Learn Popular American English Idioms

Hi friends, welcome back to English with Kayla. My name is Kayla. I'm an American English teacher and today I have a long list of idioms that I use in my English conversations and I'm going to teach you all about them. Let's get started. A spitting image. A spitting image means that something is the exact double of someone else or it could be a thing or a place as well. For instance, you could say to somebody that they are the spitting image of their father or they are the spitting image of their uncle or she's the spitting image of her mom. This means that they look exactly alike. Fed up. If you are fed up with somebody or something, it means you are annoyed at the way that they are treating you or you're just annoyed with the situation in general. If you go to an airport, you might get fed up with the security in the United States. It's a long line and you always have to take things out of your bag. It can be very annoying and sometimes you just get fed up. If you're fed up and you're tired of waiting, you might say let's get this show on the road. When you say this phrase, let's get this show on the road, it means let's begin this activity or let's begin this event. Oftentimes, if there is somebody that's leading a meeting or if they're leading an event or they're at a concert and they want to get everybody excited to get started, they'll say let's get this show on the road. Maybe at the airport, if you are getting angry with the security agent, I suggest you be patient. But you could say let's get this show on the road. Let's get going. Push your luck. If you push your luck, it means you think you're going to get lucky. So you're doing something that's a risk. It's not good to always push your luck. Oftentimes, criminals will push their luck and they'll keep robbing a store meaning they're like a burglar and they're stealing things and eventually they'll get caught because you can't rely on your luck. And when you're doing things that are illegal, you're going to get caught. A tall order. If you go to Starbucks, the smallest size is called a tall. It's the strangest thing in my opinion. And this idiom has nothing to do with that really. I just wanted to add that into this lesson. A tall order means it's a difficult task. Something that is difficult to do can be called a tall order. If you've ever put a paper or an essay off until the night that it's due or the night before, it is a tall order to try to finish it in one day. A 2,000 word essay would be a tall order to finish in one evening. I'm sure people have done it before. Brush up. So sometimes when you're learning a language, especially I'm sure you can relate, you have mastered some vocabulary, but then you forgot to use it for a while and you forgot it. You were so good at it before, but now you need to brush up on it. If you brush up on something, it means that you are studying or relearning a skill that you once knew very well. Personally, I have not played soccer since I was in high school many, many years ago. And so I've been trying to brush up on my soccer skills. I've been trying to practice and get better again. A very dramatic way to say that you are going to end something or stop it is to say you are going to put an end to it. Oftentimes in movies, they can say I'm going to put an end to them. It means you're going to stop them or they're going to cease to exist. Putting an end to something means you're going to stop it. A good example for this one is if you're thinking about soccer again, there could be two teams playing and maybe they're playing in a playoff. So if one team wins, it will put an end to the other team's season. That will be the end for them. One team is putting an end to the other. When we think of stirring something, we think of cooking usually, but to stir up an emotion means to bring up an emotion or to remind someone of an emotion. Stirring up a crowd can also mean exciting a crowd or getting them very emotional. So we use this idiom, stir up with emotions. You could think about a person in the military watching the news and there is an image of war on the news. That would stir up some pretty negative emotions. Since we're talking about emotions, let's talk about the idiom strike a chord. A chord is, you know, the sound that you make when you play several music notes together. So you can play chords on the guitar and you can play chords on the piano. I'm not very musically talented myself, but that's what a chord is. When we use this as an idiom, it means you're going to affect someone's emotion and we don't always use this idiom in a negative way, but you could say that really struck a chord with me, meaning it brought up negative emotions. Or if you're trying to motivate people to do something, if you're trying to motivate people to be empathetic, for instance, seeing hungry children in the street could really strike a chord with people to become more generous. I have a few more very useful idioms to teach you today that have the word strike in them. So let's review them. The first one is to strike up a conversation. If you strike up a conversation, it just means you spontaneously start a conversation that's usually friendly in nature. So you can strike up a conversation with a stranger or you can strike up a conversation with someone that you know, but you're not necessarily best friends with. Usually if you're trying to strike up a conversation, you're trying to talk to someone more casually. So you might say that you're going to strike up a conversation with your boss about a new policy or something just so you can talk to them in a more casual friendly way. You can also strike up a friendship. Usually when you strike up a friendship, it means that you are becoming friends with someone that you would not have expected to be friends with. So again, you can strike up a friendship with a stranger and they will no longer be a stranger. Or you could strike up a friendship with your co-worker and they can be your work friend. I personally always love striking up new friendships in college with people in my classes because then you would have someone to study with and work on group projects with. This next idiom, keep in touch, is something that I am not very good at. I'm not very good at keeping in touch with people. If you keep in touch with someone, it means you keep in contact with them. You talk to them. So you can keep in touch with someone after moving away. If they move to a new city, they might say keep in touch and maybe you two will chat on Facebook or Instagram or you'll exchange text messages and agree to meet up in the future. You guys are doing a good job of keeping in touch. When you go to school, you always try to keep in touch with your friends over the summer. A very natural way to say that you have fell or you're going to fall is to say you're going to take a spill or you took a spill. A spill just means a fall, but it means a pretty bad fall. So if the floor is slippery, you could take a spill like a drink and fall onto the floor. I'll link my podcast right here where I talk about a very bad spill that I took and I broke my arm. What tips do you have when it comes to kicking a habit? Now, obviously this is not a literal kick. This is not like a soccer ball. To kick something means to get rid of it. So to kick a habit means to get rid of the habit, to stop doing it. Long ago, I was trying to kick the habit of biting my nails and in order to kick this habit, I just had to start getting manicures. I had to pay for them because then I didn't want to bite my nails because I'd paid for a nice manicure. And if you're not familiar, a manicure is when someone else paints your fingernails and files them and takes care of them. When you kick a habit, you stop doing that habit or you stop doing that behavior. A really casual and natural way that you can say it's your turn to act in the situation is to say the ball is in your court. So I think of this as basketball, but I suppose this could be talking about tennis as well. The ball is in your court. It's your turn to act. After a job interview, usually send whoever interviewed you a thank-you note and then the ball is in their court. They have to respond to you and they have to either invite you to interview more or they have to offer you the job. It's their turn to act and they have to communicate. The ball is in their court. When you want to say that you know something very well, you know exactly how it works or you have memorized every part of it, you can say that you know it inside and out. If you are an excellent driver, you will know the rules of the road inside and out. That means you know them very well. If you tend to avoid something because you're nervous, you're shy, you're a little bit scared, it means that you are shying away from it. This idiom can be used in a positive or a negative way. So for instance, you could say the Kardashians, they never shy away from the paparazzi. This means they never avoid the paparazzi or the press, the people that are taking pictures of them. You can also say I tend to shy away from sugary drinks. This means that you don't drink things like pop and juice because you're trying to have good health. This next saying is very similar to let's get this show on the road. The saying is let's get the ball rolling. Just like a ball starts rolling if you move it, if you want an activity to start, you can say let's get the ball rolling. Let's start motion. Let's start some movement. Whenever I am hungry and it's time for dinner, I tell myself let's get the ball rolling. Let's start making dinner because sometimes it's hard to get up and start cooking when you're hungry. Have you ever had to throw in the towel when something is just too difficult? Throwing in the towel means that you are quitting a difficult task or you're being defeated. Oftentimes if fighters are very beat up in a fight like a boxing or an MMA fight, their team will throw in the towel. This means that they quit. They are just too defeated and too injured to keep fighting. You can make someone's day by giving them a very genuine and very nice compliment. The idiom make my day or to make my day means that you are making someone's day very good by your actions or your words. So this idiom implies that someone's day would be very boring and by doing something kind for them, you have made their day better or made their day exciting. You can even change this idiom to say you have made my week. This means this is the best part of my week or you have made my year or if you are very dramatic or very excited about something, you can say you have made my life. That would be something very exciting or something very awesome. Sometimes in life we have those people that we think are infallible. They can make no mistakes and we tend to put them on a pedestal. This idiom on a pedestal means that something to us is perfect or if someone else is talking about a person or a thing like it is the best and it can do no wrong in life, they are putting it on a pedestal. Sometimes we put celebrities or politicians on a pedestal and we think that they cannot make mistakes, but the truth is they are people like us too and they make mistakes all the time. So it's never good to put something on a pedestal. This next idiom is definitely a sports idiom. I believe it comes from track. When you are running a race, they usually shoot a gun in the air, of course without a bullet, and you hear that sound and then you start running. Now if you run before that sound, you are jumping the gun. In life, if you start something before the appropriate time, you are jumping the gun. I know people that jump the gun and start putting up Christmas decorations in October. Do you know anyone like this? This is totally jumping the gun in my opinion. This next idiom, it's a small world, can also sometimes just be shortened to small world. When you say small world or it's a small world, it means that we are very connected in this world and even though it seems like there's so many people on the earth, we're very closely related. So for instance, if you go on vacation into another country and you saw your neighbor on that vacation, they just happened to be in the same place at the same time, you can say, wow, small world. What are the chances that we both happen to be here? And oftentimes if you are traveling in a different country and you meet someone and you get into a conversation and they say, oh, I know a person by this name, you go, that person, that's my brother. You can say, wow, small world that you happen to know my brother, even though you are from a different country. And I truly believe it is a small world. We are so connected, especially by the internet today. Do you eat, sleep, and breathe English? I hope so if you're studying with me. If you eat, sleep, and breathe something, it means you spend an incredible amount of energy on something. This idiom is just a way to emphasize that a person really has a passion about something or they're very interested in something like a hobby or a skill. An artist might eat, sleep, and breathe painting. They are just so passionate about it that it takes up their whole life. If you are too slow to take advantage of an opportunity, it means you have missed the boat. This idiom is talking about missing an imaginary boat. It's like you showed up too late to get on the boat and the boat has already left. Another way to say this idiom is to say the ship has sailed. This means that whatever the opportunity was has gone away, just like a boat will sail away from you. You might hear someone who is interested in investing say, I missed the boat on investing in Bitcoin many years ago, or I missed the boat on investing in Apple when it was worth much less. Something like that. This means that you missed a very good opportunity. And for your opportunity, the ship has sailed. Sometimes if you're a hard worker and you have to work very late into the night, someone might tell you you are burning the midnight oil. Usually if you're reading, studying, or just doing any sort of work long into the nighttime hours because you work so much, we describe that as burning the midnight oil. You can think about this idiom like you have a lamp on an old-fashioned lamp that burns oil. You're burning that past midnight. Oftentimes students in universities will burn the midnight oil a week leading up to the test because they're just trying to get a good grade in the class. An interesting idiom is to pick someone's brain. If you pick someone's brain, it puts an interesting image in my head. It really just means that you're asking someone a lot of different questions in order to learn some information about something. So if you are trying to learn about English idioms, you could say to me, can I pick your brain about a few different English phrases? This just means can I ask you a lot of questions since you're knowledgeable on this topic. So if you need to ask someone who is very knowledgeable about something a lot of questions, you can say, can I pick your brain? And they would know this means that you're going to ask them many questions to try to learn some new information. If it's your first time meeting someone and the meeting hasn't gone very well, and it actually feels like there is some negative feelings towards one another, you can stop the conversation and you can say, I'm sorry, I feel like we've gotten off on the wrong foot. To get off on the wrong foot means there were some circumstances that made a meeting negative if you meet someone for the first time. But usually you say this phrase if you want to kind of start over and you want to have a more positive attitude with another person and you want to be friends in a way. Usually when we use this phrase we say, I'm sorry that we got off on the wrong foot. And you can think of this phrase as if you were dancing with another person and you started on the wrong foot. It's like that, but you started your conversation in the wrong way and you're going to try to start over so that you guys can be friends. It feels like in the last couple years when you make plans, they can really be up in the air due to the pandemic. When things are up in the air, we're not sure exactly what's going to happen and we don't have a solid plan of what we're doing. It's kind of like things are unresolved. Oftentimes when people say, what are you doing this weekend? I might say, my plans are up in the air. I'm not really sure. I'm deciding between two things. It's up in the air. If it's up in the air, it means there's no plan and it's unresolved. This idiom, with a grain of salt, is very important because oftentimes people give this as a disclaimer when they are sharing their opinion about something. For example, they could say something like, the color red is very out of style right now, but take that with a grain of salt because I don't stay very updated on the trends. They are giving a disclaimer with this phrase, a grain of salt. A grain of salt is very small. So they're saying, my opinion is not worth much. It's worth a very small amount. And I have red nails today. So I think that's what I was thinking of with this example. Oftentimes when you're tired and you've had a long day, you really just need to zone out. When you zone out, it's like your brain is in a different zone. It's out of your head. Zone out means you're thinking of nothing and you're not really being productive, but sometimes it's important to zone out. It can be bad when kids are watching TV and they're just zoning out. They're not actually thinking or reading or doing anything that's going to help them learn. They're just zoning out. So when you're zoning out, it's like your brain is completely blank. If you have a trait or a characteristic that is really common in your family, maybe your mother has it and your grandmother has it and all of her sisters have it and all of your sisters and brothers have it, you can say, it runs in the family. This phrase, run in the family or runs in the family, means that there is a trait or a characteristic that comes from your genetics. And sometimes it can be like, stubbornness runs in my family. This means that everyone in your family seems to be stubborn, so much so that it seems like it's genetic. Or you can just say something simple like, brown eyes run in my family. That means a lot of people in your family have brown eyes, so it must be genetic. If you are a very sympathetic person, you're very good at listening, especially in sad situations, you are a good shoulder to cry on. So this idiom, in my head, could be literal. Someone could be leaning on your shoulder and crying in a sad situation. But oftentimes we use this just to say to someone that if they need someone to talk to and to share their feelings and their sadness with, that you can be a shoulder to cry on. So after someone has a death in their family, you could say to them, if you need a shoulder to cry on, you can always call me. If you want to make peace with someone, you can say that you are going to bury the hatchet. The hatchet is a weapon. So by burying it underground, it would mean that you are no longer going to fight. Of course, this is a very figurative idiom. There's no real hatchet. But if you're just going to say that you're going to stop arguing and you're going to put your problems aside, you could say, let's bury the hatchet. This is an excellent way to just say, let's stop our argument. Let's end our feud. The opposite of burying a hatchet is to burn bridges. Again, this is very figurative language. So if you burn a bridge, you would no longer be able to cross it. If you burn a bridge in a relationship, it means you are no longer able to call that friend or that colleague to ask them for advice or to be friendly. You are having such a bad argument and you are saying maybe such offensive things that you are burning the bridge. It is never a good idea to burn bridges because you never know in life who you will need to ask for help. Instead of saying that you are sick in English, if you want to just generally say that you are not feeling well, you might have a cold or just a simple flu, you can say I am under the weather. If you want to say that you just are feeling a little bit off and a little bit sick, you will often say I am a bit under the weather today. If you are recovering from an illness and you're just starting to feel better, you can say I am a bit under the weather still. In a conversation, sometimes you will lose focus on the main problem or the main idea that you're talking about and you get a bit off track. When we talk about being off track in a conversation, it means that we are digressing. It means we're not talking about what we're supposed to be. We've started talking about a completely different topic and we need to get back on the track. Just like a train would run on tracks, if it got off the tracks, it would be very bad. And this actually creates another idiom, off the rails. If someone or something is off the rails, it means they are talking about things that don't make sense or they're a little bit crazy and a little bit out there. Because if a train gets off the tracks or off the rails, it's very bad and it's very chaotic. So maybe next time you're in a meeting and someone starts talking about something they did with their boyfriend or their girlfriend the night before and it's not related to the main topic at all, you can say you are so off track right now. Or can you get on the rails? You got totally off the rails just now. That is just a really natural way to say let's get back on topic. We were so off topic before. Be careful with this next idiom. If someone is angry about something and you think they have a bad attitude about it, you can say they are bent out of shape. So I think of this idiom like a paperclip. If you take a paperclip and bend it, it's out of shape. You can say why are you so bent out of shape about this? This means why do you have such a bad attitude about it? If you describe something as a date with destiny, it is like destiny or your future or what you're supposed to be doing as a person and you are going on a date with them. You are in love. A date with destiny usually is a positive thing. It means that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and you can describe something as a date with destiny. Thank you guys so much for watching this English lesson with me. My name is Kayla. Make sure you've subscribed to my channel so that I can teach you tons of natural English phrases and make sure to watch my other idioms video. It has 50 English idioms that are very popular in the United States and American speakers use them all the time. It will be on screen right here. So go ahead and click over there and best of luck studying.