Idioms don’t belong to the easiest part of the English language. New learners or beginners might have some difficulties when they meet idioms for the first time. If they don’t know what idioms are, they might get lost with some translation and in the result with the proper understanding of a given text or even some simple conversation. Idioms are everywhere and on all levels of English learning. You can’t learn the language without knowing the English idioms.
What does as cool as a cucumber mean?
Idioms, a part of any language that causes many problems to learners. Idioms are groups of words, phrases or expressions that you can’t translate word for word. When you look at such a phrase, at first sight, it doesn’t make any sense. The only way to find its proper meaning is to check it in a good dictionary, but you must write the whole phrase as it is.
How about the idiom below? Can you guess its meaning? As cool as a cucumber, what can it mean? If you can’t figure out anything, check the meaning in your English dictionary. I’m sure you will be surprised!
What does when pigs fly mean?
Now, let’s go through some examples of sentences with idioms. As an example, let’s take such a sentence: I will learn to sing when pigs fly. At first sight when we do a word for word translation the sentence doesn’t make much sense. Learning singing and flying pigs? What might it have in common? For a person who has no idea about idioms this sentence looks strange, doesn’t it? And such a person will not understand the meaning of it. Easy words, easy sentence but the meaning seems to be complex.
If such a sentence happens to you, check the strange or unclear phrase in a good dictionary. Then everything becomes clear. In this example, the dicionary will tell you that the phrase, when pigs fly, means a situation that will never happen, something that is impossible, there is no chance that the situation is true. Summing up, the sentence: I will learn to sing when the pigs fly, means that it is impossible for somebody to learn to sing. This person will never sing as well as they want. This example shows why learning English idioms is so important. Knowing at least some basic idioms like when pigs fly will make your understanding English better.
This post will help you to learn and practise some easy phrases. The idioms in this online exercise are used on daily basis, you can hear them during watching some videos, reading some texts or just on the street. These are the following:
- no biggie,
- I can’t stand,
- with flying colours,
- zip it,
- it’s a pity,
- come again?,
- I’m all ears,
- call it a day,
- why the long face?,
- cross my heart,
- as cool as a cucumber,
- when pigs fly.
The entry consists of three exercises. The first one deals with the definitions of these English idioms. In this online exercise you will find out what the particular idioms mean. The second quiz shows the idioms in sentence examples which will allow you to understand and remember them better. The last exercise shows some situations and you have to decide which of the given idioms describes them best and the exercise will tell you how well you remember these phrases.
Go to these online exercises, read, learn, revise and remember.