Sex, Love & Marriage: 10 Colloquial English Phrases

Katie starts by pointing out that you can hear where they are: "we’re in the park, as you can probably hear from the birds…" Donnie agrees it's "a beautiful day today." Then she tells him the topic — sex, love and marriage — and his job is to guess ten informal expressions from her descriptions. He gets almost all of them, mishears one badly, and admits to having been on "a few stag parties" with "Nothing to report."

What you'll hear in this episode

The format is a guessing game. Katie describes an expression without saying it; Donnie has to name it. She starts with the woman in a bar moving her hair about and looking someone directly in the eye — to flirt — and immediately asks, "Are you a flirt?" Donnie: "Absolutely not."

From there she works towards the reason you'd flirt in the first place (to fancy someone), then the informal ways of saying have sex. When she says she wants it "in a…in a very spoken way", Donnie hears something else entirely and answers "Spoken sex." He then offers to sleep with someone, which Katie accepts while noting "there is no sleeping going on", before steering him to the two blunter options beginning with S and B.

There's a genuinely funny detour about a brand of coffee sold in Spain and a café with an unfortunate name, which one of the speakers describes and Katie warns "could be very rude in British English". When she builds up the full sequence — fancy, flirt, success, then never seeing the person again — Donnie's first guess is "Triumph?" before he lands on a one night stand.

The second half covers chatting someone up, the difference between a fling and an affair, stag and hen nights, gay and straight, and finally to give someone the elbow, which Donnie calls "horrible". Katie's verdict: "Nobody likes to get the elbow."

Quick facts

Episode	Zapp! English Colloquial 3.15 – Sex, Love & Marriage
Pack	Colloquial 3
Level	3
Duration	13 minutes 47 seconds
Speakers	Katie and Donnie
Recorded	In a park, as mentioned on air
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

The useful thing about this episode isn't just the ten expressions — it's learning how rude each one is. English learners often pick up an informal phrase from a film and use it in the wrong company. Katie flags this as she goes: to shag is "Not so polite, but very common", to bonk is "a bit more humorous", and to sleep with someone is the indirect option.

You'll also hear two literal-meaning traps explained out loud. Sleeping with someone involves no sleep; a one night stand involves no standing, since "probably the people are lying…lying down". And straight is only heterosexual in the right context — it can also mean honest.

There's a neat piece of British/American comparison too: Katie notes that Americans say bachelor party and bachelorette party, which Donnie judges "More logical" but "less interesting".

Because the conversation is a guessing game, you get each phrase defined twice — once as Katie's description, once as Donnie's answer — plus a scripted Meaning and Pronunciation drill after each half, where you answer a question and repeat after the beep. One small detail worth listening for: the speakers say stag party and hen party, while the drill and glossary use stag night and hen night. Both are normal.

Vocabulary from the workbook

The glossary rates each expression 1 to 3 for how safely you can use it. Level 3 comes with a warning: "Don’t use this with your mother-in-law!!!"

to flirt (1) – To behave in a way that makes it clear to someone you are romantically or sexually interested in them.
to fancy someone (1) – To be sexually attracted to someone.
to bonk (3) – To have sex.
to shag / a shag (3) – To have sex.
to sleep with someone (2) – to have sex with.
a one night stand (2) – To have sex once with someone you don’t intend to see again or have a relationship with.
to chat someone up (1) – To talk to someone, to try and get them to like you, to try and make them want a romantic or sexual relationship with you.
to have a fling (1) – to have a short passionate relationship with someone.
a hen night / stag night (1) – The night out before the wedding to celebrate the last night of freedom. A hen night is for women and a stag night is for men.
gay / straight (1) – homosexual / heterosexual.
to give someone the elbow (2) – To end a romantic relationship with someone.

In the workbook

The workbook for Unit 15 gives you the full transcript of both conversations with Katie and Donnie, so you can go back and see exactly how she describes each expression before he guesses it. That's useful here, because several of the definitions in the conversation are better than a dictionary entry.

After the transcript you get the glossary with its 1–3 informality ratings, then two practice exercises. Practice Exercise 1 gives you jumbled words to rearrange into sentences — "anyone / chatted / up? / ever / you / Has" becomes a question you could actually ask someone. Practice Exercise 2 is a gap-fill story about a friend getting married, a man in a bar and a very badly timed one night stand, using six of the expressions in a single connected text. Full answers are included.

The audio is free. The workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, €39 for every episode across all the courses.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The conversation between Katie and Donnie is completely unscripted — that's why he guesses wrong, laughs, and goes off on a tangent about coffee. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Are these expressions too rude to use?

Some of them, in some company. That's exactly why the glossary rates them 1 to 3. Two of the ten are marked 3, meaning they may offend. Understanding them is always useful; using them is a judgement call.

Do I need the workbook to follow the episode?

No. Katie explains each expression clearly and Donnie repeats it. The workbook adds the transcript, the ratings and the written practice.

What level is this?

Level 3 of the Colloquial course. The English is fast and natural, with plenty of hesitation and overlapping agreement.

Why can I hear birds?

Because it was recorded outdoors in a park, which Katie mentions in the first few seconds.

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