22 English Expressions You SHOULD Know - My Conversation With a Native Speaker

hi i'm lisa i'd like to teach you some more english expressions that native speakers use all the time let's continue listening to native speakers in los angeles i believe that this is one of the most effective ways for you to improve your english and to reach that true level of fluency that final step of fluency [Music] native speakers of english use so many different expressions when they talk for example do you know the expression i fend for myself for example someone might say from a young age i learned to fend for myself a non-native speaker might say i learned to take care of myself but you will hear michael in this video and he will use the expression to fend for myself learned how to fend for myself and michael said that he sold his rv do you know what an rv is yeah so i sold my car my rv and i'm just me and my bike i would like to help you understand native speakers all the time whether you're watching an american film or whether you're communicating in english at the workplace or with your american friends i recommend that after i teach you an expression you pause the video and you make your own sentence related to your own life and say the sentence aloud it's a good way to practice when you actually hear yourself saying the sentence you will listen to my conversation with michael michael is a musician and he had various businesses over the years and he came to los angeles for creative reasons he believes anything is possible he believes that if you're really determined and if you work hard and if you have the right attitude you can achieve your dreams i think he will inspire you let's watch the first part of my conversation with michael he talks about why he left new york and why he went to colorado and finally why he moved to los angeles and after you watch the video i will come back and i will teach you the expressions that he used and i will give you other sample sentences using those expressions so that you will learn to use them in different contexts so i just made a power move with a couple thousand dollars in my pocket bought a beat up minivan and just drove to the mountains just to try something new when i got there again started from scratch learned how to fend for myself and how to fail forward not fail and freak out it comes from trial and error and that is where my fear kind of diminished and i was able to to depend on something higher me being connected to something higher and that's where the confidence really really lies and i said i can do pretty much anything and when i say i don't mean me in particular i think i as in you as in everybody we all have the ability to do anything we really put our minds to and i believe that so wholeheartedly and that is why i think when you connect that idea with a place like los angeles where all the opportunity lies that's where magic can really happen and that's what really led me here living in colorado was beautiful naturally the mountains the rivers everything was amazing however as far as opportunity for a creative it's lacking out there you know it's more of a place you want to go and settle when you're a little older buy a home and just hang out and chill but la's where if you want to keep it moving keep keep going keep grinding that's where it's at there's just so much out here for that i'm i'm interested in the experience of life you know i read somewhere that the the average human being only gets to experience 10 percent of what there is to experience in general on earth so give me an example so there's infinite experiences you can have right they say you're the average human being could only your capacity in your lifetime you can only fill up about 10 percent of what there is out there to experience so if that's true i want to make sure that my 10 percent is awesome so i'm all about taking risks trying new things meeting new people moving to new places that i've never been before and indulging in that culture and um starting from scratch and and building my way up i'm all for a new challenge you know so you don't mind starting from scratch no i love it it's not scary for you no no i've gotten over the fear really early you know um with a lot of trial and error and failing ups and downs and an entrepreneurial kind of path you've learned that if you're down you can get back up absolutely down is just a learning experience you know there's so much to take from from the down so that the next time you're up you can get a little higher than you were in the past let's listen to the way michael used the expression power move so i just made a power move with a couple thousand dollars in my pocket michael said that he made a power move with just a couple thousand dollars in his pocket he moved to colorado a power move is an important decision or action that has a big impact an aggressive decision that shows confidence and strength here's an example sentence in what may be the power move of all power moves michael jackson kicked off his 1993 halftime show at the rose bowl by literally just standing on stage doing absolutely nothing for about two minutes and you probably know that we can say a couple of when we mean two or approximately two so i just made a power move with a couple thousand dollars in my pocket we can say can i ask you a couple of questions or this will only take a couple of minutes just a few minutes listen to the way michael used the expression beat up he said beat up minivan bought a beat up minivan and just drove to the mountains this is a minivan and a beat up minivan is an old car that is damaged or is in bad condition and you can say i bought a beat up old car that only cost a couple of thousand dollars and some of you may be wondering why did i not put an s for costs why not the car costs because this is in the past tense we don't say costed it's an irregular verb that's why there is no s at the end of cost it's in the past tense the next expression is to start from scratch let's listen to the way michael used it just to try something new when i got there again started from scratch do you remember this expression when ashley used it i interviewed ashley about one year ago and i taught you the expression to start from scratch so we might as well just start from scratch and that means to start from the beginning to start from nothing you can say this project isn't working let's start from scratch when they moved to the u.s they left everything behind and they started from scratch they came to the u.s with nothing they had no house or no job or no friends they started from scratch the next expression michael used is to fend for myself let's listen learned how to fend for myself if you fend for yourself that means you take care of yourself without any help without anyone's support when his parents died he had to fend for himself my parents are paying for my health insurance but otherwise i have to fend for myself the next expression is a slang expression to freak out let's listen to michael not fail and freak out if you freak out you panic you get scared or you have a strong emotional response you're shocked and you lose control of yourself usually it's bad but sometimes it can be good when i heard the news i freaked out he freaked out and started screaming at everybody when i saw my favorite actor i started freaking out michael said that he learned to fail and not freak out he's not worried about failure because he trusts that everything will be okay if he continues to be positive and work hard let's go on to the next expression this is a good one trial and error let's listen to how michael used it it comes from trial and error and that is where my fear kind of diminished when you do things by trial and error you try to find the best way to solve a problem by trying different methods you learn from your mistakes and you keep improving you can say how did you become such a good photographer just by trial and error i learned by myself nobody else taught me have you learned anything by trial and error let's go on to the next expression it's the expression pretty much let's listen to how michael used it and i said i can do pretty much anything michael said and i can pretty much do anything pretty much means almost nearly you can say are you finished pretty much how are these two cars different they're pretty much the same let's listen to how some other people used pretty much and then i thought i'd pretty much said everything i needed to say it ends up being pretty much the same thing let's listen to the way michael used the expression to put one's mind to he said to put our minds to we all have the ability to do anything we really put our minds to and i believe that so wholeheartedly michael said we have the ability to do pretty much anything that we put our minds to and if you put your mind to something it means that you will decide to do something and you will try very hard to achieve it you put a lot of effort in achieving your goal you can say to put your mind to or to set your mind to and i know that you can improve your english if you put your mind to it let's look at the next word this is a great word i'd like you to learn this one wholeheartedly let's listen to the way michael used it we all have the ability to do anything we really put our minds to and i believe that so wholeheartedly michael said that we can do anything we want to if we put our minds to it and he believes that wholeheartedly let's look at the pronunciation of this word first let's look at the word heart when we add the ed we say hearted hearted heartedly wholeheartedly let's say that again wholeheartedly and that means without any hesitation completely with my whole heart you can say i agree with you wholeheartedly let's listen to the way some other people used it i believed i knew wholeheartedly what was good and i wholeheartedly agree with him let's listen to the way he used the verb to lead he used it in the past tense and he said led let's listen when you connect that idea with a place like los angeles where all the opportunity lies that's where magic can really happen and that's what really led me here he said that's what led me to come here so we have lead led led and that means that's what motivated me to come here when you ask someone a question instead of saying why did you come here you can say what led you here or you can also say what brought you here same meaning in the next clip that you will watch michael talks about riding a motorcycle in los angeles compared to riding a motorcycle in new york he uses a lot of interesting expressions related to transportation that i would like to teach you let's watch the clip and then i will come back and i will teach you the expressions all right here's michael on his motorcycle you get around in la on a motorcycle yeah so i sold my car my rv and i'm it's just me and my bike very very nice motorcycle do you love it i love it it's great the freedom on a bike is like none other really and what's great about la versus the east coast in new york is people actually get out of your way and they're very aware of motorcycles on the road because it's actually legal to split in between the lanes out here where in new york people might want to bump you and there's a lot of road rage out there oh really yeah here it's a little bit more accepting so it's a little safer as well and uh the weather is nice and the weather you can't go anywhere else and ride a motorcycle all year long so i love it it's great let's listen to the way i use to get around get around in la on a motorcycle i asked michael do you get around in la on a motorcycle to get around means to travel to move from place to place to go to different places you can say in this city it's very difficult to get around if you don't have a car do you know what an rv is let's listen to the way michael used it yeah so i sold my car my rv and it's just me and my bike michael said i sold my car and my rv an rv is a recreational vehicle it's also called a camper or a motorhome you can live in it or when you take a vacation you can sometimes rent it and you can travel to different places and you sleep in it you can say we rented an rv and we traveled all over the united states he said it's just me and my bike now bike has a couple of different meanings it can mean either a bicycle or a motorcycle it's just me and my bike so if someone says i bought a bike maybe they bought a bicycle or maybe they bought a motorcycle let's go on to the next expression michael said like none other freedom on a bike is like none other michael said the freedom on a bike is like none other it's very special it's unique nothing else compares to it you can say that performance was like none other you can also use it in a negative way you can say something like this because of the pandemic the year 2020 was like none other it was very unique it was very different you might know the expression to get out of someone's way let's listen to the way michael said it he said get out of your way great about l.a versus the east coast in new york is people actually get out of your way michael said when he's riding his motorcycle in la people get out of your way to get out of your way means to move out of your path to move to the side when you're blocking someone when you're blocking someone's path so you can say am i in your way i'm sorry i will get out of your way can you please get out of the way i can't see the tv screen and michael told me riding a motorcycle in new york is very different from riding a motorcycle in los angeles the cars get out of your way in los angeles listen to the way michael used the word lane and make sure you don't confuse it with the word line that's a common mistake very aware of motorcycles on the road because it's actually legal to split in between the lanes michael said that it's legal to split between lanes in los angeles and this is a lane on the highway you have different lanes sometimes you have one lane and sometimes you have three or four lanes don't confuse the word lane with the word line this is a line and this is a lane you can say there's a line between the lanes in los angeles the freeways sometimes have five lanes going in one direction i turn on my blinker before i change lanes let's listen to the way michael used the expression to bump into where new york people might want to bump you and there's a lot of road rage out there michael said that people in new york might want to bump into motorcycles to bump into is to hit something very lightly for example when one car hits another car just a little bit that is to bump into and michael said in new york the drivers sometimes like to bump into motorcycles that sounds pretty dangerous to me let's listen to the way michael used the expression road rage there's a lot of road rage out there michael said that there's a lot of road rage in new york do you know what road rage means do you know what rage means rage means a lot of anger if someone is very angry they have a lot of rage so road rage is anger between drivers sometimes they yell or they honk their horn or they make gestures with their hands but occasionally it gets more violent than that and they do something that could be dangerous and that angry behavior on the road is called road rage there's a lot more road rage in big cities compared to small towns michael says that los angeles has less road rage than new york and the final expression is all year long let's listen to michael and the weather you can't go anywhere else and ride a motorcycle all year long so i love it it's great michael says that he really likes los angeles he says you can't go anywhere else where you can ride a motorcycle all year long and all year long means continuously without stopping for the entire year you can also say all day long i worked all day long yesterday i've been studying for the test all week long i recommend that you practice these expressions and make your own sentences and i will keep making similar videos i have other interviews coming soon make sure that you subscribe to this channel and click on the notification bell so that you get a notification when a new video comes thanks for watching and keep practicing your english to get the two courses the american accent course and the 400 advanced words you must know for fluent english go to accurateenglish.com

Channel: AccurateEnglish

Views: 266,695

Keywords: native speakers in LA, English conversation, real people in LA, idiomatic expressions, english idioms, English slang, fluent English, ESL, TOEFL, TOEIC, IELTS, Lisa Mojsin, slang words, like a native, understand native speakers, advanced English, advanced ESL, mastering the american accent, american English, English vocabulary

Id: SrPznQoGH1Y

Length: 18min 36sec (1116 seconds)

Published: Sat May 22 2021