English Conversation: Let's Talk about Fall/Autumn (British & American English with subtitles)

- Hello, this is Jack from tofluency.com

and welcome to this English lesson

where you're going to listen to a conversation about...

- Fall, or the season of autumn.

- Well done. (both laughing)

- So, yeah.

- We had a practice run.

- We did.

So, this is a conversation

where you're going to just listen to natural English.

So, you can do this wherever you're from

and feel free to go to the description

to look up some of the key phrases,

or if you just want to listen along

and get some exposure to English, that's great too.

So yeah, we're gonna discuss fall today.

We've already talked about summer and winter in the past,

and it's just about to go into fall here in the US.

This is your favorite season.

- It's my, well, one of my favorite seasons.

I actually really like the transition from summer to fall.

- Is that what's happening right now?

- Yes, yes.

This is my optimal season.

- Right, so the transition to change from summer to fall.

And summer has been very hot this year, or at times it has.

Where it's been about 90 degrees, high humidity.

Which means it's difficult to go out and do stuff outside

unless you're at a pool or in the shade or by a river.

- That's right. - Yeah.

- So, those are the three things that we like to do.

Shady hikes, going to visit rivers and waterfalls

and a lot of time at the pool.

- Yeah, we spent a lot of time at the pool this summer.

And then fall or autumn is a lot easier to be outside.

- Yes. - Can you explain?

- Yeah, I mean, I like many things about fall

that are pretty typical for people to like.

I like the transition to a cozier season.

I like to pull out sweaters and long boots

and to think about a few of the warmer beverages and soups

and things that are more hearty and comforting.

- Yeah, start making chilies again,

which we like to eat, don't we?

- Yeah.

- When it's the summer, you don't want to have a hot stove

cooking something like a soup or a chili,

especially over a long time.

- Oh yeah, definitely not.

And I like that.

I also like this right now

because we still have fruit and vegetables

and flowers and green leaves,

but it started to get a little bit cooler at night.

You can tell that the seasons are about to change

and the Equinox is coming up this month,

which is the official start of fall.

- What's the Equinox?

- The Equinox is when you have equal hours

of daylight and nighttime.

And I think it's at the end of September.

- Yeah, 22nd.

- That sounds right.

- Well, the fall starts on the 22nd.

- Then that's the Equinox.

- So, that's coming up pretty soon.

Do you know where the word fall originates from?

- Can I make a guess that's probably wrong?

- Yeah, always. - Okay.

Is it from the leaves falling?

- Well, that's probably where...

Sorry, where it originated from, as in which country.

Have a little think.

There's no wrong answers.

- Is it from the UK?

- Well, yeah, this is the theory that I learned

while I was doing a live lesson.

Because there's still parts of the UK

that call it fall.

And there's a great article

where it looks at word usage from the 1950s and now,

and how things have changed.

For example, the TH sound is going away in London.

- Yeah, "nuffing" instead of nothing.

So, that TH sound's going away and you can see on a map

where it originates from the sound of the F, which is London

and how it spread it out to the rest of the country.

But in the '50s, people were still saying fall

in certain parts of the UK.

And the theory is that they had both terms

when the US was colonized,

but autumn won in the UK and fall one in the US

- I wonder about that

because I think that there are some phrases

that are pretty common in the US that you don't use

or that sound old-fashioned to you.

And then there are some phrases,

particularly in the north of England.

Like sometimes you still say thee and thou for example,

that to me...

But we don't use articles.

- That's true, but just with the thee and the thou

and similar words that to me,

sound like they belong in history

and the time of Shakespeare.

And it's funny to me to hear people use it

in everyday expressions.

- Yeah, could you do an example of a Northern expression?

- No, I can't do an impression of you, you know it.

I want to be able to do a good impression of you

and I think in general, I do do decent impressions,

but your accent is very hard for me.

- Yeah, it is.

So, fall. - Fall.

- There's a massive crate.

I think we've talked about this before.

- Did you just say that in an American accent?

- Fall.

- Oh my gosh.

- I didn't, I said fall.

- Oh.

(both chuckling)

- We try too.

- Yeah, yeah.

So, certain other things come out, don't they?

There's certain holidays as well around fall which you love.

- I do.

- Do you want to talk about those a little bit?

- Yes.

So, there's the Equinox,

which we don't necessarily celebrate.

Some traditions do.

And then there's Halloween, Dia de los Muertos

and Thanksgiving.

Love them all.

- Yeah, and Thanksgiving is in fall, yeah.

'Cause we learned, do you remember when winter starts?

In our winter video and everyone left a comment.

Is it December? - Oh no.

- Was it 15th or 21st.

- I didn't read the comments.

- We've forgotten again.

But yes, Thanksgiving is in fall as well.

And that is probably the fall holiday

in the sense of it comes from other traditions of feast,

the fall harvest and feasting

when there's a good fall harvest.

So, you have enough food for the winter

to survive basically.

And then you celebrate that fact.

But Thanksgiving, obviously has a different spin on it,

which we won't go into

because we made a video on Thanksgiving.

- We did.

- That was our first conversation.

- Was it? - Yeah.

Long time ago.

- Okay.

- Yeah, it was like a pilot episode that we did.

So, I'll leave a link to that one.

But let's start with Halloween.

Halloween is huge in the US.

I am always shocked every year just by how big it is

and how early people have to get prepared for.

And two things stand out for me.

- Go ahead.

- Firstly, when I suggested that we don't give out candy,

but we give out something else

because everyone gives out candy

and the kids go crazy over it.

And what did you say? Do you remember?

- No.

- You said people will come back and egg your house

if you don't leave candy for people.

- That might have been me being a little dramatic.

- Yeah.

- I thought so, but at the same time

kids would say, "What is this?

Why are you giving me a beef stick or some carrots

or a pencil or some little toys?"

- No, if you want to set up

around the corner from our house,

you can give away all of those things.

- Because what it's like is...

- You can be like the troll in the garden.

Have some carrots.

(both laughing)

- Would you like some carrots instead of candy?

- No.

Then we're known as the crazy British guy

who gives out carrots.

But that was before I really understood everything.

Before we had children who could walk to houses

and I really understood things.

But it's crazy here. I can't describe it.

It's so different because it's just a mad rush.

The children all have those little buckets

and they go as quickly as possible to houses.

Get as much candy as possible

and it's just this mad rush for about an hour.

It's exhausting to me.

- Oh yeah.

- But there's also fun things as well for us.

So, there's a neighborhood that have parties, right?

- I mean, trick or treating is fun.

- Not for me, really.

I like the part...

- Go hand out your carrots.

- Well, what I mean by that is everyone dresses up,

Parents, children.

- Yes. - Most parents.

- Yes.

- And it's hard to get an outfit

in the week running up to Halloween

because everything's sold out,

which is why you often do it six weeks before.

- I try to come up with the plan six weeks before.

But I mean, I would love to take the time

to make our costumes and you know,

every year I just run out of time a little bit,

but I think that you can get so creative

and do something really special.

But the other year I was a sea witch

and our daughter was a mermaid,

but I had a plan to make these tentacles out of tights.

And I had a whole design with a head piece

and a cape and my tentacles.

And in the end, all I ended up wearing were some tights

that I never had time to stuff.

So, they just kind of hung around me and a wig.

- I thought it looked okay.

- It did, it looked okay but my vision was like...

- Which I mean, it looked good.

- Yeah, oh, thank you.

- It's all right. - Yeah.

- But it's a mad rush, though.

- That's British for amazing.

- Well, good.

Good.

Yeah, so it's just a mad rush

and then Halloween is what I wanted to say though,

is they have block parties with music and dancing

and a really good atmosphere.

So, that's the fun part for me,

not just taking a child to a house,

to another house, to another house

and say, "Don't eat all now."

And then they get home and they're tired,

it's late, it's a school night, a lot of times too.

And sometimes it's been rainy and cold

and they just want to eat the candy

and then they get a sugar rush

and then the next day at school,

you know, as a former teacher,

the day after Halloween was the worst day to teach.

- Or the day of Halloween, it depends.

And I think that I've changed my opinion on it

now that I'm not actively teaching

because when you're in the classroom,

you're like just contain the chaos.

The least fun that we can have is what we want.

That's what we're going for,

we're going for calm, collected.

And now that I'm not actively teaching,

I'm like, "Go crazy, get sugar."

- You can also just think

they should just send the kids outside

the day after Halloween to run it all off.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

But I don't like that part.

I do not like that part of it.

- The chaos?

- No, just the endless candy.

All in the little plastic wrappers, all small and...

- Yeah. - Yeah.

But fun holiday, all in all.

- And kind of, I think that what's fun about it too,

is that it's so kind of joyful and wild,

but it's also a little bit dark.

A lot of people will decorate their houses

with really scary things like gravestones and ghosts,

witches and just the creepier the better.

- Yeah.

But the person who used to live in the house

that we live in now,

it was known as the best house in the neighborhood

because they had all these decorations,

but they didn't leave them for us, the neighbor got them.

So, then they put up all these new decorations

and we're getting there slowly.

- Yeah. We haven't really gotten there.

So, you can buy giant inflatable decorations

for every season almost.

And people decorate for the winter holidays,

they'll decorate for Halloween

and you can really decorate your house and yard

throughout the year, but probably Halloween

and the winter holidays are the biggest ones.

- Oh yeah, definitely.

- But yeah, there was a giant animatronic spider

in our yard.

- Wasn't there some with a top hat as well.

Like a giant thing.

- A giant statue with a top hat.

- Monster, I think. - Oh yeah.

See, we never got to see it,

but everybody will come and knock on our door

which we have one Jack-o'-lantern.

- We had the cobwebs.

- Oh yeah, we had cobwebs.

Did we ever hang them?

- I think so, they weren't very good though.

They were small. - No, they weren't.

- Fall.

I'm gonna do something now

Where we're gonna talk about clothing

but talk about the most important aspect of fall clothing.

And we'll both say it, no. Time out.

We'll both say it on three, it's not boots.

But just think about a concept with fall clothing.

What's important?

- I feel like this is a trap.

- One, two, three,

layers. - Cozy.

- Layers. - Cozy layers.

- (laughs) Cozy layers.

- Everyone wins.

- Which is, I guess that's a collocation, right?

Two words that go together naturally.

- Yeah. - Pack some cozy layers.

Yeah, you need layers, right?

Especially here in the mountains.

It could be 75 degrees during the day

and then as soon as the sun goes down,

we've been out haven't we?

And it goes dark earlier.

But I just remember some nights at Zillicoah,

which is a brewery here and we're out

and it's t-shirts on.

And then within 10 minutes you need a jacket, don't you?

- Yeah, and also because we're in the mountains,

there are different elevations.

So, we're near the Blue Ridge Parkway,

which goes through these mountains

and you can drive up to the Parkway and drive 20 minutes,

a half an hour and you'll be at a different elevation

and you'll need some cozy layers.

- Yeah.

It could be 20, 30 degrees difference, right?

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah, really big difference.

- And even so, a lot of people talk about fall color

and we do live in an area with a lot of trees

that lose their leaves in the winter, deciduous trees

and before that they turn really vibrant colors.

Oranges, reds. - Best in the world here.

- Yeah, so good.

- People say it's New England.

What do they know up there?

- I think we get good fall color similar to New England.

- We can experience it over two to three weeks

because it starts early or mid October, I think.

Right at the higher elevations.

- I think it might actually be late September.

- Oh, is it early October?

- Early October.

It's not September.

I'm just being silly.

But no, there's actually a map that tells you.

They'll say, "All right, this year

is gonna be early October at the higher elevations."

And then at the lower elevations,

it will say late October when it's at peak.

What are they called?

The people who come here.

- Leaf peepers,

- Is it really leaf peepers? Are you sure?

- I'm sure.

Like to peep?

- Like to look.

- To look.

- Yeah, usually peeping is kind of a...

- Creepy. - Creepy word.

- But yeah, people come to our area for the weekend

and the parkway is packed, isn't it?

It's really busy, this famous road

where you can see the colors and you can see it for miles

and you have a different variety of color.

It's really nice.

- And people go very slowly.

- And all the overlooks, the park and you can't park there.

But yeah, people come here,

what were they called again, fall peepers?

- Leaf peepers.

- Leaf peepers.

Are you a leaf peeper?

- Yeah.

I am, are you?

- I guess so.

And then what happens when the leaves fall?

We'll say on three. One two, three.

One, two, three, bag 'em up. We'll put them in compost.

- Well, you do, right?

- I mean, yeah.

Rake 'em, first.

Yeah, bag 'em up.

I wasn't gonna get there.

- Well, yeah, you need to think

on your feet a little bit more.

But yeah, so, this is when you have to do

a lot of, we call it gardening, but yard work here.

So, you rake up the leaves, make a pile, jump in it.

Dogs and children jump in the leaves.

Then a lot of people put them in bags

and then the city will come and collect them in trucks.

Or you can use them as compost.

Our compost, did we use it this year?

Did you use any?

- Nope.

- Well, we'll make sure we use it next year.

But yeah, we have a little compost bin

and then it's another good time to mulch,

to prune your trees and bushes, right?

But I like doing it in fall because it's a lot cooler.

- Yeah.

- Summer yard work's brutal.

- Mosquitoes.

- Yeah, bees.

- Bees.

- The sun.

- The humidity. - Humidity.

- So, it's nice, the air right now,

it's a little bit crisper, it's more crisp.

And there's a little bit of a chill in the air at night.

- Yeah, chill in the air.

What do I say when I come outside

and there's a chill in the air and it's not humid?

- When did this become a quiz?

Bag 'em up.

- I say it's lovely. It's lovely upside.

- "Oh, it's lovely."

- Yeah, so if it's lovely outside,

it means it's a good temperature.

- Yeah. - Yeah.

So, it's a good time to do that,

to exercise, I love playing soccer in the fall.

It's just the perfect time of year to do it,

but the mornings can be very crisp, very cool.

Sometimes you can get a little bit of frost in the fall.

Because yeah, for gardening, you need to know that as well,

when it might freeze.

And then any other things that you like about fall?

Pumpkin spice.

- I know, I was going to say I have one.

Well, I have one pumpkin spice latte every fall.

- Just one?

- I know, just one.

- You've already had one.

Exactly, I'm done.

- Are you not gonna have another?

- I'm full on fall.

- Why do you do that?

- If I have another one, it'll be a bonus.

- But why do you only have one?

Because it doesn't taste very good.

But you just want to have that whole...

Ride the bandwagon of pumpkin spice.

Is that why?

- It is a genuinely good flavor?

- But why do you only have one?

- I don't know

'cause I'm worried that it could become a habit.

- Yeah, it could.

- I could just become a complete monster.

- Do you remember last year when you brought back

so many pumpkin spiced items from Trader Joe's?

- I'm gonna do that...

Some of them were better than others.

Some of them are better than others, but I do.

In general, I like that blend of spices.

- I think it's probably weighted to 80% female, 20% male

on who buys pumpkin spice lattes.

Maybe higher. - So, maybe

pumpkin spice culture has become gendered,

but I truly believe that the flavor profile,

everyone can enjoy it.

If you like a little cinnamon and nutmeg in your life,

you can enjoy it, it's okay.

- Is that what it is?

- Yeah.

- Is there nothing else in it?

- Maybe like a pinch of cloves.

- So, yeah, these different spices.

Yeah. - Yeah.

- Yeah, and then our birthdays are in fall which we like.

- We do like that.

- Yeah, I remember celebrating my birthday here

and it was really warm.

And I said I've never had a warm sunny day

on my birthday in my life.

But it can be hit or miss.

It could be cold near the end of October.

- It can be. I think that there's still

some leaves on the trees,

which is so nice because when I was growing up,

I grew up in a more northern state.

And so, by the time that my birthday arrived

near the end of October, it was always gray.

- Yeah, oh, in the UK, October.

- It's the rainy season, isn't it?

- The leaves aren't very colorful they're just brown.

All brown.

And then they fall and they get really wet straight away.

But sometimes the weather can ruin it, can't it?

- Yeah, I think if it's too...

It has to do with the dry and wetness.

I think it has to be somewhat perfect.

'Cause if it's too dry too early,

all the leaves turn brown and fall off early.

And if it doesn't dry out, I don't know.

- What are those things?

There has to be some temperature, humidity.

'Cause if it rained and it was windy for a week,

I imagine a lot of the leaves would just fall.

"So, we're not gonna turn color this year."

- "We're out."

- "Yeah, this is perfect for us to disintegrate

and turn into rich soil."

Or compost. - Compost.

- "Let's go in a bag."

Okay, well, I hope you've enjoyed this lesson.

I think we should end it there.

Because we've done a Thanksgiving lesson.

- Yes. - Yeah.

And you should definitely go

and watch the summer, Thanksgiving

and the winter conversations after this one.

Yeah, and then be sure to go to the description

to look at some of the key phrases from this lesson,

what else should they do?

Case question.

- Oh, my question.

What is your favorite fall ritual?

So, it could be a food or an item of clothing

or something that you do outside,

but to celebrate the changing seasons.

- And do you have this season

in terms of the temperature.

In case mind is blown.

I'm just thinking of Costa Rica.

Doesn't really change that much except for rainy season.

But yeah, and the southern hemisphere.

- They're going into their spring.

- Yeah, it's about to be spring.

Okay, so yeah, just like if you have fall

or what are the seasons you celebrate the most there?

And yeah, click the like button, subscribe if you are new.

And as always, yeah, check out the other lessons.

One more thing, one more thing.

- One more thing.

We actually chose this topic

based on somebody recommending that we talk about seasons.

And so, if there are other topics

that you're interested in us talking about,

we'd love to know.

- Yeah, and expand on it too.

So say, "Oh, we'd love to know about..."

Someone said hospitals, right.

So, it's like, "Talk about a typical

hospital experience for a surgery or something like that."

- Okay, yeah.

Oh yeah, the more specific the better.

- Yeah, it just helps us

think about it a bit more, doesn't it?

- Yeah. - Yeah.

Okay, thanks again.

Speak to you soon. Bye-bye.

(relaxing music)