10 Different Ways To Exaggerate When Speaking English

Hi, Bob the Canadian here,

as I continue to teach English online, I like to listen

to all the English speakers around me

to identify what makes English kind of strange sometimes.

One of the things I've noticed

is that English speakers like to exaggerate.

When you exaggerate,

it means you kind of don't tell the truth

or you add to something to make it sound bigger

or worse than it actually was.

A good example would be something like, oh,

I went to the store and there was a million people there

and it took forever.

I just exaggerated twice there,

there probably wasn't a million people there

and it obviously didn't take forever.

Anyways, in this English lesson,

I'm going to go over 10 different ways

that English speakers exaggerate when they talk,

some common phrases we use when we talk about time

or how hot it is outside and other things as well.

(upbeat music)

Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson

where I'm going to teach you some common English phrases

that English speakers use

and phrases they use to exaggerate a situation.

Before we get started though,

if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there

and gimme a thumbs up

if this video helps you learn a little bit more English.

Well, I'm outside today.

It's a summer day.

It's hot out here.

That would be the normal way to describe this day.

But later today, it's going to go over 30 degrees.

It's going to be very hot outside

and a common English expression

or phrase to talk about a really hot day is to say,

I'm melting.

It's really hot outside, I'm melting,

melting like an ice cube would melt.

That's kind of the thing that we're referring to.

It's so hot outside that I'm melting.

Now, of course, I'm exaggerating.

People don't actually melt.

But one of the first ways we exaggerate when talking

is when we're talking about a hot day

and we'll say something like I'm melting.

Now, of course, sometimes it's the middle of winter

and it's really cold outside.

And you would say it's cold outside,

but if you wanted to exaggerate a common English phrase

and it's a bit of a funny one

because it has the word butt in

it is to say, I'm freezing my butt off.

It's so cold outside, I'm freezing my butt off.

If you don't know what your butt is,

it's the where your back joins your legs

on the back of your body there.

I'm not going to stand up and point to it.

So we're definitely exaggerating.

When you say I'm freezing my butt off,

your butt isn't actually freezing

and it's not going to actually fall off,

but it's definitely a way English speakers will exaggerate

when talking about really cold weather,

I'm freezing my butt off.

So I wanna move this picnic table, but I can't lift it.

My muscles aren't big enough.

This table is really heavy.

In fact, if I was to describe how heavy it is

and if I wanted to exaggerate,

I would say this table weighs a ton.

Often when we're talking about things

that are really, really heavy,

we will say that they weigh a ton.

They don't actually weigh a ton.

Obviously they don't weigh a ton.

There's no way a picnic table could weigh a ton,

but because I can't lift it

and because I think it's heavy,

that's how I would describe it.

This picnic table weighs a ton.

Boo,

I think I've told this story a number of times.

Once when I was a kid I hid behind a tree

and when my sister walked by, I jumped out and said, boo.

And it was at night,

it was in the dark and my sister was scared.

But if you want to exaggerate,

when you're talking about someone who's scared,

you say they're scared stiff.

My sister was scared stiff after I said, boo, it scared her.

She didn't, however, go like this.

She didn't freeze and she wasn't stiff as a board,

she actually was just really, really mad at me.

But if you wanna describe someone in English

as being really, really scared

you can exaggerate by saying that they were scared stiff.

So I haven't eaten for a few hours and now I'm hungry.

I really want to eat because I'm hungry.

That would be the normal way

to describe that feeling in English.

But as I've said, English speakers like to exaggerate.

So you will often hear people say,

I'm starving to describe the fact that they are hungry.

They'll say things like let's eat lunch now, I'm starving.

When's supper, dad?

I'm starving.

So instead of saying something simple and normal

like I'm hungry, English speakers like to exaggerate

and they'll say I'm starving.

When you're thirsty, though,

you might say I'm dying of thirst.

When you've been outside working on a hot day

and you just really want a drink of water.

Instead of saying, I'm thirsty,

I'm going to go have a drink of water.

You might say, I'm dying of thirst,

I'm going to go have a drink of water.

Now, of course, you're not actually dying.

You're just exaggerating,

it's kind of a silly way to say it in a sense,

but often you'll hear an English speaker say that

they'll say, hey, let's stop working for a bit.

Let's have a drink because I'm dying of thirst.

So one of the joys of being human

is that sometimes you need to wait.

Maybe you need to wait in line at the grocery store.

Maybe you need to wait in the waiting room

at the doctor's office.

Sometimes you need to wait

and then afterwards you might say to someone,

it took a long time or it took 10 minutes

before I could check out at the grocery store.

But, of course, if you wanted to exaggerate

you would use the word forever.

You would say, I went to the doctor's office

and I waited forever in the waiting room.

Or you might say, I went to the grocery store

and I waited forever in line.

Of course, you didn't actually wait forever.

If you had waited forever,

you would still be in that line

because forever never actually ends.

But if you wanted to express yourself

and emphasize just how long you waited,

you would say I waited forever.

So there are times in life

when you really want to do something,

maybe you've worked for months on end

and you really want to go on a holiday.

You would say, I want to go on a holiday

or if you wanted to exaggerate, you would say,

I'm dying to go on a holiday.

You're not actually dying,

but for some reason as English speakers,

we like to use that word to talk about things

we really want to do.

I'm dying to go on a holiday,

I'm dying to have a day off.

It just means that you really, really want something.

I'm dying to get this video done

because it's really hot out here and I'm melting.

So there I've used two different phrases

where I've exaggerated at the same time.

When you describe someone who's old,

you might say they're old.

Maybe you use that phrase to describe me.

You might say Bob the Canadian is old,

but if you wanted to exaggerate a bit,

you would say Bob the Canadian is as old as the hills.

This is a phrase that it's a bit of an older phrase,

the phrase itself is old as the hills, I guess.

But it's a phrase we use to describe someone

who's really, really old.

You might say, ah, that guy's old as the hills

meaning that they're almost as old as the earth itself.

You can use this to describe things as well.

You could say, oh, I need to buy a new car

because my old car it's as old as the hills,

basically meaning that it's really, really old.

So when I woke up this morning

I realized I had a lot of things to do today.

I could count the number of things

and I could say I have seven things to do today

or I have 14 things to do today.

But in English we like to exaggerate sometimes

when we're talking about the number of things.

So I could say I have a million things to do today,

I could even say I have a zillion things to do.

By the way, million is a real number.

Zillion is just a word we use to mean a lot of things.

When I went to the grocery store the other day

there were a million people in the store,

I had to wait forever in line.

There, I just used two exaggerations again.

So sometimes when you're counting things

instead of being precise, we just exaggerate.

And we'll just say, I have a million things to do

or I have a zillion things to do.

Lucky for me,

I'm almost done all of the things I have to do today.

So I don't have a zillion things to do anymore.

Well, thank you so much for watching this English lesson

where I hope you learned some common phrases

that English speakers use

when they want to exaggerate a little bit

when they're talking about different things.

Remember if this is your first time here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button over there

and gimme a thumbs up

if this video helped you learn

just a little bit more English

and I'll see you next week with another English lesson.

Bye.

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