What is your favorite fruit?
Have you heard people talk about fruit in English?
This may be something that comes up a lot in conversation, but it’s not always about what you actually eat.
Today we’re going to look at fruit idioms ad you will come to understand what some of the most common ones are, so that you can try them out in conversation.
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Talking About Fruit In An Unconventional Way
Fruit is something that seems to be a favorite topic of conversation.
You may hear people talking about fruit a lot in English, but it’s not always what you might think.
There are a lot of fruit idioms out there, and they can be a really fun addition to your conversation.
Today we are looking at fruit idioms, and you will come to understand some of the most common ones so you can try them out.
We used “lemon” in Episode 1404, AEE 1404 Is Something Off? How To Share Your Intuition In English and that’s a great one to check out.
This inspired us to teach you some fruit idioms, and you will find that there are a lot of them that are super fun.
These are the type of idioms that center around a particular topic or theme.
The fun part of these is that they don’t even have anything to do with the actual fruit that you eat.
This is about using phrases that have become I love doing episodes where we chat about idioms dealing with a particular topic/theme.
This may be very helpful to you for learning.
Once you learn these you can begin to try them out in your conversations, and they can really help you to sound like a native.
They can also help you to make connections and to talk about something fun, which is a great way to keep things interesting.
Some Great Fruit Idioms
There are more fruit idioms than you might think, and they can be a lot of fun to use.
They typically don’t have anything to do with the actual fruit, but they are phrases that have come to be a common part of conversation.
Learn these and then try them out for a fun addition and way of boosting your language speaking.
- Apples and oranges: You are likely to hear this all the time, and you may even hear it used in political debates by the commentators. This is used to talk about comparing two things that aren’t really related to one another. They really shouldn’t be compared, but they are sometimes. This is a way of saying that these are two different items that you are dealing with, and therefore it’s become a very common expression in this area.
Let’s look at a couple of examples of how this can work in conversation. Lindsay: “Which is better- living in NY or being near the beach?”
Michelle: “Well, it’s really apples and oranges, Lindsay. They both have benefits and aren’t even really close.”
Michelle: “Was the weather better last year?”
Lindsay: “Oh Michelle, it’s apples and oranges. We had a huge hurricane, so of course things were much cooler here last year.”
- Peachy/peachy keen/you’re a peach: There are several variations centered around the word “peach” and they all mean good or great. They work a bit differently in their approach and application, but they all are intended to mean that something is good or favorable or positive.
- Peachy: This may be the most common and it’s easy enough to use. You could say something like “Everything’s just pretty peachy now!” This tends to be said in a rather sarcastic way.
- Peachy keen: This is the same idea but almost like a cuter version of it. You could say something like “I’m doing peachy keen. I got a glass of lemonade and everything.”
- You’re a peach: This is saying something like you’re sweet or you’re so kind. It can also be used in a sarcastic way too. You could say something like “My best friend is canceling on me again. She’s a real peach.”
- Low-hanging fruit: This is one that you may hear used a lot in business. This is talking about something that is the easiest or clearest thing that can be done or completed. It’s something that you can go after first because it should be easy for you to get it off of your to do list. So it’s quite common to hear it used in a business setting for that reason.
If you were to use this idiom, it could go something like this. Lindsay: “When you are starting your week, do you like to begin with the low-hanging fruit, or do you do the most challenging thing first?
- Top banana: This means to be a leader or to be successful. It’s being at the top of your game or being at the best possible position. This is such a great position to be in because it means that you have accomplished something. You could say something like “My best friend is top banana at her firm, so maybe she can get you an interview!”
Roleplay To Help
These are so much fun to use, and you can see that in this roleplay.
Here in this roleplay, Lindsay and Michelle are talking about a task for work.
Lindsay: “Okay so what should we start with?”
Michelle: “Let’s go with the low-hanging fruit and get those graphs over with.”
Lindsay: “Sounds peachy.”
Michelle: “Did the top banana tell us what to do?” (sarcastic)
Lindsay: “Yeah, he gave us some guidelines, but I haven’t looked yet. Do you think last year was easier at work or this year?”
Michelle: “Oh wow, Lindsay- you’re comparing apples and oranges. They are totally different because our team changed so much.”
Lindsay: “That’s true.”
Takeaway
These are very common, and as you can see there are plenty of them.
They are a really fun addition to conversation, and they are also very frequently used by natives.
They can help to take your English speaking up a level, and so you want to try them out.
Try them in conversation and see how they go over, for they can help you to build confidence with speaking and also help you to build connections.
If you have any questions, please leave them below in the comments section.
We’ll get back to you as soon as we can.
