📙 Part 2: Describe an interesting building

This episode's vocabulary

Questions and Answers

Maria: Describe an interesting building. You should say where it is, what it looks like, what function it has, and explain why you think it's interesting.

Rory: I'd like to talk about the Eiffel Tower, which is a pretty famous building in Paris, in France. You might have seen it for yourself, on TV or in books, since it's a pretty popular site to have in movies or to set the scene for something like a guide book or a novel. When it comes to what it looks like, it's a tower, so it's a very tall building with a high point and a base that flares out in four places. So there are four pillars of steel, steel beams that support it. I'd say it was a pretty gray color from what I can remember, just from standing underneath it, which makes sense since that's the color of steel, I think. Not only is it just a sort of high metal framework, it's also a place with restaurants and viewing platforms, so you can see people enjoying themselves in those places. I've never been inside those places myself, but the views must be spectacular just looking at it from the ground up. In terms of its function, I think it's just a tourist attraction with places for people to see the sights and enjoy their meals these days. But I think it was originally constructed for the World's Fair to demonstrate how various metal frames could be used to create extremely tall buildings. I don't think that caught on in France, since there aren't many tall buildings there. But it certainly helped inspire many skyscrapers that we have today, at least from what I know. And oh, at night, the whole structure lights up and sparkles from time to time, so it's even more beautiful when that happens. As for why I think it's interesting, I think it's the combination of the iconic design and the history of the place. When you look at it, it immediately evokes all this imagery of construction and the effort that people put into it, and you immediately know where you are and what you're looking at. It's hard to imagine what the world would look like if we didn't have it, even though it's in a very different country to my own.

Maria: And what about your friends? Do they enjoy this building?

Rory: The ones that I have talked to about it all approve of it, yeah.

Discussion

Maria: So, dear listener, describe an interesting building. You should have an interesting building. You can talk about a famous building, like Rory, who told us the story about the Eiffel Tower. And Rory, it's Eiffel, I, Eiffel?

Rory: Well, I think in French it's called the tour, or La Tour Eiffel. But in English, it's the Eiffel Tower.

Maria: Eiffel. Yeah, the Eiffel Tower. You can steal Rory's story, dear listener, and talk about the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Hey, even if you haven't seen it. Or you can talk about, I don't know, some museum in your city or a building you like, but you should be able to describe the building, and we do need specific words, okay?

Rory: But it's good to pick one that's we're pretty familiar with.

Maria: And building could be, I don't know, a house, another house, a house where people live or an administrative building where the government stays and works, okay? And we start off with, I'd like to talk about the Eiffel Tower or about the building I have next to my house, for example, or a shop, a restaurant, okay, a museum building, which is a pretty famous building in Paris, in France. And I've seen it many times, or I haven't seen it myself in Paris. It's a pretty popular site. Site like place.

Rory: Well, thing that you see.

Maria: Yeah, something you see. And really the Eiffel Tower is on lots of postcards. It's everywhere. So it's a pretty popular place. When it comes to what it looks like, we describe the appearance of the building. We just describe the building. We use adjectives and descriptions, right? So the question is, what does it look like? Describe it, describe the building. And we can make a link, when it comes to what it looks like, it's a tower. So it's a tall building. Or it's a museum building. It's a four-

Rory: Four story building. But if we well, four stories is like four floors, but the Eiffel Tower, how tall is the Eiffel Tower?

Maria: Three hundred meters tall?

Rory: It's quite tall.

Maria: But if your building has two stories, or two floors or five floors, you can say that it's a five story building. Not story like a good story Rory, well done, but floors, right? So it has five floors, or it's a five story building. And there are four pillars of steel beams that supported. So it kind of stands on four pillars. On four kind of legs, yeah? The Eiffel Tower. Then we mention the color. So it's gray, or it has black and red colors.

Rory: Although what we should say is not it's gray color or it's blue color. We just say the color. It's blue or it's gray. If we want to use the word color, then we want to say it's blue in color or it's gray in color, but usually we don't need to do that.

Maria: Then Rory uses inversion, dear listener. Wow. So he says, not only is it metal, but it's also a place with... So you can say, not only is it a museum, but it's also a library. So pretty much we connect two sentences. It's a museum, it's a library. Not only is it a museum, but it's also a library. So you can write it down and make a sentence about your building. Or just talk about the Eiffel Tower. Seriously, it's the easiest, I think, approach. Just steal Rory's story. So the tower has restaurants and viewing platforms, for tourists where you just go up there and you admire the view. So it's called a viewing platform. Where people enjoy themselves looking at Paris. And then you can say, I've never been there myself, but the views must be spectacular. Spectacular like, wow, something so nice, spectacular, amazing views. I've been on the Eiffel Tower, and yes, the views are amazing.

Rory: Oh, have you been on the Eiffel Tower or have you been in the Eiffel Tower?

Maria: Inside. But I've been inside the Eiffel Tower, but also I visited one of the platforms.

Rory: Oh, how was it?

Maria: Lovely. I enjoyed it. Lots of people, but I really enjoyed it. I felt the power of this building, this massive structure. And yeah, the views are spectacular, amazing.

Rory: It certainly looks like that. You're very lucky. I've only seen it from the ground up, so I don't know about these other things.

Maria: When you start speaking about the function, you can say, in terms of its function, it's just a tourist attraction. So a place for tourists now, right? It was originally constructed for the World's Fair. So the passive voice, it was constructed ten years ago, or it was originally built twenty years ago as a museum, yeah, or as a library. And actually there is a film about the person who built it. A very interesting film, I'd recommend it.

Rory: Who was the person that built it? Obviously, Mr. Eiffel, but what was his first name?

Maria: Oh, the first name? I don't know, but the film is called The Eiffel.

Rory: I'm going to say it's Charles. Maybe I'm wrong. Hold on. I am so happy. I'm just looking at the page now and I was totally right that the Eiffel Tower is 330 meters tall. But it was Gustav Eiffel who built it. And it was for the World's Fair in 1889. Wow.

Maria: 1889, yeah. And people hated it when he first built it, of course. Yeah. And the building inspired people to build skyscrapers, right? Because the tower was pretty tall for its time. So some people got inspired by it. And the whole structure lights up at night. So if there are lights on the building, you can say the whole, all of the structure, the whole structure lights up at night. And you can say it sparkles, because the Eiffel Tower sparkles nicely, with the lights.

Rory: It's very pretty.

Maria: So it's even more beautiful at night than during the day. Why is it interesting? Okay? And we can say that it's the combination of the design and history. So what makes any building interesting? It's the combination, the mix, the connection of its design, the design of the building, and the history of the place. And here you can say the iconic design.

Rory: Mmm.

Maria: Because well, the Eiffel Tower does have an iconic design. This famous popular design, iconic.

Rory: Something that defines a place.

Maria: And when you look at it, it evokes what feelings. So you can say, when you look at it, people feel amazed, people start thinking about the history, the creator of the building, yeah. Gustav.

Rory: Gustav. Yes, thank you, Gustav.

Maria: And you think about the effort that people put into it. A lot of people put a lot of effort into building this structure, construction, or into designing this building. Yay. So Rory, what adjectives did you use? Because dear listener, when you describe something, yeah, adjectives.

Rory: Let's talk about them for a building in general, first of all. For example, we could say a pretty famous building, as opposed to pretty interesting. And then a pretty popular site, or just a popular site. And then we can talk about if it's a tall building or a short building. Or if you want to use those things, but you're talking about something that's maybe not famous, you could say it's not very famous, or it's not a very popular site. So you can still do that. Then we already talked about the color. It's gray, blue, which is the color of... And then we can talk about the views of the building which are spectacular for the Eiffel Tower. But if we want to use it for a different building that's not so spectacular, then we say it's not spectacular, unfortunately. But it is still interesting. Then, for the Eiffel Tower, these are not adjectives, but they are verbs. It lights up, it sparkles. And it's even more beautiful. Then how else to describe it? Oh, what else? Oh, iconic. Yes.

Maria: Iconic, yeah, iconic design. It has iconic design. We can also say that it's a historic building. It's a historic museum. So it's old, right? So it's historic. You can also say that it's impressive. It's beautiful. An impressive building. Then you can comment on the style of the building, like Gothic, for example, a Gothic building, a modern structure, if it's modern, in modern style, Roman building. Maybe you will talk about ancient building, something very old, it's ancient. Okay? My dear listener, super. A very specific topic today. Please make a choice about what building you're going to talk about. And we'll get back to you in our speaking part three about buildings, architecture, and historical sites. All right? Bye.

Rory: Bye.