Hello and welcome back to the Easy English Podcast.
I'm your host Oliver, and today, as always, we are going to improve our English vocabulary and listening skills.
And today we are exploring a very modern cultural topic, something we call a cultural phenomenon.
And what is this cultural phenomenon?
It is this feeling.
It's 11pm at night, you're watching a TV series, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger.
So I'll explain what that is in a moment.
And the next one starts automatically in five seconds.
And you tell yourself, suddenly, one more, just one more episode.
And suddenly, it's already 3am in the morning.
This is the term binge-watching.
Binge-watching.
We're going to look a little bit at the vocabulary of streaming, the psychology of why we can't stop watching things and, most importantly, how we can turn this habit, this binge watching, into something for learning language.
So stay tuned and we will cover all of these points today.
To start with, I want to say thank you for all of the support the last few episodes.
We have had a great number of listens to start off the new year.
And if you are new to the podcast, make sure that you are following and subscribed.
Let's look now at our key vocabulary for today's episode.
As always, I'm going to read out five pieces of key vocabulary and I'm going to give you their definitions and an example as well.
I want you to listen for these words during today's episode.
The first word is a very key word for the topic and that is BINGE.
BINGE.
And to binge, we're using this as a verb in this case, is to do an activity excessively.
So you're doing it too much or a lot in a short period of time.
So for example, you could have a binge with eating chocolate.
So you're eating lots of chocolate in a short time.
You could have a binge with watching movies or TV shows.
Means watching a lot of these in a short time.
And that's today what we're talking about.
Our second word is cliffhanger.
Cliffhanger.
And a cliffhanger is a dramatic and exciting ending to an episode or a movie that leaves the audience, which is yourself, in suspense.
So it leaves you waiting and wanting to know what happens next.
Our third word today is compulsive.
Compulsive.
What does compulsive mean?
It means something that is resulting from a very strong urge or desire, especially one that you don't want to do.
So sometimes binge watching can feel like a compulsive behavior.
You're doing it, but you feel like you want to stop.
Something else compulsive could be an addiction, for example, like smoking or drinking, that type of thing.
Our fourth word today is spoiler.
Spoiler.
And a spoiler is information or a piece of information that reveals or shows you important plot points, important things about the story, before you're actually watching or consuming them.
So it is ruining or spoiling, and that's why we call it a spoiler, the surprise.
So it's not a surprise whenever you see it.
So often you can see spoilers on the internet before you actually watch an episode or a movie.
Our final word today is subtitle.
Subtitle.
And a subtitle, I am sure you're familiar with this term, subtitles.
These are the captions or the text at the bottom of a movie or a TV show.
They could be in English.
They could be in your language, your native language, but subtitles are very important for learning.
Okay, so let's get into our main episode.
And remember, if you want to support Easy English further and get access to full transcripts as well as flip cards, vocabulary flip cards for each episode, alongside bonus episodes of the Easy English podcast.
There is a back catalogue of, I think, around 50 plus episodes now that are bonus as well.
You can join and become a Patreon member.
To become an Easy English Patreon member, you can check out the link in the description below.
This link is on every episode of the Easy English podcast and you can access it in the description below.
Let's go to our main episode here today.
So before the era or the time of high-speed internet, we had what people call appointment TV.
And many of you listening will remember this time.
If your favorite show was on at any...
8pm on a Thursday evening.
You had to be on your couch watching TV at 8pm on a Thursday or you missed it.
You couldn't watch it again.
You would have to wait for a full week until the next week to then watch the next episode.
Or if you missed the episode, you have to wait for it to replay again.
And by 2026 now.
Well, it's been a while since this has been the case.
Streaming services are the norm.
So they are normal for us.
Like Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, Now Video, HBO, there are so many services.
And they have replaced that wait time and the appointment with the binge.
These services often release full series at once.
All of the episodes that are released in one go of a season or a series.
Key point here, because one set of vocabulary that I notice a lot of English learners get wrong is sometimes this difference between seasons and series.
So a series is the show itself.
For example, The Simpsons is a series.
Game of Thrones is a series.
Most of it was filmed in Northern Ireland by the way.
What else we got?
Stranger Things is a series, but each of these series has seasons in it.
Season one, season two, season three, for example.
These are the seasons, the groups of episodes that release together or in a row.
Then they take a break between seasons and it goes to the next season.
In some languages it can be confusing, because I know in Russian language, for example, the word cereal, like cereal, is the word for season in, or is the word for series rather, in English.
So sometimes people will say, yeah, cereal instead of series.
So I just thought it was important to break those down and the correct words for each.
Okay, so we have this binge watching now.
These TV series are released in full seasons, often released at once.
And writers create almost like these 10-hour movies.
So they're breaking it down into lots of episodes instead of, let's say, 30 episodes that there was before in many old TV shows.
So if you're watching stuff particularly from before 2010, a lot of TV shows had many episodes per season.
Whereas now you notice they're usually around 10, sometimes less, even 6 or 7.
They can be random numbers, but usually not much more than 10 episodes per season.
So why can't we stop?
Why is it so hard to turn off the TV, to turn off a show or a movie?
And it comes down to two main factors, which we've talked about before.
The first is dopamine, that chemical.
The second is narrative gaps.
So when we enjoy a show, our brain first and foremost releases dopamine.
And that's the feel-good chemical.
Streaming platforms use this autoplay feature to keep that going on to the next episode.
So before your brain can say I'm tired or I want to stop, it's already started to play the next episode.
And the next thing really is a psychological phenomenon where our brains remember uncompleted tasks better than completed ones.
And this is what leads to a lot of shows using a cliffhanger.
It creates an uncompleted story in our mind, making it very uncomfortable to, And we don't want to stop until we know what happens.
It's a very human thing.
We want to find out the information or the conclusion of what actually happens.
So we're going to look about how we can use this binge watching, or this desire to binge watch, to our advantage.
Can we actually use it for learning?
Can we make it into a positive thing so that we're not wasting so much time?
In short, the answer is yes.
But first, before that, let's do our listener spotlight.
So I realized that in last week's episode I forgot to ask a question for you to answer for this week's episode.
So I'm going to read a few answers from the episode before, which was about sleep.
So I was asking about, you know, if you've ever dreamt in English, if you have dreams in English.
And as well...
Yeah, really just about your dreams in English and any kind of response on that.
But first, the question for next week is, of course, about binge watching.
Tell me, do you ever binge watch TV shows or movies?
If not, do you binge any other things?
For example, chocolate or sweets, junk food, or any other activity?
Let me know in the comments below.
Let's look at two comments that were answering that question about sleep and dreaming.
So we have Anna Maria.
They said, it is very rare when I remember mine.
I tried to dream in English all week, but I couldn't remember anything either.
That's a very normal experience.
I also, sometimes in life I go through periods of time where I remember my dreams very well.
But there are other times where I struggle to remember anything at all from my dreams.
And it can often be the case when I wake up and it is in my head, but only for a few seconds.
And it very quickly disappears.
I had another comment.
I hope I pronounced this name correctly.
I pronounced this name correctly.
It says, hey, Oliver, I'm Tassio.
I'm listening to you here from Brazil.
I think my dream is to dream in English someday, but I don't have the vocabulary for it yet, although I managed to learn from the class on sleep dreams and the circadian cycle.
Thank you.
You're very welcome.
Keep going.
I'm sure that you will make at some point in your life, at some point in your English learning journey, you will have some dreams in English.
It's very different for everyone.
And, of course, not everyone has such intense dreams, or at the very least, we don't always remember them.
Thank you everyone for your comments on each episode.
It's a great way to practice your English and I love reading each and every one of them.
So again, this week's question I want you to answer for next week is do you binge watch anything?
Let me know.
If not, what do you binge?
Tell me what you binge in the comments below.
I will pick a few of your comments and I will read them out in next week's episode of the Easy English Podcast.
Okay, back to binge watching.
So people often see binge watching as a waste of time.
And to be honest, most of the time, it probably is.
It's great to relax.
It's great to rest.
It's great to...
I enjoy some content, but of course there is a negative side of sometimes consuming too much.
And when we binge watch, I feel like sometimes we feel that we regret it afterwards.
Like we've spent too much time on it.
And I'm sure you can relate to that feeling.
However, there is a right and a wrong way to do it, because for a language learner it can be a great source of language immersion and a great source of English language listening practice.
And we can call this the active binge strategy strategy.
So you are binge watching something, but you have an active process while you do it.
And the first point to do this successfully is a few tips that I would recommend.
The first of these is the same language rule.
I always recommend to watch the English audio and English subtitles.
So we want to use the same language for subtitles as we are listening to.
The reason for this is that it connects the sound of the word with the word that you're reading.
I would say avoid using your native language with subtitles altogether.
I would almost never advise this.
If you find what you're watching is too hard, even with English subtitles.
Watch something easier, but with English subtitles.
When you watch in your own native language, you're going to be reading the translation.
You're going to be having almost two separate dialogues in your head.
Your brain is trying to process the sound of English, but you're also consuming and reading in your head almost your own native language.
And it can become very hard to move away from that.
It takes more time.
So I think it's better to scale the difficulty of the content rather than trying to watch complicated stuff with subtitles in your own language.
The next tip I would recommend is that in your binge watching, try to have a 15 minute deep dive.
If you're watching a series that you're really enjoying during a binge, pick a 15 minute segment to break it up and maybe rewatch it or write down some things that you've learned from it.
It breaks up that binge and it adds some language learning focus to it.
You might not always want to do this, but I guarantee that, even with binge watching, afterwards you will feel like you've done something, that you've learned something a little bit more.
And that binge will feel a little bit better for you.
And the other thing I recommend if you're binge watching stuff is do some genre switching.
It's hard, but the biggest problem with binge watching is you're watching all of the same thing.
If you like a sitcom like Friends or...
I don't know The Office or something particular.
Make sure that you're changing up content every now and again.
Because otherwise, you're getting one type of language.
You're getting one set of colloquialisms or slang and one kind of style of almost sentence structures, the way that the show is written.
So make sure that you're changing it up.
Try to change it up.
And another little extra bonus tip that I recommend even ahead of that subtitle point that I mentioned earlier is, if you are finding it too fast and too difficult, try to lower the speed.
So 0.75.
I know many people do this, but it will help you to not feel so overwhelmed.
It's much better to do that than to have subtitles in your own language.
So to conclude, binge watching is a double-edged sword.
It can lead to burnout and even sleep deprivation if you're not taking care of yourself and you're watching things late into the night.
But it can also be a really fun way to consume and immerse yourself in a lot of English language.
Particularly if you do take a strong interest in a particular show, it can make it a pleasure to consume and learn English.
And, to be honest, I think as English learners, you're quite lucky because there is so much content in English.
We're talking about, you know whether it's from the UK or the US, or Hollywood, or even foreign films made in English as well.
There is just so much content, so many iconic series and movies and genres.
You really do have a great pick of stuff.
But just make sure that you're using it to your advantage, that you're watching these things in a way that you can learn from them as well as enjoy them.
So thank you for joining me today.
I'm going to go and maybe not watch five episodes of a new show, or maybe I will.
We will see.
I need some time to relax this weekend, I think.
Thank you very much for your support.
Thank you so much for watching.
And remember, if you want to support further, you can become an Easy English Patreon member.
I hope to see you soon and I hope to see your comment and answer to this week's listener spotlight.
Tell me what you binge.
See you soon.
Goodbye.
