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Talking about dinner

Episode 251212 / 12 Dec 2025

(Photo: Getty)

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Introduction

Phil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about dinner – the meal we have in the evening. Learn to talk about what time you normally eat, who mostly does the cooking and what you might decide to make.

Vocabulary

may, might, could 
modal verbs used to show something is possible but not yet certain

normally, usually
in our ordinary, regular routine

mostly
most frequently

occasionally
infrequently; out of the ordinary

Transcript

Georgie
Hello and welcome to Real Easy English.

Phil
In this podcast, we have a real conversation in easy English to help you learn. I'm Phil.
 
Georgie
And I'm Georgie. You can watch a video version of this podcast and find a free worksheet to test what you've learned all on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Phil
Hi, Georgie. How are you?
 
Georgie
I'm very well thank you, Phil. How are you? How was your lunch?
 
Phil
My lunch? It was great because I had leftovers from yesterday's dinner. I had potato and leek soup yesterday for dinner.
 
Georgie
Yum!
 
Phil
And that is actually what we're talking about today. We're talking about the evening meal, which we often call dinner, but you might hear people in the UK also say tea or supper. It's all the same thing.
 
Georgie
Yeah, exactly. So, Phil, what are you having for dinner tonight?
 
Phil
OK. Well, I think we're having lamb chops and something with, kind of, egg in cabbage.
 
Georgie
Ooh, that sounds good! When you say we, who's that?
 
Phil
That's me and my wife, and my kids.
 
Georgie
Lovely.
 
Phil
The four of us.
 
Georgie
For me, today is not a normal day because I have choir practice. So normally, or usually, I would have something like a proper meal. A proper meal is a big dinner – something that will make you full. But today I have choir practice and choir practice is at the same time as dinner, so I'm not sure what I'm going to have for dinner, but I might have something from the bakery that I can walk and eat with, or I could have some snacks at the choir practice. Sometimes they have some snacks there, so we'll see.
 
Phil
What time do you usually have dinner?
 
Georgie
Hmm... it depends, but usually around seven or eight o'clock. What about you?
 
Phil
Yeah, probably about the same. Probably 6:30, 7:00, 7:30 – depends how long I spend cooking.
 
Georgie
It surprises me because you have children and they often want to eat sooner – earlier.
 
Phil
We often give them something like a snack when they come home from school and then, yeah, by the time we finish work and we've cooked something, it's late.
 
Georgie
And what do you usually have for dinner with your family.
 
Phil
Erm... different things. We usually cook something so, I don't know, it might be pasta, or it might be fish, or it might be something with meat, something with chicken – depends. Different things.
 
Georgie
I have a subscription to a company that do recipes, and they deliver the food and the ingredients to your door once a week, so I eat a variety of things for dinner, actually. I try to choose recipes that are, yeah, very different from each other. So, Phil, who normally cooks in your house?
 
Phil
To be honest, it's mostly me but it depends what we're doing. So, maybe when I'm in the office – so, today I'm in the office and also my son is doing something later so he needs to have dinner fairly early, so my wife will probably cook today. But then tomorrow, my wife's doing something after work and I'm working from home, so I'll cook tomorrow, and it just depends. It depends what we're doing, but it's mostly me... but it depends.
 
Georgie
OK. Mostly you. So, that means almost always. In my house, I live with housemates and we... we normally cook for ourselves, but occasionally we will cook something together, or I will cook for them. They will cook for me. So, yeah, we change it – change it up.
 
Phil
Very occasionally my daughter cooks.
 
Georgie
Oh!
 
Phil
She's started cooking. Sometimes just for herself because she doesn't... because she doesn't like what I've cooked.
 
Georgie
OK.
 
Phil
OK. Let's recap the language we used during the conversation. We talked about what we'll have for dinner tonight using may, might and could. And may, might and could are modal verbs that we use to talk about possibilities.
 
Georgie
For example, tonight I might eat something from the bakery. We also talked about things we normally eat for dinner. Normally and usually mean the same thing, and we use them to talk about things that happen most often in our routines.
 
Phil
And we can also use mostly to describe what we eat for dinner, or who cooks dinner. And if we mostly do something, it means we do it most of the time.
 
Georgie
We also heard occasionally, which means something similar to sometimes – something that doesn't happen very often. For example, I occasionally cook with my housemates.
 
Phil
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. We'll be back next week with another easy English conversation.
 
Georgie
Don't forget to try our worksheet over on our website. Go to bbclearningenglish.com. Goodbye for now.
 
Phil
Bye!

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