Name: Talking at the table ⏲️ 6 Minute English
Uploaded: 2024-05-05T20:27:07.000Z
Duration: 6 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

I'm Neil. And I'm Beth. In this programme,

we will be discussing the dinner table, but we're not interested in food.

A lot can happen around the dinner table.

You might meet the love of your life on a blind dinner date,

did you eat with your family around a dinner table?

It was something we did every day and, quite often,

it was the only time we could get together and chat.

I think there's something very comforting about eating good food

talk more easily, about their day or something troubling them

Well, the dinner table is a space that families across the world

not only eat but chat, and is often the only point in the day or week

that the whole family gathers together. In this programme,

we'll be discussing how people behave at the table and, of course,

we'll be learning some useful new vocabulary as well.

But first, I have a question for you, Beth.

a couple from Germany won the world record

for the fastest time to set a dinner table.

I'll reveal the answer later in the programme.

Now, while eating with a group, you might

feel that you need to act in a certain way

because of the people around you. Philippa Perry, a psychotherapist

and author, thinks we should try to be ourselves as much as possible,

if we're only ever with our family, we might think

And then we go to another group and then we find

And I think if you feel like you're assigned a role in your family,

I just think, take that with a little bit of a pinch

you might start to think of yourself as the funny one or the wise one.

When we say the ... one, we describe a person

by using a particular and prominent characteristic

we should take these labels with a pinch of salt. An idiom meaning

you shouldn't believe or do everything you're told

over time, interactions at the dinner table have changed. In the past,

children were sometimes seated on a different table to adults or told

they should be seen and not heard – an old-fashioned phrase emphasising

that children should be quiet and always on their best behaviour.

Ambreia Meadows-Fernandez, a writer and founder

of Free Black Motherhood spoke about older generations' reactions

to children asking awkward questions at the dinner table, to BBC

but I also know that it is kind of a bit of a culture shock

for them to hear my children ask the questions that they ask

because our children haven't really been raised with that line of demarcation

between the adult table and the kid table.

that the older generations' reactions to her children's questions

at the table can be a mixed bag. A mixed bag is a situation that can have

positive and negative aspects. She also says that

it's a culture shock for them – a sense of feeling uncertain

because you're in a different environment to usual.

OK, Beth. I think it's time I revealed the answer to my question.

And I said it was one minute and five seconds.

we have learned from this programme, starting with open up – a phrasal

verb meaning speak more easily than usual,

If someone is the funny one or the wise one,

they're labelled by that particular characteristic.

To take something with a pinch of salt means

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Talking at the table ⏲️ 6 Minute English

phrase

reveal

ritual

recap