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Real Easy English

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Talking about drinks

Episode 260116 / 16 Jan 2026

(Photo: Getty)

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Introduction

Neil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about drinks – the different hot and cold beverages that they like to have throughout the day. Would you rather drink still or sparkling water? Learn to talk about what you prefer to drink.

Vocabulary

prefer
like more than something else

would rather / would prefer
used to show a specific preference or choice

fizzy
carbonated; containing small gassy bubbles

sparkling
(used for water) fizzy; containing bubbles

still
(used for water) not fizzy; not containing bubbles

Transcript

Neil
Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Neil.
 
Beth
And I'm Beth. There's a video version of this podcast on our website. Try it at bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Neil
Hi Beth. How are you?
 
Beth
I'm very well, thank you, Neil. How are you?
 
Neil
I'm very good. I've just had my first coffee of the day.
 
Beth
Me too. Now we're feeling good.
 
Neil
We are feeling good. And we're talking about drinks today.
 
Beth
Yes, we are. We've talked a lot about food on this podcast but today, yeah, we're going to talk about drinks. So, Neil, do you have a lot of hot drinks?
 
Neil
Not a lot, but they are very important to me. So, I really enjoy having my coffee, but I probably only have two a day.
 
Beth
OK. I normally have one coffee a day, in the morning.

Neil
So, here's a big question. Do you prefer tea or coffee?
 
Beth
Definitely coffee. So, with tea, like English breakfast tea, black tea with milk – no, I don't like it at all.
 
Neil
You don't like tea?
 
Beth
No!
 
Neil
What's...? What's the matter with you?!
 
Beth
Did you not know that I don't like tea? It's horrible. I have to... If I like tea, it's tea like a fruit tea, or a... Yeah, I'm not very good at being British, apparently.
 
Neil
OK. Well, I think tea is great, but just one. One's fine in the morning, maybe.
 
Beth
OK. But do you prefer tea to coffee?
 
Neil
I think they're really difficult to compare.
 
Beth
Mmm.
 
Neil
I think you can drink more tea without feeling a bit strange. If you drink too much coffee, it can, you know, have an effect on you.
 
Beth
That's true, that's true. What about other hot drinks, like hot chocolate? I love it in the winter when I'm just at home with the fire on, drinking a hot chocolate.
 
Neil
Yeah, that's OK, but I don't have it very often.
 
Beth
No.
 
Neil
No. Actually, sometimes when I have a cold in the winter, I like to slice ginger very thinly.
 
Beth
Yeah.
 
Neil
Put it in a flask with hot water and honey – sometimes lemon as well. And that's a really nice, warming drink.
 
Beth
Yeah, definitely. I do the same thing – like honey and lemon and ginger.
 
Neil
So, we talked about hot drinks, but what about cold drinks? Do you like fizzy drinks?
 
Beth
Not really, to be honest. I mean, I like them, but I don't have them very often at all. So, I used to have a Coke with a Chinese. If I had, like, a really spicy meal, then I would quite enjoy drinking a Coke with it, but I don't really have Chinese very often and I don't really have fizzy drinks often.
 
Neil
No.
 
Beth
What about you?
 
Neil
No, I don't really like fizzy drinks. They're OK. Sometimes they're a bit hard to swallow because they've got so much gas.
 
Beth
That's true. I had a sparkling water yesterday, so if I have the choice between still or sparkling, I might go for a sparkling water. And it feels healthier than having a lemonade or something else fizzy.
 
Neil
Right. I preferstill water.
 
Beth
I think still water's nicer. So, Neil, if you're thirsty, wouldyourather have water, or something like juice or squash?
 
Neil
If I'm thirsty, I wouldrather have water, every time. You cannot beat water for when you're thirsty. There's nothing... nothing like it – nothing like that feeling, if you've done some exercise or something, or you're just really thirsty, of drinking a big glass of water.
 
Beth
I completely agree. I think juice is nice for when... with breakfast, sometimes. Like, I might have orange juice. But squash is something very popular in the UK with some families.
 
Neil
Yeah. What's squash?
 
Beth
Squash is very strong, concentrated fruit juice, and you add water to it to get a drink. But if you taste orange squash rather than fresh orange juice, it's... it has more of a fake flavour than a real flavour of orange.
 
Neil
Let's recap the language we've looked at in this episode, starting with prefer. If you prefer something, it means you like it more than something else. For example, I prefer water to juice.
 
Beth
We can also use prefer with would to talk about a specific option. For example, I wouldprefer to have coffee than tea, and we can use wouldrather in the same way. So, I wouldrather have coffee than tea.
 
Neil
Fizzy drinks, like cola or lemonade, have little gassy bubbles in them.
 
Beth
Yes, but if water is fizzy, we call this sparkling water. So, sparkling water has bubbles and the opposite is still. Still water has no bubbles and you can get it from the tap – tap water.
 
Neil
That's it for this episode of Real Easy English, but you can find a free worksheet to download on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
 
Beth
And we'll be back next week with another episode in easy English. See you then.
 
Neil
Goodbye.

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