Speak English Confidently Daily Life Vocabulary

Hey, snap out of it. You look sharp. We're doing it for the little guys. In today's English lesson, I'm gonna teach you 14 natural idioms that will help upgrade your English so that you can understand the everyday phrases that native speakers like myself use, and you can start to use these in your own vocabulary just to upgrade from your basic textbook English. If you wanna learn more about these phrases, visit englishwithkayla.com. Now, let's get started with the lesson. Our first idiom is looking sharp. This is a great idiom to use when you need to give a compliment. If you tell someone that they're looking sharp, it means they're well-dressed, they're put together, and they're very stylish. Oftentimes, if people are wearing clothes that look new or they're in fashion, we'll say, those are looking sharp. I really like your shoes, they're looking sharp. Or we can just say, sharp, those shoes are sharp. That shirt is sharp. Again, it just means stylish, new, very well put together. Looking sharp! The most common place that I hear this phrase is when you're at a wedding and everyone is dressed up in their nicest clothes. A lot of people compliment one another by saying, oh, you guys look so sharp, you look sharp. It just means that you're dressed fancier or more stylish than usual. The great thing about telling someone that they look sharp, it's a really appropriate compliment to give on somebody's clothing or the way that they look where it doesn't cross the line in being inappropriate or too personal. You'll often hear English speakers say that they paid good money for something. Of course, if they're talking about a product that they went to the store and purchased, they paid money for it. But why do English speakers say, I paid good money for something? Well, we often use this when we are implying that we paid a lot of money for something and we had to kind of sacrifice in order to buy something. A lot of times we use this in heated or argumentative situations if we're saying like a product should be better than it actually is because of the amount that it costs. Mother paid good money for these lessons. For instance, if you buy a book that promises that you'll learn English in 30 days and you had to pay a lot of money for it and you open the book and it's just a dictionary and it's not actually gonna help you, you might say to whoever wrote the book, hey, I paid good money for this book. I was hoping that it would actually teach me English. This implies that it was really expensive and it's not a good product here. So when you're using this phrase, I paid good money for something, it's expressing a frustration about the price or about the quality. Although this next phrase is not technically an idiom, it's just pretty basic words, it's a phrase that is not super obvious in its meaning when English speakers say it. So they'll start off saying, I gotta say something. I gotta say something. This is a phrase that we use when we're going to give someone an honest or even just harsh opinion, I have to say something. I'm so sorry, you're doing this wrong. This is a common way to use this phrase or I gotta say something, your outfit is just kind of bad. It's really honest, it's really brutal. Of course you would use this phrase with friends or someone that you're close with because you wouldn't wanna be giving them such harsh opinions or such harsh news this way. I gotta name it, Warren, I gotta say it. This phrase is really conversational, it's used every day, but it can be used in positive ways as well, especially if you just want to emphasize something. So I gotta say I was really surprised or I gotta say I was pleasantly surprised, meaning you had low expectations but you were surprised in a good way. Or you could say, I gotta say you look really good today. This means not that you're surprised they looked good, but you just wanted to point it out. So it's used either to introduce an opinion, something harsh, or it can be used in positive ways when you just want to emphasize something. This is why English speakers use I gotta say to introduce whatever they're going to tell you. There are a lot of different ways we can say this next idiom. The idiom is put someone out. So oftentimes we say, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to put you out, or I'm not trying to impose, or I'm not trying to inconvenience you. So the phrase to put someone out, it means to inconvenience them. Well, we're not putting you out. Putting me out? It's a really common way to ask for a favor. Well, you're kind of like softening the way that you're asking. You're implying that you know it's a big favor to ask and you're not trying to inconvenience someone. I'm sorry to impose, but would you mind helping me out with this for a moment? Or I'm sorry to put you out, but could I stay at your house for just a little bit? This just means I know it's an inconvenience. I'm asking for a favor. I'm softening the way that I'm asking it. Do you know what English speakers mean when they call something a status symbol? If we say that something is a status symbol, it means it's a sign that someone is either wealthy or has high status or fame or whatever it might be. The most classic status symbol that I can think, for women at least, is the Birkin bag. It's a Hermes handbag that you have to be spending a lot of money in order to be able to purchase it. So not only is it worth a lot of money, but not everyone is allowed to buy it. So if you carry around a Birkin bag, it's a status symbol. It shows that you're wealthy and you spend a lot of money. I would say that this phrase, a status symbol, is used with material goods, with things. It's very capitalistic to say that something is a status symbol. For a while, for girls, it seemed like having a big Stanley cup was a status symbol or having a really nice car is a status symbol for a lot of people. It shows other people that you are wealthy and you have money. These don't work. They're just status symbols. A lot of times in movies and television shows, because this phrase is very dramatic, you'll hear the characters saying this phrase. The phrase is snap out of it. When you tell someone to snap out of something, it means you're telling them that they need to stop being upset, they need to stop being so negative, or they're stuck in a bad mood. Hey, can you snap out of your bad mood? Because I'm sick of it. It's a little harsh, but if someone is really overthinking something or just being really negative and you're close with them, you can use this phrase. Hey, just snap out of it. We need to start speaking more positively. Try to snap out of it. Sometimes we use the idiom an emotional rollercoaster to describe things. So this seems pretty obvious to me, but maybe you haven't heard this phrase before. If we say that something is an emotional rollercoaster, it goes up and down like a rollercoaster because it goes from really high emotions, happy, positive, to really sad and depressing emotions, back and forth very quickly in a short amount of time. If a movie is described as an emotional rollercoaster, it means maybe there are some funny moments. Maybe there was some really sad moments. Maybe it had a really happy ending, but then maybe you were very scared in the middle of the movie. It's had a lot of different emotions in such a short amount of time. In our life, we have a lot of highs and lows. If they're happening in a short amount of time, we can say we are on an emotional rollercoaster. I have been on an emotional rollercoaster all day today. A lot of times when I go to weddings, it feels like an emotional rollercoaster because it's kind of emotional. You're having these precious moments, and then everyone's partying and dancing, and it's really happy and loud. So it's kind of just a lot of different emotions in a short amount of time. In English, when someone is acting manipulative, and they're kind of acting in a bad way that is kind of confusing, they're messing with you a little bit, they're trying to control you, we can say that they are playing mind games with us. So a lot of times if we say that person is playing mind games, it means that they are messing with you in a bad way. They're trying to control your behavior with faking emotions, or trying to manipulate you, or if you're in a workplace drama, people are talking behind your back, and that's making you feel nervous or self-conscious. We can describe all of this drama and just all of this toxic behavior as mind games. It's a blanket term for all of these things, the way that people act. So it's definitely a negative phrase to say that someone is playing mind games. Classic mind game. So obviously you might know that a profit is the money that you get to keep after paying all of the expenses. It's the actual money that you make in a business or a sale or whatever it might be. If you hear an English speaker say, oh, pure profit, it means that whatever they're selling or whatever their business is or service, it means it's a very good thing to be making money off of because there are low expenses involved. He's 100% pure profit machine. A lot of times when foreigners come to the United States and they get out of the city and they drive where it's a little bit more rural, they'll say, there are cornfields all over. One idiom that we use in this scenario is there are cornfields as far as the eye can see. This is a really descriptive idiom that just says like all over the horizon, where you can see, you can see all the cornfields. Or if you're in New York City or in any big major urban environment, you can say there are concrete buildings as far as the eye can see. This is just, again, a really descriptive phrase that is used to say what you see visually if there's a lot of it. Sight lines as far as the eye can see. A lot of times in the United States, we say that politicians are only in it to protect theirselves, not the little guys. So in this phrase, we're not talking about literally small people or children even. We're talking about people that don't have as much wealth or power. It's a really common phrase to use just in like everyday common English. Like you need to stick up for the little guys or corporations are trying to crush the little guys. This means the small business, people who don't have as much power. Maybe the little guy. So this is used either a lot when talking about finance, economics, or a lot of times in politics. Politicians will say like, I am trying to work for the little guys. This means the people who don't have a lot of power or a lot of money, they're trying to get their vote or they're trying to do things that help people who have small businesses or just regular everyday people. English learners are always confused when they first learn this phrase. The phrase is as a matter of fact. As a matter of fact can be used in a lot of different contexts. So just pay attention to how it's being used. If someone says, yes, as a matter of fact, this means that is correct. Another way that we use this phrase is when we say like something is a coincidence, like actually is happening. For instance, maybe someone says, hey, can you show me where the bathroom is? And you say, well, as a matter of fact, I was going there right now. This means like it's a coincidence that you asked because actually I'm going there now. Well, as a matter of fact. You can also use this phrase to kind of politely correct someone. Maybe someone that you have met before says, oh, hi, my name is Kayla, nice to meet you. And you've already met them. You could say, oh, as a matter of fact, we've already met, but my name is your name. So it's just a polite way to correct someone as well by using this phrase to correct them. You correct them by saying as a matter of fact, what the correction is. This next phrase, it's kind of funny and you wouldn't think it would be used a ton, but I can think of a lot of different scenarios where you would use the phrase every last drop. So when we use this phrase, we're usually talking about a liquid and it could be something like paint. It could be something like your coffee. It could be something like glue, anything you can think of that's liquid. And when we want to emphasize that there is none left or we've used it entirely, we could say, I've used every last drop. Is there any left? No, I used every last drop. So we're saying it's completely empty. We used it all. Or if you want to describe a food or a drink as really good, especially if it's liquid again, you could say, oh, I drank every last drop of that hot chocolate. It was so good. This phrase, every last drop, it's really great for storytelling and just adding like a dramatic tone to how much you like something or how much of it that you used. We are at the end of the video. So I'm gonna teach you a phrase that you can use if you have accomplished something and you've done it successfully. You have learned almost 14 English phrases today. Mission accomplished. The phrase is mission accomplished. So this is again, another very common phrase that you hear in TV and in movies to say like a job well done. We've done it successfully. Now you might think like mission accomplished could be used in a military scenario, but actually it's just used kind of in a fun way to say like we did it. Even though it sounds really formal, it sounds like something you'd say in the military. A lot of people just use it in their everyday English to say that they accomplished a task successfully. Sometimes when I go to the store and I'm going in there for like two things, maybe I need eggs and bread. And I come out of the store, my husband said, did you get everything you needed? I say, mission accomplished. Obviously it wasn't super challenging, but sometimes when you go in the store, you might forget the two things that you went there for and buy something else. So in this case, I would say mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. These are 14 really awesome phrases that you actually can now use in your everyday vocabulary. If you want extra help studying with them and you wanna keep reviewing this list, visit englishwithkayla.com, sign up for my monthly membership there and you'll get access to this list, all of my lessons with PDFs and with quizzes and access to asking me any questions in my community. Thanks again for watching. I hope to see you in the next lesson. Bye.