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Hello everyone and welcome to English Pod. My name is Marco.

My name is Katherine and we're talking about the stars today.

That's right. Today we're going to talk about a very popular uh subject. Many people believe in the horoscope.

So horoscope is basically a system, very old system of determining your future and describing your personality. And so it all depends on when you were born and where you were born. So, what stars were in the sky when you were born?

That's right. So, basically, as many of you may know, there are 12 signs and we're going to talk about a couple of them and a little bit more about horoscopes and this uh I don't know. I guess it's kind of like a branch of science or pseudoscience.

Pseudo science. Yeah, I don't think there's much testing that's going on, but it's definitely something that a lot of people believe in. So, let's take a listen to today's dialogue and we'll be back in a moment to talk more about it.

Hey Lydia, what are you reading?

I'm looking at my horoscope for this month. My outlook is very positive. It says that I should take a vacation to someplace exotic and that I will have a passionate summer fling.

What are you talking about? Let me see that. What are horoscopes?

It's a prediction of your month based on your zodiac sign. You have a different sign for the month and date you were born in. I was born on April 15th, so I'm an Aries. When were you born?

January 5th.

Let's see. You're a Capricorn. It says that you'll be feeling stress at work, but you could see new exciting developments in your love life. Looks like we'll both have interesting summers.

That's bogus. I don't feel any stress at work, and my love life is practically non-existent. This zodiac stuff is all a bunch of nonsense.

No, it's not. Your astrology sign can tell you a lot about your personality. See, it says that an Aries is energetic and loves to socialize.

Well, you certainly match those criteria, but they're so broad they could apply to anyone. What does it say about me?

A Capricorn is serious-minded and practical. She likes to do things in conventional ways. That sounds just like you.

All right, we're back. So, a very interesting dialogue between these two girls talking about one of them believing in the horoscope and the other one doesn't. But, uh, they mentioned a lot of interesting things. So, we're going to have two language takeaways today. Let's start with language takeaway part one.

Language Takeaway

All right. So, one of the most common things you'll hear when we talk about the horoscope in English is an outlook. And an outlook can be positive or negative. So what exactly is an outlook?

Well, if you notice, Lydia said, "My outlook is very positive." So basically, she's talking about her future, right? So the way that she sees the future or the way that the horoscope talks about the future is a positive one.

So you could say, "Uh, you know those eight-balls? They're black and they have like a message and you shake it and it gives you a message. You ask a question. It says outlook positive."

That's right. Outlook negative. So that means in your near future things will either be positive or negative.

Mhm. So I guess you can apply it for example to a company. You say that a company has a positive outlook or even a person, you know, he's a very positive person. So he has a positive outlook. He thinks good things are going to happen.

Okay. Very good. So talking about horoscopes obviously we must mention the 12 zodiac signs.

Okay. So each month has its own sign and they're not exactly the months. They're a little bit different, but um each sign is a kind of an animal or a symbol.

That's right. So, for example, a lot of August is part of the Leo sign in English. So, that's the lion. And so, the lion is the animal, the zodiac.

Mhm. So, the zodiac sign is one of these signs like Leo is one of the zodiac signs. And I guess the all 12 signs are considered the zodiac or the horoscope.

Exactly. And you can actually talk about the zodiac in terms of other cultures. There is a Chinese zodiac. So we could say it's the year of the horse, but that's a little bit different from what we're talking about here with the western horoscope.

Okay, very good. So all of this actually comes down to the as we say the pseudoscience or the branch called astrology.