Improve Your English: English in Everyday Life

 wipe the slate 
clean):
To dismiss or disregard previous results or 
actions.
Yank, Yankee:
A term often used by foreigners, usually 
Europeans, to refer to Americans.
yeahbsolutely:
Th
is speaker’s combination of the words 
yeah
and 
absolutely
. An emphatic “yes.”
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES
1. Summarize what these speakers say about 
accents in the United States.
2. Do you have trouble understanding accents? If 
so, which ones and why?
3. Do people say that you have an accent? If so, how 
would you describe it?
4. Of the speakers in Chapter 7 and this chapter, 
which one has the accent that is the hardest to 
understand?
5. In your daily life, which accent is the most dif-
fi cult to understand?
6. Identify three words or phrases in this chapter 
that are new to you, and write a sentence with 
each one.

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121
FOOD
In this chapter, interviewees talk about their favor-
ite foods and about cooking.
1. COOKING VACATIONS
WOMAN:
Well, I have found that-that a very interesting 
way to learn about the culture of a country is to go to that 
country and spend time with-with the people who-who 
create the food that people eat in those places. And, um, 
there’s, there’re a lot of opportunities in all kinds of, all 
parts of the world these days to travel, to go to areas that 
C H A P T E R 9
Copyright © 2009 by Stephen E. Brown and Ceil Lucas. Click here for terms of use. 

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Impr