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Hello everyone and welcome back to another lesson at EnglishPod. My name is Marco

and my name is Catherine and in the spirit of the Halloween, we have a Halloween lesson for you.

Happy Halloween. It’s Halloween.

It’s Halloween and this is an elementary level lesson. So, we’re talking about some basic but important things today.

Exactly. So, we’re not gonna preview anything because the dialogue is pretty simple. So why don’t we listen to it for the first time and we’ll be right back.

A: Trick - or -treat

B: Tom, aren’t you a little too old to be trick-or - treating?

A: What are you talking about? Where is your Halloween spirit? Didn’t you ever dress up in a costume and go around the neighborhood trick-ortreatingwith your friends?

B: Of course I did, but when I was ten! Trick -or - treating is for kids, plus, I’m sure people will think you’re a kidnapper or something, running around with kids NCP at night.

A: Whatever, I’m going next door. I heard Mrs. Robinson is giving out big bags of M&Ms!

All right, we’re back. So, trick-or-treating.

trick-or-treat. Alright, so we’re going to explain what the trick-or-treating is just a little bit. But before we get into it, why don’t we take a look at 4 important words in language take away.

Language take away

Well, the first time that Marco is very important because it’s the name of this special holiday that isn’t celebrated everywhere. It’s only celebrated in some places and Americans I think, love it above all else.

Right. Yeah, hollowing. Now, this actually comes from all hollows Eve, right?

That’s right. So, this is the night of the spirits of the dead.

Right, exactly. So, the day of the dead and as Catherine mentions it celebrated in different ways in different countries, but I think probably the United States is one of the few that where people dress up and go trick or treating.

That’s right. And Halloween is the last day of October, so October 31. And it’s a really fun holiday were mostly children dress up in costumes and they ask for candy.

All right. So, to dress up means to get in the costume.

Right. Well, you could say dress up to mean a couple of different things, but in this case you dress up in a costume so that means you change your close so that you’re wearing a costume which is maybe a witch’s costume or a vampire or something scary.

So, you would say he dressed up as a vampire.

He dressed up as a vampire or got dressed up for the wedding.

Okay, very good. So, dress up and then we have the word kidnapper.

So, the friend is afraid that his friend will look like a kidnapper if he goes out trick-or-treating with the kids.

Right

And so, a kidnapper, it comes from the word to take her, to grab. So, kid grabber and that means that you’re going to take children from the streets and steal them.

Right. but you can kidnap an adult, right? So, it’s not only for kids.

That’s right. It’s for any kind of person who you take without them wanting you to. So, against their will.

Okay, kidnapper. And finally we have M&Ms. What are M&Ms? Not the singer, right?

No. Eminem is spelled differently, the singer. This is a delicious chocolate treat. It’s a candy and it comes in big brown bags. And if you want them with peanuts, they come in a yellow bag.

You know your M&Ms.

Oh, man. I could tell you all the colors. But M&Ms are really delicious and it’s actually a brand.

It’s a brand. Right, so many people probably know it but just in case, they are called M&Ms, very good candy. Alright so these words were relatively easy and simple. So why don’t we listen to our dialogue again. Let’s slow it down just a little bit and will be right back to take a look at fluency builder.

Fluency builder

All right, we’re back. So on fluency builder, we promise that we were going to look at this word trick-or-treating. So let’s look at it now.

trick-or-treat, it’s a verb, right? To trick-or-treat

to trick-or-treat and it comes from the words that we say when we were children to the person whose door we knock on. So, for example

Okay

I say—

and then I open the door

I say trick-or-treat

Okay. So, what are you supposed to do in this, when somebody says trick-or-treat.

Well, I’m a child. I’m holding my bag and you’re supposed to say, happy Halloween and give me some candy.

Okay.

All right, so trick-or-treat means you could either trick someone. You could play a trick on them, like scare them or put some toilet paper on their house or you can give them a treat or accept the treat. So, the idea is if you don’t give me a treat, I will do something bad to you.

I see. But this doesn’t really happen, right? Like, when kids go to people’s houses, they say trick-or-treat and then they get candy automatically.

Almost automatically, yeah. Sometimes people avoid the holiday and they close their doors and lock them and they don’t answer the door

yeah

and that’s when someone maybe throws an egg at the house or—

put toilet paper under a tree

yeah, yeah. So, trick-or-treat is what we say, but it’s also something we can do. So, we can go trick-or-treating

go trick-or-treating. Right, okay, very good, trick or treat. And now we have another phrase here. That’s a little bit complicated, but when the friend answered the door, he said, aren’t you a little too old to be trick-or-treating?

All right. I like this phrase because it’s sarcastic. The person is not asking a real question. He’s saying, listen, you are too old to be trick-or-treating. And so in this case, aren’t you– is a way to introduce something that we know is true that we think is true. It’s kind of rude and sarcastic.

If I say, aren’t you supposed to be at work? Right? So, it is in that form. You’re not really asking a question. You’re more demanding an explanation.

Right. It’s a suggestion. It’s like, you are probably supposed to be at work.

Right.

So, Marco, aren’t you supposed to be at school right now?

So, do we always, but we always use in that sense, right? Aren’t you, and then—

Yeah, aren’t you—Aren’t you a little old for that kind of an outfit.

Alright so, aren’t you—all right, very good. So, those are the two phrases for fluency builder today. Let’s listen quickly to our dialogue one more time and we’ll be right back.

A: Trick - or -treat

B: Tom, aren’t you a little too old to be trick-or - treating?

A: What are you talking about? Where is your Halloween spirit? Didn’t you ever dress up in a costume and go around the neighborhood trick-ortreatingwith your friends?

B: Of course I did, but when I was ten! Trick -or - treating is for kids, plus, I’m sure people will think you’re a kidnapper or something, running around with kids NCP at night.

A: Whatever, I’m going next door. I heard Mrs. Robinson is giving out big bags of M&Ms!

All right. So, Marco have you ever trick-or-treated?

I did, I did. I used to go trick-or-treating when I was little and it was actually really fun.

We used to have competitions about who had the most candy.

I’ve heard about this.

Right, cause you don’t necessarily bring a bag. You bring a pillowcase

right

and you fill your pillowcase with candy.

Now the interesting thing is that sometimes you wouldn’t necessarily only get candy from people.

Right. Sometimes you got weird things, like pennies or toothbrushes

yeah

or apples.

Yeah. So, you would go to someone’s house and they would give you an apple and you would be like, okay.

There was always an old lady who lived near, well, she lived in the neighborhood and every neighborhood had one, you know? All my friends had a lady they would go to, and she gave the full-size candy bars.

Right? Because normally stores sell small candy bars for the Halloween holiday

right

because they’re smaller, there cheaper, it’s easier to give them to many people. But there’s always one person who has the big full-size candy bars and everyone goes to her.

Right, exactly. And actually, it’s amazing how Halloween is such an important event in the states because everyone dresses up, everyone puts out decorations or pumpkins outside of their homes. They have pumpkins carving contest which is really cool how they carveout pumpkins.

They make faces in the pumpkins and then we can put a candle inside

Right

To light it up. It’s really fun.

So, that’s called jack-o’-lantern, right?

That’s right.

Why does it called a jack-o’-lantern, you know?

I have no idea. Maybe it’s like a Jack, like a person, it looks like a person’s face. Because a lantern is a light, you know? It’s like a light with a candle on it, so—

It’s actually very, it’s a very fun holiday. It’s really interesting and it’s kind of strange when people really oppose it because they say that it’s, it has to do with the devil or it has to do– It’s a pagan ritual and things like this. But you know, it’s just good fun.

It’s fun, it’s silly. Everyone likes to dress up in a costume.

What was the weirdest custom that you’ve dressed up as an adult or a child. Cause I know you dressed up as an adult as well.

I’ve dressed up every year. Well, as a child one year, I dressed up as an injured soldier because like my dad was in the military so we always had fatigues around the house. And so I used his fatigues and I like put blood on my face and I had crutches and people thought that I really had a broken leg. So they used to give me double, that year they gave me double the candy because they say, poor girl, crutches

and trick-or-treating

and my costume was an injured soldier, so they just didn’t understand it. It was really funny.

Nice. Well, we want to hear about you guys, if you go trick-or-treating or if you dress up for Halloween. I know that many places around the world have parties or festivities for Halloween and people dress up. So, come to our website Englishpod.com. We’ll see you guys there and we’ll see you guys next time.

Happy Halloween.

Happy Halloween.