Joy English · Level C1 · Short storiesjoy-english.com
The cartographer of small streets
Name:Date:
Follow a story with long noun phrases, lists and a contrast with 'yet'.
Listen to each sentence and write what you hear.
Audio and answer checking: https://joy-english.com/listening-lessons/the-cartographer-of-small-streets
Words to know
- survey
- A careful measurement of an area of land.
- courtyard
- An open space surrounded by buildings.
- dismissed
- Decided that something was not important.
- pointless
- Without any purpose.
Answer key
- Aiko drew maps of places that no official survey had ever bothered to record.'Survey' is a noun here, stressed on the first syllable: SUR-vay. 'Bothered to' is said 'bothered-ta'.
- Her maps showed shortcuts through courtyards, the bakery with the best bread, and benches that caught the afternoon sun.A list of three items: the voice rises and then falls on the last one. 'Caught the' links as 'cau-tha'.
- At first, people dismissed the hobby as harmless but pointless, and later they began asking to borrow copies.'At first' links as 'a-first'. 'Dismissed' ends with a t sound before 'the'.
- When a heavy storm cut the power, her hand-drawn map was the only guide that visitors could trust.'Hand-drawn' can also be written as two words or one. 'Could' is weak: 'cud'.
- She had never considered herself an expert, yet that evening she understood what her patience had built.'Yet' here means but. 'What her patience had built' is a noun clause: what = the thing that.