Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast, episode 666, Traveling to Less Popular Sites.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 666.
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 a learning guide for this episode, an 8-10 page PDF file that will improve your English and bring happiness to everyone around you.
This episode is a dialogue between vanessa and justin.
It's a travel episode that will be using vocabulary related to going to places that are not very popular for vacations.
Let's get started.
Put away that guidebook.
I want our vacation to be exciting and unique, not cookie-cutter.
Tourists all visit the same sites.
I want to explore and go to some places off the beaten path.
That would be fine, except we've never traveled to Podville before and we don't speak the language.
How are we going to make our way around if we don't plan out our trip?
We'll be fine.
Stop worrying.
We spent too much time planning.
Let's just fly by the seat of our pants.
You really want to just go unprepared?
That's just not sensible.
Anything could happen.
I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
We just need to meet some locals and they'll be able to tell us about the hidden, secluded and offbeat sites.
Those are the ones I want to see.
You can explore all you like, but I'm bringing some insurance.
What insurance?
I'm bringing two guidebooks and this phone number.
Phone number for what?
The phone number for the American Embassy.
That's where I plan to go for help when you get lost off the beaten path.
Vanessa begins our dialogue by saying to Justin, Put away that guidebook.
Put away means stop using it.
Put it down.
Put it back into your bag.
A guidebook one word is a small book that describes interesting things to do and places to visit when you are traveling.
So you might buy a guidebook to Los Angeles.
It would have hotels and restaurants, places where you can visit, and It's often very useful to have a book like this when you are traveling to tell you what you should see and where you should go.
Vanessa says I want our vacation to be exciting and unique, meaning different, unlike anything else.
Not, she says, cookie cutter vacation.
Cookie, C-O-O-K-I-E, cutter, C-U-T-T-E-R, is when everything is the same, when it isn't original, when it is a copy of something else.
Literally, a cookie cutter is a small piece of plastic or metal in a certain shape.
And when you are making small sweets for dessert called cookies, you often make them in a certain shape.
And to make sure that they all look the same.
For example, at Christmas time you might have a cookie cutter that looks like Santa Claus.
You use the cookie cutter to make sure all the cookies look exactly the same.
But we use it more generally as a term meaning unoriginal, just like everything or everyone else.
Vanessa, who's very hard to please, I think, very hard to make happy.
Maybe Justin should be looking for someone else at this point.
Vanessa says tourists all visit the same sites.
A site is S-I-T-E is a place or a location that is visited, especially by a tourist, someone vacationing in a certain area.
Notice it's pronounced the same as sight, S-I-G-H-T, which refers to your ability to see.
Vanessa says I want to explore meaning.
I want to experience an area, not by reading it in a book, but by going out and walking around, discovering on my own what is there.
She says she wants to go to some places off the beaten path.
This expression, to be off the beaten, B-E-A-T-E-N, path, P-A-T-H, is to go somewhere that is unusual or uncommon, somewhere that is not popular.
A path is the same as a trail.
It's a place where you walk.
A beaten path would be one where a lot of people have gone before you.
So if you go up into say, the mountains, you may see a path where other people have walked before you.
Unbeaten path would be a path where people have not gone before you and therefore it is not common, not usual.
That's what Vanessa wants.
She wants excitement, just like all women, don't you think?
Justin says, that would be fine.
That would be okay.
Except we've never traveled to Podville before.
Podville is not a real place.
And we don't speak the language.
We don't speak the language they speak in Podville.
How are we going to make our way around if we don't plan out our trip?
To make your way around means to be able to go somewhere that you are not familiar with perhaps, but not get lost.
To be able to find out where you have to go in an unfamiliar place.
To plan out is a two-word phrasal verb, meaning to have a plan for what you are going to do.
Have an idea about where you're going to go first, what time you're going to go, and so forth.
You have the details of what you are going to do.
Plan has a couple of different meanings.
Some of them are found in the learning guide.
So Justin thinks they should plan out their trip.
Vanessa says, we'll be fine.
We'll be okay.
Stop worrying.
We spend too much time planning, too much time thinking about what we want to do.
Let's just fly by the seat of our pants.
Let's just means why don't we or I want to have us do this.
What she wants them to do is to fly by the seat of their pants, P-A-N-T-S.
Well, your pants are things that you wear that go on your legs.
And the seat of your pants would be where you sit down that part of your pants your behind your rear, what we might informally call your butt B-U-T-T.
However, the expression to fly by the seat of your pants means to do things without planning, to do things spontaneously.
That is, you don't worry about it.
You just go and you do something because you feel like doing it.
There's no planning involved.
You're not, of course, actually flying up in an airplane.
It's just an expression, to do something without planning it.
Justin says That's just not sensible.
Something that is sensible is something that is reasonable, something that makes sense, that is logical.
Justin says anything could happen.
Vanessa says I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
To lose sleep over something means means to spend a lot of time worrying about it, being very anxious about it.
You're so anxious, you're so worried, you can't even sleep because you keep thinking about it.
But Vanessa is not going to lose sleep over this thing or about this thing.
She says, Locals, L-O-C-A-L-S, are people who live permanently in a certain area.
Vanessa wants to meet some locals...
So she can ask them about hidden, secluded, offbeat sights.
Something that is hidden is something that you cannot see.
More generally, it's something that is secret.
Not a lot of people know about it.
Secluded S-E-C-L-U-D-E-D is very private and quiet, away from other people, a place that is not close to anyone else.
Offbeat.
One word means somewhat unusual, something that is interesting but not the normal kind of thing you might go see.
So that's what Vanessa wants, the hidden, secluded, and offbeat sights.
Those are the ones I want to see.
Justin says you can explore all you like all you want but I'm bringing some insurance.
Insurance is normally something you buy from a company in case you have an accident or something goes wrong.
You can have health insurance.
If you get sick the insurance will pay for your medical care.
Here, insurance is used more generally to mean something that will protect you from problems, something that will give you a guarantee, in case something goes wrong, that things will be okay.
Vanessa asks, what insurance?
Justin says, I'm bringing two guidebooks and this phone number.
Vanessa says, phone number for what?
Which phone number?
Justin says, the phone number for the American Embassy.
An embassy E-M-B-A-S-S-Y is the official presence of another country In your country.
Usually, the embassies are located in the capital of the country.
So in Washington, D.C., there is a Russian embassy.
That's the building where the Russian representatives, the diplomats we would call them, are working, and perhaps some of them living there.
Embassies are usually considered in some ways property of the other country and are protected by international law.
The US embassy or American embassy would be the American place in a country where the American diplomats and representatives are.
Justin says, that's where I plan to go for help when you get lost off the beaten path.
To get lost means to become confused and not know where you are, usually because you are somewhere that you are not used to, that you are not familiar with.
Justin says he's going to call the American embassy when Vanessa gets lost off the beaten path, going somewhere that is not popular.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Put away that guidebook.
I want our vacation to be exciting and unique, not cookie cutter.
Tourists all visit the same sites.
I want to explore and go to some places off the beaten path.
That would be fine, except we've never traveled to Podville before and we don't speak the language.
How are we going to make our way around if we don't plan out our trip?
We'll be fine.
Stop worrying.
We spend too much time planning.
Let's just fly by the seat of our pants.
You really want to just go unprepared?
That's just not sensible.
Anything could happen.
I'm not going to lose sleep over it.
We just need to meet some locals and they'll be able to tell us about the hidden, secluded and offbeat sites.
Those are the ones I want to see.
You can explore all you like, but I'm bringing some insurance.
What insurance?
I'm bringing two guidebooks and this phone number.
Phone number for what?
The phone number for the American Embassy.
That's where I plan to go for help when you get lost off the beaten path.
There's nothing cookie cutter about the scripts for our podcast.
That's because they're written by someone who never flies by the seat of her pants, Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2011 by the Center for Educational Development.
