5 Essential Communication Idioms in English

Hey, guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on essential communication

idioms. Now, this lesson will teach you about some common expressions, idioms that we use

in English related to communication, talking with people, calling people, Facebook chatting

with people, on Skype, whatever. Okay? So, the first two expressions are actually

related to one another. They both relate to, refer to, using the telephone. Okay? So, "to

give someone a call" or "to give someone a ring." Now, I know a lot of you are saying,

"Yes, I understand, to call someone." But in English, you can actually say, "Give me,"

right? "Give me a call," or "I gave him a call." You can also say "ring" instead of

"call" because "ring" is the sound the telephone makes. Well, at least the old rotary phones.

Now, people have Super Mario Brothers theme music, and I don't even know, Lady Gaga on

their telephone. And if you're watching this in the year 2020, the Lady Gaga reference

might be outdated. So, if I say, "Give me a call after work,"

right? "Call me. I will give you a ring later. I will call you later." Okay? It seems very

simple, but it's very useful. Very, very useful. Say, "Give me a call. I gave him a call. She

gave me a ring." Not a wedding ring or anything like this, but "She called me." Okay?

The second idiom is the same meaning. You can call someone, or in a more idiomatic way,

you can say, "You can call someone up." So, for example, "She should call up her sister,"

right? "She should call her up," meaning that she should call her, okay? Or, "She should

ring her up. She should give her a telephone call." "He rang me up this morning. He called

me this morning." Okay? So, these two expressions, "to give someone a call," "to give someone

a ring," or "to call" or "ring someone up," just means to call them, right? Use the telephone.

Get in contact with them. "To keep in touch." I think many of you know

this. If you don't know, "keep in touch," right? This means maintain contact, to keep

contact with one another. So, for example, "Keep in touch when you get to Mumbai," right?

If your friend is traveling to Mumbai, and you want them to keep contact with you, to

send you an email, or to message you on Facebook, or to give you a call over Skype or telephone

when they get there, you can tell them to, "Keep in touch, me." This is a common way

to end an email sometimes, or a letter, for those of you who write letters.

Now, the other example here, "Most people use Facebook to keep in touch with their friends."

So again, if you're watching this in the year 2020, maybe the Facebook reference will be

outdated, and we'll have "Google Friendship Log 2000," or something like this, that we'll

be talking about whatever social media we're using at that time. But now, in the present,

Facebook is a really, really common way of keeping in touch with your friends, and your

engVid friends as well, actually.

Finally, "To not talk or see someone or something in ages or in forever." This means that you

haven't talked to someone in a very long time. So if you say, "We have not talked in ages.

We have not talked in a very long time." If I say, "Oh my God, I haven't seen you in ages.

I have not seen you for a very long time." You can also use this to talk about things

like usually movies or something like that, that you haven't seen in a very long time.

So if someone mentions, "I watched, I don't know, 'The Land Before Time' yesterday." And

I say, "I haven't seen 'The Land Before Time' in forever," or in ages, then that means I

have not seen it in an extremely long time. If you haven't seen "The Land Before Time,"

it's about dinosaurs, and it's animated, and I really recommend it. It's a very good movie.

One of the best animated films of the '80s. I think it was the '80s. Pretty sure it was

the '80s. If not, you can use IMDb to check that. I'll put that here, actually. I don't

know if I'm allowed to give promotional material to other websites, but I just did.

Okay, so guys, just as a quick reminder, to give someone a call, give someone a ring,

to call someone up or ring someone up, to call them, right? To keep in touch, to maintain

contact, and to not talk or see someone in ages. In ages or in forever means a very,

very long time. To check your understanding of this material, which does not include "Land

Before Time" trivia, check out the quiz on www.engvid.com. Take care, guys.