环球英语 — 33： Listener Mail 73

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Hello. I’m Rachel Hobson.

Voice 2

And I’m Mike Procter. Welcome to Spotlight 1. This programme uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1

Welcome to our listener mail programme! It is time to hear your comments and opinions about some of our programmes.

Voice 2

What radio stations do you listen to? What city do they operate from? What country? Do you ever listen to international stations? Some people love to listen to international shortwave stations. In fact, they spend much of their time trying to find stations that are very far away from them. We call these people ‘DX-ers’.

Voice 1

A DX-er is someone who writes DX reports to radio stations. The ‘D’ represents ‘Distance.’ The ‘X’ represents the unknown place. DX-ers spend their time listening to very distant radio stations. They fill in DX reports. These state the time, details and frequency 2 of the station. Then, they ask for confirmation 3 from the radio station, in a ‘QSL’ card. We received this message from a DX-er in India! Neelakandan writes:

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‘Dear sir, I am happy to forward this to you. Here are the details: date: twenty ninth of July, two thousand and seven, Time: 1400 - 1415 UTC, Frequency 9500 KHz. Programme details: Spotlight by Rebecca with Hearing Cancer stories. Comments: It is very informative 4 to know more about the truth of diseases 5 and healing 6.

Voice 1

Thanks for your report Neelakandan! We can confirm that these details are correct!

Voice 2

Where are you listening from? Write and tell us! We love to hear information about our listeners’ countries! Our next letter is from Rolando in Nicaragua. Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America. It is a beautiful country - with mountains and rainforests. It has two very large lakes - Lake Nicaragua and Lake Managua.

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Rolando writes from Estali - the second largest city in northern Nicaragua:

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“Hello dear friends. I am a very frequent listener of your radio programme. I want to know how to get the material of the programmes - the audio 7 and the text.”

Voice 1

Many people ask us this question. You can get the scripts 9 and audio from our website. Just click ‘Listen and Read’ from the information bar. Then choose a subject that sounds interesting to you.

Voice 2

Listeners often find it helpful to listen and read at the same time. You can download the Spotlight programme to listen to. Then, you can follow the words in the script 8. There is also a word list on our site. This describes the meaning of the words we use.

Voice 1

Rolando’s home country gives us our subject for today’s hodgepodge: Nicaraguan poetry! Nicaraguans are famous for their love of poems. The president of Nicaragua is Daniel Ortega. He has said that people in Nicaragua consider every Nicaraguan a poet, until that person has proved that he is not a poet. Nicaragua has produced some of the greatest poets in the Spanish language - Salmon 10 de la Selva and Ruben Dario.

Voice 2

Ruben Dario was a poet in the late eighteen hundreds. He wrote poems in a new, fresh way. At this time, his poems were very different from other poems. He was the first modernist writer of Spanish poetry. Ruben started writing poems when he was very young. This is why people call him, ‘El Nino Poeta.’ This means, ‘The Child Poet.’ Here is a famous quote from Ruben Dario:

“Si la patria es peque?a, uno grande la sue 11?a.”

“If the homeland is small, one dreams it large.”

Voice 1

What do you think these words mean? Do they mean always have hope in a country - even if other people do not? Do they mean that it is dreams that bring change? Write and tell us your thoughts!

radio@english.net.

Voice 2

Our next letter comes from Mai Hung in Asia. She writes a question about our website:

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“I know that you remove seven programmes every week. Can I get these? Please tell me what I should do.”

Voice 2

You are right Mai Hung. Every week, we do remove seven programmes from our website. But there is a way for you to hear your favourite programmes again. Christy, our website coordinator 12 explains:

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“Every week we play three older programmes again. We suggest that you download your favourites to your computer. Then you can keep them. If you are interested in a particular programme, please let us know. And we will try to make it available.”

Voice 1

Our next letter is from Deng, in Canada. He invited us to join ‘Hi5.’ Hi5 is the name of a website. It is a social networking site. It has groups, pictures, videos and discussion 13 rooms. People connect with friends from different places. Such websites have become very popular recently - in many places! Facebook and Myspace are two other popular social networking sites! These websites permit people to talk over the internet. They help people to share information. And, it is a way of connecting with old friends, and new friends too!

Voice 2

These websites are a lot of fun for many people. But right now, Spotlight is not on them. However, you can always talk to the Spotlight team over e-mail at radio @ english . net.

Voice 1

Next, a request from Estalin Arrobo:

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‘I am interested in learning 14 English through this website. I want to know, what do I need for this?’

Voice 1

Thanks for writing Estalin. We do not teach English in our programmes! But many people do use Spotlight to improve their English skills. There are links to English teaching 15 websites on our website, radio.english.net. In some countries, people meet together to listen to the programmes. They have listener clubs. They improve their English skills by talking together in English. They find many things to discuss from the programmes!

Voice 2

Would you like to start a listener club in your community? Write and tell us. We can help by providing extra material from our existing clubs!

Voice 1

That is all we have time for today. Thanks to Neelakandan, Rolando, Mai Hung, Deng, and Estalin for writing to us. And thank you for listening!