hi there I'm Drew Badger the world's
number one English Fluency Guide and in
this video we'll be talking about 7 odd
idioms that every English language
learners should know
now most stadiums are quite odd or
strange to non-native speakers and it
doesn't really matter what language
you're learning an idiom just means a
collection of words to make up a phrase
that doesn't have the meaning you might
think it does so as an example the
phrase to kick the bucket so we have a
bucket and we're kicking that thing
there's no real meaning or connection to
die which is the meaning of that so if
you say all like that guy kicked the
bucket
it just means that he died but there's
no again real connection to the words or
the phrase itself that would give you
any connection or any meaning of that so
when people are learning idioms will
talk about a few of them in this video
seven of them in fact but as we go
through the video will also talk about
some ways to remember them so that they
don't sound so weird and it becomes much
easier for you to understand what these
are the first one is the cold shoulder
or to give someone the cold shoulder as
an example a friend of mine was having
an argument with his girlfriend and she
got very upset with him so she started
giving him the cold shoulder now this
just means she was upset she was
ignoring him for some reason and
typically the cold shoulder is used when
people are upset maybe in a relationship
or you're trying to talk to a girl when
you're asking her out but she doesn't
say anything she doesn't respond to you
but typically it's because people are
upset for some reason but this is one of
those idioms where again it's kind of a
weird thing to think about what is the
connection between being upset or
ignoring someone and a cold shoulder
so this is where idioms can become maybe
not so weird for you if you think about
their origin or if you try to create a
story in your own mind about it now as
an example with this one the cold
shoulder you can kind of think about it
physically and that's why we're starting
with this one so the cold shoulder maybe
you're thinking about pulling your
shoulder away from someone else so when
you're moving away from that person the
shoulder to the other person becomes
kind of cold if you move back towards
that person
and it's becoming warm again so when
you're having a good connection with
someone we don't call that having a hot
or a warm shoulder but in this case you
can think of the opposite which is to
give someone the cold shoulder so
instead of giving them like a warm
shoulder which again isn't an idiom that
we would use you can say i'm giving them
the cold shoulder if I'm ignoring them
the next one very common and useful is
down-to-earth down-to-earth first listen
carefully to the blending of this
pronunciation down-to-earth
down-to-earth down-to-earth
down-to-earth the two from to and even
the oh it's slightly changes to more of
a da sound down-to-earth down-to-earth
down-to-earth if you think about again
trying to create a story in your mind or
some way to connect this idea of a
person that's maybe just everyday and
average and just kind of very normal
so down-to-earth person as opposed to
someone like an angel you know if we
were to think about that idea of someone
like an angel it's very high up in the
sky so that person kind of like a movie
star or a king or a famous celebrity
when you look at them you think wow
that's an amazing person but you know
your talk to your just friend that lives
on the same street as you and that
person is very down-to-earth they have
no trying to think of themselves as more
important than they actually are they're
just very normal and every day so it's
kind of the difference between someone
again floating up here like an amazing
Superman hero angel kind of person and
somebody that has their feet on the
ground it's down to earth
next is an extremely useful phrasal verb
and this is to Jack something up now the
regular meaning of this is to increase
the height of something quickly so to
elevate something quickly but we can use
it for more than just physical things
now the origin of this is if you think
about you have a car and you have the
wheels on the car and you need to
elevate the car so that you can remove
one of the wheels you use a jack for
that purpose so a jack is a little thing
that you put under the car and you click
it up so you can increase the height of
the car and you can change the wheels on
it and that we can get more figurative
things like like a grocery store jacking
up the prices are you know maybe during
some
time where there's a food shortage or
hotels are jacking up their prices over
holiday seasons often you'll hear people
talking about raising the prices are
very high very quickly and this in both
of these are the key to this phrase not
only the the increase in something but
the speed at which you're doing it
the odd thing is that maybe a jacket
actually takes awhile to jack up a car
and you're not really increasing it that
high but when people talk about jacking
something up there talking about
increasing something quite a bit and
also doing it rather quickly so whenever
you see a large price or you go to a
restaurant one day and then you come
back maybe a year later and say wow like
these guys really jacked up their prices
they jacked up their prices next is an
advanced idiom and this is to plead the
fifth to plead the fifth now instead of
saying I'm going to be silent or not
saying anything especially when I might
be in trouble
the legal origin of this is when you go
into a courtroom and the Fifth Amendment
is where you have the right not to
incriminate yourself so if you go I'd
like say I mean like an actual court
case and maybe somebody was killed and
even if I did it i'm sitting there and
like the other lawyer says hey did you
kill that person i can like I don't want
to lie but I can plead the 5th which
means that i can i can like choose to
not say anything because if i do say
something it might hurt me it might
incriminate me or show that I'm the
person that has been is found guilty in
that case but if I don't say anything
i'm pleading the fifth and you actually
can see this in court so like I exercise
the right to plead the 5th which just
means like even if you didn't do
anything wrong you're not going to say
anything about something but in an
everyday since we can take that idea and
you know maybe somebody just did
something wrong and they're not saying
about it they're just remaining silent
about something but typically it's
because maybe they caused a problem like
two parents are looking at their child
who probably broke something or did
something and you ask the child oh what
happened and child doesn't say anything
and the father says to the mother I
looks like he's pleading the fifth
so he doesn't want to say anything that
might get him in trouble in the same way
that some
one might not do that in a court of law
to plead the fifth
next an ace-in-the-hole an
ace-in-the-hole this is another strange
sounding word especially if you don't
understand the origin of it but that's
why I will help you understand the
origin with this video right now so to
have an ace-in-the-hole this is coming
from the idea of playing poker or any
kind of cars where you have a whole card
and this is a hidden card where maybe
other people don't know what the card is
or it could even be a car that you have
personally and other people can't see
that thing but the ACE is typically the
most powerful card or the card with the
highest level or value in a game of
cards especially poker and so if you
have an ace and maybe like other people
have a king or a jack or two or
something you're going to beat those
people but if they don't know about it
then you have an ace in the hole as
opposed to having maybe an ace that
everyone else can see now there are lots
of different kinds of poker and I will
go into playing like card game things or
whatever but this is where the idea
comes from so to have an ace-in-the-hole
often you have to kind of dig deeper
into idioms like this when you're trying
to understand what they are but it's
better to when you learn something like
this and you hear something interesting
maybe a friend says oh like an
ace-in-the-hole that's an interesting
kind of thing that you here go like
looking deeper into that like actually
try to research the ATM a little bit
more and try to understand what it means
ok an ace-in-the-hole what is that what
does that mean you can begin with the
context of that and try to think okay
what does it mean
so in this case actually an
ace-in-the-hole means a hidden advantage
so it just means you have something
you're hiding and you will pull it out
later to win the game or it gets in the
case of poker but you can also do
something like wow i guess like this
company we thought they were very weak
but their ace in the hole was that they
have like a really great marketing
manager and that person was able to help
the company succeed and even beat us at
doing something so to have an
ace-in-the-hole it just means to have a
hidden advantage but again when you
think about the origin of things like
these if you begin trying to think about
ok what's the the meaning that we have
here how do we make a connection and
then if you can't make a connection then
try to create
your own story so imagine you're playing
cards and you have an ace that no one
can see that's your ace in the hole and
you pull out the card and you win the
game next to bite the bullet to bite the
bullet
now if you think about a bullet coming
at you this is a maybe a terrible thing
and you know you're going to get shot
you know you're going to get hit by that
bullet but ok you just have to accept
that thing so to bite the bullet just
means to accept some kind of pain more
punishment now typically biting the
bullet means really just anything where
you're in a troublesome situation it
doesn't matter if you've created that
problem for yourself or someone created
the problem for you but typically it's
for people to create their own problems
as an example maybe I like i stole
something and then I had to like tell
people about it and I felt really bad
about that but I worried about it for a
long time no no i stole something and
people are mad at me but if I go up to
them and apologize i'm biting the bullet
so maybe I get punished a little bit so
my dad's you know you can't use the car
for a week or whatever but I'm biting
the bullet in that sense so anytime that
I have to accept some pain or some
punishment just by having to do
something maybe I have to work really
hard like when you're starting a
business there's a lot of work that's
required to do that a lot of
communicating connecting with people
trying to design things and build things
to help other people so you have to
really bite the bullet if you want to do
that kind of thing so anything that
requires work whether you're training to
be an athlete or your training to be you
know whatever I mean it doesn't really
matter anything that requires time and
effort will require you to bite the
bullet and i'll leave you with the last
one which is to call it a day to call it
a day
now when i'm typically teaching these
phrases i try to introduce it by saying
it a bit more clearly but then we'll go
back and review a few of them especially
if the pronunciation has a very clear
blend and in this case it does so to
call it a day just so you understand
what I'm saying that the blended natural
speech the way you should stay in
conversations is to call lid day to call
it a day to call it a day
now to call it a day just means ok we're
going to finish with this project or
we're going to stop here for today so
let's say I'm
outside i'm working i'm doing some
gardening work and I've been out for
maybe a couple of hours working with my
team we're building things and then
maybe around five o'clock we're getting
quite tired and we decided to call it a
day
we call it today so maybe your team is
working really hard if you've got
something for work or you know really
doesn't matter what you're doing
anything where you could be hiking for
some period of time riding your bike for
a long period of time but typically it's
where you've been doing an activity for
a particular day maybe for a couple of
hours and you're quite you know you're
quite tired you're ready to finish for
that particular day so we will call it a
day with this video and i encourage you
to go back and review all of these great
atms and all of the new idioms that you
learn it's much better to focus on maybe
one or two that you learn instead of
trying to remember you know a thousand
new idioms like you by some idiot book
and just read all those you're going to
forget them anyway so just focus on
maybe one a day and true and really try
to understand the meaning of it really
try to understand the origin or create
your own story for that thing
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next video bye bye