AEE: Vocabulary Shortcuts with 3 Common English Words

This is the All Ears English Podcast, vocabulary shortcuts with three common English words. 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, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl. coming to you from Colorado and New York City, 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.

A few months ago, we talked about the words quit, quiet, and quite. Now, let's learn collocations that go with these words so that you speak more naturally and spontaneously by pairing together the right words.

Hey, Lindsay, how are you? I'm feeling great today, Michelle. How's everything going for you? Everything is good over here. Lindsay, did you get any peace and quiet this week?

Peace and quiet. I went for a nice walk on Saturday in Golden, Colorado, and I think that was kind of peaceful. Yeah, I would say so. My partner, my dog and I was nice.

Yeah. What about you? Peace and quiet. Unlikely. I don't think so. Every once in a while. Yeah, I'll get away and I'll go into another room if my husband's home and I say I just need a break.

And so then I can get some peace and quiet. But it's pretty loud in here. But that's a good thing. We have fun. So, but we're going to be talking about things like peace and quiet today because we're doing a follow-up on an episode that we did.

It was episode 20, 30, 20, excuse me, 26, 39 was quiet, quite or quit. Three words, people get confused. Yeah. Yeah. And such an important episode that was, Michelle, to go through that, right?

Yeah. Again, guys, go back and review that episode again. Maybe you heard it a couple of months ago. Maybe you need a bit of a refresher. Do that after we finish today, but stick with this episode for now because there's so much more to talk about when it comes to co-locations.

Michelle, why are co-locations a good idea to learn? Um, because they're, they just go together right there. You know, there are things that you can just remember. They're little chunks.

Um, they're common and, um, it's, it's a great way to learn. Right. So we, you know, we learn the vocabulary words, but it's also really great to spend time on things like collocations, uh, to realize what patterns you might hear. And these are things that are common, right?

Yeah. I think, I think it's, they're natural, but they're also like a mental shortcut, right? Because if you learn what comes after peace, well, you know, it's like peace and what? It's not peace and stillness.

It's peace and quiet. Right. Right. So you kind of, you can turn your brain off a little bit and we love, and the brain loves being able to be turned off a little bit occasionally.

Right. Right. And there are some of these are actual like also just expressions, right? These chunks. So whatever expressions, they go together and we can really just get these chunks and remember them.

So, yeah, this is just really important for connection because it can make things more natural and allow you to connect in a deeper way. So, guys, remember to hit the follow button wherever you're listening to All There's English so you never miss anything. Yeah, go ahead and hit follow now. If you happen to be consuming this on YouTube, then go ahead and hit that subscribe button right there on the All There's English podcast YouTube channel.

All right. So let's start with quit then. What does this mean, Michelle? Just alone. To give up, give something up, stop doing something. So what words are often used with quit, Lindsay?

I mean, quit your job, right? I quit my job or I quit working. Bad habits like quit biting your nails, right, Michelle? No. No. Working on it. Yeah. I quit smoking, drinking, sugar, caffeine, things like that.

Exactly. Or also activities. So I quit the team. I quit the project. I quit the program. So these are just really common. So jobs, bad habits, activities.

But we also have some... Basic expressions. I love this next one, to quit something cold turkey. I think we've talked about this before, but what does that mean, cold turkey?

I know. If you don't know, you don't know. And you're like, why are we talking about turkey? What is happening here? It means to quit something completely and suddenly.

It's not like you're tapering off. It's like you're just totally, boom, no, no more of this thing, right? Yeah. And I guess that works for some people if they want to quit something.

But others, it might be make it more challenging. So it's kind of interesting. Um, so yeah, you might hear something like I quit cold Turkey or she quit smoking cold Turkey. Right.

I mean, or you might even sometimes hear people just say cold Turkey, right? Like, yeah, sure. And, and, and, and now there's a lot of, I mean, this is a relevant episode because there's a lot of talk right now about a lot of people are quitting drinking, quitting alcohol, right. In, in modern society right now.

Um, or just like starting to eat healthier, getting more mindful about what they're consuming. Yeah. I was just listening to an episode of The Daily where the food critic for The New York Times went through this whole evolution where he had to actually quit his job because his levels, everything, triglycerides, everything were way off the charts. And he was really unhealthy because he was going to restaurants five nights a week and trying all the food on the menu.

And it was quite a moving episode. Yeah. He completely transformed his life. Very admirable. So guys, I recommend you listen to that episode of The Daily and you'll hear some of this language, right?

Quit doing this. Quit something cold turkey. Really interesting. This ties into our lives completely. Yeah, definitely. And then you could also say quit for good or quit something for good.

So that means quit something forever, right? I quit caffeine for good. It's decaf coffee from here on out. Yeah, I always kind of wondered why for good means forever.

It doesn't seem like it's connected, right? Yeah, it's true. Makes me think of that Wicked song, right? Oh, yeah. Wicked for good, right? Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

And what about the next one? Quit while someone's ahead, right? Quit while you're ahead. So quit something while the damages aren't as serious as they could be.

Yeah. We're winning the game. Maybe we should quit while we're ahead because we're doing – the implication here is that we're doing some kind of damage by winning the game, right? Like maybe we're cheating or maybe – right?

I mean it's – or what do you think? I feel like there's something nefarious here. I think it could be that. I will also say – It makes me think of Seinfeld, of course, for a couple of reasons.

But one major one was the finale that they or they ended. It's like quitting while you're on top. Right. That concept. I remember they said, oh, like, why?

Like, why would you why would you quit? You know, why would you stop doing the show now? It's like so great. And you're getting great ratings and this and that.

And I remember they said, well, you know, we want to quit, you know, like we want to still be remembered in that way because a lot of times then shows can get stale and, you know. Right, right. A lot of shows go in that direction, you know. Yeah.

So they didn't want that to happen. So they just said, okay, well, we're done. So it's interesting. So quitting while you're ahead can also just be, you know, things are going really well and we want to go out.

We want to go out on top, you might hear. Yeah. That's a good point. So it doesn't have to be that you're doing something bad and so you're ahead and so we got to quit now.

It could be that or it could just be you're on top of your game. You're at the very top of your industry. Quit while you're ahead. Quit while you're on top.

That's the way to go, right? Yeah. I mean the same might be true for athletes. I think about tennis and when pros decide to retire, it's like – They might win a major and then they'll say they're retiring and then they decide to come back from retirement.

Happens all the time. And then they play and they lose in the first round of the next major. It's like, oh, I really should have just quit while I was ahead. Yes.

Yes. Definitely. Yeah. You do hear this a lot in sports, you know, depending on when people are retiring and if they should retire. Yes. Really interesting.

Yeah, it is. Yeah. Okay, Michelle. So let's move on to quite. So we've talked a lot about quit. Guys, go check out that episode of The Daily I mentioned.

A lot of chats can be had there around quitting things. But what about quite? Quite. All right. So we use quite. So quite is about intensity, right? It

We use quite like this. So we do quite and the adjective generally. So this intensifies the adjective. It emphasizes that adjective or makes it just a little bit more.

So for example, quite good. The sandwich is quite good. Yeah. And I also hear this much more in British English than I do in American English, by the way.

It feels kind of proper to say quite to me. I don't know. I just... Yes. And I think we talked about that on the other episode. It does. I mean, however, there, you know, I think when we get to the next example...

It might feel a little more natural to us. Sure. So some more examples. I'm quite happy lately. This is quite difficult. It's quite common to walk in New York.

It's quite funny, quite interesting, quite beautiful, quite amazing. Any adjective you want to put in there, guys, pretty much you can do that. All right. Right.

But you may not hear that quite as much in American English, but you will hear it in the way that I just said it, for example. But you could use quite and other intensifiers. So quite a lot. I travel quite a lot for work.

Or quite a few. This one we do here. There were quite a few people at the event. Yes. I wouldn't say that that's more British than American, right? Yeah.

Or quite a bit. We walked quite a bit on that trip. So yeah, I would hear that. Or quite a lot. She drank quite a lot last night. You know, so these are kind of...

You could use them with American English. You could not. But I think they're more common than that quite plus adjective. Yeah. But the next way of using it, I find more interesting, right?

This is quite plus a noun. So this suggests that the thing, the noun was surprising, unusual, impressive, memorable, distinctive in some way. So give us an example, Michelle.

All right. That was quite the party last night. Quite the party. I have a feeling maybe our listeners don't know this construction or not quite sure how to use it.

So this would be a really good one to come away today with guys being able to use it. That was quite the performance you gave. Or this one, he's quite a character. What does that mean when you call someone a character?

That's a whole other episode. That would be a whole different episode. I think a personality. He has a real personality. There's something distinctive and unique about him.

It's very unique. Yep. Exactly. But yeah. So, Lindsay, would you use quite with these? Yeah. I think it's a cool way of signaling, hey, there was something interesting here.

And maybe I don't want to like make... different statements about it. It was this, it was that it was just a big deal. Like that was quite the performance you gave.

Right. Right. Right. And maybe I'm opening up the topic in conversation. Right. You're not saying it straight out, whatever you're meaning to say, but it's kind of implied.

I mean, we, you know, so then, but that one feels much more natural to me. And then finally, there's quiet. So quiet. Q-U-I-E-T. So that means. Right.

Little or no noise. Be quiet. Lindsay, you'll probably be saying that a lot. This summer. As a new mom. Yes. As a new mom, there'll be a lot of quiet, maybe or maybe not much quiet in my house.

Yeah, exactly. Wishing for quiet. No, but. We're asking for quiet, begging for quiet. So, but yeah, little or no noise. So what types of things are quiet?

I mean, places, right? Like a quiet neighborhood, a quiet street, a quiet apartment, restaurant or park. Or moments, right? So we talked about this at the top of the show, right?

There's a quiet moment, a quiet evening, a quiet afternoon, quiet time, right? is sort of something that I feel like maybe in school kids are given quiet time after lunch or something. Yeah, something like that. But maybe it's not that quiet.

Yeah, yeah. And then there's environments. So a quiet environment, a quiet atmosphere, a quiet surrounding. So all of these you're going to hear, these are really useful.

But what are some expressions that we use with quiet? Yeah. be quiet is the most obvious one, right? Make little noise. You should be quiet while others are trying to sleep.

The one cultural warning I would give you, don't shush people. I mean, don't shush other adults. It's shushing kids, whatever. But shushing adults, don't be a shusher.

Do you know what I mean by shush? Yeah. Sometimes you're like in a movie. Yeah. You're like in a movie or something and someone will be like, To you, it's so rude to do that to another adult.

I mean, it's rude to be the one making noise too, but it's really tacky and rude to be the shusher. But at the same time, and I totally agree with you. And also, I don't think that I would say be quiet to an adult. No, I think you just have to – maybe you have to tell on them.

I don't know. Maybe you have to call the – Or you just have to give them a look. Call the theater. You give them a look. But it's dark in the theater, so how can you do it?

Oh, yeah. Well, you can turn – yeah. Well, that's a whole other can of worms. Maybe you have to just like talk to them and just say like, I'm sorry. Could you – I can't focus on the movie.

Maybe actually use your words, right? Instead of like a passive-aggressive shh. you know? Yeah, yeah. I don't know. That's just my opinion. But all right, what's another one, Michelle?

Keep it quiet. So this could be about volume, but it could also be about information. So saying don't share information. So for example, I know you found out about the engagement, but please keep it quiet.

We don't want everyone knowing just yet. Yes. Or keep quiet, stay quiet, remain quiet. Please remain quiet during the exam. This sounds a bit more formal.

Like if you were to go into the IELTS exam, the invigilator might say something like this, right? These are formal instructions. Okay. Or quiet down. So to become less noisy.

Okay. It takes ages for the class to quiet down. Yeah. I imagine if you're a teacher of young kids, it might be like a whole thing, a process to get kids to quiet down from coming in from recess or something.

Moments of high energy. Yep. Yep. And then peace and quiet, really common chunk. I just want some peace and quiet this weekend, or it's hard to find peace and quiet in big cities.

But even in big cities, you can go to a place in like Central Park and you can find peace and quiet. You just have to like find that place. You know what I mean? Or a bookstore and get a seat and just read a book.

I would love to do that. Um, so, so guys, gosh, we gave you a lot today, but these are all really important. Um, and it's really helpful to learn in this way. So let's do a role play.

Here we are friends. We're planning a vacation after the winter holiday season. So we're going to talk about where we want to go and what type of accommodations to get. All right, here we go.

Here we go. Okay. I'm thinking we should stay somewhere quiet. Same. I'm seriously craving some peace and quiet after the holidays. Yeah. New Year's was quite the party.

I know. I could use a healthy vacation to reset. That sounds perfect. I've actually decided to quit sugar for a month. So somewhere with healthy food would be nice.

That would be ideal. I know Aubrey recently went to a health resort nearby. She said it was quite the experience. Super luxurious and relaxing and definitely quiet.

I'm down. Let's check out their prices and figure out dates. That sounds glorious. I know. Yeah, this is common after the holidays. People often have quit sugar or alcohol or something.

Yeah. And they're having a reset, right? So this is common language you might hear in January or February. Okay. Yep. Exactly. Yes. All right. So I said, I'm thinking we should stay somewhere quiet.

And then same, I'm seriously craving some peace and quiet after the holidays. And it's okay to say that after you've said quiet, right? It's not like repetitive, I don't think.

No, I don't think so. And then I said, yeah, New Year's was quite the party. So yeah, it's interesting. This could mean a lot of things, right? Yeah, we don't know exactly what it means.

We don't know what it means. It could have been, you know, it was a wild party, a tiring party, whatever it is, a big party. Yeah, we partied hard, maybe. Who knows?

And then you said, that sounds perfect. I've actually decided to quit sugar for a month, right? So you're stopping eating sugar. And then I said, oh, Aubrey went to a health resort.

She said it was quite the experience. Now, we don't know exactly what we did add detail after, luxurious and relaxing. Exactly. Yeah. So it's a way to bring it up, right?

Exactly. Something distinctive. Right. And then you said, and definitely quiet. Nice. Yeah. I mean, I feel like that's kind of the takeaway for today, Michelle.

These are mental shortcuts. Colocations are mental shortcuts where if you learn them, you're just going to know what word comes next, right? Your brain is going to be able to focus on other things. Yeah.

Right. I mean, exactly. Yeah. I mean, you're just going to start to get used to these being together. You're not even going to think of them as separate words or things you really need to build.

They're just going to start to come out naturally. So find some that fit best in your life and see, you know, maybe try and find one from each of these buckets and give them a try.

And guys, remember also to listen to 2639 if you didn't listen to that already. All right. Sounds good. All right, Michelle, I'll talk to you soon. You have a good day.

You too. Bye, Lindsay. 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.

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