7 Advanced Phrases That Will Impress Native English Speakers 1

hi there I'm Drew Badger the world's

number one English Fluency Guide and in

this video we'll be talking about 7 odd

idioms that every English language

learners should know

now most stadiums are quite odd or

strange to non-native speakers and it

doesn't really matter what language

you're learning an idiom just means a

collection of words to make up a phrase

that doesn't have the meaning you might

think it does so as an example the

phrase to kick the bucket so we have a

bucket and we're kicking that thing

there's no real meaning or connection to

die which is the meaning of that so if

you say all like that guy kicked the

bucket

it just means that he died but there's

no again real connection to the words or

the phrase itself that would give you

any connection or any meaning of that so

when people are learning idioms will

talk about a few of them in this video

seven of them in fact but as we go

through the video will also talk about

some ways to remember them so that they

don't sound so weird and it becomes much

easier for you to understand what these

are the first one is the cold shoulder

or to give someone the cold shoulder as

an example a friend of mine was having

an argument with his girlfriend and she

got very upset with him so she started

giving him the cold shoulder now this

just means she was upset she was

ignoring him for some reason and

typically the cold shoulder is used when

people are upset maybe in a relationship

or you're trying to talk to a girl when

you're asking her out but she doesn't

say anything she doesn't respond to you

but typically it's because people are

upset for some reason but this is one of

those idioms where again it's kind of a

weird thing to think about what is the

connection between being upset or

ignoring someone and a cold shoulder

so this is where idioms can become maybe

not so weird for you if you think about

their origin or if you try to create a

story in your own mind about it now as

an example with this one the cold

shoulder you can kind of think about it

physically and that's why we're starting

with this one so the cold shoulder maybe

you're thinking about pulling your

shoulder away from someone else so when

you're moving away from that person the

shoulder to the other person becomes

kind of cold if you move back towards

that person

and it's becoming warm again so when

you're having a good connection with

someone we don't call that having a hot

or a warm shoulder but in this case you

can think of the opposite which is to

give someone the cold shoulder so

instead of giving them like a warm

shoulder which again isn't an idiom that

we would use you can say i'm giving them

the cold shoulder if I'm ignoring them

the next one very common and useful is

down-to-earth down-to-earth first listen

carefully to the blending of this

pronunciation down-to-earth

down-to-earth down-to-earth

down-to-earth the two from to and even

the oh it's slightly changes to more of

a da sound down-to-earth down-to-earth

down-to-earth if you think about again

trying to create a story in your mind or

some way to connect this idea of a

person that's maybe just everyday and

average and just kind of very normal

so down-to-earth person as opposed to

someone like an angel you know if we

were to think about that idea of someone

like an angel it's very high up in the

sky so that person kind of like a movie

star or a king or a famous celebrity

when you look at them you think wow

that's an amazing person but you know

your talk to your just friend that lives

on the same street as you and that

person is very down-to-earth they have

no trying to think of themselves as more

important than they actually are they're

just very normal and every day so it's

kind of the difference between someone

again floating up here like an amazing

Superman hero angel kind of person and

somebody that has their feet on the

ground it's down to earth

next is an extremely useful phrasal verb

and this is to Jack something up now the

regular meaning of this is to increase

the height of something quickly so to

elevate something quickly but we can use

it for more than just physical things

now the origin of this is if you think

about you have a car and you have the

wheels on the car and you need to

elevate the car so that you can remove

one of the wheels you use a jack for

that purpose so a jack is a little thing

that you put under the car and you click

it up so you can increase the height of

the car and you can change the wheels on

it and that we can get more figurative

things like like a grocery store jacking

up the prices are you know maybe during

some

time where there's a food shortage or

hotels are jacking up their prices over

holiday seasons often you'll hear people

talking about raising the prices are

very high very quickly and this in both

of these are the key to this phrase not

only the the increase in something but

the speed at which you're doing it

the odd thing is that maybe a jacket

actually takes awhile to jack up a car

and you're not really increasing it that

high but when people talk about jacking

something up there talking about

increasing something quite a bit and

also doing it rather quickly so whenever

you see a large price or you go to a

restaurant one day and then you come

back maybe a year later and say wow like

these guys really jacked up their prices

they jacked up their prices next is an

advanced idiom and this is to plead the

fifth to plead the fifth now instead of

saying I'm going to be silent or not

saying anything especially when I might

be in trouble

the legal origin of this is when you go

into a courtroom and the Fifth Amendment

is where you have the right not to

incriminate yourself so if you go I'd

like say I mean like an actual court

case and maybe somebody was killed and

even if I did it i'm sitting there and

like the other lawyer says hey did you

kill that person i can like I don't want

to lie but I can plead the 5th which

means that i can i can like choose to

not say anything because if i do say

something it might hurt me it might

incriminate me or show that I'm the

person that has been is found guilty in

that case but if I don't say anything

i'm pleading the fifth and you actually

can see this in court so like I exercise

the right to plead the 5th which just

means like even if you didn't do

anything wrong you're not going to say

anything about something but in an

everyday since we can take that idea and

you know maybe somebody just did

something wrong and they're not saying

about it they're just remaining silent

about something but typically it's

because maybe they caused a problem like

two parents are looking at their child

who probably broke something or did

something and you ask the child oh what

happened and child doesn't say anything

and the father says to the mother I

looks like he's pleading the fifth

so he doesn't want to say anything that

might get him in trouble in the same way

that some

one might not do that in a court of law

to plead the fifth

next an ace-in-the-hole an

ace-in-the-hole this is another strange

sounding word especially if you don't

understand the origin of it but that's

why I will help you understand the

origin with this video right now so to

have an ace-in-the-hole this is coming

from the idea of playing poker or any

kind of cars where you have a whole card

and this is a hidden card where maybe

other people don't know what the card is

or it could even be a car that you have

personally and other people can't see

that thing but the ACE is typically the

most powerful card or the card with the

highest level or value in a game of

cards especially poker and so if you

have an ace and maybe like other people

have a king or a jack or two or

something you're going to beat those

people but if they don't know about it

then you have an ace in the hole as

opposed to having maybe an ace that

everyone else can see now there are lots

of different kinds of poker and I will

go into playing like card game things or

whatever but this is where the idea

comes from so to have an ace-in-the-hole

often you have to kind of dig deeper

into idioms like this when you're trying

to understand what they are but it's

better to when you learn something like

this and you hear something interesting

maybe a friend says oh like an

ace-in-the-hole that's an interesting

kind of thing that you here go like

looking deeper into that like actually

try to research the ATM a little bit

more and try to understand what it means

ok an ace-in-the-hole what is that what

does that mean you can begin with the

context of that and try to think okay

what does it mean

so in this case actually an

ace-in-the-hole means a hidden advantage

so it just means you have something

you're hiding and you will pull it out

later to win the game or it gets in the

case of poker but you can also do

something like wow i guess like this

company we thought they were very weak

but their ace in the hole was that they

have like a really great marketing

manager and that person was able to help

the company succeed and even beat us at

doing something so to have an

ace-in-the-hole it just means to have a

hidden advantage but again when you

think about the origin of things like

these if you begin trying to think about

ok what's the the meaning that we have

here how do we make a connection and

then if you can't make a connection then

try to create

your own story so imagine you're playing

cards and you have an ace that no one

can see that's your ace in the hole and

you pull out the card and you win the

game next to bite the bullet to bite the

bullet

now if you think about a bullet coming

at you this is a maybe a terrible thing

and you know you're going to get shot

you know you're going to get hit by that

bullet but ok you just have to accept

that thing so to bite the bullet just

means to accept some kind of pain more

punishment now typically biting the

bullet means really just anything where

you're in a troublesome situation it

doesn't matter if you've created that

problem for yourself or someone created

the problem for you but typically it's

for people to create their own problems

as an example maybe I like i stole

something and then I had to like tell

people about it and I felt really bad

about that but I worried about it for a

long time no no i stole something and

people are mad at me but if I go up to

them and apologize i'm biting the bullet

so maybe I get punished a little bit so

my dad's you know you can't use the car

for a week or whatever but I'm biting

the bullet in that sense so anytime that

I have to accept some pain or some

punishment just by having to do

something maybe I have to work really

hard like when you're starting a

business there's a lot of work that's

required to do that a lot of

communicating connecting with people

trying to design things and build things

to help other people so you have to

really bite the bullet if you want to do

that kind of thing so anything that

requires work whether you're training to

be an athlete or your training to be you

know whatever I mean it doesn't really

matter anything that requires time and

effort will require you to bite the

bullet and i'll leave you with the last

one which is to call it a day to call it

a day

now when i'm typically teaching these

phrases i try to introduce it by saying

it a bit more clearly but then we'll go

back and review a few of them especially

if the pronunciation has a very clear

blend and in this case it does so to

call it a day just so you understand

what I'm saying that the blended natural

speech the way you should stay in

conversations is to call lid day to call

it a day to call it a day

now to call it a day just means ok we're

going to finish with this project or

we're going to stop here for today so

let's say I'm

outside i'm working i'm doing some

gardening work and I've been out for

maybe a couple of hours working with my

team we're building things and then

maybe around five o'clock we're getting

quite tired and we decided to call it a

day

we call it today so maybe your team is

working really hard if you've got

something for work or you know really

doesn't matter what you're doing

anything where you could be hiking for

some period of time riding your bike for

a long period of time but typically it's

where you've been doing an activity for

a particular day maybe for a couple of

hours and you're quite you know you're

quite tired you're ready to finish for

that particular day so we will call it a

day with this video and i encourage you

to go back and review all of these great

atms and all of the new idioms that you

learn it's much better to focus on maybe

one or two that you learn instead of

trying to remember you know a thousand

new idioms like you by some idiot book

and just read all those you're going to

forget them anyway so just focus on

maybe one a day and true and really try

to understand the meaning of it really

try to understand the origin or create

your own story for that thing

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next video bye bye