Shadowing Practice: Speak With Me: Real Life English Conversation - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creating lesson...
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Are you ready to learn real English that real people use in daily life?
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Welcome to my kitchen.
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Today, you are going to see something that most people do not see,
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and that is a sink full of dirty dishes in someone else's home.
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If you are new here, hi, I'm Vanessa.
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And here on this YouTube channel.
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I teach you real English so that you can feel confident and fluent the next time that you have an English conversation.
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So why are we here at my sink full of dirty dishes?
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Well, today I am going to wash the dishes and take you along the journey with me.
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I'll talk about the different types of dishes that I'm washing, the process that I'm using.
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This is by no means the best process for washing the dishes, but it is real life.
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And that is exactly what you need to be learning.
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And like always, I have created a free PDF worksheet with all of the vocabulary expressions
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that you are going to hear today in this real life English lesson.
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Plus I have a special bonus.
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If you download that free PDF worksheet,
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you will get access to a link where you can download the audio version of today's lesson absolutely for free, kind of like a little podcast episode.
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Maybe you can listen to it while you are doing the dishes.
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Amazing.
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So how can you get the free PDF worksheet plus bonus audio version?
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All you have to do is click on the link in the description, enter your name and email address, and voila, just like that,
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the free PDF worksheet will land in your email inbox.
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And do you want to know something cool?
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You never need to sign up for my free worksheets again.
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You only have to sign up one time and I will continue to send them to you every single week.
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It is my gift to you.
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So click on the link in the description to get today's free PDF worksheet and bonus audio version.
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What are we waiting for?
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It's time to start washing those dishes.
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So to wash the dishes, I have this little reusable washcloth thing, and I have some dish soap and I have some strong power.
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Actually, let me get this water a little bit hot.
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Actually, this job, washing the dishes, has been my husband's job for many years.
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So he was very excited that I was going to film this video because I would do his job for him.
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So here in the sink, I have dishes from this morning and dishes from all day yesterday for all five of my family members,
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me, my husband, and my three children.
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So you will see dishes that we used for cooking, dishes that we used for eating, some children's dishes, and who knows what else is in here.
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It looks like a mess.
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All right, let's just get started.
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I'm gonna put some water.
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I am a lucky duck who has a dishwasher.
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So usually we just rinse the dishes and I'm gonna put some soap on here.
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And usually I just give them a very quick rinse so that there's nothing sticking to them.
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These are just some spoons.
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and what I'm going to do usually I would put these directly into the dishwasher
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but I'm going to put them just in a little bowl over here
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and then I'll show you my dishwasher in a second.
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So these are all of our spoons that we used for oatmeal this morning.
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These are our kids oatmeal bowls just little plastic bowls that kids can use so that they don't break them.
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Whenever we have our kids use what we call fragile bowls.
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They get so excited.
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It's just a regular bowl, but it is fragile and it can break.
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These are our kids' plates.
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More kids' plates.
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Sometimes they stain.
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So this has blueberry juice on it, but I don't really care.
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The dishwasher will probably take care of it.
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And if it doesn't, that's okay, right?
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Gotta just let it slide.
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This is a mug.
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I love this mug.
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It's glass, so you can see the color of the tea inside it, which is very exciting to me.
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All right, we'll put those in the dishwasher in a moment.
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Here I have, we call this a mason jar.
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It's just a little jar that has a lid, and please don't judge my sink continuing to flow while I'm doing this.
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We have these reusable straws.
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My kids love to use a straw, but I hate to buy disposable ones.
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So we just have some reusable ones.
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These are some kid cups, more plastic cups, more straws.
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I think this morning my husband made some yogurt with cacao powder in it.
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It was so good.
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and the kids wanted to slurp it up with a straw.
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So we have more straws than usual.
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For me, I would call this a cup.
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You could call it a glass because it is made of glass, but I just call it a cup.
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Oh, we have lots of kid bowls.
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All right, we're just going to get some of the oatmeal debris out of this.
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Note that that word debris has a silent S at the end.
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In fact, I have a memory as a fourth grader,
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my teacher teaching us that debris had a silent S and she called each kid into the hallway and said,
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how do you pronounce this to see if we had been listening that debris should have a silent S.
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I got it right.
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I was listening.
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All right.
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We have a couple extra more cups, kid cups.
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Those ones are not too messy.
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This is what I would, I would personally call this a Tupperware dish.
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There's a lid somewhere in here, but this Tupperware dish, Tupperware is the brand.
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You could call this, what would you even call this
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if you don't call it a Tupperware I have never heard it called anything else.
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Plastic wear?
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I don't know.
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This is a Tupperware dish.
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I don't know what we had in there, but leftovers.
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We had some kind of leftovers in there.
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Some more spoons.
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This is a pot that we cooked oatmeal in this morning.
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So there's some kind of like crusty pieces stuck to the outside of this
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and I have somewhere a little I don't know where it
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is I'm going to use this this is like a little this is just a piece of plastic really
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but you could use this is called steel wool I find it really abrasive so I have a plastic version
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that if it's not really difficult, I'd rather just use the plastic version.
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This doesn't really have a name.
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I would just call it a scrubber.
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I've never really seen that kind of thing before until my mother-in-law gave this to me and I thought, huh, pretty cool.
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I want to know, do you use gloves when you wash the dishes?
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I never do, as you can see.
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my husband does not either
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and I just wash my hands afterwards it's fine right it's not a restaurant it's just our house um
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so this uh this I would call just a plate you
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might see a small plate in a textbook being called a saucer because you put it under a teacup
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but this is too big to be a saucer.
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And I use it as a actual plate, not just to put underneath a cup.
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So this is just a little plate.
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That's what I would call it.
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All right.
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We got some fun stuff down here.
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Oh boy.
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This is yesterday's oatmeal pot.
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Kind of gross.
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But when I said I was going to make a video doing the dishes, we tried to pile up as many dishes as possible.
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So this has, this still has some residue of oatmeal in the bottom, but I can put it in the dishwasher and it's going to be okay.
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Pretty cool.
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So we'll see that in just a minute.
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I have my spatula.
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I don't remember what I cooked with this, but something.
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there are forks.
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These forks are not too dirty.
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I'm just going to put them in the dishwasher, pretty dirty.
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This I would call a steak knife.
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You might call this something different.
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You can also call it, you can see here, it has this really bumpy edge.
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This is a serrated knife.
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My kids call them serrated knives and I think it's super cute because serrated is such an
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advanced word but they they like to say that these are tongs
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and there's quite a bit of debris on it
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so that's why I'm wiping them off these are tongs you
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can grab things grab things with them I made a roast pork the other day it was
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so good and I used those tongs to grab the pork out this is technically, I think there's even a name on it.
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I don't think it's considered a chef's knife, just a chopping knife.
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I would call this simply a sharp knife.
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Isn't that such a boring thing to say?
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But it's so true.
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I feel like sometimes there's these very specialized vocabulary words that you might learn, and then they're just not used in real life.
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I would just call this a sharp knife, a knife, a chopping knife.
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And I use this to chop carrots or apples or whatever.
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This on the other hand is a butter knife.
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I do not use it exclusively for butter.
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It's not sharp really at all but I would call that a butter knife.
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All right we got more forks.
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I'm going to turn up the water get a little bit more soap on my sponge here
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and I don't know if you can see this glorious work I'm doing.
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All right I'm going to try to just get a little bit of this debris off of these plates, set them here.
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Here we have some cute kids silverware.
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So you might hear this called cutlery in real life.
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I have never heard someone say cutlery.
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It's silverware.
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It is not made of silver.
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It is just metal.
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But we still call call it silverware.
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So anything that you use to eat at the table is silverware.
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These are cat dishes.
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So we could say just like a pet dish.
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This is a cat dish.
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We put our cat's food in it.
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This one as well.
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We have another little plate.
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The lid.
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All right.
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This is a lid to the Tupperware.
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And there's some butter on here, but I'm not worried about it.
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I can just put that straight in the dishwasher and it will be fine.
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All right we got more straws, more spoons, a fork, just a fork, nothing fancy.
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We do have different sizes of spoons so these are the three sizes of spoons in my house.
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Kind of bigger, medium, and kids.
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I don't know why we have different sizes of spoons
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but they exist and we use them for I don't give the kids the big ones
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because their mouths aren't big enough for that
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but the kids use these two sizes it's just the way
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it is I don't know do you have different size silverware in your house
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that you don't know why you have for example this this fork
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and this fork this is a these are both adult forks this one is
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shorter
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and this one is longer why I don't know we just
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have them maybe I just am not fancy enough to know why there are different sizes of silverware
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because we don't have salad forks
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and soup spoons well actually we do have soup spoons you will see that in just a minute
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but we don't use them exclusively for those purposes.
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All right, here, as I was saying, behold, a soup spoon.
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So we bought these cute little spoons at the Asian market because every Monday my family,
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we call it Miso Monday and we eat miso soup and have kimchi and rice and seaweed
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and we use these spoons for our miso.
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I don't think it's a very American thing.
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Growing up, my family had one of these spoons and it had a really cool design on it.
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We have fragile ones as my kids call them, fragile ones with a little cat on them.
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And then these plastic ones that the kids use.
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We had one of these in my house and I thought it was the fanciest thing.
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And I always wanted to use it for my breakfast cereal.
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But now we just use them very normally.
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All right, let's see what we've got left.
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All right, I have...
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So this spoon, this is like a silicone serving, stirring spoon.
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It has some grease on it from the pork that I made yesterday.
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So I'm going to wipe that off because I don't want that fat to go down the drain and clog it.
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So I'll just wipe it off.
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This is a paper towel.
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Wipe it off with a paper towel and then I'll throw this away later.
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but this can go directly in the dishwasher.
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The only thing that you have seen that does not go in the dishwasher is this.
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My nice knives I don't put in the dishwasher.
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Okay, and usually, to be honest, when I'm not filming a video, whenever we do the dishes, I hardly ever wipe off the dishes.
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It's literally just five, maybe five minutes of quick rinse, throw it in the dishwasher, quick rinse, throw it in the dishwasher,
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because I'm not talking to somebody, showing them every single thing.
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All right, we have a couple more things, a couple more kid plates, one chopstick.
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You might ask, why does somebody have only one chopstick?
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why would you not have two we use these wooden chopsticks for stirring tea
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and drinks I don't know why but I love the the wooden ones for
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that we have some metal Korean ones that we use for actually using chopsticks
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when we eat but I don't have any of those
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that are dirty right now so You'll have to wait for another video to find out.
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All right, we have some, this is a regular bowl.
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I would just call this a regular bowl.
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My kids call it a fragile bowl.
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It is fragile.
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In fact, it has several cracks in it.
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So there is a crack here.
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There's a crack inside the bowl.
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You probably can't see this very well, but so far it hasn't cracked in two so I'm just going to keep using it.
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All right, I have a lid.
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Remember that, the jar that I showed you earlier,
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I have a lid that goes with it and another jar.
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I'm gonna rinse that out.
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Another jar here.
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Another jar.
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I use jars a lot to store food.
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All right, another jar.
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A few final items down here.
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two forks and a spoon.
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A kid's bowl again, man, my kids go through so many bowls.
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It's unbelievable.
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Whenever they have a snack, bowl.
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Want to eat a couple nuts, put it in a bowl.
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Want to eat a cut up apple, put it in a bowl.
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So many bowls.
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All right, one more fragile bowl.
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So usually at dinner, my kids have the kid bowls.
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They used to, and then my oldest son felt like he grew out of the kid bowls
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and he wanted to start using a bigger bowl.
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So usually whenever we have soup, my oldest son and then my middle son, because he wants to do what the older guy does, right?
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They use fragile bowls with us.
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And it's just my baby who uses these kid bowls, but everybody uses kid bowls for snacks.
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All right, I wanna show you this cool thing.
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All right, this is, this is called a crinkle cutter knife.
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Do you see how it's like wavy here?
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It's not very sharp either, but you can use this to cut potatoes or carrots and it leaves that cool design.
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And the cool thing is my kids use these all the time.
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They're not very sharp.
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If you slam down on your finger, maybe it would, it would hurt.
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You could cut yourself, but it's not as sharp as a knife.
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And they like to cut potatoes, cut potatoes and carrots with this crinkle cutter knife.
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I don't think that's a common thing to have in an American household, but here we are.
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The final thing I want to show you is this.
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Can you see this?
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It is used for items like this.
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So this is our cast iron glazed pan.
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It is not exactly cast iron, it's cast iron underneath here, but there is a glaze on it,
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which makes it easier for cleaning in my opinion.
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So this has some eggs left on it.
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And what I need to do, I cannot put this in the dishwasher.
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bad news bears if you put this in the dishwasher.
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I will put this, I will just fill this with some water and let it soak.
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And then when it is done soaking, I don't know, like this evening or something,
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Dan will come in with this little scraper and will gently scrape the residue off of the pan.
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I love this thing.
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I feel like it's, this is like kind of gross, right?
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stuff can get stuck in there.
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We wash this all the time and we replace it as well.
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I'm gonna put this on my counter over here.
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So we use this to scrape it off and it's really easy to clean.
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Okay, I have one other thing I want to show you.
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Oh, I'm going to wash my beloved cutting board.
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So in order to wash something like this, I need to do it by hand.
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So we have, I really, what I've been showing you so far, I have some soap in my hand,
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has not been really washing something by hand because I didn't get anything actually clean.
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I just took off the, I just rinsed them off.
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So I was basically rinsing all the dishes.
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I also use this with my cutting board to scrape off any pieces that might be stuck.
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And then I simply rinse it off.
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There we go.
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All right.
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This I did wash by hand.
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It is clean now.
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so I would say I washed my cutting board by hand
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but these dishes I just rinsed them off um we will put them in the dishwasher in a second
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and then I like to put it I have this I bought this thing to set a picture on
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and the picture didn't fit and then I set my cutting board on it
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and thought wow this is genius so I usually set my cutting board on that in the sink to let it dry.
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And that's done.
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We, I will put everything in the dishwasher now.
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So let's go over to the dishwasher and you are going to be privy to the magic called loading the dishwasher.
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That's what we call it when we put dishes in the dishwasher.
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You are not going to see my face very much.
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You're just going to see the dishes, but let's go.
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All right, here we have the dishwasher.
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I have two racks that I can put things on and I'm just going to start loading it up.
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So we could just say I'm going to load the dishwasher, but if you use a phrasal verb, like to load up, it sounds more natural.
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You might be picky and try to put every piece of silverware in a special little slot, but I am not picky when it comes to the dishes.
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I just throw them in.
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You can put plates on the bottom.
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I like to put all of the little stuff on the top and the bigger stuff on the bottom.
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Some people are very picky about doing the dishes, but when you have to do it every day, and there are a lot of dishes,
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I have no energy to be picky about it.
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Usually I do try to leave little space though between them
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so that the water can go all around it and get them clean
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we'll put that here by the end you just throw in dishes in any old spot anywhere that they'll fit
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and I have the cat bowls we will put in here as well there's water
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that comes from the bottom of the dishwasher and water
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that comes from the top so even
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if they're kind of piled on top of each other it's okay all right I like to put these
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in here and all of the silverware will just get basically tossed into the silverware spot.
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I don't think so there's this little tray.
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I don't think this has any special name except the silverware tray.
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If you have heard this called something, let me know.
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I have not really heard it called something in particular.
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I just say put the silverware in the dishwasher
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and whenever I open the dishwasher when it is finished
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and unload it I have to grab the sharp knives quickly
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because my daughter the moment the dishwasher opens it's like a carnival has opened.
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She runs so excited.
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She wants to see what's in here.
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but of course she grabs the sharp knives first.
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So, um, this steak knife I put in the dishwasher.
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Um, so I have to be careful that she doesn't grab stuff like that.
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All right.
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We've got some cups here.
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Let's get those cups in.
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And I believe that's everything.
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So the final step is we need to put soap in the dishwasher.
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They have those little pods that you can put in here, but it's a lot cheaper just to use powder.
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So I just use powder.
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I'll put some in and close it up.
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and I will start it and turn it on
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and that's it yay well thank you for joining me
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while I washed the dishes today I hope
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that you learned something new about real life English don't forget
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to download the free pdf worksheet where you can also get the audio version of today's lesson
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That means that you can download the audio MP3 and listen to this wherever you are, maybe while you're washing the dishes.
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We can wash the dishes together.
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Just click on the link in the description, enter your name and email address, and voila, just like that,
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the free PDF worksheet plus the bonus audio will land in your email inbox.
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It is my gift to you.
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All right, while I wash my hands after doing the dishes, I'm going to say thank you so much for learning English with me.
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I hope you enjoyed today's lesson
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and I will see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.
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Bye.
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But wait, do you want more?
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I recommend watching this video next where you will see me fold the laundry
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and talk to you about all sorts of clothing and clothing vocabulary
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that you need to know so that you can become a fluent English speaker.
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I'll see you there.

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Speak With Me: Real Life English Conversation”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: dishes, dishwasher, kid, bowl, spoon. This video has 359 sentences and 3926 words to shadow. The speech runs for 26:11. The speaker talks at a natural 150 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

WordPronunciationMeaning
dish noun/dɪʃ/A vessel such as a plate for holding or serving food, often flat with a depressed region in the middle.
dishwasher noun/ˈdɪʃˌwɑʃɚ/A machine for washing dishes.
spoon noun/spuːn/An implement for eating or serving; a scooped utensil whose long handle is straight, in contrast to a ladle.
silverware noun/ˈsɪlvə(ɹ)ˌwɛə(ɹ)/Anything manufactured from silver.
fork noun/fɔɹk/A utensil with spikes used to put solid food into the mouth, or to hold food down while cutting, or for serving food.
rinse verb/ɹɛns/To wash (something) quickly using water and no soap.
worksheet nounA sheet of paper or computerized document on which problems are worked out or solved and the answers are recorded.
fragile adjective/ˈfɹæd͡ʒəl/Easily broken, not sturdy; of delicate material.
oatmeal noun/ˈoʊtmil/Meal made from rolled or round oats.
debris noun/ˈdɛbɹi/Rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.
straw noun/stɹɔ/A dried stalk of a cereal plant.
wipe verb/waɪp/To move an object over, maintaining contact, with the intention of removing some substance from the surface. (Compare rub.)
soup noun/sup/Any of various dishes commonly made by combining liquids, such as water or stock, with other ingredients, such as meat and vegetables, that contribute the food…
soap noun/soʊp/A metallic salt derived from a fatty acid, commonly used in cleaning products.
sink verb/ˈsɪŋk/To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

WordMeaning
cut up verbTo cut upward.
find out verbTo discover, as by asking or investigating.
go down verbTo descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one.
go through verbTo travel from one end of something to the other.
grow out of verbTo emerge from (something); to take a particular shape as a result of (something); to come to exist from (an origin).
grow up verbTo mature and become an adult.
pile up verbTo form a pile, stack, or heap.
sign up verbTo add a name to the list of people who are participating in something.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

  • What are we waiting for?
  • All right, let's just get started.
  • I'm gonna put some water.
  • That's what I would call it.
  • Do you see how it's like wavy here?

Grammar in this video

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

StructureIn the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its resultif it's not really difficult, I'd rather
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters nowhave created · has been · have never heard
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does itis made · is called · being called
Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certainmight see · might call · might learn

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 89 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, I'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

  • The “th” sounds: underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, washcloth /ˈwɔʃ.klɔθ/
  • The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dish /dɪʃ/, dishwasher /ˈdɪʃˌwɑʃɚ/, specialize /ˈspɛʃəˌlaɪz/, washcloth /ˈwɔʃ.klɔθ/
  • Long words — get the stress right: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, exclusively /ɪkˈskluːsɪvli/, unbelievable /ˌʌnbɪˈliːvəbl̩/, technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/

How to practise with this video

  1. Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
  2. Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
  3. Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like dish, dishwasher, spoon.

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 →