Name: Private Lives. Part 5. | BBC Learning English.
Uploaded: 2026-02-26T12:56:31.000Z
Duration: 9 min 28 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...

At the moment I like boys with quite long hair also.

Modal verbs - A2

They'd have to be quite a lot like me, like the same things, but

The imperative

not treat me like a girl, treat me like more like a friend.

I have seen the perfect boy actually who I walk past every day as I go to school.

But boys in general, as long as they've got a good personality, although that sounds like a cliche, it is true, that is the only thing that really matters.

But good taste in music and clothes also helps.

Anna is 15 years old and she goes to Prendergast School, a secondary school in South East London.

Like most teenagers, Anna's very interested in pop music and clothes and she juggles school studies with spending time with her friends.

During the program we'll hear Anna talk about where she lives and her favourite pop bands.

First, Anna describes her bedroom at home.

In one corner there are the treasures of a much younger Anna, dolls and teddy bears.

But there is plenty of evidence of her current passions for fashion magazines and pop music, especially a kind of American pop music called grunge.

Anna even describes herself as a grunger.

I've got loads of posters on the walls of my favourite bands which are grunge bands and metal bands and.

And I have a desk with my work concealed inside.

And next to my bed I've got a CD player and speakers and a radio.

As you'll notice on my floor we have a lot of magazines spread everywhere which I haven't tidied up yet.

And in the corner of my room I still have my doll's house which I've had since I was about 4.

This is kind of a memory of days gone by when I was a little girl and not a grunger.

I also have dolls and teddies which I still love very much and I can't bring myself to get rid of them so they have to stay there.

In another corner of Anna's bedroom is her guitar and she's recently learnt to play several pop songs.

So on a typical weekday evening before she settles down to do her homework, Anna practises playing songs like Live Forever by Oasis.

Oasis is one of the most successful British pop bands of the 1990s.

As well as playing the guitar, Anna listens to something from her CD collection almost every day.

When I get in from school I generally like to put some music on and listen to rock music, grunge or metal, which is kind of guitar based music.

I like to listen to Nirvana, Bush, placebo, but

I also like Oasis, which I've liked quite, quite a few years now.

And I also like to play the music on the guitar and sing it and live forever.

Biosis is one of the first songs I actually learnt to play on the guitar, which I'm quite proud of and memories of that song often come back to me.

Now Anna introduces us to her best friend, Rebecca.

They're both in the same class at school and they both face GCSE exams in a few weeks time.

GCSE stands for General Certificate in Secondary Education.

These are the major public exams taken by students at the age of 15 or 16 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

To get a place at college, you have to achieve good results in about six GCSE exams.

So for students like Anna and Rebecca, the pressure is on.

The girls first met when they were 11 years old.

We've known each other for going on about four or five years now.

we first met at this school when we both started in the first year.

I don't remember exactly how we met, but I think we were talking about subjects.

It was one of the first days of school and I think we just hit it off occasionally.

There are clashes and we have occasional tiffs, I think.

But underneath it all we are very good friends and I think the fact that we do occasionally fight shows how close we are to each other.

It's more like almost sisters than friends because we can talk about anything and we do a lot of stuff together.

I think we're alike in that we both know what we want and we're both quite determined to get that.

Also, we like the same music and have the sort of same tastes in boys and clothes and a lot of things really television programs.

But the differences are that perhaps Becca is more forceful and I sometimes stand back a bit.

Rebecca and Anna are wearing their school uniform, but

they talk about the kind of clothes that they like to wear out of school, such as heavy boots and baggy trousers.

Anna explains why they reject girly girl clothes and and dress like tomboys.

The reason we want to wear these kind of almost boyish clothes is because we don't want to look like a typical girl with sort of pink dresses and being very good and looking pretty and everything.

We want to take the boys on and show them what we're made of because we can take them on any day and it's a matter of just really throwing away the old kind of girly girl things which your grandma would like and Looking more like a kind of rebel and this is what we want and this is what we do and that's why we wear those clothes.

Anna went on to say that most of the clothes in her bedroom wardrobe are practical unisex clothes like jeans and T shirts.

However, she likes boys who look quite feminine and her ideal boyfriend sounds quite extraordinary at the moment.

I like boys with quite long hair who wear makeup and nail varnish, which is a big fashion, as there is a band called Placebo who do and all of them are men but they all look quite feminine, which I find quite attractive and so do a lot of people these days.

Also, they'd have to be quite a lot like me, like the same things, but

I have seen the perfect boy actually, who I walk past every day as I go to school.

He is absolutely gorgeous and has all these features.

But boys in general, as long as they've got a good personality.

Although that sounds like a cliche, it is true, that is the only thing that really matters.

Next, Anna describes how she would spend an ideal Saturday with her friend Rebecca, shopping, listening to music and talking.

They'd talk about life, the universe and everything, especially what's bugging them, irritating them.

The ideal Saturday, well, it would have to be probably going out to a market, one of London's many, where they sell the clothes that we like and the jewellery, which is kind of small, earrings, rings and bracelets with also colourful nail varnish and good shoes.

After that we'd probably go back to one of our houses and then listen to some music for a while and generally talk about life, the universe and everything, our friends, boyfriends, school and everything that's bugging us.

In the evening, Anna and Rebecca would go out to a club, a club for under 18 year olds where there are no alcoholic drinks sold.

They'd listen to a band or dance and then they'd go back to stay at one of their houses.

After getting back at a reasonably late time, we'll probably get into bed and then talk for a few more hours until the early hours of the morning, in which case we'll probably wake up at about midday the next day, very tired but very happy.

And on Sunday afternoon there would be homework to tackle for school the next day.

Anna and Rebecca both want to go on to university or art college and they encourage each other with their school studies.

Both Rebecca and Anna have very supportive families and the girls do their best to take growing up in their stride.

And Anna says she feels very happy to know that her mother is always ready to listen and easy to talk to.

She's not at all worried about talking to me about, well, I suppose the facts of life and how I'm growing up and everything.

I remember not so long ago when she was giving me the speech about boyfriends and advice that she could give me.

And I remember telling her, look, you don't have to be cool.

And I don't think anything's going to happen in the near future.

But I'm very grateful to her anyway because I like to know where I stand with my mother and to know that she's cool enough to talk with me about these things, which some, I'm sure, wouldn't.

And she told me that if I ever needed any advice, then she would be there for me.

And, you know, she didn't mind what I did as long as I was okay and happy.

And so I told her, thank you very much, and

I don't think anything will happen, but I'm very grateful to know that you are there.