📙 Part 2: Describe a water sport you want to learn in the future

You should say: what it is, what you need to do this sport, why you want to learn this sport and explain whether it is difficult or easy to learn this sport.

This episode's vocabulary

Support apparatus (noun) - equipment used by underwater divers to make diving activities possible, easier, safer and/or more comfortable.

Wetsuit (noun) - a close-fitting rubber garment typically covering the entire body, worn for warmth in water sports or diving.

Steep learning curve (noun) - an expression that used to describe the initial difficulty of learning something that is considered to be very challenging.

To hyperventilate (verb) - to breathe too quickly or too deeply, so that you get too much oxygen and feel dizzy.

To plunge (verb) - to jump or dive quickly and energetically.

To black out (phrasal verb) - to experience a sudden and temporary loss of consciousness.

To turn tail (idiom) - to turn around and run away, usually because you are frightened.

Trial-and-error (noun) - a way of achieving an aim or solving a problem by trying a number of different methods and learning from the mistakes that you make.

Neat (adj.) - cool.

Shallow (adj.) - not completely certain or convincing.

Fitness level (noun) - your body's ability to withstand a physical workload (how much) and to recover in a timely manner.

To be invested in smt (phrase) - ​to be willing to work hard and give your time and energy to something; to believe strongly in something.

Casually (adv.) - in a relaxed and informal way.

Buoyancy (noun) - the quality of being able to float.

To sell someone on something (phrasal verb) - to persuade someone that something is good, valuable, or useful.

Questions and Answers

M: Hello our dear premium listener and welcome to speaking part 2. Rory here, an educated native speaker is going to describe a water sport he wants to learn in the future. He'll talk about what it is, what you need to do this sport, why you want to learn this sport and explain whether it is difficult or easy to learn this sport.

R: I've always wanted to learn how to free dive. It's this sport where you have to hold your breath for a very long time while you dive deep underwater. You have no support apparatus like scuba gear, just a wetsuit and your own lungs. I just think it looks amazing whenever I see the videos of people doing it on Facebook. And even though it seems like there is a steep learning curve, it looks totally worth the effort. In more detail about what it involves. Well, in short, I'm led to believe that you hyperventilate so your lungs and blood are saturated with oxygen. And then you plunge into the water, accompanied by a safety diver who is wearing scuba gear just in case anything goes wrong and just to see how far you can go before you almost black out from needing air before turning tail and heading back to the surface. I think people have been pretty deep doing it to the tune of dozens if not hundreds of metres. To say more about what you need to do it, the actual divers don't get much gear. Well, they don't need much gear to do this. Though, I suppose the support divers do, just to keep you safe. You'll probably need some training to do it as well, since it doesn't seem like a trial-and-error thing. You could really hurt yourself or even be killed if you can't equalise your pressure or manage your breathing properly. In greater depth about why I want to learn how to do this. I'm afraid it's not terribly deep, to be honest, I think it just looks pretty neat. I want to try and have a cool video for social media. I suppose it sounds a bit shallow, now I think about it, but it's giving me a great excuse to use to make all these water-based puns. It might be a good way to develop my fitness level, if I have some goal to reach for, though I'm not all invested in the idea to be honest with you. In terms of difficulty... the difficulty involved. Like I said, it's probably not something you can do casually and you need some training, especially to do things that scuba gear would usually do for you, like carry an oxygen supply and manage pressure and buoyancy effectively. That's not really something you can do without conscious thought. And even with scuba gear, it's still hard to do. If I don't learn how to do it, it won't be a huge disaster because, like I said, I'm not totally sold on the idea of doing it yet, but if I get the chance to try, I'd love to see if it's possible for me.

M: Do you think you'll do it sometime in the future?

R: Not in the immediate future. But maybe sometime in the distant future.

Discussion

M: What a story. Dear listener, did you get the joke? Like water, water, like we drink water. And what a story. What a story. And it's funny because we're talking about a water sport. Hey. Rory talked about freediving. So freediving. What other water sports you can talk about?

R: Scuba diving.

M: Kayaking, rowing, sailing. But surfing, dear listener, you should choose a sport that is easy for you to talk about. If you've never done any sports, you don't know the vocabulary. Please research this water sport.

R: Please learn.

M: Yeah. Maybe surfing is easy to talk about, like, I don't know. Or whitewater rafting? Yachting? I don't know. But it's your choice. Maybe something like water volleyball or diving. Diving, yeah, like usual diving. There are some funny water sports, for example, horse surfing. Rory, did you know about?

R: What?

M: Horse surfing, yeah, like he's riding a horse and you are attached to the rider on a horse by a certain rope. And you are in the sea standing on this board. Horse surfing.

R: That sounds cruel and unnecessarily dangerous.

M: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've always wanted to learn to do something, present perfect. I've always wanted to try or I've always wanted to learn how to free dive or I've always wanted to learn diving. And in this sport, you have to hold your breath. So in free diving, you don't have this air tank. You just hold your breath. Yeah? You keep it and then you just dive. It's crazy. You dive deep underwater. So you don't have any scuba gear, gear or equipment.

R: Or apparatus.

M: Apparatus. Yeah. And here, unfortunately, you do need some vocabulary about this equipment. So usually we call it water equipment. Water gear. Special gear. Scuba gear. Wetsuit. A wetsuit, like a special suit you put on. Learning this seems like there is a steep learning curve. So what is it? About learning any watersport?

R: A learning curve is... Well, it's not just about water sports, it's about learning in general. A learning curve is how much effort you have to put in to learn something or become good at it. So if the learning curve is steep, then it's difficult to learn. But if it's not steep, then... Or you just say it's not got a steep learning curve, then it's easy to learn.

M: It looks totally worth the effort. So you can say that it might be difficult to learn this sport, but it's worth the effort, so it's just worth it. It's okay to devote time and efforts to learn the sport because it will be great in the end. Then in more detail of what the sport involves. You hyperventilate your lungs.

That just means that you breathe like really deeply and rapidly so that you get as much air inside you as possible.

Your blood is saturated with oxygen. So you have a lot of oxygen in your blood and then you plunge into water. You dive into a water. Plunge is a nice verb. Plunge into water with a safety diver in scuba gear. Scuba equipment. Yeah, a safety diver.

At least I think that's what they're called a safety diver or a support diver, but somebody to keep you safe. You could just say that.

And then divers, we call them, people who dive, who plunge in to water. Divers don't need much gear, so they don't need much equipment and you need some training. So we talk about training. You need some training to do. But it seems like a trial-and-error thing. So if it's a trial and error like you try it, you make mistakes, you do it again.

R: You can't really do that with free diving, though, because you might die.

M: Yeah, but with some... Like surfing, for example, or I don't know, kayaking. It seems like a trial-and-error thing. Like you try it out, you make mistakes, you do it again. And you might need to do some training or you do need to do some training, take some classes, read some books, watch tutorials. And then in any water sport, because we're in, kind of, close to water or inside the water, you could really hurt yourself or even be killed. Yeah. If you don't manage this and that properly in this sport, if you don't manage your breathing properly, if you don't manage the pressure. So when you dive, it's the pressure that you feel, yeah? We call it pressure of water.

R: Yeah, well you've got to manage and equalise the pressure because there's pressure inside your body and outside. So you'd have to do things like blowing your nose, holding your nose so that your eardrums don't explode.

M: I just think it looks pretty neat and I want to try it. So what did you mean by it looks pretty neat?

R: I actually stole that one from Marge Simpson from The Simpsons, because she just... She was talking about something really naff and boring and she was like, I just think they're neat. But usually when you say that something is neat, it's like an old way of talking about it being cool.

M: It's neat.

R: It is neat. Tidy. Which is also another way of talking about things being cool.

M: It might be a good way to develop my fitness level. Okay, dear listener? So this water sport, learning this water sport might be a good way to develop my fitness level for me to keep fit. Yeah, so to be kind of sporty to be in a good shape, but you can say that I'm not all that invested in the idea. I'm not all that invested in the idea. I kind of... I may try it. I may not try it. So I'm not going to do it every day like crazy.

R: No.

M: Like I am preparing for the Olympic Games and I'm going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Slaving away night and day. No, like I can try it. Like, do it once or twice and then forget about it. Or you can say, I'm really... I'm invested in this idea, so I want to do it properly and professionally. When you start speaking about the difficulty, how difficult it is, you can start with in terms of the difficulty involved. So in terms of how difficult this sport is, it's probably not something you can do casually. Casually, like, oh, I'm going to dive into deep waters.

R: Today I'm going to dive 100 metres, wow!

M: Yeah. So you do need some preparation, practice, some professional instruction. Yeah, so some training. Breathing, training to prepare your body. So it's not something that you can do casually. You need some training and we finish off with a conditional. If I don't learn how to do it, it won't be a huge disaster. And here we are speaking about the present because the task tells you a sport you want to learn in the future. So you are speaking about the future. That's why here we're using the future and the present. So if I don't learn how to do it, in the future, it won't be a huge disaster. Because I'm not completely sold on the idea of doing it yet. So I'm not all that invested in this idea. So I'm not completely sold on the idea of doing it. So I'm kind of, I might do it, I might not do it. I, kind of, I don't take it too seriously. So if I get the chance to try it, I'd love to do it. So if I get the chance, I'll do it. If I don't get the chance to try it out, I won't do it. Hey, there you go. Rory, what helped you to organise your answer? What linking phrases do you have in the answer?

R: Well, I'm going to do something special for the next three episodes. And you'll notice in the first part, I actually answered all parts of the question in the first 30 seconds. And then I went into more detail, to show that it's possible to circle back and add more information. So you'll notice if you've got the transcript in front of you, and if you don't, then don't worry, I'm about to tell you. I've got to talk about what I need to do the sport and what the sport is and why I want to learn it and explain whether I think it's easy or difficult. So here I actually, in the first four sentences, answered all of those questions and then I circled back.

M: Yeah.

R: By saying in more detail about what it involves. To say more about what you need to do. In greater depth about why I want to learn this and in terms of the difficulty involved, like I said... And then finishing off with good old fashioned, if I don't, it won't be a huge disaster or if I don't do this then it's not a big deal. Well, I'll do that for the next three episodes for part two and you can see the structures being used in different contexts. And hopefully that will be quite useful for you when you have to do your test. Because I doubt that you'll have to talk about any one of these things specifically, but you will have to use these phrases at some point.

M: Sweet. In our next episode, we're going to be talking about speaking part three, water sports and water in general. Thank you for listening. Bye!

R: Bye!

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