Talking point: Pirates

Today's talking point is pirates. Before getting together with the members of your conversation group, go over the questions below so that ideas flow more easily when you get together with your friends and you can work out vocabulary problems beforehand.

• The Goonies and Cutthroat Island, what do they have in common?
• Do you know anything about the stories the films tell?
• Why is Robinson Crusoe considered a pirate book?
• Do you know any other films or books that tell stories about pirates and treasure?
• When you were young, did you like stories about pirates?
• Have you seen any good pirate films recently? Why were they good?
• Why is it that stories about cruel villains catch people's imagination and seem romantic? What is the appeal of pirates to the general public?
• Are there still pirates in the modern world? Are they romantic?
• People are still searching for hidden treasures? Have you heard any recent news about it? Would such a task appeal to you?

To illustrate the topic, you can watch this BBC video clip about a treasure returned to Spain by US.

Flying in to claim its rightful property, these black parcels contain part of Spanish heritage, the most valuable haul of sunken treasure in history. Inside them, a nearly 600,000 gold and silver coins like these worth millions of dollars. That’s why the Spanish Navy has come to collect them.
The US Navy thinks like us in the sense that our sunken ships are these, as I told you before, these secret places they are cemeteries, and we don’t like that anybody go there to touch them, so the US Navy and us, we are in the same ship.
The treasure was found five years ago in the wreck of the Spanish galleon Our Lady of Mercy. She was sunk in the Strait of Gibraltar by the British in 1804. The treasure was taken from there by Florida-based marine explorers. They said it was a case of find its keepers and took it home, but US courts have finally decided the treasure was the property of the country of origin, and that’s why it’s on its way back to Spain.
This is historical heritage. This is not to be sold. This is to go to a museum. This is a graveyard at the same time. So, if there are agreements in the future, that will be acceptable, but we have to fight against those who go and salvage sunken objects.
Everyone wants to get their hands on this treasure, but more than 20 tons in weight, it’s taken some effort to get it home.

Tim Allman, BBC News.