The weather again

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I think this is an excellent piece we can use to practise and improve our listening skills with. So, letā€™s try to transcribe Alanā€™s recording one piece at a time. Iā€™ll start with the first 30 seconds:

I called this piece ā€˜The weather againā€™ because I seem to writing and talking about this rather a lot recently but Iā€™m afraid thatā€™s a characteristic of the English ā€“ they just canā€™t stop talking about the weather and recently we had very hot weather and one of the words which occurs regularly on television, on radio is ā€˜soar - s-o-a-rā€™ which means ā€˜to rise very quicklyā€™.

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Alan, I think if you also give the written version of your speech, it will be better.

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And Iā€™m continuing up to 1:08:

ā€¦ so birds can soar into the air, as can airplanes.
Itā€™s an interesting word, because it sounds rather like sore ā€˜s-o-r-eā€™ which means painful, or indeed ā€˜s-a-wā€™ saw, past tense of see.
And, what does happen is that records have been broken, in terms of level of a temperature.
And nobody in this country seems to be able to get over it. I donā€™t know why.

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And, what has happened is that records have been broken, in terms of the level of the temperature.

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It may be, but Iā€™m not convinced :thinking:

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I listened to it again and again and ā€¦ youā€™re right!
Sorry I doubted.
So I will continue, although there are two words which I donā€™t understand:

But strange thing has happened. Because of the heat, people are talking to each other!
Now, another ā€¦ of English is that they, as we say, heat themselves to themselves, so they donā€™t talk to each other as total strangers.
But now, the hot weather has changed all that!
People talk to each other and ā€¦ in supermarkets and they say itā€™s terrible, isnā€™t it? And we all know what that means: it means itā€™s very very hot, isnā€™t it?
Itā€™s strange, really. Because Iā€™m sure, this will change when the weather changes.

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Itā€™s either ā€˜strange things happenā€™ or ā€˜a strange thing has happenedā€™.

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They keep themselves to themselves.

I think the only way is for me to provide the text as well. My recording was. ā€˜in my mindā€™ while I made it as an experiment and I didnā€™t follow a script.

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And I think itā€™s much better and useful for us if we actually make an effort to transcribe your recording. Otherwise, what exactly would be the use of you taking the time to record the piece in the first place?

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I also think that trying to write down a recorded piece in a foreign language is very helpful.
I understood the piece"at first listening" if I can say so, and I thought it was easy to transcript it.
I didnā€™t even realise that I ignored or missed some words or expressions like they keep themselves to themselves for example, which probably means to keep your thoughts for yourself, not communicate or share with the others, isnā€™t it?

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So I think that Alanā€™s experiment is good.
Itā€™s like a game, so letā€™s play a little!

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But the topic of discussing the weather has been going for thousands and thousands of years. Shakespeaere used this in his plays and talks about ā€˜the gentle rain droppingā€™ and in King Lear, the tragedy of the king who goes completely mad, he is utterly mad and is screaming and shouting in a thunderstorm.

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But we could go even further than that. To the days when the British, the English ā€“ whoever they were, on this island of mine lived in caves or huts and they had some sort of language but you could imagine them ā€“ the men, that is ā€“ going out in the morning to look for something for Sunday lunch and they probably said to each other, in their own particular language: ā€˜Lovely day, isnā€™t it?ā€™ and the answer has usually been: ā€˜Isnā€™t itā€™? And thatā€™s the end of the conversation.

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Hello Monica ) I followed your advice and checked my work with your script and that was intresting to find mistakes and correct them )) ā€¦ so birds can soar into the air, as can airplanes. I was sure it was the word words not birds that one of mistakes )

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ā€œI think the only way is for me to provide the text as well. My recording was. ā€˜in my mindā€™ while I made it as an experiment and I didnā€™t follow a script.ā€ Iā€™d expect it soon, Alan.

Meanwhile here goes what I was able to make out for the first minute.
Whose is this piece? The weather again. Because Iā€™ve seen ā€¦. Watching and talking about ā€¦ recently ā€¦ but Iā€™m afraid ā€¦. And recently we had very hot weather ā€¦ one of the words which occurs regularly on television, on radio is ā€˜soarā€™ ā€“ S O A R. which means to rise very quickly. So birds soar into the air as can aero planes. Itā€™s an interesting word because it sounds rather like ā€˜soreā€™ S O R E which means painful, or ā€¦ S A W ā€˜sawā€™ ā€¦ past tense of ā€˜seeā€™. And whatā€™s happened is the records have been broken in terms of the level of the temperature.

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Hi Lawrence, ā€˜whose is this pieceā€™ doesnā€™t make any sense and weā€™ve already covered done about 75% of the transcription. Havenā€™t you read it?

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No, Torsten, not until you asked me. Now Iā€™m trying to seam the pieces together. But I wish the text were displayed as one paragraph so that pronunciation, stress and intonation can also be noted by listening to the voice and going through the text simultaneously.

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The idea is to work on one small project together rather than asking Alan to do all the work for us. What we can learn here is a number of sills such as how to work as a team, how to listen correctly, how to spell words properly, how to use words in context etc.

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Yes, youā€™re right! Itā€™s ā€˜wordsā€™, not ā€˜birdsā€™. Well done, Dina!
Iā€™m glad you said it, because there was no place for birds here in the context :wink:
See, itā€™s pleasant and fun and when we all make a team, weā€™ll surely do a good job - Torsten is right too.

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