10 Important English Phrases: Advanced Vocabulary Lesson

Are you ready to level up your English vocabulary  to use the words that advanced English speakers  

use every day in daily conversation? Well, you  are in the right place. A few weeks ago I shared  

with you this English conversation where my  husband and I answered your questions about  

daily life. And today you are going to be able  to master 10 English expressions that we used in  

that conversation so that you can use them when  you speak English in the real world too. Hi,  

I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com and  like always I have created a free PDF worksheet  

for you with all 10 of these expressions,  definitions, sample sentences and drumroll. 

At the end of this PDF worksheet, there is  a ten-question quiz. You can test yourself  

to see if you remember these expressions and  can use them correctly in the sentences. Click  

on the link in the description to download  this free PDF worksheet today. All right,  

let's get started with the first real English  expression that was used in our conversation.  

That was "to get out the door." We could  just say, "I leave the house every morning  

at 8:00 AM." Boring. Or you could use this  wonderful expression and you could say, "I  

need to get out the door every morning at 8 A.M." This kind of is implying that there's a little  

bit of urgency to getting out the door, going to  your destination. In the conversation with Dan,  

I said, "I help Theo, our oldest son, to get out  the door in the morning." Here I could have said,  

"I help Theo to leave to go to school in  the morning," but I wanted to talk about  

that urgency. If you have kids that need to go  to school in the morning, you know exactly what  

I'm talking about. You got to get up, get your  clothes on, make sure you have some breakfast,  

get everything in their backpack prepared, make  sure that they have everything that they need. 

There's kind of this snowball of energy that  happens in the morning before you get out the  

door. So that's the expression that was used to  talk about this urgent leaving. What we're going  

to do now is I want you to see how it was used  in the original conversation. So we're going to  

watch that clip from the original conversation  two times, and this way it can stick in your  

memory. You heard my explanation right now,  and then you're about to see it in the real  

conversation as well. The more input that you have  for an expression, especially if it's new to you,  

the more you'll be able to remember it. So let's watch that clip and see how it  

was used. I make some tea, we breakfast together,  and I help our oldest get out the door with Dan.

Dan: That could be a challenge.

Vanessa: I make some tea, we eat breakfast  

together, and I help our oldest  get out the door with Dan.

Dan: That could be a challenge.

Vanessa: The second real  

life English expression that was used in our  conversation is this one "have to say." Well,  

by itself this could mean several different  things, but as a fixed expression, it has a  

very specific meaning. Take a look at this  sample sentence. "My cousin is a lawyer and  

I'm really interested to hear what she has  to say about the new law being passed." Here  

we're talking about the insight that she can  give on the new law because she is a lawyer,  

she knows more about how the law works  than me. So I want to know her insight,  

that really in-depth knowledge that she has. So I might ask you as an English learner,  

I'm curious what you have to say about the  new technology with AI and learning language.  

What do you think about learning language  with AI? Is it possible? Is it a good idea?  

What are some ways that we could do that?  I'm curious to hear what you have to say.  

This is a great way to ask for your insight, for  your opinions and ideas about this. All right,  

let's watch the original clip two times so  that you can see that original context for how  

this expression was used. Sometimes we also ask  what was the most challenging part of your day? 

If a day was particularly challenging or just if  you remember it, and it's interesting to kind of  

hear what everyone has to say. Sometimes we also  ask, what was the most challenging part of your  

day if a day was particularly challenging or  just if you remember it, and it's interesting  

to kind of hear what everyone has to say. The  third real life expression is a fun one. It  

is "to be zonked." This is a slang expression,  and you can kind of get the meaning from this  

sentence. "At the end of the day, I'm just zonked  and need to turn my brain off and just go to bed." 

It just means I'm really tired. I'm physically  and mentally exhausted. I can't do anything  

else. I'm zonked. So in the original conversation  with Dan, I said, "Yeah, by the end of the day,  

I am zonked. I have put so much energy into my day  with my business, with teaching, with three kids,  

with a home, with a family, all of this. By the  end of the day, I am zonked." This is another fun  

slang expression to mean completely exhausted.  All right, let's see how this was used in the  

original conversation. And usually like Dan said,  "I'm kind of zonked by the end of the day, brush  

my teeth, maybe take a shower and go to sleep." And usually like Dan said, "I'm kind of zonked  

by the end of the day and brush my teeth, maybe  take a shower and go to sleep." The next important  

real-life expression is 50/50. Well, what is  a whole? 100. So if we are going to say 50/50,  

both of these create a whole and it is an even  split. So in the original conversation with Dan,  

we were talking about chores and how we  divide the chores in our house. And I said,  

"I don't know if it's exactly an even 50/50.  I do 50%, my husband does 50% of the chores.  

I don't know if it's exactly even, but  we try to split the chores in our house." 

So here we're talking about splitting the work.  We can use this expression for splitting a lot of  

different things. We might say, "It's becoming  more common to split the bill 50/50 on a first  

date." I would say traditionally it's more  common for the man to pay for the first date,  

but it's becoming more common for the woman to  say, "Hey, let's split 50/50. This is our first  

date. Let's split 50/50." Or you could say,  "Let's split the bill 50/50." I have to tell  

you a funny story about when I was little. I had  some best friends who lived across the street and  

we would often have schemes for making money. One of those schemes was to set up a lemonade  

stand, which is a pretty common thing to do  in the US for kids at the end of the driveway  

because there were some construction workers who  were working on a house down the street and it was  

a hot day and we thought they might want some  lemonade. Maybe we can make some money off of  

them. So we created a lemonade stand at the end  of my driveway. There was four of us. As we were  

discussing how much money we might make, what we  would do with the money. One of my friends said,  

"I don't want to split the money with you guys. I'm going to make my own stand across the street."  

At her house by herself so that she didn't  have to split the money 50/50 with us. Instead,  

she could have the money all to herself.  And I remember being so angry at the time,  

but also thinking, "Oh, that's a smart idea."  This was one of my first experiences with  

economics. But in that situation, we were going  to split the money, I guess 25/25/25/25. But  

for the sake of this expression, splitting the  money, 50/50 between us. And here, she wanted to  

have the money all to herself and decided to  come up with a scheme to be able to do that. 

I think in the end we probably all made a dollar.  We were probably really happy about that. Anyway,  

let's watch the original clip from this expression  so that you can see how it was used. Let's watch.

Dan: Doing the  

dishes. That's my job. I don't know if it's  50/50, but we split the chores. We try to be  

relatively even about it. Doing the dishes.  That's my job. So I don't know if it's 50/50,  

but we split the chores. We try  to be relatively even about it.

Vanessa: The fifth real life daily  

English expression is pro and con. We usually  use this in a plural version. So let me give  

you a sample sentence. You might say, "Working  remotely has some pros and cons." People get  

flexibility with their schedule, but they also  sometimes feel lonely because they don't have  

coworkers around them. So here we're talking about  the benefits and the disadvantages, the advantages  

and the disadvantages, the good things and the  bad things. Most things in life have a flip  

side. They're not just all 100% good or 100% bad,  so we can use this for our daily life as well. 

In the conversation with Dan, we were talking  about traditional food in the US and how a lot  

of people kind of struggle with knowing what  to eat, what's healthy to eat. We don't have  

an extremely long hundreds of years of history  of traditional foods. Now, if you are a recent  

immigrant to the US or have held onto your  original heritage, maybe your family does  

have more of that. But for a lot of Americans,  we don't really have traditional foods that  

our ancestors have been eating for hundreds of  years. So that's kind of a pro and con in the U.S. 

On one hand, we can have a variety of foods  that we eat, have an experienced palate,  

but on the other hand we often struggle with  knowing what are good things to eat and what  

aren't good things to eat. We can kind of be  susceptible to fad diets and things like this  

because we don't have this rich history of  food culture and those types of things. So  

there are pros and cons to a lot of things. I'm  curious, what do you think are some pros and  

cons to learning English online? Let me know in  the comments. I can think of a few here myself. 

What do you think are the pros and cons of  learning English online? Well, let's watch  

the original clip so that you can see how this  expression was used. Let's watch. So there's  

kind of that food tradition, and so I think in  the US that's like a pro and a con. That people  

often struggle with knowing what should I eat?  What should I make? So there's kind of that food  

tradition, and so I think in the US that's like  a pro and a con. That people often struggle with  

knowing what should I eat? What should I make? The  next daily life expression is "to up" something. 

Usually the word up is a preposition. I walked  up the stairs, but here we're going to be using  

it as a lovely verb to up something. So take  a look at this sentence. "I deleted social  

media from my phone and after I did that, I  upped my reading a lot." So here we can see  

the correlation. "I deleted social media off my  phone, so now I have more time, more brain space,  

all of this. And as a result, I upped my reading.  I have read so many books since deleting social  

media off my phone." I highly recommend it. So  here we're talking about increasing something. 

Let me give you another example so that you can  see the sentence structure for using this. Because  

up, yes, is usually a preposition, but as a verb  we need to use it in a specific way. You could say  

this, "I upped my water intake after I realized  that I was dehydrated." So here I increased my  

water intake when I realized I was dehydrated.  So we could really substitute the word increase  

here. I increased my water intake. I increased  the amount of books that I read, my reading. 

But if you want to have a little bit more  of a daily life conversation flair to your  

speech. In daily life, we are more likely to  use the word up. I upped my water intake. I  

upped the amount of books that I read. This  is a great expression to use. All right,  

let's watch how it was used in the original  conversation. I deleted social media stuff off  

of my phone. So that really helped. I upped my  reading when I did that. I deleted social media  

stuff off of my phone. So that really helped.  I upped my reading when I did that. Important  

expression number seven is to be "over your  head" or "over his head" or "over my head." 

We often use this expression with this gesture  and sometimes we don't even say the expression,  

we just go, "Whew." So let me give you an  example of how you might use this. For me,  

the first time that I watched the movie Inception,  it was over my head. All of the confusing plot  

lines and jumping through time and all of this,  it was too much for me. So here you can get the  

idea that I just didn't understand it. It  was too confusing and complicated. If I want  

to take out that expression and just use the  gesture, this is what I could say. "The first  

time that I watched Inception, it wasn't for me." I didn't even need to say it was over my head. You  

understand why it wasn't for me? It's not that it  was too violent, it's not that it was too boring,  

it's just that it was over my head. The whole idea  was something I could not understand and that's  

how we used it in the original conversation. We  were talking about what Dan and Theo, my son,  

do when they're commuting to school every day  because they have to drive 30 minutes to get to  

school every day. What do you do in that time? Well, they often listen to audiobooks and one  

of the books that they tried to listen to is a  famous one called Anne of Green Gables. It's a  

great story, but you know what? It was over his  head. My son is six and that book is probably  

better for ten-year-olds maybe. So he wasn't very  interested in it. It was kind of boring to him and  

he wanted to listen to something else instead.  So we could say Anne of Green Gables was over  

his head. It wasn't something that was a good  fit for him. Just a little note about grammar. 

When you use this expression, make sure that  that word his, my, your head, it matches the  

person that you're talking to. You might have  noticed this because I said, "The book was over  

his head," or we could say, "Inception was over my  head." The person that you're talking about needs  

to match the expression. All right, let's watch  how that was used in the original conversation.

Dan: And we started Anne  

of Green Gables too, but that one was a little  bit over his head. Very verbose. And we started  

Anne of Green Gables too, but that one was  a little bit over his head. Very verbose.

Vanessa: Important expression number eight is  

"to be pressed." You can get the idea here that  there is some pressure going on and we're not  

talking about this in a literal pressure kind of  way. We're talking about mental pressure. So if at  

your work you have deadlines, I think this is kind  of a standard feature of any job. You might say,  

"We are going to be really pressed to finish  this report by the deadline. It's supposed to  

be done in three hours. I don't know how we're  going to do it." So here you're talking about  

feeling the pressure of time. We often add on to  this expression and say to plus something else. 

So I just said, "We are going to be pressed to  finish the report on time." But we could also  

insert a lot of other things here. In the original  conversation I was talking about trying to balance  

my work and life and family. It's a lot. So a  lot of you asked me this question, "Vanessa,  

how do you do that?" And I said, "You know what?  It is a work in progress and I'm still learning  

how to do that, but my goal is to not work in  the evenings after my kids go to bed. I need that  

time to be just detox time. But you know what? Sometimes I have a project that I'm working on and  

I'm pressed to finish it at a specific time. So I  need those extra hours in the evening to be able  

to work." So you can kind of feel that pressure  that I need to do it, even though usually this is  

my relaxation time. All right, let's watch how  it was used in the original clip. And you can  

use this expression too, when you feel pressure.  "Oh, I feel pressed to be able to do this. Oh,  

I'm so pressed right now at work. I'm having a  hard time." You can do it. All right, let's watch. 

My goal is to try to not work in the  evening after the kids go to bed,  

but sometimes I would be pressed to have to do  that and now I try to delegate tasks. That means  

give tasks to other people. My goal is to try to  not work in the evening after the kids go to bed,  

but sometimes I would be pressed to have to  do that and now I try to delegate tasks. That  

means give tasks to other people. The ninth  important daily life expression is "to have  

it or that in you." So here we're talking about  being capable of doing something and often we  

use this either as motivation or as surprise. So let me give you a couple sample sentences,  

a kind of silly example, but a good starter  one is, "Wow, you ate that whole pizza. I  

didn't know you had it in you." So this means  I didn't know that you had the skill to eat  

a whole pizza. It's maybe not really a skill,  but you know what I mean. I am surprised that  

you could eat that whole pizza. This is kind  of a basic example, but let's take it up to  

the next level. A couple of months ago, one of  my neighbors who's 13 years old was part of a  

local theater performance of a musical and  we went to go see her and I was blown away. 

She's usually pretty shy, but she was standing on  the stage singing and dancing sometimes by herself  

in front of the whole audience. I didn't know that  she had that in her. Here we're talking about the  

skill and the courage to be able to sing and dance  in front of other people. I think most people in  

the whole world would be terrified at that. But  even though she's usually kind of quiet and shy,  

she was able to do that. So here I'm expressing  surprise in her skill. I didn't know that she had  

it. And here we don't usually mention the thing. Usually we just say it because it's implied based  

on the context. She was singing and dancing on  the stage. I didn't know she had it in her. And  

we know that it is the skill to be able to sing  and dance on the stage. "Wow, I didn't know that  

she had it in her." And the fun thing is you can  use this expression about yourself as well. So  

you are here because you were learning English,  but let's imagine that your boss tells you, "Hey,  

guess what? We have some new clients that come  from the US and I'm going to need you to call them  

and ask them some specifications about the product  that they want and help us to negotiate an offer." 

Holy cow, this is a big deal. This is a  big deal professionally, but it is a big  

deal to do in another language, in English. So  when you do this and you do it successfully,  

you might say to yourself, "Wow, I didn't know  that I had it in me to do that and I did it  

successfully. Great work. I didn't know that I had  it in me. Wow, I'm so proud of myself. I worked  

so hard to do this and I did it successfully. I  didn't know that I had it in me. I didn't believe  

in myself at first, but here I am on the other  side. Success. Great." All right, let's watch  

how this was used in the original conversation. It feels actually pretty calming like a break.

Dan: You might go to the  

gym and find Vanessa just punching a punching bag.  You're like, "I didn't know she had that in her."

Vanessa: It feels actually pretty calming like a break.

Dan: You might go to the gym  

and find Vanessa just punching a punching  tag. I didn't know she had that in her.

Vanessa: Our 10th and final important English  

expression is the "cherry on top." Have you ever  had a big bowl of ice cream or maybe seen one in  

the movies and they put some chocolate fudge syrup  and then on top, boink, they put a cherry on top  

of the ice cream bowl? Well, the cherry is not  the most fundamental element of the ice cream,  

but without that cherry, the bowl of ice cream  would not be complete. This is perfection. So  

usually we use this to talk about the finishing  touch on something that's already really good. 

So in the original conversation we said that,  "Yeah, we think that our family with just two  

boys is great. But you know what? Now that  we have our third and special baby girl,  

she is the cherry on top. This is the perfect  finishing touch to our family." And you can use  

this in a lot of different situations. You might  use it to talk about your job. You could say,  

"I love my job and the fact that it pays well  is the cherry on top. I love the work that I do,  

but also guess what? I get paid well, that is the  cherry on top." Yes, it is a great combination. 

All right, let's see how this was  used in the original conversation  

so that you can use it too, this 10th  and final expression. Let's watch.

Dan: I can only speak for myself  

because it just feels like our family's complete.  She's like the little cherry on top to our family.

Vanessa: Our baby.

Dan: She's really sweet. I can only speak for myself  

because it just feels like our family's complete.  She's like the little cherry on top to our family.

Vanessa: Our baby.

Dan: She's really sweet.

Vanessa: Congratulations on learning these 10 important  

daily life expressions. Now, I would like to  share the cherry on top with you. Don't forget  

to download the free PDF worksheet with all of  today's expressions, definitions, multiple sample  

sentences and the cherry on top at the bottom of  the PDF. You can answer a 10 question quiz so that  

you never forget what you've learned. That's the  goal, right? To be able to use these expressions  

the next time that you speak in English. So make  sure that you click on the link in the description  

to download that free PDF worksheet today. Well, thank you so much for learning English with  

me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new  lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait,  

do you want more? I recommend watching this video  next where you will learn to think and speak in  

English, including why you should not say, "I  put the kids to sleep." Not very good in English,  

but why is that? Check out that video  to find out and I'll see you there.