Zapp! English Listening 3.18 - Alcohol and drinking

"Twenty five units a night?!" That's Tom's reaction when Hannah works out, quite cheerfully, how much her boyfriend gets through on a Saturday. The legal guideline, as Tom points out, is twenty one a week. Hannah calls it "pretty average". We recorded the first part of this episode over the noise of a seventieth birthday party, then came back the next day, when the same people had to account for what they'd actually drunk — and didn't entirely agree.

What you'll hear in this episode

The episode has three conversations. In the first, Tom interviews Hannah at the party itself, with a room full of shouting relatives behind them. She reports that her boyfriend is next door "necking bottles of red wine", estimates two bottles a day plus eight cans and a few whiskies, and says his family are "pissheads too". Asked who drinks more, Simon or his father, she decides they're "on a par with each other".

The second conversation is the morning after, with Tricia and Simon. Simon reckons British life "revolve around drinking" and counts six cans and three glasses of wine for himself. Tricia isn't having it: "I think they were three tumblers full of wine, actually." Simon's one-word response — "Controversial" — and Tom's "We may be toning it down a bit mightn't we?" tell you everything about how people report their own drinking. Tricia, who gets migraines from wine, says whole weeks go by without a drink.

The third conversation widens out: pre-loading at home to save money, the cost to the NHS, cirrhosis in people's twenties, and the newspaper story about David Cameron wanting to double the minimum price per unit. Then a genuine surprise — Tom cites EC statistics showing Britain and Spain drink almost the same amount of "pure alcohol" per person, and argues that it's the way people drink that differs. Tricia adds that longer pub opening hours "hasn't had the desired effect at all".

Quick facts

What you'll learn

The first task is deliberately hard: background noise, laughter and people talking over each other, exactly as you'd get at a real party. The task is not to catch every word but to answer two questions — what the party is for, and whether Hannah thinks Simon's drinking is unusual. That's general listening under bad conditions, which is most listening.

The later tasks ask for detail inside disagreement. Simon says three glasses; Tricia says three tumblers. Nobody corrects anybody formally — they hedge. Listen for how English speakers soften a contradiction: "I don't know if…", "I would equate it", "probably", "sort of". Tom's "Hiding the truth perhaps" does the accusing without accusing.

You'll also hear numbers used loosely — units, millilitres, litres per person, "about two thousand one hundred a week" as a joke — which is good practice for holding figures in your head while a conversation keeps moving. The true/false questions in the extra materials test whether you noticed the counter-intuitive answers: measures have got bigger, and longer opening hours changed nothing.

Vocabulary from this episode

The glossary covers the expressions that do the real work in these conversations:

• necking — drinking very fast; what Hannah says her boyfriend is doing next door
• on a par with — at the same level as; how she compares Simon and his father
• excessively — do in a way that is too much; Tom's opening question to Tricia
• revolve around — are concerned with, centred on; Simon on British social life
• gauge — measure, see how much; Simon judging wine by pub-glass size
• renowned — very well-known, famous; the UK's reputation for drinking
• cut back — reduce; what the Finns are said to be trying to do
• two a penny — very common, you can find it anywhere; Simon on British pubs

A second exercise asks you to work out meanings from context, including sloshed, stumbling and hard up.

What's in the workbook

The workbook takes you through the three conversations in order. Each one has comprehension questions before you listen, the answers, and the full transcript — useful here, because the party recording is noisy and you'll want to see what you missed. The extra materials add six true/false statements covering all three conversations, with explanations rather than just answers, so you can see why "Scandinavians drink more beer than vodka" is false.

There's a vocabulary-from-context exercise built on five real lines from the recording, a matching task for the informal words, and the glossary of eight terms above. Note that the workbook marks pissheads as very informal and possibly impolite — worth knowing before you use it.

The workbook for this episode is part of the Zapp! English all-in-one pack at €39, which includes the workbooks for every episode across the series.

Get the complete courseAll workbooks and audio — €39

Common questions

Is the audio really free?

Yes. Every episode of Zapp! English is free to download and always has been. The workbooks are the paid part.

Is this conversation scripted?

No. The English conversations are unscripted — that's why people talk over each other and lose their train of thought. The teaching sections that set up the tasks and give the answers are scripted, so the instructions stay clear.

Is Level 3 right for me?

This is a Level 3 episode. If you can follow a clear conversation but struggle when several native speakers argue at once, over background noise, this is the level to work on.

Do I need the workbook to use the episode?

No, but this episode rewards it. The transcript lets you check the party section, and the true/false answers explain the points most listeners get wrong.

What kind of English is this?

Relaxed family talk, including very informal words like "pissheads" and "sloshed" — the kind of vocabulary you'll hear but rarely find in a coursebook.

Get this episode

• Download Ebook
• Download Audio/MP3

To save the audio, right-click the MP3 link and choose Save link as.

Listen on