Idiomatically speaking

[Kati Svaby]

Please activate Javascript in your browser to listen to this audio recording

2 Listened

Download mp3	Click to listen

Dear Alan,

I am sorry for answering your letter later.
Two idioms what is connected with my state now:
1.Misfortunes never come alone.
2.It never rains but it pours.

I enjoyed your Essay 41 about the Idiomatically speaking.

You told "you're going to have to be patient with me or you'll have to bear with me " You have to know that everybody who gets your essays is very happy to read them and they are a good recreation and amusement for everybody.

Poor senile King Lear was lucky that he had a very good friend, Duke of Kent, and he was unlucky having this kind of daughters "who are out to get him because they want his lands" - than in the folk-tales.

There is idioms what we understand at the first sight but there are ones that are a riddle. For example : take a leaf out of Kent's book - it seemed to me than I would have known it but I have never seen earlier.

Practice makes perfect:
Top: -head-eyes-ears-mouth-teeth:

-I can talk through my hat. =I can talk nonsense.
-I can keep something under my hat. =I can keep secret. / I'm really can keep secrets./
-I can take my hat off to you. = I can congratulate you; I admire sb for sth he/she/it has done
-I can also eat my hat.=I can also express absolute surprise and shock;used to say sth is very unlikely to happen.

-to keep an eye on sb/sth or keep one's eyes open=The teachers on 1st. April have to keep an eye on their students and keep their eyes open in case the class prepared some joke at their expense.

-Keeping your ears to the ground =You are keeping yourself well informed about what's happening around you.=Making sure that you always find about the most recent developments in a particular situation.
- Who are wet behind the ears = are inexperienced /in Hungarian:sb has green ears /
-Ears are burning = someone is talking about you but you don't know who and where.
-Pay through the nose(for sth) = when you have to pay so much (for sth)
-Leading sb. by the nose =getting you to do what they want ; to make sb do everything you want;to control sb completely
-Keeping your nose to the grindstone=You'll have to work really hard without stopping.

-down in the mouth= depressed, unhappy
-to shout my mouth off =talk in a loud manner and show off sth/sb

-teething troubles/problems = small problems that arise when somebody/something starts something new.
-gnash (grind) your teeth=to become angry, upset about sth; especially because you cannot get what you want.
-to fed up to the back teeth with sb/sth=extremely tired of sth/sb

I say to myself from Henry 6th, part 2:
"Seal up your lips and give no words but mum. " ( mum!= keep quiet!)

Many thanks and best regards:

Kati Svaby
_________________
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love - first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.

[Ademacar]

Hi! I want to learn English from Callan Method. Do you have your Callan Method stages? If you have Callan Method, could you send me a message please? Regards from me.

[Besarta]

Hello Alan,
Your essay is great as usually but I didn't get the last sentence taken from Henry 6th.

[Genoveva]

Hi Alan,
I love reading your essays..They're very informative and entertaining aside from the great help they give me in my work as an English teacher.. Many thanks...