📙 Part 2: Describe a place in a village that you visited

You should say: where it is, when you visited this place, what you did there, and how you feel about this place.

This episode's vocabulary

Charming (adj.) - very pleasant or attractive.

A world away from sth. (idiom) - completely different from.

Flower bed (noun) - a garden plot in which flowers are grown.

Cheerful (adj.) - noticeably happy and optimistic.

Quaint (adj.) - attractively unusual or old-fashioned.

Hectic (adj.) - full of activity, or very busy and fast.

Urban (adj.) - of or in a city or town.

Refreshing (adj.) - making you feel less hot or tired.

Newcomer (noun) - someone who has recently arrived in a place or recently become involved in an activity.

Questions and Answers

R: When I lived up North in a place called Murray, I used to love going to the village square in Aberlour. It's quite charming, and it felt like a world away from the city that I'd left behind at that point. I used to live in Dundee, which is the fourth largest city, and Aberlour is a small village, and to be honest, life really does seem to move at its own pace there. I think the last time I was there, it was about two years ago. It was in the spring, so the flower beds were coming to life, and all the stone benches had been cleared, and it all looked rather cheerful and with very minimal effort, which is great. There's a clock tower right in the middle, which just added to the atmosphere, and probably continues to add to the atmosphere, along with all the stone buildings that have things like quaint shops and bakeries and things like that in them. I don't, honestly, I don't think they've changed it in hundreds of years. It's pretty cool. One particular thing that stands out in my memory was getting a coffee from the cafe there, and just sitting on one of those benches and watching the locals just going about their business and greeting each other as they passed by. That kind of thing really makes me feel at ease, especially after coming from like, well, the hectic urban environment of Dundee. I found it quite refreshing to be in a place where the community spirit was so visible. You don't really get that in cities, in smaller communities, it's better. They're the kinds of place where you can really feel connected, even as a newcomer. And that left quite a lasting impression on me, obviously. Since I'm able to talk about it in such detail now. It really feels like the heart of the village, and I'd really like to go back one day. If I hadn't gone there, I think I would have still enjoyed the countryside, but this really added to my experience and made it great.

M: And would you like to come back there?

R: Like I say, I would love to in the future. I just don't know when.

Discussion

R: Why are you laughing?

M: Because Aberlour.

R: Aberlour.

M: What word is this? What's this place? Like Aberlour? No, I'm going to tell you about Abululu.

R: Aberlour.

M: I'm going to tell you Abululu. Dear listener, it's crazy.

R: Aber is quite a common prefix for place names in the Gaelic language. For those of you who are listening, Gaelic is the native language of Scotland in some places.

M: So, dear listener, describe a place in a village.

R: Ideally, while your examiner is not laughing at the words you use. Maria.

M: No, it's a very good idea to make the examiner laugh with some strange, funny name. So the examiner laughs and you have a good score, dear listener. No, but... Can you imagine? Like, ooh, I'm gonna tell you about the Abululu village that I visited and then that's it. And then you are saying it with a straight face, dear listener, with a serious face. So I'm gonna tell you about a place which is called Abululu village. But the point is not to laugh. You shouldn't love. The examiner shouldn't laugh, but you should stay serious. Very funny. So a place in a village. So you went to a village, to a small place, to a town, and then there is a place, maybe a square, a street, I don't know, a fountain, a monument, a museum, a cafe, a restaurant, some place in a village, or maybe just a forest or a lake, a park. I don't know, somewhere, but it should be in a small town, a village somewhere in the countryside.

R: I feel like village squares are pretty good, though, they all have unique features that are quite easy to remember.

M: Like every village I think has a central square, which is called... Oh, okay, dear listener. I don't know, it's so funny. Oh... Rory, could you read out your first sentence, please?

R: Why is it so funny? When I lived up North in a place called Murray, I used to love going to the village square in Aberlour. So when, for the relative cause, and used to love, used to love going is also good.

M: Yeah, but not anymore. I used to live or I used to go there very often, but not anymore. Charming. It's a charming place. It's like nice, quiet, very beautiful, and it felt like a world away from the city. So this is a world away from the city. A place far away from the city. And it's a small village this Abululu.

R: Aberlour. Aberlour. It is not hard to say. It is a famous village in Scotland. Everyone manages to say this without laughing.

M: Well, you know, like if you Google Abululu Square, you just see whiskey. So yeah, only two pictures of the actual village and the square...

R: Because you are drunk.

M: Well, no, I don't drink alcohol. I just don't drink alcohol anymore, and I see whiskey and only actually one picture of the square, which is actually really beautiful and nice and calm.

R: What do you mean? There's like, you type in on Google here, there's like a million pictures of what it looks like.

M: No, no, no. You just go to Google Images and type in Abululu Square. And this is whiskey.

R: It's... It's a very famous village. It's lovely. I used to live there.

M: Right, dear listener. So like some place in Scotland which, you know, Abululu.

R: You know what's gonna happen now? All of these people are gonna show up to Aberlour, and they'll be like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, talking about the name, and the local people will be like what?

M: Amazing, amazing. Dear listener, we should all go and create a holiday when you pronounce the Abululu. To each other's faces. And the task is not to love and you know, like, we will create different ways of pronouncing this name. Ah, yeah. Oh, gosh, so funny. So this place has its own Pace. Pace? Like speed.

R: Speed of life.

M: I was there about two years ago, or I was there last week, or I was there, I don't know, about three years ago, or I'm there every winter or every spring. And then Rory gets all romantic. Rory tells us about the flower beds. The flower beds, they are, you know, these places where flowers grow. So when it's spring, it's so lovely because the flower beds...

R: Come to life.

M: Yeah. And the stone benches. Stone benches are nice. So everything is in stone in this Lulu place. And it looks rather cheerful. Cheerful? Like, you know, yay, like, very nice. So it's charming and it's cheerful. There's a clock tower. Like a small Big Ben in the middle of the square, because it's a square, you know, like a central square, so there should be some monument or something in the middle of it. So here there's a clock tower right in the middle of the square. This clock tower adds to the atmosphere. So it contributes to the atmosphere of, you know, this cheerful joy. And there are stone buildings. Like pretty much everything in Scotland is made of stone. You know? The castles with ghosts, ghosts.

R: I think this is like the one place in the country that doesn't actually have a castle, to be honest with you.

M: Really? No castles?

R: Not near Aberlour. No, not that I'm aware of.

M: Where do the ghosts live? In the clock tower?

R: They live in your head, because they're not real.

M: Rory, tell us, how did you describe the shops? A very good adjective.

R: They are quaint. But that just means that they're like old fashioned, which makes sense, because they're, well, hundreds of years old, or the buildings are hundreds of years old.

M: Yeah, dear listener, and you should use this adjective, quaint, C-2 vocabulary, band nine, proficiency level, yes. Attractive because of being unusual, especially old-fashioned. So if something is old, old-fashioned and attractive, you can say a quaint old cottage. So the place has a lot of quaint shops. This place has a lot of quaint cottages. Okay? This is it. Another thing is one particular thing that stands out in my memory is a coffee shop or one particular building that stands out in my memory, that I do remember vividly, I remember it well, is a coffee shop or a cafe. So I was sitting on one of the benches drinking this delicious coffee or Abululu whiskey. So you didn't drink Abululu whiskey in Abululu Square?

R: No, I don't drink whiskey. I only drink bourbon.

M: Ah, okay. Are you Scottish? Like, what's your problem?

R: I don't like whiskey.

M: You don't like whiskey? You like being Scottish? What's the matter with you?

R: Being Scottish is not just drinking whiskey. It's...

M: No?

R: No. It's a whole culture and various cultural mores. But no, you don't have to drink whiskey in order to be Scottish, but you do have to do is, or you have to be able to pronounce the names properly.

M: So I was sitting on one of the benches drinking whiskey with coffee, coffee with whiskey, and just watching the locals greet each other. So I was watching the locals, and when they greet each other, they say, hi, hello. How do you do? How are you? So I was watching the locals passing by. So they were passing by, or I was watching the locals as they passed by. They passed by me, they were passing by me. You know, going. It made me feel at ease. So when you feel at ease, you are kind of, you're relaxed, you're like, huh, so good. Abululu. I was relaxed, I felt completely at ease. I came from a hectic urban environment. Hectic? Like, full of stress, noises. So I came from a hectic city, and I found it refreshing to be in a place like this. I could feel the spirit of the community. Usually in small places, we have local people, and they create a community, you know? This kind of like this unit full of people, so and this spirit, this feeling of everybody who knows each other, they are friendly with each other. So this spirit of community is so visible, you can see it from the Abululu bench. So you can feel connected. And you can feel connected to what? To the place, to the locals?

R: To reality. No, I mean to the local place.

M: Yeah, even if you are a newcomer. So I'm not a local there, I'm a newcomer, I felt connected to the community. Oh, so nice. Rory's vocabulary show.

R: My first question is, Maria, what was the name of the town or the village that I talked about?

M: The name of the village is called Abululu place.

R: And it's called Aberlour, you have already failed. Question number two, what idiom did I use to emphasize the fact that life in this, in this village, is very different to life in the city?

M: It felt like a world away from the city.

R: Well done! Much in the same way as Maria's pronunciation of this place is a world away from what it actually is. My next question is, what was the word I used to describe the place where the flowers grow? It's not a word, actually. It's a collocation.

M: A flower bed.

R: Yes, many flower beds. And another idiom. What was the idiom I used to say that something is particularly noticeable in my memory of something?

M: It stands out in my memory.

R: And lastly, what was the collocation or the idiom that described the impact it made on my memory or in my memory?

M: It made me feel at ease.

R: No, that's how I felt. But we need to talk about the memory.

M: Visible, visible.

R: No, oh, Maria, no, you failed. It left a lasting impression on me.

M: Of course, it's...

R: Maria's brain has been burnt out by the pronunciation of the name of the city.

M: It left a lasting impression on me. Did you say that? Really?

R: Yeah.

M: Where is it?

R: It's right at the end. Oh, my days...

M: Hmm.

R: Let's move on from Maria's failures and move on to part three, where we talk about places in the countryside in general.

M: Thank you very much for listening, dear listener! Now you know the best place in this world.

R: Goodbye!

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