Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Are you ready to expand your vocabulary? Let's go. Vanessa: It's a fact, the more vocabulary
you know, the more you can understand natural English conversations. So today I'd like to help you understand and
use 15 advanced English expressions for daily life. These aren't phrases specifically for business,
though of course you could use them in those situations. These aren't all slang expressions or expressions
to make you sound really educated. No, these are expressions for daily life. They're ones that I use all the time and I
hope that you'll be able to integrate into your daily conversations as well. All of the phrases that you're going to learn
today are part of my monthly course, The Fearless Fluency Club. Some of these expressions I took from lessons
in 2018, some are from lessons from 2019, some are from 2020. But today they are for you. If you would like to learn 15 to 20 new expressions
just like this every month, feel free to click up here to learn more about my course, The
Fearless Fluency Club. Vanessa: During today's lesson, I challenge
you to try to say all of the sample sentences out loud with me. This is going to help you get used to hearing
your voice using the expressions and also help your pronunciation muscles, help you
have a chance to speak and also help you to remember them, which is always a challenging
thing with new vocabulary, right? So make sure that you speak out loud today. Try to repeat some of these sentences with
me. I have a feeling that some of these expressions
are going to be new for you. So let's get started with the first one. Vanessa: A false sense of security, carrying
mace gave me a false sense of security. Can you guess what this means from the sentence? Carrying mace, which is like pepper spray
or a minor weapon, gave me a false sense of security. Well, I feel secure, I feel safe, but in reality,
danger is near. If I were in a really dangerous situation,
carrying mace or pepper spray is probably not going to help me too much. It gave me a false sense of security. Vanessa: His wife didn't argue with him about
his drinking, but this was a false sense of security. She would blow up one day. Blow up means get extremely angry. This is a pretty common thing that happens
in relationships unfortunately. One person has a problem and the other person
doesn't say anything about it, so that person thinks, "Oh, maybe it's not a problem. Maybe it's fine, maybe he or she doesn't care." This is a false sense of security because
probably the other person is building up some strong feelings and will just explode in anger
one day. So make sure that you don't have this false
sense of security. All right, let's go to the next expression. Vanessa: To bounce ideas off or to bounce
ideas off of. The word of here is just optional. Let's look at a sample sentence and I want
you to guess what you think it means. It's a good idea to bounce ideas off of your
coworkers. When a ball bounces, it goes down and then
it comes back up. Well, when you bounce ideas off of a coworker,
you're getting some feedback and opinions from someone. You're bouncing ideas off of someone. In the sentence, you can just as naturally
say it's a good idea to bounce ideas off your coworkers or it's a good idea to bounce ideas
off of your coworkers. The word of is completely optional. Both are correct. A common question in business is, can I bounce
some ideas off of you? And this means that you have some ideas, you
would like some feedback about it, especially if the other person has more experience than
you. This is a really polite way to say, "Hey,
can I ask you some questions and get some feedback?" You can just simply say, "Can I bounce some
ideas off of you?" Great. Beautiful sentence. Vanessa: The next expression is wise, but
this is just a suffix. That means that we put it at the end of another
word. Take a look at this sentence. Safety-wise, my city is pretty safe, but education-wise,
we could use some improvement. You're introducing each category with the
word safety, but then you're adding wise to show I'm talking about this category. Safety-wise. My city is pretty safe, but education-wise,
we could use some improvement. It's not so good. So on the topic of education we could use
some improvement. When my friends ask how old my students are. Well there is quite a range of ages of people
who learn online. Vanessa: If you teach a class of adults about
coding, like how to make software code, you might say, "Well, age-wise," you're introducing
this category with the suffix wise. "Age-wise my students are around 40 years
old." Okay, cool. Or, "Age-wise, my students are generally 18
to 25." Okay. They're probably right out of high school
and they're learning a career path. Age-wise. This is a little bit tricky, a little bit
advanced. That's why I wanted to include this but you'll
definitely see this and I use this in daily conversation all the time. When you want to talk about a category or
talk about two different categories like safety-wise. Well, education-wise. We can use this for so many different things. You can talk about kids, "How's your life?" "Well, health-wise, I'm doing pretty fine,
but kid-wise I am overwhelmed." You can use this for any category. Vanessa: "Are you hungry?" "Food-wise, I feel great, but drink-wise,
yeah, let's go get a drink." Okay. You can use this for so many different categories. I hope to introduce this to you so that you'll
start to hear this as you listen to natural English conversations. Let's go to the next one. Vanessa: For the sake of. This expression has two different meanings. So let me give you one sample sentence. A lot of people make art for the sake of making
art. What do you think this means? We could also say a lot of people make art
for the sake of it, and that's just replacing making art. What do you think that means? We're talking about the purpose. What is their purpose for making art? Well, if they're making art for the sake of
making art, it's not for the sake of making money, for the sake of creative enhancement. It's just because they like making art. It's not for a school project. It's not a requirement. It's just for the purpose of making art. Vanessa: Or we could just say for the sake
of it. "Why are you learning English?" "Well, I don't need it for my job. I don't travel that much. I don't know many people from other countries. I'm learning English for the sake of it, just
because I want to." The purpose is, well, just the purpose of
learning, for the sake of learning English. But there's a second meaning for this expression. Let's take a look at this sentence, for the
sake of the people who haven't read the book, I'll give a quick summary. For the sake of the people who haven't read
the book. If you are discussing a book with some friends,
but other people in the room haven't read, it well you could use this expression, for
the sake of the people who haven't read the book. I'll give a quick summary. This is what happened in the story. Vanessa: In this situation we're using for
the sake of someone to talk about in respect for someone. So to respect the people who haven't read
the book, so that they aren't completely lost in our conversation. Well, here's a quick summary. So you could say, "For the sake of those who
have sacrificed a lot, we are going to have a special dinner or a special celebration
in respect for those people." All right, so we've got two different ways
to use this. The purpose of something, "I'm learning English
for the sake of my job." I'm learning English for the sake of it, just
because I like learning. Or for the sake of someone to respect someone. Let's go to the next expression. Vanessa: Let alone. When we think about the word alone, we think
about someone who's not with other people, but erase that idea from your mind. Let's look at this sample sentence and try
to guess what you think it means. I've never been to China, let alone seen the
Great Wall. The Great Wall of China is a big tourist attraction
and a really cool historical feature in China, but in my sentence I said I've never been
to China, let alone seeing the Great Wall. Yeah, I've seen pictures and videos, but it's
not the same as in real life. What's an expression that we can substitute
in this situation? Vanessa: You could say, "I've never been to
China. Not to mention seeing the Great Wall." Oh, here we have a big category, been to China,
and then I'm getting a little bit more specific and saying, seeing the Great Wall. You might also substitute much less. I've never been to China, much less seen the
Great Wall. So we've got a big category and then we're
narrowing it. If I've never done that big category, of course
I haven't done that small category too. Let's look at another example. After the accident, he couldn't walk, let
alone play soccer. What's the big category here? Walking. Well, if you can't walk, you probably have
a difficult time playing soccer. So we could say after the accident he couldn't
walk much less play soccer. After the accident he couldn't walk, not to
mention play soccer. Vanessa: Of course, if he can't walk, he can't
play soccer. I'm sure there are some exceptions, but in
this situation we're going to use let alone. He couldn't walk, let alone play soccer. We're getting more specific. This is a wonderful advanced expression that
you're definitely going to hear all the time around you. Now that you're aware of this expression,
you're going to hear it a lot. All right, let's go to the next one. Vanessa: A whole ‘nother something. A whole ‘nother level. A whole ‘nother thing. A whole ‘nother animal. There's a lot of different ways that we can
use this, but the main part that's used in each of these expressions is a whole ‘nother. What is ‘nother? Well, let's look at a sample sentence and
I want you to guess. We've been dating for two years, but deciding
to get married is a whole ‘nother animal. Am I getting married to an animal? No. We're not really talking about animals in
this situation. We can just substitute thing or level. Getting married is a whole ‘nother level. What if I said getting married is another
level? Does that make a little bit more sense to
you? We've been dating for two years, but getting
married is another level. I'm not sure if I'm ready to commit. That's more serious. Well, this is pretty much what we're saying
here except this is using, if you want to get a little nerdy and grammatical, this is
using something called tmesis, which is when you insert one word into another word. Vanessa: So look at this expression. Do you see another and then the word whole
splitting it? Yep. That's what's happening. Here we have another, but the word whole has
just cut into the middle of that word. Another whole or a whole ‘nother. When I was thinking about this expression,
I had no idea why this actually happened, because we use this all the time in daily
life, but if you really try to break down, wait, ‘nother? ‘Nother is not a word. Why do we say a whole ‘nother? I had to do a little bit of research about
this, because it's so commonly used, but it's not something that you would write in an essay. It's not common grammar from a grammar textbook. So I hope to introduce this to you so that
you can hear it everywhere now and you can use it yourself. Let's take a look at another example. Vanessa: Going to college is relatively easy,
but finding a job in your field is a whole ‘nother thing. Here we're talking about something that's
a little bit more difficult. It's a little bit more challenging, at least
in the US, going to college, getting into college. It's a pretty simple process. But it is much more difficult to find a job
in the field that you studied. If you studied History, well, it's going to
be pretty difficult to find a career or find a job in that field, in the field of History,
so we could say finding a job in your field is a whole ‘nother thing. All of these words that we can add afterwards,
a whole ‘nother animal, a whole ‘nother level, a whole ‘nother thing. They all have that same meaning, so you can
really interchange them however you want. A common way to use this grammatical form
tmesis if you're curious, is often you'll hear really casual situations where native
speakers will say, "Abso-freaking-lutely." Well, the expression is absolutely, and the
word freaking, which is a polite way to say a bad word, but we often split it. Vanessa: If you eat some ice cream, that is
unbelievable. It is so good. You could say, "Wow, this ice cream is abso-freaking-lutely
amazing." You're splitting the word absolutely with
the word freaking. You're probably going to hear this commonly
in casual conversation, in this situation because you're using the word freaking, it
is really casual, but this idea of tmesis is used a lot in English, especially with
a whole ‘nother something. So I hope to introduce this to you just to
expand your mind and hopefully you'll be able to hear this and use it yourself. All right, let's go to the next one. Vanessa: To give it a shot. Are we talking about guns here? Shooting a gun, to give someone a shot? No. Instead, we're talking about something pretty
different. What about the sample sentence? The food looks strange, but I'll give it a
shot. Well, we've got two things that should be
different from each other, because they're combined with the word but. So they should kind of be opposites. Vanessa: The food looks strange. We can assume, "Oh, I don't really want to
try it, but I'll give it a shot." So what's the opposite of that? I'll try it. Usually this is with a little bit of hesitation. I'll give it a shot. I don't feel so certain about it, but I'll
give it a shot. Maybe your friend says to you, "You've never
sung in karaoke. Come on, give it a shot." You're probably going to try it tentatively. Try it hesitantly. But you're still going to try it. I'm going to give it a shot. You could use this for an English course. Maybe you thought, "I don't really know if
I have time or if this course is going to be helpful, but okay, I'll give it a shot." For example, the course that all of these
expressions came from, The Fearless Fluency Club, it usually costs $35 per month, but
I want to give, I always give a $5 price for the first month. Vanessa: If you write new, N-E-W, in the coupon
code box when you purchase the course, that means the first 30 days is only $5. This way you can give it a shot. You can just try the course. It's $5. And if you cancel before 30 days, then you
don't need to pay the full price if it's not a good fit for you. So it's a good way to try the course if you
feel hesitant or tentative. Well, okay, it's $5, I'll give it a shot. And I can cancel before 30 days and not pay
the $35 monthly fee. So I hope that this makes it easier for you
to give it a shot, to see if it's a good fit for you. All right, let's go to the next expression. Vanessa: To be under the impression. What about this sentence? I was under the impression that being an elementary
school teacher was mainly about being fun. If I have a fun personality, if we have a
fun time together, then I'll be a good teacher. Do you think that this is true? Do you think that the most important characteristic
of an elementary school teacher is being fun? No. So this means that you have an idea that is
later proven wrong. Well, if you think this is true about being
an elementary school teacher and you walk into the classroom and there's 20 or 30 6-year-olds
and you say, "All right, this year we're going to have a lot of fun. Every day is fun." You might have some difficulties with the
children in the classroom. They might not listen to you. It might be disorderly. You need to have some structure as well. There's a lot of different qualities that
are good in elementary school teachers not just being fun. Vanessa: So in this situation you have an
idea, but because of some experience it is proven wrong. I was under the impression, well, but then
I found out the truth. Let's look at another example. She was under the impression that he was a
nice guy, she was wrong. This means that maybe after their first date
she thought he was pretty nice. But then after the second date she realized,
"Oh, this guy is a little bit strange. He's got some strange characteristics." Her original idea was later proven wrong because
of her experience. She was under the impression that he was a
nice guy, but she was wrong. You don't even need to add that final part,
because this expression already implies that your idea is later going to be changed. So you could just say, "Yeah, I was under
the impression that he was a nice guy." And it means, "Yeah, but later I found out
that he wasn't." But initially, at the beginning, early on,
I thought that he was, but really he wasn't. All right, let's go to the next expression. Vanessa: To nip it in the bud. We can imagine nip is like to cut and there
is a flower that is opening. It is almost going to open. It is called a bud before it opens. If you see a rose or a tulip or some flower
that's still closed, before it opens, this is called a bud, a flower bud. If you cut the flower before it opens, you
are nipping it in the bud literally. But we often use this figuratively. So take a look at a sample sentence and try
to guess what it means in a figurative sense. The moment that my daughter started lying,
I knew I needed to nip it in the bud. Am I cutting my daughter? No. She has some bad behavior, which is lying,
not telling the truth. The moment that my daughter started lying,
I knew I needed to nip it in the bud. This means to stop some bad behavior before
it becomes too big, before it becomes a habit or uncontrollable. We often use this for habits of young people. Vanessa: Well, I saw that my son started smoking. Well, I think we need to nip it in the bud
because he might become addicted. He might have some health problems. We need to stop this bad behavior before it
becomes too big. We need to nip it in the bud. What is it in this expression? We always say it. You could say we need to nip her lying in
the bud. We need to nip his smoking in the bud. But we hardly ever say that. Instead, we always say it because we know
the context already. We know that lying is the problem or smoking
is the problem, so it is the bad behavior. Vanessa: If you have, I think we all have
these with different languages. If you have some bad habits with English grammar
that have built up over time, you always use since instead of for or something like this,
you might say, "Okay, I need to nip it in the bud. I need to learn which one is correct and I
need to stop using it in an incorrect way because this is a bad habit that could become
a big problem. It could become a habit that I can't stop
in the future, so I need to nip it in the bud." Vanessa: Let's look at another sentence. If your dog jumps up on strangers in the park,
you need to nip it in the bud. Don't tolerate it. I have cats. I've never had dogs, so I'm not really a dog
person, but something that I really don't like. Maybe people who have dogs tolerate it. I don't know. But when a dog is walking in the park with
its owner, even if it's on a leash, if it jumps up on me, I don't want that. I don't know your dog, your dog is dirty. Don't touch my clothes with your dog's dirty
paws. An owner needs to nip this behavior in the
bud. The moment that your dog does that, you need
to teach your dog that that's not good behavior. Don't tolerate it. Don't think it's cute. No one wants that. So you could say the moment your dog jumps
up on someone, you need to nip it in the bud. Do not let this bad behavior become something
big. All right, let's go to the next expression. Vanessa: To serve me well. Are we talking about a restaurant? A server served me well. The waiter served me well. No. Look at this sentence. The hiking stick served me well when I saw
a bear on my hike. The hiking stick served me well. What do you think this means? It's something that's been helpful to have
or to know. It was helpful to have a hiking stick, when
I saw the bear, I could lift it above my head and the bear just got a little scared and
walked away. At least bears in my area are not aggressive. So if you have a hiking stick, which is always
a good idea when you're hiking, at least in this area, you can just make some loud noises
or you can lift it above your head and say, "Ah," and the bear will most likely, nine
times out of 10, or more, just go away because they don't care about you. They just happen to see you. Vanessa: So we could say the hiking stick
served me well. It was helpful to have, or we could use this
not necessarily in a physical way, but we could use it about knowledge. Something that's helpful to know. You could say knowing English has served me
well in my job. Maybe you didn't think that you would need
English for your job, but then you got a new position and now you need to write emails
every day in English. Okay, so you're glad you already have a base
in English, you could say, "Knowing English has served me well. It's been helpful to have this knowledge so
that I can use it in my job and I'm not scrambling trying to figure out what to say. No, I have this knowledge and it's helpful
to have. It served me well." Vanessa: The next expression is to think twice. Why would you need to think twice about something? Look at this sample sentence. Americans don't think twice about tipping
in a restaurant. Tipping means adding usually 20% extra on
their bill. If your bill is $20 you need to add $4 to
give to the server. It can be on your check, it could be cash,
but for Americans, this is obvious, we always do this. We don't need to think twice about this. So can you guess what this means? It means that you're consciously considering
or thinking about something. For Americans, we don't need to consider the
idea of should I tip, should I not? No. We always do, because this is just part of
American culture. Vanessa: If your service has been okay, the
server was adequate, then you should give at least 15%, probably 20% as a tip. This expression, to think twice, is often
used for negative situations. When you're warning someone about something,
so you might say, "You should think twice about walking in that neighborhood alone at
night. That neighborhood is not so safe. So before you walk to your friend's house
in that neighborhood at night, think twice about it." It just means carefully consider, is this
a good idea? Maybe I should drive there. Maybe it's close by and you can ride your
bike, which is a little faster. You should think twice about this. Okay. You can also say this in other English-type
situations. Maybe you're thinking about just living in
the US. Well, that's a big, a big deal. You might say, "I should think twice about
living in the US. Yeah, the idea is good, but I need to leave
my family, my friends, my culture. Okay. I'm going to think twice about it. I need to think twice about this because it's
a big deal." Vanessa: All right. Let's go to the next phrase. The next expression is the big picture. Are we talking about taking a picture and
then printing it to be giant on your wall? No. This is a more figurative expression. What if I said this to you, what would you
think it means? I often don't think about the big picture,
instead I just think about the little details. The big picture of what? What do you think I'm talking about here? This is the big picture of life. I don't think about 10 years in the future,
20 years in the future. How this will impact a broader spectrum of
people. No, I just think about the details. So the big picture means a broad, overall
perspective. And this can be used to talk about life, the
big picture of life, or it can be used to talk about other things. Vanessa: If you're playing a board game with
some friends or a video game, any kind of game, you could say, "Before you learn the
rules of the game, you need to understand the big picture." Okay. You need to know how do you win. What is the overall broad perspective of the
game. How do you win. What are the main goals of the game. That's the big picture. And then you can go back and learn all of
the little rules, but it's good to start with learning the big picture of the game. All right, let's go to the next expression. Vanessa: Back in the day. The day? Back in the day? When is the day? What if I said to you, we used to hang out
a lot back in the day. We used to hang out a lot, that means spend
time together, back in the day. Does this mean yesterday? No, this just means generally a long time
ago. It's a little bit odd because we can use this
to talk about hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, or we could use this to talk
about 20 years ago. So it all depends on how much you want to
exaggerate with this. I feel like the main feeling of this expression
is hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, something that feels like a long time
ago. Vanessa: But we often use this for our daily
lives. If you had a friend in high school and now
you're 50 years old, well, maybe you see that friend very, very rarely now. You could say, "Yeah, we used to hang out
a lot back in the day." Which means in high school, so maybe 30 years
ago, it's not thousands of years ago, but it feels like a long time ago. So that's the sense here. Or you might say, "Back in the day, women
used to spend all day doing laundry." It was laundry day. They spent the entire day doing laundry. It was really physically intensive, really
difficult. And that's not really happening that often
nowadays. So we could say back in the day, I don't know
exactly when, I don't have a specific date for you, but I'm talking about something that
was a long time ago. Vanessa: This expression is pretty casual,
so I don't really recommend using this in a business presentation. You wouldn't really say, "Oh, back in the
day our company was selling five units and nowadays we are selling 300." It's a little too casual for that situation. You might just say, "In 2005." You might talk about the past in a little
bit more of a specific way in a business situation. But this is great for daily conversations,
which is the point of this video, to help you with daily expressions. So back in the day, something that happened
a long time ago, or it felt like a long time ago, let's go to the next one. Vanessa: To be in over your head, to be in. Where are you in? To be in over your head. There's a lot of prepositions going on in
this expression. What if I said this to you? When he joined the basketball tournament,
he was in over his head. Do you think that he's an amazing basketball
player and he knows what he's doing and he's confident and prepared? Nope. Instead, in this situation, he is less prepared
and probably less skilled than the other people in the tournament. So when he joined the basketball tournament,
he was in over his head. We never add, he was in the tournament over
his head. We never add that word there, but we're talking
about in this situation, whatever that situation is, he is overwhelmed. We can imagine jumping into a swimming pool
and the water covers your head. You are in the water and it is over your head. You are overwhelmed because you are probably
less skilled and less prepared than the other people. Vanessa: Let's look at another example. I was in over my head on my first day as a
teacher. Maybe you thought you were prepared, but really
you were completely overwhelmed. You were in over your head. Notice how the subject and the pronoun match
in all of these situations. I was in over my head. He was in over his head. We never say I was in over his head. He was in over her head. That's not possible with this expression,
so make sure that they match. We were in over our heads. They were in over their head. I was in over my head. I was overwhelmed. I was less prepared, less skilled than other
people, and I felt really overwhelmed. All right, let's look at the next expression. Vanessa: To ease into it. To ease into it. Do you sense that the word ease comes from
the word easy, smooth? Yeah. What if I said this sentence? You need to ease into the water of the swimming
pool because it's really cold. You need to ease into the water. Oh, does this mean you need to jump in, go
off the diving board and just get completely wet immediately? Some people like to do that if it's cold,
but in the sentence, we're talking about slowly doing something, doing something cautiously,
maybe preparing a little bit. You are easing into the water. If you just started relearning English after
your childhood classes recently, well, don't give a speech in English tomorrow. You need to ease into it. You need to practice English a little bit
every day. You need to give yourself maybe a couple months
of preparation before you give a 30-minute speech in English. You need to ease into it. Vanessa: Notice that there's always a noun
after this expression. It means a speech. You need to ease into it. Don't give a speech right away. You need to ease into it. Or we could say you need to ease into the
water. That's the noun. You're going slowly into the water. We can use it in a physical way, going slowly
into the water. Or in a more metaphorical way, slowly prepare
to give a 30-minute speech in English. You need to ease into it. Great work with these 15 new phrases. Let's go through and review one sentence for
each of these phrases. Vanessa: What I want you to do is I want you
to try to say them out loud with me. Repeat. Use your pronunciation muscles. It's going to help you remember them, as I
mentioned at the beginning, so just try to speak with me. All right. Let's start with the first one. Carrying Mace gave me a false sense of security. It's a good idea to bounce ideas off of your
coworkers before starting a new project. Safety-wise, my city is pretty safe, but education-wise,
I think the schools could improve. A lot of people make art for the sake of making
art. I've never been to China, let alone seeing
the Great Wall. We've been dating for two years, but deciding
to get married is a whole ‘nother animal. The food looks strange, but I guess I'll give
it a shot. I was under the impression that being a good
elementary school teacher was mainly about being fun. The moment that my daughter started lying,
I knew I needed to nip it in the bud. Vanessa: The walking stick served me well
when I saw a bear on my hike. Americans don't think twice about tipping
at a restaurant. I usually don't think about the big picture
of my life, only the daily details. We used to hang out a lot back in the day. He was really in over his head when he joined
the basketball tournament. I had to ease into the water because it was
really cold. Vanessa: Great work with these 15 phrases. I hope you had a chance to learn something
new. Expand your vocabulary. I'm sure that you will hear these around you
as you surround yourself with English, that's the first step to recognize them. Then you'll be able to understand them, and
after some time you'll be able to use them yourself. So feel free to repeat this lesson, go back
and review some of these expressions so that you can add them to your daily life. Vanessa: Well, now I have a question for you. I want to know what is something that you
should think twice about? Give us some advice. You should think twice before you go there
on vacation. You should think twice before you eat that. Give us some good sentences in the comments
and make sure you read each other's sentences as well, just to get a broader perspective
of all of these wonderful expressions. Well, thanks so much for learning English
with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. Vanessa: The next step is to download my free
ebook, Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English Speaker. You'll learn what you need to do to speak
confidently and fluently. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel
for more free lessons. Thanks so much. Bye.
