HALLOWEEN 2020 | Learn English | Fun English Lesson About American Culture | Go Natural English

Hey Naturals, what's up? How's it going? Welcome to Go Natural English

I'm your English teacher, Gabby.

You might be wondering why I'm wearing

a skeleton onsie. Well besides

the fact that it's really comfortable and I think it's kind of

fun, it's going to be Halloween the end of

October, October 31st is Halloween!

I wanted to talk with you our Go Natural English

community about why Americans

celebrate Halloween and maybe some vocabulary

that you might like to know to celebrate the holiday

if you'd like to celebrate it. Oops I just hit my straw here.

This is a Halloween design on

my soda.

Tastes like Halloween!

I misspoke. It's not a holiday.

I remember a lot of my English students would think or hope

that we would not have class that it would be a holiday off

from school but in fact Halloween is not in fact a public holiday.

All business, all classes, everything

runs as usual. Business as usual on

Halloween. It's also not a religious holiday.

What it is is kind of a cultural

celebration that was brought over from

Europe, specifically from Irish immigrants to the United States

in colonial times and it came from

a cultural event or celebration

that they had called Samhain that celebrated the

time that they believed that the space

between the spirit world and the living world was not

very big. So they believed that spirits could

come and walk amongst us, well at least

that's what I read on the Internet. Also

in the Southwest United States, which is close to Mexico

Halloween is very close to the Day of the Dead or

El Dia de los Muertos and that is a

similar cultural festival and so

it's very possible, very likely that we borrowed some of that

tradition here in the United States. So what actually happens on Halloween?

I remember when I was a little kid, like

several years ago, we used to celebrate Halloween in school.

We were allowed to dress up. Sometimes we would dress up in

scary costumes like this or maybe our favorite

move characters or something fun.

We would share candy. We would do

special fun activities, play games, but

nowadays I don't think that kids celebrate Halloween at school

anymore. I think that to be more

politically correct we don't celebrate Halloween

except for private gatherings.

Maybe if you work in the US it depends

on your work culture in your office, people may celebrate

Halloween, but it really depends on your office culture

and where you work. Sometimes adults celebrate.

You might be invited to a Halloween-themed party and you might

want to check if people are dressing up. You can ask, "Hey, is this a

costume party?" So that's one good phrase to know, a

costume party. Another good phrase to know is "trick or

treat." Trick or treat is an activity that usually children

do. Adults would only do it if they're bringing children.

It's when you go door-to-door

usually in an neighborhood in the suburbs of the United States

children will go door-to-door with their parents usually

knock on the door and say "trick-or-treat" and they're asking

for candy. This was something that I did as a kid.

I have fond memories of that. I haven't done that in many

many years. But it's still fun

to maybe go to a Halloween party or do something

fun with your friends, go to a themed event at a

bar or restaurant. That's basically what happens on

Halloween. It's most like a costume party

and not anything religious, not a public holiday.

If you have any questions about Halloween you can write them in

the comments and our awesome Go Natural English community

members may answer and I will definitely answer as well.

If you have comments, if you'd like to tell me how you

like to celebrate Halloween, or if you celebrate

Halloween, yes or no, please tell me in the comments.

I will be very interested to know if people celebrate Halloween

in your country and what do you usually do?

I've noticed where I've traveled in the world in Japan

and Brazil and actually last year, I forgot to tell you

on Halloween I was in Abu Dhabi and the hotel where I

was staying had a Halloween party. I was totally shocked. I had

no idea that people celebrate Halloween in Abu Dhabi.

But who knew? Maybe you can share with me about how people

celebrate or don't celebrate in your country. So I'll

look forward to hearing from you in the comments. Alright, talk to you

soon! Bye for now and happy Halloween!