Native English Conversation with Captions & Explanation

let's work on your English listening skills you're about to hear a real unscripted unedited conversation between me and my friend Nikki we're both from the UK and the topic of our discussion is holidays and traveling enjoy so Nikki we recently went camping not not me and you but my family went camping just for a weekend as a kind of uh like a taster to see how we as a family with young children coped with camping because I went camping as a kid I'm sure you did as well yeah um but I've not done it as an adult with young children and I always thought that it might be quite a stressful experience but you've kind of encouraged me to give it a try because you're quite a seasoned camper aren't you yeah yeah we've um I did go camping um they were all my family holidays existed off was camping um and then when I met Neil my husband we went camping and then having children we went camping throughout because it was affordable oh so that's the main that's the main draw probably yeah yeah and there's also so many lovely parts of this country to explore and my husband loves going on walks and Hikes and climbing and stuff like that so he's very outdoorsy isn't he he is yeah and um so going to Cornwall and all around the South Coast we've done a lot of that have you ever had any like horrific camping experiences that have made you go maybe camping's not for me anymore yeah that's usually to do with the weather right we've had quite horrific storms when we've been camping in Cornwall yeah on on the cliff top and you know very windy lots of rain and when it's windy if you've got a tent that's got very fine thin canvas it flaps and that's very noisy and we changed our tent and we got um we were in a trailer tent and that was quite old school heavy canvas um Iron well metal poles and so there was a lot of squeaking and rocking and stuff so that was um it's very noisy and then you get the flood in as well if things are touching the side or we would doubt we would always camping down downhill a bit so the floods would come down and get the runoff of all the rainbows yeah yeah I would have thought that by now that thing about you know touching the side of the tent so if you're inside the tent and you touch the side of the tent and anyone who's been camping will know it can let the rain water actually come in which is a bit of a nightmare when you're using blow up beds and we've got these enormous blow up beds so when we went camping recently uh our beds were really pushing out on the sides and unfortunately in our three nights I think it was that we were camping we did have thunderstorms um and so that's always a concern but I would have thought by now technology would have moved on so the tents now don't have that but I guess it's about it being breathable yeah because even if it hasn't rained you've got condensation as well and you have any I think because of the breathing and the body heat and then the difference in the air temperature from night um you touch the sides and it can be wet coming through yeah I remember going to um I can kagua which is a mountain in Argentina I think I've got that right I went there I was there um and we we were walking up to a base camp there and a little beyond that and so we had to stay overnight Maybe we had two nights on the Mountainside and we were in these big teepee tents and it was well set up it was this huge tent and within the tent it could sleep about 16 people and there was like all sorts of different hikers there from all over the world and Nick and I this is like our first couple's Adventure um and they had bunk beds set up and just very basic bunk beds not very comfortable and you would just like grab a bunk bed uh with these are all open plan all open plan and just beds beds in the middle and beds all around the outside and that thing you said about condensation was what we like had to deal with on the two nights we were there there were a couple of beds that seemed like they were the best beds in the house and we were like why has no one taking these beds these are like really like prime location in the right part of the tent but we realized you know you're throwing your stuff on and they were quite wet and you're like oh why are they wet what's going on here let's choose another bed um but then in the night there were these pools of condensation from all the breathers in the tent because there's you know maybe 10 bodies there yeah it's really cold outside because it's snowy there's like a glacier there and there's snow on the mountain so it's cold that's all this condensation in this in this tent just meant in at some point in the night you had this drip drip drip and you might have to change bed because you're getting covered in someone's breath pretty gross um but yeah so you your bad experiences have always kind of hinged on if it was bad weather the weather really yeah and do you ever go camping like as a romantic thing just you and Neil or is it always a big family and friends kind of venture uh well before we had children we did go camping together in the Lake District and then off to Blackpool for a couple of nights and it's nice because if you've got a small tent and you're very basic camping you can pack down and go off somewhere else and but I think if I wanted romance now I'd probably go a bit more deluxe and maybe glamping or a caravan um not a caravan a camper van all right okay so five years ago for our 20th wedding anniversary we hired we got a train to Edinburgh and then hired a campervan and traveled the west side of Scotland which was lovely and that was again you you pitched somewhere every night you could pitch up on the roadside by a lake or a lock or you could go to a campsite as well yeah and do you do you hook up do you need to hook up or like do you have like toilet stuff that you have to empty or so if you are on the roadside it is pretty basic so you you squat by the sides find a bush somewhere yeah um but you've got your electric and gas on board so you don't need Electric hookup oh right see how like a canister yeah right okay if it's just for one night but and then when the the van is running we're charging our phones and things so um that that was fine but every now and then you know you wanted a decent shower and a bit of luxury when you're going to the Louvre so you would go on a campsite yeah yeah very nice I've not done a camper van we we thought about it and you can just hire them on like Airbnb you can hire them go travel to a place hire a van do what you did just travel around an area and bring it back I think that might be a good option yeah um and glamping is certainly well it's a new it's like a fad isn't it although I think it's you know here for the long term yeah which is just like glamorous camping glamping they tend to be like um Yurts is the word for these more kind of uh long-term permanent tent structures they're still canvas but they're more permanent often made with put up with what wooden poles and you have a little bit of luxury in there so there might be electricity provided a bed which is really important and then maybe like a rug or some sort of flooring within so you're not just on the like the floor uh so that's that's the glamor that's as far as it goes um so you're obviously really into camping which I always found initially quite surprising because you're quite a glamorphous I would say you know yeah well you always like you have nice clothes and you always like present yourself really nicely you come across as like we're caring about how you have a look you wear nice jewelry you always do your hair really well and um you know you visit the hairdressers often and you like to treat yourself um and so I always thought that that was a bit of a disconnect because you seem you know like you prefer like a five-star hotel where you've been pampered but do you ever do that kind of stuff do you do the hotel holidays and I've never done a hotel holiday with my family right um with children or or with extended family so I've been on a city break and stayed in a lovely place or apartments and we've done holidays abroad where we've stayed in Villas right but I've never apart from our honeymoon I've never done all inclusive Hotel high-end Hotel it's always like self-catering yeah so this year we're going to Santorini and we're staying in two places on the island and it's breakfast included right but there isn't anywhere to cook so we can't shop we and cook we which I'm fine with because I don't want to do shopping and cooking and washing up so um yeah we'll just be eating out and there'll be some lovely places I'm sure okay and do you avoid the all-inclusive holidays because of the cost no it's more because my husband doesn't want to be tied to one hotel providing the food if the food's not great and you've you feel like you've got to stay there then because you've paid for it within the holiday cost but you can get some hotels that have got like 12 restaurants and all different you know different areas different types of food that's a variety yeah but um yeah I've never done that yeah I I haven't but for me it's always been because of the cost I've always kind of tried to look for budget-friendly options when going on holiday so often like last minute deals or sometimes half board or bed and breakfast if we're doing a hotel or like when we went to Argentina it was literally just going from hostile to hostel I don't think I'd do that these days as you get older you think you have yeah yeah and what is it like less patience or you just want a little bit more security when you're traveling yeah especially when you've got a family with you as well yeah and then when you're even older still and you haven't got family and like Neil and I are just starting to Holiday without our children we want a bit more luxury now so we can go to from extremes so we would go camping and really rough it but we would also we've been looking at um holiday holidays with jacuzzis on the balcony or you know hot tubs and private swimming pools and stuff so yeah there's a nice flip side to having a bit of luxury now and again hot tubs are the rage at the moment aren't they I think even in Center Parks you can just get your normal like Lodge or a luxury Lodge with a hot tub it's like you have to have a hot tub to make your holiday super I had a holiday in Center Park so my 40th birthday and decided to spend that extra cash to get a hot tub but for the whole week that I was there for my 40th birthday it was really bad weather so I remember being like come on everyone in the evening whilst the kids are asleep to my mum my dad and my partner Nick like come on get your swimming costumes on we're going outside in the hot tub and they're like I know it's really stormy and cold like yes but I paid for it we're gonna enjoy it and it's hot when you get in yeah it's just cold when you get out it's lovely it was lovely but it was it was quite unusual so we've got a hot tub in Santorini a really nice big shaped hot tub but um I'm I'm assuming that if it's so hot you can also have it cold yeah so refreshing you wouldn't want to be getting in a hot tub in the middle of the summer in Santorini so I think they're more in those hot places I think they're more for like the evening aren't they for just in the evening I'm watching the sunset yeah yeah yeah that'll be nice and so Neil is really he's he's really outdoorsy isn't he said that he likes going out hiking and stuff like that have you accompanied him on these kind of really adventurous like hikes and trips because he does a lot of weekends away doing like camping and things yeah so he kind of knows my limits so he wouldn't take me to probably Snowden or someone like that he takes my younger daughter right she can keep up with him I wouldn't I can't do a few flights of stairs oh really without um you know needing to break and have a pause to get my breath back but I did climb oh what was it um sir Arthur's Mount so Arthur's chair in Scotland yeah so that was like a mini mountain right some people call it a hill but I I needed hiking sticks to get up walking sticks yeah um and I did find that easier actually and also coming down they're very useful and I think if I had those more on walk-in holiday or hikes um it would be easier yeah I use those Nick and I use those when we are when we're walking because especially when if it's like not steady underfoot if it's a little bit off-road yeah um and there's like loose stones and gravel and things then having sticks can really just help you to keep your balance yeah especially me I get quite dizzy so is Neil does he is he got quite a lot of patience when he's out walking with you on the occasions that he is does he kind of take his time or is he always kind of saying come on keep up like cracking the whip no I think he is quite patient because he likes to look around and absorb what's around him as well and he loves looking at the trees and or foraging yeah when you you forage for different things yeah he recently um went on a Bushcraft kind of therapy course and he learned a lot about the different foods that you could use like Nettles yeah that you could use to make a healing or you can make soap with Nettles you can make a healing ointment with I think it's Nettles as well which you wouldn't think because they sting you if but you can actually eat them and they don't sting in your mouth um nettle tea and different soups if you're out in the wild he loves he would love to do sustainable living and living off grid like being Bear Grylls kind of thing yeah yeah he would he really would um when we went when we went on our um on our Argentina holiday we went up to what was the name uh there's a really famous Glacier and I'm just terrible phenomenal to be not being able to remember the name of it but there's a really famous glacier oh no that wasn't the one okay cut let's start again um when we went to Argentina there was a day when we went to do a full day hike and at the end of I think it was like a five hour walk there and at the end of it there's this big this big bowl and a glacier and it was beautiful it was a hard hike we got there and we took our little Bunsen burner and our plan was to get there to get a chunk of ice and and and boil it down to make a cup of tea with glacial right water which we did and then that was it that was our goal just get there have glacial tea and then walk back um it was it was beautiful how was that tasting it's just lovely I mean it's really you know it's really probably very old yeah very old water um but I mean everything up there in the mountains tends to be a lot fresher than especially in London what you get out the pipes here I had read to think when we first moved into this house that we're in we had a lead pipe I don't know if you were aware of that we had a lead pipe which provided water and these days you're not supposed to have lead piping for your water because the lead seeps into the water and it can give you lead poisoning and so when we had someone come around to check our plumbing uh they said you realize you've got a lead pipe in the house for your water you need to get that changed so we did yeah so I'm sure glacial ice provided much cleaner water than we get out of the Taps yeah yeah um anyway coming back to holidays last question what is the best holiday experience you've ever had can you pinpoint it we had so many but it's hard to pick one yeah I mean a holiday probably to remember for us was um Disney Disney World in Florida oh you went to Disney World um yeah we did two weeks and that was when my oldest daughter who's nearly 22 she turned nine while we were out there and I had a birthday out there because we're four days between um and we did a week well I can't remember what we did we but we we did Universal and the Magic Kingdom and Epcot um and we stayed in a hotel not really a hotel um like apartments that had a communal pool right um a bit out of the park district and then we spent a couple of days in Clearwater as well with the near the beach and stuff so that was that was lovely so that was just the four of you that was the four of my two daughters and it was exhausting yes it is she would have been nearly five right emergency with her yeah um and it was lovely because the so there's four years between them um and the older one was all is old enough to remember it and old enough to still be young enough to still be mesmerized by the princesses and and she got glammed up in the Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo Boutique and um and we went swimming with dolphins for my for her birthday was that in one of the parks that was in Discovery Cove which is like a special dolphin um place when you can swim with the Stingrays and the sharks so that was beautiful amazing um so that was lovely it was exhausting having two young children but it was lovely to experience the magic through them yeah and to to I wouldn't like to do it now nowadays um I can't remember any of the rides and the things like that but I just remembered like the parades the fireworks um and the food was amazing oh really that's good because often I find with theme parks I I feel like they fall down on the food especially the ones that we go to around here the not that we're surrounded by theme parks but we um we are in the South so there's quite a few theme parks close by uh and it always tends to be that kind of very fast food kind of food that's kind of mass produced not very healthy yeah and not very tasty yeah and stuff well I think we ate out in a few restaurants and also we were catering for ourselves in the evening so we didn't eat so much of Park food we would make picnics and take our own lunches and then come back and eat or eat out outside of the Park yeah for that reason probably but I remember the portions being huge and I remember Lauren being given a pizza and then a cup of Parmesan cheese oh wow and there's a photo actually of her but she said um do I have to eat all this cheese because she thought that was for her and that was part of the meal when I said no that's just a shake on um but the yeah the portions were huge but it was just lovely lovely experience yeah good but my favorite holiday aside of that would probably be the tour in Scotland which I never thought I would have enjoyed touring Scotland in a campervan um but we were really lucky to have some beautiful weather yeah and it was priests just outside of the season with the midges all coming into so it was it was really lovely and it was out of the school holiday so it wasn't so busy um beautiful beaches and every every turn that we made or every Hill that we went over there was a different view so sometimes it felt like we were in the Rockies yeah sometimes it felt like we we were just in film sets just it was amazing and you never knew where you were going to sleep the next night so because you're moving on yeah so it was really good to to see a lot of and different experiences yeah I spent a lot of time touring Scotland as an actress when I when I first left College maybe two three years and we had the same like experience that even though it was you know the winter time there'd be days when you know I think Sunny winter days are beautiful anyway uh you know it's crisp and the colors are different uh but in Scotland it's such a beautiful landscape they've got so much to offer quite extreme Landscapes at times but it's also largely untouched the population is not very large and so there's lots of Countryside that's just as is yeah and and the colors up there in like in the August sorry in the Autumn and the winter are stunning and we would be trying to find these remote little primary schools to go and do our pantomimes too and be just finding these stunning roads that we were driving along an amazing scenery and just thinking wow you know this is this is really unexpected because you think Scotland in Winter you just think lots of rain just endless tolerance yeah yeah but but not always the case called anyway thank you for sharing all your thoughts and and experiences for the holidays it's been a pleasure yeah it's taken me back to some lovely memories yeah okay nice now it's time to dive a little deeper into some of the things that were said during that conversation let's start so Nikki we recently went camping not not me and you but my family went camping just for a weekend as a kind of uh like a taster to see how we as a family with young children coped with camping because I went camping as a kid I'm sure you did I did well yeah um but I've not done it as an adult with young children and I always thought that it might be quite a stressful experience but you've kind of encouraged me to give it a try because you're quite a seasoned camper aren't you to describe someone as a seasoned something a seasoned camper a seasoned traveler means that they have a lot lots of experience in doing that thing yeah yeah we've um I did go camping um they were all my family holidays existed off was camping um and then when I met Neil my husband um we went camping and then having children we went camping throughout because it was affordable oh so that's the main that's the main draw the main draw this is using the word draw to encourage to entice to pull in if you draw something to you and you bring it in it's not about taking a pencil or a pen and making a picture it's all about encouraging something to come towards you so what draws you to a certain activity so I asked or I said rather that's the main draw that's the main thing that makes you want to go camping probably yeah and there's also so many lovely parts of this country to explore and my husband loves going on walks and Hikes and climbing and stuff like that so he's very outdoorsy isn't it he is yeah to be outdoorsy I think this is quite self-explanatory but it means that you are the kind of person who is very comfortable and enjoys being outdoors doing outdoor kinds of activities you could be someone who likes outdoor climbing or paragliding hiking mountain biking so if you're outdoorsy you enjoy outdoor activity are you outdoorsy and um so go in to Cornwall and all around the South Coast we've done a lot of that yeah camping have you ever had any like horrific camping experiences that have made you go maybe camping's not for me anymore yeah that's usually to do with the weather right here Nikki said that's usually to do with the weather to do with this little phrase means related to or that's what it's about so if I say why is your friend upset have I upset her then you might say no no it's got nothing to do with you or what what you said it's actually to do with her family she's had a Fallout with her family so it's to do with it's related to connected to something else we've had quite horrific storms when we've been camping in Cornwall yeah on on the cliff top and you know very windy lots of rain and when it's windy if you've got a tent that's got very fine thin canvas it flaps and that's very noisy and we changed our tent and we got um we were in a trailer tent and that was quite old school heavy canvas um Iron well metal poles yeah Nikki described the old heavy canvas of a tent being old school if you describe something as old school it's similar to being old-fashioned but it's got a sense of coolness to it so something in the past was quite cool but it still found occasionally today and it's still cool let me call it old school for example if I decided to go out wearing fashion that was the fashion back in the 90s and I was listening to some of the best best songs on my Walkman then you might say wow Anna's pretty old school and so there was a lot of squeaking and rocking and stuff so that was um it's very noisy and then you get the flood in as well if things are touching the side or we would doubt we would always camping down downhill a bit so the floods would come down and get the runoff of all the rainbows yeah yeah now here I said get the runoff of all the rain water the runoff when talking about rain is when all the rain lands on a surface and it comes together and literally moves off the surface where it's come together so for example the roof of a building when it rains it rains all over the roof but the rain tends to roofs tend to be sloped because of rain and there's usually guttering so there's usually some sort of open pipe that will collect the runoffs so the runoff is the movement of water usually we use this when talking about rain so all the water moving collectively after rainfall I would have thought that by now that thing about you know touching the side of the tent so if you're inside the tent and you touch the side of the tent um anyone who's been camping will know it can let the rain water actually come in which is a bit of a nightmare when you're using blow up beds just in case you're not familiar with the term blow up bed is an inflatable bed it starts off flat and you although you don't blow it up with your mouth usually you have a foot pump actually our blow up beds you plug them in press a button and it just goes and it inflates and we've got these enormous blow up beds so when we went camping that recently uh our beds were really pushing out on the sides and unfortunately in our three nights I think it was that we were camping we did have thunderstorms um and so that's always a concern but I would have thought by now technology would have moved on now here I said by now I thought that technology would have moved on here the phrasal verb move on means to advance or progress you might say that food processing technology hasn't moved on in the last decade I don't think that's true but if it were true if food processing equipment hasn't progressed in 10 years then you could say it hasn't moved on or it has moved on quite considerably so the tents now don't have that but I guess it's about it being breathable yeah because even if it hasn't rained you've got condensation as well and you have any I think because of the breathing and the body heat and then the difference in the air temperature from night you touch the sides and it can be wet coming through yeah and so I remember going to um I can kagua which is a mountain in Argentina I think I've got that right I went there um and we we were walking up to a base camp there and a little beyond that and so we had to stay overnight maybe we had two nights on the Mountainside and we were in these big teepee tents and it was well set up it was this huge tent and within the tent it could sleep about 16 people and there was like all sorts of different hikers there from all over the world and Nick and I this is like our first couple's Adventure um and they had bunk beds set up and just very basic bunk beds not very comfortable bunk beds if you're not familiar with this phrase refers to two beds that are stacked one on top of the other these are very popular with children because if you have a number of kids and you don't have enough rooms or much space within your house then you can put two beds in a room and provide sleeping space for two children and you would just like grab a bunk bed which was an all-open plan now Nikki asks if it was all open plan within this tent if something is open plan we use this to describe lots of houses or accommodation open plan means that the rooms aren't really separated that you've got a big space that everyone is just in and all the functioning areas are just open within that space so an open plan living area in the downstairs of a house would mean that the kitchen and the dining and the living room area are not separated by walls they're all in one big open space all open plan beds in the middle and beds all around the outside and that thing you said about condensation was what we like had to deal with on the two nights we were there there were a couple of beds that seemed like they were the best beds in the house now this phrase might seem confusing because I said that these beds seemed to be the best in the house when we talk about something being of the house or the best in the house where normally just saying it's the best in that space so for example when you go to a theater or some sort of entertainment venue then you might buy the best seats in the House ah these are the best seats in the house or I can't believe you bought these seats they're the worst seats in the house I mean it's a theater not a house but we still say the best seats in the house when you are at a restaurant you could request house red or House White which means the red wine that is the common red wine that they sell in that particular restaurant or their common default white wine would be their house white and we were like why is no one taking these beds these are like really like prime location in the right part of the tent prime location this phrase is often used when talking about houses or accommodation prime location is like the best location either because it's the most convenient or it's the most desirable maybe it's close to facilities that people like to be close to like a gym or a nice park a river or a train station to commute into the local town I kind of sarcastically use this phrase to say that some beds were in the best part of the tent the prime location of the tent but we realized you know you throwing your stuff on and they were quite wet and you're like oh why are they weren't what's going on here let's choose another bed now here I used the phrasal verb go on I said what's going on here or what's gone on here to go on in this context means happen often people will say what's going on or what went on yesterday there was a lot of people hanging around on the corner of the street what went on or what was going on during that time they're basically asking what happened or what was happening tell me um but then in the night there were these pools of condensation from all the breathers in the tent because there's you know maybe 10 bodies there I talked about condensation from all the breathers here the word breathers is not a typical way to refer to a group of people but here I'm just referring to a group of people that are breathing condensation is where moisture in the air hits a cold surface like a window and turns back into liquid so if you have moisture or water droplets on the insides of your window on a cold morning that's condensation yeah it's really cold outside because it's snowy there's like a glacier there and there's snow on the mountain so it's cold that's all this condensation in this in this tent just meant in at some point in the night you had this drip drip drip and you might have to change the bed because you're getting covered in someone's breath pretty gross um pretty gross this means very unpleasant or really disgusting pretty gross I also used the phrasal verb hinged on to hinge on means that something that changes the balance it's an important point that could flip the balance like a hinge of a door a hinge will either mean that a door is open or closed if a situation hinges on a specific Factor then it relies on that factor to determine the outcome your experience of camp has always hinged on the weather that's how I should have phrased that so the weather can either make it an amazing experience or a terrible experience but yeah so you your bad experiences have always kind of hinged on if it was bad weather the weather really yeah and do you ever go camping like as a romantic thing just you and Neil or is it always a big family and friends kind of venture okay I use the word Venture here instead of Adventure Venture just refers to an activity but it often has this sense of risk or uncertainty attached to it so you might consider camping a bit of a venture you don't know if it's going to be an amazing experience where the sun is shining every day it's the perfect temperature and there's no wind and everything is wonderful or if it's going to be thunderstorms high winds that will blow your tent away terrible rain that will wash your tent away it's a bit of a venture so there's risk involved in this activity well before we had children we did go camping together in the Lake District and then off to Blackpool for a couple of nights and it's nice because it if you've got a small tent and you're very basic camping you can pack down and go off somewhere else and but I think if I wanted romance now I'd probably go a bit more deluxe and maybe glamping or a caravan um not a caravan a camper van all right okay interesting here Nikki said the word Deluxe Deluxe is another way of describing something that's luxury or like better than the standard and glamping as I explained in the conversation is a combination of the word glamorous and camping so it's a glamorous version of camping so five years ago for our 20th wedding anniversary we hired we got a train to Edinburgh and then hired a campervan and traveled the west side of Scotland which was lovely and that was again you you pitched somewhere every night you could pitch up on the roadside by a lake or a lock Nikki used the word pitch when talking about putting up the tent to pitch or to pitch up is the verb that we use when talking about setting up your tent or your camper van or your Caravan so where you decide to stop for a certain period is where you pitch and that area is often known as your pitch so when you are going camping you will pay for a pitch when you arrive they'll say your pitch is over there and you go to your pitch and you pitch up your tent um or you could go to a campsite as well yeah and do you do you hook up do you need to hook up or like do you have like toilet stuff that you have to empty or so does that stuff work now I use the phrasal verb hook up so to hook up when we're talking about camping is to connect your electricity so particularly if you have a caravan or a camper van you will have electrics on board in the actual vehicle and all you need to do is connect to the main wires to the mains Electric there'll be a Mains box somewhere and then you are powered I recently went camping and we decided to get a pitch with Electric hookup so that we could take our wires and we ran a wire from the box over to our tent and then we had multiple plugs that we could actually then plug in our little mini fridge charge our phones and have a light that we could just switch on and off nice and easily and we didn't have to rely on battery power so if you are on the roadside it is pretty basic so you squat by the side find a bush somewhere yeah um here Nikki is using the word squat if someone is caught short meaning that they need the toilet but there's not a facility around so they're nowhere near an actual public loo then they may need to find somewhere to squat they're probably going to squat in the bushes or somewhere private that they can find with my children I call this a wild Wii they need a wild wheel they have a wild way if we are nowhere near any public facilities but you've got got your electric and gas on board the phrase on board just means it is literally on the vehicle so we talk about being on board a ship on board a bus so when you are on something it is on board or you are on board so you don't need electric hookups oh right see how like it gets canister yeah right a gas canister for anyone who doesn't know is a tub or pot that contains gas we call it a gas canister okay if it's just for one night but and then when the the van is running we're charging our phones and things so um that that was fine but every now and then you know you wanted a decent shower and a bit of luxury when you're going to the Louvre so you would um go on a campsite yeah yeah very nice I've not done a camper van we we thought about it and you can just hire them on like Airbnb you can hire them go travel to a place hire a van do what you did just travel around an area and bring it back I think that might be a good option yeah and glamping is certainly well it's a new it's like a fad isn't it although I think it's you know you're here for the long term yeah a fad is something that becomes popular quite quickly in popular culture so lots of people are talking about it it becomes the thing that is in all the magazines in news articles everyone's posting pictures about it on social media it's a fad often fads are short-lived which is just like glamorous camping glamping ah glamor puss so I refer to Nikki as a glamor puss a glamor puss is a way of describing a person who's quite glamorous who is always well dressed always has their hair done nicely just looks glamorous Nikki is definitely glamorous they tend to be like um Yurts is the word for these more kind of uh long-term permanent tense structures they're still canvas but they're more permanent often made with put up with what wooden poles and you have a little bit of luxury in there so there might be electricity provided at Copper bed a bed which is really important and then maybe like a rug or some sort of flooring within so you're not just on the like the floor so that's that's the glamor that's as far as it goes um so you're obviously really into camping which I always found initially quite surprising because you're quite a glamorphous I would say you know yeah well you always like you have nice clothes and you always like present yourself really nicely you come across as to come across as this is a phrasal verb that means how you are perceived by other people I believe that I am warm and friendly and helpful but I might come across as grumpy and selfish so how you come across is how other people see you which might be different to how you think you are portraying yourself how do you come across well I hope um not like well caring about how you have a look you wear nice jewelry you always do your hair really well and um you know you visit the hairdressers often and you like to treat yourself um and so I always thought that that was a bit of a disconnect because you seem you know like you prefer like a five-star hotel where you'd be yeah to be pampered is to be treated in a way that's quite relaxing so if a woman talks about getting together with her friends for a night of pampering then they're probably referring to having their nails done doing their toenails maybe putting a nice treatment on their hair probably a Face Pack they might hire in a masseuse or someone to do a facial a head and shoulders massage to be pampered my partner gave me a whole hour to myself to enjoy a nice bubble bath with rose petals in it and a glass of wine and some nice chocolates my favorite chocolates and I felt like I was being pampered I had some time to relax good but do you ever do that kind of stuff do you do the hotel holidays and um I've never done a hotel holiday with my family right um with children or or with extended family so I've been on a city break a city break is a short trip normally two three or four nights in a major city so a city break might be a weekend in bath or Edinburgh maybe a trip over to Paris for a few nights that would be a city break and stayed in a lovely place or apartments and we've done holidays abroad where we've stayed in Villas right um but I've never apart from our honeymoon a honeymoon is the holiday that you take after you get married so it's the holiday for married couple will take after they have their wedding ceremony never done all inclusive Hotel high-end Hotel it's always like self-catering an all-inclusive hotel is or an all-inclusive holiday would be a holiday where you have the hotel that includes your breakfast your lunch and your dinner so your three meals of the day and usually drinks would be included so you can go to the bar and get any drinks at any point on an all-inclusive holiday high end means luxury so something that is a high end would be more expensive it would be better quality and self-catering is where you have an accommodation which has a kitchen so that you can cater for yourself so you can cook and you have a fridge to store food in yeah microwave oven that kind of thing yeah yeah so this year we're going to Santorini and we're staying in two places on the island and it's breakfast included right but there isn't anywhere to cook so we can't shop we and cook we which I'm fine with because I don't want to do shopping and cooking and washing up so um yeah we'll just be eating out to eat out this just refers to going out to a restaurant or Cafe for your meals there'll be some lovely places I'm sure and do you avoid the all-inclusive holidays because of the cost no it's more because my husband doesn't want to be tied to to be tied to something means to be stuck like either you feel obliged to stay somewhere or with someone you're tied to them or that you have to stay with a certain thing because you've paid for it so the reason that Nikki's husband didn't like the idea of an all-inclusive holiday was because he didn't want to be tied to with the same restaurants the same options for food he didn't want to be committed to the hotel food one hotel providing the food if the food's not great and you've you feel like you've got to stay there then because you've paid for it within the holiday cost but you can get some hotels that have got like 12 restaurants and all different you know different areas different types of food lots of variety yeah but um yeah I've never done that yeah I I haven't but for me it's always been because of the cost I've always kind of tried to look for budget-friendly budget friendly this just refers to something that is Affordable for your budgets if something is budget friendly it's a nice way of saying cheap or cheaper options when going on holiday so often like last minute deals or a last minute deal refers to something that you buy at the last minute and it's extra cheap because it's last minute so for example if you book a holiday you would often book it months in advance you book your flight to book your hotel however if you are daring or you something changes at the very last minute and you decide to book today for a holiday where the flights go out in two days time then that's a last minute holiday and because it's so last minute because you're booking it last minute it's going to be cheaper therefore it will be a deal so you could go to your travel agents and say hey I'm free this weekend do you have any last minute city breaks do you have any last minute deals on city breaks sometimes half board or bed and breakfast if we're doing a hotel half board is a holiday where you pay for the hotel and breakfast and lunch is usually included but not your evening meal maybe in some cases it's a different combination at Bed and Breakfast it's just your breakfast included with the accommodation or like when we went to Argentina it was literally just going from hostel to hostel I don't think I'd do that these days as you get older you think you have yeah yeah and what is it like less patience or you just want a little bit more security when you're traveling yeah especially when you've got a family with you as well um yeah and then when you're even older still and you haven't got family and like Neil and I are just starting to Holiday without our children we want a bit more luxury now so we can go to from extremes so here Nikki got confused between two phrases so she started with one phrase but then changed her mind and moved to a different phrase and then together they didn't quite make sense she says we can go to from extremes what she started saying was we can go from one extreme to another that's one phrase we can go from one extreme to another so if we're talking about temperature to go from one extreme to another is to go from freezing cold to boiling hot so you can say oh our weather it goes from one extreme to another on Sunday it was snowing on Monday morning it was a heat wave but we can also say to go to extremes which just means you move to the extreme of whatever the situation is so we would go camping and really rough it here she said really rough it to rough it is kind of like a colloquial slang phrase meaning to do things that aren't luxury like to sleep on a camping bed or to sleep on the floor but maybe you're eating very basic food just cooked on Open Fire that would be to rough it the word rough we would often also use for people if they are sleeping on the street so someone who is homeless we would say they're sleeping rough but we would also we've been looking at um holiday holidays with jacuzzis on the balcony or you know hot tubs and private swimming pools and stuff so yeah there's a nice flip side yeah here Nikki said a nice flip side so when we talk about the flip side we're talking about the opposite end we can use many different phrases here we can say on the one hand you've got this but then opposite to that or opposing that on the other hand we have this so for example you might say on one hand I really like hot weather but my opposing view is on the other hand it does make all my food go off really quickly and it kills my plants but on the other hand I hate the hot weather so you're introducing opposing sides so you can also say I really love the hot weather but on the flip side turn it over I hate the hot weather so having a bit of luxury now and again hot tubs are the rage at the moment on the other thing uh here I cut phrase in half I said hot tubs are the rage at the moment what I should have said is they are all the rage at the moment so something is all the rage then it means that it's very popular right now it's what everyone's talking about everyone's excited about right now even in Center Parks you can just get your normal like Lodge or a luxury Lodge with a hot tub it's like you have to have a hot tub to make your holiday super I had a a holiday in Center Park so my 40th birthday and decided to spend that extra cash to get a hot tub but for the whole week that I was there for my 40th birthday it was really bad weather so I remember being like come on everyone in the evening whilst the kids were asleep to my mum my dad and my partner Nick like come on get your swimming costumes on we're going outside in the hot tub on the light in case you're not familiar hot tub refers to that tub of water that you sit in to relax so it's not a bath you would normally have this in a social area like a garden or sometimes in hotels places that you might go to celebrate may have a hot tub so you'd usually wear swimming costume in the hot tub and it's normally got Bubbles and the water is warm and you go in there with your friends or your family to talk and relax and have a nice time like a Jacuzzi I know it's really stormy and cold like yes but I paid for it we're gonna enjoy it and it's hot when you get in yeah it's just cold when you get out it's lovely it was lovely but it was it was quite unusual so we've got a hot tub in Santorini a really nice big shaped hot tub but um I'm I'm assuming that if it's so hot you can also have it cold yeah so refreshing you wouldn't want to be getting in a hot tub in the middle of the summer in Santorini so I think they're more in those hot places I think they're more for like the evening aren't they for just yeah yeah yeah that'll be nice and so Neil is really he's he's really outdoorsy isn't he said that he likes going out hiking and stuff like that have you accompanied him on these kind of really adventurous like hikes and trips because he does a lot of weekends away doing like camping and things yeah so he kind of knows my limits so he wouldn't take me to probably Snowden or someone like that he takes my younger daughter right she can keep up with him here Nikki says she can keep up with him to keep up with someone in this context means to stay with them walking or cycling or whatever it is doing that activity at their pace so they are not moving out ahead of you you are staying with them going at their Pace if you're walking down the street with someone and they are falling behind you might turn around and say keep up come on or they might say no slow down I wouldn't I can't do a few flights upstairs she also said I can't do a few flights of stairs so a flight of stairs refers to a set of stairs in the average house that has has an upstairs and a downstairs there will be a flight of stairs if you're in a building that has many floors there will be several flights of stairs oh really without um you know needing to break and have a pause to get my breath back but I did climb oh what was it um sir Arthur's Mount so Arthur's chair in Scotland yeah so that was like a mini mountain right some people call it a hill but I I needed hiking sticks to get up walking sticks yeah um and I did find that easier actually and also coming down they're very useful and I think if I had those more on walk-in holiday or hikes um it would be easier yeah I use those Nick and I use those when we are when we're walking because especially when if it's like not steady underfoot if it's a little bit off-road okay off-road refers to anything that's not on the usual track so if you're walking in the countryside you might be walking down a Country Lane but if you go off the lane just in the Open Fields where there's no set place to walk then you are off-road this is more often used to talk about driving if you're driving off-road or cycling off-road then you're not going on the usual track you're going kind of free wherever you want to go if you're skiing this is called off-piste yeah um and there's like loose stones and gravel and things then having sticks can really just help you to keep your balance yeah yeah yeah expecting me I get quite dizzy um so is Neil does he is he got quite a lot of patience when he's out walking with you on the occasions that he is does he kind of take his time or is he always kind of saying come on keep up like cracking the whip to crack the whip to crack the whip means to flex your authority to tell someone come on work harder so it's to use your power or your powers of persuasion to make someone work harder so I'm your teacher if you are in my class and you're not doing any work you're just daydreaming I might come over and say hey work harder or you'll be in detention that's me cracking the whip I wouldn't do that obviously but that would be cracking the whip no I think he is quite patient because he likes to look around and absorb what's around him as well and he loves looking at the trees and or foraging to forage is where you go out into the wild and you find food that is wild like berries off the trees so you might find mushrooms growing in The Woodlands to find food that is growing naturally in the wild it's not the same as growing food purposefully in your allotment or in your garden if you grow your own carrots and pull them out that's not foraging foraging is going searching for it where nature put it yeah when you you forage for different things yeah he recently um went on a Bushcraft kind of therapy course and he learned a lot about the different foods that you could use like Nettles and nettle is this lovely stinging plant that stings your skin if you brush past it yeah that you could use to make a healing or you can make soap with Nettles you can make a healing ointment with I think it's Nettles as well which you wouldn't think because they sting you if but you can actually eat them and they don't sting in your mouth um nettle tea and different soups if you're out in the wild he loves he would love to do sustainable living and living off grid like being Bear Grylls kind of thing yeah yeah you would to live off grid is to be off the internet and uncontactable untraceable in the modern world some extreme cases to live off grid is to be completely off electricity or anything that's provided by The Wider community so if you are living in a remote place where you have a well for your own water or a river or stream where you get your own water you have a fire that you collect wood so you don't have any central heating you have no electricity you don't have internet or a telephone line you are off grid their grills is a popular character he's a real person but he's well known for being kind of like an outdoorsy wild man he can survive in all sorts of different environments he goes and lives off-grid and has all these adventures and so he's quite famous in popular culture right now Bear Grylls is known as the adventury outdoors survival guy he really was amazing um when we went when we went on our um on our Argentina holiday we went up to what was the name um there's a really famous Glacier and I'm just terrible for that to be not being able to remember the name of it but there's a really famous glacier oh no that wasn't the one okay cut start again um when we went to Argentina there was a day when we went to do a full day hike and at the end of I think it was like a five hour walk there and at the end of it there's this big this big bowl and a glacier and it was beautiful it was a hard hike we got there and we took our little Bunsen burner a Bunsen burner this is something that reminds me of science class back in school and college a Bunsen burner is a little device where with a flame it's got a little gas pipe that connects to a gas canister or the mains the gas Mains and it's a little single flame and you can heat things on top of it so a little Bunsen burner and our plan was to get there to get a chunk of ice and and boil it down to make a cup of tea with glacial water which we did and then that was it that was our goal just get there have glacial tea and then walk back um it was it was beautiful how was that tasting it's just lovely I mean it's really you know it's really probably very old yeah very old water yeah um but no I mean everything up there in the mountains tends to be a lot fresher than especially in London what you get out the pipes here I dread to think when we first moved into this house that we're in we had a lead pipe here I talked about a lead pipe the pipe being the tube that brings our water into the house if there's a pipe burst somewhere then the water board have to come out and fix the pipe a lead pipe lead is the material so it's a material that carried water from one place to another I don't know if you were aware of that we had a lead pipe which provided our water and these days you're not supposed to have lead piping for your water because the lead seeps into the water and it can give you lead poisoning to see into something is like to to move and spread so something seeps into the water then it absorbs almost into the water it gets out and spreads uh and so when we had someone come around to check off plumbing plumbing is the overall term that refers to anything to do with water so your Taps your pipes your boiler anything that provides water in your house or deals with water in your home is Plumbing uh they said you realize you've got a lead pipe in the house for your water you need to get that changed so we did yeah so I'm sure glacial ice provided much cleaner water than we get out of the Taps yeah yeah um anyway coming back to holidays last question what is the best holiday experience you've ever had can you pinpoint it two pinpoint is to find an exact thing so if I have a general pain in my body but I don't know what's causing it I'd say I can't pinpoint what the problem is but there's something wrong I've got some sort of weird sensation in my back I'm very uncomfortable but I can't pinpoint exactly where the pain is we had so many that it's hard to pick one yeah I mean a holiday probably to remember for us was um Disney Disney World in Florida oh you went to Disney World um yeah we did two weeks and that was when my oldest daughter who's nearly 22 she turned nine while we were out there and I had a birthday out there because we're four days between here Nikki says we're four days between what she actually meant was there are four days between our birthdays right um and we did a week we did we but we we did Universal and the Magic Kingdom and Epcot um and we stayed in a hotel not really a hotel um like apartments that had a communal pool right um communal means shared by a wider group of people so if you are staying in a hotel but it's only a one-star hotel and you don't have an ensuite so you don't have a bathroom as part of your room you have to use a communal bathroom so everyone in the hotel uses this one bathroom a bit out of the park district and then we spent a couple of days in Clearwater as well with the near the beach and stuff so that was that was lovely so that was just the four review that was the four of your two daughters and it was exhausting yes it is exhausting she would have been nearly five right so really magically was her yeah um and it was lovely because the so there's four years between them now this is a very typical thing for natives to do Nikki said there's four years between them there's that contraction would be there is four years between them rather than there are four years between them because saying there are there are there are Contracting there are it's much harder we don't really do it we could say there are four years between them but that takes longer so we tend to contract and change there are to there is or theirs so if you hear that or see that written in a transcription never write it but if you see it written in a transcription it's because when we speak to make it easier we just change there are there are it's easier to say there's there's four years between them um and the older one result is old enough to remember it and old enough to still be uh young enough to still be mesmerized by the princesses and and she got glammed up in the bibbity Boppity Boo to get glammed up means to become more glamorous so to make yourself look nice and look glamorous for an occasion so we often get glammed up if we're going on a night out or for a nice meal or a vent like a wedding Boutique and um and we went swimming with dolphins for my for her birthday was that in one of the parks that was in Discovery Cove which is like a special dolphin place when you can swim with the Stingrays and the sharks so that was beautiful amazing um so that was lovely it was exhausting having two young children but it was lovely to experience the magic through them yeah and to to I wouldn't like to do it now nowadays um I can't remember any of the rides and the things like that but I just remembered like the parades the fireworks um and the food was amazing oh really that's good because often I find with theme parks I feel like they fall down on the food now I use the phrase of a fall down on to fall down on something is to perform badly in an area so if I say you were doing really well but then you fell down on the grammar section of the test then that would be the area where you stopped performing well where you started performing badly especially the ones that we go to around here the not that we're surrounded by theme parks but we um we are in the South so there's quite a few theme parks close by uh and it always tends to be that kind of very fast food kind of food that's kind of mass produced not very healthy yeah and not very tasty yeah and I think we ate out in a few restaurants and also we were catering for ourselves in the evening so we didn't eat so much of Park food we would make picnics and um take our own lunches and then come back and eat or eat out hacked lunches is a really common term especially if you've got school-aged children a packed lunch I'm sure you can guess is a lunch that you pack up and take with you so if you are going from home to school or from home to work or out on a day trip you might decide to take a packed lunch you make some sandwiches you wrap them up you put them in a box and you take your packed lunch box outside of the Park yeah for that reason probably but I remember the portions being huge and I remember Lauren being given a pizza and then a cup of Parmesan cheese oh wow and there's a photo actually of her but she said um do I have to eat all this cheese because she thought that was for her and that was part of the meal when I said no that's just a shake on um but the yeah the portions were huge but it was just lovely lovely experience yeah good but my favorite holiday aside of that would probably be um the tour in Scotland which I never thought I would have enjoyed touring Scotland in a campervan um but we were really lucky to have some beautiful weather yeah and it was Priest just outside of the season with the midges all coming into midges midges refer to these tiny little flies like gnats and they bite and there's loads of them and they come out in the warm summery weather especially where there's water so if there's a lake or a stream you'll often find swarms of midges and gnats and they get in your face and then they bite you so it was it was really lovely and it was out of the school holidays so it wasn't so busy now Nikki talks about being out of the school holidays so we talk about being in the school holidays and out of the school holidays These are times of the year if you're booking a holiday in the school holidays we're talking about when the school are broken up when the schools are not happening when the kids are off school that's in the school holidays if you don't have kids then you will try to book your holidays out of the school holidays so you don't want to be booking during the time when the kids are off because everywhere will be twice as expensive and really busy um beautiful beaches and every every turn that we made or every Hill that we went over there was a different view so sometimes it felt like we were in the Rockies sometimes it felt like we we were just in film sets just here Nikki referred to the amazing views as being similar to that of a film set a film set would refer to something that looks beautiful as it would do in a film so they have these amazing sets but it's just a film set but in real life sometimes views can be so beautiful it looks perfect like it was made for a film like a film set it was amazing and you never knew where you were going to sleep the next night so because you're moving on yeah so it was really good to to see a lot of it and different experiences yeah I spent a lot of time touring Scotland as an actress when I when I first left College uh maybe two or three years and we had the same like experience that even though it was you know the winter time there'd be days when you know I think Sunny winter days are beautiful anyway uh you know it's crisp and the colors are different ah interesting I referred to the Views that I saw as being crisp like the winter days being crisp when I talk about the day being crisp I'm referring both to the weather being mild so it's not hot and oppressive and it's not too cold and windy it's just a little bit crunchy in the air it's a little bit cold in the air but not too cold also if it's a bright cold day if the Sun is out everything is a bit crisp so literally the leaves will be dry and laying on the grounds when you walk on them they'll be crispy and crunchy but also the colors are vibrant so everything has a very hard Edge you can see everything very clearly because the sun is so clearly showing all the edges it's crisp well defined but in Scotland it's such a beautiful landscape they've got so much to offer quite extreme Landscapes at times but it's also a largely untouched the population is not very large and and so there's lots of Countryside that's just as is yeah and and the colors up there in like in the August I'm sorry in the Autumn and the winter are stunning and we would be trying to find these remote little primary schools to go and do our pantomimes ah a pantomime a pantomime is a well-known British tradition this is a theater show that happens around the winter around the Christmas holidays usually sometimes after Christmas as well into January and a pantomime has origins in Comedia de latte it's a very big style of audience interaction and comedy and songs it's a whole lesson all on its own so it's a theater a style of theater show too and be just finding these stunning roads that we were driving along an amazing scenery and just thinking wow you know this is this is really unexpected because you think Scotland in Winter you just think lots of rain just endless tolerance yeah yeah but but not always the case called anyway thank you for sharing all your thoughts and and experiences for the holidays it's been a pleasure yeah it's taken me back here Nikki said it's taken me back if something takes you back then it reminds you of something in the past oh this song takes me back This song reminds me of a time in the past so some lovely memories yeah okay nice well I hope you found that useful and a huge thank you to Nikki for joining me in today's video now if you do find native speakers quite hard to understand then perhaps check out this lesson which if it's not appearing on screen I'll put a link down in the description below until next time take care and goodbye

Channel: English Like A Native

Views: 211,605

Keywords: English Lesson, Learn English, daily english, english fluency, english listening conversation, english speaking, fluent english, how to speak english fluently, learn english conversation, native english conversation, native english listening practice, native english speaker conversation, native english speaker conversation uk, native english speaker speech with subtitles, native english speaking, native english speaking conversation, native speaker, speak english

Id: lCAg8Ybm2us

Length: 74min 59sec (4499 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 23 2023