Advanced English Conversation Lesson #5: The Future 🚀 (learn real English w/ subtitles)

Hello, everybody! This is Jack and Kate

from tofluency.com and we are back with

a conversation about the future so we're

going to talk about the future we're

going to look at some predictions as

well, discuss those different topics and

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subscribe! We release one of these

conversations about once a week and

it's a great way for you to practice

your listening and to learn new words

and phrases and I'll list those words

and phrases in the description. So, Kate and

Emma, welcome! Thank you! Are you optimistic for the

future. So, I would probably say that

I am,

well, you know me. Yeah. I'm kind of a

pessimist

yes. I try not to be but I can

usually see what could go wrong and I

worry about things sometimes but I think

overall actually when I think about the

future in a big way, I'm pretty

optimistic about it.

Yeah. What about you? I I think

I'm an optimist. Sometimes, it's

difficult when you read the news when

you just read some articles and they

talk about all the bad things that could

happen, you start panic you start to

worry about the future - things like

energy and transportation and food all

kind of resources as well like drinking

water

yeah - in in the developed world

and it's just... sometimes you can feel really

down about it but on the other hand

yeah I'm of the opinion that you can

shape your own future within reason

especially if you live in a place like

America. Yeah, definitely. There are

great opportunities. I feel like right

now it is it is harder to be optimistic

about the future especially in our

country just because the things that

have really given me so many

opportunities like public education and

i went to a public school for elementary

school and for college you know our are

in danger right now really in terms of

getting funding and that's that's kind

of a strange thing to consider

and hopefully you know we have a baby

here she'll be able to have the same

opportunities and the same future and

resources that that we've been able to

have. Yeah, I think having children really

makes you think more about the future

it makes you think about what's going

to happen and what you can do as well to

build a better future because I know

when we were in our twenties, we were

just traveling living in the moment all the time,

we didn't really think about the future

that much - we didn't think about

saving for the future

no - saving for retirement - no - that still

seems like a strange concept to

consider - it does, yeah, I've definitely

started thinking about that recently. Yes.

But what are your hopes for the future?

What you want to get out of what's going

to come? Do you mean personally? Yeah, personally. So,

I think that personally I would like to

just be able to learn more like I want I

want to learn more languages i want to

learn my entire life and so I don't know

that would mean going back to school in

a former way or just continuing to learn

little things and more about the things

that I like to do, like, I enjoy cooking

and I would like to be a better Baker

and to learn about that and I would love

to learn more languages and be

able to travel and get to practice them

That's great, yeah. How about you?

well, just to go - just to talk about

learning and I really got this like

thirst for learning - desire to learn stuff -

after University. Yes! I think that's pretty common.

me too!

it wasn't that I wasn't learning at

university but I like, you know,

academics and academia can be kind of a

bubble like you're in it and it just

seems like you're going to classes, you're

taking tests, but you don't really get

the big picture and then once you get

outside of that and you see the big

picture you go: wait! I wish i could just dive

back in and you know learn these things

because they're not trying to like play

the system to get a degree

really

thinking about you know what you want to

know yeah definitely and I think you

know we're going to talk about some

predictions for the future

one of them is education. What is education

going to be like? Is it all going to be

online? is it going to be formal in

universities - it's going to be interesting to

see what happens but yeah my hopes for

the future and... it's really great

that you brought that up you know just to

continue learning - a a lot of what

we focus on right now is our children and

what their future's gonna be, but I think for

me just to keep growing - to keep feeling

enthusiastic about my goals and you know

and what I want to achieve and just to have

that energy to want to improve in all

areas

yeah, absolutely, because, you know, I think it's a great

[baby speaking] she's telling us

about her goals too.I think I

would also like to - I know that we've

talked about this in other episodes but

I want to keep traveling too. I want to... I want to

want to spend at least another year of

our life living outside of the United

States and England and I'd love to take

you know at least a trip every year

where we're going somewhere new too.

definitely definitely. So, yeah, travel continue

learning and then where do you see

yourself in 10 years that's a really

good question

well obviously I'm going to have a new

world famous novel published

yes naturally and probably my own

cooking show just so you know put it out

there and and I don't know maybe I'll

also be a world-famous artist so right

so, small goals. Small goals.

step-by-step, but

you've wanted to write a novel for

a long time. Do you see yourself

writing one in the next ten years?

I think so yeah it's hard to imagine me

doing anything big and ambitious right

now and just because it's every day and

every night you know just taking care of

Thomas and Emma - our kids - and right now Miss

Emma the baby is getting teeth and so

she's awake at night so it's hard to

really imagine doing something so

ambitious but i think that i think i do

want to get there - yeah, once things settle down a little bit and you can throw

yourself into it

yeah absolutely and they say that

having kids is the longest shortest time

of your life so while we're talking

about time in the future I feel like

time has been going so much faster in

general since Emma and Thomas came into our

lives like every year every month every

week even just flies by

but then there are some hours that are

incredibly long - yeah really really long

really long hours, especially when we're

sick. Oh, yeah, which we've also talked about

I'll leave a link to that conversation

in the description if you're

watching on YouTube and should we talk

about these predictions? Yes! I want to

hear what the predictions are.

I'm pretty excited about this. You seem very excited.

Very excited! because there was an

article i came across which talks about

I think it was like 15 reasons to be

optimistic for the future

ok I'm an optimistic person, I feel

like we should look at it from a more

optimistic angle

yes, and I've just written down three. And one of them

might not be a positive one and we

might go into a bit of a conversation

ok - but firstly and this is for 2020

ok so not that far away no well when I

read it when it said 2020 I thought: oh, wow

that's really far in the future but then

I realized it's not it's really not - it's three

years from now - the first one

self driving and flying cars

okay so are we gonna talk about whether

we think that there is going to be true or not?

yeah okay and and what you think about

them too if you think it's positive

thing. If it's a positive thing.

this is tough. Do you want me to start? Yes because I

think self-driving cars that whole

concept is going to be incredible yeah

and I know a lot of people when they

talk about it they say oh my i want to

be able to drive i'm not one of those

people

yeah I want to be able to just get in a

car and it just goes wherever you

want it to go. Yeah. I think one of the

most amazing things that people don't

think about is that is going to solve the

parking problem

oh yeah. Because you don't have to get in

the same car it's going to be like uber

but basically just a self-driving car.

So you wouldn't have your

own car? No. So, everyone would

have... well, I think people would have

their own cars uh-huh - but I think this idea

of of there being a fleet of cars that

service a certain city or an area and when

you push a button, it picks you up

- this hurts my brain! - and it drives you

somewhere - straight to the door

yeah - just like Uber, but then it just goes and gets

the next person so I'm wondering because

having a car and driving places is a really

big part of American culture

exactly - and I feel like we you know you

are from the UK and we've lived other

places and driving just hasn't been that big

deal you - like in Spain - we didn't even have a car in Spain

Yeah, in Spain from our experience anyway, a

lot of people relied on public transport

yeah - we certainly did.

think though that people would take convenience the

convenience and cost. It's going to be

cheaper- how's it gonna be cheaper?

because it's like you're sharing cars.

uh-huh and also a lot of these cars

are going to be - this is another

prediction - but electric uh-huh solar panels

you know

yeah solar powered - you think by

2020? I think self-driving cars could

just explode any moment

ok I'm not literally. No - that's really funny.

yeah not, no. No. Otherwise people won't

drive them. But what I mean by that is that

they will become really popular at any

moment - I think it could just happen

like that really quickly one day

and now, you talked about the

self-driving and i agree with you I

think that that there will be more and

more of that - that they'll just be safer and

more common but to be honest the whole

flying car business even though this was

something that we dreamed about and when you see

any science fiction movie like the Fifth

Element there are cars flying all over

a cityscape I just don't see flying

cars as being that necessary or that safe

well cool is one cool i mean definitely

cool convenient as well if they can fly

let's say 500 miles where you don't have

to deal with roads and traffic

well isn't that just like an airplane. Well, I know

but the idea is that you are in your own car

and then you fly and then you drive. Kind of

like your own airplane? Well, then when

you land, you can still drive.

Kind of like an airplane? Okay...

how many airplanes do you see going down

downtown Asheville? Fair enough. But then you

still need places to land these

airplanes and airplanes can be very

dangerous especially the little ones.

I'm gonna go ahead and say as a pessimist

I don't really see

a future for for driving or flying cars. For

flying cars. I think it's one of those

things that people talk about and one of

the number one things that people talk

about when predicting the future but

practically you know there's a lot to

work out there. I feel with self-driving cars

it's going to happen

it's going to happen yeah but flying

cars within you know the next to you

three to take 5-10 years - flying

cars seem a long way off. So, flying cars seem

like they're a ways off, I mean that's

that is what people do dream about with the

future at least

we did when we were little having jet packs

that would just zoom you around

personally and flying cars but but honestly

i think that the logistics of it would

be harder than okay well I feel like we

did not really well - the last one

yeah and we could talk about this

for hours but talking about bio fuels

renewable energy competing with fossil

fuels and there's one thing I wanted to

talk about well with TESLA where and how

what's the.. it's like they've got the solar panel roofing

the tiles get which can power the

entire house - by 2020 they're saying biofuels

and solar energy etc might compete with

fossil fuels i think that

that's definitely a prediction that I

would agree with because it just seems

to be clearly the way to go in the

future

yeah you know that it will cost less

over the long term using renewable

resources will be better for everyone

better for us to just the quality of the

air that we breathe and the environment

yes so I think that's kind of a

no-brainer yeah like I didn't I knew

that there are a lot of countries that

are doing a really great job already

with renewable resources and I think

that we're gonna get there

yeah there's a big barrier against it isn't

there? There's like a... what's a good word to use

resistance resistance against it by

powerful people to try and stop this

from happening but it just seems like

it's going that way more and more yeah

it's it seems like it's inevitable

yeah definitely but I mean but again

that's something that that seems really

uncertain right now just with

the political climate in our country

yeah can do this yeah I'm but then i

guess it once it becomes financially

viable - yes - and a cheap option for people

then that's what it really does change

absolutely and it doesn't need that

boost from the government, it doesn't need

subsidizing - it can just

go ahead yeah on its own accord.

absolutely yeah - well, we've reached

that time - already? - the best time of the

whole conversation

yes Katie asks the question - off the

cuff - off the cuff! -

so what is your question today? My

question is: are you optimistic or

pessimistic about the future? And what

kind of predictions do you have about

your life and about the world?

yeah in 2020 and beyond. I like that

yeah so predictions and if you're

optimistic or pessimistic again if you

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go to tofluency.com/future and you

can get some lesson notes from this

lesson so thanks again for watching or

listening

we'll see you in the next conversation

thank you, bye. Bye Bye!