Name: Learn 8 English Idioms You Can Use At Work! ???
Uploaded: 2023-08-08T04:40:17.000Z
Duration: 6 min 59 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

So I just popped out of work for a minute to make this English lesson for you about idioms you can use to talk about work.

The first idiom I want to teach you is, "to roll up your sleeves".

Now, this is a phrase we use when we're getting ready to do some hard work.

There's a lot of leaves on the ground. - Good morning. - Morning.

There's a lot of leaves on the ground here in Ontario, Canada, so I'm sure a lot of people had to roll up their sleeves this past weekend to rake up those leaves.

Last week, I had a lot of work to do at school.

I needed to roll up my sleeves and get to work.

So it doesn't actually mean that you're rolling up your sleeves.

You could roll up your sleeves, but you don't have to.

It simply means that you're getting ready to do some hard work.

So hopefully, you're ready to roll up your sleeves and learn a few more English idioms that you can use to talk about work.

So the next idiom I wanted to teach you about work is "to bend over backwards".

Now, again, this doesn't mean that you actually have to bend over backwards, but when you are working on something for someone and you bend over backwards to get it done.

It might even mean that it's a difficult thing to do because of the person who's asking you to do it.

So you might say something like this, "I worked on the project for Jim, and I needed to bend over backwards to get the job done."

That means you did way more work on it than you normally would.

It means maybe Jim asked for a lot of things on the project that people normally don't ask for.

So when you bend over backwards to get something done, you do a very thorough job.

You do everything that the person is asking you to do.

The next idiom about work that I wanted to teach you is, "to get cracking".

When you need to get cracking, it means you need to get started on something right away.

When I got to work this morning, I decided I needed to get cracking.

I had a lot of work to do. Good morning. How are you? - Not too bad.

Just making a little English lesson here.

You can say hi as you walk by if you want. - Hi.

When I got to work, I decided I needed to get cracking.

That means I had a lot of work to do, and I wanted to get started on it right away.

Sometimes I sit and drink a cup of tea with the other teachers.

Sometimes when you're working for someone or doing a job for someone, you want to make sure that they're really happy when you're done.

A mile is about the distance from here to that stop sign down there.

I'm not sure if you can actually see it, but when you say that you're going to go the extra mile, it doesn't mean you're actually walking a mile.

It means you're doing the job to the best of your abilities.

You're doing the job really, really well.

When Jen has someone order flowers from her, she likes to go the extra mile, maybe put a few extra stems in each bouquet.

When I do a job for someone, I like to go the extra mile.

I like to do a little extra. I like to do a little more than what they're expecting.

So when you go the extra mile, you do the job well, and you even do a little bit more than maybe the person who asked you to do the job is expecting you to do.

So here's something you shouldn't do at work.

When you cut corners, it means you do something by spending less money or less time on it.

Let's say you owned a restaurant and you decided you wanted to cut corners.

That would mean that you would buy cheaper flour and cheaper ingredients than you normally do.

You would do things so that you would save money.

But then the thing you are making wouldn't be as good.

I think if you are making bouquets or making English videos on the internet, I think that if you start to cut corners, the thing that you're making just isn't as good.

So this is one of the idioms you should not do.

So if I knew that you had a lot of work to do this afternoon, I might say that you have your work cut out for you.

If you had a long, hard afternoon of work coming up, I might say, "Wow, you have your work cut out for you today."

When we say this, it means that someone's going to do something hard.

I'll put a link to his channel somewhere here.

And when Brent visited, we decided we were going to do six or seven English lesson videos and four live streams.

We certainly had our work cut out for us.

Notice I changed the phrase a little bit there because I'm talking about two people.

So we had our work cut out for us, but we certainly were able to get it done.

So if someone says that you have your work cut out for you, they're simply describing that you have a job and that that job is going to be really hard.

So this next one is "to pull your socks up".

Now, your socks are obviously the thing right here that you wear on your feet, not your shoes, the thing inside that's your sock.

And to pull your socks up means to work harder.

Maybe after not working hard enough or even making some mistakes.

Sometimes people start a job and they're not very good at it, and the boss might say, you better pull your socks up or you're going to get fired.

So again, it has nothing to do with this article of clothing.

It probably has its history somehow related to that article of clothing.

But if you tell someone you need to pull your socks up, you're telling them to work harder.

You're telling them to do a better job at work.

And sometimes if they don't pull their socks up, they might lose their job.

Sometimes at work, you have so much to do that you're not sure how you're going to get it all done.

In that situation, we would probably say that you have your hands full.

I'm not able to get all the work done that I need to get done that day.

Last summer, when we were getting ready to go to the market every Thursday, we often had our hands full on Thursday mornings.

There were so many little jobs and tasks to do that we felt busier than we wanted to be.

So when you have your hands full, it means you're having difficulty managing the job that you're doing.

Hey, thanks for watching this English lesson.

I hope you were able to learn a few more English phrases that you can use in your next English conversation.

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And of course, if you have time and you're not sure what to do right now, you can always stick around and watch another English lesson.

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Learn 8 English Idioms You Can Use At Work! ?‍??

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