Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 723.
Things Associated with Autumn This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 723.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is called Things Associated with Autumn or Fall, the season that in the United States comes between the months, of say, September and December.
We're going to talk about vocabulary, things that we would talk about or relate to the fall or autumn.
Let's get started.
Smell that.
Smell what?
Can't you smell the changing of the seasons?
I love autumn.
The fall colors are out and there's a chill in the air.
That means I'll be raking leaves every weekend when I should be watching football.
How can you be so grumpy when you see cute little squirrels squirreling away their nuts for the winter?
That just means they're running across the roof even more often waking me up every morning.
Not even you can put a damper on my good mood.
I can't wait for homecoming games and especially the harvest festivals.
There'll be hay rides, bonfires, and s'mores.
As you know, I have hay allergies.
And those bonfires are a danger to the environment.
And I don't like s'mores in the summer or in the fall.
How can you be such a party pooper?
The only good thing about the fall is that it's right before winter when bears go into hibernation, so I won't have to worry about running into one.
Hey, what's this?
This is a cup of hot chocolate to put you in the fall mood.
Drink up and we'll go for a walk outside.
It's a beautiful day and a walk will help you see all that you're missing.
I'll drink the hot chocolate, but don't expect any epiphanies.
Aaron begins by saying to Sean, smell that.
Sean says, smell what?
Aaron says, can't you smell the changing of the seasons?
The seasons are the four periods of the year, summer, spring, fall, and winter.
The changing of the seasons is when we go from one season to another.
Aaron says can't you smell the changing of the seasons?
I love autumn.
Autumn is another word for fall.
Aaron says the fall colors are out and there's a chill in the air.
Fall colors refer to the leaves on the trees that in many parts of the country in the US change colors in the fall as the leaves begin to die and fall to the ground during winter.
Autumn is full of fall colors in the northeastern and midwestern parts of the US, and also in parts of California.
When I was growing up, you could drive out into the country or along one of Minnesota's rivers and see the beautiful orange and yellow of the trees as the leaves changed or turned colors.
So that's what fall colors refer to.
A chill is a low temperature when it isn't warm out.
It isn't freezing.
It's somewhat between warm and freezing, but on the cold side.
So a little cold.
Sean says, that means I'll be raking leaves every weekend when I should be watching football.
To rake R-A-K-E leaves means to collect the leaves that fall off of the trees, to collect them from your lawn, the grass in front or behind your house, to collect them all together and to either put them in a bag to get rid of them, or some people use them as part of their fertilizing process to put them back into the ground after treating them somehow.
When I was a child, sometimes we would burn the leaves, put them all in one big pile and burn them.
They don't do that very much anymore.
It's not safe, and it also causes a certain amount of smoke pollution.
But that's what it means to rake leaves.
There's a noun, rake, which refers to the tool, the thing that you use.
It's sort of like a broom, and you use it to move the leaves to put them all into one place.
So to rake as a verb means to use that plastic or metal tool to clean off the leaves, if you will, from your lawn or grass.
Aaron is excited about the autumn coming.
Sean however, sees the negative side, that he will have to rake leaves again instead of watching American football, which traditionally is played in the fall and early winter.
Aaron says How can you be so grumpy when you see cute little squirrels squirreling away their nuts for the winter?
To be grumpy G-R-U-M-P-Y means to be annoyed angry, not really mad, just sort of negative about things, not being nice to other people, perhaps being overly sensitive to other people's remarks.
That's grumpy.
It might be the way a wife describes her husband when he is not in a good mood, when he isn't feeling well, for example.
Aaron says that there are little squirrels squirreling away their nuts for the winter.
A squirrel is a small animal that likes to climb trees and eat nuts and seeds.
I grew up in Minnesota where there are lots of squirrels.
To squirrel away, as a verb, means to save, to store for later, to keep for the future.
The idea is that that's what squirrels do.
They gather food for the wintertime.
To squirrel away means to save for something, to save up, we might say.
Sean says that just means they, the squirrels, are running across the roof.
Even more, waking me up in the morning.
He's saying that because the squirrels are going to be so active trying to save food for the wintertime.
They will be running on top of his house and he will
I have squirrels that climb on the top of my house all the time and you can hear their little feet as they run across the roof.
Aaron says, not even you can put a damper on my good mood.
To put a damper D-A-M-P-E-R on something means to lessen or reduce someone's interest or enthusiasm or excitement.
The heavy storm put a damper on the outside party.
It lessened people's enthusiasm for something.
Aaron says that not even Sean and his grumpy mood can put a damper on her good mood.
The word damper, along with the word chill, has some other meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations of those.
Aaron says, I can't wait for homecoming games and especially the harvest festivals.
A homecoming game is an event in a high school or at a university.
Typically in the fall that includes some sort of sports game and usually a dance or some sort of party.
The word homecoming comes from come home.
In this case former students, people who used to go to a school are invited back on homecoming day or homecoming weekend to go to the sports game, often an American football game and then to a party, although usually they don't go to the parties.
That's just for the current students.
Homecoming is a big event in most American high schools and in many American colleges and universities.
There are dances, there are all sorts of things associated with that custom.
A harvest festival celebrates the time when farmers go out into the fields and get the food that has grown during the summertime.
We call that the harvest.
To harvest as a verb means to go out and collect the food, the corn, the wheat, other food that you are growing, and bring it in.
And it is popular in many places.
Again, I can speak mostly for my own experience in the Midwest.
There are lots of harvest festivals in the fall, in September and October, celebrating the end of the growing season and, of course, giving thanks was the original idea for the food that one has received or one has taken from the fields from where the food grows.
She says there'll be hayrides, bonfires, and s'mores.
A hayride H-A-Y-R-I-D-E is when you sit on a long, flat trailer that's being pulled by either some sort of farm machinery like a tractor or horses, and it's basically a form of entertainment.
You go for a little ride out into the countryside or into the farm.
We used to go on hay rides.
When I was a child, we would go out away from the city, and you could have a hay ride.
Usually it was organized by some sort of group and everybody paid a small amount of money to go on this hayride.
Bonfires, B-O-N-F-I-R-E-S, are large fires outdoors.
You remember I mentioned about burning the leaves when I was a child.
Well, if you did that outdoors, out in the field somewhere, we might call that a bonfire, if it's a large fire.
It's a controlled fire.
It's not just burning everything around.
It's in one specific small area.
S'mores, S-apostrophe-M-O-R-E-S, is a kind of dessert made in the summertime and in the fall with marshmallows, a piece of chocolate, and two crackers, what we call graham crackers.
It's like a little chocolate and marshmallow sandwich.
It sounds disgusting, doesn't sound very good, but it tastes okay.
Sean says, allergies is a physical condition where you have a reaction to certain substances.
It could be some parts of a flower.
It could be a type of food.
Some people have food allergies to peanuts, for example.
He Sean, has hay allergies, what we more commonly would call hay fever, even though it isn't a fever.
You don't have a high temperature like you would normally in a fever fever.
Sean says the bonfires are a danger to the environment because of all the smoke, which is why in many places you can no longer have a bonfire in the United States anyway.
Aaron says, how can you be such a party pooper?
A party.
Hyphen pooper P-O-O-P-E-R says, is a person who ruins other people's fun, someone who's negative, who doesn't participate or doesn't want anyone else to have fun at a party or some celebration.
Sean says the only good thing about the fall is that it's right before winter when bears go into hibernation.
Hibernation is a long period of time when animals like bears sleep, usually during the coldest part of the year.
Sean says, because the bears are in hibernation, he won't have to worry about running into one that is unexpectedly finding one which, of course, might be dangerous.
Then he says, hey, what's this?
Erin says, this is a cup of hot chocolate to put you in the fall mood.
Hot chocolate is liquid, usually water or milk, mixed with chocolate and heated up.
She says, drink up, meaning drink it all, and we'll go for a walk outside.
It's a beautiful day, and a walk will help you see all that you are missing.
Sean says, An epiphany I-P-I-P-H-A-N-Y is when you have a sudden understanding of something, an experience that somehow makes you understand something that you never understood before.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Smell that.
Smell what?
Can't you smell the changing of the seasons?
I love autumn.
The fall colors are out and there's a chill in the air.
That means I'll be raking leaves every weekend when I should be watching football.
How can you be so grumpy when you see cute little squirrels squirreling away their nuts for the winter?
That just means they're running across the roof even more often waking me up every morning.
Not even you can put a damper on my good mood.
I can't wait for homecoming games, and especially the harvest festivals.
There'll be hay rides, bonfires, and s'mores.
As you know, I have hay allergies, and those bonfires are a danger to the environment.
And I don't like s'mores in the summer or in the fall.
How can you be such a party pooper?
The only good thing about the fall is that it's right before winter when bears go into hibernation, so I won't have to worry about running into one.
Hey, what's this?
This is a cup of hot chocolate to put you in the fall mood.
Drink up and we'll go for a walk outside.
It's a beautiful day, and a walk will help you see all that you're missing.
I'll drink the hot chocolate, but don't expect any epiphanies.
Our scriptwriter is never grumpy.
She's always a happy person.
She's Dr. Lucy Say, and we thank her.
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.
