Hello and welcome to the English Like a Native Podcast,
the podcast that's designed for lovers and learners of English.
I'm your host, Anna, and today we are going on an adventure
So today's episode is going to be a little bit different.
I want you to find a quiet place, turn up the volume and come with me as we
experience a different environment.
I open my door and swing my bare legs out of the car.
My feet are greeted by the soft cool ground beneath.
The moss has a slight spring to it, and a few blades of grass
I had forgotten how it felt to stand in this meadow on a summer's day.
Returning always feels like greeting an old friend.
I stretch my arms above my head, close my eyes, and embrace it.
The sun kisses my face, warming my cheeks just a little before the refreshing
breeze comes in, like a jealous rival, to caress my skin, giving rise to goosebumps.
I pull a light shawl over my shoulders and set off for the middle of the meadow.
The wide open space, the rolling hills beyond, a continuation of green pastures
lifting up to meet the clear blue sky.
I pause again to take in the view.
The desire to explore is growing inside me, but I am here to wait for my
friend, and so I will continue to wait.
I plonk myself down on a boulder that seems oddly out of place, but I
don't give its origin much thought.
I sit and gaze into the distance breathing in the day, filling
I scan the scene, a few shrubs randomly dotted across the field,
wild flowers in full bloom, popping their heads above the long grass
and swaying in tandem in the breeze.
A huge oak tree marks the far corner of the meadow.
A solitary oak laden with young acorns offering respite from the unrelenting sun.
A squirrel quickly darts up the trunk with impressive dexterity,
clutching something in its jaw.
Suddenly something buzzes past my ear, making me jump.
A default reaction, which I always scold myself for.
It's just a bee, a busy little bee bumbling about minding its
own business, as it visits each flower that it comes across.
I could stay here all day, lose myself in this noisy quiet, just breathing, not
thinking, but then the noisy quiet is suddenly shattered by my ringtone rudely
blasting out, desperate for my attention.
And once again, I am back to reality.
Yes, of course I will be right there."
Okay, let's have a look at some of the vocabulary that I used when describing
my experience within the meadow.
First of all, I said I open the door and I swing out my legs.
Now, often when we are getting out of a vehicle we'd say, I stepped
out or I got out of the car, but here I said, I swung out my legs.
And this is the idea of being...
kind of sitting with your knees pointing in one direction, and then you
swing your body, you turn your body, and at the same time you're moving
your legs into a different place.
You are swinging them to the side.
So it's just a different way of basically saying, I stepped out of the car, but
I swung my bare legs out of the car.
Bare here means naked uncovered, which suggests that it's a warm day.
So I swung out my bare legs, my feet greeted by the soft cool ground beneath.
The moss has a slight spring to it.
A green plant based thing that covers often tree trunks or
It often grows in places that are a little bit damp, a bit more humid,
so you'll find a lot of moss in places where there's dripping water.
Or in like, you know, the woods, or the forest where it's a little bit
darker, more covered and there's a lot more moisture in the air.
So the moss has a slight spring to it, slightly springy.
Now, I said there are a few blades of grass that tickle my calves.
So a blade of grass is what you use to describe one single piece of grass,
a blade, and I guess it's called a blade of grass because it's very flat
and has sharpish edges, very defined edges like a blade, like a knife.
Although, it would be very hard to cut yourself with a blade of grass.
Anyway, I said a few blades of grass tickle my calves.
Calves is the plural of the muscle that sits on the lower part of your leg.
So the back of your lower leg is your calf, your calf.
So as a single calf, it's C-A-L-F, calf.
But when we're talking about your two legs, your two calves,
then we say C-A-L-V-E-S, calves.
So the blades of grass tickle my calves as I emerge.
To emerge is to come out of something to, you know, show yourself to the world.
You know, a chick will emerge from an egg when it's finally
I had forgotten how it felt to stand in this meadow on a summer's day.
Returning always felt like greeting an old friend.
I stretch my arms above my head, close my eyes, and embrace it.
The sun kisses my face, warming my cheeks, just a little, before the refreshing
breeze comes in like a jealous rival.
So to be jealous, to have green eyes, to be jealous is to want
something that somebody else has.
You don't want them to have it.
And here we are personifying the breeze and suggesting the
The sun is kissing my face and the breeze wants to kiss my face.
A rival is kind of like an enemy.
If two people are rivals, they don't get on, they're usually
You'll have rival football teams.
It doesn't necessarily mean that you hate each other, but you
can be rivals in a personal way.
And then I go on to say that the breeze caresses my skin.
So to caress is another way of saying kiss, to caress, or touch, to caress.
Giving rise to, this is a nice phrase, meaning it causes,
causing, giving rise to goosebumps.
So the breeze causes goosebumps.
Now, goosebumps describes the raised little bumps you get
on your skin when you're cold.
I've heard other people in different countries calling it 'chicken skin'.
When a chicken has been plucked, it has all these little, little
bumps on its skin and that's how you look when you have goosebumps.
So the breeze gives rise to goosebumps.
I pull a light shawl over my shoulders.
Now here I'm talking about the material of the shawl being light, a light shawl.
So it's just a very thin, lightweight shawl.
A shawl is like a piece of material that you hang on your shoulders or on
the upper arms, goes around your back and hangs over your arms or shoulders.
It's like a scarf, but it's not, like a full length, like a scarf is, it doesn't
wrap around your neck several times.
A shawl is just to go over the shoulders or upper arms.
Sometimes shawls are quite large actually, and they can wrap
around your entire upper body.
But in this case it's just a light shawl, just something for the summer.
And I set off for the middle of the meadow.
To set off is a phrasal verb, meaning to go.
Like head off, I go, I set off.
The simple beauty is striking.
Striking is a nice way to describe something that is very
It impresses you in a way that really hits you.
So if something is striking, then it stops you.
It makes you take notice of it.
Whoa.
So the scene, the beauty, the simple beauty is striking.
We all often talk about a big space, like a field, as being a wide open space, a
wide open space, and the rolling hills.
We talk about the rolling hills.
The rolling hills is where you have hill after hill after hill.
Just like a big ball would be rolling up and down these hills, up and
down, up and down the rolling hills.
A continuation of green pastures lifting up.
So I'm thinking of these green hills all reaching up, trying to touch the sky.
So lifting up to meet the clear blue sky, that's another collocation.
We often talk about the clear blue sky.
I pause again to take in the view.
Now, take in is a great phrasal verb.
It means to have a moment to absorb something.
We often use this phrasal verb for news.
So something is news to you, you might need a moment to take it in, especially
if it's shocking or unexpected news.
If it's very good news or very bad news, you might need a moment to absorb it and
think about how you feel, understand how you feel, and what you think about it.
So it's having a moment to absorb the view, look at the
view, think about it, enjoy it.
The desire to explore is growing inside me, but I'm to wait here for
my friend, but I'm content to wait.
To be content just means to be happy.
It's a bit of a juxtaposition in the type of language I've
Plonk yourself down is kind of like a slang phrase, meaning I sit down.
But to plonk yourself down is to sit down a bit haphazardly.
So without much care, you just throw yourself down.
I plonk myself down on a boulder.
That seems oddly, out of place.
Out of place is a nice phrase to remember.
If something doesn't seem like it belongs, it is out of place.
The boulder seemed oddly out of place.
Very weird for this boulder to be on its own in the middle of a meadow.
Where on earth did it come from?
But I don't give its origin much thought.
To give something much thought.
You usually use this in the negative.
Just means you've, you didn't think about something very much.
I didn't give it much thought.
"Didn't you question why there was a cat outside your front door?"
"No, I didn't give it much thought."
"Didn't you care that your brother hadn't come home that night?"
"Oh I hadn't given it much thought, really.
You don't give something much thought.
I hadn't given it much thought.
I sit and gaze into the distance.
To gaze is to look for a long time I gaze.
We often talk about gazing into someone's eyes if we are enamoured.
"Oh, I'm gazing into your eyes.
Breathing in the day, filling my lungs with fresh air.
To fill your lungs is to breathe in deep.
Your lungs, obviously it's an organ in your body.
If we fill our lungs, then we're taking a deep breath.
We fill our lungs with fresh air.
I might tell you, "Uh, you've been inside all day.
Don't you want to go outside and get some fresh air?"
The funny thing is we use the phrase fresh air even if we are in a city
and perhaps the air isn't so fresh, I say, "Do you want some fresh air?"
Usually it means do you want some air from outside?
Do you want some outdoor air rather than the stale indoor air?
"Should we get some fresh air?"
"Yeah, let's stretch our legs and get some fresh air."
Usually when we're talking about scanning something, we're talking
So these days we have scanners in almost every shop because we scan cards.
We scan coupons, barcodes are scanned.
At the supermarket, everything is scanned, isn't it?
But to scan just means to kind of do a thorough look across something.
So if I scan the room, it means I look across the whole room, "I've lost my keys.
I've scanned the entire house and I can't find them anywhere."
A few shrubs randomly dotted across the field.
It's like a tree, but not a tree, and it's not a plant.
A shrub is like a bigger, bushier plant, like a woody plant.
It's smaller than a tree, so it's not a big tall tree.
You couldn't climb a shrub, but it's not like a little plant
It's got woody stalks, like a bush.
And I said there were a few shrubs randomly dotted across the field.
If things are dotted across an area, it means there are just a few of them
kind of spaced out across the area.
There's not like a group of shrubs in one area, they're dotted around.
They're very random, all over the place.
Wild flowers are the kinds of flowers that will just pop up anywhere,
and they're usually very beautiful.
There's been a big push in recent years to kind of encourage the
growth and the seeding of wild flowers because it helps with the
wildlife, particularly with the bees.
Because obviously there's a problem with the decline in bee
population, so wildflowers are, you can find them everywhere now.
These fields are being left to go to seed and for all these wild
flowers to be introduced so that the bees can really enjoy them and
hopefully increase their population.
So the wild flowers in full bloom, they're all out, they're all blooming.
You'll see all the beautiful flowers popping their heads above the long grass.
So we have long grass, which is usually the wild grass that's
And we have short grass, although we don't call short grass
"short grass", it's just grass.
And that's the kind of grass that you would have on a
playing field or in your garden.
If you have an area of grass, that would be a lawn that you would have to mow.
But in a meadow, you'd often have a long grass and that was swaying
in tandem with the wild flowers.
If you do something in tandem, you work together, you do it together.
So the wild grass and the wild flowers were swaying in tandem.
Swaying is moving back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in the breeze.
A huge oak tree marks the far corner of the meadow.
So if it marks the corner, it shows me where the edge of the meadow is,
or the far corner of the meadow.
I know where the far corner of the meadow is because the oak tree is right there.
Often that is the case, isn't it?
We tend to have these huge oak trees in meadows, and there'll just be one, maybe a
couple, but usually it's just one big one.
They are huge, really, really big trees, and this one is laden with young acorns.
Acorns are the fruit of an oak tree.
If you are laden with something, then you are full of it, you
are weighed down with it almost.
You have lots of things laid on you.
That's the way I think about it.
And this solitary oak is offering respite from the unrelenting sun.
Respite is like a break or a temporary pause in something that is difficult.
So, if I am suffering with long-term pain, maybe I have problems with
my joints and inflammation, and I'm always in agony, well, medication might
offer me some respite from that pain.
It might give me some short-term relief from that particular troublesome problem.
Some people would find the unrelenting sun too much.
Some people are sun-worshippers and love the sun, but it
And so this oak tree is offering shade so that it's a point of
respite for people who don't want to be in the unrelenting sun.
Unrelenting means never ending.
It just keeps going, keeps going.
And obviously we have clear blue skies, which means there's no cloud cover.
There's nothing to stop this sun beating down on you all day long.
And then a squirrel quickly darts up the trunk.
The trunk is the body, the thick part of a tree, the part that goes
from the earth up into the sky.
And this squirrel darts up the trunk.
To dart somewhere is to move very quickly.
And squirrels do dart around very fast, so the squirrel darts up
the tree with great dexterity.
To be dexterous means to be strong and good at something physically.
And actually I didn't say great dexterity in the story, I said impressive dexterity.
I'm impressed by how well this squirrel can go from the bottom of the tree to the
top while clutching something in its jaw.
So to clutch something is to hold on something very tightly.
We have a kind of handbag here called a clutch.
A clutch purse or a clutch bag or just a clutch and it's like a
little handbag or a large purse that doesn't have like a strap.
So you don't wear it over your shoulder, you literally just hold onto it.
And because it's got your phone and your money in you do clutch it.
You do hold it tightly and make sure it stays with you at all times 'cause
you don't want to lose those things.
Then something suddenly buzzes past my ear, making me jump.
Oh!
To jump is to flinch, to physically act very quickly and usually without
thinking, it's like a natural reaction.
If someone sneaks up behind you when you are not expecting and goes, "Boo!"
If you jump in a big way, then you'd say, I jumped out of my skin.
But here I just said, this little buzz by my ear made me jump.
And I do jump actually personally quite a lot, if there's like an unexpected spider.
I remember once lying in bed with my son, so we were sleeping
It's when my son was just about one year old and I remember thinking, 'cause
we're on a floor bed, I thought, "Oh, I bet the spiders at some point do
come and, like, walk across this bed."
And as I thought that, I thought I'll check under my pillow
just to make sure there are no spiders and would you believe it?
And there was a huge spider, just having a nice time on the sheet under my pillow.
And then it didn't make for a good night's sleep because I was, like,
paranoid about spiders forever after that.
Anyway, we no longer use the floor beds.
So coming back to the story, this little buzzing past my
ear, made me jump, a default...
So the default is what you go to, what you keep coming back to, like your
basic setting, a default reaction, which I always scold myself for.
So to scold yourself or to scold someone is to tell them off, to be angry with
them and tell them, that's not right.
So I tell myself off for having this reaction, this default reaction to bees.
And this is quite a common way to describe a bee, a busy bee
And because bees by nature are very busy, they are busy working,
collecting all the pollen, making honey, looking after the queen.
They are called bumblebees and they do bumble along.
We can say that a person bumbles along.
It's where you kind of move around without much direction.
A bee kind of moves around without a definite direction.
It doesn't go directly from one flower to the next.
It kind of hovers up and almost like it's drunk.
It doesn't do it in an efficient way, it just bumbles around.
So it bumbles along minding its own business.
This is a common phrase to mind your own business.
This means to just care about what you are doing, not about
So don't worry about anyone else.
I might say that to you, "Hey, look!
Stop asking me questions about what I'm doing.
Mind your own business, please."
Look after your own things, your own behaviour, your own projects.
Whatever you are doing, you look after that, you mind your own business.
So this little bee was minding his own business.
As it visited each flower that it came across.
To come across something is to just discover something by accident
I was walking down the high street and I came across a young woman
who looked just like my mother.
We got talking and it turns out that she is my long lost sister.
I could stay here all day, lose myself in this noisy quiet.
Okay. That's a bit of an oxymoron, isn't it?
An oxymoron, where two things don't seem to belong together.
They seem to be the opposite of one another.
It's noisy 'cause you have all that sound of outdoors.
But it's quiet because you don't have any of that industrial
distracting noise of modern living.
So the noisy quiet, just breathing, not thinking, and then the noisy
quiet is shattered, shattered.
Shattered is normally a word that we use to describe the breaking of
glass, but we also use it to talk about the sudden breaking of silence.
Think about how glass breaks, when you break glass, it doesn't just crack.
Usually, it like breaks into a thousand pieces, doesn't it?
It completely breaks into lots of little pieces.
So this noise shatters the noisy quiet.
And it's my phone rudely, blasting out, blasting out.
It's very loud, it's very rude.
It's desperate for my attention.
And once again, I'm back to reality.
So back to my normal life, boo.
Okay, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you found this
particular podcast interesting.
If you did, then please come and let me know.
You can find me on Instagram at British English Pro, and yeah, drop me a