Talking about life

Conversation

You will hear a reporter asking people from different countries about life. What is the difference of life between these countries. Listen to the interview and learn the phrases about life.

 

Reporter	Excuse me. Do you have a moment!
Hiroko	Yes!
Reporter	You aren’t American!
Hiroko	No, no, I’m from Japan. I’m on holiday here.
Reporter	OK. So, my question is: what’s different for you about life here?
Hiroko	Erm … well, here people live in houses … they live in big houses. I’m from Tokyo, and we live in flats, small flats. So that’s very different.
Reporter	… and so for you, what’s different about life here!
Sanchez	Erm … well I study at university here. And it’s very different from my country because here in the United States, the students have jobs. They work in the evenings, maybe ten hours a week.
Reporter	And you! Do you work!
Sanchez	Me! No, I don’t. I don’t have time. And in my country students don’t work, they only study.
Jane	What’s different here! Erm … oh yeah, people drive everywhere. I mean, they drive two hundred metres to the shops.
Reporter	Do you have a car!
Jane	Yes, I do, but I don’t drive to the shops. Not two hundred metres! I walk.
Reporter	And where are you from!
Jane	I’m from England.
Pacini	I think it’s not so different. I’m from Italy and my American friends are not so different from me. Er … we like sport … we like clothes … We er … we go to the cinema, restaurants, have a coffee …
Reporter	So you like the same things.
Pacini	Yeah, the same … not different.

 

Exercise

Complete the text with the positive (+) or negative (-) of the verb in brackets. The first two have been done for you as examples.

I’m from Italy but I       live       (live) (+) in the USA with my wife, Debbie. We     don’t have     (have) (-) children. We ¹                  (like) (+) life here very much.

I ²                  (work) (-) in an office. I work from home.  We ³                  (go) (+) to the beach a lot and we ⁴                  (play) (+) tennis in the evenings.

We ⁵                  (have) (-) a big house but we ⁶                 (live) (+) in a beautiful town.

Our friends Jim and Katie are very nice. They ⁷                  (play) (-) tennis, but we often ⁸                  (drive) (+) to their house for a barbecue.

 

Answers