B1 · 5 minutes · History

Thomas Jefferson: Complex

Thomas Jefferson became the third president. His life was full of contradictions. A VOA Learning English report.

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What you’ll practise

Hear the language of achievements and contradictions.

Words to know

wealth: A large amount of money and property.
declaration: An official statement.
debt: Money that is owed.

Words at this lesson’s level (B1)

At B1, you probably know about 97% of the words in this lesson.

Show 1 word that may be new

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These words are in the recording, so they also help with the answers.

Word levels from the CEFR-J Wordlist 1.5 (Yukio Tono, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies); words not in it count as above B2. Your level is the one you chose in the level guide, otherwise the lesson’s.

Source

Text and audio from “Thomas Jefferson: Complex”, America's Presidents, VOA Learning English, published 2023-03-11. Kelly Jean Kelly wrote this story. Public domain.

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Five sentences selected from the report and cut into clips. Explanations and vocabulary are original.

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