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My two cats

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Do you know that cats' characters can change? Find out more from Dave about his two cuddly cats whose personalities varywith the countries they live in.

Transcript (#)

Transcript

I’d like to talk about my two cats who are called Misha and Masha and they are nine years old, and, because I work for theBritish Council and I have worked in lots of different parts of the world, they are quite international cats; so they were born

in St. Petersburg, Russia around the dawn of the Millennium, in the middle of winter. And St Petersburg winters are very,very cold, it’s kind of minus 30 degrees, and some friends of mine found these two tiny little kittens in the snow andbrought them in and then sent an email around the office saying ‘who can look after these two cats’. And my wife and Ialready had two cats at the time from Indonesia, erm and we thought can we, have we got room, can we adopt theseteeny cats and then we saw them, they were just so cute that we couldn’t say no, so we brought them home and so theylived with us for like two years in Russia, and then we moved back to the UK and they had to stay in France for sixmonths, erm, just to check they didn’t have rabies... erm before they were allowed into the UK. And then they lived with usin Cambridge and we had a cat flaps so they used to wander about it.

When it came to leave the UK, we discovered that they in fact had about five or six different homes and made friends withall kinds of people along the street they used to go and get fedded (fed), get stroked or cuddled by all our neighbours.

Then we moved to Mexico and we had a house with a garden so we had to build a special fence that kind of curled in onitself so that the cats would climb up and then feel that they were starting to fall down so they climbed back down again.

And then we moved to Guangzhou… erm this time last year so now they are ‘flat cats’, erm, they’ve not been squashed,

they just live in our flat, live in our apartment and they don’t go out… erm they just go out onto the balcony, but theinteresting thing is that their personality has seemed to have changed in every country they live in. So Masha used not tobe very friendly towards people, as she’s got older, she’s now quite a cuddly cat. And they’ve adapted to live in…being akind of free to roam about and then being in the garden and now they seem to be very happy just being in a flat.

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COMMENTS

Submitted by john123456 (/en/users/john123456) on 16 June, 2013 - 05:01. Pakistan

hi guys any one can tell me that what is wrong with site i can not answer on listening

task ..

Submitted by AdamJK (/en/users/adamjk) on 16 June, 2013 - 22:33. Poland

Hi John,I'm sorry to hear that. Can you tell us a bit more about your problem?

What web browser are you using? Are you using a computer, a phone or a tablet? Canyou see any of the exercises on this site?

Best wishes,Adam

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Print and do activities on paper (82KB) (http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/sites/podcasts/fi les/wannatalk-mytwocats.pdf)

Discussion

If your job allowed you to move around the world, in which countries would you like to work and why?

It is sometimes said that cats are "aloof and indifferent" whereas dogs are "loyal and friendly". Do you agree?

If you are going to get a pet, what would you get?

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Submitted by liangwei (/en/users/l iangwei) on 29 May, 2013 - 06:22. China

I like cat 。

Submitted by Ric111 (/en/users/ric111) on 24 March, 2013 - 07:19. Italy

Hello

can you help me?At the beginning of the story the speaker say "who" and not "which" about Misha and Masha.

But they are animals. Is "Who" used for animals also?Thanks

Submitted by Jeremy Bee (/en/users/jeremy-bee) on 25 March, 2013 - 05:53. Taiwan

Hello Ric111!

As you probably know, many pet owners think of their pets as people! This is why the

speaker uses 'who'. Most English speakers will use 'who' for animals they know well,especially pets, but will use 'which' or 'that' when talking about animals they don't know.

Hope that helps!

Jeremy Bee

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Ric111 (/en/users/ric111) on 26 March, 2013 - 11:09. Italy

Thank you very much Jeremy!

Submitted by caelan (/en/users/caelan) on 5 March, 2013 - 16:22. Italy

hi, I don't agree. For me, it's the different way of dealing with the dog or the cat . While intorelationship among human and dogs is the dog that accomplish more important effort to

create the relationship, indeed the dog accomplish all the order that we give him. With the cat

it's different. We should strive to better understand the cat. When you understand your cat, you create awonderful relationship. Maybe better than with the dog

Submitted by sensation (/en/users/sensation) on 11 January, 2013 - 14:07. Russia

Cats are NOT aloof and indifferent! I have got two cats. Yes, they are russians cats too ))Their names are Markiz and Lilu

They are so cute and kind. They like when we stroke them. They like to sleep in our beds, sit on our laps and

play with us. They also love to play with each other. They love each other as wife and husband. And they havevery different characters.

Markiz is a big cat, who is afraid of nothing, loves to eat meat, and catches anything that moves.Lilu is a small pussycat, she is afraid of everything, but she is affectionate. She likes eat dairy products such

as yogurt.

Submitted by madam boss (/en/users/madam-boss) on 21 November, 2012 - 18:03.

Zimbabwe

i would prefer to travel to london, china and australia infact given the opportunity i would

to travel all over the world, so that i can experience different cultures.As of animals, i dont like them at all especially cats and dogs

i want to know if you can get marks when you write short hand in ielts test e.g dont do i have to write do not or

jus dont

Submitted by AdamJK (/en/users/adamjk) on 22 November, 2012 - 19:29. Poland

Hello Madam Boss,

I'd love to travel there too!As for your question, its better to ask about IELTS in the IELTS section(http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/ielts) of this website. Anyway, you can use contractions

in the IELTS writing paper if they are appropriate for the text. If you are asked to writesomething formal, some contractions might not be appropriate, but if you're asked to write a letter to afriend, they would be fine.Best wishes,

AdamThe LearnEnglish Team