Hang out with me while the rain pours down outside 🌧️ and in this episode I’ll talk about the problem of “faffing around” 😵💫 , podcast news & updates 📲, some stand-up comedy dates 🎤, comments on recent episodes 💬, some common questions from listeners 🙋, a lot of rambling about how I learned to play music 🎵, a tour of all the guitars in my podcast room 🎸 and a song at the end 🎶, with lyrics explained 👨🏫.
Here’s a list of jokes about different countries which I found on the website Bored Panda. I’ll tell you the jokes and then explain them all (dissecting the frog), including any homophones, double meanings or specific cultural references. Can you “get” the jokes? Do you find any of them funny, or are they all just terrible dad jokes? And, what vocabulary can you learn in the process? Includes a vocabulary review at the end of the episode.
In this episode we’re going to read some jokes about different countries in the world, and I’m going to use them to help you learn English.
They’re not really jokes about countries. They’re mainly just jokes based on the country names. So I won’t be making fun of specific countries or anything.
I’ve found a list of 100 jokes.
Jokes like these…
👍
#12
Which country’s capital city is growing the fastest?
Ireland.
Because every day it’s Dublin.
doubling??
Some of these jokes are very stupid.
Some of them are terrible.
But some of them are actually pretty funny 😅
This is all just a bit of fun, but also it’s a chance to learn some vocabulary.
Before we continue, I need to make several jokes about my country: The UK
A map of the UK
It’s just there, under that huge rain storm.
More specifically, England
Football
What do you call an English man in the World Cup final?
The referee.
British Food
Well, this is how our biscuits are sold in France
C’est Anglais, mais c’est bon !
Translation:
It’s English, but it’s good.
*Actually they’re Scottish
*Actually the company is owned by a Turkish confectionery conglomerate
And I’m sure you could write plenty of jokes about our Royal Family…
But you don’t really need to
Subtext: They’re already quite funny aren’t they?
I don’t mean to be rude about our king, but apparently he has a sense of humour, so I’m sure he doesn’t mind.
cheers
Can you understand these jokes?
If you understand a joke you can say
“I get it”
If you don’t understand why it’s supposed to be funny, you’d say
“I don’t get it”
If you understand it, but you think it isn’t funny, you can just groan.
🤦
There will be VOCABULARY
I will explain every joke that you hear in this episode, including
any double meanings
any homophones (words which sound the same but which are different)
or any other little cultural details
I have only had
a very quick look
at this list of jokes.
I found this joke list on the website BoredPanda.com. There are 100 jokes in the list, but I’ve only seen about the first 15 jokes.
I haven’t seen the rest.
So I am going to be reading most of these for the first time, so let’s discover these jokes together.
Disclaimer:
This might not be funny
at all 😐
It’s necessary to say this again…
I will dissect these jokes. You might learn some English,
but the jokes will probably die in the process.
Sorry jokes, and sorry frogs.
🐸
But don’t worry. No actual frogs will be harmed during the making of this episode.
And when I say “frogs” I’m not talking about French people 🇫🇷
“Dissecting the frog” or explaining jokes is something I’ve been doing on this podcast for years.
by a listener called Evgenia
a T-shirt design by a listener called Adel (available in my merch store
England doesn’t have a kidney bank, but it does have a Liverpool.
A slice of apple pie is $2.50 in Jamaica and $3.00 in the Bahamas. These are the pie rates of the Caribbean.
A British man is visiting Australia. The customs agent asks him, “Do you have a criminal record?” The British man replies, “I didn’t think you needed one to get into Australia anymore.”
One day Canada will rule the world… Then you’ll all be sorry.
What’s the best thing about Switzerland? I don’t know, but the flag is a big plus.
Why do the French eat snails? They don’t like fast food.
Amsterdam is a lot like the Tour de France. Just a lot of people on drugs riding bikes.
I asked my friend in North Korea how he was. He said he can’t complain.
Germany and France go to war. Who loses? Belgium.
What do you call a vegan Viking? A Norvegan!
How do you get a Canadian to apologize? Step on their foot.
Which country’s capital is growing the fastest? Ireland. Every day it’s Dublin.
What does the Loch Ness monster eat? Fish and ships.
Want to hear a Swedish joke? Never mind. There’s Norway I could Finnish it.
What do frogs eat in Paris? French flies.
An Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman enter a bar. The Englishmen wanted to go, so they all had to leave.
What do you call a bee that lives in America? A USB.
Why haven’t Americans changed their weighing method from pounds to kilograms? Because they don’t want mass confusion!
How does every Russian joke start? By looking over your shoulder.
I have a Russian friend who’s a sound technician. And a Czech one too. A Czech one too.
What kind of birds can you find in Portugal? Portugeese.
What was the most popular kids’ movie in Ancient Greece? Troy Story.
What is the most common scam in Egypt? Pyramid schemes.
What happened to the American who went to the hospital with a broken leg? He went broke.
In which country is Prague located? Hold on let me Czech.
Is “Africa” by Toto a country song? No, it’s a continent song.
What did the Kiwi say to the Rabbi? Hee Broo.
Did you hear about the Italian chef that died? He pasta way.
Germany once organized the International Fun Conference. It wasn’t funny but it was indeed well organized.
Two very old men of European nationality meet While talking, one asks: “You watching the football game?” The other says: “Who’s playing?” “Austria-Hungary”, says the first. “Against whom?”
An introverted Finn looks at his shoes when talking to you; an extroverted Finn looks at your shoes.
Why do bagpipe players walk while they play? To get away from the noise.
Why do all Swedish military ships have bar codes on them? So when the come to port, they can just Scan da navy in!
How was copper wire invented? Two Scotsmen fighting over a penny.
What are Greek houses made out of? Greeks and con-Crete!
Why is it hard to make friends in Antarctica? Because you can’t break the ice.
What pan is the best to make sushi in? Japan.
What will an Australian chess player say to a Czech person while making the winning move? Czech mate.
A friend in Germany tells me everyone’s panic buying sausages and cheese. It’s the Wurst Käse scenario.
What do you call a bunch of bullies from Malta? Maltesers.
Ever since my girlfriend moved to Siberia things haven’t been the same. She’s so cold and distant.
The Sahara Desert drifts into a bar and the bartender says… “Long time no sea.”
Did you hear about the Pole who thought his wife was trying to kill him? On her dressing table, he found a bottle of “Polish Remover.”
I’ve heard that Argentina is starting to get a little colder… In fact, it’s bordering on Chile.
What’s Santa’s nationality? North Polish.
What genre are national anthems? Country.
Did you hear McDonalds will stop serving fries in Switzerland? The Swiss don’t take sides.
Vocabulary List (listen to the episode for my explanations)
Barbara Serra is an award-winning Italian journalist who has spent much of her career reading the news in the UK on various high-profile well-established English language news networks including the BBC, Channel 5, Al Jazeera English and Sky News. Barbara has quite a specific relationship with the English language. We talk about learning English, challenges in her career, and the relationship between accent and identity.
Hello listeners, today on the podcast I am talking to Barbara Serra, the Italian journalist who reads the news on television in the UK. She’s a very interesting guest and has lots of interesting things to say about the way her identity and career have been shaped by her relationship to the English language.
We’re going to talk about reading the news in the UK when you sound like a foreigner, lots of questions around identity and accent, and all sorts of other things that Barbara has experienced in her time as a broadcast journalist. I think you will find it very interesting as a learner of English looking to improve your English as much as possible in different contexts, both personal and professional.
LEPster meet-up in Da Nang Vietnam
Gordon’s Pizza (in An Thuong area) on Friday 17th May from 9pm.
Send Zdenek an email if you’re interested – teacherzdenek@gmail.com
Barbara Serra is an award-winning Italian journalist who has spent much of her career reading the news in the UK on various high-profile well-established English language news networks including the BBC, Channel 5, Al Jazeera English and Sky News.
Barbara has quite a specific relationship with English. It’s her dominant language but not her native language. She has a certain accent, which does place her outside the UK somehow. So how has this affected her career as a news reader and reporter?
Broadcast journalism is associated with a certain model of spoken English – in the UK that would be what is often called BBC English, and traditionally the role of newsreader has been synonymous with that kind of high-level, high-status form of spoken English.
So what has Barbara’s experience been?
What is the story of her English?
How did she get the point where she was ready to do this job? What kind of challenges has she faced while reading the news in the UK?
And what does this all tell us about learning English, what it means to improve your accent, the relationship between accent and identity, the definition of “native” and “non-native speaker”, the status of different English accents in the English speaking world?
Let’s get into it.
LINKS
👉 Barbara’s email newsletter “News with a foreign accent” https://barbaraserra.substack.com/
👉 Barbara’s website with course info https://www.barbaraserra.info/
These days Elena Mutonono is an experienced business coach who helps online English teachers to gain independence and control over their own careers, but Elena’s journey started as a learner of English herself. In this conversation I ask Elena about how she learned English, making the step to becoming an English teacher, then teacher trainer and what challenges online English teachers face when trying to work in a crowded and demanding job market.
This conversation is a preview of my Zoom workshop on Thurs 18 April 2024 at 10AM (UK time), as part of the Advanced English Summit. In my workshop I will be talking about how to really learn vocabulary, and not just stare at word lists. This is a conversation about the subject of the workshop, and summit organiser Clare Whitmell asks me questions about why vocabulary is important, why I love teaching it, common mistakes made by learners, ways of learning vocabulary more effectively, and some tools you can use.
Listen to me rambling about Daylight Saving Time, weird AI generated images for Luke’s English Podcast, and lots of comments and responses to recent episodes including the Birthday Party story 🎂 , the MBTI Personality Test 🙇 and the Walk & Talk in Paris 📹🚶.
🎧 Learn English with a short story. 🗣 Listen & repeat after me if you’d like to practise your pronunciation. 💬 Learn some vocabulary in the second half of the video. This is a story about people watching and what you can notice about people’s relationships if you are observant enough.
In your early / late twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties
To look married (look good, look tired, look happy, look married, look bored)
Unmistakably married
They were married. It was unmistakable.
Mistakable = easily confused for something else
Unmistakable = not easily confused for something else – you can immediately identify it
The unmistakable smell of fresh bread in the air
They looked unmistakably French / unmistakably English / unmistakably yours/hers/his (this handwriting is unmistakably his)
Why are they unmistakably married? What does she mean? She’s alluding to subtle behaviour. When a couple are unmarried or perhaps in the early stages of a relationship they tend to give each other a lot more attention. They might be still trying to seduce each other somehow, or to attract each other. There’s still mystery and interest. Brand new couples can hardly take their eyes off each other. I imagine this couple is unmistakably married because they show signs of the relationship suffering from over familiarity. They mystery is gone, maybe. Perhaps they seem very familiar with each other, or very comfortable with each other. Marriage can make people feel stuck (not always!) especially if the marriage is based on the wrong things.
A banquette = a long, fitted seat or bench, typically found in restaurants
Narrow – opposite of wide – a long narrow corridor
We get the sense this is a small, intimate space. It’s also uncomfortable, painfully so.
The couple and other guests in the restaurant are all so close and this makes the man’s humiliation and the woman’s heartbreak even more painful.
The narrator is unable to stop “people watching” here – observing this couple opposite.
Also the couple sit side by side, not facing each other, which suggests that they’re not all that interested in each other.
You start to speculate – what does this woman mean to this man? Is she there just to sit by his side and look glamorous?
A round face
Self-satisfied (definitely a negative word) smug, arrogant, not charming
Fadingly pretty
Fading = gradually becoming less clear, less bright, less colourful. Her prettiness was fading.
A big hat – I imagine it was one of those hats with a big brim, which can be very glamorous but also hides the face.
Conspicuous = noticeable, easy to notice, eye-catching (apparently in those days big hats were not uncommon in New York restaurants)
Basically, they looked quite ordinary really, and weren’t trying to grab/attract everyone’s attention.
An occasion – a particular event, a birthday, an anniversary, something to celebrate
The wife had planned a surprise for him (past perfect because she planned this before any of the events in this story) without past perfect it could mean that the wife planned the surprise there at the table
A surprise in the form of a cake – “in the form of” here means that this is how the surprise was actually manifested. I mean, what was the surprise, how did this surprise take shape? The surprised arrived in the form of a cake.
The gift came in the form of a beautifully wrapped package.
Their support came in the form of encouraging words during a difficult time.
The solution to the problem arrived in the form of an innovative new technology.
Help arrived in the form of my wife who came to rescue me (from an awkward conversation for example)
A glossy birthday cake = shiny & smooth, so the light reflects off the top. It’s one of those smart, fancy cakes that you see in good quality cake shops.
One pink candle burning in the center (American English spelling) – this is a little bit sad, isn’t it? Also, if this guy takes himself quite seriously, he might find that a tiny bit embarrassing – bringing attention to him, and this little cake with a pink candle might make him feel a bit ridiculous, especially if he is full of himself and takes himself seriously. But it is a lovely, sweet gesture and we just want him to be embarrassed but also touched and it would be a great moment for him to blush and smile and kiss his wife and maybe acknowledge the other diners with a smile, but he doesn’t.
The head waiter – so the wife probably asked the restaurant to make a special effort here, which again shows how much care she put into this.
He placed it before the husband. This means he carefully put it down.
Meanwhile = at the same time
The wife beamed with shy pride over her little surprise
Beamed = her face glowed, she smiled, she seemed proud. To “beam” means that light comes out – like a torch, or a light house. In this case the woman’s face beamed with a certain emotion or an expression.
Pride – to feel proud = she’s happy and satisfied with what she has done. She’s put a lot of effort into this and expects it to go well. She’s trying.
It became clear (obvious) at once (immediately) that help was needed (passive voice – needed by who?) We feel that the narrator suddenly sees that this woman is helpless in this situation. She’s in trouble. But nobody can help her without making it worse.
The husband was not pleased.
He was hotly embarrassed. – not a common collocation but it tells us that his face probably went red and he was angry.
He was indignant = angry, annoyed, frustrated with his wife because of what she’s done.
Don’t belike that = don’t be that way
As soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table = quite formal and impersonal language, meaning put in a certain place. Money is deposited in an account. It’s quite cold, transactional language.
The birthday piece – a piece of music
The general attention had shifted = moved
I saw him say something to her under his breath = in a very quiet voice, in a whisper, so other people can’t hear
Some punishing thing = a comment which was designed to punish her, to make her feel bad
Quick (just a few words) and curt (rudely brief – rude because it is so short) and unkind (cruel).
I couldn’t bear to look
Can’t bear to do something
Can’t stand doing it
Can’t bring myself to do something
When I finally glanced over there = looked quickly
This is heartbreaking!
Adverbs
Crying quietly
Crying heartbrokenly
Crying hopelessly
All to herself (she was doing it all by herself, but also crying to herself – a very lonely feeling where you are the only one witnessing your crying – the husband doesn’t care it seems)
All to herself / all by herself
Under the big gay brim of her best hat. (Gay in it’s original meaning, “carefree” “happy”)
The brim of the hat = the wide edge
This is a particularly sad image because of the contrast between this lovely hat that should be worn on a happy and carefree occasion, but under it this poor woman is crying.
A very long rambling episode with a big mix of vocabulary, stories about my trip to Rome, comments from listeners, lots of thoughts about episodes I’ve published over the last 12 months, more advice about learning English, and a story about being Jackie Chan’s English teacher.
Returning guest Kate Billington suddenly decided to move to the other side of the world, to Taipei in beautiful Taiwan. In this episode we talk about meeting LEPsters in Taipei, her decision to move there, and how everything is going, with the usual conversational tangents along the way.
Here is another conversation episode, and it’ll be the last one I’m doing for a little while. You’ll get some more solo episodes from me over the next few weeks, including a short story episode and more.
But this is another conversation, and it’s with Kate Billington who is a returning guest and a popular guest – this is her 5th time on the show.
Over the last few episodes I’ve done fairly long introductions to explain certain things before the conversation begins, but I don’t think it’s necessary this time. I think the title of the episode explains what you’re going to get. Kate Billington moved to Taiwan. Yes, Kate just decided to move to the other side of the world, and then she did it! Why? How? What’s she doing? How’s it going? That’s what we’re going to talk about, and as you might expect there are a few conversational tangents along the way.
It’s great to have Kate back on the podcast, even if we were not in the same room as each other this time. I hope you enjoy it. I’ll come back and chat to you a little bit at the end (in the audio version), but for now, let’s get started and here we go.
This episode is all about the different modes of communication that we use beyond the 4 linguistic skills of reading, writing, listening speaking. My guest is Nik Peachey who has helped to write a new paper published by OUP called Multimodality in ELT: communication skills for today’s generation. Listen to Nik and me chatting about the importance of multimodal literacy in our social interactions and in the ways we consume and produce media online.
This episode is a conversation all about multimodality in communication. My guest is Nik Peachey, who will introduce himself to you in a few minutes when the conversation part of this episode begins.
Let me give you a bit of background information about how this episode came about, and what the main topic of conversation is.
I was contacted by OUP (they publish academic materials for English teachers and learners – course books but also teacher training materials for English teachers).
They have published a paper about multimodality in ELT and they wanted to see if I was interested in doing an interview with one of the people involved in the writing of this paper. The paper is called Multimodality in ELT: Communication Skills for Today’s Generation.
I thought “Hmm, multimodality, that’s a nice word – sounds interesting”. I was also aware of Nik Peachey already – he’s a fairly well-known figure in the world of English language teaching and publishing, especially in the UK. He’s a name you see at things like teaching conferences or in teacher training.
So I replied to OUP and said I was interested, they sent me a copy of the paper they have published and we arranged this interview, which actually took place a couple of months ago. It turned out to be a very interesting and wide-ranging conversation about so many things.
Let’s consider the title of that paper again “Multimodality in ELT: Communication Skills for Today’s Generation”.
Basically, this is all about how as teachers we always need to be aware of the ways in which learners of English need to use English to communicate in the world today. This involves looking at communication and considering how that happens, and also considering how changes in technology are having an effect.
How do we communicate? Is it just through language? How is our communication affected by advancements in technology?
What OUP are saying, with this paper, is that more and more our communication is multimodal, which means that we communicate in a variety of different ways or modes.
This is not just in terms of the 4 skills – speaking, listening, reading and writing. That is, traditionally, how communication has been defined.
Those are all linguistic or verbal modes (language based), but there are more communication modes than that, including non-verbal ones which are still hugely important. This includes body language, but there is a lot more than that, especially when you consider how much of our communication is mediated through technology these days.
To try and break this down, let’s think about this in two areas: social interactions (the way we speak and listen to each other face to face), and the way we consume media (content such as video, audio, texts).
There is also how these two things (social interactions and media) combine because more and more we use media to communicate – write texts and emails, do video calls, and combine text, images, video and audio to create social media posts.
So, let’s consider these two areas then: social interactions, and media, and let’s think about how they are multimodal – how they involve many various forms of communication.
In terms of social interactions there’s verbal communication (the words we’re using etc) but also body language, facial expressions, gestures, appearance, physical proximity. Also cultural factors come into play such as pop culture references that we use, or different social codes of behaviour in different cultures.
To communicate successfully we need to have an awareness of those social factors.
*Give an example of how I have to consider these things as an English teacher talking to my class – body language, facial expressions, gestures, appearance, physical proximity, cultural references, social codes of behaviour*
The second area is the way multimodality relates to the way we consume media – for example if you watch some video content online, understanding the various ways in which that media is constructed. How certain visuals are important, the use of certain tropes, the use of different fonts, different colours, different editing techniques, music and so on. Understanding these things allows us to decode the media we see, and this is crucial in understanding the intentions behind content we are exposed to, which in turn helps us to detect things like misinformation or just the purpose of the video.
For example, if you show a certain online video to someone who has very little multimodal awareness (like your grandmother or something) it’s not uncommon for this person just to be completely confused by what they’re seeing, or to experience some kind of culture shock. Imagine playing a video of Davie504 on YouTube to my grandmother. By the way Davie504 is an extremely successful YouTuber who makes very distinctive and funny videos about playing the bass guitar. If my gran watched one of his videos, I genuinely think she would not know what was going on. That’s because she isn’t familiar with all the different codes being used.
So it’s important to be have a level of multimodal literacy, so you can properly understand the media you are consuming, but also so that you can also communicate successfully through media yourself, by doing things like creating social media posts which combine sound, video, text and designs.
Nik Peachey is going to give various examples of these things during the conversation, which should help to clarify this all for you.
Ultimately, this is all about the importance of multimodal literacy in both our everyday communication and also in the way we consume content.
I guess for you, as learners of English, you can just consider how language exists as one part of an overall context which also includes things like culture, non-verbal communication, media literacy and more.
I hope you enjoy the conversation!
One note about the sound – I predict that some of you will comment that you found it hard to hear Nik. He’s not using a podcasting or broadcasting microphone, which might make it a little bit hard to hear him at first. You can hear some sounds of the room around him – a bit of echo and reverb. You might have to adjust your ear at the beginning, but you will get used to it. For me, this conversation got more and more interesting as Nik and I got to know each other better and got really into the whole subject of communication in its various modes. I hope you enjoy it too and that it makes you think about how learning English can be about more than just learning words and grammar.
I’ll speak to you again a little bit at the end of the conversation.
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