Start learning Upper intermediate and advanced colloquial English expressions! Each audio lesson contains REAL EVERYDAY ENGLISH CONVERSATIONS between native English speakers. See if you can guess the Colloquial expressions as they are described!
“I’m sitting in the park with Donnie,” Katie says, and then starts describing idioms without ever saying them. Some Donnie gets instantly — the face of a man who hasn’t shaved by the end of the day, the mind that only runs on one track. One stops him completely: “Wow, …
“Hello Thomas.” That’s how this one opens, with Katie and Tom sitting somewhere Tom describes as “a clean, Spanish blue flag beach”, about to talk about the environment. Within two minutes Katie has admitted, “I try not to throw things out, which is why my house is full of rubbish,” …
Katie offers the phrase on the never never and Amanda doesn’t recognise it at all: “I have never never heard that before.” A moment later Tom cuts in with “Plastic fantastic!” and the three of them agree that every way of buying a sofa you can’t yet afford is a …
Katie sets up a sentence and stops halfway: I need that like a…? Cathy has a go — “A…a gun?” — which is not the answer, but it is a very reasonable guess. The phrase Katie is after is I need it like a hole in my head, and after …
When Katie asks for the Australian word for very small men’s swimming trunks, Donnie doesn’t guess the word — he guesses the crime: “Is this… related to illegal transportation of a small bird?” The answer is budgie smugglers, and Katie admits the explanation is only a theory: “We think that’s …
Listen nowZapp! English Colloquial 3.28 – Holidays (Vacations)
“Where are we?” Katie asks at the start of this one. “We’re on a beach,” Tom answers, and then adds the detail that explains the tone of the whole conversation: “Very hot, under a sun umbrella.” From there the two of them work through ten colloquial expressions for places that …
Listen nowZapp! English Colloquial 3.27 – Wonders of the World
Katie opens this one with a confession: “This is a very hungry Katie, sitting in Tom’s apartment, talking to Amanda.” Amanda replies in kind, then adds that she’ll be listening “Amidst the sound of my stomach rumbling.” That’s the setup for the whole recording — one speaker describing colloquial expressions …
Katie sets Tom a guessing game and he starts badly: it’s hot, and by his own admission “my brain is slowing down”. When she asks what you call a bad memory, all he can manage at first is “Like a kitchen utensil?” — which is, admittedly, correct. Eighteen minutes later …
Katie asks Donnie for a word that means a really big lie. He stalls, then checks: “does it involve a colour?” It doesn’t — but seconds later he lands on whopper and immediately tries it out on her: “If I told you I used to be an astronaut…?” That is …
Katie opens with “We’re at the beach!”, and a few minutes later she is being deliberately provoked with a steak: “Oh, look at that lovely, juicy meat over there, Katie, look at that steak.” That is one way to demonstrate to wind someone up. This episode gathers ten colloquial expressions …
Listen nowZapp! English Colloquial 3.23 – Controversial Issues