English Conversation Learn English Speaking English Course English Subtitle Part 20

hello again and welcome back to english today this is DVD 20 and the third DVD of your advanced level and in this DVD we'll start with another two episodes of our story that's life and then in our special TV programs there'll be a discussion about how to manage change known as change management then we'll move on to cinema and take a closer look at star wars then in the grammar section we'll look at ways of expressing your opinions in English then we'll study the construction used to which we use when we're talking about habits alright so have fun Edward stop put that infernal gadget away that's enough there's a limit to everything you know great that c10 gone like that you are fantastic well fantastic my I I told you to cut it out Alice Alice yes and what can I do for you ha ha ha ha ha tell your director friend to give it a rest and put away that damn video camera I absolutely do not want to be filmed like this have I made myself perfectly clear hi Alice good morning Edward can't stop working eh what's on the menu for today's shoot Wow Anne you look beautiful excuse me um could I use the bathroom for a moment Thanks won't calm down and none of these sessions are going to be shown for air at least for now exactly does for now mean well once all the materials been put in place cut and edited Edwards planning and showing it to a producer if it's accepted the idea is to go for our own TV program isn't that a great idea what producer television mm-hmm Let Me In Chuck Let Me In so and what do you think of Edward in what sense as a man or as a director do you really have to ask as a man of course well I've just met him so I can't really say better as a director my view is that he's a bit too intrusive come on and get over it that's his job in my opinion I think he's just great Oh what's this I'm hearing our little Alice might be in love whoa yes as I see it and this is the first time in my life I've fallen head-over-heels in love so much love he doesn't even notice me and we share so many common interests and we see things in the same way we can talk for hours on end but it just ends there he looks on me as a good friend nothing more nothing less you know I'm really not used to that role usually I'm the one to keep others a babe yes I remember Tom Fran David how many broken hearts have you left behind so tell me have you asked Edward how he feels about you no of course not Edward isn't interested in some relationship his his profound and introspective spiritual he's a person who enjoys observing and analyzing others yes if you ask me too much so anyway I can't agree with you I'm afraid even spiritual beings personal longings I think you should tell him and who knows your Edward might be much more human than you think oh maybe you're right but I have to think of a special way to show him just how I feel maybe I should see what my host has to say yes yes I've just had a brilliant idea hello again and welcome back to your live English language TV program did you hear in that episode how the girls were talking about their love problems they were exchanging opinions about their love problems well that's what I want to study with you now is how do you express your opinion in English and how do you ask other people for their opinion now to do this I want to talk about an article which I read yesterday in fact in this magazine about women and the article made some statements and I want to ask you what your opinion is about the statements that I read and I will tell you mine alright well I read this women are less rational than men women are less rational than men what do you think about that hmm yeah well I can go along with that I I agree in a way women are more emotional and more instinctive yeah do you agree next thing other thing they said is women are less intelligent than men women are less intelligent than men what do you think about that well I totally disagree with that I don't know about you women are less intelligent than men who wrote this article men are stronger than women do you agree well yeah I mean physically men usually are stronger than women maybe emotionally and morally we could debate the fact yeah maybe okay next one mmm men make better leaders than women do you agree with that yeah up to a point I mean most of the leaders in this world are men but maybe it's because women haven't had enough chance to be leaders yet who knows all right and the last one is Oh woman's place a woman's real place is in the home what do you think about that now I totally agree a woman's place should be in the home ice article let's move to language maybe it's better let's talk about the language we use when we give opinions and let's use the screen so asking for somebody's opinion how can you do that well you can say what do you think about that what do you think about that simple question or what's your opinion we can also ask what do you feel about that which is more related to emotions rather than to the intellect so what do you feel about that or what are your thoughts what are your views about that all right so those are all ways of asking for somebody's opinion when you want to give your opinion you can say I think I feel in my opinion we should my view is that we should my view or as I see it as I see it I think we should all right so that's giving opinions now often you want to talk about agreement now how do you ask a person for agreement we don't say are you agree many languages translate that wrongly it's not are you agree but do you agree with me all right do you agree be careful do you agree another alternative is do you go along go along means have the same opinion do you go along with that all right now imagine that you want to agree totally with someone do you agree with that not exactly you can say I totally agree with you I completely agree with you you can say yeah I go along with that I agree with that you can also say that's right exactly or absolutely there's always of agreeing totally now imagine that you agree sort of you agree partially the language here is yeah that's a good point but I agree with you up to a point I agree with you up to a point so that's partial agreement but not total agreement all right now disagreement to be polite you can say I can't agree with you I'm afraid if you say I don't agree with you that's quite aggressive so it's better to say I can't agree with you I'm afraid for example if you're in a meeting but if you want to be aggressive you can say I totally disagree with you all right so that's an aggressive disagreement and you can also say oh come on come on alright so there we looked at exchanging opinions giving opinions asking for opinions and then talking about agreement agree agreeing totally partially and disagreeing I'm sure you'll find that very useful because it's what we do every day all right so happy practicing and see you in the next lesson bye Alice hmm are you feeling okay oh yeah hi n I'm just preparing a little lunch food WOD Edouard hmm what's with the French accent I thought you said he was Canadian he is from the French part his mother's French so he's fully bilingual hmm well now that you mention it I had noticed it's like French accent yes isn't it adorable hmm well I must say love does work wonders I'm not at all used to seeing you as a a housewife well to tell you the truth I haven't got used to it yet you know I just hope I got the recipe right you know I followed the instructions to the letter but you know I feel like a fish out of water with these things so you've decided to go for Edwards jugular well not only that here's the crowning touch what is it it's a Chinese fortune cookie with the little note inside what a romantic idea do you think I wrote the note myself I thought I would surprise him by hiding it inside his neck and like this what do you think I think it's just perfect oh you'll see we'll go straight to his heart hello yes this is Alice ah it's already come in what Oh in half now um yeah okay okay oh I'll be there in a few minutes and could I borrow your car please I have to go and pick up a packet my father sent me but the post office closes in half an hour and I won't make it on foot my car hmm you don't have a license oh don't worry about it I have it and anyway I always used to drive you know my dad's got a car just like yours okay I'm off tell Edward I'll be back in a flash Alice Alice but I was going to clean up this mess get used to it and it's the same old story now I'm late Oh can't believe I always get myself into these situations I'm late and here I am helping Alice with her grand plan I am oh whoa that's Mel's great my compliments to the chef oh it's not like you think I have to go I've got a meeting with my boss Alice has just gone out out she told me to let you know that she'll be returning soon bye bye well I'm starving hmm what's this a little note a little delight for the man who's got my heart racing what what's this all about there must be some mistake oh well yes this is my napkin who could have written this oh my god hmm but but she was just here and she was so shy this is getting interesting and it's very cute so what I'm going to do now I'm not used to these things now has it gone well it's not here it's not there either Edward yes have you seen my mobile phone oh look here it is Thanks pardon me but why you eyeing me like that nothing nothing oh all right I've got to run bye bye she's acting like nothing is happening at all this is getting very interesting hello again and welcome back did you notice a grammatical form that they used used to and get used to did you pick that up when they were speaking because these are forms that we use in English when we're talking about habits it's not an easy form and I'd like to teach you that now and to do that to give you an example of the grammar in action I want to talk to you about when I moved to Italy and I lived there for some time and I had to change some of my habits I had to adopt some Italian habits I had to get used to new things all right so I'm going to use the grammar construction as I talked about this try and listen and pick it up now I wrote a list actually because really fascinating you would think that Italy and England being very close wouldn't be very different but in fact there are some noticeable differences for example driving on the right I had to get used to driving on the right in England we drive on the left so you can imagine it's a question of life and death so the first thing was I had to get used to driving on the right you hear that to get used to driving on the right now that means that I had to adopt a new habit to get used to doing something we look at the grammatical form after for now just listen how I use it alright another thing oh yeah Italian driving I had to get used to italian driving red lights are not really red lights red lights traffic lights are negotiable and I have to get used to being very flexible driving on the roads in Italy I can assure you now oh speaking Italian now when you speak Italian you divide the world into masculine and feminine and you know that in the English language we don't have masculine and feminine for table is neutral whereas in Italian they can be masculine or feminine for example the computer is masculine so I had to get used to dividing my world into objects which are masculine and feminine which for an English person is really quite a challenge so another thing was rolling my are in in English we don't say a ruler it doesn't exist but in Italian for example if you want to say red you have to say a rose so it took me one year to learn her so I had to get used to rolling my are terrible coffee in England we have mugs of coffee like this in Italy I had to get used to small amounts of strong coffee so that was a new habit but then I found cappuccino so that was the alternative and the last thing that I had to get used to was the Italians gesticulating the Italians use many gestures like au and au and they they use their shoulders or and and noises as well and when I saw a Italians in the street at the beginning I thought they were always arguing but in fact they're not it's normal way for the Italians to gesticulate so I had to get used to reading the language as not necessarily aggressive alright so that's some of the things I had to get used to all right let's go and look at this grammatical form now because it's not easy to use all right let's look at the screen so to get used to is followed by the gerund form and it describes this process of changing and taking on a new habit look at the examples I'm getting used to speaking Italian every day used to speaking Italian now we use the verb get get used to because it describes the process and you can put the verb get into any tense present tense past tense future no problem here we have it in the present continuous so I'm getting used to speaking Italian every day listen to the pronunciation I said used with T sound used not use it or use ed used that's very important to distinguish it from the other verb use okay used the next example I still haven't got used to driving on the right here we have it in the present perfect I haven't got used to driving on the right next example don't worry you'll get used to it for the future you'll get used to it alright so here we have an example in the future used to it which is an object in the past I had to get used to it in the question form how long did it take to get used to okay how long did it take to get used to so a difficult form now let's move on to the next section which is the verb to be used to this is very interesting because when you change a habit it's a process but then when you have adopted the habit it's a state so we use the verb to be the examples I'm used to getting up early in the morning that means that now I do it regularly with no problem I am used we use the verb to be for the state he isn't negative used to working alone in the past I wasn't used to driving on the right so here we have a state of a new habit using the verb to be to get used to do something something is adapting a new habit it's the process so that's a difficult grammatical form but it's the only way in English that you can describe taking on new habits so it's terribly important for you to learn don't worry you'll get used to it slowly but surely ok bye for now hello and welcome to this week's edition of let's talk our evening discussion program with our commentators Tom and Marie good evening everyone good evening according to a recent report from the EU on the economies of the eurozone many companies are going through a difficult period senior managers are realizing that business as usual is no longer possible many companies need to embrace radical change in order to survive what do you think about this situation well it's true that today companies must face up to the fact that they may have to change the way they do business new technology is making this change necessary and new competition can result in a company having to completely rethink its business plan I agree another example is when a company decides to enter a new market and becomes very successful this success can require changes to the way the company does things all these situations resulting changes being needed to the way a company operates it's not easy to make changes to the way a company operates and the way people work how can a company do this successfully well there's been a lot of research on this topic and it's called the change management process I see so what are the elements of a successful change management process where do you start well it's important to analyze the situation carefully before embarking on a process of change a good analyst will identify the key areas of a company's operations that need to be changed then an effective change strategy needs to be drawn up this says exactly what needs to be changed that's right input to the strategy can come from the management team or an external consultant in addition all the company's workers should be asked for ideas sorry I don't quite follow that do you mean that the workers in a company should be able to decide what changes are made no that's not what I mean everyone in the company should become verse for suggestions on changes that could be made to the company this enables employees to buy into the change process they feel included and are more likely to implement the changes once they've been decided okay I see it's clear now so lots of people input into the change strategy and what happens next well now the strategy has to be implemented it has to be put into action this can be the most difficult stage of the change management process staff need to be told about the changes and some may need training on new ways of doing things a member of the management team should be available to answer questions from employees about the changes taking place and once the changes have been implemented is that it no it's not it's very important to consolidate the changes to make sure that employees don't go back to the old way of doing things a manager should be chosen to act as a champion for the changes and should collect feedback from the employees to see what they think about the changes this champion should praise employees who have implemented the changes of course it's very important to raise the morale of staff at this time otherwise there is a risk that they'll revert back to the old way of doing things so it's quite a complex process well companies need to know about change management techniques in order to survive in today's rapidly changing markets thanks to Tom and Marie for their explanation on how to bring about change in a company goodbye Eric goodbye and good bye everyone and see you again next week for another edition of let's talk so the change management process is the process a company uses to change the way it operates due to new technologies and new competition many companies have to rethink their business plan to rethink something means to reconsider to think again about a choice you made before a business plan is a strategy for running a company remember to run a company means to manage it companies have to embrace change to embrace something means to accept it and put it into practice so to embrace change means to start making changes companies must face up to the fact that they have to change the way they do business to face up to something means to accept a difficult situation exists so how does the change management process work first an analyst identifies the areas that need to be changed an analyst is an expert who looks at all the elements of a situation he analyzes a situation everyone in a company should be canvassed for suggestions to canvas means to ask people for their opinions this enables employees the people who work in the company to buy into the changes to buy into something means to believe in something then a strategy is drawn up the phrasal verb to draw up means to prepare we use it for documents for example you draw up a contract the strategy must then be implemented to implement means to put into action once the strategy is implemented it's important to consolidate it to consolidate it means to make stronger and employees should be asked for feedback to see what they think of the changes feedback means opinions about something well folks we've come to the end of today's program see you again soon good morning everyone and welcome to another edition of talk cinema this morning we'll be talking about the most famous of all science fiction sagas Star Wars as always in the studio with me is Sanjeev Gupta our cinema expert welcome Sanjeev hello Lucy hello everyone a question to start with Sanjeev just how many films make up the Star Wars saga six in all and how many of these have you seen ah all six of course and you uh four I think when was the first film made the first film a new hope was released in 1977 the last film Revenge of the Sith was released in 2005 and who's the director well George Lucas wrote the scripts for all the films and directed four of them and what about the other two Irvin Kershner is the director of The Empire Strikes Back and Richard Marquand directed The Return of the Jedi what's so special about the Star Wars films Sanjeev lots of things actually Lucy you know the first Star Wars film back in 1977 broke new ground with its special effects new methods were used whereby the action shots were taken against a blue background with real models it doesn't sound sophisticated compared with today's computer-generated effects but 29 years ago it was revolutionary in fact the amount of time Lucas spent on the special effects almost resulted in the film not being finished why do you think the films have been so enormous ly popular we're dealing with science fiction here but really the storylines in the films draw on themes common not only to science fiction but also to classical mythology really interesting yes then there's the obvious struggle between good and bad there's the famous force the energy field that can be used for good but also for bad love plays a big part in the saga as does the eternal struggle for power domination love power and domination yes so half the films made a lot of money it's been estimated that the films along with the TV series books and video games that have been made around the Star Wars theme have generated twenty billion dollars over the last twenty nine years so 20 billion dollars yes that's rather a lot of money and what about the music in the movies I really love the music yes I think the music has played an important role in helping people to remember the film's John Williams composed the scores for all six films the style he uses has changed as the years have gone by in the first films associated light motifs with each character quite a simple approach in the later films he changed his mind and took a richer more sophisticated approach to the music one last question is the saga definitely complete now I wouldn't bet on it there are rumors that George Lucas may be working on a sequel but for television not for the cinema so we may be seeing Luke Skywalker again soon wonderful well thanks Sanjeev and goodbye goodbye to all of you and Sanjeev may the force be with you good bye now let's have a look at some of that vocabulary we just used so six films make up the Star Wars saga to make up something here means to go together to form the whole of something the six films form the entire saga to make up something is a phrasal verb that can also mean to invent something for example I made up a story means I invented a story the first Star Wars film was released in 1977 we say a film is real least when it can be seen at the cinema for the first time it broke new ground with its special effects to break new ground means to do something for the first time it broke new ground because it was the first film to shoot the action shots with real models an action shot is a scene of a film with action for example a car chase or a battle and what are special effects their visual effects added to a film after the shooting has been completed the shooting is the filming process of a film the special effects used in the first Star Wars films were not very sophisticated compared with the computer-generated effects of today's films computer-generated effects are special effects that are made using a computer the soundtracks of the Star Wars films have also become very famous the soundtrack of a film is its music in the first film's John Williams the composer of the soundtracks associated light motifs with each character a light motif is a reoccurring Musical or visual theme associated with a particular character situation or emotion well we have as usual run out of time so goodbye for now you

Channel: Learn English Conversation

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Length: 40min 9sec (2409 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 12 2014