English, baby!

Pirate Radio

Date: Dec 17 2007

Intro

1. Learn Vocabulary - Learn some new vocabulary before you start the lesson.

2. Read and Prepare - Read the introduction and prepare to hear the audio.

Have you ever wanted to have your own radio station? Though it’s highly illegal, it’s actually not that hard to do. With the right equipment, you can just broadcast over whatever your least favorite station on the dial is. That’s called pirating the signal.

Pirate radio is popular in the United States among people who listen to music that’s more unusual than what you normally hear on the airwaves. Tune in to Jason and Beren’s chat about pirate radio.

Dialog

1. Listen and Read - Listen to the audio and read the dialog at the same time.

2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jason

Beren

Jason: Have you ever tuned in to 95.9?

Beren: Uh-uh. What’s that?

Jason: It’s pirate radio.

Beren: Really?

Jason: Yeah, it’s so cool. I mean, like, cause radio, for the most part, is pretty lame. Wouldn’t you agree?

Beren: Mostly, yeah. I listen to NPR but never anything music-wise.

Jason: Yeah, because all the radio stations are owned by two companies and they have really boring programming. But pirate radio is…I don’t know how they’re doing it, I guess sometimes they drive around in a van and they broadcast from it so you can’t find them…

Beren: Whoa.

Jason: ...Or they just broadcast from someplace you would never expect, like a house or something.

Beren: No totally. Actually, I haven’t listened to it here, but it was really big in the town I moved here from and I knew most of the DJs, and you were never supposed to tell anybody that they worked for pirate radio because they would get shut down. And I would tune in to that…like all my friends’ shows on pirate radio. And one of my really good friends, he got kicked out of boarding school because he built his own transistor and had his own radio station.

Jason: Really?

Beren: Yeah.

Jason: And he just overpowered whatever radio station…

Beren: Yeah and he was playing like Sex Pistols and stuff and was like 15. Yeah pirate radio is huge in, like, the UK also.

Jason: Really?

Beren: Yeah, really huge. They have like…that’s kind of…Not really dancehall, but they have these weird mix tapes that they do where the DJ will rap over the music he’s playing.

Jason: On pirate radio?

Beren: Yeah totally. It’s like mixing and rapping.

Jason: Gives me hope for radio, pirate radio.

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Discussion

Jason asks Beren if she’s listened to the local pirate radio station before. He’s really excited to find something different on the radio since two companies, Clear Channel and Cumulus Media, own the majority of radio stations in the country and only play a very limited selection of music on them.

Jason explains that since pirate radio stations are illegal, they have to broadcast from a van or from a house. Beren says that she had some friends who worked in pirate radio but she was sworn to secrecy about it, since the station could get shut down if the police found out who ran it.

Beren also had a friend in boarding school who made a transistor and played punk rock over the air. He got kicked out of school for it.

In England, pirate radio DJs sometimes rap live on the air over the music they’re playing. Have you ever heard anything that cool on the radio? Sounds like you need to start a pirate radio station!

Comments

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vicmay_lo-flo@live.com.mx

Mexico

i like this tiP. i am electronic… and this is easy.

ruanjable

China

Pirate radio is banned here in China strictly. Maybe the gov't is afraid of something.

mickee85

Philippines

I think it is fun.

@susihayati, really? that was so cool then.

susihayati

Indonesia

Whoaaa this conversation recalled me to my younger brother, he had made his own pirate radio and the neighbourhood was very happy as we lived in the remote region….:))..rarely caught the NPR signal….

saimly

China

Good!very good!

hidden_faced_girls

Viet Nam

arjunchanabathi

India

ma i know who 2 create the private fm…..

longuolong

China

a little faster,but i think it helpful to study english.though i don’t follow it

Helena.coco

China

it is intersting and funny. how to say. i never believe in such a modern and develped country,only two companis run all the radios. make me stunned.and one more thing i not belive is they play boring things. i think many a famous singers albums r not boring.