Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1151, Working as a Street Performer.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1151.
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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On this episode we're going to listen to a dialogue between Giancarlo and Alana about someone who works out on the street performing in order to get money.
Let's get started.
Whoa, where are you going?
I thought we were going to hang out.
I'm going to work.
Work?
I didn't know you got a job.
I'm busking on Main Street.
You mean you're panhandling?
That's not working.
I'm not panhandling.
I'm working for tips.
I perform, try to draw a crowd, and then pass the hat.
Can you really make money that way?
You'd be surprised.
I got the idea from Danielle and her friends.
A group of them do street theater and comedy routines.
A friend of theirs juggles and does acrobatics.
Another guy does magic tricks.
And they do all this on the street?
Don't they get hassled by the cops?
The cops occasionally tell them to move along or tell the crowd to disperse.
But if they're respectful and nobody complains, they get left alone.
Hey, wait!
Where are you going?
I'm going with you.
What can you do?
Are you?
Don't look so surprised.
Giancarlo begins our dialogue by using a common word in informal English, whoa.
Whoa, usually spelled W-H-O-A, is a way of stopping someone or of expressing surprise about something.
It's an old expression that we usually associate with someone riding on a horse and wanting to stop the horse.
Someone might say, whoa.
Well, nowadays we use it not to stop horses, but sometimes to stop people from saying something or going somewhere.
That's what Giancarlo is doing.
He says, whoa, where are you going?
I thought we were going to hang out.
To hang out is a two-word phrasal verb that means to spend time with another person, usually in a lazy sort of way.
You may go over to your friend's house and...
I don't know, have a glass of wine or a beer or a cup of tea and just relax and talk.
You're going to hang out.
To hang out usually implies that you're not going to do anything in particular, anything special.
You're just going to sort of talk and spend time enjoying yourselves without any specific plans to do anything alana says however i'm going to work giancarlo says work i didn't know you got a job alana says i'm busking on main street To busk, B-U-S-K, means to play music on a sidewalk or in another public place in the hopes that people will give you money for playing music.
We've all seen people busking on a city street before, or in a subway area, or perhaps in a park before.
People play guitars or other musical instruments.
Sometimes they sing in the hopes that people will give them money.
Giancarlo says, you mean your panhandling?
That's not working.
To panhandle P-A-N-H-A-N-D-L-E means to ask people for money, and Especially if you are sitting on a sidewalk or standing on the side of a road.
Another verb meaning the same thing is to beg, B-E-G.
To panhandle, however, means specifically to beg in the street or in a public area.
Now, normally we don't consider people who are busking, who are actually doing something like playing music, to be panhandling.
To panhandle usually means you're just asking someone for money.
You're not doing anything to get the person to give you money other than, I suppose, asking in a nice way.
You can see panhandlers in Los Angeles very easily by simply driving to any of the poorer areas of the city.
Alana says, I'm not panhandling.
I'm working for tips.
A tip.
T-I-P is money that you normally give someone to thank him or her for good service or for a job well done.
Normally in the United States, we tip at a restaurant.
We tip the server, the waitress or the waiter.
We also tip at the hotel if someone takes our bags in.
We may tip a taxi driver.
Americans like to tip a lot more than people in other countries.
And in fact, when Americans go to another country, people are sometimes surprised to see them tipping at places that the people who live in those countries don't normally tip.
Alana says she's just working for tips, meaning she's just working for people giving her money because she's doing a good job.
I perform, she says, try to draw a crowd and then pass the hat.
To draw D-R-A-W a crowd C-R-O-W-D means to attract many people to hear or to see something, to do something that people will want to come and hear or see.
It could be a good thing.
It could be a bad thing.
Normally, to draw a crowd means to get people to pay attention to you because perhaps you're performing.
To pass the hat means to take a hat, the kind of thing you wear on your head, and turn it over and ask people to put money in it.
It's a common way that street performers try to get people to give them money.
They perform and then they take perhaps a hat, or sometimes it's just a small bowl, and they give it to people and ask them to put money in it.
Giancarlo says, can you really make money that way?
Alana says, you'd be surprised, meaning yes, even though you may not think so.
She says, I got the idea from Danielle and her friends.
A group of them do street theater and comedy routines.
Street theater is...
Just as it sounds, a group of people who perform small parts of a play or small dramatic performances on a public street, once again in the hopes usually, of getting tips, of getting people to give them money.
A comedy routine.
R-O-U-T-I-N-E is when someone stands up and tells jokes or does something funny to get people to laugh.
Comedy routines usually involve one person telling jokes and making people laugh.
Alana continues, A friend of theirs juggles and does acrobatics.
Another guy does magic tricks.
Alana is mentioning other popular forms of street performance, the things that street performers do.
One of them is to juggle, J-U-G-G-L-E.
To juggle here means to keep several balls or other small items in the air by throwing them up into the air and, of course, catching them with your hands and then throwing them up in the air again.
In everyday English we sometimes use the verb to juggle to mean to move things around, especially on your calendar, on your schedule.
Someone may say, I need to juggle my calendar in order to find time to meet with you.
I need to rearrange things.
I need to move appointments on my calendar, on my schedule.
But the other meaning of the verb to juggle, the I guess you could say original meaning, is to throw balls up into the air.
I have a nephew who is a very good juggler.
Unfortunately, it's hard to make money juggling.
I think he works at a grocery store now.
To do acrobatics.
A-C-R-O-B-A-T-I-C-S means to move your body in unusual ways, often using ropes and swings that are suspended in the air.
I'm not sure how you would do acrobatics as a street performer.
Normally, we associate acrobatics with something like a circus.
A circus, C-I-R-C-U-S, is... performance for a large group of people that usually includes tricks with animals and doing things such as acrobatics where someone walks on a wire that is high up in the air magic tricks refer to any action that is surprising and entertaining and People often do magic tricks with cards, for example, or they appear to make things disappear suddenly.
Giancarlo then asks, and they do all of this on the street?
Don't they get hassled by the cops?
To get hassled, H-A-S-S-L-E-D, is to get bothered by.
The verb to hassle means to create problems or trouble for someone.
The cops, C-O-P-S, refers to the police.
Cop is an informal term for a police officer, a policeman, or a policewoman.
Giancarlo wants to know if the street performers get hassled or bothered by the police.
Alana says the cops occasionally tell them to move along or tell the crowd to disperse.
To move along means to keep walking, to continue moving in a particular direction.
To disperse, D-I-S-P-E-R-S-E, means to separate and to go in different directions.
If a police officer disperses a crowd, the officer is getting people to no longer stand together but to each go in a different direction, so that there's no longer a group of people in a single place.
Alana says.
However, if the street performers are respectful and nobody complains, they get left alone.
To be left alone means not to be bothered by other people, to be allowed to do what you want to do.
Alana then says, hey, wait, where are you going?
Giancarlo says, I'm going with you.
I want to give this street performing a try.
Alana says, what can you do?
Giancarlo says, I'm a man of many talents.
The expression I'm a man of many talents.
T-A-L-E-N-T-S would describe a person who is good at doing many different things.
Giancarlo thinks that he has some talent, some ability that he can use to be a street performer.
Alana is surprised.
She asks, are you?
Meaning, are you really a person of many talents?
Giancarlo says, don't look so surprised.
Meaning, don't She shouldn't be surprised that he has all of these different talents.
Of course he does.
Giancarlo thinks he's very talented, apparently.
I have to say I've never worked as a street performer, although you can see street performers here in Los Angeles, even though Los Angeles is famous for people not walking on the streets.
They take their cars, of course.
Maybe I could try to teach English on the streets of Los Angeles, and people will give me tips for that.
I should try it.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Whoa, where are you going?
I thought we were going to hang out.
I'm going to work.
Work?
I didn't know you got a job.
I'm busking on Main Street.
You mean you're panhandling?
That's not working.
I'm not panhandling.
I'm working for tips.
I perform, try to draw a crowd, and then pass the hat.
Can you really make money that way?
You'd be surprised.
I got the idea from Danielle and her friends.
A group of them do street theater and comedy routines.
A friend of theirs juggles and does acrobatics.
Another guy does magic tricks.
And they do all this on the street?
Don't they get hassled by the cops?
The cops occasionally tell them to move along or tell the crowd to disperse, but if they're respectful and nobody complains, they get left alone.
Hey, hey, wait!
Where are you going?
I'm going with you.
I want to give this street performing a try.
What can you do?
I'm a man of many talents.
Are you?
Don't look so surprised.
Our scriptwriter is a woman of many talents.
I speak, of course, of the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan, a man of very few talents.
Thank you for listening, however.
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 2015 by the Center for Educational Development.
