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5 English Expressions YOU NEED TO KNOW!

Today we’ll be looking at some advanced English expressions. These are very commonly used in day-to-day English and they’re very, very commonly misunderstood. So it’s important that you learn them and the best way to learn them is by you creating examples , your own examples of these expressions. Write them on a piece of paper or put them in the comments and I’ll see them.

Okay, for many many years people have told me “Oh my god, you haven’t read Harry Potter but, you’ve seen the movies?! Don’t you know there is so much in the books, it’s not in the movies. You really have to read the books “Yeah I know, I’m just rubbish. One day I’ll read them”. And for years, I have had the intention of reading Harry Potter. Finally today I’m happy to announce, I bought the first book! I know! I know! So, when you have the intention of doing something and then you finally do it, we have an expression for that. For me, in my case, I had the intention for a very long time to read Harry Potter. Now, I finally do it, I will say “I’m finally getting round/around to reading Harry Potter”. Notice the grammar, “ReadING”. So, that verb, whatever you do must have the “ING” form, just remember that. Is this always in present continuous? No. Do you need the “finally”? No.

Let me give you examples. Just a standard past tense sentence. “I got around to reading Harry Potter”. You know what, I had some time last weekend and I got round to reading Harry Potter.

Okay, how about a negative sentence? If you’re like me, I buy a book and then for months, I don’t read. It it just sits on my shelf. So maybe after a few months, someone asks me “Oh my god have you finished the Harry Potter books yet?! The bit where the thing happens and the guy comes in and then… Wow, no! no! “I haven’t got around to starting it yet! No spoilers! No!”. So we can see in a negative sentence. I haven’t got round (or “around”, both are fine) to starting, remember to put the ING with the verb and you’re good. Also, a study tip: when you’re making your own examples of these expressions, it really helps with memorization if your example is funny, scary, or emotional in some way. So make your example more memorable.

When your friend comes to you and they’re crying “Oh my god, I just broke up with my boyfriend, everything is terrible”. As a good friend you might ask this question “Oh my god, how come?”. These two words seem very unrelated. But, together, what do you think they mean? Look at the context, that’s the best way. Of course it means “Why did that happen? or “How did that happen?”. Another example could be: It’s Friday night, it’s about 10:30, you’re out with your friends and you’re thinking “This is so boring, I really want to go home”. So, you tell your friends “I’m going home”. “Oh my god it’s 10:30, how come you’re leaving?”. “Because I’m sleepy, and drinks are expensive”. This is me, every time I go out. So just remember that “How come” means How or Why did this happen? Or How or Why is this happening? So, you can change the tense.

When we talk about going somewhere, it is super common for us to say it in this way: As a verb “to head”, now we add a preposition after this. So, let’s have a look at different examples. This guy is leaving, when we leave a place we say “I’m heading OFF”. To head off means to leave or go home. usually. This guy is simply leaving the house. So, he will say “I’m heading OUT”. Where are you going? To the shop, to the cinema, it doesn’t matter, outside your house, you’re heading out.

We can expand this to be more specific. “I’m heading out to see a friend”, very common expression. This guy, he wants to enter the Cool Club. How can we say enter? Guess the preposition, you probably know it. “Let’s head IN”, that preposition IN with head means to enter a place. So, just remember, it’s the verb head with a preposition. And the preposition determines whether you’re entering a place, leaving your house or You’re just going home or you’re leaving in general.

When you have an opportunity to do something or when you are finally able to do something, then we have an expression for that. For example, it’s been a difficult week, you’ve worked a lot this week. You’ve been super busy, you got no sleep. You’re very tired. But, this weekend I have the opportunity to sleep “I can sleep! I’m finally able to sleep!”. How can he say that? “This weekend I get to sleep lots. I have no responsibilities, my work is finished”. So this expression: “Get to do something”. You have that opportunity to do the thing. Grammatically: “Get to” + Infinitive. So, that verb, that won’t change.

Let’s look at another example of this. She’s saying “Last year I went to Spain with my class”. That’s fine, that’s a good sentence. But, she wants to add emphasis to this special event that she had the opportunity for. “Last year I got to go to Spain with my class”. She’s adding emphasis saying that this is not the usual case, I had a special opportunity, I was able to go to Spain with my class, it was special. You can talk about special opportunities that you have, or that you had in your life. So, for example, for me, In London I get to meet lots of different people from lots of different places. In other cities, that’s not possible. So, again it’s this contrasting idea of what usually happens with this special opportunity.

How does this expression work as a question or in a negative sentence? Let’s have a look. For example, your friend is talking about a trip that they had. “Oh my god, last year I went to London, just for two days though”. “Whoa! Did you get to see Camden?”. “Get to”, she’s asking did you have the opportunity to see Camden? And his reply is a negative sentence. “No I didn’t get to see anything fun”. I didn’t have the opportunity, I didn’t have time, for example.

“Manage to” is our last expression and in some cases it has a very similar feeling to “Get to”. In some context it means the same thing. However, it is different. To be more specific it means: Something is very difficult, but you’re successful in doing it. For example, that smells so good! I bought this today, I’m a very slow reader. It takes me a long time to finish a book, because my attention span, is - Ooh a squirrel! So, for example, if I finish this in one day, that’s very unusual and for me, kind of difficult. So, how would I say that? I managed to finish the book in one day. Look at the verb here, we’ve got infinitive again. It’s quite common after “to”, to have an infinitive verb. So that, just remember, that won’t change and again it just means: it was difficult or unusual to happen but I did it. I was successful.

How do we use this in a negative? Let’s imagine that this guy, he really wants to see Beyonce in concert so, he tries to buy tickets. But of course Beyoncé tickets are very popular and he was too late to get a ticket. So, he will say: “I didn’t manage to get a ticket to see Beyonce”, it’s very sad. Again he says “MANAGE TO” to put that emphasis to say, it’s difficult. It’s difficult and I did do it. It’s difficult and I did not do it.

So, I hope you MANAGED TO learn all of today’s expressions. Don’t worry if not. One day you will GET ROUND TO learning them, remembering them and one day you’ll even GET TO use them in conversation. And when that day comes make sure you HEAD TO London so I can ask you, HOW COME you’re so awesome?! See you in the next class.