Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod.
My name is Marco.
And my name is Catherine and it's the holiday season.
That's right.
It's almost Christmas.
And so we are bringing you one of the most typical Christmas songs, or Christmas carols, I guess all over the world probably.
That's right, and I've heard it in many different languages, even Chinese.
Yeah, even Chinese.
Ding dong dong, ding dong dang.
Okay, I'll have to ask.
Yeah, you'll have to ask.
But yeah, we're talking about jingle bells today.
So the famous song Jingle Bells.
You'll hear it everywhere, especially during the Christmas season, or only during the Christmas season.
Especially, yeah.
And so let's listen to the song.
The song is pretty long.
It has like a couple of different verses.
But we've taken the main one, the first one, and the chorus, which are like the most famous ones.
So let's listen to the song.
Dashing through the snow In a one-horse open sleigh O'er the fields.
We go Laughing all the way.
Bells on bobtail ring.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
This is going to be stuck in my head all day, Marco.
I know.
It's kind of catchy, though.
How can you not get into the spirit with this song?
Well, as you said, a Christmas carol is a song, and they're meant to be catchy.
You get them in your head, and they stay there forever.
I think it's also because every mall or shopping center you go to they're playing these songs, so they just kind of get stuck in your head.
In the background all the time.
Yeah, exactly.
It makes you want to shop more.
Or kill someone.
All right.
So there were probably a couple of different words that you didn't understand here.
So we're going to go through the whole song little by little and we'll explain it.
So starting out with the first line, it says dashing through the snow.
Well, okay, this is interesting because in sports, there's an event called a 100-meter dash.
Okay, so a dash is a very quick run.
Very fast, right?
That's right.
So dashing through the snow is you're kind of running or going through the snow very quickly.
Right, we don't know who is running through the snow, but we know something or someone is going very quickly through the snow.
And then the second line, it says, in a one-horse open sleigh.
Okay, so now we know who's dashing through the snow.
It's a horse.
It's a horse and you're in a sleigh.
Okay, so an open sleigh means that there's no roof.
So you're sitting under the stars and there's a horse pulling your sleigh through the snow.
Okay, so a sleigh is kind of like a vehicle for the snow, right?
There's no wheels because it's hard to drive in snow.
And so this is an old kind of vehicle that has maybe wood or metal underneath to make it slide.
To make it slide.
Very good.
All right.
And then we have this strange word here.
It's O-apostrophe-E-R.
Over.
Over the field we go.
Or the fields we go.
Well, this is very, very common in poetry.
Okay.
So this is a way to make the word over shorter.
Because over, you can hear it two syllables.
Over.
But sometimes we only want one.
So we say or.
Okay.
Or the fields we go.
It's over.
Okay.
Interesting.
Laughing all the way.
Bells on bobtails ring.
Now, what are bobtails?
What are these bells on bobtails?
Okay, well, bobtails are the tails of certain animals, okay?
So we could say we have a bunny rabbit with a bobtail.
That means the tail sticks up.
But it's also maybe reindeer have bobtails because their tails stick up.
You can see them.
Okay.
So I guess in this case, because it's Christmas, these animals, like reindeer and rabbits, have little bells on them.
And according to the next line, making spirits bright, right?
So you're making people happy.
That's right.
Spirit is your attitude or your soul.
And in this case, you're being made happy.
You're happy because it's Christmas.
You're outside.
Very good.
And, well, he says, what fun it is to laugh and sing a sleighing song tonight.
Now sleighing.
It's the song we sing when we're in a sleigh.
So this isn't a real word, but this is something that makes the song kind of makes you think that these people are just singing a special song for being in a sleigh.
All right.
And now we go to the chorus.
Jingle bells, jingle bells.
So this word jingle, it's a verb, right?
Yeah, to jingle.
We can do it with your keys, too.
To jingle is to make noise when metal is touching metal.
So we have bells and they ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
They hit each other.
I got some keys here.
I'll show you what jingling is.
So we go like this.
Oh, jingle.
To jingle your keys, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So you can use it with keys, with bells.
Can you use it with anything else?
Anything that makes a sound like that?
Chimes, jingle.
Okay, chimes, jingle.
All right, very good.
So jingle all the way, oh what fun it is to ride again in a one horse open sleigh.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way.
So all the way, maybe we're going someplace.
All the way wherever you're going, right?
Home or to dinner.
And oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.
So the chorus is not very hard and neither is the first verse.
But, you know, sometimes the song is pretty fast.
So sometimes you don't really understand what they're saying.
Personally, I did not know the lyrics of Jingle Bells until we started doing this podcast.
Really?
Well, because when we sing it, we mumble, you know, you can't hear all the words.
So you don't know the words, but dashing through the snow.
Sometimes you have to just think of it very clearly.
Very good.
So that's all the words we have for this podcast.
It's a very good Christmas carol.
It's very catchy.
And I don't know how old it is.
I've heard it since I was small.
Well, probably old enough to come from a time when there weren't cars because they're a sleigh.
And when they used ore because I don't see people use ore anymore.
No, I think it's mostly just songs and poems.
You see it a lot in the 19th century.
Right.
But it is interesting.
Also, I guess the relationship between like the sleighs and snow and Christmas is always related to this, even though you know in some places you don't have snow during Christmas.
That's right.
But it does, I mean, we're here in Shanghai and we can hear people singing this song.
And there's no snow.
So I think it's just a way to think about the season of Christmas and the attitude of people when it's Christmas time.
Right.
So I hope you enjoyed our lesson.
If you have any questions about this Christmas carol, you can let us know on EnglishPod.com.
And we'll also post the other verses, the less known verses of Jingle Bells, because it's actually a pretty long song, very long, and I don't know any of the other verses, to be honest with you exactly.
That's why we chose the first one and the chorus, because it's the most popular one.
So we'll see you guys there and Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, bye.
