Podcast 80 - Colloquial language for descriptions
Explanation of the expressions
Hello and welcome back to Practising English. And today I'm going to talk about the use of B2 expressions for describing things. Now these expressions are quite colloquial. They are B2 expressions and are used by B2 students and are very useful for you if you're thinking of doing a B2 level exam. And what am I going to describe? Well, I'm going to describe my favourite town in Spain. It's called Vejer de la Frontera.
Okay, so here we go. As I said, I'm talking about describing things. Now I did another podcast on this using modifiers for describing things with adjectives, and that was episode 50. Those words were perhaps a little bit more formal. The difference is that today I'm going to use more colloquial expressions. And I'll go through them quickly, first of all, before I start my description of my favourite town in Spain, which is Vejer de la Frontera.
So the expressions are an awful lot of or masses [of], and both of those have a similar meaning and they mean a great deal, which would be a more formal way of saying that. So, for example,
I've got masses of homework to do.
or,
I've got an awful lot of homework to do.
Next one - this is where we put two adjectives together - the same adjective - to say that a situation is increasing or decreasing. So for example, worse and worse, better and better, bigger and bigger. So an example would be,
The economic climate is getting worse and worse.
The next one is as a whole. This means sort of in general. An example would be,
The population as a whole is getting healthier.
And my next expression is a handful. A handful of means only a few. So example would be,
Only a handful of my friends are vegetarian.
The next expression is quite common, actually, among native speakers sometimes used too much. It's sort of or kind of, which means more or less - very colloquial. An example might be,
Well, it's a sort of dark brown colour,
or,
It's a kind of dark brown colour.
And my next one is not half as good as or 'bad as' or 'exciting as', etc. Now, this actually means... or this is used when we are saying something is much better, or much worse. So, I need an example. And my example is,
His new film is not half as good as the last one,
which means his last one was a lot better - it was very much better.
My next expression is really to talk approximately somewhere around or somewhere between. So here we're talking about numbers. We could say that,
The population of Seville, where I live, is somewhere around a million inhabitants,
or,
somewhere between 900,000 and a million inhabitants.
And my next expression is... well, this is quite colloquial. And it's a bit difficult to use because it can't be used with a lot of adjectives. It's using great with an adjective, like great big, great long, great fat. In fact, at the moment, I can't find other adjectives that I could comfortably use great with. So for example,
Last night, I had a great fat sausage for dinner!
That's quite colloquial but totally acceptable. And, as I say, it's in the B2 dictionary.
Another one,
I gave her a great big hug.
Okay, so it's nice and colloquial and useful to bring into your repertoire of B2 vocabulary.
I'm going to start... [music].
Description of Vejer de la Frontera
So I'm talking about Vejer de la Frontera, my favourite town, which, in fact, is really a very small town. It's got somewhere between 12 and 13,000 inhabitants, or somewhere around 13,000 inhabitants. It's in Andalusia, near the coast, in the province of Cadiz. It's somewhere around 60 kilometres from Cadiz, in fact.
One thing that makes it really attractive is that it's on this great big hill. The hill is about, well, somewhere around 200 metres above sea level. And from there you can see the Straits of Gibraltar - it overlooks the Straits of Gibraltar. So you can actually see the sea from some parts of the town. It's surrounded by orchards and orange groves. And it's also in an area where fighting balls are bred.
It's a very historic town. Most of the architecture is Moorish or Arab style and in fact it was under the Moors or Arabs - under Moorish rule from 711 to 1248 when Ferdinand of Castille captured the town.
It's got a lovely beach - [a] great long beach called El Palmar beach. It's a fantastic beach really, very wide and the sea there is crystal clear. The thing is, with a town like this that in summer, it's got masses of tourists, quite honestly. It's got an awful lot of tourists, which is a shame, because it means that parking there is, well, the parking situation is getting worse and worse. It's better that if you have a hotel, or a pensión, where you're staying, that they have a parking space, otherwise you have to park your car, you know, a long way from the town and walk up the hill!
In fact, the town... actually the old town itself is not really getting any bigger but the new part of the town, where people are buying new apartments is getting bigger and bigger, which is a shame really. The hotels are in the old part of the town. And there aren't many hotels. There are just a handful of hotels, and they're very small ones really, which is nice.
Quite honestly, there are a lot of attractive towns in Andalusia but for me, they're not half as attractive as Vejer de la Frontera - they're not half as attractive. Vejer de la Frontera is a lot more attractive, in my opinion.
Now, I said it's near the coast. Well, it's sort of near the coast. It's kind of near the coast, but you can't actually walk to the sea from the town. You have to take the car. But as I said, the beaches are lovely there and they're very spacious as well.
Now the food, well, the food in most of Andalusia is pretty wonderful actually. The tapas especially. I particularly love the olives. They've got these great big, fat olives called Gordales, which are probably the biggest olives that there are in Spain - these great big fat olives.
Another thing which has improved a lot about Vejer de la Frontera and many towns in Andalusia is the rubbish situation. These hilltop towns like Vejer used to have a lot of rubbish that people threw over the walls down onto the hill below. But that situation has improved a lot. It's getting better and better over the years, I've seen less and less rubbish around the town. And really it's quite clean, which is fantastic. That's wonderful that this situation is happening.
Okay, well that's my description of Vejer de la Frontera. I hope you've enjoyed it, and I recommend a visit, by all means. It's a lovely place to go. But be careful of that parking! So make sure you have your car park sorted out before your visit.
Okay, thank you very much and goodbye for now!
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