Zapp! English Listening 3.16: Talking About Superstitions

A crew is two weeks into an around-the-world race. Someone opens a sack of food and pulls out chocolate Easter bunnies, a surprise from one of the wives. The French sailor on board takes the lot and throws them into the sea, because rabbits are unlucky on a boat. "That was our chocolate stash for the trip," the rest of the crew complain. Katie's reaction says it all: "Good grief!" That story arrives near the end of this conversation about superstitions — and it isn't even the strangest thing in it.

What you'll hear in this episode

Katie opens with a simple question — "Are you superstitious people, do you think?" — and Tom and Amanda spend the next quarter of an hour discovering that they are more superstitious than they thought. Tom admits he doesn't like walking under ladders, then immediately hedges: "I don't know if that's superstitious or just sensible."

From there the conversation moves through not stepping on the cracks in the pavement, panic about Friday the thirteenth, and the seven years of bad luck that follow a broken mirror. Amanda describes a daily habit of reading one page of a book of sayings, and Tom asks the question that makes everyone laugh: "At what point does superstition become… obsessive compulsive disorder?"

Part two is the best material for explanations. Tom gives the trench origin of never lighting three cigarettes with one match — the first match alerts the enemy, the second lets them aim, the third gets the last smoker shot. There's a Galician superstition about lighting a cigarette from a candle and the danger it brings to men at sea, black cats meaning good luck in England and bad luck in Spain, and the magpie rhyme: "one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy." Tom confesses he always says "hello Mr Magpie" to cancel the bad luck.

Part three covers salt thrown over the left shoulder for the devil's eye, four-leaved clovers, eyelash wishes, money spiders, the missing thirteenth floor, and why four is unlucky in China. Amanda's verdict on where any of it comes from: "it's subliminal, because I don't even know where I know this stuff."

Quick facts

Episode	3.16 – Superstitions
Pack	Zapp! English Listening 3
Level	3
Duration	14 minutes 25 seconds
Speakers heard	Katie, Tom and Amanda
Conversation	Unscripted, split into three parts
Workbook	Included in the €39 all-in-one pack

What you'll learn

This is a genuinely messy conversation, and that's the point. Three people who know each other well interrupt, finish each other's sentences and abandon half of their own. Watch Katie repair herself in real time: "It's dangerous to walk on a ladder...under a ladder." That kind of self-correction is everywhere in real speech and almost never in textbook audio, so you need practice hearing the corrected version rather than the first attempt.

You'll also work on listening through vagueness. Tom tries to recall a superstition about sailors refusing a particular nationality on board and simply can't: "it was something like Estonia or Latvia, I can't remember it." Learners often panic at this point, assuming they've missed a fact. They haven't — the speaker doesn't know it either. Recognising when information is uncertain is a real skill.

The three listening tasks train selective listening instead of word-by-word decoding: identify which topics come up, count how many cigarette and animal superstitions you hear, then decide whether spilling salt, a four-leaved clover, a money spider and the number four are lucky or unlucky. The workbook adds true/false questions that require closer attention — for example, whether the candle superstition belongs to Galicia or Andalucía. Small detail, big difference.

Vocabulary from the workbook

The glossary covers the words that carry the meaning in this conversation:

prove (verb) – show something so we know another thing must be true. Used when Amanda describes walking under ladders on purpose.
cracks (noun) – small lines that show where something is breaking, and pavement (noun) – what you walk on next to the road. Together, a classic childhood superstition.
obsessive (adjective) – gets stuck thinking about one thing and can't think about anything else; compulsive – something someone cannot stop, they feel they have to do it.
alert (verb) – to warn someone; aim (verb) – to try to get something to a particular point. Both appear in the trench story about matches.
spill (verb) – drop or knock over a liquid.
subliminal (adjective) – something that you don't notice but may influence you.
clover (noun) and eyelash (noun) – the lucky plant and the wish you make when a lash falls out.

There's a separate meaning-from-context exercise on spoken expressions from the recording: trash, freaking out, drummed into me, having a toast, chucked and stash.

What's in the workbook

The workbook for this unit is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack at €39. It opens with essential vocabulary you'll need before you listen — a ladder, obsessive compulsive disorder, then a magpie and how to light a cigarette with a match — so nothing important is unfamiliar when the conversation starts.

Then come the three listening tasks, each with the full transcript and the answers, so you can check exactly which words you missed and why. After the summary there are extra materials: eight true/false questions spread across the three parts, with explanations rather than bare answers, and the multiple-choice vocabulary exercise on the informal expressions listed above. Answers for everything sit at the back.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Is the audio free?

Yes. The English conversations are free to download and always have been. The €39 pack is the workbooks, tasks, transcripts and answers that go with them.

Is the conversation scripted?

No. The conversation between Katie, Tom and Amanda is completely unscripted, which is why it's full of hesitation and interruption. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Is this too hard for me?

It's a Level 3 unit and the workbook itself admits "some of that was a bit difficult". Use the tasks first, then the transcript. Understanding the general point on a first listen is a success.

Do I need to know British superstitions already?

No, and that's part of the appeal. You'll pick up ladders, mirrors, salt, magpies and money spiders as you listen, alongside superstitions from Spain, Galicia, France and China.

How long should I spend on one unit?

The audio runs 14 minutes 25 seconds. Most learners get more from two or three shorter sessions with the transcript than from one long one.

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