Audio Intro

In August 2017 I visited my family in Canada for 3 weeks. (I live in Tokyo now) I wrote 3 stories about my trip as a way to teach my newsletter subscribers, they could use my story to learn some natural English.

In 2019 made these 3 stories into 3 blog posts so my blog readers can learn this new English too. Read and listen to new words and phrases in natural sentences. This is part one, please enjoy! 

Canada Trip natural English pt. 1

Audio A

It takes a long time to fly from home from Japan. (for me) A direct flight from Tokyo to Toronto is 12 hours!

Learn English vocabulary – direct

direct is an adjective that can mean – going in the straightest line between two places without stopping or changing direction

direct ​Oxford Learner’s Dictionary link here

If you fly from one city straight to another with no stops, we call this a direct flight. When I first wrote this story in 2017 the longest was direct flight was from Perth, Australia to London, England. The flight is 14,498 km and takes about 17 hours. But now in 2019…

From October, passengers will be able to fly from Singapore to Newark, New Jersey – a journey that will take nearly 19 hours.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44393135

That’s a long flight! I hope they have good movies 🙂

If you stop to change planes before your final destination, your flight is not direct.

Henry flew from Tokyo to Toronto with a stop in Vancouver.

Audio B

Do you like airplane food? Sometimes the food on an airplane is not very good. It doesn’t look very tasty in this picture but I liked it. The food was pretty good!

When you take a long flight to a new place your body can experience some changes. Maybe you travel to a new time zone, you experience jet lag and a change in the weather. For me it was hard to adjust to these changes, it took a while to acclimatize.

Learn English vocabulary – acclimatize

acclimatize verb to get used to a new place, situation or climate (weather)

“After arriving in Canada it took me a few days to acclimatize. I was jet-lagged.”

In Canada the weather and time were different than Tokyo, it took time to get used to them.

acclimatize ​Oxford Learner’s Dictionary link here

Check out my post on Jet Lag and Time Zones here

Using a real story written in natural English is a great way to learn. Listening to natural English is also very helpful. Now is your chance to use it. It’s YOUR turn.

Use your new English to tell your story!

Have you traveled outside your hometown?

Have you visited other countries? Did you fly direct?

How far was it? How long did it take you to acclimatize?

Check out these other great blog posts!

• Learn English with famous quotes (10 quotes explained!)
• Learn the English preposition FOR (Video + natural examples!)
• Verbs with prepositions TO + AT (English Grammar) PDF
• Have To or Must? Easy Grammar Guide + Infographic
• Improve English listening skills AUDIO