How I Became What I Am

Audio

While you listen

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).
You can choose one or two of these suggestions – you don't have to follow all of them!

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.
When did the speaker last see his daughter?
Just last week, after her tenth anniversary.
About ten years ago, just after her wedding.
Last year, at his older grandchild's birthday.
Last month, when he visited her home.
How often does the speaker see his two grandchildren?
He rarely sees them.
He sees them a couple times each year.
He has never seen them.
He sees them on the weekends.
How did the speaker feel about becoming an ironworker?
He found that the work was not interesting.
He found that he was afraid of heights.
He found that the work did not pay well.
He found he couldn't get along with the other workers.
What is the speaker's current job?
He is a musician.
He is an ironworker.
He is a scientist.
He is a physician.
What is the main purpose of the speaker's talk?
To tell about his future plans
To introduce himself
To detail his family history
To describe his father's job

I am a grandfather.
Although you'd never know it.
I have two grandchildren, whom I've never seen.
I have one child, a daughter.
A violinist, who's married to a physician who is a gene g-e-n-e doctor.
They live in Manhattan, and, um, we don't get along.
I have never seen the children.
I haven't seen her since  a few weeks after her marriage, about ten years ago.
Her name is (Nadjestra).
Her mother was Russian, and_ for_ for short his_ her name is Nadia.
I myself, am the son of a worker which may explain some of the things I have been able to do.
And other things I could not do.
My father, was a structural, steel, ironworker.
Very rough trade, dangerous, hard work, and very high areas, thousands of feet above the ground and all, you know.
And I had five brothers, no daughter, no sisters.
And I tried iron work, but I found it wasn't for me.
I just was too afraid of walking on a little, girder way up in the air.
Uh, they say you only can do this if you don't think about falling, just think about where the foot goes next.
By the way some American Indians like the Iroquois, from Canada, as well as upper New York state.
Make wonderful iron workers, because they can work at heights, without any less_ any, any loss of efficiency.

So I tried different things.
It was clear for me to do what I wanted to do.
My father didn't say I should or should not become a musician.
He didn't even know, nor did my mother, what it meant to be a physicist.
She said, "son, is there any money in physics."
I didn't know I was just a student.
I got through two years of it and sometimes... I get a little despondent.
And I think, "how much easier things would be for me if I had become a scientist." gone through with what I started.
But it's a false illusion.
Now I would feel very unhappy, if I had to give up the hours each day I spend with music.
And, the joy I feel looking forward to a good lesson with a student.
I know it would take me, a few weeks of_ a few, taking the classes of_ as a senior here at the university.
Free courses, but it wouldn't last.
I would back- be in the same state I am in now.
Which is to say I have longings and great respect for people who, are physicists and mathematicians.
But you know there is always someone better at a job than you are.
I_ I'm pleased to hear that the Russian mathematicians are better than ours.
I am respectful, of friends who are scientists but that's about, it. Most enthusiastic about music.