This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 1952.
Since when?
Time phrases for sharing your past in English.
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When you talk about your past, should you share a specific date or should you be more general?
Sharing what you have in common is one of the best ways to build a connection.
Today we share three English phrases that will help you provide details about the past in a native and natural way.
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Hey, Lindsay, how's it going?
Hey there, Aubrey.
How's everything today?
Excellent, I have kind of a funny question for you.
I'm actually really curious about your answer to this.
Okay, go for it.
When's the last time you mowed a lawn?
Oh my gosh, mowed a lawn?
Oh, I haven't mowed a lawn in forever.
I don't even know when was the last time, to be honest.
I know me neither.
We actually ended up putting in turf because in Arizona they've asked us not to have grass, to not water.
There's too much drought.
We just really can't afford the water to be watering grass.
So you either do turf like fake grass or landscape rock.
Right.
So I don't know if I'll ever have to mow a lawn again. right what is it that they call that it's called like zero scaping or something that we call it desert scaping but other places they might call it zero scaping okay no yard no lawn no grass no water required to maintain yeah i've been reading a lot about some water issues going on in arizona actually uh and some towns are getting cut off entirely from water supplies hate it's an issue anywhere where it's a desert you know landscape anywhere in the desert is always going to have water issues but some years are worse than others depending on the drought the water table it can be tricky for sure yeah maybe we'll come back to that topic on allers english because you know we like to talk about cultural issues climate change stuff happening you know 10-year drought in colorado so interesting stuff but for today i just want to start by encouraging our listeners to hit follow guys we talk about all kinds of interesting things but the core piece here at allers english is to help you focus on connection not perfection so if you love that idea hit follow on this show right aubry yes absolutely four new episodes every week and they're all amazing great ways to connect in english with friends co-workers it's a fantastic podcast i highly recommend it and you're also over there on the ielts energy podcast twice a week with jessica beck if our listeners are taking ielts they should definitely go over there and check that one out as well don't you think Absolutely.
Really any exam you might be studying for to take a test in English, you're going to learn vocabulary test, taking strategies, but specifically IELTS right.
We're teaching everything the examiner's looking for.
Jessica was an examiner for 14 years, so she has all that inside info.
Make sure to follow IELTS Energy if you're studying for the IELTS exam.
I love it.
So let's get into sharing how long it's been since we've done something.
Where do we start today?
This is good.
So this question I asked you, right?
When's the last time you did something?
I feel like I get asked questions like this a lot, where you know we're interested in people's past.
We want to know what you've done in the past.
And like you said, it's a great connection skill.
It's awesome for sort of small talk at work, but it's not just about the weather.
You care about someone's past.
You're interested in something that happened to them.
You need natural native phrases for having this conversation.
Yeah, this is kind of a cool way of connecting just below the surface.
Right, we're going beyond the weather conversation and uh, your daily life, but we're going into our actual lives, which is quite cool.
Yes, and it's fun to share.
If someone's telling you about something about their past, it's really fun to share how long it's been since you did that or if you never did it, right.
To build that commonality between you is really a bond, absolutely so.
This is coming from a question from tomoko.
Do we want to read part of the question?
Do you want to summarize the question, aubry?
How do we want to do it?
Lindsay, how about if you read this first part of the question and then i'll summarize the rest?
Okay, so this is from our amazing listener, tomoko.
So she says i'm tomoko.
I've been listening to and having fun with your podcast for so long.
That is awesome, aubry.
I love it when we hear from our longtime listeners.
It's fantastic.
My English learning has been awesome since I happened to find your podcast and I'm really grateful that I have access.
I have a question.
When I was listening to one of your episodes the other day, I wondered if I ever mentioned a specific year to talk about something that has happened since.
For example, Lindsay said something like, I haven't had a car since 2004.
Is it something related to cultural differences or personal preference?
I've heard something similar to this a lot.
If you could do an episode about it, that would be great.
Oh, such a great question.
And she sort of continued to clarify that in Japanese.
She feels like she doesn't hear this often at all.
Someone mentioning a specific date or a specific number.
And so she's really curious, how much of this is personal preference?
How much of it is cultural?
Interesting.
And I know I'm so excited to get into this.
I had to think about it a little bit.
Why do I say one or the other?
What do I hear?
I've been trying to pay attention as I listen to podcasts and TV.
This happens often.
I'll get a question from a listener and then I'll start being really observant about that.
I'm like, huh, what do we say and why?
It's interesting yeah, fascinating.
How much detail should we really give at certain levels?
Um, going back into our history, into specific years or times?
Okay, let's dive into it.
So it definitely is.
Part is both cultural and personal preference, how detailed you get about your life and your past, and it's also very um, dependent on the situation.
How much time do you have, what is the relationship and, if it's necessary, like there are a few reasons that you would give a specific date, right?
Okay, first of all, definitely to emphasize.
If you're wanting to emphasize how long ago something happened, or that particular date because something else was important about that date, then you might say this hasn't happened since 2020 or since 2004, right?
You may get the date to emphasize.
Or if you happen to know the exact date like you remember it, you know and that's, and you think that's important for the context, you might say that
Yeah, I think this about where you were saying I haven't had a car since 2004.
Probably there was something important about that date where it just sort of stuck in your mind that that's the last year you had a car.
And I think also the more ridiculous something is, the more likely we are to share it.
It's been a long time since I've owned a car.
18 years or something like that.
So a long, long, long time.
And therefore, it just makes for a more interesting podcast episode to share the date, right?
Right.
That's the thing.
When you're general, it's often less interesting.
You're just like, oh, it's been a long time.
If you know the date offhand, then that's an interesting detail for sure.
Yeah.
Details are interesting, right?
Details add color to who we are and it gives people something to connect to.
Tomoko was listening to that episode and that struck her as something interesting.
And now we have another episode here.
We have a dialogue going with her and our listeners.
So and it is interesting to think about that cultural piece because if it sounded a little bit off, a little bit different in Japanese, maybe no one would say the date in that sentence.
It could be, you know, Americans are we tend to overshare sometimes.
Maybe we share dates when it doesn't really matter and it doesn't feel off to us.
Then I don't think an American would have heard that and been like weird.
Why did she say We do that right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
And then again, as you said, if the exact date is relevant, some reason that that happened there and you remember it?
Exactly, right?
For some reason the date is important, then we will share the date if we know it top of mind, if we know it offhand right.
Yes.
Okay, what else, Aubrey?
So here's some just little examples.
There's the car one that Tomoko shared.
We might say, I graduated from university in 2001.
That's like the date is important.
It's relevant.
I'm going to share that exact date.
Yes.
And it's probably top of mind.
Like we remember the date that we graduated from university.
Yes, or, oh, this is a horrible scenario, by the way, but I haven't eaten chocolate since 1998.
Oh my gosh, you could have discovered an allergy that year, right?
Right, something like that, right?
Where you remember a specific reason that it happened in 1998.
Maybe that's when you realized you're allergic to chocolate.
You had some kind of reaction.
Then it would make sense to send to share the year.
Right, i love it so good now.
I think this is an important conversation skill to point out here that often we do not want to provide dates when it's unnecessary and when the date's not top of mind, right.
Sometimes you're having just a casual conversation and someone might say like oh, I haven't had a car since.
Oh man, how long has it been.
Or I can't remember the exact date and you start thinking like, oh, it doesn't matter.
I don't care what year.
Like there are better ways to say that when it doesn't really matter.
It's not top of mind, rather than letting the conversation kind of drag while you think of this date that doesn't really matter.
I think the key point here that you're making is so important aubrey, it's don't lose momentum in your connection, right?
Because yeah, if it doesn't come right to you right away, i knew 2004 it was an important date.
It was my last year in college, then i sold my car and i moved to japan.
Right, that's key for me.
But if i would have had oh, was it 2005?
Six, i don't.
No, that's a total waste of time and you have lost the attention of the other person.
Yes, and this is as we're talking.
When we're talking about conversation skills, that can sort of lose the momentum.
This is a big one.
It's that TMI, that too much information that's totally irrelevant.
We probably all know someone who just gives unnecessary details.
Overshare.
Especially a problem if they're taking the time to try and think of did this happen Wednesday or Thursday?
It doesn't matter Move on don't lose that momentum Yeah.
And this is kind of it kind of ties into the curse of knowledge that I've read about.
You know, when we know a lot about something, some you know, some topic, maybe some technology topic, we have a tendency to want to give all the context.
I think engineers are guilty of this.
And I do this sometimes too when we talk about our marketing systems and things like that.
I give too much detail, right?
And we don't really care.
We don't need that right away.
Wait until we really need that.
Wait until our team needs what they need and then we give the detail, right?
Yes, it's a skill to eliminate the detail that's not necessarily necessary or save it for later, when it is vital, when it will matter, right?
So here are some great alternatives.
If you're having that conversation and you find yourself you're about to share a date, but you can't think of it, you can share something big that happened around that time, right?
I haven't had a car since just after high school.
I haven't had a car since I moved from New York, right?
Just something else big around the same time and then keep that momentum going, move the conversation along.
And, to be honest, actually Aubrey.
I like those answers better because they give a lot more conversation material.
Oh, you moved to New York.
Interesting.
How was life in New York?
Right.
Good point.
You're sharing something else interesting that you can build on.
Exactly.
As opposed to a year, which is just totally arbitrary.
I don't care.
2004, five, six.
So good stuff.
Okay, so we're now going to get into some native vocabulary to emphasize how long ago something happened.
Okay, so first, we're getting into years.
Is that right?
Yeah.
So we'll say in years, for example, I have had a car in years.
And this is really fun for emphasizing.
We're pretty accurate here, right?
We're not going to say this if it's been decades or not since you were a child.
I think we use it for like five to 10 years, something that hasn't happened for about that amount of time.
Right, right, right.
So I haven't had a car in years and we're really emphasizing, as you said, we're using our intonation here, right?
Exactly.
It would be strange to say this in a monotone. haven't had a car in years boring right i haven't been to the movies in years oh that would know i would never say that i love going to the movies do you like going to the movies i'll break the theater i do i just saw avatar not long ago i love just sitting in a movie theater in the dark what did you think did you liked it a lot i wasn't a big avatar person um but i actually did i i felt it was a little long it is long it's over three hours i think self-indulgent yeah yeah a little long but i think james cameron movies tend to be long i mean he did titanic right they are always long right the first avatar was long but they are entertaining really good it was great i actually really enjoyed it so yeah but i do know people who just don't go to the movies often so i feel like this is something i heard a friend say recently like i haven't been to the movies in years and this is just so native and natural right they you wouldn't necessarily say the the date you wouldn't be like i haven't been to the movies since 2008 that's not going to be top of mind this would be much more natural in years it's just more broad and it's more emphatic it's more interesting so go with that so good okay so that's the first thing we can say that will add some color to what we're saying and keep it broad keep it general number two what would be the second thing we could say So this one is in ages, and there's more exaggeration here.
There's some hyperbole, right?
It could mean weeks or years, but you're exaggerating, right?
So for example, I haven't exercised in ages.
Maybe it's been four days, but I usually exercise every day, so I'm exaggerating here.
So for you it is ages right, if you normally exercise.
For me it's all pretty relative here guys, when we use ages, right.
Um, exactly.
Or you could say you know common exchange, how have you been?
I haven't seen you in ages yes, and maybe it has been 10, 15 years.
It also could have been a few weeks of someone.
For someone that you see very often sure right, if there's a neighbor that i usually see multiple times a day and i don't see her for a few weeks, i might say i haven't seen you in ages yeah, which is really funny exaggeration, because ages would really mean like the jurassic period, the cretaceous period we're talking about like ages of time.
So what an exaggeration.
Right, it's all about your connection with that person.
How often do you actually see that person?
What kind of schedule are you on with them?
That's how we know what ages actually mean.
So when to use that, Okay.
All right.
And then the third one in forever.
Same thing.
Definitely exaggerating, but really fun, really playful.
I say this probably the most of these three.
I think that's what you said when I asked about the lawn, right?
I have a motor lawn in forever.
That's why i love, that's how i opened it.
Yeah, that's how i answered your question, and this one feels the most native, the most natural uh, the most modern that you could possibly get.
Guys, this is what we say at least you and i aubrey, we do all the time right?
Yeah, and I hear it a lot too, right.
Yes, this is so native and natural.
You might say, oh, I haven't seen this movie in forever.
In forever.
It probably means a few years, but forever.
What an exaggeration.
It's weird because grammatically it doesn't really make any sense.
It's true clumsy, it's weird, but it's an expression, so go with it, guys.
It's a connection expression, right?
Or we haven't been there in forever right, like going to disney, do you?
Do you go to disney for a vacation destination with your family?
Are you guys, a disney family, or were you?
Um, We're really not.
We live close enough to Disneyland that we could right.
It's about a six hour drive, but it's so expensive.
I feel like the hotels and the park passes And then all everything, the food when you get there.
So for us, it's more because it's cost prohibitive.
And then also we've had little kids and it is not fun to take very small children to Disneyland, in my opinion.
I can't imagine.
Once you're six, I'll take you.
Because there's so many rides they can't go on.
They don't want to wait in line.
Yes.
And that's the other reason that I'm not really a Disney person.
The lines are always so long.
You're waiting in lines for so long.
Uh-uh. lots of reasons to not go to disneyland actually yeah people have strong feelings about disney i'm not a big disney person but a lot of people are for sure so i just wanted to check out my kids love it but it's just a very you know we'll go maybe once or twice yeah during our kids lifetime it's not something we're going to do annually no no no no should we get into a role play for our listeners yeah let's do it we'll use each of these in a role play in this one uh lindsay you and i just ran into each other at a coffee shop all right i'm always at coffee shops so that makes sense here we go so how are you i haven't seen you in forever oh my gosh it's been ages i'm great how are you as well as can be expected my sister's in the hospital so that's been tough sorry to hear it i haven't seen her in ages i saw on facebook that she's fighting cancer but i thought she was in remission she had a relapse unfortunately it hadn't been a problem in years and then suddenly showed up on scans again oh that's the worst common conversation I know it's true right I I feel like I have conversations like this a lot with friends that I don't see as often because maybe you sort of follow each other on social media a little bit so you know the highlights like the big things in someone's life right but if you haven't had a chance to talk to them like you're gonna chat about it when you run into each other yeah these things are going to come up this is life right um so where did we use our vocab here let's see you said how are you i haven't seen you in forever and again guys you need to emphasize that right aubry how would you say that again yeah right the intonation's important i haven't seen you in forever that last word whether it's in ages in years and for that last word we really emphasize you really do and then again i did it i said it's been ages you know i'm great how are you right yes and then in ages again oh i haven't seen her in ages love it so straightforward yes right it hadn't been a problem in years and this it really is a little more specific when we use in years right we wouldn't say it hadn't been a problem in ages or in forever because it's been a few years so for this one in years we're not going to say it hasn't been a problem since 2006 no we don't need that detail we would just say it hadn't been a problem in years.
Right, this is something a little more specific, more of a timeline that we're talking about here, right?
Maybe it's been a few years.
Yeah, okay.
So what's the takeaway for our listeners?
I mean, these are some really creative ways to talk about when the last time was that something happened.
Exactly right.
And you want these phrases because when someone is sharing about their past, it's such a great connection skill to share how long it's been since you did that or that happened to you or something similar, right?
To create that bond, that connection, something you have in common.
Yeah guys, you know, in your textbook, when you were learning english, you learned since right, but now we're showing you new ways, new interesting things that you can say uh, to brighten up that conversation and share pieces of yourself and i think we, you know, we'll have to come back to the cultural conversation aubry, about how much i think it comes back to how much of ourselves we reveal, or of our past across cultures.
You know, how is that?
Love to hear about that.
You guys.
This episode is on YouTube.
If you want to come and leave us a comment there, I love to go and read those comments.
Let us know what this is like in your culture, right?
Would you share a specific date?
Do you do the same and exaggerate like we do in American English, right?
What is this like in your culture, right?
Or is it about certain topics that you are more vague and then others you're more specific, like maybe your academic background you're more specific, maybe your family background you're more vague because there's a value of privacy?
I'm curious about all this stuff, Aubrey.
We're going to have to dig into this in another episode another time.
Guys, hit follow on All Ears English right now, wherever you're listening.
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Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
Such a fun discussion today.
Good stuff, Aubrey.
I'll talk to you soon.
Have a good one.
Bye.
You too.
Bye.
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