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Talking about socialising

Episode 250606 / 06 Jun 2025

(Photo: Getty)

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Introduction

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about spending time with friends. Learn to talk about what you do with your friends and whether you like socialising.

Vocabulary

socialise
spend time with people for fun

small talk
conversation about unimportant things, like the weather, usually with people you don't know well

awkward
uncomfortable

embarrassed
ashamed or shy

have(something) in common
share the same interests, likes or dislikes

Transcript

Neil
Hello and welcome to Real Easy English, the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Neil.

Georgie
And I'm Georgie. You can now watch this podcast and find a worksheet to help you learn on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

Neil
So, Georgie, how are you?

Georgie
I'm very tired, actually. I've had a lot of social plans lately. How about you?

Neil
Yeah. I'm fine. Social plans. That's interesting, because we're talking about friends today.

Georgie
Yes, we're talking about socialising, which means spending time with people for fun. So, Neil, do you like spending time with friends?

Neil
Yeah, I love spending time with my friends. If I don't see my friends very often, I feel a bit sad and lonely. So yeah, I really like seeing my friends, but I don't get to see them very often because, you know, we're grown ups and we have responsibilities.

Georgie
You have kids, you have lots of things going on. I also like spending time with my friends. I have lots of friends. As I said, I've had a lot of social plans lately. Pretty much every day I've been socialising.

Neil
Wow, so you like socialising, but do you like things like parties or do you prefer smaller social events?

Georgie
I do really like big parties, because I like meeting new people. I like dancing as well. So, at big parties, usually there's some music. But I do have a shy side of my personality, so usually a smaller event is better for me, so I can have kind of deeper conversations with fewer people. How about you?

Neil
Yeah. I don't really like, that situation where you're at a party and don't know lots of people. So a small group of people that I mainly know, and there's one or two people who I don't know so well, that's fine. But a bigger group with lots of people I don't know, I really don't like that.

Georgie
And why is that? Is that because you don't like small talk?

Neil
Yeah. I don't really like small talk. It feels a bit empty.

Georgie
Small talk is conversations about things that aren't important like the weather, usually with people that you don't know very well.

Neil
Yeah.

Georgie
And you don't like that?

Neil
No. I find it awkward.

So, Georgie, you like meeting new people? Do you feel embarrassed at all, or are you completely fine with that?

Georgie
I think it depends. I think if you find a topic quite quickly that you have in common, that avoids embarrassment. But it's when you you meet someone new, you don't know them very well, obviously, because they're new and you don't know what they like or don't like or what they think is rude or not rude. But if you can figure that out quite quickly, it's, yeah, it's usually OK. Do you usually feel quite embarrassed then?

Neil
Sometimes, like you said, it depends if you find something that you have in common and you can talk about that. But sometimes you don't find something in common, and then it's really I don't know, embarrassing, I suppose. I feel strange just thinking about it.

You, obviously you like parties, you like socialising. But do you like spending time alone?

Georgie
I get more energy from spending time alone and relaxing and not talking to anyone. I often get what I call social burnout, which means you just get exhausted from spending too much time with others. How about you?

Neil
Well, yeah. Spending time alone is also important, and I like to do that, but not so much. Not as much as maybe spending time with people. Because, like I said before, if I'm alone for too long, I get a bit lonely and feel a bit, I don't know, just lacking energy.

Let's recap the vocabulary we heard in this podcast, starting with socialise, which means to spend time with friends or other people to enjoy yourself.

Georgie
We had small talk, which is conversation about things which aren't important, such as the weather or the traffic. We use small talk a lot in the UK.

Neil
We heard some adjectives to describe how you might feel about meeting new people. So we had embarrassed, which means feeling ashamed or shy. And we also heard awkward, which means feeling uncomfortable when you're meeting new people.

Georgie
We also heard in common, so if you have something in common with someone, it means you share the same likes, dislikes, or interests with someone.

Neil
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. Test what you've learned by downloading the free worksheet on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

Georgie
Next time we'll be talking about brothers and sisters. See you then.

Neil
Bye. 

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