[0:01]All right, hello, hello everyone. Welcome High Level Listeners. I'm Kat, or Kat Teacher. And I'm Mark, or Mark Teacher, as well. Thank you very much for joining. Uh, we're really glad to have you here for our first ever season of High Level Listening Live Classes and our first ever episode. Um, we'd like to begin by introducing ourselves and telling you who we are. My name's Mark. I'm from the UK. I'm from just outside of London, about 30 or 45 minutes by train. And I've been a teacher for just over 10 years now.
[0:43]And I'm Kat, or Kat Teacher. I am the American voice on high level listening. Um, I've been a teacher definitely over a decade. Um, I don't always like to tell people that because it makes me feel old, but yeah, I've been teaching English as a second language since... Okay, we're not even going to guess the year that I started teaching. Um, taught in a couple of different countries, students of all levels, from little kids who are learning English for the first time, to adults who want to work on their conversational skills, business skills, et cetera. And what Mark and I found over time when teaching all of these students is that there were just not enough materials for our high level students. Okay. Advanced students could watch TV, or they could, you know, watch American movies or TV shows, but there wasn't a lot for them to learn. There wasn't a lot for them to figure out how to get better conversationally. Of course you can watch TV, you can watch movies, but there was no one out there breaking it down to make it easier for students who are learning English as a second language. Mm. Well, yeah, so hopefully with our combined experience of almost two decades, we hope to create some listening materials which are full of vocabulary, advanced phrases, expressions that maybe only native speakers use or say, or maybe phrases or vocabulary that you don't often see in textbooks. So, yeah, the first topic that we're going to present today is morning routines. Morning routines are a very common starting point. Usually it's one of the first things you learn when you learn English as a beginner. I get up, I brush my teeth, I put on my clothes, and so on. We're going to use the same topic, but we're going to give you a much higher level version where we speak more quickly, we use phrases that native speakers will probably use to describe their morning, and you'll get to hear these phrases, we'll explain the ones that we think are the most useful and the most interesting, and then you'll have some more expressions and some more words to know to understand people talking about their mornings, and for you to use when you talk about your morning. So, uh, the question we're going to ask each other and the question we're going to answer is, how was your morning? So, Kat, how was your morning? Yeah, uh, this morning was pretty standard for me. I woke up around 7 a.m., 7ish. Thanks to my trusty alarm, uh, hit snooze, of course, and laid in bed for a bit, scrolling through my phone. Eventually, I got up, brushed my teeth, and headed straight to the kitchen. I guess I whipped up some toast and scrambled eggs and poured myself a fresh cup of coffee. Can't do without it. After breakfast, I took a quick shower and then got dressed for the day. Before heading out, I checked my emails one last time, like you gotta. And, uh, that's about it really. Okay. Awesome. Uh, so for my morning routine, this morning was fairly ordinary for me. Woke up, uh, around seven with my alarm, hit snooze as you do, then stayed in bed for a bit, scrolling on my phone. Then I got up, brushed my teeth, and went to the kitchen. I made some toast and some scrambled eggs and had a cup of tea. After eating, I had a quick shower and got dressed for work, had a quick look at my emails before I left, and that's about it, really. All right, so kind of our goal with these new high level listening podcast episodes, we're Trying to give you as much good vocabulary that still sounds natural in the sentence. You can see that Mark and I actually had very similar mornings. We did lots of things that were very similar. It was a pretty standard morning for me. We both laid in bed, scrolled on our phone for a little bit. We both made some breakfast pretty quickly. I had a cup of coffee in standard British fashion. He had some, he had a cup of tea. So we both got dressed for the day and we wanted to get out of the house, head to work, start our day. And we, um, of course, with work, we checked our emails for the last time. So, what we tried to do is make sure that both of us, as an American and a British language speaker, that we wanted to show you that there are some differences in the language. There are some differences between American English and British English. And it's not just vocabulary. Sometimes, it's a little bit of the sentence structure. So if you've ever wondered why you understand more Americans or more Brits, maybe you can kind of see, you can start to see some of the differences between our phrases. So Mark, do you want to just get us started with kind of how you started your morning or what was kind of the beginning of your morning routine? Um, so I'm from the UK. Therefore, some of the phrases in my script were more common for British speakers. Actually, when we made these scripts, I looked at them and I tried to tweak them or change them a little bit. So they included lots of good British phrases. The first more British phrase that I said was fairly ordinary, fairly ordinary. The sentence this morning was fairly ordinary for me. If you heard Kat's version, she said pretty standard, pretty standard.
[6:57]Pretty, in my opinion, as a British speaker, pretty is a bit more common with American speakers. Pretty, meaning quite or fairly. American speakers, American movies, you will hear that phrase more often there. In the UK, I think we say quite or fairly more often. If I said pretty ordinary, Something would go off in my head, like, that's not me. I would say, fairly ordinary, quite ordinary. So, I said, this morning was fairly ordinary for me. Kat said, this morning was pretty standard for me. These two phrases have exactly the same meaning. I naturally say fairly, and Kat might naturally say pretty. But the meaning is exactly the same. And we want to mention that both of these are, these are normal mornings. It was a pretty normal morning. See, there I, there I go again. Pretty normal, pretty average, pretty standard. And this is just a word that we often use to kind of mean kind of. Sort of, barely, fairly. It kind of means the same thing, but it's very common. Pretty standard, pretty normal, pretty average. These are pretty common phrases that we use, that we use quite often. Okay, quite often, especially in commonly spoken and just chatting with friends. It's pretty common.
[8:41]It's fairly common. Or it's quite common. I feel like, as a Brit, uh, if I have to say pretty, or if I try and say pretty, I even Americanize my accent a little bit. I say pretty. It's pretty good. It's pretty hot. It's pretty nice. I have to say pretty, where the T's sound like D's. Yes. Like an American accent. Like, I even have to change the way I do it to use that word. So, I'm sure if I'm talking to my mum from the UK, or if I start talking to my sister, and my British accent really comes out, I will start saying fairly and quite. Like, it was fairly warm outside, and fairly cold. And, and that makes sense, especially because the word pretty, pretty, P R E T T Y, pretty, in an American accent is pretty, almost like a light D D sound, pretty, pretty common, pretty normal, pretty standard, pretty ordinary. So, we often, I mean, I can, I can see why, if you do start to use it, Mark, that you would use it more with the American. Otherwise, pretty, pretty, it makes me sound like I'm, I'm trying to be British. Pretty. Oh, she's pretty. Pretty. Yeah, right. I've got two choices in British. I can go like really full on British and skip the T's and say pretty, pretty, no T's, pretty good, pretty boring. I have to go like maximum, turn it up to a hundred. Or, I say pretty expensive, pretty ordinary, and that, I don't know. Again, it doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right. So it is more common in British English, uh, it's less common. It's less common in British English, more common in American English. So, the next thing that I think most people do when they first wake up is, actually, they just lay in bed for a bit. Okay? They just lay in bed for a bit. Lay in bed for a bit. Now, I'm talking about something that happened before, or happened this morning, so I said, I laid in bed. Laid in bed for a bit. Laid in bed for a bit.
[11:10]I laid in bed for a bit. Meaning I didn't get up from bed. I didn't get up from my bed. I just was laying back, opening my eyes, and for a short period of time, for a few minutes, for a bit. I laid in bed for a bit. Yeah, sure. It's pretty normal for me. First, I wake up. So, I wake up, my eyes open, but I don't get up, because get up is off the covers and get out of bed. Often I wake up and I don't want to get out of bed. Maybe it's cold outside. I'm too comfortable. Um, I usually grab my phone and I like in the script said, uh, what did I say scrolled through my phone? I scrolled through my phone a little bit, so that's me laying in bed in my version. I said, stayed in bed, Katt said, laid in bed. Laid in bed. Stayed in bed. Have exactly the same meaning. Uh, we might talk about this later. The past tense laid, laid in. I said the d and the last word. Connects with in, so it's laid in, laid in bed. Also, stayed in, stayed in bed. So, laid in bed for a bit, stayed in bed for a bit. We might talk about this later, but it's an example where the last letter connects to the preposition. Laid in bed. Stayed in bed. I just stayed in bed and scrolled through my phone. You know, and it's funny too, we don't actually need an article here. Um, I see a lot of students saying, you know, I stayed in the bed, I stayed in my bed. Um, really just stayed in bed, go to bed, stayed in bed, laid in bed. Now, laid is the physical action of laying down, and stay is to not move. But they mean the same thing. We didn't move from our bed. We just laid in bed for a bit. Laid in bed. Stayed in bed. Now, I did finally get up at some point. I did finally get up. I brushed my teeth. Brushed. Brushed my teeth. And headed straight to the kitchen. Now, I, the more that I speak normally in my classes, I realize that the verb head, I've used this a lot, and it usually, when we're talking about heading somewhere, we mean going. Okay? Get ahead. Go ahead. Do something. Go straight. Head straight. Head north. Head south. This verb is very common, and it simply means to go. So, I headed straight to the kitchen. Headed straight to the kitchen. Straight to the kitchen. So, I got up, brushed my teeth. Ugh, I'm so hungry. I headed straight to the kitchen. I didn't stop, just went straight to the kitchen. Headed. Also a more American phrase, I think. I don't say headed. Uh, in fact, I often think of this phrase in the question. Where are you headed? Where are you going? Where are you headed? Where are you going? To head, to go. Maybe it's an easier verb, because yeah, I go and yesterday I went, now I head, yesterday I headed. So, a little bit easier, but again, as a British person, I probably wouldn't say that. I would say, I got up, brushed my teeth, and went straight to the kitchen. Not the bathroom, not the bedroom, straight to the kitchen. Maybe because I'm really hungry. Um, Kat actually got to use a cool phrase when she talked about breakfast. Mm, hmm. Can you read your name? Yeah, I, uh, I whipped up some toast and scrambled eggs. I whipped up. Um, you know, it's funny, we, when you whip up something, you think of, um, kind of making something very quickly. Uh, you know, I'm not really interested in a recipe right now. It doesn't have to be perfect. I'm just gonna, Okay, I'm just gonna, uh, Yep, yep, I'm awake. Uh, Sure, I'll just put some toast in there and I'll just do this. Simple, easy. Just whip something up. Okay? So, I whipped up some toast. I whipped up some toast. So, whipped up, whipped up, whipped up some toast. Whipped up some toast and scrambled eggs. Yes, uh, imagine you open your fridge and you only have three ingredients. And they're all very random. You're hungry, and you need to make something. If you take random, different ingredients, and you just put them together and make a meal, you whipped up something. So, whip up is speed. It's doing it quickly. And whip up sounds like, you're not following a recipe. You're just using what you have in your house at the time. So yeah, I just whipped something up for lunch. It's a few vegetables and some leftover meat from yesterday. So if you whip something up, we use this in the morning because often you don't have time to make a really nice meal. You have to wake up, get ready, go to work. So time is important. So I think that's why we put whipped up some toast and scrambled eggs. My version was very normal. I said I made some toast and scrambled eggs. It has the same meaning. Cat's one, whipped up, scrambled eggs and toast. That sounds a bit faster, like she had a bit less time or she was in more of a hurry. So if you whip up something, you're in a hurry, maybe in the morning or maybe, yeah, some last minute change to your schedule. Uh, another British American example was the next one. Uh, Kat, what did you have with your scrambled eggs and toast? I poured myself, if, even if I don't eat breakfast, I have to have a cup of coffee. Whether if I don't have time to make it at home, then I'll pick it up on my way, or I'll visit the cafe that's really close to our house. So if I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, so, um, that's kind of the act of taking the hot of coffee and pouring myself. So I poured, I didn't pour Mark a cup of coffee. I didn't pour my cats a cup of coffee. I poured it for myself. So it's kind of a weird setup there. I poured myself. It almost sounds like I poured me into a cup of coffee, but I poured myself a cup of coffee. I poured my friend a cup of coffee. So I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee. I need it. And then I have to have my cup of coffee. Americans are pretty addicted to cups of coffee in the morning. So I poured myself a fresh cup of coffee. And Mark, in typical British fashion, had a cup of tea. Yes, a cup of tea. I could also say poured myself a cup of tea. Uh, I made it just for me. I'm not sharing it. I poured myself a cup of tea. Another verb that you can use it with is made myself. I made myself a cup of tea, or I made myself a cup of coffee. Uh, when you're making food, you can also use made myself. Maybe I made myself some toast and scrambled eggs. Again, that is for me. I didn't make enough to feed my children or whoever. It's just for me. I made a small portion. I made myself some toast. I poured myself some coffee. I made myself a cup of tea. Yes, classic British drink. You can drink tea in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. Some people drink tea before bed. I think we have a slight tea addiction. Of course, there are loads of people who also drink coffee. Coffee is super popular in the UK. We have Starbucks. We have big coffee chains. But tea, uh, is still number one. Just about. Usually British. It's usually a drink you British. Yes, very true. Uh, it's probably something you drink at home. You go in England, I think you go out for coffee or you meet in a coffee shop. Um, but at home everyone has tea or tea bags. If you have guests, you always offer them a cup of tea or coffee. So you go out, if you went out for tea, um, that's a, a separate meal. That's a separate occasion. We usually have tea at home and coffee when you go out, usually, I'd say. And, you know, it's funny to think of, um, you know, a fresh cup of coffee. Most people are separating all three words, cup of coffee, but kind of when we're saying it quite quickly, a fresh cuppa, cup of coffee, cup of coffee, cup of coffee. And I would also, I always hear you because you even have a word for it, Mark, right? Like a cuppa. A cup. Oh, yeah, right. So it's a cup of tea. The of becomes, uh, cuppa tea, cuppa tea of transforms, cuppa tea, and then we ditch the third word and then became cuppa. A cuppa. Do you want a cuppa? Do you fancy a cuppa? If you go to a British person's house and they say, do you want a cuppa? Do you want a cup of tea? Do you want a cuppa? So be ready for that question, because it's not always obvious, as Kat knows. And it's not even obvious for me, and I'm, I'm an American native English speaker, and the first time someone offered me a cuppa, and I was like, a cup of what? And everyone looked at me like I was crazy. And I said, what'd you think? Yeah. Rude. Sorry. Uh, yes, whatever it is, a cup of whatever you want to give me. Sure. But when they're asking want a cuppa, they mean a cup of tea. Now that's not as common in the US, we would say, hi, can I get you a coffee? Can I get you a tea? So, if you were invited to my house, I would be like, would you like a cup of coffee? Would you like a cup of tea? Would you like some water? We'll offer you a refreshment, but it's not always coffee, and it's could be water. Um, it is common to ask them if they want something to drink. Would you like anything to drink? Can I get you something to drink? But we don't use that cuppa nearly as often as, um, they do in the UK. Okay. Um, yeah, later on in the script, we saw another example of the American verb. Head, uh, head and go, but uh, Kat used it as a phrasal verb instead. Um, can you see the line? Yeah, so, before heading out, before heading out, to head out is to leave.
[23:39]Okay, so, leaving my house, leaving my home, before heading out. Before heading out. Uh, yeah, I quite like that because Mark would say something a little bit different. Yeah, there is a British version of this, uh, as the phrasal verb. If I say, Oof, look at the time, I've got to head off, Kat said head out, I would say head off. You even said that in an American accent, head out, head out, head out, and head off. Head off. Yes, right. Yeah, it's a good example where it's a phrasal verb. So there's the verb, head, and the second word is called the particle. And that has more meaning. Head is go, head out, out of the building, out of the room, so leave. Um, off and out can mean the same thing when it's a phrasal verb particle, so head out, head off. There are a few variations as well. Some older British people might say pop off. I was about to pop off means go, in this case, off means out, so I've got to pop off. Sorry, goodbye. Um, so yeah, we, I maybe think the only time Brits will use head is with this phrasal verb, head off. Before heading off to work, I checked my emails. Or before we headed off, we packed our suitcases and checked our pockets. Um, one more example. It's a phrasal verb, right? Head off. If you change off, you can make it mean something different. Again, because the particle has more meaning. Head in. Head in means enter a building. So, head out is leave, or head off is leave. Let's head in. Let's head into the restaurant, or let's head into town, let's head into the city, let's enter the city, let's go into the city. So, you can play with that particle and you can actually make different meanings with one word. And you can see that it is quite common for Americans. I've, I've naturally used it to say that I headed into the kitchen, I headed straight to the kitchen. So, I went to the kitchen. I headed straight to the kitchen. I before heading out, before leaving, before going out, before going to work, before leaving, before heading out, I did something else. So, I naturally use this twice in here, and it is such a common verb to replace Going, doing something, going in, going out, leaving, entering. These words, we don't use them as often, so if you want to kind of upgrade your conversation a little bit, start, start using some of these, uh, phrasal verbs. Head in, head out, head off. Yeah, uh, so the very last lines, or the last line of this script, I said, uh, I had a quick look at my emails.
[27:15]I had a quick look. Quick look at my emails. Quick look. So, maybe just 30 seconds. Email, okay, check, check, finished. 10 seconds, 20 seconds, I had a quick look at my emails. You can use quick before lots of verbs. I had a quick bite to eat, a quick visit, a quick trip, a quick look. I looked at it just for a few seconds, and then I went to work. Again, in the morning, you don't have a lot of time to hang around. You have to go to be on time. So this is a simple phrase. Had a quick look at my emails. And for me, while Mark had a quick look at his emails, I checked my emails. Now, if I'm checking my emails, I feel like I'm spending a little bit more time looking through them, reading them, maybe replying, but, um, I am heading out. So before heading out, okay, I'm just going to make sure, let me check if there's anything important.
[28:32]No, it looks okay. So I'm going to head out. I'm going to go. I'm going to leave for the day. I'm going to get started with my day outside of the house. And, uh, to end our lesson today, that's about it, really. That's about it. That's all that happened. We're about to head out. Well, I, well, you're about to head out. I'm about to head off. Yes. So, um, thank you for joining us today, everyone. This is our very first episode, so we'd love to hear your feedback. We'd love to hear, um, what you thought about the lesson, what you thought about all the vocabulary, and if you have any questions about how to use this vocabulary. Um, some good questions might be, what's the difference between this and this? Can I say this? What can I use here? How can I use this phrase? So, that would be great to use in the future. Um, you can check out our chat messages here on the side, and you can leave us a message, and we'll try to get back to you. Or, we'll be able to have a look, and for our next episode, we might be able to share some common questions. Or some frequently asked questions just to help our students make sure that they understand everything. So, we hope that you benefited from this, and you should visit us at highlevellistening.com to improve your English listening, understanding, and speaking skills. Yes, uh, one more thing. You can also get, uh, the, an mp3 version of our morning routine script. We've also put it on our website, highlevellistening.com, and I put the link in the messages. So, if you click that link, you'll go to our website. You will see two mp3s of me and Kat, plus the transcript. So, if you don't catch every word, you can read along and see any words or phrases you missed. And we'll be doing this for every future episode. We'll have the main idea, the main topic, and then we'll support it with these live classes where you can join in. We'll dive deep into the different phrases, grammar, and vocabulary, and, uh, yeah, take your English to the next level. Yes, absolutely. And we'll share a little bit of culture along the way, um, since I'm born and raised in America and Mark is from the UK, you get two different perspectives of very common English accents. So thank you so much, everyone. We're going to head off and we'll see you for our next episode next week on Monday. Same time, same place. Bye everyone. Thank you guys. Bye bye.
