Want to describe someone’s talent like a native speaker? In this lesson, I’ll teach you 15 essential English idioms and expressions to describe people who are *“gifted,” “prodigies,”* or even those who are a bit clumsy. Can you *hold your own,* or are you *all thumbs?* https://www.engvid.com/15-idioms-for-skills/
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In this lesson: 0:00 Vocabulary: Describe people with talent... and no talent! 0:20 prodigy 1:11 gifted 1:52 natural born & born to 2:36 have the gift/touch/eye... 3:34 hold one's own 4:08 jack of all trades 4:58 virtuoso 6:00 inept, incompetent, helpless 6:28 couldn't do ________ if she tried 6:58 couldn't do ______ if he had a gun to his head 7:23 clumsy 7:37 butterfingers 7:55 to have two left feet 8:18 all thumbs 8:35 has-been
Transcript: Hi, everybody. Welcome to www.engvid.com. I'm Adam. In today's video, I want to give you some expressions to describe talented people or the opposite, people who have no talents, who are actually quite untalented or unskilled at something. So, I'm going to start with the talented expressions and then we'll switch to the other ones.
So, I'm going to start with "prodigy". A prodigy is someone who exhibits very special skills or abilities in something, but this person wasn't really taught or taught very little bit about something. So, for example, and actually, before I get into that, it's very common to use this word to describe kids, children, because adults had enough time to learn something. Kids pick something up or just have a very natural gift with something for no reason. So, for example, a child watches somebody playing chess, has never played chess before, and suddenly he can play chess very well. This is called a prodigy. He wasn't taught, he just observed and was able to do. And that's very rare to see in people, and we call them prodigies.
Somebody else can be gifted. Now, gifted has a couple of uses. For one thing, if you're very good at something, like art or music or sports, we can say you are gifted. You have special skills, special talents. But we also use this word to describe someone who's very, very smart. It's similar to genius, but maybe a little bit less than genius. We would say gifted, especially for kids, because a genius will always be a genius, but a child is gifted until he or she proves to be a genius, right?
So, very, very smart or very capable at something, which is another expression to explain the same idea, natural born something. So, a natural born athlete has very good skills that come naturally, like, I can't teach you how to be an athlete like this because it's something that you are born with, or you're born to compete, born to play basketball, born to be a writer, born to be a teacher, born to be whatever it is that you do because you do it so well, and you seem so naturally, you know, connected to that thing that you're doing. So, both of these, natural born something, born to do. Born to verb, natural born noun, just keep that in mind.
Now, especially when we're talking about artists or musicians or even, like, doctors, somebody who's very good with his or her hands, they have the gift. The gift, again, some people say a gift from God, other people say a gift from the universe, other people just say gift, I don't want to get into all that as well. So, if you have the gift, it means you're very good at whatever it is that you're doing. So, someone who's a very good cook, she has the gift or she has the touch, she knows just how much spice to put in, she knows just when to turn off the heat or turn up the heat, she knows just when that smell is perfect and serves the dish, or he, as the case may be. Have the gift, the touch, or the eye. The eye, again, especially for an artist, he has the eye, he knows how to touch things, or a designer, or a photographer, anyone who does anything visual, he or she has the eye that touches the gift, and so on.
Now, "to hold one's own" means to be capable. It doesn't mean especially talented, but it means can do, right? So, if you say to me, "Oh, you're a pretty good artist", I can hold my own. It's a little bit like showing some humility. So, I'm not going to say, "Yeah, I'm a genius. I'm the best artist you've ever seen." I can hold my own. It means, yes, I can do it. And usually, people who say that are pretty talented if they can say this expression with a straight face.
"A jack of all trades" is a person who can do many, many different things. Now, there's a full expression, "jack of all trades, master of none". So, it goes... It can be read in two ways. If you only say somebody's a jack of all trades, you think he's very talented, he can do all kinds of different things. […]