Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
I'm Connor from polyglossa.com and you're listening to episode 18 of the Listening Time podcast.
This podcast is designed to help English learners practice their listening skills.
So if you're in the process of learning English and and you're having trouble understanding native speakers when they speak fast, at normal speed, then you can listen to this podcast to help train your ears and give yourself more practice for your comprehension.
In this podcast I talk about different topics each episode and in each episode I speak normally, naturally using normal words and phrases and expressions, but I speak a little bit more slowly and a little bit more clearly than the average native speaker.
So I'm speaking using natural words and phrases, but a little bit more slowly, so that you can understand a little bit better.
So eventually, after listening to this podcast for a while, Your ears will start to get better, become more skilled at understanding me and then hopefully, you'll be able to transition and start listening to normal podcasts made for English speakers.
Also, remember that for each episode, the transcript is available.
You can access it in the details part of the episode.
So you can listen to each episode multiple times.
And maybe the first time you don't use the transcript.
And then the second time, you use the transcript to help you understand the words and phrases that you missed the first time.
And then maybe you can listen again without the transcript to see if you can understand those words and phrases the third time.
That's just one example of how you might want to use this podcast.
And remember that I'm not reading a script.
So everything I'm saying is natural.
And I'm just speaking as the words come to my mind.
So this podcast should be a good resource to help you understand English better.
And I just want to note that in some episodes my voice sounds a little worse than in other episodes.
This is because sometimes I record this podcast early in the morning, like today, and so my voice is just barely waking up.
So it doesn't sound as great as in other episodes.
And also, I want to note that I think the schedule for the podcast has become pretty regular.
So you might have noticed that I'm uploading an episode every every week.
Now one episode per week, and I upload each episode on Monday.
So I think that this schedule will stick.
When I say that it will stick, I mean that it will stay.
It won't change.
And so you should expect a new episode every Monday.
And yeah, I think that I've found the schedule, the rhythm that works for me.
So today we're going to talk about the circus.
This is an interesting topic.
I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
So we'll talk about that today.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so today we're going to talk about the circus.
The reason why I chose this topic for today's episode is because on the weekend I actually went to the circus.
So it's on my mind and I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss.
So first of all, I want to mention that this was the first time that I ever went to a classical circus.
So it was an interesting experience for me.
I didn't know what to expect exactly, but of course I had some ideas beforehand from movies that I had watched, because of course I think we've all seen the circus in a movie or a TV show before.
So obviously I had some ideas but it was interesting to finally see one in real life.
So this was a small circus, very small actually, and it was just a modest production.
In English, when we say that something is modest, We're saying that it wasn't very expensive or extravagant or fancy.
It was just a nice, simple performance.
So it costs only, I think it costs only $1.50 or $2 to enter here in my city in Mexico.
And there aren't many seats at the circus here, but I think there are enough for the amount of people that go.
And so the first thing that you'll notice about the circus anywhere is that it takes place in a tent.
We usually use the word tent when we're talking about camping, right?
You sleep in a tent, usually on the ground.
Well, at a circus, you also have a very big tent, right?
Obviously much bigger than the type of tent you use for camping.
So you go inside this tent and you find your seat and then the show begins.
So this show that I went to, the circus that I went to, There were a few classic elements of any circus, I think.
For example, there was a ringmaster, as we call him.
The ringmaster is the person who introduces all of the different acts, right?
He's the one who's hosting the event.
When someone hosts an event, we're saying that they are the person who is in control.
They're doing the event, right?
So the ringmaster hosts the event and he talks into the microphone and interacts with the audience.
And as I said, he introduces each individual act.
So there was a ringmaster and there were clowns.
Clowns are those people that dress up in funny clothes and they paint their face and they wear a wig.
A wig is fake hair, right?
If you're bald, you can wear a wig so that it looks like you have hair.
So clowns often wear a wig and they wear a lot of funny things, because the purpose of the clown is to be funny.
So there were a couple clowns there.
And then there were also acrobats.
Acrobats are the people that... fly through the air, holding a rope.
And they do many scary tricks and maneuvers in the air.
And it's one of the classic elements of a circus, I think.
So there were acrobats, and then one other element, one other act that we saw was the tightrope walking.
A tightrope is a very small rope that goes from one side to another.
And then the tightrope walker is the person who walks along this rope.
And they balance so they don't fall on the ground.
And they do different tricks and things on this small, thin rope.
So it's very, very difficult.
But this is something that the tightrope walker trains for probably very often, and they get very good at walking on this very thin rope.
So those were some of the elements that we saw at the circus.
In general, at circuses in general, There are also many other common elements or acts at the circus.
For example, there is juggling.
Juggling is the act where people have three or four or more objects and they throw them in the air and And they use both of their hands and they keep these objects in the air.
The objects never fall to the ground.
So this is one very common act at circuses.
And then another act is unicycling.
A unicycle is like a bicycle, but it only has one wheel.
So I think at some circuses there are unicyclists who juggle or do other things while they're riding a unicycle.
And one other act that I can think of is knife throwing.
This is where someone throws knives in the direction of another person, but they don't actually hit the person.
They hit the wall behind the person.
They get very close to hitting the person with the knife, but Obviously they don't actually hit them.
So this is another classic act at circuses.
So one major element that circuses used to have that nowadays they often don't have is animals.
So when people think of circuses, usually one of the things they think of is lions and tigers and elephants and interesting animals like that.
However nowadays, I think that most circuses don't include this element, because people have complained about animal abuse and they complain that animals are mistreated at circuses.
So I think, because many people complain about that, Circuses have been forced to abandon this element.
I don't really know much about the issue, but I've just noticed that animals are often excluded from circuses nowadays, and Maybe they're always excluded.
I don't really know.
As I said, I haven't been to other circuses so I'm not quite sure if other circuses have animals or not, but I think that most of them don't.
Another reason why circuses might not have animals is that they can have some pretty bad accidents with these animals.
I think that, for example, if you have a lion, this lion can attack the performer.
Maybe they're not very well trained or something like that, or maybe they get very frustrated or something and they can attack humans.
So I'm sure that's another reason why having animals is not the best at these circuses.
So let's just talk a little bit about the cultural significance of circuses and a little bit of the history.
From my research, I found that circuses began in the 18th century in England.
So the first modern circuses started It took place in the 1700s, I think in London.
And at first, I think they didn't always use a tent.
They might have used a real building.
But later on, they adopted the style of using a tent and traveling around with this tent.
So the traveling aspect of the circus is another very important element.
In the past, circuses would travel around the country, and so the performers would would have to travel between cities, and they would spend weeks or months on the road.
And this is something that you've probably seen in movies or read in books or things like that.
You know, circuses would come to town, as we would say.
So the circus would appear in your town and then you would go see the show.
So this is an important element about circuses, is that they travel.
Nowadays, I don't know if this is still true if circus performers have to travel all the time and go on tour.
But I'm sure they do because different circuses like to perform in different cities.
So I'm sure they still do some traveling like that.
And circuses are something that capture the imagination of children.
So I think that children have always been interested in circuses.
And if you see... circuses in movies or TV shows or in books.
You can always see children getting very excited to go because circuses are very mystical or magical events.
They involve a lot of strange things that we don't normally see in our daily lives, and And so it's very interesting for people, especially for children, to see these strange elements and strange people and strange events at a circus.
So I think, even in my experience, when I went to the circus this past weekend, I could see the children very, very captivated by this performance.
When we use the word captivated, we're saying that someone is very interested in something that's happening.
They can't turn their head away from watching this performance.
They're captivated by the performance.
So the children there looked like they were having a lot of fun and It was something really cool and different for them.
So I think that circuses have changed throughout the years and they're different now from how they were in the past.
But I'm sure that circuses will continue to exist, because I think that children will always be intrigued by them.
So as long as children are interested in circuses, I think that there will be circuses.
So nowadays, I think in the United States, circuses aren't extremely popular.
Like I said, I think they will continue to exist, but I have to admit that I think most people in big cities don't really think about the circus that often.
Like I said, I had never been to the circus before this past weekend.
But one style or one type of circus that people do really like is Cirque du Soleil.
You might have heard of this company before.
This is the name of a very famous circus company based in Montreal, Canada.
The name Cirque du Soleil is a French name.
And this company is very, very famous because they have really good performances.
Their shows are extremely well done and very professional.
And so everyone loves watching these performances.
I've been to one Cirque du Soleil performance before.
It was in Las Vegas, and it was extremely impressive.
I had never seen anything like this before.
The level of skill and the level of danger that I saw at this circus performance was was amazing.
The type of tricks that they were doing were really, really incredible.
It was a little scary to watch because I felt like the people there, the acrobats.
They were doing things that were really, really dangerous.
So it's kind of hard to watch, in my opinion.
But it's really amazing.
And I was captivated the whole time when I watched that performance.
And I think for adults, it's just as interesting as it is for kids.
So that is one style of circus that's very popular nowadays.
And there are other themed circuses.
When we say that something is themed...
We're saying that it has a style or story or appearance that is different from the classic version.
So one example of a themed circus could be a horror circus, a scary circus.
I've seen some of these along the side of the road here in Mexico.
These types of circuses are designed to scare you.
They're designed to be scary and not only entertaining like normal circuses, but scary.
So I know there are some different themed circuses as well.
So there's a variety in the world of circuses.
Okay, so I'm going to stop there for today.
Hopefully this episode was interesting for you.
And hopefully it was good practice for your ears.
Make sure to sign up for our $1 listening practice seminars at polyglossa.com.
And please give this podcast a like, a rating, a review, and share it with anyone else who might find it useful.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
And I hope you'll come back for episode 19 of the Listening Time podcast.
