I feel very excited at the moment in regard to doing this activity because I think my friends have done this before and it seems to be a kind of part of Australian culture to play this sport at some point in your life. I’m just hoping that they could just give me a few pointers before we begin the game so that I know what I’m doing.
He doesn’t want to ‘make a fool of himself’. To ‘make a fool of yourself’ is to look stupid or ridiculous. So he’d better get some pointers:
In talking about sport, you have to know how to make comparisons. He said ‘the idea is to get your bowls closer to the jack than the opposition.’ The jack is the little white ball. You get closer than the opposition - people you are playing against. Because he is talking about 2 teams he uses the comparative form of the adjective close, closer. And he adds the word ‘than’ - get your bowls ‘closer than’ the opposition. Now listen for the comparative form of ‘good’:
It’s a game that you could actually play, have fun with and if you lose you still have fun.
That’s better, sort of.
That’s better - the comparative form of good is better. Listen again:
That’s better
Next, listen for an expression that means ‘certainly’:
You bet means certainly or absolutely. Listen again:
So would you consider this something important when it comes to Australian culture?
Oh yes, you bet. I think it is. Oh yeah very much so.
Now listen for a phrasal verb that means to attend or arrive and be somewhere:
Everybody still ‘turned up’ - everybody was there. Notice how she uses ‘even though’ to contrast the poor weather with the fact that people still ‘turned up’ - even though the weather wasn’t that great today, everybody still turned up. Listen again:
Even though the weather wasn’t that great today everybody still turned up
She could also have said 'everybody still turned up even though the weather wasn't that great' And you can also use the words although and though. We use these words - although, though, even though - when talking about something that is surprising or unexpected. I went to work even though I was sick. We'll finish with Sarj using the past tense of the verb tell, told:
We just had a great time. We met some really, really fantastic people. Really friendly people as well and I got speak to a few senior members of the club who told me how this sport has actually changed a bit of their life and yeah, I would say this has been a really good day for me.
All over.
