hi i'm vanessa from speak english with

vanessa calm do you need to know english

idioms let's talk about it in my course

The Fearless fluency Club we have a

private Facebook group for members of

the course and this question has come up

a couple times

Vanessa do I need to learn idioms how

many idioms do I need to know how can I

learn them so I want to address this

question and answer it for those people

and also answer it for you in case you

had the same question the best way to

answer this question is to see if native

speakers use idioms in daily

conversation and you can do this by

watching TV shows by interacting with

native speakers by reading books this is

a good way to see if it's actually used

and which idioms are used in

conversation this is something that I've

tried to help with in my live lessons

recently we've been focusing on some

idioms that I personally have used

within the last week or the last couple

days because I want to help you with

commonly used idioms not thousands of

idioms that we don't really use that

often so the first question is do native

speakers actually use idioms let's take

a look at one idiom and see how it's used

in real life you've probably heard the

idiom a piece of cake it's a piece of

cake

this means it's easy mowing the lawn was

a piece of cake making new friends is a

piece of cake for me playing the piano

is not a piece of cake it's easy but do

native speakers actually use this in

daily conversation if you watch TV shows

or watch native speakers conversations I

recommend listening for idioms and

writing down the ones that you hear

because some people will use idioms more

than other people but maybe they don't

use them in the same way that you think

they should be used just like this idiom

a piece of cake yes it means easy

something that's easy but typically in

conversation we use this in a sarcastic

way kind of in a joking way and we don't

use the full idiom we don't usually say

it was a piece of cake

if someone says oh Vanessa you're

learning Russian isn't that hard I maybe

think ah it is really hard but I want to

make a joke so I might say Oh piece of

cake piece of cake it's a joke because

really it is hard it is a big deal but I

could use this idiom in the opposite way

so in this situation you can see that

native speakers might use some idiom but

they might be in different ways than

your idiom book shows this is why I

recommend a lot of natural English input

watching TV shows listening to podcasts

listening to conversations participating

in conversations this way you can be

exposed to idioms in their natural

situations so one way that my students

do this is by a conversation that I have

with another English speaker each month

so in the fearless fluency Club I have a

conversation about 30 minutes with

another native English speaker and we

see do they use idioms do they use

phrasal verbs what do they use how can

we imitate their style of speaking

because each person has a different way

of speaking some people never use idioms

some people use them a lot some people

use a lot of slang or other types of

speech so we can see for individual

people how they speak and how to imitate

it and you can do this as well while

you're watching YouTube videos or

watching a movie use your notebook and

write down some idioms when you hear

them if you're using subtitles

this will be a lot easier because you'll

see them in English and hear them in

English you can accurately write them

and this way you'll know which ones

native speakers use and which one they

don't and in which situations which

context I hope that this quick

explanation is useful to you and if you

want to learn some real idioms that

native speakers use certainly in daily

conversation check out some of my latest

live lessons where we focus on some

idioms that I've used in my life that

way you know they're real you know the

context you know all of the nuances and

situations when you might use it you

really feel comfortable and know that

you're speaking natural English and in

the comments below this video I want to

challenge you to try to make a sentence

using an idiom it could be any idiom may

be an idiom that you learned with me in

our live lessons may be an idiom that we

talked about today like piece of cake

using it like a joke sarcastically it's

really hard but you say oh piece of cake

piece of cake so in the comments below

this video I want to see your idiom

sentence and help you to use it

naturally thanks so much for learning

with me and I'll see you the next time

bye