Coffee Break English, season four, episode eight.
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Coffee Break English.
I'm Josie. And I'm Mark, and we're delighted to be back with another episode.
Josie, what are we talking about today?
Today we're talking about some US history, and we're talking all about the founding fathers.
So these are the people who founded the United States of America.
That's right, and to found something means to start or create or establish something.
It's a tricky word because found can also be a part of the verb to find.
That's right. It's the past of the verb, find.
But found in this sense is the present.
So it's its own verb.
It's a separate verb, and it means something different.
Let's listen to our text.
But before we do, is there anything that we should listen out for from a language point of view?
Yes. Today we're focusing on the past perfect tense and comparing it with the past simple tense.
Good. OK, so it's over to Kate for our text.
Hey, Josie. Hi, Mark.
This is Kate, and I'm back with another text.
Today, we're going back in history to discover the origins of our country as we know it today.
The United States of America is one of the world's largest countries.
Yet it was originally formed by just a few people.
The founding fathers were the seven men who united the 13 colonies and gained independence for the USA.
They were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
Each founding father played a different part in influencing US independence.
But together, they separated North America from Britain and built a government for the new United States.
Most of the seven had had no political experience, and they had come from other backgrounds such as medicine and law.
Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin were members of the committee which wrote the Declaration of Independence.
And Jay and Adams did the first work on the US Constitution.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison all served as president.
Jay was the first chief justice, and Hamilton was the first secretary of the Treasury.
The seven men had considered themselves British subjects.
But after they declared independence and founded their new country, they became patriotic Americans, creating the strong national pride that many US citizens still feel today.
The founding fathers are some of the most important figures in US history, and it is thanks to their work that their country became so large and powerful.
Their dedication is remembered by proud US citizens who honor their legacy and continue their patriotic spirit.
Thank you, Kate. I have to admit I don't know a lot about US history, so that was quite interesting for me.
Yeah, I've heard of some of these people, in particular Alexander Hamilton from the musical, but I've definitely learned something today.
Okay, let's go back through the text.
The United States of America is one of the world's largest countries, yet it was originally formed by just a few people.
Yes, the USA is one of the world's largest countries, yet it was originally formed by just a few people.
Here, yet just means but, and it was originally formed, it was originally made or created by just a few people.
The founding fathers were the seven men who united the thirteen colonies and gained independence for the USA.
Yes, and as we've already said, the verb found from founding fathers means to create a new country and these men, they united the thirteen colonies, they joined these colonies together and gained independence for the USA.
They got independence, they earned independence for the USA.
They were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John G, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
Okay, that's just their names, so I think we can continue.
Each founding father played a different part in influencing US independence, but together they separated North America from Britain and built a government for the new United States.
Yeah, so each founding father played a different part.
What does it mean if you play a part in something, Mark?
You take a role in something.
That's right, so you have an important role in something, so it means that every founding father was important in some way and they were important in influencing US independence.
If you influence something, you use your power to do something or get something.
Let's continue. Most of the seven had had no political experience and they had come from other backgrounds such as medicine and law.
Yes, in this sentence we have two examples of the past perfect tense.
The first one is a little difficult.
Most of the seven had had no political experience, but let's come back to that one.
The second example is they, they in this case is the founding fathers, they had come from other backgrounds such as medicine and law.
First of all, what is a background in this case?
Your background would be your experience in life, your family, your education, your financial status.
Exactly. When we say that the founding fathers had come from other backgrounds, this means that before they founded, before they created the United States of America, they did other things like medicine and law.
We use this tense had come from other backgrounds to describe this.
Can you tell us more about this, Mark?
Okay. So it's before the point in the past that we're talking about.
This morning, I arrived at the office.
I had eaten breakfast before.
Exactly. That's right.
So this tense the past perfect, it describes something before the point in time that we're talking, before the past.
Maybe another example could be when I arrived at the cinema, the film had started.
Okay. So how do we form this tense, Josie?
Yeah, good question.
We form it using an auxiliary verb, which is a helping verb, which in this case is had.
So the past tense of have had.
Next, we add the past participle of the main verb, the verb which has the meaning in the sentence.
In this case, had come.
Come is the past participle of come.
Okay. It's the same word, but yeah, it's the past participle.
Now let's go back and look at had had.
Yes. This one is difficult, because again, we're using the past perfect.
It's got the same meaning.
Most of the seven founding fathers, before they founded the United States, they had had no political experience.
But we have two hads together.
So the first had is the past tense of to have.
That's right. That's the auxiliary verb.
And the second had is the past participle of to have.
That's right. And they're both the same word.
They're the same word, but it is completely correct to say this.
Okay, let's continue our text.
Adams, Jefferson and Franklin were members of the committee which wrote the Declaration of Independence.
And Jay and Adams did the first work on the US constitution.
Yes, so Adams, Jefferson and Franklin were members of the committee.
What is a committee?
A committee would be a group of people working on a particular thing.
That's right. In this case, they're working on the Declaration of Independence.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison, all served as president.
Jay was the nation's first chief justice and Hamilton was the first secretary of the treasury.
Yes, all of these men had very important jobs, the first important jobs in the US government.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison all served as president.
This means they all worked as president.
Okay, now we're going to find out more about the founding fathers after the break.
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Welcome back to Coffee Break English.
We're talking about the founding fathers of the USA and about the past perfect tense.
One of the things I like about the past perfect tense is that it often works very similarly in other languages.
So have a think about whether your language works the same way as English.
Yes, good idea. Let's continue with the text.
The seven men had considered themselves British subjects but after they declared independence and founded their new country, they became patriotic Americans creating the strong national pride that many US citizens still feel today.
Okay, this is quite a long sentence.
Let's break it down a little bit.
We start with another example of the past perfect.
The seven men had considered themselves British subjects.
First of all, a subject is a person who is governed or ruled by a king or queen.
So in this case, it would have been whoever was the king or queen of Britain at that time.
So these seven men, they had considered themselves British subjects.
This means that before they founded the USA, they considered that they were British, essentially.
And we use the past perfect here because they considered this before the point in the past that we're talking about.
So the seven men had considered themselves British subjects.
If we think about the timeline, then originally at the beginning, they considered themselves British subjects.
And then at the next point in time, they declared independence.
And after this, they became patriotic Americans.
So declared and became, they're both simple pasts.
That's right. They are both the past simple tense, because this is the time that we're talking about in this text.
It's in the past, but it's in that point in the past.
There's another interesting verb in here in the past, Josie.
There is. So after they declared independence and founded their new country, founded is the past tense, the past simple tense of this verb found, which means create this new country.
So be careful, because as you mentioned at the beginning, found can be the past simple tense of find, but founded is the past simple tense of found.
It's tricky. Okay. They became patriotic Americans.
What does patriotic mean, Josie?
If you're patriotic, you love your country and you feel loyal to it.
It could also be pronounced patriotic as well.
And so they became patriotic Americans and they created the strong national pride that many US citizens still feel today.
What is pride, Mark?
Pride is the state of being proud of something.
In this case, proud of their country.
That's right. So someone who is patriotic or patriotic is proud.
They have pride. Good.
The founding fathers are some of the most important figures in US history.
And it is thanks to their work that the country became so large and powerful.
Their dedication is remembered by proud US citizens who honor their legacy and continue their patriotic or patriotic spirit.
Yes. So their dedication is remembered by proud US citizens, their hard work, their devotion.
Okay. And their dedication is remembered by proud US citizens who honor their legacy.
That's quite a tricky sentence.
Yes. So let's break it up into the individual words.
To honor is to treat something with respect or admiration.
And what's a legacy?
The legacy is what someone leaves after they die.
So it's what survives after a person dies as a reminder of them.
That's right. So obviously the legacy of the founding fathers is the fact that the USA exists.
So these proud US citizens, they honor the legacy of the founding fathers.
They respect and remember the fact that they created the USA.
And just that word honor, it's worth noting that honor in the UK and British English is spelled H -O -N -O -U -R.
But like many words ending in O -U -R in British English, it's spelled H -O -N -O -R in American English.
That's right. And that's the same with many words as you said.
Okay. Let's listen again to the whole text.
The United States of America is one of the world's largest countries.
Yet it was originally formed by just a few people.
The founding fathers were the seven men who united the 13 colonies and gained independence for the USA.
They were John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.
Each founding father played a different part in influencing US independence.
But together, they separated North America from Britain and built a government for the new United States.
Most of the seven had had no political experience, and they had come from other backgrounds such as medicine and law.
Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin were members of the United States.
And Adams did the first work on the US Constitution.
Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison all served as president.
Jay was the nation's first chief justice, and Hamilton was the first secretary of the treasury.
The seven men had considered themselves British subjects, but after they declared independence and founded their new country, they became patriotic Americans, creating the strong national pride that many US citizens still feel today.
The founding fathers are some of the most important figures in US history.
And it is thanks to their work that their country became so large and powerful.
Their dedication is remembered by proud US citizens who honor their legacy and continue their patriotic spirit.
Thank you everyone for listening to this episode of Coffee Break English.
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