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Hello. It is very strange to hear my own lifedescribed by two people on a podcast.
Welcome to Your English Toolbox, the podcast thattrains your English while you live your real life.
I am Martin. And I am Julia. And I am Juan.
This is the fifth and last conversation in ourseries about small talk in English.
No list of rules today. Just one honestconversation.
So, tell our friends who you are.
I am 23. I am from Barcelona, from a neighborhoodcalled Sants. I came to Wolverhampton 14 months
ago to study a business course. And I work in acafe near the station, Saturdays, Sundays,
and two evenings. And before you came, what didyou think the hard part would be?
Speaking. I thought the hard part would bespeaking.
And was it? No. The hard part was being in theroom.
Explain that. Because I think that is the wholeepisode.
In my first month, I understood almost everything.In the lectures, in the shops, on the bus.
My English was good. I understood everything and Iwas in nothing.
Say that again slowly.
I understood everything and I was in nothing.
That is the difference between understanding andtaking part.
Yes, they are not the same skill. Nobody told methat.
And listeners, here is a natural way to expressthe idea he means.
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To be part of the conversation.
It does not mean your body is there. It means youare part of what is happening.
Now, we told our friends that in your first weeks,you said about 40 words in a whole day.
That is true. I counted them on a Tuesday.
Why on a Tuesday?
Because on Monday, I did not want to know.
And the sentence in the shower?
Ah, there was a girl working in the library cafeand I prepared a sentence for her.
A perfect sentence with a joke inside it.
11 days. And then I never said it.
Never. I think it is still in my head somewherewaiting.
I want to ask you about the hardest moment.
And I do not mean the most difficult English. Imean the worst moment.
February.
I was ill for three days. Not dangerous, justproperly ill.
And everybody in my building had gone home for theweek.
And you told nobody.
I told nobody.
I had 40 people in my phone and I told nobody.
Why not?
Because I did not want to be a problem.
And at that time, what did you tell yourself thereason was?
My English. I told myself, when my English isbetter, I will have people.
It was a very comfortable explanation.
Why comfortable?
Because it was not my fault and because it had asolution that was only studying.
And studying is easy for me.
Studying is the easy part.
Studying is the easy part.
Now I want to ask about something very practicaland nobody talks about it.
Go on.
Being tired.
Oh, yes.
At six o'clock in the evening, my English is good.
At 10 o'clock, my English is tired.
What does tired English feel like?
The words are there, but they are further away.
I have to walk to get them.
That is a beautiful way to describe it.
It is not beautiful at 11 at night in a kitchen.
And what did you learn to do about it?
I stopped having important conversations after 10.
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And I stopped thinking that my tired English wasmy real English.
Let us go to the things that worked.
And I want the small ones, not the big ones.
The bus stop.
Tell them.
It was raining in October on the Penn Road.
There was an older woman under the same shelter.
And I said two words.
This rain.
No verb.
No verb.
14 years of English grammar and my first realconversation had no verb in it.
And what did she say?
She said it had not stopped since Monday.
And then she told me her sister lives nearAlicante.
40 seconds.
40 seconds.
And my hands were shaking on the bus.
Second thing that worked.
Priya.
Your classmate.
She asked me how my week had been.
And I opened my mouth to say, fine.
And you did not.
I said, honestly, it was bad.
Support comes from WISE, the smart way to sendmoney around the world.
Your life is global.
Your money should be, too.
Some providers promise no fees on overseastransfers,
but extra costs often hide in bloated exchangerates.
Choose WISE.
You can send money overseas for education or spendin over 40 currencies while traveling.
Get the exchange rate that you'd usually see onGoogle.
Plus, count on 24-7 customer support.
Be smart.
Get WISE.
Visit WISE.com.
T's and C's apply.
I was ill and I did not tell anyone.
And she went up the staircase with you.
She told me she had done the same thing in herfirst year.
And now she sends me a message when she's going tothe library.
That is all.
That is the friendship.
It does not sound like much.
It is everything.
Third thing.
And this is the one I most want our friends tohear.
Asking people to repeat.
Which was hard for you?
It was the hardest.
Because when you ask somebody to repeat,
you are saying out loud,
I did not understand you.
And I was ashamed of that.
And now?
Now I think I was ashamed of the wrong thing.
Nothing is worse.
09:01
Nothing, when I have not understood, can misleadthe other person.
It can feel like a tiny lie you tell with yourhead.
That line is going into the description of thisepisode.
And it is how you got the job.
Yes.
In the interview, the coffee machine was veryloud.
And the manager asked me something about myavailability.
And I did not catch the end.
And you said?
Sorry, I did not catch the last bit.
And she told me weeks later that this was thereason she gave me the job.
Did she explain why?
She said half the people she interviews nod whenthey have not understood her.
And in a cafe, that is somebody giving oat milk toa man who ordered tea for 11 months.
There is one more thing that worked.
And you have never told me about it directly.
The party?
The welcome party for my course.
I was very proud of myself that night because Idid everything correctly.
What do you mean correctly?
I asked a girl to repeat something twice.
I blamed a speaker that was too loud.
I joined a group by asking about a film.
I left a conversation in three parts, like a manfollowing a recipe.
And which of those do you remember now?
None of them.
Then what do you remember?
There was a man standing just outside our circle.
Holding a drink.
Waiting for a gap.
And I knew exactly what that was.
Because it had been me for five months.
What did you do?
I asked him his name.
And then I turned to the group and I said,
Have you met Andre?
You had known him for four seconds.
Four seconds.
I introduced a complete stranger to four otherstrangers with total confidence.
And that is the Andre who is bad at football.
That is the Andre who is bad at football.
Now I want the other side.
What did not work?
Three things and I am a little embarrassed aboutall of them.
Go on.
The first one is the apps.
I did my lessons every day for seven months.
I had a very long streak.
And?
And a streak is not a conversation.
It was a way of feeling that I was doing somethingin my room alone.
And the second thing?
The Spanish group.
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In my first month, I found four Spanish studentsand we spoke Spanish and it was wonderful.
And you are going to say that was a mistake.
No, I am not going to say that.
They saved me in the first weeks.
But I stayed there for five months and it wascomfortable.
Comfort can keep you in the same place for a longtime.
So it was a good shelter and a bad house.
Yes, that is exactly it.
And the third thing?
Waiting.
I was waiting to be ready.
I thought there would be a day when my English wasready and then I would start.
And the day came?
The day never came.
The day does not exist.
And what about the advice people gave you?
Because everybody gives advice to somebody who hasjust moved.
Everybody.
And all of it was true and none of it was useful.
Give us the worst one.
Just talk to people.
Thank you.
Which people and what do I say?
That is not advice.
That is the problem described back to you.
Yes.
And the second one was watch television inEnglish.
And that one is not bad.
It is not bad but it is not the thing.
Television gave me words.
It did not give me a Tuesday with somebody in it.
Can I ask you about the cafe?
Please.
What did you learn there that you did not learn ina classroom?
Everything useful.
In class, I learned the word furthermore.
I have never heard a human being say furthermore.
And at work?
At work, I learned shorted, cheers, no worries andare you all right?
Tell them about are you all right because this oneconfused you.
On my second day, a man came in and said are youall right?
And I thought something was wrong with my face.
So I said yes, I am fine, thank you, why?
And he was just saying hello.
He was just saying hello.
In a quick casual exchange, you all right can be agreeting.
People often answer yeah, all right, thanks, you?
But sometimes they really are asking how you feel.
And nobody warns here.
And the correct answer?
All right, you, that is all.
Two words and you are a local.
Juan, I want to ask about your parents.
And you can tell me not to.
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No, it is fine.
I call them on Sundays at seven.
Every Sunday since I arrived.
And your mother asks you something every week.
She asks me if I have made friends.
And what did you say that first year?
I said yes.
Every Sunday for about seven months, I said yes.
And when did that change?
In June.
I called her and I said, Mom, I have a friend.
His name is Andre.
He's from Romania.
And he's extremely bad at football.
And what did she say?
She cried.
And then I cried, which was not the plan.
And then we argued about the Wi-Fi in my flat for10 minutes.
And everything was normal again.
That is the most honest ending to a story I haveheard on this show.
That is my family.
One more thing before we let you go.
Something happened three weeks ago.
Ah, yes.
I dreamed in English.
For the first time?
For the first time.
A completely boring dream in a supermarket.
But it was in English.
And how did it feel?
Wonderful.
Except for one thing.
What?
In the dream, I still had an accent.
Last question.
And it is the one our friends are waiting for.
If you could speak to the Juan who got off theplane 14 months ago, what would you tell him?
Three things.
And they are all very short.
Go on.
The first one.
Most people are thinking about what they will saynext.
They are not checking your grammar.
The second.
You do not have to wait until your English isperfect to join in.
Start where you are.
And the third.
The imperfect conversation is not practice for thereal conversation.
The imperfect conversation is the realconversation.
And that is the end of the series.
Five conversations about small talk.
How to start one.
What to say after hello.
The question that changes everything.
And what to say when you have not understood aword.
18:01
And one man from Barcelona who did all of it badlyin the rain with no verbs.
Thank you very much.
Juan, thank you for coming.
Thank you for telling my story for four weekswithout asking me.
Everything from this whole series, thetranscripts, the vocabulary,
and every sentence from all five episodes iswaiting for you at YourEnglishToolbox.com.
With translations, flashcards, and downloadablePDFs completely free.
Thank you for spending this time with us.
And whoever you have been meaning to speak to.
Go and say two words.
They do not need a verb.
Juan, where are you going now?
To work.
Terrible weather, isn't it?
See you in the next one.
