Episode 05

Section 1 - “I didn't know you had a dog!” – talking about pets

Ravi: Hello again and welcome to LearnEnglish Elementary podcast number five. I’m Ravi – from Manchester

Tess: And I’m Tess – from London. We’re here with Gordon – our producer. Hello Gordon.

Gordon: Hello!

Tess: …. and, as usual, we’ve got lots of interesting things for you to listen to. But first of all, do you want to know my big news for this week, Ravi?

Ravi: Let me guess. You’re going to be the star of a brand new Hollywood movie? You’ve won the lottery?

Tess: Not quite, Ravi. I’ve got a cat!

Ravi: Really?

Tess: Well, it’s just a baby cat – a kitten, but yes, I got him yesterday. He’s gorgeous.

Ravi: It’s a boy cat then? Where did you get him? Tess: Well, my friend Kate found him in the street. And Kate’s already got two cats so I said I’d take this one.

Ravi: What colour is he?

Tess: Well, he’s only small but he’s a brown tabby.

Ravi: What’s a tabby again? Is that the stripy one?

Tess: That’s it – tabbies are the ones with sort of dark stripes – like a tiger. He’s really lovely.

Ravi: What are you going to call him?

Tess: D’you know, I just don’t know. I’ve got lots of ideas for names but I can’t decide. I thought maybe you could help me. What would you call a cat?

Ravi: Hmm. That’s a difficult question. To be honest, Tess, I’m more of a dog person. I’ve never really thought about names for cats.

Tess: You don’t like cats?

Ravi: Well, it’s not that I don’t like cats. I just prefer dogs, that’s all. Anyway, I’ve got an idea, why don’t you call your cat ‘Gordon’.

Tess: Hmm. I don’t think so. I need to think of a name soon though, really. Anyway, let’s move on.

Section 2 – I’d like to meet

Tess: Let’s start with I’d Like to Meet. If you’re listening for the first time, I’d Like to Meet is the part of the show where someone tells us about the famous person – alive or dead – that they’d like to meet – and why. This time round we’ve got Olu with us. Hi Olu.

Olu: Hi Tess.

Tess: Where are you calling from Olu?

Olu: From West London.

Tess: And what do you do?

Olu: I’m still at school. In Year 12 Tess: OK. And who would you like to meet, Olu? Who are you going to talk to us about?

Olu: I’d like to meet Didier Drogba.

Ravi: Drogba? The footballer? Chelsea? You do know I’m from Manchester, don’t you, Olu? You know, Manchester United?

Olu: Yeah, well, it’s not just because he’s Chelsea.

Tess: Come on Olu – don’t listen to him. Why would you like to meet Didier Drogba? Tell us something about him.

Olu: Well, he’s a footballer – you already know that – and he’s from Ivory Coast, in West Africa, and he plays great football.

Tess: And do you like him because he’s a good footballer?

Olu: Well, I do, I like the way he plays and he scores some great goals and all that, but there’s more than that. He was born in Ivory Coast but he moved to France when he was five – he went on his own to live with his uncle. Imagine that – a five year-old boy moving to a new country by himself?

Tess: Wow.

Olu: And then he went back to Ivory Coast but moved back to France a bit after that. His family were really poor, you know, and they had to move around to look for work and that.

Tess: So did he start playing football in Ivory Coast?

Olu: No – in France. And this is another thing I like about him, see, most players at the really big clubs go there when they’re quite young but Drogba played for a few years with small teams and worked his way up, through hard work. He was 26, I think, when he went to Chelsea. But anyway, what I like him for most is that even though he’s made it now and he’s got loads of money and that he really hasn’t forgotten where he came from. He does loads of work for Unicef – he’s like an ambassador or something for them so he does all this charity work. Y’see, my dad came here from Nigeria when he was really small and, I’ve never been to Africa but all you see on TV is about problems in Africa all the time so it’s really good to see someone who comes from somewhere like Ivory Coast doing good things, you know.

Ravi: And Ivory Coast were in the World Cup in Germany, weren’t they?

Olu: Yeah. It’s the first time they’ve got to the World Cup Finals, and they did OK. Drogba was African footballer of the year as well.

Tess: And what would you like to say to Didier Drogba if you met him, Olu?

Olu: Erm, I guess I’d say thank you to him for the work he does for Africa and for showing people something good from Africa. And for scoring all those goals for Chelsea!

Ravi: Hmmm. I don’t know about that. But that was great Olu, thank you.

Tess: And don’t forget, we’d like to hear from you, our listeners. Tell us which famous person, dead or alive, you’d like to meet – and why. Email us at ‘learnenglishpodcast@britishcouncil.org., that’s learnenglishpodcast - all one word – at - britishcouncil – all one word dot org, that’s o-r-g.

Ravi: I’ll tell you what Tess, why don’t you call your cat Didier? That’s a great name for a cat.

Tess: Hmm. I don’t think so, really.

Section 3 – Quiz

Tess: OK. Now it’s quiz time. What is it this time Ravi?

Ravi: It’s something a bit different today – we’ve got our two players joining us on the telephone – I hope – Hello Vineeta?

Vineeta: (on phone) Hi Ravi

Ravi: And hello Jason.

Jason: (on phone) Hello

Ravi: Jason – where are you from and how old are you?

Jason: Erm .. I’m 15 and I’m from Durham.

Ravi: Near Newcastle? That’s where Carolina is. What’s the weather like in Durham today Jason?

Jason: Not great, really. It’s a bit cloudy.

Ravi: Oh dear. How are things where you are Vineeta? Where are you?

Vineeta: I’m in Plymouth.

Ravi: OK Plymouth – we’ve got opposite ends of the country here, Durham and Plymouth. It’s north against south. Sorry, Vineeta, what’s the weather like in Plymouth?

Vineeta: Not too bad. Quite sunny.

Ravi: OK. Better than Durham. Right. Do you both know what you have to do? I’ll explain for our listeners. I’m going to ask Jason and Vineeta some questions. To answer, they press any button on their phone and we’ll hear a buzzer. Let’s hear yours Jason.

(sound of Jason’s buzzer)

Ravi: And yours Vineeta (sound of Vineeta’s buzzer)

Ravi: Great. Now, the quiz is called ‘Beginning With ..’ – your answer has to begin with the letter I give you – so if I say, for example, ‘a sport beginning with 'F’ you could say ‘football’. Let’s have a practice run to begin with. Fingers ready? An animal beginning with P

(Jason’s buzzer)

Ravi: Jason?

Jason: Polar bear

Ravi: Yes. OK then, let’s play. First one to three is the winner. Ready?

Jason & Vineeta: Ready

Ravi: OK then, let’s go. A vegetable beginning with ‘L’ (Jason’s buzzer)

Ravi: Jason!

Jason: Lettuce

Ravi: Right. One nil to Jason. A colour beginning with ‘Y’.

(Jason’s buzzer)

Ravi: Jason again.

Jason: Yellow

Ravi: Right. Two nil. Come on Vineeta. A bird beginning with ‘E’.

(Vineeta’s buzzer)

Ravi: Vineeta.

Vineeta: Eagle.

Ravi: Yes. Well done Vineeta. Two one. OK. A sport beginning with ‘G’

(Jason’s buzzer)

Ravi: Jason.

Jason: Golf

Ravi: Yes! That’s three for Jason so you’re the winner. Well done Jason. And bad luck Vineeta. He was just a bit quicker than you.

Vineeta: Yeah.

Ravi: But never mind. Well done to both of you and thank you both for playing. Now, Tess, a cat’s name beginning with …..

Tess: I wish I could decide. Remember listeners that if you’ve got any ideas for games we can play, we’d love to hear them. You can send them to the usual address..

Section 4 – Our person in

Tess: Right, now then. The next part of our podcast is Our Person In – the part of the show where we hear from different people around the world. You’ll like it this time Ravi – you like Lord of the Rings. Graham Baxter is …Our Man in New Zealand.

Graham: When I was a boy and I first read Lord of the Rings, I dreamt of visiting the places Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, created. Hobbiton, Middle Earth, Mount Doom. Now, finally, I have found all of these places, here, in New Zealand.

Peter Jackson, who directed the Lord of the Rings films, was born in Wellington – the capital city of New Zealand. When he was looking for places to make the fantastic worlds he needed for his films he knew where to look. New Zealand has all kinds of scenery – and you can see a lot of it in the three films. The green hills of Matamata became Hobbiton and the Queenstown area became the Eregion Hills – and lots of other places – all with a little bit of help from computer magic.

People in New Zealand are proud of their country’s star role in the films but they are also happy at what Lord of the Rings has done to bring tourists to New Zealand. After the third film in the trilogy, The Return of the King, won 11 Oscars the number of tourists who visited New Zealand went up by 8%. More than a billion people have visited the Lord of the Rings website – fantastic publicity for this small country.

For me, this is my boyhood dream come true – a tour of the amazing worlds of Lord of the Rings – and all right here in New Zealand.

Ravi: Great. I’d love to go to New Zealand. I’ve always wanted to go.

Tess: Me too. The scenery sounds amazing. And it always looks so green in pictures.

Ravi: Yeah. It looks fantastic. Don’t forget listeners that we’d love to hear about the scenery or countryside in your country. Is there a special place you like to go or some especially famous countryside? You can write and tell us about it. As usual the address is learnenglishpodcast@britishcouncil.org. Go on, why not write, we’re always happy to hear from our listeners?

Section 5 – Your turn

Tess: Now, for Your Turn this time, since I’ve got a new cat, we decided to ask people a very important question – “Which do you prefer - cats or dogs?” It’s a very simple question but people have very strong opinions. Let’s hear what they said.

Voice 1: Dogs. Definitely. Why? Look – if you’ve got a dog it really loves you. All cats care about is who feeds them. You can think a cat loves you but if someone else gives it food it’ll be gone.

Voice 2: Well, I’ve got two cats so I think you know what my answer will be. But cats are just so much easier to look after. With dogs you’ve got to take them for walks all the time and all of that and you have to clean up their poo – yeuch.

Voice 3: That’s easy. Dogs are noisy, smelly and stupid; cats are much more intelligent. If you’re sitting on your sofa, right, it’s lovely when a cat comes and sits on you and purrs. Would you want a big daft dog to come and sit on you?

Voice 4: Cats are just so boring. All they do is sit around and sleep all day. They’re selfish, basically. Dogs play with you and stuff. They’re fun, you know.

Voice 5: Well, to be honest, I’m not really an animal lover. I think it’s cruel to keep dogs in the city – they should be in the country. Cats make me sneeze and they’re a real problem if you want to go on holiday. If I had to have a pet I’d probably have a goldfish.

Ravi: Interesting. What about you Tess? Why do you prefer cats?

Tess: I just do. Cats are so much more intelligent than dogs, I think. I like dogs too but, you know, like the last person said, I think it’s a bit cruel to keep a dog in a small flat like mine.

Ravi: OK. What about you listeners? Cats or dogs – which do you prefer? You can write and let us know. It’s learnenglishpodcast@britishcouncil.org. We’d love to hear from you.

Section 6 – Carolina

Tess: Right. Now it’s time to meet Carolina again. Carolina is from Venezuela and she’s come to the UK to live and study – and have fun! Last time we listened Carolina was on the train from London to Newcastle in the north of England, where she’s going to study at university. Let’s see what happened when she arrived in Newcastle. Another student is showing her round the student accommodation. 

Gemma: ... and if you get lost just ask someone. Anyway, this is the kitchen. Like I said, there are five of you in this flat and this is the kitchen for your flat. The other flats have all got their own kitchens. Right – I think that’s everything, I’m going to get back. I’m sure you want some time to unpack your stuff. Some of the other girls in your flat are here already. You’ll probably meet them here in the kitchen a bit later.

Carolina: OK. Thanks Gemma. Thanks for showing me around.

Gemma: No problem. I’ll probably see you around. OK. See you. I’m sure you’ll have a great time in Newcastle.

Carolina: Thanks. Bye

(in the shared kitchen )

Carolina: Erm. Hello. Charlotte: Hi. Oh! Are you in Room 4? Hi! Come in!

Carolina: Hi. Yes, I’m in Room 4. I’m Carolina.

Charlotte: Hi Carolina. I’m Charlotte. Nice to meet you. I’m in Room 2. We’re neighbours.

Carolina: Oh, right. Nice to meet you.

Emily: I’m Emily. I’m in number 1.

Carolina: Nice to meet you.

Emily: Nice to meet you.

Jenny: And I’m Jenny. Hi.

Carolina: Hi Jenny. Do you all know each other?

Jenny: No – we just met this afternoon. There’s another girl, Beth, but she’s not here at the moment. Have you just arrived? I’m sorry – I didn’t catch your name.

Carolina: Carolina. Yes, erm, I arrived about an hour ago.

Charlotte: Did you fly to Newcastle?

Carolina: No, erm, I got the train to Newcastle. I flew to London – to Heathrow.

Charlotte: Ah, OK. Where are you from?

Carolina: I’m from Venezuela.

Emily: Really? Wow! Have you flown from Venezuela today? You must be exhausted.

Carolina: Yes. I am actually. I just wanted to meet you all before I went to bed.

Jenny: What’s the time difference between here and Venezuela?

Carolina: It’s four hours behind here. So it’s seven o’clock in the evening in Venezuela now.

Charlotte: Do you want a cup of tea Carolina?

Carolina: Erm. .. No thanks. I’m going to go to bed. Erm. Do any of you know where we have to go to register tomorrow?

Emily: I do. I went there today. I can go with you if you want?

Carolina: Really? That would be great.

Jenny: Can I come too? I need to register as well. What course are you doing Carolina?

Carolina: Erm … Environmental Science. How about you?

Jenny: French and Politics. I think we have to register in the same place.

Emily: You do. It’s all in the same building. Shall we go at about nine tomorrow morning? Is that too early for you Carolina?

Carolina: No. Nine o’clock is OK. If that’s OK with you, sorry, erm …Jenny? Jenny: Nine’s fine. It’s a date! Now, you get yourself to bed Carolina – you look exhausted.

Carolina: OK. I am. Nice to meet you all. See you in the morning.

Charlotte/Jenny/Emily: Goodnight/See you tomorrow/See you in the morning.

Tess: Right. Carolina seems to be OK in Newcastle. Her flatmates sound nice.

Ravi: Yeah. How does it work? She doesn’t share a room with anyone, does she?

Tess: I don’t think so. I didn’t. Usually a ‘flat’ has four or five rooms – single rooms – and then those four or five people have a shared kitchen and maybe a shared bathroom too.

Ravi: Oh, OK. I see. Anyway, we’ll hear more about Carolina next time.

Section 7 – The Joke

Ravi: Now it’s time for …da-dah! Gordon and his amazing jokes. So what have you got for us today Gordon? Parrots? Talking dogs?

Gordon: Chickens. They can’t talk though.

Ravi: OK. Come on then. Let’s hear it.

Gordon: OK. A man is driving slowly down a country road when he sees a chicken run in front of his car. Nothing strange about that – but then, he notices that the chicken has three legs. "How strange" he thinks, "a three-legged chicken". He starts to drive a bit faster – 40 kilometres an hour - but the chicken goes faster too. He drives a bit faster – 70 kilometres an hour – but the three-legged chicken just runs faster too. The man goes faster and faster but the chicken keeps running. When they are both doing over one hundred kilometres an hour, the chicken turns a corner into a farm.

Quickly, the man stops his car. The farmyard is full of three-legged chickens. There are three-legged chickens everywhere. So, he sees the farmer in the farmyard and he asks him, “Where do all of these three-legged chickens come from? 

This is amazing”. “I breed them” says the farmer. “There are three of us, me, my wife and our son. We all like chicken legs, so … I made a three-legged chicken, so we can all have a leg at dinner time”. “Amazing” says the man, “How’s the meat? Does it taste good?”

“Well”, says the farmer, “I don’t know. We haven’t caught one of them yet.”

Tess: I don’t get it.

Ravi: Oh, Tess. They can’t catch the chickens because they’re so fast.

Tess: So do they taste good or not?

Ravi: Never mind Tess, never mind. Right. That’s all we’ve got time for this time but don’t go away. After this little break you’re going to hear Tom, our English teacher. After every show, Tom talks about the language you heard and gives you ideas to help you learn. So, don’t go away, but I’ll say goodbye now. See you next time.

Tess: Bye! Don’t forget to send us your emails! Here’s that address one more time. It’s learnenglishpodcast@britishcouncil.org.

Tom the teacher

Tom:

Hi, my name’s Tom – you’ll hear from me at the end of every podcast. I’m going to talk about some of the language that you heard, and talk about ways to help you learn English. Today I want to talk about verbs. You probably know that most verbs in English are ‘regular’. That means that the forms are very easy to remember. For all regular verbs, we make the past form in the same way. We add ‘E, D’ (or just ‘D’ if the verb already ends in ‘E’). For example, the verb ‘look’. The verb is ‘look’ and to make the past form we just add ‘E,D’. ‘Looked’. And the verb ‘like’. It already ends in ‘E’ so we just add ‘D’ to make the past. ‘Liked’.

So far so good. But the bad news is that a lot of the most common English verbs, verbs that you need to use all the time, are ‘irregular’. This means that they don’t follow the same rule. ‘Have’ is an irregular verb. You already know that the past of ‘have’ isn’t ‘haved’ – it’s ‘had’. But there are a lot more of them.

Listen to part of Carolina’s conversation with her new flatmates. Can you hear the three different forms of the verb ‘fly’?

Charlotte: Did you fly to Newcastle?

Carolina: No, erm, I got the train to Newcastle. I flew to London – to Heathrow.

Charlotte: Ah, OK. Where are you from?

Carolina: I’m from Venezuela.

Emily: Really? Wow! Have you flown from Venezuela today? You must be exhausted.

Did you hear the three forms? They were ‘fly’, ‘flew’ and ‘flown’. If you use a coursebook, or have a grammar book to study, it probably has a list of irregular verbs. And the list is organised in three columns. If you look for the verb ‘fly’ you will see ‘fly’ in the first column, ‘flew’ in the second column and ‘flown’ in the third. Listen again.

Charlotte: Did you fly to Newcastle?

Carolina: No, erm, I got the train to Newcastle. I flew to London – to Heathrow.

‘Fly’ is the base form of the verb – some people call it the infinitive. We use it in lots of different ways. For example – we use it with ‘going to’ to talk about the future. ‘He’s going to fly to London next week’. We use it with ‘do’ and ‘did’ to make questions, ‘Did you fly to Newcastle?’

Remember that this first column is not the present tense. It might look the same – we say ‘I fly to London every week', but remember that we say ‘he or she flies’.

The second column is ‘flew’. This column is easy - it’s the past simple form. ‘Flew’ is the past simple of fly. Carolina flew to London and then she got the train to Newcastle.

Now let’s look at the third column. Listen again.

Carolina: I’m from Venezuela.

Emily: Really? Wow! Have you flown from Venezuela today? You must be exhausted.

The third column is ‘flown’. Some people call it ‘the past participle’. We never use this form alone – we use it with other verbs. We often use it with ‘have’ or ‘has’ to make the present perfect, like Emily did – ‘Have you flown from Venezuela today?’. Or we can say ‘I’ve never flown in a helicopter’.

We also use the third column with the verb ‘be’ in sentences like ‘Nissan cars are made in Japan’ or ‘My bag was stolen on the bus’. So, that’s the three columns in an irregular verb list. 

Now we need to think about the best way to learn these irregular forms. It probably isn’t a very good idea to sit down with a list of irregular verbs and try to learn all of them. There are a lot of irregular verbs in English, and some of them will be verbs that are new to you. The important thing is to learn the three forms of the verbs that you already know, so that you can use those verbs correctly.

Make a page in your notebook for irregular verbs – make three columns and fill in the verbs that you already know. Verbs like ‘make’, ‘do’, ‘meet’, ‘have’ and ‘go’ for example. Then write a sentence with each form as an example. Example sentences will help you to remember the forms. Then when you find a new verb you can add it to your list. You can find a link to a list of irregular verbs on our website – use it to check the forms of the verbs that you know and add them to your notebook.

Now let’s talk about something different. The weather. Listen to Ravi talking to the people who are going to do the quiz.

Ravi: What’s the weather like in Durham today Jason?

Jason: (on phone) Not great, really. It’s a bit cloudy.

Ravi: Oh dear. How are things where you are Vineeta? Where are you?

Vineeta: (on phone) I’m in Plymouth.

Ravi: OK Plymouth – we’ve got opposite ends of the country here, Durham and Plymouth. It’s north against south. Sorry, Vineeta, what’s the weather like in Plymouth?

Vineeta: Not too bad. Quite sunny.

Now, some people say that the British talk about the weather all the time. Well, we don’t talk about it all the time, but it is true that we talk about it a lot. I think one reason for that is that the weather here changes a lot. You can never be sure of the weather in Britain – it’s often a surprise - so there is always something to say about it.

But we don’t often have long conversations about the weather. It’s a very useful way of starting a conversation with someone, especially someone that you don’t know very well, in a shop for example. You can say “Nice weather isn’t it?” or “What terrible weather we’re having”, or “What a lovely day”. The person will respond and then probably move the conversation on to another topic.

One more thing about the weather. A lot of people think that the British use the phrase “It’s raining cats and dogs”. Now, this phrase does exist in English, but I must say that I’ve never used it in my life, and I don’t remember anyone saying it to me either. It really isn’t very common, and it’s probably best not to use it yourself. It really isn’t very natural.

Before I go, I’d like to tell you about a useful phrase that I noticed in this podcast. Listen to this extract. Gemma has just shown Carolina her new flat. Listen to the phrases she uses when she says goodbye.

Gemma: Right – I think that’s everything, I’m going to get back. I’m sure you want some time to unpack your stuff. Some of the other girls in your flat are here already. You’ll probably meet them here in the kitchen a bit later.

Carolina: OK. Thanks Gemma. Thanks for showing me around.

Gemma: No problem. I’ll probably see you around. OK. See you. I’m sure you’ll have a great time in Newcastle.

Did you notice that Gemma says “I’ll probably see you around”? Gemma hasn’t made any arrangements to see Carolina again, and they aren’t doing the same course, but because they both study at the same university, they might meet one day in the café or in a corridor. So she says “I’ll probably see you around”. Try to use “I’ll probably see you around” when you say goodbye to someone this week.

OK. That’s all from me today. I’ll talk to you all again on the next podcast. Remember you can send your questions to me at learnenglishpodcast@britishcouncil.org. I’ll be happy to answer your questions! In a moment you’ll hear the address for the website where you can read everything you’ve heard in this podcast. So bye for now! See you next time..