Optimists vs pessimists - 6 Minute English
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- čas přidán 25. 06. 2024
- Improve your English vocabulary and listening in just six minutes! In this programme. We discuss the topic and teach you vocabulary. Are you an optimist or a pessimist? Which one you are may be linked more to your birthplace and age than attitude. Neil and Sam talk about optimists and pessimists.
This week's question
What proportion of the British population, do you think, describe themselves as optimistic? Is it:
a) 20 percent?
b) 50 percent?
c) 80 percent?
Watch the programme to find out the answer.
Vocabulary
glass-half-full person
someone with an optimistic attitude who tends to focus on the positive side of life
Debbie Downer
(US slang) someone who makes others feel bad by focussing on the bad or depressing side of things
sugarcoat
to make something seem better than it really is
hyper-
(prefix) having too much of a quality eg. hyperactive, hypersensitive
rock bottom
lowest possible level
grumpy old man
describes someone who complains a lot, is moody and intolerant, and gets easily annoyed
[Cover: Getty Images]
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#bbclearningenglish #learnenglish #optimism
Quality content,as always.I need this.I've been literally reaching near the rock bottom of despair.Having listened to this, I'm going to focus on the sunny side of my life.😎 Cheers🍻
That's great, Arrkii! We are happy for you.🤗
Neil: Hello. This is 6 minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil
Sam: And I'm Sam
Neil: We often here phrases such as 'dream big' or 'reach for the stars' which reflect an optimistic view of life. Are you an optimist, Sam ?
Sam: I hope so! I try to see the positive sides of life, even when something bad happens.
Neil: It sounds like you're a glass-half-full person - someone who always thinks that good things will happen.
Sam: How about you, Neil ? Are you optimistic?
Neil: Look, things go wrong all the time - that's a fact of life. Call me a pessimist if you like but I'm just being realistic.
Sam: Hmm, It sounds like Neil is more of a glass-half-empty person, but the truth is that the age-old debate between optimism and pessimism is more complex than we think.
Neil: Yes, whether you're a sunny optimist or a gloomy pessimist may be determined more by your birthplace and your age than your attitude, as we'll be finding out in this programme.
Sam: Great! I've got a good feelings about this, Neil !
Neil: But first, as usual, I have a question for you, Sam. Psychologists define optimism as an attitude which overestimates the chances of good things happening to you, while underestimating the chances of bad things occuring. So what proportion of the British population, do you think, describe themselves as optimistic ? Is it:
a) 20 pecent ?
b) 50 percent ?
or, c) 80 percent ?
Sam: I'll choose the largest - 80 percent...
Neil: Ok, Sam. We'll find out if your optimistic asnwer is the correct one later in the programme. Somone who probably wouldn't agree with you, though, is BBC World Service listener, Hannah. Hannah grew up in Germany before moving to the United States. She thinks Americans tend to be more optimistic than people back home in Germany, as she told BBC World Service programme CrowdScience:
Hannah: Well, I think the stereotypical perceptions of Germans is that we're quite pessimistic and that kind of tends to come across as being a bit of a Debbie Downer, when in actuality, Germans just tend to be avid planners for all eventual negative eventualities as well... so that's kind of us being pessimistic but actually being cautious, as opposed to for example, what I've notice in America that a lot of people tend to be hyper-optimistic. I've always admired how Americans tend to be able to sugarcoat everything.
Sam: As a stereotypical pessimist, Hannah sometimes feels like a Debbie Downer. This expression is American slang for someone who makes others feel bad by focussing on the depressing aspects of things.
Neil: Americans, on the other hand, are typically seen as optimists who tend to sugarcoat things - make seem better than they really are.
Great job, bro!!!
I am a glass-half-full boy who are hyper-optimistic. That is because in all bad situations in life, I always sugarcoat everything and overcome all of them. Optimism is good for human, just not being like the grumpy old man called Debbie Downer-a pessimistic person who can reach the rock bottom of many problems. Just for fun!!!
I used to follow many sources to improve my English,but I was confused and worried,but now I just follow BBC Learning English and now I can evaluate my improvement,I focus on one thing at a time. Feeling good about myself and my progress.
Dear BBC team , thank you for such interesting programmes!
They make me happier and more optimistic ❤
I am from Russia
Optimist needs to listen to pessimists. Pessimists need the encouragement of optimists.
I'm a pessimist who always think a lot on the negative side. When people talk to me, i will always take it too serious of others word although they didn't mean to hurt me.
Thank you guys all the time. I’ve learned a lots of useful expressions and words from this programme. 🥰🇰🇷🇬🇧
Thank you for your interesting video. 😊Love U BBC team & Neil & Sam 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜.
More one great programme. Tks Neil and Sam and BBC.
Hello from Japan. Thank you for sharing this video. I think Japanese people are good at planning pessimistically and acting optimistically. I will do my best to focus on positive side.
I love Japanese.
I would like to praise BBc learning English organization's professional s
i believe GOD aalways have a solution to our work , it makes me more tolarant against problem
Our birthplace and age can really affect if we are an optimist or a pessimist. That´s interesting!
Well i am from Russia and i tend to be an optimistic person but right now i m pretty pessimistic about the place i live in so i want to move out 😅
@@elena-8363 Russia is not that bad and other countries are not so good either. I live in Russia and i wanted to move out too but now i more want just to travel. But something what is happening here now is really heartbreaking. sry if i got mistakes my english is not that rich as i want it to be
Grumpy old person. I wanna be a optimistic person always. I think It's good for everyone to be practice a optimism. I love this lesson and thanks bbc to give us a a little bit great vucabulary. Thanks.
A great video. I love 6-minute English.
I don’t want to be grumpy and prefer to focus on the upside of everything.🎉
You sound like an optimist then!
Thank BBC for lots of useful video
Thumbs up! Great stuff!
No doubt perfect channel
A really good lesson it was, thank you so much!
You're welcome!
You are amazing!
Dope work. Thank you!
As always, amazing video. I learned a few new words
We are glad you found our programme interesting.
hello thank you so much for your Sharing English lessons to help us
Thank you for sharing! 💝✨The program is so helpful.🙏✨🇹🇭
Agree, this programme has really helped me to pass the English listening exam(DSE)🇭🇰
@@user-tt8vq9bf8g Congratulations 🎉 ✨💝☺️
Always awesome
People think that pessimism always complain about what we got. No, I don’t think that. It is about what we go through. If someone has happy life and minimum issues, of course they tend to be an optimistic and sugarcoat. But if optimism or pessimism turned to dreaming or depression it is really matter. Bottom line we need to balance everything
I prefer seeing the silver lining 😊
Thanks for motivate me each day guys, Thanks for your participation today Neil🙂😀 When one six minutes English with Rob talking about biscuits?💪🏻🙂😀
Hi Alexander. We are glad you feel motivated.
Here's Rob talking about his favourite subject: biscuits! czcams.com/video/4yiVfwDkntQ/video.html 🍪😋
And Rob making his favourite snack: cookies! czcams.com/video/plzGkNqQolA/video.html 🍪🍪🍪😋
I used to think the same way as Neil that I'm not pessimistic I'm just realistic. I tried to the focus more on the sunny side of my life and less being a Debbie Downer in these years. I'm still realistic tho xD When I see people who are hyper-optimist, I don't like that they are sugarcoating everything but I try to see from their perspective too.
Birthplace, age and the difficulties faced in life condition being optimistic or pessimistic. some people life is quite hard!
I love this theme
Hello Huyentan,
I'm looking for a speaking partner to practice and improve my English.
I wonder if you are interested in?
To my view, things happen to us always carry the meaning. In addition to that, We have choice to decide our observations of things, so why not instead of looking on the negative side of the problems, we remind ourselfves of just a tiny positive aspect. Perhaps, it doesn't change anything for a little, yet I believe that When you see it in different light, we can be more at ease. So, be glass- half- full person, not glass- half- empty one. Also, don't be a Debbie Downer Who tend to be a wet blanket, like a grumpy old man. Suggarcoating things sometimes isn't a bad thing. It seems like we are humiliating ourselves also don't let the situation put us off.
Cool!
50%
Good 👍
I can say with confidence that I am glass-halff-full person, because im any dreary and icky moment, I always find to sugarcoat something. I know a lot of people, who seems as a Debbie Downer, and it really makes me grumpy old mand who hits rock bottom :)
Thank you/
Thank u BBC, Neil and Sam. Now I am student who want to following IELTS tes, I hope listen your content can improve my skill and my score 😂😂
Stick with us for lots more useful content to improve your English 🚀 Good luck with your studies 💪
optimistic people always live happy life
thanks more
captivating video😊
@@messi_forever_9 I want practice English 🙂😀👍🏻
Topic about pessimism and no word about Polish people? I am dissapointed :P
Hello
Neil and Sam are hypergood couples.
Good luck
Amazing forever 💚💚💚
@@messi_forever_9 yeah, I would love to, but how can?
@@messi_forever_9 oh sorry I don't, how about Facebook?
Nice
0:07
From now I will focus on the sunny side of my life,
I’m kind of a half-empty-glass person :)
😊😊😊❤️❤️❤️❤️
América is a continent, not a country.
ª
🖤
omg i love sam kikiki
Hello everyone. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Mostly I’m swaying between both. I don’t know why, can anyone tell me the truth? Thx a lot . LoL
💐🌻💐🌻
I need speaking partner.Level requiring is Upper intermediate
It is my pleasure dear
わーお、ちょっと難しい！
I am a optimistic person because my dream is big.However, my friend is pessimistic man, he always complain about different matters. though he is glass half empty person, but he is good man. I know why he is not glass half full person because he has always work pressure.
Some words i have learned.
overestimate,cautious, hiper optimistic, sunny side of light,sugar cut, grumpy old man.
Very good! And stay positive!
Why don’t you mention the quiz link in the description box???
Hi BBC, can you link me to the transcript of this video?
Of course! Just click this link and you can find the transcript below the video.... enjoy: www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/features/6-minute-english_2022/ep-220331 👍
A doddle save their life philistine holiday verb Turbulent
HELLO
tiếng gì vậy
😍😍😍🤩🤩
" " A pessimist is an optimist who has become frustrated with his optimism. He hoped too much and failed, he dreamed too much and could not achieve anything substantial.
The pessimist is an optimist standing on his head; they are not different fellows - that's what I want to make clear to you. Unless you have been an optimist you can never be a pessimist. First you have to become an optimist.
And each child is brought up with great optimism. All parents think that they have great children. Ask any mother: she thinks she has the unique child; the most superior, rare, incomparable. Each mother brags about the child. Parents bring up children with great optimism that they are going to be Alexander the Greats or Jesus Christs or Gautam Buddhas.
But slowly slowly life proves just the contrary. Slowly slowly, the child becomes aware of his ordinariness. He becomes aware that these great dreams, that these great ambitions, cannot be fulfilled. And by the time one is coming closer to forty, forty-two, pessimism starts settling - gloom, darkness….
Now medical science is aware that most heart attacks happen nearabout forty to forty-four, between those four years. Most people go mad between those four years, forty to forty-four. Psychologists, psychoanalysts, are aware that that is the most dangerous time. If you can remain sane beyond forty-four, that means you will remain sane. But many people fall flat.
And don't think that if you are sane even beyond forty-four… that does not mean that you are very intelligent. It may only be that you are very dull and it takes a long time for you to understand. It may only be that you are very insensitive. It may only be that you are foolhardy, that you don't listen to life, what life is saying, that you go on hoping.
But sooner or later, a person starts feeling that life has gone down the drain. Optimism turns sour and becomes pessimism. Optimism, that hopefulness, turns upside-down; a hopelessness settles in. Then everything looks dark and dismal. First you used to count the roses, now you start counting the thorns. First you used to say, "How beautiful this roseflower and what a miracle! It grows amongst thousands of thorns." You were poetic, you had some aesthetic sense; you still believed that life is going to be a fulfillment.
But soon the day comes when the roses start fading away and you start counting the thorns, and you cannot believe in the roses anymore. You start saying, "It is impossible! The rose must be a dream, the rose must be MAYA, illusion, hallucination. How is it possible amongst thousands of thorns, how is a rose possible?" It looks contradictory, it looks illogical, it cannot happen in the nature of things. You start counting nights; before, you used to count days.
The optimist says, "There are two days, and between two days just a small night to rest." And the pessimist counts the nights; he says, "There are two long nights - nightmares, ugly dreams, tortures - and just a small day sandwiched between the two." Life is the same: you can count the days or you can count the nights. If you count the days you are an optimist, if you count the nights you are a pessimist, but there is really no difference.
The optimist can become a pessimist, the pessimist can become an optimist. They are not contraries; they are two points on the same spectrum.
One has to go beyond both. A sannyasin has to go beyond both - neither hope nor hopelessness. No need to count days, no need to count nights. Be a watcher! No need to count thorns, no need to count roses. Be a watcher….
I don't teach you optimism. In the West it is very fashionable nowadays; it is called "positive thinking." That is a new name for optimism; the old name has become a little too out of fashion, out-of-date. The new name is positive thinking. I don't teach you positive thinking, because positive thinking carries the negative in its wake.
I teach you transcendence - neither positive nor negative. Be a watcher: witness both. When there is day, witness the day, and when there is night, witness the night - and don't get identified with either. You are neither the day nor the night; you are the transcendental consciousness. Become more and more centered there in that transcendence.
True religion is not positive, nor is it negative. It is neither via negativa nor via positiva; it is via transcendence.
There are people who are continuously looking for the negative - and if you look for the negative you will find it, because the negative is there in the same proportion as the positive.
If you look for the positive, you will find the positive. But by finding the positive you cannot destroy the negative; the negative is there, side by side. They are always together like negative and positive poles of electricity. You can't have electricity with one pole, you will need both.
Life needs both: thorns and roses, days and nights, happiness/unhappiness, birth/death.
Be a witness to it all and you will know something that is beyond birth, beyond death; something that is beyond darkness and beyond light; something that is beyond happiness, beyond unhappiness. Buddha has called it peace, nirvana."
Thanks a lot Neil and Sam. I just know the Debbie Downer after listing your programme.
WHERE DOES DEBBIE DOWNER COME FROM?
While a downer has been used to refer to a “depressing person” since at least the 1970s, the name Debbie Downer was popularized by a hit Saturday Night Live sketch starring Rachel Dratch, who played a character named Debbie Downer. This character consistently ruins a group’s fun by sharing unsolicited sad remarks.
Optimists vs pessimist 😼
Grumpy old man
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As an optimistic person, my brother always look at the world through rose tinted glasses*🩷