Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast Number 34. This is English as a Second Language Podcast Number 34. I'm Jeff McQuillan coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in Los Angeles, California. Visit our website at www .eslpod .com for more information on this podcast. Today's topic is going to the cafe. Let's get started. favorite hangouts is a cafe near where I live called Bolivar in Santa Monica. It's only five minutes away and it's never too
busy to find a table. Sometimes it can be bustling, but that's usually just in the morning during rush hour or at lunchtime. The owners are from Venezuela and always have some cool music playing in the background. Yesterday, I decided to take my New York Times and my laptop and kill a few hours there. I ordered the usual as a regular The folks there know I want a vanilla latte with a double shot of espresso. Hold the whipped cream. Sometimes I'll order a coffee cake if I'm feeling
a little hungry. The cafe also has a soup and sandwich menu you can order off of. Cafes are great for people watching. Sometimes, I just sit and watch the people come and go. You get all types at this café. Yesterday, for example, a mother comes in with her three daughters, and one of the little girls orders a latte. Well, this being Los Angeles, you have your typical mix of screenwriters, out -of -work actors, and various Hollywood wannabes. They make for a colorful
mix most of the time. Me? I just sit and read my paper. I'm no actor. But someday I would like to direct In talking about Cafe living or spending time at a cafe I said that it was one of my favorite hangouts a hangout is a place where you spend time remember the verb to hang out is an informal expression meaning to spend time somewhere usually relaxing not working I said that this cafe where I like to hang out is near where I live To say it's near where I live is the same to say it's
near me. I could have said it's near to where I live. There's really no difference between those expressions. This particular cafe that I like to go to is only five minutes away. When talking about how the distance between two things, especially in a city like Los Angeles, we tend to talk about the time rather than the miles because there's so much traffic that it's better
to think about how long it takes. So I say it's five minutes away, meaning it will take five minutes from my house to get or to arrive at the cafe. I said that sometimes the cafe can be bustling. To be bustling means to be very busy, to have lots of people coming in and out. This usually happens during rush hour or the time when people are going to work or coming back from work to home or at lunch time. Lunch
time is of course in the U .S. around noon, 12 noon, and we use the expression lunch time or dinner time. That's all one word, lunch time, meaning the time we eat lunch. Yesterday when I went to the cafe, I was going to kill a few
hours there. To kill a few hours or to kill time, to kill a day which means to spend it doing relaxing enjoyable things often but mostly it means to use up that time to waste the time not to spend it very productively not to be working I'm going to kill a few hours at the mall means I'm going to go to the shopping mall, spend a few hours, but not work very hard or do anything very important. I said that when I ordered my drink at the cafe,
I ordered the usual. When someone says, I'll have the usual, that means I'll order what I usually get. This is an expression. That's very
closely related to another word. I used which was a regular When you say I'm a regular at this cafe that means I go to this cafe all the time I go there regularly and The people there know me So when I come in they know what I want I want the usual what I usually order I said I usually order a latte a latte is you probably know a coffee drink with milk I get mine with a double shot of espresso a shot of something is a small amount we use this term for espresso
a type of coffee. We also use it for alcohol. I'll have a shot of alcohol means I'll have a couple of ounces, a small amount of alcohol. Usually in bars they have shot glasses. These are small little glasses that have a few ounces of alcohol that they use, a shot glass. But here
I wasn't drinking alcohol. I was just drinking coffee, and I told them in making my latte To hold the whipped cream to hold something when you're at a restaurant or a cafe Means to do not means do not add it do not put it on there So if you go to a restaurant and the menu says that the hamburger that you're going to order has lettuce and tomatoes and mayonnaise, and you don't want the mayonnaise, you say, I'll have the hamburger, but hold the mayonnaise,
meaning don't put any mayonnaise on it. I mentioned that I was hungry. If I get hungry, I sometimes order a coffee cake. A coffee cake is just a pastry. That you can get at a cafe looks a little like a cake small This cafe that I go to has a soup and sandwich menu that expression soup and sandwich Means they of course carry different soups and they have different sandwiches but it also implies that they don't have a regular
kitchen a regular place to serve hot meals. So you can have a soup and sandwich place, a soup and sandwich cafe, but you won't be able to order, for example, a steak or mashed potatoes or any sort of formal or more difficult to prepare food. I said that cafes were great for people watching. To people watch, as you probably know, means to watch, just to sit and to watch the people go by, walking on the street or coming in and going out of the cafe. At this cafe, I said that
you get all types. That means you get all types of people. I later said that this being Los Angeles, You have a typical mix of screenwriters, out -of -work actors, and various Hollywood wannabes. That first expression, this being, means related to Los Angeles, or what you would expect from Los Angeles. This being September, the children are going back to school, meaning means this is September so we expect that the children will
go back to school. The kind of people you see at this cafe are some of them are screenwriters. A screenwriter is a person who writes a script or the text of a movie or a television program. We call those screenwriters. An actor you already know, an out -of -work actor, is an unemployed actor, someone who doesn't have a job right now. And finally I used an informal term wannabes. A wannabe or is someone who wants to be something
but isn't. So if you want to be a famous actor but all you can get The only job you can get is working at a cafe in Hollywood. Well, you're a wannabe. You want to be something that you're not. It's somewhat of a negative expression. I also said at the end of the discussion, I said, me, I just sit and read my paper. Notice that this is grammatically incorrect. I should just say, I sit and read my paper, not me, I sit and
read my paper. But in informal expressions, in informal English, we often, as native speakers, use things that aren't necessarily grammatically correct. It just means here that I'm talking about what I do. I like to watch television at night. Me, I like to take a walk in the evenings. It's usually when you are comparing yourself to someone else. You're distinguishing yourself.
You're saying what is different about you. Finally, I ended the discussion by saying that I'm no actor, but someday, would like to direct This is something of a joke here in Los Angeles Because to direct means to be the director of a movie or the director of a television show The director is the person in charge He's the boss or she's the boss So to say well, I'd like to direct means I'd like to be in charge of a movie or a TV show Well, I'm not in charge of a movie or a TV show,
but I do appreciate all of you listening to our ESL podcast and ask that you email us. Our address is eslpod at eslpod .com. I'm Dr. Jeff McQuillan from Los Angeles, California. We'll see you next time. ESL podcast. ESL podcast is produced by the Center for Educational Development in Los Angeles, California. This podcast is copyright 2005.