EC041_Guide.pdf

English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 41

TOPICS

Topics: How to tip in the U.S., famous American museums, pronouncing “a,”

comfortable vs. convenient, “I used to” vs. “I use to,” of course

_____________

GLOSSARY

direct flight – when an airplane goes to the city you want to visit without

stopping at another airport

* I hate having to stop in New York when I go to London. I wish I could get a

direct flight instead.

to tip – to give money to someone who helps you, such as a waiter or taxi cab

driver

* The waiters in that restaurant are awful. I don’t usually tip them very much

unless they do a good job.

host/hostess – the person at a restaurant who greets you when you first enter

and who takes you to your table

* Be sure to tell the host that there are 10 people in our group. We’ll need a big

table.

waiter/waitress – the person who takes your order and brings you your food at a

restaurant

* Excuse me. Could you tell my waitress that we need our check now?

bellboy – the person at a hotel who takes your luggage or bags, and carries

them up to your room

* When you get out of the taxi, be sure to get a bellboy to help you with the

suitcases.

coat check – the place at a restaurant or theater where you can keep your coat

until you are ready to leave

* I left my jacket at the coat check. I need to go back to get it!

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 41

maid – the person in a hotel who cleans your room and makes your bed

everyday

* Leave the maid a couple of dollars for a tip. She did a good job keeping the

room clean.

concierge – the person at a nice hotel who provides you information and

recommendation about the city, and who makes reservations or gets tickets for

you

* The concierge recommended a nice little Italian restaurant about two blocks

from the hotel.

usher – the person who works in a theater who takes you to your seat

* The play was about to start, so the usher showed us to our seats quickly.

permanent collection – works of art such as paintings and sculpture that are

owned by a museum

* The British Museum has a great permanent collection of European art.

exhibition – a showing of art works at a museum, often for just a short period of

time

* I wanted to see the Monet exhibition when it came to Los Angeles, but the

tickets were too expensive.

admission – the price you pay to get into a museum, sporting event, movie,

play, or other performance

* What’s the admission for the ballet performance this weekend?

comfortable – an adjective used to describe something or someplace that is

pleasant, nice, or relaxing

* We had a very comfortable hotel room when we stayed in Singapore last year.

convenient – easy to find or to use; something that does not require a lot of time

or effort to use or to visit

* It’s very convenient for me to get gas in the morning since there is a gas station

on my way to work.

of course – used when no explanation is needed, when something is very

obvious

* Of course, the best place to meet men is at a sporting event.

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these materials on another website or distributing them in any way is prohibited.

English as a Second Language Podcast

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 41

ENGLISH LEARNING TIPS

One of the best ways to improve your comprehension of English is to listen to

things you can understand. But what should you listen to? Many people believe

that they should listen and watch programs about many different subjects to build

their vocabulary. It is possible to do that, but there is a problem with this method:

the vocabulary is different for each new topic, and you never get to hear the

words used more than once. We know that it often takes hearing something

several times before you really understand it. If you do “wide listening” –

listening to many different topics – you will not hear the vocabulary repeated very

much, and will not be able to pick up the words very quickly.

There is another way to listen, what we will call “narrow listening.” Narrow

listening is when you listen or watch different programs on the same topic. For

example, if you are interested in the World Cup, you listen to three stories in

English about a specific game. Each story or program will talk about the same

things, using very similar vocabulary. By using narrow listening in this way, you

can hear the same words used over and over again, and have a more

opportunities to understand and acquire them. You may listen to a story about a

certain topic from three or four different Internet news programs in English, such

as the BBC, Voice of America, CNN, and others. Be sure to listen to stories on

the same topics or about the same news event. After listening to them a couple

of times, you will begin to understand more and more.

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 41

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to ESL Podcast’s English Cafe Number 41.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast English Cafe. I'm your host, Dr.

Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in

beautiful Los Angeles, California. Go to our website at eslpod.com to get the

complete transcript as well as the definitions and sample sentences for all the

terms we use in this podcast. Today's podcast is going to be about tipping. We're

also going to talk about museums, famous museums and vocabulary related to

museums and as always, we're going to answer some of your questions. Let's

get started.

I took a little trip last weekend back to my home state, back to Minnesota to visit

my parents. My father had his eighty-third (83 rd ) birthday party. And, my mother

was also celebrating her birthday this summer. We had a combined party since I

live in Los Angeles and everyone else but my sister lives in Minnesota, we have

to go back to Minnesota, fly back there. Takes about three and a half hours, if

you go on a direct flight. A “direct flight” is one where you don't have to stop

anywhere else. We would say you don't have any layovers. And, a “layover” is

when you have to stop in a different city before you get to the city where you

want to go. Well, we had a very good time and we rented a car and stayed in a

little hotel.

And, one of the things you notice when you travel is whether or not you should tip

someone. “To tip” means to give someone who is helping you money, such as a

person in a restaurant, the waiter, or the person driving your taxi cab, if you take

a taxi cab, and so forth. So, I thought it would be useful to talk a little bit about

tipping customs in the United States. That is, what are the practices, what are

people…how much do people tip, and who should you tip. And, this is different in

different countries. I'm going to talk a little bit about here in the United States in

my experiences, other people may have different experiences. I got a little

information from a website called tipping.org. “Tipping,” of course, is the noun

that comes from the verb “to tip.” And, tipping describes the action of giving

someone money for helping you.

Well, let's start with restaurants. If you come to the United States or if you go to

an American restaurant, you are usually expected to give a tip. This is for any

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ENGLISH CAFÉ – 41

sort of restaurant in which you have to sit down, and someone comes to help

you, who we would call the “waiter” or the “waitress” if it’s a woman. This is not

true for a fast food restaurant, a restaurant like McDonald's, for example, where

you walk up and you order your food, you tell them what food you want, then you

stand there and you wait, then they give you your food. Nobody goes to your

table with your food. Nobody goes to your table to get your order. In those sorts

of restaurants, you don't leave a tip, because really, no one is helping you very

much. You have to get your own food.

But, in a regular restaurant where you sit down, you walk in and you have the

host or the hostess. The “host” is a man; the “hostess” is a woman. And, that's

the person who says “hello” to you when you walk in, and asks you how many of

you are there, how many of you – I should say – how many are in your party, you

might say. Here, “party” just means your group and they take you to a table and

you sit down and after a few hours, I mean, a few minutes, your waiter comes

and takes your order, asks you the kind of food you want. The host or hostess

doesn't get a tip in an American restaurant. The only exception to that would be

is if you are in a very nice restaurant and you don't have a reservation and you

want to get a good seat, you want to get a good table. You may, sometimes

people will give money to the host or the hostess and…ten dollars, twenty

dollars…so they can get in in front of other people who are waiting. I don't

recommend doing that, but there are some people who do that. But, normally the

host or the hostess does not get a tip.

The waiter or waitress does get a tip and the amount depends on how good a

restaurant it is. Normally, we talk about tipping for restaurants, we talk about

percentages. And, a good percentage to think about is 15 percent. That's 15

percent of the total bill, or the total check. So, let's say you order two dinners and

it costs $30 for the two dinners. That includes the tax. Well, then you would tip 15

percent on that. And, 15 percent of $30…that’s $4.50. And, that's how much you

would leave for the tip, either on the credit card statement or in cash. Either way

is okay. Some restaurants, if you get very poor service, very bad service, you

may only leave 10 percent or 5 percent. Or, if you are in a very nice restaurant or

you get really good service - when I say get good service, I mean the waiter or

waitress is very helpful, gets your food quickly, asks you if you need anything

else. That would be very good service. Then, you may give them even more than

15 percent, often 20 percent. Many people tip either 15 or 20 percent. It depends

on the type of restaurant and whether they get good service or not.

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