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Australia

Date: Jan 14 2009

Themes: History, Romance

Grammar: Present Perfect Tense

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Intro

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2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

When we think about Australia, we often think of funny-looking animals like koala bears, kangaroos, and wombats. But along with these fuzzy marsupials, Australia has produced quite a few actors who’ve made it big in Hollywood, including Heath Ledger and Nicole Kidman.

Now Kidman and fellow Aussie Hugh Jackman have teamed up in Australia, an epic, romantic adventure set in the wild Australian outback. But as Jason explains to Beren, Australia is more than just a typical love story with funny accents.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jason

Beren

Jason: Have you seen Australia?

Beren: No, but I kinda want to. That’s the new Baz Luhrmann movie?

Jason: Yeah, stick with it if you do.

Beren: Oh, you’ve seen it?

Jason: Yeah, and it starts out, and it’s kind of…It seems like it’s going to be really predictable, like it’s just a story of, you know, a civilized woman in an uncivilized land. But it’s really long and it keeps evolving after that. There’s a lot of stuff about the treatment of the aborigines in Australia, and then World War II happens, and it suddenly becomes really epic.

Beren: Woah. That’s the exact opposite of what I thought it was.

Jason: Really?

Beren: Yeah. I saw the preview and I was like, oh, boring love story set in Australia with two Australians. You know, Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman. But that actually sounds interesting. It’s kind of gotten mixed reviews though. One big criticism has been Nicole Kidman’s acting in the movie. But I think she’s a great actress. I haven’t seen her in a flop.

Jason: Maybe there’s a little bit of melodrama and that’s why people are saying that, but…

Beren: It’s interesting the movie talks about how the aborigines were exploited and mistreated, because I think that even if you go to Australia today, they’re second-class citizens.

Jason: That’s what I’ve heard.

Beren: Mmm-hmm.

Grammar Point

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Discussion

Jason has just seen Australia, the new movie from the director of Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet. He says that even though some parts of the story are pretty conventional, it also includes some exciting and interesting elements that make it worth watching.

Before talking to Jason about Australia, Beren wasn’t very interested in seeing it. She heard that Nicole Kidman’s performance wasn’t very good, and she thought that the movie was just a typical love story. But the story involves a lot more than the romance between Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. It even deals with the mistreatment of Australia’s aborigines by the Europeans who settled the land.

Have you ever been to Australia or would you like to go there? In your country, is there a group of people who are sometimes treated like second-class citizens? How do you feel about that?