Zapp! English Colloquial 3.28 - Holidays (Vacations)
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).
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 where it's come from, but we don't know." That's the tone of this episode — ten informal holiday expressions, guessed out loud, in the sun, with the jokes left in.
What you'll hear in this episode
Katie and Donnie sit in the park on a sunny day and work through holiday slang in two halves of five expressions each.
The first half starts in the air. Katie describes the person who serves your drinks and takes your tickets, and Donnie supplies a trolley dolly — with the important caveat that "you probably wouldn't call… somebody a trolley dolly to their face", and that the official word is flight attendant. Then come sunnies and shades for sunglasses, and a long, slightly awkward detour into flip-flops: in Britain they go on your feet, in Australia they're called thongs, which Donnie notes "has a different connotation altogether". Katie's conclusion is that on an Australian beach you could be wearing flip-flops and a thong at the same time. Katie also offers on your jollies with the clue "it's another word for happy", and flags it as something the older generation might say.
The second half covers sunburn (like a lobster), budgie smugglers, and to rough it — which Donnie fills out with rucksacks, youth hostels and doing things cheap, versus the people who "need their hot showers, and this nice soap and the nice sheets". It finishes on the toilet: the trots, the runs, and a city-based expression Donnie almost gets wrong when he guesses Bombay. "I'll start off at the clean end," he says. Katie pushes for the blunt version too, and Donnie signs off: "Scatological finish."
Quick facts
| Episode | Zapp! English Colloquial 3.28 – Holidays (Vacations) |
| Pack | Colloquial 3 |
| Level | 3 |
| Duration | 15 minutes 09 seconds |
| Speakers | Katie and Donnie |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack |
What you'll learn
The most useful thing here isn't the vocabulary list — it's how the two speakers hand sentences to each other. Katie says "you just want to get…" and Donnie finishes it: "…away from it all." She says "or what would be the opposite? To mmm it…" and he supplies "To rough it?" This is how native speakers really talk, and training your ear to catch a collaborative completion is a genuine listening skill.
You'll also hear a lot of clue language you can steal for your own conversations: it's another word for happy, a certain kind of animal, the name of a city in India. If you can't remember a word, this is exactly the strategy that keeps a conversation moving.
And you'll get a practical lesson in register. Katie repeatedly marks who you can say these things to and who you can't — the trolley dolly you wouldn't say to someone's face, the polite versus impolite words for an upset stomach ("Depends on who you're talking to…"), the expression that's dated rather than rude. The workbook glossary formalises this with a 1–3 scale, from expressions you can use with almost anyone to ones that may cause offence.
The expressions covered
- a trolley dolly (2) – a female flight attendant (not polite). Donnie names it in the opening exchange.
- sunnies / shades (1) – sunglasses. Katie says she loses hers constantly, so she buys cheap ones.
- flip-flops / a thong (1) – flip-flops are plastic sandals held to the foot with a v shape between your toes (UK flip-flops, Australian thongs); a thong is very small underwear in the UK.
- on your jollies (1) – on your holidays.
- to get away from it all (1) – go somewhere relaxing away from the stress of your own life.
- like a lobster (1) – pink / red and sunburnt.
- a tourist trap (1) – a place only tourists would go.
- to rough it (1) – to have no luxury, to not have the things you normally might.
- the trots / the runs / Delhi belly (2) – diarrhoea.
- budgie smugglers / speedos (2) – very small swimwear for men.
What's in the workbook
The workbook for Unit 28 gives you the full transcript of both conversations, so you can read exactly what Katie and Donnie said and see where the hesitations and half-finished sentences fall. Between them sit the two Meaning and Pronunciation sections, where each expression is checked with a question, then modelled in a short example sentence for you to repeat after the beep — My flip flops are hurting my feet, When are you going on your jollies?, Oh my God, look at those budgie smugglers!
After the summary come the Extra Materials: the glossary with its 1–3 politeness ratings, then two exercises. Practice Exercise 1 is a five-item gap fill (That chicken gave me __). Practice Exercise 2 asks you to correct mistakes in expressions that are almost right — rough up it, a trolley doll, I've got a trot — which is where most learners actually slip. Full answers are included.
This workbook comes with the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, which covers every episode for €39.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Common questions
Is this conversation scripted?
No. Katie and Donnie are talking and guessing in real time, hesitations included. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
Can I really use these expressions?
Some more freely than others. The glossary marks each one from 1 to 3, and Katie flags the risky ones in the audio itself — trolley dolly is not something you'd say to a flight attendant's face.
Why do flip-flops and thongs cause so much confusion?
Because the same word means footwear in Australia and underwear in Britain and America. Katie and Donnie spend a good stretch of the recording enjoying that overlap.
Do I need the workbook to follow the audio?
No — the English conversations work on their own. The workbook helps if you want the transcript, the pronunciation drills and written practice.
How many expressions does the episode cover?
Ten, in two sets of five, with a tourist trap and a blunter word for diarrhoea turning up along the way.
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