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You're listening to Luke's English Podcast.
Hello, listeners.
How are you doing?
Hope you're doing fine.
Brand new episode time.
It's a brand new episode.
Unless it's not a brand new episode, unless you are in the future listening to this.
You've gone back into the episode archive, scrolled back and you found this one.
Maybe you're way into the future.
You're picking through the remains of of our post-apocalyptic society and you've discovered a hard drive with all these recordings on it.
Maybe you're listening to this thousands of years into the future.
You're an evolved human that's evolved into what?
I don't know, some sort of cyborg.
I don't know.
And you've discovered this.
And what is this old ancient record of human communication from The 21st century.
Let's listen to it.
Yeah well, this is going to help you to understand how humans did this thing in the past called learning a language.
That's right before technology came along and made it completely unnecessary for us to do this language learning thing.
Before AI took over, the world destroyed all of humanity, except for those rich, rich people who controlled the AI.
Before.
AI came along and destroyed everything and also made language learning and most of human endeavour completely redundant.
Yeah, we used to do this thing called language learning.
So, okay, this is a strange introduction.
I didn't expect to start talking about a post-apocalyptic AI-driven future wasteland.
But I'm doing it now, so I have to just carry on.
Okay, I'm going to carry on.
Right, so this episode, hello, hello, hello.
This is episode what?
850, I understand.
850, unless I've changed the number.
Let's say it's episode 850.
And this one is an interview with a guest.
The guest has written a really interesting book, a book which is full of stories about, Stories about the author's experiences of learning English, and each story ends with a conclusion about how to learn a language.
And it's very interesting and there's an interesting twist.
I'm not going to go into describing the book anymore because you'll hear about it from the author himself later, as we hear the actual interview.
But in this introduction, I want to ask you to consider your learning of English, right?
So how's your learning of English going?
Where are you with your learning of English?
What have you discovered in terms of what works and what doesn't work?
I mean, have you worked that out?
Have you kind of got a sense of your own personal method for doing this?
Have you tried different approaches?
Obviously, you've decided to listen to Luke's English podcast, which is clearly the The ultimate way to learn a language.
I know I'm joking.
Was it obvious that there was an ironic tone of voice there?
I don't know.
But you've chosen to listen to this podcast, which is, I think, a good step.
I mean, it's far better than just doing nothing.
I mean, you could be sitting there just flicking peanuts into a paper cup, couldn't you?
I mean, maybe you're doing that as well as listening to this, which is fine, but maybe some of you out there are like what shall I do?
Shall I listen to this podcast, or shall I just flick some peanuts into a paper cup and listen to nothing except the sound of the peanuts flying through the air?
If you are that guy, then that's definitely not going to help you learn a language.
So, well done.
You chose to listen to the podcast instead of exclusively flicking the peanuts.
So, definitely...
You know, if it's a question of listening to this show or listening to nothing, then this is definitely going to be 100 more effective than the first option there.
Anyway, you and your learning of English, what about your experiences of it?
Have you worked out what works for you?
I just want you to consider that.
Because learning a language is full of choices, isn't it?
It is.
It's a question of different choices.
What are you going to do?
Are you going to, for example, flick peanuts into a cup and do nothing?
Or are you going to listen to a podcast for learners of English?
And there are many other choices that you face when you're learning a language.
For example, should you take language classes in a language school?
Should you sign up to language classes in a language school?
Or should you just be independent and and do it yourself without putting yourself in a classroom and kind of giving the teacher the responsibility?
Should you do it yourself and be independent?
Or should you study grammar and study vocabulary and study phonology and stuff?
Should you be studying the language or should you just listen and read and try to speak and socialise with people and let the language learning happen sort of naturally in some sort of magical language learning process, right?
Should you start speaking English straight away?
Should you start speaking and using it straight away and probably make loads of mistakes and stuff?
Or should you study a lot first?
You know, do lots of studying in a kind of controlled environment and then when you actually feel ready, when you feel like you've got the right level of control, then actually start using the language.
Another choice you might have to make is when you are speaking English.
What about your accent, your pronunciation?
Should you try to sound like a native speaker?
Should you try to sound like a British person or an American person or an Australian person or whatever it is?
Should that be your focus on sounding like a native speaker?
Or should you just not really worry about that too much, not worry about having an accent like a native speaker and instead embrace having your own accent, which probably tells people where you come from as well?
When you're reading or listening to English, should you look up all the new words that you find.
When you find them.
So, for example, if you're reading a book, or reading an article or something and you discover certain new words, should you look up all of those new words in a dictionary?
Should you stop and check the words in a dictionary, or should you just carry on reading and not worry too much about checking every single word and just kind of learn vocabulary unconsciously by focusing on just understanding the general meaning?
Should you worry about making mistakes?
Should you try your best to completely banish errors from your English completely and focus on producing flawless English.
Like, be harsh on yourself and try to really... focus on getting those errors out of your English?
Or should you relax a bit and give yourself a break and not worry about making mistakes when you use English?
Just focus on being fluent and making human connections.
Should you take English exams to prove your level?
Should you enrol on exam preparation classes and then take a Cambridge exam?
Or should you just live in the real world and let that be the real test of your English and don't let some institution judge your English based on their criteria?
Just use English and just see what your level is like, you know, test it in the real world.
Should you know that there is one single, correct method for learning English and use only that, search for this one single method and only use that and avoid the other methods because they might actually harm your English.
So should you go on a search for this one single perfect method for improving your English or should you just explore and try everything because ultimately there's no single correct way to do this?
Should you learn English from native speakers only, or should you let other non-native speakers guide you, because they have valuable wisdom about English which they've learned from experience?
So let them show you the way.
Or should you just focus on learning with native speakers, because perhaps they speak the correct version of English?
Should you move to an English speaking country to become immersed in English?
Or should you save your money and save your time and stay where you are and immerse yourself in English at home?
Should you take detailed vocabulary notes and write other written records when you are learning English?
Or should you just not really worry about writing everything down when you learn?
Should you switch on the subtitles when you watch TV or films in English, because they help you to notice language and to connect spoken and written English.
Or should you watch things without the subtitles on because there are no subtitles in real life?
And should you listen to the audio version of Luke's English podcast or should you watch the video versions?
So you can see learning a language, learning English is full of these choices.
And what do you think about those things?
What do you think about all of those different choices?
What do you reckon?
And is it possible?
Is it possible that in fact, in each case here there is no black and white binary choice, right and wrong in most of these cases?
That, in fact, it's possible for every single thing I just mentioned to be the right way to learn English, even if each thing I've just mentioned seems to contradict another point.
It's possible that, in fact, all of those things can be good.
That's kind of the idea behind the book that Fabio, the author of the book, has written.
And that is what we're going to explore Amongst other things, we're also going to get to know Fabio.
I'm going to find out about him, ask him about his experiences of learning English.
But let's keep that idea in mind that, in fact, learning a language is not a question of finding the right choice in a series of binary decisions where one is right and one is wrong.
That, in fact, it might be possible for every single thing you do to be beneficial in your learning of a language, and that it's largely a question of making sure that you're doing a lot of things and that you maintain a certain mindset while doing it right.
So, with those thoughts in mind, let's now start the interview.
Let's meet my guest and i'll speak to you again on the other end of this conversation.
By the way, this wonderful introduction that you're listening to is only available for the audio episode, the audio version.
Anyway, let's listen to the interview.
I'll speak to you again at the end for a little bit.
OK, but now let's get started.
And here we go.
Fabio, hello.
I'm going to try and pronounce your full name at this moment.
Fabio Cerpelloni.
Did I pronounce it correctly?
Perfect.
Oh, really?
Cerpelloni, yes.
You pronounced it correctly with a British accent, so it's good.
How do you feel when you hear your name being pronounced by English speakers?
I feel part of a British community.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah?
Really?
No, no, that's not true.
No, because sometimes I don't even know how to pronounce my surname when I have to introduce myself.
Because do you want the Italian pronunciation or the English pronunciation?
So sometimes I say Serpelloni, which doesn't, you know, I don't identify with that.
Cerpelloni, that's the Italian pronunciation. right pronunciation, but I don't care that much.
Yeah, it just doesn't really matter that much, does it?
Yeah, we shouldn't really be bothered by these things too much.
There's just like all these different versions of you.
There's like the version when you're speaking to English people, English speakers.
There's the version when you're speaking to Italian people.
Yeah, so it's kind of similar with my name when I speak to people from around the world.
There's like different versions of me.
There's Luc, there's Luc in France.
Yeah.
There's Luke in Japan.
I don't know, in Italy now, thinking about it.
Luke.
Luke.
What about your surname?
Ah, Thompson.
Thompson.
In France, Thompson.
Thompson.
Luke Thompson.
You don't seem to like it.
No, I'm fine with it.
I'm fine with it.
No, it's just, I don't know, I like to make fun of my French hosts in France.
You know, it's kind of like normal.
And French, I find in France, French people are fine with that.
You know, they're fine with sort of, you know, you're making fun of them.
For some reason, they quite like it.
And, yeah, in Japan, Luke Thompson.
Not Thompson, but Luke Thompson.
So, you know, not too different.
Yeah.
Anyway, Fabio, yeah, nice to speak to you.
We've never actually met before.
This is the first time that we've spoken.
Exactly.
I discovered you.
I can't remember when, but I think it was through martin martin, johnson.
Um, i listened to one of your podcast episodes together and i couldn't stop laughing really um, that's how i got to discover you.
Yeah um, how did you discover?
No, you didn't discover me, i made you discover me.
I knew about you already before you contacted me, as i was aware, i'd felt your presence in the.
I felt just, i felt a disturbance in the force.
What is that?
I feel something.
It's Fabio.
It's Fabio, but we don't know how to pronounce his surname.
Hmm, okay.
I felt a tremor in the force.
No, I mean I was aware of you because you know you've done work or you've done podcasts with other people that I know including, as you said, Martin Johnston from Rock and Roll English.
Also Zdenek Lucas from Zdenek's podcast.
Craig Whelan, I understand, from Le Mansion de l'Inglaise. the he's based in spain katie ortega from the chat box cara leopold leo listening daniel goodson my fluent podcast christian saunders kangaroo english so you've you've kind of i'm i'm basically very late to the game here in terms of like you know fabio i'm like everyone's like oh have you spoken to fabio yet no i'm talking to him on fridays like i spoke to him last thursday it's like what about you luke huh what I'm not that popular.
I've known about you for a while.
I've known about you for a while.
I think the first time was I heard you speaking to Daniel Goodson on his podcast, talking about stories basically.
I'm stealing all your guests.
So every time I see you know I go to your YouTube channel.
I say okay, this he Luke, interviewed this guy.
Okay, I'm going to ask him if he wants to come up on my show.
I won't actually ask Luke.
I'm just going to kind of make my way around in this kind of I'm going to orbit Luke for a while before finally crashing into him.
Like some sort of asteroid.
So, finally, I hit you.
Finally, Fabio, it's nice to be talking to you.
So for this episode, the main aim, and I do have an aim that I'm attempting to get to here.
The main aim is to ask you about the book that you've written.
It's basically a book of true stories about how you have mastered English.
And I understand it's separating into chapters, one story in each chapter.
And the thing that I find Well, one of the things I find very interesting about the book is that it has a sort of a twist to it, which is that Well, we'll get to the twist in a moment right.
But Fabio, before we get to your book and the interesting things that are in it, I have some kind of quick questions and you can give me short answers to these questions if you like.
This is basically background context.
Okay.
Okay.
So, Fabio, do you consider English to be your second language?
Yes.
Okay.
Totally.
Do you have any others?
I mean, you obviously got a first language which we have worked out now is Italian, but do you have any other languages in there too?
No.
Zero languages.
Okay.
I only speak English and Italian.
English and Italian.
Which one do you speak more these days, in fact?
Italian.
But I write mainly in English.
Well, only in English, actually.
I only write in English.
I actually forgot how to write in Italian.
I forgot the punctuation rules.
So, because...
I would say I'm an Italian speaker, but English writer at the moment.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's good.
Is that not a little confusing?
It is.
I mean, you know the brain is, I don't know how it's divided, but sometimes, you know, one part of the brain collapses onto the other.
The Italian one collapses onto the English one.
So sometimes I get confused.
I think you have the same problem.
You know, anyone who's bilingual, I think, you know, you keep forgetting words.
Sometimes, when I speak to my girlfriend, I have to use English terms because they are more.
You know they're quick.
Or I watch stuff in English and then I don't know how to explain what I watched in Italian, because all the English words come to my mind.
Yeah.
You seem to be managing it pretty well, I have to say.
So, okay, next question.
Well, where are you from?
You're from Italy.
Do you live in Italy now?
Yeah, I live in Italy.
But I lived in Australia, New Zealand and London for a total of six years.
And I came back in 2017.
Okay.
Yeah, I started teaching in New Zealand. when I got my CELTA, the certificate.
And before coming back to New Zealand, to Italy, I travelled six months in Asia, best time of my life there.
And then I started teaching at the British Council Milan.
Okay, teaching English, yeah.
English, yeah.
Qualifications, you mentioned the CELTA.
Celta, Delta, and I'm doing a master's degree in language education.
I've actually, I've almost finished.
I need to write, I only need to write a 15,000 word dissertation.
And how's that 15,000 word dissertation coming along?
How many words have you written?
Zero.
Yeah, really?
Zero.
Yeah, I haven't decided what to focus in on yet.
I know that it's going to be on writing because, as I said, I love writing and I write mainly in English.
So I think I want to help non-native English speakers write in English.
So I want to focus in on that.
Mm-hmm.
I don't know the topic.
It might be feedback, giving feedback.
It might be challenges that students have when writing, these kind of things.
And it's not going to be fun, I think.
Why?
Because you have to do a lot of research.
You have to read academic papers.
So it's not like writing a blog post or a book like I did last year.
But still, I think I'll be learning a lot about writing.
That wasn't a short answer.
Sorry.
It's all right.
No, it's okay.
There are no rules here.
Okay.
All right.
So CELTA, DELTA, master's degree, qualified English teacher.
You've learned English as a second language.
Did you learn it as an adult?
Yeah, in my 20s.
Well, I started in Italy in elementary high school but, as many Italians will know, classes were not that interesting.
Um, i mean, because we don't speak.
Basically we don't speak in english classes, we only do grammar exercises, and it's still.
It's still true.
Like now.
I have students in um in a university and they are a a2, b1 and they always say the same thing.
We studied english in school, but we didn't learn it because it was all.
You know, the present, perfect all the rules, study the rules, then you have to present the rules, but you never speak.
That's the problem.
It's the same in France and so many other countries, of course.
Why do you think this is?
Why is it that sort of school language classes are all sort of paper-based, lots of grammar and stuff.
Why is that, do you think?
I think maybe because it's the easiest thing to teach grammar, right?
It's like you present the rule there are facts, because basically there are facts and I find that schools are good at teaching facts but not so much skills, you know.
Okay, now you know the rule.
Let's have a conversation and let's use the rules, basically.
I think it's because of this.
It's easy to teach grammar.
So it's easy to make a book about grammar and vocabulary and vocabulary also.
Yeah.
I don't know.
What do you think?
I think, yeah, I agree.
I think it's probably a question of practicality.
Yeah.
And, but you know, I think of I just picture myself as a teacher in a classroom at a comprehensive school or something you know.
Let's say they're all 12 years old, 13 years old.
And there's how many kids do you reckon in the class?
In Italy?
Yeah, just, yeah, in Italy.
More than 25.
More than 25.
So let's say it's 30 kids, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, and they're 12.
And they don't really see the value of learning English.
It's perhaps not the most engaging or it's not their favourite subject.
Some of them it will be.
But anyway, it's difficult as the teacher to manage a room of 30 12-year-olds and to do it in a second language.
It's just, in terms of practicality, really difficult.
And control is so important.
Obviously, what we expect from teachers is to be inspiring, like in the movies you know, like Michelle Pfeiffer or Robin Williams or something you know.
But in reality, that's just that's nonsense, isn't it?
Really?
I mean, you know, teachers every single day have to are as inspiring as they possibly can be.
And then, you know, 10 minutes later, it's just back to the same old thing of like, put that away.
Stop doing that.
Don't touch him, you know.
So it's really hard to develop the right conditions in which those skills, those English communication speaking skills, can actually flourish.
And instead, it's more like just, OK, open your book, page 12.
And we're going to do this.
We do this exercise, then this, this, this measurable results test at the end of the week, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know.
And they don't get to choose, I think, teachers in public schools.
They are told what to do.
So you have to do this by the end of the year.
This is the syllabus.
And you can't really divert from that.
Yes.
Divert.
Sounds all right to me.
Yeah.
It's like we're going this way.
Yeah.
We're doing present perfect with a test at the end of the week.
Divert.
Quick, turn left into talking about pets.
In English.
No, you're not allowed to do that, you know.
So I think teachers are in a way also victims of the system.
And they get blamed as well all the time.
Like you know, speaking to I mean, you know, most of the time I'm speaking to French people learning English these days, but I've you know I've talked to people from all over the world.
But most of the time it's like...
I get the same old stories.
Like you know, French people say oh, we're very bad at English, which is not really true actually.
And French people can be excellent at English in many ways.
But they, you know, because they can't, they don't pronounce TH sounds like I do.
They hang their head in shame, you know.
Oh, we have a terrible accent.
It's a bit ironic there that I made fun of the accent while also trying to support them.
I don't know.
It's complicated.
I'm sorry.
I don't mean to make fun of French people.
It's just sort of like... But I live here and I'm married to one of them, you know.
But... So in support of French people... What am I saying?
So...
In my experience, French people will say, oh, you know, our English isn't very good in France.
You know, we're not as good as the Germans, you know, obviously, which makes them feel very bad.
And they say, oh, and I say, why is that?
Why do you think that is?
And they say, oh, it's because we had terrible teachers at school.
It's always the teachers that get the blame.
You know, it's like these poor teachers, you know, they're working really hard.
It's not just because of the teachers.
There are more complicated reasons for it.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
But you kind of like.
So those experiences, though in the classroom, where you're like doing present perfect and present perfect is for an action that started in the past and continues now, but also for life experiences.
And we use it with for and since and blah, blah, blah.
And there's present perfect continuous, which is just really complicated, really confuses everything like oh, never mind, I just will, I'll never use it, you know?
Um uh, so you're doing that, and then you leave school.
So those things don't you do?
You think that they helped at all?
Or was it completely useless?
Or I think when I moved to London in 2011 and I was a lower, maybe intermediate, learner so I was a b1 speaker of english and i was already obsessed with grammar, of course, because you know, 20 years in school not 20, but 10 years in school before you know the only thing that i did was studying grammar.
So i thought that english was grammar, so rules.
But then in london, and then i then um, and this is what i say also in my book i then realized that english was um, It was a language, not a set of rules.
And the more I realized that I was speaking it, the more I realized that oh, actually people understand me, the more I got motivated to speak it and the more I wanted to improve it.
I think I had a solid foundation of grammar.
School helped me with that.
But in a way, it was not very good in terms of self-consciousness.
So I was always not afraid of making mistakes, but I was always thinking about the sentences that came out of my mouth.
So is this correct?
I use the present perfect.
Did I use it correctly?
Should I have used this?
Should I have used that?
I also analyzed the sentences coming out of other people's mouth.
So I always listened to the grammar of the language.
I don't know if that was a good thing.
Well, in my book, I say that that was really good.
But in a way because we haven't talked about the book yet.
But the opposite of that is that of course, you feel the pressure of being correct.
So it's a double-edged sword. sword sword using an idiom here which i'm not good at him at idioms so well yeah you know that one that one's just exactly right for this it's a double-edged sword and which kind of talk you know that It expresses the idea that language learning is a double-edged sword, that there's always two sides to it.
And this is what I was talking about when I referred to your book having an interesting twist to it.
So listeners, the twist is that in Fabio's book, each chapter explains essentially how to learn English, or how Fabio, how you learned English.
And at the end of each chapter, it says this is how... What's the line at the end of each chapter?
This is how to learn a language.
Right.
But what's the twist then?
The twist is that in the next chapter, you read a story about how I learned English, which tells you how to learn a language, but it's the opposite, the complete opposite of what you read before.
So each chapter contradicts the next one.
So in one chapter I say, you must study grammar.
How can you not study grammar?
Because English is a language.
It's got grammar.
So when I hear YouTubers say, learn English without studying grammar ever, you know, Why?
It's a language.
So grammar is important.
Um.
But in the next chapter I say um, don't worry about the grammar.
You know, language is not just grammar.
Language is communication.
Language is who you are, actually.
And don't think language is just a set of rules.
Make music.
The chapter is called Make Music.
So when you are in the real world, forget about the present perfect, the whatever, you know.
Focus on making music, which is It's an analogy with making music, because I also I was a drummer many years ago.
And I see that there's a connection between playing music and speaking a language.
So when you learn how to play an instrument you might want to learn.
You know you want to improve your technique.
So you sit there in your room and you study and you do, I don't know, okay, I don't know.
Scales.
Scales, okay, for one hour.
And that is the equivalent of doing one hour of present perfect exercises.
You know, you stay there and you focus on one thing only.
But then when you're in a concert, when you're playing with your band, you're not there thinking oh, is this the right scale.
When you're in a conversation, why are you thinking about is this the right thing?
Is the present perfect correct here?
So, yeah.
I don't know.
Is it clear?
Absolutely.
Rambling as well.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I've infected you with my rambling.
No, it's absolutely clear.
And so, yeah, I love that idea.
I love what you've done, which is to basically give sets of advice for language learning, but each piece of advice seems to contradict the one that came before it.
And I think this does somehow get to the truth of of what it means to learn a language, just as you've been saying that there is no one single way that works every time.
It's a sort of multifaceted thing, and you just have to be prepared to kind of...
First of all, always keep an open mind.
And if one thing doesn't work, you kind of stay open to trying other things and you just keep moving forwards, always moving.
And then at the same time, be willing to try all sorts of different things.
And the more you do, the more you... put yourself out there, the more progress you can make.
Rather than looking for one single dogmatic rule that applies to absolutely everything, it's more just trying to push the boundaries in every single direction all the time.
Exactly.
I wrote this book because when I'm on YouTube, when I'm reading stuff on the internet, a lot of teachers, again teachers.
We're blaming them again.
YouTubers, polyglots.
Every time I see one of their videos, I think.
But the opposite of this is also true.
So, what you're saying is correct.
So for example, keep a vocabulary notebook.
That's one common tip.
Or an app, you know, study vocabulary using an app.
But the opposite of that, like not using a vocabulary notebook.
I think it's also a valid advice, like a valid piece of advice.
Because It didn't work for me.
Like having a vocabulary notebook didn't work for me.
Like I'm not that organized.
Like maybe I started a vocabulary notebook and then I wrote maybe one two, three words and then I forgot.
And then I looked at the words and didn't remember them.
It didn't work for me.
So the opposite of that, don't worry about keeping a vocabulary notebook.
Do whatever, do something else.
Maybe speak the words correctly. allowed and record them.
Um, that's another, you know, it's, it's another tip.
So every time also when they give mindset tips, uh, don't worry about making mistakes.
This is, you know, I agree.
I absolutely agree.
But if you, my girlfriend, for example, is a B2C1 speaker of English.
And, um, She doesn't worry about making mistakes.
She says, I just speak and, you know, if they understand me, most of the time they understand me.
So I'm fine.
But if she wants to improve her English well, I think that it's time to start worrying about mistakes.
So you need to focus on being more accurate.
So maybe you have to listen to this.
Maybe you need to buy a grammar book and read the rules.
And that's what will advance your English.
So don't worry about making mistakes.
It might work for some people in one context, but not for other people.
So there's always the other side of the coin.
Another idiom.
Another idiom.
Yeah.
Ding.
Ding, ding.
There you go.
There's the idiom bell.
It's an interesting idea.
I don't know if that's a good... The idiom bell...
There you go, two idioms.
The other side of the coin, it's a two-edged sword.
Absolutely, yes.
I've met students who have spent so many years studying the language on paper and they're excellent when you give them a task, sort of a grammar task of some kind.
They absolutely nail it.
Every single question is right.
But when it comes to actually opening their mouths and communicating and sort of negotiating a conversation like, for example, they say something and the other person goes what?
What?
You know, or just like they say something and the other person misunderstands and thinks they've said something else and takes the conversation in the other direction.
And that other person is like, they just crumble at that point because they can't manage that.
No, no, no, I meant this.
And sorry, no, I didn't mean that.
You said that.
Sorry, what did you say?
You thought that I said no.
No, I didn't mean that.
No, God, no.
Oh, God, English is ridiculous, isn't it?
Anyway, you know, they can't do that, that sort of stuff.
But there's no...
You can't really account for that sort of interaction with grammar rules.
Exactly, yeah.
So yeah, that kind of student would certainly benefit from the approach of like don't worry about the grammar rules now.
You've put the work in in that regard.
Now it's time to work on perhaps the more complex or indefinable aspects of communication, which is just sort of like going with the flow and trying to connect with the person you're talking to, and listening to them and reading their body language and you know, and breaking the rules of English in order to get your point across.
Yeah.
Whereas, yeah, maybe your girlfriend, did you say?
Yeah.
Your girlfriend might... yeah, maybe a more disciplined approach would benefit her.
And also for a person moving through their journey of language learning.
There'll be moments when it's important to think about the grammar and moments when it's important to just let go of that.
Exactly.
So what about some of the stories in your book then?
These are all personal, true stories of things that have happened to you.
I have a story.
Well, every chapter tells a story.
Hold on a minute.
Sorry, Fabio.
We haven't said the name of the book.
Can you just give us a little pitch?
Can you give us the sales pitch for the book?
Okay.
This is the best book you'll ever buy in your life.
No, it's called Any Language You Want, 18 Conflicting Lessons for a New Kind of Language Learner.
It's how many pages?
80?
No, not 80, 59.
Okay, nice and concise, achievable.
You can read it from start to finish.
Yeah, in basically one hour, maybe one hour and a half.
And it was inspired by this book called Anything You Want by Derek Sivers.
Do you want to know the story of how I...
Of course.
Yeah, we want stories, Fabio.
You're the story guy.
Give us some stories, please.
Okay, I'll give you some stories then.
This book, Anything You Want, 40 Lessons.
So I didn't get creative.
40 Lessons for a New Kind of Entrepreneur.
This is 18 Conflicting Lessons for a New Kind of Language Learner.
So I read this book, which was written by Derek Sivers, an American entrepreneur, the founder of CD Baby, which was the major music distributor in the 90s.
And in each chapter, he tells a story about how he started, grew, and sold his business.
And the stories are really short, like, you know, one page, like this is a story.
Mm-hmm.
And every story tells, like sends a message.
So do this, you know, don't worry about clients.
I don't know.
I'm just making this up.
And when I read this I thought okay, this is.
I could write a similar book on how I learned English.
So in each chapter, I can tell a story of how I learned English.
Then I read this book by Derek Sievers, How to Live.
27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion.
In this book, every story, every chapter tells how to live.
So how to live your life.
But each chapter disagrees with the next.
So in what chapter he tells you, don't worry about the future.
Live in the moment because this is all you've got now.
Focus on doing things today.
Forget about the future.
Next chapter tells you, No, focus on, think long term, you know.
Don't worry about what's gratifying now.
Focus on what might be gratifying in the future.
So build, help your future self.
And when I read this, I thought, okay, I can also write a similar book on how to learn English.
Like one chapter, I tell you how to learn English, but each chapter contradicts the next chapter.
But in this book, there are no stories.
So this is just do this, do that.
He never uses the personal pronoun I, so there are no stories at all.
I started writing how to learn English using this format.
Like how to live.
How to live, how to live.
But it was like too dry.
So I would write sentences like, don't do this.
Focus on that.
Don't worry about this.
And I thought, it's boring.
It looks like it's written by an AI machine.
Then one day I was running.
And when you run, I don't know if you go running.
Do you go running?
I think no.
No, certainly not.
Okay.
I should.
I totally should.
But I live in the middle of Paris, and even walking in this city is a nightmare.
So running, like, it's just no way, not possible.
I take the metro, Fabio.
Oh, good, good.
Yeah, maybe you get ideas.
I don't know.
When I go running, I get ideas, you know, because maybe the brain is, you know, you get the oxygen.
Absolutely, yeah.
I walk.
I do the same thing with walking, and that's, yeah, similar thing.
And I thought, okay, I can write a book where in each chapter I tell you how I learned English.
So I tell stories like in anything you want.
But with this format, with the how to live format.
So each story disagrees with the next.
And that's how I decided to write any language you want.
Now, what was the initial question?
Can't remember, it doesn't matter.
I think it was like just tell us about your book.
I think that's basically what it was.
So we okay, we've got the the, the overall idea of the, the book.
This is great.
18 chapters yeah, are you?
Can you share some of the stories from those 18 chapters?
Okay um, speak like a native.
So in in one chapter, i tell you that you should, that you should keep your accent, not speak like a native.
Keep your accent.
So I remember, like a lot of teachers, I've heard a lot of teachers and this is the story already say don't worry about sounding like a native speaker.
Okay, that's not the aim because, especially for english you, you don't need that, because it's the global language.
You know, everyone speaks it, we all have an accent but um, when i was living in australia, new zealand and london, i wanted a native accent because it was what helped me um, feel connected with, with the community.
So when I was speaking to an Australian guy and I sounded, I didn't sound Australian, to me it was.
It was weird.
Like I want to sound like I don't know if it's a subconscious thing that you want to empathize empathize empathize empathize, um with uh with with, with just the person you're talking to.
Um, So why should I not speak like a native?
Just because you're saying that English is a global language.
Like I am a person with an identity.
I have a cultural background and I might want to change my identity to fit in the community.
Yeah, to accommodate.
Accommodation, to accommodate to the people you, in that particular moment, are identifying with.
Yeah, to empathize, as you said.
So I say, when teachers tell you don't worry about speaking like a native, well you should question that.
You should actually question everything the teachers say to you.
Question that.
If you want to sound like a native, you're free to do it.
You're free to do it.
There's nothing wrong with that.
And in the other chapter, I say, keep your accent.
I can't remember the story, though.
I need to... Yeah, that's all right.
Go into the book.
Yeah, don't worry.
We can edit and stuff.
If you want to read directly from the page, you can.
That's totally fine.
Okay.
Yeah, I can read this story.
So the chapter is Keep Your Accent.
It's 2013.
I'm working as a waiter in Adelaide, Australia.
It's evening time.
A young couple walks into the restaurant and I approach them.
Hi guys, just the two of you?
I say, showing my best Australian accent.
Yes, do you have a table?
The girl asks.
Sure, would you like to sit inside or outside?
We'll sit outside, thanks.
Why are you speaking in English to him?
The guy says in Italian to his girlfriend.
Can't you hear he's Italian?
When he said that, I heard a loud crack.
It was my heart that had broken in two.
Having an Italian accent when speaking English was not okay for me.
I wanted to sound like a native English speaker, and my heart would break every time someone could recognize that I was Italian because of my accent.
But with experience I realized that language is not just a set of skills, sounds and words that you can learn and master.
Language is who you are.
It's like a mirror that reflects your cultural identity.
And your native accent is the unique music that your ancestors composed over years and years of cultural evolution.
Every time you speak any foreign language, the sound of that music will be there.
That melody is you.
So if you're not ashamed of yourself or your culture, why would you want to get rid of this music?
An American once told me I have a British accent.
An Australian colleague says I have a New Zealand accent.
A teacher trainer from New Zealand says I have an Australian accent.
Some of my Italian students love how I speak English because they say I don't have an Italian accent, while others say they can hear clearly that I'm Italian.
I don't care anymore about whether or not I sound like a native speaker of English, and I think you shouldn't worry about that either.
It's almost done.
What does sounding like a native even mean?
For example, if you're learning Portuguese, should you try to sound like a native speaker from Rio de Janeiro or Lisbon?
If you're learning Arabic, should you try to sound Moroccan, Egyptian or Saudi?
Colombian Spanish or Castilian Spanish?
Should you speak Italian with my Milanese accent or have a Sicilian one?
Instead of wasting mental energy worrying about this, keep your own native accent and spend time developing language areas that really matter for communication, such as vocabulary and fluency.
Your accent becomes a problem only if people can't understand what you're saying.
So keep it and be proud of it.
This is how to learn a language.
Great, Fabio.
Thank you.
Yeah, great.
Very insightful.
The next one is speak like a native, but we've already.
We've already covered that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
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Very interesting.
Very interesting indeed.
Yeah, that moment when your heart broke.
Yeah.
That bastard, like he recognised I was Italian.
I was like, okay, I'm going to speak Australian.
You know, hello guys.
Would you like to sit inside or outside?
But apparently I didn't manage to do it.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like when I go into a, you know, a cafe in France.
I went into Pret a Manger just yesterday morning.
You know, just like a place where you get coffee and cakes and stuff.
I worked there.
You work or worked there?
I worked there in London.
Okay, really?
Whereabouts, can I ask?
The busiest places.
Oxford Street.
Yeah.
Bond Street.
Bond Street, yeah.
And... When was that, sorry?
It was 2011.
Yeah, I might have been one of your customers.
So I might have hated you.
Yeah, probably, yeah, probably.
Hi, can I have a cappuccino and a croissant, please?
Cappuccino and a croissant for the idiot. no, you're not allowed to do that.
You know, that, um, customer service is like, they're mad about customers.
Um, they have mystery shoppers coming in and they check everything.
They check the air, the seating area, the.
You know the um how polite the staff members are and uh, how much time um you need to get the coffee.
And the managers are like, I saw so many people cry in those shops.
Oh God, really?
Yeah, I don't know if it's, you know, you get 1 million downloads a week.
So I don't know if I should say this.
Other coffee shops are available, ladies and gentlemen.
Well, I would say, I don't know, to balance this out, my local Prรชt-ร -Manger here in Paris is just wonderful.
And the staff are all very happy.
As a customer.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, well, yeah, I don't know.
No, it's a lovely place.
It's a lovely place.
It's a lovely place.
And people cry all the time, you know.
It doesn't mean it's only there, you know.
Anyway.
So when I go into Pret a Manger here well, when I went in there yesterday morning I went up to the counter.
Bonjour, un espresso avec un pain au chocolat, s'il vous plaรฎt.
And the guy said, to have here or to take away?
In English?
In English.
Oh, okay.
And I was like, to take away... And how did you feel?
How did you feel?
I just felt like...
I don't know, really.
A very brief feeling, but lots of different thoughts all contained in that one feeling.
But it was a combination of, on one hand, a little bit of shame in the sense that OK, obviously my French pronunciation is blatantly like English.
You know, bonjour and cafe espresso avec un pan au chocolate silver plate.
You know, obviously on a silver plate, please.
You know, it's a bit of shame.
It's like, OK, obviously my French is terrible.
You know, that's that's what I thought.
And then another thought was like also a little bit of shame in the sense that I responded in English, because I was just like OK, all right.
You know, that's all it took for my French to crumble, for the motivation for me to continue speaking using French just disappeared instantly.
And I felt like, oh, I should be fighting much harder to learn this language.
And when I say and the guy goes to have here or take away, I have to say you know which is like to have here please, sir.
You know, I should have done that.
But, you know, because that's the Parisian way.
It's like if someone has done something that's even without intending to, has insulted you, you kind of respond in a fairly strict manner, quite formal.
And also maybe a slight little bit of appreciation in the sense that okay, this guy's trying to.
You know, this guy who served me the coffee and who said, who responded to me in English, he has probably learned English at school.
You know, like you Fabio, he had his present perfect lessons and stuff in school.
And plus his teachers and no doubt his parents and the rest of the world, hammered into his head the importance of learning English.
The French don't speak English.
French are the worst at speaking English in Europe.
We've got to speak English more.
You work in Pret-a-Manger.
Pret-a-Manger is an international company.
You've got to speak English.
English, English, English.
And even maybe the customer service the wonderful HR at Pret-a-Mancher you know customer training.
They probably really strongly encourage the staff to switch to English if they think it's you know if they're speaking to a tourist or something, because that's part of the service.
So you know, there was also that in me as well, which is like okay, I appreciate the guys making an effort.
You know, I appreciate that.
Yeah.
I suppose ultimately my feeling there is the fact that I have to fight for my French.
Sometimes you've got to fight for your language, especially if you're an English speaker.
It's very easy for me to cruise through life not learning another language.
Even though I live in France, I can survive without learning French.
This is why my French is kind of stuck at a certain level because I'm B1, is it?
Yeah, maybe B2 on a good day.
Depends on the situation.
If I'm ordering an espresso and a pan of chocolate, yeah, maybe I'm B2.
Because I can say bonjour, you know, bonjour.
I don't know, B1, B2.
I'm not great, not proud, you know, and and and.
So these things like push me into a fairly negative spiral of feedback about my french, where i just something happens and i feel a little bit bad.
It's like an instant reaction to just feel a little bit bad and i know in my heart that i am responsible for pushing the french back into the positive cycle.
Okay, so that's the problem solution.
The solution is to be more proactive and to think positively and to basically be a bit more disciplined and decide right.
I'm going to spend this time per week or every day, practicing my French and to apply all of the knowledge, all of the know-how that I have about learning a language.
Because this is, again, all the other stuff that's piled on top of me.
As a learner of French.
I've got all this stuff all this language learning, advice and knowledge and expertise from being an English teacher.
It's all piled up on top of me, on my shoulders, and every time I fail to follow my own advice, it all crushes me.
You know, which again pushes me into that negative spiral.
So you know, I've said Fabio, I've said many times before that you know my French maybe is not progressing as it should be, but my excuses are improving all the time.
Yeah, I say that all the time.
But maybe, maybe you should let it go.
Yeah, so what?
Like, let go of this goal.
Um, what goal?
I don't even know what my goal is.
To be honest, to improve it just, just.
Yeah, just to stop feeling bad about it, because again, that's another.
That's another thing is that i mean, as you know you've, you've been through this and you've, you've emerged uh, you know, as a much more proficient speaker of a second language than than than me um, and probably spending less time with it as well but um So, as you know, when you live in the country, so I'm also married to a French person.
And so we go to things like her family or we go to dinner parties or parties.
Like a party where it's only French people, scares me to death because I know that I'm going to end up speaking to someone.
They're going to ask me these questions.
The question they're going to ask me is, how long have you been in Paris?
And if it's in, and I've got about five to 10 minutes of French conversation in me, and then, and then I'm done, you know, and then I'm like I need to go away and lie down in a dark room with a cup of tea now, you know like, and let it all reset.
It's like, I'm like an iPhone five that's still being used today.
You know what I mean?
Like the battery is just on 1% all the time.
That's I've got 1% French.
And so I'll chat to someone for about five minutes.
And then eventually they'll say, how long have you been in Paris?
And I just like, Oh God, I don't want to tell them, but I've been here for a decade.
Yeah.
Just say one year.
One year.
Well, your French is great.
And then they'll speak to my wife who's just standing over there.
And then, you know, they'll learn the truth.
I'm like, yeah, I was lying.
I'm lying.
I'm just run screaming from the building.
So the goal is like the goal is almost like this.
It's infinite in the sense that really, what I want to be able to do is to just sort of blend in and be myself as I am in English.
And I'm quite verbose in English.
You know, I've kind of go on and on and on.
Really?
Yeah.
My mouth moves more quickly than my brain.
It's like, you know, my brain is there going, wait a minute, wait a minute.
So I have to just keep talking to let my brain catch up.
And I cannot do that in French.
I just can't be myself in French because I just don't have the articulacy for it.
So in terms of a goal, it's like the goal seems to be so far away of the French I feel I need.
You want to get to that level where your brain is slower than your mouth in French.
Yeah, I suppose so.
Or I want to get to the level where I feel like I'm kind of be myself in French.
Well, if you really want it, then...
Speak French to your wife every day, all day.
I've got a joke about this in my stand-up, which is that I say so.
People say to me Luke, you're married to a French woman.
Why don't you just speak French with her at home?
And I say, well...
The fact is that when I speak French, it's like my intelligence drops significantly.
I'm like Mr. Bean in French.
And that's not what she signed up for when she married me.
She didn't marry Mr. Bean.
Un croissant or une croissant?
That's not what she married.
I'm trying to make the marriage work.
So speaking French to her at home is not necessarily going to work.
Again, another excuse.
Another excuse, Fabio.
Well, if you want to break up one day, you've got the perfect method, you know, to do it.
True.
That's my ejector seat.
That's my eject button.
It's just like I'm going to start speaking French and then she'll just be like I can't do this anymore.
We ended up talking about my French and sort of trying to diagnose my issues with French.
But I guess I was saying that I understand how it feels when, for example, you are speaking your second language and someone sort of smashes your dream by.
You know saying well, he's obviously Italian.
Why are you speaking English to him?
Just use Italian for goodness sake.
Yeah, it's kind of a bit crushing when that happens.
Yeah, also because in Italy we have this thing that you know, we make fun of people, of Italians, who speak English with an Italian accent.
So YouTube is full of those videos of Italian politicians who speak bad English.
Yeah, I think it's a cultural thing as well.
If you want to... like in Italy people judge you.
I don't want to make you know this broad generalization, but normally people notice if you're speaking with an Italian accent and uh, they will say ha ha, ha.
You know they will make fun of you.
Um, so that's also why I didn't want an Italian accent.
Um, Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I can totally understand people's reasons for wanting to speak English like a native, you know, as it were.
You know, I can understand that people want to sort of when they are trying to achieve something, they want to achieve it fully and they decide that that's what they're looking for.
But and also yeah, it is a question of the fact that other people judge you.
Definitely judge you.
And again, talking of the French, that's an issue that French people have too is that they feel very self-conscious about their English because they feel judged by other people.
And, you know, in a sense, like...
French people can't win, because if you speak English really well, then other people will kind of hate you for it because your English is so great.
You know, look at him with his perfect English.
Who does he think he is?
But if you speak English badly with a strong French accent, that's not even badly.
If you just fit into that sort of clichรฉ, And then people will judge you too.
And they'll be like, oh, look at him with his bad English.
So people almost self-defeat, they're self-defeating.
It really depends on the context.
In France.
If you're a French person, learning English in France it can be difficult because you don't want to invite the judgment of your peers.
Whereas if you are outside of France, if you're in the States, if you're a French person living in America, for example, you might feel a lot less self-conscious about speaking English because you don't have other French people sort of listening in and judging you for it.
So, yeah, interesting contexts there.
Do you have any other, what's another story that you can share with us?
Another story, let's see.
Okay, chapter three says plant seeds, which basically I tell a story.
Sure, it's not a story.
It's really an anecdote where I'm listening to a podcast.
I hear a word that I don't know.
And then I realized I have three options.
So one option is to stop the podcast, look up the word in a dictionary, and then keep going.
Another one is to just don't worry about it.
So I just keep listening.
And the third option is to try to guess what the word means without using dictionaries.
And I go for option C, So I learned the word and the message is every time you listen to something, you're listening to something or you're watching a video and there's a, there's a word that you don't understand.
Well, you're a language learner, right?
You want to learn the language.
So stop whatever you're doing.
So stop the podcast, stop the video, stop the movie, use the dictionary and then quickly Plant a seed, which is you know.
It's a way to expand your vocabulary and then move on.
So this is something that you have to do every day when you're watching stuff in the language that you're learning.
It's not just about learning English.
It's any language you want.
So it applies to any language you're learning.
The next chapter, I say, I tell another story.
In the next chapter, I say, okay, the title is Learn Unconsciously.
And I talk about, I say, in 2013, I finished reading The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Luis Zafon.
I think it's great.
It was a 520-page book.
So imagine how many words I came across.
I was an upper-intermediate learner of English, and I was reading a book for native speakers.
No glossary on the side, no language notes, no pictures to help me understand the story.
Just pages and pages filled with words and sentences.
I was familiar with most of them, but I met some words I didn't know and others I partly knew.
And I say that basically I didn't look up any of those words.
Because...
I could understand the main, you know, the gist of the story.
I could understand the general meaning of what I was reading.
You learn also unconsciously.
This is the comprehensible input theory.
Expose yourself to things that you mostly understand and discard everything else.
Don't worry about the technicalities.
Because I'm sure, I say in the book, that...
I learned a lot, a lot of vocabulary.
I reinforced my grammar by reading that book.
I reinforced my spelling, what's it called, the spelling pronunciation relationship of the words.
Learn as if, learn unconsciously.
This is the message.
And this is how to learn a language.
So you can see that This piece of advice could apply to someone, but not to someone else.
Like to some people, but not other people.
So if you're a learner who always you know, you're always there with a dictionary and you can never understand, you can never enjoy fully a story.
Well, then read chapter five and do what I did.
Do what I did with my 50 and 120 word book.
If you're a learner who never stops a story to look up a word and you're complaining because your vocabulary is still too limited, well then read chapter four.
Or three, I can't remember.
So plant seeds, you know, you must do this.
Otherwise, how can you improve?
So both are valid.
I mean, would you agree with this?
Absolutely, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I've tried to come up with sort of analogies or metaphors for this before.
And what I've come up with is that sort of English is a kind of like a huge building, right?
And there are many different ways to get into the building, right?
Do you know what I mean?
So there's like the front entrance and then there's like a side door as well.
So the front entrance might be like the traditional approach, where you study it from the bottom up and you study grammar and you look up words in a dictionary when you don't know what they mean.
And you know, that's how you get the English into the building.
Right.
And, but also there's another entrance as well, which is just to you know, listen or read without checking stuff.
And the English is also going in that way too that somehow our our, our minds or our brains, or you know we, we learn language in all these different ways.
There are many different streams through which English can kind of come into, into us.
And um um yeah, it's.
It's hard to find the right meth metaphor for it all, but uh, I think you've done a really good job with the book.
I love the idea that the chapters contradict each other again.
I've said this before, but I think that's a very good way of demonstrating the seemingly contradictory nature of language learning and the fact that we just have to go with it.
And I would say, at the end here, I would say that...
A lot of it comes down to positive thinking and trying to not... Just keep moving.
Always keep moving and keep positive.
As long as you're engaging with English in all the various ways, the sort of studying it but also just consuming it, using it, speaking it.
As long as you're doing all those things and you try to stay positive and focused and reward yourself if you feel that you've done something well.
But don't be too hard on yourself if you've failed in some way.
Just see it as an opportunity to improve.
You know, the right mindset.
You know, just trying to get the right mindset, but make sure that you are doing things regularly and a variety of things.
Yeah, there's no right method, but you know, I think students are exposed to a lot of marketing and advertise ads that tell them revolutionary method to learn a language or learn English in 30 minutes.
You know, best method to get your fluency in three months.
Yeah.
You know, I wrote this book.
Actually, this is the first paragraph.
I wrote this book to kind of rebel against this.
I use the word rebel in the book, but it's really to kind of rebel.
Yeah.
There's another Star Wars reference there.
I've never seen Star Wars.
No, no, no.
I don't expect you to see Star Wars.
My Star Wars references come in just by accident.
But, you know, I say that now we're talking about Star Wars and being a Star Wars fan.
I say that because actually Fabio, to be honest, I mean, if I was in your position and I'd never seen Star Wars, and then I decided I'd watch it, I'm sure that I would think it was terrible.
I mean like I think I'm a reformed Star Wars fan honestly, because like some of the new Star Wars stuff is just so shit.
Yeah.
Why should I watch Star Wars?
Why?
Give me a good reason, because I've never found one.
I don't know, because you might enjoy it, but I mean, I think it's a bit late now Fabio, to be honest.
I'm too old for that.
Not that you're too old, it's just that you've been Like Star Wars has become a thing in your mind separate from the actual films.
It's like okay, it's like this.
If you've got like uh, if you've never heard a certain band before and all your friends think this band is amazing and everyone you read articles online about how this is the best band in the world, and then you're like, oh well, i'll better check out the best band in the world then, because everyone says it's so brilliant and you listen to it like this isn't the best band in the world, this is rubbish, you know.
You're like um, So when something has been built up so much, then there's no way you're going to have that unique, intimate personal experience with it that you need to become a fan of it.
You know, Revolver was the best Beatles, the best album ever.
And I thought, well, if Rolling Stone says it's the best album ever, I'll listen to it.
And it's like, God, yeah, they're right.
This is the best album in the world ever.
You know, that's not how it works, is it?
Like you discover things in your own personal way.
So that's why I think it's probably too late for you to cease to enjoy Star Wars now, because it's just it's been built up too much.
And there's no way you're going to have your own unique personal experience with it.
Instead, you're just going to be watching it going, what's all the fuss about?
This is not all that great.
The script is terrible.
So I have one more reason not to watch it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
All right.
Look, we sort of got very sidetracked at the end there, away from the stuff.
But we've both probably talked about language learning so much that it gets a bit exhausting, doesn't it after a while?
To be honest, I have nothing more to say about language learning.
Because when I get asked, how can I learn a language?
Look, I
It's all here.
Read this.
I won't get rich because of this because I get a few bucks for each book that I sell.
Read that and it's all there.
I really, I don't have anything.
That's why on my podcast I stopped talking about learning English, because really I don't know what else to say.
It's all written in this book and everything I know, everything I studied.
You know the master's degrees and all the training that I did.
It's all here.
I don't use technical terms like the comprehensible input hypothesis and the technical stuff that we know.
But if you're an expert, like if you're a trained language teacher, you can make those connections with the science of language learning.
So I'm kind of done.
I now want to help in other ways.
Absolutely.
Okay.
Well look, Fabio.
Thank you so much for talking to me and to my audience all about this and for answering my questions and putting up with the sort of rambly nature of this conversation.
Yeah, good.
All right.
Well, okay, so listeners, you can get the book.
Any language you want is the name of the book, the name of the author, Fabio... Lonely?
Lonely.
Chiappelloni.
Perfect, perfect.
Okay, Fabio Chiappelloni, any language you want.
You can get it in all the usual ways.
There's actual physical copies of the book which can be bought and also e-book as well, right?
Yeah, correct.
It's on Amazon.
It's all on major bookstores online.
Okay, fantastic.
Thank you so much, Fabio.
Thank you, Luke.
And I'm looking forward to having you on my podcast.
I was trying to use an idiom I couldn't.
It would have been good to finish with an idiom.
Majestic is very nice, though.
It's a lovely word.
I'm looking forward to that, too.
Listeners, Fabio is going to invite me onto his show as well at some point.
We haven't actually recorded that yet, but at some point you will be able to listen to me talking about stuff.
It's probably going to be stand-up comedy.
I think that's what we're going to talk about.
Not learning English a lot.
No, no, no.
We're going to get away from that.
We're going to talk about doing stand-up, which is a whole other thing entirely.
Imagine this, listeners.
There's an audience of people.
There are maybe 100, maybe 600, maybe 600 depends on the show i'm doing or that you're doing.
If you imagine you're in my place here, there's maybe yeah, let's say 50 people.
They're in there, everyone's talking.
There's a show about to start and there's it's a comedy show, and who's going to be standing up in front of them for 10 minutes to make them laugh?
It's you, that's right.
You've got to go up and you've got to make them laugh every 15 seconds.
There's got to be laughter, and uh, so how do you feel about that?
I need to go to the toilet already.
Yeah, so we're going to talk about that and why someone would choose to do that, and how you do it, what you say and all of the aspects of the psychology, the communication.
Yeah, it's one of my favourite subjects Fabio, but I don't talk about it as much as I would like to.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to that.
Great.
It's already a great start, like what you've just said.
It could be like can you remember what you said and write it down and you can repeat what you said on my show at the beginning of the conversation.
Paint a picture, paint a picture of what it's actually like to do stand up.
Yeah.
Paint a picture.
It's an idiom.
Paint a picture.
Because I'm not literally going to paint a picture, listeners.
It's an idiom.
It's an idiom.
I'm just going to paint a kind of a picture with words, as it were.
Okay.
Great.
Cool.
Cheers, Fabio.
Thank you.
Nice work.
Bye-bye.
Okay, so that was Fabio Ciappoloni.
Very nice to talk to him.
You heard there that we kind of gave a little teaser for the conversation that we had on his podcast, Stoleroid Stories all about stand-up comedy.
You probably heard me mention that at the beginning of the last episode, episode 849.
I mentioned it then.
But yes, if you haven't checked it out, then do check it out.
I hope you listen to it because I think it was a good conversation.
I certainly enjoyed it.
And it was really nice to have Fabio ask me some questions.
I think that he was really interested and...
I think it was a good interview.
And talking about stand-up comedy, it's not something that I do all that much.
I mean, I talk about it sometimes, but I've never really gone fully deeply into the subject.
The episode of Stoleroid Stories is called The Art of Making People Laugh.
And yeah.
So, if you think about it, for almost the same length of time I've been doing this podcast.
I've also been doing stand up comedy, perhaps with less regularity because I've been uploading episodes of this podcast something like every week now for nearly getting on for 15 years.
And in terms of doing stand-up, well, I've probably, on average, done about one show every week.
Maybe a little bit less than that.
But I've done.
I don't know how many shows I've done, how many gigs I've done, how many performances I've done.
But it's, I don't know, hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of stand-up comedy performances.
Some of them in front of tiny little audiences of just a few people, some to medium-sized audiences 50 people, 60 people, 100 people.
And I've done some shows in front of thousands of people.
In fact, a couple of years ago I performed in front of over 2000 people at a big venue, the Grand Rex in Paris.
And I've performed at Casino de Paris and the Batter Clan and other shows like that um, performing with paul taylor.
Admittedly he was the main sort of uh, he was the main act at those shows, but he invited me to perform as well, either to open for him or to be a guest performer on a kind of showcase show.
Anyway, i've performed to all sorts of audiences many times and i've been doing stand-up comedy for nearly 15 years.
So I mean, I still don't think I know everything about it.
I'm still basically still an amateur comedian.
I may be semi-professional because I do comedy on a professional basis in some cases.
Like, for example, I get paid every now and then for some shows.
I've done corporate shows.
For example, I did a show at Google.
The Google headquarters in Paris.
They invited a group of comedians, me included, to perform to their employees.
I did a corporate show at a bank in Paris at the headquarters of BNP Paribas. big French bank.
So I've done corporate shows and these types of shows and that type of show festivals and one man shows and things like that.
I've done all sorts of stand up before but never really talked about it in great depth, about how you do it, how you come up with funny ideas, the attitudes that you have before, during and after a show, the mental discipline and the debates about what the comedians can and can't, should and shouldn't talk about that whole subject of free speech and comedy.
All of those things.
We talk about all sorts of things.
And I would like you to listen to it.
So go and check out Stoleroid Stories wherever you get your podcasts.
And the episode is called The Art of Making People Laugh.
I'll include a link to that episode in the description of this podcast.
And if you check out the episode page on my website, you'll find an embedded player where you can listen to it there.
But you can find Stoleroid Stories wherever you get your podcasts.
So I thank you again to Fabio for his contribution to this episode.
His book is very interesting.
Again, you can find that wherever you buy your books, any language you want by Fabio Ciappoloni.
There's an e-book version which you can get from Amazon, but obviously you can get the book from other places too if you'd rather shop with a different company.
And so, voila, there you go.
What else do I want to say in this ending part?
Not very much.
I think I'll probably cut this fairly short.
Again, a reminder for premium subscribers.
Hopefully you noticed that I published Premium Series 53, all five parts of it.
That was published over the last 10 days.
So parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of P53 are available.
And if you're a premium subscriber with ACAST+, hopefully you've noticed them.
If you are a premium subscriber I've said it before and I'll say it again you must add LEP Premium to a podcast app on your phone.
This is the best way to do it.
The way it works, right, the way LEP Premium works is that you sign up through Acast Plus.
To do that, you can just follow the link in the description of this podcast.
You sign up with Acast Plus and then you get an account on Acast Plus and you can see your subscription to Luke's English Podcast Premium.
It costs 4 a month plus tax, which is like the price of buying me one or two nice coffees or maybe half a pint of beer every month, something like that.
Okay, and then you get access to all the premium episodes I've ever done.
But the way it works is when you sign up to LEP Premium, you get a new podcast feed in your podcast app of choice.
So if you listen to this show on Apple Podcasts, when you sign up to LEP Premium, you actually get a new feed of Luke's English Podcast Plus, right?
Luke's English Podcast Premium.
And that feed contains all of the free episodes with no advertising.
So those automatic adverts that you sometimes hear at the beginning of episodes or the middle of episodes, they get removed.
And also in your new list of episodes, you will find all of the premium episodes in there too.
And you can just scroll back and you'll see them.
Oh, look, there's P52, there's P51, there's P50, P49 and so on.
All of them.
And there's over 150 separate episodes because each series is in multiple parts.
So you can scroll back and find them.
When you find a premium episode, you can listen to it through your podcast app of choice.
You can also, by the way, add Luke's English Podcast Premium to a podcast player on your computer.
You could use iTunes, for example.
And iTunes is available for both Mac and PC, like Windows computers.
And you can listen there.
And so you find the episode show notes for an episode.
Let's say it's P53 part one.
You'd find the episode show notes, which I'm assuming you understand.
You know what that is, right?
That there's text with each episode.
It normally gives you a little summary of what's included in the episode, maybe a few links.
You know, when I say the links are in the show notes, that's what I'm talking about.
So for premium episodes you find the show notes and that's where you'll find the links for the PDFs.
And there are full PDFs available for each premium episode with exercises, transcripts and loads of stuff.
And also you'll find links for video versions of premium episodes too, because these days I do a video version pretty much every single time.
And that's where you can see me and you can see the PDF on the screen at the same time.
OK, premium episodes, I really go into the teaching a lot more.
So there's a lot more explanation of vocabulary, more presentation of language, loads of synonyms, loads of example sentences and tasks for you to do.
Listen and repeat tasks with me, but also memory tasks to help you remember and reuse vocabulary skills.
Right.
So there you go.
LEP Premium.
That's how it works.
Teacherluke.co.uk slash premium info.
That's a good place to go to get more information and to sign up.
All right.
Loads of things that I've just told you about there.
Listening to the episode with Fabio about stand-up comedy on Stoleroid Stories.
Listening to the latest Premium series.
Signing up to LEP Premium as well so you can actually then get access to all those episodes.
Okay, plenty of stuff for you to do.
But in any case, I hope you're having a nice day.
I hope you enjoyed this episode and that you kind of I don't know learned a thing or two or had a realisation, or something like that.
Leave your comments in the comments section wherever you listen to this.
You can do that on my website.
Right, check the episode description, the show notes for this episode.
It'll include a link to the episode page.
You can go there and You'll find stuff that I've talked about, like the stand-up comedy episode with Fabio, and also a comment section at the bottom.
You can leave your comments there, or you can just email me if you want to write to me privately.
Tell me about your learning of English, what you've realised works for you.
I'm always curious to know.
I love to get this feedback, this information from my audience.
It really helps to feed me with extra insights.
It really does.
It really helps to get responses from you.
It helps to educate me as well and make sure that I'm in touch with what's going on on your side of things.
So do get in touch.
You can do it through my website or just email luketeacher at hotmail.com.
Another thing you can do to help the podcast if that's what you would like to do today is to leave a review and a rating for the podcast on iTunes.
Most of you, as far as I can tell, are listening to this using Apple Podcasts.
A lot of people are listening on Spotify.
Other podcast players are available, like I always say, Pocket Casts.
That's my favourite one.
But Apple Podcasts or iTunes whatever it's called these days I think it's probably Apple Podcasts is, I think, the most commonly used platform.
So if you could leave a rating for Luke's English Podcast there and a review, just even a few words.
That would really, really help the podcast, right?
It really helps to promote the show to other people who might be browsing Apple Podcasts looking for podcasts for learners of English.
So, you know, let them know that you enjoy this podcast and that you recommend it, okay?
And you could just give a few words describing how you feel about it and what you like about it as well.
That would really, really, really help.
Because you know those things are super important for making sure the podcast stays relevant, stays visible and is, you know, is discovered by new people all the time.
Also, you could just tell your friends about Luke's English podcast, share it with them, send the link to this episode and just say hey, you might want to listen to this.
This is a show that I really enjoy, and it can really help you with your English and maybe even put a smile on your face, sometimes as well.
So you could do that.
Leave a review and a rating, share the episode or the podcast with your friends, and that would be much appreciated.
Or you could just do nothing if that's what you want to do and just carry on with your life.
By the way, this piece of music that you heard earlier, this track that was playing at the beginning of this ending part, this is called High Flyer, by Special Red Productions, which is one of my brother's musical projects.
So this is High Flyer by Special Red Productions.
And you can get this on Bandcamp.
Just go to specialred.bandcamp.com and you can find three mini albums.
They're really just two track albums.
And these tracks are available for streaming and for download.
Some of them are free.
Some of them you have to pay for.
You can choose how much you pay if you want to get this music and listen to it and download it.
If you want, you can just...
If you want, you can choose to just buy it for about ยฃ1 per track.
And if you do that, that would certainly help my brother out by giving him about ยฃ1.
I think he would get less than that.
But still, you know, he could use that to buy... What?
What can you buy for ยฃ1 these days?
Well, if you bought a few of these tracks in fact if some of you did then he might even be able to go out and buy.
A sandwich.
Imagine that.
If you want my brother to be able to buy a sandwich, then why not invest in some of his music?
And you would get to be able to listen to this whenever you wanted to.
So this one's called High Flyer.
So Special Red Productions is the name that he uses for the sort of instrumental hip hop stuff that he does.
You know, he does different types of music.
He does electronic stuff like techno, he does ambient and then he does this kind of instrumental hip hop under the name Special Red Productions.
This one's called High Flyer, as I said.
This one's called Far Out.
It's just crying out for someone to do some rapping over the top.
That's not going to be me because I can't do that.
I can't rap and freestyle.
I did do a rap once.
There is out there on the internet, on YouTube, there is my, it's like Luke's rap.
I'll let you discover that yourself.
But anyway, I just thought I'd play you some samples of Special Red Productions.
What else have we got here?
This one's called Videotape.
Skip forward a bit.
You get the idea, you get the flavour.
This one's called You're Crazy.
It's true, isn't it?
Because you're crazy.
You are.
You're crazy.
You're crazy for listening to a podcast that's over 90 minutes long.
That's what some people think.
Those people are wrong, those you're not crazy.
It's those other people who are crazy.
We're like what a podcast that's over 90 minutes long.
They're crazy.
Uh, what else?
Hello, this one's called cold fusion.
Nice, so you get the idea, folks.
This track's called.
This one's called Red, which you may have heard at the end of several episodes in the past.
Yes.
It's a smooth groove, folks.
Okay, a little promotion there for Special Red Productions.
A shout out to the work of James Thompson on Bandcamp.
Specialredbandcampcom for your musical needs needs, needs where, first of all, I started talking about People discovering these episodes on a hard drive thousands of years into the future, when the Earth is some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland.
I don't know what people thought.
I don't know.
Sometimes I think, should I leave those sorts of things in, in my introductions?
Someone like my dad would probably say, no, you should remove that because that's just ridiculous.
I can hear the voice of my dad, or someone else maybe, telling me no, don't include that in the introduction.
That's silly.
But then part of me goes no no, I'm going to keep that in because I want the podcast to be distinctive and funny.
Sure, some people are going to be confused by that.
And they might go, huh, I don't understand that.
I'm going to stop.
But then there's other people who...
Maybe appreciate those stupid moments of improvised comedy that happen.
And that's what I want to do.
I want to do that stuff.
I want to do that stuff, you know, to a certain extent.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the episode.
Hope you were entertained by it, but also hope that it informed you in terms of language learning and that you found it useful as well as entertaining.
Thanks for listening.
I'll speak to you again soon.
But for now, it's time to say goodbye.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast.
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