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Hello! This week on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question from Emmanuel in France about how to know if an expression is still popular in English.

Question

Dear Teacher,

Sometimes when I am reading or watching the older films, I find some interesting expressions. But I do not know if the people are speaking them nowadays. How can I figure this out?

Thank you,

Emmanuel

Answer

I'm happy to answer this question, Emmanuel.

It can sometimes be very difficult for learners of English to know if a word or expression sounds like it belongs to an earlier time.

For example, if you watch an older American film from the 1930s, you might hear the expression:

Gee¹, that's swell²!

The expression "that's swell" means that something is good, and that the speaker is pleased. But nowadays people do not commonly say that. And if they do say it, they are probably saying it in a joking way because they know the expression is rare and not currently³ used.

Here are some ways to help you find out if an expression belongs to an earlier time:

Language exchange partners

Find a native English language partner. Then you can ask him or her if expressions are no longer used very much. Our VOA Learning⁴ English article "Five Tips for Great Language Exchanges" gives advice on how you can do a language exchange.

Note, however, that native English speakers can have different opinions about what expressions are still popular. That is because people in different age groups use different expressions. For example, a 20-year-old person might not even know a few of the expressions that older people still use. And some older people do not know expressions that young people, such as teenagers, use. Also, some older people might not even know that expressions they use are becoming less popular over time.

Using a corpus and dictionaries

You can also use technology to get more information about expressions.

Language researchers have collected over one billion words in the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). The examples come from American printed writing, video, and sound recordings⁵.

You can use COCA to get information about how often an expression is used. It will not tell you if an expression sounds out-of-date. But an expression might rarely be used because it sounds old.

This VOA Learning English Education Tips article gives information on how to use COCA.

Lastly, dictionaries will show if a word belongs to an earlier time by putting the word "archaic⁶" before its definition⁷.

Remember that it is more important to understand idiomatic⁸ expressions than to be able to use them. That's because you can always express your ideas without using idioms in simple language.

For our readers and listeners, what are your questions about American English? We want to hear from you! Send us an email at learningenglish@voanews.com. And please let us know where you are from, too.

And that's Ask a Teacher.

I'm Andrew Smith.

Andrew Smith wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English.

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Words in This Story

out-of-date -adj. old, not current, or no longer in use

archaic -adj. from an earlier time, not used any longer

idiomatic -adj. related to the use of idioms which are terms that do not mean what the words that form them would suggest