How to Talk about your Vacation

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Hello, I’m teacher Robin. Today we’re going to talk about our vacation plans. I know everyone is probably ready for a vacation, you might be planning one right now. The situation, the pandemic situation, is improving a lot, many people are now vaccinated, so we can start to make these vacation plans. So I’m going to take you through before your vacation, during your vacation, how to write a short postcard to your friends and family and then, afterwards, how to describe your vacation to your friends, your colleagues, your family, when you come back and they want to know all about it.

Okay, so let’s start with the before. So your colleagues, your friends, may ask you about your plans. So they might say “Where are you going on vacation?” or “Where are you going on holiday?” So remember, in American English, we say “vacation” and in British English, they say “holiday”. So it’s the same. I’m going on vacation. I’m going on holiday, same thing. Alright. So when we already have plans for our vacation, we use the present continuous to talk about these definite future plans. Okay, so if someone says, “Where are you going?” “What are you doing?”, you can say “I’m going to…” Okay, so present continuous. “I’m going to Italy.” “I’m taking a trip.” “I’m traveling to the Bahamas.” “I’m having a staycation.” So if you’ve seen some of my previous videos about the pandemic, etc. a “staycation” is when you have time off from work, but you don’t go anywhere, you stay at home, you stay in your in your town, in your area. But you do some fun things around the area that you live in, which is also fine. Maybe you don’t have a budget for travel this year, or you’re not vaccinated yet, or you don’t quite feel like traveling long distances yet. So that’s fine. You can also have a staycation. So remember, the present continuous is “to be” plus the verb with “ing”. So I’m going, I’m taking, I’m traveling, etc. So this is how we talk about our plans before we actually go on our vacation.

And if your vacation plans are something that you do every year, every summer, for example, if it’s a habitual plan, not a one time vacation, you can also use the present simple. For example, “We go to our lake house every summer” or “I visit my grandparents every July”. Okay, so if it’s a habitual action that happens again and again and again, every year every summer, for example, you can use the present simple. So that’s the difference here, if it’s a one time thing, we would use the present continuous to talk about our vacation plans or you can tell people what you do every year, if that’s the case for you.

Now, when you are on your vacation, you might want to write a postcard to your friends and family. Now this is something that is a bit of a lost art, which means that people don’t do it as much anymore. The same as writing letters. People don’t write letters anymore. But I think that writing postcards to your friends and family is a very inexpensive, cheap way to give them something that they can keep. And that will make them happy. And sometimes it’s hard to know when you’re traveling, what kind of souvenir, so what kind of things you can buy when you’re there that you might want to give as a gift to your family and friends. So I think a postcard with a beautiful picture, scenery, of the place that you are in is a great way to kind of give a gift and remind your friends or family that you’re thinking of them while you are on vacation. So I’m going to show you how to write a very short postcard and, if you want more information about postcards, Marian has a video coming out this week as well about how to write a postcard. So we have plenty of information for you. I’m going to give you a very short example and you can apply it to your travel situation. Okay, so we start our postcard with “Dear Mom”, for example. Dear Mom, “I’m having a great time in Rome”. Okay, so whatever city you’re in, I’m having a great time in Rome, Athens, New York City, etc. Okay, “Today I visited the Colosseum and ate pizza.” So you can fill in the blank here. I visited and talk about the places you visited, and what things you ate. Because when we travel to new places, it’s fun to try the different foods. So today, I visited the Colosseum and ate pizza. “Wish you were here”. So this is a typical expression that people say in postcards or when they’re on vacation. Wish you were here, it means I wish you were on this trip with me. It’s another way to say “I miss you”. Okay, wish you were here. “Love”. Or if it’s not a love situation, love or “All the best” or “See you soon”. And then your name. So “Love, Robin”. Okay, so this is how you can write a very short postcard to your friends and family to let them know you are thinking of them while you’re on your vacation.

So when you get back home, after the vacation is over, everyone is going to ask you “Tell us about your vacation”. “Tell us about your holiday.” “What did you do?” “Where did you go?”. So some typical questions that you might be asked. And your answers will always be in the past simple because this is a completed action. So you did it in the past and now you’re home and it’s finished. So if someone says “What did you do?”, you can say “I visited the Empire State Building”. “I toured the ancient ruins”, for example. Okay, so these verbs visit and tour, I visited, past simple, I toured. Okay, “Where did you go?” I or we so I’ve been using the subject “I”, but if you’re traveling with a group or with your partner, you would use “we”. “We went to” or “I went to Iceland”, for example. What did you see? I saw, “I saw the the whales”, “I saw mountains”, “I saw snow”. So all kinds of different things. So I saw and you can tell them what it is. “Did you enjoy it?” Okay, so remember, when we’re talking about our experience, we can use the verb enjoy. Okay? Did you enjoy it? You can say “Yes, I enjoyed it” or “No, I didn’t enjoy it”. Or you can also list the things that you enjoyed. “I enjoyed the…” “I enjoyed the ancient ruins”, “I enjoyed the food”. And in the negative, on the other hand, something that you did not enjoy. You can say I did not, “I didn’t enjoy the expensive prices”, “I didn’t enjoy the crowds”, etc. Another way to say “I didn’t enjoy” is “I didn’t care for…” Okay, if you didn’t like something, “I didn’t care for the food” if you didn’t like it, for example.

So people might also ask you, “What was your favorite thing?” So kind of like your top? What was your top experience, your top thing? What was your favorite thing? And “What was your least favorite thing?” So you can say “My favorite thing was…” or “My least favorite thing was…” because we’re talking about the past. Okay, so some, some adjectives that you can use to describe a good experience and some adjectives to describe a bad experience. Hopefully that’s not the case. But let’s see. So you can say “The beach is wonderful”. “The mountains are fascinating.” So remember, depending on whether it’s singular or plural, you will use “is” or “are”. So we have “wonderful”, “fascinating”, “amazing”, “incredible”. Okay, so these are all adjectives to describe a great experience, a great vacation. Some negative ones could be “overrated”. “The gondolas in Venice are overrated”, for example. Some more adjectives are “boring”, “expensive”, again, so overrated means that people talk about it a lot, but then when you actually experienced that you think that it wasn’t that great. So that’s what overrated means. Okay, so if you do have some negative comments, that’s how you could describe it.

Okay. And they might ask you, “What do you recommend?” So you can say, in the present simple, “I recommend…” or if it’s, if you really liked it, “I highly recommend…” and that would be followed by a noun or a gerund, so “I highly recommend the walking tour” or “I highly recommend walking around the city”. So, either way, and the opposite would be “I don’t recommend” or “I do not recommend” plus a noun or a gerund.

Okay. And we can also use the modal verb, we can also use modal verbs like “have to” and “must” when giving recommendations. So to give extra emphasis about something that you want people to experience if they’re going to go to the same place. So you can say, “You have to see the sunrise from the mountain top”. Okay, so this means do it, it’s really good. “You must visit the Colosseum.” So when we use this “have to” and “must” it’s like giving a really high recommendation to your friends and family.

Okay. And now I want you to tell me in the comments, you can comment below. Where are you going on vacation this year? And, if you want, you can describe a past vacation for us using some of the vocabulary that I’ve just given you. So I hope you find this class useful. Whatever you are planning for your vacation or your holiday, I hope it’s a great one. So thanks for watching. Take care, and I’ll see you next time.