Hello and welcome to the English We Speak, where we're explaining phrases used by fluent English speakers so that you can use them too.

I'm Faye Faye and I'm joined by Georgie. How are you, Georgie?

I'm feeling pretty good, actually, Faye. I've just had a little mooch around the shops in my lunch break and now I'm ready to get back to work.

Okay, you just used the word mooch, which I don't think I've heard before. Why don't you

explain it for our listeners? Of course. So mooch or mooch around is an informal British English

word or phrase, which means to wander or stroll around casually.

And what is the purpose of mooching around?

Well, the point is there isn't really a purpose.

We use it when we're exploring shops, markets or streets without the aim of reaching a specific

destination.

Let's hear from our BBC Learning English colleagues.

I really need some caffeine. I'm just going to mooch around the centre until I find a

cafe. We landed at 9 o'clock at night, so there wasn't really anything to do apart from

moot around the night market. There's a new art gallery that's opened up in town.

I don't know a lot about it, but I'm just going to go and have a mooch and see what's there.

This is the English we speak and we're talking about mooch and mooch around.

Georgie, what is the difference? How can we actually use

them? Good question. So you can use the set phrase, have a mooch, in a similar way that we use

have a look. You can say, let's have a mooch if you want to invite someone to wander aimlessly

somewhere without specifying the location. Okay. And I guess if you want to invite someone to wander aimlessly somewhere without specifying the location.

Okay. And I guess if we want to specify where to mooch, we add around. Like when you said you had a little

mooch around the shops. Exactly. And you don't always need the verb have. Mooch can act as a verb itself. For example, I mooched around the shops

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