EP120 1990's | Intermediate

Hello everyone, welcome back to another podcast here at English Pod. My name is Marco. And I'm Erica. And today we're looking at another one of our lessons for English of the past decades, and this time it's the 1990s. Well, you know, the nineteen nineties is a little easier for most of us to remember.

Yeah, I guess it's a little bit more recent. We're gonna be looking at a lot of language that is still used today. Most of these words and phrases are still used today, so um they're gonna be very useful and you're gonna sound a lot more native. Mm-hmm, a lot cooler as well, huh? Right, so before we get started with this lesson, why don't we take a look at vocabulary preview? Vocabulary Preview We have two words we're going to hear in the dialogue. Now the first one is a mall.

M-A-L-L Ma Alright, so a mall is basically short for shopping mall. Mm-hmm. And a shopping mall is a big building with many stores inside. Right, so it's like a shopping center. And our last word for vocabulary preview is gang. The gang. Yeah. Okay, so a gang is a group of people, right? Yeah, it's a group of people you can call your friends the gang. We're gonna go out with the gang tonight. Now we sometimes hear this word um to have and it has a negative meaning, right?

Right, like street games. Yeah, so people who are who fight and deal drugs and all that sort of stuff. Right. So it can have a negative and a positive meaning. So but it just depends on how you use it. But in the dialogue we'll hear it with a positive meaning. Right.

So that's all the words we have for a vocabulary preview. Let's listen to this cool and hip dialogue from the 1990s and we'll come back later and explain some. Vor eyes. What's up man? How have you been? Not bad. Just went to the mall and picked up some junk. Check out my new Adidas. Thank you. Those are dope! You are gonna be getting mad props from the gang, man. Anyways, have you seen Betty lately?

Dude, don't even go there. That girl started tripping cause I went to the movies with Veronica the other day. I was like, look, you knew how I was before you got with me. That's right. You are such a player, man. Dude, there's Mad Max. Let's go say hi. Max Was uh are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost. I got an F in English class. My life is over. Dude, get over it! You need to lay off the books for a while and have some fun. Come on, let's bounce!

Where are we going? Oh crap. My dad is gonna go postal when he finds out about this. I'm gonna open the can of whoopass on you if you don't come Come with me right now! Okay, okay. G! Well it sounds like this guy's got some problems at school, huh? Yeah, he got an F on his paper, but you always can count on your friends to try and cheer you up by doing something. Yeah. But they use some really great phrases and vocabulary words, so why don't we look at those now in language takeaway?

Language takeaway. Alright, on language takeaway we're gonna be looking at five words and well let's start with the first one. So the guy was talking about his really cool new shoes, his new Adidas, right? And his friend said, those are dope. Dope. Okay, so it's pretty easy to understand when something is dope. It's really awesome. It's cool. Yeah. It's great. Right, it's great. So that's dope.

Mm-hmm. And it's an adjective, right? Mm-hmm. So his friend said those are dope, and he said you're gonna be getting mad props from the gang. Okay, so mad props. Mad Prop. We can divide this word in two. So let's take a look at the first part. Math. Mad. So we understand that Matt is angry, right? Yeah, but it can also mean a lot. Amazing. Really? So if I say you have mad skills. you're really good at something. Or you can say, she has a mad amount of shoes.

Alright, so he's going to get mad props. Now props is like respect or compliments. Yeah. So so his shoes are so cool that he's gonna get a lot of respect or a lot of compliments from his friends. Exactly. Mad props. Bad prop. So they started talking about girls and he mentioned that this girl started tripping. Trippin'. Trippin'. So two trips.

Right, as you notice it's trippin'. It doesn't have the G at the end, which isn't really grammatically correct, but that's kind of the way it's pronounced. Yeah, we we would never say the G. Right. So if somebody is tripping, They're um they're getting really upset. They're getting really angry. Right, they're causing trouble. So why don't we listen to a couple of examples of how we could use Trippin' for different situations? Example 1 Leanne was trippin' cause I got dirt on her car.

Example two. Even though I apologize for calling her fat, Jeannie was tripping all night. Example three. He sent me 43 text messages and called me about 20 times. That guy is tripping over me. Okay, so that's pretty clear. Um, trippin'. Alright. Now moving on to our next word. They wanted to go somewhere, and he said, come on, let's bounce. Let's bounce. Let's bounce. Now, uh, bounce basically means let's leave. Yeah. Let's get out of here.

But we might be more familiar with this this word as in like a ball, right? A ball bounces off the floor. Exactly. So I guess it's kind of the same. You kind of bounce off the floor and leave that place. Yeah. Let's bounce. Okay, so for our final word, now this guy who got a bad mark on his his paper, he was nervous about what his dad would say, right? Right. Cause his dad was going to go postal. Mm-hmm. He said my dad is gonna go postal. To go postal. Now if you go postal it means you go crazy.

You really freak out. Yeah, like really angry. This word comes from the nineties because during a time it was very common in the United States that postal workers, mailmen, were going a little bit uh crazy and you know, they started shooting people and uh delivering some strange packages. Well I guess so people who work in um the post office maybe don't have the most exciting jobs and that drives them a little crazy.

See. Exactly. That's what and but now they have a a term named after them. Alright, so why don't we listen to our dialogue for the second time? We're gonna slow it down a little bit. Hey, Four Eyes What's up, man? How have you been? Not bad. Dad just went to the mall and picked up some junk. Check out my new Adidas Those are dope. You are gonna be getting mad props from the gang, man. Anyways, have you seen Betty lately?

Dude, don't even go there. That girl started tripping because I went to the movies with Veronica the other day. I was like, look, you knew how I was before you got there.

That's right. You are such a player, man. Dude, there's Mad Max. Let's go say hi. Mags Wasa Are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost. I got an F in English class. My life is over. Dude, get over it. You need to lay off the books for a while and have some fun. Come on, let's bounce. Where are we going? Oh crap. My dad is gonna go postal when he finds out about this. I'm gonna open the can of whoop ass on you if you don't come. Come with me right now cried. Okay, okay. Geez, give me.

Okay, so I think that was a little easier to understand. You know, we've got a lot of pretty strange words and phrases, some interesting slang. Yeah, and I wanna take a look at this slang now, so let's get started with Fluency Builder. Fluency Builder Okay, so the guy with the new shoes, he asked his friends, have you seen Betty lately, right? Right. And the his friend replied, Don't even go there. Right. He was like, dude, don't even go there. Don't even go there.

So what does he mean when he says don't even go there? He means don't talk about it. I I don't want to talk about it. Right. Don't even mention it. Right, so if somebody wants to talk about a topic that you think is sensitive or you don't want to talk about, so say, hey, don't don't even go there. So Marco, what do you think about the new tax law? Uh don't even go there. I don't even want to talk about politics.

Okay, so I think that's that's a really actually quite helpful phrase um to avoid talking about an uncomfortable subject. Right. So he said, don't even go there. And he started talking about the girl and she was tripping. And then he said something interesting. He said, I was like, look, you knew how I was before you got with me. Yeah, I really like this phrase. Now I want to focus on the first part. I was laughing. Like I was like

Now you might hear a lot of native English speakers use these three words before they start telling you what they said. Mm-hmm. So it's like saying, I I said or I I told him. Yep. So this actually is really common, especially with people under the age of 30. So why don't we hear a few more examples of how it's used now? Example one. This guy caused a car accident, I was like, you idiot. You can kill people. Yeah. Example two.

And then I was like, I hate you and she was all like, I hate you more Example three. I told the teacher that I didn't finish my homework and he was like, I'll see you after school. So if you're telling a story or you're maybe s talking to somebody and you wanna explain what you said you can say I was like, hey, what are you doing? And she was like, What? So you can have a an entire dialogue based with I was like, she was like, we were like uh.

Okay, so I was like, it's super super useful. So now our next word. Now they they saw their friend who got the bad mark in in school and the guy said dude get over it. Get over it. Get over it. So if somebody tells you to get over it. Stop worrying about it. Okay. Alright, so if somebody is sad because maybe his girlfriend broke up with him, you would say Get over it. Yeah, stop thinking about it. Let it go. It's in the past.

Yeah, and you you commonly use this for um when somebody is upset about a small thing, something they shouldn't worry about. Mm. Now why don't we go on to our final word? At the end of the dialogue, they said, I'm gonna open a can of whoopas. Okay, so to open a can of whoop ass on somebody. To open a can of Whoopass. So again let's break this down before we explain it. I think we have to take one step back here. To whoop someone's ass is to beat them up. Right. to punch them and hurt them.

Right. So to whoop somebody's ass. Mm-hmm. So if I open a can of whoop ass, what does that mean? It means you're gonna beat them up. So it's just a funny, very informal way of saying like in this can I'm gonna open it and I'm gonna start hitting you or something. Some sort of small man is gonna jump out of the can and start hitting Exactly. But it's never literal. It's not like you're actually gonna beat somebody up. It's just kind of like Kind of a joke. It's an empty threat. Yeah.

Alright, so some really interesting words and phrases in this dialogue. I think we should listen to it for the last time, and then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about this. A decade.

Vor Eyes. What's up man? How have you been? Not bad. Just went to the mall and picked up some junk. Check out my new Adidas Those are dope! You are gonna be getting mad props from the gang, man. Anyways, have you seen Betty lately? Dude, don't even go there. That girl started tripping because I went to the movies with Veronica the other day. I was like, look, you knew how I was before you got with me. That's right. You are such a player, man. Dude, there's Mad Max. Let's go say hi. Max!

Was uh are you okay? You look like you just saw a ghost. I got an F in English class. My life is over. Dude, get over it! You need to lay off the books for a while and have some fun. Come on, let's bounce! Where are we going? Oh crap. My dad is gonna go postal when he finds out about this. I'm gonna open the can of whoop-ass on you if you don't come with me right now Okay, okay, G. So in the dialogue I heard one of the guys say what's up, but he said it in a really strange way, didn't he?

Yeah exactly he said what's up Okay, so w what what's up with that? So in the 90s it was popular instead of saying what's up you would just kind of double BS and just say what's up. And then it became very famous with a TV commercial for a certain beer. And actually I I remember this commercial during the the Super Bowl, they had um this big commercial where everyone was saying what's up in this really strange way, right?

It's still used today informally between friends. You'll go head Hey what's up and What's up? Yeah. So you'll use it. Yeah so the commercial made it actually quite cool and and famous to talk like that. Actually in Spanish Pod they have a show called Que Pasa, which is like the translation of WhatsApp. And they start each show with like saying Que pasa, but it's exactly the same. So maybe it will become popular in Spanish. Maybe uh 다음 영상에서 만나요 Yeah, that's right.

Alright, so really cool stuff and uh as we heard typical music from the nineties and another interesting thing was the nicknames. Four eyes, Mad Max, very popular among young kids. Mm-hmm. So remember if you have any questions about this language or anything else about this lesson, come to our website at englishpod.com. Right, you can leave all your questions and comments there and uh we hope to see you guys there. So thanks for listening and until next time.