15 ADVANCED Conversation Phrases and Idioms - Improve your Conversation Skills #advancedenglish

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 would just like to thank the sponsor of this video Lingoda you've heard us recommend Lingoda many times before in this channel and this is because we really do think that they are one of the best ways out there to learn English online and as we've been teachers for many years hopefully guys you can trust our opinion we know a good language school when we see one but there's a couple of key reasons why we really think that Lingoda are one of the best and one of these is that you can actually get a certificate when you learn online with Lingoda many language schools online don't provide certificates when you complete your course but Lingoda do and this is the common European framework of reference for languages and this means that their courses have actually been verified by the highest authorities in Europe for overseeing language learning secondly it is affordable you can join group classes for as little as 8 euros now 8 euros is about the price of two Starbucks coffees it really is Starbucks is crazy expensive great but crazy expensive so what would you choose guys two Starbucks coffees or invest in your future and improve your language skills and maybe transform your life who knows learning a language really can transfer my life and certainly your job prospects so put the coffee's to one side and invest in some classes with Lingoda so guys if you want to give Lingoda a try we still have this amazing offer for you which they've given to us to share with you it is 20% off the first month of all language learning packages so to get that discount guys the link is down in the description box as always and the code is love 3 love 3 right 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 3 and all the details are down in the description box below also to see more success stories you can head to lingoda's Instagram and read all about student success stories on that the link is here have a great day guys and we'll see you soon on love English bye bye

Channel: Love English with Leila & Sabrah

Views: 41,019

Keywords: Love English with Leila & Sabrah, Love English with Leila & Sabrah YouTube, YouTube Love English with Leila & Sabrah, learn English, love English, English, 15 advanced conversation phrases, advanced conversation english, advanced english vocabulary, advanced english idioms, advanced english idioms and phrases, conversation english, english conversation vocabulary, advanced english, english conversation phrases, improve english vocabulary, english idioms and phrases

Id: 67P-pUdesjM

Length: 15min 3sec (903 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 12 2019