coffee break english season 2 episode 4 [Music] hello and welcome to coffee break english my name's josie and i'm mark and we're very happy to be here with you today for another episode of coffee break english yes here on the coffee break english podcast each week we take a different text to discuss and this week we're off to ireland to learn about st patrick's day said patrick's day is something that is very well known all around the world but perhaps some of our listeners don't know about the origins of st patrick's day let's find out
more about this in today's text josie is there anything in particular that we're going to be looking at from a grammatical point of view yes so today we are going to be focusing on um a very common verb tense very common verb form which is the present perfect and we're going to be uh looking at when we use the present perfect with the words since and for that sounds like a good idea let's begin the lesson as usual let's listen to the text and then we'll talk about it [Music] hello josie hi mark my name
is stephen and i'm reporting to you here from sunny dublin in today's text we're talking about an important celebration of irish culture known throughout the world let's get started st patrick's day is a traditional irish festival and it has been celebrated in ireland since the early 17th century since then the celebrations have spread all around the world and the uk switzerland south korea the usa and argentina are just some of the countries which now recognize this festival in fact st patrick's day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival so what makes it
so popular st patrick's day was made an official christian feast day in the early 17th century saint patrick was the man who introduced christianity to ireland in the fifth century so he was regarded as a very important person the celebration is on the 17th of march every year which was the day of saint patrick's death st patrick's day has been a major celebration in ireland and abroad for hundreds of years the main reason that the day is so popular in so many different countries is because of the big international communities of irish immigrants in the
19th century the potato was an important crop for the people of ireland but when the crops became infected no potatoes grew facing a serious famine many irish families emigrated to other countries and now people with irish ancestors can be found all over the world since then irish culture and traditions have spread to many countries which is why st patrick's day has become so popular today the celebrations involve parties parades and other fun traditions people often wear green and irish clovers called shamrocks are displayed in homes bars and restaurants in chicago the city's plumbers union colors
the chicago river green for 24 hours to celebrate st patrick's day they have done this every year for over 50 years maybe you can find some st patrick's day events near you to take part in next march 17th [Music] thank you very much josie do you celebrate st patrick's day i have celebrated st patrick's day in the past here in scotland being quite close to ireland we have a lot of uh events happening on st patrick's day okay let's go back through the text and talk a little more about st patrick's day good idea and
this time would you like to read it for us mark okay no problem st patrick's day is a traditional irish festival and it has been celebrated in ireland since the early 17th century yes so here the the first thing to notice is the spelling of saint so obviously this word is spelt s-a-i-n-t but when we write it we abbreviate it we shorten it we write s-t-dot okay so saint patrick's day s-t-dot patrick's day and it has been celebrated in ireland since the early 17th century good yes so here we have our first use of the
present perfect tense the present perfect has been is made up of the verb have or in this case has because it's the third person it plus the past participle which in this case is an irregular past participle it's been that's the past participle or the the third form of the verb let's just remind ourselves of the three forms of that verb yes we have be was or were in the past simple and been the past participle so it has been celebrated in ireland since the early 17th century good so this here the present perfect is
used for an action which started in the past so it started in the 17th century and it continues to the present so st patrick's day started in the early 17th century and it's still celebrated today and it will be in the future okay could we have some other examples of this structure of course so here we're using the word since and since tells us when the action started so for example we could say i have studied english since i was 10 years old okay there you're seeing when you started studying english you were 10 years
old and you're continuing to study english exactly or alternatively he has lived in scotland since 2010. in that case you're identifying a date or a year as to when he started living in scotland that's right exactly okay let's continue okay since then the celebrations have spread all around the world and the uk switzerland south korea the usa and argentina are just some of the countries which now recognize this festival good so here immediately we have another use of the present perfect with since since then so then is this specific point in time when the celebration
started since then the celebrations have spread all around the world and spread is an irregular verb but it's actually quite simple we have the present spread the past simple spread and the past participle also spread nice and easy indeed the next thing which is interesting in this sentence is the spelling of the word recognize as we've already seen many times why is this interesting mark i think our listeners will know this by now i s e in the uk in british english i z or z e in american english exactly let's continue in fact saint
patrick's day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival so what makes it so popular good i think we can continue straight on to the next part mark let's find out why it is so popular saint patrick's day was made an official christian feast day in the early 17th century yes so an official christian feast day the word christian can be an adjective to describe the faith of christianity so this feast it is a christian feast day or it can be used to describe a person who follows the faith of christianity a christian
in that case it would be unknown that's right exactly so it's a christian feast day what is a feast mark it's a celebration a big meal very often that's right exactly so we eat lots of food often to to celebrate something okay okay let's continue saint patrick was the man who introduced christianity to ireland in the 5th century so he was regarded as a very important person yes so he was regarded as a very important person a couple of episodes ago in episode one in fact we looked at the passive and here's another nice example
of the passive voice he was regarded we could say people regarded saint patrick as a very important person or if we want to start with the interesting part st patrick we say he was regarded so using the passive voice there excellent okay so the celebration is on the 17th of march every year which was the day of st patrick's death so let's take a look at this date so when you said this date mark you said the 17th of march but often when we see this written down we don't write it with the words the
and of included usually we just see 17th march and when we say this date we have to add in the 17th of march and that applies to pretty much all dates that's right it's not only the 17th of march you're right okay we're going to take a short break there and we will be back in just a moment to find out more about st patrick's day and how it is celebrated around the world [Music] each episode of the coffee break english podcast is free and you can use our podcast to help you improve your english
but there's more that's right we have a full course available on our website which will help you make faster progress and understand everything much better for every lesson we offer videos bonus audio recordings lesson notes with exercises and vocabulary lists in lots of languages all this is available on the coffee break academy so visit coffee break academy dot com [Music] welcome back today we're learning about st patrick's day and we're about to find out how it is celebrated around the world would you like to continue with the text mark okay st patrick's day has been
a major celebration in ireland and abroad for hundreds of years good so here we have another example of the present perfect st patrick's day has been a major celebration for hundreds of years again we're using the present perfect to say that this action started in the past and it continues to the present it's still a major celebration today this time instead of using the word since to tell us when the action started which word are we using mark we're using the word for that's right and for is used to say how long the action has
lasted so far until now so it's used with a period of time so we say for hundreds of years that's a very long period of time i think it would be useful to see more examples of this good idea for example we could say i have studied english for five years okay in that situation you have studied english for five years the period of time is five years and that's the the focus here that's right or we could say i have lived in scotland for a long time again the focus is the long time that
you have lived in scotland can we compare that with our earlier sentences we can indeed so earlier we said i have lived in scotland since 2010. there we used the word since to show the exact time when i started living in scotland 2010 if we compare that with i have lived in scotland for a long time four is used to show how long the period of time is that i have lived in scotland that makes perfect sense good there's one other thing i'd like to talk about here and that's the word abroad so st patrick's
day is celebrated in ireland and abroad what does abroad mean mark abroad means overseas or not in the country about which we're talking that's right exactly okay would you like to continue the main reason that the day is popular in so many countries is because of the big international communities of irish immigrants good i think we can continue from there as well in the 19th century the potato was an important crop for the people of ireland but when the crops became infected potatoes grew so the potato was an important crop a crop is a plant
or an animal product that we grow for food to eat in this case the potato that's right facing a serious famine many irish families emigrated to other countries and now people with irish ancestors can be found all over the world yes so here we have the word famine which means an extreme lack of food okay and we also saw emigrated and previously in this passage we heard about immigrants can you explain the difference that's right so they're very similar words emigrated and immigrate emigrate immigrate so to immigrate means to come into a country you can
think of immigrate begins with an i so they're coming in immigrate coming in and then to emigrate means to go out of a country to exit a country so we have the ease there to emigrate to exit perfect so that makes more sense now so lots of irish families emigrated to other countries and now people with irish ancestors can be found all over the world what about ancestors yes so ancestors are are your family or your relations people related to you but they are usually people who are older than your grandparents so if you think
of the word ancient we have a n ancient very old ancestors your distant relatives good since then irish culture and traditions have spread to many countries which is why st patrick's day has become so popular good so here again we have another use of the present perfect with the word since since then since this specific point in time irish culture and traditions have spread to many countries this culture has spread and it's still spreading today good let's read our final paragraph now today the celebrations involve parties parades and other fun traditions that's right so what's
a parade mark a parade is when people walk through the streets of a town sometimes there are bands dancers musicians singers and sometimes people dress in a particular way that's right yes let's continue people often wear green and irish clovers called shamrocks are displayed in homes bars and restaurants good so irish clovers called shamrocks a clover is a kind of a plant a kind of little leaf sometimes it has three leaves and sometimes it has four and we say if you find a four-leafed clover it's very lucky isn't it absolutely it brings good luck to
you that's right so these irish clovers they have a special name they're called shamrocks and there's one city in particular which is mentioned here isn't their mark that's right in chicago the city's plumbers union colors the chicago river green for 24 hours to celebrate st patrick's day good so the city's plumbers union so a plumber is a person who you will call if you have a problem with your your sink or your toilet and you need the the water system to be fixed somehow and the union of plumbers in chicago do something special to the
river for st patrick's day they do they color it green so the whole river turns green just for 24 hours though i would really like to see this they have done this every year for over 50 years good so here we have our final example of the present perfect in this text today they have done this every year for over 50 years so this means that the the plumbers they first started coloring the river green 50 years ago so a long time ago and they have done this every year since then and they will probably
continue in the future okay maybe you can find some st patrick's day events near you to take part in next march 17th good so to finish we have a phrasal verb here to take part in and this just means to participate in so maybe you could participate in some st patrick's day events and celebrations excellent it's time now to listen to the text one more time st patrick's day is a traditional irish festival and it has been celebrated in ireland since the early 17th century since then the celebrations have spread all around the world and
the uk switzerland south korea the usa and argentina are just some of the countries which now recognize this festival in fact st patrick's day is celebrated in more countries than any other national festival so what makes it so popular st patrick's day was made an official christian feast day in the early 17th century saint patrick was the man who introduced christianity to ireland in the fifth century so he was regarded as a very important person the celebration is on the 17th of march every year which was the day of saint patrick's death st patrick's day
has been a major celebration in ireland and abroad for hundreds of years the main reason that the day is so popular in so many different countries is because of the big international communities of irish immigrants in the 19th century the potato was an important crop for the people of ireland but when the crops became infected no potatoes grew facing a serious famine many irish families emigrated to other countries and now people with irish ancestors can be found all over the world since then irish culture and traditions have spread to many countries which is why st
patrick's day has become so popular today the celebrations involve parties parades and other fun traditions people often wear green and irish clovers called shamrocks are displayed in homes bars and restaurants in chicago the city's plumbers union colors the chicago river green for 24 hours to celebrate st patrick's day they have done this every year for over 50 years maybe you can find some st patrick's day events near you to take part in next march 17th [Music] thanks for joining us for this episode of coffee break english we hope that you've enjoyed it if you would
like to be able to read the text along with us and also access the bonus materials for this episode you can do so at the coffee break academy just go to coffee break academy dot com that's right mark and if you'd like to practice your english you can also do so on social media just search for coffee break english on facebook and on instagram where we post regular language challenges and cultural information we'll be back again soon with another episode of coffee break english and in that episode we are coming home we are heading to
scotland for now thanks for listening and we'll see you again soon bye bye [Music] you have been listening to a coffee break languages production for the radiolingua network copyright 2021 radiolingual limited recording copyright 2021 radiolingual limited all rights reserved
