Have you ever found yourself reading about a random topic on Wikipedia at 2am in the morning, just because you simply had to know the answer?
Or maybe you're the type of person who always asks why or how, when everyone else just seems to accept things the way they are.
If that sounds like you, then I think you're going to love the topic that we have lined up for you today.
Hey everyone, Andrew here.
Welcome back to another episode of Chatterbox from QLips.
Chatterbox is our series for intermediate and advanced English learners who really want to hit the next level with their English.
We use authentic, real, unscripted conversations to help you build your fluency, grow your communication skills, and sound more natural.
In just a sec, my co-host Anna, will be joining me and we're going to take a close look at the concept of curiosity.
We discuss what sparks our interest, whether being curious is always a positive thing, and how the desire to learn drives us in our daily lives.
We also break down some useful vocabulary and idioms along the way that will help you describe your own interests and questions in your life.
Now, if you're a Q-Lips member, you can get the awesome study materials for this episode.
I personally recommend that you first listen to the audio once without reading anything, and then after listen a second time with the interactive transcript to check any parts that you might have missed.
After that you can review the study guide's vocabulary explanations, take the quiz and try the speaking and writing practice activities.
Following these steps will help you to remember the new vocabulary and expressions and to actually use them in your own life.
You can also join our live speaking classes, which happen several times every week, to talk about this episode with a QLips teacher and with other members.
It's an awesome way to practice what you've learned and to get feedback on your speaking in a supportive environment.
So if you're not a QLips member yet and you want to study more seriously, you can join us at QLipscom.
And of course, a big thanks to all the Q-Lips members out there for your support.
Guys, we really do appreciate it.
All right, and now let's get started.
Here it is, my conversation with Anna all about curiosity.
Enjoy.
Hey, Anna, how's it going today?
I'm very well, thank you.
And yourself?
I'm doing great, Anna, and I'm excited to talk about this topic with you.
And I think our Q-Lips members will be as well, because I surveyed our members over on our Discord community and I asked them what is the next emotion that they want us to talk about in our emotion series here on Chatterbox?
And the overwhelming response was for us to talk about curiosity.
So That's what we're going to do, Anna.
We are going to talk about curiosity here today.
So let's jump right in.
And I've got a question for you right off the bat, Anna.
What is something that you've been curious about lately?
Great question.
I am curious about lots of things.
But if I take something recently, I met somebody new at a public speaking club, which I go to.
And they gave a speech, and they were from Algeria.
And I never really, I don't know a lot about Algeria as a country.
And they explained their life story there.
And it was really interesting.
And I was really curious to find out more about the history of that country.
What happened there?
Because there had been a civil war.
And it just really sparked my curiosity.
And they actually gave me a movie that I could go away and watch.
And so I was really curious to find out more about the history of that place.
And that's often something for me that I'm curious about, like history or places or countries.
Like I get curious to find out more about a place that I don't know.
What about you, Andrew?
Last night I heard somebody on a podcast say that Almost all of the American presidents, except for two presidents, share a common ancestor, actually one of the old kings of England.
And I heard this and I thought, that's crazy.
That can't be true.
That must be fake news.
So I got really curious about the American presidents and if they were all related or not.
And so I did a kind of deep dive on Wikipedia, which I know is maybe not the most reliable source for information, but I was reading about yeah, some of the lineages and ancestors of American, And it turns out it's supposedly correct that a lot of the presidents actually share some similar bloodlines and common relatives, like way way way, way back in the day.
And so I thought that was pretty interesting.
And sometimes this happens to me, like when I hear uh, a stat or a fact or some interesting tidbit of information, then I do have to go and do a deep dive later on my own to see if it's true or not.
And I go down that rabbit hole sometimes on Wikipedia.
Wikipedia is dangerous for that because everything's linked together, right?
So you click on this, click on that, click on this.
And then before you know it, an hour is gone.
But it's fun.
It's really fun.
Right, right.
I feel curious as well about things like that or people, finding out more about people and the past.
And it's funny, isn't it, how you can listen to a podcast and it can set off this series of things.
But that is like what being curious is about.
It's something you want to know more about because it makes you wonder about something.
So it's kind of driven by a question or a little bit of mystery as well.
And this is a great point, Anna.
Maybe we should define exactly what we mean by curiosity.
So curiosity is this desire, this feeling to learn about something.
It's almost like the starting point of learning, right?
It's like that spark that happens inside of you.
Something else, usually Like it might be something that you hear on a podcast, for example, and then you go and you try and learn more information about this thing.
So curiosity then is just the desire to learn about something more deeply.
And Anna.
As I was preparing this episode, I came across three interesting facts about curiosity that I think would be fun to share with our listeners here.
And then guys, after we share these facts, we're going to go into our own personal stories and talk about how curious we are.
But Anna, let me drop these three facts on you first.
The first one was... It's actually funny because...
I was curious about curiosity.
So I dug up these facts and learned about them as I was trying to satisfy my curiosity.
So the first one is I was wondering, like, why are we curious?
Why do we get this feeling?
What is the origin?
And why do we have this desire to learn more about things?
And I learned it's just because of dopamine.
When we are learning something new, it feels good because our brain is releasing this chemical.
And you know it's the same chemical that we get often if we eat like a delicious meal, we get a release of this in our brain.
Or if we I don't know win at a video game or something right, refresh our Instagram feed.
Anything like this, something that feels good is usually accompanied by a release of dopamine.
And so because of that, then we are encouraged to learn more and more and more.
And it's our brain's way of rewarding us for learning new information.
So that was the first fact that I thought was pretty cool.
But secondly, Anna, and maybe I'm wondering, what do you think about this one?
Do you think that everybody is born with an equal reservoir of curiosity or curiosity Does it vary from person to person to person?
Just from like your observations in life, what have you noticed?
I mean, I suppose that people are always different, right?
So some people are naturally more curious than others.
And I think part of that is probably genetic.
You're born with it.
And then part of that is your environment, how you're raised, and that influences your personality and whatever right.
But I also think that there's something about maybe people don't appear curious to you simply because you're interested in different things, if that makes sense.
So I think that it's easy to think oh, this person doesn't care about certain stuff, or they're not curious about things.
But maybe it's just because they're not curious about the same things that you are.
But then again, I think there are people that are just, you know, they're always curious, interested in stuff, or they're wondering about things, or they're always asking themselves questions.
I mean, of course there's going to be some people, I guess you could say like inventors or innovators, that are always asking themselves questions.
And I would say these people are super curious.
And if you're encouraged as a kid to ask questions, then perhaps you'll be more curious when you're older.
And if you were maybe told to stop asking questions or suppress that curiosity, you might have almost have a learned behavior to be less curious.
So i think there's a lot of things at play here, but i do think there's also something about people are just curious about different things, rather than people are just not curious at all.
So i think there's, of course, a huge spectrum.
What about you?
Do you have a different experience?
No, I think you hit the nail right on the head there.
That's exactly what I learned is that it seems like how we are raised has an effect on how curious we are.
And part of it is genetic.
I think there are probably some hyper curious people out there who are just like that naturally.
They're just born with that desire to learn and experience new things.
And then again, as you mentioned, some of it is environmental.
So if you were raised in a home where maybe your parents didn't respond to your questions or told you to shut up or something and has a negative response when you are asking questions, you know kids can be super curious right, and they want to know everything, like why is the sky blue?
And etc etc.
So if your parents responded to those questions in a nice way and encouraged you to ask more questions, then probably you would develop this sense of curiosity more so than someone who didn't have that kind of supportive environment growing up.
So yeah, it does vary from person to person to person.
And Anna, the final fact that I learned here is that there are two main types of curiosity.
There is one that's called diversive curiosity. curiosity.
And diversive curiosity describes the kind of person who wants to learn many things about many different topics.
I think that would describe me the best as a person with diversive curiosity.
But the second type is called specific curiosity.
And this is when you want to learn as much as you can just about one, So you're hyper-focused on just one thing.
It's a specific curiosity.
What would describe you the best, Anna?
Do you think you have a specific curiosity or a diversive curiosity?
I think I definitely fit into the first category, like you, diversive curiosity.
And sometimes I think I'm so interested and curious about lots of different things that it's too many things right.
So I don't have enough focus to just go and deep dive into one specific thing.
So I think it's probably diversive, because I mean, throughout the day, I I'm thinking about things I'm curious in, and I I'm interested in geopolitics, but then I'm also interested in things like confidence.
I'm also curious to find out more about public speaking.
So there's just lots of things that I'm curious about and I want to learn more about.
So I would definitely put myself in that, in that, in that category.
And your personality can also determine what kind of things spark your curiosity.
But sometimes some things just spark your curiosity and other things just don't.
It's really interesting, isn't it?
And I've heard people talk about this before, how there's just things that just call to you, right?
Maybe it's to find out more about something.
It's just like something clicks and you're like oh, it's like that feeling before we were talking about dopamine.
You're kind of like oh, that sounds interesting.
Like I'm curious to find out more about that.
And it's fascinating what things call to you and what things don't.
And I guess that's the wonderful thing, right?
Is many people are curious about different things.
If we were all curious about the same thing, that would be extremely boring and not very useful either.
Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it?
I remember when I was a kid, I had a friend who, who would take everything apart.
So maybe we would be playing with like the same remote controlled car or something like we'd both be interested in playing with the car and we'd play with the car.
But then after when we went home, he would take the car back home and then he would take it all apart and then rebuild it.
And he would just be so curious about how that car was made and how it functioned and how it operated.
And I didn't have like any curiosity like that.
I kind of wish I did, because you know he's really good with building things and fixing things now, as you can imagine, like from that young age, being so curious like that.
Whereas I, yeah, what didn't really interest me at all.
I wasn't curious about how, how that worked, but it is really interesting, right?
How, for some people, they can have this huge attraction to like learning about how things work and how they function, and other people, like myself, just not.
It's okay.
I just want to play with the toy.
I don't care how it works.
Yeah, right.
You're probably, it's the same with me.
Probably with that friend, you're like, oh God, you have to take it apart again.
Like, can we just play with the toy?
So it's interesting, isn't it?
It's like my partner, he's really into investments and the stock market and things like that.
He's super curious about it.
He always wants to learn more.
And it just doesn't spark my curiosity, really.
I wish it did.
But it just doesn't sort of, it doesn't call to me.
I don't want to spend my time investigating it and learning about it.
But that is absolutely his thing.
He finds it very frustrating that I'm not curious about it.
But I'm just not.
I don't know.
Maybe I'll have to try and do something to spark my curiosity.
But I think it's kind of something that either it does or it doesn't.
It's quite hard to force it.
But then again, I don't know.
It can be interesting if you look at it from a certain angle, but I think it's hard to force curiosity.
I think it's just something that calls to you or it doesn't.
Yeah, that is a great question.
And I'd love to hear what our listeners think about this guys as well, because it may be true that some people listening right now are not very interested in learning English and they're just doing it because they have to maybe get a high score on an exam or there have a trip upcoming or something and they need to speak English.
And I think like learning English is one of these things too.
If you're curious about it, if you're motivated to learn it.
It can be so fun and just an amazing challenge for your brain and for your life.
But if you don't have that spark, if it doesn't interest you, if you're not curious about it, then it can be a real slog.
And I know that I've tried so many different things in my life to try and pick up new hobbies or learn new skills.
And I ended up quitting them after some time.
And I think I just didn't have that spark, right?
That deep interest or that curiosity that motivated me to keep going.
So yeah guys, if you have any experiences like that, or if you are experiencing that right now, trying to study English with us, let us know over on our discord community, because I'd love to hear our listeners perspectives as well.
But Anna, I'm wondering if we could go back in time a little bit.
I gave a little glimpse into my childhood, but I'm wondering what you were like as a kid.
Were you a pretty curious kid?
I think I was somewhere around average.
I wasn't massively curious about any one thing.
I did like to try out new things, like playing instruments.
I was curious about the guitar, so I started playing that.
I... was curious about dance.
So I did ballet, but I'm not sure how much of that was me being curious or slightly forced to do extracurricular activities by my parents, sort of a forced interest.
But I don't know.
I think I was, but I think probably I became the most curious, probably around in my mid twenties.
That's really when I started to feel like I was more curious and different things.
And I think that's maybe just about maturing and finding what you like and being a little bit more comfortable in your own skin and following the things that you're interested in and curious about, not what other people are curious about or what you think you should be curious about, if that makes sense.
So I wouldn't say I was a particularly curious child.
I would say that came a little bit later.
What about you?
I would really have to ask my parents.
I think they would give a biased answer.
Obviously, they'd probably say, oh, you're such a curious child.
Of course you were.
I don't know.
I kind of feel like I was just average.
I do think that maybe I had a deeper curiosity in technology and computers compared to some of my peers.
And I was able to learn a lot about computers just naturally by spending time with them.
Yeah.
I never took a computer class.
I didn't have anyone teach me how to use a computer, but I ended up knowing a lot about them and learning all about them.
And I was like kind of the neighborhood tech kid.
If somebody had a problem with their computer they could ask me and I would help my friends and family like troubleshoot and fix their computers and stuff like this.
Maybe I had a bit more curiosity in that lane, that area, compared to I don't know, compared to my siblings, at least compared to some of my friends.
But I don't think I was super, super curious compared to, like my one childhood friends, like I said, who would take things apart and rebuild them.
And I think it goes back to also having your environments and your parents or where you grew up having an influence, because that friend's father was I'm not sure exactly what his job was
But I remember at his home, he had tons of tools, and he had a workshop.
So he's obviously somebody that knew about building or repairing things.
Whereas my dad wasn't so much into those kinds of things.
So I think that does have an impact on you as well, as like what your parents are interested in that maybe you will become interested in as well.
I think also as well, these types of kids that are always asking why, you know, why is that?
Or why does this happen?
Or why is this?
You know, those are sort of kids that are very curious.
And there are some people.
Maybe you were like that, if you're listening, as a kid, or maybe you had a friend like that, just always asking questions and wondering about things.
But yeah, I think I was kind of like you, Andrew, a little bit more in the middle.
So maybe if we move on and talk about adult curiosity and Could you share with us something that you're curious about as an adult,
Have you maintained that curiosity about technology and computers?
To an extent, I'm still interested in technology, Anna, but not as much as I was when I was younger.
However, as an adult and I'm curious if you'll agree with me because I think we have a similar relationship with curiosity
I see curiosity often almost as a curse rather than a blessing as an adult, because I think I have some things now.
My main interests.
I'm really interested in being an awesome English teacher and building the Q-Lips brand and business and language learning, learning Korean in my own life and my hobbies like running and playing chess, these kinds of things my main interests.
However, curiosity sometimes distracts me from these things.
So, instead of spending time working on these things that I'm already very interested in and already have a deep passion for, curiosity will tear me away from these things.
So, just like giving that example yesterday of the deep dive that i did on wikipedia to learn about the american presidents and their genealogies like i could have spent an hour studying korean, but i didn't.
I read wikipedia in english and yeah, it was cool, it was interesting and curiosity was the cause of that.
So it's almost like oh, come on curiosity.
Like if i wasn't a curious person, that i could funnel my time towards my passions and the things that I'm really, really interested in improving in in my life.
So to an extent, I think curiosity can, it's kind of a pain in the neck sometimes.
I don't know.
What do you think?
I think that's a really good point.
And it can be a distraction, I think, right?
Because you're like, oh, let me check that out.
And, like you said, it's like did you really need to sort of, in my case, maybe do a deep dive into whatever the latest beauty products or find out about something that's totally irrelevant to what I need to be doing?
So I think you're probably touching on there that healthy versus unhealthy curiosity, which is...
In a way, you can have a curiosity for learning, which is normally positive versus things like gossip or distraction.
There's all this curiosity on social media, for example, about celebrities and famous people.
Like, why are we so curious to learn about these people's lives?
It makes absolutely no impact on us whatsoever.
So yeah, I totally agree.
It's a good point that curiosity especially, I think, diverse curiosity as well maybe not always, but can be distracting too from what we really need to do.
So I guess that's hard, actually, because I'm thinking about it now in my own life.
And yeah, it can distract me sometimes, curiosity to find out about something that really doesn't benefit me or really isn't going to help me go towards my main goals, right.
So definitely, I think it can be distracting.
I'll share a positive story as well.
Now, I don't want to turn this episode too dark and depressing.
No, sure.
Of course not.
So one thing that I like doing and maybe Anna, you do this as well, because you live in Madrid, which I'm sure is a city with lots of cool back alleys and interesting places to explore
One thing that I like doing here in Seoul sometimes is just taking a different route than I usually do.
So instead of just walking the same streets day in and day out as I go about my life in the city.
Instead, sometimes I'll take a detour or take the longer way.
And often I can find maybe a new cafe or a new restaurant that I want to try out.
Or sometimes you even come across like an interesting historical site or temple or something like there are so many awesome hidden places in Seoul.
It's one of the things that I love about living here.
And I often wouldn't know about these unless I explored, unless I had a sense of curiosity.
So if I'm not in a rush and I'm just going about through the city, walking around or riding my bicycle, then often I'll take a different way and take a street that I have never taken before.
And that's resulted in some really great discoveries.
So I think that sense of curiosity is really great, as well as just being willing to explore, putting yourself into a new place and then just see what happens, because sometimes you're surprised and it can be just so fun to do that.
Yeah, you're right.
It's just being curious about something else.
Or, for example, you're when you're talking about walking in the street.
It's like just looking up sometimes, because sometimes we always look forward when we're walking and just to look up and be curious about the different buildings that are there, the different types of architecture, and My partner's actually always really curious about new places.
So he always wants to wander around and like oh, there's a new coffee shop and let's go and have a look.
And so it can be really fun and it can lead you to things.
Curiosity, as well as what we were talking about before.
It can be distracting, but it can also lead you to really interesting, amazing things that can then go on to be a really big interest.
So I think curiosity is, of course, the first step.
It's like, huh, I'm curious about that.
And then see where it goes from there, which is really fun and exciting.
Absolutely.
And I would encourage everybody to look up.
I think that's a great point.
I like doing that here as well.
Especially if you live in a big city with taller buildings.
You can look up and see like oh, there's a business up there that I didn't know existed.
Like you can find a lot on the upper floors of tall buildings.
So that's a great point.
And I wanted to move into some expressions and vocabulary, because we have a lot of interesting vocabulary that we can use when talking about curiosity.
And I think maybe some of these words and phrases our listeners are not so familiar with.
So let's spend some time explaining them.
And okay, first, I wanted to share some adjectives that we use with curiosity.
And so just going to list them here quickly guys, and we can sort of just briefly talk about the definitions.
But anna, when we're talking about having a really large amount of curiosity, we can use the words insatiable, insatiable curiosity.
You could say he or she has an insatiable curiosity, or another adjective that we use sometimes is endless, endless curiosity.
So those are two great adjectives that we can use to describe a large quantity of curiosity.
Also we have this phrase childlike curiosity.
You know, like a really innocent curiosity, just like a kid is curious, then yeah, if an adult is acting that way, you could say a childlike curiosity.
And then we have two opposite adjectives. adjectives, healthy and morbid.
And morbid is connected with death and darkness and things that are just not too healthy generally.
So if you have a healthy curiosity, it means that you have an appropriate amount of curiosity.
You're not being too curious or you're not ignoring something.
And then on the other hand, morbid curiosity, this is like if you're really interested in maybe death or gruesome things or things that we wouldn't really usually consider too healthy morbid curiosity okay so those are all like pretty common adjectives i'd say they're all pretty commonly used to describe curiosity and then we have some verbs and phrases we could say spark curiosity this means like your curiosity is started right it's sparked satisfy curiosity This is like when you have a question and then you find an answer.
You can say, you satisfied your curiosity or your curiosity was satisfied.
And then, Anna, we have this expression, my curiosity got the better of me.
What does that mean if your curiosity got the better of you?
Maybe it could be in the sense of you were too curious about something and it led to a negative outcome, for example.
Maybe you are somebody who's always curious about things and maybe you took it too far.
Or maybe you started to cross the line from being curious to being nosy, perhaps about somebody, and maybe intruding their personal boundaries a little bit.
So that's my take on it.
Would you say that's more or less right?
Yeah.
Yeah, I feel like people say this like I'm thinking of like a boyfriend girlfriend relationship.
And maybe I don't know, the girlfriend goes to the bathroom or something and she leaves her phone on the table with the boyfriend and the boyfriend.
He just can't resist.
He has to open the phone and take a look and see what she's been doing.
Snoop, right?
Spy.
Maybe in this situation, he knows it's bad.
He knows that he shouldn't be doing this, but he's so curious.
His curiosity got the better of him.
So he acted in a way that was not really good just because he was so curious.
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a good, that's a really good example.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Usually we use this expression when you do a bad thing, right?
It's like, I know I shouldn't do it, but I did it anyways.
Right.
A negative outcome.
OK, a couple more here, guys, for you.
The next one is curiosity killed the cat.
This is more of a proverb.
Curiosity killed the cat.
What does this mean?
And a curiosity killed the cat.
It's one of those things that people would say is like a one line sentence.
So imagine that you do something, you tell them a situation like exactly the example you gave before, where you look at somebody's phone and when you know that you shouldn't, and they would say well, curiosity killed the cat.
Which just means that being too curious can sometimes cause trouble.
If you're poking your nose in things or you're curious about things that maybe you shouldn't be, it can sometimes actually cause more trouble than it's worth.
So that's what it means by that.
No idea about the cat.
Maybe you could say because cats are curious, they're always sort of snooping around and seeing what's going on.
They're quite curious little animals.
So curiosity killed the cat just means being too curious can sometimes not be a good thing and it can have a bad outcome.
Not always positive.
I'm thinking of, like the image in my head that I always think of, is a cat.
That's like playing with a lamp.
Cord right.
The cord is plugged into the wall and the cat is just batting the cord back and forth and then eventually electrocutes itself, because it's too curious playing with the electric cord.
Right, quite literally curiosity killed the cat in that case.
And I think that's kind of the imagery behind it.
So if you're too curious too, you could end up like the cat, right?
Sometimes being too curious is not a good thing.
Finally, the last expression before we wrap up here I wanted to share with everyone is another idiom, which is curiosity can't see the forest for the trees.
And this one is not directly related to curiosity, but I think it does apply sometimes to curiosity or the result of being curious, because this expression means that you focus too much in on the details and you lose sight of the big picture, the overall situation.
And I think this sometimes can be a side effect of being curious, especially when it comes to learning English.
I know from time to time I get questions from QLips listeners and they'll ask me like the specific details of some expression or like, why do we use this preposition and not this other preposition?
And sometimes I do this.
I'm guilty of this too with my Korean learning.
I'll hyper focus on an expression and like why is it this way?
And I want to know the origins of the words and the history of the words and the expressions.
And I spend so much time doing a deep dive on just one expression that I actually kind of waste time and It would be better served just generally learning the language instead of just going into one expression in so much detail.
So this is an idiom that we can use in this situation, when you just hyper focus on one detail, that you kind of lose sight of the bigger picture or the bigger goal.
You can't see the forest for the trees.
So yeah, another one that we could use when we're talking about curiosity or one of the negative side effects of curiosity.
And interestingly as well, I would say that expression is can't see the wood from the trees.
Oh, okay.
So it's a little bit different for me.
So exactly the same meaning, nothing different.
But instead of saying forest, we say wood.
And I think we say wood from the trees.
Can't see the wood from the trees.
I'm doubting myself now, but it's definitely wood, not forest for me in British English.
Okay.
So the wood... or the forest, depending on which variety of English you would like to speak.
But I think English speakers all over the place.
Anna, if you said wood instead of forest, then I would understand to your meaning.
Absolutely.
Definitely.
Good.
All right, well, everyone, thank you for listening all the way to the end of this episode.
I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
And you're doing a great job with your English learning.
This is what you need to do to build your fluency guys, is you need to spend time with the language day in, day out, get it into your head and also be active with your English.
And we have some great ways you to be active with your english.
You can head on over to our discord community and we'll be having a discussion about this episode over there, so please join and share your thoughts and comments with us.
It's free for everyone to join and the link will be in the description for this episode, but we also have some speaking classes as well.
We'll have three speaking classes specifically about this episode, but it's only available for QLips members.
So if you are a QLips member, you will be invited to join.
You can see the schedule on our website QLipscom, and we'll put the link in the description as well, so you can easily find that.
And if you would like to sign up and become a QLips member so you can join us for the speaking classes, then you can also do that on QLipscom.
All right.
So guys, please take care and we'll be back soon with another brand new episode.
Until then, goodbye.
See you soon.
Bye.
