Hey, hello and welcome to the Learn Every Day English podcast your roadway to English proficiency You've come to the right place to improve your listening comprehension skills and mastery of the English language My name is Gary and I'll be your host today I'm a native English speaker born and raised
in the United States or the us of a as we say sometimes I'm a retired civil engineer living in a small, Texas town about one hour north of Houston I'm also a language learner like you so I know what it is like to learn a new and a different language I'm studying Spanish.
So I have the same difficulties as you do Hey, so now let's jump right in to today's episode Well, howdy y 'all.
Hello listeners and welcome back to the learn everyday English podcast Hope you've been enjoying these lessons and they've been helping you out Glad to have you with me today.
And again, my name is Gary So in this episode, we're going to be talking about something else.
That's a little bit different talking about the hobbies and past times That people have been doing During this coronavirus outbreak or during the pandemic It has changed people's lives tremendously in what they do and what they don't do what they can do and What they can't do.
But before we get into that, I just want to let you know remind you you can follow me at my webpage Just go to Www .learneverydayenglish .com There you can find links to all the podcasts you can find our podcasts on the Common podcast applications like Spotify Apple podcasts Google podcasts At the web
page you can find a link to the learn everyday English YouTube channel where you can find interesting and engaging videos you can watch and listen to Help practice your listening comprehension skills and learn a few things about life here in the US and also at the web page, there's a Specific page called
the podcast resources page And there you can download the program notes for each episode So you don't have to write everything down as I'm talking you can download that and print it out and Follow along with me as I go through the lesson.
That'll make things a lot easier for you Hey, so without further ado, let's jump right in to today's episode Well, hello We're gonna jump in right into today's episode talking about the most popular hobbies and past times that people have been doing during the corona virus outbreak and I just want to
say I need to give some credit from where I found this I found this online at a website called www .theladders .com So I need to give them credit and want to give them credit and give them a shout out Says you know life has changed Dramatically we could say life has changed and it's become very different
for people everyone around the world I think nobody no country was spared from the corona virus outbreak or from the COVID outbreak outbreak or the COVID pandemic However, you want to say it it has truly changed people's lives, you know with the Quarantines and you couldn't go out of your house for certain periods
of time And your time was limited so people were spending and are still are Possibly spending a lot of time at home or in the house So they had to find things to do to keep themselves occupied Maybe to keep themselves from going we saying this stir crazy Just going crazy.
Just being inside the house sitting around all the time So I want to go over a survey I guess that lists the most popular hobbies and pastimes That people are doing and have done during the the pandemic but first I want to go over benefits of having a hobby hobby and You might ask what is a hobby?
We say a hobby or a pastime and this is something you do in your free time when you're not working Usually something that you have an interest in Something that you enjoy doing and something that is fun to do can be fun and relaxing and it is not a job It is something that you do for enjoyment.
So here are some benefits of having hobbies and I hope all of you are most of you have hobbies and Some people have many hobbies and I'll start first with myself.
I do have a lot of hobbies Some of my hobbies are Doing this podcast.
I also have the learn everyday English YouTube channel.
I Study Spanish. I take lessons Spanish lessons.
I talk with people on Whatsapp and Skype and kind of conversation interchange of language Conversation where we help each other out learning the language that we're interested in I also like to take photographs.
I'm a photographer.
I volunteer To help deliver meals to elderly people Here in my town.
I volunteer at a museum Hoping out there.
So I have a lot of pastimes So here are some of the benefits that you can derive from having hobbies or pastimes It helps you structure your time and make you more efficient It can develop and nurture Social connections through hobbies or you can meet a lot of people different people with common interests
That's always fun and a cool thing to do It can make you more interesting and add layers to your self identity of who who you are who you think you are Can help you to manage and alleviate stress and for me This is one of the main things that a hobby does it helps relieve stress Or a great form of stress
relief. We can say in English It can teach you new skills that can help you with your career possibly So say if you're learning a foreign language as those of you that are listening are learning English and this can help you get a better job or start a different career and From a lot of people I've
talked to a lot of people do study English so that they can get a better job But it can also be a hobby or a pastime that can help you get a better job Having a hobby can also help you to be more innovative That means you can think of new and different things and way to do things It can help with recovery
from tough days if you're having difficult times in life and situations Maybe health problems family issues marital marital problems hobbies can really make those times a lot easier and It can assist with recovery from mental health issues if they are creative So there are a lot of benefits to having
hobbies and pastimes So here a ranking and there are see 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 Hobbies and pastimes that are ranked by a percentage from the highest to the lowest I'm just going to go down the list according to this survey The thing the hobby or pastime that most people did or people did
more often or most often was during the pandemic was to watch TV shows and movies and I think that makes sense because people were we say closed off or Inside their house or their apartments.
They couldn't go out So what can you do while you're sitting inside your house is watch TV or movies?
So in English, we have an expression and say that people binge watch and to binge watches You just spend a lot of time all in one session watching a lot of TV.
You may watch a Lot of different episodes of a series that you like or just watch TV for five six hours at a time That's called binge watching and people watch TV shows or movies on streaming services like Netflix or Hulu and Also, I like to watch Videos and on YouTube because I like to learn about different
things. So I agree With number one watching TV shows and movies Was ranked number one at 70 percent.
So that's very high the second most popular hobby or pastime ranked at 50 percent was reading and that makes sense too because people again Were stuck inside their homes or stuck inside their apartments Couldn't go anywhere and it's a good time to take advantage and read a good book you can do this with a say
a hardcover book or use e -readers like your Kindle or your tablet or even your cell phone and I'm I do this as well during the pandemic.
I have a Kindle and I like to read books on my Kindle because If you get by too many hardcover books or paper books paperback books they end up taking up a lot of space and I can Hold or have a lot of books on my Kindle and it doesn't take up much space but I must say there are sometimes I do like to
buy a physical book and it's sometimes it's easier to Read and to go back and review certain things having a real book in your hands The third most popular hobby or pastime was working out which means to exercise We say to work out or to exercise at home because again, you're stuck inside the house
The gyms a lot of the gyms were closed.
You couldn't go to the gymnasiums or the health spas So you had to if you wanted to stay in shape and to work out you had to find a way to do that at home And this was ranked at 35 percent so you can do work work out at home You might have an exercise bike.
You can lift weights There are apps you can use that can track your performance and improvement And you can also watch YouTube videos about working out or workouts that you can do the number for the fourth item or for hobbies and pastimes is arts and crafts and that was ranked at 33 percent and this can be
crafts or new types of art or We say crafty things that you can do with your time such as maybe painting sewing it could even be learning a Language, although that's actually listed in a different category It can also be something like learning to Photography, so it's more of the artsy type of things
that you can do and you can find a lot of Tutorials and how to do these things say on YouTube The next area of hobbies and pastimes has to do with board games These are games you can play with people in your house usually two or more people There's a very common game called monopoly here in the US and I
think it's probably been distributed around the world There's checkers and chess.
I know which are international games So these are all called what we call board games because you play them on top of a board That's usually placed on top of a table The next most popular hobby or pastime we is listed or just called DIY which stands for do it yourself DIY DIY or do it yourself projects
or projects that you do at home so it can either be maybe you need to repaint a room because the Colors are faded or you want to change the look of the room the color of the room so you can repaint the room You might want to redecorate Get new furniture or new pictures on the wall or just even do renovation maybe
convert a Room into a bedroom or redo your kitchen remodel your kitchen.
So these are called DIY projects or do it yourself projects The next most popular hobby or pastime at 28 % is yoga.
So apparently a lot of people were interested in learning to do yoga and yoga is a good form of exercise and also good form of stress relief and possibly yoga became Even more popular than what it already is because people were stuck inside their homes and apartments Maybe they were getting depressed
and frustrated and think yoga is a good way to We say chill out good way to relax and to relieve stress The next most popular hobby or pastime is baking Baking this might be baking a bread baking cookies pies and cakes And I think we can also we can say in English lump cooking Into this category as
well or to put cooking Into this category so people had again had a lot of time on their hands as we say in English a lot of time to burn So they could spend learning to cook or if you already know how to cook Learn to cook new and different things or learn Specifically baking which is cooking things
in an oven the next most popular hobby or pastime is Gardening gardening at 19 % and gardening is just working outside in your front yard or backyard Maybe planting flower beds or flowers and flower beds, or maybe you want to have a vegetable garden and grow some of your own vegetables or produce or fruit
and I know working in the Yard or garden is very good exercise and very good stress relief So that gardening was a very popular hobby and pastime during the pandemic The next hobby or pastime has to do with video games video games or we can say maybe gaming And a lot of people play video games online.
They can play with each other I know I have some relatives that are very much into playing video games online and again, this makes sense You have your computer you got your internet internet connection.
You're stuck inside Hey, what better way maybe to spend some of your time maybe not all of your time, but some of your time Playing some video games.
You can interact with friends and even family members the next hobby or pastime that people found very beneficial and did a lot of at 14 % is Meditation meditation and again, I think this may be due to the fact that people were stressed out Frustrated they wanted to get out of the house and they couldn't
so meditation is a good way to relieve stress to focus and center yourself and there are different Guess forms and a lot of different types of meditation and whatever find whatever form of meditation It helps you out and that you like and maybe give that a try The next area of hobbies and pastimes that were very
popular during the pandemic at 12 % were audiobooks and Podcasts and I can agree with this personally as I love to listen to podcasts especially podcasts about learning Spanish I like to listen to that in my car as I'm driving to and from the store or I have an appointment somewhere Listen to them while
I'm working out say in the yard or I'm taking a walk around The neighborhood which is form of I guess say the working out or physical activity And a lot of people just like to listen to books in an audio format rather than having to read the book So apparently audiobooks and podcasts were very popular
during the pandemic the next most popular hobby or pastime at 10 % is Writing writing so a lot of people like to write You have ideas coming into your head.
You want to write them down in a notebook of some sort There's also something called journaling where you can kind of track what you do Every day or maybe about a specific topic or some people keep a diary Maybe their thoughts what they think about during the day and they can read that back at a later
date The next area or hobby or pastime that was very popular during the pandemic At 6 % was learning a new language and maybe some of you listening to this podcast Just started trying to learn a new language during the pandemic because you said hey I got a lot of free time on my hands.
I'm stuck at home I've always wanted to learn English but never got around to doing it.
That's an expression You never found the time or made the time or perhaps you never had the time But now that you do have the time you want to take advantage of that And I've heard from a lot of people That a lot of people started trying to learn a new language during the pandemic and this was a good
thing for language teachers because During the pain pandemic with the technology that we have with computers and especially Skype and whatsapp and zoom You can keep having your online Spanish classes or lessons or Spanish Interchanges with other people and you can do that online in the comfort of your
home or apartment And finally the last item on the list pertaining to hobbies and pastimes that were very popular During the pandemic is learning an instrument or learning a musical instrument And I've heard a lot of people began trying to do this I went to a music store as I Play musical instruments
and I talked to the owner there and he said during the pandemic he was surprised But business was good.
He never business never decreased for him because he said a lot of people started coming in They had time on their hands and they decided it was time or a perfect time to try to learn to play a new instrument Especially like a guitar maybe piano ukulele violin Whatever the case may be so This is a list
of hobbies and pastimes that were very popular and are still very popular.
I would imagine during the pandemic because We are still going through the pandemic the pandemic is not over and to give you some brief information here in the United States a large percentage of the population has received the vaccine for the coronavirus So things are starting to get back to normal,
but not totally. I know there other countries things are Taking a little bit longer, but I hope wherever you are at Things are moving along and your people are starting to get vaccinated And hopefully we can get out of this pandemic that we're in as soon as possible and life can get back to normal Well,
I hope you enjoyed that episode of the learn everyday English podcast about hobbies and pastimes That were very popular and common during this coronavirus outbreak or pandemic.
Hey, let me know what you think do you?
Take up some of these hobbies or pastimes or did you start some of these hobbies or pastimes during the pandemic?
Did you learn something new?
Did you start learning English during the pandemic?
I'd love to hear from you.
So go to the learn everyday English home page Www dot learn everyday English comm at the bottom of the home page.
There's a contact form Hey, just send me a message and let me know.
Hey, what did you do during the coronavirus outbreak?
I'd love to hear your thoughts and get your thoughts on that again Let me know if you have any suggestions for future Podcasts topics you'd like me to talk about and I think that's it for now.
We'll be bringing you more Podcasts in the future on a lot of different topics try to make it interesting for you So wherever you're at in what part of the world I think we're over 80 people from 80 countries are listening to the podcast now So I'm very excited about that getting a lot of downloads
Hey pass this information on about the podcast to friends and family members who you think can benefit Be sure to check out our learn everyday English YouTube channel.
Just watch those videos and also practice your listening comprehension skills So I think that's enough for now enough yacking.
We say in English or enough talking Jaw jacking is another way.
We say that at idiom or expression or Jabbering on and on as I could say as well.
I'm gonna stop just say thanks for listening and we'll talk to you later Okay.
Goodbye
