Talking about breakfast

Beth
Hello and welcome to another episode of Real Easy English, the podcast where we have conversations about everyday topics in easy English. I’m Beth.
 
Phil
And I’m Phil. And you can watch a video version of this podcast on our website, where you can also find a worksheet to test what you’ve learned. That’s bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Beth
Good morning, Phil. How are you today?
 
Phil
I’m good. How are you, Beth?
 
Beth
I am very good, thank you. Have you had your breakfast?
 
Phil
Yes, I have. Yeah, I have to have breakfast before I come to work.
 
Beth
OK. Well, today we are talking about breakfast. We’ll talk about the kinds of things that we eat in the mornings.
 
Phil
So, Beth, do you always have breakfast?
 
Beth
Yes. If I don’t have breakfast, I am a monster. I need to eat. I need to feel full and then I can get on with my day. And also, I just really like food and breakfast, so why would you want to skip breakfast? I don’t understand that. 
Phil
No. I think I’m the same. I have to have breakfast before I leave for work. And if I don’t have breakfast before I leave for work, I end up having breakfast when I’m at work, and that’s not good.
 
Beth
Mmm. Do you ever have breakfast on the go? So, that means have it while travelling. Say, you’re going from home to work – have it on the move or on the go.
 
Phil
I used to. I used to. When I was coming to work, I’d love to stop and get a takeaway coffee and a pastry. This is after having breakfast. This is a second breakfast! But then, I realised it was quite expensive so I stopped.
 
Beth
Yeah, I sometimes get a takeaway coffee, but I don’t really have breakfast on the go. I usually have it at home. What kind of thing do you eat for breakfast?
 
Phil
For breakfast, usually, if I’m coming to work, I don’t like to think too much early in the morning so I almost always have the same thing. I usually have porridge with apple and cinnamon. It’s quite easy to make and it fills me up.
 
Beth
Yeah, I really like porridge, but to me it’s something that I enjoy more in the winter because it’s warm. So, if it’s the summer, then I’m more likely to have cereal, maybe with yoghurt and fruit, or just cereal with milk and fruit.
 
Phil
Oh, that sounds so nice. What about the weekend? Do you have different breakfasts at the weekend?
 
Beth
Yes, usually. So, obviously English people are famous for the full English breakfast with eggs and bacon and sausages and hash browns. And sometimes I have a breakfast like that at the weekend: so, usually with eggs, maybe some spinach, maybe some hash browns. I love hash browns.
 
Phil
Yeah. No, I like weekend breakfast because you’ve got time and you can do different things. So, you can cook a nice, cooked English breakfast.
 
Beth
What do you think about sweet breakfasts? So, we’ve talked about savoury breakfasts: so, they’re things that are more salty, like eggs and hash browns and toast – that sort of thing. But what about sweet breakfasts?
 
Phil
OK. I really like sweet breakfasts. I love pastries and croissants and all of those things, but they don’t fill me up.
 
Beth
Hmm. OK.
 
Phil
I find if I have a sweet breakfast, I need to have another breakfast later on.
 
Beth
I guess, I’m just thinking, I like cereal with fruit – I guess that is a sweet breakfast and I find that fills me up. But sometimes at the weekend we have pancakes and I would always have sweet pancakes, so I might put some lemon juice, maybe some fruit, some sugar. And it’s quite filling.
 
Phil
Oh yeah. No, no, pancakes do fill me up and yeah… yeah, I like them with maple syrup.
 
Beth
Mmm! Yeah, that’s good. That’s good. OK. Let’s recap the language that we used in the conversation. We had eat on the go, which means eat while you’re travelling. We can also say eat on the move. So, for example, Phil said that he used to eat breakfast on the go, on his way to work.
 
Phil
We also had takeaway and that’s where you buy food or drink somewhere and you take it somewhere else to eat it or drink it. So, I used to buy a takeaway coffee on my way to work.
 
Beth
If a meal, like breakfast, fills you up, it means that you’ve eaten enough and you’re not hungry anymore.
 
Phil
And we can eat savoury or sweet breakfasts. So, sweet breakfasts, like cereal or fruit, taste like sugar. And savoury breakfasts, like bacon or egg, taste the opposite of sweet and one example of a savoury breakfast is a full English breakfast, with fried bacon, sausages, egg and things like that.
 
Beth
That’s it for this episode of Real Easy English. We’ll be back next week with another conversation in easy English.
 
Phil
And make sure that you try the worksheet that’s on our website, bbclearningenglish.com. And you’ll also find a great new series, The London Letter Challenge. Make sure you watch that.
 
Beth
Thanks for joining us. Goodbye.
 
Phil
Bye!