Eccoti, Monday morning and as promised here’s the first of our series of eight B1 (intermediate) level listening tracks, complete with transcripts to study!
Find out about Mario’s dreams for the future, and improve both your Italian grammar and listening skills.
For any of you who might be new on our mailing list, try to listen to the recording at least once without the transcript.
When you’ve understood as much as you can (don’t worry if that’s not much…), that’ll be time to scroll down and listen again with the support of the words.
(If you’re reading this in an e-mail, you’ll need to visit our website to hear the recording. Click here.)
Transcript
1. I sogni – Il futuro di Mario
Mario è uno studente di legge. Dopo la laurea vorrebbe fare un tirocinio presso uno studio di avvocati. Dopo aver fatto tirocinio vorrebbe fare l’esame di stato per diventare avvocato. Gli piacerebbe diventare un avvocato che si occupa dei diritti delle persone più deboli.
Nel futuro inoltre Mario vorrebbe sposare la sua fidanzata Clara. Anche Clara studia giurisprudenza , ma lei non vorrebbe fare l’avvocato. Lei infatti vorrebbe lavorare all’ambasciata italiana. Anche lei vorrebbe sposare Mario un giorno.
Entrambi vorrebbero trasferirsi a vivere in una città straniera.
Infatti dopo aver lavorato per un po’ di tempo, vorrebbero risparmiare dei soldi per andare a vivere a Londra. Per questo seguono anche dei corsi d’inglese.
Clara e Mario hanno davvero molti sogni nel cassetto.
Un altro dei loro sogni è quello di viaggiare per il mondo. A loro piacerebbe vedere tutte le capitali europee. Vorrebbero anche viaggiare in Asia e in Africa per vedere le città e per imparare di più sui paesi e sulle culture lontane.
Tra qualche anno Mario e Clara vorrebbero anche avere dei figli.
A loro piacerebbe avere una famiglia numerosa, per questo vorrebbero almeno tre bambini!
P.S. Don’t buy an e-book….
You’ll no doubt have been tempted by the selection of useful e-books for improving your Italian available in our online shop…
But don’t buy one.
At least not today!
Why not?
Well, along with the next B1 listening, on Wednesday, I’ll be publishing a discount code that will get you 33% off all our ebooks!
The code will be good for as long as it takes me to post all the B1 listenings (about two weeks). Then it’ll expire.
So pick out your next e-book purchases in our online shop here. But hold your horses until Wednesday to save one third on the usual price!
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Karen says
Good stuff! Am keeping up and it is really helping to motivate me to be more disciplined about learning. Thanks again
Daniel says
Thank YOU, for taking the time to leave a comment, Karen.
Good news that you’re ‘keeping up’!
Sue and Nigel FitzHugh says
Thank you Daniel. These are a wonderful way for us to stay tuned in after 4 weeks in your excellent school. We are pleased to say that all is still OK and we even managed to do the piccolo piccolo maths question!
Daniel says
As you say Sue/Nigel (who?), studying online is a good way to maintain and consolidate what you learnt in Italy!
And thanks for taking the time to leave feedback – now you’ve had a comment approved, it should be automatic in future, so do log on regularly and tell us what you think of the free materials as we publish them.
John Thomson says
Please don’t worry Daniel, this is a huge one of comment
I consider myself to be level A2,so I was keen to find out how I got on at the B1 level
To this end I listened to the exerise twice, writing down what I could hear
then I read the transcipt looking for errors and words I did not hear
The results are below
I don’t think I would have ‘passed’ but with practice I hope to improve
Interestingly I did not find the speed too much of a problem maybe the speaker was just being kind !
Anyway here are my results
B11
Uno I sogni il futuro di Mario
Mario e uno studente di legge
Dopo la laurea vorrebbe fare ………….presto (*wrong presso*)
Studio di avvocate (*wrong avvocati*)
Dopo …… fare … l’esame di stato per diventare un avvocato
Si (*wrong gli*) piacerebbe un avvocato…………..persone di (*wrong piu) diaboli (*wrong deboli*)
Nel futuro …. Mario vorrebbe sposare la …. fidanzata Clara
Anche Clara studia giurisprudenza (*misspelt by me*) lei non …… fare l’avvocato
Lei infatti vorrebbe a lavorare …….. italiana
Anche lei ……… Mario un giorno
Entrambi………..una citta straniera
Infatti dopo ……lavorare …. un po di tempo
…… soldi per …… londra
Per questo segne (*wrong seguono*)
Clara e Mario avere (*wrong hanno*)……sogni ……
Un altro …sogni girare (*wrong viaggiare*) per il mondo
…….Tutte le capitale europe (* wrong capitali europee*)
Vorrebbe (*wrong vorrebero)…. in africa
…….imparare di piu….paese su le culture lontano (* wrong sulle culture lontane)
Mario e clara……dei figli
‘’’’ famiglia numerosa
Per questo vorrebbe (*wrong vorrebbero almeno*) tre bambini
B11. I sogni – Il futuro di Mario
Mario è uno studente di legge. Dopo la laurea vorrebbe fare un tirocinio presso uno studio di avvocati. Dopo aver fatto tirocinio vorrebbe fare l’esame di stato per diventare avvocato. Gli piacerebbe diventare un avvocato che si occupa dei diritti delle persone più deboli.
Nel futuro inoltre Mario vorrebbe sposare la sua fidanzata Clara. Anche Clara studia giurisprudenza , ma lei non
Cheers
John T
Daniel says
Seems to me that your experience was exactly what I’d have expected, John. The speed didn’t worry you (because you do plenty of practice and so are used to the exercise). Neither did you understand everything, but no one ever does.
Typically the pass mark for a listening task in an exam would be 60%. Certainly never 100%!
Bet you find that when we get to the B2 stuff in a couple of week’s time you’ll still be able to pick out quite a bit.
Maybe it’s time to up sticks from rainy old Britain and move to Italy?
John Thomson says
Magari !!!!!!
Daniel says
Vedrai. Il docente ha sempre ragione, sai?
mary cassar says
Thank you for your good material.
Mary
Malta
Daniel says
Thank YOU, Mary, for taking the time to leave a comment! Hope to hear from you again some time.
Daniel
Pam Wilkinson says
Having listened twice I understood all but the technical stuff about the steps for become a lawyer. It helps that the reader speaks so clearly – what a shame everybody doesn’t do that on the streets of Genoa!
But I would struggle to actually say those things myself, even given the specialist vocabulary, without a lot of hesitation and mistakes. Is it usual to be able to understand a lot more than you can say yourself?
Daniel says
Good job, Pam! Sounds like you’re coping well with the new material. More tomorrow!
Apart from near beginners, who can’t say much but can usually understand even less, it’s quite normal that your listening skills are better than your ability to express yourself.
If you think about it, you’ll see that you actually spend a lot more time listening than speaking, and to a much greater variety of speech.
Speaking Italian (or your own language) is a question of developing habits, which tend to be quite limited at first but develop with time and practice. Think of a child learning his/her native tongue. It takes years, or decades, before they are able to ‘speak’ with the complexity you’d expect from an educated adult.
On the other hand, listening is more a matter of managing information and dealing with complexity and ambiguity. Once you’ve reached a certain level in the language, you can fill in the gaps by guessing/interpreting, and from that point on your ability to ‘hear’ what’s going on seems to expand rapidly and exponentially.
Which is what we’re trying to promote with this listening series!
John Thomson says
I agree with Pam, it is much more difficult to speak in Italian than to comprehend spoken Italian
what I have to do is think what I want to say in English, translate it in my head (senza dizionario) then speak in Italian
Clearly this often makes the conversation very slow and stilted
To this end, I am trying a new exercise
I have selected three snippets of ‘real’ conversations with Jennifer, my wife, this morning.
Jennifer’s only Italian is “buona notte e sogni d’oro’
1 “it really is a very beautiful morning, you should sit out in the garden whilst it is warm”
“e veramente una molto bella mattina, dovresti sederti fuori nel giardino mentre fa caldo”
2 “is Jacquie taking us to the hospital ? what time is my appointment? ”
“ci porta Jacquie al’ospedale? A che ora e il mio appuntemento? ”
3 “remember, you have to go to the chemist to collect your prescription”
“ricorda, devi andare al farmacia per prendere la tua ricetta”
Would an Italian speaker have understood me ?
What do others think of this type of exercise? would it be helpful?
I know it is all about practice, practice then more practice but will I ever get an epiphany and actually think in Italian?
Cheers
John T
Daniel says
Maybe if you stopped thinking of want you want to say first in English that might help?
Speaking is more than just translating the thoughts in your head into grammatically correct sentences, then opening your mouth and moving your tongue, lips and vocal cords.
Much more.
One way to look at it is to think of ‘speaking’ as playing your part in a conversation or social situation.
For example, the conversation with your wife.
It’s not just what YOU want to say, and whether it will be understood or not. It’s relevant what SHE may say, or even whether she wants to be involved in the conversation at all.
Her role, in part dictates your role, and will be fundamental to how the conversation proceeds.
So, if you want to ‘speak’ better, you could do a lot worse than to focus on listening, and on encouraging your conversation partner with ‘non-linguistic’ utterances like ‘uh-huh’ and ‘um’, as well as short phrases like ‘That’s true’, ‘Good idea’, or ‘Why not?’
The more the conversation is viewed as not just about what you might think you want to say, the more successful it will seem.
And the less difficulty you will have precisely expressing your thoughts using unfamiliar grammar and vocabulary – because the other person will (presumably) be helping you out by actively listening and playing a part in the communication process.
Like this:
(You say) ‘Is Jacquie…?’
(She says) ‘Yes, don’t worry. It’s all sorted.’
(You say) ‘It really is a lovely morning…’
(She says) ‘Finally!’
(You say) ‘..you should sit out in…’
(She says) ‘Not today, dear. We’re going to the hospital, remember?’
And so on…
Italians will understand much, much more of what you say, if you view speaking their language as a process of communicating, rather than like making a speech or giving a presentation…
Karen says
This is so true. When I am having a real conversation with Italians my grammar is very very basic because there isn’t much time to think about it. Body language and gestures make life so much easier (which is why I find telephone conversations so much more stressful) The first step that worked for me in trying to think in Italian was shopping. Instead of translating I always write my shopping list in Italian which helps to get me in gear. I can visualise due etti di prosciutto easier than half a pound of ham. Keeping up with numbers at the cassa is not so easy
Daniel says
Good idea to write your shopping list in Italian, Karen.
But for the numbers at the till, try looking at the display!
Sergei says
Ciao Daniel!
Grazie mille per l’esercizio. Ascoltandolo avevo solo un piccolo problema, lo stesso come Pam Wilkinson. Pero’, in generale, sono stato soddisfatto con me.
(Se non lodi te stesso, nessuno lo fara’.) :)))
Ciao!
Sergei.
Daniel says
E’ vero, Sergei!
Grazie per il feedback…