Monthly Archives: September 2014

213. YEP! Competition Entries #3

This is the third episode of a mini-series entitled “Your English Podcast” or “YEP” for short, and in this episode I am going to showcase more recordings sent to me by listeners as part of a big competition. I’ve launched to celebrate the 5th birthday and 200 episodes of LEP. All the details of this competition are in episode 200 so you might like to listen to that one first if you haven’t already. Also, before I play you this set of competition entries I’m going to give you some information, rules and guidelines about the voting process. Click here to read those rules and guidelines.
Right-click here to download this episode.

Small Donate ButtonIn episode 3 you will hear recordings from these LEPSTERS:
Enrique from Spain
Eugenia from Romania
Evgeny from Russia
Gabor from Hungary
Gabriela from Brazil
Gabriella from Italy
Gerald from France, living in Belgium
Giovanni from Italy
Gudu from Ethiopia, living in Finland
Guillaume from Switzerland

Voting in the competition is now closed.

212. YEP! Competition Entries #2

This is the second episode of a mini-series entitled “Your English Podcast” or “YEP” for short, and in this episode I am going to showcase recordings sent to me by listeners as part of a big competition. I’ve launched to celebrate the 5th birthday and 200 episodes of LEP. All the details of this competition are in episode 200 so you might like to listen to that one first if you haven’t already. Also, before I play you this set of competition entries I’m going to give you some information, rules and guidelines about the voting process. Click here to read those rules and guidelines.
Right-click here to download this episode.

Small Donate ButtonIn Episode 2 you will hear entries from these LEPSTERS:
Charley from Sri Lanka
Chriss from Mexico
Daniel from Poland
Daniele from Italy
Dega from Mexico
Dharmendra from India
Dmitry from Russia
Edgar from Brazil
Edgar from Mexico
Elisa from Finland

Voting in the competition is now closed.

211. YEP! Competition Entries #1

You are listening to the first episode of a mini-series entitled “Your English Podcast” or “YEP” for short, and in this episode I am going to showcase recordings sent to me by listeners as part of a big competition. I’ve launched to celebrate the 5th birthday and 200 episodes of LEP. All the details of this competition are in episode 200 so you might like to listen to that one first if you haven’t already. Also, before I play you the first set of competition entries I’m going to give you some information, rules and guidelines about the voting process in the introduction to this episode, which I am going to start, now!
Right-click here to download this episode.

Small Donate ButtonInformation, Rules & Guidelines for Voting & Listening to these Episodes
– I’ve received about 80 recordings. The maximum time limit was 5 minutes, and most of the recordings are around 5 minutes long. That’s quite a lot of content for us to deal with! The podcast is clearly bigger than it was last time I did this. I got about 25 entries last time, so it has multiplied by three in about 2 years. Because of the number of entries I’ve had, this is going to be the first in a mini-series of episodes devoted to recordings sent in by listeners. I’m not sure how many there will be. It depends on how many recordings I can squeeze into each episode, but I suspect that it will be in the region of 8 episodes! Wow! Please do listen to them all, and please remember to vote for your favourite.

– Normal podcasting will be resumed soon. For now, I would like to ask listeners to the podcast to take part in this competition by listening and voting. Of course, if you’d rather not listen & vote – that’s up to you. You can just skip these episodes and wait for more content to be uploaded soon. However, I personally hope that you do listen and vote. It’s really nice to hear the voices of the LEP community from around the world. It’s a beautiful thing indeed, and there’s a lot to be gained from hearing from people who are all united in a common interest, despite coming from all around the world.

– Here are the rules for voting: There are a lot of people for you to listen to and lots of names to remember so to make it easier you can vote once per episode. So, if you like one recording in the first episode, you can vote for it, but then if you like another recording in another episode you can vote for that too, but you can only vote once per episode!

– How to vote: Just leave a comment on teacherluke.co.uk saying “I vote for Yoda from Degoba” or “I vote for Leia from Alderaan” or “I vote for Wicket from Endor”. Just type the name of the person and their country in a comment below that episode. I’ll only accept votes that are added as comments on teacherluke.co.uk under the correct episode. You don’t need to add your name or email address if you don’t want to. You can vote anonymously, but remember – as the administrator for teacherluke.co.uk I will know if you’re voting more than once, and I won’t count those repeated votes. But, feel free to encourage your friends and family to vote for you if you want to. Just direct them to the relevant page on teacherluke.co.uk and ask them to leave their comment.
– Voting closes exactly one month after the publication of this episode. I’m going to publish all these competition entries at the same time.

– Language feedback. This is a learning English podcast after all, so I do think it is appropriate to give some language feedback as a way of dealing with any language errors which I hear in the competition entries. I hope you don’t mind being corrected, and I hope you see it as a great opportunity to learn from mistakes. I’m sure you do see the value in that, especially since you’d have to pay a lot of money to get a teacher to correct your errors in a language school or private lesson. You’re getting it free here. Obviously, the word “donation” comes to mind at this point, but anyway… How am I going to give language feedback? Well, because I have so many recordings to play it will just take too long if I give language feedback and error correction after each one. So, what I’m going to do is listen to all the competition entries, write down errors and feedback, then record a whole episode in which I go through that list giving corrections and feedback. That way, we can run the competition effectively, and then learn from each other’s errors (if there are any) as well. So, as you listen to this, remember that a language feedback episode is coming later.

– On the subject of errors which you might hear – please remember this: Obviously, we’re all trying not to make errors and it’s important to speak correctly but we must not feel too bad about making errors, we must see them as learning opportunities rather than intolerable breakdowns in language proficiency, and we mustn’t let errors break our confidence and stop us from communicating.

We really must be tolerant of our own errors, but we must also be tolerant of other people’s errors too. In your lives & careers you probably won’t spend most of your time in communication with native speakers of English. In fact, most of the time you will be speaking to non-native speakers in English – and it will be quite natural for you to hear errors in those conversations. It’s completely normal and natural, and we need to get used to listening to a variety non-natives speaking English. For example, if you just listen to native speakers all the time, when you come to do business with non-natives in English, you might be shocked to discover a rather different variant of English. It could be Spanish-English or Russian-English or Korean-English for example. Although they might not be ‘correct’ in a pure sense, they do exist as varieties of spoken English as a second language. Some people might view these varieties of English as wrong, but let’s be practical about it. It’s hard to learn English to a perfect level. There will always be a bit of influence from the first language. The aim should be effective communication rather than just a perfect replication of the language as spoken by Brits or Americans or whatever. In a moment of communication like a telephone call, a business meeting or even a date, the responsibility for that communicative act is on both people. It’s up to the speaker to speak correctly, with clear pronunciation, correct vocabulary and grammar and so on, but also the listener takes responsibility too – how? By tolerating errors, by becoming familiar with different varieties of non-native English, by being patient & positive and by trying to interpret the message being given to them, and not just sitting there in judgement expecting a perfectly tailored message to be handed to them on a plate. Good communicators know that good communication is a two-way street. It takes two to tango. Both sides bear the responsibility for successful communication. The speaker and the listener. So be patient, tolerate errors, don’t judge too harshly and make an effort to understand and interpret what is being said to you.

– I’m very pleased to present the voices of listeners, and I’m glad that LEP can, just for a moment, become a platform for people to communicate and practise their English.

– So, enjoy the recordings and please vote for your favourite competition entry. What does this mean? Just choose the one that you like the most. It’s not necessarily about language level, it could be about personality or anything else for that matter. Which one do you like the most? Remember that the winner of this competition will be interviewed by me on the podcast via Skype (for up to 30 minutes I expect). Leave 1 vote per episode under the relevant page on teacherluke.co.uk and in one month I will count the votes and announce the winner. If it’s a tie and there’s no clear winner, we’ll just cross that bridge when we come to it!

– Welcome to Your English Podcast. Let’s get started.

In this showcase you’re going to hear competition entries from these LEPSTERS:

Episode 1:
Adam from Poland
Alexandr from Russia
Alexis from Canary Islands
Anna from Ukraine
Aritz from Spain
Artur from Kazakhstan
Arturo from Mexico
Ashish from India
Bella from Russia
Bruno from Brazil

Voting in the competition is now closed.

Check out the other YEP episodes here:
218. YEP! Competition Entries #8
217. YEP! Competition Entries #7
216. YEP! Competition Entries #6
215. YEP! Competition Entries #5
214. YEP! Competition Entries #4
213. YEP! Competition Entries #3
212. YEP! Competition Entries #2

210. A Cup of Tea with Noman Hosni

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Conversation & language feedback with comedian Noman Hosni. Right-click here to download.

Small Donate ButtonHi everyone. Just before starting this episode, I would like to say a very special thank you to all of the people who have entered my competition, which is entitled “Your English Podcast”. I have received about 80 recordings in total, and very soon you’ll be able to listen to them all and then vote for your favourites. So, hold on because the special competition podcasts are coming soon. But now, let’s get started with this episode, which is number 210. Let’s go!

Hello, and welcome to LEP. How are you? I hope you’re well. Hello to all my long-term listeners, or LEPPERS as you are affectionately known. “Why is he calling them LEPPERS?” That’s “Luke’s English Podcasters” or “Luke’s English Podcast People”, or LEPPERS, if you were wondering. If you are new to this podcast, then welcome! This is a podcast specifically designed for learners of English. My name is Luke. It’s my podcast. That’s why it’s called Luke’s English Podcast. I am an English teacher & a comedian from London and with this podcast I aim to help you improve your English while also entertaining you and hopefully making you laugh a little bit in the process. I have loads of listeners from all around the world – so welcome to the community of Luke’s English Podcast people, or LEPPERS – welcome to the LEPPER community, welcome to the club! I sincerely hope you enjoy the podcast and that it helps you get a grip on your English by practising some proper authentic listening! Don’t forget to visit teacherluke.co.uk where you can get lots more information including how to download the podcast, how to find the archive of over 200 previous episodes, how to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes and how to find transcripts and notes for episodes of this magical, wonderful, fantastic, exceptional, modest, and unashamedly self-promoting FREE podcast!

Today’s Guest is Noman Hosni
Sometimes I have guests on the show, and we just have a free-flowing conversation in English for your enjoyment & listening practice. Today my guest is a very funny friend of mine called Noman Hosni. Let me tell you a little bit about him. Noman was born in France but he has a multinational background. His father is from Tunisia, his mum is from Iraq, he spent much of his childhood growing up in Switzerland and these days he is spending more and more time in London where he works as a professional stand-up comedian – a lot of my guests are comedians as you may have noticed – and Noman regularly entertains audiences in French in Paris and now in English in the UK too. I think he’s a very funny guy indeed, he always entertains me when I see him performing on stage and I’m very happy to have him on the podcast in this episode. The plan is just to have a bit of a chat with Noman Hosni, but also to find out about his background, his learning English experiences and some of the funny misunderstandings he’s had when trying to speak to people in English.

Noman’s English
Now, before we go any further. Let’s talk for a moment about English. Noman is a similar case to Yacine from episode 182, if you remember him. I’ve invited Noman on the podcast in this episode even though, admittedly, his English is not ‘perfect’ because I’m just impressed by him as a learner of English and I generally just enjoy his company. I think that’s enough as a justification. I don’t really need to justify having particular guests on the show do I? No I don’t, but nevertheless here are a few things that occur to me when I think about Noman and his approach to learning English, and these are a few things that you can consider while listening to this episode:
– Noman knows that he has to learn English by actively using it to achieve something. He does this by not only performing stand-up in English but also by going out of his way to have conversations in English, even if he gets into some slightly embarrassing situations and misunderstandings sometimes – you’ll have to listen to the rest of this podcast to find out more about that. So, the point is, he doesn’t mind making a fool of himself sometimes, because he realises that the reward is a more rapid improvement in his English. He’s prepared to go out of his comfort zone in order to develop his English skills.
– He is really serious about learning English, but he approaches it with a sense of play – I mean, he’s aware of the value of just playing around in English. Sometimes just fooling around and having fun in English is a great way to break down your lack of confidence. The point is – there’s nothing to be afraid of because we’re just having fun. That’s a good attitude that you can adopt when practising your speaking I think. It allows you to open up, improvise and enjoy expressing yourself with the language.
– He’s serious about learning English, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously, and I think that really helps with his confidence.
– I think he’s really funny (although that is subjective, but I’m not alone in finding him funny – he’s a pro) even if his English is not 100% perfect. So, what that means to me is that, he’s already achieving a lot in English and he doesn’t let his mistakes hold him back. His English may not be perfect, but he is communicating successfully.

Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t try to avoid making errors. Of course, you’ve got to try to iron out your mistakes to improve, and yes, Noman makes a few language errors in our conversation, as you might notice. That’s certainly not a crime or anything, and it’s all part of the learning process but I am going to correct his mistakes at the end of this podcast so that you can all learn from any errors he makes. I asked him if he minded that, and he said it was fine and that he thought it would be funny actually. Okay, so let’s embarrass Noman by correcting all his errors! No, he really doesn’t mind actually. So, if you do notice errors in Noman’s speech, don’t worry because you will hear error correction and language feedback after our conversation. Do keep listening all the way until the end because the language feedback will be really useful to listen to. You can learn from Noman’s errors. I’ll try to make sure the podcast doesn’t go on for too long so I’ll keep the language analysis brief yet insightful. So, hold tight, enjoy the interview, and stick around for the error correction, and Noman, if you’re listening – do pay attention at the end, you might learn to avoid a few common errors! And next time, you can help me with my French or even my Arabic pronunciation. OK? Alright, it’s a deal, and I’m assuming that you’ve said yes to that deal by the way. What I’m saying is, Noman, you owe me a French lesson, whether you like it or not.

So, enjoy the episode everyone – the interview, and then the language feedback afterwards. Cheers!

Noman Hosni Online
Click here for Noman’s website: http://www.noman.ch
Click here for Noman’s Instagram where he posts videos every day: http://instagram.com/nomanhosni
Click here for more of Noman’s content on Vine: https://vine.co/u/1053524188788891648

Error Correction & Language Feedback
With Noman’s permission, here are some language errors that he made in the interview, with corrections. Listen to the podcast to hear my more detailed corrections.

By the way, this might seem like a lot of errors, but if you compare it to the number of good things & correct things he said, it’s not much at all. Also, I know that many of these are just ‘slips’ rather than proper errors. I mean, Noman will kick himself when he hears some of this because he knows what’s right and wrong, but in the heat of the moment errors will just slip out. Anyway, let’s start.

1. I can smell the saliva of a lot of people. “Saliva” – sa-lee-va /sæli:væ/.
It should be sa-lai-va – /səlaɪvə/

2. What I said before is on the record. “record” – ree-cord – /ˈri:kɔ:d/.
It should be “on the re-cord” – /ˈrekɔ:d/.
/ˈrikɔ:d/ – that’s the verb. “I’m going to record another podcast”

3. He say… and I say…
He said… and I said…

4. From downstairs it don’t look so high. I see the balcony so high.
From downstairs it didn’t look so high. I saw (that) the balcony was really high.

5. You’re not in the good podcast right now.
You’re not listening to the right podcast right now. (Of course I disagree – you’re always listening to the right podcast, when you’re listening to Luke’s English Podcast)

6. “If you broke your leg, just stay down”
If you break your leg, just stay down.

7. It went good.
It went well. Although this is fine in American English (so is it wrong or right? – good question for a DEBATE)

8. One of my first gig.
One of my first gigs.

9. I was trying to put a lot of energy to remove my french accent.
I was trying to put a lot of energy into removing my french accent. To put a lot of energy into doing something.

10. I do a lot of mistakes.
I make a lot of mistakes. (That’s an ironic mistake to make)

11. I write everything and I’ve learn it to make sure there are no mistakes in my English.
I wrote everything (down) and I learned it to make sure (that) there were no mistakes in my English – That’s if he was talking about one instance in the past.

12. Don’t tell to the crowd that I’m French.
Don’t tell the crowd that I’m French.

13. He said me that, and I said, “I fail”.
He told me that and I said, “I failed”.

14. I was not raised by an English person who got an accent.
I was not raised by an English person who had an accent. “Have got” is the same as “have” but we don’t use it in the past. In the past, forget about ‘got’ for possession.

15. Some term are confusing.
Some terms are confusing.

16. There’s some term that doesn’t exist in the dictionary.
There are some terms that don’t exist in the dictionary.

17. You have to masterise all the tools.
You have to master all the tools.

18. It’s the first time I went in London to do a gig in English.
It was the first time I’d been to London to do a gig in English. (Providing background context for an event in the past – the event is the taxi conversation, the context is the line about his first time in London)

19. He seems to be not very agree with me.
He didn’t seem to agree with me. (Remember not to use ‘be’ with ‘agree’)

21. When I realise, I don’t want to correct him.
When I realised, I didn’t want to correct him. (Repeat it for muscle memory)

22. She thought I’m British. I don’t want to embarrass her.
She thought I was British. I didn’t want to embarrass her.

23. We are in Paris actually but maybe you’ll listen to this in 2 years and maybe we will not.
We’re in Paris at the moment (or currently) but maybe you’ll listen to this in 2 years and then maybe we won’t be.

24. Two years ago I can’t imagine that I have this conversation with you.
Two years ago I couldn’t have imagined that I would be having this conversation with you now.

25. I keep talking about another subject. (past)
I kept talking about another subject.
I kept changing the subject.

26. English crowd are more easy to laugh.
English audiences laugh more easily.
It’s easier to make English audiences laugh.

27. I’m agree, I’m impressed.
I agree.

28. Every time someone kill people…
Every time someone kills people…

29. I put energy on it.
I put energy into it.

30. When I speak to English person.
When I speak to English people.

31. I’m keeping push it on my accent.
I’m putting pressure on my accent.
I keep pushing my accent.

32. It was in purpose.
It was on purpose.

33. One of the only things I could remember was the warm.
One of the only things I could remember was the heat.