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English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 37

TOPICS

Topics: Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, Seattle, TV show 24, should be going vs.

should go, spur of the moment, slam dunk, relatively vs. extremely vs.

tremendously, angry vs. mad vs. upset, off-the-shelf

_____________

GLOSSARY

gloom – sad or dark

* Her face was full of gloom when she heard the bad news.

greeting card – a card given to someone to celebrate a special day or event

* We need to buy greeting cards for Dan’s birthday and Lara’s graduation.

pacifist – someone who doesn’t believe in violence or war; someone who thinks

that disagreements can be settled in peaceful ways

* Some pacifists went to jail because they refused to fight in the war.

suburbs – an area outside a city; usually a residential housing area

* A lot of people work in the city and live in the suburbs.

motherhood – the idea of being a mother; to be a mother

* She decided not to have children yet because she’s not sure if motherhood is

right for her.

fictitious – not real, not true

* In the novel, the town where the story takes place is fictitious.

to uncover – to discover; to find out the truth

* The reporter wants to uncover the real reason the vice president left his job.

spur of the moment – suddenly, without planning or warning

* My neighbor decided to take a trip to Pusan on the spur of the moment.

slam dunk – when a basketball player jumps to reach the level of the ring and

puts the ball into the basket; something that is sure to happen

* I did well at the job interview. I think that the job is a slam dunk.

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 37

extremely – very, very much

* They were extremely happy when their son finally graduated from college.

relatively – in comparison to other things

* He’s a relatively good soccer player but I don’t think he’ll ever play in the World

Cup.

upset – unhappy; angry; worried

* They were upset when they get home from their vacation and found that their

dog had run away.

off-the-shelf – something that is already made

* I needed a suit quickly so I bought this one off-the-shelf.

_____________

ENGLISH LEARNING TIPS

To be a good language learner, it helps to think of yourself as an actor. A British

writer, Julian Symons, wrote that an actor is someone “who is not embarrassed

and awkward on the stage, but finds it the easiest thing in the world to speak

words that are not his own.”*

When you’re speaking English, it may sometimes feel like the words are strange

and you don’t feel comfortable saying them. When I say being an actor is

helpful, I don’t mean that you really should become an actor. I mean that you

should think like one. When you speak English, try to see yourself in the new

“role” – the new person you are trying to be. This person is a good English

speaker, someone who feels confident and comfortable speaking the language.

Over time, you will become more and more like this person and it will become

more natural to be in this role. This confidence will help you learn more English

and to speak it with more ease.

*(1990). Dearth’s Darkest Face. New York: Penguin.

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 37

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café Number 37.

This is the English Café Episode Number 37. I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan,

coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los

Angeles, California.

On this Café, we’re going to talk about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day

celebrations here in the United States. We will be looking at another American

city. Today we’ll talk about Seattle, Washington. And we’ll also talk a little bit

about a popular television program here which is called 24. And as always, we’ll

answer a few questions. Let’s get started.

It is a sunny day today. I’m recording the podcast at the middle of the day, that

is, sometime close to noon. Normally, in June here in Los Angeles, we have

something which we call “June Gloom.” “Gloom” is something that is sad. When

you say something is, some person is very gloomy with a "y" at the end, you

mean they're very sad, they're never very happy, they're depressed. Well, June

Gloom is when we have a lot of fog here in Los Angeles. And we have a lot of

fog in the city in May and June, especially for those of us who live close to the

ocean. I’m about two miles from the ocean. That means that you don’t get to

see the sun sometimes until very late in the day because of the fog over the city

and we call that June Gloom. And it’s gloom because it’s sort of depressing, I

guess, not to see the sun. But today we do not have any June Gloom as I record

this podcast.

Before we start, I want to remind you again that if you haven’t visited our website

at eslpod.com we have some new services and a all-new website that we put up

a few weeks ago. You can take a look at that and, and get a Learning Guide for

this podcast, which will include a complete transcript as well as additional

explanations and vocabulary.

I also want to make a small correction last podcast (well, two podcasts ago,

podcast ESL Café, I should say, Number 35) I spelled the word “fifth” wrong, it

should be “fifth.” And I think I spelled it “fith” without the second “f.” So I want to

thank Michael in Germany who was listening very carefully and discovered my

mistake. "Fifth" of course is from the number five. It’s what we call an ordinal

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 37

number. An “ordinal” is the order that something is in, so first, second, third,

fourth, fifth, sixth, etc., and so forth.

Our first topic today is going to be a celebration that we have every May and

June in the United States, and in many countries. And, that is Mother’s Day and

Father’s Day. Mother’s Day was in May this year and it’s always celebrated as

the second Sunday in May. And basically it’s a day to call your mother if you

don’t live in the same city, and talk to her, thank her for all that she has done. It’s

a day to give thanks to mothers especially. Usually people send a card, a…what

we would call a “greeting card.” And greeting, a greeting card is a card saying

“hello.” The word greeting means to say hello to someone. And a greeting card

is a card you would send for Mother’s Day or a birthday or some special event

that was happening.

The origin of Mother’s Day here in the United States is sort of interesting, it was

actually began during the American Civil War, 1860 to 1864. It was begun by a

woman who was a pacifist. A “pacifist” is someone who doesn’t want to fight in a

war, refuses to fight in a war, doesn’t believe in violence as a way of solving

problems. Well, this woman who started Mother’s Day, she was a pacifist and

she started Mother’s day because she thought that mothers would be naturally

against war (more than men, I guess) and that was the reason why she started

this day. But now most people have forgotten about the original intention of

Mother’s day. And it’s just a day to give gifts or send a card or perhaps call your

mother and wish her a Happy Mother’s Day.

Mother’s Day is all about motherhood. “Motherhood” is motherhood, all one

word. Motherhood is the idea, if you will, the concept of being a mother. So,

someone may say, "Well, how does she like motherhood?" – meaning, "How

does she like being a mother?" And, of course, the opposite of that would be

fatherhood. Well, fatherhood is celebrated on Father’s Day which is always the

third June, I’m sorry, the third Sunday of June. I think I need a little more coffee

this morning. The Third Sunday in June is Father’s Day and it’s like Mother’s

Day, a day to call your father or send your father a card, or perhaps give them

gifts. The classic sort of comical gift to give your father - sort of as a joke - would

be a tie, because the tie, of course, is the easiest thing, in a way, to buy

someone (to buy a man in particular) and so lots of fathers get ties for their

Father’s Day present. I didn't give my father a tie this year; well it’s, it's‚ coming

up this Sunday, but I will give him a card and send him a note. My father is, is 82

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 37

years old, still in healthy condition and my mother is also still alive and healthy,

and I can’t tell you how old she is because she'd get mad at me if I did.

Another topic we’re going to talk about today is the city of Seattle. We have been

talking about different cities here on the Café, and today I thought we would talk

about a city that is also on the West Coast of the United States, like Los Angeles

and San Francisco. It’s on the Pacific Ocean, and that is Seattle. Seattle is the

biggest city in the northwest part of the United States. It is located in the state of

Washington, which is on the border of Canada, and Seattle is a big city, about 4

million people in the, what we would call the metropolitan area of Seattle. Of

course, the city of Seattle has other cities next to it, what we would probably call

suburbs. And a “suburb,” suburbs, is a city, that is, a community that is next to a

big city. And the entire area of Seattle is quite large, and there are about 4

million people living there.

The nickname for the city of Seattle is “emerald city.” Emerald is a type of stone,

a type of, of rock that is often green in color. And an emerald is a name that they

give Seattle because Seattle has a lot of rain, and because they get a lot of rain,

they have a lot of green trees and other types of plants that grow. And so, the

city is very green; they have a lot of evergreen trees, evergreen. Evergreen is a

type of tree that is always green the entire year, and so, that’s why they call

Seattle "the emerald city," because it’s so green. There is another expression in

English, "the emerald isle" or "the emerald island." And that refers to Ireland,

where it is also very rainy. They get lots of rain and, and it is very green there.

Someone who lives in Seattle is called a “Seattlite.” A Seattlite. Someone who

lives in New York is called a “New Yorker.” And someone who lives in St. Paul,

where I’m from, is called a “St Paulite.” Well, if you live in Seattle, you're called a

Seattlite. Seattle is known for a couple of things. Most Americans know Seattle

because it has a famous coffee company which is now in the, many countries of

the world called Starbucks. And Starbucks is a chain of cafes, and a chain is a

group of stores that are all owned by the same company. And so Starbucks is

owned, rather Starbucks is located, in the Seattle area. And there are lots of

coffee shops - what we would call a cafe or a coffee shop - a place to buy coffee,

to drink coffee, and so forth, and they drink a lot of coffee in Seattle as well.

Seattle is also famous because of the music, the rock music that comes from

Seattle especially in the 1990's, the early 1990's. There were several famous

bands that came out of Seattle, music bands. And they had a type of music

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