10 Everyday Idioms for Real Conversations [456]

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In this episode, you’ll learn 10 everyday English idioms that will help you sound more natural and confident in conversation.

These are common idioms used in spoken English when people talk about decisions, effort, trying something new, success, and difficult situations. I explain the meaning of each one clearly and show you how it is used in context, so you can understand it quickly and use it more naturally.

This lesson is ideal for intermediate and upper-intermediate English learners who want to build real-life vocabulary, improve listening, and speak English with more ease in everyday situations.

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Transcript

0:08

Hi there, this is Harry. Welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry, where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language, to help you with your conversational skills, your business English skills, interview skills, whatever your goals are, we're here to help. And for those of you and your friends or family who want one-to-one lessons, well, you know what to do. Just get in touch, www.englishlessonviaskype.com and you can apply for a free try lesson and we'll be very happy to hear from you and very happy to help you. Okay, back to our lesson for today. What is it about? Well, an advanced English lesson, advanced idioms, and these are advanced idioms about trying or attempting, usually trying or attempting something new. And as always, I'm going to go down through the list and we have 10 items on the list. I'll go through them, explain them, and then give you an example as how you can use them. And if you have any questions or you need more examples, then I'll give you the address at the end of this particular lesson. Okay, so we've got 10, as I said. Let's go through them. So first, to take the plunge. Well, when something plunges, it goes down very quickly, like falls. A rock will plunge over the side of the bridge if you drop it, okay? Or a car that comes off a bridge will plunge into the river. So go down very, very fast. When you take the plunge, you do something very quickly, sometimes without thinking or without planning. You go into the boss and you hand in your resignation and he asks you what you're going to do, who you're going to go and work for. Well, actually, nobody. I'm going to travel around the world for the next year or two years. Who knows? I'll see you when I see you. So you take the plunge, hand in the resignation, pack your bag and off you go. We often use the expression to take the plunge when somebody seems to be afraid to get married. He's been going out with that girl for, I don't know, 10 years and he hasn't taken the plunge yet. He hasn't asked her to marry him. She'll go off and she'll marry somebody else. He'll miss the boat. So take the plunge, to do something quickly, often unplanned and unexpectedly. Take the plunge. To feel a rush of something. Often the complete idiom here is to feel a rush of blood to the head. It means something prompts you to do something very quickly. Ah, I've felt a rush of blood and just decided to do it. I've been meaning to do something like this for ages. Yeah, but running a marathon at your age. Well, why not? I'll start training tomorrow. I'll do a couple of marathons next year. At least I'll try. Okay, so you had a rush of blood to the head and you made a quick decision. So tomorrow you start training for that all-important first marathon. Why not indeed? All you need is a bit of training, a bit of guts, determination, and you'll get there. So to feel a rush of blood to the head. So sometimes when we make sudden decisions, they might be good decisions or they may indeed be bad decisions because you just do them very quickly because you had a sudden rush of blood to the head. To jump at the chance. Well, when we jump at the chance, we would really welcome the opportunity to do something. Why don't you ask Mark to go? He would jump at the chance to go. So the boss is sick and tired of traveling backwards and forwards to London, backwards and forwards to Paris. So he's looking for somebody to take some responsibility for that. So it's suggested that ask Mark. He would jump at the chance. He would really like the opportunity. So when you jump at the chance, you would really, really welcome the opportunity to do something that you've been hoping to do for a long, long time. So to jump at the chance. You'd jump at the chance to travel. You'd jump at the chance to take on more responsibility in your company. So anytime you want to do something that you've been planning to do and nobody's quite asked you, you can use that to jump at the chance. Oh, I jump at the chance to do that. I jump at the chance to get a bit more traveling. I jump at the chance to do another degree. Okay, so something that you'd like to do, all you need is somebody to give you a gentle push or indeed just to ask you to jump at the chance. To be on a roll. Well, when we are on a roll, we've started something, we're getting successful at it and we continue. Okay, so the sales guy, he's sold two cars already this week and he's really feeling excited and another customer comes in and guess what? Within a half an hour, he's persuaded that customer to buy the new car. So that's three this week. He's never had it so good. So he's on a roll and the boss is really happy with them. They can see that they're going to reach their targets quite easily this year. So to be on a roll is to be successful, like a ball. When it starts to roll, it's hard to stop it. Okay, so it'll continue to roll and roll and roll. So when you're on a roll, it means you're successful. Things are looking good. You don't want them to stop. Don't stop him now. He's on a roll. This is a good way to use it. Don't stop him now. He's on a roll. He's really, really doing well. Or a comedian, a stand-up comedian, he gets up and his first joke is an absolute great hit. And the second joke is even better. And after 10 minutes, the audience are really, really rolling around the floor laughing. So he's on a roll. He knows he's got the audience exactly where he wants them in the palm of his hand. So to be on a roll. Give it a whirl. Well, when we give something a whirl, it means we're going to give it a chance. We don't know what to expect. We've never done it before. But guess what? Let's act. Let's just give it a whirl. Let's give it a go. Okay. Perhaps you want to take up ballroom dancing and your friends say, ballroom dancing, but you've got two left feet. Yeah, but you know, you need to try something new every now and again. I think it would be great fun. Anyway, I'm going to give it a whirl. If it works, it works. Great. If it doesn't, so what? At least I've tried. Okay, so when you give something a whirl, you have no idea what to expect. You have no idea whether you'll be successful or it'll be a failure. But you know what? You're going to try it. And yeah, you're going to give it a whirl. So like learning English. Who knows? Give it a whirl. If you want to do some exams, IELTS or something, why not? Give it a whirl. Give something your best shot. Now, again, you might not be successful, but you know you're going to try your absolute best. So your best shot is your best kick at the goal. Your best shot would be your best throw of a dart. You know, so these are the literal meanings of it. But when you say that you're going to give something your best shot, you're going to try your damnedest or you're going to try as well as you can to make it successful. Okay, so you've got a really important exam coming up. In fact, it's your final exam. And your parents say to you, well, look, you've done your study, you've done all the work, you've submitted all the essays that you had to do. So just go into the exam, give it your best shot, and whatever happens, happens. Okay, so at least you've tried, you've studied, you've prepared, so there should be no reason to feel apprehensive. Just go and give it your best shot. Do as well as you can. Okay, to give it your best shot. To square the circle. This is quite strange. To square the circle means to finish something off, usually something difficult. You can't make a circle out of a square and you can't make a square out of a circle. But when you want to square the circle, you want to try and complete whatever you were working because really you don't like loose ends. You don't like something unfinished. So somebody has to square the circle. So perhaps there's some detailed or difficult negotiations going on and you're getting close to the end and you say, okay, look, I'll just stick with this for another half an hour or hour. I want to square the circle. I want to complete it and say it's over, it's finished, it's finalized and let's move on to the next thing. Okay, so to square the circle. Try your hand at something. Well, when we try our hand at something, it means to try and do something that we haven't done before. In my case, it could be ice skating. I'm hopeless. Every time I stand on the ice skates, I fall over and I end up with a sore bum. Okay, so to try your hand at something means to try and do something that you're perhaps not so gifted at. You know, we don't get a lot of snow and ice in this country, so there's not a lot of opportunity to ice skate. But I did try my hand at it. It didn't work out and I didn't try it again. When I was about 50, I tried my hand at skiing. I went on a skiing holiday and yeah, it wasn't the best. I'm not going to win any downhill alpine medals, but I was able to do it. So I tried my hand at something. So to attempt to do something that you haven't done before, to attempt to do something that you might feel you could do, but you might fail, but at least you try. So to try your hand at something. Kids should try their hand at lots of different sports until they find something that they really enjoy doing that suits them. Okay, so to try your hand. And we often use the expression, ah, he's great. You know, he'll try his hand at anything. Okay, so if you want tiles put up in the bathroom, he's your man. If you want some plumbing done, he's your man. Even if you want some electrical wires installed, he's your man. He'll try his hand at anything. He's a real DIY enthusiast. So to try your hand at anything or something. To do or to try your utmost. Well, this is a little bit formal, okay? To do your utmost is like doing your best, your very, very best. I'll do my utmost to clinch the deal. I know what it needs, but these guys are going to be tough negotiators. So I'll do my utmost. You can rely on me to try. We might not be successful, but we'll do our best. We'll try our utmost. We ask our kids to try their best at an exam. Do your utmost to listen to the teacher. Do your utmost to carry out the instructions. Do your utmost to follow and copy, and then you'll understand how to do it the next time, to do your utmost. And then finally, just go for it. Yeah, we have this expression all the time. What are you going to do? I'm just going to go for it. You know, this is the one chance I have. I'm going to go in there and I'm going to ask him why am I not going to get promoted? Am I going to get promoted this time? If not, well, you know, there are other jobs out there. So just go for it. Okay. Oh, I really, really like this girl. I think she likes me. So I'm going to ask her out on a date. What do you think? Well, why not? Go for it. What's she going to say? The worst she can say is no. Yeah. So who knows? You might be successful. So just go for it. So when you want to do something, you want to grab it with both hands, then just go for it. You've got the idea. You've got the wind in your sails, as they say. So you can. Just go for it. And who knows? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Yeah? Okay, you just have to go for it. Okay, so there are idioms, advanced idioms about trying or attempting. To take the plunge. Take the plunge. Feel a rush of something. Usually a rush of blood to the head is how we explain it. To feel a rush of blood to the head. Jump at the chance. To be on a roll. To be on a roll? To give it a whirl. And look out for the spelling of that. To give it a whirl. To give something your best shot. Give it your best shot. To square the circle. Quite strange. To square the circle. Try your hand at something. To try your hand at something. To do or to try your utmost, a little bit more formal, to try your utmost. And then finally, go for it, to go for it. A lot of the time is about doing something that you've never done before. And that's the whole idea of trying or attempting because you're attempting new things, dangerous things, risky things, who knows what they are. But if you don't try, you won't win. Yeah, like everything else. If you don't buy a ticket, you can't win the lotto. Okay, so trying and attempting. So why don't you try and attempt some of these particular idioms? See do they work for you? See do you understand them? And as I said earlier, if you want some extra examples, then you can contact me and www.englishlessonviaskype.com. As you know, I'm always happy to hear from you, always happy to help you out. So if you need anything else, you just have to ask. Okay, well, this is Harry saying. Goodbye. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. And join me for the next lesson.