Hi. My name is Rebecca -- from www.engvid.com. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to use
six idioms about talking. Now, the general rule if you're learning English
-- and when it comes to idioms -- is to learn the idioms in order to understand what people
are saying or what you're reading, for example. But in general, it's better not to try to
use idioms unless you really know how to use them because otherwise you can end up sounding
a little bit foolish, and you don't want to do that. So make sure you learn them so you'll
understand, but only use them when you're really sure. So let's have a look at these
six common idioms that refer to the act of talking.
The first one is "to shoot the breeze". "To shoot the breeze" means to chat in a relaxed
way about something. Afterwards, I'll give you example sentences with each of them. For
now, I just want to give you the meaning. Second one, "to speak the same language" doesn't
actually mean to speak the same language. It means to agree or to think alike, all right?
Next one: "To talk a mile a minute". That one probably suggests what it means. It means
to speak very fast. "To spill the beans": Again, nothing to do
with beans. "To spill" means, like, to drop so that something falls, but it doesn't have
anything to do with anything falling or anything to do with beans. It means to confess.
What does it mean to confess? "To confess" means to tell the truth about something that
you were hiding previously. Next one -- well, these two are related: "to
talk someone into something", and "to talk someone out of something". So "to talk someone
into something" means to convince them, to persuade them, to get them to agree to do
something. And the opposite one, "to talk someone out of something", means to dissuade
them. The word "dissuade" is the opposite of "persuade". "To dissuade" someone from
doing something means to talk them out of it, to get them to not do something, all right?
So these are the six expressions, and now I'm going to show you how we use them in sentences.
I've written some examples for you. The first one: Someone says, "What are you
doing?", and the answer: "Nothing. Just sitting on the back porch and shooting the breeze.
Why don't you join us?" Okay, so when they said "shooting the breeze", we're just talking
in a relaxed way. We're sitting on the back porch, and we're talking in a relaxed way.
We're "shooting the breeze". Next example: -"How was your date with Richard?"
-"Great. I really like him. We speak the same language", which means that we think in the
same way about things. We share the same perspective about things. We "speak the same language".
Next one: -"What did the doctor say?" -"I'm not sure. He spoke a mile a minute, and I
didn't catch everything he said." You know how sometimes doctors or lawyers or professionals
speak very fast, and we kind of get lost. We don't understand what they're saying. Even
English speakers it happens to us when someone speaks "a mile a minute". Or it seems like
they're speaking "a mile a minute" because we don't always understand all of the technical
vocabulary that they're using. So "to speak a mile a minute" means to speak very fast.
Next one: "What happened?" "Well, after five hours, the suspect finally spilled the beans
to the police." So what did the suspect do? The suspect, the person that they thought
committed a crime or did something wrong, he "spilled the beans", as in, "he told the
truth". He confessed. He admitted what really happened to the police.
And the last one, we're using both of the expressions: "My girlfriends talked me out
of staying at home crying over my old boyfriend, and they talked me into going out with them
to the party." So they told me not to do something, and they told me to do something, and I did
what they suggested. So if you'd like to do a quiz on this subject,
please visit our website at www.engvid.com. And if you found this lesson helpful, please
subscribe to my channel on YouTube. Good luck with your English. Bye for now.