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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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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‘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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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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The pronunciation of the letter “w” is sometimes mistakenly mixed up with the pronunciation of the letter “v”.  The pronunciation of “w” is quite different.
The letter “w” has a short sound.

Lets take a look at what our mouth should look like when we pronounce ‘w’ as in ‘west’.

“Make your lips hard and round.”

Next, we’ll take a look at some words with the ‘w’ sound and contrast them with similar sounding words. Greg will say each word twice:

“west” “vest”; “wet” “vet”; “wine” “vine”; “we” “V”

Let’s try a couple of sentences:

“When Vince drank wine he wrote the worst verse we ever heard!”
“Was it windy in the woods when you went there with William on Wednesday?”

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The pronunciation of the letter “f” is closely linked with the pronunciation of the letter “v”; and the pronunciation of the letter “v” is often mispronounced as “w”.

Confused? Well, firstly, let’s take a look at what our mouth should look like when we pronounce the letter “f” as in the word “feel”:

“Touch your top teeth with your bottom lip.
Blow out air between your teeth and your lip.”

Next, we’ll take a look at some words with the ‘f’ sound and contrast them with similar sounding words. Greg will say each word twice:

“fin” “pin”; “feel” “peel”; “sniff” “snip”; “half” “harp”; “fat” “hat”; “feat” “heat”

Let’s try a couple of sentences:

“If you want to eat a fillet of fish, then you need to use a knife and fork.”

“Your Father will get fat if he frequently fries his food.”

In our next post we’ll look at the pronunciation of the letter “v”.

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As we said in our last post, the pronunciation of the letter “v” is closely linked to the pronunciation of the letter “f”.

Let’s look again at what our mouth should look like when we pronounce the letter “f”; and then at what the mouth should look like when we pronounce the letter “v”:

We see that the mouth positioning is the same; but instead of using ‘air’ to make the sound (as in “f”), to make the sound for “v” we use our voice.

Next, we’ll take a look at some words with the “v” sound and contrast them with similar sounding words. Greg will say each word twice:

“vine” “fine”; “view” “few”; “leave” “leaf”; “vest” “best”; “van” “ban”; “vote” “boat”

Let’s try a couple of sentences:

“Vera will be driving a van to the village in the valley.”
“Victor loved the five autumn leaves that Vanessa gave him in November.”

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There are 2 pronunciations for ‘th’. One is as in “the” or “that”, and the other is as in “think”. We’d like to help you with the pronunciation of ‘th’ as in ‘think’.
Many people mispronounce the ‘th’ sound as ’s’; and so “think” becomes “sink”!

Sentence: “I think I’ll have a conversation with Rita on both Thursday and Friday.”

Firstly, lets take a look at what our mouth should look like when we pronounce ‘th’ as in ‘think’.

“Put your tongue between your teeth.
Blow out air between your tongue and your top teeth.”

Next, we’ll take a look at some words with the ‘th’ sound, and contrast them with the ’s’ sound. Greg will say each word twice:

“Mouth” “Mouse”; “Thumb” “Sum”;
“Thick” “Sick”; “Think” “Sink”; “Path” “Pass”.

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Here you will find an audio recording of the correct pronunciation of “usually”. We have also included a sentence using “usually”. [click to continue…]

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