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Complete English transcript
Your train leaves soon.
One announcement changes your plan.
Can you find the right platform?
Welcome to English Detective, from Your English Toolbox.
I am Julia.
And I am Martin.
Listen to the scene, choose an answer, then use the language clues to check it.
No tricks, just careful listening.
Here is the situation.
Your ticket says platform four.
It is ten twenty.
You hear this announcement.
The ten thirty train to Brighton will now depart from platform six instead of platform four.
The service is running ten minutes late.
Please keep your ticket ready.
Where should you go, and what is the new expected departure time?
Platform four at ten thirty, platform six at ten thirty, or platform six at ten forty?
I heard four, six, ten thirty and ten minutes.
That is a lot of numbers.
It is.
But you do not need to remember everything equally.
Look for the words that tell you what changes.
Our first clue is instead of.
Instead of means in place of something else.
Platform six instead of platform four means six replaces four.
Exactly.
It does not mean that you can choose either platform.
For another example: We took the bus instead of the train.
We chose the bus, not the train.
So I should go to platform six.
What about the time?
Our second clue is running late.
A service that is running late is behind its planned schedule.
Here it is ten minutes late.
The original time was ten thirty.
Ten minutes later is ten forty.
Correct.
Running late is useful for people, too.
I am running ten minutes late.
Please start without me.
It describes a delay, not the speed of your feet.
And our third clue is depart from.
Depart from means leave a place.
It is common in travel announcements and a little more formal than leave.
The train departs from platform six.
A flight can depart from an airport.
Let us hear the announcement again.
Listen for the replacement, the delay and the place of departure.
The ten thirty train to Brighton will now depart from platform six instead of platform four.
The service is running ten minutes late.
Please keep your ticket ready.
The answer is platform six, with an expected departure at ten forty.
Of course, at a real station you should keep checking for further updates.
Ready for a new case?
Listen carefully.
The eleven o'clock train to Oxford will depart from platform two instead of platform five.
It is running five minutes late.
Where should you go, and when is it now expected to leave?
Platform two, at eleven oh five.
If you chose that, you used the same three clues in a new situation.
Now finish this sentence about your own day: Today, I am going to use something instead of something else.
You could say: Today, I am taking the bus instead of driving.
Make your example real, so the expression is easier to reuse.
Instead of: a replacement.
Running late: behind schedule.
Depart from: leave a place.
Replay the scene at your preferred speed on our episode page at yourenglishtoolbox.com.
The link is in the description.
Case closed, until our next English Detective.
