Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 458, Going to the Playground.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 458.
© transcript Emily Beynon and a complete transcript of this episode.
This episode is a story called Going to the Playground.
It's going to introduce some common vocabulary you might use if you are on a playground, a place where kids play.
Let's get started.
My wife was out of town on business. and our nanny was sick.
So I took the day off from work to take care of our two kids Livia, who is two, and Augustus, who is three and a half.
I thought that going to the playground would be a good thing to do, but it turned out to be an accident waiting to happen.
When we got to the playground the kids jumped out of the car.
Livia got on to the merry-go-round pushing it as hard as she could.
The trouble was there were a couple of toddlers playing on it and they fell backwards, getting the wind knocked out of them.
Augustus, on the other hand, ran straight for the swing set and almost got decapitated.
Then he went over to the seesaw and almost got smashed when he tried to run under it.
He ran out of my grasp and onto the jungle gym.
He started hanging off the monkey bars.
I caught him just in time as he fell.
When I turned around, I saw that Livia had got onto the slide and slid headfirst into the sandbox.
Good thing she wasn't hurt.
By this time, I realized my mistake.
Far from a safe place to play for two lively kids and one father, The playground was a death trap.
Our story begins with the poor father in this story not me, by the way taking his son and daughter to a playground.
Playground is an area where children play that usually has large pieces of equipment.
You often find these in a public park or next to a school.
He says that my wife was out of town on business.
She was traveling in another city and our nanny was sick.
A nanny.
N-A-N-N-Y is a woman whose job is to take care of someone else's children, usually when the parent is gone working.
The nanny often lives in the home of the family, although sometimes they just come over early in the morning when the mother and father are getting ready to leave for work.
In the story, the poor father took the day off from work, did not go to work and took care of their two children, Livia and Augustus.
He says he thought that going to the playground would be a good thing to do, but it turned out it resulted that it was an accident waiting to happen.
The expression an accident waiting to happen means that something is dangerous.
It's a situation where something bad will probably happen if you wait long enough, with enough time.
So, in general, a dangerous situation.
When we got to the playground he says the kids jumped out of the car, meaning they opened the doors quickly and got out of the car.
Livia got on to the merry-go-round.
A merry-go-round is a large, round piece of equipment for children to play on.
It is flat and spins around in a circle.
Usually there are places for the children to stand or sit on the merry-go-round.
Merry-go-rounds can sometimes be very sophisticated with horses not real horses, of course, horses that go up and down as the circle goes around and around.
A merry-go-round is interesting for very young children, maybe three, four, five years old.
Well, in this case, Livia got onto the merry-go-round and pushed it as hard as she could, got it to move around in a circle.
Unfortunately, there were already a couple of toddlers involved, a couple of young children, usually one to two years old, that were sitting on the merry-go-round.
Because Livia pushed the merry-go-round to make it spin, to make it go around in a circle.
This caused the other two children to fall off of the merry-go-round.
They probably weren't expecting it to suddenly move.
And this caused them to get the wind knocked out of them.
To get the wind knocked out of you is an expression that means to fall down, usually on your chest or your stomach, or having someone hit you so that you find it difficult to breathe for a short period of time.
Your wind.
In this case is the air going in and out of your lungs, that part of the body where the air goes, when you breathe in.
Augustus, on the other hand, he says, ran straight for the swing set.
To run straight for means to go directly to the swing set.
A swing set is a large piece of equipment you would find on a playground or even in someone's backyard behind their house someone who had young children.
It usually has two or three little seats, rectangular pieces of wood or plastic that kids can sit on.
And these seats are connected to a pole that is above them so that they can swing.
They can go back and forth in the air.
We used to have one of these in my house in the backyard in the house where I grew up.
They were very popular and still are.
Swing sets however, can be a little dangerous, because if you swing too high, it's possible for you to fall off.
Augustus apparently was swinging a little bit too much and almost got decapitated.
Decapitated means without your head.
Literally, when someone cuts your head off from the rest of your body, separates your head from the rest of your body.
During the French Revolution, there was something called in English the guillotine, which was a large blade, like a large knife, that cut people's heads off who were enemies of the government.
This is a way of decapitating someone.
I don't recommend it, personally.
Getting back to Augustus, he then went over to the seesaw.
A seesaw S-E-E hyphen S-A-W is a long piece of wood, a rectangular piece of wood, or sometimes metal, that has seats on both ends.
And in the middle there is something that holds up the wood or the piece of metal, and When one child goes up, the other child goes down and they go back and forth, going up and down.
In the center is something that is holding up this piece of wood.
Technically, it is what we would call a fulcrum, F-U-L-C-R-U-M.
Once again, the seesaw would be a popular toy, a popular piece of equipment for a young child.
Unfortunately, the young son of the narrator of our story Augustus, almost got smashed when he tried to run under the seesaw.
One is guessing that there was somebody already on the seesaw who was coming down and Augustus was running underneath the seesaw.
When we say he almost got smashed, we mean that he almost got hurt, he almost got hit.
To smash usually means to apply force from the top down, something very heavy.
You could take a hammer, for example, and smash a plate.
I don't know why you would do this.
Maybe you're angry.
Sometimes it's useful to hit something when you're angry, as long as you don't hit another person.
In this case, poor Augustus almost got smashed, almost got hit when he tried to run under a seesaw.
And on to the jungle gym.
To be out of your grasp means to be away from your hands, to be too far for you to hold or to touch.
We can also use this in a more metaphorical sense.
You can say that becoming president of the company is out of my grasp.
It's too far away from me.
I can't reach it.
I can't obtain it.
The word grasp has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Augustus runs out of his father's grasp and onto a jungle gym.
A jungle gym is a large, tall piece of equipment that has many different metal bars, separated by open spaces so that children can climb on them.
It's another large piece of equipment that you would find in a park on a playground.
Part of the jungle gym has what we would call monkey bars.
Monkey bars are sort of like a ladder that is horizontal instead of vertical.
Normally, if you want to climb up to the top of your house or to a top of a building, you might use a ladder which has pieces of metal every couple of feet or every foot.
That are basically steps that you can climb up to go straight up.
Monkey bars consist of a ladder that is horizontal instead of vertical, and you grab on to each metal bar and you try to move forward.
If you've seen a movie about the army, the armed forces training.
This is a very common way of training soldiers.
When you have these monkey bars essentially we don't call them monkey bars in the army, I would guess, but that's what they're called on a playground.
It's basically a horizontal ladder that you use, have high above the ground and you grab one bar and move forward with your arms.
In this case, Augustus got up to the monkey bars and almost fell off of them hitting the ground.
He did fall off, but his father was there to catch him.
When the father turns around... he sees that Livia has gone onto the slide.
A slide on a playground is a long flat, narrow piece of metal that is placed at an angle so that children can go down it.
So you have a ladder that goes to the top of the slide and the children get on the slide and they go all the way down to the bottom.
In fact, we would use the verb to slide.
They slide down to the bottom of the slide, used as a noun.
Slide has a couple of different meanings in English however, so take a look at the learning guide to understand this word a little better.
Unfortunately, Livia is going down the slide head first.
When we say someone goes down head first, we mean that their head is moving in front of their feet, especially if you are sliding down something.
It is dangerous if you are going down with your head as the first thing that would hit the ground.
You want your feet to be the first thing that hits the ground.
So the opposite of head first would be feet first.
Livia slides into a sandbox.
A sandbox is a large open, rectangular box that is filled with sand, very small pieces of earth that you usually find on a beach.
Very young children often like to play in these sandboxes.
Fortunately for Livia, because the slide went into a sandbox.
The sand was able to protect her from hurting herself too much.
The father says at the end of the story He thought the playground was a safe place to play, which is why he says far from a safe place to play, meaning that's not true.
It's not a safe place to play.
It's not a safe place for two lively kids and one father.
Lively means very active, with lots of energy.
Instead, he says the playground was a death trap.
A death trap is a very dangerous thing or dangerous place where you can get killed very easily.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a normal speed.
My wife was out of town on business and our nanny was sick, so I took the day off from work to take care of our two kids Livia, who is two, and Augustus, who is three and a half.
I thought that going to the playground would be a good thing to do, but it turned out to be an accident waiting to happen.
When we got to the playground, the kids jumped out of the car.
Livia got on to the merry-go-round, pushing it as hard as she could.
The trouble was there were a couple of toddlers playing on it and they fell backwards, getting the wind knocked out of them.
Augustus, on the other hand, ran straight for the swing set and almost got decapitated.
Then he went over to the seesaw and almost got smashed when he tried to run under it.
He ran out of my grasp and on to the jungle gym.
He started hanging off the monkey bars.
I caught him just in time as he fell.
When I turned around, I saw that Livia had got onto the slide and slid headfirst into the sandbox.
Good thing she wasn't hurt.
By this time, I realized my mistake.
Far from a safe place to play for two lively kids and one father, the playground was a death trap.
The script for this episode was written by the lively Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you 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.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
