IELTS Speaking Idioms: HOLIDAYS

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- Next, it's this.

What is that? (laughs)

Well, in a few moments, you're going to find out, right?

We're gonna look at this in a bit more detail.

Let me bring up my thing over here.

We're gonna look at idioms next.

Here we go.

♪ I want some idioms ♪

♪ I want them now ♪

♪ I want some idioms ♪

♪ But I don't know how ♪

♪ How to learn them ♪

♪ How to remember them ♪

♪ All I know and I really think so ♪

♪ Is that I want some idioms now ♪

♪ How to learn them ♪

♪ How to remember them ♪

♪ All I know and I really think so ♪

♪ Is that I really want some idioms now ♪

♪ How to learn them ♪

- How to learn them?

Idioms, I mean, idioms are useful.

They're important. I think they're...

I would say, idioms, probably,

if you're a more advanced student,

like a band 7, 7.5, or C1,

you can focus much more on idioms.

If you are intermediate, don't worry too much about idioms.

Learn some, but I think they're more

kind of the higher level students.

But they just make English so colorful and so interesting,

and they really do help you understand native speakers

because, native speakers, we use idioms.

We do use them a lot.

So what we're gonna do, I want you, if you can,

to guess these idioms.

So we're talking about holidays, right?

Of course, idioms to do with holidays.

So let me show you the first idiom.

It's a picture,

and let's see if you can guess this one.

Let me bring it in over here,

and here we go.

Where are we?

Here it is.

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I realize that's a good idiom for this topic.

Obviously not this one, but good, nice.

Daisy, thank you.

Again, these are nice idioms for the topic.

"Travel light, itchy feet." Nice.

Mainly speaking.

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Very interesting. (gentle music)

Very, very interesting.

Okay, so this one actually

was in the middle of nowhere.

Right, you're in the middle of nowhere

as you can see there.

In the middle of nowhere.

That comes from...

let me show you.

So in the middle of nowhere just means a place

that is very remote and isolated.

We found a great cabin in the middle of nowhere.

A cabin, just in case you don't know,

I'm sure a lot of you will know this,

but a cabin, well, looks a bit like this.

Normally made of wood.

Normally next to the lake or in the forest.

Usually in the middle of nowhere.

In the middle of nowhere, Nice, okay.

We found a great cabin in the middle of nowhere,

or we went walking in the middle of nowhere.

Now some of you said

out of nowhere.

So, out of nowhere

just means, suddenly.

Something appeared out of nowhere.

I had an idea out of nowhere.

I suddenly had an idea.

So not really related to traveling and holidays, but...

And this one, right, left and center means everywhere.

There were tourists, right, left and center.

So it's a good idiomatic expression, meaning everywhere.

There were beaches in Santander where I live,

there are beaches left, right and center.

Right, left and left, right and center.

Right, left and center.

Left right and...

Left right and center I would say.

Is it left, right and center or right, left and center?

Left, right and center.

Now you've got me thinking.

Left, right and center.

Right, left and center.

I guess you could say both maybe. Yes.

Okay, so those are different idioms.

Also, there's some others.

Parisa said, "Hit the road" means to start a journey.

It's also a very, very good idiom we can use

to start a journey.

Let's hit the road. Let's begin our journey.

Okay, so that's number one.

Let me switch you to number two. Idiom number two.

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Yeah, Natalia out in the middle of nowhere.

Yes you can also use.

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This one, I'm gonna do quickly

'cause it was quite easy.

Yes, so it's a bit of a trick

because the picture, right, is live

and then it going up.

But the pronunciation is

to live it up, right?

To live, it's the verb. Not live, but to live.

To live it up. And you can connect, live it up.

Live it up.

Meaning to enjoy life in a lively, extravagant,

or luxurious way.

So when you go to a restaurant,

if you choose an expensive restaurant with beautiful food,

nice decor, we're living it up

or we are going to live it up.

Often we use expression,

when you have a choice of something cheap

or something expensive, luxurious.

Shall we go on a camping holiday

or stay in a five star hotel?

Hmm, let's live it up. Let's go in the five star hotel.

So to live a luxurious lifestyle, right?

To spend a lot of money to live it up.

Live, it is your life,

up, right, is good.

So to live a good life, the idea of spending money,

luxurious, luxury, extravagant.

Live it up. Let's live it up.

For example, they wanted to live it up on their holiday,

so they stayed at a five star resort.

Resort is like a hotel with other amenities.

Yes. Very, very nice.

Luxurious, luxurious, luxurious.

Travel in style.

Yes, so Iryna, you may say,

"Let's travel in style.

Let's go by business class. Let's live it up."

It has that similar context, right? Let's live it up.

Excellent. Live it up.

"It's like saying I'm living my best life."

Yes, but particularly when you are spending money

and you are living in a extravagant way.

So extravagant just means you're spending a lot of money.

Maybe too much money, right? Extravagant.

You can't see that, can you?

Okay, excellent. Good, let's move on.

Number three. Let's have a look.

This one's a bit more challenging.

Let's see what you come up with.

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Whoa, you guys

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Good, you've got it. Excellent.

Joy, well done. And a lot of others there.

Absolutely brilliant. Yes, to throw caution to the wind.

So he's throwing caution to the wind.

Caution is being careful.

And here's being careful

and if you are careful, you keep that.

If you are not careful, you throw

your caution to the wind, you're not careful, basically.

It means to be not careful.

So to throw caution to the wind,

to take a risk without considering the consequences.

To make it easier, not be careful basically. Right?

To not be careful, to throw caution to the wind.

So your caution, you're being careful. Voom, throw it away.

We don't care. Take a risk.

Here, we could say I was busy at work,

but we threw caution to the wind

and booked to last minute holiday package.

It just means, you know,

I didn't think about my work, about the deadlines.

I'm not careful about that. Forget about that.

Let's just go and have a good time.

Let's live it up and throw caution to the wind.

Okay, throw caution to the wind.

It's actually the opposite.

So Chinelo Mozie, this is very, very good.

You say "Be careful with spending."

So throw caution to the wind

is to not be careful with spending.

It's actually the the very, very opposite, right?

To not be careful with spending

to throw caution to the wind.

'Cause here, well it's not only not spending,

it's not being careful with any consequences.

The consequences here is that I'm too busy,

I can't take a holiday.

You could also have it talking about money as well.

We don't have a lot of money,

but we decided

to throw caution to the wind

and book a holiday.

So we don't care about the consequences

that we have no money.

We just throw caution to the wind.

Excellent. Very, very nice.

Good. We've got one more.

Here we go. Number four.

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Mmm. (light calm music)

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Very interesting. So there are a lot of good ideas there.

Many of them correct.

Let me share the one I was thinking of

and then some of the ones you said.

So it's to get off the beaten track.

Or get off the beaten track.

We can actually say both to get off the beaten track,

to go off the beaten track.

The beaten path as well.

So yeah, track or path as you'll see.

To get off the beaten track, to go off the beaten track

or path, it means to visit a place

that is not well known or frequently visited.

For example, we prefer destinations

that are off the beaten path to avoid crowds.

Oh yeah, so

excuse me one moment.

Jingle time jingle.

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Keep hydrated, we prefer destinations

that are off the beaten path to avoid crowds.

I think a lot of people like to go off the beaten path

'cause it's quieter.

There are fewer tourists,

fewer holiday makers and you can get away from the crowds.

Other expressions, actually some of you said

to hit the road, yeah.

Because if you look at this, it could be

when you're working, you go off track,

you start something different.

So all of those are good idioms, right? Which exist as well.

I'm not gonna stay on them.

I'm gonna move on just because of time.

"What does splurge mean?"

To splurge means to spend a lot of money, yeah.

So to hit the road, it's Natalia,

you can hit the road means to start the journey.

Joy said, "Go off track" means to get distracted.

And to hit the road running means to start something

and you are well prepared for it.

So all of those are great, really, really good idioms.

But no, and I'm gonna move on to our next activity

just because I've noticed the time, right.

What's next? Well, let's find out what's next after idioms.

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