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btn_lipservice.gifHobbies

Here’s another episode based on a great episode idea from a Culips listener! Outside of work or school, hopefully you have some free time just for yourself. In this episode, Maura and Harp discuss hobbies, what hobbies are popular in Canada and the US, and their own hobbies, past and present. Does it really sound natural to ask someone directly, “What are your hobbies?” We’ll answer that question for you too!

Maura Harp

Harp: I have to be honest; I didn’t actually ever make anything. I just knit long pieces that could maybe be a scarf, but I didn’t know how to finish it, so I just threw in the towel and gave up knitting.
Maura: Sometimes that happens, too. We start a hobby and then time passes and we realize that we’re not interested, or maybe it’s too difficult, like in your case, and you just want a change. You don’t wanna do it anymore.
Harp: Yeah, exactly. What about you? What were some hobbies you did when you were young?
Maura: Well, when I was a kid, I took dance lessons.
Harp: Oh, that’s fun. What kind of dance?
Maura: I pretty much took it all. I started in ballet, and I took tap dancing for a year or two, and the rest of the years I was doing jazz dancing.
Harp: Oh, that’s fun.
Maura: It was pretty fun and I liked it, but when I become a teenager, I didn’t really wanna do it anymore.

Expressions from this episode included in the Learning Materials:

Free time, spare time, a pastime An artist
Out there Knitting, scrapbooking, and cross-stitching
The metro To go through a phase
What do you do in your spare time? To stick with someone
To take something up To suck at something
To throw in the towel Ballet
To have two left feet

Podcast/Learning Materials: Culips English Podcast, Image: ©iStock