Short and sweet

A short and sweet episode featuring a lawyer from London answering a couple of questions about music. Plenty of great vocab and connectors.

Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Thanks to Ofordi for contributing. 

Transcript

Hi, Trevor here. I´m busy recording the next season of the Real Exam English podcast at the moment so this is just a short and sweet episode for you. It features a good friend of mine who is a lawyer in London and speaks absolutely top-class English. Here she is answering a couple of exam questions about music. Check it out.

Has the music that you listened to changed since?You were young.

I would say that it's the the type of music I've listened to has.Increased in scope.So what I mean by that is, uhm.I listened to more music than I would have originally when I was younger.Uhm, but I've always enjoyed a varied mix of or quite an eclectic mix of music so for me.

I don't know.The question, doesn't really.I don't think it really applies. I mean, I like lots of different types of music and as far as I'm concerned.Uhm, you can approach one.Can appreciate music without necessarily.Liking it 

Do you think older and younger generations prefer different types of music?

No, I think I don't think it it. I mean to a degree, yes they do.But I also think that you know, regardless of age, good music is good music.So a young person can listen.To music from what they would consider potentially to be a bygone generation.And similarly you can have older people who will listen to the music of today young.People music so.Uhm, I don't think it's a binary kind of answer to that question.I really do think it depends on you know, the people who are listening to it.The type of music they generally like and how open they are and also how eclectic their taste in music is.We, you know, we're aware of.Music that's called classic and it's called classic for a reason.That being that it's timeless.Uhm, so yeah, I think young people can listen to the older generations music and vice versa.

Ok, so the first thing is to pick up on some nice vocab. She said she enjoys a varied or eclectic mix of music. So eclectic means it comes from a diverse range of sources. You could also say, for example, the Real exam English podcast offers an eclectic mix of accents.  We then heard about music from a bygone generation, which means from a generation from an earlier time. Another example would be, the museum has many artefacts from a bygone age. After that, she said it´s not a binary kind of answer, or another way to say that would be that it´s not black and white. And then lastly we had heard about some music being timeless, meaning it isn´t affected by the passing of time, it sounded good in the past, it does today and it will in the future. 

Another notable feature of these two answers is the wide range of fillers – “you know”, “I mean”, “so yeah”, “I don´t know”, “uhm”. As you can see fillers are these short, often meaningless words, which are used to give the speaker a little time, or to allow them to move on to the next point. Every language has these, and they can be useful but you have to be careful not to overuse them or it will make you sound unsure of yourself. 

We also heard some nice connectors. To add an additional point she said “and similarly”, this is a good one to use when you are comparing two pictures, for example, and you want to point out similarities between them. Then there was “regardless of age, good music is good music”, regardless has the same meaning as despite and is usually combined with of, regardless of. To clarify one of her points, she says “what I mean by that is”, it´s definitely worthwhile having an expression like this, in real life as well as in an exam situation. I know myself from speaking Spanish that sometimes we say something that sounds good in our head but when you say it, the other person has a confused or bewildered look on their face, so it´s handy to have an expression in that case to allow you to rephrase what you meant to say – what I mean by that is….

Ok, and the very last thing to highlight is a super way to give your opinion and that is As far as I´m concerned. We´ve spoken before about having a variety of ways to give your opinion and as far as I´m concerned this is one of the best ones!

Ok folks, that´s all for today. There will be new B2, C1 and C2 groups opening in September so if you would like to join one of those be sure to get in touch. As usual, you can find all the details on the Real Exam English website, realexamenglish.com

All the best!

Trevor