Talking About Entertainment in English: Level 3 Podcast

We started this one by pointing out the obvious: Katie and Tom were sitting outside a cafe, under "another umbrella in the sun", chatting — which, as Katie says, means "I suppose entertaining ourselves now aren't we?" From there the conversation goes where a lot of real conversations about entertainment go: nobody is going out much, mostly because of money, and everybody has opinions about television they'd rather not admit to. Fifteen words and expressions come out of it, and we then take each one apart for pronunciation.

What you'll hear in this episode

There are two unscripted conversations, each followed by a teaching section.

In the first, Katie asks Tom whether he goes out a lot or prefers to stay in. He admits he used to go out more, but is staying in now because he's working more; he'll still go if he gets a specific invitation, usually for a birthday. Katie says she loves shows and theatre but hasn't been for ages — partly money, partly because she sees a poster, thinks she'd love to go, and then doesn't book in advance: "quite often it's sold out". One of the hosts describes going to see stand-up comedy, where nobody was applauding at first, so the comic "went for the audience" and picked on individuals until everyone was clapping, thinking "I don't want him picking on me anymore".

The second conversation moves to television. One of the speakers is watching a series about gangs in different countries and calls the last episode "quite intense watching it". That leads to a genuine disagreement about the line between documentary and reality TV — one argues "it depends on the narrative" and whether the programme makes intelligent social observations. Then the confessions: "Oh God no. I used to, but I can't… I can't watch soap operas, at all anymore" versus Katie admitting she'd say no to chat shows and "any old nonsense", but "if it's on the TV...I'll watch it".

Quick facts

Episode	3.7 — Entertainment
Pack	Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3
Level	3
Length	15 minutes 03 seconds
Speakers	Katie and Tom
Language focus	Entertainment vocabulary, word stress, connected speech
Vocabulary	Fifteen words and expressions
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack (€39)

What you'll learn

The pronunciation work here is about what happens between words, not just inside them. When we say go out, an extra sound appears where the two words meet — you'll hear it drilled as /ɡəʊwaʊt/, and stay in the same way as /steIjIn/. A soap opera is presented as two words that join. These are exactly the joins that make natural speech hard to follow when you're listening, and the recording asks you to hear them first, then repeat them.

Then stress. You'll be asked which of the four syllables in an invitation carries the stress, and where the stress falls in performance — and how the unstressed first syllable actually sounds, as /pə/. Documentary gets broken into /dɒk/ /juː/ /men/ /tri/, which is a useful shock if you've been giving it too many syllables. There's also the pair applause and to applaud, where only the final sound changes.

Beyond pronunciation, the television discussion is a good model for disagreeing politely in English: hedged openings, "I think it depends on…", and tag questions like "doesn't it?" used to keep the other person on side while pushing back.

The vocabulary

The workbook glossary gives all fifteen items with phonetic transcriptions. A few of them:

to go out /ɡəʊwaʊt/ — to leave the house and (usually) go somewhere you want to go e.g. a friend's house
stay in /steIjIn/ — to remain in the house
spare time /speətaIm/ — time when you can choose what you want to do
to take up a hobby /teIkʌpəhɒbi/ — to start regularly doing something in your free time; in the conversation, the last hobby taken up properly was photography
applause / to applaud /əplɔːz/, /əplɔːd/ — the noise you make to show you are enjoying something by clapping your hands together
to book in advance /bʊkInədvɑːns/ — buy tickets / reserve a place at something before the date it will happen
a soap opera /səʊpɒprə/ — a TV programme (fiction) about a group of people who live and / or work together
a sitcom /sItkɒm/ — short for situation comedy, about a group of characters in a situation such as living or working together

In the workbook

The workbook for this unit is part of the all-in-one pack. It opens with the introduction and the two listening tasks, so you can read along with the conversations if the speed defeats you, then gives the full vocabulary glossary with phonetics and definitions.

After that there are three practice sections. Practice 1 is error correction — six sentences with the kind of mistakes learners really make, such as "We should book at advance" and "How many series are there in that episode?" Practice 2 matches six definitions to six words, including the audience, to stay in and a soap opera. Practice 3 is pronunciation: you mark the main stresses in five sentences, with a worked example (We had to book in advance) to show you what the dots mean. Full answers are printed at the back, including the stress patterns marked out sentence by sentence.

The pack contains the workbook for this episode and every other one, for €39.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the conversation scripted?

No. Katie and Tom's conversations are unscripted. The teaching sections that set up the tasks, drill the words and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

What level is this episode?

Level 3, from the Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3 pack.

Do I need the workbook to use the audio?

No — the audio works on its own, and the answers are given aloud. The workbook adds the glossary with phonetics and the three written practice sections.

How long is it?

15 minutes and 3 seconds.

What if the conversations are too fast for me?

Listen once for the topic, then again with the transcript in the workbook, paying attention to where words join — go out, stay in, a soap opera.

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