English Learning Podcast Conversation | English Podcast for Intermediate | Episode 21 |

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to English pod my name is Marco my name is Katherine and today we've got a very special lesson for you all about time that's right we're going to concentrate a little bit on uh some specific points of grammar this time and we're going to talk about the morning routine what you do in the mornings well let's take a look first at the word routine this is our vocabulary preview for today vocabulary preview all right so a routine or the morning routine what is a routine a routine is basically your habit for a certain period of time so for example your routine in the morning is what you do when you wake up right get breakfast and go to work you can also have a an evening routine it's what you always do before you go to bed exactly so everyone has a routine what they do in the mornings maybe what you do at night before going to bed so um that's what we're going to talk about today that's right you can also have an exercise routine so basically anything with steps 1 2 3 four five that you always do the same way that's the routin exactly right so that's what we're going to take a look at today why don't we jump right into our dialogue and listen to Stephanie's routine Stephanie did you just get to school but you were up and about when I left the dorm this morning that was about an hour and a half ago this happens all the time why do you always take so long to get ready in the mornings it's a skill what can I say I don't know why I just have a long routine please explain because it makes no sense to me how can a girl's routine be so complicated you get up you shower you get dressed you brush your teeth you're out the door half an hour tops Jacob you have the luxury of having a haircut that rarely needs styling I I don't I have to set aside about an hour and a half to get ready in the mornings every day I wake up and head straight for the shower every second day I wash my hair if it's a hair washing day I frequently need to wash my hair twice because it gets really oily then I usually put in a conditioner and have to rinse that out too because my hair is so long I seldom manage to take a shower in under 20 minutes afterwards I often put on a pot of coffee and get dressed while I wait for it to Brew I take a long time to get dressed in the morning every now and then I remember to choose my outfit the night before but usually I do it in the morning in all getting dressed takes about half an hour at which time my hair is now semi- dry so then I have to St my hair from time to time I'll put my hair up but often times I blow dry it straight and then because of the texture of my hair I regularly have to flat iron it to keep it from frizzing that's another 20 minutes or so after that I have have my daily makeup routine true I hardly ever see you without your hair done and your makeup on even when you show up to class and sweatpants tell me how long does it take you to choose that outfit in the morning not funny all right we're back so obviously she has a very complicated routine I don't know if all girls are like this I'm not like this but I think a lot of girls and some guys are I don't want to be sexist here I know some guys who take their time in the morning and are very very particular about the way that they look wow well yeah I imagine everyone has their morning routine in different ways and uh it was interesting to see how she described it so why don't we take a look at language takeaway language takeaway so today's language takeaway like I said at the beginning of the podcast is all about time so we're going to look at some of these important time adverbs that's right these are called adverbs of fre quency and basically they are telling us how we do things if we do something all the time or if we never do something or everything in between exactly so the first couple we have today are uh very very common words you're going to hear these a lot the first one is frequently okay frequently so if you do something frequently consider it to be about 75% of the time maybe a little bit more almost 85% of the time right so it's not always but it's very often so for example so I frequently forget to uh take my keys when I'm leaving the house which is a very big problem exactly so considering out of seven days maybe you forget your keys five days not so good all right so that's frequently now let's move on to another one that's actually a lot less we talk about seldom well Marco has told me that he seldom forgets his keys that means he almost always remembers them right so seldom is a negative adverb it's saying that almost never okay so if I say for example I seldom go to the movies that's too bad I like the movies right well that means that I maybe go to the movie theater once a month yeah not very often s not very often seldom all right now going back to a positive adverb of frequency we have often you you described frequently as very often that's right so I could also say I often forget my keys or it often rains in tropical places this means this is a common thing exactly so again let's consider it to be about 70 to 80% of the time now with pronunciation some people like to pronounce often right they kind of leave out the strong T sound while other people say often right both forms are correct right yes they're both correct so uh you're you're safe using either of these right okay and our third ad adverb of frequenc no our fourth and our fourth adverb of frequency is also a positive one and we say usually usually means this is something that you do pretty consistently uh I usually brush my hair before I go to sleep that means not always but almost every day right so let's consider out of seven days you do it six times yeah I usually do this okay so usually is again very very common and uh some in between maybe 60% of the time 50% of the time we say regularly well I think of the word regularly as being very closely related to regular so basically if I have a schedule I do the same thing every day um I do it regularly um but sometimes there's a special occasion for example I regularly Run 5 kilm after work when I go to the gym but sometimes when I want to go out with my friends I don't run so it's not always but it is pretty regular exactly so regularly means you do it very often but there are some exceptions M okay now those are adverbs of frequency but we have a couple of other phrases that are very similar so we want to take a look at those as well uh let's go back to the beginning of Stephanie's routine when she said that every day I wake up okay so every day means 100% of the time every single day Monday to Sunday exactly so obviously you wake up every day or I brush my teeth twice every day mhm so that's 100% of the time now if we say every second day what does that mean that means Monday yes Tuesday no Wednesday yes Thursday no or any any day so basically she says I wash my hair every second day that means um one day I wash my hair but the next day I don't the day after that though I wash it again mhm every second day okay so you can say every second day and I think you can also say every other day right every other day so every other day or every second day he calls his mother every other day very good all right and uh she also said that every now and then I remember to choose my outfit okay well this one's interesting this is not very frequent this is basically saying sometimes mhm sometimes so now and then every now and then means I some times do it I sometimes don't do it every now and then I really want to eat chocolate so I buy a candy bar okay so maybe uh you want to eat chocolate twice in a month yeah not very often not very often okay and uh another one that's very similar is from time to time so Marco said that he doesn't go to the movies very frequently so he goes from time to time right so I can say I seldom go to the movies or I can say I like to go to the movies from time to time that's that's right or or this girl is describing her appearance she says from time to time I put my hair up so that means most of the time that means sometimes it's down sometimes it's up right so as you can see there are many different ways of describing the frequency or how many times you you do certain actions or your routine right so you can use this with a lot of things when you're describing and we encourage you to try some of these new ones because a lot of English Learners use the same time adverbs whenever they speak so try and really use some of these and and challenge yourself exactly all right so uh that's all we have for language takeaway why don't we move on now to fluency Builder fluency Builder Okay so using some of these adverbs I could say I can say I regularly make a pot of coffee in the morning okay so a pot of coffee you regularly make a pot of coffee that means you like to drink coffee every day that's right I always need my cup of coffee in the morning so I usually make it first thing so a pot of coffee we know what a cup of coffee is but a pot of coffee what is a pot a pot is basically the container that you use when you brew coffee when you make it so uh you put the coffee beans in the machine and instead of having a cup underneath you have a bigger container that's a pot you can also also have a pot of tea exactly it's many cups usually eight or 10 cups all right and remember that verb to brew coffee I think it's a very nice kind of fancy way of saying making Coffee brew a pot of coffee I'm brewing some coffee all right so uh apart from coffee and all of these things let's take a look at some of the specific uh phrases that she used when she was talking about her hair because I think her hair is very complicated it is very complicated sometimes she washes her hair sometimes she doesn't wash her hair sometimes she blow dries it straight okay so to blow dry means that you use a blow dryer that's right this is a machine that uses electricity to blow hot air on your hair so that your hair will dry quickly mhm but you can blow dry your hair in many ways some people have curly hair and they they have special tools for making their hair curly but she says she blow dries it straight that means she makes it straight with the hot air right so I think the way you do this is you take the blow dryer and a brush and you brush while you blow dry right awesome making lines see I know a little bit about this even though I don't have long enough hair for this no I I guess well maybe you are secretly one of those guys who has a routine like this woman I don't think I I can take this much uh time in the shower and brushing my hair um but moving on actually I also know this next phrase to flat iron your hair okay so flat iron is a noun and a verb so iuse use a flat iron or I can flat iron my hair uh this is a tool that we use that's very very hot think of an iron it's very very hot and it basically presses my hair and makes it very very very thin and and flat and straight right so I think people that have straight hair don't need to really flat iron their hair nah but if you have very curly hair then you need it so what's the difference give us the Insight here why wouldn't you just blow dry it straight why do you need to flat iron it because a flat iron makes it more flat it makes your hair um stick together more and it's much much much hotter than a blow dryer okay so I guess if you use a blow dryer then you have puffy hair or like uh the next word that she described frizzy hair okay so the adjective to describe this kind of hair is Frizzy for example when it's very rainy my hair is Frizzy that means that it sticks out it's very thick and not straight okay it's not curly but it's you know it's messy it it it it kind of inflates that's right it's like a little balloon um but the the verb here is to frizz uh so my hair is frizzing okay and that means that it's it's getting like this bigger or inflated that's right so usually girls who have this problem have it worse during very humid or rainy days not so bad when it's dry okay so I actually have a little bit of frizzy hair that's why I have to use uh some sort of hair gel hair gel or mousse see it's not because I'm vain it's just because if I don't use this I'll come in looking like a lion and I don't think that I think I might have to insist that that happens sometime soon we can take a picture and put it on our website english. com for sure for sure all right so why don't we go back and listen to the dialogue one last time [Music] Stephanie did you just get to school but you were up and about when I left the dorm this morning that was about an hour and a half ago this happens all the time why do you always take so long to get ready in the mornings it's a skill what can I say I don't know why I just have a long routine please explain because it makes no sense to me how can a girl's routine be so complicated you get up you shower you get dressed you brush your teeth you're out the door half an hour CPS Jacob you have the luxury of having a haircut that rarely needs styling I don't I have to set aside about an hour and a half to get ready in the mornings every day I wake up and head straight for the shower every second day I wash my hair if it's a hair washing day I frequently need to wash my hair twice because it gets really oily then I usually put in a conditioner and have to rinse that out too because my hair is so long I seldom manage to take a shower in under 20 minutes afterwards I often put on a pot of coffee and get dressed while I wait for it to brew I take a long time to get dressed in the morning every now and then I remember to choose my outfit the night before but usually I do it in the morning in all getting dressed takes about half an hour at which time my hair is now semi- dry so then I have to sty my hair from time to time I'll put my hair up but often times I blow dry it straight and then because of the texture of my hair I regularly have to flat iron it to keep it from frizzing that's another 20 minutes or so after that I have my daily makeup routine true I hardly ever see you without your hair done and your makeup on even when you show up to class and sweatpants tell me how long does it take you to choose that outfit in the morning not [Music] funny all right so uh actually talking about morning routines and we've given you so many tools I think it would be a great idea if our users came to our site english. com and posted a part of their morning routine trying to use as many adverbs of frequency as possible that's a great suggestion and to get you all started I could give you a little bit of my routine all right let's hear it every morning when I wake up I turn off the alarm which is very loud and I take a shower I always brush my teeth and I usually brew a pot of coffee although sometimes I don't have time to brew my coffee and I wait until I arrive at my office MH I seldom choose the clothes I will wear the night before I almost always choose them during in the morning and um generally I ride my bike to work but not always okay I think in the winter you seldom ride your bike to work uh every once in a while I ride every now and then all right see you have a perfect example there of more or less what we expect but also it would be interesting to see if have any any other type of routine I know some people wake up in the morning and the first thing they do they always walk their dog for example that's very nice other people are very hungry so they almost always eat first right right when they wake up I eat before I brush my teeth smart actually yeah all right so uh we want to hear from you guys come to english.

com we'll see everyone there bye bye [Music] the English pod audio review listen to the meaning then say the vocabulary word out of bed and beginning to move around up and about to keep time for a particular purpose set aside often frequently Almost Never seldom whenever at which time once in a while from time to time frequently often times Cosmetics apply to improve your appearance makeup a set of clothes outfit it let's try that faster often frequently out of bed and beginning to move around up and about Cosmetics apply to improve your appearance makeup frequently often times almost never seldom once in a while from time to time a set of clothes outfit to keep time for a particular purpose set aside whenever at which time now say the word and hear it in a sentence up and about once I started taking the medication I was up and about at no time up and about he's usually up and about by 7: a. m.