Real Easy English: Talking about wishes
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Hello and welcome to Real Easy English, the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Neil. And I'm Georgie. You can read along with this podcast and find a worksheet to help you learn on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

Hi Georgie, how are you? I'm feeling pretty good, thank you Neil. How are you? I'm OK Georgie, but I wish it wasn't still winter. It's dark and cold and I'm looking forward to spring. Me too. And today we're talking all about wishes. A wish is something you want to happen. Great. Let's start the conversation.

Right, Neil, what is your biggest wish for the future? Oh, that's an interesting question. It's easy to say that I would like loads of money, but probably, really, all I want is for people that I like and love and know to be happy and healthy. That's a good one. Because if they're not...

nothing is worth it. Yeah, that's very true. And my answer would be similar, actually. I want to be surrounded by all my friends and I also hope that they're all happy and healthy. But, Neil, let's have a bit of fun. We've talked about wanting our friends and family to be healthy, but if you won the lottery, what would you spend the money on? OK, here we go. So...

If I won the lottery, I would obviously get a big house. And in the house, I would have like a recording studio with loads of really good guitars. And I'd make terrible music and record it. And nobody would have to listen to it. I would listen to it, Neil. I would listen to it.

I would spend a lot of the money on travelling. I want to see lots of different places in the world and travelling is really expensive, so that would be a good use of the money. What kind of luxury item would you buy if you won the lottery? Oh, I'm not very materialistic actually, so that's a difficult question.

materialistic that means I'm not really interested in expensive products or things so I'm more interested in experiences so aside from travel there are things like concerts maybe I would splash out on really expensive tickets to concerts or events things like that

Oh, splash out. That's an interesting word. What does it mean? So, it's a phrasal verb and it means to spend a lot of money on luxury things that you want. Yeah.

You know, if you're really, really, really rich these days, you can go into space as a tourist. Would you want to do that? Absolutely not. Neither would I. I hate flying anyway. Yeah. Going into space would just be too horrible. Oh my gosh. No, I couldn't do it. It would be so scary. Going into the black sky. Neil, do you have any wishes about your life now? What would you change?

Yeah, I wish I had more space. I can't move in my house without things falling out of a cupboard. Okay, so you need more storage? Just space. You know, there's four of us and it's quite small. Okay. Yeah, if you had more money, you could buy a bigger house. Yeah.

I wish I had more time. I feel like with a full-time job, you have time in the evenings but not that much time to do hobbies and things. It would be nice to work less, play more. Let's recap some of the language we heard during the conversation. We had wish – something you want to happen. We heard lottery – a game where you buy a ticket to win a big prize, usually money.

During the programme, we heard lots of examples of the second conditional. That's saying things like, if I won the lottery, I'd buy a big house. And we also talked about our wishes, using wish and the past. I wish I had more money.

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. And Georgie, you made a whole video series about conditionals. I did. And we can find that on our website too, bbclearningenglish.com. Come back next week for another episode of Real Easy English. Goodbye for now. Goodbye.

Yoga is more than just exercise. It's the spiritual practice that millions swear by.

And in 2017, Miranda, a university tutor from London, joins a yoga school that promises profound transformation. It felt a really safe and welcoming space. After the yoga classes, I felt amazing. But soon, that calm, welcoming atmosphere leads to something far darker, a journey that leads to allegations of grooming, trafficking and exploitation across international borders.

I don't have my passport, I don't have my phone, I don't have my bank cards, I have nothing. The passport being taken, the being in a house and not feeling like they can leave.

You just get sucked in so gradually.

And it's done so skillfully that you don't realize. And it's like this, the secret that's there. I wanted to believe that, you know, that whatever they were doing, even if it seemed gross to me,

was for some spiritual reason that I couldn't yet understand. Revealing the hidden secrets of a global yoga network. I feel that I have no other choice. The only thing I can do is to speak about this and to put my reputation and everything else on the line. I want truth and justice.

And for other people to not be hurt, for things to be different in the future. To bring it into the light and almost alchemise some of that evil stuff that went on and take back the power. World of Secrets, Season 6, The Bad Guru. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.