What Is Your Country's National Dish?
2024-03-15
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1Consider a time when you sat down to share a dish with family or friends.
2What was the dish? Is the dish special in your country or area?
3In today's lesson, we will explore how to talk about foods.
4We will learn about the structures and words commonly used to talk about popular dishes.
5Let's start with a comparison between cooking and grammar.
6Just as we have common ingredients when we cook - oil, salt, vegetables, meats, and so on - we also have common ingredients for sentences about food.
7These language ingredients include nouns, adjectives, and special kinds of phrases.
8Just as cooking is about using food ingredients in special ways, food discussions are about using language ingredients in special ways.
9Our first ingredient is the noun.
10Nouns give us the name of a dish, or any food prepared in a special way.
11Nouns also give us names for all the spices and other materials that go into the dish.
12But nouns alone cannot make a rich, complete sentence.
13We need something else to add color, smells, and taste.
14That is how we arrive at adjectives.
15Adjectives are central to discussions about food.
16When we talk about any kind of dish, we describe it in terms of taste, color, smell, temperature, and so on.
17In other words, adjectives are like spices that bring flavor to plain nouns.
18There are many adjectives we use to describe dishes, but some common ones include: rich, spicy, sweet and fresh.
19So, we have nouns and adjectives.
20But we have one missing element.
21We need to express how ingredients go together to make up a dish.
22One phrasal verb is especially useful in this regard: consist of.
23We have the verb "consist" and the short word "of."
24"Consist of" means to be formed, or made, of exact things.
25So, you might say that pizza consists of flour, cheese, sauce, and vegetables.
26Or you might say that kebab consists of meat and spices.
27There are, of course, many other phrasal verbs you can use to describe the act of cooking.
28We have explored some of them in previous Everyday Grammar lessons.
29So far, we have covered a lot of territory - nouns, adjectives, and one phrasal verb.
30Here is one possible example for how to describe any national dish:
31It is a [adjective] dish that [phrasal verb] [noun], [noun], and [noun].
32How might we fill in the noun, adjective, and phrasal verb spots?
33Let's use a traditionally popular dish in the United States as our example - apple pie.
34You may have heard the expression "As American as apple pie."
35So, what could we say about apple pie if we used our example structure? Here is one possibility:
36Apple pie is the national dish of the United States.
37It is a sweet dish that consists of apples, sugar, flour, and spices.
38Of course, one could go on to add more details.
39You could say that apple pie also often includes a small amount of lemon juice or that apple pie is often served with ice cream on top.
40You have learned about one possible way to describe a popular American dish.
41Now we would like to hear from you. Can you write to us about a traditional dish in your country?
42Try to use the sentence structures that you have just learned about, but feel free to include more details.
43Send us your piece of writing in an email to learningenglish@voanews.com
44In a future lesson, we will provide feedback on the writing that we receive.
45I'm John Russell.
1Consider a time when you sat down to share a dish with family or friends. What was the dish? Is the dish special in your country or area? 2In today's lesson, we will explore how to talk about foods. We will learn about the structures and words commonly used to talk about popular dishes. 3Ingredients 4Let's start with a comparison between cooking and grammar. Just as we have common ingredients when we cook - oil, salt, vegetables, meats, and so on - we also have common ingredients for sentences about food. These language ingredients include nouns, adjectives, and special kinds of phrases. 5Just as cooking is about using food ingredients in special ways, food discussions are about using language ingredients in special ways. 6Nouns 7Our first ingredient is the noun. Nouns give us the name of a dish, or any food prepared in a special way. Nouns also give us names for all the spices and other materials that go into the dish. 8But nouns alone cannot make a rich, complete sentence. 9We need something else to add color, smells, and taste. 10That is how we arrive at adjectives. 11Adjectives are central to discussions about food. When we talk about any kind of dish, we describe it in terms of taste, color, smell, temperature, and so on. 12In other words, adjectives are like spices that bring flavor to plain nouns. 13There are many adjectives we use to describe dishes, but some common ones include: rich, spicy, sweet and fresh. 14Phrases 15So, we have nouns and adjectives. But we have one missing element. We need to express how ingredients go together to make up a dish. 16One phrasal verb is especially useful in this regard: consist of. 17We have the verb "consist" and the short word "of." 18"Consist of" means to be formed, or made, of exact things. 19So, you might say that pizza consists of flour, cheese, sauce, and vegetables. 20Or you might say that kebab consists of meat and spices. 21There are, of course, many other phrasal verbs you can use to describe the act of cooking. We have explored some of them in previous Everyday Grammar lessons. 22Example 23So far, we have covered a lot of territory - nouns, adjectives, and one phrasal verb. How might we use these ingredients? 24Here is one possible example for how to describe any national dish: 25[Noun] is the national dish of [noun]. It is a [adjective] dish that [phrasal verb] [noun], [noun], and [noun]. 26How might we fill in the noun, adjective, and phrasal verb spots? 27Let's use a traditionally popular dish in the United States as our example - apple pie. You may have heard the expression "As American as apple pie." 28So, what could we say about apple pie if we used our example structure? Here is one possibility: 29Apple pie is the national dish of the United States. It is a sweet dish that consists of apples, sugar, flour, and spices. 30Of course, one could go on to add more details. You could say that apple pie also often includes a small amount of lemon juice or that apple pie is often served with ice cream on top. 31Call to action 32You have learned about one possible way to describe a popular American dish. Now we would like to hear from you. Can you write to us about a traditional dish in your country? Try to use the sentence structures that you have just learned about, but feel free to include more details. 33Send us your piece of writing in an email to learningenglish@voanews.com 34In a future lesson, we will provide feedback on the writing that we receive. 35I'm John Russell. 36John Russell wrote this lesson for VOA Learning English. 37______________________________________________________ 38Words in This Story 39ingredient - n. one of the things that are used to make a food, product, etc. 40phrase - n. a group of two or more words that express a single idea but do not usually form a complete sentence