📙 Part 2: Describe some good news you heard from others

This episode's vocabulary

To stand out (phrasal verb) - to be very easy to see or notice.

Emotional impact (noun) - the feelings we evoke in others that have a true, lasting impact.

Ritual (noun) - a way of doing something in which the same actions are done in the same way every time.

Horrendous (adj.) - extremely unpleasant, horrifying, or terrible.

Media outlet (noun) - a publication or broadcast program that provides news and feature stories to the public through various distribution channels.

Column (noun) - a vertical arrangement of items printed or written on a page.

Bulletin (noun) - a short official statement or broadcast summary of news.

Incredulous (adj.) - (of a person or their manner) unwilling or unable to believe something.

Speechless (adj.) - unable to speak, especially as the temporary result of shock or strong emotion.

To spread (verb) - to tell something to a lot of people, or to be told to a lot of people:

Ignorant (adj.) - not having enough knowledge, understanding, or information about something.

To give up (phrasal verb) - to stop doing something before you have finished it, usually because it is too difficult.

Dismal (adj.) - sad and without hope.

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 some good news he heard from others. He is going to say what it was when he heard it, how he knew it, and he's going to explain how he felt about it... Some good news.

R: I think the thing that stands out most in my mind is when the pandemic restrictions were lifted in Moscow about two and a half years ago. It's quite a long time ago now. However, the reason that stands out in my mind so much is because... Well, just the emotional impact it made on me, because we'd been trapped in our houses and apartments for months on end, which was not a great experience for anybody, to be honest with you. Well, almost everybody. Even though I was quite enjoying it quite a lot, I don't think a lot of people were. And I remember reading about it. It was mid-afternoon because I was just in the middle of having my coffee, which was quite a regular feature of the start of my afternoons during that time. And I always checked out what was on the news at that time. It was a kind of ritual because I didn't check the news in the morning because it was always horrendous and I didn't want to have a bad start to the day and I always had to work in the afternoon. So even if there was bad news, then work would distract me from it. I always checked one website in particular. It was The Moscow Times, which is an English language outlet, and it's based in Russia, but you can access it anywhere in the world, which is actually quite useful. Now I think about it. They always have lots of good columns and reviews as well as local news bulletins. So I had a look and I was just checking through the information that they usually presented. Then all of a sudden the screen just changed and it was saying all the pandemic restrictions had been lifted and the whole thing had basically come to an end. I remember at first I didn't really understand at all what was going on. I was almost incredulous or speechless because it was such a sudden change from the norm. And then I remember being really, really happy and spreading the news to lots of other people who were completely ignorant about the whole thing since they had given up reading the news because it was always so dismal. So it wasn't me that was happy that day, or it wasn't just me, it was everybody in Moscow, really. That was quite a nice thing to do for them, I suppose. If I hadn't heard this news then, well, I think I would have guessed from the celebrations in the street probably that things had changed.

M: And did you talk to other people about this news?

R: I don't think it would have been hard to miss, even without me telling people to be honest with you.