Sumo

Audio

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oCoder Education - English listening Audios are suitable for learners with different levels of English. Here are some ways to make them easier (if you have a lower level of English) or more difficult (if you have a higher level of English).
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Making it easier

Read all the exercises before you listen to the audio.
Look up the words in the exercises that you don't know or don't understand in a dictionary.
Play the audio as many times as you need.
Play each part of the audio separately.
Answer all questions in the exercise.
Read the transcript after you have listened to the audio.

Making it harder

Listen to the audio before you read the exercises.
Only play the audio once before answering the questions.
Play the whole audio without a break.
Don't read the transcript.
Now, listen to the audio and do the exercises on the following tabs.
If you do not complete all the question, you can play the audio again. After that, read the dialog to make sure that you understand all word in the audio.
1) Simon likes to _______.
play sports more than watch sports
watch sports more than play sports
watch and play sports equally
2) Simon thinks that sumo wrestling is quite _______.
respectable
a spectacle
despicable
3) Simon says that many Westerners think sumo is _______.
a joke
a hoax
incredibly athletic
4) Simon says they have not only wrestling but also _______.
graphic arts ability
martial arts ability
spacial arts ability
5) In sumo, you try to get your opponent to _______.
fall down
give up
run away

Yeah, hi, I wanna talk about, yeah, watching sports, like live or on TV. I mean I like to play sports more than I like to watch sports but sometimes a good game on TV or watching it live can be really good, um, you know, everybody, or many people like to watch the olympics or the world cup of soccer, I mean those kinds of sports are really, really exciting. I like to watch them too. I like to watch a good game on TV, you know, it there's lots of buildup and tension for the match, it's even better. One sport that I've been really getting into recently is Japanese Sumo wrestling, yeah, it's, you know, it's quite a spectacle. Many westerners think that it's kind of a joke, you know, a bunch of fat guys in tiny underwear, you know bashing their bodies against each other, but there's really a lot more to it than that, I mean, these guys are incredibly athletic.

They also are quite strong and they have a repertoire of martial arts and wrestling ability. It's pretty amazing to watch. I mean the matches are really really short so sometimes the uninitiated don't know what going on but basically the rules are stay on your feet and stay in the small circle and, you know, try to get your opponent to fall down or to go out of the circle. That's why they only take about 10 or 20 seconds to finish a match because they do everything they can, but finally, before you know it, the match is over, you know, they do wrestling throws, they do martial arts, they do all kinds of things. It's really fun, and there's the whole ritual with it as well, I mean it's pretty amazing.