Out of the blue is a commonly used idiom. Do you know it?
It’s used to describe an event that happened (or is happening) unexpectedly, without warning or preparation.

Photo Credit: Christian Sherratt

Here are some examples:

“Out of the blue, my parents decided to buy me a brand new car for my birthday.  I’m so happy.”

“I hate it when out of the blue, things start going wrong.”

Conversation example

Jim: Melissa, you’ve been a good secretary at our company for two years now.  Unfortunately, I have to let you go. We’ll pay you 2 months salary.

Melissa: Do you mean that you’re firing me?

Jim: Yeah, I’m afraid so. Out of the blue, our company lost millions of dollars this week in the global financial crisis.  This has forced us to fire most of the staff.

Melissa: This is terrible! You know I really love this job.  This whole thing is out of the blue for me. I still can’t believe it.

Jim: I know…I’m really sorry.

See if YOU can create some examples like these…  after you have created them, you can write them in the comments section below!

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Long-term, Intermediate Short-term Goals; the ‘Divide and Conquer’ Principle;
and the ‘To-do-list’…

Long-term Goals

Long-term goals are your dreams. The reason you are studying today has to be linked to some dream about how you want to spend your life. It is usually a career goal - something that will last much of your adult life. What vision of your life really grabs your imagination?  Imagine your life ten years from now. What do you want to be doing?

Intermediate (in between) Goals

Intermediate goals are usually for three to five years in the future and are one of the keys to achieving your long-term goals. For example, if you want to be an interpreter, then a necessary intermediate goal would be to master the required languages in the first place.

Short-term Goals

The steps toward your intermediate goal are a series of short-term goals, usually for six months to 2 years in the future.
Immediate Goals
You cannot master languages if you do not get today’s homework assignment completed to the very best of your ability. Immediate goals are those that lead to the accomplishment of short-term goals. This is where the principle of “divide and conquer” comes into play most strongly.

Divide & Conquer

Whenever you are faced with what seems to be too much work, take each big task and break it down into (divide it into) smaller pieces.  If those pieces still seem too big, then break those down too.  Keep doing that until you have a long list of tasks (things to do) - each of which you could start now and finish in an hour or even half an hour. This will help you to get the job done now. It will also help you see real progress and make you feel more in control of your situation.

A ‘To-do List’

When you write down your immediate goals (and please remember that you must always write down your goals), and put them in priority order (the order of importance), then you have created a ‘to-do list’ for today’s study. Every ‘immediate (study) goal’ that becomes part of your ‘to-do list’ must be -
• Specific (exact - not “do some studying”, but “to understand and be able to use 5 new English words”)
• Reasonable (something that can be done in 30 to 60 minutes)
• Verifiable (something that can be measured - you can tell when you’re finished)
• Rewarded (watching a little TV or a walk in the park - but finishing the task is the best reward)

Remember this. If you have work to do that you know is important to your goals then:

“just do it and do it now!”

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People often use idioms in spoken English.  If you can learn to understand their meaning and learn how to use them, it can really boost your spoken English skills.

What’s an idiom?

First of all, you may be wondering…what’s an idiom? Well, an idiom is a phrase (group of words) where the exact meaning is not easily understood from the words used. We’ll show you what we mean with an example…

Photo credit: Hannah Boettcher

Example: ‘Cost (someone) an arm and a leg‘. Can you guess the meaning of this idiom?

Let’s imagine that your friend is showing you his new mobile phone (cell phone).

You: “How much did you pay for it?”
Your friend: “It cost me an arm and a leg!”
Is the meaning clearer to you now? When you look up the meaning of the idiom in a dictionary, you’ll find that it means ‘very expensive‘.  Did you guess it right?

You can also use this idiom in a sentence like this:
“The trip to Paris is going to cost me an arm and a leg.  I’ll have to save up for it!”

How to learn idioms…

Three things to remember when learning idioms:

1. Learn the meaning of the new idiom in English that you already understand - this helps you to get the full and actual meaning of the idiom, without an approximate translation.
2. Learn how to use the idiom in a particular situation (look at an example) - if you don’t know how to use the idiom, it’s useless to you.  It’s better not to use it if you can’t use it well.
3. Start using the idiom in conversation with others as soon as possible- ‘use it or lose it!’ - if you don’t start using it immediately you’ll soon forget it, and all the time you spent learning it would have been wasted.

We’ll be looking at some of the commonly used idioms, in a series of articles about idioms.  Keep visiting the site for more idioms…

While you’re here, see if you can add another short dialogue that uses the idiom, ‘cost (someone) an arm and a leg‘, in the comments section below…

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Plan Your Time, Help Others, and Enjoy the Journey:

Plan Your Time

We all have 24 hours in a day, and we can all choose how we spend that time.  Do you know what you do with your time?  If you don’t have some plan for your time then many times it gets wasted on meaningless activities.
You should plan for work, rest, and play.  Time for rest and play is just as important as time planned for work.  We all need to take ‘time out’ of our busy lives to have some fun, but the important thing is that we need to plan it so that it fits into our ‘schedules’.
Remember, having priorities is important to success.

How Helping Others Can Help You

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you”(this is one of the main teachings of the ‘Bible’).
It really is a universal law that ‘as you give so will you receive’.
If you are extremely generous with your time, money and energy, then others will tend to give to you in the same way.  If you’re only interested in taking from people all the time, then others will not be generous with you.
We all have dreams that we would like to see come true, but many times we cannot achieve them alone; we need the help of others.
Consider taking the role of ‘teacher’ sometimes.  Helping fellow learners with what you think you know and understand requires that you put forward your ideas in a clear and understandable way.  Through your teaching you find ways to organise your thoughts and make what you think you know clearer in your own mind.  You can learn a lot from teaching.
If you can help people in the things that you can help them with; things that you may consider as small; then maybe some day you’ll be able to help others in a big way; out of the rewards of a generous life.

Enjoy the Journey

Goal setting, like language, is just a ‘tool’.  It’s a very important and extremely valuable tool, but it is no more than that.
Don’t let goal setting become the main objective (goal) and so ignore the joy of your ‘life’s journey’.  Rather, goal setting is for people who strive to enjoy each moment of their lives; people who find purpose.  These kinds of people generally achieve a lot in life.
Remind yourself to ‘enjoy the journey’, and don’t always be concerned with the journey’s end.

Remember this. If you have work to do that you know is important to your goals then:

“just do it and do it now!”

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‘BUTTERFLY’

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.

One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could, and it could go no further.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.

The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shrivelled wings.

The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shrivelled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man, in his kindness and haste did not understand, was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening, were natural ways of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings, so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our lives. If we were allowed to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us.
We would not be as strong as what we could have been. We could never fly!

To gain Strength………
We are given Difficulties to make us strong.
To gain Wisdom………
We are given Problems to solve.
To gain Prosperity………
We are given a Brain and Brawn to work.
To gain Courage………
We are given Danger to overcome.
To gain Love………
We are given Troubled People to help.
To gain Favours………
We are given Opportunities.

We can expect to encounter difficulties in the study of Spoken English; but our struggles will be rewarded if we don’t give up.

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Failure, Change, and Linking Your Goals:

Expect Failure

If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.
That which is truly challenging (difficult) and inspirational (stimulating; exciting) is rarely easy. Don’t give up just because you don’t find success immediately, or because the path seems to be too difficult. If your dreams still feel right for you and still inspire you, your failure should be nothing more than a message that you need to re-evaluate (reassess; think about again) your action plan. Learn from your failures (mistakes), but don’t let them determine (decide) the direction of your life.
It is the struggle that makes you strong and beautiful!

You are allowed to Change

Setting goals does not set your life in stone.
Take time to reconsider (think about again) your goals and change them a little, or change them completely if you think it’s necessary.  Your path through life may lead you into contact with better, more inspiring goals.
Be prepared to make change that leads to better things.

Link (connect) Your Goals

There should be a connection between what you do today, and your longest-term dreams and goals.
When the action you are taking right now is directly supporting your long-term goal, and is directing you ‘step by step’ toward it, then you are experiencing the power of goal setting as a motivator (something that stimulates your interest in something), focusing agent (thing that helps you to pay attention to what’s important; helps you to concentrate), and cure for procrastination (a remedy for when you delay or put off action necessary for something to be completed).

Remember this. If you have work to do that you know is important to your goals then:

“just do it and do it now!”

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Stress
“Numbers”

To make the following numbers clear to the listener, you must put the stress on the correct syllable:

(Syllable: Unit of pronunciation uttered without interruption, forming the whole or part of a word and usually having one vowel sound often with consonant(s) before or after.)

Listen and Repeat:

Greg will say each number twice with the correct stress (the syllable in bold):

“Teen”; “-ty”

13 thirteen;  30 thirty:
14 fourteen;  40 forty:
15 fifteen;  50 fifty:
16 sixteen;  60 sixty:
17 seventeen;  70 seventy:
18 eighteen;  80 eighty:
19 nineteen;  90 ninety.

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“‘Tie in’ and join the Better Spoken English Club!”

We’ve found that so many students of spoken English have difficulty in finding a partner to speak to using their English skills; so we’ve started a ‘Club’.

It’s pretty easy to join.  All you need is a piece of yellow ribbon 30cms long, folded in half, and knotted about 2/3rds of the way up.  Fit a safety pin at the back and you have it done!  You’ve made ‘the tie’.

Wear it on your lapel, and when you see someone wearing the same tie, chat with them in English only please.

Whatever your situation; whether you’re in a university, college, workplace; wherever you are, ask the people around you to join.  In this way you’ll never be without a partner, and you will create an ‘English Environment’ about you; something that is so important to your progress.

Soon, we’ll have a ‘Better Spoken English Club Page’: a special page to this website that will give you all the latest news and activities regarding the club.  Have fun and…

Stay Tuned!

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“If you don’t plan to succeed, then you’re planning to fail!”

We’re absolutely sure that you’d like to be successful in your studies; but we ask this question, “Do you have a plan?” Goal Setting can be your pathway to success, and it is an important skill to be learnt; especially for students.
Please read on to learn more…

Why is ‘Goal-Setting’ Important?
Problems such as procrastination (procrastinate: to delay or put off action necessary for something to be completed), poor concentration (lack of attention or focus), and lack of motivation (lack of interest) come from not having clear goals.

Goal setting is a skill that you can develop (improve).  Without goals that are carefully planned, that can be expressed in words, and can be written down, you will drift through your learning and study sessions.
If you do not have a clear ‘vision’ (an idea that is clear in your imagination) of what is important to you in your studies, you will allow yourself to be distracted by whatever comes along.

Goal setting is about ‘priorities’ (things that are most important)
You can’t do everything you want to do. You must set priorities or you will end up wasting your time and energy, and not accomplishing (doing) anything to your fullest potential.

In this series of posts on ‘Goal Setting’ we’ll be looking at how you can set your goals for better spoken English!

Remember this. If you have work to do that you know is important:

“just do it and do it now!”

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