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Zapp! English Vocabulary & Pronunciation Audio 2.5 - DANGER!!
Taught by Tom Wilkinson — Cambridge CELTA
Recorded and taught by a team of British and North American English teachers, based in Oxford (UK) and Barcelona (Spain).
"Are you ready to guess some words on the topic of danger?" Katie asks, and Tom answers, "I'm ready and very excited." Thirty seconds later he has guessed a bomb and to explode, then adds, "Yeah, but I still like bombs." Katie's verdict: "Typical boy." From there the two of them work through fourteen words for dangerous situations — some guessed instantly, one or two missed completely — with pronunciation drills built around them.
What you'll hear in this episode
The episode has two guessing rounds, each followed by a pronunciation section where you answer and repeat after a beep.
In the first round Katie describes a word and Tom names it. Bomb and explode come quickly; when she asks what a bomb in a car would do, he offers "It would destroy, the car?" He mentions Syria as a place where explosions are happening, and an earthquake as an example of an emergency, explaining that there would be many injuries and many buildings destroyed.
Not every guess lands, which is the useful part. Asked for a word meaning to try at something difficult, Tom tries challenge, then "Strive." Katie has to admit it's "Difficult one to describe actually..." before landing on struggle — and Tom then defines it better than the prompt did: "You're trying hard, but it's very difficult." Katie also trips over her own word and repairs it out loud: problum, er...problum? There could be a problem.
The second round covers search, trouble, urgent, brave, courage, hero and protect. Tom keeps answering "It's an emergency" until Katie supplies the word she actually wants — "Urgent." — and he concedes, "Oh urgent. Yeah. Of course. It's very urgent." Brave arrives via a fear of flying that one of the speakers owns up to, and a promise to take a little pill on the plane, before asking, "Can we stop talking about planes?" On hero: "I don't know...if I could ever be a hero."
Quick facts
| Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Episode | 2.5 |
| Pack | Vocabulary and Pronunciation 2 |
| Level | 2 |
| Duration | 22 minutes 16 seconds |
| Speakers in the conversation | Katie and Tom |
| Workbook | Included in the all-in-one pack (€39) |
What you'll learn
Fourteen words for danger, trouble and courage — and, just as importantly, how to say them. The pronunciation sections are precise about the things learners get wrong. "The spelling ends in b, but we don't hear it" for bomb. Destroy has an unstressed first syllable and the stress on the second; so does protect, where the first syllable reduces to /prə/. Emergency has four syllables with the stress on /mɜː/. Serious has three. Courage ends /ɪdʒ/, not with a long vowel. Struggle opens with the /str/ cluster that trips up many first languages.
You'll also hear how these words behave in real sentences: search as both noun and verb (They've organised a search, Police are searching for his car), explode alongside its common noun an explosion, and the collocation violent struggle, which Tom extends to "against a government" and "against an army".
The near-misses teach a distinction that definitions alone rarely fix. An emergency is a situation; urgent describes something that cannot wait — and it works in small, everyday cases too, including needing the toilet. Following Tom's wrong turns is good training for hearing when a word is close but not the one a speaker wants.
Vocabulary from the workbook
- to explode /ɪkspləʊd/ — to burst and make a loud noise, sending things into the air quickly
- a bomb /bɒm/ — a thing that explodes, a weapon
- to destroy /dɪstrɔɪ/ — to break something so that it can no longer be used or no longer exists
- serious /sɪəriəs/ — important, not silly or funny
- an emergency /ɪmɜːdʒənsi/ — a situation which is dangerous, we need to do something about it very quickly
- to struggle /strʌɡəl/ — to do something with difficulty, to do something which isn't easy
- violence /vaɪələns/ — the action of doing something physically to try and hurt or damage things or people
- to search /sɜːrtʃ/ — to look for
- trouble /trʌbəl/ — problems or difficulties
- urgent /ɜːrdʒənt/ — needs doing now, cannot wait
- to protect /prətekt/ — to act to stop something bad happening to a person or thing
- brave /breɪv/ — to not be scared when in danger or a scary situation
- courage /kʌrɪdʒ/ — the ability to be brave
- a hero /hɪərəʊ/ — a person who does or did brave things
In the workbook
The Unit 5 workbook carries the full transcript of both guessing rounds, so you can check whatever you missed, plus the scripted pronunciation prompts written out.
After that come three practice exercises. Practice 1 asks you to underline the correct word in six sentences, each one testing a pair that's easy to confuse — violence or emergency, serious or urgent trouble, courage or brave, struggled or protected. Practice 2 is a gap-fill with the first letter given and a note that you may need to change the tense: A very b___ man put himself in danger to p___ a child. Practice 3 is the pronunciation task — sort eight words into two stress patterns, ● ◦ and ◦ ●, with struggle, trouble, urgent, courage and hero in one column and explode, destroy and protect in the other. Full answers and the glossary with phonetic transcriptions are in the Extra Materials at the back.
This workbook is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack — every episode, every workbook, one price.
Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39
Common questions
Is the audio scripted?
The conversations between Katie and Tom are unscripted — that's why he guesses strive instead of struggle and why Katie stumbles over the word problem. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.
What level is this episode?
Level 2, from the Vocabulary and Pronunciation 2 pack. The words are common and the sentences short, but the guessing game moves at natural speed.
Do I need the workbook to follow along?
No — the audio works on its own. The workbook adds the transcript, the three practice exercises, the glossary and the answers.
How long is it?
22 minutes 16 seconds, split into two guessing rounds and two pronunciation sections.
Which words does the episode cover?
Round one: explode, destroy, bomb, serious, emergency, struggle, violence. Round two: search, trouble, urgent, protect, brave, courage, hero.
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