British Council-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..