21 English Expressions with “FIRST”: first timer, first light, if at first...

Hello, and welcome back. Today, we are looking

at a very crucial word, "first". Such a simple

word, but it can be used in so many different

idioms to express quite a wide range of things.

In today's lesson, we'll be looking at very loosely

social uses of first idioms and professional

use of idioms. Although, that said, there'll

be quite a lot of crossover between the two.

Now, I've mentioned before on these videos that it's very useful for you guys to have

at your disposal to be able to use idioms, but

don't use them all the time. It's just good to -

so that when you hear idioms being used, you

understand what is being said when you read them

in sort of high-level writing that you understand and recognize them.

But I would take your lead on how they are used

from native speakers of English, so - because

otherwise it can seem a little bit unnatural. So,

just try and use them every now and again, okay?

Right. First of all, we - well, I'll go through

what each of them means, and then maybe we can

put it into a context of a story. Okay. So,

first light. Yep. So, we have night and day,

light and dark. First light, when it stops being dark. Beginning of day, the dawn,

la madrugada in Spanish, I believe. First light is - so, very beginning of the day,

when you just start to see the sun sort of rising up in the horizon. First light.

First come, first served. This is used all of the

time. Yep. Whenever there's a situation where it's

like, you know, there's no established queue or

line, as you say in North America, someone might

just say, "Okay, first come, first served. Who

wants this most?" As in some food or some drink

or whatever it is. First come, first served. Who wants it most?

The first dance. This is a ceremonial term, and

you'll mainly get it at weddings. The first dance

is the first dance between the newlywed husband

and wife. So, no one dances until they have had

their moment on the dance floor, and then normally they beckon, they invite everyone

to come and join them a little way through the

song. Okay. Love at first sight. So, this is the

Romeo and Juliet moment where they clock eyes,

and immediately they understand that there is

something very special between them. When Cupid

fires his arrow. No choice. So, that instantaneous

reaction of, "Wow, this is something special."

A first timer. The first time you are trying a

particular activity. So, "Have you ever cooked

quail's eggs before, Benjamin?" "Ah, no, I haven't.

This is my first time." Ah, you're a first timer of cooking quail's eggs. Interesting.

I don't know the first thing about. The first

thing does not mean, like, the most important.

It means if you don't know the first thing,

then you don't know anything. Yeah? I don't know

anything about being an Eskimo. I don't know the first thing about

Portuguese. I don't know the first thing about the planets. Neptune, for example.

If at first you don't succeed, so this is a

saying, and the rest of it is try, try again.

If at first you don't succeed, try again. So,

at first here is, like, well, the first attempt.

A bit of a crude explanation, but I saw a sign

once on a toilet, and next to the, sort of,

the pool flush, there was a sign saying, "If at

first you don't succeed, try, try again." So,

if the first one doesn't work, try it again.

Ladies first. Now, some ladies like this being

said and see it as a sign of, kind of, manners,

and some find it slightly patronizing, and they're

like, "Well, why should I be going first?" But

from my experience, I think it's a polite thing

to say that if you have two people and you reach

a doorway, an entry point, and only one person

can go first, then it's polite to let the lady go

through, but it may be different in your culture.

The first lady is the most important lady at a social occasion, but that sense of

this idiom has, by and large, doesn't exist

anymore. If we say "first lady", then you'll

probably think of the president of the USA's

wife. So, let's have a look at how these could

be used. I'm just going to demonstrate their use,

and then we will go on to our more work-related

idioms. Okay. So, we had a wedding to get to,

and it was a three-hour drive from London,

so we needed to get up at first light. Luckily,

there was some food before the ceremony,

and the man doing the barbecue said, "First

come, first served", and because I was so hungry,

I went straight to the front. It was a lovely

wedding, and I particularly enjoyed the first

dance. They did a salsa dance, and it was very good fun. There were some speeches,

and we found out how it had been love at first sight for the couple.

The wedding was taking place in a hotel with

lovely gardens, and I went out for a walk

halfway through the afternoon and found a croquet pitch. Now, croquet is that

funny game with the sort of white hoops where

you hit the ball, the funny colored balls,

and then you have to get it - you go sort of round

and then try and get the stick in the middle.

I explained to the guys who were starting a game

that I didn't know the first thing about croquet.

I was a first-timer; I hadn't played before. So

they explained the rules to me, and I have to say

I found it quite difficult to hit the ball

correctly. So they said to me, "Don't worry,

don't worry. If at first you don't succeed, try,

try again." So I did try again. We played for

half an hour, and by the end, I felt like I

had the rough idea of how to play this game.

We were just going back into the hotel when I

saw the mother of the bride. Yep. The... So the

girl who had just got married, I saw her mother,

and so I said to her, "Well, ladies first. You are

the first lady, after all." Okay, so these ones over here are slightly more formal.

Now, our first one is "first floor". In the UK,

we start with ground floor, and then it goes up

to the first floor. So the first floor, you have

to go up some stairs to get to. "In the first

place", this means if you're having kind of an

argument or a discussion, it's the first point

that you would make. So, England are in the World Cup final tomorrow morning.

It's morning where I am, and if they lost the

game and I was discussing it with a friend about

how the game had gone, and we were saying, like,

what we would have done if we'd been on the pitch,

or what we would have done if we'd been the

manager, maybe I'd say, "Well, in the first place,

I would have played or I would have selected

this player." So, my first point is that,

yep, "in the first place". What's your first

impression? So, if you arrive into a new country

and you look and you sort of look at the

horizon around you, like, okay, yeah, different.

Your first impression is the first things you

are thinking about that place or a person.

Yep, it's often about a person. In business,

we always try and make a good first impression

because it makes such a difference. "First glance", "at first glance". So,

we have a problem with the roof. There is some

water coming through. Yep, we do need some tips.

Yep, the building's about to cave in. I'm not

quite sure if we will complete the video. I'm

joking. But "at first glance" means when I first

look at it, I'm like, all right, yes, something

is going on with the ceiling. "At first glance",

the first thing I look at it, and it's just the

first thing I think. It's a little bit about

this, but "first impression" is more about,

you know, you create an impression. It's what

you make someone think about you, whereas "at

first glance", it's not so much about people, it's

more about, you know, a house or some information.

"First things first". This is quite similar to this phrase, here. So,

what do we need to do about the water coming

through? Well, "first things first", we need to

call the landlord, he needs to come round, he

needs to come and sort this situation out. Yep,

"first things first". What do we need to do first? "First aid". First aid,

yep. So, I'm sure you've all seen a first aid

box. Mini buses are required to carry them.

Teachers need to have them if they're going on

school trips. In your first aid box, you're going

to have sort of plasters, cream, bandages. So,

"first aid" is the first help in case of some

medical issue. Okay? So, a first aider is qualified to give you that initial help

should something go wrong. "First call". So, if you are on a bus,

and it has various different stops, first we're going to be calling at Brompton,

and then secondly we're going to move on to Earls Court. So, that's one meaning of it.

The other meaning of the idiom, here, is where you give someone the first choice.

So, "I'll give you first call" means maybe

we're playing cricket, and I say to my friend,

"Do you want to open the batting, or do you want

to go in number four?" And he might say to me,

"I don't know. You've got first call. What would

you prefer?" And I'll be like, "Okay, cool. I

will start, then." So, "first call" when you've

got, like, the first say on a matter. Similar

to this one. Now, pretend that we have a house

for sale, and lots of people come and have a

look at it, and some people want to buy it. These people come in, and they say,

"I want to buy it for 400,000 pounds." And the

estate agent goes, "Oh, hang on a second. We've

someone else who's coming in to put an offer."

And they put an offer in for 405,000 pounds,

so it's a little bit more. But these guys maybe

have first refusal because they got the offer

in there first. So, if you have first refusal,

you have the right for your offer to be considered

first. First class. Top notch. Yep. First

class honors in the UK is, like, the top degree

classification that you could get. If you travel

on the train, you have a choice between traveling

in first class or in standard. So, something

first class is top. And then we have two idioms

relating to sport. This actually comes from

hunting. So, if the hunter draws first blood,

it means they make the first mark. Now, in a

contest, the person who has the first blood is,

like, they have the upper hand to draw first

blood. The England team have drawn the first

blood means, you know, they've got three

points on the score. First leg. Maybe a match

has two matches. You're going to play home and

away. This is the first leg. This is the second

leg. Okay. I said that I wanted to put this in

context so that you got an opportunity at seeing

these words in context. I ring up my landlord. There's a problem.

Hello, Karen. Yep. Hi, Karen. Yeah. Benjamin,

here. No, we've got a slight issue. Yeah.

No, it's on the first floor. Yep. There's water coming through the ceiling, Karen.

And then she speaks to me. Benjamin, in the first

place, can you make sure that there's a bucket

under the water to collect that water? Yeah, of

course, Karen. No, we have actually already done

that. My first impression was that, you know, it was coming through from the roof.

Okay, Benjamin. No. Well, that's interesting.

I'm going to come and send a handyman round,

so Leigh will be coming in the next couple of

hours. Okay. Thanks very much, Karen. Okay. I

look forward to seeing Leigh. Leigh comes along.

Hi, Benjamin. Hi, Leigh. Right. Leigh, yeah,

we've got some water coming through the roof.

Okay. Yep. No. Yep. I can see some water coming

there. Well, at first glance, I would say

that's quite a serious problem you've got there.

Thanks, Leigh. Oh, no. Something fell through the

roof and cut me. You don't know any first aid,

do you, Leigh? I've really hurt my hand. I've got

a first aid box in my van, actually, Benjamin.

Would you like me to get you a plaster? Thanks

very much, Leigh. That's much better now. Thanks.

Well, Benjamin, having seen the problem at first

hand, I would say that we're going to need to

replace the roof. It's quite a serious problem.

Okay. Thanks, Leigh. So, Karen back on the phone.

Benjamin, you're going to need to move house.

Oh, dear. Okay. Well, I don't know what to do,

Karen. Okay. Well, we'll send you some available

properties. Okay. I like the look at first call,

I would say. I like the second one on the list,

Karen. Is that possible for us to go and stay

there? Oh, the second one. Yeah, that's a really

nice one, isn't it, Benjamin? We have got someone

else interested in that flat, so I have to make

you aware that they've got the right of first

refusal because they got there first. Oh, that's

a shame. Oh, some news has just come in. Yep,

they're not interested, so you can go and stay

there. Oh, that's first class. Thank you so much,

Karen. Okay. Well, send us over, you know, the

information. Okay, great. These don't really work

in this context. So, what I would say is I found it really difficult putting in

these two phrases here. These are the most two most difficult ones to use.

So, I would say kind of, yeah, it's sort of estate agents, people working in

a kind of world where different people are trying to buy things at the same time,

but if you're not doing that, then you're not going to use that quite as often.

So, first impression, really useful one at first glance,

and I would particularly draw your attention to first come, first served,

and maybe I don't know the first thing about that.

Have a go at the quiz now. Thank you so much for

watching. My name's Benjamin. Make sure you're a

subscriber, and I'll see you in the next video.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.