26th September 2021
There are a lot of wires and poles over the country and amongst them you may see some loudspeakers. These loudspeakers are used to broadcast messages or sometimes just short tunes to give information from the local1 government.
Each area has different messages or ways of broadcasting the messages. The most regular message is one in the early evening that tells children to go home after playing outside. In some areas this is a spoken message – in other areas it is just a short tune.
Other times that you hear a message there is almost always a problem and the message is a warning or request. Calls2 for evacuation3 when the water level is rising in rivers is becoming quite common because there are more and more times when there is very heavy rain. People are often asked to go to a local school. Sometimes there are warnings due to4 sand in the air or a chemical called PM2.5 (two point five) in the air. The states of emergency during the COVID-19 time had messages every day asking people to stay at home.
Sometimes there are broadcasts asking for help to find a missing person, usually an elderly person who has gone missing from a care home. In some countryside places there are warnings about bears that have been seen that day in the local area. There are other types of broadcasts that you will know about but we don’t.
It seems people would expect to hear these types of broadcasts in a communist5 country. Can you hear broadcasts like these in other countries, communist or not?
＊In the sentences above ‘broadcasts’ and ‘messages’ mean the same thing
2. ‘call’
<Example sentences>
■ There were calls for the leader to go on TV and speak to the people.
■ Celebrities made calls for free school lunches.
■ The pay is low for care workers and there are calls to change it.
3. ‘evacuation’ ‘to evacuate’
<Example sentences>
■ People have been told to evacuate their homes due to the forest fires.
■ Schools are often used as evacuation centres.
■ Many children were evacuated to the countryside during the war.
4. ‘due to’
<Example sentences>
■ She couldn’t sleep due to the strong wind which was due to the typhoon.
■ Due to the rain, the football match was cancelled.
■ He was absent yesterday due to sickness.
■ Due to all the work, they usually can’t go home until after 9 pm.
■ What messages do you hear from the loudspeakers?
■ Do you listen to them and follow the advice?
■ The most common broadcast is ～.
■ In my grandparents’ local area there are warnings about ～.
■ Do you know of broadcasts like these in other countries?
- ‘local’ means the area around where you live.
- in this meaning ‘calls’ means people putting pressure on someone or other people in society to do something.
- ‘evacuation’ means moving people away from danger to a safe area.
- ‘due to’ means ‘because of’ and is used in negative situations.
- ‘communist’ means a country in which the government controls all the services and the idea is for everyone to be treated equally. Communist countries include China, Russia and Cuba.