📙 Part 2: Describe a great dinner you and your friends or family members enjoyed

This episode's vocabulary

Stand out (phrasal verb) – to be particularly noticeable or memorable. → The candidate's enthusiasm really stood out during the interview process.

Give or take (phrase) – approximately, with a small margin of error. → The journey takes two hours, give or take ten minutes depending on traffic.

Decking (noun) – a wooden platform or outdoor floor area. → We built a decking in our garden for summer barbecues.

Fare (noun) – food, especially of a particular type or for a special occasion. → The restaurant serves traditional Italian fare at reasonable prices.

Finger food (noun) – small portions of food designed to be eaten with hands. → We served finger food at the reception so guests could eat while mingling.

Chilled out (adjective) – relaxed, calm, and easygoing. → The atmosphere at the café is really chilled out and welcoming.

Worryingly so (adverb phrase) – to a concerning or alarming degree. → He's been quiet recently, worryingly so, and I'm concerned about him.

Recalled (verb) – remembered or brought back to mind. → I recalled meeting her at a conference several years ago.

Speculate about (phrasal verb) – to form opinions or theories without definite knowledge. → People love to speculate about the company's future plans.

Restored (verb) – brought back or returned to a previous condition. → The holiday restored my energy after months of stressful work.

Catch up with (phrasal verb) – to talk with someone you haven't seen for a while. → I'm meeting old school friends this weekend to catch up with them.

Milestone (noun) – an important event or stage in development. → Graduating from university was a major milestone in my life.

Get-together (noun) – an informal social gathering or party. → We're having a small get-together at my place this Saturday.

Intimate (adjective) – small, private, and involving close friends or family. → We had an intimate wedding ceremony with just twenty guests.

Host (verb) – to organize and provide for guests at an event. → My sister will host Thanksgiving dinner at her house this year.

Questions and Answers

Maria: You should say what you had, who you had dinner with, what you talked about during the dinner about and explain why you enjoyed it.

Rory: Well, I had my birthday recently, so that's probably the one that stands out the most in my mind right now. It was about a month ago, give or take, and we had dinner on the decking at my family home, where my parents live.

When it comes to what we had, it was just typical birthday party fare, to be honest. Obviously, there was a birthday cake too, actually, now I think about it, along with things like sausages, sausage rolls, pizza, and other kinds of finger food, I suppose you'd call it. I should say, there were two cakes because I share my birthday with my aunt, who was joining us this year for that occasion. And in terms of who else was there, well, my aunt's husband was there, of course. It would be a bit weird if they travelled separately. And my parents were there, along with my friends and my partner. My brother and his girlfriend were also there, now that I think about it. And she even brought her dog, which was really nice. You would think that having a pet at an event like that would be complete chaos, but she was actually pretty chilled out, the dog, that is. And worryingly so, actually. She doesn't move much, but apparently that's normal for her, so that was okay.

To tell you more about the topics of conversation and what they were, actually, we focused lots on the cakes, not just because of the taste, although that was also good, but also because there was a picture on the icing of one of them that showed my aunt and I, and that was about 34 years ago, or maybe 35 now, when I was just a baby. And neither of us recalled the photo being taken. Obviously, I wouldn't, but my aunt had no idea where we were or what we were doing at the time, which was quite funny to speculate about. That was just one reason that I liked the whole thing. It was nice being with my loved ones after being away for a long time working in Oxford, so it sort of restored my sense of community as well. If it hadn't happened, I think it would have been a pretty dull day, and who wants that on their special day?

Maria: And what about your friends?

Rory: Did they enjoy it? Well, I hope so, because I invited them, so they should have enjoyed it.

Discussion

Maria: So, dear listener, now you should remember a time when the electricity suddenly went off. Right? Or lie. You can choose Rory's story, just steal his story. If you've never had such a situation, make it up. Imagine you went to a country house, and then maybe there was a storm, or the rain was pouring down, there was a thunderstorm, and then bam, the electricity went off. And Rory, tell us, what usually happens when the electricity goes off? So it goes off, there is no electricity.

Rory: The power is cut, so nothing works; no electrical items can function. So this could just be the lights, or it could be computers and other things that are connected to the mains electricity.

Maria: The power is cut. The power is cut off. The power means electricity. So I had no power. The power was cut off, or the power was off. We can't use any electrical devices, pretty much nothing. And also heating, right? If it's winter, there is no heating, because heating is also connected to electricity, to this electrical power. So there is no heating, and all you have is candles, your fireplace, if you have a fireplace. And sometimes in some houses, water is connected to electricity. So if I don't have any electricity, I don't have any water.

Rory: Oh wow, that is a weird one. Although I suppose water pumps require electricity.

Maria: Yeah, water pumps. To have water in your bathroom, you need electricity. So we saw that I'm going to tell you about a time when the electricity was cut off in the countryside, or when the electricity was cut off, when the power was cut. It's not a common practice where I live, or it's quite common where I live. It's kind of a regular situation. It happens all the time, and usually it happens if there is a storm, thunderstorm, or if it rains heavily, there are some problems with the power. So it's common, or it's not a common practice in my country. And Rory told us his story about Ghana, in Africa, how Rory worked in Africa.

Rory: Honestly, this is not something that I'm used to dealing with, so thank heavens that I was able to remember when this happened.

Maria: And Rory, when you lived in the countryside in Scotland, in your parents' house, the power was always on?

Rory: Yeah, even when there were freak snowstorms or something like this, we always had power.

Maria: Yeah, because in many countries, I think it's quite common in storms, in some heavy storms in winter. And if the power goes off when they fix something, so there is no storm, there is no rain, but they're working on something, and they switch it off, what do you call it? How do you explain the situation?

Rory: People are trying to restore the power. Oh, I could have said that, actually, the power was restored.

Maria: Yeah, the power was restored; it went back on again, or you can say that, yeah, the electricity went off because they were fixing something. And you can say something was disconnected. So what was disconnected in your story?

Rory: Well, the power was disconnected, so the fans stopped working, but that's not really a big deal for me, or it wasn't at the time; maybe it would be different now.

Maria: Yeah, sometimes they tell you that there will be no electricity on this day, at this hour, right? So I knew that it was coming, or I didn't know that it was coming. The task says, like, suddenly went off, but you can kind of say that I knew it was coming, so I was prepared, I lit my candles, and I started my fireplace. Yeah, you can imagine the whole thing. Or I didn't know it was coming, so it was cold, and I didn't have any heating, so I froze to death.

Rory: Well, if I'd frozen to death, then I wouldn't be here to talk about it now.

Maria: Yeah, the second condition, you see. No, actually, the third condition.

Rory: Well, then the power was cut, and I melted, and then I wasn't able to tell anyone about it.

Maria: Yeah, but Rory was in Africa, so it was pretty hot. The fan stopped working, and Rory picked up a book, sat down in the sun until the power came back on. So you can say, well, I didn't do much, I just waited until the power came back on. The power came back on in two hours. It lasted for two hours, or three hours, or five minutes. I just waited for things to resolve themselves. So we solve a problem, or we resolve a problem. So I just did nothing, I waited for things to resolve themselves. In my situation, when there's no electricity, I look at the chat. We have a chat, like, we're neighbours, all the neighbours are in this chat, and if there's no electricity, they write, Oh, do you have electricity? No, no, I don't. Okay, did you call them? So call the local authorities. So did you call them? Yeah, did you write to them? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did, I did. What's going on? And then they start chatting about it. Oh, the power is off again. What's going on? So all this, you know, complaining is going on in the chat. I was really happy when it was over. I was happy when the power came back on again. I was delighted.

Rory: I think everybody would be.

Maria: Yeah, that's true. It didn't have a major impact on my life. So it didn't influence my life. So everything was fine. My life wasn't disrupted. So to disrupt something...

Rory: My routine was fine. It wasn't hugely disrupted. Or if it was disrupted, then the routine was not fine.

Maria: Yeah, we can disrupt a system, a process, or an event. For example, his show was disrupted by millions of fans. The meeting was disrupted by protests, for example. Or our meeting was disrupted by a power cut. Or you can say that I was really disrupted because I was having a meeting online at the time, and there was no electricity, so I couldn't use my laptop. Ta-da! So it was hardly a disaster. So it wasn't a disaster for me. Or it was a disaster. I was cold. I couldn't prepare my food. I didn't have any water. So you can make the story dramatic, dear listener. And this is a thing. To tell the examiner a dramatic story. Oh, I was so cold. I didn't have any food. And it was getting colder and colder and darker and darker. I didn't know what to do. So the examiner gets all excited and, you know, Oh, look, poor you! So the examiner will start developing emotions towards you.

Rory: We need more dramatic stories in the future.

Maria: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, this could influence the decision on the band. They would give to you. That's true, dear listener. That's our psychology, you know. Yeah, one of my students told a story about how he fell down while snowboarding and how he hit himself really badly. And after the exam, the examiner asked my student, So, were you okay in the end? Like, is everything okay with your leg now?

Rory: Oh, that's so nice. And then they were given a band nine.

Maria: Probably, yes. No, but he got a good score, like 7.5 or something. You see, drama, you know, suffering. But you kind of tell it in a happy way. But you kind of make emotions appear in the examiner's brain and heart.

Rory: Psychological manipulation. There we go.

Maria: Exactly, exactly. Very professional. Yeah, don't tell anybody that we're teaching this on the podcast, okay?

Rory: In this publicly available podcast.

Maria: Rory, what else can we say about the electricity? I mean, vocabulary. We say...

Rory: The power died.

Maria: Yes, the power died. Okay, what else?

Rory: The lights went out.

Maria: The lights went out. What do you call people who fix the lights? Who fixes electricity? Electricians?

Rory: Electricians? Well, it could be electricians or you can also have engineers that deal with this.

Maria: Yeah, electricians. I called the electricians to fix the lights, to fix the power, to fix the electricity. Any other technical vocabulary, like wires or electrical poles? What do you call these things? Well, I mean, that would only count if they'd been damaged in some way. So maybe like the electrical grid or the electrical lines were damaged, for example. But here... The electrical lines were damaged by the rain in a heavy storm. And usually this is a common situation. The electrical lines were damaged. That's why the power was down in the whole neighbourhood. What can a person do? Like maybe something that people can do at home? Ruin to damage the electricity.

Rory: Well, you could probably like plug in too many things and, I don't know, blow out your circuits or something like that. I don't really know how electricity works, to be honest.

Maria: So we're not electricians. So if you are, well done, good for you. If people plug in too many things, bam, you know, what happens? Not an explosion, but like you blow up your socket. The thing that you plug your plug into. It gets technical, dear listener.

Rory: That's why we should finish. Yeah, this is... I should have been an electrician.

Maria: Yeah, you don't need that. Okay, just use the synonyms we've given you. Okay, that will be enough. Thank you very much for listening. And we'll get back to you with more electricity stories.

Rory: Bye!

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