Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast, number 638, Fire and Firefighters.
This is English as a Second Language Podcast, episode 638.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
© transcript Emily Beynon The learning guide contains all of the vocabulary, definitions, sample sentences, additional definitions, culture notes, comprehension questions, and, yes, there's more, and a complete transcript of everything we say on this episode.
This episode is about fire and the people who try to put fires out to extinguish fires, as we'll learn.
Those are firefighters.
Let's get started.
Look, there's smoke coming from six stories up.
Yes, I know.
Didn't you hear the fire alarm go off upstairs a few minutes ago?
No, but I'm really glad there's a fire station only a few blocks away.
Hey, look!
There's the fire engine.
Here come the firefighters.
Yeah, let's get back to work.
I'm sure they'll have the blaze under control pretty quickly.
How can you work with all of this excitement?
Maybe I should get the fire extinguisher from the hallway and go upstairs to help.
I think that's a really bad idea.
You can see for yourself that the firefighters are getting ready to fight the fire.
They're getting the ladder out and attaching the fire hose to the hydrant.
Anyway, it's probably just a false alarm.
If the smoke detector went off, then I'm sure there's a fire.
We'll know if we start to see something burning near a window or ashes coming down.
I've never seen you like this before.
Why are you so excited?
I wanted to be a firefighter when I grew up.
I've always had a fascination with fire.
Ah, that explains it.
Would it make you feel better if I lit up a cigarette?
Rebecca begins by saying to Hugh, Look, there's smoke coming from six stories up.
Smoke is the gray or black air that comes from something that is burning.
It's something that comes from a fire.
Typically, where there's smoke, there's fire, is an old expression.
That means if you see some evidence of something, it's very likely that that something actually exists.
Typically, it refers to something bad that might be happening.
Well, here, the smoke is coming from the fire in a real way, literally.
The fire is in a building, and the building has six stories.
A story here means a floor or a level of a building.
Story has other meanings, of course, in English, and those can be found in this episode's learning guide.
Hugh says, yes, I know.
Didn't you hear the fire alarm go off upstairs a few minutes ago?
A fire alarm is a loud sound, sometimes with flashing lights, that is used to tell people, to let people know that there is a fire in the building and they should leave.
When I was growing up, and still I'm sure, in schools there are fire drills.
These are practice exercises of what to do, where to go, if there is a fire.
And so the school would turn on the fire alarm, and that would tell teachers and students that they needed to get up and leave the building.
This fire alarm is in a building, and Hugh says it goes off.
He said, didn't you hear the fire alarm go off?
To go off... is a two-word phrasal verb here, meaning for an alarm to begin making noise.
A fire alarm is just one kind of alarm.
Many of us have an alarm that helps us wake up in the morning, a sound that comes from your clock or clock radio.
That's also an alarm.
My alarm goes off at 5.45 in the morning.
This is a fire alarm.
And so the fire alarm went off.
Notice the past tense here.
To go off can also be used with the preposition on, meaning to start yelling at or to get mad at.
I don't want you going off on your brother.
I don't want you getting mad at your brother.
Or he went off on his wife for forgetting to buy his favorite food for dinner.
He, of course, is someone who will not be sleeping in his regular bed this evening.
Rebecca says, no, she didn't hear the fire alarm go off.
But I'm really glad there's a fire station only a few blocks away.
A fire station is a large building where firefighters stay and where there are large machines, large trucks really that are called fire engines.
And these fire engines go and try to put out, to extinguish, to get rid of fires.
Rebecca says, hey, look, there's the fire engine.
As I said, it's also called a fire truck.
Usually it's red in color.
She says, here come the firefighters.
Firefighters are people whose job it is to put out fires.
We used to call them simply firemen, but some people wanted a term that did not have the word man in it.
We won't talk about that issue here.
So now they're called more commonly firefighters.
The firefighters are coming.
Hugh says, let's get back to work, meaning let's return to our jobs.
I'm sure they'll have the blaze under control pretty quickly.
A blaze, B-L-A-Z-E, is a large fire, especially a big and dangerous one.
Hugh says that the firefighters will have the blaze under control, meaning they will be able to manage it.
They will be able to make sure that it doesn't get any bigger.
They'll have it under control pretty or very quickly.
Rebecca says, how can you work with all of this excitement?
Maybe I should get the fire extinguisher from the hallway and go upstairs to help.
A fire extinguisher is a metal, typically round container that you hold in your hands and and you press a button and it sprays out a chemical that helps put out a fire, a small fire like in your kitchen, for example.
Extinguisher comes from the verb to extinguish, which means to get rid of or put out a fire.
A fire extinguisher, of course, won't really help in this situation.
You need something larger.
Hugh says, I think that's a really bad idea.
You can see for yourself that the firefighters are getting ready to fight the fire.
We use that verb to fight when we are talking about putting out a fire.
They're getting the ladder out and attaching the fire hose to the hydrant.
A ladder L-A-D-D-E-R allows you to climb up high, For example to the top of a building.
A ladder has two long pieces of metal or wood that are vertical.
They go up and down.
And then they are connected by smaller horizontal pieces of wood or metal.
And those are the ones you use to step on to go up to a higher level.
Fire engines have ladders that can allow the firefighters to go up high to help fight the fires.
They are getting the ladder out, meaning they are getting it ready and attaching or connecting the fire hose to the hydrant.
A hydrant, H-Y-D-R-A-N-T, is something that you will find near the road, near a street.
It is usually painted red, sometimes orange, maybe yellow.
It is connected to the water pipes underneath the street and firefighters can open the hydrant and water will come out and they use that water to put out the fire.
They use a fire hose, which is a long flexible, usually plastic tube that carries the water from the hydrant to the place of the fire.
Hughes says...
Anyway, it's probably just a false alarm.
A false alarm is when people think there's a fire but there really isn't.
It can also be used to talk about a situation where people think there's a big problem, but there really isn't.
I thought my friend was having a heart attack, but he wasn't.
It was a false alarm.
Rebecca says The smoke detector is a small device that you find in buildings and homes that makes a very loud noise when there is smoke in the air, letting people know that there may be a fire.
Remember where there's smoke, there's fire.
Well, this smoke detector detects or figures out whether there is smoke in the air and makes a loud sound.
Rebecca says, if the smoke detector went off remember we talked about to go off earlier then I'm sure there's a fire.
We'll know if we start to see something burning near a window or ashes coming down.
Burning comes from the verb to burn, which is when something is damaged or destroyed by fire.
Ashes, A-S-H-E-S are gray or black pieces of powder that are left after something burns, especially wood or paper.
You get lots of ashes.
Hugh says, I've never seen you like this before.
I guess Hugh's very excited because his voice went up there.
Why are you so excited?
Rebecca says, I wanted to be a You spend a lot of time thinking about something.
Hugh says, Ah, that explains it.
Traditionally, we think about boys thinking about becoming firemen when they grow up.
That's kind of a classic, at least in the United States, dream that some young boys have.
But Rebecca says she wanted to be a firefighter when she was growing up.
Hugh says, ah, that explains it.
That tells me the reason why you are excited.
Then he tries to make a joke.
He says, Would it make you feel better if I lit up a cigarette?
Lit up comes from to light up.
Light is the present tense.
You can also say lighted up.
Both are correct, lit or lighted.
To light up a cigarette means to burn a small fire at the end of a cigarette so that you can smoke it.
Now, the interesting thing here is that Hugh wants to go back to work, even though there is a fire in the same building where he is working, at six floors up.
I guess Hugh really loves his job.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Look, there's smoke coming from six stories up.
Yes, I know.
Didn't you hear the fire alarm go off upstairs a few minutes ago?
No, but I'm really glad there's a fire station only a few blocks away.
Hey, look, there's the fire engine.
Here come the firefighters.
Yeah, let's get back to work.
I'm sure they'll have the blaze under control pretty quickly.
How can you work with all this excitement?
Maybe I should get the fire extinguisher from the hallway and go upstairs to help.
I think that's a really bad idea.
You can see for yourself that the firefighters are getting ready to fight the fire.
They're getting the ladder out and attaching the fire hose to the hydrant.
Anyway, it's probably just a false alarm.
If the smoke detector went off, then I'm sure there's a fire.
We'll know if we start to see something burning near a window or ashes coming down.
I've never seen you like this before.
Why are you so excited?
I wanted to be a firefighter when I grew up.
I've always had a fascination with fire.
Ah, that explains it.
Would it make you feel better if I lit up a cigarette?
If you have a fascination with English, you should definitely listen to the scripts that are written by our own Dr.
Lucy Say like this episode's.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again on ESL Podcasts.
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.
