📙 Part 2: Describe a foreign person who you have heard or known that you think is interesting

This episode's vocabulary

Narrow sth down (phrasal verb) - to make a number or list of things smaller, by removing the things that are least important, necessary, or suitable.

Equivalent (adj.) - having the same amount, value, purpose, qualities, etc.

Proficiency (noun) - the fact of having the skill and experience for doing something

Wordplay (noun) - the activity of joking about the meanings of words, especially in an intelligent way.

Go out of your way - to try very hard to do something, especially for someone else.

Handy (adj.) - useful or convenient.

Trait (noun) - a particular characteristic that can produce a particular type of behaviour.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, give us a shout-out.

R: Shall we start?

M: Yay, off you go.

R: Well, this is actually quite a difficult one to narrow down because I know a lot of foreign people. But I'd like to talk about my good friend Filipe, who I used to work with at my former workplace. We both started out as teachers and rose to become managers within just a few years of each other. We're both known Russians, but unlike me, he is from Brazil. Not that you would know it since he speaks English extremely well. He even has CPE qualification, which is a certificate that's given to non-native speakers with level of English that's equivalent to proficiency or educated native speaker level. That's like a band nine for IELTS really. So with that in mind, it should come as no surprise that proficiency he's exceptionally good with languages and often makes puns and does a lot of wordplay. Even in his own native Portuguese, I believe. Aside from being quite good at, well, aside from being a good laugh, and fun to be around, he's also known for being rather helpful and often goes out of his way to support others. This came in very handy when we worked together on different management projects. I was putting together some tests, for example, and he helped me out with that. That was really helpful. In addition to those personality traits, he's also very tall, which definitely catches people's eyes, obviously, when you see him. But despite that, and the excellent speaking ability, he's quite interesting, more for what he doesn't say. And by that, I mean, he's actually an incredibly good listener. Though, this is perhaps helped by the fact that he enjoys the process rather than just forcing himself to do it. I think that goes to show that in order to be a good speaker, you have to be just as good at listening if not better.

M: What about your friends, do they know this person?

R: Um, most of my friends do.

M: Yay. Thank you, Rory!

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