 Jerry is my nickname. Well, Jerry, so tell us a little bit about yourself. You're in, what part of Vietnam did you say you were from? I'm from the province of Vietnam. And I'm just a graduate from university. And I am looking for work. What was your field of study at the university? My major is economy. Economy, great. Well, this is a good way to find a job, Jerry, on the internet. Jerry, you know, just yesterday, I interviewed a delegate to our Democratic National Convention. He's a Vietnamese-American. And it will be his first convention. And he's so excited to go. Is he a political, what does he do? He has a completely different job, but he quit his job to volunteer for the Obama Organization. And so now he's a delegate to go to our National Convention, which will be in two weeks. Yeah, it's a good opportunity to point out that Carolyn Presudi will be covering the Democratic National Convention first week of September in Charlotte. Along with Jim Malone? Along with Jim Malone, our political correspondent. It's the convention where the parties nominate their candidates and officially nominate them. I think we know who they are. Right, it's a good one this year. Right, we know who it's going to be. It's been questionable in years past. It's always been suspense-filled conventions, but not anymore, not the modern conventions. And the Republican Convention is in two weeks. And the Democratic Convention is in three weeks. So we will, of course, be covering the Republican Convention, too. And the Republicans are going to be meeting in Tampa, Florida. Right, and the Democrats in Charlotte. So, Jerry, are you following American politics? Yes, I'm really obsessed. Any thoughts about the election? Can you tell me what I can call on Skype usually? Well, we'd like to do these more often because these shows have been very popular. But right now, we don't really have a schedule. It's more, Carolyn's very busy out covering stories, and I work in special English. And so we do this when we have time, but we would like to do this more regularly because it is very popular. And typically we do it Thursdays or Fridays. Thursdays or Fridays usually works out. We try to do it toward the end of the week. So I'm very, I really want to talk on Skype with you as usually. But it is the first time I'm calling because I just dropped to Facebook and I say, you're naughty. And I quickly, quickly come to my Skype and call for you. We'll always post it. It's great to talk to you. So, Jerry, we're gonna actually go on to another caller right now. Bye, Jerry. Bye, Jerry. Bye, Jerry. Mai, can you hear us? Hello? Hi, Mai. Are you there? Oh, can you speak up a little bit? Speak a little louder. We're having trouble hearing you. We can sort of barely hear you, but tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? It's very low. We can hear your voice, but it's very soft. If you could speak louder, that would be great. And Mai, where are you from? Where are you calling us from? It's very hard to hear her. Maybe she's far from the microphone. Yeah, it is. They are a little better, a little better. Okay, well, so what country are you from? Did you, I'm not sure we heard. Cambodia, okay. What part of Cambodia are you calling from? Oh, yes. Yes? Yeah. And which part of Cambodia is that? Is that North, South, East, West? The part of the country. We aren't hearing from her. Well, it's our, Cambodia city, yes? Yeah. It's near there? Yeah. Great. Well, Mai, it's been great talking to you, and thanks again, we'll talk to you again soon. Mai, Mai. We're going to Alessio. Hi, Alessio. Alessio. Hello. Hey, how are you? Fine, thanks, and you? We're doing well. We're doing great. Where are you from? It's gorgeous. It's impossible that I'm speaking with you right now, but are you speaking from America? Yes. We're here in Washington. And where are you speaking from? Yes, I come from Italy. Italy, where in Italy? Italy, yes, yes, nothing. I read your message on Facebook, and for this I decided to head you on my Skype. Great, Alessio. Where are you from in Italy? What city? What city in Italy? Ferrara. Ferrara, oh, you make excellent cookies. Yeah, the chocolate, the chocolate, right? The chocolate too, yeah. Yes, it's located in the north part of Italy, but I come from the south part of Italy, Taranto. Taranto. I am right now in the north part of Italy, because I'm studying at university. I am a student. What is your field? What are you studying? I'm studying to become a nurse. A nurse, excellent. There is a nursing shortage in the United States. In recent years, we've been hearing about a shortage of nurses, and there have been campaigns to try to increase the number of nurses, and nurses here are getting more responsibilities, and what kind of nursing is there a specialty that you're focusing on, or? Right now, it's the second year that I'm studying as nurse. I will be graduating the next year, and I hope to transfer in the United Kingdom or in Australia to work as nurse. And for this, I'm studying in English, and I'm trying to improve it. You do very well. Your English is excellent. Actually, we have the special English weekly program called the Health Report, and if you're interested in finding stories for use in medical English, I would go to voaspecialenglish.com and search for the Health Report, and you'll find stories that you may learn some information from it, although you probably got, we've got five callers all weeding in line here, but Alessio, good luck with your studies. Ciao, Alessio. We're going to... Thank you very much. Take care, bye, ciao. Ashraf. Ashraf, are you there? Are you there, Ashraf? No. No? Ashraf. I'm back. I'm out. Oh, there we are. Hi, Ashraf. And not so great. Okay, we're going to, let's see this, we're gonna go to this caller here. Hello? You're on the line. Hello? Can you hear us? Okay, we're gonna go to someone named Abstract. Hello? Hello, Abstract. We never heard that name before. Tell me how you can help me. Sure, tell us what you need. I want to know, why should I call you? Well, we're discussing English, learning English, and we're also discussing the national conventions. Which would you like to talk about? You said what to call us? Well, this is Carolyn, and I'm Avi. Okay, that's good. I'm a learner of English. That's why I call, and I'm talking from Pakistan. I'm calling from Pakistan. Very good. And tell me what I can learn. Tell me something. I mean, tell me the thing which I can endure right now. This is the best way to learn is to converse, talk with someone who is an English speaker, or native English speaker, which Avi and I are. Yeah, I mean, this is for conversa... You know, it's hard to find a substitute for conversational practice than with someone who you can practice with the internet. Exactly, and especially from the country which has very down, very low literacy rate, and here you can hardly find a person speaking English. So, it means I'm fond of learning English. So, tell me what I can learn. Good. If you listen to our broadcasts, sure, you can, right online. It's so different than it used to be. I mean, imagine your parents growing up and not having the internet. Yeah, exactly. I said this to someone yesterday in the office. I said, can you remember the pre-Google age or the pre-Yahoo age, where, I mean, we needed to know a obscure piece of information yesterday. I found it within half a second, and now, right, not everyone obviously has the internet, but so, when you go online, do you have internet or do you go to an internet cafe? How do you go online? Okay, okay. When it comes to speak, I think that I feel that I am losing my power to express what I am actually feeling, but when it comes to writing, and I fully express what I am feeling. Can you tell how can I improve my speaking, I mean, giving words to my thoughts? How can I improve this? And second, how can I improve my grammar? I mean, have a strong grip on it. I think that's totally natural, totally natural to be afraid to speak, because your audio is very different. Your mind has to play into everything you're saying, what's coming out of your mouth. And when you're writing, you can think about it as you're writing, you can erase it, but when you're talking, it's much more difficult. And that's why you definitely gather more speed when you talk, and you also gather more confidence when you talk with someone. I think, I think. And I'm sorry, I'm interrupting. No, no. Okay, let me share one thing. Sure. You know, when you speak, I'm talking, I don't know your name. I'm, when you speak, I mean female. When you speak, I can easily understand, but when a male with you, I mean a guy with you speaking, I feel problem in understanding you. Why is that? You're just a ladies man, that's all. Yeah, that's right. Well, Carolyn does a lot, you know, Carolyn's job is she goes on television and reads the news every day. And so she's, this is her, her special theme. But it could also be just because you listen to a higher tone, because I obviously have a higher voice than obviously. Exactly, exactly. That's the real issue, that's the real point. It may be just that your ear likes the higher tone better than a lower tone. Maybe I'm not an active listener. Oh, I think you are, you're doing great. You, when you earlier said sorry to interrupt, I thought that was, that's something I've been trying to teach myself rather than, you know, cutting someone off, it's what you said, what do they call that? Like a discourse, it's not a discourse marker. There's a certain, there's a name that that's a part of active learning what you did, or active listening. It's saying things like, I'm sorry for interrupting, or let me see if I, let me make sure I understood what you just said. These are all little strategies that work for native speakers and for learners, you know, in a conversation. I'm sure when you're doing an interview, when we do interviews, you know, you don't wanna talk over the person. So you wait for them to, there's a natural break, or you say, no, let me jump in with a question here. Conversational strategy. Absolutely, I think it's very good that you're doing that. And we wanna get to one thing quickly before we hang up with you, and that's grammar. He asked about grammar, right? Well, okay, may I know how old are you people? Oh, no, that's all right. You can Google that. Yeah, you can Google, yeah, that'll be your, I think the thing with the grammar is basically reading, reading, reading, reading, good quality materials, good books, magazine articles, anything you can find. Okay, we've gone on, we've got... Can we have it on the line? Nuri Daya on the line, hello. Can you hear us? Can you hear us? Hello? Hello. Okay, we're gonna go to Abdo, Abdo. Abdo, are you there? Hello, Abdo. Oh, I hear somebody. I hear somebody, yes. Abdo? Abdo. How about Samir? Okay, we're gonna go to Samir. Hi, Samir. Hi, Samir, how are you doing? I'm doing good. How are you? I'm good. Good? What's new? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was talking to you, I was, I was, I was... Hmm, wait, we can... Amir, you're breaking up a bit. We're not hearing you real well. I think we can... Okay, then... Oh, there you are, a little better. Can you, can you hear us now? Okay. Sure, go ahead and talk. Yeah, you hear me? Yeah. Great, yes. What's your question or comment? Okay, we're gonna try calling back a caller we had on hold here. Whoops. Okay, let's see if we can get... The computer gets that hourglass and we always worry when we see the hourglass. That's right, it's not good to see the hourglass. Let's see if we can get this guy off hold. Oh, there we go. Let's try calling it. And his name is... Ashraf, let's see if we can get a hold of him here. Ashraf, answer your Skype if you're watching this. That's right. I'm trying to call you. I'm trying to call you, yes. Oh, we've got... And a lot of you are on the line today. Oh, hello. Ashraf, are you there? Uh-huh. Hello. Yeah, I'm with you. And where do you live, Ashraf? About, it's fine. It would say a little louder, please. Where do you live? And it's fine near Palestine. Palestine. Which part? West Bank, Gaza? Gaza. Gaza. Excellent. Good to hear from you. What's on your mind? Maybe. What do you do there? What do you do? Are you a student? Yeah, I'm a... You're going to need to speak a little louder. We can't really hear you. Can you speak a little louder, Ashraf? Yeah. That's better. I am a programmer. Programmer. Programmer. I was just reading about... There was an article in the New York Times about the growing industry, the information technology and programming industry in the West Bank and Gaza. I'm trying to remember what part. But it was very interesting. So do you work for a local company or an international company? I'm from this company. And I'm just a beginner. A beginner? Not that proficient enough. A proficient. What kind of programming do you do? Metabels and DILTI. If you hear about DILTI, Programming Language. DILTI. Okay. And what is that used for? Tell us a little bit about that programming language. Mostly this application. In which applications? A little louder, please. Because I'm going to turn the speaker up a little bit here. So if you could tell us a little again about the language because we're having trouble hearing you a little bit. I can't hear you. Okay. Well, Ashraf, we're going to go to... Great talking to you. Nice talking to you and good luck with your programming work. Hello, Yasser. Let's sit here. Yasser, can you hear us? Oh, who is that on? We're hearing... Let's try to clear... Hello. Oh, hello. Is that Yasser? Hello, good afternoon. Hello, Yasser? Yeah. Yes, great to hear from you. Where are you calling from? Hello. Hi. Where do you live, Yasser? I live in Algeria. Algeria. Excellent. Yeah. Algeria. I'm a student. I studied... What are you studying? Hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbon? Yeah. So oil and gas, petroleum industry. What? Well, you say hydrocarbon. Are you talking about petroleum industry or...? Sorry, I just learned this language. I mean... Good. My level is love in this English. In English, I use love. This is the best way to learn. I'm trying to learn. You're doing well. This is the best way to learn, is to speak. Just to have a chance to chat for a minute or two now. Within the English, of course, it's the language of the oil industry. I am a level two in this language. I'm a level two. I'm going to level three. Level three? Oh, good. Good for you. When did you start? In private school, in our class, our name is Haas School. And you've been studying for a year or a month? How long? Two months. I do one level in two months. Wow. Excellent. One level for two months, yeah. Do you prefer to speak or write English? To speak and write, yeah. Which one do you like better? To speak. To speak. That's more fun. That's more fun. The other caller told us it's easier to write. That's true. That's true. That's all right. Some people prefer to... I want to improve my vocabulary. Well, that's a big word in itself. My vocabulary. That's good. Are you using our programs, the VOA Special English programs, the learning English programs we do? Do you know about the voaspecialenglish.com? It's reading and listening comprehension materials that can help you improve. But, well, yeah, sir, it's been great talking to you. And we're going to go on now to Abdo. Abdo? Abdo? Hello? Hey! Hello, Abdo. Hey, how are you? Hey, we're fine. How are you doing? Oh, fine. Where are you, Abdo? It sounds like you're in a tunnel. No, we're here looking up an echo. What? Where do you live? I am from Sierra Leone. I live in Saudi Arabia, KSA. South Arab... He's living in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, yes. And what do you do there? What kind of job do you do there? I am a student in high school. High school? Great. Yes. No school today? Or what time is it? No, although we don't have school. This is summer vacation. When do you return? What? When do you return to school? What day? In nine, nine. Nine maybe after one month. One month. How many, what year of high school are you? What? Can you repeat, please? Are you a senior, junior, sophomore? What year? I didn't understand what you said. Maybe grade 10 grade? What grade are you in? Are you in the 10th? Oh, I'm just kidding. It's nine. Nine. Oh, so you're... That in the U.S., ninth grade, is the first year of high school. So you're like 14 or 15 years old? 14. 14. You sound much older. Yes, you do. So what did you do this summer? How do you have fun? I have many, many hopes like basketball, swimming and have a social relationships. Social friendships. French, social relationships. Yeah. Right. Yes. What did... So were you watching the Olympics? Were you watching the basketball and the swimming? Yes. What did you... Yes, the World Cup and the European Championship. Champion. Who is your favorite basketball player? Just out of curiosity, who's... I don't have, but I have a football instructor, Missy. That's your favorite player? Missy? Yes. Yes. Who's he playing for? Sorry, I'm not familiar with him. What team? Sorry to admit, we don't... Who is that? Oh, Argentina, he's playing in Barcelona. The best then. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. Great. Great talking to you. Keep up the good work. We are going to go on to... Good luck in your high school career now. I'm impressive for a 14-year-old. Very nice. Hello, Lea. Can you... Hi, Lea. Are you there? No. Okay, we're going to go to... Hong. Hong, are you there? Hi, Hong. Welcome to our show. How are you? I'm good, how are you? Good, Hong, where are you? Where are you calling from? I'm calling from Sydney. Sydney, Australia? Yes. Wait, what do you do there? I'm studying, I'm just an overseas student. Did you say university student? Yes, yes. I didn't say that, but actually I am, yeah. And what do you study? I'm studying nursing. Nursing, another nurse. Did you hear the earlier caller who is studying to be a nurse? We had another caller a little while ago. I forgot where he was from, but he was also studying to become a nurse. So that's... Sorry, what is your name, sorry? This is... I'm Avi. And this is Carolyn. Carolyn, okay, Carolyn and Avi. Yes, right. Nice to meet you. Nice to talk to you, guys. Now, how did you end up in Australia? You don't sound Australian with the accent. Or are you an international student? I'm Vietnamese. Vietnamese, yes. And why Australia? I came here for... I've been here for about two years and a half, yeah. It's interesting that we have a story today that's going to be going up on our website in a little while. This week's education report in special English. And we actually look at this issue of international students and the problems they sometimes have making friends. Now, the story was with people from the country where they're studying. We looked at the United States, but we also talked about Australia because I guess there's some issues, problems. A lot of international students say they don't feel very welcome or that they have trouble making. They feel lonely, some feel discriminated against. I know the Australian government, what just created a council to come up with a five-year plan to sort of give, you know, to improve, strengthen, you know, the international education industry in Australia. I mean, have you felt welcomed in Australia? Actually, it's at the area I'm living at, or you know, at the university I'm doing my course. Yes. Yeah, a lot of them are overseas students. And yeah, a lot of them come from China, from Vietnam, from Indochina, or other country as well, like India or Mexico, something like that. So you don't feel any discrimination? Do you feel like you have Australian friends? Yes, sometimes, but it's very rarely, you know. It's very rare. And the other thing is sometimes for, like for me, I'm not very confident to communicate with Aussie people or, you know, because just because your English is not very, I mean, my English is not very good. And the other thing is, yeah, sometimes they speak very fast and then you don't understand what they're talking about. So, you know, sometimes when you ask your question or something like that, or they tell you their story and you don't really understand what they're talking about. And they do have that accent that's very different from the English name. Yeah, actually, yeah. I feel like American accent is much, much more, you know, make me, for myself, I think it's a bit easier to understand. Now, I'm very curious though, why did you choose an Australian school? Oh, yeah, at that time, I think the thing is the thing is my mom and my dad income feels Australian, you know, decent fee, Australian decent fee is a bit cheaper than England or American, I think. Australia has a very big international education industry, business. I mean, so does the United States and Britain. Education, yeah, education is the third biggest industry in Australia, that's why. What are the two biggest industries, if you know? The first is mining, the second one is something else and then education is the third one, I think. I mean, the income, the GDP come from the education from international students, you know? Han, you say you're very reticent, I don't know if you know what that word means, but you hesitate to speak to the Australians, your English is very good. Yeah, I agree. You should be confident, you're very good at English. Go out there and talk to more people today. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, thanks Han. And that's calling, you know, VOA. I used to learn English from VOA website since I was in Vietnam, you know? I think three or four years ago, when, because I did, I studied French, I had been studying French for seven years in Vietnam, at the time when my roommates learned English, you know? And then I have heard about this VOA website from my friends because at that time I had no idea. Our programs are very popular in Vietnam, they're used extensively in schools so we're very happy about that. Thanks Han. Keep up the good work in Australia. All right, well nice talking to you, we are going to take, Take care. See if we can hike. Leah. Leah. Leah, are you there? Can you hear us? Hello. Hello, Leah. Yeah. Thanks for calling back. I saw that you called before and then you called back. Yeah, I'm here. Right? Hi, we're- Can you hear me? Yes. Where are you calling from? Where do you live, Leah? Yeah, I'm from Vietnam. Oops. Where do you live? Yeah, I'm from Vietnam. Vietnam. Hello? Yes, we just spoke to someone. Yeah, Vietnam. We spoke to someone who's from Vietnam but studying in Australia. I said studying nursing. Already? In Australia. Right. Have you lived there all your life in Vietnam? Leah? Sorry? Are you there? Are you there? Did you grow up? Yeah, I'm listening. Did you grow up in Vietnam? Maybe so. Tell us what you do in Vietnam, Leah. Sorry, I can't hear you better. Okay, well- I'm a first graduate. Oh, she just graduated. Oh, no, I'm a first graduate right now. First? First grader. Okay, I'm sorry. We're going to- We're having problems with that call. Hello. Hi. Hi, Noah. Who's this? Hi, how are you? Hi, thanks. Where are you calling from? From Jordan. And what's your name? My name is Maud. Maud. Maud. Amabi, and this is Carolyn. Hi, Maud. And welcome to our show. Hi, Maud. What do you do in Jordan? I live there. What, do you have a job or are you a student? Yeah, yeah, I'm a post-graduate living and I'm still searching for a job. And what is your field of study? Or what field did you graduate in? I'm a communication engineer. Oh, excellent. What type of job do you want? Something related with what I studied, you know, like networking or something like that, internet service provider. How hard is it to find a job in Jordan these days? Oh, it's really hard. Very hard. As you see, getting any better or is it just going downhill? No, it's still the same. How long have you been out of school? I have been, I graduated before four months, something about four months. Yeah. Do you go to interviews to get your jobs or do you apply online? Do you apply with email? Yeah, I apply online and I had done some interviews, you know, but they didn't hire me. Okay, so let's do- It's a little hard. You have to know someone in the company, you know? In one line, tell us why we should hire you. That's right, this is called the, if you've ever heard the term elevator speech, 30 second elevator speech, it's if you met, if you were stuck, well, if you were in an elevator with someone and you had 30 seconds to tell them why that person should hire you, what's your elevator speech? Go ahead, you're on. 30 seconds. You know, it's hard because I'm freshly graduated, I don't know a lot about the practical in this field, I know some theories, something like that. So if they want to hire me, because maybe I can improve myself in the company. I think you should stress the fact that you just graduated, because you can say I bring youth and I bring energy to your company. And fresh knowledge of the field. And fresh ideas. The latest knowledge, the latest information, and you wouldn't cost as much as hiring someone more experienced. Add that to your elevator speech. And let us know when you get a job. Call us back. Yeah, call us back. We're gonna, it's been great talking to you. We're gonna go on to era one. Hello, era one. Hi, era one. Era one? Oh, era one? No, no. Okay, we're going to try calling. Oh, here she's calling back. Hello, you're on the line with Avi and Carolyn. Hello. Hi, I see you've been trying to call for a while, so I'm glad. Yeah. What is your name? Hello. What is your name? Hi, can you hear us? Can you hear us? Can you hear me? There's a baby. Oh, okay. Hello, I'm sorry. It wasn't like the problem. Okay. That's okay. Hi, can you hear us? Hello? Yeah, we're having. I wish we could talk to you. I know she's been calling. We've got Elaine calling in. Elaine from Brazil. Hello. Hi, can you hear us? Elaine, are you there? Hello, Elaine. Hello? Oh. Okay. Hello. Oh, hey. Weil, W.A. Hi. Is that how we pronounce your name? How do we pronounce your name? Weil or Wawu. Can you hear us? Maybe not. Oh, we're going through a couple. We're going through a couple. We're having network problems of our own. Okay, we're back with Noordyah. Hello, Noordyah? Yeah, I can hear our voice coming back. Okay, we're going to go to Garmion. Hello, Garmion. Garmion, are you there? Hello, hello. Yeah, there you are, hello. I have to ask, you have a picture of cherries. Hello. In place of your picture. Hello, hello, can you hear us? Garmion? Yes, I like. You like cherries? Hello. Hello. Hello, how are you? Fine thanks, how are you? Hello. Hello. We're here. Hello. Can you hear us? How are you? We're having some connection problems here. Okay, we're going to try. Noordyah. Noordyah, one more time. For the third time. We're expecting Noordyah. Hi, Noordyah, can you hear us now? All right, well, we have gotten a lot of calls. We did get a lot of calls. This was great today. Well, listen, why don't we, we'll do this again very soon. You've got to get back to the newsroom and I've got a story, I've got to edit. Thanks everyone for calling. It's been great talking to you. We will post another when we're ready to do this again. We'll put it again on Facebook. Wait, we're going to take. Andre. Andre, go out on one call here. Andre. Andre, you're our final caller. Are you there, Andre? I see you. Andre, hello. We see you. I think he's still getting it. Yeah, he's still getting it. Maybe he just wants to see a face in. Well, Andre, oh no. All right, well, I'm ready. All right, well, this has been, thanks for joining us today. We'll do this again soon from VOA Learning English in Washington. I'm Avi. And I'm Carolyn Pursuti. Nice to see you today. Take care. Bye bye.