Better at English - Upper intermediate 704j6h

When you watch the news these days, do you trust your eyes and ears? Do you think what you’re seeing is real and happened the way it is being shown? Or is your first reaction to think: Hmm, I wonder if this video is fake? That’s what today’s episode is about, so stay tuned. TRANSCRIPT PREVIEW – Get the full transcript here: https://www.betteratenglish.com/053-is-seeing-believing-deepfakes-and-the-information-apocalypse-transcript Before we get started, I hope you’ll indulge me in a little Better at English background info. I don’t do Better at English for the money, but some of you have been going out of your way to send me thank-you gifts. So thank you so much to Charles for his very generous Paypal donation, and to the mystery person who sent me the Handbook of Self-Determination research from my Amazon wish list. I honestly didn’t know that it was even possible to find my Amazon wish list anymore, so getting a mystery book delivered was a real surprise! I’d also like to thank Zhuo Tao (I hope I’m saying that right) who wrote my favorite review this month: It goes like this “This podcast is getting better and better by every episode. It’s no longer just some language learning material, but food for thought as well.” That is indeed what I’m trying to do, so that was really nice to get that . You can say thanks here: https://www.betteratenglish.com/-better-at-english All from you lovely listeners, whether it’s reviews, email, voice messages, donations, Amazon wish list gifts…it’s all positive that fuels my motivation to keep doing this…it’s a sign that you’re getting value from the episodes, which is what it’s all about. So thank you! OK, thank you for indulging me…let’s get on with today’s topic. Deepfakes and the Information Apocalypse Today we’re looking at misinformation and disinformation in our modern age, and how technologies like deepfake are making it increasingly harder for us to know what is really happening in the world, to separate fact from fiction. This episode builds on my earlier episodes about AI—that’s artificial intelligence—which you can find further down the podcast feed as episodes 47 and 48. Before we go any further, take a moment to ask yourself how much you trust what you see, hear, and read these days, whether it’s online, in a newspaper, or coming from an expert or politician in a live televised address. Is seeing believing, as the expression goes? Go ahead, think of some recent examples that are personally relevant to you. Now ask yourself how your beliefs about what is true influence your actions, how much they shape what you actually do as you move through life. How do these beliefs influence, for example, who you vote for, what you buy, what you eat, which books you read, which car you drive? You don’t need to be a Ph.D. in psychology to understand that our beliefs about what is true or false affect our actions. Nobody wants to make decisions based on lies or misinformation, so we all want information that we can trust. Just to give a current example, look at what’s happening regarding masks and the Corona-virus. If you think masks do help stop the spread and protect others, you’re likely to wear one even though they are uncomfortable and it’s kind of a pain in the butt. And if you think masks don’t help at all, you are more likely to resist wearing a mask or even flat out refuse. I mean, why bother if they don’t work, right? And if you have really strong beliefs about this, you might even march in protest against the rules that require you to wear a mask. The point is, your chosen path will be based on what you believe is right and true. We are living in a pretty crazy time right now, and humanity is facing huge challenges. And it’s no secret that many of the big issues are extremely polarizing. And if you try to build an informed opinion by examining the information and arguments of both sides, you make a frustrating discovery, or at least I did: Both sides seem to have completely different interpretations of facts and reality. And each side believes it sees things correctly and the other side is hallucinating. Or crazy. Or just plain evil. To borrow an analogy from the author Scott Adams, it’s as if we’re all watching the same movie screen, but we’re seeing two completely different movies at the same time. And each of us is convinced that our movie is the truth. This “two movies on one screen” phenomenon is already happening with events that we all can agree really happened. We might not agree on what these events mean, who is responsible, what should be done about them etc., but we basically accept that they actually occurred in the physical world. Seeing is believing, right? But what happens when the things we are seeing and hearing, the video, audio, and photos are 100% fake? And what happens when these fakes are everywhere? If we can have such serious disagreements, such polarization about genuine, real events, what is going to happen when we truly can’t be sure if the media we are seeing and hearing is real? Some experts think that this is going to happen really soon. We are entering the era of deepfakes. If you’re not sure what a deepfake is, you will understand it by the end of this episode. You are going to hear experts discussing this topic in English, and I’ll pop in from time to time to guide you through the examples. The link to the full transcript of this episode is in the show notes, and there are also links to the audio you hear and the examples that the speakers mention, like videos, websites, books, etc. So if you find this topic interesting, there is plenty of supplementary material so you can learn more. All right, let’s get started. First of all, what is deepfake? Nina So a deep fake is a type of synthetic media. And what synthetic media essentially is, is any type of media, it can be an image, it can be a video, it can be a text, that is generated by AI. Lori That was Nina Schick, who is, to put it mildly, a pretty impressive woman with a very interesting background: Nina I’m half German, and I’m half Nepalese. And so I’ve this background in geopolitics, politics, and information warfare. And my area of interest is really how the exponential changes in technology, and particularly in AI are rewriting not only politics, but society at large as well. Lori She’s also proficient in 7 languages. All I can say is, wow. You’ll now hear Nina talking to Sam Harris about deepfakes. It’s from an episode of Sam Harris’s podcast “Making Sense,” which is another great podcast for you to add to your list of interesting podcasts in English. Here we go: Sam So much of this is a matter of our entertaining ourselves into a kind of collective madness, and what seems like it could be a coming social collapse, I realized that if you’re not in touch with these trends, you know, if anyone in the audience who isn’t this kind of language coming from me, or anyone else can sound hyperbolic. But we’re really going over some kind of precipice here, with respect to our ability to understand what’s going on in the world, and to converge on a common picture of a shared reality. [EDIT] And again, we built the, the very tools of our derangement ourselves. And in particular, I’m talking about social media here. So your book goes into this. And it’s organized around this, this new piece of technology that we call deepfakes. And the book is Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse, which umm, that’s not your coinage, it…on the page is very easy to parse. When you say it, it’s hard to understand what’s being said there, but it’s really, you’re talking about an information apocalypse. Just remind people what deepfakes are, and suggest what’s at stake here in of, of how difficult it could be to make sense of our world in the presence of this technology. Nina This ability of AI to generate fake or synthetic media is really, really nascent. We’re only at the very, very beginning of the synthetic media revolution. It was only probably in about the last four or five years that this has been possible. And for the last two years that we’ve been seeing how the real-world applications of this have been leaching out from beyond the AI research community. So the first thing to say about synthetic media is that it is completely going to transform how we perceive the world, because in future, all media is going to be synthetic, because it means that anybody can create content to a degree of fidelity that is only possible for Hollywood studios right now, right? And they can do this for little to no cost using apps or software, various interfaces, which will make it so accessible to, to anyone. And the reason why this is so interesting. Nina Another reason why synthetic media is so interesting is until now, the best kind of computer effects CGI, do you still can’t quite get humans right. So when you use CGI to do effects where you’re trying to create robotic humans, it still doesn’t look right…it’s called, you know, uncanny valley. But it turns out that AI when you train your machine learning systems with enough data, they’re really really good at generating fake humans or synthetic humans, both in images, I mean, and when it comes to generating fake human faces, so images, still images, it’s already perfected that and if you want to kind of test that you can go and look at thispersondoesnotexist.com. Every time you refresh the page, you’ll see a new human face that to the human eye, to you, or, or me, Sam, we’ll look at that and we’ll think that’s an authentic human, whereas that is just something that’s generated by AI. That human literally doesn’t exist. And also now increasingly in other types of media like audio, and film. So I could take essentially a clip of a recording with you, Sam, and I could use that to train my machine learning system and then I can synthesize your voice so I can literally hijack your biometrics, I can take your voice, synthesize it, get my AI kind of machine learning system to recreate that. I can do the same with your digital likeness. Obviously, this is going to have tremendous commercial applications; entire industries are going to be transformed. For example, corporate communications, advertising, the future of all movies, video games. But this is also the most potent form of mis- and disinformation, which are democratizing for almost anyone in the world at a time when our information ecosystem has already become increasingly dangerous and corrupt. [Edit] So we have to distinguish between the legitimate use cases of synthetic media and how we draw the line. So I very broad brush in my book say that the use of and intent behind synthetic media really matters and how we define it. So I refer to deepfake, as when a piece of synthetic media is used as a piece of mis- or disinformation. And, you know, there is so much more that you could delve into there with regards to the kind of the ethical implications on the taxonomy. But broadly speaking, that’s how I define it and that’s my definition between synthetic media and deep fakes. Sam Hmm. Well, so umm, as you point out, all of this would be good, clean, fun if it weren’t for the fact that we know there are people intent upon spreading misinformation and disinformation and doing it with a truly sinister political purpose. I mean, not not just for amusement, although that can be harmful enough. It’s it’s something that state actors and people internal to various states are going to leverage to further divide society from itself and increase political polarization. But it would, it’s amazing that it is so promising in the fun department that we can’t possibly even contemplate putting this cat back in the bag. I mean, it’s just, that’s the problem we’re seeing on all fronts. It is, so it is with social media. So it is with the, the ad revenue model that is selecting for so many of its harmful effects. I mean, we just can’t break the spell wherein people want the cheapest, most fun media, and they want it endlessly. And yet the, the harms that are accruing, are so large that it’s, it’s amazing. Just to see that there is just no there’s no handhold here, whereby we can resist our slide toward the precipice. Just to underscore how quickly this technology is developing. In your book, you point out what happened with the…once Martin Scorsese released his film, The Irishman which had this exceedingly expensive, and laborious process of trying to DE-age its principal actors, Robert de Niro and Joe Pesci. And that was met with something like derision for the the imperfection of what was achieved there — again, at great cost. And then very, very quickly, someone on YouTube, using free software, did a nearly perfect de-aging of the same film. [You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHSTWepkp_M ] It’s just amazing what what’s happening here. And, again, these tools are going to be free, right? I mean, they’re already free and and ultimately, the best tools will be free. Nina Absolutely. So you already have various kind of software platforms online. And so the barriers to entry have come down tremendously. Right now, if you wanted to make a convincing deepfake video, you would still need to have some knowledge, some knowledge of machine learning, but you wouldn’t have to be an AI expert by any means. But already now we have apps that allow people to do certain things like swap their faces into scenes, for example, Reface I don’t know if you’ve come across that app. I don’t know how old your children are. But if you have a teenager you’ve probably come across it. You can basically put your own face into a popular scene from a film like Titanic or something. This is using the power of synthetic media. But experts who I speak to on the generation side — because it’s so hugely exciting to people who are generating synthetic media — think that by the end of the decade, any YouTuber, any teenager, will have the ability to create special effects in film that are better than anything a Hollywood studio can do now. And that’s really why I put that anecdote about the Irishman into the book because it just demonstrates the power of synthetic media. I mean, Scorsese was working on this project from 2015. He filmed with a special three-rig camera, he had this best special effects artists, post-production work, multi-million dollar budget, and still the effect at the end wasn’t that convincing. It didn’t look quite right. And now one YouTuber, free software, takes a clip from Scorsese’s film in 2020. So Scorsese’s film came out in 2019. This year, he can already create something that’s far more…when you look at it…looks far more realistic than what Scorsese did. This is just in the realm of video. As I already mentioned, with images, it can already do it perfectly. There is also the case of audio. There is another YouTuber, for example, who makes a lot of the kind of early pieces of synthetic media have sprung up on YouTube. There’s a YouTuber called Vocal Synthesis, who uses an open-sourced AI model to train a…trained on celebrities voices END TRANSCRIPT PREVIEW — You can find the full transcript here Material used in this episode The Making Sense Podcast with Sam Harris Episode #220 The Information Apocalypse: A Conversation with Nina Schick https://samharris.org/podcasts/220-information-apocalypse/ Deepfakes: Is This Video Even Real? Claire Wardle of the New York Times https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OqFY_2JE1c Vocal Synthesis Youtube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRt-fquxnij9wDnFJnpPS2Q 6 presidents read the Twilight Zone intro – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2HlDk-u1hQ Donald Trump reads the Darth Plagueis copypasta – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEzIAixNkFI Supplementary Material Nina Schick’s Book: Deepfakes: The Coming Infocalypse Deepfakes: A threat to democracy or just a bit of fun? https://www.bbc.com/news/business-51204954 The Irishman – de-Aging of Robert de Niro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHSTWepkp_M Here’s why deepfakes are the perfect weapon for the ‘infocalypse’ – By Nina Schick https://lifestyle.livemint.com/smart-living/innovation/here-s-why-deepfakes-are-the-perfect-weapon-for-the-infocalypse-111602247119544.html Deepfakes: How to prepare your organization for a new type of threat https://www.accenture.com/nl-en/blogs/insights/deepfakes-how-prepare-your-organization A deepfake porn bot is being used to abuse thousands of women https://www.wired.co.uk/article/telegram-deepfakes-deepnude-ai Deepfake video of Vladimir Putin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbFHhpYU15w Deepfake video of Kim Jong-Un https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERQlaJ_czHU Access Hollywood tape with Donald Trump and Billy Bush (2016) – vulgar, profanity, not safe for work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSC8Q-kR44o Actress in Trump’s ‘Access Hollywood’ Tape reacts to Trump’s claim that he’s not sure he “actually said that”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRIPFJbq4 The post 053 – Is seeing believing? Deepfakes and the information apocalypse appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

Imagine if you will, the following scenario. You’ve volunteered to take part in a psychology study, say, at your university. All you have to do is show up to the lab, sit by yourself in a little booth and play a very simple game of chance, something like flipping a coin, where there’s no skill involved, only luck. You get paid one dollar just for showing up, that’s guaranteed. And if you’re lucky and win the game, you’ll get paid 5 dollars cash. But if you lose, you get nothing. Here’s the kicker: it’s up to you to tell the researchers if you won or lost, they won’t be able to tell. So there are three possible outcomes: you can win and get 5 dollars, you can lose and get nothing, or….you can lose, but lie and still get the 5 dollars. And nobody will know. What would you do? What do you think other people would do? As it happens, a recent study just looked at this, and there was a cunning little twist: those crafty researchers actually DID know if people won or lost. So they also knew if people told the truth about it or if they lied. The study, called “Cheaters, Liars, or Both? A New Classification of Dishonesty Profiles” is absolutely fascinating. And today you’ll hear a conversation ‒ in American English – with some people discussing it. The conversation is from one of my favorite podcasts, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. It’s a podcast featuring smart people having interesting discussions about science, technology, and critical thinking. If you are at all interested in those topics, I highly recommend it for your English listening practice. This is definitely a show that will make you smarter, and will teach you lots of vocabulary. The episodes don’t always have transcripts, but I’ve transcribed the part you’re going to hear today and put it in the show notes, which you can find at betteratenglish.com/transcripts. You know, if you like, you can turn this episode into a more challenging task for yourself. In the show notes you’ll also find a link to a New York Times article about the study. In the conversation you’ll hear a woman summarizing this same article to her friends. So before you continue listening, you can hit pause and go read the article yourself. Then imagine how you might summarize it for friend and what you might discuss. What language would you use? What vocabulary would you need? Spend a few moments imagining how you might talk about it with a group of friends. Then listen to the rest of this podcast and compare your ideas with what you hear in the conversation. All right, let’s get to it. You’ll hear a woman named Cara doing most of the talking. She explains the study’s findings to her friends Steve, Bob, Jay, and Evan. They they all discuss what they make of it. Are you ready? Let’s go: TRANSCRIPT PREVIEW Get the full transcript here Steve: All right, Cara, you’re gonna tell us about the psychology of lying and cheating. Cara: Right! So this is a field of psychological inquiry that goes back basically to the beginning of experimental psychology, right? Psychologists, psychologists have always been interested in deception. So a new paper said, OK, well, we want to do is we want to see if we can sort of beef up and retest some old concepts in the kind of construct of lying, cheating deception, but we want to go beyond that. And we want to say, Okay, this is not an all or nothing phenomenon, right? Like, you could say, That person’s a liar, or that person lied, or that person’s a cheater, that person’s dishonest, but there are shades of grey, aren’t there? Steve: Mm hmm. Evan: Of course, of course. Bob: Yeah, absolutely. Little white lies. Cara: Totally. There lies that actually help us. Bob: There are lies that actually get people killed. Cara: Yep. Lies to get people killed and lies that we can’t help but but commit, that’s not a good word. But tell? Yeah, because they’re the only they’re the best of a bad situation we’re dealing with or something like that. So they set up, you know, a standard classic laboratory psychology paradigm, which does not necessarily translate to the real world. So let’s keep that in mind. And they set up two paradigms. One of them was a coin flip paradigm, and one of them was a die roll paradigm. And basically, they said, you know, if you roll heads, you get money. If you roll tails, you get no money. Or if you flip heads, if you flip tails, and then on the die paradigm, they went into levels. So they said, you know, if you roll a one, you get $1, a two, you get $2, a three $3. But if you roll a six, that’s unlucky, so you get no dollars. So those are basically the two experiments that they ran. And they found that people by and large, had similar response. There were people who were totally honest. So they would flip the coin, they would hit heads, and they would say, got heads, give me my five bucks. Or they would flip tails and they would say, you know, I flipped tails. I don’t get any money. Okay, cool. All right. So you could flip a coin, and you’re gonna be lucky enough that you flip heads you’re, and that’s where you get a $5 payout, you’re probably gonna say, hey, look, I flipped heads, you’re gonna be honest about that, because you want the money. So they decided, let’s take all those people out of the equation. And let’s just look at the people who flip tails. Because now all the sudden there’s incentive, right? You could either flip tails, and not get the money and be honest about it. And that is what 41% of the people in the lab setting where they did it in front of actual researchers said, only 37% of people in a Mechanical Turk situation. So Mechanical Turk, have you guys ever used that? I think it’s Amazon’s like survey, study software. And so this is like it’s a coin flip simulation online. So it was this slightly lower number, it was 37%. But still, less than half of the people who flipped tails reported honestly that they flipped tails. Then there was another group that they called the “cheating non liars.” I love this. So these people flip the coin got tails, and were like, “Crap, I’m just gonna keep flipping until I get heads,” which was breaking the rules, the rules was you flip once, but they said, screw it. I’m just gonna keep flipping. And then when they finally got heads, they were like, Hey, I got heads, let me have my $5. So this was 17% of the people in front of researchers. 7% of the people online, and another group were what they called “the liars.” So these people flipped the coin got tails, and just straight up, go, “No, I got heads.” 23% of people just straight up lied. And then they found a fourth group. And this group is fascinating, you guys. They called them the “radically dishonest people.” And this is the group that I’m really interested in, like, can we develop a psychometric tool so that we can test these people and then start learning about them? So these people didn’t even bother to flip the coin! Group: Wow! Whoa! Cara: They just go, “Oh, yeah, I got heads.” Group: Wow. Whoa. Cara: So it’s like, they were like double liars. They lied about participating, and they lied about the outcome. Steve: What about “lying sack of shit?” What group were they in? Group: [Laughter] Cara: I think that’s radically dishonest, the lying sack of shits. Evan: Oh, man. Cara: And so this is really fascinating, because I think there are two components here that we we maybe intuitively thought about, just like Bob mentioned earlier, you know, there’s the lies that could get you killed. There’s also the lies that just feel cruel, or they feel like pathologically dishonest and then there are the lies where it’s like, I understand the ethical or moral reason that this person lied. And I think we can start to dig deep into just this very clean laboratory experiment to tease out some of those issues. For example, you’ve got your straight-up honest people, you’ve got straight-up lucky people, then you’ve got your just straight-up liars. END TRANSCRIPT PREVIEW If you are enjoying this Better at English podcast, please take a moment to rate it, review it, or share the love :-) LINKS TO SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL PDF transcript of this podcast episode Link to the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe Podcast episode https://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcasts/episode-793 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/15/science/psychology-dishonesty-lying-cheating.html The Good, the Bad and the ‘Radically Dishonest’ – New York Times article Link to full text of the actual study “ Cheaters, Liars, or Both? A New Classification of Dishonesty Profiles.” https://ivoox.descargarmp3.app/publication/343591254_Cheaters_Liars_or_Both_A_New_Classification_of_Dishonesty_Profiles Link to the actual game website used in the study. Try playing it yourself! http://rollandflip.com GENERAL ENGLISH LEARNING RESOURCES Loserthink This is a great book by Scott Adams (creator of the Dilbert cartoons) about critical thinking and all the ways our brain tries to fool us by Scott Adams. This link is to the summary version on Blinkist, which contains audio so you can listen as you read. https://blinkist.o6eiov.net/loserthink The post 051 – The good, the bad, and the flat-out liars. Real English Conversation appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

Hi English Learners! Lori here, your teacher from Better at English.com. For your listening practice today, I’ve got another Real English conversation. It’s actually one of my favorite conversations from deep in the Better at English archives. I’ve re-edited it so that new listeners can enjoy it. This conversation features lots of idioms and slang, and is a good example of a spontaneous, authentic English conversation between two people who know each other well. It also features lots of narrative tenses. You can read more about the verb tenses used in this conversation here. As always, you can find the complete transcript and vocabulary study guide at betteratenglish.com/transcripts. Are you ready to practice your English listening skills? Here comes the conversation. Conversation transcript Lori: Yeah, something kind of funny happened to me when I was shopping for office supplies today. Andy: OK, what happened? L: Well, my boss had, had given me a list of office supplies to buy on my way home from a teaching gig, because I drive right past the office supply shop. And I’m always happy to do it, ’cause, as you know, I LOVE office supplies — it’s almost like my, my “office-supply porn” — I can go in and get my daily fix of all the nice things for, you know, keeping organized, and folders and notebooks, and…I had a whole list of things to buy. And when I got up to the and the clerk was ringing me up, the total came to over a thousand Swedish crowns. Which is not a problem, I mean, they just just send us an invoice; it wasn’t like I had to worry about money. But then he said, “Because you spent so much money here today, you can go pick one of those rolls of toilet paper over there.” A: Toilet paper! L: Yeah, toilet paper! And, I mean, we’re always happy to get free toilet paper; you know, it’s one of those useful things that, that, you know, a business has to buy… A: You can never have too much. L: Yeah, exactly. But the thing is, I looked at where he was pointing, and it was these HUGE, GIGANTIC, industrial-sized packages, all shrink-wrapped in plastic, of toilet paper…I mean, it was HUGE, I could NOT BELIEVE that I was getting one for free. A:OK, like a year’s supply of toilet paper. L: At least. A: [laughs] L: I’m serious! When…standing on end, the thing comes up almost to my chest. A: OK. L: I mean, it’s huge. I, I forgot to count the rolls, but it was…it had to be…maybe… At least 20 packs of six rolls each. A: Wow. L: Seriously, it was one big, honking supply of toilet paper. And it was GOOD toilet paper as well! A: And this is free? L: Yeah, free just because I’d spent, you know, in one, you know, one purchase, we had spent over a thousand crowns. And I, but I could not believe they were giving away for free, and so I had to ask the guy, “Really? Are you kidding? You mean I get to take one of these?” And he was like, “Yeah, yeah.” I’m like, “No!” He was like, “Yeah!” “No!” And he says that, “You know, you can look, see the sign up above…it says…I can show you.” I’m like, “No no, it’s not that I don’t believe you, I just can’t believe you are giving away such a huge supply of toilet paper!” I was REALLY happy. And of course there was a line of Swedes standing waiting to pay for their things, and they were raising their eyebrows at me, you know, someone getting SO excited about getting a huge supply of toilet paper. But you know, I thought that was just a really really cool thing… A: Mmm, definitely. L: …for or the company to do. A: Yeah. L: ‘Cause say they had just given away one little pack, or two little packs. Like, oh, wow, 12 rolls of toilet paper. [rolls eyes] A: Right, right L: For spending a thousand crowns… A: Yeah. No, free stuff is good! L: Yeah, and the good news is, you know here at home we’re on our last roll… A: [Laughs} L: And because I scored this huge supply of toilet paper for my boss, she’s like, “Take some, take some!” And… A: NOW I see why you’re so happy. L: That’s why today I came home with that, you know, with… A: Your arms full of toilet paper. L: Exactly, exactly. Final words That’s all for this time. I hope you enjoyed the conversation. you can find more real English conversations with full transcripts on my website, betteratenglish.com. Until next time, have fun practicing your English. Bye for now! Vocabulary funny Something is funny if it makes you laugh, or if it is strange or unusual. boss Your boss is the person you work for, your manager, the person you report to. It’s an informal way to refer to this person. gig Here, Lori means a teaching assignment out at a company. office supplies Goods and materials that you need in an office, e.g, paper, paper clips, folders, binders, printer ink, coffee. In the USA there are huge stores that specialize in office supplies, such as Staples or Office Depot. office supply porn Porn is short for “pornography.” Here, Lori doesn’t mean real pornography, of course. She is using the word “porn” in a playful way to describe the unusual (perhaps even unhealthy!) pleasure she gets from shopping for office supplies. my daily fix Lori talks about her “daily fix” of “office supply porn.” Again, this is a playful use of language. A fix is ” a supply or dose of something strongly desired or craved” usually said about addictive drugs. But people often use it in a humorous or playful way, e.g. “my daily fix of coffee” or “my chocolate fix for the day.” a cash . The machine that records the transaction when you buy something, and where the cashier or clerk keeps the money ringing me up To ring someone/something up means when the cashier pushes buttons on the cash to record the items you are buying. invoice When you buy something from a company but don’t pay right away, they send you an invoice, like a bill, that tells you how much money you must pay and when you must pay it. huge, gigantic Synonyms for “extremely large” industrial-sized large packages of goods for businesses and industries honking Informal slang for “very large,” often used in combination with big: I can’t believe I ate that entire big, honking piece of chocolate cake! Are you kidding? This is an informal way to ask “Are you serious?” or “Is this really true?” We usually say this when we’ve heard something that we find hard to believe. raising their eyebrows If you talk about someone raising their eyebrows at someone or something, it means that their facial expression is showing disapproval of that person or thing. The stereotypical Swede is known for being quiet and reserved, so Lori’s open (and somewhat loud) enthusiasm about getting the huge packet of toilet paper for free was probably breaking a Swedish social taboo on our last roll To be “on one’s last X” means that you are using the last item in your supply of something. For example, “We’re on our last carton of milk; could you buy a carton when you go to the shop later?” scored To score something in the sense Lori uses here means that you manage to buy or receive something that you find very attractive. The post 043 – Real English conversations: Lori scores a year’s supply of toilet paper (archive) appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

A funny thing happened today when Lori was shopping for office supplies, and it involves an industrial-sized package of toilet paper rolls. The post 043 – Real English conversations: Lori scores a year’s supply of toilet paper (archive) appeared first on Better at English. © 2017 Lori Linstruth

Introduction Hi English learners! Lori here, your teacher from Betteratenglish.com. You are in for a treat with this episode of Real English Conversations. It’s a really special episode, and I’m so happy to be sharing it with you. A while back I had the huge honor of having a conversation with one of my own personal heroes, Dr. BJ Fogg. BJ is the director of the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University. Put simply, he’s a scientist who spends a lot of time studying how to help people create desirable habits and getting those habits to stick. The concept of motivation plays an important role in BJ’s work. I think most people would agree that motivation is incredibly important for successful language learning, maybe even the most important thing. When you’re highly motivated, it’s easy. But when your motivation is low, it’s not so easy. BJ has lots of practical advice about how you can make most of your motivation, no matter if it’s high or low. His way of thinking about motivation as a wave blew my mind when I first came across it. The motivation wave can easily be applied to language learning, so I am super excited to share it with you. As always, you can find the full transcript of this conversation, including a bonus vocabulary lesson at betteratenglish.com/transcripts. OK, you’re about to hear part one of the conversation. I’ll pop in again at the end to give you four things you can do to get the most benefit from this episode. Are you ready? Let’s go! Conversation transcript Lori: Can– can people depend on motivation when they’re trying to learn things and do things that are difficult? BJ: Well, in order to do anything difficult, you have to have motivation or you won’t do them. So either, if it’s…if the behavior or task is difficult, you’ve got to find some way to summon up some motivation; or if you make the task simpler, you won’t need so much motivation. So you basically have two options: boost your motivation or make the task easier to do. Lori: Okay yeah, that– that makes a lot of sense. And I— I noticed in your video, you said that…people often, like teachers or people trying to initiate behavior change or help people change their behavior, that, you don’t like to hear them talking about, “motivating behavior change,” you prefer the term “facilitating” behavior change. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. BJ: Yeah. In English, there’s a common phrase that people use when they talk about behavior change, “We need to motivate behavior change.” And yes, you could motivate behavior change but there’s other ways to get behavior to happen. And if you’re looking at long-term behaviors or getting people to create habits, focusing on motivation is the wrong focus. You really need to look at, how do we make the behavior easy to do? And also, it’s related to the habits — how do we make the behavior rewarding or emotionally satisfying? And so, the thing that I’m worried about is by using that phrase, “motivate behavior change,” people are really limiting themselves in how they think about the different ways to design for behavior change. Lori: It’s interesting to me, coming from, you know, having a background as a teacher. I can from my initial teacher training, we were often…it was either implied or— or sometimes even overtly stated that the idea was, “You have to motivate your students. You have to do things to keep their motivation up.” And— and of course, you know, [as a teacher] you want to be motivating and inspiring to people. But when I saw your video, your presentation about the motivation wave, it’s kind of like, a little bell went off that– you know, that it makes so much sense. Could you just explain just the basic, basic idea about the motivation wave — talking about the peaks and valleys, and difficult and hard? Practice your listening with CC subtitles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9enAEDNVpdY BJ: Everyone, I think, has experienced this phenomenon in their life where they get excited about doing some behavior or some set of behaviors like, getting healthier or reducing stress. Now that excitement, as it goes up, I decided to call that, a “motivation wave” because it will go up but it will also come back down. So, it’s not a constant thing. And what the motivation wave allows you to do, when the motivation wave is high — you can do hard things, you can spend lots of time, you can put in a lot of effort, you can persist through hardship if your motivation is high. And as your motivation comes down, you can’t do the hard things anymore, you only can do simple things. And so the key to understand…there’s a few keys: Number one, that motivation won’t always be high. That goes up and down. And then two, when motivation is high, that’s the right time to get yourself or other people to do hard things. And when motivation is low, you can’t do hard things; what you can do are simple things. And so deg — if you’re trying to get yourself to study more or exercise more or what have you and your motivation’s really low, then you should take, let’s say, the study task, and break it down to just three minutes and say, “Okay, I’m only going to study for three minutes. And within three minutes, I’m done.” Instead of forcing yourself or saying, “Oh, I have to study for an hour,” and then your brain finds excuses not to do it at all. Like, zero. Lori: Oh yeah. Motivation naturally goes up and down over time, like a wave. BJ: And so what happens in a lot of people that say “Great! I’m just going to do three minutes,” once they get started, they’re like, “Oh! I’ll do another three minutes…oh! I’ll do another three minutes.” So there’s a momentum they build up by doing the small steps. And the motivation actually goes up and they may end up studying an entire hour or longer because that’s how their motivation and their interests changed as they were doing it. Lori: Yeah, I know. I have noticed that myself, many, many times when I have some kind of task that I’m putting off because it seems like it’s too difficult or I’m just not motivated. But if you can just force yourself to, to sit down and say, “Okay, I’m just going to at least get started; do one tiny little thing,” it’s so true, that often does happen, that once you get going, you sort of build a momentum and you end up doing a lot more than you planned in the beginning. BJ: Yeah, so that’s what you do when motivation’s low. When motivation’s high, when you’re in high motivation, that’s the time to change your environment, get the materials you need, get the…let me give you an example. Lori: Sure. BJ: One of the habits I’m doing right now is, I’m practicing whiteboarding. I’m practicing with markers writing on a whiteboard. You know, like teachers do. Lori: Right. BJ: And I want my handwriting to get much, much better and so, I’m practicing every day. And in fact, I’m doing it right now. Lori: Yeah? BJ: Just— yeah, because this is how I practice. But anyway, what I did was… This conversation continues in part 2 next week! Final words That’s the end of part one of this conversation with Dr. BJ Fogg. Did you notice how nervous I sounded? That’s because BJ is one of my heroes, and I kind of felt like a little fangirl talking to one of my favorite rockstars. Until next time, here are four ideas for things you can do to get the most benefit from this conversation. 1. If listening to this episode was challenging for you, you can prepare for part two by studying the transcript and listening repeatedly to the conversation. If any words are really causing trouble for your understanding, make sure to look them up. If you do this over the next few days, the second part of the conversation should be easier because more of the language will be familiar. 2. Make a prediction! Based on what you heard in this conversation so far, what do you think BJ did to make it easier to practice his whiteboarding every day? There is a big clue toward the end of the conversation. Then next week, listen to see if you were right. 3. If you need to talk about charts and graphs to an exam, here’s a great chance to practice. Think about your own motivation to learn English, and how it changes over time. Is it steady, or does it fluctuate? If it fluctuates, how dramatic are the changes? How often? Draw a simple graph of your English learning motivation and practice explaining it to a friend. Or post it on my Facebook page and explain it there! 4. In the transcript and on the website I’ve put a link to a Youtube video where BJ explains the motivation wave. BJ is a great speaker, and if your listening is intermediate or above, I encourage you to watch the video so you can learn more about how to make the most of your motivation. This will also help you prepare for part two of our conversation. That brings us to the end of this episode of Real English Conversations. Make sure to the transcript for this episode so you can read along to check your understanding. The transcript also has notes about the language we use in the conversation, and explains a lot of the vocabulary. You can find the transcript at betteratenglish.com/transcripts. Until next time, have fun practicing your English! If you have questions or suggestions about what you would like to hear in these podcasts, I’d love to hear them. You can find all the ways to get in touch with me Betteratenglish.com/. Bye for now! the transcript for access to the bonus vocabulary lesson. The post 041 – Make the most of your motivation – a conversation with BJ Fogg (part 1 of 2) appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

What can you do when you're not feeling motivated? What is the best way to use your motivation when you ARE motivated? Find out in this episode of Real English Conversations from Better at English. Lori talks to Dr. BJ Fogg about how to make the most of the motivation that you have, no matter if it's high or low. The post 041 – Make the most of your motivation – a conversation with BJ Fogg (part 1 of 2) appeared first on Better at English. © 2017 Lori Linstruth

Introduction Hi English learners! Lori here, your teacher from Betteratenglish.com. In this episode of Real English Conversations, you’ll hear part 5 of my conversation with Kyla. This is the final part of our conversation about the book Daily Rituals by Mason Currey. In the previous episode we talked about dealing with distractions and interruptions when you’re trying to work. This time we talk about one of the biggest interrupters of all: email. We also talk about ways to structure your day to make it easier to do important things. If you want to read along as you listen, you can the full transcript, including a bonus vocabulary lesson at betteratenglish.com/transcripts. After the conversation I’ll be back with three questions you can use for speaking practice. Oh, and one final note: I’ve marked this episode as explicit because near the end of the conversation I say a couple of mildly vulgar words. They’re very common slang words that you hear all the time on TV, but I’m playing it safe and warning you anyway. You never know what someone might find offensive! OK, let’s get on with the conversation! Real English Conversation Transcript Kyla: I was going to say, I guess, one drawback about the book actually is that so much of it is, there’s not— there’s not very many current contemporary people in it to ask about their rituals. It’s, yeah, an awful lot of people from the last century before, before internet and so it would be— it would be nice to find, you know, the daily rituals of more people living now with the different forms of communication that we have now. Lori: Right. Kyla: Because of course there were several people that would have, you know, they’d have their hour in which they would make their phone calls to their agents or their phone calls to newspapers or, you know, when it was still there. Because you still had the communication that was required with the— the rest of the world. But I think it was probably much easier to schedule, “Okay, this is the time that I’m going to be on the telephone because this is when I have access to a telephone or…” Lori: Right. Kyla: You know, “This is the time of day when I sit and write my letters and read my letters,” which there’s no reason why we can’t do that now but I think it’s easier when you have a physical letter that you can put in a pile on the— on the bedside table or the coffee table and… Lori: Right. And it’s— it’s also…there’s a limit there, you know. It’s self-limiting. You see, “Okay, I have five letters I have to answer…” Kyla: That’s right. Overwhelmed by the endless stream of emailLori: …and you know that it’s not like today with email where at any second, you can get more added to that pile and you never know when you’re going to get one. Kyla: That’s— that’s right. You’re sitting there answering, it’s like, “I have five emails to respond to,” and by the time you’re done, there’s five more. [laughs] Lori: Exactly. Or you send your answers and then the person replies right away with still more questions, and it never ends. Kyla: Yeah. Lori: So there— there was more of a sense of, like, these finite chunks of work that you could do in a given period than— than now where the boundaries between work and not work and yeah, it’s just getting fuzzier and fuzzier all the time, I think. Kyla: That’s right. Yeah. Lori: But I agree. I agree with you that it would be great to hear some examples or read some examples of people living in our time dealing with the— the kind of problems we’re dealing with every day. Yeah, very cool. Let me see. Was there something else? I guess my— my…I don’t know if it would be my final question, but one question that I have for you is, if you have picked up anything from the book that you have started to apply to your own life, or that has somehow changed the way you approach getting your creative work done or your productive work done? William James knew how to get things done.Kyla: One of the— one of the things for sure is, and I actually went and found the quote again because I thought it was a brilliant quote, and it’s from William James. And he talks about what he calls the “effortless custody of automation.” Lori: Whoah! Kyla: I have really tried to do sort of the opposite of automating the creative process, but that’s automating the mundane process. And I found a little bit of success and I think— I think it has grown over time and will continue to grow but sort of, like, we kind of have a routine in my household of, like, when dishes get washed and when they get put away and who does what. And I think it sort of making habits out of the mundane but other necessary things that have to happen and just kind of getting those things out of the way without having to think about them leaves you more time and more space to do the things that really matter, which, you know, is creative work or learning new things. And I think that was sort of, oddly enough, one of the things that I really took from that book, and it’s almost the opposite of what the book was about in some ways. [laughs] Lori: I guess what I would say about that is, that maybe that’s your way of kind of clearing the space that you need to then be able to, to take the time for yourself for your creative projects because you don’t have all these nagging little to-dos left kind of unfinished. Kyla: Yeah, it’s sitting at the back of the brain and, yeah. Lori: Yeah. It’s hard to do this without getting into, like, David Allen GTD terminology and started talking about, like, open loops. [laughs] Kyla: [laughs] Yeah. Lori: Exactly. But there’s really…I really think that’s true that— that if you can, that’s…maybe that’s one of the things that’s so great about setting aside those first hours in the morning for doing your really important stuff is, is that you don’t have this feeling of all these other little unfinished things that are kind of nagging at you and making you feel a little bit guilty for taking that time for yourself. Kyla: That’s right. Yeah. Lori: Because so much of what, at least for me, when I’m doing something creative, I often will end a session and— and feel like, “Well, I did put in the hours. I did do stuff. But I don’t really have anything I would be proud to show anybody today.” Kyla: Right. Lori: And that can make you feel, at least can make me, feel a little bit guilty that— that, “Oh… Kyla: Yeah, like, you didn’t accomplish anything. Lori: Yeah, and then, like, “Oh, who am I to think I should be able to sit here and spend this time doing this thing that I enjoy, that feeds my soul, when I have all this other unfinished stuff done that other people are depending on me for.” Kyla: Right. Lori: So yeah. To circle back, is, maybe that’s kind of your way of getting all that shit taken care of and then you have this space and peace and quiet and in your mind as well as in your environment. Kyla: Yeah. No, definitely. I think that makes…yeah, that makes sense. Lori: Yeah. I hope so. [laughs] Kyla: [laughs] Kind of, yeah. Exactly. It allows for, sort of, not just— not just sort of, you know, nagging-doubt-free but guilt-free time to spend on creative process. Lori: Yeah. Because the nagging doubt is a freaking bitch, man, seriously. Kyla: Yeah. [laughs] Lori: The self-loathing and nagging doubt and fear and anxiety; all of that is bad enough. And then when you’re feeling guilty for taking that time for yourself, you know, on top of all that? It’s…whoa. [laughs] Kyla: Yeah. I— I feel the need to high five you. [laughs] Lori: [laughs] High five! [34:32] I’m high fiving. You can’t see it now but I’m high fiving you. [laughs] Kyla: All right. [laughs] Celebrating with a high five Final words That’s all for this time. I hope you’ve enjoyed the conversation. that it’s important to practice speaking if you want to improve your English fluency. Here are 3 discussion questions that you can use to practice with your teacher, tutor, or your language exchange partner. 1. What kind of things distract or interrupt you when you’re trying to work, and how do you deal with them? 2. Do feel the need to be constantly accessible via social media, email, etc.? 3. What kind of setting do you need to do your best work? Are you able to create that for yourself? If not, what would you need to change? Make sure to the transcript so you can read along to check your understanding. The transcript also has notes about the language we use in the conversation, and explains a lot of the vocabulary. You can find it at betteratenglish.com/transcripts. Until next time, keep on practicing your English. In fact, you can practice right now by leaving me a voice message or ing the conversation on the Better at English Facebook page. You can find all the ways to get in touch at Betteratenglish.com/. Bye for now! Vocabulary and usage notes the full transcript and the vocabulary and usage notes here. The post 040 – Daily Rituals part 5 of 5 – Real English Conversations appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

Introduction Hi English learners! Lori here, your teacher from Betteratenglish.com. In this episode of Real English Conversations, you’ll hear part 5 of my conversation with Kyla. This is the final part of our conversation about the book Daily Rituals by Mason Currey. In the previous episode we talked about dealing with distractions and interruptions when […] The post 040 – Daily Rituals part 5 of 5 – Real English Conversations appeared first on Better at English. © 2017 Lori Linstruth

Introduction Hi, Lori here welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from BetterAtEnglish.com. In today’s conversation, my friend Yvette and I continue our discussion about perfectionism. The main focus of this part of the conversation is how perfectionist tendencies can cause problems in foreign language learning, particularly for adult learners. Another thing that comes up is a couple of usage differences between British and American English. So without further ado, here is the conversation: Conversation Transcript Lori: But you know, speaking about correction, it’s kind of interesting when you think about learning a language as an adult, how perfectionism and having, like, demands on yourself when it comes to performing…I think that’s one of the biggest differences between learning the language as an adult and, then, picking one up as a child. Yvette: Yeah I when I was in university at the very beginning in the first year I spoke British English with a British English accent, and I was studying American English or American studies. And I had a lot of American-speaking professors who, umm, just, you know, I thought it was really odd to be using British language to talk to an American professor, so I switched to American English, which was really frowned upon because it was not the “proper” language. And everything that you did, every word you used, you had to think, “Is this the proper American word or is it a British-ism?” Because it was…you were punished much more severely for using British-isms as an American speaker than if you were a British speaker using American words. It was really weird. Lori: Yet there’s this kind of weird…at least in some classroom contexts…there’s this weird elitism when it comes to British English and American English, and like there’s these weird synthetic rules about what you’re allowed to say and what’s acceptable and what isn’t. And, you know, native speakers out in the world, they mix and match as they see fit. Yvette: Right. Right, because, like, I would have to look out and make sure that I didn’t use the word “pavement,” and you can say that very American-like…pavement…and then they would be like, “No, it’s ‘sidewalk.’ So, you’re wrong.” And it’s like, “Oh, you know what I mean, though!” I know that I got punished for that, and there were other things like “ten after six” or “ten past six”…I, you know, if you say something like “ten past six” in American voice it’s really wrong because you have to say “ten after six,” which is something I didn’t even know until I was corrected. And it was like, “Oops, I didn’t know there was a difference.” Lori: Wow, well, speaking as American I would say say that’s something I didn’t even know. [Laughter] Yvette: There you go! So, but then you get to the perfection level, then you want to be absolutely correct. Lori: But yeah, sometimes I wish I could get back to the state that I having as a kid. You know — when I’m trying to create something and start battling with perfectionist tendencies and procrastination and all the demands I place on myself, and the ones that I imagine that other people are placing on me — I wish I could just throw it all out the window and just approach it with the carefree abandon that I having as a little kid. Yvette: The thing of course is when you…now you work, and it actually…you make money doing things and people expect a certain standard of you, and you try to hold to that standard but often that standard is in your own head and it’s not even what they’re expecting you to do. So you end up doing a lot more work for something that is really not worth the money that you get paid for it. Lori: Yeah. There is that as well. Yvette: On top of that! But you know, as a kid I think I was already quite perfectionist in everything, I… everything had to be perfect, everything had to be done properly. Lori: Yeah. Yvette: And I felt like I was going to get punished if I didn’t, so that — not to say anything bad about my parents, but, because I don’t think they ever held me to that standard; they always said, “Do your best and that’s good enough.” But for me it had to be perfect, and then it’s maybe “okay.” Lori: Yeah. Yeah, but, but even so I can still , like, approaching new things and just being willing to just try new things that I knew I was going to suck at, because there’s no way you can be good at something right at the very beginning. And it just didn’t matter; you were willing to just give it a go anyway. And now I really sympathize with the people, my, my students that I used to have when I taught English, my adult students, how horrible it can be to sit in a group…and you know you need to try to speak the language but you know you’re going to make mistakes and you know it’s not going to be right but you have to force yourself to try anyway. And it’s…I think, yeah, for people like me anyway, it’s really hard to force yourself to do that. Yvette: Well yeah it is, it is about letting go of the judgment that other people are going to have. You know, when I, went I went to the United States for the first time and I felt really kind of embarrassed about speaking English, people were very surprised that you were able to even speak the language and understand what they were saying because they had no idea of what you were saying if you spoke Dutch. I mean, they were like, you know, I could switch to Dutch and they were like, “I don’t know, that sounds really strange and odd.” And so that kind of helped me along at the time because I knew that my, you know, what I could do or how I could speak was better than what they could speak my language, and they very often would say, “Well, you speak better English than I do.” And I thought, “Oh, I don’t think so.” Lori: Yeah, well you know most…your English is fantastic, as you know, as I’ve often told you. Yvette: Well, thank you. Lori: But… Yvette: That’s right! Lori: But, even so, most Americans, they’re just amazed that anyone can speak a language other than their own, because even though I think most of us do study a foreign language in high school, oftentimes it never gets past the classroom level, you know, the school level, where really, you can do okay on written tests but you can’t really have a conversation. Yvette: Yeah, and that’s the thing, and it’s also, you know, other little phrases that people use all the time when they speak, which is probably what this is all about. it’s just speaking and listening to people just talking…normal phrases instead of these textbook phrases that nobody understands anyway. I mean, or nobody uses. Lori: Yeah, they’re so far removed from what you hear out in the real world that it’s… Yvette: Right. “I would like a hotel room…” Lori: Please, for one. Please. Yvette: With a bath. With a bath and a shower. [Laughter] Final Words That’s all for this time. In our next conversation, we’ll be talking about some of the British and American English usage questions that came up in this conversation, particularly with respect to the prepositions “past” and “after” when talking about time. As always, the full transcript and vocabulary notes for this podcast are available on our website, BetterAtEnglish.com. Thanks for listening, and bye for now! Vocabulary list full vocabulary notes here Picking one up frowned upon synthetic mix and match look out There you go! throw it all out the window carefree abandon end up there is that on top of that suck give it a go letting go far removed The post 030- Perfectionism and Procrastination 2 – Real English Conversations appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

English lesson podcast and transcript Introduction Hi, Lori here welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from BetterAtEnglish.com. In today’s conversation, my friend Yvette and I continue our discussion about perfectionism. The main focus of this part of the conversation is how perfectionist tendencies can cause problems in foreign language learning, particularly for adult learners. Another thing that comes up is a couple of usage differences between British and American English. So without further ado, here is the conversation: Conversation Transcript Lori: But you know, speaking about correction, it’s kind of interesting when you think about learning a language as an adult, how perfectionism and having, like, demands on yourself when it comes to performing…I think that’s one of the biggest differences between learning the language as an adult and, then, picking one up as a child. Yvette: Yeah I when I was in university at the very beginning in the first year I spoke British English with a British English accent, and I was studying American English or American studies. And I had a lot of American-speaking professors who, umm, just, you know, I thought it was really odd to be using British language to talk to an American professor, so I switched to American English, which was really frowned upon because it was not the “proper” language. And everything that you did, every word you used, you had to think, “Is this the proper American word or is it a British-ism?” Because it was…you were punished much more severely for using British-isms as an American speaker than if you were a British speaker using American words. It was really weird. Lori: Yet there’s this kind of weird…at least in some classroom contexts…there’s this weird elitism when it comes to British English and American English, and like there’s these weird synthetic rules about what you’re allowed to say and what’s acceptable and what isn’t. And, you know, native speakers out in the world, they mix and match as they see fit. Yvette: Right. Right, because, like, I would have to look out and make sure that I didn’t use the word “pavement,” and you can say that very American-like…pavement…and then they would be like, “No, it’s ’sidewalk.’ So, you’re wrong.” And it’s like, “Oh, you know what I mean, though!” I know that I got punished for that, and there were other things like “ten after six” or “ten past six”…I, you know, if you say something like “ten past six” in American voice it’s really wrong because you have to say “ten after six,” which is something I didn’t even know until I was corrected. And it was like, “Oops, I didn’t know there was a difference.” Lori: Wow, well, speaking as American I would say say that’s something I didn’t even know. [Laughter] Yvette: There you go! So, but then you get to the perfection level, then you want to be absolutely correct. Lori: But yeah, sometimes I wish I could get back to the state that I having as a kid. You know — when I’m trying to create something and start battling with perfectionist tendencies and procrastination and all the demands I place on myself, and the ones that I imagine that other people are placing on me — I wish I could just throw it all out the window and just approach it with the carefree abandon that I having as a little kid. Yvette: The thing of course is when you…now you work, and it actually…you make money doing things and people expect a certain standard of you, and you try to hold to that standard but often that standard is in your own head and it’s not even what they’re expecting you to do. So you end up doing a lot more work for something that is really not worth the money that you get paid for it. Lori: Yeah. There is that as well. Yvette: On top of that! But you know, as a kid I think I was already quite perfectionist in everything, I… everything had to be perfect, everything had to be done properly. Lori: Yeah. Yvette: And I felt like I was going to get punished if I didn’t, so that — not to say anything bad about my parents, but, because I don’t think they ever held me to that standard; they always said, “Do your best and that’s good enough.” But for me it had to be perfect, and then it’s maybe “okay.” Lori: Yeah. Yeah, but, but even so I can still , like, approaching new things and just being willing to just try new things that I knew I was going to suck at, because there’s no way you can be good at something right at the very beginning. And it just didn’t matter; you were willing to just give it a go anyway. And now I really sympathize with the people, my, my students that I used to have when I taught English, my adult students, how horrible it can be to sit in a group…and you know you need to try to speak the language but you know you’re going to make mistakes and you know it’s not going to be right but you have to force yourself to try anyway. And it’s…I think, yeah, for people like me anyway, it’s really hard to force yourself to do that. Yvette: Well yeah it is, it is about letting go of the judgment that other people are going to have. You know, when I, went I went to the United States for the first time and I felt really kind of embarrassed about speaking English, people were very surprised that you were able to even speak the language and understand what they were saying because they had no idea of what you were saying if you spoke Dutch. I mean, they were like, you know, I could switch to Dutch and they were like, “I don’t know, that sounds really strange and odd.” And so that kind of helped me along at the time because I knew that my, you know, what I could do or how I could speak was better than what they could speak my language, and they very often would say, “Well, you speak better English than I do.” And I thought, “Oh, I don’t think so.” Lori: Yeah, well you know most…your English is fantastic, as you know, as I’ve often told you. Yvette: Well, thank you. Lori: But… Yvette: That’s right! Lori: But, even so, most Americans, they’re just amazed that anyone can speak a language other than their own, because even though I think most of us do study a foreign language in high school, oftentimes it never gets past the classroom level, you know, the school level, where really, you can do okay on written tests but you can’t really have a conversation. Yvette: Yeah, and that’s the thing, and it’s also, you know, other little phrases that people use all the time when they speak, which is probably what this is all about. it’s just speaking and listening to people just talking…normal phrases instead of these textbook phrases that nobody understands anyway. I mean, or nobody uses. Lori: Yeah, they’re so far removed from what you hear out in the real world that it’s… Yvette: Right. “I would like a hotel room…” Lori: Please, for one. Please. Yvette: With a bath. With a bath and a shower. [Laughter] Final Words That’s all for this time. In our next conversation, we’ll be talking about some of the British and American English usage questions that came up in this conversation, particularly with respect to the prepositions “past” and “after” when talking about time. As always, the full transcript and vocabulary notes for this podcast are available on our website, BetterAtEnglish.com. Thanks for listening, and bye for now! Vocabulary list full vocabulary notes here Picking one up frowned upon synthetic mix and match look out There you go! throw it all out the window carefree abandon end up there is that on top of that suck give it a go letting go far removed Copyright 2008 L. Linstruth - www.betteratenglish.com.Real English Conversations: Perfectionism 2

Introduction Hi, Lori here, welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from [email protected]. In today’s conversation I’m ed by my friend Yvette, who is a freelance writer specializing in screenplays. Her educational background is in American Studies, and she’s just an all-round energetic and creative person. I hope you’ll find her a welcome addition as my conversational partner here. Our conversation today is about perfectionism and procrastination. Conversation Transcript Lori: Yeah, I was thinking that, that it would be fun to talk about perfectionism a little bit and about being a perfectionist and how horrible that is, and how it…and how it can really hinder you from… Yvette: Being productive… Lori: Yeah, being productive and moving forward with things that you want to do. Yvette: Yeah. Lori: Indeed I know it’s something that I struggle with a lot and that I’ve thought about a lot, and I know in the past we’ve talked about it from time to time, so… Yvette: Yeah. Lori: But, perfectionism as we all know and love it… Yvette: Or hate it! It’s terrible! Lori: Yeah! Yvette: Well, it makes you not very productive. I mean, I just finished a text yesterday and I spent a lot more time on it than I should have… knowing that I wanted it to be absolutely perfect. Lori: Mmm hmm. Yvette: And I knew at some point…I just gave up, I, you know I just gave up and thought, “Well, it’s a lost cause,” even though I’m sure it’s fine, but err, you just give up. Lori: Yeah, that’s good when you’ve actually already started working on something…and you’re working on it…err, that you can set a deadline for yourself, maybe, and say, “Okay, now I just can’t mess with it anymore; it has to be finished.” But what I find the most insidious and really destructive thing about perfectionist tendencies is that they can keep you from even getting started with something. Yvette: Okay, the procrastination. Lori: Yes. It’s very closely tied in with procrastination, I find Yvette: Yeah. Yeah, there’s just two things that can happen. You know, you could be suffering from fear of failure or fear of success, one of the two. And err, you know, if you’re successful then you’re going to deal with, like, an additional amount of information that you need to process later on, and if you’re not successful you’re just a loser. Lori: Yeah, exactly. Yvette: At least that’s what I have. Lori: Yeah, I find that, err, for me this idea of perfectionism… it’s not so much about striving to be perfect, it’s more like you’re, you’re constantly beating yourself up about things never being good enough. Yvette: Yeah, that’s the problem. That’s pretty neurotic. Lori: Yeah, it’s not that…I mean…you know intellectually that nothing can be perfect and nothing I do can be perfect…but…it’s, it’s… So you know that on an intellectual level, but somehow it’s like you’re still struggling with this idea that “Oh, but it’s not good enough,” or “I’ve not got all the information I really needed to make the perfect start.” Yvette: That, that is usually the problem that I come up with, is you think you have all the information but you don’t, and then you start looking for more and more, and while you’re looking for all this extra information you’re just, well forget it, you’re not going to make it. Lori: Yeah, seven hours on Wikipedia later… [Laughter] Yvette: Right. Lori: You find you’re looking at something completely unrelated to what you started out with… Yvette: Right. Right, that is the biggest issue is that you start looking for other information and then you discover 15 other things that are maybe also relevant or important, or maybe not, and by the time you’re done you figure out that, “Oh, that’s totally not what I needed to do.” Lori: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yvette: This is so unimportant, or that… you know, I in school that I, err, handed in a paper and it was so good and so well done he’s [the teacher] like, “This is way too much work for what was really required. So why did you do all this work?” I’m like, “Well, it had to be good, right?” Lori: Yeah. Right. Right. Yvette: So, you spend a lot more time working on something that another person might just dismiss more quickly, and nobody notices anything that’s wrong. Lori: That’s the thing that…I find that a lot of the things that you worry about a lot qualitywise or things that are important to you, when you think about it oftentimes those things.. other people aren’t even going to notice those things. Yvette: That’s right. Lori: You know, the things that you’ve worked so hard on, the little details that are so important to you…and then other people don’t even notice, and then you can wonder “What’s the point?” and “Why spend so much time on all these little things?” Yvette: Yeah, or you see someone else’s texts or something, like, some…you know, as a writer, you read about stuff and there’s all these errors in it, and I’m thinking “Is there really a… does it really bug me so much that this is happening; is it really a problem for me that there are all these errors there?” And I’m thinking, “I don’t really think that this person is doing a bad job,” I may think, “Ooh, that’s shoddy,” but oh well. You know. Lori: Yeah, yeah. Yvette: I’m not as harsh on other people’s work as I am on my own, I think, or I hope. Lori: I know for me I’m harsh on my own, but I’m pretty mean and vicious about other people as well…I think maybe that’s why I’m so worried about what people will think about my own things, because I’m so horrible and vicious [laughs] myself. Yvette: [laughs] you will destroy them all. Oh, yeah. Now I used to, I used to correct people all the time when they made errors… Lori: Uh huh… Yvette: Just because, you know, I knew. I just know… “You just made an error…ha ha!” Look at me being all clever. And they hate you for that, so… Lori: Yeah, people really don’t appreciate unsolicited correction. Final Words Okay, that wraps up today’s Real English Conversation. We’ll continue with this topic in the next episode. Before I sign off, I just want to thank all of you who have emailed me this past year asking when new episodes would be posted. It feels really great to know that there are listeners out there who look forward to each new episode. Unfortunately, I can’t promise to post episodes as frequently as you might like because of my other time commitments. But you can be sure that I’ll do what I can to give you as many new episodes as possible for 2010! Bye for now! Vocabulary (Please the pdf for full vocabulary notes) moving forward – to move forward from time to time at some point – point (1) a lost cause mess with – to mess with something procrastination – to procrastinate tied in – to tie in with, to tie in to loser beating yourself up – to beat oneself up neurotic make it totally dismiss qualitywise – the -wise suffix point (2) bug – to bug someone shoddy harsh unsolicited The post 029 – Perfectionism and Procrastination 1 – Real English Conversations appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

Hi! Lori here, welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from Better at English. I’m currently on vacation in the American southwest, but during a very long car trip I had some time to put this episode together for you. In today’s conversation, my English friend Michael and I talk about whether or not I should get a pet cat. We don’t agree: Michael thinks that the cat I want is ugly, and I think it’s adorably cute. To settle our dispute, we have put a poll on the website that will allow you listeners to vote and give me your advice. If you go to www.betteratenglish.com, you can see photos of videos of the kind of cat we talk about in the conversation, and use the poll to tell me whether you think about my choice of cats. Are you ready? Here we go! Conversation transcript Lori: You know we talked before about whether or not we are dog people or cat people. Michael: Oh sure. Lori: Yeah, and I always thought I was a dog person but I think that might be changing a bit. Michael: Oh no! Say it isn’t true! Lori: I was over at my friend Monika’s the other day and she has a new cat, and it is the coolest cat; I totally fell in love with her cat. It’s all I can think about now is I want a cat like that. Michael: OK, and what is so special about this cat? Lori: It’s naked. Have you seen those cats? Naked cats? I think they’re called Sphinx cats. Michael: Do you mean like Mr. Bigglesworth from the Austin Powers films? Lori: Yes, like Mr. Bigglesworth. Michael: Hmmm. Lori: What, don’t you like them? Michael: Well, keep talking, I’m not convinced yet. Lori: No, I always thought that they were really ugly, you know, these hair hairless cats. I’ve seen pictures of them and…you know, Mr. Bigglesworth in the movie isn’t really a nice looking cat, but when I saw this cat in person it was so cute! It was so incredibly cute! They are so ugly that they’re cute. Michael: OK. Lori: And he was so friendly and affectionate…and just alert…and almost like a dog. Michael: And what color is he? Lori: Well, it’s hard to tell the color because you’re just looking at their skin, but he was a dark gray. Michael: Oh, cool. Lori: A dark gray color with these big, beautiful, green eyes, and he just…I picked him up and was holding him and just fell in love with him, this awesome cat. And supposedly they can fetch! They’re almost…they’re more…their personality is more like dogs than cats. Sphinx cat fetching Michael: So essentially what you’re telling me is that you used to be a dog person but now you feel that you’re becoming more of a cat person because you found a cat that acts more like a dog? Lori: Yes! See, you know I’ve been feeling lonely and depressed? And, you know, people have been telling me that a cat or a dog, you know, a pet would be something good to get. But dogs are such a huge responsibility! I was thinking maybe a cat, you know, a cat you can leave for a day or two and all they really need is food and water and you don’t have to take them out. Michael: Right, right. Lori: And I’ve heard you can even teach them to use the toilet! So you won’t have to have a stinky litter box. Michael: Yeah, I saw a little video of that on YouTube I think it was, of some cat using the toilet — don’t ask me why I was looking for things like that on YouTube, [laughter] but I do something. Yeah that would be cool. It must be difficult to train them to do that though. Lori: You have to take it slowly step-by-step. You just move the litter box closer and closer to the toilet, and then you gradually raise it, and then you actually put it on top of the toilet, and then you put a bowl down in the toilet, and eventually they are used to it and all you have to do is get them to actually stand on top of the toilet. And once they’re doing that then you take the bowl away and that’s where they go. I’ve heard you can even teach them to flush. Michael: Oh, goodness! I would be frightened that the cat would fall down the loo. Lori: Oh, he would just jump out again if he fell in. Michael: Yeah, I suppose…I guess. Lori: They would probably only ever do that once and then they would learn. Michael: Yeah, that’s true, yeah. And you’ll never get them back again. Lori: Yeah, but the cool thing about these cats — a lot…the these naked cats that are hairless — a lot of people think that they’re hypoallergenic, but apparently they’re not. But since they don’t have hair, you’re not getting the hair everywhere, and you’re supposed to give them a bath a couple of times a day [this is incorrect – Lori meant “a couple of times per WEEK”], and supposedly even people who are allergic to cats, a lot of them can actually tolerate these cats. Michael: Well, aren’t you allergic to cats? Lori: Yeah, I used to be really allergic but now it doesn’t seem like it’s so bad. Michael: Yeah, I’m the same. They used to make me sneeze really badly but….hmm, OK. Lori: Yeah, so I thought maybe I would ask Monika if I could borrow her cat if they go away for vacation or something. [laughter] No, I’m serious! If they go away for vacation I could just let the cat stay here and see if I develop allergies or if he bothers me. Michael: Right. Lori: Because if not, I am so getting one! I want one of those cats so bad; it’s…all I can think about is my naked cat! I want one! Michael: Well, I don’t know, I mean, it would be interesting to know what our listeners think about naked cats. Or what did you say that the proper name was, a Sphinx cat? Lori: A Sphinx cat, or I think they’re called Canadian hairless. I’m not sure; I would have to check. And I’m, I mean, they’re the kind of thing that you either think they’re horribly ugly or you think they’re adorably cute, because they look like gremlins or even like Yoda. Michael: Well, that’s what I was thinking, that maybe we could ask our listeners whether they, are they for hairless cats, do they think hairless cats are attractive, or do they think they are really ugly? Lori: Yeah, bald, naked cats. Are they, is it thumbs up or thumbs down? Should I get one or not? Michael: Aren’t they really wrinkly? Lori: They can be. Michael: Because that’s the thing that looked strange to me is when they’re all wrinkled. I mean if they were smooth, you know? No hair but smooth then that would… Lori: Well they’re fairly smooth; they have some wrinkles on their forehead, and I guess some breeds are wrinklier than others, but I just think they’re so cute. I love them, and they’re so friendly and affectionate, and I really, really want one. Michael: Well, we’ll see. Lori: Yeah, we’ll see. I’ll put some videos and photos up on the website so people can have a look if they want to. Michael: OK, well I’m not convinced yet, but… Lori: Well, you know if the answer is yes there will be no excuse: I will have to get one. Michael: OK, well, we’ll see about that. I’ll see how many of our listeners I have to bribe to say no. Final words Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Real English conversations from Better at English. As always you’ll find a full transcript and vocabulary notes for this and all other Better at English episodes on our website. Make sure to go to the website, www.betteratenglish.com, have a look at the photos and videos of my beloved hairless cats, and vote in our poll to let me know what you think. Before I sign off, I want to say thanks to everyone who has donated since the last episode. Michael and I really appreciate your generosity. Your donations are a big help to us in keeping Better at English online and free for everyone to enjoy. To us, use the form on the website, post in comments, or email us directly at info [AT] betteratenglish [DOT] com. That’s all for now; see you next time! Vocabulary list dog/cat people A dog person is someone who very much prefers dogs to cats. A cat person very much prefers cats to dogs. in person When you see someone or something in person it means that you see them in real life rather than a picture or film. affectionate If a person or animal is affectionate it means that they show feelings of liking or love. awesome Awesome is American English slang meaning “very interesting, very impressive, or extremely good.” Many people disapprove of this usage. In standard English awesome is used to describe something that causes feelings of great iration, respect, awe or fear. fetch If you teach an animal to fetch, you teach it to bring you objects. For example, you can throw a ball and the animal will go pick it up and bring it back to you. Dogs usually think this is a lot of fun, and will play fetch the same ball over and over. It is very unusual for cats to learn to fetch. litter box A litter box is a special box filled with special sand (cat litter) that is for indoor cats to go to the toilet in. They have to be cleaned very frequently or they smell terrible. are used to To be used to something (or somebody) means that you are familiar with it. loo Informal British English for toilet. hypoallergenic If something is hypoallergenic it doesn’t tend to cause allergic reactions in people. I am so getting one The construction to be so +ing is grammatically incorrect in standard English. But it is commonly used for emphasis in informal, conversational American English, particularly among younger people. Usually the so is stressed, and the vowel sound is drawn out – the longer it is held, the stronger the emphasis. for If you are for something, then you approve of it. If you are against something, you disapprove of it. These two words often come in pairs, for example, “Are you for or against Lori getting a hairless cat?” thumbs up/down Making a gesture with your thumb pointing up means that you approve of something. If you gesture with your thumb pointing down, you disapprove of something. bribe If you bribe someone, you try to get them to do something for you by giving them something they want in return (such as money, gifts, services). The post Real English Conversations: Lori wants a naked cat appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

English lesson podcast and transcript Hi! Lori here, welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from Better at English. I’m currently on vacation in the American southwest, but during a very long car trip I had some time to put this episode together for you. In today’s conversation, my English friend Michael and I talk about whether or not I should get a pet cat. We don’t agree: Michael thinks that the cat I want is ugly, and I think it’s adorably cute. To settle our dispute, we have put a poll on the website that will allow you listeners to vote and give me your advice. If you go to www.betteratenglish.com, you can see photos of videos of the kind of cat we talk about in the conversation, and use the poll to tell me whether you think about my choice of cats. Are you ready? Here we go! Go to the poll. Conversation transcript Lori: You know we talked before about whether or not we are dog people or cat people. Michael: Oh sure. Lori: Yeah, and I always thought I was a dog person but I think that might be changing a bit. Michael: Oh no! Say it isn’t true! Lori: I was over at my friend Monika’s the other day and she has a new cat, and it is the coolest cat; I totally fell in love with her cat. It’s all I can think about now is I want a cat like that. Michael: OK, and what is so special about this cat? Lori: It’s naked. Have you seen those cats? Naked cats? I think they’re called Sphinx cats. Michael: Do you mean like Mr. Bigglesworth from the Austin Powers films? Lori: Yes, like Mr. Bigglesworth. Michael: Hmmm. Lori: What, don’t you like them? Michael: Well, keep talking, I’m not convinced yet. Lori: No, I always thought that they were really ugly, you know, these hair hairless cats. I’ve seen pictures of them and…you know, Mr. Bigglesworth in the movie isn’t really a nice looking cat, but when I saw this cat in person it was so cute! It was so incredibly cute! They are so ugly that they’re cute. Michael: OK. Lori: And he was so friendly and affectionate…and just alert…and almost like a dog. Michael: And what color is he? Lori: Well, it’s hard to tell the color because you’re just looking at their skin, but he was a dark gray. Michael: Oh, cool. Lori: A dark gray color with these big, beautiful, green eyes, and he just…I picked him up and was holding him and just fell in love with him, this awesome cat. And supposedly they can fetch! They’re almost…they’re more…their personality is more like dogs than cats. Sphinx cat fetching Michael: So essentially what you’re telling me is that you used to be a dog person but now you feel that you’re becoming more of a cat person because you found a cat that acts more like a dog? Lori: Yes! See, you know I’ve been feeling lonely and depressed? And, you know, people have been telling me that a cat or a dog, you know, a pet would be something good to get. But dogs are such a huge responsibility! I was thinking maybe a cat, you know, a cat you can leave for a day or two and all they really need is food and water and you don’t have to take them out. Michael: Right, right. Lori: And I’ve heard you can even teach them to use the toilet! So you won’t have to have a stinky litter box. Michael: Yeah, I saw a little video of that on YouTube I think it was, of some cat using the toilet — don’t ask me why I was looking for things like that on YouTube, [laughter] but I do something. Yeah that would be cool. It must be difficult to train them to do that though. Lori: You have to take it slowly step-by-step. You just move the litter box closer and closer to the toilet, and then you gradually raise it, and then you actually put it on top of the toilet, and then you put a bowl down in the toilet, and eventually they are used to it and all you have to do is get them to actually stand on top of the toilet. And once they’re doing that then you take the bowl away and that’s where they go. I’ve heard you can even teach them to flush. Michael: Oh, goodness! I would be frightened that the cat would fall down the loo. Lori: Oh, he would just jump out again if he fell in. Michael: Yeah, I suppose…I guess. Lori: They would probably only ever do that once and then they would learn. Michael: Yeah, that’s true, yeah. And you’ll never get them back again. Lori: Yeah, but the cool thing about these cats — a lot…the these naked cats that are hairless — a lot of people think that they’re hypoallergenic, but apparently they’re not. But since they don’t have hair, you’re not getting the hair everywhere, and you’re supposed to give them a bath a couple of times a day [this is incorrect – Lori meant "a couple of times per WEEK"], and supposedly even people who are allergic to cats, a lot of them can actually tolerate these cats. Michael: Well, aren’t you allergic to cats? Lori: Yeah, I used to be really allergic but now it doesn’t seem like it’s so bad. Michael: Yeah, I’m the same. They used to make me sneeze really badly but….hmm, OK. Lori: Yeah, so I thought maybe I would ask Monika if I could borrow her cat if they go away for vacation or something. [laughter] No, I’m serious! If they go away for vacation I could just let the cat stay here and see if I develop allergies or if he bothers me. Michael: Right. Lori: Because if not, I am so getting one! I want one of those cats so bad; it’s…all I can think about is my naked cat! I want one! Michael: Well, I don’t know, I mean, it would be interesting to know what our listeners think about naked cats. Or what did you say that the proper name was, a Sphinx cat? Lori: A Sphinx cat, or I think they’re called Canadian hairless. I’m not sure; I would have to check. And I’m, I mean, they’re the kind of thing that you either think they’re horribly ugly or you think they’re adorably cute, because they look like gremlins or even like Yoda. Michael: Well, that’s what I was thinking, that maybe we could ask our listeners whether they, are they for hairless cats, do they think hairless cats are attractive, or do they think they are really ugly? Lori: Yeah, bald, naked cats. Are they, is it thumbs up or thumbs down? Should I get one or not? Michael: Aren’t they really wrinkly? Lori: They can be. Sphynx kittens Michael: Because that’s the thing that looked strange to me is when they’re all wrinkled. I mean if they were smooth, you know? No hair but smooth then that would… Lori: Well they’re fairly smooth; they have some wrinkles on their forehead, and I guess some breeds are wrinklier than others, but I just think they’re so cute. I love them, and they’re so friendly and affectionate, and I really, really want one. Michael: Well, we’ll see. Lori: Yeah, we’ll see. I’ll put some videos and photos up on the website so people can have a look if they want to. Michael: OK, well I’m not convinced yet, but… Lori: Well, you know if the answer is yes there will be no excuse: I will have to get one. Michael: OK, well, we’ll see about that. I’ll see how many of our listeners I have to bribe to say no. Final words Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Real English conversations from Better at English. As always you’ll find a full transcript and vocabulary notes for this and all other Better at English episodes on our website. Make sure to go to the website, www.betteratenglish.com, have a look at the photos and videos of my beloved hairless cats, and vote in our poll to let me know what you think. Before I sign off, I want to say thanks to everyone who has donated since the last episode. Michael and I really appreciate your generosity. Your donations are a big help to us in keeping Better at English online and free for everyone to enjoy. To us, use the form on the website, post in comments, or email us directly at info [AT] betteratenglish [DOT] com. That’s all for now; see you next time! {democracy:2} Vocabulary list dog/cat people A dog person is someone who very much prefers dogs to cats. A cat person very much prefers cats to dogs. in person When you see someone or something in person it means that you see them in real life rather than a picture or film. affectionate If a person or animal is affectionate it means that they show feelings of liking or love. awesome Awesome is American English slang meaning “very interesting, very impressive, or extremely good.” Many people disapprove of this usage. In standard English awesome is used to describe something that causes feelings of great iration, respect, awe or fear. fetch If you teach an animal to fetch, you teach it to bring you objects. For example, you can throw a ball and the animal will go pick it up and bring it back to you. Dogs usually think this is a lot of fun, and will play fetch the same ball over and over. It is very unusual for cats to learn to fetch. litter box A litter box is a special box filled with special sand (cat litter) that is for indoor cats to go to the toilet in. They have to be cleaned very frequently or they smell terrible. are used to To be used to something (or somebody) means that you are familiar with it. loo Informal British English for toilet. hypoallergenic If something is hypoallergenic it doesn’t tend to cause allergic reactions in people. I am so getting one The construction to be so +ing is grammatically incorrect in standard English. But it is commonly used for emphasis in informal, conversational American English, particularly among younger people. Usually the so is stressed, and the vowel sound is drawn out – the longer it is held, the stronger the emphasis. for If you are for something, then you approve of it. If you are against something, you disapprove of it. These two words often come in pairs, for example, “Are you for or against Lori getting a hairless cat?” thumbs up/down Making a gesture with your thumb pointing up means that you approve of something. If you gesture with your thumb pointing down, you disapprove of something. bribe If you bribe someone, you try to get them to do something for you by giving them something they want in return (such as money, gifts, services). Copyright 2008 L. Linstruth - www.betteratenglish.com.Real English Conversations: Lori wants a naked cat

Hi! Lori here, welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from betteratenglish.com. In today’s conversation, my British friend Michael and I discuss our reactions to a presentation about “What leads to success,” given by Michael Richard St. John. Everyone wants to be successful, right? But have you ever wondered what it is that leads to success? Richard St. John spent several years interviewing hundreds of successful people, asking them about the factors that led to their success. In a three-minute presentation at the TED conference, he presented his findings, some of which you might find surprising. I highly suggest that you watch the video either before or after listening to this episode. I have embedded the video on our web site, www.betteratenglish.com. You can also find it on the TED web site, www.ted.com. By the way, the technical difficulties that I mentioned last week have supposedly been resolved now — please do let me know if you have any further problems ing our audio files. OK, here we go! Conversation transcript Lori: I have a lot of business English students when I teach in the classroom and a lot of times we end up talking about things like success and what leads to success, and it’s interesting that many of them mention the element of luck. Michael: Right, OK. L: That luck is important to success but as you know, since you’ve seen that fantastic video on the TED Talks web site by Richard St John… M: Sure. L: He doesn’t mention luck at all. M: Right, I’m a firm believer that people can make their own luck. I mean what people regard as being luck, you know, you can actually create to a degree. L: Right, right. I think a lot of what people consider luck is…is really…it’s down to how you respond to the opportunities that come your way. M: Yes, very good point, yeah. L: Seizing the opportunities. But was there any point in the video that you thought was particularly interesting? M: Umm…yes, actually there was. Something very close to my heart is a lot of people think in the same way that you say that these folks are saying they think that luck is important, that people think that innate talent is something that you have to have to be successful. And in the video that we saw, the point about getting good at something, and it’s not about…umm…having some innate talent, it’s all about practise, practise, practise. L: Mmm, definitely yeah. M: You know, and creating your own, you know, if you want to be good at something then you practise you…and you make yourself skillful at doing something; it’s not that, you know, people are all…err…you know, born that way it’s just… L: Right. M: It’s hard work and that’s what you do, you know? L: Yeah, there…I mean, talent of course, if you have…umm…a predisposition that favours a certain talent or… M: Yeah. L: …of course that’s going to help. But at the end of the day, you really do need to put your nose to the grindstone and do the work and get really, really good at what you do. M: Sure. L: Umm…I thought one of the interesting things in the video was the idea of ion being so important. M: Oh yeah, yeah definitely. L: And that people who really love what they do — of course you’re going to tend then to want to work harder and put the time and effort into it — and the funny thing is that if you love what you do and are really ionate about it and work really hard, the money kind of comes automatically. M: Well, yeah I…I think with that point as well is that if you really love what you’re doing, then hard work doesn’t actually seem like hard work. L: No, that’s another point he takes up that it could actually, you know, that that the people he interviews — all of these 500 successful people — that they do work very hard but that they have fun while they’re working. M: Right, right. L: Yeah, and another thing that I thought was important was the idea that you have to push yourself through all kinds of setbacks and hard times. M: Yeah umm…I mean that’s…that’s something…err…all the time…is that like the motivational sort of thing? You’ve got to always keep going and regardless of all the things that get in your way; it’s not going to be a smooth ride is it? So… L: Yeah. you have to be prepared for setbacks and all kind of problems that get in your way and if you just give up when things get tough… M: Yeah. L: You will never succeed. M: I’m sure in a lot of cases, people who’ve been successful, it’s not the first idea that they had or it’s not the first person that they brought it to that took them on and financed them or helped them, you know? I mean, how many venture capitalists said no before, you know, umm, finally one said yes? L: Yeah I’m sure that there’s a lot in that…that a lot of successful businesses have pushed through setbacks and hard times and just not given up. M: Yeah, it’s not like you succeed and — I mean, sure, maybe some people succeed first time — but I don’t think that’s very common. L: Exactly…umm…yeah. And then another thing that I thought was really interesting was the idea of having to focus. M: Yeah…umm…I mean if you’re going to…if you’re going to do something…I mean I think they’re all kind of connected in some way, these things…I mean, the idea about getting good at something…umm…it’s not just enough to be good…umm…at doing something; you’ve got to apply yourself… L: Right. M: ..and really concentrate. L: Yeah, and there’s the idea of being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none! M: Oh… L: You know, trying to be too good at too many things; it’s never going to work, It’s better to pick the thing that you really are ionate about and that you really, really want to devote yourself to. M: Yeah, that was a good one, yeah. L: Yeah and…and just push. So I thought that was really interesting…umm. M: Nice and positive as well. L: Yeah, I really love…it’s a fan-…don’t you think it’s a great presentation? M: Yeah, I mean I thought it was very concise and to the point and also… L: Yeah. M: …the positive message, because the idea about luck and innate talent is a bit disheartening to people because you have…there’s nothing much you can do about those things. L: Right. Well, the background is that he goes around to high schools and gives this talk and normally, I guess it takes him about 2 hours, but at TED he condensed it down to 3 minutes, which I…I was actually quite impressed… M: Yeah, me too. L: …by that. But I think his slides are really great too; you know you don’t see…I mean there are some bullet points, but it’s not heavy. There’s not too many words on the slides and he’s got nice images and it’s…it’s just a really tight, interesting and funny presentation as well. M: Yeah. Well it’ll be good for our…our…our…listeners can take a look at the… L: Yeah, yeah I hope so! M: …at the video L: And I hope that the…the video, if they do watch it that it will inspire them as much as it inspired me. M: OK! L: Yeah! That’s all for today. If you found today’s topic interesting, we’d love to hear your comments. You can leave a comment at our web site, www.betteratenglish.com, or e-mail us at info AT betteratenglish DOT com. And , your continued donations make our shows possible. Bye for now! Vocabulary notes down to If X is down to Y, then X is the main reason for Y, or the main thing that is important for doing Y. close to my heart If something is close to your heart, it means that it is very important to you. innate If something is innate, it is something you were born with, not something you learned. predisposition To be predisposed to/towards something means that you are likely to behave in a particular way or to exhibit certain characteristics. put your nose to the grindstone The idiom to put one’s nose to the grindstone means that you work very hard for a long time. setbacks A setback is something that causes delays in success or prevents you from making progress. a smooth ride The idiom a smooth ride means having an easy, trouble-free time doing something. The opposite is a bumpy ride, which means facing lots of difficulties and problems. venture capitalists Venture capitalists help start-up companies by investing money in them. given up If you give up, you stop trying. jack-of-all-trades A jack-of-all-trades is someone who can do many different jobs. heavy In this context, heavy means tedious and boring. slides In presentation software such as Powerpoint, each “page” is called a slide. tight If you describe a talk or presentation as tight, it means that it was concise and well constructed, with no unneeded parts or excess. Bonus links • See the original video and many other great presentations on the TED website. • Richard St. John’s webpage about success, and another video presentation. • You can even buy his book about success on Amazon. The post Real English Conversations: What leads to success? appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

Hi! Lori here, welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from betteratenglish.com. Today’s episode is the third in a three part series in which Michael and I discuss the English government’s recent ban on commercials for junk food before 9 pm, when children are likely to be watching. In part three, we go on to discuss banning commercials for cigarettes as well. This conversation features some common slang and idiomatic expressions. If this is your first time listening, you might want to go back and listen to parts one and two before moving on to part three. Are you ready? Let’s go! Conversation transcript Michael: Well, well how about cigarettes? You know? Lori: Oh, don’t even get me started on cigarettes. M: Well, I can back in the 70’s umm…when I was very young, umm that cigarettes I’m pretty sure could be d on television. L: Yeah, I cigarette ads on TV. M: Yup L: When I was a kid. M: And even…the irony of this, I mean, in England, I mean, the…the national game, aside from…from football…soccer, is cricket. And all the…the cricket…the big cricket matches would be sponsored by cigarette manufacturers, you know, so, umm, but you’d be bombarded with these adverts for cigarettes and showing how cool cigarettes are. But eventually it was made illegal you…no more TV ads for this — cigarettes — because we…it’s accepted that they’re bad for you. Umm…So I mean I guess, I mean cigarettes are pretty extreme, they give you cancer, err… L: Yeah, they do all kinds of horrible things to you. M: Right. L: And I’m sorry, anyone out there who really, honestly believes that cigarettes don’t harm you if you smoke them… M: That’s crazy. L: You need a serious reality check. M: Absolutely. L: I mean, of course you’re…you’re going to find people who are resistant, who can take a lot of, you know, everyone has this story of their “old uncle Joe,” who… M: Who lived till they were 85… L: …drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney and…umm…you know, lived until he was 95 when his old ticker just finally gave out. You know we all have stories like that, but overall I mean… M: Sure L: You’re just kidding yourself if you think… M: Well, maybe… L: That cigarettes are not just pure evil. M: Right, right. But I think, I think this is good that they…they’re…they’re drawing the line with this because… L: Definitely. M: It’s a moral thing, umm… L; Yeah it will be interesting to see if it has any repercussions. Um, I’m actually looking at…was this on the BBC? M: That’s right, yeah, it was on the BBC news site which I go to for the… L: Right,they have a lot of great stories on there. I’m looking, they actually have a poll now up now up on the web site, umm, where the question is, “Should TV junk food adverts be banned?” And I’m looking at the results here of the poll…so far, over 8000 people have voted. And 46% say that “Yes, entirely.” M: Entirely! L: Yeah, entirely. M: Not just for under-16s? L: No…yeah, that the junk food adverts on TV should be banned entirely. 46% of the voters have voted for that. And then there some other options that both are “yes,” you know, “yes, before 9pm,” or “yes, only on children’s TV”… M: OK. L: …that all together add up to 80%. M: And so… L: So only 20% of the voters have said that “no”… M: That they shouldn’t be… L: That TV junk food adverts should not be banned. Only 20%. So that…I know you can’t draw too many conclusions from a, you know, an online web survey… M: But it’s and indicator, though. L: Yeah, that at least it’s a question worth exploring. M: Absolutely, yeah. L: I think. M: OK, so shall we go to McDonald’s now? [laughter] L: Yeah, I could really use a Big Mac! [laughter] Final words The article and poll that we discuss in the conversation are still up on the BBC website, except now over 12 000 people have voted. The proportions are still about the same, though. I’ve put a link to the article at the bottom of this episode’s transcript on betteratenglish.com. That’s all for this time; thanks very much for listening! You can send your questions and comments to our email address: info [AT] betteratenglish [DOT] com. We love hearing from you! And thanks so much for your continued donations; Michael and I really appreciate your . Bye for now! Bonus link BBC junk food article and poll Vocabulary list irony There are many types of irony (in drama and literature, for example), but here Michael means that the pairing of football and cigarettes is not what you would expect. Football/soccer is an athletic sport that you wouldn’t expect to be associated with something unhealthy such as cigarettes, and vice versa. reality check This is an informal way of saying that someone needs to consider facts, not just their emotions or beliefs. resistant If you are resistant to something (in this case) it means that your body is not affected by something generally considered harmful. If you are resistant to damage from cigarette smoking, it means that you suffer few or no harmful effects. take If you can take (a lot of) something, it means that you accept or tolerate it. drank like a fish If someone drinks like a fish, it means that they drink a lot of alcohol. Usually somewhat disapproving. smoked like a chimney If someone smokes like a chimney, it means that they smoke a lot of cigarettes (or other smokable substance). ticker Ticker is an informal/slang word for heart. gave out If something gives out, it stops working, usually after a long time of working well. kidding yourself If you are kidding yourself, you are fooling yourself or not being honest with yourself. Informal. drawing the line If you draw the line, you don’t do or certain actions because you think they’re entirely wrong. repercussions A repercussion is the (usually bad) effect of an action, situation, or event. draw (too many) conclusions from This idiomatic phrase means that you form an opinion or make a decision about something after considering the available information and evidence. I could really use This is an idiomatic way of saying that you have a strong desire or need for something. For example, “Wow, it’s stuffy in here; I could really use some fresh air.” Or “I’m having a terrible time with my boss lately; I could really use your advice.” The post Real English Conversations: junk food (part 3 of 3) appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

Hello, Lori here welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from Better at English.com. In today’s episode, Michael and I continue our discussion about the English government’s decision to ban junk food ads on television before 9 pm, when children are likely to be watching. This is the second of a three-part series, so if you missed the first part you might want to listen to that first. In this episode we inadvertently end up discussing some differences in British and American English vocabulary. As always, you’ll find the full transcript and vocabulary notes on the website, www.betteratenglish.com. Here we go! Conversation transcript L: …do you know what their rationale was, why children, and not just ban them across the board? M: I don’t know the exact reason, but I assumed it was because of this, umm…this…the difficulty that that parents have in, you know, the kids going, “Mum, Mum! I…” You know? I don’t know the exact reason. L: OK, because I…I would think that, I mean, that that’s one reason, but another reason could be that when you’re a child, that your basic eating habits and your relationship to food, that a lot of that is formed by the habits you form as a child. M: OK. L: And so that’s all the more reason to not be making it any harder on kids than it already is… M: That’s inter- yeah… L: …to develop good, healthy eating habits and… M: Right. L: Umm… M: Well, do you when, I mean, back when you were at school… L: Uh huh? M: Uhh…did, I mean you…I assume that you ate your lunches at school? Did you have school dinners? L: Yeah we had school “lunches” we would call them. M: Oh, OK, OK. L: Yeah, school lunches, yeah. M: Umm, but I mean, what was the food like then? I mean was it healthful, healthy food or? L: It’s…it’s hard to say I think it could have probably been healthier. I know in high school they always had salads and things, but there was so much junk food, just fried food. M: And what did the kids eat? Which did they choose? Do I need to ask? L: It would depend. You know, the health conscious ones would try to be healthy but there was a lot of, there’s a lot of umm…denial and sort of strange rationalization going on when it comes to food. For example, I know that I had girlfriends who would buy for their snack, they would buy this big bag of trail mix, thinking that “oh yeah, it’s healthy because it’s natural.” But the thing is, is that you know, eating this huge bag of nuts and dried fruit, you know all that concentrated energy — and there were little bits of chocolate and things as well — that that really, unless you’re out climbing mountains all day long, which is when you need something like trail mix… M: That’s why they call it trail mix! L: That if you just, yeah, you know you don’t need this huge gigantic pouch of trail mix just to get you through your biology lesson. M: Sure, that’s right, right. L: But you know, still… M: No, totally. L: …rationalizing it saying that, “Oh, oh I got this because it’s healthy.” M: Yeah. L: Umm…”because it’s natural.” M: Well I thought, yeah, the…the school meals thing, let’s call them school meals — you call them err…school lunches and I call them school dinners, umm, but with the school meals, err…it’s something that when you’re…you’re a kid…err…at school, I can back at school and there would be chips or what, err you, err “French fries.” L: Yeah, “fries.” M: Yeah, err for you, they’re always on the menu, always and no matter what myself or my friends would eat, we would always have chips, and loads! As many as possible, they were the yummiest thing going! Umm but there was something…are you familiar, you know who Jamie Oliver is? L: Oh yeah, sure, the Naked Chef! M: TV naked chef! L: Yeah. M: Umm…but he was being very outspoken just recently about how really, really bad the choice of food…is in school, umm and he was trying to bring this to people’s attention, using his celebrity status, and I don’t…I don’t think…this wasn’t a money-making thing or anything like that, he was just using his…his position to make people aware of it and pointing out all these…all these things. So in the light of that, because this is a…this was a very recent thing too, in the light of that, this is very interesting that the government has taken this step. L: Yeah, I think…I think it’s a move in the right direction. I would…I would …a total ban on ment, because that’s just one reason, you know, one more reason that you might watch TV — to get at the good things that TV has to offer — is that you know you won’t be subjected to all of these, these ments that you don’t want to see. M: Right, well I mean, there are, I mean. L: You know, advertising things that are bad for you, that hurt you but that are… M: Of course. L: …still so compelling that maybe in your life you’re doing everything you can to cut out the junk food and then you’re sitting there, maybe even on a diet, if you’re someone who’s trying to lose weight… M: Oh yeah. L: …so you’re watching TV at night and the Haagen Dazs ad comes on. M: [laughs] L: With this…beautiful images of these gorgeous ice cream creations in front of you and… M: Oh. L: I mean it…it is really hard; that just puts the idea of food into your head and… M: That’s torture, that’s torture. L: Yeah, horrible torture… [To be continued in part 3] Final words That’s all for this time, thanks for listening! We love to hear from you, so if you’ve got questions, comments or suggestions, feel free to e-mail us at info [AT] betteratenglish [dot] com. Your continued donations make Better at English possible, so if you are a regular listener who enjoys the show, please consider making a donation. See you next time! Vocabulary list going In informal conversation, native speakers often introduce reported speech with the verb go. Many careful s of English disapprove of using go in this way, so you should not copy it. making it (any) harder on To make it harder on someone means to make it more difficult or unpleasant for them. school dinners/lunches In British English, the meal you eat at midday is often called “dinner.” In American English, this meal is most often called “Lunch,” and the evening meal is often called “dinner” or “supper.” Note that there is much regional/dialectal variation in the area of meal names. healthy/healthful In everyday English, healthy means (1) contributing to good health, and (2) possessing good health. So it’s OK to say “a healthy diet” (a diet that contributes to good health) and “a healthy child” (a child who possesses good health). But some careful s of English say that meaning (1) is wrong, and that to talk about things that contribute to good health you should use the word healthful. If you are writing a paper for someone like this, you should use healthful to talk about things that contribute to good health. Otherwise, you use healthy for both meanings, as most native speakers do. health conscious If you are health conscious, you are very interested in good health and try to live a healthy/healthful lifestyle. trail mix Trail mix is a type of food for backpacking, hiking or other endurance activities. It is designed to be very calorie-dense for its weight. It typically contains nuts and dried fruit, and may also contain bits of chocolate (such as M&Ms or Smarties) or other candy. rationalizing If you rationalize, you try to find valid reasons to explain your decisions or behavior, usually to make yourself feel better about it. The noun form is rationalization. outspoken If you are outspoken, you express your opinions and views very directly without worrying about what other people will think about them. torture Torture is the act of inflicting extreme mental or physical pain on someone to get them to do what you want them to do, such as confess a crime or reveal a secret. Sometimes people torture others just to be cruel and horrible. But the word torture is often used informally to denote any unpleasant experience. The post Real English Conversations: junk food (part 2 of 3) appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

English lesson podcast and transcript Hello, Lori here welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from Better at English.com. In today’s episode, Michael and I continue our discussion about the English government’s decision to ban junk food ads on television before 9 pm, when children are likely to be watching. This is the second of a three-part series, so if you missed the first part you might want to listen to that first. In this episode we inadvertently end up discussing some differences in British and American English vocabulary. As always, you’ll find the full transcript and vocabulary notes on the website, www.betteratenglish.com. Here we go! Conversation transcript L: …do you know what their rationale was, why children, and not just ban them across the board? M: I don’t know the exact reason, but I assumed it was because of this, umm…this…the difficulty that that parents have in, you know, the kids going, “Mum, Mum! I…” You know? I don’t know the exact reason. L: OK, because I…I would think that, I mean, that that’s one reason, but another reason could be that when you’re a child, that your basic eating habits and your relationship to food, that a lot of that is formed by the habits you form as a child. M: OK. L: And so that’s all the more reason to not be making it any harder on kids than it already is… M: That’s inter- yeah… L: …to develop good, healthy eating habits and… M: Right. L: Umm… M: Well, do you when, I mean, back when you were at school, L: Uh huh? M: Uhh…did, I mean you…I assume that you ate your lunches at school? Did you have school dinners? L: Yeah we had school “lunches” we would call them. M: Oh, OK, OK. L: Yeah, school lunches, yeah. M: Umm, but I mean, what was the food like then? I mean was it healthful, healthy food or? L: It’s…it’s hard to say I think it could have probably been healthier. I know in high school they always had salads and things, but there was so much junk food, just fried food. M: And what did the kids eat? Which did they choose? Do I need to ask? L: It would depend. You know, the health conscious ones would try to be healthy but there was a lot of, there’s a lot of umm…denial and sort of strange rationalization going on when it comes to food. For example, I know that I had girlfriends who would buy for their snack, they would buy this big bag of trail mix, thinking that “oh yeah, it’s healthy because it’s natural.” But the thing is, is that you know, eating this huge bag of nuts and dried fruit, you know all that concentrated energy — and there were little bits of chocolate and things as well — that that really, unless you’re out climbing mountains all day long, which is when you need something like trail mix… M: That’s why they call it trail mix! L: That if you just, yeah, you know you don’t need this huge gigantic pouch of trail mix just to get you through your biology lesson. M: Sure, that’s right, right. L: But you know, still… M: No, totally. L: …rationalizing it saying that, “Oh, oh I got this because it’s healthy.” M: Yeah. L: Umm…”because it’s natural.” M: Well I thought, yeah, the…the school meals thing, let’s call them school meals — you call them err…school lunches and I call them school dinners, umm, but with the school meals, err…it’s something that when you’re…you’re a kid…err…at school, I can back at school and there would be chips or what, err you, err “French fries.” L: Yeah, “fries.” M: Yeah, err for you, they’re always on the menu, always and no matter what myself or my friends would eat, we would always have chips, and loads! As many as possible, they were the yummiest thing going! Umm but there was something…are you familiar, you know who Jamie Oliver is? L: Oh yeah, sure, the Naked Chef! M: TV naked chef! L: Yeah. M: Umm…but he was being very outspoken just recently about how really, really bad the choice of food…is in school, umm and he was trying to bring this to people’s attention, using his celebrity status, and I don’t…I don’t think…this wasn’t a money-making thing or anything like that, he was just using his…his position to make people aware of it and pointing out all these…all these things. So in the light of that, because this is a…this was a very recent thing too, in the light of that, this is very interesting that the government has taken this step. L: Yeah, I think…I think it’s a move in the right direction. I would…I would …a total ban on ment, because that’s just one reason, you know, one more reason that you might watch TV — to get at the good things that TV has to offer — is that you know you won’t be subjected to all of these, these ments that you don’t want to see. M: Right, well I mean, there are, I mean. L: You know, advertising things that are bad for you, that hurt you but that are… M: Of course. L: …still so compelling that maybe in your life you’re doing everything you can to cut out the junk food and then you’re sitting there, maybe even on a diet, if you’re someone who’s trying to lose weight… M: Oh yeah. L: …so you’re watching TV at night and the Haagen Dazs ad comes on. M: [laughs] L: With this…beautiful images of these gorgeous ice cream creations in front of you and… M: Oh. L: I mean it…it is really hard; that just puts the idea of food into your head and… M: That’s torture, that’s torture. L: Yeah, horrible torture… [To be continued in part 3] Final words That’s all for this time, thanks for listening! We love to hear from you, so if you’ve got questions, comments or suggestions, feel free to e-mail us at info [AT] betteratenglish [dot] com. Your continued donations make Better at English possible, so if you are a regular listener who enjoys the show, please consider making a donation. See you next time! Vocabulary list going In informal conversation, native speakers often introduce reported speech with the verb go. Many careful s of English disapprove of using go in this way, so you should not copy it. making it (any) harder on To make it harder on someone means to make it more difficult or unpleasant for them. school dinners/lunches In British English, the meal you eat at midday is often called “dinner.” In American English, this meal is most often called “Lunch,” and the evening meal is often called “dinner” or “supper.” Note that there is much regional/dialectal variation in the area of meal names. healthy/healthful In everyday English, healthy means (1) contributing to good health, and (2) possessing good health. So it’s OK to say “a healthy diet” (a diet that contributes to good health) and “a healthy child” (a child who possesses good health). But some careful s of English say that meaning (1) is wrong, and that to talk about things that contribute to good health you should use the word healthful. If you are writing a paper for someone like this, you should use healthful to talk about things that contribute to good health. Otherwise, you use healthy for both meanings, as most native speakers do. health conscious If you are health conscious, you are very interested in good health and try to live a healthy/healthful lifestyle. trail mix Trail mix is a type of food for backpacking, hiking or other endurance activities. It is designed to be very calorie-dense for its weight. It typically contains nuts and dried fruit, and may also contain bits of chocolate (such as M&Ms or Smarties) or other candy. rationalizing If you rationalize, you try to find valid reasons to explain your decisions or behavior, usually to make yourself feel better about it. The noun form is rationalization. outspoken If you are outspoken, you express your opinions and views very directly without worrying about what other people will think about them. torture Torture is the act of inflicting extreme mental or physical pain on someone to get them to do what you want them to do, such as confess a crime or reveal a secret. Sometimes people torture others just to be cruel and horrible. But the word torture is often used informally to denote any unpleasant experience. Copyright 2008 L. Linstruth - www.betteratenglish.com.Real English Conversation: junk food (part 2 of 3)

Introduction Hi! Lori here, welcoming you to another episode of Real English Conversations from BetterAtEnglish.com. In today’s conversation, which is the first of three parts, my English friend Michael and I talk about junk food and television advertising. Before you listen to the conversation, you might want to warm up and activate your existing vocabulary by thinking about the following questions: 1) What is junk food anyway, and how does it differ from healthy food? 2) Do junk food ads on TV influence you in any way? 3) Do you think that junk food ads should be banned on TV when children are likely to be watching? 4) What challenges do parents face when trying to get their children to eat healthy food instead of junk food? If you want to read along as you listen, you can find the full transcript and vocabulary notes on our website, www.BetterAtEnglish.com. OK, here we go with the conversation! Conversation Transcript Michael: You know, I was reading an article just yesterday in the news that the government in England is bringing in a law to make it illegal to show TV ments for junk food. On any… Lori: Really? M: …but on any programmes that are targeted at the under-16s, so kids’ programmes… L: Ah ha. M: Umm, they’re going to completely outlaw it, umm…and…and… I mean, junk food, I mean, it’s anything — that’s from McDonalds to any kind of food that’s high in fat or sugar or anything like that — it’s…and it’s something that people have been talking about for years, you know, that…that…how bad junk food is for people. L: Right. M: Umm…but I was just really amazed that the government is taking such a strong action you know, just something across the board. L: Yeah. M: You know, umm…but I think…errr…from what I can , the advertising standards were…people were saying that they wanted to ban all junk food ads before 9 o’clock. L: Ah ha. M: Which…which in…in…in Britain, we have this thing called the…the “9pm watershed.” L: Right. M: I don’t know if you’re familiar with that? L: Yeah, I think it’s the same…In the…the States, they talk about a watershed. M: Right…right it’s sort of like after…after 9pm then they’re allowed to show more “adult” programmes, where they have maybe nudity and violence and things like that, so… L: Yeah, all that good stuff! [Laughter] M: So, umm…You know, but it…I just thought that it was really amazing that the government would take such a strong stance because…errr…do you the film…ahh…what’s it called? The…the…the one…ummm… Supersize Me? L: Oh yeah, yeah, the documentary. M: Yeah, the documentary that they… L: Yeah. M: You know, I mean, I don’t see how anybody could watch that documentary, see the evidence and then try to deny how unhealthy junk food is. L: Right…well you have to that was a study of “n=1” and, I mean, that there…there was probably some bias going into it, so I mean… M: Oh…yeah… L: …as far as a scientific study goes, you know, you…you really couldn’t…couldn’t…umm read too much into that, but I mean, it is suggestive, it does suggest that… that you know, that junk food isn’t good for us, and it’s basic sound…principles of sound nutrition… M: Right, yeah. L: ..that if you’re eating a lot of processed, carbohydrates and sugars… M: Yeah, sugary, yeah. L: …and fats and no fiber and no vegetables and… M: Yeah. L: …especially in such huge quantities. M: Right…right, I mean it’s…it’s the thing with the advertising though is that ummm…with the junk food manufacturers targeting young kids… L: Mmm. M: Ummm…I mean, this is something that…that rs have been doing for years because they know that if you can get in…into…appeal to a child, then the child will go to his or her parents… L: Oh sure. M: and say “Mum, Dad, I…you know, I… I want to go and have a McDonald’s Happy Meal or, I want to go to Burger King.” L: No, tha…that’s not what they will do, they would say “Mom, Dad, can’t we eat at McDonald’s? Mom please? All the other kids can eat at McDonald’s!” M: [Laughs] Right! And…and then when Mum and Dad say errr… “Well no, because we ate at McDonald yesterday! Umm…” [Laughs] “Let’s have something…” push something healthy on the children, the…the kids don’t…they don’t want to know, because the…you know, McDonald’s is portrayed as something that is cool, and of course it’s yummy! I mean… L: Yeah. M: I think McDonald’s is yummy! L: Junk food is yummy! Are you kidding? M: Yeah! Umm… L: Given the choice between junk food and…and healthy food… M: Salad? L: Just…just, yeah, well, I love salads, that’s…that’s the weird thing is I really, truly love a good salad. M: OK. L: But even so, given the choice between a really yummy, good salad… M: Yeah, well I like…I like salad too, but on…on my burger… L: …and a big, honking, stinking great pizza full of all my favorite toppings… M: Right. L: I mean, I would have to be really in the mood for salad for me to choose the salad over the pizza. M: Yeah, yeah I think that’s but it…it’s kind of… L: Or the ice cream sundae. M: Aaahhh! Now… [laughter] M: You’re bringing out the heavy artillery there! L: Yeah…yeah. M: Yeah, but it…I think it’s umm…I think this is the only way that they can…they can tackle something like this because I’ve seen this situation too many times, and…and what parent err…really wants to be saying “no” to their…their child and being a killjoy all the time? L: Well there’s another more sinister aspect of the whole thing is that, you know, imagine being a parent and you’ve worked all day long at your job that maybe you don’t like so much and that drains so much of your energy, and then when you come home and you have the choice, “I can either go into the kitchen and start cutting up vegetables and…spending an hour preparing a healthy home-cooked meal for my family…” M: Yup. L: “…or, I can give them what they’re telling me that they want by just stopping at McDonald’s on the way home from work or, you know, some other fast food, or popping a frozen dinner in the oven… and giving them what they want.” I mean it just makes it that much easier to… M: Of course, of course. L: …to resist doing the right thing Final Words Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Real English Conversations at BetterAtEnglish.com. Before g off, I’d like to thank the anonymous listener who sent me the book, “Grammar for English Language Teachers” by Martin Parrott. I really love the book. For any listeners who are native or near-native speakers, either teachers or learners, who are interested in a comprehensive book about English grammar, I can highly recommend this one. It’s even got exercises and key so you can test yourself as you learn. If you missed my announcement last week, Better at English has a new sister site, UncensoredEnglish.com, where Michael and I discuss all the naughty slang, swear words and other topics that some listeners here might find offensive. That way we can keep B@E fairly clean, and really go for it on a separate site. You can find the new site at www.uncensoredenglish.com. Thanks for listening, and for your continued donations. Your donations and make our shows possible. Bye for now! Vocabulary notes the under-16s The group of people who are under 16 years old. You can also talk about the over-16s. Any age group can be referred to this way, e.g., the over-65s, the under-30s. taking such a strong action To do something severe. Notice that take and strong collocate (go together) with action in this case. across the board Complete, affecting every level of something. The ban is on all foods considered junk food, not just ice cream and candy. watershed The time (usually 9 pm in the UK, 10 pm in the USA) after which programs not generally suitable for children can be shown on TV. take such a strong stance to take a stance means to have a certain opinion or way of thinking about something, usually that you express publicly. Notice that take and strong collocate with stance. n=1 In scientific studies, n is used to denote the number of people who participated in the study. An n=1 study would be a study of only one person, a sample size of 1. bias Bias is the tendency to let your personal beliefs and preferences influence you when you are supposed to be neutral. If scientific studies are biased, it means that the scientists let their personal beliefs and agendas influence the results. read too much into to read something into something means to believe that an action, event or remark is more important or significant, even if it is not necessarily true. sound In this case, sound (adj) means valid and in agreement with accepted views mom / mum Mother. In American English, mothers are moms. In British English, they’re mums. yummy Delicious, tasty. Often used by children, but even by adults in informal situations. Are you kidding? Are you kidding means are you joking? But in this case, it is used to ad emphasis to the truth of Lori’s utterance, i.e., “I’m not joking, I’m being very serious!” honking Am.E slang for large. stinking great Br.E slang for extremely large. Stinking can also be used alone as an adverb, for example in the phrase “stinking rich” (extremely rich). bringing out the heavy artillery Literally, heavy artillery is a class of very large and powerful military guns, usually moved on wheels or metal tracks. In this case, “bringing out the heavy artillery” means doing or saying something as a means of impressing, arguing, or persuading. killjoy a killjoy is someone who spoils the pleasure of other people. sinister The main sense of sinister is evil. In this case, Lori talking about a general feeling of apprehension or worry. popping Informal for to put. To pop something in(to) something = to quickly put something in(to) something. The post Real English Conversation: junk food (part 1 of 3) appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

Hi! Lori here, welcoming you to another episode of 2-minute English from BetterAtEnglish.com. This episode is in response to a question from Seref, a teacher of English in Turkey, who sent in a question about the sentence I feel like kicking myself. Seref is curious about the level of formality of this idiom and wonders if there are any synonyms. Idiom According to my trusty Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, if you kick yourself you feel “annoyed with yourself because you did something foolish or missed an opportunity.” You can also see the definition of to kick oneself in the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. Lori is kicking herself for not buying Google stock back in 2004 Michael bought Google stock when it was at 300 dollars a share, but he still kicks himself every day for not doing it sooner. Formality The phrase to kick oneself is neutral, informal and conversational. So it’s perfectly OK to use it in all but the most formal situations. Synonyms The core meaning of the idiom to kick oneself is the idea of regret: regret for something you did or for an opportunity that you missed. So Seref, if you need a synonym that would suit formal situations, you can use the verb regret. to (deeply) regret (v +ing) something In general, many people consider idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs to be less formal than lexical verbs. So in formal situations of a grave or somber nature, you should definitely go with regret, or you may end up kicking yourself. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of 2-minute English, and special thanks to Seref for the question. By the way, if I’ve been horribly mispronouncing your name I will totally kick myself! You can find some additional links and the full transcript of this show on the website, www.betteratenglish.com. And , your continued donations make this show possible, and we really appreciate them. Bye for now! Research authentic English Usage Google provides the worlds biggest corpus for doing quick’n’dirty research into language usage. Follow the link below to see examples of how to kick oneself is used “out in the wild.” See usage examples of to kick oneself on Google. The post Idioms: to kick oneself appeared first on Better at English. © 2020 Lori Linstruth

English lesson podcast and transcript Hi! Lori here, welcoming you to another episode of 2-minute English from BetterAtEnglish.com. This episode is in response to a question from Seref, a teacher of English in Turkey, who sent in a question about the sentence I feel like kicking myself. Seref is curious about the level of formality of this idiom and wonders if there are any synonyms. Idiom According to my trusty Oxford Dictionary of Idioms, if you kick yourself you feel “annoyed with yourself because you did something foolish or missed an opportunity.” You can also see the definition of to kick oneself in the Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms. Lori is kicking herself for not buying Google stock back in 2004 Michael bought Google stock when it was at 300 dollars a share, but he still kicks himself every day for not doing it sooner. Formality The phrase to kick oneself is neutral, informal and conversational. So it’s perfectly OK to use it in all but the most formal situations. Synonyms The core meaning of the idiom to kick oneself is the idea of regret: regret for something you did or for an opportunity that you missed. So Seref, if you need a synonym that would suit formal situations, you can use the verb regret. to (deeply) regret (v +ing) something In general, many people consider idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs to be less formal than lexical verbs. So in formal situations of a grave or somber nature, you should definitely go with regret, or you may end up kicking yourself. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of 2-minute English, and special thanks to Seref for the question. By the way, if I’ve been horribly mispronouncing your name I will totally kick myself! You can find some additional links and the full transcript of this show on the website, www.betteratenglish.com. And , your continued donations make this show possible, and we really appreciate them. Bye for now! Research authentic English Usage Google provides the worlds biggest corpus for doing quick’n'dirty research into language usage. Follow the link below to see examples of how to kick oneself is used “out in the wild.” See usage examples of to kick oneself on Google. English Writing Software with Text Enrichment – Synonyms and Idioms WhiteSmoke is the most comprehensive English Writing Tool available with advanced grammar correction and a patented text enrichment engine. Copyright 2008 L. Linstruth - www.betteratenglish.com.Idioms: to kick oneself