English file 5e int 4b 6d listening — Transcript

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1. 0:05Um, all of the languages that I speak
2. 0:07are fun. I think that's why I've stuck
3. 0:09with them and enjoyed speaking them. Um,
4. 0:13I think I have the the the deepest
5. 0:15emotional connection with Greek because
6. 0:17my grandmother was from Greece and so,
7. 0:19uh, we use Greek in my family as well
8. 0:21and I've I've heard it ever since I was
9. 0:23a child. But, um, I also really like
10. 0:25speaking German.
11. 0:28Um, there are so many languages that I
12. 0:30would love to learn in the future. As I
13. 0:32said, I'm hooked. So, um, I'm I'm very
14. 0:36interested in Chinese at the moment. Um,
15. 0:38I work with, um, someone from China
16. 0:40who's teaching me little bits and, um, I
17. 0:43think it's really cool when I hear her
18. 0:45speaking to her family or friends on the
19. 0:47phone in Chinese and think, "Wow,
20. 0:49wouldn't it be really awesome to speak
21. 0:50that?" Um I also I organize um an
22. 0:54international conference for polyglotss
23. 0:56every year which moves countries. So um
24. 0:59last year it was in Iceland and this
25. 1:00year it's going to be in Slovenia. So
26. 1:02I'd like to learn some Slovenian as well
27. 1:04before we go there for the weekend.
28. 1:07I always feel a little bit guilty that
29. 1:09I'm from the UK but I've never really
30. 1:11learned any of our local languages here.
31. 1:13So I've never learned Welsh. I've never
32. 1:15learned Irish. I've never learned
33. 1:17Scottish Gaelic. And um I went to Wales
34. 1:20recently and and loved that we had
35. 1:23everything in two languages. You walk
36. 1:24into the supermarket and you see all
37. 1:26these languages everywhere. And I
38. 1:28thought I think it would be really cool
39. 1:29to learn a language which is very close
40. 1:31to where I live and that I could use. So
41. 1:33I'd love to learn Welsh one day too.
42. 1:37>> The the biggest challenge for me for
43. 1:39learning a new language was with
44. 1:40Russian. Um there were a number of
45. 1:43things that I wasn't expecting to be
46. 1:44hard that were. Um, for example, there's
47. 1:48a whole new alphabet which it's not too
48. 1:50different to English. You get used to
49. 1:52it, but when you're trying to learn a
50. 1:54word, um, it's just an extra barrier to
51. 1:58memorizing that word. The first having
52. 1:59to read it and understand what all of
53. 2:01the letters mean and then having to
54. 2:03actually memorize it. So, there's that
55. 2:04extra layer there.
56. 2:06Well, um, the easiest language for me to
57. 2:09learn was definitely Africans because,
58. 2:11um, the grammar is very, very simple. So
59. 2:13there are almost no irregular verbs. Uh
60. 2:16there's only three real tenses you have
61. 2:19to worry about and a lot of the
62. 2:20vocabulary in Africans is very similar
63. 2:22to vocabulary in English. So for example
64. 2:26um there's this sentence which is my pen
65. 2:29is in my hand and my hand is in warm
66. 2:31water which in Africans is my pen is and
67. 2:34my hand in my hand is inv
68. 2:36which you know is very very easy for
69. 2:38English speakers to learn. So, um, the
70. 2:42easiest languages to learn are the
71. 2:43languages that are most similar to the
72. 2:45one you speak natively because you you
73. 2:48don't have to learn so many new concepts
74. 2:50and maybe you can already understand a
75. 2:52lot of the vocabulary because it's
76. 2:53similar to what you already know.