Fifty years at sea — the harbor story
Materials and distance words: brass, copper, tin, solid, hollow — polished by a life at sea.
New core words in this lesson
brasscarriagecoppercorkdirectiondistanceflightguidehollowleadpolishporterrailrodroughsailslopesolidtintransportvessel
Read the sentences below, then practice the whole lesson with audio.
- 1Sit down, boy — you see that white sail out in the distance?
- 2Fifty years back, I was on a vessel twice that size.
- 3We went by the stars — no maps, no machine giving you the direction.
- 4In those days transport was slow — by ship, or by horse and carriage.
- 5I started as a porter, taking boxes up that stone slope.
- 6Rough seas for ten days once — waves like moving mountains.
- 7She was solid wood — but the sea plays with anything, big or small.
- 8You hold the rail and you never let go — first thing they teach you.
- 9Every morning we'd polish the brass till it was gold-bright.
- 10Copper under her, tin cups on the table, and lead down deep to keep her straight.
- 11See this cork? From a bottle we opened the night I got married.
- 12My fishing rod's my ship now — same water, smaller boat.
- 13A hollow sound in the wood is bad news — solid is what you want.
- 14These days? One flight and you're across the world by dinner.
- 15But a guide can't give you the sea, boy — some things you get by going.
FAQ
- How does this dictation practice work?
- Play a sentence, type exactly what you hear, then press check — Dictation Trainer shows word-level feedback: which words you misheard, misspelled, confused for a homophone, or missed.
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- What level is this lesson?
- This lesson is graded B1 on the CEFR scale and has 15 sentences. Dictation Trainer lessons start at A1 and climb as the library grows.