Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 727, Home Architectural Styles.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 727.
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.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode and become a member of ESL Podcast and help support this podcast.
This episode is a dialogue between Ralph and Nina about architectural styles, that is, the look, the design of houses, how they look inside and outside.
Let's get started.
I just talked to our new real estate agent and she's going to show us some houses tomorrow.
I told her that the bigger the better and that we're looking for a large Cape Cod or Georgian-style house.
You did?
I've been thinking that we try to find something more modest, a bungalow or a cottage.
What?
You think I'm going to live in a house that's a step up from a mobile home?
No way.
We've come into some money and we're going to buy a big house.
Maybe a colonial or a Greek Revival.
If you want something bigger than a bungalow, how about a split-level modern house?
Or maybe a ranch-style house?
You're still thinking too small.
The sky's the limit.
We can afford something big.
Something really big.
That's what the nouveau riche would do.
So what?
Our money is new, and we have a lot of it, and I want a big house.
We're not being ostentatious.
If anyone criticizes us for that, I'd say, deal with it.
Our dialogue begins with Ralph saying to Nina I just talked to our new real estate agent and she's going to show us some homes tomorrow.
Real estate, two words, refers to property, physical property, land and buildings, including houses.
An agent is someone who sells or buys or negotiates for you.
A real estate agent is someone that helps you either buy or sell your house.
Ralph says that he told the real estate agent, the bigger the better.
That is, he's looking for a big house.
When we say the bigger the better, we mean the larger something is, the better it is.
That's not always true, but that's what Ralph wants in his new house.
He says we're looking for a large Cape Cod or Georgian style house.
A Cape Cod is a type of home that originally was very popular in a certain area in the united states, an area in the state of massachusetts which is in the northeast part of the u s.
Cape Cod, if you look at a map of the state of Massachusetts, is the thin you might even call it a tail that comes out from the main part of Massachusetts into the Atlantic Ocean.
It's like a little sea that comes out.
That's called Cape Cod.
A Cape Cod style house usually has one or two floors, two levels.
The roof comes to a point.
And there's often, or usually, a chimney in the center of the house.
A chimney is a tall structure that you use for a fireplace.
When you have a fire with wood or gas in one of your rooms, you need some place for the smoke to go, and it goes up something called a chimney.
So that's a Cape Cod style house.
A Georgian G-E-O-R-G-I-A-N style house is is a large rectangular house, usually two or three floors, with a door in the center and many identical rectangular windows that are on each floor.
It's what we might call a very symmetrical looking house.
There are windows on both sides and and they match and the distance between them matches and so forth.
That's a Georgian-style house.
Nina says, you did, meaning you told her we wanted a big house.
I've been thinking that we'd try to find something more modest, a bungalow or a cottage.
Modest, M-O-D-E-S-T, usually means humble, someone or something without a lot of money.
Modest can have a couple of different meanings.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
But when we use it to describe, for example, a house, we would mean it's not a large house, not an expensive-looking house.
A bungalow, B-U-N-G-A-L-O-W, is a very small house, usually with just one level, one floor.
It has a roof.
There's often an open area in the front that has a cover on it, what we would call a porch P-O-R-C-H.
Many houses in the U.S. have porches.
Our house, when I was growing up in Minnesota, had a porch.
It was an enclosed porch, meaning there were windows and a door, even though it was outside of the house.
It wasn't heated in the wintertime.
A bungalow is a small, very small little house.
This style of house was very popular in California, especially in the 20th century.
Near where I live, not too far from Santa Monica, California
There are lots of little bungalows that you can still find.
Many of them have been destroyed, we would say torn down and replaced by larger houses, but there are still a fair number, a reasonable number of them here in Southern California.
A cottage.
C-O-T-T-A-G-E is also a small house, usually with only one or two bedrooms and one floor.
Often there are many other identical-looking houses, called cottages, near it.
Usually, the word cottage is is used for a small house that is near a lake or perhaps a river, although it might be in the mountains as well.
Cottages are usually used as vacation housing.
That is somewhere where you go on the weekend, not the place where you live the entire year.
The word cottage is not as common in California.
You will hear the word more often in the Midwest and the East, where there are more lakes and rivers and perhaps more of these kinds of houses.
Nina then wants a smaller house than Ralph.
Ralph says, what?
You think I'm going to live in a house that's a step up from a mobile home?
No way.
So Ralph is saying that he does not want to live in a house that is just a step up from a mobile home.
The expression to be a step up from means one level higher, slightly better than an improvement over.
A mobile home is the cheapest, least expensive kind of housing you can have.
It's a home...
There are wheels on it and it is towed by a truck and put into the place where you are living.
Often there are other mobile homes very close to you, what we would call a mobile home park.
Mobile homes are housing for people oftentimes who don't have a lot of money.
They are cheap housing.
Ralph says that he is not going to live in a house.
That is just a little better, just a step up from a mobile home.
He says, To come into some money means to receive some money, usually from someone who has died.
We would call that inheriting the money.
I-N-H-E-R-I-T-I-N-G.
Well, Ralph and Nina have inherited some money and Ralph wants to buy a big house.
Maybe, he says, a colonial or a Greek revival house.
A colonial is a home built in one of the styles that was popular in the United States before we became a country, when we were still a colony.
That's where colonial comes from.
Usually a colonial has one or two stories, one or two floors, two levels, and very steep roofs.
That is, roofs that come to a very sharp angle.
That's a colonial house, especially on the East Coast and the Midwest in the US.
Here in the West, especially in California, we have something called a Spanish colonial, which is different than an Eastern colonial house.
A Spanish colonial has usually rounded arches in the side of the house and in the windows.
It is not as sharp.
It doesn't have as many angles usually.
Even the walls in the corner of the room are rounded in many Spanish colonial houses.
You find a lot of those here in Los Angeles that were built in the early and mid-20th century.
Greek revival is a house or a building that looks like sort of classic ancient Greek architecture with what we would call pillars, large round columns in the front, around the building.
Many of the buildings in Washington DC for the US government are built in this sort of classic Greek style.
So a Greek revival house would be one like that.
Nina says if you want something bigger than a bungalow, how about a split-level modern house, or perhaps a ranch-style house?
A split-level home is a home where you walk in and there are two more levels.
They're sort of halfway between being a completely separate level.
One level above you is where there are bedrooms, and one level below you is where you will find say, the living room, the main space in the house.
That's a split-level house.
A ranch-style house is a long rectangular house with only one floor.
It has very large windows.
It's very plain, very simple, not a lot of decoration inside or outside the house.
Ralph says, you're still thinking too small.
The sky's the limit.
The expression the sky is the limit.
We put sky and is together, so it becomes the sky's the limit is a phrase used to show there are no limits.
No controls.
You can have whatever you want, as expensive and as big as you want.
Ralph says we can afford, meaning we have the money, for something big, really big.
Nina says that's what the nouveau riche would do.
Nouveau-Riche is a French expression.
And by the way, I always mispronounce the French expressions.
I'm sorry.
Please don't email and tell me I'm saying it wrong.
I know I'm saying it wrong.
It's just because I'm not very intelligent.
I haven't figured out French pronunciation yet.
In fact, I mispronounce all languages, really.
So that's what Americans do.
We're not the smartest people.
You have to understand that.
Or maybe it's just me.
Anyway, nouveau riche in U.S.
English means someone who has become rich, someone who has become wealthy very recently.
The term is often used as a criticism, as a negative way of describing people who suddenly get a lot of money and go out and spend a lot of money on things that other people disapprove of or that show that they have a lot of money.
Ralph says, so what?
Our money is new and we have a lot of it and I want a big house.
We're not being ostentatious.
To be ostentatious.
O-S-T-E-N-T-A-T-I-O-U-S means to do something or say something just to impress other people, especially when you spend a lot of money.
Rock stars and celebrities are often ostentatious.
They like to spend their money on big cars or jewelry to show other people how much money they have.
Ralph says if anyone criticizes us, I'd say deal with it.
The expression deal with it is an informal expression, slightly rude.
It's used to tell people that you must accept or learn to tolerate something because it's not going to change.
Someone is complaining about their life.
You might, if you are tired of listening to them say oh, just deal with it.
Meaning, you just have to make the best of it that you can.
You're really telling them to stop complaining.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I just talked to our new real estate agent and she's going to show us some houses tomorrow.
I told her that the bigger the better and that we're looking for a large Cape Cod or Georgian style house.
You did?
I've been thinking that we'd try to find something more modest.
A bungalow or a cottage.
What?
You think I'm going to live in a house that's a step up from a mobile home?
No way.
We've come into some money and we're going to buy a big house.
Maybe a colonial or a Greek revival.
If you want something bigger than a bungalow, how about a split-level modern house, or maybe a ranch-style house?
You're still thinking too small.
The sky's the limit.
We can afford something big, something really big.
That's what the nouveau riche would do.
So what?
Our money is new and we have a lot of it.
And I want a big house.
We're not being ostentatious.
If anyone criticizes us for that, I'd say, deal with it.
The script for this episode was written by 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 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
