Coffee Break English, season four, episode six.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Coffee Break English.
I'm Josie. And I'm Mark.
How are you today, Josie?
I'm very well, thanks, Mark.
I'm a little bit tired, but all good.
How are you? I'm OK, but I am quite excited because we're heading to the Caribbean today.
Yes, we are. Or if you're from North America, the Caribbean.
That's right. We are actually heading to Barbados.
So we'll find out more in our text.
Yes, and we'll be focusing on a language point as usual.
This time, it's the first conditional.
OK, that sounds interesting.
Let's have a listen to the text.
Hi, everyone. It's Marcia reporting to you from Barbados.
And in this episode, we're going to learn about a popular festival here.
Let's get started. If you visit Barbados in the summer, you'll experience the Cropova Festival.
Everyone loves a celebration, and the Cropova Festival is quite the party.
This tradition began in 1687 to mark the end of the Shugokian harvest and has continued every year since then.
The festival stopped in the 1940s during World War II, but it was started again in 1974 to try to attract more tourists to the island and encourage interest in local culture.
Today, the Cropova Festival lasts between two and three months from June until the first Monday in August.
It is a spectacular event, including live music, flower festivals and art events.
There is also the Junior Calypso Monarch Competition, where children compete to win musical competitions.
If a child wins, they will be crowned king or queen of the festival.
The months of celebration conclude with Grand Cadument Day, which involves parades, dancing, singing and much more.
The main procession makes its way to the Spring Garden Highway, where the party continues into the night with food, drink and fireworks.
If you keep your eyes on the crowd, you will probably see the singer Rihanna, who is from Barbados.
She usually comes to the island for Grand Cadument Day, and the partygoers are often joined by other celebrities too.
The Cropova Festival is an amazing, colourful celebration.
This long -running festival is a great way to experience Beijing traditions and culture.
And if you visit the island at this time of year, you would definitely have a good time.
Thank you, Marcia. That was really interesting.
And some very interesting words in this text too.
There are, we've got a lot of vocabulary to talk about here.
Absolutely. Let's go through the text then again.
If you visit Barbados in the summer, you'll experience the Cropova Festival.
Great, and I said before our language point for today is the first conditional.
Well, this first sentence is our first example of the first conditional.
If you visit Barbados in the summer, you'll experience the Cropova Festival.
So if you visit, you'll experience.
That's right. Basically, the first conditional is made up of two clauses, two parts of a sentence.
The first part is with if and the present tense, if you visit Barbados.
And this tells us about something that might happen in the future, could possibly happen in the future.
And then the second part you will experience, so that's a future form.
That's right, the second part is in the future.
And this part says the consequence of the possible future action in the first part.
So if you visit Barbados, maybe in the future, you will experience the festival, that's the consequence.
Could we have some other examples of this, Josie?
Yes, for example, I could say, if it's sunny tomorrow, I will go to the beach.
Or if I'm tired this afternoon, maybe I'll have a nap.
That's right, if you're tired this afternoon, but maybe you won't be tired this afternoon, it depends.
Okay, that all makes sense.
Everyone loves a celebration and the Crop Over Festival is quite the party.
Yeah, so everyone loves a celebration.
A celebration is an event that happens because of something special, usually a birthday or maybe an anniversary.
And Marcia says the Crop Over Festival is quite the party.
What does quite the party mean, Mark?
It's an interesting expression and it's used to emphasize that something is good or special in some way.
Coffee Break English is quite the podcast.
Yes, let's continue.
This tradition began in 1687 to mark the end of the sugarcane harvest and has continued every year since then.
Yeah, so the festival began in 1687 to mark the end of the sugarcane harvest, to mark, to celebrate the importance of something.
And this something important was the sugarcane harvest.
So sugarcane is a tropical plant which produces sugar.
And the harvest is the time when the crop is gathered or collected.
So that's when this sugarcane is gathered.
Exactly. And in the second part of this sentence, we have an example of the present perfect.
So the tradition began in 1687 and has continued, present perfect, has continued every year since then.
This is using the present perfect to talk about an action that started in the past and continues to the present.
So it's still happening today.
Exactly, that's right.
The festival stopped in the 1940s during World War II but it was started again in 1974 to try to attract more tourists to the island and encourage interest in local culture.
Yeah, so the festival was started again in 1974 to attract more tourists to the island.
What does it mean to attract tourists?
To attract tourists means to make tourists interested in coming to visit.
So to make tourists go somewhere.
That's right, to attract tourists to the island and encourage interest in local culture.
Encourage here has a similar meaning to attract, to try to make someone do something or feel something.
In this case, to try to make the tourists interested in the local culture.
Good. Today, the Cropover Festival lasts between two and three months from June until the first Monday in August.
It is a spectacular event including live music, flower festivals and art events.
Yes, it is a spectacular event.
What does it mean, spectacular, Mark?
If something is spectacular, it is very impressive or dramatic.
That's right, and this is true.
I looked up some pictures of the Cropover Festival and it looks, well, spectacular.
It looks amazing. So there's live music.
It's music that's performed live, flower festivals and art events.
There is also the Junior Calypso Monarch competition where children compete to win musical competitions.
Yes, so children compete to win musical competitions.
Children take part in this contest and they try to win.
We can see here that compete is the verb and competition is the noun which comes from this verb.
If a child wins, they will be crowned king or queen of the festival.
Here we have our second example of the first conditional.
If a child wins, so this is something that might happen, possibly could happen in the future.
If a child wins, they will be crowned king or queen of the festival.
So we can see if and our present tense and then our future form, they will be crowned.
And what does crowned mean, Mark?
When you crown someone, you make them king or queen.
So Queen Elizabeth was crowned when she took the throne.
That's right. So to crown someone is like literally to put the crown on their head.
Yes. Okay, let's take a short break there.
The Coffee Break English podcast is helping you to improve your understanding of English.
We also offer extra resources which include transcripts of our texts and conversations and vocabulary lists to help you learn even more.
To get these extra resources, just visit coffeebreakenglish .com and sign up for free.
Welcome back to Coffee Break English.
We're talking about the Crop Over Festival in Barbados and we're also talking about the first conditional.
Okay, let's continue the text.
The months of celebration conclude with Grand Cadument Day, which involves parades, dancing, singing, and much more.
Yes, the months of celebration conclude with Grand Cadument Day.
They end with Grand Cadument Day or they finish with this day.
And Josie, what is a parade?
Well, parade is actually similar to a word which we will see in the next sentence.
It's like a long line of people all moving together to celebrate something.
You may have seen the parades in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil for a carnival.
Lots of people celebrating, singing, dancing, and moving along the streets together.
Exactly. The main procession makes its way to the Spring Garden Highway, where the party continues into the night with food, drink, and fireworks.
Yes, the main procession.
So this is the word that is similar to parade.
A procession is a group of people walking or maybe driving in a line.
And what are fireworks, Josie?
Fireworks are these colorful explosions in the sky that you usually see during celebrations, maybe at New Year as well.
Good. If you keep your eyes on the crowd, you will probably see the singer Rihanna, who is from Barbados.
This is another example of the first conditional.
If you keep your eyes on the crowd, so our possible future situation, you will probably see the singer Rihanna.
So as long as you keep your eyes on the crowd, if you do this, you will, well, probably see Rihanna.
Josie, can I ask you, could we also say, you will probably see the singer Rihanna if you keep your eyes on the crowd?
Yes, we could. That's exactly right.
We can change these two parts of the sentence.
We can switch them around.
The important thing to remember is that after the word if, we must use the present form, the present tense.
Good. So talking of Rihanna, she usually comes to the island for Grand Cadument Day and the partygoers are often joined by other celebrities too.
Yes, the partygoers are often joined by other celebrities.
A partygoer is a person who goes to a party.
That makes sense. Okay.
The Crop Over Festival is an amazing, colourful celebration.
This long running festival is a great way to experience Beijing traditions and culture.
Yes. This long running festival.
What does it mean if the festival is long running, Mark?
The festival has existed for a long period of time.
That's right. We learnt earlier that it began way back in 1687, so it's very long running.
And we heard a word there, Beijing.
Yes. Beijing is the adjective to describe a person or a tradition from Barbados.
Okay. If you visit the island at this time of year, you will definitely have a good time.
Yes. Here's our final example of the first conditional.
If you visit the island at this time of year, present tense, if you visit, you will definitely have a good time.
You will definitely.
Our future form. It's worth saying that this first conditional can also be known by some other names.
So it depends where you're learning English.
Some people will call it a real conditional as well.
That's right. Now, Josie, all of the examples we have seen so far have been the present tense combined with the future with will.
Are there other situations?
Yes, there are. This is the most basic form of the first conditional, to use if with the present simple and then the future with will.
Actually, in the first clause with if, we could use another present tense, such as the present continuous or even the present perfect.
And in the second clause, we could use another future form, for example, going to.
And we'll see more examples of the first conditional in future episodes.
That's right. So if you keep listening to Coffee Break English, you will see more examples of the first conditional.
Excellent. Let's listen again to the text now.
If you visit Barbados in the summer, you'll experience the Crop Over Festival.
Everyone loves a celebration and the Crop Over Festival is quite the party.
This tradition began in 1687 to mark the end of the sugarcane harvest and has continued every year since then.
The festival stopped in the 1940s during World War II, but it was started again in 1974 to try to attract more tourists to the island and encourage interest in local culture.
Today, the Crop Over Festival lasts between two and three months from June until the first Monday in August.
It is a spectacular event, including live music, flower festivals and art events.
There is also the Junior Calypso monarch competition.
Where children compete to win musical competitions.
If a child wins, they will be crowned king or queen of the festival.
The months of celebration conclude with Grand Cadument Day which involves parades, dancing, singing and much more.
The main procession makes its way to the Spring Garden Highway where the party continues into the night with food, drink and fireworks.
If you keep your eyes on the crowd, you will probably see the singer Rihanna, who is from Barbados.
She usually comes to the island for Grand Cadument Day and the partygoers are often joined by other celebrities too.
The Crop Over Festival is an amazing, colourful celebration.
This long -running festival is a great way to experience Beijing traditions and culture and if you visit the island at this time of year, you will definitely have a good time.
Thank you everyone for listening to this episode of Coffee Break English.
We hope it's been useful for you.
We'll be back next time when we are returning to the United Kingdom and talking about something historical.
That's right. Don't forget that if you'd like to get the free lesson notes for this lesson, just go to coffeebreakenglish .com.
That's all for today.
We'll see you again soon.
Bye bye. Bye bye. Recording copyright 2023, Radiolinguilimited.
All rights reserved.
