اصطلاحات عامیانه در مورد کمک خواستن به زبان انگلیسی

“Help” Idioms in English

So, in today’s video, I’m going to show you different ways to say: you, yes you. I’m going to help you.

When you try very, very hard to help someone, usually when it’s an inconvenience to you or maybe it hurts you, you bend over backwards to help someone. For example, my best friend lives in Rome and when I visited her last year, she bent over backwards to help me. She took a day off work. She drove me everywhere. It must have been so much work but she’s a good friend. So again, it’s not literally bending over backwards. But, that’s what we say. So, let me know in the comments who has bent over backwards to help you in a situation. Write it in the comments, I will reply to you.

Now, usually if someone has drugs and a policeman catches you usually, you are in trouble. He’s going to arrest you. But there’s a, there’s a twist to this story. This guy is a politician. So, he’s quite powerful. So, what is the policeman going to do? He’s going to look the other way. In other words, ignore a problem or ignore something bad in order to help someone. In England this happened recently. There was a politician caught with drugs. And everyone was like, I say recently, this probably happens all the time. It happen in your country too or is that just England? Again, this is a bad thing, something bad is happening. You should help. You should stop the bad thing. But, you literally hmm.

This guy is very sad. His relationship just ended. He is heart broken. He needs emotional help, emotional support. But, he’s lucky. He has a good friend. Dude, don’t worry. Let’s get pizza, beer, watch a movie and you’ll forget all about her. I promise, you won’t be sad. When someone gives you emotional help, emotional support, we say that person is there for this person. So, he can say and his name is Jeff. Jeff is, let’s modify this. Let’s make it more natural.You know every time something bad happens, my good friend Jeff gives me emotional help. Jeff is always there. Whoops, Jeff is always there for me, good friend. You can practice this in the comments. Who is always there for you? How have they helped you in the past? Let me know.

Don’t confuse this with, give or take. If you say give or take, that’s an approximate number, right? It’s when you want to say this number more or less. Example, a coffee in London costs 200 pounds, give or take, more or less, right? But, give and take, that’s different. That’s different. Give and take means, literally giving and receiving. So, in a relationship, in a partnership, you can’t have everything you want. No, for a relationship or a partnership to work, you can’t be selfish. Both people have to give and receive. A good relationship, a good partnership, it involves a bit of give-and-take.

To hold someone’s hand, you start a new job, you don’t know how anything works. You don’t know the protocols. You don’t know the people in the office. You don’t know anything. But, your colleague will help you understand how everything works. How the copier works. The code for the door. They will hold your hand, like a parent to a child. It could be positive. It could be negative. Depends how you think. Do, she could say, ah, this new guy started at work and he doesn’t know anything or anyone. I had to hold his hand the entire day. It’s not specifically bad or good. I mean, it could be: there’s a new guy at work and I’m holding his hand while he gets to know how everything works.

Okay, what is she doing? She is showing him how everything works. She’s showing him what he should do. We have an expression for that, too. She is showing him the ropes. Again, show someone the ropes, it means to show someone what they should do and how they should do it. These expressions, they’re not just for work. They’re for new situations, you don’t know what to do and someone helps you, right? Not just an office, could be anything. This is just the example, I’m giving here.

One expression which has a positive feeling, a positive meaning is, to take someone under your wing. Now a wing, that is what birds have. So, think of a mother bird and a baby bird. The mother bird literally takes the baby bird under her wing. Why? She wants to make sure that the baby has everything they need and knows exactly what they need to do. So, he could say my manager, she’s really, really good. She, she took me under her wing. She showed me the ropes. Showed me what I needed to do. Or, yes, she could say: oh, you know he’s new at this job. I’m taking him under my wing. I’m showing him the ropes. Yeah, like a mother bird. So this does have that positive feeling. It’s, it’s good.

Okay, this guy wants to sell his phone. This girl wants to buy the phone. She’s saying 100 pounds. He’s saying no, 500 pounds. So, they’re not happy. But, they can help each other. They can compromise. So, they both agree at something in the middle, 250 pounds. Okay, what happened? We can say they met halfway or they met in the middle. Again, they didn’t get what they originally wanted. But, they agreed in the middle. I want you to try to use this expression in the comments when have you compromised with someone, what happened? How did you meet in the middle? How did you meet halfway?

Okay, maybe you’re in a cafe and you want to go to the toilet. But, you don’t want to take your bag. But, you want to make sure that your bag is safe. So, you ask your friend to check on your bag, to watch your bag, to keep it safe. So, how can you ask that? I’m going to the toilet, can you keep an eye on my bag? Again, can you help me by watching and keeping safe my bag? Another example: your friend is at your house and you need to leave somewhere, for like an hour. So, you say please, don’t let my cat die, can you keep an eye on my cat? Again, just watch the cat. But, he’s a very good friend and he wants to physically help. He wants to feed the cat. Clean the cat. Walk… You don’t walk a cat, do you? You don’t walk a cat. To physically help someone, you lend a hand. Or in a different way, as a question, she could say, can you give me a hand feeding the cat? So, lend a hand, give a hand, those are helping in a more physical way.

Thanks for watching.