Facts and figures

Facts and figures

Listen to the lecturer giving some facts and figures to practise and improve your listening skills.

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

Preparation

Transcript

… and the next part of this talk is on the Panama Canal. It's amazing how this one small section of a small country can be so important to the world. Let's learn a little bit about the canal itself, before we look at how it connects to everything else.

The Panama Canal is an artificial waterway in the Central American country of Panama that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. It is only 82 kilometres long. If you go around South America by ship then you need to travel another 15,000 kilometres. So the canal saves a lot of travel time. It takes around 8 to 10 hours to cross the canal.

The French started building the canal in 1881, but they couldn't finish it. The project was started again in 1904 by the United States and the canal was finally finished in 1914. Many people died while they were building the canal, some say up to 25,000. For the rest of the 20th century, the United States controlled the canal, but gave control back to Panama in 2000.

Every year, around 40,000 ships come through the canal. These are mostly commercial ships. They transport goods for trade between Asia and America, or Europe. In 2016 the government of Panama made the canal bigger, so that now 99 per cent of ships can pass through it.

Let's now turn to the role of the Panama Canal in the global economy …

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

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Average: 4.1 (45 votes)

Submitted by Kunthea on Sat, 01/05/2021 - 08:38

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For the simple numbers, I am good with them. I'm teaching grade 5 students with math, however, I'm really bad with phone number. I can't remember my family's phone number even my wife's.

Submitted by Suraj paliwal on Mon, 12/04/2021 - 04:26

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I'm good at numbers. I'm doing graduation in economics and math so I have not feel difficult. If you want to master in number then you would have to practice regularly. Then you find that you are good in number.

Submitted by TIa vinaka on Thu, 08/04/2021 - 03:15

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I'm terrible with numbers. I didn't like maths when I was a student. still I can't calculate things smoothly. when I listen numbers in English I can't understand it quickly. first I have to think it well. then I understand.

Submitted by MikhailZatopliaev on Wed, 07/04/2021 - 23:08

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I don't understood what clear it mean. If it is about how I am in English numbers, than is not good enough, but if about numbers at all, I am Economist, so my knowledge of numbers is pretty well.

Submitted by Minh on Sat, 20/03/2021 - 03:12

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Numbers it was a amazing when you can remember clearly it is wonderful thing. For example, if you can remember their phone numbers, you just press the number on your cell phone and call them. Whenever your friends call you, you are easy to recognize who call you. It is helpful to practice your brain that always think. Experts say that your brain work like that it is the best way to improve the brain. When you are older than you can not lose your memory.

Submitted by Samaneh on Tue, 16/03/2021 - 14:13

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Hi. I have some questions about the phrase "the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean" in the transcript. 1. Why "the" has not been used before Pacific since we use "the" before the names of oceans? 2. Why mentioned phrase has not been told this way: " the Atlantic and "the" pacific ocean"s"?

Hello Samaneh,

People sometimes leave out words that can be understood from the context, and that's why the speaker says 'the Atlantic and Pacific' here. But you are right -- in its full form, the word 'the' should be used before 'Pacific'.

As you observe, it would really be better to say 'oceans' instead of 'ocean' here. But since we're not able to change the recording and wanted the transcript to reflect the recording, we left it as it is now.

Sorry for the confusion.

All the best,

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team