- Hello everyone, and welcome back to English With Lucy.

You might have noticed my new backdrop today.

This is a terrace that is at my flat,

my new flat in Cambridge, and I decided to film here

because it's a nice day, and I haven't got much time,

so I really wanted to squeeze in an extra video.

I asked you on my Instagram what sort of expressions

and idioms you'd like to hear about today,

and a lot of you had some really, really good suggestions.

One caught my eye,

and that is idioms and expressions relating to love.

Ahh, how sweet.

You really are a romantic bunch, aren't you?

So today, we're going to talk through

10 idioms that relate to love.

And I think this is going to be

a really lovely positive one.

Hopefully you'll leave the lesson

with a warm, fuzzy feeling.

So this lesson is going to help you improve your vocabulary.

(sneezes)

(sneezes)

It will also help you with your speaking,

because you'll be able to communicate with native speakers,

and make yourself understood more effectively,

and it will also help you with your listening,

because you'll be able to understand what natives

are trying to say to you when they use these expressions.

However, I think you know what's coming next.

If you want to take your listening to the next level,

then why not try Audible.com?

I can offer you a one-month free trial,

that's an entire free audiobook,

and you can use these audiobooks to practise your listening,

and your pronunciation, so you can listen to a book

whilst reading it, and that's an amazing way

of creating your own listening exercise

that you are really interested in.

Honestly, there are so many options,

self-help, fiction, nonfiction, stories.

I've also left some links to books

that I recommend you listen to.

There's the Harry Potter collection read by Stephen Fry,

there's Sherlock, there's The Curious Incident

of the Dog in the Night-Time, I can't remember if I've said

that title correctly, but it's a fantastic book,

and a fantastic Broadway show in London.

That one's particularly good,

because it's written from the point of view

of an autistic boy in the first person,

so it's very good if you want to listen

to somebody telling a story in first person,

so that you can then practise your storytelling,

and the language is every so slightly more simple.

So that's a really good recommendation there.

It's down in the description below,

you don't pay anything for the first month,

and if you don't like it, you can cancel it.

Right.

Let's get started with the love and romance idioms.

The first one is a match made in Heaven.

A match made in Heaven.

What do you think it means?

Have a little think.

A match made in Heaven is a couple

that is seemingly perfect.

They are a perfect match.

The relationship is likely to be very, very successful.

They're very good for each other, very good for each other.

It's what we all aspire to be with our partners,

a match made in Heaven.

The next one, number two, is a double date.

A double date.

And you go on a double date.

What do you think it is?

A double date is a date involving two couples.

So if you and your partner go on a date, or out for dinner,

or to the cinema, with another friend and their partner,

that's a double date.

It's a really nice thing to do.

Okay, the next one, number three, is to be an item.

To be an item.

Sounds really obvious, of course I'm an item.

I'm an object.

Don't treat me as an object.

Don't treat me as an object!

To be an item means that you're involved with someone.

So it might be used in a situation like

"Are you two an item?

"Are you two official yet?

"Are you really boyfriend and girlfriend,

"or boyfriend and boyfriend,

or girlfriend and girlfriend, or whatever?"

And you would say "Yeah, we're an item."

It's a nice one.

It's quite slang.

Number four, you might have heard this before.

It is to be head over heels in love.

And this just means to be really,

really in love with someone.

And you can also fall head over heels in love,

"I fell head over heels in love with him."

Number five is to pop the question.

To pop the question.

I've never had anyone pop the question to me in person.

I've had a couple of email questions.

But to pop the question is to ask

for somebody's hand in marriage.

It means to ask somebody if they would like

to be your husband or wife.

And then, number six, after popping the question,

you then, hopefully, tie the knot.

To tie the knot, and to tie the knot is to get married.

So my mum and dad tied the knot 27 years ago.

Oh my God.

The next one, puppy love.

Oh my God, this one is so cute.

And for my entire childhood, I thought that this was

just that you loved baby dogs, but it's not.

Puppy lug,

puppy lug?

Puppy love is adolescent romance.

You're a teenager, you're young, and you feel like

the most important, most in love, most romantic person

in the world with your boyfriend or girlfriend,

and nothing else matters, all that matters

is your love for that person, that's puppy love,

because it's not necessarily, I'm not gonna say real,

'cause feelings can feel really, really strong,

especially when you're young,

but it's not maybe the most logical thing on Earth.

The next one, number eight, a blind date.

A blind date.

What is a blind date?

Now, it could be a date that can't see,

but not in an idiomatic sense.

A blind date is when somebody else chooses somebody for you,

and sets you up.

When somebody sets you up, that's a good phrasal verb,

to set up, they set you up on a date with somebody

that you don't know, and so you both arrive at this date,

and it's the first time you've met each other.

So that's a blind date.

It can be quite a risky thing,

to leave your love life in the hands of somebody else.

Number nine, to be on the rocks.

To be on the rocks.

This one's not so nice.

If your relationship is on the rocks,

it means there's problems with the relationship,

and you might break up soon.

It's not going well.

So you definitely don't want your relationship

to be on the rocks, but if it is on the rocks,

then hopefully you'll be able to sort it out,

another good phrasal verb there, sort it out,

and fix the problems.

And the final one, to get hitched.

To get hitched.

To get hitched is exactly the same as to tie the knot.

It means to get married.

Right guys, that's it for today's lesson.

Don't forget to sign up for your free trial at Audible.com.

The link is in the description box.

Also, don't forget to connect with me

on all of my social media.

I've got my Facebook, my Instagram, and my Twitter,

and my P.O. box as well, so you guys can send me letters,

because I know a couple of you have been asking

if you can send me cards for my birthday,

and yes you can.

You don't have to, that is so kind.

My birthday's the 10th of June, that's my P.O. box,

if you want to send me a card, that would be lovely,

and I always make an effort to reply

to anybody who sends me letters at present.

I hope you enjoyed the lesson,

I hope you learnt something,

and I will see you very, very soon for another one.

Mwah!

(upbeat electronic music)