Hey Naturals, how are you? I'm Gabby, your English teacher.
I'm so excited because the
fourth Thursday of November is Thanksgiving.
I love this holiday because it
encourages us to give thanks. This
is an American tradition. Every year
the fourth Thursday in November we celebrate Thanksgiving.
Typically friends and family get together
for a special big dinner.
You might be invited to a dinner or maybe a party
at your work or at your school.
Even if you're not invited to a kind of celebration,
you could create your own! Or you could volunteer.
Thanksgiving is a time for people to come together to
eat and to celebrate what we're thankful for.
It's a big day to volunteer
to serve others. I plan on volunteering for Thanksgiving.
If you have the time and you're curious,
and if you're living in the United States, it's a great time to
connect with your local soup kitchen or organization
that serves free meals to people who are
in need. In this free English lesson,
I'm going to share five phrases that will help you
on Thanksgiving. It will help you to celebrate,
and to enjoy your Thanksgiving with more
English fluency and confidence, to
have interactions like a native speaker, with native
speakers. Let's get started. If you're invited
to a Thanksgiving event or really any dinner or
party where there's food in a person's home, the first thing
that you should ask is, "What can I bring?" or
"What should I bring?" Maybe the host will say "Nothing!
Don't worry about it!" But the host may ask you to bring a
beverage or maybe even a dish to share
with others. Second, you could
ask, if you're not familiar with the special dishes that we
have on Thanksgiving, there are a lot of special dishes,
like turkey and yams or sweet potatoes, green
beans with almonds, cranberry, stuffing,
these are all very specific foods to Thanksgiving.
Although sometimes we eat some of those on other days. Some of
them are pretty specific only for Thanksgiving. So you could ask,
"Excuse me, what is this dish?" So then you
can ask, "Could you please pass that dish?" Or "Could
you please pass the stuffing?" And you'll know what you're asking
for. Now when you eat and you enjoy the dish
or the meal that you're having, you can say "Mmm..
this is so delicious!" But a better way to express
yourself like a natural English speaker, like a native,
would be to say, "My compliments to the chef."
I love this phrase. I think it's very nice, a very good way to
compliment the person who prepared the food.
Again you can say it with me - my compliments to the chef.
Excellent. Now imagine that you're
done eating, you've enjoyed the meal. Well, don't be so
fast to just get up and leave! Offer to help.
Ask your host, "Can I help clean up?"
You could ask, "Can I help with the dishes?" Or
"Can I help put some things away?" And your
offer will be so polite and gracious and I'm sure your
host will appreciate it. This goes for men and women.
You can ask if you can help to clean up and probably your host will
say "No, don't worry, just relax and enjoy yourself."
Maybe your host will say "Yes! Please. I need
some help." That's great because that's a way that you could
show your appreciation or your thankfulness for
your Thanksgiving dinner celebration. I hope that these five phrases
were helpful. Let's just review them quickly before we finish this free
lesson. First of all, "What should I bring?"
Second, "What is this dish?"
Third, "Could you please pass that dish?"
Fourth, "My compliments to the chef."
And fifth, "Can I help clean up?"
Excellent. I hope you enjoyed this free lesson. If you did,
share it with your friends. Enjoy your Thanksgiving. If you'd
like to join Go Natural English as a premium
member and have access to our members group and
special materials that are organized courses,
come over to GoNaturalEnglish.com and learn more
how to become a premium member. Thanks so much and I'll see you there!
Bye for now.