Category Archives: Interview

830. English With Cooke / A Chat with Instagram English Teacher Andy Cooke

In conversation with Andy Cooke, an English teacher from England who is very popular on Instagram. We talk about Andy’s background, becoming an English teacher, getting big on Instagram, ChatGPT and a few other tangents along the way. Includes a few songs on the guitar at the end of the episode.

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👆The audio version has 30+ minutes of extra content

Links

👉 🎧 Listen to Luke’s Podcast using a podcast app on your phone (audio episodes have more content) https://plinkhq.com/i/312059190?to=page

👉 Andy’s Instagram https://www.instagram.com/englishwithcooke/

👉 Andy’s Website https://ewcooke.com/

827. An Interview for a Study about Language Learning Podcasts (Carlos Soares, University of Aveiro)

Carlos Soares, from the University of Aveiro in Portugal, is doing a master’s degree dissertation all about language learning podcasts. He contacted me to conduct an interview as part of his research, and he agreed for me to publish it as an episode of my podcast. Carlos asks me about my thoughts on learning English through listening, my approach to making my podcast and some other details.

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👉 Take Carlos’ survey here https://forms.ua.pt/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=699278&lang=en

826. Yiddish Words used in English (with Sebastian Marx)

Comedian Sebastian Marx returns to the podcast in order to talk about Yiddish words which have found their way into the English language, including common words like bagel, glitch and schmooze and plenty more.

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👆The audio contains extra content, including an introduction and a short ramble at the end 😉

Visit Sebastian’s website for more information about his live comedy dates (in French) 👇

Word list for this episode 📖

These are the Yiddish words we discussed. Words marked with an X are the ones I couldn’t find in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary.

  • Bagel
  • Chutzpah 
  • Glitch
  • Goy
  • Klutz
  • Kosher
  • Kvech
  • Lox
  • Mensch
  • Meshuggeneh x
  • Oy or Oy vey
  • Putz
  • Schlemiel x
  • Schnook
  • Schmuck: (vulgar) A contemptible or foolish person; a jerk; (שמאָק, shmok, ‘penis’, probably from Old Polish smok, ‘grass snake, dragon’; MW, EO)
  • Schlep
  • Schlock
  • Schmooze
  • Schmutz x
  • Schlong: (vulgar) A penis (שלאַנג, shlang, ‘snake’; cf. German: Schlange; OED)
  • Shtick: Comic theme; a defining habit or distinguishing feature or business (שטיק, shtik, ‘piece’; cf. German: Stück, ‘piece’; AHD)
  • Schmaltz: Melted chicken fat; excessive sentimentality (שמאַלץ, shmalts or German: Schmalz; OED, MW)
  • Schmooze: To converse informally, make small talk or chat (שמועסן, shmuesn, ‘converse’, from Hebrew: שמועות, shəmūʿōth, ‘reports/gossip’; OED, MW). To persuade in insincere or oily fashion; to “lay it on thick”. Noun: schmoozer, abbr. schmooze.
  • Schnoz or Schnozz also Schnozzle: A nose, especially a large nose (perhaps from שנויץ, shnoyts, ‘snout’; cf. German: Schnauze; OED, MW)
  • (keep) Shtum: Quiet, silent (שטום, shtum, ‘mute’; cf. German: stumm); OED)
  • Shul x
  • Shvitz x
  • Spiel
  • Tuchus x
  • Tush
  • Verklempt x
  • Yenta x
  • Shm-reduplication can be used with most any word; e.g. baby-shmaby, cancer-shmancer and fancy-shmancy. This process is a feature of American English from Yiddish, starting among the American Jews of New York City, then the New York dialect and then the whole country.

I found 25/33 of the words in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (English).

Previous episodes with Sebastian on LEP 👇

825. Time-Travel Story, English Immersions in Malta & Playing the Bagpipes (with Alastair Budge)

Is that a confusing title? Hopefully not. As you might expect, it’s a little summary of what’s included in the episode. To give you some more details, Alastair Budge is the host of a podcast called “English Learning for Curious Minds” and he has created a new audio drama for English learners called “Pioneers of the Continuum”. It’s a time-travel adventure for English learners, and Alastair asked me to be the narrator for episode 1. In this episode of LEP, we talk about Alastair’s story, living in Malta, learning English by immersion, cliches and complaints from English speakers visiting Paris and Alastair’s story about playing the bagpipes on the streets of Paris. The audio version includes 30+mins of rambling from me at the end. Enjoy!

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Alastair’s website (podcasts + more) https://www.leonardoenglish.com/

Listen to Pioneers of the Continuum wherever you get your podcasts, from 23 May 2023 👇

Wonderwall on the bagpipes (yes, of course someone did it!)

818. Monster Bogey (A Children’s Book) with Anna Brooke

My friend Anna has written a book for children (7+) which has a full publishing contract and is available in all good bookshops now. The book tells the story of a boy who accidentally creates a monster when his secret collection of nose bogeys gets struck by lightning! This conversation includes lots of talk of snot and bogeys, as well as stories from Anna’s time as a travel writer.

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Get your copy of Monster Bogey here! https://www.chickenhousebooks.com/books/monster-bogey/

Read an extract from the book here https://www.chickenhousebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Monster-Bogey-chapter-1-for-website-COMPRESSED.pdf

816. Kate Billington in the Podcastle

Kate Billington returns to LEP for the third time, to drink tea, talk about my pod-room, learning the bassoon, exam results, learning Chinese, responding to listener comments and talking about her videos on TikTok.

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Links and things

The British Council on TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/@britishcouncilenglish?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Kate’s video about “It’s raining cats and dogs”

@britishcouncilenglish Replying to @sentimentalbxtch Way ahead of you! #learnontiktok #learnenglish #idioms #edutok #vocabulary #english ♬ original sound – British Council English

@britishcouncilenglish ♬ original sound – British Council English
@britishcouncilenglish Kate’s back with another ‘very funny joke’ (she made me write that…)! Tell us what you think! #britishhumour #britishcomedy #englishteacher #learnenglish #learnontiktok #vocabulary ♬ original sound – British Council English

British Council Mini-English Lesson on For & Since

Previous appearances on LEP

Introduction Transcript

Hello listeners,

Welcome back to Luke’s English Podcast. I hope you are doing fine out there in podcast land.

Kate Billington is back on the podcast today. Of course, you remember her from episodes 689 and 705. 

If you heard those episodes I’m sure you will remember Kate and I know that a lot of you out there will be very happy that she is back again and yes, Kate’s return to this podcast is long overdue. She was a very popular guest when she was on the show before. So it’s great to have her back.

Some of you don’t know Kate because you haven’t heard those episodes but there’s no need for me to introduce her fully now in the intro because I kind of do that again during the conversation, except that Kate is an English teacher from England and we work together at the British Council.

People sometimes ask if Kate has her own podcast or YouTube channel or something, because they want to hear more from her.

Well, recently she started making videos for TikTok. We do talk about this during the episode, but that’s not until the end of the conversation, so I just wanted to give you a heads up about that right now at the start.

Kate is part of a team of teachers making content for the British Council’s channel on TikTok. You’ll see that they are making shorter videos (certainly shorter than mine) about things like British English idioms, culture and other entertaining bits and pieces. So, check it out – @BritishCouncilEnglish on TikTok. The link is on the page for this episode on my website.

So, what you are about to hear is another long and rambling conversation with a guest on my podcast. Hopefully you will stay engaged and entertained throughout while practising your English listening in the process.  

All you have to do as you listen to this is keep up with the changes and tangents, and enjoy this conversational journey into things like how Kate helped me with the shelves in my pod-room, how Kate doesn’t agree with the way I arrange my books on those shelves, how it feels to be filmed while talking (and yes there is a video version of this on YouTube), we talk about Kate’s academic successes and failures (or maybe I should say “failure” because it seems there’s only been one, and I’m still not sure it counts as a failure), the Chinese classes that Kate has been taking recently, quite a lot of stuff about Korea (hello Korean listeners), our blood types and what they mean, how we both feel about getting older, and how we feel about certain other English teaching video content that you might find on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. All that, and much more, starting… now.

Studying In The UK – Realities, Opportunities & Advice (with Lioba Berndt)

An episode all about studying at university in the UK, with loads of advice about student visas, funding your studies with scholarships, extra-curricular social activities and opportunities at the Students’ Union and more. Features a conversation with a German student currently studying a master’s in clinical neuropsychology at UCL in London. This bonus episode is published in paid partnership with Study UK and the British Council’s GREAT Britain campaign. For more information, follow the links below.

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Links

👉 The Study UK website with all the info you need https://study-uk.britishcouncil.org/

👉 Student Visas https://www.gov.uk/study-uk-student-visa 

👉 Scholarships and funding https://study-uk.britishcouncil.org/scholarships-funding 

👉 Study in Wales https://www.studyinwales.ac.uk/ 

👉 Scholarships for Welsh universities https://www.studyinwales.ac.uk/scholarships-and-funding 

👉 German Academic Exchange for information about scholarships https://www.daad.de/en/ 

👉 German Federal Ministry of Education and Research https://www.xn--bafg-7qa.de/bafoeg/de/home/home_node.html  

👉 International Health Insurance Surcharge Refund www.gov.uk/healthcare-immigration-application/refunds  

👉 Working while on a student visa – The UK Council for International Student Affairs https://www.ukcisa.org.uk/ 

👉 Study Guides for Parents in Germany https://www.britishcouncil.de/sites/default/files/studyuk_guide_parents_en_2023_final.pdf

815. A River Avon Year: The Wildlife & History of Shakespeare’s Avon, by Rick Thompson (Dad’s New Book!)

My dad has written a new book and he’s come on the podcast to tell us about it. The book follows the path of the river Avon as it flows through the middle of England, telling stories of key moments in British history, nature and the current condition of Britain’s rivers.

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A River Avon Year: The Wildlife and History of Shakespeare’s Avon by Rick Thompson is available now! 👇

📖 Amazon

📖 Book Depository

📖 Goodreads

814. The Language of Children & Parenting (with Anna Tyrie / English Like a Native)

A conversation with Anna Tyrie from English Like a Native (YouTube, Podcast) about children, the way we talk to children, and vocabulary relating to children and childcare, and some special news from the Thompson family…!

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👉 Anna interviews Luke on her podcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/2038858/12353084


Introduction Transcript

Hello, welcome back to LEP.

Here is another episode with more English listening practice for you to get stuck into, and I have another guest on the show today.

This time it is Anna Tyrie from English Like a Native, the channel on YouTube. You might also know her from Instagram and TikTok.

Anna has recently set up a podcast too, which you can find wherever you get your podcasts. It’s called the English Like a Native Podcast.

In fact, on the same day we recorded the conversation for this episode of my show, Anna also interviewed me for her podcast and we had a good long conversation about all sorts of things. It was very nice to be interviewed by her. You should be able to find that episode on her show now. So if you enjoy this one, go ahead and listen to the one on Anna’s podcast too. You will find a link in the description 👆.

In this conversation: Get to know Anna a bit and talk a bit about her podcast and youtube channel and what the name really means.

The main subject – talking about children. We decided that we could talk about a particular topic for this episode and that topic ended up being children. I’ve had requests from listeners in the past for more on the subject of children and the English language, including the way we talk to children, the way we talk about children and the specific words for lots of things related to children.

We talk about our own kids, and specifically about how we communicate with them, typical things we say to them (in English of course), how we should be careful about the things we say to our kids, the ways adults adapt their English when talking to little children, including examples of so-called “baby talk” or “parentese” and then there is a sort of quiz at the end with questions about specific English words for lots of the different objects, toys and bits of useful equipment that we use with babies and little kids.

As you know I have a daughter and she is 5 so a lot of that baby stuff almost seems like a distant memory now, but, well, it’s high time I remembered all of that vocab again now because – drum roll… yes, my wife is pregnant again and we going to have another baby! 

Yes we are delighted.

Thank you – because at this moment of course you are now saying… 

“Wow, that’s fantastic! Congratulations! I’m so happy for you!” and then all the typical questions will come to mind, including:

  • Can I ask when the baby is due?
  • Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl? Would you like to know?
  • Are you ready?
  • Do you have any ideas for names?
  • How’s your wife doing, is she ok?
  • How does your little daughter feel about it? Is she excited?

Etc.

I’m sure I’ll talk about it again in another podcast, but I thought I would let you know now.

Of course the child hasn’t even been born yet, so there’s a long way to go.

But all being well, in July there will be a new Thompson arriving 😊

I don’t know how that will affect the podcast.

Of course it’s probably going to disrupt things to some extent as I will be busy at home, with my wife, looking after the baby, helping my wife with anything if she needs it, taking care of our daughter, trying to keep things ship shape and under control and generally just being at home focusing on the family. 

So I won’t be able to do much podcasting around the time of the birth and in the weeks after. Who knows, maybe I’ll disappear completely for July and August, or maybe I’ll find a way to keep podcasting.

Maybe, if I’m organised and industrious enough, by the time the baby arrives I will have recorded lots of episodes beforehand, which I will be able to publish over the summer, or maybe I’ll dig into my archives for some unpublished or lesser-known material, which a lot of people haven’t heard – like app-only episodes from the LEP App (which is now defunct by the way).

In any case, there might be some kind of disruption to the show. Thank you for your understanding and your patience and your lovely messages of congratulations and support, which you are welcome to write to me. 

Obviously, I’ve just said thank you for a thing you haven’t even done yet, which is kind of against the rules, but anyway. There it is. We’re very happy. We’re hoping everything goes well. I’ll probably talk about it a bit more in another episode later on.

So, now let’s get back down to earth here because this is a conversation with Anna from English Like a Native, getting to know Anna a bit and then talking about the English which we use with kids, about kids and for all the bits and pieces involved in looking after kids. 

By the way, this conversation was recorded in January, which is why I say “It’s January” at the start. I probably didn’t need to say this, did I? You probably have the deductive skills to work out that when I say to Anna “it’s January” it’s because we recorded that in January. But just in case you were worried that I don’t know what month it is, don’t worry, I do know what month it is, what year it is and generally where I am and what’s going on. OK, fine.

I will speak to you a bit again at the end, but now let’s get started with the interview right now.

Ending Transcript / Notes

Thanks again to Anna.

You can find a vocabulary list and notes on the page for this episode on my website if you want to check specific words.

A reminder – after recording this, Anna interviewed me on her podcast and as I said earlier we had a good long conversation about lots of things, with little stories and jokes and stuff. A long conversation. I think it was even longer than the one you just listened to. I’m wondering how Anna is going to deal with that, but you can find out for yourself by listening to that episode on Anna’s podcast- English Like a Native, which is available wherever you get your podcasts.

Thanks for listening everyone.

Have a lovely day, morning, evening or night etc. Goodbye!


Vocabulary Lists

Baby-talk in English

Examples of baby talk in English

  • Cutie-pie
  • Sweetie-pie
  • Munchkin
  • Cheeky-monkey
  • Wee / Wee-wee / pee / pee-pee
  • Poo / poo-poo
  • Potty
  • Dog / doggy
  • Cat / kitty
  • Jim-jams
  • Beddy-byes
  • Nighty-night
  • Sleepy-time
  • Nap-time (do-do)
  • Blankie 
  • Din-dins
  • Ickle (little)
  • Icky – disgusting
  • Bedtime stories / Story time
  • Tummy / Belly
  • Oopsy-daisy
  • Mama
  • Mummy / Daddy
  • Uncle Jamie
  • Grannie / Grandad
  • Yuk / yukky

Common words and phrases relating to babies/children/childcare

This list includes words and phrases which came up in the quiz.

  • Activity arch / baby arch / arch toy
  • Baby bouncer (like a small deck chair)
  • Baby carrier / sling
  • Baby jumper
  • Baby fence / play-pen / baby-gate
  • Baby monitor
  • Baby-grow (a one-piece outfit that babies wear)
  • Bib (to catch or protect against food that falls while they eat)
  • Blanket (a lot of children have a special blanket that they use as a comforter)
  • Bottle (for milk)
  • Breast pump (a device which allows the mother to pump her milk into a bottle)
  • Changing mat (where you change the baby’s nappy)
  • Cot (where the baby sleeps – a bed with high sides so the baby doesn’t crawl out of bed)
  • Drool bib (to absorb drool which comes out of the baby’s mouth when teething)
  • Dummy / pacifier (what the baby sucks while sleeping)
  • Flannel (an absorbant cloth)
  • High-chair (what the baby sits in while eating)
  • Mobile (the thing that hangs above the bed and gives the baby something to look at)
  • Nappy (US English: diaper)
  • Powdered milk
  • Pram / pushchair (UK) buggy / stroller (US)
  • Pyjamas
  • Rattle (a toy that the baby can shake to make a rattling noise)
  • Talcum powder / talc (powder which can be put on the baby’s bum to keep it dry)
  • Teddy bear / stuffed toy
  • Teether / Teething toy(for teething babies) (something the baby can chew while the teeth come through)
  • Thermometer (to check the baby’s temperature)
  • Wipes (to wipe up the… mess)

813. Language Learning is a Voyage of Discovery / Steve Kaufmann Interview

Steve Kaufmann is a very prolific language learner. He has learned at least 20 languages to varying degrees during his life. Some of them he learned during his career as an international diplomat and businessman, and others he has learned during his (semi) retirement. In this interview Steve talks about his language learning experiences, methods and motivations. We talk about various metaphors and similes for language learning including ocean voyages 🚢, cows 🐮, skiing ⛷ and cutting grass🏡, and I ask Steve about cross-cultural experiences he has had during his career. There is a video version but only the audio version contains my intro and ending rambles about getting my hair cut and how you need to remember that you’re a baby cow-shark on skis 🐄🦈🎿😅.

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Thanks again to Steve for the interview! Check out his website here https://www.thelinguist.com/

As a language learner, never forget that you are a baby cow-shark on skis!! 🐮🦈⛷