Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1,282, Working in a Scientific Field.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1,282.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
This episode is a dialogue between Shirley and Ira about working in a job related to science.
Let's get started.
It's amazing that everybody in your family works in the sciences.
Yeah, my parents are both in the social sciences.
My father is a psychologist and my mother is an economist.
And your sister, Shanda?
She's an astronomer.
She initially wanted to study physics, but changed her mind.
Her partner is a geologist.
Is your brother also in astronomy?
No.
He's a biologist, and his wife does chemistry research.
How about your other brother?
What does he do?
Um, we don't.
I mean he's not involved in the social sciences, life sciences or physical sciences.
If I remember correctly, he was always good at math and liked computers.
Is he in computer science?
No, he's not.
All right, he's a writer, but we have every confidence that he'll grow out of it.
Ira starts our dialogue by saying, it's amazing that everybody in your family works in the sciences.
The word sciences S-C-I-E-N-C-E-S in the plural form usually refers to different areas of what we might call the fields F-I-E-L-D-S of study, including areas of the academic or research world that look at natural and physical sciences.
Shirley says yeah, which is an informal way of saying yes.
My parents are both in the social sciences.
Now, I just defined the sciences as relating to the physical and natural world.
Part of the natural world includes people, of course, and that means that the sciences also includes the study of human beings and how they interact with each other.
The social, S-O-C-I-A-L, sciences are sciences that study human beings and their interactions.
Things that would include sociology and psychology, anthropology.
Some people perhaps, would also include history, although history, according to some people, is more like another area of study called the humanities, which would include the study of art and literature.
In any case, the social sciences includes things such as psychology and economics.
Shirley says my father is a psychologist, someone who studies the human mind, and her mother is an economist, someone who studies the way money is made and the way that human beings relate to each other when it comes to selling and buying things.
Ira says, and your sister Shonda?
Shirley replies that her sister is an astronomer.
A-S-T-R-O-M-E-R.
An astronomer is a person who studies the planets and the stars and other objects out in what we would call outer space, the area beyond the Earth.
Shirley says that her sister initially meaning at the beginning, perhaps at the beginning of her studies wanted to study physics, but changed her mind.
Physics...
P-H-Y-S-I-C-S is the study of physical objects and how they move and are influenced by natural forces such as gravity and magnetism.
Her sister changed her mind, meaning she changed her opinion.
She decided to do something different in this case.
Her partner is a geologist, Shirley says.
A partner, P-A-R-T-N-E-R, can mean someone with whom you run a business.
A business partner is a person with whom you have a share of or share responsibility in a business.
More recently, the word partner has been used to describe someone with whom you are in a romantic relationship with.
I'm not sure if this originally came from British English.
I used to notice it in British English a few years ago.
It has become more popular in American English more recently.
A partner is a general term for either your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your husband, or your wife.
I don't think there are any other possibilities there, at least within the human race.
In any case, that's a partner.
Not one of my favorite words.
I prefer people just say what they mean.
If you mean your boyfriend, then say your boyfriend.
Anyway, that's my own personal complaint.
A geologist.
G-E-O-L-O-G-I-S-T is a person who studies the Earth, what the Earth is made of, things inside of the Earth like rocks.
I had a good friend from high school who wanted to be a geologist.
He even started a master's program in geology, but he decided not to continue studying it.
This was back in the late 1980s, the mid-1980s, 1986, 1987.
He decided there wasn't any money in geology, and so he changed his focus to computers, and Now I think, if he were to make the same decision again, he might continue in his studies of geology.
Geologists, at least in the United States, are often employed or given jobs in the new oil industry, the oil businesses that have grown so much in the past 20 years in the US.
In any case, Shirley's sister's boyfriend girlfriend, husband or wife is a geologist.
Ira says, is your brother also in astronomy?
Shirley says, no, he's a biologist, and his wife does chemistry research.
A biologist is B-I-O-L-O-G-I-S-T is a scientist who studies living organisms, plants and animals, for example.
When I first moved to California, I lived with a couple of biologists who were getting their PhD in biology from Claremont University college, Claremont University, or something.
I don't remember very well.
It was a long time ago.
Anyway, in our story, Shirley's brother's wife, that would make her Shirley's sister-in-law, works in the field or the area of chemistry, C-H-E-M-I-S-T-R-Y.
Chemistry is the study of what materials are made of and how the elements of the materials interact and relate to each other.
Chemistry studies things like small molecules and what's inside the molecules and what the molecules are made of, how the different elements react to each other.
Ira says, how about your other brother?
Meaning, tell me about your other brother.
What does he do?
Shirley says um, we don't.
I mean he's not involved in the social sciences, life sciences or physical sciences.
Shirley doesn't want to talk about the other brother she has, I guess because he's not in the social sciences, life L-I-F-E sciences or physical sciences.
Life sciences... are those fields that study any kind of life.
That would include biology, zoology, botany, biochemistry, microbiology.
Those are all life sciences.
The physical sciences are things like chemistry and geology and physics and astronomy.
Ira says, if I remember correctly, he meaning Shirley's brother was always good at math and liked computers.
Math, M-A-T-H, is a short form of the word mathematics.
In British English, they put an S at the end.
They say maths.
But we say math without the S. Ira asks, is he, meaning your brother, in computer science?
Computer science is, of course, the study of computers.
Shirley says, no, he's not.
Then she says all right, in a way that indicates that she didn't really want to talk about him, but now she will.
All right, he's a writer, she says.
A writer W-R-I-T-E-R is, of course, a person whose job is to create history things by writing them, by typing them or writing them down.
Nowadays, of course, everyone does it on a computer.
A writer could be someone who writes fiction, such as stories or poetry.
A writer could be someone who writes for a newspaper or writes books about things that are real.
Shirley says we meaning she and her family have every confidence that he'll grow out of it.
Shirley says that she and her family hope that Their brother will grow out of it.
That's what she means when she says they have every confidence.
C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-C-E.
To have every confidence of something, or to have every confidence that something means that you have no doubts, that you are sure something will happen in the future.
What Shirley and her family are sure of is that the brother, who is a writer, will grow out of it.
The expression to grow out of something means to become older and wiser or more mature, so that you're no longer interested in this particular area or that you no longer have certain problems that we normally associate with or think are related to someone's young age.
As we grow older, we grow out of some of the things that we liked when we were children.
Shirley and her family don't believe that being a writer is a very good thing, and that's why they hope that the brother in the family will grow out of his love of writing, I guess.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
It's amazing that everybody in your family works in the sciences.
Yeah, my parents are both in the social sciences.
My father is a psychologist and my mother is an economist.
And your sister Shanda?
She's an astronomer.
She initially wanted to study physics, but changed her mind.
Her partner is a geologist.
Is your brother also an astronomer?
No, he's a biologist, and his wife does chemistry research.
How about your other brother?
What does he do?
Um, we don't.
I mean, he's not involved in the social sciences, life sciences, or physical sciences.
If I remember correctly, he was always good at math and liked computers.
Is he in computer science?
No, he's not.
All right, he's a writer, but we have every confidence that he'll grow out of it.
We hope our writer never grows out of her love of writing dialogues.
Thanks to Dr. Lucy Say for today's dialogue.
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.
