Australia Network - English Bites - Series 8 - Episode 13: Meals On Wheels

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Episode 13: Meals On Wheels

Episode 13: Meals On Wheels
This story is about Meals on Wheels, an organisation that provides free meals to old people. First, listen to Bhoom talking about what kind of work she will do for meals on wheels.

Transcript

This story is about Meals on Wheels, an organisation that provides free meals to old people. First, listen to Bhoom talking about what kind of work she will do for meals on wheels:

Good morning Bhoom and welcome to Meals on Wheels.

Good morning.

Hi, nice to meet you.

Hi Bhoom, how are you.

Hi. I am really looking forward to this volunteer work that I am going to do. I was hoping that I can learn more about the communities and I can contribute in some way.

Volunteer work. It can be hard to pronounce – vol-un-teer. Volunteer work is work you do for no pay. So what exactly is this volunteer work she's going to do?

We'll go over to the carrot section and start peeling some carrots. And we'll be cooking for 120, maybe 130.

Okay

I'm a bit nervous and a bit awkward because everybody is just so professional and do things so fast and for me, even peeling the carrot, it's just so hard for me, it keeps falling off and Andy's very quick and you know, fast and he finish one carrot in like two seconds but for me it take like one minute.

She's peeling carrots or at least trying to. Andy doesn't really take 2 seconds to peel a carrot. Saying someone can do something in 2 seconds is a figure of speech that means he does it very quickly. Listen again:

I'm a bit nervous and a bit awkward because everybody is just so professional and do things so fast and for me, even peeling the carrot, it's just so hard for me, it keeps falling off and Andy's very quick and you know, fast and he finish one carrot in like two seconds but for me it take like one minute.

Next, listen for the expression that means completing something when you are supposed to:

How would I be able to help to prepare over 100 meals because only one carrot take me quite some time to peel off and now I have to prepare meal for many people and I'm not sure if I can do that on time.

She's not sure she can do it 'on time'. On time means the time you have to finish something or arrive somewhere. For instance you need to get to work 'on time'. to mean that something takes a long time to do you can say it takes quite some time. Listen:

...only one carrot take me quite some time to peel off and now I have to prepare meal for many people and I'm not sure if I can do that on time.

Now let's see how she goes making a dessert:

Yeah, I just finished, made my first peach crumble desert. I feel so much more relieved because at first I thought it's gonna be much more complicated and lots of method to do but this time I've got somebody to help me and tell me what to do.

You just do that with your fingers there so that the better gets mixed in.

She thought it was going to be 'much more complicated'. That means very complicated or difficult. But it wasn't that hard.

It's not that hard and I hope they like it.

So what do they do with all this food after they prepare it?

We just dished up over a hundred meals and it's almost the time that the delivery people are coming and then we are going to deliver for 25 people.

It gets 'dished up' and then delivered. Food that is 'dished up' is put onto plates or, in this case, into containers. Listen again:

We just dished up over a hundred meals and it's almost the time that the delivery people are coming and then we are going to deliver for 25 people.

We'll finish with the expression 'makes my day' which you use to say that something has made you very happy:

Volunteering, it's a big passion in my life and every time I do some sort of volunteer work it just makes my day and it makes me feel good about myself and feel like today I do help some people which makes me really happy and really good, feel really good.

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