Let me ask you something. How did you ring in the new year?
Have you decided to turn over a new leaf? Are you planning to take
up a new hobby or a sport? Do you need to kick the habit
from something you did last year? Let's discuss. Welcome to another Happy English
podcast, coming to you from New York City, and here's your English teacher,
Michael. All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's
Michael here from Happy English and I help people speak English better. And this
is Happy English Podcast, Episode seven oh three. New Year Idioms. Learning
idioms can make your English conversation sound more natural, and today we're going to
look at five idioms you might use in your English conversations at the beginning of
the year. By the end of this podcast, you'll learn these idioms and
the history behind how we started saying them. Now listen to a conversation between
two co workers and be sure to focus on the idioms. Hey, Rachel,
how did you ring in the New Year? It was fantastic. I
spent a quiet evening at home with my family. We rang in the new
year by having a cozy dinner and then watching the countdown on TV. Sounds
nice, my friends, and I hit the town, partied until midnight,
and really rang in the new year with a bang. Wow, Joe,
that must have been fun. By the way, did you make any New
Year's resolutions? Absolutely? You know how I'm often late, right, uh
huh. Well, I've decided to turn over a new leaf and kick the
habit of procrastination this year. You'll see me here by eight thirty every morning.
Good for you, Joe. As for me, I've decided to go
cold turkey on using social media. It's been taking too much of my time.
Instead, I'm going to take up the piano. That's awesome, Rachel.
I also want to stick to a regular exercise routine this year. It's
a tough one, but I'm going to go for it. Sounds good.
We can encourage each other to stick to our resolutions and make this year a
great one. Well, it sounds like their new year is off to a
good start. Let's have a look at the idioms they used in the conversation.
First of all, Joe asked Rachel how she rang in the new year.
Back in the old days, ringing bells was used to celebrate the new
year. So to ring in the new year means to celebrate the moment when
the new year arrives at midnight on December thirty first. Here are some examples.
Every year, John and Mary liked her ring in the new Year with
a big family party and a countdown to midnight. Tom and Lisa decided to
stay home and watch movies to ring in the new year. New York has
a big event in Times Square to ring in the new Year with live music
and a spectacular fireworks display. The next one is to turn over a new
leaf. It seems that back in the sixteenth century, a page of a
book was known as a leaf, so in those days, when you turned
over a new leaf, it meant that you were going to have something new
to read. Well as an idiom, when you turn over a new leaf,
you change your life completely by doing something new or different than you've done
before. For example, Susan decided to turn over a new leaf in the
new year by eating healthier and exercising regularly. After years of strug ruggling with
waking up late and not being on time, David decided to turn over a
new leaf by going to bed earlier and waking up on time. Karen realized
she needed to turn over a new leaf about her spending habits, so she
created a budget and plans to stick to it in the new year. Next,
we have kick the habit. When you kick a ball, you send
it away, right, so when you kick a bad habit, you send
that bad habit away. With this image, kick the habit means to stop
a bad habit, like something addictive. Here are some examples. Richard has
been trying to kick the habit of smoking for years, but it's not easy.
Linda knew she needed to kick the habit of constantly checking her phone,
so she started leaving it in another room. For Kevin, the new year
was a good time to kick the habit of eating junk food and start eating
more nutritiously. The next one is to go cold turkey. According to Wikipedia,
there was a story in a nineteenth century British magazine about a guy who
stayed at his cousin's house for Christmas but was kind of an unwanted guest.
Instead of a hot meal, his cousin served him slices of cold turkey for
dinner for several days until he suddenly left the house in disgust. So cold
turkey became related to the idea of suddenly going away. When you go cold
turkey, you stop doing something like a bad habit, suddenly and gradually.
For example, Lisa knew it was time to quit caffeine, so she went
cold turkey and switched to drinking dcaf tea in the mornings. Mike decided to
go cold turkey on his sugar intake, which meant no more desserts or sugary
snacks. After years of smoking, James chose to quit smoking cold turkey on
January first. The last one is to stick to something. We use the
word stick as a verb to mean attached to something. You use glue to
stick two pieces of paper together. Well, when you stick to something,
you follow a plan or habit faithfully. In other words, you attach yourself
to that plan or habit. Here are some examples. Paul made a resolution
to stick to his workout routine this year, no matter how how how busy
he gets. Mary promised herself she would stick to her budget and not overspend
on unnecessary items. John encouraged his friend Mark to stick to their plan of
eating healthier by cooking meals at home. Keep in mind, the best way
to remember this and any vocabulary is to take the word or phrase, write
it in a sentence that's true for you or true in your world, and
then memorize your sentences. Well that's it for today's English lesson. Thanks for
sticking to this podcast. By the way, if you'd like to get more
practice using your English, why don't you join my podcast Learner's Study Group.
There you can make new friends, join me and those friends for live group
coaching every week. Plus, get the pdf, transcript and audio download for
every Happy English podcast in the past and in the future, and each episode
has exercises where you can practice this English point with speaking and writing checked by
me. To learn more or to see some of the example sentences from this
lesson, just visit Myhappy English dot com and choose podcast lesson seven oh three.
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