Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time. We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard.

This episode is easy so we’re looking at common football words and phrases. Things you use and need to know to play the game.

Summary

Learn more football vocabulary with Premier Skills English. Each lesson in our Premier Vocabulary section looks at one football word or phrase. This lesson looks at the word relegation.

You can find more lessons on the side of this page.

Transcript

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to Premier Skills English - Premier Vocabulary.

Jack: Hi there! I’m Jack. We’re here to help you with your football English. Premier Vocabulary is a mini-podcast for you to learn football English one word at a time.

Rich: We have three different levels for you: easy, medium and hard.

Jack: This episode is easy so we’re looking at common football words and phrases. Things you use and need to know to play the game.

Rich: The phrase we are looking at in this episode is relegation.

Jack: Relegation happens when a team has to move down a division because they haven’t played well enough.

Rich: In the Premier League, a team suffers relegation if they finish in the bottom three, or last, three places in the Premier League table at the end of the season.

Jack: Have a listen to this conversation:

Rich: So do you think you’re safe from relegation yet?

Jack: We’ve got 38 points and that’s usually enough to avoid relegation but not always. I think we need another win to be totally safe.

Rich: Yeah, there are lots of teams fighting against relegation this season. Any one of them could be relegated really.

Jack: That’s probably why we’ll escape relegation. I think the teams below us will take points from each other.

Rich: In that conversation, we were talking about relegation and a team that might go down to the division below because they haven’t been playing very well.

Jack: There are some words that we often use with the word relegation - some strong collocations. For example, teams fight against relegation.

Rich: This means that a team is near the bottom of the table and working really hard to avoid relegation.

Jack: That’s another strong collocation - to avoid relegation. All the teams are trying to avoid or escape relegation. You might hear fans say things like they were lucky to escape relegation last season or I’m not sure if we’ll avoid relegation this year.

Rich: If a team doesn’t escape or avoid relegation we can say a team suffers relegation but it’s much more common to use the verb - relegate. They’ve been relegated.

Jack: A phrase we hear a lot with relegation is the relegation zone.

Rich: The relegation zone is the final three places in the Premier League table.

Jack: If you finish the season in these places you are relegated.

Rich: Other phrases that also describe the relegation zone are the relegation places, the relegation area, the bottom three and the dropzone. Listen to this:

Jack: You were playing so well earlier in the season. What’s happened?

Rich: Well, we’re in the relegation zone now.

Jack: And once you’re in the relegation area you know what happens?

Rich: What?

Jack: Relegation.

Final whistle

Rich: There is the final whistle!

Jack: We’ll be back soon with more Premier Vocabulary from Premier Skills English.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football.

Discuss

Has your team ever been relegated?

Is relegation the worst thing that can happen to a football fan?