English Podcasts |

Football will be in the news for a month during the World Cup 2022.

Are you able to talk "footy"? Do you know the football jargon that we hear around us in the bars? Take the opportunity this month to go to bars and start up a conversation with other people about the football matches, it's a great way to improve your English!

In this podcast Sue puts Chris on the spot when she asks him to explain frequent football words and expressions. You'll hear that they're not big fans of football but they'll make the effort for language learning :) 

Give yourself a pat on the back when you understand what these words mean;

To kick off  / The coin toss  / 

A goalie / to save a goal / to mark a player

To score a hattrick

A foul / a tackle / to get booked / to be sent off/ to get a red card

A peno / a penalty shootout

To park the bus

Extra time vs Injury time

.... and the language of TV football commentators

It's a game of 2 halves

To put the game to bed

What a beauty !

They're on the back foot

He's bottled it

It's an open goal / It's an own goal

That's a blatant handball !

"Football's coming home" :)

 

Then test your memory with this Flash Quiz.

[h5p id="38"]

For those of you who want more, try this World Cup Football Quiz full of great vocabulary and amazing facts to entertain even the most football skeptic.

https://english-podcasts.com/the-curious-off-side-football-world-cup-quiz/

 

Listen to the podcast here.

https://english-podcasts.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Talking-to-a-football-fan-03062021-12.15.m4a

As part of the Australian series, this podcast takes you into the world of real Ozzie slang.... in other words, Australian informal language.

Do you know what an ambo is ? Or what about "sunnies".... you shouldn't leave home in Australia without them !

Listen as Laura tests Sue on her knowledge (or rather lack of knowledge !) about Ozzie slang.

As an English learner do you think it's a great tool or just cheating and laziness ? Do you use Google translate to help you with your written English ? Do you enhance your text by putting it through an a.i software?

Listen as we discuss the pros and cons of a.i and see how we think it'll affect the learning and teaching experience.

Did you know that Shakespeare coined* over 1000 words, many of which we still use today and some of them we use everyday!

But WHY did he invent so many words ? This is a good question. He didn't it simply to fit in with the rhythm of his text, he needed words with the right number of syllables to fit in with the meter rhythm of the line.

Indeed many of the words that Shakespeare coined came from adding suffixes and prefixes such as -ful, -able - fied. For example, laugh and able,  un and dress, care and less. So if you find English adjectives confusing you know who to blame !

Sometimes he put 2 words together, for example bed and room. Thank you Shakespeare for that one! Plus, birth and place, farm and house.

In this podcast, Sue asks Chris to explain 10 Shakespearian inventions and then he "turns the tables" on her... you can thank Shakespeare for that one too !!!

Listen out for these words and expressions:

It's Greek to me

To be tongue tied

fair play / foul play

A fool's paradise

A hard day's night

A green eyed monster

Laughable

An eyesore

What the Dickens !

To puke

to coin means to invent a new word or expression

Numbers in Sport.

Numbers can be a difficult part of learning a new language.

New learners often confuse "hundreds" and "thousands", "fifteen" and "fifty", "half past six" with "six and a half hours" etc etc etc.

The only way to improve your number skills is with practice.

Start by learning important numbers for you: your age, your address, your phone number.

Then practice well known expressions such as "fifty-fifty", "One Hundred and One Dalmatians".

Also try this podcast in which Sue asks Chris 10 questions about numbers in sport.

You will need to listen several times; the first time you listen your main objective should be to focus on the numbers that Chris gives. Are you clear about 100s and 1000s ?  Can you recognize times ? Can you identity money quantities? What about dates ?

For the second time of listening,  focus on the questions and for the third time, just enjoy the conversation !

TRY THIS QUIZ IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE PODCAST: you will hear the same questions in the podcast as in the quiz. How many numbers can you recognize ? Practice saying all the numbers in the quiz and then listen again to the podcast. Your progress will be AMAZING !

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Numbers in sport

After listening to the podcast try this quiz to consolidate your number

skills. You can check your own answers with Chris' attempts.

Start Quiz

Question

Your answer: Correct answer: Next

Please wait..↺

You got {{SCORE_CORRECT}} out of {{SCORE_TOTAL}} SHARE YOUR RESULTSShareTweetPinEmail

Your Answers

We are nearing the end of the season and it's hotting up between two great teams: Toulouse (our favourite) and La Rochelle.

Listen as you'll hear how both teams made it to the final and how they are also in excellent positions in the French Top 14 league.

Listen out for typical English expressions we use when talking about sport. Give yourself a pat on the back when you hear them !!

How do you account for the zero?  How do you explain the zero ?

To weigh up the opponents. Toulouse often starts slowly because they weigh up the opponents, they try to suss them out, they try to figure them out.

To be over the hill.     Is Max Médard too old?

Cheslin Kolbe is a game changer, he has a huge impact on the game.

However, he did look a bit winded at times, he looked out of breath following a hard tackle.

Who would you put money on ? Who do you think will win?

On paper Toulouse look stronger, in theory they look the better team.

Toulouse have their eye firmly on the European Cup, it is their main objective.

In the final no team will run away with it, it will be a very close match.

Learning tip: practice your number skills by making a note of all the scores Chris mentions, it's pretty fast, just like the game !

So who do you think will win ? Toulouse or La Rochelle. In the comments below let us know and why, we would love to know your opinion.

In this series we are going to be looking at ways that we can enhance and improve our learning and perhaps crushing some of the myths about learning techniques that we learnt in school.

Every day we meet people with different techniques for learning vocabulary, but most of them revolve around some pretty shaky ideas, those being 'if you write stuff down, you've learnt it.'

If only things were that simple ...

This rarely works, due mainly to the fact that some important steps have been missed out - those being, actively learning the vocabulary and then actively using it.

Let's put this in prallel with sport, to illustrate the idea.

Imagine that you are a huge cycling fan and you love the Tour de France and you would like to experience the grueling (look that one up if you like) hardships of a day riding in the mountains of the Tour de France.

So, you get all the magazines about the Tour and mountain cycling, you have the maps and you have read all the technical stuff on hydration and nutrition during a massive climb in the Pyrenees mountains in the south of France.

You have even chosen your mountain, Le Col du Tourmalet - wow! that's a big one, and have bought a fabulously expensive 'S-Works' bicycle for the climb. 

You've seen the videos and read all the information, but that's as far as you go - THAT is how a lot of people learn - they don't go the final mile of training before getting on the bike after weeks of muscle and stamina building. They don't prepare for the day that they will be climbing Tourmalet on their bike.

OK, they know all about Tourmalet, Le Tour de France and mountaing cycling - but they have no guarantee of ever being able to achieve the ascent of a mountain on their bicycle.

Listen to the podcast, N°1 in a series, to get some ideas to improve your learning.

When giving a series of instructions to make or produce something there are some common, useful and simple language features, used for clarity and simplicity.

In this podcast we use the example of explaining a process for how to make something following a set of clear steps to demonstrate this.

Common features when describing a process or to how to do something, is the use of the imperative and linking words.

The imperative form is made by using the bare infinitive of the verb (the infinitive without 'to').

Here are some examples from the podcast.

The imperatives are in bold type.

"Take a capsule ...."

"Check that the tank is full... "

"Press the button..."

"Open the front of the machine ... "

"Hold the button ... "

Explaining a process

When giving a series of instructions it's more natural in speech and writing to join the different instructions together with linking words.

There are many different linking words that can be used to describe a series of instructions that make up parts of a process.

Some very simple, but commonly used ones are and, then, after that, before that, in the meantime, now etc.

Here are some examples from the podcast.

... go to the X machine ...

... in the meantime what you can do ...

... now you need to take a capsule ...

 

Can you figure out what they are trying to make?

If you would like to see the Animated Podcast version click here.

Staying focused, motivated and driven can be tricky, especially when you have a busy working and/or family life to deal with.

Check out this podcast to find 10 golden rules for staying motivated learning English.

When we start learning something new, it can be a novel experience at the start and we want to put a lot of effort into our learning, but as time goes on, we can start to flag and at times we just cannot get the motivation to continue learning.

This is especially true if we don't have a clear plan for our learning or if we can't see our progress moving along as fast as we would have expected.

Try some of these golden rules.

How many are you using now?

How many come as a surprise to you?

Will you try and use some of them?

 Want a website like this one?

Mystery shopping trip

In this podcast Sue and Chris go to a shopping mall to pick up some items.

In this podcast they describe some of the items that they buy.

Can you work out what they bought?

If you need a little extra help, check out the Animated Podcast version on our YouTube channel.