Popular Phrases for Advanced English Speakers

Learning English should feel natural and it should feel easy. So in today's lesson, I'm just going to take you around I'm going to teach you some English expressions that I actually use as a native speaker in my everyday Conversations so that you can feel natural and you can feel confident while speaking English in everyday conversation Let's get started with this lesson. English online is that sometimes these English teachers will teach you Phrases and words that are completely antiquated and out of date, especially when it comes to idioms But I pride myself on teaching you the English that you actually need to know So when you guys comment do English speakers actually say this I always say you best believe it So that's the phrase that I first want to teach you you best believe it So this phrase you best believe it it's used when you want to emphasize something that is definitely true For instance, you might ask me do you think that I can actually speak English? Well, I'll say you best believe it because I really believe in you and I think it's true If you're studying my lessons, you're going to be able to speak English very well So when you want to reassure someone make sure they're not doubting something when they ask you a question You can answer with you best believe it so right now in the United States It is the back-to-school season it just means that schools about to start for children who go to public school or universities or colleges here and Everybody's getting ready by buying their school supplies getting new clothing to help fit their kids better and for back-to-school season I had a friend and she had a Laptop for her son from last school year and it should work again and they turn it on and Immediately it turned off. And so they thought why is it acting up my phone's been acting up this phrase acting up It means that something is not working as it should it's starting to break but it's not completely broken yet So they brought it to the store to see if they could have it repaired and right when they got to the store It turned on it worked perfectly and they said well, sorry, we can't help you with it Seems like it's working. They brought it home and it started acting up again, and they could not believe it They're like, why is it not starting up? So when something like a computer acts up it's not working as it should or If you have, you know an air conditioning in your house, and it's starting to not work all the time But you can still use it most the time you can use the phrase acting up Starting to act up and With young children. Sometimes we use this phrase as well. Like they're acting up right now This means their behavior is starting to become bad. Like maybe they are Starting to hit other kids or be too loud or things like that They are acting up is what we say when I was in school. We have a test in the United States It's called the ACT and you take it before you try to get into college and it helps show colleges You know, basically how intelligent you are how well you can do on a test Maybe not perfectly how intelligent you are because I don't really smart people that are not good test takers well, I had a friend and her parents were very successful one of her parents was a teacher one of her parents was a businessman and they wanted her to do really well on this test and At the time we're about 17 years old She had a boyfriend who she was very obsessed with very boy crazy over that's sometimes what we say about Young girls who start having a lot of interest in boys and it seems like that's the only thing they they can talk about Anyway to get to the point here. She had to take the ACT and she did terrible on it She got a very bad score and her parents were shocked. They said what is going on? You know, you need to stop being so boy crazy you need to start focusing on school and studying for this test and take this test again and do well and She did they made her not, you know use her phone all the time or they limited talking to the boyfriend and so her test score from the first time she took it to the second time she took it was night and Day, I'll practice night and day and that's why I'm telling you this story The phrase is night and day when you say that something is night and day. It means it has changed dramatically When I let my children stay up way too late their behavior is night and day So when they go to bed early, they have good behavior when they go to bed way too late They're tired the next day. They have bad behavior. Their behavior is night and day so it just means there's a dramatic difference between the two things if Someone does some improvements on their house and you want to say like you've really changed it You've done a really good job. The change is very dramatic. You'd say wow It is night and day in here that just means that the change is very dramatic and usually we use this to compare something that was Bad at first and good in the end or you could say something was really good and it changed to be bad It's night and day and change to be bad. Have you ever learned the word? Mesmerizing it's mesmerizing Mesmerizing I really like this word I think it's a great advanced word to help describe when someone is very Captivated by something or something is holding all of their attention For instance children are often mesmerized by the most simple things or you can say children are mesmerized by a Television or a movie it means it has their full attention and they can't focus on anything else this summer My children have been mesmerized by just going outside playing in the dirt and catching frogs They don't want to do anything else. They catch a frog and they think it's so mesmerizing They just want to study it and play with it one thing that you could describe for adults That's mesmerizing is the Grand Canyon and the United States it's one of our national parks one of our natural beauties the Grand Canyon because it's so Deep and so long and wide if you ever have been to a ballet recital with professional ballet dancers You would describe their dancing as mesmerizing because the whole crowd just watches them and they just think it's so beautiful And their attention is on the dancers the whole time. It is mesmerizing So typically we use this word mesmerizing when something is good positive and it's holding our attention But sometimes you can say like children are mesmerized by the most simple things The next phrase I really want to teach you about is to comb through a bunch of things He's gonna comb through this place. So oftentimes when you're looking for something specific Maybe you're looking for a document and there's a stack of documents You're going to have to comb through the documents to find them That just means go through them kind of slowly looking for a specific thing Oftentimes when you lose something in your house, you're like I'll have to comb through The laundry to find that shirt or whatever it might be. So comb through means you're searching for something Now another great phrase that goes right along with this is to go over something with a fine tooth comb Run through them with a fine-tooth comb. Maybe you've seen a fine-tooth comb before I'm sure you have, you know, it's very small little Comb sticks in the comb and when you comb your hair if there was any dirt or fuzz or anything in your hair, it would get it out because it's very precise so Let's say you write an email and you want your colleague to look at the email and search for errors You might say can you go over this email with a fine-tooth comb? Looking for errors. This means you're gonna have them look at it. Very very closely So we're combing through things. We're usually looking through things, you know we're kind of looking at all the things in order to find what we're looking for and When we go over something with a fine-tooth comb, we are going over it very slowly very precisely We're looking for errors or a very specific piece of information Okay, so I am an English teacher, but even sometimes I can be Completely stumped by grammar questions I think that the problem with being a native speaker of English and also teaching English is You know, you know what words and you know Grammar just from speaking them. You haven't learned them as formally as some Advanced English learners. So the word that I wanted to teach you here is stumped. He's stumped if something is Stumping you it means it's confusing you or you don't know the answer So for me sometimes grammar questions can stump me now I've studied enough grammar and I've studied, you know Teaching styles and as we call it pedagogy to be a good English teacher in my opinion But sometimes I do say that non native English speakers Can make the best teachers especially when it comes to grammar Because they can explain the grammar in such a way that would make sense to another English learner Is there a grammar concept that absolutely stumps you in English? You just can't figure out how to use it Let me know in the comments. Okay, this next expression is so useful There's so many different ways that you can use it and I'll teach you some of the most common ways right now The expression is work up just to work up an appetite so this expression can mean you're agitated like annoyed it can mean you're excited or it can just mean that you're very Emotionally charged about something so a common way that we use this phrase is we say we worked up the courage Have you ever worked up the courage to walk up to someone famous and ask for a picture? personally I don't think I could work up the courage because I Wouldn't feel bad if I asked them for a picture because I wouldn't want to bother them Another really common way is you could say have you worked up the courage to ask someone on a date ever if you? Work up an appetite We use this commonly to say that we did it a lot of activity to make us hungry That run really made me work up an appetite that means that I had so much physical exercise that I'm hungry now Another similar expression here is we work up a sweat. That means we're doing something. It's typically not Exercise in this case you can use this with exercise But for instance, I was cleaning my house and I just worked up a sweat That means I was cleaning so hard that I started sweating. It was like exercise even though it wasn't meant to be exercise I was just cleaning or if you're laying on the couch now, you're just watching TV or scrolling through your phone But you know that you have to get up and you have to maybe fold some laundry You have to go mow the lawn do some gardening cook some food. You have to kind of work up the energy Sometimes this means that you have to kind of motivate yourself and feel like you're rested to get up and do the task So we can work up an appetite work up a sweat work up courage work up the energy Those are four really common ways to use the phrase work up But there are many more that you can use for instance You can say that person is really worked up meaning they're really annoyed about something This next idiom is a really fun one in English. The idiom is elbow grease So if you are cleaning something and it takes a lot of work and force and effort to actually get the dirt off You can say oh, this is taking a lot of elbow grease and elbow grease just literally means effort or pressure or maybe you're you know, restoring something you're making it look good and Instead of just you know paying someone to do it or buying a whole new thing You'll say well I can make this look good. It's just gonna take some elbow grease. So elbow grease just means Effort and physical work when you're speaking English, you might hear someone say that they need to take out their anger on something So maybe they have a lot of stress and anger built up from the day. Maybe they had a hard day at work Dealing with difficult people and they just feel angry, but they don't want to Snap at someone meaning like yell at someone or act rude to them So they say I have to go take out my anger at the gym maybe they go work out exercise and the release of anger is through physical activity or If they don't take out their anger in a healthy way Maybe they do snap at someone and they yell at someone they say I'm so sorry to take my anger out on you It's not your fault. You can also say take out my aggression Using this word is the exact same meaning to take out your anger or to take out your aggression if you want to say that you're just trying to Release some stress and some anger. You can also use the idiom blow off some steam to blow off steam So a lot of times people who work really hard during the week, they like to have fun They like to have a party They like to just relax during the weekend because to them that's how they blow off some speed and think about this idiom Kind of like a teapot, you know, once it boils and it has a lot of pressure inside of it. It goes Blows out the steam. So it's just a phrase that we use to say that we need to release some stress Anger or just pressure in general the last phrase that I want to teach you today is to snap at someone Which is relating to the last one So when you snap at someone it means you just have an angry or rude response to them Maybe they say hey, could you come help me make dinner? You said you're always asking me for help They say why did you snap at me? This means why did you you know, act so rude so quickly to me? Here's the snap to snap. It's funny because also in English we commonly say oh snap to say like Oh shoot, or dang it. It's one of those words that we use sometimes like ah snap. Oh Snap so it's a word that we use a lot to mean anger or if we say someone has snapped It means that they were normal and then they had a lot of anger or stress release at one time Thank you guys so much for studying English with me today. I hope you enjoyed these really casual but extremely useful English phrases I'll see you guys in the next lesson Comment below if you like these kind of casual Come along with me to learn everyday English expressions and I will totally make more Thank you in advance for your feedback. I'll see you guys in the next video. Goodbye