Transcript: “Listening Time” Episode 4

Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast. I'm Conner from www.polyglossa.com, and
you're listening to episode four of the Listening Time podcast. Welcome! If this is your
first time listening, I'm happy to have you here with us. This podcast is for English
learners who want to improve their listening skills, who want to practice their
comprehension, and become better listeners. This podcast is specifically for those
English learners who still can't understand real, authentic, normal native speech, and
they can't understand native speakers when they speak normally at full speed, or when
they speak with each other. This podcast is for people who are at that level. If you can
already understand a lot of English, but you can't understand normal podcasts that are
made for English speakers, this podcast is perfect for you. This will help you reach the
next level in your listening. I speak a little bit more slowly than other native speakers in
this podcast, and I speak a little bit more clearly. I talk about different topics each
podcast, usually one or two different topics. And I speak with natural speech, natural
words, phrases, expressions, the natural things that I would normally say to other native
speakers, but I say them a little bit more slowly, and a little bit more clearly. So I don't
read any script when I do these podcasts, when I record these episodes. So you're
hearing real speech. You're not hearing scripted speech like beginner listening practice
audios or videos that might come with English packages or programs. This is real
speech. This is me speaking normally, but a little bit slower, and a little bit more clearly.
So, in this episode, I'm going to talk about a couple things. I'm going to talk about the
weather, and I'm going to talk about advertising. These are two very different topics, and
they're a little random, but who cares. Let's talk about them. Also, remember that the
transcript is available with every episode. So if you need to read the transcript to help
you... to help you understand what I'm saying, then you can find that attached to each
episode. So also remember to go to www.polyglossa.com and sign up for our $1
listening practice seminars if you want to practice your listening more. And, of course, if
you like this podcast, please share it with your friends who could also find it useful, and
if you can, give it a rating and a review. That would help this podcast grow and reach
more people. So whatever platform you're listening on, try to give it a rating and a
review. All right, let's get started. Okay, first, we're going to talk about the weather. This
is a very important topic because this is something we talk about almost every day,
really. When I talk to people like my students or family members or friends, oftentimes
we start the conversation by talking about the weather that day. It's a very common
point of discussion. So first, I'll tell you a little bit about the weather in my hometown,
which is San Diego, California. And then we'll talk about weather in other parts of the
world. So, in San Diego, we have famous weather. Our weather is renowned throughout
the country, because it's known as being very nice, very mild. When something is "mild",
that means it's not too strong or extreme. So, if I say that we have mild winters in San
Diego, that means that our winters are not very cold or very extreme, they're mild. Okay.
So, San Diego has mild weather. We have warm summers, and I think we have warm
springs and autumns too, in my opinion. Other people might disagree, but I think they're
pretty warm. And then, even our winter is not cold. It's mild, like I said. I wouldn't say
that it's very warm, but on many days in the winter time, you can go outside with shorts
and a T-shirt. It's very common for people to do that in December or January, depending
on the weather that day. It's not always like that in the winter, but many days are like
that. So, it's a very nice winter in my opinion, because I don't like cold winters. But if
you're used to cold winters and snow and low temperatures, you won't like San Diego
winters, because it doesn't feel like the winter to people who are accustomed to real
winters. Okay. So our weather is classified as semi-arid. "Arid" just means dry. So, if the
climate is arid, that means it doesn't rain a lot. So, San Diego is semi-arid and it can
also be classified as Mediterranean. So it has similar weather to places like... maybe the
south of Spain or Portugal or France, Italy, Greece. It probably has similar weather to
those places. So it's very nice. It's a famous destination... a popular destination for
vacationers because of the weather. So, in terms of weather in other parts of the world,
usually it's more extreme than in San Diego. For example, I have many students in
Russia. In Russia, the winters are very cold. It can get down to minus 30 degrees even,
right, depending on where you are. I can't even imagine that type of winter, but I'm sure
some of you have experienced that before. In other parts of the world, like in Africa, or
some parts of Central America, South America, Asia, many places, Europe, in many
places, it gets really hot. It's the other extreme. I know that in some places it can get up
to 50 degrees, even. That's pretty crazy. For most of us, that seems really really hot.
Just a side note, since I'm American, I should tell you that in the US, we don't use
Celsius, we use Fahrenheit. So normally, if you talk to Americans, and you ask them
about the weather in their city, they'll respond with something like this: "it's 75 degrees
today". If you don't know anything about Fahrenheit, that would probably seem crazy...
"75 degrees?" Well, that's not that hot. It's just a different system of measuring the
temperature. In the rest of the world, we use Celsius, but in the US, we use Fahrenheit.
So, it's a little difficult to talk about the weather with Americans if you're not from
America. So, yeah, in terms of extreme weather, I already mentioned Russian winters or
summers in hot countries, like in the Sahara, for example. We can see a huge range of
temperatures, but we also have extreme weather in terms of storms. So, in certain
places, we have phenomena like hurricanes or tornadoes or floods or things like that.
So for example, in the southeast of the United States, there are hurricanes, like every
year. You've probably heard of some of these. The most famous one in the last couple
decades was Hurricane Katrina, which was very devastating to the state of Louisiana.
So hurricanes can do a lot of damage to a city, or to many cities, really. And then,
tornadoes are a phenomenon that happens in the middle of the US. So if you live in
places like Oklahoma or Nebraska or Kansas, you're in tornado country. So, a tornado
is kind of like a circular air pattern that gets really really strong and can destroy buildings
and do a lot of damage. It causes a lot of damage when it rolls through a city in the
middle of the US. Luckily, I've never experienced hurricanes or tornadoes before, and I
hope I never do. And I hope you don't have to deal with those types of storms, either.
One thing that I do have to deal with is flooding. Right now, in my city, there are a lot of
floods. I currently live in Guadalajara, Mexico, but I'll probably be moving pretty soon.
But right now I'm in Guadalajara, and here in the summertime, there's a lot of rain. And
this city is really unprepared for this rainy season, so the streets flood with water. When
the streets "flood", that means that the water builds up and rises, and it doesn't go away.
So the streets become like rivers. I'm sure some of you have experienced this as well in
your cities, but I think it's awful. I hate the rainy season here because we always have
these floods. So, if you don't have floods in your city, you should feel lucky. They're not
fun to deal with. The hottest weather I've ever experienced is... I think about 47, 48
degrees, maybe. And I think that was in Las Vegas. And the coldest weather I've ever
been in... is I think minus 2 or minus 3 degrees, maybe. I really haven't been in cold
weather before. I'm sure some of you are laughing right now, because for many of you,
negative 2, or negative 3 degrees is not cold, or not very cold, but for me it's freezing.
So yeah, let's move on now and talk a little bit about our other topic, which is
advertising. This is a very important and relevant topic because all of us, or almost all of
us see ads or advertisements, every day. If you use social media, you undoubtedly see
many ads, right. So, we have different types of ads. For example, I just mentioned
social media ads... so ads on Instagram and Facebook and other social media
platforms. And those ads can be photos or videos, or maybe just text, but they come in
different forms. We also have print ads. A "print ad" just means that it's printed out on a
piece of paper. So like in the newspaper, you'll see ads, but nowadays, many people
have switched from physical newspapers to online news. So, these types of physical
ads are becoming less popular, I think. And then we have TV ads, which we call
"commercials". And these commercials run in between programs and during breaks in
the middle of TV shows, we have those commercials. And another one I just thought of
is billboards. A "billboard" is that giant rectangle that you see when you're driving on the
freeway, or maybe just a normal street, you'll see these big rectangular signs that
advertise companies, products, TV shows, etc. These are called billboards. I still see
many billboards here in my city, and I'm sure you still see some billboards in your city
too. These have been around for a long time. So, advertising has changed a lot since
the past. In the past, print ads were very, very important. They were probably the first
ads that we had. Before television and radio and social media, you could only print your
advertisements, or maybe just say them to someone... tell someone about your product.
But as the time went on, we saw revolutionized... or we saw ads being revolutionized
and changed, and so we began to hear radio ads and of course, TV commercials. And
for me, when I think of the past, when I think of my childhood, I can remember many
commercials. Many commercials stuck with me over the years. When I say they "stuck
with me", this means that they stayed in my memory, they stayed in my brain. So if I say
what my dad said stuck with me for many years, I'm saying that what my dad said
stayed in my brain for many years. So many commercials stuck with me, and I still
remember them now. For example, I remember certain commercials about not doing
drugs. When I was a kid we saw many commercials that tried to persuade children and
teenagers to not do drugs or not smoke, or things like that. And I can vividly remember
these ads, these commercials. And so I think the advertisers at that time did a really
good job, because I can remember the exact words from those ads. Another one I
remember was a Carl's Jr. commercial. Carl's Jr. is a hamburger chain, right. A chain is
a restaurant or store that has many locations throughout the country or the world like
Starbucks, Subway, etc. So, I remember this Carl's Jr. commercial where the man was
eating this huge burger, and they did such a good job with the sound effects. It sounded
so tasty, the way he was eating it. And I remember when he sipped the soda, it sounded
so refreshing. When you "sip" something that's... that means that you drink it through a
straw... you know those long cylinders that you use to drink soda or other drinks. So
"sip" is when you go (...) you sip it. So I remember him sipping the soda, and it sounded
so good. And that commercial has stuck with me even until now. So they did a really
good job with that... that commercial, that advertisement. Nowadays, commercials are
not the main form of advertisement when it comes to reaching young people. I know old
people, or older people, still watch a lot of TV, so they see a lot of commercials, but
younger people don't watch a lot of TV. They prefer to stream things on their devices.
And they spend a lot of time on social media. So nowadays, advertisements... or
advertisers, usually focus on social media ad campaigns, and they have to be really
effective with how they construct their ad because we see so many ads every day, and
so we kind of just skip over these ads. We don't look at them. So the advertisers have to
be really creative with the way they construct their ads, so that we actually want to stop
and click on the link in the ad. Right. It's difficult. I know this because I'm currently trying
to run some ads on Facebook for my website, and it's not easy to make a really
effective ad. And so I have a lot to learn. I don't really like this. I am not good at
marketing, advertising, etc. I'm not very creative in that way. So it's not natural for me,
but I have to do it if I want to reach people and tell them about my business. So today,
anyone who has a company has to consider social media ads as an option to reach new
clients, right. So, it's not easy. I don't like it, as I said, but I can't avoid it. I have to do it.
So yeah, it's, it's something that I just have to deal with. But yeah, advertising is
definitely an art form. There are people that are really good at it. There are people that
are not so good at it, and it takes a lot of practice and creativity. Alright, well we're gonna
stop there for today. Hopefully these topics were interesting for you, and hopefully you
understood most of what I said. Remember to access the transcript if you need it. And
you can read and listen to the episode again and try to understand all the new words
that you missed the first time. So make sure you use that transcript if you need it. And
remember to share this podcast with anyone who might find it useful. Please help this
podcast grow and become more popular. And remember that if you can, rate and review
this podcast. Write your opinion of it and tell the world what you think of the Listening
Time podcast. And of course, remember to check out www.polyglossa.com and our $1
listening practice seminars, and of course you can find us on youtube:
www.youtube.com/polyglossa. And you can check out our listening practice videos on
our YouTube channel. And Instagram as well... the username is @polyglossalanguages.
So thank you very much for listening to this episode. I hope it was good practice for your
ears. So join us next time for episode five of the Listening Time podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai