Monthly Archives: August 2013

144. The Chaos of English Pronunciation

3 poems that demonstrate some difficulties with English spelling and pronunciation. You can read the poems below, and listen to me reading them out loud in this episode, which will help you to understand how these difficult words are really pronounced.

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Small Donate ButtonToday I shared a poem on Facebook. It was written to highlight all the inconsistencies in English spelling and pronunciation. In this episode I read the poem to you, demonstrating the correct way to say all the words. It’s a very challenging poem, so I hope I get them all right! If you find any errors, correct me by leaving a comment below.

I also read a couple of other poems about English pronunciation below.

Enjoy the episode and I hope you find it useful.

Poem 1: “The Chaos” by  Gerard Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation — think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough —
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
*This poem is a nightmare!*

Poem 2: “Why English is so hard to learn”

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Poem 3: Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it
was time to present the present.

8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

That’s it for now. More episodes soon.

143. A Cup of Tea with… Robert Hoehn

Some ironic conversation with Robert Hoehn. Some of this episode is transcribed below. Some listeners may find Robert’s views a little controversial, but I assure you, he is just being ironic and none of this conversation should be taken too seriously, except the linguistic content which is all authentic and spontaneous, and presented here for your listening practice.

Right-click here to download this episode.

In this episode I was invited to the apartment of my friend Robert for a cup of very specially brewed tea and some conversation, which you can actually listen to here, right now, with your ears (and some kind of headphones/speaker system).

Robert is 110% American, and was born in Minnesota, which is in the heart of the American mid-west. This makes him a kind of red-neck cowboy in my opinion. He is also a direct descendent of William Wallace (yes, Braveheart) and now lives in Paris where he works as a voice-over artist, comedian and clown. He also looks a bit like Heath Ledger, the Joker from the Batman movie The Dark Knight.

Click here to visit Robert’s website http://www.frenchfriedtv.com

In our conversation, which you can listen to whenever you want, I interview Robert using the usual questions: What made you move to Europe? Did you experience culture shock when you moved to France? What are the differences between France and the USA? Have you been to London? How did you manage to learn French to a good standard? But we talk about all kinds of ridiculous stuff along the way!

Thanks for listening, leave comments below as always, and please consider making a donation by clicking the button on top-right of this page. Your donations help to keep this podcast alive and kicking.

All the best,
Luke

TRANSCRIPT
Part of this episode has been transcribed by a listener called Artiz. Thanks Artiz! You can read it below:

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to another episode of Luke’s English Podcast. In this one I´m joined by a friend of mine who is at the moment in the kitchen making a cup of tea, well, making two cups of tea. We’ve been discussing the techniques of doing it. We’ve decided to go, maybe for the first time for me, we’ve decided to go for the cocktail, and that means we’re gonna mix two different brands, and different flavours, types of tea in the same pot, ok? I’ve never done this before, and I drink a lot of tea, but Robert is American, as you’ve just heard and he’s a maverick, he doesn’t play by the rules. He’s like the character Maverick in Top Gun. You never know what he’s gonna do next. You think: “ok, let’s just have a cup of tea with Robert”, and Robert’s all kind of like “let’s mix the tea bags!” And then, you know, next thing you know you’re on some wild adventure into the land of cocktailed tea. We’ll be letting you know the standard  of this new tea recipe which Robert has come up with. The two teas which we’re mixing, and it’s gonna be a very complicated mix, because I just bought from the supermarket a box of Twinning’s green tea with mint and spices. Now that´s got at least three spices. I don´t know the name of them because they’re written in French, but I think it´s cinnamon and several other things. So that’s already, quite a complicated mix: Green tea, mint and three types of spices. That’s pretty much five things. And that´s just one of the types of tea. And ok, and Robert has got already in the flat a box from “Monoprix”, which is a local supermarket, so we’re mixing brands as well as different types of tea. And this is black tea, so we’re mixing green tea and black together? You can’t do that. Can you? (Background Robert’s voice: Madness, is pure madness!!). It is, isn’t it? It´s got to be crazy. I don’t think anyone’s ever done this before: mixed green tea and black tea. It´s a revolution. But we’ll tell you how it is while we’re drinking it. And so this black tea has got a caramel flavour to it (Background Robert´s voice: it is the longest introduction I’ve ever had in my live). This is not the longest introduction. Maybe the longest introduction you’ve ever had, but sometimes, episodes of Luke’s English Podcast are, sort of,  seventy five per cent introduction and twenty five per cent actual content. Ok? Often the way it works. So, I’m still in the process of introducing Robert here. He kindly invited me over to his place where he’s making tea and we’re going to record a ground breaking podcast for you to listen to. It’s pure madness, apparently. You’re gonna  hear from Robert properly in due course, when I finally get round to actually talking to him. But let me just give you a little bit of background, a little bit of information about Robert. His name is Robert Hoehn, and you got to pronounce the name correctly. Otherwise you’ll be in a world of pain…or champagne!…maybe, I don´t know, maybe if you are a lady and you pronounce the name wrong, then that’s just quite a nice introduction to the world of Robert Hoehn. So anyway, his name is Robert Hoehn, he’s been living here in Paris for a number of years. “How many years now?” Robert: “eleven”. Eleven years is he’s been living here. He is originally from the United States of America. He’s from Minnessota I believe. We´ll be talking about that properly in a few moments. He is also the guy behind the amazing online video channel “French fried TV” which you can find if you visit my web site, you just can find a link to it there. Otherwise just go on to google and type in “French fried TV” and you’ll see all his videos there. They’re very entertaining, and he’s also the guy behind the French Fried comedy night, which is a comedy show, a stand up comedy show, in English, in Paris at the moment, which takes place every Tuesday evening at a Place called the Café Paname, near Republique metro station. So, I think it´s pretty much my introduction. He’s  a full time American but now living in Paris. Hundred and ten per cent American. Ok, so Robert, I’m gonna now talk to you and ask you various questions. Robert is currently creeping across his apartment in order to check his mobile phone cause he just receive, quite possibly, a very important message. So I’m just padding now. I’m just padding, just sort of…continuing to talk. The intro is still going on even though Robert is otherwise engaged. Ok, you’re back now. Ok, right, let´s go. Let’s go and speak to Robert Hoehn, “shall we”? Let’s move over to the counter area here in the kitchen, and we’re going to…we’re going to talk to Robert and ask him a few questions. I don’t know why I’m speaking like this. Suddenly I’m the presenter of a children’s TV show from the nineteen eighties. Anyway, I’m here with Robert. He’s an actual American. It´s quite exciting!

LUKE: So, Robert, how are you?

ROBERT: Awesome.

L: Awesome?

R: Yeah! Pretty good.

L: What you’ve been doing today?

R: Wow, I’ve…I did a quite a bit of work on the internet: speaking with people like my agent…

L: You have an agent!

R: I have a voice over because I do voice over jobs speaking in English.

L: That’s brilliant!

R: The American English, not the Queen’s, and…

L: Wait wait a minute, you’ve got to tell us about the voice over work. What kind of voice overs

do you do?

R: I do stuff everything you can imagine, that has to do with commercials, I did pure power for Loreal, expert…

L: How did it go?

R: Yesterday…It´s the best job in the world, you go in you say, a couple of lines of text. They say: “Can you say that with a little bit more of energy, or slower?” and you do it, and then they give you later on, a couple months later they give you a cheque for that, so it´s a pretty good work.

L: Can you tell us exactly what do you said, and repeat it for us?

R: I don’t know, it’s technically …yes! As long as you promise not to tell anyone! It´s something

along the lines of a: “are you sick of black heads, oily spots, zits, bad skin? Well, we have the cure!” And then it  goes on to name the product which I’m not going to mention so you don’t get sued.

L: But actually there’s a good vocab in that. Are you tired of black heads? What’s a black head?

R: Black heads it’s a kind of…in French it´s a “bouton”, like on your forehead, like you know it’s a…

L: Like a spot on your face. Specifically, those little spots which have black heads…they’re very ugly. It´s disgusting. Black heads, spots of course are just like red spots on your face. No your face, Robert, your skin is beatifully clean.

R: Thank you!

L: And zits as well, a zit is another word for spot. So you’re learning vocab about the face and when the face goes wrong.

R: “Pizza face” (Sarah Donnelly  ) calls it

L: (Sarah Donnely  ) our friend refers to  it, rather unsympathetically, as “Pizza face” syndrome?

R: No, just “pizza face”. Oh, they kid has “total Pizza Face”

L: haha ok, “total Pizza face” as well.

R:  to be completely, grammatically incorrect.

L: But I think Sarah has licence to do that cause she mentioned that she’s still has…like…the skin of a teenager, doesn’t she?, so she’s able to, you know, criticize the skin of others, specially when they have the face of a Pizza. Right, so, ok that’s brilliant! Voice over work sounds amazing and I would love to do that myself.

R: Of course you would!

L: What a surprise! Can you help me? Can you put me in touch with…

R: Absolutely not! haha I’m the only guy in Paris right now so…no! Well you know, once I have too much money, Luke, then totally I’m gonna tell you how can you do it, but no…actually that’s not true at all because you and I have totally different voices so I’d love to help you. It’s pretty easy actually if you me want to tell you my formula for doing that…

L: Yes!

R: I can break it down. You do ten character voices of cartoon characters, your favourite cartoon voices, you write down two minutes of text for then, or thirty seconds of text for each character, then you do ten different kinds of commercials like publicity, like hard sell, soft sell, medical research sell, a crazy…we’ve got too many bubbles over here!, come, buy bubbles now from 9.99, you know? And we did things like that. Then you record them all and then you pay a sound engineer, a hundred euros, and he mixes them together and he adds like “ding ding” some bells and whistles, and I did that in 2004 and I’ve never auditioned for a job since that.

L: Seriously?

R: Yeah yeah…And you can make some really good money. Cause sometimes those little jobs I did yesterday for example they become big jobs.

L: Well, obviously, I don’t want to steal any of your work and I’ll probably just stick to British accents if that’s err…

R: Your American accents are very good! Especially Christopher Walken and then your Batman, is pretty good!

L: Batman is not that hard…just make your voice very low…”I’m Batman”…like that. It’s fun! Anyone can do that, really!

R: Yeah, I’m more of the Joker.

L: Yeah, can you do the Joker?

R: No! I just lick my lips.

L: That’s what a performance was, really, wasn’t it? It was Heath Ledger just licking his lips. Robert, am I the first person to say you look a little a bit like Heath Ledger?

R: Ehh, no, ladies ( ) all the time. They confuse me with him…until he died. That was the last day I actually spoke with the girl.

L: Well, ladies and gentleman, if you can imagine I’m here with Heath Ledger just the joker himself. He looks exactly like him, it’s amazing! Except all the makeup. But Heath Ledger on a day off. That’s what I’ve got in front of me right now. And…I think it’s time to ask you a few questions, Robert…

R:  I’d like to ask you a question, first.

L: Yes, go ahead!

R: Who do you think you are?

L: I think I’m Luke, from Luke’s English Podcast.

R: Ok good enough, good answer!

L: It’s that…acceptable?

R: I believe it’s correct. I don’t know if it’s acceptable!

L: Ok… That question: “who do you think you are” has got several meanings to it, hasn’t it? Which one were you aiming for, when you asked…

R: I think it was open interpretation, so you did the best you could with the material you had I think

L: Yes, I hope so. I think I’m Luke Thompson from Luke’s English Podcast, and when it comes to the actual…the more existential question: “who am I really” well I think I can be anyone, I want to be as long as it complies with the law.

R: Have you ever read Nietzsche?

L: No, I didn’t but I know some of the things he said. Nietzsche was a philosopher, wasn’t it?

R: He was a philosopher, and apparently people, young people sometimes they go on a…they have periods where they chose not to speak, at all, like the…they choose to be silent. But  I don’t know why, and I was hoping maybe…cause you seem pretty educated, and…so I was curious if you know why people who read Nietzsche decide that they don’t want to speak.

L: You mean these sort of nihilists, for example who become sort of existential or philosophers who…that actually make a context decision to stop talking.

R: Correct. And then there was “Driving Miss Daisy” …no…”Little miss Sunshine”

L: The movie, yes, that’s a character in it who stops talking.

R: Yeah, and then I met someone yesterday who told me they did the same thing because they saw Nietzsche, and I didn’t know if she was lying, or confusing herself with the character in Little Miss Sunshine, or if she actually had done the exact same thing as that guy.

L: I haven’t read a lot of Nietzsche so I don’t know exactly what he said but maybe it’s something to do with, you know, just “why bother” I think maybe that might be the philosophy. I don’t know!

R: Ok. Thank you for answering the question!

L: That’s fine. If you want to ask any questions at any point feel free, ok? Maybe we can ask bounce question of each other…or maybe not, maybe I can just interview you.

R: Ok, I appreciate your being open to my questions as well, and…I’ve… asked my question now…it’s your turn.

L: Ok, it’s my turn. So the question I’m sure you’ve been asked this loads of times. Why do you moved to Paris?

R: I originally came to Paris in 2002 to continue my theatre studies and went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts for a little while and I also went to Boston university to study acting and when I got to Paris the idea was that I would study Comedie del’Arte which is the origins of theatre…and…well, in the occidental world, anyway.

L: Occidental world, that’s the west, isn’t it?

R: Yeah…It’s all the occidenties, occidentaux.

L: You’re speaking French to me now.

R: Right! I thought I could fake it and sound latin

L: Western world! The occidental world

R: Right right, I mean that there was Greek theatre, and the Romans before that they did their drama…

L: Yes, Greek theatre is the origin of comedy, isn’t it?

R: Yeah?? I don’t remember any really laughing, and any Greek theatre study class that I took. I remember like Antigone. That was a pretty funny one.

L: What happens in Antigone?

R: Well…It’s…Oedipus is, you know? Her Dad’s Oedipus, you know.

L: Oedipus from the great myth about the guy who falls in love with his mother and wants to kill his father.

R: Well, he did kill his father and the he made love with his mum and he was felt so bad about the whole thing that he poked out his eyes . That is hilarious!! LOL

So the Greeks didn’t make comedy! LOL And then after that…anyway…so I came to Paris to study Comedy Del’Arte which I believe started in Italy and it’s six principal characters, you know what it is? So, you’ve got the young female, the young hero, the old guy, who can be the general, who can also be the old wise man, then you’ve got the father character, you’ve always got a clown character, so these six or seven characters could do every piece of theatre. Sometimes they are young troupes and they would go around. Anyway, that transformed into Marcel Marceau…

L: He was a mime artist, wasn’t he?

R: Pretty much yeah but his origins are from Comedy Del’Arte which uses a lot of masks, pantomimes to tell stories, and I wanted to go deeper into that, and there is a school here called the Jaques Le Coque school.

L: Yes, is a…famous clown.

R: Correct, like Marcel Marceau. So, I got here and then I found out that the school cost six thousand euros a year, that he was dead, Jack, Jack was dead, or he is dead, all of his students have left there in other schools become kind of the sausage factory for pumping out clowns, I was working as a dishwasher without papers at the time, illegally, under the table, in black, as they say… and I was making forty nine francs an hour, but this is back in the day when they had francs.

L: Forty nine francs is about five pounds an hour, isn’t it?

R: Seven euros.

L: Yes, about five pounds. It’s not very much.

R: It’s not very much, but I was happy just to survive, and that’s how I got started, and so I didn’t go to school on my limited budget and I just…cause I’m already a kind of a clown! You know…whatever man!

L: Ok, so you started as an actor, and so you started really as an actor, you came to France in order to train as a sort of theatre performer.

R: A deeper actor.

Podcast Statistics 2012-2013

Podcast Stats

Click the link above that says Podcast Stats and you can read statistics for downloads of Luke’s English Podcast.

You can find out:

  • The number of downloads per day.
  • The top countries where the podcast is downloaded
  • The most popular episodes of the year
  • The total number of downloads per year (over 1.2 million!)

    Thanks for listening ;)

142. The Annual General Meeting (Part 2)

Here is the second part of the AGM. For more information, see episode 141.

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download this episode.

Thanks for attending the AGM. Here is the agenda:

Part 2 – Agenda
13. Set List Show (see video below)
14. Meeting listeners
15. Music mixes
16. Holidays and weather
17. New job
18. New episodes
19. Wearing trainers without socks – The Dangers
20. Flip flops in Paris – The Dangers
21. The sound of your own voice
22. Zdeněk Lukáš
23. Length of episodes
24. Pacific Rim
25. Statistics
26. Emails
27. The new Star Wars movies
28. AOB

Thanks for attending the meeting. If you have any other business, just leave a comment below. Happy holidays. Luke

Your donations make this podcast possible.

Set list show
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6ZrNS_HwOQ&w=500&h=281]

141. The Annual General Meeting (Part 1)

You are formally invited to attend The LEP AGM (Luke’s English Podcast Annual General Meeting) which will take place during the recording of this episode.

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download this episode.
The AGM is a chance for me to just summarise some news and give some information before we all go away for our summer holidays.

Here is the agenda for the meeting (which is split into two parts).

Luke’s English Podcast
Annual General Meeting
August 2013
Location: Baddesley Clinton House (not haunted)
AGENDA:
1. New listeners
2. Thank you
3. Sweat
4. Bassline
5. Best voice for the podcast
6. Toilet seats
7. Playstation 3 – system update required
8. Time
9. Happy music
10. Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino
11. Pedagogical Approach
12. Whiskey in meetings
13. Background music

…This episode continues in the next episode of Luke’s English Podcast

Part 2 – Agenda
14. Set List Show
15. Meeting listeners
16. Music mixes
17. Holidays and weather
18. New job
19. New episodes
20. Wearing trainers without socks – The Dangers
21. Flip flops in Paris – The Dangers
22. The sound of your own voice
23. Zdeněk Lukáš
24. Length of episodes
25. Pacific Rim
26. Statistics
27. Emails
28. The new Star Wars movies
29. AOB

Thanks for attending the meeting. If you have any other business, just leave a comment below. Happy holidays. Luke

Your donations make this podcast possible

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