Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 637, Planting Flowers and Trees.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 637.
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.
Download a learning guide for this episode that will help you improve your English and Make the sun shine brighter in the morning.
It's true.
This episode is a dialogue between Zuli and Eric about flowers and trees.
Let's get started.
Hurry up!
Mom will be home any minute and we're not done planting.
Whose idea was it, anyway, to plant a garden for Mom for her birthday?
We've been working under this hot sun all day and the smell of the fertilizer is really getting to me.
It was our idea, remember?
We both wanted to give Mom something special this year.
Look, we're almost done.
We've already picked the weeds, prepared the soil, and dug the holes for the new seeds and flowers.
I'm taking the flowers out of their pots now, and I'll have them in the ground in a minute.
After that, all we have left to do is to plant the new tree.
Keep digging.
Are you sure the hole needs to be this deep?
Yes.
The book says that the roots need to have room to grow.
That's the perfect place for it, too.
You'll get a lot of direct sunlight.
Great.
But my arms are so tired, they're about to fall off.
Move over.
I'll dig for a while.
Why don't you water the new flowers?
Sure, right after I take a little break.
In the meantime, I'll supervise.
Come on, keep digging.
You're almost there.
I think you better keep your mouth shut or I'll think of some new uses for that fertilizer.
Zuli and Eric are brother and sister.
Zuli says to Eric, hurry up, go faster.
Mom will be home any minute, meaning very soon, and we're not done planting.
To plant as a verb means to put seeds or plants into the ground so that they can grow, either to produce a flower or some kind of food, typically.
A seed is a very small part of a tree or plant that, when you put it in the ground, grows another tree or plant.
It's how, one way, how trees and plants reproduce, how you get more of them.
The verb then is to plant seeds, flowers, or trees, to put them in the ground.
Eric says, whose idea was it anyway to plant a garden for mom for her birthday?
A garden is an area often near your house where you grow plants, either flowers or food.
Many people grow certain kinds of food in gardens.
When I was young, we had a small garden where we had tomatoes and carrots and I think green onions.
I was never a very good gardener.
A gardener is someone who works in a garden.
A gardener, more commonly pronounced gardener, is also someone who you bring to your house to cut your grass and trees and so forth.
So Zuli and Eric are planting a garden.
That's what we would say to plant a garden for their mother.
He says we've been working under this hot sun all day And the smell of the fertilizer is really getting to me.
Fertilizer F-E-R-T-I-L-I-Z-E-R is often made from the waste of animals, if you understand what I mean.
When the animal goes to the bathroom, you take what comes out of the animal and you put it in your garden, because it will help the ground, the soil we would call it the dirt.
It will help it, give nutrients, give food to the plants.
That will then help the plant grow.
At least that's what I think happens.
I'm not a gardener.
To get to someone means to bother someone, especially after a long period of time.
My new colleague, my new co-worker, is really getting to me.
He's bothering me.
Well, Eric says that the smell of the fertilizer is getting to him.
Fertilizer doesn't smell very nice.
Zuli responds, it was our idea.
Both of us, remember?
We both wanted to give Mom something special this year.
Look, we're almost done.
We're almost finished.
We have almost completed the garden.
We've already picked the weeds, prepared the soil, and dug the holes for the new seeds and flowers.
Couple of words there.
We picked the weeds.
A weed W-E-E-D is a plant that you don't want, that you didn't put in your garden, but is growing there anyway.
That's a weed.
Weed, informally, slang, weed. also can mean marijuana, the drug that some people smoke.
In fact, there is a television show I think it's still running, it's still being shown called Weeds, about a family that grows marijuana.
Strange but true.
Well, here...
Zuli and Eric are trying to get rid of the weeds.
That's why Zuli says they have picked them, meaning they have taken them out of the ground.
They've also prepared the soil.
Soil, as I mentioned earlier, is another name for dirt or earth.
It's what you put the seeds into when you are planting them.
To dig, D-I-G, means to make a hole in the earth to usually put something in there.
The past tense of dig is dug, D-U-G.
Dig has other meanings, which you can find in our learning guide.
Seeds we've already mentioned also are a small part of the plant that has all of the necessary genetic information to reproduce or to make a new plant or a new tree.
A hole, you probably know, is an area with nothing in it, surrounded by something else.
You can have a hole in the wall.
You have the wall, but then you have a circle, let's say, that has nothing in it.
There's no wall.
That's a hole.
So Zuli says that we've already picked the weeds, prepared the soil and dug the holes for the new seeds and flowers.
I'm taking the flowers out of their pots now, and I'll have them in the ground in a minute.
A pot P-O-T is usually a round small container like a small bucket that you put soil into, dirt into, and you can grow a plant in this little pot.
And you can move the pot from one part of the house to another.
In this case, Zooli is planting flowers that are in small pots...
She will take them out of the pots and put them in the ground in the garden so they can grow bigger.
After putting the flowers in the ground, she says that all we have left to do is to plant the new tree.
The word left here is not the opposite of right.
Left here means remaining or still available.
For example, if you have five cookies and you eat two of the cookies, I can ask you how many cookies do you have left?
How many are remaining?
And the answer, of course, is is one because I ate two of them when you were not looking.
You have to be careful with me.
So Zuli is saying they're almost finished and tells Eric to keep digging, keep taking dirt out of the ground, making holes so they can plant the flowers.
Eric says, are you sure the hole needs to be this deep?
To be deep means to be below the surface, going far below something.
If you die and they bury your body, they will dig a deep grave.
A grave is a place where you put a dead body.
The grave has to be deep.
It has to be a hole that goes down far into the earth.
Eric is asking Zooli if the hole has to be very deep, this deep.
Zooli says yes.
The book says that the roots need to have room to grow.
The roots, R-O-O-T-S. of a plant or tree are the parts of the plant or tree that are below the ground that you can't see.
To grow is when a living thing becomes bigger, older.
Zule says they need these big holes, these deep holes, so that the roots have room to grow.
They have a place where they can grow.
Zuley says that's the perfect place for it, too.
It'll get lots of direct sunlight.
Sunlight is light from the sun, obviously.
Direct sunlight is when the sunlight goes right on it.
There's nothing in between it.
It's not blocked by anything else.
Eric says, great, but my arms are so tired they're about to fall off.
To fall off means they are about to come off of his body, to leave or become disconnected from his body.
Of course, Eric is joking.
It's just a way of expressing how tired he is.
Zulie says, move over.
I'll dig for a while.
Why don't you water the new flowers?
To water, as a verb, means to put water, usually on a plant or a tree or grass, to help it grow.
Eric says, sure, right after I take a little break.
I'm going to stop working right now, he says.
In the meantime, meaning while I am doing that, I'll supervise.
To supervise S-U-P-E-R-V-I-S-E means to manage, to watch how someone is doing something, to give them instructions.
It's what a boss does.
In fact, a person who supervises is often called a supervisor, ending in O-R.
Eric says, come on, keep digging.
You're almost there.
He's saying this to Zooli.
Zooli says, I think you'd better keep your mouth shut.
To keep your mouth shut means to stop talking.
Or I'll think of some new uses for that fertilizer.
She's basically saying to Eric if you don't be quiet, I may take this smelly, unpleasant fertilizer and perhaps throw it at you.
That's the way brother and sisters often act, of course.
I know that very well.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Hurry up.
Mom will be home any minute, and we're not done planting.
Whose idea was it anyway to plant a garden for Mom for her birthday?
We've been working under this hot sun all day and the smell of the fertilizer is really getting to me.
It was our idea, remember?
We both wanted to give Mom something special this year.
Look, we're almost done.
We've already picked the weeds, prepared the soil, and dug the holes for the new seeds and flowers.
I'm taking the flowers out of their pots now, and I'll have them in the ground in a minute.
After that, all we have left to do is to plant the new tree.
Keep digging.
Are you sure the hole needs to be this deep?
Yes, the book says that the roots need to have room to grow.
That's the perfect place for it, too.
It'll get a lot of direct sunlight.
Great, but my arms are so tired they're about to fall off.
Move over.
I'll dig for a while.
Why don't you water the new flowers?
Sure, right after I take a little break.
In the meantime, I'll supervise.
Come on, keep digging.
You're almost there.
I think you'd better keep your mouth shut, or I'll think of some new uses for that fertilizer.
If you want your English to grow like a beautiful flower, don't put fertilizer on it.
Instead, listen to the scripts by our own Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
I have no idea what I just said or what it means.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2010 by the Center for Educational Development.
