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.

94-96. Competition Entries

1 Reply

VOTING IS NOW CLOSED – THANKS FOR YOUR VOTES EVERYONE – I WILL ANNOUNCE THE WINNER & RUNNERS UP SOON! Click here to find out who won the competition.

Episode 1/2

[DOWNLOAD]

Voting closes on 16 May.

In this episode you will hear competition entries from: Camila from Brazil, Cristina from Italy, Daniel from Spain, Dimitri from Russia, Elisa from Finland, Ewelina from Poland, Farrux and Nodir from Uzbekistan, Genival from Brazil ,Hiroshi from Japan, Juan Carlos from Mexico, Kirill from Belarus

How to vote: Vote for your favourite comment/recording. Choose the one you like the most, and vote by adding a comment. Just write the name and country of the person you are voting for. The winner is the one with the most votes.

Listen to the whole episode to hear all the comments. There are more comments in the next episode too.

To help you learn English I have added some language feedback comments at the end of each competition recording.

Enjoy, and please VOTE!

Competition Entries Part 2

Episode 2/2

[DOWNLOAD]
In this episode you can listen to competition entries from these people: Kiyomi from Japan, Luigi from Italy, Marco from Italy, Nadia from Bulgaria, Nina the Dog, Regina from Russia, Romain from Switzerland, Romina from Iran, Samuel from Brazil, Stef from Bulgaria, Vagner from Brazil, Vanessa from Germany Yoshida from Japan.

Listen to all the comments and then vote below. You can vote by adding a comment below. Just type the name and country of your favourite. The winner will get the Macmillan Phrasal Verbs Dictionary. [Voting is now closed]

The Lost Competition Entry
Hi there. I forgot to add this competition entry to the last episode, so please listen to it and if you like it, vote!

[DOWNLOAD]

This entry is from Vagner in Brazil.

93. Weird… or just different? (with James & Aaron)

11 Replies

This episode is all about cultural differences. When you visit another country, you sometimes feel that the lifestyle there is strange, but is it really strange? In most cases, what we perceive as being weird, strange or bizarre about another culture is in fact totally normal from their point of view. So, we should remember to be open minded about other cultures and see the differences between us as fascinating and fun, rather than strange or wrong.

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download this episode.
In this episode I talk to my brother James and our friend Aaron about customs, culture and behaviour from around the world and discuss the question: Is it weird, or is it just different? Our conversation is inspired by a TED video I saw by Derek Sivers entitled “Weird… or just different?”. You can watch the video of his presentation and read the transcript below.

You can find a list of the things we talk about below. Feel free to add your comments below. You can share your thoughts, ask questions or tell us what things you find interesting and different about other cultures. You don’t need to sign in to add comments.

I was not sure if I should upload this episode. This is because I felt the conversation was quite chaotic and I feel embarrassed about interrupting James and Aaron so much. Normally I don’t interrupt my friends so much, but in this episode I was trying to reach conclusions and I was trying to manage the conversation. I’ve decided to upload it anyway because I still believe it is interesting and good for your English!

James, Aaron and I are good friends and here (particularly in the middle) we talk quite fast and often talk over each other. In fact, interrupting other people in conversation is another interesting cultural trait. In some cultures people interrupt each other a lot, and conversations tend to be very noisy and chaotic. Other cultures tend to have less interruption as people wait for each other to stop talking before they start. Here in the UK we are somewhere in the middle, although close friends will often talk over each other and interrupt a lot, like in this conversation. Your challenge in this episode is to try to keep up! Imagine you are in the room and you’re trying to follow the conversation. You probably won’t catch everything. My advice is – don’t give up! Don’t worry about the bits that you can’t hear or can’t catch. Just move on and stay with the conversation. In the end, it will be more rewarding for you. In real life too, you don’t always understand everything – we just have to survive in a conversation by focussing on the parts we DO understand, and guess the rest. Enjoy the episode, feel free to leave comments below and make a donation if you would like to. Thanks.

Cultural behaviour we mention in this episode:
1. Kissing or hugging people when you meet them
2. Having two taps in the bathroom (I’m obsessed with this subject!)
3. Wearing school uniform
4. Having milk in tea
5. Having advertising which features nudity
6. Publicly criticising the government
7. Girls wearing mini-skirts in the middle of winter (e.g. in a queue for a night club)
8. Eating scorpions / spiders / toads / frogs
9. Hawking / spitting in the street
10. Smacking children
11. Killing animals before you eat them / Having animals killed as part of an industrialised food production process
There are many more things which we didn’t discuss in this podcast, so I must do a follow up episode in the future.

Derek Sivers’ TED Talk + transcript:
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
So, imagine you’re standing on a street anywhere in America and a Japanese man comes up to you and says,

“Excuse me, what is the name of this block?”

And you say, “I’m sorry, well, this is Oak Street, that’s Elm Street. This is 26th, that’s 27th.”

He says, “OK, but what is the name of that block?”

You say, “Well, blocks don’t have names. Streets have names; blocks are just the unnamed spaces in between streets.”

He leaves, a little confused and disappointed.

So, now imagine you’re standing on a street, anywhere in Japan, you turn to a person next to you and say,

“Excuse me, what is the name of this street?”

They say, “Oh, well that’s Block 17 and this is Block 16.”

And you say, “OK, but what is the name of this street?”

And they say, “Well, streets don’t have names. Blocks have names. Just look at Google Maps here. There’s Block 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. All of these blocks have names, and the streets are just the unnamed spaces in between the blocks.

And you say then, “OK, then how do you know your home address?”

He said, “Well, easy, this is District Eight. There’s Block 17, house number one.”

You say, “OK, but walking around the neighborhood, I noticed that the house numbers don’t go in order.”

He says, “Of course they do. They go in the order in which they were built. The first house ever built on a block is house number one. The second house ever built is house number two. Third is house number three. It’s easy. It’s obvious.”

So, I love that sometimes we need to go to the opposite side of the world to realize assumptions we didn’t even know we had, and realize that the opposite of them may also be true.

So, for example, there are doctors in China who believe that it’s their job to keep you healthy. So, any month you are healthy you pay them, and when you’re sick you don’t have to pay them because they failed at their job. They get rich when you’re healthy, not sick. (Applause)

In most music, we think of the “one” as the downbeat, the beginning of the musical phrase: one, two, three, four. But in West African music, the “one” is thought of as the end of the phrase, like the period at the end of a sentence. So, you can hear it not just in the phrasing, but the way they count off their music: two, three, four, one.

And this map is also accurate. (Laughter)

There’s a saying that whatever true thing you can say about India, the opposite is also true. So, let’s never forget, whether at TED, or anywhere else, that whatever brilliant ideas you have or hear, that the opposite may also be true. Domo arigato gozaimashita.

92. UK Royal Family Opinions – Video (Part 2) [TRANSCRIPT]

6 Replies

This is the transcript to my YouTube video “UK Royal Family Opinions (Part 2)”. Some of the vocabulary is defined at the bottom of this blog post.

Transcript of UK Royal Family Opinions – English Speaker Interviews in London (PART 2)

Girl: Hello!

Luke: So, whereabouts are you from, in the country?

Girl: Um, from London

Luke: Ok, great, which part of London?

Girl: North West

Luke: Oh yeah

Girl: Queen’s Park

Luke: Queen’s Park, alright. So, err, having a nice day?

Girl: Yeah, it’s really good, yeah

Luke: Um, what do you think of the Royal Family?

Girl: I like the Royal Family. I liked the wedding. I thought it was nice that everyone was coming together. Yeah, I think they’re alright.

Luke: What about, erm… let’s see… Who’s your favourite member of the Royal Family?

Girl: Harry

Luke: Why?

Girl: (Be)cause he’s kind of my age-ish, seems alright, seems quite normal. I think both of the younger ones seem quite normal.

Luke: Yeah, okay. What do you mean by normal?

Girl: As in, like, not too, they kind of try and be as normal as, like, they can, like go to uni, army, stuff like that.

Luke: Yeah?

Girl: Yeah

Luke: You think the others aren’t normal?

Girl: I just think they seem a bit more, higher. I dunno, like maybe can’t relate to them as much.

Luke: If you had a choice would you get rid of them? Keep them?

Girl: I don’t think they’re doing any harm. I don’t think I’d get rid of them. I think it’s nice for the country to have a Royal Family. I think it’s nice.

Luke: Anything else to say to the people of the world?

Girl: Yey London!

Luke: Alright

Girl: I don’t know!

Luke: Thank you very much!

Couple in Green Park

Luke: So I’m asking people about the Royal Family. What do you think? Do you think they’re a good thing or a bad thing?

Man: I think you can differentiate between the Queen and some of the other members of the Royal Family. The Queen does an excellent job. I think it’s more difficult for the  others to know quite what their role is supposed to be.

Luke: Right, okay. Right what do you think?

Woman: I think… I admire them and I think a lot of them work hard but I think the media can give them a bad profile. They’re quite invasive [the media] and I think if anyone was under the spotlight they wouldn’t come out glowingly. I do admire The Queen and also the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, I think she works very hard, does a lot of work for charity. I’ve actually met her so I think that overall they’re good for the country, they’re good for tourism and I think they keep, generally keep good standards, so yeah, that’s my opinion.

Luke: Ok, right, thank you very much

Both: Thank you

Party Animals near Buckingham Palace. The girl is from Lancashire and the guy is from Yorkshire.

Luke: Right, so, I’m asking people about The Royal Family. What do you think, are they a good thing or a bad thing?

Girl: I think they bring valuable tourism, but that’s as far as it goes really. I don’t, yeah I’m not interested in them in the slightest.

Guy: I think they give us a British persona, we wouldn’t be British without a famous monarch, and she does look bloody lovely on the coins, much better than in person.

Luke: Ok, right, have you got a favourite Royal?

Guy: Yes!

Luke: Who?

Girl: It’s Kate Middleton!

Guy: YEAH!

Luke: So you like Kate then?

Guy: She makes a lovely breakfast

Luke: Have you had breakfast with her?

Guy: I ate with her in the morning

Luke: She makes a lovely breakfast?

Guy: Yes

Luke: Okay and, err, who do you like?

Girl: Yeah, obviously Kate, in that dress

Guy: Prince Harry’s a nice guy, he seems like the most genuine person who you could actually have a beer with in the Royal Family, I’d suggest, the only ginger person who is attractive to women in England as well, no offence interviewer [Luke: I’M NOT GINGER!]

Girl: And, I met the Queen… I met the Queen’s husband, I met the Queen’s husband once

Guy: Oh Prince Philip

Girl: Yeah

Luke: You met Prince Philip? This is fascinating

Girl: Yeah because he opened part of my college up, so I had to represent

Luke: What was he like?

Girl: He was a pretty funny guy. Dead posh, and he was in Salford so he was probably shit scared!

Guy: I met Prince Charles at our university opening and forgot to stand up but I had been drinking, very very much

Luke: Alright, thank you very much

Guy: I’m sorry Luke

Guy from Australia

Luke: Right, so what do you think of the Royal Family?

Aussie: Erm, neither here nor there really, like I suppose they’re a symbol of an era gone by. I think they bring in England a great deal of revenue. I think they’ve been a good money spinner for England.

Luke: Are they good for Australia? Big question isn’t it, I suppose.

Aussie: I think they’re good for a lot of the smaller countries that depend on the commonwealth, you know, and that symbolism at the top really holds a lot of those small countries together and gives them a voice whereas a lot of the Pacific nations wouldn’t have a voice if it wasn’t for being in the commonwealth, yeah

Luke: What do you like about William?

Aussie: He seems pretty… he’s not up himself for a start, he doesn’t seem to be up himself, he doesn’t mind getting in and getting

Luke: Getting his hands dirty

Aussie: Getting his hands dirty you know, his younger brother he’s not too bad either. He does some bad, some stupid things but all young blokes do. People have got to just accept that and get over it. Yeah but they both put their arses on the line for their country, you know?

Luke: Right, well thank you very much I appreciate that

Guy from Birmingham

Luke: So what do you think of the Royal Family?

Brummie: I think overall it’s a good thing. They’re an example, and you know they’ve… for the past couple of years they’ve really come into their own again. We’ve got Charles, you know, looking like he’s going to be one hell of a king, of course that’s if the Queen doesn’t outlive him. We’ve got erm, Harry and William who look like they’re going to be two excellent princes and one day king, so yeah they’re… I like them. I like the fact that we have a Royal Family. I think we should be proud of such.

Luke: Really yeah. What would you say to people who think that we shouldn’t have one?

Brummie: Most people who I’ve spoken to about it seem to object to the cost, which is fair enough, yes the Royal Family does cost but they do an immense amount of work for that and per head it’s actually very very small so I don’t mind that.

Luke: Yeah, okay, who’s your favourite Royal?

Brummie: I’d say if you asked me around the same time of the wedding I would have said William but overall as a head of state I’ve got to say The Queen.

Luke: Really, yeah. Why is that?

Brummie: She’s just an immense woman and she’s served for so long and still she wants to serve, you can see it, and she’s quite stylish.

Russian girl

Girl: Hello

Luke: So, err, where are you from?

Girl: I’m from Russia

Luke: Okay and how long have you been in…

Girl: For 3 years

Luke: Okay, right, so I’m asking people about the Royal Family. What do you think of the Royal Family in England, in Britain?

Girl: Well, it’s a nice tradition. I think it’s nice that they have here a Queen. People enjoy it.

Luke: People enjoy it, yeah okay. Erm, who’s your favourite Royal?

Girl: Prince William, Prince Harry as well

Luke: Yeah? Why do you like them?

Girl: I fancy them

Luke: Do you really? Which one is more attractive?

Girl: Maybe Prince Harry because he’s still available.

Luke: Okay. So, Harry if you’re watching, err, what’s your name?

Girl: Daria

Luke: Daria

Girl: That’s my boyfriend there!

Luke: Oh your boyfriend’s here, okay you’ll have to deal with him first. So you like Harry, umm, okay, fine, so what about Kate, what do you think of her?

Girl: Well she’s very nice. They’ve been [in] a long term relationship before the wedding so they’re a great couple. I was here when it was a [the] wedding, so actually I made some videos and I sent them to Russian TV and they used it on [the] news, Russian news

Luke: Do you work for Russian news?

Girl: No I don’t, it was just, like a favour for my friend

Luke: Oh that’s good

Girl: So I appear on Russian TV!

Luke: Great, wow, fame and fortune is [are] one the way

Vocabulary in this video:

whereabouts = where exactly. E.g. “Whereabouts in London do you live?”

-ish = this is a suffix which means ‘approximately’

relate to them = understand them / feel that you’re similar to them

get rid of them = throw them away / remove them

differentiate = see clear differences

admire = respect and look up to

invasive = invades your privacy

under the spotlight = in the eyes of the media a lot

they wouldn’t come out glowingly = they wouldn’t look good

I’m not interested in them in the slightest = I don’t care about them

persona = an identity

genuine = real / true

ginger = with red hair

dead posh = very posh

shit scared! = very scared

neither here nor there  = without strong feelings for or against

an era gone by = an old time

revenue = income for the government

a good money spinner = something that makes a lot of money

blokes = men (infomal)

get over it = recover from it / learn that it isn’t a problem any more

put their arses on the line = take risks

they’ve really come into their own again = they’re being successful again

one hell of a king = a great king

immense = big and impressive

I fancy them = I think they’re sexually attractive

Competition Update

1 Reply

The competition is now closed. Voting ends on 16 May 2012.

Thank you very much for your entries. I am now processing them and I will upload them in a podcast (or two) in the very near future, and you will be able to listen to all the comments people have sent me. Then you can vote on which one is your favourite.

Other news, I am back from my skiing holiday and I had a great time. I did fall over a lot, but I didn’t injure my mouth so I can still speak!

Expect more podcast episodes to be uploaded soon.

Luke

91. The A to Z of Random Thoughts (A Rambling Episode)

9 Replies

This is probably the most random episode of the podcast so far, and certainly the longest. It’s about the same length as a football match, in fact, why not listen to this while watching an actual football match? It might make it more interesting.

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download this episode.
In this one, I didn’t have time to prepare very much because I am going on holiday tomorrow and I have to pack. However, I wanted to publish something tonight so I decided to go through the alphabet from A to Z and just think of words randomly, and then make a few comments about those words. You can see the words I mention below in a long list.

Please feel free to add your comments to this podcast episode. I’d really like you to contribute your thoughts.

I also give you an update to the competition I launched in the last episode. I have received a few mp3s but not as many as I expected. So, I’ve decided the change the rules of the competition. You can now send me emails with your responses to podcast episodes. Write no more than about 200 words in response to an episode. Please write the word ‘competition’ in the email so I know it is a competition entry. I will read out your emails on a podcast in the near future and then listeners can vote for their favourite mp3 or email response. The winner will get the Phrasal Verbs dictionary.

Here’s the A to Z list I talk about in this episode. There are also some videos at the bottom for you to check out. Have fun, and please donate some money (even a small amount helps) so I don’t lose out by doing this podcast. Your donations make this podcast possible. If you’d like to donate, click the button below. It’s easy and PayPal is a very safe and secure way of transferring money online (you can use it for eBay and other stuff too)…

A to Z
Remember that I just wrote these words down randomly in a couple of minutes. In the podcast I talk about these things. There’s no overall theme. It’s just a random collection of ideas, all improvised into the microphone.
Action
Ambition
Business
Batman
Comedy
Destruction
Deserve
Dogs
Elephants
Eggs
Easter
French
Germany
Greece
Gravy
Hamburgers
Health
Hicks (Bill Hicks)
Holidays
Ice-cream
Igloo
iPad
James
Jimi Hendrix
Jazz
Jogging
Jobs (Steve)
Keith Richards
Keith Moon
Kissing
Luke/luck/look
Luck
Lazy
Lemon and Lime
Lennon (John)
Mum
Maths
Monopoly
Nose
Orange Juice
Obstacles
Opportunities
Police (crime fighters)/ The Police (rock band)
Pressure
The Queen (monarch) / Queen (rock band)
Qualifications
Questions
Respect
Remember/Remind
<b>Random</b>
Stones (Rolling)
Stone (in your shoe)
Stupid
Sorry
Trailers
Trees
Underwear
Underground
Violence
Women’s day
Wookie
Why?
Xylophone
X-Men / ex-men
X-Box
Yesterday
Yes
Yellow
Zebra
Zoo
Zen

Batman’s night out in Toronto
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLOps4qA5rM&w=400&h=233]

90. Competition + Phrasal Verbs A, B + C

3 Replies

Enter the competition to win the phrasal verbs dictionary [now closed 10/04/12]. Details of the competition below. I also teach you loads of useful phrasal verbs that begin with the letters A, B and C.

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download.
Details of the competition
-Competition closes on 10th April 2012
-Send me an mp3 of your response to any of my podcast episodes
-Your response should just be something you want to say on the subject of one of my episodes
-The audio should be no more than 2 minutes long
-Don’t say anything really offensive please – of course I know you wouldn’t do this ;)
-Email the mp3 to me at luketeacher@hotmail.com
-Include your name, and where you come from
-When I have collected lots of mp3 responses I’ll put them into a podcast
-You can decide which response is your favourite (not just because of the English used)
-The one with the most votes will win the dictionary

VOCABULARY
Here are all the phrasal verbs I used in this episode:
A
to account for something -“All this traffic accounts for the noise in London”
to act on something -“I act on my ideas and make a podcast”
to agree with something – “I agree with everything you say”
to appeal to someone – “Living in Hawaii really appeals to me”

B
to back someone up – “My listeners back me up and vote for me”
to bail someone out – “The Bank of England had to bail out the high street banks”
to base something on something / to be based on something – “This book is based on a true story”
to begin with something – “The podcast always begins with a jingle”
to begin by doing something – “I’ll begin by giving you the background to this news story”
to begin to do something – “He began to start talking about crime in London”
to believe in something – “I don’t believe in UFOs”
to belong to something – “Some people belong to sects with strange ideas” “Why can’t ants go to church? Because they’re in-sects”
to blow someone away / to be blown away by something – “If I saw a UFO I’d be blown away”
to blow something up – “The army would try to blow up the UFO”
to break down – “My car broke down on the motorway” “He broke down and started crying”
to break up – “Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are going to break up”
to bring something down – “They’re going to bring the government down”
to bring someone down – “Don’t bring me down man!”
to bring something on – “bring it on!”
to build on something – “They want to build on the legacy of the Olympic games”
to build up an interest in something – “They’re using publicity to build up an interest in the olympics”
to bump into someone – “I bumped into Mike and we went for a few pints”

C
to call something off – “It would be embarrassing if they called off the opening ceremony”
to camp out – “To stay outdoors in a tent”
to get carried away – “Some people might get carried away and drink too much”
to catch up with a friend – “It’s nice to catch up with a friend and catch up on all the latest gossip”
to catch up on the latest news
to charge someone with something / to be charged with something – “The police charged him with being drunk and disorderly”
to clean something up – “I’m going to stay in and clean up my room”
to cling to something – “People cling to these old stereotypes about Britain”
to come across something – “I came across a lovely old pub which I didn’t know about”
to come along – “I’m going to a party, you should come along”
to come around – “Why don’t you come around for a cup of tea later”
to come through something – “He’s just come through a very difficult period”
to come up with something – “She came up with some really good ideas”
to concentrate on something – “You can concentrate on your English”
to consist of something – “A typical episode will consist of interviews, vocabulary and pronunciation”
to contribute to something – “He really contributes a lot to the team”
to convert something into something – “I can convert WAV files into MP3s”
to be covered in something – “My desk was covered in CDs”
to crack down on something – “The police are cracking down on internet piracy”
to cut back on something – “The government are cutting back on public spending”
to cut something off / to get cut off – “They might cut off the electricity” “Sorry, I think we got cut off for a moment”

89. A Day In The Life (The vocabulary of everyday routines)

15 Replies

A vocabulary episode in which I explain all the actions in a normal day.

Right-click here to download this episode.

Introduction
I got an email today from a woman in Russia. She said it can be easy to talk about big topics like politics but what’s hard is explaining simple actions in detail. So I’m going to describe a typical day in my life, in great detail.

There will be lots of vocabulary, but this episode is not planned. Vocabulary will come up and the context should make it clear what I’m talking about. I will also write many things I say on this page, below. That’s just an example of how much work goes into an episode of Luke’s English Podcast. I have to have the idea, record it, edit it, upload it, listen again and note down vocab, post it, promote it. It might take the whole evening. Bear in mind I’ve got to eat, speak to my girlfriend, do the laundry.

It’s hard to please everybody. I get messages all the time with comments and requests. Some typical comments are generally positive. People seem to love the podcast. Some people still have comments though, and say episodes are too long. That’s normally teachers who want to use parts of the podcast in class. I’d recommend you check out my mini podcasts on Audioboo. You can click the link on the top right hand corner of my homepage http://teacherluke.podomatic.com .

Some people say the podcasts are not long enough and they want more! Some like it when I don’t plan and just let it happen naturally. Others prefer structure and focus. Some don’t like it if I repeat explanations too much because it’s unnecessary and sometimes the explanations are more complex than the words I’m explaining! I think you have to explain vocabulary sometimes. Others really appreciate my descriptions and definitions. Some people really need a transcript and others don’t seem to even look at the page.

Some people love the range of different accents you can hear in the interviews that I’ve used, and some people prefer to just listen to my voice because they like the accent I have. Some people like me to interrupt the recordings with explanations, and others prefer to just listen to it uninterrupted. Some people like it when I’m joined by my brother or cousin and other people just like to hear me on my own.

Basically, I’m going to do it my way! It might not always be perfect, but true perfection is almost impossible. So, IT’S MY WAY OR THE HIGH WAY!

Trust me, I do know what I’m doing – more than anyone else – I know what I’m doing and I’m in charge! So, that’s that.

The podcast used to be a little hobby on the side for me but now it’s a genuinely fruitful way to teach. There are limitations, like I can’t see you or hear you, there are no pictures and no whiteboard for me to write on but I always dreamed of having my own radio show and now I’m doing it.

I got over 4,000 downloads in just one day recently. I keep meeting students who already know me through the podcast. This is fun.

VOCABULARY
So now, let me take you through a typical day. The following passages are just NOTES which I’ve written which cover many of the new expressions and vocabulary I use. It’s not a complete transcript. I recommend that you use a dictionary such as the Cambridge Online Advanced Learners Dictionary http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ or the Macmillan Dictionary http://www.macmillandictionary.com/ to check new words.

I will wake up and I get woken up by my alarm clock. It comes on at 6.30 in the morning. I’d lean over and put it on sleep. I put it on sleep again and I go back to sleep. I’ve had enough I’m going to get up. I pull back the duvet and get out of bed and I’m usually like a zombie, I’m yawning, staggering through the living room to get to the toilet.

Open the door by turning the handle. Grip the handle and turn it. Pull the door. I turn on the tap and I drink loads of water directly from the tap. I pull the curtain across and I let the shower run for a few minutes to let the water heat up. I give myself a wash. Get some soap to create a lather. I clean behind my ears. Squeezing out some shampoo and then rubbing that in my hair. Rinse my hair. Use a towel to dry myself off. I normally have to iron a shirt first. It’s one of my pet hates. Lay the shirt across the ironing board. Move it forwards and backwards and that irons out all the creases. Iron the sleeves and the collars and you can look a bit RESPECTABLE. Sometimes I tuck my shirt in.

I do like cereal. My favourite thing is to make a cereal cocktail. Let the cereal absorb some of the milk. One thing that always surprises me is that at the bottom of the bowl there’s always more milk than there is cereal at the end. I put my shoes on. Tying up the laces with a loop or a double loop. I press the button to call the lift. It can be a little bit awkward. You don’t really want to make conversation because it’s really awkward. Moving one foot first and then putting your body weight onto it and you keep going forwards in that kind of motion until you get to your destination. We’ve got some kind of balance perception in your ear.

While I’m walking I love to listen to music. I put it on random. I put the audio jack into the mp3 player. I lean against a lamp post while I wait for the bus to arrive. I might go on twitter or something. First I have to unlock the phone. Press the button in the top left hand corner. Move the control pad to move the cursor around until you get to the application you want to launch. Click the button to launch the application. Scroll through all the messages.

I get my oyster card. I beep the oyster card onto a sensor and that automatically deducts about £1 from my account. Make sure I keep my hand on the hand rail. Sit there and daydream. I have to go onto my teaching mode. I’m in a bit of a rush and the stress starts. Looking in my material bank. Lots of lesson materials, I must have hundreds of different lessons in there. Photocopying double sided with a staple in the top left corner and punching holes on the document with a hole punch.

I write down a list of things I’m going to do step by step. The first item on the list is ‘hello’. I like to test the students a little bit by engaging them in some natural conversation. If Sungin is on the ball he’ll say “i’m doing fine”. Then I get the ball rolling. That will bring up different things like error correction. Then you go through it and that helps you to deal with bits of grammar. You then have a whole white board full of lexis and you then start rubbing out little words. Can they come up with some examples?

I queue up and get my lunch. I sit down with my colleagues. You kind of spike a potato with a fork and hold it in place and use a knife to cut the potato in half. You start to chew. YOu really mash up the food. I wolf my food down. I need food because I’ve got a high metabolism and I digest food really quickly.

Get home, get into my apartment, slide the key into the lock and turn it. One of the first things I might do is make myslelf a cup of tea. I probably surf youtube or something. Check out all the different pages I’m on. I probably cook something. Probably some pasta. Spaghetti bolognese. I’d have to have some minced beef in the fridge. I’d get the pan out and chop up some garlic, chop it up fine with a knife. Dice the onion. Slice it up and chop up all the slices into cubes. Fry the onions and the garlic until the onions go green and transparent. Simmer the onions on the hotplate. Allow it to cook a bit until it’s clear or see-through. Cook it until the meat is just about going brown or grey, so you’ve seared most of the meat. Then you can add tomatoes and you mash them up. Tomato puree. Squeeze it into the beef, and you let that simmer, you can add a dash of red wine, let it simmer and reduce. Stick it on the hotplate and allow it to boil. Maybe add a pinch of salt. Get your spaghetti, put it into the pan and push it into the water. Leave that until it’s boiled. Fish out a length of spaghetti with a fork. You don’t want to burn your mouth. Pull the spaghetti out. If it sticks to the wall, it’s edible. You fish it out and you drain all the water out. Stick your fork in and start turning the fork with a spoon and that allows you to wrap all the spaghetti on the fork.

Sometimes I’ll lie in bed and I’ll read a book. I drift off into a dream. I like to daydream. I completely fall asleep and drift off into deep sleep.

88. How To Play The Drums (Describing Music)

6 Replies

Learn how to be a rock star in this episode. I’ll teach you a bit about music and about how to play the drums. Also you can listen to various famous drummers talking about their technique. See below for some vocabulary.

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download this episode.

Vocabulary & Notes
Here are some notes containing some of the words and expressions used in this episode.
People sometimes say that one of the best ways to learn English is to learn how to do something else in English, like flower arranging or a new sport. So that’s why in this episode I’m going to teach you how to play the drums. I’m going to teach you about the drums too. This is quite an ambitious episode because I’ve never taught someone how to play the drums before.

I’ve been playing drums since I was 13, so about 22 years now. I was lucky because we got a drum kit for Christmas. We had a garage separate from the house and we put the drum kit there. We lived in the countryside and our neighbours were not too close so they didn’t hear the noise. That’s the advantage of the countryside. My Dad used to play the drums. It was the best gift ever. I had learned the piano and I played bass later. My brother learned the drums because he loved punk rock music. Then I played the drums too. I used to play for an hour a day at least. I’d try to copy other drummers that I liked such as Mitch Mitchell, Stewart Copeland and Ringo (yes, Ringo).

I played in a lot of bands. I was in a band in Liverpool and 2 bands in Japan. I had a CD in the shops in Japan. I basically taught myself to play drums.

Music basically has 3 elements: rhythm, melody and harmony. Rhythm is the first element. It’s the foundation. We all have rhythm inside us because of our heartbeat. There are other rhythms too like the days, the years, walking, repetitive tasks, the sound of a train or a horse. African music used rhythm. The drum was the first instrument. It was used as a communication tool.

English has a rhythm. All languages do. A sentence can be like a drum beat.

So, how do you play drums? It’s just a series of objects to hit in the right order to get a beat. You punctuate the beats with rolls. Most music has a time signature. Usually 4/4. That’s 4 beats in a bar. 1 2 3 4. That’s what you count when you play. You place beats on different numbers. There are sub beats too. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.

We’ll come back to beats. Let me tell you about the kit. You have drums and cymbals, and sticks. The big drum on the floor is the bass drum. It has a deep sound. Attached to the top of that there are two tom-toms. You have another tom-tom on the floor and that makes three. Just in front of you, between your legs is the snare. It’s high pitched and it has a metal coil under the bottom skin. This gives it a sharp sound. Then, cymbals. On the left with a pedal you have the hi-hat. This is two cymbals, one up one down. Press the pedal and the top one comes down. Hold your foot down and you close the hi-hats. Then hit it with the stick on the 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and beats. Bass drum on 1  3 Snare on 2   4 That’s a basic rock beat!

87. Six Idioms and Six Phrasal Verbs (with Oli)

2 Replies

I chat to Oli about the news and teach you 6 idioms and 6 phrasal verbs. For a list of the phrasal verbs and idioms see below. Thanks for downloading!

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download.

I still haven’t received the Macmillan Phrasal Verb Dictionary by the way. When I receive it I will let you know.

The 6 Phrasal Verbs
(Luke’s phrasal verbs all begin with the letter L)
To lapse into something “I lapsed into a dream” -to go down into a different state
To let up “The snow just doesn’t let up” -to stop
To lust after something “They always lust after a big news story in the paper” -to really want something in a sexual way
To lash out at something “They lash out at criticism” -to react aggressively to something
To leaf through something “It’s nice to have a cup of tea and leaf through the paper” -to slowly turn the pages of a book or paper
To laugh something off “They just laugh off the criticism” -to deal with criticism by just laughing about it

The 6 Idioms
(Oli’s begin with the letter M)
To be no match for someone/something “This boxer is no match for Mike Tyson” -he’s not as good as Mike Tyson
To take matters into your own hands “He took matters into his own hands” -to take control of a situation yourself
To get a dose of your own medicine “He’s going to get a dose of his own medicine tonight” -to experience for yourself bad things which you normally do to others”
To take a trip down memory lane “Looking at those old photos made me take a trip down memory lane” -to make you remember something
To make a mental note “When you have an iPhone you don’t need to make a mental note” -to remember something
To take the mickey out of someone “They kept taking the mickey out of me for my new haircut” -to make fun of someone, to tease someone

86. Criminal Law (Vocabulary, Story & Conversation)

2 Replies

Join my cousin Oli and me as we discuss an interesting legal case. This quite well-known case involves some quite dark themes such as murder and suicide.

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download this episode.
See below for vocabulary and a transcript of the story of Ronald Opus. You can also see a video of the story from the film Magnolia.

VOCABULARY
These terms all relate to criminal law.

Homicide = The killing of another person
Suicide = The taking of one’s own life
Murder = An intentional act of homicide
Manslaughter = An act of homicide which does not include intention, but for which the defendant is responsible. E.g. A man gets drunk and drives home. He can’t control the car and so he kills a pedestrian.
Attempted murder = The crime of attempting to kill someone, but failing
Involuntary manslaughter = An act of manslaughter in which the person is guilty of killing someone but they didn’t want to and did it completely by accident
Mitigating factors = These are factors which make a crime less serious. E.g. in an act of murder if the murderer is not of sound mind, or if they kill the person because they are forced to.
Aggravating factors = These are factors which make a crime more serious. E.g. if an assailant or attacker uses a weapon, or if a murder involves excessive cruelty or pre-meditation.
Assault = The crime of hurting someone, usually physically.
Aggravated assault = More serious than assault because this involves a weapon or serious physical damage.
Commit = A verb used with all the above-mentioned crimes. E.g. to commit murder, to commit suicide (not technically a crime). It just means ‘do’ but it’s the appropriate term when referring to crimes.

The Story of Ronald Opus
On 23 March 1994, the medical examiner viewed the body of Ronald Opus and concluded that he died from a shotgun wound to the head. The deceased had jumped from the top of a ten-story building intending to commit suicide (he left a note indicating his despondency). As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast through a window, which killed him instantly. Neither the shooter nor the deceased was aware that a safety net had been erected at the eighth floor level to protect some window washers and that Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide anyway because of this.

Ordinarily, Dr. Mills continued, a person who sets out to commit suicide ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended. That Opus was shot on the way to certain death nine stories below probably would not have changed his mode of death from suicide to homicide. But the fact that his suicidal intent would not have been successful caused the medical examiner to feel that he had a homicide on his hands. The room on the ninth floor whence the shotgun blast emanated was occupied by an elderly man and his wife. They were arguing and he was threatening her with the shotgun. He was so upset that, when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife and the pellets went through the a window striking Opus.

When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the murder of subject B. When confronted with this charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant that neither knew that the shotgun was loaded. The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun. He had no intention to murder her – therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident. That is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.

The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple’s son loading the shotgun approximately six weeks prior to the fatal incident. It transpired that the old lady had cut off her son’s financial support and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun with the expectation that his father would shoot his mother. The case now becomes one of murder on the part of the son for the death of Ronald Opus.

There was an exquisite twist. Further investigation revealed that the son had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother’s murder. This led him to jump off the ten- story building on March 23, only to be killed by a shotgun blast through a ninth story window.

The medical examiner closed the case as a suicide.

Video of the case from the film “Magnolia”