Would you like a higher level of fluency?

Well, you've come to the right place.

Welcome back to English with Catherine.

Happy to have you here and happy to be here for you.

Today, I've got five everyday, kind of essential, conversation phrases.

As I'm sure you know, daily English involves communication with others, responding to others in the right way, telling stories to others, and sympathizing and relating to others.

So here are my phrases to help you communicate in a lovely, natural, friendly way.

Let's get started.

Number one, you must be.

You must be.

We say this when we are absolutely sure how someone else is feeling.

This is a way of sympathizing or empathizing with someone.

For example, you must be feeling so happy.

You must be feeling really sad.

You don't have to say be feeling, you can just use an adjective.

You must be so happy.

You must be so angry about that.

So this is really good for conversation because when someone tells you something and you want to respond, you can say this.

My sister has just bought a house and she is over the moon.

That means so happy.

But the process was quite stressful, quite long.

As it usually is in the UK, when you're trying to buy a property, it's quite stressful because neither party, the buyer or the seller, are obligated to anything.

So they can pull out or change their mind at any time.

So when she signed the contract, she was so happy.

And do you know what I said to her?

Victoria, you must be feeling so relieved.

Here, I know how she's feeling and I want to tell her that.

The other day, I was with my friend and it started raining and she didn't have a jacket and she got quite cold.

And I said, you must be freezing.

Here, take my jacket.

And I gave her my jacket.

So in that example, I was really relating to her, trying to help her, trying to put myself in her shoes.

And I used you must be to do that.

Number two, in the end, in the end, we use this when we're telling stories.

Guys, it's so important to be able to tell a good story.

This is difficult even for me and English is my native language.

Obviously, keeping someone's attention till the end of your story, making sure it's gripping and engaging is a real skill.

But there are some tips and tricks that you can learn when you're speaking English to make it easier.

So we say in the end to mark the end of the story.

A couple of days back, I met up with my mum and we were on our way in separate cars to my wedding seamstress appointment.

That's what they're called, isn't it?

A seamstress, the person that cuts and alters wedding dresses.

Anyway, on the way, my mum had to pull over at the side of the road because a warning light had come on on her dashboard.

Bright red warning light.

Not good.

I'm not very good with cars, but I know that warning lights are not good news.

So she started flapping.

She gets quite panicked in these kinds of situations.

And I had to calm her down and say, look, mum, let's just leave the car at the side of the road and you can just jump in my car and we'll go together to the appointment.

In the end, she just drove home really slowly and carefully and everything was fine because the journey wasn't very long.

Also, my dad is a wizard with cars.

He's just such a natural.

So as soon as she got home, he fixed it for her.

So here I've used in the end to mark the end of the story, the kind of conclusion, if you will.

I know, not a very exciting story, but you know, it's still a story.

Not every story has to be exciting, okay?

Number three, good to know.

Good to know.

This is a response.

You know, when someone tells you something, it could be a fact or something to do with the weather that might affect you and they're worried so they want to warn you about it.

You need to be able to respond in the right way.

You could just say, oh, thank you.

Obviously, that would be fine, very polite, but it's really nice to say, oh, good to know.

Good to know.

For example, yesterday, my mum texted me to say, thunderstorms are forecast for Sunday.

And on Sunday, we are supposed to be going to a festival and the thunderstorms are really not ideal.

And then she said, you should probably bring a change of shoes just in case your sandals get really wet.

A change of shoes is an expression to mean a pair of shoes that you bring with you just in case you need them.

And guess what I responded with?

Good to know.

Thanks, mum.

Good to know.

It's just a really nice way to keep the conversation flowing and sound really grateful to that person that's trying to help you.

Number four, you never know.

You never know what you think this one's about.

So this is used for an indefinite or an uncertain situation where you want to offer some hope to say that things might turn out well.

The example I'm going to give for this is, back in March, I went to Mull, which is a Scottish island, and I went with Tom's parents on holiday.

And Jeremy, which is Tom's dad's name, he went fishing, trout fishing to be precise.

And he wasn't really having much luck.

There were no fish.

No fish were coming to him.

And he kept casting off, I think it's called, and nothing was biting.

And he looked really sort of forlorn, meaning sad and fed up.

So I said to him, keep going, Jeremy.

You never know, the fish might be on their way now.

And that offered some hope.

I'm not sure it really helped, but he did carry on fishing.

And he caught a massive fish.

Like, it was enormous.

I remember it so well.

I taught you the word iridescent in the last lesson, and I can definitely say that the scales were so iridescent.

It was shining green and pink.

It was absolutely beautiful.

In the end, he threw the fish back in the water, just to be kind, even though they're very tasty with potatoes.

Did you hear that I just said, in the end?

See?

It comes all the time in daily speech.

Just to add a further example, in case you didn't understand that, after he caught the really big fish, I actually said to him, you never know, there might be an even bigger one out there.

And he said, I doubt it, but you never know.

So you can also respond with that as well.

You don't have to just say it to someone.

You can respond to them with it.

It's a great expression.

Number five, I couldn't believe it.

I couldn't believe it.

This phrase is great for storytelling.

So another one for you storytellers.

Make sure you stress believe, just because it gives a bit of drama to that phrase, and you need that for this.

Now, I'm going to use Scotland again as an example, but I'm going to use my more recent trip to Scotland.

Last month, I went up to Aberdeen, where Tom is from, and we were just walking in the sunshine, and I think I even said to Tom, isn't it such a lovely day?

It's so sunny.

We're so lucky.

And literally within not even a minute, the rain just started.

It was torrential.

And I just couldn't believe it.

How can the rain just come on like that so suddenly?

In England, you always know when the rain is coming, because the gray clouds come over, it becomes really overcast.

And of course, a lot of people say it feels like rain, because they know it's coming.

In Scotland, it's like turning on a button, and rain just out of nowhere.

It's quite the experience.

So using I couldn't believe it just gives that drama to that story.

It helps the listener relate to you in that moment of how surprised and how shocked you were.

I have an idea, guys.

If you use a really good expression or phrase in your daily speech, put it in the comments below for others to learn from, because I really want to create a little community of people that can all help each other out.

And of course, if I see the comment, I will reply and, you know, give my input.

Thank you so much for watching, as ever.

So great to have you here.

If you enjoyed the video, you know what I'm going to say.

Click subscribe.

It would be amazing.

I think I'm going to do another episode of these.

Just let me know in the comments if you enjoyed it, and I definitely will.

Wishing you a beautiful weekend.

It's really wet here in the UK, but as you know, I love the rain.

Enjoy, and I'll see you next Friday.

Bye.