Let's listen and learn :The Devil Wears Prada #1

Hello,dear learners!
Today I'd like we to start improving your listening skills using the great resource of cinema. I'm sure everyone has the experience of watching English-language films, but sometimes the learners find them very difficult to understand.

At this lesson I want to use the episode from the awesome film The Devil Wears Prada. I don't have a long list of films for studying , but this one is #1 ! The actors, clear English pronunciation, the different situations -everything helps to learn English!

I'm sure you 've heard about the  rhythm of English, and that it is alike the music, but this is an example of conversational "flat" English. In this short episode you'll find some phrasal verbs,an abbreviation,an idiom,some interesting adjectives and the example of specific humour :lovely,slender female paratrooper

Now, you are  able to become an actor/ actress: turn off the sound and say the words like Meryl Streep:

Tell Simone I'm not going to approve that girl that she sent me for the Brazilian layout.

I asked for clean, athletic, smiling.She sent me dirty, tired and paunchy.

And R.S.V.P. yes to the Michael Kors party.

I want the driver to drop me off at 9:30 and pick me up at 9:45 sharp.

- 9:45 sharp.

- Call Natalie at Glorious Foods,tell her no for the 40th time.

No, I don't want dacquoise. I want tortes filled with warm rhubarb compote.

Then call my ex and remind him the parent-teacher conference is at Dalton tonight.

Then call my husband, ask him to meet me for dinner at that place I went to with Massimo.

Tell Richard I saw the pictures that he sent for that feature on the female paratroopers...

and they're all so deeply unattractive.

Is it impossible to find a lovely,slender female paratrooper?

- No.

- Am I reaching for the stars here? Not really.

Also, I need to see all the things that Nigel has pulled for Gwyneth's second cover try.

I wonder if she's lost any of that weight yet. Who's that?

Nobody. Um, uh-  Human Resources sent her up about the new assistant job, and I was preinterviewing her.But she's hopeless and totally wrong for it.

Clearly I'm going to have to do that myself because the last two you sent me...were completely inadequate.So send her in. That's all.

Vocabulary 

Layout -  show

paunchy - with a fat stomach, usually used for men

R.S.V.P - (written on invitations) please reply (from French ‘répondez s'il vous plaît’)

drop off - to take somebody to a place in a car , usually without getting out of the car yourself

pick up -  to go and meet someone to take somewhere in a vehicle.

a dacquoise -  a dessert cake

a torte  a rich, usually multilayered, cake

ex (here)  - ex-husband

reach for the star (idiom) -  to try to achieve something that is very difficult

send somebody up -  to make people laugh at somebody

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