Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1208, Living on Low Wages.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1208.
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 a dialogue between Dylan and Yvonne about living with not very much money.
Let's get started.
What's this?
It's information about a job training program.
It'll give you the skills you need to get steady work.
I don't need that.
I get by with the wages I earn from this job.
You're in a dead-end job, straining to make ends meet every month.
But you don't have any job security.
You could be out on your ear any minute.
My life is fine the way it is.
I may not be able to hold on to this job for long, but there will always be other ones.
I wish I had your optimism.
It's all in your outlook on life.
I don't have mortgages to pay, cars to maintain, jets to fuel, and employees to support.
You're right.
You should be counting your blessings.
Dylan begins our dialogue by giving something to Ivan.
He says, hear.
This is sometimes a word we would use by itself.
When we are giving something, some object to another person.
We are handing it, we might say, to another person.
Ivan takes what he is giving her and says, what's this?
Dylan says it's information about a job training program, a program that will teach you skills to get a job.
Dylan says, it'll give you the skills you need to get steady work.
Steady, S-T-E-A-D-Y, work, is work that you can rely on, that you will be able to count on.
For example, if you have a job with a company and the company always gives you 40 hours of work each week, you have steady work.
You have work that you can rely on.
The opposite of steady work would be seasonal work or perhaps temporary work.
Here in Los Angeles, if you are an actor...
You often don't have steady work.
You may work for a month and then not have any work for a couple of months, and then work for a few weeks, and so forth.
If however, you work on a television program that you know will be on for many years, then you could say you have steady work.
Steady work is something that most of us have if we have a permanent job with a company.
Yvonne says, I don't need that.
I get by with the wages I earn from this job.
To get by is a two-word phrasal verb, meaning I have enough money or resources to pay for what I need to pay for.
To get by means you are able to pay for your food and your rent and your clothing and your cell phone bill and so forth.
It doesn't mean you're getting rich, however.
Yvonne says she gets by with the wages, W-A-G-E-S, that she earns, that she gets, from her job.
Wages refer to money that you get for your work, especially when you are paid by the hour.
That is, your company gives you $10 for every hour you work or $50 for every hour you work.
Many people have what are called salaries, S-A-L-E-R-I-E-S.
A salary is when you are paid a certain amount of money regardless of how many hours you work.
You might work 40 hours, you might work 60 hours.
You get the same amount of money.
With wages, you are paid by the hour typically.
If you work more hours, you get more money.
Dylan says to Yvonne, you're in a dead-end job, straining to make ends meet each month.
A dead-end job is a job that doesn't have any opportunities for promotion or advancement.
In other words, you're never going to get a better job in that company or doing what you're doing.
You're always going to be doing the same thing.
The verb to strain, S-T-R-A-I-N, here means to try very hard to have something or to do something.
To work very hard in order to get something.
Dylan says Ivan is in a dead-end job.
Straining to make ends meet.
To make ends, E-N-D-S, meet, M-E-E-T, means to make enough money to pay for your expenses.
It's similar to the phrasal verb to get by.
So Dylan is saying that Yvonne is in this dead-end job and And she is trying really hard, or having to work really hard, just to have enough money to live on.
She is straining to make ends meet.
Ivan says.
However, To land L-A-N-D on your feet is an expression that means, even in a difficult situation, I always have success, or perhaps I'm always lucky.
If someone loses his job but has a lot of skills or perhaps knows a lot of people, we could say that he will land on his feet and He won't land on his head and kill himself or hurt himself metaphorically.
He will land on his feet.
He will be able to stumble or fall, but get up again and be successful.
If you jump off a building and land on your feet, you'll be able to continue living and walking and breathing.
But if you land on your head, you might kill yourself.
So you definitely want to land on your feet.
Yvonne says she always lands on her feet, even when she has difficult circumstances to deal with.
Dylan says, but you don't have any job security, S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y.
Job security is confidence that you will have your job in the future, that you are not going to lose your job.
Dylan says, you could be out on your ear any minute.
The expression to be out on your ear, E-A-R, means to lose your job, to be fired.
You can imagine, I suppose, someone throwing you out of the building and throwing you down to the ground.
That would be literally landing on your ear.
Dylan says basically that Yvonne could be fired any minute.
She doesn't have very good job security.
He says don't you want a better quality of life?
That is don't you want to be happier in your everyday life, in your everyday existence?
Ivan says my life is fine the way it is.
That means my life is okay the way I am living it now.
I may not be able to hold on to this job for long, she says, but there will always be other ones, meaning other jobs.
To hold on to something means to be able to keep something, to continue to have something, even when it is difficult.
I'm trying to hold on to this job, even though the boss doesn't like me and I'm not very good at the job.
That's my case here at work. the Center for Educational Development.
My boss is always trying to fire me, and I am trying to hold on to my job.
Dylan says, I wish I had your optimism.
Optimism O-P-T-I-M-I-S-M is the belief that things will change, be better in the future, or that things will continue to be successful.
The opposite of optimism is pessimism.
P-E-S-S-I-M-I-S-M.
Pessimism is when you think everything is going to get worse.
Optimism is when you think things will be good in the future or will continue to be good in the future.
Dylan says, to hear you speak, you'd think you were one of the privileged few.
What Dylan means here is if anyone would listen to you, they would think that you were one of the privileged few.
The privileged few means refers to the small percentage of people who have a lot of money or are very successful.
In the United States.
More recently we've had the expression the 1, meaning the very richest 1 in the country.
They would be among the privileged few.
Ivan says, it's all in your outlook on life.
Your outlook.
O-U-T-L-O-O-K is the way you look at the world, the way you see things in general, your perspective.
It's also, of course, the name of the email program in Microsoft Office.
But that's different.
Ivan is saying that she doesn't have any...
She doesn't have anything she needs to take care of in her life, such as mortgages.
M-O-R-T-G-A-G-E-S.
Mortgages are loans that you have to either buy a house or to buy a car.
Yvonne says she doesn't have any... mortgages or loans.
She doesn't have any cars to maintain, that is, to keep in good running order.
She doesn't have any jets, J-E-T-S, to fuel.
A jet is a fast airplane.
Here it probably refers to a small airplane owned by a rich person.
Yvonne says she doesn't have to worry about fueling or putting gasoline into her own jet.
Dylan says you're right, meaning you are correct.
You should be counting your blessings.
To count C-O-U-N-T.
Your blessings is an expression that means to recognize the good things in your life, to appreciate and be thankful for the good things you have in your life.
It could be used frequently by someone who has problems and is telling another person that he should be thankful for not having the problems that the person speaking has.
It might also be you simply to tell someone who is unhappy or complaining about his life that he should be happier because he has good things.
He should count his blessings.
Now let's listen to the dialogue this time at a normal speed.
Here.
What's this?
It's information about a job training program.
It'll give you the skills you need to get steady work.
I don't need that.
I get by with the You're in a dead-end job straining to make ends meet every month.
But you don't have any job security.
You could be out on your ear any minute.
Don't you want a better quality of life?
But there will always be other ones.
I wish I had your optimism.
To hear you speak, you'd think you were one of the privileged few.
You're right.
You should be counting your blessings.
We count our blessings that we have the wonderful Dr Lucy Say, who helps us improve our English and our quality of life with her wonderful scripts.
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 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
