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Shadowing practice: Do you ever 'FLY off the HANDLE' ? Learn English phrases #learnenglish

Listen to the line, then say it out loud
Line 1

Full transcript

  1. Here is an interesting phrase that we often use when describing a person who becomes angry or outraged within a very short time.0:03
  2. This phrase is often used towards someone who has suddenly reacted to a particular thing.0:13
  3. Today's phrase is, fly off the handle.0:19
  4. This phrase relates to a type of behaviour, a reaction to something that has just occurred.0:25
  5. A person reacts strongly to something within a very short period of time, an instant reaction that may seem too much for the other person to accept.0:32
  6. The person reacting has become angry almost instantly.0:44
  7. They fly off the handle.0:49
  8. They instantly become angry.0:52
  9. Their reaction is over the top.0:55
  10. You might describe this phrase as an indication that someone has just over reacted.0:59
  11. To fly off the handle means to react to something normally without warning.1:06
  12. Your neighbour might park their car slightly too close to your house.1:12
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  1. You go outside and you immediately start shouting and screaming at them.1:16
  2. You fly off the handle.1:22
  3. Your sudden outrage seems unfair and unnecessary.1:25
  4. A small incident has been made worse because of your sudden overreaction.1:31
  5. Sometimes flying off the handle can result in the situation turning out much worse than it should have.1:37
  6. Sometimes a person will fly off the handle because they are feeling stressed or upset by something else.1:45
  7. The small incident they are reacting to is a sign that they are overstressed.1:54
  8. A person who flies off the handle might be dealing with other problems that are more serious.2:01
  9. The general sense of flying off the handle is to suddenly become angry.2:08
  10. An oversensitive person will often fly off the handle without warning.2:14
  11. They become upset easily.2:20
  12. They are quick to anger.2:24
  13. They become angry almost instantly.2:27
  14. A person who reacts in this way might be told not to overreact.2:31
  15. There is no need to fly off the handle with me.2:37
  16. He has a habit of flying off the handle over every problem that comes along.2:40
  17. Do you ever become angry without warning?2:46
  18. Do you ever fly off the handle?2:50
  19. Sometimes it is a good idea to take a deep breath before losing one's temper.2:54
  20. Breathe in deeply and count to ten and then you might find that the thing you were about to get angry over is not as serious as you first thought.3:03

British commentary at B1: english speaking practice with 'fly off the handle'

Mr Duncan spends the whole clip on a single idiom, "fly off the handle", turning it over from several angles: what it means, who it is used about, and what it looks like in an ordinary neighbourly row. It is one voice with no dialogue to follow, moving at 145 words per minute and articulated clearly in a British accent, which makes it a solid target for english speaking practice at B1.

There is no plot to track, just a teacher building the same shape of sentence again and again across 32 lines, so the idiom and its word family (reacted, reacting, overreaction) come back at you from different directions. That repetition is what makes this clip worth picking for english shadowing practice: the sentences are short enough to hold in your mouth, and you get several tries at the same pattern before the clip ends.

The language in this clip: how to pronounce english words around one idiom

Duncan builds his example slowly, in three connected steps. "Your neighbour might park their car slightly too close to your house" sets the scene, "You go outside and you immediately start shouting and screaming at them" escalates it, and the payoff lands flat: "You fly off the handle." Say the three lines in a row and you can hear the pitch climb through the second line and drop for the idiom itself, which is the intonation worth copying if you want to speak english fluently on a phrase like this rather than just recognise it.

  • "Today's phrase is, fly off the handle." The comma before the idiom is a real pause in his delivery, not just punctuation. Match the pause rather than running the sentence together.
  • "There is no need to fly off the handle with me." A complete, standalone use of the idiom inside a warning, useful for repeating as one self contained unit.
  • "Sometimes it is a good idea to take a deep breath before losing one's temper." A longer sentence, good for practising how to hold your pacing across a full breath at his 145 words per minute.

A line order for shadowing this B1 monologue on losing your temper

Work the clip in passes rather than trying to match it all at once.

  • Listen to lines 1 to 3 once with your mouth shut, just to hear how Duncan sets up "Today's phrase is, fly off the handle" before he defines it.
  • Shadow lines 12 to 14 as one connected unit: "Your neighbour might park their car slightly too close to your house", "You go outside and you immediately start shouting and screaming at them", "You fly off the handle." The idiom only lands with its setup attached, so practise all three together.
  • Isolate line 27, "There is no need to fly off the handle with me", and shadow this line five times on its own until the idiom stops feeling like a quote and starts feeling like something you would actually say.
  • Finish on lines 31 and 32, "Sometimes it is a good idea to take a deep breath before losing one's temper" and "Breathe in deeply and count to ten and then you might find that the thing you were about to get angry over is not as serious as you first thought." Both slow down, which gives you room for clear, unhurried pronunciation before you move to the next clip.
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