Colloquial English 3.31: Talking About the Environment

"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," and Tom has replied, "That's my excuse too!" It's a conversation about global warming, big business and extinction that keeps collapsing into laughter — which is exactly how English speakers actually discuss serious things.

What you'll hear in this episode

Katie sets the expressions up as questions and lets Tom guess, which means you hear the natural hesitation of a native speaker hunting for a phrase. Some he gets instantly: green, chuck it out, down to earth, a tree hugger. Others take a detour. Asked for the phrase meaning the planet could go either way, Tom offers "Tenterhooks?" and Katie replies, "Ooh, different meaning. It's on a knife-edge" — then Tom adds a good second answer of his own, at a crossroads, and explains it neatly: "we have options now… but we may not have options in the future."

There are real examples throughout. Tom argues that letting people smoke on beaches is a recipe for disaster, "because it destroys the beaches and the cigarette ends go in the sea, and the animals eat them". Katie applies sweep it under the carpet to companies keeping pollution data out of the news. When she says whales will disappear off the face of the earth, Tom deadpans, "Do you mean the country or the animal?"

The most honest moment comes last. After Katie explains can't see the wood for the trees, Tom says, "I've never thought about that expression before and it confuses me. I'm going to go and revise it." Katie, on the general outlook for the planet: "Oh, this is all very optimistic, isn't it!?"

Quick facts

Episode	Zapp! English Colloquial 3.31 – The Environment
Episode number	3.31
Pack	Colloquial 3
Level	3
Duration	19 minutes 22 seconds
Audio	Free
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack (€39)

What you'll learn

Twelve colloquial expressions, most of them built on ordinary nature words — earth, tree, wood, carpet, knife — where the literal meaning tells you almost nothing. Katie keeps unpacking the image so the idiom sticks: a dog barks up a tree because it thinks the cat is there, so a person barking up the wrong tree has the wrong idea entirely; a wood is lots of trees, so someone who can't see the wood for the trees is lost in detail.

You'll also pick up the difference between the neutral and the informal version of the same idea. Tom first says "Throw it away?" and Katie pushes for "an even more informal verb" — chuck it out, or chuck it away. Both work; only one sounds like friends talking.

There's a useful lesson in tone, too. A tree hugger isn't an insult exactly, but Tom notes it implies someone is "on the extreme side with their views", and Katie adds "a bit of a hippie" — the sort of thing you say "to sort of have a joke at someone". And disappear off the face of the earth works two ways: literally, for extinct animals, and comically, for lost keys.

The Meaning and Pronunciation sections then ask you the questions back and give you space to repeat after the beep.

Vocabulary from the workbook

All twelve entries are graded 1 in the glossary — informal, but usable with most people in most situations.

to be green – to care about and do things to help the environment. Katie asks Tom directly: "Are you green?"
to chuck out – to throw away as rubbish.
a recipe for disaster – a way to make it very likely something bad will happen.
to sweep something under the carpet – try to ignore or hide a problem. Tom also offers "brush it under the carpet".
on a knife edge – in a difficult situation, which could easily result in something bad if care is not taken.
at a crossroads – at a point where you need to make an important decision that will affect your future.
on tenterhooks – to be waiting very anxiously for something (Tom's wrong guess, worth learning anyway).
to be down to earth – sensible and normal.
to disappear off the face of the earth – to never be seen again.
a tree hugger – a little bit of a negative way to talk about people who want to protect the environment, particularly trees.
to be barking up the wrong tree – to be going in the wrong direction and doing something that will not get the correct result.
can't see the wood for the trees – unable to see the most important / biggest part of the situation because they are looking at small details.

The workbook

The Unit 31 workbook contains the full transcript of the conversation, so you can read every hesitation and check anything you missed, plus the introduction explaining that these expressions belong with friends rather than in formal situations. The glossary lists all twelve expressions with definitions and the 1–3 informality grading.

Then two exercises with answers. Practice Exercise 1 gives you six neutral sentences to rewrite using an expression from the unit — "Don't throw that away, we can recycle it" becomes "Don't chuck it out, we can recycle it", and "He doesn't think about the environment" becomes "He isn't very green". Practice Exercise 2 is a matching task where you join five sentence openings to their endings, so you have to hear where the phrase breaks: "If you ask me the future… of the planet's on a knife edge."

The workbook for this episode is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack, which covers every episode across the series for €39.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The conversation between Katie and Tom is unscripted — that's why Tom guesses wrong and says he needs to go and revise. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

What level is this episode?

Level 3, from the Colloquial 3 pack. You'll need reasonable listening comprehension, because the expressions arrive inside natural conversation before they're explained.

How long does it take?

The audio is 19 minutes 22 seconds. Add the two written exercises and you have a solid study session.

Do I need the workbook?

The audio works alone and is free. The workbook gives you the transcript, the glossary and the practice exercises with answers.

Can I use these expressions at work?

They're informal. Fine with colleagues you know well, less so in a formal presentation — the glossary grading tells you where each one sits.

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