Your English Five a Day #22.5

E226: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast with me, Anna! Join us for Week 22, Day 5 of Your English Five a Day, where we introduce five new vocabulary pieces each weekday to boost your language skills.

🔥 Today's episode kicks off with the idiom "playing with fire".  Next up is the verb "culminate", which is followed by the noun "gratitude". Moving on to the adjective "rational" and then we finish off with the verb "banish".

🕵‍♀️ As always, I encourage you to participate by providing opportunities to repeat after me to practise your pronunciation and I test your memory with a little quiz too. Finally, in today's story segment, we meet Jenny Manson, a secret agent on a mission to apprehend a dangerous weapons dealer. Gripping narration and suspenseful action scenes keep you on the edge of your seat as Jenny's mission unfolds.

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Transcript

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Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 22, Day 5 of Your English Five a Day. In this series, we are introducing five pieces of vocabulary every day of the working week from Monday to Friday in the hopes of increasing your vocabulary, but also improving your listening skills. If you would like to get more out of your listening experience, then we do offer a Plus Membership where you can access bonus material such as additional episodes, transcripts, and vocabulary lists. The link will be in the description. Let's start with today's list. We have an idiom to kick us off and it is playing with fire. Playing with fire. To play with fire. P L A Y. With. W I T H. Fire. F I R E. Now, obviously, playing with fire is not a sensible thing to do. Because if you play with fire, you could get burned. So, it's when you do something that's risky or dangerous, that you probably shouldn't do. So, if you are playing with fire, then you're doing something risky. Here's an example sentence,"You're seriously playing with fire, having an affair with your brother's wife!" Okay. So, I'm just trying to think of any examples of when I was playing with fire. Oh, yes. There was a short period in time when I was dating a trader, an FX trader, and he introduced me to trading currencies, which is, as a day trader, it's a very risky thing to do. If you don't really know what you're doing and you're quite an emotional person, then it's a risky business. You're more likely to lose your money than anything else. And I didn't really have any money. I had a little bit of money saved up and I decided to start dabbling in trading FX, having no experience, no knowledge, and being a very emotional person. And needless to say, I lost my money. I lost my savings in a very short space of time. I was playing with fire and I got burnt and I learned my lesson. Have you ever played with fire? Let's move on to the next word on our list. It's a verb and it is culminate. Culminate. C U L M I N A T E. Culminate. Culminate. To culminate is to be the end result of a process. So, a certain action will culminate in a certain outcome. For example, lots of practice speaking English will culminate in greater English fluency and confidence when speaking with others. Here's another example,"My colleagues and I argued so much over who was going for the promotion that it culminated in my resignation. I'll get a better job elsewhere anyway." Next on the list is a noun and it is gratitude, gratitude. We spell it G R A T I T U D E. Gratitude. Gratitude describes the feeling of being grateful, thankful. We should all practise gratitude on a daily basis, being thankful and grateful for the things in our lives that are positive. Here's an example sentence,"You saved the day by being there for me when I had the accident, how can I show my gratitude? Can I take you to the opera as a thank you? The Nutcracker is playing currently, I know that's one of your favourites." Next on the list is an adjective an adjective and it is rational. Rational. We spell it R A T I O N A L. Rational. Rational. If something is described as rational, then it has reason, good reason. It's been thought about. For example, a rational person would base their actions on clear thought and reason. So, here's an example,"There's got to be a rational explanation as to why Jose hit you, did you say or do something to annoy him?" Next and last on the list is a verb and it is banish. Banish. We spell it B A N I S H. Banish. To banish someone is to make them leave a place, usually a country, and to not allow them to come back. It's very similar to deport or exile someone from a place. This word always makes me think of the Shakespeare play Romeo and Juliet, where Romeo was banished from Verona, wasn't he? Yeah, what a sad story that one is. Didn't have a happy ending at all. Okay, let me give you an example sentence with banish,"The hunters were eventually caught and banished from the game reserve after they snuck in and targeted a herd of elephants." Okay, so let's recap today's five. We started with the idiom play with fire, which is to dabble in doing something dangerous or risky. Then we had the verb culminate, which is to be the end result of a process. We had the noun gratitude, which is the feeling of being thankful or grateful. We had the adjective rational, where something is based on clear thought and reason. And then we had the verb banish to make someone leave a place and never come back. Okay, let's do this now for pronunciation. Please repeat after me. Play with fire. Play with fire. Culminate. Culminate. Gratitude. Gratitude. Rational. Rational. Banish. Banish. Very good. Okay. Let's test your memory. I have been working very, very, very hard to produce a new course a B1 level course. And that work has resulted in an excellent course being launched. What verb could I use to replace'resulted in'? Culminated. My hard work has culminated in a fantastic course being released. And I feel very thankful for the hard work of my team, as well as the positive feedback from my students. What word could I use instead of feeling thankful? Gratitude. I have a lot of gratitude. All my hard work culminated in this great course, but I have gratitude to the people who helped me and to the people providing positive feedback from their experience. Now on the night of the celebration, after the launch, I decide to go out and drink a whole bottle of champagne to myself, which is very risky because everybody knows that I am a nightmare when I'm drunk. So, what idiom could we use instead of saying that it's very risky? I am... playing with fire by deciding to get drunk. So, I drink a whole bottle of champagne. This isn't a real story, by the way. I drink a whole bottle of champagne because I'm celebrating the launch. And because I'm drunk, I'm making very silly decisions. And I decide that it would be a great idea to climb on top of a police car and do a silly dance. I definitely was not thinking in a sensible way. I wasn't thinking clearly. There was no reason for me to climb on top of this police car and do a silly dance. So, because I was drunk, I wasn't making well-thought-out decisions. What adjective could we use instead of saying well-thought-out? Rational. I wasn't making rational decisions, was I? Absolutely not. And when the police see me on top of their car doing this silly dance, they drag me down. They whack some handcuffs on me and they take me off to see the judge. And the judge tells me I have to leave the city and I can never come back again. What verb should we use? What did the judge do to me? She banished me. The judge banished me from my own city because I did the silly drunken dance, which wasn't a very rational thing to do. A silly drunken dance on top of the police car. And it's all because I decided to play with fire by drinking too much champagne. And it's only because I was feeling so much gratitude because we'd all worked hard and we'd launched this amazing course, which was the culmination of months of hard work and input from an incredible team of teachers. Yeah, now I'm banished. Well, that didn't have a happy ending, did it? Okay. That is not a true story. I do have a B1 course that was the culmination of many months of very hard work, but I didn't get drunk when I launched it. Right. Let's bring everything together in another little story. My name is Manson, Jenny Manson. I work for the government as a secret agent, and my job is to protect innocent lives from dangerous criminals. Our current intel suggests that a notorious weapons dealer, known for supplying arms to terrorist organisations, is hiding in the caves of Thailand. And he's playing with fire, as he plans to sell these weapons to the highest bidder. Here is my account of today's action. Walking through a bustling market in Thailand, blending in with the locals, I spotted a suspicious figure and followed her to a small motorboat docked at the edge of the beach, these small but fast boats are the only way to reach the hidden caves where the weapons are stored. After speeding through the crystal blue waters, the wind blowing through my hair, I finally reached the entrance of the caves and cautiously made my way inside. As I entered the caves, I knew that I was getting closer to my target. The caves were dark and winding, but I had to stay rational and focused. After reaching a large chamber filled with weapons and explosives, I saw him, the man I was after, was surrounded by armed guards. A fierce fight broke out and I had to swing into action, using my skills in hand-to-hand combat to take down the waiting enemies. I disposed of the guards and approached the weapons dealer, who was now cornered and desperate."Playing with fire can only lead to destruction," I said with a confident grin. My mission in Thailand had culminated in the capture of a dangerous criminal. All those involved were banished from Thailand and sentenced to life in prison in a far-off land. As a secret government agent, it's my duty to fight against those who seek to harm innocent lives. Another successful mission completed and a sense of gratitude that I've made it through yet another dangerous encounter, but for me, it's just another day on the job. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. I do hope you found today useful. Until next time, take very good care and goodbye.