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Talking about your brain

Episode 250627 / 27 Jun 2025

(Photo: Getty)

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Introduction

Neil and Georgie have a real conversation in easy English about how to keep your brain active. Learn to talk about your mind and memory.

Vocabulary

memory
your ability to remember things

long term memory
your ability to remember things from a long time ago

short term memory
your ability to remember recent things

sharp
an adjective used to describe someone who thinks quickly

on the tip of your tongue
an expression that means you have something you want to say, but you can't say the words fast enough

screen time
the amount of time someone spends looking at their phone, computer, or other screens

Transcript

Georgie
Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Georgie.

Neil
And I'm Neil. And don't forget, you can now watch a version of this podcast on our website at bbclearningenglish.com.

Georgie
How are you today?

Neil
I'm pretty good. How about you?

Georgie
Yes. I'm good. It's the morning, so my brain is fresh and ready for the day.

Neil
Excellent, because we're talking today about our brains.

Georgie
We are. We're going to talk about how we keep our minds active. So kind of like exercise for our brains. Shall we get started?

Neil
Let's do it.

Georgie
So, Neil, do you think you have a good memory?

Neil
Well, it depends. I can remember things that happened years ago that don't seem very significant at all. And then I can struggle to remember what I did at the weekend.

Georgie
I have the same problem. I guess that's the difference between our long term memory. So that's things that happened a long time ago and the short term memory. So things that we did this morning, I also struggle to remember what I had for breakfast and things like that.

So Neil, is there a time recently where you couldn't remember something and it was annoying?

Neil
Well, I did a quiz with my daughter, and she's 15 and quite sharp. And I knew all of the answers. I mean, I have better general knowledge than her, I think. But she said all the answers quicker than me. I think just the distance between her brain and her mouth is shorter than mine.

Georgie
Were the answers on the tip of your tongue?

Neil
The answers were on the tip of my tongue, but they just didn't get a chance to get out there.

Georgie
So I have a story as well. A time when I couldn't remember something. My friend was talking about something that, about an event where I was and I didn't remember it at all, and she had to ask another friend to get evidence, to prove to me that it had happened because I didn't believe her. And it was so strange because it was true that it happened, but I didn't remember it.

Neil
Do you think you have a quick brain?

Georgie
I don't actually. I'm the kind of person that needs some time to process things. What people have said or, yeah, I don't like it when people ask me my opinions of things on the spot. I prefer to think about things and form my opinions in my own time. So, no, I have a slow brain.

Neil
OK.

Georgie
What do you do to keep your mind active?

Neil
Well, I, I like to study languages and that's very good for the brain because you've got to remember all kinds of things and what order they're said in and what happens to the words and that kind of thing. And I like reading. You have to use your brain to read, to follow a story. But I don't do puzzles and crosswords and sudoku and all of those things that other people do. Maybe I should.

Georgie
Yeah, I, I do jigsaw puzzles, although I haven't done that much recently. I also, I think exercise is quite good for your brain. Is that true? It gets you out of the house, you get some fresh air. I feel like that's quite good for your brain.

Neil
What kind of things, Georgie, make your brain less effective?

Georgie
Well, my brain, as I said at the beginning, works better in the morning. In the afternoon, my brain starts not working very well. So I tend to do less important tasks in the afternoon. I also think that, before I go to sleep, if I use my phone too much, too much screen time, I sleep worse. And then I wake up feeling a lot less functional in my brain.

What about you?

Neil
Yeah, I agree, I think sleep is massively important. If I haven't slept well, then it's very hard to use my brain effectively the next day.

Georgie
Yeah, and that's quite common for you, unfortunately, isn't it?

Neil
Hey. That's life!

Georgie
OK, let's recap the language we heard during the conversation. We talked about our memories. Your memory is your ability to remember things.

Neil
Yes. And Georgie mentioned short and long term memory. Short term memory is for things that happened recently. And long term memory is for things that happened a long time ago, even when you were a child.

Georgie
We also heard sharp, which is an adjective used to describe someone who thinks quickly.

Neil
We heard on the tip of your tongue, which is an expression which means that something is there that you want to say, but you can't say it quickly enough.

Georgie
We also heard screen time, so this is the amount of time someone spends looking at their screen. So your phone, a tablet, a computer.

Neil
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. Why not try the worksheet on our website to test what you've learned? That's bbclearningenglish.com.

Georgie
And next time we'll talk about plastic waste and recycling. See you then.

Neil
Goodbye.

 

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