Beth Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I’m Beth.
Neil And I’m Neil. Remember, you can read along with this podcast on our website: bbclearningenglish.com.
Beth Hi, Neil. How are you? Neil are you checking your phone? We’re recording!
Neil Sorry, Beth. Yes, I’m just looking at my phone. I’m just checking the football scores. Finished now.
Beth OK, good. Well, today we’re talking all about technology.
Neil Yes, and technology is what we call new things that we use to make life easier like phones, computers and the internet. We’ll talk about new technology and how much we use it.
Beth OK. Great. Well, let’s get started. Now, Neil, you just said, “I’m checking my phone”. That is the present continuous and you said it because you were checking the scores or checking your phone right then. Right at that moment.
But I have a question for you in the present simple, which is how often do you use technology?
Neil So I use technology every day, many times every day. I check my phone a lot. I use a Bluetooth speaker. I sometimes play games with my son on his video console.
Beth OK. So you use some technology.
Neil I do, yes. How about you, Beth?
Beth I read quite a lot on a tablet, so I do read some books, but I tend to use** technology** to read. And I have been learning Spanish, or I’m learning Spanish at the moment using an app on my phone. So I’m using technology for that a little bit.
Neil And what’s your favourite piece of technology that makes your life easy?
Beth Well, I use a smoothie maker all the time. So, especially when I’m working from home, I chuck any old fruit and vegetables in there and make a smoothie.
What about you?
Neil So, I’ve got a bread maker.
Beth Ooh, that’s cool.
Neil Yeah and so I put all the ingredients together and in the morning we have lovely fresh bread.
Beth Nice. Would you say that you are tech-savvy? Are you good at using new technology?
Neil No, not at all! Eventually I learn the technology, but I never really get excited about new technology until lots of other people are already using it.
Beth Yeah, I feel the same. I only really feel comfortable using technology when I have practised and got used to it.
Neil Yeah. So, Beth, is there any new piece of technology that you would like to get that you don’t have at the moment?
Beth Well, I used to have a really good camera, but it’s now about 10 years old. So, I think that technology has moved on quite a bit since then.
So, I’d quite like to get a really good new camera. But the camera’s on phones are quite good these days, but it’s always nice to have something really good for when you go on holiday and that sort of thing.
Neil Let’s recap some of the language we heard during the conversation.
We had technology, new scientific things that make our life easier, such as smartphones and computers.
Beth** Tech-savvy**, good at using technology.
Neil We learned to use the present simple to talk about our technology habits, things we always do. For example, I use my phone way too much.
Beth And we learnt to use the present continuous to talk about things we are doing at this moment in time. For example, Neil, you are still checking the football scores!
Neil I am. Sorry, Beth. But only because my home team is beating yours at football.
Beth Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever!
Neil That’s it for this episode. If you want more easy English, try our video series, The London to Edinburgh Challenge. All episodes are available now on our website: bbclearningenglish.com
Beth Next time on Real Easy English, we’ll talk about our hobbies. Bye for now.
Neil Bye!