Zapp! English Listening 2.15 – Money, Saving and Spending

Katie asks two friends what they spend their money on, and Sybil answers by singing: "Money, money, money, makes the world go round". A few minutes later someone explains why a three-hundred-pound pair of shoes is unthinkable even with the cash in the bank — "That's half a plane ticket!" That's the tone of this episode: ten people talking about spending, saving and what they can't quite afford, in the hesitant, self-interrupting way people really talk about money.

What you'll hear in this episode

The episode is built from three listening tasks. In the first, Jesse, Nicholas, Sandra and Ronny each answer the same question: are you a spender or a saver? One speaker says she used to spend without thinking and now hates counting every penny — "I would really love to be a spender again". Another explains that saving "it's just as good as making money to me", and would rather spend a few extra minutes hunting for a cheaper plane ticket than order the smoothie at a restaurant. A third is honest about being stuck between the two: "I'm...I'm caught in the middle".

The second task is a three-way conversation between Katie, Stuart and Sybil about where the money actually goes: food, art supplies, hard drives, rent, and above all travel. Katie's disbelieving "Fabulous restaurants?!" is worth listening for, as is Sybil's "That's me in a nutshell right there." The conversation then turns to a period spent working in Hollywood, where one of the speakers says image mattered more than a portfolio: "You had to look the part." He worked out that it was "like advertising" — know what your audience wants and give it to them. Sybil's verdict on that world: "Hollywood would spit me out pretty quick".

In the third task, Greg, Tom, Katie and Hannah say what they're saving for right now. Answers range from a bicycle for a son's birthday to a campervan, a sailing boat, debts, and a big family present that's still two years away.

Quick facts

Episode	2.15
Pack	Zapp! English Listening 2
Level	2
Topic	Money — spending, saving and what people can afford
Duration	13 minutes 36 seconds
Voices	Ten speakers
Workbook	Included in the all-in-one pack (€39)

What you'll learn

The most useful language here is hedging. Almost nobody in this episode gives a straight answer. Instead you get "a bit of a saver", "a little bit of a both", "somewhere down the middle" and "caught in the middle" — a whole set of phrases for placing yourself between two options rather than picking one. Learning to hear these is what stops you mishearing an answer as a simple yes or no.

You'll also hear "should" doing emotional work. One speaker keeps circling back to it — "I should be", followed by a list of "really grown up things" she isn't actually saving for. That's the standard English way of admitting something without quite apologising for it, and it's worth copying.

Beyond that, this is practice in listening through hesitation. The false starts, the "erm"s and the mid-sentence corrections are all left in, because that's what real speech sounds like. The three tasks move from short monologues to a fast three-way conversation, where people finish each other's thoughts and agree in overlapping fragments. Each task ends with the answers, so you can check whether you caught the gist before you go back for detail.

Vocabulary from the workbook

The workbook glossary explains the words most likely to slow you down:

conservative (adjective) – careful, spend less than is possible; used by a speaker on a fixed income
nut (noun, informal) – a person who is crazy about something, as in "I'm a sort of a tech...nut"
addicted (adjective) – needs something, cannot live without it, as in "we're addicted to travelling aren't we?"
superseded (verb) – replaced, become more important than; in the Hollywood story, appearance superseded the portfolio
portfolio (noun) – a collection of examples of your work that you show to get work
unique (adjective) – different to everyone or everything else
survive (verb) – live, stay alive; one host jokes he isn't saving, just "trying to survive"
mortgages (noun) – the money you can borrow from the bank to buy a house

What's in the workbook

The Unit 15 workbook contains the full transcript of all three tasks, the task questions and the answers, so you can read exactly what was said once you've listened. The Extra Materials section adds six detail questions with answers — for example, why Nicholas asks for boring presents like socks at Christmas, which two things Ronny spends money on, whether Greg's son went to the concert last year, and whether Hannah is paying for the whole of her mother's holiday.

There's also a Getting the meaning from context exercise: five lines lifted straight from the recording with a word or phrase in bold, which you match to definitions. You'll work out afford, critical, in a nutshell, put money aside and grown up from the way the speakers use them, rather than from a dictionary. The glossary above rounds it off. As the workbook puts it: "You can spend money, but you can also spend time."

This workbook comes with the complete Zapp! English pack — every episode, every workbook, one price.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

What level is this episode?

It's Level 2, from the Zapp! English Listening 2 pack. The conversations are natural speed, but each task is short and the answers are given straight after.

Are the conversations scripted?

No. The conversations are unscripted — real people answering real questions. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

How long is the audio?

13 minutes 36 seconds, covering three listening tasks and their answers.

Is the audio free?

Yes. The English conversations are free to download. The workbook with the transcript, questions and glossary is part of the paid pack at €39.

What if I can't follow the fast conversation?

Listen for the gist first, check the answer, then read the transcript in the workbook to see which words you missed. The overlapping three-way conversation in Task 2 is the hardest part — it's meant to be.

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