Luke rambles some more at the start of 2020 about new year’s resolutions, holiday stories, raising his daughter to be bilingual and a tribute to Neil Innes (with a song or two). Notes available below.
Welcome back to Luke’s English Podcast. Here is the second part of this double episode I’m doing here at the beginning of this new decade.
In this episode I’ll be continuing to refresh the podcast for 2020 with this double-ramble in which I’m talking about the kinds of things you normally talk about in the new year period – what I did during my holiday, my new years resolutions, some of my plans for the future for the podcast and also a chance to reestablish some of the main aims for this show. Also I’ll be talking about my daughter’s English and our efforts to bring her up to be bilingual.
This is part 2, you should also listen to part 1 first.
Do you have any new year resolutions?
Luke rambles about motivation and attitude in learning English
Avoid comment sections on YT, Twitter etc
Work hard, get a good routine, eat well, don’t drink too much, be loving with my loved ones, organise things with my wife, get my bike fixed, keep working on the podcast and trying to make it better all the time.
Here’s something I saw Billy Bragg tweet the other day. It’s some New Year’s Rules by folk singer Woody Guthrie in the 50s or 60s. I thought it was quite good and I intend to follow some of these steps.
What did you get for Christmas?
Paul McCartney tickets
My second chance to see him live and my first opportunity to see him do a whole concert.
I’m very excited to see an actual Beatle doing a show and I understand that he puts on a really great show. I am very interested to see which songs he chooses to play, since I am a big fan and I know almost all of his work. I think he does a lot of Beatles songs these days and has a fantastic band that he’s been working with for ages.
Any other stories from your holiday?
Saw The Snowman with our daughter.
What’s The Snowman? In the local church with the stained glass windows and a live orchestra playing along and some singing. They put up a screen in there.
She is now obsessed by snowmen and said “sennan” whenever she sees one, woke up saying sennan sennan in the morning. Must have been dreaming about a snowman. Kept saying sennan! Sennan! When she spotted one in the street or at the airport.
My Daughter’s English
Is she bilingual? Are you raising her to be bilingual? How are you working on her two languages?
I am planning a whole series of podcast episodes about this, but let’s talk about it a bit now.
Principles
Kids need a reason to learn another language. French is obvious, I’m working on the English.
It seems to help if you do English in certain situations or always with a certain person. Major language and minor language. Outside, French is the major language and I’m not worried about her picking it up like a native. She goes to daycare in French, will go to school in French, will have French speaking friends going to French speaking parties. There’s no doubt that she’ll learn French. English is the minor language there because she will use it only sometimes, usually when I’m with her. Then in the house, English is the major language and French the minor one. I speak English with her, I speak English to my wife and my wife speaks a lot of English and some French. We have English books, listen to English songs and also i just play BBC Five Live, 6 Music or Radio 4 in the background quite a lot. She likes watching some cartoons in English and is quite obsessed by The Beatles and often demands to watch Beatle videos on YouTube, which I’m very happy about of course.
Also, when we go back to England she spends all her time in English, talking to my parents, my brother and just people in shops and stuff. Sometimes she sees her cousins and speaks English with them, but they live in the US these days.
In terms of her having a reason for learning English, hopefully it will be obvious but I expect at some point I will have to explain it. English is the language of her dad and all the dad’s side of her family. She is English as well as French and so this is a whole aspect of her personality and her family. Also if she wants to really get to know me she needs to do it in English. The other persuasive things are the fact that a lot of music, TV and films are in English and English can give her way more opportunities in the future. And, hopefully, I can convince her that it’s somehow cool to be able to speak English like an English person.
Her English is coming along. I think her French is a bit better at the moment, but the English is not far behind.
Bilingual kids take a bit longer to speak, but she’s doing fine. (Play recording)
Quintessentially British Things
This is a podcast series that’s coming soon. I think I’ve mentioned it so I won’t go on about it too much but…
Here’s a little preview of what’s to come for the next few episodes.
First there’s the Star Wars 9 megaramble with James, and then a series of 1 to 1 conversations with members of my family.
The idea was that I wanted them to pick a few typically British or English things and then talk about them on the podcast. They could be anything that they thought was interesting or worth talking about → quintessentially British, meaning very typical examples of Britishness, and not the usual cliches like tea, fish and chips, Mr Bean etc.
The result is three conversations about some interesting aspects of British culture, history and geography and also a good chance to get to know each member of my family a bit more, through the British things they like talking about.
So, coming soon to LEP → Quintessentially British Things
Neil Innes
I interviewed James, Dad and Mum for that series, but nobody interviewed me. If they had, my QBT would be Neil Innes, who sadly died on 29 December. Neil was one of my favourite people in the world and I was really sad to know that he’d died as was everyone else in my family because we’re all big fans.
Basically, Neil Innes was a musician, song writer, comedian and a sort of absurdist as well as various other things.
He was a member of The Bonzo Dog Doodah Band (later The Bonzo Dog Band). His song “Urban Spaceman” was produced by Paul McCartney and was a hit. Worked with Roger McGough and Mike McCartney. Worked with Monty Python (the 7th python) and provided music, sketches and performances. Worked with Eric Idle on Rutland Weekend Television, where they invented The Rutles, which later became a feature film. Innes wrote two albums worth of music for it. The whole thing was a Beatles parody, but perfectly done and the music was incredibly spot on. For me The Rutles music is up there with The Beatles. I find them to be as good as a lot of my favourite Beatles songs, and yet there is an added enjoyment in that they’re postmodern comedy songs commenting on the Beatles and their age, through a perfect musical parody of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vt4ejyosn4
Neil Innes went on to record several albums which had music videos too. The albums span many genres of music and there are a lot of really interesting, funny, and spellbinding songs in his discography.
Neil Innes was a brilliant songwriter, an excellent lyricist, and a very wise, aware man who seemed to live a fairly ordinary suburban life, while also writing psychedelic masterpieces. I think he’s a national treasure, but he’s still not that well known. Still, the papers published obituaries of him and there was a lot of stuff on twitter with various people announcing the sad news and wishing his family well.
But it’s sad knowing that he is not with us any more. I used to like the fact that he was in the world and now he isn’t, so it’s sad.
My mum announced the news when my dad, me and my daughter had been out to the park. She came in with a tear in her eye and said “Neil Innes has died”. We all used to listen to The Rutles songs at home and in the car and watched the film lots of times together. James and Dad even went to see The Rutles perform in London, which was mainly just Neil Innes and his band doing all the songs.
So, a long ramble about SW and then 3 episodes about QBT, which I think you should find interesting.
That’s what’s coming up next on LEP!
As ever, thank you for sticking with the podcast all the way to the end of the episode and for being a loyal listener! Don’t forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel, download the LEP App from the app store and consider becoming a premium subscriber in 2020!
The Rutles – Unfinished Words (lyrics) https://genius.com/The-rutles-unfinished-words-lyrics
Luke wishes you a Happy New year and rambles about recent podcast statistics, new year in the UK, welcoming new listeners to the podcast, and some stories about travelling to the UK with a toddler by plane. Transcript available below.
Hello there and welcome back to Luke’s English Podcast. I hope you’re doing fine wherever you are in the world. I’m back from my holiday and am now ready to record a new episode for you, and here it is – this is it right now, it’s actually happening and you are actually listening to it with your actual ears which should be connected to your actual head which contains your very real brain which is now processing sentences in English as you are hearing them. Welcome back to the podcast!
I have listeners all over the world. Let’s have a look at my top ten countries for 2019 to get a sample of where my audience is located.
In this one I’m going to do a few things, including welcoming any new listeners that I have here at the beginning of this new decade. I’m going to give a reminder about the aims and methods of this podcast for learning English. I’m going to talk about what I did during the Christmas holiday, give an update on my daughter’s English progress, give some news about the podcast and upcoming episodes, new year’s resolutions, a comment about one of my heroes who died on 29 December, and a few other bits and pieces. This might get long so it could be a double-ramble. We’ll see.
How are you?
Where are you?
What are you doing?
What’s the weather like?
How are you listening to this?
How long have you been listening to the podcast?
How’s your English coming along?
New Year – New Decade – New Start → here’s to fresh new challenges for the 2020s and to another decade of listening to English with this podcast. I am looking forward to making more and more episodes this year and into the future, and I can’t wait to actually take ideas that are swimming around in my head and make them happen in upcoming episodes of this podcast. So many things to talk about, so many things to do, so much English to teach you.
Transcript / Notes on the website
By the way, I am reading most of this from a script that I’ve been writing for a couple of weeks. 90% of the episode is transcribed in advance, and the rest is being read from notes.
I haven’t been able to podcast during the last 3 weeks or so, but in spare moments I’ve been writing notes in a google document on my computer and my phone and I’ve put them together to make a sort of transcript for this episode. You can find the transcript on the page for this episode in the archive at teacherluke.co.uk You’re listening to episode 634.
Happy New Year!
Happy new year! I hope you had a good celebration. I expect new year is a bigger celebration around the world than Christmas. Certainly, in my experience living in other countries I’ve noticed that new year’s eve is recognised all over the world as the big event, with fireworks in all the major cities and so on. It’s pretty cool.
I wonder what you did out there in podcastland. What are the typical things that happen on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day in your country?
In the UK it sort of depends on your age.
When I was younger it was sort of mandatory to go out to a party or a club or something and when you get back to college or work everyone’s asking each other what they did for New Year’s. I remember many occasions when I went out in the centre of town with some mates for a nightmare evening of loud music, too much drinking, singing, hugging and shaking hands and an impossible mission of getting back home to bed when all the public transport is closed and the taxis are all taken.
I actually had a very quiet New Year’s Eve this year. I generally don’t really like to do much on new years eve these days, maybe because I’m so boring now, or perhaps it’s because I just like the company of friends or family at home to see out the old decade and see in the new one, in some comfort. Also the fact that we’ve got a 2 year old daughter can make it a little bit more tricky to go out and party like I used to.
Anyway, this year I was in, my wife had gone back to Paris a bit early, I was at my parents’ house. My mum went to bed to get her energy back and so Dad and I sat up and from about 11pm we started podcasting, recording a conversation about some of his favourite aspects of Britain, which will be coming in an episode soon. We were actually podcasting while Big Ben counted down to midnight and you’ll be able to hear it soon.
Welcoming New Listeners
First of all I’d like to welcome any new listeners that I have. Welcome! My name is Luke and this is my podcast for learners of English. I expect you’ve found the podcast by searching things like iTunes or Spotify for podcasts for learning English, or maybe a friend recommended it for you or something – leave a comment in the comment section (my website is the best place for that) saying how you found the podcast.
So I’ve been doing this for more than 10 years now and I’ve been teaching English for nearly 20 years now. This podcast has won awards, don’t you know. Yep, 4 awards based on audience votes, a British Council Elton nomination, and I came third in the British Podcast Awards in 2017 – not bad!
In these episodes I talk about all sorts of things, but the main aim is to help you improve your English through listening. The principle is twofold. Firstly, we all know that doing plenty of listening in the target language is a vital part of developing your English. You can’t expect to learn a language unless you actually listen to it, get to know how it sounds, the rhythms of English and also the typical ways in which it is structured. You need to do plenty of listening, regularly, long term – and hopefully this podcast can help you achieve just that.
In each episode you have to just follow what I’m saying or follow a conversation with someone else and just try to keep up. I try to make my episodes entertaining as well as educational. I talk about learning English, give tips and advice, but also talk about loads of other topics in some depth to give you a chance to hear a range of different vocabulary.
The second part of the principle here is that you can develop your vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation a lot through listening. The grammar and vocab come from both trying to notice new language while you’re listening, and from the episodes in which I am specifically teaching or explaining new language to you.
The pronunciation part comes from copying me, shadowing me, and doing the pronunciation drills that I also publish. I also have a premium subscription in which I specifically teach language and give you plenty of pronunciation practice.
So if you keep up with my episodes, follow the advice I give, enjoy the different topics and conversations and follow my instructions for working on your English, you should find that your English improves accordingly.
Of course, this podcast is best consumed as part of a balanced diet. I mean, it’s also necessary to practise your speaking, your reading and your writing too in active ways. You could check out my sponsor italki for the speaking practice and check out my episode archive for plenty of other episodes in which I give specific advice about other areas of your English and also for specific things like the IELTS test.
The best way to listen to my podcast is through the LEP app which is available free in the app store. With the app you have the whole archive, some app-only episodes and access to the premium content. When you listen with a podcast app on your phone, the app will remember where you stopped listening (like at the end of your morning commute to work) and when you press play again (like at the end of your working day) the episode will continue where you left off.
Also on YouTube you can check most of my episodes (just audio but some videos) and there you can find the automatic subtitles which are 99% accurate.
I also have a transcription project done through my website in which a team of keen LEPsters (listeners to this podcast) transcribe my episodes by dividing each one into 3 minute chunks, then each member of the team transcribes his or her chunk and the whole episode is then completed. After that the more high-level listeners proofread the scripts, the end goal being for me to eventually publish them on the website or turn them into an ebook perhaps. Transcribing 3 minute chunks of my episodes is an excellent way to work on your skills as it requires a lot of things – being able to listen intensely for every single word, being able to recognise different words and phrases and how they are actually said by native speakers, being able to write with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation, being able to reproduce exactly what you hear. It’s great training for your English.
Check my website for the entire episode archive and loads of other things. The episode archive on the website also contains loads of other content, like episodes of other people’s podcasts that I’ve been invited on, YouTube interviews with me and so on.
Sometimes I’m featured on other people’s shows and I usually will add a post in the archive so you can listen to it or watch it.
IELTS Speaking with Keith O’Hare
For example, recently I was featured in a video with a YouTube English teacher called Keith O’Hare. He specialises in helping people prepare for the IELTS speaking exam and he’s been doing a series in which he asks other online teachers to take a speaking test on video so you can learn how it is done.
He interviewed me in December and it’s now available on YouTube (link below). So, watch the video in order to see me taking an IELTS speaking test, to learn some of the language I used and also to get feedback from Keith on my performance. I also give some tips for learning English. I’ll be having Keith on the podcast at some point to interview him about IELTS speaking.
So if you are new to the podcast – a hearty welcome to you. I hope you stick around and listen to the other episodes too, and consider becoming part of my online community by putting your comments in the comment section and maybe taking part in the transcription project. You can find the details for that on my website.
More intro…
A New Year Ramble, meaning that I’m talking about all the stuff that has been building up in my brain over the holiday period.
Obviously, it has been very busy, with looking after the little one, travelling to London, Birmingham, other parts of the country, dealing with the stress of Christmas, but also having an amazing time catching up with the family, exchanging presents, eating delicious food cooked by my mum and walking in the park to get some fresh air.
Normally I am podcasting quite a lot during any given week, pouring out ideas or teaching content into my podcast feed. Then I go on holiday and things start backing up a bit – I mean it feels a bit like a traffic jam with things that want to come out but the road is closed. So I’ve been imagining doing this episode and planning the next few episodes ahead.
And this episode is going to be me pouring those things out onto the podcast..
Let me talk you through what I’ve been thinking at certain quiet moments when my mind has been able to think about the podcast a little bit. Sometimes, like when my daughter is having a nap and I sort of have a nap too, or just before I go to sleep or something, my mind drifts to what I’m going to do on the podcast when I come back in January. I think about what my audience seems to like, what excites me about doing this, what things I think would be fun or useful for you to listen to and I turn it all over in my head, planning and thinking about the next episodes and waiting for some kind of inspiration to strike. Normally I keep thinking like this until I get a tangible idea of what the episode is going to be like, then it’s just a case of preparing for it and recording it. But once I know basically where the thing is going to go, the rest is just a case of trying to make the vision in my head into some kind of reality.
So during the holiday, I didn’t have many chances to record things, but plenty of chances to just think about it all.
Order of upcoming episodes and thoughts about previous ones
Whenever I go away on holiday and leave the podcast for a couple of weeks, the most recently uploaded episode gets loads of downloads. It stands to reason. The top episode in the list is going to be listened to more because it’s there. And so if you upload one episode and another one straight after it, the first one gets fewer downloads because they don’t know it’s there. It gets hidden behind the next one, which should be an argument for spacing out your episodes a bit more to give them time to breathe and for the audience to catch up. But then again, you want to keep uploading regularly to keep the interest up. For me, I tend to just upload whatever I make, and I try to give enough time for people to notice and listen to all the episodes, and there are those times when I go away on holiday and everyone can catch up.
But I do have to consider which episode I will be leaving at the top of the list when I go on holiday. This will be the episode that everyone will notice for the next 2 or 3 weeks, and if that’s the new year period it is especially important because a lot of people choose to start listening to podcasts as a resolution, and so they’ll be looking and new people will be finding Luke’s English Podcast, so the first impression is important.
So, sometimes I was worrying a bit, because the last two episodes I uploaded (except for some premium ones) were about Star Wars episode 9 and that’s not really a fair representation of what I do on this podcast. Also, I was stressing because I think the last episode, number 633 is not that great because I couldn’t remember the plot of the film and I was umming and ahhing.
So I wasn’t completely pleased with that episode and also not too pleased it was the episode at the top of the list for all those new listeners.
But I still wasn’t done with Star Wars, because it has become something of a tradition that at Christmas time, James, Dad and I go to see the new Star Wars film and this is the 4th time it has happened. The Force Awakens in 2015, Rogue One in 2016, The Last Jedi in 2017 and then The Rise of Skywalker in 2019 and the tradition also includes a long rambling podcast to dissect the film afterwards, so James and I duly went off to Birmingham on the train to see the film, had a beer afterwards and chose to discuss it all on the podcast. The result I think is very funny and quite interesting, and I’m much more pleased with it than my previous spoiler review. Anyway, I thought “I can’t wait all that time and then upload yet another Star Wars episode, which is nearly 2 hours long!!”
So I’ve decided to record this episode first, which is why it has taken so long. I have already edited and prepared the James & Luke Star Wars Discussion which will go up quite soon after this episode appears. So, it will be there so all you Star Wars fans can check it out and then we will continue with podcasting as usual. More about that later.
Christmas / New Year Holiday? What did you do?
What have you been up to during the break then Luke?
My wife, my daughter and I travelled to the UK -first to London and then to the midlands where my parents live. We spent just over 2 weeks away.
On new year’s eve I was actually with my dad and we decided to do a podcast from 11pm until midnight when the year ended. I’ll mention that again later.
Travelling with a toddler – describe what it’s like taking a child on a plane journey
Years of helping drunk friends in nightclubs to get home has really prepared me for this. Little kids or babies are a lot like drunk friends on a Friday night. They fall over a lot and might hurt themselves. They’re liable to suddenly run into the street. They sing like hooligans. They might break down and start crying, and could easily piss themselves, shit themselves and puke on themselves all at the same time. And they’re quite rowdy, annoying and loud too, which makes them a liability in things like queues and the confines of a seat on a plane, surrounded by other passengers.
Describe taking a toddler on a flight with just one person. With two it’s better, even though you have more bags, but with one adult it’s tricky.
This is what I described to Paul recently, because he basically can’t imagine flying with his daughter because she cries all the time and thinks it would be a huge operation to travel somewhere with all the equipment and baggage that you need for a child, with the travel cot, the car seat, the pram, the bottles and devices, the cleaning stuff and nappies, spare clothes and then all your stuff too! Paul can’t imagine it, and he listened sort of wide eyed as I explained it to him, like this.
I take: One large suitcase (really big) with all our clothes, bottles, powdered milk, powdered cereal, washbag, thermometer, doliprane (paracetamol), books, toys, pacifier, doodoo (teddy bear or comforter), sleeping bag, my computer, my podcast stuff, leads, microphones, recorders, the pram, the waterproof cover for the pram (we’re going to England), A bag with food, drink, snacks, a bag with nappies, wipes and a towel, a change of clothes, some cartoons downloaded on netflix as a last line of defence, colouring books, pencil, sticker book, story book, maybe a farm animal, a book for me which I will never read, passports and my daughter.
So a pram (foldable) a huge suitcase, a backpack and my daughter and me.
Taxi to the airport. It’s expensive, but it’s just a much much smoother and efficient way to get this show on the road and get to the airport. Otherwise it’s taking a metro, walking a lot, then onto the RER, many many lifts and corridors and horrible air. The taxi option is amazing as they drop you right at arrivals.
Cruise through the terminal like a sort of huge articulated lorry, with the pram in front, my daughter probably sitting forwards and taking it all in, then me with my backpack and my other arm dragging the huge suitcase behind on its little wheels. A huge articulated truck moving through the airport.
Straight to the display, then probably to area C to queue up and check in the massive suitcase which could easily be overweight.
At this point JNR (my daughter) is sitting in the pram and probably demanding to be given the passports to be held. This could be her outstretching her hand, pointing at your pocket and saying “hand hand!” or even some mangled version of “passport”.
She’s being very insistent and we’re surrounded by silent queueing zombies so I give her the passports and just hope that she doesn’t drop them. She’s normally pretty good at holding onto them because she knows they’re important, which is why she wants to hold them.
But she has dropped things in airports before. Maybe the last time we were going through the airport and she was holding her doodoo (a teddy bear) . After walking for a while I noticed that bear was not with us any more and I went to JNR, where’s bear? And she looked around herself and then just went “huh!?” like, “Oh my god, where’s bear!?” This is like, worse than losing your phone for her.
So we wheel backwards and retrace our steps, both of us scanning the floor for bear, and I see him on the floor in the distance, lying next to a wall, slumped, and a woman is picking him up and having a look, she’s a member of staff and other people are gathering around. I just get there in time and explain that the bear belongs to my daughter and they are reunited and all’s well that ends well. Everyone sort of laughs and maybe waves at JNR and she says “bye bye “ and maybe “Aassiii” which is a combination of “thank you” and “merci”.
By the way, her languages are coming along quite well. She spends most of her time in French during the day at creche, but at home it’s mostly English. Her French has come on quicker than her English as she has certain standard phrases like “encore” and “oui” and “Cel-la” but the last two weeks she was in the UK really boosted her English.
First we spent some time with my cousin Oli and his family. He’s got three kids, one of whom is a couple of years older than my daughter, and another is the same age as her and they speak English so it was a real boost for her there.
Then with my parents and my brother it was all English for quite a long time, and her English really improved. She was saying things like “and that?” , which is quite a big step I think, and “please” “thank you” “bread” “Nice!” “Happy” “bird” “TV” “Farm” and “Beatles!”
Also a few other sentences that I can’t really remember now. She also babbles a great deal in a weird alien language and makes up songs with nonsense words and sometimes sings like a hooligan while standing on a chair.
Anyway, I give my daughter the passports and she can give them to the woman behind the counter, which is quite cute and a good way to ingratiate myself with the Air France woman, so I can try to get a better seat, maybe with nobody next to us.
She does her best and finds one for me. Air France are pretty awesome. Also, my bag is 26kg and the limit is 23kg but she says she can see it’s for both of us so she lets me off too. Nice.
Then it’s “Operation Get to the Gate” and also “Operation Energy Cancel”.
Operation Get to the Gate basically means getting through all the stuff like passport control, security and duty free and then being able to set up a base from which you can send out the child on exploratory missions to research and discover everything in the general area. That can be difficult because you have to deal with another queue, and then go through x-ray security, which means taking everything out of my backpack, separating all the baby food and water for the milk, take JNR out of the pram, fold it up and put it through as well, then coax my daughter to walk through and pretty much command her to stand in one spot while you get everything off the trays and your belt on and keys in your pocket and everything.
Then there’s a fight because I want her to get back in the pram but she’s not having it. I eventually decide that sometimes there’s no point struggling with a kid who doesn’t want to do something so we agree to walk, I push the pram and she sort of follows along and I have to constantly give her pointers like “this way” and “come on” “we’ve got to get to the gate” and she goes “GATE” and I say “Yes”. And there’s plenty of “no” “stop” Don’t do that, don’t touch. No hands. No, No No. Etc.
I try not to say no too much and to always explain to her what we’re doing and involve her somehow too.
So we keep going and I get her to push the pram, but it gets a bit tricky when we get to the big hall with all the gates because there are loads of distractions and also large open spaces. There are the arcade games and she always wanders in among the games of street fighter, fifa and pac man. I have to go and grab her, pick her up even though she doesn’t want to go and carry her, explaining that we have to get to the gate, then find some water for her and sandwiches for me.
So we get in the queue at Pret a Manger, leaving the pram over there, keeping one eye on it, while my daughter is wandering along the sandwich fridge, picking up salads and I’m telling her to put them back and come here. She wanders around but generally is quite cute and nice so people don’t get too annoyed. She wants to use the card machine and hold my credit card, anything that means she’s involved in what’s happening.
Normally it’s pretty good but sometimes it can be quite difficult following her around and picking her up as she kicks and screams if she doesn’t want to go, but usually it’s fine because I’ve explained exactly what’s happening and she likes that. I explain a day or so before that we’re going to the airport (she has an airport book) and do the motion of a plane in the sky and she knows what that is and she does it too and she goes “fly , fly” and maybe “plane!” or “avion!”. So she knows what’s going on and I’ve tried to explain that she needs her seatbelt, so the seatbelt is always in the story. Now she’s ok with seatbelts and says “seatbelt”.
Then there’s some running around after we’ve found our base of operations at one of the chairs next to our gate, and it’s “Operation Energy Cancel” or energy drain or something. The main aim here is to burn off as much of her energy as possible, and usually this involves running along side her going “run run run run run run run” and she gets really excited and giggly and runs along with you, looking like super mario. Run run run run run run. We do that up and down until she’s pretty tired or we have to queue up for the plane.
This bit might also involve lunch depending on how much time you have, and sometimes lunch is done on the plane. In any case lunch is always more like a drug that you give to your child than an actual meal! You know that when you’ve given them lunch, they’ll probably fall asleep about an hour later, so lunch is more like a sleep drug that you apply to your child so you can have a break. In fact all meals, milk, food are more like drugs that you give to your children.
The aim is to make her tired on the plane. At this point it is difficult to keep everything under control because I have a heavy backpack on my back full of podcasting equipment and kid stuff, a folded pram over my shoulder and my slightly hyper daughter investigating everything and kind of giggling or pointing at things.
When people start queuing for the plane I like to hang back until almost everyone is on board. Why would you want to get on board early and spend even more time sitting in that cramped little seat. I prefer to wait until all the stressed out people have struggled with their bags before sliding in at the end while everyone else watches you get on board and my daughter walks along the aisle looking at everyone. I have a huge backpack and a pram over my shoulder so I’m probably bumping people in the arm or in the head if I turn quickly. I have to shove some bags out of the way to push the folded pram in the overhead locker.
Then it’s operation distraction, subtitled “I hope she goes to sleep”.
There are basically six levels of “kid on a plane”
Level 1
Distracted by something quite wholesome, like drawing, stickers, reading a book. She’s quite happy to sit on your lap and try to pick up stickers and put them in places. I also don’t care at all if she puts stickers all over the seat or the magazine. Not a problem, if my daughter isn’t making a fuss, it’s all good. I might have to try and ingratiate myself with the person next to us, like a smile or just by talking to my daughter and hoping she does something cute, which usually works. So level 1 is – doing an activity.
Level 2
Walking up and down. This one is vital for when level 1 just doesn’t work and your child has some pent up energy. I walk her up and down the plane and also let her hang around at the end near the weird little shelves and kitchen area at the end of the plane. That tends to use up some energy and stop her kicking the chair in front or complaining or making a police siren noise.
Level 3
Changing the nappy. This can be quite a big operation depending on whether it is a #1 or a #2 and if there has been some kind of “leak”.
Obviously the worst possible one is a leaked #2 which can be a sort of Armageddon in the underpants, and can be really tricky to deal with in a plane toilet. You hope to hell that there’s a baby changing table, and if there is my daughter hardly even fits on it. She’s tall for her age. Anyway, I put her on the table and she’s a bit freaked out but very curious about everything in this grotty plane toilet. Then you change the nappy making sure she doesn’t touch it and you use loads of wipes to clean everything up, meanwhile your arse is pressed against the unit behind you, your left shin is pressed against the edge of the toilet and your head might be pressed against the curved ceiling on some planes. It might also be necessary to change her clothes, which is why it is vital to bring the other outfit. So that’s level 3.
Level 4
Watching a video on your phone. This is a sort of fallback position which might help you to get to Level 5. It’s not ideal because you don’t really want your child to be watching a phone for any length of time, and sometimes she tries to play with the phone and ends up going into your emails or photos or something. But it can be a great way to pacify a child who is being boisterous.
We tend to show her Babar The Elephant, which is basically like Downton Abbey for kids. They’re exactly the same thing. In fact it’s the other way round, Downton Abbey is like Babar The Elephant for grown ups.
It’s very cute and they have adorable Canadian accents.
Level 5
Sleep.
Blissful sleep when you can just take a break and even have a nap yourself which is the thing you’ve been craving all this time, ever since you were woken up at 6AM by her crying, then you take her in bed with you and she sort of kicks you and falls asleep until 7AM when she starts wailing for milk like a heroin addict and then after she downs it in about 2 minutes, she spends the next half an hour sort of rolling around and kicking in a half asleep trance, maybe in a bad mood, before sort of waking up and immediately giggling and playing around. So, getting the chance for a nap is just sensational.
Level 6
…is meltdown. There are different stages of meltdown of course, but this is what you are trying to prevent at all times. Wrestling in your arms Refusing to cooperate Pushing your hands away so you end up doing some weird Chinese gung fu together Wailing and crying loudly Police sirens Car alarms Going red, tears Sometimes this develops into a full on raging demonic possession but that has only ever happened once on the Eurostar in the evening when she was really tired but didn’t want to sleep or go in the pram, and it was like The Exorcist or something.
Anyway, normally it is a mix of levels 1-4 which is basically ok. Then there are more queues, more giving her passports and then fighting with her to get her in the pram and possibly failing, waiting for the huge bag and then going to meet my dad, get her in the back of the car and drive, and she always falls asleep within the first 2 minutes of the ride.
I’ll talk a bit more about my daughter later, including some details about her English and her bilingualism.
I don’t normally talk about her this much but I did spend loads of time with her this holiday so it’s pretty fresh in my mind.
That’s it for part 1. Part 2 will be available soon!
Rambling on my own about all sorts of things including Brexit news, describing my recording setup and microphones, a book recommendation for you, comments about the Beatles Abbey Road 50th Anniversary, the latest Star Wars Episode 9 trailer and Bill Bailey dissecting music in a brilliant way.
A rambling episode with responses to listener comments, LEPster meetups, English Robot 3000 & 5000, vampires leaving comments on my website and the continuing mystery of two taps in the bathroom.
Hello welcome to episode 580 of my podcast. My name is Luke, this is my podcast for learners of English and in this episode I’m going to have a bit of a ramble, respond to a few listener comments, give a bit of general news, and all that kind of thing!
It’s a been a little while since the last proper rambling episode. That was 558 I believe. Here we are now with episode 580. I’m just sitting here in my flat on a Friday afternoon, hoping to get an episode out before the weekend. Looking forward to the weekend? Yeah? Got any plans? Maybe you’re listening to this after the weekend, in which case – how was it? Any good memories? Can’t remember? Can’t even remember the weekend, eh? I suppose that means it was a good one then.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the recent episodes. The conversations with guests – focusing on fellow English teachers from podcastland – Zdenek Lukas, Jennifer from English Across the Pond and then Ben Worthington from IELTS Podcast. Also there was my long chat with James which has proven very popular. Lots of people love that episode, even though James himself seemed convinced nobody would see the value in it, and then of course the episodes dissecting comedy – the Bill Burr plane story and Paul Chowdhry’s hilarious routine. Plenty of people have asked for more of that sort of thing, and there will be more. I’ve always done that on the podcast – listened to extracts of people speaking (often comedy) and then broken them down word by word for you. Check the archive for all the British Comedy episodes.
How are you?
I expect you are in one of a number of situations as you listen to this.
Maybe…
Walking down the street, in which case – please watch your step as you go. Don’t get distracted and accidentally fall into a hole.
On a bus – in which case, why not give a smile to the other passengers, just to lighten the mood on the bus there. In fact you could get up and announce to everyone – “Hello everyone on the bus I hope you have a really great day today!” and see what kind of reaction you get.
On a train – in which case, why not take a little walk down the train to see if they have one of those train cafes where you can get a coffee and maybe a chocolate muffin or something, because when you’re travelling on a train the chocolate doesn’t count. Also, walking down the train is quite fun. You can kind of wobble along, grabbing the tops of the seats to steady you and maybe flirt for a moment somehow with some of the other passengers, right? That’s one of the cool things about being on a train. Sometimes there are other passengers who might give you a little look, like “well, you’re on this train, I’m on this train, clearly God intended us to be together and I suppose there isn’t much more for us to do just make sweet sweet love to each other, when we’ve reached our destinations and agreed upon a suitable place and time of course… but all of that is out of the window when you’re single, on a train, heading for the coffee car and perhaps making eye contact with another sexy passenger… And then absolutely nothing happens, you just carry on your journey. Do you do that? Fall in love with another passenger, without actually having any social contact with them whatsoever. Anyway, if you’re on a train, and you make a connection with another traveller, who let’s say is also listening to something – try asking if they’re listening to LEP. It would certainly give you both the perfect starting point to build the rest of your lives upon! Ha ha, imagine that. Actually, I’m pretty sure that at least one couple out there is together now because of this podcast. Let’s make sure it continues to happen! Let’s make the world a better place people!
Driving in your car – in which case, please drive carefully while listening to this podcast. When you’re not listening to this, do what you want.
On a plane somewhere – in which case, just remember that you are much more likely to be killed or even just injured on the ground than in the air, because, well, that’s usually where the plane crashes isn’t it. So, anyway, while you’re in the air, you’re safe. :)
On one of those electric scooter things – in which case, are you sure you look cool?
Doing the housework – in which case, you missed a bit, just there. (annoying)
Eating something – in which case, please properly chew your food before swallowing. Some experts say you need to chew about 40 times per mouthful. Yep. Also, please eat with your mouth closed.
Using the lavatory or generally freshening yourself up in the bathroom – please wash your hands
At work, listening to this when you should be doing something else – in which case, please keep a straight face at all times. If you ever burst out laughing for any reason, try to cover it up by pretending to have a random coughing fit.
Just standing in the street wondering what to do – in which case, take your time, there’s no rush, unless there is a rush, but if there isn’t a rush then take your time, don’t hurry. No need to hurry. Just listen to this song for some inspiration (Take it easy by Prince Buster)
In bed, ready to fall into a deep deep slumber – feel free to just close your eyes and let yourself drift away into a lovely, restful sleep.
Podcast Stats
Antonio
In the past you used to communicate some statistics about your podcast, like the countries list, and I would like to know the list of the countries in the Premium area. Not the number of people paying it because this is business stuff.
Podcast stats
Top countries for LEP
Top countries for LEPP
Bottom countries too please!
Episode 600 / 10th Birthday of LEP
I have no idea how to celebrate or mark these occasions.
I kind of did a celebration for episode 500, so there’s no need to do anything special really.
I might just carry on podcasting like normal.
But let me know if you think there’s something I should do for episode 600.
The thing is, I’m a bit wary of asking for things from my audience, because these days that quickly becomes extremely difficult to manage, with too many recordings to handle, keep track of, make sure are at the correct volume level and all it takes is for a certain number of people, even a tiny portion of the overall audience, to send me something and it’s far too long. Managing listener messages is all a bit too much for me these days. I don’t have the time in my schedule any more.
I’ll think about it, but it might just be a normal podcast with no major fanfare, but if you have any grand ideas to mark this occasion, which doesn’t involve massive amounts of work or preparation, let me know.
I can’t really believe it’s been 10 years since I started doing this and now the podcast is on Spotify I’m getting new people listening to episode 1 all the time.
Also I’ve been putting the episodes up on YouTube recently – no video, just the audio, but the thing is that you get automatically generated subtitles.
Recently I did a premium episode all about how to improve your English to the level of a native speaker, which is a question I get asked all the time.
Obviously, one of the most important things is to practise, practise, practise.
How?
LEPster MeetUps
One way is to take part in conversation clubs. LEPsters around the world are meeting up fairly regularly to do this. They’re called LEP MeetUps or LEPsters conversation clubs.
LEPsters Clubs
Read out all the info on this page https://teacherluke.co.uk/contact-2/lepster-meetups/
And some comments for new meetups.
Go to CONTACT and then LEP MEETUPS for all the details and to contact people who have left messages.
LEPsters Club in Chile Message: Hi, Luke! I’m writing to you to report on my LEPsters meetup I had on Saturday 19th in a cafe in Antofagasta, Chile. I have a Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/lepstersantof ), so if you could set it on your website it’d be amazing! But maybe I need some more meetings to reach that honour, haha! I’d like to send you a picture, but there’s no way in this form, and I wouldn’t like to put it on the forum. But if you see the Facebook page you’ll see the pic (I’m the guy doing the ‘peace’ sign). Anyway, the meetup was amazing! There were 6 people (maybe it’s not enough, but for a 1st one I think it’s fine), motivated and eager to share and speak the language. They mentioned to me that there are no spaces to gather and speak English, so they were really happy to have me there creating this opportunity for them to communicate and meet people with the same goal. I started with some ice-breaker questions to get to know each other, then I continued with topic-based questions to engage their interest and speak about fun things. I’m thinking about games for the next meetups, so that we create a bond as a group and maybe make new friends. Well, that’s my long report (but I wasn’t ‘rambling’ haha!) about the meeting I held. Really looking forward to your opinion, even if it’s brief (I know you’re always busy).
Rodrigo (‘Roddie’ as I was nicknamed when I was in England by some students :D)
Eisa Ibrahim Hi LEPsters, is there anybody here from Sudan??? Dear Luke I have been listening to Luke English podcast for two years now, it is really brilliant, but unfortunately I have never met anybody here who listens to the podcast!! I am Eisa /i:sə/
Peter • 8 hours ago Anyone from Krakow ? :) Maybe here are also people that want to improve language together ? :)
Murat Atalykov • a month ago Hello LEPsters! I’m from Almaty, Kazakhstan. If there is any Lepster in Almaty, please contact me via instagram @systemad
Olga B. • 3 months ago Hello to all the lepsters of the world! I wonder if there are any lepsters in Kazan who would like to meet up) Just in case I created this community https://vk.com/lepmeetupkzn So, if you are interested, I’d be glad to hear from you
Mario Ara Medina • 3 months ago Hello, anyone from Costa Rica or an online group?
Virginie Bonneau • 4 months ago hello Is there anyone interested in organizing a meetup in France, in the north? or a skype group? I couldn’t manage to find one so far…
Ferdavs Majitov • 6 months ago is there anyone who is listening to Luke in Uzbekistan Feel free to contact me . My instagramm @fer4fan
Kim • 6 months ago Hello Lepsters! I’m Hee from Korea. If there is any Lepster in Korea, please contact me via my Instagram @breathtakinglyremarkable I just want to communicate with you Lepsters. It’s often lonely to listen to LEP and have no one to talk to about it. :( I wish all of you nothing but the best!!!
Rustle • 8 months ago Hello Lepsters! Are there any LEPsters in MALTA? ;-)
ypapax • 10 months ago
Hey, LEP ninjas from Tver, Russia, let’s join the facebook group for meetups in Tver https://www.facebook.com/gr…
Roger Remy • a year ago Are there any LEPsters in Switzerland???
Jan Holub • a year ago Dreams come true! Hello lepsters! Is there anyone in Belarus willing to organise a meetup?
Julien • a year ago Hello lepsters! Are there people interested in organizing a lepster meetup in France?
(this got 33 upvotes – French LEPsters why you no write comment?)
Alex Love’s Comedy Show in New Zealand
Attention LEPsters in New Zealand! I think I have some down there.
Alex Love’s “How to win a pub quiz” is coming to New Zealand.
All the details https://www.fringe.co.nz/show/31634
English Robot 3000
I recently got a few comments about English Robot 3000, asking where he is, so I thought I’d get him out of storage and have a bit of a chat, see how he is.
If you’re fairly new to the podcast, you might not know English Robot 3000. Long term listeners will probably remember him.
He has been in storage, switched off, gathering dust since at least 2014 I think. I can’t actually remember the last time I talked to him.
He’s a robot that speaks English. There are a few English Robots in the series. 3000, 4000 and 5000 too.
Vampires in the Comment Section?
2nd time I’ve had a message from a vampire on my website. Obvs spam.
Mark – last week
V**************@gmail.com***.***.***.112 Are you tired of being human, having talented brain turning to a vampire in a good posture in ten minutes, Do you want to have power and influence over others, To be charming and desirable, To have wealth, health, without delaying in a good human posture and becoming an immortal? If yes, these your chance. It’s a world of vampire where life get easier,We have made so many persons vampires and have turned them rich, You will assured long life and prosperity, You shall be made to be very sensitive to mental alertness, Stronger and also very fast, You will not be restricted to walking at night only even at the very middle of broad day light you will be made to walk, This is an opportunity to have the human vampire virus to perform in a good posture. If you are interested contact us on Vampirelords78787@gmail.com
Two taps in the bathroom
Any long-term listeners will know that I’ve always been slightly obsessed with a certain aspect of British life that foreign visitors often tell me about – the fact we have two taps in the bathroom.
Some of you will know what I mean.
In the UK it is common to find on sinks and bathtubs in the bathroom, two taps – one for hot and one for cold, rather than one single mixer tap.
This confounds a lot of foreign students who don’t know how to wash their hands. It’s basically lava from hell coming from one tap, and glacial ice water from the other. WTF Britain?
Well I recently got a pretty good answer to that.
Years ago I wrote a blog article for the London School of English. Just recently the article picked up a comment from a plumber in the UK.
A plumber is someone who works with pipes and water systems in your house.
So anyway, here’s my blog post and the answer
https://www.londonschool.com/blog/two-taps-in-the-bathroom/
A rambling monologue about my recent French test, a duck-related error, responses to the Alan Partridge episodes and the Russian comedy club video, moving out of the sky-pod, and life with my wife and daughter. A video version of this episode is available for Premium subscribers in the LEP app and online. https://www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium
Yes, this episode is long… but you don’t have to listen to it in one sitting. Listen to a bit, then stop and go to work/college, then listen to the rest later. This is much more convenient if you are using a podcast app, like the LEP app (available in the app store on your phone of course!) because it will remember where you stopped listening.
Notes, Transcripts & More – A Rambling Monologue (October 2018)
Hello!
I’m going to just talk in this episode without much preparation. It’s so tempting to prepare all of this in advance and I’ve been sitting here going – “OK let’s record this episode without preparation this time” and I keep adding more stuff to my notes here but it’s time to stop writing and start talking!
Like everyone I suppose, I have to plan my speeches quite carefully or they will go off on weird tangents and get a bit out of control. Imagine talking to an audience and making it all up as you go. You’ll end up talking too much or not getting to the point. It’s the same for my podcast. If I have an episode that needs some careful preparation, I will write a lot of stuff down in advance, but then sometimes it’s fun to speak without much preparation, like in these rambling episodes. It’s fun and it’s also more authentic because I’m just making up my sentences on the spot.
I’ve got some notes here. Some things are written down but I’ve decided to stop writing now and just start talking.
So my challenges in this episode are…
To talk without preparing most of it in advance
To just keep going even if I feel like I’ve made a mistake and I’d like to start again. Just keep going Luke!
I’m videoing this too. The video version will be available for Premium subscribers. If you’re a subscriber you’ll find the video in the app (either in the Videos category or Premium category) and online at https://www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium which is also where you can go if you want to sign up and become a premium subscriber to get bonus stuff like this as well as regular premium episodes that focus on teaching you grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.
Rambling = talking in an unplanned and slightly unorganised way, probably for too long.
I have been accused of rambling in the past. “Luke, you’re rambling!” Yes, yes I am!
It’s sometimes a weakness of mine, that I struggle to be brief when I talk, but I like think that like Batman I can turn my weakness into my greatest strength.
Batman is actually afraid of bats (or he was when he was a kid), so he becomes a bat in order to conquer his fear. Bats were his weakness, so he became a bat, well, a man dressed as a bat. By doing that he becomes fear itself and then he uses this power to fight crime and all that stuff.
Similarly, my weakness is that I can talk and talk without really getting to the point – I ramble and so I can become RambleMan and I can use rambling to my advantage to become some sort of super hero, although I have no idea how I can fight crime with this skill, except perhaps to give would-be criminals something else to do – just distract them with talking so they don’t commit any crimes.
OK the analogy doesn’t work, but it was worth a try!
Here’s a run-down of the stuff I’m going to ramble about in this episode.
French test
My recent duck-related error
Responses to the Alan Partridge episodes
Responses to me talking with Amber and Paul about the Russian comedy club video
Moving out of the sky-pod
How’s your daughter?
How’s your wife?
But first, I have a shoutout to the Orion Team – everyone involved in that, and in particular a listener in the comment section called Syntropy.
Transcripts
Message from Jack Dear teacher, I’m writing to you to let you know that my acquaintance from the transcription team “Syntropy” has single-handedly transcribed two long episodes of the podcast. I just thought that it would be nice of you to thank him in the next episode of the podcast.
Syntropy has single-handedly transcribed two long episodes of the podcast. That’s amazing.
Normally you just do a few minutes, and everyone works together to finish episodes. Doing a whole episode is long. Thank you Syntropy and thank you to all the members of the Orion Transcription Team. Listeners, you can check out their work and get involved too by visiting the website and clicking transcripts in the menu.
Thank you Syntropy.
In fact, here is a comment from Syntropy that I got the other day and which I thought was worth sharing.
Comment from Syntropy Hi Luke, and Hello LEPsters :) Luke, I just wanted to say thank you so much. I’m a long-term listener, although I haven’t been able to catch up with all episodes. Luke’s English Podcast has been my main resource for learning English, and thanks to you I’ve managed to score C1 level in a placement test. I travelled to Manchester 🐝🐝 in order to study English for a couple of months. Before the trip, I had listened to your Alan Partridge episodes. When the teacher asked me about my method for learning English, you were the first person that crossed my mind. She got really surprised, since few learners of English really listen to podcasts. Then, I mentioned Alan Partridge, and we even had a small talk about comedy. If it wasn’t for LEP, I wouldn’t have such knowledge on British culture, for example (not to mention other things, like pronunciation and vocabulary). You definitely helped me to achieve a high level in this crazy language. In the end, she told me that my level was actually higher than advanced. You have no idea of how happy I got after what she said. And I must say that it was pretty much all due to you, and your podcast. I remembered that rambling chat with Moz in which you talked about a similar experience you had with a student who also listened to your podcast haha. I can’t thank you enough, Luke 😊. Also, a special thanks to the brilliant Orion Team for transcribing the episodes. Keep it up. There’s definitely method to the madness. Cheers, Syntropy
French test and citizenship
I had to take a French level test as part of my application for French citizenship. “But Luke, why are you becoming French?” One word: Brexit.
My Duck-related error
In episode 555 I talked to Raphael and we ended up talking about Disneyland and how there are weird illogical mistakes in Disney cartoons. It sounded like this (26:05). Can you spot the duck-related error I made?
Donald duck not daffy duck! (Episode 555) I hate to get my duck names wrong. Impressions? It’s funny when you spot these inconsistencies in cartoons. Obviously, that’s the joy of cartoons, and you’re not supposed to think about it too much, but I like to do that! Another listener pointed out another scene in which Donald and his 3 kids are sitting down for dinner and there’s a big roast bird on the table. Is it a chicken? Turkey? It could be a duck. They’re cannibals, basically.
Responses to the Alan Partridge episodes
I feel like I’ve made a breakthrough because I’ve had so many positive comments about these episodes. There was one person who wrote a comment saying that the comedy episodes weren’t for him because he just didn’t get the jokes and this made him feel stupid, but on the whole the response was very positive which is great for me because it makes up for those painful moments in the past when I’ve failed to help my students to enjoy comedy. I think the key is to pre-teach a lot of details before even listening to the clip and then to go through it all very carefully afterwards.
…and the Russian Comedy Club video from episode 552
I’ve had messages with various opinions. Most of the comments are from Russian listeners, as you would expect. Most people were happy to hear us talking about the sketch. Some people say they this is a pretty crappy sketch and an example of mainstream entertainment (we also have mainstream stuff in the UK too which is basically shit – although that makes me sound a bit snobbish) and that these guys used to be better but now they’ve kind of lost it. Other people say I still don’t really get the joke and that it’s about how non-native speakers understand each other but non-natives don’t understand them (but that’s not really true) Apparently there is underground comedy which is much more nuanced and good. In fact I know for certain that there is stand up in Russia, in the main cities, including stand up in English. I was going to interview some people involved in that at some point but it never happened.
Moving out of the sky-pod
It’s the end of an era
How are your wife and daughter?
They’re great thanks! There’s a premium episode with my wife coming soon (because she’s a premium person – yes, and so are my family and friends, ok ok)
What George Harrison said about becoming a dad (paraphrased).
You get tons of perspective. You can become a child again, but you also become your father too. So you live 3 generations at the same time.
A general ramble about things like: dishwasher sounds, online clickbait, updates to the LEP app, my recent appearances on some OPP (other people’s podcasts), LEPster meetups and some responses to recent comments on the website. Notes, links & videos available below.
Videos (some stuff from my YouTube channel including some videos from nearly 10 years ago when I was younger, single and living in my London flat and I had a terrible haircut) and some more recent videos that are not on YouTube and are only available in the app.
A Phrasal Verb a Day (40 episodes uploaded so far)
App-only episodes (a recent new one with Lindsay from AEE – more info in a moment)
Check out the app if you haven’t done so already. I’m going to be adding more stuff there all the time. It’s more than just a place to listen to LEP. It’s a place to get loads of content from me straight to your phone.
APP CATEGORIES – ANDROID?
Other stuff
I’ve been on some other people’s podcasts recently
I was on All Ears English in their app
Search the app store for All Ears English Listening, or click the link below.
A chat with Amber & Sarah about the complications of raising kids in another country
A chat with comedian friends about a bunch of things
Planning an episode about raising bilingual kids because people keep asking “Which language will your daughter speak? Are you going to speak French to her or English? How do kids learn two languages at the same time?
Also I really want to just have some stupid fun on the podcast.
I haven’t been doing a lot of comedy recently, because of the baby. I’ve taken a step back because of lack of time etc, except for opening Paul’s show sometimes.
I miss doing comedy – when a show goes well it is an amazing feeling, but also I feel like I’d like to refresh my material.
One of the things I love about doing comedy is coming up with new stuff, improvising.
Also, on the podcast – I’ve always enjoyed just messing around being a bit stupid and having some fun doing voices, or just improvising some nonsense. Haven’t done that for a while.
So, I should, right? OK then.
LEPSTER Meetups
LEPSTERS IN Nizhniy Novgorod
There’s a Meetup happening on Sunday 11 March 18:00 Time Cafe Geronimo in the centre of Nizhniy Novgorod.
How are you? I can’t even imagine how busy you are now with all those parent activities! You must be very happy, anyway :))
It’s been more than a year since we first established the LEP Club in Moscow. Also, last spring we launched our second Club in Saint Petersburg. Both clubs have become very popular and are now visited by a lot of people. For example, in January we had 9 meet ups and in each one there were 5 to 25 people!
Luke, do you remember we also tried to arrange a LEP Club in Nizhniy Novgorod last Summer? (Note: In English, this means “Lower Newtown”) We failed then because of the huge flood. Anyway, our LEP Nizhniy Novgorod page on Facebook has been quite popular recently. So, we are going to try again to organize the first meetup of LEPsters there.
The meeting will take place on March 11 at the time cafe Geronimo right in the center of Nizhniy Novgorod.
WOULD YOU PLEASE ANNOUNCE IT ON THE PODCAST? it would be great if you also shared it on FB (here is the link https://www.facebook.com/Conversational-English-for-Free-Nizhniy-Novgorod-LEP-Club-1929010714048755/?fref=ts)
BTW, Luke, we are wondering if it is possible to place a link to all your Meet-Up groups (Tokyo, MSC, SPB) in the Podcast – it would help LEP ninjas to find like-minded friends easier! Thank you, Luke!
Kristina Fadeeva • a month ago Hi Luke, congratulations to your lovely family! And thank you for sharing this wonderful story, for your genuine emotions and authenticity, for being brave enough to talk about something so private. I absolutele love the ideas of comprehensible input and storytelling in language learning that you mentioned. I was listening to that episode of Olly Richards’ podcast with Stephen Krashen a couple of weeks ago thinking “If only we had a Luke’s English podcast for every language!” I think, content like this is why I enjoy learning languages in the first place – it’s a door to a different world where you can meet people, learn what they are thinking and feeling, how they live their lives and what they value. It’s an endless world of stories that you can experience. With every language you learn, you are getting a glimpse into another life, another point of view, another culture, and that is priceless. Have the best of luck, joy and happiness in your new journey! And please invite your wife more often, she has the loveliest voice :)
About my frustrations with French
Sebestyén Balázs The longer I learn English, the more I think that this whole problem is more about psychology and social skills rather than grammar or vocabulary. We need more a good therapist than a teacher. My therapist is you, Luke, and this episode was a pretty successful session. My understanding and speaking have improved over the years, but very slowly. More importantly, my attitude has changed. I don’t care anymore if I don’t understand something, or can’t express something accurately. If I can avoid high expectations from others and from myself, language learning is just learning anything else, like chemistry, literature or math. You would never say that you are frustrated because of your lack of knowledge in chemistry. So why should I frustrate myself because of the language? Yes, my English is rubbish, but my chemistry also, and on the other hand, I have a lot of other skills and values that can base my self-esteem.
Wesley Hello Luke, Are you doing all right? It’s been a long time since I last commented on your website. I listened to the reasons you’ve listed to explain why you’ve not reached a level of French where you would feel comfortable to get by and I believe they make sense. As I see it, with all due respect, you’re another victim of the sway that the English language holds worldwide. English has developed to become such a powerful language that it is a no-brainer which language non-native speakers should learn other than their own. Non-native speakers have clearly a lot to gain, both professionally and culturally, from learning English. That decision has already been made for them. However, when it comes to its monolingual native speakers, English is both a blessing and a curse. Native speakers don’t have to spend years of their lives worrying about getting very good at another language if they want to succeed in business, entertainment or academia. They’ve got the grammar, the vocabulary, the pronunciation, basically the whole package by a strike of what many English learners think is luck. English speakers are just as good language learners as everyone else, but they carry a curse that is often overlooked. This curse is their own language. For a start, I don’t believe it is that straightforward for most teenagers living in the UK, the US or any other English speaking country which second language they should choose to learn. Is it Spanish, French, German or Mandarin? There’s enough research in psychology that backs the idea that when confronted with too many options, people will make poor decisions. After making their choice, people feel they have to stay motivated and overcome all the challenges that the new language poses: difficult grammar, tricky phonemes, unintelligible sounds. When any of those barriers makes itself seem insurmountable, there’s often the option to switch back to English. So, why learn another language if English enables them to get by? Another factor is that the cultural industry in English floods the whole world with its productions. By doing so, it is the richest worldwide and, consequently, they have the money available to invest in expensive projects and sell them afterwards. This is a vicious circle that stifles low-budget local productions and makes them unattractive. Take Hollywood as an example. Although people all over the globe can be creative enough to match (and surpass) the quality of Hollywood, the sheer output of expensive blockbusters guarantees that there is little to no competition from films in other languages. Why would any native-English speaker learn another language if the biggest hits of the moment are in English? Among other things, the answers to both questions I raised in the two last paragraphs constitute what motivates any English speaker to learn a second language: So, why learn another language if English enables them to get by? Why would any native-English speaker learn another language if the biggest hits of the moment are in English? While there’s good cause for some, for others there might be none. Luke, I believe there are only two ways for you to overcome the frustration of learning French and to stop making (your very good) excuses. The first is to drop the idea of learning it entirely and face the consequences. I know it seems quite harsh, but we cannot deliberately motivate ourselves to do something we don’t feel like doing. We either feel it or we don’t, that’s the way it is. The other way is to learn French once and for all. Even though I said in the previous paragraph that we cannot pretend to be motivated, sometimes we have to do things with no motivation at all. Humankind would be under serious threat if parents had to feel eager every time they woke up at night to check on the crying baby. And they recognise afterwards that the effort paid off. We will never do anything if we wait for the perfect conditions to fall into place – we live in a imperfect world after all. I would also consider whether the material you’re using is suitable for your needs. I know you’re an English teacher with many years of experience, but I think we should take every material we use with a pinch of salt. Do the books you have meet your current needs? I’m saying this because most beginner materials I’ve used to learn English and other languages seem to hinder conversation. They postpone far too much things like conditionals, subordinate clauses, how to use ‘but’ and ‘because’. If I do not learn those things early on, I’ll not be able to show reasoning and, consequently, I’ll the dumbest person there can be speaking that language. Feeling dumb is one of the biggest confidence killers for language learners. By the look of what you have told us, I would go for improving my conversation skills if I were you. This is what will give you the confidence boost you need to soldier on. You need to find someone who takes a professional approach to teaching conversational French and allows you to speak freely. Maybe a teacher on Italki, I don’t know, but definitely someone outside your social sphere. That way, you’ll be able to keep French learning issues and personal matters apart. The last thing you need here is to listen to judgemental people who don’t know what they are talking about. Please make as many mistakes as you can because Luke version 2.0 will not develop without them. Do a 30-day challenge of learning French and record yourself speaking every day to keep track of your progress. I hope I might have been helpful somehow. Best wishes for the whole family, Wesley
Elena • a month ago I absolutely loved and enjoyed it! Thank you, Luke! And I do feel like an imposter now. I’ve decided to take a CAE preparation course. I passed the test which gave me the right to take the course but I can’t stop feeling that l’m much worse than others who is doing it🙈 but I hope that I’ll survive and get better!
Alessandro Gambetta (sorry I forgot your name Alessandro!)
Hi Luke and everybody else, that was another really good subject for an episode and I imagine that many of the listeners are comedy fans as well. You mentioned some of my favourite British comedy characters, like David Brent and Alan Partridge. Only last year I discovered and particularly enjoyed some actors (and writers) from the IT Crowd’s cast, like Chris Morris, Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade, who I found out is also a quite talented director – I recommend ‘Submarine’. I hope you’ll make a similar episode about interesting not-necessarily-comedy British radio shows, because I’m having some trouble finding any.
Also, I’d like to listen to you talk about the Flight of the Conchords and the kiwi accent sometime.
(About “Life’s Too Short” with Ricky Gervais) I’ve never watched a full episode of the show but I’ve seen this video an infinite number of times over the last 2 weeks and I can’t help laughing really hard every single time.
That clip of Liam Neeson on Life’s Too Short
508. 6 True Crime Stories from Victorian England (with Dad)
Jose Miguel Carrizo • 20 days ago I´m glad you chose philosophy as subjet of your podcast. Besides, you made it really amusing. Basically you talked about “how should we live?”. I prefer another topic: “know yourself”. Maybe it could be interesting for another podcast in the future. Cheers from Spain! By the way, if you could hear my neighbour´s laugh, I bet it would change your mind about the most annoying laugh in the world. And besides he is actually crazy.
Eri No episode is boring,Luke. Thank you PodPALs, I enjoyed listening and playing same test with you. I ended up with the same philosophical school of thought, “scepticism”. When I first listened the episode 509, I was confused and I felt even if it was Japanese, I think I would struggle to understand. But after the episode 510, 509 is more interesting to listen and I feel easier to understand. WE NEED both FUN and SERIOUS episodes!
Celebrating 500 episodes of LEP with a mega-ramble featuring lots of messages from listeners, expressions of gratitude, a cool announcement for all my listeners, some singing, some talk of becoming a dad, the future of the podcast, Star Wars, and loads of fun and good times. Thank you for listening! Parts 1 & 2 are both available on this page.
Thank you to everyone who took part in episode 500 by sending me a message.
This became a massive celebration. I didn’t expect to receive so many messages. Thank you for all of your kind words, support, and joyful sentiments. I really appreciate it!
Thank you for listening to my podcast all these years. It means a lot to me. I’m looking forward to making more episodes in the future. Seasons greetings for the festive period and have a Happy New Year!
The Luke’s English Podcast APP is NOW AVAILABLE
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Luke
Luke’s English Podcast is a free audio podcast for learners of English as a foreign language, hosted by Luke Thompson – a comedian and English teacher from London, UK. Listen, learn and have fun while picking up natural British English as it really is spoken.
A conversation with Paul Taylor involving several cups of tea, recipes for French crepes, our terrible rap skills, a funny old comedy song about English workmen drinking tea, some improvised comedy role plays and a very angry Paul ranting about bad customer service in France! Your challenge is to listen to this episode in public without laughing out loud, especially in the second half of the episode. Good luck, may the force be with you. Vocabulary list, song lyrics, definitions and a quiz available below.
I’m going to keep this intro as brief as possible so we can get straight into it!
This one is a conversation with friend of the podcast, Paul Taylor. It was lots of fun to record, I hope it’s also lots of fun to listen to.
There are links, videos, word lists and song lyrics with vocabulary and definitions on the episode page on the website that can help you to understand and learn more English from our conversation.
There is some swearing in this episode – some rude words and things. Just to let you know in advance.
Try not to laugh on the bus while listening to this. That might be embarrassing. That is a challenge from me to you. Try not to giggle – because everyone will look at you and will feel either jealous or confused at your public display of the joy which will be bursting forth from your heart as you listen to Paul’s infectious laughter. No giggling or cracking up in public please. Get a grip on yourself for goodness sake.
Where’s Amber? All will be revealed.
Keep listening until the end of the episode for more additional extra bonus fun.
Alrighty then, that’s all for the intro, let’s go!
Vocabulary List
A crepe = a thin french pancake made from flour, milk and egg – all whisked together and then cooked in a pan
To whisk = to mix ingredients quickly with a fork or a whisk
To kneaddough to make bread
To knead = to work/press/mix/fold dough with your hands when making bread
Dough = flour, water, yeast combined to make a soft paste, used for making bread
Cats go to the litter box, shit and then lick their paws
The litter box = the tray or box in your house that cats use as a toilet. It’s full of small stones, sand or something similar.
Paws = the hands and feet of a cat (or similar animals)
The Luke’s English Podcast Challenge – if you don’t know what a crepe is, leave a comment! You *might* get a picture of Paul as a prize.
Talking bollocks* = talking nonsense ( *bollocks is a rude word meaning testicles, or bullshit)
‘owzit gaan? = How’s it going?
It’s the first day back at school in France so everyone’s going mental
Going mental = going crazy, getting stressed
Anti-nuclear pens? = I suppose these are pens which somehow resist the effects of a nuclear attack. They don’t exist, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geEVwslL-YY
Losing your friends when they have kids – How having kids is like the zombie apocalypse (according to Paul)
“To put the kibosh on something” = phrase
If someone or something puts the kibosh on your plans or activities, they cause them to fail or prevent them from continuing.
[mainly US , informal]
E.g. “Rattray, however, personally showed up at the meeting to try and put the kibosh on their plans.” “…software that puts the kibosh on pop-up ads if a user doesn’t want them.”
I’ll be tutoring my child in the ways of righteousness
A voice-over = some recorded speech used in advertising, TV, radio etc.
“Right said Fred” by Bernard Cribbins
A 1960s comedy record featuring some cockney workmen moving a heavy object and drinking lots of tea.
Lyrics [vocab explained in brackets] “Right,” said Fred, “Both of us together One each end and steady as we go.” [be careful, do it steadily] Tried to shift it, couldn’t even lift it [move it] We was getting nowhere [yes, it’s grammatically incorrect] And so we had a cuppa tea and [ a cup of tea]
“Right,” said Fred, “Give a shout for Charlie.” Up comes Charlie from the floor below. After straining, heaving and complaining [making lots of physical effort] [complaining] We was getting nowhere [also grammatically incorrect] And so we had a cuppa tea.
And Charlie had a think, and he thought we ought to take off all the handles And the things what held the candles. But it did no good, well I never thought it would
“All right,” said Fred, “Have to take the feet off To get them feet off wouldn’t take a mo(ment).” [those] Took its feet off, even took the seat off Should have got us somewhere but no! So Fred said, “Let’s have another cuppa tea.” And we said, “right-o.”
“Right,” said Fred, “Have to take the door off Need more space to shift the so-and-so.” [the thing] Had bad twinges taking off the hinges [sharp pains] [metal parts that attach the door to the wall] And it got us nowhere And so we had a cuppa tea and
“Right,” said Fred, “Have to take the wall down, That there wall is gonna have to go.” Took the wall down, even with it all down We was getting nowhere And so we had a cuppa tea.
And Charlie had a think, and he said, “Look, Fred, I got a sort of feelin’ If we remove the ceiling With a rope or two we could drop the blighter through.” [an annoying person or thing]
“All right,” said Fred, climbing up a ladder With his crowbar gave a mighty blow. [a heavy metal tool] Was he in trouble, half a ton of rubble landed on the top of his dome. [broken pieces of rock] [head] So Charlie and me had another cuppa tea And then we went home.
(I said to Charlie, “We’ll just have to leave it Standing on the landing, that’s all [the hallway on an upper floor] You see the trouble with Fred is, he’s too hasty [in a hurry, rushing ;) ] You’ll never get nowhere if you’re too hasty.”)
Getting queue jumped and dealing with unhelpful staff = when people skip ahead of you in a queue [a line of people waiting]
Luke struggles to understand how to deal with waiters and shop assistants who say “c’est pas possible” (French = it’s not possible)
Listen to Alexander Van Walsum talk to Luke about how to deal with “c’est pas possible” in this episode from the archive
That’s nearly the end of the episode, I hope you enjoyed it and you managed not to laugh out loud on the bus.
Don’t forget, you can see a list of vocabulary and expressions from this episode all on the website, including the lyrics to that song that you heard. There’s also a YouTube video of the song if you want to hear it again and make sure you’ve understood all of it. So check that out.
By the way, the mobile version of my site has now been improved thanks to a helpful listener called Sergei who gave me some CSS coding advice. So if you check the site on your phone now it should look much better than it did before, which will make it easier for you to check vocab lists, transcriptions and other content from your mobile device. Try it now – teacherluke.co.uk. You will find the link for this episode and all the others in the episode archive – just click on the menu button and then EPISODE ARCHIVE.
Don’t forget to join the mailing list on the website so you can get a link to each new episode page in your inbox when it’s published.
As I said, it’s nearly the end of the episode – but it’s not actually the end yet. There’s more. In fact, I’ve decided to give you a bonus bit at the end here, because I’m nice.
So, what’s the bonus bit?
The Bonus Bit – “The Expat Sketch Show”
On the day that Paul and I recorded this episode (and in fact the next one too) we also recorded ourselves improvising a short comedy sketch. I’m now going to play you that sketch.
The idea of the sketch is that I work in an office in Paris and my job is to interview ex-pats (foreign people who have moved to Paris) – I interview ex-pats for a position on a kind of scholarship programme where we subsidise their living expenses and help them integrate into the Parisian community and in return they contribute something to community in terms of work, taking part in cultural events or making any contribution that will benefit the cultural mix of Paris.
Paul plays 3 different ex-pats who have come into my office for an interview, and let’s just say that they’re not exactly the ideal candidates.
The whole thing was completely improvised, it’s full of rude language and it’s all just a bit of a laugh so here is the Ex-pat Sketch show with Paul. Have fun!
Thanks for listening to the episode everyone.
Have a good day, night, morning, afternoon or evening!
Conversation and language analysis with the podpals and guest Sarah. Hear some conversation about being married to a foreign person, bringing up kids to be bilingual, and learn some slang in Australian and Northern Irish English. Vocabulary is explained at the end.
This episode is choc-a-block with natural conversation and language.
Yesterday I had Amber and Paul over to the flat, and I also invited Sarah Donnelly, a friend of the podcast. Sarah also brought her baby who she had since she was last on the podcast. There’s no relation by the way between her being on the podcast and having a baby. Purely coincidental. Anyway, the four of us sat around the table yesterday in the blistering heat to record some podcast material and that’s what you’re going to hear.
Sometimes you can hear the baby screaming and gurgling in the background but I don’t think it spoils the recording really. She hasn’t learned to talk yet, but who knows being on the podcast might help a little bit in some way.
The conversation is a bit chaotic because there are 4 people, sometimes talking over each other. If you like you can imagine you’re in a business meeting. A business meeting in which no business actually takes place, nobody observes the rules of formality and where the participants just chat with each other. So, not much like a business meeting really, but anyway a meeting of sorts, and this is the kind of thing you might have to deal with in the future if you go to a meeting in English and there are a number of people discussing things and you have to keep up. It’s good practice to listen to this kind of thing to help you prepare for that kind of situation.
This recording was slightly shorter than the usual full-on ramble that we have together. But I’m going to do a bit of language analysis at the end. I’ll pick out a few words and phrases and will clarify them after the conversation has finished.
Also there’s another language-related episode coming soon with Amber, Paul and Sarah.
Here now is a discussion between podpals Amber and Paul, also featuring Sarah Donnelly the American with Irish roots who has been on this podcast before, most recently talking about the US Presidential Elections with Sebastian Marx.
Things we all have in common:
We’re all English speaking expats in France
We are all with French partners, either married or “paxed”
We’re all comedians on the stand up scene too
In this chat we discuss a few things, such as the complexities of being with a foreign partner, bringing up a child in a foreign country to be fully bilingual, getting married and what it feels like for the bride and groom on the big day, Amber’s podcast which was recently released online, Paul’s upcoming gig in Australia, Sarah’s Irish roots and some English slang from New Zealand, Australia and Northern Ireland.
Questions
Here are some questions for you to consider as you listen. This can help you to focus on the content.
Are you or have you ever been with a foreign person in a relationship? What are the difficulties of that?
What’s the best way to bring up a child to be bilingual? Is it possible to raise a bilingual child when only one of you speaks one of the target languages to the child?
Are you married? How did it feel for you on the big day? Did you cry? Have you ever been a guest at a wedding, and did you cry?
Have you heard Amber’s podcast, which is called Paname? It’s now available at panamepodcast.com
Can you identify different English accents and dialects from around the world? How about American vs British, or different areas of the UK? How about Ireland and Northern Ireland? What about Australia and New Zealand? Do you know what their English sounds like?
Right. Consider those questions as you listen to this conversation and hold on until later when I’ll explain some of the vocabulary and some cultural stuff too, maybe touching on different accents, wedding vocabulary and more.
But now you can listen to Amber, Paul, Sarah and me, melting in my boiling hot apartment.
Vocabulary and other language points – Explained
It’s really hot
It’s hot as hell
It’s boiling
It’s sweltering
It’s baking
It’s blisteringlyhot
Being partnered with a French person is hard work.
I have one hour’s worth of material on this. One hour’s worth of something 5 minutes’ worth of something
We’ve got 3 days’ worth of food left
I’ve got about 10 minutes’ worth of battery left
Bringing Up Children
Bringing up a baby in a foreign country with a foreign partner – will they speak English? Bring up a baby Raise a child Be raised in / to Grow up
Do you have experience of bringing up a baby to be bilingual? Let us know.
If just one parent speaks English, and the rest of the time it’s French with school, friends and everything else – will the kid be bilingual?
Anglophone
Francophone
Condone/Condemn I don’t condone the hitting of a child (stupid thing to say actually – but that’s what happens when you joke – sometimes you go over the line a bit – obvs I didn’t mean it)
Condone / condemn
Paul’s Wedding
An out of body experience
We were so stressed out
Crying To cry
To be in tears
To well up
To choke up
Neither of us cried
I thought everybody would be in tears
I welled up a bit
I was choking up
Walk down the aisle
The altar
Her parents aren’t with her any more. They passed away.
Paul’s dad gave her away. “It was so sweet that it was your dad that was giving her away.”
I’m left-handed
I can’t grip it like I like to grip it. (innuendo)
He’s jumped ahead. (he’s gone to the innuendo before we realised it)
Some ninjas came out of the woodwork. (to come out of the woodwork) to appear after having been hidden or not active for a long time: After you’ve been in a relationship for a while all sorts of little secrets start to come out of the woodwork. Mildly disapproving. From Cambridge Dictionary Online.
They feel like they’re going to do mistakes. Makemistakes.
Aussie slang http://mentalfloss.com/article/61847/25-awesome-australian-slang-terms
G’day mate, how are you going?
Arvo: afternoon
Barbie: barbeque
Bogan
Chockers
Fair Dinkum
Fuckin’ oath!
Sweet as
Strewth! (Cliche)
Kiwi slang
The slang is pretty similar to Aussie or UK slang, but the accent is different. For years I couldn’t differentiate it from Aussie, but the more you hear the more you realise how different it is. Watch Flight of the Conchords to hear lots of it. Episode in the pipeline.
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