Real English Conversation: Advanced English Lesson – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.you are invited to a real English conversation between me Vanessa and my husband Dan hello you submitted some questions to us about daily life and we are here to answer them our answers may not be incredible but the English will be oh yes so I hope that you can follow along in this conversation you can click CC to view the full subtitles if you don't catch everything we're saying and like always I have created a free PDF worksheet for you which is right now over Dan's face but this PDF worksheet has something I've never offered before it includes a whole bonus conversation video what so today in this lesson we're going to be answering some questions but if you download the free PDF worksheet you will unlock access to the bonus conversation lesson it is not going to be available publicly on YouTube you will never see it anywhere except in the worksheet so all you have to do is click on the link in the description enter your name an email address and voila just like that the worksheet will land in your email inbox you can open the worksheet and there will be a link you can click to view the bonus conversation i want to give you a sneak peek in the com bonus conversation we will be talking about questions like what dishes do you like to cook do you have a garden do Americans easily understand other English accents what is a book you have enjoyed recently how do kids learn to spell in school wonderful questions submitted by you so make sure you click on the link in the description enter your name and email address and get the free worksheet for today so that you can unlock the bonus conversation okay Dan are you ready i'm ready all right let's get started with our first question that was submitted in fact by one of my Fearless Fluency Club students the first few questions have been submitted by my course students and the bonus conversation questions have been submitted by you on YouTube so maybe those bonus questions were yours all right let's get started with our first question conversation question number one was submitted by my lovely student Sergey sergey asked us "How often do you go to the grocery store and how do you get there?" He asked if we use public transportation or just a car thanks in advance all right Dan how often do we go to the grocery store and how do we get there i would say we probably go maybe twice a week oh you think that often well once a week for the big shop and then there's sometimes a little shop peppered in there okay okay i don't go to the grocery store very often anymore because I'm at work kind of far away from all the grocery store action and you're a lot closer to the action yeah the action of the grocery store so much action it's a lot of fun especially taking a toddler into the grocery store oh so fun actually it is really It's okay but I go once a week take take a big shop get a big shop have a list know what we're cooking that week buy a bunch of stuff and then I usually forget something or we realize oh we have some like fresh stuff that we need that wasn't available at that store so we have to go somewhere else and we might go another time we run out of milk usually yeah some kind of some product we run out of so we actually live close enough to a grocery store where technically we could walk there if we were really ambitious torturous to walk there though well to bring back the groceries wouldn't be fun we could bike there but the infrastructure in America is not great for biking so it would be kind of uh annoying you'd be sharing the road with a lot of dangerous cars yeah it'd probably take 30 minutes to get there and if we drove in a car it takes like 5 minutes yeah we're 5 minutes away in a car so we just drive there yeah and you can't take kids when you bike at least our young kids so you have to find It has to be a time when you're with the kids i'm gonna bike to the store 30 minutes to bike there do the shop 30 minutes back it's just not convenient and that's kind of the US it's on my bucket list to bike there someday cuz I know it's close enough but yeah with all the kids and all the action going on here it's uh Yeah we're busy so we usually just drive yeah but that's not our main grocery store we like a grocery store grocery store called Trader Joe's and it's kind of like our I feel like I've mentioned Trader Joe's so much yeah they they've mastered the art of the grocery store experience yeah if you visit the US Yeah if you visit the US I recommend going into Trader Joe's just buying a few things because people there are so nice and if you want to have just like a spontaneous conversation with someone that's a great way because they'll usually say like "Oh how are you doing are you doing anything interesting this afternoon oh have you ever tried this before where are you from?" like they'll generally strike up a conversation and that's part of the marketing is and it works i love going there they got good vibes they all wear shirts like this they're really happy hawaiian shirts is what we call that all right let's move on to our next question so in this conversation lesson we are going from light question like how often do you go to the grocery store to serious question then back to light question so the next one is a little more serious all right I'm ready all right Carmen Msako Dongrim and Tracy all asked variations of this question how do you do it all kids business work house food chickens how do you do it all they didn't even add the chickens did they or did they no the a very good question I feel like here um the way that Tracy worded it is Vanessa you are so busy i believe your daily life is quite hectic you must care for three children film lessons prepare lesson plans among other things i am just curious if you have time for yourself dong said "Do you often do overtime you run your business i think it must be inevitable." Mso said "You have numerous roles and responsibilities what's your highest priority?" Carmen said "How many times a week can you carve out spare time for yourself?" Thanks a lot dear teacher so this is all asking basically how can you do so many things and maintain your sanity that is a really good question well I don't know how do we May I answer this first yeah what do you think i need some I would say wisdom we don't do it all uhhuh yeah we can't do it all right see we have to pick and choose a lot of things i know for me personally I've had a lot of hobbies in the past that I've just had to like cut out of my life especially the ones that are like non-essential like for example I used to play video games i just have a zero video game policy now because it doesn't contribute anything to the family and I could sit here and be a sour puss about it but overall I'm a lot happier now you know contributing in a different way than just you know having that as a hobby just for myself yeah so you got to be a lot more selfless in the position we've put ourselves in especially because we've added not one not two but three children to the mix so it is hectic that's a good word for it it's hectic so yeah it's uh it helps a lot if you have a uh good relationship and have good communication and can share a lot of stuff so in the past I actually didn't work a regular job at all so I did a lot of child care and a lot of household stuff yeah you worked for my business and I worked for your business as well and so yeah I didn't have a job outside the home I should say and um I would say that that took a lot of the load off of you at the time and you were a lot busier back then yeah but then we went through like a huge transition phase where we basically organized a lot of our life to be able for me to work outside the home and for you to have less work and you hire more people now yep to do some of the stuff so that's my answer so there's a lot of strategy that goes on beyond this behind the scenes and you have to share stuff really well and you have to make sacrifices in your own life that's some really good wisdom yeah that's the gist of it yeah I hope you guys um cannot just hear the lawn mower that just started beside us i wanted you to hear the beautiful bird sounds because there's so many wonderful birds but um talking about it's America this lawnmowers got to go right now talking about like not doing it just ourselves speak English with Vanessa has a wonderful team of people so for example David will help to edit this audio so that that lawn mower is not so loud if that were up to me the audio would just have the lawn mower really loud and I couldn't do anything about it but because the business is capable of hiring people to do various jobs I don't have to do everything that would not be possible with three kids and I'm not the best at everything i feel like Kevin edits these videos david helps with the sound especially if there's other things going on i used to edit the videos not for YouTube though you did for the Elsa helps with emails and Amber helps with some lessons like there's so many things going on that I'm not doing myself i'm helping to manage that but you have to depend on other people like that is essential and sometimes that's not what you see like you just see the final product whether it's oh we have homemade dinners for our family every night a lot of work goes into organizing how can we have a homemade dinner for our family every night or how do I run this business well there's a lot of behindthe-scenes stuff that you never see like Dan just made our dinner for tonight it's 1 in the afternoon dan made our dinner chopping he organized what it is like that's the behind thescenes stuff that it takes a lot of work and organization but it really helps things be smoother um I would say for me the the one mindset tip that helps me lessen the hecticness of my life it doesn't always work so take it with a grain of salt but it is when I'm doing something I try to be in that 100% so if I'm gardening with my kids I'm not thinking about YouTube videos if I'm sitting in the office coming up with new YouTube video ideas I'm not thinking about what's for dinner that night i really try to focus and I think that's especially valuable with my family when I'm going for a walk I'm trying to just take a break don't feel like I need to be productive at every moment doing all these things because goodness knows when you multitask you're usually less productive right at least I am so I try to just you know sit in the sandbox and play with my kids and not check my emails and think about some work thing or think about something else going on just try to be 100% in the activity I'm currently doing i don't do this perfectly but it's kind of like my goal it's what I strive to do and I feel like it's kind of a good centering so when I feel hectic and I look back at the day I think usually oh my brain was all over the place there were like 500 things going on and I couldn't focus on one of them and sometimes that just happens like you got three kids they're all crying you got to make dinner oh no I have to answer this email like sometimes that happens m but if I when I get the chance to just be calm in a moment going for a walk with the kids planting stuff in the garden those types of things I try to just embrace it embrace the moment may I add something here too okay so this is a little bit different but I think it really helps to have the space to do this stuff if you have um a kind of career in place where you have a little bit of flexibility so a lot of people don't have this in their life you know you work 9 to5 and you may you know have a little break here or there but you're just stuck in this very structured system and maybe they even maybe even have to work overtime um we're very fortunate because even though you work a lot it is structured in a way that you can build your own schedule so that is very helpful and I think it's kind of a privilege we have but you know I kind of hope it's the direction the world goes in in a way like in some a lot of jobs you don't have to be in a place 9 to5 and people are starting to work from home more and you know they can eat at in their kitchen for their lunchtime instead of you know I think I think the world is wanting more flexibility especially the next generation i I hear that a lot that like the next generation is not putting up with corporate America yeah like they want more flexibility and I'm very curious what the future holds but yeah let's go there's some give and take there but you know yeah we'll see i never This is a can of worms apparently this question so all right let's go on to the next question well lots of people ask that so I think it's important to dive into it for a while um the next one's kind of connected elanora asks "Do you do yoga?" But she added on to that in order to balance yourself thank you teacher Vanessa so this is kind of also talking about self-care i wanted to talk about exercise and yoga first of all do you do yoga Dan no i I tried doing yoga for a while uh we did it together when we lived in South Korea yeah and that was like the longest stretch we did it and it's just not really for me i like the vibes of it but I am 0% flexible so it's just Yeah it's it's not my thing um I like doing yoga but I don't have the life right now so this is also kind of the mindset stuff i don't have the life right now where I can go to a yoga class i would love to go to a yoga class twice a week but I'm choosing to take care of my daughter all day and I work when she naps so I could hire someone to come take care of her so I can go to a yoga class that's possible we have the money to be able to do that but that's a lot of coordination and figuring out and organizing and I'm choosing right now not to do that and choosing to do other types of exercise that fit with what I'm capable of because I would feel like that's just adding too much to my life right now but once she's older and she's in school absolutely i would love to go to a in-person class twice a week or something like that i like the people who do yoga i like there's a yoga studio near us that's called Asheville Community Yoga and it's a nonprofit which means all the teachers are volunteers that it blows my mind because some teachers teach there like every day and they're just doing it out of the goodness of their heart and it's it's so cool i love that type of giving atmosphere but I would go there twice a week or so and I'm realizing this time in my life is just limited a season one might say it's a season yeah that's what we say so like in 2 years sure I can do that and that's fine and right now for exercise we have the perfect scenario fortune has landed upon our laps yes in multiple ways because our neighbor our new neighbors she is a personal trainer she is so nice she's wonderful if you're in the Fearless Fluency Club you know her her name is Lindsay uh you met her back in February she's got his pumping iron and I go over there and Dan goes over there separately because we have to watch the kids you can tell right yeah twice a week and we lift weights and this is something I would not do on my own i don't know how to do that on my own i have some more skills now i've been doing it for nine months or so but it's a social thing i get to talk to Lindsay i like her i like talking with her she knows more about lifting weights and she knows how I can do it in a healthy way without hurting myself and all of that just and it's across the street from our house so I can just walk across the street dan comes home from work i say bye i walk across the street he watches the kids and the next day he does that he comes home i'm with the kids he gets changed and goes and works out yeah and there's not an awful lot of friction i think that's the thing with working out for a lot of people for me that getting there it's hard to go from Yeah not working out to working out to having a habit of exercising if you don't have that habit it's hard to get that ball rolling as they say so I feel like this is the perfect scenario for us that we have someone across the street who can give us accountability and can do that for us like can help us i just show up i don't need to think she shows me what to do she makes the plan it's so lovely um I'll add a bit to this as well so I I work out with Lindsay as well uh and so that's like a really good uh like mind body connection activity to kind of get your body engaged in a way that we normally aren't because we do a lot of stuff unconsciously without thinking about our bodies yeah and obviously like I do a lot of yard work and I just pick up stuff the wrong way and so this is kind of relearning that kind of thing um but going back to yoga the nice thing about yoga is it's like a lot to do with like mindfulness and breathing and stuff and her stuff is less like that so we are also trying to do some meditation activities mhm we're not very consistent with this but um us in particular and maybe Americans in general are very very go uh not much slowing down one thing to another um kind of activities or lifestyle yeah and so we are trying our best to add some of this mindfulness meditation uh slowing down moments or activities or even just like noticing for five minutes um checking in with your breathing and how you're feeling and stuff like that u even though it's not necessarily physical like yoga it's still kind of like a uh noticing your body and your breathing type of activity it's about keeping yourself balanced like Elanora said yeah yeah we um we have something called stillness practice that we've tried to do with our kids so before they go to bed we sit on the couch and we have some it's like meditation music you know just soft music and we light a candle and we all sit there quietly and stare into the flame and when the song is done it's about five minutes then we get up and ideally the kids would feel relaxed and calm and be able to go to bed doesn't always doesn't always work but for that five minutes I have seen the kids and I think we have too but I've seen I've noticed it in them take deeper breaths and kind of just release that tension even if it's like for two minutes of the five minutes just and we or 5 seconds yeah even just a little bit of that practicing in their lives um I think it's good for us and I like that they get the opportunity to try that um I think a lot of schools are trying to incorporate this like the school um that you teach at does that somewhat alternative school i don't know how common it is i think it's getting more common for like yoga to be in schools and for teachers to do various mindfulness exercises at the beginning of the day um it certainly helps the teacher because the kids if they're more centered they're going to have a better day um but yeah anyway those are some of our things that we do to stay fit mentally healthy maybe and it's not always going to be perfect right it's just different tools that you can have so that you feel like physically good or um the kids and us as a family can have a moment in the hecticness to just be still and to get a 5-year-old boy to be still for 5 minutes they're really proud of themselves actually it's hard but like they they're like we did it for five minutes all right like they feel really excited that they did it so anyway that's that's our thing all right the next question is unfortunately not for you it is for me oh man it is how do you fit learning French into your daily life oh yeah this question for me is for from Camila another Fearless Fluency Club student and uh my answer Camila is that first of all I try to be realistic and I try to have fun so what I'm capable of right now and what I want to do is speak with someone i don't want to increase my vocabulary a lot right now or uh watch a bunch of French movies i don't really like movies anyway but that that's not something that really interests me it might interest you cool please watch a bunch of English movies great idea but for me I try once a week to have a French lesson so for about 30 minutes I pay a French teacher and she's a lovely woman uh from France and we just we just talk on a video chat for 30 minutes she asks about my life she knows things that are going on so she'll be like "Oh last week you did this how did that go?" Um sometimes we talk about you know deeper things or philosophize about things or whatever comes up and this type of like real connection in French is amazing she's a wonderful conversationalist asks great questions but it's a time for me to just show up and I'm not responsible for anyone it it feels to me almost like working out with Lindsay i just show up there and she tells me kind of what to do the rest of my life i have so many responsibilities that when I show up to my French lesson I'm just talking and I'm learning because you know she'll correct some things she'll write down some things that I can say better and it's 30 minutes once a week it's maintenance it's time for myself yeah it's maintaining what I know and it's also time for me because I love any conversation in French i just feel very excited about it um so yeah it feels like I'm taking care of myself i'm also maintaining some French level and yeah having a good time and if you cannot find 30 minutes to speak with someone each week rethink some other priorities in your life because you can absolutely do it this is like the number one thing that I tell my students if you want to speak confidently in English you need 100% to speak for at least 30 minutes every week with someone else that's accountability it's real it's a real conversation you are having to respond you're not just reading a book or watching this video you are active and it's real life like you're actually communicating um I think it can be really scary at first but it's essential you want to improve your English so you can do it um as a little plug um since all of these students are in my course the Fearless Fluency Club one of the features of this course is that students talk together they meet together and they talk on Zoom multiple times a week and it's studentled so everybody understands exactly that nervous feeling that I don't know exactly what to say all the time feeling but they support each other it is so amazing so if you don't have anyone to talk to I recommend joining the Fearless Fluency Club join one of the studentled speaking groups and it it will be scary the first few times because that's normal but after a few weeks and then a few months you'll be amazed you'll feel so much more confident interested excited and you'll have friends which is so cool have friends around the world a lot of my students have actually met up with each other around the world h that makes my heart so happy okay let's go on to our next question all right the next question is do Americans brush their teeth in the morning walter my student asked it a little more detailed in general do American people brush their teeth after or before breakfast or twice warmest regards uh all right i don't know about all Americans let's just talk about us i think this is pretty hit or miss i don't think there's a standard you know i remember when we lived in South Korea after every meal people would brush their teeth it's very very common and like after lunch everyone's in the bathroom brushing their teeth uh when I was a kid it was always brush your teeth in the morning and the evening was it before or after breakfast he would like to know i think it was before it was just right after you wake up I think even though it makes more sense after you eat I would say but you know nowadays I usually brush my teeth in the evening and then sometimes in the morning if if I'm feeling like I don't want her to smell my morning breath then I'll brush my teeth in the morning so every day almost yeah yeah in the morning right when I wake up I brush my teeth and then I don't brush them after breakfast and then I brush my teeth before I go to bed but I do find myself I would say not using toothpaste but just like running a toothbrush over my teeth to get like any food out of my teeth waving a toothbrush in front of your face magic mainly cuz I don't want bits and pieces of food stuck in my teeth but I'm also at home a lot so I have that option i think if I were in an office I probably wouldn't have a toothbrush because it feels I remember when we were in Korea and after lunch people were brushing their teeth in the bathroom together it It struck me that I consider brushing teeth kind of a private thing like it was weird that people were brushing their teeth together like it's a personal private thing you're never like in your house with other people brushing your teeth it's like in the bathroom by yourself brushing your teeth but because people were doing it at work I was like "This is not professional this is not a private situation what is this?" I was really surprised but I get it when you eat kimchi you need to brush your teeth there's little red flexcks of pepper always in your teeth so I I understand how that is a cultural thing but for Americans in general if you are an American watching this video let us know in the comments please do you brush your teeth in the morning do you brush them before breakfast after breakfast twice are you like an amazing teeth hygiene person dental hygiene the standard is in the morning after you wake up and then the evening before you go to bed I think that's probably the most common yeah well let us know in the comments all right Walter i hope that helped our final question for this video here on YouTube before we get to our bonus oh we don't end on the brushing teeth question no is this one from YouTube so all the other questions were from my course students this one is from Usra Rare Moon on YouTube and this person asks "What is a song you can listen to and never be bored?" Never be bored yes never be bored okay well this one this is really cliche you You can probably guess it you got to just tell me i have no idea bohemian Rapsidity ah I got two actually okay bohemian raphemian rapsidity by Queen because it's just like the most exciting song it's got movements it's got a breakdown you can headbang it is never boring and it's not boring i don't always want to listen to it sing but it's never boring when I listen to it right yeah i don't always want to hear it but I'm never bored yeah and then the other song is maybe a bit of a deeper cut so I like uh music from the 70s is pretty much my favorite time era overall and I like the artist Joanie Mitchell who is a singer songwriter and she has a song called Coyote oh which is just her an acoustic guitar uh some conga drums and a bass really really good basist in the song and okay I don't think Vanessa's too into Joanie Mitchell that much cuz it's a little too moody for me she's very very moody and I think she's brilliant and the song has probably my like the best storytelling lyrics ever do I know that song have I listened to it you I'm sure you've heard it okay yeah i think all her music blends in together for you yeah it all kind of sounds the same but that I mean that's okay too like it's person by person yeah so but that's probably my favorite song by her and she's one of my favorite artists so cool cool um I only chose one i feel like there's a couple that I always am excited by but one that stuck out is Teenage Dream that one is always exciting is the Simon and Garfuncle song Sounds of Silence it's not an exciting song hello it's like the least exciting song ever come to talk to you cecilia oh okay cecilia you're breaking my heart i feel like that song is so ridiculous in the actual the words are ridiculous like making love in the afternoon with Cecilia up in my bedroom oh my i come back and wash my face when I come back to bed someone's taken my place like it's just ridiculous well it's not too relatable no but the the vibe of the song the like the catchiness the like foot stomping like all of that i love it it's so Every time I listen to it I get excited about it and the other night I was coming home from that one too hanging out with some friends and that song came on when I was in the driveway and I was just like to see you breaking i was so excited the driveway song is a great song there's it comes on at the right time you're like I'm not getting out of the car yet it was great yeah apparently for Vanessa it's Cecilia yeah i love that song it's so fun so let us know in the comments what is a song you can always listen to and never get bored what if I want to add one more go for it okay listen if this is on the total other end of the spectrum okay system of a down okay song yeah prison song it'll blow you away okay it might literally blow you away you might be scared actually okay turn it turn it up really loud you have no idea what's coming well thank you so much Dan for joining me for all of these You're welcome conversation questions and if you would like to take your English to the next level you can download the free PDF worksheet which includes dun a bonus conversation lesson just like this one we haven't recorded it yet we're about to and it will not be available publicly on YouTube the only way to access this bonus conversation is by downloading the free PDF clicking on that link and it will be unlocked just for you so click on the link in the description to get your free worksheet and just enter your name email address and voila just like that the PDF worksheet will land in your email inbox you will get access to that bonus conversation all of the vocabulary that you saw come up today and also the cool thing is that you will never need to sign up for my free PDF worksheets again i will automatically send them to you every week in your email inbox so you just sign up once and every week I will send them to you pretty cool it is my gift to you yay so thank you Dan thanks for joining me uh we will continue this conversation in just a minute for our bonus conversation see you soon we will see you soon thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel bye bye but wait do you want more i recommend watching this video next where you will listen to another natural conversation between Dan and I this time about education including why did Dan not go to school until he was a teenager h well you'll have to watch that video to find out