Living in London

Living in London

Listen to Luke talking about London life and the best and worst things about living there.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Interviewer: Hi, Luke. Thanks for talking to me today.

Luke: Hi, Jo. Nice to meet you.

Interviewer: Erm, what would you like to talk about?

Luke: I'm going to talk about living in London, erm, and the kind of love–hate relationship I have with it – and I assume most people do. I've been living in London for about 15 years, maybe a bit longer. And I've lived kind of mostly in kind of north and east London. So I moved to Camden originally and now I live in Hackney, which is probably the kind of trendiest area of London, and that's not necessarily why I live there, but it's a nice area of London. And most people that come to London, visit London, think that central London is London. And, but, where – generally people don't live in central London. Erm, people don't spend too much time in central London. They might work there, but they don't visit there. So, you might come to London as a tourist and go to somewhere like Leicester Square, er, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street, Regent Street, that kind of area. And I'm very rarely in that area. Erm, so, I live, erm, slightly on the outskirts but it's not really on the outskirts 'cause it's kind of Zone 2, Zone 3, which for most people that live in London, that's quite close to the centre. So, it takes me about half an hour to get into town. And when you live in London you say 'town' as in 'central London'. And things I love about London is that I've got two children that live in London. Well, my oldest is nine and there's so many things to do, constantly, and so many events every weekend. Erm, you go somewhere like the South Bank and there's always something happening throughout the year. You can always go to the theatre, go to the cinema, there's amazing restaurants and cafés. Erm, there's lots of things to experience but there's also … the downside is it's, there's a kind of lack of stillness and quietness that you might get if you live outside the city. But of course you can always go to Royal Parks which are amazing. Erm, I think my favourite thing about living in London is, erm, the kind of, well, where I live particularly there's a bit of a local community, it's kind of like a small village. It's called Stoke Newington, which everyone that lives in London has heard of but tourists haven't necessarily heard of and it's actually quite a nice place to visit. 

Interviewer: What's the worst thing about living in London for you?

Luke: Erm, the Underground's pretty horrific, erm, and what I find is, I used to come up to London when my dad worked in London when I was a kid, sort of 20, 30 years ago. Maybe even longer. And there was, there was rush hour, and rush hour was the morning and the evening or the early afternoon, and now London is just one constant rush hour. Doesn't matter what time you get on the Tube or what time you get a bus, it's packed. It's always packed, and if you drive in London as well it's the same thing. It just takes forever to get anywhere. Erm, so, I, my worst thing is how busy it is. It's hectic.

Interviewer: OK. Thanks so much for talking to me.

Luke: Pleasure!

Discussion

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Average: 4.3 (18 votes)

Submitted by saied tarek on Wed, 19/02/2020 - 02:02

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i think im not facing this thing cuz i live in cairo and this is the capital city of egypt so every thing that u need u will get it but sometimes when i visit my grandma i faces this thing
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Submitted by The Queen of Egypt on Tue, 18/02/2020 - 22:51

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Yes, i live in a city which has 8 millions of people. I have a love hate relationship with it too. It's crowded city and there are a few unfriendly people. It hasn't a lot of greenery areas but it has a lot of beaches.

Submitted by Vidyasagar on Wed, 12/02/2020 - 15:17

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Yes, i live in a city. I live in an area which is 10 minutes away by bike. It's like a community, but a very small group. It feels like a village with greenery and it's never hectic, and is always peaceful. But the downside is, the roads are in very bad condition. After completion of an underground drainage work, the government and the contractors left the road with potholes.

Submitted by Marilea on Mon, 03/02/2020 - 13:23

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Yes. I did the on line test.

Submitted by Marilea on Mon, 03/02/2020 - 13:17

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I live in a huge city with more than 4 million inhabitants. It is a very interesting city where I can work and also have fun with my family. As I recently moved to this city, I´m still finding out the surroundings. From my point of view, the best thing in town are the parks. They are well maintained and my son can play during the weekends. On the other hand, the worst thing that I can point about the place where I live is the traffic jam. It´s always difficult to get home during the rush hours.
Good afternoon, I am not sure if I am doing it properly, that´s why I would like to receive a feedback from you. I will be glad if you send me a short note. Thanks a lot. Loocking forward to receiving a reply from you.

Hello Marilea,

We read every comment which is made on our site and we try to answer as many as we can. When someone has a question about our material or about how English works, we try to provide an answer. The LearnEnglish Team is small, however, so we can't really participate in online chat, much as we'd like to!

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by cittàutopica on Wed, 22/01/2020 - 19:01

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I live in a town which has 120.000 inhabitants; it's a small town if compared to those of the big cities in my country (Italy), but it's the biggest town of my Region. This feature makes my town appropriate for many persons, who find here a place where they fit.