TRACKS

Track 1 1. connected - feeling that you understand, like and are interested in someone or something 2. relationship - the way in which two or more people feel and behave towards each other 3. confidence - feeling sure of yourself and believing you can do things well 4. roots - origin 5. a sense of belonging - feeling like you are part of a group or place 6. fluent - When a person is fluent, he/she can speak a language well and quickly 7. recognise - know someone or something because you have seen or heard him or her or experienced it before 8. essential - necessary or needed Track 2 Learning several languages at the same time can be fun! Imagine you want to learn a new language. You start with a book in your hand and an app on your phone. You read the words from the book, practise the sounds on the app and soon you feel more confident in that language. Now, let's say you want to learn another language. You find a friend who speaks that language and a website with lessons. You use the same methods - reading, listening and speaking. You continue learning, and soon you can speak not just one, but two languages! It's like opening a door to new worlds. You enjoy the process of discovering words, phrases and cultures. You compare the languages that you are learning. Each language is like a colourful piece in the puzzle of your knowledge. Happy learning! Track 3 Talking about abstract ideas like love is a unique human ability. This is true for almost every language in the world, but not for the language of the Pirahã people of Brazil. The Pirahã are a small tribe of about 400 people. They live in the Amazon. Unlike every other human language, Pirahã doesn't have words for abstract ideas. They only talk about what they experience or what people they know have experienced. |  | The Pirahã are not stupid, they just have a different way of experiencing the world. The Pirahã people have a wide knowledge of the thousands of plants and animals of the Amazon. They can walk into the jungle with no tools or weapons, and walk out three days later with baskets of fruit and nuts. Another unusual thing about the Pirahã language is that they don't talk about time. There are no words for tomorrow or yesterday or last year. While there are a few words to say day and night or morning, they mostly live in a world without time. There is also no past or future tenses. They have no way to talk about time. They have no history and they don't talk about things that happened before their grandparents were born. Their experience of the world is almost completely in the present. Pirahã also does not have words for numbers. They have a word for more and a word for less. They don't count how much food they have, or how many people they have in their tribe, or even how many children they have. This doesn't mean they don't have good relationships with their children or other members of the tribe. It just means that they do not think of them as numbers. It's hard to imagine a world without time and numbers, but Dan Everett admires this part of their culture. He describes the Pirahã language as having a grammar of happiness. Many people believe that living in the present moment is the way to happiness. Maybe this is why the Pirahã don't have these words. Their culture is one free of worrying about the future and the past and enjoying each day fully. Track 4 1. improve - make something/somebody better than before 2. require - need something 3. introduce - present somebody/something to someone 4. put yourself in somebody's shoes - imagine that you are in another person's situation 5. set an example - show others the right way to do something by doing it yourself 6. fiction - a type of literature that describes imaginary people and events, not real ones