14- Four Phrases to Talk About Dating in American English
Lindsay: This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 14: Teaching Tuesday.
Gabby: Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, where you'll finally get real, native English conversation. Now here are your hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the ‘English Adventurer' and Gabby Wallace, the ‘Language Angel', coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Lindsay: In this episode, you'll learn four phrases that you need to communicate about dating in American English. Gabby: Let's get right into it. Our first phrase is ‘to go Dutch.' Lindsay: Yes and so what does this mean?
Gabby: What is ‘to go Dutch'? Lindsay: What is that?
Gabby: Well, when you go out on a date where you are eating something, drinking something, maybe buying tickets or anything that costs money, you might want ‘to go Dutch.' Lindsay: Right.
So this could also be for a group activity with friends. You can also ‘go Dutch.' Well, what does it mean – when it's time to pay? Lindsay: Yeah, so what we do is we just split the bill. That's the way I think of ‘go Dutch.' Gabby: Yeah.
Lindsay: So, you know, let's say the bill's $50, $25 each. Right? Or you might go and decide how much each person spent.
Gabby: Right.
Lindsay: Yeah. So ‘to go Dutch.' Gabby: Exactly. And then directly related with this, there's (there are) three different words that we can talk about – um, well, the, uh, how you know how much to pay. We have the ‘tab,' the ‘check,' and the ‘bill.' Lindsay: Mm-hm. Yeah, so the amount of money that you owe… Gabby: Mm-hm.
Lindsay: …the restaurant. Right.
Gabby: Yeah.
And when you're, when you're ready to go at a restaurant, you usually have to um, ask the, the waiter, waitress uh “Could I have the check please?” Lindsay: Yeah. Yeah.
Gabby: “Could we get the bill?”
Lindsay: “Could we get the bill?”
Gabby: Yeah.
Sometimes they'll bring it without asking and that's normal in the US. They're not trying to like rush you out. Lindsay: Right, right. You can take your time, even if you have the check, you can still hang out at the table and chat.
Gabby: Yeah.
Lindsay: Okay.
Gabby: Great. So the next phrase is ‘getting out.' Lindsay: Yes.
Gabby: And Lindsay, you mentioned this – you were talking about a website where you meet up with people based on the activities you wanna (want to) do. What was the name of that website?
Lindsay: Yeah, so this website was HowAboutWe.com and this really lets us get out.
Right.
Get out of the house and don't expect your date to come knocking on your door. Gabby: yeah.
Lindsay: The person of your dreams is not gonna (going to) show up at your home right?
Gabby: That's right. That's right. Yeah, so you can get out to do an activity, like, ‘Oh it's great that I'm getting out and running more,' or ‘I'm getting out and going out on a date,' or whatever, just getting out of your house. Lindsay: Absolutely. And the last one was ‘commitment.' Gabby: ‘Commitment.' This is great because dates can vary in the amount of commitment, like a first date might be a coffee or a tea date, right? Maybe it takes 45 minutes or an hour. That's a low time commitment. Lindsay: Right and then you also think about commitment in terms of how much money you're putting into the date. Gabby: Right.
Lindsay: So if you're gonna (going to) go and invite someone to a fancy dinner, you're gonna (going to) spend a lot of money and that's a big time and money commitment for a first date if you're not sure if you really like the person right. Gabby: Yeah.
Lindsay: Yeah. And then another way we use the word ‘commitment' is talking about stages of a relationship. So if we go in order, you know, from when you first meet someone, you might call them an acquaintance and then you get to know them more and they become a friend, or, or in a romantic way you might start with um, dating as a commitment and then being in an exclusive relationship…
Lindsay: Boyfriend, girlfriend.
Gabby: Right
Lindsay: At that point and then…
Gabby: Engaged.
Lindsay: And then engaged.
Both: Married. Sometimes divorced.
Lindsay: Hopefully not.
Gabby: Right.
So again, different stages are different levels of commitment. And last with ‘commitment,' you can use it as a reason why you can't go out on a date. So, for example, “Can you go out for a cup of coffee?” What if you want to say “No,” what could you say?
Lindsay: “Yeah, I'm sorry. I have a commitment that day.” Gabby: Right. Right.
And you know that's, that's enough. You don't have to say anymore. That's the perfect excuse. “Sorry I have a commitment.” Lindsay: You don't need to be specific. I mean, if you don't wanna (want to) go out with them, you can say, “I have a commitment.” Gabby: Yeah. Perfect. Love it. So let's, let's uh give you a chance to repeat these phrases, so you can get comfortable with them. So the first one was ‘to go Dutch.' Lindsay: And the next one was, we had three. So we have the ‘tab', the ‘check' or the ‘bill.' Gabby: Great. The third phrase was ‘getting out.' Lindsay: And the last one was ‘commitment.' Gabby: You listeners know that we've created this awesome podcast for you. But that's not all. We've also created an e-book to help you get the most out of listening to every episode. And the best thing is it's free. It's free for you guys, our listeners. So to get the e-book for free, just come visit us at www.allearsenglish.com/free.
Lindsay: Thanks for listening to the All Ears English Podcast. We're here to help you learn English and you can help us by leaving a five star review on iTunes. See you next time.
