Show notes
Mitch and Isi give you 10 useful English contractions to help you sound like a native speaker! They also update you on a new, Asia-friendly 'Zoom' conversation call time.
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Intro
Mitch:
[0:22] Hiya, podcast peeps.
Isi:
[0:25] Hello.
Mitch:
[0:25] Welcome to another episode of the Easy English Podcast. Just in case you didn't know what you're...
Isi:
[0:32] What's your alarm for?
Mitch:
[0:34] That the laundry's done. Okay.
Isi:
[0:37] We're both eating sweeties.
Mitch:
[0:39] Mm-hmm. I'm eating a chocolate bar that is based on the stars, the Milky Way. I just said the name of the actual chocolate bar. So I'm eating a chocolate based on a space-themed chocolate.
Isi:
[0:55] We cannot make advertisement. There are also other really great...
Mitch:
[0:58] Space-themed chocolate bars.
Isi:
[1:00] Yeah, like Mars. They're probably all from the...
Mitch:
[1:02] Don't say Mars. Don't say the name.
Isi:
[1:04] You just said Milky Way.
Mitch:
[1:05] Oh yeah, sure. Yours is based on the planet.
Isi:
[1:07] Mars is the planet.
Mitch:
[1:08] Are there any other space...
Isi:
[1:09] We need to name them all now so that we don't do advertisement.
Mitch:
[1:11] Space-themed chocolate.
Isi:
[1:12] They're all yummy, yummy. Kinderriegel.
Mitch:
[1:13] Uranus. Oh God, what's going on? So in today's episode, we've got a few subjects to cover. The first thing I want to do, part of our 'Topic of the Week', is I realised, when making a lot of these street interviews, that there are a lot of informal contractions that people and myself are saying. And I sort of, thought it'd be good to sort of, do a rundown of maybe, 10 that you will commonly hear, that are very useful for you to try to pick up, try to integrate into your English vocabulary, into your English speaking. So I'm going to read them out and Isi, maybe you're going to tell me what two words are being contracted into one or what three words or... I think these are all mostly two words though.
Isi:
[1:55] This is always a test of my English knowledge, isn't it?
Mitch:
[1:57] A little bit, yeah. But you'll get them all, for sure.
Topic of the Week
Mitch:
[2:07] Okay, the first one, and it's almost the same as this infamous 'bottle of water'. It's got the same sort of feel to it. Do you know what I mean?
Isi:
[2:18] Do you know what I mean?
Mitch:
[2:20] Exactly. Do you say, are you able to do this? Are you doing it in your everyday speaking?
Isi:
[2:25] Yeah, but it's even shorter.
Mitch:
[2:26] What?
Isi:
[2:27] Do you know what I mean?
Mitch:
[2:28] Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? And that's a very common one that people say. And it will almost be like a reflex kind of thing, you'll say when making a point. Like, maths is boring, do you know what I mean? Okay, next one. Probs. It is a contraction, but only of one word.
Isi:
[2:48] Probably.
Mitch:
[2:49] Probably. So how would we use this in a sentence? Mitch, is the laundry done? Probs. A classic one, which you like to use. You alright?
Isi:
[3:00] Are you alright.
Mitch:
[3:01] And you're not even saying the 'are' at the beginning.
Isi:
[3:03] No.
Mitch:
[3:06] Are you all right?
Isi:
[3:07] All right.
Mitch:
[3:08] Which can be used as a question or even just a sort of, a greeting.
Isi:
[3:12] All right, all right.
Mitch:
[3:13] You all right? And then the other person would respond.
Isi:
[3:16] Yeah, all right.
Mitch:
[3:17] Yeah, you all right? You all right, mate? Tomoz.
Isi:
[3:21] Tomorrow.
Mitch:
[3:22] Is shortening for tomorrow. Okay, here's ones that are very common that you should be using if you really want to sound like a native speaker, because everyone's using those. Those previous ones are kind of, quite informal. These ones are almost so commonly used, that they've almost become formal contractions. Dunno.
Isi:
[3:44] I don't know.
Mitch:
[3:45] I don't know. Dunno. I don't know. I don't know. What do you think?
Isi:
[3:49] What do you think?
Mitch:
[3:50] Dunno. What do you think? Gonna.
Isi:
[3:54] I'm going to.
Mitch:
[3:55] I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to go get the laundry in a bit. What are you going to do?
Isi:
[4:00] I'm going to go to the doctors.
Mitch:
[4:02] Nice. That is all very true statements we're saying.
Isi:
[4:05] For today.
Mitch:
[4:06] Wanna.
Isi:
[4:08] I want to.
Mitch:
[4:09] I don't wanna go get the laundry, how about you?
Isi:
[4:14] I don't wanna go to the doctors.
Mitch:
[4:16] Got... gotta or gotta. a lot of people say gotta.
Isi:
[4:20] Like, gotcha?
Mitch:
[4:21] g-o-t-t-a gotta.
Isi:
[4:25] I have to, I got to.
Mitch:
[4:27] Yeah, but I got to get the laundry.
Isi:
[4:30] But you would probably more say; I have to get the laundry than I got to get the laundry.
Mitch:
[4:34] I got to get, got to get.
Isi:
[4:35] Got to get, got to get.
Mitch:
[4:36] I got to get, got to get, got to get through this. I got to get through this. Lemme.
Isi:
[4:43] Let me.
Mitch:
[4:44] Yeah, like the singer from Motorhead. Let me go get the laundry, please. Or let me avoid the laundry duties for this week. Gimme. - Give me. - Gimme some peace of mind. Gimme shelter. Oh yeah is that... yeah the Rolling Stones song; 'Gimme Shelter'. - Yep. - Kinda. - Kind of. - It's kind of, yeah. Lemme, kinda, is spelt the same way as the singer from Motorhead but there's no 'I' at the end it's just l-e-m-m-e.
Isi:
[5:20] lemme kinda tell you how I'm gonna... - Wow! - Blah, blah, blah.
Mitch:
[5:24] We can make an Easy English contraction song. I don't know what I'm gonna wanna get a lemme, give me kinda.
Isi:
[5:32] Shoulda, shoulda, woulda.
Mitch:
[5:34] Yeah, shoulda, woulda, coulda.
Isi:
[5:36] Shoulda, woulda, coulda.
Mitch:
[5:37] Sounds like you're doing an Eminem really fast rap. I shoulda, woulda, coulda, coulda. And then sorta.
Isi:
[5:43] Sort of?
Mitch:
[5:44] Sort of. I sorta like doing the laundry, to be honest.
Isi:
[5:49] Do you? It's a lie, guys. No one likes to do the laundry. Do you like to do the laundry
Mitch:
[5:53] Not really uh outta.
Isi:
[5:56] I'm out of love set me free this is what did you.
Mitch:
[6:05] Misery.
Easy English Updates
Mitch:
[6:16] As you may or may not know, every Tuesday, we are hosting an online conversation call for our Conversation Members, which are a group of people from all around the world, who are looking to improve their English conversational skills. So they're speaking and listening. I truly believe that the best way to improve your speaking and listening skills is just by doing it, and speaking and dusting off those cobwebs and overcoming those nerves to speak. because making mistakes is the best way for you to understand and to learn and to progress with your English speaking skills. This is absolutely the perfect place to come if you're feeling a bit nervous, or you just want to sort of shake off some cobwebs and dust which has settled on your English speaking level, that maybe you stopped doing when you left school or maybe you got a bit overwhelmed with your New Year's resolution and you stopped suddenly.
Mitch:
[7:13] We're offering one free group class as part of our seven-day free trial of the Conversation Membership and the reason why this is part of our Easy English Updates is, at the moment we have, like I said this class at 18:15 in British time but that doesn't allow for people that are living in Asia, so we would like to, in the summer, open up our first ever Easy English call which is going to be at a time which is friendly for Asia. So we're looking at doing it at 10:15am in England, which will equate to 15:45am in India, 18:15am in China, and 19:15am in Japan and Korea. And if you're interested in us starting this call, we would really appreciate it if you would click the link in the show notes of this podcast and that will also take you to a time conversion website, which will show you exactly what time the pub call will be at in your country. And by clicking this link, we'll be given a notification that you are interested in joining this call when we start it in summer. So if you are, like I said, looking to improve your English speaking skills in a nerve-free and inclusive way, where there's no pressure and we're going to learn all through making mistakes, then join our Easy English Conversation membership with a seven-day free trial by going to easyenglish.video/membership. It will be in the show notes, click the link and we're looking forward to greeting you and welcoming you into our conversation calls. Now back to the episode.
Mitch's Movie Club
Mitch:
[9:01] As part of this topic, we'd like to speak about a movie that we both watched and give it a review and really recommend it. Because we, last week, watched a movie on 'Netflix' called 'Materialists'.
Isi:
[9:14] Are we now making an advertisement?
Mitch:
[9:17] No. Well, we're recommending a good movie, which I think would be very nice for any of you, anyone over the age of 18, I think it's for 16, to watch.
Isi:
[9:27] Did you think it was 16? There's some harder topics.
Mitch:
[9:31] There's some harsh language, some sexual references.
Isi:
[9:34] There's also sexual assault, so that should probably be for...
Mitch:
[9:38] Yeah, so we would like to recommend a movie to all you adults listening to this podcast. We watched a movie called 'Materialists' last week, didn't we?
Isi:
[9:48] Yep.
Mitch:
[9:48] What style would you say this movie is?
Isi:
[9:50] I'm not a movie person. I thought, I think it was advertised as a rom-com.
Mitch:
[9:59] Which means? It's another good contraction.
Isi:
[10:00] Romantic comedy but I would say it's not
Mitch:
[10:03] I would say it is.
Isi:
[10:04] I think it's a rom drama if that is a category.
Mitch:
[10:07] Nice. But there was comedy. It's dark comedy. Okay, let's put it that way. It's very like.
Isi:
[10:12] No I don't mean it's not funny, but it's like it's... I don't mean it's too dark to be funny, I mean it's too not funny to be funny.
Mitch:
[10:20] Right. Yeah okay. But there are funny moments but that's just it's kind of quite real I'd say, it's kind of like, quite a realistic comedy, realistic drama, realistic romance.
Isi:
[10:31] Yeah. I... yeah yeah, and I really like the cinematic style which you have to talk about because I have no idea how they're called. But it's like, it's very like, first of all the look is very New York, I would say, but in a realistic New York way, not like sparkly New York. - Yeah right. - But like, big city, bit greyish, normal colours in a nice way you have the feeling you watch, yeah, a realistic um scenery and the whole movie is quite slow paced, but in an interesting way. I like slow paced movies when you really get like into it and you completely are there, I think I not once got up. I really enjoyed the whole thing. It was not predictable, but not too much and I like that it was the you know, other rom-coms are; something funny happens, something bad happens, and then something really nice happens and yay. And this is like very subtle movements, some bad things happen, definitely. That's why it's probably should be 16 or 18, but there's like, it's like little waves, nice waves that you go with I would say.
Mitch:
[11:42] But can I say that there is something about it, because the rom-com has, people like rom-coms because they're predictable, right? You know that it's going to be like; two people meet, at some point there's going to be a twist, and they're going to fall out But you know the end there will be love at the end, that's the whole point of a rom-com right?
Isi:
[12:01] There's love at the end.
Mitch:
[12:02] And this has... is that, if you made it into a package. But there's always... there's something about this movie where you're never quite... there's parts where you're like, I don't know what's gonna happen next. You know there's gonna have to be something that happens, but in this movie, because there are two love interests for the Dakota Johnson who's the...
Isi:
[12:21] For the Dakota Johnson.
Mitch:
[12:22] For the Dakota Johnson, the protagonist of the movie. But you're never quite sure what the twist is going to be and because this movie is not so glitz and glamour and sparkly, how dark it's going to get or how big the twist is going to be. I wasn't sure if maybe one of the two love interests wouldn't make it or if she would even make it at one point. There were some really uneasy feelings with this movie. And this movie is produced by my favourite production company, A24. Because A24 is kind of known for being kind of a bit like highbrow movie-making.
Isi:
[12:56] You said at the beginning of the film, oh, this is an A24 film, so it might be quite dark. And I was like, no, Netflix advertises it to be like very rom-com. That's why I thought I want to watch it. And then you were like, nah, it will be a bit different. And you were right. And then actually the entering scene is very like odd, not odd. looks very like why is this the scene to start with. They're like in a cave, not they are not. Like, they're a cave a cave man and a cave woman in a cave, long long time ago, having a date. - Yeah. - Anyway, that is I was like; huh! And then you were like...
Mitch:
[13:33] You were like; I think this movie's not right, Netflix has put us into the wrong movie.
Isi:
[13:37] Yeah, and then you were like; no that's A24.
Mitch:
[13:42] There's a lot of mo... a lot of metaphor metaphorical kind of things going on, right? At the beginning, and sort of foreshadowing what will happen in the film a little bit.
Isi:
[13:51] Yeah and it's nicely written
Mitch:
[13:54] Would you... do you want to give a little synopsis? Can you summarise the whole movie, what it's about in like two sentences
Isi:
[14:00] You want to spoil that
Mitch:
[14:01] No, don't spoil it but like what what's the kind of overall.
Isi:
[14:04] Um.. - theme of the movie. - The main character she's a... - The Dakota Johnsonhe Dakota the Dakota Johnson is a how are they called? - A matchmaker. - A matchmaker. So she, well for high profile people.
Mitch:
[14:20] Oh yeah right, a bit like Raya, but a matchmaking version of Raya.
Isi:
[14:23] Rich New Yorkers and she matches... well she has clients that look for love are looking for love and she matches them and puts them on dates and kind of is a bit like a therapist as well meets with them, motivates them to go into it, because often they're like having problems to open up to other people or so. Which also goes very wrong in the movie. I wouldn't say that because I think that's like a part that you don't want to know before.
Mitch:
[14:52] Yeah.
Isi:
[14:53] In a dark way. Not in a... Oh, it goes wrong. They hate each other.
Mitch:
[14:57] But also like the realities of modern dating maybe. The anonymous modern dating.
Isi:
[15:02] Yeah. She meets... a guy. - Pedro Pascal. - At a wedding of one of her clients. - Oh yeah. - And he's very into her, they begin dating , she cannot really believe that he's into her, but she doesn't really fall in love with him, because there is her old love interest, ex-boyfriend.
Mitch:
[15:24] Chris Evans; Captain America.
Isi:
[15:26] I didn't know anybody before I mean Dakota Johnson I've heard of um who is the opposite, he's like an upcoming... not really upcoming, he's like a struggling theatre actor. - Yeah. - Trying to make it in york living in a shared flat, having like doesn't have much money. Pedro Pascal is a mega mega mega mega mega rich guy.
Mitch:
[15:50] He's like, a nepo-baby isn't he
Isi:
[15:52] Yeah I think, what was his penthouse 18 million or 20 million? Like, mega rich. Anyway, so it's also all about that she always thought she's quite superficial and she wants to go for the same that all her clients ask for; rich, tall, handsome.
Mitch:
[16:11] It's all about the height of men.
Isi:
[16:13] Yeah that's also a thing but then yeah, You will see what the end will be.
Mitch:
[16:18] The height of men and the age of the woman is like a horrendously honest, but true theme in this movie. The men are always like, I need under 27. She's like, okay, we have this 29-year-old woman, maybe. He's like, that's basically 30 for me. And he's like a 50-year-old guy. He's like, she needs to be, he doesn't care about, yeah, that's the theme of the title of the movie, Materialists. But it's funny but very true. Like it's a really sort of, honest, mirror image of today's world of dating, right?
Isi:
[16:52] Yeah. You would hope it's different already, but it's not.
Mitch:
[16:55] Right.
Isi:
[16:55] Let me tell you.
Mitch:
[16:56] Is that what it is? Is it a bit of a kick in the face of modern dating, this movie?
Isi:
[17:01] Yeah. But all how we describe it sounds very predictable and pretentious. And I think it's not.
Mitch:
[17:07] Yeah. It sounds like that movie 'Hitch' with Will Smith.
Isi:
[17:11] It's done really, really nicely.
Mitch:
[17:13] It is, yeah. Yeah it definitely takes... it laughs at itself this movie and that one thing that I really liked about it, is that even though it's a rom-com and you know it's probably going to happen at the end, throughout the whole movie you're there's a very uneasy feeling about everything. There's a very there's a bit of reality sort of lingering in this sort of Hollywood movie which you'd be like, oh no something's gonna happen. It's too real for there not to be something real. And yeah, it does happen right? Lots of real things happen. So there's your movie review for this week, go watch it and let us know what you think and you'll also be picking up on lots of American English while you're watching it and some very good acting. Okay, that's the end of the podcast, thank you very much for listening and for you podcast Aftershow listeners who are, Podcast Members of our membership we're going to carry on speaking for a little bit longer about some behind the scenes Easy English things and I'm also going to read a British joke to you. - Oh no. - It's a good one you'll love it, you can remember... - That's what you always say. - Say it to all of your friends. Okay anyway, thank you for listening to this week's podcast. - Thank you. - See you next time, te-ra
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