Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America.

I'm Katie Weaver.

And I'm Mario Ritter, Jr.

This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower and we use

words and phrases especially written for people learning English.

Coming up on the show, Brian Lynn has the technology report.

John Russell reports about a shoe thief.

And we close out the show with The Lesson of the Day.

But first...

The American Holiday of Thanksgiving is celebrated every year on the fourth Thursday in November.

The holiday is during autumn, the main season for harvesting crops. Thanksgiving is an autumn harvest festival, like those found in many cultures around the world. On this day, most

Americans gather with friends and family.

Many take time to think about what they are thankful for, cook up a storm, and eat.

A lot.

The star of most Thanksgiving dinners is a roasted turkey.

Turkeys are large birds native to North America. The turkey is cooked in an oven for many hours,

often with a mix of celery, bread, onions, and spices inside the bird.

This mix becomes stuffing, another star of the Thanksgiving dinner table.

Anna Mateo here at Learning English says the smell of turkey and stuffing roasting together

is the quintessential smell of Thanksgiving.

Quintessential means the perfect example of something.

After the bird is cooked, the stuffing is taken out and served as a side dish, one of many side dishes.

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