23 USEFUL English idioms and phrases

If you want to feel more confident and natural when you speak English, it's very important to study a variety of phrases and learning new English idioms like the ones that I'll teach you today will really help beef up or improve your English speaking. Let's get started with this English lesson. Make sure if you want a copy of these English idioms, their definitions, and some practice sentences to subscribe below to my email list and you'll receive that right to your inbox. Now let's get started with our lesson. On a roll. When you hear an English speaker say that they are on a roll, it means they're experiencing a lot of success. A lot of success consecutively, they are on a roll. It's like their success just keeps going and going. After winning three games in a row, the team felt like they were on a roll. Linda got three promotions at work and now she feels like she's on a roll in her career. Ever since James started his diet, he's been losing weight every week and he's on a roll. Once you learn all of these English idioms, you'll feel like you're on a roll with your English. Now let's move on to the next phrase. Second nature. This is definitely an English phrase that's used all of the time. You might have a phrase very similar to in your first language. If something is second nature, it means it comes so naturally or easily to you. It's like a habit. It's almost like breathing, but not quite of course. So breathing, eating, sleeping, those things would be first nature. But let's say you're really good at your job. It comes very easily to you. You're one of the best people in your work position. You could say, my work is like second nature to me. After years of playing music, the piano is just second nature to some people. Driving a car is second nature to most adults. My husband is so good at math, it's like second nature to him. Successful cover becomes almost second nature. A really funny thing that American English speakers will say if someone is correct or they got a really difficult answer and you think they're right, you can say bingo. Now normally we play the game of bingo, which is where there is a number and a letter called out and you try to get five in a row on your bingo card. Maybe you've played the game before and when you get the five in a row, you win the game, you say bingo. Now if you want to tell someone that they are exactly correct and they're answering kind of a difficult question or a question that you didn't think they could exactly answer and you're excited, you can yell bingo or someone might yell bingo at you when you get the right answer. When you lose your wallet, your keys, or your phone, you may search your house for hours and when you finally find it, you could yell bingo because you are just so excited and you finally found the correct place where it was. When something is broken, maybe you can't fix your computer and you finally find a solution, you might yell out bingo finally. So it's just a very excited exclamation expression that we use quite often in English. Oh bingo. When you want to say that you are going to be strong in your decision, you're not going to change your mind, you made a decision, you made a choice, and you're going to support that choice continually, you can say you are going to stand by it. When you stand by something, you support it. So you can stand by a person or you can stand by a decision that you've made. Years ago, I decided to start my own English teaching business and I have stood by my decision. I haven't given up. I haven't changed careers because I love doing this. It's important to stand by your friends when they are going through difficult times because they need your support to support your friends. You need to stand by them. I stand by my decision. A really great idiom that's related to sports is to shoot your shot. Maybe you've heard the famous Michael Jordan quote, you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. It goes just like that. This quote means if you don't actually try or attempt to do something, of course you're not going to be able to do it. So trying is better than not trying or shooting your shot is better than not shooting your shot. So we use this phrase to shoot your shot really informally when you're either trying to ask someone on a date romantically. You could say I'm going to shoot my shot. I'm going to ask her out to dinner or you can do it in a way where you're advancing your career. I'm going to apply for that job. I'm going to shoot my shot. It just means you are going to try even though it's kind of a long shot which is another phrase that means it's not likely to happen or it might not be for sure going to happen. So sometimes in life in order to achieve your goals, you have to shoot your shot. Shoot your best shot. When you want to say that someone's going to resist or oppose something, you can say they're going to give pushback. So sometimes at work when someone proposes a new strategy or they present a project and you just don't think it's going to work, you can say I have to push back on you a little bit or you can say I'm going to give you pushback. That means you're going to give opposition or the opposite opinion of what they have. If you've ever heard an English speaker say that somebody has baby fever, it doesn't mean they're sick. It doesn't mean their baby is sick. It just means that they have a really strong desire to start their family. Oftentimes when there's a really cute baby and there is a woman who is maybe married or you know you just think they're in a position in their life where they might want to start their family, you could say is this baby giving you baby fever because they're so cute. So it's just kind of a fun way that we say that somebody wants to have a baby because they think babies are cute and they are just getting older into that stage in their life. You want babies. You have baby fever. Instead of saying that we are going to give a donation or we're going to volunteer some time, in English sometimes we will say instead we are going to give back. So you might work for a company that likes to give to charities. They like to donate money or they have their employees work volunteer jobs for one day out of the year. So you could say my company really likes to give back to charity or my company likes to give back to the community. Many people believe it's important to give back in life. This means either to give your money to people who need it more or to give your time as a volunteer. One phrase that's really important to know in the workplace is if somebody tells you to get after something it means you should pursue it and you should start working hard. So this is quite an informal phrase but it's used quite frequently. We could say he woke up very early in the morning to get after it in the gym. That means to go work hard and exercise in the gym. The team needed to get after it in order to meet their project deadline. That means the team or the group of people at work need to start working hard or they're not going to finish the project by the deadline or the time that they need it. And when I have a to-do list I always tell myself all right let's just get after this to-do list. Let's just get it done. That means I need to start working hard and not procrastinate when I have a long to-do list. Do you have this same problem when you have a lot of things to do? Let's get after it. Come on let's get after it. I love that dress. It's so you. Okay this phrase it's so you. It's a really weird English phrase that we use to say that something matches someone's personality or it matches the way they look and it matches very well. Maybe your friend is one of those people that likes to dress like a rock star. So you see something black and sparkly and you say oh it's so you. That means this piece of clothing it matches the way that you usually dress very well. Maybe you have a friend that is very good at remembering things like birthdays and anniversaries and they get you a gift for your birthday and you say oh it's so you to remember my birthday. This just means that you are really good at remembering things like birthdays. It's so you. So that would be a conhalant to give in this situation. So you. In many movies at the very end the characters will ride off into the sunset. This means that everything that happened in the movie is over. Everything is good now. Everything is triumphant. That means the heroes of the movie have won whatever fight or adventure they were on. We use this phrase to ride off into the sunset in this case. So at the end of almost all the Marvel movies the heroes just ride off into the sunset. That means they have defeated the villains and they win the battle and our movie just ends with them being happy. So this phrase is used a lot with television movies and books. Maybe you think about the day that you can retire from your work or you can sell your business. You might say to yourself I can't wait to the day where I retire and I can ride off into the sunset. That means my life will just be easy and good and it's like you won your life at that point. You. Me. Riding off into the sunset. This next phrase to batten down the hatches. It can be used literally or in a more idiomatic not literal way. Let's talk about it literally first. If there is a storm coming you're going to want to batten down the hatches. That means you want to make sure everything is secured so it will not blow away in the storm whether it's a hurricane or a tornado or just a bad thunderstorm. So it just means you're preparing for a challenging storm and you're protecting everything that you own or in your house. Now let's talk about it how people use it in a less literal more idiomatic way. So you might be thinking to yourself I have a lot of work coming up. I have a lot of different projects that I'm going to have to do at one time. I'm going to be so busy I'm going to have to batten down the hatches. This just means instead of scheduling lots of social outings and things to do outside of work you're going to have to be very focused. You're going to have to go to bed early, wake up early, get to work on time. You're going to have to batten down the hatches. So take your work very seriously. A phrase that I use all of the time when I'm talking about cleaning especially is the phrase from top to bottom. So when you say you're going to clean the house from top to bottom you are just saying you are going to be very thorough. It's like you're starting at the very top of your ceiling and cleaning all the way down to the floor and everything in between. You won't miss anything. So whenever I'm going to have company or guests over to my house I tend to clean the house from top to bottom. You can also use this phrase if you are going to inspect something very closely. So before you buy a wedding ring, a very expensive diamond, you should examine it from top to bottom to make sure there is no damage to it. Or you could say that a company needs to restructure from top to bottom because things are just not going very well. So that means instead of just fixing one part of the company you are going to be very thorough and look at the entire company. And when we're talking about people you can use this next phrase from head to toe. So when you want to say that something is covering you completely like mud you could say I have mud from head to toe. That means all over my body. I'm very dirty. And this doesn't have to be very literal but for the most part if you're using this phrase it means you are completely filthy. I'm dirty from head to toe. Or if you have a rash on your body and it's pretty much all over your body you can say I am itchy from head to toe. So we use this phrase just to mean all over our bodies. When someone says it's common sense this means that there is a concept that should be very easily understood by anyone no matter how smart they are. It's common sense. When you want to tell someone that something should be very obvious to them or someone says this to you be careful because it can come off a little bit rude or snarky to say it's common sense. So you might say it's common sense to wear a seat belt. This means to everyone it should be so obvious that you should wear a seat belt in the car because it makes you safe if you get into an accident. Or you could say it's just common sense to carry an umbrella in case it's going to rain. Or it's common sense that you should try to save money. When you say that someone has slipped up to slip up means to make an error. So this is a really common slang phrase that we use in English. Oftentimes you might hear someone say whoops I slipped up I shouldn't have told you that. That means they told you a secret or a piece of information that they were not supposed to share with you or anyone else. Maybe you have to give a presentation in your work and you feel a lot of pressure you're going to hope that you're not going to slip up during your presentation. That means make any unintentional errors. So this is just a really common casual way that we say that someone has made an unintentional error. They have slipped up. I'm wondering if this next phrase is the same in your language. If you want to say that someone is annoying you a ton you can say they are driving you crazy. So right now there was lawnmowers outside of my house and it was driving me crazy because every time I turned on my camera I would hear another lawnmower. If you've ever had a roommate that doesn't clean their own dishes they may have drove you crazy. That means it annoyed you so much. So just annoying behavior or annoying noises that make us very frustrated we can say they're just driving us crazy. And this is a very common phrase in the United States as well. Whenever you want to visit someone's house not because you were planning on it but because you are close by and you think it's just a convenient time to stop you might say hey I'm going to stop by because I'm in the neighborhood. Or maybe you don't even call or text them before you go to their house. You might knock on their door and they're like what are you doing here? You can say I'm just stopping by. I was in the neighborhood. So this phrase even if it's not literally their neighborhood it's just their area that they live in it's just used to explain why you would casually stop at someone's house just because it's convenient. And it's a really common way to explain this in English. If you want to tell your friend that they should stop by if they're ever close to your house you can say hey stop by if you're ever in the neighborhood. If you are competitive this next idiom is important to know. If you want to say that you are beating someone in a competition or a race very badly you can say you are leaving them in the dust. If you've ever seen the American game show Jeopardy when one contestant is answering all the questions correctly they will win more money than the other contestants and if they get enough correct they'll leave the other contestants in the dust. This just means that they are beating them very badly. The other contestants don't really have a chance to catch up to them. In life it's really important to face your problems head on. This means you should face your problems or deal with your problems without any hesitation. So when we say solve or deal with our problems we can use this phrase face our problems. And then if we want to say we're going to face them directly we're going to deal with them directly without hesitation or procrastination we can say we're going to do it head on. When you were a child maybe you were afraid of the dark and in order to face your problems head on maybe you just turned off the lights and just said I can do it I can be brave. You're facing your problems head on. Or if you have a problem with another person maybe you've had an argument or you thought they had said something about you that was bad to another person you can say you know what I'm just going to face her head on. That means I'm going to talk to her directly to figure out what the problem is. The opposite of facing your problems head on would be asking another person to solve your problem or figure it out for you. If you are not going to deal with a problem or deal with a person that's bothering you or if they say something mean you're not going to say anything to them you can say I'm just going to shrug it off. That means instead of having confrontation you are just going to shrug you're not going to say anything. Sometimes when you get negative feedback if the person who is giving the feedback is not very intelligent you can say well I'll just shrug it off for now. That means you're not going to listen to them you don't find it important you're not going to worry about it you'll just shrug it off. Another way we can use this phrase to slip away is we can talk about time passing and if you want to say that it feels like time is passing quickly you can say it feels like time is just slipping away from me it's like you're trying to grab the time and the memories but things are just slipping away you don't have enough time to finish what you want to do or do oftentimes in the summer it feels like time is slipping away and soon it will be winter soon and finally this phrase to slip away we can talk about someone dying peacefully when they slip away so this is used more rarely but it can be used especially in literature in books and in movies we can say they slipped away this means they died don't go there when you want to tell someone that they should not talk about a topic because it's either kind of sensitive or offensive to someone when they start talking about it you could say oh don't go there that means don't start talking about that topic because it's sensitive maybe your family does not like to discuss politics because in the past you guys have had opposing views and there's been a big argument and maybe you have someone bring up something political at dinner you can say oh don't go there we don't want to have a big argument again let's call it when you want to say that it's the end and you can be finished with something you can say let's call it so maybe you are having an argument with someone and you just think that nobody's ever going to win the argument the other person is never going to agree with you you can say well there's no use in fighting about it let's just call it this just means let's end the argument you can use this at work when you want to finish working on something you can say all right let's just call it for now this means let's be done with it let's call it the end we can also use this phrase at night when we're ready to go to bed we could say let's call it a night and then when we're at work and ready to go home we say let's call it a day so when i teach you these english expressions you might wonder who actually made up these phrases or if you know this expression you might say who coined these phrases so when we say that someone has coined a phrase it means they invented the phrase or the expression in the language so william shakespeare is often credited with coining many phrases that we still use today in english this means he invented these phrases people weren't saying these things before so oftentimes there's a lot of rappers or singers that make up phrases for their songs and they kind of coin the phrases from their songs if you ever watch the show jersey shore it's quite old now it was on mtv it's about people who live in new jersey which is kind of its own place in the united states they liked to go to the gym they like to go tan and then they would go do their so when they were going to do these things they'd say gtl and they coined the phrase gtl and it was quite popular when the show was on tv people would say gtl gym tan laundry when you say to someone out with it it's a command that we use really casually in our conversations to say like come on say the secret or say whatever you want to say we especially use this phrase when we feel like someone maybe just is kind of embarrassed or nervous to talk to us about a certain topic so maybe your friend seems really anxious and worried and you're like what's wrong and they just don't say anything and you're a little bit frustrated you might say out with it what's bothering you this means just tell me now don't worry about what i'm going to think just tell me and another informal phrase that means this exact same thing is spit it out so if you want someone to just say what they mean you don't want them to worry about offending you or you don't want them to worry about what you'll think you just want to hear what they're thinking you can say just spit it out and this doesn't mean obviously to spit it just means talk say what you want to say spit it out now that you have learned all of these popular english phrases in this english lesson you are on a roll keep learning let's go on to the next video which will teach you more popular english phrases you'll see the next on screen make sure to visit englishwithkayla.com you can also sign up for my english course where i'll teach you over 200 new idioms and popular english phrases thanks again for watching i'll see you in the next video goodbye