Three Ways to Be More Expressive in English

When you learn English at a basic level, your goal is simply to understand what people say and engage in simple, everyday conversations.

As you move up to intermediate level, you gain the ability to carry out a range of functions in English. For example, you should be able to write a work email or give people instructions.

However, the jump from intermediate to advanced level is a little different. You need to learn the nuances of English. You need to express yourself naturally, like a native speaker. In short, you need to be more expressive.

One way to be more expressive in English is to learn and use idioms. An idiom is any word or expression with a special meaning, such as 'a piece of cake' (easy) or 'raining cats and dogs' (heavy rain).

Another way is to learn strong (emphatic) adjectives. A word like 'good' is a normal adjective. Words like fantastic, wonderful, terrific and excellent are strong adjectives. A word like 'scared' is a normal adjective. Stronger versions are terrified, horrified or petrified.

Just like we have strong adjectives, we have strong verbs and specific action verbs. For example, 'walk' is a general verb, but if we want to be more specific about how a person is walking, we can use words like stroll, amble, swagger, march or wander.

These are three simple ways you can boost your vocabulary into advanced level!

To practice idioms, click here.
To practice emphatic adjectives, click here.
To practice specific action verbs, click here.

Useful Words and Phrases

I have been building up the RoadtoGrammar Pinterest page, which you can check out here:

https://www.pinterest.com/do0089/

It now features ESL discussion questions, a selection of around 100 useful words and phrases, some Rebus Puzzles and even some quizzes.

In connection with the Pinterest page, I have set up a flashcard/mcq activity featuring the same selection of new words and phrases here:

http://roadtogrammar.com/usefulwords/

I hope you guys can check it out and I hope you find it a valuable way to learn some great new vocab. Teachers, please think about featuring a new vocab card every day. It will work well on a smartboard.

Screenshots:

The Final Straw

The final straw

‘The final straw’ or ‘the last straw’ is an interesting idiom. It means the last in a series of negative incidents that leads to disaster. Okay, maybe that is a little difficult to imagine. How about the following:

Imagine a man has a camel and he uses the camel to carry straw (straw as in hay, not drinking straws!). He places pieces of straw on the camel’s back one by one until slowly the camel is hopelessly overburdened. Eventually, the man will place one final straw on the camels back and the camel’s back will break! This is what we call ‘the final straw’. And, yes, another version of the idiom is ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’.

Now imagine Bob’s boss is really mean to him. He shouts at him every day and insults him, but Bob perseveres. One day, Bob wants to take the afternoon off to visit his sick mother in hospital. His boss says no and Bob resigns. This is ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ or, as we said earlier, means the last in a series of negative incidents that leads to disaster.

Poor camels!

Idioms Galore

A new activity is available on RoadToGrammar.com

This idiom quiz lets you practice 150 commonly used idioms. The questions come up at random and you get a running total of your score.

The URL is: www.roadtogrammar.com/idioms

What is an idiom?

An idiom is any phrase where the words themselves do not convey the actual meaning. For example, we can say that a job is a 'piece of cake'. We are not talking about dessert! 'Piece of cake' is an idiom for 'easy', so when we say a job is a piece of cake, we mean that it is an easy job.

Some idioms

It's time to look at some idioms on the topic of punishments! The first idiom we will look at is, 'Heads will roll!' When someone says heads will roll, what they mean is that there will be strong punishments given out. This idiom goes back to the days where people got their heads cut off as a punishment (and the heads rolled along the ground).

The next idiom is 'call for his head', which pretty much works the same way. If you call for someone's head then you are asking for an extreme punishment to be given. Sometimes, people ask for 'his head on a plate'. This idiom refers to the Bible story of John the Baptist, whose head was presented on a plate. (Yuck!)

The final idiom is 'marching orders'. If someone is given their marching orders, it means they are asked to leave (the company). Occasionally, this idiom may be used in a different way, and it may mean to 'start something', such as a battle or fight.

Here are some examples in use of our three idioms:

The advertising campaign was a disaster! Heads will roll for this.
After the politician was caught stealing, the media are calling for his head.
After yet another mistake, Alan was given his marching orders.

Google the three idioms and see what you find!