Tag Archives: podcast

527. Can Paul Taylor Pass The UK Citizenship Test?

Testing Paul Taylor’s knowledge of British life, history and culture and discussing the “Life in the UK” citizenship test. Practise listening to British English natural speech, learn facts about the UK and have a laugh as Paul gets angry about this test for people who want to become UK citizens. Will Paul actually pass the test? Listen to find out what happens. Transcriptions and notes available.

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This episode’s guest Paul Taylor is a British stand up comedian, living in France. Check out his YouTube channel here and Twitter here.

Introduction Transcript

In this episode you’re going to listen to my friend Paul Taylor attempting to pass the UK citizenship test.

Every year thousands and thousands of people choose to become British citizens, for various reasons. This year one of those people is Meghan Markle, who is moving to Britain to marry Prince Harry – as everyone knows because it’s all over the news, probably all around the world. In fact the wedding is happening tomorrow! By the time you listen to this they will probably be married. I hope everything goes well for them.

Anyway, there are lots of complicated requirements for becoming “naturalised” as a British citizen, including the fact that you need to prove that your English is at B1 level or above, and you have to pass the Life in the UK Test. This test is supposed to make sure that you have sufficient knowledge of life in the UK in order to integrate into British life. The assumption is that if you can pass this test then you know enough about life in the UK to be considered worthy of being a British citizen.

By the way, quite a lot of people fail this test. I was looking for specific data. I found that in 2016 about 36% of people failed the test. Just over a third.

What is the content of this test?
Do you think you have enough knowledge of “Life in the UK” to pass it?
What kinds of questions do you expect to find in this test?
Is the average British person able to pass the test? You would imagine so, right?
What can you, my listeners, learn from this in terms of “essential British knowledge” and useful British English vocabulary?
And can my mate Paul Taylor, who was born in the UK and has spent much of his life living there, pass this test?

Let’s find out as we take the British Citizenship Test in this episode.

A Long Episode!

This is a long episode, but there is absolutely loads of stuff that you can gain from this in terms of historical and cultural knowledge – both from the past and present, as well as vocabulary and general listening practice and also just the pure enjoyment of listening to Paul becoming increasingly angry about the content of the questions in this test.

Also, there is quite a lot of swearing in this one, and by swearing I mean rude words that you normally shouldn’t use in polite company because they can be very offensive. So, watch out for those rude words – either because you don’t like that sort of thing, or because you love to hear how people swear in British English. In either case – you have been informed – there is rude language in this episode.

So I suggest that you do listen to the entire thing, perhaps in several sections – when you press pause your podcasting app should remember where you stopped listening so you can carry on later. There are notes and scripts for the intro and outro to this episode on the website – so check them out.

Now, without any further ado, let’s get started…

THE “LIFE IN THE UK” CITIZENSHIP TEST

The test is computer based. Applicants coming in from outside the UK need a certain level of English and they need to take this test.

Requirements for British citizenship https://www.gov.uk/becoming-a-british-citizen

⬇Click the link below to take the same test we did⬇

https://lifeintheuktestweb.co.uk/test-1/

Criticisms of the Test

A summary of criticisms and comments on how the test needs to be reformed https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/01/british-citizenship-test-meghan-markle-brexit-reform

The criticisms in a nutshell:

While it’s obviously good to know facts about a country’s history – what is the true purpose of a citizenship test? It’s to ensure that people understand the values of that country, and practical knowledge of daily life in order to help them integrate
The questions seem arbitrary and inconsistent
Fair enough, there are questions about certain key moments in our history and in our political system but a lot of important things are missing (e.g. the number of elected representatives in the devolved parliaments, but not the number of MPs in commons? The height of the London Eye?)
They won’t help people integrate, and they won’t help people just get by on a daily basis
It also doesn’t educate people about history – there’s no interpretation of why these things are important. If anything it will just piss people off.
What might be more helpful would be:
- Teaching people social rules (e.g. how to order a drink in a pub)
- Teaching people about common culture so they know what the hell British people are talking about half the time
- Teaching people the essential basics of how to live – like, bank holidays, how to phone for an ambulance, how most Brits are shocked by things like animal rights or racial or sexist jokes

But it’s all wrapped up in politics and perhaps the people who wrote the test didn’t do it to help migrants – the opposite, maybe.

What would you include in the citizenship test?

The “Real” Citizenship test

This is an alternative test based on suggestions by British people on Twitter

http://realcitizenshiptest.co.uk/

‘Outro’ Transcript

I don’t want to extend this episode a lot more but I do want to say “nice one” for getting to the end of this one. I say that because I know it can be hard to follow about 90 minutes of native level speech in English, and Paul does speak pretty quickly as a few of you mentioned to me after hearing the previous episode with him.

I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again – the more you listen, the better, and sometimes listening to fairly quick speaking can be really good training for you. It’s important to mix it up – sometimes listening to content that you understand without too much trouble, and sometimes listening to more challenging things. There is value in both, and basically the important thing is to keep going and not give up. If you’re listening to this it means you didn’t give up even if you didn’t understand everything. Nice one.

Then again, some of you might be thinking – Luke, it was a pleasure and I wish there was more! Well, in that case – great! I agree. This was a fun one.

There’s more to be said on the UK citizenship test so I might be doing another episode on this soon.

But for now – that’s it! Download the LEP App from the app store. Check out the extra content you can find there.

Have a great day, night, morning, afternoon or evening wherever you are in the world and whatever you’re doing. Speak to you again on the podcast soon, but for now… bye!

Luke

526. Being a Tourist (with Paul Taylor) + video

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Catching up with Paul Taylor and talking about his recent trips to Japan & Barcelona, the pros and cons of being a tourist and some recommendations for people visiting London and Paris as tourists. Video available on the website and in the LEP app.

Audio Version

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Video Version

Paul’s Vlog #12

Last chance to vote for LEP in the British Podcast Awards before Thursday 17 May

Introduction

This is a rambling chat that I recorded with friend of the podcast and one of the original POD PALS) Paul Taylor on the rooftop of my flat on a nice sunny day recently. I filmed this one too and the video version is available on the website and in the LEP app. So, if you’d like to watch us in conversation on a nice sunny day, check the Videos category in the app, or the page for this episode on my website.

This conversation covers a few things, including what Paul has been up to recently, his new vlog which you can find on YouTube (search for Paul Taylor on YouTube), his recent holidays in Japan and Barcelona, and then we go on to focus on travel and tourism, including the good and bad points about being a tourist and a few of our recommendations if you’re thinking of travelling to Paris and/or London as a tourist.

Questions

What do you think about being a tourist?
When you visit a new place, do you always see the typical tourist spots?
What are the good and bad points about being visiting another country and wanting to have a special experience there?
How can you make sure you have a good tourist experience when you visit a new city or country?

Have a think about those things, and listen to hear what Paul and I have to say on the topic.

Enjoy!

Another episode with Paul will be arriving soon…

Luke

525. Ninja August / Podcast Corrections / Useful Japanese Cat (Listener Comments & Questions)

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Responding to more comments and questions from listeners, including some rambling about public holidays in France, why May is like ‘ninja August’, some corrections to what I said about bats and Stephen Hawking on the podcast and the story of an amazing useful cat from Japan.

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Transcript (not 100% complete – listen to the episode to hear everything, including improvised moments)

In this episode I’m going to continue going through a list of comments and questions from listeners, while using those comments and questions as a springboard to ramble about this and that. Some of the questions are related to language, others are related to topics I’ve covered on the podcast recently.

I’ve got one hour before I have to go and pick up my daughter from day care, so let’s see what I can do in an hour. Let’s go!

LEP Premium is coming soon, but it’s not ready yet. Please don’t register until I announce it.

LEP Premium is not ready yet – I’ve had a few questions about this. Some listeners have found a sign-up form for it, but there’s not content available yet – so don’t sign up until I have made a proper announcement.
I have not uploaded any premium content yet – I’m working on the first episodes at the moment, but it’s coming soon.
So, wait until I say “GO” before you sign up.

I’ve got loads of work to do and I’m hoping to produce quite a lot of content this month, but it’s proving to be quite hard to get work done so far this month.

Public Holidays in France – “May is like the ninja August”

It’s May and in France and there are loads of public holidays – 4 in total, which is wonderful but it also makes things a bit complicated. It’s hard to get things done.

Doing the bridge, or “Le Pont”.

When public holidays land on a Tuesday or a Thursday it can really break up the week, and you have to squeeze all your work into just a few days. The first 2 weeks of May contain 4 holidays and this year the’ve all landed mid-week.

In the UK all our public holidays are moved to the nearest Monday.

In France they just land on the same dates every year and stay there.

This can work in your favour or against you. It’s a gamble!

In France people are very protective of public holidays and workers’ rights. In the past people had to fight very hard to get public holidays and they hold that right very seriously and protect it. Holidays have become an important part of French life (although people work very hard here too, despite the myth that people are lazy).

But the culture is different to, let’s say Japan, where people are given fewer holidays than France.

For example, it’s pretty normal for many people here to take the entire month of August off.

It’s difficult to get anything done, business wise, unless you’re a tourism company or you run a hotel for tourists or something.

So, in August nothing happens (it feels like). Back in the UK people still work – the kids are on holiday and you might take 2 weeks off during the summer but you still work during August. Things slow down a bit, but in France it’s much more noticeable. Certainly Paris changes a lot.

May in France is like ninja August.

I’m going to carry on responding to some questions and comments from listeners, like I started in the last one and we’ll see where this takes us.

So let’s carry on.

British Podcast Awards

First of all, I’d like to remind you to please consider voting for Luke’s English Podcast in the British Podcast Awards. I need as many votes as I can get if I’m going to stand a chance of competing with some of the big names in UK podcasting. I’ve been a UK podcaster for ages and ages and it would be cool to get some recognition from the UK podcast community. It would also be ace to get a TEFL podcast into a winning position in order to represent the learning English community and the teaching community. So, please vote!
www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote or click the vote button on my website :)

www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote

Shout out to Jack

Thanks Jack for adding lists of vocab under episodes, including many of the episodes in the archive. Check the comment section for Jack’s lists.

Jack always pesters me for a gift, sometimes for no apparent reason, but I suppose this time he deserves something for adding these useful vocab lists to the pages.

So Jack, on my recent trip back to the UK I picked something up for you. I know you’re into cars, so let me hand you the keys to a 1975 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. This is the ultimate in classic British luxury motoring, at the time it was released this was absolutely the top of the range in terms of comfort, style and quality and remains to this day a symbol of British class and sophistication. It doesn’t get better than this. With its massive V8 engine delivering 190BHP , steel frame, vacuum assisted brakes, power steering, manual 3 speed gearbox and top speed of 106mph this is a precision machine from the golden age of British motoring. Admittedly this 43 year old vehicle is no longer top of the range and can’t compete with modern day equivalents such as the high performance luxury models produced by Bentley, but for a leisurely drive through the British countryside in the most quintessentially British manner this has to be the number 1 choice. They don’t make them like this any more. The engine delivers a powerful, stately and commanding sense of control and the ride is so utterly smooth and poised that you can enjoy afternoon tea and cake with guests in the back without spilling a drop on the leather upholstery. It oozes charm, it breathes refinery, it is the epitome of retro British eccentricity. The Rolls Royce Silver Shadow.
Here are the keys Jack… just the keys I’m afraid. I can’t actually pin down the car itself… It’s somewhere… it’s definitely somewhere…

Podcast Corrections

As Blind as a Bat

Message:

Hi Luke,

In episode 516 with Beatle Paul you explain the following idiom:
as blind as a bat = totally blind
I’m as blind as a bat without my glasses!
(Bats are often thought to be blind, but in fact their eyes are as good as ours – but they use their ears more at night than their eyes.)

That’s not quite true:
The following two phrases are from the English Wikipedia and explain the vision of bats
1. The eyes of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity, but no species is blind.
2. Megabat species often have eyesight as good as, if not better than, human vision. Their eyesight is adapted to both night and daylight vision, including some colour vision.[84]

So what you state is true only for the subspecies megabat, whereas microbats are nearly as blind as a bat, but not quite.

Greetings from good old Germany, Heiner

Ah, thanks for the clarification. In my defence we don’t have many megabats in the UK. The majority of our bats are microbats, so perhaps that explains how the phrase entered common parlance, because in our experience our bats usually have poor eyesight, although to say that they are blind is actually not true.
But the correction still stands.

I said bats actually have good eyesight. But that only applies to megabats, whereas microbats actually do have relatively poor eyesight (although they aren’t actually blind).

Apologies to the microbat or megabat community for getting that one wrong!

No, but seriously, it’s good to get corrections like this in order to prevent the spread of misinformation, which happens every day.

Stephen Hawking

ALSO a correction about Stephen Hawking from FB, probably more important than the bat one to be honest!

Hi, Luke, how are you? How’s your family?

I’m fine, thanks for asking. :)
I’m a med student in Brazil and as I was listening to the episode you did on Stephen Hawking, I couldn’t help but clarify some things you said about his disease. I hope you don’t mind, but since I know you are curious about almost anything, I’m sure you won’t.
You said that his kind of motor neurone disease affects the brain. It actually affects neurons outside the brain. These neurons are responsible for making our muscles produce movements (that’s why it is called a motor neurone disease). This disease is also known as ALS, which stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
You also said that his disease affected his central nervous system, but it actually affected his peripheral motor system. We have neurons throughout our bodies. Everything in the brain and in the spinal cord is our central nervous systems. Neurons outside these structures belong to the peripheral nervous system.
Do you remember the Ice Bucket Challenge? It was created to increase the awareness of ALS. And it worked! Donations coming from the challenge helped researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School to find out one gene that is involved in the disease. This finding can help in future therapy development.
I hope my explanation was useful and not too boring. Thank you so much for all your work in making this podcast.

Cheers,
Klenisson

Useful Japanese Cat

Dear Luke, how are you? This is Yuko, a Japanese expatriate living in New York,
and suffering from an incurable condition – “anglophilia” (Luke: an obsession or fondness for all things English).
In the episode “talking about pets”, your brother repeatedly mentioned the unusefulness of cats as opposed to dogs. (Luke: Yes, I was wondering if people would be bothered by the things that were said in that episode. James seemed to pick on small dog breeds and also vegan dog owners for some reason, and we also suggested that cats were essentially self-interested animals who somehow have managed to make us their slaves, suggesting that dogs perform far more useful roles in society in general… but…)

I just wanted to show you the exceptions.
There are some cats who worked as a station master in a Japanese train station.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tama_(cat)

Are they not amazing?
Yuko

Thanks for listening!!

LEPSTERS – ASSEMBLE!

524. Tricky Pronunciation Debates / “Either” “Neither” / Song + Comedy Sketch

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Talking about words which can be pronounced several ways, words which are often pronounced incorrectly by native speakers and the debates, arguments and frustration that arises between native speakers as a result. Includes the “You Say Tomato…” song and the Grammar Nazi sketch, explained. Transcript & notes available.

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Transcript

Welcome to episode 524 of this podcast for learners of English. You know what, I’m going to start this one with a poem that I’ve just written. Anyone who’s heard my so-called poetry before will know that I’m no Bill Shakespeare ok? Anyway, here is my work of genius to kick off this episode.

Here’s a new episode, 1, 2, 3
I’ve got no idea how long this will be
It could be one or two episodes. Let’s see.
I suggest you make a nice cup of tea
Put your feet up on the settee
Get your headphones on your head and when you’re ready
You can focus your attention like it’s a master’s degree
Or simply drift off and relax like you’re floating on the sea
The main thing, for me
Is that you listen carefully
And enjoy this episode of Luke’s English Podcast
Which is completely free.

Moving on…

Coming up in this episode

You can expect a rambling monologue from me which is recorded and presented for you to listen to as part of your ongoing mission to improve your English based on the principle that listening regularly, and for longer periods, is a good way to learn the language, pick up vocabulary, become more familiar with features of pronunciation, develop your instinct for correct grammar and natural English usage while maintaining a strong connection to English as a living and breathing communicative force which exists within us and without us, through us and between us, binding the galaxy together across borders, distinctions, barriers, obstacles and through various dimensions of time and space, leading to rising levels of value, status and quality in diverse and mutually beneficial ways. Basically, listening to this is good for your English, and that helps you to communicate with people from different countries, and that’s good.

Here’s an overview of the things I’d like to cover in this episode, which might become several episodes in fact…

Overview

Tricky Pronunciation Debates (arguments about words that people seem to pronounce differently, and also words that people pronounce wrong)
Podcast corrections (some comments from listeners with a few corrections)
A useful Japanese cat
The odd meaning of “Yeah, right”
How to actually answer the question “How are you?” or “How are you doing?”
Doing impressions of accents from different countries, and whether this is unacceptable or even considered racist in some cases – for example, I can copy the accent of a cockney, I can copy the accent of an American guy, but can I copy the accent of an Indian or Nigerian person? It’s a bit of a cultural minefield… let’s investigate.
The benefits of repeat listens – listening to episodes more than once
What does the word “podcast” actually mean?
Why you need to take extra care while listening to LEP.
The phrase, “Don’t be shy, give it a try”

And maybe some more comments about this and that, depending on the time available…

This is all based on comments and questions I’ve had from listeners through various channels…

Unexpected vocabulary question – among / between

What’s the difference between ‘between‘ and ‘among‘?https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/between-or-among
Mingling among the people
Let’s mingle and socialise!
To mingle = to move around among a group of people in order to socialise and talk to everyone

British Podcast Awards

https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote/

Before we go any further, I need to tell you that I’m in the running for the British Podcast Awards Listener’s Choice Award this year. Someone informed me on Twitter that they found my podcast listed. OK then, so this is where I implore you to vote for me in the award.

Now, I have an army of Ninjas ready, primed to do my bidding. I have tens of thousands of you, by my reckoning, although I only ever hear from a tiny slice of that audience – a small percentage of you visit the website, leave messages, leave iTunes reviews, actually get in contact with me, download the app, join the mailing list etc… But if I could just mobilise you all and turn you into an international army or something, then I could take over the world!!! Assuming that you’re all capable people of course.

But the thing is, I don’t want to take over the world. What I want to do is to make podcasts, help you learn English, make you laugh on the bus sometimes, tell you stories, talk to guests, pay the bills, raise my family, put food on the table – AND WIN THE LISTENERS’ CHOICE AWARD AT THE BRITISH PODCAST AWARDS.

Last year, we got close. We got into the top 3. You did me proud. #TeamLEP got this podcast into 3rd place- the bronze medal position. Legions of LEpsters came out of the woodwork and voted for the podcast, and I actually got into the top 3. I know I was in bronze position because the BPA tweeted about it on the awards night and I have a screenshot of the tweet.

They have never since said it was a bronze medal. Ever since they’ve just put me in the runner’s up category with load of other podcasts. I don’t know why they dropped my bronze medal status – maybe they wanted to promote the other podcasts who they put in the runners up category, but anyway I was v proud to be a runner up, especially considering the other podcasts that were also runners up and especially the winning podcast, which is my fave podcast, Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo’s Film Review, produced by the BBC. #SoProud

Anyway, let’s see if we can do it again.

So, LEPsters of the world, unite and take to your computers and mobile devices – go to https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote/ and search for Luke’s English Podcast. Fill in the details and submit your vote. Voting closes on 17 May 2018. So we have 2 weeks to kick this into overdrive.

https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote/

Let’s make history people.

LEP Premium – Coming Soon

Still before we start, I just want to mention: Premium – coming soon.
LEP Premium is all about me making LEP work as a proper service beyond it being a free podcast.

You might be wondering when this is going to “drop”. I’ve had a couple of questions about it. App users might have noticed that a little “Premium Sign In” option has appeared in the settings menu.

I’m not going to talk about it at length now, but it’s in the pipeline like I said before.
Essentially, the premium subscription will be a way for you to support LEP with a monthly or annual subscription while allowing me to deliver more language and teaching-oriented content (episodes will be specifically about teaching you language, rather than the diverse topics, conversations and rambling that you get in normal episodes) direct to your phone or computer.
I’m doing this using a platform provided by my host – Libsyn, the biggest podcast host in the world. They’ve basically finished setting up my platform now and I am going to produce some premium content before launching it properly, probably later this month.

I’m calling it Premium content because that’s what Libsyn call it. Honestly, I’ve always tried to make all my content “premium” but there it is. In any case, I will as ever, try my best to make the content as good and useful as possible, but with these episodes the plan is to really get down to the business of language teaching. There will be fun and all that too – like in the examples I can improvise to demonstrate the language I’m teaching, but the focus will be on the language primarily – and I think that will go really well with the normal episodes. In many cases it will be a close-up look at the language that’s come up naturally in episodes.

Anyway, that’s enough about that for now. Let’s move on.

How do you pronounce “either”?

Language question – I’d normally leave this for a language episode, like the sort of thing you’ll get in LEPP episodes, but I’ll deal with it here anyway.

Benedikt from Austria, living in Switzerland

Either or either

How do you pronounce them?
Are they the same word?
Are there some times when you say it one way or the other way?
E.g. either we stay or we go (eye-thur) – two different options
I haven’t done it either (eee-thur) – other uses

Luke
They’re both correct.
Same word, same thing.
There’s no difference.
It doesn’t change depending on the situation. It’s exactly the same word with two possible pronunciations.
Everyone will understand you, however you say it.
Eye-thur or ee-thur
Some say that “eye-thur” is more British
And “eeee-thur” is more American.
I often say “eye-thur” but honestly I think I also say eeeethur too and I’m really British.
In fact, thinking about it I probably say eeether just as often as either. (often – that’s another one!)
I think it’s also possible for one person to say them both and there’s no rhyme or reason why it comes out one way or the other. (no rhyme or reason = with no obvious explanation)

Yes, this also applies to “neither”.

It’s a very common issue. English is a very diverse language, and there are some words that culturally we pronounce differently (e.g. American and British English or smaller regions like areas of the UK) and sometimes these are even at an individual level. Some people say “either” others say “either”. It’s no big deal actually.

More words with several pronunciations

Some more examples:
Neither and neither
Potato (US vs UK, but also around the UK)
Tomato (US vs UK)
I’ve chosen ‘tomato’ and ‘potato’ specifically, because they’re in a famous song about this subject.
Often (no difference – just two ways, “offen” is perhaps the original version but with a ‘t’ is fine too)
February
Loads of examples from UK & US English, e.g. “schedule” – another story for another time.
Situations where the word stress seems debatable or people get the word stress wrong (sometimes this is just Brits saying words with American word stress, and other Brits getting pissed off… e.g. my parents)
Harassment (first syllable UK, second syllable US)
Controversy (conTROversy in the UK, CONtroversy in the US – but the Cambridge Dictionary site lists both as being standard to the UK – and lots of Brits still get annoyed when they hear other brits say CONtroversy)
Vulnerable (my Mum insists that it’s only pronounced with the “l” but Cambridge Dictionary says it’s ok without too)
Mischievous (Correct = “mischivus”, not – “mischeevious”, although we do say the noun “mischief”)
**NOTE: “mischivus” is the only correct way to pronounce mischievous. **
**ALSO NOTE: I’m not using phonetic symbols on the website here because I don’t have time and this is an audio podcast not a blog, remember! Listen to the episode to hear how I am pronouncing the words
GIF (moving images which are easily shared on the internet)
Is it “gif” or “jif”?
www.11points.com says:
11 | GIF
Pronunciations: gif, jif
The Internet had come to a decent consensus on the pronunciation of GIF, which is remarkable, of course, since the Internet has never come to a consensus on anything. Everyone was cool with the hard G pronunciation. It sounded better, wouldn’t lead to confusion, and was logical, since GIF stands for Graphics Interchange Format. And that’s where the debate SHOULD have ended.
But earlier this year, Steve Wilhite, the man who invented the GIF format for CompuServe, talked. And he said, with conviction: “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”

You say tomato and I say tomato (song)

Going back to “either” “neither” “tomato” “potato” and this whole subject – there is a famous song about it, from back in the 1930s.

“Shall We Dance” (1937) with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ3fjQa5Hls

00:44 seconds

Lyrics
Things have come to a pretty pass (come to a pass = happened, come to a certain situation)
Our romance is growing flat,
For you like this and the other
While I go for this and that,

Goodness knows what the end will be
Oh I don’t know where I’m at
It looks as if we two will never be one
Something must be done:

You say either and I say either,
You say neither and I say neither
Either, either Neither, neither
Let’s call the whole thing off. (call it off = cancel it)

You like potato and I like potahto
You like tomato and I like tomahto
Potato, potahto, Tomato, tomahto.
Let’s call the whole thing off

In most of those cases both words are probably right, but perhaps with some regional differences.

Then there are examples of words that some people say differently, but are generally considered wrong and are worth watching out for. These are the ones that will annoy people – but to be honest if you’re a non-native speaker you’ll probably be forgiven.

The biggest ‘crime’ is when a Brit says these and another Brit hears it, and their blood pressure rises.

Examples: (listen to the audio to hear the pronunciation)
“Pronunciation”
“H”
“Nuclear” (new-cue-lur) should be new-clee-uh
“ETC”
“Espresso”
“Prescription”
“Specific”
“Arctic”
“Ask” (this might have racial connotations but I’m not sure)

Some people (who are very particular about this kind of thing) get very upset about it, a bit too much probably…

The Grammar Nazi Sketch – from BBC comedy series “That Mitchell & Webb Look”

How do you say your acronym again? (H H H)

As you can see I didn’t talk about the other points in the overview at the beginning of the episode, but you’ll hear that stuff in forthcoming episodes of the podcast.

Thanks for listening!

Luke

520. Idioms Game & Chat Part 2 (with Andy Johnson) + 18 More Idioms & Vocab Items Explained

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The second part of my chat with Andy Johnson. Listen out for 18 more idioms which will be explained later. Topics include: Twitter abuse, the other Andy Johnson, training for the London Marathon + more. Transcripts and vocabulary definitions below.

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Introduction Transcript

In this episode you can continue to listen to a conversation I recorded with Andy Johnson just the other day. The language focus in this double episode is on idiomatic expressions.

In fact we’re playing a sort of idioms game. The rules of the game are that before having the conversation Andy & I had to prepare 3 idioms each. By prepare I mean to just think of 3 idioms, or flick through an idioms dictionary and pick 3 that you quite like. Then during the conversation we had to try and insert the idioms naturally, without drawing too much attention to them. Just to slip them in completely naturally. The challenge is that we both, at the end of the conversation, have to try and identify which expressions the other one had prepared in advance.

During the whole conversation lots of idioms just came up naturally. In part 1 I went through a lot of them – there were about 25 idioms in the first part. I explained them all at the end.

Do you remember them all? Here’s a quick reminder.

Idioms from last time:

to bring someone up to speed
to have beef with someone
to hold a grudge against someone
to have a score to settle with someone
to jump the gun
to be the butt of a joke
bad blood
to take something on face value
to be a piece of cake
not my cup of tea
to hit the nail on the head
to stick out like a sore thumb
to shoehorn something in
to do something on the spur of the moment
to be on the doorstep of
to be two/three sheets to the wind
to be half cut
to creep out of the woodwork
to feel peckish
to be jaw-dropping
to be eye-opening
to shine a spotlight on something/someone
to call someone out for doing something
to slag someone off

Again, I explained all of those at the end of part 1. Only 1 of those idioms was prepared in advance. All the others just came up on the spur of the moment.

So that means that in this episode there are still 5 more pre-prepared idioms left.

Having checked part 2, I can tell you that there are about 18 idioms in total. So, listen carefully to the rest of our conversation and try to spot expressions which you think might be the idioms I’ll be defining later. 5 of them were written down by us in advance and slipped into the conversation as part of the game, the others just happened naturally.

There’s also plenty more nice, useful vocabulary that you might not know coming up, so listen carefully – there’s a lot to learn from this episode.

In terms of the topics in the conversation, in this one you’ll hear us cover Andy’s experience of being abused or angrily criticised on Twitter, my experiences of facing audiences as a stand up comedian, how there is another Andy Johnson in London who also looks a little bit like Moby and who used to play football for England, Andy’s training for the upcoming London Marathon and then the results of the idioms game – with our comments about the idioms we noticed (or didn’t notice).

And as I said, I’ll also be explaining all the idioms and more vocabulary at the end of the conversation in the final part of this episode, so keep listening for some clarification of things you might not have understood or noticed.

But now, let’s carry on with the conversation and hear about Andy’s experience of facing criticism on Twitter because of a misunderstanding about his presentation about Millennials in the workplace. By the way, for more information about Andy’s talk on millennials and to find out what millennials are (if you don’t know) let me recommend that you listen to episode 424 in which I spoke to Andy and his colleague Ben about it in more detail.

424. With Andy & Ben from The London School of English (Part 2)

You can find the link on the page for this episode with all the other notes and stuff, or in the episode archive.

The conversation continues…

Luke & Andy’s Idioms Game – The Results

Ones Andy thought Luke had pre-planned: (actually, none of them were pre-planned)

Two sheets to the wind = drunk
To pull the rug from under you / to pull the rug from someone’s feet = to suddenly take away help or support from someone, or to suddenly do something that causes many problems for them

Luke’s pre-planned idioms

To get the wrong end of the stick = to misunderstand the situation
To be a dead ringer (for someone) = to look exactly like someone else
To keep the wolf from the door = to eat just enough food to prevent hunger

Ones Luke thought Andy had pre-planned

It’s the cross I bear = a burden that you have to carry or live with
to be half-cut = drunk
To slag someone off = to abuse or criticise someone in quite a rude way

Andy’s pre-planned Idioms

It’s the cross I bear
To stand on a pedestal = to put yourself in a position in front of everyone
(Also – to put someone on a pedestal = to admire or respect someone so much that you think they’re perfect)
Jaw-dropping / to make your jaw drop = surprising, amazing, astonishing (in Part 1)

…the conversation ends.

Sponsor Andy & help support The Christie Foundation Trust

Click here for Andy’s JustGiving page for his sponsored Marathon https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/andybjohnson

Also via PayPal https://www.paypal.me/andybjornjohnson

Vocabulary List – Idioms and Other Expressions You Heard in this Episode

At least 18 Idioms and some other nice bits of vocabulary to learn

You are a bit of a dead ringer for Moby (I forgot to mention this one in part 1)
To be a dead ringer for someone = to look exactly like someone
They’d all got the wrong end of the stick, but they were all slagging you off.
To get the wrong end of the stick = to misunderstand the situation
To slag someone off = to criticise someone in a rude way
It was really eye-opening how quickly it can escalate and how people can latch onto something and they can completely turn it and twist it.
eye-opening = surprising and something you learn from (in part 1)
Jaw-dropping = amazing, astonishing (in part 1)
To latch onto something = to become firmly attached to something (physically), to strongly accept an idea with enthusiasm – just get fixed on one idea quickly and firmly
How did it feel to receive all that heavy-handed criticism?
Heavy-handed (adj) = too strong, using much force than is necessary. E.g. heavy-handed policing.
I sent the guy a message, the guy whose tweet caused the kerfuffle
A kerfuffle = A disturbance, a fuss, noise, a confusing and complex situation. E.g. She caused quite a kerfuffle when she sent out that letter accusing them of cheating.
I was thanking him for sticking up for me.
To stick up for someone = to defend someone, to back someone up.
If you stand on a pedestal and you give your opinion on things, you’re always setting yourself up for people to have a go at you.
To stand on a pedestal = to put yourself in a position in front of everyone
To set yourself up for something = put yourself in a position where something can happen. E.g. set yourself up for success, set yourself up for a fall, set yourself up for people to have a go at you.
Heckling (see below)
Also – to put something on a pedestal = to admire or respect someone so much that you think they’re perfect, to idolise or idealise someone
People react quite strongly to that especially when it’s posing some kind of threat to the status quo of their work
to pose a threat to something (not really an idiom) = to present a possible danger to something
The status quo = the present situation
People might feel like these new things are, like, pulling the rug from under them.
It’s like pulling the rug from under their feet.
To pull the rug from under someone = to suddenly take away help or support from someone, or to suddenly do something that causes many problems for them
Heckling – meaning someone in the audience shouting out when someone is speaking publicly
I got an injury and it got worse and worse and worse throughout the week. I couldn’t run for 5 weeks. I had physio, I had acupuncture, I had ultrasound. (not idioms)
To have physio = physiotherapy
ultrasound, an ultrasound scan = a sort of scan that uses sound as a way of seeing inside your body, as an alternative to an x-ray, to check for injury or maybe a baby (but not a baby in Andy’s case. “What seems to be the problem Mr Johnson? Well, my knee is really playing up. It’s very stiff and painful when I walk. Let’s have a look, if you’d like to just lie down here we’ll start the ultrasound. Oh, oh… Mr Johnson, it appears that you’re pregnant. What?? Yes, that’s right, you have a baby in your knee. But how is this possible? I’ve been using contraception! hahaha, etc)
The physio used to be the physiotherapist for Fulham Football Club. (person)
A physio = a physiotherapist (person)
When I walked in he did a double take (thinking that Andy might be the other Andy Johnson, who used to play for Fulham FC)
To do a double take = to look at something briefly, then look away and look back again very quickly! It’s really funny and comical! Also you can do a triple take and a quadruple take for maximum comic effect.

A bit of a mover and shaker in the world of football, this Luke Thompson
A mover and shaker (in the world of …) = a powerful person who influences people and initiates events.
Any little problem gets exacerbated when you’re running a marathon.
To exacerbate something = to make something worse (not an idiom)
It seems to be, touch wood, it seems to be OK.
People say “touch wood” as a superstition to wish themselves luck or for protection against bad luck. It’s like saying “fingers crossed”.
Do you have a full slap-up breakfast or is it just a banana to keep the wolf from the door?
slap up (adjective) = excellent, first class – used with food. A slap up meal. A slap up breakfast. It’s usually used in an enthusiastic and informal way to talk about a full meal.
To keep the wolf from the door = to eat just enough food to prevent hunger, to stave off hunger
You go out too fast so after 6 or 7 km you’re knackered!
Knackered (adj) = extremely tired (British slang)
Everyone’s in the same boat. They’ve trained for ages. There’s the music and the camaraderie, they’re running together. Everybody just goes off far too quickly.
To be in the same boat = to be in the same situation
The charity is something that’s very close to my heart.
It’s very close to my heart = it means a lot to me, it’s important to me
When you’re wishing someone luck you say “break a leg”.
Break a leg = good luck! Have a good show!
The leg refers to a limb – an arm or leg, but also a large piece of wood like a beam, or branches of a tree. A large piece of wood can be a limb.
In comedy, when you have a really good show, you raise the roof. (the roof comes off because the audience are laughing and applauding)
So, break a leg means “I hope you have such a great show that the roof comes off the building!”
I was using it in a very irreverent way, a very light-hearted way. (talking about the phrase “the cross I bear”)
I’m all at sea = I’m confused and not sure what to do

Come on!!! That must be useful to you! A huge slice of English learning cake there for you to feast upon. You could feed a whole family on that for about a week in some places!

Again, what do you think of the idea of this paid premium membership system?

Get access to a certain number of language-related episodes of LEPP (LEP Premium) per month. The episodes would be available in the app or on a website. Episodes would mostly deal with language that has come up naturally in conversations on LEP – like what I’ve done here, or in the recent grammar episodes. Yep, language related but with the usual funny examples and explanations. Also there would be more phrasal verb episodes and probably other things because I would want to reward my premium lepsters or PLEPSTERS, so I’d probably offer little videos and other things too. All for the price of a beer or a sandwich for me per month.

That’s something in the pipeline at the moment.

Why aren’t you just doing it now Luke?

Yes, good question. I’ve been talking about this sort of thing for ages. It’s slightly harder than you might think actually. The thing is, I really want it to work. I want it to be worthwhile. That means finding a model that works. I think now I’ve got the app and I can offer paid content in the app, that is the right platform. Now it’s just a case of making it happen. Enthusiastic responses from you would certainly give me a boost. I think it would be really great. I just hope you realise that too.

Anyway, you can contact me about it if you like, using the usual methods.

Join the mailing list.

Download the app.

Nice one for getting to the end of this episode. Imagine all that English that has gone into your brain. That’s good! Nice one. Give yourself a pat on the back. I think you can agree that your English is better now than it was before you started listening to this, can’t you? I think you can agree with that statement.

Alright, time to go.

Speak to you soon! Bye!!!

Luke

519. Idioms Game & Chat (with Andy Johnson) + 25 Idioms Explained

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A conversation with Andy Johnson including loads of idiomatic expressions and their explanations. First you can listen to a rambling chat with Andy and then I’ll explain 25 idioms that came up during the conversation. Part 2 coming soon… Transcriptions, Vocabulary list & Definitions available.

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Introduction Transcript

Hello folks – in this episode I’m talking again to Andy Johnson from The London School of English, and while we’re talking we’re going to play an idioms game, so you can practise your listening with this conversation and also learn some natural English expressions in the process.

Alright Andy? I’m going to do the introduction to this episode, with you here. Sometimes I’ll check in on you, just to see if you’re still there and to see if you’re ok with what I’ve said. OK?

Andy’s been on the podcast a couple of times before but if you haven’t heard those episodes here’s some intel on Andy J, to bring you up to speed. This is the Andy Johnson Fact File.

Andy Johnson started out working in marketing before becoming an English teacher. He’s been teaching English for … a number of years (I think it’s about 15 years now). He did the DELTA qualification at the same college as me (name of that college? That’s UCL in London) and has worked for The London School of English for over 10 years, first as a teacher and now as the Director of London School Online – that’s the London School’s online operation, and yes – I’m calling it an operation, which makes it sound either like they’re surgeons, or special agents and perhaps they are somehow a combination of both of those things – but for online English courses. London School Online offer various online courses for learners of English and other things of that nature. Get more details at http://www.londonschoolonline.com

Actually the correct link is www.londonschool.com/lso

Andy is a runner. He runs marathons, which is great considering he nearly lost a leg when he was younger, and when I say “lost” a leg I don’t mean that he just couldn’t find it for a while, like “oh where’s my leg? I put it down a earlier and I can’t find it… Ah, there it is! Oh, I nearly lost a leg there!” no, I mean he nearly had to have it removed permanently, which sounds like it was a very frightening and horrible experience. There’s an emotional and inspirational story that explains what happened, which you can hear if you listen to episode 472 when Andy talked about it.

472. Andy Johnson at The London School (Part 2) Why Andy runs marathons

So, despite an early issue with his leg, Andy is a runner and in fact at the moment he is training for the London Marathon which happens next month.

Andy is married and has two children who are boys. He sometimes steps on pieces of their lego, which I understand is incredibly painful. Lego comes from Denmark but Andy Johnson is half Swedish.

But Sweden and Denmark are both scandinavian countries, so the link still works somehow.

However, this does not lessen the pain he experiences when he steps on Lego.

Andy has a good joke about Swedish military ships having barcodes so that when they come into port they can “scan the navy in”, which sounds like “scandinavian”. It’s a good joke, despite the way I just told it just then.

As an English teacher Andy often attends teaching conferences where he presents talks to other English teaching professionals. Previously we talked about his talk on millennials in the English language classroom which he has done at various conferences including the IATEFL conference, which is like the Glastonbury Festival but for English teaching.

Andy also looks a bit like Moby (the American musician, DJ, record producer, singer, songwriter, photographer and animal rights activist) but a better-dressed version. Sometimes people mistake him for Moby, with hilarious results, as we have heard on the podcast before.

So, Andy is like a better-dressed, half-Swedish half-English English teaching Moby look-a-like who runs marathons, steps on his kids’ lego and talks about teaching English to millennials at conferences. But he’s so much more than that.

Andy Johnson everybody…

Spot the Idioms

As well as having a conversation, in this episode we’ve also decided to play a game as a way of including a language-focus – in this case idioms. You have to spot at least 6 idiomatic phrases in this conversation, although there will definitely be more than 6.

Andy and I have both chosen 3 idioms to include in our conversation.

What are idioms?

Remember – idioms are fixed expressions with a particular meaning – a meaning that might not be obvious when you take them on face value. The meaning of the phrase is different from the words used in the expression. They don’t have a literal meaning.

Really common idioms (which you probably already know) are things like “That was a piece of cake”, meaning “That was easy” or “It’s just not my cup of tea”, meaning “I don’t really like it”. Those two are really common and well-known ones that just happen to involve food. A third example might be “Well, you’ve really hit the nail on the head there” – to hit the nail on the head, which we use when someone has made exactly the right comment – the sort of comment which perfectly explains or sums up the situation. “Well, you’ve really hit the nail on the head there”.

Andy and I have both chosen 3 idioms – but we haven’t told each other what they are yet. We’re going to play a little game while taking part in our conversation.

Idioms Game

The rules of the game are this:

We have to seamlessly include the idioms into the conversation. We should find a way to include the idioms in a natural way – so they are used correctly for the context of the conversation, and not too obviously. They shouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb, for example.
Both of us have to try and identify which idioms we chose, and when we hear them – write them down.
At the end of the conversation we will state which idioms we thought were the the pre-prepared ones. For each correctly identified pre-prepared idiom, we get a point.
It is possible and indeed encouraged to slip in some other idioms as distractions, but these must not be pre-prepared. They can only be expressions that could naturally have come up in moments during the conversation.

So basically – I have to spot Andy’s 3 pre-prepared idioms, and he has to spot my 3 pre-prepared idioms.

A strategy could be – to insert your pre-prepared idioms into the conversation without them being too obvious, while perhaps attempting to distract each other or tempt each other with other idioms that we just include on the spur of the moment.

You can play too, ladies and gentlemen. Try to spot the 6 idioms we have pre-prepared. Also watch out for any other expressions that might not be on our lists, but which are worth learning too, like for example “to stick out like a sore thumb” or “on the spur of the moment”.

At the end I’ll go through all of the idioms and clarify them.

Conversation begins – and then pauses before Andy tells us about being abused on Twitter.

More Transcript…

Hi everyone,

I’m pausing the conversation right there. Andy is about to tell us about he got abused on Twitter, but you’ll have to wait until part 2 to hear that story and the rest of the conversation and the results of our idioms game.

But Luke, why are you pausing here?

The whole conversation went on for about 90 minutes and this time I thought I’d split it into two episodes – mainly because I want to take a bit of time to highlight certain features of language that you have heard already in the conversation, namely – all the idioms that have come up so far. We’re focusing on idioms in this one.

You know that we’re playing an idioms game in this episode and I wonder if you’ve been paying attention, trying to spot the idiomatic phrases that we prepared in advance.

But as well as the pre-prepared expressions, there are loads of other ones that are just coming up naturally.

So I’d like to highlight all the idioms which have come up so far. I’ve listened back to the conversation and made a list of all the idioms I could hear.

Let me now go through them. I’m not going to tell you which ones are the pre-prepared ones, except to say that only one pre-prepared idiom has been used in the conversation so far. That’s one out of the 6 pre-prepared ones. Only one has been used so far. The other 5 will come up in the next conversation.

So, I’m not telling you which one that is. What I am going to do though, is explain every idiom that has come up in part 1.

Here we go.

Vocabulary List + Definitions

Idioms and Expressions that you can hear in this episode (Part 1)

Here is some intel on Andy J to bring you up to speed.
Intel = intelligence. This is just information but it’s a word used by the secret service. “Our agents have collected some valuable bits of intelligence.” “What’s the intel on the British Prime Minister’s security guards?”
To bring someone up to speed = to give someone the latest information so they are as informed as everyone else. “Hi, welcome back. Let me bring you up to speed on where we are with the negotiations.”
If Swedes have beef with anybody it’s with the Norwegians
To have beef with someone = to have a complaint to make about someone/something, or to have a long running resentment or grudge against someone/something. E.g. you hear this a lot in rap music. Let’s say Notorious BIG insulted Tupac (maybe he said something about his mum) and then Tupac had a beef with him. (he also held a grudge against him and had a score to settle with him)
You’re holding a grudge against someone = you have an long running bad feeling against probably because of something bad that happened in the past. E.g. Mike stole Dave’s girlfriend, and so Dave’s had a grudge against him ever since. Murray has had a grudge against Nadal ever since he humiliated him in front of the crowds of spectators at Wimbledon a few years ago. Obama made a joke about Trump and so Trump had a grudge against him. He had beef with Obama.
You’ve got a score to settle with someone = you need/want to take revenge on someone
Have you got your idioms Andy? I’ve already used one. I think I might have jumped the gun a bit there.
To jump the gun = to do something too quickly. Like runners who start the race before the gun.
Swedes use Norwegians as the butt of a joke
The butt of the joke = the object of the joke. E.g. Years the Irish were the butt of a lot of jokes in England.
There’s some bad blood between the two of them.
Bad blood = a bad feeling between two people because of something that happened in the past
A meaning that might not be obvious if you take them on face value.
Take something on/at face value = you just accept something as the way it is, without realising there is a deeper meaning, or another aspect to it. E.g. if you take an idiom on face value, you might take it literally without realising it has another meaning. Or you might take a joke on face value, and not realise it’s a joke – take it literally.
That was a piece of cake = easy
It’s just not my cup of tea = I don’t really like it
You’ve really hit the nail on the head there = you said exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment
The idioms shouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb = to be very obvious or different from the surroundings or other things
You shouldn’t shoehorn them in = force them in unnaturally
To include some unprepared idioms on the spur of the moment = on impulse, without planning in advance
The Notting Hill Carnival goes on just on the doorstep of the London School = very close to a building
The guy was clearly half-cut = drunk
He was sitting on the barrel, two sheets to the wind = drunk (also – 3 sheets to the wind)
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/three-sheets-to-the-wind.html
Did you ever have those socks with the days of the week on? Oh man, that was a minefield.
A minefield = a very difficult situation in which failure or problems are very likely to happen so you need to take great care.
Wait, what’s a street walker? You’re going to have to spell it out.
A street walker / A lady of the night = a prostitute
To spell it out = to make it absolutely clear
It made her look like a lady of the night.
What’s amazing is how many trolls creep out of the woodwork on international women’s day.
to creep out of the woodwork = (a negative expression) when people who are previously hidden or silent, reveal themselves or their opinions.
If you’re feeling a bit peckish and you eat your thumb, the thumb will grow back.
Peckish = a bit hungry
It’s jaw-dropping the amount of misogyny that comes out on days like this
It’s really eye-opening.
Jaw-dropping = surprising and amazing. It makes your jaw drop open. Wow!
Eye-opening = surprising and you learn something new from it
For him to shine a spotlight on these people and to call them out for their ignorance and their general dickish behaviour, while still raising money and raising awareness for the cause, I just thought it was really really good.
to shine a spotlight on someone = bring attention to someone. Like pointing a theatre spotlight on someone on stage.
To call someone out for something = to publicly bring attention to someone’s bad actions (Hey everybody – this guy criticised millennials!!)
Who is this guy to slag off a whole generation?
To slag someone off = to criticise someone in a really unpleasant way. (a slightly rude expression)

Now that’s the end of the idioms in this episode.

There are more in part 2 and there should also be a bit at the end where I explain the vocabulary too.

I think this is really useful when I do this. What would really help you now is if you listened to the conversation again. Now that I’ve highlighted the idioms, listen to the conversation again and I 100% promise you that you will notice them more easily and you are also far more likely to remember them and be able to notice them again.

Listening to conversations I have on my podcast with my guests is definitely important, but I think that just highlighting some of the language you’ve heard by picking out certain phrases, repeating and explaining them – this can make a crucial difference in your ability to really learn English from my episodes.

It’s something I think is valuable and I’m looking at ways of introducing this sort of thing more permanently.

For example – an idea I’m thinking of and I’m nearly ready to do it – would be to introduce a paid premium service for just a few Euros a month, where you’d get regular language review episodes where I go through language you’ve heard in episodes. The episodes would be available to premium subscribers in the app and online via a computer.

Preparing language reviews is time consuming for me and adds a lot more work than just preparing a conversation, recording it, editing it and publishing it as a free podcast. I have to listen again carefully, note certain language features and then spend time clarifying them on the podcast.

A paid premium subscription option would allow me to do it more properly and regularly and would mean my time and work is being rewarded, and you’d get really valuable episodes in which I explain the language you’ve heard but might have missed in episodes.

Let me know what you think. From your end, it would be like this. You could sign up for LEP premium online via my host Libsyn. You’d need to pay a little bit of money per month, not that much – probably just the price of a pint of beer per month for me. Then you’d be able to sign into my app and get access to a certain number of premium episodes. Those episodes would be primarily about language. I do various types of episode on LEP – some of them don’t involve language teaching or a language focus although of course it’s all good for your English because you’re getting valuable exposure to the language and I’m here to help. BUt the premium episodes would all be about language and mostly they’d involve me explaining, clarifying and demonstrating English that you’d heard occuring naturally in normal episodes of LEP. So they’d be like Language Review episodes. You’d be able to listen to normal episodes of LEP and then several Premium episodes too which would explain, clarify and expand on the vocab, grammar or pronunciation you’d heard in the normal episodes.

I’m also planning to include other things for the premium package – including finishing off APVAD. I think the only way I can continue the phrasal verb episodes is if they’re part of a premium package.

And don’t worry – if you can’t get the LEP app, you’d still be able to access premium content from a computer on the premium page.

Anyway, this is in the pipeline. Things move a bit slowly here at LEPHQ but I’m getting there.

In the meantime, get the LEP app. More free extra stuff keeps popping up there. I recently uploaded Episode 518b which is part 2 of the grammar questions episode. Check it out.

Also, sign up to the mailing list on the website if you haven’t already done that.

Time to go now!

Speak to you again with Andy in part 2 of this episode where you’ll learn some more idioms and also find out what happens in our idioms game.

Cheers!

Bye.

Luke

517. Professor Stephen Hawking (An Obituary)

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I woke up this morning to the news that Stephen Hawking had died and I thought – I really must talk about this. He was a British scientist who must be considered one of the most significant people of recent years – a brilliant mind who contributed so much to our understanding of the nature of reality itself while also struggling against some extreme personal difficulties and for those reasons he’s a great inspiration to many people around the world.

In this episode I’m just going to talk about him, his life, his achievements and how he will continue to be an inspiration to people for many years to come. Let’s learn some English along the way. Vocabulary list & links available below.

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BBC Obituary

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15555565

Adversity, challenge or difficulty can somehow focus you and force you to concentrate your energy in one direction. It must have been tough, but it’s almost like he thrived on the adversity.

Hawking’s popularity in China

Hawking was popular and inspirational all over the world, but according to a BBC News report he was particularly loved and respected in China.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-43395650

Hawking talks about depression

As well as contributing so much to our understanding of the universe, he also was an inspiration to people struggling against difficulty of various kinds – both physical and mental.

Stephen Hawking Has a Beautiful Message for Anyone Suffering From Depression

A scene from The Theory of Everything

Hawking interviewed by John Oliver (Hawking obviously had a sense of humour)

Monty Python – The Galaxy Song

This is a song written by Eric Idle, for Monty Python’s film “The Meaning of Life”.
Hawking agreed to record a version of this song for Monty Python’s recent live shows.
It’s all about how we should remember that in the context of everything, our problems are actually rather small and insignificant, and by extension we should realise that there are no frontiers in our minds and we should realise that many limitations that we feel inside ourselves are actually imposed on us by ourselves.

Lyrics & ukulele chords: http://stewartgreenhill.com/ukulele/TheGalaxySong.html

Vocabulary which came up in this episode

motor neurone disease
he was left almost completely paralysed
a tracheotomy
a layman’s guide to cosmology
He was reportedly offered a knighthood in the 1990s but later revealed he had turned it down over issues with the government’s funding for science.
He was renowned for his extraordinary capacity to visualise scientific solutions without calculation or experiment.
Undeterred by his condition, he continued his work
his condition inevitably made him dependent on others
Police questioned several people about allegations that he had been subjected to verbal and physical abuse
He was known to be an erratic, almost reckless driver of his electric wheelchair
the first quadriplegic to experience weightlessness on board the so-called “vomit comet“
“I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster”
aliens might just raid earth of its resources and then move on
Stephen Hawking: China’s love for the late physicist
the world mourns Prof Stephen Hawking, who has died aged 76
His 2006 visit to China was covered with breathless excitement
the adulation and respect he has always commanded in China is perhaps in another universe altogether
a role model ideal for the Chinese state to champion emerged.
the Chinese government preaches that scientific prowess is crucial to the country’s future power
he didn’t let it deter him from doing his best to live fully and passionately
If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you
My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field

515. Becoming “Maman” with Amber & Sarah – Bringing Up Children The French Way

26 Replies

In this episode I’m talking to friends of the podcast Amber Minogue and Sarah Donnelly about the subject of raising children in a foreign country – in this case, France. So this is an episode all about cross-cultural experiences, specifically relating to parenthood. It’s also about a new podcast and stage show which Amber & Sarah have just started. Transcriptions, notes and links below.

[DOWNLOAD]

If you’re a long term listener then I’m sure you know Amber, and you should also remember Sarah because she’s been on the podcast a few times too.

Amber and Sarah are both ex-pats living in Paris, like me. They’re also stand-up comedians who perform on stage in English here, like me. They’re both with French partners, like me. They both have kids here in Paris with their French partners, again, like me; and now they are both podcasters, like me.

Amber (who is from the UK) has been a podcaster for a while, as you may know, with her charming and quirky podcast about the history of Paris – called “Paname” (available at panamepodcast.com and on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts) , but now Amber has joined forces with Sarah (who is from the USA) in order to work on a new project which is called “Becoming Maman”. “Maman” is the French word for “mum” or “mom”.

The project is primarily a stage show – a kind of “two-woman show” which is all about their experiences of having kids in Paris. I saw the first performance of Becoming Maman a few weeks ago and it was brilliant. The two of them are very funny as a double act and the show was full of very astute and amusing observations, jokes and sketches about life as an English-speaking ex-pat bringing up children in Paris.

As well as the stage show, they’re also doing some videos for Facebook and YouTube and the new podcast which is also called “Becoming Maman”. In the podcast episodes Amber and Sarah typically sit down together and discuss certain issues and experiences relating to raising children in France – particularly the differences in the parenting culture between France and their home countries of the UK and the USA.

If you’re an email subscriber or a regular visitor to my website, you might know all of this already (you might be going “yep, yep – got it, been there, seen that, got the t-shirt, already subscribed to Becoming Maman – I have already become Maman) email subscribers might already know about this because I wrote a post last week to let you know that I had been interviewed by Amber and Sarah on their podcast, and I shared links so you could listen or download that episode and subscribe to the podcast. In that episode of their podcast they asked me about my experiences of becoming a dad, and we talked about how children learn languages. Check it out here.

For more information about their project, check out all the links below.

Becoming Maman – podcast page

Becoming Maman on iTunes

Becoming Maman – RSS feed

Becoming Maman – Facebook page

So – raising kids in France when you’re not French and the differences in the parenting culture between France and the UK and the USA. These are the things that we’re going to talk about in this episode, as well as a few of the usual tangents including some thoughts about differences in the behaviour of boys and girls and whether these differences are caused by innate factors that children are born with or subtle ways in which we encourage certain kinds of behaviour as parents.

Well, just before we begin I’d like you to consider how this topic relates to your life experience in some way. You might not have kids, but since you’re out there, probably learning English, there’s a good chance that your life is, has been, or will be affected by cross-cultural experiences, not just relating to parenthood. Thinking about how you have things in common with us should help you to generally relate to our conversation better, and by extension that should help you just get more out of it in terms of language learning and general enjoyment.

So, here are loads of questions for you to consider before we get stuck into this conversation.

Also, pay attention to certain bits of language relating to childhood and raising kids and let me also remind you of episode 68 which is full of the language of childhood – and that’s vocabulary like “to bring up children” “to raise children” “to grow up” and so on – all explained.

68. Childhood / Growing Up / School Days – Phrasal Verbs and Expressions

Before you Listen – Questions for your consideration

First of all, what kinds of cross-cultural experiences have you had?
Have you ever lived abroad or spent a good deal of time with people from other cultures?
Did you notice any differences in the way you or other people do things? That could include anything in life – like slightly different ways of doing business or eating food or communicating, but also ways of dealing with children.
What were the challenges associated with the experience you had with another culture or in another country? How did that make your life more difficult, crazy, funny, strange or interesting? E.g. Did you find it hard to work out the administrative system, the work-life balance or the approach to education at school?
Could you imagine settling down in another country and bringing up children there?
If you already have kids, in what situation did you raise your kids or are you raising your kids?
Are you and your partner from the same country, and are your kids growing up in that country too? That’s a monocultural and monolingual situation.
Can you imagine bringing your children up in a foreign country, perhaps with a foreign partner, with several languages involved? So, a bi-cultural or bilingual situation.
How would that make things different?
How could it make life more complicated?
For example – consider the identity of your child or children. Where would you consider your children to be from? How would you feel if they grew up to be from a different culture to you?
Let’s say, if you’re Spanish (or Polish or Chinese or Russian or Brazilian) and you’re bringing up kids in London are your kids still Spanish, Polish or Chinese or Russian or Brazilian, or are they now English – because that’s where they were born and have grown up?
How would living abroad affect your parenting style?
Should you, for example, adapt your parenting style to fit the new culture, or keep doing it how it’s done where you’re from?
What if the parenting style in this other place is quite different to how it’s done where you’re from? What if you don’t really understand the way they do it in this other place?
How would that be challenging for you?
Would you feel somehow stuck in a grey area between the country and culture where you are from, and the country and culture where your kids are growing up?
Are there certain advantages to that situation? Perhaps it can be much a more exciting, diverse and broad-minded lifestyle.
What have you heard about parenting in France, or in the UK or the USA? Do those places have a reputation for particularly good or bad parenting? For what reasons?
Would you like to raise your kids in any of those cultures? The UK, France or The USA?
Have you heard of a book called “French Kids Don’t Throw Food” by Pamela Druckerman? How about any other parenting guides which are about “how they bring up kids in another country”? Do any other countries have a good reputation for bringing up kids as far as you know?
What if you ended up falling in love with someone from France, the UK or the USA or indeed any other place, moving there for love, having an adventure and then finding that you’re starting a family in a completely foreign place? How would you feel?
Maybe that’s exactly what’s happened to you, or you’re in a situation in which it could happen.
And if you don’t have kids in your life, perhaps you could consider the situation in which you grew up. Would you rather have been raised by parents from the same country, or parents from two different countries? How might that have affected your language skills and your identity in general?
Do you think boys and girls behave differently because they’re born that way, or because we encourage them somehow?
And how could you put all of these thoughts into words in English?

With all those questions in mind, let’s now listen to my chat with Amber and Sarah all about the challenges of bringing up kids in a foreign country and what it really means to become not just a mum or a mom, but a “maman”.

Let me remind you that Amber & Sarah’s podcast is now available for you to listen to, including the episode in which they interviewed me about becoming a dad.

Those links again for “Becoming Maman”

For more information about their project, check out all the links below.

Becoming Maman – podcast page

Becoming Maman on iTunes

Becoming Maman – RSS feed

Becoming Maman – Facebook page

As I mentioned before, I do plan to do another episode about raising bilingual kids at some point.

I can also refer you back to episode 68 in which I talked about childhood and school days and explained a lot of phrasal verbs and other vocabulary.

Links for everything on the page for this episode!

In the meantime – I look forward to reading your responses to this episode in the comment section. Did you have any thoughts while listening to this? (I hope so!) Share them in the comment section. Don’t be shy – give it a try.

A couple of other reminders:

Join the mailing list to get a link in your inbox when I post something to the website – it’s usually once or twice a week and my emails aren’t very intrusive or anything.
Download the LEP App for your phone. Check the app store for the Luke’s English Podcast App – it’s not just a place to listen to the podcast, there’s also a lot of other content in there including videos, episodes of my phrasal verb podcast and various app-exclusive episodes and other bonuses.
Thank you if you have donated to this podcast – you’re helping to keep the whole thing alive and I consider your donation to be a very sincere way to say thank you for my work.

Have a lovely morning, lunch, afternoon, evening, night!

Speak to you soon,

Bye!

Vocabulary List for Episode 515 – Provided by Jack from the Comment Section

Juggling
a labour of love
Dig these episodes
Quirky
Expats
Astute
Tangents
Indoctrinate
Stuck in a grey area
Scream your lungs out
Skiing
Oriented
Boisterous
Rowdy
Beat the living day lights out of
Notion
Enamoured
Pragmatic
Coagulated
Starters
Cheese course
Main course
Starch
Cereals
Dessert
On site
Individualism
Flip side
Pedagogical
Crouch down
Babysitter
Pay stubs
Synonymous
Athleisure clothing ( fat Americans feeling good wearing gym clothes while chewing fat)
Trendy
Goldfish crackers
Toned down
Preset
Jacket potato
Chedder
accustomed
Intrusive

TV shows and videos which we mentioned

The BBC’s gender experiment

TV and films that Sarah was watching when she was about 10 years old… a bad influence?

“The Kids on the Hall” – I’m crushing your head

Absolutely Fabulous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jar7Pk0OCR4

Planet of the Apes (quite scary and weird) “Human see, human do!”

514. What’s on the table? (with Fred & Alex)

36 Replies

In this episode you can hear me chatting to Fred Eyangoh and Alex Quillien and discussing various topics including growing up in different countries, recognising different accents in English, religious backgrounds, movie re-boots, Arnold Shwartzenegger going “nyarrrgh” and more. Fred and Alex are both stand-up comedians living in Paris who perform in English. Check them out at shows at Paname Art Cafe, including the Paris Open Mic (with Vanessa Starr) and French Fried Comedy Night.

[DOWNLOAD]

Introduction

This episode is called “What’s on the table? (with Fred and Alex)”

I’m joined by Fred Eyangoh and Alex Quillian.

First we’re going to just get to know them a bit – we already know Fred from his appearance on the podcast in episode 430.

Then, the whole “What’s on the table?” concept – which sounds like a concept but actually it’s not really.

I know what you’re thinking. What is the concept of “What’s on the table?” Luke?

Well…

I’ve written some questions and topics onto pieces of paper and then placed them face down on the table.

We’re going to flip them over one by one and discuss the heck out of them. That’s it.

I was also thinking of calling it “Discuss THIS” – like in a movie or something.

Like – “You feeling hungry? EAT THIS” Boom.

Or “You want to watch something? WATCH THIS”

But I’ve chosen “What’s on the table?” (with Fred and Alex)

And we have some topics which are on the table for discussion.

That’s an expression by the way.

If something is “on the table” it means it has been put forward for discussion.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/on-the-table

E.g. in a business meeting

I wouldn’t wait too long to accept the job offer—it might not be on the table for very long.

Before this meeting begins, we’d like to make sure that the topic of salary bonuses is going to be on the table.

Our best offer is on the table.

In this case:

What’s on the the table for discussion today?

You can also use the word ‘table’ as a verb. It’s a bit formal. It means present something for discussion. E.g. to table a motion – to formally put forward a topic for discussion or perhaps a proposal for a new law.

I have to say these things, because it’s a learning English podcast.

That’s in British English.

In American English, it means the opposite. It means “shelved” – postponed until later.

The healthcare bill has been put on the table until the Spring.

This topic has been tabled for later discussion.

That’s American English.

But we speak British English here, or at least I do.

Types of English – that’s one of the points which is on the table I believe. We’ll come back to it.

Listen to the whole episode to hear Fred, Alex and me discussing various topics including – learning English, accents, religion, films, Arnold Schwarzenegger going “nyarrrgh!” and more!

Alex & Fred

513. General Ramble / News / Comments

44 Replies

A general ramble about things like: dishwasher sounds, online clickbait, updates to the LEP app, my recent appearances on some OPP (other people’s podcasts), LEPster meetups and some responses to recent comments on the website. Notes, links & videos available below.

[DOWNLOAD]

Notes, Links & Videos etc

First, some stuff about clickbait and dishwashers… and then…

News, etc

This will be the last episode I upload until March.

Actually, that’s not such a big deal is it because February is short and so March is less than a week away… anyway…

Why is it the last episode until March?

Upload limit reached!

Why?

The LEP App

 iPhone/iPad – APPLE APP STORE |ANDROID – GOOGLE PLAY STORE 📱

I’ve been filling up the LEP app, with:

Videos (some stuff from my YouTube channel including some videos from nearly 10 years ago when I was younger, single and living in my London flat and I had a terrible haircut) and some more recent videos that are not on YouTube and are only available in the app.
A Phrasal Verb a Day (40 episodes uploaded so far)
App-only episodes (a recent new one with Lindsay from AEE – more info in a moment)

Check out the app if you haven’t done so already. I’m going to be adding more stuff there all the time. It’s more than just a place to listen to LEP. It’s a place to get loads of content from me straight to your phone.

APP CATEGORIES – ANDROID?

Other stuff

I’ve been on some other people’s podcasts recently

I was on All Ears English in their app

Search the app store for All Ears English Listening, or click the link below.

All Ears English Listening for iOS

I was on Becoming Maman – Amber & Sarah’s new podcast.

Search iTunes and all other podcast places for Becoming Maman, or check the episode archive on teacherluke.co.uk – I posted it there too.

[Website-only] I was on the “Becoming Maman” podcast with Amber Minogue & Sarah Donnelly

In December I was on The Earful Tower talking about the Paris Metro, on the Paris Metro.

Search iTunes and all other podcast places for The Earful Tower – but also it’s in the episode archive.

Observations on the Paris Metro… from Inside the Metro (Listen to my appearance on Oliver Gee’s podcast “The Earful Tower”)

Upcoming episodes of LEP

A chat with Amber & Sarah about the complications of raising kids in another country
A chat with comedian friends about a bunch of things
Planning an episode about raising bilingual kids because people keep asking “Which language will your daughter speak? Are you going to speak French to her or English? How do kids learn two languages at the same time?

Also I really want to just have some stupid fun on the podcast.

I haven’t been doing a lot of comedy recently, because of the baby. I’ve taken a step back because of lack of time etc, except for opening Paul’s show sometimes.

I miss doing comedy – when a show goes well it is an amazing feeling, but also I feel like I’d like to refresh my material.

One of the things I love about doing comedy is coming up with new stuff, improvising.

Also, on the podcast – I’ve always enjoyed just messing around being a bit stupid and having some fun doing voices, or just improvising some nonsense. Haven’t done that for a while.

So, I should, right? OK then.

LEPSTER Meetups

LEPSTERS IN Nizhniy Novgorod

There’s a Meetup happening on Sunday 11 March 18:00 Time Cafe Geronimo in the centre of Nizhniy Novgorod.

Everyone is welcome!!

FB page: The “Nizhniy Novgorod LEP Club” on Facebook

From Nick Wooster

Hi Luke!

How are you? I can’t even imagine how busy you are now with all those parent activities! You must be very happy, anyway :))

It’s been more than a year since we first established the LEP Club in Moscow. Also, last spring we launched our second Club in Saint Petersburg. Both clubs have become very popular and are now visited by a lot of people. For example, in January we had 9 meet ups and in each one there were 5 to 25 people!

Luke, do you remember we also tried to arrange a LEP Club in Nizhniy Novgorod last Summer?
(Note: In English, this means “Lower Newtown”)
We failed then because of the huge flood. Anyway, our LEP Nizhniy Novgorod page on Facebook has been quite popular recently. So, we are going to try again to organize the first meetup of LEPsters there.

The meeting will take place on March 11 at the time cafe Geronimo right in the center of Nizhniy Novgorod.

WOULD YOU PLEASE ANNOUNCE IT ON THE PODCAST? it would be great if you also shared it on FB (here is the link https://www.facebook.com/Conversational-English-for-Free-Nizhniy-Novgorod-LEP-Club-1929010714048755/?fref=ts)

BTW, Luke, we are wondering if it is possible to place a link to all your Meet-Up groups (Tokyo, MSC, SPB) in the Podcast – it would help LEP ninjas to find like-minded friends easier!
Thank you, Luke!

New LEP Meetup page in the website

LEPSTER MEETUPS

Some recent comments

About “The Birth of my Daughter”

Kristina Fadeeva • a month ago
Hi Luke, congratulations to your lovely family! And thank you for sharing this wonderful story, for your genuine emotions and authenticity, for being brave enough to talk about something so private.
I absolutele love the ideas of comprehensible input and storytelling in language learning that you mentioned. I was listening to that episode of Olly Richards’ podcast with Stephen Krashen a couple of weeks ago thinking “If only we had a Luke’s English podcast for every language!” I think, content like this is why I enjoy learning languages in the first place – it’s a door to a different world where you can meet people, learn what they are thinking and feeling, how they live their lives and what they value. It’s an endless world of stories that you can experience. With every language you learn, you are getting a glimpse into another life, another point of view, another culture, and that is priceless.
Have the best of luck, joy and happiness in your new journey! And please invite your wife more often, she has the loveliest voice :)

About my frustrations with French

Sebestyén Balázs
The longer I learn English, the more I think that this whole problem is more about psychology and social skills rather than grammar or vocabulary. We need more a good therapist than a teacher. My therapist is you, Luke, and this episode was a pretty successful session.
My understanding and speaking have improved over the years, but very slowly. More importantly, my attitude has changed. I don’t care anymore if I don’t understand something, or can’t express something accurately. If I can avoid high expectations from others and from myself, language learning is just learning anything else, like chemistry, literature or math. You would never say that you are frustrated because of your lack of knowledge in chemistry. So why should I frustrate myself because of the language? Yes, my English is rubbish, but my chemistry also, and on the other hand, I have a lot of other skills and values that can base my self-esteem.

Wesley
Hello Luke,
Are you doing all right? It’s been a long time since I last commented on your website. I listened to the reasons you’ve listed to explain why you’ve not reached a level of French where you would feel comfortable to get by and I believe they make sense.
As I see it, with all due respect, you’re another victim of the sway that the English language holds worldwide. English has developed to become such a powerful language that it is a no-brainer which language non-native speakers should learn other than their own. Non-native speakers have clearly a lot to gain, both professionally and culturally, from learning English. That decision has already been made for them.
However, when it comes to its monolingual native speakers, English is both a blessing and a curse. Native speakers don’t have to spend years of their lives worrying about getting very good at another language if they want to succeed in business, entertainment or academia. They’ve got the grammar, the vocabulary, the pronunciation, basically the whole package by a strike of what many English learners think is luck.
English speakers are just as good language learners as everyone else, but they carry a curse that is often overlooked. This curse is their own language. For a start, I don’t believe it is that straightforward for most teenagers living in the UK, the US or any other English speaking country which second language they should choose to learn. Is it Spanish, French, German or Mandarin? There’s enough research in psychology that backs the idea that when confronted with too many options, people will make poor decisions. After making their choice, people feel they have to stay motivated and overcome all the challenges that the new language poses: difficult grammar, tricky phonemes, unintelligible sounds. When any of those barriers makes itself seem insurmountable, there’s often the option to switch back to English. So, why learn another language if English enables them to get by?
Another factor is that the cultural industry in English floods the whole world with its productions. By doing so, it is the richest worldwide and, consequently, they have the money available to invest in expensive projects and sell them afterwards. This is a vicious circle that stifles low-budget local productions and makes them unattractive. Take Hollywood as an example. Although people all over the globe can be creative enough to match (and surpass) the quality of Hollywood, the sheer output of expensive blockbusters guarantees that there is little to no competition from films in other languages. Why would any native-English speaker learn another language if the biggest hits of the moment are in English?
Among other things, the answers to both questions I raised in the two last paragraphs constitute what motivates any English speaker to learn a second language: So, why learn another language if English enables them to get by? Why would any native-English speaker learn another language if the biggest hits of the moment are in English? While there’s good cause for some, for others there might be none.
Luke, I believe there are only two ways for you to overcome the frustration of learning French and to stop making (your very good) excuses. The first is to drop the idea of learning it entirely and face the consequences. I know it seems quite harsh, but we cannot deliberately motivate ourselves to do something we don’t feel like doing. We either feel it or we don’t, that’s the way it is.
The other way is to learn French once and for all. Even though I said in the previous paragraph that we cannot pretend to be motivated, sometimes we have to do things with no motivation at all. Humankind would be under serious threat if parents had to feel eager every time they woke up at night to check on the crying baby. And they recognise afterwards that the effort paid off. We will never do anything if we wait for the perfect conditions to fall into place – we live in a imperfect world after all.
I would also consider whether the material you’re using is suitable for your needs. I know you’re an English teacher with many years of experience, but I think we should take every material we use with a pinch of salt. Do the books you have meet your current needs? I’m saying this because most beginner materials I’ve used to learn English and other languages seem to hinder conversation. They postpone far too much things like conditionals, subordinate clauses, how to use ‘but’ and ‘because’. If I do not learn those things early on, I’ll not be able to show reasoning and, consequently, I’ll the dumbest person there can be speaking that language. Feeling dumb is one of the biggest confidence killers for language learners.
By the look of what you have told us, I would go for improving my conversation skills if I were you. This is what will give you the confidence boost you need to soldier on. You need to find someone who takes a professional approach to teaching conversational French and allows you to speak freely. Maybe a teacher on Italki, I don’t know, but definitely someone outside your social sphere. That way, you’ll be able to keep French learning issues and personal matters apart. The last thing you need here is to listen to judgemental people who don’t know what they are talking about. Please make as many mistakes as you can because Luke version 2.0 will not develop without them. Do a 30-day challenge of learning French and record yourself speaking every day to keep track of your progress.
I hope I might have been helpful somehow.
Best wishes for the whole family,
Wesley

506. One of Britain’s Favourite Poems

506. One of Britain’s Favourite Poems

Elena • a month ago
I absolutely loved and enjoyed it! Thank you, Luke! And I do feel like an imposter now. I’ve decided to take a CAE preparation course. I passed the test which gave me the right to take the course but I can’t stop feeling that l’m much worse than others who is doing it🙈 but I hope that I’ll survive and get better!

507. UK comedy shows

507. Learning English with UK Comedy TV Shows

Alessandro Gambetta (sorry I forgot your name Alessandro!)
Hi Luke and everybody else,
that was another really good subject for an episode and I imagine that many of the listeners are comedy fans as well.
You mentioned some of my favourite British comedy characters, like David Brent and Alan Partridge. Only last year I discovered and particularly enjoyed some actors (and writers) from the IT Crowd’s cast, like Chris Morris, Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade, who I found out is also a quite talented director – I recommend ‘Submarine’.
I hope you’ll make a similar episode about interesting not-necessarily-comedy British radio shows, because I’m having some trouble finding any.

Also, I’d like to listen to you talk about the Flight of the Conchords and the kiwi accent sometime.

(About “Life’s Too Short” with Ricky Gervais) I’ve never watched a full episode of the show but I’ve seen this video an infinite number of times over the last 2 weeks and I can’t help laughing really hard every single time.

That clip of Liam Neeson on Life’s Too Short

508. 6 True Crime Stories from Victorian England (with Dad)

508. Six True Crime Stories from Victorian England, Told by My Dad

Jack
King, convey my regards to uncle Rick, please. And tell him that he is a very consummate and eloquent speaker and presenter.

509. What’s it all about? Philosophy & Language Learning

509. What’s it all about? (Philosophy and Language Learning)

Jose Miguel Carrizo • 20 days ago
I´m glad you chose philosophy as subjet of your podcast. Besides, you made it really amusing. Basically you talked about “how should we live?”. I prefer another topic: “know yourself”. Maybe it could be interesting for another podcast in the future. Cheers from Spain!
By the way, if you could hear my neighbour´s laugh, I bet it would change your mind about the most annoying laugh in the world. And besides he is actually crazy.

510. Philosophy Quiz with Amber & Paul

510. Philosophy Quiz (with Amber & Paul)

Eri
No episode is boring,Luke.
Thank you PodPALs, I enjoyed listening and playing same test with you.
I ended up with the same philosophical school of thought, “scepticism”.
When I first listened the episode 509, I was confused and I felt even if it was Japanese, I think I would struggle to understand.
But after the episode 510, 509 is more interesting to listen and I feel easier to understand.
WE NEED both FUN and SERIOUS episodes!

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Introduction Transcript

A Long Episode!

THE “LIFE IN THE UK” CITIZENSHIP TEST

⬇Click the link below to take the same test we did⬇

https://lifeintheuktestweb.co.uk/test-1/

Criticisms of the Test

The “Real” Citizenship test

‘Outro’ Transcript

Audio Version

Video Version

Paul’s Vlog #12

Last chance to vote for LEP in the British Podcast Awards before Thursday 17 May

Introduction

Questions

Transcript (not 100% complete – listen to the episode to hear everything, including improvised moments)

LEP Premium is coming soon, but it’s not ready yet. Please don’t register until I announce it.

Public Holidays in France – “May is like the ninja August”

Shout out to Jack

Podcast Corrections

As Blind as a Bat

Stephen Hawking

Useful Japanese Cat

Transcript

Coming up in this episode

Overview

Unexpected vocabulary question – among / between

British Podcast Awards

LEP Premium – Coming Soon

How do you pronounce “either”?

More words with several pronunciations

You say tomato and I say tomato (song)

The Grammar Nazi Sketch – from BBC comedy series “That Mitchell & Webb Look”

Introduction Transcript

The conversation continues…

Luke & Andy’s Idioms Game – The Results

Ones Andy thought Luke had pre-planned: (actually, none of them were pre-planned)

Luke’s pre-planned idioms

Ones Luke thought Andy had pre-planned

Andy’s pre-planned Idioms

…the conversation ends.

Sponsor Andy & help support The Christie Foundation Trust

Click here for Andy’s JustGiving page for his sponsored Marathon https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/andybjohnson

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Vocabulary List – Idioms and Other Expressions You Heard in this Episode

At least 18 Idioms and some other nice bits of vocabulary to learn

Introduction Transcript

Actually the correct link is www.londonschool.com/lso

Spot the Idioms

What are idioms?

Idioms Game

More Transcript…

Vocabulary List + Definitions

Idioms and Expressions that you can hear in this episode (Part 1)

BBC Obituary

Hawking’s popularity in China

Hawking talks about depression

A scene from The Theory of Everything

Hawking interviewed by John Oliver (Hawking obviously had a sense of humour)

Monty Python – The Galaxy Song

Vocabulary which came up in this episode

Before you Listen – Questions for your consideration

Vocabulary List for Episode 515 – Provided by Jack from the Comment Section

TV shows and videos which we mentioned

Introduction

Notes, Links & Videos etc

The LEP App

 iPhone/iPad – APPLE APP STORE |ANDROID – GOOGLE PLAY STORE 📱

I’ve been on some other people’s podcasts recently

Upcoming episodes of LEP

LEPSTER Meetups

LEPSTERS IN Nizhniy Novgorod

There’s a Meetup happening on Sunday 11 March 18:00 Time Cafe Geronimo in the centre of Nizhniy Novgorod.

Everyone is welcome!!

FB page: The “Nizhniy Novgorod LEP Club” on Facebook

Some recent comments

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