Category Archives: Native Speaker

604. London Native Speaker Interviews REVISITED Part 2

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Listening to the audio from another old YouTube video of mine, and then exploring it for new vocabulary and English learning opportunities.


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Transcript

Hello folks, welcome to a new episode. In this one I’m going to go through some more audio of interviews I did with native speakers of English in London 10 years ago and will mine if for any nice bits of English vocabulary that we find.

Before we begin this episode properly I just want to say a couple of things about the last episode – the one about Queen & Freddy Mercury and also to let you know about my plans for the summer and how that might affect the podcast.

We’ll start with summer plans.

Summer Plans

First of all, I’m going away on holiday during the 2nd week of July, so no podcasts will go up during that time. Then when we get back I’m teaching intensive summer courses at the British Council, which means teaching all day every day. I still have the evenings, but having a lot less time probably means I won’t be able to produce podcasts at the usual rate. So, things might go quiet for the rest of the month. Also, in August we have several holiday plans which are currently coming together and that will mean being away for at least half of the month. So things might go quiet during July and August, only to return at the normal rate in September. I’ll also prioritise premium content, because that is stuff I I feel I have a duty to publish.

Right, so that’s the summer plans and how they will affect the podcast. Things might be a bit quiet as usual at this time of year, but there’s the whole episode archive to explore, all the app-only episodes you might not have heard and all the premium content too.

Audio Quality – Queen Episode

Next let me say a couple of things about the last episode, which was all about Queen, before starting this episode properly in a few minutes.

First of all, I received some nice, enthusiastic responses from people who were very pleased that I was finally talking about Queen on the podcast.

For example, Francisca Lopez Aperador on YouTube wrote:
Hi, Luke, I was waiting for this episode. You really made my day. How could express how thrilled I am. Thanks, thanks, thanks. Cheers from Spain, teacher.

However, some people are saying that Alex is unintelligible in the Queen episode. There weren’t many comments, but I reckon if I just get one or two comments about something, it’s probably representative of what a lot of other people (ninjas) are thinking too.

For example, Arsiney wrote on the website:
I don’t understand any words in this conversation.
Luk`s speech is clear but this guy speaks like alien.

So, is Alex unintelligible? Does he speak like (an) alien?

Personally I understand every single word Alex says and said in the episode and also I noticed that YouTube’s automatic subtitles understood most of what he said (my episodes go up on YouTube now too, so you can see the automatic subtitles, which are 90% correct, going up to 95% correct when I’m on my own).

But there were definitely moments when it was difficult to understand everything he said – largely due to the audio quality during the call and partly due to Alex’s speech, and that probably made it a less satisfying listening experience for you.

Apologies for that. The audio quality wasn’t up to the normal high standard that you have become used to.

Also, Alex doesn’t enunciate as clearly as I do, but then again most people don’t.

This brings us back to this perpetual question of the way I speak on the podcast.

“Luke, do you speak normally or do you slow down because I understand everything you say but I don’t understand other native speakers.”

I do try to be normal and natural but I’m also trying to speak clearly. This is actually how I speak. I always make an effort to speak clearly. That’s who I am – partly as a result of being an English teacher, but also it’s just the way I was brought up to speak.

However, in the real world you’re going to hear people who don’t speak as clearly as me, and you need to prepare for that. I think that most people don’t speak as clearly as I do and it’s not just about speed, it’s about diction. Diction is the manner in which words are pronounced. To an extent you’ve been spoiled by my clear diction. You also have to listen to people who are harder to understand. It trains you to do things like use the context, and other words you can hear to piece together the bits you don’t understand. It’s not always going to be laid out on a plate for you, and you can’t always blame the speaker for not being clear enough for you. As I said, I always understand everything Alex says, so as far as we are concerned, he doesn’t have a problem with his speech. He goes through his life fine, communicating without issues, doing comedy on stage and making people laugh. So, Alex’s pronunciation isn’t a problem in his life. He doesn’t speak as clearly as me, but not many people do.

So, listening to someone like Alex is actually good training.

The Pros and Cons of Audio Quality & Learning English

It’s important to listen to subprime audio.

But I know that some of you will be frustrated that you couldn’t understand or hear everything, and I’m sorry about that. I thought it would be alright. I think the main thing was the audio quality actually.

Understanding what you hear is an important part of the learning process, but be careful of getting used to understanding everything. Sometimes you have to learn to fill in the gaps yourself.

I want you to understand everything you hear. Understanding what you’re hearing is an important part of the enjoyment of this podcast. It’s also an important part of how this works. I’ve talked about the role of comprehensible input. Basically, this is the theory that you learn language when you understand it, and so finding compelling material to listen to that you understand is vital.

So, naturally, clear audio is a part of that and that’s why I spend a lot of time attempting to make sure the audio is of good quality on this podcast. Where possible I even send microphones to guests I’m interviewing by Skype. I’ve sent mics to my dad, my brother, Raphael in Liverpool. I sent a mic to Andy Johnson. I couldn’t send a mic to Alex because he was using his phone, making a whatsapp call over a cellular connection. I expect this meant that the bandwidth of the audio was very narrow, or something like that. Perhaps the audio was compressed so much that there was not much range in the frequency, making it sound squashed or small. I’m not an expert in audio broadcasting so I’m not sure, but it’s probably something like that. Alex doesn’t have wifi at home – believe it or not, and so our only option was to do a voice call. No way for him to plug in a USB microphone. So, that’s one of the reasons for the difficult audio.

I’m probably going too far here and people are going to write to me saying “It’s ok Luke, don’t apologise too much!” etc. I usually go a bit over the top if I’m apologising for something on the podcast – usually because I’ve mispronounced a place name, I’ve made some factual error about your country, like saying your country is part of another country when in fact they’re separate independent nations. You know, stuff like that. Even apologising for uploading too much content. And now, apologising for less-than-perfect audio in one episode. I am probably going too far.

But it’s still worth taking this moment to talk about the pros and cons of good and bad audio, when learning English.

There are good and bad things about having super clear audio and English you can understand easily.

The pros are that you can learn a lot from it (comprehensible input) and you get the satisfaction of understanding it all.

The disadvantage is that you get used to it and then struggle to understand fast native speech.

There are also pros and cons of having audio that’s harder to understand.

Difficult audio trains you to listen more actively and intelligently.

But sometimes it’s frustrating when you don’t understand.

It’s about striking the right balance. Hopefully on my podcast I mix it up and have some audio which is not too difficult to follow, that you can learn from and enjoy, while also presenting you with more difficult things that you have to really focus on.

Now, about this episode you’re listening to right now.

This is London Native Speaker Interviews Revisited part 2.

Recently I uploaded part 1 of this series. That was episode 591.

If you remember, what I’m doing is revisiting some videos I made 10 years ago, when I went into central London with my video camera in order to do quick interviews with people about life in London. My question was “What is London really like?” I got loads of little responses from people talking about the good and bad points of life in our capital city and the videos were pretty successful. Two of them now have over a million views. Not bad.

So in these audio episodes what I’m doing is revisiting those videos. We’re going to listen to the audio from the video – see how much you can understand, and then I’m going to break it down in the usual way, clarifying bits of language and helping you to expand your vocabulary.

Also this gives me a chance to be like a film director doing my own DVD commentary track, which is always fun.

How does this relate to the topic of audio quality?

Well, I recorded these video interviews on a basic handheld camera just using the inbuilt microphone. There’s a bit of wind and loads of atmospheric noise (because central London is a very noisy place) and so yes, the audio isn’t as crystal clear as you might expect, but as I’ve said – it’s good practice. This is where we strike that balance between challenging listening and comprehensible listening.

Right, so let’s go! Let’s listen to the audio – we’ll do each mini interview one by one, and then I’ll break them down for language one by one.

We’ll listen to each clip twice. The first time I’ll just ask you the question “What are the good and bad things about living in London?”. Then listen and try to understand. Then we’ll listen again and I’ll break it all down bit by bit, and there’s quite a lot of nice, natural vocabulary to learn from this video.

On the page for this episode on the website you’ll see:

  • The video
  • A transcript for most of this, especially the first part
  • Transcripts for each part of the video
  • Vocabulary notes with definitions, for the bits of vocabulary I explain during the episode

Right, so let’s get started!

Student / Justin Bieber / Ed Sheeran

Transcript

Graphic design student: Hello
Luke: So, how long have you been in London?
Graphic design student: Two weeks
Luke: Really? What do you do?
Graphic design student: Err, graphic design. Camberwell, School of the Arts.
Luke: Ok. So, your first two weeks.
Graphic design student: First two weeks. It’s quite a big impact. Very big, lots of people, and it’s quite expensive as well.
Luke: Ok. What’s the best thing about it?
Graphic design student: Err, night life. Very good night life. It’s got, you know, erm… If you go to the right places… A lot of action, erm, you know, a lot of friendly people as well.
Luke: Excellent. What about the worst thing?
Graphic design student: Depends on where you go. I mean, there’s quite a lot of, err, muggers about, dodgy people looking at you weirdly. You want to just, turn, turn away from them
Luke: Ok yeah
Graphic design student: Apart from that, generally a lot of people are quite nice. I mean, there’s some people that shove about, but, you know, you’ve just got to deal with it.
Luke: Ok, thank you very much
Graphic design student: That’s ok
Luke: Cheers.

Vocabulary
how long have you been in London?
night life
A lot of action
Muggers
dodgy people
looking at you weirdly
Apart from that, generally a lot of people are quite nice
there’s some people that shove about
you’ve just got to deal with it.

Girl in the red scarf

Luke: So, hello
Girl in red scarf: Hello
Luke: Where are you from?
Girl in red scarf: I live in Redhill, which is about half an hour away from London
Luke: Ok, erm, how long have you lived there?
Girl in red scarf: Two weeks!
Luke: Ok. Everyone’s been living in London for two weeks for some reason. So, what’s London really like then?
Girl in red scarf: London, well, London’s a really really massive place which can be quite overwhelming, but it’s not that scary after you’ve, you know, got stuck in there. Erm, London has everything you’d ever want, if you’re into theatres, art, education, night clubs, anything. Erm, I would say, just get stuck in there and go for it!
Luke: Ok, great, and what’s the worst thing about London?
Girl in red scarf: The worst thing… oooh the worst thing… err, I think the worst thing would have to be the pollution. It’s probably not as bad as some countries, but you always feel like you’ve got black fingernails.
Luke: Ok. Thank you very much.
Girl in red scarf: Thank you

Vocabulary
Overwhelming
but it’s not that scary after you’ve, you know, got stuck in there
if you’re into theatres, art, education, night clubs, anything
just get stuck in there and go for it!

Real Londoner

Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Hi!
Luke: So, are you from London too?
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Yes, I am
Luke: Ok, so how long have you lived here?
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Err, my whole life. Luke: Ok, so you’re a real Londoner
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Yes, a real Londoner
Luke: Ok, what’s it really like then, living here?
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): What’s it really like? Erm, well I think it’s fantastic. It’s nice to live in such a cosmopolitan place with lots of things to do. You can never say that you’re bored or have nothing to do because then that’s all down to you, so…
Luke: What’s the best thing about it?
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Erm…
Luke: You might have just answered that
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Yes I think I have. Just the variety and everything you want to do. Lots of things for different age groups, there’s always something for someone to do. I would say the best thing is, like, the cultural little occasions that we have, like Chinese New Year and things like that, where you have big street parties. I would say that’s the best thing.
Luke: Ok, what about the worst thing?
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Oh… I don’t like to answer that question
The girl with the red scarf (off screen): Pigeons!
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Oh yeah! I hate pigeons! I hate pigeons! They’re just…
Luke: What’s wrong with them?
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): They’re diseased!
Luke: They’re diseased. Flying rats.
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Yes
Luke: Right?
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): Yeah. That’s the worst thing, I don’t dislike anything else.
Luke: Ok, thank you very much
Real Londoner girl (who hates pigeons): You’re welcome
Luke: Cheers

Vocabulary
It’s nice to live in such a cosmopolitan place
that’s all down to you
I hate pigeons! They’re diseased. Flying rats.

Young Business Couple

Smartly dressed couple: Hi
Luke: So, are you from London
Smartly dressed girl: Err, we’ve just moved here, yeah.
Luke: Just moved here, right, so err… How long have you been here?
Smartly dressed girl: Err… We’ve been here for a couple of weeks.
Luke: Ok. Everyone I’ve interviewed today has been in London for, like, two weeks. I don’t know why… So, what’s London really like then? What do you think?
Smartly dressed guy: Err, it’s a huge place. There must be about 10 million people living here. It’s got a lot of good things, bad things. It’s vibrant, it’s multicultural. It’s got fantastic places to eat, fantastic places to go out in the evening.
Smartly dressed girl: Fantastic theatre, fantastic restaurants. Fantastic museums, art galleries. Absolutely loads of stuff.
Luke: Ok
Smartly dressed guy: It’s a fast paced place. People seem to be moving around a lot faster than in the rest of the country
Smartly dressed girl: Sometimes that can get quite a bit much, you know. People sort of rushing everywhere all the time
Smartly dressed guy: But it’s interesting, but there’s also negatives to living here
Smartly dressed girl: It’s very congested, it’s very expensive. Err, extremely expensive, public transport is expensive. It’s hard… it can take a long time to get anywhere
Smartly dressed guy: And there’s also a lot of pollution, and crime as well. So, if you come to live here I think it’s about finding the right enclave…
Smartly dressed girl: Yeah, the right neighbourhood to live in, definitely…
Smartly dressed guy: And having friends. Set up your own community of friends, rather than knowing your next door neighbour.
Luke: Yeah. Ok, thank you very much
Smartly dressed guy: No worries
Luke: Cheers, bye bye
Smartly dressed girl: Cheers, bye

Vocabulary
we’ve just moved here
How long have you been here?
We’ve been here for a couple of weeks.
There must be about 10 million people living here.
It’s vibrant
It’s a fast paced place.
Sometimes that can get quite a bit much, you know
People sort of rushing everywhere all the time
It’s very congested
I think it’s about finding the right enclave

Vocabulary with definitions

Here are some definitions of some of the vocabulary in the video.

night life – social life at night, for example clubs and bars
a lot of action – lots of exciting things happening, and lots of nice girls to meet
muggers – criminals who might steal things from you in public (e.g. attack you and steal your bag)
dodgy people – people who are strange and can’t be trusted
looking at you weirdly – looking at you in a strange way
turn away from them – look/turn in the other direction
shove about – push people when in a large crowd (e.g. pushing people when getting on or off a crowded train)
you’ve just got to deal with it – you have to just learn to live with it. You can’t let it make you unhappy.
massive
overwhelming – having such a great effect on you that you feel confused and do not know how to react
if you’re into theatres, art, education, night clubs, anything – ‘to be into something’ means to be interested in it, or to enjoy it
just get stuck in there – get involved without hesitation or fear
and go for it – just do it!
pollution – dirty air caused by cars, bad air conditioners etc
a cosmopolitan place – a place with lots of people from all over the world (positive adjective)
Pigeons – very common birds which you find in the city (see the video at about 3:33)
vibrant – full of energy and activity in an exciting way
multicultural – involving people from many different cultures
fast paced – with a quick lifestyle (e.g. people rushing about everywhere, walking very quickly, in a hurry)
get quite a bit (too) much – be stressful and annoying
congested – full of traffic, lots of traffic jams
the right enclave – a small area within the city in which you live and feel comfortable
neighbourhood – part of town in which you live

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.

  1. How did you first get into Queen?
  2. What’s their appeal, to you and to everyone?
  3. How would you describe their sound?
  4. What’s the story of the band? Do you know their origins and how they went on to become such a huge band?
  5. What are your favourite songs of theirs and why?
  6. What’s Bohemian Rhapsody all about (the song)?
  7. 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?
  8. 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…

599. Oliver Gee Returns with Stories to Tell

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Australian journalist and podcaster Oliver Gee returns to LEP to tell us some stories about the Notre Dame Cathedral fire, meeting famous comedians as a journalist, learning Swedish and French and his honeymoon tour of France on a 50cc Vespa scooter.


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Introduction Transcript

Welcome to episode 599 of Luke’s English Podcast, a podcast for learners of English presented by me, Luke Thompson an English teacher and comedian from England now living in Paris.

In this episode you’re going to hear a conversation I recorded last week here in my flat. The conversation is with my friend Oliver Gee who is a journalist and podcaster, from Australia now also living in Paris.

As some of you will remember, Oliver has been on the podcast before, in episode 495, over 100 episodes ago. Can you believe it!? In that episode we talked all about Australian things, including Australian English, so while you’re listening to Oli’s voice and you’re wondering about his accent and other Australian things, check out episode 495.

Oliver is a podcaster and YouTuber who makes content about Paris and France, in English. Recently I joined Oliver on one of his live YouTube video walking tours in Paris, which you can find on the page for this episode and it was a lot of fun talking to him and I thought it was high time I invited him back on the podcast for a chat and to tell us some stories.

And, as a journalist, Oliver is very interested in stories. That’s what journalism is about a lot of the time – finding stories, covering stories, reporting stories and generally reporting events in the form of stories. So, that’s what I wanted from this conversation. I wanted Oliver to tell us some stories – not bedtime stories or fairy tales. I’m talking more about true stories of people’s lives, moments that people experience, big events that happen in the world, etc.

We communicate so much of what we do and see via stories – either in the media, or in the way we just talk to each other and describe things. Stories are central to the way we communicate with each other.

So, the focus for me in this conversation was to let Oliver tell us some of his stories, and I wanted to hear him speak about these things in particular:

The Notre Dame Cathedral fire

When the world-famous Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris caught fire recently (you must have seen it in the news) Oliver went down to the cathedral with his camera in order to see and record what was happening and to capture the moment. He also interviewed to a tour guide all about it for his podcast in which they described it in full detail. So, Oliver can tell us about what he saw that evening, generally what happened at the cathedral and what’s happening next and there are some pretty weird coincidences in his story too. In fact there are quite a of weird coincidences and special moments described during this episode.

Meeting famous comedians

I also wanted stories about Oliver’s time working as a journalist, how he started and particularly moments when he ended up meeting some famous people – especially comedians that we’re big fans of.

So listen on to find out who Oliver has met, how he met them and what they were really like in person. There’s one comedian who is particularly famous at the moment. Oliver got to meet him in really quite an intimate situation, and I love the story.

Learning Swedish & French

Oliver has lived in Sweden and now lives in France, so I wanted him to tell me about his experiences of learning languages, particularly moments when he felt challenged and when he’d made significant progress.

The honeymoon tour of France on a scooter

And finally, there’s the story of Oliver’s honeymoon road trip around France on the back of a scooter. Imagine two newly married people travelling all around France, even crossing over the alps, all on a small 50cc Vespa scooter. Listen on to find out what happened.

So those are the main topics – Notre Dame Cathedral, meeting famous people, learning languages and a honeymoon road trip. There’s also some chat at the start about my podcast as Oliver noticed that LEP has had over 50 million downloads in total and I’m approaching episode 600. So we talk a bit about podcasting vs using YouTube as different platforms for what we do.

We’re about to jump into the conversation now, just before we do let me prepare you a little bit because the conversation starts quite quickly.

In episode 495, if you remember, we said that the better people know Oliver, the shorter his name becomes. This is normal. It’s like nicknames. So, acquaintances probably call him Oliver, then friends call him Oli, then close friends might call him Ol, then really close friends might just call him O.

I just wanted to remind you of that, because it’s the first thing you’ll hear, so you might immediately get lost and go “Wait, what? I’m lost already!”

The better people know you, the shorter your name becomes. That’s how this begins.

Alright, so now you’re ready, let’s go!

Ending

So that was Oliver Gee on the podcast again. I really hope you enjoyed that conversation full of stories. If you struggled to understand everything that was said I just want to say congratulations and well done for listening all the way through to this point. I know sometimes it is difficult to follow these long, fast conversations on my podcast but I truly believe that you can make progress if you manage to just keep listening. Sometimes you’ll get lost and not understand, but try to tolerate the bits that you can’t understand and use the bits that you do understand to help you guess the rest and keep going. The best language learners persevere even when things aren’t completely clear.

Stay positive, keep it up.

As ever I look forward to reading your comments in the comment section if you have anything to share or any thoughts regarding any of the things that came up in this episode.

On the episode page you will find loads of links and videos relating to the things we talked about in this conversation, including… (links all listed below)

So this is the end of episode 599. Episode 600 will be the next one.

I hope you can join me for the YouTube live stream when I will be recording episode 600.

That is going to happen at 3PM (CET) on Friday 7 June on my YouTube channel. You’ll find the link to that on the front page of my website in the comment section.

If you can’t attend the live stream, then I am sorry! You will be able to watch the video later and obviously listen to the audio in episode 600.

The theme of the live stream is “Ask me anything” (although I do reserve the right not to answer questions if I don’t fancy it, like “what colour is your underwear?” “Mind your own business!” or “What are your credit card details?” etc. You can ask me questions about English or whatever comes to you and I will try to answer the questions as best I can, and as briefly as I can in the time we have available.

Also, premium subscribers – premium episodes are coming! I’m working on several premium series at the moment, and so June will see more premium stuff and less free stuff.

OK then, that’s it! Until episode 600 I will now say, good bye bye bye bye bye…

Links

Oliver’s episode about Notre Dame Cathedral (The Earful Tower Podcast)

Notre Dame fire: What happened and what next?

Oliver’s tour of Notre Dame when it’s empty – before the fire (The Earful Tower)

When Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire (France 24 News)

Oliver’s video of Parisians singing hymns while Notre Dame burns (The Earful Tower)

My walking tour with Oliver in the Square des Batignolles (5 minute version)

Bill Bailey does comedy about minor and major keys in music

LEP #462 British Comedy: Bill Bailey

462. British Comedy: Bill Bailey

A clip from Russel Brand’s Netflix Special (I think this is the one that Oliver & his wife attended)

Oliver’s live walking tour / interview with French model/author/music producer Caroline de Maigret (The Earful Tower)

597. Growing Up / Getting Older / Becoming a Father (with Paul Taylor)

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In this conversation Paul and I get a bit deep & meaningful and talk about where Paul is in his life at this point, including our thoughts about becoming a father, getting older and growing up.


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Introduction

Rambling about my birthday… My daughter is a toddler now. She toddles around.

Thank you so much for the lovely birthday messages that you sent to me.

I’d like to give a shout out to students in my class today who surprised me with presents, delicious cake and champagne – at 10.30 this morning!

We all drank champagne during the class, in the morning. It seems that champagne is the only alcohol that you can drink in the morning and it’s acceptable. You can’t really drink whiskey, wine, beer, vodka (although I’m sure in some places that a breakfast drink) – where I’m from, it’s not acceptable to drink those things in the morning and if you do you’re an alcoholic, but champagne – go for it!

It was pretty interesting for me to teach English after having drunk champagne, which was great.

Anyway, I am another year older, which I am fine with as I said in a recent episode.

But that brings me to this episode, which is a conversation with one of the pod-pals, Paul Taylor, and the conversation is all about growing up, getting older and becoming a father.

As you will know if you heard the previous episode, Paul is about to become a Dad for the first time. His wife is pregnant and the due date is at the end of June. Congrats to the two of them, on behalf of all the LEPsters! It’s a girl. Hopefully she’ll grow up to be friends with my daughter and the other kids from our circle of friends. We don’t know what the name will be yet. We’re all hoping that the rest of the pregnancy goes well, and the birth too.

Having a child can be a bit of a turning point in your life. I don’t know if you have children.

So, in this conversation Paul and I get a bit deep & meaningful and talk about where Paul is in his life at this point, including our thoughts about becoming a father, getting older and growing up.

All I have by way of an introduction at this stage, are some questions for you to consider in order to prepare you a bit for what you’re going to hear.

Questions to consider before you listen to the conversation

  • As you get older, does your perception of other people change?
  • For example, if you see a group of 18 year olds, how do you feel?
  • If you see people who are in their retirement, elderly people, how do you feel?
  • How do you feel about the passage of time and getting older?
  • How does life change as you move from being a teenager into a young adult and then into being middle-aged and retirement age and old age?
  • What do you think of the way society views old people? Are they looked after, represented or respected fully in your society?
  • What about having children? Does it change your life? How? Is it a change for the better? In what ways?
  • What about your lifestyle?
  • Are you good at looking after yourself?
  • Do you keep yourself fit and do enough exercise? If not, why not?
  • Have you managed to find a sport or exercise routine that suits you and that you enjoy?
  • How about your diet and eating habits? Do you manage your diet well? Do you make sure you’re staying healthy and eating the right things?
  • Daily routine
  • Do you manage to get enough stuff done in your average day?
  • What’s your daily routine? Could you improve it in any way? How much discipline do you have in your life?
  • How motivated and disciplined are you about doing things that don’t bring you instant results?
  • Do you think you need to change your lifestyle as you get older? Is that an easy thing to do?
    What influence did your parents have on your life? Do you ever judge the way your parents brought you up?
  • Do you ever compare yourself to your parents? Do you ever feel like you can’t live up to their expectations or the example they set for you?
  • Were either of your parents often not there when you were growing up? Maybe one of them or both of them worked a lot and wasn’t always there. How do you feel about that?
  • At what age do people leave home and become independent, in your country?
  • What kind of time should you spend with your child? Should you always be there, or is it ok to be absent sometimes as long as you are working hard and making money to help support them?
  • If you have kids or are planning to have kids, what kind of example should you show to your children? What aspects of your personality do you want them to inherit from you? Which aspects would you rather they didn’t learn?
  • Do you need to say “yes” more in your life? Or do you need to learn how to say “no” more?
  • As you get older do you feel that you are becoming more open-minded, or less open-minded? Are you still happy to meet and get to know new people and see new places in your life as you get older?
  • And, is Paul ready to be a Dad? Is he looking forward to it? Is he in the right stage of his life for parenthood?

These are the sorts of questions we are talking about in this episode.

So without any further ado, here is my conversation with Paul.

Ending

Congrats again to Paul and his wife Adi. Best of luck for the birth. We’re all looking forward to meeting the new Taylor when she arrives.

You heard us mention a book there.

“Yes Man” by Danny Wallace – a great, interesting and funny book written in modern plain English.

I know my listeners are always interested in finding new books to read. This one was very popular when it came out and I think it is not too difficult to read and should be full of the right kind of English. Everyday English in a plain and modern style.

There is an audiobook version which you might want to listen to. It’s available on Audible.

That’s almost it.

Podcast News / Admin

I have two more free episodes to publish before things go a bit quiet while I work on premium content.

Those next two episodes are also conversations with guests. Earlier this week I spoke to Oliver Gee, the Australian journalist and he told me lots of interesting stories about things like the recent fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral, meeting some famous people while working as a journalist and also his experiences of learning Swedish and French.

And the other conversation hasn’t been recorded yet, but it’s going to be with my Dad. We’re going to talk on Monday next week and the idea is to somehow describe the recent situation in UK politics and some other things like a recent conference that my Dad moderated about climate change, and hopefully we’ll have time to talk a bit more about football, because my Dad follows UK football very closely. That one isn’t recorded yet, but if all goes according to plan I’ll do the recording next week and publish it quickly afterwards, then the Oliver Gee episode should go up.

After that – things will go quiet for a while and there will be no free episodes probably for a couple of weeks, but I will be working hard on new premium content which should arrive steadily during that period.

To sign up to LEP premium go to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Don’t forget also that Paul’s live 1hr stand up show is now available on YouTube. Search for Paul Taylor Franglais. The bits which are in French have English subtitles. It’s about 50% English and 50% French. You can check out Paul’s excellent French skills. It’s impressive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am_WjjAnzvw

Episode 600 – YouTube Live Stream – I’ve chosen a date and time!!

It’s going to be Friday 7 June at 3pm CET (Paris time)

That’s…

  • 6AM on the west coast of the USA
  • 9AM in New York
  • 8AM in Mexico City
  • 10AM in Rio, Brazil
  • 2PM in London
  • 4pm in Moscow
  • 4pm in Ankara, Turkey
  • 6.30pm in New Delhi
  • 9pm in Shanghai
  • 10pm in Tokyo
  • 11pm in Sydney
  • 1AM on the Saturday morning in Auckland, NZ

If it’s not at the perfect time for you, then I am sorry! There’s not much I can do about that I’m afraid. Whatever time I do it, there will be some people who won’t be able to attend.
Also, this is just when I’m free!

I will be announcing this again on the podcast, but here it is – 3PM Paris time on Friday 7 June.

I’ll also create a YouTube link for the live stream which I’ll share on my website and on social media. That’s how you’ll access the live stream.

OK, cool!

Song Lyrics: Neil Young – I Am a Child

596. SLEEP with Amber & Paul

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All about the subject of SLEEP, with Amber & Paul. Listen to hear us comparing our sleeping habits, talking about insomnia, sleepwalking, talking in your sleep, snoring, falling asleep on public transport, snoring cats, Paul learning Arabic in his sleep and more, including some slightly disgusting stories, which is nice!


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Introduction Transcript

Hello folks, how are you? Amber and Paul are on the podcast again today in this episode and before we jump into our conversation I would like to do a little introduction, which I promise to keep as brief as possible.

Premium Episodes are coming…

I’m uploading quite a lot of free episodes at the moment (including this one) but, I have also been working on several Premium series, which means quite a lot of premium episodes coming soon. So if you’re a premium subscriber and you’re wondering when the next premium episodes are going to arrive – they’re coming soon.

I have a bit of a backlog of free episodes which I have to publish first and I’ll be publishing them over the next couple of weeks. Mainly those free ones are conversations with people that I organised recently when suddenly everyone became available. Sometimes that’s the way it works. Suddenly, lots of people became available around the same time, so I set up interviews with them and this is why I’ve got a bit of a backlog. I would hold onto the conversations and publish them later, but often they are time-sensitive, I mean, we talk about things which are a bit relevant to what’s going on now. So, I think I’ll publish a few free episodes maybe up until episode 599, and then the free episodes will pause for a bit while I record and publish some premium content.

So, June will probably be a month of LEP Premium mainly, meaning lots of premium content but the free podcast will be a bit quiet.

Sign up to LEP Premium at teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Episode 600 Live Stream

Episode 600 is coming up and I’m going to record it while live streaming on YouTube. I still don’t have a date for the YouTube live stream yet, but when I know more I will let you know. It’ll probably be a weekday, maybe a Friday, probably at about 3pm CET, probably at the end of June or the beginning of July. Can’t say more at this time because I don’t know.

SLEEP with Amber & Paul

The plan in this episode was to discuss the topic of sleep with Amber & Paul and we did that as you will hear, but there is about 15 minutes of chat at the beginning before we actually get to the topic!

We talk about a few differences between British and American English including expressions like “I couldn’t care less” and “I can’t be arsed”, and the way Brits and Americans say the word “Duty”.

Then there is some showbiz news from the three of us.

London LEPsters and Amberfans, please pay attention to an announcement from Amber – it’s an opportunity to see her and Sarah on stage in Islington, London on Thursday 23rd May.

LEPsters who use YouTube – listen out for some news from Paul regarding his one man stand up show #Franglais.

Also there is some pretty big personal news from Paul, not about stand up shows or anything – it’s more personal than that – and I think this is the first time he’s announcing this publicly, so this is a bit of a scoop for the podcast. So, watch out for Paul’s personal announcement.

Then we eventually do get to the subject of sleep and the rest of the episode is all about us comparing our sleeping habits, and talking about things like insomnia, sleepwalking, talking in your sleep, snoring, falling asleep on public transport, snoring cats, Paul learning Arabic in his sleep and more, including some slightly disgusting stories, which is nice.

Sleep is a very rich area for English vocabulary. So look out for the variety of ways that we talk about this subject and watch out also for a premium episode devoted to vocabulary on this topic coming in the future at some point.

That’s it then. Let’s get started. Here we go.

Amber & Sarah’s Show in London

Rosemary Branch Theatre, Islington, Thurs 23 May, 7.30. Details below.

http://www.rosemarybranchtheatre.co.uk/event/becoming-maman/

Paul Taylor’s FULL stand up show #FRANGLAIS – now available on YouTube. Watch it here!

The bits in French have English subtitles 👍

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am_WjjAnzvw

Ending Transcript

Thank you for listening. Keep it up folks, it’s good for your English on a long-term basis, I promise. Obviously it helps if you just enjoy it, and I hope that you enjoyed another chat today with the pod-pals.

A little heads-up about what you can expect from the free episodes which are coming.

The next one should be a conversation with Paul in which we talk about getting older, growing up, having children, what it means to be a good father and things like that. It’s actually a really good conversation I think – it gets quite deep and meaningful. If all goes according to plan, that should be the next episode.

Then, there will be more conversations with other guests coming soon, including Australian journalist Oliver Gee (and hopefully we’re going to talk about loads of things, including the recent fire at the Notre Dame Cathedral, and other stories) and also a chat with my Dad about some recent news, no doubt including the latest Brexit update, the European elections and hopefully some football chat too.

So, as long as my computer doesn’t completely break down or something, that should be the plan for the next few episodes, taking us up to episode 600. And there will be a whole load of premium episodes arriving too.

www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Get the Luke’s English Podcast App on your phone for all the episodes, access to the premium content, and loads of bonus stuff including app-only episodes, loads of jingles I’ve made in the past, videos and more things of that nature.

Thanks for listening.

Thanks again to Amber & Paul for their contribution.

Bye!

THERE IS BONUS AUDIO FOR THIS EPISODE IN THE LEP APP 😉👍

595. Andy Johnson Returns (Part 2) Eating / TV Series / Football / Music

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Asking Andy questions from a speaking task in the English File Intermediate course book and chatting about eating habits, TV series, Liverpool & Tottenham in the European Champions’ League and music we’ve been listening to recently including some stories about Steely Dan and The Beatles. Intro & ending transcripts + Videos available below.


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Introduction Transcript

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. How are you? You’re doing alright?

How’s the weather? Not too rainy I hope. Sunny? Bit cloudy? Windy?

OK, that’s the small talk, the chit chat out of the way. But enough of this idle banter, let me introduce the episode.

This is part 2 of a conversation I had with Andy Johnson. You should probably listen to part 1 first, if you haven’t already done so.

In this part I ask Andy some questions from a speaking exercise from English File Intermediate 3rd Edition, a book I’ve been using with some intermediate classes I’ve been teaching at the British Council.

I’ve been helping my students practise their grammar, pronunciation and speaking using this book and I thought it would be interesting to ask Andy some questions that my students have been discussing with the aim of practising “used to” and other ways of talking about habitual behaviour in the past or present.

So, what you’re going to hear is us using “used to” and some other bits of grammar and then rambling on in a natural way, answering these questions designed to help learners of English develop their fluency.

The topics of the questions include stuff about our eating habits, TV series we used to be addicted to (Andy gives a nice summary of The Wire and we talk a bit about how neither of us have ever watched Game of Thrones – shock horror!) and then we go on to talk about music we’ve been listening to on Spotify recently – the latest Vampire Weekend album in Andy’s case and a classic album by Steely Dan in my case. If you’re a fan of Steely Dan, then listen all the way to the end for a bit of Steely Dan chat. I’ve been listening to their stuff on repeat recently and I’ve become slightly obsessed by a couple of their songs.

We also end up talking about football at some point, specifically the dramatic and unbelievable recent events in the European Champions’ League. Barcelona and Ajax fans, I expect you’re currently feeling a bit wounded by what happened last week, but I think it’s fair to say that football fans around the world were stunned at how both Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur managed to win their semi-finals against all odds, beating Barcelona and Ajax respectively. Basically, it looked like Liverpool and Spurs were both definitely going to be knocked out as they were both behind by quite a few goals each, but they both managed to come back in spectacular fashion, winning their games and going through to the final. That description doesn’t quite do it justice. Those of you who saw the games will know that they were somehow two of the most astonishing moments of football in recent memory, certainly for us Europeans.

Right then, so now you’re prepped for the rest of the conversation, let’s get started.

Check the page for this episode on the website and you’ll see a script for this introduction and some more bits and pieces including a load of recommended YouTube videos relating to the music we talk about. Oh and one more thing – bonus points for anyone who manages to notice the sound of a hoover in the background during this conversation. You might hear a hoover (a vacuum cleaner) at one point and you might think “Where’s that coming from? Is that someone hoovering in my house or something? I SAY! WHO’S HOOVERING?” Well, it was our cleaner who comes round once a week and was doing some hoovering outside my room while I was recording this. Hopefully you won’t notice, but just in case – there you go. So, extra bonus points for anyone who notices the sound of my flat being cleaned in the background.

All right then, let’s go!

Ending Transcript

Thanks again to Andy for being a great guest on the podcast as usual, and also a special thanks to my cleaner for doing the hoovering in the background.

Any comments you have – leave them on the page for this episode and Andy might well reply to you. He quite often does that when he’s been on the podcast.

Before we finish, I would like to just clarify something I said near the end of the conversation about drummer Bernard Purdie. It just seems important somehow.

Bernard Purdie & The Beatles

At the end there you heard us talking about a drummer called Bernard Purdie who played drums on some Steely Dan songs back in the 70s. I said that Purdie was a compulsive liar who claimed to have played on some Beatle records. This is actually a bit of a legendary story in the world of music, especially for Beatle fanatics like me.

I’d like to just fact check this or clarify this a bit, because I don’t want to spread misinformation and I would like to be fair to Bernard Purdie. He’s one of my drumming heroes. Long term listeners might remember that he appeared in episode 88 of this podcast, which was called How to play the drums. He wasn’t a guest on the show, unfortunately. I mean, I just played some audio of him talking about one of his drumming techniques. Episode 88 is in the archive of course.

88. How To Play The Drums (Describing Music)

So here’s the story of Bernard Purdie and The Beatles.

The facts as far as I know are that Purdie once said that he’d played drums on 21 Beatle songs (we’re not sure which ones exactly) and that the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein was in the studio when he did it. We think he means he overdubbed drums on some of the songs, but he’s never been 100% clear about it. in fact his story changed quite a lot over the years, which makes it seem like he’s lying.

He also said that there were 4 drummers who played in the Beatles, and Ringo wasn’t one of them.
For any Beatle fans, those are slightly outrageous claims to make.
Which 21 songs is he talking about?
Ringo didn’t play the drums in the Beatles?
What’s he talking about?

Also, this isn’t just some nutter with no credentials. Purdie was a bona fide legend of the drumming world. His drumming was amazing. One of the best funk, soul & RnB drummers ever. His work was outstanding, he was recognised for it and was highly respected as a session musician.
Also, looking at interviews and drum tutorial videos he did, he seems to be a jovial, friendly, big hearted person.

So I was a bit unfair when I said he was a compulsive liar.

He might have misremembered events from his life, or perhaps made a mistake that he just didn’t repair over the years. Perhaps he was just saying something outrageous in order to give himself a bit of publicity as a drummer, which worked because, well people are still talking about it.

The truth of the matter is that he did overdub drums on some recordings featuring John, Paul and George, but they weren’t recorded under the Beatle name, and they were songs the boys recorded while living in Hamburg, Germany in 1961.

Beatle fans will know those songs as the Tony Sheridan recordings, the most famous one being “My Bonnie” which was a minor hit at the time. The Beatles – John, Paul, George and Pete Best played as the backing band to Tony Sheridan who was a singer working in Germany at the time. They recorded 7 songs. This is before the Beatles were famous and before Ringo replaced Pete Best in the group. Before Brian Epstein turned round to him one day and said “I don’t know how to turn round and tell you this Pete, but the boys have turned round and told me they don’t want you to be in the group any more”, or something along those lines. I digress…

Later on, when the Beatles (with Ringo installed on drums) had become a massive sensation, the Tony Sheridan recordings were acquired by a record company in the USA and they wanted to re-release them under the Beatle name, but the drums didn’t sound good enough in their opinion.

They were too quiet in the mix and there was no bass drum sound. So they got a studio drummer to record drum tracks over the top of the 7 Tony Sheridan songs. That studio drummer was Bernard Purdie. So, he did overdub drums on some songs, but not the 21 songs he claimed before, and they weren’t really Beatle songs, they were Tony Sheridan songs, with the Beatles playing in the background.

And, the thing about the Beatles having 4 drummers but Ringo wasn’t one of them… God knows what he meant. Maybe he was alluding to the fact that Ringo wasn’t the drummer on the Sheridan tapes, and also the fact that there are a few other Beatle songs in which Ringo isn’t the drummer. Some of the tracks on the White Album feature Paul as the drummer, and there’s a version of Love Me Do, the Beatles’ first single, which has a session musician called Andy White playing the drums, because producer George Martin wasn’t convinced by Ringo at the time.

So, just a bit of fact checking there, for the record and for the music fans listening.

Purdie wasn’t really a compulsive liar, but he didn’t exactly tell the truth either. But what is certain is that he was a brilliant drummer.

I have to give credit to a YouTube video by FabFourArchivist which I watched and which gave me those facts. If you’re interested in music and these sorts of stories, you might enjoy it. The video is on the page for this episode.

Going back to Steely Dan, that band that we talked about before. I have a few other videos to recommend to you if you’re a fan of theirs or if you’re interested in stories about how songs are made and recorded.

First, I’ll put a video of the song Deacon Blues with lyrics so you can check it out, listen to the song and try to work out what the lyrics all mean.

Then there’s a brilliant video essay by a YouTuber called Nerdwriter1 which is all about how Steely Dan wrote and recorded the song Deacon Blues and what it all means. It’s a very well made video and is fascinating.

And you heard me talking about the Steely Dan Classic Albums documentary which is on YouTube. Here it is for your viewing pleasure, including the scenes with drumming legend Bernard Purdie.

I’d like to thank Andy for coming back on the podcast. He’s always a great guest.

You can find him on LinkedIn, on Twitter @andybjohnson and the London School Online website is https://www.londonschool.com/lso/ And he’s on Spotify of course, just search for Moby.

That’s it for this episode. Let me just give you a gentle reminder that you might want to become a premium subscriber. I’ve got premium episodes in the pipeline for this month that include some explorations into vocabulary that has turned up in episodes of the podcast. That means you’ll get audio English lessons teaching you real, natural vocabulary, with all the usual things like PDF worksheets with tests, pronunciation drills and all that good good stuff. And of course, when you become a premium subscriber you get instant access to the entire back catalogue of premium episodes, which is ever growing. I put a lot of work and time into my premium content, and it’s available at what I consider to be a very competitive price! Just like buying me a nice cup of coffee every month from my local coffee place, maybe with a nice bit of carrot cake too if I fancy it, and why not? www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium

Thanks for listening and I will speak to you again on the podcast soon.

I look forward to reading your comments in the comment section.

For now though, it’s just time to say bye bye bye bye bye…

Ajax fans turn from celebration to devastation as they watch their team get knocked out of the Champion’s League.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq5PW3Yo8yg

More Bernard “Pretty” Purdie Videos (because this is what life is all about)

Cory Henry jams with one of Bernard Purdie’s drum tutorial videos

Bernard talks about The Purdie Shuffle – “I’m gonna SPLAIN ya!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1j1_aeK6WA

Bernard Talks about his “Ghost Notes” (previously heard in episode 88)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgiv2tHAgh8

 

 

594. Andy Johnson Returns (Part 1) Moving House / London vs Canterbury / English Teaching

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Chatting to friend of the podcast Andy Johnson about moving house, comparisons between London and Canterbury and different approaches to teaching English. Intro & outtro transcripts available. Part 2 coming soon.


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Introduction Transcript

Hello dear listeners and welcome to this brand new episode of the podcast, presented to you for your listening pleasure and for the general development of your English.

What have I got lined up for you in this episode?

Well, just the other day I spoke again to Andy Johnson, friend of the podcast and my former colleague from the days when I worked at the London School of English. Andy has been on the podcast lots of times before as many of you will know, but the last time was about a year ago actually (in episode 529), so it’s good to have him back again.

The idea in this episode is just to catch up with Andy, find out what he’s been up to since we last spoke on the podcast and just see where the conversation takes us.

Just before I play you the first part of our conversation (because this episode is in two parts) here’s an overview of the topics you are about to hear us talking about. You can expect to hear vocabulary relating to these things.

Moving house from London to Canterbury
Andy and his family recently moved out of London to a much smaller city in the south east of England called Canterbury. Some of you might know it as it is a bit of a tourist destination because of its magnificent cathedral and its significant cultural history.

Andy tells us about his experience of moving, how living in Canterbury is different to living in London, some details of things like the rental costs & lifestyle differences in both cities, what it’s like for the kids, and some interesting facts and history about Canterbury itself.

English teaching
We chat about this year’s IATEFL conference where Andy did a talk about online learning, and he tells us about one interesting presentation that he saw which was all about using escape rooms to help people learn English.

Do you know what escape rooms are? Are they popular in your country? Escape rooms are fun experiences in which you go into a locked room with some friends and have to solve some puzzles and complete tasks in order to escape from the room. They’re a lot of fun, but how could they be used in learning English?

This leads to a bit of discussion about how we approach the teaching of English in classrooms these days, focusing on how to create the right context for practising specific target language naturally. As an example I talk a bit about how I’ve been teaching “used to” to my intermediate classes at school recently.

Andy’s job
We then talk a bit about Andy’s job at London School Online, delivering online English training to companies, and what that involves. If you are interested in providing an online course for the staff in your company you can get more information about that and contact Andy through his website, which is www.londonschool.com/lso

Finally, we do talk a bit about Andy’s running (because some of you will be curious about that) – how his running routines have changed since moving to a smaller city and whether or not he did the London Marathon this year.

So, for all the vocab hunters out there, watch out for bits of language relating to all those things.

So now, without further ado I will let you enjoy listening to another chat with Andy Johnson on Luke’s English Podcast and here we go.

Ending Transcript

That is it for part one, but this will continue in part 2 in which our conversation turns to other topics including food, TV series, football, and music.

Thanks again to Andy for being on the podcast.

If you want to get in touch with Andy, perhaps because you’re interested in the online learning programs he offers, you can find him on LinkedIn, on Twitter @andybjohnson and the London School Online website is https://www.londonschool.com/lso/

Allow me to remind you, at this point, to sign up for LEP premium. I’ve got new episodes in the pipeline that involve teaching you some nice, chunky bits of natural English vocabulary along with all the usual bits and pieces, including PDF worksheets, tests & exercises and pronunciation drills, and of course becoming a premium subscriber gives you access to the ever growing library of premium content which you can listen to in the LEP app or online from your computer and it will all cost you just the price of a coffee a month from. Keep me caffeinated and become an LEP premium subscriber today! GO to www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium to get started.

I look forward to reading your comments in the comment section.

Part 2 should be available very soon, but for now it’s just time to say good bye!!!

592. It always seems impossible until it’s done

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An unedited ramble about motivation for language learning, dealing with challenges, getting started on a task, getting work done and my process for making episodes of the podcast. There’s also some news, some OPP and a couple of songs on the guitar at the end. Vocabulary notes, links, videos and song lyrics are available below.
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Vocabulary Notes & Other Information

Let’s get this show on the road.
Let’s get started.
Let’s get this whole thing underway.
Things I’m saying to myself to get myself going.
I’m on my feet in order to try and get the energy going.
It helps me to get into the right mood.
I’ve been sitting here messing around for ages.
I’ve been fiddling around.
Plugging and unplugging (microphones)
Lots of messing around, farting about and faffing around.
You become very productive and you’re in the zone.
Sometimes you’re not in the right frame of mind and it feels like everything’s a bit of a struggle.
Once I get going it’s fine, but there are some days when I find myself unable to begin the episode..
Attempting to follow my own train of thought while talking.
You can probably hear handling noise (the noise of handling the microphone).

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ~ Nelson Mandela

Anything can seem impossible and that includes personal challenges (like recording a podcast in the window of time that I’ve got) that we have to face as individuals, and global challenges that we all face together.

“I can’t handle this. I can’t do it. It’s too overwhelming. There’s no way I can do it.”

Sometimes it seems a bit impossible, at the beginning of an episode.

I want episodes to be fun, engaging to listen to, relevant, personal, motivating, useful, natural and funny. (fun vs funny?)

What is the world coming to? I don’t know.

Fun = enjoyable (like a theme park)
Funny = it makes you laugh (like a great comedy show)

It always seems impossible until it’s done.

Sometimes it’s dead easy. I have loads of ideas just waiting to come out and I can’t wait to switch on the record button and get started. (switch on the recording device and then press the record button)

With Amber & Paul I sometimes have to abandon the stuff I’ve planned and just go with the flow.

Other times it seems like having to climb a mini mountain and I feel like I just can’t do it that particular day. Getting started is the most difficult part.

Sometimes, when I’m doing the podcast, I start, get something slightly wrong or go off on a weird tangent, getting away from the main point of the episode and I stop the recording and start again. That can happen over and over!

It’s a bit of a catch 22 situation. I want it to be natural and not over-prepared, but I also want to be disciplined and to get to the point quite quickly. It’s a weird balance between being prepared and being spontaneous and sometimes it’s a bit difficult to walk that line.

But that’s just me. I think anyone attempting to do anything will feel the same. It also applies to learning a language. The challenge can feel a bit overwhelming but we know that it always seems impossible until it’s done.

Hopefully this can give you some motivation.

OPP: The Joe Rogan Experience

I was listening to the Joe Rogan Podcast (The Joe Rogan Experience) http://podcasts.joerogan.net/

Last week Joe Rogan interviewed Eddie Izzard. He’s a stand up comedy hero of mine.

Eddie Izzard’s unbelievable marathon running

Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons in 51 days! (in 2012 in the UK)
Then (a few years later) he ran 27 marathons in 27 days (including 2 marathons in one day on the final day) in South Africa.
He did it all for charity and to commemorate the life of Nelson Mandela.
It’s a stunning achievement and almost unbelievable really.

43 marathons in 51 days
27 marathons in 27 days

Eddie Izzard must have felt so daunted before doing his 27 marathons.

The whole thing is mind over matter, being determined and not giving up.

I think it’s a mental battle. The best thing is to just get your head down and get moving, get a rhythm going and just don’t stop!

Keep going, keep going, keep going, and eventually it will be done and it won’t seem so impossible any more, because you will have done it.

Comments from Listeners on teacherluke.co.uk

Some comments with interesting and motivating things to say about learning English

Farshid
One of the most important things that learning the English language teaches you is you’ll learn to have to carry on without getting any outcomes for a long time, literally working but getting nothing.
That does require you to be tremendously patient, that’s a skill that you’ll develop overtime by learning English.

Sometimes you don’t notice your progress until a certain specific moment, then you realise that the work you’ve put in, or should I say the time (because it shouldn’t feel like work) has paid off.

Marta
Hi Luke, I just wanted to stop by to leave a short message – I was at a concert yesterday (British singer Passenger), it was amazing and you know what? He talked quite a lot between the songs and I was able to understand 99 % of what he was saying. Those are such special moments when I’m so very much thankful for discovering your podcast because this is definitely one of the rewards.
Thanks!!

All that time listening to the podcast has paid off.

Agnes
Hi Luke,
I just want to share my accomplishment with you that I got C1 in CAE Cambridge Exam which I took at the beginning of April :-)
I want to thank you for appealing episodes keeping me motivated and hooked on English every single day :-)
Obviously, I don’t want to stop doing my daily learning routine. Even though I’ve passed this exam, I treat it as a start into deep advanced side of the language, I’m totally hooked which means that English is my life!
I feel terribly bad when I miss one day without English.
I’m really proud of myself because I have only been learning on my own, without classrooms, courses etc. As I always say my learning process is based on listening and undoubtedly that made me person who loves learning as a whole.
Once again, thank you, because of you I love British English :-)
best
Agnes

OPP: Other People’s Podcasts

English TVLive Podcast

I was interviewed by Jacob Teacher on the English TVLive Podcast.
Jacob featured me in an episode of his Advanced Vocabulary series
You can listen to it here.

https://www.englishtvlive.com/advanced-english-vocab-n/

The Earful Tower with Oliver Gee (walking tour video)

I was on an Earful Tower video walking tour of Batignolle Park with Oliver Gee.

Become a Patreon supporter of the Earful Tower to unlock the full 30-minute video https://www.patreon.com/theearfultower

The Earful Tower episode about the Notre Dame fire (not featuring me, but interesting if you’d like to know more about the recent fire at Notre Dame cathedral)

Notre Dame fire: What happened and what next?

Other news and announcements

Episode 600 YouTube Live – Ask Me Anything (date TBA)

Think of questions you’d like to ask me.

LEPster Meetups

Check the page on my website – in the menu under CONTACT. People are leaving comments there. They might be in your area.

LEPSTER MEETUPS

My Avengers Endgame Review (with spoilers)

I did a spoiler-filled Avengers Endgame episode, only available in the app, with Fred. We go through the whole plot of the film and talk to about each point in full depth.
https://teacherluke.co.uk/how-to-download/get-the-lep-app/

A correction from episode 591…

I got various comments about Schleswig-Holstein, including one from Cat.

I said, quickly, that it was a city near the German/Danish border.
It’s not a city.
I hate getting anything wrong!
It is in fact the northernmost state of Germany – a whole area, a bit like an English county.
It’s really large (similar in size to Northern Ireland) and is a historic place and geographically interesting. It’s northern border is the border between Germany and Denmark. To the west it has a coastline on the North Sea and to the east a coastline on the Baltic sea.

I’ve never explored that area of the world (which is no excuse for not knowing about it) but I would really like to go there and visit.

This episode is unedited. I’ve decided to publish it as it is, warts and all.

2 Songs on guitar

If you don’t like music, you can check out now. (Check out here means to leave, like when you check out of a hotel)

Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Neil Young – Lyrics & Chords
https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/neil_young/only_love_can_break_your_heart_chords_865950

Fade Away by Oasis – Lyrics & Chords
https://tabs.ultimate-guitar.com/tab/oasis/fade_away_chords_36372

Thanks for listening!

591. London Native Speaker Interviews REVISITED (Part 1)

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Revisiting a video I made for YouTube in 2009 and teaching you some descriptive and idiomatic vocabulary in the process. Transcripts and video available.


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Introduction

Hello, you’re listening to episode 591, which is called London Native Speaker Interviews Revisited Part 1.

The plan in this episode is to revisit some videos I recorded 10 years ago…

We’re going to listen to the audio from one of those videos and break it all down in order to help you understand everything word for word, teaching you some lovely, descriptive and idiomatic vocabulary in the process.

This episode is a bit of a flashback to 10 years ago when I first started doing the podcast.

What happened 10 years ago Luke, in 2009?
Ooh, all sorts of things happened, but one of them was that I went into central London armed with my video camera, an Oyster card and a question to ask some members of the public: What is London really like?

What is London like? = tell me about London, describe London

I interviewed people in the street and edited the footage into a series of 5 videos which I published on YouTube, and the videos actually did very well! Part 1 now has 1.6 million views. Part 2 has 1 million.

You might be thinking – are you rich because of those videos? Nope. Not at all. I didn’t monetise them until after they’d got most of their views, or I couldn’t monetise them because of some background music. Anyway, that’s another story for another time – how YouTubers make or don’t make money from their videos.

I also published the videos and their audio tracks as episodes of this podcast in 2009. Some of you will have heard them and seen those videos.

I thought that this time it would be interesting to revisit those videos on the podcast because there’s loads of English to learn from them. When I published them on the podcast in 2009 I just published them with no commentary from me. It was just the video/audio with transcripts on the website.

But this time I’m not just going to play them again. Instead I’m going to go through the audio from the first video and kind of break it down bit by bit, explaining bits of vocabulary and generally commenting on things as we go. This is going to be a bit like one of those director’s commentary tracks that you get on DVDs, but the focus is mainly going to be on highlighting certain items of vocabulary and bits of pronunciation/accent that come up in the videos.

*Luke mentions his Avengers Endgame Spoiler Review, which you can listen to in the LEP App (in the App-only episodes category).*

If you want to watch the original video that I’m talking about here, you’ll find it embedded on the page for this episode on my website (A script is also available), it’s also in the LEP App (with a script in the notes) which you can download free from the app store on your phone – just search for Luke’s English Podcast App and you can just find it on my YouTube channel, which is Luke’s English Podcast on YouTube. The video is called London Native Speaker Interviews Part 1, or maybe London Video Interviews Part 1 (website), London Interviews Part 1 in the app.

So, let’s now travel back in time to 2009 and revisit Native English Speaker Interviews Part 1.

The theme of the videos is London – what’s it really like to live there? What are the good and bad things about living there?

So there’s a lot of descriptive vocabulary for describing cities and life in cities.

Video script available here https://teacherluke.co.uk/2010/03/25/london-video-interviews-pt-1/

Definitions of some vocabulary and expressions

What’s London really like?
This question: “What is it like?” means “tell me about it” or “how is it?”. It does not mean: “What do you like about London?”
e.g. What is London like? – it’s busy
What do you like about it? – I like the theatres

It’s gone to the dogs = everything is much worse now than it was before

grimy = dirty

to recharge your batteries = to give yourself some energy, by doing something pleasant and stimulating

to shout someone down = to disagree with someone loudly in order to stop them talking

to take advantage of something = to use something good which is available to you

commuting = travelling from home to work every day

585. Alternative British Citizenship Tests with Paul Taylor

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Testing Paul Taylor again on his knowledge of Britishness with several alternative British citizenship tests and some very British problems.


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Introduction Transcript

Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you’re well.

In the last episode you heard me talking to Amber and Paul. I hope you enjoyed that. It was lots of fun. I recorded it last week and after doing that mammoth episode about poshness Amber had to go but Paul stayed and so I thought we would return to the topic of the British citizenship test. We talked about this last time in episode 527 when Paul took the test on the podcast and failed.

I still had some other bits and pieces that I wanted to cover in the episode, including a stand up routine about the citizenship test and also an article in The Telegraph. Both of those things include their own citizenship tests, so let’s see if Paul can pass them. Be prepared to be either shocked or amazed by Paul’s knowledge about British things in general. Also we end up taking a citizenship test for the USA and to see if we pass or not, just keep listening.

So this episode is a chance for you to listen to Paul and me in conversation, but there’s also loads of stuff to learn in terms of British culture and certain words which are often pronounced wrong by native speakers of British English.

Check the page for this episode, where you will find links to the various tests and videos we’re talking about.

Let’s now join Paul and me after we’d just finished a cup of tea, ready to talk more on the podcast and let’s see how much he and you know about British life, culture and language.

Videos & Links

Imran Yusuf’s British Citizenship Test

The Daily Telegraph’s British Citizenship Test for Meghan Markle

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/queen-greasy-spoons-alternative-british-citizenship-test-meghan/

Very British Problems on Twitter

An American (USA) citizenship test on the Washington Times website

https://www.washingtontimes.com/quiz/2015/feb/11/us-citizenship-test-could-you-pass/

Paul Taylor on Twitter