Haiku poems communicate a lot of ideas, thoughts and feelings into just a few simple words. They can be moving, humourous or meditative, and reading haiku in English allows you to learn vocabulary in a very interesting way. In part 1 I talked about the form and history of haiku, and read out various short poems in English from both Japanese writers and modern English ones. In part 2 here I finish reading my haiku selection, including many written by English-language haiku master John Stevenson. Listen to each one, consider the different meanings and interpretations and also learn specific words and phrases to expand your English vocabulary.
Time to learn English with another short story on LEP. This time it is a funny little tale written by Saki – the English author and master of the short story. A mischievous lad is punished by his strict aunt, but who ends up having the last laugh? Listen to the story and my comments, then learn vocabulary as I break down the text line by line and teach you English in context.
[963] Emma Camara Ortega and I worked together as English teachers years ago, but since then Emma has become a licensed counsellor and therapist – helping people with their mental health. In this episode, Emma talks to me about what is involved in counselling, and we discuss some everyday habits to promote good mental health. This should be full of interesting insights and helpful tips for mental wellbeing, which is so vital for our general lives but also to help us learn as effectively as possible. Full transcript and vocabulary list available.
A particularly useful and interesting episode for you today – a conversation about English words which are very similar, but crucially, not the same. My guest Eli Burnstein is the author of “Dictionary of Fine Distinctions” – a book which aims to bring clarity to English words. Expect a funny discussion about subtle shades of meaning between words like poison & venom, accuracy & precision, envy & jealousy and many others. Eli is Canadian, now living in London and so he also shares some key features of Canadian English.
Improve your English and reduce stress with this unique ASMR-style episode ☁️ 🧘. Join me for a relaxing, meditative journey featuring calm background music, softly spoken English, vocabulary for peace and tranquillity, some grammar practice, and gentle humour. Designed to help you learn English naturally while calming your mind, this episode is ideal for listening in bed, during quiet study, or or on a peaceful walk. Includes ambient music by my brother Jim Thompson. ASMR English, learn English while relaxing, calming English podcast, mindfulness, ESL listening practice with humour. Episode transcript available.
Recently I was thinking about how podcasts must be good for your mental health, and how this could be connected to the tradition of collective oral communication, and how this has been central to human psychological and cultural development over the years. So, I made this podcast episode about it. Expect discussion of culture, history, psychology and communication, with plenty of vocabulary explained. Detailed PDF available.
Join me for a quiz about some curious stories from the news this year (2024). Stephen Devincenzi from the SEND7 Podcast is the quizmaster for the third year running, and has prepared questions that will test my knowledge of some of the slightly less serious global news stories this year. Can you beat me in the quiz? Listen to find out.
1. The world’s richest person – Elon Musk – has got a lot of companies. One of them is Neuralink. What does it do?
2. Before 2024, 4 countries had landed spacecrafts on the moon – The United States, The Soviet Union, China, and in 2023, India. Which country became the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon, in January 2024?
3. In June and July the Euro 2024 Football Tournament took place in Germany. Spain were the winners, and one of their players broke the record for being the youngest player to play in a Euros tournament, and score in a Euros tournament, when he scored against France in the semi-final, aged just 16. What was his name?
4. In July and August, the Olympics took place in Paris. Why was the Men’s Triathlon event delayed by one day?
5. Staying at the Olympics, in one event, these two participants were spoken about as being the ‘coolest’ Olympians.
The first person is Kim Yeji, from South Korea, and she is wearing a backwards baseball cap and some interesting technical eye gear over her eyes. Over her right eye there’s a black monocle, and over her right eye there’s just a square which would block her vision from that eye completely. And the second person is Yusuf Dikec from Turkey. He is just wearing normal glasses. What sport did they participate in?
6. In July, millions of windows computers crashed around the world. This affected all types of businesses, most notably government services, airports and hospitals, and is believed to have cost the world $10 billion dollars. What caused the problem?
(a) A faulty security update (b) a cyber attack (c) Broken undersea cables (d) A fire at an important server
7. One animal, which is considered vulnerable to extinction has seen some positive trends over the last 25 years. Before the growing number of humans, there were probably over 25 million of this animal, however today there are only just over 400,000. The good news is that this population seems to have stabilised and even grown a little bit over the last 25 years, mostly because of conservation efforts. What animal am I talking about?
8. A baby hippopotamus went viral this year a few months after being born in Thailand, and caused a massive surge in visitors to the Khao Kheow Zoo. She is called ‘Moo Deng’. What does Moo Deng mean? (A) Dirty cat (B) Bouncy pork (C ) Sticky chicken (D) Spicy pigeon
9. The price of chocolate has risen dramatically in the last two years all around the world, because of a rising cocoa bean prices. The price of cocoa beans has doubled over the last year, so, unfortunately, the price that we all pay for chocolate is probably going to keep on rising. Heavy rain and other poor conditions have made bad cocoa harvest in the two countries in west Africa that produce most of the world’s cocoa. Can you name one of these two countries?
10. The world’s biggest cruise ship, the Icon of the Seas, launched this year, and made its maiden voyage, after being christened by Lionel Messi. How big is the Icon of the Seas?
A – 160 metres long with a capacity for 4,000 people (about a quarter are crew) B – 260 metres long with a capacity for 7,000 people C – 360 metres long with a capacity for 10,000 people D – 460 metres long with a capacity for 15,000 people
11. Donald Trump became the first President in over a hundred years to win a non-consecutive term as president, after winning in 2016 and losing in 2020. By what percentage of votes did Trump beat Kamala Harris?
A) 1.5% B) 3% C) 4.5% D) He didn’t – She got more votes than him, but he won the presidency anyway because of the electoral college system.
12. Sticking to elections, around half of the world’s population lives in countries that voted in 2024. Can you name 5 countries that held elections in 2024? I’ll allow you to name 6 so that you can get one wrong if necessary.
13. Which European country legalized cannabis this year?
14. In The United States and Canada throughout 2024 two rappers have been involved in what has been called the biggest rap battle since the feud between Biggie and Tupac in the 1990s. Can you name either of the two rappers involved in this rap feud of 2024?
15. In October, Claudia Sheinbaum became the first female President of which country?
16. To which Caribbean country has Kenya sent its police force, to try to to help fight against gang violence?
17. What record high price did bitcoin pass on December 4th?
18. Taylor Swift finished her Eras Tour a few weeks ago, after performing 149 shows, over 21 months, in 5 continents. The Eras tour is the highest-earning tour of any musician ever. How much money did it make? The answer is a 2 with a certain number of zeros.
19. In November, Australia’s parliament voted to make Australia the first country to make which limit to social media? The new law will come into effect next year.
20. In November, a piece of art called “Comedian” by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan was sold for $6.2 million dollars. Can you describe the artwork?
Talking to author Anna Brooke about her book Monster Stink, the sequel to Monster Bogey (Chicken House publishing). Anna is a travel writer and author of books for children. She is a great storyteller, and in this episode she talks about her fun new book for kids, which involves dangerous gas. This leads to a new topic for the podcast; farting! We teach you the most important vocabulary for this tricky subject, and then Anna tells some chilling stories about real supernatural encounters she has had. Not farts, but similar – ghosts!
How about some English rambling at Christmas time? ChatGPT (who can speak now) helps me with some questions and ideas, and I ramble about Christmas plans, traditions, post-gift melancholy, upcoming episodes, how to do a King Charles impression, and more…
In this episode you will be able to listen to a conversation with Cara Leopold all about films.
If you are a long-term listener to this podcast, then you will know Cara. She’s been on this show a few times before.
Just in case you need a reminder, Cara is an English teacher from the UK, currently living in France, and she loves films and uses them to help people learn English. In fact she is the creator of the Leo Listening Movie Club, where she helps advanced, film-loving English learners understand and discuss iconic movies together in order to master conversational English.
Cara Loves films. I love films too, who doesn’t? We all love films, don’t we? And it’s very common to talk about films we’ve seen.
Are you able to do that in English?
I want you to think about what is involved in having a conversation about films in English.
When we talk about films, we do a number of things, including:
Summarising the plot or story of the film
Describing the main characters
Talking about actors and their performances,
Talking about directors and they way films are directed, edited, locations, effects and music.
Giving our opinions about films, including the things we like and don’t like
Discussing the meaning of films, and any social, historical or personal issues which are connected to them.
How do we do those things in English? Are you familiar with the language of cinema and the language of talking about films?
What I want to do with this episode is let you listen to a natural conversation (one that isn’t scripted in advance) about films in order to let you hear all those things being done.
So that’s what this is!
You can use this episode in several ways.
1) Just listen for enjoyment, listen to what we have to say about various different films, and just try to follow the conversation, and practice your general listening skills in the process.
2) Focus on noticing the specific vocabulary or grammar that we use to do all the things I mentioned before. Listen out for the ways we describe, summarise, give opinions and generally share our thoughts about films.
We mention lots of different films in this conversation and one thing which I’m thinking about is that those films might have different titles in your language. I hope you are able to identify the films.
You can see a list of the names of the films we mention on the page for this episode on my website. If you want to check out those movie titles, and perhaps google them to find out what they are called in your language, just go to the episode page on my website and you’ll see all the titles listed there, plus various other links to things which we mention or which you might find useful.
Right then. It’s now time to listen to my conversation with Cara.
I will talk to you again briefly at the end of this but now, let’s get started.
Ending Transcript
Thanks again to Cara.
You can check out her work.
On her website you can see details of the different courses and resources I mentioned before, which involve improving your English with films.
Episode 129 (parts 1 & 2) of Daniel Goodson’s podcast “My Fluent Podcast” in which Daniel and Cara discuss Groundhog Day
And a list of all the names of the films Cara and I mentioned in this conversation, in case you wanted to google them to find out what they are called in your language.
Here are a few questions which you could answer in the comment section if you like:
Have you seen any good films recently?
Do you prefer films or TV series? Why?
What films have helped you learn English? How did they help you?
Films we mentioned in this conversation
Pétaouchnok (The French film starring Philippe Rebbot, who Cara saw at a cafe recently)
Films which Cara has watched in her film club recently
Get Out
Groundhog Day
Jane Austen adaptations
Sense and Sensibility
Pride and Prejudice
Richard Curtis films
Love Actually
Four Weddings & A Funeral
Notting Hill
About Time
Yesterday
Danny Boyle films
28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
Horror films
Paranormal Activity
Insidious
John Carpenter films
Halloween
The Thing
Paul Verhoven films
Robocop
Total Recall
David Fincher films
Se7en
Fight Club
One of my all-time favourite films
Taxi Driver
More recent films
The Barbie Movie
Killers of the Flower Moon
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