A: Oh, I don’t know if you've heard, but someone moved into that old house down the road. B: Yeah, I know. I met the owner of the house yesterday as he was moving in. His name is Armand. A: Really? What’s he like? You have to fill me in. B: Actually, he’s a bit strange. I don’t know... I’ve just got a bad feeling about him. A: Really? Why? B: Well, yesterday I brought over a housewarming gift, but Armand started acting really weird, and then he practically kicked me out! I tried to, sort of, peek into his house, but everything was so dark inside that I couldn’t really get a good look. The whole thing really creeped me out. A: Well, you’ll never guess what I saw this morning. A delivery truck pulled into his driveway, and it dropped off a long, rectangular box. It almost looked like a coffin! B: You see! Why would he... C: Hello ladies... B: Ah, Armand! You scared the heck out of me! This is my friend Doris. C: A pleasure to meet you...If you are not doing anything tonight, I would like to have you both for dinner. I mean...I would like to have you both over for dinner.
M: Hello everyone! And welcome back to EnglishPod! My name is Marco. E: And I’m Erica. M: And today with Erica we have an upper intermediate lesson. E: That’s right, an upper intermediate lesson that’s a little bit strange. M: It’s a little bit strange, but it’s a real English lesson, because that’s what we give you here at EnglishPod. E: So, in today’s lesson we’ve got a lot of really great language for you, we’ve got language to help you to gossip better. M: Gossip! Why don’t you, ah, explain it a little bit just in case? E: Okay, so, if I gossip, I maybe share news or information about other people with my friends. Like I might say something like “Marco, did you see what happened in ChinesePod today? You’ll never guess what I saw!” M: Exactly, that’s gossip and we also have language today to describe things. E: To describe strange things. M: Strange things. Alright, so, let’s take a look at our “vocabulary preview”. Voice: Vocabulary preview. E: So, on our vocabulary preview we’ll look at a few important words that will help you to understand the dialogue a little bit better. M: Exactly, and the first word is weird. E: Weird. M: Weird. E: Weird. M: Now, this is a common word you probably hear all the time in a lot of different satiations, so, we wanna to explain it today. E: Yeah, uh, this word just means strange. M: It’s strange. E: Yeah. M: Weird person is a strange person. E: Exactly, but the thing about this word is if you are a young person, let’s say under the age of thirty five (35), you’ll probably use it about a hundred times a day. M: Hehe. Weird. E: Yeah. M: It’s just such a good sounding word – weird. E: It is. M: Okay, but the thing is that even though that it’s probably more commonly used in American English, it’s still widely used for British English as well. E: Yeah, that’s true. M: So, but maybe in British English you would say something like… E: Odd. M: It’s odd. E: Yeah. M: That’s more common. Okay, let’s look at our second word – housewarming gift. E: Housewarming gift. M: Housewarming gift. E: Housewarming gift. M: Now, this is a cultural thing, it’s really common in North America to give a housewarming gift to someone. E: Yeah, if I move into a new house, maybe some of my friends or a family will bring a gift over to make my house a little bit more beautiful. M: So, something like a photo frame or… E: Or maybe a plant or sometimes even like maybe a basket of pastries or something. M: Okay, well… E: Yeah. M: I’ve never gotten one of those… E: Really? M: Cause I don’t have a home. E: Oh… M: Hehe. E: Where do you live? On a street? M: Well, I don’t have a… uh, my own home, so, I have never gotten one of those. E: Okay. M: Okay, so, we’re ready now to listen to our dialogue. E: So, we’ve got two housewives who are gossiping about what’s going on in a neighborhood and let’s listen to what happens. DIALOGUE, FIRST TIME E: Ooh, that guy seems kind of weird. M: Hehe. You can hear his voice is like a weird guy, right? E: Yeah. M: Hehe. Alright, let’s take a look at our “language takeaway” and look at some of these great words. Voice: Language takeaway. E: So, our language takeaway focuses on several words from the dialogue that we feel are really important for you to know. M: Exactly and we have four of them for you today. Why don’t we look at the first one? E: Okay, so, the first word is a bad feeling. M: Bad feeling. E: A bad feeling. M: A bad feeling. E: So, we’ve got a few examples that will you to understand how this phrase works. Voice: Example one. A: I don’t like Kelly’s new boyfriend. I’ve got a bad feeling about him. Voice: Example two. B: It’s so dark. We shouldn’t be up here. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Voice: Example three. C: I’ve got a bad feeling about this trip. I feel like something is going to happen. Maybe we shouldn’t go. M: Okay, so, basically you think something bad is gonna happen. E: Yeah, you have a… sort of uncomfortable feeling. M: Okay, that makes sense. I have a bad feeling about something. E: Exactly. M: Okay, let’s look at our second word now – kicked me out. E: Kicked me out. M: Kicked me out. E: Kicked me out. M: So, when someone kicks you out, it’s they force you to leave. You don’t want to leave, but they force you to leave. E: Yeah, Marco, have you ever kicked someone out of you class? M: Um, yes, I have, I’ve kicked… E: Really? M: Yeah, if you misbehave in my class, you’re kicked out. E: It’s you’re pretty strict, ha? M: Hehe. Sometimes I am. E: Okay. M: Um, okay also maybe you’ve kicked your husband out of bed. E: Mm, I might have done that… once or twice or more. M: We’ll have to ask him, I’m sure he has. Alright, so, that’s what it means, you force someone to leave the house, leave the class, leave the bed. E: So, kicked out of a class, kicked out of the house, kicked out of bed. M: Exactly, great! Let’s look at our third word now – creeped me out. E: Creeped me out. M: Creeped me out. E: Creeped me out. M: Now, this is a really common phrase. E: I like this phrase a lot and we’ve got some examples for you to listen to, to help you understand this word a little bit better. Voice: Example one. A: Schhh, did you hear that? I think I saw something. B: Stop it! You are really creeping me out! Voice: Example two. C: This place really creeps me out. Let’s get out of here! M: Alright, well, I have a confession to make – I’m kind of creeped out by clowns. E: You are? M: Yes! I don’t know, they’re just creepy, they’re… they scare me, I don’t know. E: Really? M: Yeah, so… E: What is it about clowns that scare you so much? M: I don’t know there’re just… white faces and weird paint… I don’t know it’s just creepy… And the way the laugh, oh, I don’t know, no… E: Maybe, you had a bad experience with clowns as a child. M: Probably, I watched a scary movie about clowns or something. E: Yeah. M: Alright. E: So, creeped me out basically means “made me feel uncomfortable”. M: Yes, it scares you. E: Yeah, well, speaking of being scared, we have our final word for language takeaway and it is scared the heck out of me. M: You scared the heck out of me. E: Scared the heck out of me. M: You got really scared. E: Yeah, I think this is a quite common way of saying “You really, really scared me!” M: Yeah, okay, we’re ready to listen to our dialogue again. Now, try and see if you can catch all these phrases that we just talked about. DIALOGUE, SECOND TIME (slow) E: You know, one of the things I really like about this dialogue is there’s a lot of great phrases that will help you to gossip. M: That’s a good observation, so, I think it’s time for “fluency builder”. Voice: Fluency builder. E: In fluency builder we take a simple phrase or a simple word you already know and show you how to express the same idea a little bit more naturally. M: Okay, great, so, let’s take a look at our first item for fluency builder. E: So, when you gossip with somebody, you often tell them news or information that they don’t know already. And you might start by saying “Did you know that”. M: Or you can say “Did you hear”. E: Yeah, both of those phrases are perfectly fine, but if you wanna sound a little bit more native-like when you’re gossiping, you might try out this phrase from the dialogue… Phrase 1: I don’t know if you’ve heard… I don’t know if you’ve heard… M: Yeah, that’s a really good phrase. You’re saying exactly the same thing, but in a really natural way. E: It’s a great one for gossiping, so, Marco, I don’t know if you’