Episode 0210

Hello everyone and welcome back to English Pod. My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we've got a very nerve-racking situation for you.

That's right, we are going to meet the in-laws.

Meeting the in-laws. So who are in-laws? These are the parents of your husband or wife.

Right. So in this case you have the mother-in-law and your father-in-law.

That's right. So we're meeting these people for the very first time. You can imagine how nervous the man is who's meeting his future wife's parents. Let's learn all about what they talk about in today's dialogue.

Mother, father, I'd like to introduce you to my fiancé Bob.

Thanks for having me. Uh nice to meet the both of you. I've heard so much.

That idiot Thurstun, you're going to scare the poor boy. Come in and have a drink. Dinner will be on in just a bit.

What'll you be having? Whiskey, bourbon, pick your poison.

If you have a lemonade that that'd be great.

Lemonade?

Oh, sure, there's some in the fridge.

Um, I, I'm not really uh, I don't really hunt.

You don't hunt? Well I'll be damned.

Bob is an animal rights activist. He doesn't believe in harming animals.

Roast pig? I'm a vegetarian.

Alright, we're back. So a very awkward situation. I think they might have a little bit of uh problems in the future.

Yeah, there's there are a lot of cultural differences between the the characters, the son-in-law and the the new parents.

The father-in-law, yeah.

So uh, it's really interesting. Why don't we uh start off by looking at a couple of different words on language takeaway?

Language takeaway.

So first of all, we have uh the two characters Cindy and Bob who are getting married. So we call them, uh we call Bob Cindy's fiancé.

Right.

So my fiancé and it's a, it comes from French and it means to the the person that you're going to get married to.

That's right. The person you've decided to get married to. So we say fiancé, we can say the same word for a man or a woman. So he is my fiancé, she is my fiancé.

Okay. My fiancé. Very good. So Cindy introduces her fiancé Bob to her parents and they start talking a little bit and her dad, Thurstun, invites him to go do some hunting tomorrow.

That's right. So hunting is a sport in America and in lots of places in the world where you shoot animals. Okay? So you go in the woods, you wear brown and green colors and you shoot animals to take them home and skin them and eat them or to keep them as trophies.

Alright, so you go hunting and, well, the way that you shoot these animals is uh you need to have a rifle.

A rifle. So you could also call it a hunting rifle, in this case. A rifle is a gun, but it's a very long gun.

Right. So it's not a a little gun that you just hold in your hand. It's a, it's very long. It'll be maybe like half a meter, a meter long.

That's right. And so often times people when they're hunting, they lie on the ground and they wait for the animals to pass and they hide themselves and then they shoot from a long distance.

Right. So he's talking about hunting, he's got a new rifle and he says, yeah, we should definitely go, it should be a real hoot.

Should be a real hoot. This is a very fun spoken English phrase. Um it's said more by older people than by younger people, so this is why the father says it in the dialogue. A hoot should be a real good time, real fun. Hoot.

So how can you, can you use this like, oh the party last night was a real hoot?

Yeah. You can say that. You can say or she's a real hoot, she's really funny.

Okay. She's really enjoyable.

This is a little bit more like spoken and for use by maybe older people, right? My mother would say this. I wouldn't say this, so. Oh my goodness, it was a real hoot.

Yeah. Alright.

So he's talking about hunting, how much fun they would have and fortunately Bob is uh an animal rights activist.

What does this mean? So an animal rights activist is someone who is very concerned with protecting the rights of animals. So for example, if I'm an animal rights activist, maybe I will protest people who wear fur. Or perhaps I will also try and secure land for a na a natural um wildlife preserve, so that animals can live in the wild, there's not houses or cars. So animal rights activists are people who try to make sure that animals are protected from human beings.

Okay, very good. And this is what uh Bob is. So obviously Bob is not really into hunting, right?

I'm guessing no. These are two opposites. You have people who like to kill animals and people who want to protect the lives of animals.

Right. Okay. Well, and uh to finish off our language takeaway, dinner is ready. So let's go out to the patio.

Okay, a patio is a space outside the house, usually in the back that's paved, so there's like cement or bricks or some kind of tile. That's where you have a table and chairs or some place to sit and rest. This is where you have a grill. So it's an outdoor area, but it's not grass.

Okay. So it's not your backyard. Uh it could be in your backyard. The patio could be in the backyard.

That's right, but the ground in the patio is not grass. It's some kind of material like cement or brick or wood.

Or wood. Okay. Very good. So great words there. Why don't we listen to the dialogue again and we'll be back in a bit with fluency builder.

Fluency Builder.

Alright, we're back. So we have three great phrases here on fluency builder. Why don't we start off with the first one.

So the first one we have to go back to the very beginning of this dialogue and think about these people who are introducing each other for the very first time. Cindy says I want to introduce you to my fiancé Bob. Bob says to Cindy's parents, I've heard so much.

I've heard so much. Okay, so um this phrase you can usually use it when you meet somebody for the first time. I've heard so much about you.

That's right. So the longer version is I've heard so much about you. Uh basically you're saying, listen, Cindy talks about you a lot. I've heard really nice things. Uh sometimes people like to joke. You say, I've heard so much about you. They say, I hope only good things.

Yeah, I hope not too much.

I hope not too much. So this is a very polite way to respond when someone introduces themself.

Okay. I've heard so much about you. It's a pleasure to finally meet you.

Exactly. Okay.

So uh, they started talking and uh actually Thurstun offers him a drink. He says, well, what do you want? Whiskey, bourbon, pick your poison.

Alright, this is one of my very favorite phrases in English. Um the father-in-law wants to give the new son-in-law a drink and there are many different options. So pick your poison means pick your drink. You might hear this at a bar. What do you want to drink? Well, pick your poison. You could have whiskey, rum. So usually we're just talking about alcoholic drinks.

Okay, so you wouldn't uh, you wouldn't really use this for juices or or some or water or something like that.

No. This is for alcohol.

Okay, so if you say pick your poison, that's for alcohol, right? Or maybe you can ask somebody what they're drinking, you would say what's your poison?

Yeah, what's your poison? So poison in this case is a slang term for alcohol.

Very good. And uh finally, when Cindy was talking about lemonade that her mother makes, she said she makes it from scratch. To make something from scratch.

You could say my mother makes chocolate chip cookies from scratch. This means um to not not to buy something in the store, but to make it all yourself from nothing.

Mhm.

So making lemonade from scratch means taking lemons, cutting them, taking the juice, adding some sugar, so you're making it from nothing. You're not using some kind of kit or some kind of, you know, canned drink from the store.

Okay, so for example, maybe some Italians in Italy make their spaghetti from scratch with flour and they knee it and they make everything from scratch.

Wow. So you don't buy a box of spaghetti, but you actually have to cut the spaghetti and pull it and. Exactly.

Very, very hard work.

So to make something from scratch. And usually you can add the something goes in between, right? To make lemonade from scratch. Make bread from scratch. Make ice cream from scratch.

Okay. So those are are three phrases for today. Let's listen to the dialogue for one last time and we'll be back to talk about this very, very interesting topic.

Mother, father, I'd like to introduce you to my fiancé Bob.

Thanks for having me. Uh nice to meet the both of you. I've heard so much.

That idiot Thurstun, you're going to scare the poor boy. Come in and have a drink. Dinner will be on in just a bit.

What'll you be having? Whiskey, bourbon, pick your poison.

If you have a lemonade that that'd be great.

Lemonade?

Oh, sure, there's some in the fridge.

Um, I, I'm not really uh, I don't really hunt.

You don't hunt? Well I'll be damned.

Bob is an animal rights activist. He doesn't believe in harming animals.

Roast pig? I'm a vegetarian.

This is a very scary topic for a lot of people. I think they get very nervous introducing themselves because in this case, Bob is going to be marrying Cindy. So these are going to be his in-laws forever.

Yeah, and it seems interesting the differences as you mentioned before between the father-in-law who's very much uh into hunting and drinks and likes roast pig, whereas this guy is more of a animal rights activist, doesn't drink.

He's a vegetarian. He doesn't eat meat.

So it's I think it would be very complicated and I think this happens a lot also with people from different cultures, right? Maybe you're Asian and you're marrying uh an American or something like this.

Yeah, that's right. I think it can be very, very difficult. I recently went to a wedding between a Chinese girl and an American guy and it was amazing to see all these people getting together because the families were so different. Um but they all got along really well. It was really fun. They were all very supportive. They were just excited for their kids.

Yeah, but I think it can be a little bit difficult, right? I mean being in a in a family where the culture is so different or the traditions and the customs are are are strange to you.

But it's exciting because then as a, you know, family the young people who are getting married, they can pick the traditions they want and make new traditions.

Mhm. So this is a very interesting topic. We want to know maybe if you are married, how did it go when you met your in-laws? Are you very different or did you get along very well? Or how is it in your country?

Yeah, please do let us know. Our website is englishpod.com. We hope to see you there.

Alright, everyone. Bye.

The English pod audio review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

Scratch.

Pick your poison.

Pick up.

Roast.

Activist.

Well, I'll be.

Let's try that faster.

Scratch.

Well, I'll be.

Pick up.

Roast.

Activist.

Pick your poison.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Scratch.

Pick up.

Pick up.

Pick up.

Well, I'll be.

Well, I'll be.

Well, I'll be.

Activist.

Activist.

Activist.