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Big Birthdays
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Big Birthdays
生日大事

Learn the First Conditional

Date: Mar 09 2012

Themes: Party

Grammar: First Conditional

Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

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When you’re a kid, every birthday is a big deal. But as you get older, some birthdays seem more important than others. Twenty-one is an important birthday in the US, because that’s when it’s finally legal for you to drink alcohol. And 30 is another birthday that people like to go all out for. On the other hand, even some adults feel that every birthday is a big birthday. Find out which birthdays Amy and Mason think are the most important.

当你还是孩子的时候,每次生日都是一桩大事。但是当你逐渐长大,有些生日似乎比其他生日更为重要。在美国,21 岁是个重要的生日,因为过了这一天你就可以合法地喝酒了。30 岁也非常重要,人们希望从此后全力以赴。另一方面,甚至有些年轻人认为每个生日都是一桩大事。找出艾米和梅森认为哪些生日最重要。

Dialog

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Amy

Amy

Mason

Mason

Amy:  I’m so excited, Mason. I’m about to kick off my birthday month.

Mason:  Birthday month?

Amy:  Oh yeah.

Mason:  Is this like a big…you hitting one of the big milestones this year?

Amy:  Twenty-eight. Big enough. It’s another year of life. I’m gonna celebrate it.

Mason:  I mean, sure, but 28? That’s super not important.

Amy:  What? I think every birthday is important. I think it’s important to have special days.

Mason:  Well, I appreciate that you go all out and treat yourself right for your birthday. But if you set the bar so high for 28, what are you gonna do for an actual important birthday, like 30?

Amy:  Well, I guess next year I’m just gonna have to party all year, pretty much.

Mason:  Really? Wow. I would love to see the kind of birthday presents you get.

Amy:  You know, it’s not just about the presents. I mean, it’s about recognizing the milestone, you know? Just throwing a big party. I mean, I like to do things for other people during my birthday month, too, like bring cupcakes to work.

Mason:  That’s cool. At least you’re not one of those people who expects everybody around them to do everything for them for their birthday. You know, there are those people who, like, make a big deal of it, like, “Hey, you know, my birthday’s coming up, I hope somebody does something nice for me!”

Amy:  Well, my feeling is, if you do that, just drop some friendly reminders, then you won’t be disappointed.

 

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Discussion

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Amy likes to celebrate her birthday for a whole month. She is about to start celebrating her birthday month, even though she is only turning 28 this year. Most people don’t think that 28 is a milestone birthday.

Mason doesn’t make a big deal out of his birthday, especially if it’s not a milestone year. He doesn’t like it when other people expect him to go all out for their birthdays, either.

But Amy thinks that every birthday is important. It marks another year of life. For her, that’s milestone enough.

What are the most important birthdays in your culture? Do you like to go all out for every year, or only for milestone birthdays?

 

Comments

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sibby724

sibby724

Taiwan

never celebrate my bday before.

04:48 AM Mar 09 2012 |

Sony  ;)

Sony ;)

Argentina

I had my party of 15 at 17th December 2011, It was really big and funny. I had a big cake, there was a lot of food and a lot of people (almost 150. This is a costume so nice. We danced all night, there was a video with photos from I was born to now. Very very nice!!

 julito

julito

Argentina

In Argentina, girls have a big party at the age of  fifteen. Usually parents  start  making monthly payments  to the caterer  and  the salon owner one year  before, so costly is  to throw a  fancy  party  for their daugther, but they don´t care , she is already fifteen but to them is still their baby. At first, a tearly  father  dance a valtz  with his daughter  and then her siblings and friends, after that  the salon break loose  with rock  and that , they will eat, drink and dance all night ,to top it off, the next morning   the caterer will serve pizza. isn´t this crazy ?

08:05 PM Mar 08 2012 |

AppleRome

AppleRome

Antarctica

In Indonesia, when reaching age around 21th years old, the youngsters will already feel something tremendous change in their life. I dont know how to describe it exactly; but for even starting to be new adult is really hard here!


Rat-racing competition, VERY BIG responsibility, hard facts shown (e.g broken family that is of course commonly found in big cities, etc) just suddenly drop off the head at the same time. The sad thing is mostly typical Indonesia parents dont prepare the youngster ENOUGH. They just raise the children; not raise them with good real parenting & vision that life is going to be getting hard. I can say, most Indonesian parents are too pampering .. or maybe is it called “neglecting” ?


But for birthday party, Indonesian people actually celebrates it in any age.


17th years old is indeed precious celebration (for sake of you are in senior high school, so you must show off to complete your teenager phase HAHAHA!) .. but overally for any age, most people usually celebrate with party & of course with no milestone! HAHA! ^^

07:47 PM Mar 08 2012 |

manik athawale

India

I would like to be present at birthday party but that part organizers make sure don’t make big sound and averments pollutions

10:26 AM Mar 08 2012 |

jacky.jw.lin@gmail.com

Taiwan

I would like to go all out for milestone birthday such as twenty, thirty, fourty .. etc. The reason is that it marks another stage of your life. It’s worth memoriable.

03:13 AM Mar 08 2012 |

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