Category Archives: Vocabulary

Notting Hill Carnival – 40 Phrasal Verbs

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Learn 40 Phrasal verbs in this video! Also, learn about London culture at the Notting Hill Carnival 2009. Luke’s English Podcast is a FREE service for people learning English as a foreign language. Use this podcast as an entertaining way to learn English, pick up vocabulary, understand grammar and develop your pronunciation. Each episode is about a different topic, and includes a different language point. This episode is about phrasal verbs (a popular area of vocabulary), and is my first real video podcast, or ‘vodcast’. I hope you like it. Email me your comments, suggestions and feedback here: luketeacher@hotmail.com

The phrasal verbs are all in this transcript. You can find them and then read definitions below the transcript.

Luke: Hi everyone, this is Luke. Hello, and today I’m going to the Notting Hill Carnival. You probably know about Notting Hill from the movie with Hugh Grant, which looks a bit like this… But the Notting Hill Carnival is a slightly different view of Notting Hill, and it looks a bit like this… It’s the biggest carnival in Europe. It happens every year. It’s a Caribbean carnival so you get lots of Caribbean music, Caribbean food, Caribbean culture, and I’m going to take you, my video camera in order to just video the event and give you an idea, give you a flavour of what the Notting Hill Carnival is all about.
So I went out and I got some cash out of the bank, and I got on the bus and I paid with my Oyster card, which I’d just topped up. And I went to the back of the bus, and I got a seat and waited for the bus to take me to the carnival. There’s Notting Hill. You can see lots of people at the end of the street, and it’s just hotting up at the moment. That’s Notting Hill Gate.
I’m in Notting Hill now, and I got stuck in traffic on the way here. The bus took ages because there was so much traffic. I got stuck in traffic for a while but I’m here now and I’m just walking through Notting Hill. The police are here and they’ve blocked offlots of the streets so that cars can’t drive through. So all the streets are just for pedestrians now. So I’m just walking through Notting Hill with everyone, and I can hear some music in the distance, and I’m going to go and meet up with my friend Raph. So, here we go.
So, you have to queue up for toilets at the carnival because there aren’t many toilets around. That’s a bit annoying. There’s a typical street in Notting Hill, and that’s a typical little shop that you might come across if you walk around. There’s one of the musical floats playing a kind of Caribbean music. I don’t know how that child is still asleep, because it’s very noisy. You can see so many people, so many kinds of people at Notting Hill Carnival. And lots of police as well. There’s Raphael in the distance, waving at… waving and pointing at me. He’s with his girlfriend. Yeah, there he is, doing, like, a crazy dance, because he’s a crazy guy. Here’s Raph. He’s a bit surprised to see me I think.
Raphael: Mr Multimedia! How’s it going buddy, you ok?
Luke: You can pick up lots of nice food from barbecues on the street. Lots of, kind of, Caribbean food like jerk chicken. And this is Portabello Road, which is the main road in Notting Hill. And more musical floats, with people dancing on them, and extremely loud music. They have huge speakers, which pump out very loud music. I’m not sure which flag that is, but it’s one of the islands of the Caribbean I think. These people got covered in red stuff. I don’t know what that stuff is, but they got completely covered init. Lots of police again, just looking after everyone, making sure that we’re not doing anything wrong.
Katherine: Hi, I’m Katherine and I’m loving Notting Hill Carnival.
Liam: I’m Liam Foster from Sunderland in the North East [of England] and I’m loving London at the moment.
Holly: Hi, I’m Holly.
Liliana: Hi, I’m Liliana.
Luke: Very loud music. You can hear the bass. So strong.
Raph: My hair’s shaking!
Luke: Not the best place to bring a bicycle, I think.
Luke: So, what do you think of carnival?
Holly: Erm, it’s rammed.
Luke: It’s rammed.
Holly: It’s rammed. No, I like the music, and the loud sound systems.
Luke: Yeah, isn’t it a bit…
Holly: The colours
Luke: The colours, yeah yeah. Is it the first time you’ve been to carnival?
Holly: Yep.
Luke: Okay, alright. Err, great, thank you. Do you usually carry two beers?
Holly: All the time.
Luke: Really?
Holly: Yeah. It’s the best way to live.
Luke: So, it’s not just a carnival thing.
Holly: No, every day.
Luke: You’ve always got two beers, ok. Ok, is that…? Ok, thanks.
Holly: You were gonna ask another question then and you couldn’t!!
Raph: Check out the chopper.
Luke: Check out this big chopper. The police are, like, cracking down on… well, crime. Even using a chopper. So what’s happening Raph?
Raph: As you can see the area’s quite packed. Erm, and it’s just like basically just like loads of floats and everything going past. A bit of police action up top, erm, and everyone’s just drinking loads of, err, Red Stripe, and whatnot. It’s sort of like a carnival staple, if you will.
Luke: Any phrasal verbs, perhaps?
Raph: Check out the Red Stripe!
Luke: Check it out, yeah. Do you need… Do you usually have 4 Raph?
Raph: Erm… Nah, it’s not, it’s not absolutely necessary to erm, see off four beers or anything, you know? But, maybe later on I’ll just like, get a few more down, you know?
Luke: Yeah, crack open a couple more later…
Raph: Exactly, you know, err
Luke: How does it feel having the camera right in your face, like this?
Raph: It’s quite close

Luke: So, you’re the sergeant, are you?
Sergeant: Yes
Luke: So, how many times have you done carnival?
Sergeant: This is my 25th carnival
Luke: Really? So what’s it about? What’s carnival all about?
Sergeant: It’s about culture, it’s about people enjoying themselves, it’s about everyone having a good time in a good atmosphere, erm, just partying on. It’s the second largest carinival in the world. We could learn a lot from Rio. We could, sort of like, have it more organised, but it’s the spontaneity. It’s the nature of the event.
Luke: Ok. Is it… it’s the second largest in the world is it?
Sergeant: Yes
Luke: I didn’t know that. I knew it was the largest in Europe. Do you normally have any trouble?
Sergeant: Only minor, but then you have trouble at any large public gathering.
Luke: Yeah, ok, thanks very much.
Sergeant: No problem

Luke: So, can I interview you then? So, what’s carnival all about guys? What’s it all about for you?
French guy: So, an English boy, so French boy…
Luke: Huh?
French guy: So, French boy…
Luke: You’re French?
French guy: Yeah
Luke: Where in France are you from?
French guy: From Paris
Luke: Ah, did you come here today?
French guy: Yeah
Luke: Just for the carnival?
French guy: Yeah
Luke: Really? How many times have you been to carnival? Is it your first time?
French guy: First time
Luke: So, what do you think? [They blow their whistles!!]
Luke: Yeah?
Someone off screen (in French): Ca va bein?
Luke: Ok, have a good time yeah…

Luke: Hello, hi, just get everyone in, hello. So, what’s carnival all about for you guys? What’s it all about?
Pirate guy: I dunno, coming onto the street, having a bit of fun, I dunno, not having a massive race riot
Pink hat guy: You sound like a tory
Luke: Not having a massive race riot
Pirate guy: Yeah, definitely. It is, that’s that’s the history of it.
Luke: Have you dressed up today?
Pirate guy: Err, what are you saying?
Pirate girl: It’s so we can spot each other. This is my normal clothes, but we can see him from very far away because he’s in pink.
Luke: Right
Pirate guy: He’s very boring, he never makes any sense though.
Pink hat guy: I dunno who you’re teaching English to, but do they have fake tan in wherever they’re from?
Pirate girl: Yeah, my fake tan went very very wrong.
Luke: That’s fake tan?
Pirate girl: But it tastes really really good
Luke: What’s it made of?
Pirate girl: Chocolate
Luke: Ah, ok, lovely. Ok, well, have a great time.
Pirate guy: You too man. Good luck with the EFL
Luke: Nice one, thanks a lot, bye!

Luke: Err, what do you think of carnival?
Rabbit: I don’t think about it
Luke: You don’t think about it
Rabbit: I don’t think about it, I’m just a f*cking rabbit, man.
Luke: Are you enjoying it?
Rabbit: Err, in a way.
Luke: Have you had any carrots?
Rabbit: People, they are so greedy. They didn’t give me one.
Luke: They didn’t give you any?
Rabbit: Nah
Luke: You can get carrots, right, if you just go in that direction there’s loads of carrots.
Rabbit: Yeah, sure man.
Luke: Ok, have a good one, bye!

Luke: So, you can just see lots of people dancing, walking along Portabello Road, in all their different costumes and things. All sorts of weird and wonderful people, like this guy. This is Bongoman.
Luke: Hey, err, what’s your name?
Bongoman: Oh, I’m Bongoman
Luke: Sorry?
Bongoman: I’m Bongoman
Luke: Bongoman?
Bongoman: Yeah
Luke: Where are you from Bongoman?
Bongoman: Africa
Luke: From where?
Bongoman: Africa
Luke: Africa, okay. So, err, what’s carnival all about for you?
Bongoman: It’s all about peace and love, being together, and sharing love for one another.
Luke: Yeah, nice. Ok. Is that… how does the bongo fit into all of that?
Bongoman: Oh, through African roots culture going back centuries, so…
Luke: Yeah, like the rhythm, the heart beat, all that… Thanks a lot
Bongoman: I’d like to say to my fans, I love you all. Part of my soul is with them. If they’re watching, or if they’re watching on YouTube or Facebook, here’s to them – I love you all, my fans. Keep supporting me all the way. Love you.
Luke: Cheers man

Luke: Thanks Bongoman. I’ve no idea who Bongoman is, but he may be famous on YouTube. These people were completely covered in Chocolate. Someone had a big load of chocolate and they were throwing it at everyone. She’s doing a kind of carnival dance. And that woman got chocolate on my face.
Luke: They got me! Argh!

Luke: Hello, what are your names?
Girl 1: Gem(?)
Girl 2: My name is D’Arcy(?)
Luke: What’s carnival all about? Are you enjoying it?
Girls: Yeah we are enjoying it, very nice.
Luke: Do you live in London?
Girl 2: Yeah, we live in London, we live in South East London, yeah
Luke: Oh yeah? So what is carnival all about for you?
Girl 2: Sorry?
Luke: What’s it all about? What’s the main… thing?
Girl 1: We are in London just as tourists, because we are not English speaking, we are French and…
Girl 2: We come just for the carnival
Luke: Right, so what do you think of carnival then?
Girl 1: Very good.
Girl 2: Very good. It’s very nice, maybe we will come back next year.
Luke: Ok, thanks very much!

Luke: That man tried to hit the camera out of my hands.

Luke: What’s carnival all about man? What’s it all about?
Rastaman: All about? It’s a festival, it’s ????? man. Alright? Everybody enjoy themselves, do everything. Enjoy yourself, ???? ?????
Luke: Right, thank you

Luke: Right, I had no idea what he said, didn’t understand a word of it actually. You can see Popeye and Olive Oil having a good time, enjoying the carnival. Much taller than I expected.

MC: Where’s the beer crew!? Stella Artois! Budweiser! Fosters!

Luke: All the jerk chicken there. Massive barbecues with people chopping it up there on the table. Very tasty it is. It’s quite spicy.

Luke: What’s your name?
Ella: Err, my name is Ella.
Luke: Err, how’s the fest… how’s the carnival?
Ella: Pretty good, it’s pretty busy.
Luke: Yeah, have you been here before?
Ella: Yeah, two years ago
Luke: Okay, is this one better or worse than the last time?
Ella: Err, I think better. I’m with more people, so it’s better.
Luke: Ok, alright. What’s carnival all about?
Ella: Err, I don’t know. Partying. I’m sure there’s like, some historical reason, but…
Luke: What’s it about for you?
Ella: I dunno, having a laugh, getting drunk in the daytime. What about you? What’s it for you?
Luke: The same – having a good laugh, listening to the music, getting into the sort of community spirit of it, and all that. Yeah. Okay, thank you…

Luke: I’m an idiot because I didn’t get her phone number. I should have tried to chat her up, but I didn’t.

Koreans: Hello!
Luke: Where are you from?
Koreans: South Korea!
Korean Girl 1: He is North Korea!
Luke: What do you think of carnival?
Korean Girl 2: Sorry?
Luke (shouting): What do you think of the carnival??
Random guy: Yeah!!! Hypnotic brass dot net! Yeah yeah! What’s up maan? What’s up?
Korean Girl 2: Very nice!
Luke: What do you think of carnival?
Korean Girl 2: Very nice!
Luke: Very nice?
(North) Korean Guy 1: This carnival is wonderful, yeah!
Luke: Yeah, brilliant. Nice one, cheers.
Korean Girl 1: You are very nice!
Luke: Cheers

Luke: You can see St. Luke’s Mews, err, named after me actually. It wasn’t really, erm, yeah. So the Spanish tapas bar was open, but the Japanese café was closed. Typical. It’s very difficult to squeeze through the crowds at the carnival. There’s so many people, it’s difficult to squeeze through. … See, more people dancing in the street. Getting down. Another massive speaker. Very very loud. Seriously loud music. And, erm, you see all the people, kind of, getting down, grooving, dancing, blowing their whistles. It’s just a great party in the street. I mean, normally these streets are very quiet, very nice places, but during carnival they just become crazy parties, with everyone just dancing and drinking, it’s great fun.

This here is, erm, Miss Dynamite, and she’s actually quite famous in the UK. She’s got a recording contract. So you can see she’s getting everyone into it. That’s basically the end of this carnival video. After this, my tape ran out. I had no more tape left. It ran out, so I had to leave a final message for you.

Luke: Ok, erm, I’m just in a toilet now, in someone’s house, someone I don’t know. Erm, the sun’s gone down, the carnival’s going crazy out there, completely insane, so I’ve run out of tape, so that’s the end of this, that’s the end of this video, so ciao, peace, rastafari…

So, that’s the end of the video. I hope you enjoyed it. Now, there are loads of phrasal verbs in the whole video. So, did you manage to spot all the phrasal verbs? I’ll give you a list of the phrasal verbs in this video, at the end of the video, but of course you’ll have to listen to Luke’s English Podcast again in order to find all the meanings. I’ll actually explain all of the phrasal verbs and give you definitions for all of them. Every one that has appeared in this show, in this video, okay? So, what you should do now is watch the video again and try and pick up all of the phrasal verbs, ok?
That’s it, bye bye bye bye bye bye byebybybye

What is a phrasal verb?
It’s a verb which is made of two or more words. A verb and one or two particles. Particles are prepositions or adverbs. E.g. To get on with someone. ‘get’ is the verb, ‘on’ and ‘with’ are prepositions, or particles. (to get on with someone means to have a good relationship with someone – e.g. “I get on really well with my brother. We’re good friends”)
There are 2 types of phrasal verbs: Literal ones and idiomatic ones.
The literal ones are quite easy to understand. The meaning of the phrasal verb is not too different to the meaning of just the verb in the phrase. The particle just modifies the meaning slightly, or is used to connect the verb to a noun. e.g. I know about the Notting Hill Carnival ‘Know about’ is very similar to ‘know’, but slightly different. E.g. I know Tom Cruise (I know who he is), I know about Tom Cruise (I’ve read about him, I know information about him).
Idiomatic phrasal verbs are the difficult ones because the meaning is different from the individual words. E.g. to give up smoking (to quit smoking)
The meaning of the word ‘give’ and the phrase ‘give up’ are completely different.

So, when you see a verb + particle combination (phrasal verb), think about if it is a literal one or an idiomatic one. Luckily, almost every phrasal verb in this video is a literal one (yey!).

Here’s the list of phrasal verbs, and a brief description of their meanings:

  1. To know about something – you have information or knowledge about it. You might have read about it, or heard about it from someone.
  2. To go out – to leave the house, and go outside. It also means to leave the house to go to a pub, bar or club.
  3. To get some cash out – to withdraw money
  4. To get on the bus – to enter the bus
  5. To top up your Oyster card – an Oyster card is an electronic bus/train card. To ‘top it up’ means to put money onto it.
  6. To wait for something – this just means to wait, but we always use the preposition ‘for’ to add an object
  7. To hot up – to become more exciting, busier and more active. E.g. “The carnival is hotting up!”
  8. To get stuck in traffic – to be delayed in a traffic jam. E.g. “Sorry I’m late, I got stuck in traffic”
  9. To walk through somewhere – to walk from one end of an area to the other end. E.g. “I’m just walking through Notting Hill at the moment”
  10. To block off the street – to stop people entering or exiting the street. The police do it with ‘road blocks’. “The police have blocked off the street”
  11. To drive through the street – to drive from one end of the street to the other end. “People can’t drive through the street”
  12. To meet up with someone – to meet someone, usually in an informal/social way. “I’m going to meet up with my friend Raph”
  13. To queue up for something – to wait for something in a line/que with other people. To stand in a queue for something. “You have to queue up for the toilet”
  14. To come across something – to find something while you are walking somewhere, or while you are doing something else. E.g. “I was surfing the internet and I came across a really good podcast about The Beatles.”
  15. To walk around – this means to walk, but not to one destination, just to walk to various places in an area without a specific destination. E.g. “You might come across shops like this when you’re walking around Notting Hill”
  16. To wave at someone – to shake your hand in the air to someone (in order to say hello)
  17. To point at someone – to use your finger to bring attention to someone
  18. To pick something up – to buy it, get it, take it. E.g. “You can pick up loads of nice caribbean food at the carnival”
  19. To pump out music – to play music really loud. E.g. “The speakers were pumping out music until 2AM”
  20. To get covered in something – to have something all over you (it’s passive). E.g. “They covered me in chocolate. I got covered in chocolate.”
  21. To look after someone – to protect, care for someone. “The police are here, just looking after everyone”
  22. To check something out – to look at something “Check out the helicopter!”
  23. To crack down on something – to try to stop something happening, to become strict on something. Usually the government or the police do this. E.g. “The police are cracking down on drug dealing”
  24. To see something off – to eat or drink something completely. To finish eating or drinking something. “You’ve already finished off two beers!”
  25. To get something down – to eat or drink something. “I’m going to get a couple more beers down later”
  26. To crack open a beer – to open a beer! ‘Crack’ is the sound the can of beer makes when you open it.
  27. To party on – to continue partying
  28. To come out into the street – to leave the house and go into the street
  29. To dress up – to put on special clothes (smart clothes, or fancy dress)
  30. To think about something – to consider something. ‘about’ is the preposition we use to connect ‘think’ to an object. You can also say ‘think of’ something.
  31. To go back centuries – to have a long history (hundreds of years). “The roots of African music and culture go back centuries”
  32. To come back – to return to this place again. “I think I’ll come back next year”
  33. To hit something out of your hands – to make someone drop something by ‘hitting’ it while they are holding it. “That man tried to hit the camera out of my hands”
  34. To chop something up – to cut something into pieces with a knife, sword etc. “These people are chopping up the jerk chicken”
  35. To chat someone up – to talk to someone because you think they are attractive, and you want to make them fancy you. Hopefully, you’ll get their mobile phone number, or you’ll be able to go on a date with them, or kiss them… “I should have tried to chat her up”
  36. To name something after someone – To give someone/something the same name as someone else. E.g.”I was named after Luke Skywalker because my parents are big Star Wars fans.” [that’s not actually true, they don’t love Star Wars (IV – VI) as much as me…]
  37. To squeeze through a crowd – to walk through a crowd of people by making your body smaller. “It’s really hard to squeeze through the crowds”
  38. To get down to the music – to dance to the music “Look at all the people getting down!”
  39. To get people into something – to encourage/make people enjoy something “Miss Dynamite really got everyone into it!”  n>
  40. To run out of something – to use all of something, so you have nothing left. E.g. “I ran out of fuel, so I couldn’t drive all the way. I ran out of water in the desert, and I died – that’s why I’m in heaven now, doing a podcast, in heaven, yes, silly example, sorry.”

That’s it, bye bye bye bye bye bye byebyebyebyebyyeyeyeyeyeyyey eye eye eye eye eye eye eye

24. Music Idioms

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Learn some music-related idioms. Full Transcript available below.

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Learn English! Some music idioms for you to use. Luke’s English Podcast is a free service for everyone in the whole world to use. Download the podcast, listen, laugh and learn. Get new vocabulary, listening practice, pronunciation drills for speaking and some interesting cultural information. Email me at luketeacher@hotmail.com. You can also find me on Facebook and Twitter.

This podcast is about music idioms. Idioms are difficult because they are fixed expressions. The individual words mean something different on their own. You have to learn the meaning of the complete expression. Here are some useful ones that relate to music in some way. You can use them to talk about anything.

The idioms

  1. it rings a bell
  2. to pull out all the stops
  3. to play it by ear
  4. it’s music to my ears
  5. to be fit as a fiddle
  6. to face the music
  7. to change your tune
  8. to blow your own trumpet

Here are the transcripts of the badly acted dialogues (sorry about the terrible American accents):

A: Have you ever met Jack Miller?
B: Well the name rings a bell
A: He work in the Nakatomi Plaza
B: Oh yes, I remember. He was the guy who sealed the OCP contract. He wouldn’t stop blowing his own trumpet about it.
A: Yes, he kept going on about how he’d closed the deal, saying how Cyberdine were going to be the number 1 agency in the country.
B: Yeah, what a pain in the neck

OK guys! Summer is the busiest time of year for us. Lots of tourists with their £50 notes. What they really need, is London souvenirs. OK, so pull out all the stops this month. I want you to SELL SELL SELL. More British flags, more models of Big Ben, more photos of the Queen, more toy London busses, more postcards of punks, more Beatles T-shirts, more London Eye photos, more We Will Rock You tickets, and more umbrellas!!

A: Sir?
B: Yes?
A: It’s Miller. We’ve closed the OCP deal.
B: Oh, that is music to my ears! I can’t tell you how important it is to Cyberdine.
A: No sir, you don’t have to tell me.
B: Excellent!

A: Hey Miller!
B: Yeah?
A: Are you going into the OCP negotiation?
B: Well, yes I am.
A: Don’t you need your notes? Where’s your file?
B: Oh, I don’t really need them
A: How are you going to manage the negotiation without them?
B: Oh, I’ll just play it by ear

A: Well Miller…
B: Yes Doctor?
A: I’m pleased to tell you that you have a clean bill of health. You’re fit as a fiddle! It’s quite surprising really considering your age. I expect you have the body of someone half your age. How do you do it?
B: Well, just lucky I suppose
[terrible, unforgivable acting]

A: Hey Miller! The board is furious! They say you screwed up the OCP deal. They say Cyberdine is in jeopardy.
B: Damn it! Did they say anything else?
A: Yeah, they say they want to see you immediately. Time to face the music Miller.
B: I suppose so…

Serious APOLOGIES for the bad acting and for the slightly offensive American accent. I do like America, and mimicry is the sincerest form of flattery (apparently).

Here are the idioms and their definitions:

it rings a bell – it’s familiar, or it reminds me of something

to pull out all the stops – to do everything you can to achieve a result

to play it by ear – to improvise, to not follow a plan

it’s music to my ears – it’s exactly what I wanted to hear

to be fit as a fiddle – to be in perfect health

to face the music – to accept the negative consequences of what you have done

to change your tune – to change your opinion of something, and the way you talk about it

to blow your own trumpet – to go on about or boast about something you did well or are good at
That’s it folks! Cheers, bye bye bye bye bey bye bey bey bye bye bey bey bey bey bey

24. Music Idioms – Transcript

You are listening to Luke’s English podcast. For more information visit teacher Luke.podomatic.com (teacherluke.co.uk)

Hello, folks and welcome to another edition of Luke’s English podcast. Now, the last podcast I did was about music festivals. So, I thought that I’d stick with the theme of music this time and teach you some music idioms.
Now, just a little note about idioms. Of course, an idiom is a kind of fixed expression that, you know, is used a lot in general conversation. Now, they are quite tricky because the meaning is difficult to understand. If you try to understand the individual words one by one in an idiom you probably won’t understand the idiom. It’s very difficult because the idiom as a whole has a different meaning to the individual words. So, for example if you look in a dictionary and try to understand the expression word by word you won’t understand anything. It’s got a different meaning as a fixed expression.

So, I’m going to teach you some idioms that are sort of related to music in some way and I’ve selected these ones myself, handpicked them to make sure that I was teaching you idioms which are actually quite useful because some of the idioms that you learn are not really useful.
There are so many that some of them are not used very often or are a bit old-fashioned and I think these ones are okay.

So, the idioms I’m going to teach you and you’ll be able to read all of these idioms with transcripts on the web page. So, the idioms of this….and I’m not going to tell you what they mean, yet. First I’m just going to read the idioms to you and then I’m going to read you little dialogues that include the idioms and then at the end I’m going to explain what the idioms mean. Okay?

So, the idioms then, one by one.

First on is: it rings a bell or that rings a bell. Right?
Next on is: to pull out all the stops- to pull out all the stops. To pull out all the stops
Okay? So that’s it rings a bell and to pull out all the stops.
The next one is: to play it by ear – to play it by ear. Right? To play it by ear. Right?
The next one is: It’s music to my ears – it’s music to my ears. Right? Okay?
The next one is: to be fit as a fiddle – to be fit as a fiddle – to be fit as a fiddle. Okay?
The next one is: to face the music – to face the music.
The next one is: to change your tune – to change your tune or to change your tune. Right?
And the last one is: to blow your own trumpet – to blow your own trumpet – to blow your own trumpet. Okay?

So, don’t worry if you don’t know what those idioms mean and don’t worry about trying to understand the individual words necessarily because sometimes they don’t really help you.

So what I’d like you to try and do now, is listen to these little stupid dialogues that I have written which I’m going to perform. They’re not very good dialogues and I’m not a very good actor but I’m going to try and perform the dialogues to you to make it more realistic or interesting. And as you listen to the dialogues try to notice the idioms that I’ve used and try and guess what they mean from the context of the situation. Okay? Don’t forget at the end I’ll explain what they mean. Alright?

So, I’m going to start with the first dialogue.
All these dialogues are in some way related to work, basically.

It’s a kind of work themed situation in which a man had to do a negotiation to win a contract, and what happened. Okay?

So, here we go. Here is the first part of the dialogue.

Have you ever met Jack Miller?
Well, the name rings a bell.
He works in the Nakatomi Plaza
Oh, yes, I remember, it was the guy who sealed the OCP contract. He wouldn’t stop blowing his own trumpet about it.
Yes, he just kept going on about how he’d closed the deal, saying how Cyberdyne were going to be the number 1 agency in the country.
Yeah, what a pain in the neck!

Okay, that was my first dialogue. I do apologise for the terrible acting but there is nothing I can do about it. I am not a professional actor. I am a teacher, so I’m just doing the best I can. Anyway, I hope you managed to catch the idiom there. It was to blow your own trumpet.
He said, he wouldn’t stop blowing his own trumpet about it.

Okay, the next situation, if you can imagine is like in a big souvenir shop in the centre of London in the summer time. Okay? And this is like a motivational speech by the sales manager of the souvenir shop. Okay? Here it is:

Okay, guys! Summer is the busiest time of year for us. Lots of tourists with their 50 pound notes. What they really need is London souvenirs. Okay? So pull out all the stops this month. I want you to sell, sell, sell. More British flags, more models of Big Ben, more photos of the Queen, more toy London busses, more postcards of punks, more Beatles T-shirts, more London Eye photos, more We Will Rock You tickets, and more umbrellas!!

Okay, so that was the souvenir manager and the idiom there was…oh, what was it? The idiom was there – the idiom there – uh, I can’t speak.
I’ll start again: The idiom there was to pull out all the stops. Right? Okay!

Now, the next one is back with the story of Jack Miller and the negotiation.

Sir?
Yes,
It’s Miller, we’ve closed the OCP deal.
Oh, that is music to my ears. I can’t tell you how important it’s to Cyberdine.
No, sir, you don’t have to tell me, sir.
Excellent!

Okay, I’m getting kind of embarrassed now because I realised that these little dialogues are just awful, I think. I am not very pleased with them. I think they sound terrible. My acting is awful and my accents are really rubbish. But I’m gonna keep doing it because I’ve started it now, so I’ve got to finish. Anyway! That idiom was: that’s music to my ears. That’s music to my ears. Okay?

Okay, here is the next dialogue! Here we go, more bad acting and even worse accents coming right up:

Hey, Miller
Yeah?
Are you going into the OCP negotiation?
Well, yes I am
Don’t you need your notes? Where is your file?
Oh, I don’t really need them.
How are you going to manage the negotiation without them?
Oh, I’ll just play it by ear

Okay, I think this is a pretty awful and embarrassing mainly because of my acting. I thought that I was a bit better than this but clearly I’m not. I’m rubbish in acting. But, that’s not important. The important thing is that you learn some English. Isn’t that right? I think so.
So, yeah, the idiom there was I’ll play it by ear, to play it by ear. Right? Okay!
So there are two more dialogues and here is the next one.
It’s in a doctor’s surgery, so our man, Jack Miller is going to the doctors to get a check up. Okay, so here it is.

Well, Miller
Yes, doctor
I’m pleased to tell you that you have a clean bill of health. You are fit as a fiddle. It’s quite surprising really, considering your age. I expect you have a body of someone half your age. How do you do it?
Well, I am just lucky, I suppose

More bad acting for you there. A kind of posh doctor character. Anyway! the idiom there was: You’re fit as a fiddle. You’re fit as a fiddle. Okay?

Now, here is the last dialogue and the last of my terrible performances. Here we go. It’s back to the story of Miller and the negotiation.

Hey, Miller, the board are furious. They said you screwed up the OCP deal. They say Cyberdine is in jeopardy.
Damn it! Did they say anything else?
Yeah, they say they wanna see you immediately. Time to face the music Miller.
I suppose so.

So, that’s the last dialogue. I hope you enjoyed the story of Miller and the negotiation and, yeah, sorry about the awful acting. Next time I’ll get, you know, Johnny Depp and Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and Christopher Walken to come and perform one of my dialogues.
I think maybe next time I’ll do Christopher Walken and Robert de Niro. I think that will be quite a good combination. So, anyway the meanings of those idioms …well, actually in the first dialogue there were two idioms. That was: It rings a bell and he kept blowing his trumpet. Right?

So it rings a bell means it’s familiar – I think I remember it. It’s familiar or reminds me of something. So, if someone says something like: Oh, do you know Jack Miller. And I say “the name rings a bell”. So, it’s like there is a little memory of it in the back of your head. But you can’t really remember it. It’s like a little bell ringing in the back of your head. So, his name rings a bell. Right? So, it’s familiar.

The other one in that first dialogue was to blow your own trumpet. To blow your own trumpet. And that’s basically to boast about how good you are. So if you keep going on about how great you are you are just blowing your own trumpet. Okay? Right!

In the next dialogue we had to pull out all the stops. To pull out all the stops. It was, okay pull out all the stops this month. And if you pull out all the stops it comes from….well, pull out all the stops means you do everything you can in order to achieve the results that you need. So, you kind of go full power into your work. You pull out all the stops. Now, that comes from old organs like church organs which use pipes and to get the loudest sound of your organ, you would pull out all the stops and stops are like little buttons that you can pull out or press in and they change the sound of the organ. So, if you pull all of the stops out it makes a really loud sound of the organ, so now we use the expression to pull out all the stops to mean to do something full with all our power. You know, to do everything you can in order to achieve the result, right?

Now, the other idioms like I just said: It rings a bell. Well, a bell is like a little thing you have at the top of a church. Ding, ding, ding, ding like that, okay? So it rings a bell. Like I said it rings a bell in the back of your head like a memory.

The other one is to blow your own trumpet. So, a trumpet is a musical instrument which you blow into. I am sure you know what a trumpet is. If you don’t know what a trumpet is I’ll play you a little bit of trumpet. I don’t play the trumpet but I’m gonna play you a little bit of someone else playing the trumpet. Here it is:

trumpet music

Okay, so that was a trumpet being played. That was actually Donald Byrd there. A great trumpet player. So, to blow your own trumpet means to go on and boast about how great you are. Okay? To blow your own trumpet.

Okay, in the next dialogue we had: That’s music to my ears, that’s music to my ears and if you say that when basically someone has said something that is exactly what you wanted to hear. It’s exactly what you wanted to hear. So, something that makes you very happy. That’s music to my ears. Okay?

Now, the next one was….let’s see….I’ll just play it by ear. I’ll just play it by ear and in that one Miller’s colleague said to him: How you are going to manage the negotiation without your notes and Miller said: I’ll just play it by ear. So, to play it by ear means that…eh….let’s see ..you improvise you don’t follow a plan. You just react to whatever happens there. So, Miller is going to go into this negotiation without his notes. He’s not going to use a plan, he’s just going to react as things happen. He is just going to improvise. Okay? So the origin of that to play it by ear is a bit like: when you play a piano when you play a piece of music without music, without sheet music. You are not reading the music you are just playing it by ear. Okay? So, that’s where that comes from. At least we use that expression to say when you do something without planning, you just improvise. You play it by ear. Okay?

So, in the next dialogue, we had….you are as fit as a fiddle. And that’s what Miller’s doctor said to him. You are fit as a fiddle which means you are very healthy. You are in perfect health. To be fit means that you are healthy. You are —you know, you do lots of exercise and your body is in good condition. But if you are fit as a fiddle it means you are really, really healthy. And a fiddle is another word for a violin. So, I am not sure why they say fit as a fiddle. Why is a violin fit? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because the strings are tight and it’s kind of …I don’t know, in good condition or something. But fit as a fiddle. Here we go.

And in the last dialogue we had: time to face the music, to face the music.
Now, if you face the music it means you accept the negative consequences of your actions. You accept like if you don’t… something that caused a really bad reaction you have to just accept that and just face it. For example when lots of people are angry about a decision you made and they are in a room and they are all angry, you just go in there and speak to them. You need to face the music. Right? Okay!

So, that’s it. Actually I’ve just realised, I realised something at the beginning of this podcast I said that I will teach you all of those idioms like it rings a bell, to pull out all the stops, to play it by ear, it’s music to my ears, you are fit as a fiddle, to face the music, to blow your own trumpet and to change your tune. But I didn’t explain to change your tune. I’ve just realised that.

So, basically you change your tune, you change your opinion of something. Change the way you talk about something. So, for example if maybe one month John always talks about – I don’t know – “U2, like the rock band U2 if usually he says: Ah, U2 are rubbish, they are boring, you know, they are not very good at music, their songs are really bad and Bono can’t sing and he’s really annoying. So, I hate U2” and when that’s what for example John says about U 2 and then, like the next day after he listened to one of their songs, the next day he says: “Do you know what, U2 are really good actually, yeah. I think, you know, possibly one of the best bands in the country in the moment. As a matter of fact, I’ve purchased 2 tickets and go to see them life in concert.” Right?
And you would say to him: “What are you talking about, John? You’ve changed your tune. I thought you hated U2.” Right? So, to change your tune is to change your opinion of something and to change the way you talk about something.

So, that’s it!
So, I hope those idioms are useful for you. Let me give you actually just a couple of drills for those …just drills for those idioms. Okay?
So, these are just sentences I’m gonna read to you. I’d love you to try and repeat them. It’s good practice for your pronunciation. Think about how all of the words in the sentences are linked together when I say them and try to copy it. Okay!

Here is the first one:
His name rings a bell.
We’ve got to pull out all the stops.
I’ll just play it by ear.
That’s music to my ears.
You’re fit as a fiddle.
Time to face the music.
You’ve changed your tune
Don’t blow your own trumpet

And that’t it for this episode of Luke’s English podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you’re using these drills to practice your pronunciation.
That’s it for me and have a very nice day.
Cheers buy, buy, buy, buy, buy

Hi, folks
You are listening to Luke’s English Podcast. That’s right, this is Luke. I’m just sitting here right now, playing the piano. I play the piano maybe three, four times a day. Sometimes, if I have the time and I’m not teaching English or doing a podcast. I came up here to start playing the piano. Kind of makes me feel good. I am sure it makes everyone else in the neighbourhood feel good. I know my neighbours particularly enjoy the piano playing all hours of the day. Sometimes they bang on the ceiling there, just out of pure enjoyment I think. They sure love it when I play the piano.
So, I just thought I’d play this short piece for you right now. Just to give you another side of my personality, ladies and gentlemen.
And I’ll be doing another podcast for you real soon so until then have a very, very nice week. I’ll catch you soon. Thanks a lot, good night!

23. Summer Music Festivals

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Luke’s English Podcast is free and available to download as often as you like. It is designed to help learners of English with their vocabulary, listening and pronunciation. Also, Luke’s English Podcast aims to introduce you to unique aspects of the British cultural experience. This podcast is about music festivals during the summer months in The UK.

Hello folks, and welcome to Luke’s English Podcast. I’ve been to a few festivals this summer, so this podcast is about Music Festivals! So, relax, put your feet up, have a cup of tea (or whatever you might drink in your country: green tea, chai, jasmine, white tea, oolong cha, Japanese Sencha, peppermint tea, instant coffee, fresh coffee, Turkish coffee, South American coffee, Italian coffee, coffee from wherever it is made in the world anywhere, beer, wine, water, juice, coconut milk, cow’s milk, goat’s milk, kangaroo milk, blood (if you’re from Transylvania), and enjoy the podcast. Cheers.

Here are some key words and sentences from the podcast:

  • A few little fluffy clouds dotted around in the sky
  • I’m a bit sunburned
  • He’s very influential and a great musician.
  • He plays his guitar very loud, and he uses lots of feedback and distortion.
  • They sleep in tents in large camp-sites.
  • The arena has a number of large stages where bands can perform.
  • It’s a bit like going back to medieval times.
  • Thousands of people sleeping ‘in tents’ is quite ‘intense’.
  • There’s loads of good music and bands.
  • You can find out about new bands.
  • There’s lots of local beers and ciders that you can drink.
  • They’ve got distinctive tastes.
  • Cider is an alcoholic drink which is made from apples.
  • You can get out of London, escape from London.
  • It’s like a little mini home.
  • They do ‘jerk chicken‘.
  • It’s been marinated and soaked in a sort of sauce.
  • You get to meet lots of interesting people there.
  • You meet friends of friends and then they become your friends, and you can add them as a friend on Facebook.
  • It’s a great opportunity to show people your music.
  • It gives the music industry a big boost every year.
  • Sometimes it can be a nightmare.
  • If you can imagine thousands of people gathered together in a field, and it rains,
  • you’re going to get loads of mud everywhere.
  • It’s a bit like a disaster zone. It could be classed by the UN as a disaster zone.
  • You get lakes of mud. It’s disgusting.
  • You might get over-excited and drink too much, and you wake up with a bad hangover.
  • A tent in direct sunlight. It magnifies the sun and you just cook in the tent.
  • You don’t have a very good night’s sleep.
  • He was snoring in my ear.
  • They really rip you off. The prices are ridiculous. It’s a rip off.
  • It’s difficult to walk through the crowd.
  • The toilets are very smelly and disgusting.
  • Doing a number 1 isn’t so bad, especially if you’re a bloke.
  • Doing a number 2 for anyone is difficult. You need toilet roll.
  • It’s difficult to get to the festival and get back. You need to get on a train and travel across the country.
  • It’s a real mission just to get out of the festival.
  • You need a few days to recover.
  • You might be exhausted at the end.
  • You have to go back to work and be normal even though you’re exhausted.
  • It’s like a massive crowd of zombies, all sort of shabbling [not a word] about or shuffling around.
  • Mobile phone reception is so bad. The signal gets weak. You can’t call because there’s no reception.
  • If the tent is on a slope, if it’s on an angle you might not be able to sleep.
  • You’re back aches, and your feet ache. By the end you’re kind of broken by the festival.

The Green Man Festival Website.

18. 10 More Phrasal Verbs

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Learn 10 more phrasal verbs in this episode. These ones are all particularly useful in business English when you have meetings.
Listen to the meeting I had with my staff members (Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Sean Connery) about ideas for the next podcast on passive verb forms. Can you find the 10 phrasal verbs?
Full transcript available below

Right-click here to download this episode.
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Transcript of the meeting (A full transcript of the whole episode is also available below)

“Good morning everybody, hello. Yep, hi, hi Rob. Yep, hello Al. Good morning Sean. So yep, excuse me! Hello, sorry could you just listen… thank you. Err, Sean? Thank you. Ok so good morning to everyone, I’d just like to kick off by saying I hope you had a good weekend, and that you’re rested and ready to get down to some good work on the podcast this week. So, there are a few matters I would like to bring up in this meeting, but before we get on to that I’ve got a couple of messages here to read out.

I’ve got one here from Barack Obama. He says ‘Thanks Luke for the interesting podcast on Michael Jackson. It was educational, entertaining and informative. Well done.’ Well, I think we knew that already, didn’t we? Another one here from Yoda. Yeah, you know, Yoda? The Jedi Master? From Star Wars. Yeah, that’s right… and Yoda said, ‘Your Susan Boyle podcast I enjoyed. Listened to it 3 times I have. Very useful for my English the podcast is.’ Well, thanks Yoda. Erm, Bob – is he still going to grammar lessons? His sentence structure hasn’t improved much. Look, ‘do’ or ‘do not’ okay Bob? There is no ‘try’. Okay? Right, thank you. Thank you very much.

Now, Al asked me recently, yep that’s right Al, if we could upload a new video onto YouTube soon in order to compete with other YouTube teachers like MrDuncan and that guy with the stupid hat, yeah. Well, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later. I’m not too worried about those guys really, and I’d like to focus on the audio podcast rather than the YouTube videos at the moment. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out how important it is for us to just concentrate on audio podcasts. You know, people can listen to them anywhere, or while they’re having a bath or driving or on the toilet or whatever. I really don’t need to spell it out for you, do I? The main thing for us to deal with is, at the moment now, is the grammar rules for our next podcast on passive verb forms. Bob, can I ask you to deal with that? Ok, check it in the grammar book, read the main rules, and then just sum them up on paper for me. Ok, great.

So, now I’d like to just run through the diary for this week. Now, Al, on Thursday you’re going to interview somebody about the weather, okay? For our British weather podcast. Okay Al? Great. Now Bob, you’re doing the grammar research. I’m going to interview Keira Knightley on Thursday as well. Sean, let’s see… Sean could you perhaps just erm, go down to Tescos and get some biscuits and some coffee for us? That’s great, thank you very much. Okay, so, any questions? No? No? Great. Okay, let’s get started then…”

Here are the 10 phrasal verbs from the meeting:

1. to kick off / to kick something off
2. to get down to something
3. to bring something up
4. to get on to something
5. to put something aside
6. to come back to something
7. to spell something out
8. to deal with something
9. to sum something up
10. to run through something

Here are some definitions (check the meeting for examples):
1. to kick off = to start something
2. to get down to something = to start doing something seriously and with a lot of attention and effort
3. to bring something up = to say something, mention something, to start to talk about something (especially in a situation like a meeting)
4. to get on to something = to start talking about it after you have discussed something else
5. to put something aside = to not discuss something now so that we can discuss something else, to leave it until later
6. to come back to something = to return to something later
7. to spell something out = to clearly describe or explain something
8. to deal with something = to discuss something, give attention to it, fix it, do it, solve a problem
9. to sum something up = to summarise something, to put it in a short and basic way
10. to run through something = to repeat something to make sure it is correct, to check each point one by one

That’s it!

Here are some pictures of my production team:

Full Transcript
18. 10 More Phrasal Verbs

You are listening to Luke’s English podcast. For more information visit teacher Luke.podomatic.com

Hello, welcome to Luke’s English podcast. Today I am going to teach you some more useful phrasal verbs and it’s going to be done like this:
First I am going to play you a recording of a meeting. Okay? In that meeting recording there are 10 phrasal verbs. I’d I like you to try and find the phrasal verbs. So, listen to the recording and try to find ten phrasal verbs. I’d like you to imagine that I am having a meeting with my production team for Luke’s English podcast.
Now, actually I just produce the podcast on my own. But I’d like you to imagine that maybe I have got a production team of people who work together to produce episodes of Luke’s English podcast. Okay?
So, imagine I am talking to my production team on Monday morning. We are having a little meeting to talk about ideas for my next podcast. Okay?
So, in the production team I have got some actually, some people you might know.
There is me of course. I am the project manager and then you’ve got …then I have got Robert De Niro. He is one of my members of staff and I’ve got Al Pacino, as well. And also I’ve got Sean Connery working for me, too.
So, it’s a small team. It’s just me, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Sean Connery together working on the podcast. Okay?
So, I’d like you to listen to the meeting that we have on Monday morning and try and find 10 phrasal verbs. I will explain all of them, after you have listened to the recording, okay?

“Good morning everybody, hello. Yep, hi, hi Rob. Yep, hello Al. Good morning Sean. So yep, excuse me! Hello, hello, just sorry, could you just listen… thank you. Err, Sean? Thank you. Ok so good morning to everyone, I’d just like to kick off by saying I hope you had a good weekend, and that you’re rested and ready to get down to some good work on the podcast this week. So, there are a few matters I would like to bring up in this meeting, but before we get on to that I’ve got a couple of messages here to read out.

Let’s see! Well, I’ve got one here from Barack Obama. He says ‘Thanks Luke for the interesting podcast on Michael Jackson. It was educational, entertaining and informative. Well done.’ Well, I think we knew that already, didn’t we? Another one here from Yoda. Yeah, you know, Yoda? The Jedi Master? From Star Wars. Yeah, that’s right… and Yoda said, ‘Your Susan Boyle podcast I enjoyed. Listened to it 3 times I have. Very useful for my English the podcast is.’ Well, thanks Yoda. Erm, Bob – is he still going to grammar lessons? His sentence structure hasn’t improved much. Look, ‘do’ or ‘do not’ okay Bob? There is no ‘try’. Okay? Right, thank you. Thank you very much.

Okay, now, Al asked me recently, yep that’s right Al, if we could upload a new video onto YouTube soon in order to compete with other YouTube teachers like MrDuncan and that guy with the stupid hat, yeah. Well, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later. I’m not too worried about those guys really, and I’d like to focus on the audio podcast rather than the YouTube videos at the moment. Okay? I’m sure I don’t need to spell out how important it is for us to just concentrate on audio podcasts. You know, people can listen to them anywhere, or while they’re having a bath or driving or on the toilet or whatever. I really don’t need to spell it out for you, do I? The main thing for us to deal with is, at the moment now, is the grammar rules for our next podcast on passive verb forms, okay? Bob, can I ask you to deal with that? Ok, check it in the grammar book, read the main rules, and then just sum them up on paper for me. Ok, great.

So, now I’d like to just run through the diary for this week. Now, Al, on Thursday you’re going to interview somebody about the weather, okay? For our British weather podcast. Okay Al? Great. Now Bob, you’re doing the grammar research. I’m going to interview Keira Knightley on Thursday as well. Sean, let’s see… Sean could you perhaps just erm, go down to Tescos and get some biscuits and some coffee for us? That’s great, thank you very much. Okay, so, any questions? No? No? Great. Okay, let’s get started then…”

Okay, what a very successful meeting that was. But did you manage to hear the 10 phrasal verbs? Well, here is a list of the phrasal verbs that I used there. I am just going to read the list to you now:
Here we go.

to kick off, to kick off by doing something
to get down or to get down to something
to bring something up, to bring something up
to get on to something, to get on to something
to put something aside, to put something aside
to come back to something, to come back to something
to spell something out, to spell something out
to deal with something, to deal with something
to sum something up, to sum something up and
to run through something, to run through something.

Okay? So now I’d like to …just go through or run through those 10 phrasal verbs one by one. I’ll explain what they mean, I’ll explain how they are used and I’ll give you some examples, okay?
So, let’s start with the first one: So, the first one I used was to kick off, to kick something off. In this case to kick off a meeting and it means to start something.
It’s just a phrasal verb which comes from football, actually. At the beginning of a football game, one team kicks off. They kick off the game.
So, we can use that expression in other things like, for example, in a meeting.
And I said: I’d just like to kick off by saying good morning to everyone. Okay? So it’s very common in a meeting. We say: I’d like to kick off by running through the agenda, okay?
So, to kick of by doing something!
I’d like to kick of by saying hello.
I’d like to kick of the meeting by saying hello to everyone, okay?
To kick off!
You could say to kick the meeting off. I’d like to kick the meeting off by asking you a question, for example. So, to kick off!

The next phrasal verb was to get down to something. Now I’ve talked to you about this before. To get down to something, it means to start doing something seriously and with a lot of your attention and effort, okay? To get down to something!
In the meeting I said: I hope that you are rested and ready to get down to some good work on the podcast, okay? That means I hope you are rested and ready to seriously start with concentration and effort some good work on the podcast.
An example for you as a learner of English might be something like: I had a free evening, so I managed to get down to my homework. I managed to get down to doing my homework. Okay?
Unless you are students in my class, because for some reason many of them can’t be bothered to do their homework at the moment and keep giving me these funny excuses like: Oh sorry, Luke, I did my homework, but my dog ate it, right, okay, yeah!. Yeah, sure, your dog ate it, right.
Actually, I can’t really blame them for using that excuse because I taught it to them. So, I suppose they are learning something even if it’s just the ability to come up with ridiculous excuses.
Anyway! The phrasal verb there is to get down to something. I need to get down to some work or let’s get down to some work on the podcast, okay? Okay!

The next phrasal verb was to get on to something, to get on to something. And that means to do something after you have done something else. Okay? Now in the meeting example there I said, there are a few matters I’d like to bring up in this meeting but before we get on to that, I’ve got a couple of messages to read out, okay? So, that’s to get on to something, meaning to do something next.

After that we had to put something aside. To put something aside!
Well, that means to not talk about something, so that you can discuss something else, okay? It’s a bit like saying I’d like to leave it until later or I’d like to wait until later before we discuss it. So, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later, okay?
So, in the meeting that’s exactly what I said. I said: Well, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later, okay?

Come back is the next phrasal verb, okay? Come back. And it’s quite clear I think that ….I expect most of you know that expression. It means to return to discuss it later, okay? To come back to it later, return to discuss it later.
Those are very, very common expressions that people use in meetings for example. It might be, well, I’d like to put that aside for today and come back to it later. It means I don’t want to discuss it now, I’d like to discuss it later, okay?

Okay, so after that, next phrasal verb was to spell something out. To spell something out! And that means to explain something in detail, to explain it in detail. Now, in the meeting I said: I am sure I don’t need to spell out how important it is for us to just concentrate on audio podcasts, okay?
I don’t need to spell it out for you, right?
So, what I meant was: I am sure I don’t need to explain in detail how important it is, okay? I don’t need to explain it in detail. I don’t need to spell it out for you. We used the word spell, as well, when we are talking about how to write a word. How do you spell it? Yeah? How do you spell that? We also use the expression to spell something out to mean to explain it in detail, as well. So it’s quite common in a question. If you don’t understand what someone is saying, like if you don’t understand a suggestion that they have made, you can say: Sorry, I don’t quite understand that. Could you spell that out for me, alright?
Maybe could you explain that to me in detail. Right!

The next phrasal verb was to deal with something. To deal with something! And to deal with something means to discuss it, to give all of our attention to it and to fix it or solve it, okay?
So, in the case of the meeting, I said, the main thing for us to deal with is the grammar rules for our next podcast on passive verb forms. Okay?
So, that means the next thing for us to talk about, discuss and solve or fix is the grammar rules for our next podcast. Okay?

And then I said: Bob, can I ask you to deal with that? So that means I want Bob to do it, to fix it, to solve that problem, to work on that task, to do that job. I want him to deal with that. Okay?
Again, very, very common expression, that one!

Okay, the next phrasal word was to sum something up. To sum something up! Obviously that means to give a summary of something, okay? To sum something up, to give a summary of it, to summarise something, okay?
In the meeting, I said …I said to Robert de Niro: Read the main rules and then sum them up for me on paper. So, I am asking Robert, or Bob, as I call him – most of his friends call him Bob – actually, I said to him: Read about the grammar rules for passive verb forms and sum them up, so summarise them, write them in a simple way, in a simple form, right? Just the basic points, to sum something up.

Next phrasal verb was to run through something. To run through something! And that, that means to repeat something in order to make sure it is correct, to repeat it in order to make sure, it’s correct. Or to talk about it step by step in order to make sure it’s correct. So, I said: Okay, now I’d like to run through the diary for this week. So, you can imagine that means I am going to talk about each day, step by step in order to make sure that everybody understands it. To run through it! You can run through a lot of things. Run through dates in a diary, run through the points on an agenda for a meeting, run through comments for your customers, for example. So, run through something.

And that is it!
That’s the end of this little podcast about phrasal verbs. 10 useful phrasal verbs for you!
Don’t forget you can visit the web page: teacher Luke.podomatic.com and there you can read the phrasal verbs. You can also read a transcript of the meeting that I had with Bob and Al and Sean.
You can read a transcript and you can also read definitions and examples of the 10 phrasal verbs.

That’s it!
I hope you enjoyed that. I hope find it useful. If you want me to leave a message for Robert De Niro or Al Pacino or Sean Connery, just send me an email. The address is Luketeacher@hotmail.com. I’ll be glad to leave them a message for you. They are very nice people and I am sure they will be very happy to hear from you.

That’s the end of this short podcast. Thanks very much!
Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye

Thanks for listening to Luke’s English podcast. Don’t forget to email me at Luketeacher@hotmail.com.

15. Extra Podcast – 12 Phrasal Verbs

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Just a quick podcast today. 12 useful phrasal verbs.

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Just a quick podcast today. 12 useful phrasal verbs.
Listen to me read this text which contains 12 phrasal verbs. Can you find them all by listening and reading? I will explain them after you listen.

Here’s the text:
“I haven’t got round to doing another podcast recently. I haven’t been putting it off. It’s just that I’ve been caught up in a lot of other things recently. I haven’t given up on it, and I haven’t run out of ideas. It’s just that all my time is being taken up by other things at the moment. I hope you haven’t gone off my podcast. I also hope you’re holding out for the next episode. You’ll just need to hold on a bit longer for the next one to be uploaded. Don’t forget to let me know how you’re feeling about the podcast. If you’re a bit pissed off that I haven’t uploaded a new one recently, just send me an email to let me know how you feel. Don’t bottle up your feelings – that’s very bad for you. Just tell me any comments you have and I’ll be very happy. I like getting your comments. They always cheer me up.”

So, did you find the 12 phrasal verbs?
Here they all are:

1. To get round to doing something = to do something you haven’t been able to do for some time because you’ve been busy. “I finally got round to doing another podcast yesterday”

2. To put something off = to delay doing something, or to avoid doing something because you don’t want to do it. “I’ve been putting off doing my washing all week, but now I have to do it because I’ve got no clean socks left”

3. To be caught up in something = to be doing something which has stopped you doing something else. “I haven’t been able to do a podcast recently because I’ve been caught up in a lot of other things”

4. To give up on something = to quit doing something because you feel it isn’t going to be a success. “I gave up on being a rock star, because I couldn’t get a recording contract”

5. To run out of something = to use all you have and have nothing left “I ran out of milk last night so I didn’t have enough for a cup of tea this morning” (in England we have milk in our tea – we’re strange aren’t we?)

6. It takes up my time / My time is taken up by it = it uses all my time. “Work is taking up all my time at the moment – I don’t have time to do anything else”

7. To go off something = To stop liking something that you used to like. “I’ve really gone off Brad Pitt – he’s not so handsome anymore” (ladies – is this true? or is he still Mr Wonderful?)

8. To hold out for something = To wait for something that you really want or really need. “Great Britain is holding out for a tennis victory in the Wimbledon tournament this year.”

9. To hold on = wait. “Hold on a minute, I need to put on my shoes”

10. To be pissed off = (quite rude) Angry, annoyed, irritated. “I’m really pissed off with my neighbours – they keep making so much noise at night”

11. To bottle up your feelings = to keep your feelings inside and not say how you feel. “Don’t bottle up your feelings darling – if you have something to say to me, just say it! Do you still love me? Do you? DO YOU?”

12. To cheer someone up = To make someone happy. “John is a bit sick at the moment, so send him a card. It’ll really cheer him up.”

That’s it. Bye for now…

13. Video Podcast – I LIKE IT!

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Learn 16 different ways to say “I like it”.
AUDIO VERSION

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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW

New video on YouTube – Luke’s English Podcast – I Like It!

VIDEO VERSION

 

The podcast today is an audio version of this video.

KEEP SCROLLING FOR THE FULL TRANSCRIPT (GO DOWN!)

Here’s a description of the vocabulary.

16 Ways to say “I Like It”:
1. I’m into it – this means you’re interested in an activity or a subject. E.g. I’m really into playing football, I’m really into The Beatles, I’m really into Kung-Fu movies…
2. I’m keen on it – this just means that you’re interested in it, you like it, you want to learn more about it. e.g. I’m really keen on playing the guitar, I’m keen on her, I’m keen on movies by Quentin Tarantino
3. I’m fond of it – this means you like it because you’ve liked it for a long time, and you have an emotional attachment to it. E.g. I’m fond of my pet dog, I’m fond of my car, I’m fond of my family photos
4. It appeals to me – this means that it sounds/looks good or it’s a good idea. E.g. living in Hawaii appeals to me.
5. It goes down well (with people) – this means that other people like something that you do. E.g. This joke always goes down well, the presentation went down really well with the class.
6. It’s to my liking – this is just a formal way to say I Like It
7. I’m partial to it – this means I like to eat or drink something, maybe too much. E.g. I’m partial to a glass of wine. I’m partial to a nice cake.
8. I’m crazy about it – I just love it! I love doing it! E.g. I’m crazy about playing the drums. I’m crazy about her.
9. I’m mad about it – this is the same as “I’m crazy about it”
10. I’m attached to it – this means I like it and I don’t want to live without it. I’d feel sad if I lost it. E.g. I’m really attached to my mobile phone – I always have it with me.
11. I’m passionate about it – this means I’m really interested and excited about it. E.g. I’m passionate about the music of Miles Davis. I’m passionate about doing charity work.
12. I’m addicted to it – this means I like it so much that I can’t stop doing it. E.g. I’m addicted to playing PlayStation 3. I’m addicted to this TV programme. (we also use ‘addicted’ in a negative way – e.g. addicted to drugs, addicted to cigarettes)
13. I’ve grown to like it – this means you didn’t like it before, but slowly you have learned to like it. E.g. I’ve grown to like the music of Radiohead.
14. I’ve got a soft spot for her – this means that you like someone a little more than you like other people. E.g. My grandmother always had a soft spot for my sister. She was always her favourite grandchild.
15. I fancy her/him – this means you think someone is attractive, sexy, good-looking. E.g. I really fancy Rachel McAdams (see picture below) – I think she’s gorgeous…
16. I can’t get enough of it – this means I love doing it and I don’t want to stop – e.g. I can’t get enough of this TV programme, I can’t get enough of Luke’s English Podcast!!

Rachel McAdams

rachel-mcadams-22263-22820-hd-wallpapers

FULL TRANSCRIPT

13. Video Podcast – I like it!

Right, now I just uploaded a new video on the Luke’s English podcast YouTube page.
Now, if you haven’t seen that, go and see it. You can find it on YouTube or actually it is probably easier if you just follow the link that I will post on the webpage. I am always asking you to visit the webpage. That’s because there is lots of useful things on there, you know, like for example if I teach you something on the podcast, I will type out the language explanation on the web page. You might be able to read scripts for content of this podcast on the web page. I often post videos and photos on the web page as well. So if you do listen to this podcast but you don’t ever look at the webpage, I suggest that you do look at it because it will help you to understand it and enjoy it a bit more. Okay? I always repeat the webpage and that is: you can just simply type to your web browser www.teacherluke.podomatic.com. Right? So check it out.

I have got a YouTube page for Luke’s English podcast and every now and then sometimes I make a video podcast. Usually I do an audio podcast but sometimes I do a video podcast, so you can actually look at the video and I will teach you something and you can see me moving, you can see me talking and you can see me showing you things and doing things.
Now, the video I just made is me, teaching you some vocabulary. And what I am teaching is lots of different ways to say: I like it. Okay?

Now, there are many many different ways of saying I like it or expressing, let’s see, expressing preferences or talking about liking things. Right?

Now, if you are a low-level-speaker of English, you probably just use like.
You know, I like this, I like that. I like him, I like her. I don’t like that, I don’t like this. You might say things like: I quite like that, for example or I really like that. But if you are a more advanced speaker of English you will know, that there are many many more ways to say: I like it.

And in the video that is on the webpage, is on YouTube now, I teach you 16 different ways to say: I like it. So that’s 16 really good bits of vocabulary. Now you can go to YouTube and you can type in: 16 ways to say I like it. Yeah? Or you can just find my YouTube page by clicking on the link on this podcast webpage.
Okay, that’s probably the best way to do it.

But, I am also going to now on this podcast play you the audio to the video. Now, of course it’s better if you watch the video because you can see me moving and see me showing you things. Also on the video I added text on the screen, so you can read the text and it will help you understand it.
But, I have got the audio from that video and I am going to play it to you now on the podcast.
If you can’t see the video, just let me explain it to you now. Basically on the video you get a bit of text on the screen, which says the piece of vocabulary that I am going to teach and then there is a bit of video of me, doing something that I like and then using that piece of vocabulary. Okay?

So, because this is just the audio, I am going to say the piece of vocabulary and then you can listen to me doing something and talking about it and then I will teach you the definition of it as well. Okay?
So, this audio is slightly different to the audio on the original video. Okay?

I hope that’s clear because I have been talking about audio and video and things – a little bit confusing. I hope it is clear. Anyway! You can now listen to the audio of the video which I have just posted on YouTube. I hope you are not too confused. If you are confused, don’t forget, you can always email me and ask me something if you don’t understand it. Yeah! You know the email address? It is Luketeacher@hotmail.com.
I am always happy to answer your emails.
Okay, here it comes. The video-audio-track.

Okay, here we go!

Okay, it’s simple. I am just going to teach you different ways to say: I like it. So here we go.

Number 1: I am really into it. I am really into it.
I am really into football.
If you say I am really into it just means you really like it, you are really interested in an activity or you are really interested in a subject. Yeah! Just really into it. Like this!
I am really into football.

Number 2: I am keen on it. I am keen on it.

I am really keen on playing the guitar. This means I am really interested in doing it and learning about it.
Not very good, though.

Number 3: I am fond of it. I am fond of it.

I am very fond of this picture of the queen. This means that you like something a lot, because you have liked it for a long time. Now, I am not like a big royal-family-supporter. I don’t love the royal family or anything, but I do like this picture, I am very fond of it. My parents used to own it and it used to be in the house where I grew up and I am just very fond of it. You know, I have owned it for a long long time and it is kind of nice. She looks quite pretty in the picture. I am not particularly fond of the queen. It’s just that I am fond of this picture. I like the frame, I like the photo. It is kind of like pop art. If you know what that means, like Andy Warhol, the print quality is quite interesting. Well, if you can see it. Anyway! It’s nice. I am really; I am just really fond of this picture.
So here we go, very fond of it.

Number 4: It appeals to me. It appeals to me.
Living in Hawaii really appeals to me. I think it would just be great. This means it sounds or looks like a really good idea to you. Imagine, kind of living near the beach, drinking cocktails in the sunshine, you know ….. beautiful music, beautiful, girls everywhere and that really appeals to me.
Oh, yeah!

Next one is: it goes down well. It goes down well with people. It goes down well.
This usually goes down well with kids. Now, you can’t see the video, but I am doing something with my fingers like a magic trick with my fingers. It usually goes down really well with kids. They love this. I don’t know why, but they love it. It goes down well means that people really enjoy something you do like for example a joke or a magic trick.

Mmmmh, this wine is to my liking. Mmmmh, very nice.
This wine is to my liking, right? So, it’s to my liking. Yeah? Mmmh, very nice, definitely to my liking, this wine. This wine is to my liking. That’s right.
It’s a slightly formal expression. It just means that you like it. This is to my liking. Just a bit formal.

I am partial to a glass of wine sometimes. I am partial to it means: It is something I really like to eat or drink and I do it possibly a little bit too much.
Mmmh, very good, lovely., cheers.

Number 8 is: I am crazy about it. I am crazy about it. Okay!

I am just crazy about doing this. This just means that you really love doing something and you do it a lot, like playing the drums.

And you could also say: I am mad about it or I am mad about doing it. I am mad about doing this. Means the same thing. You just love doing it and you want to do it all the time. That’s it. Maybe my neighbours are crazy, though.

Okay, number 10 is: I am attached to it. I am attached to it.
I am very attached to my mobile phone. This means you like it because you need it. Or if you lost it, you would be very sad. Couldn’t live without it. Very attached to it.

Number 11 is: I am passionate about it or I have a passion for it.
I am very passionate about the music of Miles Davis. If you are passionate about something or you have a passion for something, it means you really really love something and it makes you very excited. You are very interested in it. Love it.

Number 12 is: I am addicted to it. I am addicted to it.
That’s a computer game. I am completely addicted to Street Fighter 4. I can’t stop playing it. It’s brilliant. So if you really love something and you can’t stop doing it. In this case it is a computer game. I call it Street Fighter 4 on the PlayStation.

Number 13 is: I’ve grown to like it. I have grown to like it.
I didn’t use to like Radiohead., but I have really grown to like them.
This means, you didn’t like it before, but then slowly you started to like it. So, you didn’t use to like it, but now you do like it.
When I first bought the album I didn’t really like it very much, but it really grew on me. And I really like it now. An acquired taste but once you get to like them, they are fantastic. …I really love them now. Brilliant.

Number 14: I have got a soft spot for her.
I have a soft spot for the waitress in the café down the road from my house. She is just nice. I like her smile.
This means that you like someone more than you like other people. And it might mean that you have maybe romantic feelings for someone, possibly.
She is cute. I’ve got a soft spot for her. I don’t know if she knows me but every time I go in there
I always hope that she is going to serve me because well I’ve got a bit of a soft spot for her. What can I say?

Number 15 is: I fancy her. I fancy her.
I really fancy Rachel McAdams. She is an actress, American (Canadian) actress. This means you think someone is very attractive, good looking, like for example, I think she is gorgeous. I fancy her. She’s been in a few movies and I think she is gorgeous. I really fancy her, she is nice.

And finally number 16 is: I can’t get enough of it. I can’t get enough of it.
I just can’t get enough of this. It’s brilliant. And this also means that I love doing it so much that I just can’t stop doing it.

So that’s it, that’s the end of the video. But, yeah, if you liked it keep listening to my audio podcast. Don’t forget. You can go to my website which is teacherLuke.podomatic.com. and you can listen to Luke’s English podcast and you can learn lots more useful language and have a lot of fun when you are doing it, I hope.
So, that’s it from me.

Bye bye bye bye

Okay, now that’s the end of the video. The video is finished. You really have to watch the video because then you will understand it a lot more. It is not really supposed to be an audio podcast, that one. It is supposed to be a video.
So, I have really done this podcast in order to tell you about that video and to encourage you to watch it. I will upload more videos in the future, so that you can watch them and enjoy them and learn more English in another way, through video.
So, that’s the end of this short podcast. I will upload a proper full-length audio podcast very very soon. You can look forward to that, can’t you?
So, that’s it from me.

Bye bye bye bye bye

Thanks for listening to Luke’s English podcast. Don’t forget you can download and listen to all the old episodes by going to teacherLuke.podomatic.com.

[END]

12. Extra Podcast – Quick Hello 3

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Another quick “hello” from me and a few other comments.

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For a full transcript of this episode, click here.
Another quick podcast to say “hello” and “I am still alive”. I will upload a longer podcast soon – about my trip to Spain, or my band. I haven’t decided the topic yet, but you’ll be able to listen to it soon – I promise!

Thanks for the emails from Mariano and Inna, and to other people around the world who have said hi to me on the webpage (Taewook, Seaisal, Tomo, Kaori, Marsha, Kev).

The comedy sketch for you to listen to, study and enjoy today is from the film Monty Python and The Holy Grail (look here for the Amazon link to the film – you can buy it in your country and watch the whole thing – it’s a classic British comedy and very very funny: Buy Monty Python & The Holy Grail on Amazon.

In the scene, a king talks to his son about all the land he is going to inherit, but the son is not interested – he’d rather sing, and write poetry. He’s not even interested in the beautiful Princess Lucky, whose Father owns the biggest tracts of open land in the islands! Also, the prince is guarded by two very stupid guards… Here’s the script for you to study, and the YouTube video as well. Enjoy!

 

FATHER: One day, lad, all this will be yours!
PRINCE HERBERT: What, the curtains?
FATHER: No. Not the curtains, lad. All that you can see, stretched out over
the hills and valleys of this land! This’ll be your kingdom, lad.
HERBERT: But Mother–
FATHER: Father, lad. Father.
HERBERT: B– b– but Father, I don’t want any of that.
FATHER: Listen, lad. I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started
here, all there was was swamp. Other kings said I was daft to build a
castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ’em. It sank
into the swamp. So, I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So
I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the
swamp. But the fourth one… stayed up! And that’s what you’re gonna get,
lad: the strongest castle in these islands.
HERBERT: But I don’t want any of that. I’d rather–
FATHER: Rather what?!
HERBERT: I’d rather…
[music]
…just… sing!
FATHER: Stop that! Stop that! You’re not going into a song while I’m here.
Now listen, lad. In twenty minutes you’re getting married to a girl whose
father owns the biggest tracts of open land in Britain.
HERBERT: B– but I don’t want land.
FATHER: Listen, Alice,–
HERBERT: Herbert.
FATHER: ‘Erbert. We live in a bloody swamp. We need all the land we can get.
HERBERT: But– but I don’t like her.
FATHER: Don’t like her?! What’s wrong with her?! She’s beautiful. She’s
rich. She’s got huge… tracts of land.
HERBERT: I know, but I want the– the girl that I marry to have…
[music]
…a certain… special… something!
FATHER: Cut that out! Cut that out! Look, you’re marrying Princess Lucky, so
you’d better get used to the idea!
[smack]
Guards! Make sure the Prince doesn’t leave this room until I come and get
him.
GUARD #1: Not to leave the room even if you come and get him.
GUARD #2: Hic!
FATHER: No, no. Until I come and get him.
GUARD #1: Until you come and get him, we’re not to enter the room.
FATHER: No, no. No. You stay in the room and make sure he doesn’t leave.
GUARD #1: And you’ll come and get him.
GUARD #2: Hic!
FATHER: Right.
GUARD #1: We don’t need to do anything, apart from just stop him entering the
room.
FATHER: No, no. Leaving the room.
GUARD #1: Leaving the room. Yes.
[sniff]
FATHER: All right?
GUARD #1: Right.
GUARD #2: Hic!
FATHER: Right.
GUARD #1: Oh, if– if– if– uhh– if– if– w– ehh– i– if– if we–
FATHER: Yes? What is it?
GUARD #1: Oh, i– if– i– oh–
FATHER: Look, it’s quite simple.
GUARD #1: Uh…
FATHER: You just stay here, and make sure ‘e doesn’t leave the room. All
right?
GUARD #2: Hic!
FATHER: Right.
GUARD #1: Oh, I remember. Uhh, can he leave the room with us?
FATHER: N– no no. No. You just keep him in here, and make sure he–
GUARD #1: Oh, yes. We’ll keep him in here, obviously. But if he had to
leave and we were with him–
FATHER: No, no, no, no. Just keep him in here–
GUARD #1: Until you, or anyone else–
FATHER: No, not anyone else. Just me.
GUARD #1: Just you.
GUARD #2: Hic!
FATHER: Get back.
GUARD #1: Get back.
FATHER: All right?
GUARD #1: Right. We’ll stay here until you get back.
GUARD #2: Hic!
FATHER: And, uh, make sure he doesn’t leave.
GUARD #1: What?
FATHER: Make sure ‘e doesn’t leave.
GUARD #1: The Prince?
FATHER: Yes. Make sure ‘e doesn’t leave.
GUARD #1: Oh, yes, of course.
GUARD #2: Hic!
GUARD #1: Ah. I thought you meant him. You know, it seemed a bit daft me
havin’ to guard him when he’s a guard.
FATHER: Is that clear?
GUARD #2: Hic!
GUARD #1: Oh, quite clear. No problems.
FATHER: Right. Where are you going?
GUARD #1: We’re coming with you.
FATHER: No, no. I want you to stay here and make sure ‘e doesn’t leave.
GUARD #1: Oh, I see. Right.
HERBERT: But Father!
FATHER: Shut your noise, you! And get that suit on!
[music]
And no singing!
GUARD #2: Hic!
FATHER: Oh, go and get a glass of water.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3YiPC91QUk&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00]

11. Men vs Women (Conversation & Vocabulary)

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This episode is all about men & women. Are they different? Do they communicate differently? It is inspired by a book called “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, which is a very popular and successful guide to help men and women understand each other. I talk to 2 male friends, and then 2 female friends. There is lots of useful natural English for you to study, remember and copy – and become a more advanced speaker of English! I hope you enjoy the podcast…

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This podcast is all about Men & Women. Are they different? Do they communicate differently? It is inspired by a book called “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”, which is a very popular and successful guide to help men and women understand each other. In the podcast today I talk to 2 male friends, and then 2 female friends. There is lots of useful natural English for you to study, remember and copy – and become a more advanced speaker of English! I hope you enjoy the podcast…

Here’s the extract from Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus which is about Martians (Men):

“Martians value power, competency, efficiency and achievement. They fantasize about powerful cars, faster computers, gadgets and new, more powerful technology. They are concerned with outdoor activities like hunting, fishing and racing cars, and are more interested in objects and things than in people and feelings. Martians pride themselves on doing things all by themselves since asking for help when you can do things yourself is perceived as a sign of weakness. So, they will keep their problems to themselves unless they require help from another person to find a solution. When they get upset they prefer not to burden their friends with what is bothering them, and instead retreat into their caves to mull over their problems. If they can’t find a solution, they do something to relax and disengage their mind; or they engage in something more challenging like racing a car, competing in a contest or climbing a mountain.”

And here is the extract about Venusians (Women):

“Venusians value love, beauty and relationships. They find happiness through supporting and helping each other and their sense of identity is defined through sharing and the quality of their relationships. Rather than building highways and tall buildings, they are more interested in living together in harmony, community, and loving co-operation. Communication is very very important and sharing their feelings is much more important than achieving goals and being successful. They pride themselves on being intuitive, and considerate of the feelings of others. When Venusians feel upset, or stressed, or confused or hopeless they find relief by sharing their problems with friends and talking about their problems in detail.”

Language from the conversation with Howard & Nick:

“blokes” – a bloke is a man. It’s an informal word that British people use to say ‘man’. It’s not rude, but it is quite informal. People use this word a lot
“I had a difficult girlfriend and it helped me to deal with her” – to deal with something (e.g. a problem or a difficult person) means to ‘cope with’ it, ‘fix’ it, ‘manage’ it or learn to live with it.
“I found myself turning off and not tuning in” – to ‘turn off’ means to lose concentration and stop being interested in it, e.g. if you’re reading a boring book you might turn off… We also say ‘turn off’ for TVs, lights, radios etc. To ‘tune in’ means that you concentrate or focus on something. We also tune into a radio station on an FM radio.
“it’s a chick’s book” – a chick is a woman. It’s kind of a slang word, and some women think it is a bit rude. A chick also means a baby chicken.
“whinging, going on about stuff, moaning” – all of these words mean ‘complaining’
“just back her up…” – to back someone up means to support & agree with someone
“the bestselling book of two thousand and whatever” – ‘whatever’ is a useful word which can mean ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t care’ or ‘I don’t mind’. Here, Howard used it to mean “I’m not sure which year it was, but it doesn’t matter”.

Transcript of the conversation between Luke, Shirley & Michelle:

Luke: Hello hello, 1 2 3 speak…
Shirley: Hello hello, 1 2 3
Michelle: Hello this is Michelle…
Luke: OK, I thought I needed a female perspective on this, so I’m speaking to Shirley and Michelle about the whole thing, erm, so… First of all, what do you think of the, erm, comments that Nick and Howard just made about this book?
Shirley: Well I think that’s probably the reason the book had to be written in the first place, because of comments like that, I’d say.
Luke: Right, so…
Michelle: Interesting that it was actually written by a bloke though, that’s the thing.
Luke: So it was written by a man
Michelle: It was written by a bloke, yeah. John Grey I think his name is.
Luke: Right, ok, do we know when it was released?
Shirley: Erm…
Michelle: Late 90s?
Shirley: I’m not sure actually
Luke: OK, so late nineties, alright, so, errrm, first of all then, have you read the book?
Shirley: Well, err, a friend of mine gave it to me to read, and I was reading it when I was on holiday but I got a bit bored of it quite quickly actually. Some of it’s funny, I have to say, some of it’s funny and you can really recognise
Michelle: Definitely
Shirley: err, you recognise yourself and whatever in it, but… it’s just it’s a bit repetitive at the end of the day, and I got a bit bored with it
Michelle: Yeah, I’ve only read about half of it as well and, yeah, I also got bored with it and that… well, some of it, I started to find myself quite annoyed with women to be honest. I found myself identifying more with men. I’m not sure what that says about me…
Luke: I’m not sure either!
Michelle: Does it mean I’m from Mars?
Luke: Maybe. I think that… err… One thing that I can say for sure, definitely, is that women aren’t from Venus, men aren’t from Mars. Men and women are both from Earth, right?
Michelle: I think you’re probably right…
Luke: I think they are, aren’t they?
Shirley: I think that’s a fair enough statement Luke, yeah
Luke: Basically what I’m saying is, it’s a bit silly in that sense, but, umm, do you think it’s … well you said it was kind of a bit boring in some places…
Shirley: No, I think it’s valid because, at the end of the day, men and women are different
Luke: yeah
Shirley: It’s as simple as that, and sometimes, y’know, you have miscommunications with someone
Luke: Hmmm
Shirley: Just because of the different ways that you use language, for example
Luke: Yeah, yeah
Shirley: and, err, and so I think something like this is quite valid. I mean, the guy who wrote it, as far as I’m aware, I might be wrong, is a linguist
Luke: Right…
Shirley: and he deals with gender miscommunication
Luke: Right
Shirley: So, erm, so he’s kind of like, erm, it’s got a valid base to it I think
Luke: OK. ERM, One of the things that Howard and Nick identified as being, kind of, true or useful about this book, is the idea that, err, when men are listening to women, they often don’t realise how to listen to women, and that what they do is they offer solutions when they should just be listening. Do you agree with that? Is that true?
Michelle: I think that’s a fair point in the book actually. I did identify with that. Very often if I’ve sort of, got something to complain about or just something I want to get off my chest, that’s all I literally want to do. I’m not looking for solutions, I’m just looking for somebody to listen, or at least pretend to listen
Luke: Yeah
Shirley: Howard!
Michelle: Yeah
Luke: Ha ha, so Howard, you’ve got to learn from that…
Michelle: but, definitely, from, sort of, past relationships I’ve learned that when a bloke is talking to me about problems, especially work related things, y’know, he would always want me to offer a solution, he would always say “what would you do?”, and erm, I’m not aware that I usually ask people that kind of thing in that situation
Shirley: Well I think that is, I mean, just from listening to Nick and Howard having that little discussion, Nick seems to think women can’t make decisions, and Howard just seems to think that they just whine all the time. I think we’re perfectly capable of making decisions, and just by sounding off, and telling somebody how, that something’s going on, doesn’t mean we need you to fix it. We can fix it ourselves.
Michelle: Very often it helps you to come to your own solution to…
Shirley: Yeah, exactly…
Luke: So…
Shirley: Saying that you’re weak because you can’t make a decision…
Luke: Alright, but essentially what you’re saying is that you agree, that when men listen they don’t have to offer solutions, they just need to listen
Shirley: yeah
Michelle: yeah
Luke: OK, umm, so, uhhh, one of the other things that they said, err, I think Nick said this, I might be wrong… I might have agreed with them as well actually… umm, anyway… one of the things that they said is that it seems that the book was written for women, which means that women don’t understand men, and that they said that, well, men are ok because we understand women I think, so do you agree? Who understands who?
Shirley: From the first bit I’d say yes the book is written for women, and I don’t think that a lot of men would be terribly interested in reading it, but I think that that’s not just because women need to understand men, I think women have more of a want to understand
Michelle: Yeah, I’d say that’s a fair comment
Shirley: I think that they’re more interested in working out what it is that’s the miscommunication and trying to fix it .
Luke: Men are more interested in, just…
Shirley: Football
Luke: football, yeah. Michelle?
Michelle: But I also don’t like people talking to me when the football’s on, so, I don’t think that’s necessarily gender
Shirley: You see I don’t like people talking to me when I’m watching a particular programme. Does it matter if it’s football, or…?
Luke/Michelle: It doesn’t matter
Shirley: So, there you go
Luke: The fact is, football tends to last longer than most programmes
Shirley: And it’s, y’know, and, y’know, it might be a controversial topic but it’s incredibly dull
Luke: No it’s not. Football isn’t dull, is it?
Michelle: It’s definitely not dull
Shirley: Well, is it?
Luke: No. Football isn’t dull. Fact. Erm, right, so that’s it. That’s all I wanted to ask you. Thanks very much for…
Michelle: It’s a pleasure
Luke: … agreeing to answer my questions
Shirley: That’s no problem Luke at all
Luke: OK, thanks very much
Shirley: OK, bye…

All the words are written there! Listen to the podcast to hear me explain some of the things that Shirley & Michelle said!

There’s lots of useful language there. Here’s some USEFUL ADVICE:

HOW TO USE LUKE’S ENGLISH PODCAST TO IMPROVE YOUR ENGLISH:
1. Expose yourself to the language – This means Listen and Read a lot.
2. Notice the language – This means, look at the language, think about it, see how it is used, try to see patterns, study the ‘rules’.
3. Think about your language – This means, think about how you use English, and what you would say about the topic.
4. See the difference – What is the difference between your language, and a native’s language?
5. Repeat Repeat Repeat – This means that you should do everything more than once!! Listen to the podcast more than once. Read the transcript more than once. Say the words to yourself more than once.
6. Copy – You can try to copy the native speakers. You can repeat the conversation with a friend and try to use the same language as in the recording. You can try to use the language when you have your conversations in real life or in your English class.

That’s REALLY GOOD ADVICE from a QUALIFIED AND VERY EXPERIENCED ENGLISH TEACHER, and also it is COMPLETELY FREE!!!!

Amazing, isn’t it?

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus – get the book as a .pdf here

Kiyoshi KayT Tanaka’s Music

Here’s a picture of the Baker Street sign featuring Sherlock Holmes
bakerstreetsign

9. Travelling in India (with Ben Butler)

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An episode with my friend and colleague Ben, with common social english questions, a conversation about going travelling in India and some useful vocabulary explained at the end.

Small Donate ButtonRight-click here to download.

In this special extra-large podcast, I’m joined by my friend & colleague Ben.
In Part 1, I talk about the good review of Luke’s English Podcast which we got on the iTunes store (thanks to Bookshop Worker).
In Part 2, I get to know Ben with some really common social english questions. This is a great example of a typical natural conversation in which you get to know someone.
In Part 3, Ben and I talk about going travelling and our experiences in India.
Then in Part 4, I explain the useful language we used in part 3. It’s a massive 1 hour podcast this time! I recommend that after you listen to part 4, you should listen to Part 3 again because you’ll understand it more…

Useful Language from Part 2 – The Interview with Ben.

Here are some bits of language from the conversation I had with Ben. I have written explanations and advice under each bit of language.

Luke: “How’s it going?”
-‘How’s it going’ is a very common way to say ‘how are you?’
Ben: “Yeah, good. Just finished work for the day”
…
Luke: “How long have you worked there?”
-This question is in the present perfect tense. We use this tense to ask a ‘how long’ question for an action that someone started in the past, but is still doing now.
Ben: “I’ve worked there for 4 years now”
-Again, present perfect to describe an action which started in the past and is still happening now. ‘for’ is used with a duration of time. ‘since’ would be used for a point in time, e.g. ‘I’ve worked there since 2005’
Ben: “I’ve been teaching for about 6 and a half, 7 years I think”
-Ben used the present perfect continous. In this situation, present perfect continuous has the same use as present perfect. Listen to podcast 7 for more information.
Luke: “Where did you work before?”
Ben: “I lived in Oxford”
-I used the past simple tense for this question, because it is about a finished period of time. Present Perfect – actions in an unfinished time. Past simple – actions in a finished time.
Luke: “What did you do at university?”
-Again, past simple for a finished time. ‘What did you do?’ means ‘What did you study?’
Ben: “I studied Social Science, which is, umm, it’s quite a mixed subject”
-Ben used a relative clause ‘which is…’ to add extra information to the noun ‘social science’. Using relative clauses is very common for giving more information. They’re really useful for fluency.
Ben: “I finished there and I worked in an office for a while”
-Ben used past simple tense to describe a sequence of actions.
Luke: “Do you teach business?”
-I used present simple because I’m talking about what he does now, regularly. If I had said “Are you teaching business?” it would be a question about a temporary period. “I teach business”-permanent period now. “I’m teaching business”-temporary period now (will maybe finish in a couple of weeks).
Luke: “Umm, yeah, wicked, cool”
-‘wicked’ and ‘cool’ are informal expressions which mean ‘great, excellent, good, etc’
Luke: “You live nearby, right?”
-‘nearby means’ near, or close to here. ‘right?’ is a simple kind of tag-question. You can use it to check that something is true. Tag questions are often used when you get to know someone. You can use them to check information you already know.
Luke “Aren’t you a QPR fan?”
-This is another way to check something you already know – use a negative question. I think ben is a QPR fan, but I want to check. I could have said “You’re a QPR fan, aren’t you?”
Luke: “They’re not in the Premiership though, are they?”
-Here I’m using a tag-question (are they?) to check something, but also I’m making a joke by showing that QPR are not a very good team!
Ben: “They were taken over last year by some very wealthy millionaires”
-‘they were taken over’ means that the club was bought by new owners. If a company is ‘taken over’ it means that another company buys the majority of its shares, and then becomes the boss of that company. ‘Wealthy’ means ‘rich’.
Ben: “I live in hope!”
-to live in hope means that you are always hoping for something. In this case, Ben is living in hope that QPR will become a big & successful London football team.

The language in Part 2 is all REALLY useful – especially the way Ben & I used the different tenses (Present perfect, past simple, present simple).

Useful Language from Part 3 (explained in Part 4):

“to go traveling” – This is a very common expression which means that you visit another country and you live there for quite a long time and just travel around. It’s different from a holiday – on holiday you usually stay for a shorter time and stay in one place. If you go travelling it means that you stay for longer, and travel around to different places.
“to do / to go on a trip somewhere” – This means that you make a short visit to somewhere. E.g. I did a trip to Hampi
“to fly into somewhere” – This means that you arrived there by plane. You can also ‘fly out of somewhere’.
“it’s on the coast” – This means that the location is next to the sea, on the edge of the country.
“it’s inland” – this means it is not on the coast, but in the country. E.g. in Brazil Rio de Janeiro is on the coast, but Brasilia is inland.
“it’s off the coast of…” – This is used to describe the position of an island. E.g. The Isle of White is off the south coast of England.
“it’s in the north/south/east/west of…” -This is used to describe the position of something in an area. E.g. Manchester is in the north of England.
“it’s to the north/south/east/west of …” -This describes the location of something in relation to another place, E.g. “Oxford is to the north of London”- it is above London.

Good Things:
‘there’s a good exchange rate” – This means that the English pound is stronger than the Indian rupee, so you get more rupees for each pound when you exchange your currency.
“the pound has dropped in value” – This means that the economic value of the pound has gone down
“our economy is a bit screwed” – If something is ‘screwed’ it means it is damaged, in bad condition.
“they’ve really, sort of, messed it up” – To ‘mess something up’ means to do it badly, to make mistakes, to make it go bad. E.g. the bankers have messed up the economy.
“it’s the recession, the credit crunch” – The recession describes the bad economic situation. The credit crunch is how people describe that it is very difficult to borrow money. Businesses and individuals can’t borrow money (get credit) because no one will lend it. This is the credit crunch – a pressured situation due to lack of credit.
“there’s a light breeze’ – This is about the weather, and a light breeze is a cool, light wind. Lovely.
“what’s nice about Goa is that it’s really chilled, isn’t it?” – ‘it’s really chilled’ means that it is relaxing. ‘chilled out’ means relaxed/relaxing.
“there’s a really relaxed vibe” – A ‘vibe’ is a slang word for an atmosphere.
“before you know it, you’re absolutely baked in the heat” – ‘Before you know it’ means ‘suddenly, or before you expect it’, and to be ‘baked’ means that you are cooked by the sun. You’re really hot, basically.
“you do find that time, sort of, slips by” – This means that time passes and you don’t realise.
“speaking like a geezer – Alright mate!” – A ‘geezer’ is a slang word for a man. It also means a kind of typical Londoner who is quite confident and possibly aggressive. ‘Alright mate’ means, ‘hello friend, how are you?’
“they’re wearing these beautifully coloured saris” – A sari is a traditional clothing that Indian women wear.
“the old part of Goa was a Portuguese colony” -A colony is a settlement or civilisation of people who come from another country and take over in that area. E.g. the British colonies in India, The Caribbean, etc (became The Commonwealth). Colonial (adjective). E.g. beautiful colonial architecture.
“it’s quite diverse, open minded” -Diverse means that there are many different types of people, from different religions and ethnicities. Open minded means they are not conservative and they accept different kinds of lifestyle and. behaviour.
“you can go off the beaten track” -This means to go to places that tourists don’t usually go to. The beaten track is the places where everyone goes.
“Hampi is great. It’s like this old pilgrimage site. It’s stunning” -A pilgrimage site is a place where people make religious journeys to. E.g. Mecca is a pilgrimage site for Muslims.
“there are huge boulders” -Boulders are very very big rocks.
“it’s very strange, the landscape. It’s very atmospheric” -‘Atmospheric’ means that the atmosphere is very strong and impressive.

The Bad Things:
“there are loads of people who just keep hassling you” -‘hassle’ means disturb or annoy. In India, you are always hassled by people who want to sell you something, or offer you a taxi ride. Everyone wants you to use their taxi, or buy their products!
“just chill out man!” -Just relax!
“we’re not used to that sort of thing in London” -We’re not accustomed to that. (see podcast Episode 3 language section)
“you have to haggle for pretty much everything you buy” -To haggle means to negotiate the price. E.g. £10 – no £3! -no £7 – are you crazy? £5! – OK, £5.
“have you got a missed call?” -A missed call means that someone has called you but you didn’t answer and your mobile says ‘you have 1 missed call’.
“you’re worried that you’re going to get sick, particularly an upset stomach” -An upset stomach means that you feel sick in your stomach.
“you get, like, diarrhea or Delhi Belly” -Diarrhea is a sickness when your poo is not solid! You have to run to the toilet and do a horrible ‘liquid’ poo! Delhi Belly is the name that tourists to India use to describe an upset stomach or diarrhea.
“you might be throwing up or something” -To throw up means to vomit. When you’re sick and your food comes out of your mouth! EEEEEEEEAAAAACHHH!!
“it makes you really paranoid” -If you’re paranoid, it means that you are very worried that something bad is going to happen, or you think that something bad is happening, but actually it isn’t. E.g. “oh my god I really hope I haven’t got malaria! Maybe I’ve got malaria!” or “I don’t think John likes me. It’s the way he looks at me sometimes. Actually, I think everyone thinks I’m stupid. They’re always looking at me like I’m stupid…” “Shut up! You’re just paranoid! Everyone likes you…”
“I had to hunt it down and kill it” -To hunt something means to follow something and kills it (usually for food, but sometimes for sport)
“I went back and slept like a baby” -To sleep like a baby means that you sleep very very well.
“the malaria tablets as well can have some side effects” -A side effect is another effect of medicine. E.g. Asprin will stop a headache, but the side effect is a bad stomach. The side effect of malaria tablets is bad dreams.
“there is quite a lot of poverty” -Poverty means the bad conditions that people live in when they have no money. In developing countries there is a lot of poverty, and India is no exception.
“it’s quite depressing” -It can make you sad, depressed when you see the poverty.
“it can make you feel a bit guilty” -When you see the poverty, and you know you have lots of money, you feel responsible and bad about it – like it’s your fault, or you’re not doing anything to stop the poverty. In fact, you’re having a holiday there, but they local people are very poor.
“what you’re haggling over is the principle” -You’re not really negotiating over the money, but the fact that you just don’t want to pay more than you think is right. The principle means the point that you believe in – in this case, it is the fact that you don’t want to lose the negotiation and pay ‘too much’.
“we’re always worried about being, sort of, ripped off” -To be ripped off means to pay too much for something. E.g. “You paid £5 for that can of Coca Cola (TM)?? You were ripped off!!”
“but basically, on balance, India is great” -When you compare the good things and bad things and then get a conclusion you can say ‘on balance’.
“laid back” -This means ‘relaxed, easy going’.
“there must be a word I can use to describe the fact that I can’t describe it… err… does it make you… speechless?” -I said this because I was embarrassed that I couldn’t think of a 3rd adjective to describe India!

OK, so that’s the end of this huge podcast! I hope it has been useful. Don’t forget to email me: luketeache@hotmail.com

Photos

The first one is of Ben and me during our recording. Ben is talking on his mobile phone (as per usual!)
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Baking in the sun on Benaulim Beach in Goa:
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The view from our accommodation in Hampi:
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Climbing up to the Monkey Temple in Hampi. That’s my cousin Oliver in the picture.

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I stopped to take a photo and this boy started hassling me for money. I think I gave him some rupees, but he wanted more. Also he wanted a pen or some paper, but I didn’t have any.
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Going ‘off the beaten track’ on our scooters.
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These are pilgrims on their way to visit the temples in Hampi. They have dressed up as Hindu characters. The man in green is dressed as Hanuman, the monkey king.
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Two children we met outside one of the temples:
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The Hanuman Temple (monkey temple).
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This is a group of Indian school children visiting Hampi. In the background you can see a statue of Hanuman (the monkey king).
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This is me on the train back from Hampi to Goa. Our seats were at the top of the train and we had to lie down like this for most of the journey. You can also sit on the doorstep of the train and watch the world go by, but it’s a bit dangerous…
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5. Joaquin Phoenix

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An episode all about the mysterious story of Joaquin Phoenix, including an English lesson about modal verbs of deduction in the past and present.

Right click here to download.

Introduction

Joaquin Phoenix is a famous Hollywood A List actor. He appeared in Gladiator and Walk The Line (the Johnny Cash story). Recently he announced that he wants to quit acting to become a rapper. Also, his appearance has become very strange! He looks more like a homeless person than a Hollywood star. His decision has become a Hollywood mystery. Is it real, or is it a joke? No one really knows.

In this episode of the podcast, Luke talks about Joaquin Phoenix with his friend and colleague Howard. You can listen to the conversation – some of the vocabulary is defined below. The language section of the podcast is about making speculations with modal verbs. See below for more information. Also, below you will see some pictures of Joaquin Phoenix, and some YouTube videos – one of him announcing his retirement from acting, and one of him rapping (badly) and then falling off the stage! For more strange Joaquin Phoenix videos, have a look on YouTube. We can’t wait to find out if it is real, or if it is all a big joke. We really hope that it is a joke, because if it isn’t, he could be in real trouble…

Some vocabulary that Luke & Howard used in their conversation + definitions

Howard: “He’s from a famous acting dynasty” – a dynasty means a large and powerful family
Howard: “He looks like a homeless (person), or a tramp or something” – ‘homeless’ and ‘tramp’ both mean someone who doesn’t have a home and has to live on the street. ‘homeless’ is also an adjective
Luke: “He’s making a fly-on-the-wall documentary” – a fly-on-the-wall documentary is a documentary film or programme which is filmed to look like the people in the film are not really aware of the cameras, so they act naturally and it is like the viewer is a ‘fly on the wall’ just watching what is happening. This is not a reality show like Big Brother. It’s a type of documentary.
Luke: “A comedy movie a bit like Borat” – Borat is a satirical comedy about a man called Borat, played by Sacha Baron Cohen
Luke: “The thing about rapping is that you have to have a flow” – a rapper’s ‘flow’ is his rhythmical style of rapping. E.g. Eminem has a fast flow. Joaquin Phoenix’s flow is slow, and elementary.
Howard: “He looks like a twat” – a twat is a slightly rude word which means ‘an idiot’
Luke: “He’s let himself go” – to ‘let yourself go’ means you stop looking after yourself and your appearance goes bad, e.g. you gain wait, your hair grows too long, etc.
Luke: “It sounds like he’s slurring his words” – to ‘slur’ your words means that you don’t pronounce your words properly, like when you are drunk.
Luke: “He’s famous for a method approach to acting” – a method approach is an acting style which involves the actor totally becoming the character he is performing. The actor lives as that character all the time, even at home. Famous method actors are Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino. DeNiro famously put on a lot of weight to become Jake LaMotta in the film Raging Bull (an excellent film!)
Howard: “His family are very eccentric” – ‘eccentric’ means slightly crazy, odd, weird, bizarre, strange
Howard: “A lot of craziness” – craziness is the noun from ‘crazy’
Howard: “A lot of weird and wacky things happening” -wacky is another word for crazy, bizarre, weird, odd, etc
Luke: “I’m a bit sceptical” – ‘I’m sceptical’ means ‘I don’t really believe it is true’
Luke: “Someone in the crowd was heckling him” – to heckle someone means to shout criticisms from the crowd. Comedians are often heckled, by hecklers during stand-up comedy routines – e.g. “That’s not funny!!”
Luke: “It’s a piss take” – a ‘piss take’ is a joke. designed to fool everyone, to make fun of everyone.
Howard: “It sounds like he’s on the edge” – on the edge means ‘close to being crazy’ or ‘close to a nervous breakdown’
Luke: “I’m leaning towards ‘it’s all a joke'” – to be leaning towards something means that you are starting to take that opinion. You are favouring that opinion.
Howard: “I think it might be for real” – ‘for real’ means genuine, not fake.
Luke: “Finally, he’s cracked” – he’s ‘cracked’ means he’s ‘lost his mind’

Summary of Language Section – Modal Verbs:

Use might, must, could or can’t to speculate about things.

1. For present or future use modal + infinitive (without to)
e.g. He may have an emotional problem

or modal + be + -ing for the continuous form
e.g. He may be having emotional problems

2. For speculations about the past, use modal + have + past participle
e.g. He may have got tired of Hollywood

3. Use ‘must’ when you’re sure that something is true
e.g. It must be a joke! (or It has to be a joke!)

4. Use ‘may’ ‘might’ or ‘could’ when you’re less sure that something is true.
e.g. He might be serious, but I’m not sure to be honest.

5. Use ‘can’t’ when you’re sure that something isn’t true or didn’t happen.
e.g. He can’t be for real
e.g. He can’t have given up acting.