Learn English quickly with Smart Podcast | Episode 9

hello everyone and welcome back to English pod my name is Marco and I'm Erica and today with Erica we have an upper intermediate lesson that's right an upper intermediate lesson that's a little bit strange it's a little bit strange but it's a real English lesson because that's what we give you here at English pod so in today's lesson we've got a lot of really great language for you we've got language to help you to gossip better gossip why don't you uh explain it a little bit just in case okay so if I gossip I maybe

share news or information about other people with my friends like I might say something like Marco did you see what happened in Chinese pod today you'll never guess what I saw exactly that's gossip and we also have language today to describe things to describe strange things strange things all right so let's take a look at our vocabulary preview vocabulary preview so in our vocabulary preview we'll look at a few important words that will help you to understand the dialogue a little bit better exactly and the first word is weird weird weird weird now this is

a common word you probably hear all the time and in a lot of different situations so we wanted to explain it today yeah uh this word just means strange it's strange yeah weird person is a strange person exactly but the thing about this word is is if you are a young person let's say under the age of 35 you'll probably use it about a 100 times a day weird yeah just such a good sounding word weird it is okay but the thing is that even though it's probably more commonly used in American English it's still

widely used for British English as well yeah that's true so but maybe in British English you would say something like odd it's odd that's more common okay let's look at our second word housewarming gift housewarming gift housewarming gift housewarming gift now this is a cultural thing it's really common in North America to give a housewarming gift to someone yeah if I move into a new house maybe some of my friends or family will bring a gift over to make my house a little bit more beautiful so something like a photo frame or or maybe a

plant or sometimes even like maybe a basket of pastries or something okay yeah I've never gotten one of those because I don't have a home oh where do you live on the street well I don't have a my own home so I have never gotten one of those okay okay so we're ready now to listen to our dialogue so we've got two housewives who are gossiping about what's going on in the neighborhood and let's listen to what [Music] happens oh I don't know if you've heard but someone moved into that old house down the road

yeah I know I met the owner of the house yesterday as he was moving in his name is Armand really what's he like you have to fil me in actually he's a bit strange I don't know I've just got a bad feeling about him really why well yesterday I brought over a housewarming gift but Arman started acting really weird and then he practically kicked me out I tried to sort of peek into his house but everything was so dark inside that I couldn't really get a good look the whole thing really creeped me out well

you'll never guess what I saw this morning a delivery truck pulled into his driveway and it dropped off a long rectangular box it almost looked like a coffin you see why would he hello ladies Armand you scared the heck out of me this is my friend Doris pleasure to meet you if you're not doing anything tonight I'd like to have you both for dinner I mean I'd like to have you both over for dinner [Music] ooh that guy seems kind of weird you can hear his voice is like a weird guy right yeah all right

let's take a look at our language takeaway and look at some of these great words language takeaway so our language takeaway focuses on several words from the dialogue that we feel are really important for you to know exactly and we have four of them for you today why don't we look at the first one okay so the first word is a bad feeling bad feeling a bad feeling a bad feeling so we've got a few examples that will help you to understand how this phrase Works example one I don't like Kelly's new boyfriend I've got

a bad feeling about him example two it's so dark we shouldn't be out here I've got a bad feeling about this example three I've got a bad feeling about this trip I feel like something's going to happen maybe we shouldn't go okay so basically you think something bad is going to happen yeah you have a sort of uncomfortable feeling okay that makes sense I have a bad feeling about something exactly okay let's look at our second word now kicked me out kicked me out kicked me out kicked me out so when someone kicks you out

it's they force you to leave you don't want to leave but they force you to leave yeah Marco have you ever kicked someone out of your class um yes I have really yeah if you mis behave in my class you're kicked out so you're pretty strict huh sometimes I am um okay also maybe you've kicked your husband out of bed M I might have done that once or twice before we'll have to ask him I'm sure he has all right so that's what it means you force someone to leave the house leave the class leave

the bed so kicked out of class kicked out of the house kicked out of bed exactly great let's look at our third word now creeped me out creeped me out creep Creed me out creeped me out now this is a really common phrase I like this phrase a lot and we've got some examples for you to listen to to help you understand this word a little bit better example one sh did you hear that oh I think I saw something stop it you're really creeping me out example two this place really creeps me out let's

get out of here all right well I have a confession to make I'm kind of creeped out by clowns you are yes I don't know they're just creepy they're they scare me I don't know really what is it about clowns that scare you so much I don't know they're just white faces and weird paint I don't know it's just creepy and the way they laugh I don't know maybe you had a bad experience with clowns as a child probably I watched the scary movie about clowns or something yeah all right so creeped me out basically

means made me feel uncomfortable yes it scares you yeah well speaking of being scared we have our final word for language takeaway and it is scared the heck out of me you scared the heck out of me scared the heck out of me you got really scared yeah I think this is a quite common way of saying you really really scared me yeah okay we're ready to listen to our dialogue again now try and see if you can catch all these phrases that we just talked [Music] about oh I don't know if you've heard but

someone moved into that old house down the road yeah I know I met the owner of the house yesterday as he was moving in his name is Armand really what's he like you have to fill me in actually he's a bit strange I don't know I've just got a bad feeling about him really why well yesterday I brought over a housewarming gift but Arman started acting really weird and then he practically kicked me out I tried to sort of peek into his house but everything was was so dark inside that I couldn't really get a

good look the whole thing really creeped me out well you'll never guess what I saw this morning a delivery truck pulled into his driveway and it dropped off a long rectangular box it almost looked like a coffin you see why would he hello ladies ah armont you scared the heck out of me this is my friend Doris a pleasure to meet you if you are not doing anything tonight I would like to have you both for dinner I mean I would like to have you both over for dinner you know one of the things I

really like about this dialogue is there's a lot of great phrases that will help you to gossip that's a good observation so I think it's time for fluency Builder fluency builder in fluency Builder we take a simple phrase or a simple word you already know and show you how to express the same idea a little bit more naturally okay great so let's take a look at our first item for fluency Builder so when you gossip with somebody you often tell them news or information that they don't know already and you might start by saying did

you know that or you can say did you hear yeah both of those phrases are perfectly fine but if you want to sound a little bit more native likee when you're gossiping you might try out this phrase from the dialogue I don't know if you've heard I don't know if you've heard yeah that's a really good phrase you're saying exactly the same thing but in a really natural way it's a great one for gossiping so Marco I don't know if you've heard but Chinese PO is up to some pretty crazy things see that's exactly how

you would use that phrase so now let's take a look at our second item now when you're gossiping you want information that's right so you might say oh tell me about it or something like give me the details yeah and again both of these examples are perfectly fine but when you're gossiping you might want to try something like this you have to f fill me in you have to fill me in fill me in yeah that's that's what I would say fill me in you know give me the details fill me in fill me in

on today's gossip okay so let's take a look at our third item now if you have some juicy gossipy news and you want to start up a conversation you might use this phrase here well you'll never guess what I saw this morning well you'll never guess what I saw this morning that's a really good phrase you can change it a little bit you can say you'll never guess who I saw or you'll never guess what I heard exactly very excellent gossip phrases we're teaching you how to gossip because that's real English people really do it

so you got to know the language for it all right so enough of our gossip I think it's time for us to listen to the dialogue one last time oh I don't know if you've heard but someone moved into that old house down the road yeah I know I met the owner of the house yesterday as he was moving in his name is Armand really what's he like you have to fill me in actually he's a bit strange I don't know I've just got a bad feeling about him really why well yesterday I brought over

a housewarming gift but Arman started acting really weird and then he practically kicked me out I tried to sort of peek into his house but everything was so dark inside that I couldn't really get a good look the whole thing really creeped me out well you'll never guess what I saw this morning a delivery truck pulled into his driveway and it dropped off a long rectangular box it almost looked like a coffin you see why would he hello ladies Armand you scared the heck out of me this is my friend Doris a pleasure to meet

you if if you're not doing anything tonight I'd like to have you both for dinner I mean I'd like to have you both over for [Music] dinner okay Marco I have a true story for you is it kind of like a creepy story it is a creepy story indeed is it a true story no it's really true so when I was young I used to live in the country mhm and you know in the country all of the neighbors know each other it's a small community so everyone knows what's happening all the time okay and

there was some gossip going on in our community about a guy who lived at the end of the road mhm and he was the owner of a car wrecking yard so a place where you take old broken down cars and take the parts apart to sell right and anyway a scrapyard yeah a scrapyard all right okay so you know he had a wife wife and a couple of kids um and suddenly His Wife disappeared wow yeah and no one knew what happened or anything and so several years pass and suddenly the police start coming in

and start investigating this guy and start digging up all of the land around his property and I guess I don't know what they're doing but I think they were looking for the wife's body wow and did they find it I don't know I moved away oh such a great story but we don't know how it ends yeah yeah well um well we can leave it up to the imagination of our listeners exactly maybe they were looking for an old car an old car very in the ground I don't think so all right that's a true

story real English real stories there go you heard it first here on English pod all right so we want to hear your comments and suggestions about this topic I bet a lot of our listeners also have creepy stories maybe ghost stories maybe I don't know different types of uh weird stories so you guys should definitely log on to englishpod and share them with us that's right go to englishpod do.com and in the comment section of the website tell us your creepy stories and we're going to pick out the best story as the story of the

week we'll announce it in our this justtin podcast yes so we want to hear all your juicy stories and gossip maybe as well yes all right well it's time for us to go so be sure to listen to us next time but until then it's bye-bye bye [Music] the English pod audio review listen to the meaning then say the vocabulary word phrase used to introduce a piece of [Music] information I don't know if you heard tell me about it fill me in a sense or feeling that something bad is going to happen a bad feeling

strange unusual weird make or Force someone to leave when they don't want to kick out make me feel uncomfortable and a bit scared creep me out phrase used to introduce a piece of news you'll never guess cause someone to feel a lot of fear scare the heck out of me strange strange or unusual bizarre strange or scary causing people to feel nervous and Afraid [Music] creepy a dead person who drinks the blood of living people vampire phrase used to introduce a piece of gossip have you heard phrase used to introduce an interesting or surprising piece

of information guess what let's try that faster a dead person who drinks the blood of living people vampire phrase used to introduce a piece of news you'll never guess tell me about it fill me in phrase used to introduce a piece of Gossip have you heard strange or scary causing people to feel nervous and Afraid creepy phrase used to introduce an interesting or surprising piece of information guess what strange unusual weird make me feel uncomfortable and a bit scared creep me out cause someone to feel a lot of fear scare the heck out of me

make or Force someone to leave when they don't want want to kick out a sense or feeling that something bad is going to happen a bad feeling strange or unusual bizar phrase used to introduce a piece of [Music] information I don't know if you heard now say the word and hear it in a sentence weird last night I kept hearing a really weird sound I don't know what it was weird our teacher seems a bit weird don't you think weird the weirdest thing happened to me yesterday a pack of monkeys stole my car [Music] keys

a bad feeling I've got a bad feeling about Kelly's new boyfriend I don't think he's a good guy a bad feeling I have a bad feeling about this sales strategy I think it's going to fail a bad feeling I've got a bad feeling about this trip I think we should stay home kick out if you don't be quiet I'm going to kick you out of this meeting kick out we got kicked out of the restaurant at midnight because they were closing kick out that's it I'm kicking you out of class go stand in the hall

creep me out This Old House is so scary it's really creeping me out creep me out I watch The Exorcist last night that movie really creeps me out creep me out the last time I walked home alone at night I really really got creeped out I almost got in a car accident yesterday that scared the heck out of me don't wear that vampire mask you're scaring the heck out of the baby I'm terrified of clowns they scare the heck out of me I don't know if you've heard but Susan and John are breaking up I

don't know if you've heard but the new marketing manager is single I don't know if you've heard but Maurice quit his job yesterday fill me in I can't go to today's meeting but can you fill me in on the important details fill me in how was your date you have to fill me in Fill Me In Sarah missed her class yesterday but I filled her in on the homework assignment you'll never guess what I heard Peter and Anna are getting married you'll never guess who I saw yesterday Bill my boyfriend from high school you'll never

guess what Sandra told me she's moving to Alaska [Music]