Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast.
Number 1000.
Reaching a Milestone.
CHOIR SINGS
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1000.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in Boston.
Beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
I thought we'd do something a little special in the introduction to this 1,000th episode.
This is a dialogue between Jeff and Lucy... about reaching a milestone.
Let's get started.
Well, we've reached a milestone.
Yep, it's been a long haul, but we finally made it.
Did you ever think we'd get here?
At the beginning, I was really dubious that this venture would pan out.
I thought that our prospects were iffy at best.
Me too.
We didn't have an auspicious start, but we had a turning point after a few months of grinding out the work, day in and day out.
So what should we do now?
I think we both deserve a celebratory drink, a toast to our achievements so far.
That sounds good.
Then what?
Put our noses back to the grindstone?
I was afraid you were going to say that.
We begin this episode with Jeff, that's me, saying to Lucy...
Well, we've reached a milestone.
A milestone M-I-L-E-S-T-O-N-E is some significant event or achievement that indicates that you are making progress towards some goal.
We often use this term in business nowadays when talking about project management or project planning.
When you have a big project, there are many things you have to do, many things you have to accomplish.
Typically you will divide up the different things you need to do and put them on a schedule so that, for example, by next Friday you will have completed this task and by the Friday after that you will have completed that task, and so forth.
These are milestones that you are setting up, that you are establishing, that you want to reach by a certain date or day.
I begin the dialogue by saying that we have reached a milestone.
Lucy says, yep.
That's an informal way of saying yes or yeah.
Yup, Y-U-P.
It's been a long haul, but we finally made it.
A long haul H-A-U-L is a long and difficult or challenging period of time that you have to go through in order to reach your goal, to reach your objective or, in this case, to reach your milestone of 1000 episodes.
Of course,
Lucy says it's been a long haul.
It's been a difficult journey.
It's been a long journey, but we have made it, she says.
We've finally made it.
To make it means to achieve your goal, to accomplish what you wanted to accomplish, to reach the milestone in your project as you are making progress towards the final goal, goal or objective.
Lucy says, did you ever think we'd get here?
She's asking me if I ever thought we would get to this particular milestone.
And I say, quite honestly, I admit I had my doubts.
When we say I admit doubts, We're saying that what we are about to say is something that we may not have wanted to say or perhaps are embarrassed to say.
Here it perhaps means to be really honest with you.
I say, I admit I had my doubts.
At the beginning, I was really dubious that this venture would pan out.
To be dubious D-U-B-I-O-U-S means to be full of doubts, to be uncertain, not to be sure if something is going to happen or if something is true.
I say I was really dubious that this venture would pan out.
A venture.
V-E-N-T-U-R-E is an effort to do something that is challenging or difficult, especially as it relates to a business, for example, or an organization.
If someone talks about starting a new venture, they're talking about starting a new organization or, more commonly, a new business.
We have the expression venture capitalists.
A venture capitalist is someone who goes out and invests in, gives money to new businesses in the hope of that the business will be successful and that venture capitalists will get his or her money back, plus a profit, of course.
I say I was dubious that this venture would pan out.
To pan, P-A-N, out is a two-word phrasal verb.
Meaning to be successful, especially in making something financially successful or in some other way successful.
You could also talk about your relationship not panning out.
I went out on a date with this girl, but it didn't pan out.
She didn't like me.
She had another boyfriend.
You know, the usual excuses.
I say, I thought that our prospects were iffy at best.
Your prospects, P-R-O-S-P-E-C-T-S, are the chances that you are going to do well.
It's the likelihood of future success.
In sports...
We sometimes talk about prospects to refer to young baseball players who are very talented and who we think will be successful in the future.
You could also talk about your prospects for employment, for getting a job.
If someone graduates with a degree in I don't know ancient history, or that person might not have very good prospects for the future.
That's me, by the way.
I graduated with a degree in ancient history many years ago.
Not two thousand years ago, but many years ago.
I say that I thought our prospects were iffy at best.
Iffy, I-F-F-Y, means doubtful, not certain.
It's somewhat of an informal term that we would use when we are not sure something is going to happen.
When we are doubtful something will happen.
We might say I want to try this new restaurant today, but it's a bit iffy, or it seems a little iffy.
We mean it could be very good or it could be very bad.
We're not sure.
At best means at the most.
When I say our prospects were iffy at best, I mean that they were At most doubtful, meaning they were very doubtful.
The best case scenario, the best possible outcome or situation was in this case iffy.
You might say, for example, we'll probably make $200 today at best.
At best there means the maximum amount, the most that we will make.
Lucy says, me too.
She agrees our prospects were iffy at best.
She says we didn't have an auspicious start but we had a turning point after a few months of grinding out the work day in and day out.
When you say you have an auspicious A-U-S-P-I-C-I-O-U-S start to something, you mean you have a good beginning, a favorable beginning, a beginning that indicates that things will turn out well.
However, In our case, Lucy says we did not have an auspicious start, but we had a turning point.
A turning point is some event or situation that causes you suddenly to become very successful or not very successful.
In general, it means that you have some event that causes things to change significantly from the way they were going before that event.
If your girlfriend says we've reached a turning point in our relationship, she means either things are going to get much better or they're going to get much worse.
I don't know, it depends on your girlfriend.
The turning point would be a sudden change or a significant change, something important that will affect the way things are going, or rather the way things will go in the future.
We had a turning point in this venture after a few months of grinding out the work.
To grind G-R-I-N-D out is a phrasal verb meaning to continue to do something, especially if it perhaps isn't very interesting or if it requires a lot of work, or possibly both.
To grind out something means to work hard and get it done, even if it isn't always the most pleasant or pleasurable thing to do.
That's not true with our podcast, of course.
But in the script Lucy says that we had a turning point after a few months of grinding out the work, day in and day out.
That expression, day in and day, D-A-Y, out, means day after day.
It's a phrase that we use to emphasize that something happens every day without rest.
Day in and day out.
You get up in the morning and you eat breakfast and you go to work.
And you come home and you read a book or watch television and you eat your dinner and you go to bed.
That happens day in and day out for many people.
Jeff, that's me again, says, what should we do now?
Lucy says, I think we both deserve a celebratory drink, a toast to our achievements so far.
Celebratory comes from the verb to celebrate, C-E-L-E-B-R-A-T-E.
To celebrate means to do something to mark or celebrate to remember some significant event or situation.
We celebrate our birthdays.
We have a party or we go out to dinner.
That's to celebrate.
You do something that makes you happy, something that will make you remember how good this event or this situation is.
Lucy is proposing we have a celebratory drink.
Normally, when you use the word drink in American English, you're talking about an alcoholic drink such as beer or wine, or whiskey or rum.
I like rum, personally.
That's my favorite alcohol.
But I don't drink alcohol very much anymore.
Hardly ever, really.
But if I did, I would drink rum.
Anyway, back to the story.
We're having a celebratory drink, Lucy says.
A toast to our achievements.
A toast T-O-A-S-T here refers to words that you say usually while raising a glass of wine, some alcohol or some alcoholic drink in your hand, in order to honor or to celebrate or to remember some particular person or event.
When you get married in the United States, it's common for one of the members of your what we would call wedding party the group of people involved who are part of the wedding celebration to make a toast.
To make a toast means to stand up and say, here's to the new bride and groom.
Here's to the newly married couple.
They're saluting, they're toasting, they're celebrating these people.
Sometimes a toast is just a one or two words.
In English we would say, for example, cheers.
In other languages there are other common words that are used when someone picks up their glass of alcohol and makes a toast.
I say, that sounds good.
The drink sounds good, that is.
Then I say, then what?
Then what do we do?
Lucy says, put our noses back to the grindstone.
To put your nose back to the grindstone means to go back to your hard work, your difficult work.
After taking a short break.
So if you work eight hours every day, you might take a break for 10 or 15 minutes in the morning.
After your break, you may say, well, now I have to put my nose back to the grindstone.
I have to continue working hard at what I was working on before I took my break.
Jeff says, I was afraid you were going to say that.
That expression I was afraid you were going to say.
That is used when we knew the other person was going to say that, but we didn't really want them to say that.
Perhaps because in this case, I don't want to put my nose back to the grindstone, but I must.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Well, we've reached a milestone.
Yep, it's been a long haul, but we've finally made it.
Did you ever think we'd get here?
I admit I had my doubts.
At the beginning, I was really dubious that this venture would pan out.
I thought that our prospects were iffy at best.
Me too.
We didn't have an auspicious start, but we had a turning point after a few months of grinding out the work, day in and day out.
So, what should we do now?
I think we both deserve a celebratory drink, a toast to our achievements, so far.
That sounds good.
Then what? put our noses back to the grindstone?
I was afraid you were going to say that.
The script for this episode, like all of our episodes, was written by the one, the only, Dr Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
After 1,000 episodes, thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to the next 1,000 episodes 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 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
