Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1302, Complaining About Parents.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1302.
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 Winnie and Finn, who are both complaining about their parents.
Let's get started.
I can't believe it.
My dad is so clueless.
What did he do now?
He gave me permission to go to Gabby's party, but I have to be home by 11pm because of my curfew.
At least he's letting you go.
My mom is so overprotective that she won't let me go to any parties.
Unbelievable.
Do your parents get on your case all the time like mine do?
Yeah.
At least your parents don't tell you what you can wear.
My mom says, still wants to pick out my clothes.
What am I, five?
My parents are worse.
They're always comparing me to my smarter brothers.
I'm a huge disappointment to them.
I'm always coming up short.
At least your parents don't embarrass you by fighting all the time, even in public.
We have such hard lives.
Nobody understands us.
I know.
Nobody in history has ever suffered as much as we have.
We begin our dialogue with Winnie saying, I can't believe it.
I can't believe it is something we say when we are surprised or when something seems strange to us.
Winnie says, my dad, my father is so clueless.
To be clueless C-L-U-E-L-E-S-S means not to understand the world around you, not to be aware of what is happening.
Someone who is either not very intelligent, not very smart, or who isn't paying attention could be described as clueless, especially when he does something that would indicate he doesn't understand what is happening around him.
Finn asks Winnie, what did he do now?
What did her father do?
Winnie responds.
He gave me permission to go to Gabby's party, but I have to be home by 11 pm because of my curfew.
Permission, P-E-R-M-I-S-S-I-O-N, is approval to do something or to have something.
Approval means someone says, yes, you can do that.
Parents may give permission to their children to do certain things.
Children, of course, are supposed to obey their parents, that is, do what their parents say.
Not all children do that, I am told.
Winnie has been given permission by her father to go to Gabby's party.
But she has to return home by 11 o'clock at night because she has a curfew.
C-U-R-F-E-W.
A curfew is a time, usually in the evening, before which you have to be home.
Parents often give their children, especially their teenage children, a curfew, a time at which they must return home so that they don't get into trouble.
Sometimes a government will have a curfew for its citizens, telling people they must be at home before a certain time.
Winnie has a curfew of 11 p.m., meaning she must be back at her house by 11 o'clock at night.
We're not sure how old Winnie and Finn are, but we're guessing they are teenagers somewhere between the ages of say, 13 and 17.
Finn says at least he's letting you go, meaning at least Winnie's father is letting her go to this party.
To let someone go is a phrasal verb meaning to give the person permission or approval.
Finn says my mom is so overprotective that she won't let me go to any parties.
To be protective of someone means to try to take care of someone, to make sure that a person isn't hurt in any way.
To be overprotective, O-V-E-R-P-R-O-T-E-C-T-I-V-E, means to go too far, to be too protective of someone, so much so that you are preventing that person, perhaps, from doing what he wants to do.
The prefix over always means too much of something.
So to overfill your glass with water is to put too much water in your glass.
To overprotect means to protect too much.
Winnie then says unbelievable.
Something that is unbelievable or could be something that is impossible to believe.
However, Winnie is using this word to show how surprised she is by something, especially in a way that indicates that she disapproves or thinks it's wrong.
When he says, do your parents get on your case all the time like mine do?
To get on someone's case C-A-S-E means to bother someone by telling him all the things he's doing wrong.
Another term for this is the verb to nag, N-A-G, which comes up in the very next sentence.
Winnie says that her parents get on her case all the time, meaning constantly.
They're always criticizing her or telling her what she is doing wrong.
Finn says the same thing happens to him.
Poor Finn.
Finn says, yeah, my mom is always nagging me to do my homework.
To nag is similar to to get on your case.
However, to nag is usually has the meaning of to be reminding someone all the time about something he is supposed to do.
A wife may nag her husband to do the dishes if the husband doesn't do them when she asks him to do them.
She may say, could you please do the dishes now?
And then 10 minutes later, when are you going to do the dishes?
And then 20 minutes later, how come you haven't done the dishes yet?
That would be to nag.
Of course, a husband can nag a wife as well, though he won't remain her husband very long if he does.
In any case, Finn is complaining about his mother nagging him to do his homework.
That is, the work that he is supposed to do from the classes he takes at school.
Finn says his mother nags him to do his homework and then complains that he spends too much time by himself in his room.
Finn says his mother complains.
To complain C-O-M-P-L-I-A-N means to show that you are unhappy about something, to say what you don't like about a certain person or a certain thing or a situation.
Finn's mother complains that Finn spends too much time by himself in his room rather than being with his family, although she also tells him he is supposed to do his homework.
So he's a little confused, and I understand that.
Winnie says, at least your parents don't tell you what you can wear.
My mom still wants to pick out my clothes.
Winnie complains that her mother wants to pick out or select or choose her clothing.
To pick out is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to select.
She then tries to be funny by saying, What am I?
Five?
Meaning...
Does she think I'm five years old and I need for her to pick out my clothing?
Finn says my parents are worse.
They're always comparing me to my smarter brothers.
To compare means to show how two different things are similar, although...
We would sometimes use this also to mean to show how they are different.
Some people use a different verb to contrast C-O-N-T-R-A-S-T, to mean to show how two things are different.
To compare would mean to show how they are similar, but in English Conversational English we often use to compare to mean either to show how things are the same or how they are different.
Finn's parents compare him to his more intelligent or smarter brothers.
I'm a huge disappointment to them, he says.
To be a disappointment means to not do as well as someone hopes that you will do, or to not be as smart, in this case, as your parents hoped that you would be.
Many of us are disappointments to our parents, I'm sure, just as our parents were probably disappointments to their parents.
Finn says, I'm always coming up short.
The expression to come up short means to disappoint, not to be as good as someone expects you to be.
It can also mean to get fewer points than you need to win a game.
If we say that the Los Angeles Dodgers tried very hard to win their game but came up short, we mean they didn't have a high enough score to win the game.
Winnie says, My parents are never satisfied either.
To be satisfied, S-A-T-I-S-F-I-E-D means to be happy.
It's the opposite of disappointed.
It means that you are happy because someone met your expectations.
You are pleased, or we might say you are content, C-O-N-T-E-N-T.
Winnie says that her parents are always saying that her grades, her marks at school aren't good enough and that her attitude needs improving.
Attitude, A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E, means how you view the world or how you react to things.
Teenagers often have a poor attitude in the minds of their parents.
Finn says, Notice that several times in this dialogue, our characters say, at least.
This is often used as a way of introducing a statement that will be even worse than the situation that you just described.
For example, someone may say, I'm really tired and I have to work all day.
Someone else will say, well, at least you get to go home to a nice house when you're done working.
I have to work all day and I have to go visit my mother-in-law when I'm done working.
He's saying that his situation is even worse than your bad situation.
Finn says that his situation is worse than Winnie's because his parents embarrass him.
To embarrass E-M-B-A-R-R-A-S-S means to make another person feel strange or ashamed or self-conscious.
People often talk about being embarrassed, meaning that they feel strange because they're in a situation where perhaps they are shown to be unusual or uncomfortable.
Finn's parents embarrass him by fighting, by disagreeing, even in public meaning when other people they don't know are around or are present in the same room.
Winnie says, we have such hard lives, meaning we have very difficult lives.
Nobody understands us.
Finn says, I know.
Nobody in history, meaning no one ever before this time, has ever suffered as much as we have.
To suffer, S-U-F-F-E-R, means to experience some pain, either physical or, in this case, emotional.
Winnie and Finn, like many teenagers, believe that their lives are the most difficult lives anyone has ever had to live.
Now let's listen to the dialogue this time at a normal speed.
I can't believe it.
My dad is so clueless.
What did you do now?
He gave me permission to go to Gabby's party, but I have to be home by 11pm because of my curfew.
At least he's letting you go.
My mom is so overprotective that she won't let me go to any parties.
Unbelievable.
Do your parents get on your case all the time like mine do?
Yeah.
My mom is always nagging me to do my homework and then complains that I spend too much time by myself in my room rather than with the family.
At least your parents don't tell you what you can wear.
My mom still wants to pick out my clothes.
What am I, five?
My parents are worse.
They're always comparing me to my smarter brothers.
I'm a huge disappointment to them.
I'm always coming up short.
My parents are never satisfied either.
They're always saying that my grades aren't good enough and my attitude needs improving.
At least your parents don't embarrass you by fighting all the time, even in public.
We have such hard lives.
Nobody understands us.
I know.
Nobody in history has ever suffered as much as we have.
We're hoping you're satisfied with the wonderful scripts written by our scriptwriter, 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 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
Thank you.
