Pro-jovem, part 18, Inglês Vip

 

Source: www.ingvip.com


Mariana: Travel agency, good morning. How can I help you?
Customer: Hello. My name is Luis, and I would like to go on a trip(1) with my wife. We are always(2) traveling around Brazil, and I'd like to know if we can have a discount this time(3).
Mariana: OK Luis. How often(4) do you travel?
Customer: Once a month(5)
Mariana: Could you give me your name, please?
Customer: Luis Alberto Ferdolini.
Mariana: Ferdolini? How do I speel that(6)?
Customer: F-e-r-d-o-l-i-n-i
Mariana: I can see in the agency's system that it's the tenth time(7) you are traveling with us
Customer: Oh, that's right(8) young lady
Mariana: You can have a 25% discount for any location(9) in Brazil. Where would you like to go?
Customer: It is our honey moon(10). It has to be a romantic place.
Mariana: Hum...let me see.Do you know Gramado and Canela in Rio Grande do Sul? Or Petropolis, in Rio de Janeiro? Those are very romantic places
Boss: Mariana, how is work today?
Mariana: Oh, it is fine.
Boss: I can see you are rarely(11) having doubts(12) about it
Mariana: I have doubts sometimes(13), but I'm learning more every day
Boss: In a short time(14), this job is going to be a piece of cake(15).
Boss: Mariana, I might(16) have to leave early(17) today. Can you close the office(18) for me?
Mariana: OK, no problem.  

---

Pedro: What are you doing boss?
Boss: I'm preparing a surprise(19) for my brother. He's getting married(20)
Pedro: How nice! What are you giving him?
Boss: An antique watch(21). Do you see how beautiful it is, Pedro? This watch is 50 years old and it is never late(22). They don't make watches like that(23) these days(24), Pedro.
Pedro: Those things are very expensive, boss
Boss: Yes, I know. I usually(25) don't buy(26) expensive things(27) like that, but I think my brother is going to love it(28). He collects(29) antigues.
Pedro: You must be rich(30) to buy a watch like that. I think you should(31) give me a raise(32).
Boss: A raise? I should give you more work! That's what I should give you. Very funny(33) young man, very funny
 

---

                                              Vocabulary
 1.  Go on a trip = Fazer uma viagem
 2. Always = sempre
 3. This time = Desta vez
 4. How often? = Com que frequência?
 5. Once a month = Uma vez por mês
 6. How do I spell that? = Como eu soletro isso?
 7. Tenth time = décima vez
 8.  That's right = É isso mesmo, está certo
 9. Any location = Qualquer localidade
 10. Honey moon = Lua de mel
 11. Rarely = raramente
 12. Doubts = dúvidas
 13. Sometimes = Às vezes
 14. In a short time = Em pouco tempo
 15.  Piece of cake = "Moleza"
 16. Might = poder (possibilidade)
 17. Leave early = sair cedo
 18. Close the office = fechar o escritório
 19. Surprise = surpresa
 20. He's getting married = Ele vai se casar (Futuro certo)
 21. Antique watch = Relógio antigo
  22. It is never late = Ele (relógio) nunca se atrasa
  23. Like that = Como esse, assim
  24. These days = Hoje em dia
  25. Usually = Normalmente
  26. Buy = comprar
 27. Things = coisas
 28. I think my brother is going to love it = Eu acho que meu irmão vai adorá-lo (Futuro incerto)
 29. Collects = coleciona
 30. You must be rich =  You must be rich
 31. Should = Deveria
 32. Raise = aumento
 33. Funny = engraçado

Sir Paul McCartney

Source: www.speakup.com.br

Language level: Advanced

Standard: British accent

SIR PAUL MC CARTNEY

Thanks for the Memories

At the age of 65, Sir Paul McCartney is a legendary figure. In addition to having been one half of the Lennon McCartney team that wrote most of the hits for the Beatles, his subsequent work, both with his band Wings and by himself, has also been impressive. According to Guinness World Records, McCartney is in fact the most successful musician and composer in pop music history.

Nor does McCartney have any retirement plans, in spite of having passed the age of 64 of the famous Beatles song (as in, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”). This year he released another album, Memory Almost Full, on the Mercury label. He was asked to explain the title:

Paul McCartney:

(Standard British /mild Liverpudlian accent).

To me, what I like about a title is if it’s not very specific…in actual fact I’d seen the phrase and I wasn’t quite sure where I’d seen it, but it stuck in my mind. Then I realised it was off my phone, just warning me that I…there were too many messages and I had to delete some. So I thought, “Oh, ‘Memory almost full’:  OK, that’s…kind of applies to the phone thing, so that’s sort of, you know, what happens in the modern world, but then, again, you know, when I talked to people about it, they didn’t see that, and they thought of, in…in a life, you know, your memory is often like a bit over-crowded, and you’ve got to, you know, delete some stuff, in order to put some more stuff in it.

THE EARLY DAYS

And, on the subject of memories, he was asked whether he had many of the days of the Beatles:

Paul McCartney:

Yeah, very vivid…you know, all our sort of early gigging memories, I mean, they’re not…I probably can’t remember individual moments so much as a haze of, you know, being in a ban. I probably can’t imagine…remember all the individual gigs. You remember some of them. You know, I remember going down to a place called Slough and we thought, “That’s a…you know” –we’d never been to places like that, you know, we were down to Slough and got there in an afternoon, like a church hall, and there…hardly anyone showed up, you know, ‘cause we weren’t famous. So those kind of things you remember.

A SENSE OF SADNESS

Memory Almost Full contains a rather morbid track. “End of the End,” which deals with the subject of death. McCartney was asked whether his own experiences of death had made him weaker of stronger:

Paul McCartney:

I’d like to think it would strengthen me…it doesn’t weaken me: let’s start there. It saddens me because there’s mates and lovers that will not come through the door again. And that’s a very sad thing, you know, your…my mum died when I was a teenager, my dad died later, Linda died after 30 years of marriage, and John and George have since died. So all of those deaths, and…and some others are very sad, just…just inasmuch as you won’t see that person again, in this life, anyway.

The Long and Winding Road…(no audio)

James Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool on June 18^th, 1942. At the age of 11 he was one of the few children at his primary school to pass the 11-plus exam. This enabled him to attend a grammar school, the Liverpool institute, where he was to meet George Harrison. Paul was only 14 when his mother, Mary, died of cancer (he would later immortalize her in the song, “Let it Be”). The early loss of his mother would also bring him close to John Lennon, whose own mother, Julia (who would also be the subject of a Beatle song), died when he was 17.

Lennon and McCartney first met when the former’s band, The Quarryman, played at Woolton Fete on July 6^th, 1957. Their families were not happy about their friendship: John’s domineering Aunt Mimi, considered Paul too “working-class,” while Paul’s dad told him Lennon “Will get you into trouble.”  

The greatest of all tragedies

 Source: www.maganews.com.br acessem e adiquira já excelente para professores e alunos, recomendo por que conheço.

Rain in Brazil
The greatest of all tragedies

Landslides [1] in the mountain region of Rio de Janeiro have killed hundreds of people.  Thiscatastrophe was no surprise. In recent decades, hundreds of cities in several states have suffered from floods [2]  and landslides. There has been a lack of [3] effort to prevent construction inareas at risk

Rain, rain and more rain. Hill-slides [4], rivers bursting [5] their banks. People dying and thousands of homes being destroyed.  These scenes have been repeated over and over in many Brazilian states in recent decades, especially in the summer months. The worst of all the tragedies took place on January 11 and 12, in the mountain region ofRio de Janeiro.  The cities most affected were Nova Friburgo, Teresopólis, and Petrópolis. Up to January 31 the death toll [6] had reached 870 and more than 400 people were still missing [7]. The rain left nearly 30,000 people displaced [8] or homeless [94], and caused losses to the region's agricultural production. According to the United Nations (UN), extreme weather events will become more common in the coming years (see full story on the next page).

The root [10] of the problem
The Brazilian population has grown in recent decades.  Cities have grown, but chaotically.   Many people (especially the poorest) have had to build their homes in areas near rivers or hills, which are at risk from landslides and floods. The government has been unable to stop people building their homes in hazardous [11] locations. While cities are expanding, untouched areas [12] have been destroyed by deforestation [13]. It should be remembered that vegetation is vital, to absorb rainwater. According to Greenpeace, the rate of deforestation of the Atlantic Forest [14] has reached 34,000 hectares a year. In Rio de Janeiro, the state hit hardest [15] by the rains, over 80% of the forest has been cleared. Meanwhile, in recent years, the volume of rainfall has been increasing... 

---

Primeira parte da matéria especial sobre as chuvas no Brasil, publicada na edição de número 59 da Revista Maganews (com áudios de David e Laís Hatton).

Pictures (Nova Friburgo) - Valter Campanato/ABr

Vocabulary

1 landslide – deslizamento

2 floods – inundações

3 lack of – falta de

4 hill-slides – aqui = morros deslizando

5 rivers bursting their banks – rios transbordando

6 death toll – número (total) de mortos

7 missing – aqui = desaparecida (s)

8 displaced – desalojada

9 homeless – sem casa / desabrigado

10 root - raiz

11 hazardous – perigoso

12 untouched áreas – áreas verdes

13 deforestation – desmatamento

14 Atlantic Forest – Mata Atlântica

15 hardest – de forma mais dura / intensa 

Pro-jovem, part 17, Inglês Vip

Source: http://www.ingvip.com/curso-conversacao/aula17.htm
You may find out this and more English tips. Ingles Vip is a Brazilian site where you can find out a lot of interesting texts from VOA site, and English course, friends series among others, check out, please.





Pedro: What can we do today?
Lucas: We can play soccer(1)
Julia: Soccer? We can't play soccer!(2)
Lucas: But you can learn(3) Let's go girls! We can teach(4) you how to play.
Mariana: OK!
Julia: Let's try(5)Pedro: No, no. Watch(6) first OK?
Julia: Oh, that guy(7) is from our neighborhood(8). Let's see if he wants to play with us.
Mariana: OK. Hello! Let's play some soccer
Guy: Yes, let's play!
Lucas: I have to speak with you now.
Pedro: OK. Come one man!(9)
Mariana: So, I like this game.
Julia: Oh, I love it!
Lucas: This game is over!(10)Mariana: Well, well well...three nothing! (3x0)
Julia: Too bad(11) for you!
Lucas: I have to go guys. I have to work tomorrow
Pedro:  But is it late? What time is it?(12)Lucas: It's ten thirty(13)Mariana: Oh, that's enough(14) soccer for me! Let's go
 

---

Mariana:  So, I really like that game now.
Guy: Yes, it's fun(15) to play
Julia: What do you like to do?
Guy: Oh, me? I like music, and you?
Julia: Well, let me see(16). I like to eat(17), go out(18) with my friends. I love to dance, and I love my work.
Mariana: So, let's keep in touch(19)Guy: OK, I can write(20) you an email from work.
Julia: OK, we can read(21) it at the school tomorrow morning(22)Guy: I have to go now girls, nice to meet you, bye!
Mariana: OK, bye bye!

  

---

                                      Vocabulary
 1.  Play soccer = Jogar futebol
 2. We can't play soccer = Nós não sabemos jogar futebol!
 3. Learn = Aprender
 4. Teach = Ensinar
 5. Try = Tentar, experimentar
 6. Watch =  Assistir
 7. Guy = cara
 8. Neighborhood  = bairro
 9. Come on man = Vamos lá cara
 10.This game is over!  = Este jogo acabou!
 11. Too bad = Que pena
 12. What time is it? = Que horas são?
 13. Ten thirty = Dez e meia
 14. Enough = o bastante, o suficiente
 15. Fun  = divertido
 16. Let me see = Deixe me ver
 17. Eat = comer
 18. Go out = Sair
 19. Keep in touch = Manter o contato
 20. Write = Escrever
 21. Read = Ler
  22. Tomorrow morning = amanhã de manhã

Words and Their Stories: Food Expressions

Source: www.voanews.com

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.  A listener from Brazil, Elenir Scardueli, sent us a list of popular expressions about food.  So today we will talk about expressions that use vegetables and fruits.

For example, a cucumber is a long, green vegetable that people often eat in salads.  You might say a person is as cool as a cucumber if he never seems to worry about anything and stays calm in a stressful situation.  If you put a cucumber in a solution of vinegar and spices for a long time, it becomes a pickle.  But if you are in a pickle, you are in trouble or a difficult situation.

If two people are very similar, you might say they are like two peas in a pod.

There are several expressions about beans.  If someone is very energetic, you might say she is full of beans. If you say something does not amount to a hill of beans, you mean it is of little importance.  I might say you don’t know beans about a subject if you do not know anything at all about it.  But if you spill the beans, you tell something that was supposed to be a secret.

Potatoes are a popular food in many areas.  But something is consideredsmall potatoes if it is not important.  You probably would not want to hold ahot potato in your bare hands.  This also means a problem or issue that no one wants to deal with.  Someone might call you a couch potato if you sit and watch television all day and get little or no physical exercise.

Like potatoes, turnips are root vegetables that grow in the ground.  Here is an old saying: you cannot squeeze blood out of a turnip.  That means you cannot get something from a person that he or she is not willing or able to give.

Farmers have to separate the valuable parts of their crops from the waste.  So separating the wheat from the chaff means keeping what is valuable and rejecting what is worthless.

Students often have to take a difficult test to gain entrance to a special school.  So you could say the ones who are chosen are the best ones, orthe cream of the crop.

There is an old saying that forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest. That means some people get pleasure from doing something that they are not supposed to do.

Bananas are a popular fruit to eat.  But if you go bananas, you are wild with excitement or worry.

Finally, let us talk about lemons.  Lemons have a sour taste if you eat them plain.  But lemons make a nice drink when you mix their juice with sugar and water.  So here is an expression about lemons that we like: If life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This means you should always try to make the best of a bad situation.

(MUSIC)

This program was written by Shelley Gollust.  I'm Faith Lapidus.  You can find more WORDS AND THEIR STORIES at our website, voaspecialenglish.com.  You can also find us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube at VOA Learning English.

Family Album, part 42

Source: Family Album, USA

'Lincoln Portrait': Music of Copland, Words of a Leader

'Lincoln Portrait': Music of Copland, Words of a Leader 

Source: www.voanews.com 

Photo: AP

A National Park Service ranger at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington talks about the 16th president on February 12, 2010, his 201st birthday

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I'm Shirley Griffith. This week on our program, Rich Kleinfeldt and I tell the story of President Abraham Lincoln. His birthday is February twelfth.

(MUSIC)

RICH KLEINFELDT: Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth American president. He is considered one of the greatest leaders of all time. Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky in eighteen nine. He grew up in Illinois. His family was poor and had no education.

Abraham Lincoln taught himself what he needed to know. He became a lawyer. He served in the Illinois state legislature and in the United States Congress. In eighteen sixty, he was elected to the country's highest office.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: President Lincoln led the United States during the Civil War between the northern and southern states. This was the most serious crisis in American history.

President Lincoln helped end slavery in the nation. And he helped keep the American union from splitting apart during the war. President Lincoln believed that he proved to the world that democracy can be a lasting form of government.

RICH KLEINFELDT: In eighteen sixty-three, President Lincoln gave what became his most famous speech. Union armies of the North had won two great victories that year. They defeated the Confederate armies of the South at Vicksburg, Mississippi and at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Ceremonies were held to honor the dead soldiers at a burial place on the Gettysburg battlefield.

President Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg for only about two minutes. But his speech has never been forgotten. Historians say the speech defined Americans as a people who believed in freedom, democracy and equality.

Abraham Lincoln wrote some of the most memorable words in American history. He was murdered a few days after the Civil War ended in eighteen sixty-five. Yet his words live on.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Here is Christopher Cruise reading the Gettysburg Address:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow, this ground – The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here.

It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Abraham Lincoln

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: In nineteen forty-two, orchestra conductor Andre Kostelanitz asked composer Aaron Copland to write a piece of music about Abraham Lincoln. Copland was one of the best modern American composers. He wrote many kinds of music. His music told stories about the United States.

Aaron Copland wrote "Lincoln Portrait" to honor the president. Copland's music included parts of American folk songs and songs popular during the Civil War. Here is the Seattle Symphony playing part of "Lincoln Portrait." 

(MUSIC) 

RICH KLEINFELDT: Aaron Copland added words from President Lincoln's speeches and letters to his "Lincoln Portrait." It has been performed many times in the United States. Many famous people have read the words.

To celebrate Presidents Day, here is actor James Earl Jones reading part of Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait." 

(MUSIC) 

JAMES EARL JONES: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.” That is what he said. That is what Abraham Lincoln said: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We – even we here – hold the power and bear the responsibility … “

Lincoln was a quiet man. Abe Lincoln was a quiet and melancholy man. But, when he spoke of Democracy, this is what he said: 

He said: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of Democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.”

Abraham Lincoln, sixteenth President of these United States, is everlasting in the memory of his countrymen, for on the battleground at Gettysburg this is what he said: 

He said: “That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion: that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; and that this nation under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: This program was written by Shelley Gollust. It was produced by Lawan Davis. Our engineer was Al Alevy. I’m Shirley Griffith.

(MUSIC) 

RICH KLEINFELDT: And I'm Rich Kleinfeldt. Join us again next week for another report about life in the United States on the VOA Special English program THIS IS AMERICA

.