Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 947, Seeing a Circus Performance.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 947.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
This episode, like all of our episodes, has a learning guide.
Go to ESLPOD.com and download the one for this episode.
This episode is a dialogue about going to see a circus performance, a place where you can see animals and people doing all sorts of interesting tricks.
Let's get started.
Ta-da!
We're here.
This is your big surprise.
We're going to the circus?
You got it in one.
It's going to be great.
There'll be clowns and acrobats, trapeze artists and lion tamers.
I haven't been to the circus since I was a kid.
That's the point.
I thought this would be a nostalgic experience for both of us and let us feel like kids again.
I'm not sure.
Come on.
We'll miss the first act.
I think there'll be jugglers, magicians, and tightrope walkers, too.
Great idea.
Listen, I can hear the ringmaster from here.
Let's go.
When you said that you had a surprise for me that would make me feel young again.
This wasn't exactly what I envisioned.
I know.
It's even better, right?
If you say so.
Paula begins our dialogue by saying, ta-da, we're here.
That expression ta-da, T-A-D-A is used when you are excited and proud to show another person something.
You are introducing something to another person, something you're excited about or something.
Perhaps you are presenting them as a gift.
Paula says, we're here.
This is your big surprise.
So Paula's surprise, her gift, if you will, is the place where she has taken Roman.
Roman says, we're going to the circus.
A circus C-I-R-C-U-S is a type of live entertainment where you go and watch people we would call them performers and trained animals do certain tricks, often things that are dangerous or things that seem unusual.
A circus may have lions that do certain tricks.
A circus may have someone who is walking on a wire that is suspended way up high, what we call, in fact, a high wire or a tight rope.
All of these things could be found at a circus, in addition to many other kinds of entertaining performances.
Circuses are popular with children and many of the things that you will see at a circus are designed to entertain children.
Circuses, at least here in the United States, typically travel from one city or one town to another, and they'll stay for maybe three or four days, maybe a week or two.
When I was growing up in the 1970s, back in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
We would have a circus that would come to town, that would arrive to the city at least once a year and would stay for a couple of weeks.
You could go and watch the show, watch the circus performances in a large auditorium.
Roman asks Paula, we're going to the circus?
Paula says, you got it in one.
The expression to get it in one O-N-E means to guess something correctly the first time, not to need another guess to get it right on the first attempt.
Paula says it's going to be great.
Paula lists some of the things you see typically at a circus.
We've already mentioned a few of these.
One thing you will always see at a circus is a clown, C-L-O-W-N.
A clown is a person who dresses in a large outfit, a large uniform that's usually very colorful, that has a lot of bright colors.
Clowns often have big red noses on their face and big shoes that they wear.
Clowns also often have a big wig on. fake hair, basically, that they wear that's also very colorful.
Clowns are very popular among small children.
They are used to entertain small children.
An acrobat, A-C-R-O-B-A-T, has nothing to do with your computer or reading PDF files.
An acrobat is a person who uses their body in an unusual way, similar to a gymnast, but often does things in the air.
They do a lot of things that involve jumping or going up high into the air.
A trapeze.
T-R-A-P-E-Z-E artist is a performer who entertains people by flying through the air, usually jumping from one bar or one rope to another.
Trapeze artists do things that may be very dangerous because they could fall, although usually in a circus there will be something called a net N-E-T that is put below them to catch them so they don't hit the floor if they fall.
A lion, L-I-O-N, tamer, T-A-M-E-R, is a person who trains animals, in this case a lion, to do certain tricks.
The word tamer comes from the verb to tame T-A-M-E, which means to take a wild animal and basically calm it down, make it so that it will not kill anyone or hurt anyone, especially when you're talking about a lion.
A lion, of course, is a large cat, and like all cats, can be very dangerous.
I recommend staying away from lions and other cats.
Roman says, This, of course, is not unusual.
People go to circuses usually when they are young, when they are young children unless, of course, you're the parent taking a child to the circus.
Roman is a little surprised, I guess, that Paula is taking him to a circus.
Paula says, however, that's the point.
She's saying, exactly, that's why I'm bringing you here.
I thought this would be a nostalgic experience for both of us, and let us feel like kids again.
The word nostalgic N-O-S-T-A-L-G-I-C means nostalgic, being filled with strong emotions, strong feelings, especially when thinking about something in the past, when reflecting on your memories.
When we say something is nostalgic, There's also a sense that we want to go back in time.
We want to return to that time when a certain thing was popular or when we experienced a certain positive thing.
Paula wants this trip to the circus to be a nostalgic one and let her and Roman feel like kids again, to feel as though they were young children.
That's something I honestly never really want to do is to feel like a young child again.
I know I had a happy childhood.
I'm not saying there was anything bad about when I was growing up, but there were a lot of things that weren't very fun about being a child.
So honestly, I've never much had a feeling about wanting to be a kid again.
I'd like to be 20 years old again.
That's different.
Roman is also expressing some doubts.
He says, I'm not sure, meaning I'm not sure I want to go to the circus.
Paula, however, insists.
She says, come on, meaning let's go.
We'll miss the first act.
An act, A-C-T, here refers to a part of a performance, a section of a performance.
The first act would be the first part of some performance.
It could be a play.
It could be, as in this example, a circus.
She says we'll miss the first act.
If we don't go now, we will miss the first act.
That's why she's trying to hurry Roman up.
Then Paula lists some other things you will see at a circus.
She says, A juggler.
J-U-G-G-L-E-R is a person who can keep several objects in the air at the same time by throwing them up and catching them and throwing them up again.
A magician.
M-A-G-I-C-I-A-N is a person who uses what we would call illusions to make you think something is going on, even though it really isn't.
That's sort of what a politician does, I think.
A tightrope walker is a person who walks on a high wire or a rope that is very high up in the air.
We mentioned this previously.
Tightrope, T-I-G-H-T-R-O-P-E, is what you call that wire, that rope that the person walks on.
Romans says great.
But he says great Not to indicate that he's happy, but to indicate that he's not very excited about it.
He uses the word great, but he's making a joke.
He doesn't think it's great.
Paula says, listen, I can hear the ringmaster from here.
Let's go.
The ringmaster says R-I-N-G-M-A-S-T-E-R is basically the leader of a circus, the person who talks to the audience and who directs the performers to do what they're supposed to do, or at least when they're supposed to do it.
Obviously, Paula is more excited about this than Roman.
Romans says when you said you had a surprise for me that would make me feel young again, this wasn't exactly what I envisioned.
It's not what I was thinking about.
Paula says, I know.
It's even better, right?
Romans says, if you say so.
Paula is saying that going to the circus is the best thing that she could have given Roman to make him feel young.
But Roman doesn't agree.
He ends by saying, if you say so.
If you say so is a phrase we use when you do not believe or agree with God what another person is saying, but you're willing to pretend it's true because you don't want to argue about it.
You don't want to fight about it.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Ta-da!
We're here.
This is your big surprise.
We're going to the circus?
You got it in one.
It's going to be great.
There'll be clowns and acrobats, trapeze artists and lion tamers.
I haven't been to the circus since I was a kid.
That's the point.
I thought this would be a nostalgic experience for both of us and let us feel like kids again.
I'm not sure.
Come on, we'll miss the first act.
I think there'll be jugglers, magicians, and tightrope walkers, too.
Great.
Listen, I can hear the ringmaster from here.
Let's go.
When you said that you had a surprise for me that would make me feel young again.
This wasn't exactly what I envisioned.
I know.
It's even better, right?
If you say so.
The ringmaster of the ESL pod circus is our very own scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say.
She's not a clown, but she is a magician when it comes to words.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
