Using SIMILES to improve your everyday English

Hi. I'm Gill at engVid, and the lesson we're having today is about similes.

And just to explain what a simile is:

It's when you compare two different things. Okay? Now, there's another

lesson that we have about metaphors and at the beginning of that one, we explain the

difference between metaphors and similes.

So I'm going to do the same again with this lesson.

So, the simile is when you say A is like B-okay?-or A is as big as B or as small as B, so it's

comparing using "like" or "as". Whereas the metaphor is when you say A is B. If you say:

"He is a pig", it's not literally true, but he behaves like a pig. But: "He is a pig"

is a metaphor. If you say: "He is like a pig", that's a simile because you're using the word

"like" and comparing him with a pig. Okay.

So, let's just have a look at a few examples. Also, because similes use either "like" or "as",

we're going to look at some examples using "like" to begin with, and then we'll

move on to look at a few "as" examples. So these are all examples that you would hear

in everyday life that people tend to use, so they're quite familiar ones.

Okay, so first one: "She eats like a pig." Which isn't a very nice thing to say about

someone, but if she's quite... Makes a mess and a lot of noise, you know what a pig eats

like, she eats like a pig. So it's not a very nice thing to say about someone, but it's

comparing "she", a woman or a girl, comparing her to the way a pig eats.

"She eats like a pig." So that's a simile.

So, a similar example to that is: "He drinks like a fish." This usually means alcohol.

Not just water, but it's usually alcohol; beer, wine, whisky, anything.

"He drinks like a fish." Again, it's not a nice thing to say about somebody,

but it can sometimes be true,

so... Of course, fish, I don't know if fish actually drink water, but because they live

under water, they're immersed in water; water is all around them. So that's the idea, this

man who drinks is surrounded by liquid. It's that sort of idea. "He drinks like a fish."

Okay, next example is using... We've got animals, and fish, and another animal now:

"I've been working like a dog." And that means working really hard.

Okay. Working like a dog. You may know a Beatle song called

"A Hard Day's Night", and that is part of the lyrics of

that song. Okay. "I've been working like a dog." Which is actually true at the moment,

but I've been quite enjoying it, so that's all right. Okay.

Maybe if you're talking about two children, a brother and a sister, for example, who are

always fighting-this often happens, I think-you can say:

"They are fighting like cat and dog."

Because cats and dogs don't always... They're not always very friendly with each other.

So traditionally, cats and dogs perhaps fight. So: "They are fighting like cat and dog."

Okay. So all of these, it's "like", comparing.

Okay? So two children, human children compared

to a cat and a dog because they're fighting. Okay?

Coming back to a little bit like eating, drinking: Smoking is another thing that people do, which

isn't a very healthy thing to do. So if you say to someone:

"You smoke like a chimney."

Cigarettes, cigars, a pipe, maybe, any tobacco. And a chimney is what you get on a house,

the smoke comes out of the chimney. There's the roof of the house, the smoke comes out

of the chimney if you have a fire in the house. So if you say to your friend:

"You smoke like a chimney." it's not a very nice thing to say,

but maybe you will persuade them to stop

smoking, because it's very bad for your health.

Okay. So, that's a very common expression anyway.

And then finally in this section, you can say... If you're waiting for something and

you're waiting a really long time, you can say:

"It's like watching paint dry."

If you've been painting a wall or a door with a paint and a brush, when you've painted something,

it takes a few hours for the paint to dry. So if you're waiting for something to happen,

and you're waiting, and you'd rather like it to happen quite quickly, but you've been

waiting 10 minutes and it's still not happening, you can say: "It's like watching paint dry."

You know, if you stand there watching while the paint dries for two or three hours,

that's a very frustrating thing to do. You don't normally have to do that. If you paint something,

you just walk away and get on with something else. But this is quite a clever expression

for something that's making you feel impatient. Okay. Right, so that's the "like" ones, and

we'll now move on to the look at the "as" examples.

Okay, so moving on to the second part of similes, we're looking at the ones that use "as".

As something, as something. Okay, which is, again, still comparing two different things. So,

first example: "She's as timid as a mouse." So a little mouse that's very timid, meaning

frightened, shy. So if a person is very shy and they don't speak very much or they're very quiet:

"She's as timid as a mouse." So "as timid as a mouse",

so we use "as" twice. Okay?

And then if I take my glasses off, I can't see very well, so I can say:

"I'm as blind as a bat without my glasses."

Okay? Oh, you're still there, good. Okay. So:

"as blind as a bat". Some of the...

Because it's two b's it sort of makes a pattern a bit like in poetry.

"As blind as a bat". If you know... Do you know what a bat is? A sort of... It's like

a mouse with wings, and you know Dracula, Dracula is supposed to be... To turn into

a bat, and them from a bat back to being Dracula again. So that's a bat. And they... Apparently

they can't see very well; they find their way via radar or something. So:

"I'm as blind as a bat without my glasses." Or spectacles. Okay.

So, this sentence, I hope you're not going to say this about me, because this says:

"That explanation is as clear as mud."

Okay? So, we've got "as" twice again. The explanation,

I've just been explaining something, it... Clear is good. Oh, yeah, clear explanation,

very clear, we understand. But what about mud? Mud is... It's like soil with a lot of

water in it, so it's very thick and brown and sticky, and you can't see through it.

It's not like looking through a window. Mud, it's not clear. Mud is the opposite of clear,

so this is a little sort of joke, really or what you call a paradox.

A paradox to say

it's as clear as mud, which means it's not clear at all. Okay? So I hope my explanations...

I hope you're not saying this about me and the way I'm explaining things. Okay.

If a friend of yours has a shock, something shocks them, something bad happens, and their

face instead of having lovely pink cheeks, if their face goes completely white...

Of course, it depends on the colour of their skin, but if they're like me and they have

white skin and they've got no pink in their cheeks, and they look totally white and [gasps]

a look of shock on their face, you can say:

"You've gone as white as a sheet!"

So there's "as" again. White, obviously, colour white. A sheet, like on a bed, the white sheet you

put on the bed is a sheet, a bedsheet, a white... And they are often white. So you've gone,

meaning your face has become as white as a sheet. So:

"Oh, what's happened? What's...? What's wrong? You've gone as white as a sheet! What's the matter?"

So that's the idea with that one. Okay?

Then finally in this section: Children are often not very well-behaved, but in this example,

they are very well-behaved because:

"The children have been as good as gold."

So, again, we've got this...

The same letter, and "as". So we had "as blind as a bat", now we've got

"as good as gold" with the same letter repeated; just a nice little pattern. I suppose gold

is good, it's quite valuable. It looks nice, shiny, clean. So I suppose this is why this

saying has come about:

"The children have been as good as gold." They've really been

good. They've behaved well. There's been no trouble at all. Okay, so that's the end of

this section, and there's just one more little section to come.

Okay, so let's continue with the final section on similes, and these are a couple of poetic

examples, kind of like poetry, because similes, as well as metaphors, often appear in poetry.

Right, so two poetic examples. So this one we've got the word "like":

"My love is like a red, red rose."

Okay? And that's in quite a famous poem by a Scottish poet called

Robert Burns. And it's also been set to music, so people sing it as a song as well. So... And

again, with poetry, you often get the same letters repeated because it makes a nice pattern

in the sound. So: "My love is like a red, red, rose."

So the simile is comparing a woman

to a red rose, because the red rose is beautiful and so is the woman. Okay? Right.

And then our final example is called... It's a nursery rhyme, something that you sing to

children. Okay? So the nursery is the place where... In a big house, you'd have a room

called a nursery where you put the children and look... They sort of grow up there, and

they might even have a nurse in the nursery; a nanny who looks after them if it's a rich family.

Okay, so this one, I'm going to sing this. Can you bear it? Okay, here it goes. Oh, "twinkle",

let me explain first. When a star twinkles, it's when you look at a star and the light

is going like this. You can see it when you look up in the sky at night, a sort of little

flashing effect; twinkle. You can also say someone has a twinkle in their eye, if they're

looking sort of amused about something. So I'll give the words first:

"Twinkle, twinkle little star", so you're talking to a star.

"How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high

Like a diamond in the sky..." A diamond is a precious stone that you have

in a ring, often an engagement ring; a big, white, precious stone. Okay, so a diamond

twinkles, and so does the star, going like this. It catches the light. Okay? So, I don't

know if you've heard this song before, but here we go:

"Twinkle, twinkle little star How I wonder what you are.

Up above the world so high Like a diamond in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle little star How I wonder what you are."

Okay? So that's how it goes. You might want to play this again, and join in with me. Okay?

Drown my voice.

Okay, so that's some examples of similes. I hope you found that helpful.

Please visit the website, www.engvid.com, where there is a quiz on this topic.

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And that's it for now.

Hope to see you again next time. Okay. Bye.