Hello everyone and welcome back to another lesson at EnglishPod.
My name is Marco.
And my name is Catherine.
And in the spirit of Halloween, we have a Halloween lesson for you.
Happy Halloween.
It's Halloween.
It's Halloween.
And this is an elementary level lesson.
So we're talking about some basic but important things today.
Exactly.
So we're not going to preview anything because the dialogue is pretty simple.
So why don't we listen to it for the first time and we'll be right back.
Trick or treat.
Tom, aren't you a little too old to be trick or treating?
What are you talking about?
Where's your Halloween spirit?
Didn't you ever dress up in a costume and go around the neighborhood trick or treating with your friends?
Of course I did.
But when I was 10, trick or treating is for kids.
Plus, I'm sure people think you're a kidnapper or something running around with kids at night.
Whatever.
I'm going next door.
I heard Mrs. Robinson is giving out big bags of M&M's.
All right, we're back.
So trick or treating.
Ding dong.
Ding dong.
Trick or treat.
All right, so we're going to explain what trick or treating is just in a little bit.
But before we get into it, why don't we take a look at four important words in Language Takeaway.
Language Takeaway.
Well, the first one Marco, is very important because it's the name of this special holiday that isn't celebrated everywhere.
It's only celebrated in some places, and Americans, I think, love it above all else.
Right, yeah, Halloween.
Now, this actually comes from All Hallows' Eve, right?
That's right, so it's the Night of the Spirits of the Dead.
Right, exactly.
So the Day of the Dead.
And, as Catherine mentions, it's celebrated in different ways in different countries, but I think probably the United States is one of the few where people dress up and go trick-or-treating.
That's right.
And Halloween is the last day of October, so October 31st.
And it's a really fun holiday where mostly children dress up in costumes and they ask for candy.
Alright, so to dress up means to get in a costume.
Right.
Well, you could say dress up to mean a couple of different things, but in this case you dress up in a costume.
So that means you change your clothes so that you're wearing a costume which is maybe a witch's costume or a vampire or something scary.
So you would say he dressed up as a vampire.
He dressed up as a vampire or they got dressed up for the wedding.
Okay, very good.
So, dress up.
And then we have the word kidnapper.
So the friend is afraid that his friend will look like a kidnapper if he goes out trick-or-treating with the kids.
And so a kidnapper comes from the word to take or to grab.
So kid grabber.
And that means that you're going to take children from the streets and steal them.
Right.
But you can kidnap an adult, right?
So it's not only for kids.
That's right.
It's for any kind of person who you take without them wanting you to.
So against their will.
Okay, Kidnapper.
And finally, we have M&M's.
What are M&M's?
Not the singer, right?
No, M&M is spelled differently, the singer.
This is a delicious chocolate treat.
It's a candy, and it comes in big brown bags.
And if you want them with peanuts, they come in a yellow bag.
You know your M&M's.
Oh, man, I could tell you all the colors.
But M&M's are really delicious, and it's actually a brand, M&M's.
It's a brand.
Right, so many people probably know it, but just in case, they're called M&Ms, very good candy.
All right.
So these words were relatively easy and simple, so why don't we listen to our dialogue again?
Let's slow it down just a little bit, and we'll be right back to take a look at Fluency Builder.
Fluency Builder.
All right, we're back.
So, on Fluency Builder, we promised that we were going to look at this word trick-or-treating, so let's look at it now.
Trick-or-treat, it's a verb, right?
To trick-or-treat.
To trick or treat.
And it comes from the words that we say when we're children to the person whose door we knock on.
So, for example, I say.
And then I open the door.
I say, trick or treat.
Okay, so what are you supposed to do in this when somebody says trick or treat?
Well, I'm a child, I'm holding my bag and you're supposed to say happy Halloween and give me some candy.
Okay.
Alright.
So trick or treat means you could either trick someone, you could play a trick on them, like scare them or put some toilet paper on their house, or you can give them a treat.
Uh-huh.
Or accept a treat.
And so the idea is if you don't give me a treat, I will do something bad to you.
Ah, I see.
But this doesn't really happen, right?
Like when kids go to people's houses, they say trick-or-treat and then they get candy automatically.
Almost automatically, yeah.
Sometimes people avoid the holiday and they close their doors and lock them and they don't answer the door.
Yeah.
And that's when someone maybe throws an egg at the house or does something mean.
Or puts toilet paper on their trees.
Yeah.
So trick-or-treat is what we say, but it's also something we can do.
So we can go trick-or-treating.
Go trick or treating.
Right.
Okay.
Very good.
Trick or treat.
And now we have another phrase here that's a little bit complicated.
But when the friend answered the door, he said, aren't you a little too old to be trick or treating?
All right, I like this phrase because it's sarcastic.
The person is not asking a real question.
He's saying, listen, you are too old to be trick-or-treating.
And so, in this case, aren't you?
Is a way to introduce something that we know is true, that we think is true.
It's kind of rude and sarcastic.
So if I say, aren't you supposed to be at work?
Oh, shoot.
So it's in that form.
You're not really asking a question, you're more demanding an explanation.
Right, it's a suggestion.
It's like, you're probably supposed to be at work right now.
Right, right.
So Marco, aren't you supposed to be at school right now?
So do we always, but we always use it in that sense, right?
Aren't you, and then...
Yeah.
Aren't you?
Aren't you a little old for that kind of an outfit?
All right.
So aren't you?
All right.
Very good.
So those are the two phrases for Fluency Builder today.
Let's listen quickly to our dialogue one more time and we'll be right back.
Trick or treat.
Tom, aren't you a little too old to be trick or treating?
What are you talking about?
Where's your Halloween spirit?
Didn't you ever dress up in a costume and go around the neighborhood trick or treating with your friends?
Of course I did.
But when I was 10, trick or treating is for kids.
Plus, I'm sure people think you're a kidnapper or something running around with kids at night.
Whatever.
I'm going next door.
I heard Mrs. Robinson is giving out big bags of M&M's.
All right, so Marco, have you ever trick-or-treated?
I did.
I did.
I used to go trick-or-treating when I was little, and it was actually really fun.
We used to have competitions about who had the most candy.
I've heard about this.
Right, because you don't necessarily bring a bag.
You bring a pillowcase.
Right.
And you fill your pillowcase with candy.
Now, the interesting thing is that sometimes you wouldn't necessarily only get candy from people.
Right.
Sometimes you got weird things like pennies or toothbrushes or apples.
Yeah.
So you would go to someone's house and they would give you an apple.
You'd be like, OK.
But there is always an old lady who lived near.
Well, she lived in the neighborhood and every neighborhood had one.
You know, all my friends had a lady they would go to and she gave the full size candy bars.
Wow.
Right, because normally stores sell small candy bars for the Halloween holiday.
Because they're smaller, they're cheaper, it's easier to give them to many people.
But there's always one person who has the big full-size candy bars and everyone goes to her.
Right, exactly.
And actually it's amazing how Halloween is such an important event in the States, because everyone dresses up, everyone puts out decorations or pumpkins outside of their homes.
They have pumpkin carving contests, which are really cool how they carve out pumpkins.
They make faces in the pumpkins, and then we can put a candle inside to light it up.
It's really fun.
So that's called a jack-o'-lantern, right?
That's right.
Why is it called a jack-o'-lantern?
Do you know?
I have no idea.
It's weird.
Maybe it's like a person looks like a person's face.
Maybe a jack-o'-lantern.
Because a lantern is a light, you know?
It's like a light with a candle in it, so...
Yeah.
It's actually very, it's a very fun holiday.
It's really interesting and it's kind of strange when people really oppose it because they say that it's, you know, it has to do with the devil or it has to do it's a pagan ritual and things like this.
But, you know, it's just good fun.
It's fun.
It's silly.
Everyone likes to dress up in a costume.
What was the weirdest costume that you've dressed up as, as an adult or a child?
Because I know you've dressed up as an adult as well.
I dress up every year.
I was 50 long stockings last year.
Well, as a child, one year I dressed up as an injured soldier because like, my dad was in the military.
So we always had fatigues around the house.
And so I used his fatigues and I like put blood on my face and I had crutches and people thought that I really had a broken leg.
So they used to give me double.
They gave me that that year.
They gave me double the candy because I thought, oh, here's a poor girl in crutches.
And trick-or-treating.
And my costume was an injured soldier, so they just didn't understand it.
It's really funny.
Nice.
Well, we want to hear about you guys if you go trick-or-treating or if you dress up for Halloween.
I know that many places around the world have parties or festivities for Halloween and people dress up.
So come to our website, EnglishPod.com.
We'll see you guys there and we'll see you guys next time.
Happy Halloween.
Happy Halloween.
Thank you.
