Mitch and Isi give you 10 useful English contractions to help you sound like a native speaker! They also update you on a new, Asia-friendly 'Zoom' conversation call time.

Interactive Transcript

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Show Notes

Transcript

Intro

Mitch:
[0:22] Hiya, podcast peeps.

Isi:
[0:25] Hello.

Mitch:
[0:25] Welcome to another episode of the Easy English Podcast. Just in case you didn't know what you're...

Isi:
[0:32] What's your alarm for?

Mitch:
[0:34] That the laundry's done. Okay.

Isi:
[0:37] We're both eating sweeties.

Mitch:
[0:39] Mm-hmm. I'm eating a chocolate bar that is based on the stars, the Milky Way. I just said the name of the actual chocolate bar. So I'm eating a chocolate based on a space-themed chocolate.

Isi:
[0:55] We cannot make advertisement. There are also other really great...

Mitch:
[0:58] Space-themed chocolate bars.

Isi:
[1:00] Yeah, like Mars. They're probably all from the...

Mitch:
[1:02] Don't say Mars. Don't say the name.

Isi:
[1:04] You just said Milky Way.

Mitch:
[1:05] Oh yeah, sure. Yours is based on the planet.

Isi:
[1:07] Mars is the planet.

Mitch:
[1:08] Are there any other space...

Isi:
[1:09] We need to name them all now so that we don't do advertisement.

Mitch:
[1:11] Space-themed chocolate.

Isi:
[1:12] They're all yummy, yummy. Kinderriegel.

Mitch:
[1:13] Uranus. Oh God, what's going on? So in today's episode, we've got a few subjects to cover. The first thing I want to do, part of our 'Topic of the Week', is I realised, when making a lot of these street interviews, that there are a lot of informal contractions that people and myself are saying. And I sort of, thought it'd be good to sort of, do a rundown of maybe, 10 that you will commonly hear, that are very useful for you to try to pick up, try to integrate into your English vocabulary, into your English speaking. So I'm going to read them out and Isi, maybe you're going to tell me what two words are being contracted into one or what three words or... I think these are all mostly two words though.

Isi:
[1:55] This is always a test of my English knowledge, isn't it?

Mitch:
[1:57] A little bit, yeah. But you'll get them all, for sure.
Topic of the Week

Mitch:
[2:07] Okay, the first one, and it's almost the same as this infamous 'bottle of water'. It's got the same sort of feel to it. Do you know what I mean?

Isi:
[2:18] Do you know what I mean?

Mitch:
[2:20] Exactly. Do you say, are you able to do this? Are you doing it in your everyday speaking?

Isi:
[2:25] Yeah, but it's even shorter.

Mitch:
[2:26] What?

Isi:
[2:27] Do you know what I mean?

Mitch:
[2:28] Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean? And that's a very common one that people say. And it will almost be like a reflex kind of thing, you'll say when making a point. Like, maths is boring, do you know what I mean? Okay, next one. Probs. It is a contraction, but only of one word.

Isi:
[2:48] Probably.

Mitch:
[2:49] Probably. So how would we use this in a sentence? Mitch, is the laundry done? Probs. A classic one, which you like to use. You alright?

Isi:
[3:00] Are you alright.

Mitch:
[3:01] And you're not even saying the 'are' at the beginning.

Isi:
[3:03] No.

Mitch:
[3:06] Are you all right?

Isi:
[3:07] All right.

Mitch:
[3:08] Which can be used as a question or even just a sort of, a greeting.

Isi:
[3:12] All right, all right.

Mitch:
[3:13] You all right? And then the other person would respond.

Isi:
[3:16] Yeah, all right.

Mitch:
[3:17] Yeah, you all right? You all right, mate? Tomoz.

Isi:
[3:21] Tomorrow.

Mitch:
[3:22] Is shortening for tomorrow. Okay, here's ones that are very common that you should be using if you really want to sound like a native speaker, because everyone's using those. Those previous ones are kind of, quite informal. These ones are almost so commonly used, that they've almost become formal contractions. Dunno.

Isi:
[3:44] I don't know.

Mitch:
[3:45] I don't know. Dunno. I don't know. I don't know. What do you think?

Isi:
[3:49] What do you think?

Mitch:
[3:50] Dunno. What do you think? Gonna.

Isi:
[3:54] I'm going to.

Mitch:
[3:55] I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to go get the laundry in a bit. What are you going to do?

Isi:
[4:00] I'm going to go to the doctors.

Mitch:
[4:02] Nice. That is all very true statements we're saying.

Isi:
[4:05] For today.

Mitch:
[4:06] Wanna.

Isi:
[4:08] I want to.

Mitch:
[4:09] I don't wanna go get the laundry, how about you?

Isi:
[4:14] I don't wanna go to the doctors.

Mitch:
[4:16] Got... gotta or gotta. a lot of people say gotta.

Isi:
[4:20] Like, gotcha?

Mitch:
[4:21] g-o-t-t-a gotta.

Isi:
[4:25] I have to, I got to.

Mitch:
[4:27] Yeah, but I got to get the laundry.

Isi:
[4:30] But you would probably more say; I have to get the laundry than I got to get the laundry.

Mitch:
[4:34] I got to get, got to get.

Isi:
[4:35] Got to get, got to get.

Mitch:
[4:36] I got to get, got to get, got to get through this. I got to get through this. Lemme.

Isi:
[4:43] Let me.

Mitch:
[4:44] Yeah, like the singer from Motorhead. Let me go get the laundry, please. Or let me avoid the laundry duties for this week. Gimme. - Give me. - Gimme some peace of mind. Gimme shelter. Oh yeah is that... yeah the Rolling Stones song; 'Gimme Shelter'. - Yep. - Kinda. - Kind of. - It's kind of, yeah. Lemme, kinda, is spelt the same way as the singer from Motorhead but there's no 'I' at the end it's just l-e-m-m-e.

Isi:
[5:20] lemme kinda tell you how I'm gonna... - Wow! - Blah, blah, blah.

Mitch:
[5:24] We can make an Easy English contraction song. I don't know what I'm gonna wanna get a lemme, give me kinda.

Isi:
[5:32] Shoulda, shoulda, woulda.

Mitch:
[5:34] Yeah, shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Isi:
[5:36] Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Mitch:
[5:37] Sounds like you're doing an Eminem really fast rap. I shoulda, woulda, coulda, coulda. And then sorta.

Isi:
[5:43] Sort of?

Mitch:
[5:44] Sort of. I sorta like doing the laundry, to be honest.

Isi:
[5:49] Do you? It's a lie, guys. No one likes to do the laundry. Do you like to do the laundry

Mitch:
[5:53] Not really uh outta.

Isi:
[5:56] I'm out of love set me free this is what did you.

Mitch:
[6:05] Misery.
Easy English Updates

Mitch:
[6:16] As you may or may not know, every Tuesday, we are hosting an online conversation call for our Conversation Members, which are a group of people from all around the world, who are looking to improve their English conversational skills. So they're speaking and listening. I truly believe that the best way to improve your speaking and listening skills is just by doing it, and speaking and dusting off those cobwebs and overcoming those nerves to speak. because making mistakes is the best way for you to understand and to learn and to progress with your English speaking skills. This is absolutely the perfect place to come if you're feeling a bit nervous, or you just want to sort of shake off some cobwebs and dust which has settled on your English speaking level, that maybe you stopped doing when you left school or maybe you got a bit overwhelmed with your New Year's resolution and you stopped suddenly.

Mitch:
[7:13] We're offering one free group class as part of our seven-day free trial of the Conversation Membership and the reason why this is part of our Easy English Updates is, at the moment we have, like I said this class at 18:15 in British time but that doesn't allow for people that are living in Asia, so we would like to, in the summer, open up our first ever Easy English call which is going to be at a time which is friendly for Asia. So we're looking at doing it at 10:15am in England, which will equate to 15:45am in India, 18:15am in China, and 19:15am in Japan and Korea. And if you're interested in us starting this call, we would really appreciate it if you would click the link in the show notes of this podcast and that will also take you to a time conversion website, which will show you exactly what time the pub call will be at in your country. And by clicking this link, we'll be given a notification that you are interested in joining this call when we start it in summer. So if you are, like I said, looking to improve your English speaking skills in a nerve-free and inclusive way, where there's no pressure and we're going to learn all through making mistakes, then join our Easy English Conversation membership ...

89: 10 Everyday English Contractions