بررسی

Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod. My name is Michael

and my name is Catherine and today we have an exciting lesson for everyone out there, a cultural.

Exactly. Very closely related to our Halloween lesson that we had but on this occasion, we’re going to be looking at All Saints Day.

All right. So, this is a festival that celebrated in many different countries and we’re learning today about some of the ceremonies and practices in those countries that are very closely tied to those local cultures.

Exactly. So, we’re gonna learn a little bit about culture and at the same time, we’re gonna learn some great words and phrases. So, let’s get started with this dialogue for the first time.

C: The Day of the Dead has arrived, All Soul’s Day and All Saint’s Day!

A: Your neighbor is crazy. Why is he screaming that?

B: Because today is the first of November, the Day of the Dead

A: Oh, that’s right.

B: This is a very special day among many cultures around the world, especially in Latin America.

A: Seriously? I thought it was just like any other day, except for the fact that people visit the cemetery and remember their loved ones.

B: Well, that’s just part of it. People across the world celebrate in different ways. In Mexico for example it’s common to see people building private altars honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, preparing the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. In the Philippines , the tombs are cleaned or repainted, candles are lit and flowers are offered. Entire families camp out in cemeteries and sometimes spend a night or two near their relatives’ tombs!

A: Whoa! That’s scary! I don’t know if I could do that!

B: Why? We should fear the living, not the dead!

And we’re back. So, did you know about these traditions in the Philippines and in Mexico.

I know about the Mexican ones because there’s a lot of Mexicans where I come from, in Chicago and they still celebrate these things. But I didn’t know about the Philippines and I have found this really interesting.

Interesting, right? Actually yeah, the Philippines as well as Mexico are very Catholic countries, so maybe that’s one of the reasons why they have such, they have these events that are so important for their culture.

I’m sure, yeah.

All right. So, before we start talking a little bit more about the culture, why don’t we take a look at language take away.

Language takes away

The first word is a very common word, especially if you’re a churchgoing person. The word is altar

Okay, an altar

an altar. It’s a thing.

It’s a thing and an altar is usually found inside the church as you said, right?

That’s right.

So, it’s like a—

table

It’s like a table

or a counter. So, the altar in the church is where the priest does all of the stuff that he does during the mass. So, he prepares the bread and the wine. Essentially it’s a table, yeah

but you can build an altar for yourself in your garden for example, right? And it doesn’t have to do with the Catholic religion

no, not necessarily. You could have an altar in a Greek pagan temple where you give offerings to a god or goddess. And so, in this case, and altar is a special religious table where you perform certain religious rights or function.

Okay, very interesting. All right. And so, it’s common in Mexico for people to build private altars, honoring the deceased. So, what is this word deceased?

All right, deceased is a noun. It’s a word that we use to call someone who’s dead or departed. So, the deceased was named John Smith.

So, it’s like a more technical term of saying somebody’s dead.

Right, and it’s something that you often read in the newspaper when they don’t want to say the dead guy. The deceased was a doctor and he is survived by three children, and so, deceased is a way to describe the person in a nicer way.

Right, very good, the deceased. And you mentioned another word that’s very closely related to deceased, the departed.

That’s right. And this is actually a famous word because of a Martin Scorsese movie that came out about two years ago. And departed, you know the word to depart, to leave. The person that is a departed is someone who has left us.

Or left this world.

Yeah, it’s a dead person.

So, you can say the deceased or the departed, which basically means the same thing as the dead guy or the dead person.

Exactly, but again it’s much more polite. It’s something that we hear often at funerals or that we read in magazines.

Okay, so for example, All Saints Day is a way of honoring the departed.

Exactly, very nice sounding.

Yeah, it sounds better. All right. So, talking a little bit more about the departed and the traditions, it says here that many Mexicans use sugar skulls or have sugar skulls during this festivity.

That’s right. So, a skull is the bones from a person’s head, all right? And so you can often see these on, for example, pirate ships, we say skull and cross bones

right

and so it’s the bones from a head, and you have the bones underneath. It’s a very popular image on Halloween because it’s scary.

yeah

but a skull is essentially the bones from a head.

So, it’s like a person’s head without the skin, eyes, lips everything

right. It’s scary because it has empty black spaces where the eyes are supposed to be and you can see all the teeth, but nothing else.

What about the sugar skulls? Where are these? They’re skulls made of sugar?

That’s right. And so, they look like skulls because there’s no cheeks and no– not really– there’s no skin or eyes. But they’re beautiful because the Mexicans in their tradition, they color the sugar so you can have white skulls with this beautiful green and pink and red and blue decorations. And you can eat them cause they’re made of sugar. So, it’s a special treat the people have in the Mexican tradition on the day of the dead.

Very good. All right. And one of the many traditions apart from sugar skulls and building private altars, they also visit the person’s tomb, if possible, right?

Exactly. So, a tomb is an important word.

So, what is a tomb?

A tomb is a place where someone is buried. It’s a space or place and it can be big or small. But it’s essentially the resting place of a dead person.

All right, so a tomb where the person is and actually on the tomb you have the tombstone, right?

That’s right, and a tombstone is the same as a gravestone and it’s a piece of rock on which you write the name and the birthdates and the death dates of the person that is buried there.

Right. So, that’s the tombstone, very good. Okay, so an interesting amount of words here on language take away. Why don’t we listen to this dialogue again and we’ll be right back with fluency builder.

C: The Day of the Dead has arrived, All Soul’s Day and All Saint’s Day!

A: Your neighbor is crazy. Why is he screaming that?

B: Because today is the first of November, the Day of the Dead

A: Oh, that’s right.

B: This is a very special day among many cultures around the world, especially in Latin America.

A: Seriously? I thought it was just like any other day, except for the fact that people visit the cemetery and remember their loved ones.

B: Well, that’s just part of it. People across the world celebrate in different ways. In Mexico for example it’s common to see people building private altars honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, preparing the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. In the Philippines , the tombs are cleaned or repainted, candles are lit and flowers are offered. Entire families camp out in cemeteries and sometimes spend a night or two near their relatives’ tombs!

A: Whoa! That’s scary! I don’t know if I could do that!

B: Why? We should fear the living, not the dead!

All right, we’re back. So, why don’t look at three main phrases on fluency builder now.

Fluency builder

Well, the first phrase should be obvious by now because it is the name of the holiday we’re talking about and the name is the day of the dead.

The day of the dead. So, this is their day.

It is and it’s the day of the dead because it’s the day in which people around the world celebrate the departed. It’s when they talk about and remember people that they loved who have died.

Okay, so it’s not really like a sad day, right? It’s more of a happy, remembering them and honoring them and how much you miss them but in a good way.

Exactly and you’re not actually going to hear this very often in reference to American culture because it’s not something Americans do and English people don’t do either. But people want to talk about their own families and traditions. We want to talk about this because in the Philippines or in Latin America you have a very strong culture, like very strong tradition of celebrating this, so—

All right. And as we mentioned, this day is a day to honor or to remember your loved ones. And that’s our second phrase, your loved ones.

The phrase loved ones may not be obvious to many people because you can love many people and many things but loved ones is a phrase that generally means the people that you care about the most, your friends and your family. So, you could say I want to have a party but I only want my loved ones to be there.

okay

or he was in the hospital and all of his loved ones visited him.

So, all those people, not necessarily only families, friends and family that you love.

Exactly, and so those are the people in the world that are the very closest to you.

Okay. And our last phrase and probably one of the most interesting traditions that we were able to see in this dialogue is that people in the Philippines camp out in the cemeteries on their family or loved ones tomb.

That’s right. So, the phrase to camp out means to stay overnight, to bring food in the tent or blankets. And that essentially means to make a camp so you can stay there. And this is very unusual to me because I can’t imagine sleeping in a graveyard. I think I get the goosebumps.

Right. So, camp out or you can just say camp, right? You don’t—

Right

have to say both of them

right. You can camp or you can camp out. And camp out generally means that you’re staying in a place that is temporary.

Okay, very good. So, interesting phrases as well on fluency builders today. Let’s listen to the dialogue for the last time and we’ll be right back.

C: The Day of the Dead has arrived, All Soul’s Day and All Saint’s Day!

A: Your neighbor is crazy. Why is he screaming that?

B: Because today is the first of November, the Day of the Dead

A: Oh, that’s right.

B: This is a very special day among many cultures around the world, especially in Latin America.

A: Seriously? I thought it was just like any other day, except for the fact that people visit the cemetery and remember their loved ones.

B: Well, that’s just part of it. People across the world celebrate in different ways. In Mexico for example it’s common to see people building private altars honoring the deceased, using sugar skulls, preparing the favorite foods and beverages of the departed and visiting graves with these as gifts. In the Philippines , the tombs are cleaned or repainted, candles are lit and flowers are offered. Entire families camp out in cemeteries and sometimes spend a night or two near their relatives’ tombs!

A: Whoa! That’s scary! I don’t know if I could do that!

B: Why? We should fear the living, not the dead!

All right, we’re back. So, Catherine, you mentioned that in Anglo-Saxon culture, England or in the United States, you don’t have this type of tradition of honoring the dead or something like that but you do visit the tomb of your loved ones or the cemetery as well, right?

People do, definitely.

But you just don’t have a national day where you do this?

Well, Veterans Day is a day when we celebrate people who were killed in wars or people who participated in wars. So, in America we have a day, called a Memorial Day which we remember the people who have died serving the country in the military and so Memorial Day is a day in which many people like to go to the graveyards and to lay flowers or to remember the dead. But it really depends on your family. I mean, some people like to go the day a person died or on the anniversary on a special day for them. So, it’s very private and personal and individual

Right

It’s not something that we all do on one particular day

Right, right, right. And I think what may strike many people as a different is that you visit the cemetery and if you ever have the chance to be in Mexico or in Hispanic country, you will see that it’s full of people and it’s actually a, there’s a lot of food and people are there, eating on the tomb and just, they’ve actually prepared the food that was the deceased’s favorite.

That’s really nice though, as a gesture because it is another way to remember the person and to celebrate how—

Yeah

like things that were happy for them.

exactly and it’s a way of actually sharing a meal with that person, even though you know the person isn’t with you anymore in this world, so yeah. It’s actually very interesting. It goes back again to a little bit of the culture and the folklore and everything from different countries, but we want to know what you guys do or how you remember your decease because each country has its own particular little very interesting way of doing it.

That’s right. So, please share with us on our website EnglishPod.com, your own traditions and the culture that you have in your home country or town. And we’re very curious to hear those but also if you have questions, as always, please ask because we’re happy to answer those.

All right. So we’ll see you guys there. Bye.