Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
Are you ready to expand your vocabulary?
Vanessa: It's a fact, the more vocabulary you know, the more you can understand natural
So today I'd like to help you understand and use 15 advanced English expressions for daily
life.
These aren't phrases specifically for business, though of course you could use them in those
These aren't all slang expressions or expressions to make you sound really educated.
No, these are expressions for daily life.
They're ones that I use all the time and I hope that you'll be able to integrate into
your daily conversations as well.
All of the phrases that you're going to learn today are part of my monthly course, The Fearless
Some of these expressions I took from lessons in 2018, some are from lessons from 2019,
If you would like to learn 15 to 20 new expressions just like this every month, feel free to click
up here to learn more about my course, The Fearless Fluency Club.
Vanessa: During today's lesson, I challenge you to try to say all of the sample sentences
This is going to help you get used to hearing your voice using the expressions and also
help your pronunciation muscles, help you have a chance to speak and also help you to
remember them, which is always a challenging thing with new vocabulary, right?
So make sure that you speak out loud today.
Try to repeat some of these sentences with me.
I have a feeling that some of these expressions are going to be new for you.
So let's get started with the first one.
Vanessa: A false sense of security, carrying mace gave me a false sense of security.
Can you guess what this means from the sentence?
Carrying mace, which is like pepper spray or a minor weapon, gave me a false sense of
Well, I feel secure, I feel safe, but in reality, danger is near.
If I were in a really dangerous situation, carrying mace or pepper spray is probably
not going to help me too much.
It gave me a false sense of security.
Vanessa: His wife didn't argue with him about his drinking, but this was a false sense of
Blow up means get extremely angry.
This is a pretty common thing that happens in relationships unfortunately.
One person has a problem and the other person doesn't say anything about it, so that person
thinks, "Oh, maybe it's not a problem.
Maybe it's fine, maybe he or she doesn't care."
This is a false sense of security because probably the other person is building up some
strong feelings and will just explode in anger one day.
So make sure that you don't have this false sense of security.
All right, let's go to the next expression.
Vanessa: To bounce ideas off or to bounce ideas off of.
The word of here is just optional.
Let's look at a sample sentence and I want you to guess what you think it means.
It's a good idea to bounce ideas off of your coworkers.
When a ball bounces, it goes down and then it comes back up.
Well, when you bounce ideas off of a coworker, you're getting some feedback and opinions
You're bouncing ideas off of someone.
In the sentence, you can just as naturally say it's a good idea to bounce ideas off your
coworkers or it's a good idea to bounce ideas off of your coworkers.
The word of is completely optional.
A common question in business is, can I bounce some ideas off of you?
And this means that you have some ideas, you would like some feedback about it, especially
if the other person has more experience than you.
This is a really polite way to say, "Hey, can I ask you some questions and get some
feedback?"
You can just simply say, "Can I bounce some ideas off of you?"
Vanessa: The next expression is wise, but this is just a suffix.
That means that we put it at the end of another word.
Safety-wise, my city is pretty safe, but education-wise, we could use some improvement.
You're introducing each category with the word safety, but then you're adding wise to
show I'm talking about this category.
My city is pretty safe, but education-wise, we could use some improvement.
So on the topic of education we could use some improvement.
When my friends ask how old my students are.
Well there is quite a range of ages of people who learn online.
Vanessa: If you teach a class of adults about coding, like how to make software code, you
might say, "Well, age-wise," you're introducing this category with the suffix wise.
"Age-wise my students are around 40 years old."
Or, "Age-wise, my students are generally 18 to 25."
Okay.
They're probably right out of high school and they're learning a career path.
This is a little bit tricky, a little bit advanced.
That's why I wanted to include this but you'll definitely see this and I use this in daily
When you want to talk about a category or talk about two different categories like safety-wise.
We can use this for so many different things.
You can talk about kids, "How's your life?"
"Well, health-wise, I'm doing pretty fine, but kid-wise I am overwhelmed."
You can use this for any category.
"Food-wise, I feel great, but drink-wise, yeah, let's go get a drink."
Okay.
You can use this for so many different categories.
I hope to introduce this to you so that you'll start to hear this as you listen to natural
This expression has two different meanings.
So let me give you one sample sentence.
A lot of people make art for the sake of making art.
We could also say a lot of people make art for the sake of it, and that's just replacing
We're talking about the purpose.
What is their purpose for making art?
Well, if they're making art for the sake of making art, it's not for the sake of making
money, for the sake of creative enhancement.
It's just because they like making art.
It's not for a school project.
It's just for the purpose of making art.
Vanessa: Or we could just say for the sake of it.
"Why are you learning English?"
"Well, I don't need it for my job.
I don't know many people from other countries.
I'm learning English for the sake of it, just because I want to."
The purpose is, well, just the purpose of learning, for the sake of learning English.
But there's a second meaning for this expression.
Let's take a look at this sentence, for the sake of the people who haven't read the book,
For the sake of the people who haven't read the book.
If you are discussing a book with some friends, but other people in the room haven't read,
it well you could use this expression, for the sake of the people who haven't read the
book.
This is what happened in the story.
Vanessa: In this situation we're using for the sake of someone to talk about in respect
So to respect the people who haven't read the book, so that they aren't completely lost
So you could say, "For the sake of those who have sacrificed a lot, we are going to have
a special dinner or a special celebration in respect for those people."
All right, so we've got two different ways to use this.
The purpose of something, "I'm learning English for the sake of my job."
I'm learning English for the sake of it, just because I like learning.
Or for the sake of someone to respect someone.
Let's go to the next expression.
When we think about the word alone, we think about someone who's not with other people,
but erase that idea from your mind.
Let's look at this sample sentence and try to guess what you think it means.
I've never been to China, let alone seen the Great Wall.
The Great Wall of China is a big tourist attraction and a really cool historical feature in China,
but in my sentence I said I've never been to China, let alone seeing the Great Wall.
Yeah, I've seen pictures and videos, but it's not the same as in real life.
What's an expression that we can substitute in this situation?
Vanessa: You could say, "I've never been to China.
Not to mention seeing the Great Wall."
Oh, here we have a big category, been to China, and then I'm getting a little bit more specific
and saying, seeing the Great Wall.
You might also substitute much less.
I've never been to China, much less seen the Great Wall.
So we've got a big category and then we're narrowing it.
If I've never done that big category, of course I haven't done that small category too.
Let's look at another example.
After the accident, he couldn't walk, let alone play soccer.
Well, if you can't walk, you probably have a difficult time playing soccer.
So we could say after the accident he couldn't walk much less play soccer.
After the accident he couldn't walk, not to mention play soccer.
Vanessa: Of course, if he can't walk, he can't play soccer.
I'm sure there are some exceptions, but in this situation we're going to use let alone.
He couldn't walk, let alone play soccer.
This is a wonderful advanced expression that you're definitely going to hear all the time
Now that you're aware of this expression, you're going to hear it a lot.
All right, let's go to the next one.
Vanessa: A whole ‘nother something.
There's a lot of different ways that we can use this, but the main part that's used in
each of these expressions is a whole ‘nother.
Well, let's look at a sample sentence and I want you to guess.
We've been dating for two years, but deciding to get married is a whole ‘nother animal.
Am I getting married to an animal?
No.
We're not really talking about animals in this situation.
We can just substitute thing or level.
Getting married is a whole ‘nother level.
What if I said getting married is another level?
Does that make a little bit more sense to you?
We've been dating for two years, but getting married is another level.
I'm not sure if I'm ready to commit.
Well, this is pretty much what we're saying here except this is using, if you want to
get a little nerdy and grammatical, this is using something called tmesis, which is when
you insert one word into another word.
Vanessa: So look at this expression.
Do you see another and then the word whole splitting it?
Yep.
Here we have another, but the word whole has just cut into the middle of that word.
Another whole or a whole ‘nother.
When I was thinking about this expression, I had no idea why this actually happened,
because we use this all the time in daily life, but if you really try to break down,
Why do we say a whole ‘nother?
I had to do a little bit of research about this, because it's so commonly used, but it's
not something that you would write in an essay.
It's not common grammar from a grammar textbook.
So I hope to introduce this to you so that you can hear it everywhere now and you can
Let's take a look at another example.
Vanessa: Going to college is relatively easy, but finding a job in your field is a whole
Here we're talking about something that's a little bit more difficult.
It's a little bit more challenging, at least in the US, going to college, getting into
But it is much more difficult to find a job in the field that you studied.
If you studied History, well, it's going to be pretty difficult to find a career or find
a job in that field, in the field of History, so we could say finding a job in your field
All of these words that we can add afterwards, a whole ‘nother animal, a whole ‘nother
They all have that same meaning, so you can really interchange them however you want.
A common way to use this grammatical form tmesis if you're curious, is often you'll
hear really casual situations where native speakers will say, "Abso-freaking-lutely."
Well, the expression is absolutely, and the word freaking, which is a polite way to say
a bad word, but we often split it.
Vanessa: If you eat some ice cream, that is unbelievable.
You could say, "Wow, this ice cream is abso-freaking-lutely amazing."
You're splitting the word absolutely with the word freaking.
You're probably going to hear this commonly in casual conversation, in this situation
because you're using the word freaking, it is really casual, but this idea of tmesis
is used a lot in English, especially with a whole ‘nother something.
So I hope to introduce this to you just to expand your mind and hopefully you'll be able
to hear this and use it yourself.
All right, let's go to the next one.
Are we talking about guns here?
Shooting a gun, to give someone a shot?
No.
Instead, we're talking about something pretty different.
What about the sample sentence?
The food looks strange, but I'll give it a shot.
Well, we've got two things that should be different from each other, because they're
So they should kind of be opposites.
Vanessa: The food looks strange.
We can assume, "Oh, I don't really want to try it, but I'll give it a shot."
So what's the opposite of that?
Usually this is with a little bit of hesitation.
I don't feel so certain about it, but I'll give it a shot.
Maybe your friend says to you, "You've never sung in karaoke.
You're probably going to try it tentatively.
But you're still going to try it.
You could use this for an English course.
Maybe you thought, "I don't really know if I have time or if this course is going to
be helpful, but okay, I'll give it a shot."
For example, the course that all of these expressions came from, The Fearless Fluency
Club, it usually costs $35 per month, but I want to give, I always give a $5 price for
Vanessa: If you write new, N-E-W, in the coupon code box when you purchase the course, that
means the first 30 days is only $5.
This way you can give it a shot.
It's $5.
And if you cancel before 30 days, then you don't need to pay the full price if it's not
So it's a good way to try the course if you feel hesitant or tentative.
Well, okay, it's $5, I'll give it a shot.
And I can cancel before 30 days and not pay the $35 monthly fee.
So I hope that this makes it easier for you to give it a shot, to see if it's a good fit
All right, let's go to the next expression.
Vanessa: To be under the impression.
I was under the impression that being an elementary school teacher was mainly about being fun.
If I have a fun personality, if we have a fun time together, then I'll be a good teacher.
Do you think that this is true?
Do you think that the most important characteristic of an elementary school teacher is being fun?
No.
So this means that you have an idea that is later proven wrong.
Well, if you think this is true about being an elementary school teacher and you walk
into the classroom and there's 20 or 30 6-year-olds and you say, "All right, this year we're going
You might have some difficulties with the children in the classroom.
You need to have some structure as well.
There's a lot of different qualities that are good in elementary school teachers not
Vanessa: So in this situation you have an idea, but because of some experience it is
I was under the impression, well, but then I found out the truth.
Let's look at another example.
She was under the impression that he was a nice guy, she was wrong.
This means that maybe after their first date she thought he was pretty nice.
But then after the second date she realized, "Oh, this guy is a little bit strange.
He's got some strange characteristics."
Her original idea was later proven wrong because of her experience.
She was under the impression that he was a nice guy, but she was wrong.
You don't even need to add that final part, because this expression already implies that
your idea is later going to be changed.
So you could just say, "Yeah, I was under the impression that he was a nice guy."
And it means, "Yeah, but later I found out that he wasn't."
But initially, at the beginning, early on, I thought that he was, but really he wasn't.
All right, let's go to the next expression.
Vanessa: To nip it in the bud.
We can imagine nip is like to cut and there is a flower that is opening.
It is called a bud before it opens.
If you see a rose or a tulip or some flower that's still closed, before it opens, this
is called a bud, a flower bud.
If you cut the flower before it opens, you are nipping it in the bud literally.
But we often use this figuratively.
So take a look at a sample sentence and try to guess what it means in a figurative sense.
The moment that my daughter started lying, I knew I needed to nip it in the bud.
No.
She has some bad behavior, which is lying, not telling the truth.
The moment that my daughter started lying, I knew I needed to nip it in the bud.
This means to stop some bad behavior before it becomes too big, before it becomes a habit
We often use this for habits of young people.
Vanessa: Well, I saw that my son started smoking.
Well, I think we need to nip it in the bud because he might become addicted.
He might have some health problems.
We need to stop this bad behavior before it becomes too big.
What is it in this expression?
You could say we need to nip her lying in the bud.
We need to nip his smoking in the bud.
Instead, we always say it because we know the context already.
We know that lying is the problem or smoking is the problem, so it is the bad behavior.
Vanessa: If you have, I think we all have these with different languages.
If you have some bad habits with English grammar that have built up over time, you always use
since instead of for or something like this, you might say, "Okay, I need to nip it in
I need to learn which one is correct and I need to stop using it in an incorrect way
because this is a bad habit that could become a big problem.
It could become a habit that I can't stop in the future, so I need to nip it in the
bud."
Vanessa: Let's look at another sentence.
If your dog jumps up on strangers in the park, you need to nip it in the bud.
I've never had dogs, so I'm not really a dog person, but something that I really don't
like.
Maybe people who have dogs tolerate it.
But when a dog is walking in the park with its owner, even if it's on a leash, if it
jumps up on me, I don't want that.
I don't know your dog, your dog is dirty.
Don't touch my clothes with your dog's dirty paws.
An owner needs to nip this behavior in the bud.
The moment that your dog does that, you need to teach your dog that that's not good behavior.
So you could say the moment your dog jumps up on someone, you need to nip it in the bud.
Do not let this bad behavior become something big.
All right, let's go to the next expression.
Are we talking about a restaurant?
No.
The hiking stick served me well when I saw a bear on my hike.
The hiking stick served me well.
It's something that's been helpful to have or to know.
It was helpful to have a hiking stick, when I saw the bear, I could lift it above my head
and the bear just got a little scared and walked away.
At least bears in my area are not aggressive.
So if you have a hiking stick, which is always a good idea when you're hiking, at least in
this area, you can just make some loud noises or you can lift it above your head and say,
"Ah," and the bear will most likely, nine times out of 10, or more, just go away because
Vanessa: So we could say the hiking stick served me well.
It was helpful to have, or we could use this not necessarily in a physical way, but we
Something that's helpful to know.
You could say knowing English has served me well in my job.
Maybe you didn't think that you would need English for your job, but then you got a new
position and now you need to write emails every day in English.
Okay, so you're glad you already have a base in English, you could say, "Knowing English
It's been helpful to have this knowledge so that I can use it in my job and I'm not scrambling
trying to figure out what to say.
No, I have this knowledge and it's helpful to have.
Vanessa: The next expression is to think twice.
Why would you need to think twice about something?
Americans don't think twice about tipping in a restaurant.
Tipping means adding usually 20% extra on their bill.
If your bill is $20 you need to add $4 to give to the server.
It can be on your check, it could be cash, but for Americans, this is obvious, we always
We don't need to think twice about this.
So can you guess what this means?
It means that you're consciously considering or thinking about something.
For Americans, we don't need to consider the idea of should I tip, should I not?
No.
We always do, because this is just part of American culture.
Vanessa: If your service has been okay, the server was adequate, then you should give
at least 15%, probably 20% as a tip.
This expression, to think twice, is often used for negative situations.
When you're warning someone about something, so you might say, "You should think twice
about walking in that neighborhood alone at night.
That neighborhood is not so safe.
So before you walk to your friend's house in that neighborhood at night, think twice
It just means carefully consider, is this a good idea?
Maybe it's close by and you can ride your bike, which is a little faster.
You should think twice about this.
Okay.
You can also say this in other English-type situations.
Maybe you're thinking about just living in the US.
Well, that's a big, a big deal.
You might say, "I should think twice about living in the US.
Yeah, the idea is good, but I need to leave my family, my friends, my culture.
Okay.
I'm going to think twice about it.
I need to think twice about this because it's a big deal."
The next expression is the big picture.
Are we talking about taking a picture and then printing it to be giant on your wall?
No.
This is a more figurative expression.
What if I said this to you, what would you think it means?
I often don't think about the big picture, instead I just think about the little details.
What do you think I'm talking about here?
This is the big picture of life.
I don't think about 10 years in the future, 20 years in the future.
How this will impact a broader spectrum of people.
No, I just think about the details.
So the big picture means a broad, overall perspective.
And this can be used to talk about life, the big picture of life, or it can be used to
Vanessa: If you're playing a board game with some friends or a video game, any kind of
game, you could say, "Before you learn the rules of the game, you need to understand
Okay.
You need to know how do you win.
What is the overall broad perspective of the game.
What are the main goals of the game.
And then you can go back and learn all of the little rules, but it's good to start with
learning the big picture of the game.
All right, let's go to the next expression.
What if I said to you, we used to hang out a lot back in the day.
We used to hang out a lot, that means spend time together, back in the day.
No, this just means generally a long time ago.
It's a little bit odd because we can use this to talk about hundreds of years ago, thousands
of years ago, or we could use this to talk about 20 years ago.
So it all depends on how much you want to exaggerate with this.
I feel like the main feeling of this expression is hundreds of years ago, thousands of years
ago, something that feels like a long time ago.
Vanessa: But we often use this for our daily lives.
If you had a friend in high school and now you're 50 years old, well, maybe you see that
You could say, "Yeah, we used to hang out a lot back in the day."
Which means in high school, so maybe 30 years ago, it's not thousands of years ago, but
it feels like a long time ago.
Or you might say, "Back in the day, women used to spend all day doing laundry."
They spent the entire day doing laundry.
It was really physically intensive, really difficult.
And that's not really happening that often nowadays.
So we could say back in the day, I don't know exactly when, I don't have a specific date
for you, but I'm talking about something that was a long time ago.
Vanessa: This expression is pretty casual, so I don't really recommend using this in
You wouldn't really say, "Oh, back in the day our company was selling five units and
It's a little too casual for that situation.
You might just say, "In 2005."
You might talk about the past in a little bit more of a specific way in a business situation.
But this is great for daily conversations, which is the point of this video, to help
So back in the day, something that happened a long time ago, or it felt like a long time
ago, let's go to the next one.
Vanessa: To be in over your head, to be in.
There's a lot of prepositions going on in this expression.
When he joined the basketball tournament, he was in over his head.
Do you think that he's an amazing basketball player and he knows what he's doing and he's
Nope.
Instead, in this situation, he is less prepared and probably less skilled than the other people
So when he joined the basketball tournament, he was in over his head.
We never add, he was in the tournament over his head.
We never add that word there, but we're talking about in this situation, whatever that situation
is, he is overwhelmed.
We can imagine jumping into a swimming pool and the water covers your head.
You are in the water and it is over your head.
You are overwhelmed because you are probably less skilled and less prepared than the other
Vanessa: Let's look at another example.
I was in over my head on my first day as a teacher.
Maybe you thought you were prepared, but really you were completely overwhelmed.
Notice how the subject and the pronoun match in all of these situations.
We never say I was in over his head.
That's not possible with this expression, so make sure that they match.
I was less prepared, less skilled than other people, and I felt really overwhelmed.
All right, let's look at the next expression.
Do you sense that the word ease comes from the word easy, smooth?
Yeah.
You need to ease into the water of the swimming pool because it's really cold.
You need to ease into the water.
Oh, does this mean you need to jump in, go off the diving board and just get completely
Some people like to do that if it's cold, but in the sentence, we're talking about slowly
doing something, doing something cautiously, maybe preparing a little bit.
You are easing into the water.
If you just started relearning English after your childhood classes recently, well, don't
give a speech in English tomorrow.
You need to practice English a little bit every day.
You need to give yourself maybe a couple months of preparation before you give a 30-minute
Vanessa: Notice that there's always a noun after this expression.
Don't give a speech right away.
Or we could say you need to ease into the water.
You're going slowly into the water.
We can use it in a physical way, going slowly into the water.
Or in a more metaphorical way, slowly prepare to give a 30-minute speech in English.
Great work with these 15 new phrases.
Let's go through and review one sentence for each of these phrases.
Vanessa: What I want you to do is I want you to try to say them out loud with me.
Use your pronunciation muscles.
It's going to help you remember them, as I mentioned at the beginning, so just try to
Let's start with the first one.
Carrying Mace gave me a false sense of security.
It's a good idea to bounce ideas off of your coworkers before starting a new project.
Safety-wise, my city is pretty safe, but education-wise, I think the schools could improve.
A lot of people make art for the sake of making art.
I've never been to China, let alone seeing the Great Wall.
We've been dating for two years, but deciding to get married is a whole ‘nother animal.
The food looks strange, but I guess I'll give it a shot.
I was under the impression that being a good elementary school teacher was mainly about
The moment that my daughter started lying, I knew I needed to nip it in the bud.
Vanessa: The walking stick served me well when I saw a bear on my hike.
Americans don't think twice about tipping at a restaurant.
I usually don't think about the big picture of my life, only the daily details.
We used to hang out a lot back in the day.
He was really in over his head when he joined the basketball tournament.
I had to ease into the water because it was really cold.
Vanessa: Great work with these 15 phrases.
I hope you had a chance to learn something new.
I'm sure that you will hear these around you as you surround yourself with English, that's
the first step to recognize them.
Then you'll be able to understand them, and after some time you'll be able to use them
So feel free to repeat this lesson, go back and review some of these expressions so that
you can add them to your daily life.
Vanessa: Well, now I have a question for you.
I want to know what is something that you should think twice about?
You should think twice before you go there on vacation.
You should think twice before you eat that.
Give us some good sentences in the comments and make sure you read each other's sentences
as well, just to get a broader perspective of all of these wonderful expressions.
Well, 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.
Vanessa: The next step is to download my free ebook, Five Steps to Becoming a Confident
You'll learn what you need to do to speak confidently and fluently.
Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for more free lessons.
Bye.