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Three Phrases to Tell Your Story in English Like a Native Speaker

Gabby: This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 105, ‘Teaching Tuesday’: “Three Phrases to Tell Your Story in English Like a Native Speaker.” [Instrumental]

Gabby: Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, where you’ll finally get real, native English conversation with your hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the ‘English Adventurer’ and Gabby Wallace, the ‘Language Angel,’ from Boston, USA.

[Instrumental]

Lindsay: In this episode, you’ll learn three phrases to tell an awesome story, and keep your listeners engaged and intrigued.

[Instrumental]

Gabby: Hola Amigo! (Hello friend).

Lindsay: Hola (Hello). Como estas (How are you)?

Gabby: Good. (Ah), so in our Monday episode, we were talking with Andrea Giordano about living in Appalachia. It’s (kind of) close to the south. I don’t know, I felt like trying some Spanish with you.

Lindsay: Yeah, that was really interesting. I learned a lot. But before we go into that…

Gabby: Yeah.

Lindsay: …I just wanna (want to) say “Thank you so much,” to our reviewers in the iTunes Store. First I want to say “Thank you,” to Naomi in Arkansas, who left us an awesome voice message saying how much…

Gabby: Nice.

Lindsay: …she loved the podcast. “Thank you, Naomi.” And also in the US iTunes Store, “Thank you to 22gloria, Behrooz90, Harshil-Meta, Qtp-Boz, 89110, and JoshU. Thanks, guys.” If you haven’t left a review and rating at your iTunes Store, please go there right now. We need to know what you think about this podcast.

Gabby: Yeah, thanks, thanks for leaving us a review and, Lindsay, thanks for the shout-out there. So in this episode, we’re going to touch on two phrases that Andrea used with us in yesterday’s episode with our interview with her and we’re gonna (going to) add one and we’re gonna (going to) show you how to use these phrases like a native speaker to tell your story. So we’re gonna (going to) tell our story about what happened to us today.

Lindsay: Our very exciting day.

Gabby: Yeah, yeah. We’re gonna (going to) highlight the phrases and, and we’ll review them at the end, so it’ll be a quick story but – so basically, to start out with, we were hungry, (right). We were looking for some lunch.

Lindsay: Yeah. Exactly.

Gabby: So, (uh), we went out for a walk and, to start out with, we were going to eat pizza.

Lindsay: Yeah. So we walked down the, down the road and we were looking for some food – I was starving. I don’t know about you. How abouchu (about you)?

Gabby: I was really hungry. The first place we tried…

Lindsay: (Mm-hm).

Gabby: …it was called “The Snack Bar” and it’s – this neighborhood, (uh), little pizza place – I had no idea but it had closed, (like)…

Lindsay: (Ugh).

Gabby: …completely shut down.

Lindsay: Totally dark.

Gabby: Looked in the window and everything was gone.

Lindsay: Don’t you hate when that happens?

Gabby: Yeah. It was a, a shock. So then…

Lindsay: So we were about to walk in there and we realized it was closed.

Gabby: Yeah.

Both: Yeah.

Gabby: So then we continued our walk and said, “Well, there’s another café down the street.” (Um), so we went there.

Lindsay: (Mm-hm).

Gabby: We were about to go in…

Lindsay: Yeah, about to go in…

Gabby: But it was also closed.

Lindsay: I’m (like), “What’s going on in this neighborhood, Gabby? What’s happening here?”

Gabby: It, it was only temporarily closed. I think it’s closed on the weekends…

Lindsay: Oh.

Gabby: …(right). (Um), so we’re recording on a, a Sunday.

Lindsay: Oh.

Gabby: It’s the weekend.

Lindsay: Right.

Gabby: (Um), okay, so we had to abandon that plan.

Lindsay: That idea.

Gabby: And we continued walking. We passed a bar but we were thinking…

Lindsay: ‘It’s not a good time for a beer.’

Gabby: …’Not a good idea.’ We had a lot more episodes to, (uh), record. So then we continued walking and finally, in the end, we ended up going to a Thai restaurant.

Lindsay: Oh, really good Thai food.

Gabby: Yeah. And they’re fast with their take-out orders, so…

Lindsay: (Mm-hm).

Gabby: …it was a good decision. In the end, it was a good decision.

Lindsay: In the end I was satisfied with my lunch.

Gabby: Yeah. (I mean), it wasn’t pizza but in the end, I think, (you know)…

Lindsay: It was good.

Gabby: …just as good, if not better.

Lindsay: So there you have our story, the very exciting Sunday lunch hour of Gabby and Lindsay.

Gabby: So we used three phrases at least once. (Uh), “to start off with.”

Lindsay: (Mm-hm). I think we said “to start out with”…

Gabby: “Start out with.”

Lindsay: …but you could say both.

Gabby: Yep. “Out with”, “off with.”

Lindsay: Yeah.

Gabby: Right.

Lindsay: Both would be okay, (right).

Gabby: Yeah, absolutely. They mean the same thing. (Uh) “to be about to do something.”

Lindsay: (Mm-hm).

Gabby: And what was the other one?

Lindsay: So the last one is “in the end.”

Gabby: Yeah, and I think I also used “to end up with” or something – but we’re concentrating on three…

Lindsay: Yep.

Gabby: …three phrases.

Lindsay: So let’s…

Gabby: So “to start off with”, “to be about to”, and then “in the end.”

Lindsay: Yeah. And let’s repeat them. Let’s have them repeat. So, “to start off with” or “to start out with.”

Gabby: “To be about to do something.”

Lindsay: “In the end.”

Gabby: Great. All right, so we hope from the story that we told, these are clear. (Um), obviously, “to start off with”, you’re gonna (going to) use at the beginning of your story; “to be about to do something” is when you have a plan to do one thing, but for some reason, you could not complete that plan so you didn’t do it; and then “in the end” is when you’re about to show a conclusion. So if you’re writing an academic paper, you might say, “In conclusion” or “after all” or “in summary”. (right) that’s how you end your paper. But in a more casual social situation where you’re just telling your story to your friends, you should say “in the end.”

Lindsay: Yeah, it’s very conversational.

Gabby: Yeah.

Lindsay: (Hm).

Gabby: All right, great. Thanks for listening to our story.

Lindsay: Awesome. Thanks, guys.

[Instrumental]

Gabby: We made a special quiz for you for today’s episode to test your understanding. You can find it on our website, allearsenglish.com, on today’s episode. See you there.

[Instrumental]

Lindsay: If you wanna (want to) put your ears into English more often, be sure to subscribe to our podcast in iTunes on your computer or on your smartphone. Thanks so much for listening and see you next time.