【英语听和读】哈多

William: Hello and welcome to People and Places. My name’s William Kremer. Coming
up in the programme today, we’re going to practise listening and [strange
noise]… and we’ll be finding out what that strange noise is.
Now, imagine that you were trapped on a desert island and you had to survive
– that is, you had to carry on living through this dangerous situation. How
would you manage? Now imagine that you could choose one item to take to the
island to help you survive. What would you choose? A fishing rod? Or maybe
a gun? Well, we’re going to hear now from Pen Hadow. Pen is a polar explorer
– he travels to the Arctic Circle to raise money and to do scientific research.
Pen once said that if he could take one thing to help him survive on a desert
island, he would take… a six-inch nail. That’s right, a nail- something that you
would normally bang into wood. Six-inches is about 15 cm. A six-inch nail.
Now listen to this clip from an interview with Pen and try to work out why he
would take a six-inch nail to a desert island!
Pen Hadow: And the reason I chose the nail was that I’m aware of a group of walrus 1 hunters
who were trapped on an island in Spitzberg[en] and off, on the edge of the
Arctic Ocean. And they left their ship for the day with a little rucksack on their
backs and the ship got crushed with all the occupants, so there were four of
them left, on this island and they had to survive and they survived for six years
and the key to their survival was a six-inch nail, that they found in a log that
had drifted across the Arctic Ocean from Siberia. And they used that to create
sparks and to create a hammer, from which they then made arrowheads… they 
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then killed a polar bear… and… and in those days people knew how to survive
in the real sense of the word.
William: Well don’t worry if you missed the answer, because I’m going to play that clip
again. But you might have heard that Pen chose a nail in this hypothetical
emergency because of the experience of a group of hunters. Their ship was
crushed, so it was destroyed by being pressed very hard by ice. All the hunters
had to help them survive was a six-inch nail. But how did they use the nail?
Listen again:
Pen Hadow: And the reason I chose the nail was that I’m aware of a group of walrus hunters
who were trapped on an island in Spitzberg[en] and off, on the edge of the
Arctic Ocean. And they left their ship for the day with a little rucksack on their
backs and the ship got crushed with all the occupants, so there were four of
them left, on this island and they had to survive and they survived for six years
and the key to their survival was a six-inch nail, that they found in a log that
had drifted across the Arctic Ocean from Siberia. And they used that to create
sparks and to create a hammer, from which they then made arrowheads… they
then killed a polar bear… and… and in those days people knew how to survive
in the real sense of the word.
William: Pen said that the nail was ‘the key to their survival’ – which means that it was
the only way the hunters managed to survive. They used it to create sparks and
a hammer, and then they made arrowheads – sharp metal objects that they used
to kill a polar bear.
What does the arctic sound like? Is it quiet or noisy? Before we listen to the
next clip from Pen, let me give you a bit of vocabulary. Earlier on, we heard
the word ‘crush’. A crash, or a crashing, is something different – it’s a sudden
loud noise, for example if something breaks or falls to the ground – CRASH! 
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You’re also about to hear this word – grinding. Two objects grind together by
rubbing against each other – to grind. Lastly, you’ll hear the word ‘rending 3’. If
you rend 2 something, you tear it in two. So, that’s crashing, grinding and
rending.
Pen Hadow: Sometimes you do hear crashings of ice and grindings of ice. Mostly you hear
it at night, because you’re lying down, your ears against the ice… they are the
most extraordinary noises. There are terrific sort of rendings… metallic 4
rendings as if someone had got two giant pliers and was just pulling a car roof
apart. You’re lying in bed, at the end of a long day and then suddenly you hear:
[imitates ice rending]
William: Don’t forget that you can download the script for this programme, and find out
more about today’s vocabulary by going to the People and Places website on
BBC Learning English dot com. Goodbye!