Talking about moving house

Introduction Georgie and Neil have a real conversation in easy English about moving house – changing the place where you live. Learn to talk about packing, removal companies and how to protect your fragile possessions! Vocabulary possessions things that you own or have removal van large vehicle used to transport possessions from one home to another removals company / removals firm business that transports possessions from one home to another packing putting things into cases or boxes, ready to be transported fragile easy to break Transcript Georgie Hello and welcome to Real Easy English. We're back with another conversation in easy English to help you learn. I'm Georgie.   Neil And I'm Neil. Don't forget that there's a video version of this podcast on our website, bbclearningenglish.com. You can read along with the subtitles and download a free worksheet.   Georgie Hello Neil. How are you doing?   Neil Hi Georgie. Yeah, I'm fine. How are you?   Georgie Yes, I'm very well too, thank you. Today, Neil, in this conversation, we're talking about moving house. So, when was the last time you moved house?   Neil Oh, I moved house probably 12 years ago.   Georgie Oh wow! And why did you move to where you live now?   Neil Because my family was getting bigger. More children need more space, so we moved to somewhere bigger and further out of London. How about you?   Georgie I rent my flat. And the place I was living before – the owners of the place wanted to sell the house, so I needed to move because I couldn't live there anymore. And also, my friend had this flat and he was offering me very cheap rent, so that's why I live there. But I'm very happy there because it's between two really nice parks. It has good transport links and, yeah, it was a good decision.   Neil And how was the move itself?   Georgie The move was actually very easy because I don't have many possessions. I'm a bit of a minimalist. The reason is because I moved country, so I just didn't really have many things to bring back to the UK, so I didn't need a big van or anything. I just ordered a taxi and put all of my bags in the taxi and it was very easy. And what about you?   Neil It was the opposite of that.   Georgie Oh no!   Neil We had a removal van and some removal men, who came and packed everything up in boxes to make sure that things were easy to carry into the van, and also that they didn't get damaged. And then they drove all of our stuff to my new house.   Georgie Yeah. Did you have... did you have any fragile bits? So, fragile means that it's easy to break, not very strong. Plates and things – did you have...?   Neil Yes. Those things had to be wrapped and protected, otherwise they would break.   Georgie Yes. And did you have to move furniture as well?   Neil Yeah, we had to move sofas and cupboards and wardrobes and heavy things like that, yeah.   Georgie It does sound different to my experience, doesn't it? I didn't have any furniture to take. Do you find moving house exciting? Scary? How do you feel about moving house?   Neil I think it's both. It's exciting and scary. It's exciting because this is going to be your new life, or where your new life will happen. But it's also scary because you don't know what that's going to be like. You don't know what your neighbours are going to be like.   Georgie That's very true.   Neil You don't know what your new friends are going to be like.   Georgie Yes.   Neil So, there's lots of things that you don't know. And that's scary, but also exciting.   Georgie Yeah, a lot of uncertainty for sure. Yeah, I think it can depend. It depends if you're moving somewhere better or worse. But yeah, I was quite excited when I moved because I knew that my new flat had a nice outdoor terrace. As I said, we were close to parks and stuff, so I was excited.   Neil So, Georgie, if you are planning a move, what do you need to do to prepare?   Georgie Well, you need to do things like setting up WiFi in the new house. Other bills, like electricity and heating, gas – you need to put your name on the accounts. You need to plan what you're going to take. So, when you move, it's a really good time to look at all of your possessions and think, what do I need? Maybe I can get rid of stuff, so throw stuff away. Have you got any other ideas? What else can you do to prepare for a move?   Neil You can hire a removal company or van if you're doing it yourself, if you're... if you need to transport your stuff to your new house and you can't just use a taxi. Yeah.   Georgie Sounds like a lot of work. I don't want to move anytime soon.   Neil No.   Georgie You?   Neil Me neither. No.   Georgie OK. Let's recap the language we heard during the conversation. We heard possessions, which are the things that you own or have. For example, my phone and my clothes are my possessions.   Neil We talked about removal vans. A removal van is a large vehicle that people put your possessions into to go from one home to another, and the company is called a removals company or removals firm.   Georgie We heard packing, and packing is where you put your own things into boxes, so that a removal firm can take them to your new home.   Neil And we heard fragile. Fragile is an adjective which describes something that can break easily. For example, glass – glass is fragile.   Georgie That's it for this episode of Real Easy English. Don't forget to test what you've learned using the free worksheet on our website. Go to bbclearningenglish.com.   Neil We'll be back next week with another conversation in easy English. Bye for now.   Georgie Goodbye. Now try this... 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