Idioms in English - FOOT

"It was laying right yonder," he says.

Hello.

I'm James from www.engvid.com.

Welcome.

Yeah, this is a masterpiece theater, but Mr. E wants to teach a lesson, and today he's

in his university cap because he thinks he's going to teach something like Faulkner, you

know, frou-frou, which means snobby stuff.

And, by the way, he's now bought the whole series.

I mean, it's not James ESL anymore.

It is actually James Ezekiel's School of Language.

He is now the professor.

I am now a lowly employee.

So, welcome to my lesson, and I'm going to have to put my foot down on this, but before

I do so, that's an idiom we're going to work on.

We're working on idioms of foot, which Mr. E has none.

You can notice he is not smiling.

He has zero feet, okay?

But the first one we want to talk about is cold, cold feet.

Alright, cold feet.

When you get cold feet, now imagine when you're cold, you're shaking, yeah?

You're shaking, but you're not really moving.

So, when we talk about having cold feet, what we want to talk about is you've had a decision

to make, and you say you want to do it.

I'm a gentleman talking to you right now.

Getting cold feet.

The ring should go on, but it doesn't want to.

When someone's getting cold feet, they have made a decision to do something, but they

at the last minute hesitate and want to go back or walk away.

Getting cold feet is like being frozen.

Your feet are frozen, stuck, okay?

They're stuck.

Let me show you.

Stuck, see?

Stuck.

Don't move.

They won't move.

They won't go forward.

They stay here.

Stuck.

I don't know if I can get a little higher here.

I don't want to break the table or anything.

So, your feet are stuck.

See?

Stuck.

Ah, cannot move foot.

Alright?

Cold feet.

So, you're stuck in a position.

You don't want to go ahead.

So, you make a decision to get married, and you get cold feet.

So, you show up at the wedding day and you're like, "I don't know if I want to get married."

Your wife will say, "Did you get cold feet?"

It doesn't mean put your foot in the oven and warm them up or the microwave.

What it means is make a decision, stick to it.

Alright?

Business as well.

You get cold feet, I don't know if I want to do the deal.

Do the deal.

Alright.

Here's a good one.

Second one.

Get your foot in the door.

For some people, if you get your foot in the door, it's not smart.

The door is closing.

Bang.

You get your foot.

Ow.

I broke my foot.

That is not it.

In this case, get your foot in the door means an opportunity.

When doors open, you can enter.

Right?

So, a door opens, you can enter.

Sometimes, the door you want to go through is a difficult one to enter.

High-paying job, meeting a pretty girl or, you ladies, meeting me.

I mean, meeting a good-looking guy who's smart.

So, you want to get your foot in the door.

That means before the door closes and you lose the opportunity,

if you can get your foot in, and you know what happens,

you get your foot in, the door doesn't close,

you have an opportunity to maybe get inside.

Right?

So, if you want to get a new job, you go,

"I would love to work for Microsoft and work for actually Bill Gates.

Hi, I'm James.

This is an interview.

I'd love to work for you.

Pay me a million dollars.

I just need to get my foot in the door and I can show you what I can do."

All your TV commercials.

You're joking.

What I'm saying is you get your foot in the door, maybe he watches.

He goes, "I like that guy.

Hire him."

And then, boom, I work for the company.

You say, "How did you get the job?"

"I got my foot in the door by doing blah, blah, blah."

If you want to get your foot in your door for a company,

you talk to somebody who works there or make friends with them.

You want to get your foot in the door with a girl or a boy,

you talk to one of their friends and ask them to say nice things about you,

and then you get that opportunity for yourself.

Right?

Foot in the door.

Cool?

Ha-ha.

You don't have feet.

He may own me, but he's got no feet.

All right.

Mouth.

Mouth.

Mouth.

And if you really like this one,

you should go back and look at our video on the mouth and motor mouth,

which is me, so I'm going to slow down.

I haven't had coffee yet.

But mouth.

We have many idioms with mouth,

but here's one where we combine the mouth with the foot.

I haven't done yoga in a long time, okay?

Foot and mouth.

Notice mouth here?

So what happens?

You put your foot in your mouth.

It's not a good thing.

Imagine walking all day.

You know, you get up in the morning with your bare feet,

feet with no shoes on, bare feet.

You walk on the dirt, right?

You go to work, you put your shoes on, you walk.

There's some dog doo-doo or dog mess or dog poo on the floor.

Ew.

It's on your feet.

You walk in that.

Somebody spits.

You walk in that.

And then you take your shoe off at the end of the day.

Ah.

And then you put that shoe, ah, in your mouth.

Disgusting, right?

Yeah.

When you put your foot in your mouth,

it means to say something and it's going to hurt you because it was really stupid.

I'll give you an example.

Sorry.

I feel like Mr. Rogers.

I have to put my shoe back on.

I'm not going to put it in my mouth.

Hold on.

Miss me?

I'm back.

Okay.

When you put your foot in your mouth,

imagine you see a lady who's big.

Boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo-boo.

You walk up to her and you go, "Excuse me, ma'am.

When are you going to have your child?"

Suddenly she goes, "I'm not pregnant.

I'm fat."

Wah-wah-wah.

Foot in your mouth.

That dirty shoe in your mouth because now you're like, "I'm sorry.

I didn't know."

Or here's another one.

Perhaps you see a young lady walking down the street with long hair.

Kind of looks nice.

So you go, "Hey, baby.

You look cute."

And then he says, "I'm not a lady.

I'm a dude.

I'm a guy."

Wah-wah-wah.

Foot in your mouth.

Now you have to say, "I'm sorry."

So foot in your mouth is to say something that's going to be a mistake

and you have to apologize for it.

And if you had two or three seconds to think about it,

you wouldn't have said anything and you'd be okay.

Okay?

Never tell a woman she looks 20 or 30 when she's actually 20.

All right?

Put your foot in your mouth.

Okay.

Now shoe, notice here, shoe and other.

Two words.

If you've been looking carefully, because it's Mr. E's university

and now I have to be prepared, he's made me put all these things down.

So you see cold feet, indecisive, not going through with your decision.

Foot in the door.

You see the word door.

Then you see mouth, foot in your mouth.

Now you see shoe and you see other.

Hmm.

I wonder what this could mean.

We know these are all idioms of the foot.

So let's take a look.

You have the shoe and now it's on the other foot.

Idiom of foot.

And it is the shoe's on the other foot.

See happy.

See sad.

And one big eye.

I think, yeah, one really big eye.

See?

This is not good.

Something bad has happened.

Now, shoe is on the other foot.

Let's say you have your right shoe.

If your shoe fits you perfectly, it's a good foot fit on the right side.

Right?

The right side.

Now let's just say you take that right shoe off of that foot

and you put it on the left foot.

Now it doesn't fit properly and it's going to cause you pain.

Right?

All day long you're walking and you're, "Ow, ow, ow."

Why?

You have a friend.

Your friend tells you they are having a problem in a situation.

You say because your situation is different,

"Well, if I were in your situation, I would do this, this, and this.

I would know what to do."

Perfect example.

You have a girlfriend.

You are working.

Your girlfriend starts to talk to you while you're working.

You cannot concentrate and you say,

"I cannot concentrate.

You have to let me concentrate."

And she said,

"Well, if it were me, I would know what to do."

And blah, blah, blah.

Okay.

You go, "Fine, fine.

You work.

You try and concentrate.

It's not working for you."

One week later, your girlfriend is now working.

Very difficult work.

She's trying to concentrate.

And you start to talk and she's like,

"Leave me alone.

I cannot concentrate."

See?

This is the music for,

"Now you're feeling what I'm feeling.

Now you're feeling."

Because what we're doing there is we're saying that,

basically put,

when the shoe is on the other foot,

now she feels your pain.

See?

Now the music's getting happier.

Because now she feels your pain and you're happy.

Because you're saying,

"The shoe is on the other foot.

Now you feel what I'm feeling.

It doesn't feel so very good when it happens to you."

See?

So, when the shoe is on the other foot,

the other person becomes sad.

Right?

See there?

Now they're feeling what you're feeling.

And you're like,

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha."

Right?

So anyway,

now the shoe is on the other foot.

That's also the music telling me I gotta go.

But before I go,

I gotta put my foot down with Mr. E

and say, "Mr. E."

'Cause put your foot down means like,

"Bam!"

Step down hard and squash it.

Mr. E,

I don't work for Ezekiel School.

No.

Music gone.

But Mr. E,

it's still James at ESL.

Why am I saying this?

Because, unfortunately,

my time is gone.

Lesson's over.

But there will be a quiz for you to do

so you can keep working on these idioms

and other ones we have,

like the mouth idiom,

the hand idiom.

Right?

Come on.

Come on back here to learn them.

So, where are you gonna learn it?

Well, it's not,

see, he's upset now

'cause it's not Ezekiel School.

Okay.

It'll still be Ezekiel School.

Alright?

There you go.

But where you can go is,

and this is important, folks.

Okay?

I'm gonna put my foot down now

and say,

"Now you must listen to me and be serious."

Okay?

'Cause here's an opportunity

to get your foot in the door

to learn English well.

Alright?

Now don't get cold feet

and start looking around

at other places.

This is the only place you can go.

Right?

If you don't come to our school,

you're gonna end up

putting your foot in your mouth

and later on you say,

"I missed a great opportunity."

Alright?

And your friends,

oh,

you would tell,

you don't have the shoe,

you wouldn't want the shoe

to be on the other foot.

And, yeah,

it's a very bad situation.

I almost said an adult word

and this is not an adult class.

So, long story short,

go to

www

www

www

www

www

where

dot

ing

as in English

vid

as in video

dot com

where you can find quizzes

and other lessons

to help you improve your English,

your everyday functional English.

Or we also call it

Ezekiel School of Language.

Alright?

Come on down.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Okay?

See you.