The Fluent Mind ESL Podcast

In this episode, Kevin and Jack discuss talk about three idioms about money 💰to look like a million dollars/bucksto be born with a silver spoon in your mouthto go from rags to richesShare your answers to the discussion questions in our WhatsApp group chat! https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7Website Link: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/?p=1748If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/Directions: Write sentences by using the idioms from the podcast.look like a million bucksborn with a silver spoon in one's mouthgo from rags to richesFull Transcript:Jack: You're listening to the A. to Z. English podcast.Kevin: Welcome to another idioms from A to Z. We're gonna give you three more idioms today that you can use and practice in your daily conversations and remember to check out our website for study guide with vocabulary notes and discussion as well as whats app and Facebook page links so you can use the Indians there with other people.Kevin: So for today we're gonna start with the money ATMs in you know Jackie you're looking pretty good is that a is that a new suit you know you look like a million Bucks but actually Jack if if I didn't know better I would say that you had been born with a silver spoon in your mouth.Jack: Oh no Kevin this is a very expensive suits but I went from rags to riches.Kevin: Well good for you.Jack: Thank you.Kevin: All right everybody so that we had three idioms in that I know that was kind of fast but did you catch them all.Jack: Yeah.Kevin: The first one let's just quickly tell you and then we'll explain them the first is to look like a million dollars or to look like a million bucks I think this one's kinda easy to understand.Jack: If you know what a what a buck is but again if you yeah and then.Kevin: To be born with a silver spoon in your mouth.Kevin: And finally to go from rags to riches, so let's start with that first one though the million dollars a million Bucks to look like a million bucks, Jack have you ever seen a million dollars?Jack: Have I ever seen a million dollars I have I only maybe on TV or something else I’ve seen like a pile of cash yeah I was never.Kevin: Goes movie yeah.Jack: Not in my bank account that's for sure.Kevin: But now I have seen a million maybe.Kevin: Other monies but a million dollars no so.Jack: Yeah.Kevin: I think I mean if you saw a million dollars of cash right in front of you what would you be thinking.Jack: I would be I would be nervous so I would be.Jack: Scared you know I've what's happening right now.Kevin: The confused why is there so much money but why that money how would it look it would look really good you know you want that.Kevin: Ours is a lot of money.Jack: Yes.Kevin: And that's what it means to look like a million dollars or to look like a million bucks and as you mentioned you know a buck is just a slang for a dollar right got five bucks in my wallet.Jack: Five dollars yeah.Kevin: Well it so if someone looks like a million bucks they look really good.Jack: Yeah we did look expensive you know that their clothes look expensive. Their hats look expensive. They're glad new hairstyle yeah they're hair is cut you perfectly it's you know very expensive.Jack: Hair salon or something so.Kevin: When you see famous actors and actresses when they are like at the awards ceremony.Jack: Yeah the red carpet.Kevin: Yeah exactly they try to look like a million bucks you know. They've got a great suit and makeup and hair style and fast fancy accessories and all of those things to look like a million bucks.Jack: And maybe have I don't know if our listeners would.Jack: I agree with this or not but I think.Kevin: Everybody has.Jack: A friend who is you know always dressed well and always looks like a million bucks you know right is that gonna very some more handsome or beautiful and also has a good fashion sense and you just say to them every time I see you just look like a million bucks you know they also yeah.Kevin: Yeah I'd like Jack I mean most of the time when I see you were dressed in just normal clothes.Jack: I look like I look like a buck maybe ten.Kevin: Because they.Jack: Yeah.Kevin: I know you showed me your wedding pictures a few years ago and there you and your wife looked like a million bucks and you were dressed perfectly. It was your special day. You looked like a million bucks on that one.Jack: Well thank you.Kevin: Yeah.Kevin: So our second one then is to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth and can you imagine a baby being born with anything in their mouth.Jack: This is a you know a lot of these idioms are old you know expressions so then why don't we don't we don't necessarily understand these idioms ourselves because they're.Kevin: They're so old.Jack:But yeah I can't imagine a baby being born with any spoon in its mouth yeah.Kevin: Right.Jack: That would just be so bizarre.Kevin: No mention any baby maybe not being born with but at that a very young age of baby using a silver spoon or a golden spoon.Jack: To.Kevin: Eat their food with right. When you were a baby, what or when your daughter was a baby what spoon did she use?Jack: Well I'm a plastic in maybe a Hello Kitty on the end of it or something like that.Kevin: Right right so if you're born with a silver spoon in your mouth what does that mean?Jack: Yes being born with a silver spoon means your family is.Kevin: Rich basically.Jack: And so right when you when you feed the baby, you don't use a plastic spoon. You don't use a metal spoon. You use a silver spoon like a very up the most expensive spoon that you could buy and that's the that's the spoon that you were fed with when you were a baby by your parents or by your mother and so.Kevin: That's where the actually had all the best things when you're a kid so you're in Europe come from a very rich family you know like.Kevin: Steve was born with a silver spoon in his mouth so he always went to the best schools and had the best food and he had everything is wanted he wanted. His parents bought him a car right when he was old enough. You had everything everything that you needed.Jack: Yeah it's kind of a.Jack: It's it's kind of an expression it's not it's not necessarily negative but it's I mean it's it's got a little bit of a of a negative connotation, a little bit to say to someone you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth means you didn't accomplish anything. Everything is just given to you.Jack: You know you.Kevin: Got a free yeah parents gave it to them they didn't have to do anything for themselves.Jack: Yeah.Kevin: And then there is the exact opposite of our last idiom that me actually Jack what's the last one.Jack: Our last one is from rags to riches from rags to riches.Kevin: Really quick let's define what a rag first just so everyone knows a rag.Jack: A rag is like is not even a cloth. It's a piece of cloth you know yeah and it's dirty. It’s ripped. It’s torn. It’s stained.Kevin: It's just.Jack: Like if I was.Kevin: A towel many years ago your dad used it to clean the car and yeah and clean everything else and it's just an old dirty piece of fabric yeah so if you go from rags to riches I think this one's.Kevin: What easy to understand actually if someone goes from rags to riches. We can kind of guess what that means you know. You go from rags, you've got nothing, you know your clothes are made with these dirty old rags yeah with a rag or you.Jack: Look like rags because they're gotten so dirty and torn, it looks like you're wearing rags you know old rags yeah.Kevin: Exactly but you've gone from rags to riches.Kevin: So now you're quite well off. Now you've got a lot of money, and so for this one, this is the opposite. You were born with a silver spoon is you just get everything. Rick rags to riches means you work hard and you really earned whatever it is that you have today.Jack: Yeah and it means you went from poor to rich in your lifetime you know, so it's not it's not a generational thing where you know like slowly over time. It's just you started with nothing and now you are rich and it's not born with a silver spoon. A silver spoon is your grandfather was rich, your father was rich, and your children will be rich. It's not like that. This is the opposite of that. It's like you said, that you work hard and you make a lot of money and you become rich but you started with nothing.Kevin: Yep and that's kind of like a lot of people's dreams are to go from rags to riches and when you hear those stories in the news, they are always a really good feeling story. He went from rags to riches. Wow good job. I knew we really admired him and look up to those people.Jack: Absolutely yeah.Kevin: Nice.Kevin: Well there's three more just to review for everyone we've got looking like a million dollars, like a million Bucks you look fantastic today or they were born with a silver spoon in their mouths or they went from rags to riches.Jack: There you go everybody now.Kevin: After you listen to our podcast see if your friends tell you that you look like a million bucks.Jack: There you go yeah right.Kevin: Well thanks everybody for listening. Remember you can go to our Whats app group or other social media from the show notes or our web page and join in the discussion group.Kevin: These idioms in our in our chats or replying to a web page you know give us an example of where a time that you could use from rags to riches or to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth do you know anyone or any famous actors or actresses or other famous people who fit any of these.Jack: That's right hand.Kevin: If you if you can of course leave us a comment on Apple podcasts that would really help. Thanks everybody for listening and we'll see you next time.Jack: Bye bye.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Every Friday at 10:30pm (Korea Standard Time), Kevin and Jack will discuss the past week's episodes live with our listeners. The guys will read comments from the listeners and do their best to respond. If you have something you want to ask Kevin or Jack, Fridays at 10:30pm (Korea Standard Time) is your opportunity. This week, the guys will discuss these three episodes of the podcast:https://atozenglishpodcast.com/interv...https://atozenglishpodcast.com/what-a...https://atozenglishpodcast.com/idioms-3/Website: https://atozenglishpodcast.comIf you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode, Kevin and Jack talk about three idioms using prepositions:to be up in the airto be on the ballto get over somethingShare your answers to the discussion questions in our WhatsApp group chat! https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7Website: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/idioms-3/If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/A to Z Idioms 3   Full Transcript Kevin: You're listening to the A. to Z. English podcast.Kevin: Welcome to eight is the English and today we're going to be doing and idioms eight is the episode where we're gonna talk about a couple idioms in context and explain how you can use them as well remember to check our website for study guide vocabulary discussion questions and some practice with the idioms as well as links to our website Facebook page where you can join in the conversation and practice along with us.Kevin: So Jack before we get into the idioms we did a couple of listener interviews recently who are we gonna talk to next.Jack: Well actually Kevin I'm not really sure our next interview is kind of up in the air.Kevin: Oh really you know Jack you really need to be on the ball for this if we don't talk to people we won't have anything planned.Jack: Well you know Kevin you need to just like get over it okay.Kevin: All right Jack alright we'll figure it out.Jack: There you go.Kevin: For everyone listening did you catch the idioms we had three different idioms in there let's go ahead and talk about them together so in the first one I asked Jack who were going to talk to and Jack what did you say.Jack: I said the next interview was up in the air all up in the air yeah.Kevin: So.Jack: Up in the air engine and.Kevin: That is I mean this is what's fun about idioms is it's hard to guess what they mean up in the air so does that mean it's like a balloon like it's up in the air something looking to pull out of the year that the cloud.Jack: Yeah I mean it literally up in the air would mean in the in the sky or in the air right but that's not the meaning of this the stadium.Kevin: Right.Jack: Yes so how what would you say the actual meaning is up if something is up in the air what is it.Kevin: If it's up in the air it means you're not really sure about it yeah that we don't really know like we've got some ideas but it's not a full plan yet it's still up in the air.Jack: And it's usually when we're talking about making plans yeah I know that's true.Kevin: Yeah so usually about plans is where we're most commonly using it.Jack: Yeah what are you doing on Friday well it's up in the air I'm not sure it could be I could go to a movie I could go to dinner I could stay home I haven't decided yet I haven't made any what we're gonna do yeah well we're gonna thing yeah.Kevin: Yeah our we talked recently in the a quick chat about you know summer camps and things and maybe if you're making plans for your summer camps like what are we gonna do on day two for the kids that's still up in the air you know maybe we'll do a movie or maybe we'll go for a hike and still up in the air.Jack: Yeah nothing here usually I don't know if I'm if you would agree with this but usually there's two or three choices that you have you know and so you.Kevin: Kind of.Jack: You see it's not just it's not that you don't know it all it's right you know that did you know that you're going to do something but you haven't really decided which of the three or four or five activities that you want to do and so you said you would use this in that context you say oh well it's still up in the air.Kevin: That's true it's not usually used when you have no idea of what you're gonna do you've got some ideas and you're starting to get some ideas maybe some good ideas maybe not but you've got some ideas like maybe this maybe this maybe this got some ideas of what you wanna do but it's up in the air and I think that makes sense when you think about it it's up in the air there's a few choices around your head and you just have to pick one right he's got a real job and decide which one you want to go with.Jack: Three young here yeah.Kevin: And so then the second Jack I told you know you said it's still up in the air but we have a podcast to run so I told you need to get on the ball.Kevin: We got to get on the ball on that so are we talking about the exercise ball right you're gonna do some yoga here Jack.Jack: You are not talking about a yoga ball or an extra at all no we're yet again.Kevin: The.Jack: Idioms are not literal if you know the other fun that's where the fun yeah the literal meaning it would be very strange to you know be on a ball but in this case to get a if Kevin tells me to get on the ball he's actually ordering me to do something you're telling ME to get do you know of focus and do some kind of job like do your job get it done I gotta finish planning yeah.Kevin: Yeah exactly get to what you're supposed to be doing you've been wasting too much time and we're not focused here all of those ideas are in the air I think what we can't have them in the air we got to get on the ball we have to decide we need to choose what we wanna do so Jack can get on the ball.Jack: Yeah in eight years of example a teacher might say this to students that are not doing their work in the classroom maybe they're talking and they're not focused on doing their math problems or something like that and the teacher can say to the students Hey get on the ball.Kevin: Don't.Jack: Talk about other things don't play games do your math problems right now so get on the ball and I'm feeling lines says it to you then it means you're not doing your work you know you might be checking email you might be you know chatting with a friend or coworker and your bosses says do you get on the ball means get back to work get focused youngster.Kevin: So don't listen to the a to Z. podcast at work yeah enter.Jack: Your ride home or do it.Kevin: You know.Jack: Secretly very secretly.Kevin: Yup we'll have to get on the ball and I think you can kind of understand this I mean if you're if you're standing on a ball right it's very hard to balance out a ball and so you really need to focus you got to be ready for it so in an easy way to remember if you're standing for balanced on the ball you're ready you're doing your job you're ready to go for the next one but then.Jack: Again.Kevin: You told me that I was too fat too stressed out on this and what did you tell me.Jack: I said you gotta get over it get over it.Jack: And had to get.Kevin: Over it so.Jack: You know.Kevin: I mean like.Jack: What is this.Kevin: What is it.Jack: First all right.Kevin: That's a good question.Jack: It could be could be a lot of things but in this case it would be some kind of.Jack: Some kind of like a bad experience or some kind of negative answer so yeah you're oftentimes.Kevin: A negative experience some difficult time or some difficult thing that you've had some kind of.Jack: Some kind of conflict that we had you know like there's like we had a.Kevin: We had a fight.Jack: Or a conflict or something and if the one person says to the other person you need to get over it means you need to forget about this conflict and let it go it's another expression to let it go.Kevin: Get over it and it's nuts and that's when you're getting over its you're not actually getting up on top of and going over something but most of these times these experiences like breaking up with your girlfriend or boyfriend right.Jack: It's kind of like a mall.Kevin: That you that you.Kevin: A good example.Jack: Yeah.Kevin: Yeah it's like a mental wall it's a problem that I have just in my head and some like you know you gotta get over that mental wall you gotta get over him get over her get over that ex boyfriend you know there it's get over that problem so get over it so Kevin you.Jack: If five for example your friend breaks up with his girlfriend broke up with his girlfriend yesterday is it appropriate for me today to say get over it.Kevin: Probably a bit too soon and obviously a bit too soon to say yeah it right something's do take some time bonus if your friend broke up with his girlfriend and it's been a year yeah they only dated for six months.Jack: Yes that's why I come on my new friend is still depressed and won't come out yeah.Kevin: Yeah like I I understand your side but you gotta get over it you gotta you gotta get out there and meet someone new get over it to get over this problem.Jack: There you go yeah.Kevin: We can also use it for actually illnesses as well right like you get over cove it.Jack: For example.Kevin: But yeah it's any kind of difficult situation that we've got.Jack: To get a cold or the flu or something like that and just I haven't gotten over it yet or I'm just getting over you know being out sick we can use as I'd always want that now.Kevin: Okay so there's R. three Indians in all of these if anyone was paying attention you might notice that all of these positions today are all of these idioms sorry we're using prepositions right.Jack: Up.Kevin: In the air on the ball or over something and so there's ways that you can organize our idioms and these are all about prepositions connecting to your location in space.Jack: Yes so just.Kevin: As a really quick review you're up in the air about something more work on the ball we're getting to work or we need to get over whatever that problem is.Jack: There you go.Jack: Excellent yeah.Kevin: All right well there is a great episode of a dizzy English with our idioms from eight Izzy in the show notes you can find links to our whats app group or social media we can come and try and use these idioms for yourself tell us something that you're up in the air about or what do you need to be on the ball about and if you could leave us a review and a comment on apple podcasts that would really help us out to get other people to find us we'll see you next time here with the more idioms eight Izzy.Jack: Get on the ball everyone see you next time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this special episode of The A to Z English Podcast, we talk with Layla from Saudi Arabia, a self-taught English student and one of the most active members of our Whatsapp group. (Link here: https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7)Find the transcript here:https://atozenglishpodcast.com/interview-with-layla/It's a great conversation, so you won't want to miss it!Share your thoughts about today's interview in our Whatsapp group or tell us if you think you have something interesting to talk about. Perhaps you could be our next guest on the podcast!If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/Full Transcript: Kevin: You're listening to the A. to Z. English podcast.Kevin: Welcome to A to Z English where today we've got another listener interview. Today we're joined by another one of our very active members from our chats. Maybe you've talked to her in the past. We're talking with Layla from Saudi Arabia. So, good morning!Layla: And good afternoon Kevin and Jack.Kevin: Yes, it is. So it's great to talk to you and today I mean you're always so active in our group chats. You're such a helpful member to everyone and I guess we wanted to start with really simple things like…Kevin: When did you start learning? How long have you been studying?Layla: And to be honest with you at the beginning and the first time I studied English when I was in middle school.Layla: But I can I can consider that not learning English seriously because you know the system is not good enough so I focus not on grammar.Kevin: Yeah.Layla: I think I only learned at that time the basic English letters and things like how are you, your name, like this yeah so.Kevin: I’m fine and you?Layla: I studied in high school and university but in university only the first two years and then they stopped teaching English.Layla: So exactly I can say when I decided to learn English seriously. I think it was about 2014.Kevin: Okay six years ago.Layla: Yes.Kevin: Cool.Layla: My brother and I decided to study together.Kevin: A partner.Layla: Yes exactly. I have a partner.Kevin: That helps.Layla: So at the beginning we started by buying books. We don't we didn't have any teacher to ask questions, to know if something is right are wrong so we only studied by ourselves.Layla: We continue studying.Layla: To 2018. Layla: At.Kevin: Just the two of you studying on the internet?Layla: When I find Robin’s group...Kevin: Right.Layla: After joining there I really started to learn English seriously. I can say I didn't miss studying for even a single day.Kevin: Day.Layla: I will do my best for me in the group. I started reading extensively.Layla: Also I tried to meet in the group byLayla: practicing with others because this is the first time for me to practice and talk to foreigners.Layla: Okay it's difficult for women to engage with others so that was the first experience for me.Layla: I continue studying. I think it was the best chance for me to study English and practice my English and that's the right place.Kevin: And do you still talk with your brother. Does he still study these days yeah?Layla: A few months ago, he got married so he moved to another house.Kevin: Okay.Layla: Now I study alone with my own online friends.Layla: Many.Kevin: Many people in the chat for you to work with.Layla: Yeah exactly so I really enjoy talking with them I think.Layla: You know it's a great because in that case you have to use English because you can’t explain what you want in your language so.Layla: When you try to use English, I try to go ahead to search about some new words that I don't know. So that is a great place and chance for me to be there.Kevin: Yeah those chats are great because exactly like you said, you have to use English. There's people from all over the world. There's no choice. You can't use your language because other people don't speak it so.Layla: Yes exactly, I have no choice and no choice to excuse my language and they really don't understand me so I have to use English. I have to speak English as much as I can.Jack: It sounds like you enjoy speaking in English. Is it something that makes you happy.Layla: Yes, yes, I am really. I think learning English is my passion now and my hobby so…Layla: Well maybe you don't believe me if…Layla: So yeah exactly I really like English and then I think learning English,Layla: is the best way to change my life and to make my life better and in many cases, so if I want to get a great job, I have to and I have to know English so.Layla: I only tried to develop my English. I know I make mistakes and my English is not perfect…Jack:Who’s better: you or your brother? You’re better than your brother right?Layla:         I don’t know. Jack: You're being modest, I think. That's good yeah. You're good, you're a good sister though. Yeah you didn't throw him under the bus there.Kevin: Yeah I was gonna ask you did you also watch Shaw Online? Do you, did you use the videos, YouTube as well as the what's app group?Layla: Yes I.Layla: I started watching them before joining Robin’s Whatsapp group.Layla: You know Teacher Esther, and there are a lot of videos, so at the beginning I started there watching her lessons.Layla: So I tried to watch the end at any length any lesson that RobinLayla: posted on his channel. So, I…Layla: I tried to do any homework that he posted.Jack: There are a lot of them there.Kevin: So.Layla: I can say I watched most of the videos there.Jack: There are hundreds of videos now, right? I mean hundreds. Yeah yeah, do you always do your podcast homework too?Kevin: You do the discussion questions and vocabulary yeah?Layla: Yeah, I would like to do better as well and then to discuss more with you, but you know what? Sometimes…Layla: I feel lost when there are many people in the group and then.Kevin: Sure.Layla: And let's see I try my best and…Jack: That's the best part about podcasts as you can do other things while you're listening to them, so it's great for cleaning or driving or taking a walk yeah. It's just a very convenient way to study, so that's great.Layla: Yes.Kevin: They can help you.Layla: If we’re listening to the podcast, we can listen to them whenever we want, whenever we are anytime in any cases, while driving, while doing chores while maybe sitting on the sofa.Kevin: And I'm when I'm on the subway that's good yeah. I do my podcast listening on the subway. It’s very boring but when I'm on the way, you can just listen in and learn something. It's better than just surfing the web for other meaningless things yeah.Layla: Yes please so I really enjoy and I really.Layla: Yes, the time of the episode is not too long so I listen to the podcast and then after listening, I can go and search about the words that I don’t know and learn new words. Kevin: Can you say that we’re easy to understand because I know that sometimes I speak very quickly.Layla:         Yes. Kevin: Something that we need to we need to keep working on I guess that even my English is not perfect I need to make it better as well a lot.Kevin: Everyone has things to work on.Kevin: Sure.Layla: Jack, I can understand all the words that you say.Kevin:Yeah I think one thing that helped me a lot when I was younger, even though I speak very quickly, I think that I speak rather clearly and when I was a kid, I did a lot of tongue twisters with my mom and my brother when we were driving, like Sally sells seashells by the seashore, things like that. When we were driving just for fun, we would just do tongue twisters with each other and just trying to go faster and faster and faster and faster and so I think that's why I'm able to speak quickly but hopefully clearly as well.Jack: Very clearly yeah. I I'll give yah that. Kevin: Well Leila, thanks a lot for all of the compliments and we'll keep working. Just to wrap up here, is there any tip that you would like to give to everyone else listening? Is there anything that you could tell people that you found were best for you?Jack: Yeah what's your secret?Layla: For English.Layla: To be honest with you and I can say the secret is reading.Layla: I try to read every day as much as I can because learning…Layla: We look at the letters and words, and then you will discover the meanings of them.Layla: And that will help you. While you are speaking, you will remember them and the words. So keep reading a lot. Layla: Try to listen to native speakers such as podcasts.Kevin: True even for natives, even reading in your language is just helpful. I mean I read English books and that helps me learn more words in English as well. Jack: Yeah it's good for your brain, but yeah so I agree totally with that. Reading is the best way to learn new vocabulary. Absolutely!Kevin: Yeah thanks for that and everybody out there go and find a book that you want to read and read even just five minutes today. Just do a little bit of reading every day.Kevin: Well thank you very much for joining us today.Layla: It's my pleasure to be with you in this podcast. I am so happy and thank you for having me and this episode.Kevin: ,Thank you for coming and for everybody else listening, remember on our web page you can join our Whats app group and maybe you can talk to Layla as well, so we'll see you all there and everybody have a great day. See you next time.Jack: Bye bye!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode, Kevin and Jack talk about their favorite holidays, and what makes them so special. Share your answers to the discussion questions in our WhatsApp group chat! https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7Download a study guide here: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/what-are-your-favorite-holidays/With listener mail from episode 14: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/technology-from-the-80s-and-90s/If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/JackYou are listening to the A-Z English podcast. KevinWelcome to an A-Z English quick chat. We're going to surprise each other with the topic for the day and see where the conversation goes. KevinRemember to check our website for steady guy with vocabulary notes and discussion questions as well as linked to our WhatsApp, Facebook and other social media pages so you can join in the conversation as well. KevinBut Jack what? KevinDo you want to talk about today? KevinWhat's this topic? JackToday I want to talk about favorite holidays so well. KevinAnd cool. JackI know that you're a big fan of of the holidays, the holiday season, and I am 2, but everybody got their like favorite. JackOne you know. JackAnd so I've kind of. JackI would like to use it to share with our listeners what your favorite. JackAmerican Holiday is and why? KevinYeah for holidays, that's interesting. KevinI'm it depends on the holiday for me because actually some holidays like Christmas. KevinI don't really like very much, but that's the and that was not I I Grinch or as screwed. JackAre you a Grinch or Scrooge? KevinIt's just when I was in university, I worked a couple of retail jobs at just like big stores. KevinAnd they just always played Christmas music all day, every day for two months the same the same CD repeated. JackRight, the same 7 songs. JackOver and over again, right. KevinAgain and again and again. KevinAnd I just got really sick of it. KevinIt's just like no more Christmas, but around that same time of year is the American Thanksgiving. KevinAnd that holiday is probably the holiday that I probably the holiday that I miss the most not living in America these days. KevinI'll talk about it a. KevinLittle bit, but what's? KevinWhat's yours first? JackSo mine is a little bit strange because it I don't know if it's technically a holiday, but I'm getting. KevinThings well, that's what you got. JackI'll tell you what it is. JackOK, so I when I was a kid, I loved Halloween. KevinOK, right. JackAnd I still do. JackI I, I still love Halloween. JackI love all the. JackThe icons, you know, like the Jack O Lantern and the witch and the ghosts and Dracula and vampires and zombies and all that sort of stuff. KevinRight. JackI love zombie movies and vampire movies. KevinRight. We talked about that. JackMovies, so I love horror. JackUhm, so for me, I just always loved Halloween. JackNow, in America, Halloween is not a day off from work. JackSo you still have to go to work on Halloween. KevinRight. JackSo it's not technically a holiday, but. KevinThe best. JackIt's something that we celebrate. KevinI think account. JackAnd it kind of, it is kind of like the first holiday of the holiday season which would be Thanksgiving, is in November and Christmas is in December and Halloween starts on. JackOctober 31st. KevinRight. KevinThat is pretty much where, yeah that that holiday season because, it's the three holidays basically in two months, you know end of October. KevinEnd of November. Kevinend of December. KevinJust bumping film all altogether. KevinThat's a a cool one, because it's so different from here in Korea too. KevinIn America, right? KevinLike in America? KevinI mean, people go crazy decorating their homes with so much holiday decorations my dad loves to decorate. KevinLike they would set up this, their whole yard would have, you know, skeletons and witches and light shows and things there's. JackAh, I love when families really get into it like that. JackLike, uh. JackWhat when we were young, what was really exciting for my brother and me was to go to a pumpkin patch, and so we would. KevinOh, OK, cool. JackWe would each pick out a pumpkin, and then we would bring it home. JackAnd then you take all the insides of the pumping out, and then you carve what's called a Jackal Lantern, and that's. JackYou know, you put you, you cut out the eyes and you cut out a nose and a mouth. JackAnd you put a candle inside of it, and at night it looks really cool because it glows with that fandom inside. KevinYeah, I I remember doing that. KevinWhat did you guys do with the pumpkin seeds? JackWe just threw it all in the garbage. JackIt was just like, the smell is not so good.Oh, Oh no. JackAnd I know that. JackI know pumpkin seeds are really quite healthy and you can you can bake them or, yeah, that's smart. KevinThat's what we would do. KevinIt's really simple, like there's. KevinAll the pumpkin guts and I don't remember I. KevinI'm sure my mom just threw that away. KevinShe would like pick all the seeds out. KevinOf it, but she would. KevinJust line, uh, Trey, just with seeds. KevinAnd throw it in the oven and just sprinkle salt over it. KevinSo just salted pumpkin seeds. KevinReally simple. KevinAnd yeah, every year we would we would have just a big tray of pumpkin seeds after making our jack-o'-lanterns. JackI think we were just too lazy to kind of pull the guts apart from the seeds. JackLike it's kind of hard to separate the seeds. KevinYeah, they all stuck together. JackIt's all stuck together, but yeah. KevinI don't remember how my mom did it, but I know she was she. KevinWas the one in charge of Elsa. JackThis is a hard worker, yeah? KevinYes, wait. JackThe yeah and the other thing I like, I like the season. JackMy favorite season is fall and so Halloween comes kind of at the end of fall or right in the middle of fall, I guess. JackAnd the air is kind of in English we say brisk. JackSo it's kind of, that's my favorite temperature. KevinI do love the fall as well. JackI love it. JackYeah, just the. KevinAnd Thanksgiving then is just a couple weeks later, and so it's starting to get a little bit cold. KevinBut it depends on where you live. KevinOf course for me. KevinThanksgiving and Thanksgiving is a holiday. KevinA day off of work, of course. KevinAnd I always loved Thanksgiving because it's just a gathering of friends and family. KevinAnd for us, I have a pretty small family, especially growing up, like my family is spread all over America. KevinSo Thanksgiving, we would actually go over to a family friends house and we would join in their big Thanksgiving. KevinInstead of my family, which is just three people. KevinWe would go and join this big group where there was like 20 people there and we would, you know, there was a ton of food. KevinOf course it's Thanksgiving food, but then also it was really fun because there were all the other kids to play with all the other families, and so we'd all eat and eat and eat a lot. KevinAnd then after, of course. KevinIt was, you know, the parents and the adults would all go and either watch TV or talk or whatever and all the kids we would go up to. KevinOne of the kids rooms at whatever house we were at and we played a lot of video games. KevinI know we talked about that a couple episodes ago. KevinAnd so it was just a really fun day to to gather all together with friends and family. KevinAnd then I did the same when I was in university. KevinActually, because again, Thanksgiving has always been really big for me. KevinAnd when you're in university, you know, some people live or some people, parents, homes. KevinAre quite far from the university town. KevinAnd so sometimes my friends would go home for Thanksgiving, and they'd go back. KevinBut before Thanksgiving, every year, we would do a friendsgiving. KevinAnd so it was all the friends would get together because Thanksgiving Day is for family and so some people would go home. KevinBut before that, like one week before, we have all the friends to come together and everyone would, you know, we're just college students. KevinWe don't have a lot of money. KevinWe don't have a lot of. KevinThey don't have a lot of space, but everyone would do. KevinWe do a potluck. KevinAnd so, you know, I would bring some food and my other friend would bring some food and everyone would bring something and we would all come together and do like a friend Thanksgiving, where we'd all just get together. JackDid you, did you cook? JackA bird like like make for our listeners out there like the most traditional of Thanksgiving. JackFood is the Turkey we yeah, I made a Turkey and did you guys do a Turkey for friendsgiving? KevinSometimes everyone would do something different. KevinThere was almost always someone would do our Turkey, would actually bake the whole Turkey. KevinWhat I I always like to have fun with my friends giving. KevinSo Turkey is still the traditional food for it. KevinBut what I did for my friends giving for two years. KevinIn a row I remember I did different things, though I still did Turkey, but not like the big, you know, full birds cooked in an oven. JackYeah, that's too much for just a few friends, yeah. KevinUhm, yeah. KevinSo what I did though is I would go and just buy some Turkey meat and one year I did Turkey tacos. JackTurkey tacos, OK, yeah. KevinSo it was still Turkey. KevinYou still get that traditional Turkey, but I was like, I'm going to do something different with it. KevinAnd we did Turkey tacos or another year. KevinI did Turkey sandwiches, and so we'd still do like, the cranberry spread, but instead of, you know, just on the plate of Turkey meat and cranberries and things. KevinIt was a Turkey sandwich, basically, so I played with the theme a little bit. JackThat's fun that the Turkey Taco thing is definitely a good representation of where you're from. The SW yeah, you're close to Mexico. So yeah, of course. KevinThat too, yeah. JackMexican food. JackThat kind of fusion with Thanksgiving is a great idea. JackI the thing I remember is the week after Thanksgiving. JackHow many Turkey sandwiches my brother and I would eat because my mom had all of this meat leftover from Thanksgiving? KevinLots of blood fingers. JackYeah, it was just Turkey sandwiches for, like, a week after Thanksgiving. JackYeah, every day. JackYeah, but I loved it. KevinThat was the best part. JackI love Turkey. KevinWhen, yeah, I loved when I a couple years I went to my friend because I was living away from my parents in university, but one of my good friends, he was still living with his. KevinFamily. And so they would invite me to their house for Thanksgiving as again, just big important holiday. And I would love that because as a college student going to my friend's mom house, that mom would make tons of food and always would give me bags and bags of food to take home after I had tons of leftovers. JackAnd then when you're a poor college student, that there's nothing better than free food. KevinOh yeah. KevinThere's nothing better than free food, and I think this is kind of an interesting place to end, and that's something I'd love to talk to or hear from our audience about our listeners. KevinLike one what holiday is important for you and what's your favorite holiday? KevinBut what does your family do on those holidays? KevinAnd is it the same or is it different? KevinFrom other holidays and every family has her own trip. JackThat's right. In every country got its own you know cultural holidays that might not align with the with the US so share, share those two because. Yeah. KevinAnd that. JackVery interested in in lots of different you know stories and lots of different conditions. KevinI think Thanksgiving would be what I'd love to hear because a lot of countries don't have Thanksgiving in the same way, but they have some harvest festival, and that's really what Thanksgiving is. JackDad, right. Yeah, yeah. KevinYou know, here in Korea we've got chalk, and in America we've got Thanksgiving. KevinAnd it's the same idea, but it's so different. KevinBut still, it's getting friends, it's getting family together and food. JackYeah, it's all there's all of its family and food. KevinSo she. JackThose are the two common denominators. KevinThose are the big ones. JackI think they, yeah. JackCut across all the holidays. KevinYeah, yeah. KevinThat's so I'd love to hear what different holidays you have, but also how do you do your holidays?Because, maybe it's different and holidays are fun to talk about. KevinAlways a happy time of year, hopefully. KevinAnd so that's where it's a good topic to to discuss. KevinBut we can go ahead. KevinAnd wrap up with that for today. KevinSo what about listener mail Jack who has who sent in today? JackYes, so we. JackHave, yeah, so we have some listener messages from our listener mail from. JackNikki and I'm I apologize if I. KevinAnd this was actually on our website of course, so you can comment on there. JackYeah, yeah. JackNikki wrote right into the yeah, you can just leave a comment right on our website. JackAnd so she said hi, Kevin and Jack. JackAnd the question was how did you learn to type? JackAnd so that was one of the discussion questions that we had in a recent episode, I believe. KevinThat was from, yeah, quick Chat 14 about our technology discussion, our old technology one. JackThat's right, that's right, Nikki said. JackI learned to type when I studied for two years at university and I started a part time job at that time. JackIn the interview, the first question was, can I use a computer? JackHere, unfortunately, we didn't have a computer in our house. KevinYou don't. JackIt was very difficult to find an Internet cafe in our city. JackFortunately, my father friend worked at the university at the Computer Center, and so Nikki says I asked permission from him to use the computer. KevinOK, nice. JackYeah, he showed me how to turn up, turn on and turn off the computer and then said the best way to learn is just. JackDo it by yourself. JackSo he didn't really help her help Nikki. JackAnd so, uh, but Nikki figured it out and even though it was hard, eventually learned how to type. JackSo there you go. JackThat's a very interesting story. JackAnd yeah, I mean, that's the way you learn things anyway, right? JackIt's just talking about doing it. KevinIt really is. KevinJust start. KevinJust do it. KevinJust get in there and start clicking around. KevinThat's great. KevinWell, thanks for writing it on the website, Nikki. KevinThat's very cool information to have. KevinAnd for everybody, of course, you can please check out our website where we have all of our information. KevinThen of course you can comment right on there, but also remember to check the show notes where you can get links to the website and links to our WhatsApp group where you can come and join the conversation. KevinTell us more. KevinAlso, if you've got the time, it would be great if on Apple Podcast you could go and give us a 5 star review. KevinAnd write a comment about how we're helping you with your English here. KevinSo everybody, thanks for joining in and see you in our chat. JackAlright, bye. Bye.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this special episode of The A to Z English Podcast, we talk with Jonathan from Costa Rica, a dedicated English student and an active member of our Whatsapp group. (Link here: https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7)Website Link: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/?p=1739It's a great conversation, so you won't want to miss it!Share your thoughts about today's interview in our Whatsapp group or tell us if you think you have something interesting to talk about. Perhaps you could be our next guest on the podcast!If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/Full Transcript: Jonathan from Costa RicaKevin: Welcome to an A to Z English listener interview. Today we're talking with Jonathan Gutierrez who is in Costa Rica and is one of our listeners. And he's going to tell us today about his English learning experience using A to Z English and all of the other sources that he did. So Jonathan, nice to see you. it's night time there right?Jonathan: Okay, it's nice to see you guys. So um thank you for having me here.Kevin: Oh you're welcome. it's great to have you on the show. Jack: Yeah thanks for coming and I appreciate it. Kevin: Yeah it's already evening there. Did you have your dinner tonight?Jonathan: Uh not yet. I just arrived at home a few minutes ago.Kevin: Yeah?Jonathan: I was working today, so I just arrived at home maybe 10 or 15 minutes ago. But it’s okay.Kevin: Well thank you for finding time to join us then for us it's Monday daytime of course time zones are funny, so Jonathan you're in Costa Rica.I’ve never been to Costa Rica though I have had a couple of friends that went there. Actually one of my good friends from university, he and his uh girlfriend at the time, now wife, they went to Costa Rica many years ago, maybe almost 20 years ago and they were teaching English for six months or a year, so I know English education is quite big in Costa Rica. How, where or when did you first start learning English? Was it in schools or did you have a tutor or just the internet or where did you start? Jonathan: Yeah I started when I in high school. Okay so I'm learning a few things in high school. Maybe I don't uh that I feel for example um I love the idiom or stuff like that. Sure maybe a couple years ago that I started to return again to learning English and I joined what's the room with Robin Shaw? So I started my new challenge. I changed my mind because I want um to get a bilingual job and I think I start to practice a little bit more. I forgot all the rules and English grammars. I love vocabulary so it was a little bit insane you know. Maybe not because I forgot so a lot of things um so it was something new for me. Let's start again. They start with uh maybe kids stuff um and it was pretty good. Robin helped me a lot. Kevin: I'm curious. if you said you started again because you forgot everything, I actually I know Costa Rica is a Spanish-speaking country and I used to speak a little bit of Spanish. I studied Spanish in university. But like you I stopped using it and I totally forgot everything once you started to study again. Was it easier than the first time? Did you start to remember things?Jonathan: Yeah it’s quite something funny because when I’m trying to learn again um I remember oh I remember this but how can we use everything. So I forgot for example um singular verbs, plural, past tense and stuff like that. Yeah so it started again. I practiced a lot um every day and yeah I found a bunch of friends and I tried to do my best every day to learn English and my one of my goals was get bilingual because I am native speaker Spanish speaker all right good yeah. it was a big challenge you know. it was pretty awesome. I was excited to learn again English, so I decided to start again and practice and practice every day. Jack: That's great! Yeah do you use English in your job right now? Jonathan: Yes I’ve been working in a call center for around five months oh nice and is for um I am customer service agent for us company so it's something new for me and I'm taking calls every day for…Jack: So are the people that calling you are they they're Americans then?Jonathan: Yes.Kevin: And I know speaking another language over the phone can sometimes be more difficult than speaking together with a person because you can't see them. You don't know what their facial expressions or what their body is doing. What things have been the hardest for you doing a phone job where you're only listening to people speaking English and Americans have many different styles of English. Some are very fast. Some are very slow. What was what's the hardest thing for you in in your job?Jonathan: All right um I guess that's the listening stuff because when the customer speaks.Kevin: They start to speak and start to speak uh faster right?Jonathan: Faster and you need to get all the information in a few seconds and trying to avoid. Kevin: Do you mean trying umJonathan: Yeah trying I need to improve a lot my listening skills to avoid this kind of situation because it's a customer service job I mean right we need to focus on listening and try to get the best message with the customer and assist the customer and sometimes we can hear um maybe i'll set customers and we need to okay slow down, take it easy and assist the customer.Kevin: Well that sounds like our podcast would be helpful for listening skills. Then so I’m hopeful that we are helping you. There that's great yeah what was the…Jack: Uh could you could you give us an example of maybe like a very challenging phone call or a uh experience that you've had at the call center? Is there one memorable experience? Jonathan: Yeah we got a lot of accents from us so maybe for example when I try to speak uh when a customer uh he got access from example for Texas or um it's so hard to understand but I try to do my best and when decide to speak it faster and faster, it's hard to understand. But I always do my best every day.Jack: Yeah so like a southern Texas accent would be hard to understand but like in eastern in the east uh people speak quite quickly in New York and yeah Massachusetts in that area yeah people speak very fast, very quickly. Jonathan: You got it uh by the way um well our customers are from the east coast uh Massachusetts, Boston, New York and New Jersey yeah and Philadelphia um and I find that listening also can sometimes be more difficult than speaking because there's so many ways to say the same thing and one person says it this way, another person says it a different way and you know one way to say it and so you're correct you know how to do it but they use a different or a different way and so it can be very confusing. It's like oh I know what that means I know what you're saying but I don't know that way of saying it. Yeah all this comes with more and more practice. Kevin: Yeah exactly in the second part is the most important trying to explain the situation with the customer because it's a technical vocabulary so you need to explain some things from to someone that never uses uh technical vocabulary. That's really interesting. You need me to focus uh in something easy right to say to another person that's really interesting because then you are listening to an american a native speaker and you're speaking back to them and you're using words that they don't know so you know more English in some ways than they do. It's just that technical language. What a unique experience to know more English than a native speaker but having to change it for them to understand.Jonathan: Yeah it's a challenge because every day you need to focus on trying to explain yourself something easy about technical vocabulary so maybe it's easy, maybe sometimes it's uh difficult because you need to guess what the customer needs and sometimes it's hard because the customer is trying to explain something and you need to all right. Did you need uh this? You need this all right. I got it and this is the result.Jack: So uh you so you need to practice um your English and you use uh Shaw English and you listen to the A to Z English Podcast but um at your work do you also speak English to your co-workers, your colleagues. Do you practice even though you can both of you speak Spanish as a first language? Do you ever communicate in English with your colleagues just for practice?Jonathan: Yes a few things we need to uh speak English with another uh co-workers or maybe when you need to target another department, it's always speaking English and we always needs to be focused in speaking English together and it's more easy to end of the day for the end of the day. Yeah so when you go to work you basically switch your mind to English. You just say when I’m at work I'm using English and then when I get home I use Spanish.Jack: Is that right?Jonathan: Yeah but it's funny because for me I try to get involved um always in English environment so when I arrive at home I turn on my tv and find um series on Netflix and in English and or are you going to when i'm going to work i'm going to listen to music or listen to your podcast on my cell phone so I trying to always um thinking English, do something in English.Kevin: Cool! That's awesome! Yeah that's more and more practice. So of all of those things that you do the last question I like to ask people that we talk to is if you could give a tip to other listeners, what one thing do you think would be the most useful to practice English? Or what do you do that you think is the most useful? Jonathan: All right for me um I guess um you need to practice every day. It's not my magical poison you know or something like that but the first thing you need to change your mind, uh you need to start to focus in English uh think in English. Uh do exercise practice speak with friends uh maybe international friends is the best way because you never need to speak in another language, just holding in English because if I have a friend here, I can speak Spanish. But for example, if I got a friend on in Malaysia and another person doesn't know anything about the Spanish so you need to focus almost in English.Jack: That’s a nice tip! Kevin: Nice! Well Malaysia is good. We talked to Mei Fong last week, so maybe if you talk to her, then you can practice as well. Yeah but that's a great tip getting your mind around English that's yeah a great thing. Just practice, practice, practice. Jonathan: Yeah a lot of practice and uh one thing, it's helped me a lot, is this shadowing technique.Kevin: Uh shadowing uh yeah watching videos on YouTube and practice is a bit aloud and yeah if you can't practice with a friend, you can still do something alone. Just listen and repeat and listen, repeat it does help. It helps you sound more natural in the language that's really fantastic.Kevin: You sound like you work really hard at your English and we're talking to you here, so it's having good results. Jack: Good job! Absolutely. Yeah thanks a lot Jonathan. We really appreciate it.Kevin: Yeah Jonathan. Thanks for sharing your story with us. It's very cool and now you've got to get some dinner. It's late there. You must be very hungry. Jonathan: Yeah a little bit. Kevin: Nice well thank you for coming and talking to us.Jonathan: Thanks to you guys. I really appreciate it. Jack: It's our pleasure. Kevin: Yyeah have a great evening.Jonathan: Same to you and take care and I hope I'll see you soon again. Kevin: All right thank you.Jack: Thanks Jonathan bye bye. Jonathan: See ya. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode, Kevin and Jack talk about going to camp as a kid. They share some stories and fun memories of things they did there. Share your answers to the discussion questions in our WhatsApp group chat! https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7Website link: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/did-you-go-to-camp/With listener mail from episode 6: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/do-you-have-any-pets/If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters:https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/Key Words: Write the definitions of the key words. Dribble:Scrimmage:Camp Counsellor:Certificate:Skull:Discussion Questions:Did you go to summer camp when you were young?What did you do at camp?Describe your favorite activity at camp.Describe your least favorite activity at camp?Full Transcript: Kevin: Welcome to an A to Z English quick chat we're gonna surprise each other with a topic for the day and then see where the conversation goes. Check our website for a study guide with vocabulary notes, discussion questions and more as well as links to our Whatsapp, Facebook pages and other social media where you can join in the conversation. Our topic for today, Jack, I just yesterday I, I finished teaching a kids camp of an English kids camp and it got me thinking about camps that I did when I was a kid and you must have done some camps in school or in summer vacation or winter vacation.Jack: I did a lot of uh, I did summer camps when I was a kid, especially in elementary school. Yeah like a week or two weeks, something like that.Kevin: Oh two weeks. That's quite, that's quite a long one. I don't remember well I guess it depends on the camp. I can think of two that I did when I was young. One was a field trip camp. My school went to an island in California and that was probably pretty short, maybe three nights, three or four nights, yeah that's a pretty short one.Jack: Exactly.Kevin: Yeah, but then I did another. I did a basketball camp when I was in elementary school and that was probably longer. That was probably two or three weeks but that was not sleeping at the camp, you know, I'd go from my home to the school and play basketball and go home every day.Jack: Yeah, I did the same thing in elementary school and middle school. We had a uh, our high school basketball coach would run in a summer basketball camp, but yeah it was only…Kevin: You said you were a basketball player.Jack: Yeah, I played basketball in high school and in college, so um yeah, we would uh, we'd go learn the techniques and then play and then go home, eat dinner, sleep, and then go back again the next day. Basketball all day every day, yeah at that time, basketball all day every day was heaven for me you know. That's all we wanted to do. I mean, we, that's what we did when we couldn't get into the gym. We went to the park and we played basketball. I mean that's all we, that's all we wanted to do.Kevin: Yeah, and how, what did the coaches do to keep it fun for the kids all day. It's not just play basketball, it's not just go go go go go. Like they organized things. I'm sure they you have to organize things.Jack: It's more difficult, the younger, so for the younger kids, um, I think it's more, they can't do as much, so they, it's a lot of like technique and just dribble down, go between the cones, you know just zig zag and then come back and pass the ball to your friend and then that person runs a drill and they zig zag through the cones and then they come back and so it's just a lot of that kind of stuff, very simple games. But when we got older, um, the, all we wanted to do was to uh, I'll use a maybe a new word here for our listeners is scrimmage and scrimmage is a word that means to play a game. But it's not an official game. It's just a practice game so that's all we wanted to do was basically we do all the technique and the practice but what we really want to do is play basketball and play yeah yeah and so that would always come at the end of the day, so in the beginning, you do the annoying hard work stuff and then later as a reward, then you then you get to play, scrimmage, you get to or you get to scrimmage. You get to play games, okay yeah, with each other so that makes sense.Kevin: I mean the camp that I just did was an English camp of course and so they did the kind of similar things. We did the boring class in the morning for the kids you know. Let's learn English and let's listen to the story and blah blah blah but then the afternoon was the fun stuff with the teachers. It was go play a sport or make some pizzas or something you do. Some games, still English, for the kids to practice it's an English camp, but you know, do the boring stuff in the morning and have the fun stuff in in the afternoon before dinner. Did you ever go to any just like fun camps?Jack: I went to a couple summer camps that were just all about fun activities. There was no English. There was no basketball, um, you know. We could play basketball if we wanted to, but they weren't teaching us how to play basketball, and I remember going to one of those camps and that was really fun because we were yeah…Kevin: I want you to tell me a story from one because I can think of one like I said I went to an island in in California with my school when I was it was maybe fifth or sixth grade so like upper elementary school, I don't remember. This was a long time ago of course, but we went to this island with the class and that was just yeah, just a fun camp, and I remember, what do I remember, it was so long ago…I remember we went kayaking which was really cool because we were on an island, and then I remember also doing like a night hike like walking with all of your friends in the night time through the forest and that was really funny because it was kind of scary, and it was very dark, like some people had flashlights. But not everyone, and so I remember we were walking and we would hold hands of the person in front and behind you so that we wouldn't get lost of course because losing a kid in the forest in the dark is bad. Yeah, but we would um, when you're walking, you would have to be careful because there's many things in the forest to fall over, to trip over, yeah and so we would spend…we would send like a message back in the line saying like step up or step down or go right or things to tell the person behind you. Like what's about to happen, but because I was you know a little troublemaker kid sometimes I would just tell the person behind me, step up or step down, even though there was nothing, there's no rock or anything, and so they would almost fall over and then I would laugh and keep walking so that was their teamwork. Uh it was a teamwork exercise, but yeah.Jack You weren't being a very good teammate huh?Kevin: I was breaking the team. Um where did you go? What was your fun camp?Jack: My fun camp was called uh camp Shamineau, and there's a good Native American name because it's named after a lake, yeah.Kevin: Where was this?Jack: Um this is in northern Minnesota, so lots of forests and as I mentioned in one of our earlier podcasts uh Minnesota is famous for its number of lakes. It's called ‘the land of 10000 lakes’ right? There's a lot up there. There are so many lakes, and there's a lot of camps uh that are on you know kind of built on lakes so that you can go, yeah, you could go swimming, and I remember uh there was a there was a uh a challenge. It's called the I swam sham challenge and so okay uh the um… what do you… I'm blanking on the word right now, counselors, the camp counselors, camp counselors yeah.Kevin: Like, high school kids right?Jack: Yeah like high school kids or college kids and we were in elementary school and they would uh, they'd take you on one side of the lake and then they're in a boat and then you swim across the lake and if you make it all the way across the lake without getting into the boat or asking for help or anything, then you get a certificate that says I swam sham and uh so a few of us that were…Kevin: Did you make it?Jack: I made it absolutely. Yes, I was, I'm a strong swimmer. Uh not a, I'm not a particularly fast swimmer, but I very, I'm very familiar with the water, so and comfortable in the water, so for me it was you know, it was pretty easy, but I just remember feeling you know quite proud to have swam or swum across a lake that was pretty cool. So yeah, definitely, and it's something that especially when not all the kids can do it, when some of the kids are going up into the boat and you're like I did it, yeah, they managed to finish. They didn't make it or they're too afraid to try or something, so right, yeah it was kind of a point. It's a good feeling.Kevin: Yeah? Nice. That's very cool. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. These kids camps are really fun. Swimming across lakes actually reminds me a little bit off topic, one day, I really want to swim across the Han River here in Seoul.Jack: Oh really? Is that something that you can do?Kevin: There's actually, there actually, are people who've done it. I've looked it up before, but you have to choose like when to go because before the rainy season, before it gets crazy, yeah, and under some people say things like that quite dirty and stuff, so, but I think that would be really fun because I love being in the water as well yeahJack: And you're a strong swimmer. That's something that you do as a hobby.Kevin: Yeah, swimming is my exercise, so that's what I would love to get into.Jack: Yeah, um, there's you know, another uh aspect of that camp that I remember was uh the night games.Kevin: Like you did a night hike?Jack: We would play a game called capture the flag. You have two teams and one team has a flag and the other team has a flag and they hide it somewhere in the forest or on the campgrounds and then at night, you have to go and catch the other team's flag. And I remember uh how exciting and scary and fun that was because it kind of kind of feels like you're part of a battle or in kind of a war zone or something like that. So it's a very fun.Kevin: Uh night time that would be really cool to do. Yeah I remember one of our things, I don't remember how it works, but with our night hike, what we did, the reason we did it so dark was because then at the end, we turned off our lights. And you know, um, lifesavers candy? Lkke it's a little like just chewable candy. It's like shaped like a circle. Something that the camp counselors gave us was like mint flavored candies, mint flavored lifesavers and there was something in the mint flavored lifesavers that when you would bite into it, crunch down into it, if your mouth was open it would actually flash like a light.Jack: Yeah?Kevin: And I don't remember how but I just remember this this this activity when I was a kid because all of us, all of our friends got in a big circle and they gave us each a candy and we would all just crunch down on this candy and all of our mouths were just going likeJack: So there's some kind of light or fluorescence like coming?Kevin: There's something in that candy at least there was maybe it was some crazy chemical that was okay in the 1990s and they took it out now but there was there was something in the candy that that made it light up and that was the really exciting part of the trip.Jack: Wow that's a fascinating…I did not expect you to tell that story.Kevin: So I yeah it's something I just remembered, candy, that just remembered.Jack: Yeah that's fascinating.Kevin: Other things those camps are always really fun because you do like science experiments or random things. Another thing actually I that I just remembered we opened up um what are they called owl drop not just owl droppings but like there's a specific word for it where when an owl you know would like eat a mouse or whatever and then they poop it out and it falls to the ground. It's not like normal bird poo where it's just you know like white splattering on your shirt. It's like a small, like it looks like a small piece of dirt but then you can open it up with some tools and inside it there's like a mouse skull and some other bones and things like that so you can see what the owl ate because when owls eat mice, they just basically gulp it whole down and then they digest itJack: But they can't digest the bones.Kevin: So right so then the bones just getting pooped out.Jack: Wow that's yeah those are the things that I really enjoyed about uh you know being in elementary school and going to camps and doing science experiments and you know just uh and playing those games. I don't think I as an adult I don't think I've ever had as much fun and joy as I'd had when I was just a kid you know, and that's what camps do I think is that they just they really bring a lot of joy and happiness to children and I think it's something that you have to that you can you can't really hold on to as you get older and…Kevin: So yeah, and there's definitely a lot of memories that the kids make, especially if it's one where you're staying there for two, three, four nights or longer. And I think you know like a good place to wrap up for here when I was just finishing these camps with these kids. At the last day of camp, some of the kids are really emotional. I got kind of emotional. Like you've been spending you know a week just with these same group of kids all day and then these kids also are with me, the teacher, but more so with our camp counselors. And some of the kids were really sad to go home they were like I'm gonna miss you teacher and especially to those who like, I'm the teacher you know, so I'm happy, I'm having fun of course but the counselors, they're like teacher slash friend and so some of the kids were really sad to go home because they really made strong memories and some good friends and hopefully, they had a lot of fun at our camp and hopefully they'll come back.Jack: Yeah, when I went to camp Shamineau, I just, I'll this would be my last statement here, but I cried twice: I cried the first day because I was going to miss my parents and I was feeling homesick, and I cried on the last day of camp because I didn't want to leave. I didn't want to…Kevin: Yeah, that's so, that sounds like a pretty perfect camp experience where you're nervous to go but then you have so much fun that you don't want to leave, that you just want to stay there to last forever. Yeah, nice that's, great yeah, camps are fun and I would love to hear what kind of camps our listeners are doing out there in other parts of the world, you know, what are they learning? What are they doing? What kind of activities do you do in camps or what memories do you have?Jack: Yeah, tell us about those.Kevin: for sure, yeah, it's a fun a fun thing to relive that that happy part of your life when you were a kid or it was just all fun and games. But nice! So, for today though to wrap up I know we've got some listener mail from a couple of our previous episodes so what have, we got for today, Jack, yeah so we have uh some discussion question answers from Anna Maria and Anna Maria is from Colombia and this one was about pets. And the question was, “Do you have a pet?” And Anna Maria says yes. She has a dog named Tomate which, help me out Kevin, is that uh tomato and…Kevin: I think that is. I think that is tomato.Jack: Yeah, okay, so her dog is Tomato.Kevin: That is a cute name for a dog.Jack: I agree. And the second question was, “Is uh is your dog a good watchdog?” And a watchdog is like a protector, and she says uh yes, he barks a lot when a stranger is close to my house and he's always alert with strangers, so she actually feels safer uh having Tomate you know in her life in uh in her apartment or in her house so I think that's uh that's pretty cool. So, we'll give a shout out to uh Anna Maria and Tomate.Kevin: Nice, and the pets episode, that was our Quick Chat number six for anyone else who wants to go back and check that one out, so yeah, pets are pets are great. Tomate I love I love the name yeah.Jack: I love different dog and pets. It's fun to hear the different names that people give their dogs around, especially in other parts of the world. It's really interesting.Kevin: Yeah yeah yeah, definitely some names here in Korea are like normal people names and some names are just totally random.Jack: If you name your dog Frank, uh it's not, it doesn't really uh you know doesn't capture that.Kevin: I don't know any Frank dogs. That's a bit funny, but anyway, that was a great one, so thanks Anna Maria and everybody, well thanks for tuning in. Please remember to leave us a review if you can on Apple Podcasts and a five-star rating. That would be, that would be super helpful and also you can check our Whatsapp group. It's linked on the webpage or down in the show notes where you can come and join us in the conversation, so we'll talk to you there have a good one all right.Jack: Bye bye!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode, Jack discusses five common English idioms and describes their meanings.https://atozenglishpodcast.com/idioms-2/Share your answers to the discussion questions in our WhatsApp group chat! https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/Listen to the episode and write the definitions of the idioms.Sit tight:Pitch in: Go cold turkey:Face the music:Ring a bell: Discussion Questions:How do you feel when someone tells you to sit tight? Have you ever worked on a group project and one person did not pitch in? Have you ever gone cold turkey on something: cigarettes, alcohol, sugar, etc.? What did you go cold turkey on? How did you feel? Have you ever had to face the music for something you did wrong? Idioms A to Z 2: Idioms with verbs 2 Full Transcript: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/idioms-2/Jack: Hey everybody! Welcome to the A to Z English Podcast. We have another special episode for you today. We are going to look at another five idioms and I will explain the meanings of the idioms and I’ll even use some examples in sentences so let's go ahead and get started. Uh the very first one that we have is sit tight and what does that mean the expression or the idiom sit tight sit tight. Everybody knows sit me and sit like sit down um and you know what the adjective tight is right. Um if a shirt is too tight it's too small right but what does that mean together sit tight sit tight well we use this expression when we want somebody to wait and we want them to wait patiently. Don't be over excited. Just relax sit down and relax or you can just say just sit tight just wait sit tight um. For example if there are a line of people waiting for help okay and so uh somebody needs help you have the person helping those people they have to help the first person first and the second person and then the third person but if somebody in the back of the line like number five in the line uh tries to you know I need help right now please help me right now uh. Sorry sir uh please sit tight. I have to help these four people first and then I will help you so you're asking that person to please relax please wait patiently or just say to them sit tight. I will help you as soon as possible sit tight just wait patiently so there you go that's our first idiom is to sit tight and I would say this is a pretty common expression and it's not necessarily rude. Um it's not exactly polite either but it's something that you can definitely say to somebody when they're not being patient and they're not waiting patiently you just say excuse me please just sit tight and I will I will be with you as soon as I can okay so sit tight. Um number two our second idiom is pitch in so to pitch in what does that mean to pitch in pitch in. Pitch in um pitch in is just another expression or another way to say help you know um if you are it's kind of like not just helping someone but helping a group okay so let's imagine that you have a group project at school and you have to divide the workload into let's say you have five people in the group so every person should do about 20% of the work right and another way we could say that is everybody should pitch in by if you say pitch in means they should help they should do their share of the work and sometimes we use this expression. If everybody would pitch in we can finish this job very quickly so let's say you have some kind of like cleaning the house if one person cleans the whole house it takes a long time but if the whole family pitches in, if everybody pitches in then you can clean the house much more quickly and it's much easier much faster better for everybody right so if the children pitch in they clean the room the husband pitches in. He vacuums the floor and the wife pitches in and she washes the dishes and if everybody pitches in if everybody helps then the job can get done a lot faster and so we use pitch in as an expression that means to help or assist. Usually the group okay to pitch in um so there you go that's our second idiom for today. We're going to move on to idiom number three and idiom number three is to go cold turkey. Now none of these idioms that we're talking about today are related okay. They don't really, these are all just random uh idioms okay and so I’m not trying to connect them to each other um but these are this one's a a strange one okay to go cold turkey, go cold turkey and I will put these uh idioms in the show notes or in the descriptions in the description of the podcast so that you can actually read the idioms as well. What does it mean to go cold turkey to go cold turkey means to quit something usually a bad habit immediately so for example if you know someone who smokes cigarettes and they can't stop smoking because they are addicted. They are addicted to cigarettes. They are addicted to nicotine, the drug in a cigarette, um if somebody says I am going to quit cold turkey or I am going to go cold turkey that means they are going to stop immediately right now. They're not going to slowly stop okay, slowly stopping would be today. I will smoke five cigarettes next week. I will smoke four and the next time I’ll smoke three and slowly tapered off. No cold turkey means I’m done right now forever. I quit cold turkey. It could be cigarettes. It could be alcohol. It could be illegal drugs. I mean it could be sugar um it could be you know anything negative you know and then a negative a bad habit um in you and they say I’m going to quit. I’m going to go cold turkey means I’m not slowly stopping. I’m stopping right now immediately so that's what it means to go cold turkey okay cold turkey um again a pretty common expression in English we use this when people quit something right you know immediately. Um number four, number four the idiom is face the music. Face the music so to face the music. What does that mean to face the music? Well I’ll let you think about it for example. Some face we know face the noun face is you know your face, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your face right but face is also a verb and it is a verb that can mean to confront something right to look something or to um to not run away from something okay so if you're scared if there's something kind of scary or something if you face it, you don't run away. You just look right at it. You face it okay and that's a verb to face something. To face the music means you did something wrong. Now you have to face the punishment and so in English we have an idiom that says you have to face the music you have to. You have to admit I did something wrong. I made a mistake. I need to receive punishment for my mistake. I’m not going to run away from it. I’m going to face the music even if the consequence or the punishment is really bad. We still say or some people who have integrity will face the music they say yes I did it. I did the bad thing and whatever happens, I deserve it and that is facing the music okay, not running away but facing the music and um you know we use this expression when you know criminals people who are you know steal things or whatever and they get caught and they have to go to see a judge or whatever we say. Well that person has to face the music, you have to face the judge, face the punishment, again sometimes people do it because they want to you know face the music because they have integrity sometimes people get caught and they have no choice okay, like a criminal, somebody who steals something and the police catch that person and then now that person must face the music. They don't have a choice, so sometimes we face the music by choice, sometimes we have no choice and we have to face the music but either way we can use this idiom and it has that meaning and my last idiom um the last idiom on my list is ring a bell and everybody knows what a bell is right? Ringing a bell, ding dong ding dong, ring a bell but this when we're using it as an idiom, it has a different meaning, okay? It's not, we're not literally ringing a bell but if I say if I’m uh trying to think of something but I cannot remember or somebody says something and it reminds me of something I can say ah that rings a bell that rings a bell that that that helped me remember something. So to ring a bell or sometimes we use it in the negative and somebody says you know. For example my friend says do you remember, uh the do you remember last year when you spilled coffee on your shirt and I don't remember that um, it doesn't ring a bell, it doesn't ring a bell. I don't remember, I that I have no memory of that okay and then maybe my friend says you know no it was the you were wearing a green shirt. I remember it was a green shirt, ah the green shirt, yes, that rings a bell so now when I think of the green shirt that I spilled coffee on last year that rings a bell that helps me remember that situation that that happened a year ago, five years ago, or 10 years ago so to ring a bell just means something that causes you to remember some kind of memory from the past okay and then if we use it in the negative doesn't ring a bell, it means that even though the person is trying to help you remember, you can't remember that memory. You don't have that memory so you, it doesn't ring a bell and so there you go. Those are five new idioms and we're going to continue to make these idiom videos each week and I will continue to put the idiom in the show descriptions you can listen to my definitions and then you can write your own definition of the idioms and you can share them in our Whatsapp group. If you look in the show notes, you will find a link to our Whatsapp group. We have many active members in the Whatsapp group and if you want to become a participant in that and join in that Whatsapp group you can talk to several native speakers who are teachers in Shaw English, the A to Z English Podcast and we are active in that Whatsapp group so you can feel free to interact with us talk with us and uh we can discuss these five idioms that I shared with you today so with that uh we will I’ll say goodbye and I will see you for the next episode of idiom, A to Z Idioms. Thanks everybody. Bye bye!Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this special episode of The A to Z English Podcast, we talk with May, a dedicated English student and an active member of our Whatsapp group. (Link here: https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7)It's a great conversation, so you won't want to miss it!https://atozenglishpodcast.com/interview-with-may-fong/If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/Listener Interview 001: May from MalaysiaFull TranscriptKevin: Hi everybody! Welcome to A to Z English. Today Jack and I are trying something new. We're gonna be starting to interview our listeners and we have our first listener today who is May Fong from Malaysia actually and May hi.May: Good evening!Jack: Hi!May: Good evening!Jack: Thank you for joining us. This is very cool.Kevin: Yes, thank you.May: Thank you for inviting me too!Jack: It's our pleasure yeah well yeah yeah.Kevin: I agree and because we are on an English podcast of course I'd like to know well how long have you been studying English for?May: Um yeah, obviously I'm learning English from school during my school time. That means from primary until secondary school but then um after study I have honestly I've forgotten most of my English like grammar tenses and all that okay and then I started to reinforce all my English language skills since 2020.Kevin: Oh, so just a couple years?May: Yeah. Where at that time I got a study grant from Malaysia okay it's it is basically a three-month English course so yeah I studied it and with one um e-learning company so okay yeahKevin: That's great and it's a Malaysian company?May: It is not a Malaysian company actually, it's um I can call it national company. Jack: So how long was the gap where you stopped studying English and then you started again? Was it like five years or longer than that?May: Honestly, I had not been studying English since the day I left school. I should say that so yeah I'm speaking English on a daily basis but then I just I just speak. I don't know whether what or whatever I speak is correct or not and why do we why do I say things in such a way, so yeah, I just speak English but uh I understand.Jack: So after school you continued to use English? You spoke English but you weren't studying formally until 2020? You started studying again more formally?May: Okay yeah for me I study again.Kevin: Okay and so you if you started studying a couple years ago again and first you started studying with that program right with that three-month course which is great, but now you listen to podcasts and thank you for listening to our podcast of course but what other, how do you self-study? What do you do to = help you improve?May: Okay. I will watch videos on YouTube okay basically where the moment I finished that the online class so I did I did not stop there so uh every day I will go to YouTube and then I will search for whatever video that I think interesting and important for me to learn.Kevin: Yeah and are these videos specifically English videos like English grammar pronunciation or is it just some other random video that you're interested in but it's in English?May: Um I started learning grammar learning then from there and then I search for also search for listening daily conversation vocabulary lessons and anything any I mean almost anything just anything that English language.Kevin: Sure okay and I'm curious to ask, you said you watch a lot of YouTube videos but something that you have told us is that you are visually impaired right? It's hard for you to see the screen and you have a voice screen reader reading to you which is very cool. So what do you find useful about YouTube? You're not really watching the videos, right? You're just listening to them.May: Okay on YouTube all the videos okay I can see all the video most of the video come with audio so I will just listen to the audio and then whenever there is a word that I don't understand I will read this subtitle. From there I can pick up the words. Then I will go and look into the dictionary. That's how I learn.Jack: Oh wow, so you as you watch the videos, everything that you understand you keep running the video but if you find a word that you that you're not familiar with you will look it up and find the definition and then go back to the video and then finish the video?May: Yes correct. I will pause the video and then I will check it out on the dictionary. I'll check it out in the dictionary then that's how I live.Jack: That's great! A great way to do it is checking the dictionary for anyone yeah.Kevin: Did you learn any interesting words today?May: Um not today.Kevin: That's okay, um but soon.May: Usually I will do my, I'll start learning at night time like um after 8 00 pm okay 8 pm so I'll go on YouTube and see what is interesting.Jack: And how many hours do you spend every day on learning English and watching videos or podcasts?May: Um I have no specific hours of day. About one or two hours.Kevin:  Nice! Wow, that's great. One or two hours every day is very good. I need to do more Korean every day, I do maybe two minutes, very small. That's funny, um, so May you're very busy on our Whatsapp group. How and and that's great we we love to encourage our listeners to participate I in the website. It's good to see.Jack: Yeah it's great to see and um how as uh um as a person who is visually impaired, how do you how do you do that? How do you participate do you um do you record your voice usually or do you type? I mean how does what does the what is the technology that you use to interact on our Whatsapp group?May: Okay there's a software. Basically, it's a screen reader okay um different type of software like on my laptop the software I use is called NVDA basically this this software will read whatever things appear on the screen okay. Let's say when I'm browsing a website so when I move the cursor around the software read for me okay what is currently showing on the screen whether it's a link it's a heading it's a there's some chat box of um something that I can click on to get more details things.Kevin: So, you move the cursor around the screen and it gives you a kind of uh um of mental a mental picture mental like information so you can kind of get an idea of what is on the screen well what about images. Does it also describe images as well?May: Okay it is depends on the website and the apps created by the provider. KSM created it in a very friendly way of redline user where they labels all the images with proper words so for that kind of a picture. Yes the system or the screen reader will describe but sometimes they are also challenges for me as a blind user where the I mean the provider did not label all the images graphic so that is the challenge for me.Kevin: Yeah may that's something that I've seen because for our website our A to Z English podcast website I'm the person who makes the website and so I've seen when I put up a picture or when I put something up it often tells me make a good description for blind people and so I have to remember so if if my website is not good enough yet please tell me and I will go add better descriptions but we don't have too many pictures yet.May: It is good if you can consider this people with disability. I mean the need of people with disabilities so that you know yes can also read whatever on your website.Kevin: So it is actually good. Yeah I will I will keep that in mind for people like you so thank you for the reminder.Jack: Yeah I noticed that you also like to post memes as well and uh is that is that a challenge to because uh it seems like you have you're really good at uh posting memes as well is that because the picture description is really good or okay?May: For the picture that I posted, I mean, they're all the pictures that I post every morning. I got it from a Facebook page okay yeah I mean on Facebook what I most of the picture and it can be I mean the screen reader can describe it properly so that's how I got it and I post it in the group. I share it in the group.Jack: So you search on Facebook and you find something that's funny and and interesting and then you put it into the Whatsapp group.May: Yeah I shared it if there was a group and also some of my friends like morning greetings.Kevin: That's great and why do you enjoy using our English Whatsapp group? How is that helpful for you?May: Every day okay actually I was learning English with Robin's channel. like Shaw English Daily English homework.Kevin: Yeah he's great.May: That's all very good. So from there I was you guys who always joined the what's up good job there was some bro so I I clicked the link to join the group and that's how I come into the group yeahJack: How do you uh how do you listen to the podcast? Do you listen to it on your smartphone or do you listen to it on the computer? I'm just curious. What's your favorite way to listen to a podcast?May: It can be done in both way actually but most of the time I'll listen at home. That means I will use my laptop to listen.Kevin: Uh so are you listening from our webpage?May: Yes from your webpage.Kevin: Oh that's great! That means I need to make the webpage better if you're using your own page.Jack: Blame Kevin blame Kevin.Kevin: Yes that's my um that's for me you you said that you have this special software that helps you describe the screen.Jack: And how like how long have like what was the process I I'm guess I'm wondering like when did you how long have you been visually impaired is this something that was from the time you were born or did it happen later in life? Did you lose your sight later?May: I was blind since I was born so that means when I was kid I started to learn I mean at that time there is no computer no internet right I think so we will learn for blind people. We will learn some uh braille. Have you heard about it?Kevin: Yes of course.May: Braille is a method for to assist blind people to read. It's a traditional way actually. It's a traditional way and actually it's um we are still using it until it until now the only thing is nowadays we have computer so we have um screen readers so most of the time we are using them.Kevin: Yeah and I know Jack and I talked in an episode not too long ago about technology and it's so amazing because when I was a kid the technology would be impossible for blind people to use the internet and now you browse the internet just as well as anyone else.Jack: You're a pro internet user and meme sharer and on social networks. I'm sure you're much better than I am at browsing the internet. I'm not very good with computers to be honest.Kevin: Yeah we're we're old people.May: Yeah okay they're actually this can do most of the things for blind like the light useronly sometimes there are challenges but of course overall it helps.Jack: Yeah that's what fantastic to hear. Yeah what is the what's maybe the biggest challenge um when using a screen reader? It's something that you if you if you could design your own software is there something you would change to improve it?May: The biggest challenge I could say will be when the provider created the website um as I mentioned earlier not friendly to blind users like they didn't label the image and the graphic and then one more thing is um they I mean uh for your information blind user doesn't use a mouse when navigate while navigating a computer all right so yeah so we use only keyboard only keyboard that means we have to remember most of the keyboard commands.Kevin: So you do know all of the pro commands, at least the main keyboard command the important ones?May: Right of course you'll need oh yeah when something is created on they created something where we can only click by the mouse or move around by the mouse that is the biggest challenge sureKevin: Interesting right yeah well May this is all very interesting to hear. It's so very cool that you're able even without being able to see the internet you're able to watch YouTube's from Robin's channel and you're able to listen to our podcast. That's so fantastic what the internet does for you today. I have one final question for you if because again we're an English learning podcast if you could give everyone a tip, what would you tell someone who wants to learn English how can they how can they learn what do you think was helpful?May: Um well there's a lot there's a there are a lot of free um learning channel learning tips learning exercises learning lessons on the internet so you just have to browse through it that's all you can learn okay actually yeah like The A to Z English Podcast.Kevin: Yep of course. Yeah that's great, so May, thank you very much for joining and for everyone else out there who's listening, we have a Whatsapp channel that we were talking about here and if you want to come and talk to us in our Whatsapp channel and maybe even talk to us here on an interview episode you can find all of the links and everything from our hopefully friendly website absolutely thanks very much nice to talk to you!Jack: thank you so muchWhatsapp Group Link: https://chat.whatsapp.com/H4LaiLAUc5SEiaxBp16aEpSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode, Jack discusses five common English idioms and describes their meanings.https://atozenglishpodcast.com/idioms-01/Share your answers to the discussion questions in our WhatsApp group chat! https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7If you could take a minute and complete a short survey about the podcast, we would be very appreciative. You can find the survey here: https://forms.gle/HHNnnqU6U8W3DodK8We would love to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes.Intro/Outro Music by Eaters: https://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/the-astronomers-office/agents-in-coffee-shops/Listen to the episode and write the definitions of the idioms.Hit the books:Hit the sack:Twist someone's arm:Stab someone in the back:Lose your touch: Discussion Questions:How often do you hit the books to study English?What time do you hit the sack?Have you ever twisted someone's arm to get what you want?Have you ever stabbed someone in the back? Have you ever been stabbed in the back?Have you lost your touch in regard to a skill or talent that you used to have? Full Transcript: https://atozenglishpodcast.com/idioms-01/AtoZ_Idioms001.mp3Speaker1: You're listening to the A to Z English podcast. Hey there, A to Z. Listeners, this is Jack. I am flying solo today. Unfortunately, Kevin is not feeling well. He is under the weather and so he'll be back soon. But for today you are stuck with only me. So we are going to do a special episode today and today's special episode is called A to Z Idioms. And we are going to look at five different English idioms. And then I am going to give you some examples and I'm going to explain the meanings of the idioms. And so I will also put the idiom descriptions in the show notes, in the descriptions of the podcasts, so you can go right in there and see the idioms and then see what the definitions of those idioms are. So I will provide that for you. And as as usual, we will I will also provide a full transcript of today's podcast, which is just me. So anyway, let's go ahead and get started. So our first idiom is hit the books. So what does that mean to hit the books? Hit the books? Now I think everybody knows what the verb hit means. To hit something is to take make a fist and to punch it or hit it. You could also use an object to hit something or somebody. And but that's not what hit the books means, right? Because why would anybody want to hit a book? Right. When we say hit the books in English, what that means is it means to study hard to go and study your textbooks.Speaker1: And so if we're if I were to give you an example of a conversation between two people, you could imagine that one person is calling his or her friend and they call and say, Hey, are you busy? Would you like to go see a movie tonight? And then you say, Oh, I'm sorry, I can't. I have a test tomorrow. I really need to hit the books. And hit the books means I really need to study. And so hit the books is a very common expression in high school and university, especially in America. I've heard it many times, I've used it many times myself, and it's a very common expression for students. For students. Now, do you have to be a student to use this expression? No. You know, sometimes adults, people who have graduated from university, people like yourselves, you are studying English right now. And if you are studying English and you are taking an English class or something and you have a test coming up soon or a homework assignment or something that you need to prepare for, you could use this expression with your friend. You can say, I'm sorry, I'm really busy, I need to hit the books or I have to hit the books. I have to study. I really have to study. So there you go. That is idiom number one. Hit the books. Hit the books. And I've got another idiom which is also using the verb hit.Speaker1: So we use this. This is a common verb in several different expressions and idioms in English. And the second one is hit the sack. And this one is a very common one to hit the sack. And I'll let you think about this one for a second just to I don't want to give away the answer to quickly. What does it mean in English if somebody says, hit the sack, hit the sack. Well, hit the sack means to sleep. And I think if if you think about this expression or this idiom, it kind of makes sense when you're so tired and you're so tired that you just collapse. You fall down on your bed. Or a long time ago, before we had modern comforts like beds and things like that, people would sleep on sacks, you know, with some maybe some straw or something to make it a little bit softer. And to hit the sack means to go to sleep, you know, to fall almost. It's almost like falling on your bed, you know, collapsing. You're so tired. You just want to hit the sack. You don't want to do anything else. You don't want to talk to your friends. You don't want to make any phone calls. You don't want to watch television. You don't want to eat a snack. You probably don't even want to have dinner. You just want to go to sleep. You just want to hit the sack.Speaker1: So hit the sack. And here's a quick conversation example that you might, you know, that you might have with somebody, for example, if you are talking to your friend on the telephone at night and it's getting later and later and later. And finally, you're so tired, you say to your friend on the telephone, I'm sorry, but I need to hit the sack. I'm so tired. I need to hit the sack. I need to go to sleep. And so hit the sack, go to sleep. Those have the same meaning. So if you use this in English, native English speakers will understand you. It will make your English sound more sophisticated. Or maybe sophisticated is the wrong word. But you will sound more like a native speaker because we often use these kinds of idioms to express ourselves in English. And so if you say hit the sack and people will know what you're talking about, but you'll also sound a lot more like a native speaker. So these are great little useful idioms that you can throw into your conversations. All right, then, let's keep moving. Let's go on to number three, our third idiom. We are going to do five idioms today. So the third one is. Twist someone's arm. So twist someone's arm. Now, obviously, if we're talking about literally twisting someone's arm, that means you're hurting the other person, right? You're taking their arm and you're twisting it. You're turning it so that they're arm, so that they're in a lot of pain.Speaker1: But that's not what this expression means. This is an idiom. Idioms are metaphors. They are expressions or words and phrases that have different meanings than the literal meanings. And so. To twist someone's arm is to kind of how can I say this, to encourage someone strongly to do something that you want them to do. So, for example, if you if you want to go see a movie, but your friend doesn't really want to. Now let's, let's use one of our let's use the old an idiom that we already learned today. Let's say, for example, your friend says, I can't go to a movie tonight. I have to hit the books. I have to study. And you continue to push your friend, you're like, Oh, come on, no, let's go see the movie. Come on. You know, you love this movie. You know you love Tom Cruise. Oh, it's going to be such a good movie. Come on, please, please. Let's go, let's go. Come on. No, no, no. You don't need to study. So all of that stuff that I'm doing right there, all of my encouragement or trying to persuade my friend to do what I want my friend to do, that is an example of twisting my friend's arm. I am twisting my friend's arm. I'm trying to force my friend to do what I want to do. And so, you know, and it's not I don't need to even say the the the idiom to my friend, just the action of what I'm doing, trying to convince my friend, really pushing my friend to do what I want that person to do.Speaker1: My friend might say, stop twisting my arm. You're you're trying to twist my arm. You want me to go to the movie? But I'm really busy. I need to hit the books, so please stop twisting my arm. So twisting my friend's arm is trying strongly to convince my friend to do what I want that person to do. And we all do this. We all we all twist people's arms, right? We always try to kind of push someone or force someone to do something that we want them to do. And in English, we have just given it an idiom, an expression to describe this situation. And so that is to twist someone's arm, to try to force someone or push someone or encourage someone to do what you want them to do. So twist someone's arm. That's number three. And let's go to number four. Okay. Now, number four, this one is this one sounds really terrible. This one really does sound bad, but it's another very common idiom in English. And the idiom is to stab someone in the back and stab, stab, stab means to stick a knife into a person's body. So to stab someone. And if you stab someone in the back. It means that they're you know, they cannot see. Right. You're not looking behind you. We look forward. So if somebody stabs you in the back, usually we use this expression when a friend does something bad to you and you don't expect it, it's a surprise.Speaker1: So your friend surprises you by doing something really bad to you? It could be, say, gossiping about you. It could be telling your secret to somebody else. It could be stealing something from you. And if that happens to you, if your friend does something really bad to you behind your back secretly in English, you could say he or she stabbed me in the back. That's that's the feeling that you have when somebody does something like that to you, especially a friend, you know, somebody that you trust and they do something really bad to you and they they lie about you, and they tell a secret to somebody else that, you know, they break a promise. And so we use the expression stabbed you, stabbed me in the back, or she stabbed him in the back or he stabbed her in the back. He he broke her trust or she broke his trust. He gossiped about her or she gossiped about him. And so that is the meaning of stabbing someone in the back. It's not it has nothing to do with real violence. But again, these are all metaphors. These are all expressions or idioms that describe the feelings that you get when these situations occur. And so our last idiom for today. Is lose your touch to lose your touch. And what does that mean to lose your touch? If somebody says, I lost my touch, I lost my touch.Speaker1: This is a very interesting one. This one is not bad like a lot of the the other ones that we studied today. To lose your touch means. To lose an ability that you used to have, but now you are not as good at something as you used to be. So, for example, when I was young, when I was in my teens, when I was a teenager, and in my early twenties, I was a basketball player. I played basketball in high school and I also played basketball in university. And I played at a competitive level, a pretty high level. And now that I am 45 years old, this is 20 to 25 years later, I've lost my touch. I'm not as good as I used to be. If I try to play basketball, I cannot play as well as I did before. And so I can use the idiom. Lost my touch. I lost my touch. I'm not good at that anymore. And so I would like you listeners out there to think about some of the things that you used to be really good at. And maybe because you haven't practiced or because you have gotten older, or for whatever reason, you're not as good at that thing as you used to be. You can use the expression, I lost my touch. I lost my touch. I'm just not as good at that as I used to be.Speaker1: And I used to have a skill or a talent for that, but now I just don't do it as well. And so in that case, you kind of shrug, shrug or sigh and you say, Ha, I lost my touch. And so there you go. Those are our five idioms for today's episode, and this is the A to Z idioms, episode number one. And what I would like you to do is you can go to our website A to Z English podcast dot com, you can listen to the episode, you can find the transcript, you can leave a comment. You can also find a link on our home page that will take you to our WhatsApp group. And we have a very active WhatsApp group where students will listen to the episodes of our podcast and they will ask questions, leave comments and even leave answers to the discussion questions that we provide at the bottom of our transcript. So if you look at the transcript, you can read the transcript of the episode, and then at the bottom you'll find some vocabulary, you'll find some some discussion questions, and you can leave those answers. You can put your answers in the WhatsApp group and we will read those and reply to you in the WhatsApp group. So I guess that concludes today's episode. Thank you very much everybody for listening and we will see you next time for another episode of A to Z Idioms. Thanks a lot, everyone. Bye bye.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-fluent-mind-esl-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy