S05 - 10 Weekend

Native English speakers answer questions about the weekend from previous B2, C1, C2 and IELTS exam papers.

As usual we have speakers from a variety of countries telling us about their experiences, so we take a look at some of the cultural and linguistic differences between those countries. There’s loads of nice vocabulary and grammar to help you to improve your English, but in particular there are lots of really useful idioms for you to learn.

The speakers are from Canada, Australia, South Africa, England and Wales, so lots of different accents for you to get some listening practice.

For classes or transcripts go to https://realexamenglish.com/podcast/

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 Emma, Mike, Noel, Konner, Jen, Dan from the Roar and Score Trivia Podcast and the girls from the Butt Stuff Podcast

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Real Exam English podcast. This episode is about the weekend. As usual we have speakers from a variety of countries telling us about their experiences, so we take a look at some of the cultural and linguistic differences between those countries. There’s loads of nice vocabulary and grammar, but in particular there are lots of really useful idioms, handy ones for exam situations. 

You can get the written transcript for this and all episodes over on the Real Exam English website realexamenglish.com. And you can find information there too about classes, both individual and group ones. 

Ok but for now let’s talk about the weekend. 

How do you deal with the Sunday night feeling? 

I've got no idea what the Sunday night feeling is. Is that like when you're dreading going to work? If that's what it is I deal with it by just? I guess I don't really deal with it, I just dread it in my head and then go to sleep and wake up and wish I didn't have to go to work. I guess I sometimes try to distract myself unsuccessfully with, you know, talking to my partner or playing video games. But usually I just, I just dread. 

What is the best weekend trip you've ever had? 

That's a fun question, let me think. OK, so a couple years ago we flew over to New Zealand for a music festival over a weekend and it was a massive….It was like a… I'm calling it a weekend even though it was actually like five nights, but it was so….you know, a weekend was in there and we basically spent a night with a friend and then spent four nights at this big drum and bass festival. It was heaps of fun, got very drunk the whole time and just everything that we did was 100% fun. I had a big ice cream that looked like an octopus. It was sick and the festival was great. Lots of good acts and yeah, love a festival, love hanging out with my friends. So yeah, the weekend in New Zealand was it.

Alright, two really interesting responses to the questions here. In the first one he said I’ve got no idea what the Sunday night feeling is. Is that like when you’re dreading going to work. If it is then……bababa. Ok we’ve all been asked questions that we didn’t really understand before and it just might happen in an exam situation so this is a great expression to have just in case that happens, which doesn’t often happen by the way! Anyhow, the expression is I’ve got no idea what that means. And you can follow it up with something like but I guess it relates to whatever. Or in a conversational setting you can ask a follow-on question, like is that when you’re dreading going to work? Dreading doing something by the way is when you are very apprehensive or scared about having to do something. Like I’m dreading the 12-hour bus journey or I’m dreading the exam or I’m dreading going to work in the morning. 

As he said, I wish I didn’t have to go to work. The grammar that follows I wish is quite unusual, so when you are talking about a present situation you use the past simple after I wish. For instance, I wish I was taller, they wish they could go to the beach, or she wishes she had more money. Ok so I wish plus past simple. 

In the second answer he starts off with that’s a fun question, let me think. That’s a super way to buy some time. Then he used some typically Australian expressions. Firstly, he said the festival was heaps of fun, meaning a lot of fun. In the UK or US you would more commonly here lots of fun or loads of fun, but in Australia or New Zealand they use heaps. He then talked about this ice cream he had that looked like an octopus, and said it was sick. Sick in this context means impressive or cool, totally the opposite to the original meaning of the word sick. You hear a lot of surfers or skateboarders, or any extreme sportspeople actually, using sick in this cool way, and lots of Australians use it too!

How have your weekend activities changed over time?

My weekends have never been like a typical weekend. I've really commonly always done work that falls on the weekend anyway, so I'm quite used to having days off during the week and not necessarily on the weekend, and that's still quite true today. I do a lot of teaching on the weekend, so that hasn't changed a whole lot. Honestly speaking, it really hasn't changed that much. I guess remembering when I was younger, like 17/18 and working, I would not work on the weekend. And that was when I had a real weekend. I would relax with some friends and stuff, but it really hasn't altered in all of my 20s and and now I'm 32 and it's been about the same. Either I work or I don't work. And if I work, I work. And if I don't work, I make a decision to do some study or to do something else or to go see a friend or whatever. Yeah, it hasn't morphed that much.

It hasn’t morphed that much, meaning it hasn’t changed that much. In fact, he had a bunch of different ways to say the same thing, heaps of different ways. He said it hasn’t changed a whole lot, it really hasn’t changed that much, it really hasn’t altered, it’s been about the same and it hasn’t morphed that much. Amazing, in one short answer to have so much variety. 

The other nice thing was he said his work normally falls on a weekend. We use falls on when a particular event or date occurs on a specific day of the week. Like my birthday falls on a Thursday this year, or the bank holiday day falls on a Monday so we have a long weekend!

Tell us about things you like doing at the weekend.

So I do parkrun every weekend I'm able to. I'm assuming you've heard of part run. 

I have yea.

Yeah. So I've just done my 43rd. I'm aiming for 50 by the end of the year. And then. Sunday, I usually work on my own podcast because my kid goes swimming, so Sundays more sort of a chill day, but I take the opportunity to work on the things that can't have background noise. 

What's the best weekend trip you've ever had.

Ohh, I've had a few. We used to love our road trips before the kid was born. We haven't had so many since the kid was born, but my most memorable road trip was the week before lockdown we got invited to Nintendo headquarters in Windsor, London. And that was a once in a lifetime opportunity, because we haven't been able to do it again since. So any, any road trip where I'm meeting people that are friends that I don't usually get to meet is my favorite kind of trip.

Sounds great. One cultural observation to point out. In the first answer she mentioned doing parkrun every weekend. So parkruns are these 5-kilometre runs that take place in parks in a heap of different countries every Saturday morning. It’s really popular in the UK so if you are visiting there or staying there and would like to participate you shouldn’t have any problems finding a run nearby.  

She said she was aiming for 50 runs by the end of the year. Aiming for meaning that is her target, her objective. Other examples would be I’m aiming for top marks in my English test, or the company is aiming for a 10% increase in sales.

She had a couple of nice expressions using opportunity too. The first was I take the opportunity to work on things, make note of the collocation, to take the opportunity to do something. Like, while visiting Istanbul I took the opportunity to visit the Blue Mosque. Then she said visiting the Nintendo headquarters was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Ok, this one is self-explanatory, something you only get the chance to do once, such as: swimming with dolphins on my honeymoon was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Time for a language break, this is your opportunity to test your language knowledge. And today we are looking at when to use the verbs make or do. I’ll give you a word and you gotta say if you need to used the verb make or do with it. For example, I’ll say the dishes and you say do, do the dishes. Alright 10 words coming up.

A mistake – make, make a mistake

A speech – make, make a speech

Research – do, do research

A joke – make, make a joke

Business  – do, do business 

A mess – make, make a mess

Paperwork – do, do paperwork

Your head in – do, do your head in

A beeline – make, make a beeline  

Your bit – do, do your bit

That last one should have been easy for those of you who listened to the previous episode about climate change. Ok, hopefully you did ok there and didn’t make a mess of those. Back to the questions now:

Tell us about things you like doing at the weekend.

My favourite thing to do at the weekend is absolutely nothing. People often say so. What did you do at the weekend and I with a big grin on my face, I say I did nothing. Uh, because my time is so limited, so if I can be a couch potato for a few hours, I'm….I'm in my element. But going for a walk, to be in nature, away from technology, away from meetings, away from the…the hustle and bustle of city life, then then I'm happy. Anything in nature and away from, from people really. The less I'm with people at the weekend, the happier I am.

Are there interesting things to do in your hometown at the weekend? Our.

UM, yes, there are. If I talk about Alicante, I think there…there's much more than meets the eye to do in Alicante, definitely because people often say Alicante is so boring, there's no cultural things to do, and this is because they don't look, they don't look for it. They sit in the bar doing the same thing every weekend, complaining about this. But all you need to do is open the newspaper, then for right there and look in the section what's happening this weekend. And there is a huge variety of things to actually do if you want to get off your ass from the bar that you sit at every weekend and not complain about doing nothing and go and look for it. There are things to do if you want to do them, whereas I just prefer to stay in the sofa.

Staying on the sofa, nice. Interestingly he used the expression couch potato in the first answer. Couch and sofa are the same thing, but there is only one potato and that’s a couch potato, not a sofa potato, that’s just weird! A couch potato, is, of course, someone who sits on the couch doing nothing, just watching TV. He said if he gets to that he is in his element. Super expression that one, in your element. This means you’re really happy and comfortable doing that thing or being in that situation. For instance, if someone gives me a complex problem to solve at work, I’m in my element; or he’s in his element talking about football with his mates, or she’s in her element rearranging her wardrobe.

He also mentioned he liked being away from the hustle and bustle of city life, essential vocabulary that for talking about cities. The hustle and bustle refers to the busy and noisy energy of a city, where there’s lots of people moving around doing things. For this speaker though, he said the less he’s with people at the weekend, the happier he is. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a double comparative like this. So remember the structure is the plus comparative adjective and then another the plus comparative adjective. The cooler it is, the fresher I feel. The bigger the hamburger, the better. The more you study, the easier the exam will be. 

In the second answer there were two useful expressions to highlight. The first is there’s more than meets the eye to do in Alicante, meaning there are more things to do that you initially think. Like the first impression doesn’t give you the full deeper understanding of the place or the person or the thing. You can use there’s more than meets the eye also to describe a movie or TV series for instance. Maybe at first it might seem like an ordinary action movie but there may be deeper themes at play too. Or someone who appears quiet and maybe boring at first could have really interesting thoughts or ideas or hobbies or whatever, there’s more than meets to eye to that person. 

The second and far less classy expression is to get off your ass and do something. We usually tell someone to get off their ass when they have been sitting around doing nothing, not being productive at all, you can say hey hippy, get off your ass and get a job. 

How do weather and seasons influence your weekend plans?

Yeah. They influence it a lot since I work a very seasonal season. Ohh I can't say it. Seasonable. No, that's not right. Seasonal. Ohh my goodness, my brain. I work a very seasonal job.

So when the weather gets nice, I get stuck inside, doing exams.

But do they influence my weekend plans? I think we do more sport and outdoor activities in the autumn and spring than we do in the, In the winter and the summer, basically because we're so white in the summer where we just burn to a crisp in the sun. So we try to stay out of the sun as much as possible and we go on longer hikes and things like that in the autumn or spring. Winter, not so much. Because the day gets short. And it's evening so early that and it's not fun to walk in the dark, really. So yeah, I think it does influence what we do to a certain degree.

To a certain degree, meaning a bit but not totally. Like the weekend was fun to a certain degree. It was kinda fun but not all of it was fun.  At the start she got a little tongue-tied, where she struggled to say seasonal. In her defence, we recorded that audio at ten o’clock at night after she finished work, so she was exhausted. But what I really want to highlight is how she dealt with it. She said oh my goodness, my brain. So this is nice and polite and appropriate for an exam situation. Personally, I prefer oh my god, but that’s not for everyone, especially people with religious sensitivities, so oh my goodness is a safer option, something you could say around your kids or your granny or your examiner.

She also said because she and her family are so white they burn to a crisp in the summer. To burn to a crisp is to be completely burnt. You can use this for food too, like I tried to cook a steak yesterday but burnt it to a crisp. I didn’t overcook it to a certain degree, I burnt it to a crisp! Oh my goodness.

What are some unique weekend activities in your area? 

So from a perspective as a parent, there were also other things. I suppose you got St. Fagans St. Fagans is quite a good one if you're looking to get out in the day. So it's like a Museum of all the past in th…in the UK or in Wales, 

Wales.

It's a history of Wales. So you'll have buildings that were built in sort of like in the year 1000, where they've literally rebuilt it brick by brick into this museum and you have them all through time from Wales and all the history. So that's quite good. 

It’s very cool.

Got loads of castles. Wales has the most castles per…well, in the area, in the world. 

Yeah, in the world.

 in the world we have the most castles, so you can wherever you look we've got….I can think of about four within a 5-mile radius. In fact, I can think of about 6-7. 

You can practically see one from here. 

Yeah, you can. 

So there's loads of castles if that's your…if that floats your boat. 

What's the best weekend trip you've ever had? 

I can't think you know. 

No, I can't either. 

Probably. Well, I don't know when we went, but maybe Tenerife. 

Yeah. 

That was like four days. A long weekend one could call it.

I’d agree with you.

That was great. That was a lovely time. 

I was really nice, wasn't it? We…. or the other one I was going to say is when we went to the log cabin, me, you and your other half and my other half. And we went to the Brecon Beacons.

That was a good one….

And we stayed in a cabin with the hot tub and my little one was there.

For a week. 

For a week, that was good.

That was really nice. 

Amsterdam was another funny one. 

I was thinking this. 

Yeah.

Just somewhere you get together with your mates.

With your mates.

With your mates.

Absolutely. Yes. Any of those.

Yeah. Any of those. Pick one.

Oh my god, those ladies. Hope you could follow all of that, it’s amazing how they finish each other’s sentences. Anyhow, I didn’t know that Wales has the most castles per square kilometre, I checked it out on the internet and it’s true, interesting. So she said there’s loads of castles if that floats your boat. Excellent expression this and really handy, if something floats your boat then you really like it. Like, I don’t fancy going hiking this weekend, it doesn’t really float my boat. Or in an exam you might be asked do you like, whatever, do you like eating out? You can say na, it doesn’t float my boat, I prefer eating at home. Or I don’t like Chinese food but Japanese food floats my boat. 

Another way this is commonly used is saying whatever floats your boat, like whatever you fancy. Like, hey guys, this weekend, we can go to the cinema, or shopping, or just chill at home, whatever floats your boat. Or they might say, hey I’d love to go swimming with sharks, and you say, whatever floats your boat, no way I’m going with you though! 

In the second answer about their lovely weekend they used a few different ways to talk about the people around them. So when they said your other half and my other half, they are talking about their husbands or partners. One of them then said her little one was there, her little one is her child and then when talking about their friends they used mates, mates, mates. Ok, this is quite British and Australian, in the US they don’t use mates, it’s more buddies or pals, or homies in certain communities. 

Alright homies, that’s about it for this episode and this season. Thanks a million for listening to this episode and all of the others too. If you enjoy the podcast then it would be great if you click like and subscribe on your podcast player or even leave a little comment or 5-star review,  if you think it deserves it! Alright, I gotta get off my ass and start recording some more episodes. 

Thanks again,

Trevor