Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod. My name is Marco and I'm Erica. And today, with Erica, we have an upper-intermediate lesson. That's right, an upper-intermediate lesson that's a little bit strange. It's a little bit strange, but it's a real English lesson.

Because that's what we give you here at EnglishPod. So, in today's lesson, we've got a lot of really great language for you. We've got language to help you to gossip better. Gossip. Why don't you uh explain it a little bit, just in case?

Okay, so if I gossip, I maybe share news or information about other people with my friends. Like, I might say something like, "Marco, did you see what happened in ChinesePod today? You'll never guess what I saw!" Exactly. That's gossip. And we also have language today to describe things, to describe strange things. Strange things. All right, so let's take a look at our vocabulary preview. Vocabulary preview. So, in our vocabulary preview, we'll look at a few important words that will help you to understand the dialogue a little bit better. Exactly. And the first word is

"weird." Weird. Weird. Weird. Now, this is a common word, you probably hear it all the time and in a lot of different situations. So, we wanted to explain it today. Yeah, uh this word just means strange. It's strange. Yeah, a weird person is a strange person. Exactly. But the

thing about this word is, is if you are a young person, let's say under the age of 35, you'll probably use it about a hundred times a day. "Weird." Yeah, just such a good sounding word. "Weird." It is. Okay, but the thing is that even though it's probably

more commonly used in American English it's still widely used for British English as well yeah that's true so but maybe in British English you would say something like odd it's odd that's more common okay let's look at our second word housewarming gift housewarming gift

housewarming gift housewarming gift now this is a cultural thing it's really common in North America to give a housewarming gift to someone yeah if I move into a new house maybe some of my friends or family will bring a gift over

to make my house a little bit more beautiful so something like a photo frame or or maybe a plant or sometimes even like maybe a basket of pastries or something okay yeah I've never gotten one of those because I don't have a home oh where do you live on the street well

I don't have a my own home so I have never gotten one of those okay okay so we're ready now to listen to our dialogue so we've got two housewives who are gossiping about what's going on in the neighborhood and let's listen to

what [Music] happens oh I don't know if you've heard but someone moved into that old house down the road yeah I know I met the owner of the house yesterday as he was moving in his name is Armand really what's he like you have to fill me in

actually he's a bit strange I don't know I've just got a bad feeling about him really why well yesterday I brought over a housewarming gift but Armand started acting really weird and then he practically kicked me out I tried to

sort of peek into his house, but everything was so dark inside that I couldn't really get a good look. The whole thing really creeped me out. Well, you'll never guess what I saw this morning. A delivery truck pulled into his driveway and it dropped off a long

rectangular box. It almost looked like a coffin. You see why would he... Hello ladies! Armand, you scared the heck out of me! This is my friend Doris. Pleasure to meet you. If you're not doing anything tonight, I'd like to have you both for dinner. I

mean I'd like to have you both over for dinner. [Music] Ooh, that guy seems kind of weird. You can hear his voice is like a weird guy, right? Yeah, all right. Let's take a look at our language takeaway and look at some of

these great words. Language takeaway. So our language takeaway focuses on several words from the dialogue that we feel are really important for you to know exactly, and we have four of them for you today. Why don't we look at the first one? Okay, so

the first word is a bad feeling. Bad feeling. A bad feeling. A bad feeling. So we've got a few examples that will help you to understand how this phrase works. Example one: I don't like Kelly's new boyfriend. I've got a bad feeling about him.

Example two: It's so dark. We shouldn't be out here. I've got a bad feeling about this. Example three: I've got a bad feeling about this trip. I feel like something's going to happen. Maybe we shouldn't go. Okay, so basically you think something

Bad is going to happen. Yeah, you have a sort of uncomfortable feeling. Okay, that makes sense. I have a bad feeling about something. Exactly. Okay, let's look at our second word now. Kicked me out, kicked me out, kicked me out, kicked me out. So when someone kicks you out, it's they force

you to leave. You don't want to leave, but they force you to leave. Yeah, Marco, have you ever kicked someone out of your class? Um, yes, I have. Really? Yeah, if you misbehave in my class, you're kicked out. So you're pretty strict, huh? Sometimes I

am. Um, okay. Also maybe you've kicked your husband out of bed. M, I might have done that once or twice before. We'll have to ask him. I'm sure he has. All right, so that's what it means. You force someone to leave the house, leave the class, leave

the bed. So kicked out of class, kicked out of the house, kicked out of bed. Exactly, great. Let's look at our third word now. Creeped me out, creeped me out, creeped me out, creeped me out. Now this is a really common phrase. I like

this phrase a lot and we've got some examples for you to listen to to help you understand this word a little bit better. Example one: Sh, did you hear that? Oh, I think I saw something. Stop it, you're really creeping me out. Example two: This place really creeps me out.

Let's get out of here. All right, well I have a confession to make. I'm kind of creeped out by clowns. You are? Yes, I don't know, they're just creepy. They're, they scare me. I don't know. Really, what is it about

clowns that scare you so much I don't know they're just white faces and weird paint I don't know it's just creepy and the way they laugh I don't know maybe you had a bad experience with clowns as a child probably I watched the scary

movie about clowns or something yeah all right so creeped me out basically means made me feel uncomfortable yes it scares you yeah well speaking of being scared we have our final word for language takeaway and it is scared the heck out of me you scared the heck out of me

scared the heck out of me you got really scared yeah I think this is a quite common way of saying you really really scared me yeah okay we're ready to listen to our dialogue again now try and see if you can catch all these phrases

that we just talked about oh I don't know if you've heard but someone moved into that old house down the road yeah I know I met the owner of the house yesterday as he was moving in his name is Armand really what's he like you have to

fill me in actually he's a bit strange I don't know I've just got a bad feeling about him really why well yesterday I brought over a housewarming gift but Armand started acting really weird and then he practically kicked me out I

tried to sort of peek into his house but everything was so dark inside that I couldn't really get a good look the whole thing really creeped me out well you'll never guess what I saw this morning a delivery truck pulled into his

driveway and it dropped off a long rectangular box. It almost looked like a coffin. You see why would he... hello ladies! Ah, Armont, you scared the heck out of me! This is my friend Doris. A pleasure to meet you. If you are not doing anything

tonight, I would like to have you both for dinner. I mean, I would like to have you both over for dinner. You know one of the things I really like about this dialogue is there's a lot of great phrases that will help you to gossip. That's a good

observation. So I think it's time for Fluency Builder. Fluency Builder. In Fluency Builder, we take a simple phrase or a simple word you already know and show you how to express the same idea a little bit more naturally. Okay, great. So let's take a look at our first item for

Fluency Builder. So when you gossip with somebody, you often tell them news or information that they don't know already, and you might start by saying, "Did you know that?" Or you can say, "Did you hear?" Yeah, both of those phrases are perfectly fine. But if you want to sound a little

bit more native-like when you're gossiping, you might try out this phrase from the dialogue: "I don't know if you've heard." I don't know if you've heard. Yeah, that's a really good phrase. You're saying exactly the same thing, but

in a really natural way. It's a great one for gossiping. So Marco, I don't know if you've heard, but Chinese PO is up to some pretty crazy things. See, that's exactly how you would use that phrase. So now let's take a look at our second item

now when you're gossiping you want information that's right so you might say oh tell me about it or something like give me the details yeah and again both of these examples are perfectly fine but when you're gossiping you might want to try something like

this you have to fill me in you have to fill me in fill me in yeah that's that's what I would say fill me in you know give me the details fill me in fill me in on today's gossip okay so let's take a look

at our third item now if you have some juicy gossipy news and you want to start up a conversation you might use this phrase here well you'll never guess what I saw this morning well you'll never guess what I saw this morning that's a really good phrase you

can change it a little bit you can say you'll never guess who I saw or you'll never guess what I heard exactly very excellent gossip phrases we're teaching you how to gossip because that's real English people really do it so you got to know the language for it all right so

enough of our gossip I think it's time for us to listen to the dialogue one last time oh I don't know if you've heard but someone moved into that old house down the road yeah I know I met the owner of the house yesterday as he was moving in

his name is Armand really what's he like you have to fill me in actually he's a bit strange I don't know I've just got a bad feeling about him really why well yesterday I brought over a housewarming gift but Armand started acting really

weird and then he practically kicked me out. I tried to sort of peek into his house but everything was so dark inside that I couldn't really get a good look. The whole thing really creeped me out. Well, you'll never guess what I saw this

morning. A delivery truck pulled into his driveway and it dropped off a long rectangular box. It almost looked like a coffin. You see why would he Hello ladies! Armand, you scared the heck out of me. This is my friend Doris. A pleasure to

meet you. If if you're not doing anything tonight I'd like to have you both for dinner. I mean I'd like to have you both over for [Music] dinner. Okay, Marco, I have a true story for you. Is it kind of like a creepy

story? It is a creepy story indeed. Is it a true story? No, it's really true. So when I was young I used to live in the country. Mhm. And you know in the country all of the neighbors know each other. It's a small community, so everyone knows

what's happening all the time. Okay. And there was some gossip going on in our community about a guy who lived at the end of the road. Mhm. And he was the owner of a car wrecking yard, so a place where you take old broken down cars and take

the parts apart to sell, right? And anyway, a scrapyard. Yeah, a scrapyard. All right, okay. So you know he had a wife. Wife and a couple of kids. Um, and suddenly his wife disappeared. Wow. Yeah, and no one knew what happened or anything. And so

Several years pass and suddenly the police start coming in and start investigating this guy and start digging up all of the land around his property. And I guess I don't know what they're doing, but I think they were looking for the wife's body. Wow! And did they find it?

I don't know. I moved away. Oh, such a great story, but we don't know how it ends. Yeah, yeah, well, um, well, we can leave it up to the imagination of our listeners. Exactly. Maybe they were looking for an old car, an old car very in the ground. I don't think so. All right.

That's a true story. Real English, real stories there. Go. You heard it first here on EnglishPod. All right, so we want to hear your comments and suggestions about this topic. I bet a lot of our listeners also have creepy stories, maybe ghost stories, maybe I don't know, different

types of uh weird stories. So you guys should definitely log on to EnglishPod and share them with us. That's right. Go to EnglishPod.com and in the comment section of the website tell us your creepy stories and we're going to pick out the best story as the story of the

week. We'll announce it in our this Justin podcast. Yes. So we want to hear all your juicy stories and gossip maybe as well. Yes. All right. Well, it's time for us to go, so be sure to listen to us next time, but until then, it's bye-bye, bye.

[Music] The EnglishPod audio review. Listen to the meaning then say the vocabulary word, phrase used to introduce a piece of [Music] information. I don't know if you heard, tell me about it, fill me in. A sense or feeling that something bad is going to

I have a bad feeling. Strange, unusual, weird. Make or force someone to leave when they don't want to. Kick out. Make me feel uncomfortable and a bit scared. Creep me out. Phrase used to introduce a piece of news you'll never guess. Cause someone to feel a lot of

fear. Scare the heck out of me. Strange, strange or unusual, bizarre. Strange or scary causing people to feel nervous and afraid. [Music] Creepy. A dead person who drinks the blood of living people. Vampire. Phrase used to introduce a piece of gossip.

Have you heard? Phrase used to introduce an interesting or surprising piece of information. Guess what. Let's try that faster. A dead person who drinks the blood of living people. Vampire. Phrase used to introduce a piece of news you'll never guess. Tell me about it. Fill me

in. Phrase used to introduce a piece of gossip. Have you heard? Strange or scary causing people to feel nervous and afraid. Creepy. Phrase used to introduce an interesting or surprising piece of information. Guess what. Strange, unusual, weird. Make me feel uncomfortable and a

bit scared. Creep me out. Cause someone to feel a lot of fear. Scare the heck out of me. Make or force someone to leave when they don't want to. Kick out. A sense or feeling that something bad is going to happen. A bad

feeling. Strange or unusual. Bizarre. Phrase used to introduce a piece of [Music] information. I don't know if you heard. Now say the word and hear it in a sentence. Weird. Last night I kept hearing a really weird sound. I don't know what it

was weird our teacher seems a bit weird don't you think weird the weirdest thing happened to me yesterday a pack of monkeys stole my car keys [Music] a bad feeling I've got a bad feeling about Kelly's new boyfriend I don't think he's

a good guy a bad feeling I have a bad feeling about this sales strategy I think it's going to fail a bad feeling I've got a bad feeling about this trip I think we should stay home kick out if you don't be quiet I'm going to

kick you out of this meeting kick out we got kicked out of the restaurant at midnight because they were closing kick out that's it I'm kicking you out of class go stand in the hall creep me out This Old House is so scary it's really

creeping me out creep me out I watch The Exorcist last night that movie really creeps me out creep me out the last time I walked home alone at night I really really got creeped out I almost got in a car accident yesterday that scared the heck out of

me don't wear that vampire mask you're scaring the heck out of the baby I'm terrified of clowns they scare the heck out of me I don't know if you've heard but Susan and John are breaking up I don't know if you've heard but the

new marketing manager is single I don't know if you've heard but Maurice quit his job yesterday fill me in I can't go to today's meeting but can you fill me in on the important details fill me in how was your date you have to fill me

In Fill Me In, Sarah missed her class yesterday, but I filled her in on the homework assignment. You'll never guess what I heard - Peter and Anna are getting married! You'll never guess who I saw yesterday - Bill, my boyfriend from high school! You'll never guess what Sandra told me...

Learn English quickly with Smart Podcast | Episode 9

Learn English quickly with Smart Podcast | Episode 9