Vocabulary about babies, Part 4 in our series about passive verbs, a lesson about apologizing, the Joke of the Week, a listening quiz, and more.
Episode 142 of the Everybody ESL podcast has good vocabulary about babies, a lesson about apologizing, Part 4 in our series about passive verbs, the Joke of the Week, a listening quiz, and more. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions (or if you’d like to record an introduction for future episodes), send an email to EverybodyESL@gmail.com!
Episode 142 rundown: Vocabulary (words about babies): 1:20, Small talk (how to apologize): 6:40, Grammar (Part 4 in the series about passive verbs): 8:35, the Joke of the Week: 14:40, Listening quiz: 16:00
Vocabulary: words about babies
This episode’s vocabulary words are all about babies.
And the first word on our list is newborn. Newborn. N-e-w-b-o-r-n. Newborn. A newborn is a new baby. A newborn is a baby that is less than about two months old. You can think of newborn as meaning “newly, or recently, born.” A newborn is a recently born baby. It's still very new.
We have a special word for newborns that were born early or newborns that were born earlier than is typical. We call babies that were born early or too early preemies. Preemies. P-r-e-e-m-i-e. Preemie. Can you guess where the word preemie comes from? It might be hard to guess. Preemie is kind of a short form of the adjective premature. Premature. That is spelled p-r-e-m-a-t-u-r-e. Premature means “happening or coming too early” or “happening or coming much earlier than is typical.” A preemie is a baby that was born early.
And the next word on the list is infant. Infant. I-n-f-a-n-t. Infant. An infant is a baby that is somewhere between two months old and one year old. That's an infant.
The next word is toddler. Toddler. T-o-d-d-l-e-r. Toddler. A toddler is a baby that is around one year to three years old. And toddlers are called toddlers because they toddle. Toddle is a verb that means “to walk in an unsteady way.” We think of little babies or little children who are between one and three years old as toddling. They walk in that cute, unsteady way. So, they are toddlers. They are babies or children who toddle.
How about this word: onesie. Onesie. O-n-e-s-i-e. Onesie. Do you what a onesie is? A onesie is a kind of clothing. A onesie is what babies often wear. It's a simple one-piece outfit. That's why it's called a onesie.
The next word is pacifier. Pacifier. P-a-c-i-f-i-e-r. Pacifier. A pacifier is a little object that babies can suck on. If a baby is feeling anxious or upset for some reason, sometimes it helps to give the baby a pacifier to suck on. That can help to calm the baby down or make the baby feel more peaceful. The reason I'm mentioning the word peaceful is because pacifier comes from the word pacify, meaning “to make something calm or peaceful.”
You might know this word: crawl. Crawl. C-r-a-w-l. Crawl. To crawl is to move slowly or to move by walking on your hands and knees. And crawling is what babies do before they start to walk. That's how they get around—they crawl.
And the last word on our list of baby vocabulary is mobile. Mobile. M-o-b-i-l-e. Mobile. A mobile is an object that has parts that hang down and move, or they hang down and spin. Many people put mobiles in a baby's crib so that the baby can watch these objects slowly move, slowly turn and spin. Many people think that that is calming for a baby, or it somehow helps the baby to see objects or to start to understand how things move. Mobile is a noun, but there's a very similar word, pronounced differently but spelled the same, that is an adjective. And that word is mobile. Mobile is also spelled m-o-b-i-l-e, and it means “able to move.” So a mobile is something that has parts that move.
Well, that is our list of baby-related vocabulary.
Small Talk: how to apologize
For this episode’s small talk topic or social situation, I want to talk about apologizing. I'm going to tell you the two basic ways to apologize, or to say that you are sorry for something that you did or a mistake that you made.
The first construction you can use to apologize is to say, “I'm sorry for . . .” doing something. I'm sorry for . . . forgetting your birthday. I'm sorry for . . . calling you so late. I'm sorry for . . . interrupting you. That's the first construction: I'm sorry for . . . doing the thing that I did
The second construction is “I'm sorry that I . . .” did the thing. I'm sorry that I . . . forgot your birthday. I'm sorry that I . . . called you so late. I'm sorry that I . . . interrupted you.
Now, these two constructions—“I'm sorry for doing something” and “I'm sorry that I did something”—really feel the same to me. I think either one of these is a fine and basic way to apologize for something, to tell somebody that you're sorry for what you did.
So, if you can learn those two simple constructions, those two simple formulas for making sentences, you will know how to give basic, polite apologies.
Grammar: Passive Verbs (Part Four)
Today’s grammar topic is Part Four in our series about passive verbs, and I think Part Four is going to be the last part in the series. In Parts One and Two, I told you about active verbs and passive verbs and what they mean. And in Part Three, I told you about how to form passive verbs. You can go back and listen to previous episodes if you want to review those parts of the series or hear them for the first time. In Part Three, I told you why passive verbs are so difficult. Or one reason why they're so difficult. They involve two parts. Most verbs only have one part, but passive verbs need two parts. They need some form of the verb to be and they also need a past participle. And that past participle is another thing that makes them so difficult. Because in order to know the past participle of every verb, there's nothing you can do except memorize them. Some verbs have past participles that are predictable. They are regular. They follow a pattern.
But many verbs—many very common verbs—have past participles that don’t follow a pattern. They’re not predictable. The only thing you can do is memorize them. And this is something that many English learners really don’t like. Because it’s not easy. There are a lot of irregular verbs in English, verbs that have different forms that are just not predictable.
And if you want to use passive verbs, or if you want to use the perfect tenses—the present perfect, the past perfect, the future perfect—you need to know about past participles. Because all of those verb forms use past participles.
Let me give you an example of the kind of thing that I’m talking about. Let’s take one of the most common verbs in all of English: the verb to do. What is the past participle of the verb to do? In other words, if I want to make a perfect tense form of to do, or if I want to make a passive form using the verb to do, what form do I need? What does it look like? Do you know? Well, let me tell you: the past participle of the verb to do is “done.” So I could ask something like, “What did you do yesterday?”
Now that's just the regular to do. That's not a special form. That's not a past participle form. “What did you do yesterday?” But if I want to use to do in a passive sentence, I could say something like, “What was done yesterday?” What was done yesterday? There, I need to use the past participle of the verb to do.
Now, I have some advice for you, and you might not like this advice. I don't think I would like to hear this advice. I think that you need to memorize all past participles for common verbs. Now, you can find lists of all of the different forms of verbs in English. You can find those lists in textbooks. You can find them on the Internet. You can probably find them on language learning apps. Well, I think you should do that. I think you should start doing it today if you haven't already done it. Because you really can’t be an effective English speaker if you don't have a strong command of past tense forms and past participle forms.
Let me give you a quick quiz. Let's see if you know the past participles of these common verbs. Okay. Are you ready? The first one is the verb to go. What is the past participle of the verb to go? If I wanted to make a sentence with a present perfect form of the verb to go, I would say, “He has [blank] to school already.” He has [blank] to school. What form of go fits in there? He has gone to school already. That is the past participle form of go.
How about this one? What is the past participle of tell? The past participle of tell. Let's say there is a passive sentence that goes like this: “That is the funniest story that was ever [blank].” Now, that's a passive verb, and it needs a past participle: That was the funniest story that was ever . . . What is the past participle of tell? It’s told. That was the funniest story that was ever told.
One more: What is the past participle of the verb to understand? To understand. What's the past participle of understand? It is understood. So, I could ask, “Is that understood?” There's a passive sentence. It has a passive verb: Is that understood?
Okay, well, that's the end of our series about passive verbs, ending on that unwelcome note about past participles. And let me repeat my advice: I think you should go and start learning all of those past participle and past tense forms of verbs.
The Joke of the Week!
And now it's time for the Joke of the Week! That's right. Finally, we have reached the Joke of the Week. These are jokes that are not usually very funny, but they can still sometimes tell us something interesting about English. Here is this week's joke: What kind of room can you not go inside? What kind of room can you not go inside?
Hmmm. What do you think? What could the answer to this question be? What kind of room can you not go inside? Let me tell you the answer.
What kind of room can you not go inside? A mushroom! A mushroom.
You can’t go inside a mushroom! Forget it! It just won’t happen. Well. that's it. That one is short and sweet. What kind of room can you not go inside? A mushroom. Of course, it's not really a kind of room, but it does have the word room in it, so it sounds like the name of a room. That's kind of funny. A little bit? It’s a little funny.
Listening Quiz
Here are this episode's listening quiz sentences: