Steve Irwin
Before he was killed by a stingray in 2006 while filming an underwater documentary, Australian Steve Irwin was known throughout the world as the “Crocodile Hunter” through his TV series on wildlife. Here he talks excitedly about a dangerous adventure he had when he was only four years old that, for the first time, indicated he had special skills.
Irwin has a heavy Australian accent, so, unless you’re familiar with this accent, it will be a challenge for you. Listen more than once and remember you can slow down the speed by clicking on the clock icon in the audio player. The text is at the bottom of the page after the vocabulary. Listen before your read.
environment: the place in which people live and work สภาพแวดล้อม, สิ่งแวดล้อม
serum: a thin liquid taken from the blood of an animal (in this case, a snake) and given to people to protect them from disease, poison, etc. รั่ม, ของเหลวสีเหลืองอ่อนใสที่แยกออกจากเลือดที่จับเป็นก้อน,
laboratory: a room or building used for scientific research, experiments, testing, etc ห้องปฏิบัติการ, ห้องทดลอง
absolute: complete ทั้งสิ้น โดยสิ้นเชิง
whopper: something that is very big for its type or kind สิ่งที่ใหญ่โตกว่าปกติ
shin: the lower front part of your leg, between your knee and your ankle หน้าแข้ง
sandals: light shoes that are partly open on top and do not cover your heel or toes รองเท้าแตะ
belt: to hit somebody/something hard ตี
deck: to hit somebody very hard so that they fall to the ground ทำให้ล้มลง
scratch your head: to try to understand something confusing or unclear, often while appearing to scratch your head (เกาศีรษะ)
figure out: to understand something; to find a solution คิดออก
Steve Irwin tells an exciting story
Dad was kind of the first one to notice it and good on him. You know I’m just the product of my parents and my environment and I was four years old and dad was catching snakes for the then Commonwealth serum laboratory, right? He was looking for brown snakes and tiger snakes. And here’s this huge brown snake, absolute whopper well over five foot, so I come up on him, I’m going Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, yeah. Got it! “Dad, dad, I got one. I got one.” He’s like, “What is he on about?” And he comes up. “Look at this Dad”
Here’s this brown snake and it’s up on my shin. Like I’m wearing plastic sandals, no socks either and here’s this brown snake with his head right on my leg and he’s going “whack,” you know, he belted me out of the way, crushed me like a bug – because I thought I’d, I’d got this brown snake for him and I thought I was going to come out of this a hero. And he decks me. And I – but he thought he’s saved my life and, you know, for months he’s scratching his head, how come that kid never got killed by that brown snake. And I guess he figured it out then, he figured, “This kid’s got something.”
Words to remember
You probably already know the word environment, but when you try to use it, remember that there are different kinds of environments. The Earth’s environment is very different from your home environment, for example. Here are some more examples:
environment (noun) (a set of) surrounding conditions, especially those influencing development or growth สภาพแวดล้อม, สิ่งแวดล้อม
The area was poor and the crime rate was high, not an easy environment to raise four children.
The animals did well in a laboratory environment, but they had difficulty adjusting to life in the forest.
Permission was denied for the new pesticide because it’s effect on the surrounding environment was still not clear.
environmental (adjective) relating to or influencing surrounding conditions เกี่ยวกับสภาพแวดล้อม, เกี่ยวกับสิ่งแวดล้อม
Food safety is an environmental health issue.
The company will be forced to pay for any environmental damage. (damage to the environment)
Here is a word that you might want to try to start using:
figure out (verb) to find the solution to (a problem or question) or understand the meaning of something คิดออก, คำนวณ,, เข้าใจ
It happened so fast I couldn’t figure out what was happening.
The young boy was able to figure out what was wrong with his computer without asking for help.
We need to figure out what to do next.
