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Talking about sleep

Episode 240719 / 19 Jul 2024

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Introduction

Beth and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about sleep. Learn to talk about your sleep habits and dreams.

Vocabulary

nightmare
a bad or scary dream

exhausted
very tired

Grammar Tip:
Use past simple + past continuous to describe dreams

  • I dreamt that I couldn't find my family and I was running around looking for them.

Transcript

Neil
Hello, I'm Neil.

Beth
And I'm Beth.

Neil
And you're listening to Real Easy English, the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn.

Beth
To read along with this podcast, you can find a text version on our website. Visit bbclearningenglish.com.

Neil
How are things, Beth?

Beth
I'm very well, thank you, Neil. How are you?

Neil
Oh, I'm a little tired. I didn't sleep very well last night. And today's episode is all about sleep. We'll be talking about our sleep habits, and also our dreams.

Beth
Lovely. So, Neil, you said that you didn't sleep well last night. So that's not so lovely. Does that happen very often?

Neil
It happens all the time, Beth! I don't sleep very well.

Beth
Oh, dear. How many hours do you sleep at night, Neil?

Neil
I think probably six and a half hours.

Beth
Really?

Neil
Mmm. How about you?

Beth
Well, if I sleep less than eight hours, then I'm exhausted. I really like to sleep quite a lot.

Neil
Ah, you are exhausted. What does exhausted mean, Beth?

Beth
It means that you are really tired.

Neil
Yes.

Beth
Like you after last night because you didn't sleep very well. Are you exhausted?

Neil
I am Beth. I am absolutely exhausted.

Beth
What time do you usually go to bed, Neil?

Neil
About 11. I go to bed about 11.

Beth
I usually go earlier, but about ten o'clock.

Neil
And do you have dreams? Do you dream often?

Beth
Yeah, I do, but I find it quite hard to remember my dreams. But sometimes I have nightmares, and then they are easier to remember. So I might wake up in the middle of the night and feel a bit scared or worried.

Neil
Can you tell us about a strange dream that you've had?

Beth
Yeah, I had a weird dream a couple of nights ago.

I was at my auntie's house in the kitchen and then suddenly the floor was very wet and there were three robbers that were going to come and open the front door. So I had to run across the wet kitchen and lock the front door.

It was a bit scary and weird.

Neil
Yeah. That sounds like a really scary dream.

Beth
Yeah. So, a scary dream we can call a nightmare.

Neil
So, I had a nightmare, a bad dream, the other night. And I was in a foreign country, I think somewhere like Italy, a European place, and I couldn't find my family. And I was running around the streets, trying to find them and I couldn't find them. But then after a while of looking around the streets, I saw people in my family, and I felt much better.

Beth
So it sounds like it started as a nightmare but then it kind of went into a dream.

Neil
Yeah. It was just a normal, happy dream by the end.

Beth
Good!

Well, I noticed there that you used the past simple and the past continuous to describe your dream. You said I was running around which is the past continuous and then you said I found them, which was the past simple. And this is really common language that we use when we're describing things in the past like dreams.

So, we've talked about how long we sleep for and we've talked about dreams and nightmares. But I have a big question for you, Neil. Do you snore?

Neil
[makes a snoring noise]

Beth
You do!

Neil
That is snoring. Do I snore? I don't think I do. But my wife says that I do.

Beth
Oh, so you do snore!

Neil
No, I've never heard myself snore!

Let's have a look at the language we learned in this conversation.

Beth
We learnt nightmare, which is a bad or scary dream.

Neil
We heard exhausted - very tired.

Beth
And we learnt a way to talk about dreams using the past simple and the past continuous. For example, you dreamt that you were running around trying to find your family and then you found them.

Neil
I did.

Thanks for listening to Real Easy English. If you liked this, there are lots more programmes to help you with your English on our website. Like English in a Minute, where we explain one language tip in 60 seconds. Visit bbclearningenglish.com

Beth
Next time, we'll talk about our favourite films.

Neil
See you then, goodbye!

Beth
Bye!

Now try this...

More on using the past simple and past continuous

 

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