Callum: Hello and welcome back to Talk about English. I'm Callum Robertson.
Jackie: And I'm Jackie Dalton.
Callum: In the programme today topic is fashion.
BRONAGH MEERE I would like to say fashion conscious, I hope I'm not a fashion victim,
Jackie: And we'll also be hearing one of your favourite English expressions.
MOLLY Hello everyone, I'm Molly from China, my favourite English expression is 'long time no see'.
Callum: All that and more! In today's Talk about English
Well Jackie, it's good to be back with the all new Talk about English.
Jackie: Yes it is. And a very big thank you to all of you who wrote in and sent us feedback for the new programme.
Callum: If you're listening to us for the first time, then welcome, we hope you enjoy the programme and if you've listened to us before then you will notice a few changes.
Jackie: You'll find a lot more information and activities on the website, including an archive of downloads.
Callum: One of the major changes is that Talk about English is now shorter, it's 20 minutes, so we have a lot to get in, we'd better get started with our topic today of fashion.
GONG
Callum: That sound tells me it's time for some facts about our word of the day.
WORD FACTS 1 Word Facts Today's word is Fashion – Fashion Fashion has two syllables, the first syllable is stressed – FA – SHION It has seven letters - F – A – S – H – I – O – N But to pronounce it you only need 5 sounds /f ж ʃ ə n/ - fashion It rhymes with many other words that end in the letters 'ion' such as nation, station and graduation. Word Facts (and that's a fact)
Callum: And there'll be more 'word facts' throughout the programme. Listen out for the gong sound, you can't really miss it!
So our topic today is fashion, Jackie are you a keen follower of fashion.
(Callum and Jackie discuss, bring topic around to that of celebrities in the media and fashion magazines.)
Callum: Well we wanted to get an expert opinion on this topic so we contacted one of these magazines, a magazine called Heat and spoke to Bronagh Meere who is a style assistant and stylist for Heat magazine. I asked her what she does in her job, listen out for this information – what is she responsible for, the celebrities' hair, make-up or clothes.
BRONAGH MEERE I actually go to the Heat interviews and I style and dress the actual celebrities we're interviewing. And when you say you style the people for the photo shoots, what does that mean, do you choose the clothes that they wear, do you fix their hair, their make-up, what do you do for them? I, yea, I get a brief before the actual interview and I'll go off and get loads of clothes to match the brief that I've been given, and then on the day I'll tell them, I'll ask them what to wear, they'll try it on, if it doesn't look right then I'll say 'try this with this and it'll look better. We'll see what happens. I don't do hair or make up, I just actually just do the clothes, so yea I choose the clothes that they put on. So you get to style the celebs? Yep, which is good fun. And who's the most famous celebrity that you've worked with? The most famous? I'd probably say the Hof, David Hasselhof, which was really good fun. I styled him, yes he must be the most famous to me just because I remember watching Knightrider when I was little, so I was quite excited about that and a little bit nervous, but yes, he'd have to be probably the most famous.
Callum: So Bronagh is stylist to the celebrities, to the celebs as I called them. In her job she is responsible for the clothes, but not the hair and make up. And we'll be hearing more from Bronagh later in the programme.
GONG
Jackie: Ah, time for more word facts.
INSERT WORD FACTS 2 Word Facts The word 'fashion' can be a noun or a verb and has different meanings. Fashion, noun – used to talk about the style of appearance - clothes, hair and make-up, for example. If something is 'in fashion' it's the popular style at that time
"The fashion of the 1980s was very different from today's fashion." "Short hair for men is in fashion at the moment"
Fashion is made into an adjective by adding the suffix – a b l e – Fashionable
"It was very fashionable in the 1980's but clothes with big shoulders are not cool now!"
Fashion is made into an adverb by adding the suffix – a b l y - fashionably.
"Diana, Princess of Wales was always fashionably dressed"
The negative prefix for the adjective fashionable and the adverb fashionably is u n – un.
"I wear whatever I want. I don't care if it's unfashionable!"
Word Facts (and that's a fact)
Callum: You're listening to Talk about English from BBC Learning English dot com.
Jackie: Still to come, more from Bronagh Meere, stylist at Heat magazine
Callum: I speak to one of our Chinese listeners about fashion and her favourite English expression.
Jackie: And there's also a competition, so keep listening!
Callum: The webcast website has changed quite a bit. One thing we had a lot of requests for was an archive of our past programmes. So now we have made available all of our downloads from last year.
Jackie: We're also adding a quiz each week to help you practise the language we use in the programme.
Callum: If you would like to send us comments about the new webcast or the website then write to us at talkaboutenglish@bbc.co.uk
GONG
Jackie: Time now, for more word facts!
INSERT WORD FACTS 3 Word Facts Words and expressions which go with fashion.
Latest – the latest fashion – the most up to date style.
Show – a fashion show - where new designs and styles are shown to the public.
Victim – to be a fashion victim - a negative expression for someone who always follows the latest fashions, even if it doesn't suit them.
Conscious – to be fashion conscious - if you are fashion-conscious it means you are interested in the latest fashions and you like to wear fashionable clothes.
Word Facts (and that's a fact)
Callum: Now let's hear a little more from my conversation with the stylist from Heat magazine, Bronagh Meere. I asked her if working with celebrities and fashion was as exciting and fun as it sounds or whether it was just hard work.
BRONAGH MEERE I could say 'yea, yea' it's loads of hard work but it's a bit of both to be honest because I enjoy my job so much that it is really really good fun, it is hard work, obviously with anything that you do, when you go to work you've got to work hard but I just, I enjoy it so much that it's difficult not to have fun when you're doing it. You know I get paid to look at clothes all day really and that's you know, what I do, what I used to do in my spare time anyway. It's like getting paid to do your hobby! Yes, basically it is, that's exactly what it's like. Would you describe yourself then maybe as a bit of a fashion victim or just very fashion conscious? Erm, I don't know, I would say fashion conscious, I would like to say fashion conscious, I hope I'm not a fashion victim, yea I'd like to say fashion conscious.
Callum & Jackie discuss – fashion victim/conscious – are we?
INSERT STING
Callum: Now to get an international view on this topic I spoke to one of our listeners on the phone.
MOLLY Phone fx Hello, who am I talking to? I'm Molly from China, I'm in the city of Nanjing. OK, now our topic in today's programme is fashion and we want to ask if there is a big influence from the media in China, do you feel an influence from the things you see in magazines and on television. Does affect the way that you look or the way that you dress? Yes, particularly as an example, recently a Chinese celebrity appeared on the screen with a new hairstyle, so I went to my hairdresser and told him about the style and I just copied her style, but to my surprise I found that many people, yea, looking the same way as I in the past few weeks. So you saw a hairstyle on television and everybody else copied it as well. Was this because it was a nice hairstyle or because it was that celebrity who had the hairstyle? Yes, it's really hard to say. Maybe it's because the hairstyle of the celebrity inspires me, maybe I just like to follow someone, maybe she's a celebrity, she's beautiful, the hairstyle fits her well, maybe it could fit me well. Right and how about clothes, do what celebrities wear on television and in magazines does that effect the clothes that you wear? Yes, definitely. Whenever I see beautiful clothes on a celebrity in the media I will browse around in the shops, on the high street trying to find a similar one. Do you think that's always s a good thing that the media has this that celebrities have this influence on the way that people look and dress? No, I just think actually the media plays an active role for th