Euroexam Academic Level C1 - Listening - ANSWER KEY - Webset Page 1

LISTENING – ANSWER KEY

Task One : Short Conversations Questions 1-4

Question Your Answer (List A) Your Answer (List B)

A B C D E F G H I J K L

4
A B C D E F G H I J K L

Task Two: Lecture Notes Questions 5 - 9

TURN OVER to write your answers.

Task Three: Academic Meeting Questions 10-17

Question Your Answer Question Your Answer

A B C A B C

10 14

11 15

12 16

13 17
A B C A B C
Page 2 Euroexam Academic Level C1 - Listening - ANSWER KEY - Webset

Task Two: Lecture Notes Questions 5-9

5. Which two languages did Zamenhof speak from birth and why in each case? (2 pts)

• Yiddish – from his mother (and carers as the family language)

• Russian – from his father (as the state language)

6. What upset Zamenhof in Bialystok? (1 pt)

• Quarrels between the language communities

7. In 1878, which two factors restricted Zamenhof in his planned language work? (2 pts)

• He lacked the resources

• He did not have time (because of his studies)

8. In 1887, Zamenhof’s planned language, Esperanto, had which two goals? (2 pts)

• A communication tool
• A means of promoting peaceful coexistence

9. In Zamenhof’s work in revising Yiddish, which two types of changes did he propose? (2 pts)

• Use of the Latin script

• Spelling revisions

DON’T FORGET TASK 3 - TURN OVER

Euroexam Academic Level C1 - Listening - ANSWER KEY - Webset Page 3

TAPESCRIPTS:
TASK ONE:
Conversation 1
Mr Kellner Come in Janice, and sit down. As your personal tutor I have been wanting to talk to you
for some time to see how you are getting on at university. How are things going generally,
Janice?
Janice Fine, overall, Mr Kellner. It’s a bit noisy where I am from the traffic outside. I am finding it
difficult to concentrate on my work during the rush hour, and sometimes sleeping at night
can be a problem.
Mr Kellner Most annoying, Janice. In that case I suggest you do more work in the University library,
even though it can be difficult to find a seat at times.
Janice I think that is what I will have to do, Mr Kellner. It’s not such a problem most of the time.
Conversation 2
Mr Kellner Now you are rather far out, Janice, is going to and fro causing you any kind of difficulty?
Janice It’s terrible, Mr Kellner. I need to be there for personal reasons, but the daily trek is nearly
impossible. I just find myself boiling over just thinking about it.
Mr Kellner And how many nine o’clock starts do you have, Janice?
Janice That’s the worst of it. This year I have four, with respite only on Thursday. I have rush hour
rage in the congestion - just thinking about it.
Conversation 3
Mr Kellner And what about your studies? How are things going there?
Janice I’m finding my two philosophy subjects really hard. You are very clear in your lectures but
when I look at my notes afterwards I don’t understand a thing. I do two sociology options
and that is a lot simpler. I think maybe I should shift to single honours in sociology. I can
hardly sleep thinking about it.
Mr Kellner Don’t worry, Janice. You are doing fine. Philosophy is completely new for you and it takes
some time to learn the ropes.
Janice I hope you are right, Mr Kellner, and there will soon be light at the end of the tunnel.
Conversation 4
Mr Kellner Well, Janice, let me ask something about the philosophy because after all it is my subject.
Of course you come to my lectures; I have often seen you sitting in the front row. Now you
are not in my group, but you are with Susan Pugh. How is that going? That’s when you can
really get talking and ask questions.
Janice Everything’s going splendidly. Susan is really nice. She often brings biscuits and cakes and
makes a real party atmosphere. We have a really good laugh.
Mr Kellner And do all the issues get covered and discussed, Janice?
Janice Well, there is really so much to do and talk about, even if some of them are dealt with in a
light-hearted manner.
Page 4 Euroexam Academic Level C1 - Listening - ANSWER KEY - Webset

TASK TWO:

So, now we come to Ludvik Zamenhof, the founder of Esperanto, as I’m sure you know. Zamenhof was born in 1859
in the multi-ethnic city of Bialystok, which is now in Poland, but at that time it was in the Grodno Governorate part
of the Russian Empire, and he died in Warsaw in 1917. His parents were of Litvak Jewish descent, and he appears to
have been natively bilingual in Yiddish and Russian. The former was the language his mother and carers spoke to him
in the family context. And the latter, which his father insisted upon, was the official state language at that time.

OK, we can certainly speculate that Zamenhof’s multilingual background influenced his interest in a universal
language. From his father, who taught German and French, he learned Hebrew as well as those languages. And, of
course, he also spoke Polish, which was one of the major languages of Bialystok alongside Belarusian and German.
Incidentally, it was Polish that was to become the native language of his children after the family settled in Warsaw.
In school Zamenhof also studied the classical languages: Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. He later learned some
English, though in his own words not very well. Plus, he had an interest in Lithuanian and Italian, and he learned
Volapük, which was a 19th century planned language, when it was published in 1880, though by that point his own
planned language project, Esperanto, was already well developed.

Now in terms of his environment, in addition to the Yiddish-speaking Jewish majority in the town, the population
of Bialystok was made up of Roman Catholic Poles and Eastern Orthodox Russians - the Russians were mainly
government officials. There were also smaller groups of Belarusians and Germans. It seems that Zamenhof was
saddened and frustrated by the many quarrels among these language communities. And he supposed that the main
reason for the hate and prejudice lay in the mutual misunderstanding caused by the lack of a common language. He
postulated, that if such a language existed, it could play the role of a neutral communication tool between people of
different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds.

So, to the development of Esperanto. When Zamenhof was a secondary school student in Warsaw, he already made
attempts to create some kind of international language with a grammar that was very rich, but also very complex. But
when he later studied English, he decided that the international language must have a simpler grammar, which you can
see reflected in Esperanto today.

His project, which he called Lingwe Uniwersala was almost finished by 1878. However, he lacked the resources to
publish his work. And after graduation from school, he also severely lacked time, as he began to study medicine, first
in Moscow, and later in Warsaw. In 1885, Zamenhof graduated from university and began his practice as a doctor in
Veisiejai and after 1886 as an ophthalmologist in Płock and Vienna. Despite his medical work, he still continued to
work on his project of designing a planned language.

He tried to raise funds to publish a booklet describing the language, and finally received the financial help from his
future father-in-law. This meant that in 1887, the book entitled International language: Introduction and complete
textbook was published in Russian under the pseudonym “Doktoro Esperanto” which means one who hopes.
Zamenhof initially called his language “lingvo internacia” which means, of course, international language, but those
who learned it began to call it Esperanto after his pseudonym, and this soon became the official name for the language.
For him this language, was, of course, a communication tool for use in business and everywhere else, but it was also a
way of promoting the peaceful coexistence of different people and cultures, or at least that was the intention.

As well as Esperanto, Zamenhof was also active in the Yiddish language. In 1879 he wrote its first grammar, which
he published in part years later in the Yiddish magazine Lebn un visnshaft. The complete original Russian text of this
manuscript was only published in 1982, with a parallel Esperanto translation by Adolf Holzhaus, in L. Zamenhof,
Provo de Gramatiko de Novjuda Lingvo which means in English An attempt at a grammar of neo-Jewish language.
In this work, not only does he provide a review of Yiddish grammar, but also proposes its transition to the Latin script
and some orthographic innovations. In the same period Zamenhof wrote some other works in Yiddish, including
perhaps the first survey of Yiddish poetics. We can see this in the context of Zamenhof as a participant in the early
Euroexam Academic Level C1 - Listening - ANSWER KEY - Webset Page 5
Zionist movement, probably motivated by the fact that he lived through the wave of pogroms within the Russian
Empire. But interestingly, he left the movement in 1887, and in 1901 published a statement in Russian with the title
Hillelism, in which he argued that the Zionist project could not solve the problems of the Jewish people.

Now, let’s look at his work on Esperanto in some more detail…

TASK THREE:
Interviewer Hello. Welcome to Education Today. On the programme today we have Mr Hugo Kellner, now
senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Grenberg, but previously a successful business-
man and a promoter of education in the town and to a limited extent beyond. Good evening, Mr
Kellner.
Mr Kellner Good evening.
Interviewer Mr Kellner, I would like to start with your early work in advancing pre-university education in
the town, if I can call it that. What was the impetus for that?

Mr Kellner Well, to some extent, I was lucky in academic education. I came from a family in which
educational attainment was highly valued and I was reading extensively in the humanities by
the time I was thirteen. I continued my studies in philosophy during my business career, but I
wanted to extend academic knowledge more widely.

Interviewer And why was that necessary, Mr Kellner?

Mr Kellner Well, back in the early years the vast majority of youngsters left school at sixteen to take up
employment in the multitude of factories in the town. There were many people of ability who
hadn’t been given the chance to study philosophy or other subjects. I wanted to do something to
remedy this, even if at that time university wasn’t an option for them.

Interviewer I see, so what did you do?

Mr Kellner My first step was to set up the Grenberg Educational Association. Certainly, I was the main
financial contributor, but we also received donations from others and we received a grant from
the town council. We were able to use school classrooms without payment in the evenings.

Interviewer And was the early programme a success?

Mr Kellner Oh very much so. We were inundated with applications, particularly from younger workers. I
was one of the teachers and we extended the range of topics we taught to include other social
sciences, literature and maths.

Interviewer And was the purpose of your courses merely limited to self-improvement or was there any other
goal?

Mr Kellner Well, self-betterment through education is something I believe in, and was of course always part
of the programme, but we also saw ourselves as a conduit to getting more ordinary people into
university. And that was a huge administrative struggle for us.
Interviewer In what way?
Mr Kellner As you know the normal requirement for university entrance was a certain grade in the baccalau-
reate examinations. But many of our students left school without a baccalaureate, so we needed
to petition the Ministry of Education to accept our own exams.
Page 6 Euroexam Academic Level C1 - Listening - ANSWER KEY - Webset

Interviewer Ah, so you offered exams, too?

Mr Kellner Yes, we did. We started offering them after a year or so merely as symbolic diplomas for courses
done in our classes. But to have them recognised as a means for university admission took a lot
of time and correspondence. But today they are recognised for entry to certain courses.
Interviewer Now, Mr Kellner, you set up these courses over thirty years ago. How have things changed over
the years?
Mr Kellner Well, in the early years we had a large number of factory workers on our courses. Only some
of those people wanted to progress on to university. More recently we have had a majority of
young, often unemployed, people who have joined our courses precisely to go to university. And
I suppose I should add, we now have more retired people, looking to study something in their
retirement.
Interviewer And you Mr Kellner, how have you changed?
Mr Kellner I’ve now retired from my business career, and devote myself full-time to philosophy. I have
taken up being a part-time lecturer and tutor at the university teaching philosophy. The funny
thing is that I now meet again some of the people I taught on the courses in the town.
Interviewer Thank you very much, Mr Kellner. We now have our first caller on the line, Mr Hemmingway...