How To English Speaking
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Today’s lesson is an example of why 250,000+ English language students turn to our approach to learning to speak English every month. This lesson is a free, high-quality audio lesson. The teacher speaks English at a learners pace, a pace English language learners can follow and understand, we use only English to teach English.
We make the lesson interesting, as we want you to listen to the lesson many times, to encourage spaced repetition learning. We provide a full and free English pdf transcript so you can read or look up difficult words. During the lesson we take time to explain difficult vocabulary and spelling. We are careful to only use everyday English vocabulary, so what you learn is useful in real English conversation, not just the classroom.
We focus on helping you acquire the language not learn it, and we have expert knowledge of the psychology behind your learning. You get all that expertise in every lesson you listen too.
Most Unusual Words:
Stretchy
Limo
Hummers
Most common 4 word phrases:
| Phrase | Count |
|---|---|
| How To Speak English | 4 |
| How To. English Speaking | 3 |
| Or You Might ‘Stretch | 2 |
| Talk About A Stretch | 2 |
| A Length Of Time | 2 |
Listen To The Audio Lesson Now
The mp3 audio and pdf transcript for this lesson is now part of the Adept English back catalogue . You can still download and listen to this lesson as part of one of our podcast bundles.Transcript: Speaking English Is Simple Once You Know How To. English Speaking Made Easier
Hi there and welcome to this podcast from Adept English. Learning English is easier once you know how to. English speaking follows being able to understand English well. And that comes through listening. So here we are, Adept English, providing you with lots of free podcasts to listen to, so that you can improve your English. If you want to learn English more quickly, then our Seven Rules Course will show you how to. English speaking is easier, if you know these secrets of language learning. You can sign up for this course today – and save yourself valuable time as you’ll improve your spoken English more quickly, if you’ve done this free course. How to speak English fluently and how to speak English fluently without hesitation? Find the answers in our Seven Rules Course. Simple secrets to instantly improve your English.
So many words in the English language!
So one of the challenging things about learning English, is of course, the number of words in the language. However, it’s not just that – it’s that words often have a lot of different meanings. So one word will mean a lot of different things. So I’m going to talk through a normal average word today – and go through its different meanings, different contexts. There’s nothing special about this word – it’s a typical English word, but it will show you the range of meanings that just one word can have. So in one sense, this podcast is only covering one word, but actually there are hundreds of words in this podcast (I’ll tell you more accurately at the end!) – so by listening, you’re learning rather more than this one word!
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Let’s talk about just one - ‘stretch’
So the word for today is ‘stretch’, that’s S-T-R-E-T-C-H. So it’s a typical English word, in that it’s both a noun – you can ‘have a stretch’ and a verb ‘to stretch’. It’s also slightly challenging perhaps in its pronunciation, because there are three consonants at the beginning, S-T-R, ‘str-’, vowel ‘e’, and then another three consonants,’-tch’, -T-C-H, ‘-tch’ sound. ‘Stretch’.
What does ‘to stretch’ mean?
So let’s start with the verb – to stretch - it has fewer meanings, so that’s easier. ‘To stretch’ is what you might do when you wake up in the morning. You make your arms and legs very long, you put your hands in the air and you pull the muscles in your arms and legs – and ‘Uhhhh’, it feels nice. That’s ‘a stretch’, or ‘to stretch’. If you watch cats or dogs, they do a lot of stretching. And if cats do it, then it’s probably good for you. Before you do exercise, it’s a good idea to stretch – so that you don’t damage your muscles. There’s a slightly different use too. If you ‘stretch something out’, it means you intentionally make it longer. You might ‘stretch out’ your holiday, by going to visit family members on the way home. Or you might ‘stretch’ dinner, by adding more potatoes to your casserole, or by putting more bread onto the table, because more people are eating with you than you thought.
You might ‘stretch’ your budget, your money to buy something that’s expensive that you want. You might stretch elastic or stretch someone’s patience. That means they have patience, but then you use it up and then they get angry with you. So the verb really means to make something longer than its normal length, whether that’s your arms, when you stretch in the morning, or your clothes stretching, because you’ve put on weight over Christmas! Or you might stretch up to reach something, like a book which is on a high shelf. You can also use ‘to stretch’ about fabric or clothes – so ‘My jumper has stretched in the washing machine!’, for example.
And the noun ‘stretch?
What about the noun – ‘a stretch’ or ‘the stretch’? Well, its simplest meaning is the same as the verb. If you ‘have a stretch’ - that’s the same as ‘to stretch’ or ‘stretching’. You lengthen your arms, legs or body, because it feels nice for your muscles. But you might also talk about a stretch of a journey. A length of road, or motorway is ‘a stretch’, as in ‘I don’t like this stretch of the journey, it’s dark and not well-lit’. Or ‘I think this stretch of road is dangerous’. You might also talk about the ‘home stretch’. That would be the stretch or the section of a journey where you’re nearly home, nearly back at your house – or nearly back at the start, if it’s a race of some kind. You might be running, having a race and you’re ‘on the home stretch’.
Different meanings for the same word
Where ‘stretch’ has more of an abstract meaning as a noun, you might say ‘It’s a bit of a stretch this month – we can’t really afford it, we haven’t really got enough money for that.’ Or ‘It would be too much of a stretch to expect the garage to clean my car outside, as well as inside’. So ‘a stretch’ in this context, means something which goes beyond a reasonable expectation, goes beyond what you might expect.
‘Stretch’ may also refer to the elasticity of something. ‘Elasticity’, E-L-A-S-T-I-C-I-T-Y. That means ‘how stretchy something is’. So in clothes sometimes you want ‘stretch’. You want elasticity in your tights or your underwear, so that it’s comfortable. Stretchy clothes can feel nice to wear and are useful for if you’re exercising. You want stretchy jogging pants, perhaps.
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Do you want a stretch limo or a stretch in prison?
A ‘stretch’ can also mean a length of time. ‘Oh, I did a stretch teaching IT in a college’ - that’s true, actually, for me. Or ‘There was a stretch of time, where I didn’t get on with my parents’. If you hear somebody talking about ‘doing a stretch’ or ‘to do a stretch’, this is colloquial, this is slang. And it means ‘a term of imprisonment’. So ‘he’s done a stretch’ means ‘he went to prison for a length of time’. Prison, P-R-I-S-O-N is where criminals go, to be punished, to be held against their will. They lose their freedom and they go to live in a prison. So ‘doing a stretch’ means ‘going to prison’.
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A photograph of a prison tower with barbed wire and guards. Used to help explain English vocabulary stretch and it's many contextual uses.
And lastly, again, as it said ‘stretchy’ before, when I was talking about ‘elasticity’, we do use the word ‘stretch’ or ‘stretchy’ as an adjective. So you might talk about a ‘stretch limousine’. A limousine, L-I-M-O-U-S-I-N-E or a limo, L-I-M-O – it’s a fancy car. It’s the type of car that people hire for a special occasion, like a wedding or a prom. And a ‘stretch limo’, or a ‘stretch limousine’ – it means one of those super long cars. It’s been extended – there are extra seats and possibly a bar inside! You can also get stretch Hummers and other types of vehicle now too.
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More than just one word!
So there you are – lots of meanings for just one word, ‘stretch’. But during this podcast from Adept English, you’ve not just learned about the word ‘stretch’. You’ve heard and understood over 1,100 English words. I bet you didn’t realise that, did you? Learning English is easier once you know how to.
Download The Podcast Audio & Transcript
English speaking comes, once you’ve done a lot of English listening, and not until. How to speak English easily – or more easily. Remember, as always, you can download the how to speak English pdf of the words in this podcast, or you can listen on YouTube – and see the words come up on the screen as you go.
Goodbye
Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
P.S. Podcast Bundles
You might have noticed that we recently updated our podcasts bundles to include the latest 50 podcasts, 151 to 200. We create these bundles to help people who want fast and simple access to our 200+ back catalogue English lesson podcasts + pdf transcripts. For a small fee you can download bundles of 50 or the whole 200 podcast lessons in one simple download.
Also, if you have bought the 1-150 bundle in the past, we have given you access to the new 50 podcasts for free, and whenever we update the big bundle, you will get the new podcasts included for free. A real bargain.
If you are listening to us on a podcast player, then you will only be able to play the latest 75 podcast English lessons, if you want to listen to the older, back catalogue, lessons then you you will need to either download them from our website which can be slow, but is free. Or you can just pay a small fee and get instant and fast access to 50 or 200 podcasts in one simple download.
Although we intend to keep all the old lessons free to download, we might need to limit the number of downloads, as we get more popular, the number of downloads from our website just keeps going up, and up, and that means the bandwidth and hosting costs keep going up. For us to maintain the free downloads we might need to limit the downloads.
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