This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2602.
This was just an episode, and now it's a goldmine.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.
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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.
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A huge part of connection is showing how the importance of something in your life has evolved over time.
Learn this key native English skill today for connection moments.
You can be technically correct in English and still not sound natural.
Maybe your sentences are grammatically right, but something feels stiff, a little robotic.
Not quite how a native speaker would say it.
That's nuance.
Fluency lives in collocations, phrasal verbs, and word choice, not just grammar rules.
If you keep using the same safe phrases, it may be time to stretch.
Find out your level and what vocabulary skills you're missing in our free two minute quiz.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score.
That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E.
Hello, Aubrey.
How are you today?
How's it going?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you?
Feeling good today.
Feeling good.
Aubrey, when did you move into your current job?
About 11 years ago, we moved into this house.
It's been a while.
And so for you, how long did it take until your house felt like a home?
Ooh, that's a great question.
Pretty quickly.
Once we had our stuff in here and our kids in here, I would say it felt like a home pretty quickly.
But interestingly, when we moved in, there was tile everywhere.
These big kind of tan tiles that were very slick.
If there was any water on the floor, the kids would come in from the pool and just slip and fall.
And so we replaced that as quickly as we could.
So that maybe had something to do with it.
Once we got rid of that tile, I'm like, okay, this feels more like a home.
Nice.
I love that.
I mean, I would also argue that maybe it's not even about time.
It's about the right people and your pets in the house.
Your kids are in the house and you're putting your memories on the wall maybe, and you're customizing the house like you said.
Exactly, right?
When you have your things, your furniture, your stuff on the wall and your family's there, it's going to feel like home.
Yeah, totally.
Totally.
So I'm excited to see if any of our listeners caught the question here, right?
Because I asked you, when did you move into your house?
And when did it start to feel like a home?
Right?
Yes, right.
When does your house start to feel like a home?
A lot of people might be surprised and think that's the same word, but it does have a little different meaning.
It does.
And so we have a question that came in from a friend of the show, and I will go ahead and read it today.
Shall I read?
I hope you're doing well.
I was watching Queer Eye over the weekend and one of the heroes walked into their newly designed space Awestruck and said it was a house.
Now it's a home.
I've been enjoying that sentence a lot over the past few days and it struck me how confusing those words might be for someone new to English.
Throwing this out there for an idea if you haven't covered it already.
Love this idea.
And yes, this is a great phrase.
And I'm excited to teach this because it's flexible.
We don't just use this with house and home.
We use this with a lot of things.
Ooh, yeah, I'm excited for this.
We're going to get into some good stuff today.
But first, as we always try to do, I want to call out our amazing listeners that took the time to go and leave us a review.
So thank you to Lisa from Iran on CastBox on February 11th.
Thank you to Mohamed Vasete, also from Iran, on February 11th. in CastBox.
So guys, when you leave us a review, we will do our best.
Well, certainly we'll read it first of all, and that really matters to us.
Right, Aubrey?
I mean, we do this for our listeners, right?
It's about them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We read those reviews.
We appreciate the ratings.
We will try to read your name on the show.
But yes, and we often Lindsay will send all our whole team the reviews and the nice comments.
It really does make our day.
It makes sense.
We just sent one through to the team a few days ago, which was just really heartfelt and genuine.
And we could feel that genuineness when you guys let us know.
And if you want to hear your name on the show, it's also a cool benefit.
So leave us a review rating.
Tell us what you think of the podcast.
Absolutely.
Awesome.
Let's dive in with our first phrase here, which is It was just a blank and now it's a blank.
So this is a perfect example.
It was just a house.
Now it's a home.
We use the word house for just any building, right?
No one lives there.
It could be empty.
It's a house.
A home is when people live there and they have their things there and it feels like where they belong.
So I love that today's episode is about more than just the difference between house and home.
It's about how do you escalate the importance of, show the escalation of importance of something in your life.
Exactly.
And we use this chunk to do that, right?
We might say it was just a side hustle and now it's a career.
So there's lots of ways that we do this, where we take something that seemed smaller or less significant and we put it into this chunk to show that it has become something more.
Yeah, I mean, even All Ears English started that way, right?
I had another business going at the time, which I thought would become my main career.
And this was just a podcast, right?
And then I realized there was potential here.
I moved more of my time into this.
Yeah.
It was just a podcast and now it's a business.
Exactly.
Now it's a community.
That's even bigger.
Yeah.
And it's, It's become a big deal for us here.
And so what about hobby and passion?
It was just a hobby and now it's a passion.
That can happen too.
You could just be curious about curling or something.
Curling is a good example.
We're watching the Olympics and everyone's obsessed with curling right now.
I know.
They say it's really fun.
But it's true.
Someone might start just to try it out.
It's a hobby.
And then they might get disinterested and leave it or it might become a passion.
Exactly.
Or it was he or she was just an acquaintance.
And now they're a friend.
That can happen too.
Absolutely.
Right.
If you just kind of know each other.
Through this happens a lot where I'll know someone as a parent of one of my kids.
And then so they're kind of an acquaintance and you're arranging play dates and then you start chatting and then they might become a friend.
Yes.
Beautiful.
What else?
Do we have one more example?
Yeah, I kind of love it was just a conversation.
And now it's a connection, right?
That moment when you're sort of it's just small talk and you're kind of just having a conversation for conversation's sake.
And then it moves to that where something happens, something clicks, and it becomes a connection.
Maybe someone makes a joke.
Maybe someone asks a question that gets you a little bit deeper and suddenly it's a connection.
That's a really cool moment in life, right?
Because sometimes when you enter a small talk, this is going to be another small talk.
Maybe you're a little bored, right?
And then they do say something that kind of brings it to that other level, like you said.
It makes it a little bit magical sometimes.
Yes, you feel the difference, right, when you connect with somebody like that.
Absolutely.
Yeah, 100%.
Okay, so there's other ways that we might show this escalation.
For example, it became more than just a thing or place, right?
So, for example, our weekly coffee meetup became more than just a routine.
It turned into a space where we really supported each other.
So we use this chunk for something to become more than just and we'll name what it was originally.
That's nice.
Or volunteering at the community center became more than just a social activity.
It helped me feel connected to my neighborhood.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is a great chunk.
We use this a lot.
And it really is showing what you value, what is meaningful to you, but with a really impressive construction.
100%.
I love it.
And that's an important point, Aubrey.
This is part of the connection skill today showing what you value, showing what something has become to you.
Yes, exactly.
Right.
And then our third one, it stopped being just a blank, which would be a noun.
Right.
So, for example, the group chat stopped being just a place to share updates and became the source of my biggest laughs.
I don't know about you Lindsay, but I have some of those group chats where I'm so excited to see a message, because they're always funny.
Yeah, for sure.
For sure.
For sure.
And that is a way of feeling connected to other people through those.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Or let's see, the gym stopped being just a place to work out and turned into a social hub where I met so many people.
Nice.
Exactly.
And we'll often...
So we have this chunk of it stopped being just a blank.
And then we'll share either and became blank or and turned into blank.
Right.
We're kind of continuing with what it turned into.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
So you wouldn't stop by just saying it stopped being just a blank.
You would continue.
Right.
It makes sense to share like what it then became.
Yeah, that's important.
Imagine being in a fast conversation with native speakers.
Someone makes a quick comment.
Another person jumps in.
Everyone reacts instantly.
And by the time you've fully processed what was said, the conversation has already moved on.
I'll see you next time.
Take our quick, free two-minute fluency quiz and see exactly where you are.
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That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y s-c-o-r-e.
Okay, Aubrey, let's put this into action.
So here we're friends talking about a running club that I was thinking of joining.
Okay, so I'll start us out.
What did you decide about the running club?
I decided to join.
Oh, nice.
How's it going?
I like it, but it's kind of taking over my life to be honest.
What do you mean?
Well, at first it was going to be just Wednesdays, but they run every day and I have FOMO if I miss a meetup.
Oh, wow.
It quickly became more than just a once a week thing.
Yeah, it stopped being a once a week thing the moment I found out what I'd be missing.
Well, the good news is you're getting some amazing cardio in.
Yeah.
Running is amazing cardio.
That's a great thing to be addicted to.
Especially I find that when I join run clubs and I run with them, I run a lot faster.
I force myself to run a lot.
You don't want to be the slowest one.
I usually am still the slowest one, but I'm running faster than usual.
That would be the same for me.
Not that I'm that competitive, but I don't want to be the slowest.
Whereas if I go out by myself, I'm just kind of like, oh, I'll walk now.
You know, let me check my podcasts and things.
That would be it would be exactly the same for me.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, for sure.
All right.
So we started this off by saying I said it's taking over my life and you wanted more information.
So I said at first it was going to be just Wednesdays, but they run every day.
Okay.
Yeah.
So this is that fun construction to be at first it was this, but then it became something else.
And then I say, oh, it quickly became more than just a once a week thing.
So this is that other chunk of it became more than, and then you name what it was at first.
At first you thought it would just be once a week.
Exactly.
And then I said, it stopped being a once a week thing the moment I found out what I'd be missing.
Sounds like I have a major...
Problem with FOMO.
Though at least it's FOMO for something really positive.
Yeah, it could be a lot worse, right?
Yep.
I'd be the opposite.
I'd be like, it became a zero a week thing the moment I found out how much I hate running.
Yeah, for sure.
Guys, good skill today.
2596 would be another good skill.
Where we talked about the title was derailed plans.
How to connect about it in English.
So these are everyday skills when our plans go off the rails.
Yes, which happens to the best of us, right?
So you should be able to connect about it in English.
I really love this vocab for connection today, right?
You do want to share what you value.
And when something escalates, especially if it's good, like this, something was kind of meh and became amazing.
You should be chatting about that.
Or showing the evolution, looking back on something, a business that you've created, or something like that that you're proud of.
People are often curious, like how did this get started, right?
And then that allows you to kind of reflect on maybe, how you've changed and evolved in a way that you didn't think would happen.
Absolutely.
And there's a really good connection moment at the beginning of this role play when I just asked like oh hey, what did you decide about the running club?
That means I remembered a previous conversation.
I care to find out.
That's a big part of connection is remembering what people care about and tell you about.
And instead of just being like, hey, how's it going?
I'm asking you about something that you told me about.
Oh my gosh.
So many little sub connection skills today.
Um, that's a good point Aubrey, because you don't want to feel like you're starting over with people every time that no one wants to do that.
Right.
Like, I don't remember anything you told me.
How are you?
Well, how's life?
Oh gosh.
Not good.
Not good.
All right.
Good stuff today.
And guys, don't forget to leave us a rating and review so we can read your name out loud on the show.
All right.
Absolutely.
Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
All right.
Bye Aubrey.
Take care.
Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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