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Today's lesson is going to be a tricky one because we're going over the idioms and phrases that really trip up intermediate and advanced English learners because these phrases aren't exactly obvious in their meaning and they're definitely not taught in a textbook or in a typical classroom so you probably haven't heard these phrases.
If you want to study with me in my membership, you can go to Englishwithkaila.com.
I'm having my founding membership sale, so it's a really good discount going on for just a little bit longer.
Check out the website linked below. I'll leave the discount there.
And each week you get the lesson, you get no advertisements, you can listen to it, you can watch it, and then you get the study guide, a quiz, and you get access to a community where you can ask me. more questions about the phrases or you can participate in challenges with the community as well.
I'll leave the link below. Now let's get started with today's lesson.
So the first phrase, it had to be put first in today's lesson because the phrase is right out of the gate, right out of the gate or right out the gate.
Happy turkey day. Yes, right out of the gate.
I tend to drop the word of when I'm using this phrase, so I just say, right out the gate, right out the gate.
And all this phrase means is from the beginning, from the start.
So when something happens that's kind of aggressive at first, you would use this phrase.
Let me give you a really good scenario. So let's say you're on a date.
And the person you're on a date with, this is a first date.
You've never really met them before. Maybe you met on a dating app or you were introduced by someone just really briefly.
They say, well, how much money do you make?
Right out the gate, that's a really aggressive question.
That's a really bold question. Typically in the United States, and I think most elsewhere in the world, It's not really polite to ask someone you don't know well, especially how much they make for their salary or for their job.
So this can be used if someone does something really negative to start out, or even if you're impressed by someone, you could say, right out the gate, they were a great employee.
They worked really hard from the beginning.
So this phrase just means right from the beginning, something really surprising or really aggressive or kind of negative happened just right from the start.
There was no time before this thing happened.
Okay, now we're going to move on from this phrase right out of the gate, which is kind of aggressive to a more, you know, easy casual phrase.
The phrase is taking steps. So if you think about what it means in English to take steps, You might think, oh, somebody's walking.
They're walking. They're taking a step, a step, a step.
Like when you walk, we also mean that we are. making small progress towards a goal when we say we're taking steps.
Take it step by step. Oftentimes we use this phrase, taking steps when we're taking steps towards a goal that's going to improve ourselves.
So for instance, if we're trying to be healthier, we could say I'm taking steps to try to eat healthier.
For instance, I'm eating more protein or I'm eating more fiber like chicken and vegetables and eggs.
So you're taking steps. You could say, I'm staking big steps.
I cut out all sugar. Or you could say, I'm taking small steps and I am not drinking pop anymore or soda.
I call it pop because I'm from the Midwest.
It's just a habit, but you can say a pop soda pop.
Doesn't matter. Another example I can think of is maybe you're taking steps to try to save money.
So maybe you delete. The Amazon app off your phone or you delete shopping apps off your phone if you tend to like to go shopping or.
Maybe you switch from using the brand name of certain products like laundry detergent and chips. soda or pop, and you just go with the store brand that costs way less.
So you're taking small steps to save money here.
When you use this next phrase, you are talking about bringing attention to something.
So if you say you're going to shine a light on something, it's usually a subject. or a topic of conversation that you're going to put some attention on, you're going to have people start to talk about.
Another way that we say this phrase by just using one word is we're going to illuminate it.
We're going to make light upon it. So you can say we're going to shine a light on it or we're going to illuminate it. discovery search only shines a light on her.
Even sometimes people will say, I'm going to spotlight this issue.
Let me give you a few examples of exactly what I'm talking about here when I use this phrase.
So right now in the United States, we always talk about the importance of mental health, how it's important to, you know, Check in with people, see how they're doing if they need to get help like therapy or medication to use those resources.
So we're really you know, shining a light on mental health or we're illuminating mental health because people used to not like to talk about mental health as being a problem ever, you know.
A lot of times our grandparents were told, you know, if you have these tough feelings, like depression and something, you know, you just don't talk about it, you just try to bottle it up.
And now we know it's not healthy, so it's important to shine a light on these types of issues.
You can use this to talk about issues and problems, or you can use it to shine a light on things that are going well.
Maybe somebody at your work has been working very hard.
So in your meeting with everybody, you might want to just recognize them and say, I want to shine a light on Chad's performance or Chad's efforts lately.
Meaning that you're just bringing attention to how hard he's been working.
So when we use the phrase to shine a light on something, you know, we're talking about bringing something to other people's attention, but let's talk about a different phrase that's kind of similar here. to see something in a new light.
This is talking about your own perspective, so how you see things internally.
Let me give you an example here. So if you are from the United States or you're from a country that's really developed and you visit a country with less developed things, maybe less big cities, less resources, you will notice things like in the United States.
We always have trash picked up from our trash cans every single week.
It's just how everyone lives here pretty much.
In other countries, trash collection might not be as common, so people are burning trash or getting rid of trash in other ways.
They're more responsible for their own trash.
For me... This shine a light on the fact that not everyone lives the same way as me. or I could say, you know, this let me see it in a whole new light.
Another thing that's interesting about the United States versus less developed countries is Animals.
If you go to certain countries, there are stray animals everywhere.
These are animals that don't have an owner.
Here in the United States, there has been such an effort to not have stray animals.
We have lots of animal shelters. You know, we get animals neutered and spade, so they're not having all these babies that you rarely see stray animals here.
And if you do, you need to call someone immediately because it's a bigger problem than most places.
So this really just let me see things in the United States in a new light. when I realized that not every country is the same when it comes to these things.
So it changed my perspective. But now I'm seeing you in a new light.
Sometimes when you're talking with a friend, they might tell you about a struggle that they're having or they've had in the past.
And you had no idea that they had been going through this, so this kind of lets you see them in a new light.
You understand their challenges more. For instance, if you found out that your friend had a really difficult childhood, even though you didn't know that before, you might think of them as a much stronger person.
Your perspective has... about their personality and, you know, their strengths.
You see them in a new light after finding out some new information or gaining insight.
Okay, those phrases were pretty deep, pretty emotional.
Now let's move on to something a little bit lighter.
So the phrase I want to teach you is so common.
I use this phrase all the time. It's to give someone crap.
And you gotta be careful of how you use this phrase because it's very casual, very informal, but I use it all the time.
It just means to criticize someone lightly and kind of tease them.
Like it's more of a joking phrase rather than something so serious.
You definitely wouldn't use this phrase in a formal environment or with a boss, but for instance, I use this all the time.
My brother and I, we've always had the type of relationship. where we give each other crap.
We tease each other just a little bit. Obviously, there's a line where you don't want to insult someone really badly.
I always was kind of a tomboy when I was younger, meaning I didn't dress super girly.
And my brother would give me crap like, oh, those are your shoes you're wearing. who's implying that I didn't have very good style or I wasn't very girly.
And that's just kind of our relationship.
We can tease each other and know at the end of the day, we're just joking.
My husband and I, sometimes we give each other crap and we don't take it personally.
For instance, my husband loves to tease me that I am a neat freak.
Like if he sets a glass of water down, it will kind of be my way and I'll put it in the dishwasher and he'll be like.
Are you really that clean where you had to clean up my glass that I just sat down?
Like you're a neat freak. He's kind of giving me crap.
But again, it's more in a joking way, it's more in a lightweight rather than a very insulting, serious way.
So to give someone crap. That's what it means.
It's a little tricky to use this phrase at first, but it starts to come naturally the more and more you use it.
Okay, the next two phrases. are really great for expressing frustration so the first one is I've had it with it.
I've had it with someone, something. Let's give you some examples here.
It just means you're very, very angry to the point where you're so frustrated, you almost just can't work. with this thing or work with the person anymore.
If someone says I've had it with this, they are usually very fired up, very emotional, very angry.
Maybe you've been sitting in traffic and you were just so sick of it.
You want to just. pull off of the highway and, you know, not certain traffic anymore.
You could say, I have had with this traffic.
It means you're very angry. You've reached a breaking point.
Or if you're ready to quit your job because your boss just bothers you so much, you might say, I have had it with my boss. means you're almost at a breaking point.
They are frustrating you very badly. The next phrase, let me give you a visual.
Again, we're talking about anger here and losing your temper.
Let's say you are cutting wood with an axe and you're kind of taking your frustration out and you hit the wood so hard that the axe The thing that slices the metal part flies off the handle.
So we use this phrase, we're going to fly off the handle.
It means you're just really angry, really emotional.
I am flying right off the handle. Maybe your neighbor is usually pretty kind, but one day they just come out and yell at you, they say, you know, I'm sick of your dog barking, I'm sick of your kids, whatever it might be.
You could say, wow, they really just flew off the handle.
Normally, they're very kind. So it means like they're just losing their temper.
It's a quick reaction. It's something you weren't expecting from someone.
Maybe you are warning someone that if something happens, you are going to get really angry and kind of lash out at everyone. somebody takes my coffee again, I'm gonna fly off the handle, meaning you're gonna have, you know, you're gonna lose your temper, you're gonna have a quick reaction.
So you're warning people, don't do that.
This next phrase, it's a bit similar to flying off the handle, but definitely use differently.
And this is why I want to explain it to you because it makes it difficult for English learners to tell the difference between phrases like these that are kind of similar, but definitely need to be used in different contexts. phrase is to go off the deep end.
Now, if you go off the deep end, it doesn't mean like you're losing your temper as much as you've kind of become irrational, a bit insane.
It's used to saying, you know, someone has kind of gone crazy.
So maybe you have a friend and they seem very normal, very friendly and one day you start talking about politics and they start yelling and going crazy.
So they really went off the deep end when we started talking about politics. because it's one of those issues that just causes people to become very emotional and some people become extremely emotional and kind of crazy when talking about politics.
You guys are going off the deep end, all right?
Maybe you know someone that was completely normal and completely rational and they lost their job and it just kind of caused them to go crazy.
You can say. You know, originally they lost their job.
They've just gone off the deep end. They're not making any sense anymore.
You know, they're not taking care of themselves.
Maybe they're in a bit of a depression, but they're also just not themselves anymore.
They've changed dramatically. So this phrase to go off the deep end, it's definitely used in a negative way.
And when someone has this big change in their behavior, that makes them seem kind of insane or not as rational as they were before.
Let's move on to a more positive phrase.
It's going to be our last one for today, so I want to end on a good note.
If you say someone had their heart in the right place, it means they did something that maybe wasn't helpful or maybe it was actually like hurtful or, you know, it was kind of an error, but they were doing it with good intentions.
A lot of times we use this when Children you know try to help?
Maybe they help in the kitchen and they drop a bunch of eggs.
They say, I'm sorry, because it's okay. Your heart was in the right place you were trying to help.
My kids all the time, they try to help around the house.
Sometimes I'm like, well, your heart was in the right place, but that wasn't super helpful because they end up making a bigger mess than if I would have just cleaned up whatever it was in the first place, but that's okay.
Because their heart was in the right place.
I know your heart's in the right place. Thank you guys so much for watching this English lesson with me.
I hope you'll visit Englishwithkala.com and sign up for my membership while the discount is going on.
You can join my community and you can get access to all the study materials for each lesson each week.
And right now, I would love to answer any of your questions if you join the membership about these phrases. or any of the past phrases that you've watched in the lessons here on English with Kayla.
Thanks again for watching and I hope to see you guys in the next lesson.
Check out one of the ones on screen. Goodbye!
