Go off the rails

Idioms | C1

Listening exercises with “Go off the rails”

to go off the rails = to begin behaving in an unacceptable or outrageous way.

We tend to use this expression to say that someone’s life has started to go in the wrong direction (in a sudden and dramatic way).

Imagine a gifted student – his life was “going in the right direction” until he broke up with his girlfriend, and then everything started to go wrong. If he went off the rails, maybe he stopped studying, started partying every night, drank too much, stopped taking care of himself and so on.

Have a go at these micro-dictation exercises to hear this expression being used in context – how much can you understand?

Accent: Northern England