Show 775 Thursday 26 June

Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.

One of my favourite channels on YouTube is the google channel. They have a lot of really long videos – some of them more than two hours long. And they are on a variety of interesting topics – or things that I find interesting anyway. A lot of them are about technology – as you’d expect - but they also have people talking about other things, like politics and food and they have authors talking about their books.

This is one of the videos that I really enjoyed:
"Two Years on the Yangtze" - Peter Hessler speaks at Google

Peter Hessler is a writer who taught English in China for two years. And he wrote a book about that. And I thought the talk was really interesting.

One funny thing was when he was talking about some of the nicknames his students had. Because, for some reason, when Chinese people study English they tend to give themselves nicknames.

And he had students called: Yellow, Pen, coconut.
And one guy was called Daisy.

He says this: There was one boy, a very tall boy who always wore military uniform, full camouflage dress, who had named himself Daisy. I was never able to get a clear sense on why he had come up with the name Daisy. The Dean actually asked me about it at one point. But I liked the idea of having a mysterious student with the name Daisy in full camouflage at the back of my class, and so I never encouraged him to change his name.

* This quote from 5:09

So, it’s a pretty interesting talk. Check it out if you’re interested.

And I think these talks could be really useful for students who are planning on going to a university in an English speaking country. They would be great practice for listening to lectures.



STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today, architects have unveiled plans to build a 420-meter shape-shifting skyscraper in Dubai.

David Fisher is an Italian architect who wants to build an 80-story rotating tower in Dubai.
According to CNN, each floor would be capable of rotating independently, powered by wind turbines fitted between each floor.
Apartments in the tower will range in price from 4 to 40 million dollars and work on the tower is due to be completed by 2010.

And that was Stick News for Thursday the 26th of June.
Kia Ora.

Word of the Day

Today’s word is unveil.
v. show or announce publicly for the first time

conversations with sarah
#477 Have you ever been to China?

Step 1: Repeat Jim’s lines.
Step 2: Read Jim’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Jim Have you ever been to China?

Sarah No. Have you?

Jim No.

Sarah Actually, I have I guess. I went to Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Jim Are they part of China?

Sarah Kind of. I think Hong Kong is officially part of China but it has its own laws and money and stuff.

Jim It used to be part of the UK, didn’t it?

Sarah Yeah, until 1997.

Jim Has it changed much since then?

Sarah I don’t really know. The flag changed. I know that much. It used to look like the New Zealand flag, but now it looks like the Japanese flag except there’s a flower in the middle instead of a circle.

links

today's news
today's STICK NEWS pictures

music

show start
artist: BrunoXe
album: aprendiendo desde 2004
track: Mandrake
from: Jerez, Spain
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

WOD start
artist: DJ iPep's
album: Home Mix 2007
track: Game Toy
from: EVREUX, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack2
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: ioeo
album: Groovetracks
track: endless
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

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