70 Questions You ALWAYS Wanted to ASK | Here's our Answers

Oh, hey, it's great to see you. Shall we go grab a coffee?

Hey, guys. We are going to be answering

some questions so you can get to know Cassé and myself a little bit better.

So Cassé it's really a beautiful day, isn't it?

Yeah, wonderful day.

So what would a perfect day look like for you?

Sun, friends and laughter.

Are you an early bird or night owl?

Definitely a night owl. Hmm.

Do you like tea or coffee in the morning? Coffee.

What are you enjoying the most about Brazil?

Everything. Sun, friendly people.

Just great atmosphere.

And if someone from our audience were to visit Cape Town, what activities

would you recommend they do or places

they say? We have great beaches and beautiful nature.

So you get to see like wonderful animals.

And yeah, it's just a spectacular place to see nature.

What's the next place you want to travel to?

Oh, I would love to visit Mexico. Hmm.

And what's the next country

you would like to live in if you got the chance? Brazil!

And what's one thing that you'd say you can't live without? Coffee!

What's your favorite social media?

Instagram. And how and when can reallifers meet you on social media?

Every Wednesday, live on Instagram at RealLife.English. OK, my turn.

So would you rather live without the internet

or without traveling for a year?

I have to say without the internet.

And what's your favorite channel to watch on YouTube?

I really like Matt D'Avella.

What do you spend most of your time doing online? Working!

Favorite activity to unwind after a long day of work?

It's a good questions, usually walking

Phoebe, my dog. OK. Nice.

Do you prefer reading physical books or e-books?

eBooks, definitely.

And what's the last book you've read?

It's called Hyperfocus. Favorite Country you've lived in.

Probably, you know, in Barcelona, where I currently live,

Best food you've ever eaten.

Paella. And one thing people

should definitely try out or see while in the US? In the US,

let's say going to California. And one myth

about living abroad? That it's easy.

So Nia is actually waiting for us with some of your guys's questions.

So you want to head over and see her? Sure.

Well, hey, Nia, good to see you.

Nice to see you again. Hey, guys, nice to see you.

Are you ready for the learners' questions? Yeah, sure.

All right. What type of coffee were you having back there?

I take my coffee black.

No sugar. I had a latte.

What's your favorite comfort food? Ice cream. / Pizza.

All right now into English.

How long have you been a teacher?

I've been a teacher for three years.

I've been for ten years.

Oh wow. What motivates you to teach English?

Because I love traveling, meeting people from all different cultures,

and I love giving other people opportunity to do the same.

I love meeting people from diverse backgrounds,

and I love giving people the opportunity to improve their lives.

Should learners study grammar?

I think that they should,

but it doesn't necessarily need to be the only thing you're focused on.

You don't necessarily need to do it early, either. I agree.

I think grammar is very important to learn.

I don't think it's the most important thing, though. Yeah.

What are the two most common mistakes people make in English?

That's a good question.

I think one of the biggest mistakes that learners make is just being so focused on

needing to get rid of their accent.

When really, as long as people can understand you,

you have intelligibility, having an accent is perfectly fine.

Yeah, I think the same.

But for grammar, I think sometimes people get caught up on,

you know, setting grammar rules.

And, you know, as long as you know, people understand

and you're able to communicate, I think you're doing a great job.

What should they do if they make a mistake while speaking in English?

I think like, first of all, don't apologize.

I think a lot of learners, they don't

just s'Srry for my bad English," but you don't need to.

You know, you're in a learning process. Just keep up the good work.

I think it's important to recognize that mistakes are part of the learning process.

And yeah, you should just keep going, you know, recognize that it's a mistake

and learn from it.

And how can learners improve their pronunciation?

I think that listening and practicing is very important for improving your

pronunciation, so the more you listen, the better your pronunciation will become.

Yeah, that's a great tip.

And I'd say to just get in the practice of imitating.

Should learners choose one variant of English like American, British or South African?

It's their choice.

I think whatever you choose, if you want to sound more American, that's perfectly OK.

It may be good to have some exposure to all the different accents.

But yeah, let's say whatever you enjoy.

Definitely go for that one. Yeah.

First step to make learning English a habit.

Download the RealLife App .

Yeah, you could listen to a weekly podcast for just ten minutes.

Have a short four minute conversation.

Oh, this is an English related question.

How do you pronounce these words?

Often, Route, Almond.

What's the difference between in the end and at the end?

That's a tricky one.

Do you know? I guess at the end of the road or at the end of the day.

It's like talking about like a single point of something.

That's the finality of it.

So in the end would be like, I don't know the end of the story.

The couple gets together and they live happily ever after. Yeah.

What's the difference between watch, look and see? Watch I think of as like

something that you're

actively watching like that you're not really breaking eye contact,

for example, you might watch a sports or you might watch TV.

Look is like you're taking one

look at something like, look at this.

Yeah. And see... Seeing something is, I guess, the sense.

This sense? Yeah, I'm able to see or I'm not. Like blind person's not able to see.

How to address a group of people if the plural of you is you?

Well, it depends where you're at, actually,

if that's true or not, because for example, I was just in Texas

over new years and they would say, you all or even y'all.

Yeah, definitely you all.

I think that we also use that when we address a group of people.

Definitely. You all. OK, grammar rapid-fire from a learner.

How do we know when to use the past simple or the present perfect?

It's a little bit complex, but there's like a rule of thumb

that most of times will work when something begins

in the past and then continues up until now, you use the present perfect.

So for example, I've been in Brazil for two weeks.

That means that I'm still in Brazil, but something that you uses

the past tense is already finished.

So next week, I'll be saying I was in Brazil for two weeks.

Yeah, it's exactly that.

All right. Let's see.

A slang word you use all the time.

Mm hmm. Kwaai, it's a South African.

What does it mean?

It's a South African phrase that means that something is really great.

It's like, Oh, you can use Kwai for, you know, when you're...

When something's amazing, it's like, Oh, that's a kwaai pair of shoes you have on!

I think I don't use much slang because I usually speak English with learners.

All right. The F bomb now.

Fuck up versus fuck off?

Well, fuck up would refer to... it could be a person.

Someone could be a fuck up.

Or they could that fuck up could fuck up.

So if you fuck up, you're making a mess, you make...

You've made a mistake or you've done something wrong.

Or if you're a fuck up your, you generally tend

to make bad decisions or... yeah. And fuck off is like a really emphatic,

really rude way of telling someone like , fuck off, get away from it. Or you could.

If you don't believe someone,

you could also say, like, you know, fuck off, that's not.

There's no way that's true.

Is it okay to use those two phrasal verbs with the F word?

Yeah, why not? Depends who you're talking to, for sure.

Don't use it with your boss or grandma.

Yeah, we sometimes use different words to describe different things

in your opinion, Cassé, which is the weirdest word South Africans use?

I would say braai.

We say braai for barbecue.

So yeah, it's basically the exact same thing

as barbecue, but we use the word braai.

What about you, Ethan?

Which is the weirdest one Americans use?

Do you have any ideas?

No, I don't actually. I kind of think like with British

American English, there are some that like, make no sense in American.

I'm not sure the weirdest, but definitely one weird from the west of the states.

We could say howdy for hi.

If you want to sound a little bit

like a cowboy. I'm gonna hand this over back to you, Cassé.

It was nice talking to you guys.

Great to see you, Nia!

Oh, the water is so nice!

When was the last time you were in a pool?

I've never been in a pool before.

Kidding. No. I was in a pool last week.

OK, well, let me handle this to you to ask the first question.

OK, so what does it mean when South Africans say "lekker"?

I have heard this one before,

and it sounds very similar to lecker in German, which means delicious.

But I think you use it for like, great. Awesome, right? Yeah, that's true.

Perfect. OK. How about you?

The next one? Yeah.

What does it mean when I say something is dank?

Does it mean like something's bad?

Like it's bad situation is very similar to lekker,

as you can use it for something that's delicious.

You can use it for something that's great.

Only those situations. Hmm.

OK. Favorite tongue twister in English.

Well, I always have trouble remembering them,

but I like the Betty Botter bought a bit of bitter butter,

but the butter was too bitter.

So something like that? Yeah, no, that was quite good.

All right, your favorite idiom in English?

Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

That is a good one.

You know, visual kind of idiom.

What is your favorite word in English? Hmm.

I like awesome. I use that all the time as an American.

Yeah, it's great. Or Ricochet.

That's another good one. Yeah.

How many languages do you speak?

I speak two and a half.

I speak English, Afrikaans and I've been learning Portuguese.

You are getting better in your Portuguese here.

All right, so I have some special question for you.

What's the most difficult word to pronounce in Afrikaans

What's your favorite word in Afrikaans?

What's the next language that you'd like to learn?

I'd like to learn Spanish. Hmm.

OK, what's your favorite place in Barcelona? Woo, that's a good question.

I always like getting good things to eat.

one of my favorite restaurants is called a “Els 4 Gats."

A trip to the mountains, or day at the beach? A day at the beach.

First word you learned in Catalan.

The first word I learned, "te estimo", which means I love you. Oh, great.

What's your favorite word in Catalan?

Yeah, my favorite word.

Probably the same one "te estimo", or "gos" because it's a dog.

Oh, you have a dog, right?

I have a dog, I wish I would like to say "te estimo" to her.

And what's the most difficult language for you to learn? The most difficult...

I learned Hebrew for a little bit. That was very challenging.

So if you were to write a book, what would it be about?

I probably write a book about diversity in South Africa. Oh, cool.

If you were to give a TEDTalk, what would it be about?

It's a good question.

I think I'd do it probably on the topic of something

having to do with learning like, for example, what I was saying before

about no need to worry so much about your accent.

So have you met anyone famous?

No, unfortunately not. Me neither. Not yet.

I'm still hoping in Barcelona run into Shakira and Pique.

Yeah, I want to run into John Mayer.

There you go. Me too.

What famous person would you like to have dinner with? Hmm.

Maybe I should have dinner

with Jennifer Aniston so I can ask her to be on the show. Awesome.

What's the best life advice that you've ever gotten?

The best advice that I've been given is probably to just keep going, you know?

Don't stop when you fail, just keep trying.

What is the one thing you wish you knew when you were younger?

Oh, it's a good question.

I think just accepting yourself, you know, just learning to love yourself

is really, really important.

What would be the number one piece of advice

that you would give to English learners?

I would say, don't focus so much on your mistakes.

Try and focus on your progress.

So if you're making progress in one way or another,

like just focus on that. Hmm. I love it.

Same to you. What would you say is the number one piece of advice

that you'd like to share with English learners?

I probably said a lot already, but yeah, I'd say

maybe like you just don't give up, just keep going when you fall down.

If you broke your habit, then just pick it up again.

Don't beat yourself up. Great.

All right. So how can learners get more of our lessons?

Just hit the subscribe button and the bell down below, and you won't miss

a single lesson.

Oh, someone's calling me. Let me see who it is.

Oh, it's Max. Max, Oh, hey, Max.

Hey, guys, what's up? Hey, Max. Having a good time? Yeah.

Hey, I have a few questions from the community.

Oh, amazing. All right.

So first, why should people learn English?

Hey, do you want to take that one? Sure.

I think people should learn English because it helps them

connect with the world, helps them expand their worldview

and their perceptions and their understanding. Yeah. Awesome.

The next question is what's unique about learning English with RealLife English?

Oh, that is a good question,

I believe, because you're not just learning English, you're really

making English a part of your life.

I like to think of it that we're not helping you to

study English or to learn English, but we're helping you to become

an English speaker.

All right. OK, so I have another one.

What is RealLife English's next goal?

We've got a lot of them,

but one of them right now is to bring more people to our app

so that they can improve their listening and their speaking

and really connect with people from all around the world . All right.

So someone wrote, What's the biggest problems learners face

when learning English?

I think some of the biggest problems learners face is that they

they get really caught up in perfection and they try to be perfect.

And this becomes a demotivating, you know, situation

where they just tend to give up after a few attempts.

And yeah, this is this is one of the biggest challenges I think.

And lastly, someone's interested in knowing where they can find

more of our lessons.

Well, they can find more of our lessons on our app, on our RealLife English app.

They can also find our podcast in the website, and Instagram

as we mentioned before, we are everywhere! It's true. All over the place.

All right, Max, great to see you. Thanks so much for giving us a call.

Thank you, guys. Bye!

I just been like a really lovely afternoon. Thanks so much for coming over.

It's been lovely being here.

And my last question defintely would have to be, should we do this again sometime?

Yeah. What do you guys think?

Should we? Comment down below and let us know.

So, yeah, we hope to see you again.

Thanks so much for tuning in. Bye.