Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.
Preparation
Transcript
Ali: Hey, you guys, I've been looking for you. I've got an idea – a study group. What do you think? Are you interested?
Dina: Yes! I need a study group, in a big way.
Bea: Me too.
Ali: Do you think we have enough people here for a study group? I mean, there are only four of us …
Bea: Sorry. Three of us. Chris can't do study group. Right, Chris?
Chris: Yeah, there's no way I can do a study group. I have an assignment and then I'm too busy. But I'll stay for this first meeting.
Ali: Should we try and get another group together with us for this?
Bea: No, I don't think so. I think three is fine. Ideal size, really.
Dina: Me too.
Ali: OK, three people then. Four people for the first meeting. What next?
Bea: What about a meeting place? We can't meet here in the library …
Ali: It's not too bad, especially if those other people would go away.
Bea: But we can't exactly ask them to leave, and people might get annoyed with us talking.
Dina: Can I say something here?
Ali: Sure, go ahead.
Dina: There's a study hall next to the cafeteria. It's almost always empty. Could we meet there?
Ali: A study hall?! Who knew? Well, it sounds good to me.
Bea: Yeah. I've never been there but …
Ali: So, we ought to decide how long for and how often.
Dina: I read somewhere that you should make the meeting at the same time each week. Like a seminar. That way we'd take it more seriously.
Bea: We may as well make it for this time since we're all here. Is this time OK?
Dina: Works for me.
Ali: Me too.
Chris: Hang on just a minute. I know I'm not going to be in this group, but aren't we supposed to have a seminar at this time every other week?
Dina: Umm, no.
Bea: Thursday, no?
Ali: No, that's on Thursday.
Chris: Sorry. Forget I said anything.
Ali: Don't worry about it.
Bea: So everyone agrees that this time is fine? Every week?
Ali: How long should we make it?
Bea: An hour?
Dina: Could we find a way of making it two hours?
Ali: Two hours seems a bit like … too much. To start with then?
Bea: Ninety minutes? Compromise?
Ali: Is that OK with you, Dina?
Dina: Fine by me.
Ali: OK, so I guess all we have left to decide is exactly what we'll do when we meet. The final exam is a way off. I guess we could review our notes, or practise learning things by heart.
Dina: I have a list of dos and don'ts actually that I got online. I could be a moderator, and we could use the ideas as a starting point …
Hello nikoslado
When Bea says 'Thursday, no?', what I think she means is '[The seminar is on] Thursday, no?', in other words, 'The seminar is on Thursday (not today), right?' -- 'no' is a common question tag, though I can see how that it can be a little confusing here.
So everyone except Chris says the seminar is on Thursday, not the day (whatever it is) they are talking on.
Does that make sense?
Thanks for your very careful reading of our exercises and texts!
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team
Hello Evgeny N
There are quite a lot of time expressions in English (or any language for that matter)! You can find lots of useful lists by doing an internet search for something like 'time expressions in English'.
Please note that 'meet every other week' means they will meet one week, then not meet the following week, then meet again the week after that, and so on. If we 'meet in two weeks' that means we meet two weeks from now. Perhaps then we will meet again two weeks after that, but it isn't clear from just 'meet in two weeks' -- you'd have to say 'meet every two weeks' to say that.
You could also say 'meet fornightly' (or 'meet every fortnight'), 'biweekly' or 'bimonthly', but please note that these last two words are ambiguous, since they both have two quite different meanings. They are also much less common than 'every two weeks' or 'fortnightly'.
Hope this helps.
All the best
Kirk
The LearnEnglish Team