The Oxford English dictionary defines idioms and phrases as:
A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words.
Put another way: idioms are sentences that sound ridiculous to everyone but the native speakers who use them.
That’s why it’s always fun to learn idioms in a foreign language. If you randomly bust out one of these idioms in conversation with native speakers, they will be pleasantly surprised.
Then in that moment of surprise, they may realize for the first time just how ridiculous that idiom sounds. Then they will laugh, and think you’re even cooler than you already are.
But you won’t get your desired effect on the audience unless you nail the pronunciation.
That’s why we’ve included slowed down audio and phonetic transcription for 24 idioms in Portuguese, Mandarin, Spanish, Italian, French and German.
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