Quote
1. Quote - Listen to the quote and guess what the slang means.
“Theater was definitely part of my roots.”
—Actor Christian Slater speaking about growing up in a theater family.
Definition
1. Definition - Study the definition.
history; background; where something comes from
2. Use - Learn how the slang is used.
Every person has a history, and every person has a family with even more history. For example, maybe your father worked as a scientist, and your mother was an excellent cook. Maybe, you spent hours in the kitchen with your mother, and your father helped you with science experiments on the weekend. If this were true, science might be easy for you. You could say that science was part of your roots.
When something is part of your roots, it is part of your personal history. People have roots, families have roots, and even cultures have roots. These past roots helped to create today’s reality. Christian Slater has been a popular actor since the 1980s, and he is even more popular today because of TV shows like Mr. Robot and Archer. However, when he was a young child, his father was an actor, and his mother was an acting agent. Theater and acting were always a big part of his life. It was only natural for him to also be an actor.
What are your roots? Are you similar to or different from your parents?
Examples
1. Examples - Hear some example sentences.
“I would like to go to the library to learn about my family’s roots.”
“The miniseries Roots tells the history of a slave family in the early United States.”
“My roots are based in architecture. My mother was an architect, and her father was also an architect.”