Improve Your English: English in Everyday Life

big deal
, and we like to see him win just ’cause 
it’s more interesting when he does. Um, yeah, usually we 
watch the 
eighteenth hole
.
INTERVIEWER:
Th
e eighteenth hole?
STUDENT:
Yeah, that’s pretty much it. My dad, we’ll, we, uh, 
my dad has that complex where you have to switch around 
the channels all the time so, uh, we’ll-we’ll go back and 
forth but we’ll-we’ll really watch the eighteenth hole.
INTERVIEWER:
Are there any non-American sports that 
you like?
STUDENT:
Uh, soccer. Uh, World Cup, that was really fun. 
Um, that’s really international. And then the Olympics—
actually, I don’t know, I really like other things more than 
the Olympics, but everyone plays there. Uh, rugby is 
international.
5. HOCKEY
WOMAN:
Uh, I used to, I used to have season tickets with 
my dad, and I used to go to minor league hockey also with 
my dad when I was in Montreal. It’s a lot harder to follow 
here, and since we work mostly nights, then never, can 
never watch the games so it’s—I do, I do miss hockey.
INTERVIEWER:
Did you play as you were coming up?
WOMAN:
Yes. Yes. Oh, that was fun. Th
at’s actually a 
good story. Uh, I’ve always loved, you know, ice-skating. 
From the minute I could stand up, my dad bought me ice 
skates, of course, you know. And by the age of, like, four, 
uh, fi ve or six, you know, I don’t know if they have, like, 
girl hockey in the United States, but in Canada, you have, 
like, girl teams and guy teams, but the girl teams, the, it’s-
it’s not a real hockey stick, it’s just a stick with a ring, and 

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basically you just, like, put the stick, you know, inside the 
ring and that’s how you drag it on the ice, so it’s not real 
hockey. It’s weird. And basically, that’s girl hockey, and I 
did not like that so after a couple of weeks of, like, play-
ing that when I was fi ve, I got really upset and I was, like, 
“Dad, I want to play with the guys. Th
is is not hockey!” 
So my dad actually was able to, like, you know, put me 
in the, in the real hockey team with all the boys, and, 
you know, when you’re fi ve, it’s OK, but by the time I was 
eight, some of the coaches and other boys and parents 
had issues about having, like, a girl in the locker room, so 
that’s when I stopped playing hockey. But I did play real 
hockey for a couple of years as a kid. It was great.
6. A COMMON GROUND