This English listening exercise is really interesting to me for a couple reasons, and it should provide our English language learners with a real listening challenge.

The video linked below is about mushroom picking, which is something Paul and I have done for quite a few years. We pick Morel mushrooms, which grow in the Rocky Mountains. We haven’t ever picked for profit, just to add something delicious to our meals at home.

The second reason this video is interesting is on a language level. The mushroom pickers featured in the video are obviously bilingual speakers but their mother tongue is interfering with their English. It is curious because their accent is perfect, and they use great idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs that you would rarely hear used by non-native English speakers. But they have a couple grammatical mistakes that are common with speakers of Asian or Russian languages. I assume this is interference from their parents’ language. The exercise will be about understanding the idiomatic expressions that they use but also correcting some of their grammatical errors. Good luck!

Watch and listen to the video and answer the questions! If you do the writing exercise, I’ll correct your errors.

Click here to watch the video.

Write your answers in comments, and we’ll respond.
1. Every _____ mushroom hunters ______to the woods around small town of Chumult, Oregon.
2. Mushrooms that grows in sand. (1 mistake) Correct the sentence.
3. The Matsutake prized by connoisseurs for their earthy aroma can command __________prices.
4. How much money did he earn this day? For how many hours worth of work?
5. How much did they used to be worth?
6. Who sets the price according to …..
7. Why have the prices gone down?
8. Even at 5 dollars a pound the mushrooms can be a _____  ______.
9. There’s no jobs. So I just come over here to ______ my _____.
10.  In Stockton its hard find job. (2 mistakes) Correct the sentence.
11. What are the lifestyle advantages for the John Souvannasay?

Writing: Tell me about this lifestyle? Would you choose to work in this way? Why or why not? Do you have any jobs like this in your country? Do you have professional mushroom pickers?