20 Useful English Idioms That Native Speakers Use

hey guys welcome to lingo marina today we're gonna learn 20 new idioms and if you forgot what an idiom is an idiom is a phrase that you can just not translate word to word because it wouldn't make any sense so the only way you can deal with idioms is learn them and today i'm gonna explain some idioms to you we're gonna look at the examples so hopefully by the end of this video you will have learned 20 new idioms that you can use when speaking english so if you're interested continue watching this video up to the very end but before you start please hit the like button if you enjoy my content and subscribe to this channel if you're learning english idiom number one white elephant white elephant means a thing that is no longer needed but it costs a lot of money for example this office building is a white elephant because everyone is working from home but we keep paying the rent white elephant the white elephant the next idiom white lie white lie is this small lie that you say because you don't want to hurt someone just a little white lie you lied i don't know your mom cooked dinner and uh you said i love this dinner but you actually didn't like it this is kind of white lie you didn't want to offend your mom this is why you lied a little little white lie everyone does by the way the idioms in this video are arranged by color so if you are writing something down if you're using different colors make sure you're highlighting them with different colors because it really helps our brain to remember those idioms white color if you've been following me for quite a while and if you've been watching my videos where i give advice on what kind of tv shows to watch you probably know this idiom the collar is something that you have on your shirt and somebody who's a white collar is an office worker so you can say this is a white collar profession that means most likely you would go to the office every single day wearing a formal shirt sitting at the office etc there are also other word combinations with this idiom white collar resort for example means that people who work in the office mostly come to this resort i don't know maybe there is some town in florida where most of people from new york travel to have vacation i've heard fort lauderdale is one of those towns which is regularly filled by white collars from new york this would have been some cushy white collar resort on the other hand we have blue collar so compared to white collars blue collars do more physical work white collars do more mental work white color blue color out of the blue when something happens out of the blue it happens unexpectedly for example you know my cousin called me out of the blue out of the blue calling someone these days is most often out of the blue because the majority of my calls for example are pre-planned i have a calendar and we plan different calls with my company we plan different calls with my partners so whenever somebody just calls me it is always out of the blue i'm like why can't you text me by the way guys let me know if you're the same if you are very surprised whenever somebody calls you like i get super surprised i'm like why are you calling me instead of texting because i don't know remember there were days like 20 years ago we would always have this phone ringing my classmates would call me my friends will call me with chat on the phone these days nobody goes no and everyone is texting so whenever i get a call from someone i can say he called me out of the blue i didn't expect his call that was so out of the blue once in a blue moon when something happens once in a blue moon that means it happens really rarely once in a blue moon they come to visit us once in a blue moon that means maybe they visit us like once in five years once in 10 years very very rare occasion and he said that only once in a blue moon does the dog's ear grow back sometimes you can say i feel sad but the more elegant way to say it is to say i have the blues i've had the blues i have the blues generally means that you're melancholic and sad i feel the blues every single day right now because it's winter and it's getting dark really early and i just feel that it's kind of pressing on top of me i don't know if you guys feel the same but these are my feelings when i'm in the winter climate i have the blues blue blood this is something that can be translated in my language and my original language is russian we definitely have this blue blood when somebody has blue blood or from a blue blood family means that he or she is royal or from a noble family it is often used in a negative way we want to say something like oh of course the senator is a blue blood he cannot understand real people's problems because he's so you know upscale or whatever he doesn't understand us blue blood running through my veins now i want to let you guess the meaning of this idiom to paint the town red and let me give you an example after our exam we decided to get all dressed up and paint the town red what do you do after an exam you go to every single bar you go to every single restaurant and you enjoy life this is what it means to paint the town red means to go to a lot of different bars and restaurants oh we're gonna paint the town red tonight i think it's coming from the older days when we had a map and we would mark i would do that i would mark with like a pencil or a pen the places that i visited uh and this is basically painting the whole map with the one color and if it's red then you know i painted the town red i've been to all of those places red tape red tape means a lot of bureaucracy a lot of rules a lot of documents that you have to get in order to do something like starting a company in this country or whatever country i don't mean any specific country but you can say in order to study the company in this country we must cut through the red tape this is crazy how many restrictions they have for entrepreneurs red tape means a lot of rules bureaucracy etc that's what makes us special no more red tape to roll out the red carpet when you roll out the red carpet you give someone a special treatment my friend rolled out the red carpet for me when i came to visit her that means she decorated her house gave me the best room prepared the best dinner rolled out the red carpet oh yes well let's roll out the red carpet red herring you know what a herring is right it's this fish red herring is something weird actually it's a funny phrase that denotes a fact or idea that takes away attention from the main problem for example the police was investigated in this case and they had a lot of clues but all of them turned out to be red herrings that means that those clues didn't lead to actually solving the case they were just you know random facts that didn't have any specific meaning red herring they were red herring thank you catch somebody red-handed when someone is caught red-handed that means he was caught doing something illegal catch him right-handed he was caught red-handed taking money from my desk that means i spotted him stealing my money a silver spoon in one's mouth to have a silver spoon in one's mouth means to be born in a rich family means you had no trouble growing up everything was given to you a lot of money a lot of privilege poor little rich boy choking on that silver spoon and again just like blue blood this idiom is very often used in a negative way what does he know about hardship he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth which means he doesn't understand us he doesn't understand our problems a golden opportunity a golden opportunity is an outstanding chance to do something oh my god starting an online company in 2020 was a golden opportunity or i'd better phrase it starting an online conference company was a golden opportunity 2020 and if you had it your company has probably grown by a lot you got a golden opportunity here golden parachute this is an idiom that again exists in many languages and this is when a top manager is asked to leave a company he gets a huge compensation like sometimes you hear that a ceo steps down from a company the company was making losses and still the ceo is paid billions of dollars millions okay millions of dollars this is called golden parachute and a lot of shareholders aren't normally happy about that a lot of workers would say why did this person bring our company to bankruptcy or whatever but they still got those golden parachutes a lot of examples of golden parachutes are mentioned in documentaries about the 2008 crisis and i was recently watching one on netflix and they were talking about how ceos and top managers from banks that went bankrupt got golden parachutes they got millions of dollars because they were asked to leave their job which might sound a little weird he and you are my golden parachute green with envy when you're green with envy that means you're really really jealous i don't know that girl got my favorite dress and it was the only one at the store and they are sold out across the country and i'm green with envy that she got it they'll be green with envy green light you got a green light for me to have rest today to take this evening off and watch a documentary or watch a movie green light means you get my permission you get my permission to do nothing this evening have you cleaned it with nationals we've got the green light gray area is a subject that is not really clear and you can't really define like i don't know when you're dealing with taxes or when you're dealing with illegal documents and you're asking your lawyer what i do here and the lawyer says you see this is a grey area we don't know exactly there aren't enough rules regarding this subject this is a great area we don't really understand see that's where you and i are different i just suck at the whole gray area thing and the last but not the least again i'm pretty sure most of you guys languages have this word i have this idiom it's called black sheep black sheep means you're different from everyone normally we have white sheep and then there will be black sheep and you know we'll be talking about how different it is and it stands out so the black sheep returns sometimes it's used in a negative way like the whole class is behaving well but nathan is black sheep he's often misbehaving running around and playing during classes he's a black sheep he was the black sheep that was it for me for today guys thank you so much for watching this video up to the very end if you're not yet subscribed to my channel hit the red subscribe button down below if you haven't yet attended any of lingua trips online classes the links to our best-selling courses will be below they are good for different levels of english and they're good for different goals that you might have maybe you want to take an exam maybe you want to start sounding like an american or maybe you just want to brush up your grammar there are different courses down below check them out i teach in some of them but i'm not a professional teacher so i normally teach with somebody who is an accredited teacher and we have a team who works on schedules and works on the content and thank you so much for watching this video to variant i'll see you very soon during my classes and during my next videos bye

Channel: linguamarina

Views: 1,342,889

Keywords: english, idioms, english idioms, american idioms, idioms in english, english language, learn english, expressions, english expressions, vocabulary, native english phrases, spoken english, american accent, business english, english lesson, free english, english vocabulary, english culture, common expressions, words, marina mogilko, linguamarina, linguatrip, how to sound like a native english speaker, how to speak english fast, speak english fluently, speak english fast

Id: jTP5bknxTi0

Length: 12min 5sec (725 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 02 2020