Georgie Welcome to Real Easy English, the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I’m Georgie.
Neil And I’m Neil. To read along with this podcast, visit our website: bbclearningenglish.com.
Georgie How are you today, Neil?
Neil I’m very well, Georgie. How are you?
Georgie I’m pretty good, thank you, as well.
Neil So, Georgie, what are we talking about in today’s episode?
Georgie Today’s episode is all about films and television. We’ll talk about our favourite movies and shows.
Neil Great, let’s get started.
Georgie OK, Neil. So, what kinds of films do you like?
Neil I like foreign films, films that are not in English, because I like stories from other countries. What about you?
Georgie I like two kinds of films. One type of film I really like is films that you can learn from, and the other type of film is films that you can escape from reality. So usually quite silly films or fantasy films.
Neil OK. Do you have a favourite film?
Georgie Yes, I do. I really love the Harry Potter series.
Neil So, Georgie, can you tell us about your favourite film, the Harry Potter film you mentioned?
Georgie Yes. So you want to know about the plot, which is what happens in the film. So Harry Potter is all about a boy who discovers that he is a wizard. That is someone who does magic. And he goes to a school for magic called Hogwarts and he meets his best friends Ron and Hermione who are other characters in the film. And he spends a lot of his time trying to escape a dark wizard called Voldemort and it’s very dangerous. It’s a great film!
Neil Wow, it sounds like there’s lots of interesting characters in these films.
Georgie Yes. Very evil characters and also really nice characters.
Neil So, Georgie, you talked a lot about your favourite film Harry Potter. And the grammar you used to describe the film was present simple. So, for example, you said the film is about a boy who discovers that he is a wizard and he goes to a school, a special school for wizards, and he makes friends with Ron and Hermione. All present simple.
Georgie Yes, that’s right. We use the present simple to describe the plot of a story like a book or a film. We also use the present simple to tell stories sometimes, things that happened to us in the past, which is interesting.
What about you? What’s your favourite film?
Neil Well. I think my favourite film is from when I was a kid, and it’s Raiders Of The Lost Ark.
Georgie Wow. I haven’t seen that.
Neil It’s very old, but it’s got Indiana Jones, and he was my hero when I was a kid.
Georgie Really?
Neil Yeah.
Georgie Why was he your hero?
Neil Because it was… he’s all about action and adventure and catching bad guys.
Georgie Oh interesting! See I’m not a big fan of action and adventure.
Neil So, Georgie, do you watch lots of movies?
Georgie I actually don’t, because I have quite a short attention span. I actually prefer to watch TV or series. What about you?
Neil Yeah, again, I think there’s so much choice these days, sometimes actually I watch nothing because I don’t know what to choose. But sometimes, I really get into a TV series and, yeah, watch it all very quickly and talk about it a lot.
Georgie That’s called binge watching. How do you watch these series?
Neil On TV. But, you know, I stream them, like everybody these days.
Georgie So, you just used the word stream. You stream TV shows and movies and that means watching films or TV using the internet. You can watch things whenever you want when you stream things.
Neil OK. Let’s look again at the vocabulary we learned during the conversation.
Georgie We learned plot, which means the story of a film, TV programme or book, so what happens.
Neil** Character**, that’s a person in a story.
Georgie And stream, watch a film or programme online.
Neil And we learned how to use present simple to talk about what happens in a film.
Georgie For example, Harry Potter goes to a magic school called Hogwarts and meets two best friends.
Neil Thanks for listening to Real Easy English. You can find more easy conversation on our website: bbclearningenglish.com
Georgie Next time, we’ll be talking about pets.
Neil Bye for now.
Georgie Bye.