Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1009, Basic Military Commands.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1009.
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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The Learning Guide contains a complete transcript of everything we say, in addition to vocabulary terms definitions, cultural notes and sample sentences.
This episode is a dialogue between Marta and Bruno about giving commands as you would in the military.
Let's get started.
What's going on out here?
What's all that noise?
Troops?
Hey.
I didn't tell you you could be at ease.
Attention.
Fall in.
Forward march.
That's great, but... I'm not done.
Let me show you what else these troops can do.
Halt.
About face.
Don't you think that it's time to... March!
March!
Double time!
Come here.
Did you fall down and hurt yourself?
It's okay.
Everything's going to be okay.
Hey, there's no crying in the military.
Don't coddle the troops, Marta.
Bruno, your twins are five years old.
Don't you think they're a little too young to be going to boot camp?
No, it's never too young to instill discipline.
Okay, troops, fall in.
Mark time.
Now, march, march, march.
Marta begins our dialogue by saying to Bruno, What's going on out here?
What's going on means what's happening out here.
Means usually would be used when we are talking about something outside of a building or outside of a house.
Marta asks, what's all that noise?
Bruno says, I'm putting the troops through their drills.
Troops, T-R-O-O-P-S, are drills.
Soldiers, an organized group of soldiers or organized groups of soldiers.
Drills, D-R-I-L-L-S are exercises, things that you do over and over again to prepare you for something.
We might talk about drills, for example, in school.
When math teachers are trying to teach their students how to multiply numbers, they may give them exercises.
And we may call those exercises drills.
Bruno says that he's putting the troops through their drills, meaning he's making these soldiers do these drills, exercises.
And usually when we talk about military drills, we're talking about physical activity, physical exercises.
Marta is very surprised by what Bruno is saying.
She says, troops?
She's asking a question, but is also clearly shocked, clearly surprised.
Bruno says, watch this, meaning pay attention and look at this.
Hey, I didn't tell you you could be at ease.
Attention.
Fall in.
Forward.
March.
Bruno uses some common military terms here.
He's talking to Marta and telling Marta to watch what he is doing with his troops.
He then says to one of the, what we believe are soldiers, at ease.
At ease, E-A-S-E, means to be relaxed, to be in a comfortable position.
In the military, at ease is a command telling you that you don't have to stand at attention.
To stand at attention is to usually stand up straight and be very still, whereas at ease often is a position that you would take by putting your legs say, one or two feet apart from each other.
A more relaxed position, in other words.
But Bruno doesn't want his troops to be at ease.
He says, attention.
The word attention, when used in a classroom by a teacher... means that everyone needs to focus.
Everyone needs to pay attention.
In the military, especially when the word is said the way I said it, the way Bruno said it, it means that you are to stand in a very formal position.
You must stand up straight.
That is to be at attention.
It's a sign of respect for for your superior officer.
In the military, there is a certain hierarchy.
That is, you have people who are in charge of other people.
And so, if you are in the presence of someone who is Here, Bruno is telling his soldiers to stand at attention.
Then he says, fall in.
To fall in means to take your place in line, the place where you're supposed to be.
Usually, it is said before the troops begin to walk in an organized manner.
Walking in a certain organized way, walking in a certain pattern, is called marching.
We use the verb to march M-A-R-C-H to mean to walk forward in a very organized, I guess what we may call military way.
If you've seen soldiers who are all walking down the street in a line, such as in a parade, then you know what marching is.
Forward march means to walk forward, to go forward.
Forward march is used to tell the soldiers that they should now start walking.
Bruno is telling his soldiers to march.
Marta says that's great, but Bruno then interrupts her and says I'm not done, meaning I'm not finished.
He says, let me show you what else these troops can do.
He then turns and talks to his troops.
Halt, about face.
Halt.
H-A-L-T is a command meaning stop, especially when you're talking to a soldier who is walking.
If you tell someone to halt, you're telling them, him or her to stop walking, to stop moving.
Outside of the military, you won't hear this word used very much anymore.
There's an old expression, halt who goes there.
Who goes there means who is there.
If it's dark outside and you can't see the face of the person who is walking toward you and you are afraid you might say, Halt who goes there?
Well, you actually wouldn't say that anymore.
It's kind of an old-fashioned expression.
Halt is used mainly now just in the military, and that's the way Bruno is using it in our dialogue.
He says to his troops, Halt, meaning stop walking, about face.
About face means to turn around.
If you are walking east about face would be to turn around toward the west.
It means to move 180 degrees from where you are now, so that you are now facing or looking toward the opposite direction.
Marta says...
Don't you think it's time to, she's asking Bruno a question, but Bruno isn't listening.
He's still talking to his troops.
He says, march, march, double time.
Double time is a phrase used in the military to mean walk twice as fast as you're walking right now.
Double time means to do something twice as quickly as you would normally do it.
Then we hear a child crying, who sounds a lot like me, actually.
Marta then says, apparently to this child, Come here.
Did you fall down and hurt yourself?
It's okay.
Everything's going to be okay.
Marta is talking to this child and asking if the child fell down and hurt himself.
Then she says it's okay, and she tries to comfort the child.
She tries to make the child feel better.
Bruno says, hey, there's no crying in the military.
The military refers to the army, the navy and the other what we would call armed forces for a given country.
Bruno says, don't coddle the troops, Marta.
To coddle C-O-D-D-L-E means to treat someone too kindly or too gently, especially when we're talking about children.
Bruno doesn't want Marta to coddle his troops.
Marta says, Bruno, your twins are five years old.
Now we discover that these troops that Bruno has been ordering around are, in fact, his five-year-old children.
Marta says, don't you think they're a little too young to be going to boot camp?
Boot, B-O-O-T, camp, is typically where you go when you first join the military.
It's a place for getting you ready to be part of the Army or the Navy or the Marine Corps or whatever military service you're joining.
Boot camp is usually a very difficult period where you must do a lot of physical activities in order to get strong enough to be part of the military.
Boot camp is also a place where you learn military discipline.
And that's what Bruno is interested in.
He says, no, it's never too young to instill discipline.
Discipline D-I-S-C-I-P-L-I-N-E is the practice of following some set of rules, that some set of regulations or guidelines for behavior.
To instill I-N-S-T-I-L-L discipline means to train or to teach someone to follow these rules, these guidelines.
Bruno says it's never too young to instill discipline.
He means that, even though his children are only five years old, they are old enough to learn this discipline.
Then he says to his troops, okay, troops, fall in.
Mark time.
Now march, march, march.
To mark time means to march without walking.
So what you're doing is you're walking in place.
You're lifting your legs up as though you were walking, but you're not actually moving forward.
That's marking time.
Again, it's a command, an order that you would hear in the military.
We may also use this expression, he's marking time, to mean that he's not really doing anything.
He's sort of wasting his time, or he's spending his time waiting for something to end, waiting perhaps for something more important to happen.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What's going on out here?
What's all that noise?
I'm putting the troops through their drills.
Troops?
Watch this.
Hey, I didn't tell you you could be at ease.
Attention.
Fall in.
Forward march.
That's great, but... I'm not done.
Let me show you what else these troops can do.
Halt.
About face.
Don't you think that it's time to... March!
March!
Double time!
Come here.
Did you fall down and hurt yourself?
It's okay.
Everything's going to be okay.
Hey, there's no crying in the military.
Don't coddle the troops, Marta.
Bruno, your twins are five years old.
Don't you think they're a little too young to be going to boot camp?
No, it's never too young to instill discipline.
Okay, troops, fall in.
Mark time.
Now march, march, march.
Our scriptwriter is never just marking time.
She's always working hard at writing the best scripts on the Internet.
Thank you, Dr. Lucy Say.
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 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
