IELTS Preparation Series 2, Episode 9: Whale Sharks
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Hello. I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation.
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Today, we're going to look at the use of contractions in spoken English. A contraction is like a
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short form in speech.
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I've just used three examples:
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I'm for 'I am',
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we're for 'we are',
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and I've for 'I have'
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English speakers often use contractions, so mastering them will help your speech improve.
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Our story today is about tourists helping scientists study whale sharks off the coast
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of Western Australia.
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Listen to this conversation, and try to identify the contractions.
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So what sort of information are you recording in your log?
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The latitude and longitude, the depth, the time, the sex and any sort of interaction
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that the swimmers have with it. The whale sharks don't actually seem to mind the interaction
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with them and certainly if it wasn't for them being out here we wouldn't have the amount
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of knowledge we do about them.
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The difference is, I suppose, with scientific research, you might have a research team here
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for a week, two weeks, and then they leave. They might come here once every few years.
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But when you've got, well, six or seven whale shark boats here, three or four in Coral Bay,
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running for three or four months then their contribution to research is awesome. They're
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out here every day.
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Did you hear the contractions? The first speaker used three of them.
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Simon said: don't, wasn't and wouldn't.
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Listen again.
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The whale sharks don't actually seem to mind the interaction with them and certainly if
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it wasn't for them being out here we wouldn't have the amount of knowledge we do about them.
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Don't is a contraction of do not.
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Wasn't is a contraction of was not.
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Wouldn't is a contraction of would not.
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These are all examples of a very common style of contraction - a verb and the negative,
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not.
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Now listen to a tour guide, Steve Gibson, talking about the tourists who help study
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the whale sharks. He uses another type of contraction. Can you identify it?
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The difference is, I suppose, with scientific research, you might have a research team here
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for a week, two weeks, and then they leave. They might come here once every few years.
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But when you've got, well, six or seven whale shark boats here, three or four in Coral Bay,
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running for three or four months then their contribution to research is awesome. They're
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out here every day.
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Steve says: 'you've got' and 'they're out'.
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These are contractions of pronouns with the verbs to have and to be.
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You've is a contraction of you have.
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They're is a contraction of they are.
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We can also make contractions with nouns and other words. Let's look at a few.
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My brother's studying.
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Brother's is a contraction of brother is.
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Who's going out tonight?
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