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  • (upbeat music)

  • - Hello, lovely students.

  • And welcome back to English with Lucy.

  • Now if you are a member of my email list,

  • if you signed up to receive my PDFs and my newsletters,

  • then you will know that we have been doing a big focus

  • on idioms recently.

  • Lots of you seem really keen to expand your vocabulary.

  • And an amazing way to do that is to learn idioms.

  • Idioms are so hard because they don't have literal meanings.

  • You can't read the words and understand what they're about.

  • So idioms are really hard to learn,

  • but they are much, much easier to learn and process,

  • and retain if you learn them in context.

  • So this is how today's lesson is going to work.

  • I am going to read you a story that I wrote,

  • and it contains 20 idioms.

  • For the first part of the lesson, I will read the story.

  • You can practise your listening skills,

  • maybe improve your pronunciation,

  • but I want you to listen and see if you can identify

  • all 20 idioms.

  • Hold your hands like this each time you hear one,

  • stick your finger up.

  • Okay, see if you can get all 20.

  • After that, we will go through the story phrase by phrase,

  • and I will help you understand each and every idiom.

  • As always, there is a free PDF and quiz

  • that goes with this lesson.

  • If you'd like to download that,

  • just click on the link in the description box,

  • you enter your name and your email address.

  • You sign up to my mailing list,

  • and the PDF will automatically arrive in your email inbox.

  • After that, you automatically receive all of my lesson PDFs,

  • and all of my news, course information and offers.

  • It's a free service and you can unsubscribe at any time.

  • There is also one other thing that I wanted to discuss.

  • Before we start this lesson,

  • I am running an idioms challenge.

  • It's a 30 day challenge.

  • Every single day,

  • you get a text containing between six and 10 idioms.

  • You get a daily video from me.

  • I read through the text so you can improve your listening,

  • and pronunciation skills,

  • and I talk about the meanings of all of the idioms.

  • After you've read through the text,

  • you've watched the video, you can take the exercises.

  • We have 20 daily exercises.

  • And as you go through the challenge,

  • I start to test you on what you've learned in previous days.

  • This challenge starts on the 1st of February,

  • so make sure you sign up.

  • Before then, this is a 30 day challenge.

  • It has 30 videos, lessons and sets of exercises,

  • but you have lifetime access so you can take it at any time.

  • For the pricing and enrollment,

  • just click on the link in the description box.

  • And just ran a communications challenge

  • and these students loved it, it was amazing.

  • We had such a great time, right?

  • Let's get started with this idioms lesson.

  • As I said, there are 20 idioms in this story.

  • With your hands, see if you can identify them all.

  • Obviously, I don't expect you to have 20 fingers.

  • You might have to do two lots.

  • I want you to use this as a listening exercise as well

  • to see how much you pick up

  • because we're going to go through phrase by phrase.

  • If you do need the extra help, you can turn on subtitles.

  • I woke up in the morning feeling a little under the weather.

  • I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together.

  • You've got to bite the bullet and attend the interview,

  • I said to myself.

  • I went downstairs to have some breakfast.

  • My mum asked me if I was hungry.

  • I told her that I could eat a horse.

  • She made me a big plate of eggs and I wolfed it down.

  • I started to feel really nervous about the interview.

  • Candidates like me are a dime a dozen.

  • To add insult to injury, I'd been unemployed for six months.

  • Why would anyone hire me?

  • Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree.

  • Or perhaps I should throw caution to the wind and just go.

  • The ball is in my court.

  • I have to do this.

  • On the way to the interview,

  • my bus got stuck in a traffic jam.

  • I was really down on my luck.

  • To make matters worse, I spilled some coffee on my shirt.

  • I arrived 10 minutes late,

  • but the boss said, "Better late than never".

  • She said that she would give me the benefit of the doubt

  • which I really appreciated.

  • She was really on the ball and asked me lots of relevant,

  • about my past experience.

  • I managed to give her some good answers.

  • So far so good, I thought to myself.

  • By the end of the interview, I felt a lot better.

  • She said to me that her decision was a piece of cake.

  • She wanted to offer me the position.

  • I was over the moon.

  • Finally, I had my dream job.

  • I told her that I would give her my all.

  • I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day.

  • Oh, lovely, positive story.

  • Parts of that are actually true.

  • I did once spill coffee

  • all over my shirt before a job interview,

  • but I still got the job, yes.

  • I have been rejected from quite a few jobs

  • in my time as well.

  • I really wanted to work at the makeup counter

  • in my local department store

  • when I was younger and I applied three times,

  • and got rejected every single time.

  • So in the first part of the story,

  • I said, I woke up in the morning feeling

  • a little under the weather.

  • And to feel under the weather

  • or to be under the weather is our first idiom.

  • This means to feel ill or unwell.

  • It doesn't mean seriously ill.

  • It just means I don't feel as good as I normally do.

  • An example, I didn't go into school

  • because I was feeling a bit under the weather.

  • I hope to feel better tomorrow.

  • Not that serious, just not feeling that great.

  • Okay, next I said,

  • I took a deep breath and tried to pull myself together.

  • And to pull one self together is our next idiom,

  • idiom number two.

  • To pull oneself together

  • is to recover control of one's emotions.

  • Sometimes if I'm feeling a bit weak or pathetic,

  • I don't want to do something, I tell myself,

  • pull yourself together, Lucy,

  • worse things could happen.

  • An example, calm down and pull yourself together.

  • Screaming isn't going to help.

  • In the next sentence, I was speaking to myself.

  • I said, you've got to bite the bullet,

  • and attend the interview.

  • And to bite the bullet is our third idiom.

  • It means to decide to do something unpleasant

  • that you have been avoiding.

  • Something unpleasant or difficult as well.

  • A big example of this is with me and running.

  • I love running, but I like running in nice weather.

  • And when it's really, really cold,

  • I try to make myself go out on a run, but I don't want to.

  • It's cold, it's unpleasant, it's more difficult.

  • I try to make myself bite the bullet,

  • stop avoiding it and just do it.

  • An example, I've been avoiding organising my finances,

  • but I need to bite the bullet and open that spreadsheet.

  • When you hear the phrase bite the bullet,

  • think of Nike, okay, just do it.

  • Just do it, stop avoiding it, just do it.

  • That's our Nike idiom.

  • The next sentence.

  • I went downstairs to have some breakfast.

  • My mum asked me if I was hungry and I said

  • that I could eat a horse.

  • I could eat a horse is our next idiom,

  • and it means I could eat a lot or I am so hungry.

  • An example, after running the marathon,

  • I could have eaten a horse.

  • I was so hungry.

  • The next sentence in the story

  • is she made me a big plate of eggs and I wolfed it down.

  • I wolfed it down.

  • To Wolf something down is actually a phrasal verb,

  • but it's also slang.

  • So we're including it here as an idiom.

  • To wolf something down is to eat something really quickly.

  • If you think how a wolf eats,

  • (chuckles) it goes down your throat really quickly.

  • To wolf something down.

  • Now, if I'm talking about eggs, plural,

  • why did I say I wolfed it down?

  • This is because we're referring to the plate of eggs.

  • Mind that one there

  • as I often hear students make mistakes with that.

  • An example, he wolfed down two plates of lasagna,

  • and still had room for dessert.

  • That is my husband.

  • He just loves lasagna.

  • Italians I hope you appreciate

  • the British pronunciation of lasagna.

  • (laughing)

  • I do apologise.

  • Okay, next sentence.

  • I started to feel really nervous about the interview.

  • Candidates like me are a dime a dozen.

  • A dime a dozen is our six idiom.

  • And it's funny because we don't have dimes

  • in the British monetary system.

  • That's an American coin, but we still don't use it.

  • And a dime a dozen means very, very common.

  • Candidates like me are a dime a dozen.

  • There are loads of candidates just like me.

  • I don't have anything special.

  • An example, I'm sorry,

  • but your stamp collection isn't worth anything.

  • Most of the stamps are a dime a dozen.

  • Most of them are really common.

  • All right, next sentence.

  • To add insult to injury.

  • I'd been unemployed for six months.

  • Why would anyone hire me?

  • So number seven is to add insult to injury,

  • to add insult to injury.

  • I have specific connected speech there.

  • To ends in the vowel sound, o.

  • And the next word starts with a vowel sound.

  • So we always put a little, wa sound between it.

  • To add to injury.

  • If you want to learn more about connected speech,

  • I've got a whole video about it.

  • I'll put that into the description box.

  • If you want to look deeply at it,

  • you can try my pronunciation course.

  • The link is also in the description box.

  • To add insult to injury means

  • to make something bad, even worse.

  • If you look at the phrase, insult to injury.

  • This means that you're already injured,

  • and now you've been insulted

  • to the bad situation has been made worse.

  • An example, he broke up with me,

  • and then to add insult to injury,

  • he started dating my sister.

  • Bad situation, made worse.

  • The next sentence is perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree.

  • Perhaps I'm barking up the wrong tree.

  • This is a really common idiom here in the UK.

  • It means to be wrong about the reason for something

  • or the way to achieve something.

  • For example, I thought that the best way

  • to hire a video editor would be to put up posters

  • around my town but I was barking up the wrong tree.

  • What I should've done is posted on an online job board.

  • I was wrong about the way to achieve something.

  • Another example, she thinks that spending time apart

  • will solve her marriage problems,

  • but she's barking up the wrong tree.

  • Maybe they need to spend more time together.

  • If you visualise this idiom, imagine two trees.

  • And there's a squirrel up this tree.

  • The little dog is barking at tree here.

  • He's barking up the wrong tree.

  • He's never going to achieve what he wants here.

  • He should go to the other tree.

  • Next sentence.

  • Or perhaps I should throw caution to the wind and just go.

  • Idiom number nine is to throw caution to the wind.

  • This means to act without thinking of the consequences.

  • It doesn't necessarily mean to act without care

  • or to act carelessly.

  • Sometimes it's used in quite an inspirational way.

  • I'm not gonna think about the risks,

  • I'm going to follow my heart.

  • An example, I was worried she would reject me,

  • but I threw caution to the wind and asked her out.

  • Next sentence, the ball is in my court.

  • I have to do this.

  • If the ball is in your court,

  • it means you have to make the next move.

  • I can't do anymore, the ball is in your court.

  • Visualise two people playing tennis.

  • This person has the ball.

  • The ball is in their court.

  • This other person can't do anything.

  • It's used a lot in professional situations.

  • I've done as much as I can.

  • The ball is in your court, you have to make a decision now.

  • We are now halfway through the idioms.

  • Moving on to number 11, let's take a look at the sentence.

  • On the way to the interview,

  • my bus got stuck in a traffic jam.

  • I was really down on my luck.

  • So number 11 is to be down on your luck.

  • This means to be experiencing a period of bad luck.

  • So this isn't the first bad thing that's happened to you.

  • An example, I really hope that things improve for you.

  • You've been down on your luck and you don't deserve it.

  • This could be me talking to a friend who's been

  • on three terrible dates.

  • They really deserve a good date,

  • but they've been down on their luck.

  • The next one.

  • To make matters worse, I spilled some coffee on my shirt.

  • So this is number 12.

  • To make matters worse.

  • And it means almost exactly the same thing

  • as to add insult to injury.

  • It means we have a bad situation,

  • and what has made it worse is the following.

  • An example, the thief stole my bag,

  • and to make matters worse, he tripped me over.

  • So not only did I lose my bag, I also fell over.

  • If somebody trips you over, they make you fall down.

  • Next sentence.

  • I arrived 10 minutes late, but the boss said,

  • "Better late than never."

  • Better late than never is our 13th idiom.

  • It means that it's better to do something late

  • or after it should have been done than to not do it all.

  • Sometimes we use it in a sarcastic sense.

  • If I handed my homework to my teacher really, really late,

  • they might say, "Ugh, better late than never".

  • We like to be quite sarcastic in the UK.

  • An example in context, you lose 10% of your marks,

  • if you hand in your coursework late,

  • but better late than never.

  • It's better to lose 10% than to lose 100%.

  • Okay, next sentence.

  • She said that she would give me the benefit of the doubt

  • which I really appreciated.

  • Oh, to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

  • Idiom number 14.

  • This means to decide to believe someone,

  • even if you're not 100% sure

  • that what they're saying is true or honest.

  • I don't know if you're lying to me,

  • but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

  • Sometimes if my students hand in their homework late,

  • and they tell me they had internet problems,

  • I don't have any proof,

  • but I give them the benefit of the doubt.

  • I'll believe them.

  • If they keep repeating the same thing over and over again,

  • then I won't give them the benefit of the doubt anymore.

  • An example.

  • I'm not sure if he'll be able to deliver on his promises,

  • but I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  • Next sentence.

  • She was really on the ball,

  • and asked me lots of relevant questions

  • about my past experience.

  • Idiom number 15 is to be on the ball.

  • To be on the ball.

  • This is something that you want to be.

  • This means to be organised and alert.

  • An example, you won't be able to fool him.

  • He's very on the ball when it comes to new tricks and scams.

  • Sometimes if I make a mistake,

  • if I wasn't careful enough with my work,

  • I tell myself, oh, I need to be more on the ball.

  • I need to be more organised and alert,

  • and just in control of things.

  • Next sentence.

  • I managed to give her some good answers.

  • So far so good, I thought to myself.

  • (chuckling)

  • Number 16.

  • The 16th idiom is so far so good.

  • And this means everything until now has gone well.

  • It means that you haven't finished something yet,

  • but everything along the way is going positively.

  • Okay, next sentence.

  • By the end of the interview,

  • I felt a lot better.

  • She said to me that her decision was a piece of cake.

  • She wanted to offer me the position.

  • A piece of cake, idiom number 17 is very easy.

  • If something is a piece of cake, then it's very easy.

  • An example.

  • I thought that exam was a piece of cake,

  • we should all get full marks.

  • Next sentence, I was over the moon.

  • Finally, I had my dream job.

  • Idiom number 18 to be over the moon means

  • to be very happy, to be ecstatic.

  • An example, I was over the moon

  • when I found out that my favourite band was playing

  • in my city.

  • Next sentence, I told her that I would give her my all.

  • I told her that I would give her my all.

  • Number 19 to give something or someone your all,

  • means to give something or someone your full effort.

  • Your best try.

  • An example, I gave it my all,

  • but I didn't manage to win the race.

  • I tried as hard as I possibly could,

  • I put in my full effort, but I didn't win the race.

  • And the final sentence.

  • I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day.

  • And to be on cloud nine means to be a elated,

  • very, very happy.

  • An example.

  • After our wedding day, we were on cloud nine.

  • It was amazing to finally tie the knot.

  • To tie the knot is slang for to get married.

  • It was amazing to finally get married.

  • To tie the knot.

  • Right, that is it for the story and the 20 idioms.

  • Don't forget to download the free PDF

  • that goes with this lesson.

  • And if you think you'd like

  • to do something like this everyday,

  • learning between six and 10 idioms every single day

  • with a short daily texts like this,

  • and a video from me and so many practise exercises,

  • then I really recommend my Idioms Challenge.

  • If you'd like to sign up,

  • click on the link in the description box,

  • all of the information and pricing info is there.

  • Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.

  • I've got my website, englishwithlucy.co.uk.

  • I've got a cool pronunciation tool there.

  • There are lots of extra lessons.

  • I've also got my blogging channel, Lucy Bella

  • where we document our lives here in the English countryside.

  • All of the blogs are fully subtitled

  • so you can use them for listening practise,

  • and to acquire more vocabulary.

  • Don't forget to connect with me on social media.

  • I've got my Instagram at Lucy.

  • I've got my English learning page

  • which is very new @EnglishwithLucy.

  • And I've also got my Facebook.

  • I will see you soon for another lesson.

  • Mwah.

  • (upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

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