AEE: 4 English Phrases to Start a Meal
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This is the All Ears English podcast, four English phrases to start a meal. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection.

with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.

To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app. In your culture, are there many different things you can say to start a meal? Today, find out what we say and don't say in English when we start eating with a group.

Are you still translating from your native language into English in your head? Are you always getting confused between the different grammar tenses? Let's figure out what you need to work on. Find your current English level with our five-minute quiz at allearsenglish.com slash fluency score.

- Hey there, Michelle, what's going on today? - Not too much, Lindsay. Lindsay, what's the best meal you've had recently? Does anything stand out in your mind?

Definitely. So just last weekend, I went to a Vietnamese place and had an amazing tofu banh mi sandwich. And it was very simple. And it was it was cheap, but it was good. And that is and I've been to some restaurants in the last couple of weeks. But to be honest, that banh mi sandwich was the best. That sounds delicious. I love that. Is there Lindsay, do we see

say anything like in American English is there anything specifically that we say at the start of a meal oh good question Michelle we say a lot of different things and it depends on our personality it might depend on what we heard growing up depends on who we're with but I might just say enjoy is something I might say right what do you say

Yeah, well, that's what we're going to talk about today because I mean, we don't I think in English there's not really a specific formal thing to say. So in French, I always think of Bon Appetit, which actually, I mean, Lindsay, would you do you ever say that? Bon Appetit? Sometimes. Sometimes we do carry that over. I remember in Japanese we used to say, "Tabimashou, tabimashou" means let's eat, right?

There's yeah, and you know, in many cultures and countries, we have something that we say in Spanish, "Salud," I think we used to say, right? So good. Yeah, I don't feel that there's a complete English equivalent, right? So we might say different things, but I don't think we have kind of a direct

uh one to one oh this is what we say right yeah what do you think it's true it's true yeah it doesn't quite mean the same thing we don't yeah we yeah and that makes sense because cultures are so different right so different um and before we get too much further into this topic we do want to make sure that we say thank you because manners are important yes we want to thank our special listeners who took the time to go and write a review for all ears English

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Very nice. All right, Michelle, where to go from here? All right. So we're going to talk also about, you know, if, if,

some are used not just about starting a meal, but about eating in general. So we're going to get more into this in just a second. But we did teach a couple of good ones. In this episode, you did with Aubrey, which was episode 2386, was weight up English phrasal verbs for softening imperatives. And in that one, you guys talked about

eat up and dig in. Yes. Yes. And maybe drink up as well. So yeah. So guys, there are some good ones over there. So check that episode out. So

Yeah, let's get into what we might say. So what's the first one, Lindsay? Okay, we might say, shall we? And this is nice. I mean, we just did an episode last time we recorded, Michelle, about what happens when one person gets their food before the other. This is continuing on that theme, kind of. Maybe you're sitting in a restaurant and you've both gotten your food at the same time, right? Right.

Right. And I'm going to give you the number for that episode towards the end of today. So we'll let you know which one that was, but definitely a super good one to listen to along with this. So, yeah, that looks amazing.

amazing, shall we? Or shall we? It looks amazing. Does that feel natural to you, Lindsay? Yeah, it does. I like shall we. It's kind of polite and elevated a little bit. But, you know, again, it's communicating with the person in front of you.

Right. Also, it could also be useful if you're dining in a group and you know, you just, maybe, uh, someone has spoken some words or something, there's some kind of announcement and then you're ready to transition into actually picking up our forks and eating. Someone might say this, shall we? Shall we? Right. We don't need to say, shall we eat if, if we know what we both are our forks.

Yeah, we know what we're talking about. You can say that. You could. You could say, shall we eat? But you don't have to. Yes. We know what we're talking about. All right. So let's get a lot more casual here for the next one. Yes. Oh, that's true. We're taking another turn. The next one is chow down. And that one is very casual. Lindsay, what do you think of this one? Yeah, it's like between shall we and chow down. You're in two totally different households, right? Yeah, that's true.

Different kind of norms in the home, right? So you could say, okay, everyone now let's all chow down. Tammy, this looks amazing.

Tammy. She's a great cook. She must be a good cook. Yeah. So, but yeah. And chow down. It doesn't have to be the let's chow down. You could also say, oh, you know, my, we were chowing down on this amazing dish. Right. So you could use it in that way as well.

Yeah, I guess you could use it that way for sure. Yeah. All right. In case you haven't heard, it's officially an Abercrombie summer. The A&F Vacation Shop has everything on your packing mood board. I desperately need their new one piece, the A&F Marina. It's strapless, so flattering, and paired with denim shorts will be my go-to beach outfit this summer. Finally, your suitcase isn't complete without finding that dress. You know, the one for the photo shoot. Abercrombie's boho dresses have that perfect beachy romantic look.

Make it an Abercrombie summer. Shop their newest arrivals in-store, online, and in the app. All right. And then another way, another thing you might say with your family or friends and just indicating that we can begin eating is let's eat. Yeah. Simple as that. You could say let's eat.

Let's eat everyone. I hope you're hungry, but save room for dessert. Mm-hmm. Lindsay, do you get like full from your meal and then you still, you're not full for dessert? Yeah. I used to say that as a kid. I'm full for dinner, but not for dessert. That's what we used to always say to our parents. Yep. Yep. Yep. Exactly. It's like two different stomachs. Yeah. I

I have a second stomach waiting for my chocolate ice cream or my chocolate lava cake, right? Of course. Yeah. And then we might just say simply enjoy, right?

I like that one. So, but we would always kind of just say it like enjoy. Right. Um, and I think that servers like waiters and waitresses will use this a lot as well. So here's an example. So here's your salad. Oh, thank you. It looks amazing. All right. Enjoy. Right. And just to be clear, um, waiters and waitresses would not say chow down.

or shall we, those don't apply. This enjoy is something that you could say as one of the people dining to the group or the waiter or waitress could say it, but this is the only one that would work for that scenario.

Okay. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Or, you know, you could just say, what's another example, Lindsay, of how you might use this? Another Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Yes. This is a beautiful Thanksgiving meal. All right. Enjoy. So.

So yeah, so this could just be me. We were just served or maybe a family member just got the plates out and we all have our plates and we're waiting to eat. And then someone says, all right, enjoy. Or people say it at the same time, maybe. Right, right, right. Exactly. So which one of these feels the most natural to you? Because I do think that generally we say...

You know, especially if it's more formal, like we're about to start Thanksgiving or something that we generally say something before eating. Yeah, I think enjoy sounds the most feels the most natural to me.

You know, I didn't grow up in a religious household. Some people do say prayers before they eat if they're religious, for example. So there might be other things they might say. But we didn't do that when I was growing up. So enjoy is pretty is pretty neutral, friendly, not overly fancy, but not overly casual either.

Yeah, yeah, it's definitely a good catch all. So it's a safe one to use. So Lindsay, let's do a role play with some of these. Here we are, we're getting food at a restaurant. Okay, here we go. So Oh, wow, I'm so happy I ordered the pasta looks delicious. So does your Pete so does your pizza? Okay, shall we?

Let's I've been waiting to chow down on pizza for a while. All right, let's eat. Enjoy. This is a very natural role play, right? So guys go back and listen again to how this went because it's incredibly natural. Let's go through it, Michelle. So what did I say first?

You said that my pizza looks delicious and you said, okay, shall we? Yeah. And I said, so does your pizza. Yeah. Often that's the other thing that we haven't talked about yet. People comment on each other's food and I've made a couple of comments on this show. Don't

say don't like do like when you look at someone's food right don't yuck somebody's yum don't yuck someone's yeah don't do that that's really rude um i like to eat things that are pretty healthy like tempeh or maybe tofu and sometimes i'll get like a when it comes to the table and i'm like

that to someone. I remember that when steak comes to the table to someone else, if they do that to me, you know what I mean? Right. I was, I was buying tofu, some sort of tofu something at the grocery store recently. And the cashier said, Oh, like he made a reaction. I'm like, come on. And I just,

That is not good for sales. Oh my gosh. That's shocking from the cashier. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, so yes, you said, okay, shall we? And then I said, let's, I've been waiting to chow down on pizza for a while. Yeah. And then, and then I said, all right, let's eat. Right. And I said, enjoy.

Lindsay, do you ever have like a buyer's remorse over what food you order when you see what somebody else got? - Yes, because I feel like I always order the wrong thing. I always order the wrong thing. I order very poorly, very poorly.

So that happens to you, Michelle? Do you order well? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Sometimes I try and anticipate that feeling. So I'll think about what the person is ordering and I think, oh, am I going to be jealous of what this person orders? Yeah. I'm sure that's a very human feeling that our listeners can relate to as well.

Yeah, for sure. Guys, go back and listen to episode 2409. Don't let it get cold. Restaurant English for connection. So good. So good. There are so many norms around sitting down at a restaurant or at a family's home and eating with the people.

But we wanna know this, right? So the connection can truly begin through the conversation, right? - Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so these are really good, again, just for takeaway. You might say bon appetit, right? - Sure. - People throw it around, they know what it means.

But yeah, we don't, I wouldn't say that we have one specific thing that is really sad. I mean, listen, I don't want to generalize either because I don't know if in, I don't know if in French, everybody's just all the time saying bon appetit. Like, I don't know. Right, right, right. You know, it's possible that's, so if we have any listeners who speak French or in France, you know, let me know, is this really the common expression or is that what everybody thinks people say?

Yeah, but in English, you do have a lot of choices. So use them all, try it out, see which one feels right and go with that.

All right. Very good. And guys, don't forget to leave a review for All Ears English. Wherever you're listening in the app or in the podcast, Spotify, Apple podcast, iOS app, Android app, write your review and we'll read your name out loud on the show. Okay, good. All right. Thanks for talking about this with me, Lindsay. I'll see you next time. All right. Take care, Michelle. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two-minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time.