Using SIMILES to improve your everyday English

Do you know what a ’simile’ is? Do you know the difference between a metaphor and a simile? Similes are expressions that compare two different things. We use these expressions to make our spoken and written English sound clearer, nicer, and more poetic at the same time. Native speakers use similes often. Most of the time you will be able to understand the meaning from the context, but it is good to know some common similes so that you can start using them yourself! In today’s lesson, I’ll teach you the difference between a simile and a metaphor, and go over some examples of similes I hear in everyday life in the UK. Similes are a fun part of the English language, so join me for this lesson and test your understanding of these expressions with the quiz! TRANSCRIPT Hi. I’m Gill at engVid, and the lesson we’re having today is about similes. And just to explain what a simile is: It’s when you compare two different things. Okay? Now, there’s another lesson that we have about metaphors and at the beginning of that one, we explain the difference between metaphors and similes. So I’m going to do the same again with this lesson. So, the simile is when you say A is like B-okay?-or A is as big as B or as small as B, so it’s comparing using “like“ or “as“. Whereas the metaphor is when you say A is B. If you say: “He is a pig“, it’s not literally true, but he behaves like a pig. But: “He is a pig“ is a metaphor. If you say: “He is like a pig“, that’s a simile because you’re using the word “like“ and comparing him with a pig. Okay. So, let’s just have a look at a few examples. Also, because similes use either “like“ or “as“, we’re going to look at some examples using “like“ to begin with, and then we’ll move on to look at a few “as“ examples. So these are all examples that you would hear in everyday life that people tend to use, so they’re quite familiar ones. Okay, so first one: “She eats like a pig.“ Which isn’t a very nice thing to say about someone, but if she’s quite... Makes a mess and a lot of noise, you know what a pig eats like, she eats like a pig. So it’s not a very nice thing to say about someone, but it’s comparing “she“, a woman or a girl, comparing her to the way a pig eats. “She eats like a pig.“ So that’s a simile. So, a similar example to that is: “He drinks like a fish.“ This usually means alcohol. Not just water, but it’s usually alcohol; beer, wine, whisky, anything. “He drinks like a fish.“ Again, it’s not a nice thing to say about somebody, but it can sometimes be true, so... Of course, fish, I don’t know if fish actually drink water, but because they live under water, they’re immersed in water; water is all around them. So that’s the idea, this man who drinks is surrounded by liquid. It’s that sort of idea. “He drinks like a fish.“ Okay, next example is using... We’ve got animals, and fish, and another animal now: “I’ve been working like a dog.“ And that means working really hard. Okay. Working like a dog. You may know a Beatle song called “A Hard Day’s Night“, and that is part of the lyrics of that song. Okay. “I’ve been working like a dog.“ Which is actually true at the moment, but I’ve been quite enjoying it, so that’s all right. Okay. Maybe if you’re talking about two children, a brother and a sister, for example, who are always fighting-this often happens, I think-you can say: “They are fighting like cat and dog.“ Because cats and dogs don’t always... They’re not always very friendly with each other. So traditionally, cats and dogs perhaps fight. So: “They are fighting like cat and dog.“ Okay. So all of these, it’s “like“, comparing. Okay? So two children, human children compared to a cat and a dog because they’re fighting. Okay? Coming back to a little bit like eating, drinking: Smoking is another thing that people do, which isn’t a very healthy thing to do. So if you say to someone: “You smoke like a chimney.“ Cigarettes, cigars, a pipe, maybe, any tobacco. And a chimney is what you get on a house, the smoke comes out of the chimney. There’s the roof of the house, the smoke comes out of the chimney if you have a fire in the house. So if you say to your friend: “You smoke like a chimney.“ it’s not a very nice thing to say, but maybe you will persuade them to stop smoking, because it’s very bad for your health. Okay. So, that’s a very common expression anyway. And then finally in this section, you can say... If you’re waiting for something and you’re waiting a really long time, you can say: “It’s like watching paint dry.“ If you’ve been painting a wall or a door with a paint and a brush, when you’ve painted something, it takes a few hours for the paint to dry. So if you’re waiting for something to happen, and you’re waiting, and you’d rather like it to happen quite quickly, but you’ve been waiting 10 minutes and it’s still not happening, you can say: “It’s like watching paint dry.“