AEE 2703: A More Interesting Way to Say You're Interested

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2703, a more interesting way to say you're interested. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.

coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. To get real-time transcripts right on your phone and create your personalized vocabulary list, try the All Ears English app for iOS and Android. Start your seven-day free trial at allearsenglish.com forward slash app.

Have we piqued your curiosity in this episode? Listen today to learn how to use one key phrase to show you want to talk more or know more about something in English.

Sometimes English learners think their problem is vocabulary, but often the issue is something deeper. It's hesitation. You pause to translate. You pause to check grammar.

You pause to search for the perfect word. Those small pauses add up and interrupt the natural flow of conversation. You can respond with ease without constantly analyzing every sentence. Our free two-minute fluency quiz will show you your current level and what skills you need to improve.

Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e. Hey, Lindsay, how are you today? Good, Aubrey. How are you doing?

How's everything? I am excellent. Excited to record with you today. All right, let's do it. Let's get into it, Aubrey. So I have a question for you today.

I mean, what is something that you found out recently that piqued your curiosity? Oh, I saw this article about lookism. I had never seen that word before. I was fascinated.

And Lindsay and I recorded about that. We posted this last week. So stay to the end for details. We'll share so that if you miss that episode, you can go check it out because it was super interesting.

Sure. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I was on a call this morning with a friend slash business contact who's also a podcaster and he was showing me all the crazy ways that he's using AI in his business.

It's wild. How about that? Peaked your interest? That piqued my curiosity, although I'm also kind of bored of AI already at the same time. The topic bores me a little bit.

AI never piques my curiosity. I'm over it. Yeah. I'm over it. I'm over it. Well, this episode was actually inspired by something you said, Lindsay, in a recent episode.

You said something piqued your curiosity. And I was like, oh, such a great phrase. So we're talking about that today. There are a few collocations. We're going to share the five most common ways that we say this, that we use this interesting verb, peak.

And it's spelled differently than you might expect, right? You've seen the P-E-A-K-E-D peaked to be the height of something. This is spelled differently than that. Yeah.

Let's just start off with the spelling. How do we spell this word? Yeah, it's P-I-Q-U-E. So this is a very uncommon spelling in English. So yeah, if you say that piqued my curiosity, if you write this, you would write that P-I-Q-U-E-D.

Yeah. So a verb here, right? Very high level. I would probably call this a C1 level verb, wouldn't you say, that our listeners at the C1 level, but B2, B1, you're ready for it too.

So just listen in today and try it out. You might be just saying, I became curious. This made me curious. And then in the upper level language, then you're like, ooh, you learned this phrase.

This piqued my curiosity. And yeah, I agree. It does add interest. It adds interest. Exactly. So what are some examples of peak curiosity? Yeah. Peak our curiosity.

And this is one of the most common ways we use this verb. So for example, the documentary peaked my curiosity about ancient civilizations, right? It means it really sparked a curiosity. It made you want to learn more.

Yeah. Sparks is another great word for that. Or her comment piqued my curiosity. So I looked it up. Right. So it's, so yeah, I mean, there aren't too many other spark is great, but there aren't too many other precise words in this moment.

Made me curious, I guess. Maybe we'll talk a little bit about other options later, but yeah, I mean, that's why this is a great precise word. Exactly. Right.

This is an impressive verb. It's common enough that anytime you use it, you'll be understood. Right. But it's uncommon enough that it's impressive. So yeah.

But another chunk we use is peak interest, right? That peaked my interest, which means the same as to peak your curiosity. For example, the workshop peaked my interest in photography. Right.

So it's more that you would be interested in something in general, a field. You're not necessarily curious about photography. It makes you more interested in doing it, learning about it. Yeah, it's good to be able to tell your origin story of how you got into your area of expertise.

Like my dad in college took a psychology course, a neuropsychology course that piqued his interest in optometry. So they were studying the eye in this neuropsychology course and the brain and that just piqued his interest so he became an optometrist. That's such a good point. How often are people asking you like, how did you become interested in the field?

Like when they're asking about your job, they often want to know what interested you. This is a great phrase to say what really piqued my interest and then share whatever it was that first inspired you to get involved in that line of work.

Exactly. And that's a connection moment, right? When we're explaining how we ended up where we are, there's going to be some excitement there, hopefully, and some connection, right?

Or his presentation piqued my interest. So I signed up for the course. Yes, exactly. Just made you interested. But what a more interesting way to say that this piqued my interest.

Or another thing we say is for something to pique your appetite. And we use this both literally and figuratively. So for example, maybe the smell of fresh bread piqued my appetite. That just means it made me feel hungry.

But we also use it figuratively, right? Yeah. Right. You could say reading the summary piqued my appetite for the novel. So yeah, we can say we have an appetite for something to consume something, a novel, a piece of literature, right?

That figurative meaning is a lot closer to the meaning of piqued my interest. Piqued your appetite for something just means you became more interested in it.

Or if you're imaginative or you become imaginative, you could say peak my imagination. The science fiction novel peaked my imagination. Yes, right? That's especially when you're reading.

But anytime if your mind starts running well, you're getting all of these ideas. This could happen at work too. Be like the idea someone else shared peaked my imagination and suddenly we had a great logo. right?

Exactly. Or maybe a museum exhibit could pique your imagination. A lot of things could pique your imagination. I'm going to start using this phrase more, this word more in different scenarios.

You do use, because with this, you know, you used it on the podcast and that's what inspired this every now and then I catch myself using it, but I should use it more. It is such a fun phrase. I agree. For sure.

For sure. And what's another one, Aubrey, the last one that we could share today? Yeah. So this is for something to pique your concern. So more on the other end of the spectrum, maybe the sudden change in his behavior piqued my concern.

A parent might say this, right? My concern was piqued when he got home so late or when I didn't hear from him for hours. Just means it increased your concern.

Right. Or the report piqued investors' concerns about the economy these days. I know yesterday the Fed just had its monthly check-in where they say whether they're going to raise interest rates or cut interest rates. And all of Wall Street is always waiting for

for the Fed chair to say what's going to happen. And so it's like a massive moment in the way stocks move, depending on what hints that he gives. Right. A lot of people's concerns are piqued, right?

When there's reports like that, this could definitely be used about politics, about current affairs. You'll see this in news articles that someone's concern is piqued based on what someone says or does.

All right. Good stuff. Have you ever listened to native speakers and thought, I understand the words, but I still feel slightly lost. That's because real English conversations include more than vocabulary.

There's speed. There's connected speech. There are cultural references and casual phrases. Your brain has to process all of this in real time. If conversations sometimes feel overwhelming, it may simply mean you're ready for the next level of training.

Find out your exact level with our quick free fluency quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score. That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E.

Okay, Aubrey, we're back for a role play. Here in this role play, you and I are friends. So here we go. Are you ready? Yes. Hey, have you seen the trailer for that new documentary about abandoned cities?

No, but you just piqued my curiosity. What's it about? It's about places people left behind and the stories hidden there. It really piqued my interest in urban history.

Yeah, I'm going to add it to my list. I really like documentaries. I think you'd enjoy it. Some of the images really piqued my imagination. They made me wonder what life was like there years ago.

Yes, I'm convinced. I'm going to watch it this weekend. Oh, is that a real documentary? I want to watch that. I want to watch it too. I wish it were. Maybe.

I'm going to have to look it up and see if something like that exists. It might. I mean, it's true, right? There are old abandoned cities and towns. I mean, living here in the West, often, you know, you'll see old abandoned mining towns, things like that, right?

I'm sure you see that in Arizona. Tombstone is one of the most famous ones, which isn't that far south from where I am. And we keep meaning to take our kids. It's like an old abandoned mine, you know, a ghost town now, really.

Yeah. But I think it's still more like Jackson Hole where it's kind of a working town. You can go to some of the shops. They probably have like activities there and things.

So I need to go one of these days. Yeah. That actually is really cool to imagine. Yeah. What was life like at that time? And what were people's concerns?

And what happened to this town? Where did everyone go? Right. Exactly. Yeah. Super interesting. Well, let's run through this. I first said you're sharing about this new documentary you had seen.

And I said that just piqued my curiosity. What's it about? So yeah, just a fun way of saying like, okay, I'm curious. Tell me more. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm listening.

I'm listening. Yeah, exactly. And then I said, it really piqued my interest in urban history. So you can be more specific about what your interest is, right?

It's urban history. Yeah, which means the same as like, it made me interested in something, but it's just a more interesting way of saying that. And then I was saying, I'm going to add it to my list. I love documentaries.

And you said some of the images really piqued my imagination. So if you're imagining like abandoned buildings and all these kinds of things that kind of make you think what was life like, you'd say that piqued my imagination.

Perfect. Obviously, guys, you're not going to use peaked five times in one conversation. Right. That's what's always funny about these role plays. I certainly couldn't use all five, even three.

Like one of us would probably say this differently because it's like, oh, she already said peaked. Or we start to make fun of each other. Some kind of riffing. Right.

And we have other episodes on riffing. So check those out, too. Yeah. Really good stuff. So Abri, where else can our listeners go right now to keep listening?

That episode you mentioned about lookism, what is it? That might have piqued your curiosity when we mentioned this article about lookism. So scroll up. That was Saturday's episode, October 10th.

What is lookism and what can we do about it? If you missed that, definitely go check it out. It's such an interesting conversation topic and great for connections.

Yeah. And I mean, for a takeaway today, guys, the things that we're interested in are what spark connection, right? I mean, where does connection come? It comes from spending time with people and having conversations with people, especially about things that you're interested in or maybe emotional about that actually means something to you.

This is how we figure out what we have in common with people as well. So learn this word and just throw it in there when you're talking about what interests you. Exactly. It's such a fun thing when someone starts a conversation and be like, okay, my interest is peaked.

What a fun thing to say to let someone know I'm interested in this conversation. I love it. So good. It's kind of a more interesting way to say you're interested.

Yeah, exactly. All right. Good stuff. All right, Aubrey, you have a good rest of your day and I'll see you back here very soon. Awesome. See you next time.

Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz. Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.

And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time.