Learn How To Ask Questions About Food
Today, I teach you how to start a conversation when talking about food. This will help you form questions in English but it will also help you start a conversation with someone in English. I also share a tip at the end of the episode on how to politely answer a question. Enjoy :)
Episodes mentioned
Episode [127] Cheesy Jokes – More Food Related Expressions
Transcript
You are listening to the English Made Simple Show, this is episode #130 – number one hundred and thirty, numero ciento treinta
Welcome to episode number 130 of English Made Simple, my name is Milena from www.englishmadesimple.net, your English coach, your mentor and your teacher.
Great!
How are you guys? Hope you are doing well.
Let me ask you this, how was your weekend? Did you pig out on the weekend? Like I did.
I ate a lot, I was snacking a lot, snacking on crackers and cheese, drinking wine and eating lots of junk food and on top of that I even made a dessert. Yum, delicious!
And on top of that, I didn’t do any exercise. I had a great excuse! It was raining outside, so I decided to stay in and watch Netflix. I was binging on Netflix. Watching too much of it…
Right, enough of this gibberish Milena.
If you don’t know what gibberish means, it means rubbish. So if someone is talking rubbish or nonsense, they are talking gibberish.
Today amigos y amigas, I want you to learn how to start a conversation when talking about food. This will help you form questions in English but it will also help you start a conversation with someone in English. I will also share a tip at the end of the episode on how to politely answer a question. So, stick around for that!
And also for those who are sitting English exams, today’s episode will be of help to you – so stay tuned!
But firstly, let me explain something from my introduction earlier.
So, in my introduction, I mentioned a few words and phrases that you may not be familiar with. You may not have heard of these phrases before.
The expression, ‘to pig out’ – means to eat like a pig. And if you (don’t) know what a pig is – it’s a domestic animal that can eat virtually anything.
In Spanish – to pig out is equivalent to comer como chancho o como cerdo.
I was pigging out on the weekend, I was eating a lot of junk food over the weekend.
What did I have? Funny, you should ask! Hamburger and chips for dinner last night. Mmmm delicious but so baaaaad.
Before burgers, I was snacking on crackers and cheese, which goes well with wine you know. And I also had wine.
The expression here is to snack on something, means I was eating something small before the main meal. Something in between meals. I was eating between meals.
Isn’t that what pigs would normally do? They eat between meals. Yes, I think so. Probably.
Oki doki, this episode is not about pigs, by the way.
So amigos y amigas, I want you to listen carefully. I am going to combine what we learnt in the previous episodes. And in today’s episode I want you to listen carefully to the questions, and I want you to think about how you would go about answering those questions.
By the way, I want to ask you a completely random question now.
Is anyone here on the raw food diet? Dieta de comida cruda.
You can also ask someone, are you on a diet? Meaning if they follow a specific diet.
If you haven’t heard of it before the raw food diet is a diet composed of mostly raw or unprocessed food. The raw food diet basically consists of food that is not uncooked – raw.
You’d eat something like fruit and vegetables, nuts, grains, fermented foods, raw fish and so on.
I tried to follow the raw food diet before, but it was too hard I have to say. Especially when you go out or when you are out with your friends, most of the restaurants and cafés don’t have many options for people who are on the raw food diet…or any diet.
Anyway, it wasn’t sustainable for me, but I do make every effort to eat something that’s raw, be it fruit or veggies, or raw fish like ceviche or some Japanese cuisine.
What diet are you on? Do you follow a special diet?
Great. Think about that question.
If you are around native speakers and you start talking about food you can ask them, Are you a good cook?
Remember, we did learn this in one of the recent episodes – I think it was a couple of episodes ago.
Are you a good cook? Meaning are you a good chef? And if they say yes, then ask them: what is your best dish? Or what’s your favourite dish to prepare?
Cool, that’s very straightforward.
What’s another friendly question you will hear someone ask you… you can also ask someone this question as well.
How often do you eat out?
How often do you eat out? To eat out means to go out and eat. For example, to go out and eat at a restaurant.
You will hear this phrase in the movies sometimes. Let’s eat out. Something like that.
A variation to that question would be:
Hey honey, shall we eat in or eat out?
Now you can assume what ‘eat in’ means – it’s just opposite of eat out. To eat in – means we stay at home and we eat at home.
Next question you could be asked would be
Do you like to eat fast food?
We know what fast food means, it’s like junk food or a quick meal. This is usually fatty and oily.
And that’s exactly what I had over the weekend, I had hamburgers and chips, I just didn’t feel like cooking anything on the weekend.
Everyone likes to eat fast food. I know you do, too. Don’t judge me.
And the last question for today is, something that you will hear, people will ask you this question: Are there any foods that you hate? Any foods that you dislike? Do you hate any food.
You know what, if someone asked me this question, I wouldn’t know how to answer this question.
So I had to think about this one before the episode so… Here’s my answer.
I am not a fan of oysters – I can eat oysters (ostras in Spanish) but only if there is nothing else to eat. Eating special foods like oysters is like an acquired taste. It’s what we call an acquired taste.
Well, this is an interesting term, an acquired taste. According to Weon Inteligente or the online dictionary – an acquired taste means it’s something you don’t like at first, but you start to like it over time.
So for me, oysters are an acquired taste.
By the way amigos y amigas, here is a tip for you:
Instead of saying you hate something, be more polite and reply with “I am not a fan of….”
I am not a fan of having too much olives on the pizza. I am not a fan of the oysters. Oysters are not my cup of tea.
Think we learnt this in one of the previous episodes, Not my cup of tea – I have to find out what episode that was…right, it was episode 127 called Cheesy jokes and we learnt expressions like Cheesy Jokes and Not My cup of tea so you can check that out.
And it doesn’t only have to be related with food, it can be used in any situation.
I am not a fan of public transport. I am not a fan of high heels. I am not a fan of Justin Bieber.
It’s a polite way to say that you don’t like something. I am not a fan of blah blah blah
Ok, so there we go amigos y amigas. You’ve just learnt the most common questions that someone will ask you about food. I have also given you something extra – how to respond politely if there is something you hate or don’t like. Simply answer: I am not a fan of… blah blah.
Cool bananas, muchachos y muchachas. We have reached the end of today’s episode.
Before we finish, let me send a special hello to Nicolás from Santiago de Chile who messaged me via Facebook, said he recently started listening to the EMS show and he is enjoying it very much, and he is learning a lot which is cool. He is a new raving fan of the show. Welcome Nicolás keep listening amigo.
Amigos, if you enjoyed this episode of the English Made Simple Podcast, please share it with your friends who may also find it helpful as well!!
You’ve been jamming with Milena from English Made Simple. It’s been a pleasure amigos y amigas, you’ve been an amazing audience, I shall see you next time. Until then, hasta la proxima!