Interviews

Intermediate

Are birthdays celebrated in your culture and/or family, and if so, how are they observed (activities, food, guests, gifts)?

Here are some words and expressions that appear in the video:

discipline (noun): the mental ability to keep working on something that is difficult
– I don’t know if James has the discipline to take early morning classes at college. He is not a morning person.

– It takes discipline to save money for retirement.

pay off (verb phrase): pay a debt in full
– How long did it take you to pay off your car loan?

take care of something (verb phrase ): deal with a situation, attend to something, be responsible for something
– If you don’t take care of your credit card debt quickly, you can end up owing a lot of money for years.

Now, watch the interview and answer the comprehension questions. You can also turn on the automatically-generated captions for the video once you start it.

Randall: In this video, Aubrey, let’s talk about the benefits and dangers of credit cards, because I think a lot of people secure a card, use a card. It may benefit their lifestyle, but it could cause unneeded, let’s say, damage to their financial situation. For you, when you think about the benefits and dangers of credit cards, what would they be?

Aubrey: Yeah, So, I mean, credit cards can definitely be useful, like if you have the discipline, you know, to pay them off regularly. Um, if you’ve got a good card with good rewards, you know, it can definitely be useful. But on the other hand, it’s a trap, right? Cause it’s so easy, like if you’re someone like me, and if you can’t see the money, then it doesn’t exist, right? So it’s so easy to just spend and then the next thing you know, you’re $5,000 in debt. Um, it’s definitely dangerous, but on the other hand, you know, I don’t want to close my cards because you know what if I have an emergency, you know, I could have like a $3,000 emergency and not have that money in my savings account, um, because I only have about a thousand in there right now. And so if I have a $3,000 emergency, I need to be able to pay that. Like if my dog gets hit by a car, I don’t want to have to worry about that. Like future me can pay for that. You know, I want to be able to take care of that. So, uh, definitely pros and cons there.

Randall: All right. Well, thank you for sharing some of those ideas.

In what situations do people use cash or a credit card in your area (e.g., at a restaurant or in a open market place)? How have methods of payment changed over the years?

The following activities deal with related topics to give you additional language practice.

• A Student Credit Card