English Listening Practice #5: My Wife's Birthday

Hello, this is Jack from To Fluency. And the video that you are going to watch is about

my wife's birthday. So, this video is going to help you learn new words and phrases, and

it will give you some advanced listening practice. Now, to help you with this, I have created

a download that goes through the language I used, gives you an explanation, further

examples, and also, an exercise. Now you can download that by clicking the link in the

description or the link at the end of the video. So, here is the video...

Hey. So, tomorrow is my wife’s birthday and what I want to do is to show you a couple

of things I bought her and talk about what I’m going to do. So, firstly, I need to

tidy this house ‘cause as you can see, it’s a little bit messy at the moment and she’s

currently at work right now. So, when she gets home, there’ll be a tidy house for

her. And, I’m not sure what we’re going to do tonight but probably we’re going to

have dinner here or if not have dinner at a restaurant. So, I might need to cook for

her, you know, I might need to cook something for her. But, I’m sure if we go to a restaurant,

that’ll be fine too.

So, here is what I got her so far. Firstly, Book of Ages 30. It just goes through some

fun facts about being 30 because my wife’s going to be 30 and it’s got some interesting

people and what they did or what they were doing when they were 30. I’ve got some balloons

to celebrate too. We’re going to put them up here for when she gets home. Maybe tonight

because I’ll explain later about what she’s doing tomorrow and I got something fun, a

tiara. You can probably just see at the top it says ‘30’ on it. There’s a number

30. It’s just a little... bit something that’s fun for when she goes for her birthday meal

tomorrow. She’s actually going to celebrate her birthday at one of the local restaurants

here with her friends and we were going to do it with everyone together but the problem

is we all have kids and it would’ve been too many people sitting around the table with

kids. And this way, she can enjoy herself a bit more. So, I’m going to have some of

the kids here. I’m going to look after the kids and some of the parents who aren’t

going to the party they’re going to come here too. So, we’re going to have some pizza,

maybe a few drinks and, you know, see how it is, look after the kids, play some games.

Oh, something else I got her, it is this and this is a car seat warmer. So, you put it

in the car, on your car seat, plug it in and it heats up automatically. So, when it’s

really cold in the morning, it just is a perfect thing to have because, you know, car seats

get really cold and this we’ll make a big difference. There are a few other things that

are coming. One more thing is coming tomorrow and I’m going to have to get her something

else as well. But, I’m going to go and get her a card later and get some more things

for her too. So, what I’m going to do now is just tidy up.

I’m in the car, just about to go and get my wife’s card. The house is looking a lot

better. I needed to work on it. It’s been a few days since I really tidied or cleaned

the house so things got a little bit out of hand. But, I’m going to go and get a birthday

card now for my wife, for Kate. There’s a very good card shop in the local area. So,

I’m going to go there. Then, go to the gym. Pick up my son from daycare. Tidy a little

bit more. Although, that’s going to be very difficult with my son around but we’ll just

see how it goes and hopefully she’s going to like the clean house and the card and the

cake and everything else that she’s going to get.

I hate choosing cards. I’m terrible at it. But, I don’t know if this is a good thing

or a bad thing that I’ve got her. There’re some interesting cards in there as you’ve

just seen. But, I went for this one, “Happy birthday, pretty young slightly older thing.”

There’s a saying, you know, ‘Pretty young thing’ and it’s got the slightly older

in there. I’m sure she’s going to love it.

So, I’m back home on the porch, just been to the gym, had a very short session there. Didn’t really want to do too much

because I didn’t get much sleep last night and, yeah, it was good, good fun. But, I thought

I could talk a little bit more about birthdays. So, my wife’s turning 30. I turned 30 three

years ago, nearly three years ago, that makes me nearly 33 and, yeah, well, when you reach

those big milestones, sometimes you think that that’s it, that it’s just going to

stop there but it continues. Things keep going on. You know, when you turn 21 you think,

“Oh, that’s it. I’m 21 now.” And, but things keep going. And, someone once told

me that the 20s are good but when you’re in your 30s, you hit your stride. It’s when

you start to have more confidence in what you’re doing. You enjoy it a little bit

more. You’re more assured of yourself and who you are. I’ve definitely found that,

you know, since I turned 30, I’ve definitely hit my stride and really enjoying things.

(I) travelled a lot in my 20s, moved around, lived in Spain for a couple of years, when we moved

here as well, we felt like we were still moving around places. But, since I turned 30, things

have really settled down and just feel a little, well, a lot more confident about what I’m

doing and really enjoying life. So, hopefully, my wife is going to go through the same thing

as well. She did mention that she’s excited to turn 30. Although, it obviously is a big

event because you’re leaving your 20s, your youth and things start to change a little

bit. But, I’m sure she’s going to have a great time over the next 10 years or so.

Hi. So, today is the day. It’s my wife’s birthday and, yeah, things have gone really

well. So, last night, we ended up going to one of her favorite restaurants, very good

food. My son was in a bit of a crazy mood. He fell over. He spilled some water. He threw

things everywhere. He laughed a lot, lots of fun. When we got back from the restaurant,

I had a cake waiting for her and she loved it. A beautiful cake too. It tasted really

good. I don’t normally eat cake but I had 2 or 3 slices. We sang happy birthday. My

son did too. He loves cakes and candles and singing for birthdays. He was so excited about

it. He had a little bit of cake as well. And then, this morning, I put up the balloons.

My wife walked out the door and she didn’t notice them. She went straight down the stairs

and didn’t even notice them. And then, I said to her, “Kate, look.” And, she looked

up and she just started laughing ‘cause she completely missed them. But, she really

enjoyed seeing them.

So, what we’re going to do now is, well, I’m going to go drive and meet her for lunch.

We’re going to get some sushi and celebrate her birthday at lunch so very excited about

that. I might show you a little bit.