Latest / Luke's English Podcast / 904. Bits _ Bobs 📚 Questions of English (Part 1)(M4A_128K)

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904. Bits _ Bobs 📚 Questions of English (Part 1)(M4A_128K) · Luke's English Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello listeners, Welcome back to Luke's English podcast. How are
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you doing? I hope you're doing all right today. So
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: this is episode number nine hundred and four of Luke's
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: English Podcast, and the name of this is Bits and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Bobs slash Questions of English bits and bobs. This is
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: just a sort of I think it's a very British expression.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: It just means bits and pieces, so little bits and pieces,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: so we say bits and bobs. For example, on my desk,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I have all these I have all these bits and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: bobs on my desk, like this kind of phone clamp
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: and a fork for some reason. Then I've got a
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: pair of scissors and the top from a takeaway coffee
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: cup that I got on a digital watch. These are
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: all just bits and bobs. And in this episode, I'll
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: be dealing with a few different bits and bobs, not
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: objects on my desk, but just little pieces of English
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: little questions. I'm going to be getting into that and
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: giving you the full details in just a moment. There
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: is a PDF for this episode which you'll be able
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to download. You'll just find the link in the description.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: If you are listening to this in a podcast app
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: on your phone, just check the episode show notes. You'll
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: find a link in there for the PDF. If you
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: are watching this on YouTube, then check the episode description.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: You'll find a link in there as well. Okay, you're welcome. Right,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to start reading from the PDF right now,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: So let's do that, shall we. Okay, now here we go.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Let's go to the pdf in five four three two
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: one poom Okay, pdf time. Hello, Luke's English Podcast, Episode
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: number nine hundred and four. Bits and Bobs slash Questions
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of English in fact part one, I'm going to add
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: because I think this will be a multi part series,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: So let me just start reading through my notes on
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the PDF. You can follow with me if you want,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: or otherwise just relax and listen to the podcast as
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: you normally would.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: So.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: As an English teacher and podcaster, I'm always looking out
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: for interesting little bits and pieces or bits and bobs
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I can use in my English lessons or podcast episodes.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: This can be articles, stories, little jokes, letters in the newspaper,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: comments or emails from listeners, and things like that. I
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: often collect things like this and save them in a
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: folder in my Google Drive. So in this episode, I'm
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: going to go through some of those bits and pieces
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: that I've saved, I'm going to read them out, talk
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: about them, and explain bits of vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: that come up. So this episode is going to contain
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: a variety of things, some mini English lessons, some interesting
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: talking points, some comments from listeners, some bits of inspiration
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: for your language learn journey, some questions about English, some
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: error correction, and more, including these things. So I s
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: E or isz e endings? What's the difference? Moments when
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: native speakers misunderstand their own language. Some motivation from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ah,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: and it's not that. Motivation is not simply, you know,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: get to the charper. It's not just that. Some inspiration
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: from author Kurt Vonnegut, tips on getting an English teaching qualification,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: information about intrusive sounds in English pronunciation, the use of singular.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: They to refer to one person again, because it's not
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: the first time I've dealt with that on the podcast.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: The words antique and vintage. Was the difference when the
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: word C doesn't actually mean c. The benefits of listening
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to podcast episodes more than once. A language joke about
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: double negatives, The origins of the word podcast, why you
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: need to take extra care when listening to Luke's English podcast.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Shout outs to listeners in places that I probably have
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: never mentioned on this podcast before, including Paraguay and Uzbekistan,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: an olive farming, Lepster, the Wonder of Children, accent episodes
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: from the archive, the benefits of shadowing your own personal
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: El Guapo, and more. That's an overview of the stuff
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: that's going to come up in this series. I'm sure
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a series rather than just one episode.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: How much am I going to get through in one
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: in this first part? I don't know anyway. So this
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: is a mix of English language points, little bits of motivation,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: some humor, and just little curiosities related to the English language.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy them all. I have a lot
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: of things to share with you here, So shock Horror
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: this might be in several parts. I say shock Horror because,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: as you may know, these days, I prefer to publish
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: episodes one single part, even if I could divide it.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I have many reasons why I prefer not to divide
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: my episodes into several parts, choosing instead to upload often
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: three hour episodes, which in my opinion, are actually better
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: than chopping up episodes in departs because people don't listen
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: to every But it's too complicated to explain now. But
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: this one I feel might be in several parts. In fact,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: it might end up being a short series of episodes
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: called Bits and Bobs slash Questions of English. I'll tell
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: you what I'm gonna do. I'll tell you what. I'll
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: just keep recording for about an hour, and then we'll
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: see where I am after about an hour. So I
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: can stop recording after about an hour and do more
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: in another episode later on. So the next episode of
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Bits and Bobs might come directly after this one, or
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I might wait a while and continue the series later.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: We will see. Okay, anyway, let's get started with the
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: first thing. So, as I mentioned before, is z e
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: versus I S What am I talking about?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed that words like realize, theorize, or
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: memorize and plenty of others are sometimes spelled with I
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: s E at the end, and sometimes with isz e.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So realize I s e or realize is z e
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: theorize or theorize, memorize or memorize. Now there's no difference
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: in pronunciation or meaning. By the way, but what's the
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: difference between is and is z e spellings in words
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: like this? Are they both correct or not? What's going
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: on now? I expect that some of you listening are
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: now saying this, or maybe you're just thinking this in
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: your head. You're thinking, ha, I know the answer, Luke,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: which is a bit strange to be talking to me
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: by name in your own head. But maybe you're thinking this, ha,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I know the answer, Luke. It's is se in British
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: English and is zed e in American English. Haha, check
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: me out, I know the answer. Well, apparently that's not
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: the full story. That is what people say, but it's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: not the full story apparently. In fact, here's a letter
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: which I'm going to read to you, which was printed
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: in the Guardian newspaper a while ago, all about is
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: se or is z e word endings in English. So
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I'll read it out and let's see what we can
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: learn about how to spell this suffix in words. Now.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: To be clear, the letter I'm going to read is
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: actually a reply to another letter printed the week before
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: by a reader called Helen Clutton, who apparently stated that
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the word theorize as isz e is an American spelling.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: That's thho thh e o r is z e that
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: spelling theory with azed is an American spelling. It seems
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: that that's what Helen Clutton wrote to the Guardian the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: week before. Now I haven't actually seen Helen's original letter
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: to the paper, but I expect she was probably criticizing
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: someone for using what she sees as the American spelling
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: of the word when the British spelling should be used. Yeah,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: because British people sometimes look down on americanizations or Americanisms
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: in British English. Some Brits have that sort of snobbish
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: attitude towards what they perceive as being American rather than
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: the sort of correct British version. I did several episodes
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: about this ages ago, over a decade ago. That's episodes
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty and one hundred and one hundred
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and twenty two, which were called Americanisms I think. Anyway,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: let's read this reply actually too, replies to Helen's letter
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: about how is zed endings are American and not British
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and not correct. Now, remember, Helen, as I said, was
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: probably saying that iszedy is the American way and is
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: therefore wrong in British English. So let's have a look.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to need to make this bigger. So the
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: letter is entitled when is z e spellings were standard English?
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: And this was written by Paul Dormer from Guildford in Surrey,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: and it goes like this. Helen Clutten suggests that theorize
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: is z is an American spelling letters nineteenth of August.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: It's not as simple as that the iszed e spellings
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: used to be standard in British English. I have seen
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a baptismal certificate for my great aunt born in the
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighties in the Abingdon area, which said she was baptized.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: That's b ap t is zed by the way, to
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: be baptized means to be officially made a Christian, officially
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: sort of inducted into the Christian faith. It's a little
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: ceremony that involves having holy water poured on your head
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and someone you're baptized, and then you're a Christian. So
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: this writer, Paul Dormer, notes that he has seen a
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: certificate from the eighteen eighties for his great aunt which
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: showed which wrote that she was baptized with and that's
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: baptized with a z uh huh, so endings with is
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: z e were allowed. When I was at school in
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties in England, I used to enjoy writing
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: the loopy z's incursive script in handwriting. It was only
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: when I started work in the nineteen seventies that people
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: began telling me this was an American spelling, and I
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: s endings became standard. About thirty years later, I was
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: asked by colleagues to settle an argument. One of them
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: was Bosnian by birth and always wanted to use correct English.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: She had a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. The
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: other person had told her that iszed e endings were American,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and she countered this by showing that the Oxford English
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Dictionary still used is zed e endings. My answer that
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: both of them were right didn't satisfy either. Paul Dormer,
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Guildford in Surrey, so Paul suggesting that I guess. Helen Clutton,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: whose letter we haven't read, was saying that ised e
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: endings were incorrect in British English and that British English
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: standard is se but he seemed to have proof that
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: in the past is zed e was the kind of
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: standard form. All right, there's another letter as well, in
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: response to Helen Clutten's in The Guardian. This is from
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Andrew Ryan in Manchester, who gives a bit more detail
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: about this. So he wrote this, the ized e suffix
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: is rooted in Latinized Greek and has a pedigree that
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: encompasses Shakespeare, at Milton Caxton and the King James Bible.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: It remains the preferred variation of the Oxford English Dictionary
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: and the Oxford University Press. I recall that it provided
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: a critical plot point for Inspector Mosse in the Ghost
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: in the Machine episode of the Detective TV series, when
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: he recognized that an Oxford man would never use the
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I s suffix and therefore could not be the murderer. Okay,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: so Andrew Ryan goes on to you know, he explains
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: that is zed is actually from Latinized Greek and it
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: has a pedigree or it seems that Shakespeare spelled his
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: words with his ed like that, so did the poet,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Milton Caxton. The King James Bible all show examples of
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the iszed e suffix, and this remains the variation of
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the Oxford English Dictionary. So apparently this is standard in Oxford,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Oxford University Press, Oxford University, the Oxford Dictionary they use
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: is zed as well. So this is interesting. Now I
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: will get the answer to you, but you can see
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: it's not just a simple case of I S in
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: British English is edd in American English, because it seems
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: that there are plenty of people in British English who
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: use is zede, and that includes Shakespeare and the King
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: James Bible, and also all of Oxford University Press and
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the Oxford English Dictionary. Andrew Ryan goes on to explain
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: how he remembers that there was a that this came
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: up in an episode of the TV series Inspector Morse.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Inspector Morse was a really popular detective show that used
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: to be on the TV in the UK, a bit
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: like a sort of Sherlock Holmes thing set in Oxford,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and this is one of the plot points that the
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: detective identified that the suspect in a murder case was
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: not really the murderer because of the way he'd spelled
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: certain words. And this guy was from Oxford. There's no
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: way an Oxford man would spell words I S. So
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: it's not as simple as British English American English is
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: z E. I will give you the details. I mean,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: we could look at the clip from Inspector more so,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: let's have a little look come on them.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Why not to meadows here we'll then look at it.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: I apologize from the bottom of my heart, but I
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: feel it is the only civilized thing to do. As
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: he spelled apologized with an S, civilized another s. What's
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: wrong with that? Well, it's illiterate, that's what The Oxford
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: English Dictionary uses a Z for words that end eyes,
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: and so did Sir Julius here? So he didn't write it?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Whoever did, can't spell desperate? Doesn't that only spell it desperate?
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Lewis not disper So Inspector Morse works out that a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: murder suspect is innocent when he notices that some letters
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: have been faked. In the letters, the words apologize and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: civilized are spelled with an S. But the accused is
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: an Oxford man and would spell it is z I
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: s E. Spellings used to be considered wrong in fact,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: So what's going on? What is the rule exactly should
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: we use is or isz E? And what should you
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: be doing as a learner of English? Because you know
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: this is the point, isn't it. You know you're thinking, well, okay,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: what's what am I supposed to do? Then, Luke, now
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: here's a good clear summary of the whole I s
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: e versus isz e suffix problem, which you didn't even
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: realize was a problem until you started listening to this.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: This is a good clear summary from a website run
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: by a professional proofreading surfit. This. So let's have a
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: look at that. Okay, why not?
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: So?
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: This is from a website called a Remedy of Errors.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: Let me see if I can just make that the
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: right size. Okay, a remedy of errors. The remedy of
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the week is is or isz and this is by
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Hannah Jones from twenty seventeen from the website the Remedy
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: of Errors dot com. So why does it matter? One
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: of the most common errors I come across when proofreading
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: is inconsistency of verbs ending in is orze. If a
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: word is spelled with the is ending on one line
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and the isz e ending a few lines later, this
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: can look very clumsy, meaning sort of like careless. Inconsistency
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: in spelling can distract the reader from the text if
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: they're doubting how something is written, they may begin to
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: doubt what is written too. So proofreaders are people who
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: basically check other people's writing for mistakes and things like that.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: For example, if someone has written a book, that that
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: book would be read by proofreaders who check it in
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of detail for any little errors and things
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: before it could be published. And one of the common
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: errors that apparently this proofreader notices is the inconsistency. So
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: it's not just a question of one being right and
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the other one being wrong. It's more a question of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: always using the same form in your writing. So which
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: is correct in British English, either ending is or iszed
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: e is acceptable. It's simply a matter of preference or
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: referring to a house style. So a house style is
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: a particular style that's considered to be standard in certain institutions.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: For example, the Oxford Style Guide prefers IS spellings, while
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: many other universities prefer ISSE spellings. Neither ending is more
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: correct than the other. What is important is that which
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: whever form you choose, you use it consistently throughout a
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: piece of writing. Now, there are some words that always
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: end in is, of course, it's important to remember. However,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: that some verbs always end I. This reflects the fact
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that these verbs are not formed by adding is or
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: is to a noun, as in the case of verbs
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: such as hospital hospitaliye. Rather, the ise forms part of
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a larger word element, such as cise meaning cutting in
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: X size meaning cutting from in size cutting into or
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: v s meaning seeing, as in rivise meaning look at
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: something again, and supervise meaning look over something. Some of
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the most common words which always end in I S,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: even if the IS's E system is being used include advertised, advise, arise, comprise, compromise, despise, devise, disguise, xcise, exercise, improvise,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: in size, reprise, revise, supervise, surprise, and televise always I S.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: All right, that's probably enough of that then, So I
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: guess the point is that, yeah, I S E or
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: is z both common in British English, depends on sort
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: of which institution you're dealing with, but you should be consistent.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And this is probably a good point to just you know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: to consider across your learning and use of English, is
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: that consistency is really important. And you know that relates
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: to British and American English too, that if you're using
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: a form of English. You know, if you're worried about differences.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter if you're using British English or
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: American English, but you should probably try to be consistent
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and if you're using American English spellings, for example, that
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you always use American English spellings. Using British English spellings,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: you should always use them and stay consistent. I mean,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: another argument is that it's not really a big deal,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and for learners of English, there are probably bigger issues
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to deal with, you know, like just making sure that
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: you're getting the right word and that the grammar is correct,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and that you're clear, and that you're really sort of
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: your English is coherent and cohesive. Those are probably bigger concerns.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: But you know, still these little spelling differences, might you know,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: make you think twice consistency is the thing? Is z
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: E is generally common in American English as well. By
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: the way, Okay, so there you go. I thought that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: that would be an interesting way to explore the difference
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: between I and isz E suffixes. Right, Okay, let's move
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: on to the next bit. So this one is called
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: knowledge is Power. Francis Bacon, now here's a funny little
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: story with a little history lesson about how native speakers
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of English misunderstand their own language. Sometimes we can see
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a picture if you're looking at the PDF, there's a
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: picture of a man called Francis Bacon. So, Francis Bacon
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: was an English philosopher from the late sixteenth and early
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: seventeenth centuries and is considered to be the father of empiricism,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: a philosophical school of thought which forms the basis of
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: modern scientific thinking. But you probably knew that already, didn't you.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Francis Bacon is famous for lots of things, but he's
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: famous for the quote knowledge is power. Have you ever
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: heard that quote? Knowledge is power? This basically means that
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: understanding the world and gaining knowledge through observation and scientific
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: study ultimately gives us power. The more we know, the
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: more we are able to do or control. So knowledge
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: is power in quote marks brackets Francis Bacon. Now, but
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: this line knowledge is power, Francis Bacon has become a meme,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a sort of repeated joke online which sometimes does the
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: rounds I mean it gets It gets passed around, shared
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: on different websites, social media and sites like Reddit, for example.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Have you ever heard about it? Have you seen it?
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen this little meme? Have you read it?
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: It's quite an old one. It's been around for quite
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: a long time now. Sometimes when we hear things in English,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: we can misunderstand them completely, just like in any language,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: especially if we never see those things written down, if
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: we just hear them. Now. This is because, just like
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in many languages, often two different things can sound the same.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: It could be because of homophones, that's different words that
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: sound the same but are actually spelled different and have
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: spelled differently and have different meanings, as we know from
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: so many jokes. So it could be because of homophones,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: or because of connected speech that's where several words connect
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: together and end up sounding like something else.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Of course, these misunderstandings are fairly common with learners of English.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: It has to be said. You must have experienced that
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: where you've heard something and you've understood something completely different
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: to what was actually said because you've been distracted by
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: those you know, bits of connected speech or homophones, double meanings,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: things like that. It's quite common for learning English, as
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I've observed so many times with my students in classrooms
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and stuff. But native speakers also misunderstand their own language
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: quite a lot, with some quite funny consequences. So here's
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the meme from Reddit, and I'm going to read this
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: out to you now. So France, France is bacon. France,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: that's the country is bacon, the food. That's the title
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: of this. So when I was young, my father said
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: to me, knowledge is power, Frances bacon. I understood it
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: as knowledge is power, France is bacon. Like France, the
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: country is bacon, the food. Knowledge is power, France is bacon.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: For more than a decade, I wondered over the meaning
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of the second part and what was the surreal linkage
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: between the two. What's the connection between knowledge is power
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: France is bacon. If I said the quote to someone
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: knowledge is power, France is bacon and nodded knowingly, like
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: this knowledge is power Frances bacon, they they nodded knowingly.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: They're like, yeah, knowledge is power, France is bacon. Yeah,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: they just nodded knowingly. Or someone might say knowledge is
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: power and then I'd finish the quote by saying Frances
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: bacon and they wouldn't look at me like I'd said
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: something very odd, but instead they would just thoughtfully agree,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: like they'd be going, oh, blah blah blah. You know
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: knowledge is power, huh Frances bacon. Yeah, they would just
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: thoughtfully agree. I did ask a teacher what did knowledge
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: is power France's bacon mean and got a full ten
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: minute explanation of the knowledge is power bit, but nothing
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: on France's bacon. When I prompted further explanation by saying
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Frances Bacon in a questioning tone, I just got a yes,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So can you explain what knowledge is power France's bacon means?
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: And it was like, well, knowledge is power. This obviously
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: means that, you know, the more we learn about the world,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: the more we're in a position to control understand things.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: The knowledge allows us to do control and blah blah blah.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So you know, as you can see, knowledge is power
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and Francis bacon, yes, correct. Yeah. At twelve years old,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I didn't have the confidence to press it further. I
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: just accepted it as something I'd never understand. It wasn't
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: until years later I saw it written down that the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: penny dropped. Ah, Francis bacon, not france Is bacon. The
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: penny dropped. So that's a nice expression. Actually, if the
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: penny if you say the penny dropped, that's when you ah,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you kind of ah, you understand something like it's like
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: a coin dropping into a machine. Then the machine works
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the penny dropped. This was an answer by Lard underscored
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Baron to a question on Reddit in twenty eleven. The
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: question was what word or phrase did you totally misunderstand
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: as a child? But anyway, that's quite funny example, isn't it?
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Knowledge is Francis Bacon? Yeah, right now. I've had a
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: few examples of this sort of thing in English. In fact,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: these these things are known as eggcorns, like things phrases
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: that are misunderstood and thought to be something else. So
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: I remember when I was a kid, I must have
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: been about eight seven or eight years old, one of
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: my friends had a birthday party and the birthday party
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: was in McDonald's. Because that's the sort of thing in
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the in the eighties when I was a kid that
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: kids did. Their kids wanted to have their birthday in
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: McDonald's and you could have You could rent the upstairs
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: in the McDonald's and they'd be like, you know, Ronald McDonald,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: who's the creepiest thing ever. Now, as far as I'm concerned.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: But Ronald McDonald would be there, you know, and you'd
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: be able to give you some stickers or something like that,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: and you'd eat your burghers and you'd get some toys.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: And when we went to McDonald's for this birthday, they
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: gave us a tour of the kitchen. How exciting, Like
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a little group of us kids were shown around the
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: kitchen of McDonald's, almost a bit like, okay, so here's
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: where you could work in the future if you don't
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: if you don't do your homework. And at one point
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: they took us to this massive like fridge freezer. It
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: was actually a freezer with a big door like the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: way they have they have these in kitchens. It's not
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: just a freezer that you'd have in your home, which
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: is like the size of a cupboard. This was a
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: massive freezer and you could open the door, open it
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: like a There was a door on the front you
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: could walk inside. And the woman said, yeah, this is
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a this is a walk in freezer, meaning a freezer
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: that you can walk in, a walk in freezer. I
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: thought it was a walking freezer, like a freezer that
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: could walk. I was thinking, wow, a walking freezer. That's cool.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: And I remember looking at the freezer thinking, so where
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: are the legs? I just assumed that there's some sort
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: of legs. This freezer can move around. Great, a walk
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: in freezer. And I remember going home that evening. How
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: was my parents like, how is the trip to McDonald's.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: Oh it was, you know, it's great. Yeah, they've got
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: a walking freezer. They've got a what a walking freezer? No,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: you idiot, it's a walk in freezer. The freezer you
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: can walk in.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Ah.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Right, So at least for that day, I thought they
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: actually had walking freezers in McDonald's. Wow. Another one, which
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: is when I was older, is when I saw the
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: film The Matrix in the cinema when it was originally
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: released in nineteen ninety nine, and I didn't know anything
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: about the film before going in to see it. Watched
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: it obviously they thought it was amazing. Now the the
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the main character played by Keanu Reeves in that film
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: is called Neo, right, n e O Neo, But throughout
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the whole film, I thought his name was Neil, like
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: N E I L. Neil, which is like a really
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: ordinary man's name in England Neil, So I thought it
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: was Neil. I think I thought throughout the whole film
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: his name. His name was Neil, which is not quite
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: as cool as Neo, you know, which is obviously part
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: of the whole world of the Matrix is that everyone's
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: got like a really cool name, Morpheus and Trinity and
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Neil as well. So I mean, if you just if
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I just read out some of the scenes from from
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: the Matrix, for example, if I just read some lines
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: from the script to the to the Matrix, this is
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Morpheus talking to Neo. But if I change it to Neil,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: it's not quite as cool as it. Morpheus is saying
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: I did what I did because I believe we have
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: been brought here for a reason. Neil, you are here
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: to serve a purpose, just as I am here to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: serve mine. I told you I don't believe in fate,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: but I do Kneil, I do, so not quite as
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: cool as it. And another one, you know, obviously you
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: know the song the Macarena, Eh Macarina. I thought it
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: was a girl's name. I thought it was a song
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: about a girl called Emma Correna. I was thinking, who
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: is this Emma Correna exactly? And is she related to
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Anna Karenina in any way em Ma Coreina? Who is
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Emma Correna? I always wondered it wasn't until later I
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: realized it was eh Macarina the King's speech. For a moment,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I thought it was the King's Peach, a story about
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: a king who tried to eat a peach while he
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: was on a horse or something. No, not the King's peach,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: but the King's speech and loads of song lyrics as well.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: And in fact, years ago I did several episodes called
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Misheard Lyrics where I go through something like fifty different
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: song lyrics that could be misinterpreted as something completely different,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: like the classic Jimmy Hendrix excuse me while I kiss
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: the sky? Is he saying kiss the sky? Or kiss
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: this guy? And plenty of other things. So you could
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: go back into the episode archive teacher Luke dot co
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: dot uk slash episodes and search for misheard lyrics. Some
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: very funny examples in there. Now let's move on to
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: the next bit. We've been going for about thirty five minutes,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: so let's move on to the next thing. So, feeling
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit depressed about your English because you haven't
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: been working on it recently, are you beating yourself up
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: because you're not using every waking mode moment of your
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: life to study English. Are you feeling guilty about not
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: applying all of those study tips that you've heard from
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: online polyglots? How about a little motivational boost from Arnold Schwarzenegger.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Now I'm not sure where this first appeared, but it
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: looked like Arnold was doing a Q and A, which
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: is a question and answer or AQA which is all
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: questions aren't answered, any questions answered. Maybe Arnold was doing
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: some question and answer stuff online somewhere and someone asked
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: him this, so it goes like this. I know this
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: is pandering. If you're pandering, it's kind of like you're
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: sort of hoping to get something, or maybe phishing for
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: compliments or phishing for a reassurance or something like that.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: So I know this is pandering. But I've been depressed
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: for months and I haven't hit the gym during that time.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger is known for his physical workouts
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: and being a very motivated bodybuilder. So I've been depressed
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: for months and I haven't hit the gym during that time.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Mister Schwarzenegger, can you please tell me to get off
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: my lazy ass and hit the gym. I swear to
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: everything I hold deer that I will snap out of
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: it and go. And then Governor Schwarzenegger, as he was
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: at the time, replied, now, I'm not going to do
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: a full Arnold Schwarzenegger impression in reading out his reply.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: One reason for that is that I actually I can't.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Really I can do a bit of a Schwarzenegger impression,
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: but I can't just say anything in a Schwarzenegger voice
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: because if I try and speak just normally, I always
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: end up sounding like Werner Herzog, the German film director.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: So I'm not going to try and do. The only
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: things I can say as Arnold Schwarzenegger are basically, you know,
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: come out, come on, you can do it, you can
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: do it, Come on and come on, let's get out
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: of here. And of course as well, so loo, come on,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: get to the chopper. You could do it, right, That's
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: more or less it. But I can't do the rest
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: of it. So I can't do like, I'm not going
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: to be that hard on you. Please don't be that
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: hard on yourself. Woo. I'll just read it out normally, okay,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: So the guy is saying, please, Arnold, please just tell
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: me to get off my ass and hit the gym.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: He needs motivation, and Schwarzenegger says, I'm not going to
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: be that hard on you. Please don't be that hard
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: on yourself. We all go through challenges, we all go
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: through failure. Sometimes life is a workout. But the key
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: thing is you get up, Just move a little, roll
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: out of bed and do some pushups, or go for
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: a walk. I could say that his voice, do some
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: push ups, or go for our walk, gol for our walk.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Just do something, one step at a time. I hope
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: you feel better and get back to the gym. But
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: don't beat yourself up because that's just useless talk. It
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't get you closer to the gym. And don't be
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: afraid to ask for help. Good luck. By the way
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: to beat yourself up is to criticize yourself, to self
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: criticize a lot. Literally to beat someone up, I suppose literally. Well, normally,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the meaning you've beat someone up is to physically hurt someone,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: like kick and punch someone a lot so that they're
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: really badly injured. That's to beat someone up. But if
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: you beat yourself up, it means that you kind of
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: really criticize yourself and sort of like your self talk
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: is very abusive and negative, and say like, oh, I'm
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: so bad, I'm such terrible, I'm such a terrible English learner. Eh,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: don't beat yourself up. So it's pretty good advice, you know.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Schwarzenegger is basically saying, don't worry it. We all go
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: through these challenges. The main thing is that you shouldn't
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: be too hard on yourself. Don't beat yourself up. We
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: all go through failure sometimes. You know, all you need
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: to do is just move a little bit, just do
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: a little bit of exercise. It doesn't have to be
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: the whole workout. Just do a little bit. Don't beat
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: yourself up though it doesn't really help. Okay, Now we
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: can apply this to learning English. Studying or practicing English
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: is a bit like going to the gym. It's something
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you need to do regularly. It's something you need to
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: kind of exercise, you know, like learning your English ability
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: is like a muscle that you have to exercise. Now,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: we know that there are a lot of things we
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: could be doing. You know, we could be working as
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: hard as possible using all of the different techniques that
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: you might have been shown. You know, all the different
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the teachers and polyglots and stuff who have all these
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: different methods and techniques and things. We know that there
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: are loads of things we could be doing, but it
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: feels like climbing a mountain sometimes, so we don't do anything,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and then we feel guilty. And I'm speaking from experience,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: because not only am I an English teacher, I'm also
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: a French learner, a pretty bad one. Because I live
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: in France. I get away with it most of the time.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I have my excuses, like, for example, this morning, I
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: ordered a coffee in a cafe, a takeaway in a
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: in a nice boulongerie not far from here. Wasn't a cafe.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: I went in and I said, in French, bonjours a
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: cafe poor a porte avec panochocola, bessie, which means hello,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I'd like like an Americano coffee to take away, please,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: and a pano chocola, which is a kind of chocolate
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: pastry thing. So boola poor pot play avec a panochocola.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: And he went He just replied in English, and he said,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: and what in English? So failure, I mean, he didn't help.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: First of all, he didn't understand Avekano Schokola, which I'm
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: pretty sure I said pretty much correctly. But not only that,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: he just instantly switched to English and just went and
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: what And I said, Pano Schokola and he said, you
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: want to pay by card? I was just like God.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't help when that happens. But anyway, I
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: know what it's like when you feel like you should
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: be working harder on your language learning. But here are
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: some things based on what Schwarzenegger said about going to
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: the gym. So it doesn't have to be one hundred
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: percent or nothing. Right, It doesn't have to be one
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: hundred percent or nothing. Sometimes we don't want to try
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: because we're afraid that we'll fail. But don't worry. You
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: don't have to be perfect. You just have to be
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: doing something and stay in the game. Right. Fear of
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: failure sometimes means people don't achieve anything right because people
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: feel that they have to do one hundred percent, but
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: this is hard, and so they do zero percent. Yeah,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: but anything is better than nothing. Just do a little
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: bit that's better than nothing, and don't beat yourself up.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: It's okay. Another point, Every little helps You don't have
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: to climb a mountain every day. Just take little steps
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: and do it regularly, and in time you'll have made
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of progress. Another one is the idea that
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: perfect is the enemy of good right, or the enemy
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: of good enough. That people think I need to be perfect.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I've got to be perfect, and and it's kind of
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: all or nothing. And because there's this pressure to be perfect,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: people often don't make an effort. They don't try it
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: because they're too scared that it's impossible to be perfect,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: and as a result, they don't reach this other level,
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: which is considered to be just good enough, because they're
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: thinking either I've got to be perfect or nothing. Now
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: you don't have to be perfect. You just have to
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: be good enough. You don't have to get everything right.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: Another thing is a Winston Churchill quote, if you're going
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: through hell, keep going, which is quite a good one
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: to remember during those times when you're feeling very depressed
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: and you're not motivated. We all feel like that. I
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be surprised if perhaps you started listening to this
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: episode feeling a bit like that. Is that you If
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: that's you, leave a comment in the comment section, how
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: did you feel before you started listening to this, did
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: you feel a little bit depressed about your learning of English?
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: Were you feeling even a little bit guilty about not
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: applying yourself to it in the same way, or did
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: you even feel just low, just like really low, like
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: everything's impossible and you just feel kind of like you're
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: not good enough and you're just simply depressed. Now, we
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: all go through those feelings of just feeling like it's
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: a bit hopeless. Okay, that's normal. So if you're experiencing hell,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: if you feel like you're going through hell, keep going,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: you see, don't stop, keep going, Just keep it going. Okay. Now,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: you might not see the results. You might not see
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the results happening instantly. We don't always get instant gratification
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: from the things that we do. Right, you might be
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: feeling like everything's fruitless and hopeless. Keep going, keep your
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: momentum going, keep practicing, just keep it up. Okay, just
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: keep moving because if you're going through hell, keep going.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Eventually you'll get to the other side. Okay, don't stop.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Keep moving. Even if you feel like you're not doing
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: very well, keep moving. The progress might be happening under
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: the surface and will reveal itself to you later. You
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: have to kind of trust this process of language work
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: and keep going even if you're not seeing the results
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: that you want. Sometimes there's a lot of unconscious stuff
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: going on with learning English, just like any language, a
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: lot of it is sort of subconscious. A lot of
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: the time, you'll be having experiences, listening to a lot
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: of podcasts, doing some studying and stuff like that, and
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: it's all feeding something within you, and it's like an
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: investment for the future. It's not always instantly noticeable, but
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: then it kind of starts to take effect a bit later.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: There's you know, there are theories that say that, you know,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: your brain needs a lot of time to process a
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: lot of the language learning that you do, you know,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: and that a lot of it's arguably a subconscious thing
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: of just your brains just sort of like processing your experiences,
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: processing all the input of language that you're getting, and
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: it sort of pays off a bit later. So trust
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: the process, trust yourself, keep going, even if you're not
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: seeing the results that you want instantly. If you feel
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: that you need to be perfect, you might never do anything.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: So don't just always aim for perfection. Not that there's
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: anything wrong with that, But don't let perfection stop you
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: from basically just being good enough. Starting is often the
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: hardest part, right starting something new, that's often the hardest part.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: If you can get over that hurdle, if you can
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: get the ball rolling, you just got to keep it going.
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: A little bit goes a long way, one step at
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: a time. Come on, you could do it. Come on? Well, okay,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: and the next bit here in my list is a
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: letter from Kurt Vonnegut. This is probably will this be
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the last thing in the episode? We'll see We're getting
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: close to between forty five and fifty minute. It's into
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the episode. Now I'm aiming for an hour for this episode. Anyway,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: let's read this letter from Kurt Vonnegut. Do you know
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: Kurt Vonnegut? Now, this is nice this letter. Kurt Vonnegut
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: is an American author who wrote satirical and humorous novels
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: in the postwar period, especially in the nineteen sixties. He's
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite authors. Slaughter House Five is one
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: of his books. It's one of his well known books.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: He's written plenty of others as well. He wrote plenty
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: of others. Now, let me give you the whole story. Basically.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, a few years ago now,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Kurt Vonnegut, who was eighty four years old at the time,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: wrote a lovely letter to a group of high school students.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: I think they'd written to him. Let's have a look
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: at this to get the whole story. I'm reading this
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: now from a website called highexistence dot com. This story
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: was written by Jordan Bates August last year. It says
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: this make your soul grow eighty four year old Kurt
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: Vonnegut's wonderful letter to a group of high school students.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: So in two thousand and six, a group of students
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: at Xavier High School in New York City were given
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: an interesting assignment to write their favorite authors. Write to
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: their favorite authors. In American English that you just write someone.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: In British English, you write to someone. So anyway, the
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: assignment was to write to their favorite authors and try
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: to persuade them to visit the school. That's a good
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: exercise writing to your favorite author to try to persuade
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: them to come to the school. That's a good exercise
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: because it forces the kids to write in a persuasive way. Plus,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: writing to your favorite author is going to be quite
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: a motivating task, I would say, good idea. So five
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: students opted to write to none other than Kurt Vonnegut,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: the inimitable author of numerous hilarious, mind bending, darkly satirical
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: sci fi classics such as Slaughterhouse Five and Kat's Cradle.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Wiley Old Kurt Wiley means kind of clever, witty, smart,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Wiley Old Kurt was the only author to reply to
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the high school students. Although he opted, he chose not
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: to visit the school, noting that he no longer makes
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: public appearances because he now resembles nothing so much as
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: an iguana, you know, being eighty four years old, he
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: looks like an old lizard, so he doesn't like making
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: public appearances anymore. But he did take time to write
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the student's a marvelous letter. So here's the letter from
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Kurt Vonnegut. Let me read it to you, right. We're
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: going to read the transcription because the original letters a
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: bit difficult to see. I thank you for your friendly letters.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: You sure know how to cheer up a really old
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: geezer in his sunset years, meaning you you really know
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: how to make an old man in the last years
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: of his life happy. How to cheer up a really
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: old geezer in his sunset years. I don't make public
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: appearances anymore because I now resemble nothing so much as
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: an iguana. What I had to say to you, moreover
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: would not take long to wit. To wit basically means
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: specifically this right to wit. Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: no matter how well or badly, Not to get money
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: inside you, to make your soul grow seriously, I mean,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: starting right now, do art, and do it for the
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: of Mss Lockwood and give it to her. Dance home
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: after school and sing in the shower, and on and on.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend your count Dracula.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Here's an assignment for tonight, and I hope Mss Lockwood
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: will flunk you if you don't do it. Flunk you.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: It's sort of American slang meaning fail you. If you flunk,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: you fail in a test or something. So he says,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I hope Miss Lockwood Lockwood will flunk you if you
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: don't do this. Write a six line poem about anything
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: but rhymed. Okay, that the poem has to rhyme six lines,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: and it can be about anything at all, but it
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: has to rhyme. No fair tennis without a net, no
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: fair tennis without a net meaning to you know this.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: A game always has to have some sort of limitation
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: or challenge in it. In this case, it's to make
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the lines of the poem rhyme. Make it as good
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: as you possibly can, but don't tell anybody what you're doing.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or as lockwood. Okay,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: tear it up into teeny weenie pieces. So rip it right,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: rip it up into teeny weenie pieces, and discard them
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: into widely separated trash receptacles. So, after you've written your
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: poem that you've really tried to make good, rip it
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: into pieces and take those pieces and put them into
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: various different rubbish bins or trash cans. Okay, you will
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: find that you've already been gloriously rewarded for your poem.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: You have experienced becoming learned a lot more about what's
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: inside you, and you have made your soul grow. God
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: bless you all. Kurt Vonnegut, If you appreciated this, please
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: pass it on. Okay, So that's actually that's actually quite
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: inspiring and heartwarming, I think. So let me just remix
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: that slightly here at the end of this episode. But
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: for learning English. Okay, here's what I want you to say.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: Here's what I want you to do. This is your assignment.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: In fact, now what you could do is you could
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: do the Kurt Vonnegut assignment and do a six line
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: poem about anything. Make it, try and make it good,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: make it rhyme, and then never share it with anyone
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: if you like. Simply the act of doing it is
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: its own reward. Now you could, if you want, share
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: your poem in the comment section of this episode be
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: my guest. But another thing you could do is this,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: just write something in English. Of course, anything at all,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: even if nobody reads it. It's good to practice putting
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: your thoughts, feelings, and experiences into words. Write a poem
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: if you like, but there's not even any pressure to
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: do that. Just write something today. Now Here are some ideas.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: You could write a diary in which you describe what
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: you did and how you felt. Just practice expressing yourself
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: in English regularly. Why not start writing a diary in English?
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: Write about things that happened in that day and a
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: few things about how you felt. Try and do it regularly.
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: Imagine if you did that, maybe every day, no it
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: doesn't have to be every day, but regularly for a year.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: How to what extent would you find your voice in English?
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: And how much would you practice expressing your ideas, thoughts,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: feelings and descriptions into words in English. It would really
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: really help. The other thing you can do is you
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: don't even have to write it down. You can just
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: think it in your head. You can just spend any
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: time of the day and just sit there and think
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: and just describe what's happened that day, what did you do,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: how do you feel about it? What are you going
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: to do? How are you feeling about that? In your
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: head or you write it down? Okay. Another idea, write
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: a story, even if it's crap. Just start with a
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: premise and make it up as you go along. It's
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: fun and also I promise that you will be sur
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: surprisingly pleased with the result. Just put absolutely no expectations
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: on yourself. So it could be like write a story
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: about a guy who gets lost in a train station.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: You know, a guy who takes a wrong who somehow
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: ends up on the wrong plane and goes to a
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: different destination to where he planned to go. Just write
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: a little story about what happens, no expectations. You will
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: be surprisingly pleased with the result. Predict I've done that
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: before as an English teacher. I've had to just write
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: stories because I needed to give examples. These days, we
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: have chat GBT that does everything for us. But trust me,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: simply the act of trying to do it is worth
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: is worth it for its own rewards, and it's terrifically
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: good for your English. Another thing, write a letter to
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: someone you respect, telling them why you respect them. You
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: don't even have to publish it. You don't even I mean,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: you don't even have to send it. If you don't
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: want to write an email to yourself and then reply
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: to it, you could do that quite regularly. Have a
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: whole email conversation with yourself. Write yourself an email and
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: then reply to your own email and keep it going.
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: Just write something in English. Then consider doing it every
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: day and imagine the results. It would be very batter
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: official to your English, and also by expressing yourself, maybe
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: even turning it into art in some way, it's good
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: for your soul. It will help your soul grow, just
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: like Kurt Vonnegut said. Okay, I feel like this is
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: the natural ending for this episode food for thought, I hope,
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: and the end of Bits and Bob's Part one. When
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: will part two of this come along? Soon? Soon enough?
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I think it'll turn up in your podcast feeds soon
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: enough when I do it. I don't think it's going
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: to be the next episode, actually, because I think the
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: next one, when is it? It's going to be Halloween soon.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: It's going to be Halloween. So in a couple of
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: episodes time, it'll be the end of October, and I've
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: got a Halloween story episode planned. And maybe I'll do
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Bits and Bobs too for the next episode, or maybe
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: I'll do something else I've got. I wanted to do
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: an episode with some jokes in it because that's a
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: lot of fun. So anyway, Bits and Bob's two will
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: turn up in your podcast feed at some point. But
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode and it gave you
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: some inspirations, some motivation, that you learned a thing or two.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: And you know, consider what I said about writing something
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: in English on a regular basis. It could be a
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: really good idea. I look forward to reading your comments
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: in the comments section. Tell your friends about Luke's English
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: podcast if you care about them, or maybe just keep
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: it secret. I don't know. Maybe you've decided I don't
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: want to tell anyone else about this. This is just
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: this is just my thing. Fair enough. Otherwise, you could,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: you know, drop a like, drop a comment, subscribe to
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: the show wherever you get your podcasts, and if you
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: feel moved to do so, consider writing a review somewhere
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: like iTunes. That would be nice and it would really
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: help the podcast as well. Well. Thank you so much
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: for listening, and I will speak to you next time,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: but for now, it's time to say goodbye, bye bye.
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: Boe boo boo