100- Top 100 Most Used Phrases in English
Lindsay: This, my friends, is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 100: “The Top 100 Most Used Phrases in English Conversation.”
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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.
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Lindsay: Hey guys. In today's episode, our 100th episode, you're gonna (going to) find out about the most common phrases that are used in the English language in conversational English. And you're gonna (going to) find out about a cool e-book that you can get and we'll get all of these phrases used in real dialogues and conversations. So check it out.
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Gabby: Guys, this is a really big deal. Lindsay?
Lindsay: Oh, my God! I'm super excited. How ‘bout (about) you?
Gabby: I am touched.
Lindsay: I'm like, it's – I, I don't have words for this moment. 100th episode today.
This is it.
Gabby: 100 times we've done this.
Lindsay: And you guys have been here…
Gabby: You've listened…
Lindsay: …all the way.
Gabby: …100 times…
Lindsay: Amazing.
Gabby: …or more.
Lindsay: You guys are amazing. You guys are the ones who make this possible.
We're here…
Gabby: Yeah.
Lindsay: …for you.
Gabby: We do this for you guys, our listeners who, (you know), we love you guys so much. We wouldn't have made it to 100 episodes without your support.
And we just wanna (want to) give a shout out to some of the most recent reviews that we've got.
Lindsay: Yes, thank you so much for these reviews in the Chinese iTunes store. Here we go, drum roll, right. Thank you to mintgreenvc, dong fatter, lxltom (um) and best abbot, Sarah and Tracy. Thank you so much for your reviews.
We're so happy to hear from you.
Gabby: Thanks, guys. It means a lot to us so please leave a review. We do read them and we really appreciate it. It helps keep our podcast going.
Lindsay: And today we have a ton of value for you…
Gabby: Wow.
Lindsay: …for our 100th episode, something really special to mark the occasion.
Gabby: Yeah.
Lindsay: We were at a conference for English teachers last weekend and we attended an awesome talk by some ling – by a linguist…
Gabby: (Mm-hm).
Lindsay: …who has actually gone through the English language, conversational English. She has run a computer system through the language to find out what the most common conversational phrases are in English. And this is what you guys want. This is what you're asking us for and we're gonna (going to) give it to you right here, right now.
Gabby: Right.
In every episode we give you natural English and that's why we also provide the, the premium transcript (uh) subscription. So if you want to read all of the phrases that we're using in every episode, which are totally natural, (you) can go to allearsenglish.com/conversations. So this episode is special because we are focusing on 100 of the most-used phrases. So you're getting a lot of (um), of value in a, in a, in one episode. We're not going to say all the phrases on this episode because as you know we like to keep it short and easy to listen to. But you can find all 100 phrases in a free e-book that we made for you which is at our website at allearsenglish.com/100. So just the number 100, 1-0-0. So if you go there you can get the full e-book with all 100 phrases including how to use them in little role plays or (uh) situations. In today's episode we're going to share three of those.
Lindsay: (Mm-hm).
And remember guys this, these phrases are coming straight from linguists, from professionals who have studied the English language, okay. This is not just anyone just saying these phrases are common. So a lot of the phrases that we're sharing today, the linguists have found that these phrases show up in conversational English 26% of the time.
Gabby: Wow.
Lindsay: Cool.
Gabby: So, wow, (like), (uh), over a fourth of the time.
Lindsay: It's, it's crazy. So we gotta (got to) …
Gabby: Yeah
Lindsay: …know these. Here we go. So let's check out our first scenario. This is gonna (going to) be a bit of a role play so let's get to it.
Gabby: Yeah, the first one, imagine we are at a hotel and (I) think we are checking into a hotel.
Lindsay: Yep. So this is gonna (going to) be useful for any of you guys who are business travelers and I'm gonna (going to) start. “Hi, Miss, how are you today? Are you checking in?”
Gabby: “Yes. I had a room reserved under the name, Wallace.”
Lindsay: “Oh, okay. Let me check. (Ah), great. I found your reservation. You're in room 207. So here are your keys. (You know), we have complimentary, a complimentary continental breakfast between 7:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. in the lobby. Would you like a hand bringing those bags up to your room? (I mean), (you know), our bellhop can take those for you.”
Gabby: “Sure, that would be great.”
Lindsay: “Enjoy your stay with us.”
Gabby: “Thank you.” All right, so the phrases that are very common from that dialogue are: “How are you today?”
Lindsay: “Let me check.”
Gabby: “Would you like a hand?”
Lindsay: “Sure, that would be great.”
Gabby: And, “Enjoy your stay with us.” Great.
Lindsay: All right.
Gabby: We're gonna (going to) go right into the next dialogue which is introducing yourself to an American in your home country.
Lindsay: Right.
Gabby: So, for example, imagine you are at a Couchsurfer meetup or an international travelers' meetup or international professionals' meetup.
Lindsay: Yeah. And we hope that you guys are going to those meetups ‘cause (because) we always recommend that as a way to improve your English skills. Take advantage of the travelers who are coming to your city, right?
Gabby: Absolutely.
Lindsay: So what do you say to them? How do you meet them?
Gabby: Can I be Akiko?
Lindsay: Sure.
Gabby: All right.
Lindsay: Go for it.
Gabby: (Uh) “Hi, what's your name?”
Lindsay: “I'm Jenny, you?”
Gabby: “Oh, I'm Akiko. It's great to meet you. So, where are you from?”
Lindsay: “I'm from New York. I'm in Tokyo for a ten-day work trip.”
Gabby: “How do you like Japan so far?”
Lindsay: “Oh, my gosh. I never imagined the food would be this great. I'm having a blast.”
Gabby: “Cool. Are you getting a lot of time to explore outside of work?”
Lindsay: “Yeah. I'm in the office during the day. (You know), we, we have a Tokyo office. But, (you know), I get around, (uh), I get out around 5 p.m. every evening so I've been going all around the city on my own.” Gabby: “Well, some friends and I are having a cherry blossom party this weekend at Yoyogi Park. Would you be interested in joining us?”
Lindsay: “That sounds awesome. Do you want me to–do you wanna (want to) send me a text later in the week and let me know what time we're heading out and what the address is?”
Gabby: “Will do. See you this weekend.”
Lindsay: “Sounds good.”
Gabby: Great. So the popular phrases are: “Hi, what's your name?”
Lindsay: (Mm-hm).
“So where are you from?”
Gabby: “So far.”
Lindsay: “I'm having a blast,” right, That means I'm having a good time.
Gabby: Right.
“Cool. Are you getting a lot of time to explore outside of work?”
Lindsay: “Would you be interested in ‘doing something'?” In this case we said, “Would you be interested in joining us?”
Gabby: “That sounds awesome. Do you want to send me a text later in the week?”
Lindsay: And the last one is, “Will do.”
Gabby: Yeah.
Lindsay: That means, I will do it, right. It's just a casual way of saying, “I'll do it.”
Gabby: Great. We're going to go right into our third and last conversation, which is practical in so many situations: asking for more information.
Lindsay: This one's kind of funny.
Gabby: All right, here we go. “Lindsay, what are you doing?”
Lindsay: “Oh, I'm trying to figure out how to make this microphone work better. It sounds kind of strange.”
Gabby: “What do you mean? I think it sounds fine.”
Lindsay: “Do you know what my friend said? He's an audio expert and he said that we need to improve it. I don't know, what do you think?”
Gabby: “I think it's okay.”
Lindsay: “Okay.”
Gabby: All right, real life situation.
Lindsay: Yeah, talking about our audio quality here in (at) All Ears English.
Gabby: So the phrases that you would use to ask for more information in any situation – okay, it might be (um): “What are you doing?” Okay, and be careful with your tone because if you sound very aggressive this could sound like “Oh, what are you DOING?” Like, you're trying…
Lindsay: Yeah, you don't wanna (want to) say that.
Gabby: …to start a fight. Yeah.
Lindsay: You don't wanna say that. Say, “Oh, what are you doing?” Right.
Gabby: Yeah, yeah.
Lindsay: That's more polite, upward intonation.
Gabby: Yeah.
Lindsay: Another one would be, “What do you mean?”
Gabby: Yeah, and exactly the same thing, upward intonation, not, “What do you MEAN?”
Lindsay: That would sound so mean.
Gabby: I know.
Lindsay: So angry, right.
Gabby: Yeah.
(Um) “Do you know what…?”
Lindsay: Right.
Gabby: “Do you know what my friend said…?”
Lindsay: Or what he did or what she ate. Okay.
Gabby: Yeah.
Lindsay: (Mm-hm).
Gabby: And…
Lindsay: The last one is…
Gabby: Yeah.
“What do you think?”
Lindsay: “What do you think?”
Gabby: So asking for someone's opinion and trying to talk things through.
Lindsay: All right.
Both: Great.
Lindsay: So we've given you guys three situations and these are the most common phrases in the English language.
Gabby: Right.
Lindsay: So study these. Go through this episode more than once.
Gabby: Right.
And of course there are other phrases you can use in these situations. There are other ways to ask for information, other ways to introduce yourself, and other ways to check into a hotel. But we wanted to share the common phrases with you in some situations that are easy to imagine.
Lindsay: Great. Perfect. And we also just wanted to really quickly mention the authors of this study because we really appreciate that work. So, this study was done by Bilber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, and Finnegan in 1999. (Um) and so we really appreciate that work and we'll put that citation in the blogpost as well. (Um), let us know if you guys have any questions and please come over and grab that e-book to get the rest of the phrases.
That's allearsenglish.com/100.
Gabby: Yeah.
And thank you also to Viviana Cortes (uh) from the TESOL Conference for her presentation on the most popular phrases and for helping us out with a lot of these phrases. Thank you, Viviana.
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Gabby: If you love All Ears English and you want to seriously improve to the advanced native-like level of English, we made a premium subscription package for you with more support. What do you get? You get audio and text transcripts of each new episode when they're released. You get practical learning tips every week. You get an exclusive subscriber's version of our e-book, “How to Improve Your English with a Podcast” and you get all the previous text transcripts, Episodes 1-88 and you guys can ask direct questions – you can communicate directly with Lindsay and myself, Gabby, to ask any question about English. So it's a huge value. You can find that subscription package on our website at allearsenglish.com/conversations. That's c-o-n-v-e-r-s-a-t-i-o-n-s. See you there.
Lindsay: If you 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.
