📕 Part 1: Neighbours

This episode's vocabulary

Trajectory (noun) - the curved path that an object follows after it has been thrown or shot into the air.

Separate (adj.) - existing or happening independently or in a different physical space.

Flatmate (noun) - a person who shares an apartment with another person.

Presentable (adj.) - looking suitable or good enough, especially in the way you are dressed.

Clash (noun) - a fight or argument between people.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, how well do you know the people who live next door to you?

R: Well, not overly well since we just moved in about five months ago and we don't usually mix. I see them... I see them, though, from time to time. We hold the lifts for each other and similar neighbourly things.

M: How often do you see your neighbours?

R: Well, like I said, it's just every now and then we don't socialize very often since our lives are obviously following radically different trajectories, just going by the days and times we work. And our ages and well, when we see each other.

M: Do you invite your neighbours to your home?

R: I don't think I've ever asked the neighbours around, regardless of where I live. Like I say, our lives are quite separate. Moreover, I'm not sure what occasion or what the occasion might be or what we would even talk about, since I'm the only person in our apartment that speaks Russian and my neighbours only speak Russian and my flatmates only speak English.

M: Do you think you are a good neighbour?

R: I try to be. We went through a phase recently of leaving the external door unlocked for a little bit while I got the keys made and that bothered them a little bit, although things are more settled now, and to be honest with you, you don't really have anything worth stealing. So I don't really see what the big deal was.

M: What kinds of problems do people sometimes have with their neighbours?

R: Oh, I think noise complaints are the most common probably. Uh, however, we've never had any such issues despite all the partying we do. Maybe people not being tidy is another one, since it can affect the value of homes around you if your home isn't in a very presentable condition. Oh, and of course, people, well, they just don't get on well due to personality clashes, do they?

M: Has a neighbour ever helped you?

R: Beyond holding the lift? Not really. In the context of the new place I'm living in. I suppose the friendly reminder they left to not to lock the door was an attempt at it. More broadly I can't think of any such time in Moscow, but I'm rather self-sufficient. Back home we've got great neighbours and they're always in touch since we share a garden path, for example.

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Discussion

M: Rory, thank you so much for your answers.

R: No problem.

M: So, neighbors, neighbourhood. What's going on?

R: We talked about neighbourhood before, but this time we're talking about neighbours. Neighbourhood is the place, neighbours are the people that live next to you. And it's important to point out that they are the people who live in the property next to you, because I think in some languages, neighbours and flatmates are the same thing. It's like that in Russian, isn't it?

M: Absolutely, yeah. So we have one word and it's not clear what you mean. Like, so a neighbor doesn't live in the same flat as you.

R: Yes.

M: They live next door. Neighbours. Also neighbors like above neighbours, below neighbours.

R: Well, upstairs and downstairs neighbours.

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But if there is another person living in the same flat with you, they're your flatmates.

R: Don't get them mixed up.

M: Yeah. Also, I can have a roommate. Roommate.

R: Do people still have roommates these days?

M: I don't know. Maybe like people who like live on campus.

R: Students.

M: Students, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a one room, there are two students living in the same room, they are roommates.

R: Oh, I can't imagine anything worse.

M: Oh, yeah, I know. I know. But well, yeah, people do that, so why not? OK, neighbours. Neighbours can help each other by holding the lifts.

R: Yeah. So if you hold the lift for someone. It's just, well, there's usually a button that you can press to stop the doors from closing or you can just put your hand in the open space where the doors usually are and that will stop the doors closing. Be careful when you do that though.

M: Hold the lift for your neighbour and do some other neighbourly things. Neighbourly. Neighbor - neighborly things.

R: So if you can't think of any things that neighbours do for each other, like I can, you can just describe them as neighbourly. So neighbourly is just the adjective to describe being a good neighbour, the things that you do in order to be a good neighbour.

M: Yeah. You can socialize with your neighbours.

R: Or you could not like I do.

M: Yeah. So socialize, communicate like talk to your neighbours. Or you can say like Rory like, oh, we don't usually mix.

R: Yeah. So you can socialize or you can mix.

M: Yeah. Mix pretty much like meet them, hang out with them. Well I don't mix with my neighbours, I hate them.

R: I don't hate them. They're just really old. Like I don't know what I would talk to them about.

M: Hmm. OK, and so Rory with his neighbuors follow radically different trajectories.

R: Yes. So trajectory is just another way of talking about the path that an object is traveling in through space. So you usually use it in that context. But you can talk about your life trajectory just meaning like the direction your life is going. For example, my life trajectory is sadly going away from Russia.

M: Nooo. So, Rory, I'm going to steal your passport and I'm going to change you up to a radiator.

R: Don't you threaten me with a good time. Not really.

M: So you can be on friendly terms with your neighbours. So you may say I get on well with my neighbours or I don't get on well. This is a very nice phrasal verb. To get on the well with people, meaning having good relationship. And you can even ask your neighbours round.

R: Yes. Or you don't. You can ask them round in general or you can ask them round to dinner or for lunch. You could ask them round for a party.

M: Yeah, ask them round. Meaning invite them.

R: Not in the case of my neighbours, because they are five hundred years old.

M: They're dinosaurs

R: They are so old.

M: So and you can use the present perfect tense here. I've never asked the neighbours round, you see. So if you have asked them round to your house or you haven't. So I have never asked them round or... Yeah. I don't think I've ever asked the neighbours round. This is what Rory has told us. Beautiful. You may have an external door.

R: Yes. So this is important to bear in mind if you live in an apartment, you might have the door to come into the main building and then you might share a hallway with people. And that hallway has a door that connects it to the main building. That's your external door. That's different to the door, to your actual apartment. So you come out of your door, you lock that, then you go through this other door, you lock that to protect the hallway that you live in. And then you go downstairs and you go out the door and you lock that to protect the building you live in. It's all very complicated and completely unnecessary. But there you go.

M: Oh, it is necessary because again, we're using topical vocabulary here.

R: Oh, the vocabulary is necessary. But the purpose that these things actually serve is ridiculous because no one has anything worth stealing in our apartment block.

M: No, but maybe some people, you know, keep the gold and golden bicycles.

R: If you keep your gold in the external hallway, then you deserve to have it stolen. It's ridiculous.

M: And we say have it stolen. Also about the keys. Rory got the keys made.

R: By a key maker. What do you call a key maker? A locksmith?

M: Locksmith, right. But Rory is not a locksmith. So he took his keys somewhere and then he got them made. So I got the keys made by somebody else. When we talk about neighbours, we usually talk about noise complaints.

R: Yeah, it's a good collocation, isn't it?

M: Yeah.

R: That's also something you can talk about when you're referring to the police. Police sometimes deal with noise complaints as well. A noise complaint is just complaining about the noise.

M: Yeah. So Rory does all the partying and then he gets some noise complaints from his neighbours.

R: No, we don't. We never have any noise complaints. They only ever complained about the door. And it's just silly. But there you go.

M: Oh, well. And then they complained about the door and they left a friendly reminder.

R: They did, they said that they were like, could you please lock the door properly? And I was like, I cannot lock the door. I haven't had the keys made yet.

M: So you see. So neighbors can leave friendly reminders to each other, they can make noise complaints because of all the partying. They can also complain about how tidy your house is or flat. Tidy, clean.

R: Hmm. How presentable it is.

M: I like this adjective presentable. Can you say you look presentable.

R: Well you that's like saying now. In some languages you have this word adequate, which means you're fine, you look good, you're OK. But in English things, one thing is adequate or presentable just means like, oh, it's OK on the surface of it. It's not it's it's a bit weird to describe someone how they look. You should maybe talk about how something looks.

M: Yeah.

R: And use the word presentable.

M: Yeah. And then you can have some personality clashes with your neighbours.

R: So personality clashes just when you don't agree or you don't get on well with people.

M: Yeah. So I think everybody at some point in their life has had noisy neighbors and the horrible neighbours. Upstairs I've got dogs. I think it's the whole gang of dogs, like baskirville dog running around upstairs. Next door I have neighbours who are arguing all the time. It's horrible, playing horrible music.

R: What are you doing?

M: Well, sometimes to shut them all up I switch on music so loud. And I have like...

R: Speakers?

M: I have four speakers in my room, so you can imagine.

R: Why do have four speakers in your room?

M: Well, I enjoy nice sound. 10D sound. Stereo. You know, Maria home music.

R: It's just it's only worth listening to if the entire room is vibrating.

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am listening to our podcast. To our "Podcourse" on phrasal verbs. So I do have some sweet revenge on my neighbours. Thank you very much for listening! We hope that your neighbors are as fluffy as fluffy bunnies and kittens.

R: And that you enjoyed our neighborly vocabulary.

M: Bye!

R: Bye!

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