Welcome to Real Easy English, the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn.
I'm Beth... And I'm Neil.
If you want to read along with this podcast, you can find a full transcript on our website bbclearningenglish .com How are you today, Neil?
I'm very well, thank you Beth.
How about you? I'm very good.
So what topic are we talking about in this episode?
OK. Well, today's episode is all about habits and routines.
Now, we talked about our favourite foods a few weeks ago, but today we'll talk about our meal times and routines for eating.
Mmm. Sounds good. What do we mean by a routine, Beth?
Is it different to a habit?
Well, they are similar but a habit is something we do regularly.
So, for example, I eat an apple and a banana most days.
Oh, very healthy! Yeah.
A routine, though, is slightly different.
It's usually more about the time that we do something and the way we do something.
So… I have my breakfast at 6am every day.
OK. You said you have your breakfast at 6am every day.
What do you usually have to eat?
Well, usually… I have something simple – a bowl of cereal, some toast with marmalade.
How about you Beth?
I usually have porridge.
And what about lunch?
What time do you have lunch usually?
I normally have lunch at about 1 o 'clock.
What about you? Yeah, the same.
I don't like it at 12, that's too early, but by 2 I'm getting a little bit hungry and angry at the same time.
There's a word for that, Neil, so if you are hungry and angry we can combine them and say hangry.
Yeah, so it's important to have regular mealtimes so you don't get hangry.
That's true. Now you've just reminded me of another word which is brunch. Now, that's a combination of the words breakfast and lunch. Do you ever have brunch, Neil?
I love brunch, especially at weekends.
Beth Yeah. When I was at university, I used to have brunch pretty much every day.
So I would meet up with my friends and we would go to a cafe and we would have brunch. Neil Beth, you said that you used to have brunch at university – used to.
What's that mean? Well, used to is used to talk about a habit in the past. So, something you did regularly in the past and don't do now.
Now, another way of talking about past habits is to use would.
So, if you remember, I said I would message my friends and we would have brunch. So, used to and would are both used to talk about past habits.
Do you ever miss a meal?
No. I think when I was at school many years ago, I used to miss breakfast because I wanted to stay in bed.
What about you? I don't like to miss meals because like I said, I get hangry.
But I guess I also used to miss breakfast when I was a teenager and I needed to sleep for a huge amount of time every night and get up really late.
Yeah, I think it's quite normal and quite interesting how your habits change as you get older, for example, missing meals and that sort of thing.
Right. Let's recap the vocabulary we learned during the conversation.
We learnt routine – the time and way we usually do something.
We heard used to, which we used to talk about a habit in the past and would which we can also use to talk about past habits.
And my favourite, brunch, which is eating breakfast and lunch at the same time.
We also heard a really new word in English which is a combination of two words, hungry and angry, it's hangry.
Thanks for joining us on Real Easy English.
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See you then. Bye. Bye.
