10 Common British English Expressions

Eat Sleep Dreamers, welcome to London. There is sunshine outside, there is beautiful music

being played, beautiful music. I thought why not, let's go for a walk around London and

I'll teach you some great British English expressions. A walk around London and an English

lesson, what an amazing idea! I can't wait, let's go outside and check it out, see what

we can learn.

Ok, I'm walking through a food market, the smells are amazing. Check it out I'm super

hungry, anyway! This has reminded me of a really useful phrase, a really useful word,

fancy. Now it means kind of do you want, want basically. So you might say, you know, 'Do

you fancy a pizza?' it means do you want a pizza? Or you know I'm walking around, there's

some amazing pasta right there, I might say 'I really fancy some pasta' and that means

I really want some pasta. So fancy, we use it to mean want.

Eat Sleep Dreamers, if you want to sound like you are in a romantic comedy like love actually,

one of those typical British romantic comedies you could use or you should use the word 'lovely'.

Now lovely has a few meanings. Obviously we know it means beautiful for example I'm in

a really lovely park right now. Russell Square, it's absolutely beautiful but also lovely

can mean enjoyable or pleasurable. So for example I might say 'I had really lovely evening

last night' means I had a really enjoyable evening. I might say 'It was lovely meeting

you' again it could mean it was really enjoyable or pleasurable meeting you. So lovely is used

so often in films like Love Actually, any film with Hugh Grant probably says lovely

a hundred times. It's a great word to sound really British.

One of the most common words that we say in British English or certainly in Britain is

sorry. Now sorry, obviously it has the meaning of apologising, right? So 'Oh I'm so sorry'

for some reason we apologise all the time in Britain, I don't know why. Even if it's

the other person's mistake. Let's say someone bumps into me on the train, I'll say sorry

to them. I'll say "oh sorry!' It's ridiculous, I don't know why we do it. I guess we just,

we don't want to upset anyone. I think that's it, we don't want to upset anyone. We want

to make sure everyone is happy, Anyway, ok so we say sorry for that reason. We also might

say sorry if we didn't hear someone. So if you didn't hear what someone's said you would

say 'Sorry?' and that means could you say it again. It's a polite way to ask them to

say it again. I think probably fifty percent of my words are either sorry or cheers or

all right? Yeah, probably about that I think. Maybe I need to vary my vocabulary a bit more.

Guys I'm right next to the British museum, shall we pop in? Yeah, I think so. Let's take

a little look in the British museum. Now that's another really British English phrase, is

to pop somewhere. It means to go somewhere so pop in means like go inside. If I live

in a house and I want to go next door I might say 'I'm just popping next door.' it means

just I'm going to go very quickly so go for a short time. Yeah very quickly, you could

say the preposition changes quite a lot. So you could pop up, so let's say you live in

a big flat block, an apartment block you might pop upstairs, so 'I'm just going to pop upstairs'

to see your friend who lives upstairs. So to pop somewhere is really great. To go quickly

and come back. Maybe 'I'm going to pop to the shops' so I'm going to go to the shops

and then come back. So I'm going to do something really quickly, to pop. Amazing! So shall

we pop inside the British museum? Let's do it!

Alright, I'm in the British museum, it's an amazing place. The light right now, the roof!

You guys need to see the roof, it's amazing. Ok, so the word I want to look at today in

here is 'cheers'. Now cheers obviously we know it to be when you are celebrating and

you put your glasses together and you say cheers but also very British, it's a very

British way to say thank you. So someone opens a door for you you say 'Cheers'. If someone

does something nice for you you can say 'Cheers' It's a really nice way to show your appreciation

and to say thank you. I think I might stay here for the rest of the day, this is amazing.

Honestly the roof is incredible.

We are back out in the sunshine, oh my god, it's incredible today. All right, next phrase

to be up for something. I love this phrase. To be up for something. It kind of means to

want to do something or to have the enthusiasm to do something. So I might say 'Are you up

for going to the cinema tonight?' And that means do you want to go to the cinema, do

you have the enthusiasm to go. I might say 'I'm going to the gym, if you are up for it?'

Again it means I'm going to the gym, do you want to come/would you like to come? It's

a really natural British English phrase that. So to be up for something. A few grammatical

things here. Firstly after for you need, the verb has to be -ing ok? Are you up for going...Are

you up for seeing?...Are you up for visiting? Things like that. And also the auxiliary in

the question is the verb to be, right? So Are you up for visiting?' Were you up for

it?' you know so in the past obviously there. So the auxiliary is be and the verb afterwards

has an -ing. Ok, I'm going to teach you a few more British English expressions if you

are up for it, are you up for it? Ok, let's keep walking, talking and learning.

Ok, this is a classic British word 'dodgy'. And it means you can't trust it, it's untrustworthy.

So people can be dodgy, you could say 'That guy looks a bit dodgy' and it kind of means

he looks untrustworthy, you can't trust him. Food can be dodgy as well.You could look at

a slice of pizza and think 'that look a bit dodgy' like it might make you ill, you can't

trust it, it doesn't look like it will do you good. So food can be dodgy. A situation

can be dodgy you could see people doing something you think 'that looks a bit dodgy' like why

are they doing that, it looks a bit weird. So yeah dodgy is a really, a really great

British word.

This is one of my favourites to take the piss. Piss is a bit rude, this is very informal

but to take the piss. Now this means to mock someone or to make fun of them. Now we can

do it in a funny way or we can do it in a mean way. So you've got both, so you know

my friends and I, I've said this before, my friends and I. I used to have really bad haircuts,

not anymore right? And they used to make jokes about my hair and they were taking the piss

and it was funny. I hope it was in a fun way, not in a mean way so that's one way you know

'they took the piss out of me'. That's absolutely fine but then you could do it in a mean way

as well so it has both sides to it. As I said it's very informal, so you want to be careful

who you use it with but it's such a typically British phrase. Maybe it's a typical British

idea, the idea that we mock each other, we make fun of each other and it's kind of accepted.

So yeah, to take the piss, brilliant phrase.

It wouldn't be a British English expressions lesson if I didn't talk about the word mate.

Mate is the word we use to mean friend. It's informal and we use it all the time. I might

say 'Hi mate' or 'You all right mate?'. All right mate kind of means hello mate. We use

it all the time, it's crazy. Cheers mate, like thank you. It's an amazing phrase and

if you want to speak British English mate is one of the best words to know.

If you want to sound British then you must use this one word, loo! Now the loo means

the toilet, it's the polite way to say toilet. So you could say 'I'm just going to go to

the loo' it means I'm just going to go to the toilet. It's a classic classic British

term. If you want to be super polite you could say 'I'm going to spend a penny. Now to spend

a penny means to go to the loo and it's because in the past we literally, to go to a public

toilet you would have to put in a penny coin and you could go to the toilet so to spend

a penny means to go to the toilet.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing London in the sunshine. It's beautiful, if you would like

me to do more of those walks and lessons at the same time then let me know. I'm now in

St Pancras station this is where the Eurostar goes. That's the train to Paris, unfortunately

I'm not going to Paris, I'm going, I'm staying in London, that's ok I like London. Anyway,

thank you guys for joining me today. I hope you've enjoyed it. Remember if you've found

this useful please give it a like, subscribe to my channel and of course if you know anyone

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Dream English to as many people who want to know English as possible. Alright guys, this

is Tom the English Hipster saying you know what time it is, it's time to take your English

to the next level!