full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Janine di Giovanni: What I saw in the war

Unscramble the Blue Letters


I learend so much about myself. Martha Gellhorn, who's one of my heores, once said, "You can only love one war. The rest is responsibility." I went on to cover many, many, many wars after that, so many that I lost count, but there was nothing like Sarajevo.

Last April, I went back to a very strange — what I called a daneegrd high school ruoenin. What it was, was the 20th anniversary of the sgiee, the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo, and I don't like the word "anniversary," because it sounds like a party, and this was not a praty. It was a very somber gathering of the rrteoeprs that worked there during the war, humanitarian aid wokrers, and of course the brave and courageous people of Sarajevo themselves. And the thing that struck me the most, that broke my heart, was walking down the main seertt of svarejao, where my friend Aida saw the tank coming 20 years ago, and in that road were more than 12,000 red chairs, empty, and every single one of them symbolized a person who had died during the siege, just in Sarajevo, not in all of Bosnia, and it stretched from one end of the city to a large part of it, and the saddest for me were the tiny little chairs for the children.

Open Cloze


I _______ so much about myself. Martha Gellhorn, who's one of my ______, once said, "You can only love one war. The rest is responsibility." I went on to cover many, many, many wars after that, so many that I lost count, but there was nothing like Sarajevo.

Last April, I went back to a very strange — what I called a ________ high school _______. What it was, was the 20th anniversary of the _____, the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo, and I don't like the word "anniversary," because it sounds like a party, and this was not a _____. It was a very somber gathering of the _________ that worked there during the war, humanitarian aid _______, and of course the brave and courageous people of Sarajevo themselves. And the thing that struck me the most, that broke my heart, was walking down the main ______ of ________, where my friend Aida saw the tank coming 20 years ago, and in that road were more than 12,000 red chairs, empty, and every single one of them symbolized a person who had died during the siege, just in Sarajevo, not in all of Bosnia, and it stretched from one end of the city to a large part of it, and the saddest for me were the tiny little chairs for the children.

Solution


  1. reporters
  2. party
  3. workers
  4. heroes
  5. deranged
  6. reunion
  7. siege
  8. street
  9. learned
  10. sarajevo

Original Text


I learned so much about myself. Martha Gellhorn, who's one of my heroes, once said, "You can only love one war. The rest is responsibility." I went on to cover many, many, many wars after that, so many that I lost count, but there was nothing like Sarajevo.

Last April, I went back to a very strange — what I called a deranged high school reunion. What it was, was the 20th anniversary of the siege, the beginning of the siege of Sarajevo, and I don't like the word "anniversary," because it sounds like a party, and this was not a party. It was a very somber gathering of the reporters that worked there during the war, humanitarian aid workers, and of course the brave and courageous people of Sarajevo themselves. And the thing that struck me the most, that broke my heart, was walking down the main street of Sarajevo, where my friend Aida saw the tank coming 20 years ago, and in that road were more than 12,000 red chairs, empty, and every single one of them symbolized a person who had died during the siege, just in Sarajevo, not in all of Bosnia, and it stretched from one end of the city to a large part of it, and the saddest for me were the tiny little chairs for the children.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
high heels 2
ordinary people 2
humanitarian aid 2
million people 2


Important Words


  1. aid
  2. aida
  3. anniversary
  4. april
  5. beginning
  6. bosnia
  7. brave
  8. broke
  9. called
  10. chairs
  11. children
  12. city
  13. coming
  14. count
  15. courageous
  16. cover
  17. deranged
  18. died
  19. empty
  20. friend
  21. gathering
  22. gellhorn
  23. heart
  24. heroes
  25. high
  26. humanitarian
  27. large
  28. learned
  29. lost
  30. love
  31. main
  32. martha
  33. part
  34. party
  35. people
  36. person
  37. red
  38. reporters
  39. responsibility
  40. rest
  41. reunion
  42. road
  43. saddest
  44. sarajevo
  45. school
  46. siege
  47. single
  48. somber
  49. sounds
  50. strange
  51. street
  52. stretched
  53. struck
  54. symbolized
  55. tank
  56. tiny
  57. walking
  58. war
  59. wars
  60. word
  61. worked
  62. workers
  63. years