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πŸ“• Part 1: Emails

Is your inbox overflowing with 26,000 unread messages? Rory debates Maria on whether new apps will finally make old communication methods outdated and shares his surprising preference for birthday wishes.

Maria & Rory

Β· 11 min read

This episode’s vocabulary

To feature

verb β€” to include someone or something as an important part.

Via

preposition β€” by way of, or by use of.

To overtake

verb β€” to go past something by being a greater amount or degree

Outdated

adj. β€” old-fashioned and therefore not as good or as fashionable as something modern.

Commonplace

noun β€” happening often or often seen or experienced and so not considered to be special.

To eclipse

verb β€” to make another person or thing seem much less important, good, or famous.

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πŸ“• Part 1: Emails
IELTS Speaking for Success
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Questions and answers

Maria

Rory, do you often send emails?

Rory

Well, probably every day, if not every other day I do. I often need to send documents to students or various organizations I work with and work for. So it definitely features in my day, I would say most of my days, probably.

Maria

Is sending emails common in your country?

Rory

I would imagine so, since you usually have to contact stores or colleagues via email. Messaging isn't very common by the telephone. Sending messages in a messenger is seen as a bit more informal and very few people text these days.

Maria

Do you think sending emails will be more or less common in the future?

Rory

I'm not sure. Like I said, about messengers, they're becoming certainly more popular. So maybe they will overtake email as the main form of communication. But we still have radios and telephones despite email existing, so I doubt they'll disappear entirely.

Maria

Do you prefer texting or emails?

Rory

Neither, to be honest. Texting is a bit outdated and emails are always so long. Messaging is much easier and more direct. You can even check messages have been read or whether there are not, in most cases.

Maria

Do you prefer to have an email or a card for your birthday?

Rory

I'm not overly fussed, to be honest. Just the fact someone took the time to send a message on my birthday is good enough for me. I suppose email is relatively more environmentally friendly by comparison, but that's about the only advantage I can think of.

Maria

Will emails replace letters?

Rory

Probably not entirely. Like I said before, radio didn't replace telegraph messages completely. And ebooks haven't replaced regular paper books. So they'll probably become more commonplace if they haven't already, but totally eclipsing letters is unlikely.

Maria

Thank you, Rory, for your answers! I'll email you my thoughts about this.

Rory

Thank you! -

Discussion

Maria

So emails, mm-hmm. Yeah, so we have emails, so we send emails, we have texting, texting is without the Internet. So you just write a text and just send an SMS, right? Is this what texting is about?

Rory

Yeah.

Maria

Right. Messaging. So you write a message on WhatsApp, on Telegram on different other platforms. So when you message you use some apps to send a message and kind of we have texting and messaging.

Rory

Yes. But we won't mention any specific examples, unless they want to contact us so we can advertise for them.

Maria

True. Yeah. Okay. And then the examiner can ask you, do you prefer to send an email or do you prefer to text, and then Rory kept talking about sending messages in different apps in different messengers. So message, send a message and messengers, yeah? Like WhatsApp. WhatsApp people, if you want to sponsor our podcast and you know, and also McDonald's people, Apple, Elon Musk, so feel free to... Messi, Messi, if you want to sponsor our podcast, we would like that very much.

Rory

Well, we would like the money very much...

Maria

Rory, we don't care about the money.

Rory

Selling our souls down the river and the cause of advertising on the other hand,

Maria

Rory, just stop talking, Rory.

Rory

This podcast has turned me into a revolutionary.

Maria

Yeah, you know, like, three years ago, Rory didn't use to have an Instagram account. He didn't know what Facebook was. Just three years ago. Look at you now.

Rory

Look at me now conspiring to bring down capitalism. That's what social media will do to you.

Maria

Emails, right? Back to email. So we send emails, we also send documents to different people. So what else can we say? We send emails, we receive emails, we send them again, we check emails, we check emails at night, we check them the first thing when we wake up, maybe.

Rory

You can talk about copying people in or blind copying them in. And that's just when you add people to the email send list.

Maria

And also, when you send an email, you attach certain documents. So it's kind of convenient, in terms of you can attach things. Yeah, but also you can do it in a messenger. So yeah. And then, is sending emails common in your country? So it's common. And also you've used commonplace?

Rory

Yes.

Maria

Is it the same? Commonplace?

Rory

For the purposes of this answer, yes. There must be a difference between those two things. Probably common is used to describe, well, it can be used to describe something that's of low quality or not very refined, whereas commonplace means that it's everywhere, but people use them interchangeably, because of course, the difference between those two things is very small.

Maria

Right. And we can contact people via emails. So you send an email, I'll contact you via an email, right? Or should they write to you in a messenger or send an email, and Rory said that writing in a messenger is seen a bit more informal. So emailing, or messaging, so messaging is a bit more informal. Messengers are becoming more popular, right? Or maybe has already become more popular than emails. So messengers are becoming more popular. So it's a trend. And more and more people are using messengers rather than emails, for example. So use the present continuous to show the trend. Right? Then Rory said that will overtake, so messengers will overtake emails, what did you mean? Overtake?

Rory

They'll just... I was gonna say, they'll just outstrip them, but that means almost the same thing. So that just means that they become more popular. You have the emails here and messengers used more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and they'll overtake. They probably have overtaken them already, to be honest with you,. I have no idea. I'm not a tech expert, but if I were to guess then I would say that's either about to happen or will happen.

Maria

And there we go. I'm not an expert, but if I were to guess, and then bla, bla, bla, bla. Yeah, so overtake. Also, we use this verb about a car. So like a Ferrari and a jaguar, and then... A Ferrari overtakes Jaguar, Jaguar is like lagging behind. Jaguar. And also when you compared letters to email, so when we write actual letters, so Rory, you said that emails will not totally eclipse letters.

Rory

But that's just another way of saying they'll overtake completely. So if something is eclipsed, then you can't see it anymore. Like, if you think about when the moon eclipses the sun, you can't really see that much of the sun. So it's the same for concepts and things.

Maria

Total eclipse of the heart.

Rory

That's much nicer than total eclipse of the email.

Maria

Yeah, so this is a very nice verb to use. Kind of creative and yeah, band nine.

Rory

Well, I just didn't want to say replace again, because I already said replace for talking about radio and telegraph.

Maria

Yeah, so more commonplace, more common, more popular, will replace something. Right? And could you give us a sentence with eclipse again, about letters and emails?

Rory

Yeah, well, letters were never or have never been totally eclipsed by email.

Maria

And do you actually write letters these days, like actual letters on paper?

Rory

I haven't written one in about a year. And I think the last letter I wrote was to my friend John.

Maria

And then do you prefer a card for your birthday? Or an email and Rory said, I'm not overly fussed about it. So...

Rory

It's just a nice way of saying I don't care. I'm just happy that someone thinks like, oh, it's Rory's birthday, let's send him a message. Unlike certain people who don't just fail to send me messages, they also fail to show up to my birthdays. I wonder who I could be referring to. Vanya and Maria.

Maria

Who?

Rory

Who? Who indeed?

Maria

And then you can say that emailing is more environmentally friendly. Right? So we use kind of paper, when we send letters and cards, birthday cards, we buy them, you know, we send them, we throw them away, maybe. And, yeah, emailing is more environmentally friendly. And when you use all this energy and computers and technology and yeah, that's, that's more environmentally friendly. That was sarcasm.

Rory

Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah, apparently keeping your emails as well is meant to be bad for the environment too.

Maria

Oh, really? So keeping your emails? Oh, wow.

Rory

Well, they have to be kept somewhere. So what, they're kept on a server, that will create heat. And that will also cause climate change as well. Well, that is the argument. I mean, I just, at this stage, I think people are just finding things to complain about, to be honest with you.

Maria

But I think like, the worst thing about emails is just they keep, like, people keep sending emails to you and different ads and different people you don't know. And like, you know, it's like, and then emails, emails, and then you're like, you're so full of emails. There's not enough space there.

Rory

I have a question. How many unread emails do you have on your phone? You can check it right now.

Maria

Okay, okay, I'm checking, I'm checking. How many unread emails do I have? I have 92.

Rory

Oh, my God. My brother has something like 26,000 of them just because he doesn't delete them. And it really depresses me because you see this like notification icon popping up. Like just, would you ever just answer the emails?

Maria

Dear listener, could you please tell us, do you delete the emails? And how many? So do now check how many unread emails do you have. Now, and let us know.

Rory

I wanna see if there are more disorganized people, or more organized people listening to our podcast. So if you're organized, then obviously everything will be away in right place and folder, but if you're disorganized, then you'll probably have 27,000 emails that you haven't read yet.

Maria

Yeah, so let's check, if you're like more like Rory sight, if you're a Rory, or if you're a Maria. Right? So Maria is all over the place.

Rory

Are you all over the place?

Maria

Ah, yeah, with my emails, yeah. I don't have like 1000s. But, well, 92 unread.

Rory

92 isn't that bad. Like there are worse.

Maria

Yeah, it's not that bad.

Rory

Yeah, there are worse examples. So don't, I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Maria

Yeah, please let us know in the comments what do you have, and do you delete them, and what's your system of kind of organizing your mailbox? All right? Thank you very much for listening! Can our listeners send us an email?

Rory

If they can find us. It's easier to send a message on Instagram. That would be nice.

Maria

Yeah, yeah.

Rory

Oh, actually, please do, because I keep collecting reviews. So if people send us them, then I can put them on the Instagram account. And that would be nice. So yes, please.

Maria

Thank you very much! We love you. And we hug you. Like us, share us, subscribe.

Rory

Email us.

Maria

Bye!

Rory

Bye! See you next week! - Make sure to subscribe to our social media to see some of the β€œbehind the scenes” stuff: Our Instagram:Β bit.ly/instagramswi Our Telegram:Β bit.ly/telegramswi