British Council все тексты (слова) песен, переводы, видео, клипы

I wanna talk about beating ……….….. today. You know life here in Hong Kong is very ……………. so I think today’s topic is very useful for everyone because we can do something about it, just to ….….. ………….. the stress. So maybe you have some change in your life, maybe a big change and small change, but instead of being afraid, I think you should have a …..…… ……..… and think of change as a normal part of life.
And I think maybe here in Hong Kong, the families are crowded into a very small housing space, so maybe you would sometimes …..…… …..…… your family and I think trying to resolve the disagreement with people is very important because then you can build strong …..………… and keep commitments you have made. For example, sometimes maybe you are feeling alone and you want to make some comfort and I think you can ask the people you trust for help is very important because if you have a …..….. ….. …..…….., they can listen to you, then you can release some stress through talking to them.
And do you know that actually I find a very funny thing that if you want to ……..…… some stress, you can reduce this by the word S-T-R-E-S-S, that’s stress. How about, let’s begin with the ‘S’. Well, I think ‘S’ is that you can have the ‘scheduling’, for example, you don’t have to schedule too many things in your day and if you feel you are too busy, you can ……. …..… an activity or two.
And how about the ‘T’ word? The ‘T’ word is ‘treat your body well’, because ……………… say that exercise can reduce stress and also if you eat healthy food, then your ……..……. and your ..….…….. get the nourishment they need.
And the word is ‘R” the next word is ‘R’ - ‘R’ is very important, it says ‘relax’. You can do an activity ….…. …..….. or that relaxes you, maybe you can read a good book or learn a new ………… and spend time with your pet or even you can visit a spa and that could make a very good difference. And for me, I like to play piano when I feel ……… and sometimes I may just watch some movie that make me laughs a lot.
And the next word is ‘E’ – ‘E’ is about expectations, and I think be realistic about yourself is to be true to yourself and others. So you can just do your best and don’t try to be perfect and don’t expect others to be too, because that will ……..….. and …………… a lot of stress for you and the people around you.
And the next word is ‘S’ – ‘S’ is, stands for ‘sleep’ and I really really love to sleep to be honest, that’s my hobby I think, because sleep…if you get a good night’s sleep, then it will keep your mind and your body …. ……..….. . And experts say if you sleep more than seven hours, you will actually get tired, so don’t sleep too much in the day, just sleep it when you feel enough.
And the last word is ‘S’ again. I always do this action, the S word is ‘………….’ – if you smile and have confidence, your attitude and your thoughts influence the way you see things. And if you are a negative person, you can actually learn to think in a more ………..….. …..… because that makes you feel more comfortable when you are coping with the stress. Finally I think we should take action and applies these tips to your life, so everyone can beat stress.

Development By John Kuti

Why are there so many people in the world without food, water, schools and doctors?

For people living in the rich countries talking about “development” usually means feeling sorry for poor people in poor countries, or feeling happy about pop stars or politicians who say they have done something to help them. But, if you look at it another way, all of the …………………… ………………. is developing.

Twenty years ago the world was divided into three parts. The “first world” was the rich countries of Western Europe, North America and Japan. The Soviet Union and countries ……………………. …………………. with it made another different world, and then there was the “Third World” – countries which had to choose which side they were on. The “Third World” did not get its name for being poor but for being outside of the Cold War, or in fact the places where the Cold War could ……………… …………… a real one.

Ravi: Hello, and welcome to LearnEnglish elementary podcast number one. My name’s Ravi…

Tess: … and I’m Tess. We’re your presenters and we’ve got lots of things for you to listen to today, but before we start, I think we should introduce ourselves. Ravi?

Ravi: OK … erm … I’m Ravi.

Tess: Or, I tell you what, I’ll introduce you and you can introduce me. How about that?

The Funniest Jokes in the World
by Chris Rose

Recently, a group of scientists and psychologists decided to try and find out what …….. ………………………. ……………….. in the world was. This was obviously going to be a difficult task, as no two people ever really ………………. …………………. what is funny and what is not – especially when they are from different countries.

In some ways, this is strange. Telling jokes, along with telling stories (which is a similar activity), is one of the most ……………………………….. and ………………………………………. activities around the world. All countries, all cultures, all languages have their jokes. Unlike telling stories, however, jokes are sometimes not funny or often completely incomprehensible to people who are not …………………………. of that culture.

Some things do remain the same – many jokes from around the world like to …………………….. …………….. of people who are stupid, or sometimes people in authority. A lot of jokes are about taboo subjects – jokes can be a way of talking about things that in normal “………………………..” society we are not allowed to mention. The problem is, of course, is that people in authority or taboo subjects, for example, change from country to country and from culture to culture.

Jokes come in all shapes and sizes. This article looks at just a few of these shapes and sizes and gives a few tips to those of you who like telling jokes.

According to the dictionary, a joke is “something that makes you laugh”. This is a very short definition for something that can make you laugh, cry, feel angry, or sad, scream or shout. They can be about anything in the universe, from jobs to relationships, from nationalities to animals. They can also make you think very hard or laugh immediately.

From the one liner (1) to jokes about computers (2) humour is something that connects all countries and nationalities

(1) The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. (Einstein)

Complete the gaps with the words you hear from the listening:

I wanna talk about ……….. ……….. . I’ve lived in many different countries, both in Western Europe, Middle East, and now here in ….. ……… . And during all of that time, I’ve learned five or six different languages, to one degree or another. I love learning languages, not only are they important when you move to a country, I just find them fascinating.

Before I came to Hong Kong, I lived in Barcelona Spain for ten years. And when I first ………… , the most important thing was being able to communicate with people locally. I don’t attend ……… . I don’t think I’m particularly good in classes. I prefer to learn by just ……………… to people, finding out what I need to say by looking at dictionaries and listening carefully.

Other things that helped me when I first moved to Spain, were watching the typical kinds of programs we see everyday on …………… around the world. For example the weather. This is great, because they always say …… ……….. things. So you can really quickly hear the same words repeated …….. … ………… . And the pictures helped of course.

For many years now we have been referring to English as a global language as the language ofcommunication and technology. Everybody seems to be learning English and it isn’t uncommon to see English being used as a means of communication between let’s see a German scientist and an Italian politician. These days ... if you don’t know English, you are in danger of being excluded from what’s going on ...in education, at work ... and especially in the world of technological advances.
Very soon English will be the second language of all the people in the world. This is happening while I am speaking to you. We can’t be certain of how long the process will take but there is no doubt that it will happen and my bet is that it will happen sooner rather than later.
First of all English will be an obligatory subject on every school curriculum throughout the world. By the year 2010 around two billion people ... that’s about a third of the World’s population will speak English as their second language. This isn’t my prediction by the way. This is what the experts say.
We can see evidence of these changes all the time. Let’s take the Eurovision Song Contest as an example.
Whatever we might think of the contest itself one thing that has changed recently is that now countries can opt to sing in English. In the last festival fourteen of the twenty five competing countries asked for the rules to be changed to allow them to sing in English. They argued that singing in their own language would put them at a disadvantage. I suspect that in a few years time all twenty-five countries will be singing in English.
And what exactly does all of this mean for native speakers of English? Well, we are already in a minority. If the calculations are correct, then in ten years time, majority speakers hat is non native English speakers will outnumber native English speakers by four to one. The two most important Englishes won’t be British English and American English. They’ll be Native English and Majority English. So native English speakers will be handicapped. We will be the only people in the world who speak just one language. Because let’s face it ...there won’t be much of a reason for native English speakers to learn a second language. We ... and not the Majority English speakers ... will be the disadvantaged.
As more and more people speak English it makes sense that they will become more competent. They will start to control more of the English resources being produced and to have a say in what should or shouldn’t be included in dictionaries and language books. This might seem farfetched but it is already starting to happen.
Let’s use Sweden as an example. Their music exports predominantly English account for more than thirty per cent of its export income. This exported English is bound to have an effect on English in general. And this is just one small example!

The Olympic Games - then and now by Craig Duncan
In 2004 the Olympic Games returned to its home in Greece, where it began …………….. ………………… years ago. The first recorded Olympic festival took place in ………………. BC. Similar festivals had been organized for at least two or three centuries prior to this, but 776 BC saw the start of a regular festival which was to ………………. …………………………… every Olympiad, or four year period.
In ancient Greece citizens of different city states could not always travel freely around the country, but during the Olympics the various rulers …………………….. truces so as that their citizens could attend the Olympics without problems. Sport was only one part of the festival; there were also ………………………. ………………….. , poetry readings, exhibitions of sculpture and ……………. …………………….. . It was a festival which celebrated on the one hand the Greek gods, and on the other hand the abilities of the Greek people.
The early ……………………… ………………………………. were only running races, but later other sports such as boxing and …………………….. came to be included. It was not simply a matter of professional athletes arriving and entering the competitions; for one thing, there were no professional athletes! All the competitors were ordinary Greek citizens who felt that they were among the best in their chosen sports. Anyone wishing to …………………….. had to arrive four weeks early, and undergo a full month of training. It wasn’t only physical training, either: would-be …………………….. had to prove that they were morally and spiritually suitable to compete. Even if someone was physically fit enough, they couldn’t compete unless the judges thought they were of the right moral fibre. Curiously, all sportsmen competed ……………….. – it was widely believed that wearing clothes slowed an athlete down!
At the start of the games, every competitor had to ……………………. an oath that they were a free citizen of Greece who had committed no sacrilege against the gods. In today’s Olympics, one athlete takes an oath on behalf of all the competitors, although of course it is a little different to the ancient Greek oath. Today, competitors promise that they shall abide by the rules of the games, will act in an honourable and ………………………… manner, and not use any performance-……………………….. drugs. Cheating, though, is almost as old as the games itself: records of the ancient Greek games are riddled with tales of athletes paying off their competitors, and of boxers fixing the results of their fights. In ancient Greece, though, there weren’t many ways an athlete could cheat in a race: maybe take a shortcut, or …………………… a horse.
By the time of the St Louis Olympics in 1904, more modern means were available. The original “winner” of the …………… Olympic marathon, Fred Lorz, was disqualified after it was ………………………… that he had travelled half the distance in a car. The man later declared the official winner, Thomas Hicks, wasn’t much better: he was carried across the finishing line by two of his trainers. Hicks’s trainers had tried to enhance his running ability by feeding him a mix of egg whites, strychnine and brandy. This early attempt at a performance-…………………………….. drug was rather unsuccessful, as it left Hicks drunk and incapable. The trick of having two men carrying him, though, seems to have worked.

The motivation for cheating hasn’t changed much at all. Today, athletes compete primarily for the …………………………… of being awarded a gold medal, but also for the enormous amounts of lucrative corporate sponsorship bestowed upon top sportspeople. Similarly, while ancient Greek athletes were officially only competing for the honour of being awarded a symbolic …………………………… ……………………….. , winners were usually sponsored by their city state, receiving a large sum of money, or a new home, or a lengthy tax holiday.

Here is some pronunciation.
Ration never rhymes with nation,
Say prefer, but preferable,
Comfortable and vegetable.
B must not be heard in doubt,
Debt and dumb both leave it out.
In the words psychology,
Psychic, and psychiatry,

Host: At exam time it is important to sleep well. Today we have Doctor Baker with us in the studio and he is going to give us five top tips for getting a good night’s sleep. Welcome to the show, Doctor Baker.
Dr Baker: Thank you. It’s great to be here. Let’s start with tip one. Don’t go to bed with the television on. Some people think they can sleep well with the TV on, but the noise and lights mean you don’t really sleep well, so turn it off!
Tip two: Don’t think too much before bedtime. Do your hardest homework earlier in the evening. Do easier homework later. If your brain is too busy and full of ideas it takes longer to get to sleep.
Tip three: Don’t play video games for an hour before you go to sleep. They also make your brain too busy and active.
Tip four: Turn off your cell phone when you go to bed. What is so important that it can’t wait until the morning? If possible, leave your phone in another room.
Tip five: Play music if you like. But don’t play it too loud. Turn the sound down low.
Host: Thank you, Doctor. That is very useful advice for our young listeners.

by C. Cibber

O say what is that thing call'd Light,
Which I must ne'er enjoy;
What are the blessings of the sight,
O tell your poor blind boy!

You talk of wondrous things you see;

My husband is a very important man. He is a scholar. That means he studies things. All kinds of things. He studies science, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and philosophy, as well as other things. At least, he tells me that he studies them.

To me, it seems that he spends more time sitting in a café talking to other scholars. I don’t know if they are studying or not. To me, it looks like they are chatting. But I don’t know, I’m only a woman. I look after our family, and I am not a scholar. I do not go into the café in town and spend hours talking with other men. I stay at home and look after our children and prepare food. When I am not preparing food or looking after children, I like to read books. I like to read books of adventure stories, of traveller’s tales, of poetry. I like books that make me wonder and be amazed at the world we live in. I like books that take me far away from our town and the desert on one side and the sea on the other.

We live in a town that lies between the sea on one side, the desert on the other, and a river to each side of us. They call our country Mesopotamia, the land between rivers. Because our town is a port, and because it has two rivers, there are often many people from other lands here. My husband says he meets men from India, from China, from Europe and from Africa. People from all over the world come to our town. Often they come to buy or sell things, but they also come to talk, to meet other people, to share ideas and opinions, to think about different ways of seeing the world. When a lot of people from different countries and different cultures meet, new ideas are born.

At night I lie awake on our bed thinking. “What are you thinking about?” my husband asks me. “Nothing” I reply. My husband shakes his head in despair. “Women!” he says. “They think about nothing!”

by William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies

Tobacco

by Claire Powell and Dave Collett
What’s in a cigarette? What’s in a puff?
Tobacco smoke contains about 4,000 chemicals. Some of which are harmful, others deadly. Here are three of the deadliest.

Tar
Tar, a mixture of chemicals such as formaldehyde, arsenic and cyanide, can cause serious lung diseases. Seventy percent of the tar from tobacco smoke remains in the smoker’s lungs.

This month the Financial Times examined the spectacular growth of The Vice Fund, a Texas-based investment company which encourages its members to invest in the certainty of a vice-ridden future. The Vice Fund restricts its investments to four areas: alcohol, tobacco, gambling and war. The company’s prospectus boasts that its investments are “nearly recession-proof,” on the basis that no matter what the economic climate, the people of the world will continue to drink, smoke, gamble and kill each other. With a growth rate of 20% in the last year alone, The Vice Fund offers us the chance to personally profit from the fairly inevitable future shortcomings of humanity.

Have our vices ceased to be something bad, and instead have become just another market commodity? What exactly is a vice, anyway?

The Western conception of a vice (from the Latin vitium, meaning a defect or imperfection) implies some sort of shortcoming or moral weakness on the part of its practitioner. While we may refer to a particular type of activity as being a vice, what we are really condemning is not just the action itself, but also the moral weakness that led to it. Our understanding of vices has long been tied to the 6th century Christian concept of the “seven deadly sins”: pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony and sloth. Since most people at some point feel proud, jealous, angry, horny, lazy, or greedy for material possessions or for food, we might say that the “seven deadly sins” represent traits in human nature that cannot realistically be eradicated. At the same time though, they are also traits which need to be controlled to some degree if a society is to be able to function properly. The practical purpose of the “seven deadly sins,” then, has not been eradication but moderation: they have served to remind people not to be too greedy, too jealous, too lazy et cetera. Excessive repetition of one such sin would constitute a vice.

In an increasingly secular, increasingly multicultural society one might well ask: is this 1500-year-old Christian definition of wrongdoing still relevant? In February the BBC commissioned an opinion poll to answer this question. They asked the British public which of the “seven deadly sins” they still considered to be particularly bad, and invited them to create a new list of the deadliest modern sins. The results arguably showed a major change in the moral basis of our society. The only one of the original seven sins that made the new list was greed – the others were replaced by six new sins: cruelty, adultery, bigotry, dishonesty, hypocrisy and selfishness. Cruelty was voted to be the worst sin of all. According to the BBC’s Ross Kelly, traditional concepts of sin are much less important to us today than the simple question of whether or not our actions harm anyone else. “For instance,” he says, “we're less bothered about anger than we are about cruelty; and while many of us actually enjoy lust, we still frown on adultery."

World Heritage by Linda Baxter

1. Complete the text with the expressions that you hear from the track.

If you think about World Heritage Sites, you probably think of places ………………………….. …………… ancient art and culture, historical buildings and monuments. And of course, many of these are on the World Heritage List (WHL).

Remains of ancient cultures, like Cuzco in Peru, Angkor in Cambodia, or the famous rock city of Petra in Jordan. Or old city centers, such as Rome in Italy, or Sana'a in Yemen. Or places of artistic or………………………………….. …………………………………….. , like the Stonehenge stone circle in England, or the Tsodilo rock paintings in the Kalahari Desert in Botswana. But The World Heritage List contains a lot of sites that are not so obvious. Some of them are well known. For example, the Galápagos Islands, which inspired Darwin's ……………………………….. …. ……………………………., or the Victoria Falls waterfalls in Africa, and the Grand Canyon in the United States.

Tom: Hi, I’m Tom. At the end of every podcast you’ll hear from me. I’m going to talk about some of the language you heard in the programmes and talk about ways to help you learn English.
Remember Carolina in the airport? Listen to part of her conversation again.

Immigration Officer: Is this your first visit to the UK?
Carolina: Yes it is.
Immigration Officer: And what are you going to do here?
Carolina: I’m a student. I’m going to study at the University of Newcastle.