Final webcast – your questions

Jackie: Hello and welcome to Talk About English. Today, a special edition of the
programme, based on your questions. We speak to listener Lina Maria in
Colombia.
Lina Maria
Jackie: Why would anyone want to ignore William’s hair? And can Catherine really
order food in Arabic, or is she just bluffing¹?
Catherine
Jackie: Will she finish that sentence? Find out in today’s Talk About English! As this
is the last ever Talk About English, we decided² to completely hand over the
programme to you by giving it up to your questions. We invited you to send in
a question about absolutely anything. We’ll be finding out things like how tall
William Kremer is and what the longest word in the English language is! For
this we’re joined by a contingent³ of Talk About English veterans: William
Kremer, Neil Edgeller and Callum Robertson.
All: Hellos.
Jackie: Let’s get straight into that first and perhaps most important question today,
which was asked by Lina Maria in Colombia.

Lina
Jackie: So how tall is William Kremer? He revealed the truth, in all its complexity⁴.
Lina and the team
Jackie: So we’re all happy with our height then. And if you go to our website
bbclearningenglish.com/webcast you’ll find a link where you can hear the full
almost uncensored version of that interview, which also includes the answer to
a personal question about Callum. Neil, what else have we had in the way of
questions in our inbox this week?
Neil: We had one from Carlos Eduardo: what’s the longest word in the English
language.
Jackie: Do we know?
All: (discuss)
Jackie: Thank you. Next question – Neil, who was this from?
Neil: This was from El-Eulma in Algeria and it refers to Catherine, who’s a writer
for bbclearningenglish.com. And the question is: can I hear Catherine speaking
Arabic? Well, El-Eulma, the answer is ‘yes, you can!’ and here she is!
Catherine
All: (discuss)
Jackie: Completely changing the subject, another question we had in was from Wai
Lin in China who wants to know why are there seven colours in a rainbow?
What a good question! I went along to meet Fran Bate⁵ of London’s science
museum to find out.

Fran Bate
Jackie: William, could you tell us about the next listener question?
William: (responds)
Jackie: Talking of collections, what about collecting languages - another question we
had in was from Luis Alberto in Brazil: how many languages a person is able
to speak?
All: (discuss)
Jackie: Charlotte Alston is a lecturer in history at the University of Ulster who’s done
a lot of research into Harold Williams. And this is what she said.
Charlotte Alston
Jackie: Neil, what’s the next question?
Neil: Whose idea was it to create the BBC Learning English website? That question
was from Silvia Ceragioli,
Jackie: To answer that, the editor of bbclearningenglish.com, Paul Scott.
Paul: (answers)
Jackie: Thank you Paul Scott, Editor of bbclearningenglish.com. We’re nearing the
end of the programme – what are we going to do next William?
William: (replies)

Jackie: Sadly this final webcast programme has reached an end, we’ve all had a
fantastic time working on it – thanks so much to all of you who’ve listened and
contributed over the years, including the many who sent in questions for this
week. Apologies to those whose questions we didn’t answer, many of them
very profound and thought-provoking such as the one from Vinicius, who
asked who is the best football player ever? Pelé or Maradona? And Tra My
from Vietnam, who asked how can I become rich and beautiful like Paris
Hilton? Questions, sadly we leave unanswered. But from all of us here in BBC
Bush House in London thank you for joining us, do keep exploring the many
different programmes and activities you can find on bbclearningenglish.com
and it’s goodbye for now!
All: Goodbye! (本文由在线英语听力室整理编辑)

1 bluffing   

n. 威吓，唬人 动词bluff的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• I don't think he'll shoot—I think he's just bluffing. 我认为他不会开枪—我想他不过是在吓唬人。
• He says he'll win the race, but he's only bluffing. 他说他会赢得这场比赛，事实上只是在吹牛。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 contingent   

adj.视条件而定的；n.一组，代表团，分遣队

参考例句：

• The contingent marched in the direction of the Western Hills.队伍朝西山的方向前进。
• Whether or not we arrive on time is contingent on the weather.我们是否按时到达要视天气情况而定。

4 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。

5 bate   

v.压制；减弱；n.（制革用的）软化剂

参考例句：

• The cruel landlord would bate him no rent.那个狠心的地主不肯给他减租。
• I was unable to bate my enthusiasm.我无法抑制自己的热切的心情。