Talking About the Future in English: Vocabulary 3.8

A bed that sits you up, waits for you to stand on a pressure pad, and if you don't, tips sideways — "so it basically threw you out of bed". That's the sort of future our speakers imagine in this episode. Between them they cover cancer research, a bathroom mirror you can check your schedule on, and a world "run by robots" within ten years. Then we slow everything down and work on the fifteen words you need to talk about all of it.

What you'll hear in this episode

There are two unscripted conversations. In the first, Katie asks about breakthroughs in medicine, and the reply is hopeful but careful: a cure for cancer would be "a huge breakthrough", though "not all of them are the same", so one answer for every type is hard. Katie brings up the claim that diabetes might be curable or preventable within ten years. The talk then moves to gadgets — a prototype touch-screen surface where you can "walk into your bathroom in the morning while you're brushing your teeth" and check who you need to call, plus Katie's YouTube clip of the bed that throws you out.

The second conversation starts somewhere much more ordinary: meeting a new class of eighteen four-year-olds on Wednesday. Katie asks the key question of the unit — "Are you looking forward to it, or are you dreading it?" — and gets both at once. "I know what little children are like. I know what to expect from them," comes the answer, along with a prediction that "they'll probably run riot to start with" after the summer holidays. From there it's predictions about the future: robots running the world, which is called "a really scary thought", though Katie is happy enough with "robots that make you cups of tea and do the cleaning". There's also a van full of computer chips that a backstreet mechanic can't fix, and the risk of "an experiment gone very very wrong".

Quick facts

Episode	3.8 — The Future
Pack	Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3
Level	3
Duration	17 minutes 20 seconds
Speakers	Katie, with Kami and Hannah
New words and phrases	15
Workbook	Included in the €39 all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

The teaching sections work as a guessing game: you hear the definition first — "Which noun is something you can get after a lot of hard work?" — and try to produce the word before we give it. Then you repeat after the beep.

Most of the pronunciation work here is about the schwa /ə/, the most common sound in English, and where it hides. You'll hear that the -er ending of discover is /ə/, that the second sound in innovation is /ə/, that develop ends in /əp/, and that the middle of prototype is /tə/. You'll also practise the weak to /tə/ in look forward to something, which is what makes the phrase sound natural rather than word-by-word.

Stress is the other focus. We count out the five syllables of revolutionary, place the stress on the second syllable of expect and the third of innovation, and pair verbs with their nouns: predict a prediction, invent an invention, with the /ʃən/ ending drilled both times. There's a neat contrast too — to cure and a cure are the same word doing two jobs, so you get "They may discover a cure for cancer" alongside "They may be able to cure cancer".

The vocabulary

a breakthrough /breIkθruː/ — a discovery after a lot of hard work. Used repeatedly in the medicine conversation.
revolutionary /revəluːʃənri/ — completely new, in a way that changes everything.
to invent /Invent/ — to have a new idea and make something never seen before.
to discover /dIskʌvə/ — to find some information or find something for the first time.
to cure /kjʊə/ — to take away an illness or disease.
a prototype /prəʊtətaIp/ — the first of something, used to test if it works.
innovation /InəʊveIʃən/ — doing something in a new way, with new ideas.
to predict /prIdIkt/ — to say what you think is going to happen in the future.
to look forward to /lʊk fɔːwəd tə/ — to feel positive about a future event and want it to come.
to dread /dred/ — to feel negative, worried or scared about something in the future.
to expect /Ikspekt/ — to feel confident that something will happen.
to experiment /Iksperɪmənt/ — to do tests to see if what you believe is true.
a robot /rəʊbɒt/ — a computerised machine that can do things humans can do.
a chip /tʃIp/ — a very small electrical part that makes computers work.
to develop /dɪveləp/ — to create something and change it to make it better.

In the workbook

The workbook for this unit gives you the full transcript of both conversations, so you can go back and see exactly where dreading, chips and prototype came up in speech. After that there's the glossary above with IPA, then three practice sections.

Practice 1 is a six-item gap-fill with the first letter given: "If there is no i… then there will be no new d…", "Doctors p… that they will be able to c… a lot more diseases in the future." Practice 2 is five quick comprehension checks that test whether you really understand the words — is dreading good or bad? If you discover something, did you create it? Is a prototype the finished product? Practice 3 is the pronunciation task: eleven words to sort under six stress patterns, from ●◦ (robot, breakthrough) to ◦◦●◦◦ (revolutionary). Answers for everything are at the back.

This workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack — every episode, every level, one price.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The two conversations are completely unscripted — that's why you get hesitations, overlaps and half-finished sentences. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Do I need to understand every word of the conversations?

No. On the first listen you're asked only to notice which words you already know and which might be useful for the topic. The meaning and pronunciation tasks then take each one slowly.

What level is this episode?

Level 3, from Vocabulary and Pronunciation 3. It suits learners who can follow a natural conversation in outline and want to add precision and better stress.

What's the difference between expect, predict and look forward to?

All three point forward, but expect is confidence, predict is a statement about what will happen, and look forward to is feeling — with dread as its opposite. Practice 2 tests exactly this.

How long does the whole unit take?

The audio runs 17 minutes 20 seconds. With the three practice sections, allow around 40 minutes for the full unit.

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