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Hello everybody!
Students often ask me 'how can I get past the intermediate plateau and speak and write more naturally, at a more advanced level?'
My answer?
It's all about vocabulary! Yes, (of course!) grammar is important, but deliberately learning high-level vocabulary will help you speak and write at a much more advanced level.
With advanced vocabulary, your English is more sophisticated, natural and precise.
One very important part of advanced vocabulary is idioms. And collocations.
IDIOMS are expressions that don't make sense, even if you know all the words. For example, expressions like 'drive someone up the wall' or 'pick someone's brains' or 'have a change of heart'.
Native English speakers use this kind of idiom all the time!
- COLLOCATIONS are combinations of words that frequently co-occur together in a language. These combinations are often based on convention and usage rather than strict grammatical rules.
While collocations are common word combinations that contribute to the naturalness of language,
idioms are fixed expressions with figurative meanings that often cannot be understood by
analyzing the individual words.
IDIOMS:
- Kick the bucket: Unfortunately, her pet goldfish kicked the bucket while she was on vacation.
- Bite the bullet: John knew he had to bite the bullet and tell his boss the truth about the mistake.
- Break the ice: His jokes helped break the ice at the awkward family dinner.
- Hit the nail on the head: She hit the nail on the head with her analysis of the company's financial situation.
- Cost an arm and a leg: Buying a new car can cost an arm and a leg these days.
- Once in a blue moon: We only see each other once in a blue moon since she moved to another city.
- Spill the beans: Sarah accidentally spilled the beans about the surprise party to her brother.
- Piece of cake: Don't worry, fixing this issue will be a piece of cake.
- Under the weather: I'm feeling a bit under the weather today, so I think I'll stay home and rest.
- On thin ice: After missing the deadline again, he knew he was on thin ice with his boss.
COLLOCATIONS:
- Make a decision: She needs to make a decision about her career.
- Highly recommend: I highly recommend this book; it's very insightful.
- Heavy traffic: I was late to the meeting because there was heavy traffic on the highway.
- Run an errand: Can you run an errand for me and pick up some groceries?
- Catch someone's attention: The colorful advertisement caught my attention as I was walking by.
- Close relationship: Sarah and Emily have always had a very close relationship.
- Fast asleep: After a long day of work, I fell fast asleep as soon as I hit the bed.
- Take a break: Let's take a break and grab some coffee before we continue working.
- Reach a compromise: After much discussion, they were able to reach a compromise that satisfied both parties.
- Attend a meeting: I have to attend a meeting with the clients this afternoon.
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