Listening 2.3: Describing People, Character and Manners

Katie gives Sybil an awkward job — name the kinds of personality you dislike — and Sybil's first instinct is to resist: "That's very difficult for me because, I like so many people but...I'm going to try hard." They're sitting in the garden, and you can hear the birds behind them. A minute later they've settled on rudeness as the worst offender, and Sybil is blaming mobile phones for making society "rude almost overnight". This is level 2 listening about character, with three real conversations and a personality test you can take yourself.

What you'll hear in this episode

First, Sandra on what makes a good friend. She opens by confessing, "I'm afraid I'm a bit of a snob, because I want my good friends to be rather like me", then explains that a friend is someone you can talk to — "talking for me helps me solve my problems" — before admitting something most people wouldn't: "I don't always pay attention to their answers or I don't want any, I just want to talk."

Then Nicholas on the perfect boss, who would be "understanding" as well as "motivating", the sort of boss who "really went the extra mile" to make sure things were clear.

In the second task, Katie runs a simple personality game with Greg. Three favourite animals, two adjectives each. Greg picks a cat — "adventurous and independent" — which the game says is how he wants to be seen; a dog, loyal and friendly, which is how others do see him; and an elephant, smart and funny, which is supposedly how he really is. His reaction is worth waiting for, and so is the small misunderstanding at the end, when Katie says she'd call him smart and friendly and Greg replies, "Oh I was thinking about the animals."

Finally, Katie and Sybil on personalities they don't like: rudeness, pretentiousness, people who won't turn the television off, and manners "going out the window". Sybil notes that Canadians are always apologising; Katie points out the British are too.

Quick facts

Episode	2.3 — Describing People (& Character)
Pack	Zapp! English Listening 2
Level	2
Duration	14 minutes 15 seconds
Recorded	in the garden, birds included
Voices you'll hear	Katie, with Sandra, Nicholas, Greg and Sybil
Workbook	included in the all-in-one pack (€39)

What you'll learn

Character adjectives are easy to learn and hard to hear, because people rarely produce them cleanly. Sandra hesitates her way into her first sentence — "Erm...I...I...I...I'm afraid I'm a bit of a snob" — and Katie has to hunt for a word mid-conversation: "What's the word? Err...I guess, pretentious, which is quite a difficult word". Learning to follow a speaker who is still choosing their vocabulary is a skill in itself, and this episode gives you plenty of practice.

You'll also work on tracking who said what about what. One of the true/false questions in the extra materials asks whether Greg thinks dogs are adventurous — he doesn't; that adjective belonged to the cats. It's a small trap that trains you to attach each adjective to the right noun rather than remembering a vague list.

Third, agreement and disagreement in real time. Katie and Sybil stack agreement on top of each other with "I agree with you", "That's true", "I completely agree" and "Exactly", and Sybil introduces a complaint with a phrase you can steal immediately: "here's something that really bugs me".

Vocabulary from the workbook

snob (noun) – a person who thinks they are better than other people (Sandra uses it about herself)
understanding (adjective) – can feel and understand other people's problems, can understand their feelings (Nicholas, on bosses)
motivating (adjective) – makes people interested and want to do something
adventurous (adjective) – ready to try new things and go new places (Greg's cats)
independent (adjective) – wants to do things for themselves without help from others
loyal (adjective) – will always be a friend or help, both in good times and bad (Greg's dogs)
manners (noun) – things we do to be polite and show respect for people (Sybil, twice)
pretentious – describes someone who tries to pretend they are something they are not, for example more important or more knowledgeable

What's in the workbook

The workbook for this unit is part of the paid all-in-one pack. It sets up each of the three listening tasks with a clear instruction before you press play, then gives you the answers afterwards, so you always know whether you followed the conversation or only half of it. Task 2 asks you to do the animal test yourself — three favourite animals, two adjectives each — before you hear Greg do it, which makes the reveal land properly.

The extra materials add six true/false questions across the three conversations, including the two most misheard details. After that comes a guessing-from-context exercise: five lines lifted straight from the audio, with the key words in bold, to be matched to definitions — dilemmas as difficult decisions, count on as rely on, went the extra mile as did more than they needed to, bugs as annoys, and a lack of as not enough of something. There's a glossary of the eight character words above, and the full transcript, so you can go back and see exactly why you missed something.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio scripted?

The conversations are unscripted — Sandra, Nicholas, Greg and Sybil are saying what they actually think, hesitations and all. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Do I need the workbook?

The English conversations work on their own, but the tasks, answers, true/false questions and transcript are in the workbook, which comes with the €39 pack.

What is the personality test in Listening Task 2?

You name your three favourite animals in order and give two adjectives for each. According to the game, the first animal shows how you want others to see you, the second how they do see you, and the third how you really are.

Which expressions should I learn first?

"Something that really bugs me", "count on" and "went the extra mile" are all high-value and all appear naturally in the recording.

Where does this episode fit in the course?

It's unit 3 of Zapp! English Listening 2, so it sits after the level 2 episodes on other everyday topics and before the rest of the pack.

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