Episode description

Some informal and idiomatic expressions in English just don't seem to make sense. In today’s lesson, I’ll explain four phrases that my students have asked me about:

• nothing to sneeze at
• there'll be hell to pay
• to each his own
• a far cry from

Don’t try to translate or understand these phrases literally – that’s a common mistake among language learners. If you try to understand it word by word, it won’t make sense. Instead, you need to understand each phrase as a whole unit, with a particular meaning.

Lesson text: https://www.espressoenglish.net/four-english-expressions-that-dont-seem-to-make-sense/ 

You can see how each of these expressions is difficult to understand by itself, but easier to learn if you have an example situation where it would be used.

This is why I highly recommend learning phrases in context, not just trying to memorize lists of phrases and definitions, and my Everyday English Speaking Course Level 2 can help you do that.

The lessons are based on more advanced conversations that are full of expressions like these. You can click here for a free sample.