This dialogue transcript is taken from a pre-intermediate (B1) learner’s CD. I’m sure that since you are participating on this forum, this dialogue does not impose great difficulties on you. You mentioned the word delay, so you got the point. Still, I can understand why this conversation may be difficult to understand. Both of the interlocutors do not produce utterances which are intertwined nor do they follow the usual “subject-predicate-object” approach of most school books. There are half-sentences (partial sentences) used here which are perfectly normal bits of speech acts, and you are likely to find these in most everyday conversations. Everything that remains unsaid can be associated. But “can be associated” does not necessarily imply that any native speaker will get what is said/unsaid between the lines straight away.
The questions asked in a corresponding student’s book could be:
Where does the situation take place?
Is there a problem? If so, why?
Do you think A and B know each other?
Have you encountered a similar situation? How did you cope with it?
There are many different approaches to teaching vocab. I was curious whether other teachers had an idea for this exercise!
In order to fully appreciate this conversation and also to commiserate with the two ‘passengers’ you have to live in the UK. It’s a standard joke or shame that whenever there’s the slightest change in our variable climate, the country’s transport system on the railways grinds to a halt. In the winter time there are freezing points or there is snow on the lines (always the wrong type of snow and come the autumn, there will be leaves on the lines - all disabling the system and making the trains slip and slide. The strangest thing of all is it always comes as a huge surprise to the companies that run the railway system that this happens every year.
The whole transportation system sounds as sensitive as Jaguar and Triumph automobiles used to be. They were famous in America for not starting if the humidity suddenly changed or there was some other minor variation in the weather. (But, believe it or not, their reputation was better than that of FIAT.)
I just threw out a wild guess, but I think Alex’s guess was probably the correct one and that the leaves were probably on the tracks.
This is one of those culturally, or more accurately, geographically biased exercises that won’t work if the book is used in a country where conditions differ. My students wouldn’t be able to figure it out, because the transportation systems and sometimes the vegetation in their home countries and in their new home are too different from that in the UK.
This can even happen within the same country. One test question that comes with the textbook series we use at a college where I teach is New York centric, and my students always get the wrong answer. The American publishing industry is based in New York, where life is quite different from in the rest of the country.
The question states that a man’s boss is angry at him for coming late to work. It then asks the students to choose the most appropriate response. My students always get this wrong. The “right” answer is, “He shouldn’t have driven to work when it was snowing.” This assumes New York conditions, in which a person can choose to take the train or subway if the weather is bad. In my state, however, this answer makes no sense, because for most people, the only way to get to work is driving. So saying, “He shouldn’t have driven to work when it was snowing,” is the same as saying he shouldn’t have gone to work at all.
Who’s Alex? Was it so hard to say Alan was probably right? In case Alan was meant, I find it curious that (in your previous comment) you touched upon a topic pretty close to the British heart after he (Alan) had admitted to deficiencies of British public transport.
I apologise in case I was jumping to conclusions, or if I should have insulted a fair-minded slip. I really think we should keep personality elated cavalries out of this forum.
Btw, there’s nothging wrong with bashing the Brits. After all it was them who exported the cookie and who should in all fairness be held responsible for many a bloated waist.
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By the way, the sweetest desert (by far!) I’ve ever eaten was some sort of concoction prepared by a British colleague of mine. It was some sort of warm, sweet scone-type thing, saturated in a pool of what must have been 1 part whiskey, 8 parts melted butter and 10 parts sugar. I can’t remember what she called it (other than “desert” :lol:). Do you happen to know the name of this sort of desert?
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I do apologise for my comment. Damn, thought I had ya there and then!
Yankee’s scone recipe sounds pretty enticing. I’m one of the biggest fans of scone’s, and you can be sure I will be pestering you in case I can’t bring them to life! Unfortunately, I have no idea what they are called, probably ‘Dentist’s Delight’, ‘You Need A Bigger Coffin Fast’ or ‘Best Son-In Law’s Excuse For Boozing’ :?
Anyway, I’m glad the little dialogue got your imagination into gear. In the original audio dialogue you can hear two old geezers talking in a English-Midland accent, so that helped to place it.
Btw, how do you pronounce scone? In Ireland people say “skoun”, whereas in England i’ve heard people say “skon”.
What would be the point of saying Alan was “probably” right? Alan was the only one of us not guessing, so OF COURSE he was right! It was so obvious it didn’t even require mentioning.
You have to admit that the whole idea of falling leaves shutting down the transit system is quite bizarre, and must certainly be peculiar to the UK. I can’t imagine it happening in the US, Canada or Germany, or even in France, where it’s usually the unions who shut down the transport system. I don’t think it ever happens in Eastern Europe.
You are quite right, the idea of leaves derailing (please excuse this pun, too tempting) the British railway system is rather bizarre. Much as I know, it could well happen in Ireland. In Germany, where I’ve been living for the last 6 years, the potential irony in this comment poses (apart from inherent problems with irony as such) great diffculties since people are too efficient.
What we can only guess by reading the transcript is that there is irony involved. The irony was quite distinguished in the audio version. It is quite hard to read irony from writing, as discussing this transcript and other topics on this forum show. Ironic remarks that are quite endemic in some places are alien to the nature of other cultural systems.
We don’t actually pronounce it very often at all since it isn’t something that people typically have in the US. But, it would rhyme with the word ‘cornpone’ here. 8)
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