For students of English, speaking can be a big deal. It’s all very well to learn your grammar from books and be able to complete your grammar exercises perfectly but when it comes to speaking to an English person, does your mind go blank and your mouth remain clamped shut? When you walk down the street or eavesdrop conversations on the bus, does it all sound like a totally new language? You are not alone! Practice in real life situations and a genuine need and desire to communicate will help. ‘But people seem to be talking nonsense!’ It’s true that if you try and look up much of what you hear in the street, a dictionary will get you nowhere. It’s all the fault of those pesky colloquialisms – English is full of them.
So instead of panicking about the huge mountain we have to climb, let’s take a look at some – connected with that important word: SPEAK.
It may be easy to SPEAK YOUR MIND (give your opinion) but in unfamiliar surroundings you need to be careful not to SPEAK OUT OF TURN (give your opinion at the wrong moment). Sometimes a situation appears obvious, needing no explanation because IT SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. If you fancy yourself as an evangelical pastor, when you are possessed by the spirit, you may SPEAK IN TONGUES (speak a ‘nonsense’ language nobody can understand). The most impressive speakers who speak with authority, usually SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE.
If you are just enjoying a bit of gossip, be careful who you talk about because they could appear at any moment, just as you are explaining how surprised you were by their new hairstyle – SPEAK OF THE DEVIL! (and he/she will appear). And along comes the friend with the crazy blue hair! In embarrassing situations like this, if you try to get support from your fellow gossips (‘well you have to admit, it looked better when it was longer/blonde/the last time she went to the hairdressers’ you plead, trying to win a nod of agreement, a murmur of assent), you know that you have failed and that your friends are seeking to distance themselves when they say YOU SPEAK FOR YOURSELF! – I think it looks lovely short/blue/today!
Then there are those quiet, modest people, who are not prone to being dramatic, who, when they have just been awarded a prize or climbed Mount Everest, or made a really big contribution to society, explain ‘OH, IT WAS NOTHING TO SPEAK OF’. Maybe they think the action is more important than the words – after all, an action can SPEAK VOLUMES (tell us a lot about a situation) and most people agree that in the end ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS (it’s what you do that counts, not what you say you will do!).