Hi I'm Sonia and welcome to today's lesson. Let me tell you something about Claire. So
who is Claire you will ask. Claire is a really nice girl who lives in the same area as me.
She goes to college and just the other day we met at the supermarket and she told me
about this boy who really annoys her. And she told me that the other day, she was just
randomly stating that she's going to participate in a dance competition and you know what that
boy said to her. He said, "Hey Claire go break a leg." And she got really angry at him. Now
you need to tell me, do you think it was just or fair for Claire to angry with that chap
or whether he actually meant something nice to her. If you pay close attention to this
lesson, I'm sure you will get the answer. So let's begin. We are doing a lesson on expressions
with the word break today. Let's have a look.
The very first one says, break the news. Now how can you break the news? News is something
that you just hear, you know maybe you hear it from someone or watch it over TV, right?
It's not something physical that you can break literally. Break the news means to tell someone
or give someone any particular news which is extremely important. Mostly it's some kind
of bad news which you are really hesitant or you don't really want to tell someone but
you have to do it anyway, okay? So to break the news means to give important news to someone.
In brackets I'm going to write mostly, bad news. So may be in a sentence you can say
something like," The doctor had to break the news of Irene's cancer to her husband." Okay
that's how you can use it in a sentence. And moving on the next one here is, break
a leg. Okay, so break a leg, what comes to your mind when I say that? Do I mean to say
literally break your leg? Have an accident, no. I wouldn't want something like that to
happen to you. Break a leg is mostly an expression that you use to wish good luck to artists
especially. Alright, so let me write that down, it means to wish good luck. I hope you
are paying attention right now, mostly to artists. It can even be used randomly with
anyone else as well. So may be in a sentence you could say, “I know that you are going
to take part in a singing competition tomorrow, so go ahead and break a leg."
The next one here is break the ice. Am I asking you to take some ice cubes and literally break
them into pieces? No we are not talking about anything like that. To break the ice is a
very interesting expression. It mainly means you know say for example if you go to a party,
alright and you are not a very outgoing person and you feel a little uncomfortable among
people whom you don't really know. So instead of just standing there with your glass of
wine and being all quiet, you can start to try and make a conversation with someone,
may be crack a joke with somebody and in that way, you will break the ice. You will remove
that awkwardness between all of you and actually get a conversation going. So to break the
ice means to get a conversation or to start a conversation. So if you've attended any
seminars or any kind of trainings for example, you will always notice that the person who
is hosting the seminar or the trainer has a little quick activity before they actually
start the session, so that there's no awkwardness and people feel comfortable with each other.
That's called breaking the ice. So maybe in a sentence you could say, well i mostly try
and crack a joke whenever I want to break the ice if I'm at a party. And trust me it
always helps.
Next what do we have, break free. What does break free mean? Okay it doesn't mean that
you are caged into something like a cage and you have broken free, you have been set free.
No, it means to break away from something. You know in a sentence
you could use it like. This old fashioned thinking, it's not so good. We need to break
free from it which means possibly to set your mind free away from something that is negative
or not good for you. The next one and this is quite a good one
too. It states to break the rules, alright. It's quite self-explanatory. To break the
rules means to not follow the rules. Do you know someone like that? Well, I do. I have
quite a few friends who just love to break the rules and they do it all the time. So
if I want to write down the meaning for you. It basically means to not follow the rules.
In a sentence you could possibly say, “Well, my friend Joey he loves to break the rules
all the time, he is so rebellious. He always loves to do something differently."
Moving on we have another one here, which says, to break a habit. Alright now what do
you mean when you say break a habit? It means to stop or to end a habit. Now what kind of
habits do we normally want to stop or end? Bad habits, right? You don't want to break
good habits, I'm sure you don't want to do that. So to break a habit means to stop or
end a bad habit. Something that is not good for you. So maybe in a sentence, you could
say something like," Well I really need to quit smoking but it's a tough habit to break."
The next one here, it says, break a promise. This is something that you should not really
do try and keep your promises all the time. But to break a promise basically means to
not do something that you were definitely supposed to do, alright? To not do something
that you were supposed to do. Do you have a relative or may be a brother or a sister
who lives overseas. Alright and you don't really get to meet them much, may be they
come home just once in a year. So imagine if your sibling has made a promise that this
time I'm definitely going to come home and visit you. But he or she really doesn't make
it. So what do you do then? You complain to them over the phone or over Skype and you
say," well you know what you broke your promise with me. You promised that you would come
visit us, but you didn't really come home this year." Alright so to break a promise
is to not do something that you were supposed to do. Next one here says to break someone's
heart. That's the worst thing you want to ever do. To break someone's heart means to
cause someone a lot of grief or to cause someone sadness, alright. To cause grief, okay or
to cause sadness. To make someone really, really sad. Okay, so may be in a sentence
you could say something like, “well Joey proposed to Jill, he proposed marriage to
her. But you know what she said no and she broke his heart." Obviously the man wanted
to marry her and she said no, that's the worst thing that can happen to someone. So to break
someone's heart is to cause someone immense grief or sadness.
And finally, we have to break a record. What does this mean to break a record? Does it
mean we are talking of some kind of a music playing record and we are breaking into two?
Absolutely not. Break a record means to set an extremely high record like may be in the
Olympics or in sports. You know there was a record that was maintained for 14 years
and this new athlete has recently set a record much higher than that. So what is she doing,
she is breaking the record, alright. So basically it means to set a new or a high record than
the previous one. Right so possibly in a sentence you could say," the athlete you know she participated
in swimming competition and she broke all records." which means that she set a new or
a high record which was much higher than the previous one.
So if you have definitely focused on this lesson, I'm sure you have the answer to my
question in the beginning. Well yes, Claire should have not really gotten angry with that
chap because to break a leg means to wish someone good luck. It can be used for an artist;
it can be used for anyone else, alright. So these are a couple of expression that can
use with the word break. They are all so different and extremely easy to use. I hope that you
watch this lesson and you keep practicing. I'm sure with everyday practicing you will
become really, really good. I'll be back soon with something new. Till then you take care
of yourself, bye.