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ON MONDAY
ESL Podcast 840 – Translating a Document
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “slow going” and “to spare.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Public Services Available in Other Languages.”
“In the United States, English is the language that is used everywhere, but many “public services” (services provided to people by the government) are provided…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide
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ON WEDNESDAY
English Cafe 371
Topics: Ask an American – Asian Immigrants; to note versus to notice versus to notify; assessment versus appraisal; to be full of (oneself)
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear).
In “What Insiders Know,” you will read about “The Yellow Peril and Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu Novels.”
” The phrases “Yellow Peril” and “Yellow Terror” were sometimes used to describe how large numbers of Eastern Asians were immigrating…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide
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ON FRIDAY
ESL Podcast 841 – Adopting a Child
In the Learning Guide: Get a full transcript (written version of every word you hear), vocabulary list and sample sentences, and comprehension questions.
In “What Else Does it Mean,” learn the other meanings of “domestic” and “hands off.”
In the “Culture Note,” learn about “Benefits and Pitfalls of International Adoptions.”
“International adoptions offer many “potential” (possible) “benefits” (advantages; pros) to American families, but they also…” – READ MORE in the Learning Guide
Hello the citizens of Eslpod,
I wanaa announce here that finally I fond sth that beats Eslpod. You know what it is ?:))
Wait for it :))
It is our one and only ” Learning Guide.”
Ya,baby I m back.
I signed up for learning guid again. And ,let me tell you sth,it is even way better than when I once was a manner back in 2008 or sth. I believe they tweaked it a bit.
It is as perfect as it can get.
There is a part to it called ” what insiders know.” man ,that part is amazing!!
Guys ,
I m just stating a hard fact here. I m not trying to get some browny points here by no means.
The man upstairs by that I mean Jeff :)) has perfected his program at the learning guid department.
You know , it is somewhat funny that you can read along every word of Jeff saying at the audio lessons. It is just then that you would realize how skillfully Jeff performs the audio lessons. It is amazing the way he communicates with punctuations in the lessons . I mean his tone of voice changes accordingly. It is amazing. He is a hell of a man. Serious!!!
Yours ,
Peter.
P.S. As a bonus ,in every learning guid lesson , Jeff and Lucy throw in some more common and useful expressions for the members to learn. The expressions like ” come out swinging” which is my favorit on , by the way.
Thanks Lucy and Jeff for the perfection-that is,the Learning Guid.
Hullo, ESL friends here,
If you’re a regular reader of this lovely Blog, you know quite well by now that I’ve been dropping these praising lines about our teachers here on this very Blog.
Well, now the reason why I’m right here putting down the lines that you’re reading now is of course for that very reason.
Okay, now I’m about to compliment one of our great teachers, Jeff!
So, I first shape up the very first sentence like this;
“Jeff, you’re quite the ESL teacher.”
Well, if you want to fully understand the above sentence, you must know the use of the word “quite” in it. No stress, no sweat!
Just take out your portable [music or MP3] player that you use when you listen to the great ESL Podcasts and then go straight to
the episode-160, “Flirting”. (Audio index is about 15:54). Following is Jeff explaining about the special use of the word “quite.” Let’s listen:
….. The other interesting expression here is “quite the.” … That use of “quite the” is pretty common. He is QUITE THE athlete.
He is QUITE THE podcaster. . He is QUITE THE driver. …. “QUITE THE” here means that that person is one of the better ones,
someone who is very good at that particular job or task. He is QUITE THE pilot means he is a very good pilot. He is QUITE THE
web designer means that he is a very good web designer. So “QUITE THE” is an idiomatic use……
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OK, friends,
Now I hope you get what I wanna mean by the above sentence. But you might be thinking by now that I’m a bit exaggerating about
our teacher, Jeff. The answer is “absolutely not!” Why? Well, let me tell you about my personal experience regarding how I sometimes
have happened to acquire more of this English with the help of my own Jeff, quite the ESL teacher. 😉
The other day I was listening to the episode-836 – “Working Shifts”. In the script, there is this sentence with a weird phrase “to get first dibs”.
“Sometimes, there’s even overtime, but the veteran workers get first dibs.”
I was listening very carefully to Jeff explaining the expression “to get the first dibs.” Let’s listen to his:
….. “to get first dibs” means that you’re the first person or in the group that gets to decide or choose something before anyone else.
So, if a company says we’re going to offer 10 hours overtime this week, first they’ll ask the veteran employees, the employees who
have been there long time, “Do you want it?” , and they say “no” , and then they go to next group, and then the next group.
“To get first dibs” means “to get first choice.”….
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Well, after listening to the Jeff’s explanation above, we ESL students got to know what “to get first dibs” means. OK, Jeff didn’t stop just there,
but went on giving some additional, useful background knowledge about the expression. He continued explaining:
….. It’s an expression that we use …..Hmm…. sometimes….Uh… it’s often something that you would say as a child, let’s say, there is a piece of
chocolate cake or a large chocolate cake with several pieces, and somebody says “I get first dibs” , meaning I get to choose my piece before
the rest of you. But adults can also say this……
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Well, while I was paying attention to the Jeff’s above additional explanation, I immediately remembered that I’d also learned an expression “to call dibs (on something)”
in the episode-641 – “Sharing with Others”. So, I listened to that episode right away to find out more about the expression. There Jeff explained:
….. “to call dibs,” d-i-b-s, is a very common phrase used especially by children. It means “I get to use this thing” or “I get to have this thing and you cannot have it.”
For example, you are wanting (wenting?) a hotel room with a friend and there are two beds. You walk into the hotel room and you say “I call dibs on the bed near the window”.
Notice the preposition “on”, which usually appears after this phrase. …. “to call dibs” is something children do a lot. For example, if you’re driving in a car, and there are several
children, as was the case when I was a child. If there were five or six, even seven of us going in the car, someone would call dibs on the front seat,
they would say “I get to go to the front seat”. This is typically done before the action it is going to take place, that is, before the event.
Although mostly popular among children, this expression is still heard among adults today. I’ve heard it, probably used it. ……
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Well, friends,
Even though I don’t know for sure, I personally think that these two expressions “to get first dibs” and “to call dibs (on something)” have similar meaning or come out from same notion.
As I mentioned above, without Jeff’s additional explanation about the phrase “to get first dibs”, there wouldn’t have any reason that I could “co-relate” between the phrase in script-836 and the one in script-641!!
You see? Our great teacher Jeff teach us not just the meaning of words, phrases and expressions, but also teach us how to grasp the “sense” of them.
Jeff, you’re quite the ESL teacher! You’re quite the podcaster. You’re quite the ….
Myo ko ko
Writing from the beautiful, home sweet home,
Myanmar.
There is this movie on the screen called “Cloud atlas.”
There had been a big publicity going on regarding the movie and how great it is before the movie released. Well, i got caught in the publicity , and I caught the movie the first day it was out. To me, the movie never lived up to the hype.
I mean,the movie is too complex. One might say that it is based on “reincarnation philosophy and carma.”
Yep,it is a good way of going about it. The movies is too philosophical ,i might say.
Technically speaking ,The movie is trying to pan out the idea that our lives extend beyond our limitation,and how , our roles in different courses of time ,as good or evil ,would effect the universe at larg. I was perplex during the entire movie. I guess, I must watch it at least two more time to make heads and tails of it.
The run- time is close to 3 hours and it feels like that whole movie is a combination of umpteen movies Shown in parts ,alternatively
It is a new approach in motion picture industry,that is for sure.
The movie is both progressive and futuristic.
Yours
Peter