Today we're going to look at a very common idiom and a very useful idiom for speaking.

It's quite an easy one.

It's very obvious to know what it means but it's very, very good for your speaking.

The idiom we're going to look at is this one: To make a long story short.

Now, this simply means "To get to the point quickly." "To leave out all the details and to jump to the ending."

So imagine you're talking to your friend in English and you have an interesting story.

But perhaps you don't have time to tell all the details.

You can just jump straight to the conclusion.

You can use this idiom.

You simply say, "To make a long story short, we did this" or "To make a long story short, this happened."

So you jump straight to the ending, the point of your story.

Now let's have a look at a couple of examples in use, so it becomes much clearer for you.

So I want you to imagine, this example is a company CEO and he has no time to explain all the details.

He just goes straight to the point.

So he says or she says, "The company is having serious problems at the moment.

To make a long story short, it is in debt and we have to make staff cuts."

So the CEO didn't go into all the details.

He or she simply went to the conclusion.

He didn't say, "This is why we're in debt, this is what happened, these are the problems," etc.

He went straight to the point.

Okay? He had no time for the details.

So he used the idiom "To make a long story short".

Let's look at another example.

This is two friends who went out and were separated and one friend is asking the other what happened.

So Sam says, "Where did you guys disappear to last night?"

And Mick says, "It was crazy! To cut a long story short, we ended up going to a house party and stayed out till 6 am."

So you can see that Mick went straight to the conclusion.

He didn't go into all the details of what happened.

Also, notice that there are two varieties of this idiom.

We can say "to make a long story short" or "to cut a long story short".

They both mean the same thing.

Just two ways to express the same idiom.

Now, when you leave out the details and go straight to the conclusion, you can explain the details after.

So you can explain the conclusion first, and then go back to the details if you have time.

So for example, Mick might say, "To cut a long story short, we ended up going to a house party and stayed out till 6 am."

Then he can go to the details.

He might say, "We were walking along, we met a group of people and they were having fun."

And they said, "Hey, come back to our house and let's have a party."

So he might explain the details after.

You see, so there are two ways you can either leave the details completely or you can go back to them after if you have time.

And make sure you, when you explain the conclusion, try to explain it in as few words as possible.

Get straight to the point.

Ok, you can go into the details after if you wish.

So if you have any questions, leave them in the comment section below.

Hit the thumbs up button and thanks for watching.

See you in the next video.