Name: Top 7 English Proverbs that You MUST Know
Uploaded: 2019-06-03T08:33:43.000Z
Duration: 12 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...

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.

To-infinitive

Are you ready to learn about useful proverbs?

The imperative

Part of having an advanced English vocabulary
is knowing phrasal verbs, idioms and yes,

But if you search on Google English proverbs,
you're going to find lists of 150 proverbs.

Nobody wants that, and when I looked at those,
half of them, I didn't know what they were

and I've never used most of them in my life.

If native speakers don't use them, then you
don't need to know them unless of course you

know everything about English already and
you want to know more of the stuff that I

Today I want to help you learn seven common
proverbs that native speakers actually use

If you use these, native speakers won't look
at you like you're strange because these are

Don't use a bird in the hand is worth two
in the bush.

Instead, use these seven proverbs, like normal
people.

Sometimes English learners find it difficult
to learn proverbs because proverbs can be

long sentences or at least a couple words
all together that you need to know in the

exact order, but the good news is that all
of these seven proverbs can be shortened to

But let's get started with the first four.

Number one, actions speak louder than words.

If you tell your mom that you're going to
take out the trash and you don't do it, she

might say to you, "Actions speak louder than
words, just do it."

Or you can reduce this proverb and use the
expression, "You know what they say about

We're going to be filling in that final word
with something different for each proverb.

So if you don't take out the trash and your
mom says to you, "Actions speak louder than

Well, she might say, instead, "You know what
they say about actions," and she's expecting

She's expecting that in your head, you will
fill in actions speak louder than words.

So you will definitely hear this and you can
use this.

Oh, you know what they say about actions.

It means that actions speak louder than words.

So what you're doing right now is not matching
with your words.

Let's see how this kind of phrase, the shortening
in this phrase would work with another proverb.

Proverb number two, honesty is the best policy.

Sometimes honesty is not the best option,
at least 100%.

Honesty, you don't want to say, "That dress
looks terrible on you."

Probably not a good idea to be completely
honest in this situation, but in general,

So we could say honesty is the best policy.

What if we used our shortening expression?

So let's imagine that at work, one of your
friends saw that someone else was stealing

some supplies from the office and your friend
says to you, "Should I tell our boss?

That means to tell on the other person, "But
I don't think it's right.

You might say, "Well, you know what they say
about honesty," and you're expecting that

your friend knows this proverb because all
native speakers know this proverb.

You're expecting that your friend will think,
"Oh yeah, honesty is the best policy.

I should tell my boss about this situation."

So you can say honesty is the best policy,
or you can use our special phrase, you know

The third common proverb is no news is good
news.

When my husband went to college, which is
where I met him, the college was eight hours

away from where his parents lived and when
he went to college, he was so into the activities

and into studying, kind of studying that he
didn't call his mom for two months.

So in this situation his mom could have said,
"Well, no news is good news."

This means that if there was a big problem,
she would probably know about it.

Either Dan, my husband, would call her or
maybe the school would call her.

So if there's no news, it's probably good
news.

We can shorten this expression with our key
phrase, "Well, you know what they say about

So maybe if a Dan's parents are having a conversation
and they're saying, "Why didn't Dan call us?

Dan's dad might say to his mom, "Well, you
know what they say about no news," and Dan's

So we can shorten it by using that expression.

The fourth common proverb is better late than
never.

This is one of my favorite excuses for being
late because you don't really have to explain

You can just say, "Hey, better late than never,"
which means you should be happy that I'm here

It's better to be late than to never come
to that place.

Using the phrase, "Well, you know what they
say about," we can't use the previous style,

Instead, we're going to have to make a little
verb phrase here, you know what they say about

Subtitles ListPlay Video

Top 7 English Proverbs that You MUST Know

perception

phrase

subtle

situation