Welcome to our Daily English Listening Practice with this week’s series:

10 Common English Expressions
to Control Your Emotions

Have you ever needed to give some advice to someone who is stressing out or starting to get emotional, and they need a little encouragement? Use these common English expressions in everyday conversation and as different phrases for giving advice in English.

Listen to the English audio clips for information and pronunciation.

Get a Grip

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Notes: used when you think someone is overreacting or shouldn’t be stressing about something, can be used when you’re annoyed as well.

Get a Hold of Yourself

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Notes: used when someone has been sad or crying for a while, it may be good to use it if someone is being irrational because they let their emotions take control

Pull Yourself Together

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Notes: can be used as an encouragement for someone who has had time to let go of their emotions; it can also be used to tell someone to stop acting crazy, maybe because you need to be serious or you are out in public

Don’t Bottle it All Up

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Notes: don’t keep your emotions inside; some people may need to let go of their emotions in order to solve their problems

Get it Out of Your System

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Notes: your system is your mind or your body; sometimes keeping your emotions inside isn’t good for you and you need to let it out in some way, possibly very quickly but very emotionally, people often use sports or exercise to help get rid of tension or stress

Do you Need to Vent?

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Notes: venting is just being able to talk for a while about something, whether you’re complaining or simply saying what happened out loud to figure out a problem; people don’t always want advice when they’re venting, sometimes they just need a good listener

Go On a Rant

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Notes: a very long complaint, usually it is very emotional or can be angry; if you’d like your friends to listen to you, let them know: “hey I need to rant about this” or “I’m about to go on a rant” so they can be prepared!

Let it Out

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Notes: similar to Get it Out of Your System, let it out: the “it” is usually anger or frustration; this can be an action like screaming or complaining or yelling to let the anger out

Don’t Let them Get the Better of You

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Notes: don’t let people see you get emotional, especially if the person or people bothering you want to see get emotional; also: “Don’t sink/stoop to their level” meaning be better than the other person, don’t become a part of the problem; “Don’t let them get a rise out of you” meaning don’t let them make you angry.

Lost my Composure

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Notes: great for apologies in any situation if you feel like you lost control of your emotions, whether it’s sadness, anger, frustration, it doesn’t matter, this is a very easy phrase to use. “I’m sorry I lost my control, it won’t happen again.”

Cliches

These phrases probably won’t be in any textbooks, but they are already a little overused in natural language, you can use them for fun, or being sarcastic, but if you want to be taken seriously, it’s probably best to avoid these!

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Cool your Jets
Pump the Brakes
Slow Your Roll
Calm Your Tits (NSFW very informal!)
Keep a Stiff Upper Lip

Thanks,

Kat and Mark

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