English Recordings

A．What a cute hat!
B．Looks good on you. You should get it.
A．But it's $200. I'm not comfortable spending that much on a hat.

A．Are you asking me to lie to your parents?
B．Yes. They don't have to know about this.
A．I'm not comfortable with that.

A．I've been waiting for your call all week.
B．I'm so sorry. I've been tied up with work lately.
A．That's OK. I understand.

A．How's it going?
B．Pretty good, and you?
A．Not bad. I've been tied up lately.

Welcome to The Best Travel Agency.

A: How long does it take to go to Tokyo?
B: It takes about 2 hours by plane.
A: How much does it cost to go by plane?
B: It costs about 500,000 won.
A: How long does it take to go by train?
B: It takes about 3 hours by train
A: And how much does it cost to go by train?
B: It costs about 200,000 won.
A: How long does it take to go by bus?
B: You can’t go to Tokyo by bus.
A: I’d like to travel by plane please.
B: OK. When would you like to travel?
A: I would like to travel on 5th November, please.
B: And when would you like to return?
A: I would like to return on 12th November, please.

Charles Dickens is one of the world's greatest writers. He was born in Portsmouth, England on February 7th, 1812. He was the second of eight children. He was the son of an office clerk. He had a happy childhood and he liked reading very much. When Dickens was only twelve years old, his father went to prison because of financial problems and debts. Young Dickens left school and went to work in a factory. He worked long hours in very bad conditions and he never forgot this terrible experience.
In 1831 Dickens became a newspaper reporter. Soon he started writing short stories for magazines. In Dickens's times novels were usually published in parts in magazines: every week or month a part of the story appeared in the magazine. This went on for many months until the story was finished. A lot of people bought the magazines to read the story. In April 1836 Dickens married Catherine Hogarth. They had ten children. The Pickwick Papers was Dickens's first novel. He finished it in 1837 when Victoria became Queen. The novel was a great success. During his life Dickens met many people, they were young, old, rich, poor, happy, sad, miserable, kind, unkind. He wrote about them in his novels. His books are about poverty and social problems in the Victorian Age. Dickens wrote fourteen major novels. Some of them are Oliver Twist (1838), A Christmas Carol (1843), David Copperfield (1849), A Tale of Two Cities (1859) and Great Expectations (1861). Dickens travelled to Italy, Switzerland, France and the United States, where he read extracts from some of his novels to the public in New York and Boston. This was an enormous success.
He died on June 9th, 1870 at the age of 58 and was buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey in London.

In third-wave organizations, pyramids have been flattened or dissolved,
and valuable knowledge lives everywhere. All members of the
organization have to be not only consumers of communication but also
producers of it. Everybody in a third-wave organization has to be a skilled
communicator. As marketing wizard Harry Beckwith wrote in The Invisible
Touch, “Communication is not a skill. It is the skill.” And “perhaps
the most important lesson from the Iraq war,” wrote David Newkirk
and Stuart Crainer, “is that managing real-time communications is as
important as managing real-time processes. Communication is moving
from being a peripheral, specialist responsibility to being an essential
and integral element of corporate leadership.” Similarly, central to all
five recommendations of the 9/11 Commission was the need for improved
communication.
In addition, a third-wave knowledge worker may well communicate
with tens of thousands of people from diverse backgrounds around the world. This diverse audience makes communication much more complex,
demanding greater flexibility and sensitivity.
In the knowledge economy, the benefits of improved communication
are many. In the insurance industry, for example, the cover letter from the
agent, the “producer,” to the underwriter is crucial. As Robert Goldstone,
vice president and medical director at Pacific Mutual Life, has written, “A
good cover letter may save your case.” Forbes magazine has reported that
“at AMEC Offshore, the big British engineering and construction firm,
the cost of piping offshore oil platforms dropped 15 percent after intensive
work on communications skills.” The Families and Work Institute found
that “the number one factor employees say will convince them to accept a
job offer” is “open communication.” And a Watson Wyatt study comparing
financially high-performing companies with their lower-performing
competitors found that
• “Communications professionals in high-performing organizations
play a strategic role.”
• “High-performing organizations do a better job of explaining
change.”
• “High-performing organizations focus on communicating with and
educating their employees.”
• “High-performing organizations provide channels for upward
communication.”
• “Employees in high-performing organizations have a better understanding
of organizational goals and their part in achieving them.”

Listen and choose. Which monster is it?

1. This monster's got blue hair and three eyes.
2 This monster's got pink hair and five eyes.
3 This monster's got blue hair and two eyes.
4. This monster's got red hair and four eyes.
5 This monster's got pink hair and three eyes.
6 This monster's got red hair and three eyes.

My head. My head is blue.
My body. My body is green.
My hands. My hands are red.
My feet. My feet are yellow.

Find four hands. Write 1.
Find fi ve feet. Write 2.
Find two bodies. Write 3.
Find three heads. Write 4.

This is Halloween, Oct 31st. Wendy the witch is getting ready for the holiday, but she has a problem, she can't find her cats! She has got 13 black cats, where are they?

Now, Wendy is in her garden. She says: "Kitty! Kitty!" Here! Under the tree, there is her first black cat.

Wendy is near the flowers and she sees a second black cat, a nice little kitty.

There are two more cats outside the house,
one is on the roof, the other on the fence.

Now, Wendy is in the house. In the hall, there is a scared cat between the candles.

There is also a black cat near the bath in the bathroom.

Wendy enters the kitchen, she can see another cat near the mixer, in a basket.

and a second cat in the kitchen, he is on the floor.

Wendy goes to her bedroom and sees Old Tom on her favorite chair... John is on her bed. Sam is here too, he is on her desk.

Wendy enters the living room and finds Dot under the table.

But Wendy is worried. Where is dear Jo? He is not in the house, and he is not in the garden. She racks her brains. There is one place that Jo loves....Off she goes to her garden shed.

Wendy has a look, there he is! Jo is in her magic Cauldron...Wendy is so happy, Jo is fine.