Learn English with the British Council and Premier League

In this week's Premier Skills English podcast, Rich and Jack talk about the latest in the Premier League and focus on the history behind the nicknames of three Premier League clubs: Manchester Utd, West Ham and Arsenal. The language focus is on narrative tenses, which are tenses in the past that are often used to tell stories and anecdotes. In our pronunciation section, we take a look at some place names and Premier League clubs that are difficult to pronounce.

Gameweek 4 finished with 38 points for the Premier Skills team on the Premier League's official Fantasy Football game. You chose the team and decided to go with Zlatan Ibrahimovic (10 points) as your captain, in a 2-5-3 formation! You voted for all-out attack, which gave us the opportunity to play all our midfielders and forwards. Every week, you choose the team, select the captain (double points) and nominate players to sell and buy. In the Premier Skills League, we are in mid-table place with 182 points. . How is your team doing?

In this week's Premier Skills English podcast, Rich and Jack talk about some of the latest transfers in the Premier League and Saturday's Manchester Derby which puts Jose Mourinho up against Pep Guardiola for the first time as manager's of United and City. The language focus is on used to for past states and repeated actions as Jack talks about when he lived in Manchester. In our pronunciation section, we have a look at the difference between voiced and voiceless sounds with an emphasis on the /s/ and /z/ sounds. We also have news about our Premier Skills Fantasy Football team, your chance to make a prediction on the Manchester Derby and a new football phrase for you to guess.

In this week's Premier Skills English podcast, Rich and Jack talk about the latest action in the Premier League; including Manchester Utd's last-minute winner against Hull City. The transfer window closes this week so the language focus is on the vocabulary you need to speak about transfers. In our pronunciation section, we have a look at the three different ways you can pronounce regular verbs in the past simple. We also have news about our Fantasy Football team after Gameweek 3 and a new football phrase for you to guess.

Gameweek 3 finished with 32 points for the Premier Skills team on the Premier League's official Fantasy Football game. You chose the team and decided to go with Zlatan Ibrahimovic (4 points) as your captain, in a 3-4-3 formation. Every week, you choose the team, select the captain (double points) and nominate players to sell and buy.

In this week's Premier Skills English podcast, Rich and Jack talk about the latest action in the Premier League; including West Ham's first ever Premier League match at their new stadium. The language focus is on the structures 'get used to' and 'be used to', which are phrases that are used to describe things that were unusual but have become normal. In our pronunciation section, we have a look at how we pronounce 'used to'. We have news about our Fantasy Football team after Gameweek 2, another Premier League prediction for you and a new football phrase.

Gameweek 2 finished with 62 points for the Premier Skills team on the Premier League's official Fantasy Football game. You chose the team and decided to go with Zlatan Ibrahimovic (26 points) as your captain, in a 3-4-3 formation. Every week, you choose the team, select the captain (double points) and nominate players to sell and buy.

In this week's Premier Skills English podcast, Rich and Jack talk about the first Premier League matches this season; including an exciting 4-3 win for Liverpool against Arsenal. The language focus is on the difference between the words 'say' and 'tell' and different collocations that use these two words. In our pronunciation section, we have a look at weak forms in some common questions. We have news about our Fantasy Football team after the first gameweek, and another Premier League prediction for you.

Gameweek 1 finished with 54 points for the Premier Skills team on the Premier League's official Fantasy Football game.

In this week's Premier Skills English podcast, Rich and Jack talk about the new Premier League season, which starts this weekend. They talk about some of the things they would like to see this season. The language focus is on some of the different ways we can use 'would like' and the pronunciation section focuses on how to pronounce 'would' in connected speech. Our Club of the Week is Arsenal and we have news about our Fantasy Football team and our first Premier League prediction of the new season.