This is an All Ears English Podcast, episode 2318.
Are you close with your family?
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With your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl.
Coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
All over the world, a great conversation topic is your family.
How tight knit are you?
Today, learn new vocabulary and conversation starters to discuss this topic with friends and native speakers.
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Hello Michelle, how's it going today?
How's everything? Everything is good.
Getting over a little bit of a cold, if you can hear it, but I'm okay, I'm okay.
Lindsay, do you come from a tight knit family?
I would say kind of, we're relatively tight knit.
I don't think we're the tightest of the tight knits of the tightly knitted families, but we're somewhat tight, I guess.
What about you? It seems like you do.
I would say so. I don't say my family's pretty tight knit.
Unfortunately, I don't live right near them, so I think we would be even more tight knit than we are.
Yeah, but I mean, I talk to them all the time, but yeah, I'd like to talk to my brother more.
He actually called me yesterday, but I couldn't talk.
Do you talk to your brother once a month, once a week, once a day?
No, no, no, no, not once a day.
I mean, we have a family chat, so sometimes we'll send pictures or things like that, but probably on the phone, maybe once a month, and then otherwise we'll text like, yeah, once a week or something.
Got it, that's cool, that's cool.
I like that, yeah. Well, I'm excited to talk today about this expression.
You asked me, do you come from a tight knit family?
And I have a feeling that this episode, this vocabulary today is really gonna resonate with our listeners around the world, because I think a lot of cultures, families tend to be even tighter.
Do you think so, Michelle, based on your travels and things?
I think so, I think that here, it seems that there's a lot of emphasis of getting out of the house, and independence, a flyaway little bird, and it's so true.
And whereas, I mean, I know, and maybe it's more unusual here that somebody lives right next to their parents, or, you know, but I've seen another, in my travels and even family members of mine who live in another country, they all kind of live in the same neighborhood, and it's totally normal, and they
spend every Sunday dinner together, or even more often, so I think here sometimes, there can be a little bit almost of...
I don't wanna say looking down upon, but I do think sometimes there's some judgment if, oh, you talk to your parents all the time, you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, our culture has this whole narrative of by the time you're 18, you should be independent, you should be out of the house.
I think a lot of that is because of college, the step of going to university, and most people go to a college, not in their hometown, right?
They go across the country, or 200 miles away, so if we took the college experience out, I actually wonder what it would be like.
I mean, there's also the factor that our geography is so huge, and people move for jobs, so I don't know, but it is definitely different around the world, that is for sure.
Right, Michelle? Yes, yeah, absolutely.
So today we are going to talk about this expression, tight knit, and share similar ones, and this is really important for describing your family, even groups of your friends, so it's just very useful for sharing bits of yourself with others, so we're gonna talk about that today, but before we get into that,
oh, I love these days when we have results from these.
Yes, Spotify poll. Results, and what we've learned is that Michael Jackson is world famous, right?
That's right, yep. So just to give some context again, we asked you which Halloween song is your favorite again, and so Thriller and Somebody's Watching Me got the top two spots.
Well, no, actually, Thriller got 41%, Somebody's Watching Me got 10%, what else, Michelle?
Monster Mash got 7%, and this is Halloween, that got 26%, so that's a pretty big one.
I don't know if I even know that one, that's really interesting.
And then Ghostbusters got 14, but yeah, Michael Jackson came in with 50 % of the share of, you know, percentage.
That's right. Yeah, not too surprising, I don't think.
Not too surprising, so guys, make sure you're participating in these polls that we do.
We do them for every episode, but we announce the key ones.
Participate and make your voice heard, okay?
Yeah, and just so you know, in case you didn't hear that episode, that was episode 2292, you can't go wrong with these Halloween songs.
And that rhymes too, nice, nice title.
All right, so let's get back to the term tight knit.
Again, Michelle. What does that mean?
Yeah, it means to be close with someone, right?
It's human beings, whether it's a group or a family, you are close.
And I think everyone kind of defines that differently, right, so it's kind of a subjective question.
True, yeah. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, when I think of tight knit, I actually think of knitting like a scarf, right?
I think of the loops and how, you know, if you're like the, I don't know, I have this visual in my head for this word, tight knit, because I don't know if that's where it comes from, but I think probably.
And knit, guys, Lindsay, how do we spell the knit part?
Well, the whole thing is a little bit tricky.
It's a little bit of a tricky trickster trick here.
So, okay, so how to spell this.
So, I'm going to spell it out.
So, tight is T -I -G -H -T, and then we have a dash in there, and it's knit.
K -N -I -T. There's a K in there, just like in the word no, to know.
Right, right. Silent K.
Yeah, that's silent K, yep.
Yeah, so, yeah. So, basically, we use this to talk about our relationships, to share information with others about our relationships, our backgrounds.
So, it's often used, as I mentioned before, with words about maybe family or your community, a group of friends.
Anything else that comes to mind?
Yeah, I'd say generally the closer relationships.
Maybe like a sports team, but it's generally reserved for people that you could be very, very close to, like a family or a group of friends.
Sports team is maybe, is that, you think that applies to, let's say you're all really close, yeah?
I think, yeah. I mean, I think any sort of, any sort of group of people that you spend time with, so even your office mates, you know, you could say, oh, I'm really tight knit with my coworkers.
Or, yeah, so any group of people really.
Yeah, I think that's right, groups of people.
So, let's do some examples here.
I'm gonna throw out the first one.
I come from a really tight knit family, so it was important for me to find a partner who thinks family is the number one priority.
So, a lot of people, when they come from a family that they're close to, they also want a partner that has the same values.
Right? Right, because if they're gonna be, you know, speaking to their family all the time, or they're gonna wanna do a lot of things with their family and their partner doesn't really understand that or thinks that it's weird, it might cause conflicts because they might, yeah, that could be tricky.
Yeah, for sure. What's another example, Michelle?
Okay, I live in a very tight knit community.
It's great because people are always there to help each other out.
Like with babysitting, it's the best.
Oh my gosh, yeah, community's another good example.
Maybe it's just your neighborhood, right?
Or your community center even, where people, and that is kind of the idea of it takes a village, that expression, you know, to ra -ha.
And I think that's, actually, this is a bigger conversation.
We could have another day around the status of being a parent in the U .S.
Did you hear that the surgeon general made a warning again for parenting?
Yeah, what was it? Yeah, I did hear that, but what was the warning?
You know, in the past the surgeon generals made warnings against smoking, obviously, drinking, obviously, and now it's parenting.
So they said, he or she said it's become, so it's not about the kids, it's become about the parents' health.
And it's due to the fact that we don't raise our kids as a village, quote unquote, that cliche.
It takes a village, we are very independent in the way we raise kids.
So often, maybe you don't live next to your parents for them to come over and help, or a sister, a brother, and uncle.
No, it's usually just the two parents raising these kids.
And that's why we're talking about this, the cost of childcare in the U .S.
is sky high. I'm sure you know, Michelle.
I know. I don't need to tell you.
I'm preaching to the player here.
Well, yeah, I mean, I don't live next door.
I mean, the closest family we have is about an hour away.
So we don't have that situation where, oh, I need to run to the doctor.
Can we, can you watch the kids?
Or, we've had a couple situations recently where things have come up where it would just be so nice to just say, oh, can you watch the kids for 20 minutes or an hour or something like that?
But so you have to figure it out or spend money.
Just yesterday, we had a babysitter over here.
So it's expensive. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, when I was a kid, we had babysitters all the time, but I think the price of babysitting has gone up a lot.
And so, yeah, so there is kind of a crisis going on right now for parents in the U .S.
And now the Surgeon General has chimed in on that, which is just really interesting.
So yeah, so community and then talking about community in Denver.
Yeah, what would you say your community is like in your neighborhood?
You guys just moved in to your new space?
Not quite yet. Not quite yet.
I still in a temporary space, but I will say that community can be a lot of different things, I guess.
So I don't have that neighborhood community yet, but through my son's school, through my daughter's school, there are certain things that have made me feel like there could be a tight knit community in my area.
So that's a very warm, positive feeling.
And I have met some of my future neighbors and I think it's gonna be a tight knit community, I do.
Good, I'm glad to hear that.
That is awesome. That's gonna be so good.
All right, good. Yeah.
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Okay, Michelle, we are back.
Let's, where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here?
Okay, well, I mean, this is great for connection because you can share so much about yourself with this expression, right?
I think just it's fun to talk about the people that you care about, the people that you're close with, right?
So even it makes me think of my neighborhood growing up and just a simpler time of no social media and the community just playing outside with friends.
And so I think that people can really relate to this feeling of tight knit.
So you can really share about, a lot about yourself using this word.
But I mean, Lindsay, any other thoughts on that many different words?
Well, that brings up the thought in my head of, you're right, so I had the same upbringing, no social media.
We spent a lot of time running around the neighborhood in the woods, building forts, doing what kids do outdoors, right?
But now a lot of kids are indoors on iPads and things.
And I wonder what tight knit is going to mean now, right?
So is it the case that maybe kids will know their kids on their social media platforms better than their neighbors?
I mean, is this term going to go out of style or what's going to happen, right?
It's really, really interesting.
This would be a fantastic conversation starter for our listeners to engage in.
Absolutely. Yeah, no, I mean, as the world evolves, our relationships change and we don't know what's going to happen.
I mean, it's a little sad to think about, I'm trying to keep iPads away from my kids as long as possible.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure.
I'm sure, yeah, 100%.
Yeah, it's a little sad to think about, but I mean, I hope that those, the feelings of just being close with the people around you, I hope that that never goes away.
I really hope so. So assuming it's not going to go away, I think new ways of being connected are going to spring up, but there are other ways we can say it, right?
There are other things our listeners might want to know to have that vocabulary range, right?
To not always say the same word.
So one of them, Michelle, is neighborly.
Yes, neighborly. So this is more, I think you can probably guess more about your actual neighborhood.
So you could say, everyone I've met is extremely neighborly.
I'm excited to be in this community.
So that feeling of, you know, it could maybe go borrow a cup of milk from them.
It's so quaint, Michelle, it's so quaint.
Exactly, exactly. No, but just like that closeness, so if you need something, we're here for each other.
So neighborly is a word that you could use specifically about your neighborhood.
Yeah, or for example, I live in a townhouse with four other attached townhouses.
They're not apartments, they're homes, but they're attached, right?
And sometimes we'll take in each other's garbage cans after garbage day, roll them down to the garage or something like that.
That's being neighborly.
That's very neighborly, very neighborly.
Yes, exactly. Okay, now we're getting more intense with this next one.
Now we're getting way more intense.
What is it, Michelle?
It's inseparable, yes.
Much more intense. This is, you're always together, right?
So you could say my friends from school and I are inseparable, we are together all the time.
Oh my gosh. You could've replaced that with tight knit.
Yeah, that would've been fine.
I think though inseparable is even more intense.
Yeah, this is totally different from neighborly guys.
We're on a spectrum now.
We've moved to the other side of the spectrum.
Just bringing someone's garbage down, garbage can down is non -separable.
Yes. Okay, just to make sure.
You can be tight knit but not be inseparable.
So like Lindsay's saying inseparable is more intense.
I can say, oh, my family is tight knit but we're not inseparable.
And I think another key difference is with tight knit, it's usually a, wouldn't you say it's usually about a group like more than two people or what do you think?
Is tight knit necessarily for a group two plus like three minimum three or?
I think it's mostly used that way because I think if I was going to just be talking about one person, I might just say close.
Yeah, we're close, right?
Just the two of us are close, exactly.
And inseparable could be for two people or it could be for a family, a team, I guess.
A community, I don't think so, not really.
Unless it's like a cult or something, right?
We hope that's not happening.
Yeah, right, exactly.
But then we have the word devoted.
So this is more for, in my opinion, used more for family or partners.
What do you think? Yeah, exactly.
And here's a sample sentence.
We're so devoted to each other, very close.
Yeah, you could be like a devoted daughter, I guess.
If your parents get sick and you're always over there helping them.
But generally, a romantic partner, I would say.
You could be a devoted parent, right?
Yes, so real nuances here, Michelle.
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
And then the last one is loving.
So that's a little more emotional.
You're not gonna really use this about your neighbors, I don't think.
Right, right. So you could say she comes from a very loving family.
Yeah, in this case, the loving is just describing the family.
The family is a loving family.
What kind of family?
A happy family, a loving family, right?
Just an adjective, okay?
Good, yes. Absolutely, so guys, before we get into the role -play, we wanna remind you to hit follow wherever you are listening to, all ears English.
Yeah, hit that follow button.
Michelle, let's get into a role -play.
We are friends and we're talking about our upbringings.
Meaning what, what is upbringing?
What is that word? How we grew up, that could be a key word for today.
Key word for today, guys.
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Yes, all right, here we go, let's do it.
All right, well, I had an extremely tight -knit neighborhood growing up, the kids in the neighborhood were all inseparable.
That must have been fun.
My community was very neighborly, but not necessarily that close.
But my family was very devoted.
Same, my parents are very loving.
Yeah, okay, so yeah, I think that you are likely to have a conversation with this.
Maybe if you go away to college, you might talk about your relationship with your family.
Oh my god, I remember parents' weekend, my first year ever.
My experience was that I was really sad when they left.
Yeah, so for our listeners, parents' weekend is, as we said, we go away to college, we usually leave the state or even the region, which I did.
I went 500 miles away.
And then it's usually a weekend in September or October for freshmen where the parents come and visit you after a few months being away.
And usually, kids find that pretty emotional when your parents go home.
It's like separating again, it's a whole thing, right?
It's such a dramatic thing we do here in this country.
Yes. It definitely is, it definitely is.
So yeah, I do remember that as well.
So here, we're talking about our upbringings, and I said I had an extremely tight -knit neighborhood growing up.
And then you said the kids in the neighborhood were all inseparable.
So here, we're using inseparable for more than two, and that works, that totally works, right?
Yeah, right, maybe you had a group of three or four friends that were always running around the neighborhood and just were very, very close, so you could say inseparable.
And then you said, my community was very neighborly, but not necessarily that close.
So that's interesting.
So what does that mean?
And can you be neighborly and not close?
So again, respectful, responsive.
Sometimes we'll coordinate with our neighbors to set up sprinklers or mow the lawn in front of our homes, things like that.
You communicate, you're respectful, but you're not necessarily gonna call them when you're crying over a breakup or something, right?
Right, yes. Yes, yes, exactly.
And then you said about your family.
I said same. My parents are, no, I said, wait, where am I?
My family was very devoted, meaning devoted to each other, right?
Devoted to the family unit, yeah?
Yes, and then I said, same.
My parents are very loving.
So nice, yeah, these are all really, really great vocabulary words to describe your relationship with your family.
And I think our listeners are gonna love that.
Michelle, where should our listeners go for another episode of All There's English?
Guys head on over to episode 2308 after this one, which was, this was fun.
How bougie, how one -sling expression to comment on taste.
Yes, I love it. And what's the takeaway?
We've come up with some really interesting themes here of closeness within families, raising children, how this varies across the world, yeah?
Yeah, to me, that's one of the most interesting parts of the episode is just considering how this can be different in so many different regions of the world.
And even regions of the US, I think, could be as well, right, maybe the cities are a little bit different from the more rural places.
Yeah, true, true. So consider what your community is like.
But definitely, I think these words are really, really good for connection because you can use them to talk about your childhood, your relationships, just lots of different things that people can relate to.
And then they'll wanna share it with you.
So I would say give these a try.
Yeah, this is a winning topic.
So guys, just as a final takeaway, you can start a conversation.
I would challenge all of our listeners to start a conversation on this topic sometime this week with a native speaker or with another student, right?
In our courses, we have our students connect with each other and we love that, we love that connection.
And the question that you can ask is, are you close with your family?
That's how we can get it started.
Are you close with your family?
And then we can use all these vocabulary words.
Okay. Love it. Love it.
All right, Lindsay.
Well, this was fun.
Thanks for chatting about this with me today and thank you to everyone for listening.
Excellent, Michelle.
Talk to you very soon.
Have a good day. All right.
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