[00:00.00]18 Nationalities,festivals and languages
[00:06.58]While you read
[00:13.24]FOUR EXPERIENCES
[00:17.21]QUENTIN
[00:19.67]Back in 1989,I went on holiday to London to visit somefriends.
[00:26.12]The second day I was there,the Notting Hill Carnival was on.
[00:32.39]So I went to see what it was all about.It was amazing!
[00:38.84]It's like a huge street party right in the middle of London.
[00:44.62]It's basically a celebration of Afro-Caribbean culture,
[00:50.86]but all kinds of thousands of people there.
[00:55.72]There are literally hundreds of thusands of people there.
[01:01.07]Anyway,everyone dresses up in outrageous costumees and dances and has a great time.
[01:08.94]I met some really nice people that day and it really helped broaden my mind.
[01:16.30]I've been back every other year since then.and always look forward to it.
[01:22.96]BARNAbY
[01:26.83]I've been going to the Glastonbury festival in the west of England for years.
[01:33.78]It used to be really great.but it's become a bit commercial now.
[01:40.34]It's got too big.Ten years ago.
[01:45.48]it was much smaller and it was easier to make friends
[01:50.84]and everyone was there for the music.
[01:54.81]Nowadays,everything is much more expensive
[02:00.06]and it's become a place people go in order to drink and take drugs,
[02:06.12]It's got more aggressive too.Things get stolen from your tent.
[02:12.78]There are more fights and there are so many people
[02:18.24]that you can't even see the bands.
[02:22.71]The stages seem to be miles away!I only go out of habit now.I suppose.
[02:30.26]RicARdO
[02:34.12]Fallas is a big annual festival they hold in my home town,Valencia.
[02:41.49]It's held every spring and it commemorates the patron saint of the city.
[02:47.94]Lots of people spend the whole year preparing for it.
[02:53.30]Each area raises money to build their own fallas
[02:58.26]-huge papier-mache models-and they all spend ages making them look great.
[03:05.34]We make funny models of famous politicians,
[03:10.20]footballers,local celebrities,that kind of thing.
[03:14.95]The festival runs all through the beginning of March and it's pretty carzy-lots of drinking,
[03:22.61]hundreds of people all throwing fireworks at each other,
[03:27.65]street performers and so on.Anyway,on March 19th,
[03:33.71]there's a huge fireworks display and then everyone burns all their models!
[03:40.37]It's mad,but really good fun.
[03:45.04]YASUKO
[03:49.49]Hounen Matsuri is a fairly strange festival.
[03:55.23]I don't really know much about it.It still happens every year.
[04:01.89]in March,but it's mainly for older people.
[04:06.75]Most young people just find it a bit embarrassing,I think,
[04:12.81]I suppose it's a celebration of spring
[04:17.57]and the end of winter and that kind of thing.
[04:22.14]People get really drunk on rice wine
[04:27.18]and parade this big wooden thing through the streets.
[04:32.04]Don't ask me why!Then they take it to the temple and pray and that's it,really.
[04:39.69]It's odd,though,because it's really popular with tourists.
[04:45.54]I guess it attracts the kind of person
[04:50.01]who likes to think they're seeing the real Japan.
[04:54.45]whatever that means.
[04:57.93]3 Radio interview
[05:08.87]You are now going to listen to a radio programme.
[05:13.73]One of the speakers is Gareth Davies himself.
[05:18.69]The other is a Professor of Modern Languages.
[05:23.66]And now we turn on the story of Gareth Davies.which has caused so much discussion recently.
[05:32.51]As you probably know.Mr Davies lost his job.
[05:38.26]despite being an award-winning teacher of English.
[05:43.01]because he failed an exam in Welsh.
[05:47.48]He lost a court case recently,where he had argued he shouldn't be forced to have a qualification which wasn't relevant to his job.
[05:56.73]To discuss this and other issues about language
[06:01.87]we have Gareth himself and Christine Edwards,
[06:07.05]Professor of Modern Languages at the University of Eastminster.
[06:12.92]First of all,Gareth,I think quite a few people would say,you live in Wales.
[06:20.47]you should speak the local language which is Welsh.
[06:26.04]Well,I'm not actually sure you can say that Welsh is the local language.
[06:34.40]I'd say that the majority of people in Conway speak English as their first mother tongue.
[06:42.86]The second thing is.
[06:46.23]I am Welsh!OK.my parents moved to London,when I was four because of work,
[06:54.56]but I was born here and both my parents come from different parts of Wales.
[07:01.83]It's just that neither of them spoke Welsh.
[07:06.89]If people want to speak it,fine,
[07:11.44]but it's no use to me in my normal life.apart from this stupid bit of paper.
[07:18.80]You can't make people learn languages.
[07:24.40]Isn't that a point.Christine?
[07:29.04]People simply express themselves in the way they want and that happens to be English.
[07:36.52]No.I'm sorry,but if you look at all the languages round the world.
[07:42.45]one is dying out every two weeks and that's because of English.
[07:48.32]I think people think they have to speak English
[07:53.36]or they will not be able to get a good job,or succeed in the world.
[07:59.03]Also,because America is so rich,people see lots of Hollywood movies,
[08:06.19]and listen to lots of American music,
[08:10.63]and so far younger people English becomes cool
[08:15.60]and they start to want to speak it.
[08:19.57]So then you get language like French being diluted with English.
[08:25.73]No.when the language dies you also lose the culture and traditions of that country.
[08:32.50]Languages need to be protected,
[08:36.75]and that's all that's happened here in Garth's case.
[08:41.72]So what you're saying is that I'm actually somehow damaging Welsh culture
[08:50.36]by not learning the Welsh language!This is crazy.
[08:56.24]If kids want to be cool.what's wroing with that?
[09:01.60]What givess you the right to tell people how to live and how to speak?
[09:07.94]And anyway,
[09:11.00]the way you think doesn't change when you're speaking in another language.
[09:17.19]When I am speaking Welsh-badly,
[09:22.16]I admit-I still want to say the same kind of things I say in English.
[09:29.10]I'm still me.I'm not suddenly someone else.
[09:35.27]Disagreeing
[09:48.83]You can't get a good job if you don't speak English.
[09:53.27]Come on!That's bit of an exaggeration!No.it's not.
[09:58.83]All the best jobs these days ask you to be fluent in English.
[10:04.42]So what you're saying is could be a brilliant medical student,say,
[10:11.08]and I couldn't get a job as a doctor because I can't speak English.
[10:16.65]Yeah,more or less.
[10:19.99]Do you honestly believe that?Yeah,If you don't speak English,you're nothing.
[10:26.96]How can you say that?Because it's true.That's crazy.
[10:33.03]Listen we're obviously never going to agree,
[10:38.59]so let's just talk about something else.shall we?
[10:43.55]OK.but you do realise you're wrong!
[10:47.92]OK.whatever.I don't want to argue.Let's just agree to disagree.
[10:55.86]Stereotypes and reality
[11:07.12]1.He's typical Scot-really mean!
[11:13.36]Oh,come on!Every Scot I've ever met was really generous.
[11:19.31]2.He's typical ltalian-really loud!
[11:25.09]Oh,come on.I've got a really good friend who's from rome and he's quite quite.
[11:31.64]3.She's typical Japanese-really conservative.Oh,come on.
[11:40.19]That's such a stereotype!Lots of Japanese people are really out-going.
[11:46.64]4.She's typical small town girl-really conservative.Oh,come on!
[11:56.62]Just because you don't come from the city doesn't mean you can't be open-minded.
[12:02.86]5.She's typical Parisian-arrogant and snobbish!Oh,come on.
[12:10.72]I've got a friend from Paris and she's really nice.
[12:15.40]6.The Spanish are much more friendly than most people.
[12:22.35]Some of them,maybe,I've met some Spaniards who were really cold and distant.
[12:28.90]7.People from Osaka are usually really funny.Oh,come on!
[12:38.36]They can't all be funny!There must be some who are as dull as the rest of us!
[12:44.42]8.People from the north are much more open and honest than southerners.
[12:51.50]Oh,come on!Just because you're a southerner doesn't mean you have to be two-faced.
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