📙 Part 2: Describe an energetic person that you know

You should say: who the person is, how you knew this person, why you think this person is energetic, and explain how you feel about this person.

This episode's vocabulary

Phenomenally (adverb) - in a remarkable or exceptional way, especially exceptionally well.

Bouldering (noun) - climbing on large boulders, either for practice or as a sport in its own right.

Kettlebell (noun) - a heavy rounded object with a handle, used for exercise.

To dwell up/upon sth (phrasal verb) - to keep thinking or talking about something, especially something bad or unpleasant.

Optimistic (adj.) - always believing that good things will happen.

To be prone to sth/doing sth - to often do something or suffer from something, especially something bad.

To conserve (verb) - to use something in a way that does not waste it.

Intense (adj.) - extreme or very strong.

To hyperfocus (verb) - to concentrate intensely on a specific task or activity to the exclusion of everything else, often for an extended period.

Sedentary (adj.) - spending a lot of time sitting down or not being active.

Questions and Answers

R: I know a lot of energetic people while being phenomenally lazy myself. Right? Let's get cracking. So I have a brilliant friend called Sean, who I go climbing and bouldering with, in addition to other sports. We've been friends for about a year and a half now, having met through the wild swimming club we both go to. We also have several mutual friends, as it turned out. So that was an extra reason to get to know each other, actually. Just so we could all go out together. I like to think of myself as having a lot of energy, actually, but he's on a whole other level, and does things like hiking and walks and kettlebell workouts and all of these other really sort of high-intensity activities. I've honestly no idea where he gets the energy for this from, although I suppose he's a little younger than me, so that could be one of the advantages that he has over me in that sense. But I don't like to dwell on that, because it reminds me how old I am. The other thing is, he seems to be quite optimistic and not prone to getting terribly stressed out about stuff. So that's perhaps how he conserves his energy for more intense things like exercise and sports. That's in contrast to myself, I tend to like hyperfocus on things and get very stressed out very easily. So I suppose I could learn a lot here. And then when it comes to how I feel about him, I'm very happy to have a new friend, or I was very happy to have a new friend now I consider him like just a regular friend. Especially one who wants to do different things to stay healthy and positive. I think that's actually super important these days, especially when we're all leading such sedentary lifestyles, and if you don't move around, that can be really bad for you. If we hadn't become friends, I suppose I'd still be quite active, but not as active as I am now. And, well, I don't think you can ever have enough friends like that. Can you?

M: And what about your other friends? Do they think that Sean is energetic?

R: I haven't really spoken about it, to be honest, I wouldn't know.

M: And how old are you, Rory? We forgot.

R: That's not one of the questions.

Discussion

M: Right, dear listener, describe an energetic person. An energetic person is somebody who is, what, full of energy. All right? What synonyms do we have to energetic, Rory?

R: Oh, to have energy, to be full of beans. I didn't use that one. I should have actually, yeah.

M: Yeah, you can say like, um, this person is active. Lively, full of life. Can I say like, this person is dynamic?

R: I think being dynamic is more to do with being able to do lots of different things, but a lot of the time, actually, that's a good point. People use this word dynamic, or to have dynamism, to mean people are quite full of life and ability.

M: You can say like he's full of energy, he's active. He's lively. Also, you can say this person is restless. So they are always on the go doing something. They are kind of... All the time. So restless. And also, you can say that this person is hard working. Enthusiastic is another good example. And you can start off with, I have a brilliant friend called... Rory.

R: Yes. I should point out, I've said this before, but it's worth saying again, because I keep getting this with my students when I'm preparing them for part two, and they always say like, I'm going to talk about or I'm going to talk about a friend who is very energetic. I should stress, you do not need to do this in the exam, because the examiner has a copy of the task in front of them. They know you are going to talk about this friend full of energy. So you can just say, I'll tell you about my friend, and then just move into I'll tell you about my friend, or have a friend and what their name is and what you do. So you don't need to be very super formal with this presentation about your friend.

M: Yeah, don't repeat the task. So say exactly who or what you are talking about. So I have a friend called Rory. So we go climbing, like, mountain climbing together. And then you said, like we go bouldering? What's this?

R: Bouldering? Oh, bouldering is like when you hold on to different handholds on a wall. This can be indoors or outdoors, and you have to climb and not fall to the ground. It's good fun, actually.

M: Ooh, so kind of like climbing is outdoors, right? And if you go bouldering is when you go indoors and there's a wall with these thingies, and you kind of do climbing, but indoors. Yeah.

R: Yeah. Well, we go... Actually, I should say, I'm using climbing as shorthand for indoor top rope climbing, which is just climbing up a rope and coming down one or abseiling down one. Indoors as well, on these walls that are quite tall, and they also have things to hold your hands on and your feet too.

M: We've been friends for about a year. So Present Perfect. We've been friends for a long time, or we've been friends for a month, or we haven't been friends for a long time, for example.

R: I should say, it's important to use this about or almost or around, because no one knows exactly how long they've known people. And sometimes I see candidates calculating in their heads, like, how much time did I know my friend? And that's not really what people do in real life. Like, you don't talk about... You don't count the number of days you've known your friends. You just say, oh, it's been about a year or around a year and a half, something like this.

M: Yeah, and this is approximation, this is quite good. This is quite good for your vocabulary. So about roughly. And then past simple. We met through some friends of ours, or we met through the swimming club, we met through our mutual friends. Friends we both know. We have several mutual friends. And we got to know each other. So we met, we started kind of talking to each other, we got to know each other. So Sean does a lot of things, like hiking, walks, kettlebell workouts. Wow. What are they? Kettlebell?

R: Oh, now, I'm going to grossly oversimplify this. A kettlebell is like a weight that you hold with one hand, or that you can hold with one hand, and the idea is that you are using it in various ways to work various muscle groups, or muscle groups, I should say.

M: Yeah, you can just google image, kettlebell. Just go to Google Images, dear listener, and look at this kettlebell. So a heavy, rounded object, so he does weight training with a kettlebell. Nice... I have no idea where he gets the energy from. So I've honestly no idea where he gets all this energy from. So it's absolutely okay to say like I don't know.

R: I have no idea where anyone gets their energy from these days...

M: Yeah, he's like super active, really energetic, super enthusiastic. I have no idea where he gets it from. He's a little younger than me. The age...

R: But that's not saying much, because most people are younger than me.

M: He seems quite optimistic, dear listener. So energetic people are usually quite optimistic, and he's not prone to getting stressed out about stuff. A very good collocation, to be prone to doing something.

R: That's a weird one, isn't it? Because you have prone to, plus ing.

M: Yeah. C2 level, proficiency level. Band nine, dear listener. Yeah, to be prone to something, or to be prone... Oh, no, actually, it's to be prone to do, to do something. To do something? Really?

R: Really?

M: According to Cambridge online dictionary it's to do something. It's very strange.

R: Not prone to get stressed out? Hmm... Ah, there we go. That's the problem. So prone to plus the infinitive describes a tendency, but prone to plus the gerund describes a habit, or a tendency to do something. So if we're talking about someone's character, it's about what they do regularly. So I am right.

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah, dear listener. And, so when we talk about habits, what a person usually does, then we say he's prone to getting stressed, right? It's his habit, right?

R: Or not prone to getting stressed.

M: Yeah. And to be prone to do something, or to doing something is pretty much like you, kind of, you do it. For example, he's prone to headaches. So he usually gets headaches, or like he's prone to depression, okay? So he gets depressed once in a while.

R: So that's a fun one. That must be why it's C-2 then.

M: Hmm... He conserves his energy. Conserves? You mean, like he saves, he saves up his energy, right?

R: Yes.

M: Hmm...

R: You can conserve energy. I suppose it's the most appropriate here. We can also conserve our money or conserve our enthusiasm.

M: Yeah. So he conserves his energy for later or for intensive workouts. He conserves his strength. So he's strong. His strength. He conserves his strength for, kind of, competitions, for physical activities. Beautiful. When it comes to how I feel about him, I'm very happy to have him as a friend. So a nice linking phrase. Like as for how I feel about him, when it comes to how I feel about him, about him, about him. Not about him, but about him or about her. He does a lot of different things to stay healthy, which is super important. Yeah. So he's quite active, right? Super enthusiastic. And like, I'm not as active as he is. Not as active as. Nice. Rory, what helped you to organize your answer?

R: I really did follow the task. However, usually I have signpost phrases. For example, when I was asked to explain how I felt about this person, I just said, when it comes to how I feel about him. I didn't really do this for the other ones, I just did what I said what I was supposed to talk about. So when you talk about who the person is, this is my friend, who I go climbing and bouldering with. That's an important thing, actually, to mention, because usually we think about this idea of who we know as just their name, but we could also comment about what we do with them and the role they play in our lives as well. And then for how you know them. Well, I talked about the mutual friends and how long we've known each other as well. So this is why we've known each other so long, and this is how long we've known each other as well, and then why the person is energetic. Well, again, I talked about him in comparison to myself, which is a good thing to do, because usually we're talking about our friends and, well, they fit into our lives in some way. It might not be that they're 100% the same person. So we can compare and contrast here, and then we come to the end, and it was just a case of asking the rhetorical question. I don't think you can ever have enough friends like that. Can you? If you had a little bit more time, you might want to talk about the alternatives if you didn't have friends in your live, but I didn't have that option.

M: Sweet. Thank you very much for listening, dear listener!

R: No, don't thank them yet. Don't thank them yet. It's quiz time.

M: Rory's vocabulary show.

R: It is my vocabulary quiz time. So follow us as I ask Maria some questions about the different vocabulary that I used as we go. So not just the vocabulary, actually, we could talk about the grammar too. I'm just focusing on the vocabulary because that's more memorable. So Maria, some questions for you. I mentioned three or four different kinds of sport and exercise in my answer, but all I'm asking you to do is to remember two of them. What two do you remember?

M: So we go climbing together, we go bouldering.

R: Fab. All right. You could also have said things like wild swimming and kettlebell workouts too. And now, this is a focus on a particular word, which is used to describe when we save things for a particular purpose or time.

M: We conserve our energy. We conserve our strength.

R: Yes. Very nice. And then another phrase which talks about, or which is used to talk about are tendencies.

M: To be prone to doing something.

R: Yes. And the last question is another collocation which is used to describe it when you share friends, or if you have friends in common.

M: To have several mutual friends.

R: Oh, yes, well done. Once again, Maria has got 100%. Amazing. We should keep talking about friends and energy. Absolutely yes. Join us in part three, when we will talk about friends and energy.

M: Thank you very much for listening! Bye!

R: Bye!

M: Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye!

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