Category Archives: Love

649. An Unedited Ramble (March 2020) Never Explain, Never Apologise? / No Stress / Method To The Madness / 3 Songs on Guitar

Luke talks on his own without stopping, restarting or editing, including responses to comments about recent episodes, thoughts on the methodology behind this podcast, some vocabulary teaching, a few songs on the guitar and more. This is no-stress episode, and a chance for me to just check in on you and make sure you’re all doing ok out there in the world! 😉

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Image by Larisa Koshkina from Pixabay.

Episode Notes

These are just notes and not a full transcript. Some chunks of target vocabulary are highlighted in bold.

In this episode you’re going to hear me talking on my own, which probably means it’s going to be easier to understand and follow what I’m saying than some of the episodes I’ve uploaded recently, because I’ve uploaded some pretty challenging episodes over the last few weeks and months, and years… I try to mix it up a bit, with some challenging ones and some easier ones. Let’s say the easier ones are when I’m on my own and the more challenging ones are when I’m with other people or when we are breaking down recordings of other people.

But this one is just me, and you, because you’re involved. You’re listening aren’t you?

I hope this will come as something of a relief to you, at least to those of you who are pushing yourselves by listening to my podcast, and who might have quite a tough time understanding the more challenging episodes.

I know that some episodes are difficult to follow sometimes, because of the speed of English you’re hearing from my guests and me, and because we might be talking about subjects that you aren’t so familiar with.

Anyway, no stress today, there’s enough stress in the world. The plan here is just to chat to you, have a good old-fashioned ramble on LEP.

So you can have a bit of a breather today and just enjoy listening to this. And I hope you listen to all of it, from start to the finish. If it makes any difference to you, I will sing you a song or two with my guitar at the end. So if you’d like to hear me singing again, as I do at the end of episodes sometimes, then stick with it and keep listening until the end. Don’t be tempted to skip forward. That’s cheating.

Two words: deferred gratification.

It’s important to have a bit of self-discipline and I’m talking to myself there as much as I’m talking to you.

When I decided to do this episode I thought (and it’s always like this, with these rambling episodes as I’ve come to call them) I decided initially to just talk without preparing anything in advance. Just no pressure, no specific agenda, just speak my mind and try to express the ideas which have been building up in my head since the last time I spoke to you like this.

The idea is that I can keep it authentic, in the moment and I don’t have to spend ages working on it before I even start recording. That’s what I think when I decide to do an episode like this.

But that’s easier said than done, because…. (What happens Luke? How do you end up writing so much in advance?)

Basically: I want to talk with no preparation, but then I have to write some things down or I won’t remember to mention them, but then I end up starting to type out everything in advance.

It’s hard to know when to stop preparing and when to start recording.

So I’ve decided to just get started here without worrying too much about having every single detail prepared in advance.

I know it’s probably not an issue for you, but I’m just giving you bit of insight into what goes through my mind when I prepare and record an episode.

So → No more preparing, it’s time to start talking, which might mean there is some rambling here, which is fine and great.

Episode Aims

The main aim of this episode is to check in on you (make sure you’re doing alright) but not check up on you (to investigate, gather information, spy on someone)
And just chat to you about various things on my mind, things that I think are of interest to you as a member of my audience.
Talk a bit about recent episodes, just to establish where we are.
Give a few bits of news.
Respond to a couple of comments I’ve received
Have a bit of a laugh → just have some fun on the podcast because that is one of my favourite things about doing this. Just messing about and having fun, with no stress involved!
Sing one, two or maybe three songs on the guitar, which I will leave until the end.

As we go through all of this, I am sure that there will be various expressions, vocabulary and other language points that will come up. [A lot of it is highlighted for you here]

When I talk in episodes of this podcast I am sure that some people don’t notice what the method is. Most people like to think there is a specific pedagogical method at work and in my experience it is necessary to tell people (my students for example) exactly what the method is in order to put their minds at rest so they know they’re in safe hands.

What I will say is this – it might not be obvious all the time, but there is method to the madness I can assure you. I’ve been teaching for nearly 20 years now and to an extent I am now just always teaching. I’m always in teaching mode. This means that I’m always thinking about what you while I am talking. I’m always thinking about the listener not because I’m so selfless and wonderful but because I know what I’m doing.

*You don’t need to justify it Luke*

Let’s just say this → Even when it’s not obvious that I am teaching you, I am teaching you. Every minute you listen to this (and indeed most other things you could listen to, but the difference here is that I am doing this specifically for you as a learner of English and even more specifically as a LEPster) … every minute you listen to this is a minute in the bank of your English.

I’ll talk more about methodology and this podcast in a bit. I’m still technically in the introduction here.

I have no idea how long this will take, but it usually takes longer than I expect, so this could easily be two episodes.

But seriously, let’s forget about the clock for a while, ok? Don’t worry about how much time is passing. If you need to stop for some reason, just stop. Your podcasting app will remember where you were when you stopped and you can carry on again when you’re ready.

The main thing is: just listen, just try to follow everything. If you can follow it all without trouble, then fantastic, give yourself a little pat on the back. If you can’t follow it all, just do your best, keep going, don’t give up, rewind and listen to certain bits again if you need to.

And this is where your podcasting app will help once more because you should have those helpful buttons which let you skip back by a few seconds. I use them a lot when I’m listening to podcasts, including ones in French (Any good french podcasts to recommend Luke? I’ll add that to the list for this episode – see below)

You will see various notes on the page for this episode. This is all the stuff I wrote down before recording. It’s not a transcript, but if you hear me saying something and you’re wondering what it is, check out the page and you might see it written there.

I understand that checking a website isn’t all that convenient, even when you have a smartphone to hand.

But anyway, it is there. If you’re listening in an app (including the LEP app) check the show notes → There is a link there that takes you right to the relevant page each time. That’s one of the fastest ways to get straight to the correct page. Otherwise, join the mailing list to have the link sent to your inbox, or just check out the episode archive on teacherluke.co.uk where you can find everything.

Is everyone ok out there? Let’s be honest, this is a pretty crazy time. I hope you’re doing ok. Hang in there, stay positive!

Recent episodes

Ian Moore → It’s interesting that Jack in the comment section mentioned that he found it waaaay easier to understand Ian this time compared to last time. This could well mean that his English listening skills have improved in that period – considering there are about 300 episodes between Ian’s first appearance and his second. So, I’m very happy to hear that, basically.

I’m also happy to have had Ian on the podcast again. He really is a very witty man, not to mention well-dressed. There are a few videos of him online, doing comedy, being interviewed on TV and so on, and he is very good.

Alan Partridge episodes

What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger. (or so they say)

“You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” (and you shouldn’t try to) ~originally attributed to John Lydgate and then Abraham Lincoln.

Slightly puzzling stats for the AP episodes. Part 4 and 6 have a similar number of listens, but episode 5 has about 25% fewer listens. What’s that all about?

The Intercultural Communication Dance with Sherwood Fleming → The main point is, focus on the message, not how the message has been delivered to you. I would also add: be thoughtful, be respectful, think about the other person, listen to them and pay attention to them, adapt your style accordingly. Ultimately it comes down to compassion. Be compassionate. Think about the other person, think about their situation, be less self-involved. Thinking about the other person, what they want and what they are really trying to say → this helps a lot. It helps you avoid conflict and it helps to bring more respect to you. In theory.

Recent Amber & Paul Episodes

It was fantastic to speak to them on the podcast recently. I think it’s best when the three of us have a specific aim for an episode, especially if it is a game of some kind.

Amber had her baby! It’s a girl. Mum and baby are both doing fine. I’m hoping to speak to Amber soon about it, with Paul there too. Congratulations to Amber, her husband, and their little boy who now is the brother to a little baby sister.

Quintessentially British Things

James – A few people going Hmmm. Some saying how fun it is to listen to the two of us, a couple of people saying they found James to be a bit rude because he kept cutting me off. We have a close relationship, but like all brothers we fight sometimes etc… conditions for recording, we both had a lot to say, etc. We mention it at the end of an upcoming episode we’ve done about music.

James’ comment

Hi people, sorry if I came across as rude / impatient. It was late, we were tired, and I’m afraid to say I was very, very drunk. ; )

Ones with Mum and Dad – all positive saying they found them interesting and lovely and I’m lucky to have a family like that, and I am. Episodes of Gill’s Book Club (which it will probably be called) should arrive this year. RT report too, when we feel like it!

A lot of conversations with native speakers at normal speed. What is your method, Luke?

Upcoming music episode with James

Thoughts about the challenge of listening to some of my episodes.

I like to consider the thoughts of my listeners but ultimately I have to go with my gut and use my own judgement

The majority of comments come from LEPsters with pretty good English. So I don’t hear from lower-level listeners so much.

Comments on the website → More people came out of the woodwork and that’s great. I’m not concerned. People need to go out of their way to visit the website, find the episode page, find the comment section, possibly sign into the comment section (Disqus) and write a comment in English. Most people just end up being ninjas often because there are various little barriers in the way. I get it!

People comment in various ways → comment section, email, twitter, facebook, Youtube. The LEPsters’ comments are spread out all over the place. So they’re not all consolidated in one place. Maybe I should just stick to ONE platform, but I think this would ultimately make it more complicated for people to listen.

Premium → I am working on new stuff all the time. I say it’s about grammar, vocab & pron, and it is, but that sounds a bit dry doesn’t it? Remember – it’s still me, I’m still trying to do it in the LEP way, which means I make efforts to keep it entertaining at all times, as well as clear. Upcoming episodes will be about common errors I’ve noticed in comments and emails and things.

LEPster meet up in Paris + stand up show from me?

World Book Day – Thursday 5 March. https://www.worldbookday.com/

You’re reading a book, right? What are you reading?

Name: Miguel

Message: Hello there Luke, it is a great pleasure to be one of your thousands of listeners. Must admit that I am on the ninja´s listener side…Just a quick question, What kind of book would you suggest I should read in order to improve my english comprehension? I am going for the c1 advanced by the way and the big deal for me is the huge amount of sources offered on the Internet…

Thanks in advance my friend, carry on the good work!

Luke’s Reply

To be honest Miguel, you should just pick a book that you really want to read and that you will probably enjoy. You could pick the English version of one of your favourite books or perhaps a book of a film you like.

You can also get graded books at the C1 level, which would also be a good idea.

I’m assuming you mean reading novels rather than grammar/vocab books.

Hope that helps.

Check these episodes from the archive

439. Reading Books to Learn English

256. Reading Books in English (and listening to them too)

French podcasts (difficult to find the right one for me, I must be quite picky)

Un Cafe Au Lot 7 → Louis Dubourg chats with French stand-up comedians, including some of my friends and acquaintances. Paul is interviewed there, so is Seb Marx and also some other big names like Fary and Gad Elmaleh.

French Voices → Conversations with interesting people with some things to look out for in English at the start)

French Your Way Podcast –> Specifically about teaching us French, making things clear and memorable, correcting certain mistakes, a lot of it is in English. Jessica is on maternity leave, starting in June. She’s probably fully involved with her baby. I hope she comes back soon when she is able to.

This comment is sponsored by LEP Premium – www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Message: Hello Luke,

I have been a regular listener of your fantastic podcasts since 2018 and I am the one who requested an episode on the topic of “articles” a couple of weeks ago.

I just finished the fifth episode of this series this morning and I must say that it is the most brilliant episode that you have ever recorded. I didn’t not think you were capable of doing that in 2009 because this requires a lot of experience. I do not know if the Lepsters realize the amount of work that you have performed to complete this series. During the last 20 years, I have often searched for such a lesson focused on the right use of articles but I have never found it. There are so many rules but also exceptions that it drives me nuts. As a neuroradiologist at Lille University hospital, I regularlly write scientific papers on neurovascular diseases in international journals and I am frustrated to systematically see the editorial office of the journal change my sentences by adding or removing articles. I feel more confident now even if it takes a long time to master the correct use of articles.

I don’t know if I have correctly used the articles in this message but I am very happy to get a comprehensive document on this topic.

Thanks a lot Luke and keep it up. You are such a lovely person who is very inspiring to me.

Take care

Xavier

Luke’s response

Oh what a wonderful email, thank you very much Xavier.

Yes, you used all the articles correctly in this email. I’m glad to see my episode has helped you!

I’m also very glad to receive emails such as this, from interesting and intelligent people who actually use my content to actively improve their English. It’s very inspiring.

TRANSCRIPTION PROJECT

This is a community effort in which LEPsters can transcribe episodes of the podcast.

I’ve mentioned it before, now I’m mentioning it again.

Antonio’s comment

The transcription project is one of the most powerful options we have in this podcast.

Since I started learning English, I’ve always heard the same piece of advice from teachers I’ve been listening to, which is: “We must read, listen and write to have better English skills.”

Well, the transcription project is the perfect example and could allow us to reach this goal entirely.

The transcription project does not only involve transcribing but also proofreading episodes. That’s why I created two teams. The Orion team makes the transcriptions, and the Andromeda team proofreads and corrects the texts done by the Orion team.

And I want to tell to people, asking to join the project, that we can fulfil our goals staying in this project longer than one or two episodes. Nobody is going to encourage us or give a hug or give a kiss. Still, the joy of seeing this project growing up and becoming better than when we started participating in it is immense. Staying for an extended period allows you to see your real improvement.

When you proofread the episodes you did one year before, you are going to find a lot of mistakes and misheard words. That means that you can hear sounds and terms you couldn’t hear previously. That also means that you are becoming a better English speaker.

As I’ve often said, the transcription project is a hard task to do, sometimes we can feel bored, but we can not forget why we are doing it and what goal we want to reach. Mastering a language when you don’t live with native speakers is very hard. This project and Luke’s English Podcast episodes allow us to fill the gap. However, we need something more to stay in this project longer. We need to have another goal. A different goal than learning English. A goal which means giving back something to others.

Yes! Learning plus giving back is something much more powerful. We learn English for free, and we transcribe episodes and correct them for free.

Doing that we fulfil another goal: We help everyone coming to LEP to learn faster with our transcripts. The number of them is close to 342. (probably more since this was done – because 618. The Climate Crisis is also finished now and needs to be proofread).

I started my collaboration in 2015, and even if I am not as good an English speaker as I want, I know I am much better than then.

Thanks to people joining the Orion and Andromeda teams, staying with me, and helping me to continue with this project.

Cara Leopold → ptholome/Antonio • (Paraphrased / a reply to a different but similar comment also by Antonio)

I don’t think people realise how important it is to keep listening and coming back to the same material, instead of just moving on to the next thing. Your engagement becomes much deeper and you’re more likely to learn and remember the new words, as well as improve your listening skills. I also really like the fact that it’s collaborative and that the transcription improves over time as more people listen to it – a community effort!

3 Songs by Neil Innes

Click the links for lyrics and chords.

I Must Be In Love https://neilinnes.media/wp-content/themes/neil-innes/chords/oooolalala.html

I Love You https://neilinnes.media/wp-content/themes/neil-innes/chords/loveyou.html

Let’s Be Natural https://neilinnes.media/wp-content/themes/neil-innes/chords/natural.html

Jurgen Klopp’s response when asked about Coronavirus is absolutely class. This man speaks so much sense, absolutely spot on. 👏 pic.twitter.com/NlfxlNQ9Iu

— FutbolBible (@FutbolBible) March 4, 2020

645. British Comedy: Alan Partridge (Part 4)

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Listening to some more classic British comedy and dissecting it for language. This time we’re listening to some more clips of Alan Partridge, a comedy character played by Steve Coogan. This is part 4 of a series I started in 2018.

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Introduction

Hello there, dear listener, and welcome back to this podcast for learners of English as a foreign or second language or third, or fourth. In these episodes I try to help you learn English while having a laugh at the same time. We cover a lot of British culture in these episodes including lots of stuff about comedy and there’s lots of English to be learned in the process.

Here’s another episode about Alan Partridge, a comedy character played by Steve Coogan. This is part 4 of a series I started in autumn 2018.

You should listen to parts 1-3 (episodes 548-550) before hearing this. Seriously, if you haven’t heard the other parts yet – stop right now and go back to hear them. This will not make much sense to you unless you’ve heard parts 1-3 so go back and listen to them instead, before you listen to this. Alright? OK, so only the people who have already heard parts 1-3 (episodes 548-550) are still with me now then… It should be just those who’ve… what about you there?… yes, you I don’t remember you listening to the other parts. Probably best to hear those first, like I said, so… probably stop and go back… in the archive. (episodes 548-550) Ok you’re still listening. No that’s fine, just ignore, yep, just ignore what I said, yeah, because this doesn’t apply to you does it… just carry on then… don’t blame me though if this doesn’t make sense… not my fault, I did say… just one thing though, when you don’t get it, don’t even think about saying “this is British humour”… no this is not “British humour” ok, “this is poor listening skills and bloody mindedness”. OK, fine. Unbelievable.

I’m just kidding, everyone’s welcome! Here is another episode about British comedy legend Alan Partridge and this is part 4.

When I did parts 1-3 in autumn 2018, I wasn’t sure what people would think, but overall the response was really positive, with lots of people saying they’d like to hear more.

Here’s a comment I just got from a LTL called Aritz, which sums it up quite well I think.

Hey Luke! I wanted to write to you about the Alan Partridge episodes. Thank you so much for taking your time to record them! Although I already knew Steve Coogan, you managed to make me understand the character (Alan) and the comedian in more depth. The episodes were educational, funny and somehow brought us a bit of British culture (something that as a London resident I always appreciate). Seriously good (great!!) stuff! Thanks again!

Well then, let’s enter the world of Alan again then.

What we’re going to do here is listen to some clips of Alan Partridge and break it all down for language learning.

Hmmm, which clips should I choose. There’s so much. We’re spoiled for choice.

I’ve decided to deal with clips from “I’m Alan Partridge” Series 1, episode 2 which follows on from the episode when he has that meeting with Tony Hayers and it goes all wrong and he squishes some cheese into his face.

I’ve chosen this episode because you already know the context of the story and it makes sense to carry on from where we were after hearing that scene. Also, this episode is just brilliant from start to finish (in my opinion of course, other opinions are available)

One thing I would like to say here is that I really want to recommend that you actually buy some Alan Partridge content. It’s really worth it. You should get a DVD or buy a series on iTunes or wherever you can.

I’d strongly recommend getting the DVDs for I’m Alan Partridge series 1 and 2. Also you could check out Mid Morning Matters series 1 and 2 if they’re available. If you’re in the UK you should find most of the AP content on the BBC iPlayer, including the recent series This Time with Alan Partridge (I recommend episode 4).

As well as those, you could get the Alan Partridge books. The first one is called “I, Partridge – We Need to Talk about Alan” and the second one is called “Nomad”. They are both absolutely brilliant and it’s not an exaggeration to say they are literally the best books I’ve ever read. Ok, that is an exaggeration, but it’s really not an exaggeration to say that the audiobook versions really are the best audiobooks I’ve ever heard.

The cool thing about the audiobooks is that they are read out by Alan himself (actually the actor Steve Coogan of course) and this is just amazing. You get hours of Alan reading you both his books and it’s absolutely top drawer comedy writing, and top-drawer voice acting too. Steve Coogan is a genius.

So, you could sign up with Audible and get the two Alan Partridge books.

And it just so happens that my Audible offer is still available!

You download the app on your phone, sign up with Audible and create an account to get the audiobooks, then download them onto your phone.

The offer is: One month of free Audible membership + any audiobook of your choice completely free.

If you like, you can cancel your membership before the end of the month and keep the free book.

So it’s essentially a free audiobook.

www.Audibletrial.com/teacherluke or click an audible logo on my website.

And also there’s the Alan Partridge film, called Alpha Papa, in which Alan gets involved in an armed hostage situation at a radio station and ends up being the hostage negotiator.

So – plenty of Alan content for you to purchase, some of it free.

OK, I just wanted to promote the various bits of Alan Partridge stuff that you can get before we begin.

Right then, so where were we last time?

Context

Alan Partridge is this TV and radio presenter from Norwich in East Anglia in England who basically only cares about getting on television and enjoying the status of being a national broadcaster. He’s convinced he’s A-Grade talent, when in fact he’s at best a D-grade broadcaster or worse. He’s pretty much an awful person, although there are obviously worse people out there. Really, Alan is just lost, deluded, cowardly and deceitful rather than being out and out cruel or evil, although he treats his personal assistant Lynn pretty badly. But there’s something compelling about Alan, even though we certainly don’t want to be him, we might recognise ourselves in him. Is he uniquely British? In a way, yes. We tend to enjoy watching comedy characters who are quite awful, who think they’re better than they are, who are unaware of themselves.

We’re usually quite self-conscious people who try our best to avoid being like Alan, so maybe there’s something quite cathartic about watching someone who is so unaware of himself and so unafflicted by modesty and self-consciousness.

Anyway, I shouldn’t try to explain all of that. I did enough in parts 1-3.

Let’s just get down to business.

So, Alan is a parody (he’s not a real person of course, just a character – that should be clear) a parody of a certain type of TV presenter. He used to be a sports reporter, then he got his own chat show, but accidentally killed a man on live TV. Now he has been thrown out by his wife, their marriage has broken up, probably because of him. In fact it’s all covered in the I, Partridge audiobook. Alan is now living in a roadside motel, or “Travel Tavern”. Somehow he avoided criminal proceedings from what happened on his chat show. Then he failed to get a second series of his show and ended up having a meltdown and punching his boss in the face with a piece of cheese while shouting “Smell my cheese you mother!”

So basically, he doesn’t have a second series and his career is on the rocks.

He’s still presenting a radio show on BBC Radio Norwich, but he’s got the pre-breakfast slot, which is something like 4.30-6.30AM. It’s the graveyard shift, basically. He’s drifting into obscurity.

In this episode, Alan attempts to deal with the fact that he doesn’t have a second series. He’s got to face up to certain financial realities, meaning that he can’t move into his new 5 bedroom house, he has to get a much cheaper car and he’s going to have to lay off (or sack, or fire) almost everyone who he employs at his media production company. He employs about 5 people there, including a middle-aged woman called Jill who he fancies.

Mostly in the episode we follow Alan as he deals with these things, badly in most cases. So he has to sack his production staff, get a smaller car and try to maintain his dignity while living in a shitty travel tavern.

It’s valentine’s day in this episode, so there’s a kind of romantic theme – I say romantic, it’s not romantic at all really, but Alan ends up chatting up Jill from his production company and takes her out on a date. Lynn, his personal assistant seems a bit jealous. The whole thing goes wrong of course.

We’re going to do pretty much the whole episode here.

I’m Alan Partridge S1 E2

There is a laughter track on this, which is a pity, but honestly after a while you start to ignore it.

Alan’s radio show

Opening scenes on BBC Radio Norwich

What to watch out for:

Alan’s dedication to his PA Lynn
Why there’s no telephone Cluedo today
What Alan says about the sound effect (the normal morning cockrel and then the sound of a kiss)
How does Alan define Valentine’s Day?
How Alan gets the tone of a light pre-breakfast radio show completely wrong by talking about syphilis
How Alan ruins Dave Clifton’s joke about valentines cards “It’s valentines day! I came down this morning and I couldn’t open my door. I couldn’t open my door because I’d lost my key” ~terrible joke
How Alan manages to plug chocolate oranges from Rawlinsons

That’s not the sound of someone kissing me, or kissing a cock… cockrel I mean. It’s simply a way of saying “it’s valentines day”, a day upon which mr Al Capone ruined a romantic night out for many diners by massacring them. Died of syphillis he did, so there is some justice.

Alan in the reception

What’s the problem he has with Ben, who he says good morning to?
How does he subtly insult Susan on reception?
What’s the situation with Alan and the chocolate oranges?
What’s Alan’s fat back?
Can Sophie exchange her dark chocolate orange for a milk chocolate one?
Someone says “Excuse me, are you Alan Partridge?” – why?
What’s Alan’s complaint about the soap? (he acts out a washing routine in the shower)
Who sent Sophie a Valentine’s card?

Alan and Lynn talk about finances

What’s the good news?
And the bad news?
What about his Rover 800? Is he willing to drive a Mini Metro to save money?
What does he have to do re: Pear Tree Productions?
How does Lynn feel about Jill?
What’s Alan’s scam at the breakfast buffet?

The story continues in part 5…

603. Queen / Freddie Mercury / Bohemian Rhapsody (with Alex Love)

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A conversation with Queen fan Alex Love about one of the UK’s most famous and iconic bands. This episode has been requested many times by listeners, so finally – here it is!

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Notes, Links & Videos

No transcript for the intro to this episode, but there is a transcript for the ending (below)

Queen at Live Aid 1985

Alex Love “How to win a Pub Quiz: British Edition” at Edinburgh Fringe 2019

The Stand, Room 2. 12 o’clock noon, throughout August (but not 12 August).

Tickets here https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/alex-love-how-to-win-a-pub-quiz-british-edition

Ending Transcript

So that was Alex Love talking about one of his favourite bands, Queen.

I hope you managed to follow all of that. I understand that the sound quality wasn’t exactly perfect and Alex can be a bit of a mumbler sometimes, but this is good practice – not every conversation or bit of listening you’ll do will happen in completely perfect acoustic conditions. It’s good training to listen to conversations like this from time to time.

So I know that plenty of you out there are big fans of Queen and you might have things to say yourselves, so I’d like to invite you to leave your comments in the comment section.

You can write responses to any of the things that came up in this conversation and here are some questions for you too. These are pretty much the questions I asked Alex I think.

How did you first get into Queen?
What’s their appeal, to you and to everyone?
How would you describe their sound?
What’s the story of the band? Do you know their origins and how they went on to become such a huge band?
What are your favourite songs of theirs and why?
What’s Bohemian Rhapsody all about (the song)?
What about the film Bohemian Rhapsody? Have you seen it? What did you think of it? And have you seen Rocketman the Elton John film?
What can you tell me about the individual members of the band? What was the dynamic between them all? (Often seems to be the secret to every band’s magic)

So do feel free to write some things in the comment section in response to any of those questions.

If you’re heading to Edinburgh for the Fringe this year, why not check out Alex’s show, which is always a hit at the festival. It’s called How To Win a Pub Quiz and it is part stand up comedy show and part pub quiz. It’s described in the fringe website as being an interactive comedy game show. It is a lot of fun.

https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/alex-love-how-to-win-a-pub-quiz-british-edition

It’s on every day (except 12 August) at 12 noon at The Stand Comedy Club (room 2).

Tickets are available at tickets.edfrindge.com (check the link on the page for this episode).

Go along you will have fun!

That’s it for this episode.

Just a reminder about premium content. I’ve uploaded series 13 and series 14 is almost ready to go now. So, plenty of premium stuff available now and it’s all about repeating, demonstrating and clarifying language which has come up naturally in conversations on the podcast, and there are pronunciation drills focusing on different aspects of pronunciation each time. Episodes and PDFs available in the app and online. Go to teacherluke.co.uk/premium to get started.

Again, things might be a little bit quiet with the free podcast, but premium episodes are coming.

OK, I look forward to reading your comments as they come in.

No song from me, as Alex requested, just because I don’t feel really good enough to tackle a song by Queen. They’re all too technical and Freddy’s voice is so strong and has so much range to it that it’s hard to do covers of Queen songs, but perhaps if I somehow meet up with Alex we can do some kind of duet, which I’m sure would be absolutely horrible… but if that’s what the people want, that’s what I’ll do!

But for now…

Good bye…

580. Ramble / Listener Comments / Robots / Vampires / Two Taps in the Bathroom

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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.

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Episode Transcript & Notes

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/

That’s it! Thanks for listening :)

Luke

557. I’m a Rambling Guy (Monologue – Autumn 2018)

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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.

Audio Version

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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.

Steve Martin – I’m a Rambling Guy (on Spotify)

502. The Birth of My Daughter

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Talking about the birth of my baby daughter, including accounts of the main events and how it all felt. Listen carefully for descriptive vocabulary for describing emotions and feelings as well as the language of childbirth previously explained in episodes 491 and 492.

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Introduction Transcript

Welcome to the podcast, happy new year. I hope you had a good one wherever you are, however you chose to celebrate it – whether you went out to a party, saw some fireworks or something, or simply chose to stay in and just read a book on your own – whatever you did, I hope you enjoyed it and that now you’re ready to get stuck into 2018 with some positivity, determination and some hope in your heart even if you are still recovering from your night of celebrations on new year’s eve.

Here’s the first episode of LEP in 2018.

I’ve chosen to make this a personal episode of the podcast.

Our baby daughter has finally arrived. She’s absolutely adorable (but I would say that of course) and my wife and I both feel extremely lucky, very grateful and proud. I tweeted about this, put a post on FB about it and also wrote something in the comment section just to let my listeners know – because I feel that quite a lot of you were keen to get updates since you’ve been following this news since I talked about it in episode 474.

This is what I wrote on FB and Twitter:

Good news! Our baby was born yesterday (Boxing Day). She’s doing well and so is her mum. We’re delighted and a bit exhausted. I expect there will be a pause in the podcast for a little while but LEP will be back soon. Happy New Year and cheers everyone!! ❤️

— Luke Thompson (@EnglishPodcast) December 27, 2017

The response I got was amazing (to me). Hundreds of people wrote lovely messages of congratulation and the post got over 1000 likes on Facebook. Thank you for the lovely messages.

I was wondering whether I’d talk about this on the podcast. After all, this is a podcast which is ostensibly about learning English and not about all the details of my personal life. I don’t want this podcast to become some sort of reality show, and it won’t be.

But I have decided that perhaps I should talk about this very personal experience here on the podcast in at least one episode.

Let me explain why…

I was listening to Olly Richards Podcast on my way home from the hospital – perhaps one or two days after the baby was born. My wife was in the hospital with our brand new daughter and I was going back to our flat to tidy it up, wash some baby clothes, warm the place up and prepare it for the arrival of the baby and my wife but also my parents and my brother. It would be the first time our daughter had come home, having spent the first few days of her life in a room in the maternity ward in hospital – in safe surroundings, with midwives and nurses available around the clock, with all the care she needed – and I was suddenly aware (much more intensely aware I should say) that I needed to make our flat a proper nest for this little creature to be comfortable, warm and safe. I was aware of the importance of this before of course, and we had already done a lot of things in the Flat to get it ready – my wife’s nesting instinct had kicked in months before, but mine was only really kicking in now as the baby had arrived. So I was heading back, leaving the two girls in the hospital ward, which was the whole world as far as the baby was concerned. Feeling pretty raw and lots of emotions. Virtually sleepless night. You know how it is. I decided to listen to something and picked an episode of I will teach you a language with Olly Richards featuring a fascinating interview with Stephen Krashen. He’s a celebrated linguist and the guy behind language acquisition theory.

Olly and Stephen were talking about how people learn languages. Krashen was giving the benefit of his extensive experience and research into the subject. He’s been searching for the answer to this question for years. How do we learn languages? What are the best habits we can adopt? What can language teachers do to help?

He’s convinced that he has the answer and it’s all to do with comprehensible input – exposing yourself to lots of English (in this case) that you can understand (mostly) and that is motivating to listen to. He was particularly enthusiastic about stories. Search for interesting stories. Listen to people telling stories. Find stories in which you want to know what happens next.

He was very convincing about it.

You can listen to the interview on Olly’s Podcast.

“I Will Teach You A Language – Episode 220: Stephen Krashen Interview”

In my sleep deprived and emotional state I felt totally open to what he was saying and it struck me as being so true.

I thought of some of my best English lessons that I’ve taught and I realised that many of them included stories – not just stories in textbooks or whatever, but stories about personal experiences. Telling the students a funny personal story. Having them try to retell the story, write it down, test each other, creatively think of ways to continue the story with their own ideas, and giving them chances to tell their own similar stories. They’ve always been great lessons.

And I thought of times I’ve told stories on the podcast – like travelling experiences or episodes of the lying game. I like those episodes.

Then I thought about this episode which I felt I had to do – trying to explain what it’s like to bring a child into the world. And i thought – I’ll just try and tell it like a story, starting from the pregnancy and then going through the different stages of what happened and how they felt.

Then I started preparing some notes for it, sitting on the sofa and I asked my wife to help me with some ideas and then I just thought – why don’t I just interview her about the experience?

I’ve never had my wife on the podcast before as you know but it just made sense for her to be in this episode because after all she’s the one who did all the work in this birth and she seemed up for talking about it, and so why not just let her tell the story with me?

So, that’s what you’re going to hear – two proud parents describing the birth of their first child. I hope you find it to be interesting and that it’s not too cheesy or sentimental or anything.

So we’re going to start at the beginning (not the moment of conception, we won’t be talking about that) but we’ll start somewhere during the pregnancy and we’ll try and tell you our experience from then to now.

Hopefully this will be an engaging story that will help you learn English according to Stephen Krashen’s theory – remember you can listen to the episodes called Becoming a Dad which I recorded with Ben and Andy – that’s where you’ll find vocabulary explanations for many of the words and phrases relating to this subject.

Hopefully this will also just get across to you the weird and wonderful mix of feelings and emotions that are involved in what is a very significant moment in anyone’s life, in this case mine and my wife’s and of course our daughter’s.

Here we go…

Conversation

Outtro

So that was my wife on the podcast for the first time. I hope you enjoyed listening to it and that you managed to follow the whole thing.

Let us know in the comment section what you think.
Feel free to share your own experiences if you have any – that could be a good way to practise your writing a bit. Have you had children? What was it like to you? Was your experience similar to ours, or different?
Do you have any advice for us as new parents?

If you have questions about any of the language which came up, you could ask those questions in the comment section.

If you ever do that – ask specific questions about words or phrases you’ve heard – it really helps if you put a time code with your question – e.g. what did Luke say at 45:30?

It’s nice to be back on the podcast and I’m really looking forward to posting more new episodes in the coming year.

2018 will be the 9th year I’ve been doing this podcast.

Don’t forget to download the LEP app – it’s available in the app store. That’s where you can find some app-only episodes, and also some bonus content for a lot of the episodes. For example, for episode 501 the bonus content is a little video in which I show you one of the presents I received for Christmas.

Also, you should join the mailing list in order to get an email whenever I post something on the website – that’s usually a new podcast episode, but sometimes it’s other content – like for example a couple of weeks ago I posted an episode of The Earful Tower Podcast with Oliver Gee in which Oliver and I recorded a conversation about the Paris Metro while riding the Paris metro. You can find that in the episode archive on my website, but if you’re a mailing list subscriber you’ll already know about it, right?

OK, that’s it for this episode, I’ll speak to you again on the podcast soon. But for now, it’s time to say good-bye!

500. EPISODE 500 CELEBRATION! (PARTS 1 & 2)

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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.

[DOWNLOAD PART 1] [DOWNLOAD PART 2]

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

Get the app on your phone. Download links below.

This is the best way to keep up with episodes of the podcast and get access to special app-only content.

All episodes of LEP are available in the app – every archived episode, all new releases and some exclusive app-only content. Also, check out the bonus gifts and easter eggs, pdfs and more…

Download Luke’s English Podcast App from the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store or the Microsoft App Store. Links below.

 iPhone/iPad – APPLE APP STORE |ANDROID – GOOGLE PLAY STORE 📱

Description

This is the most convenient way to access all episodes of Luke’s English Podcast on your iPhone, including special bonus episodes only available in the app.

This app gives you complete access to Luke’s English Podcast and if you’re a fan of the show you will not want to live without it!

The app contains the following features:
* Option to stream or download all episodes for offline listening
* Access to exclusive app-only episodes and pdfs
* Episode notes and transcripts available in the app
* Always updated with the latest episodes – and the full episode archive
* You can *star* your favourite episodes and save them to a list in order to easily enjoy them over and over again
* Speed control so you can listen faster or slower if you want
* Skip forwards or backwards by 30 seconds if you missed something
* Sleep timer so you can fall asleep to my voice without missing anything!
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Thank you for downloading this app and supporting the show!

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.

460 Catching Up With Amber & Paul #6 (feat. Sarah Donnelly)

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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.

[DOWNLOAD]

Introduction

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 blisteringly hot

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. Make mistakes.

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.

398. US Election Result Ramble + Message + Song

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In this episode I want to talk about two things: My first impressions of the US Presidential election result, and then some things I said in the last episode of this podcast. I just want to clear up some comments I made last time. I just want to get straight into it. So here we go.

[DOWNLOAD]

It’s a mad mad mad mad world!

Everything will be alright, in the end. And if it’s not alright, it’s not the end.

(I have to thank Mark Kermode for that one)

"Everything will be all right …" pic.twitter.com/OElZWRCRVl

— Mark Kermode (@KermodeMovie) July 30, 2016

Bloody hell! Donald Trump got elected!

Oh my god, can you believe it? You’d better believe it because it’s true. More on that in a minute.

I just want to record this episode and get it out there to you quickly without spending time on pre-production and all that stuff so it might be a bit rambly and a bit sketchy.

The main reason I’m recording this is that I have a couple of things I want to get off my chest in response to the previous episode of this podcast. Just some things on my mind that I want to communicate to you, and that’s the main reason I’m recording this quickly now on Tuesday 9 November.

But also, of course the big news of the day is the US presidential election – and that’s what’s going on, certainly in my world – probably in your world too – it’s all about the election because the result came in just a few hours ago that Trump has been elected president.

Let me say that again – Donald Trump is the 45th President of the USA.

So, I have got to talk about that a bit at the top of the episode here.

I hope you don’t press stop ❤️

Please do stick around for the whole episode. I do hope you listen to it all because I have some sincere things to say to you. Yes, don’t press stop! Please do listen! Please feel completely welcome at all times while listening to this! I hope you don’t press stop! In the last episode I know that I said some dismissive and glib things like “you can stop listening if you don’t like it” – sorry, I hope you didn’t feel that was dismissive and unfriendly sounding. I was just feeling a bit… ‘hangry’ or frustrated. Of course I always want you to listen and I am extremely happy when people do listen. I’ll talk more about that stuff later. I’ve got some things to say to you my audience – so I hope you do stick around for that.

But first – Donald Trump

Yes, the joke going round is that the UK is no longer the most stupid nation on earth. After Brexit we had the title for about 5 months and now it’s gone back to the USA, back to normal. Back to that good old feeling that we had when they elected George Bush twice in a row. Ah… That is the joke that people are making…

Except this time it seems worse somehow – at least it seems more shocking, I don’t know – what do you think? Are you shocked, glad? A lot of feelings will be flying around today I expect, especially if you care about this subject at all.

That Brexit feeling is back again.

It’s a strange feeling.

A huge event has happened. It’s a historic moment.

What a year it has been.

I’ve tried to capture how it feels.

How did Trump win?

An interesting article from TheWeek.co.uk: http://www.theweek.co.uk/theweekday/story/78497

367. Talking about Nothing with Alex Love (Invaded by Robot Aliens) PART 2

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Hello and welcome to part 2 of this conversation with my friend Alex Love. If you haven’t already heard part 1 I suggest you go back and listen to that. I’ve divided this episode into two parts just because I thought it was a bit long and that it would be easier for you to deal with two slightly shorter episodes than one epically long one.

[DOWNLOAD]
So, just to remind you – I invited Alex on the podcast to talk about his Edinburgh show called “How to Win a Pub Quiz” but we spent most of the episode talking about stuff in general, including quite a lot of unspecific rambling about nothing in particular – which is one of my favourite topics. If you remember, part 1 ended with Alex going into his bathroom in an attempt to get a better internet connection on his phone because the signal kept breaking up, making it sound like our Skype call was being invaded by evil robot aliens or something.

So, we carry on now with Alex in the bathroom in Manchester and me in the SkyPod in my flat in Paris. So here we go.

*Conversation Continues*

Title: Alex Love – How to Win a Pub Quiz

Venue: The Stand 5 & 6 (Venue 319)
Dates: Aug 4-14
Time: 12:00 lunch time
Length: 1 hour

Description from the Ed Fringe website: This highly interactive show is part stand-up, part actual pub quiz. Expand your trivia, compete against other teams, witness results. After playing to capacity crowds in 2015, this unique hour is back with more facts, prizes and niche-referenced nonsense.
Reviews: ‘Alex Love is great fun’ (Scotsman). ‘It takes quite a show to create such a sense of engagement that one music question can become a full-blown sing-along, but this is the spirit of How to Win a Pub Quiz.’ (BroadwayBaby.com). ‘Such a quick brain’ (We Are Funny Project).
Bookings: https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/alex-love-how-to-win-a-pub-quiz

Alex on Twitter: @thisalexlove https://twitter.com/thisalexlove

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Now, go and make a jet-pack and your dreams of flying will come true! Yes you can!

;)

Luke

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Episode Notes

Episode Aims

Recent episodes

3 Songs by Neil Innes

Introduction

Context

I’m Alan Partridge S1 E2

Alan’s radio show

Alan in the reception

Alan and Lynn talk about finances

The story continues in part 5…

Notes, Links & Videos

Ending Transcript

Episode Transcript & Notes

Podcast Stats

Episode 600 / 10th Birthday of LEP

LEPster MeetUps

Alex Love’s Comedy Show in New Zealand

English Robot 3000

Vampires in the Comment Section?

Two taps in the bathroom

Audio Version

[DOWNLOAD]

Notes, Transcripts & More – A Rambling Monologue (October 2018)

So my challenges in this episode are…

Here’s a run-down of the stuff I’m going to ramble about in this episode.

Transcripts

French test and citizenship

My Duck-related error

Responses to the Alan Partridge episodes

…and the Russian Comedy Club video from episode 552

Moving out of the sky-pod

How are your wife and daughter?

Introduction Transcript

**Conversation**

Outtro

The Luke’s English Podcast APP is NOW AVAILABLE

Get the app on your phone. Download links below.

This is the best way to keep up with episodes of the podcast and get access to special app-only content.

All episodes of LEP are available in the app – every archived episode, all new releases and some exclusive app-only content. Also, check out the bonus gifts and easter eggs, pdfs and more…

Download Luke’s English Podcast App from the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store or the Microsoft App Store. Links below.

 iPhone/iPad – APPLE APP STORE |ANDROID – GOOGLE PLAY STORE 📱

Description

This is the most convenient way to access all episodes of Luke’s English Podcast on your iPhone, including special bonus episodes only available in the app.

Introduction

Questions

Vocabulary and other language points – Explained

It’s a mad mad mad mad world!

Everything will be alright, in the end. And if it’s not alright, it’s not the end.

Bloody hell! Donald Trump got elected!

I hope you don’t press stop ❤️

How did Trump win?

Title: Alex Love – How to Win a Pub Quiz

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Conversation