250 Important English Vocabulary Words with pictures

What is the number one skill that you need to  be able to express yourself clearly in English?  

It's vocabulary. If you don't have the right  words that you want to say when you speak well,  

you're not going to be able to express  yourself. But I have some good news,  

today you are going to learn 250 new  English expressions with pictures. Hi,  

I'm Vanessa from Speakenglishwithvanessa.com,  and like always I have created an amazingly huge  

important PDF worksheet, more like an ebook  for today's lesson with all 250 expressions,  

definitions, sample sentences, and  at the bottom of this worksheet,  

you can answer Vanessa's challenge question  so that you never forget what you've learned.

You don't want to miss this free PDF  worksheet. It has so much valuable  

vocabulary and information for you to help  you express yourself and it's free. You can  

click on the link in the description  to download that free PDF worksheet  

today. We're going to take a look at  pictures in five different categories,  

and some of these pictures are from my life so  I'm excited to be able to share a little window  

into Vanessa's life with these pictures. Some of  them are very special to me too, so I'm excited  

to share them with you. Let's get started with our  first category, which is relationships. Let's go.

The first picture for this first category  of relationships is this lovely couple.  

You can see that they look like they're on  a date. Yes, Dan and I are on a date. This  

is a whale watching tour on an amazingly old  boat. It was so cool in San Diego we did this,  

and you can see that we look pretty comfortable  together. We're not on a first date feeling  

awkward, we look pretty comfortable together.  He has his arm around my shoulder and we would  

say that because our bodies are touching in  public, we are experiencing a fun expression,  

P-D-A. PDA is public display of affection and  this is a really cultural thing. In some cultures,  

couples never touch in public, and  in some cultures couples touch a lot  

in public. In the US it kind of varies,  but this type of PDA is pretty common.

Our hands are touching and his arm is around  my shoulder. This is socially acceptable PDA.  

For our next picture you can see this lovely  family. This is Dan's great grandma and her  

great-grandchildren. They're spending some  quality time together, making memories,  

and they are going to grandma's house.  So we often use this type of expression,  

what are you doing this weekend? I'm going  to grandma's house. It could be that you're  

just spending the day, you might be spending  the weekend, but it's often something that  

we have special memories about I'm going to  grandma's house. Because everyone here looks  

really comfortable, we could even say that  they're close-knit. Close-knit we get this  

idea of tight close together physically,  but also emotionally that they feel really  

comfortable together. They're close-knit.  So we might say we have a close-knit family.

Here's a picture of friend relationships.  This is a big summer gathering that my  

family hosts every summer with all of our  friends. We have lots of pizza, some cake,  

a big slip and slide. All of our friends  and their kids come and we just hang out  

together. So we could also say, this is  a get-together, that's a noun. This is  

a get-together. Or you could say, we are  going to have a get together this weekend,  

want to come? A lot of these people are close  friends and if you have one special close friend,  

you might say, she is my BFF. Do you know what  that means? Best friends forever. She's my BFF,  

but here we have a lot of family friends and do  you know what? Even though it's fun to meet people  

who are very different from you, oftentimes people  who are similar end up becoming friends together.

So a lot of these people here, we might say  we are birds of a feather. Birds of a feather,  

the full expression is birds of a feather  flock together. And a lot of us who are  

parents we are raising our children in  a similar way, we have similar values,  

and that's kind of important for friendships that  you have similar values. This is a very different  

picture. This is a team. A team is a different  type of relationship. These people, these are the  

New England Patriots. They're one of the most  popular American football teams, and you know  

what? They're pretty good. They make a good team.  So if you get along well with your coworkers or if  

you're on a sports team and you really work well  together, you might say, we make a good team. You  

could even say this for your partner. So if you  have a husband or wife or boyfriend or girlfriend,  

you could say, yeah, we make a good team. We  have different strengths, so we help each other.

There's also a common type of expression you  could say that we often say with team, T-E-A-M,  

together everyone achieves more. TEAM, together  is better. So that's also something sometimes we  

say together is better or we might say teamwork  is dream work. It's very cheesy sometimes. That's  

a phrase you might see on an office wall trying  to encourage people to work together. Teamwork  

is dream work. Or you might see, I remember  this was a poster in my high school math class,  

there is no I in teamwork. So there's no  room for I, me as an individual to stand  

out because we are a team, we work together.  There is no I in team T-E-A-M, there's no I,  

there's no letter I, but there's also no I  like me individually. Nope, we work together.

Here we have a separate type of team, but  similar lines. These two people are colleagues,  

that means that they work together in the same  business. When you are a colleague with someone,  

you need to be a good team player. That's  also something you could say in an interview,  

I'm a good team player. I work well with  other people. I imagine also they are  

probably collaborating. Collaborating is a great  big word, and it just means that they are sharing  

ideas with each other. They're collaborating  on a project. It also looks professional. It  

doesn't look extremely professional. His shirt  is untucked, she has a sleeveless dress on,  

but it's still a professional setting.  They aren't on the beach or something,  

they're in a somewhat professional setting.  But something that you never want to be  

if you are someone's colleague,  you do not want to be a slacker.

These two people look like they are working well  together. They look like they're collaborating  

well. They're good team players. These people do  not look like slackers. A slacker is someone who  

lets the other people do all the work while they  just sit back and watch what everyone's doing. So  

don't be a slacker. No one wants to have a slacker  on their team. Talking about working together,  

here is a classroom. This is actually my  husband's classroom. He teaches STEAM,  

which is science, technology, engineering,  art, and math. It feels like that could be  

10 different classes, but here his students  are working on some art technology. They're  

creating a comic strip on the computer,  and they look pretty studious I would  

say. That means that they are really focused  on their work. They're not being distracted,  

they're not looking elsewhere. They are studious,  and they're working together or in partners.

So partners is two people, but they're  also working in groups. So you might  

say this is group work or they are  partners. So they're working together  

on this. It's also a class project.  It's not just an individual project,  

this is something they're doing in class. It's  a class project. And hopefully if they do well,  

they will pass with flying colors. And you  know what? These comic strips that they made  

were great. They were hilarious. Dan showed  me some of them, it was awesome. This final  

relationship picture is a slightly different type  of relationship, this is a mentor relationship.  

So we can see here the guy with the orange shirt  looks like he's pointing to something on a paper,  

and we can imagine that he's teaching this guy  with the blue collar how to do something. How  

to do his job better. It looks like an office  setting, he's trying to teach him something.

And it's possible that the guy with the blue  collar, he's asking for advice, maybe he was  

asking for some guidance about how to do his role  because the guy with the orange shirt, the mentor,  

he is a good role model. He knows how to do the  job well, he has been successful for a while so  

he's a good role model. It's a good person to  ask. If you want to ask someone for advice,  

maybe like me, when I was starting my business  I had no idea what I was doing and I asked a  

mentor. Someone who had been doing the job for  a while, I asked him a great question. I said,  

"Can I pick your brains about how you are  doing your job? I want to do that too."  

Can I pick your brains? It just means can  I ask you some questions because you know  

stuff that I don't know and I want to know  that stuff. And when someone is a mentor,  

because it means that they know more than  you, you might say, I look up to him.

It doesn't just mean that he's taller than you.  He might be taller than you, maybe not. It means  

that you respect that person. So you could look up  to a mentor for their great knowledge and success.  

You could look up to a parent, your mom or your  dad, your grandparents. If you respect them,  

you look up to them. All right, let's go on to  the second category, which is ages or phases in  

life. We are always getting older, so let's look  at this first picture. Here we can see different  

generations. I imagine this is a grandmother and  a grandchild, and they have a computer in front  

of them. This is very typical of a generation  gap. That means that there is a huge difference  

in the life experience of the grandson. He  probably knows a lot more about computers  

than his grandmother. So there's a generation  gap. He might not understand her very well, she  

might not understand him very well, but it still  means they can have a good relationship, right?

And we might say they look similar. They both  have a nice smile. We could say their smile  

runs in the family. It's something that's  similar for all the family members. So if  

an entire family is really good at music,  you might say music runs in the family or  

brown hair runs in the family. But for example,  my husband Dan has red hair, but his parents  

don't have red hair. His grandmother has red  hair or used to have red hair so we could say  

it skipped a generation. Red hair skipped a  generation. None of my children have red hair,  

but maybe their children could have red hair.  It will skip a generation. And a lovely phrase  

that I want to also add for this picture, I  could imagine that right now this grandma is  

telling her grandson some stories about her  childhood. "When I was your age, we had to  

go to the library to find any information  and the library was a 12-hour walk away."

We couldn't just open the computer and find  information. When I was your age... This is  

a great phrase that grandparents often use when  they're telling stories about their childhood.  

This picture, this is a very personal picture.  It is one of my favorite pictures of all time,  

so I'm very happy to share it with you. In  this lesson today there's a lot of special  

pictures that are close to my heart.  This is one day after my baby was born,  

and in bed you can see all of my  children. My son Freddie beside me  

had been coloring with markers. There's  marker on his face. And my son, Theo,  

is very excited about his baby sister. This is a  very typical view of motherhood. It is rewarding,  

it is very fulfilling and it is also busy. And we  might say this is an example of a mother's love.  

Oftentimes we say a mother's love is sacrificial,  they're always giving to others. So if you are a  

mother or if you had a mother who was like that,  maybe they were always giving to the family.

But at the same time, we can get the idea  that a mother will always be protective of  

her family. And sometimes we use the fun phrase  a mama bear, that means protective. If you say  

something mean about my child, RAWR, I'll become  a bear. So this is becoming more and more common  

to see on the internet. There's even t-shirts,  sometimes there's little memes, a mother bear  

or a mama bear. Someone who's willing to do  anything to protect their family. And also,  

I don't know if you can see any physical  difference here or physical similarity,  

but I do think my children's personalities are  similar to mine and similar to my husband's. So we  

might say like father, like son. Like mother, like  daughter. You could say like mother, like son,  

but oftentimes we have the same gender. So like  father, like son. Like mother, like daughter.

My daughter is still too young to know her  real personality, but we'll see. Anyways,  

I was very happy to share this special picture  with you. You can see on the table on the far  

side, Dan brought me a wonderful lunch, filling  lunch to be able to help me the day after I  

gave birth. So there you go, very special family  picture. Here we can see childhood. Childhood is  

another age or stage in life. And here my kids are  being quite carefree. Carefree means not a care,  

not a worry in the world. They are playing in the  mud. In fact, they made this mud, they put our  

hose here and created... They said they wanted to  create a pond, so they made a little dam and they  

made a pond and had fun. They're most importantly  using their imagination. Yes, they have a toy  

there, but they're absolutely using their  imagination to create fun with this mud pond.

And this was just this past summer, but even since  then they have gotten bigger. My kids have gotten  

bigger, so sometimes we say for children they're  growing like a weed. Whew! So fast. Oh, here we  

see some teenagers, who are these good-looking  teenagers? In this picture I was 17. I was just  

about to turn 18 years old and Dan was 18, and I  saw that he had these blue plaid pants and I said,  

"I have the same pants, let me go find them." And  I ran to my room and I got these pants and you can  

see we're a little bit awkward together. We're  just friends. We're just friends here, but you  

could see Dan's a little interested. But we had  the exact same clothes, so maybe it was destiny,  

but we can talk about teenagers to say they're  in between childhood and adulthood. This is kind  

of a transitional period, a big transitional  period where we are becoming more independent.

Maybe you have some puppy love, maybe  your childhood sweethearts or high school  

sweethearts or here we are college sweethearts.  We use the term sweetheart to talk about when  

you've known someone and you've had a crush or  loved from when you were really young. Here yes,  

I was half my age ago, what, 18  years old? Yeah, pretty amazing. Wow,  

I've known Dan half my life. In this picture  we see adults. These people are not teenagers,  

they are adults. Sometimes we also say for the  term adult we say they're grownups. Oftentimes we  

use this with children or when we're comparing  it with children. So for my kids I say, don't  

cross the street unless you are with an adult  or unless you're with a grownup. And notice the  

pronunciation for me, I say adult, adult with the  same vowel, adult. But some people say adult with  

that kind of emphasis at the end adult or they  might say he's an adult. Some people say that.

I think the most common is adult with the same  vowels, but you will hear some variations in  

pronunciation. I would also say that another term  we use for young adults is working professionals  

or young professionals. So there might be a meetup  group in your city for young professionals to meet  

each other. You don't work at the same company,  but it's just a way to get to know other people.  

If you are around this age, you might be looking  to settle down or looking to put down roots. This  

is an indirect way of usually saying, I'm  looking to get married. I'm looking to have  

more stability in my life. Because when you are  a grownup, when you're an adult, you're looking  

to settle down. You don't want to just date 50  people, instead you might be more interested in  

settling down. And as you get a little bit older,  I would say maybe 40 years old, oh, it's sounds  

too close to how old I am now, we could  also say you are in the prime of life.

So you are young enough that your body still works  well, you still have energy, and you have maybe  

some more money than you did when you were 18  years old as a teenager and you are in the prime  

of life. You are able to do things independently  and this is a really hopefully good time of life.  

Let's take a look at the next stage of life,  which is retirees. This is my mother-in-law,  

and my father-in-law recently retired so they are  free. These are their golden years. And do you  

know what they're doing? They are making a bucket  list and checking off all of the things that they  

want to do. For them, this means going on a lot of  adventures. They have more time for their hobbies,  

which is learning new things, kayaking and finding  shells, and they have an RV and they've been going  

around the country doing things that they want to  do because they don't have to work now. They are  

retired. They can take it easy. So we often use  the expression for an individual he is a retiree.

That's the name of the person, kind  of like employee. Employee retiree,  

but we usually say he is retired. He is retired.  I am retired. So you could say I'm a retiree. It's  

kind of a mouthful. Is that tricky to say? So  instead, it's a little bit more common I think,  

to say, I'm retired. I'm retired so  because I have all the time in the world,  

I'm going to go kayaking in Florida. Cool.  All right, the final picture in this ages  

category is another very special picture. This  picture is close to my heart and I'm very happy  

to share it with you. This time of life is an  elderly time of life. So here you can see me,  

in the middle is Dan's grandpa. I think he was 92  in this picture. And you can see Dan's dad and my  

children. We were at the beach together the next  year after this, Dan's grandpa in this picture,  

he passed away. So this was a really special trip  where we got to spend good quality time together.

He was active, he was feeling good. So this  was a really special time to spend together.  

So we had great family time, he was able  to be active, and he could tell us so many  

stories and talk to us about his life. So that's  something that elderly people love is if you say,  

tell me a story. Oh, I see this picture on the  wall, tell me about it. Where did you get that  

painting? And they'll probably talk for hours. And  this is a really wonderful way to bond together,  

and a great way to show respect and care  for elderly people. I want to give you a  

quick tip about this word elderly. The  word elderly, we only use when someone  

is physically not as capable. So maybe you are  75 years old and you're able to go on a hike  

and you're able to get in and out of your  car easily. You're able to go up and down  

the stairs. I would say you're not elderly,  you're older, you're not elderly, just older.

But for Dan's great grandpa, he was elderly. His  knees hurt. I mean your knees could hurt when  

you're 40, but he definitely wasn't as capable as  he was 15 years before that. So for Dan's grandpa,  

I would say he is elderly, but usually this is  about a physical change in your body where you  

are starting to seem really old at that point.  I mean when you're 92, you're pretty old,  

right? It's amazing to live to 92, and he's  a wonderful guy. Milford. Milford, great guy.  

All right, let's go to our next category. The  next category are important places in town,  

and the first place is the bank. Yes, we can  do a lot of banking on your phone nowadays,  

but it is still important to go into the  bank or at least drive through the bank if  

you're an American. Occasionally, this  person who is working at the bank is a  

bank teller. This is the same word as to tell  someone the truth. A teller, a bank teller.

In fact, I was a bank teller for maybe a year,  probably like nine months, a long time ago,  

and it was one of the best jobs I've ever  had. I loved being a bank teller. I don't  

know why. People just were so nice to you, and  the little town where I worked it was so cute.  

So many unusual people came into the bank. It  was like the center of the town. Everyone was  

there. I loved being a bank teller. And bank  tellers all the time are working with different  

transactions. They are giving money, they are  receiving money, they're doing lots of different  

things. These are all transactions. Two common  words that we can use to talk about what happens  

in the bank is to withdraw or deposit money.  So let's imagine that you have a bank account  

and you want to get money out of the bank  account. You could go into the bank and say,  

"I would like to withdraw $20." Great. Or if you  have a check that you received from your job,  

you could say, "I would like to deposit my check  please." And they'll say, "Okay, let's do it."

But to do that, you need a checking account or  a savings account. So if you don't have that,  

you could go into the bank and say, "I  would like to open a checking account." Or,  

"What kind of documents do I need to open a  checking account?" And they'll help you to  

work through that process. The next important  place in a town is the hospital. I hope you  

don't have to go to the hospital often, but  it's important to be able to talk about it.  

If you have a sickness and you need to go  into the hospital, we often use the word  

admitted. I was admitted into the hospital at  4:00 PM today. Or we could see here, grandma,  

this is not my grandma, this is just a picture.  Grandma was admitted to the hospital at 4:00 PM.  

They have a room for her. She's not waiting in the  lobby anymore. She was admitted to the hospital.

But the good thing is she is in a stable  condition. This is a fixed expression and it  

means she's not critical, there's not something  really bad that could happen at any time. No,  

she's in a stable condition. They're just  watching her. If she had a problem before  

and now she's in a stable condition, you  might say, "Oh, I'm so glad that she's out  

of the woods." Was grandma going for a hike?  No. This means she was in a dangerous, scary,  

unhealthy place, and now she's on the other  side in the sunshine. This is the metaphor  

here. So we could say she's out of the woods, the  danger is over. She's in a stable condition. And  

the doctor has given her a clean bill of health.  This is also a fixed expression. The doctor said,  

"Here is your clean bill of health."  Maybe it's a paper or maybe he just says,  

you know what? You are healthy, great, you can go  home. I have been given a clean bill of health.

The next important place is a school. So this  is a picture of an elementary school in my town.  

They actually ended up closing it. This was a  really special public school. They were trying  

a new type of learning system, and I think the  management just didn't work out. I don't know  

all the details, but during the years of COVID,  as you can see by people's masks, there were a  

lot of protests and gatherings of people saying,  "Keep kids in their classrooms. Save Asheville  

Primary School. We want to keep this school." So  a school is an important part of any community,  

and this is a primary school. We could say  elementary school too. It is a public school,  

that means it is paid for with taxes and you  don't need to pay extra to go to that school.  

The other side is a private school, where you  have to pay tuition every year to go there and  

you also have to pay taxes. So you're also  paying for public school at the same time.

In this situation, I think the school  administration had some problems. There  

was some problems with the directors and that type  of thing. It wasn't a problem with the teachers  

and the students, so that's why the school closed  and they're kind of demonstrating or protesting,  

saying, come on, keep our school open. We need  this place. And they really did. It was a really  

great school. All right, the next important place  in the town is the police station. Have you ever  

been to the police station in your town? I'm  curious if you have. If there is a big problem,  

you might use the phrase, "Call 9-1-1!" This  could be for someone getting hurt. It could  

be if there's a fire. It could be if someone  broke into your house and stole stuff and you  

came home and you saw the mess. You might  say, "Ah, call 9-1-1!" Or you might say,  

"Call the cops." And the cop is a  slang term for a police officer.

It's not rude to say cop, but it's better to say  police officer. If you were talking to a police  

officer, don't say cop, but if you're talking  just in another situation then the word cop is  

totally fine. You're going to hear it all the  time, but it is a little bit more slang. I'm  

curious if anyone here is a police officer, if you  are from an English-speaking area and someone said  

you're a cop or something like that, would that  be okay? Does that feel uncomfortable to you? I  

think there is a slight nuance or feeling about  the word cop that means you're distrustful or  

corrupt or there's some problem with the word cop  specifically. So that's just kind of the feel of  

it, but it doesn't have to be. It's just slang.  Oftentimes the police station, this says police  

headquarters, but it's also called the police  department. You might see that shortened to PD.

So if there's an announcement  in your town, it might say,  

here's the announcement. Nobody can park on  the side of the road on Tuesday because blah,  

blah, blah, blah, blah. Signed PD. Who is PD?  It's the police department. And what does the  

police department do? They try to keep the  peace. They try to keep the peace. Sometimes  

it happens and sometimes it doesn't happen,  but that's the general goal of the police  

department. So as long as you are not on the  wrong side of the law, you're going to be okay,  

right? We hope so. The next important place  in a community is the grocery store. This is  

a screenshot from the video that I made. You  can watch it up here of going to the grocery  

store. This is the produce section, and we often  say, "I'm going to the store." What store? Well,  

you know what? We sometimes don't even specify  grocery store. We might just say, "I'm going to  

the store. Do you need anything?" "Oh yeah, we  don't have any more butter. Can you get some?"

You know that I'm talking about the grocery  store even when I just say I'm going to the  

store. I'm going grocery shopping, and that's how  I pronounce it, grocery with a sh in the middle,  

grocery shopping. But some people say grocery  with an S, grocery shopping, grocery shopping,  

just a regional difference. All of the food  that you can see in this picture, they are  

perishable goods. So we use this in two ways.  We could say that these are perishable goods,  

but we could also say un-perishable goods. So that  means canned goods. Sometimes in a town around the  

holidays, around Thanksgiving or around Christmas,  different businesses will have a food drive. And  

this means they want people to donate food, and  they'll say please bring un-perishable foods.  

And this is like canned corn or dried beans,  things like this that will not rot and go bad.

These things are also staples. You need beans,  you need some cans in your house, maybe a can of  

tomato sauce, something like this. These are  staples. They're also shelf-stable goods. So  

all of these words are similar, un-perishable,  shelf-stable, they're not going to rot and a lot  

of them are staples as well. It's usually a good  idea, in my opinion, to stock up on items that  

you use frequently. That way you don't have to  constantly go out to the store and get more. So in  

my house we have maybe four cans of tomato sauce.  We use tomato sauce frequently in our cooking,  

and I don't want to go out to the store multiple  times a week. I don't have time for that,  

so I try to stock up on the most used items, have  a couple of them and then I don't need to go to  

the store as much. The next important place  in the community is the gas station. Here's  

another screenshot from a video that I made. You  can watch it up here, going to the gas station.

I'm filling up my car because my car was running  on fumes. This is a great expression that means  

there was no gas. It was very, very, very low. So  I was just running on fumes. But after I paid at  

the pump, because in the US you pay here at the  pump and if you watch that video, you'll see how  

I do that. So after that I had a full tank and I  could drive my car. If you're paying with cash,  

I talk about this in this video, if you're  paying with cash, you can go inside. There's  

usually a little mart, a little shop, and you  can give them the cash and you can in that way  

pay for your gas. But if you're paying with  a card, you can pay at the pump. All right,  

let's start with the next category, which is  at work. Here we can see cubicles. These people  

work in an office. Sometimes we say this  is a cube farm. It's not a very positive  

expression because everything is very similar, but  that's just an expression that's sometimes used.

These people have a desk job or an office job. So  if someone asks, "What do you do?" You could say,  

"I have a desk job." Okay, you don't want to  explain the details. You have a desk job. They  

might work in customer service or tech support.  They might be writing something. They might be  

creative writers for the marketing team.  There's all different types of jobs that  

you can have at a desk. And in this picture,  it seems like everyone is pretty concentrated.  

This is the opposite of what we saw before,  this collaboration and working together. It's  

possible that right now they are concentrated on  their work, and then at three o'clock the team  

has a meeting where they collaborate together  and then they go back to their desks and work  

alone to focus on what they're doing. So there's  different ways that you could work at a desk.

This picture, this is just a good illustration  of a hierarchy. Listen to the pronunciation of  

this word higher, like up high, hierarchy,  has kh sound even though there's a ch,  

don't be fooled a hierarchy. So every business,  I think every business that is run well has some  

kind of hierarchy. There is a guy or girl at  the top, and below them are some managers,  

and below them maybe more managers, and below them  are people who are doing various jobs. So there's  

different departments. This is all part of the  hierarchy, this kind of a organizational chart,  

but sometimes a hierarchy, a strict hierarchy  in a job can be related to a pretty negative  

expression, which is the rat race. This term you  can imagine is not very positive. It doesn't feel  

very creative or independent or fulfilling.  When you're doing a job and you feel like  

you're not feeling fulfilled by your job,  you might just say, "I'm in the rat race."

I want to find a job where I feel some  meaning and some importance in my job.  

I want to get out of the rat race because  sometimes when you're trying to get something  

done in a very strict hierarchical,  I can say that hierarchical business,  

it's really hard to get stuff done because  you have to run it up the chain of command.  

This is a big expression, but it's great  to know, you have to run it up the chain  

of command. Run your idea up the chain of  command. They have to ask their managers,  

they have to ask their managers, they have  to ask their department heads, blah, blah,  

blah. It takes forever to get anything done. So  that can be really frustrating. And if you want  

to change anything, if you have a really strict  hierarchy in your business, well, you might not  

be able to change anything because of, another  great expression, because of the powers that be.

It's a kind of strange expression, the powers  that be. That be what? That's it. That's the  

full expression. So we might use this by saying,  "I just really want to change how my school works  

and how my school runs, but I can't do anything  because of the powers that be." I'm not blaming  

an individual, I'm just saying the system is  broken. The powers that be are stopping me  

from changing the important functions of my job.  Something like this. Great expressions. The next  

at work picture is this one. You can see they're  in a conference room, which we sometimes call a  

meeting space. They're brainstorming, giving a  presentation or a pitch about a new product. A  

pitch is usually to convince someone about  something. A presentation could be a pitch,  

or it could just be here's what's going on. I  want to tell you about what I've been working on.

And the person at the front is leading the  meeting. Or we could use the term facilitating  

the meeting. That means that they're in  charge of the meeting, they're leading it,  

they're helping everyone to understand what's  going on. If you have to give presentations in  

English, this can be extremely nerve wracking. So  I highly recommend practicing so much in advance,  

not in a workplace situation. I have a video  that will help you to step by step, feel more  

and more comfortable speaking in English so that  you can give a presentation in English no problem.  

I will link that video up here so that you can  feel really comfortable with that. The next at  

work picture is kind of amazing actually, it is a  break room. I've never worked in a job that had a  

break room that looked like this, but this is an  example. I think this is a Google office actually.

There's swings, there's these little tables,  there's cool decorations, there's a foosball  

table that's awesome, and a sign that says chill.  Most break rooms are just like a little kitchen  

with a table and a microwave, but I thought this  picture would be more inspiring and exciting.  

Have you ever worked in a place that had a break  room like this? Usually you go there to eat lunch,  

take a break, you might go there to take a  breather. This means if you're feeling stressed  

with your job, I'll just go to the break room and  swing on a swing. How cool? If there's a lot of  

people in the break room and there's one chair  available, a great expression you can say is,  

"Is this available? Is this seat taken? Mind if  I sit here?" And that's just a great way to say,  

"Hey, can I sit in this chair?" And you  can also go to the break room to just  

chat with coworkers. Some people like this,  some people don't. Sometimes break rooms  

can be a little bit uncomfortable.  This place certainly looks amazing.

The next at work phrase is to get a promotion.  So this guy is getting promoted in the military  

specifically, but of course for any job you could  get promoted. Usually that involves hopefully  

higher pay. Usually it also involves more  responsibilities or an acknowledgement of your  

past successful work. And we often say you are  climbing the ladder. It might be within an office,  

it might be within the military. If it is the  military, we sometimes use a more military type  

expression which is rising through the ranks. So  the term rank is the different levels of hierarchy  

within the military. So if someone's in the  military, you might say, "What's your rank?" Or  

"I can't believe that I am a higher rank than he  is." So that's why we say this rising through the  

ranks to be just more for the military. You might  hear that in the office, but you're more likely to  

hear, I'm climbing the ladder. I'm climbing  the corporate ladder. I'm getting promoted.

So we could say even to work your way up the  ladder. To work your way up the ladder means  

you're getting promoted. You're working on getting  more complicated skills, and hopefully you will  

be acknowledged for those skills. And maybe,  just maybe if you work in an office sometimes,  

this is a little joke, we say you might get  a corner office. So this means that your  

office has more room to look out. You might  have a window in your office. And really if  

you work in a traditional office, having a  corner office where you can look out more,  

you have more desk space, this is a sign of a  promotion. So even though it is a slight joke,  

this is also something that could be pretty great  if you work in an office area. All right, this  

next picture is a negative one. "Are you working  too much?" You might be. A lot of people are.  

You might be a workaholic. You might not need to  work as much as you are, but you just can't stop.

This term workaholic comes from alcoholic. An  alcoholic drinks too much alcohol. A workaholic  

does too much work and it's not necessary work.  It's just too much work. They just stay at the  

office or just keep working and they neglect  the other parts of their life. I don't know  

if this lady is actually a workaholic, but she  certainly looks like she has no work-life balance.  

This expression is often hyphenated, work-life.  She has no work-life balance. So you might say,  

"I need a new job. I have no work-life balance."  I can't spend time with my family and keep up with  

my career. I'm just working too much. Also, it  looks quite dark in this office. So for someone  

who's working late at night, not because you're  scheduled to work late at night, but because  

you're working after hours. You're working  too much, you are burning the midnight oil.

Burning the midnight oil means you're working  late into the night. You probably don't have  

an oil lamp, unless you're living 100 years ago  or maybe unless you're super cool. We don't have  

oil lamps really anymore, but we still use that  expression, I'm burning the midnight oil. I have  

to finish this project by tomorrow morning.  Or if you're studying late into the night,  

I'm burning the midnight oil so that I can  prepare for this test. Another expression  

about burning stuff that we use in the  same situation is to burn the candle at  

both ends. So this means that you're trying  to work at night and work in the morning and  

you're just doing too much. You are getting,  another burn expression, burnt out. Why do we  

have so many fire expressions for doing too  much? I guess it's a really apt idea, fire.

So I hope that you don't get burnt out of  your job. For me, I think it's really common  

for people who make YouTube videos to get burnt  out. That means that they are creating too much,  

maybe things that they don't want to create. So  for me, an important thing for me to do so that  

I don't get burnt out so that I can continue  making videos is I try to make videos that I  

enjoy making. Not just videos that I know for  sure my students will love this video, but also  

occasionally a video that I just want to make  because I think it'll be fun. All right, let's  

go to our next final category, which is around  the house. This is not my house. I'm curious, does  

your house look like this? All white, gigantic,  huge windows, the biggest kitchen of all time.  

And what is that? Six, eight chairs and white  chairs. Obviously no children live in this house.

Can you imagine one little dirty finger touching  that white chair? It'd be a disaster. But this  

is a kitchen and dining area. And notice that  they're not separate rooms. This is a modern  

concept and we have a specific term for it.  We would say this is an open concept. An open  

concept means that there's no separation between  the kitchen and the dining area. And the idea  

sometimes the living room too. Sometimes it's  all one big room, and the idea is that cooking  

is kind of a community activity. So if you have  guests, you can cook and you can still talk to  

them because they're on the couch or they're at  the table and everyone is still together. I like  

this. I like a little bit of separation.  I guess this is okay for an eating area,  

but it is nice in my opinion to be able to see the  guests in your house or your family in your house.

We also say that you can have a family  meal around the dining room table. I  

cannot imagine my family eating at this table.  They would make it an absolute mess, too white,  

but for us we have a family meal around the dining  room table every night for dinner. Some people  

say the kitchen is the heart of the home. Does  your native language have a similar expression,  

kitchen is the heart of the home? I'm curious.  It just means that this is where all of the most  

important things happen. But if there are too many  people in the kitchen, I love this expression,  

too many cooks in the kitchen. If there is  someone chopping things, someone baking something,  

someone preparing the dessert, too many cooks in  the kitchen. Somebody get out. So for example,  

at Christmas I used this expression because my  mother-in-law was in the kitchen, my father-in-law  

was in the kitchen, my sister-in-law was in  the kitchen and I thought maybe I should help.

Nah, too many cooks in the kitchen. And I even  said this, "Hey, can I help? Can I do anything?"  

And they said, "Nope, we're fine." Because  sometimes it's worse to have too many people  

in the kitchen. Too many cooks in the kitchen  not a good idea. The next place in the home is  

the bathroom. So in the US, when we have to use  the bathroom, that's the term we use, we say,  

"I have to use the bathroom or I have to go to  the bathroom." In the US we would never say,  

"I have to go to the toilet." Or "Where is the  toilet?" We hardly ever use the word toilet. But  

in the UK, in England and other places, this is  really common to just say, "Where's the toilet?"  

But in the US it feels dirty to say that. If  you want more bathroom expressions I made a  

tour of my bathroom in my house, and I talked  about a lot of bathroom specific expressions.  

You can watch that up here. Sometimes there is  a bathroom that has no bath. How weird is that?

It's not weird. This is very normal actually in  the US, but we still call it a bathroom. So this  

place, this picture has only a shower. You can't  fill that up and take a bath, but we still call it  

a bathroom. And guess what? If there is no shower,  no bath, there's just a toilet and a sink, it's  

still a bathroom. Amazing. Because for some reason  in the US we'd like to be very indirect when we  

talk about this place. We wouldn't say the toilet,  we would just say it's a bathroom. If you are  

going on tours of houses because you're thinking  about purchasing a house, or if you're renting an  

apartment, something like this, you might hear  the term half bath. And it doesn't mean there's  

half a bathtub, it means there's no bathtub and  no shower in there. So for example, in my house  

we have two full bathrooms. There's a toilet,  a sink, a bathtub and a shower in both of them.

But when I was growing up, the house that I  grew up in, upstairs we had a full bathroom,  

all of those things. And downstairs we had a half  bath, just a toilet and a sink. Great. That's all  

we needed in that area. We didn't need to take a  bath downstairs so that was what we called it or  

what the ad for the house said, a half bath. So  you might see two and a half bath. Two and a half  

bath means two full bathrooms and half bath. Here  you can also see the counter. There are two sinks,  

how extravagant. But this area we sometimes  say when there's a sink and there's mirrors  

and lights like this for getting ready in  the morning, it's a vanity. So the word vain,  

that's what this comes from, vain means I  only think about myself and my looks and  

this type of personality. She is so vain. You  might know this famous song, You Are So Vain,  

but this is what we call the furniture.  It is a vanity. So this is the vanity.

Where's all your makeup? It's in the vanity.  Where's all your jewelry? It's in the vanity.  

This could be in the bathroom or it could be  potentially even in the bedroom as a piece  

of wooden furniture, but that's what we call the  area where you get ready. All right, let's take a  

look at the next place in the home, which is the  living area. We could call this the living room,  

the family room, the main room. In the South,  sometimes people say the den. So a lot of terms  

for this. This is a very lovely place. I would say  it's cozy. It's used for entertaining, it's used  

for relaxing. This is not my house, this is just  a picture that I thought was interesting. It has a  

fireplace. There's lots of furniture. There's  a couch. I say couch, some people say sofa.  

Both are fine just a personal preference.  There is an armchair, that little chair.

There is the green table in the  middle. We could say a table,  

but you know what we usually call that? A  coffee table. I have rarely put coffee on it,  

but we always call it a coffee table. So if  you're looking to purchase a small table to  

go in front of your couch, it's called a coffee  table. Even if you don't drink coffee like me,  

or if you never put coffee on it's still a coffee  table. Another room that if you're lucky, you will  

have a full room. This is a pretty big one, but  you'll have a full room in your house that is a  

laundry room. Sometimes we call it a utility room.  In the US, usually there is a separate room. It  

might be like a closet that's not as big as this,  but I know in a lot of countries the washer is in  

the kitchen or it's in the bathroom. But if you  have a separate room, it's called a laundry room.

You can use it for your washer and dryer, or you  can use a rack and hand wash your clothes and put  

them on the clothing rack or on a line outside  to dry. There's a lot of different things that  

you need to do when you wash clothes. You need to  sort them, choose what you're going to wash with  

what. In my house, we don't really sort clothes.  We just have clothes, towels and sheets. That's  

about it I think. Yeah, if we have a lot of new  clothes, then I wash the new clothes separately,  

but that's it. I never separate clothes, it's  just clothes. Sometimes kids' clothes is one load,  

and adult clothes is another, but I don't really  separate. I've never separated light clothes,  

dark clothes, I don't know, and  so far it's worked. Let me know,  

do you separate clothes when you wash them?  But you need to sort them. You need to fold  

them after you wash them. Maybe you need to  iron them and then you need to hang them up.

So here there's a couple of shirts that are  already hung up. How lucky that they have a  

nice rack to hang them from with those  hangers. And there's a laundry basket  

that you put the dirty clothes in. Some people  call this a hamper, a laundry hamper. For me,  

I call it a laundry basket, but I think  my mom calls it a hamper. Maybe she calls  

it a laundry basket too, but it's just a  personal preference. All right, the next  

place is a garage. Isn't this a cool looking  garage? This is a very modern looking house,  

but in the garage that's where you keep your car.  So you can use it for parking, you can use it for  

extra storage. There's kind of a stereotype in the  US that Americans have everything in their garage  

except their car. So there's so much storage and  junk in the garage that there's no room for the  

car. So people park on their driveway in front of  the garage and then put their junk in the garage.

For me, I don't have a garage, so I don't have  this problem, but if you have a garage it can  

easily just collect junk. So this is a little  strange thing about English, but we would say  

we park in the driveway. The driveway is the  area in front of the garage outside. We park  

in the driveway. For me, I park in my driveway  because I don't have a garage. It's outside  

all the time. It gets hot, it gets rained on, it  gets snowed on, that's the way it is. So you park  

in the driveway, but in the US we have highways,  interstates, and parkways. You drive on a parkway.  

What? I highly recommend if you visit the south  of the US to drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway,  

this is a beautiful road that drives through  the Appalachian Mountains for hundreds of  

miles. And it's not through any towns, it's only  in the mountains. So it's a very scenic parkway,  

but you drive on the parkway and you park in  your driveway. English, what were you thinking?

Something else that people often do in their  driveway or their garage or also their yard is  

to have a garage sale. Notice the pronunciation of  that word, garage. Garage. It's almost like a Z,  

garage sale or a yard sale. So if you have a lot  of stuff that you want to get rid of and you don't  

want to just donate it, you could put out some  signs around your neighborhood and on an early  

Saturday morning, 7:00 AM something like that,  put everything on your driveway or in your yard,  

a yard sale and people will come and purchase it.  Super cheap, maybe $1 per item or $2, two things  

for $1. Make it super cheap. You can find some  treasures, find some junk, but that's something  

that people do in their garage or their driveway.  I would say even though it's called a garage sale,  

they most likely happen on the driveway  because the garage is a little more private.

It's kind of like in your house a little bit,  so the driveway is more common, even though  

it's called a garage sale. There you go. Two quick  phrases that I think are important to know about a  

garage. If you say my car is parked in the garage,  that's this picture, that car is parked in the  

garage. But if you say my car is in the garage,  we have two options. It could be this picture,  

that car is in the garage or garage can also be  a different term for a mechanic. So it could mean  

that your car is at the mechanics because there's  something wrong with it. So some people might say,  

"Oh, my car's broken down, I have to take it  to the mechanic." But some people could say,  

"My car's broken down so I'm going to  take it to the garage." Not my garage,  

if you take it to my garage, I won't fix your car  but that means taking it to the mechanic. So if  

someone says, "Where's your car?" "Ah, it's at  the garage. I just need to get something fixed."

Okay, we have the context that something's  wrong. We're not talking about your home garage,  

we're talking about the mechanic. For  me, I'm more likely to say the mechanic,  

it's at the mechanic or it's at the shop. Here  we have another time when we use a general term,  

go to the store at the shop. What store? What  shop? It's all implied. When we say my car is  

at the shop, it doesn't mean I'm selling my car.  It means it's at the mechanic's shop. So there's  

a lot of different ways that you can talk about  this. All right, our final picture is my lovely  

garden. I'm so proud of this garden. So this  is the garden in my backyard for vegetables.  

There are some flowers here. This was kind of  early summer. You can see a lot of the trellis  

are still empty. Some of the cucumbers are  coming up the vines. The front trellis has  

some flowers about to go over the trellis.  By the end of the summer, it was thick with  

flowers and leaves on that trellis and I had to  cut a hole to be able to go through the trellis.

It was really exciting, but this is a vegetable  garden. I have raised beds. You can see they are  

rectangles. It's not just soil on the ground. I  tried to do that, but I think with kids it was  

hard for them to know where they could walk  and where they couldn't walk. So the dirt  

just kind of got pushed everywhere. So I like  to have a vegetable garden with raised beds.  

Not everyone does this, but that's okay. And  I like to have a garden with my kids because  

it's just fun to get your hands dirty together.  This is kind of a fun fixed expression. We say,  

I like to get my hands dirty. That means I don't  like to just watch it, I like to do it. You might  

even use that for an activity that's not in the  dirt. Let's say if you like to go mountain biking,  

you might say... Oh no, let's say basketball  because that's a good thing you can watch.

I like basketball. Okay, do you like to watch  basketball? Do you like to go to the local  

sports stadium and watch them? Nope, I like to  get my hands dirty. I like to play basketball.  

It's talking about you being the one to do the  activity instead of just watching it. So it's  

a good one to use for the garden because there  is really dirt. I like to get my hands dirty,  

but it also means I like to do it myself.  And there's another kind of double meaning  

idiom I want to share with you for this  picture, and it is you reap what you sow.  

This could be very scary because in life  this means whatever you put into the world,  

it will also happen to you. It's kind of like  karma. A similar type of idea. For example,  

if you are mean to your dog, if you hurt  your dog, that dog is not going to be a  

nice dog. And when your dog bites you, well,  you reap what you sow. That's your fault.

But we can also use it in a really literal  sense. You reap, that means you harvest what  

you sow. And sow is kind of an old-fashioned  term for planting. So I planted tomatoes,  

this first bed here you can kind of see some green  tomatoes. I planted tomatoes, or I sowed tomatoes,  

and then I can harvest tomatoes later. I can  reap tomatoes later. The word reap and sow are  

quite old-fashioned, but that's why they work so  well in that idiom. So we could say, yeah, I will  

reap what I sow hopefully. Hopefully no bugs will  eat it before I get to it, but we are more likely  

to use that expression to talk about actions in  daily life. For me as a parent, I work really  

hard to try to be a good parent. To try to be  kind to my children, but also to have boundaries  

and rules and try to be very thoughtful. I  am trying to sow a good relationship so that  

throughout our lives I can harvest a long-term  good relationship with them. That's the goal.

So this kind of metaphor to talk about daily  life. So I hope my garden looks like this,  

this summer too. Nice and full. So many exciting  things growing there. Mm, makes me excited for  

summer. Well, congratulations you just learned 250  important vocabulary expressions with pictures. I  

highly recommend downloading the free PDF  worksheet so that you never forget all of  

these phrases, the definitions, the sample  sentences. All of this will give you extra  

input to help you never forget it, and use these  expressions when you speak. That's so important  

to be able to express yourself completely.  You can 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, 250 more important English  

vocabulary words with pictures. You'll learn why  it's rude to say that someone is cheap, but it's  

polite to say that they're frugal. Hmm? Watch that  video with me to find out, and I'll see you there.