LEARN ENGLISH PODCAST: ESSENTIAL PHRASES TO TALK ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY AND 4TH JULY

- This is Jack from www.tofluency.com

and welcome to you here on YouTube.

Where in this lesson, we're going to learn

a little bit of history as well,

because we're going to talk about the 4th of July,

independence day in the United States.

And this is probably, I think it's the biggest holiday

in the US or the most important day in terms of its history

and how people celebrate.

But we're not just gonna talk about history

because we're also going to look at some of the key phrases

from the Declaration of Independence.

And you may have heard this phrase or the line

from the Declaration of Independence.

And we're also going to talk about some of the customs

and the culture and how people celebrate this holiday.

And like I said, we'll look at some history too,

and you're gonna learn about a very special tea party,

a tea party, not with tea and biscuits,

where people have lovely tea and they sit down,

they relax and they talk at five o'clock.

It's a different type of tea party today.

Now, like hallways,

I'll leave the key phrases in the description

so that you can learn from them.

And listen till the end because I'll have some tips

on how you can learn these phrases.

Okay, so 4th of July,

this is a national holiday of the United States.

And it's known as the national holiday,

which means the main one, the national holiday.

And it's to commemorate,

which means to remember and celebrate

the Declaration of Independence of the United States

from the British monarchy.

And that was King George the Third at the time.

And this was written on the 4th of July, 1776.

So, a long time ago now.

We're just gonna talk about what led up to

what proceeded the Declaration of Independence,

because there were at the time 13 colonies

of the United States under the rule

of King George the Third, the British monarchy.

Now, can you name the 13 colonies, just a little test?

I'll leave them in the description for you.

And leading up to the revolutionary war,

Great Britain and France had fought a war

in various territories, including north America.

And great Britain, the British monarchy had won this war,

but it was very costly.

So it had been very costly to win this war

and to fight the war.

So, what the monarchy did was they introduced some taxes

in the colonies to help pay back debts.

It's a great phrase of verb, to pay back debts.

The first act was the Stamp Act in 1765,

where certain things in the colonies were taxed.

And then there was another act in 1767.

Now this led to unrest, which is a great word.

Unrest, think about protests, sometimes violent,

sometimes not, but people weren't happy about this.

So it led to, it resulted in unrest, especially in Boston.

And the British sent troops or soldiers

to help calm down the situation.

But when they sent these troops to Boston,

it only made things worse.

It only made things worse because people didn't like

to have British soldiers on the streets.

And this led to what's known as the Boston Massacre.

And again, I'll leave a link to this in the description,

so you can read more about it.

And then a key event that happened after that

or something called the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

This was a really big event in a whole revolutionary war.

And again, this wasn't a fun tea party.

This wasn't people just having a relaxing time,

drinking tea.

Instead, there was a group called the Sons of Liberty

and they protested a new tea tax where the colonies

were taxed on tea.

By going to Boston Harbor in the middle of the night,

going aboard three, I think it was three ships

in Boston Harbor and dumping tea into the Harbor.

So they took the tea from the ships

and they threw it overboard.

They dumped it into the Harbor.

Now tensions kept growing and in 1775,

the British plan to capture two colonial leaders,

two people who were more radical

and calling for a big change.

However, American spies got wind of this.

They got wind of it, which means that they learned about it.

So, they found out that they were going to capture

these two colonial leaders.

And then 77 militiamen, think soldiers met British forces.

And it was basically here

that the American revolutionary war began.

Now in the background to all of this,

there were a lot of people talking about, okay,

what's gonna happen after the war?

What do we want from it?

And not everyone wanted independence at this time,

but in a meeting, they decided to vote for this.

And Thomas Jefferson was a principle author

of the Declaration of Independence.

And this is the document where the US said,

"Okay, we want to be free.

We want to have our own independent country."

So that is the background to writing

the Declaration of Independence.

Now we're gonna talk about the most famous parts

of this declaration.

And it's the second sentence.

Here it is.

You might have heard this before, but listen closely.

"We hold these truths to be self evident

that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their creator

with certain unalienable rights.

And among these are life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness."

Feel free to just go back and listen to that sentence again.

But what we're going to do now is have a look

at some of the language used here.

So, we hold these truths to be self evident.

Now self-evident means obvious and something

that doesn't need to be explained.

The next part, that all men are created equal.

This was heavily influenced by the French philosophers,

such as Voltaire and also Thomas Paine,

who I think was from Norfolk in England,

had a big influence here too.

Again, I'll leave a link to "Thomas Paine's Common Sense,"

which was such an important document or mini book, I guess,

that had a big effect on the whole American revolution.

The next one, endowed by their creator,

which basically means given by God or whoever created men.

Unalienable rights, this means they are unable

to be taken away.

So you can't take these rights away.

And then the line, I think a lot of people know

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The idea that you can go and create your own happiness

and that you have the right to life

and also liberty for freedom.

Now, you probably know that, and I won't spoil

it here for you, if you're interested

that America won the war, the United States won the war

with the help from France and Spain

and became an independent nation.

Now, before we talk about the celebrations

and talk about the culture of this,

here's a line from Wikipedia.

"By remarkable coincidence, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams,

the only two people who signed

the Declaration of Independence,

and later to serve as presidents of the United States,

both died on the same day, July 4th, 1826,

which was a 50th anniversary of the declaration."

So that's just an interesting coincidence there.

So let's talk about how to celebrate this holiday

and just some of the key features of it.

Now, there were two, I think two big holidays in the US

where they're very specific to United States.

So Thanksgiving is one and July the fourth,

independence day is the other.

Now you can contrast these two,

because think about Thanksgiving

as a formal family get together with a sit-down meal,

which usually means turkey, potatoes, and vegetables, rice.

And my wife and I actually Kate,

who is on this channel a lot,

made a podcast on this and I'll leave a link to that.

It's one of the first podcast episodes

we did a long time ago.

So you can listen to what it's like

to celebrate Thanksgiving.

So that's more formal, but the 4th of July is more informal.

So think about friends getting together

to have parties outside and to have barbecues.

So this is where people tend to make hot dogs and burgers

and put them on the grill or on the barbecue.

They're all outside together.

There's music, there's fun.

And it's family friendly,

but more about going to celebrate with friends,

if you don't have family in town.

So for Thanksgiving, a lot of people will travel

across country, across the United States

to spend that time with their family.

But on the 4th of July, people tend to stay where they are.

And it's not that big family holiday that you have to go to.

Instead, it's about friends, outside parties,

it's in the summer.

So it's hot and people just get outside

and have a good time.

For the children,

usually there are some types of water activities.

Things like a water slide, those small swimming pools,

water guns, water balloons as well.

So, the children usually have

some kind of water fight going on.

When it comes to food, think about hot dogs and burgers,

but also apple pies,

which is like the national dessert of the United States

Corn on the cup, people like to drink beer here as well.

And when it comes to clothing, people tend to dress

in red, white, and blue,

and there are American flags everywhere.

So actually, if you know a teacher, Vanessa

from Speak English With Vanessa,

she bought me some very striking,

very obvious American shorts,

where there are stars and the blue and white,

and I'm gonna wear them for this celebration

on the 4th of July.

And the final thing that's a big part of this holiday

is fireworks.

So most towns will have some type of fireworks celebration,

usually downtown and people will take deck chairs

or their foldable chairs to go find a the space downtown

so that they can watch fireworks.

And some common places are to go on top of parking lots.

So the top level of a parking lot, or to go to a park,

which overlooks the city.

It really just depends on the city

and what kind of view you can get

depending on what the city is like.

But fireworks are a big part of this too.

And a lot of children will stay up late with their family

in order to watch the fireworks.

And in addition to having fireworks downtown,

a lot of people will have their own fireworks

in their yard too, if it's allowed in those areas.

So we have learned about the history that led

to the Declaration of Independence.

We've learned some vocabulary

from the Declaration of Independence.

And also talked about how to celebrate

or how people celebrate this holiday in the US

and how it's more informal,

especially when you compare it to Thanksgiving.

Now, what I recommend you do is go to the description

and learn the phrases that I've left there.

Because those are the types of phrases

that I've used in this lesson.

And I'll leave a couple more examples as well,

to help you understand that vocabulary.

But then also, if you're interested in this topic,

I recommend also watching some YouTube videos on the topic

where they talk about the history.

You can get very specific with this if you want,

where you can learn everything

about the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

Or you can just have that another podcast episode

or YouTube video that goes through the history of this,

or that goes through the signing of the declaration.

Or that looks at the different celebrations in the US.

And to make this easier for you,

I will leave some links for you in the description

so that you can just click those and have a look.

Now again, if you're new here,

then subscribe to the podcast or the YouTube channel

if you're watching on YouTube.

And also just have a look at some of my other lessons,

which you can easily find by just going to my profile.

And also if you've really enjoyed it,

then feel free to leave a review

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or share it if you're on YouTube.

And one last thing, if you like this type of lesson,

let me know in the comments and let me know

what type of lesson you would like me to make next.

Okay, thank you so much for being here.

And I will speak to you soon.

Bye bye.