Vocabulary & Idioms

What this lesson covers

Vocabulary & Idioms is a 8-part Class 5 English lesson. Each part makes one point and then hands over to the next, so it can be read in a sitting or picked up again at the part you stopped on. It defines the idea in plain words before using it, works through an example step by step, breaks the topic into its parts and compares them, shows where it is used outside the textbook, names the mistakes that cost marks in an exam, ends with a recap of what to remember.

How it begins

An idiom is a phrase whose meaning cannot be worked out from the individual words. "It is raining cats and dogs" has nothing to do with animals. It means raining heavily. This is why idioms are hard for anyone learning a language: you cannot reason your way to the meaning, you have to know it. But once known, they make speech vivid and natural.

The 8 parts

1. Words that do not mean what they say
2. Idioms worth knowing
3. Shades of meaning
4. Working out an idiom from context
5. Building word families
6. Using new words well
7. Where it usually goes wrong
8. What to remember