EnglishPod - I Can See Clearly Now
E: Well, hello everyone! And welcome to EnglishPod! My name's Erica.
E: So, Marco, how're you doing today?
M: I'm doing great and I'm really looking forward to our lesson, because we're going to the eye doctor today.
E: Okay, so, we've got an elementary lesson about going to the eye doctor.
M: Yes!
E: Well, let's get started then with our “vocabulary preview”.
E: We have three words today in our vocabulary preview. All three words come from our dialogue. Our first word is struggle.
M: Struggle.
E: Struggle.
M: Struggle.
E: So, Marco, when I struggle to do something, what does that mean?
M: It means it's difficult, it means that you have a hard time, so you can't really do it very quickly.
E: So, what you have to try really hard.
M: You have to try really hard.
E: Yeah, to do something that's difficult.
M: Yes.
M: Blurry.
E: Blurry.
M: Blurry.
E: Blurry. B-L-U-R-R-Y.
M: Blurry. Whenever something is blurry, you can't really see it well.
M: Right.
E: That's right, everything will be blurry.
M: Uhu.
E: Okay. And our final word is…
M: Prescription.
E: Prescription.
M: Prescription.
E: Often when you go to the doctor and you need some medicine, he writes out a prescription.
M: Right, a little paper that says all the medicine that you need and then you can go to the drug store and buy it.
E: Exactly.
M: Uhu.
E: Okay, so, those three words you'll hear in today's dialogue and I think it's time we listen to the dialogue.
E: Well, this guy really has poor vision, hey?
M: Hehe.
E: Well, actually, you know what, I've walked in to the bathroom, the men's bathroom, actually, instead of the women's bathroom. And that's not ‘cause I wasn't wearing my glasses.
M: It's because you weren't paying attention.
M: Hehe. Okay, let's take a look today at out “language takeaway”.
M: The first word on our language takeaway for today is twenty/twenty (20/20) vision.
E: 20/20 vision.
M: 20/20 vision.
M: It means that you have perfect vision.
M: Hehe. No, me neither, so, I… I usually wear glasses as well.
E: Yeah.
M: But, yeah, people that have 20/20 vision don't need glasses, they can see clearly with…
E: Yeah. Next word is far-sighted.
M: Far-sighted.
E: Far-sighted.
M: Far-sighted.
E: So, if I'm far-sighted, I can't see very well, right?
M: So, if you're far-sighted, you can't see things that are near.
E: So, you can see things that are faraway.
M: Right.
E: But thing that are close are blurry. Okay.
E: Near-sighted.
E: You can see things that are close well…
E: Yeah.
M: Hehe.
E: Okay.
M: Far-sighted and near-sighted.
E: Okay, so, our next word is make out.
M: Make out.
E: Make out.
M: Make out.
E: Make out, that's kind of a funny little phrase. And let's listen to a few examples of this phrase, so we can understand how it's used.
A: I can't make out what this says. The writing is too small.
B: If you look carefully, you can almost make out a few of the stars in the sky.
C: Can you see what's written on the sign there?
D: No, I can't quite make it out.
M: Okay, so, basically, make out is to see clearly.
E: Exactly.
E: To see.
M: Okay. And our last word for language takeaway today is blind as a bat.
E: So, this is a really funny sounding expression, one of these weird English idioms.
M: Yeah, it's a really common expression that just means that you can't see.
E: Exactly, so, it's not like you actually are blind, right?
M: But you just really can't see very well.
E: Okay. Alright, we saw four great words today in our language takeaway, now I think we can listen to our dialogue another time.
M: But this time it's gonna be slower, so we can pick up all these great words that we just talked about.
M: Alright, great stuff on our dialogue and with this we can start now with “Putting it together”.
E: So, we saw a couple of useful phrases in this dialogue and I think we can show you how to use these phrases in a few different ways.
M: Right, um, the first one that we have today is what seems to be.
E: So, we heard in the dialogue the doctor said…
M: “What seems to be the problem?”
E: We can use this same expression in a number of different ways. Let's listen.
A: What seems to be the problem?
B: What seems to be the matter?
C: What seems to be the trouble?
M: Okay, so, with these examples we can see how we can use the phrase what seems to be in many different ways.
E: Yeah, it's a great way of asking “What's the problem?”
M: So, now let's take a look at another phrase.
E: We heard in the dialogue the doctor said “Head on over to the other room”.
M: Right, and with this phrase head on we can combine it with other prepositions to indicate another place.
E: Exactly, let's hear three examples.
M: Okay, so, for example, we can say “Head on into the house, it's gonna rain soon”.
E: Or we can say “Hey guys, let's head on out to the park”.
M: Uhu, or I can also say “Head on up to my room, I'll be there in a second”.
E: Great! Those are some cool phrases.
M: Right, and they're really useful.
E: So, why don't we listen to our dialogue and maybe we'll hear them again.
M: Okay, so, talking about going to the eye doctor today, I have a question for our listeners.
E: A challenge for our listeners.
M: A challenge. What's it called when you can't distinguish colors?
E: So, like when you can't tell the difference between read and blue and green.
M: Right, so, what is that condition called? So…
E: There's like a technical term, we want the technical term.
M: Hehe. We want the technical term. So, we'll be looking for it on our comments’ page and be sure to… if you know the answer, post it.
E: At englishpod.com, also if you have questions about today's lesson or any other lesson, please come and visit our website and, uh, ask us.
M: Yeah, we hope to see you there, but until then it's…
M: Bye!