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

I'm Brian Lynn.

And I'm Katie Weaver.

This program is aimed at English learners.

So we speak slowly and we use words and phrases especially written for people learning English.

Coming up, Andrew Smith presents Ask a Teacher. We also have words and their stories from Anna Mateo. And we and we close the show

close the show with an American story.

But first,

October 31st is Halloween, but many Americans have been preparing for the holiday for businesses are hoping for good profits from Halloween purchases. The National Retail Federation, NRF, is the largest U.S. Trade Group representing

sellers of material goods.

It expects total Halloween spending in 2024

to reach about 1111.6 billion.

That sounds like a healthy amount,

but it would be a drop from the year before.

The NRF says total Halloween spending in 2023

was a record setting 12.2 billion dollars.

So you might wonder what are Americans buying for Halloween?

And how do they celebrate the holiday?

Halloween traditions in America are linked to Celtic beliefs in ancient Britain.

The Celts believed that spirits of the dead would return to their homes on October 31st, the day of the autumn feast.

Celts would build huge fires to frighten away any evil spirits that

might return. People from Scotland and Ireland brought these ideas with them

...