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Hello, I'm Neil.
And I'm Beth.
And you're listening to Real Easy
English, the podcast where we have
real conversations in easy
English to help you learn.
To read along with this podcast,
you can find a text version on
our website. Visit BBC Learning English dot com.
How are things, Beth?
I'm very well, thank you, Neil.
How are you?
Oh, I'm a little tired.
I didn't sleep very well last night.
And today's episode is all about sleep.
We'll be talking about our sleep habits,
and also our dreams.
Lovely.
So, Neil, you said that
you didn't sleep well last night.
So that's not so lovely.
Does that happen very often?
It happens all the time, Beth!
I don't sleep very well.
Oh, dear. How many hours
do you sleep at night, Neil?
I think probably six and a half hours.
— Really?
— Mmm. How about you?
Well, if I sleep less than eight hours,
then I'm exhausted.
I really like to sleep quite a lot!
Ah, you are exhausted.
What does 'exhausted' mean, Beth?
— It means that you are 'really tired'.
— Mm, yes.
Like you after last night because you
didn't sleep very well. Are you exhausted?
I am, Beth. I am absolutely exhausted.
What time do you usually go to bed, Neil?
About 11. I go to bed about 11.
I usually go earlier,
but about ten o'clock.
And do you have dreams?
Do you dream often?
Yeah, I do, but I find it quite hard
to remember my dreams.
But sometimes I have nightmares,
and then they are easier to remember.
So I might wake up in the middle of the
night and feel a bit scared or worried.
Can you tell us about a strange dream
that you've had?
Yeah, I had a weird dream
a couple of nights ago.
I was at my auntie's house in the kitchen
and then suddenly the floor was very wet
and there were three robbers that were
going to come and open the front door.
So I had to run across the wet kitchen
and lock the front door.
It was a bit scary and weird.
Yeah.
That sounds like a really scary dream.
Yeah. So, a scary dream
we can call a 'nightmare'.
So, I had a nightmare, a bad dream,
the other night.
And I was in a foreign country, I think
somewhere like Italy, a European place,
and I couldn't find my family.
And I was running around the streets,
trying to find them
and I couldn't find them.
But then, after a while
of looking around the streets,
I saw people in my family,
and I felt much better.
So it sounds like
it started as a nightmare,
but then it kind of went into a dream.
Yeah. It was just a normal, happy dream
by the end.
Good!
Well, I noticed there
that you used the past simple
and the past continuous
to describe your dream.
You said 'I was running around',
which is the past continuous
and then you said 'I found them',
which was the past simple.
And this is really common language
that we use
when we're describing things
in the past like dreams.
So, we've talked about
how long we sleep for
and we've talked about
dreams and nightmares,
but I have a big question for you, Neil.
Do you snore?
You do!
That is snoring. Do I snore?
I don't think I do,
but my wife says that I do.
Oh, so you do snore!
No, I've never heard myself snore!
Let's have a look at the language
we learned in this conversation.
We learnt 'nightmare',
which is 'a bad or scary dream'.
We heard 'exhausted' — 'very tired'.
And we learnt a way to talk about dreams
using the past simple
and the past continuous.
For example, you dreamt that you were
running around trying to find your family
and then you found them.
I did.
Thanks for listening to Real Easy English.
If you liked this, there are lots more
programmes to help you with your English
on our website. Like English In A Minute,
where we explain one language tip in 60
seconds.
Visit BBC Learning English dot com.
Next time, we'll talk about our favourite films.
See you then, goodbye!
Bye!
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