My Family Life and Stories of Affection

15 minutes a day, practice listening easily! This book selects 2-minute short passages with moderate difficulty, suitable for beginners. Through four stages — “pre-listening — catching keywords — understanding sentence by sentence — overall retelling” — you can gradually understand more than 90% of the content. With consistent practice, small progress accumulates into big improvement, making your English listening skills improve rapidly! Below is a selection by the Qicai website editor, starting from the simplest English listening materials, suitable for junior and senior high school (beginner level).

My family. My grandparents are coming to visit us from Calgary, Alberta. My father is very happy because they are his parents and he's glad that he will see them. We don't see them very often because Calgary is a long way from Toronto. My grandparents have two sons: my father and my uncle Bill. Uncle Bill is married to my aunt Susan. They have a daughter who is my cousin. My cousin is a lot older than I am, so we do not have a lot in common. They also have a son who is the same age as me. He is my favorite cousin because we both like the same television shows and the same games.

I have two brothers and one sister. My brothers are both younger than I am. They are twins, so they have the same birthday. My sister is one year older than I am. People say that my sister and I look alike. We both have blonde hair and blue eyes. My mother's parents live near us. They are my grandmother and grandfather who visit us often. My mother does not have any brothers or sisters; she is an only child. I like it when all my family is together. I don't have a lot of cousins like some people do, but I have fun with my relatives.

My uncle will often take my cousin and me to the movies. I like to take my grandparents for walks so they can see my school and meet my friends. My parents talk to my brothers, my sister, and me a lot. We are a very close-knit family. People who have close families are very lucky.