Recorded the day after Argentina beat England in the semi-final 😭 here is World Cup Ramble #4. Zdenek joins me again as we discuss as many talking points as possible, including what on earth happened yesterday, the intense rivalry between Argentina & England, the historical background to that rivalry, Spain eliminating France, predictions for the final and so many other things, including a passionate conversation about cultural differences and communication style, plus the real heroes and villains of this epic World Cup competition. Normal podcasting will continue next week.
Martin returns with a set of questions about childhood, sparking a funny conversation full of stories from school, family holidays, getting into trouble, and formative years of Luke growing up both in urban West London and rural West Midlands. Expect a premium episode dealing with vocabulary in this conversation.
There has been an awful heatwave in Europe recently, with really high temperatures and a humid, sticky atmosphere. In this episode I ramble about the conditions, explore vocabulary with the words “hot” and “heat” and show the typical things British people say when the weather is boiling. Expect various funny tangents, anecdotes and improvisations, including a David Attenborough BBC nature documentary about Luke trying to buy lunch on a red-hot Paris boulevard, and plenty more. PDF notes available.
In this episode I reconnect with an old friend after 25+ years of not seeing each other. Expect a chat full of natural English expressions and slang, plus some marketing vocabulary, as Jez and I reminisce and jog each other’s memories of things we did together years ago, and talk about Jez’s career and recent projects. Check out the premium episode accompanying this conversation: P82 Vocabulary Quiz for LEP992.
In 2009 I did a solo travelling experience around Vietnam 🇻🇳 and I wrote a diary while I was there. In this episode, over 16 years later, I read out the diary, follow my descriptions of each part of my trip, explore how I was feeling at that time of my life, go off on some comedy and English teaching tangents, and take a journey into the past, across a very different country.
Here is an adorable episode with my adorable daughter. In this one, we discuss various absurd questions and end up improvising chats between odd socks, speculating about spaghetti hair, analysing the weaknesses of the human body, considering the importance of sleep, looking at the fear of long words, analysing completely mad nursery rhymes in English and French, speculating about societies run by ducks or cats, being painted by Leonardo DaVinci, and describing the dreams of dogs. All in a normal day spent chatting with my daughter.
This is a natural, funny and heart-warming English conversation full of real spoken English, perfect for English learners who want to improve their listening skills, vocabulary, pronunciation and fluency.
If your socks could talk, what would they complain about?
If you woke up tomorrow and your hair had turned into spaghetti, what would you do?
If you could change one thing about the human body, what would you change?
Would you rather sleep in a skip for a week or skip a week’s sleep?
Would you rather suffer from arachibutyrophobia (fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth) or hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (fear of long words)?
Would you rather be one of the three bears or one of the three blind mice?
If you had to eat only one food forever, what would you choose?
If pizza could have absolutely any topping, even crazy ones, what would you put on it?
What if gravity stopped working for five minutes?
What if everyone in the world suddenly started speaking like a duck?
What if cats suddenly became the rulers of the world?
If you were going to be in a race, would you rather be a tortoise or a hare? I know in the story the tortoise won, but how likely is that to happen again?
Would you rather be able to fly, turn invisible, or talk to animals?
If you were the boss of the world for a day, what new rules would you make?
If you could shrink to the size of an ant for a day, what would you do?
Would you rather play footgolf or basketballoon?
Would you rather be painted by Leonardo da Vinci or have a song written about you by Paul McCartney?
Would you rather discover the bones of an unknown species of dinosaur that would be named after you, or discover buried treasure?
Would you rather be locked down or locked up?
Would you rather have one marshmallow now or wait until tomorrow for a whole bag of marshmallows?
[980] Practise listening to British English conversation and enjoy some complaining, ranting and funny anecdotes in this episode based on the concept of a popular BBC TV chat show. My guest is Charlie Baxter from The British English Podcast. Charlie has chosen 3 things which he wants to be locked inside the mythical “Room 101” 🚪 an imaginary place where all the things you hate in the world are stored forever. What would Charlie like to remove from the world to be kept inside this room? And what is the shocking revelation about a certain popular British English YouTuber 👩🏫that could break the internet? 🤔
Following my chat with my mum last week, now it’s my dad’s turn! In this episode my plan was to ask my dad lots of questions about his life, and to listen to him talking about the various choices, moments and experiences he has had. The result is another deep chat about family history, and my dad’s life story. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed recording it. Full transcript available.
[976] Here’s an epic rambling episode in which I talk about learning English with BBC Radio and TV 📻 expressions with the word ‘thumb’ 👍 the story of how I became a taxi driver on the streets of Paris 🚖 the grammar of Yoda 🐸 fantastic haikus written by my listeners ✍️ and getting pecked in the face by a swan 🦢. 3h30min+ of English from me to you.
[967] Time for another tangential conversation in the podcastle with my pals Amber & Paul. In this one we chat about Paul’s ambitious international marathon plans (what is he running from exactly?), what Amber knows about the famous robbery of the Louvre this year, and Paul’s dramatic “Jason Bourne” style situation which he faced in West Africa recently. Listen to some spontaneous English conversation between friends. Full transcript available.
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