 It's snow in my life you've never seen snow. Yeah, I don't think you're gonna get it in Iran Yes You know, I have never taken an English guy You've never you've learned on your own Yeah, yeah, I learned this by myself That's that's what helped me learn quickly You know, I'm learning English phrases, you know Alien phrases. I would like to be like you, you know Well, so now what we're streaming our video of our of our call now so people on Facebook can watch us and on you stream So tell us so people can hear your voice and and you have here's your chance to practice your English with our audience Tell us a little bit about yourself. Are you a student or? Yeah, you know, I was a student a few months ago and I graduated I graduated from university And Right now I Had I turned some work right now. I'm looking for a knowledge. All right So you're so this is a good way to tell what your skills are if you're looking for a job. You said you are in Iran, correct? I'm I'm still in junior but actually I'm gonna I'm gonna get Gonna need you up to to learn experience For my career. Excellent. So what what are you studying in school? What's what's your major? I will tell you I studied civil engineering civil engineering Civil engineering. We just had a call from an electrical engineer in Vietnam and we've we hear from a lot of engineers and So do you want to build bridges or what do you are buildings? What what do you want to do as a civil engineer? Yeah, actually my major What did you think of Bridge and building and any construction. Great. What did you think of the you've been watching the Olympics? Have you been I'll bet you've been looking at the stadium, right when they're or the you know, how they built it, right? Have you been enjoying the watching the Olympics? Yeah, I was killed of them, you know, but I Don't I don't watch TV more much, you know This I spent all my my what my time only to interest, you know, my interest is not so good. That's maybe I can't You know what? Windows Something online. Well, you're doing a great job with your English. We want to wish you luck in his thanks call anytime We'll talk to you again soon. Take care. Well, we're going to oh, we've got we've got stevo calling us from Yeah, hi stevo stevo. Are you there? Hi There we go now we can hear you now the the last time we talked in February you were you were in Aleppo in Syria Yeah, and you're still there. You're still there. How is it today? Yeah, today, I think it's quite today comparing to their previous days. I Didn't hear any sound of clashes or bombs. I used to hear a few years a few days ago and what are you and getting better, I think and There wasn't red in my In my city, but now before two days the oven the oven the bakery next to my home is Was opened and we can get to the bread and but we still have no no fuels like gas or benzene diesel or Other stuff. That's been a problem for a long time. I remember in February. You were telling us that was an issue What are you hearing from? Your fellow residents your neighbors are they are they losing hope? Are they encouraged? I mean, it's been going on a long time in Syria Nobody knows actually but most of the people living in the Eastern Eastern part of the city Have fled the fled their homes and when to maybe many of them are now living in schools schools and some of them are living in the dormitory of the university and And others Let's do the countryside the countryside now in Aleppo the countryside of Aleppo is now safer than the city itself previous month the countryside was more disturbing and Inconvenient for people to live there because the clashes Were in the countryside, but now the clashes went to inside the city and the countryside is now safe so some people the Left maybe to their parents or to their relatives in the countryside Some of them to the schools some of them to the dormitory some of them to their relatives inside Aleppo the Western part of the city is still safe and I am living in the Western part in Aleppo and The situation here is is quiet Comparing to the what's happening in the western and the eastern side of the city but every day I wake up due to the sounds of the the bombs and the the aircrafts flying over my home and the aircrafts jet fighters aircrafts Are plenty in the sky and every maybe every ten minutes a few minutes you can hear them flying over you Do you have electricity where you are? Yes, I have electricity, but not for a long time Sometimes The electricity went out maybe for one hour sometimes for four hours sometimes for a day. Nobody knows they They bring the electricity and they cut and they cut it We don't know which time they provide the electricity and which time they stop it or cut it out Do you still go to work Steve? Oh? No, no, I stopped going to work. I work at the Aleppo University as an engineer and when the clashes started the University of Aleppo is closed now and So how do you not only the University of Aleppo all the mental institutes or the complements of compartmental Buildings are stopped now. Nobody goes to work. How are you supporting yourself leave? How do you how do you pay for things? How do you buy food pay your rent? I? Have some saves before I saved some money from previous time and I knew that this will happen So when that when there is no great I still have some great because I stored some at my refrigerator I knew that would happen and I stored some foods some everything. So I prepared myself for such a circumstances but now The situation is getting better indeed. There are some shops opened And you can get to whatever you want actually in some part of the city in some shops now are opening Well, you is it all right if we if we share this conversation with our newsroom to know Okay, thank you Yeah, stay safe and please keep keep us informed on how you're doing and we wish you the best Okay, bye. Bye. Bye, Steve. Oh Okay, we're going to go to a caller now named chow chow. Can you hear us? Hello chow Hello chow Chow, maybe? Hello. Can you hear us? Oh? You have a very happy photo of Watch it. I think we're having Trouble with I can't really hear we're going to go to CJ Hi CJ Where are you calling us from CJ your picture looks very American with your baseball cap Thailand great. Yeah, and are you following the Olympics? Yeah, yes, I do. Yeah, how is the Thai team doing? What's your favorite sport to watch Are you are you viewing it on TV or do you read about in the newspaper? How do you keep up? My favorite boy There's a game today Who's the US playing today, or there's there's a basketball game today, I know I heard on the radio this morning I haven't been we haven't at last time I looked up at the TV in the office. They were showing Synchronized swimming, you know where they eat the swimmers in the pool all synchronized. It's amazing that they they can do that in the wall Yeah, I find it amazing to and the rhythmic gymnastics. Oh my gosh. Those women are incredible But there's so many stories that come out like the the runner that ran on the broken leg Yeah, they're running one that he wanted Mitchell was it? Yeah, I won the Decathlon. He's the world's best athlete who's running with it. Yeah What's the early regard? I'm getting it mixed up. There was a hundred meter. Okay I'm getting my athletes with the broken with the leg problems mixed up, but it's incredible It's just I don't know so so who are you rooting for in basketball? Sorry, who are you supporting in basketball? I must go They're not in the Olympics though, right We're going to CJ. It was great talking to you. We're going to go on chow is calling us back. Can you hear us now chow? Chow, you're very muffled Your microphone isn't real clear Oh, we brought a problem. This is this is today's USA Today newspaper Big national newspaper showing a sweet victory. This was the American women's soccer team Celebrating after winning the gold against Japan yesterday two to one. Yeah And there are stories basically saying that that the US says 39 gold medals China has 37 Right behind in the Olympics, but it's a good year and very close to be interesting To see what night brings and this weekend chow. Can you hear us? Can you hear us? Well, we've got let's see we've getting lots of more lots more contact requests here. So we'll be taking a It's a good chance for people to call and let's catch up on some of our wow Here's your chance give us give us a call now VOA learning English on Skype, you know Well, we're waiting for the calls. I gotta tell you. Oh, there we go. Let's go to Mohammed and then we'll talk about Mohammed, are you there? Hello Wait, let's let me in this call here Mohammed can you hear us? I'm a Rocco. Let's try. Let's try calling. I'm calling you Mohammed and we'll see if you answer So, you know the one the one Olympics sport that I could never do is the open water swim Oh my gosh, they're in the water for an hour and there are people swimming over top of you and under you and yeah From what I understand that's I mean, you know people we get panicked That's not a good place to get a panic attack, right? But that's murky water and Hyde Park and it's the serpentine river and Mohammed. Can you hear us? We can't even hear you. Oh All right Wait, we have Iqbal Iqbal. Hi Iqbal Can you hear us? Are you there Iqbal? Maybe it's Iqbal. Hello. Hi. Hello. Hi. Who's this? Hello. Hello. Can you hear us? How are you? We are great What's your name? My name is Abid. Abid. Okay. You don't look like your picture Abid or we're getting a different name What tell us where you're calling from? We have a picture for you Abid of a man with a beard Maybe our picture is me Where are you calling from? Abid, where do you live? What? Abid, where do you live? What country are you calling from? Tunisia. Tunisia. Very nice. Oh and you have something to celebrate that the Tunisians won the Ten kilometer race. We were just talking about that the open swim, right? What? For the Olympics. Have you been following the Olympics? I don't know. No? Okay. Well your country won. Congratulations. Congratulations. What part of Tunisia are you calling from? I don't know. I don't think she's hearing us very well. Maybe we can go to Fern. We're going to go to Fern. Fern, can you hear us? Hey. Hey Fern. Hey Fern. Where are you calling from? I'm really excited to call with you now. Which country do you... What country are you from? I'm from Thailand. Do you know this country? Yeah, we just spoke to another caller from Thailand a little while ago. I was telling him I was there in Thailand in 1990, Thailand and Vietnam. So from what I saw at Bangkok I really enjoyed it. From July of 1990. Is that where you live in Bangkok? Yeah, a lot a lot. I'm living in some harmony in the city beside the beach. It's very good. The beach. On the beach. Yeah. I hear it's wonderful for scuba diving. Are you near a good scuba diving area? Yeah, it's near Gokshank. You may be around here. Yes? We're talking today about the Olympics Fern. Have you been watching or following the Olympics? Yeah, I was sometimes. I'm really busy now. You're busy, of course. Of course. Are you in school? Yeah. Are you in school? You look very young in the video. Yeah. I'm in high school. So you're on your summer break? When is your summer or your vacation? When are Thailand schools on long vacation, on break? It's on October. But you're not in school today? It's Saturday there, right? That's right. Time difference. It's Friday here. So tell us about what's life like for a high school student where you are? What's the social life like at high school? So tell us what do you want to mean? What? What? Tell us a little bit about your high school. Is it big? Is it small? Do you like your classes? Yeah. It's easy to be a schoolboy. I'm not happy about school. Yeah. It makes it easy for me to know and thank the teachers. I'm in school a lot because of school. And what do you do when you're not in school, Fern? What do you like to do after school? I think I always change the problem for a teacher at my school every day. Okay. Well, Fern, it was great talking to you. And I wish you the best with your rest of your school year. So take care. Thanks for it. Bye-bye. All right. Well, let's see who else has been trying to call us here. Okay, so we finished with that call. Well, let's see. We've been talking. We've been talking for a while, right? We have. Why don't we go ahead and start wrapping up this edition? You've got to go on to... Anchoring, special English today, learning English. Carolyn records our week's videos this afternoon in about three hours. Right. And those will be on YouTube soon. And next week, same thing. Yeah, very good. So it's a good way to learn English because you not only see my mouth move, but you see the words right here at the bottom of your screen. So you can read along while I'm reading to you. And you can listen. Listen and learn. The same time. And the videos are... You can find them all at youtube.com-voa-learning-english, where we'll post this video when we're done, and at voaspecialenglish.com. So we want to thank you all for joining us. Thank you. And we will have another Skype call-in show soon. Take care. Bye-bye.