Hello, and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, the listening resource for intermediate to advanced level English learners. My name is Anna. And my name is Nick. And today we're discussing love idioms. Now last week we celebrated Valentine's Day, and so, love has been discussed many times over the last fortnight, so, I thought this would be the perfect time to introduce you to some of the language that we use around love. So, we have, how many idioms do we have? Twelve idioms, Anna. Twelve, fantastic. Well let me kick things off with our first idiom, and it is a match made in heaven. Mm, sounds like us. Yes, a match made in heaven. How would you describe a match made in heaven? What does it mean? Well, it's the literal opposite of a match made in hell. Right. Which is awful. And a match made in heaven is obviously wonderful. It's one that's literally created by the angels themselves. But what does it mean, Nicholas? It means it's perfect. It means it's wonderful. It means it's warm. But who is this match? Because I know'a match' being something you strike to create fire. Oh, I see. Well, a match made in heaven, I guess it relates to people more than it does anything else, but do you think it is exclusively people? No, I guess. It could be a company. It could be...yeah. It could be two pieces of food. Yes, so it refers to two things that are perfect for one another, and so when we're talking about love, it would be a couple, two people who are perfect for one another. It's almost as if God put them together. Yeah, I just keep on thinking about steak and blue cheese sauce. You're always thinking about food. So, I always think it's interesting that as a country, as a nation, we are less and less religious every year, with less people actively following a religion or going to church. And yet our language is still littered with words like'God','heaven','hell','angel' and I don't think they're going to die off anytime soon. I think they'll be in our vocabulary for hundreds of years to come, regardless of whether the religions survive that long or not. Yeah, well, I mean, we've still got plenty of idioms that relate to different ways of torturing people back in the Dark Ages. Yes. Yes. These things don't go away once they once they enter the lexicon. Yes, absolutely. So, a match made in heaven is just a perfect match and you think we're a match made in heaven do you? Most days. Most days! Because we complement each other so well. We do. It's not that we are exactly the same but we align quite well. We fit each other quite well. Yeah, we're like a right hand and a left hand. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Like two pieces of a jigsaw. You're the sticky out bit. How big's the jigsaw? Okay, what's the next idiom, Nick? To carry a torch for someone. To carry a torch for someone. What does this mean? You tell me. Well, it means to have strong feelings for someone, but I guess we would often use this if you have strong feelings for someone, but that person doesn't feel that way in return. It's not reciprocated. Maybe, I think that there's an important bit here to distinguish right that we are talking in this the idiom comes from carrying a burning torch rather than a flashlight. Yes. So, you carry a flame. You carry a flame. We'd often talk about, we talk about love being like fire. It's often associated with the colour red and like passion is all about fire, isn't it? So, to carry a torch is to have a burning flame, burning brightly as your feelings for someone would, and you just keep carrying it even if they don't love you in return. And it feels a bit sad to me as well because you can extinguish it. Yeah. You know, and then when you're carrying it almost I feel like when somebody says, you know,"They're carrying a torch for somebody." It's like they've got a little fire burning in their heart and they're carrying along and you have to be careful because you can go out before, before it gets requited. Reciprocated? No, requited. You know, requited. So, there's there's a phrase unrequited love. Mmm, yes. Yeah, which is a very sad phrase meaning that you love somebody but they don't love you back. And I think that's the only time I've ever heard the word'requited'. Yes, yes you're right. Well, have you ever known someone to carry a torch for somebody and you just know that that's love is never going to be returned? Yeah. I mean. So, the only thing that really comes to mind for me is when I was in school, and you know that people like somebody else because everybody's in each other's business in school and, and college; and so there would be, you know, your friend who, you know, fancies somebody else and they either don't fancy them back or that friend has not, not articulated that they like the person. Okay, so the other person doesn't know and they might fancy them back. They might do, yeah. Because they're so secretive, it never comes to light that they both like each other. Yeah. And so they never connect. Although I guess in school that probably doesn't last long. No, because everyone, like, gossips, don't they? Yeah. And I think the ones I knew, it was never going to work out. It was certainly an unrequited love. Yeah, I remember having multiple conversations with friends at school, letting them cry on my shoulder because they're heartbroken, because they've been carrying a torch for somebody, and then they find out that that somebody is having a relationship with, or started going out with one of their friends. Yeah. Yeah,"But I've loved him for so long!" It always seems so important to you when you're at school, doesn't it? When you're young. You really break your heart. You, you really like bellyache over all these, all as if I had loads of crushes, all these crushes that you just... I think because at that age, it's all so new, isn't it? Yeah. This, this sense of fancying somebody, you know, you start to get all these stirring feelings because you're a teenager and you're going through all these hormonal changes and you really feel like you, you are in love with them if you're really crushing hard on them, you're like,"I really have to be with this person." And you are heartbroken when they start going out with one of your mates or someone else. And then you feel so betrayed as well. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's the end of the world and you're like,"I'm not your friend anymore. You stole my boyfriend.""He's never your boyfriend. He's my boyfriend". I had two friends at school. One was very good-looking and very charismatic, and the other one was not very good-looking and was not very charismatic, and he always used to fancy,"Oh, I fancy that one. I fancy that one." And then, inevitably, that girl would then fancy the charming good-looking friend, and he'd be like,"Not again. You're doing it on purpose!""You're stealing all my girls!" It's kind of not his fault, but that was a routine that we used to go through probably every month. Oh dear. Yeah. Poor guy. Oh dear. Well, sometimes you have to go to your friend and say,"Look, I like this person so much and I can see that you're talking to them a lot. Please don't go out with them." And they have to make a promise that they won't. And that brings me on to our next idiom, which is often used around promises, which is to cross your heart. There's a second part. To'cross your heart'? Yeah. Absolutely cross your heart and... Hope to die. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? It is weird. Yeah. I don't know,'hope to die' about what? I don't understand that, I'm thinking about it now. Because you never hope to die. It's a very odd phrase. So, this phrase we can either say cross my heart and hope to die or just simply, you'd say cross my heart and you run your finger in the shape of a cross across your chest, don't you, cross my heart. It's quite childish. I was gonna say, when's the last time you said it in any level of seriousness? As a child back at primary school, but this means I really promise. Yeah. So,"Could you hold my bag of sweets Nick?""Okay.""You're not gonna eat any are you?""Cross my heart". Scout's honour. Scout's honour! Another one. But yeah, to cross your heart, not really used by adults, but a very common phrase among children, meaning you promise, you swear, and you honestly won't do it. Promise the most you can. Yeah, absolutely. Now, next on our list is... to be smitten with someone. To be smitten with them. This means to just really, really, really like them very, very much, isn't it? Yeah. In a romantic way, like, to be in love with them, they're just amazing. But if I said, what's the noise associated with being smitten?"Aww!" Yeah, it's"Aww!", you can be smitten with a kitten as well. It's not like you've got throbbing loins over a hunk in a magazine. No, it's just about intensity of feelings, isn't it? Yeah, but in a lovely way, right? In a nice way. It's definitely a softer word. A softer word. I think that's what you're referring to. It's not like lust. It's smitten. It's so gentle and soft. And you mentioned the word'kitten'. And I think you make that association because of the rhyming aspect as well, but it does represent a deep or intense feeling. So, if I start going out with somebody, so, I've just met Nick and we're going out with each other and I really deeply... maybe, I'm not like, I'm not at the point where I'd say,"I love you!" yet. That's maybe a bit too big a word, but I like him so much I can't stop thinking about him. He makes me smile. He makes me light up every time I see him. My friends would say,"Anna, you are smitten with him. You're not just going out with this guy. You are smitten." And I'm like,"Yeah, I am." Next on the list is to fall head over heels for someone or you can say head over heels in love. This phrase always seems a bit odd to me from a very practical point of view. First of all, what does it mean, Nick, to be head over heels? It means completely, doesn't it? Completely what? In love with somebody. So, to love someone deeply. Yep. And it tends to represent like a suddenness, doesn't it? If you say,"He fell head over heels", it means that you start loving someone very quickly. Like when you fall down, that happens quickly. If you fall head over heels with someone, it suggests that the falling in love happened in a very quick way. The reason I have a problem with this particular phrase, is that your head is literally over your heels all the time when you're standing. I feel like it should be flipped over because I think it represents the idea of tumbling. Yeah. So, it should be heels over head surely, but your legs go over your head, and that, therefore your heels are above you. So... But does it mean falling backwards? Oh, it could be falling backwards. I think tumbling, I think everybody thinks tumbling over forwards, but if you tumbled forwards, your head would go over your toes, wouldn't it? Yeah, so actually, yeah, maybe you make a good point. Maybe it is falling back... like you're being knocked back that you just met someone and they knock you out with how amazing they are. You fall back, your head goes over your heels and you fall to the ground. You've just solved it for me, Nick. Thank you. But isn't that funny though, because you grew up in Manchester, 400 miles away from where I grew up. I thought you were going to say 400 years ago, I'm not that old! And I grew up thinking that head over heels means tumbling forwards. Yeah. So, there's obviously something to it. Because you say like,"I went head over heels." You say that when you're saying that you fell over. Yeah. So,"I was running for the bus and then I went head over heels." Although in Manchester we say'arse over tit', which makes more sense. That's your bum over your chest. It makes more sense. See us northerners. Very pragmatic. Very pragmatic. Okay. So, moving on from being head over heels which, you know, you would just use regularly in conversation with someone who has fallen very quick or very hard in love with someone. We're going to move on to... Love at first sight. Love at first sight. So, this means literally seeing someone and the first time you see them, the first time you have them in your sight, you love them. Is that possible? Well, of course it happened with you and I, Anna. You were besotted from the word go. I was smitten. I was smitten. It's not true, is it, really? The first time we met, we had a chat. Well, you told me you were in a relationship and I lost interest. Yeah, I mean, we had a chat. I thought you were nice enough, but we didn't... I wasn't... we didn't, like... Yeah, but that's because I wasn't turning it on. Oh, okay. I was like,"Hi!" You didn't turn on the charm. And you were like,"I've got a boyfriend." And I was like,"Loser. I'm going to chat to my mates." So, it was a good while after that first meeting, we went on holiday together, didn't we? A group holiday with friends as friends. And I think it was during that holiday that I fell head over heels. I became smitten with you and then I had to work really hard to get you to like me back. But anyway, that's for another podcast. So, love at first sight. I don't believe in love at first sight, because I think you cannot have deep romantic or deep feelings of love for someone until you truly know them. I think you can have lust at first sight. You can look at someone and say,"Cor, I fancy him." Like, he's really attractive, but I don't think you can love someone until you know them. That's what I thought about you on that group holiday. Oh yeah? Yeah, but I was like,"She's off limits." Well. It's a waste of time. But it all works out in the end, I guess. Absolutely. Slowly but surely. So, love at first sight. Some people believe in it, some people talk about it, but not us. We are very practical people. Well, I think that you have to know somebody to love them. Yeah. Absolutely. And that brings me on to the next one, which is about finding Mr. Right, or in your case finding Miss Right? Do you say Miss Right or Mrs. Right? It's gotta be Miss, right? I think it's only Mr. Right, isn't it? That's more common to talk about Mr. Right. So, Mr. Right is the person that you haven't met yet, because that's why they don't have a name, and you call them Mr. Right. So, it's often used when talking about searching for the perfect partner, isn't it? So,"You just haven't met Mr. Right yet, or you just haven't met Miss Right". So, yeah, I don't feel like that's very commonly used. No. Maybe that's because women are more open about their search for a long-term partner, and men just don't open up about those kinds of things so often. Maybe it's not so cool for men? Oh, yeah, I don't think a guy has ever said it to me. Whereas, I think, you know, if you imagine the conversations, you can imagine women saying, and I'm sure on movies and stuff, that they say exactly that,"You haven't found Mr. Right yet." Yeah. I'm looking for Mr. Right, and you might have it in the adverts that people put out on these, kind of dating sites when they say what they're looking for. So,"I'm a quiet, intelligent young lady. I do like to have a little bit of fun, but essentially looking for Mr. Right." That might be your advert if that's you. Terrible advert. Terrible advert. Yeah. So, Mr. Right being the most common of those phrases. And then when two people do get together, sometimes it's hard for onlookers and friends of the couple to understand why these two people are together. Maybe, they don't seem like a match made in heaven. Maybe, your male friend got with a girl and you're like,"Really? You two don't seem like you're good for one another." But then we'd use the phrase.... love is blind. Love is blind. And I prefer love is in the eye of the beholder. Yes. Or beauty is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Absolutely. I learned this when one of my housemates started going out with another one of the housemates, and nobody could understand the relationship. So, your two housemates, a male housemate, and a female housemate hooked up. Hooked up. They got together. Got together. Everyone was like,"Really?" I don't get it. And then when I saw them interacting as well, I thought,"Well, this isn't going to last very long. What a frustrating disruption to an otherwise happy household." But now they're married. Wow. And it just shows that what you would find entirely unappealing in a person, the other person, you know, sees as being their dream really. It's so interesting. It takes all sorts. It takes all sorts. That's a good phrase. Not one of our list today, but opposites do attract. Okay. So, do you think one of your housemates stole the other one's heart, because that's another one of our phrases to steal someone's heart. To be honest, I think it was a bit more love at first sight. Oh, really? Yeah. Because he sent me a picture when we were recruiting for housemates and said,"Look at this one." Oh, I see. And I was like,"Sure!" Okay. Okay. So, to steal someone's heart, I always think this is a little bit funny as well as a phrase about love because stealing is essentially a bad thing. It's a crime. If you steal something, then you're taking it without permission. So, to steal someone's heart, I guess, it's about falling in love with someone, but almost like they've made you fall in love with them. That's what it sounds like, they have stolen my heart. So, once I saw a quote, I think, from somebody that was talking about children. And they said,"Having children is like taking your heart out of your body and letting it roam freely around the world." Which I think is similar to this, right? If you say,"They've stolen my heart" or"they've taken my heart." It's like you've got this really delicate thing, which they've now got. And you're letting them be responsible for it. So, to steal someone's heart is to essentially win them over. So, I worked hard to make you fall in love with me and eventually I stole your heart. I guess that's our story. Yeah, I guess so. But it's also that they've taken it completely, right? You've bagged it and ran off with it. Yeah, they've taken the whole lot. Yeah. Okay. So, I stole your heart in entirety. I often hear the phrase apple of my eye when people are talking about love idioms, the you're the apple of my eye comes up, but I think there's a really important difference with this idiom. I feel like it's much more, like a parental relationship, like I would expect my granddad to say,"Oh, Anna's the apple of my eye". I mean, he wouldn't talk like that. Do you know, I always thought the apple of my eye was more, so exactly it was about a parental relationship, but I thought it was more that it's almost like the fruit of my loins. Oh. You know what I mean, like it's more about"that's my child." I didn't realise that it was really quite so much as being something that was that you love them more than others or you particularly cherish them. I thought it was just,"that's my child". Oh. Well, I mean it's usually used in that respect, isn't it? That you use that to talk about your child, but I guess it could be any relationship where you just cherish someone, you just think they're special and, you know, you get that little glint in your eye when you see them or think about them and think,"Oh, he or she is the apple of my eye." Yeah. It's a weird saying though, isn't it? It is. Yeah. Yeah. Why apple? I don't know. When I think about the body and apples, I think about the Adam's apple, which is your larynx, your voice box, but not apples in your eye, but anyway, yes, to mean to cherish someone. So, if you do fall head over heels with someone and you are a match made in heaven, and this is the Mr. Right for Miss Right, then you're probably going to... tie the knot. Tie the knot. Yeah, eventually. What does that mean? Get married. Get married. Specifically, get married. Yeah. Why do you think we use the phrase'tie the knot'? Well, I guess it's maybe playing on the idea that you kind of sign a contract that you tie something up and kind of lock it in. As if you're like two loose ends of a rope, and you've tied it together. I wonder if it's got origins in like paganism because I have a sense that in a pagan, like, ceremony of matching that they tie something around their hands. They bind their hands with ribbon or something. Maybe. And so perhaps the idea of tying the knot is tying that ribbon around the hands to bind you together. It might be that the tying of the ribbon is tying a knot, which represents the binding of the relationships, the binding of the individuals. Yeah. And then the phrase'to tie the knot' it could very well be from a pagan ceremony, but it might also just represent, again, that kind of that metaphorical tying together of two people's lives. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to a wedding soon, aren't we? Yeah. That's gonna be nice. In France. Yeah, that'll be lovely. Yeah. Looking forward to that. Yeah. Although, we'll have the two kids and our last experience of a wedding with one of the children was,"Does anyone object to the..." What was it?"...to the matching of these two people?" And then Jacob at the back going,"Mahhhhhh!" Making some awful noise. It did make the congregation laugh though, didn't it? Whose wedding was that? That was one of your friends. One of your Bristol friends, I think. Can't even remember. So, last on the list is something that I feel like I do. And this is not necessarily related specifically to romantic love, but more to general feelings. And it is to wear your heart on your sleeve. Would you say that I wear my heart on my sleeve, Nick? I think so. Yeah. I think so. What does it mean? So, it means that your emotions and your feelings and your thoughts are available for everybody to understand easily. Yeah, so, some people keep their true feelings hidden. They don't like to let on if they're feeling sad or excited, or if they like someone or not. And other people are more like an open book. You can read them very easily. And in terms of emotions, we use the phrase to wear your heart on your sleeve. Like I've literally opened up my body, put my heart on the outside of my clothing, on my sleeve, and everyone can see how I'm feeling and that's definitely something I do. I'm very open about my feelings. Yeah, it's a bit like calling someone an open book. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Nicholas, I do appreciate you being here. Should we do a quick recap of all the phrases that we covered today? Sure. Okay, so we started with a match made in heaven, which is two people who are perfect and ideal for each other. Then we had carry a torch for somebody, which is about having strong feelings or love for somebody. Then we talked about the childish phrase, cross my heart and hope to die, which is something you'd use if you're making a very sincere promise that you will or won't do something. And then we moved on to being smitten with somebody, which is to be deeply in love or infatuated with someone. Yep, and then we had to fall head over heels in love. Or arse over tit. Or arse over tit, which means to fall very deeply and completely, and also suddenly, in love with someone. Then we talked about finding Mr. Right, which refers to finding the perfect partner or your soulmate. Specifically, if you're looking for a man, a mister, a Mr. Right. And then we talked about love at first sight, which is when you see someone for the very first time and instantly feel like you're in love with them. Although we disputed and debated as to whether we thought that was real or not. Talking about sight, we talked around love being blind. So, love is blind, which is when you fall in love and you don't see the faults in the person that you love. Yeah, and then we talked about stealing someone's heart when you bag it and run away with it. You've tried really hard to get it and you finally get it. Then we covered the apple of my eye, which is someone who is cherished above all others, particularly when you're talking about a parent-child relationship. Yeah. And then we had to tie the knot, which is a colloquial way of referring to marriage. So, getting married, tying that knot. And we finished with wearing your heart on your sleeve, which is to openly show your feelings or emotions, particularly in love. Yes, absolutely. Okay. Thank you very much, Nick. I do hope listeners, you found this useful. Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.