115 - 5-Minute English: Winter

[Music] Hi everybody, my name is Shawna and this is the American English podcast. My goal here is to teach you the English spoken in the United States. Through common expressions, pronunciation tips, and interesting cultural snippets or stories, I hope to keep this fun, useful, and interesting. Let's do it. A while back, I made an episode about a snow trip my family had with friends. That was episode number 50 and it was a chat swishawna episode, so less structured than other lessons. In it, I managed to cram a ton of important vocabulary words related to the topic of snow. Today, you'll hear some of those words again and so much more. This lesson is all about winter and cold weather. Everything from temperature to snow and snow trips, places to go skiing and snowboarding, man, there's a lot crammed into this episode. So stay tuned. [Music] This is a five minute English episode and just like other five minute English episodes, you will be exposed to terms and phrases, collocations and expressions, all related to one topic. I call this fluency one topic at a time because by the end, if you learn the material well, you should be able to have a conversation with a native about this topic. This is an intensive listening lesson. You won't likely understand everything you hear and that's 100% okay. That's the reason why the audio was short. You can listen to it multiple times. If this is your first time listening to an episode like this, you might be asking yourself, "How can I make the most of this lesson?" Well, listen to the audio once all the way through. Don't do anything other than listen with the goal of getting a good overview of the story and understanding the gist. Then, while listening a second time, why not transcribe the story? So write down the story on a piece of paper word for word. Once done, analyze the text and pick out about 10 words and phrases to look up in a dictionary. Don't overwhelm yourself by looking up everything. Keep it simple. Once you have the definitions for unknown words, listen to the audio a third time and you'll be amazed by how much you understand. Of course, as a language learner, you want to effectively remember the words that you picked. So there are plenty of things that you can do with your newly learned words and phrases in order to help with retention. Some people like flashcards, perhaps storytelling, writing a story with the words, maybe even creating conversation questions to ask your language teacher or language partner. My favorite way to learn is a bit old school. It's just by writing original sentences using new words and phrases. Writing in general is a creative task and it can help you formulate your ideas. So as if you were in an actual conversation with someone or creating sentences on the fly. It's simple but very effective. If you write something, it also helps with retention. The second option, if you are not interested in doing this all on your own, is getting the premium content I provide. So five minute English lessons contain the PDF transcript, definitions for all of the challenging words and phrases, exercises, phrasal verb work, conversation questions, and quizzes. There's also a segment on pronunciation and a bonus video to take your learning further. If you're interested in this idea of fluency one topic at a time or just want to access the premium content, you can find it at AmericanEnglishPodcast.com. A link will be provided in the episode notes for you to check that out. Today, once again, we'll be talking about winter and cold weather, but before we begin, it's important to mention that our main character lives in a place called New England. What is New England? Well, it is the north-eastern region of the United States that consists of a handful of US states. So main, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. So New England usually has long cold winters, and that's why I chose it for this story. [Music] You're nestled in the corner of your couch with hot chocolate in your hands looking out the window. Outside, a breeze carries the last few brown leaves from your tree to the ground. Fall is over and winter is here. Disciples are starting to form on the eaves of your house and the sidewalks outside are covered with a light layer of snow. You have mixed feelings about winter. While you enjoy the beginning of December with the twinkly lights and festive holiday cheer, come the end of February, you're fed up with the cold. While every state in the United States with the exception of Florida gets snow, where you live, in New England, well, it feels like an ice box. Temperatures are significantly colder than the national average, which is 54.4 degrees Fahrenheit, and snow covers every inch of the ground until late April. This is much longer than the official US winter, which lasts from December 21st until March 20th. For you, the chilly season brings some highs and lows. We'll start with the lows. In order to make it to work on time, you need to wake up an hour early and bundle up to shovel piles of snow out of your driveway. Overnight, ice freezes on your car windows, and you need to scrape that off in order to see out. On days like these, good snow boots are a must, and even with them on, you've slipped and fallen on numerous occasions. On blizzardy days, you ask yourself why you don't live in Hawaii. You wouldn't need to worry about storms, flooding, or power outages, and you certainly would spend more time outdoors, instead of being cooped up. Instead, you face the cold and dream of the one thing that makes winter amazing, a good snow trip. As an avid downhill skier, you wait all year to hit up the Rocky Mountains, or the Rockies for short, which is a mountain range that runs from Canada down through Colorado, Utah, New Mexico. Colorado is in the heart of the Rockies, and it's become a mecca of ski resorts. You know them like the back of your hand, all 32. As a kid, you remember learning the difference between pizza and french fries on the bunny slopes. Pizza, or the skis in the shape of a triangle, was how they described stopping. French fries or skis parallel to one another, meant to go. You got the hang of it pretty fast. This year, you decide to go to Aspen, a pricey, yet cozy town that can be found nestled in the mountains at an altitude of 8,000 feet. Aspen is world-renowned for its powdery snow and four ski resorts which draw in rich and famous visitors like the Kardashians, the Obama family, Elton John, and Mariah Carey. But for you, it's not about the celebrity sightings or the high-end stores. It's about the slopes. You're drawn to the steep, wild runs made for experts. First things first, you need to book an accommodation. In Aspen, and at most ski resorts in the US, there are quaint villages where visitors stay. In accommodation, which is warm and comforting, we call a lodge in English. Some may look like a Swiss style chalet. Others might look like a rustic log cabin. You choose one that looks like a luxurious log cabin, within walking distance of local restaurants and pubs. For you, the lodge is half the experience. After a day out in the snow, you can't wait to sit in a jacuzzi or next to a large stone fireplace to get warm. The next thing you know, it's the crack of dawn. and you are in Aspen. You get up, look out your frosty window and watch the sunrise over the snowy peaks. Off in the distance, you can see the lift, frozen in place, ready to carry adventure junkies up the side of the steep mountain. It's go time. So you put on your long johns as a base layer, warm wool socks, snow boots, a beanie, scarf and multiple layers of fleece under your waterproof pants and jacket. You shove some sunscreen and lip balm, sunglasses, and a face cover in your pockets. You make a beeline for the rental shop, where you can get your lift ticket and gear, like goggles, skis, and poles. When you head outside, a gust of icy air hits your face. You can see your breath. For a moment, you think you're the only one outside. When in the corner of your eye, you see two kids having a snowball fight. Back when you were a kid, you loved sneaking up on your dad and pelting snowballs at him. Such a memory makes you think back to other wonderful times in the snow. As a kid, you loved sledding, and you loved building snowmen, complete with black top hats, coal for eyes, and a big carrot nose. You also remember lying down in the soft powdery snow and batting your arms and legs to make a snow angel. You can remember the first time that you went snow-shoeing, snow-moe-bealing, and cross-country skiing. How you spend your day is not for the faint of heart. In fact, it was incredibly difficult and a great workout. Getting on and off the ski lift, winding your way down the mountain, you had your work cut out for you. You even went off a few jumps. Only once did you wipe out, and it wasn't because you ran into someone, you just lost your footing. By sunset, you're exhausted, but the day is not nearly over, and your eyes, the cherry on top of a perfect ski day, is grabbing a beer and playing cards with other skiers and snowboarders. You do just that at a local pub, and after you knock a few back, you walk back home, ready to pass out and repeat the day's activities again tomorrow. Aspen, you decide, apart from the glitz and glam, is worth the hype. Next year, you might head to Park City, Utah, which has one of the longest Alpine coasters in the world, or maybe Breckenridge, which is not only the most visited ski resort in the US, but also has the highest ski lift in North America, at 12,500 feet. Imagine the views. That's it for this episode. It was a little bit challenging to add a few of the terms I'd written down into the text. The first being four-wheel drive. Of course, it's easier to drive in the snow. If you have a car with four-wheel drive, if you don't have four-wheel drive, you might need to put chains on your car. Another thing to mention about winter, remember, the United States is massive and geographically diverse. There are so many mountain ranges, so drastic changes in elevation, and also just where some of the states are located. We have beautiful Alaska way up North, where in December, the sun rises at 10 a.m. and sets at 2.45 p.m. So you might only get four hours of sunlight and sub-zero temperatures. Then there's Hawaii, which, if you look at a map, looks pretty much on par with the Caribbean. And while it's warm there, you also get snow at the top of Monteloa, the volcano on the big island. So it's hard to generalize about weather here. We have so many holidays during winter time. We even have what's called the holiday season. That includes religious holidays, such as Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas. New Year's wraps up the holiday season. When the clock strikes 12, many Americans watch the ball drop in New York City. I talked about that back in episode number 42. On New Year's Day, there's the famous Rose Bowl parade. In January, we also celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday and shortly after that, the Super Bowl parties are massive and so much fun. Actually, this weekend there will be one. In February, it's black history month. So it's a time when famous African-Americans are celebrated. We have Valentine's Day or the Day of Love. And that celebrated on February 14th. If you're pronouncing these, remember the th, don't forget the TH at the end, 14th. Anyway, after the 14th, there's President's Day and then St. Patrick's Day in March. So lots of activities, lots of fun. That's it for today's episode. Once again, if you're interested in signing up to premium content, you can find that at americanenglishpodcast.com. Thank you for listening to this episode of the American English podcast. Remember, it's my goal here to not only help you improve your listening comprehension, but to show you how to speak like someone from the States. If you want to receive the full transcript for this episode or you just want to support this podcast, make sure to sign up to premium content on americanenglishpodcast.com. Thanks and hope to see you soon.