Full video

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Hello and welcome to Real Easy English,

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the podcast where we have real conversations in easy English

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to help you learn.

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I'm Neil.

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And I'm Beth.

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You can find a video version of this podcast

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and a worksheet to help you learn on our website,

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bbclearningenglish.com.

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How are you today, Beth?

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I'm OK, Neil.

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I'm a little bit tired. How are you?

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I'm very well.

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I'm fine. Great.

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Good, good.

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Well, today we're going to talk about 'mistakes'.

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So hopefully I won't make many mistakes, being tired.

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No. 'Mistakes' –

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'mistakes' can be things that are wrong

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like a mistake in a maths problem.

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But we can also use 'mistake' to talk about really big things in life.

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Decisions that you've made, actions that you've taken.

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Yes, that's true. So I think let's start the conversation.

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Let's do it. So, Beth, have you made any mistakes recently?

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Yes. So, I recently left my suitcase on a train by mistake.

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Oh no!

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So, I was travelling from home

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to Leeds on the train.

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And I got to the station at Leeds,

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and there were loads of people, and they were...

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they were football fans and they were singing really loudly.

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And I just wanted to get off the train.

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And that's what I did.

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And then I realised about half an hour later that I didn't have my suitcase.

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Oh no!

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So...

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That's a bad mistake. Did you get it back?

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I did, I was so lucky.

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The train stopped at Leeds.

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So, when I realised I ran and said to the people on the platform,

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"Arrgh, my suitcase is on the train!"

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And they held the train for me and I ran up the platform.

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I grabbed my suitcase and then they blew the whistle and the train went.

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I was so lucky.

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But yeah, that was a big mistake.

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And I will not make that mistake again.

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Everybody says that.

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So, earlier we said that mistakes can be small things, like my suitcase.

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But there are big mistakes that we can make.

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So, have you ever made a big mistake, do you think?

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Yeah. Well, once I had a job that I really, really enjoyed.

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I was teaching at a school in Prague, in the Czech Republic, teaching English,

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and I loved the job and I had loads of really good friends.

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But I had this feeling that I needed to go – move somewhere else,

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do something else with my life.

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And so I resigned.

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But then about a week or so later, I realised

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that I really, really didn't want to leave that school.

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So, I went back to the boss and I said, "I've changed my mind.

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I want to stay."

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And he said, "Well, it's too late because I've given your job to somebody else."

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Oh no! That's so sad.

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So, you left your job,

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left Prague?

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No, actually, a bit like your suitcase, Beth,

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it ended up being OK because the person who took my job

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then decided that he didn't want the job either.

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So, in the end, I did stay.

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So, when we make mistakes, Neil, sometimes we then have a regret

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or we regret the thing that we did.

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That means that we feel bad about it.

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Or we wish that we'd done something differently.

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Do you have any regrets?

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Yeah. When I was a kid, I guess I was probably 12 or 13.

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I had some piano lessons, and I quit as soon as I could.

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My parents gave me that choice.

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And I regret that because I love music and I play guitar,

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and I think I would have enjoyed playing piano.

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I always think, to be honest, you shouldn't have any regrets,

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because whatever you've done, you've learnt something from it.

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Even if something bad happened, then you know for next time.

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And it's a kind of self-improvement thing.

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That is a very positive attitude to mistakes, Beth.

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Yeah, I think it's important to learn from your mistakes.

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And that's a common expression in English – to learn from your mistakes.

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Let's recap the vocabulary we've learnt in this podcast.

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Starting with 'mistake', and a mistake is an action that is wrong.

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Or that you do when you don't mean to.

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And we can 'make a mistake'.

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That means we do something wrong.

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Or we can do something 'by mistake', which means we do something accidentally,

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without meaning to.

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For example, I left my suitcase on the train by mistake.

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We also heard 'regret', which means feel bad

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or sorry about something you've done or a mistake that you've made.

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And we heard 'learn from your mistakes', which means remember the mistake

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and then not do it again the next time.

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That's it for this episode of Real Easy English.

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You can test yourself on what you've learned with a worksheet on our website,

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bbclearningenglish.com.

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See you then. Goodbye.

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Bye!