Linguagum

Today’s sentence

Hi - here’s the latest in the series on cooking.

Could you crack a few eggs?

Notes

• Crack an egg. This means break an egg (into a bowl).
• You know how you hit the egg against the side of the bowl and then drop the egg’s contents into the bowl?
• The noise it makes sounds like crack!.
• Words like this (which actually describe a sound) are examples of onomatopoeia. (Bang / zap / crunch are other examples. Think about comic books.)

OK, that’s all for now. See you tomorrow!

Today’s sentence

Hello again. Here’s another sentence about cooking.

Will you drain the carrots?

Notes

• Drain the carrots / potatoes / peas etc.. You do this after you boil them.
• You have a saucepan full of boiling water and boiled vegetables.
• You pour the water away, so that you have only the vegetables in the pan.
• Taking the water out of the pan is called draining the vegetables.

That’s all for now - we’ll continue with this tomorrow. Bye for now!

Today’s sentence

Hi! Welcome back to the series on cooking.

Shall I mash the spuds?

Notes

• Shall I…? You are offering to do something.
• Mash the spuds. Spuds are potatoes. It’s a common, informal expression.
• To mash potatoes means to crush them.
• First you boil them. Then you take a potato masher and squash / crush / mash them in a bowl (maybe with milk and butter.)
• Then you eat them, obviously!

OK, that’s all for today. We’ll look at another one tomorrow. Bye!

Today’s sentence

Hi - here’s the latest in the series on cooking.

Would you peel an onion for me?

Notes

• To peel something. This means to remove the skin from a vegetable or fruit.
• Things you can peel: onions, potatoes, oranges, carrots etc.
• Peel is both a verb and a noun. After you peel an orange, you are left with orange peel.
• Orange peel is the skin of the orange.

That’s all for now - we’ll continue with this tomorrow. Bye for now!

Today’s sentence

Hi! Welcome back to the series on cooking.

Could you stir the soup?

Notes

• Stir the soup. This means: “put a spoon in the soup and turn the spoon in circles to stop it from burning.”
• Another thing you would stir is a stir fry.
• This is when you put chopped vegetables in a large frying pan (or a wok) and fry them quickly while you stir them (move them around in the pan.)

Hope that was useful. We’ll look at another one tomorrow.

Today’s sentence

Hi. How’s it going? Today we’re starting a new series. We’re looking at cooking

Chop the onions finely.

Notes

• Chop the onions. Chop means cut with a knife.
• You tend to chop things (carrots, potatoes, onions etc.) on a chopping board.
• Finely. This means that you are going to cut the onions into thin pieces.
• The opposite of chop finely is chop roughly.

Hope that was useful. We’ll look at another one tomorrow. Bye!

Today’s sentence

Hi. How are you today? This is the last in the current series on structuring a formal speech.

I’d like to finish by thanking you all for coming today.

Notes

• OK, this is the last line of your speech.
• You want to be polite and make a good impression, right?
• So, thank your audience for listening.
• You might then want to ask: “would anyone like to ask any questions about anything?”

OK, I hope you found that series useful. We’ll look at a new theme tomorrow. Don’t forget: if you don’t understand something, tell me! You can contact me on our forum (Let’s Chew!) and I’ll get back to you. See you tomorrow!