Hi, everybody. My name is Shauna, and this is the American English Podcast.
My goal here is to teach you the English spoken in the United States.
Through common expressions, pronunciation tips, and interesting cultural snippets or stories, I hope to keep this fun, useful and interesting.
Let's do it. Hi, everyone.
I hope you're having a nice day wherever you are in the world.
I know that some of you have been listening to this podcast since episode number one, and so you might remember my dad, Joe.
He was a guest on episode 44 to talk about driving in the U .S.
and in episode 43, when he talked about his experience living and working in Alaska.
He went to high school up there, so that was episode 43.
After I posted those episodes, some of you sent me messages on how much you enjoyed listening to my dad.
Some of you said he seems like an easy -going guy.
Others said he's incredibly funny, and I have to agree, chats with him usually lead to laughter.
So, I dragged him back today, and the conversation you'll hear is light -hearted, funny, and it's full of English idioms.
That wasn't the goal for this episode, it just happens to have a lot of idiomatic language, because that's the way my dad speaks.
But what's great is that he speaks clearly, so I bet you'll understand a lot of the idioms he uses just from context.
The goal for this episode is to use superlatives in conversation.
What's a superlative?
The superlative form is used to express the highest or lowest degree of an adjective or adverb within a group.
For example, our tree in our front yard is the tallest in the neighborhood.
There is no tree taller than ours, ours is the tallest.
The tallest is the superlative form.
On Halloween, on the 31st of October, we went trick -or -treating.
And in our group of friends, Julia ate the most Halloween candy.
Clara ate the least.
Nobody ate more than Julia.
Nobody ate less than Clara.
Julia ate the most.
The most is a superlative, and Clara ate the least, which is also the superlative form.
So, you get the idea, the conversation is based on superlatives.
In each question, I will use one, so pay attention and try to use these conversation starters at dinner tonight.
I promise they're going to lead to some very funny conversation.
If you'd like the transcript, quiz, a worksheet on the superlative and other bonus material for episodes in season four, be sure to sign up to premium content.
I'll link all of the links in the episode notes.
Without further ado, let's talk to my dad.
Hey, dad. Hello. How's it going?
Everything's perfect.
Thank you very much.
What have you been doing today so far?
Dishes. I watered the plants and I pretty much just had my coffee and the company.
Yeah. I'm currently at my parents' house.
We have been here for quite some time because of a hurricane that hit my area of North Carolina and my parents were nice enough to take us in.
So, now I trapped my dad to do an interview in his closet.
So, welcome to your closet, dad.
Thank you. Long time no see.
A lot of you have mentioned in past episodes that you really enjoyed hearing about my dad's experience in Alaska and what it was like living there during his high school time.
And so, I figured let's just have a fun casual chat about something fun, superlatives, which doesn't sound very fun if I just say superlatives because maybe some of you are thinking, what in the world are those?
But you're about to hear 10 questions using them and you'll hear natural answers talking about them.
So, let's just jump straight into it, dad.
What's the most useful skill or talent you have?
I would say being a friend.
I can make people feel comfortable and I just don't like to rock the boat.
So, everybody is reciprocating and it just seems like a great thing.
Yeah. I definitely agree with that.
Maybe you guys don't know this, but my dad is an electrician and he's managed his whole business by word of mouth.
So, people talk about his good work and of course, the way that he deals with people and I think that leads to a lot more work, honestly.
I'll agree. Yeah. Yeah.
I also was thinking about your pizza making skills.
Oh, that was just something I fell into.
There was a pizza place where I used to live that I love so much that I got their cookbook and it just turns out that it's very easy to do and I got great comments as people just loved everything I made.
So, it just fueled me more to keep going and doing more and more and more and now it seems to be my hobby.
Hobby and family tradition, every time we come back to their house, my daughters are like, when are we having pizza night?
It's pizza making time.
And they like to get their hands in the dough and he's like, I'm not really sure you like it very much.
Well, it does sort of elongate things, but it's something that you just have to do.
I mean, they love it and I love to have them here, so it's great.
All right. Most useless talent.
I'm not sure that mom actually, no, mom was the one that mentioned this was your most useless talent and it's moonwalking.
What in the world is that about?
Well, I grew up in the Michael Jackson era, so I always wanted to try it and always have tried to practice it, but now that I'm 63 years old, my moonwalking skills aren't so fantastic, but I still think I'm the best and my wife seems to disagree a lot.
Oh, God. I actually really enjoy this question.
Once again, that was what's the most useful and useless talent you have.
All right. Something to think about.
Kind of funny. My dad's answers were being nice, being a nice person, pizza making, being useful also, and then useless talent that was moonwalking.
Although I have to say watching Michael Jackson moonwalk, it doesn't feel very useless because it's very cool.
So next question I have a little bit awkward.
I feel like it's sort of taboo to talk about a worst present.
You can't really say that a present is bad, but I want to know, can you think of an answer to that question?
What's the best and worst present you've received?
Well, the best is easy because when I was younger, I got my first bicycle, which was a 10 speed bicycle that I used on my paper routes and whatnot.
It was just exciting to have a new bike and all nice and shiny and man, I was proud of that thing.
Washed it all the time.
Do you remember getting it?
Like what that was like?
Yeah, that was another story.
Well, we being bad kids, me and my older brothers, we looked out the front window on Christmas Eve and we watched my parents wheel them across the street to the house and we were like, I'll go, no, that one's mine.
No, that one's mine.
So yeah, we kind of spoiled the surprise on Christmas morning, but we were still excited.
Very nice. And you said paper route.
I'm not sure that a non -native speaker would know what a paper route is.
What is that? It's just the daily news that comes out every day and all the young kids would go to the newspaper company and we would pick up our hundreds of papers and we'd fold them, put rubber bands on them, put them in a big bag around our neck and we'd go from house to house on our bicycles and we'd
throw them on their driveways or front porches if they were really nice customers.
And yeah, it didn't make us much money, but it was some money for a youngster.
So you were a paper boy at one point.
That's awesome. So delivering physical newspapers, which I'm not even sure in your area, are there still physical newspapers?
There are, but they seem to be phasing out.
We got a newspaper practically our whole lives, except for up to about a year and a half ago.
It just seems like it's a thing of the past.
Yeah, maybe also depends on the city too.
I imagine, well, maybe not.
I don't know. I'm just thinking about the New York Times.
I'm like, does that still get delivered around New York city?
Maybe. I don't know.
All right. And the worst gift you've ever received, does anything come to mind?
Well, one Christmas I woke up and I received a whole bunch of clothing and so I tried it something on and it didn't fit.
And I tried something else on it.
It didn't fit. It went on and on and on.
So I started to cry and then I turned out that all my brothers thought I was an ungrateful little boy.
So that was my worst Christmas ever when nothing fit.
When nothing fit. Yeah.
So add extra big clothes for about a year.
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Yeah. I have some memories of our trip to Brazil and I think this is going to be the answer to our next question, which is what's the strangest thing you've ever eaten?
Does anything come to mind about a trip to an island in the middle of Parana?
Well, yeah. Turns out that there was a taking care of the island.
I guess he's the caretaker and he was barbecuing some animal and turns out the animal was called a capybara.
Well, I didn't know any better.
So he says, here, give it a try.
So there I am. I took a little bite, put it in my mouth and I'm looking at my son in law and he's kind of looking at me like, what are you doing, man?
What are you doing?
He's like spit that out.
And it's, I guess capybara is just a marsupial or a mouse or a big rat.
It's the size of a horse practically.
And I looked like a giant hamster.
Yeah. So, um, yeah, it really wasn't that great.
And that was, that was one item I had in Brazil.
The other one would be a, um, jackfruit.
Jackfruit. So this was the same trip.
And it was like one thing happened after the next.
And just so you guys are aware, Brazilians do not eat capybara or capybara.
How do you say it in English?
Is it capybara in English?
Okay. I think in, in Portuguese, it's capybara, but, um, yeah, they don't eat it.
That's not part of Brazilian culture.
It was just the particular man living on that island that thought it was eating your dog.
Yeah, no. So yeah. Yeah.
And it's, what did it taste like?
Um, I, I would just say it was like a piece of shoe leather.
Okay. Yeah. That was, yeah, shoe leather and the jackfruit.
Um, tell us about that.
Jackfruit is like a unforgettable taste that sort of just mushes through your mouth as, uh, like Jello would.
And it just had a tangy tart, pathy.
Oh, it was, it was brutal.
It's so funny because so many people love jackfruit.
I think a lot of times when it comes to fruit and just, I guess, trying new things in general, some things are acquired tastes and we didn't grow up having jackfruit at all.
Right. It's sort of actually appeared, I think somewhat recently at the supermarkets because of the vegans that like eating it as like an alternative meat.
But I haven't seen the actual physical fruit because it's massive, you know, and I, I've never seen that.
You wouldn't definitely notice that if it was at a supermarket.
Right. Yeah. Well, it's something I'm not going to order again.
It sort of reminds me of another time when I tried durian for the first time.
My son never heard me scream as loud as I did when I tried that or shrieked with, with this dismay.
And yeah, another item just don't want to go there anymore.
Yep. To each his own, we have all got some things that we can probably remember that were strange or unpleasant.
So once again, that question was what's the strangest thing, what's the strangest thing you've ever eaten.
All right. Let's go ahead and talk about the most delicious meal you've had in a restaurant.
Can you think of something yummy, some memorable creation that a chef made and put in front of your face and you just thought, Oh, yes.
Well, of course, I've had many good things to eat, you know, lobster is always one of them, but I can just remember going to work all the time.
And I always ordered a nice, beautiful T -bone steak, surround it with some salt and pepper, some mashed potatoes there, and just slide that juicy steak through that salt and pepper and taking a bite of that.
Oh, it was just fantastic.
Yum. You're definitely a steak person.
Oh yeah. Vegetarian, tried it for about two weeks.
Couldn't make it much past that.
You actually tried to be vegetarian because of hockey, right?
My dad plays hockey.
If you guys don't remember from the Alaska chat, he goes multiple times a week to play with the hockey team.
And at one point I remember you came to this conclusion that by not eating meat, you would actually be faster or have more endurance.
What was that about?
Well, there was that aspect of it trying to just be more fit, but actually it all boiled down to a TV show we watched, which was quite the eye opener of watching what all these big giant pig farms and beef farms are doing to the environment and the cruelty.
And it just gave you a whole new outlook on what you were eating and the actual process to get to that point where it's just mass consumed.
It was kind of heartbreaking.
So we just thought, let's give it a try for a while and see what it was.
Maybe it'd be better for the environment.
Right. So two weeks.
Yeah. We had two weeks.
Two weeks. And the endurance, any change in your body, did you realize you were playing hockey with more oomph or?
Oh yeah, I felt lighter, faster, more clairvoyant.
It just did make you feel better.
You didn't feel like you were sitting around like a big blob.
You just felt better.
Yeah. Yeah. I always feel like that topic of meat is a little bit tough.
I heard a comedian recently say, I'm one Netflix documentary away from being vegetarian.
And I thought, that's pretty much what it comes down to, I think for a lot of people, because there is that sort of in the back of your head going, shoot, I know this is wrong.
I like the taste so much.
It's like an internal battle, I think, for a lot of people.
Yeah. So next question.
Who's the funniest person you've ever known?
Funniest person, hands down would be my dad.
He lived to a ripe old age.
He was in the military in three different wars.
He just had the sense of humor of someone that was always sitting next to somebody telling jokes and just carrying it on with comments that were just outlandish.
Nothing was ever dirty or filthy.
They were all clean jokes.
And he was amazing.
He had a friend, Bill Kirchible, that was between the two of them.
It was like one would start, the other one would finish it.
And it just went on and on and on.
And man, I'd just sit there with those guys and just listen to him forever.
Did you pick up on a lot of his humor over the years?
Because you definitely have a sense of humor.
Everybody in the world would say that you have a sense of humor.
Well, definitely have that, but I sometimes I love to tell a good joke once in a while, but my wife will sit there and roll her eyes at me.
And boy, did you screw that one up, she said.
But I think you are good at the storytelling, too, because I have a lot of memories growing up.
And while you think your dad was the funniest person, like I have to say you're probably the funniest person, I know.
So you're welcome. But it's true.
I think it's really cool, a really cool skill to be able to turn a story into a joke.
And that's that's what I've never been able to do.
It's like, dang, like you've got to be able to get everybody's attention first off, which is so hard in a room full of different people.
And then to actually hit it with a punch line when people aren't expecting it.
Crazy skill. Bait and hook.
Yeah, exactly. All right.
So the funniest person my dad has ever known was his dad.
All right. OK, let's see how many more we have here.
Just a few more. We're going to go with what's the most boring movie you've ever seen?
Hands down, Bicentennial Man.
This was a movie that went on and on and on.
They had a probably at least 50 times to end that movie.
And my word, it just would not finish.
I went with my daughter and we both would look at each other and go, do we really have to stay here for this whole movie?
And we stuck it out.
And oh, I would recommend it to anybody that really has nothing better to do.
The thing that was so upsetting to me about that movie.
Well, first of all, my friend Jessica told me my whole family's in that movie.
So the whole movie, my dad and I were looking for my friend Jessica.
And I found out after the movie that it was actually just her feet.
There was like a there were just like there was like a view of like her family's feet.
And I'm not sure why they chose their feet in particular.
A good looking family feet.
And then the other problem was that it was Robin Williams, you know, and you're like, God, I respect this guy.
This guy's a fantastic, fantastic actor.
RIP. But what made it so boring, though, for you?
Just the fact that they just didn't end it?
They didn't end it.
They didn't end it.
And it was like you were expecting them to end it and you're waiting for them to end it.
And it would go on and on and on.
Oh, it was like pulling teeth.
Yeah, it was like pulling teeth.
That is a fantastic expression.
What does it mean? It was like pulling teeth.
Painful, painful and very hard.
Yeah, very hard to do.
Yeah. All right. So next, let's do maybe two more.
What is the most daring thing you've ever done?
Daring, well, I used to work on the North Slope of Alaska, and every day was a challenge of just getting up and being prepared for subzero temperatures.
But also when I lived up there, we did I had a lot of ski buddies and we would go into this mountain called Mount Aleiska.
And this wasn't a simple mountain.
It was quite challenging.
And a lot of my friends were, well, very advanced skiers.
So I would just follow in behind them.
And they took me down this one trail that wasn't on the beaten path.
And they came up to an area where they stopped and it was right next to a cliff.
So they're peering over the edge of the cliff, looking down, and there's a small patch of snow about maybe 20 feet down below that small patch of snow.
There was the bottom of the ravine and it was probably another 20 feet down.
Then they're looking at each other and says, well, we'll ski off the ledge.
We'll hit the first patch of snow and then we'll land down below.
Well, we all did it one at a time.
And it was the most fearful thing is probably like jumping out of an airplane for the first time.
It was just, just slide over and cross your fingers and hope for the best.
And do you remember the landing?
Well, not being a bragger, I stuck the landing.
You stuck it? What does that mean?
I stuck my head right in the snow, probably.
I don't recall the landing, but I lived.
Okay. I don't know.
That hits it. For me, I have a fear of heights.
And so that sounds really horrible.
Would you ever do it again?
Most definitely. It was exhilarating.
And my friends that I skied with, I'll remember them forever just to watch them go down the hill.
It was incredible. I had one friend, he, we call him the rubber band man, just because when he came down and he did the moguls, his whole head would flop from left to right and left to right.
And he was, he was amazing.
And one day I'm watching him ski and he goes, I'm going to do a back flip today.
So he gets out there and I watch him.
It's his first time he's ever tried, shoots up, comes up, gets upside down.
And when he comes around to make the landing, his skis got stuck in the snow before he could make the clear 360 flip over and just wreck so bad.
And he, he's sitting there and we go up to him and check on him and everything.
And he's like, Oh man, my dad always says, if you don't get back on that horse and try again, you'll never do it.
So he tried it again.
And lo and behold, it happened again.
He did the same thing.
So he said a third time, he tried it a third time and he, he wrecked again.
And one of the time I go up to him, he just says, I can't do it anymore.
Oh my God. You know, that is a good expression.
You also just use my dad's using expressions left and right to get back on the horse means to like try something again.
You know, don't let it be a failure.
Just try again. But it sounds like it wasn't worth getting back on that horse.
I applaud them. I applaud him for not giving up.
Right. Yeah. Wow. All right.
Last one. I had something that I really wanted to talk about and I can't, oh yes, I do remember.
All right. So in English, we have this sort of phrase we use to pull a prank.
And I've realized in the English classes that I've taught that most non -native English speakers don't know what that means.
To pull a prank is to do something, you know, that's a trick or a joke.
You play a joke on someone.
What's a common prank that someone might pull?
Maybe like having a dollar attached to a piece of fishing line, pulling it across the floor and watching people chase after that dollar.
That would be a, you know, elementary school joke you could play.
So my dad has a few pranks that he pulled in his life.
So what's the funniest prank you've ever pulled?
Well, I'm not too proud of it.
But this is so funny.
Well, I was young, so I'm very forgivable.
How old? Oh, I was probably six, seven, eight, I guess we lived in a two story home and I was upstairs one day and I don't know what made me do this, but I, we had the Dixie cups in the bathroom and I decided I was going to go to the bathroom, go number one into this Dixie cup.
Well, I did. And I don't know where it came over me, but I called my brother Jeff.
Jeff, Jeff, come here.
I want you to try this lemonade I just made.
Well, he was, he was probably four years, he's four years older than me at the time.
And well, he should have known.
He came in and boy, I said, yeah, try this.
I just made it. And sure enough, he took a big drink of this, spit it out all over the sink and mirror vanity.
It was everywhere. And all I could do, he looked at me with fire in his eyes and I took off running down the stairs out the front door and just ran down the street.
He never did catch me, but I'm, I don't even know if he remembers that to this day, but, I mean, how would you not remember that?
Maybe he's tried to delete it from his memory.
Like, why did I believe my younger brother handing me a Dixie cup of pee in the bathroom?
Like, how could that possibly be lemonade?
That's so funny. How could you turn down fresh lemonade in?
Oh, hey, pretty good.
Warm, warm lemonade.
Warm lemonade. Come and get it.
Oh gosh. All right.
So we had that, what was the funniest prank you've ever pulled?
All right. So we did, went through a lot of superlatives here.
We had the best, the worst, the most useful or the most useless.
Unusefulness. All right.
And then we did strangest when we talked about the capybara and the jackfruit.
We talked about the most delicious meal he's had.
We talked about the most daring thing he's done, the most boring movie he's watched.
We've covered a lot of different questions.
Is there anything else you want to share?
I just hope everybody's healthy out there and having a great day.
Take time to be with your loved ones and tell them a joke, make them happy, make them smile.
In return, you'll get a big smile out of it too.
Thanks dad for coming on the show.
My pleasure. Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of the American English podcast.
Remember it's my goal here to not only help you improve your listening comprehension, but to show you how to speak like someone from the States.
If you want to receive the full transcript for this episode, or you just want to support this podcast, make sure to sign up to premium content on americanenglishpodcast .com.
Thanks and hope to see you soon.
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