Chloe Kim

Korean-American Chloe Kim just won gold in the Winter Olympics in a snowboarding event and suddenly two countries, the US and Korea, both Koreas, are in love with her. She is only 17 years old and she definitely talks like an American teenager. One of her favourite subjects is food and here she talks about not having enough to eat before winning her gold medal. Yes, she used the word “hangry”, a word I had never heard before.

Listen before you read the text. If the audio player doesn’t load at first, refresh the page, i.e., load it again. It will work. Notice that you can click on the clock icon to slow down the sound.

• Chloe Kim

• Chloe Kim

snowboarding (noun) a winter sport where a person moves over the snow standing on a wide board
hangry (adj) hungry + angry; feeling unhappy or even a little angry because you haven’t eaten for a long time
miserable (adj) very unhappy or uncomfortable ทนทุกข์, เป็นทุกข์, เดือดร้อน,
clementine (noun) a type of sweet orange
system – digestive system (noun) the series of organs inside the body that digest food (stomach, intestines, etc.) ระบบย่อยอาหาร

Well, I mean I guess I’m always hungry for food, but ah, yes, I was a little hangry, I was, you know, I actually ate probably 20 minutes ago, so I’m feeling a lot better now.

OK, I was miserable this morning because I woke up at six. We got sandwiches in our fridge, right. Someone delivered sandwiches to us. I didn’t finish mine (be)cause it was cold and I, like, had a few bites of it and I was like, you know what?, I’m not that hungry. I’ll be fine. Had a few bites of the sandwich, um, and a little clementine and I thought I’d be fine and then at, like, eleven I was like “OOOH”. Why didn’t I finish that sandwich?”

But yeah, I’m glad I got some pizza into my system and a latte and I’m feeling good. Ready to go.

Words to remember

hangry: unhappy or irritated because you are hungry. This is a fun type of word that you might want to teach your friends.

Don’t bother me – unless you have food. I’m hangry.

miserable: This can be used in a serious sense or it can be used to exaggerate (to make something seem bigger or more serious than it really is) a situation.

Life for the Rohingya in the Bangladesh refugee camps is truly miserable and it will get worse in the rainy season.
What a miserable day. Will the rain ever stop?

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.

• Steve Irwin tells a story

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.

 

Lady Gaga

American Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Lady Gaga) talks about happiness, her family and where she can feel free. She speaks rather slowly and clearly with a standard American accent, so you should quickly be able to understand her.

First listen to the audio (sound) at least once. The audio clip is less than one minute long. Then read the text (at the bottom) and check out the vocabulary list for any words you  might not know. Also, consider these questions:

Does she say she needs to be a famous superstar?

Does she expect to be able to live a normal, or near normal, life when she goes outside her home?

Do you think she would welcome you warmly if you knocked on the door of her house and asked her for an autograph?

• Lady Gaga speaks

relationship: the way in which two or more people behave towards each other or deal with each other ความสัมพันธ์
encouragement: words or actions that give someone confidence or hope กำลังใจ; คำให้กำลังใจ
in that space: (from the story) family, working hard as a musician, playing music for peopole
acutely: very strongly; extremely อย่างมีไหวพริบ, อย่างแหลมคม
property line: the edge of an area which is owned by someone ขอบเขตที่ดิน
legal: allowed by the law ถูกต้องตามกฎหมาย
stalk: to illegally follow and watch somebody over a long period of time, in a way that is annoying or frightening ย่องตาม

Lady Gaga speaks:

If this were all to go away tomorrow, all the big success, I would still be very happy going from bar to bar, playing music for people. The reason that I’m here at all is because of my relationship with my family and their encouragement of me to be a musician and to work hard. So, as long as I stay there, in that space, I can do anything.

I’m very acutely aware that once I cross that property line (of her own home), I’m not free any more. As soon as I go out into the world, I belong in a way to everyone else. (It’s) legal to follow me, legal to stalk me at the beach. I can’t call the police or ask them to leave and I took a long hard look at that property line and I said, “Well, you know, if I can’t be free out there, I’m going to be free in here.”

 

• Dusit Zoo still open

• Dusit Zoo still open

The Bangkok Post reports today that Dusit Zoo officials have denied rumours that the zoo is about to close

However, they say, there is a plan to relocate the 79-year-old zoo to Pathum Thani to a 300-rai plot of land donated by His Majesty the King.

That could take years, but it will result in a better zoo, officials say.

“We have to accept change as the bigger place means better opportunity for both the animals and visitors,” the zoo’s website said.

officials /əˈfɪʃlz/ people who have the power to make decisions or enforce the law เจ้าหน้าที่ผู้มีอำนาจ
deny /dɪˈnaɪ/ to say that something is not true ปฏิเสธ
rumour BrE /ˈruːmə(r)/ NAmE /ˈruːmər/ a story that people are discussing but which may or may not be true ข่าวลือ

relocate BrE /ˌriːləʊˈkeɪt/ NAmE /ˌriːˈloʊkeɪt/ to move something to a new place ย้ายที่ใหม่

plot BrE /plɒt/ NAmE /plɑːt/ a piece of land used for a particular purpose ที่ดิน, ที่ดินแปลงเล็ก
donate   BrE /dəʊˈneɪt/ ; NAmE /ˈdoʊneɪt/ to give something such as money or goods to an organisation, especially to a temple, charity, school, political party, etc. บริจาค
opportunity  BrE /ˌɒpəˈtjuːnəti/  NAmE /ˌɑːpərˈtuːnəti/ a chance to do something, or a situation in which it is easy for you to do something โอกาส

• A funny story about cats

Notice that this is not a real situation, so the teacher uses “would”, i.e., If I gave you …., how many would you have?

2+2+2 = 7

Teacher: “If I gave you 2 cats and another 2 cats and another 2, how many would you have?”

Johnny: “Seven.”

Teacher: “No, listen carefully… If I gave you two cats, and another two cats and another two, how many would you have?”

Johnny: “Seven.”

Teacher: “Let me put it to you differently. If I gave you two apples, and another two apples and another two, how many would you have?”

Johnny: “Six.”

Teacher: “Good. Now if I gave you two cats, and another two cats and another two, how many would you have?”

Johnny: “Seven!”

Teacher: “Johnny, where in the world do you get seven from?!”

Johnny: “Because I’ve already got a cat!”

From “sunny skyz”

The nice thing about this new audio player is that you can slow down the playback speed. Just click on that little clock symbol move the slider back a little. This is great for language learners and it is especially useful for fast speech like in this example. Listen at normal speed first. Then try changing to .8 or .7. Click “X” to come back to the main page of the audio player.

“I thought you were going out. I wanted to go, but I’ve got a report to finish for tomorrow.”

• <p class='minimalDarkCategoriesTitle'><span class='bold'>Title: </span>My playlist 1</p>

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• Going out

It has taken awhile to get started here as I have spending most of my  time with my new Facebook Official page https://www.facebook.com/terry50at50/

The “50” stands for 50 years of teaching English to non-native speakers in Thailand, the United States, Malaysia and even a short stint in France. I began as a Peace Corps teacher in 1968 in Nakhon Si Thammarat and then taught in the Thai teaching training system before getting my masters degree in the field in 1985 I think it was. I ended up running the Bangkok Post’s education program, culminating in the learning section of the Bangkok Post website. I’m going to be officially retired on November 30th, but I’ll use this site and others to keep on doing what I’ve always been doing – helping learners with their English. The photo is much closer to the start of my  career than to the present.