Listen and read the tapescript at the same time!

I’ve had a few e mails asking me where you can listen to people talking and read what they are saying at the same time and I have pointed out some of these before (see Academic Listening posts and scroll down) but hang on a moment because I’ve got another one. The fact is, that the other places I have pointed out are all rather worthy, by which I mean that they are academic and can be quite heavy going (yes, difficult to manage!). So today’s tip is for those of you looking for something easier to manage. At Yappr there are lots of videos which you can watch, and as you watch the tapescript comes up at the same time so you can read and listen simultaneously. Need to hear a bit again? OK, so just do so as you do on any sound player. You can search through what sort of videos you want (music, news, finance.. you name it) and then choose from that selection. This is a great way to practise your listening skills. Yappr is here.

Apostrophe catastrophe (2)

But what I didn’t talk about yesterday is the biggest aspotrophe catastophe of them all, which is the confusion between:
“ITS” and “IT’S”.

1. “It’s hot today.” = IT IS HOT TODAY = APOSTROPHE FOR LEAVING OUT A LETTER

2. “I have a new car. Its top speed is 120 mph.” = POSSESSIVE = THE TOP SPEED OF IT. = NO APOSTROPHE FOR POSSESSION

A great practice page here from better-english.com.

Apostrophe catastrophe!

Believe it or not apostrophes are not that hard to get right! However, most British people and many international students do not know how to use apostrophes properly! Here’s a great picture to illustrate my point:

Of course, the sign is talking about lots of taxis, so it should be ‘TAXIS’. I was also recently looking through a dissertation that a student wrote with the title ‘The effect of globalisation on company’s profits’. Only one company? No, lots of companies! So it should be THE EFFECT OF GLOBALISATION ON COMPANIES’ PROFITS.

The trick is to work out whether what you’re thinking about is SINGULAR or PLURAL. Work out what you want to say WITHOUT THE APOSTROPHE by changing the sentence around. So the sentence above becomes:
THE EFFECT OF GLOBALISATION ON THE PROFITS OF COMPANIES
and I hope that you can see the starting word is COMPANIES. Then the rule is that for possession you add ’s. But if the word already ends in ’s’ you only add the apostrophe! Now what’s so hard about that??

As usual I’ll leave you with a link. Here’s a handy page from the University of Teeside with an exercise which you can use to test yourself! Fun, fun, fun!

Even more interviews!

The BBC website never ceases to amaze me. To be honest, my licence fee is worth it for the online material they make available! I keep finding new stuff there. My latest find is another page of audio interviews with lots of famous and clever people. One of the things that is so good about this page is that each of the clips is just one or two minutes long. That means you can listen to one if you have just a few minutes to spare. Take a look through the alphabet and see all the famous people you can listen to: Noam Chomsky, Margaret Thatcher, Ghandi…. Enjoy practising your listening skills here.