and out the the other.

So that's how you'll hear this English phrase being used. names in one ear and out the other.

This next word is kind of a slang word, kind of an idiom.

It's a way that native speakers say that they are slightly annoyed.

When we're slightly annoyed or irritated, Not super dramatically irritated or annoyed.

We say, I'm miffed. I'm just miffed. I'm really miffed.

My neighbors just keep making noise at night.

So you're kind of irritated. You're not going to call the police or anything, but it's slightly annoying.

Or maybe... your friend had a party and they didn't think to invite you but Maybe you're like, well, it's not a super close friend.

I don't know. I'm kind of miffed. That was inconsiderate, but it's not the end of the world.

It's just you're slightly annoyed if you use this word miffed, miffed.

And again, this is a pretty informal word, but it's commonly used in English.

A lot of times when charities want you to donate money to their cause, they'll try to find some eye-opening statistics that make you realize what kind of problem they're trying to solve and how big the problem is.

For instance, if a food bank, so this is a place where people who don't have money just to go to the grocery store or they're feeling like they don't have enough food to feed their family, if they're trying to raise money or they're trying to get donations, they might say, isn't it eye-opening that family 13% of households in the United States are food insecure or experience food shortages.

So this is just a way that we use this word.

There's tons of other ways that you can use this word, but Basically, anytime you find out something that's very surprising, it really changes your perspective.

So maybe you think, oh, everyone in the United States has food.

It's not a problem. Well, it can be eye-opening. to have this realization that there are people that go hungry, that don't have enough food.

So we just use this phrase to say it changes our perspective.

We find out something and if we call it eye-opening, it means it's changing to our minds and our perspective.

And you can use eye opening in a positive way too. to mean that you found out something that you were really surprised is so positive or really good news.

Oftentimes, when you want to say that you're ready in English, instead, you'll hear native speakers say, I'm all set.

Are you all set? This means the exact same thing as are you ready?

All set? All set. If there is a storm in the forecast and you want to make sure that your house is going to be secure for the storm, you have lots of Emergency supplies, you can say we are all set for the storm.

This means we're ready or prepared for the storm.

So oftentimes people say all set instead of I'm ready or I'm prepared.

And also, people say all set when they want to say that they are complete. finished or ready to leave, if you are in a store and you're ready to pay, you might go up to the cash register and the worker might say, are you all set?

You can say, yep, I'm all set. This just means I'm ready to pay.

I'm all done. You could definitely get confused if you hear a native speaker use this next phrase.

And you're not aware of how we actually use it.

So if you say that you have a history with someone, it means you have a problematic past.

Something has happened in the past with this other person in you that's caused a little bit of problems.

Maybe you're not currently having a problem, but... the history could come up and cause a problem in the present.

We have a history. To bait someone. So we think of the word bait, to bait something, as trying to catch something like we're hunting.

Or if we're going fishing, if we put a worm on the hook, we call the worm our bait, and we're baiting the hook.

Now we use this verb also in this idiom.

We say we bait someone. If you're purposely trying to provoke someone to either getting angry or irritated or annoyed.

So you say, hey, stop beating them. If you have someone who really likes to debate and they get very stressed out out or heated about politics in particular, which nowadays a lot of people do, and you just purposely always bring up politics Someone might tell you, can you stop baiting them?

Like, we don't want to argue about politics right now.

Please stop baiting them. This just means stop trying to provoke them or get them angry.

One phrase that is a very rude thing to do is to blow someone off.

Don't blow me off. So this would be when you ignore someone or you just cancel plans and you don't really do it in a respectful way or you don't give... the person even a reason at all, you can say you just blew them off.

So Oftentimes, if we have some sort of responsibility that we just are not doing, we don't feel like doing it right now, we can say, oh, I'm just blowing off the dishes right now.

This just means I'm just ignoring the dishes that I have to do in the kitchen.

I'm ignoring their responsibility. I should be doing it, but I'm not.

Now, this phrase is used with people too.

If you were supposed to hang out with your friend over the weekend, And you never texted them or never called them.

And they were waiting on your call. You could say, I just kind of blew them off. or maybe they texted you and you didn't text them back, that would be blowing them off.

If somebody ignores you or doesn't really invite you, you can say they blew me off.

So I'm kind of mad at them. to get over something.

So we use this phrase to say that we have recovered from something.

The most common things we use this phrase with is we say, I have gotten over a breakup.

This means I don't have these bad emotions anymore.

Or I got over my depression. I was depressed and now I'm not anymore.

Or you could even say, I got over my sickness.

I got over a cold. This means I recovered from the sickness or the cold.

If you have a devastating loss, maybe in sports or just maybe at work, you could say, I was upset, but I got over it.

I finally got over the loss from yesterday.

So it just means that you are moving on You are no longer experiencing bad emotions or sickness or whatever it might be when you get over something.

This next idiom is a great way to describe someone who is very carefree.

Maybe you've met someone and they just don't really care about problems.

They just seem to. be so happy all the time and they never seem to be worried or stressed about something.

You say that person has not a care in the world, or you could say they don't have a care in the world.

We use this phrase just to say literally this person is carefree and very unbothered by everything.

A lot of times we say, Children just don't have a care in the world.

They just go around having fun all day. So it's a positive thing usually to describe someone as not having a care in the world.

But it can be used to say that somebody is kind of choosing to be ignorant about problems or we're almost insulting them saying they're so... dumb or so stupid that they're not realizing the problems that are going on.

So it usually is used in a positive way.

But you could say, look, everything's going so wrong and they're just walking around like they don't have a care in the world.

See how this is more negative? So definitely it depends on tone and context with this phrase. without a care in the world.

Why did the chicken cross the road? Are you ready for the punchline? to get to the other side.

So normally we say the punchline of the joke is the funny part.

Obviously, this is an old, boring joke. It's not really funny.

It was just my example today. But we can also say that a person is a punchline if they are the source of ridicule or you know everyone's just kind of laughing at them i'm a punchline For instance, a lot of times things happen in the United States and when people are ashamed, they might say, oh, we're just like the punchline of the world.

Everyone's laughing at us. So this phrase punchline is used to mean the funny part of a joke.

And it can mean that a joke is actually funny.

Maybe a comedian is actually saying something funny.

You could say, that was such a funny punchline.

Or it can be used in a negative way to say, you know, I feel like the punchline right now, like I don't want everyone laughing at me.

There are so many different ways in English to say, do you understand me?

One way that we use to mean that, are you like understanding what I'm saying?

Are you following me? Are you listening?

You can say, are you with me? Are you with me right now?

Or if you want to just say to someone, yeah, I'm listening.

Keep continuing. You can say, I'm with you.

Keep going. So this phrase, to be with someone, it doesn't...

Always mean literally you're sitting with them.

It means you're understanding and you're following exactly what they say.

If you are a professor in a lecture, you might say, is everybody with me right now?

Are there any questions? And typically in this case, you know, people would either ask questions or just be like, yeah, we're good.

Keep going. You with me? Oftentimes people will make excuses in order to get out of doing something.

We use this phrase to get out of doing something to say that someone is avoiding either a responsibility or or they're avoiding an invitation or going somewhere or doing something by using this phrase.

So maybe you don't get along with your family and you say, well, I'm going to have to to work over the holidays, but I don't mind getting out of going to my family's house for these types of things.

So you're avoiding seeing your family And you're getting out of it by saying you have to work or going to work.

It kind of reminds me of the movie Four Christmases.

If you've never seen it, it's with Vince Vaughn.

It's very funny. And Reese Witherspoon. And they do not like to see their families every year for the holidays.

So every year they say they're doing this... charity work and it's totally a lie and that's how they get out of going to the Christmases until one year they can't get out of it anymore.

So they can't avoid their duty, responsibility, obligation any longer.

When we use this phrase to be able to help something, this is used in an interesting way.

So obviously we're using the word help here to mean that we are able to control it.

So this is different than how we just normally use the word help.

So if we say, I can't help it, it means I can't control it.

I keep coughing. I can't help it. I'm sorry.

So this just means you cannot control this.

Sometimes in English we can say, well, that won't happen if I can help it.

This means if I can control it. So this phrase is used to say, we're not going to let this happen.

If I can help it, he won't be here. That means I will control it and I will not let that person be in this room.

This next idiom that I picked out for my daily conversations, it's kind of funny because you might think, If you're using this phrase to bow down to someone, you're thinking of medieval times. bowing down to a king or ancient Egyptians bowing down to the Pharaoh, but We actually just use this phrase to bow down to someone to say like, oh my gosh, you did such a good job.

So it's kind of funny the way we use it.

So if someone has insanely good cooking, I might say to them, oh, I have to bow down to like your dinner tasted so good.

Or maybe you think someone has really great fashion and you're just admiring them. their fashion choices, the way they dress.

You could say, oh, I have to bow down to you.

You look so good every day. Your fashion is great.

So it's used in a way more casual way to say that we really admire someone or they are doing a really good job if we're bowing down to them.

One phrase that I find myself using all of the time is, hey, reach out.

So reach out can mean reach out for help or just reach out if you want to talk, which could be helpful in a way.

If you have a friend and their family member had just passed away, and you know they're going through a tough time, you might say to them, reach out if you need anything.

So this just means, you know, definitely ask me if you need any help.

Or feel free to reach out if you just need to talk sometime.

This just means tell me if you need to talk about your feelings.

Sometimes if I'm seeing a friend that I want to hang out with in the neighborhood, but I don't have a ton of time to talk to them, I might say, hey, reach out to me next week if you're free.

This just means try to communicate with me.

Usually send a text or call. Do you want me to reach out to Deanna?

A really cool phrase that English speakers throw into their speaking and their conversations all the time is beyond belief.

So this phrase is used for emphasis to say something was incredibly good or beautiful, great, or incredibly bad, rude, disappointing.

I was disappointed beyond belief. This is just emphasizing how disappointed you are or I was impressed beyond belief by your English.

This means I was very, very impressed. So it's a really great phrase just to use emphasis for something very positive or very negative.

I'm excited beyond belief. One thing about me is that I am a go-getter.

Once I set my mind to something, it's really hard to talk me out of it.

Talk me out of it. So to talk someone out of something means to try to convince or persuade someone not to do something.

So you give them a lot of different reasons why something they want to do is bad or it's just not worth their time or it's dumb or stupid.

So... I'm saying it is hard to talk me out of something.

So it's not easy to tell me not to do something that I've already decided to do.

If you have a friend that wants to quit their job but they don't already have a new job or any sort of backup plan, you might I tried to talk him out of quitting his job until he at least had a backup plan.

Talk me out of it. Another phrase that I used here is I am a go getter.

This is a really good phrase to use if you're in a job interview and you want to just convince people. that you're very motivated, that you will go after a goal or you'll go after trying to be successful very easily.

You can say, I am a go go. Oftentimes, people who are learning a new language are go-getters because it's a very challenging task.

And they have to be very self-motivated to be able to do it.

They are total go-getters. Here's my go-getter.

He's a go-getter. And finally, when you set your mind to something, it's talking about setting your mind to either a decision an opinion or a goal.

So when I set my mind to a goal, it means I have to achieve that goal or I'll be very disappointed in myself.

I will sacrifice a lot of things if I've set my mind to a goal to just try to achieve it.

If you set your mind to learning a new language with a lot of practice, you can become fluent.

This means as long as you're very serious about the goal, you can do it.

If you've set your mind to an opinion or a decision, It means you are going to go with that or you are going to believe in this thing.

And it's going to be really hard for someone to convince you not to believe in it anymore or not. do it anymore you set your mind to you set your mind to many years ago I ran a half marathon.

Now this might not be super impressive to anyone because really it's just a half marathon.

It's 13.1 miles. or 21.1 kilometers. But for me, I never believed that I was a natural born runner.

When we use this phrase natural born, it means someone who is good at something.

It seems like just from the beginning of their life.

They were born being good at that thing.

So just naturally talented. We really use this phrase a lot if we are complimenting someone's talent or skill. you could say you are a natural born leader.

That means you just lead people really well.

People listen to you. you have a lot of authority.

Or you could say you are a natural born artist.

That means the art that you create is so good that it could not be taught the skill could not be taught to other people or if someone's really good at telling stories you could compliment them and say you are a natural born storyteller This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

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So my goal many years ago to complete my half marathon was to try to do it in under two hours so this is a pretty ambitious goal but it's also very common this is a very common time that people want to try to run a half marathon in.

We call that a sub two hour half marathon.

And if you're curious about how fast you have to run to achieve this, it's about nine minutes and 10 seconds per mile or or five minutes and 41 seconds per kilometer.

So something sad about the story, it's slightly sad, is I fell short of my goal time.

I was really happy just to finish. Again, I don't think I'm a natural born runner, so this is something that took a lot of hard work and training to do.

That extra four minutes after the two-hour time goal that I set, it has haunted me for years.

So when you say that you fell short of a goal, it means you just miss the goal.

You are barely missing your goal. I'll still fall short of you.

And it's kind of a softened way to say you just didn't meet your goal.

If you are at work and your company has a sales goal or some sort of goal of completing a project, and you missed that goal, you could say, oh, we just fell short or we fell short of our goal.

This is, again, a nice, softened way to say we missed our goal.

You can use the phrase, we missed the mark, in the same exact way.

I'm sure you've heard this phrase before.

It's a really good one to add to your vocabulary.

So I missed the mark. I fell short. And then I said that those four extra minutes that it took me to complete my half marathon was It really haunted me.

When we talk about being haunted by something, I said I was haunted by those four extra minutes it took me to finish the half marathon.

It means we're kind of just disturbed or preoccupied with something.

In this case, I'm just preoccupied. I always think about, If I would have just run a little bit faster on every single mile, I could have met my goal time.

So usually when we're haunted by something, it means we have some negative thoughts or some traumatic thoughts or just, you know, something slightly negative. that bothered us for a long, long time.

Maybe you have gotten in some sort of vehicle accident in your life And you are haunted by nightmares thinking about how bad of a situation that is.

If that actually has happened to you, I'm really sorry it has.

That's just an example of how something negative or scary in our life can haunt us.

It haunts us in our nightmares, in our dreams.

Or maybe you made a decision that you now regret.

Maybe you decided not to go to college and you Look back and you think, wow, that would have been a good opportunity at the time.

You could say, oh, my decision not to go to college has haunted me for many, many years.

It's haunted me. So now, talking about the past and how it's haunted me a little bit, Of course, I'm proud to have run my half marathon, but now in the spring, I have a new goal.

Now my plan in the spring is to complete my second half Marathon.

I've actually been running for the last few years I have completed some shorter races that were not quite as long as a half marathon, a 5K, 10K.

Some shorter races in that range. And I've actually run faster than my half marathon goal pace. which makes me believe that I can run that fast now for a half marathon if I put the training in.

Now, this goal is easier said than done.

So a lot of times we say we put the time in, we put the hard work in, we put the training in.

It just means you put effort into something.

You can say you can accomplish any goal as long as you put the work in.

These types of phrases are really common when we're just saying that someone needs to actually work hard and and do the work that is required to meet something.

We put the work in. You might use this phrase another way, you might say, I wanted to dress up for work, but I didn't feel like putting the effort in.

So again, it's just like hard work. It's doing the hard work.

We say we put the work in or we put the effort in. a lot of work into it you need to put your energy into something else a really common phrase in english is easier said than done.

This phrase is just used to say that a goal is actually pretty difficult, even though it's easy to say that you want to do it.

We use this in our everyday English all the time when we talk about these small little things that we know are good for us, but they're just hard to do.

For instance, quitting social media sounds like a great idea. but it's easier said than done all of the social media apps are meant to be addicting they're meant to you know, occupy our time.

So it's not as easy as just saying, oh, I want to quit.

Or sometimes it's hard to stay calm or it's hard to stay positive in a situation.

Maybe you have a job interview that you're very stressed out and anxious for and someone says oh just relax you might say well that's easier said than done it's easy to say, just relax.

But when you have these feelings and you have this big job interview coming up, it's difficult to actually do in practice.

So the thing that's interesting about this half marathon that I want to complete now is I ran my last half marathon so long ago, at the time I didn't have as many responsibilities.

I didn't have my own family, kids. I didn't have a house that I owned.

I didn't have my own business. So with all these life changes, it's becoming a bit more difficult to actually change.

...trained for the half marathon. But where there's a will... there's a way.

This phrase, again, very common in everyday English.

It just means where there's a desire or determination someone will be able to get something done.

So this phrase is very popular to sound positive, to sound ambitious.

Maybe you have a phrase like it in your own language that translates to be pretty similar.

When we say there's a will to do something, it means there's a strong desire.

So if there's a strong desire... there is a way that we can get something done.

This is where the phrase, where there's a will, there's a way.

It's just a positive way of saying we can do it.

Where there's a will, there's a way. So my kids are pretty young still.

Only one of my children goes to school during the day.

So I have my two smallest children with me.

And... Part of my training plan has been adapted so that I have a double stroller And I take my two youngest children after I drop my oldest son off at school and we go running in the double stroller.

This is a heck of a workout and my kids are total troopers.

If you notice this phrase, it's a heck of a workout.

This is super informal in English. But people like myself say this all the time to just emphasize that it's really a heck of a workout.

It's difficult. Or we also use this modifier to say that something is very impressive.

That is a heck of a pair of shoes you have there. that's a heck of a haircut there it's kind of used by older people a lot as well but you'll hear it again with younger people all the time Heck of a party, huh?

And then I use the phrase, my kids are troopers.

So when we say someone's a trooper, this is an old slang phrase super common.

People my age and younger use it to say that someone deals with something that's challenging and they're very resilient and they don't even complain.

So Of course, my kids would rather just be playing or going inside and being warm, but they are troopers.

They don't complain. They just go with mom. on the run in the double stroller.

And again, it's a heck of a workout because pushing my two kids While I run, it's heavier and it creates some resistance when you're running.

So if you want a heck of a workout... Have kids have a double stroller and go running.

I do this a few times a week. I'm trying to run about five times a week right now to accomplish you know building up my endurance and my strength and probably three of those runs each week is done with my kids.

Right now, the weather is getting colder where I live.

So it's getting a bit more difficult to find the motivation to go out for my daily run.

When we use this phrase to find the motivation, it just means to become inspired or to have the drive to do something.

I want to clean my house, but I just can't find the motivation.

It just means you can't find reasons that are making you want to do it, even though you say you want to do it.

It's like you feel lazy. You feel like it's easier just to sit there rather than get up and start cleaning.

Yeah. I just can't seem to find the motivation.

A lot of people have a hard time finding the motivation to do things that they know are going to be good for them. cleaning, exercising, eating healthy.

It's convenient to eat junk food. It's convenient just to lay on the couch.

But you have to find the motivation to want to do things that are good for you.

Since I'm trying to make it easier for myself to go out and actually put in the work and and train, I invested in some warmer exercise clothing for myself.

And I get my kids bundled up in the top of the line little snowsuits, hats, mittens, just to keep them super warm.

We can talk about investing in something, meaning putting money into it. or we can say you know we're investing our time into something as well remember in english time and money are often used the exact same way in phrases because Americans, we see our time as our money.

If you use the phrase top of the line, it means the best.

And it's usually talking about something that you can buy. top of the line shoes, top of the line furniture, top of the line clothing, top of the line winter gear is what I said here.

So this means clothing that's meant to keep you warm.

And then another phrase that you definitely should know is what it means to get bundled up.

So if we have a little baby and we wrap them up in blankets, we say, oh, they're all bundled up warm.

Or we can say, I'm going to get all bundled up to go outside.

It just means putting on lots of clothing in order to stay super warm.

Now bundle up. Let's start with disappointment and excitement.

If you want to say that you're excited about something, You might have learned in your English class to say, I'm delighted or I'm excited.

And remember, when I teach you the phrases that are maybe just boring and a bit more formal in this lesson.

It doesn't mean that they're wrong or you should never use them.

We're just working on upgrading our English, becoming advanced English speakers, and having a variety of phrases to use that feel natural and help you express yourself even more.

So don't Be disappointed or sad if I say a phrase that you have been using a lot.

You can continue to use the phrase, of course.

Now let's pretend we got some exciting news.

Maybe someone in our family is pregnant or somebody's going to get married. married or maybe just somebody is having you know a lot of success in life you could say oh I'm so pumped.

I'm so pumped for you. I'm so pumped for the news.

This is more of a slang phrase to be pumped about something or to be excited. but it's really, really commonly used.

So I would suggest that you try to integrate this into your vocabulary.

Another phrase that's very easy to use is just to say, I couldn't be more excited.

Or if you're excited about someone else's news or...

Whatever you could say. I couldn't be more excited for you.

This is a really easy natural phrase to start using.

Oh, I'm so pumped. Instead of just saying I'm disappointed, this is, you know, it's pretty harsh, but it's also just very formal and it's very overused.

You could say, it's a bummer. A bummer is something that we feel disappointed or sad about.

Or we can use the phrase, I feel let down.

Or you can use it as a noun and say, this is such a letdown.

It's a bummer or it's a letdown. Both these phrases are used to say that you're disappointed.

And these are more idiomatic. casual expressions that just feel more natural when we use them it's a bummer it's a letdown I'm bummed I'm let down.

Again, these all mean disappointed without just overusing that same expression.

I'm disappointed. It's a real bummer. Let's describe some actions now using our new natural phrases. someone doing something very efficiently that's a very formal way to describe that they did it you know in a fast time wasting no time or wasting no effort and Instead of just saying this, which sounds so formal, we can try out this new phrase.

If you wanna say that someone has done something efficiently, You can say they did it in no time.

When we use this phrase in no time, it describes something that happened quickly.

It doesn't literally mean no time, just a small amount of time, or it can be describing something that was supposed surprisingly faster than we anticipated.

Maybe you go to a new really popular restaurant And you're thinking that you're going to have to wait a long time for a table.

And you actually only had to wait five minutes, which to you didn't seem like a long time.

You could say, oh. we got in in no time.

This just means faster than we anticipated.

So this phrase in no time, it's used very frequently and it's used in a lot of different ways just to say quickly or quicker than expected. if you want to tell someone, hey, something's gonna happen sooner than you think,

You can say, it's going to happen in no time.

My kids are going to grow up in no time.

This just means quicker than I expected.

Sometimes it can get kind of boring saying, good job, you did a good job.

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You can say, you nailed it. Nailed it. It's a slang phrase, it's more informal, but you could use this in an everyday office environment in a workplace or just in a casual conversation.

I nailed it. That means I did a good job.

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You nailed it. Let's talk about money because money is an important everyday topic.

And the rules for talking about money in America might be different than other English-speaking countries or in your own country.

Now we never in America, in the United States, say that someone is poor.

Well, we might, but it's considered very rude.

So instead of just saying, oh, they're poor, they don't have much money. can be kind of a taboo topic.

It's kind of rude to say. We'll say, oh, they're on a tight budget.

This is considered a softened way to say that they don't have a lot of money to spend.

Or if you're going somewhere to buy something, maybe you're going to buy a new car. but you just don't have a lot of money to buy a new car, but you have to get where you're going, so you need to go buy one, you might say to the salesman, yeah, I'm on a tight... budget.

This literally means I don't have that much money to spend.

Maybe you say, I only have $2,000, and it's a tight budget, meaning don't show me a car that costs $5,000 because...

The budget is tight. There's no room for extra cost here.

So this is considered a more polite way to say, you know, I'm poor, I don't have a lot of money or I don't want to spend a lot of money on something.

We are on a very tight budget. Instead of saying, wow, that's expensive.

That's expensive. It costs a lot of money.

You might show that you're surprised by how much something costs by using this natural phrase.

You might say, oh, it costs a fortune. How did you afford that car?

It costs a fortune. Or gosh, groceries? They cost a fortune these days.

Now, groceries, they're expensive relatively.

We're used to groceries being cheap, but it feels like the price is always increasing.

And really, it's not a fortune, a real fortune.

A fortune would be a huge amount of money, but to us, It's just using this phrase to show that we're surprised at the actual cost of something, that it's more than what we expected.

So if you want to say that costs a lot of money, just say that costs a fortune.

This must have cost him a fortune. Now, when you're speaking a new language and you're trying to make friends or just get along with people, you want to agree with them in a way that seems genuine, it seems real, or you want to show enthusiasm for something that doesn't seem like you're just You should go beyond just learning the simple phrases.

I'm excited. I can't wait. this is going to be good.

Like let's learn some natural phrases that you'll actually be able to to use in your conversations to build relationships and show you're excited for people and show that you're excited for plans.

The phrase, I'm looking forward to it. is completely acceptable.

Definitely use this phrase. But let's go a step further into how native English speakers will actually speak. instead of just saying, I'm looking forward to it.

If they are excited for, let's say, their friend's birthday party that's coming up, you might say, I can't wait.

I'm looking forward to it. I can't wait.

So really, I use the same inflection on both these phrases to show that I'm excited, But if you say I can't wait, it just kind of shows you're really anticipating it.

It's a dramatic way to say that you're excited for something.

But it's pretty genuine. You're showing that you almost feel like you can't wait for the event.

So again, you don't even have to say, I can't wait.

You can just say, can't wait. Hey, are you going to the party tomorrow?

Yeah, can't wait. So really short, really informal, but highly effective and naturally used.

Can't wait. Let's keep talking about this imaginary friend's birthday party.

Maybe a different friend says, hey... Do you think we should get our friend Kelly some new earrings for her birthday?

She might really like these. You might say, I'm all for it.

Instead of just saying, yes, I agree. That sounds like a good plan or yes, that's good.

You can use this phrase to show that you agree with them and you think that they came up with a good idea.

Yes, I'm all for that gift. I'm all for that plan.

Using this phrase, I'm all for it, shows complete agreement.

When someone has an opinion that you agree with and you think is true, you could just say, I think that's true.

I agree. That's the truth. These are a little bit boring, a little bit basic, so let's go beyond again. we're gonna try the phrase, there's no doubt about it.

Or you could say, there's no doubt about that.

That just means that you agree. That's the truth.

That's a really good opinion. Maybe you're speaking with your coworker and they say, I don't think we can finish this project in time.

We just... have no time left and our boss is really pushing us too hard and you could say, oh, there's no doubt about it.

You are right. We don't have enough time.

So this is showing agreement. It's showing that you believe what they're saying.

There's no doubt about it. let's talk about discussing time.

So these next two phrases, they're going to help you not only just sound more natural and just have a variety of phrases to use.

But we're also working on that speech softening not coming off so harsh because...

One thing that's very noticeable even of advanced English speakers, is that they're not used to the indirectness of American English speakers.

We're not so direct And it comes off as rude if you're a native speaker and you're just not expecting someone to say something so directly.

So let's take a look at these two phrases.

So first, maybe someone says, hey, can you help me right now?

And you can't help them. You don't have time right now. you're busy with something, instead of just saying, no.

Or instead of saying, now, no, I can't. Or saying, you know, something like, I'm busy.

You might want to say... Now is not the best time.

This is way less harsh to English speakers like myself and It implies that you're willing to help them later when you have more free time.

And instead of just saying, no, now it's not a good time, it's saying it's not the...

Best time. Unless it's an emergency, they will totally respond and say, oh, OK, I'll come back later or I'll email you or whatever it might be.

Maybe now's not the best time, detective.

Maybe you're working on a project with your coworkers and you're going to have to stop the work.

Maybe there's some sort of factor with money or just waiting on a response from someone and you have to stop. instead of saying, you know, there's a delay or we need to stop, let's try this phrase, let's put this on hold.

If you Put something on hold. It means you're going to come back to it, but you have to pause it momentarily.

We talk about pause. Putting someone on hold when we're speaking on the phone.

Hey, can I put you on hold for a minute?

This just means can I just pause the conversation and come back?

Maybe I have to talk to someone in real life or whatever it might be.

Let's talk about getting things done. Instead of saying, I'm working on it or I'm working on it right now, English speakers will say, I'm on it.

It's just a way shortened, way more casual way to say that we're going to do it right now or we are doing it right now.

So maybe I am busy with something and I ask my husband, hey, can you go check this?

The oven upstairs, I'm cooking something and I want to make sure it doesn't burn.

If he's going to go do it for me, he'll say, oh yeah, I'm on it.

This just means I can do it, no problem.

Instead of saying that you're going to delay something, You can also use this great idiomatic expression and you can say, we're going to put it on the back burner.

This just means it's not our priority right now.

We're not going to work on it right now, but we're going to keep it until later.

The idiom is let's keep it on the back burner.

And if you want to say that someone is good at multitasking, you could just say that.

Of course, you could also try out this idiom.

You could say, he's good at juggling a lot of things at once.

Or if you want to say that you are working on a lot of things or multitasking, you can use the idiom and say, I just have a lot to juggle right now.

And of course, juggling is the act when you're throwing balls in the air and catching them all at the same time.

We use this phrase to juggle things all of the time in English just to mean that we're trying to do lots of things either at one time or just in our life in general.

Maybe we're in work, school, we have kids, family obligations.

We're juggling all of those things is how we use the phrase.

I find that English learners use the adjective hasty to say quick, don't make hasty decisions or don't make quick decisions, but there's a really good idiom that you could be using for this as well.

You could try out the phrase, don't jump the gun.

This just means don't make a decision quickly. quicker than it needs to be because you could be making the wrong decision if you don't wait enough time.

Johnny, let's not jump the gun just yet, okay?

Another thing that's important to know a lot of phrase is is expressing certainty.

You are absolutely sure about something.

So instead of just saying I'm certain about it or even I'm absolutely certain about it, American English speakers will say, oh, I'm 100 percent certain. certain about it.

This is such a common phrase you can use formally and informally.

Another phrase that is not taught in textbooks is I'm willing to bet on it.

I'm willing to bet that. This just means you're certain.

Now, English speakers will take this a step further and say, I would bet my life on it or I would bet my children on it.

And of course, you wouldn't say this unless you are very, very certain about something.

I'm 100% sure it's Whitman. Now, if you want to say that something is highly likely to happen, you're pretty sure it's going to happen, you can say... chances are it will happen.

Don't worry. Chances are it will work. So chances are is a good phrase to use instead of saying it's highly likely.

You're meaning that the chances are good on something or the probability is good of something happening.

Chances are it will rain by the end of the week.

If you're looking at the forecast and you're looking and thinking that it is going to rain, you can use this phrase here.

Next, let's work on some phrases that are good for giving opinions.

If you strongly believe something, you can use this phrase that is a bit tricky and it's definitely not taught in textbooks.

You can use the phrase, I'm convinced that.

I'm convinced. So one belief that I have is that when people go to concerts and they record videos on their phone, I'm convinced that they never actually watch those videos later.

It just feels like you should be recording because everyone else around you is recording.

Maybe you agree with me on this, maybe you don't, but I'm convinced that this is the truth.

Again, this phrase is used to say I'm strongly believing that this is the truth or I'm convinced that this is the truth.

A lot of times in English, instead of saying opportunity, just because I don't know why opportunity just comes off as a bit more formal. you can say it's a good chance.

Instead of saying it's a good opportunity, it's a good chance.

Or maybe you want to say it's a good opportunity to speak with someone important. you could say it's a good chance to speak with someone important.

It comes off just as a bit more informal and casual.

So it's worth knowing that that these two words can be pretty interchangeable, opportunity and chance.

Let's talk about relationships. And if you want more relationship phrases, I'll post a video on screen as well where you can learn 50 new relationship related phrases. phrases that are, again, really useful.

But if you want to say that two people have a strong relationship, or they get along very well and they know each other very well, you can instead use the phrase that's more commonly used and say they are very close.

Or you can just say they're close. This means they have a strong relationship.

And again, they've known each other either for a long time or they're just very familiar with one another. very close.

When two friends or even two family members don't talk much anymore or they just you know they kind of maybe still get along, they're still friends, but they just don't hang out anymore.

You could say they've lost touch. Oh, I've lost touch with a lot of my friends from school.

This just means I haven't talked to them in a long time.

And I don't really have much of a relationship with them.

Maybe you would say hi if you saw them ever again, but you don't text or email or do anything with them.

I find that English learners have a hard time being advanced and expressing just basic feelings because they're so comfortable with just saying I'm happy.

I'm happy. I'm happy about this. I'm happy.

Or I'm sad. I'm sad. I'm sad. I'm tired.

So let's talk about some more advanced phrases that you can add to your vocabulary.

Instead of saying, I'm happy, try out the phrase, I couldn't be happier.

I really couldn't be happier. Maybe you are asked, how did you feel about your job interview?

Instead of saying, oh, I'm happy. I'm happy.

It was good. You could say, oh, I couldn't have been happier about how it went.

And this is just advancing our English, just having a variety of phrases to use.

Instead of saying, I'm tired. you could say I'm completely wiped out.

This is a really common idiom to say that you're very tired.

And instead of saying I'm feeling sad, a really common phrase that is a little bit less direct but just shows that you are very sad is saying I'm struggling.

And this is implying that you're struggling with emotions or feelings about something.

Because these English phrases have been around for so long, many of them are very, very wise pieces of advice.

They're things that you should live your life by.

They're things that your grandma might have told you, your mom might have told you.

And a lot of these phrases are very directly translated into other languages, or we get these phrases from other languages.

So that should help you if you already know this phrase in your first language to use it in English.

The first one, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

You ever hear of not putting all your eggs in one basket?

The simple meaning of this classic idiom is don't risk everything by depending on one option or one plan.

A classic common example where you need to know this phrase is if you are investing in any stock market, You won't want to put all of your money and life savings into one stock or one fund because if that does bad, all of your eggs... are going to crack and this plan won't work out.

You don't want to use all of your eggs in one basket.

You want to divide them up to lower the risk so if you want to tell your friend you know you should come up with an alternative plan you shouldn't depend on just one thing maybe they'll say i don't need to go to college Because I'm going to be famous.

You might want to say, well, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

It's important to get your education and you can also pursue your dreams as well.

A very popular phrase in business and essential to everyday English conversation is the ball is in your court.

Now, I like to think of this phrase as being a basketball phrase, but truly there's so many different Sports, where this idiom is kind of coming from tennis, racquetball, maybe even pickleball, If you're not familiar with pickleball, it's really popular in the United States right now.

It's a racket sport. But this phrase, let's go with the definition.

It means that I've done my work. I've made my case.

It's your turn to respond now. Maybe you're trying to close a sale in your job and you present your case, you present why the person should buy from you, and you're waiting for their response, you might say, well, I've talked to them already.

The ball is in their court. That means all I can do is sit back and wait.

I'm waiting for their response or in waiting for their decision.

So this idiom, super useful. You'll hear it on a daily basis in American culture.

The ball's in your court. A blessing in disguise.

So this phrase means that something that initially felt like it was a bad thing that happened, it turns out to be good because usually it reveals something to you or it unlocks some path that you would not have normally taken.

A classic example, if you lose your job, but then you Start working in your dream career field.

It causes you to make a change and you're much happier.

Losing your job was a blessing in disguise because something that is you know, very unfortunate.

It's very bad financially. It turns out to be something good.

It makes your life happier or better. Sometimes you don't get picked for an opportunity that you were really excited about, but it turns out to be a blessing in disguise.

Because maybe the person who takes the opportunity, it doesn't work out very well.

Or when you look back, you realize that you weren't ready for that opportunity.

And if you would have taken it, it would have worked. caused you not to be able to do something else that was good in life.

So that could be a blessing in disguise if you don't get a job that you wanted or you don't get an opportunity.

Hey, blessing in disguise. This is one phrase that is so important to know. is to bite the bullet.

So this phrase in English means that you need to do something that's very unpleasant in order to, you know, gain something.

For instance, I hate going to the dentist.

I absolutely hate it. I'm sorry if you're a dentist and you're watching this.

But it's just so unpleasant going, opening your mouth, having them scrape your teeth and everything.

And especially if you have a cavity, oh, it's terrible.

I just have to bite the bullet and go though, because otherwise I won't get the opportunity to take care of my teeth. in my mouth and it's just really important to have good oral health.

I have to bite the bullet though. I have to have courage in order to go because It's so unpleasant that I get kind of scared and I get really nervous.

Sometimes you might have a phone call that you really don't want to make.

Maybe you're going to have to tell someone some bad news, but you just have to have courage and focus. face what you need to do even if it's difficult.

So you'll say, I just have to bite the bullet and get it done.

Even though it's difficult, it's scary, it's challenging, you need to have courage and you just need to do it.

That's what this phrase is saying, to bite the bullet.

And to help you remember this phrase, this phrase comes from the idea that back long ago when they were giving people surgery, You know, maybe they had a very bad injury from war or something like that.

They'd have to bite down on something hard.

I read that people didn't actually bite down on bullets.

Usually it was something leather, but you know, you have to bite something hard in order to endure something painful.

It doesn't literally have to be painful to use this phrase, though.

It just needs to be difficult. You need to bite the bullet and just do it.

Go. Bite the bullet. I have heard this phrase in every single job that I've started, in every single class at a university I've taken.

The phrase is to break the ice. If you're not already aware of how to use this phrase, it just means you need to start the conversation.

You need to make it less awkward. You need to get to know new people in either a class setting or a work setting or whatever it might be.

So another common way we use this phrase is when we have little games or little conversation starters that are supposed to get people talking to one another. and they're supposed to help people get to know one another.

We call those icebreakers. A good way to break the ice at a party and to get comfortable with speaking with people is just to tell a joke or to give a compliment.

Anything just to start the conversation will help break the ice.

This next phrase is so classic. Every cloud has a silver lining.

I don't commonly say this full phrase, but I usually say there's always a silver lining. meaning there's some sort of positive aspect that can be found even in the most negative situation.

One silver lining into trying to save money and trying to eat at home Even though it's tough to cook all your meals, you might be eating healthier than if you're eating at restaurants.

So that's the silver lining. or the positive aspect in this rather difficult situation if you're trying to save a lot of money.

Every cloud has a silver lining. One phrase that I can totally picture someone older and wiser than me saying, is actions speak louder than words.

This phrase means that even though people will promise things and say that they believe certain things or they'll do certain things.

If they're not actually doing these things or they're acting in a way that's kind of mean and it's not living up to their word, It doesn't really matter.

Their actions are more important than what they promise or what they'll say they'll do.

Maybe you have a friend that says, oh, I'm a really good friend.

I'll always help you out. I really care for you.

But every time you ask for help, They come up with a reason why they can't help you.

And in your head you'll just think, well, actions speak louder than words.

Maybe they're not that good of a friend.

But actions speak louder than words. This next phrase is really powerful and it has an awesome impact when you say it.

If you want to say that someone has described something exactly perfectly or exactly right, you can say you hit the nail on the head.

This phrase is really powerful to use when someone is asking a group of people, maybe in the workplace or the office place, why is this happening?

You know, what's the problem here? How can we fix this?

And someone describes the problem perfectly or says, you know, Maybe we're just not working enough or we haven't done this.

And whoever has asked the question might say, yes, you've hit the nail on the head.

Thank you for figuring out exactly why this is happening.

So this is a really powerful phrase to use when you want to praise someone for their skills and figuring out a problem or figuring out a solution to a problem.

This next phrase always makes me think of the Titanic, of course.

The phrase is... It's the tip of the iceberg.

So obviously an iceberg is, you know, a big chunk of ice in the water, like in the Titanic or, you know, the Titanic ship hit an iceberg because when you see the tip of an iceberg, it looks like a small piece of ice, but it's really much larger when you look under the water.

So this is talking about And we use this phrase in our everyday conversations.

You know, there's a problem that seems small.

You're looking at just one part of it. But if you look at the entire problem or if you step back and take a look at the situation, The problem is much bigger and what you're describing is just a part of it or it's the tip of the iceberg.

So some people might say, well, it's really a problem that we use plastic straws.

They're really bad for the environment. And someone who is looking at all of the wasteful things and all of the plastics that we use, the single-use plastics, might say, well, Straws are just the tip of the iceberg.

The problem is much bigger. Tip of the iceberg.

This next phrase is really common amongst the whole world.

It's the phrase to kill two birds with one stone.

Let me know in the comments which phrase you have that means this exact thing.

How does it translate to English? In English, when we want to say that we've solved two problems or we've, you know, done two things with just one action, we say we've killed two birds with... one stone.

Maybe you have some groceries that you need to get from the store and you might say to yourself, well, if I walk to the store to get the groceries, I'll get exercise and I'll be done grocery shopping, so I'll kill two birds with one stone.

There are so many examples of where you can use this phrase, but it's basically just meaning that you've accomplished two goals with just one action.

And I'll be killing two birds with one stone.

Has anyone ever told you not to count your chickens before they hatch?

This is such a common American English phrase, it means basically just don't depend on something happening before it's final, before it's official, or don't depend on success unless something is actually happening.

Don't just think it's going to happen. For instance, some people think they're going to get married.

So maybe they start wedding dress shopping and they're ready to go buy a wedding dress.

Well, You shouldn't count your chickens before they hatch, meaning you should wait till you are officially engaged and you actually are planning on getting married.

You shouldn't do this first. Or maybe you say to yourself, well, I just got a new job.

I'm going to be making so much money. So I'll go out and buy some new things.

Well, don't count your chickens before. they hatch wait till you get your first paycheck and you actually know how much money you're making before you think you're rich and you're spending all this money.

Don't assume that you'll be successful before it actually happens.

The classic phrase is don't count your chickens before they hatch because, you know, you have all these eggs, but they might not all turn into chickens. chickens before they hatch.

I'm wondering if this next phrase was your first English idiom that you learned because for so many of my students in the past, It's been one of the first idioms that they learned in English.

Let's learn it now if you haven't. The phrase is, it's a piece of cake.

If you don't already know, when you describe something, usually a task as a piece of cake, It means it was incredibly easy.

That's how easy it is to use this idiom.

It's a piece of cake. Instead of saying something was really easy, you maybe took a test and you feel like it was so easy.

Only took you 10 minutes. You could say, well, that test was a piece of cake.

It just simply means it is so easy. Piece of cake.

This next phrase is said so many times in American television shows and movies.

When someone is working really late into the night, We say they are burning the midnight oil.

Burning the midnight oil, huh, Nathan? Maybe you have a project deadline that is coming up at work.

So every night after most people are sleeping, you're up working on your computer.

You might say, I have really been burning the midnight oil on this project.

That means you've been working late into the night every night.

My friend who's not a native English speaker just learned this phrase and she's such a good English speaker.

So I was happy to finally have a phrase that I could actually teach her.

The phrase is Rome. wasn't built in a day. room wasn't built in a day this phrase simply means important things take time so if you have someone that's disappointed that they didn't get something done or they're not perfect in some sort of skill, you could say, well, don't worry, Rome wasn't built in a day.

It just means that important things or very successful things take a lot of time to accomplish.

Learning English fluently takes a lot of practice.

Just remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Have you ever accidentally let the cat out of the bag?

If you haven't heard this idiom before, it's probably really confusing.

This phrase to let the cat out of the bag It simply means that you reveal a secret or you reveal a surprise.

The cat's out of the bag. Maybe you wanted to surprise your kids with a trip, maybe a trip to somewhere like Disney World. and you accidentally show them you're packing up for the trip and you show them that you have some mouse ears, they might say, are we going to Disney World?

And you might say, well, The cat's out of the bag.

Yes, we're going to Disney World. Or whatever surprise you reveal, you can say the cat's out of the bag.

Or don't let the cat out of the bag if you're trying to tell someone that something is a surprise and to keep it secret.

I want to know your opinion on this next phrase.

You can't have your cake and eat it too.

We use this phrase when we want to tell someone that they can't enjoy two conflicting things at once.

I think of a lot of money situations when it comes to this phrase.

Maybe someone says, I wish I could just go on vacation all the time, but I want to make a lot of money.

You might say, well, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

If you want to make a lot of money and go on vacation, you're going to have to work very hard.

Or someone might say, well, I'm trying to save money, but I'm really going to get a new purse.

You might say, well, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

If you want to save money, you probably shouldn't buy a new purse so we use this phrase when we're just telling someone that you know doing this one thing is not also going to accomplish this other thing When you have some top secret information, you might not want to spill the beans.

This classic idiom Just means to reveal a secret or to reveal secret information.

Spill the beans or get out. I think of when people have a pregnancy announcement or an engagement announcement, You know, maybe they tell one person, you know, we're pregnant, we're expecting a baby, but they say, don't spill the beans to everyone because we want to keep it a secret for now or we're going to. reveal it soon.

We'll spill the beans later. This just means to reveal the secret information.

One phrase that's really easy to use in your vocabulary is the phrase better late than never.

This just means it's better to have finally done something, even if it takes a long time, or maybe it just happened really late and light than to have never done it.

For instance, maybe you know someone, an adult, And they've never been able to cook in their lives.

And finally, they learn to cook and they make a meal and they say, look, I finally learned how to cook.

You could, you know, respond, well, better late than never.

You know, you're 30 years old. You should know how to cook.

So this is just... Maybe a little bit of a snarky, rude remark if you use it in this way.

Or if someone says, I'm sorry, I'm late.

I finally made it. I had all this traffic.

You can say, oh, better late than never.

We're so happy you arrived. So you can use this phrase to say, well, finally, I suppose you have finally done this thing.

Or you can say, don't worry about being late or don't, worry about it taking so long.

I'm happy that it's done rather than just never have gotten done at all.

Better late than never. Mr. Carter, better late than never. have you ever heard that bad things happen in three of course this is just a superstition saying you know When something bad happens, maybe a couple other bad things are bound to happen as well.

You might believe this, you may not, but I wanted to also teach you the phrase, when it rains, it pours.

So oftentimes when we use this phrase, We're not talking about actual rain, although we could be, but we're saying that when bad things happen or problems arise, that it tends to feel like a lot of different problems happen at once. instance, maybe you lose your job, your car breaks down and you get sick all in the same month, you would say, wow,

When it rains, it pours. It feels very much like a lot of bad things and problems are happening to me.

When it rains, it pours. Here is the final phrase of today's lesson.

You reap what you sow. This phrase is very useful and I find it to be very true advice in life.

It just means that you will accomplish what you work for.

When we think about farming, we sow seeds in the spring And in the fall, when we harvest typically here in the United States, you know, we get a crop we reap what we sowed in the spring.

So that means whatever we planted, whatever we worked hard on earlier is what we're finally going to get.

So we say in life, you reap what you sow.

That means however hard you worked on something, is what you're going to accomplish.

Even if, you know, you worked hard on this thing a long time ago, eventually you'll see the results and you'll gain the success. but you'll reap what you sow.

If you didn't work hard in the beginning, in the end, you won't see the product.

You won't see the success. You won't see the results.

So simply, you'll get the results of your action.

This phrase is really just saying that hard work is important in all aspects of success.

So here's where learning English from a textbook and learning English from a teacher like myself that will show you how you need to understand these phrases culturally is quite different.

Let's take the phrase, I don't believe you.

This phrase at face value would just seem like you don't believe what someone is saying.

For instance, we can use this if someone says something that doesn't seem to be true.

Maybe it seems far fetched, like a story.

They say, well, I saw Michael Jordan at the coffee shop the other day.

This person, Michael Jordan is so famous that he would never be in a local coffee shop that your friend would be visiting.

So you might say, I don't believe you. Another way that we use this phrase that is not as similar to this is saying like, I don't believe you.

If someone does something that's very kind and helpful, maybe someone brings you flowers.

You say, I don't believe you. Thank you so much.

It's like, I don't believe how nice you are.

And it's used in a genuine way to express appreciation.

If someone helps you in some sort of small way, you can say, I don't believe you.

You're so helpful. So it's a nice thing to say as well.

And it is like saying like, I don't believe how kind you are.

Now, we can also use I don't believe you to express a more negative emotion.

For instance, let's say somebody forgets to show up to a meeting.

You could say, I don't believe you. That was so important.

I can't believe you forgot. It's like, I cannot believe your forgetfulness here.

So you'll hear this phrase used in a lot of different ways.

Besides just saying that you don't believe something is true, you might not believe someone's behavior because it is so extreme, either really kind or really negative, like they're very forgetful, they're very rude.

I don't believe you, you're so rude. It's used in different ways like this.

I don't believe this. I don't believe you.

The next phrase I wanted to teach along with I don't believe you because it is so similar.

If you say unreal, now this can express that something is so cool, so beautiful, Or just so great that you think it couldn't be real.

You're saying it's like it isn't real because it's so great.

Unreal! I love this view from this mountain.

It's unreal. Or if you want to express again, disappointment in something or disappointment in someone's behavior, you could say on real, I can't believe you didn't bring your money.

This just means you're surprised that the person forgot their money.

Again, it's saying your behavior is unreal because you forgot something so important or you did something so rude.

And just like saying, I don't believe you, you can say, unreal, this was so nice.

Thank you. So you'll hear these two phrases used pretty similarly, and they also just have a normal basic way that you would guess these phrases are used, but you will hear them used very different in different cultural situations.

Many phrases that I teach, I often hear in podcasts and I write them down in my notes app on my phone.

This is how I get ideas for phrases that can be confusing to English learners.

One phrase that I've been hearing quite frequently ever since I wrote it down because I need to teach it to you, is the phrase, all jokes aside.

So there's a few different ways you can use this sort of sentence structure here so it's pretty useful when we're transitioning from something that's funny or a funny topic or we're joking about a topic and we want to speak more seriously we'll say all jokes aside It was very sad what happened.

Whatever the serious sentence is coming next, you say, all jokes aside, as in, We are putting humor aside in this conversation.

We're done talking about the humorous topic.

We're going to move on to the serious aspect of this.

Well, all joking aside, you really ought to be yourself.

You can use this in a couple other ways.

Two other ways that came to my mind is to say, well, money aside, I would really like to travel someday.

This means if I'm not considering money, if I put the worries about money aside, this is what I'd like to do.

Another way that I use this phrase is I say feelings aside.

That's like, if we're not considering our feelings about something, or we're not considering someone else's feelings about something, what is the most rational choice to make in a situation?

I really like these next two phrases in the lesson.

The first phrase is to go as planned. Did not go as planned.

Usually when you describe something and you say it went as planned, It's a good thing, it's a positive thing.

You get a plan together, maybe in a professional setting, for an event and you say, hopefully everything goes as planned.

This means hopefully it goes well. And it's kind of implying too that you can adjust and adapt a little, but just hopefully, fingers crossed, everything goes as planned.

So usually we use this phrase as a positive way to say that nothing unexpected or bad happened.

How was your party yesterday? Well, it didn't go as planned because there was a big storm and we had to move everything inside, but it was okay.

See how this phrase to go as planned, it didn't go as planned, is seen as kind of a negative thing.

But again, not the end of the world because we can adjust and adapt.

Another phrase that we use that's like this is we say, it went smoothly.

This is a bit more informal just to say, hey, everything went smoothly.

It means it went as planned. A phrase that almost means kind of the opposite but almost sounds like it could be similar is to say everything is going as well as can be expected.

Now this phrase is used to be sensitive in a situation that's probably not going to go very well.

So you're expecting something bad to happen.

Many times if someone has a family member that is sick and maybe they are nearing the end of their life, you'll say, you know, how is your grandma doing?

And you can say, well, everything is as can be expected.

Maybe meaning that your grandma is very sick and she's not feeling very well.

Again, this is used in more negative situations.

Or if you just don't think something is going to go well in general, maybe you have a job interview. and the night before that interview you got no sleep and maybe you're a little bit sick and someone says the next day hey how did your job interview go you might say well It went as well as can be expected.

This means it didn't go that well. You didn't expect it to go well because of the circumstances surrounding you going to the job interview, being sick and not getting a lot of sleep.

So we use this phrase in more negative situations.

And I would say this phrase is good to use because Instead of just being super negative and being like, it went terrible, it went horrible, it went very bad. you're kind of softening the blow a little bit and you're using more, you know, sweet language, softened language to say that something didn't go well, but it matched your poor expectations.

If you've ever wanted to make something work and you've worked so hard, but you finally just have to give up because you realize if you put any more effort into this thing, it is just not going to be successful. you could use this next phrase.

The phrase is to cut your losses. So when someone cuts their losses, it means they quit, they end something, they just decide that it's never going to be successful, And they're going to stop working now because they don't want to put any more work into it.

So maybe after months and months of trying to get a restaurant to be successful, the couple who owns the restaurant cuts their losses you know they don't want to put any more time or money into this business because it's just not profitable or successful So cutting your losses means quitting and not putting any more effort into something that you've worked very hard on already.

It's not too late to cut your losses. A phrase that's so common, especially in the English speaking workplace, is to get someone up to speed.

We use this to say that we need to inform someone on all the things that they have missed or maybe they've started the job recently, you need to inform them on what's been going on and how they can perform in their job better.

You can also use this phrase if somebody just simply was gone for a few days from a class or from a meeting or from work, you can say, oh, since you missed the last meeting, I'll get you up to speed.

This means I'll fill you in on everything that you've missed.

So you can use fill someone in and get someone up to speed in a really similar way.

So, get me up to speed. This next phrase, TMI, stands for too much information if you didn't already know.

This phrase feels so modern And HIP, like TMI, you're oversharing.

Online people with social media will just spread TMI. too much information, they'll overshare.

But in reality, this phrase TMI too much information.

It's been around for so long and it's used so commonly in everyday conversation as well.

And American English speakers like myself, we do actually say, okay, TMI.

We don't say this full phrase, we just abbreviate it.

TMI, I don't need to hear that. That means it's just too much information, Usually someone is sharing some gross details about a story or just too personal.

You know, maybe they're talking about their spouse and they're just sharing way too much information.

Like you don't need to know that. Or maybe someone just had surgery and they're telling you about all the gory, bloody details of their surgery.

You can just tell them, okay, TMI, no more.

TMI. Too much information. One phrase that I think that you should know is the phrase, to be in a haze.

If you say, I was in a haze last night, it just means maybe you were tired and You're kind of groggy.

You're not really paying attention. You're not thinking your best when you're in a haze.

Sometimes when people are traveling, they get to jet lag and the next day they are just in a haze the whole day.

This means they're kind of tired. and their brain's just not really working in a very productive way or a creative way.

Another way that we use this word haze, we say something is hazy if we can't remember it very well.

We might say, I can't really remember when I was a kid.

I kind of have some hazy memories of playing with toy trains or whatever your memories might be.

You can't remember them super clearly. You call them a hazy memory.

So a good phrase that you've probably heard a lot, but you might be unsure of how to actually use is day to day.

This phrase refers to your daily life schedule or your daily routines.

So someone might say, oh, what do you do for work?

And you might say, well, I'm a dentist or I'm an accountant or you might have some really interesting job where the person doesn't really understand what you actually do.

So they'll ask, Oh, what is your day to day look like?

And you might describe your schedule of the day.

Or you might say, Well, actually, I get to work at home.

So My day-to-day is I work on the computer most of the day and I take breaks.

I go for walks. That's kind of what my day-to-day looks like.

It's almost exactly like saying that's what my schedule or that's what my routine looks like.

So the phrase table scraps I heard the other day, it's literal reference is to what's left on the table after everyone eats.

Maybe you feed the family dog the table scraps.

That's what we just call that leftover food.

This phrase, you might want to think of it more figuratively as well.

When you're fighting for something or you're trying to get something that's just the leftovers, Maybe at work, you know, everyone takes their responsibilities and whatever's left is what you get.

You could say, well, I just get the table scraps.

This means, you know, the undesirable things that are left over.

This next phrase, from the get-go. And for some reason, when people say this phrase quickly, this is just me personally, I hear from the gecko, like this green lizard, the gecko. but it's from the get-go.

This is just talking about from the beginning, and we often use this phrase to describe the tone or the attitude of someone or some sort of event at the very beginning.

So for instance, when I decided to start my own business teaching English online, From the get go, my husband was super supportive.

So I'm just kind of describing his attitude here.

Supportive, which is great. I love my husband.

And if you want to describe something that was negative at the beginning and it was just kind of doomed, you could say, well, it started out bad from the get-go.

This just means from the very beginning it was bad, and you're usually using this phrase to say, it started out bad and it continues to be very bad the wedding was doomed from the get-go and it turned out to be a very bad event.

Like, it's just not going well. Moving on to a more lighthearted, positive phrase, we can use this phrase, a hidden gem, to describe something that is A best kept secret.

We really often use this phrase to talk about you know, great coffee shops that are very quiet and undiscovered or a restaurant that doesn't seem to be too busy or popular, but you just think it's great.

It's a little hidden gem. For me, I have a Chinese takeout restaurant in my town that is a hidden gem.

It's not very busy or popular but every time I get it, It's delicious and my family loves the food.

So if something is very popular or well known, you definitely wouldn't describe it as a hidden gem.

If there is a city or a park that your family likes to visit and it's not very popular or well known as a tourism spot, you could also describe the city as a hidden gem.

Kind of a hidden gem? These next two phrases in my mind were kind of the same, but then I started to think about how I actually use these phrases. and how other English speakers use these phrases in conversations, and the one different word in these phrases does make a pretty good difference.

So the phrase is knocking at your door or knocking on your door. and knocking down your door.

So when we say, you know, oh, somebody is knocking on your door, we're usually talking about some sort of opportunity just politely being presented.

This opportunity is knocking on your door.

It just means that it's presented, it's available.

If you have a college degree, there are a lot of opportunities knocking on your door.

If you are good at singing, there are a lot of people knocking on your door that want you to perform for them okay so it's more polite it's more gentle now when we say knocking down your door it's a little bit more aggressive We're saying that people are clamoring, they're very excited to get whatever you have, whether it's a skill, whether it's an actual thing.

Maybe you cook a dish that's so good that people are knocking down your door to eat dinner with you.

So this again is a figurative idiom. They're not literally coming to your door knocking, but they're calling you.

Hey, do you want to have dinner? Do you want to make dinner for me next week?

Because you are just such a great cook. So let's talk about learning English to describe this next phrase.

The phrase is to bridge the gap. So we use this phrase to mean that we're connecting two different people or two different ideas, You can bridge the gap between two different cultures.

It means just kind of bring them together to join them, to not have them be so separated or divided.

When you learn English, you usually start out learning in a classroom and when you try to speak English with people, it can be kind of difficult because you've only learned formal English and you just haven't had that much practice with actually communicating.

So to bridge the gap, a lot of people choose a television show where people are speaking more naturally and have more natural intonations than just an English teacher or their textbook or they're watching videos on YouTube like myself or listening to podcasts so that they can use phrases in their actual conversation.

So they're bridging the gap between their English that they learned initially in the classroom and they're trying to bridge the gap to actually speak English in the real world.

So These two types of learning are a little bit separate, but you can bring them together by doing things again like podcasts, YouTube videos, television shows, and then eventually going out in the world and not being shy to communicate.

People who are biracial or who have a multicultural household They might bridge the gap between their two cultures by bringing everyone and their family together and sharing the things that they enjoy so that their cultures are not so separate.

And I think this is really important whether you live in a household with many different cultures or you just live in a neighborhood with many different cultures, which is true of so many places in the United States.

We really need to bridge the gap between our neighbors.

Finally, if you want to study this video again, I suggest you start from the top.

This phrase means that you just start over all the way from the beginning.

We use this phrase very specifically to mean that we're going to try something all the way back at the beginning and do it completely again or maybe we're going to play a video or a movie all the way back at the beginning.

If you're saying start from the top, you're saying go all the way back.

Start again from the top. How did you do on today's English quiz?

Are you advanced? Are you still in the intermediate or are you working your way up to master?

Let me know in the comments. I want to know. where you lie on the Kayla English levels.

And if you want to learn over 200 new words and phrases, just like the ones in this lesson, I want you to visit englishwithkayla.com right now with the coupon code upgrade.

You can get an exclusive discount on my course.

It's a six week vocabulary course. And if you don't want to pay for a course right now, make sure to check out one of the videos I'm going to put on screen next.

That will also upgrade your vocabulary. Thank you so much for watching this lesson with me.

I'll see you guys in the next one. Goodbye.

[Mastering Advanced English: Idioms, Slang, and Cultural Expressions]-[130+ Advanced English Phrases for Everyday Conversations]

📋 Summary

Introduction to Advanced English Fluency

Elementary and Intermediate Foundations

Advanced English: Nuance and Professionalism

Modern Slang and Internet Culture

Master-Level Idioms and Professional Skills

Conclusion: The Path to Fluency

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript