Hello and welcome to the English Like a Native podcast.
My name is Anna and you're listening to week 44, day 4 of Your English Fibre Day, the second season.
Climb aboard, sit down, buckle up.
And get ready for another little journey into the English language world.
We are heading up the mountain.
Step by step, you are improving your listening skills, engaging more with the language, increasing your passive vocabulary, which I hope in time you will turn into active vocabulary.
And all I want you to do is to look out of the window, listen and enjoy the ride.
So, without further ado, let's begin today's episode with a snapshot.
The tedium of her part-time job made Anna secretly resent every shift behind the supermarket till still she reminded herself that she was paying her way through university one long evening at a time.
When she finally landed her dream internship...
She realised the struggle had paid off.
It had been the gateway to her future.
Fabulous.
Let's dive into our vocabulary, starting with that interesting noun, tedium.
Tedium.
We spell this T-E-D-I-U-M.
So, tedium means the quality of being boring, repetitive and tiresome.
So I might talk about the tedium of bookkeeping.
Bookkeeping is a repetitive, boring and tiresome task.
So the tedium of bookkeeping is something that I will often moan about.
Here's another example.
The tedium of data entry made her long for a more interesting job.
Next, we have the verb to. resent, resent, R-E-S-E-N-T.
However, the S is pronounced as a Z, resent.
So we have some voice there, resent.
I resent that.
To resent is to feel angry or bitter about something because you think that it's unfair.
So you're angry and bitter about it.
So let's imagine I'm playing in a darts competition and I've worked very hard to be the best and I think I deserve to win.
But along comes a newcomer who hasn't trained nearly as hard, but is using these new AI assisted darts.
And I think these darts shouldn't be allowed because they give you an extra advantage.
But for some reason, they are allowed to be used within the competition and my opponent won't. wins.
Well, I would resent that because I think that's unfair.
I'm a cross.
All right, enough about my darts.
Let's have another example sentence.
He resented having to work weekends whilst his colleagues had time off.
Next, we have the phrase to pay one's way.
To pay one's way.
Pay, P-A-Y, ones.
This would obviously change depending on who We are referring to and way, W-A-Y.
So if somebody pays their way, then it means that they support themselves financially or they're able to contribute fairly to their own expenses rather than relying on others.
So, for example, when a child grows up and leaves home at first, they may still rely on their parents to help them pay their bills and support them with cooking and clothing and shelter.
But over time, they have to learn to pay their way.
They have to support themselves.
They can't always rely on their parents.
Here's another example.
She was proud to pay her way through university by working part-time jobs.
Next, we have the phrasal verb pay off. pay off, P-A-Y, pay off, O-F-F.
If something pays off, then it brings good results.
It means it was worth the effort or worth the investment.
So if you work very hard and you are rewarded with a good salary or a promotion, or you study your English really well and you pass all your exams and you get the promotion that you were looking for, then you could say that your hard work and your effort paid off.
Here's an example.
All those hours of studying finally paid off when she passed her exam with top marks.
Next, we have the noun gateway.
Gateway.
We spell this G-A-T-E gateway. gateway.
A gateway is an entrance or means of access to something.
So something that leads to or makes possible something else.
For example, the opening at the front of my house between the fence and the post on the other side.
That opening is a gateway into my property.
But I could also say that the login page is the gateway to my community.
So if you want to come into my online community, you have to go through the gateway, and the gateway is the login page.
You have to have a login.
You enter your credentials and you enter into my wider community.
Now you'll notice that that when I first introduced this word, I very clearly pronounced the T in gateway.
But then as I've been talking, you might have heard I'm glottalising that T gate gateway gateway, gateway.
So don't be surprised if you do hear that T dropped or glottalised, because sometimes it's just a little easier to smooth over that plosive sound.
But if you're trying to be particularly articulate and your mouth is feeling very awake and energised, then you might want to use the T gateway gateway.
All right, so here is an example.
University can be a gateway to better career opportunities.
Now that's our five, so let's do a quick recap.
We started with the noun tedium.
Tedium, meaning the quality of being boring, repetitive and tiresome.
The tedium.
We had the verb resent with that voiced S, which means to feel angry or bitter about something, particularly if you think it's unfair.
Resent.
We had the phrase pay one's way, which means that you, or whoever we're talking about, supports themselves financially and they're able to contribute fairly to their own expenses rather than relying on others.
Pay one's way.
Similar to that, we had the phrasal verb pay off, which is when something brings good results, usually efforts or hard work.
Pay off.
They bring good results, meaning it was worth it.
And we have the noun gateway, which is an entrance or a means of access to something.
A gateway.
Now I'd like you to raise your voice for pronunciation purposes.
Please listen carefully, then repeat after me.
Tedium.
Tedium. resent resent pay one's way pay one's way pay off pay off gateway gateway and derby-dozy.
OK, let's revisit our snapshot now.
The tedium of her part-time job made Anna secretly resent every shift behind the supermarket till.
Still, she reminded herself that she was paying her way through university one long evening at a time.
When she finally landed her dream internship...
She realised that struggle had paid off.
It had been the gateway to her future.
Okay, now I'd like you to listen out for our target vocabulary once more as we head into Storytime.
Jita pushed open the heavy glass door of the supermarket at 4am.
While most of the rest of the world was still in bed, she had an early morning shift of shelf stacking ahead of her.
She tied her hair back and pulled on the green uniform vest that smelled faintly of cardboard and cleaning products.
Aisle three needs restocking, her manager called out without looking up from his clipboard.
She nodded. and wheeled the metal trolley towards the cereal section.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, casting everything in a harsh white glow.
The tedium of the work sometimes felt unbearable.
Scanning boxes, checking dates, arranging tins so the labels faced forward.
The same actions over and over again.
Jita thought about her classmates.
Most of them were probably still at home, fast asleep.
Others might be arriving home late, from a big night out.
Some had parents who paid for everything.
Rent, food, books.
She tried not to resent them for it.
But on early mornings like this, when exhaustion pressed down on her like a weight, it was difficult not to feel bitter.
Jita had moved to the city from a small town two and a half years ago with almost nothing.
Her family couldn't afford to support her through university.
If she wanted an education, she had to pay her way through it, one shift at a time.
Some weeks, she worked 20 hours on top of her lectures and assignments.
Sleep became a luxury she couldn't always afford.
But she refused to give up.
She remembered her first day at university, walking through those enormous gates, seeing students from all over the world.
She was terrified.
Everyone seemed so confident, so prepared.
She had felt like an outsider looking in.
Now, with her degree almost completed, things were changing.
Her grades were strong.
Lecturers noticed her work.
Last week, one had even suggested she apply for a master's degree.
The hard work was finally starting to pay off.
Jita finished restocking the shelves and glanced at the clock.
Two more hours.
She allowed herself a small smile.
This job, as exhausting as it was, had become more than just a way to survive.
It had taught her things her classmates would never learn.
Resilience.
Time management.
The real value of money.
University wasn't just a place of study for her.
It was a gateway to a different life.
One she was building with her own hands.
Every shift brought her closer to that future.
She picked up another box and kept working.
I don't know if you have ever been a shelf stacker.
I certainly have.
And reading that story really put me back into that time when I myself was going through university and doing all these additional jobs and shifts in order to pay my own way.
I really resonated with Jita's story.
And that brings us to the end of today's episode.
I do hope that you enjoyed it.
Now tomorrow, I'm bringing together all the vocabulary that I presented this week in one big story.
So I do hope that you will join me for that.
The more you expose yourself to new vocabulary, the more likely it is to stick.
So, make sure that you stick around.
Until tomorrow, take very good care of yourself and goodbye.
