Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, Episode 634, Resembling One's Parents.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, Episode 634.
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.
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This episode is a dialogue about how people look like their parents.
It seems pretty obvious, but we'll be using some phrases and expressions related to your family and looking like members of your family.
Let's get started.
Hi, what are you looking at?
Your photo albums.
Your roommate let me in and said I could make myself comfortable while I waited for you.
There are some really incriminating pictures in there.
You'd better give those back to me.
Not yet.
I'm looking at your baby pictures and your family portraits.
You're the spitting image of your mother.
That's not my mother.
That was our neighbor.
Oh, now that I look a little closer, I can see that you resemble your father.
You're a chip off the old block.
That's not my father.
That's my father's friend.
Now, why don't I take those?
Wait!
These candids of your birthday parties are so cute.
You were so adorable.
Right.
When I was a kid, I had a face only a mother could love.
Okay, enough with the brown nosing.
What do you really want?
I don't want anything.
Okay, just one little thing.
My cousin is in town.
I want to go out with Rick tonight, and I thought we could double date.
Me, Rick, my cousin, and you.
What do you say?
I knew it had to be something.
Does she look like you?
We are like two peas in a pod.
Then forget it.
Ha!
Our dialogue opens with Khaled saying, Hi, what are you looking at?
Susanna says, Your photo albums.
A photo or photography album, A-L-B-U-M, is a book you use to keep your photographs in.
Usually they have plastic that you put over the photographs to protect them.
Susanna says your roommate, let me in.
And said I could make myself comfortable while I waited for you.
Your roommate would be the person that Khaled lives with.
He let Susanna in, meaning he opened the door and said, sure, come in, and probably left.
The roommate said that Susanna could make herself comfortable, meaning could sit down, could relax while she waited for Halid.
Halid says there are some really incriminating pictures in there.
Incriminating literally, is when you are made to look guilty of something.
If you come out of a room and there is blood on your hands and you have a gun in your pocket and someone has been killed in the next room, The gun and the blood are incriminating.
They show that you did something wrong.
In this case however, Khaled means that the pictures are embarrassing, that they are ones that he does not want other people to see.
He says, you'd better give those back to me, meaning I want them back now.
Susanna says, not yet.
I'm looking at your baby pictures and your family portraits.
Baby pictures are, of course, photographs of a very young child, usually less than one year old.
Many of us have baby pictures.
My baby picture.
Do I look cute?
I won't tell you.
Family portraits are when your whole family gets together and they take a picture of your whole family together.
This we did a couple of times when I was growing up.
Unfortunately there weren't cameras big enough to take a picture of I and my ten brothers and sisters.
Anyway, Susanna says to Khaled, you're the spitting image of your mother.
When someone says you're the spitting S-P-I-T-T-I-N-G image of someone, that means that you look almost exactly like that person.
The other day I was at the coffee shop.
Someone came up to me and said, you are the spitting image of Brad Pitt.
And I said, no.
George Clooney, not Brad Pitt.
Actually, I'm the spitting image of Chewbacca from Star Wars.
By the way, the verb to spit usually means that you take some liquid from your mouth and you use your mouth to put it onto something else.
That's to spit.
Spit.
Why we say spitting image, I'm not exactly sure.
Khaled responds to Susanna, that's not my mother, meaning the picture that she's looking at is not a picture of Khaled's mother.
He says, that was our neighbor, who could have been your mother, you don't know, really.
Susanna says, oh, now that I look a little closer, I can see that you resemble your father.
To resemble someone means to look like someone.
My neighbor resembles his dog.
Susanna says, you're a chip off the old block.
This is an old expression.
A chip off the old block means that you are very similar to your parents, either by the way you look or by what you do, by your actions.
If your father was a good football player and you're a good football player, someone might say you're a chip off the old block.
Khaled says, that's not my father.
That's my father's friend.
Now, why don't I take those?
Susanna says, wait, these candids of your birthday parties are so cute.
A candid picture or photograph is something that is taken without you typically realizing it.
Someone is taking a picture of you reading or a picture of you talking, and you don't know that they are taking a picture of you.
That would be a candid picture.
Candid has a number of different meanings, some of which are found in the learning guide.
Susanna thinks these pictures of Khaled's birthday parties when he was younger are cute, meaning they're nice to look at attractive, pretty.
We often use this word, this adjective, to describe young children or small animals, or the children of small animals or the animals of small children.
All of these could be described as cute, except my neighbor's dog, of course.
Susanna then says, you were so adorable.
Adorable is like cute.
It means very pretty, very attractive to you.
Khaled says right, meaning wrong.
He uses the word sarcastically.
Oh yeah, right.
It depends on the way it is said.
Here, Khaled is saying that's not true.
He says, This is an old expression, to have a face only a mother could love.
Means that you are really ugly, that you are the opposite of cute and adorable.
And that the only person who would love you because of the way that you look would be your own mother.
Because a mother, we usually think, loves all of her children regardless of how ugly they are.
Susanna says that's not true.
You have a great profile.
Profile has several meanings in English, some of which are in our learning guide for this episode.
Susanna continues, I'd expect to see your likeness in paintings and on statues.
He's so beautiful, Susanna is saying of Khalid, that he could be in a painting or on a statue.
She says she would expect to see his likeness on a statue.
Likeness is a similarity in the way that something appears.
It's what something looks like.
A statue is a large piece of sculpture made of stone or metal, usually of a famous person or animal.
In Minnesota, They make sculptures out of butter for the Minnesota State Fair.
Bet you didn't know that.
Well, it's true.
Holland says, okay, enough with the brown nosing.
To brown-nose someone is to be very nice to someone because you want that person to help you.
We use that term sometimes in school.
He's a brown noser with the teacher.
He says nice things to the teacher.
He gives the teacher things so that the teacher will give him a good grade.
Halad then says, what do you really want?
Susanna says, I don't want anything.
Okay, just one little thing.
So, of course, Halad was right.
She says, my cousin is in town, meaning my cousin is visiting, is in the city where I live.
She's from somewhere else.
Meaning you have a man and a woman who are dating, romantically involved, and then another couple who are romantically involved, and the four of you go to dinner or to a movie or whatever.
That's double dating.
She says, me, Rick, my cousin, and you.
Notice she says me instead of I. Informally, that's very common.
She says, me, Rick, my cousin, and you.
What do you say?
Meaning, what is your opinion?
What do you think?
Are you interested, is what she's asking.
Halid said, I knew it had to be something.
Does she look like you?
Meaning, does your cousin have a similar physical appearance as you do?
Susanna says, we are like two peas in a pod.
Peas are small green vegetables that come in, or grow rather, in something called a pod, a pea pod.
Kind of like a podcast.
Actually, nothing like a podcast.
So two peas in the pod means two things that are very similar.
She's saying that she and her cousin resemble each other.
They look alike.
Halid, when he learns that the cousin looks just like Susanna, says, then forget it.
Halid is insulting Susanna, saying that she isn't pretty enough for him to go out with someone who looks like her.
That's not nice, Halid.
You shouldn't say that sort of thing to a woman.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hi, what are you looking at?
Your photo albums.
Your roommate let me in and said I could make myself comfortable while I waited for you.
There are some really incriminating pictures in there.
You'd better give those back to me.
Not yet.
I'm looking at your baby pictures and your family portraits.
You're the spitting image of your mother.
That's not my mother.
That was our neighbor.
Oh, now that I look a little closer, I can see that you resemble your father.
You're a chip off the old block.
That's not my father.
That's my father's friend.
Now, why don't I take those?
Wait.
These candids of your birthday parties are so cute.
You are so adorable.
Right.
When I was a kid, I had a face only a mother could love.
That's not true.
You have a great profile.
I'd expect to see your likeness in paintings and on statues.
Okay, enough with the brown nosing.
What do you really want?
I don't want anything.
Okay, just one little thing.
My cousin is in town.
I want to go out with Rick tonight, and I thought we could double date.
Me, Rick, my cousin, and you.
What do you say?
I knew it had to be something.
Does she look like you?
We are like two peas in a pod.
Then forget it.
Our script writer here is so good, you should see her likeness on statues.
It's Dr. Lucy Say, of course.
Thank you, Lucy.
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 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
