Talking about socialising 👋🥳🤭 Real Easy English

0:00 Hello and welcome to Real Easy English,

0:02 the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English

0:07 to help you learn.

0:08 I'm Neil.

0:08 And I'm Georgie.

0:10 You can now watch this podcast and find a worksheet to help you learn

0:14 on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

0:24 So, Georgie, how are you?

0:26 I'm very tired, actually.

0:27 I've had a lot of social plans lately.

0:30 How about you?

0:31 Yeah.

0:32 I'm fine.

0:33 Social plans?

0:33 That's interesting, because we're talking about friends today.

0:37 Yes, we're talking about socialising, which means spending time

0:40 with people for fun.

0:42 So, Neil, do you like spending time with friends?

0:45 Yeah, I love spending time with my friends.

0:48 If I don't see my friends very often, I feel a bit sad and lonely.

0:54 So yeah, I really like seeing my friends,

0:56 but I don't get to see them very often because, you know, we're grown-ups

1:02 and we have responsibilities.

1:04 You have kids, you have lots of things going on.

1:08 I also like spending time with my friends.

1:10 I have lots of friends.

1:11 As I said, I've had a lot of social plans lately.

1:14 Pretty much every day I've been socialising.

1:17 Wow, so you like socialising but do you like things like parties or

1:23 do you prefer smaller social events?

1:26 I do really like big parties because I like meeting new people.

1:31 I like dancing as well.

1:33 So, at big parties, usually there's some music.

1:37 But I do have a shy side of my personality,

1:42 so usually a smaller event is better for me.

1:45 So, I can have kind of deeper conversations with fewer people.

1:50 How about you?

1:52 Yeah.

1:52 I don't really like that situation

1:56 where you're at a party and don't know lots of people.

1:59 So, a small group of people that I mainly know,

2:04 and there's one or two people who I don't know

2:06 so well, that's fine.

2:08 But a bigger group with lots of people I don't know–

2:12 I really don't like that.

2:14 And why is that?

2:15 Is that because you don't like small talk?

2:18 Yeah.

2:20 I don't really like small talk.

2:22 It feels a bit empty.

2:25 'Small talk' is conversations about things that aren't important,

2:29 like the weather, usually with people that you don't know very well.

2:35 Yeah.

2:35 And you don't like that?

2:36 No.

2:37 I find it awkward.

2:39 So, Georgie, you like meeting new people?

2:43 Do you feel embarrassed at all, or are you completely fine with that?

2:47 I think it depends.

2:49 I think if you find a topic quite quickly that you have in common,

2:56 that avoids embarrassment.

2:58 But it's when you...

3:00 you meet someone new,

3:02 you don't know them very well, obviously,

3:03 because they're new, and you don't know

3:05 what they like or don't like, or

3:07 what they think is rude or not rude.

3:10 But if you can figure that out quite quickly, it's...

3:15 yeah, it's usually OK.

3:17 Do you usually feel quite embarrassed then?

3:20 Sometimes.

3:21 Like you said, it depends.

3:22 If you find something that you have in common and you can talk about that,

3:28 but sometimes you don't find something in common,

3:31 and then it's really, I don't know,

3:33 embarrassing, I suppose.

3:35 I feel strange just thinking about it.

3:39 You obviously...

3:40 you like parties, you like socialising.

3:43 But do you like spending time alone?

3:46 I get more energy from spending time alone and relaxing

3:50 and not talking to anyone.

3:53 I often get what I call social burnout, which means you just get exhausted

3:58 from spending too much time with others.

4:02 How about you?

4:03 Well, yeah.

4:05 Spending time alone is also important.

4:08 And I like to do that, but not so much.

4:14 Not as much as maybe spending time with people,

4:17 because, like I said before, if I'm alone for too long,

4:22 I get a bit lonely and feel a bit, I don't know, just lacking energy.

4:34 Let's recap the vocabulary we heard in this podcast.

4:37 Starting with 'socialise', which means to spend time with friends

4:41 or other people to enjoy yourself.

4:44 We had 'small talk', which is conversation about things which aren't important,

4:49 such as the weather or the traffic.

4:51 We use small talk a lot in the UK.

4:54 We heard some adjectives to describe how

4:56 you might feel about meeting new people.

4:59 So, we had 'embarrassed', which means feeling ashamed or shy.

5:04 And we also heard 'awkward', which means feeling uncomfortable

5:08 when you're meeting new people.

5:09 We also heard 'in common',

5:11 so if you have something in common with someone,

5:14 it means you share the same likes, dislikes, or interests with someone.

5:19 That's it for this episode of Real Easy English.

5:22 Test what you've learned by downloading the free worksheet on our website,

5:27 bbclearningenglish.com.

5:29 See you then.

5:29 Bye!

5:30 Bye!