hi everyone and welcome back to love English I'm Sabrah your British
University English teacher now we're going to start the lesson in a bit of a
different way today I'm going to give you a couple of sentences using some
advanced idioms and expressions and I want you to try to start working out the
meaning from the context, at advanced levels and also at intermediate levels
this is a very good skill to develop it's called deducing meaning from
context so often we can kind of guess a meaning by looking at the words around
it and also by looking at the whole sentence in the context in which the
word is in so I'm going to give you a couple of sentences and I want you to
start working them out and then we're going to look at 15 of these fantastic
and super super common idioms and phrases that happen all the time in
everyday English you know what drives me up the wall students making the same
grammar mistake again and again and again when you've already corrected them
I was really taken aback when I saw who they hired for the new position that
girl only looks about 18 and she doesn't seem to have the experience I've
been saying for ages that I want to join salsa dancing classes I'm a little bit
scared of doing it but you know what I just have to bite the bullet and get on
with it so we had three examples there let's have a look at number one
so this expression to drive someone up the wall which is here means to make
someone really angry or to make them mad probably that's the best way to describe
it if you say oh it drives me up the wall you mean it drives me crazy or it
drives me mad let's look at the sentence in number two now this was to be taken
aback to be taken aback the sentence was I was really taken aback when I saw who
they'd offered the position to she looks really young and she doesn't seem to
have the experience so how might I be feeling here I'm saying this
person doesn't seem to have the experience they seem really young so probably you
could deduce that I don't necessarily think this person is suitable I was a
little bit surprised that they made that choice so that is the meaning to be
surprised to be feeling like a little bit confused about why that happened
something unexpected that makes you think whoa Wow why did that happen
so number three was to bite the bullet now can you imagine what this might mean
so I'm saying I'm a bit shy but I really do want to go but I'm saying I should
just bite the bullet and do it so this is actually where you just think right
okay this is gonna be a little bit scary or this is maybe not going to be
enjoyable at the beginning or maybe not at all enjoyable but it's something that
you've got to do or you feel you've got to do so you feel you've got to say
right come on let's just get on with it before we move to number four guys I
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number 4 number 4 is you haven't heard the half of it
or you don't know the half of it and this one comes up all the time in
conversation so this is when you're telling someone something and something
that is negative or they ask you about how your situation is and they ask you
in a way that shows they're concerned because they know that you haven't been
having a good time and you reply by saying oh you haven't heard the half of
it meaning yes I'm having a bad time but you don't even know half of the bad time
I've been having so what you've heard isn't even half of it so if a person
then says yes not only did I lose my job but then I've got divorced and I've
got debts to pay and I've got all these other problems then the person was
saying oh you haven't heard the half of it like this now this is an exaggeration
of course it doesn't have to be such serious life circumstances so we have
two options for number five one is a little birdie told me and the other is I
heard it on the grapevine so a little birdie told me and I heard it on the
grapevine now both of these mean that I have heard news indirectly I haven't
directly heard news from the source I've heard it down the line or a little
birdie flew around and delivered the news to me so I haven't heard it from
the original source so if you say I heard it through the grapevine that Ross
and Rachel are splitting up you're saying somebody told me and somebody
before that probably told them so you heard it down the line of course
Marvin Gaye made that fantastic song I heard it through the grapevine
which is all about a situation where a lady hasn't been too faithful number six
is it was a real cheek or oh what a cheek now cheek of course means your
cheeks but if someone is being cheeky or we can describe them as having cheek we
mean that they are being a little bit rude a little bit offensive for example
imagine you go out for dinner with somebody and they invite you and so
perhaps you're expecting them to pay it's a romantic dinner let's say and
then at the end they say I'm really sorry I haven't got any money
do you mind paying you might be like yes maybe you wouldn't say that or maybe you
would but either way after to your friends you are definitely going to say
ah can you believe he had the cheek or she had the cheek to ask me to pay when he
or she invited me what a cheek! number seven is an expression and a proverb
really and it is actions speak louder than words actions speak louder than
words I think you can probably work out the meaning guys basically it's that
somebody can talk talk talk about what they're going to do but it's just talk
until they do the action you can't really take them seriously or believe
them so sometimes with politicians they promise a lot about what they're going
to do especially when they're trying to be elected so to get into power they
will promise all the things that they're going to do when they're the prime
minister or the president and then once they're in power they may not do all of
those things we would say well you know actions speak louder than words you know
stop the talkin and actually do it so number seven is to bide your time and
this means to relax and take your time about doing something not to rush into
anything to bide your time so imagine that at work may be that you think
you're going to get a promotion but actually you don't get it and maybe you
think about leaving or speaking to somebody but then someone might say to
you hang on just bide you time I'm sure that you're going to get
it next time just bide your time for now number nine this is such a great phrase
and such a common phrase it is between a rock and a hard place between a rock and
a hard place you can also say between the devil and the deep blue sea now you
can probably imagine you can probably deduce that this is not a positive
situation you're between two equally difficult situations or two equally
difficult things and you don't know which to do whatever you do it's going
to be bad you know whatever you do the outcome is not going to be good you're
between a rock and a hard place yeah sitting on a rock and a hard place it's
the same or between the devil and the deep blue sea so neither is good okay
rock hard place me number 10 is don't cry over spilt milk don't cry over spilt
milk and this is often what people will say to you they may even say there's no
use crying over spilt milk and what this means is there's no use getting upset
about something that has already happened and that you can't change you
can't fix it for example imagine that you have a car accident and your car is
damaged in some way and of course you feel upset about this you're worrying
about the cost of it and if the car will still be okay to drive things like this,
someone might say to you okay you just have to calm down for now because
there's no use crying over spilt milk
well I suppose there's no point crying over it go on lick it up number 11 is
to bite someone's head off to bite someone's head off which sounds rather
aggressive so to bite someone's head off is not literal it means that when
someone says something to you you quickly respond in a negative way so
you quickly say what do you mean and you get angry quickly with them
you maybe you even shout at them or you definitely definitely get upset we can
also say that you snap at them and it's when you quickly respond in a very bad
way to what they've said so number 12 is to go out on a limb to go out on a limb
and a limb of course is one of your arms or legs so to go out on a limb means to
do something where you go against common opinions or advice and you do something
that is quite singular quite alone and different to the crowd so for example
sometimes within politics different politicians will kind of break away and
do something which is outside of the normal party maybe even form another
party and then they go out on a limb because they're on their own but they're
doing something that is different and perhaps against common opinions
number 13 is to air your dirty laundry to air your dirty laundry now this is
where we talk about private matters in public so it's where we're talking about
things which should be personal and not for the public sphere but we're talking
about them in public so really really not good and people might say oh don't
talk about that don't air your dirty laundry or she shouldn't have been
talking about her problems with her husband at work you know why is she
airing her dirty laundry poof I'll just air it a bit
14 is to steal someone's thunder to steal someone's thunder now to steal
someone's thunder is to take away the attention from someone when the
attention should really be on them so you're stealing their their moment
their clap of thunder for example we could say Sara really stole Lucy's
thunder when she announced her pregnancy at Lucy's wedding so here the moment
should have been Lucy's it's her wedding it's her big moment but Sara stole the
attention by saying that she was pregnant so probably she got lots of
attention as well so she stole Lucy's thunder number 15 is to be at the end of
your tether now the American version of this is to be at the end of your rope
and so rope and tether are the same things they're often what we would use
to tie an animal to somewhere so a horse is often tethered so they're tied onto a
fence with the rope so they can move around but of course so they don't
escape now when we are at the end of our tether we have run out of patience with
a situation we've had enough so if you say I'm absolutely at the end of my tether
with my teenage daughter I've tried everything to make her behave but she
just doesn't I've tried being strict I've tried being nice I've tried
grounding her and making her stay in but it just doesn't work I don't know what
to do I'm at the end of my tether so you don't know what to do anymore you've run
out of patience you've run out of ideas you're at the end of your tether right
everybody they were 15 advanced idioms and expressions to improve your
conversation skills as always guys you can try and use any of these in a
sentence below and we will try and check that for you and also don't forget to
get that amazing offer from Lingoda and give them a try so your code is love
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success stories on that the link is here have a great
day guys and we'll see you soon on love English bye bye