Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 579.
Telling people where you're from.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 579.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
You probably already know that, but did you know that we also have an ESL podcast store where you can buy additional courses in English?
And our ESL podcast blog where, a couple of times a week, we provide even more help in improving your English.
This episode is called Telling People Where You're From.
The US is a land of immigrants people from other countries, but also immigrants a country where people move to different parts of the country frequently.
This is going to tell you how you tell someone where you came from before you got to where you are now.
Let's get started.
Hi, I'm Cora.
I'm Antonio.
Nice to meet you.
Same here.
Are you from around here?
No, I'm originally from Arkansas.
How about you?
I'm a native Californian, but I grew up in the Middle East.
My parents were in the military, so we moved quite a bit, but mainly around the Middle East.
That's really interesting.
I spent some time in Jordan myself a few years ago doing research for my company.
But I've lived in Los Angeles for over 10 years and consider it my adopted hometown.
Isn't that funny?
Even though I was born here, I only moved back here two months ago.
I'm sure you know the city much better than I do.
I'd be happy to show you around to help you get reacquainted with L.A.
I was only eight years old when my family moved away, so I have a lot of catching up to do.
Let's start next weekend.
I'll show you some of the places where the locals like to hang out.
That sounds great.
Is this how all Angelenos treat newcomers?
Absolutely.
I'm the city's one-man welcome wagon.
Cora begins our dialogue by saying, Hi, I'm Cora.
My name is Cora.
Antonio says, I'm Antonio.
Nice to meet you.
Cora says, same here, which is an informal way of saying nice to meet you too.
Same here.
Are you from around here?
To be from around here means from that local area, born in this particular town or city.
So if someone says after meeting me, are you from around here, meaning Los Angeles, I would have to say no.
Antonio says no.
He says, I'm originally from Arkansas.
Arkansas is a state in the central part of the United States, south of Missouri, north of Texas, I think.
Arkansas is where Antonio is originally from.
Originally from means the place where you were born.
Usually, we say that when you haven't spent a lot of time in your new location.
But even now I've been in Los Angeles almost 20 years.
If someone asked me where I was originally from, I would say
So, Antonio is originally from Arkansas.
Cora says, To be native to some location means to have been born in that particular place.
In California.
Most of the people who live here well, maybe not most, a lot of the people who live here are not native Californians.
They weren't born in California.
They came from other states or other countries.
Native has a couple of other meanings in English as well, and those are in your learning guide for this episode.
Cora says, I grew up in the Middle East.
So she was born in California, but she grew up, she spent her childhood in another place in the Middle East, referring to the part of the world that is southeast of Europe, northwest of Africa, places like Iraq and Iran and Israel.
Those are countries in the Middle East.
Well, Cora says that her parents were in the military, the army or the navy or the marines.
So we moved quite a bit, but mainly around the Middle East.
This is not unusual for military families.
They get assigned to different places in the world sometimes, frequently.
In this case, Cora moved quite a bit, meaning a lot.
Antonio says that's really interesting.
I spent some time in Jordan myself a few years ago doing research for my company.
To spend some time means to do something for an amount of time, usually not very long, but you don't say exactly how much.
I'm going to spend some time working on my email this afternoon.
Maybe 10 minutes, maybe an hour.
Or I spent some time in New York City.
A couple of days, a week, could be longer.
You're not really sure.
Antonio says that he spent some time in Jordan, which is another country in the Middle East.
But I've lived in Los Angeles for over 10 years, and I consider it my adopted hometown.
Your hometown technically is the place where you were born.
So my hometown is St.
Paul.
Your adopted hometown is another city that you move to that perhaps you love so much that you say well, this is my hometown now.
I'm going to adopt it.
Like you would adopt a child, I guess, or a puppy.
I don't know why you would adopt a puppy, but Well, a cat.
Why you would adopt a cat, I have no idea.
But this is different.
This is adopted hometown.
Cora says, isn't that funny?
Isn't that interesting?
Even though I was born here, I only moved back here two months ago.
I'm sure you know the city much better than I do.
So Cora has been away for all these years and she's now coming back to Los Angeles.
Antonio, obviously interested romantically in Cora, says I'd be happy to show you around to help you get reacquainted with LA.
To show someone around means to take someone to different parts of the city or to help someone become familiar with the most important things or places.
If you come to Los Angeles, I could show you around.
I could take you to the beach.
I could take you to downtown, to Disneyland anywhere, tell you where the good restaurants are, and so forth.
That's to show someone around.
This verb, to show, has a couple of different meanings, however.
This meaning in this dialogue is a phrasal verb.
For some other examples with different meanings, take a look at the learning guide.
Antonio says he can help Cora get reacquainted.
To be acquainted with something is to know something, to have some information about something, or to know someone, but perhaps not very well.
To get reacquainted means that you are going to try to become familiar again with someone that you knew a long time ago or some place that you know.
And that is the case with Cora.
Antonio is going to help her learn again about Los Angeles.
Cora says, So I have a lot of catching up to do.
The expression to have a lot of catching up to do means that you need to learn a lot of things in order to become as familiar with something as the other person is.
Or you need to learn all about these things that have happened when you were gone.
To catch up is a phrasal verb that, in this case, means to get up to the same level of knowledge as another person after being gone for some reason.
If you watch a television series and you miss a couple of weeks, you may ask your friend to tell you what happened so you can catch up.
Well, Cora has a lot of catching up to do because she's been away from Los Angeles for so long.
Antonio says, seeing an opportunity, let's start next weekend.
I'll show you some of the places where the locals like to hang out.
A local, as a noun, is a person who lives in that area.
It's especially a term that you will hear in places where there are lots of tourists.
They are the people who come and visit, and then they are the locals, the people who actually live there.
So Antonio is going to show Cora where the locals like to hang out.
To hang out is a phrasal verb meaning to spend your free time, your leisure time, doing things that are fun but aren't necessarily important going with your friends to a cafe or to a restaurant.
Those are places where you hang out.
It can also be used as a noun.
A hangout is a place where a particular group of people often go to.
That term is especially popular when we are talking about adolescents, high school and college kids.
Cora says to Antonio, that sounds great.
Angeleno is someone like me who lives in Los Angeles.
To treat...
Someone is to act toward someone in a particular way, to behave towards someone.
You should treat other people nicely.
You should be nice to them.
Or he treated his dog very badly.
He wasn't very nice to his dog.
Maybe the dog wasn't very nice to him.
A newcomer.
One word N-E-W-C-O-M-E-R is a person who is new to an area, someone who has lived somewhere else and now has come to live in this particular town or city.
So Cora is asking if all Angelenos treat newcomers like her so nicely.
Antonio says, absolutely.
I'm the city's one-man welcome wagon.
One man means one person doing something alone, not necessarily a man, could be a woman.
A welcome wagon is a service, if you will, that welcomes people who have recently moved to a new area.
There isn't really anything like a welcome wagon in London. modern America.
But sometimes, when you move to a new city, the local businesses might send you flyers, might send you advertisements.
Your neighbors perhaps might come up and talk to you and greet you.
That would be sort of the idea of a welcome wagon.
A wagon.
W-A-G-O-N is like a big cart that would be pulled by a horse, for example, or it could be pulled by humans and you ride inside of it.
If you think back in the 19th century in the US, when people were coming from the East Coast coast of the US out to the west, out to places like California, they had horses and the horses pulled.
This mode of transportation called a wagon.
It has four wheels on it.
Usually the wagon was covered, meaning there was a top to it.
That's a wagon.
Of course, Antonio is not really being nice to Cora just because he's nice to newcomers.
We get the idea maybe he has some romantic interest in Cora.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hi, I'm Cora.
I'm Antonio.
Nice to meet you.
Same here.
Are you from around here?
No, I'm originally from Arkansas.
How about you?
I'm a native Californian, but I grew up in the Middle East.
My parents were in the military, so we moved quite a bit, but mainly around the Middle East.
That's really interesting.
I spent some time in Jordan myself a few years ago doing research for my company, but I've lived in Los Angeles for over 10 years and consider it my adopted hometown.
Isn't that funny?
Even though I was born here, I only moved back here two months ago.
I'm sure you know the city much better than I do.
I'd be happy to show you around to help you get reacquainted with L.A.
I was only eight years old when my family moved away, so I have a lot of catching up to do.
Let's start next weekend.
I'll show you some of the places where the locals like to hang out.
That sounds great.
Is this how all Angelenos treat newcomers?
Absolutely.
I'm the city's one-man welcome wagon.
Los Angeles is my adopted hometown, and that of our scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I am Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
