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Shadowing practice: Talking about housemates 🏠🛋️🫶 Real Easy English

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Full transcript

  1. Hello and welcome to Real Easy English.0:00
  2. In this podcast, we have real conversations in Easy English to help you learn.0:03
  3. I'm Neil.0:09
  4. And I'm Beth.0:10
  5. You can find a video version of this podcast and a free worksheet to help you learn on our website, bbclearningenglish .com.0:11
  6. Hi, Beth.0:27
  7. How are you?0:28
  8. I'm good, Neil.0:29
  9. How are you?0:30
  10. Very well.0:31
  11. Thank you.0:31
  12. What are we talking about today?0:32
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  1. Today, we are talking about housemates.0:35
  2. Ah, housemates.0:39
  3. The people that you share a house who aren't your family.0:41
  4. Maybe they're your friends or even strangers who just need somewhere to live.0:46
  5. Exactly.0:52
  6. And it's quite common in the UK to live with housemates when you're younger.0:53
  7. Have you ever lived with housemates?1:00
  8. Yes, of course.1:03
  9. I had house or flatmates when I was a student and then after I was a student in my first jobs and before I got married.1:04
  10. That's exactly the same as me.1:16
  11. So when I went to university, I moved in with five people and we all had a separate room and a separate bathroom.1:18
  12. But yeah, they were my flatmates for my first year of university.1:29
  13. But in my second year, then I moved into a house and we all shared a bathroom and they were my housemates because we were in a house.1:33
  14. Did you enjoy having housemates?1:43
  15. I think it really depends on the people that you live with.1:47
  16. I have had some bad housemates, bad because they weren't tidy, didn't clean.1:52
  17. There were dishes in the kitchen that were dirty and not cleaned for a long time.2:01
  18. But I've also had some really nice housemates as well.2:07
  19. Do you enjoy living with housemates or did you enjoy living with housemates?2:12
  20. I think, as you said, it really depends on the person.2:18
  21. So you mentioned people being messy and that kind of thing.2:23
  22. Also noisy people are difficult.2:28
  23. But some of my best friends now have been my housemates in the past.2:32
  24. So I think you can really get to know people very well and you can also meet some people who you never want to see again in your life.2:39
  25. That's true.2:51
  26. So Neil, what do you think is the best kind of personality, the best kind of person to live with?2:52
  27. They have to be easygoing.3:01
  28. What does that mean?3:04
  29. Somebody who is easygoing is relaxed and they don't get too upset or angry over little things.3:05
  30. And they're quite easy to live with and there's the clue, easygoing.3:14
  31. I think something else important about living with other people or renting somewhere, so paying monthly, is having a good landlord.3:22
  32. Very important.3:34
  33. So who is a landlord?3:36
  34. What is a landlord?3:37
  35. So the landlord is or landlady is the person that owns the house or flat that you're in and you pay them rent.3:38
  36. So you pay them a monthly amount but you might live there for a year or two years or three years but you don't own the place.3:48
  37. It's the landlord that owns the place.3:58
  38. Yeah and a good landlord can make a big difference.4:00
  39. Neil, are you easy to live with?4:04
  40. Should we be flatmates?4:07
  41. I don't know but I think I have made some good friends when I've been a housemate so they think that I was a good housemate.4:10
  42. Okay.4:23
  43. How about you?4:24
  44. Yeah, I think I'm easy to live with but I like to sing a lot so maybe people would tell me to be quiet.4:26
  45. Although no one's ever told me to be quiet but maybe they wanted me to and just didn't say.4:34
  46. Let's recap the vocabulary we've heard in this podcast starting with housemate.4:45
  47. A housemate is someone you live with who probably isn't part of your family.4:52
  48. We also hear flatmate.4:59
  49. And we had easygoing which means relaxed and not easily upset.5:01
  50. Flatmates or housemates often rent a property and that means they don't own it, they pay money to the person who does own it.5:07
  51. And the person who owns the house or flat is the landlord.5:17
  52. That's who you pay every month and they own the property.5:22
  53. That's it for this episode of Real Easy English.5:26
  54. To test what you've learnt there's a worksheet on our website bbclernaminglish .com.5:30
  55. And we'll be back next week with another Easy English conversation.5:36
  56. Bye for now.5:40
  57. Bye.5:41

A B1 Conversation About Housemates for Daily English Conversation Practice

This clip is real speaking practice built around an everyday topic. Two hosts from BBC Learning English, Neil and Beth, sit down to talk about the housemates and flatmates they have each had. It sits at B1, and the pace, 149 words per minute, is unhurried against the rest of the catalogue, which makes it a solid choice for daily english conversation practice rather than a fast native podcast you cannot keep up with.

There is no narration to fight through here. Beth asks a question, Neil answers with a real story about renting with strangers at university, and Beth pushes the topic further with her own experience. That back and forth is exactly the shape of everyday english you need for actual conversations: a question, an answer with detail, a follow up.

The Language in This Housemates Conversation: Lines Worth English Shadowing Practice

Three lines from the opening are worth stopping on and repeating out loud before you move past them.

  • "The people that you share a house who aren't your family." Beth defines housemates in one breath, no pause before the relative clause. Say it as one unit, not two sentences stitched together.
  • "I had house or flatmates when I was a student and then after I was a student in my first jobs and before I got married." Neil strings three life stages into a single sentence. It is a good line for breath control: split it into three chunks in your head, then join them without dropping the rhythm.
  • "Somebody who is easygoing is relaxed and they don't get too upset or angry over little things." This is how Neil defines a rare word, easygoing, using only words a B1 learner already knows. Notice the stress lands on relaxed and upset, not on little things at the end.

How to Shadow This British Podcast Clip Line by Line

Work through the opening in order rather than jumping around; each line sets up the next one.

  • Start at "Hello and welcome to Real Easy English." Listen once with no repeating, just to catch the greeting rhythm and where Neil puts the stress on welcome.
  • Replay "The people that you share a house who aren't your family" and shadow it three times, matching Beth's pacing on the relative clause before you move on.
  • Take Neil's long line about being a student, then in his first jobs, then before he got married. Say each of the three parts on its own first, then run them together at full speed.
  • Practise the question "So Neil, what do you think is the best kind of personality, the best kind of person to live with?" for rising then falling intonation, the shape most questions in british english pronunciation practice actually take.
  • Finish on the easygoing line, then close your notes and describe your own best or worst housemate in your own words. Moving off the exact wording is what turns mimicry into speaking you can use.
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