Fame at last! Listening to a political discussion

Last week my favourite radio programme visited a town near me and I managed to get tickets. Even better than that,  my question was picked out  and I featured live on national radio to ask my question to a panel of national politicians.  Even more exciting, my question was the first one in the programme and that means that you only have to listen to the first few minutes of the programme to hear my question!!

If you want to practise your listening skills (and hear my question!) you should follow the link I will give you and you will hear:

1. The presenter saying hello and saying a few words about the town of Dartmouth where the programme is coming from.

2. The presenter introducing the  four members of the panel.

3. My question to the panel.

4. The politicans’ answer  to my question and then the rest of the programme.

The link to the BBC radio programme ‘Any Questions’ with Patrick’s question is here.

Academic listening series

Apologies for the missing post which came out yesterday. I wrote a post and then deleted it because I didn’t like it but the feed still managed to send it out even though it wasn’t on the site anymore! Oops.

I said something about tonight’s football match in the missing post and now the match is over and Barcelona fans are celebrating. I must say the best team won on the night and I enjoyed watching some of the Barcelona players who we don’t get a chance to see much of on UK TV.

I just keep finding great resources for you guys. You know I almost think that there’s no need to pay to learn English anymore (almost, but not entirely, because I would be out a job!). Today I am pointing you to a series of programmes on listening to academic English which was originally broadcast on the radio on the World Service. But the Internet has the advantage that you can take a look at the transcripts of the talks about listening to lectures in English when you don’t understand what you hear. You listen and you practise your English and you get useful content about techniques to help you listen to university lectures. You can’t lose! The Talk About English Academic Listening Series is here.

Accounting and finance vocabulary – and don’t forget the moat!

I think that many readers of this site will not know what a ‘moat’ is. Well, a moat is the water around a castle which acts as a defence against attackers.

In Britain over the past two weeks a newspaper has got hold of details about our politicians ‘expenses’ and the public have found out that our members of parliament have been paying for gardeners, large plasma TVs, housing costs for houses which did not have any costs, and so on with our public money. My favourite example is the Conservative politician who claimed for the cost of maintaining his moat! The British people are furious! If you are a teacher or student of British Cultural Studies you should be watching carefully and getting ready to change your notes for your classes – because the constitution in the UK is going to be changing very soon and there are going to be a few members of parliament in jail before long.

It is bank holiday weekend in the UK! This means the local population will be going to pubs and to DIY shops (Do – It – Yourself) because the younger half of the population like drinking and the older half like decorating and gardening!

If you are still in study mode I would like to suggest this page from Nonstop English which has lots of exercises about Accounting and Finance vocabulary – then you can join in the debate about politicians’ expenses. It’s here.

Punctuation in relative clauses (again!)

One excellent way of improving your English is to follow the news in English so I am going to be more active in mentioning news stories to you. These will usually be British news stories so I hope that those of you who want to improve your general knowledge about Britain and British culture will find this useful. In the news today is the story that Gurkhas have won the right to settle in the UK. Gurkhas are soldiers who come from Nepal but who fight in the British army. They want the right to settle in the UK after they retire – as people say: if they have fought and risked their lives for us then they should be allowed to live here! There is a much loved British actress called Joanna Lumley who has been supporting the Gurkhas (her father served in the army with them). Joanna Lovely – sorry I mean Lumley – is articulate, (talks well), refined (well-educated), famous and very forceful and has helped the Gurkhas in their campaign.

Now look at some of the sentences from a news story about the Gurkhas:

1. Some 36,000 Gurkhas who left before 1997 had been denied UK residency.
2. Ms Lumley, the actress who has been the public face of the campaign on behalf of the Gurkhas, said: “This is the welcome we have always longed to give.”
3. She called Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who she had met earlier, a “brave man who has made today a brave decision on behalf of the bravest of the brave”.

You should notice that sentence 1 does NOT have commas around the relative clause:

Some 36,000 Gurkhas who left before 1997 had been denied UK residency

But sentences 2 and 3 DO have commas around the relative clauses:

Ms Lumley, the actress who has been the public face of the campaign on behalf of the Gurkhas, said: “This is the welcome we have always longed to give.”
She called Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who she had met earlier, a “brave man who has made today a brave decision on behalf of the bravest of the brave”.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE?
The information in the relative clause in sentence 1 is essential to the meaning of the sentence. Not all Gurkhas had been denied residency, only the 36000 who left the army before 1997 had been denied residency. The phrase who left before 1997 defines which Gurkhas we are talking about. Therefore this is called a defining relative clause and does not use commas.

In contrast, in sentence 2 the phrase the actress who has been the public face of the campaign on behalf of the Gurkhas simply gives us extra information about the subject of the sentence. If you take out that phrase you get this:

Ms Lumley, the actress who has been the public face of the campaign on behalf of the Gurkhas, said: “This is the welcome we have always longed to give.”

and I hope you can see that the sentence still makes perfect sense. None of the essential information to understand the sentence is missing. This is called a non-defining relative clause and does use commas.

Similarly in sentence 3 the relative clause could be deleted:
She called Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who she had met earlier, a “brave man who has made today a brave decision on behalf of the bravest of the brave”.

because it is not essential information. This is another example of a non-defining relative clause with commas.

Read more about the story here!