Hello and welcome to the English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 43, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day. I'm just here every day of the working week, Monday to Friday, trying very hard to increase your active vocabulary, improve your overall English, especially your listening skills, and keep you company whatever it is you're doing right now. So let's begin today's list with an idiom, to be as good as new. To be as good as new. Good, G O O D. As new, N E W. Now this is sometimes shortened to to be good as new. Occasionally we drop the first as. To be as good as new or to be good as new means that you are in very good condition. I'm saying you, it might be an object. I could say that my car is as good as new, because it's now in very good condition, just like it was when it was brand new. If you have your knee replaced, or your hip replaced, and someone says,"How is your knee these days? How's your hip now, since your operation?""Oh, good as new, thank you very much. It's working very well, no more pain. I can do squats again. It's as good as new." Here's an example sentence,"You should consider buying refurbished electronics. They are factory tested and as good as new." Next on the list is the noun skip, skip, S K I P. Now as a noun, a skip is a large metal container that people put their waste in, their unwanted objects. And they're often brought to and taken away from by a special truck, wherever it is, usually a home or a building site. You have to hire a skip. And this is for rubbish that's just too big to go into your normal bins. So, in the UK here, we mostly have wheelie bins, large bins on two wheels, that you can move around, that sit outside the front of your house, and this is for your general waste. We also have wheelie bins for different recycling, for glass and paper, plastics. We have small caddies for food waste. But if you're going to do some building work, or something quite large in the garden, maybe you're going to take down a few trees, rip out some hedges, knock out an old wall in the garden, put in some decking, there's going to be a lot of waste that won't fit into your normal bin. And actually, things like garden waste and building rubble shouldn't go into your ordinary bins, so these have to go into a skip, so you have to hire this big metal skip. Here's an example sentence,"They hired a skip so they could clear out their house and start renovating it." Have you ever hired a skip? We actually did do a lot of work on our garden many years ago and we needed a number of skips because we did take out many hedges, replaced some fences, we tried to take out a bomb shelter, that is in our back garden, but it was very difficult. We had some rubble but we couldn't actually dismantle it so it still stands. We decided to clad it instead and we took out a lot of soil and that was just a mess. There's a lot of mess. So that all went into several skips. Next on the list is an idiom and it is in line with something. In line with something. We spell this in, I N. Line, L I N E. With something. To be in line with something means it's according to or following something such as a rule or a principle. So, if you have a principle and let's say it's you only eat whole foods, you don't eat ultra-processed foods at all, and that's your belief. You have this really strong belief system about nutritious food for your body. And then I say,"Let's go to a fast-food restaurant and get a burger." Then that offer I'm going to reject because it's not in line with my beliefs on healthy, nutritious food. It doesn't follow my rules, my principles. It's not in line with my beliefs. Here's another example,"It's hard to find a job that's in line with my values." Okay, next on the list is the noun frugality, frugality. We spell this F R U G A L I T Y, frugality. Frugality. Frugality is a way of living in which you use only as much money, or food, as is necessary. So you just use what you need. You don't have more than that. You're very frugal. Here's an example,"Together they practised extreme frugality and carefully saved money." Frugality is something that I'm very familiar with, especially this year, 2024. My partner was made redundant last year and it's been eight months. Eight months of absolute torture, not knowing what was going to happen because he was unable to quickly find another job. And there's only so much money in our bank account. So we've had to practice frugality. To make sure that we didn't lose the house, that we didn't have to leave our community and end up living back with the parents. That would be difficult. So we had to practice frugality. We had to be frugal. Luckily, I'm glad to say that that is all now behind us and Nick will soon start a new job, which we are thrilled about, but we've learned a lot. Having to be so frugal and practise frugality for so long has taught us that there are a few areas in our lives where we are possibly a little bit careless with our money. So this is great. This means that we have learned a good lesson on how to pull back our spending in certain areas so that we can focus the money into things that are more important to us like healthy food because the cost of food at the moment is extortionate. Especially healthy food, fresh fruit, vegetables, apart from carrots, carrots remain cheap as chips. Anyway, let's move on. The next and last item on today's list is the noun latter, latter. We spell this L A T T E R, the latter. The latter is the last of more than two people or more than two things that have just been mentioned. So, if I list off a few things and I now want to talk about the last thing that I mentioned in that list, then I would use the latter to refer to it. So for example, if I say,"The options for dinner are burger, pizza, or a lentil salad.""I would prefer the latter, to be honest." So, the latter there refers to the last thing in that list, which was a lentil salad. And it can refer to people as well. So if I'm saying,"There were three people in the bank just before the robbery happened there was the security guard, the man behind the counter and an old lady, and of course, the latter struggled to get down to the floor when the criminal came in and shouted,'Everyone down to the floor.'" So the latter just refers to the last thing mentioned in a list of things. Here's another example,"The two DJs, Mo and Jackson were both qualified and made amazing music, but I chose the latter because of his experience." Fantastic. Let's now do a quick recap of today's target vocabulary. We started with the idiom to be as good as new, to be as good as new, or simply good as new. This means to be in a very good condition, just like it was when it was new. Then we had the noun skip, skip, which refers to a large metal container that people put their waste into. We had the idiom in line with something, which means according to or following something like a rule or a principle. We had the noun frugality, which is a way of living where you only use as much money or food as is necessary. And then we had the noun latter, the latter, which refers to the last of a group of things that have just been mentioned. Okay, let's do this now for pronunciation purposes. Please repeat after me. To be as good as new. To be as good as new. Skip. Skip. In line with something. In line with something. Frugality. Frugality. The latter. The latter. Very good. Okay, let me now test your memory. What is the big metal container that we use for putting waste in? A skip. Yes, of course. And what's the noun that we use for a way of living where we only use as much as we need, no more? Frugality. Yes. And what's the idiom that describes something that's in very good condition, just like it was at the beginning? As good as new. Absolutely. And if something follows my particular set of principles, what idiom could I use? It is in line with my principles. Absolutely. And finally, if I mention three things, and now I want to refer specifically to the last thing, what noun would I use? The latter. Very good. Okay, please listen out for these items once again in today's storytime. Liam hated waste and had been raised by parents who taught him the value of money. So when he started rescuing and repairing unwanted items, no one was surprised. It all started one night as he walked down his street and noticed a skip. He decided to take a look inside. He saw a wooden chair with a missing leg and decided that he could repair it. So he took it home and started working on it. From that day forward, Liam made it his mission to rescue forgotten treasures from skips around town. His tiny flat soon filled with a huge variety of objects waiting to be restored: lamps with missing shades, tables with chipped paint, and even the odd bicycle with a bent wheel. Liam's hobby was perfectly in line with his values of frugality and environmental respect. He couldn't understand why people were so quick to throw items away that only needed minor repairs. As his skills improved, Liam began selling some of his refurbished finds online. But he found greater joy in giving away most of his creations to those in need. The latter became his preferred method of sharing his repaired objects. One day, Liam found an old sewing machine in remarkably good condition. After a thorough clean and oiling, it was as good as new. He donated it to a nearby community centre so that they could start a community sewing club to make and repair clothes. Word spread about Liam's knack for breathing new life into old, unwanted objects. Friends, family and neighbours would give him items to repair. Or tell him if they saw objects left in the street that he could refurbish. Liam's little flat might have looked cluttered to some, but to him, it was a workshop of possibilities. Each object held the promise of a second chance, waiting to be transformed from rubbish to treasure by his caring hands. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. I do hope you found it useful. If you did, please take a moment to leave a like if you're watching on YouTube or a rating or review, if you're listening on a streaming platform. Until tomorrow, take very good care of yourself. I look forward to tickling your eardrums then. So, take care and goodbye.