Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
I'm Connor from polyglossa.com, and you're listening to Episode 4 of the Listening Time Podcast.
Welcome.
If this is your first time listening, I'm happy to have you here with us.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
If you can already understand a lot of English, but you can't understand normal podcasts that are made for English speakers, this podcast is perfect for you.
This will help you reach the next level in your listening.
Speak a little bit more slowly than other native speakers in this podcast and I speak a little bit more clearly.
I talk about different topics each podcast, usually one or two different topics, and I speak with natural speech, natural words, phrases, expressions, the natural things that I would normally say to other native speakers, but I say them a little bit more slowly and a little bit more clearly.
So I don't read any script when I do these podcasts, when I record these episodes.
So you're hearing real speech.
You're not hearing scripted speech like beginner listening practice audios or videos that might come with English packages or programs.
This is real speech.
This is me speaking normally, but a little bit slower and a little bit more clearly.
So in this episode, I'm going to talk about a couple things.
I'm going to talk about the weather and I'm going to talk about advertising.
These are two very different topics and they're a little random.
But who cares?
Let's talk about them.
Also, remember that the transcript is available with every episode.
So if you need to read the transcript to help you understand what I'm saying, then you can find that attached to each episode.
So also remember to go to polyglossacom and sign up for our 1 listening practice seminars if you want to practice your listening more.
And, of course, if you like this podcast, please share it with your friends, who could also find it useful.
And if you can, give it a rating and a review.
That would help this podcast grow and reach more people.
So whatever platform you're listening on, try to give it a rating and a review.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, first we're going to talk about the weather.
This is a very important topic because this is something we talk about almost every day, really.
When I talk to people like my students or family members or friends, oftentimes we start the conversation by talking about the weather that day.
It's a very common point of discussion.
So first I'll tell you a little bit about the weather in my hometown, which is San Diego, California.
And then we'll talk about weather in other parts of the world.
So in San Diego, we have famous weather.
Our weather is renowned throughout the country because it's known as being very nice, very mild weather.
When something is mild, that means it's not too strong or extreme.
So if I say that we have mild winters in San Diego, that means that our winters are not very cold or very extreme.
They're mild.
Okay?
So San Diego has mild weather.
We have warm summers, and I think we have warm springs and autumns too, in my opinion.
Other people might disagree, but I think they're pretty warm.
And then even our winter is not cold.
It's mild, like I said.
I wouldn't say that it's very warm, but on many days in the winter time you can go outside with shorts and a t-shirt.
It's very common for people to do that in December or January, depending on the weather that day.
It's not always like that in the winter, but many days are like that.
So it's a very nice winter, in my opinion, because I don't like cold winters.
It doesn't feel like the winter to people who are accustomed to real winters.
So our weather is classified as semi-arid.
Arid just means dry.
So if the climate is arid, that means it doesn't rain a lot.
So San Diego is semi-arid, and it can also be classified as Mediterranean.
So it has similar weather to places like Mexico.
Maybe the south of Spain or Portugal or France, Italy, Greece.
It probably has similar weather to those places.
So it's very nice.
It's a famous destination, a popular destination for vacationers because of the weather.
So in terms of weather in other parts of the world...
Usually it's more extreme than in San Diego.
For example, I have many students in Russia.
In Russia, the winters are very cold.
It can get down to minus 30 degrees even. depending on where you are.
I can't even imagine that type of winter, but I'm sure some of you have experienced that before.
In other parts of the world, like in Africa or some parts of Central America, South America Asia, many places Europe.
In many places, it gets really hot.
It's the other extreme.
I know that in some places, it can get up to 50 degrees even.
That's pretty crazy.
For most of us, that seems really, really hot.
Just a side note, since I'm American, I should tell you that in the US we don't use Celsius, we use Fahrenheit.
It's 75 degrees today.
If you don't know anything about Fahrenheit, that would probably seem crazy.
75 degrees?
Well, that's not that hot.
It's just a different system of measuring the temperature.
In the rest of the world we use Celsius, but in the US we use Fahrenheit.
So it's a little difficult to talk about the weather with Americans if you're not from America.
So yeah, in terms of extreme weather, I already mentioned Russian winters or summers in hot countries like in the Sahara, for example.
We can see a huge range of temperatures, but we also have extreme weather in terms of storms.
So in certain places, we have phenomena like hurricanes or tornadoes or floods or things like that.
So for example, in the southeast of the United States, there are hurricanes like every year.
You've probably heard of some of these.
The most famous one in the last couple decades was Hurricane Katrina, which was very devastating to the state of Louisiana.
So hurricanes can do a lot of damage to a city or to many cities, really.
And then tornadoes are a phenomenon that happens in the middle of the US.
So if you live in places like Oklahoma or Nebraska or Kansas, you're in tornado country.
So a tornado is kind of like a circular air pattern that gets really, really strong and can destroy buildings and do a lot of damage.
It causes a lot of damage when it rolls through a city in the middle of the US.
Luckily, I've never experienced hurricanes or tornadoes before and I hope I never do.
And I hope you don't have to deal with those types of storms either.
One thing that I do have to deal with is flooding.
Right now, in my city, there are a lot of floods.
I currently live in Guadalajara, Mexico, but I'll probably be moving pretty soon.
But right now I'm in Guadalajara, and here in the summertime there's a lot of rain.
And the city is really unprepared for this rainy season.
So the streets flood with water.
When the streets flood, that means that the water builds up and rises and it doesn't go away.
So the streets become like rivers.
I'm sure some of you have experienced this as well in your cities.
But I think it's awful.
I hate the rainy season here because we always have these floods.
So if you don't have floods in your city, you should feel lucky.
They're not fun to deal with.
The hottest weather I've ever experienced is I think about...
47, 48 degrees maybe.
And I think that was in Las Vegas.
And the coldest weather I've ever been in is I think minus 2 or minus 3 degrees maybe.
I really haven't been in cold weather before.
I'm sure some of you are laughing right now because for many of you negative two or negative three degrees is not cold or not very cold.
But for me, it's freezing.
So yeah, let's move on now and talk a little bit about our other topic, which is advertising.
This is a very important and relevant topic because all of us, or almost all of us, see ads or advertisements every day.
If you use social media, you undoubtedly see many ads, right?
So we have different types of ads.
For example, I just mentioned social media ads, so ads on Instagram and Facebook and other social media platforms.
And those ads can be photos or videos or maybe just text, but they come in different forms.
We also have print ads.
A print ad just means that it's printed out on a piece of paper.
So like in the newspaper, you'll see ads.
But nowadays, many people have switched from physical newspapers to online news.
So these types of physical ads are becoming less popular, I think.
And then we have TV ads, which we call commercials.
And these commercials run in between programs and during breaks in the middle of TV shows.
We have those commercials.
And another one I just thought of is billboards.
A billboard is that giant rectangle that you see when you're driving on the freeway, or maybe just a normal street?
You'll see these big rectangular signs that advertise companies, products, TV shows, etc.
These are called billboards.
I still see many billboards here in my city and I'm sure you still see some billboards in your city too.
These have been around for a long time.
So, advertising has changed a lot since the past.
In the past, print ads were very, very important.
They were probably the first ads that we had.
Before television and radio and social media, you could only print your advertisements or maybe just say them to someone.
Tell someone about your product.
But as the time went on, we saw ads being revolutionized and changed.
And so we began to hear radio ads everywhere.
And of course, TV commercials.
And for me, when I think of the past, when I think of my childhood, I can remember many commercials.
Many commercials stuck with me over the years.
When I say they stuck with me, this means that they stayed in my memory.
They stayed in my brain.
So if I say what my dad said stuck with me for many years, I'm saying that what my dad said stayed in my brain for many years.
So many commercials stuck with me, and I still remember them now.
For example, I remember certain commercials about not doing drugs.
When I was a kid, we saw many commercials that tried to persuade children and teenagers to not do drugs or not smoke or things like that.
And I can vividly remember these ads, these commercials.
And so I think the advertisers at that time did a really good job, because I can remember the exact words from those ads.
Another one I remember was a Carl's Jr. commercial.
Carl's Jr. is a hamburger chain.
A chain is a restaurant or store that has many locations throughout the country or the world, like Starbucks Subway, etc.
So I remember this Carl's Jr commercial where the man was eating this huge burger and they did such a good job with the sound effects.
It sounded so tasty the way he was eating it.
And I remember when he sipped the soda, it sounded so refreshing.
When you sip something, That means that you drink it through a straw.
You know, those long cylinders that you use to drink soda or other drinks.
So sip is when you go, you sip it.
So I remember him sipping the soda and it sounded so good.
And that commercial has stuck with me even until now.
So they did a really good job with that commercial, that advertisement.
Nowadays, commercials are not the main form of advertisement when it comes to reaching young people.
I know old people or older people still watch a lot of TV so they see a lot of commercials.
But younger people don't watch a lot of TV.
They prefer to stream things on their devices.
And they spend a lot of time on social media.
So nowadays, advertisers usually focus on social media ad campaigns.
And they have to be really effective with how they construct their ad, because we see so many ads every day.
And so we kind of just skip over these ads.
We don't look at them.
So the advertisers have to be really creative with the way they construct their ads so that we actually want to stop and click on the link in the ad.
It's difficult.
I know this because I'm currently trying to run some ads on Facebook for my website.
And it's not easy to make a really effective ad.
And so I have a lot to learn.
I don't really like this.
I'm not good at marketing, advertising, etc.
I'm not very creative in that way, so it's not natural for me.
But I have to do it if I want to reach people and tell them about my business.
So today, anyone who has a company has to consider social media ads as an option to reach new clients right.
So it's not easy.
I don't like it, as I said, but I can't avoid it.
I have to do it.
So yeah, it's something that I just have to deal with.
But yeah, advertising is definitely an art form.
There are people that are really good at it.
There are people that are not so good at it.
And it takes a lot of practice and creativity.
All right.
Well, we're going to stop there for today.
Hopefully these topics were interesting for you.
And hopefully you understood most of what I said.
Remember to access the transcript if you need it and you can read and listen to the episode again and try to understand all the new words that you missed the first time.
So make sure you use that transcript if you need it.
And remember to share this podcast with anyone who might find it useful.
Please help this podcast grow and become more popular.
And remember that if you can, rate and review this podcast.
Write your opinion of it and tell the world what you think of the Listening Time podcast.
And of course, remember to check out polyglossa.com and our $1 listening practice seminars.
And of course, you can find us on YouTube, youtube.com slash polyglossa.
And you can check out our listening practice videos on our YouTube channel and Instagram as well.
The username is at polyglossa languages.
So thank you very much for listening to this episode.
I hope it was good practice for your ears.
So join us next time for Episode 5 of the Listening Time Podcast.
