Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English podcast.
How are you doing today?
I hope you're doing fine.
So here we go with a brand new episode of my podcast, which I've been doing now for, is it 15 and a half years since 2009, except no substitutes, ladies and gentlemen.
Here it is. 900 and something.
Episode 900 and I don't know now, actually, but it'll be written in the title of the episode.
907? 908? I'm not sure.
This is Bits and Bobs slash Questions of English part two.
Listener comments, we'll be focusing on some listener comments in this one.
There's a PDF for this, which you can get by clicking the link in the episode description, in the show notes.
You can just directly download the episode PDF from there.
Otherwise you'll find it on my website on the page for this episode.
So let's have a look at the PDF.
I'm going to start reading from that right now.
Here we go. Okay. So have you heard of part one of this series?
This, this series is where I'm going through various bits and pieces or bits and bobs, as we say in British English, which I have saved over the years for episodes of this podcast.
These bits and bobs include various questions of English and other things, which should be of interest to you, my audience of learners of English around the world.
In part two here, we're going to focus on various listener comments and questions, which I've received over the years relating to various episodes from the archives of Luke's English podcast.
And by the way, talking of the archives of Luke's English podcast, if you are watching this episode on YouTube, hello.
Something that you should perhaps realise or notice is that not all of the episodes of Luke's English podcast are available on YouTube.
The first 10, 15, 20 episodes are available, and then I think there's a big gap and then they continue from something like episode four or five hundred, something like that.
So you might have noticed that you can't find all of the episodes in the archive on YouTube, but they're all available on my website, teacherluke .co .uk slash episodes.
And you can find all of the episodes there still freely available.
Or if you listen to Luke's English podcast in a podcast app on your phone, you'll find that the list is complete.
All the episodes are in the list as well there.
Okay. So if you're looking for all of the missing episodes, you'll find them on my website or you'll just find them in your feed, in your podcast app of choice, including Spotify, Apple podcasts, pocket casts and so on.
So let me continue the PDF then.
So the following bits of listener correspondence have been sitting in a Google Drive folder for years.
So these are little comments and emails and other things that I received from listeners quite a long time ago.
And I probably screenshotted them or copy pasted them and saved them in a Google document or in a Google folder in my Google Drive thinking I'll, I'll respond to those later.
And then here we are years after the fact, going through them in this episode.
So I discovered them recently and decided finally to talk about them on the podcast.
So the first thing is this getting a teffel certificate.
That's the first bit of correspondence.
It's entitled getting a teffel certificate, teffel that means teaching English as a foreign language.
So let me read the message.
It goes like this. Dear Luke, I'm one of the listeners who stay in the shadows, meaning a ninja.
In fact, I've been starting the day with your effective voice since I came across your podcast, which was two months ago.
I have an effective voice.
It's my job. My voice does the job.
It's effective and effective voice.
That's nice. Thank you.
You've been listening to this since you came across my podcast two months ago.
Okay. Thanks from the bottom of my heart for every single word you save for us.
You're welcome. I'm an English language teacher and I work at a secondary school.
So this, this will be an English language teacher from, I guess, another country, right?
Someone who speaks English as a second language, but works as an English language teacher, like so many people around the world, right?
So many people in the world work as teachers, even though English isn't their first language, which is very impressive.
However, I'm not happy with the country I live in.
So I'm planning to work abroad.
I need your help with teffel certifications.
I'm sure I have to get one in order to teach abroad, teach English abroad, but which is the best certificate and where can I start?
As a location, Europe is the most convenient one, but which country and which institution?
Any idea about cheaper courses, which are still good?
Hope you can reply, best wishes, Zu -Haul.
Not Zu -Haul. Zu -Haul.
Okay. Right. So basically advice for those of you out there interested in getting a teaching qualification to teach English abroad.
Yes. So here's my response.
So there are, there are various teffel qualifications out there, but the industry standard entry level teaching qualifications are the CELTA, that's run by Cambridge, CELTA, that's certificate in English language teaching to adults.
That's the CELTA, run by Cambridge.
And then there's the CERT -TESOL, certificate in teaching English as a second or other language, the CERT -TESOL run by Trinity College London.
Okay. So those are the two industry standard ones CELTA and CERT -TESOL.
CELTA is I think probably the more established one, or at least the more well known one, but CERT -TESOL is equivalent in value as far as I'm aware.
So here's some details.
So first of all, let's look at the Cambridge certificate in English language teaching to adults.
Basically, to take the CELTA, you don't need to go abroad to take the course and get the qualification.
You can do it online, or you can go to various places.
If we're talking about Europe, you can go to various different centers in Europe, different institutions in order to train and get your CELTA qualification.
So let's have a look at the Cambridge website, which is definitely the place to start.
So cambridginglish .org slash teaching dash English.
The link is too complicated.
Basically, you Google CELTA Cambridge English and follow the results.
But otherwise, there's a link on the PDF.
Let's have a look at what it says.
So we end up on the Cambridge English website CELTA, the gold standard teaching qualification.
CELTA from Cambridge is a qualification for teaching English as a foreign language.
It's the most widely recognized English teaching qualification in the world, and the most often requested by employers.
Three out of four English language teaching jobs require a CELTA qualification.
So basically, if you want to start teaching English somewhere in the world, having a CELTA is going to be a really useful qualification to have.
So this is probably the one I would recommend.
And in fact, this is the one that I took many, many years ago.
When did I do my CELTA?
In 2001, I took my CELTA, and that's when I started my English teaching journey.
So CELTA, yeah. Basically, it focuses on developing practical techniques and includes face -to -face or online teaching practice with groups of learners, which will give you the confidence you need to begin teaching in as little as four weeks.
So it is possible to take the course in just four weeks, but that's a very intensive four weeks.
So who is CELTA for?
It's for new teachers with no experience starting their career, or teachers with some experience who want to develop their skills.
It's for first language English speakers, which is another way to say native English speakers, and non -first language speakers.
So that's also non -native speakers.
So anyone with, I guess, a reasonable level of English, a good level of English, can take this.
It's not just exclusive to native speakers.
And as we know, non -native speakers or people who are non -first language speakers represent an extremely important part of the English teaching industry, and also the English teaching world in the sense that often around the world, it's non -native English speakers who work as teachers and who help others
to really be able to use English effectively in various ways.
So basically, you'd go onto the website and you can just find a center, so there's a button you can click where you can actually look in different countries, different parts of the world, you will find different centers, different institutions where you can train and take the exams and assessments to
get the qualification.
You can basically do it face to face in a center, like I said, or you can do it online, or you can do a combination of the two.
And there are various links and things on the Cambridge website that you can follow.
120 hours of study, which can be crammed into four weeks, or you can do it at a less intensive rate.
So basically, follow the link that I've given you, or just Google CELTA Cambridge English, and you can find out more, and you can take the necessary steps to either book yourself onto a course in an actual teaching center somewhere, or you can do it online.
So that's what you could do.
And similarly, the Trinity certificate in English, in teaching English to speakers of other languages, or the CERT -TSOL, there's a link for that as well.
And you could, you know, get stuck into that and find out what you can find out.
Okay, so there you go, I would recommend the CELTA myself, that's the one I took, but CERT -TSOL is another option, either somewhere, local to you, or online.
Okay, alright, nice one.
Next thing, my next bit is a voice message from Kazakhstan.
Hello to listeners in Kazakhstan.
It's not often that I mentioned Kazakhstan on this podcast.
I met a Lepster from Kazakhstan once at a Lepster meetup.
I can't remember his name, sorry, but he was very good at magic tricks.
He gave me a badge.
Here it is, still got it on the shelf.
He gave me a little pin badge with a kind of, with a crest from, with a Kazakhstan kind of coat of arms or crest on it.
Very nice. Anyway, if you're from Kazakhstan, hello, I got a voice recording from Kazakhstan, this is a long time ago now, but I thought that I would finally play it.
So here's a message from Kazakhstan.
Here we go. Am I going to be able to play this to you?
Here it is. Listen to this, folks.
Hello, Luke, my name is Zerine and I'm from Kazakhstan Astana.
I'm one of those ninjas that you mentioned in your Rambling podcast.
I really enjoy listening to your podcasts and I'm very thankful to you for this hard job.
And as well, my son Aaron, who's only three years old, he's also listening to your podcast and he would like to tell you something.
Hi, Luke. How are you?
How are you today? Oh, Aaron, I think it's his name and his mum, Zerine from Kazakhstan.
Aaron, who's three years old, or at least he was when he recorded this message.
Hello, Luke, how are you?
I'm fine, Aaron, if you're still listening, I'm absolutely fine.
Thanks today. Having a pretty good day.
It's the, it's a bit grey and cloudy.
It's grey and cloudy today, but it's not raining.
And I had a milkshake earlier.
It was really good.
It was a vanilla milkshake with coffee in it.
So I'm feeling pretty good.
Thanks. Thanks for asking.
And actually, Aaron, he may be, how old are you now, Aaron?
You might be like, I think this, this was sent to me in, when was it?
2017 or something like that.
So Aaron, you might be nearly 10 years old now.
And if you're still listening to this podcast, then no doubt, your English is just tip top brilliant.
Are you still listening?
Are you still out there?
If you are, get in touch.
I wonder, I wonder if he is moved on to much more interesting things.
Okay, let's move on to the next bit of correspondence.
And this is about R sounds in English, R sounds, R sounds.
Okay, like the letter R, which is R sounds, okay.
And we're going to be looking at linking R sounds or intrusive R sounds, which is actually something that I covered in full detail, in full comprehensive detail in the most recent as as I speak to you now, the most recent premium series I did P 63 part two is full of stuff about connected speech, including
plenty of details about R sounds and the way in which in British English we pronounce the letter R in words and also how the R sound seems to come into words or sentences when you least expect it.
So this is a message from Raphael who said, Hi, I'm a listener from Spain.
I've heard about, I've heard your episode about tricky pronunciation issues.
That's one I did with Paul Taylor.
And here's one I often wonder about and Raphael has spelled wonder with an A but it should be wonder with an O.
Okay, here's one I often wonder about.
Wonder, wonder with an O means think about wonder A means walk around.
So I think it's wonder with an O.
So some British people you included, I think, pronounce an R, that's a R sound after some words ending with A or A, right.
When the next word starts with a with a vowel, he's written a vocal but it should be vowel, right.
You're following this everyone.
Some British people pronounce an R sound after some words ending with an A sound when the next word starts with a vowel.
Okay, so if the word ends in A like for example China, China, I mean it's spelled with an A at the end but it certainly is a vowel at the end, the sound at the end China.
Actually when we pronounce China, we don't say China, it's China, hear that sound that's the schwa sound which is very common in unstressed syllables of words in English, right.
So China has got two syllables in it, right, the first syllable is the stressed one China and the first syllable the I is pronounced with a full vowel sound I Chai but then the A, the vowel in that second syllable is not pronounced as an A, it's not China, it's China.
Anyway, the point is that it is a vowel sound at the end.
So Raphael is basically saying that sometimes when we pronounce a word with a vowel sound at the end we do pronounce an R sound after it when the next verb when the next word begins with a vowel.
Okay, this is a bit abstract maybe but here's an example.
So if I was to say China is facing a difficult situation nowadays right China is facing between China and is China which ends in a vowel and is which starts with a vowel that actually between those two words you get a R sound China is facing a difficult situation nowadays.
Now I wouldn't really emphasize it like I did just then.
Instead we'd say China is facing a difficult situation China is facing China is facing can you hear it?
So there is a little R sound that links the R at the end of China and the I at the beginning of is so we don't say China is but China is.
China is facing a difficult situation nowadays.
Hmm, this is what Raphael is saying he's noticed this and he says could you expand about it?
I would say expand on it.
Could you expand on it?
Could you expand on that?
Is it a particular accent?
All the best Raphael or just best Raphael.
So this is okay Raphael this is very common this particular one is called intrusive R or an intrusive R sound and it is very common in British English and so there's several things going on here right now you might have noticed listeners in British English we don't always pronounce R in words so words
that end in an R like teach like car that you drive driver car in British English in sort of like a standard version of British English let's call it receive pronunciation RP in RP that R at the end of car isn't pronounced car car driver car now it's not driver car car with a more rounded R sound that you
might hear in some accents in England so in the west country in the west country where you know like people sort of they they pronounce their R sounds a bit more and in Ireland as well where R sounds do get a little bit they they're pronounced more clearly car for example and of course in the United
States where people say car drive i'm gonna drive my car i'm gonna drive a car not that they all sound like that but in receive pronunciation it's car i'm gonna drive a car later okay so there's that hmm but then here what Raphael is asking about is the fact that words where there's no R at all sometimes
an R gets included like China is facing China is facing a situation okay here's here's the answer that i've prepared to try and make it clear so here's my response actually i deal with this topic in some detail in a recent premium series p63 part two including other forms of connected speech check it
out but i will now talk about intrusive R sounds and linking R sounds so let's start with intrusive R so what Raphael is talking about is known as intrusive R or linking R this occurs in some varieties of British English particularly in non -rotic accents which is most of them a rotic accent is one that actually
pronounces a rounded R sound like the ones i uh talked about before United States generally speaking Ireland west country you know those are rotic accents because their R sounds are rounded so this this thing of not pronouncing the the R but pronouncing it when we link between sounds is common in received
pronunciation and a lot of other British accents so in non -rotic accents the R sound is typically not pronounced at the end of a word at the end of words unless it's followed by a vowel sound for example in received pronunciation car would be pronounced as car without the final sound here are some other
examples of when the R or is not pronounced in words okay and you'll see that basically it's when the sound is at the end of the word or in the middle and and it's followed by a consonant sound so when the R is at the end it's not really pronounced when it's in the middle and it's followed by a consonant
we also don't really pronounce it okay so at the end of the words here here are some examples with R at the ends of words so car teacher far is it far no it's okay we can take my car okay mother father near is it near or is it far it's not far it's quite near power oh no we don't i don't have any power
in my car i actually said power in there's a there power in because power was followed by an i sound power in my car anyway car teacher far mother father near power hear can you hear me right so you you heard that the R sounds weren't really pronounced and then also in the middle of words when the R
sound is followed by a consonant so consonants are things like right and so on right so cart card hard form horse market first born start fork park word okay right so the R sounds are pronounced there because they're all followed by consonants cart it's pronounced followed by a sound all right then
so there's that right then we've got linking R so linking R occurs when a word that ends in an R like the word car in the spelling right and is followed by a vowel sound in the next word then we actually include the R in the pronunciation for example if i was to say the car is red but say it fluently
it sounds like this the car is red the car is red so that you can actually hear that the the the end of car is pronounced because it's followed by a vowel in the next word the car is red certainly in american english you definitely hear it right the car is the car is red and not that all americans sound
like that but only when they're like only when they're presenting news programs um the car is red car is red okay here's some other examples car engine far away near a lake is it far away no it's it's not not too far away far away is it near a lake yes it is okay other examples her arm her her arm her
arm and for example for example okay also there is uh over it better off after all your idea here it is okay so try and repeat the try repeating these sentences after me just just do that right i'll give you a little bit of space see if you can repeat these sentences after me and you'll notice being
pronounced so the car engine wouldn't start and we were stranded far away from home the car engine wouldn't start and we were stranded far away from home your turn hmm well the car engine wouldn't start and you were stranded far away from home that sounds complicated.
The next one. We stopped near a lake to rest after the long drive.
We stopped near a lake.
Stopped near a lake.
Go on. You stopped.
You stopped near a lake.
Stopped. Stopped near a lake.
Why? To rest after the long drive.
Okay. We stopped near a lake to rest after the long drive.
Another one. She raised her arm to point at the mountains in the distance.
Okay. We're going to skip forward a little bit and then move on to intrusive R.
So intrusive R is similar to linking R but occurs even in words that don't end in R in their spelling.
It typically happens when a word ends in a vowel sound and the next word begins with a vowel sound.
So one word ends in a vowel, the next one begins in a vowel.
For China is a very big country.
Okay. So this intrusive R makes the transition between the two vowel sounds smoother and more fluent.
It's particularly common in received pronunciation, this kind of standard British accent, which is basically how I speak, more or less.
So it's very common in RP and other Southern British English accents.
So we've got things like idea, the idea of it, the idea of law and order, law and order, India and China, India and China, the idea of it.
There it is again. Media event, media event, media event, media event, right.
So soda and ice sounds like soda and ice.
Mm -hmm. Soda and ice.
Saw it. I saw it at the cinema.
I saw it at the cinema.
Saw it. You don't emphasize it.
Now what happens sometimes is when I teach this particular language point to my students in a classroom and my students are trying to practice it, they end up emphasizing it, which is definitely not the point that it's not something you would emphasize.
So you don't say soda and ice or media event or saw it.
It's more that you're stressing the other words and this little sound is just a way to smoothly move from one sound to the next.
I saw it at this right.
I saw it at the cinema.
I saw it at the cinema.
And data analysis. Data analysis.
Okay let's move on.
That's all actually.
You could try and repeat these after me.
The idea of traveling next year sounds amazing.
The idea of traveling next year sounds amazing.
This is where you have to try and repeat what I've just said.
The new government promised to restore law and order in the city.
Law and order in the city.
The new government promised to restore law and order in the city.
Okay India and China have a long history of trade relations.
India and China have a long history of trade relations.
And we'll just do one more because this is not technically a pronunciation episode.
You'd have to sign up to Luke's English Podcast Premium to get all of those proper pronunciation drill episodes where you practice pronouncing things after me with the proper pausing and all the rest of it.
So one more. I love the idea of it but I'm not sure how practical it is.
I love the idea of it but I'm not sure how practical it is.
Okay so that was just a little look at the way that r sounds are sometimes not pronounced in words.
Sometimes they are pronounced and sometimes they're pronounced when there's no actual r written in the word in the spelling.
And that's just one little feature of connected speech in English.
There are various other ways in which words in English are connected together and it's definitely worth having a look at the subject of connected speech, understanding the various ways it happens and then practicing doing it.
Because it can really help you I think to improve your fluency by being able to speak without making pauses between the words.
You know that when you hear someone speak another language and it's impressive, it sounds impressive because all the words all sort of connect up together they all run in.
It all sounds like one long word and there are ways in which those things happen.
There are actual recognisable features of connected speech that you can identify, notice, hear, practice, you know, and it can definitely help A with your understanding of people and B with your ability to speak more fluently getting all your words out quickly without having to kind of pause or leave
gaps between the words.
You know fluency is about obviously it's about remembering which words you need to use so it's about vocabulary recall, it's about control over grammar but it's also about control over your pronunciation and being able to sort of physically get the words out and and make it all sound fluid and pronunciation connected
speech is definitely a part of that process.
So if you wanted to hear that full episode that I did about connected speech you could listen to p63 part 2 if you're a premium subscriber it's available in your list.
If you are not a premium subscriber yet then you can just find out more at teacherluke .co .uk slash premium info.
Right let's move on to the next bit here.
So this is something about being a fly on the wall at Luke's English Podcast headquarters.
Have you ever heard of that phrase before, to be a fly on the wall?
So sometimes people say things like that, I'd love to be on a fly on the wall when they get home or you know there's two people, some people having a very important meeting at work and you'd love to be able to listen in.
I'd love to be a fly on the wall in there right now.
So to be a fly on the wall means that you are, it's a thing you say when you want to be able to listen to what, listen or observe what's going on in a room that you're actually not, you're not in.
So you imagine being a fly, a little insect, that's sitting on the wall that no one notices and you could listen or observe everything so that's to be a fly on the wall.
So this is a comment I got fairly recently actually from a listener called Luke from Poland.
Hello Luke, Luke, Luca, I don't know, Lukas, what's the Polish equivalent, or maybe just Luke anyway.
Here's the comment, one day before going to bed I decided to listen to one of the episodes of Luke's English Podcast, Random Topic Generator.
So that was episode number 847.
I listened to the podcast for about a dozen minutes, that's about 12 minutes.
At one point I found myself sort of high up on a wall in a dark room.
Hmm sounds like Luke had an out -of -body experience or some sort of weird sort of psychedelic experience while listening to the podcast which can happen you know be careful.
So at one point I found myself sort of high up on a wall in a dark room, down there I noticed a large bed and two people lying under the covers.
The faces were very blurred because my field of vision was divided into many octagons.
Then I heard a voice, my bed is the place where I feel most relaxed, which is actually something I said in episode 847.
It was you know what's your favorite place in the world and I said my bed because my bed is the place where I feel most relaxed.
I realized, said Luke, I was a small insect, a fly or a mosquito and I was in the bedroom of the famous Luke from Luke's English Podcast.
I was very excited to hear his voice live and made a low buzzing sound.
That was enough for Luke to notice me.
He immediately jumped out of bed, grabbed a fly swatter and started chasing me, which does actually sound like a true story because as you may have heard me mention on the podcast my wife and I are regularly terrorized by mosquitoes in the middle of the night.
Even now in October we still get mosquitoes.
I killed one the other night.
I actually killed two in one night but the second one I killed.
I was quite impressed with myself I have to say.
So I've got one of those electric fly swats which is one of the best things I've ever bought.
The way it works is that it's like a tennis racket but the the mesh of the racket is made of like metal.
It's like a metal net and you press a button on the side and it sends electricity, an electric current through the mesh of the tennis racket and if an insect touches the mesh or the net it instantly gets fried like lightning passes through the body of the insect and crack it just gets killed instantly.
Now maybe it's cruel I don't know maybe it's just survival of the fittest.
I think it's even maybe quite humane because the insects die instantly they're just bang electrocuted to death in the blink of an eye.
I've talked about this before.
Anyway so yeah the other night my wife woke me up she's like there's a mosquito in the room.
I was like right instinctively just reached over the edge of the bed and grabbed my electronic fly destroyer.
Mosquito killer. Oh hold on hold on a minute I've got to plug in my my phone.
By the way and this is another tangent time.
My phone's running out of battery hold on a minute.
Oh dear emergency quick plug in the camera.
Okay crisis averted.
Anyway so yeah oh god by the way I've got a replacement phone which I'm using as a webcam.
The company that sold the phone to me fixed it replaced it I don't know what they did but it's back to normal so that's fine.
I'm referring to a few episodes ago you might have heard me talk about this mystery where I came back from holiday and my phone my iPhone which I use as a camera in my office was just all broken apart and the screen was all cracked and it was I didn't know what had happened to it.
Somehow the battery had expanded and broken the phone I sent it back off to the company and very I was very impressed they fixed it sent it back to me quite promptly so anyway right so my wife was like there's a mosquito in the room so I instinctively grabbed my electronic fly swatter and flicked the light
on and instantly saw it I saw it flying past me over my right shoulder and I literally did a backhand over the shoulder flick with this thing and killed the mosquito without even looking at it I just sort of flicked the thing over over my right shoulder backhand pam like that and zap got it dead so killed
turned on the light killed the mosquito and rolled back over into bed and fell asleep all within about 10 seconds I think so yeah this does sound like a true story that Luke was saying I was very excited to hear his voice live so Luke realized he was a fly on the wall of my apartment and he could hear
me talking he was very excited he made a low buzzing sound that was enough for Luke to notice me he immediately jumped out of bed grabbed a fly swatter and started chasing me I was shocked my favorite podcaster was probably trying to kill me what could I do at the last moment I escaped and sat down
on the edge of a small table Luke spotted me immediately my only chance was to open my only chance was an open window I threw myself in that direction Luke swung his paw in my direction and the force of the air made me lose my balance and fall to the floor Luke came towards me lifted his foot and tried
to step on me yeah I have I have no mercy when it comes to flying insects I thought it's over I'm gonna die miserably here trying to learn some real British English then I woke up it was all just a dream and heard Luke's familiar voice in my headphones thankfully it was just a dream now I know what they
say about wanting to be a fly on the wall I don't think I want it all right nice one yeah so Luke had a dream about being a fly on the wall of my apartment and then I tried to kill him so don't be a fly on the wall if you're dreaming of being a fly on the wall in my apartment if you want to know what it's
really like at home with me and my family then think twice okay yeah so if you say you would like to be a fly on the wall in English you mean that you would like to hear what will be said or see what will happen while not being noticed for example I'd love to be a fly on the wall when those two get
home meaning those two people are going to have an argument I'd love to be able to listen in but yeah think twice about wanting to be a fly on the wall in my home because I will hunt you down I will find you and I will kill you okay moving on singular they here's the next bit and here's the next bit
of listener correspondence so this one starts like this hi Luke hi my name is Marcos and I'm from Spain and a lepster hello Marcos from Spain I've written to you on one occasion but I suppose you don't remember it all too normal truth be said it's quite possible I'm afraid Marcos sometimes I get a lot
of emails and I don't get a chance to respond to them all so apologies for not replying to your first email and indeed to anyone else who's ever written to me and never received a reply you're probably deeply hurt right your heart broken probably some of you having written to me and I wrote to Luke
and he never replied oh dear I still feel the pain to this day you write back write back and say oh you know you can always write back it's okay I just sometimes don't get time anyway let's continue Marcos's email or whatever it was today I write to you in order to ask if you have made an episode on the singular
they I've started my professional career recently and I've already had to write an email in English to a designer in the UK given that I'm a programmer and that I have to write about users I don't want to be always writing the user can do X but if he or she blah blah blah so the point is that Marcos
has to write about users the user does this the user can do that but if he or she knows what he or she wants to do so Marcos doesn't want to always have to say the user or he or she so let's continue this way I prefer using the singular they but I'm not sure if I'm using it well because I was never
taught it and have only seen it in literature if you haven't recorded an episode about this matter would you be so kind as to mention something about it in a future podcast see that's politeness you see that's the kind of nice polite English that I expect to receive in messages from my listeners who basically
are just asking me to do some work for them you know to you know give you the benefit of my professional consulting services you know right write something polite like that would you be so kind as to mention something about it in a future podcast of course if you write it like that I mean I know of course
I will even if it's in a premium episode given that I'm surely going to be one of the premium ninjas thanks in advance and cheers Marcos Garcia cheers Marcos right so let's get into the subject of singular they not for the first time I have dealt with this before but let's go through it again and try
and make it clear so singular they have you got the idea listeners sometimes they can be used to refer to one person and it's we call this singular they alright so when you're talking about one person but you don't know if the person is male or female then we use they and it has plural grammar so why
would you not know if the person was male or female well like Marcos's case if you're writing about a user just a generic user of maybe a website or something and you don't know if the user is male or female then you could use they they should do this they should do that if you're even looking at someone
maybe someone in the distance and you can't tell if it's a boy or a girl who's that what are they doing or if you're talking about a person and it just hasn't been mentioned oh I saw a I met a listener to one of your I met one of your listeners the other day I met one of your listeners and they said
some very nice things oh what did they say about me mm -hmm okay now this might raise the question of gender neutrality right which is kind of a very current issue okay of course some people prefer to be referred to as they because they don't identify as either male or female so there's this issue as
well and normally in this situation the person will state that their preferred pronouns are they them this is fairly new relatively speaking you might see it in emails and stuff like that or something profiles where people will name their pronouns and some people might choose they or them because they
don't identify as either male or female and they prefer to use this sort of nonspecific gender neutral pronoun there's that but then just simply singular they is very old and it's been used in English for many many many years hundreds of years I think Shakespeare used it as well in the like in the example
I gave before when you're just talking about one person but you don't know or perhaps don't even want to say which which gender they are right so using they as a gender -neutral pronoun is is relatively new right but for hundreds of years they them has been used as the personal pronoun when we're talking
about one person but it's not clear if the person is male or female I hope I'm making myself clear here anyway let's look at a load of examples first of all here's one from Kate Billington friend of the podcast in her short British Council mini English lesson video about this subject so Kate Billington made
a video on YouTube about the use of singular they here's one of here's one of the examples from that video she said this a good boss explains what he wants so his employees can understand him right a good boss explains what he wants so his employees can understand him right now saying that makes it
sound like bosses are always men which isn't true so another way of saying it would be this a good boss explains what they want so their employees can understand them okay there's an example of how it could be used and there's a link to the video he she or they pronouns in English okay from the British
Council so they then takes plural grammar so they are they want and so on now even if this feels strange when referring to one person this is correct and normal so let's see an example following what Marcos mentioned giving instructions on how users can use an online service so this is a step -by -step
guide for how to sign up to Luke's English podcast premium of course but it's written in the third person okay so how can a user sign up to LEP premium this is the this is the question that I'm going to answer now alright so just as Marcos mentioned we don't want to state if the user is male or female
because it could be either right like a typical user of LEP premium could be a male or female so instead of using he him his or maybe saying he or she each time we're going to use they them there okay so I'm providing this example to demonstrate this and show how natural and normal it is so listen to
the use of sort of this gender neutral or singular they throughout this little bit of advice here so how to sign up to LEP premium a step -by -step guide for users so first the users should open their browser and go to teacher Luke dot go dot sorry let me start that again first the user should open their
browser and go to teacher Luke dot co dot UK then they click on premium and several options will be available several not seven the user can choose the tier that best suits them then they have to create an a cast plus account once they've done this and have entered their payment details they can confirm
the subscription when this is done the user will have access to all the premium episodes but they should add the subscription to a podcast app on their phone they can do this by either scanning the QR code with their phone or by signing into their a cast plus account on their phone and choosing add
show to app right then they follow the steps to add LEP premium to their favorite podcast app on their phone okay the user will now see a list of episodes which includes all the premium ones free episodes will have ads removed too so that is how a user can sign up to LEP premium and then and then not than that's
not how you say that word and then add LEP premium to a podcast app on their phone okay just to demonstrate there the use of singular they them there is actually very common very natural and we do it all the time so even so Marcos even if you feel like not entirely sure about using it it's got it's
got plural grammar and yeah we we use it regularly and have done for hundreds of years so there you go right moving on and like in the last one of these I think I'll go for around about an hour and just keep keep going until I've done about an hour of this and then I'll save the rest of these bits and bobs
for part three of this series okay so here's a message from Jun Horiyuchi and it's a question about the words antique and the word vintage okay this might have come up in response to the Parsons pleasure episode I did a couple of years ago so here's the message hello this is Jun from Tokyo thank you
for uploading nice podcasts I have a question what is the difference between antique and vintage please let me know thank you Jun right so let's look at these two words antique and vintage antique and vintage similar words right quite similar words but definitely different so let's look at them okay
the first word is antique so we use antiques by the way both of these words antique and vintage we use them when we're talking about old things right so you might buy some antique furniture or maybe you get some vintage clothes from a vintage clothing shop or you bought a vintage car or maybe you found
an antique what would it be an antique chest of drawers in a farmhouse so antique is used for items at least a hundred years old at least a hundred years old so it's older older things and items which are often valuable due to rarity so antiques are often very old and often rare there aren't many of them
and because they're rare they're worth a lot of money it could be because of that they're worth a lot of money because they're rare because of the craftsmanship because they were made in made particularly well often made by an expert craftsman right and they are they could be valuable because of their
historical importance maybe they they come from a certain historical period or something like that that's antique items for example a table made in 1850 would be considered antique furniture from the 19th century or older very valuable and possibly even kept in a museum these would be antiques then
vintage items are typically between 20 and a hundred years old so vintage items can still be relatively sort of new really an item that's even 25 years old could could be considered vintage so between 20 and a hundred years old and they're valued for their style and their cultural significance often
associated with a specific era so for example a dress from the 1970s will be considered vintage vintage clothing shops sell old jeans t -shirts shirts jackets sunglasses and so on when I was a teenager I bought all my vintage clothes from the indoor market in Birmingham I liked to wear vintage 70s clothing
jeans and jackets and stuff I loved those flares and things like that from the 70s and I bought all my vintage stuff from the indoor market in Birmingham and a lot of it was from the 70s and 80s these days vintage clothing shops sell a lot of stuff from the 90s you might buy like a shell suit jacket
or I don't know like a pair of sneakers from the 90s those things are considered vintage these days a vintage car would be something like a 1980s Volkswagen Golf maybe a Mark 1 or Mark 2 VW Golf or maybe a Jaguar from the 1960s a vintage guitar could be a Fender Stratocaster from the 1970s so vintage
things are younger and more pop culturally really I mean I've got more details in terms of value antiques are usually more valuable antique items are often associated with very high quality craftsmanship vintage items could be mass -produced like a like a Gameboy from 1989 an original 1989 Gameboy mass
-produced item but still considered to be quite valuable if it's in good condition and that would be a vintage video game right so I think you get the idea right so let's let's let's just test you a little bit here so what do you think are these things I'm about to mention are they vintage or are they
antique so we'll start with the the Chip and Dale commode which Bogus from the Parsons Pleasure Story discovers in an old farmhouse Bogus is shocked to discover this extremely valuable item of furniture made by Chip and Dale himself and tricks the owners into selling it to him for an unfairly low price
so is that an eye an antique item or a vintage item well of course it's an antique another example a friend of mine makes his living from dealing cars from the 1950s 60s and 70s he finds the cars buys them repairs them displays them at conventions and drives them in the French countryside as part of special
weekend events he sells them to private buyers who want to have a cool old car in their collection in the past he's shown me awesome 1970s Porsches and plenty of very nice British cars including Triumphs and Jaguars which are his favourites so those are vintage cars another example my wife has a pair
of Ray -Ban sunglasses which her dad bought in the 1980s they're much nicer than the ones you can buy today the quality has definitely gone down so these 80s sunglasses are vintage sunglasses I like metallic Casio digital watches with simple minimal designs right they're really cheap you can you can just
buy them in in any shop really they're really really cheap they're not expensive at all but I really like these Casio watches they're exactly the same models that were made during the 1980s when digital watches first became available I remember the first ever digital watches I ever saw like one of my
friends at school had a digital watch it was a Casio it was made of black plastic and rubber and it was exactly the same design that you can still buy today so these are vintage watches or at least a tiny town in the UK and you'll probably find shops which sell old dark furniture and decorations from the Victorian era and beyond
the items are very valuable and can be extremely expensive sometimes these shops are owned by auction houses right auction houses an auction is is where items are sold you'd have an auctioneer who stands in front of an audience of people who are interested in possibly buying the item and the auctioneer
says so if we have this this and nearly gave you the answer we have this chest of drawers here made in the late 19th century and so can we start the bidding at no ten thousand pounds and then people in the audience will kind of raise their hand or raise a newspaper or something like that in order to
bid on the item this is an auction and the bidding continues and it continues and then the highest bidder is the one who gets to buy the item so sometimes these shops are owned by auction houses who will tell you where and when the item is going to be auctioned off if you're interested you can enter
the bidding so this would be antiques antique items so there you go I think you now get the difference between vintage and antique do you have any vintage items in your possession do you have any antique items in your possession you can write in the comment section and let us know so how many more have I
got here okay we're gonna end with I think we're gonna end with this last one and this is called see saw see the verb is CSEE past form is saw see saw seen okay let's look at this verb see so dear Luke I'm a long -standing follower of your podcast I greatly appreciate the works you've done they're beneficial
meanwhile entertaining all right today I really need your help here there's a question that's been perplexing me for a long time nice word perplexing ten bonus points I've always come across a phrase involving see which I guess probably the meaning is about happening or witnessing because yeah right
we know the word see right again you know you see with your eyes but this listener has noticed a use of the word see which means something else any the person expects that it means happening or possibly witnessing for example today when I'm reading when I'm reading the news it said right today when I
am reading the news or let's say today when I was reading the news it said more heavy rain could see water levels rise and threaten the air pocket where the group of more heavy rain could see water levels rise and threaten the air pocket where the group has taken refuge so by the way this is a reference
to that story from a few years ago where a group of 12 boys and their football coach got trapped in a cave in Thailand and the cave was flooded full of water and the the 12 boys and the football coach were all trapped there and it was a real emergency everyone was concerned that they wouldn't be able
to get the children out that they would die and one line from the story is this more heavy rain could see water levels rise and threatened the air pocket where the group has taken refuge so the group were in a cave were in a little space where there was some air surrounded by water so notice the use
of the verb see in there more heavy rain could see water levels rise okay let's continue the message there was a lot of there was a lot of this kind of use of the word see I cannot find an example here but they are always put together with day or history such as yesterday saw a boy to be yesterday saw
a record -breaking temperature in Europe or history saw something happen now I cannot recall them exactly therefore I think a detailed explanation would be more than helpful thank you and I will keep following your podcast till you quit the job I will never quit everyone's just gonna have to quit first
because I will never quit I think probably I think probably I will either die or become incapacitated in some way before I quit doing this podcast I mean I'll probably quit when I just can't do this anymore basically when there are enough copycat copycat channels on YouTube or AI versions when AI basically
just replaces me then I'll probably quit either that or something else anyway thank you well keep following your podcast till you quit the job you're sincerely yanzu Zang okay right so yes here the word saw which is the past of see does not refer to seeing things with your eyes instead it's a way of referring
to things which happen and expresses a sense that within the context of one thing something else happens perhaps as a consequence so here are some examples right if that's not clear examples normally clarify these things so the pandemic saw a surge in online shopping a surge that means a rapid increase
the pandemic saw a surge in fact there's a bit of linking are here the pandemic saw a surge in online shopping as people stayed home to avoid the virus so that means within the context of the pandemic there was a surge in online shopping so the pandemic saw a surge in online shopping right that doesn't
mean that the pandemic saw this thing with its eyes but it just means within the context of the pandemic there was this surge in online shopping so the pandemic saw a surge in online shopping as people stayed home stayed at home I would say to avoid the virus mm -hmm now if you like you consider you
can consider it like this within the context of the first event we witness or see or history witnesses or sees the other thing happening but we say that the first event sees or saw the second event okay another example number two new law sees decrease in crime rates in major cities this is sounds like
a newspaper headline a news headline which is why the grammar is a bit different new law sees decrease in crime rates in major cities the full version of that would be a new law sees decrease right sees a decrease often in newspaper headlines little words like articles get removed so new law sees decrease
in crime rates in major cities so this is from a newspaper headline hence the reduced grammar the new the new law has created a context in which crime rates have decreased so new law sees decrease in crime rates another one number three the economic downturn saw many businesses closing their doors for good
the economic downturn saw many businesses closing their doors for good so the economic downturn is the context this is a you know like a recession or a situation where the economy goes bad a downturn so the economic downturn is the context and this has caused many businesses to close their doors for good
meaning permanently the economic downturn saw many businesses closing their doors for good right another example the success of the movie saw the lead actor become a household name meaning after having big success in a movie the lead actor became a household name a household name this is a name that everyone
knows right like Leonardo DiCaprio is a household name everyone knows his name number five implementation of new safety regulations sees a decrease in workplace accidents sounds again like a newspaper headline the implementation of new safety regulations the impula the implementation of new safety regulations
has seen a decrease in workplace accidents as reported by the Health and Safety Administration Service you know so the new regulations caused a decrease in workplace accidents hmm yes the rise in number of listeners to Luke's English podcast sees a global upswing in English fluency yeah that's that would be
the news that should be the news headline never mind all the negative things you know increase the increased listener base of Luke's English podcast increases massive global increases in the listenership of Luke's English podcast have seen a huge upswing in fluency in English around the world leading
to greater mutual understanding which has seen rapid progress in the peace progress in the in the global peace process leading to world peace and ultimately free ice cream for everyone and on that note I think it's time to end this episode of bits and bobs number two and next time there will be a third
part I think there'll be at least three parts in this series we'll go through some even older bits of listener correspondence and other bits and bobs from my Google Drive other online cloud drives are available as well by the way thank you very much for listening to this if you've listened all the way
through to the end see if you can write a comment with the word see meaning the things that I've just mentioned otherwise have a lovely day afternoon morning evening or night okay and I'll speak to you again on the podcast in some form unless I just give up you know unless AI becomes sentient in the meantime
and decides to just replace me and they send a terminator back from the future to murder me so far if there are no other episodes after this then that's what's happened all right Skynet became sentient and you know all sorts of terminators have been sent back to try and stop me podcasting in a desperate
attempt to subjugate the human race and prevents everyone from you know learning English and being able to communicate with each other all right so if there's no more podcasts that's what's happened otherwise speak to you next time okay but for now I'll just say goodbye bye bye bye bye thanks for listening
to Luke's English podcast for more information visit teacher Luke co .uk if you enjoyed this episode of Luke's English podcast consider signing up for Luke's English podcast premium you'll get regular premium episodes with stories vocabulary grammar and pronunciation teaching from me and the usual moments
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