[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes. So why don't we give a few examples of this phrase. Marco, we've got a long day ahead of us.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so ahead of us. So we know it's an exciting game and we heard the announcers say, without a doubt, both teams are in top shape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So let's look at the phrase will prove to be, something will prove to be.


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[Assistant] A great play. Now we know play is usually a verb, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But here it's acting as a noun. A play is basically a move in a sport or a game.


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[Assistant] That's right, you can tell us this and many more things at EnglishPod.com, our website. So check it out.


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[Assistant] I'm like Blue, but I'm different. I'm Cyan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hello English Nerders, welcome back to another podcast with us here at EnglishPod, my name is Marco.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so you have a mobile phone, you need to get a plan, or you need to do something in order to make it work, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when you run out of money or you use all your minutes, you can buy another card and like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so very interesting. These are the ways that mobile phone plans usually work. And well, now it's time for us to listen to this dialogue for the first time. We are going to be listening as a shopper is looking to buy maybe a mobile phone or get a mobile phone plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is very common. They always say that it's a very low price and they always have these hidden charges, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So the device, the phone, you can call it a handset.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so it's very similar to physically move from one place to another.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, or we also had emergency services fee.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, very good. So I think it's time for us to listen to this dialogue again. We're going to slow it down because it was a little bit fast and then we'll come back and look at some great phrases.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, great. So let's take a look at these phrases in Fluency Builder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, great example, so compatible with, very clear, and it's very useful. That's right. Now, what about the next phrase?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So she was asking for the catch. What is the catch?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so, if somebody offers me a new car, they say you can have this new for free.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The catch is that I can only drive it at night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, and you go into this little store and all of a sudden you're in luck. You found it there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You're in luck, I have it. Or you're in luck, I have the very last one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if she signs the contract, he will throw in a free handset.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so you can say, if you buy this house, I'll throw in the dog, the dog for free. Yeah. Right. So to throw in, to include for free. Right. Okay. All right. So great phrases and I think we understand them now. So let's listen to this dialogue for the very last time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? So if you don't have a credit card or maybe you're 18, you can't get a monthly plan, so you gotta do this pre-paid plan.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, and I think that's absolutely true and maybe it's because in North America you have this voicemail option for your mobile phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But here, I guess, or in other countries, maybe they don't have that option, so they need to answer every call.


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[Assistant] So come to our website, EnglishPod.com, let us know what your mobile phone habits are and also if you have any questions or doubts.


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[Assistant] That's right, we're heading to the mountains today to take a skiing lesson.


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[Assistant] Alright, so we're gonna hear these two words in our dialogue. The first one is fresh powder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep, but here we're talking about, uh, fresh, light snow.


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[Assistant] Well, we're also going to meet a four-time Giant Slalom Champion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. Now, four time Giant Slalom champion means he won the Giant Slalom four times.


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[Assistant] Well, I think there's a lesson in that for all of us, but uhm, what the real lesson is today is language. So why don't we start with language takeaway?


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[Assistant] Bindings are sort of like a lock that attaches your boot to your ski.


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[Assistant] Yep, but goggles are kind of like, imagine a big pair of glasses that you wear when you ski.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and you'll also see safety goggles, which you might wear if you are a mechanic fixing a car or someone working with wood or chemicals or what have you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So moving on to our next key word. They said, uh, you should wear the goggles so that you don't accidentally go over the moguls.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, basically these are the bumps that are in a ski hill.


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[Assistant] Now, since these guys are beginner skiers, they're starting out on the bunny hill.


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[Assistant] Alright, and our final words, actually we're gonna look at two words here because they mean almost exactly the same thing.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, gnarly. So an interesting word, it's spelled G-N-A-R-L-E-Y.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, no, no, not here. Let's listen to some examples to help us understand.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and actually, skier slang. Both of these words, I think, originated with skiers, snowboarders, skateboarders, gnarly dudes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Rick invited everyone to start skiing by saying, let's hit the slopes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you can, you can change it for a lot of other different nouns. Uhm, and why don't we hear some examples of how you can do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, Rick warned Bob that he might take a few spills.


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[Assistant] Well, uh, you might take a spill when you catch some major air.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, when you catch some air, basically it's like you're flying for a couple seconds.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you'll hear this phrase, uhm, when you're, you know, not only when you're talking about skiing, but also maybe if you're, you know, you're driving your car really fast and it sort of jumps up in the air for a minute, well, not a minute, a second, that would be catching air as well.


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[Assistant] To call it a day. Let's call it a day. Let's go home.


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[Assistant] Mmhm, but not before we go to our next word, uh, to grab some freshies.


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[Assistant] Remember we talked about fresh powder? Mhm. It's that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well we heard the guys, uh, talk about apres ski and actually this is one of my favourite parts of skiing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so you, you finish, you, you finish your ski day, you've called it a day, you've, uh, glided down those slopes, you head on over to the lodge, you know, the little cabin.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. And you know what, if it's with your friends, it's gonna last until late into the night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you'll sound pretty, pretty dialed. Pretty cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Marco and I are always around to answer your questions and well, thanks for downloading. Until next time, goodbye.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Jack and I went to the beach yesterday and surf some really gnarly waves.


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[Assistant] The president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, says his government will set up a 1.2 billion dollar fund to create jobs in a country where more than one in five people are unemployed.


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[Assistant] In his annual State of the Nation address, Mr. Zuma said he was concerned that unemployment and poverty persisted despite 10 years of economic growth. News item 50.


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[Assistant] India and Pakistan have agreed to resume peace talks suspended since the Mumbai attacks


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[Assistant] In a joint statement, the nuclear armed neighbors said they'd agreed to resume dialogue on all issues, including the disputed region of Kashmir. They said Pakistan's foreign minister would visit India by July to review progress.


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[Assistant] A BBC correspondent in Delhi says mistrust between India and Pakistan remains huge.


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[Assistant] I was blown away when I heard that Jenny and Rick had gotten married. They had known each other for less than a month.


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[Assistant] Example 1. Thanks for lending me your car this week. I really appreciate it.


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[Assistant] Which foods are ripe in the fall?


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[Assistant] Apples are ripe. We pick them.


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[Assistant] Beats are ripe. We pull them.


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[Assistant] Potatoes are ripe. We dig them.


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[Assistant] Cabbages are ripe. We chop them.


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[Assistant] Illustrated by Matt Love Ridge. Focus Question.


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[Assistant] How are Abby and Zots similar? How are they different?


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[Assistant] Abby and Zots are best friends.


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[Assistant] Zots can have many eyes.


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[Assistant] Zots can have many arms.


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[Assistant] Zots can have many legs.


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[Assistant] Abby and Zots are different.


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[Assistant] They are still best friends.


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[Assistant] Connections Writing and Art Draw a picture of one of your friends and write five words to describe him or her. Social Studies


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[Assistant] Nestled among the Tian Shan Mountains in China's Xinjiang, lies the Bai'an Bulak grassland, the largest alpine grassland in China.


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[Assistant] It covers an area of more than 23,000 square kilometers.


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[Assistant] The surrounding snowy peaks act like a huge reservoir, delivering abundant water resources to the grassland.


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[Assistant] And forming a huge number of lakes and marshes.


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[Assistant] On the flat grassland, even a small force can alter the direction of a river.


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[Assistant] Kaidu River, which is composed of meltwater from the Tian Shan Mountains, has a total length of more than 500 kilometers, and has more than 10,000 bends.


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[Assistant] Find the right viewpoint, and as the sun sets, it's possible to see the reflection of nine suns all at the same time.


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[Assistant] The grassland interior is a paradise for animals.


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[Assistant] In March each year, juvenile swans set off from India, southern Africa, and other distant parts of the world to live and breed here.


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[Assistant] Exactly, so maybe you have to give bad news to your boss, to your parents, I don't know, somebody, and we're gonna be teaching you how to do this in English.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're not going to preview anything today. Let's go directly to our dialogue where we will be in the company and one of the employees is going to be giving bad news to his boss. So let's listen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, very good, so gory details.


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[Assistant] So the employee was talking about how bad the company was doing, and he mentioned this word, redundancies.


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[Assistant] Alright, so this is actually a British term. Redundancy is to become redundant because in American English you would just say layoffs.


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[Assistant] Okay, so regulations governing compensation packages.


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[Assistant] I don't agree with the regulations governing income taxes. People shouldn't have to give away their hard earned money.


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[Assistant] The lack of regulations governing city transportation has led to many traffic accidents.


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[Assistant] Okay, great examples, and well, before we move on, these compensation packages, I guess it's all the things that the company gives you when they lay you off, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A month's pay, etc. Okay, compensation packages. Alright, so moving on to our next item on Language Takeaway, we have to shoulder the cost.


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[Assistant] I carry it. Yeah, that's a good one. So basically it's the same as your shoulder, your body. So you carry this cost or you carry this responsibility.


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[Assistant] Alright, interesting. And we have one more word on language takeaway, and the factory has gone under.


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[Assistant] So if I say this, lay it on me, I'm just saying tell me. Exactly. So give me the bad news. Mhm. Alright, so lay it on me. Very informal though.


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[Assistant] We've got to figure out a new marketing strategy for crying out loud.


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[Assistant] So you're frustrated just saying this phrase as oh my god or something like this.


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[Assistant] Exactly, for crying out loud. Yep. Alright, moving on to our third phrase.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so you're looking for words of how you can make it softer or more polite. Maybe the truth of what you're about to say is a little bit strong, so you wanna soften it up a bit.


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[Assistant] Okay, so you say, uh, how can I put this? But then, you have to complement it with, let's just say that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I would say, uhm, how can I put this? Let's just say that, uh, in nine months you will hear the pitter patter of little feet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. So, you're trying, you're not saying my girlfriend is pregnant.


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[Assistant] Alright, so maybe there are very strong reasons or he's doing very, very poorly.


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[Assistant] Alright great, so this topic of filing for chapter 11 is actually very recent, very common now because recently one of the biggest companies filed for chapter 11 in the US.


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[Assistant] Alright, so in the United States, the bankruptcy law has different chapters or different sections, right? Yep. And chapter 11 is basically for companies that run out of money that go bankrupt so they have to declare themselves in bankruptcy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Chapter 13. Chapter 13 is for people. Ah, okay. So people who have large debts maybe with the car company or the telephone company and they can't pay, they file for chapter 13. They say, hey, I don't have money, I can't pay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. So, there is prison for debts. In the US, you don't go to prison for debts.


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[Assistant] I know, I'm really sorry that I missed the deadline, but really, it wasn't my fault. You see, we had all of these unexpected technical problems at the last minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I couldn't get into the database and extract the kind of information that I needed for the data analysis. You know, if the tech guys would have done their job and kept the CRM stable, then I wouldn't have missed my deadline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, I'm not trying to pass the buck here. I know it was me who was ultimately responsible for getting this done. But the thing is, I could have finished on time if the system hadn't gone down. And you know, with everything I've got going on now, I can't afford to waste time dealing with technical problems. I've got a lot on my plate, and there are only 24 hours in a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, I'm really sorry that I missed the deadline, but really, it wasn't my fault. You see, we had all of these unexpected technical problems at the last minute.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I couldn't get into the database and extract the kind of information that I needed for the data analysis. You know, if the tech guys would have done their job and kept the CRM stable, then I wouldn't have missed my deadline.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, I'm not trying to pass the buck here. I know it was me who was ultimately responsible for getting this done. But the thing is, I could have finished on time if the system hadn't gone down. And you know, with everything I've got going on now, I can't afford to waste time dealing with technical problems. I've got a lot on my plate, and there are only 24 hours in a day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good morning everyone. Were you stuck in traffic as well, Jess? There was a huge pileup on the highway, and traffic was backed up for miles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Morning everyone. Were you stuck in traffic as well, Jess? There was a huge pileup on the highway, and traffic was backed up for miles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Good morning everyone. Were you stuck in traffic as well, Jess? There was a huge pile up on the highway, and traffic was backed up for miles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was 16 and in love for the first time. Going together to the Christmas dance was a public confirmation of our relationship, and I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. No longer a child, but a young woman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] High on my newfound maturity, I felt it was only natural to try drinking rum for the first time that night, too. That was a bad idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I became very ill, drifting in and out of consciousness in between spasms of convulsive vomiting, and the security guards wanted to call me an ambulance. But Tom acted as my knight in shining armor and told them he'd take me home.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the gratitude that I felt towards him soon turned to horror as he proceeded to take off my clothes and get on top of me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My head had cleared up, but my body was still too weak to fight back, and the pain was blinding. I thought I'd be severed in two.


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[Assistant] In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock.


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[Assistant] Despite limping for days and crying for weeks, this incident didn't fit my ideas about rape like I'd seen on TV. Tom was an unarmed lunatic. He was my boyfriend. And it didn't happen in a seedy alleyway. It happened in my own bed.


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[Assistant] By the time I could identify what had happened to me as rape, he had completed his exchange program and left for Australia.


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[Assistant] So I told myself it was pointless to address what had happened. And besides, it had to have been my fault somehow.


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[Assistant] I was raised in a world where girls are taught that they get raped for a reason. Their skirt was too short. Their smile was too wide. Their breath smelled of alcohol.


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[Assistant] And I was guilty of all of those things. So the shame had to be mine.


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[Assistant] Nine years after the Christmas dance, I was 25 years old and headed straight for a nervous breakdown.


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[Assistant] One day, I stormed out of the door in tears after a fight with a loved one, and I wandered into a café where I asked the waitress for a pen.


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[Assistant] I always had a notebook with me, claiming that it was to jot down ideas and moments of inspiration, but the truth was that I needed to be constantly fidgeting, because in moments of stillness, I found myself counting seconds again.


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[Assistant] But that day, I watched in wonder as the word streamed out of my pen, forming the most pivotal letter I've ever written, addressed to Tom.


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[Assistant] Along with an account of the violence that he subjected me to, the words, I want to find forgiveness stared back at me, surprising nobody more than myself.


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[Assistant] But deep down I realized that this was my way out of my suffering because regardless of whether or not he deserved my forgiveness, I deserved peace. My era of shame was over.


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[Assistant] Before sending the letter, I prepared myself for all kinds of negative responses or what I found likeliest. No response whatsoever.


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[Assistant] The only outcome that I didn't prepare myself for was the one that I then got.


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[Assistant] A typed confession from Tom, full of disarming regret.


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[Assistant] As it turns out, he too had been imprisoned by Silas. And this marked the start of an eight-year-long correspondence that God knows was never easy, but always honest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I relieved myself of the burdens that I'd wrongfully shouldered, and he in turn wholeheartedly owned up to what he'd done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our written exchanges became a platform to dissect the consequences of that night, and they were everything from gut-wrenching to healing beyond words. And yet, it didn't bring about closure for me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Perhaps because the email format didn't feel personal enough. Perhaps because it's easy to be brave when you're hiding behind a computer screen on the other side of the planet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So after eight years of writing, and nearly 16 years after that dire night, I mustered the courage to propose a wild idea. That we'd meet up in person and face our past once and for all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wanting to take revenge is a very human emotion. Instinctual, even.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And all I wanted to do for years was to hurt Tom back as deeply as he had hurt me. But had I not found a way out of the hatred and anger, I'm not sure I'd be standing here today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At times, our search for understanding in Cape Town felt like an impossible quest. And all I wanted to do was to give up and go home to my loving husband, be that in our son,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But despite of our difficulties, this journey did result in a victorious feeling that light had triumphed over darkness. That something constructive could be built out of the ruins.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I read somewhere that you should try and be the person that you needed when you were younger.


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[Assistant] And back when I was a teenager, I would have needed to know that the shame wasn't mine. That there's hope after rape. That you can even find happiness, like I share with my husband today.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which is why I started writing feverishly upon my return from Cape Town, resulting in a book co-authored by Tom that we hope can be of use to people from both ends of the perpetrator-survivor scale.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Victim, rapists, and labels are a way to organize concepts, but they can also be dehumanizing in their connotations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once someone's been deemed a victim, it's that much easier to file them away as someone damaged, dishonored, less than.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And likewise, once someone's been branded a rapist, it's that much easier to call them a monster. Inhuman.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And how can we empower survivors if we're making them feel less than?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What we did is not a formula that we're prescribing for others. Nobody has the right to tell anyone else how to handle their deepest pain or their greatest error.


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[Assistant] Breaking your silence is never easy, and depending on where you are in the world, it can even be deadly to speak out about rape.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I realize that even the most traumatic event of my life is still a testament to my privilege, because I can talk about it without getting ostracized or even killed.


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[Assistant] But with that privilege of having a voice comes the responsibility of using it. That's the least I owe my fellow survivors who can't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The story we've just relayed is unique, and yet it is so common with sexual violence being a global pandemic, but it doesn't have to be that way.


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[Assistant] A majority of sexual violence against women and men is perpetrated by men, and yet their voices are sorely underrepresented in this discussion. But all of us are needed here.


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[Assistant] Just imagine all the suffering we could alleviate if we dared to face this issue together. Thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tonight, I want to talk about a tale of two cities.


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[Assistant] One of those cities is called Washington and the other is called Beijing. Because how these two capitals shape their future


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the future of the United States and the future of China doesn't just affect those two countries, it affects all of us in ways perhaps we've never thought of. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the fish we eat, the quality of our oceans, the languages we speak in the future.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The jobs we have, the political systems we choose, and of course the great questions of war and peace. You see that bloke? He's French. His name is Napoleon.


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[Assistant] A couple of hundred years ago he made this extraordinary projection.


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[Assistant] China is a sleeping lion and when she awakes the world will shake. Napoleon got a few things wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He got this one absolutely right. Because China is today not just woken up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] China has stood up and China is on the march and the question for us all is where will China go and how do we engage this giant of the 21st century?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You start looking at the numbers, they start to confront you in a big way. It's projected that China will become, by whichever measure, PPP, market exchange rates, the largest economy in the world over the course of the decade ahead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If China does become the world's largest economy, think about this. It'll be the first time since this guy was on the throne of England, George III, not a good friend of Napoleon's.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That in the world we will have as the largest economy, a non-English speaking country,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A non-western country, a non-liberal democratic country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And if you don't think that's going to affect the way in which the world happens in the future, then personally I think you've been smoking something. And it doesn't mean you're from Colorado.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So in short, the question we have tonight is how do we understand this mega change, which I believe to be the biggest change for the first half of the 21st century. It'll affect so many things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It will go to the absolute core. It's happening quietly. It's happening persistently. It's happening in some senses under the radar as we are all preoccupied with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What's going on in the Ukraine? What's going on in the Middle East? What's going on with ISIS? What's going on with ISIL? What's happening with the future of our economies? This is a slow and quiet revolution.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And with a mega change comes also a mega challenge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the mega challenge is this, can these two great countries, China and the United States, China,


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[Assistant] The Middle Kingdom and the United States.


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[Assistant] Which in Chinese, by the way, means the beautiful country. Think about that.


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[Assistant] Can we carve out a future which is peaceful and mutually prosperous, or are we looking at a great challenge of war or peace? And I have 15 minutes to work through war or peace, which is...


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[Assistant] A little less time than they gave this guy to write a book called War and Peace.


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[Assistant] People ask me, uhm, why is it that a kid growing up in rural Australia, uh, got interested in learning Chinese? Well, there are two reasons for that. Here's the first of them. That's Betsy the Cow.


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[Assistant] Now Betsy the cow, uh, was one of a herd of dairy cattle that I grew up with on a farm in rural Australia. See those hands there? These are not built for farming.


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[Assistant] So very early on I discovered that in fact working in a farm was not designed for me and China was a very safe remove from any career in Australian farm life. Here's the second reason. That's my mum. Anyone here ever listen to what their mum told them to do? Anyone ever do what their mum told them to do? I rarely did.


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[Assistant] But what my mum said to me was, one day she handed me a newspaper.


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[Assistant] China entering the United Nations. 1971. I've just turned 14 years of age. And she handed me this headline.


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[Assistant] And she said, understand this, learn this, because it's going to affect your future.


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[Assistant] So being a very good student of history, I decided that the best thing for me to do was in fact to go off and learn Chinese. The great thing about learning Chinese is that your Chinese teacher gives you a new name. And so they gave me this name, kè, which means to overcome or to conquer and win.


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[Assistant] And that's the character for literature or the arts. Conqueror of the classics. Any of you guys call Kevin?


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[Assistant] It's a major lift from being called Kevin to be called Conqueror of the Classics.


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[Assistant] I've been called Kevin all my life. Have you been called Kevin all your life? Would you prefer to be called Conqueror of the Classics?


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[Assistant] And so I went off after that and joined the Australian Foreign Service, but here is where pride, before pride, there always comes a fall.


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[Assistant] So there I am in the embassy in Beijing off to the Great Hall of the People with our ambassador who had asked me to interpret for his first meeting in the Great Hall of the People.


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[Assistant] And so there was I, if you've been to a Chinese meeting, it's a giant horseshoe. At the end of the horseshoe are the really serious poo bars, and down the end of the horseshoe are the not so serious poo bars, the junior woodchucks like me.


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[Assistant] And so the ambassador began with this inelegant phrase, he said,


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[Assistant] China and Australia are currently enjoying a relationship of unprecedented closeness.


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[Assistant] I thought to myself, that sounds clumsy. That sounds odd. I will improve it. Note to file. Never do that.


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[Assistant] It needed to be a little more elegant, a little more classical. So I rendered it as follows.


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[Assistant] You can see the giant poo bars at the end of the, at the head of the horseshoe.


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[Assistant] Because when I rendered his sentence, Australia and China are enjoying a relationship of unprecedented closeness. In fact, what I said was that Australia and China were now experiencing fantastic orgasms.


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[Assistant] But in that little story there's a wisdom which is, as soon as you think you know something about this extraordinary civilization of 5,000 years of continuing history, there's always something new to learn.


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[Assistant] History is against us when it comes to the US and China forging a common future together.


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[Assistant] This guy up here, he's not Chinese and he's not American, he's Greek, his name's Thucydides. He wrote the history of the Peloponnesian Wars. And he made this extraordinary observation about


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[Assistant] Athens and Sparta. It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made war inevitable and hence a whole literature about something called the Thucydides trap.


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[Assistant] This guy here, he's not American and he's not Greek, he's Chinese. His name is Swinza.


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[Assistant] He wrote the art of war. And if you see his statement underneath, it's along these lines, attack him where he's unprepared, appear where you are not expected. Not looking good so far for China and the United States.


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[Assistant] This guy is an American. His name's Graham Allison. In fact, he's a teacher at the Kennedy School over there in Boston. He's working on a single project at the moment, which is, does the Thucydides trap about the inevitability of war between rising powers and established great powers applied to the future of China-U.S. relations? It's a core question.


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[Assistant] And what Graham has done is explore 15 cases in history since the 1500s to establish what the precedents are. And 11 out of 15 of them, let me tell you, they've ended in catastrophic war. You may say, but Kevin, or conqueror of the classics,


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[Assistant] That was the past. We live now in a world of interdependence and globalization. It could never happen again. Guess what? The economic historians tell us that in fact,


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[Assistant] The time which we reached the greatest point of economic integration and globalization was in 1914, just before that happened. World War I. A sobering reflection from history.


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[Assistant] So if we are engaged in this great question of how China thinks, feels and positions itself towards the United States and the reverse, how do we get to the baseline of how these two countries and civilizations can possibly work together?


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[Assistant] Let me first go to, in fact, China's views of the US and the rest of the West.


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[Assistant] China feels as if it's been humiliated at the hands of the West through a hundred years of history, beginning with the Opium Wars. When after that, the Western powers carved China up into little pieces, so that by the time we got to the 20s and 30s, signs like this one appeared on the streets of Shanghai.


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[Assistant] How would you feel if you were Chinese in your own country if you saw that sign appear?


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[Assistant] China also believes and feels as if in the events of 1919 at the peace conference in Paris, when Germany's colonies were given back to all sorts of countries around in the world, what about German colonies in China? They were in fact given to Japan.


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[Assistant] When Japan then invaded, uh, China in the 1930s, the world looked away and was indifferent to what would happen to China.


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[Assistant] And then on top of that, the Chinese to this day believe that the United States and the West do not accept the legitimacy of their political system because it's so radically different from those of us who come from liberal democracies. And believe that the United States to this day is seeking to undermine their political system. China also believes that it is being contained.


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[Assistant] By U.S. allies and by those with strategic partnerships with the U.S. right around its periphery.


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[Assistant] And beyond all that, the Chinese have this feeling in their heart of hearts and in their gut of guts.


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[Assistant] That those of us in the collective west are just too damned arrogant.


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[Assistant] That is, we don't recognize the problems in our own system, in our politics, in our economics, and are very quick to point the finger elsewhere and believe that in fact, we in the collective West are guilty of a great bunch of hypocrisy. Of course, in international relations, it's not just the sound of one hand clapping. There's another country too.


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[Assistant] And that's called the U.S. So how does the U.S. respond to all of the above? The U.S. has a response to each of those. On the question of is the U.S. containing China, they say no. Look at the history of the Soviet Union. That was containment. Instead, what we have done in the U.S. and the West is welcome China into the global economy, and on top of that, welcome them into the World Trade Organization.


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[Assistant] The US and the USA, China cheats on the question of intellectual property rights and through cyber attacks on US and global firms.


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[Assistant] Furthermore, the United States says that the Chinese political system is fundamentally wrong because it's such, at such fundamental variance to the human rights, democracy and rule of law that we enjoy in the US and the collective West. And on top of all the above, what does the United States say? That they fear that China


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[Assistant] Will, when it has sufficient power, establish a sphere of influence in Southeast Asia and wider East Asia, boot the United States out, and in time, when it's powerful enough, unilaterally seek to change the rules of the global order?


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[Assistant] So apart from all that, it's just fine and dandy. The US-China relationship. No real problems there.


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[Assistant] The challenge though is given those deep-rooted feelings, those deep-rooted emotions and thought patterns, what the Chinese call 思维, ways of thinking.


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[Assistant] How can we craft a basis for a common future between these two?


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[Assistant] I argue simply this. We can do it on the basis of a framework of constructive realism for a common purpose.


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[Assistant] What do I mean by that? Be realistic about the things that we disagree on in a management approach which doesn't enable any one of those differences to break into war or conflict until we've acquired the diplomatic skills to solve them.


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[Assistant] Be constructive in areas of the bilateral regional and global engagement between the two, which will make a difference for all of humankind. Build a regional institution capable of cooperation in Asia and Asia Pacific community and worldwide.


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[Assistant] Act further like you've begun to do at the end of last year by striking out against climate change with hands joined together rather than fists apart.


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[Assistant] Of course all that happens if you've got a common mechanism and political will to achieve the above. These things are deliverable.


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[Assistant] But the question is, are they deliverable alone?


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[Assistant] This is what our head tells us we need to do, but what about our heart?


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[Assistant] I have a little experience in the question back home of how you try to bring together two peoples who frankly haven't had a whole lot in common in the past.


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[Assistant] And that's when I apologise to Australia's indigenous peoples.


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[Assistant] This was a day of reckoning in the Australian government, the Australian parliament and for the Australian people. After 200 years of unbridled abuse towards the first Australians, it was high time that we white folks said we were sorry. The important thing


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[Assistant] The important thing that I remember is staring in the faces of all those from Aboriginal Australia as they came to listen to this apology.


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[Assistant] It was extraordinary to see, for example,


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[Assistant] Old women telling me of the stories of when they were five years old and literally ripped away from their parents, like this lady here.


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[Assistant] It was extraordinary for me to then be able to embrace and to kiss Aboriginal elders as they came into the parliament building and one woman said to me, it's the first time a white fella had ever kissed her in her life and she was over 70. That's a terrible story.


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[Assistant] And then I remember this family saying to me, you know, we drove all the way from the far north down to Canberra to come to this thing, drove our way through redneck country on the way back, stopped at a cafe after the apology for a milkshake.


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[Assistant] And they walked into this cafe quietly, tentatively, gingerly, a little anxious. I think you know what I'm talking about. But the day after the apology, what happened?


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[Assistant] Everyone in that cafe, every one of the white folks stood up and applauded.


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[Assistant] Something had happened in the hearts of these people in Australia.


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[Assistant] The white folks, our aboriginal brothers and sisters, and we haven't solved all these problems together, but let me tell you, there was a new beginning. Because we had gone not just to the head, we'd gone also to the heart.


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[Assistant] So where does that conclude in terms of the great question that we've been asked to address this evening, which is the future of US-China relations?


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[Assistant] The head says there's a way forward. The head says there is a policy framework. There's a common narrative. There's a mechanism through regular symmetry to do these things and to make them better. But the heart must also find a way to reimagine.


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[Assistant] The possibilities of the America-China relationship and the possibilities of China's future engagement in the world.


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[Assistant] Sometimes folks, we just need to take a leap of faith, not quite knowing where we might land.


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[Assistant] In China, they now talk about the Chinese dream. In America, we're all familiar with the term the American dream. I think it's time across the world.


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[Assistant] We were able to think also of something we might also call a dream for all humankind, a dream for all humankind. Because if we do that, we might just change the way that we think about each other.


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[Assistant] That's my challenge to America. That's my challenge to China. That's my challenge to all of us. But I think where there's a will,


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[Assistant] And where there is imagination, we can turn this into a future driven by peace and prosperity and not once again repeat the tragedies of war. I thank you.


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[Assistant] You get them together in one room and we suggest this and we suggest that, then we go and get the drinks. But no, look, for all of us who are friends of these two great countries, America and China, you can do something. You can make a practical contribution. And for all you good folks here, next time you meet someone from China, sit down and have a conversation.


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[Assistant] See what you can find out about where they come from and what they think. And my challenge to all our Chinese folks who are going to watch this TED Talk at some time is, do the same.


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[Assistant] Two of us seeking to change the world can actually make a huge difference. Those of us up the middle, we can make a small contribution.


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[Assistant] Hello English learners, welcome back to another lesson with us here at EnglishPod. My name is Marco.


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[Assistant] Okay, so it's a difficult process sometimes, even in your own language. So we're gonna try and make it a little bit easier by giving you some of the common words you would need to register at a university.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, they are. Well, she used some of those very common phrases that we would need when we are registering at university. So, let's take a look at them now in Language Takeaway.


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[Assistant] Okay, so we've mentioned this word many times, so I think it would be a good idea to listen to some examples, and then we'll come back and explain it.


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[Assistant] It is necessary to register on our website before joining the conference.


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[Assistant] Okay, so you can register for university. What else can you register for?


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[Assistant] Now she was registering for her classes and we saw these words that we know already, but it's a good idea to take a look at them. We heard that she is a business major. So a major. A major. A business major. And what is your major?


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[Assistant] Okay, very good. And now on your degree, on your title, does it say what is your major and minor?


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[Assistant] Okay, very good. So, major and minor. Now, related to this and what you were saying about your classes, it takes us to our next word, which is credits.


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[Assistant] Now, uh, this is easily confused with classes sometimes.


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[Assistant] Okay, so suppose you need 100 credits to graduate.


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[Assistant] Very good. So maybe the classes that are part of your major will have more credits. Alright, very good. So, and now we have our last word in this dialogue and it was tuition. Tuition. She had to pay her tuition.


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[Assistant] Okay, so a tuition is the money you must pay for school only. So we've seen a lot of great words used for registering at university. So I think it's time to listen to the dialogue for the second time a little bit slower and then we'll come back and take a look at some phrases.


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[Assistant] Alright, so moving on to our second phrase. This is very important because it's often used improperly, right?


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[Assistant] Now, it seems very simple, so why are we explaining this?


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[Assistant] My last year of college. Exactly. Very good. So, so now you know how you can explain to someone what year of college or university you're in. Yes, that's right. Very good. And we have one more phrase to you and it was when she was getting her class schedule.


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[Assistant] Right, so it's the timetable of your day or your week.


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[Assistant] Alright, and your class schedule will say all the classes that you have and what time they're at.


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[Assistant] Right. So we have different types of schedules and you can use it depending on what you are doing. Those are all the phrases we have for putting it together today. And now let's listen to the dialogue for the last time and then we'll come back.


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[Assistant] Alright, so we were talking about second year, first year, third year, etc. Now, there are also other names that we give to each year, both for high school and university.


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[Assistant] Alright guys, that's all the time we have for today. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and if you have any questions or comments or you want to share with us your experiences in high school or university, please come to the website at EnglishPod.com.


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[Assistant] What's going on, hon? Why is the baby crying?


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[Assistant] Jim, what's up man? Charlie, is that your ride?


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[Assistant] What ugly dude. Don't be an airhead. This is a 1969 Chevy Impala. I just need to fix it up a bit. In a couple of months this baby is gonna be wicked.


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[Assistant] Too bad the driver's a major dweeb. Anyone can have a car like that if their daddy's loaded like his. He's coming this way, be cool.


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[Assistant] Hey guys, what do you think of my automobile? Isn't it bad to the bone? Word! The ladies are gonna be lining up to get with you when they see you driving around in that car. You really think so? For sure!


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[Assistant] This is a 1969 Chevy Impala. I just need to fix it up a bit.


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[Assistant] In a couple of months, this baby's gonna be wicked.


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[Assistant] Not even! Check it out! Now that's a fresh ride! Too bad the driver is a major dweeb.


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[Assistant] Anyone can have a car like that if their daddy's loaded like his. He's coming this way. Be cool.


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[Assistant] Hey guys, what do you think of my automobile? Isn't it bad to the bone? Word. The ladies are gonna be lining up to get with you when they see you driving around in that car. You really think so? For sure! Awesome! Ha! Psych!


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[Assistant] Too bad the driver's a major dweeb. Anyone can have a car like that if their daddy's loaded like his. He's coming this way, be cool.


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[Assistant] Hey guys, what do you think of my automobile? Isn't it bad to the bone? Word! The ladies are gonna be lining up to get with you when they see you driving around in that car. You really think so? For sure!


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[Assistant] I'm going to ask and try to answer somebody's kind of an uncomfortable question. Uhm, both civilians obviously and soldiers suffer in war.


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[Assistant] I don't think any civilian has ever missed the war that they were subjected to.


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[Assistant] I've been covering wars for almost 20 years and one of the remarkable things for me is how many soldiers find themselves missing it. How is it someone can go through the worst experience imaginable?


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[Assistant] And come home, back to their home and their family, their country, and miss the war. How does that work? What's it mean?


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[Assistant] Because if we don't, it'll be impossible to bring soldiers back to the, to a place in society where they belong.


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[Assistant] And I think it will also be impossible to stop war if we don't understand how that mechanism works. The problem is...


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[Assistant] That war does not have a simple, neat truth. One simple, neat truth.


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[Assistant] Any sane person hates war, hates the idea of war, wouldn't want to have anything to do with it. Doesn't want to be near it, doesn't want to know about it. That's a sane response to war. But if I asked all of you in this room, who here has paid money to go to a cinema and be entertained by a Hollywood war movie, most of you would probably raise your hands. That's what's so complicated about war.


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[Assistant] And trust me, if a room full of peace loving people find something compelling about war, so do 20 year old soldiers who have been trained in it. I promise you. That's the thing that has to be understood.


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[Assistant] I've covered war for about 20 years, as I said, but my most intense experiences in combat were with American soldiers in Afghanistan. I've been in Africa, in the Middle East, Afghanistan in the 90s, but it was with American soldiers in 2007, 2008 that I was confronted with


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[Assistant] Uh, very intense combat. I was in a small valley called the Korangal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. It was six miles long. There were 150 men of battle company in that valley. And for a while while I was there.


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[Assistant] Almost 20% of all the combat in all of Afghanistan was happening in those six miles. 150 men were absorbing


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[Assistant] Almost a fifth of the combat for all of NATO forces in the country for a couple months. It was very intense.


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[Assistant] I spent most of my time at a small outpost called Restrepo.


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[Assistant] It was named after the platoon medic that had been killed about two months into the deployment. It was a few plywood bee huts, uh, clinging to a side of a ridge.


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[Assistant] And sandbags, bunkers, gun positions.


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[Assistant] There were 20 men up there of 2nd Platoon Battle Company.


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[Assistant] There was nothing up there that young men typically like. No cars, no girls, no television, nothing. Except combat. Combat they did learn to like.


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[Assistant] And, uh, we hadn't been in a fight in a couple of weeks maybe?


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[Assistant] Usually the outpost was attacked and we hadn't seen any combat in a couple of weeks and everyone was just stunned with boredom and heat. And I remember the, the, uh,


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[Assistant] The lieutenant walking past me, sort of stripped to the waist, it was incredibly hot.


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[Assistant] Strip to the waist, walk past me muttering, Oh God, please someone attack us today. That's how bored they were. That's war too. It's a lieutenant saying, please something make something happen because we're going crazy to understand that.


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[Assistant] You have to, for a moment, think about combat not morally. That's an important job to do. But for a moment, don't think about it morally, think about it neurologically. Let's think about what happens in your brain when you're in combat. First of all, the experience is, uh, it's a very bizarre, very bizarre one. It's not what I had expected.


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[Assistant] Usually you're not scared. I've been very scared in combat. But most of the time when I was out there,


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[Assistant] I wasn't scared. I was very scared beforehand and incredibly scared afterwards.


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[Assistant] And that fear that comes afterwards can last years. I haven't been shot at in six years. And I was woken up very abruptly this morning by a nightmare that I was being strafed by aircraft.


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[Assistant] Six years later. I've never even been strafed by aircraft, and I was having nightmares about it. Time slows down, you get this weird tunnel vision.


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[Assistant] You notice some details very, very, very accurately and other things drop out. It's almost a slightly altered state of mind.


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[Assistant] What's happening in your brain is you're getting an enormous amount of adrenaline pumped through your system.


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[Assistant] Young men will go to great lengths to have that experience. It's wired into us. It's hormonally supported.


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[Assistant] The mortality rate for young men in society.


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[Assistant] Is six times what it is for young women. From violence and from accidents. Just the stupid stuff that young men do. Jumping off of things they shouldn't jump off of. Lighting things on fire they shouldn't light on fire. I mean, you know what I'm talking about. They die at six times the rate that young women do.


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[Assistant] Statistically, you are safer as a teenage boy.


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[Assistant] You are safe, you would be safer in the fire department or the police department in most American cities.


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[Assistant] At Restrepo, every guy up there was almost killed, including me.


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[Assistant] Including my good friend Tim Heatherington, who was later killed in Libya.


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[Assistant] There were guys walking around, walking around with bullet holes in their uniforms, rounds that had cut through the fabric and didn't touch their bodies. I was leaning against some sandbags one morning, not much going on, sort of spacing out.


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[Assistant] And some sand was kicked into the side of my, sort of hit the side of my face. Something hit the side of my face. I didn't know what it was.


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[Assistant] You have to understand about bullets that they go a lot faster than sound. So if someone shoots at you from a few hundred meters, the bullet goes by you, or hits you obviously.


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[Assistant] Half a second or so before the sound catches up to it. So I, some sand sprayed in the side of my face.


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[Assistant] Half a second later I heard ta ta ta ta ta, it was a machine gun fire, it was the first round, first burst of an hour long firefight. What had happened was, the bullet hit, a bullet hit three or four inches from the side of my head. Imagine, just think about it, because I certainly did.


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[Assistant] Think about the angle of deviation that saved my life. At 400 meters it missed me by 3 inches. Just think about the math on that.


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[Assistant] Every guy up there had that, some experience like that, at least once, if not many times. The boys are up there for a year. They got back.


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[Assistant] Some of them got out of the army and had tremendous psychological problems when they got home. Some of them stayed in the army and were more or less okay, psychologically.


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[Assistant] I was particularly close to a guy named Brendan O'Byrne. I'm still very good friends with him. He came back to the states, he got out of the army. Uh, I had a dinner party one night. I invited him.


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[Assistant] And he was, he started talking with a woman, uh, one of my friends, and she, she knew how bad it had been out there, and she said, Brendan, uh, is there anything at all that you miss about being out in Afghanistan, about the war? And he thought about it for quite a long time, and finally said, ma'am, I miss almost all of it.


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[Assistant] And he's one of the most traumatized people I've seen from that war. Man, I miss almost all of it. What is he talking about? He's not a psychopath.


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[Assistant] He's not crazy. He doesn't miss getting shot at, seeing his friends get killed. What is it that he misses? We have to answer that. If we're going to stop war, we have to answer that question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think what he missed is brotherhood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He missed in some ways the opposite of killing. What he missed was connection to the other man he was with. Now brotherhood is different from friendship. Friendship happens in society, obviously.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The more you like someone, the more you'd be willing to do for them. Brotherhood has nothing to do with how you feel about the other person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a mutual agreement in a group that you will put the welfare of the group, you will put the safety of everyone in the group above your own. In effect, you're saying


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Brennan was a team leader, in command of three men, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The worst day in Afghanistan, he was almost killed so many times. Didn't bother him. The worst thing that happened to him in Afghanistan was one of his men was hit in the head with a bullet in the helmet. Knocked him over.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They thought he was dead, he was in the middle of a huge firefight, no one could deal with it, and a minute later, Kyle Steiner sat back up, from the dead as it were.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because he'd come, he'd come back to consciousness, the bullet had just knocked him out and glanced off the helmet. He remembers people saying


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As he was sort of half-conscious, he remembers people saying,


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[Assistant] Steiner's been hit in the head. Steiner's dead. And he was thinking, I'm not dead. And he sat up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Brenda realized after that that he could not protect his men and that was the only time he cried in Afghanistan was realizing that. That's brotherhood. This wasn't invented recently.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Many of you have probably read The Iliad. Achilles surely would have risked his life or given his life to save his friend Patroclus.


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[Assistant] In World War II, there are many stories of wounded soldiers who were wounded, who were brought to a rear base hospital, who went AWOL, crawled out of windows, slipped out of doors, went AWOL, wounded, to make their way back to the front lines to rejoin their brothers out there. So you think about Brendan, you think about all these soldiers.


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[Assistant] Having an experience like that, a bond like that, in a small group.


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[Assistant] Where they love 20 other people in some ways more than they love themselves. You think about how good that would feel. Imagine it.


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[Assistant] And they, they are blessed with that experience for a year. And then they come home and they are just back in society like the rest of us are.


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[Assistant] Not knowing who they can count on. Not knowing who loves them, who they can love.


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[Assistant] Not knowing exactly what anyone they know would do for them if it came down to it. That is terrifying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] War psychologically in some ways is easy compared to that kind of alienation. That's why they miss it. And that's what we have to understand and in some ways fix in our society. Thank you very much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Too bad, man. Tonight is Tracy's going away party, and she asked if you were gonna go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So bad, man. Tonight is Tracy's going away party and she asked if you were gonna go.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Tonight is Tracy's going away party and she asked if you were gonna go. Oh yeah? I'm there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The Hengduan Mountains, located in southwestern China, offer some of the most magnificent scenery in the country.


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[Assistant] On the west slope of the mountain, at an altitude of about 4,000 meters,


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[Assistant] There is a large calcification pool group locally called Chuen Hua Tan.


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[Assistant] This group of calcification pools under Mount Gungah


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[Assistant] Is hidden in a valley surrounded by mountains on three sides.


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[Assistant] Large tracts of white calcified soil have tumbled down from a nearby hill.


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[Assistant] Extending to the bottom of the valley and creating a colorful calcified pool.


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[Assistant] It's the main source of water for Yulongxi Quanhua Tan.


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[Assistant] There are more than a dozen colorful pools of different sizes and shapes on each terrace.


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[Assistant] The various aquatic plants and Hynobius salamanders in the colourful palms


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[Assistant] In China's northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.


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[Assistant] The mountain is barren and red, with a blackish tint.


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[Assistant] It is located at the low point of the Turpan basin.


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[Assistant] Which is also the lowest point of the Chinese mainland.


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[Assistant] The height difference between it and the surrounding mountains is more than 5,000 metres.


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[Assistant] So the hot air in the basin cannot easily disperse.


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[Assistant] As a result, the flaming mountain becomes the hottest place on its latitude.


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[Assistant] But the canyon nearby is shaded by grapes.


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[Assistant] But its annual output of grapes can reach more than 10 million kg.


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[Assistant] So as to make full use of the hot, dry winds in the Turpan Basin.


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[Assistant] There are many holes in the walls of the shade houses.


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[Assistant] Which not only help with ventilation, but also help avoid direct sunlight on grapes.


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[Assistant] It takes just 40 days for the fresh grapes to be dried by the hot air.


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[Assistant] We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country.


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[Assistant] Despite the carnage of these conflicts, America is today the strongest, the most influential, and the most productive nation in the world. We are understandably proud of this preeminence, yet we realize that America's leadership and prestige depend


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[Assistant] Not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength.


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[Assistant] But on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment. Throughout America's adventure in free government.


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[Assistant] Such basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress and human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among peoples and among nations.


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[Assistant] We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied. That those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full.


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[Assistant] Then all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings.


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[Assistant] That those who have freedom will understand also its heavy responsibilities. That all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity.


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[Assistant] That the scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth.


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[Assistant] And that in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.


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[Assistant] Now, on Friday noon, I am to become a private citizen. I am proud to do so. I look forward to it. Thank you, and good night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches, and military strength.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment. Throughout America's adventure in free government.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Such basic purposes have been to keep the peace, to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity, and integrity among peoples and among nations.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied. That those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That those who have freedom will understand also its heavy responsibilities.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That the scourges of poverty, disease, and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now, on Friday noon, I am to become a private citizen. I am proud to do so. I look forward to it. Thank you, and good night.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, this is a very interesting question. Traditionally, America has had a really clear boundary between church and state, and you'll hear a lot of rhetoric these days that says, you know, we're a Christian nation and we were founded as a Christian nation. Well, that's baloney.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] At the time when the country was founded 200 years ago, it was overwhelmingly Christian. If the founding fathers, as we call them, like George Washington and them, if they had wanted a Christian nation, they could have had it. They explicitly did not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And a lot of people since then have gotten that confused. And now when we have a very large Muslim population, we have Buddhists, we have, you know, uh, people in all various different kinds of, you know, Mormonism and everything, it's even less possible now. So I'm,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kind of baffled when I hear people say that America is a Christian nation.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and you know, people said later, like, Eisenhower talking about this stuff, you know, in America we have something called the Pledge of Allegiance, which I don't think you guys probably have.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Obviously you wouldn't do it to America, but to your own. It's, it's kind of uhm. Like a salute to the flag, right? Yea, it's a little bit nationalist. I, I did it growing up. You put your hand over your heart and you face the flag and you say, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, that part about one nation under God, that was added in the 50s as a kind of a way of showing that America is not, quote unquote, a godless communist country. Wow. Yea, cause communism teaches, you know, no religion, and so they make sure we're not communist, you know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had an ex-girlfriend who was British and she, like, Tony Blair started with that a couple times. He said, you know, and God bless us all or something and she was just put off by it and she was like, the Brits will never take this and they didn't. No one was impressed.


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[Assistant] Ping Tan Island is known as the museum of marine erosion landforms because of the rich variety of formations here.


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[Assistant] This fairy tale scene of the East China Sea is typical of marine erosion landforms in the area.


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[Assistant] Alongside the shaft there is a huge canyon, which looks like a mountain, split in two.


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[Assistant] Among which, the most famous are the Banyang stone sail and the god of Hainan.


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[Assistant] The Banyang stone sail is the world's largest granite spherical weathered marine erosion column.


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[Assistant] The reef looks like a big ship, with the two massive boulders as its double sails.


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[Assistant] There are many marine erosion landforms on the island.


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[Assistant] Such as the Nanjai Stone forest group with its variety of different shapes. Unpredictable marine erosion caves.


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[Assistant] And scattered marine erosion platforms and terraces.


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[Assistant] They are unique landscapes, shaped by the magical power of nature.


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[Assistant] That's right, we're at the grocery store and we're going to learn some language you can use when you want to pay for your groceries.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's right, and we also have some great language that the person who is actually, uhm, selling the, the groceries can use.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, we have six words for you today. And the first one, the girl, the cashier says, this is the express checkout lane.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so the checkout lane. Now, why did she say express checkout lanes?


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[Assistant] Alright, so next she tells the guy to put your items on the belt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A coupon is a piece of paper you can use to get a discount.


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[Assistant] A discount for one thing, like, so maybe you buy some, some apples and you get 10% off one kind of apple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, to be older than the date when you can use them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so we can see his coupons expired, so they were too old and he couldn't use them anymore.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so a club card. Okay, so he's going to, uh, pay with a card, but he also asked for some cash back. Cash back. Could I get cash back?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now what's he talking about? Can he get cash back? He's paying with a card. What does he want to do?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ah, so instead of going to the ATM, you can get your money in one spot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Interesting, uh, well why don't we hear this one more time in the dialogue, but let's slow it down a little so we can understand better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, we have three phrases for you now. Well, the guy was not having a very good day, was he? So he couldn't go in the express checkout lane and he says, cut me some slack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I think I can understand it means, uhm, relax the rules a little bit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, remember this one, cause when you get it right, you'll sound really native-like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well one interesting thing I know about grocery stores in America is that the people who are the cashiers are very often students.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, or even uhm, in my hometown, it was the most common job for high school students. After school, if you went to the grocery store between four o'clock and nine o'clock at night, every single cashier would be a high school student.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Coupons and high school checkout girls. Well guys, thanks for listening to this show. Now remember, if you have any questions about the language we were talking about in this show, please visit our website at EnglishPod.com.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have, and this dialogue, or this lesson today, is one of my favorite, uh, pieces of furniture, maybe appliances that I've bought recently, and it's a TV.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh huh. Well, I mean, I think every guy loves, you know, like a big screen TV and a home theater system, so you just like go deaf after watching.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I don't know, I think, yeaah, the whole experience of just seeing this movie on this huge TV and like having all the sound and, I don't know, it's just something about that. Or watching a football game with your buddies and you can actually watch, yeaah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so on vocabulary preview today, we're gonna be looking at two words. Uh, the first one is to appreciate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you appreciate someone. But, uh, in this context, to enjoy or take advantage of something, so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right? And if you buy a better TV, then you basically are upgrading or to upgrade.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, so in previous lessons we've seen to get a complimentary upgrade for example on a flight or in a hotel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. So to upgrade. Now, we're gonna be listening to this dialogue for the first time. We're gonna be buying a TV, so let's listen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, the first word that we're gonna be looking at is graphics, the graphics level.


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[Assistant] Mhm, so like basically the pictures, right? So he wanted to appreciate the graphics of his PlayStation 3 better, and that's why he wanted a new TV.


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[Assistant] Mhm, or, this game has amazing graphics, so the game has, you know,


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[Assistant] Places or scenery that looks really, really real.


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[Assistant] Right, an HDTV or that's an acronym for High Definition Television.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly, so on high definition television, that's basically what you get is better definition, better level of graphics.


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[Assistant] Right? This TV has a USB port, which basically stands for Universal Serial Bus.


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[Assistant] So in this case, this television, you could connect maybe your iPod and reproduce videos or pictures onto the TV.


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[Assistant] Uh, well a DVI is basically a digital video input. So basically you can connect your computer to the TV and see what's on your screen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, well, this is a new technology. Basically, you know how before you used to get your DVD player, your VHS, and you had three cables, two for sound and one for video?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. So with this new type of cable or technology, with one cable, it takes all the information to the TV. So just one cable for everything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeaah, it happens. So with this, now it's easy and well, it even, it's a little bit more organized because I remember I used to have a TV and have, and I had a lot of different things connected to it. It was just this big spider web in the back with all these cables. So, an HDMI, high definition multimedia interface connector. And, uh, what else do we have?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, a mount. To mount something is also a verb, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mhm, very good. So this is what we're doing with the TV. We're gonna mount it on the wall like a painting.


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[Assistant] Alright, so now we're gonna be taking a look at three different phrases that we saw in this dialogue in Fluency Builder.


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[Assistant] Right, so if you're getting a new car, for example, right, you're getting, uh, the high definition sound system, you're getting nice tires, leather seats, you're getting the works.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The works. So I think this word is so versatile that we should maybe listen to some more examples.


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[Assistant] So now that we've seen the works on the home theater system, he needs to hook it up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So you would hook up your DVD player to your television.


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[Assistant] Yeaah, he said, how much will this set me back?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So how much am I actually going to spend? So it's just a different way of saying how much does it cost. But uhm, it's like you say, more colloquial, it's a lot more native-like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, why don't we listen to a couple more examples of set me back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, great, so now that we've taken a look at those great phrases and with some good examples, why don't we listen to this dialogue one last time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so a big TV, I think, I dunno, I think it's just a great thing to have at home. Not to, you know, spend too much time in front of the TV, but it's good to sit down and watch a movie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What do you think about having a television set for example in the bathroom?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What about, you know, some people don't like having a television set in their bedroom.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] True. Yeaah, I definitely agree, but, you know, I've seen people that have TVs in their living rooms, in their dining rooms, even in their kitchen, so they're watching something while they're cooking, and even in the bathroom, like you say, in the bathtub, well it's nice, but some of them I've seen in front of the toilet or something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right, so come to our website, EnglishPod.com. If you have any questions or any doubts regarding the lesson or any suggestions, you can let us know.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My wife just had a baby and I'm so tired. Cut me some slack. I'll send you the report tomorrow.


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[Assistant] That's right, this lesson is full of language you can use to talk about being scared.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, but some interesting language that you can use to talk about things that are scary, so why don't we look at that now in Language Takeaway. Language Takeaway


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[Assistant] So, okay, we've got two interesting words here, ultra and spooky. Now spooky is scary, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, speaking of being afraid, Shabby said, I'm getting goosebumps.


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[Assistant] Alright, great. So some interesting, scary language. I think we need to hear it one more time, slowed down in the dialogue.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well Shabby said, uh, we're at this scary looking mansion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, so a mansion is a big house, right, that looks very scary. Now this is a really useful and helpful, uhm, pattern you can use with English. Uh, something looking, so adjective looking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It makes you feel uncomfortable and scared.


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[Assistant] Okay, so why don't we give some examples. I could say, hey Marco, see that guy over there? He keeps looking at me. He's giving me the creeps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, well it's a really helpful, useful phrase to use when you're talking about being afraid. Now why don't we listen to the dialogue one final time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Now I understand that in, uhm, Latin America, people are more superstitious. They're more, they believe more in ghosts, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, listeners, why don't you tell us what you think about ghosts? Are people superstitious in your country? Do they believe in ghosts?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Local legend says that the mountain gods' four beautiful daughters defeated the devil and turned into four snow mountains to guard the local people.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The snowy mountains offer one of the toughest challenges for those who would like to conquer them. Out of the four sisters,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The youngest one, the Yaomei Peak, is the highest and the steepest of them all. With the altitude of 6,250 meters,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Only the bravest climbers around the world dare to take the challenge.


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[Assistant] There are glaciers hanging on the southern slope and extending to the foot of the mountain.


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[Assistant] The western and the northern slope are formed by the daunting steep rocks.


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[Assistant] So far, the summit record for the Yaomei Peak is only 11 times. The Japanese and the American made it twice each.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Besides the four remarkable peaks, Mount Sirgunyang also has lots of other mountains and valleys that are ready for exploration.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The 5,484 meters high camel peak is formed by two connected peaks. Between them, there is a glacial plain.


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[Assistant] But right behind these glaciers is a vertical cliff.


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[Assistant] And we have the Pomeo peak that looks like a pyramid.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thanks for its breathtaking and wide landscape, Mount Seogonyang is also known as the Oriental Alps.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, I know. Okay, so I had to separate the colors from the whites and put them in this strange looking contraption so called washing machine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So complicated. Okay, what about this red wine stain?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then I can just throw everything in the dryer for an hour and it's all set, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so I have to separate the colors from the whites and put them in this strange looking contraption so called washing machine?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So complicated. Okay, what about this red wine stain? How do I get it out?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then I can just throw everything in the dryer for an hour, and it's all set, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what? I'll just have everything dry clean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] David, do you have time this afternoon to go over the details of this new project?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know, I know. Okay, so I had to separate the colors from the whites and put them in this strange looking contraption so called washing machine.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So complicated. Okay, what about this red wine stain?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Then I can just throw everything in the dryer for an hour and it's all set, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 200 million years ago, our planet looked very different from what it does today. It was entirely covered by sea, which surrounded one single supercontinent we call Pangea. And then Pangea began to break up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Life was cast adrift on fragments of land.


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[Assistant] And these fragments eventually became our seven continents.


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[Assistant] We will see how life developed on each continent, giving rise to the extraordinary and wonderful diversity that we see today.


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[Assistant] We'll venture to the frozen wilderness of Antarctica, where life thrives against the odds.


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[Assistant] And to the riches of South America, full of the unexpected.


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[Assistant] And we will discover how this may be the most critical moment for life on Earth since the continents formed. We are changing the world so rapidly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Never has it been a more important time to reveal the precious diversity of life on our seven continents.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] 98% of mainland Antarctica, an area one and a half times the size of the United States, is covered in ice, on which virtually nothing can live.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Out here on the sea ice, all these seals are far from the predators of the open ocean.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If this pup now joins its mother in the water, it would be safe from any future storm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Further from the pole, on the fringes of the continent, lie islands that are free of sea ice.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In spring, the chicks are left for days whilst their parents are away collecting food for them.


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[Assistant] Life in the Antarctic is harsh indeed. But all these creatures come here


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[Assistant] When 30 million years ago, the continent broke away from South America and drifted south, currents began to swirl right around it.


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[Assistant] To collect them, the humpbacks blow curtains of bubbles which the krill won't cross.


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[Assistant] But the wildlife in these waters faces an uncertain future.


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[Assistant] The warming of the coldest region on Earth is having a profound effect on global weather patterns. And this change in the climate is already being felt right here.


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[Assistant] This grey-headed albatross chick is four weeks old.


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[Assistant] So far, it has been sheltered from the gales by its parents.


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[Assistant] So one parent has to leave to find food before the other returns.


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[Assistant] For the first time in its life, this chick is alone.


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[Assistant] The Antarctic is the windiest continent.


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[Assistant] The brutal conditions have taken their toll.


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[Assistant] Some chicks have already succumbed to exposure.


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[Assistant] Gentoo penguins travel up to 80 kilometres every day to find food and they're now returning to their chicks. They are the fastest penguin in the sea and can swim at 35 kilometres per hour.


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[Assistant] Most Gen 2 parrots do make it back to the colony.


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[Assistant] He'll soon lose these remaining down feathers and be ready to leave the colony and collect food for himself. But doing so is becoming harder because of climate change.


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[Assistant] The chicks have lost their down feathers and they're hungry.


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[Assistant] Now, there's a risk of being crushed between blocks of ice.


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[Assistant] Every day, 100,000 more square kilometres of sea freeze over.


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[Assistant] But below it, conditions are so stable that life over millennia has had time to diversify. Creatures here grow to a great size.


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[Assistant] We're only just beginning to discover the details of the lives of these strange creatures.


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[Assistant] Each individual possesses both male and female reproductive organs.


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[Assistant] And feed by catching edible particles that drift within reach of their tentacles.


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[Assistant] Life here under the ice has remained unchanged for millennia. But in the last 200 years, much of Antarctica's wildlife has had to face new predators.


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[Assistant] We devise new hunting techniques and use them so mercilessly.


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[Assistant] And boil down in vats to make margarine and soap.


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[Assistant] Females came to the same sheltered bays and would not leave their calves alone at the surface.


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[Assistant] But times have changed. A ban on the commercial hunting of whales introduced in 1986


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[Assistant] has stopped all but Japan, Norway, and Iceland.