500 Hours of English Movies. I Still Freeze on a Phone Call. | 37-Minute English Podcast (B2-C1)

Before Claire moved to Lyon, she logged every French film she watched in a small green notebook, and the total in the margin reached 500 hours. In her second week there, a filling came out, and she phoned a dentist. The receptionist, Sandrine, answered at full speed, and Claire, who could follow films without subtitles, caught almost nothing and said yes to every question. She wrote Thursday at ten in the notebook, under the 500 hours, and walked in on Thursday at ten. The appointment had been on Tuesday at two. That night she played a film she had seen twice with the screen off, and understood about a third of it. Her eyes had been doing half the listening. This episode is about why hours of movies do not prepare your ears for a phone call, and the fifteen lines every call is built from, in four families: the opening and the hold, names and numbers, repairing a bad line, and closing the call, each one in its careful shape and in the real shape you will actually hear. THE 15 LINES IN THIS EPISODE - "How can I help?" - "Who am I speaking to?" - "Can I put you on hold?" - "Bear with me a second." - "Could you spell that?" - "What was the name again?" - "Was that fifteen or fifty?" - "Is this the best number?" - "Sorry, you cut out there." - "Can you hear me okay?" - ...and 5 more, all said out loud in the episode. Every one is said slowly, repeated more than once, and then used in a real situation, so you can say it out loud with us instead of only recognizing it. The Fluency Plateau is for people who already understand English but freeze when it is time to speak. Each episode takes one exact moment where you get stuck and hands you the lines that get you past it. SPEAKING CHALLENGE What's the one word you always lose on the phone? Say your answer out loud before you write it. #EnglishPodcast #EnglishConversation #SpeakEnglish #EnglishFluency