Listening to spoken language while following a written transcript (is that a pleonasm?) is an excellent way to improve your oral comprehension skills. For those of you who would like to improve your ability to understand spoken American English, here is a story from National Public Radio, with a recording and transcript: How to be a savvy consumer of science news. To get you off to a good start with the material, here are some of the vocabulary items that you will come across:
savvy: an adjective meaning something like “understanding practical things.” How it appears in the recording: Our friend from the world of astrophysics, Adam Frank, has offered to provide some tools to help make us all savvier consumers of science news.
to feel like: this expression can have at least a couple of different meanings. In this case, it means something like to think that. Here is how it appears in the recording: Adam, why did you feel like this guidance was especially important right now?
Another possible use shows up as to feel like + noun. For example, to feel like shit means either to feel sick or to feel sorry or sad/upset about something:
- I drank a LOT of beer last night–I feel like shit this morning. (the feel-sick meaning)
- I must’ve eaten something rotten–I feel like death warmed over. (the feel-sick meaning)
- I was a real asshole yesterday, and I feel like shit about it now. (the feel-sorry)
- I feel like shit about what happened to you in the meeting–it was COMPLETELY wrong.
Another possible use is to feel like + present participle, meaning to have a desire to do something. For example:
- I feel like having cereal for dinner–whaddya you think?
- I really don’t feel like seeing anyone this evening–I’m just gonna stay home.
- Do you feel like going to the party?
such a: an intensifier. How it appears in the recording: Science is such a part of our lives. That means something like “science is very much a part of our lives.” Some examples:
- Trump is such an asshole.
- I’m gonna give you such a smack.
Today would have been Nelson Mandela’s 100th birthday. In 1962 he wrote a letter to (a very young) @amnesty. Was such a thrill when I first saw this in the archives, along with other letters from activists he inspired over the decades. pic.twitter.com/Ejsc1iVGyg
— lisa van wyk (@swimlittlefish) July 18, 2018
Zipf's Law 