Introduction
Neil and Beth talk about where they live and their dream houses. Learn to talk about your house.
Vocabulary
terraced house
a house attached to other houses on both sides
flat
a home that is part of a larger building or block, usually on one floor
downstairs
the lower, ground floor of your house
upstairs
the higher floor of your house
Grammar Tip:
Use comparative adjectives to talk about changes you would make to your house
- My dream house would be bigger than my house is now.
- I want to live in a more beautiful place than I live now.
- I would like my garden to be prettier than it is now.
Transcript
Neil
Hello and welcome to Real Easy English, the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I’m Neil.
Beth
And I’m Beth. You can read along with this podcast and there’s a free worksheet to help you learn on our website bbclearningenglish.com.
Neil
Hi Beth, how are you?
Beth
I’m very well, thank you, Neil. How are you?
Neil
I’m pretty good. What are we talking about today?
Beth
Today we are talking about home. We will talk about where we live and learn some vocabulary about houses and rooms.
Neil
Great. Let’s get started.
Beth
Okay, Neil, tell me about where you live. Do you live in a flat or a house?
Neil
I live in a house, in a terraced house. That means there are houses attached on either side.
Beth
I also live in a terraced house. Do you like living in a terraced house?
Neil
No, I, I would rather have a detached house, a house not connected to other houses.
Beth
Yeah, I agree. I think, of course it would be nice to have a bigger house, but also sometimes in a terraced house you can hear people through the walls, and I sing a lot, and I don’t like that my neighbours can probably hear me singing.
Neil
Yes, it’s a bit close, isn’t it?
Beth
Yeah, but what do you like about your house?
Neil
I like the garden. We have quite a narrow but long garden, and it faces the right direction to get lots of sun in the summertime.
Beth
That’s really good. Yeah. I also like our garden because we get a small area of sun where we can grow vegetables in the summer. So that’s really nice. And generally, I quite like our house because it’s, it’s quite modern.
Neil
Okay, but is your house your dream house?
Beth
No.
Neil
So tell me about your dream house.
Beth
I would have the house I have now, but I would like it bigger. Obviously, I would like a swimming pool, but that’s not very realistic. But it’s my dream house, so I can have a swimming pool. But my main thing is that I would like to live in a more beautiful area, because at the moment, there’s quite a lot of other houses around us, and I would love to live in the countryside.
Neil
Yes, I think living in a prettier place would be very nice.
Beth
What about your dream house? What would it be like?
Neil
I think just having space, more space so everybody can do their own thing, but also spaces where people can be together. I’d like a, kind of, games room.
Beth
Yeah. I would quite like a bigger lounge, because our lounge, a lounge is a room in the house where you relax and can watch TV, where you have a sofa or sofas. And I would quite like to have a bigger lounge, although we have a nice fire in our lounge, which is really nice and cosy in the winter.
Neil
So what else is downstairs in your house?
Beth
We have a kitchen and a dining room, and we also have a utility room and a little toilet.
Neil
And what’s upstairs in your house?
Beth
We have three bedrooms, they are all a decent size, and a bathroom. So Neil, you live in a house as well. So I imagine you have an upstairs and a downstairs. But have you ever lived in a flat?
Neil
Yes. I’ve lived in plenty of flats in my life.
Beth
So that’s where everything is on one level, you might live in a block of flats, and that means that your home is part of a larger building. In the US, we normally call a flat an apartment.
Neil
The last flat I lived in, I liked because it was the first place that I owned and my children were babies there. So it has special memories. But it was not very convenient because it was too small and too noisy because the neighbours upstairs were very noisy.
Let’s recap the vocabulary we heard in the conversation. We had terraced house, a house that is attached on both sides to another house.
Beth
We also had downstairs, which is the ground floor of a house, and upstairs, which is the higher floor of a house.
Neil
We also had some adjectives and comparatives. So we heard bigger than and also more beautiful than and prettier than. For example, Beth, you said you would like to have a house that has a bigger garden than you have at the moment.
Beth
And we had flat, a home that is part of a larger building, usually on one floor.
Neil
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.
Beth
Next week we’ll talk about the ways we talk to other people.
Neil
See you then.
Beth
Bye.