Hello, everyone. Welcome back to Simplified Speech, the Q -Lips series, which features real, natural, interesting English conversations that are easy to understand.
Joining me today to help me as my co -host for this episode is Indiana.
Hey there, Indiana, how's it going?
Hey, Andrew, I'm great.
How are you today? I'm doing very well, and I think we have a fun episode for everyone planned today, Indiana, we're going to play a game, a game called overrated or underrated.
And we're going to talk about just a bunch of various different topics and share our opinion about these topics by saying if we think they're overrated or underrated.
In Indiana, I think maybe a good place for us to start would be with a definition of these two terms, overrated and underrated.
What does it it mean if something's overrated?
Well, let me start with the prefixes.
I think that this is a great way to learn any new word that has this pattern, has the word over in it and the under starting off the word. So over implies too much or even a bad thing.
There's too much of something.
And then under is there's too little, there's not enough.
So overrated means that too many people like this thing.
Too many people think something is good when in fact, you think it's not that good.
And then underrated is the opposite.
So you think something's incredible, you think it's really good, but nobody's talking about it.
Like nobody seems to agree with you and it's not not very popular.
So underrated would be something that, yeah, maybe if there's an obscure film director that you think is the best ever and nobody seems to know who he or she is, that would be an underrated film director.
Yeah. Excellent breakdown.
Great examples there.
So yeah, this is kind of just a way, a fun way to share your opinion, right?
By saying, if you think from From your perspective, if something is overrated, meaning people around you really, really like something, but you think it's not such a big deal, it's not so special.
Or if something is underrated, you think something is really important, really special, really amazing, but the other people around you are like, eh, it's not so good.
So it's just a kind of fun way to share our opinions about that.
So that's what we're going to do in this episode.
We got a bunch of interesting topics to share our opinions about if they're overrated or or underrated according to us.
And we'll get started with that in just a moment.
But before we do, I want to let you know that there is a helpful study guide and an interactive transcript available for this episode.
In the study guide, you'll find detailed vocabulary explanations and examples to help you learn and memorize and use the most helpful vocabulary that you'll encounter in this episode.
The key expressions that I'll use and Indiana uses, we'll break those down in the study guide for you.
There will also be a quiz in the study guide and some questions that you can use for speaking practice and writing practice.
And you can get that study guide if you're a Q -Lips member.
But that's not it. If you are a Q -Lips member, you'll get so many extra benefits and bonuses that we have designed here to help you improve your English fluency faster and better than ever.
One of those major bonuses, Indiana, is our speaking classes.
And Q -Lips members can join with me, or you, or our other study guide writer, Alina, three times a week.
If you're a Q -Lips member, you can join our speaking classes three times a week.
Indiana, maybe you could share just briefly what those classes are all about.
Of course. So those classes are always focused on a previous QLips episode.
And we will discuss the discussion questions from the study guide and give members an opportunity to practice new words and to share their opinions on the topics.
So like, for example, today, you and I are playing a little game, overrated or underrated, and it could be a great opportunity to hear what our members think is overrated or underrated in the group discussion class.
Yeah, it could be a lot of fun.
Yeah, actually, now that you mention it, I'm looking forward to when we get to talk about this episode in our small group discussion classes because it will be great to hear everyone's opinions out there about whether these things are are overrated or underrated.
So guys, yeah, sign up and become a QLips member on our website, QLips .com.
You can do that for an affordable price and you'll be able to unlock and access all of our helpful study tools and just make your English study more fun, more helpful, and you'll achieve your learning goals faster than ever.
Okay, so with that out of the way and with that being said, Indiana, I think we should jump right into our main topic for today, which is discussing some various topics.
We've got a whole big list here that we're going to refer to.
In fact, I've got 15 things planned, but I don't think we'll have time for all 15.
So Indiana, why don't we just pick and choose some of our favorites from this list, and we'll get into it and talk about if we think they're overrated or underrated.
Indiana, I'll be a gracious host here, and I'll let you go first. Would you like to choose our first debate topic?
For sure. So one of the topics is vegan cheeses.
So Andrew, what is a vegan cheese to your knowledge?
If you are a vegan, it means that you don't consume or don't use any animal products in your daily life, right?
right? And people can be vegan for health reasons or for ethical reasons.
Maybe they don't like the thought of harming animals and hurting animals to use for food or for other products too.
Even things like leather, right?
Maybe a leather jacket is made from an animal skin.
So a vegan person would not want to wear that kind of jacket usually.
And so cheese is made from animal products, right?
It's a dairy product that comes from the milk of cows.
So a vegan person would probably think, I don't really like the act of treating cows like this and using them this way, or maybe somebody for some reason can't consume dairy products.
Maybe they're lactose intolerant, and so they would want to choose an alternative product that doesn't have the dairy from a cow.
And so this kind of cheese that is not genuine, real cheese the way that we know it, it's an alternative product that is made to taste like cheese and have the texture of cheese, but it's not cheese.
That would be vegan cheese.
Perfect definition.
And Indiana, I am going to say I love cheese and I'm not a vegan, so I'm going to say overrated, my opinion.
How about you? I think I would agree with you.
Five years ago, awful, overrated, not very good at all.
The texture is rarely on point.
But recently, I think that manufacturers of vegan cheese have made some leaps and bounds in improving the taste and most importantly, the texture.
And I tried some vegan mozzarella for pizza that comes in a liquid form, but you pour it on top of the pizza before you put it in the oven if you're making a homemade pizza.
And it turns into like more of a sticky, gooey, solid, like real mozzarella through the cooking process.
And it tasted amazing, actually.
So recently, recently underrated, I would say.
huh interesting you know here in korea where i live i gotta say cheese in all forms is not too popular and even when you go to the grocery store finding real cheese i mean there are there is a cheese section at the grocery store but it's nowhere as good as back home in north america And I would also say probably it's nowhere near as good to like even 1 % of the extent of what our friends in Europe have with a European cheese selection.
So even finding real cheese in Korea can be a chore, but finding vegan cheese is like almost impossible.
I don't think I've ever seen vegan cheese at the supermarket here.
So I haven't had vegan cheese, I have to say, for years and years and years, probably it's been about a decade since I've last tried it.
So, I'm interested.
I'm interested to try this new kind of liquid vegan cheese.
Sounds a little weird, I have to admit, but I'd keep an open mind at least about it and try it at least once.
There's still bad vegan cheeses out there, for sure.
But they're making some incremental improvements and this one was impressive.
Let's go on to our next one.
I'm going to choose one from this list. Hmm.
What's an interesting one here?
Okay. I'm going to choose this one because it's something that I did yesterday.
In fact, it is meal prepping.
Meal prepping. Maybe, Indiana, could you just briefly explain what meal prepping is so that everybody's on the same page here?
Yes. So meal prepping is not prepping one meal, or even really, probably two meals, but several meals for a whole week.
And typically, it's done in a way that it's simple, easy to pack for lunch to go to work.
And you can easily repeat these meals each day.
I can imagine people would meal prep, maybe eight salads for a week, they're making salad for dinner on Sunday, and they just Just go right ahead and get their Pyrex containers, their glass containers with the plastic lids and put a bunch of salads together so they can minimize the stress and the cooking and preparation that has to be done on weekdays.
So meal prepping, prepping your meals, preparing your meals for the rest of the week or at least, you know, a few days.
Mm hmm. Making all your meals one day so that you get the cooking out of the way and then you can just heat up your meal and eat it quickly for the remaining days of the week.
So, Indiana, what are your thoughts?
Overrated or underrated for meal prepping?
maybe appropriately rated but underrated no it's the best it's really worth it you know you save so much time and people you know it looks a little trendy and you know I think a lot of maybe instagram influencers will try to peddle some fancy containers or or whatnot um with their meal prepping videos but it really is worth it and it saves it saves on money and time is the best. What do you think, Andrew?
Yeah, maybe I gave away my answer since I said I meal prepped yesterday.
But I also think underrated, I think underrated, like, if you're going to cook, why not just do it once?
And I guess it depends on, it's going to vary from person to person, it's going to depend on the person.
But for me, usually, like my Monday to Friday, I'm not doing a lot of cooking anyways, like I'm pretty busy, and I don't have a lot of time to spend in the kitchen and i also don't get too tired of just eating the same thing again and again so for monday to friday i'm happy to prepare all of my it's usually my my dinner to be honest and i just cook like five dinners i'll throw it into the freezer and then i have one dinner for each day and it's pretty boring usually my meal prep consists of some rice and some protein like like maybe some chicken breast and some vegetable, and that's about it.
And then I usually put some fresh kimchi on top before I eat it.
Gotta throw in the kimchi here in Korea.
And yeah, I don't know.
It's so easy. Like it does take a little bit more time.
Usually I prep on like a Sunday evening.
Does take a little bit more time to put it all together on Sunday evening, but then I'm done and I have like a healthy affordable meal that I can eat for dinner for the rest of my weeknights.
So, in my opinion, underrated.
I love it. It's amazing.
Indiana, do you meal prep from week to week, usually?
I don't do it usually on such a large scale, like on Sunday, like you've done.
But whenever I cook on the weekdays, it's usually only a few times a week, and then I will make a pretty big batch so that I can do some amount of meal prep.
But I'm lucky because I have a good amount of space in my house, and I have a chest freezer, which is like a separate really deep freezer that you can put a lot of stuff in.
A lot of people use it for meat or maybe like a lot of ice if you're going to have a party or something.
But if I have a lot of spare time, I'll make like a quadruple or eight times recipe of like chili or something.
And I'll make so much of it and put it in the the chest freezer.
So then in a pinch, if I'm super busy, I'll be like, okay, I know I can just defrost this meal.
So that's like a mega meal prep.
It's like a lot, but I don't do it all the time, just once in a while.
Nice. Yeah, I love that.
It's a great idea. And yeah, I'm jealous of all your extra freezer space.
Maybe if I had a big enough freezer, I could do that too, but But I don't have the chest freezer.
But anyways, okay, very good.
Why don't we move on to our next category, India?
Do you want to choose one from the list?
What do you got for us?
What's next? How about self -help books?
What do you think, Andrew, about self -help?
Well, actually, would you explain what a self -help book is?
Yeah, a self -help book.
So a self -help book, it's kind of explanatory just from the title of this genre of book.
But it's a book that usually gives you some advice for how to improve some aspect of your life.
So it might be about, I don't know, having good habits.
It might be about how to set a daily routine.
It might be about financial advice, right?
How to make a budget and follow a budget.
it. Usually something to do with health or exercise, mental health, finances, different hobbies, anything like this.
Some book that is designed to help you become better in some aspect of your life.
We call that a self -help book.
And where do I stand on self -help books, Indiana?
yeah, no, I would say, I'm going to say slightly overrated.
Can I do that? Can I say slightly overrated?
Because usually, it's not a genre of book that I tend to read.
Because my opinion is when it comes to doing something, like, I'm trying to think of the situations in my life, Maybe I'm really interested in language learning, right?
So reading a book about how to be an efficient language learner would be something that would pique my interest or I'm interested in running and I love running.
So maybe a book related to running and how to run better, that kind of book would sort of pique my interest. But I tend to want to spend more time doing the language learning or doing the running then I want to spend time learning about how to do that thing.
So that's why I'm saying it's kind of slightly overrated.
I don't want to say that getting some help or tips or advice about how to do something, I don't want to say that's bad, but I don't want to spend too much time doing that.
I want to try, of course, to get some advice and help from time to time, but I want to spend more time personally doing the thing that I want to achieve than learning about how to do that thing.
So that's why I'm going to say for me, slightly overrated.
How about you? What's your opinion?
I think you're being very charitable to the genre of book.
But you make a good point.
I mean, fundamentally, if it really is helpful tips, there's nothing wrong with that.
But I'm afraid that I think they're incredibly overrated because so many of them are either scams, like it's bad advice or bad research, or it could just be a pamphlet, like this 300 -page book really could have been 40 pages of the actual helpful information instead of a lot of fluff and unhelpful backstory and repetition.
I mean, I haven't read a ton of self -help books, but the ones I've read were not really good at all.
But I'm sure there are great ones out there, but I have not met or encountered, I should say, I've not encountered many of them.
So unfortunately overrated, I would say.
Yeah, you make a great point.
I was being charitable by thinking about good self -help books, right?
Like assuming that the advice is good.
And I have read some books about running and I have read some books about language learning that have been really helpful.
So maybe that's why those ideas came to mind.
But the genre as a whole, I think, yeah it's filled with a lot of snake oil sales people right and those are like people who are trying to sell you something where there's not really a lot of helpful content in the actual book it's like trying to sell you a product that's not genuine or not authentic so you do have to be very careful but I know a lot of people love these styles of books and I don't want to say don't read them but for me I usually pass personally I would say take it with a grain of Which is a great expression to say, you know, just don't believe everything you read.
Have a little bit of second thoughts or suspicion about the things that you hear.
Just don't take everything at face value.
Don't judge a book by its cover.
critical thinking right critical thinking yes yes think critically good good okay i'm going to select another one from the list here okay here's a really really controversial one i think maybe i'm going to offend some people i don't know we'll see Indiana what do you think about vision boards or affirmations visual affirmations vision boards and to explain what these are for people who who don't know a vision board or an affirmation is when you think about your future and you imagine the person that you want to be in the future so I don't know maybe you want to be a homeowner and so you would have like
a cork board where you could put a thumbtack into the board and tack up some pictures of the dream home that you want to buy one day.
So you'd fill that vision board with pictures of the home that you want to aspire to buy.
Or an affirmation is kind of like a promise to yourself.
Like you can do it.
You can buy that home.
Think positive, like all these positive thoughts that you don't just think, but you actually write out and maybe you attack those to your vision board as well as a reminder to yourself like you can work hard you can achieve your dreams you can do it that's what i'm kind of talking about with a vision board and these affirmations so indiana i'll let you do the the honors here first what what's your opinion overrated or underrated i've never ever done or made a vision board. So I feel like I can't speak to any personal experience.
Like it was helpful.
It was a waste of time.
I don't know. I feel a little suspicious.
I feel like maybe it's overrated.
But I don't know. I think if it really helped you get on track and focus and inspired you, why not?
But I do like the affirmations thing.
Like, I think, you know, if I'm feeling really down or stressed out in general or anxious and like before bed and my mind is racing and I have some affirmations, like I said, okay, like let me think of some things.
I'm grateful for this or this is going well in my life.
Like that will really make me feel better.
So I'm not anti -affirmation, but maybe vision boards sound a little overrated.
I don't know. Why did you pick this one, Andrew?
What do you think? well yeah I like the way that you put it Indiana and I do have to say a disclaimer here really by saying this is person to person so I don't want to I don't want to rain on anyone's parade meaning I don't want to say if this works for you then you're stupid or something like that because I don't think like that at all I think everybody's their own individual person and you You should do what works for you.
If a vision board helps you to achieve your goals and stay focused, then that's amazing.
I'm all for it. If affirmations help you to stay on track with what you want to achieve in life, then I'm all for it.
But for me personally, and maybe it's just because I've never tried it.
Maybe I have to try and find out.
I'm kind of speaking from a point of ignorance.
But when I think of me personally doing this, I kind of roll my eyes at myself.
self I'm kind of like oh god I can't imagine myself like I would love to own a Porsche one day that's my dream car a Porsche 911 I would love to own it but the thought of me tacking up a bunch of photos of a Porsche is like kind of cringy like I don't know if I really need to do that for myself it kind of reminds me of like you know like a teenager who wants to maybe be a basketball star and they put posters of their favorite basketball stars in the room like it's cool when you're 15 but maybe when you're 40 kind of maybe we can just sort of keep the vision board inside our minds and we don't
need to put it outside on on our walls i don't know so i'm gonna say a little bit overrated for me but guys if it works for you if this kind of tactic is helpful for you in your life go for it i'm not gonna roll my eyes at you i'll just roll my eyes at myself if that makes sense agreed agreed indiana i think maybe this is a good place for us to wrap things up today we've kind of going long here so it's a good place to to wrap things up but maybe we could do a part two if listeners enjoy this kind of of series let us know guys because we've got like a huge list of topics we can talk about unfortunately
we don't have time to talk about each one today.
But if you would like to hear a part two, a follow -up to this overrated, underrated kind of episode, let us know in the comments for this episode.
If you're watching the YouTube version or if you are on our Discord community as well, that's an amazing place where you can drop a comment and let us know.
If you'd like to join our Discord community, it's free.
We have a community of around 8 ,000 QLips listeners over there and it's an awesome place to connect with other listeners who are just like yourself, who are English learners and who want to improve their English.
And so you can be active with your English on our discord and write a comment and let us know your thoughts and opinions.
And Indiana, wouldn't it also be awesome to hear what our listeners think about these items, if they're overrated or underrated as well.
We'll be looking forward to hearing your thoughts over on the discord community.
Again, also, please don't Don't forget that there is an interactive transcript and a helpful study guide available for this episode for all Q -Lips members.
You can sign up and become a member on our website, Q -Lips .com and learn about all of the other bonuses and benefits you get as a member as well.
Okay, so I think it's time for us to sign off.
Indiana, thank you so much. Absolutely.
Thanks for having me on this one, Andrew.
It's fun to talk about these topics.
Yeah, absolutely. take care everyone and we'll see you in the next episode bye -bye bye now
