Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 790, Giving Birth to Twins.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 790.
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.
Check out our special courses in business and daily English on our website.
Today's episode is about having a baby.
Two of them, in fact.
Let's get started.
Congratulations!
I just heard that you're pregnant with twins.
Thanks.
We're very excited.
Although I'm a little worried about a multiple birth.
I see what you mean.
That's not even the half of it.
My maternal grandmother gave birth to triplets, and my aunt had quadruplets.
Wow!
Multiple births certainly run in your family.
What about your immediate family?
You're not going to believe this, but my mother had octuplets.
I have seven brothers and sisters the same age.
And all of you survived?
Yep, every single one of us.
We often joke that my mother didn't have babies.
She had a litter.
Our dialogue begins with Jerome saying to Paula Congratulations.
I just heard that you're pregnant with twins.
Pregnant, P-R-E-G-N-A-N-T, is when a woman has a child inside her body who is going to be born.
But Paula is not just pregnant with one child, but with two.
And that's why Jerome says she's going to have twins.
T-W-I-N-S.
So Jerome congratulates Paula.
So I guess he's not the father.
Paula says, thanks.
We're very excited.
Presumably she means her husband, the father of the child.
We're very excited, although I'm a little worried about a multiple birth problem.
Multiple, M-U-L-T-I-P-L-E, means more than one.
Multiple anything.
You could have multiple children, more than one child.
Multiple birth would be giving birth to more than one child.
The expression to give birth means to have the child come out of the mother's body.
Jerome says, I come from a long line of multiple births.
Probably one of the few times that sentence has been said in English.
To come from a long line of means that you have a history in your family.
I could say, I come from a long line of teachers.
My father was a teacher.
My brother was a teacher and so forth.
Or I could say more truthfully, I come from a long line of plumbers.
Plumbers are people who fix toilets and sinks.
My great grandfather was a plumber and my grandfather was a plumber and my uncles are all plumbers.
So Jerome says he comes from a long line of multiple births, meaning there must be a lot of twins in his family.
And that, in fact, is what Jerome means.
He says, "'My father is an identical twin, and he had cousins who are fraternal twins.'"
Well, if you remember back to your biology class, you should know that there are two kinds of twins.
There are smart twins and there are stupid twins.
No, that's not the difference.
There are identical twins.
These are two babies that look exactly the same.
They have the same sex, two boys or two girls, and usually they look very much alike.
My two brothers, older brothers, Mark and Mike, are identical twins.
You can also have fraternal twins.
F-R-A-T-E-R-N-A-L is a word that comes from the Latin, I believe, frater F-R-A-T-E-R, which can mean brother, though in the plural it often means men and women, brothers and sisters.
And that's really the meaning here.
Fraternal twins are two babies born at the same time.
And usually they don't look alike, or at least they don't look identical, the same as identical twins do.
Paula says And Jerome responds this expression means that you still have more things to say about this topic.
Jerome has mentioned two facts that his father is an identical twin and his father's cousins are fraternal twins.
But he has even more information about this, even more things on this topic.
And then we hear what those are.
Jerome says, my maternal grandmother gave birth to triplets and And my aunt had quadruplets.
Wow.
Maternal, M-A-T-E-R-N-A-L, comes from mater in Latin.
We're having a Latin lesson today.
Mater, M-A-T-E-R, means mother.
And so when Jerome says my maternal grandmother, he means his mother's mother, not his father's mother.
If it were his father's mother, we would say his paternal grandmother from, of course, pater, P-A-T-E-R, Latin for father.
Jerome says that his maternal grandmother gave birth to triplets.
Triplets, T-R-I-P-L-E-T-S, are when you have three babies born at the same time.
That's somewhat rare.
But even rarer, even more unusual is what happened to his aunt.
His aunt, or his aunt, either pronunciation is correct, had quadruplets.
Quadruplets are when you have four babies at one time.
Five babies would be quintuplets, and so on and so forth.
Quadruplets is very rare also, well, even rarer than triplets.
Paulus says that multiple births certainly run in Jerome's family.
When we say something runs in your family, we mean it's something common in your family that different members of your family share.
This could be anything.
It could be.
The height tall boys run in our family, or it could be anything that is genetic, although sometimes it's used for things that are probably more from the environment.
Some people say, oh, playing soccer runs in our family.
Everyone does it.
My father does it, my sister does it, and so forth.
Well, we don't mean that there is an inherited trait in that family, for soccer, that it comes from your genetics, but it means it's popular or it's common in your family.
Nowadays there are actually more people, well more women, having multiple births, probably because there's more use of fertility drugs, drugs that help a woman get pregnant.
And these often lead to, or at least more often, I understand, lead to multiple births.
But of course I'm not a doctor and I have never given birth to a child, so I'm not really an expert in this area.
But Paula asks Jerome, what about your immediate family?
Your immediate family is your mother, your father, your brothers, and your sisters.
It doesn't include aunts, uncles, grandparents, and so forth.
Jerome says, you're not going to believe this, But my mother had octuplets.
Okay, octuplets, O-C-T-U-P-L-E-T-S.
If you know a little Latin, you'll know this means eight children.
Well, that would be very unusual indeed.
He says, I have seven brothers and sisters the same age.
Paula says, and all of you survived?
Obviously, when you have multiple births, there's more of a risk of one of the babies dying.
But Jerome says every single one of us survived.
To survive means not to die.
Every single one of us is just another way of saying all of us.
All of us survived.
We even joke that my mother didn't have babies.
She had a litter.
Litter L-I-T-T-E-R is normally a word we use for a group of animal babies born to an animal at one time, like a cat would have a litter of kittens.
So Jerome is sort of joking when he says that they say to their mother that she had a litter.
Litter actually has some other meanings in English as well, as does the word twin.
And you can find both of those in our learning guide.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Congratulations!
I just heard that you're pregnant with twins.
Thanks.
We're very excited, although I'm a little worried about a multiple birth.
I come from a long line of multiple births.
My father is an identical twin, and he had cousins who are fraternal twins.
I see what you mean.
That's not even the half of it.
My maternal grandmother gave birth to triplets, and my aunt had quadruplets.
Wow.
Multiple births certainly run in your family.
What about your immediate family?
You're not going to believe this, but my mother had octuplets.
I have seven brothers and sisters the same age.
And all of you survived?
Yep.
Every single one of us.
We often joke that my mother didn't have babies.
She had a litter.
She doesn't have any twin brothers or sisters, but she is a wonderful scriptwriter.
I'm talking, of course, about our own Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2012 by the Center for Educational Development.
