I have an exciting announcement to make: ESL Podcast will be giving away one million dollars this week to one of our lucky listeners. That’s right – $1,000,000! All you have to do to win is post a response to this blog post. You will then be entered in our Grand Prize (biggest or best prize) drawing (when you pick a name or number at random). Just answer the question…

April Fools! Actually, we’re not giving away one million dollars. Today is the first of April, known as April Fools’ Day. I gave a detailed description of this day on English Cafe #27 way back in 2006. Take a listen if you have not heard it yet. On this day, we try to get other people to believe things that aren’t true, to fool them, as a sort of joke. So don’t believe everything you hear today, especially if it is said by me!

~Jeff

Here’s another news article with comments and vocabulary using the SharedCopy website. It’s an article from Voice of America about a strange new type of party for women, where they get together to buy guns! Take a look here.

The article has difficult words highlighted in yellow and a list of definitions on the left side. On the right side are some comments to help you understand the article better. You can also listen to the article by clicking on the MP3 link (below the article’s title).

If you want to read the article first without seeing the vocabulary list, just click on the first box on the top, right of the yellow vocabulary list box. That will close the box for you. To open it again, click that same box again.

To annotate means to give additional information about something, to give more detail. Here I am using the word to indicate that I am adding information (background and definitions) to the article. This is a very traditional form of language instruction, useful mostly for text that you want to read but is too difficult. Normally I recommend people wanting to improve their English to read things that they can understand without extra definitions or dictionaries, but for articles that are just too difficult, this use of a glossary (list of word definitions) can sometimes be helpful.

~Jeff

Today is Saint Patrick’s Day, the national day of the country of Ireland. A saint is considered a very holy person in the Christian religion. St. Patrick (notice the abbreviation for “saint” is St.) was a famous priest who worked and lived in Ireland more than 16 centuries (1600 years) ago. There are many stories told about St. Patrick, some of them true, some of them not. One famous story says that he drove (got rid of, eliminated) all of the snakes from Ireland. (But Ireland didn’t actually have any snakes in that period! The Irish are famous for telling good stories, however.)

During the 19th century, there were many Irish who left their country and came to the United States. The Irish in America became powerful in government and in the leadership of the Catholic Church. Even today, more than 150 years later, there are many Irish-Americans in these two areas. One of the most famous Irish-American politicians, John F. Kennedy, became president in 1960. Most of the Catholic leaders today are still Irish-Americans, including the leader of the church in Los Angeles and other big cities.

Many Irish immigrants settled (moved to and lived) in large American cities such as Boston, New York, and Chicago. St. Paul, Minnesota, was also a popular place for the Irish. When I was growing up in St. Paul, many of the leaders of the city were still Irish-Americans. My great-great-great-great-great-great grandmother, Mary McQuillan, came to St. Paul in the 1840s, and there have been McQuillans there ever since (since that time). I remember growing up, there was always a parade (a celebration with people walking through the streets) on St. Patrick’s Day. My family always went downtown to march (walk) in the parade representing the McQuillans of St. Paul. Everyone would wear green (the color of Ireland) and those old enough would drink beer and have a good time. (Even those not old enough would sometimes drink at times!)

At my elementary (grade) school, about half of the students were Irish-American. There were also a lot of German-Americans who lived in St. Paul, and many students came from German-American families. So on St. Patrick’s Day, we would have the Irish-German Games, a competition between the Irish and German students. (If you were not German or Irish, you could choose which team to play on.) I think the Irish usually won, but perhaps that is because I was always on the Irish team :).

I don’t do much to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day here in Los Angeles, but my brothers back in St. Paul usually get together at a bar owned by one of my cousins to have a drink. The Irish are considered to be very lucky (fortunate), and we sometimes speak of the “luck of the Irish.” I feel lucky being able to be part of ESL Podcast, so I guess the saying (expression) is true.

~Jeff