📕 Part 1: Cash

How often do you use cash?

Not much these days, to be honest. Almost all my payments are contactless. You just tap your card and you're done.

Do you often bring cash with you?

Well, again, no. I honestly can't remember the last time I paid for anything with coins or notes or anything like that. There's just no need for it nowadays.

Do you always pay by card?

Almost always, yes. There are chip and pin devices everywhere nowadays, so it's just easier to carry cards with you rather than wads of cash. Or better yet, you can just pay through the contactless on your phone.

Did you use cash more when you were younger?

Definitely, yes. Not only was it easier to pay with it, I think it was almost always the only acceptable way to pay for things. I think the only exceptions were in places that didn't accept Scottish notes as legal tender, but that was a rarity and it's almost never a problem now.

Is it okay not to have any cash on you?

So far, it's panned out reasonably well. Even in places that don't use chip and pin, you can almost always make direct bank transfers to their accounts. You just need a phone and an internet connection for that. I suppose if I was somewhere more remote and unconnected to the internet, it might be a problem and I'd prepare in advance, but that's yet to happen.

Do you think you'll use cash more in the future?

No, I think it will actually be the reverse. Short of some disaster that stops contactless payments, we all seem to be using money less and less, at least as far as I can tell.

So, dear listener, cash, coins, bank notes. It's interesting, because in some countries they do use a lot of cash, but in other countries they use only online payments and cards. And also, for example, in China, they told me that they have online payments, but if you go to a small village, everyone uses cash. Is this true?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I've never been to China.

Yeah, and it's interesting that they told me even old people who sell something, they have QR codes and you can make a payment online. A grandpa is selling some rice with a QR code in the middle of nowhere. So we use cash, we pay... Rory, what's the preposition? We pay by cash, in cash?

Usually pay by card but pay with cash. Or pay in cash.

Yeah.

Usually. I'm sure you could get away with other prepositions as well.

Or no preposition at all. We can say, "I usually pay cash for the tickets." So pay in cash or pay cash. Use cash.

Use cash.

You can run out of cash if you don't have any coins or notes on you. You run out of cash.

But if you inherit money, you could say you came into some cash. Come into money.

And again, if the examiner asks you when or how often, you just give a direct answer, a very short answer. "How often do you use cash?" Not much. Or often, every day, regularly. "All my payments are contactless." Or "I make all payments online," or "they are contactless." Contactless payments. Pretty much making a payment using a credit card or a mobile phone. So I use contactless payments. Or online payments. I just tap my card, tap my phone. So you tap your card when you make a payment. I bring some cash with me. Or you can say, "I usually have some cash on me." Me personally, I never bring any cash with me. I don't have any cash.

Because someone else is paying?

No, Rory, I pay for my stuff. I do have some coins at home but I just have my phone. I don't even have a card on me usually. So I just have my phone and I tap my phone everywhere. But you can say, "Yeah, I often, I always bring some cash with me." For example, my brother, he often brings some cash with him. So he always has cash on him. And you can say, "I can't remember the last time I paid for anything with coins or notes."

There's no need.

"I pay for stuff using coins or notes" or "I don't pay for anything using coins or notes, banknotes." There is no need for it.

Coins are metal, notes are folding, they're paper. Well, they're probably not paper, they're probably fiber, but paper money.

And it's so nice sometimes just to feel the paper money. You feel it.

Money, money, money.

When I see paper money, I just go, "Oh, yeah, paper money." And I touch the money, I just smell the money, paper. Because for me, I don't remember the last time I actually had some paper money in my hands. No actually, physically holding money. We pay by card. So we pay by credit card, we make payments online, because there are these online devices everywhere, and I carry cards with me, and it's just better than... what did you say?

Oh, it's better than having a wad of cash. A wad of cash is just a pile or a stack of cash that you have folded and put in your pocket. I have not done that in years and years and years. You just use a card and it's all okay.

Yeah, a wad of cash. A pack of notes. In films when they sell something and they have this wad of notes. When I was younger, I used to use a lot of cash. So, definitely yes. Again, a short answer, dear listener. It's absolutely fine to first give a very short answer. It's natural. It's what people do. Native speakers speak like this. "Did you use cash more when you were a child?" Definitely, yes. A short answer and then you say why. And here Rory uses inversion. You said "Not only was it easier to pay with cash, but it was also..." So you can kind of make it a question. Was it easier? But it's not a question, it's inversion. Not only was it easier to pay with cash, but it was also the only acceptable way to pay for things. So when I was a child, it was the only acceptable way. We didn't have any online payments, so Rory used cash.

How many children had bank cards back in those days, though?

No, no, no.

Not many.

Only cash and coins. Yeah, but maybe, dear listener, you are very young now and maybe you were born with a credit card in your hands. Only with online payments and you've never seen cash in your life. Perhaps, that's true for you. Really, I used only cash for a very long time. Oh, I'm old. I'm old. But still there are people who use only cash and they may not even have any cards, right? And you can use a phrasal verb, pan out. A very nice phrasal verb, dear listener. It's pretty advanced because not many people use it. So pan out, to develop in a particular way, usually a successful way. We'll see how things pan out. How things will develop.

The end result.

Or for example, "My business didn't pan out." It wasn't successful, unfortunately.

You missed something. You missed a band nine piece of vocabulary.

Ah! What?

Legal tender.

Whoa! What's that?

Legal tender means an acceptable form of payment.

What do you mean? We don't understand, Rory. It's too difficult for us.

Like using Scottish banknotes in England.

Yes, but our listener is not from Scotland, so what do they do?

It doesn't make a difference. Legal tender is a way of talking about legitimate ways of paying for something.

Okay, can you use it in a sentence that our listener can use?

Yes, absolutely. You might have gold, but it's not a form of legal tender. Usually shops only accept money or cash.

Nice. And we make direct bank transfers. So if you don't have any cash, you can just transfer the money, like at the beginning of the episode when Rory didn't have any cash for me and I said, no, no, no, you can just make a direct bank transfer online. So just transfer the money to my bank account. So sometimes people make direct bank transfers to other people's accounts. You need a phone and the internet. That's all. But if you are in a remote place, a place which is far away from everywhere and everybody, and if a place doesn't have an internet connection, it might be a problem and you do need some cash. And there are some places like that where only cash is accepted, just because there's no internet. There's no Wi-Fi.

Where are these places? We must help them.

Yeah, there are some places like that in the mountains. Come on, in the mountains, in the jungles, and on some islands perhaps. But very few places are like that. Everyone has the internet these days. Well, most people, I think.

Most people. The people listening to this podcast have the internet. So it's highly likely they will be paying for things in the same ways we will be.

And about the future and cash, you can say that actually, the reverse is more likely. The reverse that I will use less cash in the future. So you can say, "I think the reverse is more likely."

The opposite.

The opposite. Yeah.

But then I said, "short of some disaster."

Ah.

But that means just unless there is some disaster.

Yay. So, dear listener, we are wondering, do you use cash? Do you really use coins and notes? Or is it just your phone? Or do you still carry cards on you? What about your life? Interesting. And I have a joke. We'll wrap it up with a joke.

I wondered if there would be a joke.

Yeah. So, Rory. I've done some terrible things for money.

Oh my. Like what?

Getting up early to work. [laughs] Rory, explain the joke.

Well, doing terrible things for money usually means killing people, but it can also mean getting up too early for work. And getting up early is also a bad thing.

Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode. Bye.

Bye.