hey Lindsay how are you awesome I'm feeling solid today Michelle how are you feeling
I'm good I'm good you know what I was thinking about when I was a kid and I don't know it was
so much fun when I was a kid I would always play with my brother's friends would you play
with like your brother's friends I know you have a brother too I have a brother
but it was exactly the opposite so I'm the older sister he's the younger brother so he
would run after us and then sometimes I'd be like oh you can't come you know
um you know and then he would come in crying to our mom yo oh geez yeah kids right yeah yeah yeah
and you're you're close with your brother yeah I think we're I don't know if we're super close
but we have a good relationship you know what I mean like we we're now we're dealing with my
aunt stuff and dealing with our parents people are getting old in our lives and we're so far
so good we're doing a really good job of and I trust him and so I I'm very I feel lucky to
have a sibling that I trust and and love so yay you're close to your brother too aren't you yeah
yeah yeah yeah we're close it's we have a very sarcastic relationship so I yeah you said that
it's hard for me to not make a joke about him um that's pretty fun that must have been fun growing
up with that kind of yeah back and forth yeah that's cool that's cool yeah it's a consonant so
um but Lindsay did you notice so I said when I was a kid I would always play with my brother's
friends so that's what we're talking about today the word would um because we have a great question
from YouTube from Navid Gaul um and I'm excited to get into this today we're really going to be
focusing on one aspect of the word wood Lindsay could you read the question for us okay let's go
into the question real quick I'm excited because they're going to get into a little grammar here
for our listeners and I know our listeners are always asking for grammar right in with a focus
on connection of course here we go this came from YouTube and by the way YouTube is a great place to
consume this podcast Michelle right right that's right go to YouTube type in all learns English so
Navid ghoul says hi you both are amazing I've been learning a lot through your videos I never thought
English learning could be this easy and fun yeah I love the way that Michelle says thank you
[Music] anyway well thank you thank you I hope that was it and and Naveed asks please make a
video on the usage of wood in the past all right okay so this is a great question so thank you for
that question um so guys head on over to Ollie's English 1968 after you listen to this episode it's
must should May and shall in English so another good grammar type episode so um guys there are
tons of ways to use wood in the past but today we're going to focus on one really useful one and
then we can do a follow-up on other ones as well let us know if you're interested in those but this
is really wanted to keep it focused because when I started planning this episode I realized wait but
you can do this this and this and this and this let's just focus on it good call yeah focus on
specific things so today's episode is just about that one way right Michelle yes so the way that
we're gonna focus is about something that like you used to do in the past something that you commonly
used to do like maybe a more you know frequently like I was maybe a habit or as part of your
routine whatever it is so like my first example when I was a kid I would always play with my
brother's friends so I'm not talking I'm talking about like something that was a common occurrence
um I remember being hit in the head many times with a basketball oh but so
um so like you know I'm saying that this was a frequent frequent occurrence so
what's another example Lindsay okay so we do often shorten this to IDE right Michelle
we should make sure our listeners know that but we'll start with wood first so here's an example
she would call her mother every day when she was younger but now she only calls once a week
okay so she would so a habit in the past right yes right right right how often do you talk to
your parents I talked to my parents pretty much every weekend now yeah okay which but not every
day I don't have time they don't have time I mean no but yeah every weekend feels good for us that
feels like a good Cadence so is it like a long catch up then because if you talk yeah yeah yeah
somewhat long I mean there's not always a ton of things to say right but uh yeah maybe 10 to
20 minutes but yeah you know the love is there so that's what matters that's what matters exactly
um so perfect um or uh here we go every Monday I'd go watch my sister's softball game so I
would could be shortened to I'd she would could be Sheed right that's the important piece here
guys be careful because we often do that don't we Michelle we shorten I would to hide and uh
sure yeah you need the context especially when it comes to listening you want to be able to catch
that when someone says that quickly when a native speaker says that right yeah it's important to to
be able to catch on to that um so yeah again this is is about routine common things you did
um you know like I don't know why but why do you think we would use wood does do you think
it sounds different than she called her mother every day or she like oh um when she was a kid she
called her mother every day or every Monday she watched her sister's softball game I'm not sure
if I have an answer why you would use one of the other I'm just curious like because it's saying
the same thing it's a good question essentially you could say both of course um wood points a bit
more to habits to me yeah you know it's emphasized it is saying the same thing she washed your her
sister's softball games and she would watch but it's like more emphasizing the habitual nature of
that activity yeah yeah right I think so too it it makes it seem more commonplace like it makes
it seem more yeah yeah there's something about it I'm very sad or like reflecting in a positive way
on memories every Saturday we would wake up at 8am we would we would make pancakes as a family
and then we would go for ice cream I don't know just good memories conveying setting the scene
of a habit I think Michelle yeah yeah I agree I like that yeah so I mean there are times for
the you know not using wood just the regular past simple Good Old Faithful and then there are times
to add wood so guys it would be again wood plus the base verb okay yes good okay the construction
we have more examples for that just to make sure we know we see let's do that Lindsay why don't you
do this one okay my dog would follow me all around the house when he was a puppy that's what dogs do
I love that or just keeper still follow you all over yeah these days he's doing that more than he
used to as a puppy actually he's like moved into that more it's really cute how old is Kiefer now
he's three and a half I guess about three and a half almost yeah when you got him he was how old
he was 10 weeks oh my goodness yes that's so cute they grow up so fast they grow up so fast here's
another one my grandmother would write me a letter every day when I was a kid oh very nice yeah
so maybe there's a little bit of a as I said before a hint of nostalgia to using wood too
right as I said positive memories I think it's a little wistful like that's what I was thinking
yeah I like that I like that use whereas if I said my grandmother wrote me a letter every
day when I was a kid that's correct okay but it's a bit more standard it's not adding any
expression or feeling right it's interesting how like a grammar that can have essentially the same
meeting can have still a different feel to it so it's it's really really crazy it is crazy but it
makes sense because language is human right human beings are speaking this language and that's why
we at aller's English always talk about connection not Perfection you can't separate the language
from the human beings right and so they're always going to add emotion to things that's normal yeah
yeah exactly so Lindsay uh we're about to do some conversation topics and we're going to
try and use the word would good okay I'm ready to do that Michelle let's do it here we go all
right so Lindsay tell me about your birthdays as a kid oh my gosh my birthday is as a kid well a
lot of times we would have my party outside right that because I'm a summer birthday yay for Leos
um I think I've been blessed with the summer birthday so we would always have like a picnic
table with birthday cake outside and I would always have friends over at my house and we would
always play games run around balloons ice cream all the good things yeah all the good things well
I am a winter birthday so I my birthdays were the opposite we were I would have my birthday parties
inside and we would always just gather a group of friends um I remember some of my birthdays where
um there was this place called Plaster Fun House you know one of those things where you
paint you know a thing um and then I remember we saw the Spice Girls movie who would always
gather a group and it was fun and then when I was older I would have a lot of my friends
sleep over so that's what we would do got it fun yeah so these so there's a hint of nostalgia here
there's a little emotion there's hinting at something was a habit and it happened every
year right there's a trend so very interesting yeah and then well this is funny I didn't even
remember that I wrote this but what was it like growing up with your brother what fun things did
you do together well we would always travel as a family when I was growing up we we would take
trips we went to Washington DC we'd spent a lot of time in Los Angeles because my aunt lived there
um so we would travel and we would stay in hotels and we would explore big cities in
the U.S so that was always fun yeah yeah yeah with my brother well we would play basketball
and he would pretend to be different characters he would always put on voices for our stuffed animals
we would do elections with the stuffed animals and wow um and also I remember when we would go to on
vacation if there was an indoor pool he would always um like carry me around and pretend that
he was different people and they were competing for who was going to have the best ride at the
pool so he would like always have a different ride and I would have to I would have to rate the ride
and choose whose was the best oh my God you had so much fun I think you had more fun than I did as a
kid with your sibling it is funny how much older is your brother than you he's like six years older
than me that's the difference so my brother and I are only two and a half years where you can get
into the fighting Zone when there's only two and a half or three years you probably cleared that well
cleared that right yeah yeah we didn't really fight like we just made fun of each other the
age difference is bigger yeah yeah when you have like two years one year three years yeah we fought
for sure yeah yeah those kids yeah yeah [Music] [Laughter] um all right fine well here's here's
one more what is one of your favorite childhood memories oh my gosh well for me it's like I said
it's probably the travel as I said you know we would visit um like my grandmother in Delaware
and going around with my parents and just my dad's attitude towards travel was total Adventure you
know like the world is your oyster so we would go together and have Little Adventures so it was
that what about you Michelle yeah also travel like my my aunt lived in New York so we would
go visit her and I loved going to New York uh we would also go to yeah um we would also go to this
place called Willow Valley in Pennsylvania and that we would go there with like for New Year's
and my birthday is around New Year's so we would go there for um like with I've told you about how
we have family friends who were very close with so we would all go to this place for for a few days
um and it was just so much fun oh very cool good memories there's Nostalgia here right we're using
wood we're talking about habitual things and there's definitely nostalgia in this conversation
as well yeah cool yeah so I mean I think the main thing is if someone asks you a question and you're
sharing about something that you did often in the past that maybe you're a little nostalgic for
um try using wood instead of the past simple without wood right throwing wood in there
um so I think that this definitely brings about some depth to talking about the past something
a little bit more than oh uh when I was when I was little I wrote a song right like I mean
it's just like a little more yeah and when I also think about the more standard way of saying like
uh her grandmother baked cookies for her every Saturday morning that also feels like something
you might write in a book like a biography so it's because it becomes more standard or maybe
more less personal yeah what is a little bit more personal I think so yeah let's get closer
to it it's a very fine line right we're really just kind of getting into the real nuances of
English here but I think there's something to that that difference there Michelle yeah yeah so I mean
this we're gonna do one last role play in a second but we wanted to focus on this one unique way so
you guys can really remember it and use it very easily to connect with people right away love
it we need these nuances to connect otherwise we're just speaking like a dictionary which no
one connects with a dictionary right Michelle no one connects with the dictionary I love that
um so all right let's do this role play so we're we are childhood friends and we are sharing
childhood memories all right remember when we were kids and we would run around the lake a million
times oh my goodness yes our parents would get so mad because we never wore shoes yeah I would
go home and I'd have scrapes on my feet sometimes I would too another example of nostalgia telling
stories remembering something that habitually happened in the past sharing that becomes even
more powerful oh my gosh I mean when you get together with your friends like from high school
or from childhood that is the coolest feeling just I remember when we would do this or we
would do that there's nothing like that yeah yeah yeah it's great it's great um so Lindsay what do
you what's the takeaway for today well do we want to go through the role play real quick Michelle
okay okay uh so here we go so what did you say first all right so I said remember when we were
kids and we would run around the lake right run around we would run around again happen all the
time we did it together and then you said oh my goodness yes and then I said our parents would get
so mad because we never wore shoes right and then I said I would go home and I'd have scrapes and I
used wood twice here be careful guys yeah that's right someone snuck in there right because it's
unlikely that we would say I would go home and I would have scrapes more likely we're gonna uh
kind of conjugate oh sorry punctuate both of those or at least one of them to hide yeah that's right
um and then I said I would too that's so good what's the takeaway I think
it's very clear of a difference here why why would matters I mean this is a
grammar episode but it's so much more than a grammar episode right like it was a lot
just talking about how how this grammar actually ties into the human connection
um so I find those things to be really interesting in in language learning um so we focused on one
particular way or listener asked us about wood in the past and we chose one way and we ran with it
um and so I think this is great for connection great for stories great for talking about
Nostalgia oh super powerful way to build connection very quickly and it doesn't mean
you have to have this 25-year history with the person to use this kind of grammar it could just
be your co-worker your native speaking co-worker remember a few years ago at work we would always
do this and now we don't do that anymore that could also be powerful right that's right so
good stuff I love that okay Michelle time jump off the money all right all right thanks to our
listener for that question and we'll be back on very soon take care all right bye guys bye
[Music]