Talking about Halloween

Introduction Phil and Beth have a real conversation in easy English about Halloween – the scariest night of the year! Learn to talk about fancy dress, trick-or-treating and other spooky things. Vocabulary Halloween a yearly festival on 31st October, also know as All Hallow's Eve, where we celebrate all things scary and spooky spooky strange and frightening fancy dress a costume that makes you look like someone or something else dress up wear a costume horror film a film that is frightening Transcript Phil Hello and welcome to another episode of Real Easy English, the podcast where we have everyday conversations in easy English. I'm Phil.   Beth And I'm Beth. You can watch a video version of this podcast on our website, where you can turn on subtitles to read along as you listen. That's at bbclearningenglish.com.   Phil Hi, Beth. How are you?   Beth I'm scared. How are you?   Phil Terrified. It's Halloween today, and that's what we're going to be talking about in this podcast.   Beth Yes, Halloween is a holiday all about scary things like ghosts and monsters. So, yeah. Shall we get started?   Phil Yeah, I think we should... if you're brave enough. OK. Beth, I know you're scared today but do you generally enjoy Halloween?   Beth I really like Halloween because of the dressing up. So, fancy dress – you see all of the children and adults dressing up in fun costumes, scary costumes, in the UK. And I have a lot of memories of dressing up as all sorts of weird and scary things when I was a child. Phil I have to ask, what was your favourite costume?   Beth So, my mum made me a pumpkin outfit and it had two holes for my arms and one for my head, and it was very big and puffy. I looked very round, like a big orange pumpkin. And I wore it as a child, but then when I went to university, it was a bit small but I wore it again and I wore a skirt with it. So, it's been used twice for Halloween. It's a good costume.   Phil That's not bad going. I remember once dressing up as a devil. I had little red horns with a bit of elastic stuck on my head.   Beth Yeah, sounds good. Sounds good. Do you do anything to celebrate Halloween these days, now?   Phil Not so much for me – more for my children. They really like it, especially when they were a little bit younger. Where we used to live, lots of houses in the neighbourhood would put pumpkins outside and would decorate, and people would go trick-or-treating. That's where you go up to someone's house in a scary costume and you knock on the door and say, "Trick or treat?" And then, well, if they say treat, they give you a sweet.   Beth Yep.   Phil If they say trick, you're supposed to play a trick on them, but I don't think anyone really does now.   Beth No, I don't think so. I used to love trick-or-treating. We would go round my village and collect a lot of sweets. But now, I don't do any trick-or-treating. The children come to our house and then we give them sweets. But it's always really nice to see people getting in that Halloween spirit. And it's cold, or quite cold, outside in the autumn, and it's... Yeah, it's a nice feeling when it's Halloween. It's a good celebration.   Phil Yeah, it's when really starts to get dark in the evenings and a little bit cold, and it just feels like a different time of year, doesn't it?   Beth So, Halloween in the UK is all about spooky things. Spooky means strange and a bit scary. Is there anything else spooky that you like?   Phil Ooh, I like hearing ghost stories or maybe watching horror films.   Beth Urgh, horror films? I don't like horror films. They make me want to hide behind my sofa with a cushion because I don't like the scary music. You always think, "What's going to happen next?" Or the suspense – just waiting for something bad to happen. No, horror films are not for me.   Phil OK. Let's recap the language that we've heard today, starting with Halloween. And this is a holiday that happens on the 31st of October, and it's all about scary or spooky things.   Beth Yes, spooky means strange or scary.   Phil In the UK, people often wear fancy dress for Halloween, and fancy dress is where you wear something to make you look like someone or something else.   Beth And we can also say dress up. So, for example, when I was younger, I dressed up as a pumpkin for Halloween.   Phil Another thing that happens in the UK at Halloween is trick-or-treating. And that's when children dress up and then go to people's houses to get sweets.   Beth And we also heard horror film. A horror film is a film that is frightening, scary.   Phil That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. Do you have Halloween or a similar celebration in your country? Tell us about it. Email us at learningenglish@bbc.co.uk.   Beth And practise the vocabulary that you've learnt in this episode with our free worksheet on our website, bbclearningenglish.com.   Phil That's all for now. Bye!   Beth Bye! Now try this... Download a free worksheet.