Talking about weekends

Introduction Georgie and Phil have a real conversation in easy English about weekends – the Saturdays and Sundays when many of us take a break from work. Learn to talk about taking it easy, getting things done and making the most of your weekend. Vocabulary make the most of use an opportunity well, without wasting time get (something) done complete something take it easy do little or no work, with only simple tasks chill relax this weekend the weekend at the end of the current week. Transcript Georgie Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you learn. I'm Georgie.   Phil And I'm Phil. Remember, you can watch a video of this podcast on our website with subtitles to help you understand it. And that's bbclearningenglish.com.   Georgie Hello Phil. How are you doing?   Phil I'm good, I'm good. And I'm looking forward to the weekend.   Georgie Me too. It's been a busy week and actually today we're talking about weekends. We'll talk about what we usually do at the weekends. So, Phil, do you like weekends?   Phil I love weekends. It's just great. You don't need to get up as early as you do during the week. And it's just a bit more relaxed. That's nice.   Georgie I know. Who doesn't like weekends? Everyone needs some time off and time not doing work. What do you usually do at the weekends?   Phil Usually, as I say, I usually get up not very early, certainly not as early as during the week. My children go to play music at the weekends, so we have to make sure that they have breakfast and maybe we take them there or we pick them up, but apart from that, it's time... it's time when you don't have to do something specific. So, maybe there's things to catch up on, maybe clean the house, but it's less pressure. Georgie Yeah, you can kind of choose what you feel like doing. For me, it depends whether I've had a busy week. If I've had a busy week of work, and sometimes I have social plans every evening, then at the weekends I prefer to just chill and catch up on my home things, like cleaning. But if I've had quite a quiet week, I like to be quite active. So, I like to make plans with friends, do some exercise. Yeah, so it kind of depends, but that's why weekends are good, because you can kind of choose what you do.   Phil Yeah. I always think it's nice to make the most of the weekend when you can, particularly... especially, you get up on a Saturday or a Sunday and it's really sunny and it's nice – you kind of want to do something don't you? Go out for a walk or visit somewhere new.   Georgie Yeah, that's true. But if it's raining, my favourite thing at the weekend is to, yeah, not set my alarm, wake up still kind of early, go down, make a coffee, bring it to bed, have a coffee in bed, and either read or watch an episode of something, a YouTube video. That's my favourite thing, because you don't have to suddenly get up and go.   Phil OK. So, we're talking about weekends, Georgie. Do you have any plans for this weekend?   Georgie Yes, I do. So, a lot of my friends are turning 30 years old this year, and on Saturday I have a 30th birthday party, so that's in the evening. I think it will probably be a late night, so on Sunday I think I'm going to take it easy. So, just relax, not make any plans and just see... see where the wind blows me!   Phil That's nice.   Georgie What about you, Phil?   Phil Well, we had quite a busy weekend last weekend, so this weekend, there's a lot of things that we need to get done. We can't just take it easy.   Georgie Urgh.   Phil We need to clean the house and just organise some of those... those life admin things – those little tasks that we haven't done. We need to get them done...   Georgie Yeah.   Phil ...this weekend.   Georgie Will you do anything fun?   Phil We'll see. If we get time, yeah.   Georgie If you get the... if you get the things done.   Phil Yes. If we get everything done, we can... Well, we can chill or we can do something nice.   Georgie Ah nice. OK. Let's recap the language we heard during the conversation. We heard make the most of something. If you make the most of your weekend, you use the time well – you don't waste it.   Phil We also heard get something done, which means to complete a task. It might be something like cleaning your house. If you do that, you got something done over the weekend.   Georgie We also heard take it easy or chill, which means you relax and don't do much.   Phil We talked about this weekend and when we say this weekend, we mean the one that's coming – the one that's at the end of this week.   Georgie And that's it for this episode of Real Easy English, but we'll be back next week with another conversation in easy English.   Phil Try the worksheet on our website to practise what you've learnt. And that's at bbclearningenglish.com.   Georgie Goodbye for now!   Phil Bye! Now try this... Watch The London Letter Challenge. Download a free worksheet. Discover more programmes for your level.  Find all our latest programmes.