イギリス英会話ブログ

A ‘cliché’ (pronounced ‘cleeshay’) is an expression that is used so often that it is very familiar to most speakers of a language. At first, of course, a cliche is an original expression that someone thought of. But then the expression spreads and catches on, until everyone is using it, or at least, understands it.

In this post, I am going to list some common cliches. To give proper credit where credit is due, I got the idea for this post from an article in the Japan Times which presented some cliches in Japanese for English speakers. I don’t feel I’m being too naughty stealing the idea as this post is for Japanese speakers!

I’ve put this post in the 上級 category as I think the concept of cliches is most easily grasped by advanced learners even though the meanings themselves are relatively simple. I’ve broken my own rule by providing some info in Japanese.

(1) “I’ve heard that one before.” - means : 「初耳じゃない」 、要するに、意外な話ではなくて普通のよくある話だ、と。So, for example, if you think someone is telling an obvious lie, you might say, ‘I’ve heard that one before.’

(2) “It’s no easy task.” - means simply that something is very difficult. For example, “Convincing her to trust me was no easy task.”

(3) “rake (someone) over the coals” means : 「油をしぼる」. For example, “If you keep turning up late for work you’re going to get raked over the coals.”

(4) “He’s been around the block and back” means : 「経験をつんだ」, in other words, that someone is worldly-wise with lots of practical experience. ‘He’s no fool’ is quite similar.

(5) “I kid you not.” means : 「これはまじやで」, in other words, ‘I am not joking’. People often use this expression after saying something surprising, for example : “He was running around the office naked. I kid you not.”

(6) “Don’t make me laugh!” means : 「笑わせないでよ」.

(7) “He’ll be turning in his grave.” means : 「草葉の陰で泣く」. Like the Japanese, this expression means that the dead person would be ashamed or made angry by someone’s conduct. “Your father will be turning in his grave if you marry that woman.”

(8) “You can’t go wrong.” means : 「まずまちがいない」. This is similar in meaning to ‘It’s a safe bet.’ - ie., there is very little risk of failure.

(9) “Just for the hell of it.” means : 「面白半分」. People often use expressions like ‘raising hell’ to mean ‘having fun’. For some reason, having fun is associated with hell rather than heaven! When you do something for no other reason than to have fun, you are doing it ‘for the hell of it’.

(10) “I wasn’t born yesterday” means : 「青二才じゃないよ」. In English, people do not normally say ‘I’ve been around the block and back’ about themselves because it sounds conceited. This expression is better - ‘I wasn’t born yesterday’, meaning ‘I’m not that stupid and naive, you know?’.

That’s all for this post, but I’ll be introducing some more cliches in my next post.

By the way, you can use these cliches freely in your own speech without sounding unnatural. Like anything, over-using them is not good, though : people sometimes say, ‘That’s such a cliche!’ to mean that something (usually an idea or opinion) is ‘what people always say about something without really thinking about it’.