Everyday Idioms & Expressions Used in Britain

[Music] all right you lot let's talk about idioms idioms idioms idioms they cause a few problems for me so as well as teaching pronunciation another thing which is heavily involved within my pronunciation course is native expressions and idioms and phrasal verbs and the one problem that I have with my students is people tend to learn especially in school in other countries people tend to learn idioms which we don't actually use anymore some idioms can sound really outdated so today here for you I have the perfect list of idioms that people use in the UK today right now everyday general expressions that we can use okay idiomatic expressions and of course a quick disclaimer I do need to tell you that these idioms are informal you cannot use them really in a formal situation so well let's get straight into it I'm going to give you a situation for this first idiom I work at home okay I live in quite a small place because I work at home I spend all of my time at home I don't really get to go outside and I find that staying inside all day it tends to drive me round the bend and that's right that's the idiom drives me round the bend something can drive you round the bend and this basically means that something can make you really bored or really angry or annoyed about something so people could also drive you round the bend which means they just make you a bit frustrated a bit annoyed and sometimes bored next idiom does your head in or does my head in or doing my head in if something does your head in then it's something that really annoys you so this one is quite related to the last one I want you to use the idiom in the comments and I want you to tell me one thing that people do that really does your head in now listen to the connected speech between Dee and I on head and in does my head in we move the D to the beginning of the next word does my head in because the combination of consonant and vowel always pushes together so it does my head in head in so one thing that really does my head in is when people chew really loudly when they're eating you know that kind of yeah I can't stand that so annoying I hate it guys if you're chewing chew quietly close your mouth and enjoy your food I don't need to enjoy your food with you so yeah if something does your head in it annoys you that's it now this one is used a lot I actually heard this one yesterday from a friend he said he was feeling under the weather now pronunciation under the weather under the weather I think a lot of you probably already know what this one is if you're under the weather then you're feeling sick so I could call my friend and say are I'm feeling under the weather today and sometimes in UK we also say that we're feeling rough or I feel quite rough today and that just means I'm not feeling great I just feel a bit sick hungover tired a great one to practice this is a mini tongue twister practice the th sound my mother is feeling under the weather it's perfect for the schwa sound and for the th sound try and do it faster my mother is feeling under the weather so yeah if you're under the weather you feel sick I want you to think right now think of a time when you were really really happy some great news that you received something great that happened if you want to share it with me write it in the comments but instead of saying that you were extremely happy about this situation you could say that you were over the moon pronunciation over the moon over the moon for example I was over the moon when I discovered ETJ English on YouTube thank you really really common one at the end of the day at the end of the day of the day so if we're explaining something to someone and we want to finally kind of skip what we've been explaining and give the final piece of information the most important part of the story the result the thing that we're talking about we would say at the end of the day before for example my parents want me to become a doctor but at the end of the day it's my decision so it's like saying no matter what after all of this the main result the most important thing is it's my decision if I want to be a doctor really common this one if you use that expression people will love you they'll think you're using a real native expression right there if someone's really annoying or they're acting stupid then I could tell them they need to get a grip it's kind of similar to when people say grow up you know when someone is acting stupid and they need to get a grip and it basically means to make an effort to take control of your emotions so if someone's crying constantly because they're they've just broken up with their girlfriend or boyfriend and they're really sad and they won't stop crying and there's been weeks and weeks and they're still crying I might just need to say are come on you need to get a grip or I might say come on get a grip of yourself control yourself you know move on continue behave calmly so we usually do this as a command we'll tell someone they need to get a grip I could also say I need to get a grip of a situation which basically means yeah I need to control myself in this situation I need to control my emotions now have you ever heard the idiom a piece of cake that was a piece of cake it means that something was really easy now I'm not teaching you this one today no no no no this is more American if you want to sound more British you actually want to use quite a vulgar term using the word piss so instead of cake we actually say that was a piece of piss pronunciation the word of is not important so we replace it with a kind of schwa sound so instead of saying piece of piss we would say piece of piss piece of piss means it was really easy but what if I told you that someone was taking the piss if someone is taking the piss then it usually means that they're mocking someone or joking about someone or something when I was younger I used to work in a retail job before I became a teacher and there was a guy who worked in this job and he had a SIV and I mean massive forehead his forehead was huge right so we always used to take the piss out of him we used to make jokes about his forehead take the piss okay and we used to say that we could ride his head like a surfboard because it was so big we could surf on his forehead I know it sounds bad but this is a bit of a culture lesson now in the UK we have this thing called banter and it's a very common way that friends or people have fun with each other if you're comfortable with someone then you might find that they will take the piss out of you they'll make jokes about you and it sounds like bullying it sounds horrible but it's actually showing that you're friends with each other you know if someone told me all you've got long hair you look like a girl I would be offended but if one of my friends or somebody uncomfortable with you know decided to start calling me Ellie or something you know a female name I would laugh because I know it's just my friend saying it and they're being friendly so yeah we have this thing where we take the piss out of each other make jokes about each other and you can say to someone ah don't take the piss and that basically means stop so there you go there's your idioms don't forget you can join my pronunciation course at ETJ english comm start improving your spoken English and if you did enjoy the lesson don't forget to give me a thumbs up hit the subscribe button turn notifications on and I will see you in the next video cheers guys Oh [Music]

Channel: ETJ English

Views: 831,160

Keywords: etj, etj english, idioms, modern english, british english, pronunciation, british pronunciation, english expressions, british expressions, english lesson, vocabulary, expressions

Id: dfFMlDhkDpk

Length: 8min 20sec (500 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 08 2018