Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 51, Day 4 of Your English Five a Day. This series gives you your healthy daily dose of English vocabulary so that you can feel empowered and more confident when using English. Remember that all the vocabulary from the entire series is recorded for you in the Master Sheet. Yes, I have a huge database that's available for free. All you have to do is fill out the form in the description. So, without further ado, let's start today's episode. We begin with the phrasal verb pick up. Now I know we had this yesterday, but today's version has a completely different meaning. To pick up as in to buy something. Pick up, P I C K. Up, U P. Pick up. So, this means to buy something often cheaply. So, we'd often pair this with the phrase a bargain."I managed to get five boxes of cereal for the price of three." Or"I picked up a bargain at Oxfam today. I got a designer dress for just£5." Here's another example,"I managed to pick up a great pair of shoes at the sale for half the original price." It's always fun when you pick up something of value for a really, really knocked-down price. That always makes me happy. I don't know about you. Okay, next on the list we have the adjective downbeat, downbeat. We spell this D O W N B E A T. Downbeat. Downbeat. If someone or something is described as downbeat, then it's depressing. It doesn't have much hope for the future. It's quite downbeat. Here's an example,"The downbeat ending of the film left the audience feeling sad." When I think of being depressed, I'm always reminded of the donkey character from Winnie the Pooh, his name was Eeyore, and he was always quite downbeat. He was always a little depressed, a little blue, we might say. Okay, next on the list is the noun clutter, clutter. So, clutter, we spell C L U T T E R. Clutter. Clutter is a lot of things that make a mess. So, if a room is untidy because there are lots of things in there that are quite disorganised, then you would say that the house is full of clutter. We need to move this clutter. The house is full of clutter. I can't work in this room. It's full of clutter. I can't find my keyboard on my desk because my desk is covered in clutter. That is true, actually. Unfortunately, as much as I like to be minimalist and tidy, I have a habit of scribbling notes on everything. I like to write things down. It's just in my nature to write things out rather than type notes into my computer. And so I have notes everywhere. It's such a mess. Lots of clutter. Here's another example,"The garage was full of old boxes, tools, and other clutter, making it difficult to find anything." Next on the list we have the phrasal verb. Clear out. Clear out. Clear out. We spell C L E A R. Clear. And then out, O U T, clear out. What you'll hear is the R becomes pronounced when we put them together. If you were saying them separately, clear has no R pronunciation, but together, the R links. So, the R is pronounced clear out, clear out. So, to clear out is to make something empty or clean by removing things or throwing things away. So, if you do have a lot of clutter in your garage, then you'll have to clear it out. You'll need to clear out the garage at some point. Here's another example,"My aunt and uncle are moving soon, so they're clearing out their house." Alright, last on the list is the noun car boot sale, car boot sale. Three words, car, C A R. Boot, B O O T. Sale, S A L E. Car boot sale. A car boot sale is an outdoor sale where people sell things that they no longer want using tables or the backs of their cars and they put things on their car on their table, on their boots, hanging from the car doors. So, basically, it's any average person throws some stuff in the back of their car. They drive to a car boot sale, usually on a Saturday or Sunday morning in a local field or car park, you pay a fee, and you then park your car in the field. You open up the boot and you pull everything out and you stand there, and people visit and give you some money for your old things that you don't want. That's a car boot sale. Do you have anything similar in your country? So, here's an example sentence,"She buys all kinds of things at car boot sales." Okay, so that's our five. Let's do a quick recap. We started with the phrasal verb pick up, meaning to buy something cheaply. Then we had the adjective downbeat, meaning depressing. We had the noun, clutter, which describes a lot of objects in a state of being untidy. We had the phrasal verb, clear out, which means to make something empty and clean by removing things or throwing them away. And we had the noun, car boot sale, which is that outdoor sale where people sell things they don't want from the back of their car. Alright, let's do this for pronunciation purposes. Please repeat after me. Pick up. Pick up. Downbeat. Downbeat. Clutter. Clutter. Clear out. Clear out. Car boot sale. Car boot sale. Fantastic. What's the adjective that I use to describe something that's depressing? Downbeat. Very good. And if I grab or buy something at a great price. What phrasal verb could I use? I picked something up. Yes, I picked something up for a great price. How exciting. And if I've picked up many bargains over the years and I now store all these objects just out in the open in a disorganised and untidy way, what noun could I use to describe all this mess? Clutter. Yes. All this clutter. Oh no. Now I'm going to have to find a phrasal verb that will help me to empty all this mess and clutter out of my house. What phrasal verb would I use? Clear out. Very good. One way of clearing out all the clutter would be to sell all my items from the back of my Volvo. What noun would I use to describe an outdoor sale where I sell things from the boot of my car? The clue is in the description, a car boot sale. Very good. Okay, listen out for these items once again in today's storytime. Simon stood in front of his father's garage, feeling downbeat. It had been two months since Dad passed away, and now Simon had to clear out years of clutter he had collected."Dad always loved a bargain," he thought, remembering how he would come home from car boot sales, excited about his latest finds. He would pick up all sorts of things: old books, broken clocks, even a rusty bicycle once."I'll fix it up," he'd say, but he rarely did. Simon opened the garage door and sighed. Every shelf was packed with items, each holding a memory. He picked up a small wooden box. Inside was a collection of colourful marbles."I remember playing with these as a kid," he smiled, feeling a lump in his throat. As he worked, Simon found himself caught between frustration and nostalgia. Some items were easy to put in the"rubbish" pile old paint cans, tangled Christmas lights, a broken vacuum cleaner."Why did Dad keep all this clutter?" he wondered. But others were harder to let go. He found Dad's favourite fishing rod, still in good condition."He always talked about teaching me to fish," Simon thought sadly. He decided to keep it, along with a few other special items. By evening, Simon had made good progress. The garage looked clearer and he had sorted everything into"keep,""sell,""rubbish" and"donate" piles. Looking at the"sell" pile, Simon decided to have his own car boot sale the following weekend."Dad would like that," he thought."Someone else can pick up a bargain like Dad used to." As he locked up the garage, Simon felt a mix of sadness and relief. Clearing out the clutter had been tough, but it had also helped him remember the good times with Dad. He knew he would be proud of him for tackling this difficult task. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. Thank you so much for letting me tickle your eardrums and I look forward to welcoming you back again tomorrow. So, until then, take very good care and goodbye. I have added the vocabulary from today's episode, along with the definition and the example sentences, to the Five a Day database, which includes all the vocabulary from the whole Five a Day series. If you would like to access this database, then click on the link in the show notes.