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Тексты для аудирования. 6 высказываний.
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Speaker 1
Right now I’m trying to find a way to regain a healthy lifestyle despite being busy. I’ve completely lost the athleticism that was a large part of my identity and I can't stand it any more. Now I’m trying to regain general fitness. So I’ve been biking to work (about 20 minutes) for two months now, trying to get more veggies and whole grain in my life, drinking lots of water, and I’m hoping to start walking more although right now I have to work a lot and usually feel too exhausted after work to do anything else.

Speaker 2
My name is Katie, I’m 25 years old, and I started making a conscious effort to develop healthy habits about a year ago. The first thing I did was give up smoking. My goals are mainly to exercise regularly, drink enough water, and eat fruits and veggies daily. I do keep track of what I eat with journaling although I’m not a calorie counter, and I don’t own scales or restrict myself in any way. I just want to be stronger and feel better through trying to meet those goals every day. Now I feel I can do it.

Speaker 3
A year or so ago, I was in pretty good shape and paying a lot of attention to my health. I slipped back into inactivity and unhealthy eating for various reasons. I miss what I had, but I’ve had a hard time finding the motivation to return to my usual healthy lifestyle. Spring is just arriving – sunny sky, warmer weather, longer days, green leaves peeking up from last season’s dead grass. The improvement in the weather is lifting my spirits, so I've decided to take advantage of the extra energy and design for myself a spring fitness challenge.

Speaker 4
I have just realised that at least six days out of seven, I do the amount of exercise that is recommended for those whose goal is a healthy lifestyle, just by walking during my daily routine. About three times a week, I do more, sometimes considerably more. Despite that, I often do myself down by telling people I don’t exercise at all. I think some part of my brain still believes that because I’m doing it as part of my routine rather than going to any special effort, it can’t be taken into account.

Speaker 5
Hi! I’m Alex. I’ve had terribly unhealthy eating habits for the last few years. I never took much time to eat and ended up eating very few meals. I’m trying to develop healthier eating habits, and I wonder what would constitute a balanced meal. For breakfast I eat a bowl of cereal and yogurt. Then grab five pieces of fruit I divide between lunch and dinner. It’s more than I usually eat, but I know there’s still a lot of room for improvement. At the same time I’m worried about going overboard, which can happen very easily for me.

Speaker 6
I am 27 years old, and I come from a family of rather overweight people. I’ve been working to live a more healthy and fit lifestyle since last December. Over the past three years, I’ve watched older relatives dealing with serious health problems, and it’s been a wake up call for me to start taking care of myself while I’m young and my state of health hasn’t become worse. I’d like to start a family in the next couple of years, and it would be great to be able to keep up with my children as the years go by.

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Тексты для аудирования. Разговор друзей.
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Mike: I’m 39 now and I resumed my studies when my son started Grade One. Now I’m very happy that I made up my mind to do this. I'll be graduating in April and hopefully start teaching high school English in September.
Mary: What had you been doing before you went to university?
Mike: I had been doing administrative work for 13 years, straight out of high school. I had got very tired and fed up with the low pay and the monotonous nature of the work. So I started university.
Mary: That’s a right decision, indeed. As for me, I went to university at more or less the normal age. I was actually 21 at the time. But I did so miserably that the university suggested that I not return. Since then I’ve been basically wasting my time.
Mike: And what are your plans?
Mary: You see, one day I was fiddling around on the web and found some information about distance learning. It’s fabulous if you can’t take the time out to go to people-ridden classes, because you can work it around your own schedule.
Mike: Yes, I think the fact that you can do the work in your own space and your own time is really helping.
Mary: Of course, I will have deadlines to meet, but they’re not the same as the in-class sort. Handing things in doesn’t depend on anyone else’s office hours or class times, which is really handy. I will only have to contact my tutors when I want to or need to, or when I’m required to do an oral quiz or exam.
Mike: I think it’s a very good idea. Going to university was the best thing I have ever done. I found it was more fun than I expected, and the benefits outweighed the disadvantages. I learned so much about myself, and I'm very proud of my accomplishments!
Mary: And I expect my ability to study to be much better than it used to be and things come much more easily. While I still see doing some of the work as a chore, at least this time around I'm actually enjoying it.
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Тексты для аудирования. Рассказ студента.
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I’ve lived in Denmark now for nearly four years, and I’ve changed a lot within this time. I’ve become more fashionable, more cosmopolitan-minded, more …Danish – if I’m allowed to say that.

But one thing hasn’t changed about me. And that is my inability to cooperate with or understand Danish supermarket culture. As someone who was raised predominantly in the United States, I’ve always been used to grocery stores with a selection of food choices so huge that it’s almost perverted. That and a high level of service. In an American grocery store, one can find a kind of product with a thousand different brandings and types. For example, let’s take the flakes varieties: whole grain frosted flakes, or fat-free frosted flakes. Do I want my cream cheese with low, medium, or full fat? Seedless watermelons or watermelons with seeds? That being said, when I walk into a Danish grocery store I want to burst into tears because I’m so bored with the selection. The variety of cereals consists of Cherrios, Honey-nut Cherrios, and Wheaties. Coco-puffs if I’m lucky. There’re few fruits and vegetables, most rotten. I’m telling you, everything is so boring and plain and demanding of hard kitchen labour that you just wish some American food companies could establish factories here and import some ready made dinners.

I know I should be ashamed of saying this, but I do miss American convenience. In Denmark, making a homemade meal requires at least 30 dollars spent at the grocery store and 2 hours in the kitchen. For instance, at my local grocery store, nothing is allowed to be under 4 dollars. That’s right, it’s called organic and healthy food, free of anything synthetic or “fast”-related. But I do miss synthetic food.

Oh yes, the whole Danish, “do-it-yourself” attitude prevails! Expect to stress while bagging all of your food, as no one will do it for you.

The only way to really understand what I mean is to imagine that if you’ve come from America and you’re used to certain things with service and product selection and then you move here – it truly is different in Denmark. And I’ve lived elsewhere in Europe (Iceland, England, Spain) and I still find the grocery stores much better and with more selection in those countries. However, how could anyone take me serious when I say, “I miss synthetic food”? That is purely attempting to be sarcastic, and I see that it is wrong and disgusting that American food is pumped up with so much crap. I really appreciate that in Denmark the food is free of everything artificial and it shows on Danes – most of them look healthy and fit here. But once in a while I miss the vastness of an American grocery store!

I want to add that I am Danish, was born in Denmark, lived here for 5 years as a child and then moved to America where I lived most of my life. I moved back here a few years ago and I love the country. I speak Danish. I’m not an immigrant in Denmark who is unsatisfied with the way of life here and who should move back to the States. I’m a student and of course it takes 2 hours to make a meal on my own.

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