Daily English Phrases for Advanced Students

Learn REAL English with new English phrases every day!

PhraseMix.com teaches advanced English that you can use in the real world, not just on a test. Don't learn grammar and vocabulary separately; learn them at the same time by memorizing these common phrases.

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For example:

“Pay up!”

You made a bet with your friend about a baseball game. You just won the bet, so now you want your friend to pay you the money that he owes you. You say:

Pay up!

pay up!

This is a phrase that you say to make a friend pay you after you win a bet. If you used it with people you don't know well, or with your friends in other situations, it might seem rude. But it's a perfect phrase for friendly bets.

“I bet you a hundred dollars the Mets are going to lose.”

You're having a friendly disagreement with your friend about who's going to win a baseball game. You're really sure that the Mets are going to lose the game, so you say:

I bet you a hundred dollars the Mets are going to lose.

I bet you (an amount of money)(clause)

In a serious bet, you pay money to someone if they've guessed correctly, and they pay you if you guessed correctly. To start a bet, you say "I bet you (some amount) that (something will happen). For example:

I bet you twenty bucks that you can't name all of the states in the United States without looking at a map.

But people also use this form when talking in casual situations just to show that they're really sure of their guesses. In this type of situation, the two people aren't really making a bet. In the example above, it's not clear whether the speaker is really making a bet or not. The other person needs to ask whether the speaker is serious.

To make it clear that you're not really making a bet, you can give an exaggerated wager:

“I bet you a million dollars the Mets are going to lose.”

Or you can leave the amount out:

I bet you the Mets are going to lose.

By the way, when I pronounce "bet you" it sounds like "betcha"