Learning how to use idioms is a difficult but by no means impossible task. An idiom is different from other literal expressions in that you could not guess its meaning just by understanding all the words in it. You might not be able to make sense of the following sentence if you haven’t come across the idiom ‘rain cats and dogs’.

For example: ‘It was raining cats and dogs when we were walking home last night.’

The idiom ‘rain cats and dogs’ means raining very heavily.

However, the meaning of some idioms is more obvious. The act of ‘taking the bull by the horns’ clearly points to bravery and decisiveness in action. This is what this idiom means in:

‘I can’t wait for you to discuss this matter with the manager. I shall take the bull by the horns and do something about it myself.’

Because of their characteristics, learning idioms requires both rote-learning and analytical skills. Bearing this in mind, we have designed the following features to help you learn idioms:

Pictorial Idioms - pictures help you to visualise the idioms

Idioms Directory - instead of using an ordinary expression (like raining heavily), check out the idioms directory and see whether you can use any idiom to replace it

Idiom Exercises - practise the idioms you have learned

Idiom Games - some games for using idioms

Check these out and enjoy the fun of idioms with the VLC Pictorial Idioms Corner.

If you are interested in knowing more about the linguistic characteristics of idioms, please read the sections on Characteristics of Idioms and Criteria for Identifying Idioms. There is a also a list of Useful References on idioms for you to explore.

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