Read the following paragraph from the conversation and change
the verb infinitives in brackets to the correct past form (past simple or past
perfect simple). The first one has been done for you.
Heh…no, erm...when I came (come) to Germany, erm…I
(have) a T..TV back in the UK..erm..and
my girlfriend in Germany
(not have) a TV and we
(not see) any reason to buy one. Erm..I
(not speak) German, so there was nothing
that I
(could watch) and had much from..erm…and..erm..she
(never have) a TV and
(not see) the point.
Listen to the complete conversation again and complete the
following transcription. Use the ‘pause’ button on your media player to give you
time to write.
-
You don’t have a television
?
- No, for..7, 8 years.
-
Why did that happen? How did that happen? Did you just decide one day to
it out the
?
-
Heh…no, erm...when I came to Germany, erm…I had had a T..TV back in the UK..erm..and
my
in Germany
didn’t have a TV and we didn’t see any reason to buy one. Erm..I didn’t speak
German, so there was
that I
could’ve watched and had much from..erm…and..erm..she had never had a TV and
didn’t see the point.
Ours
. We had a TV …erm…for quite a few years.
One day it stopped working. We agreed that we needed to buy another TV…erm…and
we
about the size of the screen. I wanted a
big screen to watch the football games, and widescreen TV with the speakers…the
Surround sound speakers. And
we said okay, we’ll…we’ll wait for a
few months. And six months passed with no TV. We found that we went to the
cinema more often. We t..we spoke to each other…we listened to music…
-
The lost art of conversation…
-
….exactly! And really, our life improved a lot; erm…socially and as a
. So, we..we’ve been without a TV now
for probably 6 or 7 years.
-
Fantastic.
without a TV,
you do actually speak to one another, you maybe play board games in the evening,
you go walking or, like you say, y..you speak to people, you develop a social
life rather than vegetating in front of the
.
And I don’t know if you agree, but I actually think that there’s some mild
manipulation and brainwashing involved,
with the advertisements…
- Oh completely, yeah.
-
…that they throw in, and the
of sitcom programmes…comedy programmes.
With product placements in everything with
for certain
for political parties or…yeah.
And some of the programmes are mindless, th…the…they’re just…..
Before
you listen to a conversation about televisions read the following incomplete
notes.
