This is an All Ears English Podcast. Are you a Pollyanna? Ways to describe your personality in English. Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times. Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection.
with your American hosts Lindsey McMahon, the English adventurer and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
Do you see things on the bright side? Today, learn six ways to describe your personality to become more interesting in English conversation. Plus, find out about a special offer this week only.
It's amazing when you can focus on your goals and let all distractions fall away. Announcing our B2C1 Fluency Course Bundle, available this week only. In B2, you learn to make your conversations interesting, and then you move on to C1, where you add nuance, sophistication, and precision to your language. Get all of this for 2025 and save up to $200 off the normal price at olersenglish.com slash bundle.
Jump in now because the special bundle price goes away February 2nd at midnight. That's allersenglish.com slash B-U-N-D-L-E. Hey, Michelle, how's it going today? Hi, Lindsay, I'm good. How are you? Fantastic. I'm so happy to be here for this bonus episode. Michelle, how would you describe your personality?
Ooh, I would say I'm a little bit quirky. I would say I love life and I love people. I don't know if that counts as personality, but I think those qualities kind of bring out my personality. I'm enthusiastic. I'm a little nervous.
Yeah. That sounds right. All of that sounds right. People are not simple, right? People are not simple. And this is one of the great things is describing who we are in the world as such a key scale for connection, don't you think?
Yeah, what about you? I want to hear how you could describe yourself. They're not getting off the hook. I'm not getting off the hook. Okay. Well, I've always loved adventure. So I think I'm a pretty adventurous person in every sense of the word, not just physical travel, but also adventure in the sense of taking on challenges. I can be pretty intense, especially when I take on challenges and set goals for myself. I have tunnel vision. I have to achieve this. I also like a love life and I like to connect with people.
I mean, that's why our show is all about. That's true. We couldn't do this if we didn't love people. I don't think it's 100% and that magic moment of connection is what life is about. And I think that's why our listeners listen to all those English too, because they know that as well. Yeah. I mean, would you say that you're a Pollyanna?
I would say when I was younger, I might have been a bit more of a Pollyanna, right? So maybe just, you know, always kind of being super positive even when it's not, doesn't make sense. Or just only saying, just saying everything's going to be great. It's going to be fine, but you're maybe ignoring certain key points. But not now. I think I've got a more balanced perspective at this point.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So today we are going to talk about vocabulary to describe your personality. And it's important to know who you are and to be able to express that to others in order to connect. So it's hard. It's hard to answer that question. How would you describe your personality? Because it doesn't always work in that way. Oh, I'm going to give you three words and it out. It's a little bit tricky because we're complicated people.
Yeah. But it's going to work complex. Complicate. Sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Michelle. Yeah. No, complex. That's a good word for it. I mean, when, you know, there's a lot that you could say to describe a personality. And we know that you may have some words memorized, but some of these words might be kind of typical or textbook or you might not be sure how to use them. What do you think, Lindsey? Exactly, Michelle. And what I love about the C1 level is it's such a fun place to be because this is where we learn to add nuance.
color and sophistication to our language. And we get to learn these high, high level connection skills, describing your personality, using metaphors to describe a situation, really sophisticated things like that, that we're not ready quite yet until we reach C1. But when we're there, we get to learn these things and that builds out your, your social network and your connections. Right. So this is one of the many skills that you do build in our C1 course.
Yes. And this is from module four. And so this gives you a little bit of a taste of the course. So something that we do spend some time on here in this course. And guys, hang out until the end of this episode because we have a special deal on our B2C1 course bundle for 2025. So that's pretty great.
Yeah, it's available this week only. So you definitely want to stay in the episode to find out how to get the deal. But for now, let's go into some details. Now in the C1 course, one of the people, one of the native speakers, Michelle, in all of our courses, what we do is we interview native speakers on video and our listeners get to come into those interviews, listen in on those conversations and pick up things that they never would find in a textbook or a scripted roleplay. One of the people that I spoke with was Jay. And I believe that was where we heard the word.
Polyana to be a polyana yeah yeah so and in this module of the course we really focus on character traits and and actually you guys even take a personality quiz right so you get to learn a little bit about yourself which will in turn help you express yourself to others and build those connections.
Sometimes it can be hard to know what our personality really is. How do we really know compared to who? Taking that quiz is a first step to get some data about who we are, and then we learn how to describe it, which then deepens that connection. What is a Pollyanna? Let's get to what our listeners are thinking. What is this?
Well, yes, well, this comes from because Pollyanna was a book, right, Lindsay? Yeah. About a girl who always looked on the bright side. Yes. But almost in kind of this like naive way, almost, it's almost too much. So, you know, sometimes somebody, so an example would be I tend to be a Pollyanna when it comes to the weather. That means sometimes I'm not prepared.
Actually, I kind of am that way when it comes out. I'm never prepared. Oh my gosh. I never have an umbrella, ever. An umbrella or exhibit A for me is I'm currently recording from the mountains right now where it's negative 13 degrees outside. And I didn't do it this time. I did come with sweaters and socks and things. But when we come up here in the summer, it'll be 95 and sunny and Denver. And I'll be in my cut off shorts and no socks and thinking it'll be great in the mountains. I get to the mountains, it's 55 degrees.
Right, not prepared. Oh, yeah. Um, actually recently, I, yeah, my, um, we were on, we went to explore an area of Philadelphia with my kids and it was one of the coldest days and it was, it was a little bit of a drive and we get there and we're getting out of the car and we realized neither of the kids have their coats. Oh, yeah. It's just,
kind of funny because you just don't imagine it, you know, it feels great where you are, you're going somewhere, it's going to be the same, it's going to be the same, it's going to be fine. Right, that's a little bit, that can be, and usually Pollyanna is used more around, yeah, overall world view, right? This is just kind of a daily, like a funny way, funny play on how you could use. But I think naivete is definitely the word there, right?
And you know, it's nice, right? Because it just means maybe you have an encountered challenges that would change that perspective, maybe, for example, or maybe you've gotten through those challenges and you've come out on the other end with a really kind of rosy perspective on life.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So another one that we go over is make lemonade out of lemons. Yes. Okay. So we've talked about this a little bit before, but basically this is to make something, this is making something sweet out of something sour. So kind of like a Pollyanna, what do you think, Lindsay? 100%. And I think this also came out of my interview with Jay. And this is the connection method right here. So what we do in these interviews in our courses is we take what our
native speaker friends say, and we put them that vocabulary right into the course, the grammar structure is the vocab. So we're learning the real English with the connection method. But yeah, he did say this in the conversation, talking about resourcefulness. We were talking about our parents, actually, and how we're like our parents. How are you like your mom? How are you like your dad?
Also a very interesting question. That is interesting. That is definitely interesting. Yeah. So my mom always tries to make lemonade out of lemon. She's really the most optimistic person I know. So good. And then anxiety prone, I think, Jay said that I think he said his dad, if I remember correctly, got to get in the course to find out, but anxiety prone, I tend to be a bit anxiety prone. I wish I knew how to let those thoughts go.
Yes, that's normal. That's human, right? Yes. Lindsay, which one of these do you identify most with? Oh, but it's so funny. When I was talking with Jay, I thought, yeah, I'm also a combination of my mom and my dad. It was the exact opposite of Jay. So my mom is more anxiety prone.
And my dad is the one who makes lemons out of lemonade. He started his, sorry, lemonade out of lemons. He started his business. So I find that where most people are usually kind of a perfect balance of the two. It's weird. Yeah. Yeah. It is true. It is true.
Um, so let's give a few more. Um, we also have strong willed. This isn't these are just additional ones, not necessarily from the course, but so this is true. My two year old is very strong willed. I think it's a great quality, but oh man, that's true. Isn't it about your two year old? Yeah.
I mean, all two years, the two year olds are, I think we were just talking with her teacher about this. Yeah, she is too. And she's strong. Well, but it's interesting as a parent because you don't want to totally quiet that, right? You don't want to just make her then be completely obedient. I read like, you know, they say parents, it's not good to then be just make your kids obedient because you also want to speak out and be, you know, interesting. Need those like you're up. So Alan.
And it's also cultural, right? I mean, in American culture, at this moment in time, in 2025, this sort of pushing back is valued, right? Speaking out, voicing your opinion, being assertive is very valued in our culture. And it might be different around the world. So those lessons we learn, I always think how cultural they are. What our teachers say, how our kids should be, it's incredibly cultural. Very interesting. It's really interesting. Yeah.
What's another word we can use? Yeah, a pushover. So going in the direction of being overly obedient or kind of docile, kind of, I can be a pushover, but I'm working on it, right? Meaning you just do what people want you to do, kind of sort of we've also used on the podcast. We've used the phrase a doormat to be a doormat. I think Aubrey and I did an episode about that term. Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah, I can be a pushover with my kids because just I Dan is not a pushover. I'm I'm the pushover and yeah, it's hard. It's hard. I guess when you raise kids, you need one person at least one person to be right off on and disciplinarian. I just had a weekend with my niece and I witnessed that too. I mean, she's almost 11. But you know, every moment of the day, her parents are having to choose, right? She asked for something. She tries to push the limits and test test them.
Right. Yep. Oh, yeah. Testing. There's a lot of testing. And then there's the word graceful. I wanted to throw in. Yeah, graceful is such a sweet word. It's nice. She's always been graceful whenever we've interacted. So I know you'll love her, too.
I like that one. I actually like that to describe personality. The typical way to use that is to describe a physical presence. How they move around. Yeah. I just watched the cutting edge over the weekend. Have you seen that one, Michelle, the cutting edge? No. She hasn't seen the cutting. OK, what is going on?
It's such an icon for millennial. I think it's an icon for older millennials, the cutting edge from the 90s, early 90s. Yeah. Go watch it right now. All right. I'm looking it up right now. Okay. So anyways, typically it's used to describe physical grace.
or gracefulness. But here, we're talking about personality, which is much more interesting. And that's actually a goal of our B2 course to become more interesting in your conversation. So between becoming more sophisticated in C1 and becoming more interested in B2, these are the goals, right? This is what you get in these two key courses for the level of our listeners.
Exactly. And with this bundle, we're just, we're really excited about it because this is going to help you guys get to the next level in your English. So this is not just knowing and understanding the words, but getting more confident actually using them. So we have this B2C1 bundle that we're really excited to offer. Lindsey, you want to tell us about it?
Yeah, this is great. So this is how you can get set up for success in 2025. Maybe during our Black Friday offer, you missed that bundle, but this is your second chance. You have another chance. So this is the B2 plus the C1 courses combined together into a bundle, everything you'll need.
for this coming year to reach and surpass the C1 level. So you're going to save when you buy them together at this moment during this promotion. At this time, you can save up to $100 on the basic plan, and you can save $200 on the personal coach plan. But this offer ends. This offer to buy these two as a bundle does end February 2 at midnight. And after that, Michelle, what will happen?
Well, then you would have to buy them separately and then the, so you're paying more essentially. So this is going to help you save up to $200 when you buy before February 2nd at midnight. Exactly. So if you know you're headed in the direction of C1 and past C1 this year, you know you want to set the goal or you're ready to commit. Sometimes just taking the action of purchasing the course is what you need to mentally flip into. This is my year to do this.
So might as well go ahead and get them together now this week. So go to allersenglish.com slash bundle. That's allersenglish.com slash B-U-N-D-L-E. All right. All right. All right. Great opportunity. So should we do a role play? Oh, yeah. We do have a role play. Excellent. Let's do it, Michelle. Yeah. All right. So we are old friends talking about our old teachers. Okay. Here we go. Yes. Okay. I ran into Mrs. Rader yesterday. Oh, wow. She was an awesome teacher.
Yeah, she always made lemonade out of lemons. Definitely. Such a pelliana. Unlike Mr. J. Yeah, he was pretty strong-willed.
Absolutely. I'm anxiety prone, but he made me even more anxious. Oh, yeah, I can see that. Remember Miss Triatt? Oh, yes. She was, of course, she was so graceful. Yeah, a bit of a pushover too. Yeah, of course. Oh, wow. Yeah. I used Jay not thinking about the J is weird. That is really interesting.
Great. All right. Well, here we've got used a lot of what we've talked about today to make our speech more interesting at the B2 level. So yeah, you said, oh, do you remember this teacher, Ms. Radert? And I said, yeah, she was always, she always made lemonade out of lemons, right? And then you said, definitely such a Pollyanna. And then you said, unlike Mr. J, and then I said, yeah, he was pretty strong wilt.
Yep, and then I said, absolutely, I'm anxiety prone, but he made me even more anxious. And then you said, oh, yes, of course, Mrs. Triatt, she was so graceful, graceful. Yeah. And then you said, yeah, a bit of a pushover, too.
Yeah. Again, coming back to the use of Graceful, interestingly here, not to describe, I don't think we're describing the physical nature of the teacher in a way they moved. No, it was more about the way she acted with people. And like I said, I love that way of describing people.
Yeah, yeah, it is nice. It is nice. I hope you liked all the names I made up to that. I know you're good at getting those names. I just, sometimes I put in a letter and then I think, okay, what would go next? I don't know. I want to be making some original names. I know. I haven't seen Stacy and Tracy in a while. So we'll see.
Maybe they'll come back one day. So these are really good guys. I mean the takeaway for today I think is it's important to be able to know who you are and describe yourself and also describe others. I mean this builds connection to be able to describe who you are and express that to other people.
100% and this is what you do, just for a recap, in our B2 course, we become more interesting in conversation. So you add, you know, you become more interesting because you learn new vocabulary, new ways of connecting in that conversation scenario. And then when we move up to C1,
We become more nuanced, more sophisticated, doing things like using metaphors, describing your personality to really solidify those connections. So that is the journey. Over the next year that you could go through if you join us in the bundle, guys. So go over to allersenglish.com slash bundle, but don't forget the offer does expire. Michelle, when does it expire?
February 2nd at midnight. Yeah, so take action now. All right, good stuff, Michelle. Thanks for bringing in these great ideas for us today. Thank you. This was fun. And guys, remember that's bundle V-U-N-D-L-E. You got it. All right, I'll talk to you soon, Michelle. Have a good day. Thanks, you too. Bye. Bye.
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