Stephen from SEND7 podcast becomes the host to interview me about how I started LEP, the ins and outs of doing this, plus some advantages and challenges for podcasting to learners of English. Video version available.
Special Guest Mark Steel joins me to discuss cultural and linguistic differences between the UK and France, plus accents in the UK and a little tour of some places in the UK that you don’t know about. Also includes a discussion of swearing and rude language in Britain. What is the R word which you should never say in a specific part of the UK? Listen on to find out. Video version available.
Learn English with another short story. In fact, this episode contains two stories. Listen until the end for the 2nd one. Repeat after me to practise your pronunciation. Learn some vocabulary & grammar in the second half of the episode, with an explanation of modal verbs of deduction in the past and present. Video version available.
I want to just point out that there is a book full of these very short stories, which you could buy.
It’s called Nothing Short of 100: Selected tales from 100 Word Story
It is a collection of stories from the https://100wordstory.org/ website.
There’s a Kindle version or a print version.
It is published by OUTPOST 19 and it was put together by the team behind the website, including Grant Faulkner, Lynn Mundell and Joshua Michael Stewart.
It is available for you to purchase and I recommend it if you are looking for bite size stories to use for learning or teaching English.
I also recommend visiting https://100wordstory.org/ and www.fridayflashfiction.com where you can find absolutely loads of stories like this with new ones arriving each week.
Sign up to LEP Premium www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium
I do language analysis, vocab & grammar explanations and pronunciation practice.
There are stories and language reviews for conversations which have appeared in episodes of LEP.
If you sign up you can add all the premium episodes to your podcast app of choice, and also get links for video versions and PDF worksheets.
Reading out loud can have lots of surprising benefits for our memory and our mental health. How can it also help with your English? In this episode I read an article to you, help you understand it and give comments on the importance of reading, both quietly in your head, and out loud. Video version and full transcript available.
Hello listeners,
Welcome to this new episode. This one is about reading and the power of reading aloud (reading out loud) and I think it can definitely help you with your English in various ways. Stick with me, there’s a lot to discover here.
I found an article the other day on the BBC’s website and I thought it was really interesting and definitely something I could turn into an episode of this podcast.
I am going to read the article to you in this episode. You can read it with me if you like. The link for the article is in the description, or if you are watching the video version you will see the text on the screen.
I’ll help you understand it all, we’ll consider the main points being made by the writer, I’ll give my thoughts on how this all relates to learning English and I’ll point out some bits of vocabulary for you to learn along the way.
Reading out loud ← what does this mean?
Normally when we read, we read silently. We read in our heads. 📖👀
But when we read out loud we actually say the words we are reading with our voice so that other people can hear you. 🗣️ That’s what out loud means.
Aloud and out loud are synonyms.
The title of the article I found is The Surprising Power of Reading Aloud, and I found it in the “Future” section of the BBC’s website.
BBC Future https://www.bbc.com/future/
BBC Future is a section of the BBC website where you can read some really interesting articles about lots of different subjects.
The articles are written in an academic style (so we are looking at academic English here to an extent), but these articles are very readable and they are exactly the type of reading text that you might find in an IELTS reading test. You often find academic texts about scientific subjects, or history, or psychology in IELTS tests.
So, it would be really good practice for you to read articles like this on a regular basis, whether you are preparing for IELTS or you’re just interested in developing your English generally. The articles on BBC Future are quite advanced – they are for native English speakers, but with a good dictionary and a bit of motivation, they could really help your English.
I’m going to help you do that in this episode with this particular article. I’ll take you through it and will explain things.
Let’s get started.
Before we start reading, I’ve got two tasks for you (and they’re important)
Here are some questions to get you thinking 🧐🤔💭
I want you to consider these questions because this will get you in the right mental space to understand the article we’re going to read. It’s important to do this because this is how you get your mind ready before you read. So, consider these questions (below).
If you like you can pause this episode after I say these questions in order to actually answer them, in your own head or out loud.
Saying your answers out loud would be the best thing to do – to practise your speaking and putting your thoughts into words. So, if you can do that, do that, right now, with these questions.
Questions to consider before reading
Here’s a reading task for you
Before I read this article to you, I want you to read it yourself. Twice.
🔗 link in the description 🔗
First, read the text silently, then try reading it out loud.
You don’t have to read the whole thing. Maybe just do the first few paragraphs if you prefer.
But try it. Go on.
Read it silently first, then read it out loud.
Try not to sound like a robot 🤖
Put some life into the reading ❤️🔥
If/When you read it out loud, consider these questions. you .
Imagine you are reading this out for an audience.
It might affect the way you read it. 🗣️
You can do that now. The link to the article is in the description.
Read it – first silently, and then out loud like a presenter.
I’ll let you pause the episode right now and do that. I’ll continue speaking to you again in a moment.
– – – –
This is where you pause to read the article
– – – –
OK, welcome back. I know some of you didn’t pause the episode and read the text, which is totally fine.
But some of you did. Nice one.
I wonder how it was for you.
Was difficult or not?
Was it difficult to read the text?
It’s a different experience isn’t it, reading it out loud.
It has its own challenges.
Unknown vocabulary, difficult pronunciation, understanding the overall flow and structure of the text.
Now, let me read the article to you. You can read it with me too, or just listen. It’s up to you.
I’ve broken the text into sections. I’ll read a section of the article, then paraphrase what I read, add my comments and explain some words. Then we’ll move to the next section.
Whenever there’s a break in the text like this, it’s the end of a section.
– – – – – – – – –
When that happens, I’ll stop and explain things, then we’ll move on to the next section.
You’ll see some words highlighted in bold. These are words that you might not know, so I’ll explain them as we go.
Try reading aloud with me to work on your pronunciation if you like.
By Sophie Hardach /ˈhædək/ – 18th September 2020
Most adults retreat into a personal, quiet world inside their heads when they are reading, but we may be missing out on some vital benefits when we do this.
For much of history, reading was a fairly noisy activity. On clay tablets written in ancient Iraq and Syria some 4,000 years ago, the commonly used words for “to read” literally meant “to cry out” or “to listen”.
“I am sending a very urgent message,” says one letter from this period. “Listen to this tablet. If it is appropriate, have the king listen to it.”
Only occasionally, a different technique was mentioned: to “see” a tablet – to read it silently.
Today, silent reading is the norm. The majority of us bottle the words in our heads as if sitting in the hushed confines of a library. Reading out loud is largely reserved for bedtime stories and performances.
But a growing body of research suggests that we may be missing out by reading only with the voices inside our minds. The ancient art of reading aloud has a number of benefits for adults, from helping improve our memories and understand complex texts, to strengthening emotional bonds between people. And far from being a rare or bygone activity, it is still surprisingly common in modern life. Many of us intuitively use it as a convenient tool for making sense of the written word, and are just not aware of it.
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Colin MacLeod, a psychologist at the University of Waterloo in Canada, has extensively researched the impact of reading aloud on memory. He and his collaborators have shown that people consistently remember words and texts better if they read them aloud than if they read them silently. This memory-boosting effect of reading aloud is particularly strong in children, but it works for older people, too. “It’s beneficial throughout the age range,” he says.
MacLeod has named this phenomenon the “production effect”. It means that producing written words – that’s to say, reading them out loud – improves our memory of them.
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The production effect has been replicated in numerous studies spanning more than a decade.
In one study in Australia, a group of seven-to-10-year-olds were presented with a list of words and asked to read some silently, and others aloud. Afterwards, they correctly recognised 87% of the words they’d read aloud, but only 70% of the silent ones.
In another study, adults aged 67 to 88 were given the same task – reading words either silently or aloud – before then writing down all those they could remember. They were able to recall 27% of the words they had read aloud, but only 10% of those they’d read silently. When asked which ones they recognised, they were able to correctly identify 80% of the words they had read aloud, but only 60% of the silent ones. MacLeod and his team have found the effect can last up to a week after the reading task.
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Even just silently mouthing the words makes them more memorable, though to a lesser extent.
Researchers at Ariel University in the occupied West Bank discovered that the memory-enhancing effect also works if the readers have speech difficulties, and cannot fully articulate the words they read aloud.
MacLeod says one reason why people remember the spoken words is that “they stand out, they’re distinctive, because they were done aloud, and this gives you an additional basis for memory”.
We are generally better at recalling distinct, unusual events, and also, events that require active involvement.
For instance, generating a word in response to a question makes it more memorable, a phenomenon known as the generation effect.
Similarly, if someone prompts you with the clue “a tiny infant, sleeps in a cradle, begins with b”, and you answer baby, you’re going to remember it better than if you simply read it, MacLeod says.
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Another way of making words stick is to enact them, for instance by bouncing a ball (or imagining bouncing a ball) while saying “bounce a ball”.
This is called the enactment effect. Both of these effects are closely related to the production effect: they allow our memory to associate the word with a distinct event, and thereby make it easier to retrieve later.
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The production effect is strongest if we read aloud ourselves. But listening to someone else read can benefit memory in other ways. In a study led by researchers at the University of Perugia in Italy, students read extracts from novels to a group of elderly people with dementia over a total of 60 sessions. The listeners performed better in memory tests after the sessions than before, possibly because the stories made them draw on their own memories and imagination, and helped them sort past experiences into sequences. “It seems that actively listening to a story leads to more intense and deeper information processing,” the researchers concluded.
Reading aloud can also make certain memory problems more obvious, and could be helpful in detecting such issues early on.
In one study, people with early Alzheimer’s disease were found to be more likely than others to make certain errors when reading aloud.
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There is some evidence that many of us are intuitively aware of the benefits of reading aloud, and use the technique more than we might realise.
Sam Duncan, an adult literacy researcher at University College London, conducted a two-year study of more than 500 people all over Britain during 2017-2019 to find out if, when and how they read aloud. Often, her participants would start out by saying they didn’t read aloud – but then realised that actually, they did.
“Adult reading aloud is widespread,” she says. “It’s not something we only do with children, or something that only happened in the past.”
Some said they read out funny emails or messages to entertain others. Others read aloud prayers and blessings for spiritual reasons. Writers and translators read drafts to themselves to hear the rhythm and flow. People also read aloud to make sense of recipes, contracts and densely written texts.
“Some find it helps them unpack complicated, difficult texts, whether it’s legal, academic, or Ikea-style instructions,” Duncan says. “Maybe it’s about slowing down, saying it and hearing it.”
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For many respondents, reading aloud brought joy, comfort and a sense of belonging. Some read to friends who were sick or dying, as “a way of escaping together somewhere”, Duncan says. One woman recalled her mother reading poems to her, and talking to her, in Welsh. After her mother died, the woman began reading Welsh poetry aloud to recreate those shared moments. A Tamil speaker living in London said he read Christian texts in Tamil to his wife. On Shetland, a poet read aloud poetry in the local dialect to herself and others.
“There were participants who talked about how when someone is reading aloud to you, you feel a bit like you’re given a gift of their time, of their attention, of their voice,” Duncan recalls. “We see this in the reading to children, that sense of closeness and bonding, but I don’t think we talk about it as much with adults.”
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If reading aloud delivers such benefits, why did humans ever switch to silent reading? One clue may lie in those clay tablets from the ancient Near East, written by professional scribes in a script called cuneiform /ˈkjuːnɪˌfɔːm/.
Over time, the scribes developed an ever faster and more efficient way of writing this script. Such fast scribbling has a crucial advantage, according to Karenleigh Overmann, a cognitive archaeologist at the University of Bergen, Norway who studies how writing affected human brains and behaviour in the past. “It keeps up with the speed of thought much better,” she says.
Reading aloud, on the other hand, is relatively slow due to the extra step of producing a sound.
“The ability to read silently, while confined to highly proficient scribes, would have had distinct advantages, especially, speed,” says Overmann. “Reading aloud is a behaviour that would slow down your ability to read quickly.”
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In his book on ancient literacy, Reading and Writing in Babylon, the French assyriologist Dominique Charpin quotes a letter by a scribe called Hulalum that hints at silent reading in a hurry. Apparently, Hulalum switched between “seeing” (ie, silent reading) and “saying/listening” (loud reading), depending on the situation. In his letter, he writes that he cracked open a clay envelope – Mesopotamian tablets came encased inside a thin casing of clay to prevent prying eyes from reading them – thinking it contained a tablet for the king.
“I saw that it was written to [someone else] and therefore did not have the king listen to it,” writes Hulalum.
Perhaps the ancient scribes, just like us today, enjoyed having two reading modes at their disposal: one fast, convenient, silent and personal; the other slower, noisier, and at times more memorable.
In a time when our interactions with others and the barrage of information we take in are all too transient, perhaps it is worth making a bit more time for reading out loud. Perhaps you even gave it a try with this article, and enjoyed hearing it in your own voice?
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As a language practice exercise, try reading texts out loud.
You don’t have to do it all the time, but simply trying to read a text out loud as if you are reading it to some people, can be a good exercise.
Research suggests that it could help you remember words more effectively. The production effect means – producing words (saying them out loud) makes a difference to your ability to remember them later. Even just mouthing words when you read them helps them to go into your brain.
So, read aloud and mouth words when you read them.
Also, being prompted with a clue helps you remember words. This is called the generation effect. This encourages me a lot, because it confirms things I have been doing as a teacher, including in LEP Premium episodes when I use little prompts to help you recall words. For you, you could always create your own clues to help you remember words or phrases, or play word games in English in which you define words and then have to guess which words they are. Do this with new vocabulary. Of course, you would need friends or language partners to play with.
Acting words out, or linking them to physical movements also helps you remember words. So, when trying to remember words, add a physical element somehow, even if it means imagining yourself doing the word or being in a certain physical space when thinking of new words. For example if the expression is “to be wary of doing something” – put your hand to your chin and pretend you are being nervous about something or reluctant to do it. Make a sound like “Naaaaaaah, I’m a bit wary of doing that”. Perhaps imagine yourself at the end of a dark street and say “I’m a bit wary of going down there on my own. I think I’ll take the main road.”
Listening to other people read to you also helps a lot. So, the conclusion here is just keep listening to LEP of course! I am sure this works when someone is just speaking to you as well, especially if you are involved and caught up in what they are saying. That’s what I’ve always thought and I am sure scientific research would suggest that it’s true. My hypothesis is that people will remember more L2 words when they are presented in a meaningful context. It’s pretty obvious really.
Reading aloud might be good for your mental health. It seems that the exercise can reveal signs of dementia. Maybe reading aloud does require quite a lot of brain work – not only are you reading and decoding the words, but your brain is involved in some motor exercise too – meaning, muscle work, movement work. Surely, making your brain multi-task like this can only be good as a way of keeping it active. Brain training, basically.
It’s a good way to keep your brain young.
Reading aloud also makes you feel quite good, especially if you do it with others. It could be a good exercise with other learners of English, or with your English teacher. Of course, don’t only read aloud, but include it as part of your regular English practice. It’s especially enjoyable if you are reading out some interesting texts, and try to mix it up – some non-fiction stuff and also some stories and so on.
When you read aloud, consider where you need to chunk the text, pause, emphasise and use intonation.
Reading texts out loud is something I often do with my students in class. I ask my students to work out where the pauses should be, which words to emphasise and where the voice goes up or down.
This exercise reveals things about the text, including the structure and the real meanings and intentions of the writer.
Try reading aloud from time to time. Also try reading out loud with me, at the same time as me sometimes (if there is a transcript with the episode). It might help you notice more aspects of the language in the text, help you remember it more, and help you practice your pronunciation as well as your reading. It might also just make you feel good.
Put your thoughts into English in the comment section.
I’m also publishing a 3-part premium series all about the language in this episode. It’ll be available soon or maybe it’s already available now. I’m going to record them right away in fact. They are the next things I’m going to record.
In those premium episodes I will go through the vocabulary which I highlighted in the text again, and I’ll expand things with slightly more detailed explanations and examples, then I’ll test your memory of those words and phrases (with some prompts and some sentences with missing words) and give you a chance to practise pronouncing all the words in sentences.
There will also be an episode where we practise reading aloud some of the paragraphs from the text, with advice about where to pause, which words to emphasise and so on, with sentences to repeat after me.
To get those episodes, sign up to LEP Premium on Acast+. You can add the premium episodes to your podcasting app, and also access PDFs and video versions that way. www.teacherluke.co.uk/premium for the premium series focusing on the language in this episode.
That’s it for this episode, but I will be back soon with more things for you to listen to, including more stories which I would like to read to you, and conversations with guests, and all the other types of episode I like to present to you on my show.
Last week a very special guest visited one of our comedy shows in Paris. I was given a ticket to the show, so I decided to record a podcast while riding through the streets on the way to the show, wondering if I might be able to interview this guest on LEP. Listen to find out what happened, and to hear some rambling and atmospheric sounds of Paris streets at night.
[DOWNLOAD]
My dad returns to talk more about UK politics, this time describing the disastrous economic policy of Liz Truss and her Chancellor (finance minister) Kwasi Kwarteng. Advanced level English listening practice – this is complicated stuff, but keep listening to develop your English skills and learn about what’s going on in UK politics and current affairs. Video version available.
Amber and Paul join me in my pod room again for a rambling discussion about everything! Includes a language point about adjective + preposition collocations. Notice the phrases and try to find examples of them in context. Video version available.
Sign up to LEP Premium to get the 3-part series of episodes (audio, video, PDFs) about the language point in this episode.
Here are a few words and phrases that you will hear us saying at the start of the episode.
My mum returns to the podcast to answer some questions from listeners about books, cooking, her relationship with Luke and her granddaughter, the war in Ukraine, the song Imagine by John Lennon, family games, the time she fell off a horse & more…
[DOWNLOAD]
Hello listeners!
Welcome back to the podcast.
Today I am joined by my mum and we’re going to spend the episode chatting about this and that, and responding to some questions from LEPsters on Twitter.
I hope you enjoy the episode everyone, Stick with us, and as usual you’ll find that the more you listen, the better it is for your English.
Hi Mum, how are you today?
Where are we?
It’s been ages since you’ve been on the podcast, with your own episode (April 2021 – 717. Gill’s Book Club).
We were doing Gill’s Book Club (we did 3 or 4 of those) and every now and then we talk about doing another one, but we have found it a bit tricky to choose books that
Plus you somehow got out of the habit of reading every day.
Anyway, it’s nice to be able to have you on the podcast again.
My aim for this is mainly to let people just listen to your voice, listen to your words and it sort of doesn’t matter too much what we talk about, as long as we just let the conversation flow and let the English happen naturally. We decided not to limit ourselves to any one specific topic here, preferring instead to cast our net quite wide in terms of things to talk about.
Yesterday evening, I Tweeted this:
It got about 26 replies.
I have a selection of questions from listeners on Twitter which we can explore. That’s probably a good starting point.
Kristýna Waicová @Elvea_Puff – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Not a very original one but a classic: what book(s) did she enjoyed recently? I’m looking forward to listening to you two, it’s always such a treat. Please give your mum my best and as always, thanks for the podcast!
Aritz @aritz_js – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Yes! Any books recommendations? I read The Five and A Month in the Country. Thanks.
Kam @ErkamUK – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Could you please recommend us some books? and what do you think about Harry Potter?
Beniamino Bianco @Mire12374275 – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Yes! What book dedicated to Winston Churchill can you recommend? Thanks from Ilario.
👇A list of books about Churchill → Skip to number 10 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/apr/11/top10s.churchill
En-quête de culture @EmmaB2944 – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
So happy so hear for your mother ! I would like to know what is she currently reading of course. And if she thought you would become a journalist like your father ? When I listen to the Rick reports, I realise that journalism is not so far from your podcast… Many thanks !
James Harris @JamesHarrisNow – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
No questions, but please compliment your mum on raising a fine boy.
Kam @ErkamUK
How does it feel to give birth to a famous podcaster?
Romário Alexandre @Lawter_ – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
How does it feel to know that people from many parts of the world know a little bit about your relationship with your son?
Kam @ErkamUK – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Why did you name your son Luke?why not Dave?
Jinti Neog @JintiNeog
Why Thompson why not Rickson?
eslam @eslamaoao – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Did you see signs of luke when he was a child that points to his currently career field?
teresa peltz @teresa_peltz – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Yes.I’ve one maybe too personal. So you couldn’t take in account. How she feels as a Brit nanny ? Any special food for her niece as a British grandmother?
Gupse Uzun @uzun_gupse – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
So that she can see her grandchild more often, does she ever prefer that you with your family live in england?
Edier Rosa @RosaEdier Replying to @EnglishPodcast
I use both English and Portuguese when talking to my niece. I speak Portuguese, she answers in English and vice-versa. I wonder if she fears not being able to have a fluent comprehensible conversation with her granddaughter in future. That was my main motivation to study English.
Jay Jia @JayJia1982 Replying to @EnglishPodcast
How is her cooking? What is her signature dish? Any secret family recipes?
Is it true that English people in general are not good cook? Gordon Ramsay is a great chef but he usually cook Asian food, his restaurant in London is Asian restaurant.
Luke: Ramsay has 53 restaurants (according to the list on his website, and they serve a variety of things – French fine dining, rustic English food, burgers, pizza, asian food and more…)
Денис Леонтьєв @xxxpdenis Replying to @EnglishPodcast
What does She think about war in Ukraine? By the way,if You like the question,like it in order to see if you have chosen it.
albee @archdeaconsnz – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Could her tell us about some good memories about her childhood or teenage years?
Znad – @znad9821 Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Why is your son obsessed with Betels?
Alex Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Yes, why after half a century the world still doesn’t understand the meaning of the song Imagine. Tnx
Paragraph about Imagine from https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/john-lennon-imagine-real-meaning-communism/
In an interview with David Sheff for Playboy Magazine, shortly before his death in December 1980, Lennon shared that Dick Gregory had given him and Ono a Christian Prayer-book which had inspired him to write the track. “The concept of positive prayer…If you can imagine a world at peace, with no denominations of religion – not without religion but without this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God thing – then it can be true.”
The Beatle continued, “The World Church called me once and asked, “Can we use the lyrics to ‘Imagine’ and just change it to ‘Imagine one religion’?” That showed [me] they didn’t understand it at all. It would defeat the whole purpose of the song, the whole idea.”
Kristýna Waicová – @Elvea_Puff Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Does she play any word games? Or some other games? :)
Rei da Salsicha de Chicago @jam0rreu Replying to @EnglishPodcast
Ask her to talk about the horse story (You and James told us she fell off a horse when you were a kid).
The One Who Knocks @JaderLelis27 Replying to @EnglishPodcast
How does she feel about Margaret Thatcher
Sorry, we didn’t get time to answer this question! 👇
Alper @tdurdendi – Replying to @EnglishPodcast
I wonder who is her favourite British and/or non-British film director.
Since I haven’t listened to all episodes, I apologize if she had already spoken of it.
Well then listeners, that was my mum in her own episode again, but hold on, we’re not done yet, there’s more.
As you just heard at the end, my wife and daughter just came back from the market so we thought we should stop recording and get ready to have lunch with everyone.
But then my daughter did come into the garden and she picked up the microphone, so here is a little interview with her. So you get 3 generations of the family in one episode. A cross generational podcast for you.
So, I asked my daughter to describe what she had done at the market and before I managed to press record on my recorder, she started talking about how they had gone into the local museum in the town square, where they have various items including a large stuffed bear (a real one, stuffed – it’s quite odd and quite interesting), as well as other things, and I asked if she found the bear frightening or if she’d been traumatised by the bear, and then I asked her about the word traumatised, and she ended up describing how she’d been traumatised by a loud automatic hand dryer in a public toilet once (you know those hand dryers which you get on the wall in public toilets?), and that is where this 10 minute clip begins.
So here we go with a bonus bit of chat with youngest member of the Thompson family.
There you go listeners.
A bit of wisdom there from the voice of the future.
Well, I hope you agree listeners, that that was a real treat, especially if you listened all the way until the end.
I really enjoyed that – being able to ask my mum those questions and get her responses, while sitting in the very nice surroundings of her garden, and I hope you enjoyed it too.
I must say I love making these recordings – in order to publish them for your listening pleasure and for your English listening practice (hopefully both) but also just as a record of family life – the voices of my family and my friends, stories, thoughts, memories, opinions and so on. How nice.
I’m very grateful to my mum for this episode and generally for all my guests who contribute so much.
Send us your comments. It’s nice to read them and to get some human responses to our words.
Sorry if you weren’t able to send in a question. I put up the request on Twitter without much notice. I do that sometimes, in order to get opinions or podcast questions from my audience.
If you want to follow me on Twitter, please go ahead. @EnglishPodcast
I’m also on Instagram but I hardly ever use it. In fact, at the moment I only use it to help me book and promote stand up comedy shows (because some of the comedy nights use Instagram to communicate with comedians), but I am there @lukesenglish
Thank you again for listening and for supporting the podcast.
Do me a favour:
I will speak to you again soon. I have loads of episode ideas and so many things I want to record, but I mustn’t overwhelm you.
Time to focus on some premium content now.
[Part 2 of 2] James and Luke discuss some more “facts” about the UK, but can you guess if they are true or false? Learn some interesting trivia about life in Britain, and improve your vocabulary in the process.
Hello listeners, and welcome back to the podcast.
This is part 2 of a two-part episode called 50 Random British Facts (True or False Quiz) with James.
This is part 2 – so if you haven’t heard part 1, go back and listen to that. It’s the previous episode.
In this one we’re going to go through the rest of the random facts about Britain which my brother and I put together earlier this year.
Just a reminder, of the way this works:
Hopefully you can learn some odd and interesting bits of information about the UK, spot some useful English vocabualry, generally practise your listening skills and have a bit of fun in the process.
If you’d like to work on your pronunciation, here’s a challenge. Try reading the facts out loud, like James and I did. When you read them out, try to say them clearly and fluently, emphasising the right words, connecting parts of the sentence and adding pauses and intonation in the right places. It’s actually quite difficult but a good exercise. You can read the facts on the page for this episode on my website, or you will see them on the screen if you are watching the YouTube version. You could compare the way you say the sentences to the way James and I say them, and perhaps try to copy us, or shadow us. That could be a good way to push your English a bit further with this episode.
As I said at the beginning of the 1st part of this double episode, James and I recorded this in August 2022 and that was before the Queen died in September, and so this is a bit anachronistic as we talk about The Queen in the present tense as she was still alive and the head of state of the country at the time we recorded this. So just keep that in mind while you are listening to this I guess.
Oh and by the way, listen out for a cameo appearance by my daughter somewhere in the middle of the episode.
Now, are you ready to keep calm and carry on?
OK then, here we go with more random British facts – are they true or are they false?
Section 3
Section 4
That’s it listeners.
Thank you for listening.
Don’t forget, you can read all those facts on the page for this episode on my website. That could be a good way to just check some of the words and phrases that you heard in this episode.
I’m sure there’s some new vocabulary in there.
Here’s a selection (just read through them)
That’s just a selection. I’m not going into it all now, but you could pursue that vocabulary and research it and try to remember it and use it, or at least try to notice it again as you listen, read and generally come into contact with English.
Some of them are more frequently used than others. I don’t know how often you will talk about tripe or bails of hay in your life, but that’s the thing about pushing your vocabulary beyond the intermediate plateau. You have to go beyond the limits of the vocabulary that you come across on a daily basis and go into the more uncharted areas of English in order to open things out and expand.
Also, I explained some vocabulary at the end of part 1. I don’t know if you heard that, but I went into various words relating to laws, rules, regulations, government legislation and so on, as quite a lot of those things came up in the 50 facts. So go back and listen to the last 30 mins of part 1, if you haven’t already done so.
You see, it pays to listen to episodes all the way until the end.
Can you guess if these “facts” about the UK are true or false? James and Luke read out the facts and then discuss them one by one. Learn some odd things about the UK, pick up some vocabulary about laws and customs, and try not to laugh on the bus.
Hello everybody, before I play this episode I think I should give a kind of disclaimer about the content. I just want to say two things.
So this is an episode about Britain recorded with my brother in August, which is obviously before we all got the news that The Queen had been taken ill and had died, and we do talk about The Queen a few times during the episode, but of course she is no longer with us and now we have King Charles III.
So, firstly, the things we say about The Queen will be a bit anachronistic now as you listen to it – anachronistic, meaning belonging to the past, and a bit out of step with the present. So that’s the first thing – this was recorded when the Queen was still alive and when she was the head of state, which is now obviously no longer the case, so there are a few little anachronisms and we refer to The Queen in the present tense.
And secondly, when we do mention The Queen and a lot of other things, it’s done in a humorous way – and I’m aware that some people might find that inappropriate, but we aren’t really mocking her harshly or specifically. We copy her voice a bit and parts of the episode are just a bit silly and funny, but our intentions are decent. I don’t think we could be indicted for treason or anything like that. So, I hope you take it all in the spirit of good natured British humour, which is our intention, and let’s remember that The Queen has been praised a lot over the last week or so for her good sense of humour, so hopefully she would see the funny side (but who knows) In any case, I think it’s ok and I’ve decided to publish this. I hope you enjoy it, and actually I hope you see it as a sort of celebration of British stuff, for what it’s worth.
Alright then, now I have said that. Let’s start the episode properly. Here we go.
— Jingle —
50 Random British Facts (True or False Quiz) with James [Part 1]
Hello listeners, welcome back to my podcast.
Are you ready to do some more listening, to improve your English?
If the answer to that question is “Yes” then, good! Keep listening!
Here is a new episode featuring James, my older brother. This is a 2 part episode actually, and you’re listening to part 1.
In this one you’re going to hear James and me discussing various facts about the UK, that’s the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, of course. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
A few weeks ago, James and I came up with a list of 50 facts about British life, customs, laws, history and culture, which we could talk about on this podcast. We thought you might find it interesting.
So that’s what you’ll hear. But the thing is – some of these facts are true and some of them are not true. They’re false, completely made up, invented by James and me.
So the game is, can you guess which of these facts are true and which ones are false?
Here’s how this is going to work.
First, you’ll hear us reading out our list of so-called facts and you can decide if you think they’re true or not
and then we will discuss each fact, we’ll reveal if they are true or not and we’ll explain some bits of language and culture along the way.
On the subject of vocabulary, two things:
I’ll go through those words briefly at the end of the episode, giving you a little tiny taste of LEP Premium, with definitions, explanations and a couple of examples, just to make sure you understood the full meaning and difference between them, because lots of words like that will just pop up in this episode and you might think “Hold on, how many words for laws and rules are there? What’s the difference between a law, an act, a decree and legislation?
If that’s you – just listen on until end of this part to hear some vocabulary explanations from me, which no doubt will just be really helpful.
This is an audio-only episode, but if you are listening on YouTube you will see that the facts are written on the screen with a few pictures to illustrate them in most cases, which again should help you not only understand everything but also to notice vocabulary, with your eyes, and your brain.
And you can always switch on the automatic subtitles in English on YouTube, which are surprisingly accurate these days.
But now, that’s enough waffle. Let’s get started with part 1 of this, recorded at my parents’ home in England a couple of weeks ago, during the summer holidays, just after we’d eaten a large lunch with the whole family.
OK, so, this is part 1 of 50 Random British Facts, with James.
Let’s go.
Section 1
Section 2
So, that is the end of part 1. How many did you get right?
You are keeping track of your score, right?
It might be tricky to keep track of your score, which is fine of course.
To be honest, I don’t expect you to do that really. But I wonder if you generally managed to guess which of those things were true and which ones were bollocks.
Did anything surprise you? Did anything amuse you?
Let us know by leaving your comments in the comment section.
That was only the first 25 facts of course. We’re not done yet. This will all continue in part 2 when we look at facts 26-50, in the same way. I guess you can just look forward to that. It will require all your patience to do so, but I believe in you. You can do it.
Now, let me go through some vocabulary, as I said I would earlier.
A lot of these facts deal with things like laws, government actions and also traditions or customs and so I thought I would just clarify some words which relate to those things. Yet again I am doing this on the free podcast as a little taste of the kind of thing you usually get in episodes of LEP Premium these days.
The words I’m going to talk about now are:
Words for different types of law or government action
A rule is just something which says whether you are allowed or not allowed to do something. The difference between a rule and a law is that the word rule is more general and is used in all sorts of situations, not just by governments and the police etc.
Schools have rules (e.g. no chewing gum in the classroom), people’s homes have rules (e.g. no mobile phones at the dinner table).
Also, sports and games have rules, like the offside rule in football.
Laws are the rules which determine wether things are legal or illegal. They are made and introduced by the government and enforced by the police and justice system.
To break a law
We also have the word “law” (opposed to “a law”) which means the whole system of rules which determine what is allowed, not allowed, what people have the right and don’t have the right to do or have.
Legislation is another word for law, but it is uncountable.
Here are some sentences which basically mean the same thing:
The government created legislation banning the possession of handguns.
The government created a law (or laws) banning the possession of handguns.
So it’s the same as the word law, but we don’t say “a legislation” because it’s uncountable. Instead we would say “a piece of legislation”.
The government introduced new legislation banning the use of diesel cars in urban areas.
The government introduced a new law banning the use of diesel cars in urban areas.
Legislate is a verb
To legislate for or against something – which means to create laws to oblige people to do things, or to prohibit certain things.
The government in 2007 legislated against smoking in indoor public places.
This means to prohibit or stop something and it’s usually used in reference to government laws which make something prohibited.
Smoking was banned in public spaces in 2007.
The government banned smoking in 2007.
Sometimes the word ban is used in situations outside the legal system, for example –
Mobile phones are banned in the classroom.
A person can also be banned from a certain place, for example,
Dave has been banned from the golf club for starting a fight last week.
It can be a noun or a verb.
The smoking ban. There’s a ban on smoking.
The government banned smoking.
An act is a specific piece of legislation which creates law.
When politicians make laws, for example in the House of Commons in London, there’s a certain process and we use different words for that legislation during the process.
First the law is introduced by a member of parliament as a bill which is a written proposal for a law. The bill is discussed by the MPs in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and is voted on, and when that bill has been approved (including being given the Royal Assent by the Queen) it is written into law in the form of an act.
This act defines the law. It’s kind of like a contract. Each act, which contains various laws, has a name. For example, The Treason Felony Act 1848, which makes it an offence to do any action with the intention of deposing the monarch. This makes it illegal to plan or try to remove The Queen from the throne (or in fact to remove the crown from The Queen) and this includes planning and devising things in written form, spoken form and with the use of images etc. So that’s the Treason Felony Act, which was created in 1848, which makes it against the law to try to depose the monarch.
Another example is the The Data Protection Act 2018, which controls how your personal information is used by organisations, businesses or the government. The Data Protection Act 2018 is the UK’s implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
And another example is the Homicide Act 1957, which makes it illegal to kill someone, or commit murder. By the way, it says 1957, but of course murder wasn’t legal before 1957, it’s just that in 1957 the law relating to murder or homicide would have been redefined somehow, and a new act was created, which contained provisions relating to all acts of homicide.
A statement within an agreement or a piece of legislation that a particular thing must happen or be done.
This is like a specific section of an act of parliament, or a specific detail in an act of parliament. You also get provisions in contracts between people.
A decree is an order that something must be done. A royal decree is when the king or queen orders that something must be done. These days it doesn’t happen in the UK, so royal decrees are only heard about when referring to history.
King Edgar in 957 decreed that all settlements (towns) in England were restricted to having only one “alehouse” per settlement. This was a law to try to control the number of pubs or places selling ale across the country. The decree lasted until after the Norman conquest of England in 1066 after which more and more alehouses, inns and pubs started arriving.
Here’s an example from The Bible, of a decree by a Roman Emperor.
The Gospel According to Luke, Chapter 2 Verse 1
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.
And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David). To be taxed with Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child.
And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.
And she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.
A new plan or process to achieve something or solve a problem:
The peace initiative was welcomed by both sides.
This is a way of behaving or doing something which has existed for a long time. It’s like a tradition.
The adjective is “customary” and is often used in the phrase:
It is customary to do XXX.
It was customary to do XXX.
Examples
It is customary to bring a gift to someone’s house if you are invited to lunch or dinner.
It’s customary in Japan to remove your shoes when you enter someone’s house.
It’s customary in the UK to shake someone’s hand when you first meet them, especially in more formal contexts.
These two words 👆 are synonyms.
