This is an All Ears English bonus, vacay slang no matter your budget, and a web class invite.
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Asking about an upcoming vacation is one of the best ways to connect with others.
Today you'll learn four English slang phrases to chat about vacations with your colleagues or your native speaking friends.
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Go to allearsenglish.com slash B2.
That's allearsenglish.com slash letter B number two.
Hey there, Aubrey.
How's it going?
Hi, I'm great.
How are you?
Awesome.
Are you planning any big trips coming up in the next year or so?
Anything on the docket?
Well, we go to Idaho up north where I'm from every July.
So that I've actually been exchanging texts with my family to Plan some specific things we're going to do while we're there.
We're going to hike Table Rock.
Have you ever hiked Table Rock in the Tetons?
Yeah, I've heard about it.
I may have.
Yeah, I may have.
That sounds familiar.
It's beautiful.
It's to the very top of the Grand, the highest one of the Grand Tetons.
And you just have this gorgeous view of the but it takes like a day.
It's a long hike.
It's difficult.
I actually have never done it, even though I grew up not far from there.
So I'm going to do it with a friend who will be up there in town and my sister and I'm very excited about that's gonna be Yeah because Okay, so you guys are close to the Tetons where you are, where you stay in Idaho.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Where I grew up, it's only about an hour and a half drive to the Tetons, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Yes.
Really, really close because we're right on the border of Idaho and Wyoming.
I love it.
I love it.
Yes.
And we were in the Tetons last summer.
Okay.
So we are loving this conversation.
Why?
Why do we love talking about vacation?
Everyone does.
It's so fun to talk about vacation because it's different from your normal day-to-day life, right?
It's something you're excited to do, or if it's a vacation you just took, it's so fun to talk about it.
You had a great time.
There's some kind of fun story to share.
Everybody loves talking about vacations And there's usually a funny story to share if you're going abroad and you're dealing with other languages.
There's always just funny, funny, funny stories.
Yes, exactly.
I love it.
I love it.
So good.
Yeah, I'm excited.
I'm trying to plan a trip to Argentina at some point in the next year.
Awesome.
Have you been before?
Yeah.
I lived in Argentina for three months in my twenties, but I want to go this time down to Patagonia.
So to do some hiking, see the glaciers and that kind of trip, and then go up to BA, over to Mendoza and just do a really nice loop around the whole country.
I can't wait to see pictures.
It's going to be awesome.
So, all right.
Well, today we are here to let our listeners know about a webinar that they can't miss.
It's coming up soon.
Right, Aubrey?
Yes, exactly.
And we're going to share four fun slang phrases to talk about vacations, because we know you guys want to learn slang.
And this webinar is the perfect opportunity to do that.
So you guys, it's going to be March 1st and March 4th.
You want to sign up early.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash slang to get your spot.
It's going to be live.
It's going to be super fun.
You don't want to miss it.
You got it.
And in this webinar, we're going to show you the slang that you can't learn from a textbook.
As we said in the last bonus, slang expressions are like freedom because it allows us to diffuse.
I like that word you used, Aubrey, diffuse a situation.
So you can actually be straightforward, but in a fun and indirect way.
Exactly right.
Eliminate all the awkwardness.
Yeah, so good, so good.
So go and sign up, allersenglish.com slash slang, guys.
But today, Aubrey, we're going to give our listeners just a little hint of a few fun slangs, right?
Yes, exactly.
When you guys are talking about vacation, it is a fun, informal topic.
It would be weird to be very informal like a textbook will show you.
You want to use informal language.
You want to use slang.
So we're going to share some of those that you can do.
And our first one is vacay.
You guys have probably heard someone say vacay as short for vacation.
I do this all the time.
It's very fun.
Do you say vacay, Lindsay?
I do sometimes.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
A vacay is, yeah, like you said, a short vacation.
So does that mean like a weekend or could it be a long vacation or is it just... informal, right?
It's just fun.
It's slang.
Say, oh, I just booked a vacay for this weekend.
Exactly.
It's just more about the word choice.
You're choosing to say vacay instead of vacation, because maybe you're around your coworkers and you're having fun.
You're joking around or you're friends, right?
It's a casual situation.
Exactly.
I feel like it emphasizes how fun it is.
You know, if you're just saying like, I'm going to go on vacation, we say, oh, I'm going on a vacay.
You're going to use it with that kind of intonation, more like fun and excited.
It'd be weird to say that seriously.
I am going to take a vacay.
That sounds weird.
Well, none of these we can really say, right?
That's the whole idea.
Slang is meant to be said lightly, with a smile, joking around.
And it's a good alternative.
So you could say something like oh, what's this expression here that we wanted to teach our listeners?
Where ya?
What?
Where are you headed?
Yeah.
Right.
So if someone tells you, I just booked a vacay, then you might ask, oh, where are you headed?
And I think this is important to point out.
It is less likely that we would say, where are you going?
It's when you're responding to a very informal word like vacay, you're going to answer, you're going to ask about it in a very informal way too.
And that I think is what I would most likely say is, where are you headed?
Where are you headed?
Yeah.
And that might be something we talk about more in the web class too is, when someone gives you slang, you should mirror that back with definitely right.
You should not go into a very serious and, you know, formal register at that point.
To respond in a very formal way would be pretty unnatural for sure.
Yes, yes.
So where are you headed takes out are you and turns the you to a ya.
And then to where are you going?
Where are you headed?
Where are you headed?
Good stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah, because we will say, you know, where are you going?
But I'm much more likely to say that word headed, like the direction you are heading, right?
It's just this very native expression to say, where are you headed?
Yeah, we could probably do a whole podcast episode at some point this spring.
Aubrey on headed heading why we choose that instead of going.
Oh, I love that.
I'm making a note right now because that's a really good idea.
Yeah, that's really, let's just make sure we haven't done it yet.
Yeah, right.
I will check.
You've done so many episodes now, you want to make sure to not repeat.
That's right.
Our listeners would know better than we would.
Probably totally.
But yeah, i think that would be a great episode idea.
All right, what's the next one here?
All right, so these are all of the acronyms for places you can stay.
So for a long time we've had b and b's just the letter b and b, which stands for bed and breakfast, but this is evolving a little bit more and we have two that we're more likely to use now.
What are they lindsay?
So Airbnb?
I mean, many people know this at this point.
And then the slightly more upscale version of Airbnb is VRBO.
I think that's more common for families, older adults.
And I think Airbnb appeals to younger people, but not entirely.
They do mix.
Right.
Do you often do like an Airbnb or a VRBO or are you still more likely to get a hotel somewhere?
Oh no, we do Airbnb all the time.
We do everything.
Like we'll mix it all up, everything.
But yeah, we will tend to do Airbnb over VRBO.
But for like, a huge house.
VRBO is good if you want your whole extended family to stay in a big house together.
That's good for VRBO.
Yeah.
When we go to Rocky Point in Mexico.
There are these giant resorts, but they have all these individual condos in the resort.
And that's almost the only way that you can get them anymore is to go through VRBO.
They're all VRBO, the individual ones.
And it's a great way.
It's very simple anymore.
It's really easy to use.
I love it.
We were talking about that last weekend.
We were saying, what was it like in the 80s and the 90s when Airbnb didn't exist?
These peer-to-peer solutions.
All you had was a hotel or I guess a bed and breakfast, a B&B.
And before the internet, I remember traveling with my dad when I was younger on an art show.
And he just had to pull into a hotel and go and see if they had vacancy, or there would be a no vacancy sign or whatever you know, because he couldn't really book anything ahead of time.
And then if it was full, we just had to drive on to the next town.
Did you ever not find a place?
Yeah.
I mean eventually we'd find a place.
But I remember having to drive an extra like two hours in Ohio or somewhere until we found a spot, like later than we were wanting to.
So we wanted to stop and we couldn't find a hotel.
Yeah.
That industry has changed so much.
It's incredible.
It's incredible.
So guys, you got to be able to speak the slang, right?
To talk, to keep up with this.
So what would someone say to you?
Maybe what's a little role?
Yeah.
So I might do that same kind of structure and say, where are you staying?
If you're telling me you're going on a vacay, say, where are you staying?
Yeah, again, casual.
Where ya staying?
And I would say, oh, we found a cute little Airbnb right in town.
Yes.
Nice.
Okay.
So now we're going to teach you guys two opposite slang expressions that have opposite meanings.
The first one is to travel on a shoestring budget, which means you're spending very little money.
This was me when I first went to Europe.
I was an au pair and I had no money and I would eat like one banana.
During the day I was on the most shoestring of shoestring budgets.
That's okay.
I mean there, I think there's.
Isn't there a series like a guidebook series like travel on a shoestring or something?
I feel like that sounds familiar.
Some kind of brand name or something.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you can, right?
I stayed at hostels that were very inexpensive.
I would sleep on a train because I had an unlimited train pass.
So I could sleep on a train that was about eight hours, so that I didn't have to even pay for a hostel.
When you're young, you don't have money.
It's a great life.
It's a good life, though.
But you know what?
You end up having the most interesting experiences because you don't have money.
So you have to find other ways.
You have to meet people.
You have more time, right?
Because you're not doing expensive things.
I think you just have more serendipity in your life when you have, sometimes when you have less money.
Oh, for sure.
I met so many amazing people and I would just wander the whole town because I didn't have money to go to museums or events or anything.
And I would see.
I remember I saw almost all of Helsinki because I just had a whole day to just wander the whole town.
I didn't have any money to go anywhere.
I met some really cool people.
I just saw...
It's a very cool city.
It was so fun.
Yeah.
No, those are the days.
I mean, I'm glad you did that.
I did that too in my twenties.
And it's like you can't really go back to that moment in your life.
But you have it, you know, you have the memories.
I don't know if I could do it now, but I'm glad I did it then.
Yeah, me too.
And then so we have the opposite expression, which is when you're traveling to spare no expense, which means, instead of being on a shoestring budget, you're spending money.
You want to have every experience.
And so you're trying to not even think about money.
You're going to the nicest restaurants and going to everything you can and sparing no expense, meaning there's nothing that you're not going to do because it's expensive.
Yeah.
You know, I think certain cities are good for this and certain cities and places are better for the other style you know, like for example, Paris.
So I studied in Paris and I was somewhat shoestring then.
But then I went back later with my partner a couple of years ago and we spent some money because you want to go to the good restaurant.
Yes.
And you don't have to spend a ton of money to eat well in France, right?
But you want to buy the wine.
You want to eat the meat and just indulge a little bit.
So certain cities are right for certain budgets.
Yeah, I think Paris definitely lends toward sparing no expense, or somewhere in between the two for sure.
Yes.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So maybe I might ask you, did you go to any fancy restaurants while you were in Paris?
Oh, yeah.
We spared no expense.
Yeah, exactly.
Right.
Like oh, we're definitely, we're going to go to the nice places, even if they were a little pricey, because we wanted the experience.
And the key is knowing which kind of trip you're on.
Right.
We always got to know which kind of trip are we on here?
Is this a budget or is this a, you know, let's go all out and really enjoy ourselves, indulge.
Yes.
Right.
Yeah.
So this is the kind of conversation we might have again with our coworkers at work before that trip.
Right.
Yes, exactly.
This is a great way to strike up a conversation.
If you're in the break room with a coworker, that's my favorite thing to talk about.
If a coworker asks me either about a trip I'm planning or the last trip I took.
I'm always going to have something to say.
And it's such a fun conversation.
It's one of the best ways to build connections.
But you want to use informal slang phrases to keep it lighthearted.
It's true.
And I think especially for our listeners, you guys are internationally minded, right?
You have traveled.
You're ready to travel.
You want to travel.
So This is such a good connection skill.
And if you use slang, you're going to solidify that connection even more.
And if you come to the web class guys, we're going to go even deeper, much deeper than we did today, into this slang.
Again, Aubrey, where can they sign up for the web class?
Go to allearsenglish.com slash slang.
Get your spot now.
Show up on time.
We're excited to see you guys there.
Yeah, we can't wait to hang out with you guys.
We'll see you there. allearsenglish.com slash slang.
See you there.
All right, Aubrey, this has been great.
I'll see you on the web class.
Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
See ya.
Bye.
Bye.
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