Listening

When we travel around Europe and the world, it is important to speak English as the language of international communication. Is it enough to know English alone? - is a moot point.

Experienced people say that you need to be able to communicate at least a little in the local language in order to smoothly get around obstacles and avoid problems. We agree and are happy to provide material in Russian and Italian, actually, other languages are ​​in progress. But for now, we will focus on English.

Any experienced person knows that although English is one and the same, the people in different countries who speak it are different and with different backgrounds, so it is important to have examples of speech patterns for training and travel preparation to at least tune your ear to distinguish between various ways of pronouncing the same thoughts by different people from other countries.

First, I suggest listening to two excellent examples of high-level Classical English. It will be interesting to compare them, because the first piece is from a British politician, and politicians speak the best possible language, that's understandable. The second piece is from an American mathematician involved in politics. Two pieces are about the same level.

Each piece is provided with a transcript to view the differences and turns of speech.

British English

The international stage and the global stage where power now resides: the power of the Internet, the power of the satellite broadcasters, the power of the money changers -- this vast money-go-round that circulates now 32 times the amount of money necessary for the trade it's supposed to be there to finance -- the money changers, if you like, the financial speculators that have brought us all to our knees quite recently, the power of the multinational corporations now developing budgets often bigger than medium-sized countries. These live in a global space which is largely unregulated, not subject to the rule of law, and in which people may act free of constraint.

Now that suits the powerful up to a moment. It's always suitable for those who have the most power to operate in spaces without constraint, but the lesson of history is that, sooner or later, unregulated space -- space not subject to the rule of law -- becomes populated, not just by the things you wanted -- international trade, the Internet, etc. -- but also by the things you don't want -- international criminality, international terrorism. And I believe that the decades ahead of us now will be to a greater or lesser extent turbulent. I think actually this is not so much a shift from the West to the East; something different is happening.

You see increasingly that the world now looks actually, for us Europeans, much more like Europe in the 19th century.

Europe in the 19th century: a great British foreign secretary, Lord Canning, used to describe it as the "European concert of powers." There was a balance, a five-sided balance. Britain always played to the balance. If Paris got together with Berlin, Britain got together with Vienna and Rome to provide a counterbalance.

Now notice, increasingly, we are going to have to do business with people with whom we do not share values, but with whom, for the moment, we share common interests. It's a whole new different way of looking at the world that is now emerging.

And here's the third factor, which is totally different. Today in our modern world, because of the Internet, because of the kinds of things people have been talking about here, everything is connected to everything. We are now interdependent. We are now interlocked, as nations, as individuals, in a way which has never been the case before, never been the case before. The interrelationship of nations, well it's always existed. Diplomacy is about managing the interrelationship of nations. But now we are intimately locked together.

We are all now deeply, deeply, deeply interconnected. And what that means is the idea of a nation state acting alone, not connected with others, not working with others, is no longer a viable proposition. Because the actions of a nation state are neither confined to itself, nor is it sufficient for the nation state itself to control its own territory, because the effects outside the nation state are now beginning to affect what happens inside them.

The great poem of John Donne's. "Send not for whom the bell tolls." The poem is called "No Man is an Island." And it goes: "Every man's death affected me, for I am involved in mankind, send not to ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." For John Donne, a recommendation of morality. For us, I think, part of the equation for our survival.

American English sample

It assumes that people are looking out for what's good for them. That doesn't seem terribly shocking -- although it's controversial for a lot of people -- that we are self-interested. In order to look out for what's best for them or what they think is best for them, people have values -- they identify what they want, and what they don't want. And they have beliefs about what other people want, and what other people don't want, how much power other people have, how much those people could get in the way of whatever it is that you want. And they face limitations, constraints, they may be weak, they may be located in the wrong part of the world, they may be Einstein, stuck away farming someplace in a rural village in India not being noticed, as was the case for Ramanujan for a long time, a great mathematician but nobody noticed.

Now who is rational? A lot of people are worried about what is rationality about? You know, what if people are rational? Mother Theresa, she was rational. Terrorists, they're rational. Pretty much everybody is rational. I think there are only two exceptions that I'm aware of -- two-year-olds, they are not rational, they have very fickle preferences, they switch what they think all the time, and schizophrenics are probably not rational, but pretty much everybody else is rational. That is, they are just trying to do what they think is in their own best interest.

Now in order to work out what people are going to do to pursue their interests, we have to think about who has influence in the world. If you're trying to influence corporations to change their behavior, with regard to producing pollutants, one approach, the common approach, is to exhort them to be better, to explain to them what damage they're doing to the planet. And many of you may have noticed that doesn't have as big an effect, as perhaps you would like it to have. But if you show them that it's in their interest, then they're responsive.

So, we have to work out who influences problems. There are lots of people shaping decisions and so if we want to predict correctly we have to pay attention to everybody who is trying to shape the outcome, not just the people at the pinnacle of the decision-making pyramid.

Unfortunately, a lot of times we don't do that. There's a good reason that we don't do that, and there's a good reason that using game theory and computers, we can overcome the limitation of just looking at a few people. Imagine a problem with just five decision-makers. Imagine for example that Sally over here, wants to know what Harry, and Jane, and George and Frank are thinking, and sends messages to those people. Sally's giving her opinion to them, and they're giving their opinion to Sally. But Sally also wants to know what Harry is saying to these three, and what they're saying to Harry. And Harry wants to know what each of those people are saying to each other, and so on, and Sally would like to know what Harry thinks those people are saying. That's a complicated problem; that's a lot to know. With five decision-makers there are a lot of linkages -- 120, as a matter of fact, if you remember your factorials. Five factorial is 120. Now you may be surprised to know that smart people can keep 120 things straight in their head. Suppose we double the number of influencers from five to 10. Does that mean we've doubled the number of pieces of information we need to know, from 120 to 240? No. How about 10 times? To 1,200? No. We've increased it to 3.6 million. Nobody can keep that straight in their head. But computers, they can.

We need to know what they say they want, not what they want in their heart of hearts, not what they think they can get, but what they say they want, because that is a strategically chosen position, and we can work backwards from that to draw inferences about important features of their decision-making. We need to know how focused they are on the problem at hand. That is, how willing are they to drop what they're doing when the issue comes up, and attend to it instead of something else that's on their plate -- how big a deal is it to them? And how much clout could they bring to bear if they chose to engage on the issue.

If we know those things we can predict their behavior by assuming that everybody cares about two things on any decision. They care about the outcome. They'd like an outcome as close to what they are interested in as possible. They're careerists, they also care about getting credit -- there's ego involvement, they want to be seen as important in shaping the outcome, or as important, if it's their druthers, to block an outcome. And so we have to figure out how they balance those two things. Different people trade off between standing by their outcome, faithfully holding to it, going down in a blaze of glory, or giving it up, putting their finger in the wind, and doing whatever they think is going to be a winning position. Most people fall in between, and if we can work out where they fall we can work out how to negotiate with them to change their behavior.

So with just that little bit of input we can work out what the choices are that people have, what the chances are that they're willing to take, what they're after, what they value, what they want, and what they believe about other people. You might notice what we don't need to know: there's no history in here. How they got to where they are may be important in shaping the input information, but once we know where they are we're worried about where they're going to be headed in the future. How they got there turns out not to be terribly critical in predicting. I remind you of that 90 percent accuracy rate.

So where are we going to get this information? We can get this information from the Internet, from The Economist, The Financial Times, The New York Times, U.S. News and World Report, lots of sources like that, or we can get it from asking experts who spend their lives studying places and problems, because those experts know this information. If they don't know, who are the people trying to influence the decision, how much clout do they have, how much they care about this issue, and what do they say they want, are they experts? That's what it means to be an expert, that's the basic stuff an expert needs to know.

You may have noticed that British English is a lot more sizzling, so be prepared for that pronunciation. American English sounds cleaner and easier and more dynamic in my opinion. And also British English suggests about 25% more use of Perfect. This is Great Britain, you know. These are some main differences.

You might think that when you are travelling, the English spoken by "ordinary" people who might meet you is "simpler language" and it would be easier to understand them than the language in the pieces of speech presented. This is not so.

Below are two pieces of speech, again British and American, from "ordinary people" who travel and talk about it, enjoy.

About a trip

Dave: Jean, hi!

Jean: Hi, Dave. How are you?

Dave: Good, good.

Jean: Wait a second, I’m not calling you in Canada, right? You’re back now, aren’t you?

Dave: Yeah, I got back two days ago.

Jean: Oh good, phew. Because I wouldn’t want to be calling you long distance without realising it and suddenly ... Dave: You’ve spent a fortune on a long-distance call. No, I know, it’s OK. I actually wouldn’t answer the phone while I was over there if I saw the call was coming from England. But no worries, we’re in the same country now. Jean: Yeah. So, how was the trip? Did you meet your long-lost uncle? Dave: I did, actually. It was very good. I flew to Toronto and stayed there for a few days. At first I was really worried about my accommodation because I kept reading these appalling stories about rental flats going all wrong. Jean: Oh, was it one of those?

Dave: Yeah.

Jean: My friend had a disastrous experience in Barcelona with one of them. The place didn’t look anything like the photos, and all the neighbours hated that there was a holiday flat in their building. Awkward situation. Urgh.

Dave: Right. So, as I was saying, I was really worried because I heard these stories. And at first I couldn’t find the place. Turns out I was in the wrong building. It was next door, and on the top floor, and … wow. Jean, this place was fabulous! Really spacious, with these floor-to-ceiling windows and the most scenic views of the city. I could see the lake and the whole city skyline and skyscrapers from my bedroom. I had to pinch myself to prove I wasn’t dreaming.

Jean: Sounds pretty cool. So, what’s it like? The city, I mean. I’ve always wanted to go to Canada.

Dave: It’s nice. I mean, it’s another big, vibrant, modern city. But it’s really clean, and there’s lots of parks. One of the things I liked was the multiculturalism. We visited Chinatown, Little Italy, Greektown, Little India … umm, I can’t remember the others but it was sort of a new area every three or four blocks, you know?

Jean: Hey, is it true that there’s a whole part of the city that’s underground? I read that somewhere about Toronto, or saw it on some TV show.

Dave: It’s true! I asked about that. They call it the PATH. There’s, like, almost 30 kilometres of restaurants, shops, cinemas and stuff all underground. In the middle of the downtown area.

Jean: Amazing!

Dave: Yeah, but actually once you’re down there it’s not that noticeable. There’s actually a lot of natural light. I forgot we were underground. It’s mostly useful to get out of the cold weather. Jean: What temperature was it while you were there? Dave: It was still only November, but it was getting cold. We had at least a day where it was less than zero. My uncle told me that in January and February it can go down to 20 below zero. Jean: Oh, wow. I think I’d die! Dave: Yeah, and the worst thing was what they call the ‘wind-chill’ factor. So they say the temperature is zero degrees, but minus eight with the wind chill. So it feels like minus eight. And my uncle said the wind-chill factor can go down to minus 40. Jean: Stop it! You’re making me feel cold just thinking about it. So, how was meeting your uncle? The famous Uncle George. Dave: That was great too. He lives outside of Toronto, in a cottage by a lake. Really tranquil and unspoiled nature. Jean: I’m dying to see photos. You want to meet up soon? Or are you too jet lagged still? Dave: Yeah, I’m actually free tomorrow if you like.

Driving in France

David has a lot to say about that he’s had to get used to driving in France pretty recently. And he even had to take the French driver’s license. So his perspective is different from mine, or at least is because Elise has been driving in France so long, she probably doesn’t even remember what is like to drive in America, I don’t know she ever drives in America, as a matter of fact, anyway. Um, so I learned to drive in France, myself, I even taught driving in France for a while, technically, I’m still, you know, legal to teach driving, although I haven’t done it in decades. And I’m not going to I don’t remember very much about it. And David, he has a, these a bit of a stickler for rules, he likes to notice rules he likes to you know, he sees all the crazy things that French people do. And I have to admit, we do a fair amount of that. So I let him tell you all about that.

So the first thing I thought I would do is reassure you that although Annie rightfully says that I love a lot of rules, I’m not really going to talk much about rules, mostly just kind of talk about things that I think will surprise non French drivers. My experience, obviously is comparing us driving with French driving. And so for people in other countries, the differences might not quite be the same. But hopefully these tips will still be helpful to you. And I thought I’d start by talking about a few misconceptions that I had, and that friends and acquaintances of mine have had have asked me some kind of funny questions about driving in France. A lot of people imagine that driving in France is very chaotic, like, say, in southern Italy, or something like that. And the truth is, it’s not I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s more chaotic than in the US. And it’s a little worse, because the streets are a lot smaller, and the cars are a lot smaller. And so sometimes it seems a little crazy at first, but it’s really not bad. The the drivers are pretty, pretty reasonable, really looking around a lot. The roads are amazing. You know, they’re in great repair unless you’re way out in the country. And so it’s really not something that it’s really not something that can’t be done right and even not taking your life in your own hand. Yeah, and even northern Italy. at La at least that’s where we throw I drove last. It wasn’t that bad. So even though it is getting better, I think. So another funny misconception that I’ve heard a lot. I didn’t ever have this one myself, but I’ve heard it a lot is people asked me if the French drive on the left, like in the UK? And the answer to that is absolutely no. in all of Europe, it’s pretty much just in the UK. Yeah, that. Yeah, people drive on the left. Yeah, yeah. So so that’s No, no problem to get used to. You know, people often wonder if if you know, the French being famous, supposedly, for being rude, as has been described in a previous podcast. So does that mean that they’re rude and aggressive drivers? I don’t, I don’t think they’re particularly aggressive. They’re not completely laid back. And they will contact you if they are surprised by something you do. But it’s, you know, they’re not gonna yet beat you up and pointing at you or anything like that. So, no, no, no, no guns. And they do seem a bit undisciplined at times, but they kind of know what they can get away with. And especially, I think, when it comes to parking and things that you need to be careful to not necessarily always follow the local example, because, you know, they might know what they can get away with, which may not be with what you can get away with. That’s true, you know, and, and, and a cop who knows that somebody recognizes a car as being from the neighborhood may give us a little slack that they wouldn’t give to a rental car. Right. Can they all right, rental cars easily identifiable in France? I we haven’t, I don’t know. But it wouldn’t be it wouldn’t be a recognized car from the block. It wouldn’t. Oh, you know, True. True. So that’s Marcel’s car over there. So I’m gonna I’m gonna let it slide. Anyway, I would say to not necessarily follow all the bad examples that you see, but but it’s really not too bad. Yeah. And and the roads really are, are very good. They do get especially as you get farther and farther out of town, they do get pretty narrow, pretty windy. Yeah. But, but really, they are in quite good repair. Another thing a lot of people wonder about is, you know, being wine country, does that mean there’s a lot of drinking and driving. And there is some and but it’s a but it’s something that that they’re working very, very hard to control. And yet the the rules have become extremely strict. And the fines very high. And we’ll talk about that later. So no, don’t plan on. You know, if you if you want to go on some wine tasting tour, don’t drive yourself there. No, yeah, that’s a very good point. So a few things that you might want to consider when you’re deciding if you want to rent a car for your visit in France. One One thing that’s frustrating for a lot of American drivers, especially is that most cars, even rentals are manual transmissions. All right. So if you’re not used to driving a stick shift. Yeah, your your first trip to France might not be the time to let. Yeah, yeah, French people have this idea that automatic transmissions are for handicapped people. Now, it’s a totally unfair and incorrect, but that’s who, if you go into a car dealership, they will not offer you they want they want they want suggest a manual, I mean, an automatic transmission, unless they can tell that you need it. They probably don’t even have one on the lot. Probably not. And so rental car agencies probably are better about that. But you will pay more because it’s going to be a bigger car, and you will need to book it in advance and make sure you know, right, there will be a lot fewer options. possibilities. Yeah,so.

So anyway, and the cars do tend to be smaller. Mm hmm. Which is important, because you know, don’t just come and rent a Hummer, because then you’ll never, ever be able to park it anywhere and and have a spouse treat you don’t even know if you could rent a home over maybe you probably not. But so you know, embrace the smaller car size, because it will actually work to your advantage later, it’s a lot easier, especially in cities. Also make sure that you’re good at parallel parking most places in France, there are parking lots, especially in in large supermarkets and such but, but parking in residential areas is often. And even in a lot of commercial areas. If it’s smaller stores, instead of a great big store. There’s a lot of parallel parking, and a lot of kind of tight, parallel parking. And you have to be able to parallel park, both on the right side of the road and the left side of the road, which I would bet most Americans have never tried the crew because there are a lot of one way roads. And so sometimes the parking is on the left. Yeah, yep. And that’s not that’s not very hard parking on the left. If you if you can parallel park on the right, then I think with a few tries, you can get it on the left pretty easily. Because that’s the side you’re you’re on it’s a lot anyway, in big cities. The bottom line is if you intend on driving constantly, then you’ll be fine in a car. But if you ever want to stop driving and leave the car somewhere that’s more complicated, that’s more complicated and consider that before renting a car, right? gas is quite a bit more expensive. In France, it can be two to three times as much. Yeah, as in the US, although the cars tend to be more efficient. So it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. But it’s it’s very expensive. In addition, if you’re just going to be going around town, fine. But if you’re going to be traveling distances and taking freeways, most freeways have fairly significant tolls. Yeah. Now the good news is the freeways are fantastic this money is being spent to to keep them up really well. But but they do cost a lot of money. They do cost a fair amount of money. And what I suggest is there’s a website called via Micheline. Oh, yeah. VIAMICA li n.com. And it’s very much like, you know, Google Maps or maps or whatever. And it is aware of both gas and toll prices. And so you can put in information about the type of car you’re going to be driving and your distances and it will actually tell you in euros, a good estimate about how much you’ll spend on gas and tolls. Yeah, it’s pretty close. Yeah, it’s pretty close. Yeah. And Michelin, I think that’s a French company. Yeah. And so they have more information about tiny roads. And I mean, their maps, I don’t like their maps as well. But they do have more local information. Right. And if you go to VM michelin.com, instead, of.fr, it’s all in English. Good point. So if you do decide to to rent, arrange that rental before you come, you’ll save a lot of money, if you make the arrangement in your home country. It’s also good idea to get an international driving permit. Most countries have have some way to do a transcription, so that so that it will be written in several languages and internationally recognized in the US, you can go to the national automobile Automobile Club, or the American Automobile Association, and it’s like $15. And a pretty quick process. It’s not, it’s not absolutely required. In all cases, no, you can check with the rental agency if they if they require it. But it’s, but it’s not a bad idea to have one, especially if it’s not hard to get. However, even if you have a driver’s license and an international permit, if you’re not 18, then you can’t drive in France, because they can’t get a license until 18. So just because you’re American and 16 and got one it’s not good enough. And in fact, a lot of rental agencies won’t rent to you until you’re 21 or even 25. In some cases. So if you’re young check, yeah, some won’t rent if you’re under 25 cents will between 21 and 25. But they add surcharges. So check on that. And there’s a general recommendation, we feel like, we should discourage people from driving in the big cities, especially Paris, it’s just going to be a lot of grief and a lot of expense. And the public transportation is so good. That you know fighting for finding parking and and some of the struggles with some of the really dense traffic, we just don’t feel like it’s worth it. Yeah, traffic jams are really bad in and around Paris. Also, in the southeast, if you go to the Riviera is specially in the summer. I mean, it can be an hour to go across a place that should take 10 minutes, just because of the traffic. So if you if you must have a car, then I guess that’s that’s one thing. But if it’s just that it’s more comfortable for you that you don’t really want to spend the time to figure out the public transportation. Really, you’re going to save yourself a lot of grief if you’re in a big city, if you don’t have a car. And if you are going to have a car, you know, if you’re going to be doing some traveling across the country, a car can be a great way to go. But if you are going to have some stops in big cities, make sure that your hotels there provide parking, it’ll probably be an extra charge. But but that will simplify your life tremendously and will almost certainly be a lot less expensive than trying to find parking on your own. Yeah. Very good point.