English is a complex language to learn for several reasons. From its complicated grammar to its extensive vocabulary, it is no wonder that English is so challenging to learn as a second language. For many of our students who attend our TOEFL prep classes, one of the most perplexing aspects of English is the idioms. You may have heard some common English idioms when you were talking to a native speaker or watching TV and been quite confused as to what they were saying. An idiom is a common expression whose meaning is not related to the literal meaning of the words. This can make it puzzling because it seems like someone is talking about something completely unrelated to the conversation. Not only will becoming more familiar with idioms help you understand more, using them makes your English sound more fluent. Therefore, it is important to familiarize yourself with the most common English idioms so you can better understand what people say. In this blog, we will go over some of the most common English idioms you may hear.
| Idiom | Meaning | Usage |
| A blessing in disguise | Something that seemed bad at first, but is actually good | In a sentence |
| Better late than never | It is better to be late than to not arrive at all | By itself |
| Break a leg | Good luck | By itself |
| Call it a day | Stop working on a task | In a sentence |
| Get out of hand | Become out of control | In a sentence |
| Hang in there | Don’t give up | By itself |
| Hit the sack | Go to bed | In a sentence |
| So far, so good | Things are going well so far | By itself |
| To make a long story short | To tell something briefly | In a sentence |
| Under the weather | Ill/sick | In a sentence |
| Cut them some slack | Don’t criticize someone so much | On its own |
| To get bent out of shape | To get very upset | In a sentence |
| The best of both worlds | A perfect situation | In a sentence |
| You guess is as good as mine | I don’t know | On its own |
| To pull someone’s leg | To joke with someone | In a sentence |
| That’s the last straw | I am out of patience | On its own |
| Give someone the benefit of the doubt | To trust someone because they haven’t given you a reason not to | On its own |
| No pain, no gain | You need to work hard if you want something | On its own |
| We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it | Let’s address that problem later | On its own |
| Speak of the devil | The person we were just talking about just arrived | On its own |
Now that you know these common English idioms, bring one up in conversation! When you are preparing for the TOEFL, it is important to practice all of your English skills, including speaking. One of the best ways to practice speaking English is with our TOEFL prep classes! When are you are preparing for the TOEFL, check out of one of adult English classes; view our schedule here.