📙 Part: 2: Describe a friend of yours who is good at singing/music

This episode's vocabulary

Tenant (noun) – a person who rents property from another person. → The tenant always pays his rent on time.

Music enthusiast (noun phrase) – someone who is very interested in music. → As a music enthusiast, he spends hours discovering new artists.

Unrelated (adjective) – not connected or associated with something. → Her new hobby is completely unrelated to her job.

Mixed interests (noun phrase) – a variety of hobbies or passions. → Having mixed interests helps keep life exciting.

For lack of a better term (phrase) – used when you can’t find a more precise way to express something. → It was a strange situation, for lack of a better term.

Relatable (adjective) – easy to understand or connect with emotionally. → Her lyrics are so relatable to young people.

Serenade (verb) – to sing or play music to someone. → He serenaded his friend with a guitar song.

Well-versed (adjective) – knowledgeable or skilled in a particular area. → She’s well-versed in classical piano techniques.

Run-of-the-mill (adjective) – ordinary or not special. → The show was okay, but pretty run-of-the-mill.

Blend into the background (phrase) – to become unobtrusive or unnoticed. → The soft background music blended into the background.

Tune (noun) – a series of musical notes that sound pleasant. → I can’t get that tune out of my head.

Vocalist (noun) – a person who sings in a band or performance. → The lead vocalist has an amazing voice.

Rhythm (noun) – a regular repeated pattern of sounds or movements. → The rhythm of the song makes it great for dancing.

Stage presence (noun) – the ability to attract and hold attention while performing. → She has incredible stage presence.

Encore (noun) – an additional performance given at the end of a concert. → The crowd cheered for an encore after the last song.

Questions and Answers

Maria: You should say who he or she is, when, where you listen to him or her music or singing, what kind of music songs he or she is good at, and explain how you feel when listening to his music or singing.

Rory: Oh, wow. I have a lot of friends who are pretty musical, actually. But one that sticks out in my mind in particular is my tenant. He's been with me for the last year and a half, while he does his PhD in neglected tropical parasites, which is completely unrelated to his singing ability, of course. But I think having those interests, or those mixed interests, is what makes him so interesting, for lack of a better term. Being able to sing is also more relatable than stuff about parasites.

When it comes to when I listen to him, I'm sort of subjected to it every morning when he's in the shower. My office is just down the hall from the bathroom. So when I'm sitting, writing lessons or putting things together for work, I often hear him sort of serenading in the shower or something like that, which is extremely entertaining for me. In terms of the genre of music that he's into, I honestly have no idea. I think just based on what I can hear, it's opera or something along those lines. It's very vocal and loud, whatever it is. Maybe sometimes it's like pop numbers, but I don't think that's what you'd call what I usually hear anyway. Like I said, I'm not well-versed in the ins and outs of music genres. Regardless, it's pretty pleasant to listen to, at least I think so. Possibly our neighbours have other opinions.

To tell you more about how I feel about the whole thing, as I mentioned, it's pretty good fun to hear in the morning. I'm not sure it would be my usual choice, but it blends into the background nicely enough and doesn't distract me much. When he leaves next year, I'm sure it will be one of the things I miss the most.

If I didn't have Pete singing in my life, well, I'm pretty sure my life would be pretty run-of-the-mill, and that wouldn't be much fun or terribly interesting for me. It also would have given me nothing to talk about now.

Discussion

Maria: So dear listener, what a strange topic again, a new topic. Describe a friend who is good at music or singing. So you should talk about a person who sings well, or not well, but you like their singing or who is good at music, which means this person plays the piano or plays the drums. Play THE piano, THE drums. A person who plays any musical instrument or just, you know, maybe composes music, sings, or if you don't have such a person in your life, steal Rory's story or imagine this person. And our usual start. I have a lot of friends who are pretty musical, but one that sticks out in my mind in particular is my friend, right, or is my colleague. So this person sticks out in my mind. This person is memorable.

Rory: Yeah, we talked about this before.

Maria: And we can say that this person is musical. They have musical abilities, right?

Exactly.

Maria: Like musical instruments, musical compositions. Actually, it's C1, Rory.

Rory: Is it?

Maria: Yeah, if you use it in a context. If you're musical, you have a skill or a great liking for music. So my family all play instruments, they're very musical. Very nice. In this particular context. And this person, Peter, is Rory's tenant. So he lives in the same flat, in Rory's flat, and pays money to Rory.

Rory: He pays money to live with me. Crazy, crazy man that he is.

Maria: Tenant. So it's C2, dear listener, band 9. A person who pays rent for the use of land or a building. So you have a flat, you live in one room, another person lives in the other room and pays money for the flat together with you. So a tenant. And this Peter has a PhD in neglected tropical parasites. I've started googling the thing. No, don't google that.

Rory: He doesn't have his PhD yet. Why don't you go to pictures?

Maria: No, because I thought I was interested in what kind of parasites they are.

Rory: But it turns out you're not so interested anymore.

Maria: No, no, it's just disgusting, awful stuff. Yeah, but whatever, you need a topic for studies, you can say that, oh, this person has a PhD in neglected tropical parasites. And the examiner goes like, what? What is this? Why are they neglected? These are little awful creatures in the jungles and forests that kind of like go inside the people's bodies.

Rory: However, none of this is related to someone's musical ability, so perhaps we should move on.

Maria: Right. Yes. Yes. So when it comes to when I listen to his singing, again, we changed the topic. So we use a phrase when it comes to when I listen to him or her - every morning. He sings in the shower. He sings while cooking breakfast. When I organise my work, I often overhear him singing. So when you hear someone singing, you can say I overhear, overhear him singing or serenading, serenading, you said.

Rory: Serenading, it means many things, but I'm using it to mean sing to somebody or someone or something.

Maria: A serenade is a piece of music or to sing for someone, especially a woman. So it's kind of like a romantic, like Romeo and Juliet, yes, or Romeo serenades Juliet in the moonlight. And it's very entertaining for me. So I have fun. I like it. It's nice. It's pleasant. So it's entertaining. Again, we're changing the topic. In terms of the genre of music, he's into, so he's into rap, he's into classical music. So in terms of the genre of music, he's into, I have no idea, or he likes classical music. He likes everything, right? I think it's opera or something along those lines. So if you're not sure, you say, well, it might be rap or pop music, something along those lines, something like that. If something is vocal, what is it and what can be vocal?

Rory: Well, spoken.

Maria: Like a piece of vocal music, some music which has words, because not all music has words. It's pretty pleasant to listen to. So careful, I listen to music, and he's pretty pleasant to listen to, or his music, his singing is pretty pleasant to listen to. Again, we're changing the topic to tell you more about how I feel about the whole thing. I'm pretty happy with this, right? Or it's pretty good fun to hear it in the morning. It doesn't distract me much. So it distracts me from work, for example, or it doesn't distract me. Oh, he leaves next year, Rory. Why is he leaving?

Rory: I know, it's very sad. We have like six months left together, and then I need to find a new tenant. So if anyone is interested in living with me for a year, then please get in touch.

Maria: And then our conditional, at the very end, it's a very good idea to use the third conditional or the second conditional to wrap up your speaking part, too. So here you can use the second conditional because we're talking about now and we're imagining a situation now. If I didn't have Pete in my life, but I do have Pete now, but imagine like I don't have Pete. If I didn't have Pete singing, I would have a boring life. So if I didn't listen to his singing every day, my life would not be so fun, for example. It would be run of the mill. Run-of-the-mill, boring, right, dull, ordinary, run of the mill. We spell these words with hyphens, run, hyphen, of, hyphen, the, hyphen, mill. If you don't know what a hyphen means, just write run of the mill in Cambridge Online Dictionary. So ordinary, not special, exciting. Like I have a run of the mill life, a run of the mill film, speech…

Rory: Experience.

Maria: If I didn't have his singing in my life, my life wouldn't be so much fun. You can also talk about your friends who sing in a band, for example, or who just does singing classes.

Rory: However, you might not be 100% sure about them. So, I have included some phrases for talking about things in a very vague way. However, Maria, did you hear any of them?

Maria: Yes, I did. Something along those lines.

Rory: I also said whatever it is, so it's very loud and vocal, whatever it is. I also said I'm not well versed in, and here, not well versed in the ins and outs of music genres. So the ins and outs are the details of something. If you're not well versed in it, you don't know much about it. Oh, what else was there? Nothing else, but quite useful for when we need to say something and we're not sure. Because remember, it's not a test of your knowledge about something. It's a test of how well you handle the conversation. The ins and outs of something, not well versed in something. These are idiomatic expressions. And if we think about the fixed expressions for things that are unclear, something along those lines is also quite useful.

Maria: Thank you very much for listening, and we'll get back to you in our new super episode. Okay? Bye!

Rory: Bye!

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