Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 120 of the Listening Time Podcast.
This is going to be a very special episode because I have a really exciting announcement to make.
And that is that I've started a new podcast.
And I'm sure a lot of you will be interested in this new project of mine.
So I'm going to talk about it today.
I'm going to talk about the details regarding this new podcast.
And I'm going to talk about my experience making this new podcast.
I'll talk a little bit about the things that I've learned, things I've experienced.
I'll talk about some different things, and this will give me a chance to Share my excitement, my feelings, my experience.
And I'm happy to do that today because I've spent many hours so far working on this new project.
And it's good to finally talk about it and share it with people.
So I'm excited for that today.
Let me tell you a little bit about this new podcast.
First of all, what is it called?
Well, it's called US Conversations and specifically, I made this podcast in response to what many of you have asked me for.
Many people have asked me for some type of content where I speak to other people, where I talk to other native speakers and we have normal, natural conversations.
Because many people want to practice with this type of content where there are multiple speakers, people talking to each other, interrupting each other, using words and phrases in a way that's natural talking to another person in a normal way.
Many people have asked me for this and I didn't have any content like this in the past, and I decided to embark on this new adventure and create a new podcast.
By the way, the word embark or the phrase embark on something refers to starting some journey.
So I decided to embark on this new journey.
And it was hard for me to commit to this because it's a very big addition to my overall workload uh, right now and so i've made this an exclusive podcast.
So this will be a paid podcast, because i know that not everyone will want to listen to such an advanced level podcast.
Some of you might not be ready for this, and some of you are ready and you really want this and it will be worth it for you to sign up for this.
I'm going to use the Patreon platform for this exclusive podcast.
This is the same platform that I use for my normal membership, but this will be a completely different Patreon page.
This new US Conversations podcast is completely unrelated to the Listening Time podcast and the Listening Time membership.
This is completely separate.
This is a different project.
I know that some of you will want to take advantage of this and sign up for that.
And so if it's worth it for you, this will be a $5 a month exclusive podcast.
So, in order to receive access to this podcast, you'll pay 5 per month, and then you will have one new long conversation each month, on the first day of each month.
And so in each of these conversations, I talked to somebody from a different part of the country, from a different part of the United States.
So up to this point, I've recorded 10 different conversations with 10 different people from 10 different states.
So from all over the country, it's been really interesting.
I'm sure that you guys will really like this, because you get to learn a lot about the United States and the different parts of the country and all that kind of stuff.
So, like I said, in each of these conversations I talk to someone from a different part of the US, and the conversation will usually last between 40 and 45 minutes.
So it's much longer than my normal podcast episodes.
And so there is a lot more content, a lot more material in each episode.
That's why it's only one episode per month, because it's a lot for you and it's a lot for me, to be honest.
To go through this process and finish a whole episode takes many hours of work, because I'm not only recording the episode, recording the conversation and releasing it.
I'm also including the transcript, just like with the listening time podcast.
So this transcript will contain everything that we're saying, and It's going to include something in addition to just what we're saying.
It's also going to include the definitions of key words and phrases that we use in the conversation.
So for each of these key words that I highlight in the text, I put a definition down below at the bottom of that page.
So you'll be able to learn a lot of new words, a lot of new phrases in each of these conversations.
And these are authentic conversations.
They're 100% authentic and natural.
Meaning that we're speaking at normal speed.
We're not slowing down at all.
We're just talking as if we were having a normal conversation.
So this is exactly what many people have asked me for.
Like I said, it's been a lot of work and it will continue to be a lot of work in the future, specifically because of the transcripts.
It takes a really long time to transcribe everything. what is said.
So this is one of the reasons why I've made this an exclusive podcast, because that will allow me to actually dedicate time to doing this.
I can stop working as much on other things and I can dedicate more time to this if it's a paid podcast.
So that's my idea.
It will be $5 a month.
And you'll receive one new conversation with a new person from somewhere in the U.S.
And you'll have the transcript and you'll have the definition of keywords and phrases.
One thing I want to note is that I'm recording all of these conversations via Skype.
So the quality is not great.
It's okay and it's good enough to listen to, but the sound is not as good as the normal listening time podcast that I record.
So I want to warn you about that because I don't want you to expect really clear sound.
And there's actually something good.
That is that this will help to simulate video calls or phone calls, because many of you work in professions where you might have to have video calls and conferences or conversations online with English speakers, and we don't all have professional microphones that we're speaking into when we have conversations like this.
So normally you have to just deal with a normal Zoom or Skype or Google Meets.
And you just have to deal with the sound quality, the audio quality of the person who you're talking to.
And it's what many of us have to deal with working from home, working remotely.
So these conversations will help to simulate that same environment.
It's not crystal clear audio.
It's just normal sound. like what you would hear over Skype or Zoom or Google Meets, etc.
By the way, the phrase crystal clear just means that something is very clear.
Okay, so it's not crystal clear.
It's just normal audio.
But this is actually a good thing because it simulates normal video calls that you might have with English speakers.
So that's great practice.
So I think that's most of the details that I wanted to give.
Like I mentioned, it will be through Patreon, and a lot of you already know how that works.
It's a monthly payment system.
So when you sign up you will pay 5 and then you will be charged 5 on that same day, the next month.
And of course, you can cancel at any time.
So the link to sign up will be in the episode description below this episode.
It's patreon.com slash US conversations.
So now let me just talk a little bit about my experience making this podcast so far.
So first I want to mention that I've learned a lot about the different parts of my own country just from having these different conversations.
So, as I already mentioned, I've recorded 10 of these conversations already, and each of these people lives in a different state.
It won't always be like this in the future.
I'm sure I will start to have conversations with people from the same state at some point, because there are only 50 states in the US.
But so far each person has been from a different state and I've learned a lot about these different states.
I'm from California.
This is where I was born and raised, and I know a lot about Southern California specifically.
But I don't necessarily know a lot about the other states in my country.
And so I've been able to ask people questions during the recordings of these podcast episodes and asked them about their state.
And we've been able to compare the different places that they've been to, that I've been to.
And it's been really educational for me to learn about different places.
Just to give you some examples, I've recorded episodes with people from California.
There's one person so far from California.
Also Washington State, Montana, Texas, New Jersey.
I'm already forgetting a lot more.
Maryland.
I can't even remember the other states all over the country.
So it's been really fun to do this.
And you're going to love this because you're going to learn a lot about this country.
You're going to learn a lot about the culture, the geography, the weather, the different, maybe stereotypes or that kind of stuff.
It's been really educational for me and it will be for you too.
It's also been cool to talk to people from small towns.
There have been some people from really small towns and there have been some people from big cities and And for me in particular, it's been cool to talk to people from the east coast and the east side of the United States, because I know very little about that part of the country in particular.
So, no matter which part of the US you're more interested in, or if you're interested in the countryside or the big cities, you're going to learn a lot.
And another thing that I've learned a lot about from these conversations is just different fields of work, different types of hobbies, different activities, because in each of these conversations I've had the chance to talk to people about different topics.
For example, one person I talked to is studying linguistics in university.
And that was really interesting to learn about some of the different linguistic elements that he's studying in school, for example.
And I talked to another person about music, and I talked to another person about medical school and I talked to another person about jiu-jitsu and about education all these different interesting topics that I might not know anything about, or I might know a little, but not too much.
And that's been really fun as well to learn about some different fields, some different hobbies, things like that.
And it's also been very interesting to talk to people with really different ideas, different perspectives, different opinions about.
A lot of the people that I've talked to so far have really different preferences when it comes to cities or different areas of the US that they really like and other areas that they don't like.
They have different opinions about different cultures and different languages, because I didn't mention this, but a lot of these people live in countries outside of the US currently.
They are expats, as we would say.
An expat is someone who no longer lives in their home country and they're living somewhere else now.
So a lot of these people are expats.
They live in places like Mexico or Poland or Thailand or different places like that.
So that's also added.
Another interesting element to these conversations is that these people have a very deep, broad perspective on life and culture because they've lived in different places.
By the way, the word broad just means wide.
So they have a very broad or wide perspective and it allows them to compare different cultures, different languages and learn a lot about themselves and their own culture.
And by the way, these are all Americans that I'm talking to.
They're all native speakers, but some of them have chosen to move to other countries.
So they're all native speakers, though.
They're all Americans.
So that's added a very interesting element to our conversations.
And I think it's great to be able to talk to people that have different backgrounds and that have different situations now, that live in different places now.
I think it really expands our perspective and it helps us to learn from each other, and So I really wanted to find different people with very different situations, living in different places.
And so far, that's what I've done with the 10 conversations that I've recorded up until this point.
Everyone has had a very different situation, so that's really helped keep things interesting, and every episode has been educational for me.
And another really interesting thing that I've experienced up until this point is that a lot of these people who are native speakers, they speak differently from me and they use different vocabulary.
They use different local lingo from their cities.
By the way, the word lingo just refers to words and phrases vocabulary from a specific place or region.
So they use some local lingo, they use some words that I'm not accustomed to using, and so you'll notice this.
If you listen to my conversations with them, you'll notice that we talk differently, and sometimes these people will pronounce words differently than I pronounce them, and they will even kind of contradict the pronunciation tips that I normally give.
They speak differently, they pronounce words differently from how I teach them.
And that's cool.
I already knew this, of course, that people pronounce words differently in different parts of the country.
But it's been eye-opening for me to see just how different pronunciations of words can be in different parts of the country.
By the way, when we say that something is eye opening, this means that something opens your eyes.
It makes you see something new.
It helps you realize something.
So it's been eye-opening for me to hear different pronunciations of words and I think it will help me in the future as a pronunciation teacher to be a little bit more aware of the fact that words can have pronunciations that are different from mine, even just a couple states over in the US just in the same country, but in another state and, like I said, I already knew this, but it's been cool to experience this through these conversations and to notice this, and I'm sure some of you will notice this as well, So that's something that has been very interesting for me as well.
Let me just finish by talking about how to use this podcast.
So if you decide to sign up for this podcast, how should you use it?
Well, first of all, it's important to know that this is much harder than my normal listening time podcast.
And it's actually much harder than my advanced podcast too, because I'm talking with other people and we are talking to each other.
I'm not talking to you like I am in this podcast.
And we are talking completely naturally and normally.
We interrupt each other.
It's like a normal conversation.
And this is much harder than this listening time podcast.
So this will not be for everyone.
And that's also one of the reasons why it's exclusive.
You should sign up if you feel like you're ready for it.
But even though it's not for everyone, I think that most people can benefit from it.
Even if you don't feel like you have a very high level of listening yet.
If you want to challenge yourself and start to get accustomed to what real conversations between native speakers sound like, then I still think you can benefit from this, even if you don't feel quite ready yet.
So I just wanted to mention that because you'll notice that the U.S.
Conversations podcast is much harder.
It's much more challenging.
And so each conversation is about 40 or 45 minutes, or most of the conversations will be around that length.
And so this type of conversation at this length will will supply you with days of practice, okay?
You're gonna wanna spend days and days with each conversation, with each episode, okay?
Because there are gonna be a lot of new words, a lot of new phrases.
It's gonna be hard to understand a lot of things that people say.
I'll probably be easier to understand because you're accustomed to my way of speaking.
But the people that I talk to especially will be harder to understand.
You're going to want to use a lot of repetition over many days.
OK, I recommend that you listen to each conversation multiple times.
And when I say multiple, it could mean many.
It could mean five times, six times.
Who knows?
It depends on you. how you're feeling with the episode.
I think you should try to reach a point with each episode where you can understand everything, or almost everything, without using the transcript.
That might be hard and you might need to lower your standard a little bit.
So You might not want to understand everything, but maybe almost everything, without the transcript, which can take you many repetitions.
Like I said, you might need to listen six, seven times, with and without the transcript alternating, until you can reach that point.
But that's okay.
This is gonna be very good practice for you.
And if you repeat these episodes many times, you're gonna learn a lot of new words.
The words are gonna start to stick in your brain a little more.
So that's gonna be a really good benefit.
You're gonna be exposed to some very useful phrases that you might not be familiar with.
And you'll hear them again and again if you use this repetition method.
And you'll expand your vocabulary.
You'll get more comfortable with many different phrases, different words.
So repetition is key.
I think that you can spend many days with just one conversation.
So that advice is pretty similar to the advice that I give regarding this listening time podcast.
But the difference is that the US Conversations podcast is way harder, okay?
So it's going to take a lot more time and repetition to understand everything, okay?
And one other piece of advice is to have fun.
These conversations are interesting.
You get to learn a lot about the US, a lot about different parts of the country, different fields of work, different cultures.
Have fun with this.
Don't just use it for your English practice.
Use it as entertainment.
Right.
Try to just have fun and learn a lot about this very interesting country that I live in.
Use it for your English, but also just use it for your own entertainment, your own enjoyment.
I know that I've really enjoyed talking to these people and even listening to my recorded conversation with them while I'm doing the transcript.
It's been interesting to listen again.
I think you're really going to have a lot of fun with this podcast.
So have fun with it.
It will make the English part easier for you, okay?
And I hope you enjoy it, especially because I'm not lying.
This has been a lot of hard work for me.
I've had to message these people, pay and schedule classes with these people.
Because, by the way, I didn't mention this, but these are all English teachers that I'm talking to.
So that's one added interesting element here is that, if you want, you can also take classes with these English teachers.
They're all English teachers who work online.
And I'm going to include the link to their teaching profile at the bottom of each transcript page.
So you can actually have conversations with these people as well.
So I've had to contact these people, pay and schedule classes with them, record these conversations.
And the hardest part doing the transcript.
It takes me hours and hours and hours to to finish just one transcript.
So this has been a lot of work for me, much more work than the listening time podcast.
So i really hope you enjoy it.
I really hope you appreciate the transcripts with all of the definitions of words and phrases.
Uh, i i hope you enjoy it because i've worked really hard and i've really enjoyed this project so far.
So i think that um, i think that you'll like it.
I hope you do so.
If you want to sign up, remember that it's five dollars a month And you'll get one new conversation every month on the first day of the month.
And the link is in the description below this episode.
That's patreon.com slash us conversations.
So I really hope you consider signing up.
I hope that all of you who have asked me for this type of content will can now use this and benefit from it.
I think this will provide you with a great boost for your English learning and specifically, your ability to understand native speakers when they're speaking to each other.
That's really hard, but hopefully this will guide you and help you reach that level where you can feel more comfortable understanding people.
So make sure to go down and check that out.
Click on the link and sign up if you're interested in that.
And even if this new podcast is not right for you at this moment, if you're not ready yet, you can still join my listening time membership and become a listening time member or family member.
If you become a family member, you'll get my advanced podcast episodes and they'll help you maybe reach the level where you feel a little more comfortable to try out this new podcast that I'm making.
So remember that you can still sign up for my membership and get all kinds of helpful content and my advanced podcast episodes.
Alright, well thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
