LESSON NOTES

Upper Intermediate S1 #15

American Date Night, Part 2

CONTENTS
2 English
2 Vocabulary
3 Sample Sentences
4 Vocabulary Phrase Usage
4 Grammar
6 Cultural Insight

# 15
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 ENGLISH

1. ISABEL: You know, I have to admit, when you first asked me out, I thought
you were kind of creepy. But this is a nice place. So I apologize for
misjudging you.

2. DAVE: Yeah, I can understand that. I'm sure that you have gotten a lot of
invitations from witnesses before, though.

3. ISABEL: Not exactly... So where are you from? How long have you been in
D.C.?

4. DAVE: I'm originally from Oregon; I have only been living in D.C. for a few
months now. Before coming here, I had been living in Virginia
when I went to school. Where did you go to college?

5. ISABEL: I'm a proud alumnus of the school of hard knocks!

6. DAVE: Oh, I see...sorry for asking.

7. ISABEL: Why? For all my life I had wanted to be a cop. No need to go to

college for that, so I went to the academy instead.

8. DAVE: That's cool. So you have lived in D.C. your whole life?

9. ISABEL: Born and raised!

10. DAVE: A true Washingtonian.

VOCABULARY

V oc abular y English C lass

an institution of learning that

focuses on a specific trade
academy or skills (like science or the noun
military)

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 a loud noise created by
knock noun
hitting with the fist

alumnus a graduate noun

somebody from Washington,

Washingtonian D.C. proper noun

to be raised to grow up verb

to misjudge to assess or judge incorrectly verb

a person who saw something

witness (often a crime) noun

makes you feel

creepy uncomfortable, inappropriate adjective

to concede the truth of

to admit something, to confess verb

firstly, from the beginning, at

originally the very start adverb

SAMPLE SENTENCES

We learned tactics and strategy at the We all froze when we heard three knocks
academy. on the door.

I just moved to D.C. so I still don't really feel

like a Washingtonian.

I was raised in six countries on four I misjudged the distance from the boat to
continents. the dock and when I jumped I fell in the
water.

She was a witness to the 9/11 attack on the That guy over there keeps looking at us.
Pentagon. He's really creepy.

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She will have to admit she's wrong when The singer originally came from Denmark.
she sees the video playback.

The cafe was originally a pub.

VOCABULARY PHRASE USAGE

"knock"

Isabel says "I'm a proud alumnus of the school of hard knocks." As we learned from the
vocabulary section, a knock is a hit that creates a loud noise, and it is usually caused by striking
your fist against something like a door. However, the "school of hard knocks" is an idiom that
describes "real life" for people who did not attend university or college. The phrase refers to
living life in a difficult manner; perhaps the person saying it got "knocked" herself and learned
through that process. We usually use it in a lighthearted manner.

For Example:

1. A: "Where are you planning to go to college next year?"

B: "College? Man, I'm goin' to the school of hard knocks for a degree in causin'
trouble."

"to raise"

Isabel says, "Born and raised!" when Dave asks her if she has lived in D.C. for her whole life. As
we learned from the vocabulary section, being raised somewhere refers to where we grew
up. We can use the phrase "born and raised" to tell someone that we spent our entire
childhood in one place?

For Example:

1. "In West Philadelphia, born and raised. On the playground is where I spent most of
my days."

GRAMMAR

The Focus of This Lesson Is Using Past and Present Perfect Continuous Tenses.

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 "I'm originally from Oregon; I have only been living in D.C. for a few months now. Before
coming here, I had been living in Virginia when I went to school."

This is a review of using the past and present perfect continuous tenses. You probably have
already learned them previously, but these are two of the most difficult tenses to use correctly.
Let's start by looking at the present perfect continuous tense.

"I have only been living in D.C. for a few months now."

We use the present perfect continuous tense to describe things that began in the past but
continue today. We often use it followed by "for" or "since." "For" tells us how the action has
been going on, and "since" tells us when it started.

For Example:

1. "I have been reading this book since last month." ("I started reading this book last
month; I am still reading it now.")

2. "They have been thinking about it for years." ("They first thought about it years ago;
they are still thinking about it.")

"I had been living in Virginia when I went to school."

The past perfect continuous can be even trickier to use correctly. We use this when we are
talking about something that happened for a length of time in the past: something that started
and ended before now. We often use it with another statement that provides the reference for
the time.

For Example:

1. "He had been drinking since nine a.m." ("He started drinking at nine a.m., but now he
is not.")

2. "The baby had been crying for three hours when they fed it." ("The baby was crying for
three hours; then they fed it, and it stopped.")

It can be helpful to use these two tenses with another statement to give the listener a better
idea of when the statements happen.

For Example:

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1. "She had been working for a competitor for three years before she started working
here."

2. "I had been a vegetarian for twelve years until I went to Argentina; since then, I have
been eating meat."

CULTURAL INSIGHT

Getting to Know You

In the United States, just as in many other countries, some of the first questions you ask when
getting to know new people are about their background. The questions that Dave asked Isabel
were generally very typical of the kinds of questions people ask. Especially in the high-
powered world of Washington, D.C., people often ask about the university or college that you
attended. This can be a tricky topic, as we saw in the case of Dave and Isabel. That someone
did not go to college (either they did not want to or could not afford to) can be seen as a
negative, and someone might be offended if it is brought up. Generally, though, small talk
when you are getting to know new people centers around where you and they have lived,
worked, and attended school. After that, you and they both can ask more interesting and
relevant questions.

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