Monsters - The Darkness of Absurdity (Series 002, Episode 001)

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts, transcripts and other materials to help people learn English. Find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.

My students all drew monsters for a short exercise.  The monsters they drew were excellent and they agreed to write about them for this blog.  Our first monster is from Coralie Altmeyer:

The name of my monster is Darkness of Absurdity

Description: 

My monster is supposed to be a night terror, but, from all appearances, he likes to laugh. But, it does not work because he instills physical fear. My monster is lonely, sad and abandoned.

It is the darkness!

"To instill fear" or "to instil fear"  means "to make people feel fear"; "to make people scared".  

Here are some other ways of using the word "fear" in English:

To overcome fear – to stop being scared

To live in fear – to always be frightened

He didn’t go in for fear of waking the monster – he didn’t go in to avoid / because he was scared of waking the monster

To prickle with fear – to have a tingling feeling because you are scared

To put the fear of God into someone – to really frighten someone

To fear that someone is wrong – to believe that someone is wrong

To fear for someone’s health – to be worried about someone’s health

Never fear – do not worry (often used ironically)

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread – inexperienced or rash people will do things that wiser people are more cautious of

On A Farm in France (slow) - Cheers (Series 001, Episode 014)

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.

Cheers (slow) 

Too slow? Try the faster version in the previous post. 

Click above to listen.  You can get the mp3. here and the mp4. here (opens in a new window)

Julian was a Polish guy who worked with us during our working holiday on a farm in France.  He didn’t speak French or English very well, and we didn’t speak Polish at all, so it was sometimes very difficult for us to understand each other.  Nevertheless he tried very hard and would talk all the time.

He especially liked it when we sat down for a glass of wine or beer in the evenings, not because of the drink, in fact he was a teetotaller, but because he loved the rituals related to drinking.  He got involved when we chinked glasses, making sure he looked everyone directly in the eye, like the French tended to do and he joined in with our toasts.  We taught him to say ‘cheers’, as the English do, and ‘santé’, as the French do, and afterwards he insisted we say ‘prost’ with him, which we did thinking it was the Polish way to say ‘cheers’.     

One evening, once our drinking rituals were complete and we’d settled down with our drinks to play cards, someone asked Julian about the word ‘prost’.

“What does ‘prost’ actually mean?  Where does it come from and why do you say it?” 

“I don’t actually know,” replied Julian.

“It’s the same for ‘cheers’,” I said, “I say it all the time, but I don’t know what it means, or why we say it.”

“Ah yes,” said Julian, “it’s the same in Polish, we say ‘na zdrowie’ but I’m really not sure why.”

“You say ‘na zdrowie’ in Poland?  Don’t you say ‘prost’?” I asked, a bit confused.

“No,” said Julian.  “I was saying ‘prost’ because I thought it was French.”

“I’m sure it isn’t French,” I said, “the French say ‘santé’, we were saying ‘prost’ because we thought that was what you say in Poland.  I wonder where ‘prost’ comes from then?”

“I have no idea,” said Julian,  “I learnt it in France from two guys I was working with on another farm; I’m sure they were French.  What were their names?  Oh I remember, Otto and Hanns.”

On A Farm in France (fast) - Cheers (Series 001, Episode 014)

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.

Cheers (fast) 
Too fast? Try the slower version in the following post.

Click above to listen.  You can get the mp3. here and the mp4. here (opens in a new window)

Julian was a Polish guy who worked with us during our working holiday on a farm in France.  He didn’t speak French or English very well, and we didn’t speak Polish at all, so it was sometimes very difficult for us to understand each other.  Nevertheless he tried very hard and would talk all the time.

He especially liked it when we sat down for a glass of wine or beer in the evenings, not because of the drink, in fact he was a teetotaller, but because he loved the rituals related to drinking.  He got involved when we chinked glasses, making sure he looked everyone directly in the eye, like the French tended to do and he joined in with our toasts.  We taught him to say ‘cheers’, as the English do, and ‘santé’, as the French do, and afterwards he insisted we say ‘prost’ with him, which we did thinking it was the Polish way to say ‘cheers’.     

One evening, once our drinking rituals were complete and we’d settled down with our drinks to play cards, someone asked Julian about the word ‘prost’.

“What does ‘prost’ actually mean?  Where does it come from and why do you say it?” 

“I don’t actually know,” replied Julian.

“It’s the same for ‘cheers’,” I said, “I say it all the time, but I don’t know what it means, or why we say it.”

“Ah yes,” said Julian, “it’s the same in Polish, we say ‘na zdrowie’ but I’m really not sure why.”

“You say ‘na zdrowie’ in Poland?  Don’t you say ‘prost’?” I asked, a bit confused.

“No,” said Julian.  “I was saying ‘prost’ because I thought it was French.”

“I’m sure it isn’t French,” I said, “the French say ‘santé’, we were saying ‘prost’ because we thought that was what you say in Poland.  I wonder where ‘prost’ comes from then?”

“I have no idea,” said Julian,  “I learnt it in France from two guys I was working with on another farm; I’m sure they were French.  What were their names?  Oh I remember, Otto and Hanns.”

On A Farm in France (slow) - Spaghetti Bolognese (Series 001, Episode 013)

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.

Spaghetti Bolognese (slow) 
Too slow? Try the faster version in the previous post. 


Click above to listen.  You can get the mp3. here and the mp4. here (opens in a new window)

English cookery has a bad reputation, especially in France. Even though the people that we were working with, during our working holiday on a farm in France, didn’t know much about England, they had all heard about our reputation for terrible cooking.

We think this reputation is a little unfair, so, because we like to cook and we think we’re ok at it, instead of getting insulted by this attitude to our cooking, we gave ourselves the challenge of convincing our co-workers that English cookery wasn’t as bad as everyone thought. Generally everyone was impressed, all except for Alex, who took great delight in insulting our food at every occasion. Alex was however very lazy and he refused to cook, preferring to eat what we made…and then complain about it.

To start with, because we had very little food, these complaints were justified (although however bad the food is, if someone is too lazy to cook, then they can’t really complain about what they get to eat), but after our first delivery of food, the quality of our cookery improved. The food was regional and seasonal and courgettes were the main crop at the time. We didn’t really know how to cook the courgettes but we managed and even though we only had basic ingredients and equipment, we were able to make reasonably good food.

Or so we thought, but Alex could not be convinced. Our honey and mustard lamb was too sweet, our rhubarb crumble was too sour and our sweet and sour sauce… well that was too sweet, and too sour. Whether we fried the courgettes with rosemary, or grated them and served them with lemon juice, or baked them with cheese and garlic, he always found a reason not to like them. If we cooked anything ‘English’, it wasn’t good enough, and when we cooked French food, our English way of cooking would ruin it for him.

He would even insult our cooking before we’d made it, when we were just talking about making a fennel risotto he interrupted us to say how disgusting this English idea sounded, and when we told him it was Italian, he said that we’d find an English way to ruin it.

We had one success with our cinnamon swirls, he seemed to like these and even asked how we made them. They’re not difficult to make, but are quite fiddly as you need to make bread dough and follow lots of time-consuming steps, so I started to answer, saying “they’re quite easy, but…”, but before I could finish Alex interrupted me. “Ah yes, they must be quite easy if an English person can make them, it’s probably just like ‘pain perdue’.” Pain perdue in English is ‘French toast’, and it is stale bread fried in beaten eggs. It is very easy to make.

One day, our boss, Vincent, asked Alex to cook lunch for us all and so Alex made us a spaghetti Bolognese. It was fine, but it wasn’t particularly delicious, but Alex seemed to think it was amazing. “Now this is how the French cook,” he gloated. “I’d teach you how to cook like this but there would be no point because you wouldn’t be able to learn because your cooking is too…English.” He didn’t stop talking about how good his meal was and how bad we were at cooking until he left the table to have an after dinner nap, leaving us to wash the dishes and put the left-overs in the fridge.

Alex was late for dinner the next day and the food had already been served by the time that he had arrived. We were eating Bolognese again, and Vincent told Alex that I had made this Bolognese to see if I could make one that was better than Alex’s from the day before. Alex sat down to eat with the air of a restaurant critic. After spending a minute tasting it he said: “It’s not nearly as good as mine. The sauce is too sweet and there’s not enough garlic.’’ He had another forkful and added: “You’ve put the wrong herbs in; the flavour is all wrong and there’s a horrible taste of vinegar. It’s exactly what I expect from English people, in fact, I don’t think I can eat anymore”. With that, he put down his knife and fork dramatically, folded his arms, made a face and looked away in disgust.

Alex was expecting a reaction but nobody said anything. A little surprised, he turned back towards the table to find that the reason no-one was saying anything was because we were busy trying to stop ourselves from laughing. I hadn’t cooked the Bolognese. Vincent had made that up, in fact, Vincent had just reheated the Bolognese that Alex had made the day before. The food that Alex was refusing to eat was exactly the same food that he’d been boasting about making.

We didn’t tell Alex there and then why we were laughing, but the next time we cooked him something he ate it without complaint, said thank you, complimented us and even washed up, so I think somebody must have told him at some point.

On A Farm in France (fast) - Spaghetti Bolognese (Series 001, Episode 013)

'Hear English' is a blog that provides podcasts and transcripts to help people learn English, find us at http://hearenglishhere.blogspot.com/.

Spaghetti Bolognese (fast) 
Too fast? Try the slower version in the following post.

Click above to listen.  You can get the mp3. here and the mp4. here (opens in a new window).

English cookery has a bad reputation, especially in France. Even though the people that we were working with, during our working holiday on a farm in France, didn’t know much about England, they had all heard about our reputation for terrible cooking.

We think this reputation is a little unfair, so, because we like to cook and we think we’re ok at it, instead of getting insulted by this attitude to our cooking, we gave ourselves the challenge of convincing our co-workers that English cookery wasn’t as bad as everyone thought. Generally everyone was impressed, all except for Alex, who took great delight in insulting our food at every occasion. Alex was however very lazy and he refused to cook, preferring to eat what we made…and then complain about it.

To start with, because we had very little food, these complaints were justified (although however bad the food is, if someone is too lazy to cook, then they can’t really complain about what they get to eat), but after our first delivery of food, the quality of our cookery improved. The food was regional and seasonal and courgettes were the main crop at the time. We didn’t really know how to cook the courgettes but we managed and even though we only had basic ingredients and equipment, we were able to make reasonably good food.

Or so we thought, but Alex could not be convinced. Our honey and mustard lamb was too sweet, our rhubarb crumble was too sour and our sweet and sour sauce… well that was too sweet, and too sour. Whether we fried the courgettes with rosemary, or grated them and served them with lemon juice, or baked them with cheese and garlic, he always found a reason not to like them. If we cooked anything ‘English’, it wasn’t good enough, and when we cooked French food, our English way of cooking would ruin it for him.

He would even insult our cooking before we’d made it, when we were just talking about making a fennel risotto he interrupted us to say how disgusting this English idea sounded, and when we told him it was Italian, he said that we’d find an English way to ruin it.

We had one success with our cinnamon swirls, he seemed to like these and even asked how we made them. They’re not difficult to make, but are quite fiddly as you need to make bread dough and follow lots of time-consuming steps, so I started to answer, saying “they’re quite easy, but…”, but before I could finish Alex interrupted me. “Ah yes, they must be quite easy if an English person can make them, it’s probably just like ‘pain perdue’.” Pain perdue in English is ‘French toast’, and it is stale bread fried in beaten eggs. It is very easy to make.

One day, our boss, Vincent, asked Alex to cook lunch for us all and so Alex made us a spaghetti Bolognese. It was fine, but it wasn’t particularly delicious, but Alex seemed to think it was amazing. “Now this is how the French cook,” he gloated. “I’d teach you how to cook like this but there would be no point because you wouldn’t be able to learn because your cooking is too…English.” He didn’t stop talking about how good his meal was and how bad we were at cooking until he left the table to have an after dinner nap, leaving us to wash the dishes and put the left-overs in the fridge.

Alex was late for dinner the next day and the food had already been served by the time that he had arrived. We were eating Bolognese again, and Vincent told Alex that I had made this Bolognese to see if I could make one that was better than Alex’s from the day before. Alex sat down to eat with the air of a restaurant critic. After spending a minute tasting it he said: “It’s not nearly as good as mine. The sauce is too sweet and there’s not enough garlic.’’ He had another forkful and added: “You’ve put the wrong herbs in; the flavour is all wrong and there’s a horrible taste of vinegar. It’s exactly what I expect from English people, in fact, I don’t think I can eat anymore”. With that, he put down his knife and fork dramatically, folded his arms, made a face and looked away in disgust.

Alex was expecting a reaction but nobody said anything. A little surprised, he turned back towards the table to find that the reason no-one was saying anything was because we were busy trying to stop ourselves from laughing. I hadn’t cooked the Bolognese. Vincent had made that up, in fact, Vincent had just reheated the Bolognese that Alex had made the day before. The food that Alex was refusing to eat was exactly the same food that he’d been boasting about making.

We didn’t tell Alex there and then why we were laughing, but the next time we cooked him something he ate it without complaint, said thank you, complimented us and even washed up, so I think somebody must have told him at some point.