Real Easy English: Talking about commmunication
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This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Hello and welcome to Real Easy English, the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Georgie. And I'm Neil. You can read along with this podcast and get a worksheet to help you learn on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

Hi Neil, how are you? I'm very well, Georgie. How are you? I'm also pretty good, thank you. Today we're talking about the ways we communicate. Now, communicate, this means to speak or write to someone. Yes, we are communicating now, Georgie. We're speaking in person. That means we are both together to talk.

So, Neil, do you like to speak to people in person? Well, sometimes, yes. It depends, I guess. I like to speak to my friends in person, but I probably prefer to arrange things using email or something like that. What about you? Do you like speaking on the phone?

No, I'm not a big fan of speaking on the phone. In fact, I almost hate speaking on the phone. Really? What, to anybody? No, I speak to my family on the phone. I speak to my friends on the phone as well, but it has to be arranged in advance. I don't like it when people call me without telling me they're going to call me. But I think that's a millennial thing. What about you? Do you have the same problem?

I used to speak on the phone more, I guess. That's the strange thing about mobile phones. They do everything.

But we don't really use them to talk on very much, do we? No, no, we don't. I usually just like to communicate with people via text. I find it, it's less distracting. When someone calls me, it takes my attention away from the thing that I'm doing in that moment. Yeah, I know what you mean.

Sometimes I think it's more fun to have a conversation on an app because you can send emojis, you can send pictures and also you can drop and pick up the conversation over many hours. Yeah, that's true. And also you can have group chats on apps as well. That's quite nice.

You can do group calls as well, but it's not as common. I don't do that much. Do you? No, it's too much like work. Yes. Do you write letters anymore? I don't usually write letters, but when it's someone's birthday or a special occasion, I write cards and I like to write quite a lot, like a meaningful message to my friends and family. Yeah. Yeah.

It's quite sad, actually, that people don't write letters much anymore because it's a different kind of communication. It's quite special. You spend a lot of time writing the letter and maybe really thinking about what you want to say. Yeah, it takes more effort, doesn't it? Yeah, it's more...

more meaningful. Are there any other ways that you like to communicate with people? Do you do stuff on social media? Yes, in my old job, I used to have some social media accounts where I made teaching content as well. And I used to speak a lot with people that I didn't know as well using their instant messaging.

And comments as well. I don't really like commenting on public posts. I feel it feels strange when a stranger says something about my point of view. Sometimes they're quite rude. Yeah, it's a difficult place to be, the internet. Neil, what's your favourite way to communicate? I think...

Face to face communication with friends is the best because it's the most fun, the most immediate. You get to see people's faces. You know how they're responding or reacting. So how about you, Georgie? I think I like instant messaging apps because they are the easiest way to communicate for me.

Let's recap some of the vocabulary we heard during the conversation. We had communicate – speak or write to someone. We heard in person – meeting with someone rather than talking on the phone or writing to them. Prefer – like something more than another thing. For example, I prefer instant messaging apps to phoning someone. And we learnt some superlatives – ways to talk about something being the best –

For example, we had best and we also heard easiest. Yes, for example, I think instant messaging is the easiest way to talk to my friends. And that's it for this episode of Real Easy English. To test what you've learned, try the worksheet on our website. You can find a link in the notes for this episode. Next week, we'll talk about our wishes. See you then. Goodbye.

Thanks for listening to Learning Easy English. Have you heard our new music series, My Song, My Home? In each episode, we visit a different place in the UK and meet a musician that lives there, learn English from songs and hear natural British speakers. Find the series on our website, bbclearningenglish.com or follow the Learning English Conversations podcast in your podcast app.

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