Hello, and welcome to the Learn Every Day English podcast, Your Road to English Proficiency.
You've come to the right place to improve your listening comprehension skills and mastery
of the English language.
My name is Gary and I will be your host today.
I am a native English speaker born and raised in the United States and a retired engineer
living in a small Texas town.
Hey, I'm also a language learner so I know what it is like to learn a new and different
language.
So now, let's jump right in to today's episode.
Well hello, listeners, and welcome to episode four of the Learn Every Day English podcast.
Hey, I'm glad to have you with me.
And again, my name is Gary.
In this episode, we're going to talk about something interesting.
And the topic is, hey, everything you want to know about Texas, which is a state here
in the United States, and it's the state where I live at.
Hey, but before we get started, I just want to remind you that you can follow me at my
webpage.
Just go to www.learneverydayenglish.com, that's all one word, learneverydayenglish.com,
and you can check out what we're doing.
So at the webpage, you can find links to and listen to all the podcasts directly from the
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And I recently applied to have the podcast on Audible, which is Amazon.
So that may be coming out very soon.
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podcast resource page.
And I'll have a copy of an outline of this podcast program that you can download with
notes and follow along.
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Day English YouTube channel, where you can watch many interesting and engaging videos
to practice your listening comprehension and improve your English skills.
So now, without further ado, let's jump right in to today's episode.
Well, today we're going to talk about the state of Texas in the United States of America.
And again, this is the state where I live right now.
And I've lived here for quite a while.
And we're going to change the material up on this episode.
We don't have to always talk about, say, grammar or things like that.
I think it's important when you're learning a new language and you want to practice and
work on your listening comprehension skills.
You should make it fun, learn about different things, learn about different cultures,
different countries, how people live there.
And so today we're going to talk about Texas.
So Texas is called the Lone Star State.
And Lone Star, you might ask Lone Star, that's weird.
What does that mean?
The word lone can mean single or like one.
So the flag of Texas only has one star.
So that's why Texas is called the Lone Star State.
It entered the Union or became part of the United States on December 29th, 1845, as the 28th state.
And the state motto, and a motto is like a word that expresses the goal or the ideas
of something, an organization.
So the state motto of Texas is friendship.
And I must say, there are a lot of friendly people down here in Texas.
Texas has 254 counties or these are like different regional areas.
And it's a very large state.
The population of Texas is almost 29 million people.
Again, just in the state of Texas, that's a lot of people.
And this is from the 2019 census.
The area, Texas has about 268,581 square miles.
So Texas is very, very large.
The highest point in Texas is at a mountain called Guadalupe Peak.
The peak is kind of the top of the mountain.
And the elevation is 8,749 feet.
And Texas, interestingly enough, has 91 mountains that are a mile high or more.
So a mile is 5,200 feet, I think, or 5,280 feet, somewhere around there.
So we got a lot of tall and high mountains in Texas.
And interestingly enough, my wife grew up in a small town right at the base,
we say, of the Guadalupe Mountains.
Texas is a big state.
It's very wide.
It's 801 miles from north to south and 773 miles east to west.
So for example, I live in a town that is near Houston.
My mother-in-law lives in El Paso, which is a city on the far west side of Texas.
And just from here in my city, it takes 12 to 13 hours just to drive from my house
to my mother-in-law's house.
And that is not the total distance from Texas.
So as you can see, you can drive across Texas and it will take you a long,
long time.
What you might have heard also, the state flower of Texas is called the blue bonnet.
The state song is called Texas Our Texas.
We have a state bird that is called the northern mockingbird.
The state insect is the monarch butterfly.
And you've probably seen these.
These are a very popular type of butterfly.
And we have a state mammal or state animal, which is a Texas longhorn.
And a longhorn is a special type of cow or cattle.
And they have horns that are very, very long.
So if you're interested, look that up on the internet.
You'll find that very interesting.
The state fish is called the Guadalupe bass.
So bass is a type of fish.
The state tree is called the pecan tree.
A pecan is a type of nut.
And it is very, very delicious if you try that out.
The state plant is called the prickly pear cactus.
The state shrub.
Shrub is a type of small bush.
And it is called the crepe myrtle.
In Texas, there are five state forests and 120 state parks.
The state capital is located in Austin, Texas,
which is about a two and a half or three hour drive from here, from where I live.
And it is a very kind of progressive city and a city that is growing very fast.
It is located in what we call the hill country.
It's very beautiful and scenic part of Texas with a lot of rolling hills.
There are also a lot of cattle.
Cattle is just like a large group of cows.
So it is estimated that there are 16 million cattle,
or sometimes we say 16 million head of cattle.
That's very common expression.
Head of cattle, which means like each cow has a head.
So that means there are just 16 million cows in Texas.
And that's more than any other state in the United States.
Texas is also known for its energy.
In 2006, Texas produced 18.2% of the crude oil in the United States.
And nearly 30% of the natural gas production occurs in Texas.
Also, Texas is very known for wind power.
It is the leading state in the US and wind energy output.
That's pretty interesting.
And during 2018, electricity production from wind farms in Texas
reached 73 million megawatts.
So a wind farm is just a location where there are a lot of windmills,
or wind farms, windmills that generate electricity.
Hey, one question you might have is, hey, why is Texas called Texas?
And that's a good question.
So there was a group of Indians that lived in,
or tribe of Indians that have lived in Texas for a long time called the Caddo.
Indians are the Caddo Nation, or the Caddo tribe.
And they would greet the Spanish settlers by saying teas,
which means friends in their dialect or their language.
And so over time that turned into Texas, kind of an interesting story.
I told you earlier that Texas is called the Lone Star State,
but you might want to know why.
So Texas is nicknamed the Lone Star State because in 1836,
when the Republic of Texas declared itself an independent nation,
it flew a flag with a single star on it.
Texas is called the Lone Star State because of the way the state flag is designed.
It has a broad vertical blue stripe at the left,
centered by a single white star.
It has horizontal bars of white and red on the right.
And each of the colors has a meaning or a significance.
So red means courage, white means liberty, and blue stands for loyalty.
And the star has five points and one for each letter of the state's name.
Texas is located in the southern part of the United States.
And on to the south of Texas is the Gulf of Mexico.
And also to the south of Texas, it is bordered by another country.
And that country is Mexico.
So we do have a lot of people from Mexico living and visiting here in Texas.
Also, there's a lot of wildlife.
Wildlife is just another name for animals or
you might even include flowers and trees in that.
So in Texas, you might spot some of these animals like black bears,
armadillos, coyotes, cougars, or sometimes called pumas.
And you might not know it, but there are a lot of birds here in Texas.
Texas has more species of birds than any other state in the US,
including a bird that's called a screech owl and also hummingbirds.
Another interesting fact is that there have been many flags that have flown
over Texas.
So the British flag, the French flag, Mexican flag, Texan flag,
United States, and the Confederate flag have all flown over Texas.
Another interesting fact is that two United States presidents were born in
Texas.
One president by the name of Dwight D Eisenhower and another,
Lyndon B. Johnson.
And I don't know if you've heard, but you might have.
In Houston, there is the place called NASA,
the National Aeronautic and Space Administration.
So they send out the space shuttle.
They have the space station and they've sent the mission up to the moon and
space exploration.
So Houston and the Houston area and NASA are very well known for
this type of thing.
Another thing that's interesting is Austin.
Do you remember what Austin is?
Yeah, it's the capital of Texas, but it is also known as and
called the live music capital of the world.
And it's known by this as its slogan, the live music capital of the world.
Austin has more live concerts per capita.
That means per person than any other city in the United States.
And estimates say that on any given night in Austin, there are 100 live music
performances.
Also, there may be stereotypical things about Texas.
But people when they think about Texas, they think about cowboys and
maybe pickup trucks and ranches.
And yes, there are a lot of ranches and cattle and cowboys here in Texas.
And but you may not know that Texas is a top wool producer in the country and
also has massive herds of cattle.
A herd is just a big group of, I guess it's a name or
term we use for groups of cows or cattle.
So we say herd of cattle.
Texas is the USA's biggest producer of oil, cattle,
sheep, minerals, cotton, and wool.
We also have a saying or an expression here in the US and in Texas.
We say that everything is bigger in Texas.
And a lot of times that is right.
As I said before, Texas is a very, very huge or enormous state.
We might even say ginormous, which is a combination of enormous and gigantic.
Like I said, it has a total area of 269,000 square miles.
So it is the second largest state by area just behind Alaska.
But interestingly enough, Texas has over 60 times the population of Alaska with,
like I said before, about 29 million people.
And Texas is second only to California in terms of population.
And it has three cities, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio,
which are in the top ten of the most populous cities in the United States,
or most populated cities, or the cities with the most number of people.
And the Texas economy is one of the largest in the world.
And it's equal to that of the country of India.
Wow, that's pretty amazing, isn't it?
Also, when you hear or think of Texas,
you might have heard about the place called the Alamo,
which is located in San Antonio, Texas.
And there is a saying here in Texas, remember the Alamo,
because a very famous battle was fought there.
So the Alamo was a fort that once was part of a Spanish mission
and complex in San Antonio.
In 1836, during the Texas Revolution, about 200 Texan volunteers,
under the command of a guy named William B. Travis and Jim Bowie,
decided to occupy the fort and defend San Antonio against the Mexican Army.
So the Mexican Army was led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana.
They surrounded the Alamo and laid siege there,
or they fought there for 13 days.
But Texans were very shocked or surprised and amazed
when Santa Ana attacked the Alamo on March 6th, 1836.
And sadly, all of the defenders or the men in the Alamo
were killed and their bodies were burned.
But then the victory was short-lived, as we would say, for General Santa Ana.
The Alamo defenders went down fighting,
but they also killed 600 Mexican soldiers.
The remaining Mexican soldiers then chased the Texas Army,
who was led by a gentleman by the name of Sam Houston,
to an area called San Jacinto, near present-day Houston.
And the Texas forces then defeated the Mexican Army
and captured General Santa Ana, winning independence for Texas.
Texas is also known for its food.
It's known for barbecue, which is very, very popular here,
especially barbecued brisket and ribs.
It's a very popular thing, barbecued chicken.
But there's also something called chicken fried steak,
which I'm not sure if you've heard of or if you've eaten.
It's a type of steak or red meat.
It's actually called a cutlet of cube steak
that is tenderized or kind of made soft.
And it is cooked similarly to fried chicken
and it's seasoned with a seasoned flour.
And it is pan fried.
We put it in a pan with some oil and pan fry it.
And it is usually served with something called white flour gravy.
The chicken fried steak is thought to have originated
with the German immigrants that came to Texas.
And they found a way to make use of this kind of tough part of the meat
and preparing it in a manner similar to a food
that the Germans have called Wiener schnitzel.
Wiener schnitzel.
And a conversation about Texas food couldn't be complete
if we didn't talk about Tex-Mex cuisine or Tex-Mex food.
Tex-Mex is just kind of a mixture of Texas and Mexican.
So Tex-Mex food has been influenced by Texas food and Mexican food.
Tex-Mex food has its roots or its origin in the unique Tejano culture.
So there's a word we call Tejano.
And Tejano's are the descendants of the Spanish and Mexican settlers
who lived in Texas before it became an independent republic in 1836.
So the classic Tex-Mex dish or Tex-Mex food item
is cheese enchiladas covered with chili gravy.
And this is also usually served with rice and refried pinto beans.
So Tex-Mex food is a people's food.
It's not fine dining as we would say here in Texas.
It's not formal food.
It's very informal type of food.
And other things that you might see with Tex-Mex food is flour tortillas,
beef, cheddar and American cheese, and canned tomatoes.
And surprisingly today Mexican food and largely Americanized Tex-Mex food
generates more than 50 billion dollars per year in the U.S.
Another question is, hey when did people first come to Texas?
Well the earliest evidence for human habitation or where humans were living in Texas
dates back to around 13,000 BC.
And BC stands for before Christ.
And it appears Texas was continuously inhabited by American Indians.
And I know we've I've mentioned the Caddo Indians previously.
And Texas has been inhabited by American Indians for thousands of years.
But the first non-native people to visit Texas were Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca
and three other victims of a Spanish shipwreck who washed ashore on Galveston Island in 1528.
And they spent nine years there with the native people before making their way back home to Spain.
But the first permanent non-native settlement in Texas was San Antonio.
Founded in 1731 by 56 Spanish immigrants from the Canary Islands.
And Galveston is an island that is about one hour south of Houston.
Hey and speaking about Galveston, which is a nice little maybe weekend vacation spot.
And sometimes we go there to enjoy the ocean views and and just the water down there on the Gulf.
Galveston is known for having the worst natural disaster to ever occur in Texas
and actually to occur in the United States.
A hurricane of very very I guess a powerful hurricane.
What we say leveled two-thirds of the city or destroyed two-thirds of the city.
And killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in Galveston on Saturday, September 8th, 1900.
So this occurred a long time ago.
The death toll all along the Texas coast was estimated at 10,000 to 12,000 people.
But interestingly enough, what happened after the hurricane
was a great engineering kind of feat for its time period.
I guess the Army Corps of Engineers built a six mile long seawall.
And they actually raised the entire grade or height of the island by as much as 17 feet.
So that was quite an undertaking, quite an accomplishment.
Several major and powerful storms have hit the US and Galveston since then.
But none of the storms has caused as much damage in Galveston as this great storm of 1900.
And so this storm is just called the great storm.
Because weather forecasters didn't start naming storms until the 1950s.
So this storm didn't actually have a specific name.
Finally I want to close with this.
Everyone has a stereotype like I said about Texas.
We wear cowboy hats and cowboy boots and there are oil wells everywhere.
But Texas is more diverse than that.
The economy is extremely diverse with major industries ranging from agriculture to high tech.
From aerospace to shipping from the military and national defense to the music industry.
So at last count, Texas has over 181 research colleges and universities
as innumerable community colleges and trade schools.
It is also home to the MD Anderson Cancer Center,
which is one of the largest and most famous cancer centers and medical centers in the entire world.
But it's really known for its innovative cancer research center.
Again, I also talked about the Johnson Space Center,
which is also another name for the NASA facility to the south of downtown Houston.
So that's a little bit of a summary about the state of Texas.
So I hope you learned something new and found that interesting and exciting.
Maybe you can tell some friends and relatives about Texas.
So again, use this podcast as a listening comprehension tool.
You might just want to listen to this podcast over again a second or third time.
See how much you can comprehend.
For language learning is not just reading or speaking with people.
I think it's very key and very important that you listen, listen and listen.
For if you think about it, that's how young children, little kids and babies learn
in their first one, two, three, four years of their life.
They are just listening, listening, listening to the language every day, 24 hours a day.
So I think we may not put enough emphasis or give enough credit to the importance of listening
as we try to learn a new language.
And I've said this before, and I'll say it again as an expression in English.
I listen a lot to podcasts.
I listen a lot to YouTube videos.
And I think the more I listen, the more I am able to understand and comprehend slowly but surely.
So I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Learn Every Day English podcast.
Hey, I would like to hear from you and what you thought of this episode.
If you have any questions for me, and if you have any suggestions for specific topics you
would like me to discuss on this program, hey, let me know.
Go to the Learn Every Day English homepage or webpage at www.learneverydayenglish.com.
At the bottom there, there will be a contact form where you can send me a message
and let me know how things are doing.
Again, click the podcast resource link on the page and you can download a transcript or a copy
of the program notes for this episode.
And I think that's it for today.
So be sure to check out our upcoming episodes and thanks for listening.
And we'll talk to you later on Learn Every Day English.
See you later and goodbye.
