Your English Five a Day #37.3

E322: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast! I'm Anna, your guide for Week 37, Day 3 of Your English Five a Day. Each weekday, we enrich your active vocabulary, ignite a passion for the English language, and enhance your overall proficiency by exploring five new vocabulary items.

😱 In today's episode, we delve into the nouns "trickle" and "parade". Then, we move on to the adjective "crowded" and the verb "surprise". Finally, we wrap up today's list with the idiom "here goes nothing".

🍀 🇮🇪 Join me as we practise pronunciation, and reinforce your understanding with a fun quiz. In today's story time, we meet Carla, as she nervously prepares for her role as the lead marcher in the Saint Patrick's Day parade. Despite her anxiety and the crowded square, she gathers her courage, steps into the bustling scene, and surprises herself by enjoying the experience and performing confidently.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 37, Day 3 of Your English Five a Day. We are pumping up and expanding your active vocabulary, as well as kindling a love for the English language and improving your English overall. We do this by focusing on five items of vocabulary every day of the working week, from Monday to Friday. We start today's episode with the noun trickle, trickle. We spell this T R I C K L E. Trickle. Trickle. Trickle. A trickle is a small amount or number of something coming or going slowly. So the first thing I think about when I think of a trickle is a stream or an incoming of water. There's a trickle of water. So it's just coming in very, very slowly, a teeny tiny little, almost like a dribble of water. I'd also use this noun when talking about people coming in. So for example, I've worked many times in different shops. As a shelf stacker or a cashier or a customer service desk representative. Yeah, I was a customer service rep standing on the customer service desk waiting for someone to come in with a problem or a need. And some days were very busy, but other days there was just a trickle of customers coming in, just a few coming in very slowly, one at a time, and the days would go really slowly. Those were the really boring days when you were just looking at the clock, wishing the hours away because you just wanted to go home. Unless there was some good music on the radio. That wasn't so bad. So, a trickle. Here's another example,"Although the museum wasn't as busy as usual that summer, a steady trickle of visitors came and went each day." Next on the list is the noun parade. Parade. We spell this P A R A D E. Parade. Parade. A parade is a line of people or vehicles that move through a public place as a way of celebrating an occasion. For example, is it Brazil where they have the carnival and there's a huge parade of dancers and floats and people in these amazing costumes? We do have parades here in the UK, but they're definitely not as flamboyant and exciting as parades in other countries, at least from what I believe, having seen them on TV. Here's an example sentence,"The parade attracted thousands of joyful spectators." Next on the list is an adjective and it is crowded. Crowded. We spell this C R O W D E D. Crowded. Making sure that we're using a diphthong in the middle there/aʊ/, crowded, crowded. If something is described as crowded, then it's going to be a space or a situation where there is an excessive number of people or too many objects and it results in a lack of space or discomfort. So if something is described as crowded, it's often uncomfortable. For example, in the summer, especially in the UK, I don't really like to go to the beach. We do have some nice beaches here, believe it or not, but we don't have many hot, sunny days that are reliably hot. You know, the weatherman might say we're going to have a hot day, but then we don't have a hot day and it starts raining. But when it is a hot day and it can be predicted, then the beaches are normally far too crowded for my liking. And I just don't enjoy it. It's very uncomfortable. You have to queue for everything. It's noisy and it's busy and yeah, it's not my cup of tea at all. I also don't like crowded shops or generally any kind of crowded space, particularly crowded buses or trains or tubes. If they are too crowded, then I won't get on. I'll wait for another one. Do you feel the same way or not? Here's another example,"The stadium was so crowded that it was difficult to move around." Next on the list is a verb and it is to surprise, to surprise. We spell this S U R P R I S E, surprise. To surprise is to cause someone to feel astonishment or shock due to something being unexpected. So you might surprise someone just by jumping out at them and they weren't expecting you to be there. Or you might surprise them with some news that they were not expecting and that shocks them or makes them feel astonished like,"You've just won the lottery!""Wow. What a surprise!" Or,"Your long-lost son has been found and he's at the door right now.""Oh my goodness me!" Here's another example,"The sudden thunderstorm surprised everyone at the picnic." And that is actually a very unsurprising example of what happens in the UK. You plan a lovely picnic, and then mid picnic, it starts raining, or there's a thunderstorm. Typical. Right. Next and last on today's list of target vocabulary, we have an idiom. And the idiom is, here goes nothing. Here goes nothing. Let's spell this just in case you're not following me. We've got here, H E R E, here. Goes, G O E S, goes. Nothing, N O T H I N G. Here goes nothing. This idiom expresses a sense of resignation or a lack of confidence before attempting something difficult or uncertain, but you do it anyway. So for example, when I was training in gymnastics, I was often pushing my boundaries, pushing my limits and doing things that I was scared of doing. Things that I genuinely would think,"I hope I don't break my leg," Or,"I hope I don't smack my face into the equipment and break my nose, or black my eye." Like I genuinely thought there was a real risk of injury. And in many cases, I did injure myself, never to a terrible extent, but certainly, you know, very badly bruised or sprained myself. On those occasions, although I felt fear, and I was not very confident in my ability to do it. I'd do it anyway. I just resigned myself to the fact that whatever was going to happen was going to happen, so just do it anyway. And so I would say to myself."Here goes nothing." It's a very unusual expression. It just means I'm just gonna do it, and I'm not confident, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Here goes nothing. Here's another example,"I've never skydived before, and I'm a bag of nerves, but here goes nothing!" Okay, so there's our five items for today. Let's do a quick recap. We started with the noun trickle, trickle, which means a small amount of something coming or going slowly. Then we had parade, which is the noun that means a line of people or vehicles that move through a public place as a way of celebrating an occasion, like if England were to win the Euros, the football tournament that's on at the moment while I'm recording, if England were to win, it's unlikely, but if they were to win, there would be a parade. The team would be on the top of a bus and there'd be lots of people all dressed up and they would slowly drive down the main streets of London and everyone would be out or, you know, maybe they do a tour and parade in different cities and everyone would be out to celebrate the winning of the football tournament. Okay, so next on the list was the adjective crowded, which means a space or situation where there are too many people or things and it makes it all very uncomfortable. Then we had the verb to surprise, which is to cause someone to feel astonishment or shock because of something unexpected. Then we finished with the idiom here goes nothing! Which expresses a sense of resignation or lack of confidence before you do something that's difficult or uncertain. So, let's do this for pronunciation purposes. Please repeat after me. Trickle. Trickle. Parade. Parade. Crowded. Crowded. Surprise. Surprise. Here goes nothing. Here goes nothing. Fantastic. Remind me, because I've forgotten. What's the adjective that we use when a space has an excessive amount of people in it and it's really uncomfortable? Crowded. That's right. And it may be crowded if you go to one of those celebrations where there's a line of people and vehicles moving through a public place. What's that thing called again? A parade. That's right. Now I don't like crowded places. I prefer it when there's a small number of people coming and going. What noun could I use to describe this small number coming and going? A trickle. A trickle. Absolutely. Now, if someone does something that causes me to feel shock because I didn't expect it, what have they just done to me? They have surprised me. Yes, I'm not surprised very often, but occasionally people catch me off guard and I'm surprised. Ah! And finally, what was the idiom that expresses a sense of resignation or lack of confidence? Here goes nothing. Very good. Alright, listen out for these items once again during today's storytime. Carla looked out of the window. A steady trickle of spectators was filling up the main square, and many more were supposed to come. The thought of the streets full of people in green, white, and orange terrified her. She was supposed to march in front of them all at the head of the Saint Patrick's Day parade. Despite her nerves, she put on her marching gear. She tried to put both legs into one leg of her bright green trousers and fell over. Well, that started well, she thought, as she got up from the floor. Hands shaking, she put green, white and orange paint on her face. The Irish flag she had tried to draw looked like it was flapping in the wind. She wiped it off and started again. Finally dressed for the parade, Carla looked back out the window. The square was crowded. People were packed in like sardines, pressed up against the barriers. She wasn't sure how she would go out there and perform in front of so many people. She thought she was going to be sick. But she'd put on her outfit and had done her make-up. She'd been practising for this day for weeks. The other participants in the parade were counting on her to be there. She was the star of the show, after all. So she took a deep breath, and she made her way down to the crowds. Here goes nothing, she thought, as she positioned herself at the front of the parade with her drum. The crowd roared and waved Irish flags. The noise was so loud that she couldn't even hear herself think. So there was no room for anxious thoughts. Or any thoughts. As Carla marched down the boulevard and banged on her drum, her nerves turned into excitement as the cheering crowds encouraged her, and eventually, she surprised herself by noticing that she felt comfortable being the star of the show. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. I do hope you found it useful. Until tomorrow, take very good care and goodbye.