Learning English

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Learn more about food
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Introduction

Neil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about their favourite foods. Learn to talk about your favourite foods and how often you eat them

Vocabulary

often

used to talk about something we do a lot

usually, normally and generally

used to talk about a habit or something we do a lot

sometimes

used to talk about things we do, but not often

never

used to talk about things we don't do

Transcript

Beth
Welcome to Real Easy English from BBC Learning English. I'm Beth.

Neil
And I'm Neil. In this podcast, we have a real conversation in easy English.

Beth
If you want to read along, you can visit our website: bbclearningenglish.com.

Hi, Neil.

Neil
Hi Beth. How are you?

Beth
I'm very good, thank you. How are you?

Neil
I'm pretty good, yes.

Beth
Good, good. What are we talking about today?

Neil
Well, today we are talking about food. In particular, we'll talk about our favourite foods and how often we eat them.

Beth
What an amazing topic. I have so much to say about food. But you said how often. What do we mean by how often we eat something?

Neil
Good question! How often means how many times we eat our favourite food. So we might eat them every week, every day, or if we really like a food, we might eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner - every meal!

Beth
So, Neil, what is your favourite food?

Neil
Well, that's a really difficult question. But I really like fish.

Beth
Ah, me too! I was going to say that! But actually, I really love seafood. So, I think I’d say any kind of dish with seafood in it I absolutely love.

Neil
So, how often do you eat seafood, Beth?

Beth
Well, not very often, actually. I have it when I go on holiday and I have it in restaurants sometimes, but I don't really cook seafood at home. What about you? How often do you have fish?

Neil
Oh, probably a few times a week.

Beth
Really!?

Neil
Maybe, yeah. Yeah. We eat a lot of fish.

Beth
We sometimes have fish at home. I normally have it once or twice a week.

Neil
Right.

Beth
But I never have seafood at home, actually.

Neil
Yeah, OK. So what is your least favourite food?

Beth
Ooh… I absolutely hate baked beans!

Neil
You hate baked beans!?

Beth
I think they're disgusting! I can't even… the smell of them even makes me feel a bit sick.

Neil
Oh, OK.

Beth
So we've talked about the foods that we really like and the foods we don't like. But in a general week, what do you normally cook?

Neil
Often we'll eat Indian curries, but also Italian pasta dishes or Spanish dishes and then sometimes more traditional British roast dinner kind of thing.

Beth
Yeah. I think, generally, we have the same at home. Like, we eat a lot of food from different countries. But I have to say I usually cook quite a lot of pasta and quite a lot of rice at home in general. Just because they cook really quickly.

Neil
So, Beth. You generally eat rice and pasta dishes. What does that mean? Generally?

Beth
Well, we use generally and usually and normally for habits or things that we do a lot. So, for example, if I generally cook pasta or rice, that means maybe five times out of the seven in a week, I would say.

Neil
OK, so that’s most of the time. If we use sometimes we mean that we'd do it less than generally.

Beth
Yeah, sometimes might be two or three times a week. I guess it depends on what you're talking about. But for example, with me I sometimes cook fish. Like I said I have it maybe twice a week. So I would say that’s sometimes.

Neil
Beth, you said you hate baked beans. So do you ever eat baked beans?

Beth
Never. No, I can't stand them. So I never, ever have baked beans.

Neil
Well, never is something that we don't do. We just don't ever do it.

I can’t believe you don't like baked beans. Beans on toast is a classic!

Beth
It is. But, no. Not for me. Let's quickly recap the vocabulary we learnt during the conversation.

We learnt often which means we do something a lot. And we learnt how often, which we use to ask someone how many times they do something.

Neil
Usually, normally, and generally, which are all ways to talk about things we do a lot.

Beth
Sometimes, which we can use to talk about things we do, but not always or often.

Neil
And never to talk about things we don't do like eat beans, Beth.

Beth
Yes, just like I never eat baked beans. Ugh, horrible!

Neil
Thanks for listening to Real Easy English. Visit our website for more activities and courses to help you with your English: bbclearningenglish.com.

Beth
Next week, we'll talk about our friends.

Neil
See you then, goodbye.

Beth
Bye.

Now try this...

Learn more about adverbs of frequency here.