Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1245, Measuring Mass and Volume.
This is English as a Second Language podcast, episode 1245.
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, a short dialogue, between Andre and Dana about measuring mass and volume.
Sounds exciting.
Let's get started.
Three gallons of water.
Check.
Got it.
Bleach?
It's in there.
Okay.
Done.
A pound?
A pound.
Three tablespoons of chlorine.
Okay.
An ounce of perfume.
Done.
Do you really think this is necessary?
Have you smelled your stinky dog?
Andre begins our dialogue by saying three gallons of water.
This dialogue is mostly Andre telling Dana about the quantity, mass or volume of liquid that the two of them are using for something.
We'll find out what that is at the end of the dialogue.
The first item, the first thing, Andre says, is three gallons of water.
A gallon, G-A-L-L-O-N, is a way of measuring what we would describe as liquid volume.
Certain substances such as water can be either liquid, solid, or gas in form.
Water that is solid is called ice.
Water that is liquid is usually just referred to as water.
Well, a gallon is a way of measuring the amount or volume of liquid I said volume is the quantity.
Technically, it's the amount of space that is taken up by a certain substance.
That substance could be liquid, but it also could be in the form of a gas.
Three gallons of water then equals, for the rest of you, 3.78 liters.
A gallon in the U.S. is divided into, or can be divided into, four parts.
You could divide a gallon into four what we call quarts.
Q-U-A-R-T-S.
The word quart comes from the word quarter, which is 25% of something.
So one gallon in the U.S. equals four quarts.
A quart is a little less than one liter.
Now a quart can be divided into two equal parts called pints.
P-I-N-T-S.
A pint is about a half a liter.
So We have the formula, if you will.
Two pints equals a quart.
Four quarts equals a gallon.
Andre starts by saying three gallons of water, and Dana says check.
Check, C-H-E-C-K, has a couple of different meanings.
Here it's used to show agreement or to indicate to someone else that you have done something that the person has asked you to do.
It's also used in other ways.
For example, the verb to check can mean to look at or to investigate something, to make sure something is done.
The meaning of check in our dialogue is somewhat related to that.
Dana is indicating that she has done this, that the task, in this case of getting three gallons of water, has been completed.
She's saying that they have three gallons of water.
Andre is obviously reading from a list of things.
The second item on his list is a quart of lemon juice.
Remember, a quart is about one liter, one quarter of a gallon.
Lemon juice is the liquid that comes from the fruit lemon, which we use to make things like lemonade.
Instead of saying check, Dana says something equivalent or about the same, which is got it meaning she understands.
Andre then says a tablespoon of bleach.
Now, we've talked about gallons, quarts, and pints.
You can also describe the volume of something by using words.
Measurements related to spoons, S-P-O-O-N.
A spoon is something that you use to eat food with.
You have a knife, which is long and sharp.
You have a fork, which has typically three or more what we call tines, T-I-N-E-S.
Those are those little parts that stick out in a fork that you use to put into the food.
And you can have A spoon also to eat food.
You can use spoons to measure or to indicate how much there is of something.
A tablespoon, T-A-B-L-E-S-P-O-O-N, all one word, is equal to about a half a fluid ounce of or for those on the metric system, about 15 milliliters of a substance, of a liquid typically.
A smaller unit of measurement, a smaller way of measuring the amount of something is a teaspoon T-E-A-S-P-O-O-N.
There are three teaspoons in a tablespoon, or to put it another way, a teaspoon is one-third of a tablespoon, about 49 milliliters in the metric system, which of course Americans don't use and don't understand.
Bleach, B-L-E-A-C-H, is a liquid chemical that is often used to clean things.
Technically, bleach is either sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide.
The chemical formulas for that can be found on the internet.
This is English, not chemistry we're teaching here.
Dana questions Andre after he says a tablespoon of bleach.
She says bleach?
Notice she seems to be asking a question.
Andre, however, confirms that is exactly what he meant.
He says bleach.
Then he says a pint of vinegar.
A pint is, of course, one half of a quart, which is one quarter of a gallon.
Vinegar, V-I-N-E-G-A-R, is a sour, S-O-U-R, liquid often used in cooking, but sometimes in cleaning.
Sour is the opposite of sweet.
Sugar is sweet, vinegar is sour.
People often combine oil with vinegar in order to make what we would call salad dressing, something you would put on vegetables for a salad.
Dana responds to Andre by saying it's in there, meaning the pint of vinegar is in whatever combination of liquids Andre and Dana are talking about.
Andre then says, a cup of baking soda.
A cup, C-U-P, is yet another way of measuring something, measuring liquids, measuring volume.
I should probably explain that the title of this episode is Measuring Mass, M-A-S-S and Volume.
Mass is a term used in physics that is related to volume.
But technically I believe it is considered the quantity of substance in a given or certain amount of space.
What does that mean?
I'm not Einstein.
You'll have to ask a physicist.
In conversational English, it's sometimes used to mean the same as weight.
W-E-I-G-H-T.
In any case...
Andre mentions a cup of baking soda.
A cup is even smaller than a pint.
Remember, a gallon has four quarts.
A quart has two pints.
A pint has two cups.
So one half of a pint is one cup.
Or, again, in the metric system, 237 milliliters.
I don't know how you people can understand 237 milliliters.
I have no idea what that means.
But hey, everyone has their own system, right?
Baking soda... is technically known as sodium bicarbonate.
It's a white substance, what we would call a powder P-O-W-D-E-R, that is used in cooking and again, like vinegar, sometimes in cleaning.
Dana indicates she has that.
She says, okay.
Then Andre says a teaspoon of liquid detergent.
A teaspoon, again, is one-third of a tablespoon.
Liquid detergent, D-E-T-E-R-G-E-N-T, is something you use to clean something else.
It's a liquid soap.
Dana says, done.
Andre then says, a pound of bath salts.
A pound P-O-U-N-D is a unit of measurement, a way that we indicate how heavy something is, how much it weighs.
A pound is equal to a little less than a half a kilo.
A pound is 0.45 kilograms.
A pound is equal to 16 ounces.
So just as we can divide a gallon into quarts, pints, and cups, we can divide a pound into ounces.
O-U-N-C-E-S.
A pound has 16 ounces.
That makes one ounce equal to 29.6 milliliters.
Got that?
Understand that?
Great.
Let's move on.
Andre is talking about a pound of bath water.
B-A-T-H, salts, S-A-L-T-S.
Bath salts are things you add to water, warm water, usually to give it a nice smell.
Technically, bath salts are what we would call crystals C-R-Y-S-T-A-L-S, a type of substance that, in this case, goes from being solid to liquid once it is put into water.
Dana questions the amount of bath salts that Andre is talking about.
She says, a pound?
Andre says, a pound, meaning yes, that's how much I want.
Then he says, three tablespoons of chlorine.
Chlorine, C-H-L-O-R-I-N-E. is a liquid that is also commonly used for cleaning.
Chlorine is one of the atomic elements.
Number 17, for those of you taking notes.
Dana says, Finally, Andre says an ounce, remember an ounce is one-sixteenth of a pint, of perfume.
P-E-R-F-U-M-E.
Perfume is something you put on your body to make you smell nice.
Usually, perfume is the word we use for a liquid that a woman puts on her body.
The liquid a man puts on his body is typically called cologne, C-O-L-O-G-N-E.
It's the same thing, basically, except we give it a different name, for a man versus for a woman.
And yes, the name comes from the city in Germany also called Cologne, which must be a very nice-smelling place to visit.
Dana, getting back to our dialogue, says, done.
Do you really think this is necessary, she asks.
Andre says, have you smelled your stinky dog?
A stinky, S-T-I-N-K-Y, dog is a dog that has a bad smell, a bad odor, O-D-O-R.
Another word we could use for stinky is smelly.
Apparently, Dana and Andre are washing Dana's dog.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
It's in there.
A cup of baking soda Okay A teaspoon of liquid detergent Done A pound of bath salts A pound?
A pound.
Three tablespoons of chlorine.
Okay, An ounce of perfume Done.
Do you really think this is necessary?
Have you smelled your stinky dog?
If you have even an ounce of common sense of intelligence, you would listen to the scripts written by our wonderful scriptwriter, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks 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.
