Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 398, Parts of a City.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 398.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
We have a website at eslpod.com.
Go there today and download a learning guide for this episode and a special 8-10 page guide that gives you all of the vocabulary definitions, sample sentences, additional definitions, comprehension questions, cultural notes and a complete transcript of every word we say on the episode.
This episode is called Parts of a City.
It's a dialogue between Tanya and Darren and using vocabulary that we have to describe different parts of a city.
Let's get started.
We've been here for three days, and I'm still getting lost.
Here's a map.
These are the residential neighborhoods.
See?
This is where we're staying.
I know, I know.
But where were we today?
The tour bus went down so many alleys that I lost my bearings after ten minutes.
I thought we were going in circles.
Look, we drove through downtown first, past the financial district...
Next, we drove past the housing projects to the historic district.
I remember all that.
Okay, then.
From the historic district, we drove through Uptown.
Got that?
Yeah, that's where things get a little hazy.
How did we get to the outskirts of town?
One minute we were in Uptown, and the next minute we were at the city limits.
We took one of the back roads along here.
See?
Now do you understand the lay of the land?
Yep, definitely.
Ask me anything.
I know this city like the back of my hand.
No thanks.
That's like the blind leading the blind.
Our dialogue begins with Tanya saying to Darren we've been here for three days and I'm still getting lost.
Tanya and Darren are new to this city, perhaps visiting.
They've been there for three days.
Darren says, here's a map.
These are the residential neighborhoods.
See?
So Darren is pointing at the map.
Residential neighborhoods are places where people live, an area of the city where many people live, usually with many houses and or apartment buildings.
Residential refers to the people who live in a particular place.
The noun is resident.
This is where we're staying, Darren says.
Tanya says, I know, I know.
But where were we today?
The tour bus went down so many alleys. that I lost my bearings after 10 minutes.
So they are visiting.
They're on a tour bus or were on a tour bus that went down so many alleys.
To go down just means to drive on or drive through.
An alley, A-L-L-E-Y, is...
Basically, a small street in between two larger streets.
There are buildings on either side of the alley.
The alley is not used for normal traffic.
It's where a car can go to park in the back of a building, for example.
Some cities have alleys in their residential neighborhoods.
Some cities have them in some places and not others.
In my neighborhood, the block, the area i live on, doesn't have an alley, but the next block does have an alley.
A block, of course, is a section of a city surrounded by four streets.
To lose your bearings means to get lost, to not know where you are.
The word bearing has a couple of different meanings.
Take a look at the learning guide for some additional explanations.
So poor Tanya got lost.
She didn't know where she was today on the tour bus.
She says, I thought we were going in circles.
The expression to go in circles means to go around a certain place but not where you want to go.
It's like you start in one place and you travel around and you finally come back to that same place because you don't know where you're going.
That's to go in circles.
Darren says to Tanya, look.
We drove through downtown first, past the financial district.
Downtown is the center of a city, the central part where there are many buildings and businesses.
Some downtowns have a lot of people who live there, who have apartments and condominiums.
In New York City, Manhattan is... place like this.
In Los Angeles.
There are people who live downtown, but it's not a very popular area, at least traditionally.
The financial district is an area in the city where there are many banks, other businesses related to money, and So, for example, a company that buys and sells stocks a bank.
These would all be found in the financial district.
Finance is the noun.
It just means money in this case.
Darren says, next, we drove past the housing projects to the historic district.
A housing project is an area of homes or apartments, usually apartments that are built, often by the government, for people who don't have very much money to give them a place to live.
Sometimes they're just called the projects.
When someone refers to the projects or a housing project, the idea is that the people who live there are poor.
There's also an association with the word that makes people think perhaps, of crime, of a not safe area.
They drove through the housing projects to the historic district.
Historic comes from history, the older part of a town.
In Los Angeles we don't really have a historic district like cities in the eastern part of the US, in Boston Philadelphia, New York to some extent.
Los Angeles is a relatively new city.
At least large parts of the city are relatively new compared to other cities in the east, and Tanya says that she remembers going through to the historic district.
Darren says, okay then.
From the historic district, we drove through Uptown.
Uptown, one word, is a part of the city that is not close to downtown.
Usually where there are more expensive homes, often a richer neighborhood might be called uptown.
Not every city has an area that is called uptown.
Where I'm from Minnesota, there is an uptown in Minneapolis, an area called that because it had some and does have some very nice expensive houses there and apartments.
St.
Paul doesn't have an uptown, neither does Los Angeles, although we have areas, of course, with very expensive houses, just not where I live.
So Darren says, from the historic district we drove through Uptown.
Got that, he asks, meaning do you understand?
Tanya says, yeah, that's where things get a little hazy, H-A-Z-Y.
Hazy in this case means unclear or confusing. difficult to understand hazy has a couple of different meanings you know where you can go to our learning guide for some additional explanations tanya then is a little unclear or confused she says how did we get to the outskirts of town The outskirts, O-U-T-S-K-I-R-T-S, one word, is the edge of a city, far from the center.
Usually it's where the city's border is, where the city ends and becomes something else.
Outskirts usually implies it is part of a less populated area.
We might say simply the edge of town, the outskirts.
Tanya says one minute we were in Uptown and the next minute we were at the city limits.
One minute means at one point and then very soon after they were at another point in the city place in the city.
City limits is the border of the city.
It's where the city ends.
In most towns in the United States at least, if you're on a large freeway but even in a smaller road, as you enter the city, as you cross the city limits, there's usually a sign with the name of the city and the population of that city.
Usually those numbers don't change very much.
They change them about once every 10 years.
Darren says we took one of the back roads along here.
See?
Once again, Darren is pointing at the map.
The back roads are small, usually not very important roads where the cars have to drive more slowly.
It's the opposite of the main road.
Or it could be used to mean the opposite of a freeway, the slower, smaller roads.
Darren says, now do you understand the lay of the land?
The expression lay L-A-Y of the land means the geography of a place where things are, where things are located in an area.
That's the lay of the land.
We can sometimes use this expression when talking about a situation or a company.
If you are new to the company, it will take you a while to get the lay of the land, meaning who's important, who's not important, who works where, and so forth.
At the Center for Educational Development, the lay of the land is very easy.
I am right on the bottom.
Tanya says, yep, meaning yes, definitely.
She definitely understands.
She understands.
Ask me anything.
I know this city like the back of my hand.
This is an expression we use when we are very familiar with something, when we know exactly where everything is.
Darren says, No thanks.
That's like the blind leading the blind.
This again is an old expression.
Someone who is blind cannot see.
So you would not want to have someone who is blind leading another person helping another person who was blind, because neither of them would know where to go.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
We've been here for three days, and I'm still getting lost.
Here's a map.
These are the residential neighborhoods.
See?
This is where we're staying.
I know, I know.
But where were we today?
The tour bus went down so many alleys that I lost my bearings after ten minutes.
I thought we were going in circles.
Look, we drove through downtown first, past the financial district.
Next, we drove past the housing projects to the Historic District.
I remember all that.
Okay, then.
From the Historic District, we drove through Uptown.
Got that?
Yeah, that's where things get a little hazy.
How did we get to the outskirts of town?
One minute we were in Uptown, and the next minute we were at the city limits.
We took one of the back roads along here.
See?
Now do you understand the lay of the land?
Yep, definitely.
Ask me anything.
I know this city like the back of my hand.
No thanks.
That's like the blind leading the blind.
The script for this episode was written by Dr Lucy Say, who knows Los Angeles like the back of her hand, from Los Angeles, California.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2008.
