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