Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 803, Negotiating a Peace Treaty.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 803.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
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This episode is called Negotiating a Peace Treaty a treaty, an agreement between two different countries.
Let's get started.
Have you heard the news?
The nations of Pelishia and Israel have signed a peace treaty.
This means that there will be an immediate ceasefire and an end to hostilities.
This is a historic day.
I never thought I'd live to see this day.
Has everything been settled? only the most important things.
The borders have been decided, there will be a recognition of statehood and political prisoners will be exchanged.
That's great, but does the treaty need to be ratified by the people of the two nations?
Yes, but the leaders have already signed the documents and the ratification process is just a formality at this point.
This means that refugees will be able to return home.
That's right.
They'll be able to go home at long last.
This is a banner day for world peace, don't you think?
Yes, and in that spirit, why don't you call Hannah and invite her over for dinner?
You two haven't spoken in weeks.
It's not going to be that easy.
A peace treaty with my sister will require a formal apology and reparations.
Ahmed begins our dialogue by saying to Mena, have you heard the news?
Mena says, the nations of Palisia and Israel have signed a peace treaty.
The nations mean the countries.
We use country and nation often to mean the same thing in English.
These two countries, these two nations, have signed a peace treaty.
A treaty is an official agreement between two governments, usually.
A peace treaty would be.
When two governments are fighting, when two countries are fighting and you want to end the war, end the fighting, you might have a peace treaty.
Mena says this means that there will be an immediate ceasefire and an end to hostilities.
A ceasefire—C-E-A-S-E-F-I-R-E one word— is an agreement to stop shooting at each other, to stop sending bombs over to the other country.
To fire can also mean to shoot like a weapon, like a gun.
To cease means to stop.
So a ceasefire is when you stop firing, you stop shooting each other.
Mena says that the peace treaty will make it so that there is an immediate ceasefire and an end to hostilities.
Hostilities are the same as fighting, acts of war, we might call them.
Mena says this is an historic day.
Historic H-I-S-T-O-R-I-C means something you will remember for a very long time, something that will be remembered in the future.
Of course, you can't remember it in the past.
So anyway, historic is something very memorable, something that many people will talk about years and years from now.
Ahmed says, I never thought I'd live to see this day.
Has everything been settled?
When we say something has been settled S-E-T-T-L-E-D, we mean it's been agreed upon or it's been decided.
All of the details, all of the small arrangements have been made.
Mena says only the most important things, meaning not everything has been settled, but the most important things have.
They've agreed on the most important things.
The borders have been decided.
There will be a recognition of statehood, and political prisoners will be exchanged.
Borders... lines that separate two countries.
They're not real lines.
We would call them imaginary lines that separate two different areas or two different countries.
We can talk about borders between two states or two regions as well.
The borders, Mena says, have been decided.
They've decided where that line is going to be. there will be a recognition of statehood.
Statehood is when you say the other people, the people who are living in this area, are officially a country.
So to recognize that is to say officially, okay, yes, you are a separate country.
This often happens when one part of a country is Here, state means the same as country.
State can also be part of a country, like the United States has 50 states within one country, but we can also refer to an entire nation as a state.
Mena says political prisoners will be exchanged.
A prisoner is someone who's been arrested and put in jail, put into a prison.
A political prisoner is someone who is arrested because of their political beliefs.
They didn't steal anything.
They didn't kill anyone.
But because the government doesn't like their opinion, they put them in prison.
We call those political prisoners.
Ahmed says, that's great, but does the treaty need to be ratified by the people of the two nations?
To be ratified, or simply to ratify, means to agree officially to do something, to approve something.
In the United States, for example, when there's a treaty between two different countries the United States and say Canada, The president of the United States has to say yes, I agree.
But the treaty needs to be ratified by another part of the US government, the United States Senate, which is part of the group of people who are our elected representatives.
So that's an example of ratification.
Ahmed is saying or asking if the treaty needs to be ratified by the people who live in these two different states, these two different countries.
Mena says yes, but the leaders have already signed the documents and the ratification process is just a formality at this point.
When we talk about formalities, f o r m a l i t i e s, we're referring to things that have to be done according to the rules, but that are not important difficulties or things that we can't solve.
They're things that need to be done, but it isn't something that's going to get in the way of or stop this thing from happening.
Ahmed said this means that refugees will be able to return home.
Refugees R-E-F-U-G-E-E-S are people who say have to leave their country, usually because it's too dangerous for them there, and want to return back to their country someday.
Typically, refugees have to leave during a war or because of some sort of political problem.
Otherwise, it may be too dangerous for them, and so they leave.
But In this case, the refugees will be able to go back home because of this peace treaty.
Minna says that's right.
They'll be able to go home at long last.
The expression at long last simply means finally, after a long period of time.
Ahmed says...
This is a banner day for world peace, don't you think?
A banner, B-A-N-N-E-R, day, is an important day.
A day that we might say is historic or a day that is very important.
Sometimes we talk about a banner day to refer to someone who has done something better than they have ever done it before.
On that day,
Or this is a day when that sort of thing has been done better than it has before.
It was a banner day for the stock market.
That means it was a very good day.
A banner day is always a good thing.
Banner has a couple of other meanings in English as well.
Take a look at our learning guide for those.
Ahmed thinks this is a banner day for world peace, for the idea that there will be no war or fighting anywhere on earth.
Mena says, yes, this is a banner day for world peace.
And in that spirit...
Why don't you call Hannah and invite her over for dinner?
The expression in that spirit is used when we are going to introduce another topic, but it's related to what we've been talking about already.
So in that spirit here means, since we've been talking about peace and world peace and people getting along again, Mena suggests to Ahmed that he call Hannah and invite her over for dinner.
She says, you two haven't spoken in weeks.
Often, when you say two people haven't spoken, we mean they haven't spoken to each other because they've been angry at each other or mad at each other.
Ahmed says it's not going to be that easy.
It's not going to be easy just to call her and invite her over.
There may be some more difficult things they have to resolve first.
He says a peace treaty with my sister will require a formal apology and reparations.
An apology is when you tell someone that you're sorry, you did something wrong.
A formal apology might be a written apology, an official apology.
We don't normally use that expression in talking about two different people or two members of a family.
So Ahmed is being a little humorous here.
What he's saying is that it's going to be very difficult because his sister, if I understand him correctly, needs to give him an apology.
He thinks his sister did something wrong.
He also says his sister has to give him reparations.
Reparations.
R-E-P-A-R-A-T-I-O-N-S is when one country beats another country, defeats another country in a war and, as part of the treaty, one country defeats, The losing country has to give some sort of money or something of value to make up for what they did wrong, make up for the fact that they were fighting this war.
Reparations can also be something that a government may give a group of people, for example, having injured them or hurt them.
Usually it is an amount of money that has to be given.
Well, Ahmed thinks his sister needs to give him reparations, so obviously they are going to have a difficult time making peace with each other.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Have you heard the news?
The nations of Pelishia and Israel have signed a peace treaty.
This means that there will be an immediate ceasefire and an end to hostilities.
This is a historic day.
I never thought I'd live to see this day.
Has everything been settled?
Only the most important things.
The borders have been decided, there will be a recognition of statehood and political prisoners will be exchanged.
That's great, but does the treaty need to be ratified by the people of the two nations?
Yes, but the leaders have already signed the documents and the ratification process is just a formality at this point.
This means that refugees will be able to return home.
That's right.
They'll be able to go home at long last.
This is a banner day for world peace, don't you think?
Yes, and in that spirit, why don't you call Hannah and invite her over for dinner?
You two haven't spoken in weeks.
It's not going to be that easy.
A peace treaty with my sister will require a formal apology and reparations.
Every day is a banner day for script writing here at ESL Podcast.
Thanks to our wonderful script writer, 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.
