Hello, it's Keith from English Speaking Success and the website the Keith Speaking Academy.

You know, I love idioms.

They're colourful, they're fun, they can help you express your emotions and feelings and if you're doing IELTS, well in IELTS speaking, they will help you get a higher score.

Now today I've got 10 easy idioms.

I say easy because they all use very easy words that I'm sure you will know, right?

Words like foot, finger, back, hat, pull, put, get, right?

Now you will know the meaning of these words but you may not know the idiomatic meaning.

By the end of today's video you will know 10 easy idioms that hopefully you can start using and practicing.

I've also invited some of my gold students, students from the gold course, to come on the video and give you some examples so it's even clearer.

A quick plug, not this kind of a plug, I mean a plug as in an with me, I do have the gold course.

It's for preparing IELTS speaking or just developing your English speaking skills.

You can get it on the website Keith Speaking Academy.

Just click on the online courses button, look for the gold course and you'll find it and you can develop your English speaking skills in a fun and professional way.

So you can, you know, face the examiner with a word of warning about idioms.

You need, before you use them in the test, you need to make sure you understand them and that you practice using them.

Only use them if you're really comfortable with them before the test.

Oh and a final quick advert.

If you're interested in more idioms I do have a new ebook 50 English idioms for IELTS speaking.

I'll leave the link below.

It'll really help you boost your idioms vocabulary.

And I've got a new course coming out, start of the new year, January, 150 new idioms.

Well then, they're not new, I mean idioms are as old as the hills, right?

But they're new to you, maybe.

Anyway, that's in January.

The book in the link below.

Let's get in to these 10 easy idioms.

Now, imagine the situation.

You meet someone at work for the first time and you start speaking, but you suddenly disagree with each other.

You make a bad start and you think, we should start again, right?

You could say, we got off on the wrong foot.

To get off on the wrong foot, right, is to start a relationship in a bad way, usually by making a bad impression.

You say something wrong or you disagree, right?

To get off on the wrong foot.

To get off just means to start, right?

To start on the wrong foot.

It's strange, notice off and on.

To get off on the wrong foot.

Here's another example.

I think I got off on the wrong foot with my neighbour.

I accidentally parked in his neighbour.

Here's another example from one of my students, Hany.

When I first met my boss, I told him that I support Tottenham.

But unfortunately, he supports Arsenal.

So we got off on the wrong foot.

But after some time, we get along well.

Idiom number two.

Imagine your neighbour, right, often watches the TV, but really, really loud.

And you can hear it.

And you always feel angry.

You could say, He puts my back up.

My neighbour puts my back up, puts my back up.

To put someone's back up is to annoy or irritate someone.

So if I put your back up, I annoy you and you feel angry, right?

Here's another example.

When John criticised his wife's cooking, bad idea, in front of everyone, it really put her back up.

And she didn't speak to him for the rest of the evening.

If it was my wife, it would be the rest of the week.

Some more examples from my students, Vladimir and Ahmed.

Well, obviously, the salesman put my back up when he refused to provide me with the promise discount.

Well, I did not want to put your back up with my statement.

I was just trying to share how I felt about it.

Idiom number three.

Imagine the situation.

Your child has an exam in a few days.

They haven't prepared.

And he or she is watching the TV every evening.

Now, you could say and should say to your child, you need to pull your finger out.

You need to pull your finger out.

To pull your finger out means to start working harder or more quickly.

Another example.

I'm behind with this project and I need to finish before the deadline.

I'd better pull my finger out.

And here's a nice example from my student, Timur.

Well, I had been on vacation, right?

Then I came back to work and there was a lot of work to get done.

So, I had to pull my finger out.

OK, the next idiom, to have your work cut out.

This is similar to the idiom before, right?

To pull your finger out, which is advice or telling somebody.

But here, if you have a lot of work or a big task ahead of you, to describe that situation, you can say, you have your work cut out.

Cut out like.

You have your work, there you are, your work cut out.

Meaning, well, you have a big task ahead of you.

Do you know, I remember when I started teaching, right?

And I was offered or asked, not offered, I was told to teach a class of young children, six-year-old children.

And I remember it was my first time with children.

I was walking to the classroom with my books and a teacher came past me and he said, oh, are you teaching the children in class 12?

And I said, yes.

And he said, oh, you've got your work cut out.

And I went, what?

Why?

What?

What's happening?

And I got really nervous because he was saying, you've got a big, difficult task ahead of you.

And it turns out, class 12, the naughtiest children on the planet.

They were so naughty.

But I survived.

I got through.

I managed to do it.

So, to have your work cut out, here is another example from my student from the Gold Course, Miguel.

Thank you very much.

Right.

Idiom number five.

IMAGINE.

You're doing a lot of imagining today.

Imagine the situation, right?

If you can, I or you, let's say I am sitting in a coffee bar, maybe Starbucks, having a quiet coffee.

Then I see across the room a beautiful girl.

Suddenly, I get up without thinking.

I walk across.

I go up to the girl and I say, would you like to go out with me?

And you could say in this situation, I ask her out on the spur of the moment.

On the spur of the moment means to do something suddenly, without planning, impulsively.

On the spur of the moment, I asked her out.

On the spur of the moment, I got up and walked across.

No thinking involved.

I'm not telling you what she said.

You don't want to know.

But here's spur of the moment.

And here are some more examples from my students, Feng Lin and Rosella.

Yesterday, I bought this shirt on the spur of the moment.

Last week, I was walking down the street and just chatting with my best friend.

And on the spur of the moment, I helped an old man cross the street.

And here's some more examples from my students, Feng Lin and Rosella.

Idiom number six, to play by ear or to play it by ear.

It's similar to the previous idiom, right?

So to play it by ear is to improvise or to do something without planning.

Whereas on the spur of the moment is suddenly, without planning, to play by ear is not suddenly, but it's just improvising.

For example, if you haven't prepared for the meeting, you will have to play it by ear.

Do you remember class 12?

My naughty, naughty children, I had to teach.

Well, the week after, right, another teacher was given that class.

Nobody wanted to teach them.

And I remember seeing that teacher in the teacher's room a few days before.

And I said to the teacher, I didn't say you have your work cut out.

I said, whatever you do, make sure you prepare for that class.

Don't play it by ear or they will destroy you.

That's it.

To play something by ear or to play it by ear, we normally say.

Here is another example from my student, Bang.

Well, I'm going to have a test tomorrow.

And right now, I don't revise anything.

I go to bed and I think that I will play it by ear tomorrow.

Right, idiom number seven, to pull out all the stops.

So to pull, you know, to pull out, I can pull out my phone, you know, the stops.

So the stops are part of an organ.

I mean, the musical instrument like the church organ, right?

The organ has these things that you pull out.

And when you pull out the stop, the sound gets louder.

So if you pull out all the stops, you get the biggest sound.

So the idiomatic expression to pull out all the stops is to do the best you can.

For example, tomorrow, I'm playing my brother.

I'm playing table tennis against my brother and he's pretty good.

So if I want to win, I will have to pull out all the stops.

Here are some more examples from my students, Romaric, Ali and Lyle.

My name is Romaric and I'm preparing to sit the IELTS test in October.

And I'm using these courses to prepare myself very, very hard and other stuff around.

And so that all those things can help me to pull out all the stops.

Thank you.

Well, I'd like to talk about my IELTS exam.

You know, I did it last year and it went pretty well.

Actually, at first, the most challenging part for me, you know, to know how to start and how to wrap up my talking.

So I started to watch Keith's videos and it helped me to pull out all the stops.

I pulled out all the stops to start.

Right, idiom number eight.

Imagine, again, you're in the pub and you're listening to friends talking and someone is talking politics and what he says is rubbish, nonsense, ridiculous, gibberish.

You could say, he is talking through his hat.

To talk through your hat means to talk nonsense, to say ridiculous things.

To talk, you know.

Hello.

Hat, you know.

Talk through your hat.

Hello.

It's crazy.

It makes no sense.

To talk through your hat is to talk nonsense.

Here is another example from my student Francisca.

In today's conference, a participant did not stop insisting that factories have nothing to do with global warming.

To be honest, I hate it when people talk through their hat.

Right, idiom number nine.

To go from strength to strength.

And this just means to get better and better.

You can imagine strength is the noun from strong, right?

To get stronger and stronger, to get better and better.

We can use this to talk about a person, about a company, a team, or even a skill, right?

Manchester United have gone from strength to strength this season.

My English has gone from strength to strength.

Well, not my English.

My Chinese has gone.

Well, my Chinese will go from strength to strength if I study more.

You could talk about a startup.

This small company, since they began, have gone from strength to strength.

Here's another nice example from Irina.

Thanks to my daily practice with you all, I've been going from strength to strength.

Okay, the next one.

Now, this idiom, to get your goat, you know to get.

A goat is an animal.

To remember the first idiom, the neighbor playing the TV and he puts your back up.

He annoys you.

If somebody annoys you or irritates you, you can also say they get my goat.

To get your goat is to annoy you or to irritate you, right?

For example, the noisy neighbor gets my goat.

I was stuck in traffic this morning.

It really got my goat.

Here's another example from my student Karen.

When people talking loudly on the phone, when I'm on a morning train, that really gets my goat.

There you have it.

Ten easy idioms you can now hopefully understand, be a bit more, be a bit clearer and start practising.

Which is your favourite idiom?

Tell me in the comments down below.

And listen, a final plug, advert.