Neil Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. The programme where we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I’m Neil.
Georgie And I’m Georgie. Go to our website for a text version of this podcast and a worksheet to help you learn. bbclearningenglish.com.
Neil So, Georgie, how’s your week going?
Georgie My week’s going well, thank you, Neil. How’s yours?
Neil Very good. Have you got any exciting evening plans?
Georgie Not really. I’m just going to go home and chill. What about you?
Neil The same, yes. And so what do you do in the evenings?
Georgie Well, if I’m at home in the evenings, I usually, I might do some exercise. Then I have dinner, and then I’ll do something relaxed, like, at the moment, I’m doing a lot of jigsaw puzzles. And then I usually go to bed. What about you?
Neil Yeah. I go home and eat, I guess, quite early. About 6:30.
Georgie Really? 6:30 you eat dinner?
Neil Yeah, because I have kids and they need to eat. They’re hungry after school. So, yes. And then I will try and do something relaxing and nice. I might study.
Georgie What do you study?
Neil Language.
Georgie OK.
Neil And then I might play my guitar or watch something or waste time on my phone.
Georgie What do you, what’s the most relaxing thing for you to wind down in the evenings?
Neil I find playing my guitar very relaxing.
Georgie Why’s that?
Neil I think because I have to concentrate and it’s a different part of your brain that you use than the normal working brain.
How about you?
Georgie I like watching TV to wind down, to feel relaxed. But like I said, recently, I’ve been getting into doing jigsaw puzzles because I think, similar to your guitar playing, it helps you to switch off your brain. You forget about the, the day you’ve just had at work and you can just relax.
Neil Yeah, and when you watch TV, do you like to watch a whole series or do you just watch something and then something else and then something else?
Georgie It depends what time it is. I try to limit, my TV watching to one or two episodes maybe, and I like watching quite trashy TV. Something that I don’t have to concentrate too hard. Because, you know, the work day is long, and I just want to switch off.
Neil Yeah. Do you go to bed late, then?
Georgie No, I try to go to bed around nine pm.
Neil Nine?
Georgie Yes, because then I read my book, which I didn’t mention earlier, but when I go to bed, I read my book before sleeping and it’s another way to switch off my brain.
Neil Okay, if, if I read a book, I fall asleep.
Georgie Well, that’s exactly why I do it. That’s exactly why I do it. It helps me switch off.
Neil Or if I watch a film with subtitles and have to read the subtitles, that makes me fall asleep.
Georgie So, Neil, I said I go to bed at nine. I usually go to sleep around 11. What about you?
Neil I go to bed later than that. I go to bed probably about 11 and I read, but then I fall asleep very quickly.
Georgie So we go to sleep at similar times, really.
Neil Yeah.
Georgie And would you say you are a night owl? That’s someone who has a lot of energy at night.
Neil Yes. I think if I didn’t work or didn’t have kids, I would stay up very late. I like staying up late. When I was a younger man, I stayed up very, very late.
Georgie Interesting. I’m the opposite. My brain is dead in the in the evenings, at night. I can’t do anything late at night.
Neil The evening is the best part of the day.
Georgie I prefer the morning.
What about the weekend? Is your evening routine different at the weekend?
Neil I stay up later because I don’t have to get up early to go to work. So that’s the only difference, really. How about you?
Georgie Yes. Well, often at the weekend, at least for me, I’m more likely to have plans, social plans with friends in the evening. So I also go to bed later and spend more of the night awake, I suppose.
Neil So you don’t go to bed at nine at the weekends?
Georgie Not usually. It depends, but mostly not.
Neil Let’s recap. We’ve had wind down, gradually relax after doing something stressful.
Georgie We heard stay up late, which means you continue staying awake late at night.
Neil We heard night owl, who’s someone who likes to stay up late in the evening.
Georgie And we had switch off, stop thinking about stressful things from your day.
Neil That’s it for this episode of Real Easy English. If you want to learn more phrasal verbs like switch off, Georgie’s made a whole series, and you can find it on our website. bbclearningenglish.com.
Georgie Next week we’ll talk all about food and flavour. See you then.
Neil Goodbye.
Georgie Bye.