Show 125 Tuesday 5 September

Watch today's show at YouTube or BlipTV.


Intro

Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.
Yesterday I told you about a good video for English study by Barats and Bereta.
Today I want to talk about another video which is good for English study. It’s a video blog by an American girl called Toni – this is her user name: cocoanino – I don’t know how to pronounce it.
I think it’s great to study because Toni is just talking about what’s recently been happening recently in her life. And she speaks really clearly, and what she says is interesting.
So by studying this video you can learn some natural expressions to use when ... for example talking to a friend about what you’ve been doing.

I’m going to give you some vocabulary from the video now – and today’s questionanswer is comprehension questions about the video.

enunciate verb to say or pronounce words clearly
phobia noun a strong unreasonable fear or hatred of something
sinister adj. seeming evil or dangerous
paranoid adj. afraid or suspicious of other people and believing that they are trying to harm you, in a way that is not reasonable

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora. In Stick News today, a Chinese film director has been banned from making films for five years after he sent his film to a film festival without government permission.

In 1989 many people in China took part in protests against the government. The government told them to stop. But they refused. So, on the 3rd of June, the government sent tanks and soldiers into Tiananmen Square, Beijing. Their purpose was to stop the protests. The government killed many people. Soldiers were also burnt alive by protestors.
This incident shocked many people around the world. But the Chinese government doesn’t like talking about it. According to Wikipedia any public discussion of it is regarded as inappropriate. And it is common for Chinese, to be entirely unaware of the Tiananmen protests. A Chinese director recently made a love story set during the time of the Tiananmen protests. The government censors didn’t seem to like it – and didn’t approve of it being sent to a French film festival. The director sent it anyway. And has now been banned from making films for 5 years.

The director also faces a fine. And it’s unlikely the film will ever screen in China. That was Stick News for Tuesday the 5th of September.
Kia Ora.

*oops, I meant to say “be screened”... but it doesn’t really matter

conversations with sarah
# 81 I want to improve my listening

Sarah recommends a video she thinks is good for studying English.
Step 1: Repeat Tomoko’s lines.
Step 2: Read Tomoko’s lines on the screen and talk to Sarah.

Tomoko I want to improve my listening – what do you recommend?

Sarah I think watching videos on the net is a good idea. Can you watch videos on your computer?

Tomoko Yeah, I just bought a new computer.

Sarah Oh, good. Have you heard of video sites like YouTube?

Tomoko YouTube? No. What’s that?

Sarah It’s a video sharing site. Anyone can upload videos, and anyone can watch them.

Tomoko What kind of videos do they have?

Sarah Um, they have all kinds ... a lot of music videos, comedy, people lip syncing to music... But the ones I recommend studying are the ones where people talk to the camera. Actually I saw a video the other day that I think would be perfect to study ...

Tomoko Oh really? What’s it called?

Sarah Um, I think it’s called Toni Vlogs Again. In Green.

Tomoko Vlog? What does that mean?

Sarah Vlog is ... I think that’s how you pronounce it... it might be v log ... but anyway – it’s a video blog – like a, like a video diary ... people just talking to the camera about what they’ve been doing or their opinions about things. But yeah, Toni talks about what she’s been doing recently ... and she talks quite clearly and what she says is interesting – so yeah, you should watch it.

Tomoko OK, I will.

Notes:

Music on the show is used with permisson from www.jamendo.com and magnatune.com

Today's questionanswer music:
Artist: Galdson
From: Ortigueira, Spain
Album: Roots
Track: Old Times
site
music at jamendo

Today's news.
About Tiananmen Square protests.

Toni Vlogs Again. In Green.
Transcript:

I think I’m just going to do a normal blog today. I haven’t done one of those in a while. Um, those are the ones I tend to get sick of the quickest. Because, watching myself do these is really awkward.

Um, one thing I’ve noticed is that I can tend to be kind of overdramatic.
Which comes off as ... just not very natural. The way that I think a lot of other people’s seem a little bit more natural. But ... I’m kind of overdramatic in person. I can be really expressive with my face. Or ... I over enunciate my words. And when I do it on here and I already don’t feel particularly natural doing it. I just ... It’s just so weird.

Not that I’m going for natural today. Um, If you haven’t noticed I have purple hair and green eyes. The lighting is already just so off in this room. The colours are never accurate anyway. So I figured I would take it to the extreme today.

It’s been an interesting week. Um, I started school back. I think I’m going to like my classes. It’s a little early to tell though. Um, I started back at my old job. And I started training for my new job as a writing consultant at my university. And I’m really excited about it. We had an all day training yesterday which went really well. Um, I think I’m going to be working with ah a lot of people who are a few years older than me, and probably better writers than me. Probably smarter than me. So, everyone was really clever. And I really liked the sense of humour that people seemed to have. Everything we did yesterday was very interactive. And, I really ... I like writing and I I’m, I think this is going to make me a better writer, helping other people with their own ...

So that was cool. Um, last night my roommate got me to leave the house and go to a dinner party. Not like a fancy thing, but just like a bunch of kids that get together and make really good food and drink and hang out into the wee hours of the morning ... I don’t know ... I don’t know what that phrase is.

Um, yeah, I’ve been pretty anti-social since I got back to Orlando. It’s always hard for me I think around this time of year ... or at least it has been in the past couple of years. Just because ... I’ll get used to being here for school and I don’t really want to go home. And then I go home and I get used to being at home and having a family around me and a mom taking care of me. And my best friends might come into town. I get to hanging out with them. Um, my boyfriend ... I mean, I get used to having a boyfriend again, like, and then I come back here and then it’s back to a long distance relationship. And no family and no best friend and ... I’m not down, I just I get kind of lazy. I get kind of disinterested in doing anything. But I, I had a really good time last night. I’m really glad my roommate invited me out.

Um, I have work today. Which I don’t really mind but I have to ride my bike. And I think it’s going to rain soon and I have to ride my bike home tonight. Which of course I hate doing at night. It’s just ... It really is just creepy, I just don’t like it, at all. Um, I was riding my bike home yesterday from my writing center training. And I almost had a heart attack. Like, there’s a reason I don’t drive. It’s not just that I don’t like to drive. It’s that I have a serious phobia. Or at least I work myself up to the point where I think I’m going to pass out.

And um, I was riding my bike yesterday ... on campus it’s lovely, I love riding my bike. And then I get to this main road and I’m just ... cars are whizzing by at such high speeds and they’re so loud and scary and sinister ... I, I really hate cars and as I’m riding my bike I look at them and I can’t help but imagine myself like hitting a bump and being thrown under one of them. And my mangled body being dragged down the road. Seriously, it’s what I envision. And my heart was racing yesterday so fast. Like, I seriously thought I might pass out just because I work myself up into these like paranoid, like, scary car story modes. I don’t know. I really hate it.

I really just want to live somewhere ... where either ... I either want to live somewhere very rural where I wouldn’t mind driving. Maybe like, my idea of um, of the hills of England or something. Or in a big enough city with really good public transportation. Um, I don’t really want anything in between. And I hate Orlando as a non-driving person. It’s just not my kind of city.
I guess I just wanted to do a simple quick update. Um, I still have to watch all the video responses I got to the video about wanting to see people’s bedrooms.
And I’m really excited about it. I was really really pleased with the responses that I’ve seen so far. And I’ve got some more to watch. And I’ll talk about those soon.
And hmmm anything else ...
Now I’m just counting down the days until my financial aid comes in because I have some extra scholarship money that I, I’m planning on using on a video camera.
So, I hope, I hope it’s only a couple more weeks. I also have to pay my rent in September with that money. So I’m very poor right now. Very.

Uuuum ... yeah. I’ll do something more exciting, soon. I hope everything’s going well with you all.