📙 Part 2: Describe a time when you had to listen to someone talking but you were not interested

This episode's vocabulary

Flight attendant (noun) - someone who serves passengers on an aircraft.

Frivolous (adj.) - behaving in a silly way and not taking anything seriously.

Air steward (noun) - a person who serves passengers on a ship or aircraft.

Ought to (modal verb) - used to show when it is necessary or would be a good thing to perform the activity referred to by the following verb.

Engaged (adj.) - involved in something.

Frustrating (adj) - making you feel annoyed or less confident because you cannot achieve what you want.

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Questions and Answers

M: Now Rory is going to describe a time when he had to listen to someone talking. But he didn't enjoy it and he wasn't interested. Okay? He's gonna say who was talking, what this person was talking about. Rory is gonna say why he had to listen to this person and say why he wasn't very interested and what this person was talking about. Rory, over to you now.

R: Well, I hate to say it, but I really can't be bothered listening to flight attendants whenever they do the safety briefing. I know, it's really important to understand what to do if a plane is crashing. But there are only so many times you can listen to these presentations before you completely lose any interest in them. Especially if it's one of the automated recordings, which is like, well, like, well, they're prerecorded, they always say the same thing. And they always speak by where the lifejackets are, how to fasten your seat belt, as if that was necessary in a plane that's crashing it like 300 miles an hour, what to do if the plane lands on the water or if it's going to crash on land. And like other frivolous and obvious things that really need no explanation after you've heard them so many times, even if it's your first time hearing it, to be honest with you, it might not even be worth it. Because, you know, you have the safety cards in front of you, all the briefing information is on there, and it's very easy to find. And then if something actually does happen, then staff will be telling you what to do, the air stewards will tell you ought to do. So I'm pretty sure the only reason that you need to listen is that it's a legal requirement, or it's some way to like demonstrate professionalism, but there must be a less boring way of doing it. There was one time Turkish Airlines, for example, has a good safety briefing with different Lego figures. And that made me laugh. But, you know, if you watch that 15 times, you almost wish that they've made a series of them to like keep you engaged. But even with that in mind, like let's say they made a series with it, and they change the wording, even with new wording, the information would still be the same. And I don't think it could get me engaged in the process any more than, well, I already am, to be honest with you. It might be worth the effort, but I'm not terribly sure about that. But yeah, that really does cover it quite nicely, I think. Sorry, if you're an airline steward or an air stewardess and you're listening to this, that must be quite frustrating for you. But, I mean, hopefully you'll understand where I'm coming from.

M: Thank you very much, Rory. Does it often happen that you're not interested in what other people are telling you?

R: No, usually if they're telling me something new, but this is something that you hear every time you board a plane.

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