Native English speakers pepper both speech and writing with idioms. This makes them sound more compelling. For the IELTS Test student this is a good skill to develop. It makes speech interesting and vibrant. However, using too many idioms can make you sound like a comedy sketch – lampooning idiom users. So what is an idiom? A group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words, e.g., a bird in the hand is worth two In the bush – this means having something that is certain is much better than taking a risk for more, because … [Read more...]