Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 430, Talking About Books.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 430.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download the learning guide for this episode, which will help you improve your English even faster.
This episode is called Talking About Books.
It's a dialogue between Maggie and Kurt using some common vocabulary we might use in talking about and recommending books.
Let's get started.
What did you think of the book you started last week?
Oh, I liked it well enough.
Wow, that's a glowing recommendation.
Well, it started off with a bang, and the suspense in the first half was great.
I couldn't put it down.
Then the pace changed in the second half, and it was an effort to finish it.
Really?
I read it a few months ago, and I loved it.
I thought the characterization was really good.
I could really relate to the two main characters.
Yeah, that's true enough.
But the plot dragged, don't you think?
The author just couldn't pull it off, and the ending was laughable.
Well, that makes one of us Our dialogue begins with Maggie asking Kurt Meaning the book you started to read last week.
Kurt said, When someone says they like something, well enough, it means they didn't think it was great.
It was okay.
It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.
Maggie said, somewhat sarcastically, trying to be funny, Wow, that's a glowing recommendation.
A glowing recommendation is an enthusiastic statement that you should definitely do something or see something or hear something.
A recommendation is a suggestion to someone else.
A glowing recommendation is a very positive, very enthusiastic recommendation.
Of course, Kurt is not giving a glowing recommendation.
Maggie's just being funny.
Kurt says, well, the book started off with a bang.
To start off with a bang, B-A-N-G, means to begin in an exciting way, to begin well.
The meeting started off with a bang when the president said everyone would be getting two weeks extra vacation this year.
Kurt says the book started off with a bang.
It was exciting at the beginning.
And the suspense in the first half was great.
The suspense is the feeling of being excited and wanting to know what is going to happen next, when you're looking forward to something that will happen next.
There are lots of movies that are suspenseful.
The movies of Alfred Hitchcock, the great British director in the 1950s and 60s.
Those are suspense movies.
You are waiting for something to happen.
Kurt says about the book, I couldn't put it down.
To not be able to put a book or something down means you can't stop reading it because it's so exciting.
When you're reading a really good book, you really want to continue reading it.
You can't put it down.
To put something down means literally to take it and put it on the table or stop reading it, in this case,
Kurt says, then the pace changed in the second half of the book, and it was an effort to finish it.
The pace here just means the speed or rate of something.
This is a word we use about, for example... runners in a race.
They are going at a fast pace or a slow pace.
We can also use it to describe a book that you are reading.
It's going at a very fast pace means it's going very quickly.
The story is changing and moving forward very quickly.
The word pace has a couple of different meanings in English.
Look at the learning guide today for some additional explanations.
Kurt says that it was an effort to finish the book.
An effort here means something that is difficult, something that requires extra work, extra concentration.
Maggie says, really?
I read it a few months ago and I loved it.
So Maggie read the same book and she loved it.
I thought the characterization was really good, she says.
In a story, in a fictional or imaginary story...
Characterization is the way that people are made to seem real, usually, in a book, story, or movie.
So someone may say, boy, this book has good characterization.
That means that the people in the book seemed real.
They seemed interesting, perhaps, or complex.
Maggie says, I could really relate to the two main characters.
To relate to someone or to relate to something means to understand someone, to be able to find something similar in your own experiences.
Sometimes we simply say, I can relate.
For example, you are in an airport and the person next to you is worried because they are going to miss their flight.
They will not leave at the correct time.
You may say, I can relate to that.
I missed my flight yesterday.
Or we may just say informally, I can relate, meaning I understand.
So Maggie can relate to the characters, the people in the story.
That means she can understand them.
She has some sort of common experience that they share.
Kurt says, yeah, that's true enough, meaning that's true, but...
The plot dragged, don't you think?
The plot is sometimes called the storyline.
It's the things that happen in a movie or a book or a story.
It's the events that happen.
The person goes to the party.
He talks to a pretty girl.
The girl is not interested, so he talks to another pretty girl, and so on.
That would be a plot.
That would also be the story of my life.
Now, when the plot drags, we mean it moves very slowly.
It moves at a slow and boring pace.
It doesn't seem to move forward very quickly.
Drag actually has a couple of meanings in English.
In addition to this one, so you know what to do.
Take a look at the learning guide for some more explanations.
Kurtz says the author just couldn't pull it off.
The author is the man or woman who writes the book or story.
We may also call them the writer, especially if we are talking about a movie.
The technical term for someone who writes a movie would be a script writer.
Here on ESL Podcast.
Our script writer, the person who writes these stories that we talk about, these wonderful stories, is Dr Lucy Say.
She's the author of these dialogues.
The author just couldn't pull it off.
This is an expression, a phrasal verb to pull something off, or to pull off something means to be able to do something successfully, to be able to complete something that is difficult, especially when other people don't think you will be able to do it.
Kurt says the author could not pull it off.
And the ending was laughable.
The ending is, you may guess, the final part of the story, the conclusion.
If you say something is laughable, you mean it is so bad that it is funny, because you can't do anything other than laugh about it.
You in some ways can't believe, how bad it is.
So laughable means funny, but it means funny because it's so bad.
Maggie says, I really liked the ending.
I can't wait for the sequel.
A sequel, S-E-Q-U-E-L, is the second part or continuation of a book or a movie.
So it's the second book.
I read a book a long time ago, a suspense spy book called Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by the British author John le Carré.
After he wrote that book, it was very successful.
So then he wrote another book, a sequel.
There are a series of popular movies based on a book.
The first one was called The Bourne Identity.
And then that was successful, so the author wrote another book.
And they also made movies about these three books.
So each one is a sequel.
The second and third books are sequels to the first.
Kurt doesn't agree with Maggie either.
So he says, well, that makes one of us.
Actually, Kurt is making a joke here.
The normal expression is, that makes two of us.
When, for example, someone says something and you are in the same situation.
Somebody says, oh, I missed my airplane.
I missed my flight at the airport.
You may say, well, that makes two of us.
I missed my flight, too.
Here, Kurt is making a joke.
He says, that makes one of us, which is just a funny way to say.
You are the only person that thinks that.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal pace.
What do you think of the book you started last week?
Oh, I liked it well enough.
Wow, that's a glowing recommendation.
Well, it started off with a bang and the suspense in the first half was great.
I couldn't put it down.
Then the pace changed in the second half and it was an effort to finish.
Really?
I read it a few months ago and I loved it.
I thought the characterization was really good.
I could really relate to the two main characters.
Yeah, that's true enough.
But the plot dragged, don't you think?
The author just couldn't pull it off, and the ending was laughable.
I really like the ending.
I can't wait for the sequel.
Well, that makes one of us.
The author of this fast-paced script today was Dr. Lucy Saye.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2008.
