Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 35, Day 5 of Your English Five a Day. This is the series that is on a mission to improve your listening skills, to expand your vocabulary and overall to make you feel more confident with the English language. This is the last episode of Week 35 and I hope that you've been enjoying all of the episodes so far. Remember, I'm adding all of the vocabulary we cover to a Master Sheet, which you can get your hands on for free by signing up to the mailing list. I'll put a link in the show notes. So, let's start today's episode. We begin with the idiom, take a stand, take a stand. We spell this T A K E, take. A, stand, S T A N D, take a stand. This means to publicly declare your support for or opposition to a particular issue or cause. So for example, if I decided that I wanted to stop people from being unkind to snails, I want people to start being kinder to snails. No more crushing snail shells. No more throwing snails into the neighbour's garden or playing football with them or anything like that. No more denying them a nibble on your juicy plants. I'm going to publicly declare my support for snails. So this is me against the snail haters. I'm publicly telling you that I support snails' rights and I want snails to be happy and free, to live without threat of violence. So, I'm taking a stand. Here's another example,"The student activist took a stand against the new school policy, organising a protest and gathering signatures on a petition." Next on the list is a noun, and it is housing, housing. We spell H O U S I N G, housing. Notice how the S is pronounced with a Z./ˈhaʊzɪŋ/. Housing. Housing is buildings or structures in which people live. So it's a similar word to homes, housing. Here's an example,"The council finally came through and provided housing for several families in need last week." Now where I live down in the South of England, there seems to be constant development going on. All the developments that I see when I'm out and about are usually for housing. They're normally building some sort of structures that will house people. So they might be flats or single houses, but it's always a housing development of some sort. And I always wonder, where are all the schools and the facilities that will serve the people that you'll move into all this housing that you're creating? It's a real problem where I live. Moving on, we have an adjective and it is radical, radical. We spell this R A D I C A L. Radical. Radical describes something that is extreme or fundamental in its nature or beliefs. Here's an example,"The political party proposed radical reforms to the healthcare system." Next on the list is the verb escape, escape. We spell this E S C A P E, escape, escape. To escape is to break free from confinement or danger. When I was younger, I was attacked by a dog and it was a very traumatic experience. It was a huge dog. It was an Alsatian. From how I remember it, the owner of the dog actually set the dog on me. I was being followed by a strange man with his dog. And when I had an opportunity, I ran as fast as I could to try to escape danger. I tried to escape this man and his dog and that's when he let his dog off the lead. The dog chased me, ran me down, knocked me over and pinned me to the ground. Luckily, I've had a lot of experience with dogs and so at this point I knew, that I should just keep very still and calm because a dog that is attacking will be more likely to calm down and not do anything if you are completely still. So, I just went very still and very quiet and the dog very quickly lost interest and disappeared around the corner while I lay there. Now I knew that the dog's owners was getting closer. So I had to get up and run again as fast as I could to get back to safety. And I was able to escape. It was a very scary thing to happen. I dread to think what would have happened had that unpleasant man actually caught up to me. I do not know what his intentions were, but they obviously weren't very good. So I escaped. Thank goodness for that. And I live to tell the tale. So, let's move on to the last item on the list. This is a noun and it is gentrification. Gentrification. It's not a common word, so let's try and spell it together. G E N T R I F I C A T I O N. Gentrification. Gentrification. Gentrification. I even struggle to say it, to be honest. Gentrification is the process by which a place, especially a part of a city, changes from being a poor area to a richer one, where people from higher social classes live. Gentrification. That is a mouthful. Here's an example sentence."Working people had to leave the area because gentrification caused rents to increase." Very good. That's our five, so let's do a quick recap. We started with the idiom take a stand, which is to publicly declare your support or opposition to a particular issue or cause. Then we had the noun housing, housing meaning buildings or structures in which people live. We had the adjective radical, meaning something extreme or fundamental in its nature or beliefs. We had the verb escape. Escape which is to break free from confinement or to get away from danger. Then we finished with the noun gentrification, which is the process of an area going from being a poor area to becoming a richer one. Alright, so let's do this for pronunciation if you can. And I suggest you put your headphones in, just like one of my students Francesca does, so that when you are repeating after me, it just looks like you're talking on the phone. It's a really good trick. So, put your headphones in and repeat after me. Take a stand. Take a stand. Housing. Housing. Radical. Radical. Escape. Escape. Gentrification. Gentrification. Okay. What's the noun that we can use instead of saying homes? A place where people live. What noun could we use instead? Housing. Yes. When developers or politicians are talking about building more homes, they might use the term housing. We need to provide more housing. What idiom would we use if we are to publicly declare our opposition to something? We're going to take a stand. That's what we're going to do. And if people think that our beliefs are quite extreme, what adjective could they use? They might say,"I'm being quite radical in my beliefs." Anna took a stand for the snails. That's quite radical. She's quite a radical person. She should focus on the lack of housing instead. And what verb would we use if someone was trying to break free from confinement? Escape. They're trying to escape. Absolutely. And finally, what's the noun that I couldn't pronounce very well that describes the process of a place becoming richer, where people from higher social classes live? Gentrification. That's right. Do you find it any easier to pronounce than I do? Hopefully. Alright, so, now, let's listen out for those items in today's storytime."They say I'm radical. I say they're not radical enough," Pauline shouted through the megaphone at the rally. The crowd cheered. She couldn't believe that she had gotten into politics. Growing up, she had never ever imagined speaking in front of a crowd. It all started a year ago when a property developer proposed building luxury flats in Pauline's area, a poor part of town. Pauline was worried that this would lead to gentrification. When richer people move to poorer neighbourhoods like hers, it can become too expensive for single mums like her to stay. She had seen it happen in other parts of the city. So Pauline took a stand against the new property development. She went to meetings with the developers and the city council. She wrote letters to local politicians. She organised a petition against the new apartments. And people from the area gave her a lot of support. Pauline also asked the council for money to improve existing housing in the neighbourhood. Many homes were cold in winter and hot in summer. She also wanted to create a new public park for her children and their friends to play in. In the end, despite all her efforts, Pauline's campaign hasn't yet won. The building of the luxury apartments is on pause for now. She got the impression that the council was on the side of the property developers. But the local politicians listened to her arguments. And some even gave their support. She's still waiting for the money, though! The experience made Pauline decide to enter local politics. She's now campaigning for the city council to give money to poorer areas to improve them. It's hard work, but she's proud of what she has achieved. Instead of escaping the area, she's working to make it better, for her and for her children. It's been a delight tickling your eardrums today. I do hope you found it useful or at the very least entertaining. Thank you for joining me this week. I look forward to tickling your eardrums once again next week. Until then, take very good care and goodbye.