Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1019, Losing a Passport While Traveling.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1019.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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On this episode, we're going to listen to a dialogue between Nina and Serge about losing your passport while you are traveling.
Let's get started.
Oh my God, I can't find my passport.
I never should have put it in my purse.
I'm sure a pickpocket took it.
Calm down.
Maybe you just misplaced it.
Let's turn out all of your pockets and search for it before we panic.
I know it's gone.
I know it.
Flag down the police.
We have to file a police report.
If your passport has been stolen, we need to find the US Embassy.
We're supposed to continue on to the next country on our tour tomorrow.
We're going to get left behind.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
If we need to find a U.S. embassy and apply for a temporary passport, we'll do that.
It'll take as long as it takes.
Now...
Let's search through all of your belongings before we do anything else.
What?
You think you may have left it in the hotel room.
Isn't that good news?
All that worry for nothing.
Let's not count our chickens.
You might have another inspiration.
Our dialogue begins with Nina saying to Serge...
Oh my God, I can't find my passport.
Your passport, P-A-S-S-P-O-R-T, is your official identifying document that is given to you by the country in which you are a citizen.
Typically, you have to be a citizen or an official member of a country in order to get a passport.
Sometimes, in some countries, you can have more than one passport if you are a citizen of more than one country.
Nina says that she can't find her passport.
She says, she's regretting putting it in her purse.
She's saying, I wish I had not done that.
She continues, I'm sure a pickpocket took it.
A pickpocket P-I-C-K-P-O-C-K-E-T is a person who steals your money or your wallet from either your pants or shirt or a bag that you are carrying.
Pickpockets common in almost every city in the world, certainly cities that have a lot of tourists.
These are thieves that are able to take things from people.
Sometimes they're very good.
They're very sophisticated in what they do.
You don't even realize that they have stolen something from you.
The reason we call them pickpockets is because a pocket is something, a pouch, or a internal bag, if you will, inside of either a shirt or your pants, where you keep things, where you hold things.
To pick here means to take, to take out of, or really to steal.
Interestingly, we also use that same verb to pick when we are talking about someone who opens a lock without the key, something a thief would also do.
Serge says, calm down.
Maybe you just misplaced it.
To misplace something is to accidentally put something somewhere wrong without realizing or remembering where you put it.
This happens to me all the time.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
Serge says, let's turn out all of your pockets and search for it before we panic.
To turn out your pockets means to take the pocket, the material of which the pocket is made, and pull it out of your pants, to basically turn it inside out, to take the inner part and bring it to the exterior.
That's to turn out, in this case, your pockets.
My mother used to tell me before I gave her my dirty clothes to wash to turn out the pockets.
In other words, take my hand and put it inside of the pocket and pull it out.
She of course didn't want any paper or coins in there when she put it into the clothes washer.
And you can imagine with a family of 13, we had a lot of clothes to wash.
Anyway, Serge doesn't want to panic.
To panic, P-A-N-I-C, means to get very worried and perhaps fearful about something.
Usually this happens quite suddenly and it causes you often not to think very clearly or very logically.
Nina says, I know it's gone.
I know it.
Flag down the police.
She says to flag down someone is to get someone's attention, usually by raising your arm and moving it back and forth.
Moving your hand back and forth so that you get the attention of someone.
We usually use this two-word phrasal verb when talking about getting the attention of a police officer or perhaps a taxi driver.
Serge is trying to help Nina, but Nina thinks that she has definitely lost her passport and wants him to get the police.
She says we have to file a police report.
To file F-I-L-E a police report is to officially report a crime, to go to the police and say someone has committed a crime, someone has done something wrong and I want you to know about it.
The police then usually take your information, writing it down on a piece of paper or paper, put it into their computers and then, when you leave, they go back and have coffee and donuts and forget all about it.
No, I'm kidding, of course.
Mostly.
Serge says, if your passport has been stolen, we need to find the U.S.
Embassy.
We're assuming, of course, that Nina and Serge are in another country.
That's usually the only time you would take your passport with you.
An embassy.
E-M-B-A-S-S-Y is the official building where the official representative from a country called the ambassador would work.
According to international law, embassies are really property of the country which they represent, although that doesn't always work out so well.
If you are traveling in another country and you lose your passport, you do, in fact, have to go to an embassy.
Sometimes, if it's a big country, the embassy will have smaller offices in different parts of that country.
These are called consulates.
Nina says, we're supposed to continue on to the next country on our tour tomorrow.
So Serge and Nina are traveling on a tour and they're supposed to leave the country they are in now tomorrow.
We're going to get left behind, Nina says.
To be left behind means to be unable to go with the rest of the group as it advances or progresses or moves forward.
In this case, as it goes to another country.
To leave behind is a common phrasal verb.
There was a law a few years ago called No Child Left Behind.
The idea was that you wouldn't want to leave school children some school children behind others in terms of their academic achievement.
And this was a program that was supposed to help American students.
I'm not sure if it did, but that was the idea.
They spent a lot of money on it, though.
I can tell you that.
Anyway, Serge says, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
To get ahead of yourself is to do something sooner than you should or sooner than you need to do it.
Often we use this expression when someone is worrying about something that might happen in the future, even though it's too soon really to think about that particular event.
Nina is already worrying about being left behind on their tour, even before they've had a chance to look properly for the passport.
That's why Serge says let's not get ahead of ourselves.
If we need to find a U.S. embassy and apply for a temporary passport, we'll do that.
Temporary means for a short time, not permanent.
Nina says it's Saturday.
We won't get any help at the embassy until Monday. will be stuck here.
To be stuck, S-T-U-C-K, somewhere, is to be unable to move, not to be able to leave a place.
Sometimes we use this expression when we are having difficulty with some task and we can't seem to move forward or to progress on it.
I'm stuck on this math problem.
I need to find the answer before I can go on to the next problem.
Serge says it takes as long as it takes.
This is, I guess, a common expression nowadays also.
It takes as long as it takes is a phrase that we use when you don't really know how long something is going to take, but you just have to accept it.
There's nothing you can do about it.
A variation on this expression is, it is what it is, which means...
This is the situation.
You can't change it.
That's just the way it's going to be.
So we're going to have to accept it and do what we can under these perhaps difficult circumstances.
Serge says, let's search through all of your belongings before we do anything else.
Serge once again is trying to get Nina to look again for her passport.
And In her belongings your belongings B-E-L-O-N-G-I-N-G-S, always plural are your possessions, things that you own.
Your suitcase, your clothing, your purse, and so forth.
Nina says, I just thought of something.
Serge says, what?
I think I may have left it in the hotel room, Nina says.
Serge says, you think you may have left it in the hotel room.
He's, I don't know, relieved or upset.
Nina says, isn't that good news?
All that worrying for nothing.
The expression for nothing means for no purpose, without any good reason.
Serge says, let's not count our chickens.
To count your chickens is actually a shortened form of a longer expression, which is to count your chickens before they're hatched.
H-A-T-C-H-E-D.
When a chicken lays an egg, when the egg comes out of her body, the chicken inside of the egg, the embryo, will develop.
And when it's ready to come out of the egg, it will break out of the shell.
We call that process hatching, when the chicken is now outside of the eggshell and able to walk around and do whatever chickens do.
The expression means that you shouldn't depend on something before it actually happens.
You shouldn't count on something.
To count on something means to rely on it, to depend on it.
The expression however, is using another version of the or another meaning of the verb to count, which means actually to put a number on something.
One, two, three, four, five, six.
That's to count.
You don't want to count your chickens before they're hatched.
Because you don't know if some of the eggs will actually hatch and therefore you shouldn't say oh yeah, I have 10 chickens until all 10 eggs have hatched and you can actually count the live chickens.
That's the idea.
Serge finally says, you might have another inspiration.
And inspiration is an idea, usually a new idea, a creative idea about something.
Nina's inspiration is that she left the passport in her hotel room, but Serge isn't so sure, so confident.
And that's why he says, let's not count our chickens.
Let's not think that the problem has been solved before we actually solve it.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Oh my God, I can't find my passport.
I never should have put it in my purse.
I'm sure a pickpocket took it.
Calm down.
Maybe you just misplaced it.
Let's turn out all of your pockets and search for it before we panic.
I know it's gone.
I know it.
Flag down the police.
We have to file a police report.
If your passport has been stolen, we need to find the U.S.
Embassy.
We're supposed to continue on to the next country on our tour tomorrow.
We're going to get left behind.
Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
If we need to find a U.S. embassy and apply for a temporary passport, we'll do that.
It's Saturday.
We won't get any help at the embassy until Monday.
We'll be stuck here.
It'll take as long as it takes.
Now, let's search through all of your belongings before we do anything else.
I just thought of something.
What?
I think I may have left it in the hotel room.
You think you may have left it in the hotel room.
Isn't that good news?
All that worry for nothing.
Let's not count our chickens.
You might have another inspiration.
Our scriptwriter has many wonderful inspirations for scripts, including this one.
Thank you, Dr. Lucy Say.
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 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
