5 English Idioms to MOTIVATE & INSPIRE

39

Hello, my name is Emma, and in today's video, I am going to inspire you.

We are going to learn some very inspirational expressions in English.

So, I want you to imagine - so, in your head, picture this - imagine you have a friend,

and your friend gets a low IELTS score and is really sad.

Imagine you are learning English, no matter how hard you study, you're always reading

English books and practicing, you just can't understand the present perfect tense in English.

What's the difference between the past tense and the present perfect tense?

Imagine, no matter how hard you try, you just don't understand it.

And then, imagine your son, even if you're younger, just imagine you have a son, he comes

home and he says, "Mom, Dad, English is boring.

I hate English."

What do all of these examples have in common?

Well, I'll tell you what they have in common.

In all of these examples, these people need inspiration, they need encouragement.

So, in today's video, I am going to teach you the words you can say in English to anyone

in these situations or other situations to help them feel better and encourage them,

but also so you can improve your own English.

All of the expressions I will teach you today are very common expressions we use whenever

someone needs encouragement.

So, let's get started.

So, for each of the expressions I'm going to teach you today, I've made a beautiful

So, all of the posters are designed by me, and what I actually encourage students to

do or learners of English to do is make your own poster using these expressions.

They don't have to be as big as mine.

You can make a small poster, put it on your desk or on your refrigerator, or put it somewhere

you will see it and where you will see it often, because that will, first of all, help

you remember these expressions, but also it's a great activity to, again, help you

Even writing the words will help you, and it can encourage you when you are having difficulties,

especially English difficulties.

So, let's look at the first example of a very popular expression - "practice makes perfect".

And then at the bottom of my poster, I put 100%, A+, 10 out of 10.

So, what does it mean when we say "practice makes perfect"?

Well, it means that in order to improve - so, if you want to improve and to get better at

something, you need to practice, and you need to practice a lot.

So, we use this expression in many different situations.

We can use it for learning a language.

Right now, I am learning Chinese, and I'm learning Chinese writing.

So, what I need to do every day is practice, practice, practice to get better, because

I hope one day to make perfect or to get perfect.

We can also use this for sports.

If you are learning or if you play soccer, you can't just start playing one day and be

an amazing soccer player.

No, you need to practice.

You know, you practice after school, you practice in the evening, or during the daytime.

So, the more you practice, the better you become.

So, here's my example.

You are learning English.

Remember, "practice makes perfect".

And I just want to call your attention to the verb we use here.

Many learners get confused with "make" or "do".

For this specific example, it's always "make".

So, "practice makes", with an "s", "perfect".

So now, let's practice more, because practice makes perfect, and let's look at some other

examples of inspirational expressions.

So, my next expression has to do with lemons and lemonade.

So, you might think, "This seems like it's going to be a strange expression."

Well, in fact, the next expression is pretty common.

We use it, again, when someone has a difficult situation, and we want to inspire them and

encourage them.

We want them to think about the good part in a bad situation.

So, the expression is when life gives you lemons - and these yellow things are lemons

- make lemonade.

"Lemonade" is a drink that's made out of lemons.

So, what does this expression really mean?

Well, lemons, if you ever bite into a lemon, it does not taste good.

It's very sour, it's going to have a very strong taste, and it's going to be maybe a

bit bitter or sour or hard to eat because of the taste.

So, that's what we think about life.

Life gives us problems, so problems are represented by lemons because lemons don't taste good.

So, what does this mean?

Well, lemonade is a tasty, delicious drink.

So, even if lemons don't taste good, when we use them to make lemonade, we get something

We get something that is good.

So, that's what this expression means.

It means life gives us bad things sometimes, but with those bad things, make good things.

So, let's look at an example.

So, you'll notice above I put "find the good" in a bad situation.

Here's an example.

Sometimes students or learners might say, "Emma, I got a low score on my English test."

Or "I didn't do as well as I wanted on the IELTS."

And I might say to them, "Well, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

So, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

So, what a student might say is, "Yeah, you know, now I know the test.

I know what it's like to take the test.

Even though I didn't do well, now I'm more familiar with the test.

I know the kinds of questions they might ask.

I know how to better study for this test.

I know the mistakes I made on the first try, so I'm going to try again.

I'm going to make lemonade, and I'm going to be positive, and, you know, I'm going to

do the test again with what I learned from the first time."

So, that's what we mean by when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Now let's look at another expression that's common and can encourage you.

So, the next expression I really like because it rhymes - "no pain, no gain".

So, what does this mean when we say "no pain, no gain"?

Well, first let's look at the words in this.

So, you already know the word "no".

"Pain", when you have pain, it means something hurts.

So, when I get a needle in my arm, ouch, that hurts.

So, when something hurts - so, you look at this guy, he just went to the doctors and

got a needle, it hurt.

He's crying because he has pain.

So, that's what "pain" means.

"Gain" means "improve".

So, when you gain something, we often use this to mean improvement.

So, for example, here we have our little graph.

We have the y-axis and the x-axis.

The red line shows no gain.

The green line shows improvement.

There's some gain.

There's an increase in something.

So, what does this expression mean when we say "no pain, no gain"?

Well, it means basically you have to work very hard for something.

Things don't come easy.

There's maybe a little bit of pain or a little bit of suffering.

We don't mean physical pain all the time.

It might be, you know, because of the difficulty, it might be mental pain.

So, when we say "no pain, no gain", we mean that in order to achieve your goal, there's

probably going to be a little bit of suffering.

So, I'll give you an example.

I went to the gym and I worked out.

So, with my barbell, I lifted weights.

And you know what happened?

After the gym, my arm was so sore.

But, you know, in order to get bigger muscle, in order to gain strength, you need pain.

My muscle is going to hurt.

So, what I can say is I went to the gym, I lifted weights, my arm hurts, but no pain,

So, you might use this in an English example.

Imagine you have children and they come home from school and they're upset and they say,

"Mom, Dad, English is so hard."

You know, it's really difficult, the grammar's hard.

You might say to them, "Hey, no pain, no gain.

Of course it's hard.

You know, things in life are hard.

But no pain, no gain."

So, now let's look at some other expressions that are inspiring and encouraging.

So, our next expression that is inspirational has to do with time.

The expression is "better late than never".

And so, I've drawn here a clock because we're talking about time, I have a happy face because

we're saying late is better than - and here's a sad face - than never.

So, what does this expression mean?

Well, what it basically means is if the situation is you're either going to do something late

or not at all, meaning never, it's better to do something late.

Of course, the best thing to do is to do something on time.

So, if you have a deadline or a due date, of course it's best to do things by the deadline

or the due date.

But in English, we also say, you know, better late, so even if it's a couple days late,

better late than never or not at all.

So, let's look at how we can apply this to English.

So, some people who are learning English start learning English a lot later in life.

I actually had one student who was 90 years old - that's right, nine-zero - and he was

learning English for the first time as a beginner.

So, that shows me something.

It shows me this.

Even though this man was 90 years old, and that's a little late to start learning English,

it's better to learn than to never learn at all.

So, what some students say are things like this, "I wish I started learning English when

I was a small child, but, you know, better late than never."

So, you might have somebody who's 60 years old, and they think, "Oh, I wish I learned

English when I was four", but again, it's better to learn something later in life than

All right, so now let's go to our final inspirational expression.

I love this expression, and I have a very, very happy childhood memory with it.

So, I'll tell you about that in a moment, but first let me explain this expression.

The expression, you'll notice some clouds, and why are there clouds?

Well, because we have here the word "sky".

So, the expression I want to teach you is "The sky's the limit", and you might notice

there's an apostrophe and an "s" here.

This is a contraction; it means "The sky is the limit".

So, what does it mean when you say "The sky is the limit" or "The sky's the limit"?

Well, it means anything is possible.

There are no boundaries, there are no limits, there's no maximum.

So, we love to tell this to children.

You know, what do you want to do when you grow up?

The sky's the limit.

You can be anything you want to be.

So, I'll tell you about my happy memory, and then I'll give some other examples of this.

One of the happiest memories of my life was when I met my aunt and uncle for the first

I was about six years old.

They took me to a toy store, and they said in the toy store, "Buy any toy you want."

So, you can buy one toy, but buy any toy.

The sky's the limit, which meant I could buy anything.

Of course, I didn't understand what were the best toys, so I just bought a small doll,

but it was just such a nice thing to go into a toy store and to buy anything you want.

So, that's an example of "The sky's the limit".

There was no boundary, no rules, no limits.

So, this is a great inspirational expression for people learning English.

People sometimes say, "If you learn English, the sky's the limit", meaning there's a lot

of opportunities, there's a lot of potential.

So, English, of course, is a great language to learn, and I'm very happy you're learning

So, let's now practice these inspirational expressions together.

Okay, so the best way to learn and remember something is to practice.

So, let's practice the expressions we just learned.

I have here parts of the expressions, and I want you to tell me what word is missing.

So, you can watch this part of the video multiple times because, again, the more you practice,

the better you get, and it's always a good idea to test yourself or quiz yourself.

So, you might not get it the first time.

Try a second, a third, a fourth time; it will really help these expressions stay in your

So, what's the first expression?

What goes here?

So, one clue is it rhymes; it sounds the same.

The answer is "gain".

No pain, no gain.

And remember, "gain" means to improve or to increase something.

What about the second expression?

The sky is the...

Do you remember?

Remember this word means "maximum" or "boundary".

It starts with an L, so you can try to guess while I write it.

The sky is the...

And, again, here I put "the sky is the limit"; we usually just say "the sky's the limit",

and we usually use a contraction.

All right, what about our third expression?

When life blank, you blank, make blank.

So, I want you to think, what did I have in my hand earlier?

I had some things in this hand, and I had some things in this hand; do you remember

what they were?

Well, the first thing I had in this hand were...

It's a type of fruit.

It's really sour.

So, I'm going to just go to this word first.

When life blank, you lemons.

What can we do with lemons?

What can we make?

Well, we can make a drink, and this drink is sweet, it's tasty, it's called "lemonade".

So, it has the word "lemon" in it; lemon, A-D-E.

So now what we need is just this verb.

When life blank, you lemons, make lemonade.

Can you remember what verb this is?

So, take a guess.

It starts with a G-I-V-E.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

So, what's the next expression?

Probably this is probably the most important one, I would say.

They're all important, but this is the one you will hear the most.

What goes here?

It's not the word "do", it's...

Starts with an M, practice makes perfect.

Practice makes perfect.

So, with all of these expressions, remember, practice makes perfect, practice them and

you will improve.

Alright, our final expression, "better late", so this was a comparison word we have here.

Better late, starts with a T-H, T-H-A-N.

Better late than, do you remember this one, never.

Better late than never.

Okay, so those are the expressions we covered today.

Again, if you want to do something fun and to practice these words more, you can make

your own inspirational posters or cards.

You can hang them up in your office or your room or on your refrigerator to first of all

help you remember these expressions, and secondly, to inspire you.

And, you can use these expressions with your friends or family, especially if they're learning

These are great to encourage them as well.

So, thank you for watching.

For more practice, and remember practice makes perfect, why not come to our website, www.engvid.com,

and there you can practice these expressions more in our quiz.

You can also subscribe to my YouTube channel, where you can learn a lot about pronunciation,

grammar, vocabulary, conversation, writing, and many other topics about English.

Don't forget to ring the bell and subscribe.

So, thanks for watching, everyone, and until next time, take care.