Name: IELTS & TOEFL Writing: How to Use Idiomatic Language for a Better Score
Uploaded: 2026-03-19T18:00:51.000Z
Duration: 11 min 33 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...

In today's video, I want to talk to you about idiomatic language.

More specifically, I want to help you understand whether it's okay to use idiomatic language in formal writing.

This is especially important for those of you who are going to take the IELTS or toefl.

But it's also important for everyone to understand what is idiomatic language.

And I'm going to give you some examples and explain which ones are okay to use, which ones are not okay, plus a few other tips to help you use this type of language.

So, first of all, the thing to remember about idiomatic language, it doesn't mean only idioms.

Idioms, sure, they're part of idiomatic language.

But phrasal verbs are also a type of idiomatic language, and some collocations can be idiomatic.

Idiomatic implies that when you take a bunch of words and put them together, the meaning of the.

Of the new combination of words will be different than the individual words.

So I'll take phrasal verbs as an example.

As you must remember, phrasal verbs are a combination of a verb and a preposition.

So we're going to look at cut out, cut, verb, out, preposition.

Now, cut out can have a literal meaning, meaning like you cut with scissors, something out of a newspaper.

That's exactly cut with scissors out of the newspaper.

It's exactly what the two individual words mean.

But if I say to cut it out, cut out the noise, it means stop.

But you will never get stop from the two cut and out.

So this is now a figurative meaning, right?

It's something that is completely different.

Like the combination is completely different than the two individual words.

Now, the thing about idioms is that most idioms are figurative.

There are some that are literal, but most are figurative.

There are literal collocations, and there are also figurative collocations.

So when we're talking about idiomatic language, we're talking about expressions that create a figurative meaning, okay?

And again, for those of you who are taking the ielts or TOEFL and you're doing the writing section, they want to see idiomatic language.

But this does not mean that you have to put a lot of idioms into your essays.

In fact, you shouldn't and I'll tell you more about that in a moment.

So another thing to understand about idioms and about phrasal verbs and collocations.

There are those that are okay for formal writing and there are those that are not okay for formal writing.

Okay, so here's an it takes two to tangle.

It means that you need two people to work together in order to achieve something.

If you're, let's say in business situations, I have one company, you have a company, and

we're the competition, but a third company is trying to get into the market.

So I come to you, you're my competitor, but

I listen, let's work together and keep this one out of the market.

Don't let him come in because he will hurt both our businesses and this guy.

And I say, well, you know, it takes two to tango.

We both need to do it, because by myself, I don't have enough power.

You should definitely use it in spoken English in business situations, in fact, even.

This is a little bit too casual, like the tango, the dancing and all that.

And again, in some cases, you could probably get away with it, but

It's a little bit informal, and most people will probably not use it correctly.

If you're not going to be 100% sure of the meaning or you're not sure how to fit it into your writing, don't use it.

On the other hand, actions speak louder than words.

This is an idiom, but it's pretty close to literal.

But obviously there's actions don't speak, so it is figurative.

Basically, what this idiom means is that doing will achieve a lot more than talking about it.

So if I say, oh, you know, we should all.

We should help all the homeless people in the city, that's fine.

if I go down to the homeless shelter and I help and I serve food to the people, or I bring sleeping bags for them, or I do anything, then I'm actually helping, right?

So my actions are much stronger than just saying I'm going to do it.

This idiom, absolutely you can use in your writing if you can.

Again, just as before, you must be able to use it correctly, and

you must be able to use it in the appropriate context.

Simply throwing it in there just to have it there will Actually hurt you, not help you.

If you're using the figurative, it's too casual.

Cut out is only something you would say to somebody in a very casual way.

On the other hand, there are other phrasal verbs that you can absolutely use.

If you get on with something means you're continuing or you're starting even to do something, that's totally fine.

And I'll tell you about how to choose them in a moment.

So collocations, first of all, these are groups of words that just often go together.

And they go together so often that people only use these combinations.

We don't take homework, only do homework together.

And of course, you should use that in your writing.

They want to see some idiomatic language.

So if you learn something by heart, obviously you're not doing anything with your heart.

This is okay to write in your essay, cut corners.