Audio and transcript

• Lyndon: So now it’s the hundredth edition of English Now, so we thought we should talk about birthdays. So, how do you celebrate birthdays?
• Liz: Well, of course in the UK, when you’re a hundred, doesn’t the Queen send you a telegram?
• Lyndon: Apparently.
• Liz: I think so. I think your family have to warn her to send you the telegram.
• Cheryl: Warn her?
• Liz: Does anything happen n the US when you’re a hundred?
• Cheryl: The president sends you a birthday card.
• Liz: Oh!
• Cheryl: But it has to be requested as well!
• Liz: Okay. Someone has to notice.
• Lyndon: And what about birthdays for ordinary people who aren’t a hundred?
• Liz: What do you do for your birthday?
• Lyndon: I hide…
• Liz: What about you, Cheryl?
• Cheryl: Am, in our family, we have a tradition that the person whose birthday it is, gets to choose their favourite meal. And either I or my husband will cook it for them.
• Lyndon: That’s nice!
• Liz: That’s quiet nice. Do they get cards and presents?
• Cheryl: Sometimes. It depends. If it’s a big birthday, they’ll get a present… But yeah, something small usually.
• Liz: Aha. And do the kids always get presents?
• Cheryl: Oh, that is for everybody! The kids pick their favourite meal, or…
• Liz: So, the kids don’t necessarily get presents.
• Cheryl: Not at the ages they are at now.
• Liz: Okay!
• Cheryl: Because their presents cost a lot more money. So, usually we say to all of them, it’s your birthday and Christmas.
• Lyndon: What about you? Do you have birthdays?
• Liz: Absolutely! With presents! With presents, that’s the most important thing! I don’t know, yeah, I think we normally get presents.
• Cheryl: Do people in the UK buy the birthday person a drink? Or is it the other way around? Does the birthday person buys a round for everybody else?
• Lyndon: I have no idea! I know that we’ve been talking about the work thing, where if you go to, if you’re unlucky enough to work, you have to buy drinks and food for everybody, don’t you?
• Liz: In the office, yeah. You have to bring in the cake.
• Lyndon: If it’s your birthday?
• Liz: You have to bring in the cakes when it’s your birthday! It can be very expensive.
• Lyndon: I’m not a fan of this rule!
• Cheryl: That’s not… In the US, some people do it for you. They have a birthday celebration.
• Liz: I think it depends though. When I was younger, people use to buy me a drink on my birthday. But as you work, they kind of expect you to buy them a drink.
• Lyndon: How mean it is…
• Liz: Mean… People get meaner as they get older.

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