Mon, 2 November 2009  Hello everybody. A lot of serious students of English listen to BBC radio for practicing English listening. I believe that this can be useful, but we must not expect too much to be gain from this. It is good to listen to speech patterns, certain words and phrases and pronunciation. But, I want to show you with this article, that just 30 seconds of a news bulletin (2 November 2009) contains only 106 words, but more than 20 cultural, historical and special words and phrases. This is a huge amount of information to listen to and understand. My recommendation, is if you want to listen to English on the radio, then only listen to very short passages. This will give you plenty of things to discover and learn. Now I will play the passage for you, then I will speak the same words more slowly. You can compare my accent with that of the newsreader. cNow here in Britain, Windsor Castle is hosting a unique gathering of religious leaders over the next three days. A meeting for what's been called "a celebration of commitments by the world"s religions to take action on climate change”. The conference has been sponsored by the United Nations. And faith groups are presenting firm plans showing how they’ll tackle the issue. Pledges include making all China’s Daoist temples solar-powered, and printing sacred books on environmentally-friendly paper. Our religious affairs correspondent Christopher Lander has been to New York to find out about the Jewish plan , which includes a pledge to halve the community’s intake of meat. 106 words. 1.Windsor Castle - Famous English castler 2.Unique gathering - a gathering of people for a special meeting 3. Religious leaders - leaders from different religions 4. Celebration of commitments - a complex new phrase someone has thought up to show that the meeting participants are both committed to the reasons for the meeting and also linking to the use of the word “celebration” as a religious idea. 5. World’s religions 6. Climate change - the way the worlds climate is changing through “global warming” 7. Conference 8. Sponsored 9.United Nations 10. Faith groups = religious groups 11. Firm plans - definite plans agreed 12. Tackle the issue - discuss the subject to find solutions and ideas 13.Pledges = promises 14.China’s daoist temples 15. Solar-powered – powered by sunlight 16. Sacred books 17. Environmentally-friendly - a special phrase meaning “not harmful to the environment” 18. Religious affairs correspondent - a journalist who looks at religious matters 19. New York 20. Jewish plan – a plan made by Jewish people in New York 21.Pledge 22. Community’s intake of meat – the amount of meat the Jewish community in New York buys and consumes.Comments[6] |
