Episode 0193
Summary
A couple, Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, discuss their differing visions for their dream home. The husband describes a traditional 1960s suburban bungalow, while the wife advocates for a modern, open-concept, eco-friendly house with solar panels and a food garden. Their discussion escalates into an argument about costs, environmental impact, and personal preferences, with the husband eventually retreating.
Transcript (Click timestamp to jump)
Mr and Mrs Robinson, let's get straight to it.
You have saved up your money for years and are now ready to build your dream home.
What did you have in mind?
A suburban bungalow straight out of the 60s, a perfect lawn with minimal landscaping, brick patio in the backyard with an old-fashioned grill, quaint lawn furniture, and a swimming pool. A two-car car port, pastel siding and a gable roof, completed with white shutters and a white picket fence.
Uh, honey.
In the living room, we would have moss green rugs and a fireplace with a stone mantle, and wood paneling on the walls. In the kitchen, the cupboards would be a pale yellow and we would have a turquoise metal oven and vinyl flooring.
Um, sweetie.
But I was thinking of more modern style house, an open concept house, all glass, wood, metal, and concrete.
But sweetums, there's always a lot of wasted space in those kinds of homes.
Besides, it's just a fad. It doesn't have the homey feeling the old homes do.
Sweety Pie, it's not a lot of wasted space. It is relaxing and the house would be eco-friendly with an in-floor heating system and designed to retain the heat of the sun in the winter and keep the house cool in the summer.
We would have solar panels on the roof.
Do you know how much those things cost?
What about your vintage furniture, dearest?
And instead of a lawn, which is also a lot of wasted space, and would require environmentally harmful pesticides.
We would have a fish pond in the backyard and a garden that would cover the whole yard so we could grow our own food.
But buttercup, I thought you always said that you love visiting your grandmother's house.
And I thought you, Mr. Scientist, were all up on saving the planet with your technological advancements.
Um, well, I am just going to get some coffee while you two keep discussing.
Summary
The audio features a discussion between Marco and Catherine about their differing ideal dream homes, followed by an explanation of vocabulary related to home decor and architecture like 'minimal landscaping', 'quaint lawn furniture', 'gable roof', and 'picket fence'. The conversation then shifts to 'fluency builder' where they discuss affectionate pet names such as 'sweetums', 'sweetie pie', 'dearest', and 'buttercup', as well as the meaning of 'fad' and 'vintage'.
Transcript (Click timestamp to jump)
Hello everyone and welcome to English pod. My name is Marco.
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My name is Catherine and today we're talking about a dream home, so building the home of your dreams.
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That's right, and this lesson today is advanced, so it might be a little bit hard and uh we're gonna be taking a look at not only some vocabulary related to your home or decorations and stuff, but also how to treat your loved one in a nice way or a little uh, what do you call them? Nicknames.
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Cute names, pet names, pet names.
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That's right. Okay.
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So stay tuned, we'll be talking about very specific things having to do with building a home and home remodeling. And so we'll hear this dialogue one time, but when we're back in just a minute here, we'll be talking about what those things mean.
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Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, let's get straight to it. You have saved up your money for years and are now ready to build your dream home. What did you have in mind?
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A suburban bungalow straight out of the 60s, a perfect lawn with minimal landscaping, a brick patio in the backyard with an old-fashioned grill, quaint lawn furniture, and a swimming pool. A two-car carport, pastel siding and a gable roof, completed with white shutters and a white picket fence.
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Uh, honey?
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In the living room, we would have moss green rugs and a fireplace with a stone mantle and wood paneling on the walls. In the kitchen, the cupboards would be a pale yellow and we would have a turquoise metal oven and vinyl flooring.
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Um, sweetie. But I was thinking of a more modern style house, an open concept house of glass, wood, metal, and concrete.
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But sweetums, there's always a lot of wasted space in those kinds of homes. Besides, it's just a fad. It doesn't have the homey feeling the old homes do.
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Sweetie pie, it's not a lot of wasted space. It is relaxing and the house would be eco-friendly with an in-floor heating system and designed to retain the heat of the sun in the winter and keep the house cool in the summer. We would have solar panels on the roof.
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Do you know how much those things cost?
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What about your vintage furniture, dearest? And instead of a lawn, which is also a lot of wasted space and would require environmentally harmful pesticides, we would have a fish pond in the backyard and a garden that would cover the whole yard so we could grow our own food.
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But buttercup, I thought you always said that you love visiting your grandmother's house.
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And I thought you, Mr. Scientist, were all up on saving the planet with your technological advancements.
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Um, well, I am just going to get some coffee while you two keep discussing.
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All right, we're back. So apparently the couple can't seem to agree. He wants something uh different than what she does and in the end I think they were a little bit irritated with each other.
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Doesn't this always happen though? I mean, my dream home is probably not your dream home.
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I don't know, it's weird. But I mean, you would probably have to, I don't know, compensate somehow or.
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Well, that's the beauty of compromise, I think. You can go back and forth, but with your loved one or your spouse, you have to make some decisions about what you want and what they want.
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All you need to do is give a guy his own room in which he can decorate and do whatever he wants with it. That's all you need.
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Even you.
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No, no, not me, just any guy. Just, you want to decorate the house in any way you want, fine, but just give us one room, you know, like 5 meters by 5 meters where we can put anything we want.
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A beer cooler, a TV, a PS3, a sound system, and a couple guitars.
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Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah. That's you described it.
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I've been to your house, I know. Anyway, we've got a lot of great words here in language takeaway, so let's take a peek at some of those.
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All right. So, the first word that we have, or it's actually a concept, minimal landscaping.
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Okay, so minimal is a style, minimalist, actually, and minimal landscaping is this kind of style of well, designing your lawn or your garden. So minimal means not having adornments or decorations.
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Okay. So it's kind of like the less is more type thing.
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Exactly. So minimal architecture could be very simple, lots of clean lines, not much decoration. It's the opposite of something that's baroque and highly ornamented.
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Yeah, I don't like that. I'm into minimal. All right, minimalist. Anyways, we have minimal landscaping and well he's talking about his patio, old-fashioned grill and he said quaint lawn furniture.
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Quaint is sometimes, well, it's usually kind of a bad thing. We say something is quaint in the way of saying that it's cute but we don't really like it because it's maybe old-fashioned or, you know, kind of old style. So, oh, isn't that quaint? Is something that people from the city often say about people in the country, at least in America. So, oh, because you know, I went to school on the East Coast and I'm from the Midwest, so people on the East Coast would say, oh, your house is so quaint, you know, small and cute and old-fashioned. Because they live in a big, fancy New York apartment or whatever. So quaint is usually something that's not the nicest, but.
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So he's looking for some lawn furniture that's not like plastic or or new. It's more like old-fashioned, maybe wood, right?
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Right, and kind of traditional and not yeah, not fancy. Kind of simple. Mm-hm.
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Now he's also talking about the um the house and he wants well, a two-car car port, pastel siding and a gable roof. So now, we know what a roof is, but what is a gable roof?
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A gable is a thing, right? And it's it's almost like an extension of the roof in certain parts. For example, on a traditional Cape Cod style house, you have windows in the front that they're they're not a part of the roof. They're an extension, they they come out.
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They're kind of like popping out like eyes.
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Exactly, they're coming out like eyes and so the roof, obviously, you need a roof on top of those windows. So that kind of roof, that little extension, that's called a gable. And so there's a wonderful book that's famous in American history called The House of Seven Gables. That means that on this roof of the house, there are seven different parts that come out. Seven gables, it's very unique.
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Those houses usually look a little bit scary.
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They do, Victorian and imposing.
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All right. So you have a gable roof. Now you have shutters and um a white picket fence. This is typical. Everyone talks about a white picket fence around their house.
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That's right. There was even a TV show in America years ago called Picket Fences. And I think a picket fence is kind of this ideal in American culture about having your own home in the suburbs and having your own space. And so around your yard, around your garden, you have this white picket fence. And so a picket uh is is I think the pointed part. So a picket fence is thin pieces of wood that stand in the ground and are connected to protect your property from other people coming inside.
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Okay. So that's a white picket fence. You'll hear it all the time, usually in movies or in TV shows, they talk about having their own little house with their dog and a white picket fence.
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Exactly. Two kids, two cars.
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And a white picket fence. All right. So now the woman argued that she wanted something a little bit more modern. And uh well the guy said, you know what? That's um it's just wasted space and those types of homes are just a fad.
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A fad. So a fad is something that is passing. It's something that's popular for a short time, but then it goes away. It's not popular anymore.
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Uh so for example, I think for a while, remember those shoes that used to have little red lights in the back in the heel?
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Oh yeah, LA lights, LA lights.
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Those were those were a fad. It was really popular for like a year, everyone had them, everyone wore them and then they just went away.
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One of my favorite fads of the 1980s were those shirts that would change color if the room temperature changed color. So if you go outside and it's hot, they would become bright pink. But if you're in a cold room, they would go blue and green. It was really fun, but they're definitely out of fashion these days.
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Yeah, I don't think they wear them anymore. So that's a fad, something that's temporary. It's popular for a while.
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So he called her house a fad and she says, well, what about your house? All this vintage furniture? What's vintage?
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Vintage, well some people think that vintage is a fad. Um a lot of people really enjoy buying vintage furniture or vintage clothing. Vintage means old.
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Old. So It's a nice way of saying old, or like a a nice or cool way of saying old.
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Yeah, so it's almost like, for example, right now, 1940s and 50s clothes are are very popular. A lot of girls are are into this kind of style, so it's called, um, you know, vintage clothing because it's not it's not from today's style. It's an old style. Or you could even call, you know, those big flowing dresses from the 1970s, vintage clothing. So vintage furniture would be furniture that comes from a different time, a different era and that it's popular now. But still.
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Right, they're popular now. Or people like to buy them now.
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That's right. So they're special because they come from a different time. Okay. So those are the words that we have for today on language takeaway. Why don't we move on now to some pet names or some sweet ways that you can call your loved ones on fluency builder.
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So the reason this dialogue is very funny is because we have these two people who are clearly in disagreement about the kind of furniture and house they want. But they're they're being so nice to each other. They have these cute names for each other. So it's really, I don't know, it's really funny.
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It almost seems like they're newlyweds, but apparently they've been saving up their entire life, so maybe they're just one of those uh really loving couples.
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Oh, sweetums, sweetie pie, cutie.
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All right. So that's the first one. Sweetums.
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Sweetums. So obviously the main part of this word is sweet. Sweetums, sweetums. This is a way to say, hey, sweetie.
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Sweetums. So you can say sweetie or sweetums.
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Exactly.
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And that's uh that's a nice way of saying somebody or you can go sweetie pie.
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Sweetie pie. So pie is a food, you know, it's like a dessert. It's sweet. So sweetie pie, we can say honey pie.
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Honey pie, sweetie pie.
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So these are all cute and you know the nice thing about these kind of pet names, these cute names is you can change them if you want, um and they're yours. So you could say, um, honey pie sugar bun, you know, these are they're silly but there's no real rule, but these are the most common. So sweetums and sweetie pie.
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Okay. Now moving on to something a little bit maybe more formal, dearest.
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Dearest. This makes me think of my grandparents.
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Oh, really? Dearest.
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So dearest comes from dear. Dearest is the most dear, so someone who's the most important to you.
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Okay. And so you could say mommy dearest, mother dearest.
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Oh, really? You've heard that somewhere?
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Oh, yeah. Do people call that their mother's like mother dearest? Mother dearest.
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Now, it's very 1930s.
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Sounds so arrogant.
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It is, well, it's it's an old-time thing. It's not we do not say this anymore, but you can say, you know, dearest, would you mind moving the car, please?
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I like the accent, you know, kind of like English. All right. And the last one, buttercup. This is really popular.
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It's really popular and you've heard this in a song before. You want to sing the song? You want to sing the song?
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Uh, no, I just sing the song.
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Why do you build me up, buttercup, baby. Okay. So that was in a lot of movies. The the word is buttercup. Um also in the movie, The Princess Bride was the the character Princess Buttercup. And so this is a sweet, you know, obviously a sweet thing. I think a buttercup is a flower.
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Oh, really?
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Yeah, and so, um, these are all words you can use, names you could use with men and women, but buttercup is mostly women, I think. The other ones are more more general.
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But do you think like, do guys say to their loved ones like sweetums, sweetie pie?
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Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
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All right. So I guess guys, if you want to be really sweet and you want to win over the hearts of the ladies, you can use these uh these words as well. These names.
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Another popular one is babe, which is more of a young person thing to say.
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Yeah, I think this is more modern as well. Babe.
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Honey or babe. Baby.
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Baby. You're verging on not so not so sweet.
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Yeah, but like, hey, baby. How are you? It's like nice. But like, not like hey, baby.
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All right. Well, we're going to leave you with that thought and go listen to this dialogue one more time, but we'll be back in a moment.
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Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, let's get straight to it. You have saved up your money for years and are now ready to build your dream home. What did you have in mind?
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A suburban bungalow straight out of the 60s, a perfect lawn with minimal landscaping, a brick patio in the backyard with an old-fashioned grill, quaint lawn furniture, and a swimming pool. A two-car carport, pastel siding and a gable roof, completed with white shutters and a white picket fence.
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Uh, honey?
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In the living room, we would have moss green rugs and a fireplace with a stone mantle and wood paneling on the walls. In the kitchen, the cupboards would be a pale yellow and we would have a turquoise metal oven and vinyl flooring.
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Um, sweetie. But I was thinking of a more modern style house, an open concept house of glass, wood, metal, and concrete.
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But sweetums, there's always a lot of wasted space in those kinds of homes. Besides, it's just a fad. It doesn't have the homey feeling the old homes do.
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Sweetie pie, it's not a lot of wasted space. It is relaxing and the house would be eco-friendly with an in-floor heating system and designed to retain the heat of the sun in the winter and keep the house cool in the summer. We would have solar panels on the roof.
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Do you know how much those things cost?
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What about your vintage furniture, dearest? And instead of a lawn, which is also a lot of wasted space and would require environmentally harmful pesticides, we would have a fish pond in the backyard and a garden that would cover the whole yard so we could grow our own food.
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But buttercup, I thought you always said that you love visiting your grandmother's house.
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And I thought you, Mr. Scientist, were all up on saving the planet with your technological advancements.
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Um, well, I am just going to get some coffee while you two keep discussing.
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All right, we're back. So um, apart from this uh decorations and stuff, are you, do you agree with the vintage home, the more like uh minimalist thing, or do you like the open concept one, the bigger one?
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I I love the look of minimalism, but as a place to live, it's not comfortable. Right? And so when I think of an aesthetic that I like, you know, a look that I like, I I really like kind of dark wood, velvety 19th century kind of.
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Wow.
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Yeah. Like I think of old Vienna.
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You like Castle Dracula.
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No, not dark. I like things to be open. Um and I like a lot of natural light, but I also like oversized, kind of heavy furniture and really luscious um fabrics and things like that. So that's my.
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Wow. I'm actually completely different because I do like this open concept. I like those houses that I like the way they look inside as well as outside when they're kind of squared, big windows, clean lines, um inside is like, for example, in the kitchen you have polished aluminum or polished steel, furniture in the kitchen. Um as well as uh a lot of white and red or black, especially. Um I kind of like that kind of open spaces, uh primary colors, yeah, yeah. Flat screen TVs on the wall and stuff like that. Like IKEA lamps. Yeah, you know, like those remote controls where you can um open your curtains, your TV and the lights all at the same time. I kind of like that stuff.
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Cool. Well, let us know what you guys like because everyone has their own opinion on what a beautiful house is and if you have any pictures, feel free to share them with us on our website englishpod.com.
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All right. We'll see you guys there. Bye.
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Summary
This audio is a vocabulary review session. A male speaker introduces the format, instructing listeners to identify vocabulary words based on definitions provided by a female speaker. The session includes a round of definitions and vocabulary, a faster repetition section, and a final part where vocabulary words are heard in example sentences.
Transcript (Click timestamp to jump)
The English Pod Audio review.
Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.
Something you really want to do.
Dream.
Place where a person lives.
Home.
Located or residing in a suburb.
Suburban.
A house which is built on one level.
Bungalow.
The years from 1960 to 1969.
The 60s.
The smallest possible amount or size.
Minimal.
A view across an area of land.
Landscaping.
An area of the garden with a hard surface.
Patio.
Unusual or old-fashioned.
Quaint.
A place where you park your car.
Carport.
A kind of dry color in sticks.
Pastel.
Material attached to the outside of a building.
Siding.
The triangular upper part of a wall.
Gable.
The top of a building.
Roof.
Covers un-fold in front of a window.
Shutter.
The shelf above a fireplace.
Mantel.
Sheets of wood fit into a frame to form a wall.
Panelling.
A bluish green precious stone.
Turquoise.
Firm plastic which can be bent.
Vinyl.
Used as a term of endearment.
Sweetums.
Fashion.
Fad.
Having a feeling of home, comfortable.
Homey.
Used as a term of endearment.
Sweetie pie.
Not harmful to the environment.
Eco-friendly.
Installed in the floor.
In-floor.
A system for keeping rooms warm.
Heating.
To keep or keep possession.
Retain.
Relating to the sun, using its light.
Solar.
A flat section of a wall, door.
Panel.
Representative of the best and most typical.
Vintage.
Used as terms of endearment.
Dearest.
A chemical substance used to kill insects.
Pesticide.
A creature living in water.
Fish.
A small body of water.
Pond.
A plant with small yellow flowers.
Buttercup.
Based on scientific and industrial progress.
Technological.
Improvement or development.
Advancements.
A fence consisting of pickets.
Picket fence.
A form or style of room.
Open concept.
Have all knowledge or information of something.
All up on.
Let's try that faster.
A bluish green precious stone.
Turquoise.
Unusual or old-fashioned.
Quaint.
Place where a person lives.
Home.
The triangular upper part of a wall.
Gable.
An area of the garden with a hard surface.
Patio.
Based on scientific and industrial progress.
Technological.
The top of a building.
Roof.
Material attached to the outside of a building.
Siding.
Used as a term of endearment.
Sweetums.
Used as terms of endearment.
Dearest.
Firm plastic which can be bent.
Vinyl.
Something you really want to do.
Dream.
The years from 1960 to 1969.
The 60s.
Representative of the best and most typical.
Vintage.
Improvement or development.
Advancements.
A system for keeping rooms warm.
Heating.
A chemical substance used to kill insects.
Pesticide.
A view across an area of land.
Landscaping.
A house which is built on one level.
Bungalow.
Installed in the floor.
In-floor.
Having a feeling of home, comfortable.
Homey.
Located or residing in a suburb.
Suburban.
To keep or keep possession.
Retain.
Fashion.
Fad.
A place where you park your car.
Carport.
A fence consisting of pickets.
Picket fence.
A form or style of room.
Open concept.
A small body of water.
Pond.
Relating to the sun, using its light.
Solar.
A creature living in water.
Fish.
Covers un-fold in front of a window.
Shutter.
Not harmful to the environment.
Eco-friendly.
The shelf above a fireplace.
Mantel.
A plant with small yellow flowers.
Buttercup.
Sheets of wood fit into a frame to form a wall.
Panelling.
The smallest possible amount or size.
Minimal.
Used as a term of endearment.
Sweetie pie.
Have all knowledge or information of something.
All up on.
A flat section of a wall, door.
Panel.
A kind of dry color in sticks.
Pastel.
Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.
Picket fence.
The only thing holding in the cattle is the old wooden picket fence. So it's no wonder that the bull so easily charged through it and escaped.
Picket fence.
In her daydreams, she always imagined herself newly married and living in a house with a white picket fence in a picturesque countryside.
Picket fence.
My mother grew up in a neighborhood where everyone's yard was enclosed by a picket fence. Nowadays, some of those fences are still standing, but most of them have been replaced by chain link fences.
Vinyl.
When my family renovated our kitchen, we took up the old vinyl flooring and put down a hardwood floor.
Vinyl.
I love the vinyl floor in the bathroom because though it is made to look like tile, it is warmer and softer on bare feet.
Vinyl.
My friend is a vinyl fanatic. He has vinyl records, vinyl floors, vinyl clothing, a vinyl couch, and even the siding on his house is vinyl.
Open concept.
A popular trend in architecture right now is designing open concept buildings.
Open concept.
Open concept homes are spacious and bright, but the effect is only truly achieved when the decor is consistent between the adjoining rooms.
Open concept.
The open concept and soothing colors of the hotel lobby took my breath away as I walked through the revolving door.
Eco-friendly.
Carrying your groceries in a reusable cloth bag is more eco-friendly than using a new plastic one.
Eco-friendly.
My neighbors told me that they spray their lawn with an eco-friendly fertilizer.
Eco-friendly.
It seems that more and more businesses are becoming concerned about protecting the environment and are using their eco-friendly practices and values as a key point in their advertisements.
All up on.
A friend of mine is all up on the latest trends in fashion.
All up on.
When I was in high school, I was all up on finding a cure for cancer, but then I went to university and discovered that my real passion was composing music.
All up on.
My brother is an advocate for environmental awareness, so he's all up on crazy facts like how long it takes for a piece of plastic to disintegrate and how many fish die per year from ingesting garbage floating around in the ocean.