Hello English learners（学习者） and welcome to another great podcast with EnglishPod. My name is Marco. And I'm Erica. And today we have another really great lesson for you. Elementary（基本的） lesson. That's right and it's another lesson about money.

  We have no money here at EnglishPod. We are in debt（债） here. In debt. Yes. Okay（好）. In debt.

  So what does that mean? Why don't you tell us? If I owe（欠） you money. I'm in debt. In debt. In fact, I think I am in debt to you.

  You owe me $2.50 for a Coke（焦炭） Zero（零点） today. That's true. All（ 全部） right. Okay. So let's get started. Let's take a look（看） at our vocabulary（词汇） preview（预演）.

  Vocabulary preview. We have two words today in our vocabulary preview. And the first one is recession（撤回）. Recession. Recession. Recession.

  So recession. Everyone's talking about it right now. And what does it mean? I don't know. That's your job. I don't know.

  I really don't know. Why don't you tell me Erica? Because this isn't my topic for today. Okay. Recession is a period of time when the economy（经济） of a country is doing badly（坏）. In a recession, the country is making less（更少的） money.

  That's true. So maybe we can give a few examples of things that happen in a recession to show the meaning of this a little bit（一点） better（好）. Right. So for example, in a recession, many people lose their jobs. Because companies might（可以〔用于礼貌地提出建议〕） close or go bankrupt（破产的）. Exactly（确切地）.

  And also people start spending less money. That's true. And the stock（树干） prices of companies fall pretty. Yeah, they fall a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

  And that's what's going on now in the United（一致的） States. Very true. Okay. So let's take a look at our second word. And it has to do with recession. It's broke.

  Broke. Broke. I'm broke. Broke. It means that you have no money. You're broke.

  I'm broke. Right. So these are our two words for vocabulary preview today, and you're going to hear them in the dialogue. This dialogue is about a man who is in debt. He's broke. Let's find out what happens.

  Hello. I'm here to see Mr.Corleone. Right this way, sir（先生）. Johnny, what can I do for you? Mr.Corleone, I'm really sorry to trouble（麻烦） you, but I need your help. Anything for you, Johnny.

  Your father was like a brother to me. Well, sir, you see, this recession has hit（打） me pretty hard. I lost my job and I'm in a lot of debt. I see. Yeah, you know, I've got credit（信用贷款） card bills, car payments（支付）, I've got to pay my mortgage（抵押）. And on top（ 顶部） of all that, I have to pay my son's college tuition（学费）.

  So you're asking for a loan（贷款）. Well, I just thought maybe you could help me out. What? At a time like this, I'm broke too, you know. You're not the only one who's been hit by the recession. I lost half my money in the stock market crash（碰撞）.

  Go on. Okay, so that was a bit unexpected（想不到的）. Yeah, that was certainly（一定） strange（陌生的）. He didn't go to the bank to ask for money, did he? No, he went to the mob（暴民） and the mob（暴民） is broke. Oh, no, you know, it's a bad recession when even the mob runs out of money.

  All right. So why don't we start by looking at our language takeaway（外卖食品）. Language takeaway. All right. So for today's language takeaway, we have four words from the dialogue, which we think are really important. Yes.

  So why don't we start with the first one? Loan. Loan. Loan. Loan. So Erica, tell us about a loan.

  What is a loan? Okay, when you borrow（借） money, you get a loan. A loan, yes. Not to be confused（使混乱） with alone（单独地）, like（喜欢） by myself（我自己）. No, so this is L-O-A-N. Loan.

  Right. Okay, great. Let's take a look at our second word. Mortgage. Mortgage. Mortgage.

  Mortgage. Now, this is very common. I'm sure many of you have mortgages. What is a mortgage? A mortgage is a type of a loan.