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English Idioms : Rain (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Jillian Woodward.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm Colin Lowther. Spotlight uses a special English method
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: The weather in the United Kingdom is weird. It changes
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a lot. It can be hot one day and cold
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the next. A few years ago, my cousins from Canada
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: decided to visit. They wanted to know what the weather
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: would be like in June, but I couldn't tell them
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: because I did not know. I told them to bring
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: clothes to keep them warm and clothes to keep them cool,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: but I also told them to bring a waterproof coat.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I did not know what temperature it would be, but
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I knew one thing, it was going to rain.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: It rains a lot in the UK. Sometimes the rain
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: is heavy and sometimes it is light, but mostly it
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: is constant. In most places it rains over one hundred
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: days a year. It rains even more in the far North.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: The Shetland Islands are the most northern part of the UK.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: There it rains more than two hundred days a year.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: So you would expect to hear us talking a lot
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: about rain. In the UK.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: We do.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: But the English language is a little like the weather
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: in the UK. Its rules are difficult to predict, and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: when someone talks about rain, they may not really be
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: talking about rain.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: This is because we are using idioms. Native English speakers
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: often use idioms in their speech. Idioms are words and
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: phrases where the meaning is not clear from the individual words.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: These phrases are difficult for non native speakers to understand.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Today's spotlight is on rain idioms. We explore seven common
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: rain idioms. Most are not about rain at all, but
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: these idioms will help you sound like a native speaker.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Our first rain idiom is the phrase come rain or shine.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: This phrase means that you promise to do something whatever happens.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I could say I will visit you. Come rain or shine.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: This could mean that I will visit you whether it
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: is good or bad weather. But it means more than that.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: It means I will visit you whatever happens. It is
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: a definite promise.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Our second English idiom uses two different phrases. English speakers
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: from the UK say it never rains, but it pours.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: English speakers from the USA say, when it rains, it paus.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: The two have the same basic meaning.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: If one bad thing happens and then more bad things happen,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: you might use this idiom. If bad or convenient things
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: happen again and again, you might say, oh dear, it
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: never rains, but it pause. It is a way of
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: saying that bad things are happening repeatedly.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: This idiom has nothing to do with the weather. It
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: could be a bright sunny day and you would still
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: say it never rains, but it pours.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So if one sunny day a person could not get
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: his start, then his computer went wrong, and then he
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: had a power cut, he might say it never rains,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: but it paws.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Another English rain expression is save it for a rainy day.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: This means to save money or another resource for a future,
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  Speaker 1: unknown and unexpected need.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: A person might use this phrase if her motorbike broke down,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: if she faced a big bill to repair it, she
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: would be glad if she had saved money for a
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: rainy day.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: A fourth English rain idiom is to be right as rain.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: This means to feel well. It has nothing at all
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: to do with rain.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: For example, say a person has been sick for a
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: few days he starts to feel a bit better. He
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: might tell his friend, I will be Writer's rain. Next week,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: he is saying that he thinks he will feel normal
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: the next week. The next week, he might say I
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: am feeling Wright's rain. It would mean he is feeling healthy.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Another strange idiom is to take a rain check. This
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: is something that you say when you can't accept someone's
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: invitation to something, but it also means that you would
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: like to accept that invitation on another occasion.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Imagine a friend asks you to meet her for coffee.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: You want to go, but you cannot you are already
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: busy that day. You might say something like I will
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: take a rain check on that I am already busy
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: that day. You would mean that you cannot go to
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: coffee on the day your friend suggested, but your friend
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: would understand that you would like to go another time.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: The phrase rain check actually came from US baseball. When
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: there was too much rain for a team to play,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: they would give spectators extra tickets. These tickets would be
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: good for the next game. That way, people could still
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: watch the game they paid for.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: The sixth idiom is the phrase to rain on someone's parade.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: It means to ruin someone's plans or to make them
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  Speaker 2: feel less excited about those plans. Imagine a boy is
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: going to a party. He is excited because he thinks
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: he is going to meet a girl he likes there,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: but you know the girl is doing something else. If
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: you tell him, he might say something like, you are
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: really raining on my parade.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: This phrase comes from real experience. The organizers will have
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: to cancel a parade if it rains. The parade is ruined.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: If you rain on someone's parade, you cause disappointment. It
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: is the same feeling a person has if an event
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: they looked forward to is canceled.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: The final idiom for this program is raining cats and dogs. Surprise.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: This idiom is really about rain, but cats and dogs
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  Speaker 2: are not falling from the sky.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: If someone says it is raining cats and dogs, he
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: means it is raining very hard. It is not just
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a light shower. It is a very heavy downpour.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Experts do not know where this phrase came from. One
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: of the earliest uses is in a poem written in
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: seventeen ten by Jonathan Swift called a description of a
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: city shower. In the poem, the Irish writer describes a
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: storm so powerful that it pushes animals from the rooftops.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: People talk about this kind of rain when they say
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: raining cats and dogs.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: In the UK, people talk about the weather a lot.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: They always have something to say about it because it
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: is always changing. The weather is a great topic of conversation.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: The idioms in this program will not always help you
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  Speaker 1: to talk about the weather, but they will help you
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  Speaker 1: sound more like a native speaker. Practice these idioms as
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: much as you can use them with your friends.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Did these idioms surprise you? Which idiom did you think
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: was the strangest? We want to hear your thoughts. You
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: can leave a comment on our website or emailers at
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Spotlight English dot com. You can also comment on Facebook
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight Radio.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: The writers of this program were Katie Blake and Dan Christman.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: The producer was Dan Christman. The voices you heard were
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: from the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted for this
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  Speaker 1: program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: program again and read it on the internet at www
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: dot Spotlight English dot com. This program is called English
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Idioms Rain.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: You can also get our programs delivered directly to your
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: We hope you can join us a gain for the
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: next Spotlight program. Goodbye M.