This is an All-Ears English Podcast Episode 22-04.
Three ways transcripts can uplevel your English learning.
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Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on
connection, not perfection with your American host,
Aubrey Carter, the Isles Wiz, and Lindsay McMahon, the English Adventure.
Coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
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Hey Aubrey, what's shaking today?
What's going on?
Great. How are you?
I'm doing pretty good.
I'm doing pretty good.
What are we talking about today for our listeners?
Yeah, so we got an amazing question about something that a listener couldn't understand in audio.
We get these a lot, right?
Lindsay will get an email that gives us a timestamp.
And it's like, yeah, this time I couldn't understand what was being said.
And we often will respond.
We're going to share the answer for one of these today.
And some three tips ways that transcripts can save you from having to do this, right?
You can find the answers to those because this happens.
This happens to me too when I'm listening to podcasts.
There's crosstalk.
The audio cuts out for a second.
I'm like, where's the transcript?
I need to know what was said, especially when we're learning a language, right?
We have it.
We want it need to be able to go back.
And so this question comes from our listener, Yee Lay.
Should I go ahead and read the question from Yee?
Let's do it.
Yes.
Okay.
Dear the dear, allers English team, hope this email finds you well.
I've been listening to this podcast for about two weeks.
It is super helpful for me to level up my English, especially when you do the role plays
to explain how to use the words correctly.
Yeah, but I think our listeners love the role plays, which is fantastic.
Yes, absolutely.
Yes.
Guys, hit follow if you love this show.
Now let's go into the question.
There is a sentence that I can't understand at 716 from episode 2007.
When you were talking about the ever-talented pink concert that is coming up,
Michelle said, I had to pain.
I'm not sure if it's slang or the auto subtitled translation that's wrong.
I already went through the context many times, but I still have no idea what it means.
Could you please help me to understand?
Thank you so much.
Best regards, Yee Lay.
Nice.
Good question.
That's a good question.
And such a frustrating situation to be in.
You listen to it over and over.
Still can't tell what is said.
If you're watching on YouTube, there's often closed captions, but they're AI generated
and they're often incorrect.
Or if using an AI transcript, it's often incorrect.
And that's such a frustrating.
I've been in that situation, especially when I listen to podcasts in French and Spanish.
I can't tell what's being said.
The captions are incorrect.
It's so frustrating.
It's so frustrating.
And when it comes to learning languages, we need those nuances, especially at our listeners'
levels, intermediate to advanced. It's time to dig in and really understand that crosstalk.
How are we interrupting each other?
What you just said.
You just said exactly.
I talked right over you, which is 100% normal and natural.
But our listeners need to hear that.
And that probably wouldn't show up in every transcript necessarily.
Yeah.
Some of it is just skipped entirely if there's a little bit of crosstalk,
if the audio cuts out.
Because sometimes when native speakers interrupt each other, talk over each other,
it does affect the audio and the mics on the recording.
This is very common.
But it's how we speak, how native speak, you need to be able to hear that and understand that.
Yeah, there's also false starts.
We do a lot of false starts.
We start seeing something and then we stop.
Or we change to another thought.
I do it constantly.
Yes.
Exactly.
So I checked our other English transcripts.
And what Michelle says is,
I had to use pink, right?
And instead of it sounded like and what YouTube translated as was,
I had to paint the word pain P-A-N, which would make no sense to anyone watching the YouTube video.
Unfortunately, Michelle was using an example with the vocabulary you were teaching ever popular.
And she used this example, said,
allow me to introduce the ever popular pink.
Said she's a huge pink fan.
And so she says, I had to use pink as her example.
Oh, that makes sense.
Are you a pink fan, Aubrey?
Do you like pink?
I like pink. I've never been to a concert.
I don't. It's not my favorite style of music.
But I get why Michelle loves her.
She is like strong, independent, amazing woman.
Her shows are very impressive with how acrobatic and all the gymnastics.
I've seen some little clips.
I'm like, that would be a fun show.
Yeah, 100%. 100%.
I bet it would be a great concert.
Yeah. So where do we go from here?
So we've answered our question for E-Lay for our listener here.
And what is our message for today's episode?
What are we? What are we getting into?
Well, so first of all, we have to think about the difference
between AI and human-generated transcripts.
Because the only option E-Lay had was to email us
and have us let her know what was said,
or to get the other English transcripts.
These are created by humans, proofread by humans,
native English speakers who are catching all of these little mistakes.
We put a lot of time in to make sure that's perfect.
So when you have those transcripts,
these are the ones that we create, they are so useful for your learning.
And we want to dive into that a little bit.
We're going to share three tips of how having transcripts
can really maximize your learning speed up your progress.
But we want to make it clear that we're talking about human-generated transcripts here.
There are a lot of AI transcripts out there that really,
that's about the same as the YouTube closed captions
that are going to be a lot of errors.
Yeah. And the best way to get our transcripts
is to go to our app, guys, all earsenglish.com slash app.
The app is available for Android and iOS.
And a lot of students, hundreds and hundreds of students are over there.
Monthly as premium users accessing the transcripts,
so you can listen to the show on the app for free.
But then if you're a member,
you see the transcripts in real time as you listen.
And you also get to tap on vocab words that we have selected for you.
But we'll talk about that a little bit later.
Aubrey, let's get into the benefits of actually
listening with a human-created transcript
by your side or on your screen.
Perfect. Okay. So number one is it speeds up your progress
in improving your listening comprehension.
So I was looking up some stats and the average B1 listener
understands about 60% of audio without a transcript.
But after reading a transcript once or twice,
they will understand 90% or more.
So this is a huge jump.
Yeah.
Amazing. So moving from 60% to 90% is that true.
That is incredible. I love that.
Yeah. So if you, there are many options here, right?
You find what works for you.
You can listen without the transcript first
to try and gauge how much you understand without.
And then follow along with the transcript
or you can read the transcript first
and then listen to the audio, right?
There are so many options here.
Yeah, as I love that idea.
A lot of ways you can do it.
But the key is that gap, filling in the gap
between 60% and 90%.
And I mean, that's kind of an 80-20 thing, right?
Absolutely.
A 20% of your effort covers 80% of the results.
I love that idea.
Absolutely.
Yes.
I think about how much more vocabulary
you're going to learn.
Because if you only understand 60%,
that 40% is all of the most interesting vocabulary
that's a little less familiar
that you want to be adding some of these words
to improve not only your listening comprehension
but your vocabulary.
Yeah. It gives you this glimpse into the real language
which was really being said.
And I love the second way that transcripts help you
which is saving time.
Tell us about this, Aubrey.
How are we saving time?
So when you're listening to a podcast,
our podcast, podcast made for native speakers,
whatever podcasts we're talking about,
there will inevitably be words that you don't know.
If you can't figure them out from context,
it's very time consuming to look each one up in the dictionary, right?
So I found this article called How to Use Podcast
when you're learning a language by Thomas Moore-Devlin.
It was from January of 2022.
And there are many tips here,
but one he was talking about with transcripts
was focusing on how much it saves you time.
If you are able to see the words,
especially with our app,
like you were saying Lindsay,
where you can just click on these more difficult words
that we've highlighted, we define it,
give you an example sentence.
Yeah. You are saving so much time
that you can spend in better ways.
Oh my gosh, for sure, right?
If I think about learning Spanish,
it's like getting that window into the true,
not what I think is being said,
but what is actually being said in reality, right?
When I listen to Spanish,
it's almost having your own translator right there for you.
Right?
So imagine if you had a translator right next to you,
that would save you a ton of time too.
No one can afford that.
So instead, we have these resources
that we can use to be able to quickly advocate,
they already have it defined with an example sentence.
It's so amazing when you listen with the app,
not only does it save you so much time you learn so much more.
Yeah, but it's important to know
that it's not every single word
that we're gonna try to define and tap on
inside the app and learn and add to our list, right?
Aubrey, I mean, how many words,
more or less, make sense in a given episode
of all our English to actually focus on?
Yeah, five to eight is what we recommend.
That's how many we highlight in the app.
There may be more words than that
that you're unfamiliar with,
but think how long it's going to take
if you're trying to add,
and you'll never actually be able to add them
to your active vocabulary if you add more than five
to eight to your vocabulary list,
then you're never gonna go back
and actually use those in conversation.
Yeah, it's kind of the same feeling of when I went
into our Monday.com and I looked at my overdue tasks
and there were many overdue tasks.
I can't imagine after being out of town.
Yeah, you just, you can't, you drown yourself in work to do, right?
And the same thing would happen
if literally we could tap on every single word
in an episode added to our list.
All the words become meaningless
because how are you ever going to learn all of those words, guys?
Instead, we do the work for you.
We choose the five to eight words
that are gonna up level you from B1 or B2 up into C1.
Those are the ones to focus on.
Right, Aubrey?
Exactly, yes.
All right, number three, what is the next way?
The third way, Aubrey, the advantage.
Yes, so we are diving into learning styles here
because transcripts are so vital for visual learners, right?
There are four predominant learning styles of visual, auditory,
reading, writing, and kinesthetic, which is like physical touch.
If you are that auditory learner, it's easier for you
to listen to a podcast and be okay
without following along on a transcript.
But again, these other one and two
are going to be important here.
It's gonna save you time.
But if you are a visual learner,
it's going to be vital for you to have that transcript.
Yeah, what is your learning style, Aubrey?
I am a very visual learner.
I love podcasts.
I love listening to podcasts,
but when it comes to learning a foreign language
when I'm listening in Spanish and French,
it's very difficult for me to not see the words.
I visualize the words in my mind.
I am a very, I much prefer to read a book, really,
even then listen to a podcast
or at least follow along on the transcript.
What about you, Lindsay?
I think I'm a mix of visual and auditory
because when I speak a foreign language,
I should say no podcasts, no textbook in front of me.
I actually see the words and a sentence in my head.
There's like this little bubble
where I envision the sentence is being written out.
So I guess that's visual, but I also say it in my head.
I repeat it over and over.
So that's auditory.
When you bring up a good point that many people
are a mixture of these different learning styles,
but it's important that you are aware
of what your learning style is
or you might be really doing yourself a disservice
in the way that you are taking in information,
the way you are learning.
You should work hand in hand with your learning style.
So I actually found a quiz online
to find out your learning style.
If you aren't sure, it's a great one.
I looked at it.
It's at www.learningstylequiz.com.
And I've shared some of the questions here, Lindsay,
so we can share the kinds of questions
you're going to see on this quiz
that will help you determine what is your learning style.
Yeah, what are they, for example, just to get us started.
Yeah, for example, you remember better if you,
and then on one side will be right it down.
The other side is hear it.
And then we have a range, right?
You might be halfway toward a right in the middle
or like extreme end, right it down instead of hear it.
And this is going to gauge, you know,
how far between these two you are.
I love that.
And then the next question would be
when you work on assignments,
do you get them done right away
or do you tend to procrastinate?
That's interesting.
I wonder what that would tell us about learning style,
right, procrastination or what do you think?
I was really fascinated looking at all of these questions
because you might expect them to be much more straightforward
about, you know, are you a visual learning
or are you an auditory learner?
There's such a wide range of questions
that it's fascinating to think about the science
that has gone into this to find out like if you procrastinate
that has something to do with what type of learner you are
as well.
Interesting.
I mean, the first question's pretty straightforward,
but that second one, I don't know what that would point to.
You know, if you tend to procrastinate,
I don't know if that would point to,
I really want to dive into the science of this.
Like what does that have to do with it?
What does that, you know, how does that say about me?
And the next one you prefer to talk or listen,
again, I wouldn't really have thought
about this having to do with the way I take in information,
but it does.
Yeah, I mean, people have done research on this for years.
And the most important key is knowing ourselves, right?
I think that's a key area of adult learners.
That is the difference between our listeners
and someone who is in middle school or high school,
not necessarily taking control.
As an adult, it's on you to take control
and tell your tutor, tell your teacher what you need.
We've talked about this, how to go into a lesson
and say can we structure a lesson around
my giving you instructions on how to do something I know?
We've talked about this a lot this year.
That is the difference for success for adult learners.
Absolutely.
This reminds me when I was a high school teacher,
it was my responsibility to find out
what type of learners my students were
so that I could help them.
Now it's a different situation, right?
As an adult learner, you have to find this out about yourself
so that you can make sure that the resources
you are taking in the way you are learning
are optimized to help you progress
as quickly and as effectively as possible.
Yeah, so I think that first step then is going and taking
that quiz, guys.
So, Aubrey, again, what is the URL for that quiz
where our listeners can get started?
So it was www.learningstylequiz.com.
Yes, love it.
Go on over there and Aubrey, do we have a takeaway
for our listeners?
Where should we leave them today?
What should we keep in mind?
Absolutely.
You guys may not be getting all you could
from listening to our podcast,
other English learning podcasts,
any podcasts that you might listen to in English.
These can all be incredible resources for your learning,
but you likely need transcripts to maximize your learning.
However, you, you know, whatever you find
is the best route for that.
transcripts are really going to improve
the way you learn English.
Love it.
Good stuff.
So guys, go over and check out the Allers English app.
Go to allersenglish.com slash app available for Android and iOS
and see what that has to offer with our human
created transcripts with crosstalk and false starts
and all the things we want to learn
that is actually real English.
It's not rehearsed, prepared English.
It's realistic English, Aubrey.
Exactly.
Yes.
Awesome.
Go get the app allersenglish.com slash app.
All right.
Take care, Aubrey.
I'll talk to you soon.
Have a good day.
See you next time.
Bye.
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Bye.
