Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another monthly catch -up episode, Q -Lips Community Update, I think is what we're calling it, with Alina as my co -host here.
Alina, how's it going?
Pretty good, thank you.
How are you? I'm doing really well, just enjoying the summer here.
We've had a really back -and -forth summer.
I don't know, we were supposed to have a rainy season earlier in i guess like june but it never came we had this hot crazy uh heat wave instead and it was really really uncomfortable throughout like most of july and then around the end of july like middle to end we had this huge downpour and the rainy season finally came and it's just been rainy for like the last little while but now we're back to heat wave again so we've had this like crazy crazy july here in korea of like heat rain heat and i'm in a heat period right now so uh yeah i'm staying inside with the air conditioner pumped up how about where you
are alina how's it been in ireland it's pretty different we did have a heat wave you know i would put it in air quotes because that was like four days really and i'm only saying heat wave because it was just so so unusual for Ireland.
It was like 25 degrees, and for us, it is very hot.
Because somehow 25 feels like 30.
I don't know how to explain it, wherever we are.
I'm not really a geography expert, or I don't know.
I don't really know how these things work.
A weather expert, yeah.
Yeah, anytime I'm somewhere else and it's the same temperature, it feels cooler for some reason than here as long as the sun of course is shining but it is currently raining and we've had a few days of just like non -stop rain very depressing weather you know windy as well which makes it feel five times as worse you know it's not just like a pleasant drizzle you know and you're just like walking and enjoying it it's actually this like disgusting feeling of rain hitting in the face so yeah what else have you been up to throughout uh july alina any other adventures lectures uh I was thinking just
you know before we uh hit the record button I was like what have I been doing that is worth sharing you know because like you feel like every day is the same just like a groundhog day but um there is one thing I guess that I feel kind of a little bit more excited about uh lately and it's a chess so I took up chess and I know I'm like 31 years old And I just literally learned how to play a couple of months ago.
So somehow, I don't know, it never happened to me.
And I know so many people who play chess and children as well.
It's kind of a thing that kids do.
But somehow, I never got to learn as a child.
So yeah, I thought it could be an interesting thing because I like this kind of stuff.
Things that make you think, strategic kind of games as well.
So yeah, I had a friend of mine teach me here.
He just showed me the ropes and we played.
Of course, he destroyed me the first time we played.
But then I practiced a little bit, playing online.
Not against real people, though, just the computer.
And I actually have to thank Edithke, because I was visiting her in Hungary.
And it was her idea.
She has this very impressive -looking chess set made of glass.
which is kind of funny because all the pieces look very similar um you know it's hard to tell it sounds like black and white you know the normal style it's like uh sort of like more matte and more kind of like transparent glass so that's something that made it more tricky for us as well but anyways we did play one game and i was uh i don't know i really enjoyed it and i managed to to win that game as well to the, you know, obviously Jithki wasn't really happy winning it, but that kind of made me be like, Hmm, should I, you know, try more of this, like playing against real people because it's more
fun, right? It's not like computer, computer usually moves a piece like in a split second, you know, and when you play against a real human, it's like, you can also think, you know, in the meantime and you can kind of watch them and it's kind of fun, you know, you're like, Oh, um I wonder if they see what I'm about to do here so yeah anyways right since then I've played three more games and I won them all and I'm I feel like I'm on fire I don't know wow and now are all of those games over the board that's what we call it when you play like an offline game with somebody in person with a physical
set we call it over the board over the board yeah online is just when you play with an app or play on a website but over the board games like you mentioned you get that that fun psychological element as well because you could see your opponent kind of struggling or trying to hold back their celebration depending on how the game's going and yeah it can be pretty tense and pretty exciting but also really fun over the board so yeah are your games over the board or online, those three recent victories?
Yes, they were all over the board. We do have this like board game meetup here that happens, you know, every now and again, every two weeks, usually.
It's like an expo community.
Most of the time it's people from, you know, all these different countries.
And I would just kind of like, you know, bring a set of chess with me and be like, hey, anybody wants to play?
And there's always somebody.
And actually lately it's been also girls, I don't know who would have thought, you know, I always kind of thought that chess was It was more for guys, for men.
I don't know, for some reason I had this stereotypical idea in my head.
But, yeah, there were some other girls who were willing to play with me.
So that was fun and, you know, all over the board. Do you play with a time limit?
Because if you don't play with a time limit, sometimes people can sit there just crunching different patterns and different strategies, right?
And it can take a really long time.
So when I usually play with my friends, we always set a time limit of like five or 10 minutes per move so that you have to keep the game going forward. How about you?
Do you have a time limit?
Yeah, I don't think I'm there yet.
To be honest, it's all very casual, relaxed, you know, and like we kind of chat as well along, you know, with playing and thinking.
And of course, I could be like, OK, come on, like it's your move now in case somebody is taking their sweet time, you know, and like.
But like so far, it hasn't really been a problem, to be honest. I do know that technically you're supposed to have this like fancy little thing.
You kind of like press the button.
Chess clock. Yeah. Yes.
That's what it's called.
You can download an app.
When I play with my friends over the board, we have an app that's just like a chess clock.
So you make your move and then you tap.
Somebody has to use their smartphone.
So you have to have somebody who volunteers their smartphone to be used as the clock.
But yeah, you don't have to buy the gadget, the actual clock.
You can just use the smartphone app.
I'd recommend it if you want to keep your games shorter and more condensed than just a no limits game.
Yeah, but that puts pressure, I feel like.
I'm not ready for it.
Thank you. We'll see.
It's a good idea. It's a good idea.
When I'm ready. That's awesome.
Awesome. I'm wondering, are you learning like different openings or are you just learning how the pieces move and you're just, you know, freestyling it?
Or are you studying some of the strategies that chess players have developed over the hundreds of years of the game's history?
Yeah, that's a good question.
I think I did start like when I just learned, you know, and obviously, you know, I lost that first game.
I was like, okay, there's something I don't know about you know like how to even start the game because you're like if you have no idea if you have you know no experience at all you you don't really know what the best start looks like so i did watch a few videos on youtube just to kind of you know get an idea of you know like what's behind these first moves right because again you don't know like what what you can do afterwards and why this is a good move and you know why you want to keep your king like somewhere you know so yes i i didn't really go crazy like you know i just watched maybe i don't
know three four five something like this i found a couple of interesting channels though but um yeah it's definitely a good idea i must say like it helped it helped to kind of get this like understanding of you know it's not just a random thing you do right at the very beginning it's already important what you do right oh very important yeah yeah i tried to notice like aha okay so why did they do that and then i see so that also helps just like even playing with other people and seeing what they do as well cool well I'm happy to hear that we have another Q -Lips member of the Q -Lips family maybe
I should say that way member of the Q -Lips family playing chess I of course love the game I don't really play too much these days I go in and out of chess so there will be some times in my life where I I really play often and then sometimes where I don't play as much. And I'm in one of those phases right now where I'm not playing as much, but it's super fun.
It's a great game. I always enjoy it.
And I do get sort of obsessed with it when I get into one of those playing phases.
So yeah, maybe next time I'm into a chess playing phase, then I'll get your chess .com username and we can play online.
That could be cool.
That could be fun. Yeah, it could boost your confidence immediately.
because I'm definitely not as good as you.
I don't know. I'm not very good.
I played chess for a long time.
And yeah, my ELO is what you call your chess rating.
It's never been very high.
I think I peaked around 1500 and I'm probably around 1300, which is like really, really not very good at all.
So yeah, I think just practice for another month or two and you'll be able to beat me, I'm sure.
All right, all right.
anyways uh lena that's enough chess talk for now we should get into the meat and potatoes for this episode the main part of this episode and that is introducing and telling everybody about the august challenge so if you're new here guys and you're wondering about what our monthly challenges at culips are simply put every month we have some kind of english challenge that we run on our Discord server.
And of course, our Discord server is completely free for everyone to join.
It's completely free for everyone to participate in the challenge.
And the challenges, really, they're different from month to month to month.
Sometimes they have a vocabulary focus, sometimes a grammar focus.
Our July challenge was, I thought, one of our best challenges yet.
I really enjoyed It was all about agreeing or disagreeing with a controversial statement.
And I found myself actually getting a little emotional sometimes, Alina, during this challenge, like some people would disagree with what I said, and I'd be like, how dare you disagree with me?
Or somebody would say something that I disagreed with.
And I was like, how, how dare somebody have a different opinion than me?
Like, I don't know, it was really great.
And I enjoyed the conversations.
And I think actually, Alina, this July challenge inspired me for some future Q -Lips episodes as well.
I was like, we can talk about these debates on Q -Lips in future episodes because they were just really, really interesting.
So yeah, amazing July challenge that we just had.
Congratulations to everybody who finished the challenge as well.
But Alina, let's talk about the August challenge.
So what's going to be happening for August?
So yeah, we are going to change things up again.
You know, we did a lot of talking, a lot of sharing, a lot of emotional stuff, which was, you know, fun and great.
But for the next one, we are going to go back to vocabulary focus and study 15 adjectives, which are all featured in the study guides, you know, for our Q -Lips episodes, which is great news because, you know, know i will be sharing all these uh secret files that are only available for the culips members but this time everybody can get access to them and i mean again it's going to be very helpful because all these adjectives you know some of them maybe you already know i mean the learners might already know but um i feel like oftentimes you feel like you're kind of stuck you know using the same
words the same especially with adjectives in my experience i always feel like i'm just i end up repeating the same ones over and over and over all these basic ones so these are not going to be basic adjectives you know you maybe learn at the like beginning of your journey it's going to be more like advanced some of them are kind of slangy like fancy schmancy for example you know something like that it sounds kind of cool fun to say to pronounce even so I feel like with uh you know this kind of way when you focus on just one adjective say you know you think about it you think about how you would use
it maybe share a story something that happened to you or just you You know, you can always make something up, of course.
But I find it's always nicer to apply it to your own experience.
Something that, you know, it just helps you remember better.
But yeah, it's just something to spice up your vocabulary to make it sound, you know, more colorful, right?
Rather than just like using the same adjectives over and over.
And, you know, it will also help you sound more expressive as well, more natural, more like a native speaker.
Because native speakers use these adjectives all the time.
time even when you listen to the QLips episodes you guys and you probably notice we kind of end up you know using these funny words every now and again especially you know the native speakers of course Andrew the other hosts as well so yeah I'm just taking a look at the list now we have 15 adjectives so this is not an everyday challenge guys by the way this will just be happening every second day so every second day there's an adjective that you have to use in your English output somehow.
Like Alina said, you can tell a story, you can make an example sentence, you could leave a voice message and communicate with your speaking if you want.
It's really up to you.
There's a bunch of different ways that you can participate in this challenge and we're open to all of them.
However, I'm looking through the list here and yeah, I think I say some of these adjectives a lot.
Ones like remiss or palpable, low key, super, super like daily adjectives that I use in my everyday speaking.
And I think, Alina, I don't know what your perspective is as someone who's learned English to a very high level.
But sometimes I feel like this with my Korean is that often when you're listening to something, it's easy to ignore like an adjective because it's not always 100 % necessary for understanding like the core meaning of the sentence.
Sometimes you could sort of remove the adjective and still understand the sentence.
And so I feel like they are less noticeable.
Sometimes we can just skip over them.
So I'm thinking that maybe many Q -Lips listeners have actually sort of skipped over these adjectives while they're listening to Q -Lips because they're not always important for understanding the main meaning.
So this will give us a nice chance to circle back and revisit some of the adjectives that if you're a regular Q -Lips listener, you've definitely heard because these have all been in Q -Lips episodes, but maybe you just didn't notice them at that time.
And so taking a step back, seeing how they were used in the original episode, taking a look at their meaning in more detail, and then being productive with our own English and trying to use them in our English speaking or writing or sentence making, I think will help us to learn them even better.
So yeah, I think this will be a great challenge.
Absolutely. Yeah, I agree.
Definitely. Especially if you don't know a word, it's so easy to miss it.
Like your brain wouldn't even register, right?
So it kind of helps to actively pay attention and like look at the word, make sure you get how to use it.
even the pronunciation maybe of some of these could be important.
That's why I would maybe encourage you guys to maybe not every, you know, with every word, every adjective, but like try sending a couple of voice messages just to make sure, especially if you're not sure how to say it, because, you know, that's the best way to, yeah, ensure you're learning the right way.
And I should also say that I participate in the challenges as best I can.
I think there was one month this year that I unfortunately didn't complete when I got super busy, but I'm there on our Discord server all the time.
The app is open on my computer all the time.
And according to my, what do you, not my FaceTime, what do you call it?
Screen time, my screen time app.
I got a notification yesterday on my screen time app that says I spend on average around eight and a half hours sitting at my desk here working on my computer.
and my discord's open the whole time so guys if you're doing this challenge and you're like how do i pronounce this adjective i could really use a native speaker to tell me and show me and let me hear how this adjective is pronounced just you know write that in the monthly challenge chat and i'm happy to record a quick audio file and share it with everybody so that you can hear my pronunciation so yeah that's another option for you guys if you want to hear how it's pronounced.
You can also hear it in the Q -Lips episodes as well, the original ones.
But if you want a clearer, slower version of it, just send a message in the chat, tag my name so I see it, and I'll be happy to record a quick audio file for you.
That's very nice of you, Andrew, to offer that.
I'm sure it's going to be very helpful.
Well, okay. Very good.
Is there anything else that we need to talk about regarding the challenge?
Of course, we'll put the link in the description for this episode, guys.
So if you're not on our Discord server yet, just click the link, go through the steps.
We'll put the steps in the description so it's easy to follow and find and join.
But Alina, anything else that we didn't mention yet about this challenge for August?
One more maybe important thing, especially for some participants, I'm sure, is that if you complete the challenge, that is if you complete every single task you know of every single day of the challenge you will get a certificate which would be like a proof of you know your hard work and efforts put into that challenge so yeah i find that it's like one of the most pleasant moments for me and for everybody who completes the challenge because you know it's like yes i did it it's very encouraging yeah absolutely not only do you get the certificate guys you also get a dm from alina when she sends
you the certificate So it's like a double bonus.
You get a DM from Alina plus the completion certificate so that you can, yeah, it's just nice.
It's like a pat on the back, right?
It feels good to do something and to finish something and to have that sense of achievement.
So yeah, that's awesome.
Exactly. Cool. Well, I'm looking forward to this August challenge.
It will be starting August 2nd is the first day, right?
Yeah. Yeah, August 2nd and going through the whole month.
So guys, yeah, let's do it.
I'm excited. I hope you are as well.
And thanks, Alina, for preparing this month's challenge for us again.
Absolutely. My pleasure.
All right, cool. Well, Alina, I think this will bring us to the end of this episode.
Nice chatting chess with you.
And of course, talking about the challenge.
But yeah, until next month, I guess that'll be it for this community update.
update so yeah have a great august alina and we'll talk to you next month okay thank you see you then all right see you everybody bye
