Name: 25 Advanced English Vocabulary Phrases
Uploaded: 2020-06-06T17:34:06.000Z
Duration: 38 min 42 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.

To-infinitive

Are you ready to expand your vocabulary? Let's talk about it.

Past simple

Vanessa: Last week I shared a 90 minute English conversation

between my husband, Dan and I, where we talked about 12 different topics. In this way, you

could immerse yourself in English for an hour and a half, and learn over 200 new expressions.

In today's lesson, I'm going to take 25 of those expressions and explain them in detail.

I'll be explaining each new expression and then after my explanation, you're going to

see a clip from the original conversation with Dan. If you haven't watched that conversation

Let's get started with the first one. Number one: To look like. To look like. In the conversation

with Dan, I said, "I mostly look like my mom," and this is talking about my physical appearance.

I resemble my mom. Or we could say, "It looks like it's going to rain. The sky looks similar

to the way that it looks when it's going to rain." So we have two things that look similar.

"It looks like it's going to rain," or "I mostly look like my mom." Let's take a look

at the clip from the original conversation so that you can see how it was used.

Dan: So appearance, I look mostly like my mom,

I have more of her skin tone. I have her eyes. So appearance, I look mostly like my mom,

I have more of her skin tone. I have her eyes Vanessa:

Number two: To a T. To a T. What is T? This is an idiom and it means perfectly. Exactly.

If we say, "She looks like her mom to a T," that means she looks like her mom exactly.

We often use this to talk about directions or to follow some instructions. So the teacher

might say, "You need to follow these instructions to a T. If you don't follow them to a T, you're

going to fail the exam." So you need to follow the instructions exactly. Follow them to a

T. Let's take a look at the clip from the conversation.

Vanessa: I think I look a lot like my mom.

Dan: Yeah, she looks exactly like her mom. They're

Yeah, she looks exactly like her mom. They're like to a T.

Vanessa: Number three: Off the charts. This is a fun

idiom and it means more than expected. Dan said, "Her enthusiasm was off the charts."

We can imagine that maybe you're in some kind of business meeting and there's a chart that

shows some progress of the product that you're selling, and then all of a sudden the line

goes off the chart. That means that it was more than you expected. You didn't even have

a chart big enough to show the growth of that product, but it doesn't need to be a product

that we talk about. Instead, it could be enthusiasm. "Her enthusiasm was a way more than I expected.

It was off the charts." It doesn't need to be a positive thing though. You could say,

"Our heating bill was off the charts last month." That means it was so high that I could

have never expected that it would be so high. "Our heating bill was off the charts. It was

All right, let's watch the original clip. Dan:

I always have a lot of enthusiasm. That's true.

Dan: It was off the charts. She was like bouncing.

Vanessa: I always have a lot of enthusiasm. That's

Number four: A gray area. The word gray, this color, it's not black, it's not white, it's

in the middle. So we're talking about something that's not clearly defined. It's not black

and white. It's gray. In the conversation with Dan, we said that, "The area between

childhood and adulthood is kind of a gray area. It's not that one day you wake up and

you're an adult. No, it's kind of a gray area." There are a lot of things in life that are

not clearly defined, especially when it comes to values or morals. So you might say, "Sharing

pictures of your child on social media is a gray area. Some people think it's not a

good thing. Some people think it is a good thing. Some people feel like, I don't know

what to think. It's kind of undefined. This is a new territory for new parents." This

is a gray area. All right, let's watch the original clips that you can see how it was

Yeah, I think you can still be an adult just making your own decisions, but we still need

help from other people as adults, so it's a gray area.

Vanessa: Yeah. It's not so clear. I think you can still

be an adult just making your own decisions, but we still need help from other people as

Number five: To be paid under the table. Does this mean that Dan's boss literally gave him

money under the table? No. This just means that he was paid illegally. He wasn't officially

on a register as an employee of that restaurant. Instead, they just gave him cash. To be paid

under the table. When he said, "I was paid under the table," that was most likely because

of his age. I think he was probably too young to be officially an employee, and that's kind

of common in the US that if you get a job when you're too young, the boss will probably

just pay you in cash under the table, or if you have an odd job. Odd jobs are often paid

under the table. If you're babysitter, if you walk your neighbor's dog you're not going

to get a tax form that says you are the babysitter for this person. No, it's just between two

people. They just give you cash, or maybe they write you a little check, a personal

check. It's paid under the table. Vanessa:

All right, let's watch the clips that you can see how this was used.

Vanessa: Things you don't want to know when you visit

And I was was paid under the table. Vanessa:

Why did they have to pay you under the table? Dan:

Things you don't want to know when you visit a restaurant.

Vanessa: Why'd they have to pay you under the table?

Vanessa: Number six: The meat. This is a little bit

of a funny metaphor here. We're not talking about meat like chicken or beef or pork. Instead,

we're talking about the majority of something. Usually we talk about the majority of money

So Dan said that, "The meat of our tourism is nature in the US. Yeah, people go to New

Subtitles ListPlay Video

25 Advanced English Vocabulary Phrases

stuff

figure

expression

positive