How NOT to Be Awkward in English



Lindsay: This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 39: Teaching Tuesday, “How NOT to Be Awkward in English.” [Instrumental]

Gabby: Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, where you’ll finally get real, native English conversation. Now here are your hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the ‘English Adventurer’ and Gabby Wallace, the ‘Language Angel,’ coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

In today’s episode, you’ll see how to take control of starting a great conversation in English and you’ll get two ways to use the verb ‘get.’ [Instrumental]

Lindsay:

All right. So hi Gabby. How’s it going?

Gabby:

Hey Lindsay. I’m doing good. How are you?

Lindsay:

Yeah, not bad. Not bad. Really happy to be here recording another episode. Feeling great!

Gabby:

Yeah. Me too. I’m so excited to be here.

Lindsay:Yeah. Absolutely. So we just wanted to take some time to kind of introduce a few of the phrases that we, that we went over yesterday during ‘Meeting Monday’ when we talked to Matt.

Gabby:Yeah.

Lindsay:(Um) yeah, so what was the first kind of key (uh) cultural thing we wanted to talk about?

Gabby:Yeah, I totally loved how you started the conversation with me yesterday. (Um) I really liked, how, (you know) I said, “How are you doing?” And then you not only said how you were doing but you added some information about the weather.

Lindsay:Yeah. Naturally. So this is my strategy. (Um) sometimes it’s a – talking about the weather is really common, or at least for Americans. I mean for me it is at least and I know here in New England we have a lot of variety in the weather.

Gabby:Yeah.

Lindsay:So and it’s also a good way to not feel awkward when you begin a conversation, right? So sometimes… Gabby:Yeah.

Lindsay:Yeah.

Gabby:It’s totally natural to talk about the weather. It’s (uh) a very common topic and I just, I like how you volunteered that information because then it gives me something to, (you know), respond to or to ask about and, (you know), I just, I want to highlight that for you guys, for our listeners, because that’s a great strategy.

Lindsay:Absolutely. So anytime someone says, “Hey what’s up? How’s it going?” You can always volunteer some kind of information about the weather. “Oh, we’re getting a lot of snow.” Or “It’s a beautiful day.” And that can help you slide into an extending conversation.

Gabby:Absolutely. Very cool.

Okay. And what other phrases came up yesterday Gabby? What did you have?

Gabby: (Um) there was (uh) a sentence about the weather actually. I think you said, “Boston is getting a lot of snow.” So -- or maybe I said that, but it doesn’t matter who said it, (um) it’s an interesting way of talking about the weather because I think in English class, they’ll usually teach you guys to say, “It is snowing.” But actually, we don’t always say that. (You know) it’s correct, it’s fine, but you’ll probably hear something (like) we said, “Boston is getting a lot of snow.”

Lindsay: Yeah, I don’t say “It is snowing” very much at all or “It is raining.” It’s so, it’s just, we don’t use it, do we?

Gabby: No, no. We like to spice things up. We like, to (you know) (um) use the verb “get” a lot. And (um) I guess it’s more colloquial just to say it this way.

Lindsay: Absolutely.

Gabby: And I mean, you can, you can use this phrase with other kinds of weather too, not just snow. Like Boston’s getting a lot of rain. Boston’s getting a lot of sun or whatever, (right)?

Lindsay: Yeah. Getting a lot of hot weather, (right), very hot.

Gabby: Ha, ha.

Lindsay: Getting a lot of heat.

Gabby: Does that ever happen in Boston?

Lindsay: Oh gosh. We did have a heat wave last summer, I mean.

Gabby: True, true. Oh yeah, how ‘bout (about) the next phrase?

Lindsay: All right. So, so something that Matt said which I thought was interesting, he said that (um) the English words that are used in Trinidad are a mishmash of different languages. So this means a combination, right?

Gabby: Yeah.

So when we just bring all these words together and it creates a new word, it becomes a mishmash.

Gabby: That’s a very cool phrase.

Lindsay: Isn’t that a cool word?

Gabby: Very cool. Yeah. Very cool.

Lindsay: It’s kind of fun to say “mishmash.”

Gabby; It is fun. Mishmash. (Uh), we have one other phrase that we wanna (want to) share with you guys. (Uh) it also has the word get, so (um), I, I said something about, (you know), bringing Matt on the show for some island flavor. (You know) in the islands, the weather’s hot and therefore, we are “getting rid of” that snow and cold weather in Boston, so “to get rid of” is, (you know), a very common phrasal verb that we can use in a lot of different ways.

Lindsay: Yeah, yeah I can say, (you know) if I’m cleaning out my room, I’m gonna (going to) get rid of my old books and old clothes, for example.

Gabby: Yeah. (Um) just to remove something, right?

Lindsay: Yeah. Definitely. Really common, really casual everyday English.

Gabby: Yeah, Awesome.

Lindsay: Right. Very cool.

Gabby: So let’s just (uh) repeat these phrases before we end this episode. (Um) of course the first tip was about small talk, but one phrase that you could use (um) is “Boston is getting a lot of snow.” Okay. Great. And then the next phrase, Lindsay that you mentioned.

Lindsay;

Yeah, so that phrase was, that word was ‘mishmash.’

Gabby:

Cool and yeah, we always use like mishmash of (uh) something, something, right. So just to keep that… Lindsay: Yeah.

Gabby: …preposition in mind.

Lindsay: That’s great. That’s really helpful. So the language is a mishmash of other languages, yeah.

Gabby: Cool. And the last one, “to get rid of snow and cold weather.” Awesome.

All right.

Lindsay: All right we did it. Woo-hoo!

[Instrumental]

Gabby: Hey Lindsay. So I’ve heard some of your students have been using the premium transcripts for this podcast. Tell me about that.

Lindsay: Yeah. (You know) this podcast is just, is fantastic if you wanna (want to) have some fun and you wanna (want to) learn a little bit, you wanna (want to) get a little bit of motivation for your English. But (you know) my students are actually really, really serious about improving and I’m, I’m excited about that. That’s why I’m working with them. And so, so for them, the way for them to actually really improve is to use the premium transcripts. So we’ve been using those in class together (um) and they’ve been able to learn a ton.

Gabby: Yeah. Actually my students, too, (uh) they read the transcripts. You can read them out loud. You can do (um) some shadowing with the transcripts as well. You can look up vocabulary. You can do a lot of things. I don’t want to go on and on, but the premium transcripts are super helpful and we want to encourage those of you who are serious about improving your English this New Year to try them out. You can find them at allearsenglish.com/conversations.

Lindsay: All right. So please check it out. Thanks guys.

Gabby: Thank you.

Lindsay:Thanks for listening to the All Ears English Podcast. We’re here to help you

learn English and you can help us by leaving a five star review on iTunes.

See you next time.