Category Archives: Hello

123. What’s Been Going On?

A general news update from L.E.P. *Sorry about the bad sound quality!*

Right-click here to download this episode.
In this episode I let you know what’s been happening recently and look at some recent news stories.

*There is a sound quality problem with this episode. It’s recorded very quietly. Apologies for this. The next episode will be better.*

You can read the news stories from the newspaper below.

Click here to vote for me in the Macmillan Awards (voting closes Jan 21 2013).

News Stories
Here are the news stories I discuss in this episode

HAPISpoon
For those struggling with New Year diets, help is on its way – in the form of a fork that tells you when to stop eating. Designed to prevent users from gobbling down too much food, the HAPIfork monitors the number of times you take food off your plate, and vibrates if you’re doing it too often. Over several meals, as you learn to eat more slowly, the device gradually increases the amount of time allowed between mouthfuls, until it reaches the optimum gap of 10-15 seconds.

HORSE MEAT IN TESCO BEEF BURGERS
Tesco, after the beef burgers in its Everyday Value range were found to contain a significant amount of horse meat. The investigation – by Ireland’s Food Safety Authority – also found horse meat in products on sale at UK branches of Iceland.

CLOSURE OF HMV
The High Street, with the closure of Jessops, the photographic chain. Days later, HMV went into administration.

BELGIAN SAT NAV MISTAKE
A Belgian woman who planned to drive 80km to Brussels ended up 1,450km away, after following her sat nav for two days across Europe. “I was distracted, so just kept on driving,” said Sabine Moreau, 67. “I saw all kinds of traffic signs, first in French, then in German and finally in Croatian.”

KILLER SLUG ARRIVES
Long-standing fears about an invasion of a “killer” slug that devours crops, eats dead mammals and will even feast on dog faeces were justified last week, when the species – Arion vulgaris – was found in a UK garden for the first time, says BBC News online “The presence of this aggressive species is bad news,” said entomologist Dr John Bedford, who identified the Spanish slug in his garden on the outskirts of Norwich. He became suspicious about the slugs on account of their sheer number (Spanish slugs can lay 400 eggs a day, have few predators and can grow up to five inches long) and voracious eating habits: they ate a dead mouse, as well as a wide variety of plants in his garden. And this is just the beginning, warns Dr Bedford. Millions of eggs and baby slugs are likely to be buried under leaves, waiting to emerge in the spring.

TARANTINO
Quentin Tarantino was on prickly form at last week’s London premiere of his new film, Django Unchained. Before appearing on the red carpet, the director sent an assistant out to request that he only be photographed from the front, to hide his big chin. “He will be very upset if anyone tries to photograph him from the side,” she warned. Earlier in the day, Tarantino had quarrelled with Channel 4’sKrishnan Guru-Murthy, after the interviewer asked him a question about the effects of screen violence. “I refuse your question. I’m not your slave and you’re not my master,” he snarled. “I’m shutting your butt down.”

WAS ABRAHAM LINCOLN RACIST?

To The Daily Telegraph
Abraham Lincoln was a racist who deliberately started a war that killed more than 650,000 people. He had no intention of freeing slaves, who freed themselves by fleeing to Unionist lines during a war that was going badly for the North and in which they became needed as recruits.
In September 1862, Lincoln’s preliminary emancipation proclamation declared that the South could keep its slaves if it returned to the Union. Slave holders in the four slave states fighting for the Union were given until 1900 to consider emancipating their slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation itself did not free a single slave, since it was limited to territory controlled by the Confederacy.

Until the day he died, Lincoln’s ideal solution to the problem of blacks was to “colonise” them back to Africa or the tropics. This was what he told a delegation of free blacks he summoned to the White House in the summer of 1863, when he stressed that the mere presence of blacks caused pain to white Americans. He eventually agreed to the 13th amendment, which freed all slaves.

Americans ignore all this since otherwise the history of the Civil War looks little better morally than the US’s treatment of blacks before and after. Steven Spielberg’s film sustains the myth that Lincoln redeemed the US’s racist past. He did not.
Alan Sked, professor of international history, London School of Economics

To The Daily Telegraph
Professor Alan Sked’s assertion that Abraham Lincoln “deliberately started a war that killed more than 650,000 people” is difficult to reconcile with the facts.

Perhaps it is being posited that by standing for election as president and then having the temerity to win that election, Lincoln started the war. In fact, the Confederates were much keener on war than Lincoln, because they arrogantly believed they would win it easily. Professor Sked states that Lincoln “eventually agreed to the 13th amendment which freed all slaves”. This gives the impression that Lincoln was reluctant to do so, whereas, of course, he was the main driving force behind Congress passing the law. His efforts to secure its passage are the basis of Steven Spielberg’s film.

Of course, Lincoln was not a saint but his views on the position and future of blacks in the US changed radically during the course of his presidency. He had to operate in the atmosphere of his time and in the framework of what was politically possible. His achievements need to be judged accordingly, and not condemned for failing to satisfy 21st century criteria.
David Cowell, Lincoln

DAVID BOWIE COMEBACK
David Bowie fans, with the surprise release of the singer-songwriter’s first single in ten years. Where Are We Now? – an elegiac track recalling his years in Berlin in the 1970s – shot straight to the top of the downloads charts. The last release from Bowie (pictured) was in 2003; the next year, he abandoned a tour after suffering a heart attack, and has rarely appeared in public since.

116. Could it be you…?

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Please let me know if you feel like the personality profile in this episode relates to you in particular. *Full transcript below*

Right-click here to download this episode.

Transcript
Welcome to episode number 116 of Luke’s English Podcast. This episode features an experiment into the linguistic tricks that are used in mind reading and fortune telling. I must say at the beginning that I do not really believe that psychic powers exist. I think mind reading looks like a magic power but actually it is just a trick. This episode and the next one, are about this subject. There is a full transcript for this episode available at http://teacherluke.wordpress.com.

I’ve been interested in magic for a long time. I do a few card tricks and some other things. I’m a complete amateur, but I find it really interesting. Recently I’ve been finding out about mind reading, or psychic reading to find out how it is done. I’d like to do an experiment in this episode to test some of the techniques used by mind readers, psychics and fortune tellers. What I am about to say in this episode is not really true, it’s just an experiment to test some linguistic techniques used by psychics who claim to have supernatural powers. However, I don’t believe in supernatural powers.

Obviously, now I’ve told you that, the experiment into mind reading in this episode probably will not work, but I feel it’s very important for me to be honest with you so that I do not betray a relationship of trust that I have with you my listeners. I could have just said some things which are not true to make my mind reading experiment work, but I don’t believe it is fair to deceive you, even if it is ultimately just for fun.

The reasons I am doing this experiment into mind reading are:
-I want to test some techniques
-I think it could be really interesting and engaging to listen to (and it’s really good for your english to be engaged when you listen)
-This episode should contain lots of useful language which you can read in the tapescript online -Together we can learn about mind reading, psychics, fortune tellers, horoscopes and just the way people’s thinking can be manipulated. It’s quite an interesting study into human nature.

I will explain more in the next episode. I know all this might sound strange, but it’s all part of my effort to keep Luke’s English Podcast interesting! For now, let’s carry on with the episode…

This might sound strange but…
I’ve been doing this podcast for over 3.5 years now. Nearly 4 years in fact. That’s about 116 episodes in which I’ve been talking alone into a microphone. I really try to make it engaging by imagining that I am talking to one person in particular. I imagine there is one person in front of me and I talk to that person. That helps me to make the episodes sound natural and to make a connection between me and the listener. When I first started doing the podcast I didn’t really have a sense of who I was talking to, but now after nearly 4 years of doing this, for some reason I’ve got more and more of a sense that there is someone on the other side, and I don’t just mean that there are people listening, I mean that there’s one person on the other side who I know really well now, and that we have a connection like a friendship or something like that.

It’s a very strange feeling and I don’t know how to explain it but it just feels like there’s a person coming through, like one person who is listening and who I’ve made a connection with, to the point where I really know that person well, I mean really well. And last night I had a really vivid dream that I was talking to you and that we really connected on quite a deep level. I don’t know if it is possible that some kind of connection has been made even though we’ve never met but still I got a strong sense of one personality in particular. Maybe it is because my life has undergone some changes recently that I am more open to these connections. I don’t really know, but the dream was very vivid and clear and now I have a really clear picture of you and your personality in my head. I’m just wondering who you are and if you are out there listening to this right now.

Then what I did this morning as soon as I woke up was to write down a kind of personality profile of the person I’ve been meeting in my dreams. A lot of it is about a personality type, but I also sensed some specific information too. Now, I want to know if the person I had a connection with in the dream is out there, listening to this podcast. Could it be you? Maybe you feel like you’ve got a connection with me which is more than just as a listener. So, please if you feel like this description which I wrote this morning relates to you personally then please let me know by adding a comment. Look for details in this personality profile that seem to relate to your personality. It really could be you that I felt a connection with.

I am looking for one particular person. Is it you? Let me know. Here’s the profile I wrote this morning. If I’m wrong about this, then I’m wrong, but this really came very strongly to me. So here it is.

Personality profile:
I feel that you are a person who sometimes goes through periods of self-examination in which you privately analyse your thoughts, your actions and the direction your life is taking, even if this doesn’t always bring you clear results. This is in contrast to the ability you have developed to seem very socially engaged when you are with other people. Despite the fact that in private you are very introspective and sensitive, when you are with other people you manage to be very sociable and even the life and soul of the party, but only in a way that convinces other people. Privately you know that this is just an appearance which you use to make yourself look socially at ease. Sometimes you worry that you think too much about yourself, and that this is not normal. Perhaps you feel you should think less about these deep things and just enjoy your life fully, but ultimately you still find you have to make a lot of effort to be a certain type of person when you are with other people.

This means that you will often be at a gathering (like a party or an occasion when lots of people are together) and find yourself playing a part, as if you are an actor in your own movie. While on the one hand you’ll be talkative and funny, you’ll also be detaching yourself to the point where you will find yourself watching everything going on around you and feeling utterly unable to engage. Later you’ll play conversations back to yourself in your head and wonder what you or other people really meant when they said things. You carefully consider conversations that other people wouldn’t give a second thought to.

How have you learned to deal with this conflict? Through exercising control. You like to show a calm, self-assured and fluid kind of stability to other people, but because this is self-consciously created, it can create periods of frustrated silliness and a delight in extremes, or at least a delight in being seen to be extreme. You most easily recognise this control in how you are with people around you. You have learned to protect yourself by keeping people at a distance. Because in the past you have learned to be disappointed by people (and perhaps because there were issues with you adjusting to your sexuality), you instinctively keep people at arms’ length, until you decide they are allowed over that magic line into your group of close friends. However, once across that line, the problem is that an emotional dependency begins, which leaves you feeling very hurt or rejected if it appears that they have betrayed their status as a trusted friend.

Because you are prone to self-examination, you will probably be aware of these traits that I’m describing. However, you are unusually able to examine even that self-examination, which means that now you have become concerned about who the real you is. You have become all too aware of different sides of yourself which you present to the world, and you wonder if you have lost touch with the real and spontaneous you.

This might sound strange but when you were a child did you have an accident that involved water, or falling? This probably isn’t something you remember completely clearly, in fact you may have just heard older family members telling the story of an accident you had, or a moment when you were in danger as a child. I think you have a scar on your body too, possibly on your knee or leg, which was the result of an accident you had when you were younger.

I feel that you are quite an independently spirited person and you really like to make up your own mind about things. You’re someone who doesn’t just accept what everyone else is doing, but rather you want to find your own way to understand something before you are completely convinced. For example, if there is a band or a movie which everyone seems to like you won’t just accept everyone else’s opinion. Instead you want to make up your own mind about it first. Often you’ll find that although the rest of the world seems overly enthusiastic about this film, band, book or whatever, you can’t help seeing it in a different way and can’t really understand why everyone else seems to love it so much. Actually, when you see friends who just like things because everyone else does then you feel a kind of disappointment in them.

Generally you are a cheerful and friendly person but there has been a time in the past when you were very upset or sad. You still think about that moment sometimes and you haven’t fully get over it, or dealt with it yet, but you will in time.

You are very creative, and have tried different ways to use that ability. It may not be that you specifically, say, paint; it may be that your creativity shows itself in more subtle ways, but you will certainly find yourself having well-formed ideas which are clear to you but which others will find hard to understand.

You set high standards for yourself, and in many ways you are a bit of a perfectionist. The problem is, though, that it means you often don’t finish things you’ve started, because you are frustrated by the idea of doing something that is not perfect, or the idea of starting something again from the beginning makes you tired. However, once your brain is engaged you’ll find yourself moving freely without being blocked. Very much this will likely lead to you having considered writing a novel or something like that, but a fear that you won’t be able to achieve exactly what you want stops you from completing it. Nevertheless, you have a real vision for things, which others don’t really see. Particularly in your academic/college situation, you are currently fighting against things which block your desire to express yourself freely.

I sense that at the moment you are experiencing some tension with a friend or possibly a family member. Your relationship with your parents (and I get the feeling here that one is no longer around, or at least is emotionally absent) is under some strain. You wish to remain fond of them but recent issues are causing frustration – from your side far more than theirs. In fact they seem unaware of your thoughts on the matter. Partly this is because there are ways in which you have been made to feel isolated from certain groups in the past – something of an outsider. Now what is happening is that you are taking that outsider role and defending it to the point of consciously avoiding being part of a group. This will serve you well in your creative and career pursuits. You have an enormous cynicism towards those who prefer to be part of a group rather than risk being an individual, and you always feel a sense of disappointment when you see your ‘close’ friends seeming to follow that route. Deep down it feels like rejection.

However, despite all your introspection, you have developed a fantastic sense of humour that helps you to make connections with other people quickly and cleverly. Sometimes your sense of humour causes you to make jokes or comments that other people don’t really understand, but you enjoy it so much that you’ll often rehearse jokes or amusing voices to yourself in order to ’spontaneously’ impress others with them. This is a healthy desire to impress, and although you hate catching yourself at it, it’s nothing to be very worried about.

There’s also an odd feeling that you should have been born in a different century, like you feel that you would be more suited to another time in the past. You might be able to make more sense of that than I can.

You have a generous nature and you love to give things to other people, or help other people, although sometimes you have acted in quite a selfish way, and this preys on your mind sometimes, leaving you with a slight sense of guilt.

There are some strong monetary changes taking place in your life at the moment. Both in the recent past and what’s in store over the next few months represent quite a change. Perhaps your money situation has been on your mind recently.

You have links at the moment with America, or maybe the UK which are quite interesting, and will quite possibly produce worthwhile results. You’re naturally a little disorganized. A look around your living space would show a box of photos, not organised into albums, out-of-date medicines, broken items not thrown out, and notes to yourself which are significantly out of date. Something related to this is that you lack motivation. Because you’re resourceful and talented enough to be pretty successful when you put your mind to things, this encourages you to put things off. “I’ll do it later” you seem to say to yourself, because you know you can do it later, but then if you don’t do it, you might feel a bit guilty. Equally, you’ve had dreams in the past but you’ve given up on them a little easily when your mind eventually wanted to be somewhere else. There are in your home signs of an adventure into playing a musical instrument, which you have since abandoned, or are finding yourself less interested in. (This may alternatively relate to poetry and creative writing you’ve briefly tried and left behind you.) You have a real capacity for deciding that such-and-such a thing (or so-and-so a person) will be the most important thing in your life and be with you for ever. But you’d rather try and fail, and swing from one extreme to the other, than accept the little that you see others happy with. You would rather take a few risks to get what you really believe in than just be happy to live a comfortable if boring life like some other people you see.

In conclusion: It’s very interesting doing your reading, as you do present something of a puzzle, which won’t surprise you. It’s a little difficult to do your reading – not because of the way I’m doing it online like this but because the person I’m feeling is quite a complex one. This probably isn’t a surprise to you, as you are well aware that your personality is complicated. In fact I feel that even you find it difficult to understand your own thoughts and feelings sometimes, and that this even causes you to experience problems with your sleep occasionally, and that when you can’t sleep all these puzzles with yourself and your relationships with others come back into your head. These feelings are particularly strong during those sleepless nights you experience from time to time.

I get the feeling are certainly bright, but unusually open to life’s possibilities – something not normally found among achieving people like you. I’d say you should probably be less self-absorbed, because it tends to distance you a little from other people. Also you should let go of some of the control you exercise when you present that stylized version of yourself to others. You could let people in a little more, but I am aware that there is a darkness you feel you should hide (much of this is in the personal/relationship/sexual area, and is related to a neediness which you don’t like).

You really have an appealing personality – genuinely. Maybe because you have quite a strong personality that it is coming through to me like this. Many thanks for doing this, and for offering something far more substantial than most other people.

Remember, if you feel that what I have said relates to you personally then please leave a comment under this episode. It’s not the first time I’ve been able to read so much of a person’s character. It has happened to me before, but never over the internet like this. As I said before, maybe I’m wrong and these feelings I’ve had don’t mean anything, but on the other hand if you feel like I have somehow managed to describe your personality then leave a comment and we’ll see if I have managed to make a connection with you.

Stay tuned for the next episode of the podcast in which I will talk more about this. Remember you can see a complete transcript for this episode and you’ll be able to read it more carefully and study some of the words and expressions I have used, or just find exactly how the personality profile refers to you specifically. I am looking forward to your responses.

111. Thanks for your comments

1 Reply

This note was written in September 2012, and the audio was recorded in October 2014.

Hi everyone,

Thanks very much for your comments here, and the emails I have been sent.

I have read your all your comments and I have taken them on board. I might not be able to make all the changes that everyone has suggested (you can’t please all the people all the time, etc etc) but I will continue to work on the podcast when I can, and keep it useful and enjoyable.

I have a few episodes to upload soon so you’ll be able to keep listening. In the meantime, thanks again for taking the time to give me some feedback.

Oh, and by the way “to stream something” means to listen or watch video or audio online rather than downloading it. For example, when you watch a YouTube video you are streaming it directly from the internet. When you use iTunes to listen to a podcast you’re (usually) not streaming it but downloading it and then listening to it later.

All the best,

Luke

108. In Bed with Luke

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Reporting directly from my own bed, raqmbling about various topics and bits of personal news.

Right-click here to download this episode.
Hello! In this episode I give you some latest news and talk about these things:
The London Olympics
My holiday in Barcelona
The BESIG Presentation award (See the video below)
A recent comedy gig I did (You’ll hear a recording of the show at the end of this episode)
My kitchen
Learning French
The new Batman movie
Should I upload a recent episode which I recorded with my friends while we were quite drunk? Leave a comment below to let me know.

I hope you’re well and enjoying life.

Here’s a video of the award winning presentation I did with Andy Johnson at the IATEFL BESIG Summer Symposium in Paris.

101. A Note from Luke

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This post was written in May 2012, and the audio was recorded later, in 2014.

I’m sick with a sore throat and a temperature today so I can’t record a podcast, but I wanted to communicate with you my listeners, followers, fans, subscribers, students, friends, whatever you want to call yourselves. So in this message I’d just like to say a few things, and I’m going to do that now:

Voting in the competition is now closed. Thanks so much for your votes. I’m now planning to announce the winner. I think the best way to do that is to announce it in a podcast episode. As I said, I’m ill at this moment, so I can’t do that now but I will asap. Actually, you can find out the winner by just counting the votes from the comments sections on the 3 competition entry episodes. Votes added in the comments box on the side of this website have not been counted. Sorry :( but those were the rules.
I am REALLY PLEASED with the competition, because I think the competition entries from listeners were AWESOME and LOVELY, and because lots of people voted and got involved. It’s touching to hear responses from people in other countries.
Hello to Priyank from India – I said I would say hello to you in a podcast, and I will do it with my voice rather than in text like this. You can look forward to it mate! Also hi to Hacer from Turkey and my classroom in London recently. I’ll say “hi” to you too and we’ll see if I can pronounce your name correctly (fingers crossed).
I hate sitting at home feeling sick because I feel there are so many things to do, but I should rest today because you’ve got to look after your health. That’s what my Mum says anyway.
I am stupidly busy these days, which is why I haven’t uploaded for a few days. In an ideal world I would regularly upload lots of podcasts and other things for you to enjoy and learn from, and as a result I would become even happier and proud and the world would be a slightly better place. Please listen to episodes again and again, you will find that to be more and more useful for you. You’ll notice things you didn’t notice before. Repeat listening will help you pick up more vocabulary. You might find something funny the 2nd time that you thought was just normal the 1st time. Of course, you might find it annoying and less funny but there’s not much I can do about that, is there?
Sorry, I haven’t asked how you are. How are you? Are you well? That’s good, I’m glad to hear it. Look after yourself won’t you. Take care and keep in touch. Keep listening to the podcast. Are you on Facebook? Why don’t you ‘like’ my Facebook page? Just go to FB and search for Luke’s English Podcast. I post videos and other stuff there sometimes. If you ‘like’ the page, you’ll see those things in your timeline, and that’ll be cool. I’m on Twitter too (@englishpodcast) and I add a few comments and links there from time to time too.
I think I might get a new mobile phone, like maybe a Samsung or something but I’m not sure I can afford it. Also, I’m quite sceptical about buying these gadgets. i heard somewhere that Samsung also make really nasty weapons which get used in wars. It kind of made me think twice about getting one of their products, but that Galaxy S2 looks really good… Decisions decisions… Perhaps I’ll stick with the Blackberry for a while.
The weather in London is really crap at the moment. It’s just grey and wet. It’s a bit depressing to be honest but I’m sure it’ll improve soon and we’ll have some great days of sunshine. I admit, I talk about the weather a bit too much, but if you lived here in the UK you’d know why.
The Olympics are due to start here in London in the summer, and the Queen is celebrating her 60 year jubilee. This means that the whole city seems to be preparing for some massively patriotic celebration of being British. On one hand that’s great and really exciting to be part of, but on the other hand it could make London busy and crowded and sometimes it feels like the whole thing will just cost a huge amount of money. Isn’t there a massive financial crisis going on? Shouldn’t we be saving money?
Banksy has done a new piece of graffiti on a wall in North East London. It’s been in the news. It looks like a comment on the patriotic celebration and pageantry of the Jubilee and Olympics. While we celebrate and spend loads of money, kids in sweatshops on the other side of the world are making the bunting and flags we use to celebrate. It makes you think twice about everything. You can see a picture of it http://londonist.com/2012/05/new-banksy-with-bunting-in-wood-green-high-road.php
I recently saw a great bit of stand up by the London based stand-up comedian Mickey Flanagan. Have a look at this video. It’s hilarious. I wonder if you understand everything, or find it funny. I would explain it all here but it would take ages and ages. Try watching the video anyway, it should give you a good laugh if you give it a chance. You can see the video below this text…
That’s it for now. Again, I’m really GLAD that the competition went well. I will announce the winner in a podcast as soon as I can. Please be patient! Remember I do this podcast on my own while also juggling a full-time job, a stand-up comedy ‘career’, 2 bands, a lot of laundry and washing, my health and well-being and last but definitely not least the attention of my lovely girlfriend. It means I don’t always have time to do podcast episodes quickly. I’m not the BBC, not yet anyway ;)
PEACE, LOVE, ICE-CREAM, GREEN TEA, GOOD MUSIC & LAUGHTER !
Luke x

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCGPIR_4gI8&w=400&h=225]

75. Not a Distraction!

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Unlike many things on the internet, Luke’s English Podcast is not a distraction! In this episode I tell you some news, share some comments from listeners, share an amusing audio clip about a driving instructor and eat some chocolate!

Right-click here to download this episode.
Tapescripts available below
Here’s the email from Bettina:

Hello Luke,

Actually I realize every single day that I’m living a veritable dream
thanks to your podcast. Poor me, it took me finally more than two
years to wake up !

As you might know I’ve always listened to each of your shows several
times but, and that makes the difference, I rarely got back to listen
to them again. It’s incredible how much I forgot about the precious

advice of each episode.

I even completely forgot most of it. Yah, I’ve to re-listen
intensively to the previous shows as well.

You’re motivating and such a brilliant English teacher and trust me I
don’t say that to flatter you !

Thanks to the Internet I can download your podcast. But
not only that, I can listen to it all the time contrary to your
students who can listen to each of your course only once.

Since I’m writing some transcripts I remember much better vocabulary,
expressions and so much more. I’m overjoyed and maybe you’ll laugh
but I’m not ashamed. Aren’t we so much used to use the

Internet that we forget how amazing it is to have this opportunity?

Well, I think that you’re right, the most important is, to use what
we’ve learnt but we aren’t English native speakers, right? We have to
revise all of the stuff we’ve learnt frequently and that’s the reason
why

from now on, I’ll listen to each episode again and again instead of
only focusing on the new one. It’s great time to revise the whole
interesting stuff. It’s up to us to make the best of it. Yah, it’s all
in

our hands ! Plus, that will not be boring because each of your shows
is different and quite funny. Learning English with fun is the most
important thing.

I could never make the effort to pay for a private English teacher who
helps me to improve but I found you, the best, the most terrific
English teacher who teaches the language. You even proofread my

transcripts and hold on a minute, it’s all for free ! ! ! Can you
believe that? I’m on cloud nine.

English has become my great passion. I’m in my ‘fake’
English world every day. No, I haven’t a great level yet, but is it
really that important? Hmm, I’m not sure! I’m guess my English will

progress, now I finally understand how to learn more efficiently . So,
it’s time to practice the rich material of your podcasts ! I’ve still
so much to learn and I would definitively reach my goal!

Thanks a million from the bottom of my heart.

Bettina

Here’s the Script for the Driving Instructor by Bob Newhart
As I said, there was a thing in the paper tonight about documentaries and I have had an idea for a long time for what I think is a wonderful documentary, which has everything. For instance, you go to work, you come home at night and you never really think about it. It’s mechanical, it’s routine. But there are a group of men who every day when they go to work never know if that night they will return, because they face death in one hundred different ways. And I am talking about America’s driving instructors. I would like to present the first episode in the new tv series called, “The Driving Instructor”. Now I would like to have you picture if you would, I’m the driving instructor and seated next to me is a woman driver.

How do you do?…
Erm, you’re Mrs. Webb, is that right?…
Oh, I see you’ve had one lesson already, who was the instructor on that Mrs. Webb?…
Mr. Adams…
I’m sorry, here it is. Mr. Adams. Just let me read ahead and kind of familiarize myself with the case…
Erm, how fast were you going when Mr. Adams jumped from the car?…
Sev…, Seventy-five. And, and where was that?…
In your driveway…
How far had Mr. Adams gotten in the lesson?…
Backing out…
I see, you were backing out at seventy-five and that’s, that’s when he jumped….
Did he cover starting the car?…
And the other way of stopping?…
What’s the other way of stopping?…
Throwing it in reverse…
that’s, that would do it, you’re right, that would do it…
Erm, alright you want to start the car?…
Uh, Mrs. Webb you just turned on the lights, you want to start the car…
They all look alike, don’t they?…
No, I don’t know why they design them that way…
Erm, alright let’s pull out into traffic…
Now, what’s the first thing we’re going to do before we pull out into traffic?…
What did Mr. Adams do before he let you pull out into traffic?…
Well, I mean besides praying…
No, what I had in mind was checking the rear view mirror…
You see we always want to check the rear…
DON’T PULL OUT !!!…
Erm, please don’t cry…
I’m sorry… but there was this bus, Mrs. Webb…
Oh, alright, the lane is clear is now, you want to pull out?…
Oh, now that wasn’t bad at all, you might try it a little slower next time….
Alright, let’s get up a bit more speed and gradually ease it into second…
Well, I didn’t want to cover reverse this early but as long as you have shifted into it…
Of course you’re nervous…
I’m nervous!…
I’m not just saying that, I’m really, I’m really very nervous…
Well, just don’t pay any attention to their honking….
You’re doing fine…
You’re not blocking anyone’s lane…
No, as long as you are here on the safety island, you are not blocking anyone’s lane…
Oh, alright you want to start the car?…
Oh, while you are turning the lights off, why don’t you turn off the heater?…
Alright, there we are, let’s get up a bit of speed…
That’s the way…
Now let’s practice some turns. Um, the important thing on turns is not to make them too sharp, just kind of make a gradual…
Now that was fine…
That was a wonderful turn…
It’s hard for me to believe you only had two lessons after you make a turn like…
Are you sure you haven’t had more now?…
I find that very difficult to believe…
One little thing…
This is a one way street…
Well, no, no, actually it was partially my fault, you see, but, uh, you were in the left hand lane and you were signaling left, and I just more or less assumed you were going to turn left.
SAME TO YOU, FELLA!!!…
No, no, I don’t know what he said Mrs. Webb…
Um, alright let’s pull into the alley up there, uh, and practice a little alley driving…
This is uh, this is something a lot of the schools leave out and we think it is pretty…
YOU’RE GOING TOO FAST MRS. WEBB!!!…
You were up around sixty and that’s kind of a sharp turn there…
Alright, just drive down the alley, that’s the way…
Oh, Mrs. Webb, maybe we better stop here…
Well, I don’t think you are going to make it between the truck and the building…
Mrs. Webb?…
Mrs. Webb…
I…
Mrs. Webb, I, I …
I don’t think you are going…
MRS. WEBB?…..
I real…
I…
I really didn’t think you were going to MAKE IT….
That just shows we can be wrong too…
No, no, I’ll get out on your side, that’s alright.
Oh, Mrs. Webb, uh, maybe it might be a good idea if we went over to the driving area. They have a student driver area over a few blocks away and maybe traffic throws you, maybe that’s the problem…
Well, turn here on the street…
Right…
And it’s only about a block up…
Alright, turn right here…
Well, now that was my fault again…
You see, I meant the next street. Not this man’s lawn…
Oh, sir, sir… sir, would you mind turning off the sprinkler?…
For just a…
Newly seeded?…
Is that right?…
That’s always the way, isn’t it? Ha! ha!…
I don’t suppose it is so funny!…
Oh, alright Mrs. Webb, you want to back out and get off the man’s…
Creeping bent, is that right…
Yea, just back out, Mrs. Webb…
Thank you very much, sir for…
Oh, now we’ve hit someone Mrs. Webb…
Oh, remember you’re going to watch the rear view mirror, remember we covered that…
The red light blinded you?…
The flashing red light blinded you?…
The flashing red light on the car you hit blinded you?…
Yes, officer, she was just telling me about it…
Um, alright…
Alright, erm, Mrs. Webb…
I am going to have to go with the officer to the police station…
Erm, they don’t believe it and they’d like, they’d like me to describe it…
And now the other officer is going to get into the car and he is going to drive you back to the driving school and then you are to meet us at the police station.
Erm, my name is Frank Dexter, Mrs Webb…
Why do you ask?…
You want to be sure and get me next time???

Buy Bob Newhart’s CD on Amazon.co.uk

Stay tuned for more useful and entertaining episodes soon ;)

71. The Ice Cream Episode

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Why is this one called The Ice Cream Episode? You’ll have to listen to the whole thing to find out.

Right-click here to download this episode.
FULL TRANSCRIPT NOW AVAILABLE BELOW!

Introduction
In this episode I decided I’d give myself a challenge: could I just talk non-stop for 45 minutes without planning anything in advance, and keep it interesting? You can decide for yourself if I was successful or not.

I don’t actually teach you anything in this episode, but if you’re a good learner of English you’ll just use this as a chance to listen to 45 minutes of natural authentic English from a native speaker. You might be able to just pick up some expressions, notice features of pronunciation or just enjoy listening to me ramble on about things like Blackberrys Vs iPhones or the way robots always turn evil in movies. I hope it’s useful and/or interesting for you!

Good learners of English try to notice blocks of language. These blocks of language can be certain grammatical structures, phrases, vocabulary or just sentences which contain new words or complex structures. When you notice these bits of language, you can analyse them yourself. What kind of grammar is being used? What does this tell you about your own understanding of how the language works? What exactly do the expressions mean? How can you use them yourself? How would you use the language to talk about your own life or experience?

Here’s a challenge: In this podcast I want you to try to notice some ‘blocks of language’. When you find one you like, just write it as a comment on the bottom of the episode. If lots of people write a block of language from the podcast as a comment it will help other people to pick up vocabulary and expressions. I’ve given you some from the first 10 minutes or so already. You can read them below. Please add some more by writing comments with the language blocks you have heard.

Also, you’ll have to listen to the whole thing to find out why it is called The Ice Cream Episode.

Cheers!

Luke

P.S. A VERY HELPFUL LISTENER HAS WRITTEN A FULL TRANSCRIPT FOR THIS EPISODE. IT MUST HAVE TAKEN A LONG TIME TO WRITE IT. NOW YOU CAN READ IT HERE:

THE ICE CREAM EPISODE – FULL TRANSCRIPT

You’re listening to Luke’s English Podcast. For more information visit teacherluke .podomatic.com

Hello, you’re listening to Luke’s English podcast. This is a podcast and it’s made by someone called Luke.
That’s me and you’re listening to it and it’s about English. So, that’s why I said that you’re listening to Luke’s English podcast. I expect you’re listening to it. That’s normally what you do with a podcast. You kind of listen to it, you maybe… you would download it as well, you might have uploaded it onto your iPhone or iPad or other mp3 device. There are plenty of other mp3 devices out there. It’s not just Apple products despite what you might have
led…been led to believe. There’s lots of them, you’ve got like ones made by Sony and Panasonic and other Japanese companies. Not to mention all of the other companies from different places on the world. Right now in this episode I’ve kind of set myself a stupid random challenge and that is, I’m going to see if I can just keep talking for about forty five minutes. I haven’t planned anything. I haven’t written anything down. I’ve got no preparation at all. I’m just going to see if I can just ramble on about not very much for at least forty five minutes. Now, if you are a regular listener of this podcast you’ll know that at the beginning of each episode there’s often about ten minutes of me just sort of talking and in a slightly self indulgent way, just talking about stuff for about ten minutes before you actually get to the real content. Now, if you don’t like that part of the podcast, if you think that’s boring and you kind of skip through it then you’re probably not going to enjoy this one because I haven’t written any vocabulary notes. I’ve got no phrasal verbs, I’ve got no idioms or anything. I’ve got no useful expressions written down which I’m going to teach you. I’m just going to keep talking. Why am I doing this? I don’t know, I’ve just actually just decided to do it this evening and maybe it’s because I just like the sound of my voice. That could be it. You know, yeah maybe that’s it! Because it would be sad if that’s the only reason I’m doing it because if I like, if I just like the sound of my own voice that means I’m a bit egotistical, but maybe that’s the reason. I don’t know.
Another reason is that I want to do a podcast tonight but I just can’t really be bothered to prepare something because when I do one of these usually, I kind of sit down. I have to think of lots of ideas and I choose a topic or choose an idea and I think, right, I wanna do a podcast about that. And then I have to plan it and prepare it. So, if I have chosen that subject let’s say for example ‘The human body’ right? The human body, that’s actually an idea I had on the bus today. So, I… the human body, that would be an interesting idea for an episode. So what I would then do is think… okay, the human body is the subject, so what am I going to do? Body parts? Parts of the body? I could do that. I could teach you all of the different body parts but actually that’s not really
very useful, not very easy when it’s just audio because really the best way of teaching you different parts of the body would be to kind of show you the different parts of the body on a picture or something like that. I can’t really do that with an audio podcast like this. So I thought, hey, I know, I could do a sort of maybe the verbs, different verbs that you use when describing what different parts of your body do. You know? That would be brilliant wouldn’t it? That would be a really good, really useful podcast.
Well sorry, no, that’s not what you’re going to get with this one. You just going to get lots of random nonsense that’s err, probably doesn’t really help you. Unless of course you think ‘Well just listening to someone who’s just talking constantly like this without really planning anything. Just really naturally, sort of, speaking.’ I don’t know, maybe that isn’t really natural when you have to just talk for forty five minutes. Not very often. But anyway, maybe just listening to someone, just trying to create some continuous, like, discourse, you know just producing a continuous flow of spoken discourse. That might be for some, somehow useful. Maybe if you’re one of those clever
learners of English, you will be able to just sort of pick up bits of vocabulary or pick up expressions that I use to kind of construct this continuous flow of speech and you know if you’re clever as a learner of English you’ll be able to notice little bits of language that I’m using to give structure to what I’m saying to link things and so on. That’s what good learners of English do, right? You kind of notice bits of language and pick them up and start using them yourselves. So really, I suppose in this episode I’m leaving it up to you. It’s up to you to do the kind of language work. I’m just presenting you with forty five minutes of kind of natural British English and it’s up to you to start noticing structures, noticing bits of language and picking them up, right?
So consider this to be a sample of forty five minutes sample of unbroken spoken English, which you can just analyze as much as you like. I’m not going to do any of that, analysis work tonight, just because you know, I don’t wanna sit there for two or three hours this evening, writing down expressions and writing down examples and definitions and then recording it and then uploading it. It could take me kind of four hours or something, to do it. You know, I’ve got stuff to do this evening you know. I’ve got to do my laundry, I’ve got to do. I’ve go to cook for myself and eat, you know. I have to eat, you know, like at least three times a day and I need to drink water, You know.
Those are basic things that I have to do just to survive. I don’t necessarily have lots of time to sit down and prepare and record a podcast. I imagine… I expect that some people who are listening to this will going to be really bored and frustrated with this podcast. Just because there is no real content. It’s just me talking in a very self indulgent way but who cares? Right?
If you’re that kind of person, just, you know stop listening really. But if on the other hand you’re one of these fabulous learners of English who’s able to just tune in mentally to some, you know spoken English you might be able to pick up some really useful things and just generally practice your listening. I mean, it’s probably… it could be a good idea.
Okay, right. So, what might I talk about?
Well, You know I’m just going to basically ramble stupid stuff, you know for forty five minutes like I’ve said just to see if I can do it. It’s just a challenge really. It’s just a personal challenge. Can I just keep talking without stopping for forty five minutes? And hopefully keep it interesting. It could be difficult, particularly the kind of ‘keeping it in interesting’ bit. I think that might be a bit of a challenge.
I think I could probably keep talking for ages but whether or not it would be interesting, that’s another question.
We will see. We will see at the end. You can decide whether it was interesting or not. I imagine, if you just decide to stop listening you’ll think: Oh no, that wasn’t interesting. That was just stupid and you know a waste of time, waste of effort but you know, maybe not.
I kind of… I’m kind of repeating myself here. I expect that would be a general theme of this episode. Me, just making the same points over and over and over again.
So yeah, I think that in almost every episode of Luke’s English podcast, almost every episode, I teach you something. There’s usually some vocabulary or something like that. So you know, you can just go back over those old ones. And there’s loads and loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of language you can get from that.
This one is not one of those episodes. It’s just a kind of rambling stream of consciousness let’s say. No preparation at all. So it’s just, you know, it’s just as it’s occurs to me, as it were.
Now what I might do is when I’ve finished doing all this talking, I might listen back to it again and just write down some expressions that I’ve used and then just put them on the podcast. And that way you can kind of read the expressions, look at them, think about how they’re used, listen to me using them and that will help you to kind of pick them up and so on.
Yeah, so let’s see. Sitting here on my desk, I recently bought a desk for my living room and it’s revolutionized this room because now finally I actually have a place where I can sit like a civilized person. I’m not just sitting on the sofa like some kind of coach potato. I’ve actually got a desk where I can sit up right and it’s good for my back you know, because sitting on a sofa recording a podcast or sitting on the sofa whenever I use the computer, I’m always like hunched over you know with my back bent, It’s like a very uncomfortable position and I get pains in my neck, you know I get like aches and pains in my spine from sitting in uncomfortable positions using the computer. So finally I thought, right, that’s enough! I’ve had enough of all this leaning over.
I’m going to get a desk. So I bought a tiny little desk from Argos.
Now Argos is one of those shops like a high street shop but it’s very clever really, Argos, because you go in there and instead of seeing all the stuff on the selves and having to walk around the shop.
Instead they’ve just got a massive catalog. Yeah right and it’s like the bible, really! I mean, if you’re in to shopping, then the Argos catalog is basically the bible for some, for a materialistic person and you can just flick through the bible and they’ve got everything in this catalogue. Just everything!
Well, you know within reason, not absolutely everything and I mean they haven’t got for example an eight legged pink flying elephant. You know I don’t think so.
I mean, I haven’t checked the index for an eight legged pink flying elephant recently. They might have started doing that. I don’t know. But they don’t have absolutely everything. They’ve just got pretty much everything you need for your life. So if you’re going to go camping, you’re going to get all your camping equipment, if you’re going to go to University, you can get all your dictionaries and your pens and paper and stuff like that. If you play computer games you can get PlayStation 3 and all the latest games and controllers and stuff. You get the idea, don’t you? I think you can get pretty much everything there including furniture. So I thought, right. I’ll just go to Argos. Let’s keep it simple. I don’t want some complicated drawn out shopping experience where I have to walk
around the, you know lots of floors on the department store somewhere trying to find the perfect desk. I don’t have time. I can’t be bothered to do that. So instead I have just realized actually that, when I’m recording this, there might be people outside because I live in a block of flats there might be people outside waiting for the lift who can hear me speaking because I do speak quite loud when I’m recording this. And they are probably listening to me thinking: ‘God, the guy who lives in this flat is a real weirdo, just talking to himself.
Maybe this is very strange behavior, I don’t know. Maybe this means I’m a bit crazy. Who cares? I don’t really care what other people think that much, to be honest. So screw them. I don’t care about them. Anyway ,where was I? I was talking about the Argos experience. So I thought , keep it simple. I’m just going to go to Argos and get like a really cheap desk. This desk here it cost me about thirty pounds. Thirty pounds is cheap. So I had to build it myself. You know, you have… Again one of the clever things about Argos is they’ve just kind of give you the furniture but it’s in a pack and you have to take it home and build it yourself. I guess that’s one of the reasons why it’s cheaper. If it was already made then it would be more expensive, right?
So you go in, you choose the thing you want from the catalog, you mark it down on a piece of paper, you take that to the cash register, and there is usually a person, you know there is a person on the cash register . Usually some sort of miserable person like sales assistant who all day, they just stand there at this counter, just taking money from people. And it must be so boring. I mean, I did work in a shop actually for a year doing just that, just after University. I didn’t know what to do. So I just worked in a shop for a year. I mean I just stood there and I became like a robot. It’s like ‘Hello, next customer please, hello Sir, did you find anything you’re looking for? Thank you, that’s £9.99, please. Thank you. Would you like the receipt in the bag? Thanks very much. Next customer please!’
You know this kind of thing just THAT for nine hours a day, everyday for a year starts to root your brain.
So, understandably that people who serve you… Oops, I just pulled the headphones out. Oh dear, it’s all going wrong. I have some technical difficulties. Okay dear okay, I’m be back in business.
So the people who work in these places they are not exactly the most sort of motivated, enthusiastic people in the world. So they take your money, they give you a piece of paper and they say something like, “please go to collection point 3B, it should be ready in about fifteen minutes! Thank you. Next costumer please.” And so you go to collection point 3B and it’s all a bit mysterious, like a bit of a mysterious process that you have to go through.. You kind of stand there with a code number and you go up to the counter and you say:’ “I’m 3B’ This is connection point 3B. I’m costumer 3N709. I think you have a package for me”. And hopefully then they will find the package in the store room and bring it out for you. There actually is a so strange pleasure, a strange joy in being given your purchase in a box over a counter. It feels
like a sort of secret transaction. Like you’re some kind of a secret agent. You kind of give them a code number and they give you a kind of brown box and you don’t even need to say anything to each other. You just take the box and disappear. I mean, it’s pretty cool, pretty fun. You know in its own unique way and that’s it.
So I got this desk, and that’s cool isn’t it? Yeah, that is brilliant, really.
On my desk here, I’ve got my phone. It’s a Blackberry. Now, recently I got this Blackberry. I used to be an iPhone user. Now, we all know how brilliant the iPhone is. It’s amazing. Oh God, have you checked my new iPhone ? Oh, it’s so good. I didn’t realize how great it was. You know, it’s absolutely fantastic ! That’s what people say. It’s like the iPhone conversation, which everyone has to have at some point. You’ve probably had the iPhone conversation yourself. That’s the one where you kind of see a friend of yours who has recently got an iPhone and they say: ‘Oh, it’s brilliant, oh, I absolutely love it, you know, it’s just intuitive. It really is, the design of it, it’s so intuitive!’
It IS brilliant and very intuitive and user friendly. It also happens to be extremely expensive, the iPhone. I mean, God, they… Apple are clever. They make brilliant technology and then they charge you an absolute fortune for the privilege to use it. So I thought: ‘Right, I’ve had enough of this!’ I can’t effort to use the iPhone anymore. I’m going to downgrade and I’m going to go for a Blackberry. So I got this Blackberry bold and it’s you know what? It’s absolutely fine. When I first started using it, to be honest, I was a bit shocked. I thought, hold on a minute. What are these buttons? These are actual, physical buttons that I have to press on the front of the phone. What’s that??? And you know, that was like going back, sort of, of five or six years. Actually having to press down buttons with my finger. That’s like wasting energy. Pressing buttons. I don’t wanna press buttons. I
wanna touch smooth glass and have it respond. I wanna feel like I’m living in the future when I’m using a telephone but then I thought, actually no, despite having to physically press down buttons, this Blackberry thing is not that bad? It’s alright. It does basically what an iPhone will do. And it’s fine. And I love it now. I’m… as much as you could love a phone. I mean it’s a pretty weird relationship that we have with our mobile phone. Isn’t it? I mean, say twenty years ago, fifteen years ago no one had mobile phones and now… nowadays there’s like these essential things that we have to have in our lives you know, and if you lose it, it’s like game over. Isn’t it?
It’s a total disaster, if you lose your mobile. Actually when I stopped using my iPhone, when I moved to the Blackberry, it took me about a week to get used to using the Blackberry. Right? And in that week like particularly the first day when I realized that the Blackberry wasn’t quite as perfect as the iPhone, then I kind of thought… you know, I was actually emotionally upset. You know losing the iPhone was a bit like you know losing a pet. You know like if you have a dog that you love and the dog dies. You actually feel upset, you feel like crying, you know because you have lost this thing that you loved so much. That’s a bit how I felt when I stopped using the iPhone. I felt like I had lost something important, deeply important to my soul. And I felt like
crying you know. I was upset, I was depressed, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was unhappy as a result of losing this iPhone which is crazy you know. It’s totally mad, it’s just a piece of technology that we… that provides just the basic function which is the ability to basically just message you friends. You can do it on any old phone. It doesn’t have to be an iPhone. I think it’s… I think we’re really kind of… we have really been really suckered by technology. Particularly the high end technology like the iPad. I mean the iPad is fantastic but it is a luxury. It really is. It is an absolute luxury. No one really needs an iPad. That’s just a luxury and the same goes for the Amazon Kindle which is that thing, that looks a bit like an iPad but it just lets you read books and you can store like a hundred books on it. The Kindle… now, no one really needs that do they? I
mean I’m not fair enough like, oh yeah, you can store hundred books in it but who ever needs to carry around a hundred books? Maybe if you’re a student and you need like to carry books around , so that you can study from those books but I don’t reckon any students who have got Amazon Kindles have got all of these study materials on my Kindle. No, of course they haven’t. What most Kindle users do, they fill the Kindle up with a bunch of books that they feel like they should read and probably loads of books they have already read. I bet half of people who have got Kindles, they get the Kindle and they think:’ Right, I would better put some books on it and then they just fill it up with books that they have already read. What’s the point of that? It’s stupid! You only need one book at a time and anyway, if;ve you got a Kindle, if you’ve got a book that you’re reading you can kind of do anything with it.
One of the fun things about having a book is that you can kind of bend it in your hands. I quite like it when I finish a book, the book is like really sort of soiled. It’s almost like it’s been… it’s go on… like an adventure with me, that book and it doesn’t look the same as when it was new. I mean, it’s an absolute pleasure getting a new book. It’s like perfect, it’s been untouched by human hand almost. It’s clean, it smells beautiful, there’s nothing like the smell of a new book. It’s just, it’s fantastic. Maybe I’m kind… maybe I’ve got like a wired fetish about the way new books smell but I know, I’m not the only one. I’m sure that there are hundreds of you out there who love that smell of a new book. You know, you open the book. Hm, the smell of the clean pages, the fresh print on those pages is a fantastic thing. Then you start reading it and you’re reading it in lots of different positions, on the bus, on the train. You kind of carry it. It maybe gets a bit wet in the rain or you might spill coffee on it. I’ve actually killed insects with books before. I’ve been like sitting there, reading and there is a fly or mosquito buzzing around me . And the book is the perfect way to kill it, you know and just bang, just get it with the book and then there’s that dead insect in the pages somewhere,too. I think I’ve actually bled onto books as well in the past, so I’d spilled blood all sorts of bodily fluid. I’ve sneezed on books before and it all contributes to the sort of character of that book when you’ve finished with it. I like the idea that when you’re half way through a book… the bits of the pages that you’ve read are a little bit stained with… you know, just the marks from your fingers.
You can see it on the side of the book.. It’s like slightly… the pages have a little stain on the ones that you’ve read and the ones you haven’t read are fresh. They haven’t been touched yet. I quite like that. The fact that the book gets slightly damaged and develops a character, a physical character as you read it and it gets creased and folded and so on. I like that about having a book is like a physical relationship you have with it. Yeah, physical relationship you have with the book. Not that kind of a physical relationship, no, but you know what I mean.
But with a Kindle it’s just like a plastic thing that you have to be really careful with because if you spend like a hundred fifty pounds on this thing, you can’t drop it, you can’t fold it. If you do, it’s going to break and then that’s it. Hundred and fifty pounds down the toilet. So, and I hate this idea of taking an Amazon Kindle to the beach or an iPad to the beach. That’s like the worst thing you can do with a bit of high technology is Introduce it to some sand or maybe some salty water. Forget about it! It’s a ridiculous idea but we all know that introducing sand to a book you know, when you got a book on a beach it’s just again just giving it that extra bit of physical character that it’s been in contact with sand or wind or something. It’s brilliant. There’s nothing like having a real good book with you on holiday and the book kind of changes as you read it on that holiday. Yeah, we all know that’s true. So the Kindle and the iPad for me they’re luxuries. I’m not saying, I don’t want an iPad. I would love an iPad. Don’t get me wrong. I would absolutely love one but I know that it’s a luxury. Something I don’t really need. I mean just give me a pad, just give me a normal pad. I’ve got a brain, I’ve got an imagination, I’ve got fingers, I can easily get a pen. There’s a pan here in fact. I’ve got a pen with me now. Just give me a normal pad with paper on it and a pen and my imagination. I’ll come up with some entertaining stuff for myself if I have to. I mean the human race survived for thousands of years without iPads. I think we’re probably alright without them in the future. It’s a luxury but you know, I would love one to be honest. I think they’re amazing.
I wonder what’s going to happen actually … what is going to happen with the future of technology. The iPad is just like the first step in a new direction, really. And that new direction is that we can just sort of have the Internet with us at all times. And now you can use the iPad to do things like … you see people walking through the streets of London with their iPad. You know we used to see tourists with maps. You know like folding maps, walking around with the map in front of them. And now they have just got this iPad and it’s like a SAT NAV. You know, Satellite navigation. They can just walk around the town with the iPad in their hands and it tells them where to go and what to do. And it won’t be long, I guarantee, it wont be long before Google map becomes super advanced because if you have played around with Google maps you know, that you also have Google street view and Google street view is amazing because you can go on to Google map and if you click on the right button you can actually be transported onto the street that you’re looking at. So you can go to New York you can go to Manhattan on Google maps and you can walk down the street. It’s incredible. And you can see pictures, you can zoom in and zoom out and you can walk down almost every street in like major cities like New York or London or Paris and Tokyo. It’s absolutely amazing. And as well as that interesting places like restaurants or Museums or Historical places of interest are actually highlighted on the screen, on the pictures. So you can kind of click on that picture and they’ll give you information about that place. Maybe it’s a
restaurant review, the menu from that restaurant, the telephone number you can use to actually call the restaurant in order to book a table there. You can kind of like do everything on the Internet. I reckon that eventually Google street view will be live. It will actually be live. So won’t just be one picture well it will be rolling video. I mean I wonder if that’s possible with Satellites even now that you can just have like everything. You can look at everything from satellites using video and just see real time live what’s happening. I reckon it’s going to happen soon that you would be able to use Google to just observe many parts of the world just as they are happening
live. That’s going to be amazing but the other thing… And I saw a TV program about this once is there eventually … I mean we already carry around very high quality like high technology computers with us. These are our iPhones and stuff. Eventually they’ll become so good and so fast at processing that we’ll just be able to all sorts of things, just without any time delay at all. And if you can imagine, right, combining a pair of sun glasses with the screen on your iPhone and this is like an amazing iPhone, like the iPhone 19 or something , you know. Combining your sun glasses with… or maybe even contact lenses with your iPhone. So you’ll be able to
put your sun glasses on and then across whatever you’re looking at in the real world you’ve also got the Internet version of that. So you can look around the street and you’ll get little arrows, that will pop up in you vision on your sun glasses whenever you look at something. Suddenly you get a window from Wikipedia or something that’ll tell you information about it and all you need to do is like maybe you might to have a little pad on your hand and you just click the buttons and it’ll allow you to make telephone calls to that place or whatever. Find information about it. People will be walking down the street past you. You’ll be able to look at a person and immediately get access like to their Facebook profile, just by looking at them and then you could click on that person and add them as a friend or just find out various bits of information about them. I mean you can almost do this already using Bluetooth technology. You know, if you’ve got something like a Nintendo DS… a Nintendo 3DS handheld computer device ,then you can actually use Bluetooth to find people like… let’s say on the same bus as you who also have a Nintendo DS. And you can challenge them to a game of like Street Fighter 2 on the bus. And it’s just a random person you know and you can just have a game with them. This…Eventually all of this stuff is going to come together. So we’ll be able to just walk around and look at things and the Internet would be like you know stretched over everything like a Net and like an Internet. And then
you’ll just be able to… like you know use the directions that you get on Google maps. Instead you’ll just have like an arrow in front of you that you’ll be able to see on the screen on your sun glasses. The arrow would just point you in the right direction you know. If you wanna get to the pub like, you just use the arrow and it will point you where you’re going. It’s going to be
amazing. It’s basically the matrix. Eventually we won’t be able to tell the difference between the Internet and the real world. They’re going to combine and who knows eventually they might be able to implant some technology inside your head, that will connect with the electrical systems and nervous system in your brain and actually connect the Internet to your brain so that you’ll be able to feel or make decisions just by thinking about them. That’s going to be amazing. I mean they’ve already got technology which allows you to use your TV with your thoughts. So there’s something has being developed somewhere and it’s like a headset that you put on and it has a little camera I think that looks at your eyes and as you’re looking at the TV you could just think about changing the channel and the channel would change. Don’t ask me how they do it. I read about it today on the Internet. So it must be true. So it’s just one example of the sort of crazy stuff that’s going to happen. It will be the matrix, that’s eventually what’s going to happen and we’ll probably be able to do everything you know. Just travel around the world, visit people, actually have genuine experiences while we just sitting down on the sofa connected to the Internet. It’s quite a frightening thought in some ways but also quite amazing really. The frightening aspect to that is that when all this technology allows so many possibilities there’s the poss… there’s the threat that it’s going to be used for the wrong things, that it could be used to exploit people and that’s already happening with things like identity theft and so on. The people put there all of their personal information on to Facebook and I believe that anything you put on Facebook becomes the propriety of Facebook , I think. I’m not sure about that. I need to check it. So you know you can’t quote me on that but I think that if you’ve uploaded a video, photo onto Facebook then Facebook actually owns that video or that photo. It’s not yours. And they also own all your personal information which if unless you’ve like you’ve chosen the correct security settings, I think they can use that information. They can actually send it to people, they can sell it to marketing companies and so on. So there’s always that threat that your personal information will be used in a way that’s not necessarily good for you. So we have to be very very careful about the Internet and about the way in which it’s used and the content we put on to it. I actually worry about that quite a lot of myself because really I publish a hell of a lot of information about myself on the Internet particularly through this podcast because I sit here and I kind of talk about myself. I describe details, intimate personal details of my life. You know some of them, some of that stuff may be true , may not be true. A lot of the things I say actually are just for the benefit of the language learning that you’re doing but I worry, I think is someone going to be able to use
this for the wrong reasons. Well if they try and do that I will chase them. It will be like that Liam Neeson movie, I think it’s called TAKEN and if they try and do something, I will hunt them down and I will catch them and I will make them pay.
Okay, so if there’s anyone out there, who is listening, if anyone in the world is thinking:’ Ha, I think I’m going to use Luke’s information and steal his identity and steal his money.’
Well, don’t ! Alright because I’ll come after you, I’ll find you and I’ll get you. Alright you know what I’ll do… what I’ll do, so I’ll make you stand up, right and I’ll grab your underpants from behind. I’ll grab hold of your underpants and I’ll pull them really hard all the way over your head and that will hurt your private parts a lot, okay? So don’t do it ! ! !
Don’t mess with my identity. To be honest, it’s not really any point steeling my identity because why would you wanna be ME first of all? There’s not really much that you can get from me. I don’t really have any money. I’m not famous. You can’t really… anyway… enough about that. I don’t only give you any ideas but basically it would be a waste of time stealing my identity, I can tell you.
Yeah so, yeah technology, it’s amazing but it’s also quite frightening. Don’t you think?
I wonder, when you look at sort of the way technology is represented in movies. We don’t trust technology, do we, really? If we see the way that we deal with it in movies, I recently watched that film with Will Smith, I, ROBOT. I don’t know if it’s got a different name in your country but basically in the movie my quick plot synopsis of I, ROBOT is, Will Smith is a cop in the future, right. But he is not like a cop like all the others. He’s a kind of like a… to be honest he’s like a normal guy from now, from the present day. But he just happens to be in the future. He’s kind of normal. He wears a leather jacket, he wears like a beanie hat. He probably listens to like Hip Hop
from the 90s or something. You know he probably has lots of Public Enemy , and A Tribe Called Quest [Hip Hop groups from the 1990s] quotes in his head. He loves Hip Hop and Soul music. He probably listens to Bob Marley. That’s the kind of guy that he is in this movie and surrounding him are all these people from the future. And of course the future world that he lives in, is a kind of cold emotionless place where it’s incredibly efficient because everything is done by robots. But somehow it’s less human. It’s colder and more evil quite frankly because most of the people that he meets are probably evil, particularly the ones who works for big corporations because we know, don’t we, that big corporations are just evil.
Naturally evil. Just by definition, if it’s big and it’s corporate and it’s shiny and it’s not very human and yeah that kind of thing.
Then it’s evil, isn’t it? And also if it’s a robot and it’s very high technology, That’s also going to be evil too. Don’t ask me why, but it will be. And of course what we find is the Will Smith being this normal guy cop investigator, is investigating a murder. But it was a suicide actually. It turns out to be a murder and that’s right. It’s a murder at a robot factory and guess what? The robot is in the factory, they’re evil, that’s right. Why they’re evil? We don’t know. Why are robots in movies evil? No one really knows, but they are, aren’t they? Yeah because we should be frightened and scared of technology because we don’t really understand it. I mean most people don’t really understand technology. As far as I can tell, most of the IT specialists I meet, they don’t understand it either. Think about it. The last time you had a serious problem with your computer, did the IT guy really know what the problem was? He didn’t, really he didn’t! He sort of said, well I think it might be something to do with the server. What did that even mean? Nobody knows what’s going on. Technology, we’re probably a few years away from like ‘The Terminator’ or ‘The Matrix’ that that’s point in time where computers become so intelligent that they actually develop their own sense of survival and they think, oh right, okay, I’m a robot and I’m actually more intelligent than people. Now so obviously, what I have to do is become evil and kill all the people, kill all humans. Is that what’s going to happen? I don’t know but it could be. Why isn’t it that robots become good? You know the more intelligent they are, the more nice they are. That’s… Why doesn’t that happen in movies? Why don’t we get like robots who become super intelligent and say:’ Good morning Luke, would you like a cup of tea Luke?’ You know, that would be good. Wouldn’t it? If they realized that with all their super intelligence that basically all we want, all that’s good for the world is just cups of tea and cake and stuff. That’s the movie I wanna see. I wanna see a movie where Will Smith is in the future and he likes Bob Marley and he’s surrounded by high technology robots and they all just sort of do nice things for him. They kind of take his dog for a walk and they make him cups of tea and they clean his car. They just do nice things to each other. That would be … That’s good and that’s just as likely that happen as all the robots becoming evil. Isn’t it? Hm, maybe it’s not… maybe it’s not though because… Maybe what’s going to happen is that all this technology’s just going to make people more open to exploitation because we know from , don’t we … that from like history of the world. We don’t have a very good record of being nice to each other, do we? We don’t. Let’s face it. Maybe in the last few years we’ve been alright. But for hundreds or thousands of years people have been horrible to each other. They really have. Think of like slavery and stuff. You know like back in… when was it? Probably a few hundred years ago really. It’s, when started to travel around by ship and say, probably around the 17th century. That
kind of time when the British Empire you know was growing, we were really bad. We did some really bad things around the world. The British Empire, I mean you know, we were very good at doing it but we did some horrible things to people. Can I just apologize actually? If you’re a listener to, for example, if you’re in… hum, I don’t know, in India or Africa or some part of the world where the British kind of colonized and basically sort of destroyed your culture or maybe even like just took people from your country and turn them into slaves. Can I just apologize for that? Because that’s terrible. Obviously, it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t do it. It wasn’t even like my
dad’s or my dad’s dad or my dad’s dad’s dad’s dad’s fault but somewhere down the line, people in this country did some pretty bad things to other people in other countries, just because we had more boats you know.. So sorry, sorry about that.
But just generally if you look at the past , you’ll see that people have done some pretty horrible things to each other and maybe that’s going to keep happening when technology allows people to take control over other people’s lives? Maybe we’ll just get another version of slavery again. I hope not !
I think it’s really really important that we have to be good to each other. At the end of the day, that’s what it’s all about. We just have to be nice to each other. We have to try to understand each other and be compassionate and be nice Actually I’m quite pleased that we’ve reached, that I’ve reached this part of the podcast where the conclusion, I guess, to this rambling stream of consciousness is that please, please…
PLEASE can we be nice to each other? Can we try to understand each other a little bit more? Let’s avoid the conflict, let’s avoid the war and the fighting. Let’s try to make the world a better place for each other. Can we please can we just try understand each other? Don’t try and, don’t blow each other up. It’s stupid! Be nice to each other ! Fighting and blowing people up and trying to rule the world doesn’t work. The only way it’ll work is if you understand that we’re all in it together. We’re all on this earth together, we all share the space. Let’s just try and make it easy. Can we please? Good !
It’s… and I have to say these things because all over the world, all the time people are fighting and they’re fighting for ridiculous reasons. I’m not going to mention any specific cases but I think you know what I’m talking about. People are fighting over their beliefs. You know when people believe so strongly in like… I don’t know, like a specific God or something they believe in it so strongly that they’re willing to actually kill and kill people’s children as a result of how strongly they believe in their God. That’s wrong. There’s something deeply wrong about that. We know that all the real, like religions and things… They all preach PEACE ! So waging war in the name of religion is complete nonsense and ridiculous. So STOP doing that please ! ! ! That would be nice. Yeah okay.
Wow, I’ve ended up talking about war and politics and killing children again. God, this is not the first time, I’ve ended up talking about that either. Now, let’s talk about something else. maybe we could talk about Ice Cream. That would be a good idea. Wouldn’t it? Yeah, so, Ice Cream, right? God,I love Ice Cream ! Isn’t it great? Ice Cream is a good invention. I don’t know who invented it. Wasn’t it Italians? I think it might been Italians. I don’t know, if it was them, but they certainly do it well and Ice Cream is a good thing. Let’s have more Ice Cream in the world !
I know that it’s kind of bad for your health but come on. Come on, so what? You know everything is bad for your health isn’t it? I mean we all going to die in the end. We might as well enjoy a little bit of Ice Cream before we go. You know what I mean? And it has some many flavours. You get vanilla of course. That’s like the default flavour for Ice Cream. Isn’t it? I wonder if that was the first flavour. Was that the first flavour for Ice Cream? I don’t know but it’s certainly a good
flavour. It’s the most successful flavor, isn’t it? Vanilla! It’s like standard.. It’s like you know, in terms of… let’s say paper, white paper. It’s like the white paper of Ice Cream, isn’t it? Vanilla… And then of course you’ve got like chocolate and coffee and strawberry and raspberry and I mean the list goes on. I mean, I don’t know if you have ever been to Rome? In Italy but you should go because it’s beautiful. It’s a fantastic place. Go to Rome and check out some of the Ice Cream they’ve got there. It’s brilliant. They’ve got like all kinds of stuff. In some places you get Ice Cream for all sorts of crazy flavours like bubble gum flavored Ice Cream and stuff like that. So let’s stop killing each other, let’s just buy each other Ice Cream and make this world a much better place.
I’m happy that that’s the conclusion of this episode of Luke’s English podcast. It’s all about Ice Cream. So if you… I’m going to name this episode… I think, I’m going to call it ‘THE ICE CREAM
Episode and if you have listened all the way to the end then you’ll understand why it’s called the Ice Cream episode.
That’s it from Luke’s English podcast. Forty five minutes!
Thank you, bye,bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye….

SOME BLOCKS OF LANGUAGE FROM THIS EPISODE:

…despite what you might have been led to believe…
…not to mention all the other companies…
…I can’t really be bothered to prepare something…
…I’m leaving it up to you. It’s up to you to do the language work…
…I’m not sitting on a sofa like a couch potato…
…I’ve had enough of all this leaning over…
…let’s keep it simple…
…there’s a strange pleasure in being given your purchase in a box over the counter. It feels like a secret transaction…

Here’s the Argos website (so you know what I’m talking about!) http://www.argos.co.uk/

;)

66. Top Advice for Learning English / Idioms with ‘say’ / Culture Shock

8 Replies

Right-click here to download this episode.

Listen to some good advice for anyone learning English or taking a Cambridge exam such as IELTS, CAE or FCE. FULL TRANSCRIPT NOW AVAILABLE BELOW (Thanks again to Bettina from France) Also in this podcast you’ll learn some idioms with the word ‘say’, and listen to Luke talking about culture shock. There’s a bonus comedy audio bit at the end too so listen to the whole thing! Here are the idioms: to have your say she has nothing to say for herself I must say I wouldn’t say no Let’s say… say ‘cheese’ say ‘what’? say when to say the least you can say that again! you can’t say fairer than that you don’t say! Here’s the video from The Day Today about the Jam Festival:
Video Transcript
Video from episode 66:
The Day Today – Chris Morris – Jam Festival Interview
[32:11]
P – TV presenter
J – Janet (quest)

P: Tommorow sees the opening of the London jam festival selling pots of jam some made by celebrities to raise money for the homeless. With me is one of the organizers Janet Breen. Janet, thanks for joining us this evening. This must have taken a heck of lot organizing.
J: Yes, well it has actually to get all these celebrities to contribute their jams really has been quite an operation.
P: How much of your time did you put in to it?
J: Oh, I would say at least six months.
P: Six months? To raise money for a jam festival. Isn’t it rather stupid?
J: No, I don’t think so. I mean, it’s all in a good cause.
P: Good cause, yeah. How much you’re going to raise?
J: Well, we hope to have raised some, at least 1500 pounds.
P: 1500 pounds? That’s a pathetic amount of money. You’d raise more money by auctioning dogs.
J: Well, I don’t think so. I think it’s all in a good cause and very worthwhile.
P: You persuaded this celebrities to waste their time donating to it.
J: Yes.
P: Oh, who?
J: Glenis Kinnock we’ve got and Sebastian Coe.
P: I hate Sebastian Coe.
J: I think, he made a very worthwhile contribution.
P: Well to the paultry sum of 15 hundred pounds.
J: Yes.
P: Is that worth six months of your time.
J: I think it is worth…
P: I don’t think it is at all. I think the only reason you’ve done it, is to make yourself look important. How dare you come on this program and say: “Hey, look at me, I’m raising 15 hundred pounds for the homeless. You could raise more money by sitting outside the tube station with your hat on the ground, even if you were twice as ugly as are, which is very ugly indeed.
J: (sound of sobbing)
P: Has that been very upsetting for you?
J: (silently) Yes.
P: Do you have anything else to say in your defence?
J: (silently) No.
P: Janet Breen, Thank you

PODCAST EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Top Advice for Learning English / Idioms with ‘say’ / Culture Shock (Transcript provided by Bettina, a listener from France)
You’re listening to Luke’s English podcast. For more information visit teacherluke.podomatic.com Well, hello Ladies and Gentlemen, you’re listening to Luke’s English podcast . That’s right the finest example of English that you can find on the Internet and that’s right. This is basically just a podcast while I sit here on my sofa tonight. It’s a Thursday evening and I’m basically just sitting here on the sofa . I have got a bit of time, so I decided to record some kind of podcast. Basically what I’m gonna do is just kind of sit here and talk just sort of talk to you about some stuff basically. I’ve got an idioms dictionary on the desk here in front of me and I’ve got sort of other bits of advice to give to you about learning English which I think will be very useful and very important for you to kind of pick up on and learn, right? So as I like talk to you, I’ll just kind of sort of maybe explain a few bits of vocabulary and talk to you about some advice and that kind of thing. Doesn’t that sound brilliant? Yes, it does Ladies and Gentlemen. Of course it does, because this is Luke’s English podcast. Now if you’re new to Luke’s English podcast if this is the first time you’ve listened to this let me just explain basically what this is all about. You’re probably a learner of English or maybe a teacher of English or something and you might be someone learning English who’s living in another country somewhere else in the world. Maybe a place where it’s difficult to find other speakers of English like native speakers of English. They’re quite difficult to find in some places. So you need to be able to try and listen to someone speaking English in a natural way, like a native English speaker almost like you’re kind of sitting with that person in a café or in a pub and you’re kind of talking to that person, right? So, that’s what you can get from Luke’s English podcast except that also within this, I can add other bits of audio, like interviews with people, interviews with celebrities and other interesting things like that but also I can throw in bits of vocabulary, phrasal verbs, idioms, natural expressions, that kind of thing. The sort of natural things that people talk about and the language that they use and also some pronunciation tips. Things about the way people speak in the real world. The way that they link their words up together and the way they stress sentences and that kind of thing, right? So, how can you get in touch with that kind of English? You can listen to various things on the internet. There’s lots of podcasts available for you to download and you can just listen to people speaking English but how many podcasts are there on the internet for learners of English? Well, there’s a few, some good ones like from the BBC and a few others but there’s also a lot of other podcasts which I don’t think are particularly good for several reasons. One reason is maybe that the sound recording quality isn’t that great and so it’s like listening to a bad telephone line or that they use like scripts when they speak . So they’re not exactly speaking naturally they’re just reading from a prewritten script, right? So that’s not really gonna be like the natural way that they speak. They just kind of , it’s more like written English in that case. Or some of them are just very kind of basic and a bit patronizing, you know? Like you get those podcasts that talk to you as if you’re an idiot and maybe spend ten minutes just teaching you one like big word that you’re never really gonna use, you know. I’m not kind of anti-American or anything like that but it seems a lot of these podcasts are often American ones. You’ve got kind of like “You’re listening to the business English pod from pod business.com. Today’s business word is ‘innovative’ , ‘innovative’.” You know, that kind of thing . I don’t think that’s a natural way that people speak, so it’s better to just listen to someone speaking naturally, right? So, that’s the idea with this podcast . It’s that so I can speak to you naturally and you can listen on your headphones or when you’re on the bus or when you’re on the toilet or something like that, right? You can listen you know, a lot people who listen to this, listen to in the car , so it’s lots of people kind of driving while listening to this. In fact so I expect that some people driving right now, while listening to this. So if you are driving then ‘watch out for that! ‘ Yeah, just a bit of a joke. They’re just for people who are driving. I hope, you know, I’ve done that before. You shouldn’t be really surprised really but anyway. Now, I thought that in this episode I’d kind of impart some wisdom. Basically kind of give a bit of advice. Now, I’m not saying that I know everything absolutely everything about the best way to acquire a second language. In fact what would be very interesting is if listeners to this show could maybe email me with some bits of advice themselves like I get a lot of quite advanced listeners for this show . I’m very interested to hear your stories. How did you manage to develop your English to a good level, right? Because that’s what people wanna know. So from people who (___) a good level of English maybe you can email us some advice . What’s the best way in your opinion to learn English effectively, right? Now, I’ve got some advice which I wanna give you now. Let’s see. Now imagine you’re taking a test in English. It could be one of the Cambridge exams, for example like IELTS or FCE or something like that. You’re taking your test in order to prove your level of English and you want to get a good score, so that you can get a good job in the future, right? So how are you gonna know, if the answers are right? Now, let’s say, you’re doing one of the kind of vocabulary exercises and you have to choose the right word to complete the gap. Now, how do you know that that is the right word? Now in some cases it’s just because of meaning but often it’s because of collocation like the fact that some words always go together, you know? Like the fact that you do your homework, you don’t make your homework or anything else. You DO your homework. Now, how do you know that those two words go together? There isn’t really a rule about the meaning of that word in that situation because , you know, you could just as easily say make your homework but people don’t say that. Do your homework is the collocation. So how do you know that? And how are you gonna know all the other very intricate, subtle differences in meaning between various bits of English? Now, if you just study, if you just study a grammar book or just do kind of controlled practice like that , you’re not necessarily going to for example be exposed to English enough, really. What you need to do is as well as study the language you also should just try and kind of read and listen to as much English as you can, right? Because, let’s say like if I do an exercise in an exam , in an English exam as a teacher, I know the answer, right? I just know what the answer is and I , first of all my instinct tells me it’s right and then
after that I think about the grammatical reasons why it’s right. Okay but first my instinct just tells me, yeah, I know that’s right and the others are wrong just because, you know, I just feel it as an instinct. But how have I developed that instinct? Well I think that is because from the day that I was born, I have been listening to other people using English and I have been reading English. And so much English has gone into my ears and into my eyes now, that a lot of it just sticks. So, I know by instinct which things are right and wrong because I know something is wrong because you know no one says that . I have never heard anybody say that before. That combination just doesn’t feel right.Your instinct tells you what’s right because you have heard it so many times or read it so many times, right? Like whenever you read something in English, all of those words go into your head , they all go in. You might not remember them all but they all go into your subconscious because you’ve seen them and so all those combinations are feeding into your subconscious, all the patterns of grammar and usage just go right into the back of your head until you eventually just develop a natural sense for when something feels right or wrong. So the advice here is that you need to try to read a lot and listen a lot. You need to try to get exposed to the language on a large scale . So that means listening to things regularly, listening to natural things in English regularly, I’m talking about every week. I mean every day would be perfect, right? If you could listen for half an hour a day or more you know? But as much as you can really, just listen to things in English . There’s lots of things you can listen to , all the podcasts on the internet, all the BBC podcasts, this one, Luke’s English podcast , there’s lots of internet radio stations and you’ve got all of your audio books that you can buy and like video, YouTube. All those things, things you can just listen to on your iPod. Then as well that you can read a lot if possible and think about what you, what you’re reading , that kind of English will they be using because if you just read the newspaper then you’re just going to read newspaper style English. So maybe think about other things you can read as well like blogs, which are quite informal and well as that you can read, obviously you can read books, all the novels and books that you can purchase and magazines and things like that . There’s lots of things that you can read. Even read like Comic books in English because that’s like a really natural way of, you know of seeing the communication happen with pictures as well kind of help and you also when you listening, you just think about what you listening to. Are you just listening to the news? Because if you do they don’t really speak naturally, no, they don’t speak like normal people on the news, you know? Like they tend to speak in a wired way, like :’For some reason, everyone on the news seems to speak like this . The sentence stress is strange, the intonation’s just weird. In fact, the sentences seem to go on forever. Nowhere really knows where they’re going to end or if they are going to end at all’ ,you know. That kind of thing. So really it might not be natural. So listen to kind of interviews or conversations if you can. Hopefully then, when you get exposed to the language enough, you start to kind of get a feel for what’s right and wrong. You should also study as well. I mean you can study from grammar books and things like that, too. If you try to do both, it’s the best way to do it but you need to get some English into your life. (Think a bit ?) like that. When you engage with the language you should do on a kind of meaningful level, even an emotional level, you know, so that you’re really feeling, you’re really interested in whatever you’re reading about or listening to in English. Just having that sense of enthusiasm or desire to do it will help you massively. I mean in my experience, the students who learn the best, are the ones who enjoy kind of engaging in some kind of active communication and who, you know, put themselves into the learning process. They don’t just expect it to happen, they actually take it. They take the bull by the horns, you could say. Take the bull by the horns. A bull, you know is a big animal like a male cow. You get bullfighting in Spain for example. A bull, and a bull has horns. Those are a sort of sharp bits on the top of the bull’s head and if you grab or take the bull by the horns you just sort of like take control of the situation basically. To take the bull by the horns. So the best learners really kind of take the bull by the horns, take control of the situation and kind of get involved in learning and you can enjoy it. You can pick up lots of other information not just English. You can find out about what’s happening in the world which is a pretty special thing. I’m sure you agree, Ladies and Gentlemen. So, there we go, there’s just like a bit of advice really for me. I wonder if there are other things I could talk to you about at this point. Just thinking about where my students tend to ask me questions on. Now, I get kind of questions about the world, family and about English food, it’s quite a common one. We have other weird things in this country that people don’t seem to understand. Like when visitors come to England, there are various things that they find strange or different? You know it’s basically culture shock. Culture shock is interesting because people using the word culture shock kind of expect the experience to be a shock like when you’re arriving in a new country, it’s like BANG, oh my god, I can’t deal with this but that’s not what it’s like because actually when you go to another country often it’s just, you know, pretty normal if when you get there it’s just normal, it’s the same. They have cars and you walk up and down the street and you know you can buy kind of coke, maybe people are speaking a different language but in many cases it’s quite of similar but slowly you start to realize that the place you’re living in is different in another way. It’s not just that they have sort of different things but they think in a different way or behave in a different way So like for example when I went to Japan first I thought it was going to be a big shock but when I arrived, I felt fine, I felt totally comfortable. In fact it was easier to live there because they have like more convenient shops and it just seems to be a bit easier, really, except for the language barrier. But then slowly you start to pick up on differences and you have some experiences that make you feel like, you know, understand what’s going on in this country and you start to realize the deeper stranger things about it. And all of the differences in culture between different countries is just based on various old traditions or principles about, you know, the way you interact with other people, that will make you behave that way. So the key thing to remember with culture shock is that whenever you go to another culture you should just be very patient and just accept the way that people behave differently because there is a reason for that, you know? Like, you know, there will be some old historical reason for why people behave in a different way.That doesn’t mean that they re doing it wrong. They’re just doing it differently. So I guess, culture shock is something that people experience sometimes when they come to London . I mean there are very strange things that they don’t understand like the fact we have two taps in the bathroom. I don’t know if you know what taps are. They are the things that you turn on and you turn off in order to get water from you bath or from your sink. And in England it’s very common to have two taps. A hot tap and a cold tap but many people from other countries seem to have a one tap which you can use to control the water and the temperature but in England we have two separate taps and a lot of people find it very strange like the fact they don’t know how to wash their hands because they turn on the hot tap and then it gets too hot and then th
ey have to turn on the cold tap as well and you kind of go between the cold and hot taps when you’re washing your hands. It’s a bit of ridiculous, but that’s just something about England. The fact is we value traditional things like our bathroom fittings. We like them to look old fashioned because we think that’s good. We like the traditional style. We think it looks expensive and good quality and so as a result our bathroom might look a bit traditional and you might have two taps rather than one modern style tap. And that’s typical about England. Another thing is that windows in buildings are not very good. They’re quite old here in London and a lot of my students complain that it’s cold in their room. But the windows they have in their house are often very very old windows from the victorian period. These old wooden windows and the fact is, they don’t really insulate your room. A lot of cold air comes through the windows. They are very bad for that. So it is cold but if you’re buying a house here in London and it’s got those old wooden windows then, you know, it makes it much nicer. In fact a house with old wooden windows would be more expensive than a house with modern windows because we really value the fact that there’re original victorian oak windows. Even though they don’t really work, they don’t even really do their job of insulating a house. They’re still valuable because of the tradition and the fact that they are kind of antique. So that’s just an interesting idea about culture here in England. The fact that we do value traditional things. We’re also very progressive in other areas but a lot of the time in terms of style we quite like the old stuff, I think. Although, you know modern styles are equally popular as well. Right, you know what I’m gonna do now? I’ll open the idioms dictionary randomly, okay? Okay, I’ve just opened it and I’ve got to the word say. That’s s a y and I think I’m just gonna teach you some idioms from this book here. Say, s a y , right? So these are all expressions that you can use with the word SAY. So let’s see. You can say: have you say. To have your say. You might get for example on a radio show where they are discussing news stories. The radio presenter might say, if you would like to have your say then just give us a call on 0208 998 4234, you know and that means to give your opinion, right? To give your opinion about something, right? So if you wanna give your opinion you can have your say, right? So on a radio show, you can call in and have your say about one of the new stories, okay? Another one is : to have nothing to say for yourself. To have nothing to say for yourself, that just means that, you know, you’re boring really. You don’t have really anything interesting to talk about.You know, you got nothing to say for yourself.You know, it just means that you’re not really good at having a conversation. You know, you might say, oh, she seems very nice but she doesn’t have much to say for herself. So for the pronunciation, let’s say that again. She doesn’t have much to say for herself – she doesn’t have much to say for herself – she doesn’t have much to say for herself, right? So that means you know, she doesn’t have anything to say , she’s quite boring. Yah and let’s see. If you’re giving an opinion and you want to emphasize it, you can say, well, I must say, well, I must say, and you can use that to emphasize an opinion. For example, well I must say, that’s the funniest thing I have heard all week. Well I must say, that’s the funniest thing I have heard all week. So you’re emphasizing. Wow, that really is the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. Let’s see. Another one would be: I wouldn’t say no or I wouldn’t say no to that and it’s used to say that you would like to do something or you would like to accept an offer. So if someone says to you, would you like some tea? You say, well, I wouldn’t say no and that means yes., right? Well, I wouldn’t say no, yeah? So, would you like some tea Luke? Oh well, I wouldn’t say no, okay? Well, I wouldn’t say no – well, I wouldn’t say no – well, I wouldn’t say no. Okay, alright next one is: let us say or let’s say, okay? Let’s say. And you can use that to kind of make a suggestion or give an example. For example, well, I can let you buy the TV for, well, let’s say 100 pounds. Okay? I’ll let you buy the TV for well, let’s say 100 pounds, okay? Let’s see. Next one is: say cheese, say cheese, cheese, right? Like you know, like the food that mice like to eat. cheese. We use that when you ask everybody to smile before you take their photograph. So just before you take a photograh you’d say. Right, is everybody ready? Right? Say cheese! In some countries they say “patatas”, I think in Spain, I think it’s “patatas”, which means potatoes I think and in another country, I’m sure you say, I think in Japan sometimes they say cheesu – cheesu which is kind of like cheese but in a Japanese accent , cheeesu. A bit like that. I think, I’m sure they’ve got something else that they say. They certainly put their two fingers up in a V sign. Whenever you point a camera, at a Japanese person, their hand always comes up with a V sign to, you know, Peace. You know, that’s cool, that’s really cool. It’s amazing how every Japanese person, I have ever met, if I showed them a camera, BANG, the hand up with the V sign, Peace, like that. It’s cool you know, like Japanese people obviously really like Peace and that’s good. That’s a good thing, right? Let’s see, okay. We’ve got another: say what? Say what? Say What?, which is an American expression. So you have to do it in an American accent, say wwwhat?, and that’s say wwwhat? Say what?, so you use that to express great surprise on what someone has just said. So, for example, he is getting married? Say what? Another one is : say when. Say when, okay? That’s like when, you know, when did you go to the moon? for example, when. Right, say when. And we use that when you want someone to stop pouring a drink, you know, like for example, if they’re pouring you a cup of tea and you don’t want to give you anymore, so you want to say stop but what happens is when you pour a drink for someone, you say, say when! Meaning when would you like me to stop. So, say when and often the other person will go, when, like that, to tell you when to stop pouring. So, would you like some tea? Oh yes, please. *TEA POURING SOUND EFFECT* Say when? Like that ,okay? Let’s see: to say the least. To say the least, to say the least and we use that to say, that you’re using the least strong way of saying something. So for example, you would say, I’m not very happy with this work, to say the least, which means I’m, the least thing I feel is I’m not very happy about it. So actually, what he really means, he’s really, really unhappy with his work. I’m not very happy with this work to say the least. That means, he’s actually kind of, to say the least is used to describe the fact that you’re actually feeling a lot more angry about it, you know? To say the least. Let’s see, okay: you can say that again. This is a, I love this expression. You can say that again. I think it’s just such a brilliant expression. Basically you can use that when you really agree with someone, like really strongly agree with them. So it means, I agree completely and I already know that, right? So like, you know, if you just really wanna agree with someone. So someone might say, oh, she is the most boring person, I’ve ever met. Right, she is the most boring person, I’ve ever met. Well, you can say that again!, Yeah, you can say that again., Yeah, so you’re inviting the person to say it again because you really agree with it. Well you can say that again. So you can say that again – you can say that again – you can say that again, alright? And here’s another good one: you don’t say. Oh, you don’t say, right? And that’s a like an ironic, kind of sarcastic way of doing. So you have to be very sarcastic when you speak. Oh, you don’t say, like that and it’s used to express, it’s used to express surprise, hum? Okay, alright, I think you use, oh you don’t say to mean, when someone has said something very very
obvious, right, they’d just said something really really obvious, so, it would be, well, next year is gonna be 2012! Oh yeah, you don’t say. No, it’s kind of a bad example. Let’s see, let’s see, well, he’s gonna be really drunk if he keeps drinking that stuff. You don’t say. This is strange, you don’t say? I think, it’s just, it’s like a way of saying, yeah, absolutely, oh, yeah. Actually, wait a minute, I think I (___) wrong. Let me just think about this. Yeah, you don’t say. Funny, you know what? You know when you kind of like repeat an expression or a word over and over and over again. It just stops meaning anything. Well, that’s happened to me now with this expression, you don’t say. It’ doesn’t mean anything to me now. I’ve completely forgotten what this expression means. (___) help me? (___) help me out please? What does, you don’t say mean? I’ve completely forgotten! Right, hold on. Get it together. Just get my mind together here. You don’t say. Yeah, I’ll go with my original explanation. You don’t say is a way, sort of ironically saying, yeah, that’s obvious, you know. You didn’t need to say that. Of course, that ‘s obvious! So, you would say, well I bet that’s the Queen’s rich. Yeah, you don’t say. So it’s kind of a way of stating that something is obvious, you know in a kind of ironic, sarcastic way. You don’t say, yeah, you don’t say, like that… Yeah okay, that’s it for the idioms and I think that’s about it for this podcast. That pretty much wraps this up. Actually I wonder if there ‘s something I can play to you. I might find an interesting bit of audio which that you can listen to as a bit of fun. I’m gonna think about that but for the meantime it’s goodbye for now. Okay, I found something for you to listen to. I’m gonna to play you a piece of audio from a television program which was on TV here in the UK a few years ago and basically it’s a kind of News program but it’s not a serious News program. It’s a kind of a joke News program, right? It’s like a spoof of a News show and in this program basically, it looks like the News, it’s sounds like the News, but they have stories on there and the whole thing is actually a bit of a joke and they twist some things to make them funny, okay? So what you’re gonna listen to here is a news reader interviewing a woman about some charity work which she has been doing. Now, the situation is basically, the woman has come into this studio to talk about this charity work. Apparently she has been organizing a jam festival. So, you know, jam is like that staff that is made from fruit and you spread it on your toast in the morning like strawberry jam. So, she is talking about the fact, she organized a jam festival and she raised some money and she used some celebrities in her jam festival. All to raise money for charity but the interviewer is not very impressed by how much money she has made. She has only made a few thousand pounds and so he is very sort of surprised. Only a thousand pounds, that’s ridiculous, that’s pathetic. That’s a pathetic amount of money and he says to her: ” You could have raised more money by auctioning dogs”, right? Now, to auction is to sell something when people bid a price for something. So, for example you get a big room, an auction room. One person is stand of the front and say, okay so I have this old antique chair. Can we start the bidding please at five hundred pounds. And then people kind of go, 550 got so, 550, so I see 600. 600 to the man in the blue shirt, so I see 650. 650 pounds. 650 pounds to the man with the newspaper and it’s sold for 650 pounds. You know, that kind of, that’s an auction. So he is saying , he raised only a few hundred pounds for a jam festival. That’s pathetic. You could have raised more money by auctioning dogs. So basically, he is very kind of rude to her but he is very funny. Just because it sounds like the News and then he kind of changes it and it becomes ridiculous. So, I hope you enjoy it. The show is called ” The Day Today” and it’s fantastic. Thanks a lot for listening. Bye, bye bye, bye, bye…

55. Mini Podcasts Collection 1

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My first 7 mini podcasts in one full length episode. Idioms with ‘about’, politics, how to make a perfect cup of tea, a comedy song about badgers and some sentence stress and intonation practice.

Right-click here to download this episode.
Mini-Podcasts – Overview
There are 7 mini podcasts in this episode:

1. Introduction (losing my voice)
I talk about the new mini mobile podcasts and what to expect in the future.

2. Idioms with ‘about’
I teach you some common idioms and expressions using the word ‘about’

3. Government Cuts
At the moment in the UK the government is making large cuts to public spending. What will be the effect of those cuts on the funding of BBC Learning English? Are we going to lose BBC Learning English? This is an example of how we are living in an increasingly connected society where economic conditions in one country immediately effect people in other countries.

4. How to make the perfect cup of tea
I talk to my colleague Richard McNeff about making the perfect cup of tea. Listen closely for language for ‘how to describe a process’ – which is exactly the kind of thing you need to do in an IELTS writing exam.

5. Computer Games
Are games an art form like movies and television? What about the characters, the stories and the graphics?

6. New Guitar
I’ve got a new guitar and I’d like to play you a song. It’s a comedy song – remember that – it is supposed to be funny! So, look for the jokes in the lyrics of the song. The lyrics are printed below:

Bill Bailey – Hats Off To The Zebras (Tribute to Brian Adams)

The horse is a noble beast
From the mustangs of the west
To the stallions of the east
But the horse has a distant cousin
It lives I-do-not-know-where
But it’s message of racial harmony is one that we all can share

Hats off to the zebras
They are black and white
But they don’t fight
‘Cos they’re not very good at it

In a world of confusion
We all need a sign
If only we could live side by side
Like the stripes down a zebras spine

Hats of to the zebras, yeah

The humble badger
Takes a sip of morning dew
He’s totally colourblind
So he can’t judge you

But the badger is a dreamer
The badger has a plan
He knows that his destiny
Is to help his fellow man

Hats off to the badger
He is black and white
But he doesn’t fight
Except for mating rights and territory

Black man and a white man
Both they need to shave
United by the badger brush
He’s helping from beyond the grave

Hats off to the badger
What about the tapeer
Half zebra half pig
Imagine the stig-ma
But the tapeer stands proud
Hats off to the tapeer

Badgers and zebras
Skunks, oh yeah
Little ring-tailed leemurs
Living together in harmony

And if the killer whales can do it, why can’t we?
Tell me why can’t we?

It’s a song about how we can use the examples of black and white animals to learn to live together in racial harmony.

For the the funniest lines are “because they’re not very good at it…” and “except for mating rights and territory”

7. Sentence Stress / Intonation / Get Candy!
In this one I demonstrate the importance of sentence stress and intonation in emphatic speech. Listen to the same text read twice. First time I read with flat intonation. It sounds dull and meaningless. Second time I add emphasis, stress and intonation – it sounds more passionate and meaningful.

Here’s the text below. You should practise listening to it, marking where I pause and emphasize. Then say the text and try to copy the way I do it. Listen to the previous podcast about halloween to head a real comedian reading the text.

So the first time you hear the concept of halloween, when you’re a kid. Do you remember the first time you even heard about it? It’s like, your brain can’t even… “what is this? who’s giving out candy? Someone’s giving out candy? who is giving out this candy? Everyone we know is just giving out candy?? I gotta be a part of this, take me with you, I want to do it, I’ll do anything that they want! I can wear that. I’ll wear anything I have to wear. I’ll do anything I have to do. I will get the candy from these fools, that are so stupidly giving it away!”

17. Hello To My Listeners Around The World

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

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

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

Coming soon, podcasts about:

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

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

Episode Transcript

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

India. Sri Lanka. Thailand.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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