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Real Easy English

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Talking about wishes

Episode 250131 / 31 Jan 2025

(Photo: Getty)

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Introduction

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about what they want. Learn to talk about the future and your wishes.

Vocabulary

wish
something you want to happen

lottery
a game where you buy a ticket to win a big prize, usually money

splash out
spend money on a luxury

Grammar Tip:

Use the second conditional to talk about your wishes for the future.

  • If I had more time, I would learn a new language.
  • If I won the lottery, I would buy a big house.

And use wish + past simple to talk about your wishes for the present.

  • I wish I had a bigger house.
  • I wish I knew more languages.

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 read along with this podcast and find a worksheet to help you learn on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.

Neil
Hi, Georgie. How are you?

Georgie
I'm feeling pretty good, thank you, Neil. How are you?

Neil
I'm OK, Georgie, but I wish it wasn't still winter. It's dark and cold, and I'm looking forward to spring.

Georgie
Me too.

Neil
And today we're talking all about wishes. A wish is something you want to happen.

Georgie
Great. Let's start the conversation. Right Neil, what is your biggest wish for the future?

Neil
That's an interesting question. It's easy to say that I would like loads of money, but probably, really, all I want is for people that I like and love and know to be happy and healthy.

Georgie
That's a good one.

Neil
Because if they're not, nothing is worth it.

Georgie
Yeah, that's very true. And my answer would be similar, actually. I want to be surrounded by all my friends. And I also hope that they are all happy and healthy.

But Neil, let's have a bit of fun. We've talked about wanting our friends and family to be healthy, but if you won the lottery, what would you spend the money on?

Neil
OK, here we go. So, if I won the lottery, I would obviously get a big house. And in the house I would have like a recording studio with loads of really good guitars, and I would make terrible music and record it, and nobody would have to listen to it.

Georgie
I would listen to it, Neil. I would listen to it.

I would spend a lot of the money on travelling. I want to see lots of different places in the world and travelling is really expensive, so that would be a good use of the money.

Neil
What kind of luxury item would you buy if you won the lottery?

Georgie
Oh, I'm not very materialistic, actually, so that's a difficult question. Materialistic, that means I'm not really interested in expensive products or things. So I'm more interested in experiences. So aside from travel, there are things like concerts.

Maybe I would splash out on really expensive tickets to concerts or events, things like that.

Neil
Splash out, that's an interesting word. What does it mean?

Georgie
So it's a phrasal verb, and it means to spend a lot of money on luxury things that you want.

Neil
Yeah. You know, if you're really, really, really rich these days, you can go into space as a tourist.

Georgie
Would you want to do that?

Neil
Absolutely not.

Georgie
Neither would I.

Neil
I hate flying anyway.

Georgie
Yeah.

Neil
Going into space would just be too horrible.

Georgie
Oh my gosh. No, I couldn't do it. It would be so scary going into the black sky. Neil, do you have any wishes about your life now? What would you change?

Neil
Yeah, I wish I had more space. I can't move in my house without things falling out of a cupboard.

Georgie
OK, so you need more storage?

Neil
Just space. You know, there's four of us, and it's quite small.

Georgie
OK. Yeah. If you had more money, you could buy a bigger house.

I wish I had more time. I feel like with a full time job, you have time in the evenings, but not that much time to do hobbies and things. It would be nice to work less, play more.

Neil
Let's recap some of the language we heard during the conversation. We had wish, something you want to happen.

Georgie
We heard lottery, a game where you buy a ticket to win a big prize, usually money.

Neil
During the program we heard lots of examples of the second conditional. That's saying things like, if I won the lottery, I'd buy a big house. And we also talked about our wishes using wish and the past. I wish I had more money.

Georgie
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. To test what you've learned, try the worksheet on our website. You can find a link in the notes for this episode.

Neil
And Georgie, you made a whole video series about conditionals.

Georgie
I did.

Neil
And we can find that on our website too, bbclearningenglish.com.

Georgie
Come back next week for another episode of Real Easy English.

Goodbye for now.

Neil
Goodbye.

 

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