Zapp! English Colloquial 2.4 - Friends & Family
Taught by Katie Wood — Cambridge CELTA · Cambridge DELTA · Cambridge-accredited Teacher Trainer
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
Katie asks where Tom hangs out. The answer: "I hang out, in front of my computer." Her verdict, delivered to the microphone rather than to him — "This is why he hasn't got as many mates as he used to have." That's the tone of this unit. Katie describes an informal expression about friends, family or relationships, Tom has to guess it, and the examples that come out along the way are the sort of thing you only get when nobody has written the conversation down first.
What you'll hear in this episode
The format is a game. As Katie puts it at the start, "I describe, colloquial expressions, and you guess them." In the first conversation the pair work through the two everyday words for a friend — a mate, which Katie flags as very British, and a buddy, the American one, though Tom notes that people in Britain do still say it sometimes. Then comes to hang out, and two less cheerful ones: to fall out with someone and to have a bust up. Tom is careful about the difference in strength between them, pointing out that falling out with someone may be temporary and that you "might, fix things and make things better".
The second conversation moves on to to hit it off, with examples from meeting someone in the pub to going on a date. Asked whether they hit it off when they first met, Tom's answer is a nicely hedged "I like to think so." Then there's man's best friend — one of the hosts mentions a dog that died young, which stops the conversation dead for a moment, before recovering with a documentary claim that "dogs, domesticated man" rather than the other way round. The unit finishes with to be there for someone, to be on your side, and a self-diagnosis: "I'm my... own worst enemy." The proof offered is beer in the fridge during a diet.
Quick facts
| Episode | Zapp! English Colloquial 2.4 – Friends & Family |
| Episode number | 2.4 |
| Pack | Colloquial 2 |
| Level | 2 |
| Duration | 19 minutes 27 seconds |
| Speakers | Katie and Tom |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack (€39) |
What you'll learn
The useful thing about the guessing-game format is that you hear each expression defined, then used, then argued about. Katie gives the meaning first, so you're listening for a phrase you don't yet know — exactly what happens in real conversation. Then the two of them stress-test it. Is a bust up permanent or temporary? Tom starts with "normally", corrects himself, and settles on "it can be temporary, it can be permanent". That kind of self-correction is normal spoken English, and following it is a skill in itself.
You'll also pick up how flexible these phrases are. To hit it off works for friends, for a friend's boyfriend, and for romantic couples, and it works just as well in the negative — "we didn't really hit it off". On your side turns up in arguments and debates, not only in emotional support. And you'll hear how your own worst enemy needs the possessive to match the person: he's his own worst enemy, you're your own worst enemy. The pronunciation tasks then hand each expression back to you with a model sentence and a beep to repeat after, so you practise the stress patterns — bust up, hit it off — rather than just recognising them.
Vocabulary from this unit
All ten expressions are marked (1) in the workbook glossary: informal, but safe with most people in most situations.
- a mate – a friend
- a buddy – a friend (especially in the USA)
- to hang out with – to spend time with, not doing anything special, just relaxing
- fall out with – to have an argument with
- to have a bust up – to have an argument with and to end the relationship because of this
- to be there for someone – to be a good friend to someone when they are having a difficult time, to support someone
- to be your own worst enemy – to do things that make a situation more difficult and worse for yourself, to make problems for yourself
- to hit it off – to like someone immediately when you meet them for the first time
- to be on your side – to be with you, not against you, to agree with you or support you
- man's best friend – dogs
The workbook
The workbook for this unit gives you the full transcript of both English conversations, so you can go back and check anything you missed the first time — including the moments where Tom is thinking out loud rather than answering. After that there's the glossary, which grades every expression on a three-point scale for how informal it is (level 3 comes with the warning: don't use it with your mother-in-law).
Then two practice exercises. Practice Exercise 1 is a gap-fill of six sentences, and it's harder than it looks because you have to supply both halves of the expression: He went to bed really late before his exam. He's his ___ worst ___. Practice Exercise 2 matches six sentence beginnings to six endings — Don't shout at me, … I'm on your side! Full answers are at the back.
This workbook comes with the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, along with the workbooks for every other episode we've made.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Common questions
Which word should I use, mate or buddy?
A mate is the standard British choice and a buddy is more American, though Tom points out that some people in Britain use buddy too — he mentions a friend who greets him with "Alright buddy".
What's the difference between falling out with someone and having a bust up?
Both mean having an argument. A bust up is stronger — bust means broken, so it suggests the relationship itself has broken, and it's often used about couples. Falling out with someone is more often something you can fix.
Is the audio scripted?
The two conversations between Katie and Tom are unscripted — you can hear the pauses and the guessing. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
How do I practise saying the expressions?
Each group of expressions is followed by a Meaning and Pronunciation task: you're asked to remember the phrase, then you repeat it and an example sentence after the beep. Do it out loud, not in your head.
Is this episode suitable if I haven't done the earlier units?
Yes. Each unit in Colloquial 2 takes its own topic, and this one is self-contained — everything you need is explained inside the recording and the workbook.
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