Lesson 3 | Idioms 7 - 9

Welcome to episode three of English idioms with Teacher Tiffany. Remember, in this weekly series, you will learn three new English idioms each and every week. So let's jump right in to our first idiom. All right, idiom number one. Get a foot in the door. Once again, get a foot in the door. Now, this idiom means to make an initial contact, to obtain an opportunity, or to attain the initial stage of development, okay? Get a foot in the door. Now, we're gonna look at the examples to give us a better understanding. So the first example is an internship might not sound very interesting, but it's a great way to get your foot in the door. Now, I have the perfect example for this idiom. So when I was in university, I had an internship, and my internship was actually with NASA. So for those of you who have seen my life story on my Facebook, I'm sorry, YouTube channel, Speak English with Tiffany, you'll remember my story about how I left NASA to become an English teacher. But prior to that, I was in university years ago, and I had an internship with NASA. So when I graduated, NASA called me and asked me if I wanted to work with them. Why? Because that internship I had when I was in university was a foot into the door. It gave me an opportunity. I had the upper hand or a benefit because I had already worked for them as an intern. So that's what it means to get your foot in the door. All right, let's go back and look at our next example. Here we go. The next one is having a good education will get your foot in the door. Okay, again, with this example, it's just explaining how when you're looking for a job, whoever has the highest education or qualification is usually going to be the one who gets the job. Now, that may be in certifications or maybe in degrees, but whoever has the most amount of education usually gets the job. They get their foot in the door because of their education, okay? All right, let's move on to the third example. Here we go. Can you help me get my foot in the door? Once again, can you help me get my foot in the door? So again, this person is asking someone if they can help them get a better opportunity or chance of getting a specific job, okay? So again, the idiom is get your foot in the door or get a foot in the door. All right, let's move on to the second idiom. The second idiom is get it off your chest. Once again, get it off your chest. Now, this means to speak about or confess something that is troubling you in order to feel better after releasing your burden, okay? Now, this is a wonderful idiom for you guys to understand, and it's actually a little bit easy to understand. So I want you to think about this. Your chest is this area right here. Your heart, right, is inside of this area as well. So I want you to think about when something is bothering you, when something is worrying you. You're thinking about it a lot, but there's another metaphor we use in English, feeling like something is burdening you or on your chest, something is heavy on your chest. So whatever you're worrying about, you want to tell someone about it. You want to express it to someone else. You want to get it off of your chest. All right, so let's jump into the first example and see exactly how we can use it, okay? So here we go. I can see that something is bothering you, so why don't you get it off your chest and tell me, okay? In this example, the person wants them to express what is bothering them, okay? Next we have, I have a lot to get off of my chest. Now, this is a very good example because in a relationship, a husband and a wife, maybe the wife is a little bit upset about something. Something is bothering her. Something is constantly being on her mind, and she wants to tell her husband about it. She wants to get it off of her chest, whatever is bothering her or worrying her. The same, my husband can do the same thing. If there's something that he's bothered by, he can tell me the same thing. He can get it off of his chest, okay? So try to use this idiom in a regular conversation or when you think of a scenario in your own life, okay? All right, back to our next example. The next example is, the woman looked like she had a lot to get off of her chest. So she looked like she was worried about something, all right? And our final idiom is, get off my back. Once again, get off my back. It means a way to tell someone to stop criticizing you or putting pressure on you. So let's jump right into the example sentence, here we go. He kept annoying me, so I told him to get off my back. All right, so let's think about a situation or a scenario where there are children in school, okay? And sometimes there's a bully and the bully always annoys or picks on one student over and over and over, constantly criticizing or bothering that student. This student can say, hey, get off my back. It means stop bothering me, okay? All right, now let's go to our next example. Here we go, the next example is, I wish my boss would get off my back. So again, in your environment, if you are working at an office or wherever you're working, your boss can also be on your back and you want him or her off your back. Now, you have to be careful. In a work environment, it can be rude to say to your boss. Now to your friend or to someone you don't necessarily care for, you can use this idiom, but you wanna be careful. It can come off as rude if you're saying it to your superior or your boss, okay? All right, now the next example, our next example is, the man would not get off their back. Again, the man kept criticizing or bothering them, okay? So again, get off my back. All right, so again, this week we learned three new idioms. I really want you guys to try to use them at least one time today or this week. All right, I'll talk to you guys in the next episode.