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Speaker 1: Do you like to leaf through a magazine when you're

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waiting for a flight, or maybe you've turned over a

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new leaf and started studying English more. Are you branching

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out into new interests? Well, unless I'm barking up the

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wrong tree, you've come to the right place today.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to another Happy English podcast coming to you from

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New York City. And here's your English teacher, Michael.

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Speaker 1: All right, thank you John, and thanks everyone. It's Michael

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here from Happy English and I help people speak English better.

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And this is Happy English Podcast, Episode seven sixty five.

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Idioms with tree and leaf, tree and leaf, trees and

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leafs not exactly. The word leaf is one of those

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nouns with an irregular plural form. When a word ends

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in F, you need to change the F to a

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V and then add e s. So it's one leaf,

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two leaves, just like one shelf two shelves, and one

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wolf two wolves leaves. And what do you think about

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when you hear leaf or leaves? Those make a tree

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green in the summer and yellow, orange and red in

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the fall. And this is where English vocabulary has a

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surprise twist for you. The word leaf has another meaning.

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It seems that back In the sixteenth century, a page

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of a book was known as a leaf. Yeah, so

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a leaf is part of a tree, and a leaf

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is part of a book, which brings us to the

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first idiom of this lesson, to turn over a new leaf.

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Let's go back to the sixteenth century. When you turned

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over a new leaf, it meant that you were going

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to have something new to read. Well as an idiom,

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when you turn over a new leaf, you change your

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life completely by doing something new or different than you've

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done before. For example, Susan decided to turn over a

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new leaf by eating healthier and exercising regularly. After struggling

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with waking up late and being late all the time,

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David decided to turn over a new leaf by going

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to bed earlier and waking up on time. So turning

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over a new leaf is all about getting into doing

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new habits, and one habit I'd like to see you

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get into is reading, which brings us to the idiom

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leaf through. Here we use leaf as a verb, and

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when you leaf through a book, a magazine, or a newspaper,

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you casually turn the pages, usually to look for something

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interesting without reading everything. My friend Kim was leafing through

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a fashion magazine while waiting in the doctor's office. And

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don't you just love to leaf through travel magazines and

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brochures to find new places to visit. And just in

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case you're more fond of electronic reading material, when you're

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on your phone, you can scroll through a book, a magazine,

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or a newspaper. Scroll through. Here's a case where language

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has kept up with technology. There's one more book related

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idiom for today, and that is to take a leaf

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out of someone's book. When you take a leaf out

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of someone's book, you imitate them or follow their example.

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You do what they do in order to make yourself better.

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Like after seeing how organized Lisa is, I'm going to

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take a leaf out of her book and plan my

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schedule better. You want to succeed, find a successful person

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and take a leaf out of their book. Organize yourself

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and work as they do, and you'll find success. I

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hope my advice there isn't making you shake like a leaf,

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especially with the breezes we have in the fall, Leaves

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shake and even tremble on a tree. Maybe the leaves

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know they are about to fall off. With this image,

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when you shake like a leaf, you tremble and shake

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because of fear or because of being nervous, like what

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happened to my friend Zach in school when the professor

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suddenly called on him to answer the question. He was

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shaking like a leaf. Jenny told me that she was

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shaking like a leaf during her first job interview. Is

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there anything that makes you shake like a leaf more

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than a job interview? I don't think so. Okay, let's

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move on from leaves to trees. A tree grows branches

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to reach more places for sunlight. The tree branches out,

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and here we're using branch as a verb. When you

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branch out, you start doing new things in life. We

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often use branch out when a person or a company

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tries doing something different, like instead of going to the

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gym four days a week, I'm gonna branch out and

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do yoga on one of those days. The Italian restaurant

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in my neighborhood decided to branch out by adding vegan

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options to their menu. They're branching out. We're gonna need

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my dog Max for the next idiom to bark up

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the wrong tree. Bark is what a dog's voice does,

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and in the old days, dogs were used for hunting.

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Sometimes the would chase the prey up a tree, and

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since the dog can't climb the tree, it would just

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stay at the base of the tree and bark. Sometimes

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the prey would leave the tree and go to another tree,

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but the dog didn't notice it. Instead, the dog would

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just keep barking up the wrong tree. So the idiom

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bark up the wrong tree means to have the wrong

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idea about something like in the office, Jenny asked me

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for some help with Microsoft Access. But she's barking up

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the wrong tree. I can't use that software. Go dancing, you,

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you are barking up the wrong tree. If you think

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I'm gonna go to a dance club tonight, I am

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not into that. Okay. The next one always makes me laugh.

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It's like trying to nail jello to a tree. Jello

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is a gelatine dessert and it has the texture of pudding. Well,

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it would be impossible to nail pudding or nail jello

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to a tree, right, So when we talk about something

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that would be impossible to do, we say that it's

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like trying to nail jello to a tree. Now, Goo

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told me that she's not going to try to ask

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her boss for a day off on Friday. That would

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be like trying to nail jello to a tree. Oh,

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and Jane only dates rich guys that have sports cars.

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Jack said he wants to try to ask her for

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a date, but that's like trying to nail jello to

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a tree. And finally, for today, we have the old

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phrase the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. It's

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more of a proverb than an idiom. The apple doesn't

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fall far from the tree. Think about that image. When

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an apple falls from the branch of a tree, it

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doesn't go very far away. It has a close connection

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to the tree. So the proverb the apple doesn't fall

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from the tree tells us that children behave in a

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similar way as their parents. Like my friend Peter's kid,

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Pete has been playing baseball since he was a little kid,

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and now his son started playing baseball. Yep, the apple

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doesn't fall far from the tree. My mom is really

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good at math, and so am I. I guess the

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apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Keep in mind,

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the best way to remember idioms like this and any

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other word or phrase in English is to take that

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word or phrase write it in a sentence that's true

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for you or true in your world and then memorize

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your sentences. Hey, check this out. Did you know that

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you can get the chance to practice this kind of

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English with me directly? You can get more practice using

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your English when you join my podcast Learner's Study Group.

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There you can make new friends, join us for live

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group lessons every week where we practice these podcast lessons together.

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Plus you get access to the pdf, transcript and audio

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download for every Happy English podcast in the past and

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in the future. And on top of that, each episode

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has exercises where you can practice this English point with

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speaking and writing checked by me. To learn more, just

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visit Myhappy English dot com and choose podcast lesson seven

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sixty five. Remember, learning another language is not easy, but

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it's not impossible, and I'm here to help you on

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your journey.

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Speaker 2: This podcast was brought to you by Happy English. Please

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