40th Birthday Live English Lesson

hello everyone hi welcome to my very special live stream today is not quite my birthday but in a couple of days it will be a milestone birthday a milestone birthday is a birthday that hits a milestone for example when you turn 10 when you're first in double figures and then when you hit 16 in this country as a milestone because you're then officially in some regards an adult because you can have a driving license at 16 and then another milestone is 18 because then you have permission to do many other things and then 21 is the next milestone you could say 30 is a milestone birthday but 40 middle-aged is a milestone birthday for many uh and then i guess every 10 years after that if you reach it is is a good thing it's a milestone birthday so do i have many 40 year olds or 40 plus people watching today hopefully hopefully not just me um hi everyone thank you for joining me lovely to see you all here nashanta hi uh ahmed maria silvio manish ray hi hansa lots of you being very kind as well wishing me a happy birthday so thank you very much and we have a new member as well lovely louie hello just scrolling back through your messages viviane hi lisa hello everyone lovely thank you for joining so today is going to be a bit of a mishmash live lesson i'm going to do a few things uh to be in the spirit of being happy because birthdays should be happy occasions times to celebrate sometimes they're not always happy sometimes we find ourselves in situations where we can't spend our birthdays with people we love and care about um but today i am happy to be here and very happy to be turning 40 so we're going to be covering lots of happy things the first thing i want to talk about are things that i've learnt in my 40 years of life and i'd like you to also share with me things you've learned in life things that you feel differently about now than you did when you were younger imagine if you could go back to your younger self what would you say to your younger self a lesson in life what would you tell yourself 20 years ago good advice for life so here are my little tit bits my little pieces of advice first i say the body is a temple you'll see this phrase quite a lot actually the body is a temple my body is a temple um it comes from a famous quote i'm just going to share it with you here the body is a temple and so you should treat it as such the body is a temple so you should treat it like a temple you should respect it and by that i mean don't push it don't skip sleep like make sleep a priority um don't neglect your hydration in fact i'm terrible at keeping hydrated i don't drink nearly enough water and be mindful of what you eat what you put into your body i think is really really important i'll bless you just had a super chat thank you so much you say hi anna warmest wishes for a very happy birthday that's very very kind of you i hope all is well with you thank you um yes so so treat the body like it's a temple look after it especially now at my age i definitely feel it when my diet isn't as good or when i skip sleep which happens sometimes without me meaning to because of having young children or when i don't drink enough water i'm very aware of it and i can't recover as much as i used to so treat the body as a temple another big one for me that i've learned is to respect yourself and respect your time now for me this is a big one because i have very little time very very busy obviously we have our courses now so we have a big elan community to look after lots of courses that we're building and running lots and lots of students as well as all the things i do on social and here on youtube and facebook um and so i don't have much time and so i have to be very choosy and very careful with how i spend my time and i find that if i don't respect my own time and myself and nobody else does so lots of people want your time lots of people will not respect your time but if you do then they will okay i don't know if that really translates very well but that's what i've learned is if i respect my time and i respect myself then other people do too okay um what else so i here's a here's one when when we're talking about matters of the heart so moving on to love this isn't one that i've learned love is a choice a commitment lots of people um say that you can't help who you fall in love with and to a certain to a certain extent i agree you can't help who you are attracted to you can't be attracted to someone if you're really not and you can't make that happen but as long as there's that initial attraction then i think love actual love not lust not romance i think love is a choice that you make and you can decide to commit to someone you can decide to really make a relationship work or not i found in previous relationships that if i just decide actually this person isn't right for me then suddenly all those feelings i thought i had were gone it was a conscious decision that i no longer wanted to be in that relationship it wasn't love it wasn't you know it wasn't this thing that i couldn't help so that's that's how i feel about it anyway i'm sure many people would disagree with me um another one that i think is very important particularly for learners is never fear mistakes or criticism i've always been paranoid and still am to a certain extent about making mistakes and being criticized it's particularly hard when you put yourself out in public and you're you know allowing other people to make comment on your work but making mistakes and receiving criticism is really important and learning how to take criticism and how to deal with mistakes is really important because it can either make you miserable and really affect your mental health or it can make you stronger and it can make you strive to be better and improve and when you're learning this is particularly true you make mistakes and you're okay about making mistakes and when people correct you and point out your mistakes then you learn from that rather than letting it put you off or yeah you don't want it to discourage you you want it to motivate you to improve and move forward lovely um ray i always struggle with that word commitment i'm glad google spell checker was invented yeah i make loads of spelling mistakes i'm always having to double check things but um that's because english doesn't really help you with spelling okay i always make mistakes and i'm proud of it yes good that's how it should be obviously learn from mistakes too but uh yes you shouldn't be ashamed of making mistakes at all what else do we have ellaria never fear mistakes or criticism totally agree with you anna you make mistakes and you learn absolutely absolutely all right my last little life lesson here is it's never too late to be happy it's never too late there's this funny pressure that we put on age we feel like perhaps we're too young to do something or that we don't deserve to be in a certain position in life because we're we haven't earned it or we haven't done enough or and in most cases that we're too old to try something new we're too old to change course or to to go for that new job to learn a new skill and that absolutely isn't true there are many many um examples of people at all ages achieving things outside of the norm you know people in their in their 80s and 90s picking up brand new skills and very young people achieving fantastic phenomenal things that people would think is not typical not usual and that brings me nicely onto the next part of our session which is the learning part of the session an article which is about the young tennis player who recently found herself victorious and you may know who i'm talking about but if not we'll go into it in just a moment so those are my life lessons your body is a temple respect yourself and respect your time love is a choice and a commitment and something you have to work on and you should never fear mistakes or criticism and it's never too late to be happy okay so the next section that i'm going to come on to now um i'll just is it your 40th birthday it will be next week it will be next week i can't believe it where where have those years gone okay so we'll talk about birthday traditions towards the end of the session but now i want to talk about a young woman who recently has been all over the news a young tennis player who's done fantastically well and um before i go into the actual article i'm going to give you some vocabulary that you're going to need for understanding the article we're going to do it at a c1 level so some things might be quite advanced for you don't worry if you find anything confusing just ask the question and hopefully i'll see the question and be able to help you okay so um let me see can i make this any bigger there we go so those are the life lessons and here is the uh vocabulary list so vocabulary will need to know to terminate let me bring my face back here for you hi so to terminate means to end terminates um a word that you'll see used in employment if you're going to end someone's contract perhaps they have not conducted themselves very well at work some bad behavior has been going on maybe breaking the rules turning up without uniform being rude to a customer or stealing money from the till anything like that would see your contract terminated so to terminate is to end something and then we have the word defeat now we often use the word defeat when um if you win against someone you defeat them so if you win in a battle the other person has been defeated you defeat them or if you win in a competition then you have defeated your opponent your opponent is the person you're competing against so we're going to talk about tennis if i'm playing tennis with somebody else let's say i'm playing with my partner nick nick is my opponent we're battling we're competing in a competition against each other so i hopefully will defeat him defeat my opponent okay and the next one is similar to opponent and it's the word rival rival arrival in terms of a person so a noun arrival is a person or it could be a group a team a person competing with others for the same thing so we're going for the same thing so in this case perhaps we're trying to win a tennis tournament so they are my opponent i'm going against them but they're also my rival we're both competing for the same thing you might have a rival in love so you might be both going for the same guy or girl hi darren i hope you're well this is a friend of mine who's got a fantastic youtube channel called improve your voice and thanks for joining us and thank you very much for the birthday wishes i hope you're good uh lots of other people saying happy birthday too thank you guys you're being very very kind um okay moving on so to storm to victory to storm to so normally storm um is used in more negative ways so uh the news in america not so long ago when um people were incited to storm the capital you might remember that news and they used the word the verb storm meaning all the people forcefully push their way into the capitol buildings and so you storm a capital or you storm a buildings when you force your way in um but here it's been used in a positive way this girl storms to victory it means that she's forcefully and unexpectedly one okay uh i love this one this description be something being jaw dropping jaw dropping if something is jaw dropping it means it's amazing and unbelievable because it literally makes you go ah oh can you see me there we go oh wow it's jaw dropping jaw dropping it's quite that's quite a mouthful actually jaw dropping okay the next one is the word run now the word run actually has so many different potential meanings but when we're talking about this particular article we are talking about a sequence so you have a run of something a sequence things that happen in an order like a run of a run of good luck you might say oh having a real run of good luck and that would mean that the number of lucky things have happened so maybe on monday i won 10 pounds on the lottery and on tuesday um i ran into an old friend by chance and she gave me a gift or something like that and then on wednesday i i got a new job and then on thursday i had some good news about a health concern so then you could say well anna's had a real run of good luck this week a sequence of good luck okay the word drop when talking about sequences if you drop something then you lose something um so in a tennis tournament you're playing a number of games and in each tennis game there are a number of sets if you lose one then you drop one so she dropped one set but won the overall match i think you can say okay any comments on anything i've mentioned so far let me see if i can see anything oh my mood you're such you're such a flatterer thank you so much um oh here's a comment on what i said earlier when in love choices involve it's not love fair enough i said that people wouldn't agree with me i said people wouldn't agree with me but that's okay uh jaw dropping is when you are in surprise and you open your mouth for a moment absolutely absolutely okay let's carry on so the next word is flair now if you have flair it means you have a natural ability to do something well he's got a real flare for the piano or she's got a real flare for baking so it means you're naturally very good at something um ah okay so uh here's a saying you could win um clear sets or a clear win means to achieve something by a large margin so leaving no room for doubt so if you say oh it was a clear win then let's see if say if it's a football match it wasn't let's say there was loads of goals let's say it was five six that's not a clear win that's very close but if it was like five nil then that's a clear win so it's with a big margin it's undoubtedly you have a winner someone who's definitely definitely better than the other person uh okay and clear sex is particularly for tennis to fling oneself i've done it in the past tense here um there's the present tense to fling oneself to the ground if you fling yourself to the ground it means you throw yourself dramatically down so it's about being dramatic if i it's to throw but in a more dramatic way so i could i could throw a box of tissues but if i fling my tissues to the ground then that's a bit more dramatic so it's a phrase that just gives a bit more drama to throwing something and usually we talk about people throwing themselves um with this word fling oneself so i i flung myself to the ground in distress uh if if if my partner said that's it i'm done i'm leaving you then i might fling myself to the ground really upset and emotional oh no i might fling myself at his feet say no don't leave me i hope that i hope that makes it clear um okay the word sheer shear is used to emphasize something to emphasize how great or powerful it is um so i could say uh the party i threw yesterday was great but the sheer amount of food i bought was just unbelievable and it just emphasizes how much food there was how unbelievable it was uh conclude to conclude means to end something but not just to stop something to end something with a final outcome so it gives you a conclusion so you know how it's going to end if i if i stop a tennis match because someone's injured and there's no conclusion there's no conclusive winner then it's not really got a conclusion we haven't concluded the tennis match we've terminated it we've ended it but if we let it play out and somebody wins and there's a winner and a loser then the match has concluded we conclude the match okay oh here's a nice one sheer bliss yeah that's lovely sheer bliss means perfect happiness thank you for sharing that that's a good one um [Music] hang on what do i want to share where's one i want to share him on lulu when i've had tantrums as a kid when i had you don't need i've when i had tantrums as a kid i used to fling myself to the ground that's it isn't it exactly when children have tantrums they throw themselves in the ground going i hate you i just want to move out i don't want you to be my parents anymore yeah that sounds very familiar um can we use fling yourself in a figurative sense could i fling myself into a new activity um no i think in that sense you'd use throw instead of fling i'm just going to throw myself into into learning this new skill i throw myself into it i really got into it fling is definitely more physical good question though good question um okay some of you can't see the text very well i'm sorry about that maybe if you're on a small screen you might find it difficult um okay let's get through this list and then and then we can look at the article so we have magnificent magnificent if something is magnificent then it is very good it's just a lovely way of saying something's very good um my my birthday cake was magnificent my birthday party was magnificent it was the best birthday party i've ever had his voice when he sang was magnificent okay the next one is time out now timeout is used regularly just to mean to stop to take a break so you could have we talk about timeouts actually both um well in a lot of situations but we do use this a lot for behavior so particularly with young people or you know if you're finding a situation quite stressful or a conversation quite stressful you might ask for a timeout so if my kid is playing up having a tantrum and flinging himself to the ground i might say right you need a timeout let's uh let's take you into the other room and just wait until you calm down you're going to have a time out okay or if you're having a difficult discussion with a friend or a partner then you might say um can we can we just have a timeout i need some i need some time to think this over and and we'll come back to it i just need some time out yeah some people say it when they're having a difficult time in their relationship i just need some time out that would be a worry okay next we have riled if someone is riled it means they are upset or they are angered um i often see this uh as the phrasal verb to be riled up to be riled up he was very riled up so if something riles you though it means it upsets you or angers you the next one is to openly express i've put it in the past tense here because that's how it is in the article um but if something is openly expressed then it's a publicly what to publicly that makes more sense to publicly display how one feels so i could i could privately express my disappointment or quietly express my disappointment which means i just do it quietly secretly to you um perhaps if i'm unhappy at work i might quietly express my uh my annoyance at a colleague to my boss which means i just tell my boss but if i openly express something then i i express it in a way that everyone hears and understands so to openly do something is to publicly do it okay um so mahmoud says magnificent is a very british word okay i wasn't aware of that but okay good hopefully then it's quite new for some people um can we use the word magnificent to describe something has a negative meaning no no i think magnificent is always used in in a positive sense um [Music] yes i think you're describing another um way to look at riled here to be riled disappointed dismay um shrug off is the next one hang on let me just adjust these i've done them all in past tense or you can't see the notes here we go i've done them a lot of them in past tense because that's how they're written in the article but to shrug something off means to treat something as unimportant now a shrug here if you can't see it sorry there a shrug shrug a shrug a shrug is is to do that and that's normally what you expect a teenager to do huh if you say what you want to do today oh no would you like something nice for tea it's that thing where they just seemed that they don't seem to care so someone shrugs they don't care uh and so is to treat something as unimportant if you shrug it off and this can be used in in a positive way or in a negative way so you could say um many people would find uh would find negative comments on youtube upsetting but this youtuber just shrugs them off she doesn't see them as important she just shrugs them off so that's positive or it could be negative you could say um i i told my partner i didn't love them anymore and he just shrugged it off like it he didn't care for example that wouldn't be very good would it okay oh thank you very much i keep trying to pull up comments and then they move my brother often shrugs at things yeah is he a teenager okay oh yes yes to shrug off to dismiss uh could we oh sorry the comments are moving could we could we use take no notice as a synonym of shrug off yes yes so you could say um [Music] these girls were being mean to me at school but i just shrugged it off or these girls were being mean to me at school and i just took no notice i didn't pay attention to them yeah you can use it in that way uh in the past it shrugged off i shrugged it off so the girls were being mean to me but i just shrugged it uh in in as a teenager it would have really bothered me but these days but yeah if you say last week someone was mean to me but i just shrugged it off as a teenager it would have bothered me but not now okay okay so no your brother is not a teenager he's in his 40s but he has a laid-back attitude two things you have an attitude to something not at okay um [Music] okay so next on the list is the word clamber so clamber is similar to climb it's kind of like a yeah to clamber up it's kind of like not as steep as a climb so you like you'd climb the stairs that's not climbing like a vertical rock face can you use clamber on a vertical clambered up the mountain i think about it on all fours bit of an incline to clamber to clamber um the next one is victor if someone is the victor then they are the winner so she is the victor she won the competition she beat her opponent she defeated her opponent the next one is one i love and it's the word euphoric euphoric euphoric um euphoric if you are euphoric then you are overwhelmed with excitement and happiness you're euphoric like really like it's big big emotion big big emotion euphoric we're nearly at the end of the list and the next word is relocate to relocate means to move to a new location permanently so we relocated our offices to um to france after brexit or uh when i'm older i'd like to relocate to canada you might say um can i say my manager is a clamber no do you mean climber so no you can't use it in that sense only climber he's a climber if that's what he does not a clamber [Music] i can't pronounce the word euphoric so think about it like this um think about it like this let me get it on the screen yeah you phoric euphoric euphoric okay hope that helps uh i was euphoric when i got exempted from the military service i was euphoric when i received exemption from the military from military service you don't neither from military service um when i was exempted when i was exempted when i received exemption yeah i think that's how you'd say it when i received exemption okay um flair aptitude yeah could be could be aptitude is to to have a good ability to do something so yeah um okay next on the list we have youth youth youth with a nice th there at the end youth can we can you talk about a youth being a person so uh there were a bunch of youths hanging out outside my house um and it made me nervous um or you can talk about your youth when you're referring to a period of time when you were young your youth yeah the next is the word qualify qualified to qualify when we're talking about competitions just means to get into the competition so not everyone can enter every competition particularly not national competitions you normally have to qualify by showing you have a certain level of skill so you have to be good to get in initially um and so you play a number of matches until you qualify okay uh so to qualify let me just bring that on the screen so you can see it to qualify is to get into a competition by proving you have the skills needed next is the word rank to rank for something um if you rank something then you put it in order of something like ability or age or height or anything but you you put things in order so when we're talking about tennis players tennis players have a rank and that means how good they are in the world of tennis players who are ranked so if you're ranked the number one tennis player in the world then you're the best tennis player in the world okay um then we have a phrasal verb to cheer on to cheer on if you cheer someone on it means you encourage them by clapping or cheering yeah or shouting you're amazing you can do it so you cheer them on you provide encouragement to help them to achieve what they're doing what they're trying to achieve the final one is one i love which is the phrase to follow in someone's footsteps but we often say to follow in their footsteps assuming that we know who you're talking about so i might say my grandma was an amazing artist and i want to follow in her footsteps or there have been many amazing tennis players who have come before me and i want to follow in their footsteps so it means you want to do something that someone else has done previously um let's have a look at these to cheer on is to cheer up equals cheer on no cheer up is different if you cheer up or you try to cheer someone up then it means to make them happy when they're feeling down for example if uh if i was having a bad time in my life and today was my birthday and no one had remembered i'd feel sad and then you might decide to sing happy birthday to me to cheer me up and that probably would cheer me up okay so cheer on is come on anna you can win the race to cheer up his don't worry you lost the race but you ran really well and i tell you what i'm going to take you for dinner and the dinner's on me let's cheer you up hopefully that helps um children ought to be cheered on to study hard i agree with the sentiment but cheer on is often used mostly in kind of sporting activities so it's something you physically do at the side like you're watching them so you cheer them on in rugby or in athletics if they're running or um doing the javelin or the high jump uh you might cheer on your football team if you're watching a football match so it's it's literally like shouting when they're trying to achieve something to to help to give them more adrenaline and motivation to work hard we don't really cheer people on in terms of study because that's not something you you watch them do that make sense you would encourage them um but you don't really cheer on studying but the right sentiment um okay so without further ado i'm going to move on to this article which means i just need to switch my screen share because unfortunately i can't stop screen i can't set up two screenshots at the exact same time so let me just get this going now and we're going to move over to sensations english which um is a fantastic website i'm sure if you've been following my videos for a while you'll be familiar with them and they every week provide three different articles which two videos and one written article and there's a whole back catalog of articles as well and they're provided at five different levels so you can have it super easy or advanced and um yeah the videos and the write-up and all the activities that they provide will be available at all those different levels so what i tend to suggest people do is to do the articles at a lower level a level they can really comprehend and then do the articles at a higher level so they already have the context and the understanding and then you can try and improve and increase your vocabulary and improve your sentence structure this one is a written article so there's no video with this one but there is an audio and i'm going to play that for you because i want you to get used to hearing other voices too this is a very clear clear audio hopefully you can hear this i'm going to play it for you now and then you can [Music] have a listen teen tennis player tastes victory 20th of september 2021 18 year old british tennis star emma radukanu has finally terminated the country's 44-year-long weight for a women's grand slam title by defeating opponent leila fernandez of canada in the u.s open the young sportswoman stormed to victory in new york through a jaw-droppingly impressive run in which she did not drop a single set her final match was also won with impressive flare beating her rival in two clear sets 6-4 6-3 radukanu flung herself to the ground in sheer relief after firing an ace to conclude what has been the most magnificent three-week adventure she served for the match at 5'3 but cut her leg as she went break point down and this led to a medical time out which clearly riled fernandez who openly expressed her irritation to the match official however radukanu shrugged off the delay saving a further break point before closing out her third championship point after the two teenagers had shared a hug the victor clambered up the stands of the arthur ashe stadium to embrace her euphoric team members born in canada radhikanu relocated to britain with her chinese mother and romanian father as a toddler she spent her youth in london and first picked up a tennis racket aged five but two years later she was already taking part in local and regional tennis events in southern england radukanu has made history by being the first ever player to win a grand slam after entering the competition through qualifying rounds players ranked 104 and above are automatically entered but she was only ranked 150. it is the first time in 44 years that a british woman has won one of the major tennis tournaments and radukanu was cheered on by an emotional virginia wade the previous record holder who walked away with a grand slam trophy at wimbledon in 1977. it means so much to have virginia wade here and also tim henman radukanu said in her on-court speech they are british icons and for me to follow in their footsteps gave me the belief i could do it brilliant good okay how was that were you able to understand it now that you've got the understanding of those individual words we went through let me know and then what i'm going to do is just remove the screen share for that and then go back to the notes that i made and we'll go through it together briefly okay so yeah here's a good one a timeout is what i covered earlier he calls a hiatus yes hiatus is a great word i love that word okay so um we said uh 18 year old british star emma radukanu has finally terminated the country's 44 year long wait for a woman's grand slam title by defeating opponent leila fernandez of canada in the u.s open okay that's a very long sentence so let's just quickly break this down emma radhakanu has terminated she's ended the long wait for a woman's grand slam title so that long wait is actually the country's weight it's the country who's been waiting and how long have they been waiting 44 years okay so those extra bits just add additional information so it's an 18 year old british tennis star that just tells you about the person emma radhikanu and she has finally means you know lots of people have tried but failed she's finally ended this long wait which is the country's 44 year long weight for a woman's grand slam title so they've won this this title by how has she done it by defeating her opponent leila fernandez who is of canada and they've she's defeated her in the u.s open okay so that's quite a complex sentence but you can see the main points of the sentence and then it's just been filled out okay um mamu says are there any following questions about the audio passage we listen to if you're a member of sensations english yes there's lots of incredible activities that you can do you could spend quite a long time going through the activities that are associated with each article and that's what's great about what they offer um but today i'm not going to do that in the session just because it would go on forever and i don't think everyone wants to stay here for hours and hours so but yes sensations english is a wonderful resource and all those additional activities are available on every single article so why not go and check them out it's sensationsenglish.com nice and easy to remember okay let me bring you back onto here um the young sports woman stormed to victory she forcefully and unexpectedly was victorious she won in new york through a jaw droppingly impressive run so remember a sequence an incredible sequence in which she did not drop she didn't lose a single set so within tennis you play a round is like sets i think if i remember my tennis properly so you play a number of sets and i think it's the first person or the best of three sets or the best of five sets wins the tennis match um her final match was also won with impressive flair so her talent really showed that she really has a talent for this game beating her rival two players both playing for the same thing which is the grand slam title beating her rival in two clear sets so she won two sets back to back clear no doubt she won six four six three radhikanu flung herself to the ground oh dramatic i won in sheer relief so that's the emotion with which she flung herself to the ground oh i won after firing an ace i didn't include this in the list of vocabulary because this is very very much particular to tennis an ace if you ace someone is when you you serve so the first person to hit the ball in a round or a set the first serve if you serve and the other person can't return it the serve just is so fast and so good that the other person can't hit it you win that point that's an ace so she got aced and she fired it was really fast i assume that's quite a descriptive word to fire something hard and fast so um she fired after firing an ace to conclude so that was what ended um what has been the most magnificent very good magnificent three-week adventure so they're referring to her run her sequence of games as an adventure a three week long adventure um okay any questions on what we're doing so far no good okay um she served for the match at 5'3 but cut her leg as she went to break point uh break i went to break point down now these are very particular tennis terms which i'm not sure i fully understand so i won't explain them but if you're a tennis fanatic then you'll understand them as this led to a medical timeout so because she cut her leg they had a timeout and this is usually the sign that we give when we want time out in a sporting in a sporting thing or if you're if you can't talk directly to the person you do that that's the sign and you time out time out stop cut it stop um which clearly riled so angered it upset her rival fernandez that she needed time out to get her leg seemed to and her rival openly expressed her irritation to the match officials so she made it very clear to everyone that she was upset that they had to stop the match however radhakanu shrugged off i don't care she shrugged off the delay saving a further break point before closing out her third championship point okay so after the two teenagers so both these girls are young after the two teenagers had shared sorry after the two teenagers had shared a hug so they embraced they hugged the victor so radhakanu she was the one that won the victor clambered up so she roughly got up the stairs she clambered up the stands and the stands are this it's the seating in in kind of arenas and sporting places that go up the stands she clambered up the stands of the arthur ashe stadium to embrace her euphoric team members oh my gosh she won wow they're so happy they're euphoric and then it tells us a bit more about her it says born in canada radhikanu relocated so she moved permanently to britain with her chinese mother and romanian father as a toddler so she relocated as a toddler meaning she was probably about two years old she spent her youth so her young years her yeah when she was very young in london and first picked up a tennis racket aged five but two years later she was already taking part in local and regional tennis events in southern england so a local event would be like in your town but regional would be like across the county so all in the south but usually it's like within a county so within the county of surrey or within the county of lancashire that's more regional a region an area radikanu has made history if you make history it means you do something that's worthy of noting in history it's quite unusual and so it would kind of go down in the history books as something unusual an event that's quite astonishing um she made history by being the first ever player to win a grand slam after entering the competition through qualifying rounds remember to qualify is to show that you're good enough to be in the competition well she had to go through qualifying rounds which players don't normally have to do if they are already ranked if they're good so it says players ranked 104 and above so if they're really good they're the top 104 players in the world they're automatically entered into the competition they don't have to play qualifying rounds but she was only ranked 150. so that's amazing that's amazing it is the first time in 44 years that a british woman has won one of the major tennis tournaments and radhakanu was cheered on by an emotional virginia wade yes you can do it come on girl yeah the previous record holder was virginia wade the previous record holder who walked away with a grand slam trophy the trophy is like the the silverware the cup that you win when you win a tournament the grand slam trophy at wimbledon in 1977 so it's been a long time it's been a long time um it means so much to have virginia wade here and also tim henman who's another big british tennis player um radhakanu said in her on-court speech so the speech she gave on the tennis court they are british icons and for me to follow in their footsteps gave me the belief i could do it yeah [Music] yeah it was fantastic and i really loved to see and this is what i was kind of alluding to earlier about you know age is just a number you're never too young or too old to be happy to achieve something if you really want something and you need something in your life to make you happy then then go for it do it don't let age be a factor that holds you back okay okay so um the next thing we're going to move on to because i i can't stay here for too long is to talk about british birthday traditions now i have previously on a previous birthday a few years ago talked about british birthday uh traditions but i thought i'd just touch on it because many of you are new here and if you are watching for the first time then don't forget to subscribe and click the notification button so that you know when i go live again um which i do at least once a month at the moment um and more often for those of you who are students on my elan website um but let's cover these traditions now briefly so you know how we brits celebrate our birthday now i'm going to bring these notes up for you so singing singing is a big part of our birthday as i'm sure it is in your country too and um we all celebrate the anniversary of our birth which is our birthday once a year except for the queen the queen has two birthdays and this is a tradition started by edward vii who feared that the weather would be too inclement which means just bad um to celebrate his birthday which was in november and that's you know reasonable i would imagine that the weather in november would probably not be good enough to have a birthday outdoors and so he felt he should have two birthdays and that tradition has kind of continued with the reigning monarch and so we'll usually we will usually mark the occasion on our actual birthday or on the closest convenient day so a convenient day would be a day when most people are available and free to have a celebration so at the weekend would be the most convenient for many people um last weekend we celebrated my son's third birthday his birthday was actually yesterday but we celebrated it well we actually had a celebration on saturday we had a big day out for him and then we had a little party yesterday for him as well so we mocked he had two birthdays like the queen but we marked it mainly on the saturday for him because uh he was available and we were available to really focus on him now uh for me today is not my birthday but it was the most convenient day for me to celebrate it with you and on my actual birthday i will be celebrating so my actual birthday is convenient for me this year um okay so what do you normally do will you only celebrate it on your actual day and just make space or will you do the same when you kind of find the nearest weekend to to celebrate you tell me um [Music] okay let me just have a look see if there's any comments here that i can share uh okay let me keep going for a little while and i'll have a look see if there's any any questions about british birthdays do let me know or share your birthday traditions please so party time most children and some adults actually throw or have a party so we use the uh verb to throw when we talk about parties just meaning like the organizing and the putting on of the event we throw a party or have a party so if you're lucky then your loved ones may throw a surprise birthday party for you that's always nice isn't it as long as it's not too surprising um with most parties invitations will be sent or given out so you send out invitations or give out invitations if you see them in person often they're just little paper invitations or cards sent through the door these days you could even send invitations via um via whatsapp or digital and guests are asked to rsvp so to reserve their space basically to say they are coming so they um rsvp to these invites um i've had an invitation recently and i had to send the lady a text message or phone her to let her know that we would be going a party could be held in the home or out at a restaurant or a theme park or a zoo many of these theme parks and zoos will actually um really what's the word they will i can't think of the word they will help help people who want to have parties there's a word accommodate accommodate they'll accommodate birthday parties so they'll have packages so a zoo might say have your party with us and they'll give you a space where they'll provide catering so they'll do the food and they'll have a table and they'll help with decorations perhaps and they'll have a special like vip experience for anyone who's attending that party so it might be that they get to see um some of the animals being fed or something like that something special that normal paying public don't get so they will accommodate a birthday party and many pubs if you want to have your birth if you're an adult and want to have a birthday or any celebration many pubs will have a function room it's called the function room which is usually a larger room that is just for functions which is just another way of saying an event like a party or a get-together a gathering of lots of people for a certain thing um okay okay lots of talk about parties here um i sometimes celebrated my birthday together with my brother because his birthday is just one day after mine oh no when someone crashes your birthday because their birthday is really close then that can that can be great because it means you can have a joint party but sometimes it takes the it just sometimes takes the focus off you a little bit um my son was born very close to me obviously because he's just had his birthday and now it's my birthday um but there are lots of birthdays in our family there's lots of birthdays in september and it kind of it's frustrating a little in a in a way because it means that a lot of thought and money um and time is spent across all these people rather than being able to really focus on one per birthday and one person you have to think okay i've only got so much money this month we're gonna have to really water it down and spread it out okay i don't know what it is about september so many people have birthdays in september um okay let's have a look at the notes again so um [Music] yes parties can be held in lots of different places that will usually accommodate them the house or the place where you're having your function will be decorated with things like bunting bunting all the little triangular flags all in a line or banners we often have a sparkly banner that will say happy birthday or uh well done congratulations or whatever it is and they will be hung above so you can see them and there's usually balloons i bought balloons i've got balloons i haven't really i was a bit late i should have decorated i've got a black balloon that's not typical but my son had a a digger themed birthday party so uh we had orange yellow and black were the colors that we had for his birthday useful um and yeah so the balloons are a big thing often balloons are filled with helium is it helium that makes them go up yeah helium and some people like to do the party trick of sucking the helium to make the voices go really high pitched um i'm not sure how good it is for you to suck loads of helium but it is funny to hear people like singing things when they've got a high-pitched happy birthday to you it's quite funny so helium balloons um what else balloons oh yes and sometimes confetti so confetti are the little bits of i think it used to be rice um but now it's just bits of paper or sometimes with kind of sparkly bits of plastic not very good for the environment but you throw or it kind of just gets scattered on the tables as part of the decoration um you might also have uh poppers or streamers poppers are the little um they're like a little case filled with bits of stringy paper and you they have a little bit of explosion in them you pull the string and it explodes and bursts all this paper around it goes streaming everywhere and a streamer is similar it's a roll of paper and you throw it and it just yeah makes a mess makes a mess because everyone likes them there's a birthday um yes absolutely a birthday in september must be something to do with christmas you're absolutely right christmas when everyone gets friendly and happy and spending lots of time at home with loved ones then you have lots of babies born in september um oh no my birthday is december 29th four days after christmas so my parents only give me a gift one gift for both celebrations i'm so sorry i always think it must be quite tricky if you have like children or family whose birthday is actually on christmas day or around christmas day especially if you celebrate christmas and you know there's lots of gift giving so if it's after christmas people are skint they spent all their money on christmas celebrations and so yeah tricky very tricky um don't guests throw rice at weddings yes but more often now they throw in the uk they throw ready-made confetti which is just pieces of paper and cut into little shapes or like the coloured bits of coloured paper okay oh dear my dad's birthday's on september december 24th same situation for him oh poor dad poor dad no so many of you birthdays in december i'm so sorry to hear that uh okay so back to the notes we have um the guests dress up of course you would for a celebration they dress up in their smart clothes or in fancy dress if there is a theme our theme yesterday was digger theme but we didn't tell people to dress up in a like builder theme or anything and so people just came in their smart clothes um but you might have a black tie theme or a james bond theme where they have to dress kind of like i'm dressed in a fancy fancy lacy black outfit or a suit and a tie um or it might be like a crazy theme like a minions theme um that's my child minder back with back with the child um so yes if it was a minions theme you'd probably have to paint yourself yellow or something wear a really yellow outfit with some blue dungarees if you know minions there uh pixar pixar cartoon um but normally they will bring a gift and a card so it's uh kind of expected if you go to a party that you'll turn up with a gift or a card if people turn up empty-handed empty-handed and they've got nothing in their hands they're empty-handed then they might even apologize for that say i'm sorry i've i feel embarrassed turning up empty-handed uh i i left the present on the train or i didn't have time to buy anything or i ordered it on amazon and it hasn't arrived yet so yeah people usually embarrassed to turn up empty-handed my nephew is obsessed with the minions yeah i quite like the minions they're very funny very clever very clever um smart in terms of dress code is smarter equivalent to formal uh yes formal or semi-formal okay uh nick can you can you see nikki sorry my child mind is coming through the door see what's happening with the baby um [Music] okay let's carry on so yes gifts and cards we're talking about here um gifts are normally wrapped or in a bag so we normally have wrapping paper uh often the paper has got lovely patterns on it might be sparkly these days now i try to wrap in just plain brown paper because it's it's recyclable or i will recycle old paper if i've managed to unwrap presents very carefully i'll reuse the paper to be kind to the environment and reduce my waste or i'll use bags i'll always reuse gift bags save them for another time um and in the future i'd quite like to start wrapping presents in cloth to be even more environmentally friendly but it takes a lot of organization i'm not very organized i always forget where i've left things where i've hidden things around the house um so then we talk about cards i've got some lovely cards here in the background so card giving is very popular in the uk um some cards even have a badge for the receiver to wear if you cannot attend a birthday celebration then you'd normally post the card in advance so that your loved one or your friend knows that you haven't forgotten their birthday and yeah it's nice to get cards it's very nice to get cards although i'm wondering at what age do people start sending you old people cards so all people cards are cards that are just really quite plain like just flowers or something very bland i quite like funny cards and you know interesting cards um and i always feel sorry for like when you're a bit older the old people cards are really really dull it's like all people aren't dull they've had a life they have a sense of humor like yeah i don't want to get all people cards and old people also tend to just get soap and socks as their presents now i'm definitely getting more soap and socks as gifts from people these days so maybe i am moving into that category so um here in the lower classes of the philippines newspaper is even conventional already that's interesting i mean so we use tissue paper not tissue is in toilet roll but we use tissue paper to kind of wrap things that are inside um inside a bag just so people can't peep in and see it in advance i wouldn't be against using newspaper um i used the paper that comes out of amazon boxes so when you've had a delivery from amazon they usually have lots of brown paper shoved in to help pack it and so i just use that brown paper and then i'll just put stickers on it or like draw on it or something depending on who it's going to um [Music] but i would i wouldn't like to use newspaper just because i'd be worried about the ink transferring on newspapers the ink transfers very easily so if you handle newspapers you tend to get the ink on your hands and i wouldn't want it going all over the gift um okay manuel when you were 40 you stopped having birthdays so you're always 40. i think that's a good idea i think i want to stop at 27 maybe it's a bit too late for that 27 was my most favorite age 27 is a great age okay food and cake there will normally be a meal or a buffet a buffet not a buffet a buffet a buffet is uh just like a selection of foods uh baby's on his way a buffet is a selection of foods that you can pick at so it could be warm or cold foods but you pick at it and take what you want i like a buffet and of course cake so all served on these are all served on paper plates usually and it could be themed if you've got a themed party and you often have paper cut cups as well because it's just easier uh this is little caspian with his crazy hairdo hello casper hi i'm so quick hello now that you can see everyone oh you're going now oh gosh yeah this is gonna be tricky okay we have to make this quick now guys um okay hi so in the workplace it's typical for someone else to buy the cake for you if it's your birthday um and this cake can be a work of art it can be like really artistic or just be quite plain and sometimes you write on it and say happy birthday dexter or whoever's birthday is um but you should always have candles candles is oh you're gonna take them back um okay um candles are yeah really important when you're a child you have a candle for every year of life so if you're three and you have three candles but if you're 40 you probably aren't going to have 40 candles you probably just have an age candle so a four and a zero or you can have sparklers or magic candles that re-light every time you blow them out they're really annoying um and then when it's time to blow out those candles everyone sings happy birthday now our version of a happy birthday is different to other countries we basically sing happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear anna happy birthday to you and sometimes you might on add-on and many more and then people do their hip hip hooray hip hip hooray hip hip hooray three and then you might do another and one for good luck hip hip hooray so that's normally how it goes um and then the birthday boy or girl girl girl will make a wish and blow out the candle they won't tell anyone what the wish is it's really important you keep it to yourself and they blow out that candle um very nearly finished yeah caspian wants a hug um adult celebrations may involve something different to a party like paintballing or something like a spa day or a trip to a comedy club something more grown up and yeah that's our birthdays really in a nutshell wrapped up um and i'm just gonna finish now because i do have to take care of this little one um with three jokes that are birthday related so first of all what did the teddy bear say when it was offered some birthday cake what did the teddy bear say when he was offered some birthday cake he said no thanks i'm stuffed funny because bears are stuffed with stuffing they are stuffed so no thanks i'm stuffed because stuffed also means i'm full i'm full i don't want anything else to eat the next one is i always feel warm on my birthday because people don't stop toasting me another play on words to toe something is to heat up heat it up until it's cooked lightly so you put a piece of bread in the toaster and it toasts so makes toast but if you take your drink and say to anna or happy birthday and everyone drinks that to toast them to like drink as a mark of respect um so i always feel warm on my birthday because people don't stop toasting me get it okay um and finally what did the pirate say on his 80th birthday what did the pirate say on his 80th birthday he said i'm i matey i matey let me show you how it's written and that will help i i meaning yes or i i they often say i instead of yes and matey i'm matey and it sounds like i'm 80 i am 80. terrible jokes the kind of jokes that make you go oh rather than laugh out loud anyway thank you guys for joining me on this very special birthday lesson as you know i have to run but um before i go i want to let you know that we are getting very close to completing all of the courses that we have on offer over on english like a native dot co dot uk and i'd love for you to come and join us there we've got some really good uh blog posts so many of the lessons and moving forward now most of the lessons that we release will have an accompanying blog post where you can find all the stuff that we've talked about and more written down for you to see alongside some interactive activities so you can do quizzes and try and embed your learning now we already have a number of really great blog posts up there with interactive activities for you to have a go at so do go over to english like a native dot co dot uk to check those out and try for yourself see if you like it if you like the format then we'll do lots more of those i hope you all have a wonderful day week month and when it's your birthday i wish you a very happy birthday thanks again for joining me until next time give this video a like take care

Channel: English Like A Native

Views: 13,568

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Id: X6RNcBUIVhw

Length: 74min 17sec (4457 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 22 2021