Imagine a camel, or any animal, carrying very heavy weight on their back as they walk through a dry hot day.  This animal is super tired and hurt.  If any more weight is added, the animal’s back will break.  It is the maximum the animal can handle.

Well, we use this phrase with people.  Imagine you are getting angrier and angrier at your girlfriend or boyfriend, or you are getting more and more unhappy with your job.  If one more little thing goes wrong, you will either break up or quit.

You won’t break up or quit just because of that one little new problem alone, but you will break up or quit because you were already near your limit and you couldn’t handle anything else bad happening.  You could say, “it’s the straw that broke the camel’s back“.  A straw is very very light.  But thousands of straws together could be heavy.  One more little straw might “break” you if you are near your limit.

Your boyfriend might ask you, “why did you break up with me just because I forgot to call you on the phone tonight?  That’s crazy!” and the girlfriend might say.  ”It’s not only that.  I’ve been angry with you for a long time.  I guess it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back“.

A “hermit” is a person who almost lives in isolation from society.  They love to be alone or be a “loner”.  Hermits don’t like to go out on Saturday nights with a big group of friends.  They would rather stay home and read a book.  They love being alone almost as much as possible.  It’s not always a bad thing, but it’s often used with friends to “make fun” of people and try to convince someone to join the group to do something.  This word comes from the “Hermit Crab”.  A “Hermit Crab” lives inside its shell and hides from the rest of the world.  Here are some useful examples for how to use this term in daily life.

“Come on, it’s Saturday night!  You should come out to the bar with us.  Don’t be such a hermit!”              ………..OR…………….

“I’ve been such a hermit these past few months.  I work from home and I’m on my computer most of the time.  I really need to get out more and see my friends.  This is getting out of control!”

If you are “on board” with an idea, it means that you agree with it.  Here are some real examples of very native sentences:

1.  I think I can convince those 3 girls to join us at the bar tonight.  2 of them are already on board and it’s just the one girl who hasn’t decided yet.  I’m sure her friends will get her to go.

2.  My boss is totally on board with my new idea for our advertising plan, but his boss disagrees.  It will be interesting to see what ends up happening in the end.  I’m sure those 2 will have a serious meeting about it.

A pansy, is a person who is very scared to try anything new or take any risks.

Someone could say, “You don’t invest in stocks because you are afraid of losing a little money?  You are such a pansy”

Or a friend could say to another friend.  ”I know you like that girl.  Stop being such a pansy and just go talk to her.   Who cares if she rejects you, at least you tried.  It’s better than being a scared little pansy!“

If you have a very strict boss who pays attention to every little thing you do and doesn’t give you much space or freedom, you can say “My work is really stressful lately because my new boss is always breathing down my neck”

Someone who works from a home office could say something like, “I love working from home because I don’t have the stress of my boss breathing down my neck all the time”.

Everyone hates the feeling of having someone else “breathing down their neck“

If someone has a “short fuse” it means that they get angry really easily and really quickly.

If your boss is in a good mood and then 30 seconds later he’s angry for almost no reason, you could say that he has a short fuse.  So anyone with a “short fuse” gets angry too easily over things that other people wouldn’t get so angry about.

It’s not a good quality to have a short fuse and most people who have a short fuse know that it’s a problem.

There.  That was simple and a good one to add to your vocabulary.  I’m sure you understand it now.  Now practice it…

A “Buzzword” is a word that makes people think or react a certain way just from hearing that one word.  It’s kind of weird and funny at the same time.  Some examples will really help you know what I’m talking about.

People often use buzzwords to sound like they know a lot about a certain topic when in fact they know almost nothing.  For example, someone who doesn’t know much about computers could say “VPN, RAM, memory, processor, CPU) etc.  Those can all be called “buzzwords“.  They are very specific to computers and make someone feel like they are smart or something.  The funny part is that usually other people can feel if someone is trying to show off by using too many buzzwords.

Another way that “buzzwords” can be used is to get an emotional reaction from an audience. Politicians might use words like “global warming or terrorism” as buzzwords.  These words carry a lot of feeling and emotion.  Just hearing those words can change the listener’s feelings and opinions.

Basically, if someone is acting like they deeply understand a topic but are just using big words in a strange way, they are probably just using “buzzwords“.  It’s a bit of a difficult explanation but I think you get the idea.

Different people are good at different things.  Some people are really smart but shy.  Some people are great at speaking in front of a large crowd but they are really bad at math.  Everyone has both strong and weak points.

It’s a good idea to always try to “put your best foot forward” when you meet someone new, do a job interview, or really do anything in your life.  The whole point is that you want people to first notice your strong points before anything else.  I think most languages and cultures share a similar idea and concept, but this is how to say it in English and this phrase is used quite often.

I hope that I can help you get your spoken English to an amazing level.  Then you can use that to your advantage in life.  It can become your new “best foot”.

One last thing is that “putting your best foot forward” is not showing off or bragging.  It’s not a bad thing at all.  It just means that you are politely showing your strong points first.  I hope that makes sense and you can add that phrase to your English vocabulary.  Start using that phrase and don’t forget to always put your best foot forward!

I have a lot of experience teaching English to people who really want to improve.  I’ve seen many people succeed and many people fail.  My  goal over the past couple of years has been to find the best way to learn English.

I’m a native speaker and I interview a lot of people for well paying international jobs and I have a lot of friends from all over the world.  I’ve listened to the secrets from all the best students I’ve seen.

The funny thing is that the students who learn well don’t even think they are studying.  They are having fun.  They don’t think of studying English as some terrible thing that they “should” do.  They learn from popular American TV shows, movies, and of course podcasts.

The worst way to study is to use a dictionary and try to remember a lot of new vocabulary words.  You will get bored quickly and you will forget a lot.  In over 10 years I’ve never seen anyone having success with this method.

Reading the newspaper is also a terrible way to study because the style of newspaper writing is completely different from the way that people actually communicate with each other.

It’s 2011 and you should be thinking of the most modern methods instead of the terrible ones of the past.  Your parents probably learned English in school and I’m guessing they don’t speak very well at all.  They are probably smart people, it’s just that schools don’t teach anything useful.  They focus on test scores and grammar and a lot of weird things that are really not important or necessary at all.

My brother and I have spent several years watching the best movies and TV shows and writing down all the cool slang and useful phrases and vocabulary that you will often hear and need in your daily life.  I use all of these really interesting and fun vocabulary and slang words and explain them clearly in 10-12 minute podcasts.  These are MP3’s that you can download on your Android phone, computer, Iphone, Ipad, Galaxy tab, or any other MP3 player like a regular ipod.

You can listen to our funny shows and learn a natural style of speaking between two brothers from Canada.  In case you didn’t know, we sound basically the same as Americans.  Even when we meet American people, they don’t know if we are Canadian or American.  We are from a city just outside of Toronto and we’re living in Shanghai China.  If you go to the gym, go for walks, drive a car, take the bus, or just have some time before bed to listen to us for 10-15 minutes per day, your spoken English, listening, and even writing will improve very quickly.   I know that because we’ve sold over 10 000 of these products.

We have many people send us emails every day telling us that they really improved a lot and it makes us really happy to hear that.  You can have the whole program downloaded immediately after you buy it.  If you want to know a little more about what we do, sign up below for our free English learning ebooks and learning advice that we will email you.  We are not a big boring company.  We will email you friendly funny stuff that will really help your life and help you become like a true native English speaker.

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