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A Jealous Girlfriend

Welcome to English as a Second Language Podcast number 214, “A Jealous Girlfriend.”

This is English as a Second Language Podcast episode 214. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

Remember to visit our website at eslpod.com and take a look at the Learning Guide for this podcast that contains all of the words that we discuss, their definitions, sample sentences, additional definitions that we don’t talk about on the podcast, cultural notes and a complete transcript of this podcast.

Today’s podcast is called, “A Jealous Girlfriend.” Sounds interesting. Here we go!

[Start of story]

Sarya: Hey Dom, I haven’t seen you in so long. Where have you been?

Dominick: Oh, I’ve been busy.

Sarya: I’ve missed hanging out together. How’s Leslie?

Dominick: She’s okay, but things haven’t been that great between us.

Sarya: I’m really sorry to hear that. What’s up?

Dominick: Leslie is great, but she’s so jealous of my friends, especially my female friends. She doesn’t like it when I see them or even if I talk to them on the phone. To be honest, that’s why I haven’t called you lately.

Sarya: I got the feeling that you’ve been avoiding me. Now I understand that it’s the green-eyed monster at work. Have you been doing anything to make her jealous?

Dominick: No! I go out with my friends sometimes but I’m always up front with Leslie and tell her what I’m doing. But, she’s so possessive. Even when I go out with my guy friends, she flips out sometimes. I don’t know why she won’t trust me.

Sarya: Maybe she’s just insecure about herself, or maybe she feels insecure about your relationship. But either way, I’d stop this in its tracks before it gets any worse. Have you talked to her about it?

Dominick: Not really. We usually get into a big fight and then we make up, but we don’t ever get at the root of the matter.

Sarya: I wish I could help.

Dominick: You already have. Talking about it helps. Whatever it takes, I’m going to get this under control. Other than this jealousy problem, we have a great relationship. I don’t want anything to jeopardize it.

Sarya: Good luck with everything and let me know if I there’s anything I can do.

Dominick: Thanks. I will.

[End of story]

The podcast we just listened to is called, “A Jealous Girlfriend.” To be jealous, “jealous,” means to want something that someone else has. Usually when we say a jealous girlfriend or a jealous boyfriend we mean that the girlfriend or boyfriend doesn’t like his or her partner, doesn’t like the other person, to be seen with other women or other men. So, a jealous girlfriend wants to keep her boyfriend to herself and doesn’t want the boyfriend talking to or getting involved with other women. To be jealous means to want something for yourself and for no one else to have it. It’s similar to the word envious, “envious.” To be envious means to want something that someone else has.

Our dialogue begins by the friend of Dominick saying, “Hey Dom, I haven’t seen you in so long. Where have you been?” Dom, “Dom,” is short here for Dominick.

So, she says, I have not seen you in a long time, and Dominick says that he’s “been busy.” This is something we often use as an excuse in English. When we don’t want to talk to someone we say, “Oh, I’ve been busy. I’m too busy. I have too much to do.” Dominick’s friend Sarya says, “I’ve missed hanging out together.” To hang out, “hang out,” two words, means to spend time together.

So, when two people spend time together having fun, not working but relaxing, going to movies, talking - that is hanging out. It’s an informal term to mean spend time together.

Sarya asks about the Leslie, who is Dominick’s girlfriend. Dominick says, “She’s okay, but things haven’t been that great between us.” In other words, we’ve been having problems. Sarya says, “I’m sorry to hear that. What’s up?” When someone tells you bad news, it’s common for you to say, “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Well, Dominick explains that Leslie is very jealous of Dominick’s friends, especially his female friends. Of course, once you get into a relationship - once you have a girlfriend - the other female friends that you have may cause your girlfriend to be jealous. So, men, watch out! Back to the story.

Dominick says that she doesn’t like it when he sees or talks to other women. If he sees them or talks to them on the phone, she gets jealous. He says, “To be honest,” or honestly, “that’s why I haven’t called you lately.” So, he tells her the truth. To be honest, to tell the truth, honestly - all of those expressions mean that I’m going to tell you the truth.

Sarya says, “I got the feeling that you’ve been avoiding me,” meaning that’s what I thought. I knew that you were not talking to me. To avoid, “avoid,” someone means to not talk to them, to not see them, to try not to have any contact with them. No communication. You may say, “I’m avoiding my friend Joe because I owe him ten dollars.” He gave me ten dollars and now I need to give it back, and I don’t have ten dollars so I’m going to avoid him. This is the way I do it!

Sarya says, “Now I understand that it’s the green-eyed monster at work.” The expression green-eyed monster, “green-eyed,” monster, “monster,” means that it’s the person being jealous. A monster is someone like Frankenstein, someone who is very large, ugly, someone that could scare you. This is an imaginary person, kind of like the host of ESL Podcast - big, ugly! A monster, then, is a bad thing, something that would scare you. The color green is the color that we use to indicate someone is jealous or someone is envious. I’m not sure why green, but we use the color green. We have an expression, “He’s green with envy,” meaning he’s very jealous, he’s very envious. The green-eyed monster, then, would be this monster that is very jealous, very envious, and it’s an expression, an informal expression to mean, simply, jealousy.

Sarya says to Dominick, Have you done anything to make your girlfriend jealous?

In other words, what have you been doing, Dominick? And Dominick says, “No!” He says he has not done anything. He goes out with his friends - to go out with here means the same as to hang out with - but he says he’s “always up front with Leslie.” When you are up front with someone, you are honest with them, you are direct with them, you tell them the truth right away.

He says he’s “up front with Leslie,” but Leslie, his girlfriend is very “possessive.” To be possessive, “possessive,” means something similar to being jealous. To be possessive means that you want to have something for yourself. To possess, as a verb, means to own, to have something. You can say, “I possess three shirts,” or “I possess a good sense of humor” - whatever you, whatever you own, whatever you have. So, Leslie is being possessive, it means she wants something and she doesn’t want anyone else to have it, and that’s the way she feels about Dominick. You can think of possessive as wanting something for yourself, your things and no one else can have them. To be jealous means that you want something that someone else has. So, there is a small difference between them.

Dominick says that even when he goes out with his guy friends - the word guy, “guy,” means male or man friends - even when he goes out with his friends who are men, Leslie “flips out.” To flip, “flip,” out, “out,” means to get very - in this case, very angry. They go crazy. It’s the opposite of staying calm. Dominick says, “I don’t know why” my girlfriend doesn’t “trust me.” To trust, “trust,” in this sentence means to have confidence in someone, to have faith in someone, to believe that someone is telling the truth, for example. Trust has a couple of other different meanings in English. We talk about those on today’s Learning Guide.

Sarya says that, “Maybe” Leslie is “just insecure about herself.” When you say someone is insecure, “insecure,” you mean that they don’t have confidence in themselves. They don’t feel confident about themselves. Sarya says that Dominick should “stop this in its tracks before it gets any worse.” To stop something in its tracks, “tracks,” means to end something before it becomes a problem, to stop something before the problem gets more serious.

Dominick says that usually they “get into a big fight,” and afterwards they “make up.” To make up, “make up,” two words, means to get over an argument, to become friends again, to be nice to each other again. Again, this word has a lot of different meanings - make up. Take a look at the Learning Guide for today for those additional meanings.

Dominick says that he and his girlfriend, when they have a fight, never get to “the root of the matter.” To get to the root, “root,” of the matter means to get to the cause of the problem, to get to the real reason why they are having this difficulty.

Dominick thanks Sarya for her help. He says, “Whatever it takes, I’m going to get this under control.” Whatever it takes is an expression that means I will do anything or anything and everything that has to be done I will do. To get something under control means to get it to a normal condition, to a situation that you can manage. The opposite of under control is not over control, it’s out of control. So, if you say something is out of control, you mean you do not have it manageable. It is something that you cannot take care of, you cannot handle. In this case, Dominick is saying he wants to get it under control. He wants to be able to manage it correctly.

He says he doesn’t want to do “anything to jeopardize” his relationship with his girlfriend. To jeopardize, “jeopardize,” means to put something in danger, to put something in a situation that might harm you or harm the relationship, in this case.

There are several popular television shows in the United States that talk about relationships and problems that boyfriends and girlfriends have, and in our Learning Guide today we have a whole cultural note about those programs.

Now let’s listen to the dialogue, this time at a native rate of speech.

[Start of story]

Sarya: Hey Dom, I haven’t seen you in so long. Where have you been?

Dominick: Oh, I’ve been busy.

Sarya: I’ve missed hanging out together. How’s Leslie?

Dominick: She’s okay, but things haven’t been that great between us.

Sarya: I’m really sorry to hear that. What’s up?

Dominick: Leslie is great, but she’s so jealous of my friends, especially my female friends. She doesn’t like it when I see them or even if I talk to them on the phone. To be honest, that’s why I haven’t called you lately.

Sarya: I got the feeling that you’ve been avoiding me. Now I understand that it’s the green-eyed monster at work. Have you been doing anything to make her jealous?

Dominick: No! I go out with my friends sometimes but I’m always up front with Leslie and tell her what I’m doing. But, she’s so possessive. Even when I go out with my guy friends, she flips out sometimes. I don’t know why she won’t trust me.

Sarya: Maybe she’s just insecure about herself, or maybe she feels insecure about your relationship. But either way, I’d stop this in its tracks before it gets any worse. Have you talked to her about it?

Dominick: Not really. We usually get into a big fight and then we make up, but we don’t ever get at the root of the matter.

Sarya: I wish I could help.

Dominick: You already have. Talking about it helps. Whatever it takes, I’m going to get this under control. Other than this jealousy problem, we have a great relationship. I don’t want anything to jeopardize it.

Sarya: Good luck with everything and let me know if I there’s anything I can do.

Dominick: Thanks. I will.

[End of story]

The script for today’s podcast was written by Dr. Lucy Tse.

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. We’ll see you next time on ESL Podcast.

English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr. Lucy Tse, hosted by Dr. Jeff McQuillan. This podcast is copyright 2006.