Shadowing Practice: EASY ENGLISH CONVERSATION: You’re Invited to Dinner! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hey, you made it!

Come in, make yourself at home.

Hey everyone, I'm Alex, thanks for clicking,

and welcome to this lesson on inviting people to your house or going to someone's house for dinner, for example.

So, in this lesson, you will learn some practical English sentences, phrases that are used

when you invite someone somewhere to your home specifically uh how to respond to like the smell of food

and what to say at the dinner table uh what to say

when people leave your home if you invite them to your house

and we also have what to say at the door for instance I will cover that for now.

So let's start with the invitation.

So if you are inviting someone to your home, you are the host of, for example, a dinner party in this case,

you can ask someone, you can ask your friends or your family, what are you doing on plus the date, right?

So what are you doing on Saturday on Sunday afternoon, for example?

Another way to ask this a little more directly is, hey, are you free?

Are you free for dinner on Saturday?

Are you free for lunch on Saturday, for example?

And one more example, you can just ask, do you want to come over?

So come over means come to my home.

Do you want to come over for dinner on Saturday?

All right.

So repeat these after me, everyone.

Number one, what are you doing on Saturday?

Are you free for dinner on Saturday?

do you want to come over for dinner on Saturday okay

and I know I get this question in the comments sometimes

some students say Alex I love your British accent I don't have a British accent everyone

so if you want to know what accent I have I live in Canada

and the accent I have is typical of like standard Canadian English,

which is more like Southern Ontario English is what you could say.

Okay.

Next, if you are a guest and someone invites you to their home,

you can always offer to bring something, right?

If they are inviting you for dinner, it's always polite to ask if you should bring something if you can.

Bring something so here we have should I bring anything right?

Do you want me to bring dessert or do you want me to bring something to drink?

how about Should I pick up some wine on the way right like on the road to your house?

Should I pick up some drinks some wine some dessert?

usually you offer like something to drink or dessert or maybe some snacks right and uh also what can i bring

and sometimes you can also ask like do do you need

anything right are you missing anything no i have everything i need it's okay

or ah actually um could you grab some juice could you bring some juice with you, right?

All right, so let's practice.

I want you to speak.

This is language that you will use in a real social situation, so let's practice it now.

Repeat after me.

Should I bring anything?

Do you want me to bring dessert?

should I pick up some wine on the way?

What can I bring?

Very good.

All right.

Now we have the invitation.

OK, we offered to bring something because we were invited to a party.

We have offered to bring something to the party.

And now we are the host.

We open the door.

We are at the door.

We open the door.

And at the beginning of this lesson, I said, you made it.

That means you arrived successfully and i said oh thanks for coming

or come in right

so you made it it's like oh you're here you are

here that's the meaning of you made it maybe the person was stuck in traffic for a long time

and you are just happy because oh they were supposed to be here 30 minutes ago

So when you hear the knock on the door, you open the door, I'm so glad you made it.

You finally made it.

You can say, thanks for coming.

And then you can offer, you know, tell them, invite them to come into your home.

You can say, come in.

A little more casual, come on in, right?

Come on in, you can also say.

Here are some other common things that people say at the door

when they open the door to their home and they have guests.

It's good to see you.

I can take your jacket.

You can leave your shoes there.

You can take off your shoes.

And a very nice invitation, right?

When they come in, you can say, make yourself comfortable, right?

So this means come into my home.

My home is your home.

Make yourself comfortable or make yourself at home.

And finally, have a seat.

OK, so have a seat means go sit, find a place to sit, relax, chill, right?

Feel comfortable.

So instead of have a seat, you can also use the verb take, right?

Take a seat, have a seat.

A little more casual is the verb grab.

So you can also invite someone to grab a seat, right?

Grab is like this.

You grab something similar to catching, but grabbing, you're grasping like this.

All right.

So before we continue, repeat after me.

You made it.

Thanks for coming.

Come on in.

It's good to see you.

I can take your jacket.

You can leave your shoes there.

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Make yourself comfortable.

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Make yourself at home. Have a seat. So far so good?

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Okay.

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Oh, do you smell that?

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Dinner's almost ready.

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Okay, let's go.

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Okay, so if you are a guest, you might react in this way when you enter someone's home,

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and you can smell the food that is coming from the kitchen, this aroma that is in the air.

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You can say something smells great, right?

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You can also say, ah, it smells good in here.

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You can also say if you see something on the table or, you know, on the counter in the kitchen or in the stove,

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ah, that looks amazing, or that looks delicious.

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And you can also offer to help, right?

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You are at someone's home.

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Maybe you want to help them set the table or, you know, get the utensils, whatever it is you can offer to help by saying,

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do you need help with anything?

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Or do you need any help with anything?

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Or just do you need any help?

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Do you need any help?

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Also works.

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Okay.

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So repeat after me.

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Remember you are in the home.

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It smells really good.

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So repeat after me.

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Something smells great.

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It smells good in here. That looks amazing.

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Do you need help with anything?

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Perfect.

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Now, a little later, we are sitting at the table.

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We are ready to eat.

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These are things that you might hear from the guest or the host at the party.

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So help yourself.

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This would be the host.

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Help yourself means don't wait for me to serve you.

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Just take what you need from the table.

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So usually in this case, you know, the food is prepared in pots and pans and on plates,

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and you are supposed to serve yourself.

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Right.

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So help yourself.

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Right.

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You can also say, be my guest.

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Be my guest as well.

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All right.

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I think that's a famous Disney song.

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Another thing, help yourself dig in, right?

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Dig in.

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To dig is to do this with a shovel in English.

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When we say, all right, dig in means like start eating, right?

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Start eating, dig in.

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You might hear this question from your host, or maybe you will ask this,

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you know, to your child if you come to a dinner party with your child.

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How is it?

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Do you like it?

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Right?

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So how is it?

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Do you like it?

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Yeah, it's perfect.

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Oh, it's delicious.

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Or it's good.

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Right?

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Just if you want to be polite, and it's not great, that's not terrible.

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It's good.

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Or it's a little salty, but it's good.

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You can criticize food more if it was ordered, like from a restaurant or a place.

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If the person at the house made the food, it's usually not a good idea to criticize it unless you're like super close friends with this person

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or it's a family member.

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I have told, you know, my mother-in-law before, like, mom, you put too much salt, right?

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Or it's too salty.

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So yes, How is it?

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Do you like it?

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Very common request at the dinner table.

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Could you pass me the potatoes, the salt?

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Could you pass me the steak or the chicken, for example?

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Do you want another one?

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Right.

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Do you want another potato or another piece of meat or another helping of vegetables or something like that?

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Would you like some more?

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Right.

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Would you like some more?

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So this one actually is more for plurals and for non-countables, right?

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Would you like some more vegetables?

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Would you like some more meat, for example?

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And you can also react in this way if you like something a lot and you say, ah, I want to make this at home by myself.

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You have to give me the recipe.

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So this word here, R-E-C, that's an I, I think you can see.

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P-E is recipe.

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So repeat after me.

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Recipe.

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Recipe.

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Good.

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So these are the ingredients to make a specific dish.

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So repeat after me, everyone.

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Help yourself.

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Dig in.

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How is it?

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Do you like it?

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Could you pass me the salt?

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Do you want another one?

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Would you like some more?

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You have to give me the recipe.

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Okay.

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And now we have eaten dinner.

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We have relaxed.

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We are at the end of the evening.

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I touched the mic.

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I don't know if you heard that.

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And we have to thank the host.

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If we are the guest, it is always polite to thank the host.

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You are going to say goodbye.

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You're at the door again.

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You can say, ah, thanks for having us, right?

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So this means thanks for hosting.

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Thanks for inviting us and for creating a nice ambiance, a nice dinner, a nice experience experience for us.

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And if you have thanked them before, you can say, ah, thanks again.

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Right.

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Thanks again for having us.

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Thanks for hosting.

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Right.

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Thanks for being the hosts, for being, for giving us the place, for giving us a table, for inviting us.

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You can also just say, ah, this was great.

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Or this was a lot of fun.

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And you can also just go for the classic.

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Well, thanks for inviting us.

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You can also say me if you come solo.

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Most people come in groups, I feel.

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So thanks for inviting us.

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And if you are, well, actually repeat after me before we continue.

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Don't look.

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You looked.

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I know you.

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I know you.

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All right.

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Repeat after me.

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Thanks for having us.

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Thanks for hosting.

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And you notice I said for very relaxed.

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Instead of saying for, you can say for, thanks for.

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So repeat after me.

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Thanks for hosting.

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This was a lot of fun.

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Thanks for inviting us.

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okay if you are the host and some people are at your home

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and you want to thank them very common the most common

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sentence you can use is thanks for coming okay you can say this

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when people enter your home and when people leave your home so oh thanks for coming thanks for coming Okay, both of them.

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It works.

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It's like salut in French.

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Salut, salut.

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Same thing.

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If you're not French, I apologize.

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You just learned salut in French.

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All right.

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Next one.

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Let's do it again soon.

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I want to do this thing again soon.

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I had such a good time this time.

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Next, I'm glad you could come.

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I'm happy that you were able to attend, that you were able to come.

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So repeat after me.

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You can practice.

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It's your turn.

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Thanks for coming.

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Let's do it again soon.

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I'm glad you could come.

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Okay.

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And then some goodbye wishes.

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Two very common things people say.

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drive safe.

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Most people drive to people's houses.

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If you walk, you can also say, get home safe.

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Maybe the person is taking the subway.

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Maybe they are taking their bike.

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Maybe they are walking.

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You just want them to have like a safe journey home.

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So you can say, get home safe.

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If they are driving can say okay drive safe or take care

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or the classic you know this one bye right

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so repeat after me drive safe take care bye and

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if you are an english teacher watching this and saying alex

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drive safely people say drive safe okay they do you know they do you hear it all the time

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all right everybody uh i hope you enjoyed this lesson i had fun making it for you um

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and i hope you found it useful

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and i hope you will use it the next time you are invited to someone's home

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or the next time someone comes to your home.

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So this is a very useful lesson

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if you are new in an English-speaking country

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and you have been invited to someone's house or you invite others to your house as well.

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If you want to test your understanding of most of this material, a lot of this material, there is a quiz on engvid.com.

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If you are watching this outside of engvid you can just

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click on the link in the description of the video

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and make sure you subscribe to my channel

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if you like this video also like it share it with your friends and um

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enjoy i'm trying to think of something from the lesson

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that i can use to end this but i can't think of anything

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so bye perfect yes that was in the lesson

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 295 sentences and 2366 words to shadow. The speech runs for 18:00. The speaker talks at a steady 131 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 90% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
invite verb	/ɪnˈvaɪt/	To ask for the presence or participation of someone or something.
lesson noun	/ˈlɛs.ən/	A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided.
recipe noun	/ˈɹɛs.ɪ.pi/	Any set of instructions for preparing a mixture of ingredients.
accent noun	/ækˈsɛnt/	A higher-pitched or stronger (louder or longer) articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to…
dessert noun	/dɪˈzɝt/	The last course of a meal, consisting of fruit, sweet confections etc.
relax verb	/ɹɪˈlæks/	To make something loose.
shoe noun	/ˈʃu/	A protective covering for the foot, with a bottom part composed of thick leather or plastic sole and often a thicker heel, and a softer upper part made of…
invitation noun	/ɪnvɪˈteɪʃən/	The act of inviting; solicitation; the requesting of a person's company.
polite adjective	/pəˈlaɪt/	Well-mannered, civilized.
juice noun	/d͡ʒuːs/	A liquid made from plant, especially fruit.
delicious adjective	/dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/	Pleasing to the sense of taste; tasty.
jacket noun	/ˈd͡ʒæk.ɪt/	A piece of clothing worn on the upper body outside a shirt or blouse, often waist length to thigh length.
goodbye	/ɡʊdˈbaɪ/	Farewell; a formula used to another person or persons when the speaker, writer, or person addressed is departing.
casual adjective	/ˈkæʒ(u)əl/	Happening by chance.
react verb	/ɹiːˈækt/	To act in response.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
come on in verb	Synonym of come in (“to enter”).
pick up verb	To lift; to grasp and raise.
come over verb	To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse.
take off verb	To remove.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have offered · have told · have eaten
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were invited · was ordered · are invited
Advice with “should” should + verb — saying what is a good idea	should bring · should I bring · Should I pick
Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain	might react · might hear

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 16 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shoe /ˈʃu/, invitation /ɪnvɪˈteɪʃən/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/, casual /ˈkæʒ(u)əl/, dish /dɪʃ/
Long words — get the stress right: invitation /ɪnvɪˈteɪʃən/, successfully /səkˈsɛs.fə.li/, apologize /əˈpɑləˌd͡ʒaɪz/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like invite, lesson, recipe.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: EASY ENGLISH CONVERSATION: You’re Invited to Dinner! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?