American English Phrases

American English phrases are used by everyone in American society, from people in the highest levels of government to common everyday people. 

Therefore, phrases are very important if your intent is to understand everyday American English.  I have worked with translators and they were helped by my instruction of phrases commonly used in the United States.  For students of English, I will offer some instruction by providing some examples of phrases that are used and their context.

1.  The Bottom Line:This phrase is used to express the absolute minimum limit that a person will go and be satisfied or the most essential part.  For example, what is the lowest amount of money you would accept for something you may have for sell.

Sentence Context  of a parent talking to a child: "I know you have a lot of homework to do, however, the bottom line is, you must also complete your chores (duties) around the house!"  This phrase is used by everyone in formal and informal speaking.

2.  A Done Deal:  This phrase indicates that something has been finalized or completed. It is also used in the negative to indicate something has not been finalized or completed by using the word "not" in front of the phrase.

Sentence context: The company has spent many hours looking for the right person for the job and now it's "a done deal!"  This means the company has found the right person to hire for a specific job.  This phrase would be used by everyone formally or informally.

3.  Until the cows come home:  This phrase is used to indicate "a long time." Here is some background on the history of this term.  In rural parts of the United States where farmers had cows, they would allow them to graze (eat grass) and the cows would be gone all day and return before it gets dark (evening). When a person uses this phrase, they are telling the person they are talking to that the subject will do something for a long time.  Consider the context sentences:

Serious basketball players will practice basketball "until the cows come home!"

"When a comedian "gets on a roll" (has momentum in joke telling), they will have you laughing until the "cows come home!"  This phrase would commonly be used in an informal setting and also would be used in expressing something negative such as making a complaint about something, such as: "the store will make you wait for service until the cows come home!"

Native American English people would understand exactly what was said by using this phrase, however, non-native English (as a second language) persons probably would not understand and would just ignore it. 

It is my desire to help you understand American English, if you appreciate this mini lesson and would like for me to continue, please indicate it by your reply request, however, if there is no interest, I will not invest my time to write more.

Looking to hear from you soon!

Hey, very nice!!! I am interested in this phrases, I know we students of ESL, can't understand this kink of phrases that complete a sentence and can sound strange when we hear it…

I will be very happy with (as you called it) "mini lessons"!!!

Thanks, see you! 

Thank you so much,

I'm really busy every day, but "the bottom line" is that I will keep read your lesson!! And hope I can read your next in soon.

Thanks for the replies Jean and Ikse, because of your interest, I plan to continue to share American English phrases (within 1 week) and other ways of learning English. 

One good way is to listen to music where the singers sing slowly.  Here is a link to a Southern California smooth jazz radio station.  Copy and paste the link into your address bar, after about  30 seconds it should play.  Listen to the radio announcer and try to understand what is being said.  If you record it with a digital recorder or cassette tape recorder, you can play it back to hear the words again. 

Finally, I would like to encourage everyone who reads this post to take the time to offer a reply and be strongly active to learn.  Also, remember that everyone who speaks English fluently had to learn it!  You're no different, don't get depressed, use that energy to learn!

Englishteacher24/7

 http://player.play.it/player/player.html?v=4.10.47&id=69

Thank yopu, teacher. The most part of my vocablulary, I have learned listen to songs…

I love music, and, for me, this is one of the best way to learn it…

See you, man!!!

Wow, wonderful!

I will learn English until the cows come home!

Thanks.  I like it so much as it can make the essay/letter more active.  I hope you can share more to us.

Bingo, Daisy (usual usage of the phase)  Here is Mini Lesson #2

1.  On the same page:  This phrase is used to make sure another person has the same understanding as yourself.  Consider the conversation below:

Mary: Hello Sue, I'm calling you (on the telephone) to remind you of the important meeting we have scheduled at the restaurant tonight at 7:30 to confirm that we're "on the same page!"

Sue: Thanks Mary for the "heads up" (notice, reminder) concerning the meeting, I plan to meet you there!

Mary: No problem, goodbye.

Explanation:  You can understand from the conversation that Mary wanted to make sure that Sue had the same understanding concerning the time and location of the meeting, therefore, they were both "on the same page." 

If you want to understand the phrase from a literal sense, it would mean they were reading a book on the same page. 

Not all phrases have a logical literal meaning, therefore, don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out why a certain phrase come to mean what it means.

Actually, truth be told, certain phrases degrades the language and would not have a legitimate place by strict English teachers.  However, almost everyone uses them to some extent in everyday American life.  Therefore, it is my objective to inform ESL students so that when you hear them, you can understand the meaning of the context.

The alternative is to not understand and be confused. 

I hope this information will help someone, let me hear your thoughts.  I plan to post at least once per week depending on the demand for this type of instruction.

Hello teacher,

Now I got into this page and like so much your lessons.

These lesson are very useful to us (non-native American).

Thank you and God bless and your loved ones!!!

Viorela1

Thanks Viorela1 for your reply, I appreciate your effort in responding and because of your response, here is Mini Lesson #3.

1. On the back burner : This phrase is used to indicate that the subject has been given a lesser priority than something else.  For example consider this statement:

Sometimes we place what we need to do "on the back burner" and do what we want to do instead!" 

The opposite meaning would be to use the phrase: "on the front burner" which would mean assigning a higher priority to something, consider this statement:

Learning English is important to me, therefore, I will put it "on the front burner!"

Background understanding of the phrase:

In the United States it is typical to have a stove top that has 4 burners to cook your food.  The two burners in the front are called, "front burners" and the two in the rear are called "back burners."  When a person is cooking and using a front and back burner, the front burner heat will be increased to a higher temperature, such as if you want to boil water fast.  Then the back (rear) burner temperature will be set to a lower temperature to maintain the temperature of food that is already cooked but you only want to keep it warm.  Therefore, the front burner has the higher priority (for cooking) and the back burner has a lesser priority because the cooking has already been done. 

In the United States, people have taken this cooking experience and incorporated it into the language.  Therefore, when we want to express a thought and make a distinction in the priorities, we will say this is "on the front burner" or that is "on the back burner." 

My suggestion to ESL students:

You may want to consider shifting your emphasis of English study from grammar to phrases (except where it's mandatory for school).  You will figure out the proper grammar almost automatically, you don't need a University degree in English grammar to speak fluent English.  A typical 5 year old can speak almost fluent English having studied no grammar at all!  Basic grammar (nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, sentence structure, paragraphs.etc.) are all that is necessary to learn for most people, after wards,  I suggest you spend time reading, writing, listening, and speaking English at every opportunity.

Build your vocabulary from reading instead of trying to learn hundreds of words,  there are too many words!  I speak fluent English and don't know many words, if I come across a word I don't know, I'll look it up in the dictionary and learn it "on the fly!"  Hmm, that's a thought, my next lesson will be the phrase, "on the fly!"  Stay tuned for the next lesson in a few days, unless someone makes a reply and encourage me to place the next mini lesson "on the front burner!"

I'm a new ESL member of englishbaby. Your explanations are great and very useful. As an ESL learner it is almost impossible to learn all the idioms and phrasal verbs, above all if I don't life in the USA or in an english speaking country.I am almost fifty years old, and I look forward to learning new expressions. Thanks a lot. It is always very useful to hear from a native english speaker how to learn and improve the foreign language. I know (from the literature of Prof. Steven Krashen) that INPUT (or better: comprehensible input) is all. The step from an intermediate or advanced learner to a fluent english speaker is very, very long.

Yours sincerely,

Hermann Lanter; SWITZERLAND