In this episode of Real English Conversations, you'll hear Lori talking to Kyla, who is a musician just like Lori. They met on Skype to talk about a book that they both enjoyed, "Daily Rituals,", by Mason Currey.

It turned out that Kyla and Lori had a lot more to talk about than the book! In fact, they didn’t even start talking about the book until several minutes into the conversation. So you’ll have to wait until part two for that.

In this first part, you’ll hear them breaking the ice by talking about guitars and practicing and other things we have in common. This was a normal thing to do because it was the first time they ever spoke to each other.

You’ll be hearing lot of informal American English, including tons of phrasal verbs. The best way to learn idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs is in context. So make sure to download the free transcript and bonus vocabulary lesson so you can read along while you listen, and study the vocabulary. You'll hear phrases like:

to step up to the plate

to come up with something

to streamline

freaky (adv., adj.)

to get used to something

to pick something up

halfway decent

to circle back (to) something