Daily Life

Everyday English

• My Morning A1 I wake up at six. I drink a glass of water. Then I wash my face. My mother is in the kitchen. She makes tea. I say, "Good morning, Mum."
• At the Market A1 On Sunday I go to the market with my sister. The market is big and noisy. There are many people. We buy tomatoes, onions and chili. The chili is very…
• My Family A1 I live with my family in a small house. My father is a driver. My mother is a teacher. I have one brother. His name is Rio. He is twelve years old.
• A Rainy Day A1 Today it is raining. The sky is grey. The street is wet. I do not have an umbrella. I wait at the door of the shop. Many people wait with me.
• The Bus to Work A1 Every day I take the number ten bus. It comes at seven fifteen. I stand at the bus stop with a coffee. The bus is old and green. The driver is a kind…
• Dinner at Home A1 It is seven o'clock. My mother cooks chicken soup. The kitchen smells good. I help her. I cut the onions. My eyes are wet. Onions are difficult!
• A New Phone A1 My old phone is broken. The screen is black. Today I buy a new phone. It is blue. It is not expensive. The shop man puts in my SIM card.
• I Am Sick A1 Today I am sick. I have a headache and a fever. I do not go to work. I stay in bed. My room is quiet. My cat sleeps next to me.
• The Weekend A1 On Saturday I do not work. I wake up late. I clean my room. I wash my clothes. Then I go to a small cafe with my friend Sari. We drink iced tea.
• My Small Room A1 My room is small. There is a bed, a table and a chair. There is one window. In the morning the sun comes in. I like the light. I have a plant on the…
• Late for Work A2 Yesterday I woke up late because my alarm didn't ring. I looked at my phone and it was already seven thirty. I jumped out of bed, put on my clothes…
• Cooking for Friends A2 Last Saturday I cooked dinner for three friends. I never cook for other people, so I was a bit nervous. I chose fried rice because it's easy and…
• The Lost Wallet A2 On Tuesday I lost my wallet. I noticed it at the shop when I wanted to pay for milk. My pocket was empty. I checked my bag, then my other pocket,…
• A Visit to the Doctor A2 For two weeks I had a cough that didn't go away. At first I thought it was nothing, but then I started to feel tired all the time. My mother told me…
• Moving to a New Apartment A2 Last month I moved to a new apartment. It's smaller than my old one, but it's closer to my office and the rent is cheaper. It has one bedroom, a tiny…
• The Broken Motorbike A2 On Monday morning my motorbike didn't start. I tried five times. Nothing. I was already late, so I left it and took a taxi. It cost a lot more than…
• Shopping for Shoes A2 I needed new shoes because my old ones had a hole in the bottom. I could feel every stone on the road. On Saturday I went to the mall with my sister.…
• A Phone Call from Mother A2 My mother calls me every Sunday evening at seven. She lives in a small town far from the city, and I only see her twice a year. The calls are always…
• The Hot Season A2 This month is the hottest of the year. In the afternoon the air feels heavy, and the street outside my office is empty because nobody wants to walk.…
• My First Day at Work A2 Last week I started a new job at a small company. I was so nervous the night before that I couldn't sleep. I changed my shirt three times in the…
• Learning to Say No B1 🔒 Premium For most of my life I have said yes to everything. Extra work on the weekend? Yes. Helping a friend move house on my only day off? Yes. Lending money I didn't really have? Yes. I…
• The Neighbour's Noisy Dog B1 🔒 Premium My neighbour Pak Hendra has a dog called Bobby. Bobby is small, brown and extremely loud. He barks at motorbikes, at cats, at the rain, and at nothing at all. He is especially…
• Saving for a Laptop B1 🔒 Premium Eight months ago I decided to buy a laptop. My old one died in the middle of a video call, and I'd been borrowing my brother's ever since. The one I wanted cost about three months…
• A Day Without a Phone B1 🔒 Premium Last Sunday I left my phone at home on purpose. I'd been reading about how much time people spend on their screens, and I checked my own number: over five hours a day. I didn't…
• The Family Dinner Argument B1 🔒 Premium Every year on my father's birthday, the whole family eats together at my parents' house. It's supposed to be a happy evening. This year, it wasn't, at least not at first. The…
• Traffic and Patience B1 🔒 Premium I've been driving to work through the same traffic for four years. Every morning it takes between forty minutes and an hour and a half to travel eleven kilometres. Every morning,…
• Trying a New Recipe B1 🔒 Premium I'm not a good cook. I can make about five things, and I've been making the same five things for years. Last week my flatmate showed me a video of someone making a Thai green curry…
• The Doctor's Advice B1 🔒 Premium At my last check-up, the doctor told me my blood pressure was too high for someone my age. I'm thirty-four. She asked about my diet, my sleep and how much I exercise. I answered…
• Working from Home B1 🔒 Premium When my company said we could work from home two days a week, I was delighted. No traffic, no uncomfortable office chair, no colleague eating noodles at the next desk. I imagined…
• The Old Photo B1 🔒 Premium While cleaning a cupboard last weekend, I found a photo I hadn't seen for fifteen years. It shows my grandmother, my mother and me in front of our old house. I'm about six, holding…
• The Art of Small Talk B2 🔒 Premium I used to think small talk was a waste of time. Conversations about the weather, the traffic, whether the coffee machine was working again — they seemed like noise, a social tax…
• Why I Stopped Buying Cheap Things B2 🔒 Premium For most of my twenties I bought the cheapest version of everything. Shoes, kitchen knives, umbrellas, headphones — if there was a budget option, I chose it. My logic seemed…
• A Grandmother's Kitchen B2 🔒 Premium My grandmother's kitchen had no recipes. Not one. In forty years of cooking for a family of nine, she never wrote down a measurement, never consulted a book, never watched anyone…
• Commuting: The Hidden Cost B2 🔒 Premium When I took my current job, I did the calculation that everyone does: the salary was higher, the company was better known, the role was a step up. The office was on the other side…
• Living with a Roommate B2 🔒 Premium I'd lived alone for six years before Adi moved in, and I'd forgotten how much of my life was built around nobody else being there. I ate standing up. I left dishes for days. I…
• The Weight of a Full Inbox B2 🔒 Premium There's a number in the corner of my email app that I've come to fear: the count of unread messages. At the moment it says 1,247. I know from experience that most of these are…
• Learning to Cook Alone B2 🔒 Premium When my marriage ended, the first thing I had to relearn was dinner. For nine years someone else had cooked, or we'd cooked together, and food had been something that happened…
• Sleep, and Why I Ignored It B2 🔒 Premium I used to be proud of how little I slept. Five hours, sometimes four, and I'd arrive at the office before everyone else with a coffee and a look of quiet superiority. Sleep was for…
• The Neighbourhood Is Changing B2 🔒 Premium When I moved to this street fifteen years ago, it had a specific kind of quiet. There was a warung on the corner where old men played chess in the afternoon, a tailor whose sewing…
• A Difficult Conversation with My Father B2 🔒 Premium My father and I don't talk about feelings. We talk about football, about the price of fuel, about whether the roof needs fixing again. This is not unusual for men of his…
• On Being Busy C1 🔒 Premium Ask anyone how they are these days and the answer arrives before the question has finished: busy. So busy. Crazy busy. It's delivered with a small exhale, a shake of the head, a…
• The Quiet Economics of a Family Meal C1 🔒 Premium There's a meal my family eats every Sunday that, if you costed it properly, would be one of the most expensive things we do. Not in ingredients — the ingredients are cheap, rice…
• Rain, and the Way a City Slows C1 🔒 Premium The rain here doesn't fall so much as arrive. There's a change in the light first, a bruising of the sky over the western hills, and then the wind picks up in a way that sends the…
• The Phone in the Room C1 🔒 Premium There's a study I keep returning to, not because its findings are surprising but because they're so quietly damning. Researchers seated pairs of strangers together and asked them…
• What My Mother Never Said C1 🔒 Premium My mother has never once told me she loves me. I say this not as an accusation — it would be a strange one, given how thoroughly the fact has been demonstrated in other ways — but…
• The Second Job C1 🔒 Premium By day I work in an office, doing things with spreadsheets that I could explain to you but that would not make either of us happier. By night, three evenings a week and most of…
• A Small Apartment, a Large Life C1 🔒 Premium I live in twenty-six square metres, which is smaller than some people's kitchens and considerably smaller than what my parents consider a home. There's a bed that folds up, a table…
• Illness as Interruption C1 🔒 Premium I was ill for most of last winter — nothing dramatic, no diagnosis that would earn sympathy at parties, just a fatigue that arrived in October and declined to leave until March. I…
• The Neighbour I Never Met C1 🔒 Premium He lived across the hall for six years, and I know almost nothing about him. A man in his sixties, I'd guess, thin, always in a pressed shirt, who left at seven and returned at six…
• Leaving, Without Going Anywhere C1 🔒 Premium There's a particular fantasy that visits most people in their thirties, and it visited me on a Tuesday, in traffic, somewhere between the third and fourth kilometre of a commute…