Talking about fears

Introduction Phil and Beth talk about what makes them scared. Learn to talk about your fears with this conversation in easy English.  Vocabulary afraid/frightened/scared (of something) a feeling of fear terrified (of something) a feeling of a lot of fear  phobia a very big fear of something  freak out lose emotional control Transcript Phil Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Phil. Beth And I'm Beth. You can find a video of this podcast and a free worksheet on our website. Go to bbclearningenglish.com Phil Hi, Beth. Beth Hello, Phil. How are you? Phil I'm good, I'm good. You? Beth Yes, I'm very well, thank you. Phil OK, well, today we're going to talk about fears and we're going to talk about the things that make you scared. Beth OK, let's get started. Phil OK. Beth, what are you afraid of? Beth What am I afraid of? I'm afraid of spiders. I really hate spiders. I'm really scared of spiders. It's OK if they're small. Maybe, no, yeah, I was going to say medium-sized is OK - they're not. Anything like medium, large, long legs. Uh, no, I don't like spiders. Phil What do you do if you see a spider? Beth Make weird noises, go "Ah! Help! There's a spider." What are you afraid of? Phil Um, this is a strange one, because it doesn't really happen to me very much. But I'm scared of being in really small spaces. You know, people who work under floors and do things like that. I'd, I'd be too worried about getting stuck. Beth Yeah, I completely understand that fear. Phil, do you have any phobias? A phobia is a really bad, extreme fear of something. Phil I don't think I do, really. I don't think there's, like, one thing that I am absolutely terrified of and can't see. I think just sometimes there are situations that are scary because, you know, maybe they could be dangerous or worrying, but I don't think there's one thing that I see and go "Ah!" Beth Yeah. I have a friend and she has a phobia of bananas. I know it sounds silly. She is terrified of bananas. If she sees a banana, she will cry and scream, and it's very dramatic. And that is a proper phobia. When you see something and you break down, you completely freak out. That's a phobia. So, I don't think I have any phobias either. Like, I don't like spiders and I am scared of them, but they don't make me freak out and panic. Phil So, Beth, is there anything that you were afraid of when you were younger, but you're not afraid of now? Beth Actually, yes. So when I was young and even a teenager, I was scared of looking out at the sea. So if I was, I was always good at swimming, so swimming wasn't the problem. But looking out to the ocean and seeing the horizon – that's the end of the ocean – really scared me and I just couldn't look at it. And I had that for quite a long time. And I don't really know why, because I don't know what I was scared of. It was almost so big that it scared me. Phil Mmm, I've got a watery one. Um, I remember when I was learning to swim and the teacher taking me to the deep end of the swimming pool, so it was about two metres deep nearly, and I wasn't very tall then. Um, and I had to jump in and I was absolutely terrified. But now I can swim, so I'm not scared of water in that way. Beth Do you often jump in pools these days? Phil Um, now and then when I get the chance. I don't go swimming very often, but when I do, I can jump in and it's fine. Let's recap the vocabulary that we used in this conversation. We used a lot of words to describe the feeling of fear so we can be afraid, frightened, or scared of something which all mean something makes us feel fear. Beth And we also had terrified of. If you are terrified of something, you are really, really scared of it. Phil We heard the word phobia, which describes a very bad fear of something. Beth Yes. For example, my friend has a phobia of bananas. She cries when she sees them because she's so scared. And we also had freak out. If you freak out, then you panic because you're so, so scared of something. Phil That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. Test yourself with the worksheet on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.  Beth And we'll be back next week with another conversation in easy English. Goodbye for now. Phil Bye. Learn more phrasal verbs like 'freak out' in Phrasal verbs with Georgie.  Download a free worksheet.