CD1 Track 10

B = Ben, E = Ekaterina, S = Sue

B: Do you prefer watching foreign films with subtitles, or dubbing, Sue?
S: Um, well, I lived in Spain for a while and most of their films and their cinemas
actually have dubbing, you know, when they have different actors doing the
voices, so I used to try and go to cinemas where there were original version
films because I prefer to read the subtitles than - than listen to the actors'
voices pretending to be different actors. I just hate watching a film with a
famous actor, like, say Al Pacino, and hear a different voice coming out. He has
such a distinctive voice. It's really odd.
B: And what do you think, Ekaterina?
E: I agree actually, because I think that subtitles allow you to hear the original
actors' voices and all their emotions and so I think it's more kind of realistic, I'd
say, yeah.
B: But you lose so much of the meaning because you can't put all of those spoken
words onto a short subtitle.
E: And sometimes the translations are really poor, so that you miss the whole
point of what they're trying to say.
S: Well, that's true, but that can happen with dubbing as well, can't it? If the
translation isn't good quality.
B: Well, I just think it's really hard to watch the film and read the subtitles at the
same time. And it's particularly hard for children, isn't it?
E: Yes, that's why in my country children's films are usually dubbed.
S: That makes sense. And anyway, for cartoons it wouldn't really matter, would it?
B: No.
E: But you know, we have another way of translating foreign films. Sometimes,
especially on TV, we have one person translating all the voices, it's called the
'lektor'.
B: One voice for of the characters?
S: Isn't that confusing? How do you know when it changes from a female
character to a male character for example?
E: Well, if it's done professionally, it's fine. I don't know, I guess it's what you're
used to. But a lot of people like it and, of course, it's pretty cheap to translate
films in this way.
S: Can you still hear the original film underneath?
E: Yes, usually you can, but at a lower volume. So it's actually quite good if you
do speak some of the language the film is in.

CD1 Track 11
1
Going to the cinema is too expensive these days.
2
Films are becoming too violent.
3
The use of computerised special effects has made films more exciting.
4
Big film stars deserve to earn millions of dollars.
5
Watching films in English is a great way to learn.

CD1 Track 12
A = Anna, C = Chris, Jo = Joe, Ju = Julian, P = Presenter
P: And in today's programme we hear from our panel of testers. This week
they've been trying out some of the hottest new eco-gadgets. What did they
think of the products, and are they actually any better for the environment?
Julian, what was your gadget?
Ju: Mine was the weird looking thing with the propeller and the glove. It's actually
a device you can wear while riding a bicycle that makes you go faster - much
faster in fact! The glove controls the speed, and you can do up to 130
kilometres an hour.
Ju: I can't say I tried going that fast myself, but it was certainly a lot faster and
easier than cycling normally. It's powered by petrol, which is really what I
didn't like about it. Basically, it's made a completely eco-friendly means of
transport, a bike, use fuel. That said, it does apparently use a lot less petrol
than needed by a car, so I guess it could be a better choice.
P: And Anna, what did you take home?
A: I took home the two cardboard boxes. They are actually speakers for plugging
into your MP3 player. I wasn't expecting much, to be honest, but I was
pleasantly surprised. The sound they produced was actually very clear.
They're cheap, but to be honest, I still don't think they look very good.
P: Chris, how did you get on with your gadget?
C: Well, mine looks like a soft toy, and it's a kind of octopus shape. In fact, it's a
webcam, you know, a kind of camera for seeing and talking to people over the
Internet. It worked really well and it looked a lot nicer than a plastic one.
P: But is it more eco-friendly?
C: Yes, I think so; most of the material used to make it has been recycled. Of
course it doesn't exactly look professional if you wanted to use it at work.
And, finally, Joe, what was your gadget?
It was a rather clever kind of radio. It's quite small and square and it has a
handle which you can wind up to get energy to make the radio work, or you
can use the solar panel on its side. It was easy to wind up, and I got about
twenty minutes of playtime out of winding it up for one minute. The solar
panel was less successful - but perhaps that's because it just isn't sunny
enough in this country.

CD1 Track 14
annoying
boring
entertaining
exciting
gripping
incredible
inspiring
moving
nauseating
nonsense
unrealistic
unwatchable

CD1 Track 15
1
A father and son who made millions of pounds from fake DVDs have been jailed for
six years.
2
Hundreds of thousands of DVDs were produced by workers hired by the gang.
3
The DVDs were sold cheaply in pubs and markets.
4
It is estimated by the police that the criminals made around 43,000 a day from the
operation.
5
The gang members lived a life of luxury until they were caught.
6
However, police believe that most of the money the gang made has been taken out
of the country.
7
It is estimated that criminal gangs in the UK make about 300 million a year from
fake DVDs.
8
Police dogs have now been trained to find hidden DVDs.

CD1 Track 16
E = Eben, R = Rachel
R: Do you believe everything you read in the news normally?
E: No, not really. Urn, I read lots of different papers and I find that they all report
the same story differently. The interesting trick they play is that each
newspaper seems to tell a different part of the story, so they withhold the
information.
R: Yeah, they seem to decide differently as to what they think is going to be
worthy of a story for somebody to read, and they do reflect on it completely
differently sometimes. It's difficult to know what's important and what's not.
E: Yes, and as I said, it's strange that - it seems that sometimes they will hold
back information so that the story sounds worse than it actually is and it almost
comes across as is the newspaper wants you to get angry.
R: Or sometimes they'll express something that's supposed to be so exciting, and
you're not quite sure whether you really agree with it being that exciting, or
that interesting, as it actually is.
E: Which is - yes, I suppose that raises the other point, writing news is a business,
it's an industry. They have to come up with stories every day, all day, and so
they have to almost write a little bit like fiction as a, you know, to make it
exciting.
R: Well yeah, and they have to - they have to sell newspapers, they have to make
money. So sometimes you think that that's the only reason that they may be
writing a story.

CD1 Track 17
divorcee
employee
escapee
refugee
coffee
career
Vietnamese
cigarette

CD1 Track 18
It's a horror film, set in Spain. It's about a woman who buys the house where she
used to live as a child. Her son starts to see the ghosts of children in the house and
then he suddenly disappears. The main characters are the woman and her
husband. There is also a rather spooky old woman.

CD1 Track 19
The house that the woman, Laura, buys, used to be an orphanage and the ghosts
are of children who lived there. When Simn, her son disappears, the police think
that he may have been taken by the spooky old woman, Benigna, who it turns out
used to work at the orphanage. However, Laura becomes more and more sure that
he has been taken by the ghosts. In the end Laura finds Simn, but I won't spoil the
ending by telling you how!