Learn New English Expressions – A Piece of Cake
Today you will learn 4 (or 5!) super-duper easily digestible food related idioms. You will go nuts with today’s expressions. You will learn: a piece of cake, easy as pie, easy peasey lemon squeezey and cool bananas! Enjoy :)
Related Episodes
Episode 081 – Still At the Supermarket (Useful English Phrases)
Episode 094 – Sheet vs Sh*t Beach vs Bitch Sheep vs Ship (Homophones)
Episode 092 – How to Pronounce These Words in English (Can’t, Recipe, Receipt and More)
Episode 119 – Work Off That Junk Food
Episode 124 – Food and Drinks – English Vocabulary Part 1
Episode 097 – To Go On A Diet (Plus Two Linking Words)
Transcript (A Piece of Cake)
Hi guys, you are listening to the English Made Simple Show, this is episode number 125, number one hundred and twenty five – numero veinticinco.
Welcome to the Short and Sweet episode of the English Made Simple show, my name is Milena from www.englishmadesimple.net, and I was just wondering, is anybody hungry? Are you feeling hungry?
If you are not hungry yet, you will be after today’s episode.
Today we are going to learn about English expressions related to food. And not just any food, but more specifically sweet food! Related to sweet food! Deliciously sweet food! mhhmmmm!
We are only going to learn a handful of expressions, 3 or 4, something that you can remember quickly and start using straight after you finish listening to me blab today.
By end of today’s episode you will become one smart cookie, because you will be able to use these new expressions in your daily conversations. You can add them to you daily conversations.
That’s the idea, that’s what I want you to get out of today’s show.
And you guessed it – to be a smart cookie – was your first expression. That’s your first expression.
1. To Be a Smart cookie – in other words, an intelligent and clever person.
I use this expression a lot and I hear it used by native speakers as well. It is a common expression. You can compliment someone by telling them that they are a smart cookie.
A smart cookie is someone who is clever – like you and me – and someone who is good at dealing with difficult situations but also someone who is able to solve difficult and tricky problems. A smart cookie!
An example: I am such a smart cookie, I can count till 5! 1-2-3-4-5.
Ok, easy peasy lemon squeezy so far? Cool bananas!
Haha so many food expressions here haha and there will be more next week.
I am just wondering, is anyone of you using the expression ‘Cool bananas’? Is anyone out there, any of my listeners using the expressions Cool Bananas? ‘Cause I use it often!
Cool bananas – I’ve heard people use Cool Bananas here in Australia, but it doesn’t have to be restricted to Australian English, you can use it in the US, UK, Canada, anywhere really. People will just assume you want to say ‘Cool, that’s great!’ Cool bananas, sounds great!
Don’t worry amigos y amigas, all the expressions you are learning now are easy as pie!
Well I make it sound as easy as pie! ‘Cause I am such a smart cookie! Anyway!
And that’s your second expression today.
2. As easy as pie or easy as pie – pie like ‘pastel o pie’ in Spanish
It means the same as when I say – easy peasy lemon squeezy! You hear me say this a number of times before as well.
You hear me say this quite often – easy peasy lemon squeezy and cool bananas!
Apparently, this expression is from a TV commercial. The expression ‘easy peasy lemon squeezy’.
I had to look up the origin of this phrase. I hear other people use it but I didn’t know where it originated from so I had to check it out.
So I’ve done a bit of research and found that it’s from a detergent commercial from the UK. It’s a detergent – like the dish washing liquid.
Anyways, in the US it’s more common to say – easy as pie! That’s the most common expression. The expression is short for – as easy as eating a pie!
‘Pie’ is a tasty dish – it can be sweet or savoury – savoury is opposite of sweet – and it is easy to make apparently – if you like to make pies, you might know! And even easier to eat. That’s what I am good at, eating pies. Hence the expression, easy as pie! Easy to eat!
Let’s use it in an example: Navigating the English Made Simple website is as easy as pie.
Meaning, extremely easy, very simple.
It’s a piece of cake, right?. A-ha!
3. A piece of cake – It’s a piece of cake! In Spanish this could be translated as: Super fácil in Spanish.
According to Weon Inteligente or the Online Dictionary – a piece of cake is the phrase used when you want to explain that something is easy to do, when you have an easy task to do.
For example: You may think that today’s expressions are hard, but they will be a piece of cake once you start using them and practising them. You will get better at these expressions and they will be a piece of cake!
Notice how I didn’t say – piss of cake – but a piece of cake. That ‘I’ sound is longer ‘I’. If you say a piss of cake – it means you are going to the toilet to take a piss, in other words urinate. And we don’t want to do that, well not yet at least.
Alright let’s not get distracted now – all you should remember for now is the expression – a piece of cake– oh wow that was a piece of cake!
And now it’s time for you amigos y amigas to go nuts using the expressions. Just go nuts with it. Go crazy. Use them whenever you get a chance.
Your next expression and I think it’s the last one for today – we will learn more next week so don’t worry be happy – so your next expression is to go nuts.
4. To go nuts – to go crazy, to go bananas. In other words to go bananas! Volverse loco –in Spanish
And I just gave you 2 more expressions – to go crazy and to go bananas, is same as to go nuts.
When someone goes nuts they are hyper and have a lot of energy. It can also mean to become a little bit insane or crazy but not to the point of being clinically insane.
And to go bananas – to go mildly crazy, overcome with emotions, it’s more like ‘to act like you are a crazy person’ and not be clinically insane.
For example: My husband is going to go bananas when he sees I didn’t do the dishes today, oops!
So who’s up for some chocolate cake? I am getting hungry, all this talk about cake made me really hungry. Craving sugar now… yum yum yum.
And there we go amigos y amigas. Wasn’t that as easy as pie? It sure was, as easy as the sweet pumpkin pie.
Practise the expressions we learnt today – just go nuts with it – and don’t worry, it’ll be as easy as pie!
And in the next episode we are going to learn how to describe flavours of various foods. It will be useful for you guys for sure so make sure you tune in to that episode as well.
Don’t forget you can check out the transcripts to all of the episodes on my website, www.englishmadesimple.net, and while you are in there you can click on the link Learn With Me to start speaking English today.
Thank you for joining me today amigos y amigas, you’ve been an amazing audience as always, thanks for listening and stay healthy, don’t eat too much cake, ok? You’ve been jamming with Milena, until next time, hasta la proxima!