The best business idioms at work (3): in a dialogue!

Should you or should you not learn idioms? Some trainers tell their students that it’s best to avoid them at all costs. The meaning of idioms is often not clear from the individual words that make them up, so they are often used incorrectly or inappropriately. If you say, for example, "The project's in the pipe" instead of "in the pipeline", this may get a smile from native speakers. But if you tell your boss, "You're so full of crap", when you just wanted to show that you don't agree with him, this is more serious and might cost you your job!

However, like it or not, idioms are an important part of everyday English, and they’re here to stay. Newspapers use them all the time, particularly in headlines. Companies use them in their marketing blurbs, and native speakers will use them even for the simplest of things. If you have contact with native speakers or read authentic texts you have to learn idioms!

How do you go about learning the most useful ones? First, you can subscribe toour free newsletter, which features a business idiom quiz every week. (Sign up here!) We focus in particular on idioms used to talk about business events in the news.

Deborah Capras