📙 Part 2: Describe your favourite climate

This episode's vocabulary

Mediterranean (adj.) - relating to the Mediterranean Sea or the countries around it.

Bucket list (noun) - a list of the things that a person would like to do or achieve before they die.

Balkans (plural noun) - a region in southeastern Europe between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea.

Coastline (noun) - the particular shape of the coast, especially as seen from above, from the sea, or on a map.

The Adriatic (adj.) - a sea in Europe that is part of the Mediterranean, between Italy, Albania, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Med (noun) - the Mediterranean Sea or the countries near it.

Strong suit (noun) - a particular skill or ability that a person or an organization has.

To cool (someone/something) down/off (phrasal verb) - to become less hot, or to make someone or something become less hot.

Questions and Answers

R: Well, I quite like Mediterranean climates like that in Spain or Slovenia, to be honest. Other than Argentina, Slovenia is the only place left on my bucket list. It's a small country in/or near the Balkans, depending on who you ask, and it shares a land border with the north of it. Given its location, it's probably safe to say it has a pretty typical European climate with these cold winters or cool winters and warmer summers. Like I said, you could even call it Mediterranean since it has a small coastline with the Adriatic and that's kind of part of the Med, or at least I think so. Geography is not my strong suit, but it's roughly in that location. When it comes to the temperature, I'm not sure that they differ greatly from the surrounding countries. And they seem to do rather well for themselves, at least in terms of temperatures, especially in the summer. It's possible that with a smaller coastline, the influence of the sea is greatly reduced compared to others. So they might have massively warmer summers without the sea to cool things off, but that's just a guess. Like I said, I haven't really experienced this specific climate in this specific place before, but it's similar to what I've experienced in Spain, for example. So how different could it be? And regardless, I like the heat, so that's not going to be a problem for me. Indeed, it's one of the reasons I want to visit there. Like I said, I hear the summers are rather spectacular, in addition to the culture and the architecture, and there's one particular seaside town I'd like to go to called Piran. And since that's next to the sea, even if it does get too hot, I'll still have somewhere to cool off. And that's why I like that sort of setup, climate-wise, because it gives me options, and you can never have too many options, at least in my opinion. If I don't get the chance to experience this climate again, I won't feel too bad about it, but like I say, I quite like the sunshine, so this would be a good opportunity to experience that.

M: And what about your friends? Do they like this climate?

R: I imagine they'd like it more compared to the climate here, for sure.