Hello. I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation.
Today we'll travel to Western Australia to take a look at a famous jarrah forest.
And while we're there, we'll learn about words that we use to describe 'spatial relationships'
- where things are in relation to one another.
Later on, we'll listen to a few 'proverbs'.
But first, here's the Western Australian jarrah forest.
Our jarrah forest is our reference point, it's our library of information, this is our
baseline, this is what we had before we mined. I think some of the outward signs are showing
us that it's quite healthy.
The proof in the pudding is not you and I sitting here today, but the proof of the pudding
might be in ten year's time, twenty year's time - whether this forest is flourishing
for our children and grandchildren. So far so good.
Dr Bougher knows a lot about the forest. In the clip, he spent a lot of time describing
where things are.
When you're describing where things are, it's important to be precise and accurate in your
description.
You need to think about how you're going to 'order the description'. You should try to
arrange it in a logical way, according to some kind of pattern.
You might describe things in one area at a time, so you can guide your listener through
the space.
Look at this picture.
You could for example describe from the 'top to the bottom', from the 'left to the right',
or from 'near to far' - that is you could start describing 'the foreground', 'the middle
distance', and finish with 'the background'.
There are no rules on how to describe something. Just make sure that your description is clear
and logical.
Here is Dr Bougher again. Notice how he describes the forest area.
On our left here, we have a very good example of the jarrah forest, the famous jarrah forest
of Western Australia.
And on our right here, we have the contrast, which is the mined area, and on this area
we can see the rehabilitation has occurred about three years ago.
Dr Bougher uses descriptions like 'on our left' and 'on our right'.
He helps us understand the location of things by using the preposition 'on', along with
a noun phrase. These are preposition phrases.
When we want to describe where things are, we usually use preposition phrases.
Let's look at some of the common prepositions you can use to describe where things are:
above below
beside or next to in front of
behind on the right
on the left on top of or over
under between
or even surrounded by.
Let's listen to Dr Bougher once more. As well as using these prepositions, he uses another
word to show exactly where things are.
Can you hear it?
On our left here, we have a very good example of the jarrah forest, the famous jarrah forest
of Western Australia.
And on our right here, we have the contrast, which is the mined area, and on this area
we can see that rehabilitation has occurred about three years ago.
He says 'on our left here', 'on our right here'.
'Here' is an adverb. We can use adverbs to help us describe 'spatial relationships' - where
things are.
The two most useful ones are 'here' and 'there'.
Or, you can use other adverbs of place, like:
somewhere anywhere
everywhere and nowhere
In today's clip, Dr Bougher is not just telling us where things are. He's also trying to compare
the different areas.
If you're trying to compare two or more things, a good description needs a 'starting point'.
What's Dr Bougher's starting point?
Our jarrah forest is our reference point, it's our library of information, this is our
baseline, this is what we had before we mined.
His starting point is the jarrah forest.
He calls it his 'reference point', his 'baseline'.
He means that he can compare other landscapes to this particular jarrah forest.
OK. So we've looked at some words you can use to describe 'spatial relationships' in
a description. If you need more help, just go to our website.
Learning new words is an ongoing process.
It's good to learn words in phrases, because they are used in a certain way.
Sometimes, we come across more unusual groups of words.
Listen to the clip and see if you can hear an unusual expression.
On our left here, we have a very good example of the jarrah forest, the famous jarrah forest
of Western Australia.
And on our right here, we have the contrast, which is the mined area, and on this area
we can see that rehabilitation has occurred about three years ago. This is world's best
practice.
Our jarrah forest is our reference point, it's our library of information, this is our
baseline, this is what we had before we mined. I think some of the outward signs are showing
us that it's quite healthy.
The proof in the pudding is not you and I sitting here today, but the proof of the pudding
might be in ten year's time, twenty year's time - whether this forest is flourishing
for our children and grandchildren. So far so good.
Dr Bougher says 'the proof of the pudding'.
The full saying is 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating'.
Can you guess what that means?
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating."
A 'pudding' is a soft, sweet dessert.
The saying says that you can't tell if the pudding is good until you taste it.
It's means that you can only judge the quality of something after it has been tested or experienced
over time.
So Dr Bougher means we won't be able to tell how healthy the forest is for a long time.
The real test will be how healthy it is in the future.
Traditional sayings like 'the proof of the pudding is in the eating' are called proverbs.
Proverbs are general sayings that give advice or tell us something about life.
Every language has its own proverbs.
The Japanese say that 'getting up early brings you merit'.
But in English, we say that 'the early bird catches the worm'.
Many proverbs in English come from the Bible or well-known poems.
Because proverbs are well known sayings, they aren't always quoted in full.
For example people just say 'when in Rome', referring to the old Latin proverb "When in
Rome, do as the Romans do".
Listen to Dr Bougher again:
The proof in the pudding is not you and I sitting here today, but the proof of the pudding
might be in ten year's time, twenty year's time - whether this forest is flourishing
for our children and grandchildren.
He just says 'the proof of the pudding'. He doesn't say the whole proverb.
Proverbs are usually found in informal language. Using them naturally is not easy. The meanings
of common proverbs aren't always obvious, so the only way to learn them is to memorise
them. Using proverbs takes time, so be patient.
And that's all for today.
We've looked at describing 'spatial relationships'.
We saw how prepositions like 'on' can be useful when describing where things are.
Then we tried using adverbs to help with our descriptions.
And we looked at proverbs, traditional sayings.
So why not go to our website for more on these topics. You'll find the story, transcript,
exercises and study notes. Nothing ventured, Nothing gained!
And I'll see you next time for more Study English. Bye bye.