✨Well done, dear friends!👏🏻👏🏻

🔻Correct answers are:

1️⃣ B, 2️⃣ A, 3️⃣ C, 4️⃣ C, 5️⃣ A

Listen to the recording and read along with the conversation. Review the key #vocabulary and the sample sentences.👇🏻

👱🏻‍♂️: My name's Randall Davis, and I'm originally from the state of Indiana in the United States. When I was 19 years old, I moved to Venezuela in South America, and later returned to the United States, where I attended Brigham Young University in the 1980s.

I majored in Spanish education and TESOL, or teaching English as a second language. After graduating from college, my wife and I moved to Japan where we lived for eight years. Now, I work back in the States in Utah.

However, my greatest interests are my family. Years ago, I wanted to make something of myself in my profession ... you know ... get ahead in life. However, I realized that the most important things in life lived within the walls of my own home, and today, I try to put them first. My kids wouldn't remember me for the work I did outside of the home; they would only recall the moments we spent together.

Therefore, I enjoy spending time with my family. I have four children, and we go hiking and camping together, usually in Utah. On our hikes, we often talk about life, and I tell stories or share personal experiences. When I do this, I can focus on the kids without the distractions of video games or the Internet. Telling stories sounds easy, but when you have to think of a new story on a hot, 12-kilometer hike through the desert, you have to come up with ideas off the top of your head.

Now, this doesn't mean we don't have problems; all families face challenges in their lives, and our family is no exception. However, we try to talk openly about our problems, and we try to solve our problems together. Building a strong family takes time, but it is worth the effort.

🎧🗣#Conversations🗣🎧
@ReadAloudESL

📚#Vocabulary and Sample Sentences

✨make something of oneself (idiom): become successful in a career 
✨يحقق إنجاز في الحياة المهنية

🔻My dad never thought I would make something of myself because I didn't graduate from a prestigious university, but I proved him wrong.

✨get ahead (phrasal verb): become successful in the business world 
✨ينجح/يتقدم

🔻If you want to get ahead in life, you have to set clear goals.

✨realize (verb): understand the importance of something 
✨يدرك/يستوعب

🔻Many young married couples don't realize how challenging raising children can be until they have children of their own.

✨recall (verb): remember something from the past
✨يسترجع/يتذكر (عادة أحداث ماضية و قديمة)

🔻I can't recall a time when my parents argued in front of me and my brothers.

✨focus on (verb): pay careful and direct attention to a particular person or thing
✨يركز على

🔻When people focus too much on their careers, they sometimes neglect their family's needs.

✨distraction (noun): something that takes your attention away from another activity
✨مشتت للانتباه

🔻Watching too much TV can be a big distraction from building a good relationship with children.

✨off the top of your head (idiom): think of something immediately without preparation
✨يستحضر بسرعة

🔻I felt really embarrassed when I couldn't remember her name off the top of my head.

🎧🗣#Conversations🗣🎧
@ReadAloudESL

2️⃣8️⃣ Pete’s sharp knife 🔪


Pete was in his kitchen. He was about to slice three green apples. He liked to eat fresh apples with cinnamon sprinkled on them. He opened the blinds so that he could get more sunlight into the kitchen. Now he could see what he was doing.

He grabbed a knife out of a drawer. It said "Surgical Stainless USA" on the side of the blade. The blade was very thin and light. It had teeth, like a saw. The handle was a brown piece of cheap hollow plastic.

He had bought this knife about 20 years ago at a county fair. It was one of those knives that were advertised on TV. It could cut through a tomato can, and then cut easily and cleanly through a fresh tomato.

"You never need to sharpen it. The sharp edge is guaranteed for life." That's how they advertised it. And Pete, for once, couldn't argue that the advertisers lied. This was a great knife.

But it was also a dangerous knife. A couple of years ago, Pete was careless. He was rapidly slicing a potato and the blade got his finger. The doctor put three stitches in Pete's finger.
"Next time, be more careful," the doctor said.
No kidding, Pete thought. He was so careful that he didn't use the knife for almost a year.

📚#Vocabulary:

✨advertise ~~~ يُعلن في وسائل الإعلام
✨almost ~~~ تقريباً
✨blade ~~~ شفرة/حد السكين
✨blind ~~~ الستارة
✨cinnamon ~~~ قرفة
✨couple ~~~ زوج (إثنان)
✨drawer ~~~ دُرج
✨fair ~~~ معرض
✨guarantee ~~~ يضمن
✨hollow ~~~ أجوف/مجوَّف
✨kid ~~~ يمزح
✨once ~~~ مرة
✨rapid ~~~ سريع
✨slice ~~~ شريحة
✨sprinkle ~~~ ينثر/يرش
✨stitch ~~~ غرزة
✨sunlight ~~~ ضوء الشمس
✨surgical ~~~ جراحي


🎧📖#Short_stories📖🎧
@ReadAloudESL

2⃣8⃣ Pete's Sharp Knife 🔪


🎧📖#Short_stories📖🎧
@ReadAloudESL

✨Well done, dear friends!👏🏻👏🏻

🔻Correct answers are:

1️⃣ A, 2️⃣ B, 3️⃣ C, 4️⃣ A, 5️⃣ B

Listen to the recording and read along with the conversation. Review the key #vocabulary and the sample sentences.👇🏻

🎧🗣#Conversations🗣🎧
@ReadAloudESL

👨🏼‍🍳: Well, hello everyone, and welcome to today's show. And joining me today is my daughter, Ashley, who has had to endure my cooking experiments over the years.

Are we ready, Ashley? [Ready to eat.] No, let's wait for a few minutes. We'll get to that. But as you know, my faithful listeners, I starting cooking and baking almost 30 years ago when my grandmother taught me in her humble kitchen. In fact, she taught almost me everything I know, and I've never attended cooking classes [You should have . . .] Wait, wait, wait . . . I know my daughter's going to mention to you faithful listeners that recently as I was helping the kids prepare for our kitchen for chicken meal, I forgot to take the chicken out of the oven, burned the bird to a crisp, and we ended up ordering pizza for dinner.

👧🏼: We had to use the fire extinguisher.

👨🏼‍🍳: But that's another story. So, anyway, today I'd like to share with you our favorite . . . at least my favorite . . . chocolate chip cookie recipe. Now, before you switch the TV channel, I know what you are thinking. "Another fattening cookie recipe." But wait. What makes this recipe great is that it offers a wonderful low-fat, low-calorie, low-cholesterol dessert for the entire family.

👧🏼: We still like the fat though.

👨🏼‍🍳: Well, I know we do. But let's see. We have all the ingredients, so we can start by mixing all of the ingredients, the sugars, the flour, the egg whites, the low-fat butter, vanilla, baking soda, and a pinch of salt in a large mixing bowl. Then, we add the mini chocolate chips
Now, my kids would like me to add the big ones but we start with the mini-chocolate chips. And don't forget to preheat the oven to 350 degrees (Fahrenheit).
And finally, when the cookies are done, take them out of the oven, remove them from the cookie sheet, and let them cool before their fingers get into them. Did I forget anything?

👧🏼: Yeah, if you have college-age kids, be sure to make a few extra batches they can take back to school for their roommates. And don't forget the kids still at home.

👨🏼‍🍳: Oh, well yeah. We can't do that. We can't forget them. And unfortunately, by the time your kids get the cookies, you, the cook, will be left with a single cookie - your instant diet plan for you - and a dirty kitchen.
So, that's all for today. On next week's show, we will be showing you how to feed hungry teenagers on a budget without having to sell the family car. Until then.

🎧🗣#Conversations🗣🎧
@ReadAloudESL

📚#Vocabulary and Sample Sentences

🔻endure (verb): keep doing something unpleasant or difficult
✨يتحمَّل/يطيق

✨I can't endure my roommate's cooking for another day. It's terrible!

🔻switch (verb): change
 ✨يغيِّر/يبدِّل

✨Can we switch recipes for tonight's dinner? I'd rather have chicken instead of fish.

🔻entire (adjective): complete or whole
 ✨كامل/كل

✨My daughter prepared the entire meal for the family.

🔻ingredients (noun): materials for cooking
✨مكونات/مقادير الوصفة

✨These are great cookies. What ingredients do you use to make them?

🔻pinch (noun): a small amount
✨قرصة (مقدار صغير)

✨The chicken might taste better if you add a pinch of salt and pepper.

🔻preheat (verb): heat an oven or stove before you start cooking something
✨يسخِّن مسبقاً

✨First, you should preheat the oven to 325 degrees before you start preparing the meal.

🔻batch (noun): a group of similar things, used also with baking cookies
✨الكمية المُعدَّة

✨I don't think two batches of cookies will be enough to feed all of the guests at the party.

🎧🗣#Conversations🗣🎧
@ReadAloudESL

3️⃣0️⃣ Provider Overbills Customer


Simon got a monthly bill that he didn't like. His Internet service provider, Wink, automatically withdrew $15 from his checking account each month. This was called direct payment. It made things simpler for him because it meant one less check to write each month.

In fact, Simon had direct payments with his gas company, his phone company, and his electric company. So that was four fewer checks that he had to write each month.

This month, instead of $15, Wink had withdrawn $75. Simon went online and looked at his account. Part of the increase was because he had switched from a slow dial-up connection to a fast DSL connection. Wink charged him $45 just to make that switch.

Simon thought that this charge in itself was ridiculous. It probably took them about five seconds to make the switch. But any time a corporation can gouge you, they will.

In addition to the $45, Wink had charged him $15 for his dial-up account, but had also charged him $15 for his DSL account. This was a double-charge, since a computer uses dial-up or DSL, but not both.
We'll see about this, Simon thought, as he searched for Wink's 800 number.

📚#Vocabulary:

✨account ~~~ حساب مصرفي
✨automatically ~~~ آلياً/تلقائياً
✨charge ~~~ يسدد/يشحن
✨connection ~~~ شبكة اتصال
✨corporation ~~~ شركة
✨in addition to ~~~ بالاضافة الى ذلك
✨ridiculous ~~~ سخيف
✨switch ~~~ يحوّل
✨withdraw ~~~ يسحب


🎧📖#Short_stories📖🎧
@ReadAloudESL