I wanna talk about my two cats

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/i-wanna-talk-about/my-two-cats

Introduction
This support pack accompanies: I wanna talk my two cats
To listen online, go to:
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/i-wanna-talk-
about/my-two-cats
This support pack contains the following materials:
• a pre-listening vocabulary activity;
• the tape script
• a comprehension task

Before you listen / read

1. the
2. rabies 3. adopt 4. cat flap 5. wander
Millennium

6. roam 7. stroke 8. cuddle 9. cuddly 10. squash

Definitions:
a. A person or an animal that looks attractive or soft and makes you want to cuddle them
b. Here it refers to the year 2000; and actually means a period of 1000 years
c. To take another person’s child into your family and legally make him or her your own child
d. To put your arms around someone and hold them in a loving way
e. To press or crush something into a flat shape
f. To move about without a particular purpose
g. To touch or to move your hand gently over skin, hair, or fur
h. A hinged flap fixed into a door or window to allow cats to enter and exit a house on their own
i. To walk around in a relaxed manner
j. A very serious disease which affects the nervous system of dogs and other animals, and can
be fatal for humans

© The British Council, 2010 Page 1 of 2

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.
 I wanna talk about my two cats
http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/i-wanna-talk-about/my-two-cats

Tape script
I’d like to talk about my two cats who are called used to wander about it. When it came to leave
Misha and Masha and they are nine years old, the UK, we discovered that they in fact had
and, because I work for the British Council and I about five or six different homes and made
have worked in lots of different parts of the friends with all kinds of people along the street
world, they are quite international cats; so they they used to go and get fedded (fed), get
were born in St. Petersburg, Russia around the stroked or cuddled by all our neighbours. Then
dawn of the Millennium, in the middle of winter. we moved to Mexico and we had a house with a
And St Petersburg winters are very very cold, garden so we had to build a special fence that
it’s kind of minus 30 degrees, and some friends kind of curled in on itself so that the cats would
of mine found these two tiny little kittens in the climb up and then feel that they were starting to
snow and brought them in and then sent an fall down so they climbed back down again. And
email around the office saying ‘who can look then we moved to Guangzhou…erm this time
after these two cats’. And my wife and I already last year so now they are ‘flat cats’, erm, they’ve
had two cats at the time from Indonesia, erm not been squashed, they just live in our flat, live
and we thought can we, have we got room, can in our apartment and they don’t go out…erm
we adopt these teeny cats and then we saw they just go out onto the balcony, but the
them, they were just so cute that we couldn’t interesting thing is that their personality has
say no, so we brought them home and so they seemed to have changed in every country they
lived with us for like two years in Russia, and live in. So Masha used not to be very friendly
then we moved back to the UK and they had to towards people, as she’s got older, she’s now
stay in France for six months, erm, just to check quite a cuddly cat. And they’ve adapted to live
they didn’t have rabies...erm before they were in…being a kind of free to roam about and then
allowed into the UK. And then they lived with us being in the garden and now they seem to be
in Cambridge and we had a cat flaps so they very happy just being in a flat.

Comprehension task
True or false
Read the following sentences and decide if they are true or false.
1. Misha and Masha are Russian cats.
2. Misha and Masha were rescued from the Russian winter.
3. The speaker already had two Indian cats.
4. The cats had to stay in France for two years to check that they were healthy.
5. Misha and Masha had lots of friends in Cambridge.
6. In Mexico, the speaker made special changes to his garden to make sure the Misha and
Masha didn’t get out.
7. In China, Misha and Masha can roam about where ever they want.
8. Masha has become softer and friendlier as she has got older.

Answers

© The British Council, 2010 Page 2 of 2

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.