Learning Vocabulary: The Library
Introduction

Jack: Hello my name’s Jack

Rich: And my name’s Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast ...

Jack: where, we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rich: In this week’s roleplay, Jack and I are on our way to a cafe but Jack needs to stop at the library to return some books.

Jack:  We also discuss the pros and cons of reading a physical book versus reading e-books on something like a Kindle.

Rich: After the roleplay, we focus on vocabulary connected to reading books and libraries and some of the language we discussed when talking about the pros and cons of physical books and Kindles.

Jack: After the language focus, we have a task for you to do. This week we want you to tell us about the last book you read.

Rich: If you are listening to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcast platform, you should also check out our website.

Jack: On the Premier Skills English website you’ll find the transcript, examples and activities to help you understand the language, and a task for you to complete.

Rich: Before we start this week’s roleplay we need to look back at last week’s football phrase.

Last week’s Football Phrase

Jack: OK, our football phrase. If you’ve not listened to the podcast before, every week we set our listeners a challenge. We explain a football phrase or word and you have to guess what it is.

Rich: When you know the answer, go to the Premier Skills English website and write the word or phrase in the comments section for this podcast. If you’re correct we’ll announce your name on next week’s podcast.

Jack: Thanks for all your answers last week. The first listener with the correct answer was Daniel Baron from Colombia. Well done Daniel and welcome back - we haven’t seen you for a while!

Rich: And congratulations to these other listeners who also got the correct answer to our football phrase: MoBeckham and HSN from Turkey, Hayato, Keitaro and Yoshichika from Japan, WSanta from Argentina, Alex from Ukraine, Marco Zapien and Vic from Mexico Bertoldt from Indonesia, Jacek from Poland and Mohamed Kuna from Sudan and Emmanuel from France.  

Jack: If you didn’t hear last week’s football phrase, we’re going to give you one more chance to guess now. And later on, at the end of the podcast, we’ll tell you the answer. Are you ready?

Rich: Last week’s football phrase was to ***** ***. To ***** a team *** of a competition means to eliminate them from the competition. Liverpool were ******* *** of the Champions League this week by Real Madrid but Chelsea and Manchester City ******* *** Porto and Borussia Dortmund

Jack: In last week’s podcast we did a quiz about UK cities and your task was to write two questions in the comments section on the website: one about a city in the UK and one about a city in your country.

Jack: Thank you for all your questions and all your answers.

Rich: Vic from Mexico asked in which UK city was the TV series Peaky Blinders filmed?

Jack: Wsanta from Argentina answered this one and the answer might surprise you.

Rich: The cleverest or should I say trickiest question came from Alex from Ukraine who asked which seven-letter UK city is often mispronounced by foreigners when reading it?

Jack: If you want to answer the question take a look at the comments section for last week’s podcast where you will find questions from other listeners that still need answers.

Rich: If you haven’t heard this podcast it’s called Understanding Grammar: A UK Quiz and you can find it on the Premier Skills English website or on Apple Podcasts.

Introduction to roleplay 1

Rich: As we said earlier, in this week’s roleplay Jack needs to go to the library.

Jack: You’ll hear the roleplay in three parts.

Rich: While you listen to each part we want you to try to answer a question.

Jack: This is part one and your question is:

Rich: Why don’t I use libraries?

Roleplay 1

Jack: Do you mind if we pop into the library on the way to the cafe. I need to drop these books off.

Rich: Sure. I wondered what you had in that bag.

Jack: Yeah, we borrowed them a few weeks ago and I think they might be overdue.

Rich: Haha! You’ll probably have to pay a fine. Do you want me to lend you some money? That’s why I don’t use libraries anymore - I always forgot to bring the books back.

Jack: What do you mean? You don’t use libraries any more? I bet you don’t use bookshops either! I’ve never seen you with a book in my life!

Rich: I use my Kindle, don’t I? I can get any book whenever I want. Here’s the library - I’ll wait outside and read a little on my Kindle. You know I can get over a thousand books on this and it’s much lighter than that bag.

Jack: Well, I like the library. I’d usually have a browse but I’ll drop these off and I’ll be back out in a couple of minutes.

Language Focus 1

Rich: Before the roleplay, we asked you a question. The question was: Why don’t I use libraries?

Jack: Well, I think there were two reasons that you may have heard. The first was that Rich never remembered to return the books and the second was that he uses a Kindle and buys e-books for that so doesn’t need to go to a library.

Rich: OK, let’s get straight into some language and some important words and phrases. I want to start with two pairs of words that are sometimes confused by learners.

Jack: I think I know what these are. They are library and book shop and borrow and lend.

Rich: Yes, they are. I know that the word library is a false friend in some languages - a false friend is a word that looks the same in two languages but has a different meaning.

Jack: A library is a place where you borrow books for a short period of time like a week or a month. You don’t buy books at a library - you buy books at a bookshop.

Rich: In the roleplay, we are at a library, not a bookshop. So, at a library you borrow books. Jack likes borrowing books from the library.

Jack: I borrow a book or I borrow a book from the library.

Rich: Then there is the word lend. We don’t lend books from a library - we borrow them. The library lends books to us.

Jack: We borrow books from a library and the library lends them to us. In the roleplay, Rich offered to lend me some money. The prepositions are also important here: we borrow something from someone and we lend something to someone.

Rich: OK, let’s look at some more words connected to books and libraries. Jack said he thought his library books might be overdue.

Jack: When there is a time for something to happen, we can say that it is due at that time. For example, the bus is due at ten past three. When a woman is pregnant, the doctor or midwife will tell her when the baby is due.

Rich: If something is overdue, it’s not been done by the required time. For example, Jack’s library books were due back on the first of April but today is the 22nd - they are three weeks overdue.

Jack: Other payments can be overdue such as your rent or electricity bill. It means they are late. Or a pregnant woman can be overdue. Maybe she’s due to give birth on the 10th and it’s the 17th - she’s one week overdue.

Rich: In the UK, when your library books are overdue you have to pay a fine. A fine is an amount of money that you have to pay when you break a rule or maybe even a law.

Jack: Football players may have to pay fines if they break the rules or you might have to pay a fine if you drive too fast in your car - a speeding fine.

Rich: Jack said he usually likes to browse in the library. There are two meanings to browse that we can use here. The first is very general and it means to look around a place - often a shop. People like to browse in shops - they like to look around without necessarily buying anything.

Jack: I used to like to browse in record shops when I was a kid - looking at all the CDs I’d like to buy.

Rich: We can also browse a book or a newspaper and it means to look through it quickly - just reading a few main points and not reading the detail on each page.

Jack: You have probably heard the word browser, meaning a program you use to open a website and browse around. You may have also heard a couple of useful phrasal verbs in the roleplay. Two of them were drop off and bring back.

Rich: Jack wanted to drop off the books at the library. To drop off means to leave something or someone somewhere. He wanted to drop off the books at the library.

Jack: It’s also very common to use this phrasal verb when we take someone somewhere in a car or we are in a taxi: Can you drop me off outside the sports centre, please?

Rich: The other phrasal verb you may have heard was to bring back. When we borrow a library book we have to return it - we have to bring it back. You can also use take back and it means the same thing here.

Jack: We also use take back when we return things to shops that we don’t want. We might take a shirt back to a shop because it doesn’t fit, or take back a computer or other electronic device because there is something wrong with it.

Rich: OK, so we’ve looked at quite a bit of language in the first part of our roleplay. Now, we’d like you to listen again and listen for the words and phrases that we’ve been talking about.

Jack: The words and phrases are: library, bookshop, borrow, lend, bring back, take back, drop off, overdue, fine and browse.

Roleplay 1 - Repeat

Roleplay 2 - Intro

Rich: You’re now going to hear the second part of our roleplay.

Jack: While you listen we want you to try to answer a question.

Rich: The question is: What’s the title of the book that Jack hasn’t brought back?

Roleplay 2

Jack: Good morning. I’m returning a few books. I’ve got them here in my bag.

Librarian: Yes, you can just leave them on the counter there where it says returns and I’ll check them in in a minute.

Jack: OK, great. I’ll just have a look at the new arrivals over here.

…

Jack: Hi again. I was wondering ... Have you got The Ball is Round - A Global History of Football?

Librarian: Do you know the author?

Jack: Yes, I do actually … it’s Goldblatt. David Goldblatt.

Librarian: Hold on a sec ... Yes, we do but I’m afraid it’s out at the moment. Would you like to reserve it?

Jack: Yes, that would be great.

Librarian: If I could have your library card, please … Great, thanks ... There you go - someone will give you a call when it’s been returned.  Would you like to take anything out today?

Jack: Actually, I just picked these up for the kids.

Librarian: OK, we have Shiny Pippin and the Broken Forest by Harry Heape and Rashford: Ultimate football heroes by Matt Oldfield. I’m afraid you’ve got a fine to pay before you can check these out.

Jack: Oh really?

Librarian: It’s £7.50. The books that you just checked in were due back two weeks ago and you still have another book out that is overdue.

Jack: Oh no! Really? I thought I’d brought them all back. Which one is it?

Librarian: It’s Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, but you could renew it now if you like.

Jack: That would be good. Yes, please.

Language Focus 2

Rich: Before the roleplay, we asked you a question. The question was: What’s the title of the book that Jack hasn’t brought back?

Jack: The answer was Fever Pitch and it’s a very good book if you haven’t read it. It’s all about Arsenal football club and it was made into a film, too.

Rich: Jack forgot to bring back this book but the librarian - the librarian is someone who works in a library said that he could renew this book.

Jack: To renew something means to increase the amount of time that you are allowed to have something. If you renew some library books you will get an extra week or extra month to keep them.

Rich: We renew things like passports or driving licenses; maybe we have to renew them every ten years or if you have a season ticket at a football club you have to renew it every season.

Jack: In the roleplay, I wanted a specific book but it wasn’t in the library. Listen to this part of the roleplay again:

Jack: Hi again. I was wondering ... Have you got The Ball is Round - A Global History of Football?

Librarian: Do you know the author?

Jack: Yes, I do actually … it’s Goldblatt. David Goldblatt.

Librarian: Hold on a sec ... Yes, we do but I’m afraid it’s out at the moment. Would you like to reserve it?

Rich: When we want to know if a library has a specific book we will ask a question such as ‘Have you got ‘ or ‘Do you have ‘ we then give the title of the book and the author if we know it.

Jack: In this case, the title or name of the book was ‘The ball is Round’ and the author - the person who wrote the book was David Goldblatt.

Rich: The book wasn’t in the library - somebody else had borrowed it. The librarian said the book was out.

Jack: When a book is out and we want it we can reserve it. This means that when the book is returned by another person the library will contact you to tell you that it is now available to borrow and you can come and pick it up.

Rich: That’s another interesting phrasal verb we used in the roleplay: to pick up. It means to collect. The book is available to borrow and you can come and pick it up - you can come and collect it.

Jack: Another few phrasal verbs that you might have noticed in the roleplay were check in, check out and take out.

Rich: Check in and check out is what the librarian does when you return a book and borrow a book. He will check that you have returned it on time - by the due date when he checks it in and will tell you when you need to return the book when you borrow or take a book out. He checks the book out for you.

Jack: In many libraries, this is all done automatically these days.

Rich: You can check your understanding of all these words and phrasal verbs on the website where we have a few more activities to check your understanding.

Roleplay 3 - Introduction

Jack: You’re now going to hear the third and final part of our roleplay.

Rich: While you listen we want you to try to answer two questions.

Jack: The first question is: What positive reasons do we give for borrowing books from a library and physical books?

Rich: And the second question is: What positive reasons do we give for reading e-books?

Roleplay 3 - Pros and cons of libraries vs Kindle

Rich: I’ve read three chapters while you were in there. You were ages!

Jack: Yeah, sorry. It took a bit longer than I thought. What are you reading on your Kindle anyway?

Rich: Oh, it’s really good - I’d definitely recommend it. It’s called The Ball is Round - A Global History of Football by David Goldb …

Jack: David Goldblatt - I know. I’ve just reserved it in the library. I’ve been wanting to read it for ages but it’s always out.

Rich: This is why you need one of these then you can get the e-book - the Kindle edition - it’s cheaper than the paperback and the hardback versions too.

Jack: Yeah, but it’s not cheaper than the library but I suppose it is more convenient. I do like to go to the library sometimes and just browse and read the blurb on the backs of books before deciding whether to take them out or not.

Rich: I’m not stopping you - libraries are nice and they’re important for a community but Kindles are good too and I think they’re more environmentally friendly. You can get thousands of books onto this.

Jack: Yeah, you’re probably right, but real books don’t run out of batteries and there’s something just nice and familiar about holding a physical book.

Rich: That’s true but sometimes the text is tiny and on this, I can increase the text size.

Jack: That’s because you’re getting old!

Rich: If I’m feeling really lazy I can hit the audio and someone reads it to me.

Jack: Well, that’s because you’re a big kid! But I suppose they are convenient and there’s usually a wider variety of books to choose from.

Rich: Choice and convenience - yes but I suppose you do have to pay for them and the library is free.

Jack: Not today it wasn’t. I was fined £7.50!

Rich: I’ll get the coffees then. Come on!

Language Focus 3

Jack: Before the roleplay, we asked you two questions. The first question was: What positive reasons do we give for borrowing books from a library and physical books?

Rich: Let’s answer this question and look at some language as we go along.

Jack: Well, the first positive thing that we said was that borrowing books is free - it doesn’t cost anything.

Rich: Another thing we spoke about was the sense of community that there is when you go to a library.

Jack: That’s a nice phrase - a sense of community. It’s a feeling that you belong to a certain group. Here I imagine it’s the people that live near you in your neighbourhood if we are talking about a local library and people who like to read.

Rich: We also spoke about books themselves. We spoke about familiarity. We said that physical books are familiar. If something is familiar we know it well.

Jack: Physical books can be reassuring - they make us feel at home. We like holding them - they feel nice. If something is reassuring it makes us feel less worried about something.

Rich: Yes, and it’s nice to browse in a library and read the blurb on the back of the book. That’s what you said in the roleplay. What’s the blurb?

Jack: Haha! Yes, the blurb is the text that describes or summarises what’s in the book - it’s always on the back cover.

Rich: Let’s look at the second question we gave you, it was: What positive reasons do we give for reading e-books?

Jack: We said that you have lots more books to choose from and you can read them whenever you want and wherever you want.

Rich: Yes, I said two of the positive reasons were choice and convenience.

Jack: Let’s look at these two words: choice and convenience. Choice refers to a range of things - the variety of things that you have to choose from. The more choice you have; the more options you have.

Rich: There are thousands of books you can choose from online so choice is definitely a positive thing here.

Jack: And we also spoke about convenience which describes how easy something is. We can choose a new book on our Kindle at home - we don’t need to go to a library. This is very convenient.

Rich: OK, so convenience and choice were the main positive reasons but technology was another good reason to read e-books.

Jack: Yes, we spoke about being able to increase the text size and being able to listen to the audio and we can also change the brightness of the screen and you can check what words mean much more easily too.

Rich: OK, we’ve looked at quite a lot of language while talking about the advantages of physical books and e-books. You can check your understanding of these words and phrases and more of the vocabulary we used in the roleplay on the website.

TASK

Jack: In this week’s task, we want you to tell us about the last book you read.

Rich: First we want you to tell us where you got the book. Did you borrow it from a library? Did you buy it in a bookshop or did you download it as an e-book?

Jack: Tell us whether you prefer physical books or e-books and why?

Rich: Then tell us about the book. What’s the title and who’s the author and what’s the book about?

Jack: Would you recommend this book to other listeners?

Rich: Try to use some of the language we have introduced in this week’s podcast when you write your answers in the comments section on the Premier Skills English website.

Football Phrase

Rich: Have you got a football phrase for us, Jack?

Jack: Yes, I have. This week’s football phrase is just a word and it’s *********. This phrase is used when a team wins four trophies in a season but I don’t think it’s ever been done before in the Premier League. Teams have won the double, teams have won the treble but no team has ever won the *********.

Rich: Let’s see if anyone gets it right and who is first this week. If you are still wondering what the answer was to last week’s football phrase it was knock out.

Jack: If you have a question for us about football or English you can email us at premierskills@britishcouncil.org

Rich: or you can leave your questions and comments on the website in the comments section or on our Facebook page.

Jack: or you could give us a rating and a fantastic review on Apple Podcasts.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!