What is an Idiom? Idioms are short phrases that do not make sense in a literal context. They have different meanings, other than their individual words. Let’s imagine you read a sentence in an article. You understand each word individually, but it doesn’t make any sense. Then there’s a strong chance the sentence has an idiom. Let’s look at the idiom, “I’ve got a lot on my plate.” This literally means that your plate has a lot of food on it. However, the phrase as a whole means: I have a lot of tasks to complete or many responsibilities. Look at the following dialogue: Chris: “Hey Jane, how’s the new project going?” Jane: “It’s going well, but I’ve got a lot on my plate with this new project. There are so many things to do. I stayed at the office until 10 pm last night” You can see here that if you interpreted “I’ve got a lot on my plate” literally, it wouldn’t make any sense. Idioms versus Slang English learners sometimes think that idioms and slang are the same thing. But, they
David White is an Australian English teacher who has been living in Peru since 2001. In partnership with his wife Claudia, they are the owners of ¨English For You Language Institute´, an institute that specializes in the teaching of all levels of English from Basic (A1) to Advanced (C2) including international exam preparation. They are also the owners of ELT Educational Services and David is also the Headmaster of the American School, a respected bilingual ib school in Northern Peru.