English, like many languages, uses a lot of idioms referring to animals. You may have heard the English expression "as hungry as a horse" (very hungry) or "monkey see, monkey do" (when somebody copies somebody else). What these expressions have in common in all languages is that they refer to some quality that is associated with a specific animal in that culture: Horses eat a lot of food and monkeys can be mimics—always compared to humans, of course. Let's take a look today at some English animal expressions.

All of the sudden, one of the orcas made a beeline in this direction.

Caption 2, National Geographic: WILD Killer Whale vs. Great White Shark

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Similar to the English expression "as the crow flies"—meaning the fastest way between two points is a straight line—the phrase "to make a beeline" means "to go quickly" or "to go directly." Speaking of bees:

Leave me the birds and the bees.

Caption 21, Counting Crows with Vanessa Carlton: Big Yellow Taxi

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The phrase "to know about the birds and the bees" means "to have received education about sex," but it is often used as a general metaphor for sex. And now we're on to birds:

I killed two birds with one stone!

Caption 36, English: Common Phrases

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This expression fortunately has nothing to do with actually killing any poor birds, but means "to get two (or more) things done at once." There's also another somewhat similar idiom, "better a bird in the hand than two in the bush." This means it is better to actually have something real than risk losing it by trying to get something better. Speaking of birds again:

Well if he wants to play chicken, this rooster ain't backing down.

Caption 15, How I Met Your Mother: The Perfect Cocktail

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The phrase "to play chicken" means to play a dangerous game to see who is bravest. A famous movie used this as part of its plot: In the film Rebel without a Cause, the actors James Dean and Corey Allen "play chicken" by racing cars towards the edge of a cliff to see who will dare to stay in the car the longest before jumping out. Spoiler alert: it doesn't end well!

At that moment, the witch realized that there was something fishy, and started yelling at her.

Captions 45-46, Fairy Tales: Rapunzel

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The usual expression is "something fishy is going on," and it means that something about a person or a situation is suspicious or not as it appears. It probably comes from the fact that even though a fish at the market may look fine, it smells bad if it is no longer fresh.

Further Learning
Go to Yabla English and study the captions in the videos above to get a better idea of the contexts in which they have been used. You can also go to this site and see some other English phrases that use animals.

An idiom is basically a phrase that is figurative and used to describe literal situations with words that may not be clear to a non-native speaker. Last month we went through a selection of common idioms, and in this lesson we can go through some more that you may hear when you are speaking English with somebody.

So I think to kitesurf all year around,

um, as a job and to do it 24/7,

you need a break, and I mean, it may not seem like time off!

Captions 19-21, Sam Light - In a Nutshell

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The slang expression "24/7" is best explained in this video: 

It's basically 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Caption 22, World's Toughest Job - Official Video

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What do you want to get off your chest?

Caption 16, Comic-Con 2015 - Jennifer Lawrence

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To "get something off your chest" is to admit something that has been bothering you.

Alaska's wide and very isolated mountains ranges are a paradise for these animals,

but a nightmare for us,

because it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

Captions 35-37, Nature & Wildlife - Search for the Ghost Bear

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A needle is a small, very fine object, and to find it in a haystack, which consists of countless fine pieces of hay, is very difficult indeed—and this phrase thus means that something is very difficult or nearly impossible. 

If I was, for instance, being put into a courtroom with lawyers,

I am not a lawyer,

so therefore, I would feel like a fish out of water.

Captions 14-16, English - Common Phrases

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To feel "like a fish out of water" thus means to feel out of place or uncomfortable.

Hang in there, guys!

Caption 56, Movie Trailers - Disney's Frozen

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To "hang in there" means to be patient and to wait for something.

But they don't know where they're going

in the fast lane.

Captions 16-17, Echosmith - Cool Kids

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This is often used in the expression "to live life in the fast lane," which means figuratively to live an exciting or stressful lifestyle, which may, depending upon the context, be a good or bad thing. The phrase is often about somebody who is on the verge of losing control of their life. A song by the 1970s pop group the Eagles called "Life in the Fast Lane" states that it will "surely make you lose your mind."  

Further Learning
Go to Yabla English and watch the "Common English" videos Part I and Part II to learn more about some English idioms. 

The verb "to be" is, in its infinitive form, part of one of the most famous lines in world literature:

To be, or not to be, that is the question.

—from "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare

Most verbs describe action, but "to be" describes a state of being: how or what you are or how somebody is. The present tense conjugation of "to be" is: I am; he, she, or it is; you are; they are; and we are.

"To be" can describe your name and your profession:

My name is Jack Thomas. I am a finance student here.

Caption 1, An American - in London

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It can describe how you are feeling:

I've never been to New York before, and I am so excited to go!

Caption 16, English with Lauren - Emotions

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If the sentence is a negation, the word "not" appears after the verb:

I am not a lawyer.

Caption 15, English - Common Phrases

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In the first person singular, "I am" is often contracted to "I'm"; "he is," "she is," or "it is" to "he's," "she's," or "it's"; "you are" to "you're"; "they are" to "they're" and "we are" to "we're":

Today we're at the top of the Empire State Building.

Caption 3, English for Beginners - Letters and Numbers

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See how we're part of the global economy?

Caption 13, Dissolve Inc. - Generic Brand Video

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Further Learning 
Browse some videos at Yabla English and find some other examples of the verb "to be" used in context in real conversations.