IELTS Tips: How to Use Idioms in the IELTS Speaking Test Part 2
This week we’ll learns more about how to use idioms and phrasal verbs in the Speaking Test.
This article was first published on IELTS.IDP.com
Last week we looked at idioms. Here is a recap with some examples below!
An idiom is a phrase or expression that generally has non-literal meaning - the meaning cannot be directly understood by reading each word. For example, if you are very happy because you got a band 8 in your Speaking test, you might say: "I was over the moon when I saw my results". If we look at the literal meaning of these words, we think about looking over the moon up in the sky beyond the stars! However, the idiomatic meaning of this phrase is to do with happiness - "I was very happy when I saw my result."
Common everyday idioms
There are thousands of idioms and phrasal verbs used every day when we express ourselves. I will pick out (choose) a few that are used commonly in daily conversation.
What's a phrasal verb?
A phrasal verb is a compound verb where a verb is combined with an adverb or a preposition. When these phrasal verbs are made, they often have idiomatic meaning, and you cannot understand the meaning by reading what each word means. For example, the combination of the verb pick plus the preposition up - pick up - means lift. We can use this phrasal verb to ask someone to pick up something we dropped on the ground, or we can also use this expression to ask for a lift in a car - "I need a lift, can you please pick me up on the way to school?"
So, as you can see, we use idiomatic language all the time to express ourselves in a more colourful way where the combination of words we use have idiomatic meaning.
