Episode 0180

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Bell.

Make one's spirit bright.

Make one's spirit bright.

Make one's spirit bright.

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.