Podcast # 6: My Brexit Day

In today’s podcast, I’m going to talk to you about what happened to me on the 24th of June which was the day the British people and the world discovered that the United Kingdom would leave the European Union following a referendum on EU membership on June 23rd.

I’ve prepared a couple of listening activities for you to do before listening and while listening to help you understand better. The first thirty seconds of each recording are transcribed and are available on Soundcloud. 

I’m not going to go too much into the politics of the decision, but instead I’m going to talk about how my day went and what happened to me personally.

Useful Vocabulary

You will hear some abbreviations in this recording:

The United Kingdom = the UK

The European Union = the EU

You will also hear a new word that was invented to talk about Great Britain leaving the European Union ‘Brexit’. This is a blend of ‘Britain’ and ‘exit’.

The press = this refers to newspapers

Complacent = feeling too confident about something and therefore not worrying about the consequences

Be careful what you wish for = this is an idiomatic expression that warns people that their greatest desires may have negative consequences they didn’t expect

Before Listening

Before you listen to the podcast, I want you to predict 3-5 things that happened to me on June the 24th. Write down your ideas and then tick them off as you hear them. Listen again and write down the things that actually happened to me on June the 24th.

While Listening

As you listen to the podcast, try to catch these filler words and expressions:

• Like (13 examples, but not all of them are fillers)
• Kind of (5 examples)
• I mean (7 examples)
• You know (12 examples)

While Listening

Finally, I’ve picked out some sections for you to transcribe. Listen to them several times and write down what you hear. The answers are underneath. Good luck!

Here are the transcribed sections of each dictation. Which words or expressions did you find difficult to catch? Let me know in the comments.

Dictation 1: so erm I wasn’t too sure if it was a good idea…to talk about politics on this podcast, so what I’ve decided to do is just tell you the story of what happened to me on on the day of brexit

Dictation 2: Ermm okay so then I logged on for my Skype class and my student wasn’t there so I was like hey where are you, I sent her a text message and she was like oh I’m watching the news about Brexit I’m coming I’m coming

Dictation 3: I’m actually going to be in Scotland so it will be really interesting to speak to my friends and family ummm about this whole Brexit thing and just kind of see what the political mood is in ummmm in the UK and especially in Scotland

I hope you enjoyed today’s podcast and activities. You can subscribe to Cara’s Fast, Natural English podcast on iTunes or on Stitcher.

Happy listening!