– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Hello and welcome to bonus episode number one  five one, 151 of the Culips English Podcast. How's  

it going? My name is Andrew. I'll be your host  and your English study buddy for today. And in  

this week's story, I'm going to tell you about a  burglar who has been terrorizing my home all week. 

Along the way, as you listen to this story,  you'll be able to build your vocabulary and learn  

some great expressions, as well as just grow your  overall English fluency and communication skills. 

So, without any further ado, let's  jump in and get started. Here we go. 

A couple of weeks ago, my wife and I celebrated  the two-year anniversary of us moving into our  

home. I couldn't believe it. It seems like  those two years flew by in the blink of an  

eye. And if something "flies by in the blink of  an eye," it means that it happens really fast.  

Like you blink your eyes, and it happens.  It's finished. So, it feels like those two  

years just flew by in the blink of an eye  and we've been in this home for two years. 

Long time Culips listeners will know that my wife  and I bought an old home here in Seoul, South  

Korea, where we live. And then we took a couple  of years to renovate it and then we moved in. And  

for the first year and a half of living in this  home, we really focused on the interior. And our  

exterior, our little front yard that we have was  nothing special at all. Really quite unsightly.  

To be honest, it's just sort of like a cement  walled-in area. So, the interior was our focus,  

and we didn't worry about the exterior at all. However, once we got the interior finished and  

to our liking, then it was time to focus on the  exterior. And that's what we've been doing over  

the last several months is decorating our yard.  Maybe decorating isn't the best word to use,  

although we did do some decorations. We  installed some lighting, and we bought some  

outdoor furniture, some chairs, and a table  so we can have like a little barbecue party  

outside. It's quite lovely and it has a nice  atmosphere at night when we turn the lights on,  

and we grill some food out there. It's awesome. But we also did some landscaping, and my wife has  

enjoyed gardening for a long time. Pretty much the  whole time I've known her, she's been a gardener,  

but she's always focused on house plants and  plants that grow inside. And she's especially  

fond of cacti and cactus and these kinds of  tropical house plants as well. So, plants that  

don't really grow outside very well here in Korea. But we needed to do something with our yard. It  

was like I said, this kind of ugly concrete space.  Like the floor is just a concrete slab and then  

there are these walls that act as like a fence,  but they're all made out of brick and painted  

white. So yeah, just not like the most pleasant  space outside. It felt very bleak. So yeah,  

we decorated with the furniture and the lights and  then we've been landscaping and gardening over,  

well, this spring and now into the summer as well. And I believe I've mentioned a few times on Culips  

about my wife buying some trees. And us  visiting a local nursery and buying some  

trees. And a "nursery" is what we call a garden  center, a place that grows and sells plants. So,  

we visited the local nursery here and I guess  my wife went a little bit crazy with the trees. 

She bought, on last count, I believe, 13 different  trees, which is especially crazy considering the  

small size of our yard. Here in Seoul, there  are tons of people living in the city. It's a  

mega city and space is at a premium. And so, in  our little yard, our little corner of the world,  

we tried to fit in as many trees as possible. And I think my wife did a good job at doing  

this. Of course, not all of these trees are  like full-blown, grown-up trees. We bought them  

as small little trees and some are just really,  really tiny, and hopefully in the future, after  

several years, will develop into a bigger tree.  But as of right now, they’re only, I don't know,  

30 to 50 centimeters tall, pretty small. But we did splurge and buy some bigger,  

more mature trees that were already six, seven,  eight years old probably. And when we bought them,  

it was still, I guess, the winter, just coming  out of the winter into the spring. And so,  

the trees looked like those old-fashioned  brooms. I don't know if you've ever seen  

those old-fashioned brooms that are just made  out of twigs and sticks. And that's what these  

trees look like when we brought them to our  yard. Like, we're like, "Are these trees even  

alive?" They just look like a bunch of dead  branches because it was still the winter. So,  

there were no blooms or leaves or anything. They  were just totally, like, sticks pretty much. 

But anyways, we planted them and as the  winter turned into spring, turned into summer,  

now it's been amazing to watch their progression.  They've really bloomed and are like these huge,  

big trees now and are growing so fast. I guess  our location is just perfect because it gets  

a mix of sun and shade and yeah, I don't  know whatever else the trees need to grow,  

but they're growing really well. And I'm so happy about this because one thing that  

I really wanted in our home is to try and make  it feel like an escape from the city, which is  

hard to do because we're like right in the middle  of the city and there's urban area all around us. 

And one thing that's... I mean, I love  my home and I really enjoy living here,  

but one thing that is kind of unfortunate about  the home is just that it's placed in the middle  

of this huge urban area, right? And so, you can  never really feel like you've escaped the city. 

And until recently, whenever I would look  out the big window in the living room,  

then I would just look out at this huge apartment  complex that is across the road from us. And if  

you've never seen a Korean apartment complex  before, they serve a function. They're like  

very high in utility. And what I mean, they're  "high in utility" is that they provide a lot  

of benefit and a lot of good for many, many  people. So, they're like really high on the  

utility index of the good that they serve in  the world and the function and the purpose. 

However, they're quite unsightly in my opinion.  They're not really beautiful architectural feats  

or anything like this. They serve a purpose.  They do their job well at housing a lot of  

people. However, they are quite unsightly.  I don't really like the look of them. 

So, you know, every morning when I'd get up and  I'd have my morning coffee and I'd look out my  

window, I would have to just imagine that  I was looking at the mountains or looking  

at the ocean or looking at the forest or  something because in reality, I'd just  

be looking at this ugly apartment complex. And so, I always dream of instead of having  

to look at this apartment complex, if  we could grow some trees and plants  

in our yard and for them to grow tall enough  that they would cover the apartment complex. 

So, when I look outside, I could just look and see  the trees and it would kind of be like, I'm hiding  

from the rest of the city, that I'm blocked  off from the rest of the city. So, I'm happy  

to report that this is pretty much the case now.  These trees have grown so quickly that when I look  

outside, wow, I don't have to see the apartment  complex anymore. I can just look at the trees. 

The trees haven't completely covered the  complex. I can still see it a little bit,  

but it's getting there. And I think in another  year or two, probably that dream will come true.  

And I'll be able to have my urban oasis here  in my yard. So, I'm feeling great about that. 

One of the cool trees or plants, I  guess it's not a tree, it's a bush  

to be specific. One of the cool bushes that  my wife purchased was a blueberry bush. So,  

I think this is the only plant… I'm  just going through my head here. Yeah,  

I think this is the only plant that we have that  is actually edible. It is the blueberry bush. 

So yeah, my wife bought this blueberry bush and  again, it's growing really, really well. And I,  

you know, when I first saw it, when she brought  it home, I was like, "We're not going to have any  

blueberries from this thing." Like, "What is she  trying to do? It's cute. It's a cute idea, but  

it's not actually going to produce fruit. Is it?" Well, I was totally wrong because this blueberry  

bush has actually produced a lot of berries,  many, many berries. And we've been snacking  

on blueberries all summer long here so  far. And yeah, it's just one bush. So,  

it's not like we can have bowls and bowls  of blueberries. But every day we can eat  

some fresh blueberries, which are just delicious.  One of my favorite fruits, super healthy for you. 

And although I do eat them fresh from time  to time, it's rather expensive to buy them  

at the supermarket. So instead, usually I eat  frozen blueberries. So, I'm really happy about  

this that I can eat the fresh blueberries right  from our bush in our yard this summer. How cool!

However, the blueberries have attracted a  lot of attention in our neighborhood with  

the local birds. And earlier  in the episode at the start,  

I said that we have been terrorized by a burglar  over the last week. And it's totally true. 

By the way, a "burglar" is someone who steals  something from you. So, there could be like  

a burglar who breaks into a home and steals  something from a home or a burglar who goes into  

a store and steals something from a store or a  bank, that kind of person we could call a burglar. 

Similar words are "thief," "criminal." OK,  all of these words are similar, a burglar. 

And so, we have been terrorized by a  blueberry bush burglar. A lot of Bs there. 

By the way, this is another, this is a  very high-level word, but a good one to  

know. It is "alliteration," alliteration. And  alliteration is a literary device in English  

where we have a lot of the same sounds in a  connected sequence. And usually, we use this  

in poetry or maybe titles when you're giving a  title to maybe a TV show or a movie or a book,  

then alliteration is really cool. So, I have that  repeated B sound, right? Blueberry bush burglar. 

And can you guess who is stealing the blueberries  from our yard? That's right, it's a bird! It's  

a bird. The birds in the neighborhood have found  the blueberry bush. So, the burglar is a bird and  

it's stealing the blueberries. A lot of Bs there. Anyways, originally once we planted this blueberry  

bush in our yard, I thought that it's not  going to take long for the word to get out  

and for the neighborhood birds to locate the  blueberries and start stealing the blueberries. 

Because in our previous apartment that we lived  in, there was also a blueberry bush kind of in  

the parking area for that apartment building.  And there were some older folks that lived in  

the building that maintained a little garden  there. And one of the plants that they had was  

a blueberry bush. And the birds would just eat the  blueberries all the time, constantly. And yeah,  

I remember one of the grandpas that lived in that  building. He installed some kind of netting over  

the bush to try and stop the birds from eating the  blueberries. But it didn't really work very well. 

And so, I thought the same thing would happen  in our yard that right away the neighborhood  

birds would find it and eat the berries. However,  that wasn't really true. And it went like three,  

four weeks without any of the  birds finding the bush at all. 

I guess it was just in like a sweet  location where they couldn't spot it.  

I have no idea really how birds forage for  food. And "forage" means to collect, right,  

to hunt and collect food. And this is what birds  do really well, foraging for different types of  

insects and berries and whatever else they eat. So, I don't know if they use their sense of smell  

or only rely on their eyes. I don't know how birds  do it. But for whatever reason, they didn't find  

our berry bush for quite a long time. So that was  great. We were able to enjoy the blueberries and  

just feast on them, munch on them every morning,  just have a couple of berries as a little treat. 

However, over the last week, the birds have  found it in one bird species in particular.  

I'm not sure if it's the same bird coming  back again and again, or if he told all of  

his friends and they're all coming in a sequence. But there's this bird here that lives in Korea.  

And I looked up its native range. It ranges from  kind of northern Japan and throughout Japan and  

also throughout the Korean peninsula. A little  bit of eastern China and into like the northern  

part of the Philippines. So, if you live in  East Asia, then maybe you know this bird. 

The English name is the "brown-eared bulbul." And  when I was researching this bird on Wikipedia,  

I actually learned that this word, "bulbul"  spelled B-U-L-B-U-L, is originally a Persian word. 

So, I know we have a lot of Persian native  speakers who listen to the podcast. Shout  

out to all the Farsi speakers out there who  are listening to Culips right now. Guys,  

you can let me know if this actually is a word  from your language. And that would be really cool  

if that was a word of Persian origin or Farsi  origin that made it into the English language. 

Anyways, it was a new word to me. Now this  brown-eared bulbul looks rather plain. It's  

like this dark gray color, almost a little black.  And it's got these two circles that are dark brown  

on the side of its head, which I suppose are its  brown ears. Why we call it the brown-eared bulbul. 

And as far as I know, the males and females both  look similar. So, you know with many bird species,  

the females will look rather plain, and the  males will be more decorative and have a lot  

of fancy colors. However, I believe with  this bird species, both the males and the  

females are rather plain and yeah, not too  amazing to look at to be honest with you. 

So, this week we've had these brown-eared bulbuls  stealing our blueberries. And I'm not sure if it's  

just one bird or several birds because they all  look the same. So, I can't tell. But at first,  

when they first found the blueberries, they were  rather timid, and my wife actually captured it  

on camera. So, I'm going to show the video  clip in the YouTube video of this episode. 

If you're watching on YouTube, you can see  this brown-eared bulbul fly into our yard  

and swoop down and steal the blueberry. Now,  at first, like I said, they were rather timid,  

so they did it in several steps. They'd fly  into the yard, look around, and see if the  

coast was clear. This is a great expression.  "The coast is clear." If the coast is clear,  

it means that there's nobody watching. So, they would come into the yard,  

check around, make sure the coast is clear.  Nobody is watching and they could steal a  

blueberry without getting in trouble, like getting  caught by a predator or getting caught by us. 

So, they would check, make sure everything was  OK, and then slowly hop up to the blueberry bush,  

fly into the bush, eat a berry,  and then fly away. That is how  

they first started stealing the berries. But now they're much more sophisticated.  

They figured out how to just swoop into  the yard and fly down and grab a berry  

in mid-flight without having to land. And  yeah, they've really learned quite quickly  

actually how to steal berries very efficiently. So that's actually kind of cool to see. However,  

I'm a little bit angry at these birds for  stealing my delicious blueberries. Like,  

I want to eat the blueberries. And yeah, I don't  mind sharing a berry or two, but they're coming  

in like all the time and stealing the berries. So, my wife works from home several days a week,  

and she's posted up right beside the door to our  yard, and she keeps it open here in the summer. 

And so, she's been pretty good at scaring away  the birds. If they're taking too many berries,  

we'll let them take a few, but we want to have  some for ourselves too. That's part of the joy  

of having this kind of cool blueberry bush  is that we can enjoy some of the berries. 

So, she's been pretty good at scaring the birds  away and me too. I've been spending more time in  

the yard recently during the afternoon. You  know, if I have some time here at home, I'll  

just sit in the yard. And if I'm out there, then  they're too timid to come in and try and steal the  

berries. But if we're both inside and not paying  attention, then that's when the burglary happens. 

And we have a new dog in our home as well. We  adopted our pet dog, O’Wall, about two months  

ago now. And I've been trying to teach her to  bark when the birds come into the yard. However,  

this has been totally unsuccessful. I've been  joking with the dog. I'm like, "Come on. O’Wall,  

you're just sleeping all day. You want to be a  part of this family, a member of this family,  

then you have to do something. You have to  protect our house from these burglars. So,  

when you see the birds out there, you have to  bark or scare the birds away.” But she's totally  

oblivious to that fact. And she just sleeps pretty  much all of the time when the birds are active in  

the morning and in the afternoon stealing their  berries. So, that has been totally unsuccessful,  

my training attempts to turn our cute poodle,  O’Wall, into a security guard, a guard dog,  

hasn't really been successful at all. But yeah, at the end of the day,  

I guess it's OK. It's like the price that we  have to pay to the local wildlife. And all in  

all. I'm really happy at how my urban oasis is  coming together. This little slice of nature  

in my yard here in the middle of Seoul. And  a slice of nature should include some plants,  

like all of these beautiful trees that my wife is  maintaining in her garden. But also, some animals,  

right? And so, I think, although I've been calling  them burglars and saying that they're terrorizing  

our home and our yard. And I've been painting  these brown-eared bulbuls in a very bad light  

and saying a lot of bad things about them. At the end of the day, I think I'm actually  

happy that we have some animal friends visiting  our yard because this is what nature should be,  

right? It should be plants and animals and insects  and birds. All of these things. So, I'm glad we  

have these visitors. And I'm really happy about  how the progress in our yard is turning out. 

Well, that brings us to the end of this week's  story. If you made it all the way here to the end,  

congratulations. You completed an English  study session. You can be proud of that. And  

this is what you need to do to build your  English fluency. You need to spend a lot  

of time listening to natural English, just  like the kind you heard me use here today. 

If you have any questions or  comments about this episode,  

let me know over on our Discord server. It's  free for everyone to join and you can find  

the link in the description for this episode. I'd also like you to leave a comment with this  

week's completion code. You can leave either  just the one word for the completion code,  

or you can leave an example sentence with  the completion code. And that will signal  

to me and all of our other fabulous members of our  Culips community that you completed this episode. 

So, for this week, let's go with the code word  "burglar," burglar. And there should be some  

fun example sentences with this completion code  burglar. So, leave them in the comments either  

on our Discord or YouTube or Instagram. And I  can't wait to see what you come up with. Take  

care everyone. And I'll catch you in the  next Culips episode. Until then, goodbye.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
burglar /ˈbɜːrɡlər/ B1	noun - a person who illegally enters a building to steal things
decorate /ˈdekəreɪt/ A2	verb - to make something look more attractive by adding things to it
renovate /ˈrenəveɪt/ B1	verb - to improve a building or room by repairing or redecorating it
exterior /ɪkˈstɪəriər/ B1	noun - the outside of something
unsightly /ʌnˈsaɪtli/ B2	adjective - not pleasant to look at
fluency /ˈfluːənsi/ B2	noun - the ability to speak a language easily and well
anniversary /ˌænɪˈvɜːrsəri/ A2	noun - the date on which an event happened in a previous year
progress /ˈprəʊɡres/ B1	noun - development or improvement
splurge /splɜːrdʒ/ B2	verb - to spend a lot of money on something you enjoy
mature /məˈtʃʊər/ B1	adjective - fully developed; grown up
location /loʊˈkeɪʃən/ A2	noun - a place
forage /ˈfɔːrɪdʒ/ B2	verb - to search widely for food or provisions
bulbul /ˈbʊlbʊl/ C1	noun - a songbird found in Asia and Africa
sophisticated /səˈfɪstɪkeɪtɪd/ B2	adjective - having a refined understanding or appreciation of culture or taste
oblivious /əˈblɪviəs/ C1	adjective - not aware of or concerned about what is happening around one