Hello and welcome to the English Like A Native podcast.
My name is Anna and you're listening to week 37, day one of Your English Five A Day, the second season.
So this week we're doing what we always do expanding our vocabulary, improving our listening skills and, slowly but surely, taking steps towards English fluency.
So make a habit of tuning in every weekday from Monday to Friday.
Episodes are released at 7am UK time.
And, without further ado, I'm going to begin this episode, as I always do, with a snapshot of what's to come.
Mysterious water leak stumped, the plumber edith decided to take matters into her own hands and investigate the attic.
She discovered a broken pipe had been dripping for weeks, so she called her neighbor tom, who worked as a tailor but was also handy with repairs, to help her mend it.
Within an hour they had fixed the leak and prevented any further damage to the house Right.
Let's jump feet first into this vocabulary, starting with the verb stump.
Stump.
We spell this S-T-U-M-P.
Stump.
To stump is to confuse or puzzle someone so they don't know what to say or do.
I'm stumped.
Here's an example sentence.
The tricky question completely stumped the student.
Recently I was following a recipe and the recipe told me very clearly to peel some skin off a lemon and put it in the frying pan with the other ingredients, like garlic and other bits and bobs, and fry it up.
And then to add all the other bits into the frying pan and mix it all together and then serve with the lemon skin.
It didn't say anywhere to take the lemon skin out.
Yet when we were eating, it was evident that the lemon skin was not really meant to be dished up with the meal.
It should have been separated because it didn't taste good.
It wasn't easy to eat.
In fact, it was quite revolting.
But it did very clearly say in the recipe that you add the skin and it didn't say anywhere to take it out.
So I was a bit stumped.
As to what I had done wrong, why my lemon skin tasted so revolting in the meal that I had lovingly prepared.
I was completely stumped.
And I still am to this day.
Maybe I will figure it out at some point in the future when I get to sit down with Jamie Oliver himself and ask him what's going on with the lemon skin.
Anyway, let's move on from stump to the idiom take matters into your own hands.
To take matters into your own hands.
Take T-A-K-E matters M-A-T-T-E-R-S into your Y-O-U-R own O-W-N hands H-A-N-D-S.
To take matters into your own hands is to deal with a problem yourself instead of waiting for others to do it.
For example.
He decided to take matters into his own hands and speak to the manager directly.
Now I often ask my son to do certain things at school, to behave in a certain way or to keep hold of his belongings, so that we're not always looking through the lost property box to find his jumper for the third time, for the fourth time, fifth time, sixth time.
And a few months ago I asked him to make sure that he was having a proper healthy, wholesome school meal.
Because the school cooks nice hot dinners, but also offers basic cheese sandwiches on white bread.
And I'm not a fan of my children eating sandwiches, cheese sandwiches on white bread, every day of the week.
So I said to him you can have a cheese sandwich once or twice a week, ideally on brown bread, but every other day you have to have a cooked meal.
And he promised that he would do this.
And I reminded him a number of times, but every day I'd say to him after school what did you have for lunch, darling?
And every day he'd look at me in a sheepish way and say, I had a cheese sandwich.
And I would say, on white bread or brown bread?
On white bread, mummy.
Oh.
So eventually I had to take matters into my own hands and go and speak to the teacher myself and say is there any way that we can ensure that he's not having white bread cheese sandwiches on a daily basis?
And the teacher agreed to keep an eye on him at lunchtime in the canteen and ensure that he occasionally chooses a cooked meal.
So I took matters into my own hands to get things done.
When have you had to take matters into your own hands?
Next, we have the verb mend.
We spell this m-e-n-d, mend.
To mend something is to repair it when it's broken or damaged.
For example, I couldn't get the zip on my child's coat to work properly.
It would only go part of the way up and then it wouldn't go any further.
And it is a winter coat.
So I wanted him to have the coat rather than discarding it.
But without a zipper, without a working zip, it was no good.
So I had to take it to a shop so that they could mend the coat.
And they did.
Here's another example.
She learned to mend her torn clothes.
When did you last mend something?
I recently put a hole in our wooden floor, which is a bit of a disaster.
It was an accident, of course.
And we do have to mend it.
I'm hoping there's a way we can mend it without having to lift up many floorboards.
So we're going to attempt to fill the hole with wood filler.
And hopefully that will work.
OK, next we have the noun attic.
Attic.
Nice and easy.
We spell it A-T-T-I-C.
Attic.
An attic is a room or space just below the roof of a house.
So when you look at a house and they have usually a sloping roof...
Well, within the roof or just underneath the roof is a space.
Sometimes this space has been turned into a room and that is the attic.
The attic.
I had an attic bedroom when I was a child.
I loved it.
I felt like I was in a tree house.
It was my own space that felt completely separate from the rest of the house because I had a set of vertical steps, or rather a ladder attached to the wall, and it was vertical.
And so it wasn't very easy for people to just pop into my bedroom.
So I felt like I was on top of the world in my attic room.
Here's an example.
She found some childhood toys in the attic.
Do you have an attic in your house?
The attic where I live now is not a room that we use.
It's just a space that we use for storing things like Christmas trees, snowboards and things we imagine that we'll one day use.
But honestly, they'll probably just stay up there getting eaten by spiders.
Okay, last but not least, we have the noun tailor.
Tailor.
We spell this T-A-I-L-O-R.
Tailor.
A tailor is a person whose job is making or mending clothes.
So if I had a tear in my trousers...
And I really love the trousers.
I might take them to a tailor and ask if he could mend the trousers.
Here's another example.
The tailor adjusted the suit so it fit perfectly.
Have you ever visited a tailor?
Maybe you are a tailor.
Okay, that's our five.
So let's do a quick recap.
We started with the verb stump, which means to confuse or puzzle someone so they don't know what to say or do.
To stump them.
Then we had the idiom take matters into your own hands.
This means to deal with a problem yourself instead of waiting for others to do it.
Take matters into your own hands.
We had the verb mend, which is to repair something that is broken or damaged, to mend it.
Then we had the noun attic, which is the room or space that's just below the roof of a house, the attic.
And we had the noun tailor, a person whose job is making or mending clothes, a tailor.
Okay, now let's do this for pronunciation purposes.
Please repeat after me.
Stump.
Stump.
Take matters into your own hands.
Take matters into your own hands.
Mend.
Mend.
Attic Attic Taylor Taylor Fantastic.
Okay, what's the verb that I might use?
That means to confuse someone so they don't know what to say or do.
To stump.
Yes, to stump them.
Very good.
And if I have a broken zip, what might I do?
What verb would I use that suggests I'm going to repair the broken zip?
Mend.
Yes, to mend something that's broken.
And if I no longer need something, but I don't want to get rid of it, I might put it into the storage space that's at the very top of the house, just below the roof.
What's that called?
The attic.
Yes, that's right.
I'm going to store my unused but much loved items in the attic.
And if I want to have a suit made, who do I need to go and see?
Who's going to make this beautiful suit for me?
A tailor.
Fantastic.
And finally, if I have a problem that I want to deal with myself, what idiom would you use to describe what I'm doing?
I'm taking matters into my own hands.
Very good.
Okay, fantastic.
I want you now to listen to the snapshot once again.
Here goes.
When a mysterious water leak stumped the plumber, Edith decided to take matters into her own hands and investigate the attic.
She discovered that a broken pipe had been dripping for weeks.
So she called her neighbour Tom, who worked as a tailor but was also handy with repairs, to help her mend it.
Within an hour, they had fixed the leak and prevented any further damage to the house.
Fantastic.
OK, I want you to listen out for our target vocabulary once more as we head into my favourite part story time.
Daria sat on the edge of her bed, holding the torn sleeve of her favourite jacket.
It was not the first time something she loved had ripped, and every time it happened she felt the same frustration.
The last time she had taken her clothes to a tailor.
The repair had cost almost as much as buying something new.
She sighed.
I can't keep doing this, she whispered.
The thought of waiting weeks and paying too much money again made her restless.
It was time to take matters into her own hands.
That evening she climbed up into the attic.
Dust covered everything.
But in one corner stood an old wooden chest that had belonged to her grandmother.
Daria opened it and smiled.
Inside were spools of thread in every colour.
A tin full of buttons and a heavy pair of scissors that still looked sharp.
There was even an old sewing machine, its paint chipped but its metal strong.
At first the machine completely stumped her.
She could not understand how to thread the needle or why the wheel would not turn properly.
She watched a few short videos, but the instructions seemed too fast, too complicated.
She dropped the thread again and again until she felt ready to give up.
But then she touched the fabric of her jacket and remembered how much she wanted to wear it again.
She was determined.
I will learn this, she told herself firmly.
Slowly, she began to practice.
She threaded the machine one careful step at a time, checking each detail against the instructions.
Finally the needle dipped and rose just as it should.
Daria laughed out loud.
It was not perfect, but it was a start.
Her first attempt to mend the sleeve was messy.
The stitches wandered like a drunk line across the fabric and the thread bunched up in places.
Still, the sleeve held together.
She wore the jacket around the house and was surprised by how proud she felt.
The next evening she tried again, this time on an old skirt she had found in the chest.
The hem was torn, but the fabric was soft and beautiful.
Her second effort was straighter, more even.
By the end of the week she was repairing buttons, fixing seams and even adjusting trousers that had been too long for years.
Each success gave her courage.
She started to look at her wardrobe differently.
Instead of thinking, this doesn't fit anymore, she thought, how can I change it?
One Saturday, she wore her mended jacket to meet a friend.
When her friend admired it and asked where she had bought it, Daria smiled.
I didn't buy it.
I fixed it myself.
Her friend's surprised face nearly made her laugh.
She had once been the kind of person who could not sew a button, but now she felt capable, creative and strong.
Daria realised she had discovered more than a skill.
She had found a way to make old things new, to save money and to trust her own hands.
The attic had given her more than tools.
It had given her confidence.
And that brings us to the end of today's episode.
I do hope that you enjoyed it and I hope that you'll come back again tomorrow for another episode of Your English Five a Day.
Until then, take very good care of yourself and goodbye.
