Category Archives: Entertainment

308. The Lying Game (Part 1) with Amber & Paul

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Hello, welcome back to LEP. This episode is called the lying game, and it’s one of those ones in which I play a speaking game with my friends Amber and Paul. A transcript for the first 15-20 minutes is available here on the page for this episode. In the introduction you’ll hear me welcome new listeners, talk a bit about my speaking speed on the podcast, mention the importance of listening to native speakers of English (even if it’s a bit difficult to understand every word) and explain some of the content of the conversation you’ll hear between Amber, Paul and me. Then, the speaking game begins properly. I really hope you have as much fun listening to this as we did recording it, because we really enjoyed ourselves! In part 2 (coming soon) you’ll hear the conclusion of the game and I’ll explain how I use this activity with my students in my English classes.

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Introduction Transcript Starts Here (+ more information below)
Hello, welcome to LEP. This episode is called the lying game, and it’s one of those ones in which I play a speaking game with my friends Amber and Paul.

Before you listen to that, I’d like to just say a few things here at the beginning of the episode. Firstly, hello to all my regular listeners, the LEPsters as they are sometimes known. How are you all? I hope you’re fine and having a lovely day or night or evening or morning or whatever time of day it is. Thanks for recent comments on my website. It’s always nice to read your messages. Recently I did episodes about The Battle or Britain and Back To The Future, and I’m feeling a lot of love in the comments section – particularly from my Polish listeners because of things I said in episode 303, which is really great. It’s very motivating to read the positive things you have to say in response to my episodes. I do think about my podcast a lot, and I always hope that you’re enjoying it and finding it useful. So, your comments are valuable bits of encouragement. Thanks also to those of you who have never left a comment on my website in your life – you’re my ninja listeners, and I think there are a lot of you out there, choosing to remain silent in the shadows, but listening to everything.

Secondly, just in case you’re new to LEP, let me just quickly introduce myself. My name is Luke Thompson and I’m an English language teacher from England, which is in Britain, which is in the UK, which is in Europe, sort of. I’m originally from London (in the south-east) but I went to university in Liverpool (in the north-west) and I also spent many years growing up in Warwickshire which is near Birmingham, which is in the midlands, which is in England, which is in Britain, which is in Europe, which is on Earth… etc. OK, I’ve been teaching English for nearly 15 years, wow has it been that long? Time flies when you’re having fun, and I do enjoy my job. I’m DELTA qualified, and in my career I have taught English to adults and children from many different countries, at many different levels, at many different times of the day – morning, afternoon, evening and at night sometimes, in any season, in all weather conditions – rain, snow, hail, wind, lightning, and even during a couple of earthquakes. I’ve taught courses in general English, business English, academic English, English for exams, English for doctors, English for pharmacists, English for engineers, English for lawyers, English for HR, English for secretaries of state, English for journalists, English for unemployed people, English for retired people and English for people who haven’t chosen what to do with their lives yet. Basically, if you need English, I’m your man. If I was a superhero for English teaching, you could call me Englishman! Which is appropriate, because I am an English man. Haha, I’m just joking, I’m not a superhero, I’m just an ordinary humble man, well as you can hear from this introduction I may not be that humble, but I am a man – definitely, I checked this morning. I am proud to be an English teacher – a profession which includes many bright and brilliant people all around the world, who have either chosen this vocation, or just ended up doing it because they didn’t know what else to do with their lives. As well as being an English teacher, I’m also a stand-up comedian, and I’m a podcaster. I do a podcast for learners of English called Luke’s English Podcast. You should listen to it. It’s quite popular and I have lots of downloads these days. I’m happy to say that I have a lovely community of people around the world who regularly listen to my podcast episodes in order to improve their English, but also (hopefully) because they just enjoy listening to each episode I produce. Did I mention that the podcast has won a few awards? No. Ok, well, the podcast has won a few awards. Am I sounding a bit arrogant? I hope not. I don’t mean to sound full of myself, I really don’t – it’s just that sometimes I think I should try and sell myself on the podcast, just a little bit, to remind you who I am. I don’t mean to just go on about myself a lot because it’s a bit self-indulgent isn’t it? But I do think it’s important to convince you that listening to this is very good for your English, and that you should keep doing it. It’s not just me who says that, I also have lots of testimonies from listeners of my podcast who have commented on my website, saying some very positive and nice things indeed, like this one which arrived just a couple of days ago, from someone called “Teddy WS” who simply wrote Screen Shot 2015-11-04 at 18.02.11“Thank God I find this page.” He sounds a bit desperate maybe, like he’s been walking through some kind of English teaching desert, and my website is like an oasis for him, where he can drink from this refreshing wellspring of natural English. It’s certainly a positive endorsement.

Thanks Teddy, that’s nice. Now, admittedly, Teddy did make a mistake in his comment – he wrote  “Thank God I find this page” and it should be “Thank God I found this page” but to be fair, he has only just found the page, and he has been walking through a desert for days and days, and he probably hasn’t listened to many of the episodes yet. I expect if Teddy writes on the page again in a few months, after he’s listened to more episodes and refreshed himself, he won’t make a mistake like that. I certainly hope so. Teddy, if you’re listening – don’t feel bad about making that mistake – mistakes are an essential part of the learning experience. Just brush it off, carry on and try not to do it again. By the way Teddy, I’m looking forward to reading another comment from you on my site in the future.

The main philosophy of my podcast is to give learners of English the chance to listen to authentic British English as it is really spoken. Sometimes it’s just me talking, sometimes I have interviews and conversations with friends, family or other interesting people. I try to keep it real – meaning I try not to adapt my language level too much. I don’t want to talk to you in a very simple way because that’s not how people usually speak in the real world. I think I speak clearly on the podcast, but at a fairly normal speed. I believe, ultimately, that’s better for your English.

So, it’s better for your English in the long run, but in the short-term, you might find it difficult to understand every single word I say, or every single word my friends say. So, I often remind you, that if you don’t understand what I’m saying or if you get lost during conversations on the podcast – keep listening! Keep going! Don’t be put off when you lose the thread of the conversation. Persevere, don’t give up. In the long run, it will be better for your English. So don’t stop.

If you want to pay close attention to every single word, and study those words, you can. Many of my episodes have transcripts, or at least some notes which you can read. You can then study the words and phrases I’m using and improve your English that way. Or, you can simply relax and listen to the episodes wherever you are in the world – just find a comfortable place, or even an uncomfortable place – it doesn’t matter that much, but comfortable is better, just put your headphones in, or turn your speakers on, and just listen for fun. It should be enjoyable to listen to English. It doesn’t have to be a boring study exercise. So, I invite you to just relax, kick off your shoes, make a cup of tea, listen to my episodes, and enjoy doing it. :)

This episode is entitled The Lying Game. The title of the episode has absolutely no connection to the things I’ve just said to you in the opening minutes of this introduction.

No, the reason this episode is called The Lying Game, is because in a few moments you’re going to listen to my friends and me playing a speaking game which involves either lying or telling the truth. It’s just a fun guessing game that involves some lying. So that’s why this episode has that title.

So let me tell you what you can expect from this 2-part episode of LEP.

What’s The Lying Game? This is a speaking activity I play with my students in my English language classes. In this episode you’ll hear me playing this game with my friends Amber and Paul, who are native speakers of English.

In a few minutes the episode is going to start (we haven’t started yet, this is still the introduction). I just wanted to say right now, that this was a very fun conversation for Amber, Paul and me. We really enjoyed talking and playing the game. I hope you enjoy it too. The thing is, we got pretty excited during the game and so we speak pretty quickly and sometimes we speak over each other. That might make it difficult for you to understand everything that’s being said. Still, like I said a few moments ago – keep listening anyway, even if you don’t understand everything. OK, I think I’ve made my point about that now!

The recording begins mid conversation. Let me just tell you a few things to help you understand what we’re saying, right from the beginning.

You’ll hear me say to Paul, “Do you really think I change the way I speak?” This is because Paul thought I sometimes change my voice when I’m recording the podcast. Like, I have a podcast voice that comes on when I start recording. We agree that it’s quite normal as a way of catching the attention of the audience from the beginning, or “pulling people in” as Paul says.

Just a couple of other things that will help you understand the beginning of the conversation:

Paul starts whispering subliminal messages into his microphone. This is because just the other day he was on a “film shoot” and he did that to the sound man – he whispered into the microphone and only the sound man could hear him. Just for fun.

I make a (lame) joke about something Amber says about it being a grey day. I thought she said ‘grade A’, referring to the sofa she was sitting on. A grade A sofa would be a top quality sofa. My sofa on the other hand is not that good, so it’s more likely to be a grade B or grade C sofa.

Then we make a few references to things you won’t know about, like my stand up routine, and a joke I made earlier about Philips lightbulbs, you know the technology company called “Philips”. Watch out for that. We found is hilarious. You might be confused by it. Let me know.

Then I realise that we’re having too much fun, and that could be annoying, like my favourite film critic Mark Kermode says that comedy is hard work. If people say they had fun making a comedy you’ll know it’s not funny.

It looks like they had a lot of fun making it which is always a recipe for disaster, when it comes to comedy. Because most really funny comedies are not fun to make – On reviewing Mortdecai 23 Jan 2015 show

So I hope that is not the case for this episode.

So, after that Mark Kermode reference, we settle down a bit, the conversation continues, we talk a bit about lying, and we start playing the game.

OK, I’m now going to stop explaining everything before it’s happened, and just let you listen to the episode. So, here we go!

Intro 2 (This is the second introduction which I say at the beginning of the conversation with Amber & Paul!)
Sometimes I play a fluency speaking game with my students, which involves telling lies. I call it The Lying Game. It’s an imaginative title. It’s just a fun game to practice giving information, and forming questions. I’ve been using it in class for years and it’s always a pretty popular exercise. This time on the podcast I thought I’d play the game with some native speakers. When you listen you can focus on noticing these things: question forms, how people describe events in the past (tenses and pronunciation of ed endings), how people describe present habits (verb forms and adverbs – not just present simple tense) and also the intonation that we use when asking questions in a suspicious, open or challenging way.

With me I have Paul Taylor & Amber Minogue.

How are you?
Do you think you’re good liars? Are you gullible?
Do you ever lie in your life?
Is it wrong to lie? Is it ever ok?
Are you ready to play the game?

Rules

  1. Tell us something – it could be something that happened in the past, a habit, someone you’ve met – anything about you that we don’t already know. Try to make it interesting – partly ridiculous, partly believable.
  2. We will then interrogate you about it, asking you all sorts of questions to investigate your statement. You can expand on it. This is the hilarious bit where we’re not sure if you’re lying or not. Ha ha ha.
  3. Then, when we’ve run out of questions we will say if we think you’re lying or telling the truth, justifying why we think so.
  4. Then, reveal if you were lying or not. It’ll be dramatic and entertaining.
  5. Points: For everyone who guesses wrong, you get two points. Every person who guesses correctly gets 1 point.
  6. Everyone has a go, and at the end we count the scores to see not only who is the best liar, but also who is the most gullible or untrusting person. If you’re gullible, you won’t score much. If you’re too trusting, you won’t score much either. If you’re a bad liar you won’t score much, if you don’t appear trustworthy you won’t score well either. So, the winner of this game will be some kind of psychopath, basically. Or, the winner will be a good liar and good at detecting lies too.

Luke, Paul and Amber’s Statements from the Game

Luke: I once met Dave Grohl (drummer from Nirvana, singer in Foo Fighters) at a buddhist temple in Japan.

Paul: I once spent Valentine’s Day with Elijah Wood and John Hurt.

End of part 1! You can hear Amber’s turn in the next episode, where you will find out what happens and who wins the game in the end! (exciting)

Scores at the end of part 1
At this stage, the scores are like this:

Luke – 2 / 0   Total = 2 points

Amber – 1 / 1   Total = 2 points

Paul – 0 / 2   Total = 2 points

So it’s even stevens!

Listen to part 2 (coming soon) in order to hear Amber’s story, and to see who wins.

The photo of Dave Grohl that I took on my J-Phone:
Dave Grohl

:) Thanks for listening!

The Invention of Lying – Film by Ricky Gervais

Woman with crossed fingers

304. Film Club: Back To The Future (Part 1)

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Hello listeners, welcome to Luke’s Film Club, this is one of those episodes of Luke’s English podcast in which we focus on a classic moment from the movies. This one is an episode about Back to the Future, which is one of my all time favourite films and I’m not alone because it’s one of the most popular films of the last few decades, all over the world. It’s a really entertaining and fun film, which also contains some sub-texts related to the complexities of time travel as well as a few visions of the future. Also, in the film’s sequel, the main characters Marty McFly and Doc Brown end up travelling into the future – and to what date? October 21, 2015. That’s today (when recording this). So it seems to be the perfect moment to do an episode of Luke’s Film Club, devoted to this modern classic. This is basically international Back to the Future day, and there’s only one! So, this has to be the day on which I record this episode.

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In this episode I’m going to talk about these things:

  1. When I first saw it and what it means to me
  2. The plot of the film (quite a challenge actually)
  3. Themes of the film and lessons we can learn from the story
  4. Some bits of info or things you might not have known about the film
  5. The films predictions of 2015 – how many are correct?
  6. How does the DeLorean time machine work?
  7. Is time travel possible?
  8. What about paradoxes created by the film’s time travelling story?

Ironically, time will definitely be a factor in this episode, because it will be hard to squeeze all of that into an hour. Let’s see what happens. It’s probably going to be another 2 part episode or something. But Back To The Future is a great film isn’t it? Come on, it’s great. It’s really popular all over the world, it’s really fun and interesting. Let’s talk about Back to The Future, however long it takes.

UPDATE: In part 1 of this episode I only talked about points 1 and 2 in the agenda above. The plot of Back To The Future 1-3 is pretty complicated and takes some time to describe! The rest is covered in the next episode.

SPOILER ALERT!
I’m going to mention some parts of the plot in this film. So, if you haven’t seen it before then I will probably give away some of the surprises in the story. I’m assuming that the vast majority of you have seen this film. It’s one of the most popular films of the last few decades, but I’m sure some of you haven’t seen it. Just be aware that I will probably reveal some fairly big plot details in this episode, so you might want to watch the film before listening to this episode.

Saying that though, I think it’s quite hard to truly spoil the film, just because there are many things about it that make it exciting. I’ve seen it (and the sequels) lots of times, and I enjoy it more and more every time, even though I know exactly what’s going to happen next. It’s so well-directed that it’s always exciting. But anyway – watch out, there are spoilers ahead.

I’ve been trying so hard for ages to find a way to properly cover the subject of this film in a podcast. It’s very hard! There’s so much to say! The storyline of the film is pretty complex, and the themes of time-travel, family, future technologies and controlling your destiny are really big things that deserve a lot of attention. So, I’m not sure I can squeeze it into just 1 hour of chat. This may end up being two episodes – but you don’t mind do you? Why would you mind? This could be a 5 minute video on YouTube, like “The 5 best moments from Back to the Future” but I want to go into more depth, and get sidetracked by themes of technology and time travel, so it will just take as long as it needs. In fact it’s a bit ironic that I’m talking about time limitations when this is a film about time travel, and the complexities which surround it. Essentially, I’m going to focus on the subject first, and if that means it’s a long episode, then so be it. In fact, since this is a podcast you have some control over time and you can skip forwards in the episode, backwards in the episode or simply freeze time completely by pressing the pause button, and then start it again later. You’re in control of time, essentially. I’ll just focus on making the content and you can choose how to listen to it. :)

Also, there are other films/books I could have talked about: HG Wells: The Time Machine, The Terminator, Looper, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Interstellar. But, this one is all about BTTF! So let’s go.

1. When did I first see it and why do I like it?
– As a kid, with my Dad.
– I was 8 years old, my brother 10.
– We saw lots of really great films in the Ealing cinema around this time, including Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom, Flight of the Navigator, Back to the Future, The Goonies, E.T. and more…
– I actually managed to understand what was going on, and I found it incredibly fun and exciting.
– Cereal box, with the picture. I remember staring at it.
– Since then I’ve seen it on video and on TV countless times, and every time I watched it I understood more of the subtleties and intricacies of the complex plot, and also just enjoyed the pure fun of the franchise.

2. What’s the plot of the film (this could be complicated and long – and SPOILERS!)
Marty is an average yet pretty cool teenager, struggling slightly to make the transition to adulthood. Essentially he cares about his parents, his girlfriend Jennifer, playing guitar in his band, skateboarding, and his friend Doctor Emmet Brown, an eccentric and ambitious physicist. Marty’s parents are sweet, but his Father in particular is a bit of a loser. He has no leadership skills and he still gets picked on by the school bully, who hangs around the house because he still has a crush on Marty’s Mum, Lorraine. Marty’s Dad still gets bullied by Biff, who is a total jerk. Marty hates Biff with a passion but there’s not much he can do about him. Seeing his Dad all weak, even though Marty’s mum obviously loves him, is quite painful for Marty and you get the impression that family life isn’t very happy for Marty. Perhaps this is why he has trouble concentrating at school, and perhaps it’s also why Marty cares more about playing the guitar in a band, or hanging around with his weird scientist friend Doc Brown than he does doing his studies. Marty also has a really awesome girlfriend called Jennifer, and the two of them are very sweet together. Jennifer knows that Marty is a really cool guy with a lot of potential, and I guess this is why she loves him. We know that Marty feels pretty bad about his family situation.

Marty is friends with the local mad scientist, Doctor Emmet Brown, and associating with Doc Brown is going to propel Marty on an incredible adventure through time.
Doc Brown is the classic eccentric scientist. He has bug eyes, crazy Einstein hair, and lots of inventions and madcap ideas.
Marty also has a weak point – being called chicken. He absolutely can’t stand being called chicken (coward) and this will be important later on.
One day, Marty gets a message from Doc Brown to meet him in the car park near the mall. He has something amazing to show him.
Marty turns up on his skateboard and the Doc reveals his latest invention. Inspired by HG Wells, he has created a time machine. The cool thing about it is that it is housed inside a DeLorean sports car. DeLorean was a car manufacturer that is completely stuck in the 80s. They went out of business before the decade was over, but their car is immortalised in this film. One has to admit, it does have a certain UFO futuristic look that suits its use as a time travelling device. The key component in the device is the flux capacitor, which Doc Brown thought of during a dream. I don’t know how it works, but that’s the main thing.
The way the time machine works is that you programme the precise date you’d like to travel to, and the accelerate the car to 88 mph, at which point you’re transported through time. He demonstrates it with his pet dog, Einstein.
Amazing – it actually works!
Doc arranges for Marty to film him presenting the time machine on home video, but at this point some very angry Iranian terrorists turn up in a VW camper van. Apparently Doc Brown stole some nuclear plutonium from them, which he used to power the flux capacitor and they want it back. They seemingly shoot Doc Brown dead in the car park, which is shocking because we’ve grown to like this character very much in the short time he’s been on-screen, and then they go after Marty, who escapes in the DeLorean time machine. There’s a short chase around the car park, during which a date is accidentally added into the machine – 30 years previous. October 26 1955. During Marty’s escape from the terrorists, the DeLorean gets up to 88mph and Marty is whipped away, back to the past of 1955, where he finds himself driving though an open field – this is the location of the mall car park. The mall hasn’t been built yet! Marty crashes into a barn and the drama is over.
What happens next is that Marty explores Hill Valley in 1955, and gets caught up in the lives of his young parents, which interferes with the space time continuum, threatening to change the future, his normal life, forever. He then has to try and make sure his parents fall in love, like before, ensuring that his existence is secured in the future. As well as that, Marty plans to find a way to save the life of his best friend Doc Brown, who was shot to death by terrorists back in 1985.
Essentially, what happens with the parents is that instead of his Mum meeting and falling in love with his Dad, Marty interrupts that meeting, and weirdly his Mum falls for him instead. This is so weird, and yet a very compelling plot device!
In 1955 Marty has to deal with a few challenges.
Everything is different because it’s the past, and he’s a fish out of water.
His Mum has a big crush on him and he has to try and avoid her.
His Mum and Dad haven’t met as they should have, and so he has to engineer their relationship from nothing, against all odds.
He has to try and avoid the town bully – Biff, who is interested in Marty’s Mum too, and is also out to get him.
As well as this he has a couple of run-ins with Mr Strickland, who amusingly is exactly the same as he is in 1985. He doesn’t appear to have aged at all.

Marty, cleverly, manages to track down the only man who can help him – the younger version of Doc Brown. He convinces him that his story is true, and introduces him to the DeLorean and the flux capacitor. One of the cool things about this is that by introducing the Doc to his own invention, Marty ensures that the flux capacitor gets invented in the first place.

The two hatch a plan to get the parents back together to stop Marty from disappearing from existence, and also work out a way to utilise the power of a lightning strike to get the DeLorean up to 88 so Marty can go back to the future. The cool thing here is that Marty knows exactly when lightning will strike the clock tower in Hill Valley Square, because it is a famous event from local history.

We see Marty attempting to get his parents back together, which fails most of the time. The bully Biff gets involved and there’s a dramatic scene in which the cowardly George decides to stand up to him, winning Mary’s affections and securing Marty’s future.

In the process, Marty manages to invent rock and roll music by playing some Chuck Berry during the school prom.

Marty is also desperate to tell Doc that in 1985 he’ll be killed by Libyan terrorists, but Doc refuses to listen, saying that it’s very dangerous to know anything about your own future. He’s worried that the knowledge will haunt him, or that it will create some kind of time paradox. Nevertheless Marty writes him a note warning him of the shooting. Doc cuts it into pieces, refusing to read it. This is alarming because we know that Doc’s going to get shot in the future. It’s not dealt with any further.

There’s yet more drama as Marty and the Doc attempt to hook up a cable to the clock tower, to make sure they harness the electrical power from the lightning strike. At the last moment, the Doc manages to connect the cables, allowing Marty to get the DeLorean to 88, and he goes back to the future!

Back in 1985, things are a little different, in fact they seem to be a lot better. Since things went a little different;y in 1955, and George stood up to Biff – George is a different man. Much more confident and successful, and Biff is now far more subservient to him. The family is richer, the parents’ marriage is better, and Marty looks in the garage to discover his dream car, waiting for him. Jennifer is also there. She’s the same of course, because she was already perfect, and they kiss. At that moment, Doc Brown suddenly turns up in the DeLorean, saying that both Marty and Jennifer have to come with him on a matter of urgency, as it involves their children in the future! They all get into the DeLorean, ready to take it up to 88 and travel into the future. Marty says “Doc, don’t we need more road to get up to 88?” and the Doc says, “Marty, where we’re going, we don’t need roads” and the car takes off into the air! It’s a flying car! They then race off into the sky and disappear into the future!

Wow, what a rip-roaring and exciting ride. For me, it’s an almost perfect film and always keeps me entertained. I love the complexities of the story, the dramatic set pieces, the eccentric and cartoonish performances by all the actors and the fun the film has by playing around with the differences in culture between 1955 and 1985. There are lots of self referential jokes and small details to notice, including little similarities and consequences between the two time periods.

Back to the Future Part 2
This is when things get complicated!

Doc Brown knows that Marty’s son, who looks just like Marty but is a total loser, is going to get caught up in a robbery and will get arrested and thrown in jail. Doc decides to form a plan in which Marty will pretend to be his son, and will prevent his involvement in the robbery, making everything all right. Essentially, they prevent the crime and during this early scene we see Hill Valley in the future. In one of many similar scenes from the previous film, Marty wanders around the town square and we see how different everything is. Cars look futuristic, droids do basic service jobs, there’s a holographic animated advertisement for a Jaws sequel, people have self drying clothes, shoes with automatic laces, and clothes which automatically adjust their size to fit the person they’re wearing. Also, crucially, kids now ride ‘hover boards’ which are like skateboards except that they hover a few inches about the ground, somehow.

Marty manages to replace his son and say no to “Griff” – played by the same actor who plays “Biff” in the previous film. But in the process, Marty gets into a fight with Griff who is the 2015 town bully, complete with physical implants, an advanced hoverboard and a really bad attitude.

Marty gets away from Griff, and gets back to the Doc. We learn that Marty, while in the futuristic version of Hill Valley has picked up a Sports Almanac (a summary of sports results of the last 60 years), which he plans to use as a way to get rich. When Doc Brown discovers this he gets furious with Marty, demanding that Marty throw away the almanac because it’s far too dangerous to mess with the space time continuum. The results could be catastrophic. What they don’t realise is that the old Biff from episode 1 has overheard their conversation, has realised that Doc Brown has invented a time machine. Biff steals the almanac from the bin, and plans to somehow use the time machine to go back to 1955 to give the almanac to the young Biff, so he can make money from gambling.

Meanwhile, the police have picked up the young Jennifer, who had been turned unconscious by Doc to protect her and left in a doorway. They identify her using her fingerprint (which is the same, despite being young) and decide to take her home. Doc realises this could be disastrous – if young Jennifer meets old Jennifer, it could create a paradox in time which could unravel the very fabric of the space time continuum, destroying the whole universe in the process, which is generally a bad thing. The follow the police back to the McFly household in order to prevent young Jennifer meeting her older self.

We see the older McFly household. They’re a bunch of misfits and losers again! The children are stupid and foolish, and something has gone wrong with Marty. It seems that at some point in his later youth, he was involved in a car accident which injured his hand. As a result he wasn’t able to pursue his dream career – that of a rock guitarist. So, he’s ended up in a dead end job which he hates, and which he gets fired from. What a disaster.

The car accident is pretty important – it happens a bit later, after the events of BTTF1. Marty is driving his cool new pickup truck with Jennifer, when he gets challenged to a race by the local bully (a bit like Biff). Marty declines, and the bully says “What’s the matter McFly, chicken?” We know from countless other occasions that Marty can’t stand being called a coward, and he loses his judgement, taking on the drag race challenge, but he crashes, and injures his hand. He’ll never be a guitarist, and he’ll end up in a job he hates, and the future will be unhappy.

Marty realises that he has to avoid the car crash which seems bound to happen sometime later in 1985.

Doc worries that they are having too much impact on the future and that this is going to create a paradox of some kind… The car crash scenario that jeopardises the future is left open at the moment, and is resolved at the end of episode 3 (I think).

Little do they realise that while they’re at Marty’s future house, old Biff has broken into the DeLorean and travelled back in time to give the sports almanac to his younger self. Biff, exhausted by his efforts struggles to get out of the car, breaking his walking stick in the process. A part of the stick is left in the car, which later will show to Doc Brown & Marty that Biff stole the car.

So, Doc Brown delivers Marty back to the past in 1985, but everything is horribly different! It turns out that because of the book, Biff has become the richest and most powerful man in Hill Valley. In fact, his influence extends all the way into Marty’s family life as Biff is now married to Marty’s mother, and Marty is forced to live under Biff’s roof. Biff is a hugely powerful bad guy now. It turns out also, that he may have had Marty’s father killed. This is terrible. Under Biff’s influence, Hill Valley has become a lawless wasteland with crime everywhere.

Marty goes to get Doc Brown’s help, and he explains what has happened.

When Biff went back in time to give the Almanac to young Biff, he created a completely new version of time, in which Biff is rich and influential, and Hill Valley is a hell hole. What Marty needs to do is prevent that from ever happening, in order to ensure that the normal version of the present is created, not this twisted version.

I could go into more detail about different theories of time at this point but it’s a bit too confusing.

In a simple way, I guess there are two versions.
The first version says there’s just one universe with one time narrative. Big events can significantly change the course of history, and when it does, all the other possible versions of history just get erased from existence, with one version of time remaining. For example, when Biff gives the sports almanac to his younger self this causes a whole new branch of time to happen, in which everything is terrible, and I guess the other version of time just gets erased from existence. Or when Marty goes back and changes the past so that his parents grow up happy and successful, that erases the less happy version of events. There’s a paradox here though, which is that if the other version of history disappeared, then surely our version Marty would disappear too. If Biff changed the past, so that the events of BTTF1 never happened, then our Marty would surely cease to exist and in fact BTTF1 would never have happened. But that’s not the case – in the film we have many different versions of history, and Marty & Doc travel from one of those versions across to other versions. There are in fact 3 versions of 1985. The first one (a bit crap – George is a loser, Lorraine is an alcoholic) the second one (everything’s great) the third one (Biff is in charge and it’s absolutely terrible). Marty from version 1 appears in all versions.

So I suppose BTTF proposes some sort of multi-universe theory, which is the idea that whenever anything happens, different versions of history branch off from that moment, creating another parallel universe. For example, when Biff gets the sports almanac, a new parallel universe is created.

But isn’t it possible by that logic that at any moment there are so many possibilities, that there’s a parallel universe being created in which each possible event happened, with all its consequences after it? And that would mean that an infinite number of parallel universes are being created with every passing of time, basically creating infinite possibilities across infinite parallel versions of reality? Why is it that just a big event like a kiss, or a sports almanac coming into your possession changes time? If it’s a small change does time just carry on? Too complex? Probably. Don’t worry if that’s not clear – that’s the point.

Back to the Future goes for the more simplistic version, stating that basically there’s just one or two planes of existence, and big significant events can cause them to happen, influencing the future. Having access to all the sports results is one of these big events. Again, this is the genius of the film – it manages to skate around these big problematic questions while dipping into the science at certain moments to give enough depth to the story while keeping the energy, entertainment up.

So Marty and the Doc go back to 1955 with their flying DeLorean in order to stop Biff getting the almanac.

We see really cool scenes in which Marty runs around in Hill Valley 1955 at the same time (by coincidence) that he was there in BTTF1, trying to save his parents’ marriage. We see scenes from BTTF1 but from different angles. Marty has to save his other self, without them meeting. It’s really brilliant.

There are lots of situation in which history repeats itself.

So, in the end, Marty manages to prevent Biff getting the Sports Almanac, saving the future again. Marty burns the almanac, and Doc Brown turns up again (we’re still in 1955) to collect Marty and deliver him safely in 1985. It’ll be the good version of 1985 because as we saw, Marty in BTTF1 was successful and managed to save his future, and Doc managed to send him back with the lightning strike.

But, as Doc is about to pick him up, the DeLorean gets struck by lightning from the storm and this causes the time machine to malfunction, sending Doc accidentally to an unknown place and time. Wow! Great Scott! Where did he go? Is Marty stuck in 1955?

Immediately, a postman arrives with a letter for Marty. Apparently the letter has been held at the post office since 1885 with strict instructions for it to be delivered to Marty at this precise moment.

It’s a letter from Doc. He’s stuck in 1885, when Hill Valley was a cowboy town.

Marty realises the only person who can help him save the Doc is the Doc himself – the 1955 Doc who just risked life and limb sending Marty back to the future in a lightning powered DeLorean.

Marty runs to find Doc in the town square, and he even sees himself go back to the future. Doc is standing there, exhausted and delighted. Then, our Marty taps him on the shoulder. Doc turns round and promptly passes out “But, I just sent you back to the future? What are you doing here” – unable to comprehend that Marty is now back again and needs his help.

Back to the Future 3
After Doc has woken up and worked out what’s going on, he decides the only thing he can do is to send Marty back to 1885 in order to save him. But where’s the DeLorean? Both versions just disappeared – one to 1985 and the other to 1885. How come there are two DeLoreans? How is this possible? You can multiply things by travelling in time? Anyway…

The fact is, 1885 Doc has left the DeLorean in an abandoned mine, and has given Marty and 1955 Doc instructions on how to find it. They do that, and send Marty back.

To make a long story very slightly less long, Marty goes back to 1885, finds Doc and they attempt to create a plan for how to get them both back. The problem is, the DeLorean is damaged. It’s run out of fuel and there’s no petrol in 1885! They decide they can get a locomotive train to travel at 88mph, so the train is going to push the DeLorean up to 88 and then the DeLorean will travel back to 1985, and the train will crash.

Things get complicated though, because Doc Brown ends up falling head over heels in love with a woman called Delores. She ends up getting tangled in the time travel attempt, and Doc saves her life but stays in the past, as Marty goes back to 1985.

There, the DeLorean is finally destroyed, ironically as it appears on the train tracks that still exist in the same spot in 1985. It’s destroyed by an oncoming train. Boom. End of DeLorean – this happens after the original trip to 1955, so the DeLorean has been erased (I guess for the moment).

Marty finds Jennifer and they’re reunited. Then, finally, Doc dramatically arrives at the end with Delores. This time he’s created a time machine made from a train, using steam technology to power a flux capacitor. It’s not clear how he does this, but with all the knowledge he’s gained, he managed to do it, creating a sort of steam-punk time machine. He and Delores then travel off together, with their two children named Jules and Verne.

It’s a happy ending. But there’s still one loose end. Marty has to make sure that he doesn’t have that car accident. He needs to prevent that unhappy future in which he injures his hand and his dreams of being a guitarist go up in smoke, and he’s forced into a soul destroying job he hates.

Marty and Jennifer drive away in Marty’s cool truck. They stop at a junction. The bully pulls up beside them and challenges Marty to a drag race. Marty declines, and the bully calls him “chicken” but this time Marty has the strength of character to resist the challenge and in fact the bully is the one who crashes.

Marty and Jennifer’s future is secured, and they all lived happily ever after.

End of Part 1 …
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302. Bad Dentist / Star Wars / Adam Buxton / Headphone Jams / Jarvis Cocker (A rambling episode)

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Hi, this is the second part of a two part episode in which I’m telling you a few things about recent trending news stories, some anecdotes and other things that are in my head at the moment. There’s no specific language focus this time. Instead I’m focusing on general cultural information. Last time I talked about David Cameron and the pig, a story of a bad gig, and who the hell is Ronnie Pickering? In this one I’m going to ramble on about a bad trip to the dentist, some rising excitement about the new Star Wars film, Adam Buxton’s new podcast, some music that has been bouncing around inside my head, some news about a new jingle which is in the pipeline and how I want to hunt Jarvis Cocker for my podcast but I don’t know how to do it! If you don’t really understand those things, then listen on! All will be explained! All you have to do is listen. :)

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In the previous episode:
1. The UK political situation, and trending news relating to it – this is less boring than you might expect because it seems from recent reports that our Prime Minister David Cameron once had sex with a dead pig. Seriously. (Did PM David Cameron really have sex with a pig? What’s all this about Jeremy Corbyn? What’s going on?)
2. “Sorry, we’re English”
3. Tell a story or anecdote about something.
4. Who is Ronnie Pickering?

In this episode:
5. A trip to the dentist in Paris.
6. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens – I can hardly contain my excitement, but I am attempting to avoid the hype.
7. OPP: The Adam Buxton Podcast
8. In my headphones recently: The Juan MacLean “A Simple Design”, The Who: “Who Are You?”, Erland Oye: “Lies become part of who you are”, DJ Krush & Ronny Jordan: “Bad Brothers”, Leyla McCalla: “Heart of Gold”. (Plus, the intro song: “Groove Holmes” by Beastie Boys)
9. Jingle news: Possible new jingle in the pipeline
10. Jarvis Cocker
11. That’s probably it, isn’t it?
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300. EPISODE 300 (PART 2)

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Welcome back to this landmark episode of the podcast. In this one we’re going to carry on listening to messages from guests I’ve featured on the podcast over the years, then we’ll hear messages from some extra-special celebrity fans, as well as some of imitations of me sent in by lepsters.

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Messages from Former Guests (continued)
Ben Fisher – 136. Cycling from London to Paris, Cycling from Coast to Coast
Rob Hoehn – 143. A Cup of Tea with Robert Hoehn
Paul Taylor – 158. A Cup of Christmas Tea with Paul Taylor, Catching Up with Paul & Amber, The Bad Haircut Situation, Fixed Expressions, Vocab Battle, The Bank Robbery.
Amber – 161. She’s Having a Baby, Catching Up with Paul & Amber, The Bad Haircut Situation, Vocab Battle, The Bank Robbery.
James Simpson – 165. Premier League Football
Daniel Burt – 169. A Cup of Tea with Daniel Burt
Lindsay – 168. Culture Shock
Peter – 203. The Flatmate from Japan
Noman – 210. A Cup of Tea with Noman Hosni
Corneliu – 220. A Cup of Tea with Corneliu Dragomirescu
Edgar – 223. YEP Competition Winners
Mike – 243. A Life Changing Teaching Experience in Ghana
Jason Levine, aka Fluency MC – 253. Rapping With Fluency MC
Markus – 277. Markus Keeley/Northern Ireland
AJ – 292. California Road Trip (Part 5)
Jessica – 297. Using Humour in the IELTS Speaking Test

Messages from Special Celebrity Fans
David Beckham
Darth Vader
The Queen
Churchill
Elvis
Al Pacino
Robert DeNiro
Gandalf The Grey
Miles Davis
R2D2
Jeff
Gollum
George Harrison
Daniel Lazenby Smythe
Chewbacca
Michael Caine
Roger Moore
Obi Wan Kenobi
Batman
Liam Gallagher
Clint Eastwood
Paddy Considine
Paul McCartney
Yoda

Your impressions of me
A few episodes ago I invited you to send me your impressions of me. Here are the results!
Listen to the podcast to hear them, and my feedback.

Messages from listeners on Facebook
Yury Morozov May the Force be with you, Luke.

Rajesh Vt Thank you so much , Master Luke for all the wonderful podcasts. You are and you will be a great teacher for all the learners of English around the world. I think many generations continue to reap the benefits of your hard work in the years to come. You are a unique teacher with full of kindness and passion for helping the learners and making them learn English effortlessly and joyfully. We thank your parents for giving this world an amazing teacher. May u continue this work for many more years with the support of LEPSTERS.

Freddy Luna Leon Uuuuuuur Ahhhrrr Uhrrrr Ahhhhrrr Arrghh- Chewbacca

Pyae Phyo Kyaw looking forward to hear it soon……keep on going teacher luke …………………….you`re a tremendous teacher for me ……………………………………………i always listening each and every one of your Podcast since you are uploaded in ……..may god bless you ……………………….

Vitaliy Hrechko I say it in Ukranian: “Vitayu!” (it means “Congratulations!” smile emoticon ) and add it in Russian “Pozdravlyayu!” smile emoticon

Vasile Şi Diana Vaganov Thanks Luke for the podcast. It’s unique and special for me. I am looking forward to the 3000 podcast. It’s only the beginning… smile emoticon

Yumiko Okada Congratulations for the 300th episode, Luke! My listening skill has been improved a lot since I took up your podcast. Thank you very much for that and keep going on for us English learners, until it gets 3000th! I really love your voice

Cristina Ricciardo Congratulations Luke, your Podcast makes the difference! Beware of imitations you out there smile emoticon

Jorge Henrique Congrats mate , I still do recall many of the old episodes as well , even your youtube videos asking people what are they thoughts about London, You have done so much towards us ,Incredible.

Jorge Henrique I wonder , How do all your people who have made episodes with you look like. For instance the guys who you have gone with To Brighton when you were performing your gigs, or that lady who made some episodes with you in the very begning , like in this Episode you talked about British expressions , and she talked about Paul mccarney that he had let himself go or something, hehe do you Recall this one Mr Thompson I wonder

Hien Nguyen Hi Luke. I am very happy to welcome episode 300. I recall the first time I have heard your voice, I didn’t understand even one word but I fancy the rhythm of your podcasts. Hope we can keep listening more and more your podcasts in the future and be one of your guests. Many thanks for what you have done, Luke. Congrats

Ivan Korjavin Message:
It’s Luke and there will be 300 more podcats soon.

Daulet Kunadilov Thank you very much teacher Luke for your an uniqiue podcasts!!!!!!!!!!

Aritz Jauregi Oh, 300 episodes!! I still can´t believe what are you doing for us Luke! I think we all should give you a donation the day you upload the 300th episode. That´s my message to all the listeners. And I wonder when I´m going to have the chance to come across with you here in London and get you a beer! tongue emoticon

مختار طلعت Hi Luke,
I am Mokhtar from Egypt. After this large number of episodes, did you achieve one of your goals, or do you want to move to another level in your career?. What are the principles of a happy marriage as you are a husband now?

Yuki Kozakai Dear Luke!
‘m Yuki from Japan. Congratulation for the 300 episodes on Luke’s English podcast. Before listening to your podcast, I have wanted to study abroad to the US. However, your brilliant accent has changed my life. I am actually studying at Keele University in England now because I fell in love with British accent and British culture that you have mentioned in your podcast. Your podcast is very informative, and your podcast is the best one in the entire world smile emoticon Thank you very much!
Hi from Keele Uni smile emoticon From Yuki

Mollie Tai 300 ! 300 ! 300 ! A BIG Milestone ! LEP IS KING !

Francesco Paolo Castiglione People of the world, surrender to the podcasting power of luke’s podcast

Crampo Crampo The best thing is that every time i listen to your new podcast it s like having a chat with an old friend!

Luke’s English Podcast I’m not that old!

Ana Lupan Hi Luke!you are the coolest podcaster on our planet and perhaps in the whole univers :)you are doing great job for us,your lepsters:)thanks a lot!

Petra Dvořáková I love Luke and Luke’s English podcast! Petra from the Czech Republic.

Kwan Kawasemi Luke’s English Podcast is my daily dose of joy. Without you, I can’t imagine how boring my life would be. Thank you teacher Luke. smile emoticon – paquan

Antoinette Santamaria Give thanks, men! To King LukeThompson, and the brave 300! To victory! smile emoticon

Francesco Allen Gaeta Just start randomly swearing out loud!

Mao Tsukeyanagi Hi Luke! I just want to say thank you for everything you’ve done for us and congratulations on your amazing podcast! I really like your style of podcasting:unscripted and rambling on…it’s actually a lot of fun to listen to you getting sidetracked.
Mao from Japan:)

Sergio Téllez I want to say Thank you!! for share with us all of your talent. I discovered this podcast first on you tube, with your videos about ‘what’s London really like?’ And the first episode I heard was ‘sick in Japan’ which is also my favorite. Your podcast is the best!!! it’s really ace!! thank you again.

Dentudix Estalrich The sound of your voice for me is like a good wine and a great meal with a good friend . Thank you so much for your company, it’s been 1 year since I’ve been listening to your podcast and everyday it’s better. Great job.XoXo

René Krsnadasa I can’t get enough of your podcast… Is a bit like Street Fighter 4 for you, do you remember? Hahaha. Have a nice day, mate.

Juan Andrés Congratulations and thankyou, Luke! Your podcast is all and more of what I expected to get. You diserve being well paid for doing it. Big hug!

Eje Carlos Navarro Congratulations! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. It is always a pleasure listening to your new stories! One of my favourite features is the length of the episodes because it fits perfectly with my running time!
Congratulation for the 300 episodes on Luke’s English podcast! Saludos desde Barcelona!

Fatoum Azri <3 ur podcasts

Yaron Aharonov My message to the world is that it doesn’t matter what is your first religion, you must acquire also “Lepotheism” as your second religion.

Christian Paga Hey Mr. Puke…erm Luck…erm Luke ;) Wow, 300 episodes!!! That’s a flippin’ lot of episodes! Thank you so much for all your efforts, your dedication, and for teaching us all that important stuff in your own special way. In a perfect world, you should be able to make a living from podcasting – but trust me, as long as you keep up the great work, payday will come. Stay ninja, mate *some random ninja sounds*

Venkatesh Venky Congratulations, master Luke. We love you and your podcasts so much. We wish you all the good luck, prosperity and joy. Your podcasts changed my English a lot and i thank you from the bottom of my heart for that. May you continue this good work for many more years to help learners like me. Once again , thank you so much for all the special podcasts you have made.

Hideki Kanazawa Hello, Luke. Congratulations for 300th episodes! Your podcast is very very interesting and fun, I love it. I was lucky to find your podcast.
Thank you very much for this wonderful podcast. Looking forward to listen 400th episodes!

Thank you to everyone for listening, commenting on the podcast and sharing these episodes. I have the best audience ever.

If you feel like donating, you can do it by clicking this little button. :) Small Donate Button
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296. Learning Comedy is like Learning a Language

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This episode features a conversation with my friend Paul Taylor, who you already know from previous episodes of LEP. Paul is back from the Edinburgh fringe, where he was performing for the whole of August in a comedy show, and a couple of days ago he came over to the flat for a cup of tea and a bit of a chat. We started talking about the Edinburgh fringe and how it went for him. It was his first time and I think he found it very challenging because the audiences were hard to please, apparently they had some tough shows where nobody laughed, and he realised that the standard of stand-up comedy in the UK is much higher than he expected, but it was a learning experience. Then we ended up talking about the similarity between learning how to do stand-up comedy and learning a language. During the conversation I quickly decided to record our thoughts so that I could make it into an episode of my podcast. We wrote down a few brief ideas and then went upstairs to start recording. You can now listen to that conversation here in full. Also, listen to the end to hear some funny out-takes from this episode.

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The conversation is a little bit rambling, but that is a good thing
It’s a slightly disorganised chat because we didn’t plan fully in advance, but that for me is a strength because it means that you can listen to some authentic English conversation, meaning that it is natural – not scripted. This is English conversation as it happens in the real world. We’re not acting out a dialogue, and this is exactly the sort of conversation that you should try to follow, because ultimately it’s better for your English. It might be harder to hear and understand everything we say, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s good to get used to following a conversation in which you don’t understand or hear every single word.

Conclusions about Language Learning
During our slightly rambling conversation, we do come to some very good conclusions about language learning, which are written below. So, pay attention to the conversation because I think it does contain some good advice. As ever, please add your thoughts to our conversation by leaving a comment below. What do you think about our conclusions for learning a language? Can you add and ideas of your own?

Also, listen carefully in this episode because I will share some of my experiences of learning French, which is something people have been asking me about recently. You’ll see I’m a bit shy about this subject, but I’ll let you listen to the episode to find out why.

Can You Copy The Way I Speak? – Send Me Your Recordings!
In this episode Paul and I ask you to send me recordings of you copying the way I speak. So, please send me about 1 minute of audio of you doing an impression of me.
You can download my jingle here: Download LEP Jingle

Send your 1 minute (or less) impression of Luke from Luke’s English Podcast here: podcastcomp@gmail.com
I can’t wait to hear you copy my voice and my typical introductions.

Also, if you listen all the way until the end of the episode, you’ll hear some fun extra content that I added. So, our conversation lasts about 1 hour, and then you’ll hear some fun extra stuff afterwards.

If you would like to write a transcript for this episode, using a google document, just click this link. Google document for “Learning Comedy is like Learning a Language”. That’s it for my introduction, now here is our conversation.

*Episode begins – Notes below*

Conclusions about Learning Languages & Learning Comedy

  • It’s not what you know, it’s what you can do. You can know lots of vocabulary, you can know methods of learning – but you actually have to do it.
  • Surround yourself with people who are better than you.
  • Throw yourself in at the deep end.
  • Accept that you might have to be a slightly different person.
    E.g. as a comedy performer you might need to exaggerate aspects of your person, or play a role.
    When speaking English, it’s normal that you might feel like a different person with a different personality. Own the person you are in another language.
  • Learn from failure and don’t be afraid to fail.
    Failure is not the problem. How you react to failure is more important. Don’t let failures bring you down. Learn from them. Embrace failure and don’t let the fear of failure hold you back.
  • Don’t take it too personally!
    Be ready to take criticism, and try to look for critical feedback. It will help you to be better.
  • Cheat and cut corners!
    In comedy it helps to arrange the situation to your advantage. For example, prepare some responses for audience interaction – these can make the audience think you’re better than you are.
    Similarly in English, focus on having good pronunciation and people will think your English is great, even if your vocabulary or grammar are not perfect. If your voice sounds pretty good on the surface, this will impress people more than perfect accuracy or range of vocabulary.
  • Be confident, or at least be determined to fake it.
  • But remember to be yourself.

Paul & Luke
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291. California Road Trip (Part 4)  Stars on Hollywood Blvd / Songs & Movies / UK & US English

28 Replies

Hi everyone, here’s part 4 in this road trip mini-series. How are you? Are you keeping up with all these new episodes? I suppose if you’re listening to this it means you are keeping up, but don’t feel rushed. Take your time, listen to them at your leisure, in your own time and at your own speed. I hope you’re finding this series interesting. In this one I’m planning to cover these things: Hollywood Boulevard and celebrity culture, an analysis of the mysterious lyrics to Hotel California by The Eagles, a visit to the extremely wealthy area of Beverley Hills, some more differences between American and British English vocabulary, the church of Scientology and then Yosemite National Park.

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Let’s see how much of that I can actually get through in this episode. I expect there will be one or two more in this series before we get back to normal podcasting as usual.

L.A. Continued… Hollywood Boulevard
I can’t remember which day this was as I’m losing track of time, but it doesn’t matter. At some point we took a walk along Hollywood Bld – that’s the one with all the stars on the ground and the names of celebrities. If you make it as a celeb, they put a star on the pavement here and you know you’ve made it because hundreds of tourists walk all over you and spill coke and ketchup on you every day. That’s the American Dream isn’t it.

Walking along Hollywood Blvd, and looking at the stars there, I wondered – how do you actually get your name on a star here? (Not that I want to of course) I just wondered – who decides which names are added and how does it happen? Since then I’ve done a bit of research (I read a TIME article based on an interview with a member of the selection committee – you can read it here: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/07/16/how-to-get-a-star-on-the-hollywood-walk-of-fame/), and so…

How to get your star on Hollywood Boulevard
Essentially anyone can apply, as long as they have $30,000 dollars to spare, but the application will not be accepted unless it meets these criteria:
1. Do some iconic work in entertainment.
This means that you have to have produced something genuinely notable and celebrated in the entertainment world, like made a popular film, done some great acting on TV or in movies or made some music that’s popular enough to have made you famous. The emphasis is on accomplishing some expertise in the entertainment field, which means that reality TV stars are excluded, because it’s not counted as proper work. So that means no Kardashians. But they do accept animals. In fact several animals have their names embedded into the ground there, including Lassie and even fictional animal characters like Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Weird. You also need to have been working for at least 5 years. The main point is that this is a tourist attraction for the entertainment industry, so your name needs to be famous enough to attract tourists to come and see it. Apparently it’s working because the street is jam-packed with tourists and it’s almost impossible to actually walk along the street in some places.
2. Promise that you really want a star.
All applications require a signed statement from the applicant saying that they really want one, and that they will come to an unveiling ceremony if the application is a success. Basically, the star selection committee that is in charge of the process wants to make sure the celebrities are fully prepared to come and promote the addition of their star on the pavement. Again, this is to make sure it gets the proper media coverage, and those tourists keep coming with their dollar bills, their mobile phones and their instagram accounts.
3. Pay $30,000.
That’s how much it costs to enter the application process. Usually it’s not a problem for celebrities to pay this because other people pay on their behalf, for example management companies or other sponsors who have an interest in the person become more and more famous. Half of the fee goes to the Hollywood Historic Trust which maintains the whole street. The rest is used to pay for the paving stone with he star embedded in it, and also the security and photographers at the unveiling ceremony. It seems that people’s desire to be recognised as a famous person is what fuels the economy around here.
4. Impress the selection committee.
It’s a bit like a job interview process I suppose. In your application you need to impress the committee and show them what you’ve achieved in your career, proving that you really are a big star.
5. Choose your spot on the Boulevard.
It is possible to choose where your star is placed. The bigger you are as a celebrity, the more control you have over this. Do you want to be placed in front of McDonald’s or in front of the famous Chinese Theatre Cinema where all the premiers happen? Your power to negotiate this depends on your status in Hollywood. Apparently Clint Eastwood, a high ranking member of the Hollywood establishment, was accepted by the committee years ago but never completed his application, but nevertheless they have kept a space free for his star in a prime location – in front of that famous cinema. That’s how much of a star he really is in Hollywood – they’ve kept the best space free for him. Muhammad Ali didn’t want people walking on his name, so the committee agreed to put his star on the wall – the wall of what? You might ask. Ali’s name is on the wall of the Hollywood and Highland Shopping Centre. I wonder if you can buy a George Foreman grill in that shopping centre.

So that’s how you do it, if you’re interested.

What’s it really like there on Hollywood Boulevard?
Essentially, it’s like a bigger version of Oxford Street. It’s full of cheap attractions and huge crowds of tourists, and it’s a bit tacky. You can’t get much decent food there except burgers and pizza. I don’t recommend it really.
As we walk along the street, squeezing between people, we see names of people. Most of them are dead. There are loads that I’ve never ever heard of.
I’m struck by the thought that fame is fleeting. I mean that it doesn’t last. What’s the attraction of fame? To be so well-known that your name is embedded into the ground or onto a monument so people never forget you. Maybe people are attracted by this because they feel like it’s a way to live forever. But true long lasting fame is only gained by a tiny minority and even then it isn’t immortality it’s just a version of yourself that lives on in popular culture. A ghost.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: L.A. is a mysterious place.
I’ve tried to describe this already in this series. It’s just a general feeling that’s hard to put into words.
There’s a lot of light and dark here. Movie stars shine bright, and there’s so much glamour, but there’s also poverty, homelessness and broken dreams. So many young people have come to L.A. and then ended up corrupted by the place, or hurt by their own idealism and naivety. Some of them died young in tragic circumstances. Think of the girl Peg Entwhistle who jumped off the Hollywood sign in 1932, or young movie stars who died or hurt themselves as the result of a dangerous intake of drugs. River Phoenix for example. He was a fresh faced young movie star and musician, who died from an overdose on the doorstep of the Viper Club, which at the time was owned by Johnny Depp. Why so much oblivion?

Also, so much of the writing, films and music – the really good stuff at least, seems to be essentially about some sense of a loss of innocence, the end of the American dream, the darkness under the surface of American values or dealing with vice – particularly in the form of alcohol and drugs, and the dark side of these things. As if California represents the highest attainment of the American Dream, and is also the place that can turn into a grim and empty wilderness of the soul. Think of the detective stories of Chandler, the songs of The Eagles (not as sunny and nice as you expect) and other bands, the writing of Ginsburg, Bukowski, Burroughs, Kerouac, the comics of R Crumb and so on.

I realise that I’m talking about slightly dark themes here, in what you might have expected to be just a description of a romantic honeymoon. Well, we did have some really nice romantic moments together of course, and there was plenty of sunshine and good times, but as well as that we had a really great time getting to know the place and soaking up the atmosphere of the places we visited and one of my aims in these episodes is to get under the skin of California a bit.

Let’s consider some songs that deal with the things I’ve been talking about.

Songs about California
One example is the song Californication by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Californication Lyrics here.

Also, we could go back to “Hotel California” and explore the meaning of the song. In fact, let’s do that.

The Eagles – Hotel California – Song Meaning
Click here for the full lyrics to the song: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eagles/hotelcalifornia.html

There are loads of interpretations of the meaning of this song, including some pretty far out suggestions that it’s about satanism, drug addiction. I think the latter is far more likely than the former but let’s see.

Here is a summary of the song’s meaning – both the narrative of the lyrics and the themes the song explores. In fact, this song seems to sum up pretty well what I’ve been trying to say about LA and the excesses and dark side of the American Dream.

In this part of the podcast I’m going to read from a page on Shmoop.com. Here’s a citation and a link:
Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). Hotel California Meaning. Retrieved August 25, 2015 from http://www.shmoop.com/hotel-california-eagles/meaning.html
So, if you want to follow what I’m saying just click the link above.

LA movies
LA Confidential, The Big Lebowski, Beverly Hills Cop, Pulp Fiction. Any film noir like Chinatown or The Big Sleep.

Beverley Hills – this is a really rich town, which is undeniably beautiful and well kept with palm tree lined streets, lovely properties and very smart shopfronts and boutique stores but some parts of it are filled with unbelievably fake looking people with loads of plastic surgery. There are Kim Kardashian clones everywhere with butt implants that mean they can’t walk properly. The streets are full young guys in rented sportscars which self-consciously zoom between sets traffic lights. It’s quite ridiculous and fairly ugly really.

And yes, I did just mention Kim Kardashian.

I always thought I would never mention that family on this podcast because I don’t really like what they do. I mean, I think it’s a bit empty and I don’t know why they’re so popular but if I’m going to talk about celebrity culture in L.A. then how can I do it without mentioning the Kardashians (reluctantly).

Who’s Kim Kardashian?
She’s the daughter of a rich West Coast socialite, and a powerful lawyer. She’s famous for being famous. She’s like Paris Hilton basically. That’s how she first became known in the media, as a friend of Paris Hilton. What a claim to fame! “So what do you do Kim?” “I hang around with someone who doesn’t do anything”. Wow, that’s like being famous for doing even less than nothing! So she’s famous for being friends with someone who’s famous because she’s famous. That’s actually quite impressive. Well done! Maybe that’s the appeal. She makes it look easy. Then in 2003 I think she decided that in order to get even more famous that she would have to actually do something, so she released a sex tape. That’s basically a home made porno. Classy. In my opinion, that may be the quickest and least respectable way to make a name for yourself in Hollywood, but fair play to her – it worked. She then continued to sell off her private life in a reality show called Keeping Up With The Kardashians in which the viewer is invited to follow her and her sisters through their pampered and vacuous every day life.

An example of what happens in a show?
I just had a look on Wikipedia for some show summaries. Here’s what I found from a random entry in series 3 of the show. “Episode 22. Khloé faces pressure about her weight when she decides to do PETA’s “I’d Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur” campaign. Kris and Kourtney confront Kim about her shopping addiction. Kim gets laser eye surgery after struggling to see herself in a mirror at a dance rehearsal. (I imagine that was a huge crisis – not being able to see herself) Bruce is anxious to talk to Kendall and Kylie about his colonoscopy.”
What’s a colonoscopy? That’s when a doctor inspects your colon by sticking a big camera up your bum. Ok, so you’ve got the general idea.

My problem with the Kardashians is that I don’t get it. I don’t get the appeal. I must be wrong because Kim is one of the most followed people on Twitter and it seems that everyone seems to love her. So, I must be wrong – so if you’re a Kardashian fan, let me know why. I’d love to know the appeal.

Is her reality show popular because we just like to look at the lives of the rich and famous? Is Kim Kardashian a role model? Apparently, for some people she is a woman who has taken careful control of her image and is now rich and successful as a result, like Beyonce or something. But, it helps when you start out rich in the first place, doesn’t it? And at least Beyonce can sing and dance. What can Kim Kardashian do? Well, she can take good selfies. She can use Instagram well. She can market herself well. I suppose that’s it isn’t it.

She married Kanye West, the rapper, which I imagine only happened because Kanye West is not allowed to marry himself. Yes, he loves himself, or that’s what people say anyway. Maybe Kim Kardashian fell in love with him just because she was so impressed by the size of his ego. Surely nobody’s ego is as big as mine, she thought – but then she met Kanye and couldn’t resist his charm, and by that I mean his media status. Good luck to them, I suppose. Maybe I’m being cynical and they just really love each other. Well, if that’s the case – good luck to them! I hope they stay together and prove me wrong, and everyone lives happily ever after.

What do you think? I’d love to know.

More American English & British English
These words are all related to food in some way.
UK word – USA word
Chips – Fries
Crisps – Chips
Biscuit – Cookie
Jelly – Jell-o
Jam – Jelly
Sweets – Candy
Treacle – Molasses
Candy Floss – Cotton Candy
Aubergine – Eggplant
Courgette – Zucchini

ukulele-soprano-debutant“Californication” Lyrics & Chords
http://www.tabs4ukulele.com/bands/red-hot-chili-peppers/californication.html#null

End of part 4. Part 5 coming soon…
Hotel California

287. VOCAB BATTLE!!! WITH AMBER & PAUL (exciting title)

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aka “Vocabulary Game with Amber & Paul” or “Fifteen Fixed Expressions” (less exciting titles)
Learn more English expressions in this episode by listening to another vocabulary game with Amber Minogue and Paul Taylor.
The series of episodes featuring ‘fixed expressions’ and vocabulary games continues in this episode. The previous ones, entitled “Ten Fixed Expressions” (283) and “Ten More Fixed Expressions” (285) featured me testing Paul’s knowledge of multi-word expressions in English. He did better in the second episode than the first, although maybe that’s because of the way I explained the expressions rather than because of Paul’s lack of vocabulary. Nevertheless, the wider aim of these episodes is to teach you, my listeners, some vocabulary in the form of multi-word expressions.

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What is a ‘fixed expression’?
Essentially, a fixed expression (according to me) is a vocabulary item comprising of a few words that always go together. That includes idioms, sayings, phrasal verbs, well-known quotes and collocations. All these things are lexical items which are included in the catch-all title of ‘fixed expressions’. The words are fixed together. They’re not just individual words combined, but they are discrete items of vocabulary in their own right.

So, fixed expressions are essentially ‘lexical chunks’. They’re not types of shelf unit or ikea furniture or anything like that. They’re just phrases in English. That should be clear.

I realise that the more I explain, the more confusing it is, so I’ll stop explaining now and we can start playing the game.

Let’s Play the Game
This time Amber is involved.
All three of us have short lists of five expressions.
We’re going to do three rounds of this game.
Round 1: Amber vs Paul (Luke is the Question Master)
Round 2: Paul vs Luke (Amber is the Question Master)
Round 3: Luke vs Amber (Paul is the Question Master)

Rules of the Game
The Question Master defines an expression without using the words in the expression.
The QM can also give little hints if necessary.
The two competitors race to guess the expression.
A point is awarded to the one who guesses the question right. If both competitors guess the expression at the same time, they both get a point.
Listeners can try to guess the expressions too. Did you guess them? Did you beat us?
If you don’t know the expression, listen carefully because we will explain, repeat and give examples.

So, it’s a fun game and a learning opportunity too, in one Great British package.

The Expressions in the Game
Here you’ll find lists of the fixed expressions in this episode. Listen to the episode to get the full definitions and examples, or search for the definitions online.

Luke’s Expressions
1. to be hard up
2. to be in the loop / to stay in the loop / to keep someone in the loop
3. “been there, done that, got the t-shirt”
4. to bend over backwards (for someone) (to do something)
5. to give someone the benefit of the doubt

Amber’s Expressions
1. to get your foot in the door
2. to show your true colours
3. over my dead body
4. in mint condition
5. to bite the bullet

Paul’s Expressions – Theme: Body Parts
1. to have two left feet
2. to be/fall head over heels in love with someone
3. (to do something) by the skin of your teeth
4. (give it some) elbow grease / (put some) elbow grease (into it)
5. to put your foot in your mouth

There are plenty of other expressions in this episode, so if you notice any other good ones please add them in the comments section below.

Enjoy!

p.s. I’m going on my honeymoon in a couple of days so there will be no new episodes for a couple of weeks, but LEP will be back :)
VOCABBATTLE

285. Ten More Fixed Expressions (with Paul Taylor)

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It’s been about one month since I last uploaded an episode of the podcast, but now LEP is back! Where have I been? Well, I got married (expect a podcast about that soon) and took some time off after that, and then I had lots of work commitments, comedy commitments and honeymoon-organising commitments and I didn’t have enough time to record an episode, but of course I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to speak into the microphone, and that opportunity came today. So here it is.

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Introduction
Paul Taylor is with me for this one and we’re going to do another round of our vocabulary game, just like we did in episode 283.
That episode was called “Ten Fixed Expressions” but that now seems to be quite a dull title. Certainly, we did teach 10 expressions but the title seems a bit boring don’t you think? I’m wondering what to call this episode and I still can’t decide as I’m writing this. I always think that titles of my episodes should describe what is in each episode, and should also be fun and interesting enough to catch your attention. In this case Paul and I teach you ten expressions again, but we also have a chat about our recent news, and get very sidetracked by a negative review on TripAdvisor of one of our recent comedy shows.

The main aim of the episode is to play the vocabulary game and let you understand the meaning of ten English expressions but it also is a chance for us to mess around a bit and talk about other things if we feel like it, especially if it is entertaining or interesting for you.

So, should I call this episode “Another Ten Natural Expressions” or “Ten More Natural Expressions” or “Ten Natural Expressions (Part 2)”? Maybe “Vocabulary Game with Paul Taylor (#2)” is a better title? I can’t decide. I’ll choose the title when I’ve finished writing this and editing the episode together, and whatever title you see at the top of this page is the one I finally went for. I suppose you’ll probably be thinking – “Luke, the title doesn’t really matter. It’s the content that counts.” That’s true of course, but I do think the title is quite important for attracting new listeners to the podcast, and because it helps you to identify the main content of the episode. Let me know what you think about the title of this episode by leaving a comment below.

In This Episode
Anyway, regardless of my indecisiveness about the episode title, here’s what you can expect in this episode.

1. Hi Paul, hi Luke, etc. :)

2. Conditions are almost exactly the same as in the recoding of episode 283. It’s boiling hot. I’m with Paul Taylor. We’re sitting in the shade, mostly, except for my leg which is in direct sunlight again. We’re going to play a vocabulary guessing game like last time we did this (episode 283).

3. What’s new Paul? He’s been doing more comedy gigs. We got a bad review for one of our comedy shows, and we talk about it a little bit. The wording of the review bothers us a bit (also the fact that it’s so negative of course). Here’s a picture of the review (below). What do you think of the description? Ignore the lack of a full-stop at the end of the second sentence. Is the comment slightly ambiguous? What does it really mean? Look at the review and then choose option a) or b).
Screen Shot 2015-08-03 at 15.20.45
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One thing’s for sure, this person did NOT enjoy our show! You can’t please all the people all the time, and bad reviews are just a part of putting on comedy shows. So, never mind!

Anyway, in our conversation we use the negative review as a chance to talk about the importance of being dedicated, motivated and positive as a way of pushing through a barrier of resistance that you might experience if you want to really achieve something in life, like becoming a really funny comedian or learning another language to an advanced level.

4. The Ten Fixed Expressions & Vocabulary Guessing Game
The rules of this game are the same as last time. I’ll explain an expression to Paul and he has to guess which one I’m talking about. Listen to my explanations – can you guess the expressions before Paul does?

Here are the ten expressions I explain in the episode. Listen to the episode to get definitions and examples, or just google them for online definitions.

1 all’s well that ends well
2 an eye for an eye (and a tooth for a tooth)
3 and Bob’s your uncle
4 and pigs will fly!
5 that’s another kettle of fish
6 as cheap as chips
7 to ask for trouble
8 to be away with the fairies
9 to be back to square one
10 to be all ears

That’s it!

Listen all the way to the end of the episode to hear some out-takes of my introduction to this episode. What are out-takes? They’re the mistakes that are edited out of the final version of a film, song recording, or in this case a podcast episode. Sometimes it takes me a few attempts to get the introduction right. I might do nearly 10 failed introductions before I finally get it right and continue with the rest of the recording. They’re not normally intended for publication, but sometimes they’re pretty funny so I shared them with you at the end of this episode.

Don’t forget to leave your comments below this episode! Thanks for being awesome listeners and LEPsters and all that. You’re the best. Look forward to more episodes coming soon…

Luke ;)
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281. Misheard Lyrics

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Do you ever listen to songs and completely mishear the lyrics? I do it all the time. In fact, everybody does! Let’s listen to some song extracts in which the lyrics don’t quite sound as the singer intended.

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Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze
Sounds like: “Excuse me, while I kiss this guy”
The real lyrics: “Excuse me while I kiss the sky”
The connection of ‘this’ and ‘guy’ makes the /g/ and /k/ sound almost exactly the same. In fact, I think “kiss this guy” and “kiss the sky” are identical.

Do you ever do Karaoke, see the song lyrics on the screen and realise you’ve been hearing all the words wrong, all these years? Or do you wonder if maybe the guy who did the karaoke subtitles didn’t have a perfect command of English and misheard all the lyrics?

Well, if you do often mishear lyrics, worry not – it’s really common and it happens to everyone! There are loads of songs like that for me. For years I thought Sting was singing about sausages in this song. Is it just me or is he singing about salami?

Of course, he’s actually singing “So lonely”.

So, let’s listen to some song extracts and try to understand exactly which words are being sung. Let’s see if you mishear them too, and we’ll consider why they might be easy to get wrong.

Misheard Lyrics

Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze
Sounds like: “Excuse me, while I kiss this guy”
The real lyrics:
The connection of ‘this’ and ‘guy’ makes the /g/ and /k/ sound almost exactly the same. In fact, I think “kiss this guy” and “kiss the sky” are identical.

Nickleback – How You remind me
Sounds like: “cos little women must have damn near killed you”
The real lyrics: “because livin’ with me must have damn near killed you”
“With me” can sound like “women”. “wi’me”
“Living” can sound like “little” when you remember that the /t/ sounds are often softened in US English.

The Stone Roses – I Wanna Be Adored
Sounds like: “I wanna be a door”
Real lyrics: “I wanna be adored”
He’s really keen to be a door. Because the ending of the word trails off, it’s quite easy to imagine he’s not adding a /d/ sound at the end.

Leona Lewis: “Bleeding Love”. (1min)
Sounds like: “You call me your banana”
The real lyrics: ??

Duffy – Mercy
Sounds like: “You got me begging you for birdseed”
The real lyrics: “You got me begging you for mercy”

Eagles – Hotel California
“What a nice surprise, when your rabbit dies” (3.25)
The real lyrics:

Rolling Stones – Start Me Up
Sounds like: “In Yugoslavia you’ll never starve”
The real lyrics: “If you start me up I’ll never stop”

Sister Sledge – We Are Family
“Just let me staple the vicar”
?
“We’re giving love in a femidom”
?

Bon Jovi – Living on a Prayer
“It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not”
“It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not”
The /m/ in ‘make it’ can quite easily sound like an /n/ sound, and the /t/ in “make it” sounds like a /d/, so there you go…

Billy Ocean – When The Going Gets Tough
“You can go and get stuffed.”
“When the going gets tough.”
The beginning part of the phrase doesn’t work, but “and get stuffed” sounds pretty good!
“Gets tough” sounds almost exactly like “Get stuff”.

Miley Cyrus – Wrecking Ball
“I came in like a rainbow”
“I came in like a wrecking ball”
I think this is because she doesn’t sing it clearly, and the vowel sounds are the same. Also, when you stretch out a note, it’s usually a vowel sound and the consonant sounds might get shortened. Singing it with passion extends the vowels, and the consonants disappear into a slightly ambitious zone.

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Creedence – Bad Moon Rising
“There’s a bathroom on the right.”
“There’s a bad moon on the rise.”
All the vowel sounds are the same. The rest is some imagination or perhaps some connected speech.

Deep Purple – Smoke on the water
“Small cousin Walter, is firing this guy.”
“Smoke on the water, fire in the sky”
There’s another example of “the sky” sounding like “this guy”.
“Fire in” sounds a lot like “firing”
“Smoke on the water” – you need a bit of imagination to hear “Small cousin Walter” but it’s there!

The Cars – Drive
“We can’t go on, thinking, nothing’s wrong – pork pie”
No idea what he’s actually singing…

Michael Jackson – You are not alone
“Your burgers are the best”
Again, I have no idea what he’s on about.

Celine Dion – My Heart does Go On
“I believe that the hot dogs go on”
“I believe that the heart does go on”
We use “does” for emphasis, or to insist something. In this case, it makes it sound like she’s singing about junk food.

Led Zep – Stairway to Heaven
“There’s a wino down the road”
“And as we wind on down the road”
The ‘d’ in “wind on” disappears as the /n/ sound and /d/ sounds fuse together with the same tongue movement.

Seal – A Kiss From A Rose
“and my eyes become lager…”
For me, it just sounds like he’s saying “lager”. I expect he wants to say “larger” but I think it’s definitely “lager”.

Air – All I Need
“Have a wank”
“How do I?”
Ok so she’s actually singing, “How do I?” but just a little bit of imagination for the /k/ at the end, and you’ll never be able to hear this song in the same way again.

Brian Adams – Summer of 69
“I got my first real sex dream”
“I got my first real six string”
Sometimes a /dr/ sound can be similar to a /tr/ sound, especially when they follow a /ks/ sound, like in “six”. So, “six string” can sound like “sex dream”.

Alicia Keys – New York
“New York – Concrete Jungle Wet Dream Tomato”
“Concrete jungle what dreams are made of”
It just sounds like “wet dream tomato” to me. Why is she singing that?

Ray Parker Junior
“Who you gonna call? Those bastards!”
“Ghostbusters”
The vowel sounds are pretty similar, and the emphatic way it is said. They all contribute to a funny misunderstanding!

Eiffel 65 – I’m Blue
“I’m blue I will pee on a guy, if I was green I would die.
I think they’re just singing nonsense and the human brain tends to impose order on nonsense, so your brain searches for meaning. This is the closest your brain can come up with. For me, it improves the song immeasurably.

Beastie Boys – Intergalactic
“I’m having a big shit, I’m having a big shit…”
“Another dimension”
The /th/ in “another” can sound like a /v/ sound, and the /shun/ sound in “dimension” can easily sound like “shit”.

Shania Twain – That don’t impress me much (2.20)
“I can’t believe you kiss your cock at night”
“I can’t believe you kiss your car goodnight”
“Car goodnight” can easily sound like “cock at night” because the /g/ of “goodnight” can sound like the /k/ in “cock”, and then “goodnight” sounds like “at night” because of the old /d/ /t/ thing between “good” and “at”.
Anyway, no need to explain it. Just enjoy it!
listen-to-mozart-while-working

275. The Phrasal Verb Chronicles #2

15 Replies

100 episodes ago I recorded The Phrasal Verb Chronicles #1 – remember that? The point of that episode was to improvise a made-up story as a way of reviewing the first 50 phrasal verbs from my other podcast which is called A Phrasal Verb A Day. I had to just come up with a random story, and add in a load of phrasal verbs. Your task was to try and spot the phrasal verbs as I used them, while also following the story. It’s time to do it again because I’ve done over 100 episodes of A Phrasal Verb A Day. So now, in this episode I’m going to attempt to improvise another story using phrasal verbs #51-100. Click here to listen to The Phrasal Verb Chronicles #1.

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Click here to visit Luke’s English Podcast on iTunes and leave a review. :)
Click here to visit A Phrasal Verb a Day on iTunes and leave a review. :)

A quick note about A Phrasal Verb a Day
Do you know about my other podcast? It’s a real thing, there are currently about 107 episodes available free for you. You can find all the details, every episode and the RSS feed and iTunes links on teacherluke.co.uk. Just click “A Phrasal Verb a Day” in the menu. You can also find it in iTunes. I started it at the beginning of last year and my aim was to record an episode every day. I managed to keep up that rhythm of one a day for the first few months, but then I found that I couldn’t keep doing them every day. So, the recording and uploading of APVAD has become very sporadic as my daily routine has been really hectic (as usual). But, it is still alive and kicking and I plan to go back to it regularly to upload more episodes. Eventually, the plan is to hit 365 episodes and then it will be finished. In each episode I teach you a different phrasal verb, give you explanations and provide loads of examples of the different meanings and other things you should know. There are also transcripts for all 104 episodes (to date). Phrasal verbs are a vitally important part of fluent and natural sounding English, and are often one of the hardest aspects of the language to learn. You can use my series as a way to get a grip on this difficult aspect of English. Listening to my short phrasal verb episodes regularly can make a really big difference to your English learning, so if you haven’t already done so I recommend that you check it out today. Teacherluke.co.uk and then click A PHRASAL VERB A DAY in the menu, or just google “A Phrasal Verb a Day”. You can subscribe to it in iTunes, download them, listen to them on my website or whatever is most convenient for you – just like episodes of Luke’s English Podcast.

Now, back to this episode.
It’s important to review vocabulary – it’s vital to go over language again and again and we also know that it’s important to get vivid and meaningful connections to words to help you remember them. Hopefully this story will help that process.

I’ve already gone through meanings and explanations of all these phrases in each phrasal verb episode. If you want to go back and study them in more detail, you can just go back to those individual little episodes – the links to all of them are available on the page for this episode. You’ll see a list, and you can click on each phrasal verb to listen to that episode.

In this episode let’s focus on you just noticing these phrases as they are used in natural speech within the context of a story. You’re going to play a game of Vocab Hunter! (exciting) Does that help to make it interesting? If you need extra excitement you can imagine you’re shooting the vocab from the sky whenever you hear it. You can even do a hand gesture, like you’re shooting a gun, like ‘pow’ every time you hear one. Obviously, watch out if you do that on public transport. People tend to be a bit funny about people pretending to shoot imaginary words that only they can see, while on a bus surrounded by people – but on the plus side, you’ll probably get an empty seat next to you and plenty of space to stretch out and really relax while you listen to this episode and play vocab hunter.

Anyway, as I was saying, it’s important to get used to noticing language as it is being used in context, rather than just being spoon fed vocabulary bit by bit, by a teacher, in a slightly mechanical way. Ultimately, it really helps you pick up language when you actually hear it being used to serve a communicative purpose. So your challenge in this episode is just to try to follow the story while noticing 50 phrasal verbs as they’re being used. The phrasal verbs will appear in alphabetical order. In fact, there may be more than 50 as I’m sure other phrasal verbs will just naturally crop up in my speech (there was one already – to crop up).

My challenge is just try try and make this a coherent story, while including all the phrasal verbs. I have no idea where my story is going to go! I just hope that it all makes sense and that I find a way to use every single phrasal verb in order.

It’s going to be difficult, it’s going to be fun and I hope you enjoy the story. I will go through the list when I’ve finished so you will know which ones you should have noticed. Remember, the list of these phrasal verbs, with mini podcast episodes explaining each one, is available on the page for this episode.

So, let’s begin the phrasal verb chronicles, episode two – phrasal verbs 51-100.

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