The most common English idioms
Are you a good English speaker? Would you like to learn a great way to expand your vocabulary and make your conversation sound more… British? You should use some typical idioms! Understanding an idiom’s meaning can be quite hard sometimes since the words themselves usually don’t really make sense. But don’t panic, I want to help you with that, so here is a list of the most common British idioms, with their meanings!
Hit the nail on the head
If someone ever says this to you, you should be very happy and proud of yourself. As a matter of fact, it means you have just found the perfect solution or answer to a problem. In order to remember its meaning, just think of a hammer coming down very accurately on a nail!
You can’t judge a book by its cover
This is a famous one, isn’t it? Actually, its meaning is quite clear from the words and we have a similar idiom in Italy, too… but here is the explanation for those who don’t know its meaning: can you judge a book by its cover only? I don’t think so. That’s why it’s important to read it before giving your feedback. In English it is often applied to advise people not to judge a person from the first encounter. As a matter of fact, it’s impossible to understand someone just from a quick glance!
Call it a day
After many hours of work, we all would like to call it a day! Are you wondering what it means? Well, it’s used to describe the action of stopping working on something. You may also find the form "let’s call it a day", but the meaning it’s quite the same.
Cost a bomb
Have you ever experienced that feeling of inconsolable sadness that usually hits when you want to buy something but do not have enough money? In this kind of situation, you can say that it costs a bomb, which means that something is just too expensive for your budget.
The elephant in the room
In my opinion, this one is quite hard to understand, also because we don’t have a similar one in Italy. The "elephant" represents an important topic which has to be discussed but that isn’t even mentioned because no one wants to bring it up!
Face the music
When you grow up, you have to understand that facing the music is something you will have to do for the whole of your life. That means you have to accept the consequences and responsibility for something bad you have done. Just imagine: you didn’t study for a test and got a bad mark. All you have to do is facing the music now!
I truly hope this will help you to improve your English. There are thousands of idioms and common sayings in every language and since their meanings can be quite tricky, my advice is to look them up in the dictionary or on the internet whenever you find one of these expressions in a book or even in a movie!
Anna Donà
