📙 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.