Fastest Way to Speak English: english idioms

American expressions

bnjohn 3 english idioms 5:56 PM

Each language has phrases or sentences that cannot be understood when you study it word by word. Even if you know the meaning of each word of the phrase, the meaning of the phrase stay confusing. That's the definition of an <b>idiom</b><br />
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In English, native speakers use a lot of idiomatic phrases everyday. These idioms can be proverbs, informal phrases or common phrases.<br />
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If you want to speak English, or you want to learn English you should spend sometime to learn idioms or to learn about idioms because they are very important in your English learning.<br />
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If you study formal English, I mean English grammar and formal phrases, and after that you go to the US maybe you cannot understand one phrase.<br />
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To learn this type of idiomatic phrases in English you should be a good listener, you should spend all your time listening to English. You should listen to one English idiom more than 40 times to have it in your brain.<br />
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You can't find English idioms if you study grammar or if you study English at schools.<br />
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The only way to learn English idioms is to listen to native speakers and whenever you hear a phrase that is not understandable (and you understand each word individually) you open your book and you see the meaning. When you hear this same phrase another time, you may understand it, and then you will learn to use this idiom.<br />
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Learning English idioms takes a lot of time because there are thousands or millions.<br />
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You will never learn all English idioms, but you should know at least 500 American expressions, the most used ones.<br />
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Don't open your book to look for idioms and to learn them, open it only when you <b>hear</b> a weired expression<br />
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And now I will give you an example of English idioms, an American expression that is used a lot by native speakers: <br />
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<b>Above and beyond:</b>  it means more than is required<br />
Let's put it in phrase:  His efforts were above and beyond! It means that he had done all what he had to do, AND he has also done an additional work.<br />
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If you don't have a book of English idioms, or you don't know which book to choose, I advice you to don't waste your time looking for English idioms books because I just selected some ones for you:<br />
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<iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bnjohn-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0764524771&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=3333FB&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe>  <iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bnjohn-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0972530037&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=3333FB&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe> <iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bnjohn-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0521744296&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=3333FB&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe><iframe align="left" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=bnjohn-20&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0071469346&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=3333FB&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="height: 245px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 5px; width: 131px;"></iframe> <br />
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American expressions

American expressions

Each language has phrases or sentences that cannot be understood when you study it word by word. Even if you know the meaning of each word o...

english words: gonna, 'll, em

bnjohn 0 english idioms 10:43 AM

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><meta name="ProgId" content="Word.Document"><meta name="Generator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><meta name="Originator" content="Microsoft Word 12"><link rel="File-List" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CNadir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml"><link rel="themeData" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CNadir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx"><link rel="colorSchemeMapping" href="file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CNadir%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml"><style>  </style>  <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Hi, today we are gonna talk about one of the differences between written English and spoken English.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">When we use the future, in written English we use will and going to.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Example: Alan will go to the school, he is going to meet his friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">But in spoken English, we say: Alan’ll go to school, he’s gonna meet his friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">This difference is usually ignored by students who have never learned English with the rights method, they thing that written English and spoken English are the same, but they are completely different and those students are completely wrong!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Another difference is the use of em instead of them.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">Example: he talked with them </span><span style="font-family: Wingdings;" lang="EN-US"><span style="">à</span></span><span style="" lang="EN-US"> he talked with’em<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">When students hear this phrase, they usually don’t understand it, that’s really strange!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">That’s why I advice you to learn spoken English and then go to the written English as our children.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">So that’s it, see you later!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US">B.N. JOHN (<a href="mailto:bnjohnbn@gmail.com">bnjohnbn@gmail.com</a>)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><a href="http://fastest-english.blogspot.com/">http://fastest-english.blogspot.com</a> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="" lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>

english words: gonna, 'll, em

english words: gonna, 'll, em

Hi, today we are gonna talk about one of the differences between written English and spoken English. When we use the future, in written En...

Americans use Idioms

bnjohn 0 english idioms 11:59 AM

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<meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" equiv="Content-Type"></meta><meta content="Word.Document" name="ProgId"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Generator"></meta><meta content="Microsoft Word 12" name="Originator"></meta><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CPOSTE2%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_filelist.xml" rel="File-List"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CPOSTE2%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_themedata.thmx" rel="themeData"></link><link href="file:///C:%5CUsers%5CPOSTE2%7E1%5CAppData%5CLocal%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml" rel="colorSchemeMapping"></link>    <m:smallfrac val="off">    <m:dispdef>    <m:lmargin val="0">    <m:rmargin val="0">    <m:defjc val="centerGroup">    <m:wrapindent val="1440">    <m:intlim val="subSup">    <m:narylim val="undOvr">   </m:narylim></m:intlim> </m:wrapindent><style>
  
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Like everyone else in the world, Americans use a variety of idioms daily.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">As mentioned in the previous article, idioms are groups of words where if you look to each single word you will understand nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">To speak English better, you should learn idioms because they are very important in English speaking.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">While there are millions of American idioms, just hundreds of them are used daily.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"> So, you need to be more familiar with these hundreds, and all is going to be fine. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">English speaking is full of idioms; you need more repetition to learn a lot of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">If you learn many idioms, you will be powerful, everyone will appreciate you speaking, everyone wants to listen you and you’ll become popular! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Idioms are never taught in English schools, that’s one of ht raisons schools are terrible!<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">You can’t find English idioms in English schools; you can only find them using real materials like TV…<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">To help you, I will teach you many idioms through the next articles, and remember:  “be patient”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">You can see my best article about <a href="http://fastest-english.blogspot.com/2010/06/american-expressions.html">American Expressions</a><br />
<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>

Americans use Idioms

Americans use Idioms

Like everyone else in the world, Americans use a variety of idioms daily. As mentioned in the previ...

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