Learn how to use some British idioms and metaphors
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| INTRODUCTION |
| David: Does Your British Friend Have Hollow Legs? David Here. |
| Kellie: Hello. I'm Kellie. |
| David: In this lesson, you’ll learn how to talk about hunger and thirst. The conversation takes place at a restaurant. |
| Kellie: The speakers are friends. |
| David: So they’ll use informal English. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Phil: This food is taking a long time to come. |
| Katrina: Yeah and I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast. |
| Phil: I ate lunch but I'm still starving. |
| Katrina: You're always hungry but you never put on weight. You must have hollow legs. |
| Phil: I don't eat that much. Anyway, I'm so hungry that I could eat a horse. |
| Katrina: Me too. I hope the food comes soon. |
| Phil: Yeah, or I might start eating the tablecloth. |
| David: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| Phil: This food is taking a long time to come. |
| Katrina: Yeah and I'm so hungry. I haven't eaten anything since breakfast. |
| Phil: I ate lunch but I'm still starving. |
| Katrina: You're always hungry but you never put on weight. You must have hollow legs. |
| Phil: I don't eat that much. Anyway, I'm so hungry that I could eat a horse. |
| Katrina: Me too. I hope the food comes soon. |
| Phil: Yeah, or I might start eating the tablecloth. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| David: That was an interesting last line in the dialogue. |
| Kellie: Oh, Phil’s line about eating the tablecloth? Yeah, the dialogue this time was full of idioms and metaphors like that. |
| David: What are idioms? |
| Kellie: They’re phrases where the meaning isn’t always obvious from the words used. Like “hollow legs”, which we’ll talk about in a minute. I love idioms though. They’re a great way to sound natural and fluent in English if you can use them correctly. |
| David: You hear them a lot in casual speech. |
| Kellie: Yes, and some of them are so old that nobody knows the real meaning or origin of them anymore! |
| David: I think that there are a lot of food idioms and metaphors. |
| Kellie: There are! How about “eyes bigger than my stomach.” |
| David: Oh, that means you’ve chosen more food than you can eat. |
| Kellie: Right. Or “have a sweet tooth”. |
| David: Ah, you like sweet foods. |
| Kellie: Right again! |
| David: Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| David: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Kellie: hungry [natural native speed] |
| David: having a desire or craving for food |
| Kellie: hungry[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Kellie: hungry [natural native speed] |
| David: Next we have.. |
| Kellie: breakfast [natural native speed] |
| David: the first meal of the day, usually eaten in the morning |
| Kellie: breakfast[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Kellie: breakfast [natural native speed] |
| David: Next we have.. |
| Kellie: starving [natural native speed] |
| David: very hungry |
| Kellie: starving[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Kellie: starving [natural native speed] |
| David: Next we have.. |
| Kellie: weight [natural native speed] |
| David: amount of heaviness, how heavy something is |
| Kellie: weight[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Kellie: weight [natural native speed] |
| David: Next we have.. |
| Kellie: hollow [natural native speed] |
| David: having a space inside, not full |
| Kellie: hollow[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Kellie: hollow [natural native speed] |
| David: Next we have.. |
| Kellie: horse [natural native speed] |
| David: a large four-legged animal that is used for riding and racing |
| Kellie: horse[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Kellie: horse [natural native speed] |
| David: And last.. |
| Kellie: tablecloth [natural native speed] |
| David: material used to cover a table, especially when eating |
| Kellie: tablecloth[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Kellie: tablecloth [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| David: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Kellie: starving |
| David: meaning "very hungry" |
| David: This is an informal expression, right? |
| Kellie: Yeah, it’s very casual. It comes from the verb “to starve” which means to die due to a lack of food or to be in the process of dying. But when people say “I’m starving”, they don’t mean that. |
| David: They’re just exaggerating how hungry they are. |
| Kellie: Right. That’s why it’s a casual term, because of that extra meaning. |
| David: So in more formal situations we’d say... |
| Kellie: “I’m hungry” or “I’m very hungry.” |
| David: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Kellie: Sure. For example, you can say.. “I'm starving, it feels like I haven't eaten for a week.” |
| David: ..which means "I’m so hungry it feels like I haven’t eaten for a week." Okay, what's the next word? |
| Kellie: hollow legs |
| David: meaning "can eat a lot without putting on weight" |
| David: “Hollow” means an empty space inside something. “Legs” are the limbs that we walk on. So, it’s an empty space in our legs…? |
| Kellie: It’s a casual term used for people who can eat a lot of food. The joke is that they’re putting the food in their hollow legs. |
| David: Ah, because we can’t see where else the food could be going? |
| Kellie: Right. It’s a joke. |
| David: Can you say “hollow arms” or “hollow back”? |
| Kellie: No...people only say “hollow legs”. |
| David: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Kellie: Sure. For example, you can say.. “She eats so much that she must have hollow legs.” |
| David: .. which means "She eats so much that I don’t know how she manages to eat it all." Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| David: In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the preposition “but” and the pattern of present perfect plus “since” to talk about hunger and thirst. |
| David: Let’s begin by going back to conjunctions. |
| Kellie: We’ve spoken about these before, of course. They are words used to connect clauses or sentences. In this lesson we’ll look at the conjunction “but”, which is a coordinating conjunction as it connects two clauses of equal importance. |
| David: Katrina used in this in the dialogue when she said “You’re always hungry but you never put on weight.” |
| Kellie: Right. We can use “but” to contrast clause one with an unexpected clause two. Like “It’s summer, but it’s rained every day.” |
| David: The rain is unexpected because hey, it’s summer! It should be sunny! |
| Kellie: Another example is “She always wakes up early, but is still always late.” If someone is waking up early you’d expect them to be on time, right? |
| David: Of course! Another example is to have a negative first clause, and then contrast it with an affirmative second clause. |
| Kellie: This one probably needs a little explaining. Here is an example negative clause - “She had no money.” That’s a bad and negative situation, right? |
| David: Yeah. I’d expect bad things to happen if someone had no money. |
| Kellie: “She had no money, but she was still able to go on holiday.” Going on holiday is good! |
| David: And unexpected if you have no money! |
| Kellie: Another example is “I didn’t study for my French exam, but I still scored 100%”. |
| David: Not studying is bad, but the second clause has the surprising result of still getting 100%. |
| Kellie: Another use for “but” is to highlight exceptions. “Everybody but Mark arrived on time.” |
| David: So everyone arrived on time. Mark was late. It puts those two clauses together. |
| Kellie: And makes Mark look really bad! |
| David: Let’s take a look at one last thing in the dialogue. Katrina says “I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.” |
| Kellie: Right. That’s the present perfect tense plus “since.” We spoke about the present perfect in Lesson 15 and that it is used to talk about an unspecified time in the past. |
| David: But that sentence was specific. She was talking about breakfast. |
| Kellie: Because she used the word “since”. We can use “since” with the present perfect to be more specific. |
| David: “I have studied English since I was 10 years old.” |
| Kellie: Perfect example. It’s subject, then “has” or “have”, followed by past participle and then “since”. And you can make it negative by adding “not” |
| David: For example “I haven’t eaten since yesterday.” |
| Kellie: Yes, or “I haven’t drunk anything since this morning.” |
| David: Maybe we should stop here and get something to eat and drink then! |
| Kellie: That’s not a bad idea! |
Outro |
| David: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Kellie: Bye. |
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