Listening to Jokes

An older gentleman was playing a round of golf. Suddenly his ball sliced and landed in a shallow pond. As he was attempting to retrieve the ball he discovered a frog who, to his great surprise, started to speak!
"Kiss me, and I will change into a beautiful princess, and I will be yours for a week."
He picked up the frog and placed it in his pocket. As he continued to play golf, the frog repeated its message.
"Kiss me, and I will change into a beautiful princess, and I will be yours for a whole month!"
The man continued to play his golf game and once again the frog spoke out.
"Kiss me,and I will change into a beautiful princess, and I will be yours for a whole year!"

Finally, the old man turned to the frog and exclaimed,

"At my age, I'd rather have a talking frog!"

Barbie. 50th Anniversary

Barbie celebrates her 50th anniversary this year. She may be hugely popular across the world but is she any kind of female role model? Does she represent a glamorous female figure which girls try to copy or is she simply a dressing up doll?

Join Kate and Jackie on this week's BBC programme as they discuss some of the controversy surrounding the doll and hear from some other women in London and their thoughts on the iconic doll.

When Barbie first went on sale in 1959, around 350,000 were sold in the first year. How many dolls sell today? Is it:

a) 3 per hour
b) 3 per second
c) 3 per minute

As you can see there is no audio player to listen to, but you can do it on the original page as there is a problem to download it.

Congrats Pe !!!

Penelope Cruz became the first Spanish actress to win an Oscar when she won the award for best supporting actress for her role in Woody Allen's 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' in Hollywood last night.
She was nominated in 2006 for her role in Pedro Almodovar's 'Volver', but, like compatriot Javier Bardem, who won the Oscar for best supporting actor last year for his role in the Coen Brothers' 'No country for Old Men' , had to wait for her second nomination before holding the statue in her hand.
Visibly nervous, Cruz made only a short speech, thanking the directors she has worked with for giving her the roles and dedicating her prize to everone in Spain who was sharing the moment with her and to all Spanish actors.

Brussels

Recently a friend of mine visited the capital of Europe. What was it like and what did she think of it?
Find out by doing these four exercises:
Exercise one Pre-listening vocabulary
Exercise two Click on the words you hear
Exercise three Complete and listen
Exercise four Reorder the text

(by Caroline Brown)

Why Should We Learn a Foreign Language IV