B2 English Listening Practice - Idioms in English – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.hey everybody welcome to this b2 English listening practice video you could use this video to train your listening and comprehension as I speak you ready so today I'm gonna talk about a few common idioms that we use in English idiomatic expressions play such an important role in any language and so it's good to always be learning new ones so without further ado let's look at our first one once in a blue moon I'm sure some of you have come across this expression at some point in your life but maybe you didn't quite understand it when it was said if we say that something happens once in a blue moon it means that this thing very rarely happens so for example I could say this type of event only takes place once in a blue moon that just means that this type of event almost never happens all right here's another idiom to feel under the weather this is an essential one that you should definitely learn it simply means that you're feeling a little sick you wouldn't use this expression if you were really sick or you had some really serious medical condition or something but you can use it if you have a cold or something like that so I might say I'm gonna have to skip tonight's party because I'm feeling a little under the weather in fact I'm actually feeling a little under the weather right now because I've been having some issues with my throat and sinuses okay the third idiom that we're gonna look at is this one stab someone in the back this is another expression that you want to get down it's universal and I'm sure the expression is pretty similar in other languages but it might be worded a little differently so when you stab someone in the back you betray them more often than not in a pretty dramatic or brutal way so for example let's say I tell a really embarrassing personal secret to my good friend and that my good friend goes and tells a bunch of other people my secret this would be considered him stabbing me in the back pretty straightforward right all right the next idiom is cold turkey this is one of my personal favorites the phrase cold turkey is used to show that someone quits a harmful habit immediately without any program or weaning off process to help so if a man's been smoking a pack of cigarettes every day for the last thirty years and then just stops immediately he quit cold turkey or if a drug addict suddenly throws away all his drugs and quits completely he quit cold turkey don't ask me where this expression came from all right one more idiom born with a silver spoon in his mouth of course you can substitute his with any other possessive pronoun here this idiom is often used to negatively describe someone who was born into a wealthy family you wouldn't want to say this is somebody's face though people usually say this when they're making disparaging remarks about somebody else so you might hear someone say something like this he doesn't even know what work is he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth so hopefully some of these idioms were new for you so now you've got a few more native phrases in your arsenal okay that's all for today leave a comment and try to use one of these idioms in your own sentence I'll see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music]