20 Important English Phrases: for the seasons❄️🌸🌞🍁

Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. 

Can you use these 20 expressions to talk about  the seasons? Spring, summer, fall, winter? Join  

me in each season. Yes, this video took one year  to make and expand your vocabulary. Like always,  

I've created a free PDF worksheet for you with  all of today's seasonal expressions, definitions,  

sample sentences. And at the bottom of the  worksheet, you can answer Vanessa's Challenge  

Question. Click on the link in the description  to download the free PDF worksheet today. 

Let's get started with vocabulary from spring.  Expression number one about springtime. Spring  

has sprung. The word spring has two different  meanings. The first one is the season. This is  

springtime. You can see the flowers behind  me. But also spring is a verb, to spring.  

To spring means to jump. So we might say, "The  change from winter to spring is pretty shocking  

sometimes. It's cold. It might be a little bit  dark, and then all of a sudden the sky's blue,  

flowers are blooming. Spring has sprung." So  this is the past tense of the word to spring,  

of this verb. So when spring happens,  you can say, "Ah, spring has finally  

sprung. What a beautiful time of the year." Spring expression number two is not a cloud  

in the sky. This is talking about the beautiful  weather of spring. Yes, there is a lot of rain,  

which we'll talk about in just a minute. But  if you open the window and you look outside  

and there are no clouds, you could say, "Oh, what  a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. Lovely." 

Well, let's imagine that it is raining because  it rains a lot in the springtime. You might need  

to cancel or change your plans based on the  weather. So if it's raining, you might need  

to change your plans. We can use this as an idiom  no matter the weather. You could say, "I'm sorry,  

I need to take a rain check. I got really sick and  I just can't come to the dinner party tonight." It  

doesn't mean that it's actually raining outside.  It just means that you want to reschedule or delay  

something because something happened. You got sick  and you don't want to go to the dinner party when  

you're sick. So you might tell your friend, "Can  I take a rain check? Maybe we could do this dinner  

party in two weeks when I'm feeling better." What  a lovely expression. "Let's take a rain check." 

Spring expression number four is a fun  one. Let me show you this flower. Well,  

it's not exactly a flower yet, but it will  become a flower. Well, what if I do this?  

Will this ever become a flower? Nope, I  just killed it. It's gone. So we could say,  

"I broke off or I took off that bud." That is the  little piece of the flower that hasn't opened yet.  

We can use this to talk about behavior as  well. We call that "nipping it in the bud."  

When you nip something in the bud, it means  you stop something bad before it becomes worse. 

Obviously a flower is not bad, but that's just  the imagery that we use. So let's imagine that  

your son lies to you. Oh, well, you certainly  don't want him to lie to you continually so  

you need to nip that behavior in the bud. You  need to nip it in the bud. You might tell him,  

"Hey, what you just did is lying and that's not  something good. I'd rather you tell me the truth."  

You are nipping that behavior in the bud. You're  stopping it before it becomes something worse.  

Unfortunately, it's just a beautiful flower. All right, let's go to our fifth spring  

expression. Our final spring expression is  "to be a fair weather friend." If I said,  

"Oh, you're a fair weather friend," would  that be something positive or negative? It  

would be definitely negative. You do not want  to be a fair weather friend. Let's break this  

expression down. What is fair weather? Well,  fair is good. Springtime has a lot of great  

weather. A lot of people think that spring is  their favorite season because it's not too hot,  

it's not too cold. The flowers are blooming.  Oh, it's just so nice. So if you are a fair  

weather friend, what do you think happens when  there's bad weather? Or we can take this a little  

more figuratively. When bad things happen in  life, that means you're not a good friend. 

When something bad happens, you just abandon  your friend. You're not helpful to that friend  

because you are only a fair weather friend. So  please don't be a fair weather friend. Instead,  

we could say, "Stick with your friends through  thick and thin." This is a wonderful thing to  

be. It means you're loyal, you care about  your friends. And no matter what happens,  

you'll be there for them. So I hope that this  is true for you. I hope that you stick with your  

friends and family through thick and thin. All right, let's go on to our five summer  

expressions. But right now,  it is springtime for me,  

so I will see you in a couple months when I can  record the summer expressions in the summertime. 

Welcome to summer. During the summer, we  love to go swimming to cool off, so here  

are five common useful daily life expressions  for the summertime. The first expression is  

actually kind of a special deal, four for one.  It's how to talk about how hot it is. First,  

you can say, "It's boiling! It's blistering!"  Sometimes we say, "It's blistering hot!" Or,  

"It's a scorcher!" Or "It's a hot one!" All of  these are beautiful expressions that you will hear  

in daily life to talk about the summertime heat. Summer expression number two is a heat wave. Yes,  

there are beautiful waves on the beach, but  this is not a beautiful wave like that. This  

means there's some unseasonably hot weather.  Summer's already hot, but when you have even  

hotter weather, you can say, "Ugh. Here in  the south of the US we are experiencing a  

heat wave and it is blistering hot." "To go on vacation." I cannot wait to  

finally go on vacation and take some great time  to relax. A similar expression that goes with  

that is to be "off on vacation." So you might  say, "Ugh, I'm not going to work on any new  

projects because next week I'm off on vacation."  You're not going to be in the office. You're going  

to be enjoying the sun. Hopefully it's not  boiling hot and you will be off on vacation. 

"To head to the beach." As soon as I finish  this video, I'm going to head straight to the  

beach. Maybe it's the beach with the ocean,  or maybe it's a beach by a creek or a lake. 

"To chill out." Because summer is so hot, doesn't  it feel great to just chill out? You could say,  

"This summer, I have no plans. I'm just going  to chill out by the pool and catch up on some  

reading." This is going to be so relaxing. All  right, I'll see you in a couple months in fall. 

Welcome to fall. This is a beautiful season here  where I live in the south of the US. You can see  

the beautiful red maple trees behind me. We're  going to talk about five expressions about fall,  

but there's kind of a bonus because it's  really 10 expressions. The first five are  

ways to describe this beautiful weather. "The weather is brisk. Ooh, it's pretty  

brisk here in the mornings. I think fall is on  the way." Brisk means chilly or cool. When the  

weather is brisk, what do you want to do? You want  to get cozy. "Ugh, I just love to get cozy. Sit  

under a blanket and read a good book in the fall." Similar to brisk is crisp. Usually we talk about  

the word crisp to talk about something that's  crunchy, but instead we can use it to talk about  

the cool weather. "Oh, I just love those crisp  mornings where I can sit on my deck and drink a  

hot cup of tea." Oftentimes in the fall, it's  blustery. Blustery is a fun way to say windy,  

extremely windy. "Here when it's blustery, all  the leaves blow around and it's so beautiful." 

Talking about leaves, when you walk in the  leaves, you can hear the rustling of leaves.  

This is the sound when you hear the crunch,  crunch, crunch of leaves as you walk or maybe  

as they fall from the trees. This sound of  rustling leaves is very typical in the fall. 

Fall expression number two, kind of, is,  "carving pumpkins." Have you ever done this  

before? This is a huge tradition in the US.  Carving pumpkins has quickly become my son's  

favorite fall activity. We do it two or three  times each fall because it's just so much fun. 

Take a look at this fun fall phrasal verb.  "To squirrel away something." Here in the US,  

there are so many squirrels. And right now in the  fall, squirrels are everywhere. They're extremely  

active because what are they doing? They're  hiding acorns and other nuts so that they can  

eat during the winter. We call this squirreling  away. And even if you are not a squirrel, you  

can squirrel away something by hiding it. Take a  look at this. "Guess what? I just found $20 in my  

coat pocket. I must have squirreled it away last  winter and forgotten about it. What a surprise." 

In the US, picking apples is a common fall  tradition, so check out this apple idiom.  

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."  This is when a child is similar to their  

parent. So for me, in the fall, I loved when  my dad would rake up the leaves and put them  

at the bottom of the slide, and my sister and  I would slide down the slide and crash into  

the pile of leaves. And guess who likes to do  this too? My kids. "The apple doesn't fall far  

from the tree. They also love to crash into  a pile of leaves at the bottom of the slide." 

Unfortunately, sometimes bad things also happen  in the fall time. The weather gets cooler and our  

immune systems sometimes are not prepared and we  get a cold. So it's really common to say, "Sorry,  

I'm under the weather." This doesn't mean that you  are under the sky, even though we always are. This  

just means you're not feeling that great. It's  not super serious, but maybe you have a sniffle,  

maybe you have a sore throat, you have a seasonal  cold or allergies. You're just not feeling so hot,  

you're feeling under the weather. All right,  I'll see you in a couple months in the winter. 

Welcome to winter. Let's talk about five  expressions that have to do with the cold  

and winter. The first one is a rather strange  one, it is "the dead of winter." Let's imagine  

that you come up to me and say, "Vanessa,  do you want to go swimming?" I might say,  

"It's the dead of winter and you want to go  swimming? Are you crazy?" The dead of winter is  

the coldest part of winter. You definitely don't  want to go swimming outside. I mean, I guess some  

people like to take an ice plunge, but for me,  this is not the time when I want to go swimming.  

I don't want to swim in the dead of winter. Winter expression number two is "the cold  

shoulder." Take a look at this sentence and guess  what it means. "When I tried to talk to my sister  

last night, she gave me the cold shoulder.  I guess she's still upset about our fight."  

The cold shoulder is no fun, and it is when  someone intentionally, which means on purpose,  

shows you unfriendliness. Usually they ignore  you. Sometimes being ignored can hurt deeper  

than mean words. "So my sister showed me the  cold shoulder. That means she didn't talk to  

me because she was still upset about our fight." Winter expression number three is cabin fever. "I  

have cabin fever. I've been inside for two weeks."  Oh my goodness, this is a terrible feeling. It's  

when it's cold outside or maybe you're sick. Maybe  there's a pandemic. There's a lot of reasons why  

you might be stuck inside. Maybe for a day or two  it's okay, and then after that, you start to go a  

little bit crazy. You start to feel anxious, maybe  nervous, restless, maybe irritable and angry,  

and that's because you have cabin fever. You need  to get out. Just bundle up. Try to take a walk.  

Brave the elements. Try to get rid of cabin fever. Winter expression number four is a verb,  

"to snowball." You might know what a snowball  is. It's this. That's the noun, but we're talking  

about it as a verb. Take a look at this sentence.  "I went to the grocery store when I was hungry,  

so I bought a couple snacks and then it snowballed  and I ended up with a cart full of junk food." Not  

a good idea to go to the grocery store when  you're hungry. So here we get this sense of  

it started small. "I just got a couple snacks,  and then by the time I left the grocery store,  

my cart was full of snacks. It snowballed." Here  it's the idea of something starting small and  

getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Usually  it's something negative. Here I'm talking about  

junk food, so it's something negative. But  let's look at another situation. "Lies tend  

to snowball." They start off small, then they  get bigger and more complex and sometimes more  

dangerous. So just don't start off by lying. And finally, winter expression number five is  

"the tip of the iceberg." When someone asks what I  do for work and I say that I'm an English teacher,  

really that's just the tip of the iceberg. The  tip of the iceberg refers to the small or maybe  

a visible part of something. If you know what a  regular iceberg looks like, you can see the top,  

but under the water is the main part of the  iceberg. So yes, I am an English teacher,  

that's what you see, but I am also a video  maker, a marketer, an entrepreneur who wears  

many hats. Being an English teacher is just the  tip of the iceberg. A little note that we often  

use the word just with this expression, "Being an  English teacher is just the tip of the iceberg." 

Thanks so much for joining me for this entire  year. Don't forget to download the free PDF  

worksheet for today's lesson with all 20 of these  expressions, the definition, sample sentences, and  

Vanessa's Challenge Question at the bottom of the  worksheet. Click on the link in the description  

to download that free PDF worksheet today. And now I have a question for you. What's your  

favorite season? Maybe the seasons are different  in your country, but let me know in the comments.  

Thanks 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 join me and my young son  in the grocery store. You'll learn important  

vocabulary so that you can speak clearly and  confidently in any situation. I'll see you there.