All Saints Day

Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

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

very 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.

Alright, so this is a festival that's 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 going to learn a little bit about culture and at the same time we're

going to learn some great words and phrases.

So let's get started with this dialogue for the first time.

The day of the dead has arrived.

All souls day and all saints day.

Your neighbor is crazy.

Why is he screaming that?

Because today is the first of November, the day of the dead.

Oh, that's right.

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

Seriously?

I thought it was just like any other day except for the fact that people visit the cemetery

and remember their loved ones.

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 the relative's

tombs.

Whoa, that's scary.

I don't know if I could do that.

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 so I 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 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 takeaway.

Language takeaway.

All right, the first word is a very common word especially if you're a church-going 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 a 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.

It's where he prepares the bread and the wine and it's essentially 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 necessarily.

No, not necessarily.

You could have an altar in a Greek pagan temple where you give offerings to a god or goddess.

So in this case, an altar is a special religious table where you perform certain religious

rites or functions.

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 is dead.

Right, and it's something that you'll 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 a 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.

A person that is a departed is someone who has left us.

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.

And so you can often see these on, for example, pirate ships.

We say skull and crossbones.

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.

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?

What are these?

They're skulls made of sugar.

That's right.

And so they look like skulls because there's no cheeks and 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 because they're made of sugar.

And so it's a special treat that people have in the Mexican tradition on the Day of the

Dead.

Very good.

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 a 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 birth date and the death date 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 Takeaway.

Why don't we listen to this dialogue again and we'll be right back with Fluency Builder.

Your neighbor is crazy.

Why is he screaming that?

Because today is the first of November, the Day of the Dead.

Oh, that's right.

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

Seriously?

I thought it was just like any other day, except for the fact that people visit the

cemetery and remember their loved ones.

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 the relatives'

tombs.

Whoa, that's scary.

I don't know if I could do that.

Why?

We should fear the living, not the dead.

All right, we're back.

So why don't we 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've loved who've 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, when they're talking about their own families and traditions, will want to

talk about this because in the Philippines or in Latin America, you have a very strong

culture, like a 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 might 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 family, it's 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 cemeteries on

their family or loved ones tomb.

That's right.

So the phrase to camp out means to stay overnight to bring food and a tent or blankets.

And it 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 necessarily 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 Builder today.

Let's listen to the dialogue for the last time and we'll be right back.

The Day of the Dead has arrived.

All souls day and all saints day.

Your neighbor is crazy.

Why is he screaming that?

Because today is the first of November, the Day of the Dead.

Oh, that's right.

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

Seriously?

I thought it was just like any other day, except for the fact that people visit the

cemetery and remember their loved ones.

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 the relatives'

tombs.

Oh, that's scary.

I don't know if I could do that.

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 Memorial Day in 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 and on the anniversary or on a

special day for them.

So it's very private and personal and individual.

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

And I think what may strike many people as different is that you visit the cemetery and

if you ever have the chance to be in Mexico or in a 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, and they've actually prepared the food that was the deceased's

favorite.

Wow, that's really nice though as a gesture because it's another way to remember the person

and to celebrate how, how, like things that were happy for them.

Exactly.

And it's a way of actually sharing a meal with that person even though that 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.

And we want to know what you guys do or how you remember your deceased 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 everyone.

Bye, bye.