21 Advanced English Idioms.

In today's English lesson, I'm going to teach you the phrases that English learners will hear in podcasts, YouTube videos, movies, television shows, and just their daily conversations, but they do not fully understand these phrases and idioms. In today's lesson, I'm going to teach you the idioms that you actually will want to know so that you can fully, fully understand how you can use them to sound more natural. And when they're said to you in conversation, you'll know exactly what the speaker means. If you want to learn more with me, Kayla, make sure to visit englishwithkayla.com. I can be your English teacher there where you can sign up for my full monthly membership, and you'll learn more about this lesson I'm teaching you about today. Let's get started. I'll teach you exactly how to use these phrases, and I think a lot of them will be surprising when you find out what they actually mean. A lot of these phrases come so naturally to myself and other English speakers that we don't even think about it when we're using it or we'll use it with someone who's newer at speaking English, and we won't even think about the fact that they probably haven't heard it or they probably can't guess the meaning. The first phrase is, it's safe to say. Safe to say it's over? Yes, very safe. It's safe to say it's going to rain today. Maybe you check the forecast and you see 100% chance of rain, and you look at the clouds and they're really dark, you could say it's safe to say it's going to rain right now. So it means you can very confidently say something. You can make an assumption. You have a lot of evidence to back it up. You can use this in a very factual way, like when talking about the weather, or just more in a strong opinion that you think most people would agree with, like after going to a concert, that was a great time, everyone's smiling, they had fun. You could say, it's safe to say that everyone loved the concert. So you can confidently say it. Or you could say, after missing my flight, it is safe to say it has been a terrible day. So you are just kind of making an assumption based off this one bad thing that happened that your whole day is just kind of awful. And you want to make sure with this phrase that you're not using it with facts that are completely obvious. Like you wouldn't say, it's safe to say that Paris is in France. Most people know that. That's just a basic fact. But you would say, it's safe to say that she's not very happy about our decision. So you're kind of making some assumptions using your evidence. It's not super obvious to everyone, but you can confidently say it. Now if you've ever watched a police show or a detective show, you might have heard them say that they are going to get to the bottom of something. To get to the bottom of this. We also just use this in our everyday English to mean that we're going to figure out something or get the truth about something. I want to get to the bottom of this. I want to find out what happened. Let's try to get to the bottom of this to see what went wrong. So you're figuring out the truth. You're figuring out the details when you're unsure about something or it's unclear what actually happened. So we definitely use this phrase more often when something is suspicious or confusing or very mysterious. But in my everyday English sometimes my children will come to me with a simple problem. Like one of my sons has this remote controlled monster truck and he can never find the remote for it to control it. And so he says you know I can't find it. So I'll say oh let's get to the bottom of this. Let me go look. Let me go search for it. It just means I'm trying to figure out where it went. I'm trying to figure out the problem. Now if you're not very familiar with basketball, you definitely don't know what this phrase means. And basketball is definitely one of those more popular American sports. So it's very possible you've never heard this. If someone says that something is a layup. Come on. It's a layup. It means it's very easy to do. In basketball when you shoot the ball from directly underneath the board, the backboard, and the basketball hoop, that's called a layup. It's as close as you can get to take a shot. So in the workplace someone might say hey great job on that presentation. You really explained it well. And you could say well for me it was a layup because I'm an expert on that topic. Meaning it was really easy. It was easy to do because I'm so you know informed about it. So you use this phrase if something is really easy to do or easy to complete for you. And while you can use this phrase in the spoken workplace, I definitely wouldn't use it in writing or any really formal situation. It's definitely more slang. If you've ever had one of those moments where you're really excited, nervous, or you're really eager to you know meet someone but you don't want to come off too strong at first, you could use this phrase. You might say I'm going to play it cool. Play it cool. If you play it cool it means you're kind of acting calm and relaxed even though you're having these really intense feelings like excited, nervous. For instance if you were going to meet a celebrity and you actually wanted to talk to them without them being like oh this is just another crazy fan, you would definitely want to take a deep breath, relax, and play it cool. So it has nothing to do with pretending that you're cool or trendy or young. It just means you're relaxed and you're controlling your emotions. So sometimes if you're playing a prank on someone you know maybe you're hiding something from someone or you and your friend are gonna have a joke with another friend you might say oh play it cool like just relax like don't act like anything is suspicious or excited about anything just relax play it cool is what we say in English. Now you might already know what it means to be on hold the phone when talking on the phone in English. If you call a number for a business and they need a moment to answer your question or you're waiting to speak to someone on the phone and there's just some music going on that's when we say we're on hold. This expression is a little bit different though. We say hold the phone. This is very much an exclamation. It's not something you know we say when we're not excited or we're not surprised or shocked. We say this to mean like wait a second like that's crazy. So someone might tell you I'm pregnant. You might say hold the phone are you serious? So it's kind of like you know really explain this to me. I don't believe you. It's something that you're very surprised about or it could be negative news as well. Hold the phone are you serious? That's another way that we use this phrase. In the United States you might know we like to eat we like to eat fast food. We like to eat food that's not good for us and when we're gaining weight we sometimes kind of jokingly more of in a slang way use the phrase putting on some pounds. Yeah you put out a few pounds. We're putting on some pounds if we're eating a lot of food we're not exercising. So instead of saying I'm gaining weight you could say I've been putting on a few pounds. So often we use this next phrase to really reassure someone. If someone gives us something and it's very generous and you know they might say you know was that enough like I wish I could do more you could say you've done more than enough. It's more than enough. More than enough. So this just means it's plenty. It's a very good offer whatever it might be or maybe you're having a party and your friend asks you you know do you want me to bring any food to the party? Is there anything I can help out with? You might already have everything you need. You have a sufficient amount you might say oh we have more than enough. Don't worry about it. And I would say this was a very this is a very common cultural custom in the United States to like offer to bring something even if you're not asked to or just to bring it even without you know asking first. But if someone says we have more than enough or you've helped more than enough it means you've done plenty. It's sufficient. You're not a robot but sometimes we use this kind of funny phrase to describe our brain like it is a robot. So when we say we short circuited. Poor boy short circuit. We're kind of talking about becoming mentally overwhelmed or unable to think clearly maybe because you're so busy you're really stressed out or you just have a lot going on. For instance maybe if you stay up all night studying for a test and next day you get to the test and you can't think of anything that you learned about you could say oh it's like my brain just short circuited because I couldn't think of anything. So we would actually use this phrase for robots and things that run off electricity but sometimes we jokingly use it about our brain just to say that we're not thinking very clearly or we're you know not super awake and alert. For this phrase thinking about electrical system failing it's kind of like our brain and it's definitely just used humorously not in a serious or medical way. A really casual way to tell someone to contact you or let you know or you know feel free to call you anytime is oh just give me a holler give me a holler anytime. So typically we're talking about calling or texting here give me a holler if you need anything that just means call me or text me let me know if you need anything. It's used very casually very slang wise and definitely I would say this phrase is probably more popular in the United States in the south and in the midwest so not on the east coast or the west coast. Another really popular slang phrase that younger people tend to use right now but I would say it's acceptable to use it you know in your middle ages as well is to say you are down bad. So we also often also use this phrase a little bit jokingly but we mean that we are kind of desperate or we're really just like emotionally struggling. Maybe your favorite team lost the big game you might say I was so down bad after that game. So you could just mean like you're depressed you're sad you know you're kind of desperate you wish your team would have won. Or maybe you ate way too much food at dinner and now you have a stomach ache we can also use this phrase I said oh I was so down bad after I ate way too much for dinner it just means you didn't feel good. To get through to someone. To get to the bottom of this. This phrase it just means to successfully make someone understand or to make someone you know more aware of something. We talk about trying to get through to young people especially when it comes to talking about things that could be harmful or dangerous to them because when you're young you don't really have a good risk assessment of things so you might try to get through to a teenager talking about how drugs and alcohol are bad just to make sure that they really understand how serious it is. Like I'm just trying to get through to you how serious this is. Sometimes if communication is difficult if you're speaking to someone who doesn't speak your language you might say I'm just trying to get through to them my message like they're not quite understanding it. So don't confuse you know I need to get through this test or I need to get through this class or I need to get through this day. That's different you're trying to finish something when you use it in that way. You're trying to get through a message to someone when we use this phrase. You're trying to clearly communicate an idea or just whatever is going on like let me try to get through the plan to you. This means I'm trying to get you to understand it. A really common online abbreviation but I also hear people use while speaking is IRL. That's Twitter for meet IRL. Do you know what it means? It means in real life. So maybe you've talked to someone on you know Instagram, Facebook, you've texted with them, maybe you met them in a dating app but you haven't met them yet IRL. This means you haven't spoken to them, seen them face to face not on the internet. So that's how we use this abbreviation. It's as simple as that and now you know what I mean when I say IRL. Okay so I'm not meaning to offend anyone with this next phrase but it's one that English speakers do use in a slang way. When you have like spiritual, mystical things, nothing that's scientifically proven that you believe in or someone believes it, we sometimes describe it as woo woo. Woo woo. I know it sounds really strange but you will hear people actually use this. You know it's hard to describe things sometimes that we use this phrase with. For instance someone who has crystals that give them certain energy or astrology. It's not scientifically proven. You know some people might say oh you're a Capricorn, you're a Libra, you must be like this. That's kind of woo woo. It's not scientific but if the person believes it that's what they believe and it's just you know it's used by people who are skeptical of these things and it's really kind of a playful phrase. It's not supposed to be super offensive but if someone strongly believes in something I guess it could be. It's a little bit dismissive but now you know what it means when someone says like oh she believes in that it's a little bit woo woo for me. Meaning it's just too mystical, not scientific enough. This is a classic idiom. You should definitely know what this one means. The idiom is a red herring. It's a red herring. It was a red herring. So sometimes we use this phrase to talk about something that distracts from the real issue. I'll give you a really clear example and then we'll explain more here. So first if someone says you know why did you do so bad on your math test? The person you know failed the math test whatever and they say oh the teacher is so mean and the classroom is so cold like and that has nothing to do with them studying the math. You know they're just kind of making excuses, drawing the attention away from the main issue that they probably didn't study enough or in politics all the time politicians will be asked a question like what's your view on immigration and they respond with something like well my opponent spent a lot of money on you know this and is not voting on this and they're not even talking about immigration. They're distracting from the main issue or maybe a politician gets asked how are you going to you know change crime in the city? How are you going to reduce crime? The politician might start talking about how they're going to pay teachers more but that has nothing to do with the actual issue or the question being asked. So that is what a red herring is. You would call what they're talking about to distract from the main issue as a red herring. It's a really really great phrase to use and make sure when you use this phrase a red herring you're talking about someone who's just trying to mislead you know off the main topic rather than just saying something that's irrelevant. Like they're trying to talk about this in order to distract from the main issue. They're misleading someone. An interesting idiom that we use in English a lot is to give something life. I'm gonna give him a life. You might have a phrase like this in your own native language as well. It just means to get something to be exciting, energetic, or interesting. So for instance recently a new ice cream shop opened in my town and it was kind of exciting for the community. I live in a smaller town and they had a DJ come to the ice cream shop for the first day that they're open. So they were just trying to give it a lot of life, give it a lot of energy here when we use this phrase. So when we're talking about this phrase we're just talking about you know being more creative, giving something more energy, more liveliness, making it interesting. We're giving it life. Sometimes when we use the phrase I'm going to own it. Actually he owns it. We are not talking about physically owning something or property. We're talking about accepting responsibility for a job or a mistake. This phrase is most commonly used with I'm going to own my mistake here. Just means I'm going to accept the responsibility. I'm going to say it was my fault. Make sure you own your mistakes. It's really good because it shows that you are going to try to learn from your mistakes. So we either say I'm going to own my mistake or I'm just going to own it. I made a mistake. To pigeonhole someone. Don't pigeonhole us. This is a really surprising idiom for English learners. It means to limit someone by putting them into one category. So it's definitely seen as a negative thing to pigeonhole someone. In everyday life you might say I don't want to be pigeonholed in this field of work. For instance maybe you're a teacher but you have aspirations of becoming an entrepreneur someday. A lot of times we use this with actors. I think of Steve Carell, the guy from The Office. You know he started out in his career as being super funny and always in comedy roles but then he started taking on some serious roles so he didn't pigeonhole himself. One actor that I think is pigeonholed is Daniel Radcliffe, the guy who plays Harry Potter. I can just never think of him as not Harry Potter. So he's very pigeonholed for me. So it's it's kind of unfair limitation when you pigeonhole someone. Okay this next phrase it's very harsh. If you say that you bomb, it means you fail very badly. Like I bombed the test. Or a lot of times comedians or performers say I just bombed that performance. It means they were not funny or they did very poorly in front of a whole audience. To build something up. Let's build up. Let's build up to something. If you build something up it means you're creating a lot of excitement or anticipation in your mind and a lot of times you want to make sure not to build something up too much. You want to make the expectations so high for something that people are disappointed. For instance maybe you tell your friend you know you have to see this movie it's the best movie ever and then they watch it and they're like it was good but it wasn't the best movie ever. You kind of built it up a little bit too much. Or you could say like I don't want to build it up too much but it is very good movie. You know this would be another way to use the phrase. Sometimes you might be nervous about something like an event and then after it passes you know you say I just built it up a little bit too much in my mind and I was nervous but it wasn't actually that bad. So you were building up the anticipation and making yourself nervous even though again it wasn't that bad. It went pretty well. An interesting phrase that you'll hear people say is they want to be on the right side of history. We're inviting you to be on the right side of history. So it means they want to support positions that are moral and they support justice and they don't want to be you know supporting things that are going to be seen as bad or corrupt or you know immoral in the history books in the future. This phrase is more common in politics and in like really serious social discussions. You would hear this on a podcast but in our everyday life this would be a little bit too dramatic I think. To go on record. If you say I want to go on record with this it means you want to publicly state your opinion or you just want your friend to know like that was your official opinion or your official prediction for something. So again it doesn't have to be an official record it can just be your opinion about something that you want people to recognize as you know your prediction. I'm really proud of you for taking this time to learn 21 new English phrases. A lot of these are newer phrases or slang phrases or a lot of these are just you know ones that are surprising and shocking because the definition is not super straightforward. So I'm glad you paid attention and I'm glad that you took the steps to really build your English vocabulary with this lesson today. If you're in the mood for more English with me where I teach you natural phrases make sure to check out the next video on screen. I'm sure it's another lesson that will help you really build up that vocabulary and take the time to visit englishwithkayla.com and join my membership if you're not already a member there. I release weekly lessons there that have PDF guides, quizzes, challenges, and you have a whole community and myself to support you while learning English. I'll see you guys in the next lesson. Thanks again for watching. Bye!