People love using holidays as an excuse to drink. If you get drunk on a random night, you have a problem. If you do it on a holiday, it’s culture. I think there’s another reason why drinking, it gets added to certain holidays, because Cinco de Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day, Mardi Gras all have one thing in common, and that’s parades.

And it’s really hard to enjoy a parade without alcohol, isn’t it? It’s like it’s filled with a lot of things we don’t like: standing for hours, marching bands, waving at people you don’t know. After three floats, they all look alike. Who couldn’t use a drink then?

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Hello, everyone. How’s it going? All is good here.

In that introduction, you heard Ellen DeGeneres in a video titled, Ellen Asks the Audience Why We Celebrate Cinco de Mayo.

Cinco de Mayo means the 5th of May in Spanish. It’s become an annual celebration filled with activity across the US. There’s drinking, parades, mariachi music and other cultural activities related to Mexican or Mexican-American culture. What’s odd, though, is most people born and raised in the US don’t know why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in general and why it’s such a huge event here.

In today’s episode, you’ll learn just that. To make this lesson extra fun, you’ll hear a joke, practice pronunciation and learn important drinking vocabulary. By drinking, I mean drinking alcoholic beverages. So let’s get to it and start with that joke.