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Episode 7: Pandas

Episode 7: Pandas
Join Jasmine as she admires some pandas and find out when to say seen or saw.

Transcript

Today Jasmine visits some animals a long way from home.

My whole family's seen them before. They went to Hong Kong in 2008 so that was the year we had the Beijing Olympics and the panda was the mascot, and I didn't get to see them. When I first saw the pandas it struck me how huge and cuddly they were. Funi even climbed into a tree and she posed for a photograph and today I'm back again to do a special VIP tour.

Hi Jasmine.

Hello.

My name's Angela and this is Matt.

Hi

She said: Her family 'has seen' them before and 'when I first saw the pandas'. Saw is the simple past tense. You often use it with 'when' to say that the action is completed – 'when I first saw' the pandas. 'Has seen' – my family's seen, my family has seen – is the present perfect tense. You use it when something from the past remains true. Her family has seen pandas. Now, what tour was she doing?

Today I'm back again to do a special VIP tour.

VIP means Very Important Person. Not everyone gets such access. So where does Jasmine go this time?

I'll be going behind the scenes to see how they're being cared for.

She'll be going 'behind the scenes'. Behind the scenes is a place where most people cannot go.

So we'll go straight into the back of the panda building and you can come and meet the pandas.

Oh wow.

I don't know anything more about their lifestyle besides that they eat bamboo.

I know that they there are very few of them left in the wild. I know they're an endangered species.

There are very few left 'in the wild'. In the wild means not in a zoo, but in their natural environment.

This is the bamboo room that we store all our bamboo in for the pandas. We feed them around 20 kilos of bamboo each a day. It was an eye-opener. You don't realise how much care actually goes into taking care of the pandas.

It was an 'eye-opener'. An eye-opener is an experience which tells you something you didn't know. Jasmine didn't know how much care the pandas are given.

The pandas have their temperatures taken ever day to make sure they're healthy.

Come Funi. Come. Good girl.

The clicker is to say 'You're doing the right thing,' and you're going to get a reward with food.

So where do you stick the thermometer?

In her cloacae.

And what's that?

In her bum.

In her bottom.

Ahh.

That's an eye-opener. What else did she find out?

I think the best part about being with the pandas today was that I got to feed them and touch them. They were responsive to my touch. I didn't feel they were, you know, afraid of a stranger or anything like that. Ah, she actually holds the cake. The fur is thick and coarse, unlike what I thought. I thought it would be nice and warm and soft, and Matt says it is to protect the pandas against the cold weather.

She found out that their fur is not soft, but 'coarse'. Here, coarse means rough. Notice the unusual spelling – c-o-a-r-s-e. We'll finish with the way Jasmine says going to very quickly as 'gunna':

The VIP experience was great. It was one level above just the normal panda tours and, you know what, my family saw the pandas but I touched them today. I fed them today and tonight I'm gonna ring my mum and I'm gonna tell them and they're all gonna be jealous.

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