دانلود مکالمات ضروری در زبان انگلیسی(با راهنمای فارسی)

[Persia1]

That’s how you sit



Download audio file (sit.mp3)


Adult: That’s how a puppy dog sits?
Child: No. That is how Lilly sits.
Adult: M-hm. Does she sit the same way as other puppy dogs?
Child: No.
Adult: She doesn’t?
Child: Another puppy dog doesn’t sit like this.
Adult: Other puppy dogs don’t sit like that?
Child: Yes.
Adult: Right. I understand. I see. That’s how puppy dogs sit. That’s how they sit. They sit like that. They sit like that. That’s how puppy dogs sit. That’s how they sit. That is how they stand and that’s how they sit. That’s how they eat and that’s how they walk.
Child: That’s true and this is how they stand.
Adult: How do they run?
Child: They should run like this.
Adult: That looks like hopping. They run like that? That is how they run?
Child: They have to run like this. Like this.
Adult: That is how they run. That is how they run. That is how they run. I see. I see. That is how puppy dogs run.
Child: And if puppy dogs have a bed you have to sleep like this.
Adult: Sleep like that? Do they stretch out or do they curl up? Do they stretch out or curl up when they sleep? … Sometimes they curl up and sometimes they stretch out, don’t they?
Child: They curl up
Adult: They curl up? They curl up when they sleep?
Child: They curl up like this.
Adult: And they stretch out when they wake up?
Child: No. They stretch out like this
Adult: M-hm.
Child: Like this. And when they open their blanket they should make their head like this…like this.
Adult: M-hm
Child: Like this!
Adult: Like that?
Child: Yes.
Adult: Are you a puppy dog?
Child: Yes.
Adult: Yes, I am. Are you a puppy dog? Yes, I am. I am a puppy dog. I am a puppy dog. Are you a boy puppy dog or a girl puppy dog?
Child: Girl puppy dog.
Adult: Can puppy dogs talk?
Child: No.
Adult: They can’t.
Child: No.
Adult: Can you talk?
Child: No.
Adult: You are a puppy dog so you cannot talk.
Child: Yes.
Adult: OK. You cannot talk. You are not talking.
I am a puppy dog and I can’t talk. (sings)
I am a puppy dog and I cant talk.
I am a puppy dog and I cannot talk.
Don’t lick me. Don’t lick me, puppy dog. Sit down and stop licking . Puppy dog! Stop licking me.
Go on. Hop down. Hop down. Come on. Hop down here. Come on puppy dog.
Puppy dogs are not allowed on the bed and puppy dogs are not allowed in the house.
Child: But I am a clean puppy dog.
Adult: Oh I see. You are a clean puppy dog.
Child: Yes.
Adult: You are a talking puppy dog
Child: No.
Adult: But you said “I am a clean puppy dog”… You talked. I heard you. You talked.
Child: No. I am showing you that I am a clean puppy dog. see? I already have a bath last night.
Adult: Oh you had a bath last night? OK.
Child: Yes. So I am a clean puppy dog.
Adult: A clean puppy dog. Are you a talking puppy dog? Can you talk?…Oh you cannot talk. Can you shake your head? … Can you nod your head? …
Nod your head! Shake your head.
Nod your head. Shake your head. …
I am nodding my head.
I am shaking my head.
I am nodding my head.
I am shaking my head. …
Nod shake. Nod shake. Shake nod.
Child: What about rowing?
Adult: What about what?
Child: What about rowing?
Row row row your boat…
Adult: …gently down the stream
Child: Gently down the stream.
If you see a crocodile don’t forget scream (screaming sound)
Adult: That’s right. If you see a crocodile don’t forget to scream.
Row row row your boat
gently down the stream.
If you see a crocodile
don’t forget to scream.
Child: (screaming noise)
Adult: It’s a lovely day.
Child: (wailing sound)
Adult: Its a beautiful day, isn’t it?
Child: …
Adult: Hm?
Child: …
Adult: Yes or no?
Child: …
Adult: Oh. Puppy dog! The puppy dog cannot talk.

​

 

[Persia1]

Boat Building

Download audio file (boat building.mp3)


Kiwi: I grew up…well that was our weekend treat,…was to go out to the holiday house at Rangitoto Island and one of the friends on Rangitoto Island about four years older than myself; he got into boat building; served his time with the New Zealand Navy as a boat builder. In those days they were building wooden clinker type boats. That’s where the planks are overlapping each other. All your planking is steamed for the shape…You have the…
Ozzie: That’s a clinker?
Kiwi: Yeah. You have the internal ribs which have to be steamed. You know?
Ozzie: Tongue and groove?
Kiwi: No, no. Your planks actually overlap each other but each plank has to be individually shaped.
Ozzie: Like weatherboard?
Kiwi: Yeah. Shape the edge then bring the other one over the top of it and then they are riveted through with copper rivets to an internal ribcage (that) you have inside there so you actually build the boat on a wooden frame first. You form the shape of your boat on a wooden frame. Ok? The whole thing.
Ozzie: The wood. The frame is wooden too?
Kiwi: Well it is just a temporary frame but it is the shape of what the boat is to look like.
Ozzie: Right.
Kiwi: So you build your frame first, ok?
Ozzie: Right.
Kiwi: And then you lay your planks around the frame, ok?
Ozzie: M-hm.
Kiwi: To get the shape of the frame. And this is where the clinker type came…that the planks overlapped each other maybe by about ten twelve millimetre. Each plank had to be individually shaped and then they were copper riveted through to hold the two planks together. And then once you had formed the shape of the boat over the frame, you turned the boat up the correct way. You had this internal wooden frame inside.
Ozzie: Right.
Kiwi: Then you started to remove that frame and you put these what we call ribs inside. They were a thin strip of timber mainly formed from green oak and you put that through there and again you riveted through from the exterior planking through that rib with a little copper nail with a little copper washer over them. You cut it roughly to length; left it a little bit longer and you riveted it over so it held the rib to the actual wooden side plank.
Ozzie: Right. And it is all copper to stop corrosion.
Kiwi: All copper nailed. Yeah. All copper nailed. And that was the real traditional boat-building style before fibre-glass boats came on the market. And of course they taught that skill at the New Zealand Navy. All their small boats, training boats; they had sails and all that sort of thing…were formed in that type of fashion.
​

 

[Persia1]

Water Treatment

Download audio file (water treatment.mp3)


First Man: see…and put it on containers of water; the words “love” and “gratitude”. And “gratitude” seemed to have more effect on the water than the word “love” but they both had a very strong effect on the water and they realised that the simpler the message, the better because when they tried to put more, you know, like longer messages or when they tried to speak in longer sentences to the water saying you know like “I really have a great deal of respect for you”; you know “without you we wouldn’t have”…that didn’t have as much effect as …
Second Man: One word.
First Man: …as just saying “love”, “respect”, “gratitude” and he said…
Second Man: BEAUTY!
First Man: …and he said something that …he said we were constantly struck by things that happened, when we did these experiments, for example and I think I am remembering this correctly when he said that saying the word “gratitude” twice as many times as the word “love” seemed to be the perfect combination almost like H2O.
Second Man: Right.
First Man: And this was a very interesting idea again as well.
Second Man: Love gratitude gratitude. Love gratitude gratitude.
First Man: Before we leave off on Emoto, there were two other things that really struck me in the text. One was in the introduction. It was where he was talking about his despair about society. And I suppose he was meaning mostly Japanese society but more generally modern society and he was saying that …
(the sound of coughing)
….that after he came to understand water better…
(the sound of a coin dropping)
… he became much positive about the future of the world because he realised that all of us everywhere in the world for all of our problems are, you know, for the most part, a bit more for kids and a bit less for old people, about seventy – seventy five per cent water…
(coughing again)
…and this filled him with hope.
Second Man: Yeah.
First Man: … and I thought this was an astonishingly beautiful simple …
Second Man: Mm.
First Man: …naive, if you like, but wonderfully hopeful idea, and a wonderfully expressed simplicity about life, and the other thing was when he was just beginning and he didn’t really know which way to go with this research…
(coughing)
… he was encouraged…he … I forget how he came to know this woman but there was a woman who has an Anglo name … I don’t know if she was American or English or whatever, that was living and working in Switzerland and had been for many many years and she was around retirement age or perhaps had already retired as a university professor; she devoted her life with her team to finding better ways to deliver larger amounts of water…
(coughing)
… to big populations of people in a healthy form and somehow somewhere along the line during his kind of initial attempts to study water, he had come across her… Maybe he had been to one of her conferences or something … but anyway he was in correspondence with her and and she was trying to encourage him in any way she could. When she retired from university she continued her work with a private foundation and again her main function was…focus was trying to deliver good quality water to very large numbers of people in various parts of the world. Right?
Second Man: Mm.
First Man: This was her dream. And a wonderful idea and it was good to hear that there was somebody in the world thinking about that …
Second Guy: Mm.
First Guy: … but again it is not what is normally the idea. You know? When people talk about irrigation schemes or you know providing water, they just think of water as a basic commodity. They don’t think about the quality of that water. Right?
Second Guy: Mm.
First Guy: But she said something to him that really struck me. She said, it will be a great journey and whatever you discover about water, it will be a great journey for you, and the one thing that I always try to keep in mind is that we don’t have to treat water. Everybody always talks about, you know, “water treatment” and “treatment plants” and , you know, what do we do to water… We don’t have to do anything to water. We just have to respect it. This really struck me. You know?
Second Guy: Mm.
First Guy: And even more so as he developed his research…was…you know… It would be very simple to take care of water in the world.
Second Man: Mm.
First Man: We could go out there and sit next to that pool and if there were enough of us and maybe even just two of us, we could improve the quality of that water just by thinking good thoughts for that water.
Second Man: Wow!
First Man: I am convinced of that.
Second Man: Wow!
First Man: On a scale like…you know….It was few years ago, I think when we were both still living in Kyoto, where a whole bunch of Japanese NGOs got together and they circled Biwako and they prayed for its health.
Second Man: Mm.
First Man: And I didn’t know anything about Emoto at the time but I am absolutely sure it was based on his research that those people came up with the idea for doing that.
Child: Where’s my book?
Second Man: Excuse me. Where’s your what?
Child: Where’s my book?
Second Man: Your book? Do you want to draw a picture?
Child: Yes.
Second Man: … Yeah. Go on.
First Man: So rather than putting chemicals in the water to clean it, all that is really required is…
Second Man: … to speak to it.
First Man: Good will.
Second Man: Yeah. Good will. Love it.
First Man: In the same way that the Ganges by all scientific standards is a dead river without oxygen and yet it has freshwater dolphins.
Second Man: Yep.
First Man: …living in it​

 

[Persia1]

A Helicopter, a Boat or an Aeroplane


Download audio file (heliboat.mp3)



(the sound of a child crying out)
Father: What did you say?
Child: (???)
Father: What does that mean?… Can you hear the boat?
Daughter: Yes. (hesitantly)
Father: I can hear the boat too.
Daughter: It is like an aeroplane.
Father: Yes. It sounds like an aeroplane. It is an engine. It sounds a bit like a helicopter, doesn’t it?
Daughter: What about “aeroplane”?
Father: Or an aeroplane. A helicopter or an aeroplane. It sounds a bit like a helicopter or an aeroplane, but it’s a boat. Can you see it? Go and have a look. Can you see it?
(the sound of a sneeze)
Father: Did you sneeze?… Can you see it?
Daughter: I want to go and play in the water.
Father: Now?
Daughter: Yes.
Father: Ok. Let’s go and play in the water.
(unintelligible childish sound)
Father: Shall we go now? Shall we go and play in the water now?
Daughter: Yes.
Father: Let’s go.
​

 

[Persia1]

People and Places – Burke 3 – It gives you a good background



Download audio file (burke3.mp3)


Mark: So you went to high school in Toronto?
Burke: Ahm no actually. I went to elementary school and in grade three I moved to a small town about an hour north of Toronto called “Stouffville“.
Mark: Stouffville. S-t…?
Burke: O-u-f-f-v-i-l-l-e. Named after the Stouffes who were the original settlling family in the area. It is now basically all part of the GTA of Toronto. It is kind of been absorbed into the massive thing that is Toronto. Now.
Mark: Ok. Right. Ok. A small place that was absorbed by a big city.
Burke: Yeah well it is pretty close to that anyway. Yeah. Now it sort of a bed-town for people who work in the city and stuff….Pretty much…So yeah…
Mark: So you did your education in Ontario…like..?
Burke: Yes and as is typical for north Americans moved away to attend university and I went to a city called Hamilton which is a little bit east …No. Is it east or west of Toronto? About an hour and a half west of Toronto.
Mark: So you are still in Ontario?
Burke: Still in Ontario. Yeah.
Mark: What did you study for that first degree?
Burke: I was a … it is embarrassing to say it but a psychology major.
Mark: Psychology. I think psychology is very interesting.
Burke: It is very interesting but it is not really job applicable unless you get a PhD.
Mark: It gives you a good background, you know…
Burke: Mm.
Mark: to a lot of things; a lot of things like; when you first leave high school I think it is good to read and travel and talk to a lot of people and get a general understanding…of many things.
Burke: Well, I remember…The thing is I was reading my sisters psychology textbook in her undergraduate studies when I was in high school and I was thinking “my god! I can actually study this?” Because it just seemed really interesting; incredible. Abnormal psychology.
Mark: M-hm.
Burke: And so that is what convinced me right there that that was what I wanted to study at that point in time.
Mark: Did you read Freud or Jung?
Burke: Yes, of course it is a little bit considered… Jung is considered a bit on the philosophical side of things and Freud is sort of considered a little bit too ***ual in interpretation.
Mark: *** is an unpopular topic isn’t it?
Burke: Yes. Yes. Exactly. Cover it over if you can. So but yeah… We covered all the major people and …. I just became a bit disillusioned with it in the end because it was trying to act too much like a science.
Mark: Yeah.
Burke: Whereas it is very hard to have that kind of criterion on human beings. You know?
Mark: I agree totally. A lot of things… A lot of questions are not easy to answer and we try to get definite answers, like in maths and physics, and you can’t get definite answers like that in some areas like that.
Burke: But I agree with the basic premise of therapy which is to let out, you know, your feelings and have somebody to talk to as a sounding board, and hopefully guide you into an area where you can, you know, heal any problems or dark areas that you have gone through in your life.
Mark: I agree. I think talking is a great therapy.
Burke: Yeah.
Mark: I think so many people; they suffer and they don’t…they have problems. And just by talking to their friends; by opening up…
Burke: Mm.
Mark: … they can solve their problems and yet so many people aren’t able to talk. They are not able to articulate what it is; how they feel; why they feel that way
Burke: Particularly men obviously.
Mark: Yeah.
Burke: Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. You know. Women are just..I think.. have a natural… a better ability to express themselves. They just talk more. Men tend to hold back expressing of, you know, emotional type issues or things that…
Mark: Yeah:
Burke: You know are a little bit…
Mark: But, you know, I think that is generally true but I think a lot of our male friends are more articulate too.
Burke: Yeah, I agree.
Mark: And I have met some thuggish inarticulate women in my time as well.
Burke: (laughs) There you go.
​

 

[Persia1]

How does India compare to Australia?



Download audio file (Calcutta.mp3)


Mark talked with a veteran of World War Two about his experiences in India
Neil: But the countryside was very much like Australia; barren and open and no water.
Mark: When were you there? What year?
Neil: Oh, that was during the war, about 1943 or ’44.
Mark: Did you…?
Neil: (coughs) Did I what?
Mark: Did you fly there or take a ship?
Neil: No, I was in the air force. Flying.
Mark: Where did you go? Calcutta?
Neil: Everywhere in India: Bombay, Delhi, Colombo. All over the place. Flying all the time.
Mark: 1943. What (for) a couple of years or…?
Neil: I was there for a year and a half.
Mark: Where did you go then?
Neil: Ahm…I think I came back to Australia. Yeah, I left Calcutta by boat at the end of the war…
Mark: Yeah.
Neil: And came back here.
Mark: I went there last year.
Neil: Oh yeah. What is it like? Very populated?
Mark: Now, it is getting rich.
Neil: Really?
​

 

[Persia1]

Furniture



Download audio file (furniture.mp3)


Father: Come and sit on my lap. Ok so once a upon a time there was a…
Little Girl: About this…
Father: There was little girl and she came up the stairs with her yellow laptop and she sat on her daddy’s lap and she put her laptop on her lap. But it wasn’t really a laptop. It was a book. Her laptop was a book. And she opened it up
(the sound of a passing tractor)
And the first page said the words “dining room”. And on that page there were the words “dinner set” and there was a picture of a dinner set. And on the next page there was the word “chairs”
(the sound of a passing car)
And there were two chairs and then there was a picture of a table and there was the word”table” How many chairs can you see?
Little Girl: Ten. One two three four five six seven eight nine ten.
Father: Ten chairs. And how many tables can you see?
Little Girl: One.
Father: One table? Ok would you like to turn the page?
(a pause while the page is being turned)
Father: Now on the top of the next page you can see the word “kitchen” k-i-t-c-h-e-n. And there is a picture of a toaster and there are two pieces of toast sticking out of the toaster and there is the word “toaster” and at the bottom of the page I can see four pots and pans. And…
Little Girl: I want to ..I will count them. One two three four five six seven eight…
Father: Mm.
Little Girl: …nine ten.
Father: Ten pots with lids on them.
Little Girl: One two…
Father: One.
Little Girl: One two three four five six seven eight…
Father: Eight pots and pans..
Little Girl: Nine.
Father: That is nine. And this one is different. The handle is different.
Little Girl: One two three four five six seven eight nine.
Father: These pots have two handles but this pot has only one handle.
Little Girl: One two three four five six seven ..One two three four ..
Father and Daughter (together): One two three four five six seven eight nine.
Father: And this is a kettle. This is a picture of a kettle and here is the word “kettle” k-e-t-t-l-e. Look at the kettle. Here is the handle. Here is the spout. And now the next page and you can see the words “living room”. And there is a book shelf with lots of different books. It is picture of a book shelf. And there is the word “bookshelf”. B-o-o-k-s-h-e-l-f. Bookshelf. And underneath there are lots of sofas. I can see a picture of some sofas.How many sofas can you see?
Little Girl: One two three four five six seven eight nine.
Father: Ah that is a pillow. I think that is a pillow. You are counting the sofa and the pillow but I think that is pillow. I would say: “One two three four five six.” Six sofas.
Little Girl: One two three four five six…
(the sound of a passing motorcycle)
Father: Seven. There is a big one. There is a big one. What’s the difference between this sofa and this sofa?
Little Girl: No.
Father: What’s the difference? Do you know? Look. Look at this one look at the big one. This one is bigger than that one, isn’t it? This one is smaller than this one. And look at the pillows. What is the difference between this one and this one? Look at the pillows. What is the difference?
Little Girl: Sofa.
Father: Hm?
Little Girl: Sofa.
Father: This one has two pillows but this one has only one pillow, doesn’t it?
Little Girl: (???)
Father: How many pillows can you see here?
Little Girl: Two.
Father: And how many pillows can you see here?
Little Girl: One.
Father: Ah so these two sofas are different. This one has one pillow but this one has two pillows.
Little Girl: (???)
Father: We forgot the fireplace. The fireplace is the place where the fire is. It is safe. Fire is dangerous but the fireplace is safe. It is a safe place to put fire. The house will not burn down. I am turning the page now. And what is that word? Do you know?
Little Girl: Mirror.
Father: No. That word is “mirror”. This word is “bedroom”.
Little Girl: “Bedroom”.
Father: Right. And can you see the mirror?
Little Girl: Here.
Father: And is it a magic mirror?
Little Girl: Yes.
Father: And what do you say when you look in the mirror? In the magic mirror?
Little Girl: I don’t know.
Father: Mirror on the wall. Who is the most beautiful woman of all?
Mirror mirror in my hand. Who is the most beautiful woman in the land?
Mirror mirror on the table. Who is the most beautiful woman in this fable?
​

 

[Persia1]

An English Accent



Download audio file (An English Accent.mp3)


Londoner: The words they use might change. Certainly. Vocab would definitely change.
Australian: Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. because I have a friend from London and I can’t understand half of what he says. Just the words… the slang. It’s so…
Londoner: You see my accent has been described as “home counties”…
Australian: Mm.
Londoner: … and if I had of stayed in London or where I was and not got a professional job, I would have had a very very coarse London accent. You might have the same problem understanding me.
Australian: Mm.
Londoner: But I came from those roots but my accent has improved through college and stuff like that so I speak probably clearer than a proper Londoner or cockney.
Australian: Mm.
Londoner: I am almost a cockney.
Australian: I get called a cockney.
Londoner: I was born not that far from Bow Bells but….
Australian: When I lived in London I had been there for twenty-four hours and people thought I was a Londoner ..maybe my accent..like the Aussie accent and the London accent are not that different.
Londoner: There are a lot of similarities . Yeah.
Australian: And I mean you know I remember being in…I was working in Sainsbury’s and this guy come up and he said “oh I thought you were a cockney like me” and you know I can put it on like you know what I mean like …
Londoner: Yeah.
Australian: You can kind of talk like this. I can’t do it at the moment. You get in to a roll …Have a beer and that. You know? Lets try something. Like. I will say one thing and you say exactly the same thing: Where are you from?
Londoner: Where are you from?
Australian: I am from London.
Londoner: I am from London.
Australian: What part of London?
Londoner: What part of London?
Australian: The north.
Londoner: The north.
Australian: The south.
Londoner: The south.
Australian: The east .
Londoner: The east.
Australian: The west.
Londoner: The west.
Australian: North-west London
Londoner: North-west London.
Australian: Where’s Wembley?
Londoner: Where’s Wembley?
Australian: It’s is in north-west London.
Londoner: It’s is in north-west London.
Australian: Where’s Wimbledon?
Londoner: Where’s Wimbledon?
Australian: It’s in south-west London.
Londoner: It’s in south-west London.
Australian: Is that right?
Londoner: Is that right?
Australian: Is that right ?
Londoner: Is that right?
​

 

[Persia1]

You Look Japanese



Download audio file (areyoujapanese.mp3)


(the sound of a passing vikram)
Mark: Ok so I am just sitting at a cafe in New Delhi and I am sitting next to two people. What is your name?
French Guy: Jeremy. My name is Jeremy.
Mark: Jeremy. I am Mark . Hi.
French Guy: Nice to meet you.
Mark: You too. Where are you from Jeremy?
French Guy: From Paris.
Mark: From Paris.
French Guy: Yes.
Mark: And you grew up in Paris? You were born there?
French Guy: Near Paris.
Mark: Uh-huh.
French Guy: (French)
Mark: But you look Japanese . You are not Japanese?
French Guy: I am not Japanese. (French). I am Vietnamese.
Mark: Vietnamese? Ok. So your parents were Vietnamese but you were born in France?
French Guy: Yes. Yes.
Mark: Have you been to Vietnam?
French Guy: Just one time.
Mark: Just one time?
French Guy: Yes.
Mark: And you don’t speak the language?
French Guy: Just a few words.
Mark: Ah Ok. Was it difficult traveling there? Being Vietnamese. Being ethnically Vietnamese and not speaking? Was it strange?
French Guy: Yes a little but
Mark: How do you say…?
Jeremy: : Can you repeat?
Woman: Can you repeat?
​

 

[Persia1]

Network Marketing or Multi-level Marketing



Download audio file (marketting.mp3)


Man: So multi-level marketing…
Woman: That is right.
Man: So what exactly is that?
Woman: Oh just. You can go into the website. There are just thousands. It is like I introduce two people. Two people introduce two people. And so there are tiers to this marketing.
Man: Like Amway?
Woman: Network marketing or multi-level marketing. Yeah.
Man: Tupperware and Amway. Are they examples?
Woman: They are good examples. Yeah. They are in the same category.
Man: How did you get involved in it?
Woman: A very good friend of ours introduced us to it when my husband and I came to the Gold Coast.
Man: M-hm.
Woman: We were approached by this couple who became friends and we were introduced by friends, which is the deceptive element in multi-level marketing because very often they recruit friends and because they are your friends you naturally assume…
Man: That they are ok.
Woman: Yeah… have your interests at heart. Unbeknowns to us our friends although they are good business people they themselves were quite inexperienced in this particular business so they actually without meaning to misled us.
Man: Right. Ok. And what product initially..?
Woman: Well this company is called Omega trend and it is a sort of a replica of Amway.
Man: Right.
Woman: And so they started with cleaning products and…
Man: They broke away from Amway?
Woman: Yeah. They actually are a breakaway from Amway though they didn’t like people to know that because of Amway’s rep.
Man: Amway has a bad rep?
Woman: Incredibly bad rep so that Amway had to change its name that many times to disguise its…
Man: Past.
Woman: Yeah past or…
Man: I thought Amway like…I have that heard it is expensive but the products are quite good.
Woman: Actually that is what most people say and I think there is something to be said for quality. I think it is quite good quality but the fact is there is a high profit margin so I think it is inherently unethical and they pump up the price and they have to because the different tiers of people have to make their profit along the way, to me, for me, I think it is unethical.
Man: And you felt you got burned? You felt like deceived. You weren’t happy with your experience?
Woman: I felt, yeah….
​

 

[Persia1]

Cockney Accent

Download audio file (cockney.mp3)


Londoner: Great Dover Street. SE1. You know Great Dover Street? Near the Bricklayer’s Arms.
Ninety-four year old year old Cockney Man: EC1?
Londoner: SE1. SE1.
Ninety-four year old Cockney Man: SE1. Lovely.
Australian: Is that cockney?
Londoner: No. No. No. It is halfway between London Bridge and the Elephant and Castle. Borough.
Ninety-four year old Cockney Man: May I ask your age, sir?
Londoner: Forty-four.
Ninety-four year old Cockney man: Forty-four. Hello, son.
(the sound of hands shaking)
​

 

[Persia1]

Curing Addiction by Meditation in the “Caves of Truth”

Download audio file (addiction.mp3)


Mark: So John..
John: Yeah.
Mark: You are working on a dissertation for a PhD. That is for an American university?
John: Yeah, that is right. It is a university in San Francisco, California
Mark: And what is the area?
John: I am studying..It is philosophy but with an emphasis on Buddhist studies, you know, and Buddhist philosophy.
Mark: In any particular country?
John: Well, yeah, I am mainly interested in Thailand even though I live in Japan, you know. I like Thailand’s version of Buddhism better.
Mark: Is that theravada?
John: Yeah. That is right.
Mark: Ok. So are you studying any particular temple or any particular aspect of Buddhism?
John: Yeah. I am doing research on a couple of temples there in Thailand. One is called Suen Mok, which is pretty famous. It is got a very good program for ten day meditation retreats and they are geared for teaching foreigners meditation; meditation techniques.
Mark: What is the other temple?
John: The other one is north of Bangkok about three hours bus ride and it is called Tam Krabok.
Mark: Uh-huh.
John: And it is… Well it does different things but one thing it does is it helps addicts recover, you know. It has probably cured about one hundred thousand addicts; mostly heroin or opium addicts, you know, and so I am really interested in how meditation can replace an addiction. You know what I mean?
Mark: Wow! So they are like teaching people to meditate and overcome the problems that caused them to become addicted to drugs?
John: Right. Exactly.
Mark: Wow! Isn’t that a wonderful thing. A hundred thousand.
John: Yeah.
Mark: Wow! That is really amazing. You have been to the temple?
John: Yeah and interviewed several of the head monks and some of the other people there and it is just a really really, to me, an effective way of applying Buddhism, you know?
Mark: Right.
John: To eliminate our addictions and work toward something more significant
Mark: Right excellent. That is really…That is great. Like. To use something like that to…That is really good.
John: A real practical form of Buddhism. As I understand it to try to help people live better lives and things like that and this seems to be a real, you know, obvious way to do it.
Mark: Drug addiction is a big problem in a lot of different countries.
John: Yeah.
Mark: And if they are finding something they can do about, it that is really great.
John: Yeah I agree totally there. And it was a big problem in Thailand. You know until 1959 opium was legal in Thailand.
Mark: Really?
John: And suddenly they made it illegal and all these people who would take it as a normal part of their life suddenly were illegal addicts.
Mark: Wow!
John: And so this place has really done something that I think is really important.
suddenly they made it illegal
Mark: What is the name of the temple again?
John: Tam Krabok. It means cave of the “prabok”. It is kind of like “telling it like it is” or something like that. Originally it was just a group of monks and they lived in caves
Mark: Wow!
John: And then they started making a big temple out of it.
Mark: The caves of truth.
John: Yeah. That would be a good way to translate it. (laughs)
​

 

[Persia1]

People and Places – Steve 2 – Born in Brooklyn



Download audio file (steve2.mp3)


Mark: So you were born in Brooklyn and you like did you go to high school there?
Steve: Correct.
Mark: And then you went to university?
Steve: University actually was in the Bronx.
Mark: Right. That was during the Vietnam war?
Steve: Yes. Ahm. Yeah.
Mark: And you worked at a high school during the Vietnam war?
Steve: Junior high school.
Mark: To avoid the draft. (laughs)
Steve: Correct.
Mark: You did not want to go to Vietnam and fight in the war?
Steve: Correct. That is for sure.
Mark: Yeah.
Steve: So I taught in a ghetto school in Brooklyn. That was in Brooklyn.
Mark: Right. What did you actually study like in your degree at university?
Steve: Literature English and American literature, I guess.
Mark: Which writers did you like?
Steve: Joyce, Beckett, Salinger, Melville.
Mark: That is right. You loved…. What is that story you like by Salinger?
Steve: The Catcher and the Rye.
Mark: The Catcher and the Rye.
Steve: Well it is a novel.
Mark: There is a saying. What is the name of the main character?
Steve: Holden Caulfield.
Mark: Holden Caulfield. And there is something that he always says that you used to say for a long time.
Steve: Is that right?
Mark: Yeah there is some sentence that…
Steve: You know I think you are thinking of “Bartleby the Scrivener“. “I’d prefer not to”.
Mark: That came later but earlier on it was Holden Caufield. I remember you saying to me once when we had lunch at Kerala, that earlier in life you used to say this thing that Holden Caulfield used to say or maybe it was something that Salinger used to say and later you changed it to Bartleby.
Steve: Is that right? It very well could have been.
Mark: So you taught at the school in the ghetto. Where was that?
Steve: A neighbourhood called Brownsville.
Mark: Brownsville. Which borough is that in?
Steve: In Brooklyn. The black ghetto in Brooklyn.
Mark: And then later, like, were you from a Jewish area or an Italian area?
Steve: At first a Jewish area and then… Actually when I was…You will find this interesting. You tapped into something here. When I was about six years old my parents moved. When my sister was born, when I was six years old or seven years, we moved from renting an apartment to buying a house a few blocks away.
Mark: Right.
Steve: But the house a few blocks away was no longer in the Jewish neighborhood. It was in an Irish Italian neighborhood. I was the only Jewish kid.
Mark: Right. Mixed it up a little bit.
Steve: ah from time to time I got picked on but I would not stress that.
Mark: When they say like a Jewish neighborhood or an Irish neighbourhood, how long is a neighbourhood. Like two blocks, three blocks?
Steve: No no. Could be much bigger.
Mark: Could be like big ones and small ones, I suppose.
Steve: Yeah.
Mark: Some times you see like in Sydney you might see a couple of streets with some Chinese stuff. You can call it a Chinese neighbourhood…
Steve: There is a Chinatown in New York City now.
Mark: Yeah a big one.
Steve: It was one of my favourite places always. Even before I thought of studying anything about Japan and China I was always fascinated with … Asia… Japan and China.
Mark: When you go travelling in little towns in Australia, the two cultures that got there first are the Chinese and the Italians.
Steve: Is that right?
Mark: There is nothing from the outside. The first that gets there; it will be either pizza or a Chinese restaurant.
Steve: Yeah America too. Every place has a Chinese restaurant.
Mark: Although Chinese food is pretty different from… chop suey is pretty different from the stuff you get in China or Taiwan.
Steve: Yeah but like in California and New York you can get just as good…authentic…
Mark: I had good Chinese food in San Francisco.
Steve: I was once driving across country recently and late at night … I ended up in…I was in Oklahoma somewhere and the highway sign says the next stop is Shawnee. I am thinking I know Shawnee. I know the name but I was tired. I got off there and found a motel. And there was a Chinese restaurant buffet style and the thing was they had a hundred different dishes to choose from.
Mark: M-hm
Steve: So there were these really really really fat Americans were going up big pile after big pile and they are fat and that is why they are fat and they were taking from a hundred different things … you know … picking this and picking this and I am sitting there… I took a modest thing myself. I did not want to stuff myself..you know
Mark: Mm.
Steve: And then I remembered Shawnee is the hometown of a notorious gangster called “Pretty Boy Floyd”. The song they sing about him ..
Mark: Pretty Boy Floyd?
Steve: Pretty Boy Floyd from Shawnee and of course it was..his being a bad guy was totally unjustified. It was the authorities fault. You know. They spoke rudely to his wife one Saturday afternoon.
Mark: They done him wrong.
Steve: They did indeed. They done him wrong. Whatever the specifics of it was and he had to lay that policeman down. That is how the song goes I think.
Mark: Shawnee is a town?
Steve: Shawnee is a town in Oklahoma.
Mark: Right. ok
Steve: Shawnee, Oklahoma.
Mark: It is an Indian tribe too, isn’t it?
Steve: Yeah. Yes.
Mark: Yeah.
​

 

[Persia1]

Health Problems



Download audio file (health.mp3)


Mark: I am just sitting here at a cafe in the Pahar Ganj area of New Delhi with Michael. Michael, you are not feeling very good?
Michael: No, I am certainly not.
Mark: What is the problem?
Michael: Well. I got diagnosed with amoebic dysentery about eight nine weeks ago when I was up in the mountains and I got treated for it then by a very good doctor with antibiotics but I fear that it has not yet gone away as I have had recurring problems.
Mark: You vomited this morning?
Michael: That is right. I got some new pills, that somebody at this very cafe recommended, that I take.
Mark: Ayurvedic?
Michael: No, no. Not those ones. These were some other pills. I forget what they were called. This man said that his sister was a nurse and these were the pills to take and I found them at a chemist, took a couple and I was violently sick this morning not long after taking one of these pills on the street, which was quite interesting.
Mark: Mm. That is terrible. How are you feeling now? Are you feeling a little better?
Michael: Not really I am feeling very weak I have to take some of these… you know… what do you call them…re-hydration salts.
Mark: And you are going to eat some banana and papaya as well?
Michael:Well I have got a papaya juice coming and yeah perhaps I will have some banana. I have heard that that is good for you.
Mark:I hope you feel better soon.
Michael: Thank you very much.
Mark: This man wants to clean your shoes.
Michael:Yes, I…
​

 

[Persia1]

What language do they speak in Jersey?





Download audio file (jersey.mp3)


Australian: What language do they speak in Jersey?
Scotsman: English.
Australian: But like they don’t speak French?
Scotsman: Jersey patois occasionally.
Australian: What is that?
Scotsman: A cross between French and English.
Australian: Like, can French people understand it, do you know?
Scotsman: No. English people cannot understand it either. It is indigenous to Jersey. I think they can pretty much get a gauge of it, but…
Australian: It is a mixture of French and English?
Scotsman: Yeah. That is good coming from a Scotsman, isn’t it?
Australian: What is the capital of Jersey?
Scotsman: St Helier.
​

 

[Persia1]

Actually I was Born in Hawaii



Download audio file (mormon2.mp3)


Mark: Elder Tiave, that is not a common English name. What is your ethnic heritage?
Elder Tiave: No, I am part Filipino. I am Samoan and Hawaiian.
Mark: Wow!
Elder Tiave: So I have nothing to do with Cambodia.
Mark: But you are a Mormon.
Elder Tiave: Yes. I am a Mormon.
Mark: And your whole family is Mormon?
Elder Tiave: Yes, my whole family.
Mark: And you are on your mission? You are here for two years?
Elder Tiave: Yeah. I just recently came out to Cambodia and started my mission here in Cambodia.
Mark: Mhm.
Elder Tiave: I started learning the language, Cambodian language in Utah and then from there I came out here and just started teaching the the people here (about my church). I have been in this country for about three months and it is a challenge sometimes but I am starting to get better at the language. Yeah.
Mark: Do you speak Tagalog or Filipino or Hawaiian?
Elder Tiave: No, I really don’t know any Filipino language but my grandma does.
Mark: So you were born in the States, grew up in the states; you are pretty much American, now.
Elder Tiave: Yeah, I am actually from Hawaii.
Mark: Right but your ancestors are all mixed?
Elder Tiave: Yeah. All mixed.
Mark: It is starting to rain so lets get out of here.
Elder Tiave: All right.

​

 

[Persia1]

The Next State



Download audio file (connecticut.mp3)


(the sound of a coffee machine)
Interviewee: I was born in the UK and when I was two we moved to the United States.
Interviewer: Which state did you move to?
Interviewee: We first moved to New York City and then we moved to Connecticut which is the next state north from New York.
Interviewer: Is the accent between New York and Connecticut very different, do you think?
Interviewee: It is pretty close but if you were from that part of the world, you could probably tell the difference.
Interviewer: Right. So you grew up in Connecticut. Did you go to school in Connecticut?
Interviewee: Yeah. I went to school…to college in Connecticut and then I went to college in New York City.
Interviewer: Right. What did you study?
Interviewee: I studied religion and philosophy.
​

 

[Persia1]

A Career in Medical Research



Download audio file (medical research.mp3)


Woman: When I finished school I went to university, Melbourne University, and studied science, a bachelor of science . I then did my honours degree and after that I worked in a heart disease research institute.
Man: In Melbourne?
Woman: In Melbourne. It is called the Baker Heart Research Institute. So I worked for a year, a bit over a year on cholesterol and the metabolism of cholesterol in the body.
Man: How the body breaks it down?
Woman: How it is actually transported. So I was looking at a protein, that determines how the cholesterol in the blood is modified and delivered to cells and how it is returned back to the liver..
Man: Right.
Woman: …to be broken down into bile. So we were working on that and then I wanted to have a break so I went traveling and I traveled through western Europe and ended up in London and I worked at the Guildford Surrey County Hospital in an immunology lab and that was more diagnostic work. It was quite interesting. And after that I moved to Finland. Helsinki.
Man: Wow!
Woman: And I did my PhD there.
Man: In Helsinki? In English?
Woman: In English. Every student who is doing their PhD; they have to write their PhD in English.
Man: Right.
Woman: And the seminars are given in English.
Man: So you were in Helsinki for like five years.
Woman: Five years.
Man: Do you speak Finnish?
Woman: Not very well. I can understand a bit, but it is quite a difficult language and because English was my mother tongue they wanted to practise their English.
Man: Right.
Woman: And preferred to speak English with me. But yeah I did take lessons and try and learn it…and that was all… So the PhD was all metabolism and transport.
Man: Right.
Woman: And after that I decided to move back to Melbourne so I took the trans-Siberian train.
Man: Wow!
Woman: And went that direction into Beijing.
Man: Into China, yeah.
Woman: Yeah. Then got back to Melbourne and I started my post-doctoral research which was in a different field. It is blood diseases like leukemia and I was researching stem cells in the bone marrow and a signaling pathway…
Man: Stem cell research; that is illegal in some places, isn’t it?
Woman: It is. This is adult stem cells. Not embryonic.
Man: Right.
Woman: So we all have stem cells in our bone marrow and they are constantly re-populating the marrow and providing us with our whole immune system.
Man: Right.
Woman: But they are normally dormant or “quiescent” as we call it. And they only go into division when they need to produce certain cells. So I was trying to figure out or understand what controls; like what signals they get to move them from quiescence to an active state
Man: Right.
Woman: So that was three years and that was in Melbourne. So I just published the work from that and decided to travel…
​

 

[Persia1]

Have you read Swedenborg?



Download audio file (scrim.mp3)


An American Guy: One of the critical events (in his life) was when he was looking up in the sky and the sky split like a scrim .. you know… like a … there was a scrim of reality and then the whole thing split apart…
An Australian Guy: I don’t know that word. “Scrim.” What is a “scrim“?
The American Guy: A “scrim” is what you find when you got a stage. You got the actors on a stage and you got a band behind it or something. And they are playing the music. There is a scrim there that keeps you from seeing the band.
The Australian: A sort of a screen. Ah right ok.
The American: Yeah. I guess it is related to the word “screen” but it is associated with theatrical life and things like that. He saw… and this was his words
The Australian: Ok.
The American: The heavens parted like a scrim and behind it he saw the grand being..
The Australian: Wow.
The American: You know and this is like have you ever read Swedenborg?
The Australian: No.
The American: Swedenbourg’s “Grand Man”.
Australian: I have read about him a lot but..
The American: Swedenbourg is fantastic but what he called the grand man was the …you know..the paragon of all man what you might call “christ” or ..what you might call…whatever religion you are talking about. What he saw …what he saw… He saw the heavens part…and he saw this as a constellation … and there was a constellation of billions of stars and what it formulated was a man with his face upturned in utter ecstasy. And this was what…the thing… that probably determined and formulated his seeking and his life from that time on.
Australian: Mmm.
(the sound of laughter)
​

 

[Persia1]

People and Places – The Swami – 6 – The Same Thing



Download audio file (swami6.mp3)


(Swami talks for the first 25 seconds of recording. Then transcript begins.)
Mark: So the creation is sustained by prayer?
Swami: It is sustained by divine will. It is sustained by divine will and the divine order; the cosmic order. The cosmic order…In the beginning five basic things were created…
Mark: The relation with us? We are praying…?
Swami: Because we are in error.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Ignorance means. It is not a…it is not a.. You don’t…If you say someone is ignorant, you are not accusing him. You are not blaming him. You are not scolding him. You are saying that he does not … that you do not know your essence. “Hey you ignorant fool!” If a monk; if a saint out of compassion says to a normal person “Hey you ignorant fools. Foolish children.” They should not get angry. “Hey there I am a big man. I am a big officer. I am so wealthy. This fool; he looks like a fool and he calls me a fool; he should be punished.” The way our foolish kings used to punish saints and they used to bear the consequences later. Ignorance means not knowing your true nature;
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Not knowing the true nature of your self. Who are you in essence? You are alive. You say this is your body. You are not the body. This body is changing all the time. It was in the mother’s womb for nine months and then the boy is born and the body is grown and it grows up. It becomes old. So where is the essence?
Mark: Mm.
Swami: You are not the body. The body is not the essence. You are the speck of consciousness, the speck of the infinite light that shines in the heart.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: You are that piece. You are that fragrance of the infinite light. That is God! So you are but that. But then you think that you are…you are different from the other boy. An Australian is different from an American?
Mark: No, he is not. (laughs)
Swami: He is not?
Mark: No, he is not.
Swami: No he is not! (laughs) The essence is one. The essence is one. The essence is one and to realize that; to realize your true nature as the essence of all, you have to pray. You have to practise. You have to do penance. You have to seek the Vedic gods who are given by the grace of the infinite; by the grace of the infinite Vedas as; it is called; you can say they are like schemes. They are like schemes. The government forms so many schemes for the welfare of so many sections of society.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: This scheme is for the handicapped. This scheme is for the blind. This scheme is for the downtrodden. This scheme is for the tribal people.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: This scheme is for orphaned children. So many schemes are laid. All for the good of them. The government which looks to the welfare of all; it forms specific schemes that they may live happily;
Mark: Mm.
Swami: That their livelihood will be taken care of. So God too; the formless infinite has formed several schemes.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Ok you worship this god. Your nature will suit this Lord Shiva. Your personal nature; you are too pure; your nature will suit this Lord Vishnu.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: Ok you form this divine mother. You are attuned. You like your mother very much. So nature is about mother; the divine mother. But you you want to see a God every day in the form. So that Lord Surya; the sun god is there. Without him there is no life. He too is my own form. Lord Surya the Sun God is there. You worship him and you will attain the higher truth, the highest truth. So god has formulated all these schemes. So these are the schemes of the infinite to get back to your true nature as the infinite. So that is why you have to pray. You have to meditate on these forms. If those forms are pleased the same inner essence that is there within your heart; that too will get pleased.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: The method of pleasing the inner one is to please the outer ones.
Mark: Mm.
Swami: The formed ones.
Mark: Yesterday I came here and I got lost.
Swami: Ah.
Mark: And…
​

 

[Persia1]

Drilling for Oil and Gas



Download audio file (drilling.mp3)


The Canadian: It is a land-based rig.
The Aussie: Uh-huh.
The Canadian: And we are drilling mainly for gas.
The Aussie: M-hm.
The Canadian: Natural gas. The wells range between two thousand five hundred metres to three thousand five hundred metres in depth.
The Aussie:Wow!
The Canadian: Yeah. It is really interesting. My position is called “motor man” and it is kind of like a middle position almost like a sergeant.
The Aussie: Right ok.
The Canadian: So basically I am in charge of the three workers under me. I am in charge of all the mechanical and electrical systems. The air systems. Pretty much everything that is moving on the rig.
The Aussie: Right.
The Canadian: And also…
The Aussie: How big is the rig? It is like a big machine or?
The Canadian: It is a series of machines. The actual drilling platform itself, is called “the rig”.
The Aussie: Right.
The Canadian: It is It comprises (of) a working floor.. It is about four metres off the ground.
The Aussie: Uh-huh.
The Canadian: A derrick which is about thirty meters in height
The Aussie: Right.
The Canadian: And then you have got a system of mud tanks and pumps off to one side. There’s generators to supply electricity to the rig. Off there is a changing room. There is a catwalk where all your drilling pipe is stored on.
The Aussie: Uh-huh
The Canadian: There are various components.
The Aussie: Right.
The Canadian: All in all you are looking at maybe about a hundred and fifty square metres in area.
(the sound of bells ringing from two dogs with bells on their collars playing)
The Canadian: I am also in charge of the well control so if while you are drilling into the production zone; the area down in the earth where the gas is stored…
The Aussie: Down under?
The Canadian: Yeah. It is under really high pressure so you have to control the weight of your drilling fluid.
The Aussie: It is pretty dangerous. They have explosions sometimes?
The Canadian: Sometimes. That is called a blowout
The Aussie: Right. (to the dogs) Can you guys be quiet? Do you guys mind being quiet?
The Canadian: My job is to stop that from happening and if it goes there’s warning signs and when we get these warning signs we shut the well in …
The Aussie: Right.
The Canadian: … and we divert the flow of the drilling fluid through a system of manifolds and high pressure valves … divert it into different mud tanks and if there is any gas coming up we light a flare to burn off the excess gas.
The Aussie: Right. I have seen that in pictures of oil wells.
The Canadian: Yeah, you would have. Yeah. It is interesting work. You are dealing with geology. You are dealing with fluid dynamics. Physics.
The Aussie: Do you have a background in like engineering or anything like that…mechanical…?
The Canadian: No, actually it is pretty much learn as you go. It is always on the job training. You are learning something new every day. You don’t really stagnate at work.
​

 

[Persia1]

The Elixir of Immortality



Download audio file (immortality.mp3)


Australian Man: Five thousand years ago?
Chinese Man: Maybe two thousand five hundred years ago.
Australian Man: Years ago.
Chinese Man: During the Qin Dynasty.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: When we had the first Emperor of China. We called him “Qin Shi Huang”. That means first Emperor of China.
Australian Man: Uh-huh. Qin Shi Huang?
Chinese Man: Qin Shi Huang. Yeah right.
Australian Man: Not the Yellow Emperor?
Chinese Man: Not the Yellow Emperor. You know? (The) Yellow (one) is a new one.
Australian Man: M-hm. More recent.
Chinese Man: More recent. Yeah. More recent.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: The Yellow Emperor is the… ; we call him the original emperor of China.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: But at that time it was only regional.
Australian Man: M-hm. China was very small.
Chinese Man: Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor to control the whole (of) China.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: And…But he..When he…When he (it was recorded) occupied all the Chinese lands; he said he wanted to live forever.
Australian Man: Mhm
Chinese Man: You know he wanted to live for ever.
Australian Man: M-hm. Forever.
Chinese Man: He wanted to live forever.
Australian Man: Forever. To be immortal.
Chinese Man: Right.
Australian Man: You understand that word? Immortal.
Chinese Man: I don’t know (it)
Australian Man: It means “to not die”.
Chinese Man: Not die! Yes.
Australian Man: I want to be immortal.
Chinese Man: Right. Exactly. He wanted to be immortal.
Australian Man: M-hm.
Chinese Man: And so he dispatched somebody.
Australian Man: He sent somebody.
Chinese Man: He sent somebody.
Australian Man: He dispatched somebody to..
Chinese Man: He dispatched somebody to “Go find me the long live grass!” Herbs!
Australian Man: In English we say “Elixir of Immortality”.
Chinese Man: “Elixir”.
Australian Man: “Elixir” is like “medicine”.
Chinese Man: Ok. Elixir. Yes
Australian Man: The elixir of immortality.
Chinese Man: Of immortality..
Australian Man: If you drink the elixir of immortality you can live forever.
Chinese Man: Right. exactly.
Australian Man: What do you call that in Chinese; the elixir of immortality?
Chinese Man: “Chang sheng bu lao yao”
Australian Man: “Chang sheng bu lao yao”.
Chinese Man: “Yao” : “medicine.” “Chang” means “long”. “Sheng” : “live”. Long live. “Bu lao” means “never (get) old”. “Lao” means “not old.” Chang sheng bu lao yao. There are many words (that are pronounced) “yao”.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: Because Chinese … why people think it is very complicated Chinese has (too) many same pronounce words. (words that are pronounced the same)
Australian Man: Same. Yeah.
Chinese Man: Words with the same pronunciation.
you have to connect it with the friend word; the host word
Australian Man: Synonyms. (not synonyms! Homophones!)
Chinese Man: Synonyms.
Australian Man: Those words which like “yao”. Many words have the same pronunciation
Chinese Man: Right.
Australian Man: Synonyms (homophones, homonyms, you fool!)
Chinese Man: Synonyms. Right. (no, wrong. This is a mistake.)
Australian Man: So the emperor..
Chinese Man: Qin Shi Huang sent two officials.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: At that time maybe diplomats. I don’t know.
Australian Man: Uhuhu uhuhuh.
Chinese Man: “Go find me the elixir of immortality!”
Australian Man: The elixir of immortality.
Chinese Man: Elixir of Immortality
Australian Man: Yes.
Chinese Man: Certainly the man could not find that…
Australian Man: Because it does not exist?
Chinese Man: Right. Exactly. So. But he dared not…
Australian Man: He looked everywhere..?
Chinese Man: ..Did not come back because if he could not complete his mission he would be killed…
Australian Man: Right. Ok.
Chinese Man: So he wrote a letter to the emperor (and he said) “I found it!”
Australian man: I found it.
Chinese Man: I found it but I need five hundred boys and five hundred girls to get this because this medicine..what called this? (What is this called?) “What do you call this?”
Australian Man: The elixir of immortality
Chinese Man: Huh
Australian Man: The elixir of Immortality
Chinese Man: “The” is ..?
Australian Man: “The” is “the”
Chinese Man: Ok. So. The man wrote a letter to the Emperor Qin. Qin Shi Huang.
Australian: U-huh.
Chinese Man: He said: because the elixir of immortality is controlled by god.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: Which (who) is on an island.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: And so we must have five hundred boys and five hundred girls to get there…to make a big ceremony …to hold a big ceremony…
Australian Man: Mhm.
Chinese Man: …and then we can get the elixir of immortality back to you. And the Emperor was like: “Ok and give (gave) him five hundred boys and five hundred girls..
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: And a big ship.
Australian Man: So they went to the east.
Chinese Man: Away.
Australian Man: Away from China.
Chinese Man: Finally they really found a big island.
Australian Man: Uh-huh.
Chinese Man: Which is Japan. So they lived there forever. They could not come back.
Australian Man: Right ok.
Chinese Man: Because they would be killed. So that is why the Japanese; you know they have to have immigrated from the mainland.
Australian Man: M-hm.
Chinese Man: Because you know by science, by logical science…
Australian Man: M-hm.
Chinese Man: People cannot live on an island.
Australian Man: M-hm.
Chinese Man: They must be from the mainland, right?
Australian Man: M-hm. M-hm.
Chinese Man: And also they have similar characters Chinese characters in the Japanese language.
Australian Man: M-hm.
Chinese Man: A lot of Chinese ; because they forgot a lot of Chinese characters…they had to re-invent them themselves. Because they brought a lot of books and that is why they have a different (version of ) the Chinese language … but the different pronunciation…
Australian Man: M-hm.
Chinese Man: You know they had only old men. (brang/brought) All of these children; five hundred boys and five hundred girls in an island. No people taught them how to pronounce it correctly. But that is why the pronunciation is different but the language…
Australian Man: M-hm.
Chinese Man: Language the same
Australian Man: I understand.
Chinese Man: They came from China. You call that “aborigines”?
Australian Man: Aborigines?
Chinese Man: Aborigines!
Australian Man: Normally aborigines are the people who lived in that country first.
Chinese Man: Ah. Lived in this country first. I see that.
Australian Man: So if Chinese people went to Japan…
Chinese Man: Yes.
Australian Man: To find the elixir of immortality….
Chinese Man: Yeah.
Australian Man: …Living in the mountains in Japan were some people with long beards and long hair.
Chinese Man: Right.
Australian Man: They were not Asian people. They were very hairy people.
Chinese Man: Right.
Australian Man: Those people are called “aborigines”. The people who were there first.
Chinese Man: I see. Ok.
Australian Man: So this word means ah..
Chinese Man: Aborigines?
Australian Man: Mm. It is Latin. “Ab” means “from”. “Origine” means “origin.”
Chinese Man: Oh I understand you now. It is not immigrants.
Australian Man: No no no. It is not immigrants. It is original “inhabitants”.
Chinese Man: Original people. I understand. Ok ok. I understand so actually (the) Japanese are immigrants from China.
Australian Man: Uh-huh. I had a student… I have been teaching English for twenty years.
Chinese Man: Right.
Australian Man: And (I have had) students from many countries.
Chinese Man: Right.
Australian Man: And one of my students from Korea; he told me that the Japanese moved from Korea.
Chinese Man: Yes.
Australian Man: To Japan.
Chinese Man: Yes, it is true. Because they had to move …mainland China…to Korea…
Australian Man: And then across..
Chinese Man: And then they moved again.
Australian Man: Right. Ok.
Chinese Man: Because geographically ..
Australian Man: It is close.
Chinese Man: It is close. Because you know in ancient times the ships were not very strong.
Australian Man: Yeah.
Chinese Man: They had to find a shortcut.
Australian Man: A shortcut. Yeah.
Chinese Man: Right.
Australian Man: Yeah. Yeah.
​

 

[Persia1]

People and Places – Burke 2 – And then they went to Europe



Download audio file (burke2.mp3)


Mark: So you came to Toronto when you were about two and a half?
Burke: M-hm. Yep.
Mark: And your parents, were they Canadian or?
Burke: Yeah they were both Canadians. They were simply … They were trained as teachers and so they joined the government program called CSIS.
Mark: How do you spell that?
Burke: C-S-I-S.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Burke: And it was in order to help developing countries train professionals, in this case, training them how to teach.
Mark: So they worked in Ghana as teachers?
Burke: Yeah. Teaching teachers how to teach, so methodology…
Mark: Ah teacher trainers. Right. Ok.
Burke: Yep.
Mark: And then they went to Europe.
Burke: Yep.
Mark: They were doing the same thing in Europe?
Burke: Ahm Europe.. they were just seeing the country with… My sister would have been like five or six and I would have been, as I said, about two at that time so they traveled with two children just to show us I guess..
Mark: Right.
Burke: …a taste of Europe and…
Mark: That must have been wonderful. Do you remember very much?
Burke: Actually the only memory I have of Europe is a green beer bottle and a window sill in Amsterdam.
Mark: Wow!
Burke: And the beer was called Oranjeboom. I remember just looking down on this intersection and there was this kind of cobblestone kind of look and I just have that imprint and a sort of a feeling with it but I do not really have any other extended memories from that time.
​

 

[Persia1]

People and Places – San Francisco – 1 – It was Wild!



Download audio file (sf1.mp3)


Australian Guy: So in 1979…
American Guy: Seventy-nine I moved to San Francisco. And at that time… it was the height of the punk season. It was still the waning years of the punk era. But punk was the dominant music form at that time and there were people living in inner city breweries; breweries that were abandoned and there were these punk kids living inside these vats.
Australian Guy: The brewing vats.
American Guy: The brewing vats
Australian Guy: Wow!
American Guy: And they had parties there and they were like … skateboarding was also coming on at the time. It was a big thing then.
Australian Guy: How old were you then?
American Guy: I was twenty-three then. About twenty-three. I was twenty-three. And there were … there were abandoned schools; schools that were shut down. And people were living in them. Houses; a lot of people were living there and squatting. It was wild. The gay movement was in full swing. It was pre-AIDS. And in the Castro people were walking around with leather “chaps”.
Australian Guy: Cowboy pants?
American Guy: You know these black “leather chaps” with their “butts” hanging out like “***** butts”. They would all go up to the Russian River which was about an hour and a half north of San Francisco and the “Russian River Gazette” which was the newspaper from that town was available in San Francisco because a lot of people had houses up there. It was wild. They had “Hare Krishnas” on Haight Street. You would go out to Haight street and they had these gangs of “Hare Krishnas” walking down the street.
Australian Guy: It sounds like “the sixties“.
American Guy: Yes. It was weird. There was still…it was a decade after “the sixties” but it was still; there were a lot of … people who were like still living a sort of you know …there were hippies … there were the punks…there were the gays…it was wild.
Australian Guy:Wild.
American Guy: Every part of San Francisco had a different ..
Australian Guy: Sub-culture like.
American Guy: Subculture going on. (to waitress) Thank you very much.
And you could live cheaply. There were like a lot of houses you could live very cheaply in or for free if you were squatting and then if you were living in a big Victorian house.
American Guy: And then Punk faded and the New Wave came. I was working at a restaurant then. I was going to art school then later on too … everything…. starting like…Everything went downhill in the nineties.
Australian Guy: Why? What happened?
American Guy: Because………..it started…it was basically…San Francisco is not a big city. And it became…These areas became gentrified...the Haight Street was run down. The hippies ran down Haight Street. It was a shambles. Some people that lived there; they said that the real estate prices, because of so many people who had moved in there, had plummeted and a lot of stores had closed up but then there was a revival; a renaissance. New businesses came in. The hippies all moved out and it became very trendy to live there. And because of “Silicon Valley”; the closeness to Silicon Valley; a lot of people who had made money in the computer industry would also live in San Francisco and commute down to the south Bay.
Australian Guy: How far is that from San Francisco?
American Guy: It is about forty-five minutes to Palo Alto. So a lot of people would live there and commute from there and what happened was eventually they tore down the breweries. A lot of abandoned buildings were torn down and real estate became scarce. And real estate prices started going up. Abandoned buildings were being used again. They were being bought up and refurbished. Factories…inner city factories that had existed from the fifties and the post war era and were basically just abandoned were torn down for new housing developments or they built a big school or something…
Australian Guy: Mm.
American Guy: And in the nineties the “dot.com” businesses completely destroyed San Francisco. San Francisco became a ? for the computer industry especially for the internet. And there was a lot of small internet shops that opened up in San Francisco that had you know the whole internet; the early internet craze. So everybody had a website and tried to get something on the internet ; medical websites. Selling something on the internet . And a lot of them were based in San Francisco. The people that worked for them were highly paid. All the early network engineers.
Australian: Web designers.
American: Web designers. They were getting six hundred thousand dollars a year. They were like twenty-one years old. There was a lot of resentment. Doctors and lawyers who were making that kind of money who had studied at you know like Princeton.
Australian Guy: Mm.
American Guy: And then spend like a lifetime… and then angry that these twenty-one year old punks were making that kind of money. And that lasted for about six or seven years but it completely… There was a housing shortage in San Francisco because there were so many new people coming in. If there was an apartment to rent people would line up at 6am in the morning to be the first ones to get in. And they would pay more than the asking price. If the apartment was (advertised) for one thousand dollars … people would offer fifteen hundred to try to get it. And it pushed out all the alternative people who used to work in the political scene and a lot of the musicians. They all packed up and moved back home to the midwest. And it really destroyed the arts scene, the music scene and also the political scene because everybody worked for non-profit..who was doing it for…. How do you say this?
Australian Guy: Moral?
American Guy: Or some kind of cause.
Australian Guy: Voluntary?
American Guy: Yeah. Voluntary. All the volunteers.
Australian Guy: Community-minded people.
American Guy: Yeah. They could not afford to live there any more. They got completely priced out.
Australian Guy: Around the village like?
American Guy: Yeah. They were literally constrained. When money moves in there is always… when there is an economic boom… That happens. The city is doing well. New jobs are being offered. Then people come in with high-paying jobs and they push people out who have low-paying jobs. The landlords; you can’t blame them. They had strict rent control in San Francisco and they still have it. In New York they abolished rent control and landlords were able to charge what they felt like. But San Francisco had rent control and if you could be in a place, you could hang on. New York; they abolished rent control.
Australian Guy: Where did people move to?
American Guy: This was the question. I asked some people Some of them moved out to like God knows where…
​

 

[Persia1]

I am a Japanese Korean



Download audio file (japanesekorean.mp3)


Mark: Ok so. You. So. Misun. You were born in Japan. Is that right?
Misun: Mm. (Yes)
Mark: Where were you born?
Misun: I was born in Osaka.
Mark: In Osaka. In Osaka City?
Misun: Yes.
Mark: How old are you now?
Misun: I am twenty.
Mark: And your mother and father; were they born in Japan?
Misun: Yes, they were.
Mark: In Osaka?
Misun: My father was born in Osaka but my mother was born in Hyogo.
Mark: Uh-huh and excuse me.
(Interruption from third person)
Mark: (to another person) Can you talk to me later? I am doing something now.
(to Misun) ahm so your father was born in Osaka but your mother was born in Hyogo. Where were your mother’s parents born?
Misun: My mother’s father was born in Korea and my grandfather was born in Korea.
Mark: Where in Korea?
Misun: Is it “Cheju-do“?
Mark: Ah the island.
Misun: Yeah.
Mark: Ok ok. How about your mothers parents; where were they born?
Misun: Ah no my fathers parents were born in Cheju-do. But my mother’s father was also born in Cheju-do. But my mother’s father was born in Japan.
Mark: In Hyogo?
Misun: I don’t know.
Mark: Are your grandparents alive?
Misun: (Japanese pause word) Only two grandmothers.
Mark: Right Ok. Do you have a Japanese passport?
Misun: No, I don’t. I don’t have.
Mark: Do you have a Japanese name?
Misun: Family name; I have.
Mark: Can you get a Japanese passport?
Misun: I can(t?). (can? cannot?)
Mark: So you have a Korean passport.
Misun: I have.
Mark: If you …if you change your Korean name and make (a) total(ly) Japanese name, can you get a Japanese passport? Is it possible? Do you know?
Misun: I don’t know.
Mark: Ok. Good. Thanks.
​

 

[Persia1]

Pakistan Used to Be Part of British India



Download audio file (lahore.mp3)


Mark: You were born in Lahore?
Indian Lady: Lahore. It is now Pakistan.
Mark: At that time it was India.
Indian Lady: It was India.
Mark: Ok. And your whole family moved over here?
Indian Lady: No. My maternal grandparents were there so my mother must have gone there for having me. (to have me)
Mark: To Pakistan?
Indian Lady: To India. At that time it was India. That is how I was born there.
Mark: Ok. So when did you come here to Delhi?
Indian Woman: We were never in Pakistan as such. My family, my father was raised in Delhi.
Mark: Ok. Ok.
Indian Lady: My maternal grandfather was in Lahore.
Mark: I see. I see.
Indian Woman: So that is how mother used to go there.
Mark: So you have always lived here?
Indian Lady: Yes.
Mark: And you said you grew up in this book shop.
Indian Woman: Exactly this place this shop. My father owned it and I spent my childhood playing in this shop. (laughs)
Mark: But also you lived in Japan?
Indian Woman: Yes. My husband was posted there so that took me to Japan for four years.
Mark: In Tokyo?
Indian Lady: In Tokyo.
Mark: What was your impression of Japan?
Indian Woman: They are over-polite.
Mark: Over-polite?
Indian Woman: You seldom get to see (the inside of) their houses. They will stand in the roadside and talk to you.
Mark: Uh-hm.
Indian Woman: And, well, you couldn’t make friends that easily.
Mark: Mm.
Indian Woman: I was playing tennis so tennis made me make many friends there. You know when you are playing tennis whether you knew the language or not …
Mark: It doesn’t matter.
Indian Lady: You were making friends all right. I played a lot of tennis in Japan…. And then the food was a problem for me. I am a vegetarian.
Mark: Right ok.
Indian Lady: So there was hardly anything you could get there; I could get there. Even if I went out for dinners and all, I used to have my food kept at home for me because I would come back hungry.
Mark: They eat a lot of seafood too.
Indian Woman: I don’t eat seafood either.
Mark: Me either. I don’t eat seafood either . It is difficult.
Indian Lady: That was difficult.
Mark: Did you live in any other countries?
Indian Woman: Singapore.
Mark: For very long?
Indian Woman: For five years.
Mark: You said your husband was posted. He was working for a company?
Indian Woman: He was working for the Trade Development Authority of India. He was working here and he was posted there.
Mark: Ah. For the government.
Indian Woman: Looking after the trade promotion. Like their Jetro.
Mark: I see. Oh their Jetro ok…..I have to catch a bus to Manali so I have to run. Thanks for talking to me.
Indian Woman: You are welcome.
Mark: Bye-bye.
Indian Woman: Bye-bye.
​

 

[Persia1]

An English Village in Spain



Download audio file (gibralter.mp3)


Luis: So It is like you see it and it is like on a stage. Something is not working here. I mean an English village should be cloudy, should be foggy, should be… not this starkly blue sky.
Mark: This is Gibraltar?
Luis: This is Gibraltar.
Mark: What is the situation there?
Luis: It is a British colony in south Spain.. It is a British colony in Europe. It is a colony of a European country in another European country.
Mark: And the people in Gibraltar; they don’t want to be Spanish and they don’t want to be British? They want to be independent?
Luis: They want to be independent.
Mark: Right. And they speak English?
Luis: They speak English with a very strong Andalucian accent. A very strong south Spanish accent and the slang they use is Spanish.
Mark: How many people?
Luis: A few thousand.
Mark: A few thousand. Wow! What an interesting place.
Luis: A weird place. Kind of surrealistic actually.
Mark: Right. An English village with the wrong-coloured sky.
Luis: (laughs) To me this is the most surrealistic part of the place because one doesn’t match the other. It is not working. You are missing the clouds, the fog, the…
​

 

[Persia1]

Making a Documentary



Download audio file (documentary.mp3)


Mark: So you are making a documentary?
French Guy: Yes.
Bjorn: Yeah right.
Mark: Yes? Where are you from?
Bjorn: The basic crew is from Germany.
Mark: M-hm.
Bjorn: I am from Switzerland. Our main re-enactor is from France. And another protagonist is also from France.
Mark: Right so you are French, Swiss and German.
Bjorn: Yes. It is basically German. It is a German crew.
Mark: Everybody is speaking English though (able to speak English).
French Guy: Yes.
Bjorn: Yes.
Mark: What part of Switzerland do you come from?
Bjorn: I am from Bern. The Swiss-German part.
Mark: So you are a German (speaker)?
Bjorn: Yeah. Swiss-German and I have been living for fifteen years in Munich.
Mark: What is the documentary about?
Bjorn: Ok. The documentary is about the character of Henri Le Saux. He is a French monk born in 1910.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Bjorn: In forty-nine he moved in a mission for the Benedictine…
Mark: Ah He is a Christian.
Bjorn: Yeah. Christian monk. Benedictine monk from Brittany in France. He moved to India in order to mission the Hindus.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: In order to understand the deeper meaning of hinduism.
Mark: M-hm
Bjorn: He went deeper and deeper into the Vedas and eventually turned sanyasin.
Mark: Really?
Bjorn: However without leaving his Benedictine..
Mark and Bjorn: Order.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: It would not be such an amazing case but he left a lot of writings and he wrote a lot of books about this ambiguity and this sort of being torn between two religions but eventually he did not want to serve any of the religions but he wanted to look for God.
Mark: To serve God. Right.
Bjorn: To serve God. Yeah. So he lived here from forty-nine to seventy-three. He never went back.
Mark: Right
Bjorn: Although he was invited to lots of times. He led a very simple and full life and he left a lot of writings and so we… This is the third time we have been in India. We have been here two years ago in Rishikesh. We were last year in south India in Tiranamalai ..where the ashram of Ramana Maharshi is; where he was a scholar.
he had his self realization through Ramana Mahashi. So he had a really deep religious and spiritual experience in his ashram there.
Mark: Great.
Bjorn: And later on he moved to northern India.
Mark: Uh-huh.
Bjorn: And he made a sort of pilgrimage to the source of the Ganges…to Gangotri where we just have just been re-enacting lots of things with Christian, our re-enactor of Henri le Saux.
Mark: Right.
Bjorn: So we are trying to get bits and things together on this small indie movie level.
Mark: It is just an independent movie?
Bjorn: Yeah it is an independent movie and we are trying to put together a ninety minute documentary.
Mark: When do you think you will finish?
Bjorn: I think honestly it is going to be another one and a half years.
Mark: Well. Good luck!
Bjorn: Thank you.
​

 

[Persia1]

Football is the Global Language



Download audio file (football1.mp3)


Yorkshireman: What it is… It is just like it is something that everyone can relate to. It is like someone; you know like when you meet someone?
Australian Bloke: Yeah.
Yorkshireman: When you meet someone and you don’t really like know them too well and you want to…
Australian Bloke: Break the ice.
Yorkshireman: Yeah. Break the ice. Sort of thing. You know?
“Ah what football team do you support?”,”I support…”, “What do you support them for?” And you throw a bit of banter about. (laughs)You know what I mean?
Australian Bloke: You and that guy from Birmingham were like that! (holds up two fingers)(non-verbal signal) You know. Like. Straight away. You know?
Yorkshireman: The thing is, as well, I support Leeds United. He supports Man. United and they hate each other.
Australian Bloke: Which teams?
Yorkshireman: I support Leeds United.
Australian Bloke: Leeds United.
Yorkshireman: Which is like northeast and he supports Man United which is northwest… And the northeast and northwest … When we were younger… ah like no before I was even born… Like back in the day … They had a war called The War of the Roses.
Australian Bloke: Yeah. I have read about that.
Yorkshireman: Over whether the rose should be white or red. Sort of thing and it still relates back to that and they, like, hate each other. They hate each other more than anyone can hate anyone. But you can have a laugh about it outside of it. You know what I mean? You can have a laugh and joke about it. It doesn’t rule your life, as such. But it is a big part of your life. When it came to a game against Leeds, Man United; I would rather spit on them than talk to them and vice versa you know what I mean?
Australian Bloke: It is all a …it’s all a game.
Yorkshireman: But its… That is just how it is. We call FOOTBALL “the global language” because you don’t need to be able to speak the same language to be able to have a game of football with someone.
​

 

[Persia1]

Indian Languages



Download audio file (indianlanguages.mp3)


On the sandy bank of the Ganges near Rishikesh, Mark ran into a man who lived in the nearby ashram. They stood on the beach and talked for a few minutes.
Mark: Which Indian languages can you speak?
Guy on the Beach: Which language?
Mark: Which Indian languages? Yeah.
Guy: Aah maybe Hindi and this ah Telugu, Kerala, and Rajastani, and this ah Punjabi, Tamil, Malayalam, Assami and Bengali.
Mark: Everything? You understand everything?
Guy: Yeah yeah yeah.
Mark: Bhutani and Nepali?
Guy: Bhutani and Nepali same-same.
Mark: Wow!
Guy: Bhutani Nepali Timputi. Same. Same.
Mark: Same ok ok but when you were … when you stay with your mother and father…?
Guy: My mother and father is (are from) Nepal.
Mark: So at home you spoke Nepali?
Guy: Yes. Sometimes my parents lived in Bhutan. Then I spoke it no problem. My mother tongue is Nepal(i). But for a very long time I stayed in Rajastan. Then I was speaking (Rajistani).
Mark: How old were you when you left Nepal?
Guy: Me?
Mark: Yeah.
Guy: My parents?
Mark: You.
Guy: Me. Maybe fifteen years. My mum. Just my age now. Thirty-five years. (When my mum was just my age now.)
Mark: And you lived in many places in India?
Guy: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark: Study?
Guy: Study, no. Sometimes business and sometimes as a tourist. Only for tourism
before I am a doctor.
Mark: Doctor?
Guy: Medical doctor…chemist.
Mark: And now you stay in an ashram?
Guy: Yeah. I like it. Meditation.
Mark: Six years? Oh good. Thank you.
​