Comprehension Questions
As you listen, try answering these questions.
1) Who is Eun-Kyung’s talk aimed at?
2) How long was the Joseon Dynasty?
3) How do Korean palaces differ from Western palaces?
4) What will you find at Insa-Dong?
5) Why might tourists find Insa-Dong an easy place to visit?
6) What two things does Eun-Kyung say are good about Korean restaurants?
7) What’s a good place to visit at night?
8) What can you see in Namsan Park during the day?
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the latest podcast from Splendid Speaking. My name’s Pete Travis and this week we’re listening to Eun-Kyung from South Korea. This podcast will be of interest to anyone who needs to practise the skill of giving a short talk, and in particular how to signpost a presentation of this kind.
In this Skype interview Eun-Kyung was asked to talk for about two minutes on the following subject:
Describe a place in your country you would recommend to tourists. Include: what it’s called what kind of place it is where it is.
Students preparing for exams like IELTS, CPE that’s the Certificate of Proficiency in English or BEC Higher, that’s the Business English Certificate, are required to do similar ‘long-turns’ during their interview. It’s a good idea with a task like this to structure your thoughts with a clear introduction and conclusion as well as making the organisation of the talk transparent with signposting words and expressions. Eun-Kyung was sent this task shortly before the interview and asked to focus on structure and signposting.
Before you listen, think about how you would answer this question and later perhaps try to practise a similar talk.
As you listen, decide how successful Eun-Kyung was in answering the question and in organising her talk using signposting expressions. Listen to the interview a second time if necessary to answer the comprehension questions which are included in the newsletter. And finally, while you listen, make a note of Eun-Kyung’s use of English, which we’ll look at in the feedback session.
Let’s listen to Eun-Kyung.
“OK, there are definitely many places that I’d like to recommend for … visitors but for this interview I’ve limited … I’ve set a target group who are the business travellers who are probably going to stay in Korea mainly in Seoul for a couple of days. So I’ve come up with three different three different places … and to begin with the first place that visitors could go is ancient Royal Palaces of the Joseon dynasty. Joseon dynasty started from late 14th century until early 20th century and if I give you the names of the palaces they are Gyeongbokgung, Deoksugung, Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung and ‘gung’ at the each word … at the end of each word means palace. And if you go there as … Westerners you feel very different from your own palaces for example … like Buckingham Palace … There size are different and their styles are very, very different … so they have different architecture and some structures and especially the decorations … you might find them very interesting. They have different patterns and colours and the contours if I’m right … the lines they are very gorgeous and beautiful. So that it the first place I’d like to recommend. And the second place they could go is Insa-Dong. InsaDong is located in ***, Seoul and this place is very … full … this place is very busy with international visitors so this place has the antique shops art galleries and traditional tea houses and Korean style restaurants and of course unique gift shops. You might have … you might not have any trouble in this place because everything … almost everything is written in English and the people can communicate in English. And in this place I’d like to highly recommend for visitors to go the Korean style restaurants and … they could enjoy … they could enjoy very delicious Korean food and the different … different … different styles … different interiors inside the restaurant. And lastly I’d like to recommend for visitors to go Namsan Park. Especially this place is very beautiful at night because … they have the Seoul Tower and in here at night you could appreciate the very beautiful panoramic view of the entire Seoul and which is gorgeous and very, very beautiful and especially .. so at night I’d like to recommend for you to go to this place and during the day you could walk … you could go you could have a good walk and also you could visit … and … Korean folk visit which is also inside the … park. So these are … these three places are where you could go especially if you visit Seoul.“
Feedback
OK, if you’re ready to check your answers, here’s the feedback.
First of all I’d like to thank Eun-Kyung for agreeing to be recorded. You can comment on her talk at the Splendid Speaking website
This was a very interesting talk which I’m sure you’ll agree gives us a great introduction to Seoul. The talk had a clear introduction and conclusion and Eun-Kyung explained straightaway who the talk was aimed at:
“.. for this interview I’ve limited … I’ve set a target group who are the business travellers who are probably going to stay in Korea mainly in Seoul for a couple of days.”
She also explained in the introduction how many places she was going to talk about:
“So I’ve come up with three different … three different places …”
This is good practice although in this instance the question did only ask for a description of one place.
She then used signposting words and expressions perfectly to guide us through the structure of her talk:
“… and to begin with the first place that visitors could go is ancient Royal Palaces of the Joseon dynasty …”
“…So that is the first place that I’d like to recommend. And the second place that they could go is Insa-Dong …”
“…And lastly I’d like to recommend for visitors to go Mountain … Namsan Park ….”
“…So these are … these three places are where you could go especially if you visit Seoul …”
So, Eun-Kyung gave a very well structured talk and the benefit to us as listeners was that we were always aware of where we were in the presentation and what to expect next. However, Eun Kyung did exceed the two minute time limit quite a bit. As I pointed out earlier, the question actually asked for a description of one place and the talk could have been shortened by structuring the presentation simply around the Royal Palaces for instance. The best solution to over-running like this is, as always, practice. Two minutes can pass surprising quickly and the more you attempt this task the more easily you’ll get a feel for how much content to include.
Eun-Kyung spoke fluently throughout the talk and there were no pronunciation problems of note. After the interview, Eun-Kyung explained that she felt she’d found it difficult to come up with a wide enough range of vocabulary, particularly adjectives, to describe the sights she mentioned. If Eun-Kyung wants to learn more vocabulary for this subject area a great resource is literature such as tourist brochures guide books and travel websites.
Here are a selection of some of the errors that occurred during the talk. Can you spot the mistakes?
“… the first place that visitors could go is ancient Royal Palaces …”
“…Joseon dynasty started from late 14th century until early 20th century …”
“…contours if I’m right … the lines they are very gorgeous and beautiful …”
“… And in this place I’d like to highly recommend for visitors to go the Korean style restaurants ….”
“… Especially this place is very beautiful at night …”
Did you spot the mistakes?
“… the first place that visitors could go is ancient Royal Palaces …”
It should of course be ‘are’. Also Eun-Kyung forgot the definite article before Royal Palaces. The definite article was also missing here:
” …Joseon dynasty started from late 14th century until early 20th century …”
This should be ‘The Joseon dynasty started from the late 14th century until the early 20th century …”.
“… contours if I’m right … the lines they are very gorgeous and beautiful…”
Gorgeous is a good choice of word but requires a suitable intensifying adverb such as ‘absolutely’. This was also the case in this extract:
“ …and they could enjoy … they could enjoy very delicious Korean food …”
Again, here delicious here means ‘very tasty’ so we need an intensifying adverb instead of ‘very’. Again, we could say ‘absolutely delicious’.
“… And in this place I’d like to highly recommend for visitors to go the Korean style restaurants.”
Two errors here which appeared elsewhere in the presentation:
“…I’d like to recommend for visitors to go Mountain … Namsan Park.”” “…so at night I’d like to recommend for you to go this place …”
We would normally say ‘go to’, so ‘go to restaurants’, ‘to go to Namsan Park’, ‘to go to this place’. We don’t use ‘for’ after recommend. We could ‘recommend something to somebody’, ‘recommend doing something’ or ‘recommend somebody does something’. So taking the first sentence as an example we could say: ‘I’d like to recommend visitors go to the Korean Style restaurants.’ or ‘I’d like to recommend going to the Korean style restaurants.’ or perhaps ‘I can highly recommend the Korean style restaurants.’ And finally:
‘A word order problem here. It should be ‘This place is especially beautiful at night’.
OK. That’s the end of this podcast. Once again, many thanks to Eun-Kyung for her lovely introduction to Seoul. Don’t forget, comprehension questions and the transcript of this latest podcast are available from the Splendid Speaking mailing list which is available from www.splendid-speaking.com. Until next week it’s ‘bye’ from me Pete Travis.
Answers to comprehension questions
1) Who is Eun-Kyung’s talk aimed at?
Ans: Business travellers who are probably going to stay in Seoul for a couple of days.
2) How long was the Joseon Dynasty?
Ans: From late 14th century until early 20th century.
3) How do Korean palaces differ from Western palaces?
Ans: Different sizes, styles architecture decorations.
4) What will you find at Insa-Dong?
Ans: Antique shops, art galleries, traditional tea houses and Korean style restaurants.
5) Why might tourists find Insa-Dong an easy place to visit?
Ans: Almost everything is written in English and the people can communicate in English.
6) What two things does Eun-Kyung say are good about Korean restaurants?
Ans: They serve delicious Korean food and have different interiors.
7) What’s a good place to visit at night?
Ans: Namsan Park.
8) What can you see in Namsan Park during the day?
Ans: The Korean Folk Village