Native English speakers answer questions about the home from previous B2, C1, C2 and IELTS exam papers.
In this episode there are plenty of useful adjectives and idioms, we will also focus a bit on pronunciation, as well as some top tips about what not to do in exams.
For classes or transcripts go to https://realexamenglish.com/
Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Thanks to all of the contributors, including Matt, Leah Ann, Stephanie, Loli, Emma and Leanne from the Beach Travel Wine podcast.
Native English speakers answer questions about the home from previous B2, C1, C2 and IELTS exam papers.
In this episode there are plenty of useful adjectives and idioms, we will also focus a bit on pronunciation, as well as some top tips about what not to do in exams.
For classes or transcripts go to https://realexamenglish.com/
Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Thanks to all of the contributors, including Matt, Leah Ann, Stephanie, Loli, Emma and Leanne from the Beach Travel Wine podcast.
Real Exam English Season 4 Weather
Hello and welcome to the Real Exam English podcast, this episode is about the weather. It´s your classic small talk subject, isn´t it. When you meet someone at the bus stop or in the elevator the first thing that people say to each is other is often about how hot it is, or how wet, or cold, or whatever. Well, at least in most English speaking countries it´s like that anyway, I´m not sure in every country if it´s like that. Of course, it´s a common exam subject too. You might need to describe the weather where you live, or on a holiday you were on, or you may have to talk about extreme weather, and of course weather is linked to climate change also so that is a particularly hot topic, if you pardon the pun.
Today we have speakers from the US, Australia, Ireland and three different speakers from the UK. So we have a nice variety of types of weather, you´re gonna hear loads of weather vocabulary, as well as some top adverbs, a few phrasal verbs and some great real English expressions to make you sound a little bit more like a native English speaker.
As usual you can find the transcripts for this and all episodes on the Real Exam English website, realexamenglish.com
Ok, here we go:
In what ways do you think weather and our mood are connected?
Oh, very much so. Especially I especially here you would notice that in a country that is as changeable with the weather in our, in Ireland. Today now, for instance, it is a dull, wet day. But last week it was sunny, everybody was out enjoying themselves. People made more of an effort to go out and meet people. Today we just feel like going back to bed and covering yourself with the duvet and hibernating for the day
How is global warming affecting the climate?
Ohh usually I hugely in countries like Spain, uh, all the southern countries in our own I suppose area which is Europe, they're experiencing extreme droughts. I would suppose you would say less rainfall, hotter summers. UM, then in other parts of the world you have extreme flooding that has never been seen before. You, the storms are getting more extreme. I suppose. Animals are being driven out of their natural habitats. You know, plants are not surviving where they have survived for hundreds of years. I could go on and on. I. you know, I mean climate change is probably for me it's the biggest thing, the biggest emergency in our lifetimes.
Some great weather vocabulary to start us off here. We had sunny weather, changeable weather, dull, wet days, dull meaning overcast or without much brightness. We also heard about droughts, which is when there is not enough water, flooding, when there is too much water, less rainfall, hotter summers, storms, climate change, loads and loads of topic relevant vocabulary. As she said, she could go on and on. This expression means that she could continue to talk endlessly about it. We often use this in a negative way, like John goes on and on about how great his new car is, or Trevor goes on and on about not repeating the same language. True, right.
She said that animals are being driven out of their natural habitats. This phrasal verb, to drive out means to force someone or something to leave or to make them disappear. Like a lot of small shops are being driven out of business due to the arrival of larger stores. Or the government has been driven out by the rebels.
If you could choose, what climate would you prefer to have where you live?
I live in the climate that I like, which is Northeastern United States. All Four Seasons, warm in the summer, cool in the winter. I could use a little less warmth in the summer. I prefer fall to any other season.
In what ways do you think weather and our mood are connected?
I think that weather and our mood are connected, if it is a dark and dreary day or a few hours of darkness, I think we are sadder and less energetic and more depressed, whereas sunshine helps our mood and our energy level and our relationships with others.
A nice mix of adjectives here, warm, cool, sadder, energetic, depressed, dark and dreary. These last ones came together, dark and dreary. It´s useful to learn some adjective pairs like this, short and sweet, neat and tidy, nice and quiet, there´s loads of them. And remember that the order cannot be changed, so never dreary and dark, always dark and dreary.
In the first answer she said she could use a little less warmth in the summer. This means she would like a little less warmth. Other examples would be I could use a holiday, or I could use a cup of a tea. This expression also has a slightly different meaning, which is that something or someone needs something. Like, the house could use a lick of paint, or I could use some English classes with Trevor. Just to note as well that she mentioned the fall as her favourite season, the fall is US English for what is the autumn in the UK. Incidentally, I lived in that part of the US for a year and a half and I highly recommend checking out the fall, it´s really, really beautiful with spectacular vibrant colours on show from the big old deciduous trees they have there, breathtaking!
In what ways do you think weather and our mood are connected?
That is such a good question. I think the weather and mood here are 100% connected. Yeah, because one of the reasons I came to live in Spain was the fact that in the UK, you know, most…in winter, most days are rainy. It makes you depressed. 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon it's dark, it's raining and you just get really depressed. And December is a really terrible, you know, beginning of December is a terrible time of the year over there because people are so fed up with the weather, you know, so they go to shopping centres and go shopping because there's nothing else to do and in Spain most of the time you get up and it's always sunny, it makes you more cheery. Then you get to August and it's too hot and it's unbearable. You stay inside, you know? So, when it's extreme heat, that is very tiring, it makes you grumpy as well. So you know it's 100% connected. The weather and your mood 100% I'd say you know, it's got to do with how it makes you feel.
Does the weather in your country ever affect transportation?
Well, I don't think so. It depends on where you talking about. If you talk about England, then yeah, well, as soon as it snows and stuff like that, the trains stop. But in Spain, I don't think so. The buses work and the planes work, and I don't, I don't see…I mean, the car might get overheated because it's so hot and the tyres might get damaged by the sun, but in terms of public transport, I don't think, you know, it gets affected no.
In the first answer we had a bunch of different ways to express feeling negatively, we had depressed, fed up with the weather, it is unbearable, it’s very tiring and it makes you grumpy. Really important to have some different ways to say your feeling bad, other great expressions are down in the dumps, down in the mouth, feeling blue or feel like shit if you want to be a bit ruder about it.
In the second answer she continues with the negativity, this time by using the passive voice with get, the car gets overheated, the tyres get damaged, public transport doesn´t get affected. We had this before in a previous episode, using the passive with get to talk about events that are negative or not desired. Like my house got flooded last year or I got sunburned on the beach.
Just a reminder that if you are looking for English classes to prepare for an exam or just to learn how to talk about the weather, then get in touch, you can find details on the website, realexamenglish.com
How important is the weather to you?
Do you know what, it is important to me. I know that the saying is, you know, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes. But if you're going, you know, overseas and you wanna be travelling around beach places or hiking, you know, it's always nice to be dry and not…and not too hot, but you know, when you go on a skiing holiday, which we sometimes do to either New Zealand or Japan, you definitely want, you know, good weather in the snow.
To what extent are weather forecasts accurate?
I think they're pretty damn accurate, actually. I mean, yeah, I think they've got so much knowledge now and they can only make predictions, but you, you know pretty well if it's gonna be hot or windy or, you know, chance of rain. I think they do a pretty damn good job.
Love that Australian accent. She uses this intensifier, pretty damn accurate and pretty damn good job, you would hear this pretty damn frequently in Australia, and in the US too, not so much in the UK. What is also common in Australia is to use this word overseas when you are travelling to another country, and this word sometimes comes up in exams and confuses people. If you think about it, quite a lot of English-speaking countries are islands so it makes sense to use this word, overseas, when travelling abroad.
When she was answering the first question about the weather, she said Do you know what, it is important to me. So, you can use “you know what” to indicate that you are going to say something interesting or surprising, or to convey a realization. Kind of like she has just realized how important the weather is, Do you know what, it is important to me. Another example would be, I didn´t really want to go to see that film, but you know what, I really enjoyed it in the end. Or hey Trevor, do you want a cup of tea? No, I´m fine thanks….well, actually, you know what, I will, that’d be lovely.
If you could choose, what climate would you prefer to have where you live?
Probably where you are in Alicante where it's it's….One of our favorite places to go on holiday, we go there pretty much every year, is Lanzarote and it's usually over our wintertime, so it's not really red hot, but it's round about….it can get up to 20-25 degrees. So for me, a perfect all year round temperature would be around about 20 to 25 degrees. Yeah, where it's sunny and but not over over hot.
Does the weather in your country ever affect transportation?
It can do. I think it's usually freak episodes where we, you know, we're not cut out for dealing with heavy snowfalls and you know, and obviously floods. Not many people are able to deal with those, but I think it's global change and it's global warming. Yeah, I think it's just freak. Yeah, we're OK because we don't really get that many extremes of weather. It's just flash floods and heavy snowfalls occasionally, and we're not geared up for it. So, uh, I think in general, yes. Yea, we can deal with what we get.
Some more weather vocab here, freak episodes, which are very unusual or infrequent weather events, heavy snowfalls, flash floods, which are very sudden floods, he got global warming in there too. He had a couple of nice phrasal verbs too, we are not cut out for dealing with heavy snowfalls. We had this one before, not cut out for, meaning not naturally able to do or be something, like, in Ireland we are not cut out for extreme heat, nobody has air conditioning. Similarly he said we’re not geared up for it, meaning we are not prepared or equipped for it. Like Lanzarote geared up for the tourist season by getting the beaches and hotels up to scratch.
How important is the weather to you?
As somebody from England, the weather is eminently important because we like to talk about it all the time. But sort of all flippancy aside, I think the weather is important in the sense of, you know…when we start to consider our climate and what's happening with climate change, weather is a manifestation of a part of what's going on in a much bigger picture. So, you know, increasingly seeing more droughts, seeing heavier rainfall in certain areas, these things are important. And I mean, you know, just on a day-to-day sort of level it's kind of helpful to know what the weather is going to be, so like, so you can sort of dress and heat your home or not heat your home accordingly. Yeah, I'd say it's fairly important.
Which country do you think has the perfect weather?
I'm quite partial to the weather in and Singapore and the reason I say that is because it's a constant 32 degrees and I love that it's lovely and warm, but it's also quite refreshing and they've managed to, they've managed to make sure that they've got air conditioning and various other things so that you don't feel like you're overheating. They're also an incredibly clean nation, I mean they've got some interesting views on other things but their weather's their weather's really quite nice. I like it. It works for me because I like warm weather, but I appreciate that that's not everybody's cup of tea. I have a friend who prefers to be cold. So for her, Canada is the perfect weather because it gets really very cold, but it's not for me.
Ooo, fancy new adverb here, eminently, she said the weather is eminently important, meaning very important, it´s a more formal adverb really. It would be good for writing a letter of application, for instance, like I believe I am eminently qualified for the role or in a proposal, This solution would be eminently suitable for dealing with the problem.
She said the changing weather is a manifestation of climate change, meaning it´s a sign that it is happening. That’s a great sentence to be able to put into your exam writing or speaking, I’d make a note of that one if I were you.
We had another of those adjective pairs, lovely and warm, never warm and lovely, always lovely and warm.
Then in the second answer she says that she is partial to the weather in Singapore, meaning that she has a liking for it. Another example would be I´m partial to Italian food, or I´m partial to historical dramas myself. Or negatively, I´m not partial to the summers in Spain, or as she said they are not her cup of tea, which is of course this classic expression saying you don’t like something.
Well I hope this episode was your cup of tea. It´s nice to hear about the weather from the different parts of the world. Have a think about how you would describe the weather in your area and how it is changing and also be aware that a lot of English speakers love to talk about the weather so if you are a business person or someone visiting an English speaking country on holidays or an exchange then make sure you have your vocabulary up to scratch!
Ok guys, that´s it for today, have a nice day,
Trevor