Do It Yourself

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

• cheap
• go to waste
• faucet
• plumber

• punk
• aesthetic
• acronym
• shopping spree

• worth it
• dumpster dive

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

We often pay people to do things for us that we could do ourselves. In fact, a lot of times people don’t even think of doing certain things themselves.

For instance, bands generally didn’t really go around pressing their own records and booking their own tours until the 1980s when bands like Black Flag and Minor Threat started their own tiny labels.

Their approach to music came to be known as DIY, which stands for do it yourself. Beren still associates the term DIY with the punk aesthetic of those bands, but Amanda, while not very punk, is totally DIY.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Amanda

Beren

Amanda:  You know what’s a great acronym?

Beren:  What?

Amanda:  DIY!

Beren:  Do it yourself?

Amanda:  Yup.

Beren:  That is a great acronym. Would you consider yourself DIY?

Amanda:  Totally. My dream shopping spree would be Home Depot, or Lowe’s or any hardware store.

Beren:  Oh, see, like there’s so many different takes on DIY. Whenever I think of DIY, I think of that whole punk aesthetic. I don’t know, ride your bike, and make your own clothes, and go dumpster diving.

Amanda:  That’s true. There are different interpretations of DIY.

Beren:  It’s good, it fits everything. DIY.

Amanda:  Do it yourself. Do it yourself. That’s right. So, what was the last DIY thing you did?

Beren:  My last DIY attempt would have been…Eh, well maybe two weeks ago I jumped into a dumpster outside a pizza place to see if there was pizza. I don’t know if that’s DIY or if it just makes me cheap...

Amanda:  So, what exactly were you doing yourself there?

Beren:  I don’t know, like not paying for something that I could get for free or using something that was going to go to waste.

Amanda:  Alright. I changed a faucet the other day.

Beren:  That’s very do it yourself.

Amanda:  Yup. I saved $200 by not hiring a plumber. So that was worth it to me.

Beren:  That is DIY.

Quizzes

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Lesson MP3

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