EC047_Guide.pdf

English as a Second Language Podcast

www.eslpod.com

ENGLISH CAFÉ – 47

TOPICS

Retirement communities, American superstitions, fling vs. throw vs. toss

_____________

GLOSSARY

to retire – to stop working after a certain age, usually 65 in the U.S.

* When we retire, we’ll sell our house and move to Hawaii.

retiree – a person who retires or stops working, usually after a certain age

* How does it feel to be a retiree after working at the same company for 45

years?

senior – an elderly person; in the U.S., often used for someone over 65 years

old

* Seniors get a discount if they eat at the restaurant before 7 p.m.

snow birds – people who live in cold places and who move to warmer places for

the winter months

* In this town, we get a lot of snow birds from Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota.

Sun Belt – the states in the southern and southwest part of the U.S. where the

weather is warmer

* Our company has plans to build new housing developments along the Sun Belt.

on purpose – to do something intentionally or deliberately; to do something

because it was your choice

* I’m sorry you fell over my bicycle, but I didn’t leave it in your way on purpose!

superstition – a believe in something that will bring you good or bad luck

* One of the team’s superstitions is that they’ll only win a game if they wear the

same color socks.

itch – an uncomfortable feeling on your body that makes you want to scratch

* I have an itch in the middle of my back. Can you scratch it for me?

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2006). Posting of

these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

English as a Second Language Podcast

www.eslpod.com

ENGLISH CAFÉ – 47

sidewalk – the path where people walk next to the road

* My mother always tells me to walk on the sidewalk and not on the road.

crack – a line on the surface of something

* We can’t use that plate for the dinner party because it has a crack in it.

rabbit’s foot – the foot of a rabbit that people believe will bring good luck

* Rubbing your rabbit’s foot will give you even more good luck.

to blow out candles – to put out the fire on sticks of wax that you light for

celebration, such as on a birthday cake

* Okay, everybody. Let’s sing “Happy Birthday” while Maria blows out the

candles.

____________

WHAT INSIDERS KNOW

“Take my wife – please!”

This is a joke from a famous U.S. comedian from the 20 th century, Henny

Youngman. Youngman’s jokes were usually “one-liners.” A one-liner is a joke

that is just one sentence, and often uses an expression that has more than one

meaning. Youngman’s most famous one-liner is this one: “Take my wife –

please!”

The expression “take my wife” can have two meanings. One meaning is

“consider my wife” or “take my wife as an example of what I’m talking about.” We

sometimes use this expression to give the person we’re talking to an example of

the idea we are discussing. For example: “I think everybody is afraid of

something. Take my wife. She’s afraid of the dark and still sleeps with the light

on.”

The other meaning of “take my wife” is “take her away from me,” something we

would say with something you don’t want anymore. Henny is saying, “I don’t

want my wife anymore. Please take her from me!” The joke is funny because

you don’t know which meaning Henny is using until the last word, “please.” You

would only say “please” if you were using the second meaning (take my wife

away from me), which of course is the funnier one.

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2006). Posting of

these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

English as a Second Language Podcast

www.eslpod.com

ENGLISH CAFÉ – 47

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 47.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 47. I'm

your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational

Development in the hot and beautiful City of Los Angeles, California.

Today's Café, we're going to talk about retirement communities, special places

that are built for people who are retired, or no longer working. We're also going

to talk about some common American superstitions. And, as usual, we'll answer

a few questions. Now, let's get started.

As always, we remind you to go to our website at eslpod.com. There you can

find information about this podcast and a complete Learning Guide, which

includes all the words and vocabulary and definitions that we'll be using today, as

well as a complete transcript of this podcast.

Our first topic today is retirement communities. These are places that are built

especially for people who are older and who are no longer working. To retire,

“retire,” means to stop working, to leave your job, usually permanently, that is

when you are not going to go back to work again. In the United States, this

usually happens for people who are at the age of 65. That's the common

retirement age for many companies. You can leave your job when you are 65

years old. Sometimes it's 62 years old. In some companies people retire even

earlier. They leave their job if they have enough money to live on.

People who are older and who are retired are sometimes called retirees,

“retirees,” the singular would be retiree, with two “e”s at the end. And, that is

someone who is retired; it's a noun to describe a person who is retired. People

who are over the age of 59, 60, 62, it depends, are sometimes called seniors, “

seniors.” A senior, singular - seniors, plural - is a person who is considered

older. There isn't one age that is common; usually over 60 or 65 someone is

called a senior. We'll sometimes call them a senior citizen. A senior citizen,

that's the same as a senior, which is now, I think, a little more common to say

senior instead of senior citizen.

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2006). Posting of

these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

English as a Second Language Podcast

www.eslpod.com

ENGLISH CAFÉ – 47

There are many different places where someone can go. Many people live in

their own house or apartment that they've always lived in, but some people

move. They sell their house and they go somewhere else. If you are in good

health, you can still do all the things that you need to do on your own, you might

move to a retirement community and that would be a special town or a place

that's built for people who retire.

Many of these retirement communities are built in Arizona and in Florida, the

states of Arizona and Florida here in the United States. The reason is very

simple: it's warm in Arizona and it's warm in Florida. Also, Arizona and Florida

have often traditionally been considered cheaper places to move to because

there's so much land, for example, in Arizona, which is mostly a desert so there

aren't a lot of people that want to move there, and so this was a place where

many of these communities were built because the land was cheap and because,

most importantly, it's warm. Remember that most Americans live in states like

New York or Illinois, Minnesota, places that are cold during the wintertime, very

cold, and when people retire they want, many times, to move somewhere that is

warmer.

Sometimes there are people who live in one house during the winter and they

move back to their other house in the northern part of the United States during

the summer because although it is warm in the winter in places such as Arizona,

it is very, very hot in the summer. We call people who move during wintertime,

snow birds. Snow, “snow,” birds, “birds,” is the name for someone who leaves

their northern house in the northern state, colder state, and goes to a warmer

southern state. Of course, birds also move south to get away from the cold

weather, and so, that is where we get the term snow bird.

One of the most famous retirement communities in the United States is called

Sun City, “Sun” City. Of course, sun is something that you have a lot of in Minne-

not in Minnesota - in Arizona. The states that have warmer weather, especially

in the winter, are sometimes called the Sun Belt, “Sun Belt,” two words. That

describes states that are located in warmer climates, places where you have

warm weather, Arizona, New Mexico, probably Texas would all be part of the

Sun Belt.

Well, the city, Sun City, is located in Arizona, and it was built especially for

people who want to retire. One of the things about places like Sun City is that

there are very few children. In fact, many of these cities don't want families with

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2006). Posting of

these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

English as a Second Language Podcast

www.eslpod.com

ENGLISH CAFÉ – 47

young children moving there because, of course, young children can often make

noise, like my neighbors’ children do almost every day, and some people who

are retired, who are older, they don't want to listen to that noise and so they want

to live in a place where there are very few children, and Sun City is one of those

places.

The population of Sun City is about 40,000, about 40,000 people. Only three

percent - I'm sorry, .3 percent of those families, those people who live there, have

children under the age of 18, so that's less than one percent of the whole city

have children. And, that is, what we would say, something that is done on

purpose. When we say something is done on purpose, “purpose,” we mean that

it is intentional, that it is something that they wanted to do; it was not an accident.

So, if you want to move to the United States and live somewhere that's very

warm and that doesn't have any children, has mostly people who are older, then

Sun City is for you. Maybe, someday, you'll see me at one of those communities

- not too soon, I hope!

Our second topic today is an interesting one. It's about superstitions. A

superstition, “superstition,” all one word, a superstition is a belief that someone

has about good luck or bad luck. Something good is going to happen if you do

this; something bad will happen if you do this. These are superstitions. They're

things that people believe that will bring them good luck or bring them bad luck.

For example, we've talked before in our podcasts about crossing your fingers, to

put one finger in front of the other. This is something that is a superstition. It is

the belief that if you put your fingers one in front of the other, cross your fingers,

that you will have good luck. Sometimes we even use that as an expression,

“Cross your fingers that I win the lottery,” means you should be hoping for, you

should be wishing me good luck. Of course, crossing your fingers will not help

you win the lottery really, but it's a belief that people have traditionally. And, even

though logically or rationally, we know that these things aren't true, many people

still do them. They still believe in them.

So, I thought I’d talk about some of the most common ones here in the United

States. Some of these, of course, maybe common in your country or in other

countries that you know of. I thought I'd start with weddings since August is a

very common time, the summertime, to have weddings in the United States.

June, I think, is the most popular month for weddings in the U.S., but all during

the summer. people have weddings. And, there are some superstitions about

weddings.

These materials are copyrighted by the Center for Educational Development (2006). Posting of

these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: