This episode’s vocabulary
To struggle
verb — to experience difficulty and make a very great effort in order to do something.
Grasp
noun — understanding.
Non-existent
adj. — something that is non-existent does not exist or is not present in a particular place.
To assign
verb — to give a particular job or piece of work to someone.
Staff
plural noun — the group of people who work for an organization.
Issue
noun — a subject or problem that people are thinking and talking about.
Miss out
phrasal verb — to fail to use an opportunity to enjoy or get an advantage from something.
To fix
verb — to repair something or solve a problem.
Feedback
noun — information or statements of opinion about something, such as a new product, that can tell you if it is successful or liked.
Effort
noun — physical or mental activity needed to achieve something.
Go out of your way
phrase — to try very hard to do something, especially for someone else.
Relieved
adj. — happy that something unpleasant has not happened or has ended.
Questions and answers
Rory, here from Scotland, is gonna describe an occasion when he received good service from a company or a shop. He's going to say who provided this service, what service it was, when he received this service, and he's going to explain how he felt about it. Rory, over to you
This is going to be another difficult one, because I always get really good service at shops, or at least almost always. So actually, it would be easier to talk about the bad ones. But let's choose an example at random. So I can remember a time in Moscow when I really struggled at one of the banks there. It was my first year and I'd just been given my, well, bank card for work, basically. And my grasp of Russian was pretty much non-existent. I was trying to get access to the account that I'd been assigned, and find out what the balance was and to set up the online banking, which was almost impossible, at least initially. Because none of the staff could speak a word of English. So I couldn't speak Russian, they couldn't speak English, either, it was a bit of a mess. I should say, that wasn't their fault, it is their country, after all. So really, I should have been better prepared in this respect. But it wasn't something I thought about. At least I can speak it better now. Getting back to the subject, I was about to give up when a woman came out of her office and started speaking English to me very slowly and trying to solve the issue. It turned out that it was actually quite an easy thing to solve. But of course, if you don't have the right grammar or vocabulary in any language, then you might miss out entirely. So I was glad she was there. And once the issue was fixed, and I've gone home, I even emailed her manager afterwards to say how helpful she was, and how I would have been completely lost without her. I never heard back about the feedback that I gave, but I hope she managed to get it. I think it's quite important for people to be recognized for their efforts, especially when, you know, she'd obviously gone out of her way to help me. So yeah, I was really grateful and actually quite relieved, as I'd have been quite lost without her.
Did you tell your friends about this?
I did at the time. I haven't told anyone else in a while.
Thank you, Rory, for your good service answer! -