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

  • Are you ready to expand your vocabulary?

  • Let's go.

  • Vanessa: It's a fact, the more vocabulary you know, the more you can understand natural

  • English conversations.

  • So today I'd like to help you understand and use 15 advanced English expressions for daily

  • life.

  • These aren't phrases specifically for business, though of course you could use them in those

  • situations.

  • These aren't all slang expressions or expressions to make you sound really educated.

  • No, these are expressions for daily life.

  • They're ones that I use all the time and I hope that you'll be able to integrate into

  • your daily conversations as well.

  • All of the phrases that you're going to learn today are part of my monthly course, The Fearless

  • Fluency Club.

  • Some of these expressions I took from lessons in 2018, some are from lessons from 2019,

  • some are from 2020.

  • But today they are for you.

  • If you would like to learn 15 to 20 new expressions just like this every month, feel free to click

  • up here to learn more about my course, The Fearless Fluency Club.

  • Vanessa: During today's lesson, I challenge you to try to say all of the sample sentences

  • out loud with me.

  • This is going to help you get used to hearing your voice using the expressions and also

  • help your pronunciation muscles, help you have a chance to speak and also help you to

  • remember them, which is always a challenging thing with new vocabulary, right?

  • So make sure that you speak out loud today.

  • Try to repeat some of these sentences with me.

  • I have a feeling that some of these expressions are going to be new for you.

  • So let's get started with the first one.

  • Vanessa: A false sense of security, carrying mace gave me a false sense of security.

  • Can you guess what this means from the sentence?

  • Carrying mace, which is like pepper spray or a minor weapon, gave me a false sense of

  • security.

  • Well, I feel secure, I feel safe, but in reality, danger is near.

  • If I were in a really dangerous situation, carrying mace or pepper spray is probably

  • not going to help me too much.

  • It gave me a false sense of security.

  • Vanessa: His wife didn't argue with him about his drinking, but this was a false sense of

  • security.

  • She would blow up one day.

  • Blow up means get extremely angry.

  • This is a pretty common thing that happens in relationships unfortunately.

  • One person has a problem and the other person doesn't say anything about it, so that person

  • thinks, "Oh, maybe it's not a problem.

  • Maybe it's fine, maybe he or she doesn't care."

  • This is a false sense of security because probably the other person is building up some

  • strong feelings and will just explode in anger one day.

  • So make sure that you don't have this false sense of security.

  • All right, let's go to the next expression.

  • Vanessa: To bounce ideas off or to bounce ideas off of.

  • The word of here is just optional.

  • Let's look at a sample sentence and I want you to guess what you think it means.

  • It's a good idea to bounce ideas off of your coworkers.

  • When a ball bounces, it goes down and then it comes back up.

  • Well, when you bounce ideas off of a coworker, you're getting some feedback and opinions

  • from someone.

  • You're bouncing ideas off of someone.

  • In the sentence, you can just as naturally say it's a good idea to bounce ideas off your

  • coworkers or it's a good idea to bounce ideas off of your coworkers.

  • The word of is completely optional.

  • Both are correct.

  • A common question in business is, can I bounce some ideas off of you?

  • And this means that you have some ideas, you would like some feedback about it, especially

  • if the other person has more experience than you.

  • This is a really polite way to say, "Hey, can I ask you some questions and get some

  • feedback?"

  • You can just simply say, "Can I bounce some ideas off of you?"

  • Great.

  • Beautiful sentence.

  • Vanessa: The next expression is wise, but this is just a suffix.

  • That means that we put it at the end of another word.

  • Take a look at this sentence.

  • Safety-wise, my city is pretty safe, but education-wise, we could use some improvement.

  • You're introducing each category with the word safety, but then you're adding wise to

  • show I'm talking about this category.

  • Safety-wise.

  • My city is pretty safe, but education-wise, we could use some improvement.

  • It's not so good.

  • So on the topic of education we could use some improvement.

  • When my friends ask how old my students are.

  • Well there is quite a range of ages of people who learn online.

  • Vanessa: If you teach a class of adults about coding, like how to make software code, you

  • might say, "Well, age-wise," you're introducing this category with the suffix wise.

  • "Age-wise my students are around 40 years old."

  • Okay, cool.

  • Or, "Age-wise, my students are generally 18 to 25."

  • Okay.

  • They're probably right out of high school and they're learning a career path.

  • Age-wise.

  • This is a little bit tricky, a little bit advanced.

  • That's why I wanted to include this but you'll definitely see this and I use this in daily

  • conversation all the time.

  • When you want to talk about a category or talk about two different categories like safety-wise.

  • Well, education-wise.

  • We can use this for so many different things.

  • You can talk about kids, "How's your life?"

  • "Well, health-wise, I'm doing pretty fine, but kid-wise I am overwhelmed."

  • You can use this for any category.

  • Vanessa: "Are you hungry?"

  • "Food-wise, I feel great, but drink-wise, yeah, let's go get a drink."

  • Okay.

  • You can use this for so many different categories.

  • I hope to introduce this to you so that you'll start to hear this as you listen to natural

  • English conversations.

  • Let's go to the next one.

  • Vanessa: For the sake of.

  • This expression has two different meanings.

  • So let me give you one sample sentence.

  • A lot of people make art for the sake of making art.

  • What do you think this means?

  • We could also say a lot of people make art for the sake of it, and that's just replacing

  • making art.

  • What do you think that means?

  • We're talking about the purpose.

  • What is their purpose for making art?

  • Well, if they're making art for the sake of making art, it's not for the sake of making

  • money, for the sake of creative enhancement.

  • It's just because they like making art.

  • It's not for a school project.

  • It's not a requirement.

  • It's just for the purpose of making art.

  • Vanessa: Or we could just say for the sake of it.

  • "Why are you learning English?"

  • "Well, I don't need it for my job.

  • I don't travel that much.

  • I don't know many people from other countries.

  • I'm learning English for the sake of it, just because I want to."

  • The purpose is, well, just the purpose of learning, for the sake of learning English.

  • But there's a second meaning for this expression.

  • Let's take a look at this sentence, for the sake of the people who haven't read the book,

  • I'll give a quick summary.

  • For the sake of the people who haven't read the book.

  • If you are discussing a book with some friends, but other people in the room haven't read,

  • it well you could use this expression, for the sake of the people who haven't read the

  • book.

  • I'll give a quick summary.

  • This is what happened in the story.

  • Vanessa: In this situation we're using for the sake of someone to talk about in respect

  • for someone.

  • So to respect the people who haven't read the book, so that they aren't completely lost

  • in our conversation.

  • Well, here's a quick summary.

  • So you could say, "For the sake of those who have sacrificed a lot, we are going to have

  • a special dinner or a special celebration in respect for those people."

  • All right, so we've got two different ways to use this.

  • The purpose of something, "I'm learning English for the sake of my job."

  • I'm learning English for the sake of it, just because I like learning.

  • Or for the sake of someone to respect someone.

  • Let's go to the next expression.

  • Vanessa: Let alone.

  • When we think about the word alone, we think about someone who's not with other people,

  • but erase that idea from your mind.

  • Let's look at this sample sentence and try to guess what you think it means.

  • I've never been to China, let alone seen the Great Wall.

  • The Great Wall of China is a big tourist attraction and a really cool historical feature in China,

  • but in my sentence I said I've never been to China, let alone seeing the Great Wall.

  • Yeah, I've seen pictures and videos, but it's not the same as in real life.

  • What's an expression that we can substitute in this situation?

  • Vanessa: You could say, "I've never been to China.

  • Not to mention seeing the Great Wall."

  • Oh, here we have a big category, been to China, and then I'm getting a little bit more specific

  • and saying, seeing the Great Wall.

  • You might also substitute much less.

  • I've never been to China, much less seen the Great Wall.

  • So we've got a big category and then we're narrowing it.

  • If I've never done that big category, of course I haven't done that small category too.

  • Let's look at another example.

  • After the accident, he couldn't walk, let alone play soccer.

  • What's the big category here?

  • Walking.

  • Well, if you can't walk, you probably have a difficult time playing soccer.

  • So we could say after the accident he couldn't walk much less play soccer.

  • After the accident he couldn't walk, not to mention play soccer.

  • Vanessa: Of course, if he can't walk, he can't play soccer.

  • I'm sure there are some exceptions, but in this situation we're going to use let alone.

  • He couldn't walk, let alone play soccer.

  • We're getting more specific.

  • This is a wonderful advanced expression that you're definitely going to hear all the time

  • around you.

  • Now that you're aware of this expression, you're going to hear it a lot.

  • All right, let's go to the next one.

  • Vanessa: A whole 'nother something.

  • A whole 'nother level.

  • A whole 'nother thing.

  • A whole 'nother animal.

  • There's a lot of different ways that we can use this, but the main part that's used in

  • each of these expressions is a whole 'nother.

  • What is 'nother?

  • Well, let's look at a sample sentence and I want you to guess.

  • We've been dating for two years, but deciding to get married is a whole 'nother animal.

  • Am I getting married to an animal?

  • No.

  • We're not really talking about animals in this situation.

  • We can just substitute thing or level.

  • Getting married is a whole 'nother level.

  • What if I said getting married is another level?

  • Does that make a little bit more sense to you?

  • We've been dating for two years, but getting married is another level.

  • I'm not sure if I'm ready to commit.

  • That's more serious.

  • Well, this is pretty much what we're saying here except this is using, if you want to

  • get a little nerdy and grammatical, this is using something called tmesis, which is when

  • you insert one word into another word.

  • Vanessa: So look at this expression.

  • Do you see another and then the word whole splitting it?

  • Yep.

  • That's what's happening.

  • Here we have another, but the word whole has just cut into the middle of that word.

  • Another whole or a whole 'nother.

  • When I was thinking about this expression, I had no idea why this actually happened,

  • because we use this all the time in daily life, but if you really try to break down,

  • wait, 'nother?

  • 'Nother is not a word.

  • Why do we say a whole 'nother?

  • I had to do a little bit of research about this, because it's so commonly used, but it's

  • not something that you would write in an essay.

  • It's not common grammar from a grammar textbook.

  • So I hope to introduce this to you so that you can hear it everywhere now and you can

  • use it yourself.

  • Let's take a look at another example.

  • Vanessa: Going to college is relatively easy, but finding a job in your field is a whole

  • 'nother thing.

  • Here we're talking about something that's a little bit more difficult.

  • It's a little bit more challenging, at least in the US, going to college, getting into

  • college.

  • It's a pretty simple process.

  • But it is much more difficult to find a job in the field that you studied.

  • If you studied History, well, it's going to be pretty difficult to find a career or find

  • a job in that field, in the field of History, so we could say finding a job in your field

  • is a whole 'nother thing.

  • All of these words that we can add afterwards, a whole 'nother animal, a whole 'nother

  • level, a whole 'nother thing.

  • They all have that same meaning, so you can really interchange them however you want.

  • A common way to use this grammatical form tmesis if you're curious, is often you'll

  • hear really casual situations where native speakers will say, "Abso-freaking-lutely."

  • Well, the expression is absolutely, and the word freaking, which is a polite way to say

  • a bad word, but we often split it.

  • Vanessa: If you eat some ice cream, that is unbelievable.

  • It is so good.

  • You could say, "Wow, this ice cream is abso-freaking-lutely amazing."

  • You're splitting the word absolutely with the word freaking.

  • You're probably going to hear this commonly in casual conversation, in this situation

  • because you're using the word freaking, it is really casual, but this idea of tmesis

  • is used a lot in English, especially with a whole 'nother something.

  • So I hope to introduce this to you just to expand your mind and hopefully you'll be able

  • to hear this and use it yourself.

  • All right, let's go to the next one.

  • Vanessa: To give it a shot.

  • Are we talking about guns here?

  • Shooting a gun, to give someone a shot?

  • No.

  • Instead, we're talking about something pretty different.

  • What about the sample sentence?

  • The food looks strange, but I'll give it a shot.

  • Well, we've got two things that should be different from each other, because they're

  • combined with the word but.

  • So they should kind of be opposites.

  • Vanessa: The food looks strange.

  • We can assume, "Oh, I don't really want to try it, but I'll give it a shot."

  • So what's the opposite of that?

  • I'll try it.

  • Usually this is with a little bit of hesitation.

  • I'll give it a shot.

  • I don't feel so certain about it, but I'll give it a shot.

  • Maybe your friend says to you, "You've never sung in karaoke.

  • Come on, give it a shot."

  • You're probably going to try it tentatively.

  • Try it hesitantly.

  • But you're still going to try it.

  • I'm going to give it a shot.

  • You could use this for an English course.

  • Maybe you thought, "I don't really know if I have time or if this course is going to

  • be helpful, but okay, I'll give it a shot."

  • For example, the course that all of these expressions came from, The Fearless Fluency

  • Club, it usually costs $35 per month, but I want to give, I always give a $5 price for

  • the first month.

  • Vanessa: If you write new, N-E-W, in the coupon code box when you purchase the course, that

  • means the first 30 days is only $5.

  • This way you can give it a shot.

  • You can just try the course.

  • It's $5.

  • And if you cancel before 30 days, then you don't need to pay the full price if it's not

  • a good fit for you.

  • So it's a good way to try the course if you feel hesitant or tentative.

  • Well, okay, it's $5, I'll give it a shot.

  • And I can cancel before 30 days and not pay the $35 monthly fee.

  • So I hope that this makes it easier for you to give it a shot, to see if it's a good fit

  • for you.

  • All right, let's go to the next expression.

  • Vanessa: To be under the impression.

  • What about this sentence?

  • I was under the impression that being an elementary school teacher was mainly about being fun.

  • If I have a fun personality, if we have a fun time together, then I'll be a good teacher.

  • Do you think that this is true?

  • Do you think that the most important characteristic of an elementary school teacher is being fun?

  • No.

  • So this means that you have an idea that is later proven wrong.

  • Well, if you think this is true about being an elementary school teacher and you walk

  • into the classroom and there's 20 or 30 6-year-olds and you say, "All right, this year we're going

  • to have a lot of fun.

  • Every day is fun."

  • You might have some difficulties with the children in the classroom.

  • They might not listen to you.

  • It might be disorderly.

  • You need to have some structure as well.

  • There's a lot of different qualities that are good in elementary school teachers not

  • just being fun.

  • Vanessa: So in this situation you have an idea, but because of some experience it is

  • proven wrong.

  • I was under the impression, well, but then I found out the truth.

  • Let's look at another example.

  • She was under the impression that he was a nice guy, she was wrong.

  • This means that maybe after their first date she thought he was pretty nice.

  • But then after the second date she realized, "Oh, this guy is a little bit strange.

  • He's got some strange characteristics."

  • Her original idea was later proven wrong because of her experience.

  • She was under the impression that he was a nice guy, but she was wrong.

  • You don't even need to add that final part, because this expression already implies that

  • your idea is later going to be changed.

  • So you could just say, "Yeah, I was under the impression that he was a nice guy."

  • And it means, "Yeah, but later I found out that he wasn't."

  • But initially, at the beginning, early on, I thought that he was, but really he wasn't.

  • All right, let's go to the next expression.

  • Vanessa: To nip it in the bud.

  • We can imagine nip is like to cut and there is a flower that is opening.

  • It is almost going to open.

  • It is called a bud before it opens.

  • If you see a rose or a tulip or some flower that's still closed, before it opens, this

  • is called a bud, a flower bud.

  • If you cut the flower before it opens, you are nipping it in the bud literally.

  • But we often use this figuratively.

  • So take a look at a sample sentence and try to guess what it means in a figurative sense.

  • The moment that my daughter started lying, I knew I needed to nip it in the bud.

  • Am I cutting my daughter?

  • No.

  • She has some bad behavior, which is lying, not telling the truth.

  • The moment that my daughter started lying, I knew I needed to nip it in the bud.

  • This means to stop some bad behavior before it becomes too big, before it becomes a habit

  • or uncontrollable.

  • We often use this for habits of young people.

  • Vanessa: Well, I saw that my son started smoking.

  • Well, I think we need to nip it in the bud because he might become addicted.

  • He might have some health problems.

  • We need to stop this bad behavior before it becomes too big.

  • We need to nip it in the bud.

  • What is it in this expression?

  • We always say it.

  • You could say we need to nip her lying in the bud.

  • We need to nip his smoking in the bud.

  • But we hardly ever say that.

  • Instead, we always say it because we know the context already.

  • We know that lying is the problem or smoking is the problem, so it is the bad behavior.

  • Vanessa: If you have, I think we all have these with different languages.

  • If you have some bad habits with English grammar that have built up over time, you always use

  • since instead of for or something like this, you might say, "Okay, I need to nip it in

  • the bud.

  • I need to learn which one is correct and I need to stop using it in an incorrect way

  • because this is a bad habit that could become a big problem.

  • It could become a habit that I can't stop in the future, so I need to nip it in the

  • bud."

  • Vanessa: Let's look at another sentence.

  • If your dog jumps up on strangers in the park, you need to nip it in the bud.

  • Don't tolerate it.

  • I have cats.

  • I've never had dogs, so I'm not really a dog person, but something that I really don't

  • like.

  • Maybe people who have dogs tolerate it.

  • I don't know.

  • But when a dog is walking in the park with its owner, even if it's on a leash, if it

  • jumps up on me, I don't want that.

  • I don't know your dog, your dog is dirty.

  • Don't touch my clothes with your dog's dirty paws.

  • An owner needs to nip this behavior in the bud.

  • The moment that your dog does that, you need to teach your dog that that's not good behavior.

  • Don't tolerate it.

  • Don't think it's cute.

  • No one wants that.

  • So you could say the moment your dog jumps up on someone, you need to nip it in the bud.

  • Do not let this bad behavior become something big.

  • All right, let's go to the next expression.

  • Vanessa: To serve me well.

  • Are we talking about a restaurant?

  • A server served me well.

  • The waiter served me well.

  • No.

  • Look at this sentence.

  • The hiking stick served me well when I saw a bear on my hike.

  • The hiking stick served me well.

  • What do you think this means?

  • It's something that's been helpful to have or to know.

  • It was helpful to have a hiking stick, when I saw the bear, I could lift it above my head

  • and the bear just got a little scared and walked away.

  • At least bears in my area are not aggressive.

  • So if you have a hiking stick, which is always a good idea when you're hiking, at least in

  • this area, you can just make some loud noises or you can lift it above your head and say,

  • "Ah," and the bear will most likely, nine times out of 10, or more, just go away because

  • they don't care about you.

  • They just happen to see you.

  • Vanessa: So we could say the hiking stick served me well.

  • It was helpful to have, or we could use this not necessarily in a physical way, but we

  • could use it about knowledge.

  • Something that's helpful to know.

  • You could say knowing English has served me well in my job.

  • Maybe you didn't think that you would need English for your job, but then you got a new

  • position and now you need to write emails every day in English.

  • Okay, so you're glad you already have a base in English, you could say, "Knowing English

  • has served me well.

  • It's been helpful to have this knowledge so that I can use it in my job and I'm not scrambling

  • trying to figure out what to say.

  • No, I have this knowledge and it's helpful to have.

  • It served me well."

  • Vanessa: The next expression is to think twice.

  • Why would you need to think twice about something?

  • Look at this sample sentence.

  • Americans don't think twice about tipping in a restaurant.

  • Tipping means adding usually 20% extra on their bill.

  • If your bill is $20 you need to add $4 to give to the server.

  • It can be on your check, it could be cash, but for Americans, this is obvious, we always

  • do this.

  • We don't need to think twice about this.

  • So can you guess what this means?

  • It means that you're consciously considering or thinking about something.

  • For Americans, we don't need to consider the idea of should I tip, should I not?

  • No.

  • We always do, because this is just part of American culture.

  • Vanessa: If your service has been okay, the server was adequate, then you should give

  • at least 15%, probably 20% as a tip.

  • This expression, to think twice, is often used for negative situations.

  • When you're warning someone about something, so you might say, "You should think twice

  • about walking in that neighborhood alone at night.

  • That neighborhood is not so safe.

  • So before you walk to your friend's house in that neighborhood at night, think twice

  • about it."

  • It just means carefully consider, is this a good idea?

  • Maybe I should drive there.

  • Maybe it's close by and you can ride your bike, which is a little faster.

  • You should think twice about this.

  • Okay.

  • You can also say this in other English-type situations.

  • Maybe you're thinking about just living in the US.

  • Well, that's a big, a big deal.

  • You might say, "I should think twice about living in the US.

  • Yeah, the idea is good, but I need to leave my family, my friends, my culture.

  • Okay.

  • I'm going to think twice about it.

  • I need to think twice about this because it's a big deal."

  • Vanessa: All right.

  • Let's go to the next phrase.

  • The next expression is the big picture.

  • Are we talking about taking a picture and then printing it to be giant on your wall?

  • No.

  • This is a more figurative expression.

  • What if I said this to you, what would you think it means?

  • I often don't think about the big picture, instead I just think about the little details.

  • The big picture of what?

  • What do you think I'm talking about here?

  • This is the big picture of life.

  • I don't think about 10 years in the future, 20 years in the future.

  • How this will impact a broader spectrum of people.

  • No, I just think about the details.

  • So the big picture means a broad, overall perspective.

  • And this can be used to talk about life, the big picture of life, or it can be used to

  • talk about other things.

  • Vanessa: If you're playing a board game with some friends or a video game, any kind of

  • game, you could say, "Before you learn the rules of the game, you need to understand

  • the big picture."

  • Okay.

  • You need to know how do you win.

  • What is the overall broad perspective of the game.

  • How do you win.

  • What are the main goals of the game.

  • That's the big picture.

  • And then you can go back and learn all of the little rules, but it's good to start with

  • learning the big picture of the game.

  • All right, let's go to the next expression.

  • Vanessa: Back in the day.

  • The day?

  • Back in the day?

  • When is the day?

  • What if I said to you, we used to hang out a lot back in the day.

  • We used to hang out a lot, that means spend time together, back in the day.

  • Does this mean yesterday?

  • No, this just means generally a long time ago.

  • It's a little bit odd because we can use this to talk about hundreds of years ago, thousands

  • of years ago, or we could use this to talk about 20 years ago.

  • So it all depends on how much you want to exaggerate with this.

  • I feel like the main feeling of this expression is hundreds of years ago, thousands of years

  • ago, something that feels like a long time ago.

  • Vanessa: But we often use this for our daily lives.

  • If you had a friend in high school and now you're 50 years old, well, maybe you see that

  • friend very, very rarely now.

  • You could say, "Yeah, we used to hang out a lot back in the day."

  • Which means in high school, so maybe 30 years ago, it's not thousands of years ago, but

  • it feels like a long time ago.

  • So that's the sense here.

  • Or you might say, "Back in the day, women used to spend all day doing laundry."

  • It was laundry day.

  • They spent the entire day doing laundry.

  • It was really physically intensive, really difficult.

  • And that's not really happening that often nowadays.

  • So we could say back in the day, I don't know exactly when, I don't have a specific date

  • for you, but I'm talking about something that was a long time ago.

  • Vanessa: This expression is pretty casual, so I don't really recommend using this in

  • a business presentation.

  • You wouldn't really say, "Oh, back in the day our company was selling five units and

  • nowadays we are selling 300."

  • It's a little too casual for that situation.

  • You might just say, "In 2005."

  • You might talk about the past in a little bit more of a specific way in a business situation.

  • But this is great for daily conversations, which is the point of this video, to help

  • you with daily expressions.

  • So back in the day, something that happened a long time ago, or it felt like a long time

  • ago, let's go to the next one.

  • Vanessa: To be in over your head, to be in.

  • Where are you in?

  • To be in over your head.

  • There's a lot of prepositions going on in this expression.

  • What if I said this to you?

  • When he joined the basketball tournament, he was in over his head.

  • Do you think that he's an amazing basketball player and he knows what he's doing and he's

  • confident and prepared?

  • Nope.

  • Instead, in this situation, he is less prepared and probably less skilled than the other people

  • in the tournament.

  • So when he joined the basketball tournament, he was in over his head.

  • We never add, he was in the tournament over his head.

  • We never add that word there, but we're talking about in this situation, whatever that situation

  • is, he is overwhelmed.

  • We can imagine jumping into a swimming pool and the water covers your head.

  • You are in the water and it is over your head.

  • You are overwhelmed because you are probably less skilled and less prepared than the other

  • people.

  • Vanessa: Let's look at another example.

  • I was in over my head on my first day as a teacher.

  • Maybe you thought you were prepared, but really you were completely overwhelmed.

  • You were in over your head.

  • Notice how the subject and the pronoun match in all of these situations.

  • I was in over my head.

  • He was in over his head.

  • We never say I was in over his head.

  • He was in over her head.

  • That's not possible with this expression, so make sure that they match.

  • We were in over our heads.

  • They were in over their head.

  • I was in over my head.

  • I was overwhelmed.

  • I was less prepared, less skilled than other people, and I felt really overwhelmed.

  • All right, let's look at the next expression.

  • Vanessa: To ease into it.

  • To ease into it.

  • Do you sense that the word ease comes from the word easy, smooth?

  • Yeah.

  • What if I said this sentence?

  • You need to ease into the water of the swimming pool because it's really cold.

  • You need to ease into the water.

  • Oh, does this mean you need to jump in, go off the diving board and just get completely

  • wet immediately?

  • Some people like to do that if it's cold, but in the sentence, we're talking about slowly

  • doing something, doing something cautiously, maybe preparing a little bit.

  • You are easing into the water.

  • If you just started relearning English after your childhood classes recently, well, don't

  • give a speech in English tomorrow.

  • You need to ease into it.

  • You need to practice English a little bit every day.

  • You need to give yourself maybe a couple months of preparation before you give a 30-minute

  • speech in English.

  • You need to ease into it.

  • Vanessa: Notice that there's always a noun after this expression.

  • It means a speech.

  • You need to ease into it.

  • Don't give a speech right away.

  • You need to ease into it.

  • Or we could say you need to ease into the water.

  • That's the noun.

  • You're going slowly into the water.

  • We can use it in a physical way, going slowly into the water.

  • Or in a more metaphorical way, slowly prepare to give a 30-minute speech in English.

  • You need to ease into it.

  • Great work with these 15 new phrases.

  • Let's go through and review one sentence for each of these phrases.

  • Vanessa: What I want you to do is I want you to try to say them out loud with me.

  • Repeat.

  • Use your pronunciation muscles.

  • It's going to help you remember them, as I mentioned at the beginning, so just try to

  • speak with me.

  • All right.

  • Let's start with the first one.

  • Carrying Mace gave me a false sense of security.

  • It's a good idea to bounce ideas off of your coworkers before starting a new project.

  • Safety-wise, my city is pretty safe, but education-wise, I think the schools could improve.

  • A lot of people make art for the sake of making art.

  • I've never been to China, let alone seeing the Great Wall.

  • We've been dating for two years, but deciding to get married is a whole 'nother animal.

  • The food looks strange, but I guess I'll give it a shot.

  • I was under the impression that being a good elementary school teacher was mainly about

  • being fun.

  • The moment that my daughter started lying, I knew I needed to nip it in the bud.

  • Vanessa: The walking stick served me well when I saw a bear on my hike.

  • Americans don't think twice about tipping at a restaurant.

  • I usually don't think about the big picture of my life, only the daily details.

  • We used to hang out a lot back in the day.

  • He was really in over his head when he joined the basketball tournament.

  • I had to ease into the water because it was really cold.

  • Vanessa: Great work with these 15 phrases.

  • I hope you had a chance to learn something new.

  • Expand your vocabulary.

  • I'm sure that you will hear these around you as you surround yourself with English, that's

  • the first step to recognize them.

  • Then you'll be able to understand them, and after some time you'll be able to use them

  • yourself.

  • So feel free to repeat this lesson, go back and review some of these expressions so that

  • you can add them to your daily life.

  • Vanessa: Well, now I have a question for you.

  • I want to know what is something that you should think twice about?

  • Give us some advice.

  • You should think twice before you go there on vacation.

  • You should think twice before you eat that.

  • Give us some good sentences in the comments and make sure you read each other's sentences

  • as well, just to get a broader perspective of all of these wonderful expressions.

  • Well, thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday

  • for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.

  • Bye.

  • Vanessa: The next step is to download my free ebook, Five Steps to Becoming a Confident

  • English Speaker.

  • You'll learn what you need to do to speak confidently and fluently.

  • Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons.

  • Thanks so much.

  • Bye.

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

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