Blog

Every Thursday and Friday evening this autumn, a big part of Britain is shouting at the television. The reason is The Celebrity Traitors, back on BBC One for a second series since 1 October, with Claudia Winkleman as host and 21 famous faces locked in Ardross Castle in the Scottish Highlands. If you want to understand what your British classmates and colleagues are talking about on Friday morning, this is the programme.

The idea is simple. A few of the players are secretly chosen as Traitors. Everyone else is a Faithful. At night, the Traitors meet in secret and ‘murder’ (= remove from the game, nobody is actually hurt!) one Faithful. During the day, all the players do missions to win money for the prize pot, and then sit at the Round Table, where they accuse each other and vote to banish (= send away) the person they believe is a Traitor. The Faithfuls want to find the Traitors; the Traitors want to survive to the end. In the celebrity version, the prize money goes to charity.

So why do I recommend it to my students? Because it is pure, real, fast British English, and very little of it is scripted.

First, you hear a fantastic range of accents: Welsh, Scottish, Irish, northern English, London, and plenty more, all in one room. Exam recordings never give you that.

Second, the Round Table is a masterclass in polite disagreement and indirect accusation, which is exactly the English that international students find hardest. Listen for phrases like ‘I’m not saying it’s you, but…’, ‘Something doesn’t sit right with me’ (= something feels wrong) and ‘I’ve had a feeling about you since day one’. British people very rarely say ‘I think you are lying’. They hint, and then they vote.

Third, there is the vocabulary of the game itself: to be shielded (= protected from murder for one night), to recruit, to be banished, to be under suspicion, and to throw someone under the bus (= blame someone else to save yourself), which you will hear a lot.

My advice: watch an episode on BBC iPlayer with English subtitles first, then watch the Round Table scene again without them. Write down three phrases people use to accuse someone and three they use to defend themselves. You will be surprised how often you hear the same phrases in seminars and meetings.

If you would like help understanding the English people really use, rather than the English in the coursebook, book a free 30-minute chat with me.