This is an All Ears English podcast episode 2371.
Is this seat taken?
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With your American hosts, It's Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
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What can you say when you are at a movie theater or a cafe and you need a seat?
You need to ask someone if a seat is taken.
Today find out how to ask and respond in this connection moment.
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Hello Michelle, how are you today?
Good, Lindsay. Lindsay, have you ever had to save a seat for someone like at a movie theater or a show or a table?
Yes, of course. Yes, I have.
And sometimes it can feel a little awkward, especially when you're in a scenario where seats are high, are high value item.
Yes. Right. Yes. Absolutely.
I have. What about you?
Yes, I have. Yeah, of course.
I mean, and it's it depends.
Like usually, it's not a big deal.
Right. But like you said, if it's a hot ticket and you're in the movie theater and well, now some movie theaters have assigned seats.
But if you're in a theater and you have to save us the more you have to save the more awkward it gets and and also depending on how high value this ticket is so Yeah, and that's why I'm glad we're going into this topic today how to communicate this right?
What are we learning on the show today Michelle?
Okay, well, we are going to be talking about You know have a few different aspects of this situation We're going to teach how to ask if a seat is available and then how to say that it's taken because you can be on either end of these.
So the biggest thing, in my opinion, is to sound confident and be kind and make eye contact, right?
So don't have your defenses up is what I'm trying to say.
Yeah. I love that. So confident, kind and eye contact, and we're going to show you all how to do all of those things today in English.
But first, Michelle, I do want to call out our reviewers because we love these reviews, right?
I mean, we want to know what you guys think of the show, right?
Michelle, we do this for our listeners, this podcast.
Yeah, exactly. Yes.
So please let us know.
And we are so thankful to those who have reviewed us.
Yes. So special. Thank you to I can't read the Chinese, but it's someone in China on February 8th on Apple Podcasts who left us a five -star review and they said your podcast is the best.
So, a huge thank you to our listener for that and Karla, 18 .03 from Honduras, an Apple podcast, also an amazing five -star review.
And then Sevak KH from the U .S.
on January 30th, another five -star review.
Michelle, amazing. Thank you so much.
That really warms our hearts, seriously.
Yes, yes. Very nice.
And we do see them.
Yeah, it's like a little Christmas gift for us in February, right?
So, guys, go over and leave us a review wherever you listen to this podcast and let us know what you think of the show and ask your question.
That's one way to get your question answered and we will put it into our queue of episode ideas.
And guys stay tuned if you are listening on Spotify.
We are going to have a special poll at the end.
We've been having a lot of fun with these and you can participate, answer the poll question and then we will read the results on a future episode.
All right. Fantastic, Michelle.
All right. So let's get into it.
What do we need to know on how to handle the scenario with the seat?
OK. So let's talk about if you are in the situation where you're looking for a seat.
Right. Yeah. First of all, so you see someone and it may be actually, I was in this situation a couple weeks ago, too.
Yeah. Where I was looking for a seat.
And I was at an event.
I was actually by myself.
And I was just looking for one seat, and you see scatterings of seats here and there, and it's always hard to tell if that one seat is available or not, right?
Oh, yeah. This is definitely a moment where you have to communicate, you have to ask the question, because especially with one -seaters, right?
One -seater situations, you don't know if that person's saving that seat for someone.
Yeah, it's tough. Yeah, so what can you say?
How can you ask if the seat is available.
Alright Michelle, so you can, what else can you say?
So you could start out by saying, is anyone sitting here?
I love that or we can say, is this seat free?
We also usually point at the seat or gesture towards the seat, right?
Michelle? Right, and free, we don't mean that it doesn't cost to anything, right?
We could do a whole episode about that word free because there is, sometimes it means is it available?
and sometimes it means as a cost to anything and then yes freedom, right?
So interesting but here we're asking a fancy way of saying is the seat Available, right or we could say could I take this seat?
So here we're kind of putting this into more of a request using the word could I like that Right, and this one could also be used Sometimes you're you have the set seats and here it's like in a movie theater or a show the seats are you can't move them?
but sometimes this one could be used.
Let's say you're in a coffee shop and you see one person and they're sitting on their laptop at a table for three, right, and so there are two available seats and you could really use one of them because there aren't enough seats at your table, so sometimes people say, could I take this seat?
Right, and then they might actually grab the seat and move it to a table.
Check out the vibe in the space, if they want you to do that or don't want you to do that, but some places coffee shops are usually fine but restaurants, you don't want to do that.
Right, Michelle? No, no.
That would be strange at a restaurant.
More casual situations.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Or Michelle, what's the last one we can say?
Are you using this seat?
Good. Yeah. These are also natural.
And I would say that one also is more for that coffee shop.
It implies if you're not using it, I'm going to take it from you.
Yes, for sure. right so are you using this seat okay thank you and then you're gonna go ahead and grab it right most of the time okay so that is the side if we're looking for a seat now what if we're in the other position Michelle yes okay let's talk about real quick I mean if it's available you can just say yeah it's all yours nice or you can say go for it now I love how casual and natural this is go for it right do you use this one yeah for sure you know you could also just say, if they say is anyone sitting here?
You could say, no one's sitting here.
You could just be more basic, but these are a couple different, a little bit more interesting ways of saying it.
So you could say, it's all yours, or go for it.
If somebody says, can I borrow it?
Can I take this seat?
Go for it. And that's only a response, if someone asks you, can I take this seat?
It's not a response if someone says, is someone sitting here?
We wouldn't say go for it.
You need a little something more to imply, yes, you can take it.
No, no one's sitting there.
You can take it before it.
Right? That, that kind of thing.
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Okay, Michelle, we are back here.
Now if it's up, what else do we want to say here?
Okay. So now we're gonna talk about, no you don't want to give up that seat, your friend is coming, you need those seats.
Okay, so you could say the easiest one is, sorry, the seat saved.
This seat saved. Yeah, this also feels like school days too where kids would save seats for their friends, you know what I mean?
Yeah, exactly. What else could you say?
You could be really more specific.
I'm sorry, I'm saving this seat for my partner or my friend who's coming soon, something like that.
Giving some more information, or you could say, I'm sorry.
I think that seat's taken.
So that could even be like, ever at the movies and somebody else, you saw that somebody else got up and you know that they were sitting there.
Right. Right, there doesn't be an issue if they come back and there's no seat for them.
Yeah. And the grammar is interesting here too, the this and the that.
Right? So, I'm sorry this seat is taken and this means this seat is at my table and my space with my party versus...
I'm sorry, I think that seat is taken.
That's not necessarily your seat or your party seat.
It's over there. So really interesting to look at the difference there.
Mm hmm. Exactly. Exactly.
So, where are we now?
So then you could also say, actually Actually, I'm ...
I'm actually saving this seat.
I love it. It's so interesting how we put, actually ...
We should do another episode on that Michelle, a refresh episode of the ways that we use actually.
I know we've done something like that before, but to refresh our memory - Yeah.
I think we could do an update.
Yeah. I think we use it as a softener, a social softener.
Not a fabric softener, a social softener.
laughter. I don't know, it just softens what we're saying, because we're essentially rejecting the person, right?
We're saying, no, you can't have this.
But adding an... actually softens it.
Yeah, exactly. So, is there anything else you think is important to remember with this?
Or any comments you want to make?
I don't know. I really love what you said at the top.
You said eye contact, confident, and kind.
Isn't that what you said?
I really like that because you're, you have to get the point across, right?
You can't confuse someone and leave them thinking, well, can I take the seat?
Can I not take the seat?
I'm unclear, that's awkward.
Yeah. To be clear, but also confident in kind.
All of the things Lindsay, how many seats do you think is fair for somebody to save?
Oh, okay. Give me this scenario though.
Are we at our movie theater, are we at our bar, or where are we?
Okay, let's do movie theatre.
Nowadays when I buy movie tickets, it's always reserved, it feels like.
It's always reserved.
But I think honestly probably one for a party of two.
I don't know about, it might be obnoxious to save, I mean you could maybe go up to three total seats.
So you have two and two, right?
But no more than that.
And I would tend to say, to be more conservative, save one other seat, like whoever you're going out with and saving a whole row.
Probably not OK. Kind of a faux pas, don't you think?
Yeah, I think it can be uncomfortable.
But yeah, it's always a little uncomfortable.
Then you're putting all the your jackets down, right?
Yes. You know, you try and save your seat with a jacket or a hat and then you run out of jackets and you went one mitten on one seat.
one minute on the next seat.
Yes. Exactly. And I'm actually curious too, if this is a cultural thing.
I wonder how this varies from culture to culture?
Is it okay to save seats in your culture.
Do people get annoyed or is this kind of a very common thing and it's no big deal to do it?
Well, that would make a great question, right?
I think that's going to be our poll question for today.
Yes. That's a fantastic question.
We love learning about our listeners cultures," right?
And I have a feeling you're right, Michelle, this does vary across cultures.
I'm so excited to hear from them.
Michelle, should we go into some role plays here?
Let's do it. Okay. So we're gonna do a couple.
So here we go. I am at the movies and I'm saving three seats for my friends and it's pretty packed.
And you were looking for a seat.
Okay, here we go. All right.
Oh, hi. Is anyone sitting here?
Sorry, these seats are saved.
The ones with the coats on though.
Oh, OK, thanks. Yeah.
Yeah. I comment. You do run the risk of these days, everyone's temperatures like that.
Yeah. We're all up here with stress, right.
As a culture, I think, right now.
So do run the risk of someone potentially snapping when that happens and just need to be prepared.
It could happen. That's true.
If it's like a totally packed theater and this person is looking and you're still say, especially, oh, gosh, the worst is if they don't show up until after the show start.
Mortifying for you, right?
If you've been the one saving it.
And obviously, if someone snaps at you, that's more about them than about you.
So we can provide another episode another day for that scenario, Michelle.
That would be interesting.
But I'm just saying it could happen.
Especially in American culture right now.
Mm -hmm. All right. All right.
So let's go into our next role play, shall we?
Oh, well just to review, you said, Hi, is anyone sitting here?
And then I said, sorry, these seats are saved.
Right. But I think, I think as we're seeing this role play, it's kind, but it's confident.
And as you said, we're making eye contact.
That's a weird thing if we're not making eye contact.
Right. On a social level.
And also, it depends how you say it.
You know, if I say, oh, I'm sorry, these seats are saved.
Right. That shows, Oh, I'm feeling some regret for it.
I'm sorry. I'm feeling maybe a little uncomfortable.
I feel sorry that I have to tell you that news, but if I say, sorry, these seats are saved, right?
Like, I don't care what, you know, then it's just kind of rude.
It's all about the delivery saying, yep.
Oh, yeah. Tone of voice and delivery.
I agree. Okay. What else?
Michelle. All right.
So let's do the second one.
So here, you are at a restaurant, and I am looking for a seat.
So this is more of a fast food type cafeteria, you know, I'm thinking Costco.
Okay. Like a mall cafeteria or something.
Yeah. when there's not that many seats available.
So here we go. Okay.
All right. Is this, is this seat free?
Yeah, it's all yours.
Great. Thanks. It's super crowded in here.
No problem. Yeah. And it does feel nice to have that exchange with a stranger sometimes and to have that kindness, right?
That level of kindness and being able to help the generosity.
Even just in the simple gesture of letting someone have your chair, that can be a very positive experience for us.
Exactly, exactly. So yeah, here I said is this seat free, meaning is the seat available.
And then I said, yeah, it's all yours.
Yeah, or yes. You could say yes.
A little more formal, or just Yeah, it's all yours.
Okay. Yeah. So let's get into that poll.
Yeah. So the poll for today guys, remember if you're listening on Spotify, you're going to see this poll.
So definitely let us know.
We will read the results on a future episode.
The question for today is, is it acceptable to save seats in crowded places in your culture?
Yes or no. I love this question.
And I cannot wait to review the results.
We're gonna have the results available in a few weeks on a future episode of All There's English.
So make sure you are following the show so you don't miss the results.
And guys, to go check out another episode, that would be 23 .59, How to Connect Ideas and People in English.
I love that. So go over and check that one out.
All right. So takeaway for today, Lindsey.
What do you think? Well, I think that these are opportunities to be, to put some kindness out into the world, right?
People are stressed nowadays, uh, in our daily lives and we are busy, but these are opportunities to have a really positive interaction with a stranger that can set you on a course for a really nice day and the other person too.
Right? It's true, right?
Right. Depending on how this goes, it's so funny.
We've talked about this before, how those little moments can make or break it.
And this is one of those, you know, even just saying, oh, it's super crowded in here.
You know, we're sharing a very tiny moment of connection.
And these things, these they go a long way.
They go a long way and they compound over time and they affect each of you and your energy moving forward through the day and how you kind of treat other people to write kind of the karma effect a little bit.
So I love it. So good, good topic today, Michelle.
And I'll see on the next one.
All right. Talk to you soon.
All right, take care.
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