Author Archives: Luke Thompson

About Luke Thompson

I've been teaching English for over 20 years in London, Japan and France. I also do an award-winning podcast for learners of English called "Luke's English Podcast". In my free time I'm a stand-up comedian who regularly performs shows in English in Paris and sometimes London.

24. Music Idioms

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Learn some music-related idioms. Full Transcript available below.

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Learn English! Some music idioms for you to use. Luke’s English Podcast is a free service for everyone in the whole world to use. Download the podcast, listen, laugh and learn. Get new vocabulary, listening practice, pronunciation drills for speaking and some interesting cultural information. Email me at luketeacher@hotmail.com. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

This podcast is about music idioms. Idioms are difficult because they are fixed expressions. The individual words mean something different on their own. You have to learn the meaning of the complete expression. Here are some useful ones that relate to music in some way. You can use them to talk about anything.

The idioms

  1. it rings a bell
  2. to pull out all the stops
  3. to play it by ear
  4. it’s music to my ears
  5. to be fit as a fiddle
  6. to face the music
  7. to change your tune
  8. to blow your own trumpet

Here are the transcripts of the badly acted dialogues (sorry about the terrible American accents):

A: Have you ever met Jack Miller?
B: Well the name rings a bell
A: He work in the Nakatomi Plaza
B: Oh yes, I remember. He was the guy who sealed the OCP contract. He wouldn’t stop blowing his own trumpet about it.
A: Yes, he kept going on about how he’d closed the deal, saying how Cyberdine were going to be the number 1 agency in the country.
B: Yeah, what a pain in the neck

OK guys! Summer is the busiest time of year for us. Lots of tourists with their £50 notes. What they really need, is London souvenirs. OK, so pull out all the stops this month. I want you to SELL SELL SELL. More British flags, more models of Big Ben, more photos of the Queen, more toy London busses, more postcards of punks, more Beatles T-shirts, more London Eye photos, more We Will Rock You tickets, and more umbrellas!!

A: Sir?
B: Yes?
A: It’s Miller. We’ve closed the OCP deal.
B: Oh, that is music to my ears! I can’t tell you how important it is to Cyberdine.
A: No sir, you don’t have to tell me.
B: Excellent!

A: Hey Miller!
B: Yeah?
A: Are you going into the OCP negotiation?
B: Well, yes I am.
A: Don’t you need your notes? Where’s your file?
B: Oh, I don’t really need them
A: How are you going to manage the negotiation without them?
B: Oh, I’ll just play it by ear

A: Well Miller…
B: Yes Doctor?
A: I’m pleased to tell you that you have a clean bill of health. You’re fit as a fiddle! It’s quite surprising really considering your age. I expect you have the body of someone half your age. How do you do it?
B: Well, just lucky I suppose
[terrible, unforgivable acting]

A: Hey Miller! The board is furious! They say you screwed up the OCP deal. They say Cyberdine is in jeopardy.
B: Damn it! Did they say anything else?
A: Yeah, they say they want to see you immediately. Time to face the music Miller.
B: I suppose so…

Serious APOLOGIES for the bad acting and for the slightly offensive American accent. I do like America, and mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery (apparently).

Here are the idioms and their definitions:

it rings a bell – it’s familiar, or it reminds me of something

to pull out all the stops – to do everything you can to achieve a result

to play it by ear – to improvise, to not follow a plan

it’s music to my ears – it’s exactly what I wanted to hear

to be fit as a fiddle – to be in perfect health

to face the music – to accept the negative consequences of what you have done

to change your tune – to change your opinion of something, and the way you talk about it

to blow your own trumpet – to go on about or boast about something you did well or are good at
That’s it folks! Cheers, bye bye bye bye bey bye bey bey bye bye bey bey bey bey bey

24. Music Idioms – Transcript

You are listening to Luke’s English podcast. For more information visit teacher Luke.podomatic.com (teacherluke.co.uk)

Hello, folks and welcome to another edition of Luke’s English podcast. Now, the last podcast I did was about music festivals. So, I thought that I’d stick with the theme of music this time and teach you some music idioms.
Now, just a little note about idioms. Of course, an idiom is a kind of fixed expression that, you know, is used a lot in general conversation. Now, they are quite tricky because the meaning is difficult to understand. If you try to understand the individual words one by one in an idiom you probably won’t understand the idiom. It’s very difficult because the idiom as a whole has a different meaning to the individual words. So, for example if you look in a dictionary and try to understand the expression word by word you won’t understand anything. It’s got a different meaning as a fixed expression.

So, I’m going to teach you some idioms that are sort of related to music in some way and I’ve selected these ones myself, handpicked them to make sure that I was teaching you idioms which are actually quite useful because some of the idioms that you learn are not really useful.
There are so many that some of them are not used very often or are a bit old-fashioned and I think these ones are okay.

So, the idioms I’m going to teach you and you’ll be able to read all of these idioms with transcripts on the web page. So, the idioms of this….and I’m not going to tell you what they mean, yet. First I’m just going to read the idioms to you and then I’m going to read you little dialogues that include the idioms and then at the end I’m going to explain what the idioms mean. Okay?

So, the idioms then, one by one.

First on is: it rings a bell or that rings a bell. Right?
Next on is: to pull out all the stops- to pull out all the stops. To pull out all the stops
Okay? So that’s it rings a bell and to pull out all the stops.
The next one is: to play it by ear – to play it by ear. Right? To play it by ear. Right?
The next one is: It’s music to my ears – it’s music to my ears. Right? Okay?
The next one is: to be fit as a fiddle – to be fit as a fiddle – to be fit as a fiddle. Okay?
The next one is: to face the music – to face the music.
The next one is: to change your tune – to change your tune or to change your tune. Right?
And the last one is: to blow your own trumpet – to blow your own trumpet – to blow your own trumpet. Okay?

So, don’t worry if you don’t know what those idioms mean and don’t worry about trying to understand the individual words necessarily because sometimes they don’t really help you.

So what I’d like you to try and do now, is listen to these little stupid dialogues that I have written which I’m going to perform. They’re not very good dialogues and I’m not a very good actor but I’m going to try and perform the dialogues to you to make it more realistic or interesting. And as you listen to the dialogues try to notice the idioms that I’ve used and try and guess what they mean from the context of the situation. Okay? Don’t forget at the end I’ll explain what they mean. Alright?

So, I’m going to start with the first dialogue.
All these dialogues are in some way related to work, basically.

It’s a kind of work themed situation in which a man had to do a negotiation to win a contract, and what happened. Okay?

So, here we go. Here is the first part of the dialogue.

Have you ever met Jack Miller?
Well, the name rings a bell.
He works in the Nakatomi Plaza
Oh, yes, I remember, it was the guy who sealed the OCP contract. He wouldn’t stop blowing his own trumpet about it.
Yes, he just kept going on about how he’d closed the deal, saying how Cyberdyne were going to be the number 1 agency in the country.
Yeah, what a pain in the neck!

Okay, that was my first dialogue. I do apologise for the terrible acting but there is nothing I can do about it. I am not a professional actor. I am a teacher, so I’m just doing the best I can. Anyway, I hope you managed to catch the idiom there. It was to blow your own trumpet.
He said, he wouldn’t stop blowing his own trumpet about it.

Okay, the next situation, if you can imagine is like in a big souvenir shop in the centre of London in the summer time. Okay? And this is like a motivational speech by the sales manager of the souvenir shop. Okay? Here it is:

Okay, guys! Summer is the busiest time of year for us. Lots of tourists with their 50 pound notes. What they really need is London souvenirs. Okay? So pull out all the stops this month. I want you to sell, sell, sell. More British flags, more models of Big Ben, more photos of the Queen, more toy London busses, more postcards of punks, more Beatles T-shirts, more London Eye photos, more We Will Rock You tickets, and more umbrellas!!

Okay, so that was the souvenir manager and the idiom there was…oh, what was it? The idiom was there – the idiom there – uh, I can’t speak.
I’ll start again: The idiom there was to pull out all the stops. Right? Okay!

Now, the next one is back with the story of Jack Miller and the negotiation.

Sir?
Yes,
It’s Miller, we’ve closed the OCP deal.
Oh, that is music to my ears. I can’t tell you how important it’s to Cyberdine.
No, sir, you don’t have to tell me, sir.
Excellent!

Okay, I’m getting kind of embarrassed now because I realised that these little dialogues are just awful, I think. I am not very pleased with them. I think they sound terrible. My acting is awful and my accents are really rubbish. But I’m gonna keep doing it because I’ve started it now, so I’ve got to finish. Anyway! That idiom was: that’s music to my ears. That’s music to my ears. Okay?

Okay, here is the next dialogue! Here we go, more bad acting and even worse accents coming right up:

Hey, Miller
Yeah?
Are you going into the OCP negotiation?
Well, yes I am
Don’t you need your notes? Where is your file?
Oh, I don’t really need them.
How are you going to manage the negotiation without them?
Oh, I’ll just play it by ear

Okay, I think this is a pretty awful and embarrassing mainly because of my acting. I thought that I was a bit better than this but clearly I’m not. I’m rubbish in acting. But, that’s not important. The important thing is that you learn some English. Isn’t that right? I think so.
So, yeah, the idiom there was I’ll play it by ear, to play it by ear. Right? Okay!
So there are two more dialogues and here is the next one.
It’s in a doctor’s surgery, so our man, Jack Miller is going to the doctors to get a check up. Okay, so here it is.

Well, Miller
Yes, doctor
I’m pleased to tell you that you have a clean bill of health. You are fit as a fiddle. It’s quite surprising really, considering your age. I expect you have a body of someone half your age. How do you do it?
Well, I am just lucky, I suppose

More bad acting for you there. A kind of posh doctor character. Anyway! the idiom there was: You’re fit as a fiddle. You’re fit as a fiddle. Okay?

Now, here is the last dialogue and the last of my terrible performances. Here we go. It’s back to the story of Miller and the negotiation.

Hey, Miller, the board are furious. They said you screwed up the OCP deal. They say Cyberdine is in jeopardy.
Damn it! Did they say anything else?
Yeah, they say they wanna see you immediately. Time to face the music Miller.
I suppose so.

So, that’s the last dialogue. I hope you enjoyed the story of Miller and the negotiation and, yeah, sorry about the awful acting. Next time I’ll get, you know, Johnny Depp and Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and Christopher Walken to come and perform one of my dialogues.
I think maybe next time I’ll do Christopher Walken and Robert de Niro. I think that will be quite a good combination. So, anyway the meanings of those idioms …well, actually in the first dialogue there were two idioms. That was: It rings a bell and he kept blowing his trumpet. Right?

So it rings a bell means it’s familiar – I think I remember it. It’s familiar or reminds me of something. So, if someone says something like: Oh, do you know Jack Miller. And I say “the name rings a bell”. So, it’s like there is a little memory of it in the back of your head. But you can’t really remember it. It’s like a little bell ringing in the back of your head. So, his name rings a bell. Right? So, it’s familiar.

The other one in that first dialogue was to blow your own trumpet. To blow your own trumpet. And that’s basically to boast about how good you are. So if you keep going on about how great you are you are just blowing your own trumpet. Okay? Right!

In the next dialogue we had to pull out all the stops. To pull out all the stops. It was, okay pull out all the stops this month. And if you pull out all the stops it comes from….well, pull out all the stops means you do everything you can in order to achieve the results that you need. So, you kind of go full power into your work. You pull out all the stops. Now, that comes from old organs like church organs which use pipes and to get the loudest sound of your organ, you would pull out all the stops and stops are like little buttons that you can pull out or press in and they change the sound of the organ. So, if you pull all of the stops out it makes a really loud sound of the organ, so now we use the expression to pull out all the stops to mean to do something full with all our power. You know, to do everything you can in order to achieve the result, right?

Now, the other idioms like I just said: It rings a bell. Well, a bell is like a little thing you have at the top of a church. Ding, ding, ding, ding like that, okay? So it rings a bell. Like I said it rings a bell in the back of your head like a memory.

The other one is to blow your own trumpet. So, a trumpet is a musical instrument which you blow into. I am sure you know what a trumpet is. If you don’t know what a trumpet is I’ll play you a little bit of trumpet. I don’t play the trumpet but I’m gonna play you a little bit of someone else playing the trumpet. Here it is:

trumpet music

Okay, so that was a trumpet being played. That was actually Donald Byrd there. A great trumpet player. So, to blow your own trumpet means to go on and boast about how great you are. Okay? To blow your own trumpet.

Okay, in the next dialogue we had: That’s music to my ears, that’s music to my ears and if you say that when basically someone has said something that is exactly what you wanted to hear. It’s exactly what you wanted to hear. So, something that makes you very happy. That’s music to my ears. Okay?

Now, the next one was….let’s see….I’ll just play it by ear. I’ll just play it by ear and in that one Miller’s colleague said to him: How you are going to manage the negotiation without your notes and Miller said: I’ll just play it by ear. So, to play it by ear means that…eh….let’s see ..you improvise you don’t follow a plan. You just react to whatever happens there. So, Miller is going to go into this negotiation without his notes. He’s not going to use a plan, he’s just going to react as things happen. He is just going to improvise. Okay? So the origin of that to play it by ear is a bit like: when you play a piano when you play a piece of music without music, without sheet music. You are not reading the music you are just playing it by ear. Okay? So, that’s where that comes from. At least we use that expression to say when you do something without planning, you just improvise. You play it by ear. Okay?

So, in the next dialogue, we had….you are as fit as a fiddle. And that’s what Miller’s doctor said to him. You are fit as a fiddle which means you are very healthy. You are in perfect health. To be fit means that you are healthy. You are —you know, you do lots of exercise and your body is in good condition. But if you are fit as a fiddle it means you are really, really healthy. And a fiddle is another word for a violin. So, I am not sure why they say fit as a fiddle. Why is a violin fit? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the strings are tight and it’s kind of …I don’t know, in good condition or something. But fit as a fiddle. Here we go.

And in the last dialogue we had: time to face the music, to face the music.
Now, if you face the music it means you accept the negative consequences of your actions. You accept like if you don’t… something that caused a really bad reaction you have to just accept that and just face it. For example when lots of people are angry about a decision you made and they are in a room and they are all angry, you just go in there and speak to them. You need to face the music. Right? Okay!

So, that’s it. Actually I’ve just realised, I realised something at the beginning of this podcast I said that I will teach you all of those idioms like it rings a bell, to pull out all the stops, to play it by ear, it’s music to my ears, you are fit as a fiddle, to face the music, to blow your own trumpet and to change your tune. But I didn’t explain to change your tune. I’ve just realised that.

So, basically you change your tune, you change your opinion of something. Change the way you talk about something. So, for example if maybe one month John always talks about – I don’t know – “U2, like the rock band U2 if usually he says: Ah, U2 are rubbish, they are boring, you know, they are not very good at music, their songs are really bad and Bono can’t sing and he’s really annoying. So, I hate U2” and when that’s what for example John says about U 2 and then, like the next day after he listened to one of their songs, the next day he says: “Do you know what, U2 are really good actually, yeah. I think, you know, possibly one of the best bands in the country in the moment. As a matter of fact, I’ve purchased 2 tickets and go to see them life in concert.” Right?
And you would say to him: “What are you talking about, John? You’ve changed your tune. I thought you hated U2.” Right? So, to change your tune is to change your opinion of something and to change the way you talk about something.

So, that’s it!
So, I hope those idioms are useful for you. Let me give you actually just a couple of drills for those …just drills for those idioms. Okay?
So, these are just sentences I’m gonna read to you. I’d love you to try and repeat them. It’s good practice for your pronunciation. Think about how all of the words in the sentences are linked together when I say them and try to copy it. Okay!

Here is the first one:
His name rings a bell.
We’ve got to pull out all the stops.
I’ll just play it by ear.
That’s music to my ears.
You’re fit as a fiddle.
Time to face the music.
You’ve changed your tune
Don’t blow your own trumpet

And that’t it for this episode of Luke’s English podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you’re using these drills to practice your pronunciation.
That’s it for me and have a very nice day.
Cheers buy, buy, buy, buy, buy

Hi, folks
You are listening to Luke’s English Podcast. That’s right, this is Luke. I’m just sitting here right now, playing the piano. I play the piano maybe three, four times a day. Sometimes, if I have the time and I’m not teaching English or doing a podcast. I came up here to start playing the piano. Kind of makes me feel good. I am sure it makes everyone else in the neighbourhood feel good. I know my neighbours particularly enjoy the piano playing all hours of the day. Sometimes they bang on the ceiling there, just out of pure enjoyment I think. They sure love it when I play the piano.
So, I just thought I’d play this short piece for you right now. Just to give you another side of my personality, ladies and gentlemen.
And I’ll be doing another podcast for you real soon so until then have a very, very nice week. I’ll catch you soon. Thanks a lot, good night!

23. Summer Music Festivals

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Luke’s English Podcast is free and available to download as often as you like. It is designed to help learners of English with their vocabulary, listening and pronunciation. Also, Luke’s English Podcast aims to introduce you to unique aspects of the British cultural experience. This podcast is about music festivals during the summer months in The UK.

Hello folks, and welcome to Luke’s English Podcast. I’ve been to a few festivals this summer, so this podcast is about Music Festivals! So, relax, put your feet up, have a cup of tea (or whatever you might drink in your country: green tea, chai, jasmine, white tea, oolong cha, Japanese Sencha, peppermint tea, instant coffee, fresh coffee, Turkish coffee, South American coffee, Italian coffee, coffee from wherever it is made in the world anywhere, beer, wine, water, juice, coconut milk, cow’s milk, goat’s milk, kangaroo milk, blood (if you’re from Transylvania), and enjoy the podcast. Cheers.

Here are some key words and sentences from the podcast:

  • A few little fluffy clouds dotted around in the sky
  • I’m a bit sunburned
  • He’s very influential and a great musician.
  • He plays his guitar very loud, and he uses lots of feedback and distortion.
  • They sleep in tents in large camp-sites.
  • The arena has a number of large stages where bands can perform.
  • It’s a bit like going back to medieval times.
  • Thousands of people sleeping ‘in tents’ is quite ‘intense’.
  • There’s loads of good music and bands.
  • You can find out about new bands.
  • There’s lots of local beers and ciders that you can drink.
  • They’ve got distinctive tastes.
  • Cider is an alcoholic drink which is made from apples.
  • You can get out of London, escape from London.
  • It’s like a little mini home.
  • They do ‘jerk chicken‘.
  • It’s been marinated and soaked in a sort of sauce.
  • You get to meet lots of interesting people there.
  • You meet friends of friends and then they become your friends, and you can add them as a friend on Facebook.
  • It’s a great opportunity to show people your music.
  • It gives the music industry a big boost every year.
  • Sometimes it can be a nightmare.
  • If you can imagine thousands of people gathered together in a field, and it rains,
  • you’re going to get loads of mud everywhere.
  • It’s a bit like a disaster zone. It could be classed by the UN as a disaster zone.
  • You get lakes of mud. It’s disgusting.
  • You might get over-excited and drink too much, and you wake up with a bad hangover.
  • A tent in direct sunlight. It magnifies the sun and you just cook in the tent.
  • You don’t have a very good night’s sleep.
  • He was snoring in my ear.
  • They really rip you off. The prices are ridiculous. It’s a rip off.
  • It’s difficult to walk through the crowd.
  • The toilets are very smelly and disgusting.
  • Doing a number 1 isn’t so bad, especially if you’re a bloke.
  • Doing a number 2 for anyone is difficult. You need toilet roll.
  • It’s difficult to get to the festival and get back. You need to get on a train and travel across the country.
  • It’s a real mission just to get out of the festival.
  • You need a few days to recover.
  • You might be exhausted at the end.
  • You have to go back to work and be normal even though you’re exhausted.
  • It’s like a massive crowd of zombies, all sort of shabbling [not a word] about or shuffling around.
  • Mobile phone reception is so bad. The signal gets weak. You can’t call because there’s no reception.
  • If the tent is on a slope, if it’s on an angle you might not be able to sleep.
  • You’re back aches, and your feet ache. By the end you’re kind of broken by the festival.

The Green Man Festival Website.

22. Full Interview with Vicky from China

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A conversation with Vicky from China about teaching English, using podcasts in the classroom, how to learn English, and more…

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Luke’s English Podcast is for learners of English as a foreign language. Use it to improve your listening, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and cultural awareness. Luke is a teacher at The London School of English, but this is a completely independent free podcast for everyone. Email me: luketeacher@hotmail.com

Hello everyone. This podcast is the full interview that Vicky did with me a couple of weeks ago. We talk about teaching English, using podcasts in the classroom, the advantages and disadvantages of student podcasts, how to learn English, what a guinea pig is, and how to use an all-in-one remote controller!

There’s no transcript for this episode! But, if you listen to the last podcast in which Vicky gives some advice on learning English, you’ll know that sometimes it is better for your English to listen without a transcript.

My advice for this episode is:

  • Don’t try to understand every word you hear
  • Don’t worry if you don’t understand everything – you don’ t have to
  • Just try to understand the topic of the conversation and the basic things
  • Try to use your imagination and guess some of the things you don’t understand – fill in the gaps in your listening
  • Try to enjoy listening! It should be an interesting topic with information that’s useful for you
  • Listen to the conversation more than once – you’ll understand and remember more each time
  • Play the podcast when you are at home, doing the housework – just have it on in the background

Here are some pictures of things Vicky and I talked about:

21. Learning English with Podcasts – Advice from a Chinese student at Oxford University

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Luke’s English Podcast is a free learning English audio programme for students of English as a foreign language around the world. Each podcast is about a different topic – music, culture, news, celebrities, current affairs, British life, etc. Use the podcast to practise your listening and to pick up lots of real, authentic vocabulary. Luke is a well experienced and professional teacher at The London School of English in West London.

Hello everyone, a few weeks ago I was contacted by a Chinese student called Vicky. She is studying a master’s degree in education at Oxford University (yes, the famous one) and so she wanted to interview me about teaching English and using podcasts to learn. We met, and interviewed each other. She asked me about the advantages and disadvantages of podcasts for learners and teachers. I asked her about how students around the world can use podcasts to learn English, and if she had any more advice about learning English. Vicky is Chinese, and speaks English as a second language. Her English is good enough to win a place on a master’s degree course at Oxford University, and she has been studying education and English language learning for a long time. She has some very good advice and useful comments about learning English. Also, it is interesting to hear a Chinese person’s perspective.

I’m feeling very generous today, and I have written a COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT for the interview.

Here’s some advice on how to use this podcast to help your English.

1. Listen to the podcast once without reading the transcript. Try to understand the general meaning. What are we talking about?

2. Listen again, and read the transcript. Check any words or expressions you don’t understand by using a dictionary. An English-English dictionary is better for your English, because it helps you to think in English, and prevents meaning being ‘lost in translation’.

3. Listen to the podcast for a 3rd time, but without the transcript. This time you will understand a lot more and you will remember lots of things we said. The expressions and comments will stick in your head. You will understand the details more easily. You’ll be able to use some of the words and expressions in your English conversations in the future, because hopefully the words will be stuck in your head.

So, here is the transcript to the interview. Enjoy!

Interview With Yun Xu (Vicky) on Wednesday 29th July, 5pm in Holland Park, London.

Luke: So, what’s your name?

Vicky: Vicky, and my Chinese name is Yun Xu. I know it’s quite difficult for English, British people to pronounce Yun, Y-U-N…

Luke: Right, ok, so why did you choose the word Vicky? The name Vicky?

Vicky: The name Vicky… actually my… the first name I picked was, it wasn’t picked by me. The first English name was picked by my teacher. The first day when I got into middle school, and teacher said that you had to have an English name. So, what we do, is like, draw lots…

Luke: You draw lots?

Vicky: …draw the lots. The first name I got is, I think it’s, erm… Victoria. And then I changed into May because Victoria is too long for middle school students to pronounce, and it’s quite… kind of, you know when people would like to… to… when they invite someone out, it’s like they say “Hi Sophie! Let’s go out. Hi Mary!” They would never say “Hi Victoria” – it’s too long!

Luke: Too many syllables. VIC-TO-RI-A – that’s four syllables

Vicky: and it’s hard for them to pronounce beautifully, so they will invite someone, like, called ‘Sophie’, ‘Mary’ or whatever. ‘Jane’ or whatever… so I just changed the name into May. M-A-Y

Luke: M-A-Y ‘May’

Vicky: But after a couple of years I think that Vicky [is] probably better. I would love to use the name Victoria, which is the same name as your Queen

Luke: Queen Victoria, yeah

Vicy: Queen Victoria… and I use Vicky as a nickname so that people will find it more convenient to call me

Luke: Vicky, it’s just easier to say

Vicky: Yeah, it’s just easier to say

Luke: So your teacher actually gave you the name Vicky, and you said that you drew lots. That means, obviously, that there were a load of names written in a hat… into, on bits of paper and you put them in the, a hat

Vicky: They don’t make you draw lots…people would walk in front of me and say “I will draw a lot for you and that name on the paper should be your name. Just pick on of the names and overwrap it [unwrap it]…

Luke: and you became Vicky. Right. How did that feel? To just randomly be given a name? You don’t mind?

Vicky: No, well at that age I wasn’t [didn’t] mind at all, but now when I think back I think the teacher’s kind of manipulating

Luke: You mean, just, sort of, the teacher was a bit inhumane just giving you a name

Vicky: Yeah, but it’s the fastest way for her to give a name for every student

Luke: Yeah, they have to do that

Vicky: Yeah

Luke: They

Vicky: But she has also got lots of problems because all of teacher, the students came to her and complained about their names, “I don’t like this name, I want [to] change a name”, she would say “just go home, just go home and find a name for yourself … and just tell me what your new name is”. But seldomly the students would do that. Students will have a problem finding a proper name for themselves

Luke: Yeah. It’s basically… I can imagine in China it’s just easier for the teacher to give you a name. It’s easier. I can imagine it would be very difficult to ask every student to choose their own name, because no one would know what to choose.

Vicky: And every time when they choose a name, they’d ask you whether it’s a good name for me. How can I answer a question like whether it’s a good name for you?

Luke: Yeah. Ok.

Vicky: And it’s over 30 out of 40 students in one classroom

Luke: Yeah, it’s a lot

Vicky: Uh huh

Luke: So just for practical purposes they just, sort of, randomly choose word, names for you. OK, well Vicky, that’s good, y’know. Quite a common name. My cousin is called Vic – Victoria.

Vicky: Ok

Luke: So, you’re from China, right, so are you studying here or…?

Vicky: Studying here. In Oxford University

Luke: Ah, Oxford. The prestigious Oxford University

Vicky: Kind of…

Luke: Wow… And what are you doing?

Vicky: Erm, Actually now I’m a student in… and MSc student in education, and I’m kind of doing research in podcasting and English learning as a second language

Luke: Right, so you’ve… and you’ve found me…

Vicky: Yeah. Randomly.

Luke: Randomly, ok

Vicky: Should be randomly, because I interviewed Ben, and he introduced you to me so, could be, should be called randomly

Luke: I guess so, I guess so. Erm… now, so you’re doing a master’s degree on podcasting and learning English as a second language

Vicky: I’m doing a master’s degree on education, e-learning

Luke: e-learning

Vicky: Yeah, and I am writing research on podcasting

Luke: Ok. Your dissertation is about podcasting. Ok, right, now obviously you speak Chinese as your first language, so erm, first of all, before we talk about podcasts briefly, do you have any just, ‘quick tips’ for learning English. Because, obviously, you’re studying here at Oxford University so your English is very good, so how… can you just give, like, a few quick tips for my listeners…

Vicky: The first one is that you have to be brave enough to speak. You have to be bold enough to study. And, as a Chinese I think you have to be, umm, you have to push yourself a little bit.

Luke: Push yourself

Vicky: Push myself

Luke: So you need to be brave, and you need to push yourself

Vicky: Push yourself a little bit, to memorise those vocabularies [the vocabulary] . But I think the most important thing is to study, to learn how to communicate with people. Because I still remember one thing when I, I actually, I didn’t, err, I didn’t use a lot of time, I didn’t spend a lot of time on memorising those words, and reading. I love watching movies and I love listening to audio material, because I think the, you, you have to have the input of language, of a second language, but not only the paper work. You have to have the audio things, the video things, so that you could get, umm, you look, you read, you listen, and that’s making… and that is actually making your input diversified. That is making you… you actually… I learn quicker than my peers

Luke: so, because you learn by getting audio, getting video, by reading, by having a diverse erm, kind of, erm exposure to English

Vicky: to English, and I kind of expose myself to the English speaking environment

Luke: yeah

Vicky: Erm, that’s better, and probably that’s the best way for Chinese students.

Luke: You have to, kind of, live in English

Vicky: Live in English

Luke: Don’t just learn it from a book. You have to go out there and be brave enough to try and live in English

Vicky: That’s it

Luke: It’s about taking risks isn’t it?

Vicky: Yeah, kind of

Luke: being strong enough to take the risks. But it’s also about enjoying the language isn’t it?

Vicky: Uh huh

Luke: You have to try and get some sort of pleasure out of what you’re listening to, or try and enjoy the experience of speaking the language and improving it, isn’t it?

Vicky: Yeah, so that’s why I don’t like the news. I don’t like listening to news, especially the ? news or international news which is all about sensational news, all about bombing, bombing or

Luke: Yeah, terrorism

Vicky: or about the recession. I don’t like them because…

Luke: …it’s depressing

Vicky: yeah, a bit depressing, and what is, what, actually [how does] it relate to me? It’s nothing with… it’s none of my business [it’s nothing to do with me], and I would like to, would love to listen to lecture[s] and the educational or academic things about the people I like, about the movie[s], about life, actually about life

Luke: So it’s kind of like, finding, thinking about your interests, and following them in English. I mean, I don’t speak Japanese, I speak a little bit but used to, when I lived in Japan, I used to have a radio, I bought a radio just so I could listen to Japanese radio. Because there was a radio station called ‘Shonan Beach FM’, which was the local radio station where lived, and they played, sort of, jazz music and, sort of, nice, err, y’know, soul music and jazz music and I thought it was the coolest thing to listen to, err, jazz music on a radio station in Japanese, because the DJs would speak, they’d talk about the records in Japanese and then they’d play the record. And I would listen to them speaking Japanese and I just loved hearing Japanese people talking about jazz in Japanese. I didn’t understand what they were talking about but I enjoyed the rhythm of the conversation and I enjoyed identifying who they were talking about, and I used to listen and try and guess what they were talking about, and I honestly believe that sometimes I understood. I did understand what the conversation was. You know, they’d be saying things like “well that was Miles Davis and, Miles Davis is really nice isn’t it, yeah” and err…

Vicky: You’d just guess

Luke: Yeah, and “he recorded a record with John Coltrane in 1948, and erm…” You know, just by listening to a few things I can kind of try and guess what they are saying, but I just enjoyed ‘how does a Japanese person talk about jazz music?’, and it was just nice listening to it, so if I was learning English, I would be on the internet, finding podcasts about The Beatles, and finding listening and video things about stuff I’m interested in…

Vicky: …and there’s one way, the last way, the ultimate way, if you find no way to study English, one of my friends just made this joke: If there’s no way for you to learn English better, no better way for you, just go to a bar, go into a bar and grab a British boyfriend

Luke/Vicky: Hha ha haha ah ah ahah ahah ah ah !

Vicky: Can we put that into the…?

Luke: Yeah, you can say that, yeah yeah! If there’s no other way, then just find a boyfriend of girlfriend who speaks that language, yeah. ‘Learning by doing’, I think it’s called…

Vicky: Yeah…

Luke: Just the other question actually, that I wanted to know about is erm… So we talked about how I can try and improve and, and get more out of this, but just advice for my students, or advice for learners of English who are listening to this podcast, how can they use podcasts on the internet to improve their English? Is there any, have you got any advice on that?

Vicky: Two [pieces of] advice actually. The first one is that you, first time, the first time you listen to it, don’t depend on any transcripts. Just listen to them. You could get the general message what the podcast is talking about, what this episode is talking about, even though you couldn’t understand it, it’s better not [to be] dependant on the transcript.

Luke: Yeah, ok

Vicky: And then you could turn back to the transcript if they have one and to read them. Do not read from word to word because it’s not the natural way you read things. Just pick up the general message and pick up those words you don’t understand, and check it and pick it up in a dictionary. And then you listen to them again. So, you could, without a transcript. You listen to them again. So you could see you’re actually making progress, and, that’s, which, is quite essential, it’s quite critical for those students. They could get the idea that I am making progress, so they will love it. It’s like, they’ll kind of be addicted to it because they are making progress. They’re happy with it.

Luke: yeah, yeah, I see…

Vicky: And the second one is that you could play the podcast whenever you want, even though you’re taking a bath, because one of the students I interviewed said, he just play it, he just plays it, plays the podcast whenever he’s at home, like taking a bath or cooking or whatever. Because, kind of, he just, erm, erm, how to say that? He just exists in this kind of English, just expose himself, exposes himself to this English speaking environment, so randomly he will pick up some words and memorise something and he will think… because it is inputted randomly, he will produce it randomly, which makes his English more natural.

Luke: Right. Great. Thank you very much Vicky.

Vicky: Thank you

Luke: It was nice to meet you. Thanks very much, particularly for your comments about what I could do to develop it, and I’m always thinking about it. I need to become entrepreneurial, and become an entrepreneur. Err, yep, I hope that my rambling comments were useful.

Vicky: Oh, really

Luke: Good

Vicky: Thank you

Luke: ok

Vicky: ok

Luke: That’s it

20. Beware of Bad Pronunciation

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This is a podcast for learners of English as a second language. Use it to improve your vocabulary, listening, pronunciation, idioms and cultural awareness. This podcast is about how you should be a bit careful of the reliability of some videos on the internet.

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Tracy Goodwin’s infamous guide to “How to speak with a British Accent” from ‘Expert’ Village

Transcript to Tracy Goodwin’s video

“Now let’s practise the short ‘o’, and again I’ll give you words and sentences. I’ll say them standard American first, followed up with the British dialect.

Hot Hot

Coffee Coffeh!

Fought FOTT!

Not NOT

Bobby Bobbeh

Fond Fawned

Now some sentences:

Ron opted to ignore Dot

Lost coffee is not to be fought over

The dog was lost in the fog

The loft smelled like strong coffee”

OK, that’s Tracy Goodwin’s advice. Unfortunately, most of it is plain wrong. Sorry Tracy.

Here are some of the comments made on her YouTube page

Somewhere in England there’s a bunch of poor Americans walking around talking like complete dicks because of this lady. Never in my life have I heard anyone say coffee like that. Ever. And I’ve live in England all my life.
 
Never in all my days in Britain have I heared anyone say coffie like that.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

She doesn’t have a clue. English people can understand Americans. We’re not retards that need to be spoken to in our ‘dialect’.

LOL lol lol lol!!!! The way she says coffEH is sooooooooooooooooooooo funny!!! i have a west coast accent but live in the UK, and let me tell you, that is sooooooooooo not how these people talk. Like, not one bit!!! Especially the way she says coffee, it is so not friggin’ “coffEH”! LOL. and that barbie thing she was on about is not bobby!!!! Certainly not!! LOL, what a freak! She ain’t no expert! ;]]]

hahahahahaha

UPDATE (April 2014)
I was thinking about this podcast episode recently, and I was a bit worried that I’d been unfair to Tracy, or that it was a bit cruel to publicly shame her. I was considering removing this episode, because I think it’s not very nice to make fun of other people online. I decided I’d have another look at Expert Village, and Tracy’s videos. I watched some more videos from Expert Village – and it made me realise again – these videos are terrible! I’m sorry, but it’s just not fair to label Tracy as an expert in speaking with a British accent, and in fact many of the other videos on ‘Expert Village’ are absolutely laughable. They’re not experts, much of the advice is wrong and in some cases dangerous. It makes me wonder how this channel operates. Who are the people in the videos? Who is in charge of Expert Village? How do you get a video on this network? In some cases, the so-called ‘experts’ seem to be embarrassed by their videos. Have a look at this video below. It’s a compilation of some of Expert Village’s biggest failures. I started with sympathetic intentions, but now I think Expert Village probably deserves all the criticism it gets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvAAycrwyIA

 

19. Passive Verb Forms

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Luke’s English Podcast is for people learning English as a foreign language. This episode is about passive verb forms, their use and pronunciation. You can read a transcript below.

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Luke’s English Podcast is for people learning English as a foreign language. This episode is about passive verb forms, their use and pronunciation. You can read a transcript below.

Hello, welcome to Luke’s English Podcast. It’s been ages and ages since I last did one. I’ve been really busy with lots of things, but mainly: my music (I’m in two bands at the moment – The school band is playing a concert at Brook Green Hotel in Shepherds Bush on Friday 14th August, and my cousin’s band Neech are playing the Big Chill Festival this Saturday. I’m playing drums in both bands. ) So, I’ve been busy practising with those bands.

Also, I’ve been teaching general English summer courses at my school. They’re usually very busy because we have lots of students in the school, and the teachers have to write their own material- we don’t use books. So, I’ve been using all my energy on music and work. Anyway, now I have some time to do a Podcast.

Hello to everyone who has sent me a message – I don’t have time to name you all. The Podcast is becoming more and more popular. I’m getting messages via email, Twitter, and my comments box on the webpage. If you’re listening on iTunes, go to my site to read a transcript of everything in this podcast. I’m being very generous today and I’m providing a whole transcript! Don’t forget, if you’re a rich Russian business man, or a Saudi oil sheik, you can send me money as a donation – about 2million would be nice. That should be enough to help me make a few more podcasts before I retire to the carribean. Actually, I have made absolutely NO money from this podcast, and at the moment I’m doing it just for the love.

Now, there is useful stuff in this podcast. You’re going to learn about:

Exactly how and why we use passive forms.

Some pronunciation of passive forms.

There will be real examples. The grammar will be carefully explained.

I will provide pronunciation drills – sentences in British English for you to copy and help your accurate speaking.

That’s it – enjoyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!

STOP – grammar time.

That’s right, it’s grammar time ladies and gentlemen, and this grammar point is about Passive Forms

At higher levels, the study of grammar becomes more in depth and as a result of this, it becomes a lot more theoretical and complicated. So, it becomes difficult to understandand sometimes boring. I’m sure you’ve all had those boring grammar classes in which you don’t really understand anything, and just make you fall asleep. However, in order to get a full understanding of how the language works and why mistakes are made etc, grammar has to be studied. Using a range of grammatical forms is also a feature of good, fluent, advanced speaking.

This brings us to passive forms. They are used a lot in English. Honestly, they are. In my opinion, there are 3 difficult things for students to deal with when studying the passive:

1) The complicated form – it is hard to manipulate sentences using the passive in different tenses, and after modal verbs etc ( this is because of all the different auxiliary verbs, past participles etc).

2) Understanding how and why the passive is used. Many students say they know how to construct passive sentences, but don’t know when they should use them.

3) The pronunciation of passive forms – it can be difficult to hear all the little words used when native speakers use passive forms. Also, it’s difficult to pronounce them correctly if you’re not a native speaker.

In this podcast I’m going to talk about the passive form, why it is used and the pronunciation of sentences with a variety of passive forms. Later in this podcast you will hear some pronunciation drills which you can (and should) use to develop your pron.

What are passive forms? (point 1)

I am not going to go into great depth about this area. You can look at the back of your textbook or in a good grammar book to look at how the passive form changes in different tenses and after certain verbs. Nevertheless, here is a basic overview of what passive forms are:

Active sentences are in this structure:

SUBJECT/AGENT – VERB – OBJECT

E.g. Michael Jackson – wrote – this song

The subject is the agent (the thing that ‘does’ the verb)

The agent is included because it is important, or is the topic of the sentence (e.g. if the question is “who wrote this song?” it is important to say “Michael Jackson wrote it”)

But, sometimes it is better to order the sentence in a different way. Like this passive sentence:

SUBJECT – VERB – (PREPOSITION + OBJECT/AGENT)

E.g. The song – was written – (by Michael Jackson)

In passive sentences:

The form is different – You always have an auxiliary verb ‘be’ – this can come in many forms, eg. Being, been, was, were, am, are, is

The agent is often not included

If the agent is included, you have to use a preposition (by)

You need to use a past participle verb, and these are sometimes difficult to remember

Why is the passive used? (point 2)

It is sometimes thought that passives are not necessary. “Why bother using them?”. Some students say that they don’t think native speakers use them – and that teachers teach them just because they have to. Some students just don’t use passive forms in their sentences, which is one of the reasons why they don’t go beyond an intermediate level. One thing I can say for sure is that when teachers teach grammar forms – they do it because they are essential for the imporovement of your English. Don’t forget – advanced speakers use a variety of grammatical forms and vocabulary…

They are used a lot, and they are useful. But, why? and how?

Here’s a list of reasons why the passive is used:

  • The agent is unknown (“What happened to the pizza?” “It was eaten” “by who? “we don’t know”)
  • The agent is not important (“I don’t care who did it, I’m just angry that my pizza was eaten! I was going to eat it later!”)
  • The agent is obvious (“The thief was arrested” -obviously it was the police because they usually do that)
  • The process (the action of the verb) is more important than the agent (the one who did it) “I’m just annoyed that my pizza has been eaten already – I didn’t even get a chance to have any”
  • The patient (the pizza – it receives the action of the verb) is the topic of the sentence or story, so it is put at the beginning.

Real Examples: BBC News Report

OK, listen to the following news story about Michael Jackson’s death. It contains 10 passive forms, but in complex tenses. Can you find them. Before you listen, let me explain these words:

Paramedics – Doctors who drive ambulances!

Beverly Hills – An area in California where lots of famous people live

Suffer a cardiac arrest – to have a heart attack

To be due to do something – to be arranged to happen. It is going to happen because it is planned

To resuscitate someone – to bring someone to life – using electricity, or breathing or pumping the chest

A post-mortem – a medical examination of a body after it has died

So, there are 10 passive forms. Can you find them?

Pop star Michael Jackson has died in Los Angeles, aged 50.

Paramedics were called to the singer’s Beverly Hills home at about midday on Thursday after he stopped breathing.

He was pronounced dead two hours later at the UCLA medical centre.

Jackson, who had a history of health problems, had been due to perform a series of comeback concerts in the UK, beginning on 13 July. He is believed to have suffered a cardiac arrest.

Speaking on behalf of the Jackson family, Michael’s brother Jermaine said doctors had tried to resuscitate the star for more than an hour without success.

Jackson’s body was flown from UCLA to the LA County Coroner’s office, where a post-mortem was carried out. The results have not yet been published.

Concerns over Michael’s health were raised last month when four of Jackson’s planned comeback concerts were postponed, but organisers insisted the dates had been moved due to the difficulty of organising the show.

Find examples of the passive in the text. There should be 10.

Think about these things:

1. Which tenses are used? (present simple, past simple, passive infinitive)

2. Why has the passive been used in each case? Use the list of reasons from the second page to help you.

Here are the passive sentences:

# Example Tense Why is the passive used?
1 Paramedics were called to the singer’s Beverly Hills home Past simple It is not important/we don’t know who called the paramedics
2 He was pronounced dead Past simple It’s obvious that doctors at the hospital pronounced him dead
3 Jackson had been due to perform a series of comeback concerts Past perfect Actually, it is impossible to put this sentence in an active form. To be due to do something is just a fixed passive expression
4 He is believed to have suffered a cardiac arrest Present simple Obviously, doctors/experts/journalists believe this
5 Jackson’s body was flown Past simple We don’t know/it’s unimportant/obvious who flew the plane – and the story is all about Jackson’s body.
6 a post-mortem was carried out Past simple Obviously, doctors carried out the post mortem
7 The results have not yet been published. Present perfect We don’t know/it’s not important/it’s obvious who publish the reports. Doctors or lawyers or something…
8 Concerns over Michael’s health were raised last month Past simple We don’t know – just that people were concerned. Putting the concern at the beginning (as a noun) is better than saying ‘people were concerned’ – the important thing is the concern, not the people.
9 four of Jackson’s planned comeback concerts were postponed Past simple Obviously, they were postponed by Jackson’s managers & promotors
10 the dates had been moved Past perfect Again, we know who moved them – it was his managers

How are passives pronounced in sentences?

In a moment I am going to read some sentences with passives in them. I’m focussing on the way these passives are pronounced. There are two main issues:

Auxiliary verbs pronounced with weak forms so they are difficult to hear.

Past participles (especially –ed) ones are just difficult words to pronounce correctly.

So, listen to me read the sentences. I’ll read each sentence once with all the words individually pronounced. Then I’ll read them with the words linked up. Repeat the linked up sentences. Try to copy exactly how I say it – think about the rhythm and word stress I’m using. You could record yourself – this will really help you.

In these sentences there are passive forms, but also lots of other words. Try to pronounce them correctly too. Try to say the sentence as one long sound with all the words linked together. We don’t always link every word, but it is good pronunciation practice.

Present simple passive:

We’re given a test at the end of the course to check our progress in English

Present continuous passive:

We’re always being encouraged by our teacher to read books in English

Present perfect passive:

My podcast has been downloaded 120 times today already

Past simple passive:

All the the students were given a grammar test as soon as they arrived at school

Past continuous passive:

The students were being interviewed when I arrived at quarter past 10

Past perfect passive:

Everyone had already been put in their classes, except me.

Will + passive:

The podcast will be uploaded onto the iTunes store in the next few days

Going to + passive:

The new Harry Potter film is going to be released on Friday

So, you can go back to those sentences and listen and repeat them again and again.

That’s it, bye bye bye bye bye byebye!

18. 10 More Phrasal Verbs

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Learn 10 more phrasal verbs in this episode. These ones are all particularly useful in business English when you have meetings.
Listen to the meeting I had with my staff members (Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Sean Connery) about ideas for the next podcast on passive verb forms. Can you find the 10 phrasal verbs?
Full transcript available below

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Transcript of the meeting (A full transcript of the whole episode is also available below)

“Good morning everybody, hello. Yep, hi, hi Rob. Yep, hello Al. Good morning Sean. So yep, excuse me! Hello, sorry could you just listen… thank you. Err, Sean? Thank you. Ok so good morning to everyone, I’d just like to kick off by saying I hope you had a good weekend, and that you’re rested and ready to get down to some good work on the podcast this week. So, there are a few matters I would like to bring up in this meeting, but before we get on to that I’ve got a couple of messages here to read out.

I’ve got one here from Barack Obama. He says ‘Thanks Luke for the interesting podcast on Michael Jackson. It was educational, entertaining and informative. Well done.’ Well, I think we knew that already, didn’t we? Another one here from Yoda. Yeah, you know, Yoda? The Jedi Master? From Star Wars. Yeah, that’s right… and Yoda said, ‘Your Susan Boyle podcast I enjoyed. Listened to it 3 times I have. Very useful for my English the podcast is.’ Well, thanks Yoda. Erm, Bob – is he still going to grammar lessons? His sentence structure hasn’t improved much. Look, ‘do’ or ‘do not’ okay Bob? There is no ‘try’. Okay? Right, thank you. Thank you very much.

Now, Al asked me recently, yep that’s right Al, if we could upload a new video onto YouTube soon in order to compete with other YouTube teachers like MrDuncan and that guy with the stupid hat, yeah. Well, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later. I’m not too worried about those guys really, and I’d like to focus on the audio podcast rather than the YouTube videos at the moment. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out how important it is for us to just concentrate on audio podcasts. You know, people can listen to them anywhere, or while they’re having a bath or driving or on the toilet or whatever. I really don’t need to spell it out for you, do I? The main thing for us to deal with is, at the moment now, is the grammar rules for our next podcast on passive verb forms. Bob, can I ask you to deal with that? Ok, check it in the grammar book, read the main rules, and then just sum them up on paper for me. Ok, great.

So, now I’d like to just run through the diary for this week. Now, Al, on Thursday you’re going to interview somebody about the weather, okay? For our British weather podcast. Okay Al? Great. Now Bob, you’re doing the grammar research. I’m going to interview Keira Knightley on Thursday as well. Sean, let’s see… Sean could you perhaps just erm, go down to Tescos and get some biscuits and some coffee for us? That’s great, thank you very much. Okay, so, any questions? No? No? Great. Okay, let’s get started then…”

Here are the 10 phrasal verbs from the meeting:

1. to kick off / to kick something off
2. to get down to something
3. to bring something up
4. to get on to something
5. to put something aside
6. to come back to something
7. to spell something out
8. to deal with something
9. to sum something up
10. to run through something

Here are some definitions (check the meeting for examples):
1. to kick off = to start something
2. to get down to something = to start doing something seriously and with a lot of attention and effort
3. to bring something up = to say something, mention something, to start to talk about something (especially in a situation like a meeting)
4. to get on to something = to start talking about it after you have discussed something else
5. to put something aside = to not discuss something now so that we can discuss something else, to leave it until later
6. to come back to something = to return to something later
7. to spell something out = to clearly describe or explain something
8. to deal with something = to discuss something, give attention to it, fix it, do it, solve a problem
9. to sum something up = to summarise something, to put it in a short and basic way
10. to run through something = to repeat something to make sure it is correct, to check each point one by one

That’s it!

Here are some pictures of my production team:

Full Transcript
18. 10 More Phrasal Verbs

You are listening to Luke’s English podcast. For more information visit teacher Luke.podomatic.com

Hello, welcome to Luke’s English podcast. Today I am going to teach you some more useful phrasal verbs and it’s going to be done like this:
First I am going to play you a recording of a meeting. Okay? In that meeting recording there are 10 phrasal verbs. I’d I like you to try and find the phrasal verbs. So, listen to the recording and try to find ten phrasal verbs. I’d like you to imagine that I am having a meeting with my production team for Luke’s English podcast.
Now, actually I just produce the podcast on my own. But I’d like you to imagine that maybe I have got a production team of people who work together to produce episodes of Luke’s English podcast. Okay?
So, imagine I am talking to my production team on Monday morning. We are having a little meeting to talk about ideas for my next podcast. Okay?
So, in the production team I have got some actually, some people you might know.
There is me of course. I am the project manager and then you’ve got …then I have got Robert De Niro. He is one of my members of staff and I’ve got Al Pacino, as well. And also I’ve got Sean Connery working for me, too.
So, it’s a small team. It’s just me, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Sean Connery together working on the podcast. Okay?
So, I’d like you to listen to the meeting that we have on Monday morning and try and find 10 phrasal verbs. I will explain all of them, after you have listened to the recording, okay?

“Good morning everybody, hello. Yep, hi, hi Rob. Yep, hello Al. Good morning Sean. So yep, excuse me! Hello, hello, just sorry, could you just listen… thank you. Err, Sean? Thank you. Ok so good morning to everyone, I’d just like to kick off by saying I hope you had a good weekend, and that you’re rested and ready to get down to some good work on the podcast this week. So, there are a few matters I would like to bring up in this meeting, but before we get on to that I’ve got a couple of messages here to read out.

Let’s see! Well, I’ve got one here from Barack Obama. He says ‘Thanks Luke for the interesting podcast on Michael Jackson. It was educational, entertaining and informative. Well done.’ Well, I think we knew that already, didn’t we? Another one here from Yoda. Yeah, you know, Yoda? The Jedi Master? From Star Wars. Yeah, that’s right… and Yoda said, ‘Your Susan Boyle podcast I enjoyed. Listened to it 3 times I have. Very useful for my English the podcast is.’ Well, thanks Yoda. Erm, Bob – is he still going to grammar lessons? His sentence structure hasn’t improved much. Look, ‘do’ or ‘do not’ okay Bob? There is no ‘try’. Okay? Right, thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay, now, Al asked me recently, yep that’s right Al, if we could upload a new video onto YouTube soon in order to compete with other YouTube teachers like MrDuncan and that guy with the stupid hat, yeah. Well, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later. I’m not too worried about those guys really, and I’d like to focus on the audio podcast rather than the YouTube videos at the moment. Okay? I’m sure I don’t need to spell out how important it is for us to just concentrate on audio podcasts. You know, people can listen to them anywhere, or while they’re having a bath or driving or on the toilet or whatever. I really don’t need to spell it out for you, do I? The main thing for us to deal with is, at the moment now, is the grammar rules for our next podcast on passive verb forms, okay? Bob, can I ask you to deal with that? Ok, check it in the grammar book, read the main rules, and then just sum them up on paper for me. Ok, great.

So, now I’d like to just run through the diary for this week. Now, Al, on Thursday you’re going to interview somebody about the weather, okay? For our British weather podcast. Okay Al? Great. Now Bob, you’re doing the grammar research. I’m going to interview Keira Knightley on Thursday as well. Sean, let’s see… Sean could you perhaps just erm, go down to Tescos and get some biscuits and some coffee for us? That’s great, thank you very much. Okay, so, any questions? No? No? Great. Okay, let’s get started then…”

Okay, what a very successful meeting that was. But did you manage to hear the 10 phrasal verbs? Well, here is a list of the phrasal verbs that I used there. I am just going to read the list to you now:
Here we go.

to kick off, to kick off by doing something
to get down or to get down to something
to bring something up, to bring something up
to get on to something, to get on to something
to put something aside, to put something aside
to come back to something, to come back to something
to spell something out, to spell something out
to deal with something, to deal with something
to sum something up, to sum something up and
to run through something, to run through something.

Okay? So now I’d like to …just go through or run through those 10 phrasal verbs one by one. I’ll explain what they mean, I’ll explain how they are used and I’ll give you some examples, okay?
So, let’s start with the first one: So, the first one I used was to kick off, to kick something off. In this case to kick off a meeting and it means to start something.
It’s just a phrasal verb which comes from football, actually. At the beginning of a football game, one team kicks off. They kick off the game.
So, we can use that expression in other things like, for example, in a meeting.
And I said: I’d just like to kick off by saying good morning to everyone. Okay? So it’s very common in a meeting. We say: I’d like to kick off by running through the agenda, okay?
So, to kick of by doing something!
I’d like to kick of by saying hello.
I’d like to kick of the meeting by saying hello to everyone, okay?
To kick off!
You could say to kick the meeting off. I’d like to kick the meeting off by asking you a question, for example. So, to kick off!

The next phrasal verb was to get down to something. Now I’ve talked to you about this before. To get down to something, it means to start doing something seriously and with a lot of your attention and effort, okay? To get down to something!
In the meeting I said: I hope that you are rested and ready to get down to some good work on the podcast, okay? That means I hope you are rested and ready to seriously start with concentration and effort some good work on the podcast.
An example for you as a learner of English might be something like: I had a free evening, so I managed to get down to my homework. I managed to get down to doing my homework. Okay?
Unless you are students in my class, because for some reason many of them can’t be bothered to do their homework at the moment and keep giving me these funny excuses like: Oh sorry, Luke, I did my homework, but my dog ate it, right, okay, yeah!. Yeah, sure, your dog ate it, right.
Actually, I can’t really blame them for using that excuse because I taught it to them. So, I suppose they are learning something even if it’s just the ability to come up with ridiculous excuses.
Anyway! The phrasal verb there is to get down to something. I need to get down to some work or let’s get down to some work on the podcast, okay? Okay!

The next phrasal verb was to get on to something, to get on to something. And that means to do something after you have done something else. Okay? Now in the meeting example there I said, there are a few matters I’d like to bring up in this meeting but before we get on to that, I’ve got a couple of messages to read out, okay? So, that’s to get on to something, meaning to do something next.

After that we had to put something aside. To put something aside!
Well, that means to not talk about something, so that you can discuss something else, okay? It’s a bit like saying I’d like to leave it until later or I’d like to wait until later before we discuss it. So, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later, okay?
So, in the meeting that’s exactly what I said. I said: Well, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later, okay?

Come back is the next phrasal verb, okay? Come back. And it’s quite clear I think that ….I expect most of you know that expression. It means to return to discuss it later, okay? To come back to it later, return to discuss it later.
Those are very, very common expressions that people use in meetings for example. It might be, well, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later. It means I don’t want to discuss it now, I’d like to discuss it later, okay?

Okay, so after that, next phrasal verb was to spell something out. To spell something out! And that means to explain something in detail, to explain it in detail. Now, in the meeting I said: I am sure I don’t need to spell out how important it is for us to just concentrate on audio podcasts, okay?
I don’t need to spell it out for you, right?
So, what I meant was: I am sure I don’t need to explain in detail how important it is, okay? I don’t need to explain it in detail. I don’t need to spell it out for you. We used the word spell, as well, when we are talking about how to write a word. How do you spell it? Yeah? How do you spell that? We also use the expression to spell something out to mean to explain it in detail, as well. So it’s quite common in a question. If you don’t understand what someone is saying, like if you don’t understand a suggestion that they have made, you can say: Sorry, I don’t quite understand that. Could you spell that out for me, alright?
Maybe could you explain that to me in detail. Right!

The next phrasal verb was to deal with something. To deal with something! And to deal with something means to discuss it, to give all of our attention to it and to fix it or solve it, okay?
So, in the case of the meeting, I said, the main thing for us to deal with is the grammar rules for our next podcast on passive verb forms. Okay?
So, that means the next thing for us to talk about, discuss and solve or fix is the grammar rules for our next podcast. Okay?

And then I said: Bob, can I ask you to deal with that? So that means I want Bob to do it, to fix it, to solve that problem, to work on that task, to do that job. I want him to deal with that. Okay?
Again, very, very common expression, that one!

Okay, the next phrasal word was to sum something up. To sum something up! Obviously that means to give a summary of something, okay? To sum something up, to give a summary of it, to summarise something, okay?
In the meeting, I said …I said to Robert de Niro: Read the main rules and then sum them up for me on paper. So, I am asking Robert, or Bob, as I call him – most of his friends call him Bob – actually, I said to him: Read about the grammar rules for passive verb forms and sum them up, so summarise them, write them in a simple way, in a simple form, right? Just the basic points, to sum something up.

Next phrasal verb was to run through something. To run through something! And that, that means to repeat something in order to make sure it is correct, to repeat it in order to make sure, it’s correct. Or to talk about it step by step in order to make sure it’s correct. So, I said: Okay, now I’d like to run through the diary for this week. So, you can imagine that means I am going to talk about each day, step by step in order to make sure that everybody understands it. To run through it! You can run through a lot of things. Run through dates in a diary, run through the points on an agenda for a meeting, run through comments for your customers, for example. So, run through something.

And that is it!
That’s the end of this little podcast about phrasal verbs. 10 useful phrasal verbs for you!
Don’t forget you can visit the web page: teacher Luke.podomatic.com and there you can read the phrasal verbs. You can also read a transcript of the meeting that I had with Bob and Al and Sean.
You can read a transcript and you can also read definitions and examples of the 10 phrasal verbs.

That’s it!
I hope you enjoyed that. I hope find it useful. If you want me to leave a message for Robert De Niro or Al Pacino or Sean Connery, just send me an email. The address is Luketeacher@hotmail.com. I’ll be glad to leave them a message for you. They are very nice people and I am sure they will be very happy to hear from you.

That’s the end of this short podcast. Thanks very much!
Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye

Thanks for listening to Luke’s English podcast. Don’t forget to email me at Luketeacher@hotmail.com.

17. Hello To My Listeners Around The World

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Here are some messages from me to you. This podcast is produced to help people to learn English as a foreign language. It is good listening practice and contains lessons on vocabulary and grammar for general English.

Right-click here to download this episode.
This episode is a chance for me to say hello to all my listeners around the world.

Every day, people from all over the world listen to and download my podcast. Some of them have been my students at The London School of English, but most of them, I have never met. In this podcast I’d like to say hello to you, and to answer some of the comments and questions you have emailed me. This is my chance to try and communicate to you, and ask you some questions.

Coming soon, podcasts about:

More Phrasal Verbs
Passive Verb Forms
British Weather
Narrative Tenses
Dr Who
…and many more!

Here’s a picture of my map which shows me my website visitors come from. Here’s some information for yesterday. We can see that Spain is the winner with 473 page views! (date: 12 June 2014)
Page views 11.06.2014

Episode Transcript

You’re listening to Luke’s English Podcast. For more information visit TeacherLuke.Podomatic.com. Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. This is Luke and this is a kind of news update and a chance for me to say hello to you and to give you a few messages and also to give you a little bit of news.

I said in the last podcast that I was going to give you something about passive verb forms. Well that is coming. I’m planning it, I’m getting it ready at the moment and it’s nearly finished so that is coming soon.

But I’d like to just give you a little bit of news in this podcast. I’m making some changes to Luke’s English Podcast so from now on it’s going to be a little bit different. Better, I hope.

I hope it will be better. So basically I’m going to try and reduce the length of each podcast. The last one about Michael Jackson was about 71 minutes long which is really really long.

I mean that’s almost like a movie or something, it’s so long. I mean that’s fine. I like doing long podcasts because I can talk about lots of things but I understand that for you, you’re probably very busy and you don’t always have time to listen to a podcast for 70 minutes or something.

I know that you can just pause the podcast and then you know come back to it and keep listening from there but still shorter is better, I think. So I’m going to try and make the podcasts shorter and to do that I’m going to do podcasts in separate parts. So for example I’m going to separate or divide my podcasts.

So for example a feature section will just be one podcast and a language section will be in a separate podcast. So basically before I would do one hour podcasts for example which would include a feature section which is an interview or something and then a language section which would be where I teach you some grammar or vocabulary. But from now I’m just going to do one podcast for the feature section and a separate podcast for the language section.

So you’ll get the same stuff but they will be in separate podcasts. It’s just easier for you to listen that way. So you will still get lots of vocabulary in each podcast even if it’s a feature section.

I’ll still explain all the vocabulary and useful words and things but it means that each podcast will be dedicated to just interviews for example or just phrasal verbs for example or just grammar or just idioms or just an interesting topic. So yeah I’m just going to give you separate podcasts on individual things from now on. For example soon I’m going to do three podcasts on the weather.

Now before that would be just one long podcast but now it’s going to be three separate shorter podcasts. So for example the weather podcast in three sections in three different podcasts will be the first podcast will be an interview with a local Londoner about British weather for example and then the second podcast in the series will be about useful words, useful vocabulary that you can use to describe weather and then the third podcast in the series will be about some weather idioms. So before that would just be one very long podcast but now it’s going to be three separate podcasts.

I hope you understand that. So now I’d like to give you some messages and comments from me to you. If there’s anything I can do just call on me and I’ll send it along with love from me to you.

That’s right it’s from me to you. This podcast is all about you my listeners who are all over the world and now I’d like to just give some messages and comments from me to you. Now my podcast is now more popular than ever.

I had 530 downloads in the last seven days which I think is quite a lot. I’m quite happy with that. Obviously I would like more.

My aim is to get as many listeners as I possibly can and you know I want to get thousands of people listening to this every week. At the moment it’s just over 500 people every week which is quite good I think. Now on my webpage I can see how many people download me every day.

So every time someone downloads or listens to one of my podcasts I can see the download number go up by one every time. So each time that number goes up my happiness level goes up by one every time. So if you can imagine thanks to you I’m feeling pretty happy today.

In fact if you think about it my happiness level has gone up by well 530 which is which is quite good really. So obviously there are other things in my life that make me happy like my band and my music, my friends and family, my football, my job, the comedy programmes and things. But this podcast is my own special project and it’s going quite well so far I think.

Like I said my aim is actually to be the most popular English language podcast on the internet. I know that’s quite difficult because I’m competing with the BBC and with other companies who actually do professional podcasts. But I’m going to keep trying and who knows eventually I might be able to make a business out of this and actually make some money.

But who knows. At the moment I’m doing it just for the fun and just because I enjoy communicating with people around the world and I enjoy teaching. I just think it’s fun and I’m interested in the technology and the possibilities of the internet.

Also I’d quite like to be a radio or TV presenter one day possibly. Who knows. I’m not sure about that but I enjoy doing this podcast.

It’s something that I can control myself. Also on my web page I can see a map which shows me where in the world I am being listened to and downloaded. When I look at the map there are numbers in places all over the world.

So if I look at that map now I can see lots of little numbers all over the world and they show me where I am being listened to and downloaded. It’s amazing really that I can see all these numbers. But when I look at my map I’m always thinking these questions.

I’m always thinking who are all these people? Who are they? What are their names? What do they do? How much do they understand my podcast? Do they find it useful? Does everyone understand my sense of humour? If you think about it I’m looking at the map now and just to give you an idea I’ve got numbers here for downloads in the last week. I’ve got someone in Seattle. There’s 10 people in Arizona.

No 17 people in Arizona. 5 people in Mexico. 17 people in Ohio.

9 people in Massachusetts. That’s just America. In South America I’ve got 3 people in Colombia this week.

4 in Brazil. 3 people in Peru. Someone in Argentina.

In the UK I’ve got loads of people in England. 13 downloads in Oslo. About 10 in France.

Lots nearly 20 or more than 20 in Spain. 10 in Poland. Lithuania.

Turkey. All sorts of places. Let’s see.

Russia. I’m being downloaded in Russia a lot. I mean Russia is a very big country of course so I’ve got lots of people listening all over Russia.

India. Sri Lanka. Thailand.

South Korea. And all over Japan. And it’s amazing.

It’s really amazing. So just thinking about those questions. Who’s listening? Do they understand everything? Is it useful? How do you listen? Do you listen on the internet? Or do you listen on an iPhone for example? I’d be really really happy to hear from you.

From all of these numbers all over the world. At the moment you or the only information I have about you is just a number in a country. I have some information about which web pages you’re using to find me.

A lot of people are finding me through Google. Some people are finding me through the London School of English website. Some people know me because they’ve been my students.

But most of the people here I’ve never met and they’re just numbers on a map. So I’d be really happy to hear from you. I do get messages from lots of listeners.

So now I’d like to say a little hello to some of the people who’ve written messages to me and some of the people I’ve met and who’ve mentioned the podcast to me before. So let’s see in Japan I’d like to say hello to Miho, Kiyoshi, Moto, Fumi and Koyo. Azusa, Keisuke and Saki.

In Korea hello to Jaeho of course. And I’ve got a special message for you Jaeho. Here it is.

In fact two messages for you. Here they are. Okay here’s the first one Jaeho.

All right ready for this? Here it is. So obviously that was Jimi Hendrix singing Hey Joe. Where are you going with that gun in your hand? It wasn’t me singing.

But it’s a special message for you Jaeho if you’re listening. Here’s the next message for you. Okay just a couple of messages for Jaeho there.

Actually that song is the Pussycat Dolls singing Jaeho from the movie Slumdog Millionaire. Just especially for you though Jaeho from Korea if you’re listening. Also hello to Taewook.

Hello to Hannah. Hello to Hera, Changun, Sooyoung. In Thailand hello to Jack.

Hi Melanie and Mint. Hi Debbie and sorry I can’t say your Thai name but Debbie is your English nickname. I hope you can understand that.

That’s all right isn’t it? Hello to Rosa and her students in Spain. Hello to Sverre in Norway if you’re listening and to Toril from Norway as well too. Let’s see.

Hello to Mick in Thailand I think. Mick I’m not sure where you are but thanks very much for the technical advice on my RSS feed that you gave me recently and it’s really helped me quite a lot. Hello to Fabian in Munich and thank you for the advice on the length of the podcasts.

Obviously I’ve taken it into account. I will try to produce more short podcasts for you in the future. Let’s see.

Thanks also recently Fabian for the exciting tips on self-defence that you gave us in Holland Park. Very interesting, exciting. Thanks a lot for those.

Hello to Inna in Ukraine. Thanks very much for the emails and best of luck reaching your advanced level. I’m sure you can do it.

Just keep speaking and listening and reading and writing as much as possible. Hello to Anna. I’m not sure where you are.

Are you in Russia? I’m very glad that you liked the podcast about Susan Boyle and Britain’s Got Talent especially the idioms that I taught you and you’re absolutely right. It is important to get idioms that people regularly use. By the way the idiom that you mentioned in your email which was to turn the air blue that means to use rude language or to swear or to use you know offensive or rude language.

Now it’s a bit old-fashioned that idiom but people do use it to turn the air blue. Blue language means rude language. People do use it.

I mean in fact I heard somebody say that expression on TV recently to turn the air blue. If you say he turned the air blue meant that he swore or he said some rude things, right? But you’re right Anna. It’s important to get idioms that people use regularly.

It’s very hard to teach idioms because there are so many and I’m sure it’s difficult to learn them as well because you don’t know which ones are the good ones, which ones are the bad ones. But they are very important because they help you understand native speakers when they’re talking. A good way to be sure that you’re getting good idioms is to use books which have been published by Oxford University or Cambridge University or Longman for example.

That’s because the editors of those books work very hard to make sure that the language is all useful and real, okay? Hello to Mariano in Argentina. Now Mariano I’m very glad that you think my podcast is funny and useful. I’m also very pleased to be in touch with people in Argentina especially because our countries have had some bad political history over the years.

But of course all of that is water under the bridge now. So it makes me very pleased to be able to get messages from someone in Argentina. Now Mariano has actually recorded a message for me and a message which I’m going to play to you now.

I will also include a script for this message so you know if you want to read what Mariano said I’ll print that on the web page for you. But let’s hear the message that Mariano sent me via email just a few days ago. Here it is.

Here’s Mariano from Argentina. Hi Luke and to all the listeners to the podcast. First of all I would like to thank Luke for the excellent podcast he’s offering to us.

My name is Mariano from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’m 34. I used to live with my parents and my sister.

I’ve been living alone for six years so I had to get used to doing a lot of new activities such as cooking, cleaning, washing my clothes and so on. I’ve been working at the bank since 1993. Nowadays I’m starting to be an English translator at university and I’m very glad to have decided to begin the course of studies.

In my free time I like listening to music, watching DVDs. My favourite band is the Beatles. I also enjoy listening to Queen, Pink Floyd, Elvis Presley, Eddie Cochran, Barry Halle.

Well the list of artists is huge but I especially prefer the music from the 60s. My favourite Beatle is John Lennon. Some years ago I had the possibility to do a radio programme about the Fab Four that lasted five years and luckily I made a lot of friends who were listeners to the programme.

According to the language I prefer the British accent to the American accent. I feel more comfortable with the British accent but I like to learn the differences between them. Well it’s all for today.

I send regards to all of you. If I made a mistake with grammar or pronunciation please forgive me. I hope to listen to more podcasts of the great Luke and as he says bye bye bye bye bye.

Well thank you very much Mariano. I’m very pleased that you’re liking the podcast. The great Luke.

Well that’s very flattering. Thank you. The great Luke.

I’m quite happy with that. It’s a bit like Great Britain or something isn’t it? Great Luke. Very nice.

Thank you. Yeah anyone who emails me or sends me a message feel free to call me The Great Luke. I could get used to that, certainly.

Let me see. I’m just quite interested in some of the things you said there, Mariano. Let’s see.

It is pretty difficult to get used to living on your own, isn’t it? I mean, cooking, cleaning, washing your clothes, all those domestic chores can be pretty hard to get used to, I guess. I hope you’re managing to keep up with all of that stuff, mate. Good luck with the translation studies.

I’m sure that you’ll do very well if you keep working hard. Sounds like you’re enjoying it. Your favourite band is The Beatles.

Well, I think my favourite band might be The Beatles too. I certainly love their music. Although some of my friends think that The Beatles are only for old people.

Well, I mean, you can think that if you like, if you think The Beatles are just for old people. Personally, I think The Beatles’ music is timeless. It doesn’t matter how old you are, anyone can listen to it and enjoy it.

Let’s see. So you did a radio show about the Fab Four for five years. That’s interesting.

Didn’t you run out of things to say? Well, I suppose there’s plenty of things to say about The Beatles. I mean, I know. I could talk about The Beatles all day if there was someone who wanted to listen to that.

Yeah. Well, anyway, of course you prefer the British accent. It’s much better than the American accent, isn’t it? Well, not really.

I’m just joking, of course. I like the American accent as well, as well as the British accent. Especially American accents like the Brooklyn accent or kind of California surfer kind of accent.

There are lots and lots of different American accents that sound fantastic. In fact, I’m hoping to do a podcast about more different English accents. So, thanks very much, Mariano.

Basically, that’s the end of my podcast. Just to say hello to all the people who listen to this. Yeah.

I hope you’re enjoying them. And don’t forget to email me or send me comments or send me MP3s of you talking. I’ll be glad to play them here.

Also, if you email me, let me know if you would like me to correct you. Now, what Mariano said there was all perfect, actually. He didn’t make any mistakes.

To be honest, his pronunciation is a little bit Spanish, but he is from Argentina. But in terms of the grammar and the vocabulary, I didn’t find any mistakes. So, there’s nothing for me to correct.

So, well done, Mariano. You’re really good. You’re doing very well.

But if someone emails me, just let me know if you want me to correct you, because I can. I will do that for you, if you want. I’m so helpful, aren’t I? Why am I doing it? See, I’m not getting any money.

I’m always talking about money at the end of my podcasts, but it really doesn’t matter to me, actually. It’s not important. OK, so that’s the end of this podcast.

And stay tuned for more podcasts coming soon. In fact, I’m now going to do a podcast about more phrasal verbs, which is related to this because it’s about communication. So, I’m going to teach you some phrasal verbs in the next podcast, which you will be able to download very soon.

But for now, that is the end of this podcast. So, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye. Thanks for listening to Luke’s English Podcast.

Don’t forget to email me at luketeacher at hotmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode of Luke’s English Podcast, consider signing up for Luke’s English Podcast Premium. You’ll get regular premium episodes with stories, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation teaching from me and the usual moments of humour and fun. Plus, with your subscription, you will be directly supporting my work and making this whole podcast project possible.

For more information about Luke’s English Podcast Premium, go to teacherluke.co.uk/premiuminfo

16. Michael Jackson

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This podcast is about the life and death of Michael Jackson, and is produced to help people learn English by practising their listening skills and developing their vocabulary. Luke’s English Podcast is a free audio programme for learners of English. Luke is a well qualified English teacher of 8 years experience. He lives and works in London.

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Two weeks ago the death of Michael Jackson was announced. Since then, people all over the world have been mourning his loss. In this podcast, you can listen to short interviews with English people from London and their opinions on Michael Jackson’s music, dancing, children, plastic surgery, fans and his death.

Before that though, here’s some news!

The school that I work for (The London School of English) has recently started a blog. It’s called The London School of English World Blog. On this blog you can read about news and stories about the teachers, the school and London. It is written by some of the teachers at the school, including me (and Ben from the podcast about India). We also teach some vocabulary on this blog.

Visit the blog by clicking here:
The London School of English World Blog

Visit The London School of English here:
The London School of English

Also, I am now on Twitter. You can follow all my ‘tweets’ (news updates on Twitter) by clicking here: Luke’s English Podcast on Twitter

I will use Twitter to write very short updates to tell everyone what I’m doing and to give you little bits of news (e.g. on what my next podcast will be, or what I’m doing at the weekend). I will also teach you cool little words using Twitter, so keep visiting the page. Twitter is a really good way to keep up with what is happening in the world, and it is really easy to use.

The Life & Death of Michael Jackson

I thought it would be interesting for you to listen to the opinions of some ordinary Londoners, so I decided to interview some of my friends about Michael Jackson. Below, you can read their comments. Listen to the podcast to hear me explain some of the words and expressions they use.

1. Kevin (actually from Norwich, not London) on MJ’s music:
“I do find that I quite like Michael Jackson’s music. It’s quite catchy and errr melodic. The only thing for me is, the ‘kid thing’ kind of stained it a bit so every time I listen to it, I have to sort of put that bit out of my head… but… erm… I’ve got to admit, when I do hear a Michael Jackson tune I do feel like getting up and doing a bit of the moonwalk and everything. So, err, my favourite Michael Jackson song is Man In The Mirror. I proposed to my girlfriend with that one, so, it’s got a special place in my heart. Obviously, if we have kids, probably, won’t like it as much, but… it’s good stuff!”

2. Florence on MJ’s face:
“OK, so, Michael Jackson’s face. Well, it’s quite a weird face, it’s probably one of the most famous faces in the world. Erm, I think the weirdest thing is when you just look at pictures of him as a child and he’s completely unrecognizable. You wouldn’t even know that it’s the same person. But I do slightly get the feeling that it’s just gonna fall off any minute, because it just looks really… I don’t know! The skin just doesn’t look normal. It looks very frail, very pale. And, yeah, the fact that he denied having any plastic surgery or anything to change the colour, I just find very odd. I mean… maybe there’s some truth in it, but he’s obviously had a lot of work done on it. So, yeah, I find the whole thing… it’s quite depressing really, just knowing he must hate his face so much, or the face that he used to have so much that he’s changed it to the point where he just doesn’t, I mean he just doesn’t look like a normal human being, he looks like some sort of weird, y’know, parts of a face put together.” Luke: “It’s just a little bit weird.” Florence: “Very weird” Luke: “Slightly strange”

3. Raphael (actually from Liverpool, not from London) on MJ’s fans:
“Yeah, so, Michael Jackson’s fans. I dunno, I mean, I feel a bit sorry for his fans, I think, actually, because I think he’s one of these people with truly obsessive fans, you know? And actually, it’s actually quite tragic because some people have actually been killing themselves because they want to be with Michael, which I think is just, ummm, y’know, completely mental to be honest with you. Umm, I wouldn’t really say that I am a fan. I like him, or liked him, but I wouldn’t say I’m like a… I mean I didn’t have posters or anything like that. I had, like, one or two albums when I was a kid, but, yeah he’s got a lot of them and I think it was estimated that he was going to bring about a billion pounds to London or something through these 50 concerts, so I guess that just shows you how many people were out there and how many people are going to be, like, pretty err, pretty devastated now that he’s no longer with us.”

4. Shirley on MJ’s death and funeral:
“Well, when I first heard that he’d died, when I woke up in the morning and heard the it on the news it was a shock but I think I was over it in about 5 minutes. I think it’s all a bit hyped up. It’s very sad that he’s dead, it’s very sad when anybody dies, but I don’t really get it. I don’t really understand why people are, you know, gone into full mourning over the whole thing. I watched the funeral actually, because I was in a situation where I didn’t get to switch over… and well, it was like watching a concert really, and there was lots of people jumping on the band-wagon and everyone loves Michael and everyone was his best mate and err, yeah, Uri Geller, everyone was his best mate and then the thing that I didn’t like at the end is, his daughter was on the stage and she was really upset and one thing that he had done was try and keep them out of the spotlight their whole lives and the first thing that happened when he died is that they’re in the middle of it. I didn’t really like that very much but, anyway I suppose it’s a… well it’s sad but like I said I don’t think I’m going to lose any sleep over it.”

5. Claudia on MJ’s children:
“I suppose the first thing I think about when I’m trying to remember Michael Jackson’s kids, are, is, Bubbles his monkey because that’s the first thing I really associated with him when I was a kid, and then I guess I didn’t really think about his children much until he dangled Banket over the balcony and everyone thought he was nuts, erm, and I know he’s got three, I think three children. Paris, Prince Michael the 1st or 2nd and the 3rd or something, err, the little one’s called Blanket, I know that, erm… and… I know there’s a lot of scandal over whether or not they’re his. He always covered up their faces so no-one really knew. Some people thought it was to protect them. Some people thought it’s because he’s a freak. So, no-one really saw them but then when I did see them, they didn’t look anything like him. Actually, the oldest, the boy, the older boy weirdly looked a bit like he does or he did recently after his plastic surgery and whitening of his skin, so I don’t know quite how it works. But, erm, I think one of them has a different mother or something. I know there’s a lot of discussion about what’s going to happen to them now he’s dead. I read somewhere that he wants Diana Ross to have them, but she’s not that up for it. Erm, maybe his parents might have them. Errrr, and, yeah I suppose the latest thing is that they’ve been revealed on TV and Paris has moved the world with her emotional tribute to her daddy, so, erm, yeah that’s about all I know.”

6. Michelle (actually from Norfolk, not from London – but she lives in London now) on MJ’s dancing:
“Well Michael Jackson was a completely amazing dancer ok? I can remember trying to moonwalk in the kitchen and it all ended in tears. I think I ended up smashing my face on the tumble dryer. Our Mum actually banned us from moonwalking in the kitchen, so, err…”
Luke: “Seriously?”
Michelle: “Yeah, this truly did happen. Yes, we did, we did yeah. Because trainers didn’t work, you need slippery shoes and err, it all got a bit dangerous but he was amazing. Thriller was a great video wasn’t it?”
Luke (rudely interrupting): “It was dangerous because you didn’t have slippery shoes? So would it have been safer with slippery shoes?”
Michelle: “If we’d had slippery shoes it would have been so much safer…”
Luke (not making any sense): “I think what this is, is, errr, a joke, right?”
Claudia: “Justin Timberlake… everyone says he’s an amazing dancer”
Michelle: “Justing Timberlake doesn’t compare”
Luke: “Justin Timberlake… this has just broken down into nonsense… OK, so final point?”
Michelle: “Michael Jackson rules”
Luke: “And on that bombshell, I’m going to press ‘stop'”

7. Dong-Jin (from Korea) on MJ & Korea:
“He was the person who was interested in Korea, because, you know, in Korea there are some problems between North and South and he was trying to help us, you know? And also, yeah yeah yeah, that’s why most Korean people love him. Because, they, he had a concert and also, I don’t know exactly. We knows that, we know that… I don’t know how can I explain… My favourite song is, We Are The World… sorry sorry. Honestly, for me ‘Dangerous’ because his performance is really nice. Michael Jackson, we love Michael Jackson, especially for his personality, because, you know, even though he’s got a lot of rumours, we don’t believe. Honestly, I don’t want to believe, you know. I want to just focus on his achievements, something like that. And, err, even… errr. I really like him. That’s all…”

8. Andy P(from Birmingham):
Luke: I’m going to ask some of my friends about the whole Michael Jackson thing now. Err, Andy.
Andy P: Hello
Luke: Err, where were you when you heard that Michael Jackson had died?
Andy P: I was at home.
Luke: Right… and how did you find out?
Andy P: Err, on a website, on the Guardian website.
Luke: What time did you discover the bad news?
Andy P: In the morning. 9 o’clock-ish
Luke: Right… So what did you do when you realised the truth of the situation?
Andy P: Well, I realised the truth quite quickly that he had died, so that was not much of an issue. Umm, and then I just looked at some other news.
Luke: What, did you cry at all?
Andy P: No.
Luke: RIght, ok, thanks Andy!

9. Neil (from Birmingham):
Luke: Neil! Neil, so just err, what thoughts ran through your head in the hours after you realised Michael Jackson had passed away?
Neil: I’m going on holiday.
Luke: Ok, but didn’t you, sort of, feel any emotions at the time?
Neil: Err, I was in quite a big hurry. Errr…
Luke: ‘Hurry’ isn’t technically an emotion, Neil, so… talk about your feelings. Ok? Don’t worry, don’t be shy. What happened, on that fateful morning?
Neil: I went on holiday.
Luke: Ok. You can see I’m getting a lot of information here.

Dave (from Birmingham):
Luke: Dave, Dave! Dave’ll tell me lots of things. Tell me about Michael Jackson.
Dave: Well, he was a large part of my life for many years. Certainly towards the latter part of the 20th century, his music, in my opinion, became less and less of the kind of thing I’d like to listen to…
Luke: So you like his early stuff rather than his late stuff
Dave: I think that’s not that outrageous. Most people, felt similarly about him. The day he died, I was awake in bed, it was around 4.30AM when I found out and the BBC news started to do blanket coverage… that means they were doing it all the time…
Luke: So they weren’t reporting any other news, it was just Michael Jackson
Dave: Absolutely, yes.
Luke: Blanket coverage. Like a blanket over your bed. So bizarrely, you were in bed…
Dave: …with the blanket over me…
Luke: …when the BBC started doing blanket coverage…
Dave: …of Michael Jackson’s death. I texted a friend of mine who takes particular interest in this, but he’d already found out off three other people that Michael Jackson… that The Jackson 5 were now the Jackson 4…
Lizzie: Soundbite!
Dave: I certainly wasn’t upset! I think, you know, “MAN DIES” isn’t necessarily news…
Luke: Right, well, if it’s Michael Jackson it’s news, isn’t it?
Dave: That’s arguable. That’s contentious.
Luke: I’ll explain what contentious means later…
Dave: But, erm, yeah it’s upsetting for family members, but from a personal perspective it’s not something I necessarily consider to be newsworthy.
Luke: Right. Can you sum up the whole thing in a word, perhaps?
Dave: Overblown.
Luke: How about a sound?
Dave: Heeeeeehehhhh heh eh heheh eheh
Luke: Right, thank you. Thank you very much. I don’t think I’ll use that. But that was very… David’s comments were a lot more interesting than everyone elses. Liz, do you have anything to say on the subject? … No? Ok, she want’s to go back to sleep I think. Erm, right, everyone wants to go home. That’s it. That was, erm, slightly underwhelming…

Jim (Dave’s brother, from Birmingham):
Luke: How did you feel when Michael Jackson died Jim?
Jim: Nothing.
Luke: No change of emotions at all.
Jim: Nah. It happens to everyone eventually.
Luke: It does, yeah. Very philosophical. Erm, generally what did you think of Michael Jackson?
Jim: Errr, he had a hard life.
Luke; yeah? What about all that money? That was quite nice for him…
Jim: Yeah, but he was pushed into, err, celebrity-ism.
Luke: Ok, I’ll explain what celebrity-ism means later… It’s good. It’s a good word, but I expect that all the listeners won’t understand what that means, but that’s fine. What did you think of his music?
Jim: Yeah it was wicked. [wicked is a slang word which means ‘really good’]
Luke: Ok, erm, what about his face?
Jim: That was a shame… err… could have had a bit of work… err… do to…
Luke: Yeah, ok, he had a bit too much work done, didn’t he? Well thanks for… Any other comments about him?
Jim: No.
Luke: OK! Thanks! Liz! Liz!

Liz (Dave & Jim’s younger sister, also from Birmingham):
Luke: Go on… what did you think of Michael Jackson?
Liz: Erm, I found him quite a bizarre character. I did like his 90s music and I always will. Dirty Diana, and Man In The Mirror being my two particular favourites.
Luke: What about the, sort of, news reports about him? You know, the negative reports… Where do you stand on that?
Liz: I think that child molestation is a very serious accusation
Luke: Yes it is. It is very serious. I don’t know why we’re all laughing,
Liz: Erm, the very fact that that does have so much evidence around it does make me question in some depth Michael Jackson and his character.
Luke: Right, so you think he might have actually done it?
LizL Potentially, there is always that case if you take something to trial, is it not?
Luke: Yeah, there’s the possibility that it’ll be proven that he did do it, yeah. Ok, thanks for your comments.
Liz: No problem.
Luke: Jolly good.

michael-jackson-facelift-before-after

Very interesting Michael Jackson interview with Martin Bashir – MJ does a British English accent at the start :)

Let me know if any of these YouTube videos is out of date. (BTW if you think this sentence is grammatically wrong – “shouldn’t it be ‘any of these videos are…?” then click here to find out more)

Some pictures of my friends from Birmingham

15. Extra Podcast – 12 Phrasal Verbs

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Just a quick podcast today. 12 useful phrasal verbs.

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Just a quick podcast today. 12 useful phrasal verbs.
Listen to me read this text which contains 12 phrasal verbs. Can you find them all by listening and reading? I will explain them after you listen.

Here’s the text:
“I haven’t got round to doing another podcast recently. I haven’t been putting it off. It’s just that I’ve been caught up in a lot of other things recently. I haven’t given up on it, and I haven’t run out of ideas. It’s just that all my time is being taken up by other things at the moment. I hope you haven’t gone off my podcast. I also hope you’re holding out for the next episode. You’ll just need to hold on a bit longer for the next one to be uploaded. Don’t forget to let me know how you’re feeling about the podcast. If you’re a bit pissed off that I haven’t uploaded a new one recently, just send me an email to let me know how you feel. Don’t bottle up your feelings – that’s very bad for you. Just tell me any comments you have and I’ll be very happy. I like getting your comments. They always cheer me up.”

So, did you find the 12 phrasal verbs?
Here they all are:

1. To get round to doing something = to do something you haven’t been able to do for some time because you’ve been busy. “I finally got round to doing another podcast yesterday”

2. To put something off = to delay doing something, or to avoid doing something because you don’t want to do it. “I’ve been putting off doing my washing all week, but now I have to do it because I’ve got no clean socks left”

3. To be caught up in something = to be doing something which has stopped you doing something else. “I haven’t been able to do a podcast recently because I’ve been caught up in a lot of other things”

4. To give up on something = to quit doing something because you feel it isn’t going to be a success. “I gave up on being a rock star, because I couldn’t get a recording contract”

5. To run out of something = to use all you have and have nothing left “I ran out of milk last night so I didn’t have enough for a cup of tea this morning” (in England we have milk in our tea – we’re strange aren’t we?)

6. It takes up my time / My time is taken up by it = it uses all my time. “Work is taking up all my time at the moment – I don’t have time to do anything else”

7. To go off something = To stop liking something that you used to like. “I’ve really gone off Brad Pitt – he’s not so handsome anymore” (ladies – is this true? or is he still Mr Wonderful?)

8. To hold out for something = To wait for something that you really want or really need. “Great Britain is holding out for a tennis victory in the Wimbledon tournament this year.”

9. To hold on = wait. “Hold on a minute, I need to put on my shoes”

10. To be pissed off = (quite rude) Angry, annoyed, irritated. “I’m really pissed off with my neighbours – they keep making so much noise at night”

11. To bottle up your feelings = to keep your feelings inside and not say how you feel. “Don’t bottle up your feelings darling – if you have something to say to me, just say it! Do you still love me? Do you? DO YOU?”

12. To cheer someone up = To make someone happy. “John is a bit sick at the moment, so send him a card. It’ll really cheer him up.”

That’s it. Bye for now…