This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 57, the unsexy truth about learning English.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection, when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
Living in New York, like learning English, seems sexy, but sometimes there are unsexy aspects to it.
Find out how to make sure you commit even when things aren't fun, so that you can enjoy the moments you are working towards in English and in life.
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Hey, Michelle, how you feeling today?
How's life in New York?
I'm feeling good.
I'm feeling good.
I'm excited to be recording today.
Life in New York is good.
I've been exploring some parts of the city.
I love the High Line.
I love going to all my areas.
So it's the High Line.
Yeah.
You know, when I think of life in New York, I think of it seems very sexy, right?
Life in New York seems sexy, maybe because I used to watch the show Sex in the City.
Right.
Right.
But it's very glamorous.
What does that mean when I say life in New York seems sexy?
It's cool.
It's trendy.
It's awesome.
Yeah, it's a different way to say that.
You know, there are unsexy things about New York.
Are there really?
What are they then?
What are they?
I mean, the subway, the trash, the sweating expenses.
Yes, the sweating.
I mean, Lindsay, you lived in New York.
You know, there are a lot of unsexy things, too.
Oh, my gosh.
I have a mental picture of myself walking up and down, walking from one job in the morning to my afternoon job sweating, eating my lunch on the sidewalk.
It's August.
It's hot.
Your bag is heavy.
You're carrying your laptop.
You're running for the train.
There are parts of it that are very unsexy.
Yeah, for sure.
And then, of course, you know, paying the rent.
Right.
It's expensive.
Yeah.
So unsexy is like not exciting, not interesting, not mysterious, just plain and simple.
Exactly.
And so we're talking about this concept of you know unsexy when it comes to learning English, because
You know, you guys see native speakers, you want to be able to talk with them.
You see your big goals and it seems very sexy, very cosmopolitan, very international.
But there are some aspects of it that are unsexy.
But if we're okay with that, then we can really get to the good stuff.
Right, Michelle?
Right.
There are unsexy parts to tons of different things.
I mean like, even like, even if you get your dream job, you know, I mean even like an actress or an actor, like this is something that someone would consider a dream job.
You know, they have to do take after take after take.
Yeah.
You know, shooting scenes and stuff.
And I'm sure that's pretty unsexy.
Like everybody thinks that's like, oh, my gosh, such a sexy job.
But I'm sure there's a lot of things that are unsexy about it.
Oh, for sure.
And I'm sure that you've seen that in New York.
You know, you see all the time you see movie studios set up often in New York and you see, it takes hours and hours and hours of work.
And we as the viewers of the movie, we only see the final scene.
Right. which looks great, right?
But you don't know that there've been 20 takes that have gone into just that one little scene, that one line.
So then that brings us to a quote to inspire our listeners today.
It's a quote by Woody Allen.
And what is that quote?
I think this is so true.
This is so true.
It's 80% of success is showing up.
So what does that mean, showing up?
What he means by that is just doing the work.
And you know this makes me think of artists, because often there's two ways of thinking, that sometimes artists say that they have to be inspired to do their work and need the creative inspiration to arrive.
Otherwise, they can't get the work done.
I don't think that that's I mean.
Maybe that's true for some artists, but I think for most of them it's showing up every day and honing the muscles, the ability for that creativity to show up.
Like you need to set a time to sit down and then it shows up.
Right, right, right.
Just being there, right?
So yeah, it's interesting to think about that.
I mean, guys, so what does this mean for our language learning?
I mean, this is about, you know…
It's the unsexy side, right?
Some of it is just you got to put in the work, right?
You got to study consistently.
You got to study in small chunks, do a little bit every day, right?
We can't expect just to come back to things, like you know, in five years and just be in the same place.
I mean, things like that happen, right?
And then we need to readjust.
But some of it is just doing the work.
Yeah.
I mean, maybe the sexy side in your mind is that international dinner party you're going to go to right.
You're so excited.
You know, everyone's going to be speaking English.
You're going to connect with people, not just native speakers of English, but people from all over the world.
You're going to connect with them in English.
That's the sexy side.
How do we prepare for that?
That's the unsexy side.
That is the showing up.
Then I say, okay, this dinner party is happening in three months.
So I'm going to sit down from 9am to 9.30am and prepare.
That's the secret to enjoying that moment at the end, the dinner party.
Right, right, right.
I love it.
Yeah, just acknowledging that and being like, that's not the sexy side.
But that's what I need to do to get to the sexiness.
You got it.
You got it.
You got it.
This is so good.
I mean, and a good example is you know for All Ears English, we publish four days a week for you guys.
And sometimes it's not easy, right?
It's not always easy, but we keep the vision in mind.
We have fun while we do our work.
We're always laughing on the microphone.
And that's how we're able to keep coming out with new episodes for you guys.
Yeah.
Right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
We are here four days a week and, you know, we're doing it.
Yeah, we're doing it.
So guys, follow All Ears English on the socials.
You know, Michelle, where are we on the socials?
We're all over the place.
Oh, we're on Instagram.
We are on WeChat.
We are on Facebook, Twitter, TikTok.
Yeah, it's so crazy.
Yeah, LinkedIn.
Oh my gosh, we're everywhere.
We're all over the place.
So connect with us wherever you like to connect and make sure you show up for the next episode.
Hit follow on All Ears English so that you get every single episode we publish.
And we are so excited to help you guys move to that advanced level of English.
Okay.
Awesome.
All right, guys, this has been fun.
All right.
Good stuff, Michelle.
I'll talk to you soon.
All right.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to All Ears English and if you believe in connection, not perfection, follow our show wherever you listen to podcasts to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
