hi welcome to Ingrid I'm Adam in today's
lesson I want to teach you eight idioms
that come from education actually I have
ten of them a couple of them are just
expressions though so I can added them
to the other ones eight idioms all of
these come from education but now we use
them to talk about other things that
might not be related to education at all
okay so as you know idioms are groups of
words they're expressions
whose individual words when they put
together might not mean the exact same
thing as the words themselves they can
have completely unrelated meanings and
we're going to see some examples of
these so we're gonna we have a lot of
ground to cover so we're gonna go slowly
but surely through it all so what does
it mean to cover a lot of ground or have
a lot of ground to cover it means to
have a lot of material or a lot of
information to get through and
understand and make sure everybody gets
right when we cover a lot of ground
technically it comes from the ground and
you cover ground means you move you
travel but we use ground as information
and cover means go over so cover a lot
of ground get through a lot of
information also we can't teach an old
dog new tricks so what does it mean you
can't teach an old dogs new trick so
imagine your grandfather okay you are
moving to another country because you're
studying English you want to emigrate to
another country you get to that country
and you want to continue speaking with
your grandfather in your home country so
you're trying to teach him Skype or
you're trying to teach them like a
mobile app messenger or whatever but
your grandfather is trying try and try
he just doesn't get it
and then finally says you know what I
don't care we'll call each other on the
telephone once in a while so finally you
give up you say you know what you can
teach an old dog new tricks we'll just
call on the phone means as people get
older it's very difficult to change
their habits okay we're not calling old
people old dogs it's just an expression
but basically old people don't change
habits very easily
you can't teach them so that's where the
education comes in now something or
someone is old school or he or she
belongs to an old school of thought or
school of thought so if somebody is old
school he or she likes something that is
a little bit old-fashioned he likes to
do something a little bit old-fashioned
something that's probably outdated not
modern okay now it doesn't have to be
about a person it could be a thing so
for example if you for example if you go
to Cuba okay Cuba has a lot of old cars
from the 1950s okay like Chevy's and
Fords and whatnot whatnot we can say oh
wow that's a really old-school car it
has the old engines nothing computerized
it's all carburetor and all kinds of
pipes all over the place it's a very old
school it's very cool but it's not
modern okay so it's something that's
old-school when we talk about a school
of thought it means it's a particular
way of viewing something or thinking
about something we especially use it to
talk about like philosophy okay but even
in science there are certain scientists
who basically subscribe to this
particular school of thought so we use
the word subscribe means they believe in
doing it this way other scientists
subscribe to this school of thought so
there was a scientist who said this is
the way we should do it there was
another scientist who said this is the
way we should do it all the people who
follow this way created a school or a
viewpoint they created their own
viewpoint so different schools of
thought so if we're talking about how to
discipline children okay some people
like to sit their children down and talk
talk talk talk for hours to try to teach
them something other in other cultures
they just slap him on the bum the kid
understands never does it again the
slapping thing is a little bit
old-school we don't really do that
anymore but it comes from an old school
of thought where punishment creates
discipline that's I'm not getting
involved in the actual question that's
up to you I'm just telling you the
expressions learn the ropes okay so if
somebody needs to learn the ropes they
need to learn how to do something so
when you join a company for the first
time at the beginning you don't know
where the copy machine is you don't know
where the fax machine is you don't know
how to do things around the office so at
the beginning you have to
the ropes learn how how everything works
and then you become adjusted I think it
actually comes from sailing I'm not sure
all kinds of different ropes you need to
learn how to use them to sail your boat
but basically it means adjust to a new
situation get to know it move on now if
you're going to teach someone a lesson
it means you're going to punish them
okay I'm gonna teach you a lesson you
won't forget
all right so somebody did something bad
to me and I want to get revenge I want
to teach them a lesson I want to punish
them so they understand that what they
did to me was bad and I'm gonna do
something worse for them now on the
other side to learn a lesson of course
you go to school your teacher teaches
you and you learn the lessons but when
we say oh yeah I really learned a lesson
from that to experience it means you you
went through a bad experience usually
and you learned from it so you will not
repeat it again so it's not necessarily
punishment but it was a bad experience
that you will avoid to teach someone
somebody did something bad to you and
you will get revenge you will punish
them for it to school someone now
realistically you can interpret this as
to teach someone something right to
school someone in etiquette means to
teach them etiquette or to teach them
behavior etc these days it's used as a
slang term means to embarrass somebody
so if I'm playing basketball with a
friend of mine and you know I'm trying
to do all these things and then sudden
he just steals the ball and he goes and
does a 360 slam dunk he schooled me he
showed me how a real basketball players
play and I am nothing so he embarrassed
me he taught he schooled me in
basketball or any situation okay
A for effort good job nice try but sorry
you're not hired you failed you didn't
do the work properly so if somebody said
you get an A for effort it means I
really appreciate that you tried so hard
but it's not very good
you didn't really succeed sorry bye
right A for effort B or C or D or F for
actual accomplishment
now to make the grade if somebody makes
the grade means they reached a certain
quality or a certain level right so if
you think about the army and I'm sure
all of you have seen enough Hollywood
movies that you know what Navy SEALs are
so Navy SEALs are like Special Forces
they're very tough very strong very
hard-working soldiers not everybody can
be a Navy SEAL many soldiers try but
only a few make the grade they reach
that level of ability that they can join
the Navy SEALs right so make the grade
also comes from school to get into
university you need a 3.4 GPA for
example if you don't make that grade
three point four you don't get into
university but now we use this
expression for all kinds of things about
reaching a certain minimal level quality
ability etc so if you have any questions
about these please go to Inc vidcom and
ask me in the forum there there's also a
quiz you can take to practice your
understanding of these idioms like my
video and subscribe to my channel and
come back soon I'll give you some more
good tips for English see you then