Podcast 74 - By the river

Of interest to B1 and B2 levels

Today I'm going to talk to you about the river and being by the river.

The river is a lovely place to be next to. We walk along the river. We go for a walk along the river. The part of the side of the river we can call, in fact, the riverside - one word, or we talk about the banks of the river.

Now, there are a lot of things that you can do, actually, on the river. You can go boating, if the river is big enough. And the different types of boating. You can go rowing. You row in a row boat, or rowing boat. And you move along by using oars - which are two poles, which you dip in the river and you pull them back and that propels you forward - oars. And, of course, you can also canoe by the river, oh sorry, canoe on the river. So canoe is a noun - a canoe, or to canoe on the river. And then also in a similar fashion you can kayak as well, which is like a canoe, but it has a - well we don't call them oars, actually, when we talk about canoes and kayaks - we use the word paddle. And a canoe [paddle] has two blades. That's the part of either end of the paddle, which you use to propel yourself through the water. And a kayak has just one blade on the paddle, and you use often kneel in the kayak and propel yourself along with the paddle.

And of course, being next to the river, by the river, on the riverside, on the banks of the river - there are a lot of things you can do or rather not do very much, really. Just sit and enjoy the sunshine - to sunbathe, for example, if the weather is good enough. That is to lie in the sun and get brown. So when the sun is strong enough, you lie down and we say to sunbathe - to lie in the sun, we say.

And, of course, you can do other things. You can play ball by the river or you can have a picnic. So a picnic is where you take some food - sandwiches, cakes, a bottle of wine or some juice. You lay out a blanket on the grass next to the river and have something to eat. Have your lunch. To have a picnic, we say.

Fishing vocabulary

Now some people enjoy fishing. So you go fishing. You fish in the river - to catch fish. You use a rod, and on the rod you have a reel. And on the reel you have some line, which is, the how can I say, it's sort of like string, if you like, which goes through the hoops on the rod and down to the float, which floats on the water. Under the float the line goes down and on the end there is a hook - the hook, which is the dangerous part. And on the hook, you have some bait - a piece of bread or a worm or something like that. The fish bites the worm and it gets hooked on the hook and then you reel it in or you wind it in and you have caught a fish.

On the river in Seville - it's a very wide river and the water is very flat. There are no waves. And so there are little pleasure boats. These are boats, quite big ones, and tourists especially like to go on little excursions up and down the river on the pleasure boats and see the sights, we say. The sights are the interesting monuments that you can see. In this case, on the banks of the river - buildings, statues, perhaps historic buildings, so you can have an excursion on a pleasure boat ride.

Well, that's all I'm going to talk about being by the river. I think I'm just going to lie back here on the grass and have a snooze. It's a warm day - to have a snooze. That's to have a little sleep.

So I'll see you next time. Bye for now.