Learn more authentic English directly from the mouths of these native speakers in an episode of the popular British TV show “Kitchen Nightmares” with famous chef Gordon Ramsay. Videos and vocabulary lists available below.
**This episode includes swearing and some rude content**
This video is a combination of part 1 and part 2, with vocabulary on-screen and the TV show video clips included 👇
Video
Video clips and vocabulary lists
Video 2 – The orange sauce looks like “sci-fi sperm”
Vocabulary
Let’s watch the family in action
Is there any chance you could talk to her
If you open up and ask…
You don’t remember after 5 minutes
Like fuck do I!
You try to make me look small
It’s like a one man band in there
It’s totally upside down
A backlog of orders
Mick starts to crumble
I don’t want no (*any) more food sent down
He can’t handle it
I’ll get my head bitten off / to bite someone’s head off
I’d rather you didn’t take it out on me
Video 3 – The family at war
Vocabulary
Michelle’s impressive
She’s left to face the fallout of Mick’s incompetence
The meals are now being sent back
He can’t handle it / can’t cope / can’t take it / can’t deal with it
I’ll go and sort it out
My husband’s big fucking dream is a complete farce
I’m not having a heart attack over this
My heart’s booming
He speaks to me like shit
I try and take all the knocks
Even I have a breaking point
Video 4 – Catching up with the Martin family at the end
On the podcast today I am talking to a friend of mine called Fred Eyangoh. English is not Fred’s first language but he’s learned it to a proficient level – enough to complete a Master’s’ program in Business Management and Marketing in English and to do regular comedy shows in English too.
I’ve invited Fred onto the podcast because I want to talk to him about, how he develops and maintains his English, what life is like in the country that he originally comes from, and we do talk about those things – Fred says some interesting points about how he’s has pushed his English on his own, but also we ended up talking about lots of other things like history, geography and cutlery (that’s knives, forks and spoons).
You’ll hear that Fred speaks with an accent which is quite difficult to put your finger on – it’s hard to identify exactly where he comes from, and I’m not going to tell you right now, because I want you to guess, based on his voice. Where do you think he comes from?
You’ll see that although it’s his second language Fred’s English is precise and accurate in terms of grammar and he uses a wide range of vocabulary, and to a large extent that is down to the way he has applied himself to his acquisition of English.
We ended up talking for about an hour and fifteen minutes in this conversation, and I’ve decided to publish all of it in this one single episode, rather than dividing it into two episodes because I think it’s best enjoyed without interruption, as one continuous flowing conversation.
OK, let’s begin. The first thing you’ll hear us talking about is the First World War, because Fred has been listening to a podcast called Hardcore History, and he’s been listening to an episode of that podcast about the First World War. Click here to check out Hardcore History with Dan Carlin about World War I.
And that is the first thing that we talk about.
Recap – What Fred said about Learning English
Let’s recap some of the things Fred said about improving your English.
Now, I know some of you are thinking – but he had some English lessons when he was 4, that’s cheating! Sure, that must have helped, but I know people who had English lessons from childhood at school but they still don’t have a great level of English. It’s not just that, it’s also the other things you do in your life.
Immerse yourself in English content that you really like – in the case of Fred it’s comedy and films. We all know about this, but it’s worth repeating. Get some English into your everyday life and make it some content that you’re fascinated by.
Notice/Track vocabulary and go the extra mile. This doesn’t just mean watching films with subtitles on. That bit of advice has been said a million times, and it is true. But while you’re watching, listening or reading you should ‘track’ the language or ‘notice’ the language while you’re consuming it. Make a point of noticing specific bits of English, like vocabulary items and then research that language by investigating it online, reading around it, finding more active examples of it using google or wikipedia. As Paul Taylor has said “Just Wikipedia it!” and it’s good advice of course when you’re doing self study. Find examples of new words and expressions, not just definitions and read plenty of examples (e.g. by using the News tab in Google search results, or by exploring Wikipedia) until you’ve made plenty of connections and associations with that new word and you know it well enough to start using it.
Work with audio and transcripts. Listen and then check out some words that you don’t know by circling or highlighting them and then researching them as we just said. For example, most TED talks have transcripts on the TED.com website. Now, we all watch TED talks from time to time, but how often are you playing around with the interactive transcripts and really exploring the vocabulary that you can find there?
Broaden your range. Push yourself to use the language you’re picking up by finding new ways to say the same thing – e.g. avoid just using the simple verbs like ‘be’ or ‘have’.
Be creative – write down your ideas. You could write some comedy, some poetry, some stories and if you feel like it, find a place where you can share your work, like a spoken word open mic night or something like that.
Socialise and be outgoing. Go out and meet people who you can speak English to. Find your own peer group for socialising in English.
OK, that’s it! Go the extra mile and push your English, but do keep enjoying it – that’s one of the most important things.
Check the website for some videos of the comedians Fred mentioned.
Join the mailing list!
Speak soon, bye!
Comedians Fred Mentioned
Fred is a great fan of comedy, and I always think that stand-up must be a great source of English you can listen to, and there’s so much of it on YouTube, and if you have Netflix you can find lots of great stand up comedy shows and they all have subtitles, so switch them on and go for it!
Here are some of the comics Fred mentioned.
Maria Bamford
She’s one of the top comedians in the USA right now. She tells stories using different voices to let us understand (and laugh at) the problems she experiences in her everyday life. She has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, and she deals with both of those subjects in the most adorable and hilarious way, changing her voice to represent the different people in her life, cleverly revealing their attitudes and treatment of Maria. This video is a good example of the way she changes her voice to become a different person in her routines.
Chris Rock
An absolute mega-legend in comedy. Brave, sharp, honest and one of the funniest stand-up comedians ever. *Warning: rude content*
Louis CK
He’s generally considered to be one of the hottest standups in the world at the moment. Comedy is a question of taste of course (and Louis talks about some quite dark, edgy and offensive subjects) but Louis is really great. *Warning: rude content
Hello and welcome back to this podcast, this ongoing project which aims to help you to improve your English by presenting you with listening content which is not just useful for practising your English listening skills, vocabulary and pronunciation but also useful for broadening your horizons just a little bit by presenting you with content you might not have otherwise discovered.
This is part 2 of a 2 part episode about British Comedy. This time I’m talking to you about one of my favourite TV shows, called Limmy’s Show – a series of bizarre and amusing sketches written and performed by Brian Limond aka Limmy, who comes from Glasgow in Scotland.
In the last episode we listened to a few sketches on YouTube featuring Limmy’s character Mr Mulvaney, the businessman who seems convinced that the police are on his tail for committing some petty shoplifting. We heard some English spoken with a Glaswegian accent and picked up a few words and expressions along the way.
This time we’re going to continue with another of Limmy’s sketches which you can find on YouTube. Whereas the Mr Mulvaney sketches featured fairly formal sounding spoken English in a Glasgow accent, the sketch in this episode features a character who speaks in a more informal way and with an accent and speech pattern that I expect you will find even stronger and more difficult to understand, which is precisely why I’ve chosen to analyse it here on the podcast. In my effort to push your English into new areas, I’m choosing to focus on some speech that you might not have been exposed to before in order to close the linguistic and cultural gaps that might exist between you and this TV comedy, which won a Scottish BAFTA twice.
The sketch we’re going to listen to now is called “Dee Dee – Yoker” which involves a character called Dee Dee who takes a bus trip to a town called Yoker.
Sketch: Dee Dee goes to Yoker (video below)
The Dee Dee sketches are possibly the best thing about Limmy’s Show. Dee Dee is basically an unemployed guy who never really leaves the house and is lost in his own world.
The sketches featuring Dee Dee are funny, but they’re perhaps closer to pathos than comedy.
Pathos is the quality in a film or play that makes people feel sadness or pity. Sometimes comedy can become pathos when it is not just funny, but also quite sad or pitiful. For example, Charlie Chaplin’s films are full of comedy, but what makes them extra special is the pathos – those moments where you feel pity for Chaplin’s character, who is basically a poverty-stricken tramp.
It’s a similar case with Dee Dee. His sketches make me laugh, but they are also terribly sad because Dee Dee is isolated, quite disturbed and unable to fully operate in society.
He basically never goes out, he spends all his time on his own at home, watching the TV and sleeping. It’s a bit sad really, because his state of mind is pretty messed up and he’s losing touch with reality. I don’t know if you know how that feels.
Imagine you’ve come down with the flu and you’re off work, sick, just staying in the house on the sofa for a long period, like a week or two. You don’t see anyone. You hardly do anything, you’re just getting over your flu, sitting on the sofa or sleeping the whole time. It starts to mess with your head a bit. The days drag on, morning drifts into the afternoon, which drifts into the evening and you haven’t left the house or even had a shower and got dressed, you’re just wrapped up in your blanket from your bed all day. Your mind starts to go a bit weird and you’re living in a daydream while everyone outside in the real world is going out working and living their lives. You’re just indoors all the time, slowly drifting away from reality.
That’s what DeeDee is all about, but I’m not sure why he’s in this situation. I think he’s just an unemployed stoner – someone who smokes too much weed or something. So, it might be about the condition of someone who smokes too much weed and as a result has lost the motivation to leave the house, get a job or sort his life out.
Every sketch with Dee Dee is like a glimpse into his spaced out mind as he completely over analyses quite trivial details in his every day life, like things he’s seen on TV or stuff that happens in his kitchen. In each episode, these trivial details become blown up into hugely significant events because of his paranoia and delusion.
In this one Dee Dee actually goes outside, in order to pick up his giro (unemployment welfare check) but takes a risk and takes an opportunity to get a free ride on a bus going to a place he’s never been before and it becomes a big adventure, even though in reality it’s not much of an adventure and most of the drama is in his own head.
With this one I’m going to read it out in my voice first so that you can understand the story, then we’ll hear the original version with Dee Dee from Glasgow.
Again, I’ve no idea what you’ll think of this, but at the least it’s just a fun little story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfectchNtQM
Adapted transcript (written in ‘English English’)
[So, I was walking along the street the other day to pick up my welfare check. And I passed by a couple of buses at the side of the road. Everybody’s crowding off the front and into the one behind. Old folk’ were all like, “This is ridiculous. Never used to be like this with the city buses.” I was like all like, “I see. We’ve got ourselves a breakdown.” I check to see where they’re all heading. ‘Yoker’. And I just pissed myself laughing.]
Dee Dee: “Haa~!”
[Because Yoker’s one of these places I only know from the front of a bus. I’ve never been there. Don’t know what it’s like. Just this crazy fairytale land that sounds like kinda an egg yolk. So I was watching everybody getting on, trying to show their tickets to the driver. But he wasn’t having it. Just waving them on, all like, ‘Alright I know where you all came from. I can see the other bus, what do you think I am, stupid?’ And I see the opportunity for a free ride, and a little voice in my head says, “Dee dee, I know you’ve got to get your welfare check, but that money’s always going to be there. But this, on the other hand, is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Go for it”. So I was all like…”]
Dee Dee: “Fuck it”.
[And I joined the queue. As soon as I do, the driver starts checking people’s tickets. I was all like, “Pffft, forget it”. But I just got completely caught up in the slipstream, rushing towards the moment of truth at a hundred miles an hour. Heart pounding. Pulse racing.]
Dee Dee: “I…..uh…..”
Driver: “Go ahead mate.”
Dee Dee: “Thanks, dude.”
[I did it.
So there I was on the top deck of the bus. I had a bird’s eye view. Whizzing by the unemployment office, all like – Ta ta, welfare check, maybe some other day, hmm? Because I’m on the bus. To Yoker. Couldn’t believe what I was hearing in my head. Seriously. This was actually happening! But then I thought, hold on. Don’t get too excited. There could be someone looking at the back of your head right now thinking, “Hey, who’s he? He’s not from Yoker. He’s got no business being on this bus. Let’s beat him up!” I turned round to see if anyone was looking.
Nobody. Got away with it. I totally got away with it. So I loosened up, and started chatting. ‘Thought I’d get a little bit of local knowledge before I got there.
Dee Dee: “So is this ‘bus for Yoker, right?”
Yoker Passenger: “Yep”
Dee Dee: “I’ve just moved there. Is it a nice place?”
Yoker Passenger: “Yes, it’s a wonderful place. I’ve lived there all my life. Yoker born and bred.”
Dee Dee: “So you’ve never once wondered what Yoker’s like? Mind boggling…”
[Half an hour later I start seeing the signs. Yoker newsagents. Yoker post office. Yoker F.C. Yoker everything. They even had a barber that rhymed with Yoker. “Hair by Les Porter”. What are the chances of that?]
Dee Dee: “Hey, listen. Wouldn’t it be, like, totally crazy if his name used to be Smith, or something, and he just changed it to fit in?”.
Yoker Passenger: “What?”
[Gets to the terminus. Everybody starts crowding off. I decided to ask the driver for a favor.]
Dee Dee: “Driver, when do you leave?”
Driver: “5 minutes.”
Dee Dee: “I fell asleep and missed my stop. Would it be possible for you to print me out a ticket while I go out and catch a smoke real quick? Thanks.”
[And I put my first step on to Yoker soil. I was in Yoker. I thought this day would never come. Is it really this easy? Is it really this easy to get the things you want in life? You just need to hold out for it? All of a sudden I just had the urge to be all like, “Listen, I’m not from Yoker, I’ve got no business being here”. I was like, “Calm down, Dee Dee. That’s no laughing matter. They’ll tear you to shreds. Now, you’ve got five minutes. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do… in Yoker? …I knew exactly what.
I had to. I had to find out. I couldn’t leave without finding out what this is all about. Bus was a million miles away. I thought, “Dee Dee, you are truly on the outer reaches here, dude. Middle of nowhere.” And I went into the great unknown with a fucking ding; to ask the one big question on everybody’s lips.]
Dee Dee: “Les Porter?”
Les Porter: “Yes?”
Dee Dee: “Has your name always rhymed with Yoker, or did it used to like, be like Smith or something or-?”
[And then I thought, “Dee Dee, you’ve just blown your cover. Big time. ‘Fuck you doing, dude? Go. Go!” Got out of there before they started throwing their scissors at me like Ninja stars. Before Big Les scalped me and stuck my head on the wall. Ten seconds to get to that bus man, that’s your lifelife! What does it start doing? It starts moving. I was like that, “No way, bro!” I felt like giving up. “Hey, I’m not from Yoker, I’ve got no business being in Yoker”. Let them finish me off like a pack of crazy wolves. But I just kept running for my life like I had Leatherface on my tail. I get to the bus but he wouldn’t let us in. I was all like, “Set up! ‘Whole thing’s a set up. Those people that were on that front bus? Actors. Actors! ‘Every single one of them, actors.” Door opens and I bolt upstairs. Right under the seat. Didn’t dare poke my head up for the next half hour in case they were going by in a minibus. Eager to feast on me like a group of crazy zombie pirates.
Picked a moment. Up the road. Up the stairs. In the house. Lock. Lock. Lock. Scary, dude. Scary.
Original transcript (in Glaswegian English)
[Fucking, heading to the brew, heading to get my giro. And I pass this couple of buses at the side of the road. Everybody’s piling off the front and into the one behind. Old folk’ like that, “This is ridiculous. Never used to be like this with the corporation buses.” I was like that, “I see. We’ve got ourselves a breakdown.” I check to see where they’re all heading. ‘Yoker’. And I just pissed myself laughing.]
Dee Dee: “Haa~!”
[Because Yoker’s one of these places I only know from the front of a bus. I’ve never been there. Don’t know what it’s like. Just this pure, mad fabled land that sounds like
a pure, mad egg yolk. So I was watching everybody getting on, trying to show their tickets to the driver. But he wasn’t having it. Just waving them on like that, ‘Alright I know what you’s came from. I can see the bus, what do you think I am, daft?’. And a wee voice in my head says, “Dee dee, I know you’ve got to get your giro, but the brew’s always going to be there. But this, on the other hand, is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Go for it”. So I just went like that…”]
Dee Dee: “Fuck it”.
[And I joined the queue. As soon as I do, the driver starts checking people’s tickets. I was like that, “Oh here, forget it”. But I just got pure caught up in the slipstream, belting towards the moment of truth at a hundred mile an hour. Heart pounding. Pulse racing.]
Dee Dee: “What it is is-”
Driver: “On you go, mate.”
Dee Dee: “Cheers.”
[I did it.
So there I was. Bird’s eye view. Whizzing by the brew like that. Ta ta giro, maybe some other day, eh? Because I’m on the bus. To Yoker. Couldn’t believe what I was hearing
in my head, man. Seriously. This was actually happening! But then I thought, hold on. Don’t get too excited. There could be someone looking at the back of your nut right now thinking, “Here, who’s he? He’s not from Yoker. He’s got no business being on this bus. Get his head kicked, man.” I turned round to see if anyone was looking.
Nobody. Got away with it. Just pure got away with the lot of it. So I loosened up, and started chatting. ‘Thought I’d get a wee bit of local knowledge before I got there.
Dee Dee: “So is this ‘bus for Yoker, aye?”
Yoker Passenger: “Aye”
Dee Dee: “I’ve just moved there. Is it any good?”
Yoker Passenger: “Aye, it’s a lovely place. I’ve lived there all my life. Yoker born and bred.”
Dee Dee: “So you’ve never once wondered what Yoker’s like? Mind boggling…”
[Half an hour later I start seeing the signs. Yoker newsagents. Yoker post office. Yoker F.C. Yoker everything. They even had a barber that rhymed with Yoker. “Hair by Les Porter”. What are the chances of that?]
Dee Dee: “Here y’ ‘are. What’s the betting his name used to be Smith, or something, and he just changed it to fit in?”.
Yoker Passenger: “What?”
[Gets to the terminus. Everybody starts piling off. I hit the driver with my charms.]
Dee Dee: “Driver, when do you leave?”
Driver: “5 minutes.”
Dee Dee: “I conked out and missed my stop. Any chance you could print us out a ticket so I can nip off for a fag? Cheers.”
[And I put my first step on to Yoker soil. I was in Yoker. I thought this day would never come. Is it really this easy? Is it really this easy to get the things you want in life? You just need to hold out for it? All of a sudden I just had the urge to go like that, “Here, I’m not from Yoker, I’ve got no business being here”. I was like, “Calm it, Dee Dee. That’s no laughing matter. They’ll tear you to shreds. Now, you’ve got five minutes. Where do you want to go? What do you want to do… in Yoker? …I knew exactly what.
I had to. I had to find out. I couldn’t leave without finding out what this is all about. Bus was a million miles away. I thought, “Dee Dee, you are truly on the outer reaches here, man. Middle of nowhere.” And I went into the great unknown with a fucking ding; to ask the one big question on everybody’s lips.]
Dee Dee: “Les Porter?”
Les Porter: “Aye?”
Dee Dee: “Has your name always rhymed with Yoker, or did it used to like, be like Smith or something or-?”
[And then I thought, “Dee Dee, you’ve just blown your cover. Big time. ‘Fuck you playing at, man? Go. Go!” Got out of there before they started chucking their scissors at us like Ninja stars. Before Big Les scalped us and stuck my head on the wall. Ten seconds to get to that bus man, that’s your lifelife! What does it start doing? It starts moving. I was like that, “No, man!” I felt like giving up. “Here, I’m not from Yoker, I’ve got no business being in Yoker”. Let them finish me off like a pack of mad wolves. But I just kept running for my life like I had Leatherface on my tail. I get to the bus but he wouldn’t let us in. I was like that, “Set up! ‘Whole thing’s a set up. Them that were on that front bus? Actors. Actors! ‘Lot of them, actors.” Door opens and I bolt upstairs. Right under the seat. Didn’t dare poke my head up for the next half hour in case they were going by in a minibus. Gasping to feast on me like a shower of mad zombie pirates.
Picked a moment. Up the road. Up the stairs. In the house. Lock. Lock. Lock. Scary, man. Scary.
But the best day of my life.]
Here’s a version with subtitles in ‘English English’
If you can’t see the subtitles, you can switch them on using the little button at the bottom of the video – the one that looks like a little white box with some dots and lines in it.
Nae Clue (No clue)
How I would say it (English RP version)
Do you ever get the feeling that you don’t really know what you’re doing, in general? Has anybody ever asked you, “What did you do that for?” and you’re like “I don’t know”. Have you ever worn something that you thought looked good, and everyone else thought looked crap? Have you ever said yes to something, to which you should have said no? Something you really didn’t want to do. You were asked the question and you thought “No, no way” but out came “Yeah, alright, why not?” In fact, do you ever get the feeling that from the day you’re born until the day you die, you haven’t got a clue what you’re doing? Do you? Yes, well, join the club.
Limmy Version (Glasgow dialect)
Do you ever get the feeling that you don’t really know whit yer dain, in general? Has anbody ever asked you, ‘whit did ye dae that for?’ And yer like that ‘a dunno.’ Have you ever worn something that you thought looked good, and everyone else thought looked crap? Have you ever said aye to something, to which you should’ve said naw? Someting you really didny wantae dae. You were asked the question and you thought ‘naw no way’ but oot came ‘aye awright, why not.’ In fact do you ever get the feeling that from the day you’re born till the day you die, you hivny got a clue whit yer dain? Dae ye? Aye well here, join the club.
Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Here’s a new episode, you’re actually listening to it. It’s really happening and here is my introduction. This was a very fun episode to record and I hope it’s going to be a fun episode to listen to. It’s going to be a two-part episode and this is part 1 and here is the introduction.
Amber & Paul are back on the podcast in this episode, and this time we’re going to play a game in which we imagine that we are detectives trying to solve a mysterious series of kidnappings in Victorian London and you’re going to join us.
In the recording that you’re going to hear, the three of us are reading through an online text adventure game – one of those games where you read part of a story and then make a decision which affects the way the story continues. I have done this on the podcast before. It’s always a fun thing to do so let’s do it again. And the cool thing about this is that the entire text is available online for you to read too. It’s all there if you want to read it, just visit the page for this episode and you can see the link to the game.
Click that link (or just go to textadventures.co.uk and find the story called Victorian Detective 2 by Peter Carlson) and if you check out the text for this story you can then not only listen to this episode but also play the game and read all of the text too.
This opens up lots of possibilities for using this episode to improve your English.
Here are some ways you can do that:
You just listen to this. Maybe you’re doing the ironing or something. Just listen to us going through the story, try to follow it all, follow our choices and try to enjoy it as an entertaining detective story even if there are some bits that you don’t quite understand. You will hear the entire story from start to finish in this episode and the next one. So, just listen and enjoy it!
After you listen (like when you get home or whenever you’re in front of a computer) play the text adventure game yourself. That way you’ll get lots of reading done and it’ll be a bit easier to follow the story because you will have already heard us reading through it, it will reinforce the things you heard in this episode, and it’ll allow you to check out words that you didn’t catch by using an online dictionary and so on. Also, as you play the game you can make different choices if you want and you can experience a completely different story.
You listen and read at the same time, following everything we do, clicking on the same things as us, making the same choices and effectively just reading along with us. You can pause the episode whenever you want if you want to use online dictionaries to check the meanings of any words.
So, there are some options – just listen, or listen then read, or listen and read at the same time.
There’s a bit of graphic violence in this story (blood and stuff…)
Another thing you should know is that this is a crime story and it involves some descriptions of violence and a few gory details. It’s no worse than an episode of a crime thriller on TV or something like that, but there are some descriptions of violence involving blood and mortal danger, so if you’re a bit squeamish, then I suggest that you have a bottle of brandy nearby so you can revive yourself in the typical 19th century fashion, or take a few deep breaths or have a cup of tea to calm your nerves if necessary.
I understand that this episode might be a little difficult to follow
Or maybe not – you might have no problem following it all, but I have a feeling it will be a bit trickier because the three of us get quite animated and excited at times and we speak rather quickly, interrupting each other and talking over each other sometimes, but as we’ve established before on this podcast, that’s actually quite good practice for your listening skills – being able to follow a group conversation. There are many situations like that you could face in the future – imagine for example a business meeting involving you and three other people and everyone’s enthusiastically taking part, sharing ideas, working together quickly to make decisions. It’s good to listen to that sort of thing, rather than just always listening to one person giving a monologue or just two people discussing something. In episodes like this you can get used to hearing multiple voices discussing things and making decisions together.
Try to notice specific language – decision making, verbs of movement and modal verbs for speculation and deduction
From a language point of view, I want you to watch out for this type of language:
Try to notice language for making decisions. Listen out for the ways we ask each other for opinions on each decision, the ways we agree or disagree, the ways we speed things up or slow things down, the way we clarify meaning and the way we summarise or recap information. These things are often done very quickly, yet they’re important practical bits of English for team work.
The story has some moments of action, and so there’s a variety of verbs used to describe different types of movement. Watch out for them and remember to read the text to help you.
Watch out for the language of speculation and deduction. Since we are working together to analyse evidence in order to work out what’s going on, there’s a lot of language of speculation and deduction. So that includes simple ways like, like just putting maybe or perhaps at the beginning of the sentence. For example, “Perhaps she ran away” or “Maybe she was kidnapped”, but also more complex ways using modal verbs to speculate about the past. For example, when you’re talking about possibilities with might or could: “She could have run away” or “She might have been kidnapped” or when you’re certain that something happened by using must, e.g. “She must have escaped through the window” (in the past) and “He must be at the hotel” (in the present), and using ‘can’t’ to talk about something that’s not possible, e.g. “He can’t have escaped through the window, it’s not big enough” or “It can’t be the father!”. So watch out for might have, could have, must have, can’t have for deductions about the past, and watch out for the way we say those auxiliary verbs – “He must have gone through the window” – ‘have’ is hard to hear, but you know it’s there because of the extra syllable and the fact it’s followed by a past participle. “He can’t have done it”.
OK, keep in mind that kind of language, and also the fact that you can read the text for this story too whenever you want, and you’ll see there is a lot to be gained from this episode in terms of English learning.
Just enjoy the story!
But also, I hope you just enjoy listening to the story and spending some more time in the company of Amber, Paul and me.
Alright, that’s enough of an introduction. Here we go!
*** The recording with Amber & Paul starts here ***
Hello Amber & Paul. How are you? … What’s the situation while we record this? … We’re sitting in front of the TV screen and we’re going to play a game.
A Detective Story with Deductive Reasoning
Have you read any detective stories, or watched Sherlock? (Paul has read the Goosebumps series, Amber has read loads of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie)
Are you any good at deductive reasoning? Are you good at working things out?
Deductive reasoning:Your deductive reasoning is your ability to recognise certain clues and then put them together to make correct judgements.
Let’s test your deductive reasoning with a quick riddle.
Riddle
Can you answer this cunning Sherlock-style riddle?
There are three light switches in front of you. The light is in an upstairs room and you can’t see it. You are only allowed to take one trip up to the room. How do you work out which switch controls the light?
Answer:
1.Turn two of the switches on, say switch A and switch B. Leave them on for a few minutes. Then turn switch B off. Run upstairs into the room. If the light is on, switch A controls the light. If it is off, feel the bulb. If it is still warm, then switch B controls the light; if it is not warm, then switch C controls the light.
Victorian Detective – Episodes 338 and 339
Last year I did a couple of episodes in which I read through an online text adventure called Victorian Detective on textadventures.co.uk . I read through the story, making decisions based on the evidence, trying to solve a murder mystery. The whole thing was written by a guy called Peter Carlson.
I didn’t ask permission from Peter before reading out the story on the podcast, although I did make a point of giving credit to Peter.
Then, the other day I got an email from Peter Carlson in my inbox. Ooh.
Here’s what it said.
Dear Luke,
I’m the author of the VictorianDetective game, which you read on podcast 338. You did a really good job! Thank you for picking my work to read.
Peter Carlson
I replied:
Hi Peter,
You’re the one who did the great job. Your story was excellent. I hope that it brought a bit more traffic to the site and that more people read your story.
Would you mind if I did Victorian Detective 2 on my podcast as well?
All the best,
Luke
Peter replied:
Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed the game.
That would be really great if you read VictorianDetective 2 as well.
Peter
I was very pleased to get this endorsement from Peter and he’s clearly quite happy for me to be reading through his stories on the podcast.
Victorian Detective 2
So, let’s do another detective story on the podcast. This one is called Victorian Detective 2 and this time I’m joined by Amber & Paul. Let’s see if we can put our heads together to solve the mystery in this story.
What we’ll do is read through the story as we play it. We can discuss and explain our decisions one by one. The listeners can follow the whole thing and they can even read along with it by going to textadventures.co.uk and finding Victorian Detective 2 – the link is on the page for this episode. That can help you check all the words, the spelling and so on and play the game yourself if you think we are making the wrong choices.
The link: http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/rl6-r253x0aca-y-v_vnvw/victorian-detective-2
Remember, listeners, that we will be experiencing this story for the first time as we read it, so we have no idea what’s coming next or what happens at the end. In fact, I understand that there are multiple possible endings for this story.
The game will tell us if we’re making good or bad choices along the way. It counts a score as you go. E.g. if you make a good deduction it says “deductive reasoning success” or “deductive reasoning fail” and gives you a + or – score for each decision. And then at the end you get a score which explains what kind of detective you are. E.g. if you’re like Sherlock or you’re Shernot.
OK let’s get started.
We should choose the name of our detective agency.
Thompson, Taylor & Minogue? or Taylor, Thompson & Minogue?
Have you managed to keep up with the story so far?
Here’s a brief summary of what has happened so far, just to make it clear.
The story so far
Girls keep getting kidnapped in London. So far 3 girls have gone missing. At the scene of each kidnapping there’s a calling card left by the kidnapper. It’s a creepy smiley face scratched into the floor.
Taylor, Thompson & Minogue (all of us playing the part of one detective with a particular set of skills) are called to the house of the Worthington family, where the daughter Chloe has disappeared. Using our deductive reasoning skills, we work out that she must have run away with her lover – a poor Italian paper seller called Joseph. They planned to run away together but their romantic escape was interrupted violently and unexpectedly when they were attacked at Joseph’s home in a poor part of London. Joseph was hit on the head with a hammer and Chloe was taken away, her body hidden inside a coffin on the back of a carriage. We deduce that the carriage, with Chloe’s body on board must have been taken to a local mortuary by one of the men who works there. There at the mortuary we work out that his name is Cade Brewer, and he’s a kind of creepy loner. Physically he’s huge and strong and he has an appetite for opiate pain killing drugs, woodwork and kidnapping, but we don’t know where he is, so we can’t ask him any questions. Now we have gone back to the police station to consider the situation more carefully.
Four young girls from different social backgrounds have been kidnapped and they all look quite similar – they all have light coloured hair. Then we receive a note from the kidnapper, who calls himself Mr Burlap. The note is written in broken English. It seems that he wants us to find him. He’s playing some kind of sick cat & mouse game. We suspect that Mr Burlap the kidnapper is in fact Cade Brewer, the huge creepy man with the opiate addiction who works at the mortuary. We decide to try and track him down. We first search cemeteries in the area, assuming that Cade Brewer has hidden her in a coffin, but we’re on the wrong track! Our deductive reasoning has failed us. Obviously this is Amber’s fault – just listen back to it and you’ll see, but it also didn’t help when I clicked the wrong option at one point, losing us points and valuable time. Anyway, it turns out Chloe Worthington is not being kept at the cemetery at all. In fact, closer inspection of the evidence shows us that Mr Burlap must be keeping her hostage at an abandoned hospital. So, we decide to go and investigate the hospital. But we’ve just lost precious time by investigating the wrong place, in the cemetery. Have we lost too much time? Will we find the mysterious kidnapper Mr Burlap who wrote us the note in broken English? Will we find Cade Brewer – and is he in fact the kidnapper Mr Burlap as we expect? Will we manage to find Chloe Worthington and the other 3 girls? Will we manage to save them? Or did we waste too much time? What will we discover at the abandoned hospital? And why is Mr Burlap playing such a sick and twisted game?!
I suggest that you immediately check out part 2 (if it’s available) in order to continue this story and to find out if we discover the identity and motives of the kidnapper and how many of the missing girls we manage to rescue.
Thanks again to Peter Carlson. All credit goes to him for writing this exciting detective thriller. Remember you can check out textadventures.co.uk to play more of these games – and there are others written by Peter Carlson.
Any comments? Write something in the comment section below.
Talking to Andy Johnson and Ben Butler about teaching English to millennials, cross-cultural experiences we’ve had as English teachers and some funny stories about Andy.
Before we get started here I would just like to remind you that The London School of English, where I used to work, is running a promotion for my listeners, and for a limited time you can get 10% off all their online courses, and those are proper, extensive, professionally developed courses for general English, business English, IELTS and TOEIC exam preparation, legal English and English for other specific purposes. So, if you or perhaps someone else you know is looking for a decent online course that will arm you with practical skills and language you need to be competitive in English – check out London School of English Online at www.londonschoolonline.com and use the offer code LUKE10 at checkout to get your discount.
Intro
OK here is part 2 of this conversation which I recorded with Andy & Ben in a hotel lounge recently. If you haven’t listened to part 1 yet, you might want to check that one out first. At the end of part 1 we paused the podcast in order to buy another overpriced and undersized beer from the hotel bar, and in this part we’ve bought our tiny, expensive beers and we then continue the podcast by discussing Andy’s presentation on the subject of millennials. Millennials – that generation who came into adulthood in the 21st century. This generation that so many people have written about and done management training seminars about. This generation of young people who have been labelled by some as lazy, entitled, self-centred, distracted by technology and hard to manage. This group of people that probably makes up the majority of my audience. This generation of people that probably includes you! What do you think? Is that a fair assessment? Are millennials lazy, entitled, self-centred, distracted by technology and hard to manage? Or is this just small-minded prejudice against a younger generation that’s facing just as many challenges as previous generations, but just in ways that are harder to notice?
And, how should we be teaching this generation in our English language classes? So, there’s some discussion on that – because that’s how we like to spend our Friday evenings, clearly! As you’ll hear the conversation does turn into a kind of anecdote sharing session about some cultural misunderstandings we’ve experienced as English teachers and then there are plenty of other tangents, including some detailed descriptions of what we all look like and how we’re dressed and one particularly funny story from Andy near the end of the episode … you know what? I don’t need to tell you everything you’re going to hear in this episode, do I? I don’t need to go into all the details. All you need to know is that it’s going to be brilliant and even more amazing and awesome than the last one, so strap in, let’s fly back the hotel lounge in Paris on a Friday evening, in the not too distant past, with some mini bottles of beer with giant prices and here we go.
***
Moby and Richard Ashcroft
I have to say it was a lot of fun to have Andy & Ben on the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it too.
London School Online
Don’t forget that you can get 10% off all the online courses run by The London School of English by going to www.londonschoolonline.com and using the offer code LUKE10 at checkout.
Andy & Luke’s Presentation at The BESIG Symposium 2012
Andy’s Presentation about Millennials
Here are the slides which Andy used in his presentation about millennials. This might not make sense without Andy talking, but you can see some of the statistics, quotes and facts that relate to this subject. Click the –> arrow to move between the slides.
Here’s a new episode with James about Skateboarding, which will be a new event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, along with karate, surfing, baseball/softball, sport climbing and surfing. James has been a skater for most of his life and used to write articles for a skateboarding magazine, so he’s exactly the right person to talk to about this.
Skateboarding might seem like an annoying antisocial hobby for children but for the first time it has been accepted by the Olympic Federation as a proper sport and is going to be one of the events at the next Olympic Games happening in Tokyo in 2020. So, skateboarding is now a mainstream sport. When the Olympics are shown on TV in a few years’ time, skateboarding might be one of the most popular events for audiences around the world, especially when you consider the popularity of snowboarding in the winter games. So, let’s find out about skating so we are ready to understand and appreciate it more.
Types of skateboarding
Ramp (vert or miniramp)
Street
Freestyle
Park
Parts of a skateboard
The Deck – the wooden board itself, made of maple plywood and covered in grip-tape and with the nose at the front and the tail at the back)
The Trucks (made of die-cast aluminium – they fix the wheels & axles onto the deck)
The Wheels (made of polyurethane or ‘urethane’ and available in different hardnesses)
The Bearings (the metal components that allow the wheels to spin on the axles)
Common tricks
Ollie (jumping with the board under you, still touching your feet)
Kickflip (an ollie in which you flip the board sideways under your feet by kicking it in the air)
Shove-it (spinning the board under your feet so the nose spins round from front to back, or back to front)
Different types of grab (doing an ollie then grabbing the board in the air)
Grind (sliding or scraping the trucks of the board along an object like a curb or rail)
Boardslide (sliding along an object on the underside of the board)
Blunt (balancing on an object on the back wheels and tail)
Nollie – doing an ollie but from the nose not the tail
Here is James’ selection of videos to give you an idea of the different types of skating, and some of his favourite skaters and cool moments in skateboarding. Notes written by James.
Natas Kaupas, one of the first people to develop street skating.
Mark Gonzales skating vert and street and play fighting with Oscar-winning film director, Spike Jonze. From the Real skateboards video Non Fiction. (1997)
The legend of Tom Penny, a skater from Oxford, England: Zen master, legend, space cadet, enigma.
Lizzie Armanto, one of the best female US bowl / park skaters, in an ad for Bones bearings.
Women’s Highlights – Huntington Beach | 2016 Vans Pro Skate Park Series
The Flip skateboards video “Sorry” from 2002, presented by Johnny Rotten – probably the best skate video ever made… Madness. Good soundtrack too.
James describes his skateboarding injury on the podcast in episode 180.
Hello, in this episode you’re going to hear me talking to my brother about the latest Star Wars film, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”, which was released in cinemas just over a month ago.
There will be spoilers – you have been warned.
I’ve had a few comments and messages from listeners expressing their interest in hearing us talk about this film, so here it is – a conversation about Rogue One with James.
What the critics have said about Rogue One
The film has received generally good reviews. Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an 85% rating which basically means that the majority of critics liked it. Their critical summary is this:
Critics Consensus:Rogue One draws deep on Star Wars mythology while breaking new narrative and aesthetic ground — and suggesting a bright blockbuster future for the franchise. (Rotten Tomatoes)
There has been criticism too of course, with some people suggesting the film is just recycling old ideas, doesn’t have enough character development and is basically just a cynical way for Disney to squeeze more money out of the massive cash cow that is the Star Wars universe.
For example, Amy Nicholson of MTV said:
Audiences once packed theaters to gawk at the future; now, it’s to soak in the past. The emphasis is on packing in as much nostalgia as possible and tersely editing it together to resemble a film. (Amy Nicholson, MTV)
For the fans
Rogue One was arguably made to please the fans, and this episode of the podcast is for the Star Wars fans too. As you know, I’m a lifelong Star Wars fan myself. I’m a Jedi. I sometimes talk about Star Wars on this podcast. James and I talked about Episode 7 last year, which we liked. I think that was exactly 100 episodes ago. I also did an episode which was all about Star Wars in general and why I am a fan. That was episode 241. Check the page for this episode to find links to those old episodes from the archive.
If you’re not a Star Wars fan, I hope we manage to get across what we find appealing about the Star Wars universe, while also dissecting the film as a piece of entertainment in itself. Our conversation is quite rambling, and we end up talking about quite a lot of other things along the way, including World War 2 movies, the moral ambiguity of war, the actions of Winston Churchill during WW2, Sherlock Holmes, Carrie Fisher, and some other films including one called “Aaaaaaaah!”, “Trainspotting 2“, “The French Connection 2“, and a couple of Jim Jarmusch films including “Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai” (starring Forrest Whittaker – also in Rogue One) and his documentary film about Iggy Pop & The Stooges called “Gimme Danger“.
Also we make up a couple of possible Star Wars crossover films including a Han Solo film starring Indiana Jones in the Star Wars universe and an ObiWan Kenobi film set in Scotland starring Ewan McGregor, in which Obiwan is a heroin addict living in Edinburgh (like in Trainspotting).
Spoiler alert!
There will be major spoilers in this episode because we’re going to give away plot points for Rogue One and the Star Wars universe in general. So if you haven’t seen the films yet, you should probably wait, see the films and then come back to this episode later.
Plot Summary
I don’t actually read this bit in the introduction, but here it is anyway…
This is the 8th Star Wars feature film we’ve ever had, although it is not one of the numbered episodes in the series. It is set right before the events of episode 4. So this is a bit like episode 3.5.
So the Star Wars universe still can’t count, because it’s 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 7, 3.5. and next will be 8, with possibly a few other spin off films arriving too. I think the plan is to release a Star Wars film every year until the end of time.
Rogue One tells the story of an impossible rebel mission to get the plans for the Empire’s super weapon, the DEATH STAR. We know that they get the plans in the end, because they are used to destroy the Death Star in the next movie, episode 4. But this film shows us how they did it and also explains a couple of plot points for the rest of the series.
The main character, played by British actress Felicity Jones (apparently from Birmingham) Jinn Erso is the daughter of the man who designed the Death Star. She is given a mission to find her father in order to get the death star plans which will allow the Rebels to prevent the Empire from completely dominating the universe forever. The film ends just moments before Star Wars episode 4 begins.
What did James and I think of the film? Well, listen on and you’ll find out.
Leave your comments below. What did you think of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story?
Here is an overview of how 2016 was for Luke’s English Podcast including some details about the top 5 episodes, the top 20 countries, and more statistics for the last 12 months.
[DOWNLOAD]
Plenty of people said that 2016 was a pretty crap year, mainly because of what happened in politics but also because of the number of well-loved celebrities that we lost. But it was a pretty good year for LEP.
In fact 2016 was the best year ever for this podcast.
It got nominated for a BC Elton award, and I’ve had more listens this year than in previous years. In fact the figures have been going up steadily since I started the podcast. For some reason the downloads shot up in September and continued to climb, reaching a peak in December.
Here are some stats for you
Top Countries in 2016
China
Russia
Japan
United Kingdom
Spain
South Korea
Poland
Germany
Ukraine
United States
Italy
Brazil
Australia
France
Turkey
Vietnam
Taiwan
Czech Republic
Thailand
Canada
Thanks for listening!
Why do you think episodes 396, 398, 337, 409 and 392 are the most popular of 2016?
Here’s the final part in this trilogy of episodes recorded at my parents’ house on Boxing Day. In this one my mum, dad and brother tell us a few more anecdotes about their encounters with some well-known people.
The conversation you’re about to hear was recorded with my family on the same day as the last couple of episodes. It was quite late in the evening, after my uncle and aunt had gone home and after dinner and number drinks had been consumed. Picture a very warm and cosy living room with a wood burning stove going in the background.
After listening to Nic describing his encounters with some famous rock stars earlier in the day, the other members of my family wanted to get in on the action too with their stories about brushing shoulders with the stars. So here are a few other anecdotes from my dad, my brother and my mum.
It turns out that my family have met some genuine legends. I didn’t even realise that a couple of these things had happened. You’ll have to wait and see who they are. But here are some slightly cryptic clues.
Can you guess which people I’m talking about?
One of the UK’s favourite authors who wrote a series of beloved books which have also been made into successful films.
A British comic actor who likes eating ice-creams and fighting zombies, criminals and aliens, in his movies (not real life of course).
A small but very important woman who often appears in public but is also a very private person.
A nonagenarian who once said that he was “the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.” A nonagenerian is someone in their nineties – also, septuagenarian (70s) and octogenarian (80s).
There are others too, including an American punk rock star with lots of tattoos and muscles, a Shakespearean actor who has become a successful film director and an actor who had a bit part in the British TV series The Office.
I should perhaps remind you of several other anecdotes which you might have heard on this podcast before, which are mentioned in this conversation.
The time my brother ended up lost in Hastings and slept on a stranger’s sofa and woke up to discover the guy sitting in a chair next to him. Was the guy just friendly and welcoming, or slightly creepy? Originally told by my bro in this episode https://teacherluke.co.uk/2016/08/09/372-the-importance-of-anecdotes-in-english-narrative-tenses-four-anecdotes
The time my mum met the King of Tonga. Originally told in this episode too https://teacherluke.co.uk/2016/08/09/372-the-importance-of-anecdotes-in-english-narrative-tenses-four-anecdotes
The time I met comedian Eddie Izzard and was a bit lost for words. I sort of went to pieces a bit and made it really awkward and weird by saying “You’re in my head!” – not the right thing to say at all. Originally told be me in this episode https://teacherluke.co.uk/2014/06/10/184-lukes-d-day-diary-part-2/
Anyway, you can now sit back and enjoy some more time with The Thompsons.
***
Outro Transcript + ad-libs
Funny, isn’t he? My brother. I would like him to be on the podcast more often, if he’s up for it. The thing is that he’s a bit modest really and isn’t the sort of outgoing person who likes to broadcast his thoughts and opinions over the internet, although he obviously should because he’s got a lot to offer. He ought to do a podcast or something like that, right? He does have a YouTube channel but it’s mainly skateboarding. https://www.youtube.com/user/VideoDaze/videos
*All the background music in this episode was also made by James*
The people mentioned in this episode
J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings
Nick Frost, actor from the Cornetto Trilogy of films with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg and other great work too on TV and in films
Happy New Year! I hope you’re well! Here’s the first episode of LEP in 2017 featuring a conversation with my family and then some vocabulary explanations.
I had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We played games, ate loads of food, went to the pub, took walks and generally had a good time with each other, as planned.
My uncle Nic (my mum’s younger brother) and my auntie Rose (Nic’s wife) were with us too, which was really nice because it’s always great to spend time with them, and I’m glad to say that I managed to get Nic on the podcast, which is something I’ve been meaning to do for ages because he’s great and he has some good stories to tell, as you will hear.
I didn’t get a chance to do a lot of recording with my family because it was the holiday period and I didn’t want to stick microphones in people’s faces too much.
But on Boxing Day I managed to do some recordings with my uncle, my mum, my brother and my dad.
I’m going to play those recordings to you over the course of the next two episodes.
In this episode you’ll hear these things:
My mum and my uncle talking about specific methods of cooking a really good Christmas dinner
Some vocabulary explanations – because there are loads of good words and phrases relating to cooking and food preparation, and also some other general bits of vocab that crop up in the conversation that are worth learning.
A bit of rambling at the end of the episode about the holiday period, including a quick report about the Christmas Olympic games that my Dad organised for us and some other bits and pieces
Part 1 (overview)
We start with James and Uncle Nic talking about how early in the morning it is, because we recorded this before breakfast on Boxing Day. This is probably the first pre-breakfast podcast I’ve ever done.
My wife accidentally spills some coffee down the back of one of the armchairs in the living room and you’ll hear that there’s a bit of commotion and disturbance in the background as people run around and she desperately tries to clean it up.
My uncle and I ask my mum about the secret to cooking a succulent, moist turkey, which apparently is done using a process called basting.
My uncle expresses some concern about the cleanliness of the microphone covers I’m using, asking if they have been sterilized, and that leads to a slight tangent about Health & Safety in the workplace.
We then get back to talking about my mum’s turkey technique with some explanations of exactly how to make sure the meat stays moist all the way through the cooking process. Moist is the key word here obviously, as the word is repeated a few times until my brother interrupts by shouting “stop saying moist!”
We then turn to the vegetables and go on a bit about how my Mum prepared the sprouts, carrots, potatoes and parsnips. There are a couple of other interruptions from James, including a joke about the secret of comedy and then an explosive sneeze. Throughout all of this my wife is still rushing around in the background and searching the internet for “how to get coffee stains out of an armchair”.
We talk briefly about the complications of preparing Christmas lunch with a vegetarian at the table, as my auntie Rose is a veggie.
Talk then turns naturally to sweet food and my uncle Nic expresses some disappointment about the lack of a traditional Christmas pudding at the table the evening before.
Finally, my Auntie Rose arrives in the room and sits in the chair that my wife spilled coffee onto, but thankfully my wife has already managed to clean it all up, without my help, there’s no evidence of a spillage, so it looks like my wife got away with it.
So, now you can actually listen to that conversation as it happened and when it’s over I’ll go through some of the vocabulary in more detail so you can not only understand everything my family say but also so you can actually learn loads of vocabulary properly and add it to your active English.
That was quite a short bit of conversation, wasn’t it! By the usual standards of LEP, it was quite short. But there’s more coming in the next episode.
Vocabulary
I said before that I would go through some of the words and phrases in that conversation in order to help to boost your learning process.
A lot of phrases related to specific ways of cooking and preparing food were in there. There were also lots of other nice bits of vocab too.
So, this is the language section of the podcast. As I am explaining the vocabulary, you can think about these things:
Did you notice these words and phrases while you listened?
Did you already know them or are they new to you?
Did you misunderstand or mishear any of them?
What other words go with these words? Try to notice words in groups, chunks or phrases.
How exactly are these words and phrases pronounced? How is the pronunciation different from the spelling. Remember to check the page for the episode to see the words written down in order to check their spelling.
After my help, would you be able to use these words in your own conversations?
And will you use these expressions? That’s a question, but also a request! I wonder if you will use them, and I suggest that you use them too because that’s how you will make them a part of your active vocabulary.
As I’m going through this list you can test your knowledge – see if you really know these words and phrases properly.
You could repeat some of this language after me as well. Do some shadowing.
And I suggest that after listening to me explain all this vocab that you go back and listen to that conversation extract again, try to notice the vocabulary when you hear it and see how much more you understand.
Vocabulary List
You can tell what time it is based on the rapidity of his response. (rapid – adj / rapidly – adv / rapidity – noun)
My wife’s just spilled/spilt tea all over the armchair.
To spill / spilt / spilt (UK spelling)
To spill / spilled / spilled (US spelling)
A spillage (noun)
The secret to a succulent, moist turkey is basting. Succulent (adj) = tender, juicy and tasty (for meat) Moist (adj) = slightly wet (can be used to describe food, e.g. moist turkey or moist cake, but it also can describe anything else which is slightly wet and for that reason the word is a bit suggestive and rude-sounding) Moist / moisture / moisturise Paul Foot – Moist Cake bit. Essentially he’s making the observation that when someone serves you some home-made cake you have to compliment the person by saying how moist it is! Even if it’s not that moist. “Oh, this cake is so moist! How did you get it so moist!” There’s social etiquette which dictates that you have to compliment the person on how moist their cake is, and you have to do it quite quickly. “Mmm, it’s lovely this cake – so moist! How did you get it so lovely and moist! Whenever I make cake it’s so dry! I’m an awful cook, but your cake is so moist!” – it’s polite to compliment the person who made the cake.
A ladle (noun) / to ladle (verb)
They make a heck of a din. (the bells) A hell of a … A heck of a …
A din = a loud and unpleasant noise “You’ll be the judge of that” – a way to emphasise that someone has to make their own judgement about something.
Also: “I’ll be the judge of that” – used to express some anger while saying “I will make that judgement – not you!” e.g. “I make the best tea in London”, “We’ll I’ll be the judge of that!”
Have these microphone covers been sterilised?
To sterilise something (verb) Health & Safety legislation Fire extinguishers are in good order.
To trip over the carpet.
To sue you for a lot of money. To sue the shop. Line the dish with lots of foil and then put some turkey stock in the base of the dish. Giblets Sprouts
She sliced the sprouts.
I saw it in a recipe book.
It cuts the cooking time down. Stove / oven / cooker / cook Oven = a large metal device with a door in which you cook food at high temperature.
Stove = an oven, with gas or electric hobs on the top where you can cook things over heat
It’s also something which heats your room. You burn wood and coal in it. E.g. a wood-buring stove in the living room. Cooker = a device which cooks things – it can be an oven, a stove, or just an electric pot, slow cooker etc.
“What’s the secret of comedy?” …Timing. Parsnips (root vegetable)
“Tatties and neeps” (Scotland) = potatoes and parsnips
You have to parboil them, drain the water off, roast them in hot oil in the oven (just a little bit).
You mean like, deep-fry them?
No, just roast them.
In the last minute rush and fluster I forgot about the potatoes.
Gill took it upon herself to do poached pears and caramelised oranges.
She’s sitting in the chair that Luke’s wife spilt coffee on so it might be a wee bit damp.
wee = little (typical word in Scotland)
In forthcoming episodes…
More conversations with my family, including some anecdotes about meeting famous people – with stories about meeting members of the royal family, some legends of TV comedy and perhaps the biggest rock and roll star on the planet right now. Who do you think that is? Well, my uncle met him once. You can hear that story and others in an upcoming episode.
Also on the podcast soon I’m hoping to record a ramble about some general stuff that happened over the Christmas period, including some words about a few books I received as presents, some comments about the well-loved celebrities that we lost in 2016 including, notably Carrie Fisher and George Michael during the Christmas holiday. We lost some great people at regular intervals during the year. Let’s hope 2017 doesn’t continue that trend.
Also, I’ve seen Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and I will be doing a full episode about that too.
So, brace yourselves, more podcasts are coming!
But for now – GOODBYE!
Background music – JukeDeck – make your own tunes at www.jukedeck.com
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Cookie
Duration
Description
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11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional
11 months
The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance
11 months
This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy
11 months
The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
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