Learning Vocabulary - Lionheart or Scaredy-cat

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack

Rowan: My name’s Rowan and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast.

Jack: In the Premier Skills English podcast, we talk about football and help you with your English. The Premier Skills English podcast is part of the Premier Skills English project.

Rowan: As well as the podcast, there’s the Premier Skills English website, where you’ll be able to find all these podcasts and the transcript and extra activities that go with them.

Jack: So if you are listening to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any other podcast platform, check out our website!

Rowan: And don’t forget to listen to the end of the podcast because we have a new football phrase for you to guess!

From the comments

Rowan: Before we start this week’s roleplay we’d just like to thank everyone for all their comments on the Premier Skills English website. It’s great to know that you’re enjoying the podcasts and all of the free learning materials we have on the site.

Jack: We’d like to give a shout-out to some of our listeners and tell everyone what they’ve been saying.

Rowan: The first person I’d like to say a big hello to is HSN from Turkey. We really enjoy reading your comments on the website. You are definitely our top commenter.

Jack: It’s really great to see how you are using all the discussions and sharing your ideas. I’d like to say hi to Etto from Egypt who says that it’s important to be decisive in his job. It sounds quite stressful to me - I hope you keep making the right decisions.

Rowan: Good luck Etto.

Introduction to the roleplay

Jack: You are about to hear this week’s roleplay.

Rowan: In the roleplay this week, Jack is doing a personality test about courage. He wants to find out if he is brave.

Jack: I think I am brave in real life. I am not afraid of dangerous or difficult things.

Rowan: Really? What about flying? Aren’t you afraid of flying?

Jack: Erm ...

Rowan: And heights?

Jack: Well ...

Rowan: And spiders?

Jack: Let’s get on with the roleplay.

Rowan: While you listen we want you to answer a question: is Jack a lionheart, is he very brave or is he a scaredy-cat?

Roleplay: In the cafe / pub

Rowan: What’ve you got there?

Jack: It’s a personality test.

Rowan: Oh yeah? What’s it about?

Jack: It’s about bravery and courage. It’s called lionheart or scaredy-cat?

Rowan: And what are you?

Jack: I don’t know yet. I haven’t started it.

Rowan: Pass it here. Let’s do it together.

Jack: OK - what’s the first question?

Rowan: Let’s see. Here we go. Question 1: What would you do if you heard a bump in the night?

Jack: I would try to ignore it. In my house, it would probably be the dog. Or one of the kids.

Rowan: But what if it was really loud and sounded like someone was breaking in?

Jack: That would be different. What are the options?

Rowan: Erm ... would you stay in bed and pretend to be asleep? Or would you wait and see or would you get out of bed and go and investigate.

Jack: Hmmm. Well, if I thought that there was someone in the house, I’d have to go and check. But if I just heard one bump, I’d probably listen for a while to see if it was one of my kids.

Rowan: So you’d wait and see. ... Interesting.

Jack: You think that makes me a scaredy-cat?

Rowan: We’ll have to wait and see what the test thinks.

Jack: OK ... what’s the next question.

Rowan: Question 2. This one is a bit more general. It says: what do you do when faced with a challenge?

Jack: This is good. I like being challenged.

Rowan: What if it’s something really difficult? Have you ever had a problem at work and worried that you wouldn’t be able to solve it?

Jack: Yes. Of course.

Rowan: And you like that?

Jack: Well ... what are the options?

Rowan: Do you stay up late worrying about it? Or do you discuss it with your friends or do you take a deep breath and grab the bull by the horns?

Jack: I like that idiom. To grab the bull by the horns. It’s the best way to deal with a difficult situation. To face it head on.

Rowan: I’m not sure it’s a very accurate idiom. If you actually grabbed a bull by the horns it would probably kill you. Is that your answer?

Jack: Yes. Well, I would probably do all three.

Rowan: C’mon You have to pick one.

Jack: OK - I would grab the bull by the horns.

Rowan: Hmmm. OK (not believing). The next question is a good one. What would you do if your boss was bullying one of your colleagues?

Jack: My boss would never bully anyone. But I have had some bad managers in the past that have been bullies. But it was kind of accepted then and nobody did anything.

Rowan: So? What would you do now? Would you pretend not to notice?

Jack: No!

Rowan: Or would you join in?

Jack: Definitely not.

Rowan: That’s not actually one of the answers. Would you arrange to meet someone in HR and report them? Or would you confront them and risk losing your job?

Jack: I would ... I think I would probably arrange to meet someone in HR and report them. I think that’s the professional way to deal with the situation.

Rowan: But not very brave.

Jack: Yeah, yeah. I don’t want to lose my job.

Rowan: Fair enough. OK ... The next question. You are at the swimming pool and your friend dares you to dive off the top diving board.

Jack: Ooh - erm .. How high is it?

Rowan: I don’t know. Not really high. In my swimming pool there’s a 3 metre springboard and then the high one is 5 metres I think.

Jack: 5 metres. That’s quite high.

Rowan: Olympic divers dive off 10m platforms I think. So 5 is not so bad.

Jack: Yeah. Have you ever dived off the top board?

Rowan: Yes.

Jack: OK ... Hmmm. What are the options?

Rowan: Would you A: Say, no way. Double dare you?

Jack: Yes - I’d double dare my friend instead.

Rowan: Or B climb to the board and grit your teeth and jump? Or C perform a perfect graceful swan dive?

Jack: Nope. I’m not a fan of heights ... or falling from them. A I’m afraid.

Rowan: I think that’s sensible. But not very brave.

Yeah, yeah. Come on then. Is that the last question?

Rowan: Let’s see the results.

Language Focus

Rowan: Before the roleplay, we asked you a question. The question was: is Jack a lionheart or a scaredy-cat?

Jack: And the answer is lionheart, of course!

Rowan: I’m not so sure. We never got to the answer. Perhaps our listeners can tell us in the comments. Let us know if you think Jack’s a lionheart or scaredy-cat.

Jack: Yes. Let’s get on with the language focus.

Rowan: The topic of today’s language focus is verb patterns. This is one of the most difficult things for intermediate learners of English because you just have to learn them.

Jack: That’s why this is a vocabulary podcast. It really is vocabulary. Listen to the verbs like and risk in these clips from the roleplay. What form of verb follows these verbs?

Rowan: Or would you confront them and risk losing your job?

Jack: This is good. I like being challenged.

Rowan: These verbs are followed by the ING or -ing form of the verb. There is a bit of a pattern here. Verbs which express your attitude towards something are followed by iNG verbs.

Jack: Like, love, hate, enjoy, don’t mind, can’t stand, absolutely loathe ... All these verbs are followed by the -ING ing form of verbs.

Rowan: It’s not much of a rule. Listen to another clip from the roleplay. Listen to the verbs, try and pretend. What form of verb follows these verbs?

Jack: I would try to ignore it. In my house, it would probably be the dog. Or one of the kids.

Rowan: Erm ... Would you stay in bed and pretend to be asleep?

Jack: These verbs are all followed by the infinitive form of the verb. That’s the ‘to’ form. To be, to have, for example.

Rowan: I don’t think there’s a rule here you can use to help you remember them. So it’s probably useful to try to learn the most common verbs and then be aware of it when you come across new vocabulary in the future.

Jack: Some verbs can be followed by the to form or the -ing form. The meaning is slightly different though. Listen to these examples. Do you know what the difference is?

Rowan: I like playing computer games.

Jack: I like to clean my flat on a Saturday morning.

Rowan: I hate talking on the phone.

Jack: I hate to tell you this, but you can’t go on holiday.

Rowan: It really is tricky. One explanation said, the verb followed by the -ing form is about the activity and the verb followed by the to form is about the results of the activity.

Jack: So if you say: I like to clean my flat, it’s like saying I like having a clean flat.

Rowan: So you could say. I don’t like cleaning, the activity, but I like to clean my flat because I think having a clean flat is nice.

Jack: There’s one more pattern to talk about. Listen to these two examples with the verb stop.

Rowan: I stopped watching TV after the news.

Jack: I stopped to answer the door.

Rowan: OK. This is a bit of a trick in English. It looks a bit like you can use stop with a to-infinitive, but you can’t.

Jack: Yes you can. I just did in that example.

Rowan: It looks like it, but the verb stop when followed by an -ing form describes that activity. In the example, stop watching, watching was the activity that stopped.

Jack: Aha. But in the second example I stopped to answer, we don’t know what the activity is that stopped. Perhaps I stopped watching TV to answer the door.

Rowan: Exactly. This is not really a verb pattern. It’s an infinitive of purpose as it explains why you stopped, what the purpose was.

Task

Jack: Right, it’s time for your task. In the roleplay, you just heard, I took a personality test.

Rowan: We have recreated the personality test on Premier Skills English and we want you to take it and let us know what your result is.

Jack: This is just a bit of fun so please don’t take it too seriously if you’re a scaredy cat like me.

Rowan: We would also like you to share your own experiences of bravery. What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done?

Jack: Or perhaps you have different experiences. Have you ever been a bit of a scaredy cat?

Rowan: Write all your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football Phrase

Rowan: OK, it’s time for our football phrase. If you’ve not listened to the podcast before, every week we set our listeners a challenge. We explain a football phrase or word and you have to guess what it is.

Jack: When you know the answer, go to the podcast page on the Premier Skills English website or the review section on Apple Podcasts and write the word or phrase in the comments. If you’re correct we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast. So what is this week’s football phrase, Rowan?

Rowan: The phrase is ***** *** ****. This phrase is used to say that something costs too much. It’s a funny expression and it’s usually used in a negative way to say that something is not very expensive. So you might hear someone say: we really need a new defender, but we don’t want to ***** *** ****, meaning we don’t want to spend too much money. Or perhaps, we should go for a coffee, I can treat you, it won’t ***** *** ****.

Jack: That’s not so tough this time..

Rowan: If you get stuck, you can take a look at the Premier Vocabulary pages in the Words section of the website.

Jack: If you have a football phrase that you would like us to use in the podcast, just get in touch and let us know.

Rowan: Before we finish we just wanted to say that we hope you found this lesson useful and we hope all of you stay fit and healthy.

Jack: Bye for now and enjoy your football.