Practice Listening English Exercises for A2 – Languages of the world

1 B   2 B   3 A   4 C   5 A

Audioscript

1   You will hear a boy called Danny talking to his friend. How did Danny improve his Spanish?

Girl:   Your Spanish has improved a lot Danny! Did you go to Spain in the holidays?

Danny:   Yes, but I didn’t speak much Spanish while I was there. It’s that website the teacher told us about. I’ve learned loads from it.

Girl:   Oh right.

Danny:   It’s great. The exercises are really fun, and I think you can even find Spanish penfriends on there.

2   You will hear a teacher talking to her class. What does she want them to work harder on?

Teacher:   OK everyone. You’re all doing really well in English at the moment. You don’t seem to make many mistakes with the grammar, and I’ve noticed that you’re all using a good level of vocabulary these days. However, I would like you to think about how you sound when you speak the language. It’s just as important as grammar, you know.

3   You will hear two friends talking about some homework. Why hasn’t the boy done his homework?

Girl:   Have you done the German homework yet? I’ve finished mine already. It wasn’t too difficult.

Boy:   No! I didn’t know we had any German homework. There’s nothing in my homework diary.

Girl:   The teacher gave it to us three days ago. Did you miss the lesson?

Boy:   I haven’t missed any lessons this term. Oh dear! I must remember to write it in my diary next time!

4   You will hear a girl telling her mother about her new friend, Yumi. What languages does Yumi speak well?

Mum:   How was your first day at school, Nicola? Did you meet anyone interesting?

Nicola:   Yes, I met a girl called Yumi who speaks three languages really well! She’s spoken Japanese since she was a baby, and she learned Russian last year, when she was in Moscow. She’s lived all over the world!

Mum:   Wow. So I guess the third language is English?

Nicola:   It’s Swedish. She lived in Sweden three years ago. She hasn’t learned much English yet.

5   You will hear a boy giving a classmate some important news. How did he find out about the news?

Boy:   I’ve just heard some amazing news! Our French teacher has won first prize in a competition!

Girl:   That’s fantastic. How do you know?

Boy:   My brother saw an article in the local paper. He said she’s going to be on the radio tomorrow.

Girl:   Wow – I’m surprised she didn’t tell us herself. We had a lesson with her this morning.

1   12 in Russian and Greek; 11 in English

2   three (one, two, many)

3   They use one with their family, the other when they need to be polite.

4   They use north/south/east/west.

5   There are talking dictionaries and smartphone apps to help young people learn the language.

Audioscript

Man:   Hello, everyone, and welcome to ‘Our Amazing World’. Today I’m going to tell you some things about languages that you probably didn’t know. For example, not all languages have the same number of basic colour words. In English there are 11, but in Russian and Greek there are 12. Those languages have two words for blue. Other languages have just one word for green and blue, or one word for green and yellow.

Numbers are also very different in some languages. For example, the Pirahã language of Brazil only has words for ‘one’, ‘two’ and ‘many’. They just don’t need more numbers than that in their daily lives! Several other languages have very few words for numbers.

There are some very interesting languages in Australia and Africa that have two sets of vocabulary – so two words for ‘chair’, or two words for ‘parent’. You use one set when you’re talking in the home, with close family, and the other set when you need to be more polite. The grammar is the same, but the vocabulary is different. So people who speak it have to learn two whole sets of vocabulary!

Another amazing group of languages has no words for ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘in front of’, ‘behind’ and so on. Instead, speakers use north, south, east, west to say where things are. So they say things like ‘There’s an insect north of your foot.’ or ‘The book is on the east side of the table.’ It’s hard to believe, but they know all the time where north, south, east and west are!

Unfortunately, some of these languages only have a few speakers left. It’s important not to lose them, because they have a lot of information in them – about nature, and about the culture of the speakers. Luckily, modern technology is helping to keep these languages alive. These days, there are talking dictionaries and smartphone apps to teach pronunciation to younger speakers. People are working hard to keep at least some of these languages alive.

1 A   2 B   3 C   4 C   5 B

Audioscript

1   You will hear a girl called Lucy talking to her mum. What are they discussing?

Mum:   I’m working a bit later than usual today, Lucy.

Lucy:   OK, Mum. But can we have dinner before five thirty? I’ve got basketball practice.

Mum:   But I won’t finish work until five thirty.

Lucy:   Never mind, I’ll just have a snack before I go out, then.

Mum:   OK. You can have a proper meal when you get back.

2   You will hear a girl called Sam talking to her friend about playing musical instruments. Why does she prefer the piano to the guitar?

Boy:   You play the piano well, Sam.

Sam:   Thanks, I like it much more than the guitar. I don’t play that now. All my friends play guitar so it seems really boring. And it’s possible to play lots of different types of music on the piano. I can’t yet, though, I’m still learning. But hopefully I will in the future.

3   You will hear a girl talking about her Chinese homework. What is she explaining?

Girl:   We’ve got three exercises for our Chinese homework: one’s a listening exercise, one’s writing and one’s reading. I only had an hour for homework this evening and I did the easiest one first – that, for me, is reading. I love writing Chinese but it takes a lot of time and effort. I’ll have to do that tomorrow, and I’ll do the listening exercise then as well.

4   You will hear a boy talking about his English lesson today. What does he say about it?

Boy:   I had to read a long text in my English lesson today and there were lots of words in it that I didn’t understand, so I couldn’t answer any of the questions about it. I had to ask my teacher the meanings of the words because I didn’t have my dictionary with me. We’re not allowed to use the internet in class so I couldn’t look them up online.

5   You will hear a girl called Sophie talking to a friend about an article she read. What was the topic of the article?

Boy:   Did you go to the gym at lunchtime?

Sophie:   No, I read an interesting article in a magazine. It was about learning languages.

Boy:   Oh yes?

Sophie:   Yes, a man who knows 52 languages wrote it. He was saying he thinks children should learn more languages at school because it really helps you – it makes you more intelligent!

Boy:   Really?

1   Because he met some boys who spoke English and wanted to communicate with them

2   1 vocabulary, sounds   2 beach   3 drew pictures   4 an email

      5 online dictionary   6 stay with

Audioscript

Mario:   Hello. My name’s Mario and I’m from Italy. Today, I’m going to talk about my experience learning English. When I was small I didn’t like learning English. There was too much vocabulary and too many sounds. I couldn’t remember them all. I only had classes three hours a week, so we didn’t practise much. Really, I didn’t understand why I had to say things in a different way when I only needed my own language to have fun with my friends and family.

Everything changed one summer when I was on holiday at the beach. I met two boys about my age who were brothers. We played football on the sand and swam in the sea. But they didn’t speak Italian, they only spoke English. I listened carefully when they were talking and slowly I began to understand some words. I really wanted to talk to them, so I pointed at things I wanted to know the vocabulary for. They told me the words and I wrote them in a little book I had and drew pictures to show the meaning. For example, I drew a boat, an ice cream, a fish and a crab.

At the end of the holiday they gave me their email address and we all went home. I started to write to them, but I needed more words. I found lots of useful things in an online dictionary. I also started watching English films and series. It was hard at first, but I learned more and more. Finally, when my friends write to me now, I hardly ever need a dictionary. Next summer I am going to stay with them for a week, and then, they are coming to stay here. I can’t wait!

1 B   2 C   3 A   4 E   5 G

Audioscript

You will hear Ella and Tom talking about people’s hobbies. What is each person’s hobby?

Ella:   What did you find out about people’s hobbies for the school project, Tom?

Tom:   Well, Ella. I asked Suzy first. She was in a hurry because she had a guitar lesson, but she told me that her hobby’s taking pictures. She’s really good.

Ella:   So, I spoke to Jason. He had a bag of things to make a cake with from the supermarket. He makes all the food in their house now. That’s his hobby.

Tom:   I asked Laura. She’s in the football team and was in a tennis match last weekend!

Ella:   Yes, she’s always doing some kind of exercise. … Tom, is that a new cap?

Tom:   Yes, it is. I’ve got 15 of them now. I bought four when we went to visit the US last year. I’m trying to get as many as I can. So what about you, Ella?

Ella:   Yes, I’m interested in hearing songs from all over the world. … Oh, and we mustn’t forget Maria!

Tom:   Of course! What did she tell you?

Ella:   She’s started learning the drums. She loves it!