📙 Part 2: Describe a place where you can relax

This episode's vocabulary

Express (adj.) - clearly and intentionally stated.

To unwind (verb) - if you unwind something that is wrapped around an object, you unfasten it, and if it unwinds, it becomes unfastened.

Tradespeople (plural noun) - people who buy and sell goods, especially people who own a shop.

To the letter (idiom) - if you obey instructions or rules to the letter, you do exactly what you have been told to do, giving great attention to every detail.

Colour therapy (noun) - a form of therapy that uses colour and light to treat certain mental and physical health conditions.

Skirting board (noun) - a piece of wood that is joined to the bottom of a wall where it meets the floor.

Windowsill (noun) - a shelf below a window, either inside or outside a building.

Chilled out (adj.) - relaxed.

Questions and Answers

R: Oh, I really love my new bedroom, which I designed and decorated with the express purpose of being a place to unwind in. Needless to say, it's in my house, which I also redesigned and decorated myself with a lot of help from different tradespeople I should add. They were amazing and gave me lots of advice, which I followed almost to the letter. I really wanted a place I could sleep easily and deeply in. And I read up a lot on colour therapy, which is the use of colours to influence your psychological state. So bright colours would make you more energetic, neutral colours make you more focused, and darker colours reduce how energetic you are. With that in mind, I had the room painted Oxford blue, which is a very dark blue and makes you feel relaxed. It doesn't cover everything. Since the skirting boards, the shelves and the windowsills are all still white to break up the colour in the right places. But overall, this particular, I suppose shade, creates a very chilled-out environment. Perhaps too chilled out, to be honest, I have trouble getting up in the morning. When it comes to how often I'm there, I mean, it's my bedroom, so I'm there for at least eight hours every day. And probably more since I have a home gym installed there. That's also rather relaxing in a weird way. Because I know I have all the things I need, along with all my clothes and desk space to work on things and move around throughout the day if I need to. To say more about how I feel there, I mean, I'm running out of words for relaxed, to be honest. It's just a great space. And I love it. I'm not a very good interior designer. But I think I made some great choices. And I'm very grateful for all of the help I got making my dream a reality. If I could change anything about it, I might move the furniture around a little bit to make it easier to move. But it's not been a problem so far. So that's perhaps something to think about in the future when I have more stuff.

M: And what about your friends? Do they like this place?

R: They haven't been yet but they will when the house as a whole is finished.

M: Hey, thank you, Rory, for your story!

Discussion

M: So, a place where you can relax, dear listener. It could be your bedroom, your kitchen. I don't know, an island somewhere, close to Thailand. Okay? Maybe the forest next to your house. A cafe, a restaurant, any place where you can relax, but, dear listener, you should be able to talk about this place in English. So make sure you choose a place you can describe. Okay? And Rory picked I think the easiest option, which is his new bedroom. Okay? It's quite easy to describe a bedroom.

R: Everybody has a bedroom.

M: Well, some people don't. Some people have a studio or your bedroom is a dining room and a sitting room. And maybe even you have a kitchen in your bedroom. So, you know, not everyone is like you, Rory, living in your own apartment with freaking what... Five rooms? Seven rooms? How many rooms do you have?

R: How many? Three bedrooms, the bathroom, the living room, the kitchen, utility room.

M: So, Rory is a rich, rich lord from Scotland. Sir Fergus Duncan.

R: No. It's not like I didn't pay for this place. So it was expensive, but it's nice. And hopefully, people will appreciate that as it begins to take shape.

M: Yeah, you see, dear listener? So Rory lives in a castle now. So I really love my new bedroom. And this is the place where I can relax. I designed and decorated it myself. For example. So you designed and decorated it. And then Rory used a synonym. To relax. Which is unwind. So I usually unwind in my bedroom.

R: Yes. I went on a bit of a mission to think of words because I knew that I would run out of them. So "unwind" is one. Unwind in my bedroom, by sleeping, or looking at the colour.

M: And you can say that I designed this room with the purpose of being a place to unwind in.

R: The express purpose.

M: What's the express purpose?

R: The express or explicit purpose is just like, this was the main purpose. I'd said it clearly.

M: Yeah. My bedroom is a place where I unwind in, or my bedroom is a place to unwind in. It's in my house. I redesigned my house, I decorated it myself. Dear listener, you can lie. Okay? Just feel free to lie all about it. All right? I really wanted a place I could sleep easily in. I wanted a place I could relax in. So I designed and decorated my bedroom to be a place to unwind in. I read up a lot on colour therapy. Ooh, so Rory researched colour therapy. Colour therapy? How colours affect people. Yeah? Colour therapy.

R: It's a real thing by the way. Dark colours calm you down. Bright colours make you more active. And neutral colours focus you. I mean, that's a very simplified definition. I'm sure some psychologists are listening and thinking, oh my God, that's not really how it works. But I'm simplifying.

M: So I read about how colours influence our psychological state. So now I know that bright colours will make you more energetic. Neutral colours make you more focused. Darker colours reduce how energetic you are. You see? Wow. So Rory gave us some details about colour therapy. And then he decorated his room accordingly. I decorated my room according to the laws of colour therapy. So I had the room painted Oxford blue. Oxford blue is this shade of blue. It's a specific colour, which is called Oxford blue. And the structure, dear listener. I had the room painted. Okay? I had the room painted yellow. I had my kitchen rebuilt. I had my flat redecorated. Okay? To have something done, which means you don't do it yourself, you pay some other people and they do it for you. For example, you want to change furniture in your flat. So what do you say, Rory?

R: I had my furniture removed and replaced.

M: Yes. Or you want your walls red. You don't want to do it yourself. You hire, and you pay people to do it for you. So you say...

R: I had or I'm having, if it's in the process of being completed, my walls painted.

M: Yep. I had my walls painted red. All right? A very nice structure, an advanced structure. And then like this colour makes me feel relaxed. And then Rory named specific objects in his room, in his bedroom, like shelves. Windowsills. Windowsill is the thing close to your window. We usually put some plants on it. Window sill. So shelves, and windowsills are still white to break it up in the right places. Oh, so it's kind of blue and white. Yeah?

R: And there is nothing on them, not even plants because as has been established several years ago, I cannot look after plants.

M: Rory is a plant killer.

R: Yes

M:. Yeah. So these colours create a very chilled-out environment. Dear listener, this is a synonym to a kind of relaxing environment. So the colours create a chilled air. The chilled-out environment in my room or in my house. Okay? And I feel chilled or maybe like perhaps too chilled, like too relaxed. And I have trouble getting up in the morning because I am so relaxed in this room. It's so relaxing there. So I have trouble getting up in the morning. When it comes to how often I'm there, so when it comes to design or when it comes to the colours when it comes to how often I'm there. It's my bedroom, so I'm there for at least eight hours every day because I sleep there. Whoo, Rory has a home gym installed there. Wow, Rory. Fancy. What do you have there? A home gym for your workouts?

R: I'm in the process of building it but it's mostly completed.

M: That's also rather relaxing in a weird way. Okay? So all these like gym machines relax, Rory.

R: Well, knowing I have them there is relaxing. The process of using them is not very relaxing, probably.

M: I feel relaxed there, I'm chilled there. What else can we say, like relaxed? I feel at peace.

R: I feel at ease. Have I said that?

M: I feel at ease. To feel at ease, like to feel relaxed. So it's very relaxing there. And I feel happy, you can say. I feel peaceful. It's a great space, a great space. Space? Like place.

R: Good.

M: I love the interior design, you can say. And it makes me feel happy. Right? And I enjoy all the tranquillity also. When something is peaceful, it's like tranquil. Tranquillity, like this feeling of peace. You can say like, I'm grateful. I feel grateful to have such a place. I feel grateful that I got to make my dream a reality. Maybe you've been dreaming of this place, and now you have it. So I feel very grateful. And then we can finish off with the second conditional. Imagining things. If I could change anything about this place, I would move the furniture a bit. Yeah? Or if I could change anything, I would buy more furniture or I would change the wallpaper. If I could, I would. How did you organize this answer, Rory?

R: I don't think I did anything out of the ordinary, really. What did I have to talk about? Where it is, what it's like how often I go there and how I feel about this place. Well, everything I said to answer the first three points was connected to how relaxing it was. So where it is, it's my bedroom, and I did it myself. In order to make it relaxing. What is it like? I designed it this way to feel more relaxed there. How often do you go there? Well... Oh, then I introduced that one explicitly. And then I commented on why other aspects were also relaxing, and how I felt about this place, I mean, at that point, we were coming to the end of the task. So I just explained, I'm running out of words to describe this. And actually, that might not be such a bad strategy, because people do that in real life as well. And to say you're running out of something is actually, I think, a phrasal verb? Is that right? If you run out of something?

M: Absolutely.

R: Yeah. And of course, I rounded it out with my alternative suggestion. If I could change anything about it, I would do this. But it's not a big problem. It's already very relaxing. So it's probably something to think about in the future. So yeah, all points are covered in the order they should be, finished with an alternative that's not mentioned. However, it's still talking about the topic.

M: Yes, dear listener, and as for the synonym to relax. So I usually come down in this room. This is a place for me to unwind in. I can sit back and relax there. Right? Then it's relaxing. Okay? It's tranquil. It's peaceful. Then you can say, I feel at home in this place. If you talk about a cafe, for example. I feel at home in this place. Can I say I let myself go?

R: It depends on what you're talking about. Because to let yourself go is about losing control, which might not necessarily be about feeling relaxed. It could be about going crazy.

M: Wild and crazy. Lose control. Like this, dear listener. Yeah, but if you do, you know, I can let myself go. And I can do all the crazy and weird stuff there. Like this. Yeah? Why not? Like I take it easy. I can take a break from everything, right? Yeah. I can take time out and relax. I can get lazy. I laze around in this room. Yeah? Very nice. Lovely. Okay, dear listener? Make a choice. Choose a place wisely. All right? I think the easiest choice would be to talk about your bedroom or, well, a place where you sleep.

R: I feel so as well. Where do you feel more relaxed than in your bedroom?

M: Even if you don't, dear listener, talk about your bedroom. All right? Yeah.

R: When I'm in my bedroom, I feel completely panicked.

M: I hate my bed. No... Well, it's possible. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much for listening! And we'll get back to you in speaking part three, where we talk about relaxing in general.

R: Bye!

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