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Episode 4: Swim with Sharks

Episode 4: Swim with Sharks
Learn a few useful plurals with Tony as he swims with sharks.

Transcript

Today we join Tony as he goes diving in an aquarium.

I have never ever been swimming with a shark before. This morning when I wake up, 'Oh..you get close to the most dangerous creature in this world but, you know, I said to myself, 'You can do it Tony.'

My job is to take members of the public diving inside an aquarium. We scuba dive inside our largest tank, the Oceanarium, with eight grey nurse sharks.

The man who works at the aquarium refers to people who don't work there as 'members of the public'. If you are in a group, such as a club, or a particular job, people not in that group are 'members of the public'. For instance, the police often refer to people who are not police as 'members of the public'. Now, where do these members of the public dive?

We scuba dive inside our largest tank, the Oceanarium, with eight grey nurse sharks.

They dive in their largest tank. Largest is a superlative adjective. It compares more than two things. Usually it follows 'the' - the largest tank. But it also follows possessive forms such as their - their largest tank, Sydney's - Sydney's largest tank or our - our largest tank. Listen again:

We scuba dive inside our largest tank, the Oceanarium, with eight grey nurse sharks. [cut to]

Today we're diving with grey nurse sharks. Every single one of these large sharks are grey nurse sharks. So grey nurse sharks are pretty special because they're a critically endangered species. Critically endangered means that they're one step away from being extinct so to be allowed to dive with these sharks while they're still around, is pretty special.

If a species is extinct, there are none left alive. Grey nurse sharks are 'one step away' from being extinct, which means that there are very few of these animals left. Next, listen for some more superlative adjectives:

My personal feeling about sharks is that they're the most misunderstood animal on the planet. They've been alive on the planet for about500 million years. They're the earliest fossilised records of sharks.

So they have an amazing scientific and natural heritage that needs to be protected.

The superlative adjectives were 'earliest' - the earliest fossilised records and 'most misunderstood' - the most misunderstood animal. When an adjective is 3 syllables or more - mis-und-er-stood - you don't add -est to the end. Instead you say most before it - most misunderstood.

My personal feeling about sharks is that they're the most misunderstood animal on the planet.

He uses the singular - most misunderstood 'animal' because the grey nurse sharks are one type or species of animal. Next, listen to the way Tony uses plurals:

There's heaps normal fish like the normal one we can actually see every day. It's a good feeling when we're sort of walking just along the flow with the fish. I really enjoyed that. At the beginning I thought I gonna be scared of all the big sharks, you know, they're big animals. What if they bite me?

He says animals and sharks, but refers to more than one fish without adding the's' sound. There are two plural forms of fish - fishes and fish. Fish is the most common plural form. Many sorts of fish such as trout and snapper don't have an 's' plural form. But sharks and stingrays do:

It was wonderful experience for me to get into the water to get really close to all those ocean animals, the fish, especially the sharks, sting rays and everything

English Bites is an informative and entertaining way to improve your knowledge of the English language.