I am going to teach you many useful phrases that you can use to talk about ability or inability and if you are someone who enjoys building your vocabulary Please Subscribe turn on notifications that way I can become your teacher my name is West the channel is interactive English it's all about trying to help you reach your fluency goals now there are many phrases that you can use to talk about ability or inability here are some very common ones if I said he is good at teaching English or inability he sucks at teaching English these are very common phrases but what I would like to do is give you a little bit of variety so that you can use phrases that may be a little more captivating and interesting when talking about these things now before we get started I just want to let you know if you would like to build your vocabulary practice your speaking skills you can check out my speaking course it's for intermediate to Advanced Learners it's it's all about trying to help you speak confidently speak clearly and speak naturally check out the link Down Below in the description if you'd like to sign up or learn more about the course so let's start with ability if you want to say that you're good at something but we don't want to use good at it's very common maybe we want to be a little more precise and in this case you could say you have a knack for something she has a knack for negotiating this means that you have a skill or just a natural ability to do something well and just to give you some more examples uh I could say I have a knack for falling asleep quickly it's something that I can just do naturally or he has a knack for telling stories he does it well and then she has a knack of being at the wrong place at the wrong time one thing that I want to point out is that most of the time you're going to say somebody has a knack for something however ever you may find that it's sometimes followed by the preposition of you have This brilliant Knack of getting your own way now I will say that overwhelmingly I think you're going to say that someone has a knack for doing something I have a knack for Impressions chosen your opponents wise living I have a KN for it the next phrase is proficient at he is extremely proficient at coding this simply means skilled or experienced it's really a way of adding emphasis instead of just saying that someone is good at something you can say they're very proficient at this thing now I would like to point out that you may follow this adjective with either at in or with and I've given you some examples to help you be a little more precise if we're talking about specific things then you're going to follow it with at I'm proficient at setting up a tent I like to go camping so I'm very proficient at doing this if we're talking about General subjects then you can use in she is proficient into two languages I'm sure that you are proficient in English and then finally she's proficient with knives when talking about tools that we use so just something to keep in mind when using this word proficient at proficient in proficient with I think most of the time you're going to use proficient at but I could also use Adept at she is adept at problem solving so this really implies that you have a natural ability to do something that well requires skill and to give you a little more context here are some news headlines using this phrase Montreal companies are Adept at meeting employee needs or February Creature Feature foxes are surprisingly Adept at and then I I forgot what the the rest of the article sorry to to keep you in suspense but they're Adept at something and then finally Barat Adept at making a challenging task look easy the next phrase is masterful at I I don't think this is as commonly used I could say I am masterful at taking selfies this just means you have a lot of skill in a particular job or activity now I I will say I I really did think especially a long time ago that I was masterful at taking selfies I traveled with a disposable camera in the late '90s and basically I would take a lot of selfies and I I never knew what they looked like until I got it developed and then once I got it back I saw like wow I took a lot of decent pictures and I thought yeah I was Adept at taking selfies I'm just going to keep using some of these different phrases I could also say he's masterful at spotting new Talent one thing I want to point out is that you don't always have to use it with the verb to be and then follow it with at I could also use it with nouns and here are some adjective noun collocations with this word a masterful job a masterful performance a masterful game or a masterful tone so again remember that we're talking about skill in a particular activity or or job so it makes sense that you're going to use it with job or performance or game Fred became masterful at leveraging the media to wage his war on J and on Q he masterful performance to give you a point of reference as to how frequently these words are used we can check out engram viewer which allows us to compare how often certain words and phrases are used and they put it on a graph it's very easy to see I was actually surprised when I put in the words proficient Adept and masterful I thought that proficient would probably be more commonly used but as you can see it's a little more common for someone to say you are Adept at something or it is an adjective that you're more likely to come across the next phrase is a natural at my friend is a natural at riding a horse now if you say someone is a natural at something you're really saying that they have an inherent or instinctive ability it's almost like you were born with with this ability and you could say someone is a natural he's a natural at playing chess and I could also use it without specifying what it is I could just say someone is a natural I've never seen someone play so well at chess he's a natural and finally to give you another word if you want to use it as an adjective you could say someone is a natural born and then follow it with a noun she's a natural born swimmer the next phrase is well-versed they are well-versed in the art of deception this means that you really just know a lot about something now to give you some examples using this phrase I thought I'd highlight Cambridge as a source and you could put in well versed and they do give you some different example sentences so you get a better idea as to how it's used in context I'm not going to read through all of these I've underlined where well-versed is in the sentence but just to give you one example it says however it will be of limited use to researchers who are already well-versed in these debates and it will not convert any scientific naturalist then I want to teach you the phrase when it comes to now this is not specifically used to talk about ability but we can use it to connect it to a certain topic so I could say he is a natural when it comes to Billiards so again we're using when it comes to to identify a specific topic that is being talked about and really you could then input a variety of different words to talk about your ability and use when it comes to to identify the topic so I could say she is extremely proficient when it comes to coding or the professor is well-versed when it comes to Modern Art so I could use these adjectives then follow it with when it comes to in order to basically introduce the specific topic I I could say that you are great when it comes to building your vocabulary right so let's continue building your vocabulary and and talk about different phrases that you can use to talk about your inability and let's start with a a phrase that I think is very useful and that is to say that something is not your strong suit public speaking is not my strong suit it's really a phrase that you can use when referring to a particular skill or ability that someone does not have but I personally think it is extremely useful because maybe you don't want to S someone like look I just don't know how to do this maybe you're familiar with the activity or the job and you just want to tell the other person that well you you kind of know how to do it but you're not the best at it and that's when you can use this phrase and say that something is just not your strong suit let me give you some more examples in the context of learning English perhaps um you think well English grammar is not my strong suit or phrasal verbs are not my strong suit or even making small talk in English is just not my strong suit so with each of these it's not talking about something you've never done before you you've tried this you've prac ractice maybe you need to work on it and you want to let the other person know that and therefore you could say well yeah it's just not my strong suit iron is not really my strong suit look yoga is not my strong suit typing is not my strong suit yeah giving things time is not my strong suit the next one is cup of tea American football is not my cup of tea now this does not directly refer to inability it's really more about about your likes and preferences because you would use this when something is not the type of thing that you like however when talking about things that maybe we're we're not very good at often it's because we don't really enjoy it we really don't like this and that is why I wanted to include this phrase and say that something is just not your cup of tea for example and these are really my personal examples because yeah I would say that horror movies are not my cup of tea or early morning flights are not my cup of tea that is definitely true and right now at this point in my life I would also say that loud bars and Loud restaurants are just not my cup of tea it's not something that I like or prefer then I want to teach you the phrase Achilles heel this is probably not as commonly used but still useful it's always just good to get a little variety math has always been my Achilles heel so this means that it's just a a small problem or a weakness in a person I I would say when you think about Achilles heel I think a good word to think of a synonym would just be weakness something is your weakness it is your Achilles heel and I I would also say it's like a real true weakness that someone may have so once again I am going to give you just some personal examples I would tell you that writing legibly is my Achilles heel if you were to see me right You' be like what I do not understand this I could also say that drawing is my Achilles heel it's just something that I have never been very Adept at doing and finally grammar is my Achilles heel now you may be thinking like wait a second you're an English teacher and yes that is true but there are things that I think we have stronger skills at when it comes to teaching and I enjoy teaching vocabulary pronunciation grammar but if I'm thinking about all the different parts of language I'd probably say yeah for me grammar is probably my Achilles heel got to do a lot more research and think about what's acceptable what's not acceptable and once again to give you another point of reference perhaps I didn't want to use like something so strong and say well you know it's my weakness this would be another time when I could say well grammar is just not my strong suit and you don't want to say that you're well really not good at this thing or it's a weakness but just something that you need to work on that you're not the best at how about this phrase Rusty a bit Rusty I haven't bowled for over a year so I'm a bit Rusty this means that you are are not good at knowing or doing something as you once were because you just have not practiced it in a long time and you could say that you are a bit Rusty or a little rusty I think with this word with the word Rusty people may use those adjectives and say that you're a little rusty or a bit Rusty when talking about different activities to give you a little more context here are some news headlines feeling socially awkward even extroverts are a little rusty so this was published 2020 I think it was during covid after those lockdowns that people who were extroverted yeah they were they were a little rusty and then everybody looked a bit Rusty this article I think was talking about players on a sports team maybe they haven't played in a while so they looked a bit Rusty and finally crelle Strauss was a little rusty in intense acting return post selling Sunset it was a balancing act so this person has not acted in some time so they felt a little rusty I'm just a little rusty well my Russian's a bit Rusty but we got the job done yeah I'm just a little rusty my latin's a little rusty remember we're a bit Rusty so bear with us the next phrase is to have two left feet when it comes to dancing I have two left feet there is that phrase once again when it comes to I can identify the topic and then well talk about my inability when you have two left feet it means that you really move in a very awkward way and I think most of the time when somebody uses this phrase and they talk about having two left feet they're really referring to dancing not always but quite often so I could say that someone has two left feet or even two left hands and it's really referring to one's coordination for example he's not very coordinated I think he has two left feet when it comes to playing soccer yeah you really need to use your feet when playing soccer and if you're not very coordinated you move in an awkward way somebody could say yeah you have two left feet or she is just unable to catch so when it comes to juggling she has two left hands if we're just talking about those phrases two left hands two left feet I I think mostly you're going to hear somebody talk about having two left feet and they're not coordinated they move in an awkward way and and probably they're talking about dancing now for a little review I hope that you feel like you are very proficient in English because you have a knack for building your vocabulary learning new words and then practicing them when you have a conversation but even if you feel that well building your vocabulary is not your strong suit I I hope that you you keep at it because well for me I will be honest I am not a natural when it comes to learning languages I have to really work hard at it because if I stop for even a short period of time then yeah my skills they get they get a bit Rusty and then I have to work harder and try to catch back up but I I think that for some people they're very Adept at um learning other languages and you know I think as long as it's something you enjoy then I think you'll be able to do it if if this were something that you were to say well it's just not my cup of tea then it it would be a little more challenging and I'm sure that there would be different aspects of language learning in which you would feel like well this is just my Achilles heel and uh I don't know I was trying to think about how to work in two left hands two left feet I don't think I'm going to be able to do that so let's just start to wrap things up if you enjoyed the lesson and learned something new please hit that like button as always thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time so long