102: How to be Indirect in Conversations

About this Episode

Easy English listener Paloma sends in a message and Isi and Mitch announce new call days and time for their group conversation calls before discussing 10 ways you can be indirect, when speaking in English.

Interactive Transcript

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Show Notes

• Improve your confidence and fluency speaking English with us!: Join the Conversation Membership

Transcript

Mitch:
[0:23] Hiya, everybody. Welcome to the Easy English Podcast. We're just coming down...

Isi:
[0:30] I never know what my position is in this. Okay, let's go. Let's not do too long of babbling.

Mitch:
[0:35] Okay.

Isi:
[0:36] Blah-blah-ing. Do you say blah-blah?

Mitch:
[0:37] I just wanted to say that, you know, we're celebrating still because, one, we reached our 100th episode just recently, and what followed then was... - Podcast episode. - Podcast episode. What followed then, was we also hit 250,000 subscribers on YoTube. So I just want to say thank you if you're one of those subscribers and if not... - Thank you. - Why the hell not?

Isi:
[0:59] It's a good number isn't it? It's nice. I think we have a question or a message.

Mitch:
[1:03] Yeah so, we actually had someone send in a message some weeks ago, and I'm sorry for not playing it directly, because we had episode 100 and we played some messages and yours came in just a little bit too late, but not too late for us to play it now. So here is a message from Paloma

Isi:
[1:20] Paloma, what a beautiful name.

Mitch:
[1:21] Nice name. - Yeah.

Paloma:
[1:22] Hi guys, how are you today? I hope you're hving a great day. Well, my name is Paloma, I'm Argentinian and I am living in Italy, right now. And, Ijust wanted to say thank you, because I love your content, I am a... let's say a fan of languages, I am studying, also, Italian, because I am living here, in Italy. I also speak English, and I am initiating, lets say with French... yep. Because, I love languages, but I don't hhave much time to... to study, you know. But, I want to tell you that I am an English teacher... yeah, I am an English teacher. But I am teaching English to students who speak Spanish, because that's my mother tongue and... nothing. I use, a lot, you content to practise and to take expressions... British expressions, even though I don't speak in a British way... real British way, but anyway, I do my best. thank you so much and have a nice day again, bye!

Isi:
[2:38] Very nice. So, Paloma, I directly thought her English is so good.

Mitch:
[2:43] It's really good. I thought she sounded a bit Scottish at one point.

Isi:
[2:46] I thought at the very beginning that she was a native, yeah. That makes sense now. You're an English teacher. You know your stuff.

Mitch:
[2:54] You've got some influences in your accent there, some British influence.

Isi:
[3:01] Okay, so it wasn't even a question. Thank you so much for, first of all, letting us know that you like our content and that you use it in your teaching lessons. That's really, really cool. And it really helps us, just to receive those messages because it makes all our work worth it.

Mitch:
[3:19] Absolutely. It's amazing to get those little nuggets of joy that people get from using our resources, basically. Because, we have no way of knowing unless you tell us how you like it, if you even like it.

Isi:
[3:33] It would really help us... I know we have asked this at the very beginning of doing YouTube, of doing podcasts. And you probably are not used to people creating content, asking this anymore. But I recently thought about it, that it would be really, really important to us, if we have more interactivity on YouTube, through comments, likes, subscribes, for our podcast, for example, on Spotify. It really helps. And you can also review our podcast on Spotify, for example, and on other podcast apps as well. And, I would like to add another thing, because we have just recently, last week, changed our membership. You maybe know that we have a Conversation Membership where people, once a week, until now, in our online pub on 'Zoom' could speak to us, to each other, practise their conversation skills. And we really saw, during the past years, how we have some members that are there for years, they improved their english, massively! We had one call a week, a pub call, on 'Zoom'' our online "pub", and we were like; we have to do this more, we have to give more people the chance to join, from different locations in the world, so different times. And we have to make it possible that you can practise with us, several times a week, so that you, within weeks, can improve your conversation skills. So now, we have, instead of one, four calls a week, on Tuesdays and on Thursdays we have a morning call, British time and an evening call. You can all check it out on our website.

Mitch:
[5:13] Or, by clicking the link up here.

Isi:
[5:15] There. And yeah, join us if you wanna go next level with your English. If you say like; I have quite a good level of English, it's fine. I can communicate, but I want to understand my new boss, I want to land that job where you have to speak English. I want to move to an English-speaking country. I want to talk to my international friends. Or, I just love English. We have seen the success. We actually have done it ourselves. Like, I moved here to the UK and I had a good level of English, but the natural... I don't want to praise myself, but the natural comfort of speaking English, of understanding the dialects, and accents and to feel really comfortable, also to just go out, go to the supermarket, have small talk, have good conversation. That came here. And I know it only came from speaking. Getting outthere and speaking. You do the same with German right now.

Mitch:
[6:13] Yeah, I see it with learning German. That when I'm in Germany and I'm kind of in that, I have the opportunity to speak it and I'm listening to it on a very regular basis, that my German, my level increases, dramatically. And when I'm back home, I'm just like on apps. Whilst apps and watching videos online is very good, half of the battle is the confidence to really speak it and this is where our calls are so vital, because whether or not you're making mistakes, it doesn't matter because, making mistakes is part of learning anything and language and English is no different. And our calls are perfect for that, we welcome mistakes, we encourage learning by making mistakes. And if you are also feeling very nervous, there's no pressure like you have in these one-on-one conversations, to speak. You can listen and everyone's there trying to achieve the same goal.

Isi:
[7:05] And along the way, you meet amazing people, maybe make friends from around the world, if you want to.

Mitch:
[7:10] Really around the world

Isi:
[7:11] Yeah, it's amazing. So, take the chance, practise with us several times a week and level-up your English within the next weeks, months. Get better, reach your next goal.

Mitch:
[7:26] Exactly. If you're interested, then click the link that's on the screen right now, easyenglish.video/membership and we're even offering a seven-day free trial of our Conversation Membership. So in theory, that's four calls you can come to for free, to see how you like it, if you fit in, if you're confident enough and we're very welcoming. We're a very welcoming bunch; us and our conversation members.

Support Easy English and get interactive transcripts and bonus content for all our episodes: easyenglish.fm/membership