You have two English vocabularies. I call them your active vocabulary and your passive vocabulary. Your active vocabulary consists of words you use every day. Because you use your active vocabulary every day, you make fewer mistakes when speaking and when writing. An example of your active vocabulary would be something like this:
"Yo, dude. What's up?"
"Nothing. How about you?"
"Not much. Just reading this blog."
"Learning anything?"
"Definitely. I love Spanish."
As you can see, your active vocabulary is based on informal conversation. Idioms are also part of your active vocabulary ("dude"). However, you know more English idioms than you actually use. All those idioms you know, but don't often use, are part of your passive vocabulary. Because you don't use these idioms every day, there is a good chance you will make a mistake when using them, especially on the TOEFL test. I know. I see this all the time. On the TOEFL iBT, incorrect idiom usage demonstrates a lack of proficient language use. What should you do? Don't try and impress the speaking and writing raters with a lot of idioms. Use an idiom(s) only if you are 100% sure you are using it correctly. Correctly means the right context.
Look at the paragraph below. Can you identify any idiom problems?
A new airport in my hometown will create new jobs for young people. In my hometown, when young people graduate from high school and college, out of the blue they leave and go to the big cities. In the cities, there are more jobs and a better future. However, if we had a new airport, the young people would go crazy because there would be new jobs. There would be jobs like construction and catering, as well other jobs connected to the airline business like hotels and restaurants. This would be good because more new jobs means the young people will have a reason to stay and develop the economy of my hometown.
The problem is the idiom "out of the blue." Out of the blue means suddenly. However, "out of the blue" also means unexpectedly. This suggests surprise. Is it surprising that students leave for the big cities after graduating? No. All students do it. It is expected therefore it is not a surprise (not out of the blue).
As you can see, the idiom out of the blue is in the wrong context. The result is a loss of coherence. Notice also how an idiom in the wrong place changes the tone of another wise excellent body paragraph. A native speaker (a writing or speaking rater) will notice this idiom problem immediately. A rater will also notice "go crazy." In this context, "go crazy" means you are so happy you lose control. Once again, wrong idiom, wrong context. Combined, these language use errors will impact scoring.
Remember: Fewer idiom errors = greater coherence = higher speaking and writing scores = a higher final TOEFL iBT score.
Want to know more language use strategies? Check out my TOEFL text Speaking and Writing Strategies for the TOEFL iBT and 500 Words, Phrases, and Idioms for the TOEFL iBT plus Typing Strategies.
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- Mr. and Mrs. iBT -
