This is an All Ears English bonus episode, idioms for a graceful conversation exit in English.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American host, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
In this episode, hear about the special promo for our English small talk course.
That is only available for the next 48 hours.
Plus learn how to exit a party in a polite and graceful way in English.
Do you ever feel like your English is good but not quite where you want it to be?
Maybe you can have conversations, but you still hesitate when expressing complex ideas.
Maybe you know what you want to say. but you can't always say it naturally.
If that sounds familiar, our B2 English fluency course was designed for you.
You'll learn how to speak more naturally, express yourself with confidence and finally stop feeling stuck at the intermediate level.
This week, you can save $50 on our basic plan or save $100 on our personal coach plan.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash B2.
That's allearsenglish.com slash letter B number two.
Hey, Aubrey, how's it going today?
Hi, Lindsay.
I'm great.
How are you?
Oh, my gosh.
I am so excited to be here today to talk about cocktail parties and just parties in general, right?
Because this is the middle or the beginning of the holiday season, where everyone's going to be social in the month of December.
It's probably the most social month in a way.
Oh, for sure.
I love holiday parties.
Most companies do a holiday party.
Lots of religious organizations.
If you volunteer, you might end up going to many different holiday parties.
And they're usually always so fun.
It's just fun because everyone's in a good mood, good spirits.
Absolutely.
And if you work in a corporation, you probably have your company party.
Or if your partner does, you're probably going with your partner to that company party.
So inevitably all of our listeners.
If they're living in the US, they are probably going to go to some kind of social event in England.
English, right?
And I know a lot of our listeners really want to get better when it comes to social small talk.
And one piece of it is saying goodbye, right?
Leaving and kind of leaving the party.
And, you know, what are your thoughts on this, Aubrey?
Well, it's interesting because it's very cultural.
You know, I think it's different in every culture, like who you should say goodbye to, or if you can just leave without saying goodbye.
So there's that.
There's the cultural aspect.
And it depends on the party.
It depends on how well you know them or who invited you.
There are so many factors that go into who you should say goodbye to and how.
And not only that.
There's a lot of native vocabulary that we use, phrases and idioms we use when saying goodbye, that you need to understand when someone else says to you and you need to be able to use.
So this is really a huge topic.
So guys, we're here in this bonus episode to give you a little hints, little pieces of this today, to get you started.
And the way to continue is to take advantage of our special holiday promo that's going on right now.
Guys, we are offering access to our cocktail party prep course.
And this is not just preparation for your cocktail party.
It's preparation for any party at really at any time of the year, but especially right now.
Right.
Exactly.
And it's so fun because it's all four of us on video, which we haven't done before in a course.
It's so fun and engaging.
Then you learn vocabulary words and phrases to use at parties.
And we have quizzes for you and so much more.
It's such a fun course.
I can't wait for you guys to check it out.
Exactly, guys.
But this promo does end very, very soon.
It only lasts for 48 hours.
So we're going to let you know right now where to go to join.
And then we want you to get in and get started.
Open those videos and start studying today.
So go to allearsenglish.com slash smalltalk.
And you're going to enter a promo code this time, a coupon code.
So Aubrey, what is the coupon code that is going to get them 20% off the normal price?
Yes, it's Smalltalk, all one word.
That should be easy to remember because it's the link you're going to get the course.
But yeah, put that promo code in, Smalltalk, in order to get 20% off.
Yeah, so good.
So again, I'm going to spell it out.
So go to allearsenglishcom, slash S-M-A-L-L-T-A-L-K and type in that same word small talk into the promo code.
The coupon code blank, right on the checkout page.
Type in S-M-A-L-L-T-A-L-K.
So good.
And the offer ends at the end of tomorrow night, Wednesday night, midnight Eastern time.
So let's get into it, Aubrey.
I'm excited to talk about this today.
Yeah.
So let's first talk about these cultural things, you know, party protocol or ethics.
Okay.
So it's interesting because I often go to parties at a neighbor's home that are actually a pretty big event.
She decorates and she goes all out for the food.
But because I know her so well and I live so close, when I go to leave I don't say goodbye to anyone.
I don't say goodbye to her.
I just bounce.
I just bail.
Yeah.
You do.
Okay.
And sometimes she'll text the next day like, when did you even leave?
I didn't see you leave.
But she's got lots of friends there.
I don't want to interrupt to say, you know, I'm leaving now.
And I'm not the only one.
A lot of people just kind of wander off when you're ready to go.
But I feel like that's not the norm.
I think most parties, whoever's hosting, it's appropriate and kind to thank them for inviting you.
Thank them for the lovely party before you leave, wouldn't you say?
Yeah, I would say, if you're gonna say goodbye to anyone, definitely say goodbye to the host or the hostess or the couple that's hosting or whoever it is because yeah, they go through a lot of effort.
And it's nice for them to just see you at the end and just see you off that kind of thing.
Yeah, yeah.
And I also think sometimes you'll go to a party and you'll meet someone new or you'll further deepen a connection with someone.
And I think it's also a really great gesture to say goodbye to that person and potentially suggest making plans.
Otherwise, you might never see them again if you don't exchange numbers. and plan something.
So the vocabulary we're going to share is not only for saying goodbye, but also this to make plans with someone.
I love that idea.
And especially for you guys, for our listeners, if you guys are living in an English-speaking country, you do want to use every opportunity to bridge to a kind of a friendship or more of a connection, right?
You meet someone, have a little five minutes of small talk, but really you want to make plans to have coffee with them next week right, Aubrey?
Yes, exactly.
Okay, so let's get into this vocabulary.
We're going to share three idioms with the whole sentence you can use them in to use at the end of a party when you're leaving.
So what's our first one, Lindsay?
All right.
So here it is.
So I'm beat.
I'm going to head home.
So I think this might be new for our listeners, right?
To be beat.
How do we spell that?
What is the word that we're talking about here?
Yeah, it's B-E-A-T, like you beat an egg.
And yeah, it just means you're tired.
You've been there long enough.
You feel exhausted.
You're ready to go to sleep.
You can say, I'm beat.
And this is really where we hear it the most, I think.
When we've been at a party we've been having a great time tired, ready to go home.
We'll say I'm beat.
I'm going to head home.
Yeah, for sure.
And why do we say head home instead of go home?
Yeah, it's just kind of a more informal phrase.
Instead of saying I'm going to go home, which would sound kind of strange and formal, we say I'm going to head home.
I'm going to go in that direction.
Yeah.
I know.
I say head home all the time instead of go home.
It's interesting because, of course, our students, our listeners probably learned go home in their textbook.
But once you are in an English speaking country and you talk to native speakers, you realize we don't use that so much.
How would that sound, Aubrey, if we did say go home?
I mean, really kind of formal and strange.
Yeah.
If you're speaking to a friend, it's strange.
It's strange.
Yeah.
But it's also interesting to know what head means, because I think when people give directions they also say this a lot too.
They'll say head right at the stop sign or head left on Miller Street.
And if you don't realize what they mean, that would be very confusing.
It means the same thing as go, go right, go left.
Right.
You're more likely to hear it than go.
So that's really useful.
This is really good.
Guys, write this down.
This is fantastic.
And again, in the course that's open now in the special offer, you get so much more.
This is just a tiny piece of what you get in the course.
So what's the next one, Aubrey?
Yes, to say I'm off, the idiom to be off.
You can say, well, I'm off, guys.
See you later.
I like this one because it's straightforward.
Kind of makes me think of someone getting on a motorcycle.
I don't know why.
Putting the helmet on.
I don't know why.
I just got going away on the motorcycle.
But anyway, so yeah, this one is straightforward.
You don't need to explain anything.
You're just going.
You're leaving.
But it's a nice way to see it.
It is very idiomatic, right?
If someone doesn't understand that idiom, that would sound so strange.
I'm off.
You're off what?
What are you talking about?
I don't even understand.
It's just a way of saying, I'm going to leave now.
I'm off.
Yeah, we really have to know these.
Otherwise we think someone's saying a completely different thing and it can be very confusing when they walk out the door.
Exactly.
Okay, so this third one is great.
This is the one we want you to use when you have met someone new or deep into connection and it's time to you know.
Make plans to meet up with them soon.
Yeah.
Yeah, perfect.
So you can say if you're up for it, maybe we can check out the play next week, right?
The play coming on Broadway next week, for example, right?
Yeah, and this would be especially good if you were chatting about something during the program.
You know the party.
If you were talking about a play you both want to see.
Or a band you'd want to go to a concert or a movie, then you can say if you're up for it.
Maybe we can check out that new movie this week.
And the idiom here is to be up for something, which means if you're interested, if you're willing, but a lot more native, natural way to say that if you're up for it.
Wow.
They're so native, these three phrases.
And again, this is perfect guys, because if you're just learning textbook English, you're going to walk into that party, you're going to hear these phrases and you're going to be quite confused.
So we're here today to make sure you're not confused.
And that would be a good strategy, by the way, Aubrey.
If you guys are looking to make friends with the people, you're talking to bring up the play that just came on Broadway, for example, if you live in New York.
Or bring up a new movie that's about to go live in the theaters.
And that with the plan that maybe, maybe you might decide if things go well to invite that person.
Okay.
So it's about the strategy.
We have a little strategy here to make friends, right?
For sure.
You need those strategies to get you out of your comfort zone, push you a little bit.
Yeah.
All right, Lindsay, let's do a role play.
Okay.
Here we go.
All right.
This is such a fun party.
I've loved catching up with everyone.
Same.
Fun to see you again.
Well, I'm beat.
I think I'll head home.
Sounds good.
I'll probably be off soon, too.
If you're up for it, maybe we can check out that new park you were telling me about.
I'd love that.
There are great walking and biking paths around it.
Oh, let's do it.
I'll text you next week and we can figure out a good time.
Perfect.
Drive safe.
Very common conversation, right?
Super common.
Totally.
But so full of idioms and phrasal verbs.
To say I've loved catching up with everyone is a great phrasal verb, instead of saying I've loved talking with everyone, right.
We use phrasal verbs that's so much more native.
So much more native.
And then I said, well, I'm beat.
And that's one of the ones that we learned, right, for our vocabulary.
I think I'll head home.
Right.
Very common.
Yep.
Just to say you're tired, ready to go, ready to go to sleep.
And then I said, I'll probably be off soon, too, meaning I'm probably going to leave soon, too.
Yeah, it's interesting.
We use the to be off, right?
I'll probably be off soon too.
So good.
And then I said, if you're up for it right, if you're open to it, if you're interested, maybe we can check out that new park you were telling me about.
Yes, such great native idioms.
And I'm excited that now you guys know how to use these so you'll be ready at your next holiday party.
You'll know who to say goodbye to and these amazing idioms to do it in a very native, natural way.
Yeah, because it really does.
I think I'm not sure if Michelle and I were talking about this on a different episode.
It's the concept of the last thing that happens is what we remember.
You know what I mean?
So it does matter what the last thing is that happens between you and someone else, right?
Exactly.
You don't want to leave a bad taste in someone's mouth by having an awkward conversation right before you leave.
That is what they will remember.
That's right, exactly.
So guys, to make sure, this is just one part, right?
In our course we go through how to start conversations, how to continue the conversation and how to end the conversation in full.
We teach you multiple vocabulary words and phrases.
You get to see all four of us on video learning together.
It is a great way to get ready for these cocktail parties.
So Aubrey, where can they go right now?
Because the offer is now available.
Go to allairsenglish.com slash smalltalk.
And don't forget to use that promo code.
Small Talk, S-M-A-L-L-T-A-L-K to get 20% off, but only for the next 24 hours.
48 hours.
Yep.
Total of 48 hours, depending on when you listen to this, of course.
But yeah, the offer ends Wednesday at midnight New York time.
Okay, guys.
So go to it, get it.
And the only thing you have to remember is the word Small Talk.
So good.
All right, Aubrey, thanks for coming on the show today.
I'm excited for this.
Yes.
Awesome.
I'll see you later.
All right.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to all ears English.
Would you like to know your English level?
Take our two minute quiz.
Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.
And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.