Easter

Aaaah. Spring has finally sprung. The beautiful flower buds are starting to blossom and bloom, as the birds cheerfully chirp. Consequentially, the countryside will be quite colorful and full of tons of contrasting sights, sounds, and smells. Let’s commence this spectacular season with a fantastic feast while we hunt for Easter eggs that may have been left behind by that beloved bunny. What’s up doc? No, not you Bugs Bunny. Join me as we stuff our faces with friends and family, on the exciting Easter episode of FYI!

Transcript

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spring has finally sprung the beautiful flower buds are starting to Blossom and Bloom as the birds cheerfully chirp consequentially the countryside will be quite colorful and full of tons of contrasting sights sounds and smells let's commence this spectacular season with a fantastic Feast while we hunt for Easter eggs that may have been left behind by that beloved bunny what's up doc no not you Bugs Bunny join me as we stuff our faces with friends and family on the exciting Easter episode of FYI welcome to for your info English you got it you got[Applause][Music][Applause][Applause][Music] it hello hello hello and welcome to this another exciting edition of FYI and folks you can probably hear it in my voice already I'm a bit stuffed up so you might hear me blowing my nose or sneezing but if that does happen don't worry I will edit it out but I thought I would just teach you that vocabulary so MOS hey it's something that you have to do in allergy season and today we're going to be talking a lot about the spring because as I said in the intro spring has finally sprung and to Spring is to show up and sprung is the third column the past participle it's an idiomatic expression that we often use with spring and if you heard at the beginning I also took a deep breath let's do that right now it feels really good inhale exhale and get ready to learn some exciting English I also said in the intro the Beautiful flower buds are starting to Blossom and you might remember some of this vocabulary from our gardening episode the bud is the unopened flower capuyo oh no no no I'm not insulting you I'm telling you what it's called Bud which is weird because capuyo is idiot or jerk in English and Bud is Amigo that's weird and to Blossom is another way of saying to bloom I think many of you remember that series that was on TV the sitcom Blossom I used to watch it religiously okay I admit it I admit it then I said the birds cheerfully chirp and birds chirp or tweet does that sound familiar chirp chirp chirp tweet tweet tweet we all know that from Twitter as well just remember if you write the word tweet in English it's not Twi T it's TW we t twit is kabuo hey that went full circle then I said consequentially the countryside will be quite colorful and full of tons of contrasting sights and smells I love the smell of spring I don't know about you guys but I love it when the flowers are starting to bloom you can smell different smells in the air and there's a certain newness in the air as well then I said let let's commence this spectacular season with a fantastic feast and did you like that word commence gar okay okay we copied you there but who doesn't want a fantastic Feast I think you say festine a big meal and of course we have to hunt for Easter eggs and we're going to talk about how the Easter egg hunt tradition began and of course we'll talk a little bit about that beloved Easter bunny as he goes hop hop hop and of course the most famous Bunny Bugs Bunny whose famous catchphrase in English is what's up doc my daughter loves imitating him she also imitates Daffy Duck this is Despicable remember imitation is so important when we're learning a language so are you ready to stuff your faces that means to pig out to eat a lot to Chow Down all right well friends and family jump on board as we discover Easter oh and Happy Easter so let's start out with the date when is Easter Easter is a mystery it changes the date changes from year to year it always falls on a Sunday but the actual date depends on the moon cycles and more specifically it's the Sunday after the pasal full moon and that rings a bell pasal pasal de Pasqua and a full moon is obviously unaa lunaa so it's another holiday that has to do with the seasons and the changing of the moons and the Sun and the stars and all their all the constellations stuff that I don't even know the first thing about but I still find fascinating but as we looked at in many episodes Halloween it's about the change in Seasons the Harvest Christmas Thanksgiving even though they have their religious Roots they all have something to do with the changing a new beginning a new season a new moon so let's define Easter Easter is also called Pasha not Pasa like that club in itha it's also called Resurrection Sunday and it is a Christian festival and cultural holiday careful with that word cultural I've heard people say cool right it's cultural and it commemorates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead when he rises from the dead and comes back on the third[Laughter][Music] day this is described in the New Testament which by the way if you haven't heard the FYI episode on the Bible with my mom give it a listen my mom is awesome or as I always tell people the way to remember the pronunciation of bomb my mom is the bomb so according to the New Testament on the third day after his burial Jesus rose from the grave as the Bible says he was crucified and this is the culmination of what is called the passion of Jesus Christ it's preceded by lent or great lent we just call it lent I think you say quisma well this is a 40-day period of fasting prayer and Penance and to fast is to go without food how do you say this aun in English breakfast okay but if you split the words up break fast this it's a good way to remember it's also a regular verb he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights Christians commonly refer to the weak before Easter as Holy Week you say the same thing seana Santa and in Western Christianity it begins on Palm Sunday you say Domingo de Ramos we call it Palm Sunday and then you've got spy Wednesday which is the Betrayal of Jesus then you've got M Thursday which commemorates the washing of the feet at the Last Supper and the Last Supper is laulaa I know what you're thinking thinking isn't it the last dinner well yes supper is another way to say it and this painting is called The Last Supper here's a little trivia question for you where can you find this famous painting The Last Supper did you say Milan nice job you really know your art and then of course you've got Good Friday and I think that's always a funny one Santo have a good good Friday and obviously it was not a good Friday this commemorates the crucifixion of Jesus Christ Easter is also linked to Passover and growing up in New York around a lot of Jewish people I knew a lot about Passover and this is The Exodus from Egypt it's recorded in the Old Testament through the last supper sufferings and the crucifixion that obviously precede the resurrection and according to this Jesus gave the Passover meal again there's the meal they sharing and he gave this meal a new meaning he supposedly identified the bread and the cup of wine as his body soon to be sacrificed and his blood soon to be shed we all know this now it's represented in the communion and obviously depending on what religion you follow you'll have different ideas different beliefs even within Christianity Easter is usually a public holiday holiday especially in countries where Christianity is a state religion or where most of the population is christian but think about it as Easter always falls on a Sunday well you don't get a day off at least not in the United States some people move it on over to Monday and they give you Monday off again usually not in the United States also Good Friday tends to be a holiday as well in many of the countries that celebrate Easter and if you've got the day off it's definitely a good good Friday and you'll even find on Good Friday that many financial institutions stock markets and public schools are closed and if they're normally open on Easter Sunday well obviously they close that Sunday as well in the Nordic countries Good Friday Easter Sunday and Easter Monday are public holidays in Denmark Iceland and Norway v d Thursday is also a public holiday so every region has their own celebrations and decides how many days off you'll get because that's the question we all want to know how many days off do we get let's take a look at some traditions right now some Easter Traditions will'll find are sunrise services services at the crack of dawn a service is a mass also you'll find late night vigils and midnight masses Church churches are also very floral they decorate them with a lot of flowers again we're announcing A New Beginning spring has come the Lord has risen it's very common for women to wear Easter bonnets Easter bonnets are these very decorative hats they even have Easter bonnet competitions which we'll talk about in the bonus part and we'll look at some idiomatic expressions there's one that comes to mind with bonnets but we'll look at that in the bonus episode we'll also take a look at Spring Break destinations in the United States we'll take a look at it in pop culture we'll also take a look at the Dark Side of these Easter celebrations oh yes there's always a dark side and of course some fun facts and tons of idiomatic expressions all that and much more in the bonus episode of this week's FYI if you want access to to that bonus episode plus PDF documents where you can follow along and you can even get classes with me where we review the vocabulary from each episode and if that's not enough you can even get private classes with me but all of that is over on patreon.com Alberto Alonso I think there are 180 of us in the community right now and it is absolutely mind blowing thank you so much guys for wanting to be a part of my community for contributing to my community and keep up the great work you know who you are in fact I'd like to take a moment right now to send a shout out to all my patrons especially my super duper students Marta Javier Paco Roberto and my Interstellar students the ones who get a private class with me every month along along with the review classes every week give it up for Carmen Lena Issa Bako David Jose Maria Patricio and Edgar if you want to find out more go over to patreon.com Alberto Alonso and join our curious Community other Traditions that are associated with Easter are Easter parades and you don't even have to be religious to go to an Easter Parade parades are fun and don't let anybody rain on your parade did you like that joke all right it wasn't that funny but did you know that idiomatic expression I won't let anybody re on My Parade nest in some parts of Eastern Europe you have communal dancing hey that might be a good place for you to go Jos Maria you can go there for Easter one year and practice your communal dancing your traditional Easter communal dancing a shout out to Jos Maria one of my students who's also a dance student of course we already mentioned the Easter Bunny and Easter egg hunts but there's also food that's made traditional breads that are made traditional dishes and depending on what region or culture you live in they're different some are the same such such as jelly beans jelly beans and chocolate oh is anybody getting hungry anybody here with a sweet tooth I got to say I'm not really a chocolate lover but I love jelly beans well did you know that 16 billion jelly beans are produced in the United States every year yeah that is a lot of jelly beans if you put them together end to end they could circle the Earth more than five times just a little fun foodie fact there and we'll take a look at more fun foodie facts in the bonus episode but whether you're having chocolate eggs or chocolate bunnies chocolate is huge and please please don't say chocolate it's chocolate say it with me chocolate and if you haven't heard the FYI episode on chocolate give it a listen the first thing I cover in the episode is how to pronounce it correctly but I will warn you the episode may cause hunger so when did this Easter bunny show up well I don't know when he showed up in the world but I can tell you when he showed up in the United States it was the 18th century and Germans who immigrated to America brought this tradition this tradition called osteras I don't know if I'm pronouncing it correctly but they brought it with them and this was basically the tradition of a bunny who magically laid eggs so the Easter Bunny appear in the United States in the 1700s I didn't know he was that old or she well it is androgynous and what about dying eggs or decorating eggs I love doing this in fact some of my earliest Easter memories are sitting around the table with my mom and my sister and my cousins and dying eggs and no I don't mean dying m i mean dying but I had no idea as a little kid that the egg is an ancient symbol of new life and rebirth and in Christianity it's become associated with Jesus's crucifixion and Resurrection but the custom of the Easter egg originated in the early Christian Community of Mesopotamia and there they stained eggs red in memory of the blood of Christ the blood that he shed at his crucifixion also the east egg is a symbol of the empty tomb I had no idea that those Traditions went back so far I thought we were just coloring eggs and making them look cool oh and I recommend you use hard-boiled eggs and of course you can eat them afterwards no need to waste food nowadays too you see a lot of people replacing real eggs with plastic eggs or chocolate eggs or you know maybe plastic ones filled with jelly beans there's no wrong way to do an Easter egg hunt and when did this Easter egg hunt thing start we're getting there trust me it just wouldn't be Easter if I didn't mention peeps because we already mentioned chocolate and we also mentioned jelly beans but what about peeps do you peeps know what Peeps are Peeps is in another way saying hente my peeps but Peeps are also these little marshmallow candies that are sugar covered and they're very popular not all year round they're very popular during Easter if you haven't tried peeps they're awesome they're addictive but I didn't realize that the idea behind the sweets is that a lot of people give up sweets for Lent so obviously Easter Sunday they're finally able to have something sweet it makes total sense now we're getting to the famous Easter egg hunt and I want to send a shout out to my aunt Grace who used to be our Easter Bunny oh yeah I know I know my parents did a great job but my aunt Grace for some reason she really loved this holiday and she would go all out L and I remember her hiding Easter eggs all around my grandmother's yard and we would spend what felt like hours hunting for Easter eggs just to see who would get the most and was magical to say the least I have a huge beaming smile on my face right now so again it's like every holiday it's got the meaning that you attach to it in this case whether you're religious or not it's a time to be with your friends and family I mean who doesn't like seana Santa it's that break before the summer that you really really need that spring break and we'll talk about that in the bonus part because spring break when we say that in the United States something else else comes to mind party woo but right now we're going to go back to 1875 the British Chocolate Company cadberry the famous cadberry eggs if you haven't tried those they're excellent they sponsored an annual Easter egg hunt this was in the UK and that caught on like wildfire it eventually spread to the United States where now on Easter Monday the president of the United States holds the annual Easter egg roll this takes place on the White House lawn and it's aimed at children so the way the egg roll works is this you have to be 13 and under obviously it's not open to everybody I don't know how you would sign up well anyway that's besides the point but it was started in the United States by Dolly Madison the wife of President James Madison they started the EV event in 1814 and it's still practiced to this day this tradition with children on the White House lawn rolling eggs and the way it works is they push an egg through the grass with a l handled spoon obviously the Easter Bunny makes an appearance there are speeches there's a band I mean it's a very festive experience but don't take my word for it why don't we listen to former president Trump presenting the Easter egg role when he was president as you can see it's a time when everybody puts their politics aside and I think the main goal is to make sure the kids have fun and enjoy this amazing holiday let's go to the White House lawn well welcome to the 2018 White House Easter Egg Roll so many people you know are supposed to be pouring the weather it was supposed to be very rainy and nasty and cold and windy and look what we have perfect weather perfect weather beautiful weather thank you all for being here folks thank you all I want to really thank the first lady Melania who has done an incredible job she works so hard on this event and so I want to thank you that's also I want to thank the White House historical Association and and all of the people that work so hard with Melania with everybody to keep this incredible house or building or whatever you want to call it because there really is no name for it it is special and we keep it in tiptop shape we call it sometimes tippy top shape and it's a great great place it's an honor to have everybody on behalf of the Trump family many of whom are with us right here in the audience I just want to thank you this is a special year uh our country is doing great you look at the economy you look at what's happening nothing's ever easy but we have never had an economy like we have right now and we're going to make it bigger and better and stronger our military is now at a level will soon be at a level that it's never been before it's uh you see what's happening and you see what's happening with funding the funding of our military was so important and so many military people are with us today so just think of $700 billion because that's all going into our military this year so I want to thank you all for being here the band unbelievable I love you people I hear them a lot they're as talented as anybody and any players anywhere so thank you very much and now I'm going to come down and we're going to watch this rooll thank you all and have a great time thank you happy Easter thank you thank you very much well we have reached the end of the first part I sure hope you'll join us in the bonus episode of this week's[Applause][Applause][Music] FYI