Celebrating episode 800 and responding to lots of questions sent in on social media. Expect questions about my ill-fated music career, grammar, favourite authors, my daughter, life as an English teaching podcaster and plenty more. Video version available.
Intro Script & Questions for Part 1
Hello listeners, welcome to episode 800.
Fireworks! BOOM! 🎆🎆🎆
Welcome to episode 800.
Here we are. It’s episode 800. It’s a big occasion but the emphasis is on chill in this episode. We’re just going to chill together and celebrate episode 800. So let’s sit back, relax and enjoy podcasting together.
This episode might take absolutely ages – I don’t know how long this is going to be, but we’re not going to worry about that, or anything else in this episode. No concerns, no worries.
For this one I thought I would answer some questions from listeners on social media, YouTube and my website. I recently asked for questions and I got loads. Billions. I got billions of questions.
I’m going to try and answer them almost all of them in this episode.
That might be seriously over ambitious and this could end up being the longest episode ever, we’ll see. If I have to divide it into parts, so be it. We’ve had episode 300 part 1 and 2, as well as several episode 666s, we can have episode 800 in a few parts. But in fact that does prove that I’ve already done more than 800 episodes. In fact I reckon it’s over 1000 if you include premium ones, bonus ones, app-only ones, phrasal verb ones.
In any case, I’m going to go through the questions and try to answer as many as possible. This is bound to take bloody ages. I mean, hours.
I’ve chosen nearly all the questions which came to me, except for world cup ones because I’ll talk about that in another episode.
They’re presented here in no particular order, from various social media platforms.
And I’m going to correct errors if and when I find them.
So this will be a sort of error correction episode too, I expect.
We will start in a minute, but first I just want to take this moment to celebrate getting to 800 episodes!
What does this really mean to me?
A long term professional project which has been a success and continues to be. No mean feat!
It’s a nice big number
800 is a large amount of anything – name a thing and imagine 800 of it. It’s always a lot!
Satisfying to reach a milestone, but I have my sights on 1000 now.
No need to dwell on it too long…
Thank you for continuing to listen to this podcast, allowing me to keep doing this all these years.
Recently the podcast hit 100,000,000 downloads since it started.
I love doing this podcast and I hope you love listening to it too.
I love the fact that I can do this – spend most of my working time on making content for learners of English, doing it my own way, being my own boss. It’s all thanks to the podcast, which means it’s all thanks to you, and the way it works is that those people who can afford it can become premium subscribers, which keeps the show completely free for those people who can’t afford it, and I get to keep making the episodes.
Let’s get on with the listener questions.
By the way, I’ve removed all World Cup questions because I think I’m going to talk about that in a separate episode.
QUESTIONS
FROM LEPSTERS
YouTube
Cyril Alexander
Hello! Thank you for this lux podcast!
I saw you like playing guitar and maybe you have your own compositions and maybe you have some thoughts about your own rock band.
Luke, did you ever dream of being a rock star?
Would you be able to carry the rock star burden?
Played drums in lots of bands
Made music on computer (real instruments)
Made music on synths (Korg)
Play guitar (other people’s songs) and piano (not any more)
Play bass on other people’s songs
Bands
The bold ones were the serious ones
- Grandpa Knuckles
- Skellington
- Flat Badger
- Hypersound
- Orson
- Yoot Club https://soundcloud.com/yootclub
- The Jake Bullit Band https://soundcloud.com/jakebullit
- Kilimanjaro / Lure https://soundcloud.com/luke-thompson-20/sets/lure-bizarre-happiness-2003
- Luke / Yusuke Project https://soundcloud.com/luke-thompson-20/sets/luke-yusuke-nemoto-demos
- Radicals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZORC-CbV19A&t=107s&ab_channel=Lukulele
- Salvo https://soundcloud.com/salvoanthology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HCrRJIzxFQ&t=5s&ab_channel=Lukulele
- The School Band
- Sick Rock
Engshan (English with Zeeshan)
Hey Luke my name is M Zeeshan i am from Pakistan i’m your big fan so could you explain the difference between these sentences ?
“We had to stay until we had finished our podcast.”,
“We had to stay until we finished our podcast.”
Which one is correct?
Sera Bende • 2 hours ago (edited)
Hi Luke, thanks for this mini episode :) Congratulations on the 800 episodes. My question is if you are considering doing more rambling episodes because they are fun and I think it is an excellent way to learn how to speak naturally and talk about daily life. Looking forward to seeing more rambling episodes.
Mariagrazia Fornarotto
Hi Luke! It’s Mary from Italy writing..I was just wondering…who is your favourite contemporary English novelist and why? Thanks in advance for your reply…
Maria
Hello, Luke! Thank you for your podcast Tell us, please, what stories do you tell your daughter? What are they about? Which ones are her favourite?
Oishi
800 is a long way, congratulations Tr Luke. I would like to suggest that it would be great if you could upload one story telling episode per week (is it too much?) because as a lazy learner, your story telling can carry me to the end of the episode.
Janya Markevich
Hey Luuuke! I really like what you do and I’m a fan of your sense humor. I was wondering as a kid at school were you this type of guy who bravely says a joke loudly so that the whole class hears and giggles afterwards?
And do you feel that via humor you make the atmosphere (any place: job, school, family pre Christmas hassle, etc.) more amicable and lighthearted?
Thank you in advance!))
Maria C
Hey Luke! Congratulations on the 800 episodes
My question is if Jerry Seinfeld is one of your favorite comedians and if it was him or another one who inspired you.
Steve Martin
Jerry Seinfeld
Bill Hicks
Eddie Izzard
Bill Bailey
Serg Boorow
Hey Luke, what’s cracking!?Thanks for your fantastic podcast, IMHO for the time being it’s one of the most fascinating podcasts in terms of immersing in British English/humor (or at least I would like to think like that) that I’ve come across. My question is, do you consider moving to somewhere from Paris in particular and from France in general? Cheers.
Living Italian style with Nina
Hi Luke, thank you for your amazing job on your podcast. My question is: when will you release another episode of the Rick Thompsom Report?
Antin Kuntin
Hi Luke.
First of all: you are doing a really great job!
My question is: are you talking normally like in your daily life or slower and clearer than usual so that we can understand?
Thanks in advance for your answer
Vafa Guliyeva
Hi, Luke! I got 3 questions for you .
In your opinion, approximately how many words do you need to have in your vocabulary to be able to speak like you do in your ramble episodes? and is there an efficient method for determining the amount of vocabulary for a non-native speaker?
How does it work? Read the text on the website.
Native speakers know 20,000 – 30,000 words.
I got about 25,000.
Learners of English who get 10,000 can be near-native.
Aster L.H.
Bravo Luke! Looking forward to your next podcast talking about The FIFA World Cup.
A question to Luke. How many Asian countries have you been to?
Jakub
Hello Luke. I really enjoyed your podcasts about comedy TV series, like Alan Partridge. However, I asked you (very politely) quite a long time ago about the possibility of doing an episode (likely more then one) about Peep show. I believe that we could all learn from Peep show loads of useful British expressions/phrases which never occur in textbooks for students. Is there any chance that some comedy episodes are in the pipeline? Respect and best wishes from Poland 🇵🇱️
Teacher Zdenek
My questions for you: “What’s the hardest thing about doing the podcast?”
Shaping an idea into the finished product.
Дмитрий Обухов Dmitry Obukhov
Hi, Luke! I’m really into your podcasts and watch every single episode no matter what length it is. My favorite videos are about detective and horror quizzes/stories. Are you planning to make a podcast on this topic? If so, I’m looking forward to seeing new episodes soon.
Cristiano Ronaldo
Hi Luke, how is it going? First of all, thank you for teaching us. My question is : is it possible to speak like you, if I only listen to your podcast, I mean your intonation and your pronunciation. You speak very clearly. I like your speech that is why I usually listen to your podcast
My name is Berdiyev Azamat from Khiva in Uzbekistan
德高望重respected
Hi Luke, I wonder what makes you an English teacher? I am a new listener since maybe 3 months ago, and I enjoy your style a lot. Thanks anyway.
Cecília de Melo
Hi, Luke! Thank you for teaching us. My question is: I don’t have problems to understand you but why is so difficult for me to understand an American talking?
- Familiarity
- Are you watching TV/Films?
- Maybe British English is just better
vvaskey
Hi Luke:)
My first question is what is the best moment in your childhood?)
My second question is a bit personal, but anyway how old is your daughter? How is she doing?)