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Hello everyone and welcome to English Pod. My name is Marco.

My name is Katherine. And today we have an elementary level lesson in which we're going to talk about small talk.

That's right. Today we're going to talk to an old friend. And so we're going to give you some of the words and phrases you need to talk about your past or talk about how you have been.

So let's listen to today's dialogue and we'll be back in a moment to discuss it.

The DialogueBill: I hate coming to high school reunions.

Dorothy: It'll be great, honey. We will get to see your old classmates and catch up to see how they've been doing.

Bill: Uh, yeah, I guess so. Oh, look. There's Robert Matthews. Rob!

Rob: Hey, Bill. Wow. Great to see you.

Bill: Likewise. It's been a long time. This is my wife, Dorothy.

Rob: Pleasure to meet you. So, Bill, how have you been?

Bill: Can't complain. We have two children who are in college and my business is going well. How about you?

Rob: Ah, you know me. I'm a dedicated bachelor. I never married, although I do have a beautiful daughter with Mary. You remember her? We were high school sweethearts. It didn't really work out between us, but I really can't complain either.

Bill: That's good. Have you seen Frank? I was hoping he would come tonight.

Rob: You didn't hear? Frank passed away last year.

Bill: Are you serious?

Rob: Nah, I'm just yanking your chain. He'll be here soon. I saw him last week. He told me he would show up.

Language TakeawayAll right, we're back. So, now let's get started with our language takeaway.

The first phrase we have here in language takeaway is a very important one because it is the setting for today's dialogue. We are at a high school reunion.

That's right. So, everyone knows what high school is, but a high school reunion is when you go back to your high school for a party, maybe 5 years or 10 years after you graduate. So, then you meet all your old friends from high school. You talk about, you know, how you have been and just meet up with everyone that maybe you haven't seen in a very long time.

Exactly. So, a reunion usually happens every 5 years, 10 years or 20 years. It can happen at different times, but this is important because you can have many different kinds of reunions like a college reunion or a high school reunion. I've even heard of some people who had an elementary school reunion.

Really? Wow. Imagine seeing your classmates when you were maybe 10 years old.

I couldn't imagine it. All right, so we're at a high school reunion and we are there because we're going to meet our old classmates and to catch up and see how they have been. Okay, so this is exactly what you do at a reunion. You catch up with people that you maybe lost touch with. To catch up means to find out about what people have been doing since the last time you talked. So maybe Marco and I were classmates in high school and we haven't talked in 10 years. I say, "Marco, I want to catch up. I want to learn about what you do, who you married, where you work," things like that.

Right? So when two people get together, they catch up. Maybe it doesn't even have to be a very long time. Maybe you haven't seen your friend for a week and so you want to get together, have a cup of coffee, and catch up and see how the relationship has been going or how is work. So you want to catch up.

So you can say this in a very simple way: "Let's catch up" or "It's been nice to catch up."

That's right. All right, moving on to our next word. This guy Bill meets up with Robert Matthews and they're saying, "Hey, wow, great to see you." And he answers by saying likewise.

So "it's good to see you," "likewise," right? That means it's good to see you too.

So you don't have to repeat everything that person just said. For example, if I just meet someone new and I say it's a pleasure to meet you, you can say...

I could say likewise.

Likewise.

Cause I don't want to say "it's a pleasure to meet you, too." That's so many words. So likewise is a very short way to say all of those things. That's right. So, we were finding out about Robert Matthews and he says that well, he is a dedicated bachelor. So, a dedicated bachelor, what is a bachelor, Marco?

So, a bachelor is a person who is not married, a person who is single.

A man, a woman cannot be a bachelor. So, a bachelor is specifically a man and he's not married. And we often have a stereotype—that means we have an idea of what a bachelor lives like. You know, he has only beer in his refrigerator and he has many relationships and no wife.

That's right. So a dedicated bachelor is a person who is not married and doesn't really seem to want to get married or any of this. He wants to stay single.

Exactly. Okay. And well to finish off, this guy Robert lied a little bit to Bill saying that Frank had passed away. That's really mean. But this phrase to pass away is very important and something we should talk about. So what does it mean to pass away?

It's another way of saying he died.

That's nicer.