Advanced English Conversation Lesson
Vanessa: Hello, hello.
Welcome to today’s live English lesson here
on the Speak English With Vanessa YouTube
channel.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I’m here with my husband, Dan.
Dan: Hello.
Vanessa: And we’re going to having a natural
conversation about emotions today, so I hope
that you’ll learn some new words.
If we use any new expressions we’re going
to explain them as we go.
It’s going to be pretty spontaneous.
We have a couple questions to talk about,
but it’s not so planned, so I hope that your
listening skills will be tested and you’ll
just have a good time.
If you enjoy this live lesson with us together
having a conversation, talking about vocabulary,
we do this every month in the Fearless Fluency
Club.
Dan helps me to explain the monthly vocabulary
expressions.
So you can join the Fearless Fluency Club
for $5 for the first month with the coupon
code NEW and there’s a link in the description.
So thank you everyone who is here to join
to talk with me live.
I’m glad that you’re joining from all around
the world, we can see friends from Brazil,
from Poland, from France, from Indonesia.
Thank you so much for joining me.
I’d like to start with a question for Dan.
Dan: We’re going to talk about being emotional.
Vanessa: Yes, having emotions, because everyone
has emotions.
Dan: I don’t know.
Vanessa: We’ll see, we’ll see.
I thought we’d start with positive emotion
question.
I want to know what something that makes you
feel excited.
Dan: Excited?
Vanessa: Yes, yes.
Dan: Well, the first thing that came to my
mind was food.
Vanessa: I agree.
Dan: I mean, food is so exciting.
If you’re really hungry and you see a hamburger
in front of you, you get really, really excited.
Vanessa: I want to know, do you get excited
by food?
So in this sentence that Dan just said, he
said, “I get excited by” something.
“I get excited by food.”
Or, “I get excited when I see food.”
So what about for you, can you make a sentence
using this sentence structure?
For me, I get excited when I smell delicious
food.
Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Vanessa: It’s really exciting for me.
In fact, a couple days ago I was cleaning
out my closet and I found an old journal that
I wrote when I was seven years old.
Dan: Did you write a poem to food?
Vanessa: I wrote a lot about food.
I think every-
Dan: Dear pizza, I love you with all my heart.
Vanessa: It was almost like that.
I wrote about apples, I wrote about ice cream,
I wrote about lots of food because as a kid,
I don’t know, it’s exciting, right?
Dan: You know, when I was looking at your
journals I remember you were very excited
about boys.
Vanessa: Oh.
Dan: She had her little boyfriends.
They weren’t really boyfriends, she was viewing
them from afar.
Vanessa: Just from afar, just from afar.
Dan: Yes.
She would say, one journal said, “And you
were looking at you know who.”
Vanessa: Oh.
Dan: I don’t know who that was.
Vanessa: So can you explain what “you know
who” means?
We’re getting to another question here, which
is about embarrassment.
I feel embarrassed.
Dan: Yeah.
But “you know who” just means you don’t want
to say who it is, so it’s a secret.
Its kind of like in Harry Potter, have you
ever read Harry Potter where the book says,
“He who shall not be named?”
Vanessa: Oh, so in Harry Potter-
Dan: But it’s kind of the opposite of that,
it’s not a bad guy.
Vanessa: It’s not a bad guy, but it’s someone
who’s secret, you’re trying to not say their
name.
So in Harry Potter, Voldemort, you’re not
supposed to say his name, so they might say,
“Oh, I see you know who.”
And that just means you don’t want to say
his name.
So you could say this for someone you’re talking
about but you don’t really want to say their
name specifically.
And just to let you know, any vocabulary words
that we discuss and talk about, after this
live lesson is finished I’m going to write
them in the description below this live lesson
so that you can go down and check them, see
the sentence that we used, and kind of get
a better picture for them, because I know
we’re going to be talking fast, and talking
about a lot of things.
So I hope that that will be useful to you.
Alright, so let’s get started with a more
serious question.
I want to know, what’s something that annoys
you.
Dan: Serious.
Vanessa: Yeah.
Dan: Something that annoys me?
Vanessa: Yeah.
Dan: That seriously annoys me?
Vanessa: Oh it could be something that’s kind
of silly that annoys you, but it’s not so
happy, it’s not excited, you’re not happy
about it.
Something that annoys you.
Dan: A simple thing that annoys me is we used
to have this fan in our living room, and the
fan would be spinning and it would make a
clicking sound, it would go, “Click, click,
click, click,” over, and over, and over again.
And I could not take that sound, it was so
annoying, so I had to turn it off, and then
we were hot.
Vanessa: It was hot in our house.
Dan: At night, I would rather be hot than
hear that sound over and over again.
Vanessa: So the fan annoyed you.
Dan: Yes.
Vanessa: And you used a great phrasal verb,
“I can’t take it.”
Dan: Yeah, I couldn’t take it.
Vanessa: Yes.
What does it mean if you say, “My job is so
annoying, I can’t take it anymore.”
Dan: Yeah, that means you’re about to leave
the job, or turn something off, or just stop
it, go away.
You know, you can’t take it.
Vanessa: Yeah, I kind of have this image in
my mind of your patience.
Your patience is lowering, and lowering, and
lowering and then all of a sudden you don’t
have any more patience, that’s when you can’t
take it.
Dan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Vanessa: Like, “I’ve tried to be patient,
I tried to be patient,” and then, “I can’t
take it!”
Dan: Yeah.
Do you find me annoying?
Vanessa: I wouldn’t say … Not usually.
Dan: Well you can’t really be married to somebody,
well you could, but it wouldn’t be a fun marriage.
Vanessa: Yeah, I think that when there’s things
that you do that annoy me, I usually just
tell you right away.
Like, “Hey, stop tapping,” when he drums on
tables and I’m trying to concentrate, “Stop
tapping, I need to focus.”
I tell you, I think pretty directly.
Dan: Yeah.
Vanessa: Do you think so?
Dan: Yeah, yeah.
Vanessa: Okay.
Dan: You’re very direct.
Vanessa: Especially when-
Dan: You’re not very annoying though.
Vanessa: Oh yeah?
Dan: Yeah, she’s not annoying ever.
Vanessa: That’s good.
Dan: She’s kind of perfect really.
Vanessa: Well you’re a little biased.
Dan: I am a little biased.
Vanessa: Well let’s go to the second question.
Dan: Okay.
Vanessa: My second question is, have you ever
felt down in the dumps?
This is an idiom, but I think we can explain
it in a … Just a quick sense, how would
you explain “down in the dumps?”
Dan: That means depressed.
Maybe close to depressed.
Vanessa: You’re not-
Dan: You’re very, very sad.
Vanessa: You’re not clinically depressed,
you’re not taking medication, but you’re really
sad.
Dan: You’re very, very, very sad.
Vanessa: Yeah.
So this is a kind of more serious question,
but-
Dan: I know, this is going to get dark.
Vanessa: Have you ever felt down in the dumps?
And I want to know for you, have you ever
felt down in the dumps?
Dan: I know that we’ve been down in the dumps
because we were long distance before.
Vanessa: Can you explain what that means?
Dan: Yeah.
So if you’re in a long distance relationship,
you don’t live close by.
Vanessa: It’s so hard.
Dan: So she was in France and I was in the
United States and we were-
Vanessa: Or I was in South Carolina and you
were in Tennessee, we’re six hours apart.
Then we were an ocean apart for three years.
Dan: Yeah, so when I was down in the dumps
the most it was probably in college when we
separated.
We were still dating, but we didn’t see each
other very much, and I had no friends, and
I was living alone, and it was a new school,
and I watching YouTube videos for the first
time about conspiracy theories.
Vanessa: And you just go down that-
Dan: And I went down a rabbit trail.
Vanessa: Sad spiral.
Dan: Which I don’t believe in conspiracy theories.
Vanessa: But, it was a difficult time for
you?
Dan: Back them I thought the world was upside
down.
Vanessa: Oh no.
So this idiom, “down in the dumps,” what is
a dump?
So we can kind of get this visual image of
dumps.
Dan: I kind of assumed it meant garbage.
Vanessa: Yeah, that’s what I would say.
Dan: Trash.
Vanessa: When you say-
Dan: I’m in the trash.
Vanessa: Yeah, you kind of imagine you’re
in this really terrible place, it’s where
people take their old couches, or their trash,
and this is called “the dump.”
So when I was little I remember my dad would
say if he had something that the trash man
wouldn’t take, maybe some big item or something
like that, he would often ask me, “Vanessa,
do you want to go to the dump with me?”
And I don’t know why, but that was so fun
for me because it was out in the country,
and we got to drive on these fun roads, and
then we got to throw things into this big
hole.
Dan: Oo, yeah.
Vanessa: Which is always fun.
So this is the literal dump, D-U-M-P.
We would go to the dump, but if you are figuratively
down in the dumps, down in the dumps.
It means you’re sad?
Dan: Yeah, have you been down in the dumps?
Vanessa: Yeah, I think that the times that
I’ve been down in the dumps has been in serious
situations like family problems, or when we
were separated, those kind of relational deep
things.
I feel like I don’t get down in the dumps
for small things.
Dan: Yeah, or-
Vanessa: Some people do.
Dan: Or for very long.
I’ve never seen Vanessa sad for a long time.
Vanessa: Mm, I feel like-
Dan: She usually gets happy pretty quickly.
Vanessa: Well it’s hard for me to maintain
always-
Dan: Sorrow.
Vanessa: Yeah, always being sad.
I can have a hurt inside that lingers for
awhile, but I think that constantly, when
I got to the store, being sad with the cashier,
when I come home and I’m cooking dinner, being
sad, when I talk with Dan- I can’t keep it
up for that long.
I might feel sad inside and-
Dan: She can’t keep a smile away honestly,
it just comes.
Vanessa: Well let’s go to the third question,
which is, do you get easily embarrassed?
Here I’m using a “get” expression plus an
adjective, “get embarrassed.”
Get happy, get hungry, get thirsty.
But this one is get embarrassed.
So do you get easily embarrassed?
Dan: No.
Vanessa: That’s what I thought you’d say.
Dan: Yeah, not really.
Maybe if I’m thinking about going to a party,
or seeing friends, maybe I get a little nervous
that I’ll say something silly, or dumb, or
I don’t know.
But when I’m actually in a situation with
people and I say something, I’ll say almost
anything and maybe it’s kind of silly, and
I don’t feel embarrassed.
Vanessa: I feel like you’re the kind of person
who has a very low embarrassment level.
Dan: Maybe high.
Vanessa: You don’t often get embarrassed.
Dan: I don’t often get embarrassed.
Vanessa: But, you can-
Dan: I say a lot of embarrassing things though.
Vanessa: You can inadvertently make other
people feel embarrassed.
And inadvertently means you’re not trying
to, but you just do.
I remember one time when we were … This
isn’t so serious, but I remember one time
we were living in Korea and one of our good
friends was walking along the road, the sidewalk
with us, and you just did something simple,
something I’m used to, I didn’t think anything
about it.
You just like, jumped up on this brick wall
and just went, “Yay, I’m so happy,” or you
just did something kind of silly, and she
said, “Dan, what are you doing?
That’s so crazy.”
But for you, it was nothing.
Dan: “You’re so crazy.”
Vanessa: It was nothing, it wasn’t that crazy.
But for her, she was embarrassed by your actions.
Dan: Yeah.
Vanessa: I would say a moment ago when you
were talking about my journals, I felt a little
embarrassed.
Dan: Talking about ex-boyfriends.
Vanessa: I felt a little embarrassed, but
I think that that’s … For me, it’s easy
to see when I’m embarrassed because I easily
blush.
Dan: I do too a little bit.
Vanessa: A little bit?
Dan: Last night I got a little embarrassed.
Vanessa: Last night?
Dan: Yeah.
Vanessa: What happened last night?
Dan: I said something at trivia.
Vanessa: Oh, we went with our friends and
you said something embarrassing.
Dan: Yeah.
I got a little embarrassed, but not … It
wasn’t a big deal.
Vanessa: Oh yeah, yeah.
Dan: I didn’t have to walk away and cry.
Vanessa: Oh, sure.
Should I share with everyone why you were
embarrassed?
Dan: What did I say?
I don’t remember.
Vanessa: I remember-
Dan: I’ve already erased it from my memory.
Vanessa: This is our trivia team, and trivia
is kind of like a game show.
We go to a restaurant or a bar and our team,
which is just our friends, with other teams,
we have to answer some questions correctly
about music-
Dan: Trivial things.
Vanessa: Or history, things that aren’t really
important.
That’s why it’s called “trivia,” trivial,
it’s not important.
But one of the questions was, “TV show theme
songs.”
Dan: Oh, I do remember this now.
Vanessa: So our team didn’t know-
Dan: It’s a little embarrassing.
Vanessa: Didn’t know the TV show theme song,
and Dan knew it.
The theme song was for?
Dan: Baywatch.
Vanessa: And Baywatch is just a silly-
Dan: It’s a stupid soap opera.
Vanessa: A silly show, and Dan was embarrassed
that he knew the theme song.
Dan: Yeah.
It’s about women in swim suits.
Vanessa: Yeah.
Dan: Running, they’re saving people, and it’s
really dumb.
Vanessa: So you felt embarrassed that you
knew that.
Dan: But I never really watched it.
Not much, I just knew the theme song for some
reason.
Was I right?
Vanessa: Yeah, you were right.
Dan: I was right.
Vanessa: Yeah, you were right.
Dan: I know Baywatch.
Vanessa: It was that, and you said-
Dan: Go watch from Baywatch.
Vanessa: Yeah, sometimes if you know something
but you feel a little bit embarrassed that
you know it, it’s a great way to use this.
“I feel embarrassed because I shouldn’t have
known that.
That was a little weird.”
Dan: Yeah.
When were you the most embarrassed?
Vanessa: Oh, the most embarrassed?
Dan: What’s the most embarrassing thing that
ever happened?
Vanessa: I feel like a lot of times I tried
to just brush it off and pretend like I’m
not embarrassed, but really inside I am embarrassed.
So, maybe I’ll laugh or smile, sometimes that’s
my go to, or maybe I’ll just change the subject
or say something like, “Oh, that’s interesting.
Well, let’s look at this.”
Or just kind of divert attention to something
else.
Dan: Yeah.
You can’t think of one moment though?
Vanessa: I feel like-
Dan: I can.
Vanessa: Oh, you can?
Dan: Should I tell you mine?
Vanessa: Oh, you’re going to tell about when
I was embarrassed?
Dan: No, no, when I was embarrassed.
Vanessa: Okay, okay, go ahead.
Dan: My story’s easy.
Vanessa: Oh yeah?
Dan: Yeah, I was in college and I was doing
a presentation.
Vanessa: Oh, okay, yeah.
You should talk about this.
Dan: Yeah, I had a presentation in front of
the whole class and I didn’t sleep that night.
I got up to do my presentation and I forgot
everything.
And then I had to leave the room, that was
very embarrassing.
Vanessa: Yeah.
Dan: Maybe the most embarrassing thing that
ever happened to me.
Vanessa: That would be really embarrassing.
Dan: That was bad.
Vanessa: I wasn’t in the room when that happened,
but you could say-
Dan: I think I called you afterwards.
Vanessa: I think so to.
Dan: “It’s so embarrassing.”
Vanessa: If I were in the room, I could say
I was embarrassed for you.
So this means Dan is embarrassed, but I feel
embarrassed because he feels embarrassed.
So you’re kind of connecting your feelings,
“I feel embarrassed because he feels embarrassed.”
Dan: Yeah, everybody felt sorry for me.
Vanessa: Oh, that’s a great expression, can
you explain that?
Dan: Yeah.
That’s kind of what you were saying, I felt
bad and they felt bad too.
So they felt sorry for me, so both of us felt
bad.
Vanessa: Yeah.
So if someone has something bad happen to
them, so let’s imagine that you are in an
English class, and you’re trying to give a
presentation, but then you get up in front
of the class and you feel so nervous that
you can’t say anything, and you just.
And then the teacher says, “Why don’t you
sit down and try again?”
Dan: This is basically what happened.
Vanessa: Happened to Dan.
Dan: Yeah.
Vanessa: But you’re a native English speaker,
so it can happen to anyone.
So the other students might say, “I feel sorry
for you.
I feel sorry that that happened.”
Because they’re kind of sharing your embarrassment
or sharing your sadness, it doesn’t even have
to be embarrassment, it could just be sadness.
“I’m sorry.
I feel sorry for you because something sad
happened.”
It’s just a sharing of feelings.
Alright, so my next question is about a negative
and a positive emotion.
So I want to know when you’re feeling stressed,
what do you do to relax?
Before we talk about it I just want to mention
the grammar here.
When you say, “When I feel stressed,” stress
has an -ed at the end.
I know that we often say, “I have stress,”
but it’s pretty common to say, “I feel stressed,”
stressed.
So make sure that when you say stressed there’s
a T sound at the end.
“I feel stressed.
When I feel stressed I punch a wall.
When I feel stressed I go for a walk.”
Dan: She does.
Vanessa: As you can see.
Dan: So stressed.
Vanessa: So what are things that you do when
you feel stressed to feel more relaxed?
Dan: I would say the best thing to do, for
me, is to go outside.
Vanessa: Oh.
Dan: Somewhere.
Vanessa: I’m curious why do you think that
works?
Because I feel like a lot of people say that,
“When I feel stressed I go outside.”
Dan: Well, especially because I tend to look
at a screen a lot-
Vanessa: Mm, a lot of people do.
Dan: So maybe I’m looking at my computer,
and then I’ll look at my phone, and then I’m
reading all kinds of posts about everything,
I’m reading new stories about politics, and
I’m just getting overwhelmed.
And that’s after work already, you know?
So, if you go outside and you don’t bring
your phone, then it’s just you and sky, and
the trees, and I’m climbing a mountain now,
I’m not doing anything that’s too mentally
anguishing.
Vanessa: Sure.
I feel like for me, going outside definitely
helps, and I think that it helps because it
kind of gives me a bigger perspective.
I remember one time, something happened on
my website, and for me, I’m an English teacher,
I want to teach English, technology is interesting
to me, and it’s a challenge for me, but when
something goes wrong I can easily feel stressed
or overwhelmed by it because I don’t easily
know the solution.
I had some problem with my website and I was
feeling stressed and I just walked out of
this room where I make lessons and Dan, you
said, “Let’s go for a walk.
Let’s just walk.”
And when we walked around the neighborhood,
it was like, 15 minutes, but I felt so much
better.
I just looked around and thought, “There is
a world outside my website.
There’s trees, there’s people walking around.”
Dan: It helps to move too, some movement
Vanessa: Yeah, you just have a bigger perspective
of things going on.
Maybe for you, when you’re looking at bad
things happening in the world, or politics
you feel like that’s everything.
Dan: It’s easy to feel stressed nowadays.
Thank you, social media.
Vanessa: So when you want to feel relaxes,
getting away from that is really helpful.
And nature is really nice for that.
You know something funny?
It works for our baby too.
Dan: Oh yeah, he likes being outside a lot.
Vanessa: Yeah.
Whenever he’s fussy or crying, when we walk
outside, instantly he seems just curious and
aware.
It works, that’s amazing.
So, it’s a good tip if you’re feeling stressed
about learning English.
Dan: Nature is good for you, yeah.
Vanessa: Yeah, go outside, take a deep breath.
Dan: Stop and smell the roses.
Vanessa: Stop and smell the roses, yes.
This is a good English proverb, maybe there’s
something similar in your language as well.
Dan: Stop and pet a cat.
Vanessa: Pet a cat, yeah.
What does “Stop and smell the roses actually
mean?”
Because maybe there’s no roses.
What does this figuratively mean?
Dan: It means stop being distracted by everything
or worried about everything and appreciate
the small things.
Vanessa: Mm, yeah.
Appreciate the small things.
Dan: Notice the small things around you.
Vanessa: Yeah, I think-
Dan: Or, simple pleasures.
Vanessa: Yeah, that’s especially what I think.
Taking time to slow down and notice the things
around you.
Dan: Yeah.
Vanessa: In fact, we just finished reading
a book about a girl who had a lot of stress
in her life, and at the end of the book her
ideas changed, her mental health changed.
When she was getting healthier, she walked
outside and she noticed all those little details.
She noticed the people walking on the streets,
their dogs, the flowers, the shops.
She noticed those details and I think that
that-
Dan: And smiled about them.
Vanessa: Yeah, and smiled about them.
Dan: Got to smile.
Vanessa: Really appreciating those things.
Sure, sometimes even just a simple smile can
help.
But stress is certainly no fun.
Well, thank you Dan, for talking about all
of these emotions today.
Dan: You’re welcome.
Vanessa: Yeah.
Excitement, annoying, down in the dumps-
Dan: We didn’t talk about anger though.
Vanessa: Oh, anger.
Do you want to talk about anger?
Dan: I’m so angry that we aren’t talking about
anger.
Vanessa: Alright.
Well, we just did.
Dan: Not really.
Vanessa: Well-
Dan: We don’t get angry anyways.
Vanessa: Mm.
Dan: We’re above angry.
Vanessa: Mm, hmm, I think everyone gets angry.
It’s good to get angry about things that you
should be angry about, I think.
Dan: True.
Vanessa: Like I’m angry that there is injustice
in the world.
I’m angry that people mistreat children, or
mistreat their dogs.
It’s good to be angry about those things,
but you can’t let it really get you down in
the dumps for long.
But I think there’s a time and a place for
anger.
Dan: For sure.
Vanessa: Yes.
Well thank you so much for joining me for
this live lesson.
If you enjoyed it let us know in the comments.
Try to use these emotion words that we used
and try to make your own sentences in the
comments.
If you enjoyed this let us know and we’ll
do it again, have another conversation.
Dan: Yeah.
Vanessa: Check the description for some of
these vocabulary words, some of the questions
that we talked about, and I hope that you’ll
join me here on my YouTube channel.
Make sure that you subscribe to get notifications
for any future lesson.
Dan: Click “Subscribe.”
Vanessa: Yes, click “Subscribe,” click the
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and also learn with Dan in the Fearless Fluency
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Check the description below this video and
thank you so much for joining me.
Dan: Thank you.
Vanessa: I hope you have a wonderful day,
we’ll see you again the next time.
Bye.
Dan: Peace.