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Answer key: Unit 12
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2 Mastering languages 7 We live in a highly competitive world. Countries
compete with each other, employers compete with
each other and people compete. Consequently, we
Starting off should be teaching young people to use language for
persuasion rather than self-expression. It’s all very well
1 1 bilingual 2 switch 3 fashionable loanwords
4 mother tongue 5 a bit rusty 6 pick up being able to say what you think and feel, but you’ve
7 an excellent command 8 highly articulate got to be able to sell yourself, sell your product, achieve
9 accurately 10 fluency 11 aims your aims.
2 Listening | Part 1
CD 1 Track 05 2 1 C 2 B 3 A 4 A 5 C 6 B
1 Where I live people tend to be bilingual – they speak
the regional and the national language and they switch CD 1 Track 06
between languages with ease. As a result, they seem to Extract One
find it easier to learn other languages as well. At least Woman: I find not knowing the local language is the
I know quite a lot of people who speak several foreign most frustrating thing when travelling, but you made
languages. a conscious decision to learn it when you were in
Mongolia, didn’t you?
2: People do worry a bit about how the language is
Man: Not so much conscious. I sort of picked it up after
changing. I think, due to globalisation I suppose, lots of
I arrived and I found it really helped me settle into the
fashionable loanwords are coming into the language,
area and talk to folk there. Otherwise I’d have had to
particularly from English, so my mother tongue’s not at
use an interpreter, which I certainly couldn’t afford.
all the same as it was, say, fifty years ago. Personally, I
don’t know if that’s a bad thing – I mean, if people find Woman: How long were you there?
it easier to express themselves using loanwords, then Man: Oh, nearly a year and it was great really being able
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perhaps they should. to get some understanding of people’s real interests
and concerns.
3 I find it frustrating because I spent years trying to reach
Woman: And now you speak the language fluently?
an advanced level but now my English has got a bit
rusty because I don’t use it very often and that’s a pity. Man: Well, I reckon I can more or less hold my own in a
conversation.
4 I spent years at school studying Spanish and never
learnt to speak it well. I guess I should have been sent Woman: So do you think the key to good language
on an exchange to a Spanish or a Mexican school for learning is to be naturally gifted?
six months or thereabouts ‘cause everyone knows that Man: It certainly helps, and it’s not a gift we all have.
living in the country, you just pick up the language I’m fairly outgoing and uninhibited and that helps
naturally and that’s just about the best way to learn it. too. I mean, you won’t get very far if you’re scared of
making a fool of yourself. What’s essential, though, is
5 I’m really dedicated to studying languages. I aim to application – you know, just getting stuck into it and
achieve an excellent command of English, which means making the effort.
becoming highly articulate and being able to use the Woman: Well, that’s the key to learning almost anything. I
language accurately and effortlessly.
mean, you don’t learn other things like maths or tennis
6 Language is a tool for achieving other things and, just by being uninhibited!
frankly, I wouldn’t consider accuracy to be as important Extract Two
as fluency when learning a foreign language. I think the Rajiv: I came across something in a magazine recently
main thing is to make oneself understood.
that mentioned that spelling reform would cut the
space writing takes up by about fifteen percent.
Imagine: newspapers, libraries and bookshops with
fifteen percent more room! And then I remembered

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