Building Your Dream Home

Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we're talking about a dream home.

So building the home of your dreams.

That's right and this lesson today is advanced so it might be a little bit hard and we're

going to be taking a look at not only some vocabulary related to your home or decorations

and stuff but also how to treat your loved one in a nice way or little nicknames.

Cute names, pet names.

That's right.

Okay.

So stay tuned.

We'll be talking about very specific things having to do with building a home and home

remodeling.

And so we'll hear this dialogue one time but when we're back in just a minute here we'll

be talking about what those things mean.

Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, let's get straight to it.

You have saved up your money for years and are now ready to build your dream home.

What did you have in mind?

A suburban bungalow straight out of the 60s.

A perfect lawn with minimal landscaping, brick patio in the backyard with an old fashioned

grill, quaint lawn furniture and a swimming pool.

A two car carport, pastel siding and a gable roof completed with white shutters and a white

picket fence.

Uh, honey?

In the living room we would have moss green rugs and a fireplace with a stone mantle and

wood paneling on the walls.

In the kitchen the cupboards would be a pale yellow and we would have a turquoise metal

oven and vinyl flooring.

Um, sweetie?

But I was thinking of more a modern style house.

An open concept house all glass, wood, metal and concrete.

But sweetums, there's always a lot of wasted space in those kinds of homes.

Besides it's just a fad.

It doesn't have the homey feeling the old homes do.

Sweetie pie, it's not a lot of wasted space.

It is relaxing and the house would be eco-friendly with an in-floor heating system and designed

to retain the heat of the sun in the winter and keep the house cool in the summer.

We would have solar panels on the roof.

Do you know how much those things cost?

What about your vintage furniture, dearest?

And instead of a lawn, which is also a lot of wasted space and would require environmentally

harmful pesticides, we would have a fish pond in the backyard and a garden that would cover

the whole yard so we could grow our own food.

But buttercup, I thought you always said that you loved visiting your grandmother's house.

And I thought you, Mr. Scientist, were all up on saving the planet with your technological

advancement.

Um, well, I am just going to get some coffee while you two keep discussing.

Alright we're back.

So apparently the couple can't seem to agree.

He wants something different than what she does and in the end I think they were a little

bit irritated with each other.

Doesn't this always happen though?

I mean my dream home is probably not your dream home.

I don't know, it's weird.

But I mean you would probably have to, I don't know, compensate somehow or...

Well that's the beauty of compromise I think.

You can go back and forth but with your loved one or your spouse you have to make some decisions

about what you want and what they want.

All you need to do is give a guy his own room in which he can decorate and do whatever he

wants with it.

That's all you need.

You mean you.

No, no, not me.

You want to decorate the house in any way you want, fine.

But just give us one room, you know, like five meters by five meters where we can put

anything we want.

A beer cooler, a TV, a PS3, a sound system, and a couple guitars.

Yeah, probably, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

That's enough.

You described it.

I've been to your house, I know.

Anyway, we've got a lot of great words here in Language Takeaway so let's take a peek

at some of those.

Language Takeaway.

All right.

So the first word that we have or it's actually a concept, minimal landscaping.

Okay, so minimal is a style, minimalist actually.

And minimal landscaping is this kind of style of, well, designing your lawn or your garden.

So minimal means not having adornments or decorations.

Okay.

So it's kind of like the less is more type thing.

Exactly.

So minimal architecture could be very simple, lots of clean lines, not much decoration.

It's the opposite of something that's baroque and highly ornamented.

And I don't like that.

I'm into minimal.

All right, minimalist.

Anyways, we have minimal landscaping.

And while he's talking about his patio and an old fashioned grill, and he said quaint

lawn furniture.

Quaint is sometimes, well, it's usually kind of a bad thing.

We say something is quaint in the way of saying that it's cute, but we don't really like it

because it's maybe old fashioned or kind of old style.

So oh, isn't that quaint?

It's something that people from the city often say about people in the country, at least

in America.

So, oh, because you know, I went to school on the East Coast and I'm from the Midwest.

So people on the East Coast would say, oh, your house is so quaint, small and cute and

old fashioned because they live in a big fancy New York apartment or whatever.

So quaint is usually something that's not the nicest.

So he's looking for some lawn furniture that's not like plastic or new.

It's more like old fashioned, maybe wood.

Right.

And kind of traditional and not fancy.

Kind of simple.

Now, he's also talking about the house and he wants, well, a two carport, pastel siding

and a gable roof.

So now we know what a roof is, but what is a gable roof?

A gable is a thing, right?

And it's almost like an extension of the roof in certain parts.

For example, on a traditional Cape Cod style house, you have windows in the front that

they're not a part of the roof.

They're an extension.

They come out.

They're kind of popping out like eyes.

Exactly.

They're coming out like eyes.

And so the roof, obviously you need a roof on top of those windows.

So that kind of roof, that little extension, that's called a gable.

And so there's a wonderful book that's famous in American history called The House of Seven

Gables.

That means that on this roof of the house, there are seven different parts that come

out.

Seven gables.

It's very unique.

Those houses usually look a little bit scary.

They do.

Victorian and imposing.

All right.

So you have a gable roof.

Now you have shutters and a white picket fence.

This is typical.

Everyone talks about a white picket fence around their house.

That's right.

There was even a TV show in America years ago called Picket Fences.

And I think a picket fence is kind of this ideal in American culture about having your

own home in the suburbs and having your own space.

And so around your yard, around your garden, you have this white picket fence.

And so a picket is, I think, the pointed part.

So a picket fence is thin pieces of wood that stand in the ground and are connected to protect

your property from other people coming inside.

Okay.

So that's a white picket fence.

You'll hear it all the time.

Usually in movies or in TV shows, they talk about having their own little house with their

dog and a white picket fence.

Exactly.

Two kids, two cars.

And a white picket fence.

All right.

So now the woman argued that she wanted something a little bit more modern.

And well, the guy said, you know what?

It's just wasted space.

And those types of homes are just a fad.

A fad.

So a fad is something that is passing.

It's something that's popular for a short time, but then it goes away.

It's not popular anymore.

Right.

So...

For example, I think for a while, remember those shoes that used to have little red lights

in the back and the heel?

Oh yeah.

LA lights.

LA lights.

Those were a fad.

It was really popular for like a year.

Everyone had them, everyone wore them, and then they just went away.

One of my favorite fads of the 1980s were those shirts that would change color if the

room temperature changed color.

So if you go outside and it's hot, they would become bright pink.

But if you're in a cold room, they would go blue and green.

It was really fun, but they're definitely out of fashion these days.

Yeah, I don't think they wear them anymore.

So that's a fad.

Something that's temporary.

It's popular for a while.

So he called her house a fad and she says, well, what about your house?

All this vintage furniture.

What's vintage?

Vintage?

Well, some people think that vintage is a fad.

A lot of people really enjoy buying vintage furniture or vintage clothing.

Vintage means old.

Old.

It's a nice way of saying old or like a nice or cool way of saying old.

Yeah.

So it's almost like, for example, right now, 1940s and 50s clothes are very popular.

A lot of girls are into this kind of style.

So it's called vintage clothing because it's not from today's styles.

It's an old style.

Or you could even call those big flowing dresses from the 1970s vintage clothing.

So vintage furniture would be furniture that comes from a different time, a different era,

and it's popular now.

Right.

They're popular now.

Or people like to buy them now.

That's right.

So they're special because they come from a different time.

Okay.

So those are the words that we have for today on Language Takeaway.

Why don't we move on now to some pet names or some sweet ways that you can call your

loved ones on Fluency Builder.

Fluency Builder.

So the reason this dialogue is very funny is because we have these two people who are

clearly in disagreement about the kinds of furniture and house they want, but they're

being so nice to each other.

They have these cute names for each other.

So it's really funny.

It almost seems like they're newlyweds, but apparently they've been saving up their entire

life.

So maybe they're just one of those really loving couples.

Oh, Sweetums, Cutie Pie, Cutie.

All right.

So that's the first one.

Sweetums.

Sweetums.

So obviously the main part of this word is sweet.

Sweetum, Sweetums.

And this is a way to say, hey, sweetie.

Sweetums.

Sweetums.

So you can say sweetie or sweetums.

Exactly.

So that's a nice way of saying somebody.

Or you can go sweetie pie.

Sweetie pie.

So pie is a food.

It's like a dessert.

Pie is sweet.

It's a sweet.

So sweetie pie.

Or you could say honey pie.

Honey pie, sweetie pie.

So these are all cute.

And the nice thing about these kind of pet names, these cute names, is you can change

them if you want and they're yours.

So you could say honey pie, sugar bun.

They're silly, but there's no real rule.

But these are the most common.

Right.

Sweetums and sweetie pie.

Sweetie pie.

Okay.

Now, moving on to something a little bit maybe more formal.

Dearest.

Dearest.

This makes me think of my grandparents.

Oh, really?

Dearest.

So dearest comes from dear.

Dearest is the most dear.

So someone who's the most important to you.

Okay.

And so you could say mummy dearest, mother dearest.

Oh, really?

You heard that somewhere?

Oh, yeah.

Do people call their mothers like mother dearest?

Mother dearest.

No, it's very 1930s.

I'm so arrogant.

Well, it's an old time thing.

We do not say this anymore, but you can say, you know, dearest, would you mind moving the

car?

I like the accent.

You're kind of like English.

All right.

And the last one, buttercup.

This is really popular.

It's really popular.

And you've heard this in a song before.

You want to sing the song?

No, you sing the song.

Why do you build me up?

Buttercup, baby.

Okay.

So that was in a lot of movies.

The word is buttercup.

Also in the movie, the princess bride was the character of Princess Buttercup.

And so this is a sweet, you know, obviously a sweet thing.

I think a buttercup is a flower.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And so these are all words you can use, names you could use with men and women, but buttercup

is mostly women.

I think the other ones are more general.

But do you think like, do guys say to their loved ones like, sweetum, sweetie pie?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah?

Oh, yeah.

All right.

So I guess guys, if you want to be really sweet and you want to win over the hearts

of the ladies, you can use these words as well.

Another popular one is babe, which is more of a young person thing to say.

Yeah, I think it's more modern as well.

Honey or babe?

Baby.

Baby.

You're verging on not so sweet.

Yeah, but like, hey, baby, how are you?

It's like, nice.

But not like, hey, baby.

All right.

Well, we're going to leave you with that thought and go listen to this dialogue one more time.

We'll be back in a moment.

Mr. and Mrs. Robinson, let's get straight to it.

You have saved up your money for years and are now ready to build your dream home.

What did you have in mind?

A suburban bungalow straight out of the 60s.

A perfect lawn with minimal landscaping, a brick patio in the backyard with an old-fashioned

grill, quaint lawn furniture, and a swimming pool.

A two-car carport, pastel siding, and a gable roof, completed with white shutters and a

white picket fence.

Uh, honey?

In the living room, we would have moss green rugs and a fireplace with a stone mantle and

wood paneling on the walls.

In the kitchen, the cupboards would be a pale yellow, and we would have a turquoise metal

oven and vinyl flooring.

Um, sweetie, but I was thinking of more a modern-style house, an open-concept house

all glass, wood, metal, and concrete.

But sweetums, there's always a lot of wasted space in those kinds of homes.

Besides, it's just a fad.

It doesn't have the homey feeling the old homes do.

Sweetie pie, it's not a lot of wasted space.

It is relaxing, and the house would be eco-friendly with an in-floor heating system and designed

to retain the heat of the sun in the winter and keep the house cool in the summer.

We would have solar panels on the roof.

Do you know how much those things cost?

What about your vintage furniture, dearest?

And instead of a lawn, which is also a lot of wasted space and would require environmentally

harmful pesticides, we would have a fish pond in the backyard and a garden that would cover

the whole yard so we could grow our own food.

But Buttercup, I thought you always said that you loved visiting your grandmother's house.

And I thought you, Mr. Scientist, were all up on saving the planet with your technological

advancements.

Um, well, I am just going to get some coffee while you two keep discussing.

Alright we're back.

So apart from this decorations and stuff, do you agree with the vintage home, the more

like minimalist thing, or do you like the open concept one, the bigger one?

I love the look of minimalism, but as a place to live, it's not comfortable.

And so when I think of an aesthetic that I like, a look that I like, I really like kind

of dark wood, velvety, 19th century kind of, I think of old Vienna.

You like Castle Dracula.

No, not dark.

I like things to be open.

And I like a lot of natural light, but I also like oversized kind of heavy furniture and

really luscious fabrics and things like that.

So that's my...

I'm actually completely different because I do like this open concept.

I like those houses that, I like the way they look inside as well as outside when they're

kind of squared, big windows, clean lines.

Inside is like, for example, in the kitchen you have polished aluminum or polished steel

furniture in the kitchen, as well as a lot of white and red or black, especially.

I kind of like that kind of open spaces.

Primary colors.

Yeah, yeah.

Flat screen TVs on the wall and stuff like that.

Remote controls.

Ikea lamps.

Yeah, you know, like those remote controls where you can open your curtains, your TV

and the lights all at the same time.

I kind of like that stuff.

Cool.

Well, let us know what you guys like because everyone has their own opinion on what a beautiful

house is.

And if you have any pictures, feel free to share them with us on our website, EnglishPod.com.

All right.

We'll see you guys there.

Bye.

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