Welcome back to English with Catherine.

I'm Catherine and I'm here to teach you some daily natural English.

Today, the setting of the daily natural English is Hyde Park.

Most of the English in this video came from one particular family.

They were a pretty typical family, really, and they spoke with the modern RP accent.

As I always say, the best way to learn English is to combine it with learning about the culture.

It just makes it more interesting and funny at times.

Don't forget to watch till the end of the video, because we have a word of the week.

And this one is beautiful.

Shall we get started?

Let's go!

Ooh, before we start, do you like my necklace?

A lovely company called Biwako, I think I'm saying that right, sent me this beautiful necklace.

I love it because it's kind of elegant, but it's got this red, can you see there's like a red pearl or red bead?

And that just, for me, makes it a bit more interesting than a usual pearl necklace.

Let's get started with the video.

Number one, did you remember to grab the scotch eggs?

Did you remember to grab the scotch eggs?

This first one is about a typical British picnic.

Now, unfortunately, the colour of a British picnic is beige.

In a typical British beige colour picnic, we have the scotch egg.

This is quite tasty.

It's not my favourite, personally, but they're very popular here.

It's basically an egg mixture surrounded by sausage meat, which is then surrounded by breadcrumbs, so it's a little ball.

We also have mini sausage rolls, of course.

Beige again.

Of course crisps, they're kind of beige.

Don't forget the absolutely essential sandwiches.

So here, the person is saying grab.

Now, to grab is to just take something quickly and bring it with you.

So we often say, let's grab a bite to eat.

That means let's go and get something to eat and take it away, usually.

Grab is a very good, informal, daily, natural word to use in this kind of context.

So if you're ever in the UK, try a scotch egg and let me know what you think of it.

By the way, in the end, she had remembered the scotch eggs, so panic over.

Number two.

Wow, look, there's a black swan.

A black swan.

Now, maybe for you, black swans are common, maybe in your country, and you see them a lot.

But for me, and I think most people, they are quite rare.

So when you see one, it's like, cool.

When we want to focus someone else's attention on something that we've seen, and we want them to see as well, we use there is.

Look, there's a pigeon outside.

There's a squirrel outside.

There's always animals doing things while I'm filming.

Number three.

Can you top up my Pimms, please?

Can you top up my Pimms, please?

You're probably so confused right now.

Let's go with top up first.

So here we have a phrasal verb.

To top up is to add more drink into someone's glass, or any kind of vessel, like a cup, it's usually a glass, so that the drink is full again.

So top me up is sometimes what we say.

Top me up, please.

Now let's talk about Pimms.

It's basically a punch of Pimms liqueur, which you just, you can put a little in if you don't want it too strong, lemonade, and then all this fresh fruit, like cucumber, strawberries, usually they are wild strawberries, so the small ones, and don't forget the mint.

Number four.

Can you believe Sarah's preggers?

I just never thought it would happen.

Can you believe Sarah's preggers?

What do you think preggers means?

I think you probably worked it out, it's pregnant.

This is very much slang, and when you say this, you're kind of joking around with the language, you know, it's quite creative to say preggers instead of pregnant.

I have to say that I prefer the expression a bun in the oven, though.

So cute.

She's got a bun in the oven.

Now I have to say, this one is about gossip, which I think is a little bit rude to kind of comment on someone like that, and now I have this thing where I don't take part in gossip, so if one of my friends tries to talk about someone behind their back, I just say, look, I'm sorry, I don't gossip anymore.

I just think there's so many more interesting things to talk about, right, than what other people are doing, so usually I just sneakily change the subject when gossip comes up, and I start talking about music or birds or butterflies or something.

First thing to draw your attention to here is the phrasal verb to put on.

I've talked about this important phrasal verb before, but basically it's your go-to phrasal verb for summer, because we put on everything in the summer.

Sun cream, makeup, perfume, clothes, bikini, everything on your body is to put on.

And in Britain we call it sun cream, in America they call it sun block, and you need to know this vocabulary factor.

Factor 50, factor 10, factor 35, that vocabulary is about the strength of the sun cream.

I usually go for factor 50 for my face, so that I don't burn it and age quickly.

I'm actually not that good at that, but I do try.

Wasps are the bane of everyone's lives in the summertime, they cause so much havoc, they ruin picnics, they disrupt peace and calm.

I remember when I took my maths exam, my GCSE maths exam when I was 15, a wasp flew into the exam hall and it caused pandemonium.

Everyone was flapping.

Some people really, really don't like wasps.

By the way, in case you didn't know, a wasp is like a bee, but more evil.

Don't understand the purpose of them at all.

Why do they exist?

They don't make honey, they don't bring joy, they just hurt people, they sting you.

It's called sting, the verb, when they sting.

I've only ever been stung by a wasp once, and it was very unpleasant.

Now here we're using the verb freeze, and that means don't move, just stay still, which is really difficult to do if you're scared of wasps.

Number seven, duck your head, there's a pigeon coming straight for you.

I've just realised this is actually quite funny because duck is another winged creature, even though we're already talking about a pigeon.

Anyway, to duck means to go down.

I don't know where that comes from, whether ducks, like, do that.

Anyway, this person is warning her friend that there is a pigeon coming straight for her, and, you know, if she doesn't move, the pigeon could collide with her head, which is very rare, actually, and probably would not have happened.

Now let me just tell you about the pigeons in London.

They are a rare type, very dodgy.

Usually they're missing a claw.

They look like they've really gone through it, you know?

Resilient, tough pigeons that survive London.

They represent life in London.

By the way, coming straight for you means something is heading directly to you.

OK, so usually something travelling at top speed or high speed in your direction, we say that it's coming straight for you.

Move out the way!

Number eight.

Gosh, it's really balmy, isn't it?

I may need to move into the shade.

Gosh, it's really balmy, isn't it?

I may need to move into the shade.

We've got gosh, first of all, which is a polite way of saying, oh my God, we have the word balmy here, which has a silent L, and that's a lovely word that means really warm, really quite hot.

And then we have the shade, which is somewhere maybe under a tree or under an awning or a parasol to protect you from the sun.

Just to say, British people will always remark on hot weather because it's so rare.

Number nine.

I just can't get over how friendly the squirrels are here.

This is very true.

I found myself listening and thinking, I agree.

Squirrels are confident in parks in London.

Everywhere else in the countryside, they are so scared of people.

They just dart away and they move very like this.

Now here we have the phrasal verb, get over.

And this is a really good one.

We usually use this for recovering from an illness.

So a physical illness like flu or COVID or something, or a mental difficulty like a breakup.

So you have to get over a breakup, but you can also struggle to get over something that seems unbelievable.

Like squirrels being that friendly.

For people that don't live in London, so countryside people coming to London, that's a real novelty for them to see such friendly animals because usually that doesn't happen in the countryside.

Number 10.

Mom, can we have an ice cream, please?

The classic one happening all across the world.

Now in Hyde Park, there is the classic, quintessential, iconic ice cream van, which plays the little tune when it comes.

And it's just that typical British experience really.

Notice the use of have.

Can we have an ice cream?

They're not saying, can we eat an ice cream?

They're using the verb have, which is a very, very common word in spoken British English.

People have started to use get more often now with some American English coming into the language.

So you will hear that as well.

Can I get an ice cream, please?

But I usually say have.

Everyone, are you ready for the word of the week?

I'm so happy if you watched till this point.

Thank you.

Eloquent, eloquent.

Isn't it beautiful?

Doesn't it just sound like what it means?

Which is a person that can speak carefully, efficiently, beautifully, so that they are communicating in the best way.

If you say she is an eloquent speaker, that means she gets her point across very clearly without using lots and lots of words.

She is concise and she is eloquent.

Well, that's it, guys.

I hope you enjoyed it.

I hope it's made you want to visit Hyde Park if you haven't already.

If you enjoyed my video, please hit subscribe.

It would just be so great and it really helps me out.

Wishing you a beautiful summery weekend and I'll see you next Friday.

Bye.