Listening: The Train Announcement With Two Changes
In a listening task you hear a station announcement once, then a second time. You note: 'Le train de 14h20 pour Marseille partira du quai 7 au lieu du quai 3. Il a dix minutes de retard.' Later in the same announcement: 'Les voyageurs pour Toulon doivent changer à Marseille.' A question asks: 'Où doit-on attendre le train pour Marseille, et à quelle heure part-il?' A second asks what passengers for Toulon must do. You wrote 'quai 3, 14h20' and 'aller à Toulon directement'. Your neighbour wrote 'quai 7, 14h30' and 'changer à Marseille'. You are unsure because the announcement was fast and you only heard the second playing clearly.
1. Evaluate both answers and explain the listening traps involved.
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Your neighbour is right on both counts. The announcement says 'au lieu du quai 3', meaning platform 3 is replaced by platform 7; 'au lieu de' is a substitution marker, so writing quai 3 records the old information. 'Dix minutes de retard' on a 14h20 train gives 14h30, so 14h20 is the scheduled time, not the departure time asked for. For Toulon, 'doivent changer à Marseille' means a change of train at Marseille, not a direct service; 'changer' here is a transport verb, not 'to change money'. The traps are classic: a distractor stated then cancelled, a time that must be calculated, and a false friend or near-homograph. On a single-hearing task, note keywords ('au lieu de', 'retard', 'changer') rather than full sentences.
2. What note-taking strategy would prevent these errors on the second hearing?
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Use a two-column shorthand: what is said, and what it means. Write 'quai 3 → 7 (au lieu de)' so the cancellation is visible, and '14h20 + 10 min = 14h30' as an explicit sum. For the Toulon line, write 'Toulon: changer à Marseille' and mark it with an arrow to show a connection, not a destination. Abbreviate in French where possible ('retard', 'chgt') to keep pace. On the second hearing, verify only the items you flagged with a question mark rather than re-transcribing everything. Finally, answer in the language and format the question demands: a time, a platform number, and an action, each clearly separated.