华尔街中级英语学习教程第2课：询问信息Act5 (MP3和文本下载)

MATTHEW: My name's Matthew, and I work at the Virgin Record Store in Brighton, and I'm a sales assistant.

CLARE: How long have you actually worked here?

MATTHEW: Two years.

CLARE: Long enough to have an idea about people's tastes. Tell me about your customers. Do they mainly buy cassettes, or records, or CDs these days?

MATTHEW: Um, well the popular format is CDs. Uh, generally speaking, LP sales are falling and cassettes are just remaining a constant.

CLARE: Can you tell by someone's looks what sort of music they're going to like?

MATTHEW: Yeah. I mean, you can sort of spot various trends. There'll be, um, sort of older age groups from like sort of 50s onwards will buy easy listening. You've got like, um, the youth groups will come in from the rockers to the ravers and so on. They're easy to spot.

CLARE: But could you tell say if someone was coming in and was a Classical fan?

MATTHEW: No, definitely not. They come in all shapes and sizes. They're the difficult ones.

CLARE: How about your musical tastes?

MATTHEW: My tastes. I like Black music, Rap, Soul, funk.

CLARE: Do people ever come to you and ask for advice?

MATTHEW: Yeah. All the time. That's a major part of the job. Um, questions on bands, songs, who recorded what. Where can they buy this record, that CD. Um, if we haven't got it, where can they get it. Why isn't it available. This, that and the other. Hundreds of questions.

CLARE: So do you like working here?

MATTHEW: Yeah. I do. Working with music it's, um, it's a lot of fun. It's hard work, but it pays off. It's good.

CLARE: Okay, I'm strolling amongst the records here and with me is a customer. Can you tell me your name?

HALEN: My name's Halen.

CLARE: You're here in the Rock department, is that your favourite style of music?

HALEN: Yes, it is. I listen to other sorts, but Rock's my favourite.

CLARE: Do you ever listen to anything like, say, Jazz?

HALEN: I like Jazz. I prefer things like Blues to Jazz. But, I do listen to all sorts of things really.

CLARE: When you're buying do you prefer to buy cassettes, records or CDs?

HALEN: I prefer to buy records.

CLARE: They're getting quite hard to find.

HALEN: That's right. Yes. But CDs are too expensive, and I don't like cassettes.

CLARE: Why is that?

HALEN: I don't really know. I've had records for so long now that I don't want to change.

CLARE: Do you think records are good value for money?

HALEN: Yes, I do. Compared to compact discs. Yes.

CLARE: When you buy a new record do you find that it gets boring very soon? Once you've listened to it a few times?

HALEN: Um, hopefully, no. I'm very careful what I choose when I buy records.

CLARE: So, you'll keep listening to it for a long, long time?

HALEN: Yes, I think so.

CLARE: Further down the shelves I've met another customer. Excuse me, can you tell me your name?

NICKY: My name is Nicky Tempest.

CLARE: What sort of music do you like, Nicky?

NICKY: Um, I like Independent music, and a bit of Soul and Dance, a bit of Reggae, and a bit of the new Thrash Rock that's come from America recently.

CLARE: So you have quite wide tastes?

NICKY: I do. Yes.

CLARE: Now, we're standing by the CDs. Is that what you choose to buy, CDs?

NICKY: Um, well I haven't actually got a CD player yet. But I was just seeing what's available really.

CLARE: So what do you normally buy?

NICKY: Um, vinyl or tapes.

CLARE: Which do you prefer out of those two?

NICKY: I prefer the look of vinyl because it's nice to look at your album covers and it's got a bit of history behind it. It's traditional. But tapes are handy for when you've got your Walkman on, or on holiday, or sort of carrying around a quite portable.

CLARE: Do you find they're good value for money?

NICKY: Tapes are. Yeah. Well vinyl's not bad but you can't get so many artists nowadays on vinyl.

CLARE: Now, it may still be pop music playing but I am in fact in the Classical section. Excuse me, can I ask your name?

FRANCESCA: Francesca.

CLARE: Is Classical music your taste?

FRANCESCA: Uh, yes it is, actually.

CLARE: Do you have a favourite composer or performer?

FRANCESCA: Um, there's only a few that I actually even know. But I like Pictures of an Exhibition by Mussorgsky.

CLARE: When you buy, do you buy CDs, or cassettes, or vinyl?

FRANCESCA: Uh, still vinyl, I'm afraid. Still haven't got a CD player.

CLARE: Why is that?

FRANCESCA: Can't afford one.

CLARE: It's getting to be quite difficult though to find recordings on vinyl, isn't it?

FRANCESCA: It is. Yeah, a lot of stuff just doesn't come out on vinyl. Especially Classical.So, you have to shop around really in sort of specialist shops and stuff.

CLARE: Do you find that you spend a lot of money on your record collection?

FRANCESCA: Not as much as I used to.

CLARE: When you have a new album and you take it home do you listen to it a lot, or do you savour it bit by bit?

FRANCESCA: No, I usually listen to it until I'm sick to death of it and then I probably don't listen to it for ages.

CLARE: So, do you have a big collection at home?

FRANCESCA: About 500 albums.

CLARE: That's pretty extensive!

FRANCESCA: Um, yes. A lot of years of collecting.

MELISSA: My name is Melissa. I am the assistant manager of the Virgin Megastore in Brighton.

CLARE: Let's talk about the customers and their tastes. The changing face of the customer. Are you selling more CDs these days?

MELISSA: Oh yes, many more. Uh, people are now buying the equipment. They realise that vinyl is dying out and the only option is to move towards CD. We get a lot of older customers as well who like Classical music or Jazz which obviously the quality is better on CD than on vinyl or cassette.

CLARE: But I've spoken to a lot of customers today who say that they're still with vinyl. Does that cause problems?

MELISSA: It does, yes. There are some people, who, for whatever reason, still prefer vinyl. Um, and especially with the Jazz, and Folk, and Blues we don't actually sell that on vinyl anymore. So we do lose customers that way.

CLARE: Now Virgin stocks an enormous variety of music. Looking along there are plenty of names here that I don't even recognise. Do you have to know a lot about music to work here?

MELISSA: It helps. But, I don't come from a music background. I knew nothing apart from the bands I liked when I joined Virgin. You do pick it up as you go along. We're often expected to know everything and it's, it's sometimes difficult but normally there's somebody within the store who specialises in one or other department that we can send the customer to if we don't know the answer.

CLARE: Do customers actually come and ask you for advice?

MELISSA: Yes, they do. Often they'll hear a piece of music from an advert or the television and they don't know what it is and they want to buy it so they come and ask if we know it. We get people coming in who whistle a few notes of something they've heard and expect us to know it. So, we do spend a lot of time with the customers. We do have to be quite customer orientated.

CLARE: So at the end of the day, you like your job?

MELISSA: Oh yes. It's, it's fun working here. All the people are great to work with. It's a fun atmosphere. You get to listen to new records and new videos. So, the days go quite quickly.