Category Archives: Motivation

838. A 3-Hour Mega-Ramble / Reflecting on a Wonderful Spring Day in Paris

This is the longest episode of LEP so far, and it’s a solo ramble. Relax, follow my words, hang out with me for 3 hours, get stranded on a desert island of the imagination, and then get rescued. Includes a haircut, a sleep and a t-shirt change during the episode.

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PDF Script / Notes for this episode 👇

834. The best way to learn a language, according to research (Article) 📖

Reading an article by Gavin Lamb (PhD) about the conclusions of academic studies into language learning, and adding my own reflections and comments. What does research tell us about the best way to learn a language? What are the most important things to consider? What are the best methods? The article boils it all down to three main points.

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📖 Gavin Lamb’s article on Medium.com https://medium.com/the-faculty/what-does-the-research-say-about-the-best-way-to-learn-another-language-797882ee0b45

https://medium.com/the-faculty/what-does-the-research-say-about-the-best-way-to-learn-another-language-797882ee0b45

Some previous episodes which are also about how to learn English 👇

831. Learning How to Learn with Hadar Shemesh

A conversation with Hadar Shemesh, a non-native speaker who has improved her English to a very high level, and who now shares her knowledge and experience with the world through her podcast and YouTube channel. Hadar describes her own experiences of learning English and mastering pronunciation. This episode is all about the voyage of discovery that is learning a language.

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👉 Hadar’s website https://hadarshemesh.com/

👉 Hadar’s podcast (InFluency Podcast) https://hadarshemesh.com/influency-podcast/

👉 Hadar’s YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClPyOwXLnSMejFdLvJXjA5A

👉 Hadar’s episode with Luke 👇

Audio & podcast links 👉 https://hadarshemesh.com/magazine/interview-with-luke-from-lukes-english-podcast/ 

Video version 👇

827. An Interview for a Study about Language Learning Podcasts (Carlos Soares, University of Aveiro)

Carlos Soares, from the University of Aveiro in Portugal, is doing a master’s degree dissertation all about language learning podcasts. He contacted me to conduct an interview as part of his research, and he agreed for me to publish it as an episode of my podcast. Carlos asks me about my thoughts on learning English through listening, my approach to making my podcast and some other details.

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👉 Take Carlos’ survey here https://forms.ua.pt/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=699278&lang=en

816. Kate Billington in the Podcastle

Kate Billington returns to LEP for the third time, to drink tea, talk about my pod-room, learning the bassoon, exam results, learning Chinese, responding to listener comments and talking about her videos on TikTok.

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Links and things

The British Council on TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/@britishcouncilenglish?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

Kate’s video about “It’s raining cats and dogs”

@britishcouncilenglish Replying to @sentimentalbxtch Way ahead of you! #learnontiktok #learnenglish #idioms #edutok #vocabulary #english ♬ original sound – British Council English

@britishcouncilenglish ♬ original sound – British Council English
@britishcouncilenglish Kate’s back with another ‘very funny joke’ (she made me write that…)! Tell us what you think! #britishhumour #britishcomedy #englishteacher #learnenglish #learnontiktok #vocabulary ♬ original sound – British Council English

British Council Mini-English Lesson on For & Since

Previous appearances on LEP

Introduction Transcript

Hello listeners,

Welcome back to Luke’s English Podcast. I hope you are doing fine out there in podcast land.

Kate Billington is back on the podcast today. Of course, you remember her from episodes 689 and 705. 

If you heard those episodes I’m sure you will remember Kate and I know that a lot of you out there will be very happy that she is back again and yes, Kate’s return to this podcast is long overdue. She was a very popular guest when she was on the show before. So it’s great to have her back.

Some of you don’t know Kate because you haven’t heard those episodes but there’s no need for me to introduce her fully now in the intro because I kind of do that again during the conversation, except that Kate is an English teacher from England and we work together at the British Council.

People sometimes ask if Kate has her own podcast or YouTube channel or something, because they want to hear more from her.

Well, recently she started making videos for TikTok. We do talk about this during the episode, but that’s not until the end of the conversation, so I just wanted to give you a heads up about that right now at the start.

Kate is part of a team of teachers making content for the British Council’s channel on TikTok. You’ll see that they are making shorter videos (certainly shorter than mine) about things like British English idioms, culture and other entertaining bits and pieces. So, check it out – @BritishCouncilEnglish on TikTok. The link is on the page for this episode on my website.

So, what you are about to hear is another long and rambling conversation with a guest on my podcast. Hopefully you will stay engaged and entertained throughout while practising your English listening in the process.  

All you have to do as you listen to this is keep up with the changes and tangents, and enjoy this conversational journey into things like how Kate helped me with the shelves in my pod-room, how Kate doesn’t agree with the way I arrange my books on those shelves, how it feels to be filmed while talking (and yes there is a video version of this on YouTube), we talk about Kate’s academic successes and failures (or maybe I should say “failure” because it seems there’s only been one, and I’m still not sure it counts as a failure), the Chinese classes that Kate has been taking recently, quite a lot of stuff about Korea (hello Korean listeners), our blood types and what they mean, how we both feel about getting older, and how we feel about certain other English teaching video content that you might find on TikTok, Instagram or YouTube. All that, and much more, starting… now.

813. Language Learning is a Voyage of Discovery / Steve Kaufmann Interview

Steve Kaufmann is a very prolific language learner. He has learned at least 20 languages to varying degrees during his life. Some of them he learned during his career as an international diplomat and businessman, and others he has learned during his (semi) retirement. In this interview Steve talks about his language learning experiences, methods and motivations. We talk about various metaphors and similes for language learning including ocean voyages 🚢, cows 🐮, skiing ⛷ and cutting grass🏡, and I ask Steve about cross-cultural experiences he has had during his career. There is a video version but only the audio version contains my intro and ending rambles about getting my hair cut and how you need to remember that you’re a baby cow-shark on skis 🐄🦈🎿😅.

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Thanks again to Steve for the interview! Check out his website here https://www.thelinguist.com/

As a language learner, never forget that you are a baby cow-shark on skis!! 🐮🦈⛷

806. PERSEVERANCE, POSITIVITY & PRACTICE with Santiago Ruiz de Velasco from Oxford University Press

Santiago has a top job in the English teaching industry. He is the managing director of English teaching at Oxford University Press. But English is not his first language. He learned it as an adult when he moved to London in his twenties. This conversation explores how he progressed in his English learning and in his career, while dealing with daily challenges and failures in English.

The conclusions are that motivation and positivity are vital, you have to keep going through the difficult times, and you can achieve great things in your career in English even if you’re not perfect. This episode should be a boost for the confidence of all English learners! Keep an open mind, keep your eyes on the prize, keep going and your English WILL improve!

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The audio version contains extra content, including my thoughts and conclusions after speaking to Santi

Some thoughts about language learning 👇

  • (To borrow a catchphrase from All Ears English Podcast) “It’s about connection not perfection“. 
  • Use English today – what are you waiting for?
  • Learning a language can be painful, but we have to persevere. Keep going through the bad times. Good times are just around the corner.
  • Keep your chin up! 
  • Keep calm and carry on!
  • Perseverance, positivity, practice.
  • Exposure is so important for learning English – reading a lot, listening a lot, socialising a lot in English.
  • Lean into failure, don’t hide from it.
  • But if you do hide from it, that’s ok – you’re only human.
  • English is a broad church – there’s a lot of diversity in it. 
  • Your version of English is part of it too, so don’t worry about your accent too much. Work on it, practice being clear, listen & repeat, but at the same time, keep it real – don’t worry if you don’t sound exactly like me. It hasn’t stopped Santi – he’s a success in English and you can do it too.

That’s it! Thanks for listening!

805. A New Year Ramble 2023 / Learn English with LEP

A rambling episode about making a fresh start in the new year, and some things I just have to tell you about listening to Luke’s English Podcast using a podcast app on your phone + lots of tangents. I hope you enjoy it!

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Episode notes / Transcript

  • I start reading at 12mins12seconds in the audio version
  • Sometimes I go “off-script” and say things which are not written here. I hope you can follow it all.

HELLO!

If you’re new to this podcast – I’m Luke, I’m an English teacher and comedian from England, and I’ve been doing this podcast for learners of English for about 14 years now.

You can use my podcast to improve your English in various ways, but the main thing is that it can help you do more listening, which is essential for acquiring natural, and instinctive English. What I mean by instinctive English is that you get an instinctive feel for the language, and this is what you can get from simply engaging with English in spoken form or written form and focusing on understanding it. It really helps if the process is fun and so I do try to keep things funny (this isn’t funny though) or just entertaining and interesting as much as possible.

This is episode 805 and it’s called A New Year Ramble 2023.

I am just going to talk to you for at least an hour. Just listen to my voice for the duration of the episode and remember – all the words and sentences I am saying are all going into your brain and a lot of it will stick there! This is perhaps more effective for your English progress than slaving away over a grammar book or staring at word lists. Just listen to me, follow my words, stick with me and hopefully enjoy it all. Let the rest happen naturally.

For this episode I’ve written some notes which I am reading from sometimes, and some stuff is spontaneous.

The main thing in this episode is that I’m just going to have a ramble. That means talking and talking, sometimes going this way sometimes that way, moving from one topic to another and one thought to another without having a very clearly defined structure. As I said, I’m just going to talk to you for a while. Join me!

New Listeners, a Fresh Start & Learning English with LEP in 2023

In January I find that new people start listening (hello!) 

Also people return to the podcast and generally refocus on learning English, turning over a new leaf. 

New Year’s resolutions 

I like to make a fresh start every January and say some things on the podcast to explain what this is, how it works, and how you can learn English from my content. 

This is the 14th time I’ve recorded an new year episode. It’s my 14th January on this show so I have done quite a lot of episodes in the past welcoming new people and talking about how you can learn English with this podcast, and what the aims of this project are. 

So, instead of repeating the same things again, I’ll suggest that you check out some of these episodes. (Pick some episodes to recommend)

Where can I find all your episodes, Luke?

You can always find all my episodes in the archive on my website. If you’re watching on YouTube, not all the episodes are there. Just some.

All rest are in my episode archive on my website including episode titles, numbers, summaries of what’s in each episode and then on each page you’ll find an audio player, a download button and sometimes vocabulary notes, transcripts of some or all of the episode and more things.

www.teacherluke.co.uk/episodes 

Some things you should know about how to listen to LEP 

I’ve noticed from quite a lot of comments and emails recently that people don’t know certain key information about my show.

Let’s just clarify a few things here about this podcast. 

  • Free episodes (Luke’s English Podcast)
  • and premium episodes (Luke’s English Podcast Premium)

Free Episodes

Free episodes are free! You’re listening to a free episode right now! 

If you’re listening using a podcast app on your phone, you might notice some advertising. This helps me to continue doing the podcast and pays for things like rent, internet, food. 

Premium Episodes

Premium episodes are only available if you sign up to LEP Premium for about 4$ a month. This also helps me to pay for things like food, clothes for my daughter, flowers for my wife, and loads of other things. This is how I actually live these days! 

Anyway, premium episodes are for premium subscribers and they’re usually about vocabulary, pronunciation and grammar.

The premium episodes have PDFs.

Some premium subscribers don’t know how to find the PDFs. 

I’ll tell you more about premium a bit later including the best way to listen to premium episodes and how to get the PDFs. 

How to listen to the free episodes

My show has always been primarily an audio podcast which most people listen to using a podcast app on their phone. 

You can also listen to the episodes on my website. 

I publish my episodes on YouTube as well. 

Over the last couple of years I’ve been filming myself with a webcam while recording my episodes and putting those video versions on YouTube. Some of those YouTube videos have sort of gone viral and I’ve ended up being a kind of YouTuber as well, but I still consider this show to be an audio podcast first and foremost.

Sometimes there is more content in the audio versions, for example if I have an interview with a guest, the video version might only contain the conversation, whereas the audio version will probably include an introduction and some talking from me at the end of the episode (perhaps a short ramble or some vocabulary explanations). 

When it’s possible I add some text on the screen of video versions on YouTube so you can read while you listen, but I don’t do that every time. 

Automatic subtitles are available (usually) on my YouTube videos. 

But this show is primarily an audio podcast. This is how I think of it. It’s an audio show which you can listen to in the normal way people listen to podcasts, which means using a podcast app on your phone. 

Now, I’m going to go a bit basic here and explain what a podcast app is. 

Back to basics: What is a podcast app?

The majority of you listening already know all this stuff so I’m just patronising you, but I suppose you could just pay attention to the way I’m describing all of this. How would you explain how to listen to a podcast, to someone who is completely new to the whole thing? Here’s how I would do it.  

For those of you who don’t know, a podcast app is an app you download (free) onto your phone from the App Store (iOS) or Play Store (Android). 

Lots of apps are available as I said. Check your phone. You might already have one. If you’re on iOS, you can look for the one with the purple icon that says Podcasts. Personally I’m not a huge fan of that app, but it will work fine.  

Maybe you don’t have a podcast app on your phone, in which case, download one (PocketCasts!) then just search in the app for Luke’s English Podcast and then subscribe to it. Of course, other podcasts are available but who needs other podcasts I ask you?

New episodes will arrive there every time I publish them and it’s super convenient. You can listen to episodes on headphones (recommended) or just blare them out loud on your phone on the back of the bus or something if you want to annoy everyone around you or perhaps help them learn English too. 

You can listen when your phone is connected to wifi (probably at home or maybe in the office when you should be working) or you can listen when you’re outside using your phone’s data internet connection. 

Podcast apps will also save your place in the episode, if you press stop for some reason. The app will remember where you stopped. Then when you go back to the app later and start listening to that episode again, the app will remember where you stopped and you can carry on listening. Perfect! No need to worry about my episodes being too long! No need to listen to the whole thing in one single sitting.

There are also other advantages to using a podcast app on your phone, including being able to add my premium episodes to the app as well, if you sign up. I’ll explain more about that in a minute. 

A lot of people use Spotify to listen to podcasts. Great! The only problem there is that you can’t add premium episodes to Spotify, because it’s not a “normal podcast app”. 

Don’t use the Luke’s English Podcast App any more

By the way, I am not talking about the LEP App here. A lot of you have downloaded that on your phones. 

It’s listed in the app store as “Luke’s English Podcast App” and it might appear on your phone as simply LEP.

But, don’t use the LEP app any more. It is defunct. New episodes are no longer arriving there and in a few months it will disappear from the App Store completely. So, you can forget about the LEP App now. It’s sad, I know, but it’s not the end of the world because you can continue listening in any other normal podcast app as I’ve said.

How to listen to LEP Premium and how to get the premium PDFs

Right, so let me talk a bit about LEP Premium. This isn’t a promotion by the way, it’s just information which a lot of people don’t know. No pressure to sign up to my premium subscription or anything. It’s totally up to you. Of course I hope you do, but it’s up to you right? 

By the way, premium people – new episodes are coming including some storytime episodes. 

So, I am constantly getting emails from people saying “I have signed up to LEP Premium but how do I listen and how do I get the PDFs?” and I just feel like a surprising number of people out there are somehow missing out on basic information which you just have to know or I might go a bit mad and stick bananas in my ears and then everyone will say “Hey you’ve got bananas in your ears” and I’ll say “What??” and they’ll say “You’ve got bananas in your ears!!!” and I’ll say “What????” and they’ll say “WHY HAVE YOU GOT BANANAS IN YOUR EARS???” and I’ll say “I CAN’T HEAR YOU I’VE GOT BANANAS IN MY EARS!!!”

That’s what will happen if everyone continues not to know certain basic information about my podcast and about how the premium part works. 

So…

Let me explain as quickly and clearly as possible, then we’ll move on to some ramblings about other perhaps more entertaining matters. 

The best way to listen to premium episodes is to add LEP Premium to a podcast app on your phone. 

Let’s say you’re using Apple Podcasts to listen to the normal free episodes of LEP and you’ve decided it’s time to also listen to the premium content to push your English further. Maybe one day you just say to yourself “Hey, I think it’s time to also listen to the premium content to push my English further” but then you think, but what do I do? Where do I go? And crucially – how do I get those precious PDFS???? 

Ok, so let’s say you’ve gone to www.teacherluke.Co.uk/premium on your phone and you’ve signed up to LEP Premium and you are logged into Acast+ (the platform I use for the premium subscription). 

You’ll see that you have the option to “Listen now” or  “Add show to app”. 

If you tap “listen now” you’ll see a list of all the episodes and you can play them, listen to them. But this is not a convenient way to listen. 

You need to tap “add show to app”, so tap that and you can choose the podcast app which you have on your phone and which you use to listen to the free episodes, see? 

Again, let’s say you’re using Apple Podcasts. Let’s use that as an example.

Where it says “Add show to podcast” you then tap “Apple Podcasts” and the Apple Podcasts app will magically open, giving you the option to subscribe to LEP Premium there. Do it! You’ve already paid, you’ve put your card details in and stuff, what are you waiting for. Add LEP Premium to Apple Podcasts! Go for it!

Now you have upgraded your LEP episode list on Apple Podcasts. You will now be able to find the premium episodes in your list. Before it was just the free episodes. Now the list includes the premium episodes too. Celebrate! It’s a miracle!

Spare a thought for LEPsters who can’t sign up to LEP Premium because of government stuff (Give peace a chance)

I think at this point it would be appropriate to spare a thought for those LEPsters who are unable to sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+, probably because of two possibilities  – either Acast has been blocked by your government because they think that LEP and LEP Premium are just far too dangerous for people to listen to, because – heaven forbid, I might talk about things which perhaps directly contradict the version of reality which they are trying to pull over your eyes, OR your credit card will not work for international payments because your country is being sanctioned because your government is being very naughty indeed. In any case, if you can’t access LEP Premium, I am sorry, but have a word with your government OK? But don’t get thrown in jail. I know, that’s easier said than done. I don’t know – I don’t want to casually suggest that you all rise up in some kind of revolution or something, and overthrow the people who run your country, because you simply cannot allow this madness to continue and you simply must be allowed to sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+. This is up to you. I’ll let you weigh up the risks and the potential benefits and so on. Good luck.

OK but let’s say you’ve signed up to LEP Premium and you’ve successfully added the episodes to your podcast app of choice. The premium episodes are now in your list, along with the other episodes. It might not be obvious at first, but they are there, just waiting to be discovered and listened to.

How can you find them? Well, you’ll need to scroll through the list a bit. Just scroll down through the episode list and BINGO you’ll see them. All premium episodes start with P and a number. P42, P41 etc. Some episodes have the word [Premium] at the start. 

Premium episodes P01-P36 were all added in July 2022 and they can be found between free episodes 776 and 777. Scroll down to episode 777 and look under it – see! Loads of premium episodes are there! (if you’ve signed up to the premium subscfiption and added the episodes to your app as I explained before)

ALL THIS STUFF ABOUT PODCAST APPS AND THE PREMIUM EPISODES IS GOING TO STOP IN A COUPLE OF MINUTES I PROMISE!! TRY NOT TO GET IMPATIENT OK??

What about the PDFs for those premium episodes? 

The links for the PDFs can be found in the show notes for each premium Episode. 

Anyway, what are “show notes” for podcast episodes?

In podcast apps, all podcast episodes have some text notes. This is where podcasters can add maybe a summary of the episode or some links to other things online. 

See if you can find the show notes or episode notes for each episode. Go on, have a look right now?

Some of you are saying “Come oooon Luke I know where the show notes are” OK then, find them right now and look at them and then say to yourself “Yes, I know where the show notes are, thank you Luke”

On Apple Podcasts, while you have an episode selected (you’ll see the LEP logo, the name of the episode and a play button) just drag the screen up and the notes will be revealed below. Again, it’s like magic or a miracle or something. An actual miracle. Thanks Jesus!

(one of my new year’s resolutions is to have more FUN in my episodes again, because life is too short)

This is where you will find the links to download the PDF for the episode. 

Tap one of the links, open the PDF and read it while you listen or send it to your computer where you can study it more carefully, annotate it with a pdf reader or even print it on paper in the old fashioned way. Then use a pencil to do the tasks. 

Ok? 

OK!

If you’re not signed up to LEP premium: Hello! That’s fine! 

You don’t have to sign up to the premium service if you don’t want to, can’t afford to or aren’t allowed to due to confusing global events and the actions of powerful men who sit at tables deciding your future. 

You are still a LEPSTER and you can still enjoy all the free episodes and all the rest of it, until of course the thought police completely turn off your access to the internet. Which country are you talking about Luke? Well, whichever country is doing it. 

There are show notes for all the free episodes too. (For many of you I’m teaching grandma how to suck eggs) 

If you’re listening in a podcast app. Have a look – you’ll always find a link to the “episode page”. That’s where you can read any vocab notes, find the associated youTube video (if there is one) and other information that I mention in the episode. 

YouTube Comments / Keeping My Episodes Varied / I’m the boss round here (yes, I am a powerful man who sits at a table and decides YOUR future)

Now we’re talking about YouTube which is another platform where I publish my episodes – either in video format (where you can see me talking, if that’s your cup of tea) or just listen to episodes without video and maybe switch on the automatic subtitles (don’t forget to smash that like button and click the bell icon and all that jazz).

One thing about being on YouTube is that there are more comments. 

This is because it is much easier to comment on YouTube than it is if you are in audioland (listening on a podcast app on your phone, probably). 

On YouTube the comment section is right there, and it is an integral part of the YouTube experience. 

So, people comment a lot more, which is great. It is lovely to get your feedback and it’s encouraging when people respond to what you’re doing. 

Sometimes it is amazing, especially if people write genuinely positive and appreciative things.

It’s mostly great, but it’s sometimes a bit irritating. 

As you know, if you are a human being, the negative things tend to stick with us a bit more than the positive things. 

By and large, my audience (like any audience of learners of English it seems) is incredibly thankful and appreciative, which is lovely. But naturally there are some people who are not so thoughtful and who write comments which probably tell us more about them than they do about the content that they’re commenting on. 

Now, while I do believe it is really important to take criticisms on board, to consider them and to learn from them, some comments are just a bit annoying! 

Which comments?

Well, obviously just abusive or directly rude comments are just the kind of “bird shit on the window of life” but there are some comments which are not exactly abuse, but which just show a certain lack of consideration for the content creator. I’m not going to list all the things that irritate me, because what’s the point, but one thing I have noticed is when I upload an episode, let’s say it’s a story episode, and the comment is “I miss your rambling episodes” or “Please make content about phrasal verbs” or “Please make short videos like “Don’t say please” or “stop saying thank you”.

Or I upload a rambling episode and someone comments “Make more stories, we want stories” or I do an Amber & Paul episode and the comment is “We want a Rick Thompson Report!” You get the idea. 

I do a variety of episodes, and I’ve always tried to keep the episodes varied for the whole time I’ve been doing this podcast, for better or worse. This is because: 

  • You can’t please all the people all the time (You might think that one type of episode is the best, but plenty of others will think that another type of episode is the best – in the end, I decide)
  • Keeping things varied keeps me motivated
  • It’s important for you to hear a variety of things – not just stories, not just teaching phrasal verbs etc, but also conversations, monologues, some easier episodes, some which are more difficult etc
  • I don’t think anyone thinks about this more than I do. I put my experience, my professional knowledge and also my heart and soul into making these episodes. They’re not always exactly perfect, but there is no such thing as “perfect” and it’s a fruitless mission to try and chase it. 

Ah shit I feel like I’m being too negative now, and also overthinking everything. Ah well. 

Is my show blocked in China?

Chinese LEPsters – how do you listen to my podcast? Do you use a VPN? Is my podcast available in Apple Podcasts? Is it available on any other apps? Let me know :)

Happy New Year! LET’S HAVE FUN IN ENGLISH IN 2023! GIVE PEACE A CHANCE!

Leave a comment to let me know you’re not a skeleton 👇

800. [PART 1] EPISODE 800 RAMBLE / LEPSTER Q&A

Celebrating episode 800 and responding to lots of questions sent in on social media. Expect questions about my ill-fated music career, grammar, favourite authors, my daughter, life as an English teaching podcaster and plenty more. Video version available.

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Intro Script & Questions for Part 1

Hello listeners, welcome to episode 800.

Fireworks! BOOM! 🎆🎆🎆

Welcome to episode 800.

Here we are. It’s episode 800. It’s a big occasion but the emphasis is on chill in this episode. We’re just going to chill together and celebrate episode 800. So let’s sit back, relax and enjoy podcasting together. 

This episode might take absolutely ages – I don’t know how long this is going to be, but we’re not going to worry about that, or anything else in this episode. No concerns, no worries. 

For this one I thought I would answer some questions from listeners on social media, YouTube and my website. I recently asked for questions and I got loads. Billions. I got billions of questions. 

I’m going to try and answer them almost all of them in this episode. 

That might be seriously over ambitious and this could end up being the longest episode ever, we’ll see. If I have to divide it into parts, so be it. We’ve had episode 300 part 1 and 2, as well as several episode 666s, we can have episode 800 in a few parts. But in fact that does prove that I’ve already done more than 800 episodes. In fact I reckon it’s over 1000 if you include premium ones, bonus ones, app-only ones, phrasal verb ones. 

In any case, I’m going to go through the questions and try to answer as many as possible. This is bound to take bloody ages. I mean, hours. 

I’ve chosen nearly all the questions which came to me, except for world cup ones because I’ll talk about that in another episode. 

They’re presented here in no particular order, from various social media platforms. 

And I’m going to correct errors if and when I find them. 

So this will be a sort of error correction episode too, I expect.

We will start in a minute, but first I just want to take this moment to celebrate getting to 800 episodes!

What does this really mean to me?

A long term professional project which has been a success and continues to be. No mean feat!

It’s a nice big number

800 is a large amount of anything – name a thing and imagine 800 of it. It’s always a lot!

Satisfying to reach a milestone, but I have my sights on 1000 now.

No need to dwell on it too long…

Thank you for continuing to listen to this podcast, allowing me to keep doing this all these years. 

Recently the podcast hit 100,000,000 downloads since it started.

I love doing this podcast and I hope you love listening to it too.

I love the fact that I can do this – spend most of my working time on making content for learners of English, doing it my own way, being my own boss. It’s all thanks to the podcast, which means it’s all thanks to you, and the way it works is that those people who can afford it can become premium subscribers, which keeps the show completely free for those people who can’t afford it, and I get to keep making the episodes. 

Let’s get on with the listener questions.

By the way, I’ve removed all World Cup questions because I think I’m going to talk about that in a separate episode.

QUESTIONS

FROM LEPSTERS

YouTube

Cyril Alexander

1 day ago (edited)

Hello! Thank you for this lux podcast!

I saw you like playing guitar and maybe you have your own compositions and maybe you have some thoughts about your own rock band. 

Luke, did you ever dream of being a rock star? 

Would you be able to carry the rock star burden?

Played drums in lots of bands

Made music on computer (real instruments)

Made music on synths (Korg)

Play guitar (other people’s songs) and piano (not any more)

Play bass on other people’s songs

Bands

The bold ones were the serious ones


Engshan (English with Zeeshan)

1 day ago

Hey Luke  my name is M Zeeshan i am from Pakistan i’m your big fan so could you explain the difference between these sentences ?

“We had to stay until we had finished our podcast.”, 

“We had to stay until we finished our podcast.” 

Which one is correct?

Sera Bende  • 2 hours ago (edited)

Hi Luke, thanks for this mini episode :) Congratulations on the 800 episodes. My question is if you are considering doing more rambling episodes because they are fun and I think it is an excellent way to learn how to speak naturally and talk about daily life. Looking forward to seeing more rambling episodes.


Mariagrazia Fornarotto

17 hours ago

Hi Luke! It’s Mary from Italy writing..I was just wondering…who is your favourite contemporary English novelist and why? Thanks in advance  for your reply…

Maria

1 day ago

Hello, Luke! Thank you for your podcast Tell us, please, what stories do you tell your daughter? What are they about? Which ones are her favourite? 

Oishi

1 day ago

800 is a long way, congratulations Tr Luke. I would like to suggest that it would be great if you could upload one story telling episode per week (is it too much?) because as a lazy learner, your story telling can carry me to the end of the episode.

Janya Markevich

8 hours ago

Hey Luuuke! I really like what you do and I’m a fan of your sense humor. I was wondering as a kid at school were you this type of guy who bravely says a joke loudly so that the whole class hears and giggles afterwards? 

And do you feel that via humor you make the atmosphere (any place: job, school, family pre Christmas hassle, etc.) more amicable and lighthearted? 

Thank you in advance!))

Maria C

1 day ago (edited)

Hey Luke! Congratulations on the 800 episodes 

My question is if Jerry Seinfeld is one of your favorite comedians and if it was him or another one who inspired you. 

Steve Martin

Jerry Seinfeld

Bill Hicks

Eddie Izzard

Bill Bailey


Serg Boorow

2 days ago

Hey Luke, what’s cracking!?Thanks for your fantastic podcast, IMHO for the time being it’s one of the most fascinating podcasts in terms of immersing in British English/humor (or at least I would like to think like that) that I’ve come across. My question is, do you consider moving to somewhere from Paris in particular and from France in general? Cheers.

Living Italian style with Nina

57 minutes ago

Hi Luke,  thank you for your amazing job on your podcast.  My question is: when will you release another episode of the Rick Thompsom Report?

Antin Kuntin

1 day ago

Hi Luke.

First of all: you are doing a really great job! 

My question is: are you talking normally like in your daily life or slower and clearer than usual so that we can understand?  

Thanks in advance for your answer

Vafa Guliyeva

1 day ago

Hi, Luke! I got 3 questions for you .

In your opinion, approximately how many words do you need to have in your vocabulary to be able to speak like you do in your ramble episodes? and is there an efficient method for determining the amount of vocabulary for a non-native speaker?

https://manylex.com/

How does it work? Read the text on the website.

Native speakers know 20,000 – 30,000 words.

I got about 25,000.

Learners of English who get 10,000 can be near-native.

Aster L.H.

1 day ago

Bravo Luke! Looking forward to your next podcast talking about The FIFA World Cup. 

A question to Luke. How many Asian countries have you been to?

Jakub

1 day ago (edited)

Hello Luke. I really enjoyed your podcasts about comedy TV series, like Alan Partridge. However, I asked you (very politely) quite a long time ago about the possibility of doing an episode (likely more then one) about Peep show. I believe that we could all learn from Peep show loads of useful British expressions/phrases which never occur in textbooks for students. Is there any chance that some comedy episodes are in the pipeline?  Respect and best wishes from Poland 🇵🇱️

Teacher Zdenek

1 day ago

My questions for you: “What’s the hardest thing about doing the podcast?”

Shaping an idea into the finished product. 

Дмитрий Обухов Dmitry Obukhov

19 hours ago (edited)

Hi, Luke! I’m really into your podcasts and watch every single episode no matter what length it is. My favorite videos are about detective and horror quizzes/stories. Are you planning to make a podcast on this topic? If so, I’m looking forward to seeing new episodes soon.

Cristiano Ronaldo

1 day ago (edited)

Hi Luke, how is it going? First of all, thank you for teaching us. My question is : is it possible to speak like you, if I only listen to your podcast, I mean your intonation and your pronunciation. You speak very clearly. I like your speech that is why I usually listen to your podcast

My name is Berdiyev Azamat from Khiva in Uzbekistan

德高望重respected

1 day ago

Hi Luke, I wonder what makes you an English teacher? I am a new listener since maybe 3 months ago, and I enjoy your style a lot. Thanks anyway.

Cecília de Melo

1 day ago

Hi, Luke! Thank you for teaching us. My question is: I don’t have problems to understand you but why is so difficult for me to understand an American talking?

  1. Familiarity
  2. Are you watching TV/Films?
  3. Maybe British English is just better

vvaskey

2 days ago

Hi Luke:) 

My first question is what is the best moment in your childhood?) 

My second question is a bit personal, but anyway how old is your daughter? How is she doing?)

796. Language & Local British Identity with MARK STEEL

Special Guest Mark Steel joins me to discuss cultural and linguistic differences between the UK and France, plus accents in the UK and a little tour of some places in the UK that you don’t know about. Also includes a discussion of swearing and rude language in Britain. What is the R word which you should never say in a specific part of the UK? Listen on to find out. Video version available.

[DOWNLOAD AUDIO]

Video Version (shorter, with automatic subtitles)