Talking about People: 8 Essential Idioms

In this fun and interactive English lesson, you’ll learn 8 powerful idioms to describe people. These include a diamond in the rough, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a big fish in a small pond, and more. Speak more fluently and confidently, as you discover how to talk about people in a whole new way! Test your understanding with the quiz at https://www.engvid.com/talking-about-people-8-essential-idioms/ Get my free resource with 50+ idioms and phrases to describe people: https://www.engvid.com/english-resource/50-english-phrases-idioms-to-describe-people-in-business/ Check out my course, Correct Your English Errors in 10 Minutes a Day: https://10.bexenglish.com In this lesson: 0:00 8 Idioms to Describe People 0:49 a woman/man of her/his word 01:58 a chip off the old block 3:43 a jack of all trades 4:51 a diamond in the rough 6:12 – First Review – 7:31 a big fish in a small pond 10:38 a man/woman of the people 11:43 a pain in the neck 12:44 a wolf in sheep's clothing 13:44 – Second Review – 14:37 – Test – TRANSCRIPT: Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. In this lesson, we will look at eight different idioms that all talk about people. All right? Now, you might hear these kind of idioms being used anywhere. They could be used in the office, they could be used outside in social situations, and people might refer to other people in these ways. Now, remember, what is an idiom? An idiom is when we have a set of words or a group of words that means something different when taken together than when taken separately. Okay? So, these are some kind of people idioms or personality idioms. All right? So, you may have heard some of these before. Maybe yes, maybe no. Let's find out. Okay? Let's go. So, the first one. A man of his word or - that was the original expression. Today, of course, we also say a woman of her word. So, if someone says to you, "You know what? I really like John. He's a man of his word." What do you think that means? Of his word. Okay? It means someone that you can trust. Someone who keeps their promises. When they say "word", it means if I give you my word, it's like if I say I'm going to do something, then yes, I actually do it. And when that happens, then I keep my word. So, when you say that someone is a woman of her word, that means if she tells you that she's going to do something, then yes, she does it. You can trust her. Okay? Or the same about the man. So, a person of their word is a person who does what they say they're going to do, and it's someone that you can trust and count on, depend on. Okay? That's the first one. All right. Here's the next one. A chip off the old block. If you say - usually, it's something like this. "He's just like his dad. He's a chip off the old block." So, usually it will be in that kind of context, and even if you had never heard this expression before, you can probably figure it out. So, if I said something like that, and I said "He's just like his dad. He's a chip off the old block", it actually means that someone that you're talking about is like - usually a child or an adult child - is like the parents. Okay? It's like one of the parents, let's say. So, we say "a chip off the old block". Don't worry about the imagery, the words, but what it is, it's like as if there is a wooden block, and this is a little piece of that whole block. So, what they're trying to say is that this child or this adult child has a lot of things in common with the parent. For example, it could be in terms of appearance. It could be in terms of character. It could be in terms of talents. Maybe the father is a great - loves to tell jokes and tells fantastic jokes, and the son is exactly like that. Or the mother is very talented at art, and the daughter is also a very good artist. So, it could be different things when they're referring to when they say that someone is a chip off the old block, but that's what it means, okay? A child could be a young child or an adult child who resembles one of the parents, okay? That's that. Alright, let's go to the third one. "He's a jack of all trades." What is that? A jack of all trades. So, "trades" here means like different kinds of work. So, when you say that someone is a jack of all trades, you're trying to say that that person has many different kinds of talents. They don't just specialize in one thing. They can actually do many things. So, maybe you have a person named Bob in your finance department, but Bob is also very helpful when you're - when you have computer problems, or when the photocopier breaks down, Bob is the guy who knows how to fix that. […]