The word “heart” is used for many expressions in English that are emotional in some way. For example, the expressions “cross my heart”, “have a change of heart”, “follow your heart”, “heart to heart”, “heart of gold”, “light-hearted”, “half-hearted”, and many more, are all used to describe a person or situation that is emotional. I will teach you these and many more common expressions that you can start using today. Native English speakers use them frequently, and I think they will be very useful to you, too, especially around Valentine’s Day! You’ll have a chance to practice by doing a quiz with me during the video, but don’t forget to do the main quiz on EngVid after watching the lesson: https://www.engvid.com/13-hear....t-expressions-in-eng If you have your heart set on learning new expressions in English, your heart will skip a beat for this lesson all about heart expressions.

TRANSCRIPT

"She seduced him with some light-hearted banter." [Laughs] Huh? Are you trying to tell me something? Hi, guys. James. The heart - it's the thing that keeps us alive; it's in our chest, and in English, we use it to use it for a lot of expressions. And E, here, is helping us, showing us, you know, how we can have fun with it. And I'm going to have some fun teaching you this lesson, and you're going to have some fun learning some things; especially on this special holiday, Valentine's, where we celebrate love and the heart. Are you ready? Let's go to the board.

So, here, E is saying the balloon is light; not heavy. So that's not serious. Another word for "heavy" is "serious". And "heart", it means with emotion, so this is a light emotion or a fun thing to talk about; fun conversation. Are you ready to have some fun? You'll learn... So, our little hearts will tell us which phrase we're talking about, and they all have to do with sort of an emotional quality; how the emotions come together.

And our big heart, we have a couple of them: "heart of gold", "half-hearted", "change of heart", "cross my heart", "follow your heart". I've expanded some of them out here, but let's go from here. "Heart of gold" is... Well, gold is precious, right? It's special. If you have a heart of gold, we usually say you're a very good person. "He has a heart of gold. They're nice". "Half-hearted" I'll come to in a letter... Later. "A change of heart", I'll do that as well.

But this one I like, here. These two I want to tell you about. You'll see people go: "Cross my heart", and it means: "I promise", because my heart... Remember what I said about heart? If you don't have a heart, you will die, so when I say: "Cross my heart", I mean, like: "I promise so much that I put my life on it. I cross my heart this is true." And: "Follow your heart". "Follow your heart" means: Do what you love. Seeing clearly is not something I'm good at or love, but you get the point. So, if you like playing soccer, play soccer. If you like to read, read. If you want to start a business, start a business. Follow your heart because, you know, it's the thing you love.

Right now I'm having a "heart to heart" with you. And what is "heart to heart"? A serious conversation. So, if you say to someone: "Okay"... You have a girlfriend: "Nancy, we have to have a heart to heart." She'll go: -"Baby, what about?" -"Your breath, it stinks." Okay? "Heart to heart", serious conversation. "By heart". Like my heart, it's always there for me. I don't need to think about it, I don't need to try to make it work; it's just there. When you know something by heart, it means you know something completely; you don't have to study it, you don't have to look at it. Like, if I'm reading this book: "She seduced him with some light-hearted banter", I'm reading. If I know it by heart, I will say: "She seduced him with some light-hearted banter. I do not need to look; I know it by heart." Okay? That means you don't need to study; you know it. No one should question you on it.

"Have your heart set on something". You really want it. It's, like, you see a shirt, and you think the shirt is amazing, and you really want to have this shirt. If you have your heart set on it, it will actually make you cry if you don't get it. Or a job, you really want a job and you go for that job, and you have your heart set on it - it means: I want this very, very strongly. Cool? All right.

Here's one. I like this one: "take heart". Watch romance movies, you'll see this. You're not going to see... Or if you see Batman from the 1960s, you'll say: "Take heart, bat-watchers. Batman will get out of it. We promise." It means: "Be encouraged. Have faith. Know that things will be good." So if you're a little girl and your father goes: "Take heart. Our dog will come back." You really shouldn't; he's gone for good, but if he says: "Take heart" - be encouraged, have faith the dog will come back. You can believe. Okay? "Take heart we will make America great again." I don't believe I said that. Forgive me, everybody, please. […]