Episode 01

Section 1: "It's Tess's birthday today…!"

Ravi: Hello and welcome to the Second series of the LearnEnglish Elementary podcast. This is podcast number one. If you listened to the first series you’ll remember – I hope – that my name’s Ravi…
Tess: … and I’m Tess. Yes, we’re back again. I hope you didn’t miss us too much. We’ve had a little break – did you go anywhere nice Ravi? Ravi: No.
Tess: – and now we’re back with more good stuff for you to listen to. We’ve got…
Ravi: Aren’t you going to tell them, Tess? I’ll tell them if you don’t. We’ve chosen a special day to come back – it’s Tess’s birthday today, isn’t it?
Tess: Yeah, it is.
Ravi: Happy birthday!
{sound of kiss on the cheek}

Tess: Thank you.
Ravi: Are you doing anything special?
Tess: Well, I’m going out for dinner with some friends tonight and then we might go to a club. I’m not really sure.
Ravi: Sounds good. Where are you going to eat? Is it somewhere a bit special or …
Tess: Yeah, it’s a French place. I’ve heard it’s really good but I haven’t been there.
Ravi: I’m sure it’ll be great. Any good presents? Tess: Well, I got some money from my mum and dad to buy myself something nice so I’m going to get some new boots with that. And that’s it, so far ….
Ravi: Well, I’ll get you a coffee when we finish here, OK?
Tess: OK. And a cake?
Ravi: Oh go on then. A small one. But let’s get on with it. What have we got today?

Tess: We’ve got our quiz, then we’ve got people telling us about their favourite food. And Carolina’s back again.
Ravi: Right. If you’re listening and you don’t remember Carolina, she’s a student from Venezuela who’s come to Britain to study and we follow her in every podcast to hear how she’s getting on.

Section 2: I’d like to talk about…

Tess: But to start with, we’ve got something new. This section is called ‘I’d like to talk about…’ In every podcast, we’ll talk to someone who wants to tell us about something that they’re interested in. It could be anything – a hobby, a person, a place, a thing – something that you know a bit about and would like to share with Ravi and me – and all our listeners of course. And to start us off with ‘I’d like to talk about …’ we’ve got Esther here with us. Esther. Hello.
Esther: Good morning.
Ravi: Hi Esther. Welcome to the podcast. You’re a student aren’t you?
Esther: Hello Ravi. Yes, that’s right.
Ravi: Here in London? What are you studying?

Esther: Yeah. Chemistry. I’m doing a Masters.

Ravi: Blimey. Is that what you’re going to tell us about? I’m lost already.
Esther: No, actually. I’d like to talk about knitting.
Ravi: Knitting?

Esther: Yeah, knitting. It’s really popular nowadays you know. Lots of young people are doing it. There’s a university knitting club that I’m in.
Ravi: But why do people want to knit?
Tess: To make things Ravi! To make things to wear! You’re wearing a jumper – it’s made of wool – well, it’s knitted, isn’t it? You get the wool from a sheep and you knit a jumper! Or socks! Or a scarf!
Ravi: OK, OK, OK, don’t go crazy - it was a stupid question. Sorry Esther.
Esther: That’s OK. But you know, there are some men in our knitting club too, and some of them are really good at it. Knitting’s really quite fashionable now. There are celebrity knitters and everything.
Ravi: Yeah?
Esther: Yeah. There’s Madonna, and erm … Julia Roberts and Uma Thurman. Lots of people. And of course, nowadays people are more worried about the environment and trying to recycle things, and so knitting’s perfect. You can take an old jumper that you don’t like any more and make something new. It’s a cheap way to get clothes.

Tess: Good point. Do you know anything about the history of knitting Esther? When did it start?

Esther: Not really. Some people say that it started with people making nets, you know, for catching fish or animals, but nobody knows for sure. I saw a pair of socks once in a museum. They were from Egypt, about a thousand years old I think. They were beautiful, really complicated, but that’s the oldest thing I know.

Ravi: That’s interesting.
Esther: Remember that they didn’t have machines for knitting till the nineteenth century, so everything was done by hand - even clothes for kings and queens. In England it was always men that knitted for the rich people. They had to do six years’ training to become ‘master’ knitters.
Ravi: Six years!
Tess: So women didn’t knit?
Esther: Well poor women did of course. In fact the whole family used to knit – the fathers and the children too - making socks and things that they could sell to make money.
Tess: Did you make that jumper you’re wearing?

Esther: Yes, I did.
Tess: It’s really nice. Esther: Thank you. It took me ages.

Tess: I could never make something like that.

Esther: You could. You have to practise but it’s not that difficult. That’s another thing I like about knitting. When you start you can just do kind of simple things like scarves and stuff and then when you get a bit better at it you can make more difficult things like this.
Tess: Well, that’s great. Thanks very much Esther. Really interesting.

Esther: Thank you.
Tess: Ravi? What do you think? Want to start knitting?
Ravi: Hmmm. Maybe. Hey, Tess. What do you get if you cross a sheep with a kangaroo?

Tess: A father sheep and a mother kangaroo? Or the other way round?
Ravi: I don’t know – it doesn’t matter Tess. The joke’s just ‘what do you get if you cross a sheep with a kangaroo?’.
Tess: Go on
Ravi: A woolly jumper.
Tess: You’ve been waiting to say that, haven’t you?
Ravi: Yeah.
Tess: Well, Esther is going to give us some knitting pictures and links to put up on the site if you want to find out more.
Ravi: You enjoyed that, didn’t you? Why don’t you try and knit something?
Tess: I could, couldn’t I? I could make you a scarf for your birthday. When is your birthday? Is it in June?
Ravi: Yeah, the fifteenth. You’ve got plenty of time if you start now.
Tess: Ho, ho. …. Oh. I forgot to say, listeners, if you want to write something or record something you can send it to us at learn English podcast at British Council dot org, that’s learnenglishpodcast - all one word – at - britishcouncil – all one word DOT org, that’s o-r- g. Like I said, it can be whatever you want – a hobby, a person, anything. Or just tell us if you like knitting. Send it to us and we’ll put the best answers on the site.

Section 3 – Quiz

Ravi: OK. Time now to go to the phone to talk to today’s quiz contestant, who is Mark from Nottingham. Hello, Mark? No. Er ..OK ..
Mark: {on phone} Hello?
Ravi: Mark! Hi. How are you? Mark: I’m fine thanks, Ravi.

Ravi: What are you up to today?
Mark: Oh, nothing special. It’s my day off so I’m not doing very much.
Ravi: What do you do?
Mark: I work in a clothes shop in Nottingham.

Ravi: Ah. OK. It’s not Paul Smith is it? He’s from Nottingham isn’t he? Great designer.
Mark: No, it’s not Paul Smith, He is from Nottingham though. No, I work in a small clothes shop in the centre of town.
Ravi: Do you like it?
Mark: Yeah, it’s OK, yeah. It’s good.
Ravi: Great. Right. We’re going to play ‘Hot Seat ‘, OK? Tess?

Tess: Yes. So you’re going to play with Ravi today Mark. I’m going to give Ravi some words – he doesn’t know what they are – and he’s going to try to explain them so that you can guess the words. All right?
Mark: OK.
Tess: And we’ll see how many you can get in one minute. Oh .. and the other thing is all the words are connected. This time the connection is – people in your life. Let’s do one to practise. So, for example, if I say, erm , it’s your father’s brother. Or your mother’s brother’, who is it?

Mark: Uncle.
Tess: Right. You’ve got the idea. Are you ready to go?
Mark: Ready.
Tess: OK then. Ready Ravi? Let’s start. Here are the words. You’ve got one minute a starting from …. now.
Ravi: Right … erm … the person who lives next door to you … erm .. in the house next to yours. Mark: Neighbour? Next door neighbour?
Ravi: Neighbour. Yes. Erm … your brother’s daughter. Or your sister’s daughter. It’s your ……?
Mark: Nephew. I mean niece. Niece.
Ravi: Yes, niece. Someone in the same … no … someone who goes to the same school as you and they’re …
Mark: Pupil?
Ravi: No. They’ve got the same teacher as you and you sit next to them or something. They’re your …?
Mark: Classmate?
Ravi: Yes! Phew! I couldn’t say ‘class’ Erm, come on then … if you’re married this is, like, your wife’s dad …

Mark: Father-in-law.

Ravi: OK. Next one. Someone who you work with, like, Tess is my …. ?
Mark: Friend?
Ravi: No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I mean. We work together so we’re …?
Mark: Erm .. I don’t know.

Ravi: We …
Mark: Oh. Colleagues.
Ravi: Colleague, yes. How’s the time? Erm .. this person is … another word for ‘manager’. The person who’s in charge at work is your ..?

Mark: Boss?
Ravi: Yes. Boss. Your uncle’s children are your …?

Buzzer sounds

Mark: Cousins?
Ravi: Yes. OK, I’ll give you that one. Phew. That was really stressful. Well done Mark. How many is that Tess?
Tess: Neighbour. Niece. Classmate. Father-in- law. Colleague. Boss and Cousin. Seven. Well done Mark. And Ravi.
Mark: Thanks.
Ravi: And thanks for playing. We’ll send you a book token and anything else we can find lying around the studio. Thanks Mark.
Tess: Right. We’ve got more to come. We’ll hear what some of our listeners say about their favourite food and we’ll catch up with Carolina again after this ….

Section 4: Your turn

Ravi: Now we can move on to Your Turn. This is the part of the podcast when we go out and ask different people what they think about something. We ask a different question in every podcast, and this time the question was ‘Which country’s food is your favourite?’ – and of course, ‘Why?’.
Tess: OK, let’s hear what people said.

Voice 1: That would be Vietnamese food, especially southern Vietnamese food around the city of Ho Chi Minh. I’ve been there many times and each time I go there my friends will bring me to restaurants where they serve food that has ... ah ... that was cooked with a lot of rich ingredients such as lemon grass, herbs, pepper, and they put in lots of different types of seafood so I think that’s a lot of effort put in to cook up such a dish. So I actually like Vietnamese food very much. And in addition I think the food there is very healthy. They don’t use a lot of oil they use a lot of natural ingredients such as herbs and also fish sauce so what comes out of that is a lot of flavours of seafood plus herbs, which I like very much.
Voice 2: Um, well, I live in Italy at the moment so I’m very fond of Italian food, but really if I had to choose I would say Indian or Thai food because I like spicy food.
Voice 3: My favourite food is food from Italy because I really like pasta and I really like tomato sauce and ... um ... olive oil, and I also like wine and the wine from Italy is very good.

Voice 4: Oh I think I’d have to say France … ah … ‘cos French cooking is superb, so much variety and they just take it so seriously.
Voice 5: Mmm, I’m going to say two countries, aah maybe Italy, from Europe, because I really, really like pizza and aah the different types of pasta they have there, but probably my real favourite type of food comes from Mexico, which aah I just enjoy everything I’ve ever tried from Mexico. It’s always a little bit spicy, maybe a little bit heavy, umm, but really, really good food.

Voice 6: Aah, I think Thai food because it’s … I like spicy food and it’s really kind of fresh, as well, lots of interesting different tastes.
Ravi: So what’s your favourite food Tess? I bet it’s French.
Tess: No. Why? Why French?
Ravi: You’re going to a French restaurant for your birthday aren’t you?
Tess: Well yes, but I’m not sure it’s my favourite. I don’t know, it’s a difficult one. Maybe Italian. I mean good Italian, not just fast food pizzas. What about you?
Ravi: No contest. Indian every time. I’m a traditional boy about food. But I love fast food pizzas as well. All fast food actually.

Section 5: Carolina

Ravi: But now it’s time to find out what’s happening to Carolina. If you listened to the first series of the podcast you’ll know that Carolina is from Venezuela and she’s just started a course at Newcastle University in Britain.

Tess: Yes. In every podcast we hear what Carolina’s been doing. She’s already met a lot of people in Newcastle. She shares a flat with her friend Emily and some other students. And her special friend is a guy called Jamie.
Ravi: Yes, Tess likes Jamie.
Tess: Thank you Ravi. Now let’s hear about Carolina

{In the street}

Carolina: So I told Emily that she .... . Oh, wait a minute. They’re nice.
Jamie: Which ones? Those boots?
Carolina: No, those shoes at the back. The red ones. Let’s go in and have a look.
Jamie: OK.

{In the first shoe shop}

Carolina: Here they are. They’re beautiful. Jamie: What size are they?
Carolina: Um, five and a half. What does that mean? I’m a thirty-six in Venezuela.
Jamie: Yeah, British sizes are different. Try them on. See if they fit. Carolina: No, they’re too big.
Jamie: So try a five – that’s the next size down. Excuse me, have you got these in a five?
Shop Assistant 1: The red ones? No sorry. We’ve only got the sizes on the shelf.
Jamie: OK, thanks. Bad luck. Come on. Let’s …
…

{In the street}

Carolina: OK. But you know, I really do need some shoes. If we’re going to stay with your parents I need to look nice.
Jamie: I don’t think they’ll care what shoes you’re wearing.
Carolina: You know what I mean. Let’s have a look in here.
Jamie: OK.

{In the second shoe shop}

Jamie: What about these red ones?
Carolina: They’re horrible! And they’re too high. I can’t wear very high heels – I can’t walk.

Jamie: Those brown ones then, they’re nice.

Carolina: No, I don’t want brown - I haven’t got any brown clothes.
Jamie: These black ones then. They’re a size 5.

Carolina: Mmm. They’re quite nice. How much are they?
Jamie: Ninety-five pounds.
Carolina: Ninety-five pounds! I’m not paying ninety-five pounds for a pair of shoes! No, let’s go somewhere else. Come on Jamie.
Jamie: But if you like them why don’t you…

…

{In the street}

Jamie: So what exactly do you want? What colour? Carolina: I don’t know exactly, but I’ll know when I see them. Here’s another shop. Come on.

{In the third shoe shop}

Carolina: Now these are nice. Black. Not too high. And not too expensive.
Jamie: Why don’t you try them on?
Carolina: Wait a minute. They’ve got them in grey too. Maybe they’re nicer. What do you think?
Jamie: Try them both on.
Carolina: Excuse me? Have you got these in a size 5?
Shop Assistant 2: In a 5? In black or grey?

Carolina: I’d like to try both of them please.

Shop Assistant 2: I’ll just go and check.
Jamie: Phew. Let’s sit down. Shoe shops make me tired…
…
Carolina: …so which ones do you like best – the grey ones or the black ones?
Jamie: They’re both nice.
Carolina: But tell me which ones you like best.

Jamie: OK then, the grey ones.
Carolina: What’s wrong with the black ones?

Jamie: Nothing’s wrong with the black ones. I said I liked them both.

Carolina: I think I prefer the black ones.
Jamie: OK, if I say I prefer the black ones, can we just buy them and get out of here?
Carolina: Yes, I think I’ll get the black ones. Do you like them? Or do you prefer the grey ones?

Jamie: Aaaargh!
Carolina: Excuse me,

Shop assistant 2: Yes?

Carolina: I’ll take these please.
Shop assistant 2: The black ones?
Carolina: Yes, the black ones. Now where do I pay?
Shop assistant 2: Over here love.
Carolina: Come on Jamie – why are you being so difficult today? …
Ravi: Poor old Jamie. I think he was a bit bored. Do you like buying shoes Tess?
Tess: Well, yes, I do. I like shoes. Don’t you?

Ravi: Well yes, of course I do, but …., usually I know what shoes I want and I go to the shop and I buy them. I don’t go round lots of shops trying them on. I think men and women are different about shoes. OK. I won’t say any more. I don’t want to upset anybody.

Tess: Good! Anyway, did you hear Carolina say that they’re going to visit Jamie’s parents?

Ravi: Yes.

Tess: So…

Ravi: So what?
Tess: So… they must be together… you know – a couple.
Ravi: Well yes. Men don’t go to shoe shops with women if they’re not serious.
Tess: Don’t start the shoe thing again.

Ravi: Sorry.

Section 6: The End

Tess: So that’s the end of this podcast. You might remember in series one, we always finished with a joke from Gordon. Well, Gordon isn’t with us any more. He’s got a new job.
Ravi: Yes, and we hope everything goes well for him. Hey Tess, I’ve got a little surprise for you.

Tess: Really?
Ravi: Here you are. Happy birthday.

Tess: Oh thank you! What is it?

Ravi: Well open it and see.

{sound of present being opened}

Tess: A French cookery book! Thank you Ravi. That’s really great.
Ravi: Well, I thought French food was your favourite, but now…
Tess: Oh, silly, I love French food – and I love cooking. It’s a lovely present. Thank you. Come here.

{sound of a kiss}

Ravi: So do you want to say the last bit, birthday girl? Before we go and get that cake?
Tess: OK. Well, that’s the end of our part of the podcast, and remember, the address for anything that you want to send us is learnenglishpodcast@britishcouncil.org. In a moment you can listen to Tom, our English teacher. He’s going to talk about some of the language you heard in this podcast and things to help you learn. So, stay around to listen to Tom but we’ll say goodbye for now.
Tess & Ravi: Bye!

Tom the teacher

Tom: Hi, I’m Tom. At the end of every podcast you’ll hear from me. I’m going to talk about some of the language you heard in the programmes and talk about ways to help you learn English. The first thing I want to talk about is the word ‘one’. Listen to Ravi at the beginning of the podcast.

Ravi: Hello and welcome to the Second series of the LearnEnglish Elementary podcast. This is podcast number one.

Tom: OK. No problem there. Ravi says ‘this is podcast number one’. He uses ‘one’ as a number. One, two, three, four, five etcetera. Now listen to Tess and Ravi. Listen for ‘one’.

Ravi: Well, I’ll get you a coffee when we finish here, OK?

Tess: OK. And a cake?

Ravi: Oh go on then. A small one.

Tom: ‘One’ isn’t a number here. Ravi isn’t saying ‘a small one, a small two’. ‘One’ here is a pronoun – it’s used in place of a noun – a thing. Listen again. What does ‘one’ refer to?

Ravi: {oblivious} Well, I’ll get you a coffee when we finish here, OK?

Tess: OK. And a cake?

Ravi: Oh go on then. A small one 

Tom: Yes, that’s right. ‘One’ refers to the cake. Ravi doesn’t repeat the word ‘cake’ – he uses ‘one’ instead. Tess said ‘cake’, so Ravi doesn’t need to say it again – they both know what they’re talking about. So he can use ‘one’. We do this a lot in English. We can also use ‘ones’ when we’re talking about something that’s plural. Listen to Jamie and Carolina in the shoe shop. What does ‘ones’ refer to?

Carolina: {fade in} So which ones do you like best – the grey ones or the black ones?

Jamie: They’re both nice.

Carolina: But tell me which ones you like best. Jamie: OK then, the grey ones.

Carolina: What’s wrong with the black ones? Jamie: Nothing’s wrong with the black ones. I said I liked them both.

Tom: Yes, they both use ‘ones’ to refer to the shoes. ‘Shoes’ is plural, so they use ‘ones’, not ‘one’. They can use ‘ones’ because they’re standing in the shoe shop looking at the shoes and so they both know what they’re talking about. In some languages you can make adjectives plural – you can say ‘I like the blacks’ or ‘I prefer the greys’, but you can’t do that in English. We say ‘I like the black ones’ or ‘I prefer the grey ones’. ‘One’ is very common with ‘this’ or ‘that’. We can say ‘Do you prefer this one or that one?’. And of course, we use it a lot with ‘which’. ‘Which one do you like best?’ or ‘Which ones do you prefer?’ or for example, in a car park with a friend, we can ask ‘Which one is yours?’ – we both know that we’re talking about a car. And if you’re eating chocolates you can say to a friend ‘Would you like one?’ There are lots of words in English that we use to refer to things or people. Words like ‘it’ or ‘her’ or ’them’ or ‘mine’ – pronouns. Also words like ‘this’ or ‘that’ or ‘these’ or ‘those’. Listen to Tess talking to Esther about knitting. Notice the words that refer to other people or things.

Tess: Did you make that jumper you’re wearing?

Esther: Yes, I did. Tess: It’s really nice.

Esther: Thank you. It took me ages.

Tess: I could never make something like that.

It’s important that you notice these words when you’re listening or reading, and that you know what they refer to – if you don’t, then you won’t be able to understand exactly what people are talking about. A good way to practise this is to take a piece of English, for example, a part of the tapescript of the podcast, and draw a circle around all the words that refer to something else. Then draw a line from the word to the thing that it refers to. So, for example, you draw a circle around the word ‘him’ and then draw a line to connect ‘him’ to what it refers to – maybe ‘John’ or ‘Ravi’. I’ll put an example on the site for you to see if you don’t understand what I mean. But please try it. It really will help you to understand things better. Now I’d like to talk about something different. Listen to this. What does ‘poor’ mean?

Tess: So women didn’t knit?

Esther: Well poor women did of course.

Tom: Yes, ‘poor’ means someone who hasn’t got very much money. It’s the opposite of ‘rich’. Now listen to this. What does ‘old’ mean?

Esther: You can take an old jumper that you don’t like any more and make something new. It’s a cheap way to get clothes.

Tom: Right again. An old jumper is a jumper that you’ve had for a long time. It’s the opposite of ‘new’. But now listen to what Ravi says after he listens to Carolina and Jamie in the shoe shop.

Ravi: Poor old Jamie. I think he was a bit bored.

Tom: It’s interesting, isn’t it? ‘Poor old Jamie’. Ravi doesn’t mean that Jamie hasn’t got any money. And he doesn’t mean that Jamie is old – he’s a young man. Ravi uses ‘poor’ because he feels sorry for Jamie because he was bored in the shoe shop. We use ‘poor’ in this way a lot – to show sympathy. You can say ‘look at that poor dog – it’s hungry’. Or ‘poor Susan hates her new job’. You can use ‘poor’ in formal or informal situations. But Ravi says ‘Poor old Jamie’. The ‘old’ makes it more informal – you would only say it to friends or people that you know well. If a friend has a problem you can say ‘Oh poor you’ or ‘Oh poor old you’ to show that you sympathise – that you feel sorry for them. And sometimes we say ‘you poor thing’ or ‘you poor old thing’ too. See if you notice it in any English films or songs that you listen to. And now for a simple phrase that you can use this week. Listen to Tess at the end of the quiz.

Tess: Neighbour. Niece. Classmate. Father-in- law. Colleague. Boss and cousin. Seven. Well done Mark. And Ravi.

Tom: She says ‘Well done Mark’ because he got seven words in the quiz. We say ‘well done’ when someone does something well – when we want to congratulate them. Use it this week when you’re speaking English. Say ‘well done’ to someone. OK. I’m going to stop there. I’ll talk to you all again next time. Remember you can write to me about any language that you noticed in this podcast. The address is learnenglishpodcastATbritishcouncilDOT org. In a moment you’ll hear the address for the website where you can read everything you’ve heard in this podcast. You can also find some practice exercises to do online and a support pack that you can print. Right. That’s all for this time. Bye for now! See you next time.