Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 102 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're all doing well today.
I hope that your English learning is going well.
And I hope that this podcast has been a useful resource for you.
And I want to thank all of the people that have signed up for my membership.
I really appreciate your support and I appreciate you helping me out and helping me do what I do create this podcast, the membership, all the exclusive content.
I really appreciate all your support.
And remember that if you want my specialized training, if you want more in-depth training, then make sure to join my membership so you can get that.
And specifically, if you want my advanced podcast episodes, then become a Listening Time family member or VIP and you'll receive two new advanced episodes every month.
And if you want to ask me your questions regarding English or language learning, then become a Listening Time VIP so that you can ask me questions every week and I answer those questions in a QA session every week.
So if you're interested in that, make sure to click on the link in the episode description below this episode.
That's patreon.com slash listening time.
All right, in today's episode, we're going to talk about Mother's Day.
So in the U.S., Mother's Day was one day before this episode was released.
So if you're listening to this episode on the day that I published it, then Mother's Day was yesterday in the US.
In other countries, Mother's Day is often on different days.
I think that in many countries, though, Mother's Day is in May.
So I think that, wherever you are, there's a good chance that you already celebrated Mother's Day this month, or maybe you'll celebrate it on another day this month.
So I think that this is a relevant topic.
It's something on people's minds.
And so I want to talk a little bit about a typical Mother's Day in the US.
And I want to talk a little bit about my mom and talk about some of the things that I'm thankful for related to my mom.
That should be your goal.
And please share this podcast with anyone you know who's learning English.
And if you like this podcast, I would appreciate it if you could give it a five-star rating and write a review.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let me talk a little bit about a typical Mother's Day in the United States.
So, of course, one of the most important things that you need to do on this day is to tell your mom and your wife if she's a mother.
Happy Mother's Day.
So notice that I didn't say congratulations.
That's not something that we say on people's birthdays or on Mother's Day or Father's Day.
We don't use the word congratulations in the US.
OK, I want to mention that because I hear this word used all the time among non-native English speakers, when I say that it's my birthday, for example.
They might tell me congratulations and that doesn't make sense for us.
Congratulations would be used if I said that I graduated from high school, or maybe I just had a baby, or something like that.
In those cases you can say congratulations, but we don't use it on Mother's Day or birthdays or things like that.
So that's just a little helpful tip for you.
So we tell our mother or our wife or maybe some other mother that we might know our sister or someone like that.
We tell them Happy Mother's Day.
That's very important.
And on this day it's pretty common to give a gift to your mother or to your wife, if they're a mother, of course.
And you might give them chocolates or you might give them flowers.
That's pretty common.
Or the gift could just be something else.
It could just be a gift like something you'd give on the person's birthday.
So that's up to you.
You can give whatever you want, really.
In English, when we say that something is up to you, What we're saying is that's your decision.
You can choose what you want.
So it's up to you what you decide to give as a gift on this day.
But two of the really common things are chocolates and flowers.
And it's also really common on this day to take your mother or your wife to breakfast or to lunch.
I think you can also take them to dinner as well.
But when I was growing up, we always went out for breakfast or lunch.
So that's what I remember most.
I think that it's more common to go out for those two meals, but I'm sure many people also go out for dinner.
And this is the day when all these different breakfast restaurants are really crowded.
If you go to a breakfast restaurant on this day, you're probably gonna have to wait in line if you don't get there early.
Because a lot of people want to take their mother or their wife out to breakfast on this day.
And so you have to be prepared for that.
And maybe you can go to lunch instead, because I think it might be a little bit less crowded for lunch.
But that just depends on the place.
But I always remember seeing long lines of people at these breakfast restaurants when I was growing up, whenever it was Mother's Day.
That's one of the most popular days of the year to go out to breakfast.
And when I was a kid, one other thing that was really typical in my family was we made cards for our mother or our father on Mother's Day or Father's Day.
So I would draw a picture maybe, and write a message to my mom and I would give it to her on this day.
I know that for some of you that probably sounds a little bit strange.
Maybe you don't have that tradition in your country.
But I think that in the US, a lot of people do this.
Not everyone, of course.
But when I was growing up this was pretty common for kids to write birthday cards or Mother's Day cards or things like that and give them to the person.
So I did that when I was a kid.
I don't remember when I stopped that.
I don't think I did that so much as a teenager.
I think it was when I was younger that I did that more with my mother, my father and, I think, other people on their birthdays.
I think I did that more when I was a younger kid.
But that was something that my mom appreciated on Mother's Day, of course.
It's a very heartfelt gesture when your kid gives you a card like that.
In English, we can use the word heartfelt to describe something that is very thoughtful.
It comes from your heart.
It's heartfelt.
So it's a heartfelt gesture to write a Mother's Day card and to write nice things on it.
Of course, mothers really like that.
And then I think when I got older, I just started giving my mom a gift instead of writing a card.
So now I want to talk a little bit about what I appreciate about my mom.
And you'll notice that I'm going to talk a lot in the past tense.
That's not because my mom passed away.
She's still alive.
However, she has some major health issues that affect a lot in her life.
And so a lot of these things that I'm going to talk about are things that happened in the past or that she did in the past.
And nowadays unfortunately, Not all of these things are relevant, so you'll notice that I'm talking in the past, but of course, I still think these things now and, even though my mom can't do all of this nowadays, I still cherish and appreciate all of these things from when I was growing up, all of these things that I still appreciate about my mom.
So the first thing that I really appreciate about her is that she always helped me take care of my problems.
When I was growing up, I always felt this assurance that I had some backup.
In English, when we say that you have backup, what we're saying is you have someone or something that's going to help you, just in case you fail, right?
So if you're at war and you need backup, What you're saying is you need other soldiers to come and help you out, because you're not enough.
So I always felt this assurance that I had backup.
I always felt like my mom was going to help me in case I needed some help.
And that was a really great feeling.
I never felt like I was alone or like I had to deal with difficult things by myself the whole time.
Of course, I tried to first solve the problem on my own, but I knew that my mom could help me if that was necessary.
So I really appreciated that about her.
And this was valid.
This was something that I felt even when I made mistakes.
So of course, I made mistakes when I was growing up.
I did things that I shouldn't have done.
But even in those situations, my mom would help me solve the problem that I was in.
And I always felt like she just wanted the best for me.
She wanted to help me with work.
Whatever the issue was, whatever my mistake was, she would help me deal with the mistake first.
And then we would talk about the mistake as well.
And she would help me learn from my mistakes, of course.
So I really like that about my mom.
I appreciated that about her.
And another thing that I really appreciate about my mom is that she gave me everything I needed when I was growing up.
So she always gave me what was necessary.
I never felt like I lacked anything.
In English, when we say that you lack something, we're saying that you don't have something, you don't possess it.
So I never felt like I lacked anything.
I always felt like my mom gave me everything that I needed.
She gave me all the love I needed.
She gave me all the attention I needed.
I never felt like I was abandoned or alone or like my mom wasn't there for me.
I never felt that in my whole life.
So she really showed me that love and attention that was necessary.
And I never felt like I lacked anything materially either.
I always felt like my mom and my dad did their best to give us great lives, great childhoods.
My sister and i had many things that other people around the world probably didn't have, and that's thanks to my mom and my dad, And nowadays, as an adult, I can see how hard they worked, how much they did for us.
Now that I'm a parent, I want my son and my future kids to feel that same feeling as well and to feel very fortunate and blessed because their parents did everything to give them what they needed and give them great childhoods, etc.
So I really appreciate that.
And another thing that I appreciate about my mom is that she was always a really fun person.
So my mom always had a really lively personality The word lively just means full of life and energy.
So my mom was always very lively.
She was always the fun person among a group of people. right?
And she was very active.
She did a lot.
I always remember my mom doing things, going places.
She had hobbies.
She had interests.
She was just very active.
And she also had many friends.
My mom had a lot of friends when she was younger and even When she was a little bit older.
She still maintained many friendships from the past and she made new friends.
And I always remember seeing my mom with friends around her.
And now I can look at that and see that my mom changed. has been loved by a lot of people.
A lot of people have really appreciated my mom and that's why she had so many friends throughout her whole life.
So that's really cool.
And she was always fun with us too.
She always played with us.
She took us to do fun things.
I have really great memories of things that I did with my mom.
And I think I've talked before about playing board games with her.
It was always really fun to play board games as a family, especially because of my mom and her personality.
And it was always fun to go out and do things with her, to go on vacations with her.
She always planned fun things.
She always planned good itineraries for our trips.
We had a lot of fun with my mom.
So that's something that I really appreciate as well.
And one other thing that I really appreciate about my mom is that she taught me a lot.
My mom taught me a lot of really valuable lessons that I still value today.
So one of the things that my mom taught me was how to be responsible.
Because when I think of my mom and I think of a few adjectives that could describe her, I think the very first adjective that comes to mind is responsible.
And that's a big compliment because for me, I really value responsibility.
That's something that I really appreciate when people have this characteristic, and So one of my mom's traits was that she was very responsible.
By the way, the word trait just means characteristic.
We can use this to talk about people and their personality, their behavior, etc.
So one of my mom's biggest traits was that she was responsible.
She always did her work well, and she taught me that this is important.
I always knew that I was supposed to do well in school.
My parents didn't force me to do well.
I wasn't scared of what was going to happen if I didn't do well.
It was just something I knew that I had to do.
I was supposed to do well in school.
I had to do all of my homework.
I had to study for my tests.
I needed to do well in my classes.
I learned that all of this was important because my mom also valued all these things.
So she was always very responsible and And she taught me that I needed to be on time when I committed to going somewhere or doing something at a certain time or before a certain time.
I always needed to fulfill that.
So my mom was always on time.
She always finished things on time.
And I learned that from her.
That was a really important lesson that she taught me.
And my mom was someone that other people could always count on.
In English, when we say that you can count on someone, we're saying that you can rely on or depend on someone.
So my mom was always this type of person.
And so she taught me to be that type of person as well.
And I think that I am.
I think that in general, I'm someone that if I promise that I'm going to do something, I'll do it.
Of course, I don't complete or fulfill this 100% of the time.
Sometimes I fail.
I'm human, of course, so I'm not always the most responsible person that everyone can count on.
But I think in general, I learned that from my mom and I try to be like that, just like she was.
And so that's something that I learned from her.
I learned the importance of being financially responsible as well.
So my mom was always responsible with money.
She never took on debt that she couldn't repay, or she never spent all the money that she earned on things that were useless.
She never did things like that.
And I learned a lot about that. managing finances just from observing my mother.
So that was another thing that she taught me and she taught me a lot about the world.
My mom experienced a lot growing up.
She traveled to different places around the world and I remember learning about different countries from my mom and She always loved to talk to me about her different travels and the different places that she went to.
And I learned things about different places.
And so I remember just learning about the world from my mom.
And she also taught me to love language.
And so one of the reasons why I'm in the language learning world is nowadays is because my mom also liked this field.
My mom was an English teacher and my mom was fascinated by language and she also learned some Spanish.
She could speak some Spanish when she was younger.
And so that was something that I observed and I saw that she liked, and I developed that same passion.
So I'm very thankful that she helped steer me in this direction.
In English the verb steer refers to aiming your car or some other vehicle in a certain direction right.
You turn the steering wheel.
So I'm glad that she steered me in this direction.
All right, why don't I stop there for today?
I hope this episode was interesting for you and I hope that it was good practice for your listening.
Remember that if you want my advanced podcast episodes, then you can sign up to become a Listening Time family member or VIP and you'll get two new advanced episodes every month in which I speak at normal speed, so you'll get the chance to practice with real English.
So click on the link in the episode description to sign up for that.
That's patreon.com slash listening time.
And remember to use the transcript for this episode and listen as many times as you need until you can eventually understand everything that I'm saying without reading the transcript.
And I would appreciate it if you could share this podcast with anyone you know who needs it anyone who's learning English.
And if you can, please give this podcast a five star rating and write a review.
Tell other people what you think about it.
All right.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
