Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 942, Daily Chores on a Farm.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 942.
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.
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This dialogue is between Cesar and Carol about working on a farm, a place where they have animals and other exciting things.
Let's get started.
Rise and Shine It's time to get to work.
What?
It's four o'clock in the morning.
The sun isn't even up yet.
You live on a farm now.
We have a lot of chores to do before sunup and we need to start doing them now.
I'll milk the cows later.
Let me sleep to a decent hour.
Alright, you can milk the cows a little later, but we have to feed and water the animals now.
We also have to clean out the stalls and groom the animals before we start repairs on the fences.
Because we'll need daylight hours to tend to the crops.
We're done with planting, but will need to do the watering and weeding.
Just be glad that the harvest is three months away.
I don't think I'm cut out to be a farmhand.
But I thought I'd spend the days learning how to ride horses.
City Girls Our dialogue begins with Cesar saying to Carol, rise and shine.
This expression rise R-I-S-E and shine S-H-I-N-E is used when you want to wake someone up, someone who is sleeping.
This is especially used when you want to seem very happy, when you want to seem what we would call cheerful.
Rise and shine, everyone.
You are telling everyone to wake up.
Sometimes it's used sarcastically or jokingly.
When you are telling someone that they have been sleeping too long, you might say this to your children, for example, on Saturday morning.
If they are sleeping too late, you might say, rise and shine, everyone.
Typically, it's used when you have somewhere to go or something to do and you need everyone to wake up in order to do it.
The verb to rise means to get up, to get out of your bed.
Shine here, I guess, could mean happy.
If you're telling someone to shine, you want them to do well.
You want them to be smiling, perhaps.
Caesar is telling Carol to rise and shine because it's time to get to work.
Carol says, what?
It's 4 o'clock in the morning.
It's 4 a.m.
The sun isn't even up yet.
When we say the sun is up, we mean the sun is in the sky.
It is no longer nighttime.
Cesar says, you live on a farm now.
A farm is a place where...
You grow plants for food.
You can also have animals that are also used to produce food.
Sometimes the animals are the food.
Chickens, for example, produce eggs, which you can eat.
And then you can eat the chicken.
Cesar and Carol are on a farm.
Cesar says we have a lot of chores to do before sunup, and we need to start doing them now.
Chores C-H-O-R-E-S are tasks that you have to perform, especially when related to cleaning or taking care of something such as your house or, in this case, animals.
Farm chores would probably be related to doing things that are required to keep the farm operating.
In general, the word chore is used for a task that is not very pleasant, that you don't really want to do.
Cesar says that he and Carol have to do these chores before sunup.
S-U-N-U-P.
Sunup is sunrise, the time when the sun appears in the sky and the day begins.
Carol says, I'll milk the cows later.
To milk, M-I-L-K, a cow, C-O-W, is to take your hands or to use a machine to take milk from a cow.
A cow is an animal that produces milk.
We also get beef from a cow.
We call the meat of a cow beef. steaks, hamburgers, that sort of thing.
That meat is called beef and it comes from a cow.
Milk is also a noun referring to the liquid that comes out of a cow.
You can also have other kinds of milk from other animals, such as goat's milk.
Carol says she'll milk the cows later.
Let me sleep to a decent hour, she says.
A decent, D-E-C-E-N-T, hour here means a time that isn't too early or too late.
A time that is considered normal for doing certain kinds of tasks.
Caesar says all right, you can milk the cows a little later, but we have to feed and water the animals now.
To feed F-E-E-D and water the animals means to take care of the animals by giving them food to eat and fresh water to drink.
Cesar says we also have to clean out the stalls and groom the animals before we start repairs on the fences.
To clean out is a two-word phrasal verb that means basically the same as to clean.
The word out is just used for emphasis.
It could mean to completely remove everything from a place.
I'm going to clean out my desk means I'm going to remove everything from my desk.
That's what you do if you lose your job.
You have to clean out your desk.
Here we're talking about making something cleaner, getting rid of the dirt and whatever else is there.
Cesar and Carol need to clean out the stalls, S-T-A-L-L-S.
A stall is a small section, a small area in a barn that is separated from other areas by a wall and is used usually to keep an animal in, such as a horse.
A barn is a large building where you keep animals and farm equipment.
The verb to groom, G-R-O-O-M, means to clean an animal often including brushing its fur, its hair.
It may also mean to do other things to the animal in order to keep it clean and healthy.
The verb to groom can also be used with humans.
You can talk about grooming yourself.
That might include cutting your hair, shaving, making sure you look handsome or pretty.
I try to groom myself so that I don't look too ugly.
I look ugly even after I groom myself, but not as ugly as I would if I didn't groom myself.
The word groom, interestingly enough, is also used for a man who is about to get married.
The woman is called a bride, B-R-I-D-E, and the man is called a groom.
I'm not sure if there's a connection there between husbands and animals, quite possibly.
Cesar says they need to groom the animals before we start repairs on the fences.
A fence, F-E-N-C-E, is a short wall that goes around a certain area, a certain piece of property.
That is usually made from wood or metal.
A fence is designed either to keep something in, such as your animals, so they don't escape, or to keep something out, such as your neighbors.
That's a fence.
There's an old expression, good fences make good neighbors.
Meaning, be careful what kind of fence you put up to separate you from your neighbor.
You want to make sure that you don't make them angry by putting up your fence.
I made my former neighbor angry by putting up a fence, but that's another story.
Carol says, why can't we do those things when the sun is up and we can see what we're doing?
Cesar says, because we'll need daylight hours to tend to the crops.
Carol wants to wait until the sun is up.
But Cesar says no, we have to save that time, those daylight hours, to tend to or take care of the crops.
The term daylight hours refers to the time of the day when the sun is out, when the sun is in the sky.
Crops.
C-R-O-P-S refers to plants that you grow in order to eat, or sometimes, to make clothing or, for some of you, to smoke.
Cesar says, we're done with the planting, but we'll need to do the watering and weeding.
Just be glad that the harvest is three months away.
Planting refers to putting seeds in the ground so that you can grow new plants.
You can also plant a plant.
The word plant can be used as a noun to refer to the things that grow out of the ground.
It's also used here as a verb, meaning to put things into the ground so that they grow.
Cesar says they need to do the watering and weeding thing.
To weed W-E-E-D means to get rid of the unwanted plants, the plants that you don't want from your garden or from your farm.
Caesar says, just be glad, meaning you should be happy, that the harvest is three months away.
The harvest H-A-R-V-E-S-T is the process of taking all the plants out of where they are growing out of the fields, we would say and bringing them in so you can sell them or eat them or do whatever you're going to do with them.
Carol says, I don't think I'm cut out to be a farmhand.
The expression to be cut out to be something means to be qualified or prepared to do something.
Perhaps you don't have the interest, or you don't have the right attitude, or simply you don't have the skills to do something.
I am not cut out to be a professional baseball player.
I would like to be, but I am not cut out to be.
I don't have the preparation or the skills.
But I can watch baseball on television, so that's almost as good as being a real player.
Carol says she's not cut out to be a farmhand, F-A-R-M-H-A-N-D, one word.
A farmhand is a person who works on a farm, especially one who does physical work, physical labor we would call it.
Cesar says you should have thought of that before agreeing to spend the summer at your uncle's farm.
Carol, we now learn, is spending the summer, staying for the months of June, July and August at her uncle's farm.
Carol says, but I thought I'd spend the days learning how to ride horses.
Carol thought that going to a farm was going to mean riding horses and doing fun things, not getting up early and milking the cows.
Cesar ends our dialogue by saying, city girls.
A city girl or a city boy is an insulting phrase to describe someone who lives in a city and doesn't know anything about farming.
People who live on farms.
Would use this term about people who live in cities and don't know how to do anything that needs to be done on a farm.
I am, for example, definitely a city boy.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Rise and shine, it's time to get to work.
What?
It's four o'clock in the morning.
The sun isn't even up yet.
You live on a farm now.
We have a lot of chores to do before sunup, and we need to start doing them now.
I'll milk the cows later.
Let me sleep to a decent hour.
All right.
You can milk the cows a little later, but we have to feed and water the animals now.
We also have to clean out the stalls and groom the animals before we start repairs on the fences.
Why can't we do those things when the sun is up and we can see what we're doing?
Because we'll need daylight hours to tend to the crops.
We're done with planting, but we'll need to do the watering and weeding.
Just be glad that the harvest is three months away.
I don't think I'm cut out to be a farmhand.
You should have thought of that before agreeing to spend the summer at your uncle's farm.
Now move.
But I thought I'd spend the days learning how to ride horses.
City girls.
Thanks to our city girl script writer, Dr Lucy Say, for milking the English cow in order to feed us another wonderful dialogue.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
