Monthly Archives: May 2013

132. Pronouncing ~ed Endings (with Added Romance and Horror)

Some pronunciation, a story, some vocabulary, some romance and a little bit of horror-movie gore in this episode.

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Hi everyone, I decided to teach you some essential language this time. Here’s what to expect from this episode:

The first part is about the pronunciation of ~ed endings (e.g. agED, beggED or wastED, etc)
The second part involves some -ed adjectives.
Then I teach you some idioms and very natural expressions.
The episode also includes a romantic story with sentences you can repeat, and a little bit of horror movie violence, just in case you were bored of all the ‘romance’.

For vocabulary notes, see below.

You can make donations by clicking PayPal donate buttons on my site. It’s my birthday next Wednesday. Just saying…

VOCABULARY NOTES AND TRANSCRIPT FOR THE FIRST PART OF THE EPISODE
In this episode I’m going to teach you some really useful things. It’s been a while since I taught you things, or focused on language. Recent episodes have been interviews, which are really useful because you can listen to authentic English as it really is spoken, but I also think it’s important for us to look closely at some features of language too: either vocabulary, pronunciation or grammar (even though grammar is usually pretty boring unless you’re a grammar geek).

So, in this episode we’re going to focus on a few things.
First we’re going to look at pronunciation of –ed endings. That’s often a tricky area for many people around the world. We’re going to practice that a bit.
There will also be some vocab – some regular verbs that you might find useful, but also some –ed adjectives.

If that sounds a little basic, then worry not because I’m also going to throw in some more idiomatic language as we continue, and anyway this is Luke’s English Podcast. It’s always really fun and entertaining anyway. Darn it, I will make this entertaining as well as useful, if it’s the last thing I do!

There are language notes related to all of this on the website. I still have two websites; teacherluke.podomatic.com and teacherluke.wordpress.com.

-ED ENDINGS
So first; let’s look at ed endings.
They’re tricky for many people (particularly Brazilians)
They’re very common, so you really should be able to pronounce them all correctly
There are 3 ways to pronounce them
/t/ /d/ or /id/
Examples: asked agreed wanted
How do you know the correct pronunciation? It depends on the sound at the end of the word, before you add the –ed part.
If it’s an unvoiced sound then the –ed is pronounced /t/
If it’s a voiced sound then the –ed is pronounced /d/
If it’s a t or d sound then you add a syllable by using the /id/ sound
It’s hard to remember and process those rules during fluent speech, so don’t worry about it too much.
What you should do is practice repeating the words in sentences with correct pronunciation so you get used to saying them correctly.
For many of you this will involve unlearning many years of speaking in your native language, or many years of saying the words wrong (becquse you read the words from a page, or because no-one told you otherwise)
If you’re young then congratulations you stand a better chance of fixing this potentially fossilized error.

The verbs: Listen to the episode to hear the pronunciation of them. They’re all regular verbs ending in -ed.
touch / stop / stroll / suggest / walk / want / agree / ask / arrive / beg / blush / chat / decide / drop / enjoy / explain / gaze / grab / jump / knock / look / miss / open / phone / pick / recommend / reply / seem / scream / shock / show / skip / smile / squeeze / start

The Complete Story
1. I was sitting alone in my office when someone knocked on the door, and I stopped working.
2. The door opened, and a pretty woman walked in.
3. When she looked at me, my heart jumped. She was very beautiful. I gazed back at her for a moment.
4. My heart started beating faster. I couldn’t help noticing that she seemed nervous too. She blushed slightly when I looked at her.
5. “Are you Mr Thompson?”, she asked me.
6. “Yes, I am”, I replied. “How can I help you?”
7. “Sorry to bother you” she said. She smiled sweetly. “I’m the new girl in the office, I just arrived yesterday”
8. “Yes, I missed you yesterday, I was out of the office.”, I explained.
9. “Oh, it’s no problem, I phoned you, but you weren’t in. I just wanted to say that I’m really glad to be working with you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
10. I blushed. She was being so nice. I decided to stop working, so I could show her around the office.
11. We strolled through the building, and I showed her around. As we chatted, we connected on a deep, meaningful level.
12. She asked me if I knew any nice restaurants in the area. I recommended a really good English one near the station.
13. She said she wanted a coffee, so I used the new machine to make her one. When I gave it to her, our hands touched briefly and my heart skipped a beat.
14. After a moment, I suggested that we go to the English restaurant together, for a romantic meal of fish and chips.
15. She agreed, and inside I was delighted. Later that evening, I picked her up on my scooter. As we rode through the bumpy streets, she squeezed my waist to hold on. When I sped up to 32mph she screamed with excitement!
16. We enjoyed a wonderful evening together. She was amazing! When I dropped her off at her house, I made a quick decision. “Will you… marry me?” I asked.
17. “…get …married?” she said, shocked. “The thing is… I can’t…”
18. “Why not?!” I begged. “I love you! Please marry me!!”
19. She grabbed my arm, and said. “I love you too, but I can’t marry you, because…”
What happened next? Leave a comment to give your opinion.

-ED ADJECTIVES AND SOME IDIOMATIC ALTERNATIVES
Confused
I didn’t know what was going on
I couldn’t get my head around it
It really messed with my head

Disappointed
I was gutted
I felt really let down
I felt really dejected

Terrified
I was absolutely petrified
I nearly shat myself (very rude!)
I was shit scared (very rude!)

Embarrassed
I just wanted the ground to swallow me up
I felt like such an idiot

Delighted
I was so chuffed
I was over the moon
I felt amazing
I couldn’t believe it

Interested
I was riveted
It was absolutely fascinating
I was on the edge of my seat

Excited
I’m well up for it (enthusiastic)
I’m stoked
I’m buzzing

Exhausted
I’m knackered
I’m shattered
I just want to crash out

Shocked
It was like a slap in the face
I was stunned
I couldn’t believe my ears/eyes

Surprised
I jumped out of my skin

Nervous doesn’t mean angry or annoyed.
It means stressed and scared (like before the dentist).
Dentist: nervous
If someone is playing loud music, or clicking a pen: annoyed or angry.

That’s it!

131. Rickipedia / Listener Q&A with Rick Thompson

A conversation with my Dad, Rick Thompson. We answer various questions sent to us by listeners on Facebook.

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Rick is a journalist who worked for the BBC for about 30 years. He now runs his own media training company, called T-Media. He’s also been my Dad for 35 years. In my family we consider him to be like Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. His knowledge is pretty encyclopedic. If I have a question, he is usually able to give quite an extended answer to it, although sometimes the facts can be a little bit unreliable. That’s why I’ve started to call him “Rickipedia”.

In this episode I ask my Dad various questions which were sent in by fans of Luke’s English Podcast on Facebook. To visit and like the facebook page, click here.

What do you think of my Dad’s answers? Leave your comments below.

My Dad and I both hope you enjoy this episode, and find it interesting and useful as a way of practising your English listening.

Questions from Listeners
Here are the questions that some of my listeners sent in via Facebook.

[4:47] Tuan Do Sir What’s the difference between UK today and UK 30 years ago?

[12:25] André Domen What does it feel like to be British these days?

[13:52] Bruno Alves Which team is going to win UEFA Champions League this season?

[16:35] Stefano Pierini I’d like to know what he thinks about Eastern Europe, especially the South-Eastern part (Serbia and bordering states)… I know he worked there sometimes.

[21:56] Hiroshi Maruyama Why did you (Rick) get the good idea to present dram set to your sons for Christmas many years ago?

[25:45] Hiroshi Maruyama Have you ever had Tetrisitis?

[27:34] Hiroshi Maruyama Please tell me about the pleasure of bird watching. In Kumamoto, my home town, we have a lake and lots of birds come. I sometime go to watch them.

[31:16] Francesco Moscato Good afternoon Mr. Thompson. A few months ago Luke uploaded an episode about the Maya people and their prophecy about the end of the world. What do you think about them?

[32:25] Romain Bsn Hi Luke’s Dad, I’d like to know what are your thoughts about French people (it can be about any topics)?

[35:54] Lucianna Liveira Ask him if he can speak Portuguese or whatever language?

[37:09] Garoina De Vergerach Hi Mr.Thompson! What dou you think about the Spanish bullfighting?

[39:55] Стефан Слободяну Hi, Luke! Please ask him what he thinks about life in the UK! What are the best and the worst things? :)

[47:10] Claudio Natale Hi Luke! According to your dad, which are the most common stereotypes about Italy and Italians.

[50:12] Claudio Natale What’s his favorite food?

[50:37] Khazan Anna Hi Luke! Please ask your dad what his favourite dishes are. What does he think about English food. What does he have for breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.?  Does he have high tea?

[57:05] Mariana Ramirez Hey Luke. Does he have any funny anecdotes or stories of you and your brother when you were children.

[1:00:35] Ubiratan Silva Silva Why 2 + 2 = 4?

[1:02:10] Jairo Trujillo García Well, we could ask the Oprah’s legendary: “What are you sure of?” as a final question maybe.

Click here to see the transcript.