Every language has its share of idioms or special dialects that can challenge you when first learning but ESL students can really get confused if they travel extensively throughout the United States because different areas of the U.S. have their own special way of talking that is different from the rest of the country! So what can you do about it?

Like everything else there is plenty of information on the internet about just this sort of thing. And, in fact you can even find translations of idioms from English to say Chinese or Italian so that you can know exactly what is meant. It’s actually funny when you think about things that we say every day that if you translate it literally into another language it would be a totally different topic many times….for instance if you say one of the following, your ESL student might have difficulty understanding the meaning:

à Put it on the back burner – this might be said often in business but the reality is there is no stove in sight so it makes no sense.

à The best thing since sliced bread – what does bread have to do with it? Why is that so important?

à In inverted commas – this one would be really difficult to know because you really mean parentheses but who knows what that is??!!

à Off the cuff – this would be difficult to understand because there is no connection to a cuff that would make sense.

As you can see, some of these phrases that we use every day would really confuse an ESL student because most of the time, the words have little connection to what is really meant by the comment. It is therefore important for ESL students to ensure that they get some additional schooling in these idiomatic words or phrases that might trip them up and cause embarrassment unnecessarily.