This is an Upper Intermediate / Advanced Vocabulary & pronunciation course, based on REAL English Conversations. Each audio lesson contains English vocabulary, real conversations, and pronunciation practice.
Katie asks Stuart whether he’s good at maths, and he says he’s “quite proud of my mental arithmetic”. Then comes the story of four girls at a kiosk trying to divide “nine euros twenty five by four”, until “it took the iPhone to…to work it out”. A minute later Katie …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation Audio 3.32 – Numbers & Amounts
Halfway through the second conversation, Katie says out loud what a lot of us think when the news turns to the ozone layer: “I can imagine people listening, thinking, Oh dear, oh dear, those two don’t know what they’re talking about.” Hannah’s reply — “Oh that’s terrible!” — and then, …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation Audio 3.31 – The Environment
Everyone has a supermarket grievance. In this episode one of the speakers admits to always ending up with the trolley “with the dodgy wheel”, so that pushing it up and down the aisles means “nearly run people over” or knocking things off the shelves. Someone else keeps their receipts so …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation MP3 3.30 – Shopping
A gorilla playing the drums to a Phil Collins song, the McDonald’s M standing in the middle of a desert, and a mermaid on a coffee cup. That’s where this episode starts: real people trying to remember which adverts actually stuck. Then it moves on to flyers, jingles, Marlboro sponsorship …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation 3.29 – Advertising
One of the speakers in this episode spent a whole holiday trying to think of a souvenir for his family, ran out of ideas, and bought fridge magnets for everybody. “True story,” he adds, through the laughter. Another admits that toiletries are “a nightmare to pack” — toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation 3.28 – Holidays / Vacations
Fifty steps, by Katie’s count, stand between the pavement and the view in this episode. The reward, as Tom puts it, is “A panoramic view of the entire city.” — Barcelona below, the sea behind it, the Sagrada Família unfinished in the middle distance. Tom insists “Yeah but the views …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation 3.27 – Wonders of the World
Someone explains that the secret to a good Yorkshire pudding is sieving the flour “from very high up”, so the lumps go and the air gets in — then admits, “I still can’t do that.” Someone else can’t be bothered to peel oranges, so she chops them into quarters and …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation 3.26 – Cooking & Recipes
Asked whether she has a good memory, Katie starts with “Er nor bad. Not bad”, then talks herself out of it: “I forget silly things.” Birthdays are the worst — “I need reminding about twenty seven times”. Donnie writes his daily tasks on paper to refresh his memory, and mentions …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation Audio 3.25 – Memory
Three students to a desk, an opening in the desk you can slip papers through, and a third of the test each to revise. That was “the system”, and one of our speakers explains it to Katie in some detail before admitting it all went wrong when the teacher walked …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation 3.24 – Honesty & Lying
“They say, that you should always avoid talking about three things in polite conversation,” Donnie tells Katie at the start of this episode. Sex, politics and religion. Katie’s reply: “Makes for a very boring conversation though doesn’t it?” So we ignored the advice. Over two unscripted English conversations, Katie talks …
Listen nowZapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation 3.23 – Controversial Issues