Idioms, Idioms and more Idioms!

So thank you for your patience. A lot of you wrote to me asking me why I wasn't posting episodes, so now you know. Today's episode is about idioms. Several of you have written to me asking me to do another one of these episodes because you enjoyed the last one, so I did. That's what we're going to do today. Idioms, idioms, and more idioms. So let's get started. Oh, by the way, I decided to stop doing seasons with the show. From now on, a particular, I'll just say the number of episode.

So this one is not the forty-seventh episode of season two, it's episode number eighty-three. Anyway, you are listening to the eighty-third episode of English with Dane. Hit it. Okay, let's start. The first one is a blessing in disguise. Disguise is spelled D-I-S-G-U-I-S-E. A blessing in disguise is a good thing that seems bad at first. A bad situation maybe that ends up being, que termina siendo, something good, or leading to something good. An example.

It turns out, resulta que him getting fired was actually a blessing in disguise. A blessing is una bendición, and in disguise means in costume, right? Like disfrazada, una bendición disfrazada, if you want to translate it literally. Next one, to break a leg. This is an easy one, and it's one that you've probably heard before. This is a way to say good luck. It comes from the world of theater, and it is traditionally something you say to someone before they go on stage or before they perform.

People use it more freely now, más libremente, so it has become pretty common. Before a job interview or something, your friend might say, hey, break a leg. In Spain, people say mucha mierda as an equivalent, which probably sounds strange to my South American listeners. Next one, a dime a dozen. This idiom is used to say that something is very common. So common that you can buy a dozen una docena for a dime, which is ten cents.

A dime is what they call the ten cent coin, la moneda, in the United States. So, algo tan común, something so common that you can get twelve for ten cents. And obviously it has connotations of not being very valuable. For example, websites about health and fitness are a dime a dozen. Out of hand is the next one, or to get out of hand. If something gets out of hand, or is out of hand, it means that it is out of control. In Spanish, we practically have the same idiom.

We say que algo se ha ido de las manos. So this one is an easy one to remember. The key here, la clave, is how to use it. I think I use the verb get with this one most of the time. Maybe you're having a party at your house and you say to your friend, I don't want things to get out of hand, so don't invite too many people, or something like that. Next one, speak of the devil. We use this idiom when someone we are talking about appears.

You're talking about a friend or someone at work, and just at that moment they walk into the room or they turn the corner and you see them. In Spanish we say hablando del rey de Roma, if I'm not mistaken. You don't really change this one, you always just say speak of the devil. I believe that in Spanish the full sentence is hablando del Rey de Roma por la puerta asoma or se asoma or something like that. And in English it's speak of the devil and he shall appear. Listen to Bane say it in Batman.

It's super creepy. Speak of the devil and he shall appear. Okay, I've got one more for you before I go. Pull yourself together. To pull yourself or oneself together means to recover control of your emotions, to compose yourself, right? Calmarse, tranquilizarse, or recobrar la compostura in Spanish. You can use this instead of saying calm down, for example. But for me, it sounds a bit more intense.

Like when someone is really, really freaking out, you can say, Oh for God's sake, pull yourself together, man. That was from Harry Potter, by the way. It's Filch saying it to Draco Malfoy about going into the dark forest. So, a quick recap. A blessing in disguise is a good thing that seems bad at first. Break a leg, a way of saying good luck. A dime, a dozen, something very common and therefore not very valuable. Out of hand is out of control.

Speak of the devil when you're talking about someone and they appear, and finally, pull yourself together to regain or recover control of your emotions. Okay, that's it for today's episode about idioms. I hope it was useful, and I hope you learned something, or at the very least, I hope I cleared up some doubts that you had. Follow me on Instagram at Englishwithdain for a quiz about this episode and for more additional content too.

I put up a story a few days ago, by the way, with a Spotify playlist. Don't know if you saw it, but a lot of you asked me about music, so I thought I would make you a playlist with things I've been listening to, as well as some of my favorite songs. It's called Music with Dane, and I'll be adding new songs and changing things up a little bit, so check that out.

Support English with Dane by following it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, as well as giving it a five-star rating and sharing it with friends, family, or anyone who you think would benefit from it. If you want full transcripts, let me know. Okay, that's it for today. Talk soon. Bye-bye.