Episode 0180
Summary
The audio features a choir singing the classic Christmas carol "Jingle Bells", celebrating the joy of riding in a one-horse open sleigh.
Transcript (Click timestamp to jump)
Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh.
O'er the fields we go, laughing all the way.
Bells on bobtail ring, making spirits bright.
Oh what fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh, hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.
Summary
This audio is an episode of the EnglishPod podcast, where hosts Marco (Speaker 1) and Catherine (Speaker 2) discuss the famous Christmas carol "Jingle Bells." They introduce the song, play an excerpt (the first verse and chorus), and then break down the lyrics, explaining potentially unfamiliar words and phrases such as "dashing," "sleigh," "o'er," and "bobtails." They also discuss the meaning of "jingle" and the song's general context within the Christmas season, even in places without snow. The hosts conclude by encouraging listeners to ask questions and wish them a Merry Christmas.
Transcript (Click timestamp to jump)
Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod. My name is Marco.
And my name is Catherine and it's the holiday season.
That's right, it's almost Christmas and so we are bringing you one of the most typical Christmas songs or Christmas carols, I guess, that in all over the world probably.
That's right, and I've heard it in many different languages, even Chinese.
Yeah, even Chinese.
Ding dong dang, ding dong dang.
Okay, I'll have to ask.
Yeah, you have to ask.
But uh yeah, we're talking about Jingle Bells today, so the famous song Jingle Bells, you'll hear it everywhere, especially during the Christmas season, only during the Christmas season.
Especially yeah.
And uh so let's listen to the song. The song is pretty long, it has like a couple of different uh verses. Um but we've taken the main one, the first one and the chorus, which are like the most famous ones.
Uh so let's listen to the song.
Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh. O'er the fields we go, laughing all the way. Bells on bobtails ring, making spirits bright. What fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight. Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh. Hey! Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride.
This is gonna be stuck in my head all day, Marco.
I know, it's it's kind of catchy though. How can you not get into the spirit with this song?
Well, as you said a carol, a Christmas carol is a song, and they're meant to be catchy. You know, you get them in your head and they stay there forever.
I think it's also because every mall or shopping center you go to, they're playing these songs, so they just kind of get stuck in your head.
In the background all the time.
Yeah, exactly.
Makes you wanna shop more.
Or kill someone.
All right, so there were probably a couple of different words that you didn't understand here. So we're gonna go through the whole song, uh little by little and we'll explain it.
So starting out with the first line, it says dashing through the snow.
Well, okay, this is interesting because in sports, there's an event called a 100-meter dash.
Mhm.
Okay, so a dash is a very quick run.
Very fast, right?
That's right.
So dashing through the snow is you're kind of running or going through the snow very quickly.
Right, we don't know who is running through the snow, but we know something or someone is going very quickly through the snow. And then the second line it says, in a one-horse open sleigh.
Okay, so now we know who's dashing through the snow, it's a horse. It's a horse in a and you're in a sleigh.
Okay, so an open sleigh, it means that there's no roof. So you're sitting under the stars and there's a horse pulling your sleigh through the snow.
Okay, so a sleigh is kind of like a vehicle for the snow, right?
There's no wheels, okay, because it's it's hard to drive in snow. And so this is an old kind of vehicle that has maybe wood or metal underneath to make it slide.
To make it slide. Very good.
All right. And then we have this strange word here. It's o apostrophe E R, o'er. O'er the fields we go.
O'er the fields we go. Well, this is very, very common in poetry, okay?
So this is a way to make the word 'over' shorter, because 'over', you can hear it, two syllables, 'o-ver'. But sometimes we only want one, so we say 'o'er'.
Okay, o'er the fields we go.
Means 'over'.
Okay, interesting. Laughing all the way. Bells on bobtails ring. Now, what are bobtails? What are these bells on bobtails?
Okay, well, bobtails are the tails of certain animals, okay? So we could say we have a bunny rabbit with a bobtail. That means the tail sticks up. But it's also maybe reindeer have bobtails because their tails stick up, you can see them.
Okay, so I guess in this case, because it's Christmas, uh these animals like reindeer and rabbits have little bells on them. That uh and according to the next line, making spirits bright.
Right, so you're making people happy.
That's right. Spirit is your your attitude or your soul. And in this case, you're make you're you're being made happy, you're happy because it's Christmas. You're outside. Very good.
And uh well, he says, what fun it is to laugh and sing a sleighing song tonight.
Now, sleighing, we know that sleigh is uh this vehicle to go through the snow, but a sleighing song, I guess, is
Is the song we sing when we're in a sleigh. So this isn't a real word, but this is something that makes the song kind of makes you think that these people are just singing a special song for being in the sleigh.
All right. And now we go to the chorus, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells. So this word 'jingle'. It's a verb, right?
Yeah, to jingle. Um we can do it with your keys too. To jingle is to make noise when metal is touching metal. So we have bells and they ding ding ding ding ding, they hit each other.
I got some keys here. I'll show you what jingling is. So we go like this. This is to jingle your keys, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So you can use it with keys, with bells. Can you use it with anything else? Anything that makes a sound like that?
Chimes jingle.
Okay, chimes jingle. All right, very good.
So jingle all the way. Oh, what fun it is to ride again in a one-horse open sleigh.
Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way.
So 'all the way', maybe we're going someplace.
All the way wherever you're going, right?
Home or to dinner.
And uh, oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh. So the chorus is not very hard and neither is the first verse, but you know, sometimes the song, the song is pretty fast, so sometimes you don't really understand what they're saying.
Personally, I did not know the lyrics of Jingle Bells until we started doing this podcast.
Really? Well, because when we sing it, we mumble, you know, you can't hear all the words so (mumbles) you don't know the words, but dashing through the snow. Sometimes you have to just think of it very clearly. Very good.
So um that's all the words we have for this podcast. It's it's a very good Christmas carol. It's very catchy and I don't know how old it is. I I've heard it now since I was small.
Well, probably old enough to come from a time when there weren't cars, because there were sleighs.
And when they used o'er, because I I don't see people use o'er anymore very commonly.
No, I think it's mostly just songs and poems. You see it a lot in the 19th century.
Right. And uh, but it is interesting also, I guess the the relationship between um like the sleighs and snow and I don't Christmas is always related to this even though, you know, in some places you don't have snow during Christmas.
That's right. But it does I mean, we're here in Shanghai and and we can hear people singing this song, so and there's no snow. So I think it's just a it's a way to think about the season of Christmas and the attitude of people when it's Christmas time.
Right. So I hope you enjoyed our lesson. If you have any questions about this Christmas carol, you can let us know on englishpod.com.
And we'll also post the other verses, the less known verses of Jingle Bells because it's actually a pretty long song.
Very long, and I don't know any of the other verses to be honest with you.
Exactly. That's why we chose the first one and the chorus because it's the most popular one.
So, we'll see you guys there and Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas.
Bye.
Summary
This audio provides an English vocabulary review, focusing on words like 'dash', 'over', 'bell', and 'jingle'. It includes definitions, pronunciation, and example sentences, with some festive references to Christmas. The review is structured with a male voice introducing instructions and a female voice delivering the vocabulary content.
Transcript (Click timestamp to jump)
The English audio review.
Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.
Go or run somewhere very quickly.
To dash.
Over.
Or.
A hollow device that can ring when struck.
Bell.
Cheer someone up.
Make one's spirit bright.
Make a gentle ringing noise.
Jingle.
Let's try that faster.
Go or run somewhere very quickly.
To dash.
A hollow device that can ring when struck.
Bell.
Make a gentle ringing noise.
Jingle.
Cheer someone up.
Make one's spirit bright.
Over.
Or.
Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.
To dash.
He dashed to the finish line.
To dash.
She dashed to the shopping mall to do her last-minute Christmas shopping.
To dash.
Dashing through the wind and rain, he finally reached the doctor's house.
Or.
Over the fields and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go.
Or.
There's a hospital in the village, just over that hill.
Or.
There is a storm brewing over the plains.
Bell.
The church bells ring every day for mass.
Bell.
Christmas bells always sound so cheerful.
Bell.
One of my favorite things at Christmastime is listening to a bell choir playing 'Carol of the Bells'.
Make one's spirit bright.
The children's spirits brightened when Santa Claus walked into the room.
Make one's spirit bright.
He made my spirit bright whenever he made a joke.
Make one's spirit bright.
Their spirits were bright when they learned that their grandparents were coming for Christmas.
Jingle.
The bells jingled every time a customer walked through the door of the small shop.
Jingle.
The coins jingled in her pocket.
Jingle.
The keys on his keychain jingled as he opened the door.