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Edwin
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Buddhi
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Home Cooking
Edwin talks about eating Chinese food at home in Australia.
Buddhi: So, Edwin, now that you're here, do you usually cook for yourself or you eat outside?
Edwin: I usually eat outside because I'm a very terrible cook. I could potentially burn salads.
Buddhi: So, back at home, how was it done? You guys cook at home. I mean your mom.
Edwin: My mom usually cooked. Because of my Chinese ethnicity, she usually cooks Chinese food, cause Australian food is pretty boring, so she cooks ... usually cooks Chinese food.
Buddhi: I remember back in my country, we also do a lot of Chinese food, and they did turn out to be quite spicy. Is it spicy as well? Or maybe, it's because in Sri Lanka, we use the spicy stuff. Or what would you say?
Edwin: Well, some Chinese food is spicy. It just depends on which part of China it comes from. My parents are from Hong Kong, and Hong Kong food usually is not spicy, so yeah, I don't really like spicy food ... too spicy food, so yeah, my mom usually cooks really just bland food.
Buddhi: So, you guys always just eat Chinese food, or do you eat Australian food as well.
Edwin: We rarely eat Australian food. My parents are pretty conservative when it comes to food, so yeah, they pretty much stick with Chinese food.
Buddhi: If you do eat any Australian food, what kind of foods do you eat?
Edwin: I guess the most common one would be the meat pie. A lot of kids eat it in high school during lunch with tomato sauce, but something that's really interesting ... an interesting Australian dish would be the kangaroo.
Buddhi: OK.
Edwin: Yeah, I've had that a couple times. It tastes really good. You can call it a delicacy I guess, but we don't always eat it every day. Have you tried kangaroo?
Buddhi: Never. Never.
Edwin: Would you like to try?
Buddhi: I'll say yes, cause I like to try new foods, but I don't all kinds of meat. I just eat chicken only, so yeah, but I'll try cause you recommend it.
potentially
I could potentially burn salads.
"Potentially" means things that are possible or the ability exists for them to happen in the future.
- Rebecca is a potentially great tennis player, if she just practiced more.
- Elllo has the potential to be the number one English listening site on the web.
pretty
Australian food is pretty boring.
In this case "pretty" modifies the word boring to mean quite boring, a reasonably high degree of boring.
- I find fishing from the bank pretty boring, just sitting and watching the water for hours.
- Old castles in Europe are pretty interesting because they have so much history behind them.
conservative
My parents are pretty conservative when it comes to food.
Conservative here means to not take risks or be adventurous. Notice the word "pretty" has again been used to modify conservative giving it more emphasis.
- The Republican party in America is considered conservative in its politics.
- At a conservative estimate, about 1 billion people in the world are illiterate.
stick with
My parents pretty much stick with Chinese food.
"To stick" with something means to stay with it and not change to something else. Here again "pretty" modifies the "stick with" so that the meaning is "My parents mostly eat Chinese food."
- Studying any new language is difficult, but if you stick with it long enough, you will get better.
- At university I had a chance to change from English to psychology, but I decided to stick with the language unit.
a couple times
I've had that a couple times.
"Couple" literally means 2, but in this case could mean 2 or 3.
- I had a couple of colds last winter because we had so much rain.
- Give me a couple of ice creams for Tom and Jerry.
Vocabulary Quiz
stick with • couple of times
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