Advanced English: Can You Understand this Real Conversation? (Topic: 2020)

hello this is jack from tofluency.com along with kate and we are back with another conversation where today we're going to answer your questions for those people who are watching live we're also going to talk about life at home during these times but first um if you are new here then please subscribe to the channel turn on that notification bell and then consider becoming a fluency member here on youtube okay kate how are you doing today i'm doing just fine how are you all right yeah yeah just moved into this new office it's close to downtown where we live it might be a bit echoey but i'm sure it will be fine and yeah we're going to talk about life living at home um and during the times of lockdown it's been a while hasn't it ah it's been it's been quite a while maybe even almost a half a year well it started at the end of march so oh i mean since we've been talking oh since we've been talking yeah yeah oh it's been a while yeah we've been meaning to do it for two or three months but we just haven't found the time have we yes um our daughter is currently outside and um hopefully she's not gonna disturb us but if she does then we can just go on a quick break but yeah we want to talk about lockdown life today and i'm sure you're going to learn a lot from this in terms of learning english because we're going to be using everyday phrases about living at home trying to just organize stuff find schedules etc um what's been the best thing for you we've not we've not planned this but what has been the best thing for you in terms of being at home over the last three months or so i think to be honest it's really hard to describe one positive thing because i think that the experience for me and for a lot of people has been a little bit of a rollercoaster so there's been different faith even though nothing has really changed that much and in terms of um what we do or don't do with the outside world at home we went through several phases we went through i went through a bread making phase i went through a meal kit delivery phase so i would order boxes with recipes and make different things every night and currently i'm in an exercise phase yeah yeah that's true yeah they've been different phases um and i remember some people talking about the different phases in terms of the tiger king was one phase that was a show on netflix that was fascinating and really surprising um a reality tv show yeah which was that was early on right and yes when we were at home not going out at all hardly really meeting anybody yeah and then watching tiger king we're not gonna watch it and then we did yeah um some people are saying we can't see you what has happened um let me know in the chat um if you can see us and if you can hear us okay we'll we'll just continue for now and we'll start again if there is an issue but yeah that was um one of those things where we enjoyed the tv our children were going to bed at a good time of day and we were having a little bit of a lie in but it it seemed like we were ready just to be at home and you were making bread so much bread i forgot about the bread it was sourdough um bread and uh yeah it was that i remember those times because we felt we were hunkered down right yeah explain what that means um well why don't you because it's it's your phrase yeah i would say just kind of like taking shelter taking shows staying inside yeah it just means like when you get all your stuff you need and you stay put you stay home now yeah kate mentioned a phrase before wrote a bit of a roller coaster which means ups and downs yes and that that was like well every day was like a roller coaster at first yeah a little bit yeah and just to give you some context we're in north carolina in the us and it's been um a lot down i guess since late march things have eased up a bit but there are still quite a lot of restrictions in place um yeah you went through that phase i i also went through a little bit of a let's just eat everything we can and drinking a little bit too and having lots of coffee uh-huh yeah there was there was a lot of coffee a lot of a lot of so the city that we live in is very famous for its beer specifically craft beer um and right when all of this happened a lot of breweries were really in trouble because they depended on people coming to the brewery and drinking beer there and so they were basically trying to almost give away beer so we were supporting a local business and also ordering craft beer and drinking coffee and it just it was a very strange surreal time yeah but there were there were definitely silver linings yeah and even now it's still a little bit strange schools are closed or they're going to be closed um we have to do virtual learning and we're trying to work out exactly how we're going to manage our timetable yes um kate has a job i do this our children are going to be home nearly 24 hours a day so we're trying to work all that stuff out um one thing i think over the last few weeks has been incredible the pool yes so we we joined a local pool where they restrict access to people um so it's never that busy but it's been so much fun to go to the pool and our daughter's learned how to swim yeah she's um three and she's just a little fish right now she's like running and jumping in um doing cannonballs um yeah she's just taken to the water and she's been so determined to work on it every day so that's been a that's been a great thing yeah probably a highlight we also went through a phase of clearing lots of stuff out the house yes and getting stuff uh-huh um yeah we we were very focused in that time weren't we yeah in terms of all right we need to sort out the garage or garage as you say we need to go through all of our stuff we need to get all this stuff done um so yeah it's been it's been quite interesting the phase i'm in now is really focused on setting and hitting goals and i think you are too yeah um so you have a fitness phase do you want to share what this is well this is kind of like the the opposite side of the bread making and beer drinking ways um so um and the not getting really outside a lot to move um so i started doing pilates yeah with our neighbors so one thing that's also come out is even though we're not really going out and socializing with people we formed a little pod with our immediate neighbors who have kids about the same age and so our neighbor and i decided to try pilates and oh boy it is it is every muscle in my body is in pain right now but in a good way is today day four today's day four yeah but it's hard polite is hard it's really hard work yeah so you're doing that um i'm in a similar phase as well when it comes to fitness where i want to work on fitness and get strong and you know eat well et cetera yeah the pendulum could swing the other way and we could be back to making sourdough and drinking beer in a few weeks but now we're really enjoying this and i'm also in a phase of uh no caffeine which has been a journey yes so four weeks ago i gave up caffeine well two weeks prior to that we gave up coffee because we felt we were drinking too much and it it was it wasn't doing good things for us so we gave up coffee yeah we were always jittery jittery and just felt i felt anxious because of coffee uh-huh yeah um but we gave up the coffee i substituted coffee for lots of black tea so i had six cups seven cups of black tea a day i was still so tired because no coffee and then four weeks ago i gave up coffee and it was easy just no worries at all not true you have been napping like a champion you have been taking a nap every day well nearly recently i haven't napped as much i did nap in the office yesterday i got recently not as much means like every day for the past week no once one day once in the last seven days that's in the day before that too no and the day before that no yes honestly i've not been doing it that much but i'm gonna gather evidence i used the acoustic panel as a mattress acoustic panels as a pillow and then the blackout curtain is a cover oh my goodness i was so tired i just had half an hour i was wondering about that because you're you're still unpacking and moving into this space but i could have sworn that those acoustic panels were not there before well i put them there to stop the echo should i grab one and show it if you want no no no it's a little bit we're we're stuck in here we found the perfect spot so yeah we're now in the phase where we want to hit goals and get stuff done um i'm i'm working on new courses for for you all making new videos doing these live lessons you're doing your fitness and maybe starting a new job and working with you too on yeah working here with to fluency and yeah i think we've we feel like there's a fresh start now with the new office space um my son is in camp this week so he's he's doing stuff outdoors feels fresh again doesn't it yeah i mean it's so hard and i'm i'm sure that almost everywhere in the world has gone through some kind of change and we don't know how much of it is a permanent change and how much of it is temporary and what new might be ahead but it's i mean there's there's a lot of um a lot of things that are hard right now but also some really positive changes perhaps yeah and it depends doesn't it um it's going to be really difficult for families who have two parents working and then thinking what they're going to do in terms of school because the schools aren't going to be open and that's going to be a big challenge for a lot of people you know a lot of people have lost their job um people have got sick obviously as well and then there's just big changes in the world we'll focus on some of the bigger changes in terms of not the dire consequences or dystopian futures but because you know we've talked about it but not here not here not now not into fluency um that's that's what we try not to think about yeah that's true uh so i'm looking at some of the comments as well we're gonna answer some questions so be sure to leave questions and and there's some funny ones here but big changes things like it's very difficult to think about how a restaurant is going to survive moving forward because new york the new york mayor's just come out and said all indoor restaurants will be closed until june 2021 wow and then restaurants aren't going to be having outdoor space come october november december yeah through march so there are all these big changes and people don't know exactly what's going to happen things like travel travel is a big one and we're looking at vacations but there are only seven countries that accept people from the us right now um some good countries but you know it's very restrictive isn't it but there are big changes what what have you picked up recently um in terms of big changes i think i think that a really big piece of it that has um so there's obviously the safety measures um people are can i grab yours yeah yeah people are wearing masks we have oh i'm a mask yeah we have masks when we go out this is jack's mask matches his eyes um very important i picked it up i feel proud um so we have we have masks we're staying apart from people but just the shift to try to be outside you know yeah i think that there's a lot of um there's a lot of times where we tend to be inside because it's more um comfortable comfortable yeah with heating and air conditioning and now suddenly we're thinking about how can we do as much outside as possible yeah definitely yes some schools are going outside completely yeah which is really smart yeah because we can stay open that way yeah um yeah lots of big big changes uh we've got people saying i'm from barcelona i can't work without my dose of caffeine that's esther i'm i'm still drinking the tea he he completely quit caffeine but i still am having tea and dark chocolate but so i was thinking back to times of when i might not have had any caffeine so just to go back in the caffeine thing but when i was working i had tea every day but i was thinking when i was traveling i never woke up and thought i need to get tea or coffee i don't think i ever had coffee in south america you were just you were just caffeinated on life yeah well energized not caffeinated but i was thinking back to that and i thought that's when i had the most energy and i felt great so but we'll see some people are saying i look like i'm from the 1960s and uh commented on my mustache uh yeah it's just a temporary thing i think i just so i shaved the other day and i thought i wonder what i'll look like with a mustache you do look a little bit a little bit like the 1960s bringing it back i like it um i drink coffee five times a day are you guys in the us now yes we are um my sister lives in a coffee producing state in colombia close to the capital city yeah i was in colombia just straight after we met in 2007 see some says try mate a drink in uruguay oh i will yeah so yeah excited about yeah i mean not for you not for me still has caffeine but i'm i'm still drinking here's a question which you prefer soda um coca-cola pepsi or tea hmm soda i mean well we we don't drink soda do we we drink um this is not sponsored by waterloo no but this is sparkling water and we really like it don't we yeah we drink a lot of the sparkling water yeah i mean i think you like that more than yeah i like i like tea a lot i think that there's a huge variety of tea not just black tea but i like to try different things like chai and um traditional tea and herbal tea and there's just something really i think comforting and energizing about the ritual of making tea and letting it brew and yeah yeah i've been drinking a lot of peppermint tea we got far too much of it well then how many tea bags of black tea did you get oh my gosh i ordered it it might be i ordered it off of um amazon and it it was a bigger box a little bit more than i usually would spend usually i buy a box you know about that big and so i thought oh well this will be great um but it turns out it's like it's big it's a huge box of um one of my favorite kinds of black tea which is also the most popular kind of black tea in the uk where jack is from is called pg tips and um it's it's not very aromatic like it doesn't have some of the flavors of like an earl grey tea or um a chai tea but it's it's just basic standard black tea but it's really strong and it comes in these little bags that are shaped like pyramids anyway now i have like 800 of them so i'll be alone drinking my tea in my house did you have coffee in turkey so it was totally turkish coffee yes and it was phenomenal um what are your thoughts on or what do you think about tattoos i think we have different thoughts on this i don't like him but do you i mean i do and i i don't have any um but i was thinking about getting one um and i was thinking about getting like something from nature like a tree or some leaves or flowers um but it just to test it out before i talk to a tattoo artist i got these temporary tattoos they're really nice they're like you know wild flowers and branches and so i tried them in different places and every single time i saw it instead of being like oh wow i really want this i was like oh what is that on me so i figured that i didn't want it for real but i'm still considering yeah yeah we yeah i i don't think i'll ever get a tattoo no i don't think you will no i re i remember thinking oh i might get one when i was really young but i'm glad i didn't oh my gosh i'm so glad i didn't get one when i was really young you might say that if you get one now you know i'm glad i didn't get one when i was 33. but i also feel like you know something something natural i thought you were 33 for a second now everyone knows yeah because um let's see but i mean i i could have gotten something like a it was very popular to get chinese characters it was really popular to get tattoos on your lower back all the soccer players were getting chinese japanese characters here on the forum and yeah i'm glad i didn't do that me too um or like cartoon characters or something like that people are asking if the government gave masks to citizens oh boy um not no no no no no mainly grocery stores and restaurants will have them and then you need to wear one to enter there but yeah you don't you don't get them for free there was a stim so we got a stimulus check here some people got them yep they're talking about giving a second one but it was a one-time check yes four did everyone get the same amount it no it depends on how much you earn up to a certain point but they're talking about a stimulus check is a check from the government to stimulate the economy and to help people out people also got um unemployment benefits as well some will say masks are mass our business these days yeah yeah they are i've seen a lot of celebrities selling their own branded masks really yeah maybe we should get it to fluency mask maybe i'm trying to think i think that i would want to give it away for free though well a lot of people donate the money sure like profits go to stuff that makes sense um there's quite a lot of stuff here what about the expression is it cool if what does that mean um it's kind of the way that i would interpret that expression as as asking for permission yeah like hey is it cool if i sit here like do i have permission to sit here um yeah it's american is it cool if i drink your last sparkling water no there we go it's not cool i'm out of uh herbal tea yeah so it's not cool with you okay um let's see do you play soccer so sucker's not happening at the moment there's no league right now i'm playing a little bit here and there you are playing like recreational soccer with a few friends but it's not the soccer league we were three games into our new season in our new league new division very competitive oh yeah jack went up a division he got promoted two promotions in two years team captain team captain over here the key is just to get really good players on your team and to make everyone happy with you know fun stuff yeah but yeah we um we've been playing a little bit just out in the field there were only four of us on sunday but it's fun i like it goals gotta keep playing um what do you think about a covered vaccine how long do you think it will take to be ready um i mean i don't think it's ever gonna come you don't think so i i think that um it's it's hard to predict and there's a lot of i feel like it just depends on what you read right because because there's a lot of things that are promising a lot of things that are not promising and then a lot of things that are just kind of could go either way really well we won't talk too much about about vaccines for some reason i think in a lot of countries um vaccines are not a political issue they're not really contentious people don't argue about them but for some reason like vaccines are are in the united states we've got so many questions we'll try and do them quickly okay um rapid questions oh and i'm gonna just phrase the question using the the correct grammar okay but can i just answer yes or no have you eaten a twinkie no you've never eaten a twinkie no i haven't my so my mom was very health-conscious growing up um so we didn't eat unhealthy food i wouldn't know what a twinkie would look like um allah has donated sck20 is that south korea you are great guys keep it up thank you very much thank you um yeah i've never had a twinkie before but that's like a stereotypical american like treats candy bar um oh yeah um i i heard that twinkies will never um biodegrade yeah they that could be an urban legend i think i heard that through the day actually yeah that they have so many preservatives in them that they will just last forever yeah i bet they're delicious what when they're out for six months still tastes good yeah no but i bet they taste nice but but in that horrible way oh yeah like it tastes kind of artificial yeah and people are saying what's a twinkie it's just like a i think it's like a like a pastry almost that comes in a plastic wrapper and it's filled with um sugar sugar sugar it's a sugar pastry treat uh-huh yeah what do you think about the um trilogy between cormier and uh miocic this is ufc i've no idea no idea but you don't know what it is or you don't know what you think i don't know what i thought i can't remember who won those the only reason they'll call me age because he's his fight was postponed against jon jones but i like ufc do you like it nope i love i love but everyone's so surprised when i say boxing is my second favorite sport um people just are really surprised by that i'm trying to think of what my favorite sports would be horse riding probably um and then pilates oh yeah i don't know if that's a sport i think it's just pain right now are you scared to travel right now i i would say yes but not for the reasons that you might think it sounds like you're an undercover agent secrets yes yeah yeah i'm mainly i would be scared about traveling in terms of you get to a country and like lock down for six months yeah don't come out your apartment i think i think that that's the part that scares me is feeling like um transportation rules um yeah the way that you interact with people is just really uncertain right now and that there aren't a lot of alternatives i read a headline today so it's a headline so i don't know much about it but it was something like only one person has got coronavirus from air travel i know it's a headline but you know maybe the filter in the air in a way that kills it i don't know you mean like on an airplane on an airplane oh yeah so i'm not i wouldn't be too worried about that in a sense but it's more about the the rules yeah and you know getting stranded somewhere having to be in lockdown inside so someone was here from cambodia i was going to tell you this then you ran out the door remember i said i've got something to say and then no i can't got to go tell me tomorrow but it was the countries where u.s citizens can travel to and where they have restrictions so in cambodia you have to pay a 3 500 deposit like a coronavirus deposit in case you get hospitalized i don't know why there but it's just you pay the deposit and then you get it back at the end but there are again there are only i think 10 10 countries that are allowing us citizens without any restrictions and we're we love international travel so much well we had tickets booked to go to europe in july and um we thought this is not gonna happen in march right yeah and they're um they're flying this the flight again but they canceled our ticket and now it's really expensive and we would have to quarantine quarantine and you know yeah it just doesn't make any sense no we don't need to go no that's it but then family can't see us either oh my gosh though but not being able to travel is just making me miss it so much yeah i'm craving it especially your sister might travel to spain for her birthday and i would love to go too that's only in eight weeks lolly lolly thank you for the donation from france and we've got questions about movies and also kids learning english oh yeah um i think and also did they reimburse you yeah we got a refund on the flight but someone says um how do you recommend to start english listening for my child he's six years old um so what i would recommend doing are two things because six is relatively young um and so i think that it's really important to keep it fun and interesting um so songs are a great way to learn english and they get stuck in your head so you're kind of practicing them and repeating them even if you're not um and then just practicing like a little phrase together so you learn a phrase like i don't know cut the vegetables and then you can practice it kind of as you do that with your kid um and tv in english yeah yeah our children can only watch tv during the week in spanish yes so we are giving them spanish lessons yes i mean i still feel a little bit guilty because they've gotten to watch a lot more tv than usual but i'm but they've they haven't gotten fluent in spanish by any means but they've really picked up on like the language the rhythm of the language and the cadence um and the intonation they'll start they will start understanding more without knowing that they understand it yeah and that's really important um i think it's gonna be great yeah now another question was uh do you guys have any suggestions on good movies recently released or even good old ones we don't watch a lot of movies do we no i wish i love movies yeah we're going to watch hamilton soon old movies what about some old movies that are good for learning english for some reason i can only think of like really violent movies right now like tarantino films don't know you don't want to learn english that way or maybe they do oh maybe i hope not um it's hard isn't it movie recommendations yeah um you know what that might be a good one for us to like take home and think about and come up with a list um we'll do a video on movie recommendations and talk about it yeah we can do like a little plot synopsis and yeah the only one i can think of is donnie darko but that's i don't know if that's a good movie it's just one of my old favorites i always think of it when i think of movies yeah we haven't watched a lot of movies recently i actually think uh some children movies are good because the language is simplified and it's more everyday english so we have moana for example you know and also watch movies that you've seen in your native language then you can understand what's happening in a general sense and then you can enjoy it yeah and i also think that like when you're not trying to solve the big picture questions what's going on what's happening um you can really focus on the language like you know what the situation is and what they might be saying to each other um and then you can kind of put it together yeah yeah people are saying the office james bond yes um the office especially the only thing about i think with the office there's a lot there are a lot of cultural references and that's i remember when i was learning spanish and focused on it that always confused me when there were movies and tv shows with lots of cultural references because you think you don't understand what they are like catch phrases punch lines that being said i think that it's impossible to try to learn a language in in its native context you know because english is also a way to communicate between people who speak two different languages in a different country and so it's not relevant but if your goal is to also become fluent in english culturally that's kind of the best way to do it so some of the jokes might not make sense but the american office i think is pretty relatable and they practice a lot of everyday phrases you know they're always coming into the office and saying hello they're always planning meetings and so i would actually say that the office would be a great one what about reality tv um reality tv yeah or vlogs i think vlogs are a great way to learn as well because people talk about their everyday life and then a lot of them would say just use those simple phrases like i've just got back from the coffee shop and i got this and i got that later i'm going to see this person and we're going to do this yeah and then they have conversations with people but it's always it's visual and it's real life stuff so i think vlogs are a good idea um yeah i think it's it's good to do that never watch reality tv someone says harry potter forrest gump oh forrest gump that that's a great way as well to understand a specific period of american history or several yeah but no like the 60s 70s right so because there are a lot of it's it's in that backdrop of vietnam war and hippie 60s civil rights movements um that's pretty interesting yeah and first gump some of it was filmed here was it yeah i did not know that blue ridge parkway okay when he's running oh really and i think also on the biltmore estate there's some scene there too that's interesting that's a fun bit of trivia i've watched i've seen that so many times um let's see any other questions keep the questions coming in yeah we'll go for a few more minutes um are you able to practice spanish in your city esther asks that's a great question um not as much as we used to we could we could yeah we we absolutely could there's plenty of spanish speakers we have friends who are spanish natives natives of spain um mexico and mexico who we can talk to um in colombia in colombia we end up kind of defaulting into english yeah a lot we normally agree yeah and everyone's just speaking english but i would i would like to practice more yeah someone says i'm a big fan of gaming and watch all the gaming community content in english that's the key isn't it yeah like find the thing that you like find your niche and then learn in that because if you're trying to learn something new and trying to like something that you don't already like then it's and then it's going to be extra hard work yeah i talk about finding stuff that you find interesting but also stuff that you can understand because you know what it's like if you start listening to something and you can't understand anything you just don't do it so um i like to build up the listening to so you listening to the news was a stepping stone for me to then understand other things in spanish and then i just listened to mainly spanish football podcasts that's what i'd like to do i need to get back into that right now back into something yeah i do though i do need to get back into speaking spanish yeah someone says i don't have the chance of practicing english in my country how can i improve my speaking to fluency method go to tofluency.com and then um just look at some blog posts also if you go to my channel home page the embed or the pinned video the video you see at the top is all about that method someone asked do you have pancakes at the moment i just made pancakes this morning yeah yeah i i think if if we mean the same thing by pancakes um yes i made i made the kids and myself pancakes for breakfast this morning yeah it's frustrating because kate makes the small pancakes and then i make a giant one and then i flip it in a pan have you seen me do it yet no i'm very good at it i'm sure but the first time the kids were really impressed now they just want small pancakes i know i mean they are very good yeah wait till they want tiny pancakes well that's funny pancakes yeah we in the uk we have uh pancake day it's around lent time um and that's when i remember a lot pancake day yeah my grandma used to make them i used to have six pancakes or more and it was lemon and sugar oh lemon and sugar so more like a crepe style pancake yeah um well we have pancake day two it's called everyday yes um and we usually eat our pancakes with a little bit of maple syrup yeah drizzle just drizzled on top just a tiny bit there's a lot you can do with pancakes pancakes are good they are uh someone says i'm learning english by my own and i love your channel thank you what's your favorite foreign accent i'll hmm it yeah go for it i like i like russian mm-hmm i am i also like french mm-hmm i guess that yeah french and russian are the two that i think of what about you i kind of like all accents i i know but i do do you have a favorite one um at the moment i've been in terms of english accents yeah people speaking with a foreign accent yeah english i know but um probably i'm trying to think i i also like um french accents and um but really and truly i i like most accents yeah and i think it's really worth saying a lot of people want to reach a stage oh battery exhausted okay so you can hear us but you can't see us so at this stage yeah we will say yeah wrap it up wrap it up but i just wanted to say as well that it's important to say if you have a foreign accent it's a good thing yeah it sounds so good yeah well also i mean i think that there is a point where you want to try to achieve some of the the sounds so that you're you're comprehensible yeah um but also that by no means are we um trying to erase people's identities or the way that they speak um because it is what makes the english language so rich is that it's it works well with other languages and words and yeah no it sounds good like when you listen to foreign accents it's just really good to listen to all right so what we're going to do is um we'll end it here we're going to make another lesson soon what what did we say movies and tv shows yeah movies and tv we can go through some of our favorite movies and tv shows we can bring in some quotes as well and test each other with it i think that'll be fun yeah but yeah if you uh if you're new here someone said who turned off the light the camera died the camera did but luckily we still have the audio yeah so yeah we're just saying bye-bye subscribe to the channel turn on the notification bell and then go to the description because there are links to get my book the five-step plan for english fluency and also to join as a fluency member here on youtube um so yeah thank you so much for being here and we'll speak to you all soon it's so dark in here [Laughter] okay bye for now

Channel: To Fluency

Views: 307,215

Rating: 4.9421749 out of 5

Keywords: advanced english conversation, english conversation, learn english, speak english, real english conversation, daily english conversation, american english, english conversation practice, fast english conversation, advanced english conversation practice, advanced english conversation lesson, learn english conversation, speak english fluently

Id: IB8JiCnk09s

Length: 45min 18sec (2718 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 05 2020