FONÉTICA INGLESA II Texts for transcription 1

2016

On your own. Transcribe these texts into phonetic script.

These texts are meant for you to practice for your test. They will not be checked in class,
but any doubts about them are welcome.

Remember that the passing mark is 80%.

Text 1

A large cruise ship can carry as many as six thousand passengers and there are upwards
fifty such ships currently sailing the seas. These ships dump about 90.000 tons of waste into
the oceans every year. Any harmful effects of this are made even worse by the fact that
cruises tend to visit the same places many times, thus concentrating the waste in specific
places. In Patagonia, this is having a visible effect on wildlife. The population of animals
such as Magellanic penguins has been in decline for some years now and things show little
sign of changing while cruise holidays continue to be so popular. (106 words)
(p. 63, Life intermediate, Sts´book)

Text 2

Mass tourism is a relatively recent phenomenon. The tourism industry took off in the
middle of the last century and it´s been growing ever since. In the last ten years especially,
more and more people have been travelling to remote places around the world. It´s a
wonderful thing to be able to travel to places we had previously only read about or seen on
television, but what is the downside of it all? What kind of impact does tourism have on the
planet? (83 words)
(p. 63, Life intermediate, Sts´book)

Text 3

Once, the traditional British holiday was a week at the seaside – either in the UK or
somewhere with more reliable weather like the Mediterranean. But recently, holidaymakers
have been looking for a different holiday experience. Perhaps inspired by wildlife
documentaries on television, tourists have been flocking to places like Kenya and South
Africa for safaris and bush camp holidays. Another notable change is that the older
generation of British tourists are travelling like never before. The number of holidaymakers
over sixty has doubled in the last three years. Cruise destinations in the Caribbean or even
to Antartica are no longer just for young adventurers. (104 words)
(p. 60 Life intermediate, Sts´ book)
FONÉTICA INGLESA II Texts for transcription 2
2016

Text 4

Back in the 1990s, when mobiles first appeared, few people asked if there were any health
risks. Within a decade, mobile ownership exploded, and several groups suggested that the
overuse of cell phones was dangerous and could lead to an increased risk of cancer. Now,
with about five billion users worldwide, there is still no definite evidence of this. Still
several governments have told people to limit the time and frequency of their calls, and
reminded parents not to allow their children to use the devices. In fact, researchers said
recently that the danger to young people had become a mental, not a physical, health issue.
(105 words)
(p. 140, Life intermediate, Sts´ book)

Text 5
If you wanted a new product to reach the maximum number of people for the minimum
cost, what would you do? The answer is launch a viral advert – a video that people can
share so that it spreads like a virus and gives your product free publicity. It works like this:
your company makes a video and then, providing this ad reaches a “susceptible” user (one
who likes the idea), that user will send it to others, thus “infecting” them. Entertaining and
novel ads will spread across the web like a virus at no extra cost to the advertiser.
(99 words)
(p. 60 Speak Out upper intermediate, Sts´ book)