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- Transcript
- Vocabulary
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Kerri
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Todd
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Keri: Yes, I do. Oh, so what's your new house like? It's small, it's old. It's mostly wooden in the inside. It has two rooms and a balcony off of those rooms and downstairs there's like a living room area and a tatami mat room, kitchen, bathroom.
Todd: Wow, so do you live in the tatami mat room?
Keri: No, there's two tatami mat rooms. There's one upstairs and there's one downstairs and I don't live in either. One we use as kind of a spare room and the other one is my roommates bedroom.
Todd: Oh, OK. So you have a roommate?
Keri: Yes.
Todd: What's it like having a roommate?
Keri: It's good. It's good. I like living alone too but sometimes it's nice to come home and have someone there and my roommate gets home before I do and she likes to cook so often she's cooked dinner for me.
Todd: Wow, that's nice.
Keri: I know.
Todd: Well, you do all the cleaning?
Keri: Well, now that you mention it, I do a lot of the cleaning, but not all of it. Oh, OK.
Todd: Well, what kind of things does she make you?
Keri: Last night she made curry. I think it was an Indian curry, tomato-based.
Todd: Spicy?
Keri: Yes.
Todd: Cool.
tatami mat room
We have a tatami mat room upstairs.
A 'tatami mat' is a traditional Japanese floor covering that was originally made from rice straw, but is now usually made from wood, with a straw covering. Notice the following:
- The restaurant has tatami mats in the private rooms.
- Do you have tatami mats in your house?
spare room
We use one of the rooms as a spare room.
A 'spare room' is a room that you have available for guests or a room where nobody permanently lives. We can use the word 'spare' for anything that we have that is extra. Notice the following:
- We have a spare room for you to stay in.
- How many spare rooms do you have?
roommate
I like living alone, but it's nice to have a roommate, too,
A 'roommate' is someone who shares your house or apartment with you who is not your relative. People live with roommates when they are in university or before they live alone. Notice the following:
- My roommate is the cleanest person ever.
- Where did you meet your roommate?
what's it like
What's it like to have a roommate?
When you ask 'what's it like' you want the speaker to describe something for you. Notice the following:
- What's it like to be married?
- What's it like to have a real job?
tomato-based
She made tomato-based Indian curry.
If a food is 'tomato-based' it is made up mostly of tomatoes. We can put the word '-based' after other words to show the composition of something. Notice the following:
- Is the soup tomato-based?
- Is the class conversation-based?
