Coffee Break English season four, episode nine.
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Coffee Break English.
I'm Josie. And I'm Mark.
How are you today, Josie?
I'm fine. Thank you, Mark.
I'm excited because we're going off to New Zealand in today's text.
We are indeed. Have you traveled to New Zealand before?
I have never been to New Zealand.
No, I've been to Australia, but never New Zealand.
What about you? I've never been, but I would love to go.
Me too. A lot of people say it's quite similar to Scotland, so maybe that's why we would like to go.
Perhaps. But today, we can travel virtually with Zoe.
So let's get straight on with the episode.
Hello, Zoe. Kia ora, everyone.
It's Zoe here with another text from New Zealand.
This time, we're going to be finding out more about our beautiful country.
New Zealand is well known for its stunning natural landscapes.
In fact, you've probably seen New Zealand's nature many times without realizing it.
The country's beauty is no secret to filmmakers, as New Zealand has featured in many fantasy films.
Peter Jackson's world famous Lord of the Rings films were all made in New Zealand, using the tiny town of Matamata as the Shire, as well as many other locations.
James Cameron's Avatar was partly filmed in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.
The Kiwi director, Taika Waititi, who is known for films like Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Thor, has used the beauty of his home country as a filming location for every film he's directed.
But what makes New Zealand's ancient landscape so fascinating?
Its two main islands sit on the boundary between the Pacific and Indo -Australian tectonic plates.
Movement of these plates, thousands of years ago, led to the creation of the country's mountains and other features of the landscape.
To give just a few examples, New Zealand is home to one of the world's largest active supervolcanoes, a group of emerald lakes that appear green in colour, a 500 -kilometre -long mountain range and a huge area of mountains, lakes and rivers called the Fiordland.
You only have to glance at its mountains, valleys and rivers to see why New Zealand is so loved.
The country has a mild climate, so if you visit, you don't have to worry about scorching summer days or freezing winter nights.
Often described as a real -world version of a fantasy landscape, the wonderful geographical features found on the islands of New Zealand really are worth seeing.
Thank you, Zoe. It's nice to hear from Zoe for the first time on Coffee Break English.
And Zoe started with a very interesting word.
She did. Instead of saying hello, she said kiaura.
And kiaura is the Maori word for hello, the indigenous language of New Zealand.
That's right, exactly.
Now, the other thing Zoe did was use some really extreme words for perhaps an extreme country or a country of many extremes.
That's right. And that's today's language point.
We're going to focus on extreme adjectives.
Let's listen to the text again, then, as we go through it.
New Zealand is well known for its stunning natural landscapes.
Yes, New Zealand is well known.
It is known by a lot of people.
It is famous for its stunning natural landscapes.
What does stunning mean, Mark?
Stunning is a word that we would use to mean very beautiful.
That's right. And this is our first example of an extreme adjective.
An extreme adjective is just an adjective which can replace the word very and a normal, a regular adjective.
So very beautiful, stunning.
They mean the same thing.
And we wouldn't say very stunning.
No, we wouldn't say very stunning.
With these extreme adjectives, you don't use very because they already have very included in their meaning.
OK. And we're talking about stunning landscapes.
What's a landscape, Josie?
A landscape is basically everything in an area of land that you can see, like mountains, trees, rivers.
OK. In fact, you've probably seen New Zealand's nature many times without realising it.
Yes. And we're going to learn where we've seen New Zealand's nature.
The country's beauty is no secret to filmmakers, as New Zealand has featured in many fantasy films.
Yes, the country's beauty.
Beauty is the noun connected to beautiful, of course.
And this beauty is no secret to filmmakers.
So for a filmmaker, a person who writes and creates films, it's not a secret.
They know how beautiful New Zealand is.
Peter Jackson's world famous Lord of the Rings films were all made in New Zealand using the tiny town of Matamata as the Shire, as well as many other locations.
Yes. Peter Jackson's world famous Lord of the Rings films.
So world famous means that these films are famous all over the world.
And these films were filmed in the tiny town of Matamata.
What does tiny mean, Josie?
Yes, tiny is another extreme adjective and it means very small or very little.
OK. James Cameron's Avatar was partly filmed in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.
Yes. So this film was partly filmed in Wellington.
So some of the film was filmed in Wellington, not all of it.
The Kiwi director, Taika Waititi, who is known for films like Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Thor has used the beauty of his home country as a filming location for every film he's directed.
Yes. So what does it mean if Taika Waititi is a Kiwi director?
Kiwi is an adjective that's used to talk about someone from New Zealand.
Yes. And this name comes from the Kiwi bird, which is a bird native to New Zealand.
OK, we're going to pause there and take a quick break.
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Welcome back to Coffee Break English.
Let's continue with our text about New Zealand.
But what makes New Zealand's ancient landscape so fascinating?
In this question, we've got two extreme adjectives.
What makes New Zealand's ancient landscape?
Ancient means very old and fascinating.
What makes New Zealand's ancient landscape so fascinating?
What does fascinating mean, Mark?
Very interesting. That's right.
Exactly. OK, let's answer the question.
It's two main islands sit on the boundary between the Pacific and Indo -Australian tectonic plates.
OK, so first of all, what is a tectonic plate?
The tectonic plates are huge pieces of rock which form the earth's surface.
That's right. And so New Zealand, the two main islands of New Zealand, they sit on the boundary, they sit on the line between the Pacific and the Indo -Australian tectonic plates.
Movement of these plates thousands of years ago led to the creation of the country's mountains and other features of the landscape.
Yes, so the fact that these plates moved thousands of years ago, this caused, this made the creation of New Zealand's mountains.
To give just a few examples, New Zealand is home to one of the world's largest active super volcanoes, a group of emerald lakes that appear green in colour, a 500 kilometre long mountain range and a huge area of mountains, lakes and rivers called the fjordland.
Yes, this is a very long sentence here, so let's break it down a little.
These are some examples of New Zealand's stunning landscape.
So New Zealand is home to one of the world's largest active super volcanoes.
A super volcano is, I think, a very powerful volcano.
That's right. And also a group of emerald lakes that appear to be green in colour.
What does the word emerald mean, Mark?
Emerald is a bright green colour.
It's a precious stone.
And next in the list is a 500 kilometre long mountain range.
A mountain range is a line of mountains which are joined together like the Alps or the Andes.
That's right. And then there's also the fjordland and the fjordland is this area of mountains, lakes and rivers, similar to what can be found in Norway.
Yes, that's right. And Zoe says this fjordland is a huge area of mountains, lakes and rivers.
Huge is the extreme adjective for very big.
It means very big. Can you think of any other extreme adjectives for big, Mark?
We could say enormous.
Massive? That's right.
Also gigantic. Gargantuan.
Oh, yeah, that's a very extreme one.
OK, you only have to glance at its mountains, valleys and rivers to see why New Zealand is so loved.
Yes, you only have to glance at its mountains, valleys and rivers.
This means that all you have to do is to glance to look very quickly at its landscape to see why people love New Zealand.
We've seen mountains before.
We've seen rivers before.
But what are valleys?
Good question. A valley is the low land between hills or mountains.
OK, the country has a mild climate.
So if you visit, you don't have to worry about scorching summer days or freezing winter nights.
Yes, the climate of the country, the general weather of the country is mild.
So it's not very hot and not very cold.
So if you visit, you don't have to worry about scorching summer days.
What's scorching, Mark?
Well, scorching is an extreme adjective meaning very hot.
That's right. We could also say boiling or roasting.
And you also won't experience freezing winter nights in New Zealand.
Freezing means very cold.
OK. Often described as a real world version of a fantasy landscape, the wonderful geographical features found on the islands of New Zealand really are worth seeing.
Yes, so New Zealand is often described as a real world version of a fantasy landscape.
So like a fantasy film, something you would see in a fantasy film, New Zealand looks like the real world version, the version in reality of this.
OK, and wonderful is another extreme adjective.
It means very good.
That's right. There are quite a lot of extreme adjectives that mean very good.
Fantastic. Yep. Or amazing.
Excellent. Exactly.
There are quite a lot.
Let's listen again to the whole text now and listen out for these extreme adjectives.
New Zealand is well known for its stunning natural landscapes.
In fact, you've probably seen New Zealand's nature many times without realising it.
The country's beauty is no secret to filmmakers, as New Zealand has featured in many fantasy films.
Peter Jackson's world famous Lord of the Rings films were all made in New Zealand, using the tiny town of Matamata as the Shire, as well as many other locations.
James Cameron's Avatar was partly filmed in Wellington, the capital of New Zealand.
The Kiwi director Taika Waititi, who is known for films like Hunt for the Wilder People and Thor, has used the beauty of his home country as a filming location for every film he's directed.
But what makes New Zealand's ancient landscape so fascinating?
Its two main islands sit on the boundary between the Pacific and Indo -Australian tectonic plates.
Movement of these plates thousands of years ago led to the creation of the country's mountains and other features of the landscape.
To give just a few examples, New Zealand is home to one of the world's largest active super volcanoes, a group of emerald lakes that appear green in colour, a 500 -kilometre long mountain range, and a huge area of mountains, lakes and rivers called the Fiordland.
You only have to glance at its mountains, valleys and rivers to see why New Zealand is so loved.
The country has a mild climate, so if you visit, you don't have to worry about scorching summer days or freezing winter nights.
Often described as a real -world version of a fantasy landscape, the wonderful geographical features found on the islands of New Zealand really are worth seeing.
Thank you everyone for listening to this episode of Coffee Break English.
We hope it's been useful for you.
We will be back soon with the final episode in this series, and we are heading back to the United States and Canada.
Yes, that's right. We are going to be talking about Niagara Falls.
Okay. In the meantime, you can find us on social media.
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And don't forget to sign up for the free lesson notes at coffeebreakenglish .com.
For now, thank you very much for listening and we'll be back soon with the next lesson.
See you next time.
