Hello and welcome to today's English lesson my name is Stuart in today's
lesson we're looking at words and expressions we can use to talk about
problems and difficulties in English let's go to the intro now as I said
today's lesson is looking at words and expressions idioms to talk about
problems and difficulties in English and we've got more or less around 2728 words
and expressions that we can use to talk about this topic now a lot of the words
are synonyms of problems and difficulties but we can use them for
different situations in English of course now the first words we're going
to look at are at the top here and the words snag setback glitch and hitch okay
so those are four synonyms for problem and we can use the word snag if you're
working on a project and you have a problem you can say that we have a
slight snag we have a slight problem again a setback is a difficulty again in
a project you have a setback you can also have setbacks in life if something
doesn't go the way that you plan and you have a setback it means that you can
have a problem or a difficulty we have a glitch and we can have a hitch again if
we're talking about some type of project or situation and we have a glitch or a
hitch we have a slight problem which affects the progress of that particular
project or situation so a small difficulty or problem glitch or hitch
now these words here hurdle hiccup obstacle stumbling block and pitfall so
we can have some hurdles so some obstacles let's say that we have to
overcome so problems or difficulties hurdles so hurdle an obstacle quite
similar okay barrier is another word that you can use hiccup not the normal
use of the word hiccup but hiccup meaning a slight problem so you have a
slight hiccup or slight problem you can come across a stumbling block something
that doesn't allow you to progress freely and of course pit for possible
problems that you can come into there are many possible pitfalls associated
with this project pitfalls and hear the words impediment dilemma or deal
hardship and adversity impediment okay dilemma or deal hardship adversity
impediment something that impedes you okay it's an impediment to the success
of the project dilemma where you have a problem between two possible situations
you have a dilemma on your hands an ordeal a difficult situation that you
are going through it's an ordeal difficult hardship again a difficult
situation it's a hardship some of the many hardships in life and adversity you
come across an adversity a potential problem or a problem that you have it an
adversity now here we'll have a look at some of the idioms and expressions the
first one would be can of worms can of worms can of worms also is a potential
problem if you open a can of worms you can have a lot of potential problems you
can say that the government really opened a can of worms by legislating
this particular thing okay they opened a can of worms many problems that they
perhaps didn't foresee so opened a can of worms a project can have
teething troubles so something that you're working on you can have teething
problems or teething troubles small problems that you need to get out of the
way so that the project let's say again works smoothly a thorn in your side
something can be a thorn in your side something that is causing you problems
or difficulties constantly it's a thorn in my side you could say your boss is a
real thorn in my side for example and you can be in over your head in over
your head and if you're in over your head it means that the problems or
difficulties are too big or there's too many of them for you you're in over your
head you can be in over your head in debt for example if you owe a lot of
money you are in over your head we can also face an uphill battle you face an
uphill battle meaning there are problems and difficulties on the horizon you face
an uphill battle to get ready for something or to prepare something you
face an uphill battle you can be in a fix a hole or a spot okay
a fix a hole or a spot to be in a fix hole spot meaning that you're in you're
in a fix you're enough you're in a hole you're in a spot you're in a difficult
situation you can be up a creek without a paddle up a creek without a paddle
very informal meaning that you're in a bad situation and you don't have an
answer to it or you don't know how to get out of it you're up a creek without
a paddle or you can be in dire straits a serious
problem or serious difficult situation for example now the opposite so when you
are no longer with problems or difficulties you can say that you are
off the or we're off the hook okay the problems
have disappeared they've gone away we're off the hook you can be out of the woods
we're out of the woods everything now is okay we no longer have problems or
difficulties we are out of the woods or you can be in the clear you can be in
the clear okay so if you're in the clear again your problems or difficulties are
over and here we have three ways informal ways let's say that you can ask
a friend or a colleague if they have a problem or a difficulty you can say
what's eating you what's eating you okay what's your
problem what's eating you you can say what's bugging him John's a bit strange
today what's bugging him okay asking you know
what is his problem or what's up with her what's up with her she's acting a
bit strange today does she have a problem what's up with her
so what's eating what's bugging or what's up with someone so all of these
words and expressions to talk about problems and difficulties in English now
thank you very much for watching the lesson any questions or comments leave
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day bye