Category Archives: Entertainment

540. What’s Up? Post World Cup / News / LEP Meetup London / Super Mario Earworms

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Giving some news, summing up the World Cup, England out, France win, and some chat about music that gets stuck in your head. Get some English stuck in your head with this episode. Transcript available!

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Episode Transcript

Here it is, your regular dose of English listening practice.

The theory, the science, the method:
Listen regularly
Listen longer
Listen long term
Don’t stop! (e.g. when it gets difficult)
In time the results will be obvious to you.
Compound effect.
Time + practice + positivity = genuine progress in English
In a natural way.
All you need is the right resource to listen to.
Something personal.
Something designed for you as a learner of English not native to an English speaking country.
Something made by someone who *might* know what they’re doing!
Someone with the teaching qualifications, but also the experience of just talking to groups of people for the pure fun of it.
Something which has many episodes which you can use to get that English into your head.
Your mission is to get as much English into your head as you can – through your ears in this case, until you get to a point that you’ve heard so much that you start to get a feel for the language.
It’s like the force. You have to trust your feelings and do what you feel is right. The Jedi way – do or do not, there is no “try”.
When you do a grammar or vocabulary exercise you know the answer, by instinct, just because you feel that it’s the right answer. This feels right, that doesn’t. How can you possibly get that instinct without getting exposed to enough of the language in context?
Listen a lot, read a lot, regularly, for longer periods, long term, don’t stop and just enjoy the process.
These are the right conditions in which you can really learn English, and that’s what this podcast is all about.
Yep, this could be the resource for you.
Maybe I’m preaching to the converted, but if there are any new listeners listening to this – jump on board and get involved. Listen to the episodes, get the app, look through the archive list, star the episodes you think look interesting, listen to a bunch of them over the summer. Leave your comments in the comment section and introduce yourself to the friendly and funny people there.
This could be the thing that’s going to help you get the English that you want.
Check out my episode archive – I’ve got episodes about grammar, vocabulary, topics, conversations with guests, funny stuff, serious stuff.
And, I’ve got a premium subscription service where we take things further and really dig deep into the language, examining, uncovering, analysing, explaining, repeating the language which comes up naturally in episodes of this show made by me for you.
All the info you need is on the website of course – the episode archive, notes, transcriptions and the premium service. Teacherluke.co.uk

So, here’s your new dose of English.

What’s going on? What’s up?

LEP MEETUP LONDON
FRI 3 AUG from 2pm
Fitzroy Tavern,
16 Charlotte St,
Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY
Email teacherzdenek@gmail.com

First thing – I need to tell you about a LEPster meetup happening in London. I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to make it myself although I would love to join in if I can. But there is a meetup happening with confirmed guests already.

So, attention LEPsters in London or nearby during the summer of 2018. There’s an LEP meetup happening on Friday 3 August from 2pm in the Fitzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY. Fitzrovia is a cool place, just north of Soho near Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. I used to go drinking there when I lived in London with my old mates from college. So that’s our old stomping ground.

The meetup is being organised by Zdenek Lukas, the guy behind Zdenek’s English Podcast. Zdenek is a long term fan of LEP, and a well-qualified English teacher from the Czech Republic. Every summer he goes to London and teaches intensive courses in schools there.

Zdenek is a big fan of board games, especially for learning English – which is kind of a special area of interest for some people. There is a movement in English teaching which is all about using board games. It’s a brilliant idea. Board games are interactive, they create communicative situations, they’re fun, they involve communicative objectives and all sorts of cool things which are ideal for learning English. Plus they’re a really great way for people to get together, socialise and practice. These are board games for adults of course, not kids stuff.

So, Zdenek will be in the Fitzroy Tavern from 2, joined by an English teaching friend of his from the UK (I think she’s called Claire) and some other LEPsters who I think are already confirmed. You really should join them. You won’t regret it. You’ll make instant friends and you will have an afternoon in London that you won’t forget – if you do it right, and by “do it right” I mean – be sociable, have a couple of beers, relax, let go, enjoy meeting some like minded people and have some fun and play some board games in English!

Now, Zdenek needs to know how many people are coming so he can book some tables in the pub. So, shoot him an email at teacherzdenek@gmail.com.
Wondering what to write? Just write this – Hi Zdenek, I’d like to come to the LEP meetup on 3 August. Please count me in! My name’s _____. See you there!
If you can’t be there at 2, you could probably join them later. You could ask Zdenek how long he’ll be there.
Got it?
Friday 3 Aug, from 2pm, Fitzroy Tavern, 16 Charlotte St, Fitzrovia, London W1T 2LY. Email teacherzdenek@gmail.com to let him know you’re coming.

The World Cup

So I should probably wrap up the world cup commentary that I started in June. The WC is old news now isn’t it? It’s so last week!

Anyway, let me talk about:
England vs Croatia
France’s campaign (because I live here and it got crazy)

England vs Croatia

Perhaps England underestimated Croatia.
Maybe Croatia wanted it more.
Maybe England weren’t that good in the first place, and got lucky in the tournament.
England were outclassed.
Croatia were impressive. Incredibly determined and hard working.
We expected them to be tired. We expected to be able to beat them. But they’re made of tough stuff.
Croatia’s other games went to extra time and penalties. Denmark and Russia. They must have been knackered! But they soldiered on and ultimately overcame England.
Immediately the excitement and all the renditions of “It’s coming home” stopped and it was back to normal in England, and when I say “normal” I mean the general madness of the time – with the chaos of Brexit, our government imploding on itself, Trump visiting and being greeted by 250,000 people in the street protesting against his entire existence, he visited The Queen and arrived late, making her wait over 10 minutes.
What about France and the World Cup?

France vs Belgium (I somehow forgot to say all of this in the episode!)
1 – 0
Showed France could play a different type of football. Defensive, containing the danger of Belgium’s key players.
I saw a documentary about the French team. It was great.
Amazing team spirit. Pep talks in the dressing room. A positive atmosphere from the team in general. So much better than when the French team all threw their toys out of the pram and actually went on strike against the management team. This young team are really cool and get on well.
The crowds outside our flat went mad with a lot of noise.

France vs Croatia final

Don’t underestimate Croatia. Surely they must be tired by now, but they keep fighting. So much spirit in this team.
Some say France got lucky with an own goal and a debatable penalty.
The own goal was actually a great free kick by Griezmann. It did come off the Croatian defender, but it was right in the danger zone and if it had come off anyone’s head it would have gone in. A great free kick, a little bit lucky.
But Croatia came back, controlling the game in the first half an hour.
Then France won a debatable penalty. Griezmann crossed the ball in and the defender was coming down after jumping and appeared to move his hand to the ball in the penalty area. The ref couldn’t see it properly from that angle, so he went to VAR, and then called it a penalty.
Some people are saying the ref was biased but I can completely see how they gave the penalty, but I can also see why you’d be pissed off because it is really borderline. Is it intentional or not? The hand goes to the ball. It’s really hard to tell but the more you watch it on replay the more you think the ref can’t not give it.
France score.
2 – 1
I think at this point Croatia start to get tired.
It happened, eventually. This Terminator of a team, that wouldn’t stop coming no matter how hard you hit them. The comeback kings themselves, got a bit tired. Pogba started linking up with Mbappe and causing trouble for the Croatian goalkeeper. An amazing pass from Pogba to Mbappe led to an attack where the ball bounced around just outside the box and Pogba “got hold of it” and shot, the ball rebounded off the legs of a line of Croatian players and they didn’t know where the ball had gone and you see them looking around for a moment, but which time Pogba has stepped up and with the inside of his left foot has netted it from about 20 yards out.
3 – 1
At this point France show some class and generally have some great runs. Mbappe scores one of the goals of the tournament from further away than the Pogba goal hitting it hard with a bit of finesse, low into the bottom left corner leaving the keeper miles away. Amazing.
4 – 1
Croatia at this point must be feeling pretty crushed, having given it whatever they could for the last few weeks.
Then for some reason the French goalkeeper, Lloris makes a real sandwich of a backpass and cocks it right up by basically handing it on a plate to Mandžukić who was, as ever, pressing the goalkeeper and putting him under pressure. Mandžukić just knocked it in and then it was
4-2
And maybe there was a flicker of hope at that point for Croatia but it wasn’t to be and this French team really proved themselves, time and time again.
They had the more difficult route in the tournament, compared to England. Coming up against Argentina, Uruguay, Belgium and then Croatia, compared to England’s route of Colombia (where they were basically matched – just one pen between them) and then Sweden (who didn’t seem to put up much of a fight). Only when we met a real team like Croatia or Belgium, we didn’t quite cut the mustard.

But France, were brilliant and deserved to win. The thing is about France is that they can be a bit unpredictable and sometimes loose, they can win a game in 15 minutes, by just putting together 15 minutes of play they can handle most of the pitch, especially in that attacking midfield area. They showed that they had some depth and class and could really turn it on when necessary. And a fun, positive bunch of players who have a good future ahead of them.

England too might have a good future because the team is young.

Some people are saying this world cup represents the end of the Messi/Ronaldo era and the beginning of a new generation with guys like Mbappe.

I reckon this world cup has been one of the best in ages. It looks like Russia did a great job of hosting and this will be very good for Russia’s image I expect, with more people visiting and getting an idea of what it’s really like.

But generally the world cup was ace, with some amazing goals and some surprises with big teams getting knocked out early and some new talent coming through.

Next it’s the Euros in 2020 and apparently they’re being hosted all across Europe with the final in Wembley stadium which is brilliant.

By the way, that song “It’s coming home” was written when England were hosting the Euros in 1996 and so in a sense football was coming home in that we were hosting the tournament and it was 30 years since 1966 when England won the world cup. The song is actually about always being disappointed by England but still having hope that they can play well. It’s actually a really well written song with good chord changes and lyrics.

Earworm

I have a serious ear worm going around my head.
What’s an earworm?
It’s when you have music stuck in your head. Sometimes you just wake up in the morning with a song running vividly around your head. Different songs each time usually. Throughout the world cup it was “It’s coming home” for me.
But this week I’ve had a serious earworm going on and I can’t shift it. Sometimes this is annoying, but I’m actually enjoying it.
I’ve had this all week and I’m not sure where it came from.
It’s the Super Mario Kart soundtrack from the old SNES version of the game. The original and best. Pretty much the entire thing!
In the 80s and 90s Nintendo released a series of absolutely classic games. They were quality from top to bottom. Something about Nintendo in that period just oozed quality. There was also Sega and it’s character Sonic the Hedgehog, and he was popular. A very fast hedgehog, kind of a joke. He was popular – but he couldn’t hold a candle to Mario and all the Mario games.
They breathed quality and class. Zelda too.
Visually, in terms of gameplay and also the sounds and music.
Turning on your gameboy, NES or SNES you’d instantly be greeted by an unmistakable sound – a bleep or a ding, and the Nintendo logo. Something about that dinging sound. It was just right. It was cute, it was quick, it was satisfying somehow, it was even reassuring.
Then, all the Mario games – Super Mario Brothers, and Super Mario Kart, and The Legend of Zelda were blessed with really good music and I’m being serious.
I just googled this and it turns out that was all the work of pretty much one guy, who did the music for a stunning number of classic Nintendo titles. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koji_Kondo
I’m probably being influenced heavily by nostalgia here, but I love these tunes and despite the limitations of the technology and software of the time, they were very catchy indeed, and also very melodic and jazzy with touches of bossa nova.

I spent a lot of time playing Super Mario, Mario Kart, Zelda and now a lot of that music is permanently embedded in my brain, and it just comes back at times.

This week it’s been all about Super Mario Kart.

I’ve been teaching 6 hours a day all week, working very intensively, without a moment’s rest on most days, just teaching teaching teaching. The pace and rhythm has been high and I’ve had to be very upbeat for days. Somehow this just completely suits that Mario music.
Let’s hear some.

I actually searched Spotify for the music and found an album by a band called the One Ups. It’s a whole album of Mario Kart music, performed by this band.
Let’s hear some.
This might be a trip down memory lane for some of you.
For others, you might not know these games.
But these are pretty nice tunes anyway. Probably very cheesy and I’m certain it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but let’s just take a sort of trip down memory lane.
Perhaps we can hear some of the originals too.
I actually put this music on when I’m working sometimes.

So I’ve been busy working intensively and looking after my daughter. This is why I haven’t uploaded for a while. Nearly 2 weeks without a normal episode of the podcast.

It’s July and nearly August in Paris and this is when it becomes difficult to record and upload podcasts. I’m not complaining or anything. I’m very happy. But I do want to explain that the uploading of episodes might be a little bit inconsistent over the next couple of months.
There should be premium episodes – I have to provide you with regular premium content because you’re paying for that (well, just the price of a coffee or beer per month).

But anyway, things are hectic. I’m working intensive courses all day every day in July at the BC and then August is holiday season and we’re going away to a few destinations in France.

Usually we go abroad to some far away place but this year we’re staying in France, which I’m very happy about. I want to explore more of this country, which is beautiful by the way. There are plenty of beautiful places here and I want to get to know those places, sample the local food, enjoy the weather, relax by the pool and all that. So, French holidays, mostly in the south. Probably no big adventures this time, but who knows. If there are stories, I will tell them on the podcast.

So that’s it.

3 things

If you’re in London then hang out with Zdenek and other lepsters at the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street near Tottenham Court Road station. Let Zdenek know in advance that you’re coming with an email at teacherzdenek@gmail.com Board games, beer, pub food and good times to be had by all.
Get the LEP app for all the episodes on your phone and a whole bunch of bonus bits and pieces including grammar lessons, stories, vocabulary, jingles, phrasal verbs, videos and more.
If you want to take it to the next level and help me out with a contribution each month in return for a premium subscription you’ll get access to regular language-based episodes focusing on the things you’ve heard in conversations on this podcast. Sign up to LEP premium at www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

This has been Luke’s English Podcast. Have yourselves a great night, regardless of what time of day it is now. I just hope you have a good night – either in the sense that the next night you have is a good one, or the more gothic sense that even during the daytime it’s night time and so you can have a good night at any time if you’re a goth.

But if you’re not a goth then have a good day either today or tomorrow.

For now,

Bye…

539. World Cup 2018 [3] Is It Coming Home?

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Another football episode – but it won’t last forever! In this one I’m in England talking to my Dad and my brother about the world cup including England’s performances, penalties, World Cup songs, diving, VAR and predictions for the semi finals. Enjoy!

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Please leave your comments in the comment section. I might read them out on the podcast next time.

Football Songs

3 Lions (It’s coming home) – Baddiel, Skinner and The Lightning Seeds

Lyrics genius.com/Baddiel-skinner-and-the-lightning-seeds-three-lions-lyrics

World In Motion – New Order

Lyrics genius.com/New-order-world-in-motion-lyrics

Vindaloo – Fat Les

Lyrics genius.com/Fat-les-vindaloo-lyrics

England’s Irie – Black Grape

Lyrics www.metrolyrics.com/englands-irie-lyrics-various-artists.html

Back Home – England team 1970

Lyrics genius.com/England-national-football-team-back-home-lyrics

538. World Cup 2018 [2] The Second Round / Listener Comments

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Talking about the second round of the World Cup in Russia, including comments about the teams, the games, the issues, England’s penalties vs Colombia and the way football commentators speak. Listener comments are read out. Notes available.

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Notes & Scripts

Not very much planned here. I’m just going to spill my thoughts into the microphone. Some comments from the comment section.

Sorry if I miss anything! I’m bound to miss a few things because there are lots of details in this World Cup and it’s hard to cover them all. I’m just going to look at the wallchart and see what I can say, while also reading out some comments.

One of the highlights of this competition so far has been listening to English TV presenters and commentators say “Nizhny Novgorod”. The other day one of them said “Nizzy novgarad”. I feel vindicated. It’s not just me.

My World Cup Wall Chart

Comments

Zdenek Lukas • 8 days ago
I have managed to see about 80 percent of the games so far. What a fantastic world cup this has been. Loved the way it panned out for Argentina going through in the end, very impressed by performances of Croatia, Belgium, and Colombia. No idea who will win, but my personal favourites are Belgium, Spain, pretty much any South American team that gets to the knock out stages, and of course Germany. Lineker would say that football is a beautiful game, and at the end Germany always win. And we are probably gonna see one surprising team in the semis. Of course seeing England lift the trophy would be luketastic! Also I am gonna be in England when this would potentially be happening. Fingers crossed. As an Arsenal fan though, I must say I am hoping Kane doesn’t get the golden boot. Just kidding, I wish him all the best and then he could join a new much more decent club in new season as a world cup winner.

Sergio Téllez Pinilla • 8 days ago
Neymar is a clown.

Francisco Espínola • 8 days ago
I´ve always thought of that…but now the truth has been revealed…¡Luka Modric is your secret brother!! hahaha very funny of you to comment on that.

Maxim
Don’t you know we are living in Matrix?Just some malfunction in multivariate imposing reveals the fact that we are all connected to sole upper identity. When we look at Luke and Luka our brain computers gets glitching and …Boom,Bob’s your uncle,we see what we see.

Zielak 146 • 8 days ago
Hi Luke, first of all I am Polish and I am disappointed about Poland team. I expected more after what they achieved on Euro 2016 in France and now we are going home :) In my opinion the best team is Belgium, I think they can reach final but we will see what they show against England :) I also appreciate Croatia who play nice football :)
There aren’t clear favourites. Argentina, Germany, France, Brazil, they don’t play as well as we expected.

I’d like to know what do you think about Maradona’s behaviour at the match against Nigeria? :) I’m looking forward to next episode about World Cup :) Sorry if I made any mistakes :)

Timur Sivakov • 8 days ago
Hi Luke,
I think Belgium has a big chance to win the World Cup.
They have very strong midfield, and also Lukaku is an amazing player. Croatia are good too. I have a question to you: Have you ever wanted to work as a sports commentator? I mean, the way you speak is pretty much like english commentators do.

aulo Henrique Oliveira • 7 days ago
I´m Brazilian and, apart from thinking that the team is playing slightly better than in the last Cup, I´m not sure we´ll make it to the finals. Really like how Belgium and Sweden have been playing.
Just for the record, everybody here dislikes the way Neymar has been acting up in the first matches.
Finally, I´m sorry for Germany getting out so soon but we had our little revenge If you sum up their game scores you get 7×1 ha-ha (sarcastic laughs)

Aslan Oguzbay • 6 days ago
Brazil are going to take the trophy, mark my words!

Yaron
Wow! Germany are out. As “Die Mannschaft” supporter I’m very disappointed… I hope that it will be a wake up call for “Die Mannschaft”, and that they will come back stronger and “hungrier” to win in the next world cup.

Good luck for the teams that still in the tournament…

Maxim 4 days ago
Ok.Messi is packing for home,as well as Ronaldo.Let’s look forward for tomorrow’s matches.I hope Luca Modric will crack Denmark’s defense lines😉.Absolutely spectacular championship heralding that the era of young players has finally come. And Mbappe is definitely one of them.

Pierre 4 days ago
Yep ! Mbape did a great game and he’s only 19 years old.

Nick3 days ago
Spanish players were pressing very hard and our players were struggling to stand that pressure. And the duel at the end was absolutely spectacular!!! So, of course big thanks to the both teams for the game.

Zdenek Lukas 2 days ago
Nick I will be honest with you, I saw the match and I a bit am conflicted. On the one hand, I really don’t like if team defend 90 minutes with 11 men win matches like that, but on the other hand, I am happy for Russia because they are the host and this is always great for the atmosphere of the entire tournament and because you guys fought really hard. Besides Span didn’t deserve this match because they didn’t take enough risks. So overall, a big surprise, but as a neutral I will take it :)

Nick2 days ago
I think it was the only way to win the game. And they did it. It was a smart move, more chess than football :)

Sebastián Juambeltz yesterday
Hi Luke!!
Uruguay passed the exam. What do you say about this? I am from uruguay and i am very proud of this. URUGUAY NO MA!!!.
Do you know that Uruguay is the team that won more international championships? It is alway an understimated team. We won 2 olympic 2 word cup 15 american cup.
Know the history about this great selection team from Uruguay!!
Thank you for all your work here!! It is almost great than uruguayan team.
See you..

Yaron yesterday
Oh Luke…. what a pressure… finally England wins a penalty shootout in the world cup. Happy for you. Good luck in the quarter-final.

Syntropy yesterday
Luke, congratulations on the England football team’s victory!!
They finally broke their penalty shootout curse :D

Zdenek Lukas22 hours ago
Dier scoring that penalty was the most emotional moment of the World Cup for me so far :)

Elena Konyukhova10 hours ago
World Cup in Russia seems to be lucky for England, they are doing really well. They might have more fans here.

Guardian Article

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/03/world-cup-russia-england-fans

535. World Cup 2018 [1]

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Talking about the World Cup 2018 in Russia, including comments about the teams, players, groups, VAR and England’s performances. Notes & transcripts available.

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Transcript & Notes

App tips

There are controls on a tab at the bottom. When you’re playing an episode, swipe up and you’ll reveal little controls, including skip forwards and back. You can also set the length of the skip in settings.
Check the Categories – side menu, Categories and then you can see everything, including normal LEP episodes, phrasal verbs, videos, music & jingles, premium etc.
Listen to the Tour of the LEP App to get the full guide on how to use the app properly.

World Cup 2018 (1)

The basics
Where is it? Russia
How many teams? 32 teams – 64 games!
Schedule – 15 July Final

Now entering the second round, knockout stage.

It’s been great so far. Lots of goals. Lots of amazing goals too. Some upsets. A few controversies with VAR.

I’ve been watching as many games as I can, sometimes online because French TV doesn’t show all the England games, for example.

tvcatchup.com

The opening ceremony

The usual stuff – vague “peace & love” imagery. Odd costumes and a dance routine. We’ve seen it loads of times before.

Famous Russian singer Robbie Williams opened the ceremony with a medley of his hits.

While I was watching, I kept having to remind myself that this is World Cup 2018, not 1998.

Robbie Williams – a gallant effort to raise the atmosphere in the stadium.

What’s the atmosphere at the start of this world cup? It’s hard to say from my sofa.

England and Russia have had a troubled relationship recently, and generally there’s a sort of cold war feeling going on between Russia and the west, not to mention what’s going on in Syria, and allegations of Russian involvement in the US election and Brexit. This is the climate of the world cup, or was the climate. When people look east to Moscow this is what they see or think about.

That and crazy Russian people doing funny things in online videos, but plenty of other things too – a fascinating history, architecture, culture, the arts, old stories, rich millionaires and the mystery of what we don’t really know about Russia, wrapped up in a weird atmosphere of media manipulation both on TV and online.

All that political stuff.

I’ve been thinking about this and I’ve decided that as far as I’m concerned, that’s some stuff that’s going on between our governments.

On an individual level – if I got the chance to hang around with a bunch of Russians, or people from anywhere for that matter, that we would have a good time watching the football, having a beer, and just making each other laugh! God knows what our governments are doing.

I find all of that stuff quite scary, quite depressing, quite confusing and since the WC is all about peace & love and some guys kicking a ball around, I’d rather just leave that stuff in the background – but we’ll see.

Some people say that you should mention these things because of corruption and the real purpose of the World Cup – as PR for a country, various dodgy investment deals and covering up the negative things, putting on an acceptable face while distracting away from other things.

I’m not saying this is just Russia, I’m saying it’s every world cup, or at least the recent ones. A lot of cosying up and getting in to bed with each other.

Now, I really don’t want to get caught up in a political minefield here. I’m certain there will be Russian people listening to me say those things just then – all things which I’m reporting, not actually saying myself – this is just the way people in general think about this, not my opinion – just reporting. I’m just the messenger, so don’t shoot the messenger. I’m also not saying I even know what’s going on.

In any case, this atmosphere also includes England, and our fans are not known for their good behaviour. In Marseille two years ago there was a big fight, and the Russians got involved. Ugly scenes. English fans are often terrible thugs who love fighting and probably being a bit racist. In fact, a lot of hardcore football fans are racist – you’d expect them to get on with each other.

So, anyway, English fans can be troublesome, but I think Russia has been pretty careful with the security – I just hope that no English fans get arrested for bad behaviour, just because it might stoke up tensions between our countries.

Hopefully there won’t be any violence between football fans.
Hopefully the atmosphere will be peaceful, friendly, celebratory.
Hopefully we will see the passion, the drama and the sort of action that great World Cups are made of.

As I write this, Putin is addressing the audience and pretty much saying the same thing as me – “Football is all about the world coming together in the spirit of love, transcending barriers, language barriers – it’s a force that unites people!” and all that kind of thing.

To me it seems like he’s saying “The world cup is a great symbol of friendly international sporting competition, and this year we are proud to say that through this world cup held in Russia you will join together in the spirit of love, or we will kill you.”

I’m just kidding guys!

Now the FIFA spokesman is saying “Welcome to the FIFA world cup held here in Russia where they are very generous, very generous indeed. You should have seen the welcome package that was part of their original bid to host these games. Whoo! Hopefully the world will profit from this competition as much as FIFA already has!” etc.

Note to self: Do not be cynical. Instead, choose to echo cliched world cup platitudes about football uniting the world.

—

Sorry for missing any details! Please get into the comment section with your thoughts about anything in the WC. I can read them out in the next WC episode. So, please put your thoughts into writing in the comment section and get some discussion going.

What do you think so far? Best teams? Best players? Best goal? Predictions?

The groups
www.bbc.com/sport/football/world-cup/schedule/group-stage

Favourite teams to win
Argentina
Brazil
Germany
Belgium
Portugal
Spain
England
France
Colombia
Uruguay
Mexico
Croatia

VAR

Designed to make refereeing decisions more accurate, fair and transparent.

Putin has volunteered to personally be in control of the VAR during the championship, which should be interesting.

A team of people studying video replays, a video replay at the side of the pitch.

How has VAR affected games?
Stoppage time, more penalties, some moments when it’s not being used, moments when it’s not right (some offsides) perhaps players will stop cheating

Players cheating
Diving, play acting – holding face, rolling around on the ground, just being brushed by someone’s fingers means you fall to the ground clawing at your face.

Predictions
What the past tells us about who will win
www.bbc.com/sport/football/44431262

534. Sugar Sammy Interview (Part 2) Language & Comedy

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Part 2 of my chat with Canadian stand-up comedian Sugar Sammy, talking about his 4 languages, TV shows from our childhood, copying Indian accents, language-related controversy in Quebec, Sammy’s crowd-work skills, stories of difficult gigs in the UK, and our thoughts on recent Star Wars films. At the end of the episode you can hear my spoiler-free review of “Solo: A Star Wars Story”. Transcriptions and notes available.

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Sugarsammy.com – for news of Sammy’s live shows 

Introduction Transcript

Hello, welcome back to the podcast. Here is part 2 of my conversation with Canadian multilingual stand up comedy sensation Sugar Sammy.

In our conversation we’re talking mainly about language and comedy, and here’s an overview of the main points that come up in this episode:

  • First of all we talk about the 4 languages that Sammy speaks
    There’s a tangent about American TV shows that we both used to watch when we were children, and which actually helped Sammy to learn English when he was young.
  • Two of those American TV shows we mention include Knight Rider (the one in which David Hasselhoff drives around in a super cool black talking car) and The Dukes of Hazzard (the one about two brothers who live on a farm in Georgia who drive around Georgia in an orange Dodge Charger, being chased by stupid local police officers, doing lots of jumps and stunts in the car).
  • We talk about accents and copying accents: Specifically the question of whether I should do an impression of an Indian accent on stage, or if that would be inappropriate or unacceptable for some reason.
  • We discuss a language controversy that Sammy was involved in in Quebec, Canada – which included him receiving lots of criticism and even a death threat, essentially for performing a popular show in languages other than French – in Quebec (they are very protective of the French language there) It was quite scandal at the time.
  • We talk about what Sammy does on stage, especially his crowd-work, which is that skill of improvising moments of comedy by talking directly to members of the audience. This is something that Sammy is known for because he does it very well.
  • Sammy talks about some tough comedy gigs he has had in the UK over the years and tells us a story of how he once got heckled by an aggressive audience in Northern Ireland. Heckling is when audience members shout things at you while you’re performing. For a comedian it can be pretty difficult when you’re being heckled, but good comics are able to react and respond with funny “heckle put downs”, funny responses that turn an aggressive comment into a funny moment.
  • Then there’s a bit about Star Wars at the end – because like me, Sammy is a big fan.
    We talk briefly about Sammy’s favourite episode of Star Wars, what he thought of The Last Jedi and whether he is interested in seeing the new Han Solo film. When I recorded this interview I hadn’t seen Solo, but since recording it I have, so I will talk about the Han Solo movie briefly at the end of this episode, giving my non-spoiler review.

Don’t forget that Sammy will be touring parts of Asia soon – this year probably. He has gigs coming up in Malaysia and Singapore and will be organising dates in China and Japan. He also intends to visit Russia and South America to do shows at some point. So Sammy might be performing near you soon and you must go and see him. To get news of Sammy’s shows so you don’t miss him – visit sugarsammy.com and join his mailing list.

Now without any further ado, let’s continue listening to my conversation with the super cool multilingual comedian from Canada – Sugar Sammy.

Sugarsammy.com

Knight Rider

The Dukes of Hazzard

Peter Sellers in The Party (an English actor performing as an Indian character – it would be offensive but Seller’s impression is spot on according to Sammy)

Solo: A Star Wars Story (No-Spoiler Review)

Notes & Transcriptions

For those of you who are Star Wars fans – I’m now going to talk about the latest film, which in English is called “SOLO” – released last month.

This is a “star wars story” – not part of the Skywalker narrative.
It’s an origins story.
I was sceptical about the film.
Production for the film seemed troubled, which is usually not a good sign – but it’s not necessarily a guarantee of a bad film.
The original directors were fired by Kathleen Kennedy (head of Lucasfilm) because they took the film in a comedic direction and there was too much improvisation.
Ron Howard was brought in (a more conventional, reliable Hollywood guy) to fix it and bring it back in line.

Also there were doubts about the ability of Alden Ehrenreich to pull off the performance of a character who we loved so much, largely because of Harrison Ford’s star power.

I kept my expectations pretty low. I just thought – I’d like to see what happens, I just want to enter the world of Star Wars again and see what it’s like. I was ready to be disappointed though.

The film has underperformed at the box office. I’m not sure of the exact figures, but it’s taken less than it should have and might be considered as a financial failure, possibly even losing money for the studio in the short to medium term. It’s bound to make money eventually, long term, but the general feel is that it didn’t do as well as the studio hoped. Perhaps we’ve all had enough of Star Wars now. Star Wars fatigue, or maybe the fanbase has gone a bit weird. Star Wars has always been seen as an indestructible franchise. But the Last Jedi divided audiences, with quite a lot of fans absolutely hating it. Maybe Solo has suffered from the so-called Star Wars backlash.

But Solo isn’t really like The Last Jedi. It doesn’t have the same subtext of progressive politics, or themes that seem to subvert the core ideas of Star Wars. It’s pretty conventional and straightforward stuff.

What I liked

  • The performance by Alden Ehrenreich. He was charismatic, swashbuckling but also had a vulnerable side – the key things that Harrison Ford brought to the role originally. Han Solo has swagger and he’s really cool, but there’s something a bit vulnerable and loveable about him. He’s quite goofy and adorable, but also capable of being quite a ruthless fighter when necessary. It’s an interesting character and the actor did a good job of hitting those points. It’s not just a Harrison Ford impression. He seems to have got the spirit of Han Solo.
  • The dirty, gritty world.
  • Visual effects were incredible (although the whole film was very murky – intentional? Bad cinematography? I personally like that. I don’t need everything to be brightly lit like in the prequels. I like Clint Eastwood films that are full of shadow and darkness and you don’t see everything in bright contrast.)
  • The absence of Jedi and light sabres – it made a nice change. This was all about just having a good blaster at your side, knowing who to trust. It was like Rogue One in that sense. You got the idea that people could die – they weren’t immortal cartoon characters with superhuman abilities.
  • The train robbery scene was amazing, particularly the explosion at the end. I’m not sure why the empire needs to transport goods by train, considering they totally have spaceships, but it made for a good scene and made me think of old action movies and westerns that have action scenes on trains. The film was full of this kind of thing – standard movie tropes but in a Star Wars universe and I liked that. It was appealingly old school.
  • It was a slightly smaller story and that was appealing too. Sometimes you don’t want it to be about the huge Star Wars narrative about destiny and the force. Just a small, compact story about low-level gangsters is all you need.
  • Not too many geeky references to other films. There were some, but they were *fairly* subtle…
  • Nice chemistry between Solo and Chewbacca.
  • There are a couple of jokes which were not bad and pretty much in the spirit of the original films. They didn’t go overboard on the humour like in The Last Jedi, which a lot of the fans hated. I think the original directors probably had a lot more humour in it and after seeing the audience response to the humour in TLJ perhaps Kathleen Kennedy decided to replace them for a more serious director. There is a moment when Han Solo speaks Chewbacca’s language which was a bit over the top (if he speaks Wookie, why did he never do it in the other films – seems like a cheap trick, but it didn’t ruin the film for me.
  • Chewy has some badass moments.
  • Qu’ira’s character is interesting as a femme fatale. Emilia Clarke is very easy on the eye and I found her character to be interesting because I never knew where her loyalties were and there was always this sense that she was going to betray Han, and Han was sort of obsessed with her. It’s a bit like your first love – when, as a younger guy, you fall in love with a girl who might be slightly out of your league and you know she’s always going to break your heart.
  • Just really enjoyable. Woody Harrelson was a dependable screen presence as ever.

What I didn’t like

  • The cheesy musical score running through a lot of the scenes, as if we needed to be told how to feel and to make sure we didn’t get bored or anything
    Some cheesy clichés, which I can’t really remember now – but a lot of typical movie tropes and “yeah, right” moments.
  • There are probably some plot holes and things that didn’t make sense, but I can’t remember what they are. Well, there’s a moment when one character dies and I thought “why did that happen, it seemed completely unnecessary”
  • Some of the moments when they tried to link this film with the wider Star Wars universe – like linking it to some plot points in Rogue One – or just trying to include some of the large Star Wars themes – the birth of the rebellion. It seemed forced, and shoehorned – I mean, like they forced certain big themes into the film (no pun intended). It would have been better to make it a completely self-contained film without having to connect it to the broader world of Star Wars, the birth of the rebellion and all that.
  • Classic westerns like Sergio Leone’s dollar trilogy (spaghetti westerns) are just about those characters in an isolated story. It would have been good to do something like that. Let the audience use their imagination to fit it in with the larger universe.
  • Also, it feels a little bit like Star Wars is pushing an ideological position these days, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I suppose it always was – the rebellion, the empire. It was basically about the struggle of local groups of freedom fighters against a vastly more powerful military dictatorship. But that message was usually delivered a bit more subtly in the original films. These days it’s like Star Wars needs to push this message a bit harder for some reason.

I can’t go into it in more detail without spoiling the film.

Anyway, those were my thoughts about Solo: A Star Wars Story. If you’ve seen it, let me know what you thought.

And I just talked about it there because it’s something Sammy and I discussed.

Let me remind you – sugarsammy.com to get news of his upcoming shows – possibly in a city near you soon.

Thanks for listening.

Other news

The World Cup is going on. I really want to talk about that a lot, like I did in 2014 – but I have so many episodes to upload! And I’m working on LEP Premium – basically making some episodes to upload soon and then I’ll launch it properly.

I usually worry when I have too much content to upload. I tend to think – if I upload too much (like loads of World Cup episodes) then people won’t be able to listen to it all and then they might just stop listening completely… they’ll think “Oh I can’t keep up and I don’t really like The World Cup so I’ll just move on to something else” and…

So, expect some WC episodes coming soon during the tournament, but if that’s not your cup of tea (or World Cup of Tea) then I suppose you can just skip them and know that it’s not all going to be about football forever.

Speak to you soon. Bye!

Luke

533. Sugar Sammy Interview (Part 1) Multilingual Comedian

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Sugar Sammy is a very popular and famous comedian from Canada. He’s often described as Montreal’s #1 stand up comedian. He speaks 4 languages, he has performed comedy in lots of countries. He might be coming to your country soon to make you laugh. Ladies and gentlemen – meet the wonderful Sugar Sammy!

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Join Sugar Sammy’s Mailing List – for news of his international shows

Introduction Transcript

Hi everyone. This is quite a special episode because of today’s guest. I’m talking to a really famous comedian, so it was quite a thrill for me and I really hope that it translates into a good listening experience for you too and that it grabs your attention and not just because it’s a chance to practise your listening in English.

You know that as well as being an English teacher and a podcaster, I’m a stand up comedian, which means that I go onstage in front of audiences and try to make them laugh – by telling jokes, telling stories and doing voices. Stand up comedy is huge as a form of entertainment, and arguably as an art form – particularly in the English speaking world. In Paris, where I live, there is a stand up comedy scene in English. It’s pretty small – there are not that many English speaking comedians and shows in English, and in some ways that’s actually really cool because I get to meet and hang around with some pretty famous people who come here to do comedy. For example there are the professional French comedians who also perform in English, and I’m talking about people like Gad Elmaleh (the biggest French speaking comedian in the world) who I have kind of met (I said hello to him and we performed on the same show) and other French comics like Yacine Belhousse and Noman Hosni (who have been on this podcast), but also comedians who come here from other places like the UK, the USA or Canada to perform their comedy in English or maybe in French – people like Eddie Izzard, Ian Moore and so on. Basically, because it’s a small scene I get to meet and hang out with some really great comedy stars.

That’s how I met today’s guest – Sugar Sammy who comes from Canada.

Sugar Sammy

Sugar Sammy is a genuine star of comedy. He’s probably the biggest name I’ve ever had on this podcast. I had David Crystal of course – the famous linguist. You know I’m interested in language and language teaching, so David Crystal was a big guest for that reason but I’m also obsessed with stand up comedy and Sammy is massively famous in the world of stand-up especially in Canada, and I’m lucky to be friendly enough with him to get him on this podcast.

Some information on Sammy
In terms of his background, he was born and grew up in Montreal, Canada – a bilingual city. The official language there is French but everyone can speak English too.
In total he speaks 4 languages – English, French, Punjabi and Hindi – and he does stand up comedy in all of them.

He is of Indian origin. I’m not sure of the details but I’m guessing that his parents or maybe even his grandparents moved to Canada from India at some point. Anyway, this is why he can speak Punjabi and Hindi – both Indian languages.

He has a list of accomplishments and awards as long as your arm. I don’t know how long your arm is, but I’m assuming it’s very long because so is this list.

(A list as long as your arm – it’s just a phrase meaning “a long list”)

A quick look at his Wikipedia page tells you about his achievements:

He’s done sold out one man shows, HBO comedy specials, his own TV shows, he’s opened for Dave Chappelle, he gets featured in newspapers and photographed by paparazzi.

One of his main accomplishments is that he was the first to perform a successful bilingual show in Quebec – a place which is notorious for how it protects French as the official language, so performing in English, Punjabi and Hindi there was actually a very controversial thing to do.
He once performed in front of over 115,000 people at the end of a 420 show tour at the Just For Laughs festival in 2016.

Sammy has performed all around the world in the United States, Canada, France, Belgium, England, Australia, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, China, India, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Egypt, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Lebanon, Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Northern Ireland, Dubai, Haiti[12] New Zealand and South Africa, where his one-man show sold 15,000 tickets.[13]

And that’s just in English. He also has a successful comedy career in French.

As a stand up comedian I would describe him as confident, charming, very sharp, good at imitating different accents, good at playing with cultural stereotypes, excellent at exploiting people’s cultural assumptions and very very quick when it comes to doing crowd work – improvising off the interactions he has with members of the audience.

His shows always include a lot of improvisation in which he talks to the people on the front row and always manages to turn the interactions into very funny moments of comedy.

If you want information on how to see Sammy on stage, go to his website sugarsammy.com

You can see him performing in French in Paris at the Alhambra theatre, and later this year he is going to tour internationally – and he has plans to visit parts of Asia – including Malaysia, Singapore, China and Japan and potentially even more places. So, seriously – watch out for Sugar Sammy doing shows in your country soon and I really recommend that you get out and see him.

Sugar Sammy is a world-class comedian and a really cool guy and I’m pleased to have him on the podcast.

In terms of his English and his accent – he is a Canadian native speaker of English, so he has a typical Canadian accent, which for many people is indistinguishable from a sort of standard American accent. I can usually hear the difference between Canadian and American accents I think, but it’s a very subtle difference. Basically, in many cases Canadian English is very close to American English.

Our conversation focuses on comedy, language and various issues relating to both of those things.

I’ve divided the conversation into two parts, which should make it easier for you to listen to. Our conversation moves pretty quickly. It might be difficult to follow – depending on your level of English. You can see as you listen to it. Part 2 will be available soon.

I think we’re lucky to be able to listen to Sammy on this podcast. I feel very grateful to have been able to sit down and talk to him for over an hour. As you are all learners of English I hope that this provides you with the interesting, engaging and authentic English listening practice that you’re looking for. I won’t say any more in the introduction here. It’s time to just start listening to my chat with Sugar Sammy.

Ending Transcript

I’m stopping the conversation there. The rest will come in part 2.

Sammy is excited about new people… and win them over.

That could be you!

sugarsammy.com

So, I wonder how this is for you. How is this for you so far?

I said already that for me it was a thrill to record this conversation – partly because Sammy is a top comedian and it feels like a privilege to be able to interview him, but also because it’s just loads of fun to talk to him and hang out with him.

But how’s it going for you? Are you alright? I certainly hope you’re enjoying this as much as you actually should be enjoying it. Because, just in case you didn’t realise, you really should be enjoying this quite a lot.

I expect you are enjoying it like I am, but it’s probably a bit hard to follow in places. It’s probably been quite difficult to follow everything, – but of course it depends on your level of English, you listening skills.

But if it is hard to follow sometimes, then I’m not surprised! First of all, you’re probably listening to this because you’re learning English, in which case, if it’s hard to follow everything in a native-level conversation like this then that makes total sense and is completely normal. You’re not a native speaker so it’s bound to be more difficult. What I’d say to you is – keep listening, keep practising. You can understand conversations like this 100%. It takes time and practice, and motivation and positivity, but you can definitely do it.

Also, let’s not forget that in episodes of this podcast I often play you natural conversations between friends that are not graded. Nobody’s trying to simplify their English or anything. It’s also spontaneous and fast like a normal conversation. So, I am not surprised if it’s difficult sometimes. That’s normal. This is not a listening exercise in a coursebook published by Oxford University Press. The recordings you get in those publications are usually scripted, and graded to make them easier to understand – even at advanced levels. For example, Headway Upper Intermediate and Headway Advanced.

They’re easier, aren’t they? Don’t get me wrong, they’re good publications, but they go for a different approach. They grade their listening materials. My conversations aren’t graded. In fact I specifically ask my guests to speak naturally – because I want them to be natural and I want them to still be funny and relaxed because for me what we might lose in terms of intelligibility we gain in authenticity and in humour, basically.

Right. So listening to this conversation with Sugar Sammy is the real thing, so it’s normal if it’s pretty tough, but for me this is a good strong way to work on your English. It’s a bit like high-altitude training – when people train high in the mountains where there’s less oxygen. It’s hard, it’s strenuous, it’s challenging, but when you go back down to lower altitude levels where there’s more oxygen, you’re suddenly much more effective and the training really pays off.

Anyway, speaking for myself, this was a really fun episode to do and if I were you I would listen to it several times to squeeze maximum enjoyment out of it – because I promise you that if you listen again you’ll understand and therefore enjoy it even more, and then you can also get stuck into part 2 which may already be available for you.

Come on people. Seriously, you’re getting more than your money’s worth here are you not?

Check out the page on the website for some more details, including a transcription of my intro and ending to this episode, a video of Sammy improvising on stage talking to an Iraqi guy in the audience who has moved to Texas, also you can see video of Bill Hicks and his routine about being asked “What are you reading for?” and a video of the extraordinary Russian singer Vitas doing his song 7th Element.

Thanks for listening. Get my app from the app store to get all my episodes on your phone plus loads of bonus content and access to premium episodes when they are available.

Speak to you again in part two.

Bye!

Sugar Sammy & The Happy Iraqi in Texas

Bill Hicks – “What are you reading for?”

Vitas – 7th Element

Rosanne Barr Controversy

Court Jesters

www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/what-was-life-like-for-a-court-jester/

530. More Murder Stories (with Moz)

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My friend Moz (Michael J. Buchanan-Dunne) from the Murder Mile True Crime Podcast tells us some more true stories about murders from London’s past. Contains some gruesome details and explicit descriptions, and some fascinating and unbelievable true stories! Intro and outtro transcripts available. *Adults only: Contains gory details and explicit descriptions*

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Introduction Transcript

This episode features another conversation with one of my friends for you to listen to as part of your learning English diet, and yes let’s imagine that learning English is a bit like having a diet plan, but instead of limiting your intake like you do with a food diet, with this English diet the plan is just to consume as much English as possible and really enjoy it. Just binge on English as much as you like – yum yum yum yum yum.

So yes, here is some more natural English conversation for you to indulge in.

The friend I’m talking to in this episode is my mate Moz, who has been on the podcast a couple of times before. You can find all his episodes in the archive. Just search for Moz – m o z. The long-term listeners will know Moz but if you’re fairly new around here, here is a 2-minute summary of what you need to know about him.

I met Moz (whose real name is actually Mike or in fact Michael J Buchanan-Dunne) doing stand-up comedy back when I was living in london a few years ago.

He lives on a canal boat, spending most of his time in London where there is a canal network that crosses the city.

Moz gives guided walking tours around parts of central London – especially Soho. The theme of these walking tours is murder, and Moz takes groups of visitors to different locations and then describes real murders that happened in those places. The tour includes stories of serial killers, crimes of passion and mysteries that have never been solved. Quite a lot of my listeners have actually taken his tour when visiting London and you can do it too if you’re in town. Just go to murdermiletours.com to get the details and to book a tour. It’s a really different way to explore parts of central London with a local person. It’s much more interesting than the normal boring tourist walks, and it has a 5-star rating on TripAdvisor. Not bad.

Moz also has his own podcast called the Murder Mile True Crime Podcast in which he describes, in plenty of detail, the stories that he tells briefly on his walking tours, and more. He started the podcast just 7 months ago and since then it’s gone from strength to strength. It got a nomination in this year’s British Podcast Awards in the True Crime category.

So Moz is something of a specialist when it comes to describing the stories of true crimes in London. His stories are painstakingly researched using court and police records from the national archives, and Moz is a well-experienced and enthusiastic storyteller.

And it’s the storytelling that I’m interested in here, as much as anything else, because stories can be really great resources for learning English, especially when the storyteller is enthusiastic and the content of the story is gripping. They help to draw you in, make you focus on the details and just get more English into your ears, which is so important, as we know!

Well, Moz is certainly keen to describe the events in his stories and you have to agree that there is something fascinating about the subject of murder. Of course it’s horrible and tragic – especially for the victims and their families of course – these are often appalling crimes, but at the same time it’s hard not to wonder about the motivations of murderers, the lives they led, the conditions in which it could be possible for one person to take the life of another.

This is why crime and mystery novels, TV shows and documentaries are so popular. Apparently we can’t get enough of this kind of thing. So, although their subject matter is dark and quite explicit, I think that these stories are compelling and well-told and that is reason enough for me to present them to you in this episode.

Now, as I usually say when Moz comes onto the podcast and talks about murder – I think I should warn you here – Moz’s accounts often contain some very graphic and explicit descriptions of some truly horrible acts of violence and moments of horror.

So, if you’re sensitive to this kind of thing – if you don’t like blood and violent imagery – if you’re squeamish – you might want to proceed with caution. If you’re playing this with children around, like if you’re in the car and the kids are listening – you should probably pick another episode. My episodes are usually aimed at adults anyway, but this one in particular is not suitable for children. So, that should be clear – if you don’t like gory details, proceed with caution, if kids are present, listen to this later when they’re not around.

Ok we’re very nearly ready to begin here.

A coot – “as bald as a coot”

At the beginning, you’re going to hear Moz’s quick report from the British Podcast Awards ceremony which he attended just a couple of weeks ago and then he goes on to tell us about some of the murder stories he’s been researching over the last year or so.

So, without further ado, let’s go!

“Outtro” Transcript

Moz is getting very good at telling these stories isn’t he?

If you enjoyed this conversation, let me recommend Moz’s podcast – just in case you’re looking for more stuff to listen to in English. As he said it is available on all the usual platforms that you use to get your podcasts. Search for Murder Mile True Crime Podcast. Quite a lot of you already listen to his show, which is great.

The next episode is going to include a Vocabulary Quiz focusing on the language of crime – different nouns and verbs for various types of crime. So vocab hunters, watch out for that.

Well done for listening to the end. Good luck with your English. Keep it up!

Leave your comments on the website as usual. Join the conversation and practise doing some writing in English.

Download the app for convenient access to the whole archive of episodes and some bonus content.

Speak to you again soon!

Bye bye bye!

Links

Murder-Mile Walking Tours

Murder-Mile True Crime Podcast

Listen to serial killer Dennis Nilsen Speaking

523. Tips for Learning English with Films & TV Shows (with Cara Leopold)

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Talking to a fellow English teacher about advice for using TV shows and films to learn English, both with and without subtitles.

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Intro Transcript

Today on the podcast I’m talking to Cara Leopold who is an English teacher from the UK, living in France – like me.

Cara is an online teacher, who has her own podcast and other resources for learners of English on her website leo-listening.com.

One of the main things she focuses on is learning English through listening – especially using TV and films as a resource.

She’s got some tips to share on that subject – many of which come from her personal experiences of learning French, and so I’d like to talk to her about that,

But first I’d like to just get to know Cara a bit because we’ve never actually spoken before. So listeners, instead of hearing me talking to someone I already know (which is the way it normally goes on this podcast) you can now hear me having a conversation with someone I haven’t met before – so you can hear how that might happen in English.

Cara’s Website

www.leo-listening.com

Films and TV shows mentioned

Red Dwarf
BBC TV Comedy

The Orville
Seth MacFarlane
Based on Star Trek

Thor: Ragnarok
Directed by Taika Waititi, who also directed Flight of the Conchords.

Learning English with Films & TV – Summary of Advice Given

Here’s a summary of the main points made about using TV and films for learning English, with and without subtitles.

  • There are no hard and fast rules about using subtitles.
  • Using subtitles can help you understand what you’re hearing, especially when you realise that spoken English and written English can be very different. Subtitles can help bridge the gap between how words and sentences sound, and how they are written.
  • But be aware that only watching with subtitles might not help you develop real listening skills, because you’re basically just reading while you watch. Experiment with switching the subtitles on and off.
  • You can watch a film several times, especially if you enjoy it or already know it. Some films improve with multiple viewings. So, try watching certain films several times, perhaps first with subtitles in your language, then in English and then with no subtitles at all.
  • You can alternate between watching episodes of your TV show with and without subtitles.
  • Using TV and films for learning English is not just a simple or easy way to learn. In your first language you might just switch on a film or show and then kind of veg out while watching it – without really concentrating. This won’t work in English. Be prepared to focus and perhaps be more active while watching.
  • Watch certain scenes several times, with and without the subtitles.
  • Test yourself on what you heard and check with the subtitles.
  • Search for certain new bits of vocabulary when they come up.
  • Don’t worry too much about certain specific cultural details.
  • Try transcribing certain scenes – especially if you thought it contained really cool dialogue.
  • Then watch again with the subtitles to check your transcription.
  • Before you watch a film or TV show, check online reviews or summaries to help prepare yourself.
  • Be a little selective in your choice – pick stuff that you’d normally enjoy, and remember that films and TV shows can contain very “mumbly” dialogue, and even just “grunting” during long fight scenes. Try to pick films that are pretty simple and perhaps comedies that focus on the dialogue.
  • Don’t worry too much if you don’t understand 100%. Even in our first languages we don’t always understand what’s going on in films. So, don’t beat yourself up if you’re not able to understand it all.

516. Paul McCartney’s Spider Story

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Learn English from an anecdote told by Sir Paul McCartney. Let’s listen to Paul telling a sweet story about something funny that happened to him and George Harrison when they were teenagers, before they became world famous musicians in The Beatles. Let’s listen to his story , do some intensive listening practice and then I’ll help you understand everything. Also, let’s have a laugh with some funny Paul McCartney impressions. Video and notes available below.

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Pre-Jingle Vocabulary

This episdoe is called Paul McCartney’s Spider Story and if you keep listening you’ll hear what happens when a couple of Beatles meet a couple of spiders.

You can also do some intensive listening practice focusing on every single word, and then later there are some bits focusing on Paul McCartney’s voice – including a few fun Paul McCartney impressions.

But right here at the beginning, before the jingle even, I just want to give you a heads up about some bits of vocab that appear in the episode. I’ll tell you the vocab now and while you’re listening and hopefully enjoying the episode, just try to spot these words and phrases as they come up, and when you do spot them you can just go – oh, there’s that word, there’s that phrase.

  • a bed and breakfast (a B&B) = a simple guesthouse where you pay for a bed for the night and breakfast in the morning, a bit like a basic hotel which is just someone’s home. (e.g. We hitch-hiked around Cornwall and stayed in a few little B&Bs along the way)
  • to turn out (phrasal verb) = when you discover a fact or when something is later revealed to be true or to be the case ,turn out + infinitive (e.g. we got talking to this guy and made friends with him and it turned out that his mum owned a B&B up the road or I was standing in a shop and I overheard someone talking about recording music and a concert and it turned out to be Paul McCartney!)
  • menace (noun) = something dangerous that can cause you harm (e.g. next door’s dog is a real menace to my chickens, or he has an air of menace about him, or there was a hint of menace in his voice)
  • as blind as a bat = totally blind, e.g. I’m as blind as a bat without my glasses! (Bats are often thought to be blind, but in fact their eyes are as good as ours – but they use their ears more at night than their eyes)
  • a nativity scene = a set of models or statues depicting the birth of the baby Jesus Christ, with Mary & Joseph often sitting over the baby Jesus. Every Christmas my school used to display a nativity scene in the school’s entrance. Sometimes people display nativity scenes in their homes or even outside the house if they’re particularly religious at Christmas.
  • to bury the hatchet = to stop a long running argument and become friends again. E.g. I wish you two would just bury the hatchet so we can get the band back together. (bury the weapon you might use to fight with someone)
  • to bury the hatchet in someone’s head = a joke! If you bury a knife, sword or hatchet in this case in someone’s head – it means you stick it deep in their head – to kill them. E.g. I’m ready to bury the hatchet – in your head! – Makes it sound like you’re ready to stop fighting, but actually you still want to kill the other person!
  • showing off = behaving in a way to attract attention and show people how great you are, but in a way that’s annoying. E.g. Dave is really good at the guitar but he’s always showing off doing these ridiculous guitar solos. He just wants to impress everyone. or Stop showing off in front of all the guests!

OK – so, no information yet about the context that those words come up in, but I just wanted to give you a heads up about some bits of vocab that definitely do come up at various points during the episode. See if you can spot them all as they naturally come up. Now, on with the episode!

Introduction

What are we doing in this episode? Listen to an anecdote – a real one, told by none other than Paul McCartney.

This is a video I found on YouTube (see below). Listen to the story, and just work out what’s going on. I’ll give you a few questions to guide you. Then I’ll go through the recording again and explain it, clarify, highlight any features of language and generally help you to understand it as well as I do. So, this is a great chance to learn some English from a real anecdote – a personal little story, in this case told by Sir Paul McCartney.

I love The Beatles. I love listening to Paul talking about, well, anything really, and I love this particular video and this little anecdote.

It’s not a story about how he conquered the world in The Beatles, or how they played Shea Stadium or how they sold millions of records or whatever.

It’s just a sweet and funny little story about something that happened to him and his mate George Harrison when they went hitchhiking in Wales – before they were even famous or in The Beatles.

I think the video originally appears as an outtake from the George Harrison documentary “Living in the Material World”, which was directed by Martin Scorsese. Highly recommended.

He was just asked if he could tell a story about a good memory of George. Of all the things they must have been through together, this is the one he picked.

Who’s Paul McCartney? (as if you don’t know…)

He’s got to be one of the most successful musicians to have ever lived.
He was in The Beatles – you must have heard of them!
I don’t know if you like their music, but you can’t deny that they’re one of the most significant bands ever and also one of the most significant moments in cultural history. I have no doubt that their music and their story will forever be remembered, studied and considered ultimately to be like classical music.

But I don’t mean to build it up too much. For me, I’m a fan of the Beatles not just because of their place in cultural history, but because of the fascinating story of these apparently ordinary guys from Liverpool, their lives, their friendship and the amazing pool of creativity that seemed to open up between them once various factors were in place and the career of the Beatles happened.

Comprehension Questions

Watch the video of “Paul McCartney talking about his best times with George Harrison” (below)

Try to answer these questions. Listen to find out the answers.

  1. Why did they hitch hike to this place called Harloch in Wales?
  2. Where did they end up? Why did they spend their time there?
  3. Where did they stay?
  4. What did he realise later on?
  5. Who did they hang out with? What did they do?
  6. What was their reaction to the spiders in their room? How did they deal with the spiders?
  7. Who were Jimmy & Jemimah?

Paul McCartney talking about his best times with George Harrison – “The Menace! The Spiders!”

The second anecdote – Buddy Holly and John Lennon’s poor eyesight

What’s the funny thing Paul says about John’s eyesight?

Answer: John Lennon famously wore glasses because he was very short sighted. He used to take the glasses off if girls were around. Later, Buddy Holly became a famous pop/rock star and suddenly it was quite cool to wear horn-rimmed glasses. Anyway, one night after writing songs at Paul’s house one dark evening at Christmas time, John walked past a house and thought he saw some neighbours still sitting outside in the freezing cold playing cards. Paul later realised that it was just a nativity scene, and John was so blind that he’d thought the statues of Mary & Joseph bending over the baby Jesus were a couple of people playing cards outside their house.

Rob Brydon & Steve Coogan do Beatle Impressions in The Trip to Spain

Rob and Steve do their Paul McCartney impressions. Rob talks about how Paul’s voice has been affected by the fact that his mouth has lost some mobility now that he’s quite old. Steve disagrees and says that he thought Paul was quite articulate. They then start doing John Lennon impressions.

Peter Serafinowicz Show – The Beatles go for a poo

A parody of the Beatles in their Let It Be period, when there was lots of friction in the band and they couldn’t agree on the musical direction for the group. British comedian Peter Serafinowicz does impressions of all the Beatles.

Listen to Episode 414 – “My Uncle Met A Rock Star” – My uncle’s account of how he once met Paul McCartney in a shop

414. With the Family (Part 2) My Uncle Met a Rock Star

515. Becoming “Maman” with Amber & Sarah – Bringing Up Children The French Way

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In this episode I’m talking to friends of the podcast Amber Minogue and Sarah Donnelly about the subject of raising children in a foreign country – in this case, France. So this is an episode all about cross-cultural experiences, specifically relating to parenthood. It’s also about a new podcast and stage show which Amber & Sarah have just started. Transcriptions, notes and links below.

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In this episode I’m talking to friends of the podcast Amber Minogue and Sarah Donnelly about the subject of raising children in a foreign country – in this case, France. So this is an episode all about cross-cultural experiences, specifically relating to parenthood. It’s also about a new podcast and stage show which Amber & Sarah have just started.

If you’re a long term listener then I’m sure you know Amber, and you should also remember Sarah because she’s been on the podcast a few times too.

Amber and Sarah are both ex-pats living in Paris, like me. They’re also stand-up comedians who perform on stage in English here, like me. They’re both with French partners, like me. They both have kids here in Paris with their French partners, again, like me; and now they are both podcasters, like me.

Amber (who is from the UK) has been a podcaster for a while, as you may know, with her charming and quirky podcast about the history of Paris – called “Paname” (available at panamepodcast.com and on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts) , but now Amber has joined forces with Sarah (who is from the USA) in order to work on a new project which is called “Becoming Maman”. “Maman” is the French word for “mum” or “mom”.

The project is primarily a stage show – a kind of “two-woman show” which is all about their experiences of having kids in Paris. I saw the first performance of Becoming Maman a few weeks ago and it was brilliant. The two of them are very funny as a double act and the show was full of very astute and amusing observations, jokes and sketches about life as an English-speaking ex-pat bringing up children in Paris.

As well as the stage show, they’re also doing some videos for Facebook and YouTube and the new podcast which is also called “Becoming Maman”. In the podcast episodes Amber and Sarah typically sit down together and discuss certain issues and experiences relating to raising children in France – particularly the differences in the parenting culture between France and their home countries of the UK and the USA.

If you’re an email subscriber or a regular visitor to my website, you might know all of this already (you might be going “yep, yep – got it, been there, seen that, got the t-shirt, already subscribed to Becoming Maman – I have already become Maman) email subscribers might already know about this because I wrote a post last week to let you know that I had been interviewed by Amber and Sarah on their podcast, and I shared links so you could listen or download that episode and subscribe to the podcast. In that episode of their podcast they asked me about my experiences of becoming a dad, and we talked about how children learn languages. Check it out here.

For more information about their project, check out all the links below.

Becoming Maman – podcast page

Becoming Maman on iTunes

Becoming Maman – RSS feed

Becoming Maman – Facebook page

So – raising kids in France when you’re not French and the differences in the parenting culture between France and the UK and the USA. These are the things that we’re going to talk about in this episode, as well as a few of the usual tangents including some thoughts about differences in the behaviour of boys and girls and whether these differences are caused by innate factors that children are born with or subtle ways in which we encourage certain kinds of behaviour as parents.

Well, just before we begin I’d like you to consider how this topic relates to your life experience in some way. You might not have kids, but since you’re out there, probably learning English, there’s a good chance that your life is, has been, or will be affected by cross-cultural experiences, not just relating to parenthood. Thinking about how you have things in common with us should help you to generally relate to our conversation better, and by extension that should help you just get more out of it in terms of language learning and general enjoyment.

So, here are loads of questions for you to consider before we get stuck into this conversation.

Also, pay attention to certain bits of language relating to childhood and raising kids and let me also remind you of episode 68 which is full of the language of childhood – and that’s vocabulary like “to bring up children” “to raise children” “to grow up” and so on – all explained.

68. Childhood / Growing Up / School Days – Phrasal Verbs and Expressions

Before you Listen – Questions for your consideration

  • First of all, what kinds of cross-cultural experiences have you had?
  • Have you ever lived abroad or spent a good deal of time with people from other cultures?
  • Did you notice any differences in the way you or other people do things? That could include anything in life – like slightly different ways of doing business or eating food or communicating, but also ways of dealing with children.
  • What were the challenges associated with the experience you had with another culture or in another country? How did that make your life more difficult, crazy, funny, strange or interesting? E.g. Did you find it hard to work out the administrative system, the work-life balance or the approach to education at school?
  • Could you imagine settling down in another country and bringing up children there?
  • If you already have kids, in what situation did you raise your kids or are you raising your kids?
  • Are you and your partner from the same country, and are your kids growing up in that country too? That’s a monocultural and monolingual situation.
  • Can you imagine bringing your children up in a foreign country, perhaps with a foreign partner, with several languages involved? So, a bi-cultural or bilingual situation.
  • How would that make things different?
  • How could it make life more complicated?
  • For example – consider the identity of your child or children. Where would you consider your children to be from? How would you feel if they grew up to be from a different culture to you?
  • Let’s say, if you’re Spanish (or Polish or Chinese or Russian or Brazilian) and you’re bringing up kids in London are your kids still Spanish, Polish or Chinese or Russian or Brazilian, or are they now English – because that’s where they were born and have grown up?
  • How would living abroad affect your parenting style?
  • Should you, for example, adapt your parenting style to fit the new culture, or keep doing it how it’s done where you’re from?
  • What if the parenting style in this other place is quite different to how it’s done where you’re from? What if you don’t really understand the way they do it in this other place?
  • How would that be challenging for you?
  • Would you feel somehow stuck in a grey area between the country and culture where you are from, and the country and culture where your kids are growing up?
  • Are there certain advantages to that situation? Perhaps it can be much a more exciting, diverse and broad-minded lifestyle.
  • What have you heard about parenting in France, or in the UK or the USA? Do those places have a reputation for particularly good or bad parenting? For what reasons?
  • Would you like to raise your kids in any of those cultures? The UK, France or The USA?
  • Have you heard of a book called “French Kids Don’t Throw Food” by Pamela Druckerman? How about any other parenting guides which are about “how they bring up kids in another country”? Do any other countries have a good reputation for bringing up kids as far as you know?
  • What if you ended up falling in love with someone from France, the UK or the USA or indeed any other place, moving there for love, having an adventure and then finding that you’re starting a family in a completely foreign place? How would you feel?
  • Maybe that’s exactly what’s happened to you, or you’re in a situation in which it could happen.
  • And if you don’t have kids in your life, perhaps you could consider the situation in which you grew up. Would you rather have been raised by parents from the same country, or parents from two different countries? How might that have affected your language skills and your identity in general?
  • Do you think boys and girls behave differently because they’re born that way, or because we encourage them somehow?
  • And how could you put all of these thoughts into words in English?

With all those questions in mind, let’s now listen to my chat with Amber and Sarah all about the challenges of bringing up kids in a foreign country and what it really means to become not just a mum or a mom, but a “maman”.

Let me remind you that Amber & Sarah’s podcast is now available for you to listen to, including the episode in which they interviewed me about becoming a dad.

Those links again for “Becoming Maman”

For more information about their project, check out all the links below.

Becoming Maman – podcast page

Becoming Maman on iTunes

Becoming Maman – RSS feed

Becoming Maman – Facebook page

As I mentioned before, I do plan to do another episode about raising bilingual kids at some point.

I can also refer you back to episode 68 in which I talked about childhood and school days and explained a lot of phrasal verbs and other vocabulary.

Links for everything on the page for this episode!

In the meantime – I look forward to reading your responses to this episode in the comment section. Did you have any thoughts while listening to this? (I hope so!) Share them in the comment section. Don’t be shy – give it a try.

A couple of other reminders:

  • Join the mailing list to get a link in your inbox when I post something to the website – it’s usually once or twice a week and my emails aren’t very intrusive or anything.
  • Download the LEP App for your phone. Check the app store for the Luke’s English Podcast App – it’s not just a place to listen to the podcast, there’s also a lot of other content in there including videos, episodes of my phrasal verb podcast and various app-exclusive episodes and other bonuses.
  • Thank you if you have donated to this podcast – you’re helping to keep the whole thing alive and I consider your donation to be a very sincere way to say thank you for my work.

Have a lovely morning, lunch, afternoon, evening, night!

Speak to you soon,

Bye!

Vocabulary List for Episode 515 – Provided by Jack from the Comment Section

Juggling
a labour of love
Dig these episodes
Quirky
Expats
Astute
Tangents
Indoctrinate
Stuck in a grey area
Scream your lungs out
Skiing
Oriented
Boisterous
Rowdy
Beat the living day lights out of
Notion
Enamoured
Pragmatic
Coagulated
Starters
Cheese course
Main course
Starch
Cereals
Dessert
On site
Individualism
Flip side
Pedagogical
Crouch down
Babysitter
Pay stubs
Synonymous
Athleisure clothing ( fat Americans feeling good wearing gym clothes while chewing fat)
Trendy
Goldfish crackers
Toned down
Preset
Jacket potato
Chedder
accustomed
Intrusive

TV shows and videos which we mentioned

The BBC’s gender experiment

TV and films that Sarah was watching when she was about 10 years old… a bad influence?

“The Kids on the Hall” – I’m crushing your head 

Absolutely Fabulous

Planet of the Apes (quite scary and weird) “Human see, human do!”