Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 447, Heating and Cooling a Home.
This is English as a Second Language podcast number 447.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
You can also take a look at our ESL podcast store, which has some additional courses in business and daily English.
We think you'll be interested in.
This podcast is a dialogue between Carla and Trent.
They're going to be using some common vocabulary to talk about heating making your house warmer or cooling making your house cooler.
Let's get started.
It's freezing in here.
Why is the air conditioner on?
I just finished exercising and I'm sweating like a pig.
That's no reason to turn the AC on full blast.
I'm cold.
I'm turning on the heat for a little while.
I'm no crazier than you are.
How come you can turn on the A.C. and I can't turn on the heat?
I only turned on the AC because it's so humid outside and it was taking a long time for me to cool down.
If you're cold, just open the windows and doors, and we'll get some ventilation in here.
It'll heat up again pretty quickly.
What should I do in the meantime?
Put on my winter coat or crawl under the covers?
Go sit outside.
I'll get myself a glass of iced tea and I'll get you a cup of hot tea.
How does that sound?
Leave it to you to come up with the best idea of the day.
Carla begins the dialogue by saying, It's freezing in here.
Freezing, in this case, means very cold, extremely cold.
It doesn't necessarily mean that the temperature is below 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius.
It just means it's very cold in here.
Carla asks, why is the air conditioner on?
The air conditioner, sometimes called simply the AC, is a machine that makes the air colder in a room.
It's something you would use during the warm season in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere.
Trent says, I just finished exercising and I'm sweating like a pig.
This is an expression to sweat, S-W-E-A-T, like a pig.
To sweat means that you have water that is coming out of small holes in your skin, what we call pores P-O-R-E-S.
And if you are exercising or working very hard, you may sweat.
Another verb for this is to perspire.
That sounds a little better.
Sweat is a little more informal.
Trent says he's sweating like a pig.
Carla says that's no reason to turn the AC on full blast.
That's no reason to do something is a phrase we use to show that what the other person is doing is unnecessary or silly, perhaps even illogical.
That's no reason to turn the AC on.
To turn something on means to start the machine running.
In this case, the machine is an air conditioner, the AC.
The expression full blast, B-L-A-S-T, means at the highest or most powerful setting, at full power.
So Trent has turned the air conditioning on to the coolest possible temperature and the highest possible fan setting.
The fan is the part of the machine that blows the air out of the machine.
Carla says, I'm cold.
I'm turning on the heat for a little while.
The heat in this case would simply mean the heater, a machine that warms your house.
Trent says, are you crazy?
It's 70 degrees outside.
A degree is a measurement of heat.
In the United States, we use Fahrenheit.
In most other countries, the degrees are measured in Celsius.
We're a little slow here in the United States.
Carla says, I'm no crazier than you are, meaning you are as crazy as I am.
How come, or why, you can turn on the AC and I can't turn on the heat?
Trent says Humid H-U-M-I-D means there's a lot of water in the air, a lot of water vapor in the air.
Trent says, it was taking a long time for me to cool down.
To cool down is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to help your body cool, become less hot.
To help your body, in this case, relax after exercising.
That's also called cooling down.
If you exercise very hard, you need to cool down.
Your body needs to cool down.
To cool down has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
Trent says, if you're cold, just open the windows and doors and we'll get some ventilation in here.
Ventilation is the movement of air within a room going in and out of a room.
Trent is suggesting Carla open the windows so they can get more movement of the air, which would heat the room up a little bit.
Trent says, it'll heat up again pretty quickly.
To heat up means to increase the temperature of something, to make something hotter.
In this case, the air in the room.
Notice that word up is used a lot with verbs in English to mean many different things.
Unfortunately there isn't one hint.
One thing I can tell you about what up means with the verb, because it means something different with each verb.
Typically, Carla says what should I do in the meantime?
The expression in the meantime means before something else happens, while you're waiting for something else to happen.
So, for example, if your wife or husband says to you, dinner will be prepared, will be done in 10 minutes.
In the meantime, please set the table.
Please put things on the table for us so that we can eat dishes, cups, that sort of thing.
In the meantime is that time before something else happens.
Well, Carla says, what should I do in the meantime?
Because, of course, she's cold.
She says, put on my winter coat or crawl under the covers.
She's saying, well, should I put on my winter jacket, my winter coat to keep me warm?
Or should I crawl under the covers?
To crawl, C-R-A-W-L, in this case means to go underneath the covers.
The covers are sheets blankets, what we call comforters, large blankets that keep you warm when you are sleeping on your bed.
So to crawl under means to get underneath, below, so that they are covering your body.
That's why they're called covers.
Cover has several different meanings in English, however, so take a look at that learning guide.
You know what you'll find there.
To crawl also can mean to get down on your hands and knees and slowly move your body forward.
A little baby usually starts crawling and then they start walking.
So they go from being on hands and knees to just being on their two legs.
Trent says, go sit outside.
I'll get myself a glass of iced tea and I'll get you a cup of hot tea.
How does that sound?
Carla says, leave it to you to come up with the best idea of the day.
The expression leave it to you to do something is a phrase we use to show that the other person has some special gift or talent for doing something or is very good at doing something.
Although it isn't necessarily always a compliment.
It isn't always a nice thing to say.
Someone may say to you, oh, leave it to you to get into an accident.
That means you have some sort of special talent for doing that, even though it's not a good thing.
But here, Carla is saying that Trent has come up with a good idea, the best idea of the day.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
It's freezing in here.
Why is the air conditioner on?
I just finished exercising and I'm sweating like a pig.
That's no reason to turn the AC on full blast.
I'm cold.
I'm turning on the heat for a little while.
Are you crazy?
It's 70 degrees outside.
I'm no crazier than you are.
How come you can turn on the AC and I can't turn on the heat?
I only turned on the AC because it's so humid outside and it was taking a long time for me to cool down.
If you're cold, just open the windows and doors, and we'll get some ventilation in here.
It'll heat up again pretty quickly.
What should I do in the meantime?
Put on my winter coat or crawl under the covers?
Go sit outside.
I'll get myself a glass of iced tea, and I'll get you a cup of hot tea.
How does that sound?
Leave it to you to come up with the best idea of the day.
Leave it to Dr. Lucy Say to come up with such a great script for this episode.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you 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.
Copyright 2009 by the Center for Educational Development.
