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Episode: 4 classic Christmas movies (Fend off)

Author: Plain English
Duration: 00:15:48

Episode Shownotes

Christmas-themed movies are almost as old as the movies themselves. In today's lesson, you'll hear about four classic Christmas movies from four different decades (and two movies that don't count!). Plus, learn the English expression "fend off."Full lesson: https://plainenglish.com/532 --Upgrade all your skills in English: Plain English is the best

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Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_00
Hi there! JR and I are taking some well-deserved time off during the holidays, and you probably are too. But I understand that you might want to squeeze some English in during this busy time.

00:00:15 Speaker_00
So today, we'll share a popular episode from the Plain English Archives. We'll be back with new episodes on January 6th. Happy holidays! Merry day after Christmas. Here are four classic movies to watch in English. Hi there, everyone. I'm Jeff.

00:00:37 Speaker_00
JR is the producer. And this is lesson 532 of Plain English. You can find the full lesson at plainenglish.com slash 532. I hope you had a nice Christmas if you celebrate.

00:00:55 Speaker_00
For many of you, you still have decorations up, maybe still a Christmas tree, and you've opened your gifts, but maybe you don't quite want the fun to end just yet. If that's you, then you might want to put on a Christmas-themed movie this week.

00:01:17 Speaker_00
And if that's not you, if you don't celebrate Christmas, then you can still watch these movies to get a little glimpse into the Christmas culture. Today's expression is fend off, and we have a quote of the week. What is a Christmas movie?

00:01:44 Speaker_00
Well, first of all, it has to take place around the Christmas holiday. That's a given. But it also needs to include some Christmas themes. These could be religious themes directly tied to the holiday,

00:02:03 Speaker_00
or to more general themes like generosity, gratitude, family, morality, community, things like that. So here are four Christmas movies from four different decades. First, It's a Wonderful Life.

00:02:25 Speaker_00
Most lists of best Christmas movies put this one near the top. It's the oldest movie on my list and it's also one of my favorites. It's a Wonderful Life came out in 1947. It stars Jimmy Stewart as a small-town banker

00:02:49 Speaker_00
and there's a run on the bank, meaning everyone loses faith in the bank and they want their money back all at once. The bank is at risk of failing. And George Bailey, Jimmy Stewart's character, is ready to end his life. But a guardian angel stops him.

00:03:16 Speaker_00
The angel shows him what the world would be like without George Bailey in it. And of course, it all takes place at Christmas time.

00:03:29 Speaker_00
This is one of the best classic movies of all time and certainly one of the best, if not the best, Christmas movies in English. Next up, 1965, this was an animated special, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

00:03:53 Speaker_00
It was the very first television special to be based on Charles Schultz's Peanuts characters. Charlie Brown is not in the Christmas spirit at the beginning of the special. His pal, Lucy, has an idea for how to cheer him up.

00:04:16 Speaker_00
Charlie Brown should produce a Christmas pageant. like a small play. He decides to do that, but the Christmas tree he selects for the pageant is small and sickly. Everyone makes fun of him for it.

00:04:38 Speaker_00
It's so weak that it can't support the weight of a single ornament, but his friends later band together to bring the tree back to life and decorate it properly. This was a huge hit when it first aired, and it's a staple on television in the U.S.

00:05:04 Speaker_00
during the Christmas season. Now for one of my favorites growing up, Home Alone. It takes place in the Chicago suburbs. A huge family is getting ready to go on vacation. They rent a van to take them to the airport

00:05:28 Speaker_00
but they forget Kevin, an eight-year-old boy who was sleeping in the attic. He wakes up to find that he's home alone. His family forgot him. While he's waiting for his family to get back, he has to fend off two robbers.

00:05:52 Speaker_00
There's good music in this one, too. Next up is Elf from 2003. This is a great one. A small human boy accidentally falls into Santa's sleigh and he rides with Santa back to the North Pole. There, Santa's elves raise him as one of their own.

00:06:22 Speaker_00
They name him Buddy. And he's a human, so he's much bigger than the other elves. One year, Santa sends him to New York City, where he can look for his biological father. This is a comedy, of course, about a clash of cultures and expectations.

00:06:49 Speaker_00
How does a human adult male, raised as an elf, Fair in New York. He combines spaghetti with M&Ms and he eats it all with his hands. He treats a revolving door like an amusement park ride. But he also knows how to put together some beautiful decorations.

00:07:25 Speaker_00
One movie not on the list is Die Hard. This is kind of a joke, at least in America, where people argue about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or not. On the one hand, yes, it features an office holiday party. It takes place around Christmas time.

00:07:55 Speaker_00
Christmas decorations appear in the film. But it's an action thriller about German bank robbers who kidnap a cop's daughter. This is not in the spirit of the season. But people love to debate it.

00:08:19 Speaker_00
And as one article said, setting alone is not a sufficient condition for genre classification. Oh, and for the record, Lethal Weapon isn't a Christmas movie either. Today's expression is to fend off.

00:08:47 Speaker_00
To fend something off is to protect yourself from something that is attacking you, something or someone. It's common to say fend off when talking about people. And that's what happened in Home Alone, right? Do you remember?

00:09:11 Speaker_00
Two robbers know that the family is going to be away for Christmas, so they plan to rob the house while it's empty. But the family forgot to take eight-year-old Kevin with them on vacation. So Kevin has to fend off the robbers while he's home alone.

00:09:40 Speaker_00
He needs to defend himself and defend his house from being attacked by robbers. Ukraine is fighting a war with Russia. The war is on the battlefield in Ukrainian territory. But the war is also online.

00:10:04 Speaker_00
Russia has launched an unprecedented cyber attack against Ukraine. Russia has tried to use computer-based attacks to paralyze Ukrainian infrastructure, banks, government, and other critical services that use computer connectivity.

00:10:31 Speaker_00
But Ukraine has been able to fend off the worst cyber attacks so far. This is one major success of the war. Ukraine has been building up its cyber defenses for years. And it draws on a lot of expertise in the region too.

00:10:57 Speaker_00
Ukraine has been able to fend off the worst cyber attacks from Russia. That means they have been able to defend themselves against the worst cyber attacks. You can use this in sports.

00:11:16 Speaker_00
When you hear this, the World Cup will be over, but I wrote this early, so I don't know how it ends. But here's a story I saw in the round of 16. England was trying to fend off a talented team from Senegal.

00:11:42 Speaker_00
England was able to fend off Senegal and advance to the next round. Can central banks fend off inflation without causing a recession? Inflation, in this case, is the thing on attack. We all feel that, right?

00:12:07 Speaker_00
So to fend off inflation, to protect us from inflation, central banks have been raising interest rates. but that also sometimes causes a recession, which is not much better than inflation.

00:12:27 Speaker_00
So the question is, can central banks fend off inflation without causing a recession? Today's quote of the week is from John Milton, an English poet from the 1600s. These were tough poems to get through in school, let me tell you.

00:12:58 Speaker_00
Not easy to understand. But here's a quote you might like. The mind can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven. That is true, that is quite true. In your own mind, you can make a bad situation seem good or a good situation seem bad. Up to you.

00:13:27 Speaker_00
Sometimes I have to stop myself and make sure that my mind isn't turning a good situation into a bad one. Here's that quote again from John Milton, the mind can make a heaven of hell a hell of heaven. Well, that's all for today.

00:13:52 Speaker_00
Have you seen the Charlie Brown Christmas special? It's cute. And the creator of Peanuts characters, Charles Schultz, would have turned 100 this year. And to celebrate that, we'll talk about the Peanuts comic strip on Thursday's lesson. See you then.

00:14:19 Speaker_00
Congratulations! You just learned a new English expression. But do you feel ready to use it in the real world? Just how confident are you? What if you could take a quiz to confirm your understanding?

00:14:36 Speaker_00
And what if you could write your own sentence using the expression you just learned and get human feedback from an expert English speaker? Believe it or not, we offer exactly that at plainenglish.com.

00:14:52 Speaker_00
Every time you learn an expression with plain English, you can write your own example using that expression.

00:15:00 Speaker_00
And then, an expert English speaker, that's me, an expert English speaker will read your example and give you personal feedback on how to improve. In other words, you can make all your mistakes with us in a friendly, supportive environment.

00:15:20 Speaker_00
and then you'll be an expert when you use the expression out in the real world. If that sounds good to you, then go to plainenglish.com and start your free 14-day trial.

00:15:34 Speaker_00
Practice as many English expressions as you like, and you'll get feedback on every sentence. Go to plainenglish.com to start your free 14-day trial today.