A2 English Listening Practice - Complaining – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.hey everybody welcome to this a2 english listening practice video you can use this video to practice your listening and comprehension as i speak remember to sign up for our one dollar listening practice seminars at polyglossa.com and download our free listening time podcast so you can practice your listening skills [Music] so today i'm going to talk about complaining this might seem like a strange topic but i think it's very relevant because most people complain about many things in their lives specifically in this video i want to talk about some of the different things that people complain about often the first complaint that i'm gonna talk about is the weather depending on where you live this might be a common complaint in the us when people make small talk they tend to talk about the weather they might comment on how nice the weather is that day or they might talk about how terrible the weather is it's very easy to connect with another person when complaining about the weather because it's an easy topic to talk about i think this is a big reason why people like to complain about this topic it helps you start conversations i sometimes complain when it's raining especially on the weekend i love going outside and enjoying the outdoors so it's disappointing for me when i can't do this i know i shouldn't complain about things i can't control but i do this sometimes another thing that people love to complain about is traffic this is one of the worst parts about living in a big city nowadays many people work from home but if you work in an office you probably have to commute to work five days a week the verb to commute means to travel to and from some place regularly if you commute to work in the morning and commute back home in the evening you probably do this during rush hour this is the time during the day when there are more cars on the road if you live in a crowded city you'll definitely hear people complain about the traffic during rush hour i know some people that spend two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening in traffic it's hard not to complain in this situation i hate being stuck in traffic and i definitely complain about this sometimes alright another thing that people complain about is rising prices it seems like every year life gets more and more expensive for example in the past houses and apartments were much cheaper than they are now for many young adults buying a house seems impossible nowadays i hear people complain about this all the time it also seems like gas prices keep getting higher and higher it's funny because americans complain about this a lot but actually gas is much more expensive in other countries still we americans like to complain about this okay i saved the worst one for last in my opinion the thing i complain about the most is the government of course everyone complains about corrupt politicians and terrible presidents but what annoys me the most is the horrible experience you have when you use government services i can't tell you how many times i've been disappointed with government services just in the last month i've had at least three bad experiences with the government unfortunately this is completely normal almost every time i use a government service there are errors with their website their workers are rude and it takes them a long time to do their job and of course the quality of their work and their institutions is terrible for example almost all of the students i talked to tell me that the government hospitals in their countries are not good overall governments don't offer high quality services i'm sure many of you complain about government services too all right now i'm going to ask you some questions about today's video to see if you understood number one what's the most common topic of small talk number two what does the verb commute mean and number three what's one thing that seems to get more expensive all the time okay remember to sign up for our one dollar listening practice seminars and download our free listening time podcast so you can practice your listening skills also subscribe to the channel click on the bell and follow us on instagram i'll see you next time [Music]