Thames watermen and lightermen(在线收听) |
BBC Learning English London Life
[Barge FX] William: A sound familiar to all Londoners - a noisy boat moving along the River Thames. [End FX] My name’s William Kremer and this is London Life. The people who move boats along this part of the Thames have a very old job. They’re called watermen and lightermen. But what’s the difference between a waterman and a lighterman? Listen to this short news clip for the answer:
qualify as a Thames waterman (carrying passengers) or a lighterman (carrying freight), and that regime has been in place since the sixteenth century.
you’ll be listening to the clip again. The answer is that watermen are in charge of boats which carry passengers, so, people. Lightermen are in charge of boats which carry freight. Freight is – so, it could be building supplies, or food, or products from a factory. Recently, watermen and lightermen have been in the news in London. That’s because on January 1st work. The clip we heard just now is from a journalist who is reporting on this change. Let’s listen to a longer section of his report – and as you listen, try to work out what the change Journalist: It takes a five year apprenticeship to qualify as a Thames waterman (carrying passengers) or a lighterman (carrying freight), and that regime has been in place since the sixteenth century. Well, not any more: from January 1st, it’s been replaced by a new National Boatmasters’ Licence for Inland Waterways which will reduce the qualification time to just two years, plus six months of local training.
century – so, for the last five hundred years – if you wanted to become a waterman or a lighterman you first had to be an apprentice for five years. Now, an apprentice does an apprenticeship. An apprenticeship is a period of training that you do while you’re working in a job in order to learn all the skills of that job. When you have done everything you need to do before you start the job properly, you have qualified for the job. Of course, there are different ways to qualify for different jobs – maybe for your job you had to study a course at college or take an exam. But the traditional an apprenticeship for five years – and this is what has been changed. Listen again:
qualify as a Thames waterman (carrying passengers) or a lighterman (carrying freight), and that regime has been in place since the sixteenth century. Well, not any more: from January 1st, it’s been replaced by a new National Boatmasters’ Licence for Inland Waterways which will reduce the qualification time to just two years, plus six months of local training.
system, of apprenticeships has been replaced by a Boastmasters’ Licence, which will allow people to qualify in just two years, plus six months of training. Next we’re going to hear a conversation between a journalist and Bert Andrews, a waterman whose family have been doing the job for nearly a hundred years. How long was Bert’s apprenticeship?
licence. Seven years is an awfully long time – you can become a doctor in seven years.
erm… The minimum is five years, at the moment. Personally, I done seven on me father’s advice and erm… I’m still learning today.
takes seven years to qualify as a doctor but Bert said he wasn’t ‘that way inclined’ – which means he either wasn ’t interested in becoming a doctor or he didn’t have the natural talent that the job needed.
have noticed some interesting grammar. Listen again:
erm… The minimum is five years, at the moment. Personally, I done seven on me father’s advice and erm… I’m still learning today.
did as a young man, but instead of saying ‘I did seven years’ he says ‘I done seven years.’ Bert is using the subject together with the past participle – done – in the same way that we would normally use the past tense. Now, he isn’t an English student who has made a mistake with his grammar, this is just the way he talks naturally. Bert London’s working people. He also says ‘me father’ instead of ‘my father’ – which is also quite common in spoken English. Listen again:
erm… The minimum is five years, at the moment. Personally, I done seven on me father’s advice and erm… I’m still learning today.
bbclearningenglish.com you can listen again to the full news report that we featured in today’s programme and also listen again to today’s vocabulary. You’ll also see some links to find out more about the Cockney accent. Goodbye!
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原文地址:http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/ldsh/70148.html |