Hi everyone, my name is Sonia and welcome to today's lesson. Well communication is everything
these days, isn’t it? We all talk about communication in different ways and we can’t
ignore the fact that communication brings many worlds together. Well that's the reason
why I decided to do a lesson today on idioms related to communication. Now many of them
are very interesting. I've picked up a few select ones for you and I’m sure you’ll like them
as you watch the video and understand them so you can use these idioms in your everyday conversation.
The very first one says, to get hold of. Now when I say hold, I mean to actually grip something
or grip someone. So you know it's a little confusing when you talk about the word related
to communication. But actually to get hold of someone means to manage to contact someone.
Let me write that down for you here. So does it happen with you sometimes when you try
to contact someone and you just can't get through to them? You’ve called them, you've
send them a message, you've even sent them a message on Facebook. But you just get in
touch with the person, that's when you can use a phrase like this and say, well I’ve
tried to get hold of Peter since the past two days but he's just not available. I don't
know what's wrong with him. That’s where you can use something like this.
The next one here is also interesting, make sure you pay attention at this one. It says
to give the lowdown. Now what could lowdown have got to do with communication. Okay imagine
this situation, if you are a football fan, okay a crazy football fan and you've missed
out on a match, your internet is not working. So you really need to know what was the score.
Somehow you just can't get the information that you need. so you can ask one of your
friends, you could say, hey you know what, I missed on yesterday's football match and
could you please give me the lowdown on exactly what happened. So to give someone the lowdown
means to give someone complete information. To give someone complete or exact information.
Okay, the next one here, this one's for all the gossip lovers. It says to hear through
the grapevine. Okay let's focus on this word, grape, and grapevine. What can a fruit have
got to do with communication? Right but that's how idioms are. To hear through the grapevine
basically talks about any kind of rumors or any kind of gossip that you hear informally.
Either through friends or some office colleagues, something which is not official yet. Okay
so let me write that down, this is to get some information
or some kind of gossip informally. So everyone's talking about this, it's all hush- hush, everyone
knows but no one’s really making an official statement. for example if someone’s unfortunately
got fired from work, okay, then you could make a sentence like, well I have heard through
the grapevine, that Pete got fired yesterday. I wonder if it's true? Hmm... to hear through
the grapevine.
The next one here is, touch base. Alright now this seems you know more close, communication,
to get in touch. So touch base means to actually make contact with someone or may be to renew
your communication with someone. for example, you know if you've had a friend who has been
living overseas for a long time and now they've decided to come back to your country for good,
so then what you would want to do is, you would want to touch base with that person
means you would want to renew your communication with that particular person or with that friend
of yours. And maybe you had some kind of a business plan in mind with that friend. so
in a statement or in a sentence, you could say, well I need to touch base with John,
we need to start discussing our business plans one more time.
The next one here, it says word of mouth. Okay what do I mean to say, when I use the
idiom word of mouth? It means to say that you are trying to promote something or talk
about something and make more people aware about something just through conversation.
And believe me word of mouth can be extremely helpful, especially when you are trying to
promote a particular product or may be anything new that’s in the market. So word of mouth
means to promote something, alright through conversation. So may be one of your friends
has recently opened up a salon. So you know you could in a sentence use it by saying,
my friend Sam, she's opened up a new hair salon recently and I think you should definitely
visit the place, it's really cool. What are you doing now? You are trying to promote your
friend’s' new outlet by word of mouth.
Alright, the next one we have here, is to put someone in the picture. To put someone
in the picture, now what picture am I talking about? Am I talking about some kind of a graphic
drawing? No I'm not talking about a picture literally. But what it means here is to make
the person aware of everything. Say if you've just joined anew organization, alright and
you're absolutely new to everything. You are new to the facilities, you are new to your
colleagues, your managers, everything literally. So then you need someone to put you in the
picture. Okay so may be in a sentence, you could say something like, well James, he is
extremely new at work, so we need to put him in the picture. We need to make him aware
about everything. That’s to put someone in the picture.
And finally I love this one, it's just so interesting. It says can't make head or tail
of something. Okay let me repeat that, it's a little long. Can’t make head or tail of
something. It’s such a lengthy idiom but all it means is not to be able to understand
something. Alright if you can’t understand something and you want to say it in a fancy
way, you can say, I can't make head or tail of this report, could you please explain it
to me. Or you know some of us don't really have very good handwriting. So you can look
at something someone's written and if you want to be a little nasty you could say, I
can't make head or tail of what you've written, could you please explain this to me. So that's
what it means, to be unable to understand anything. Okay.
So these are seven really interesting idioms related to communication. Okay what I would
suggest is that you go through these idioms, make sure you understand the meaning correctly
and start using them in your day to day conversation. I think I’ve already picked up my favourite,
it's definitely can't make head or tail of something. I just love the way it sounds.
You also pick one favourite idiom of yours and see how you can fit it in to your conversation.
I’ll be back soon with something more interesting the next time, till then you take good care
of yourself, bye.