Learn Real-Life English: Spend My Birthday With Me 🎂

Hey guys, it's my dad's birthday, so let's learn some English with comprehensible input. Let's go! All right friends, yes it is my birthday. Today I am 35 years old, so we're going to learn some real life English as always. We're going to celebrate my birthday by cooking an incredible meal later. I got a little cake. We'll show you some of the things we do here in the U.S. to celebrate somebody's birthday. But first, before we get into all of that, I want to take a moment to reflect on this last year of my life. And when we say reflecting on something, it means thinking about it. Really, really thinking about a certain period of time or a certain thing. So, I'm going to reflect on the last year of my life. Now, a lot of times people like me, and maybe people like you, we set big huge goals, okay? We set these giant goals. Oh, I want to be a millionaire. I want a million followers on Instagram. Big things, right? And then when we don't achieve those goals, we feel like a failure, right? So, I'm going to think about, I'm going to reflect upon the things that I wanted to do last year and the things that I did, the things I actually achieved. So, for the last few years, I've done a video like this on either New Year's Eve or my birthday and thought about my goals for the year. I don't remember if I did it this New Year, so I'll do it today on my birthday. But my goal has always been 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. And last year on my birthday, literally on my birthday weekend, we achieved that goal. And this year on my birthday, today, we have like, I haven't looked at the channel in like a week, guys, honestly. That's why I haven't responded to any comments because I'm so busy with Abby. But we have at least 317,000 subscribers the last time I looked. So, we have three times my original goal for the YouTube channel. So, in the last year, we've gained over 200,000 subscribers. I'm pretty proud of that. Pretty proud of that. Another thing I'm very proud of is creating the Native English Starter Kit. If you'd like to check it out, you can in the link below. It's a great way to support me and the channel. But I'm not proud of myself for making that because, oh, it's money. No, I'm proud because I learned how to create a product, how to make a little course, how to put it on a platform, and how to sell it. That's a skill, guys. That's huge. And I'm just super happy about that. Another thing I'm happy about is I've met some really awesome people this year, okay? I've collaborated with Jay from English by Jay. I don't remember if it was this year or the end of last, I spoke with Steve Kaufman. I collaborated with online and met in person Mr. Salas, somebody I've wanted to meet for a long time. I met the founder of Sprout, who's the partner with Jay. So, shout out, my man. You know who you are. I won't say your name, but I know you're watching. And I'm just really happy to have met all these people who think like I do and are working on big things. It's super cool, and it lets me know I'm moving in the right direction, that I'm meeting these people who are of a similar mindset. So, I'm very happy about that. And speaking of Sprout, if you'd like to speak with the AI version of me, you can click the link down below and try it for free for a week. Tons of other cool stuff on there, content from other awesome English creators like Jay. So, super happy about that. I've read and listened to a ton of books. I've learned a ton about business. And I've been a good father and a good husband. So, you know, there were things I wanted in this last year that I didn't achieve, perhaps. But I think I've done a lot. I've grown as a man. I'm proud of where I am. So, that's my reflection on the year. In this next year of my life, I have some big goals too, guys. You know, let's just say we'll shoot for a million subscribers on this YouTube channel. And I make my goals big, guys, because little goals bore me to death. And we say something bores you to death when it's so boring and you just are not excited about it at all. So, I have 317,000 subscribers. For me to say 400,000 subscribers, that bores me to death, guys, because I know that's coming and probably not that far away. But a million subscribers is a big goal that excites me because I'll get that gold play button. So, that's one of my goals. For this next year, another one of my goals is to keep on meeting awesome, successful people. Another one of my goals is to get my family to Colombia so that Abby can meet her grandparents and the Colombian side of her family. And to keep growing the business and keep gaining more financial security and freedom for myself and my family. And guys, I can't tell you if I'll achieve all those, but I can tell you without a doubt, I will try my very best. All right. I will talk to you guys in a bit. We'll celebrate my birthday. All right, friends. It is time to start cooking my birthday feast. Now, I'm not filming the whole meal, cooking it because it's a complex dish. You guys know the kind of things I like to cook. This is my birthday video, not a cooking video. I had to try something special for my birthday. This is something I had never even heard of until I searched for really awesome dishes from around the world. So, I'll give you guys some hints. I'll give you guys some hints. This is a dish from South Africa, but it has an Indian influence. Okay, we'll talk more about that later. Here we have the aromatics. And aromatics means the things that smell good. I've got some oil heating up here. Got a stick of cinnamon, some cardamom pods. This is a cool little spice called a star anise. And then I have cumin seeds and fennel seeds. So, we'll put that in the oil. And as that starts to cook, we will start to smell that. And in cooking, guys, we call that blooming the spices. So, we're just going to do that for just a minute. Smells good already. Those spices are blooming or opening up. This is traditionally, this is a dish traditionally made with lamb, but we're going to use beef because I want Connor to try it too. And he hasn't really tried lamb before, so I don't know if he'd like that. So, we're using beef. I'm going to add some onion. And we've got a whole lot of spices here, but those don't go in yet. So, like I said, I'm not going to show you guys all this. Just wanted to give you a little teaser about what dish we will be having. And a teaser means when you give hints about something, but you do not say what it is. So, tell me now, guys, do you have any idea what this is? One more hint. This is served with bread, traditionally in South Africa. All right, guys, I'll see you when we're preparing the dish. All right, guys, time for the birthday feast. So, this dish is called bunny chow, okay? And what it is, it's a curry. So, I made this delicious beef curry over here. It's a South African dish with an Indian curry. Something's not adding up, right? Well, apparently, in the 1800s, many Indians were brought to Durban, South Africa. They were brought as indentured servants, which honestly, guys, it's not a slave, but you know. Basically, these people signed contracts for five to ten years saying they would work and basically do whatever the person they signed these contracts to said for that amount of time. And in return, they would be given food and shelter. So, many Indians were brought to South Africa in this time. They brought with them their cuisine, and bunny chow became a thing. So, I chose this because it looks so interesting. I baked a loaf of bread, and I'm going to show you guys how they serve this. So, first, we need some bread. Oh, yeah, good bread. So, guys, take a part of the loaf like that, and then they cut the inside of the bread out. They make the bread into like a bowl. Oh, I can't wait to try this, guys. As soon as I saw this online, I knew this was what I wanted for my birthday dinner. So, then you pull the inside of the bread out and make a bread bowl like that. Then you take your curry, put some nice chunks of beef in there, and make sure you get some of the gravy on there. Yeah, get that gravy on there. Oh, guys, I cannot wait. All right, friends, that is South African bunny chow. Oh, boy, and you take the part that you cut out, and you use it to eat with the beef. Wow, guys, all those Indian spices I love. I absolutely love Indian cuisine. You know, the curry, the garam masala, the turmeric, the coriander, those spices come together in such a beautiful way. The cinnamon and star anise, and I love this twist on it where you put it in the bread. After I eat all this meat, this bread is going to be just soaked with the gravy. Now, that is a birthday feast. All right, guys, I'm going to eat my bunny chow. I'll talk to you guys in a little bit. I have to help my wife with Abby. I can hear Abby starting to cry a little bit, and Connor wants to eat some, too, so I'll see you guys in a bit. Okay, guys, now let me show you how we celebrate birthdays here in the United States. This is a little birthday cake, but I didn't want a bunch of cake because then I'll be tempted to eat it, so we take a lighter. Bless you, Abby. Light a candle on the birthday cake, and then the family and friends sing. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Daddy. Happy birthday to you. Then you make a wish, but you can't tell anybody, or else it won't come true. Blow out the candles. All right. Let's try this cake. It looks good. It does. It looks yummy. Thank you, guys, for singing for me. You're welcome. Hey, Abby. Oh, Abby wants cake, guys. You can't have cake, Daddy. You're a baby. Oh, that looks good. Oh, that looks yummy. Give us some spoons, bud. Okay. Or maybe even some forks. Yeah, whatever. You get the big fork. Oh, wait. Why did I grab four forks? Abby can't so can we get some? All right, guys, and I get the first bite because I am the birthday dad. Let me see. That's some good cake, guys. All right, my friends, I don't know how long this video is going to be. These days, it's kind of hard to film with little Abby. I haven't had my beautiful wife's help recording because somebody has to take care of Abby. Thanks for being with me and celebrating my birthday. You're welcome. Thank you, guys, for being with me and celebrating my birthday. Hope you enjoyed sharing this special moment with me and my family. So another year on this planet. I'm 35. Is that old? No, not yet. Thank you. Is it old? Yeah, it's not old, guys. It's not. It's not. Yummy cake.