904. Bits & Bobs 📚 Questions of English (Part 1)
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Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English Podcast. How are you doing? I hope you're doing all right today. So this is episode number 904 of Luke's English Podcast and the name of this is Bits and Bobs slash Questions of English. Bits and Bobs, this is just a sort of, I think it's a very British expression. It just means bits and pieces. So little bits and pieces.

So we say bits and bobs. For example, on my desk, I have all these bits and bobs on my desk, like this kind of phone clamp and a fork for some reason. And I've got a pair of scissors and the top from a takeaway coffee cup that I got on a digital watch. These are all just bits and bobs. And in this episode...

I'll be dealing with a few different bits and bobs, not objects on my desk, but just little pieces of English, little questions. I'm going to be getting into that and giving you the full details in just a moment. There is a PDF for this episode.

which you'll be able to download. You'll just find the link in the description. If you are listening to this in a podcast app on your phone, just check the episode show notes. You'll find a link in there for the PDF. If you are watching this on YouTube, then check the episode description. You'll find a link in there as well. Okay, you're welcome. Right, so I'm going to start reading from the PDF right now.

So let's do that, shall we? OK, now here we go. Let's let's go to the PDF in five, four, three, two, one. OK, PDF time. Hello.

Luke's English Podcast, episode number 904, Bits and Bobs slash Questions of English. In fact, part one I'm going to add because I think this will be a multi-part series. So let me just start reading through my notes on the PDF here. You can follow with me if you want or otherwise just relax and listen to the podcast as you normally would. So

As an English teacher and podcaster, I'm always looking out for interesting little bits and pieces or bits and bobs I can use in my English lessons or podcast episodes.

This can be articles, stories, little jokes, letters in the newspaper, comments or emails from listeners and things like that. I often collect things like this and save them in a folder in my Google Drive. So in this episode, I'm going to go through some of those bits and pieces that I've saved. I'm going to read them out, talk about them and explain bits of vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation that come up.

So this episode is going to contain a variety of things. Some mini English lessons, some interesting talking points, some comments from listeners, some bits of inspiration for your language learning journey, some questions about English, some error correction and more, including these things. So ISE or IZE endings.

What's the difference? Moments where native speakers misunderstand their own language. Some motivation from Arnold Schwarzenegger. And that motivation is not simply, you know, get to the chopper. It's not just that. Some inspiration from author Kurt Vonnegut.

Tips on getting an English teaching qualification. Information about intrusive sounds in English pronunciation. The use of singular they to refer to one person. Again, because it's not the first time I've dealt with that on the podcast. The words antique and vintage. What's the difference? When the word see doesn't actually mean see.

the benefits of listening to podcast episodes more than once, a language joke about double negatives, the origins of the word podcast, why you need to take extra care when listening to Luke's English podcast, shout-outs to listeners in places that I probably have never mentioned on this podcast before, including Paraguay and Uzbekistan.

An olive farming Lepster, the wonder of children, accent episodes from the archive, the benefits of shadowing, your own personal El Guapo and more. That's an overview of the stuff that's going to come up in this series. I'm sure it's going to be a series rather than just one episode. How much am I going to get through in one in this first part? I don't know.

Anyway, so this is a mix of English language points, little bits of motivation, some humour and just little curiosities related to the English language. I hope you enjoy them all. I have a lot of things to share with you here. So shock horror. This might be in several parts. I say shock horror because, as you may know,

These days, I prefer to publish episodes in one single part, even if I could divide it. I have many reasons why I prefer not to divide my episodes into several parts, choosing instead to upload often three-hour episodes, which in my opinion are actually better than chopping up

episodes into parts because people don't listen to every part it's too complicated to explain now but this one i feel might be in uh several parts in fact it might end up being a short series of episodes called bits and bobs slash questions of english

I tell you what I'm going to do. I tell you what, I'll just keep recording for about an hour and then we'll see where I am after about an hour. So I can stop recording after about an hour and do more in another episode later on. So the next episode of Bits and Bobs might come directly after this one, or I might wait a while and continue the series later. We will see.

Okay, anyway, let's get started with the first thing. So, as I mentioned before, IZE versus ISE. What am I talking about?

Well, have you ever noticed that words like realise, theorise or memorise and plenty of others are sometimes spelled with I-S-E at the end and sometimes with I-Z-E. So realise, I-S-E or realise, I-Z-E. Theorise or theorise, memorise or memorise. Now, there's no difference in pronunciation or meaning, by the way.

But what's the difference between I-S-E and I-Z-E spellings in words like this? Are they both correct or not? What's going on? Now, I expect that some of you listening are now saying this. Or maybe you're just thinking this in your head. You're thinking, ha, I know the answer, Luke, which is a bit strange to be talking to me.

by name in your own head. But maybe you're thinking this. Ha, I know the answer, Luke. It's I-S-E in British English and I-Z-E in American English. Ha ha, check me out. I know the answer.

Well, apparently, that's not the full story. That is what people say, but it's not the full story, apparently. In fact, here's a letter, which I'm going to read to you, which was printed in the Guardian newspaper a while ago, all about ISE or IZE word endings in English. So,

I'll read it out and let's see what we can learn about how to spell this suffix in words. Now, to be clear, the letter I'm going to read is actually a reply to another letter printed the week before by a reader called Helen Clutton, who apparently stated that the word theorise, that's I-Z-E, is an American spelling, that's T-H-E-O-R-I-Z-E, that theorise

Spelling theorise with a Z is an American spelling. It seems that that's what Helen Clutton wrote to The Guardian the week before. Now, I haven't actually seen Helen's original letter to the paper, but I expect she was probably criticising someone for using what she sees as the American spelling of the word when the British spelling should be used.

Yeah, because British people sometimes look down on Americanisations or Americanisms in British English. Some Brits have that sort of snobbish attitude towards what they perceive as being American rather than the sort of correct British version. I did several episodes about this ages ago, over a decade ago. That's episodes 120 and 113.

122 which were called Americanisms I think anyway let's read this reply actually two replies to Helen's letter about how IZE endings are American and not British and not correct

Now, remember, Helen, as I said, was probably saying that IZE is the American way and is therefore wrong in British English. So let's have a look. I'm going to need to make this bigger. So the letter is entitled When IZE Spellings Were Standard English. And this was written by Paul Dormer from Guildford in Surrey.

And it goes like this. Helen Clutton suggests that theorise, I-Z-E, is an American spelling. Letters, 19th of August. It's not as simple as that. The I-Z-E spellings used to be standard in British English.

I have seen a baptismal certificate for my great aunt, born in the 1880s in the Abingdon area, which said she was baptised. That's B-A-P-T-I-Z-E-D. By the way, to be baptised means to be officially made a Christian, officially sort of inducted into the Christian faith.

It's a little ceremony that involves having holy water poured on your head and so on. You're baptised and then you're a Christian. So this writer, Paul Dormer, notes that he has seen a certificate from the 1880s for his great aunt, which wrote that she was baptised with a Zed.

Uh-huh. So, endings with I-Z-E were allowed when I was at school in the 1960s in England. I used to enjoy writing the loopy Zs in cursive script in handwriting. It was only when I started work in the 1970s that people began telling me this was an American spelling and I-S-E endings became standard.

About 30 years later, I was asked by colleagues to settle an argument. One of them was Bosnian by birth and always wanted to use correct English. She had a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary. The other person had told her that IZE endings were American, and she countered this by showing that the Oxford English Dictionary still used IZE endings. My answer that both of them were right didn't satisfy either.

Paul Dormer, Guildford in Surrey. So Paul is suggesting that, I guess, Helen Clutton, whose letter we haven't read, was saying that IZE endings were incorrect in British English and that British English standard is ISE. But he seemed to have proof that in the past, IZE was the kind of standard form.

All right, there's another letter as well in response to Helen Cluttons in The Guardian. This is from Andrew Ryan in Manchester, who gives a bit more detail about this. So he wrote this, the IZE suffix is rooted in Latinised Greek and has a pedigree that encompasses Shakespeare, Milton, Caxton and the King James Bible. It remains the preferred variation of the Oxford English Dictionary and the Oxford University Press.

I recall that it provided a critical plot point for Inspector Morse in the Ghost in the Machine episode of the Detective TV series when he recognised that an Oxford man would never use the ISE suffix and therefore could not be the murderer. OK.

So Andrew Ryan goes on to, you know, he explains that IZE is actually from Latinized Greek and it has a pedigree or it seems that Shakespeare spelled his words with a Z like that. So did the poet Milton Caxton, the King James Bible all show examples of the IZE suffix.

and this remains the preferred variation of the Oxford English Dictionary. So, apparently, this is standard in Oxford, Oxford University Press, Oxford University, the Oxford Dictionary.

they use IZE as well. So, hmm, this is interesting. Now, I will get the answer to you, but you can see it's not just a simple case of ISE in British English, IZE in American English, because it seems that there are plenty of people in British English who use IZE, and that includes Shakespeare and the King James Bible, and also all of Oxford University Press and the Oxford English Dictionary. Andrew Ryan goes on to explain how he remembers that there was a

that this came up in an episode of the TV series Inspector Morse. Inspector Morse was a really popular detective show that used to be on the TV in the UK, a bit like a sort of Sherlock Holmes thing set in Oxford. And this is one of the plot points that the detective identified that the

suspect in a murder case was not really the murderer because of the way he'd spelled certain words and this guy was from Oxford there's no way an Oxford man would spell words ISE so it's not as simple as British English ISE American English IZE I will give you the details I mean we could look at the clip from Inspector Morse let's have a little look come on then why not it's a meadows here well then look at it

I apologize from the bottom of my heart, but I feel it is the only civilized thing to do. Now, does he spell apologize with an S? Civilized. Another S. What's wrong with that? Well, it's illiterate. That's what. The Oxford English Dictionary uses a Z for words that end I's. And so did Sir Julius. Here. So he didn't write it.

Whoever did can't spell desperate. Isn't that how you spell it? Desperate, Lewis, not despise. So Inspector Morse works out that a murder suspect is innocent when he notices that some letters have been faked. In the letters, the words apologise and civilised are spelled with an S, but the accused is an Oxford man and would spell it I-Z-E. I-S-E spellings used to be considered wrong, in fact. So what's going on?

What is the rule exactly? Should we use ISE or IZE? And what should you be doing as a learner of English? Because, you know, this is the point, isn't it? You know, you're thinking, OK, what am I supposed to do then, Luke?

Now, here's a good, clear summary of the whole ISE versus IZE suffix problem, which you didn't even realise was a problem until you started listening to this. This is a good, clear summary from a website run by a professional proofreading service. So let's have a look at that. OK, why not? So this is from a website called A Remedy of Errors. Let me see if I can just make that the right size.

Okay, a remedy of errors. The remedy of the week is ISE or IZE. And this is by Hannah Jones from 2017 from the website theremedyoferrors.com. So...

Why does it matter? One of the most common errors I come across when proofreading is inconsistency of verbs ending in -ise or -ize. If a word is spelled with the -ise ending on one line and the -ize ending a few lines later, this can look very clumsy, meaning sort of like careless. Inconsistency in spelling can distract the reader from the text,

If they're doubting how something is written, they may begin to doubt what is written too. So proofreaders are people who basically check other people's writing for mistakes and things like that. For example, if someone has written a book, that book would be read by proofreaders who check it in a lot of detail for any little errors and things before it could be published.

And one of the common errors that apparently this proofreader notices is the inconsistency. So it's not just a question of one being right and the other one being wrong. It's more a question of always using the same form in your writing.

So, which is correct? In British English, either ending I-S-E or I-Z-E is acceptable. It's simply a matter of preference or referring to a house style. So, a house style is a particular style that's considered to be standard in certain institutions, for example.

The Oxford Style Guide prefers I-Z-E spellings, while many other universities prefer I-S-E spellings. Neither ending is more correct than the other. What is important is that whichever form you choose, you use it consistently throughout a piece of writing. Now, there are some words that always end in I-S-E, of course.

It's important to remember, however, that some verbs always end -ise. This reflects the fact that these verbs are not formed by adding -ise or -ize to a noun, as in the case of verbs such as hospital, hospitalise. Rather, the -ise forms part of a larger word element such as -cise, meaning cutting.

in excise, meaning cutting from, incise, cutting into, or vise, meaning seeing, as in revise, meaning look at something again, and supervise, meaning look over something.

Some of the most common words which always end in "-ise", even if the "-ize" system is being used, include advertise, advise, arise, comprise, compromise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, improvise, incise, reprise, revise, supervise, surprise and televise. Always "-ise".

Alright, that's probably enough of that then. So I guess the point is that, yeah, ISE or IZE, both common in British English, depends on sort of which institution you're dealing with, but you should be consistent. And this is probably a good point to just, you know, to consider across your learning and use of English is that consistency is really important. And, you know, that relates to British and American English too, that if you're using a form of English,

You know, if you're worried about differences, it doesn't really matter if you're using British English or American English, but you should probably try to be consistent. And if you're using American English spellings, for example, that you always use American English spellings. If you're using British English spellings, you should always use them and stay consistent.

I mean, another argument is that it's not really a big deal. And for learners of English, there are probably bigger issues to deal with, you know, like just making sure that you're getting the right word and that the grammar is correct and that you're clear and that you're really sort of your English is coherent and cohesive.

Those are probably bigger concerns. But, you know, still, these little spelling differences might, you know, make you think twice. Consistency is the thing. I-Z-E is generally common in American English as well, by the way.

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Okay, so there you go. I thought that that would be an interesting way to explore the difference between ISE and IZE suffixes, right? Okay, let's move on to the next bit. So this one is called Knowledge is Power, Francis Bacon. Now here's a funny little story with a little history lesson about how native speakers of English misunderstand their own language sometimes.

We can see a picture, if you're looking at the PDF, there's a picture of a man called Francis Bacon. So Francis Bacon was an English philosopher from the late 16th and early 17th centuries and is considered to be the father of empiricism, a philosophical school of thought which forms the basis of modern scientific thinking. But you probably knew that already, didn't you?

Francis Bacon is famous for lots of things, but he's famous for the quote, knowledge is power. Have you ever heard that quote? Knowledge is power. This basically means that understanding the world...

And gaining knowledge through observation and scientific study ultimately gives us power. The more we know, the more we are able to do or control. So knowledge is power, in quote marks, brackets, Francis Bacon.

Now, but this line, knowledge is power, Francis Bacon, has become a meme, a sort of repeated joke online, which sometimes does the rounds. I mean, it gets passed around, shared on different websites, social media, sites like Reddit, for example. Have you ever heard about it? Have you seen it? Have you ever seen this little meme? Have you read it? It's quite an old one. It's been around for quite a long time.

Now, sometimes when we hear things in English, we can misunderstand them completely, just like in any language, especially if we never see those things written down, if we just hear them. Now, this is because, just like in many languages, often two different things can sound the same. It could be because of homophones, that's different words that sound the same, but are actually spelled differently and have different meanings, as we know from so many jokes. So it could be because of homophones.

Or because of connected speech, that's where several words connect together and end up sounding like something else, right? Of course, these misunderstandings are fairly common with learners of English, it has to be said. You must have experienced that, where you've heard something and you've understood something completely different to what was actually said, because you've been distracted by those words.

you know, bits of connected speech or homophones, double meanings, things like that. It's quite common for learning English, as I've observed so many times with my students in classrooms and stuff. But native speakers also misunderstand their own language quite a lot, with some quite funny consequences. So here's the meme from Reddit. I'm going to read this out to you now.

So, France is bacon. France, that's the country, is bacon, the food. That's the title of this. So, when I was young, my father said to me, knowledge is power, France is bacon. I understood it as knowledge is power, France is bacon. Like France, the country, is bacon, the food. Knowledge is power, France is bacon. Hmm.

For more than a decade, I wondered over the meaning of the second part and what was the surreal linkage between the two. What's the connection between knowledge is power, France is bacon? If I said the quote to someone, knowledge is power, France is bacon, and nodded knowingly like this, knowledge is power, France is bacon. They nodded knowingly. They were like, hmm, yeah, mm-hmm.

Knowledge is power. France is bacon. Yeah. They just nodded knowingly. Or someone might say, knowledge is power. And then I'd finish the quote by saying, France is bacon. And they wouldn't look at me like I'd said something very odd. But instead, they would just thoughtfully agree. Like they'd be going, you know, knowledge is power. France is bacon. Yeah. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

they would just thoughtfully agree. I did ask a teacher what did knowledge is power, France is bacon mean and got a full 10 minute explanation of the knowledge is power bit, but nothing on France is bacon. When I prompted further explanation by saying France is bacon in a questioning tone, I just got a yes. So can you explain what knowledge is power, France is bacon means?

And, well, knowledge is power. This obviously means that, you know, the more we learn about the world, the more we're in a position to control, understand things, that knowledge allows us to do control and blah, blah, blah. So, you know, as you can see, knowledge is power. And Francis Bacon, yes, correct. Yeah.

At 12 years old, I didn't have the confidence to press it further. I just accepted it as something I'd never understand. It wasn't until years later I saw it written down that the penny dropped. Francis Bacon. Not France is bacon. The penny dropped. So that's a nice expression, actually. If you say the penny dropped, that's when you understand something like it's

like a coin dropping into a machine then the machine works the penny dropped this was an answer by lard underscore baron to a question on reddit in 2011 the question was what word or phrase did you totally misunderstand as a child but anyway that's quite a funny example isn't it knowledge is power uh francis bacon yeah right um now i've had a few examples of this sort of thing in english um

In fact, these things are known as egg corns, like phrases that are misunderstood and thought to be something else. So I remember when I was a kid, I must have been about eight, seven or eight years old. One of my friends had a birthday party and the birthday party was in McDonald's because that's the sort of thing in the 80s when I was a kid that

Kids did. Kids wanted to have their birthday in McDonald's. And you could rent the upstairs in a McDonald's. And there'd be Ronald McDonald, who's the creepiest thing ever now, as far as I'm concerned. But Ronald McDonald would be there. And he'd give you some stickers or something like that. And you'd eat your burgers and you'd get some toys. And when we went to McDonald's for this birthday, they gave us a tour of the kitchen.

How exciting. Like a little group of us kids were shown around the kitchen of McDonald's, almost a bit like, OK, so here's where you could work in the future if you don't do your homework. And at one point they took us to this restaurant.

massive like fridge freezer it was actually a freezer with a big door like the way they have they have these in kitchens it's not just a freezer that you'd have in your home which is like the size of a cupboard but this was a massive freezer and you could open the door open it like a there was a door on the front you could walk inside and the woman said yeah this is a this is a walk-in freezer

Meaning a freezer that you can walk in. A walk-in freezer. I thought it was a walking freezer. Like a freezer that could walk. I was thinking, wow, a walk-in freezer. That's cool. And I remember looking at the freezer thinking, so where are the legs? I just assume that there's some sort of legs this freezer can move around.

Great. A walk-in freezer. And I remember going home that evening. How was my parents? How was the trip to McDonald's? Oh, it was, you know, it's great. Yeah, they've got a walk-in freezer. They've got a what? A walk-in freezer. No, you idiot. It's a walk-in freezer. The freezer you can walk in. Oh, right. So at least for that day, I thought they actually had walking freezers in McDonald's. Wow.

Another one, which was when I was older, is when I saw the film The Matrix in the cinema when it was originally released in 1999. And I didn't know anything about the film before going in to see it. Watched it, obviously thought it was amazing. Now, the main character played by Keanu Reeves in that film is called Neo, right? N-E-O, Neo. But throughout the whole film, I thought his name was Neil Neal.

Like N-E-I-L. Neil. Which is like a really ordinary man's name in England. Neil.

So I thought it was Neil. I think throughout the whole film, his name was Neil, which is not quite as cool as Neo, you know, which is obviously part of the whole world of The Matrix, is that everyone's got like a really cool name, Morpheus and Trinity and Neil as well. So, I mean, if you just, if I just read out some of the scenes from...

from the Matrix. For example, if I just read some lines from the script to the Matrix, this is Morpheus talking to Neo. But if I change it to Neil, it's not quite as cool, is it? Morpheus is saying, I did what I did because I believe we have been brought here for a reason, Neil. You are here to serve a purpose, just as I am here to serve mine. I told you I don't believe in fate, but I do, Neil. I do. So it's not quite as cool as it. And another one,

You know, obviously, you know the song, the Macarena. Hey, Macarena. I thought it was a girl's name. I thought it was a song about a girl called Emma Carina. I was thinking, who is this Emma Carina? Exactly. And is she related to Anna Karenina in any way? Emma Carina. Who is Emma Carina? I always wondered. It wasn't until later I realised it was Emma Carina. The King's Speech.

For a moment, I thought it was the king's peach, a story about a king who tried to eat a peach while he was on a horse or something. No, not the king's peach, but the king's speech. And loads of song lyrics as well. And in fact, years ago, I did several episodes called Misheard Lyrics, where I go through something like 50 different song lyrics.

that could be misinterpreted as something completely different. Like the classic Jimi Hendrix, excuse me while I kiss the sky. Is he saying kiss the sky or kiss this guy? And plenty of other things. So you could go back into the episode archive, teacherluke.co.uk slash episodes and search for misheard lyrics. Some very funny examples in there.

Now, let's move on to the next bit. We've been going for about 35 minutes. So let's move on to the next thing. So feeling a little bit depressed about your English because you haven't been working on it recently? Are you beating yourself up because you're not using every waking moment of your life to study English? Are you feeling guilty about not applying all of those study tips that you've heard from online polyglots?

How about a little motivational boost from Arnold Schwarzenegger? Now, I'm not sure where this first appeared, but it looked like Arnold was doing a Q&A, which is a question and answer, or AQA, which is all questions answered, any questions answered. Maybe Arnold was doing some question and answer stuff online somewhere, and someone asked him this. So,

It goes like this. I know this is pandering. If you're pandering, it's kind of like you're sort of hoping to get something or maybe fishing for compliments or fishing for a reassurance or something like that. So I know this is pandering, but I've been depressed for months and I haven't hit the gym during that time. Of course, Arnold Schwarzenegger is known for

his physical workouts and being a very motivated bodybuilder. So I've been depressed for months and I haven't hit the gym during that time. Mr. Schwarzenegger, can you please tell me to get off my lazy ass and hit the gym? I swear to everything I hold dear that I will snap out of it and go. And then Governor Schwarzenegger, as he was at the time,

replied. Now, I'm not going to do a full Arnold Schwarzenegger impression in reading out his reply. One reason for that is that I actually, I can't really, I can do a bit of a Schwarzenegger impression, but I can't just say anything in a Schwarzenegger voice. Because if I try and speak just normally, I always end up sounding like Werner Herzog, the German film director. So,

I'm not going to try and do the only things I can say as Arnold Schwarzenegger are basically, you know, come on, come on, you can do it. You can do it. Come on. And come on, let's get out of here. And of course, as well. So come on, get to the chopper. You can do it. Right. That's more or less it.

But I can't do the rest of it. So I can't do like, I'm not going to be that hard on you. Please don't be that hard on yourself. I'll just read it out normally. Okay. So,

The guy is saying, please, Arnold, please just tell me to get off my ass and hit the gym. He needs motivation. And Schwarzenegger says, I'm not going to be that hard on you. Please don't be that hard on yourself. We all go through challenges. We all go through failure. Sometimes life is a workout. But the key thing is you get up, just move a little, roll out of bed and do some push-ups,

or go for a walk. I could say that in his voice. Do some push-ups or go for a walk. Go for a walk. Just do something one step at a time. I hope you feel better and get back to the gym. But don't beat yourself up because that's just useless talk. It doesn't get you closer to the gym and don't be afraid to ask for help. Good luck. By the way, to beat yourself up is to criticise yourself, to self-criticise a lot.

Literally to beat someone up, I suppose, literally. Well, normally the meaning of beat someone up is to physically hurt someone, like kick and punch someone a lot so that they're really badly injured. That's to beat someone up. But if you beat yourself up, it means that you kind of really criticize yourself and sort of like your self-talk is very abusive and negative. And so like, oh, I'm so bad. I'm so terrible. I'm such a terrible English learner. Don't beat yourself up.

So it's pretty good advice. You know, Schwarzenegger is basically saying, don't worry about it. We all go through these challenges. The main thing is that you shouldn't be too hard on yourself. Don't beat yourself up. We all go through failure. Sometimes, you know, all you need to do is just move a little bit. Just do a little bit of exercise. It doesn't have to be the whole workout. Just do a little bit. Don't beat yourself up, though.

It doesn't really help. OK, now we can apply this to learning English, studying or practicing English is a bit like going to the gym. It's something you need to do regularly. It's something you need to kind of exercise, you know, like learning your English ability is like a muscle that you have to exercise. Now, we know that there are a lot of things we could be doing.

We could be working as hard as possible using all of the different techniques that you might have been shown, all the different teachers and polyglots and stuff who have all these different methods and techniques and things. We know that there are loads of things we could be doing, but it feels like climbing a mountain sometimes, so we don't do anything.

and then we feel guilty. And I'm speaking from experience, because not only am I an English teacher, I'm also a French learner, a pretty bad one. Because I live in France, I get away with it most of the time. I have my excuses, like for example this morning, I ordered a coffee in a café, a takeaway, in a nice boulangerie not far from here, it wasn't a café.

I went in and I said in French, "Bonjour, un café à l'anger s'il vous plaît pour importer avec un pain au chocolat, merci." Which means, "Hello, I'd like an Americano coffee to take away please and a pain au chocolat," which is a kind of chocolate pastry thing. So, "Bonjour, un pain au chocolat pour importer, s'il vous plaît, avec un pain au chocolat." And he just replied in English.

And he said, "And what?" in English. So, failure. I mean, he didn't help. First of all, he didn't understand "avec un pan au chocolat", which I'm pretty sure I said pretty much correctly. But not only that, he just instantly switched to English and just went, "And what?" And I said, "Un pan au chocolat." And he said, "You want to pay by card?" I was just like, "Oh, God." So, it doesn't help when that happens.

But anyway, I know what it's like when you feel like you should be working harder on your language learning. But here are some things based on what Schwarzenegger said about going to the gym. So it doesn't have to be 100% or nothing, right? It doesn't have to be 100% or nothing. Sometimes we don't want to try because we're afraid that we'll fail. But don't worry, you don't have to be perfect, right?

You just have to be doing something and stay in the game, right? Fear of failure sometimes means people don't achieve anything, right? Because people feel that they have to do 100%, but this is hard, and so they do 0%, yeah? But anything is better than nothing. Just do a little bit. That's better than nothing. And don't beat yourself up. It's okay.

Another point, every little helps. You don't have to climb a mountain every day. Just take little steps and do it regularly. And in time, you'll have made a lot of progress. Another one is the idea that perfect is the enemy of good, right? Or the enemy of good enough. That people think, I need to be perfect. I've got to be perfect. And...

And it's kind of like all or nothing. And because there's this pressure to be perfect, people often don't make an effort. They don't try because they're too scared that it's impossible to be perfect. And as a result, they don't reach this other level, which is considered to be just good enough because they're thinking either I've got to be perfect or nothing. No, you don't have to be perfect. You just have to be good enough. You don't have to get everything right.

Another thing is a Winston Churchill quote, if you're going through hell, keep going, which is quite a good one to remember during those times when you're feeling very depressed and you're not motivated. We all feel like that. I wouldn't be surprised if perhaps...

You started listening to this episode feeling a bit like that. Is that you? If that's you, leave a comment in the comment section. How did you feel before you started listening to this? Did you feel a little bit depressed about your learning of English? Were you feeling even a little bit guilty about not applying yourself to it in the same way? Or did you even feel just low, just like really low, like everything's impossible and you just feel kind of like you're not good enough anymore?

And you're just simply depressed. Now, we all go through those feelings of just feeling like it's a bit hopeless. OK, that's normal. And so if you're experiencing hell, if you feel like you're going through hell, keep going. You see, don't stop. Keep going. Just keep it going. OK, now you might not see the results yet.

You might not see the results happening instantly. We don't always get instant gratification from the things that we do, right? You might be feeling like everything's fruitless and hopeless. Keep going. Keep your momentum going. Keep practicing. Just keep it up, okay? Just keep moving.

Because if you're going through hell, keep going. Eventually, you'll get to the other side. Okay? Don't stop. Keep moving, even if you feel like you're not doing very well. Keep moving. The progress might be happening under the surface and will reveal itself to you later. You have to kind of trust this process of language work.

And keep going even if you're not seeing the results that you want. Sometimes there's a lot of unconscious stuff going on with learning English, just like any language. A lot of it is sort of subconscious. A lot of the time you'll be having experiences, listening to a lot of podcasts, doing some studying and stuff like that. And it's all feeding something within you

And it's like an investment for the future. It's not always instantly noticeable, but then it kind of starts to take effect a bit later. There's, you know, there are theories that say that, you know, your brain needs a lot of time to process a lot of the language learning that you do, you know, and that a lot of it's arguably a subconscious thing.

Just your brain, just sort of like processing your experiences, processing all the input of language that you're getting. And it sort of pays off a bit later. So trust the process. Trust yourself. Keep going, even if you're not seeing the results that you want instantly. If you feel that you need to be perfect, you might never do anything. So don't just always aim for perfection. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but don't let perfection stop you from basically just being good enough.

Starting is often the hardest part, right? Starting something new. That's often the hardest part. If you can get over that hurdle, if you can get the ball rolling, you just got to keep it going. A little bit goes a long way, one step at a time. Come on, you can do it. Come on. Okay. And the next bit here in my list is a letter from Kurt Vonnegut.

This is probably, will this be the last thing in the episode? We'll see. We're getting close to, we're between 45 and 50 minutes into the episode now. I'm aiming for an hour for this episode. Anyway, let's read this letter from Kurt Vonnegut. Do you know Kurt Vonnegut? Now, this is nice, this letter. Kurt Vonnegut is an American author,

who wrote satirical and humorous novels in the post-war period, especially in the 1960s. He's one of my favorite authors. Slaughterhouse-Five is one of his books. It's one of his well-known books. He's written plenty of others as well. He wrote plenty of others. Now, let me give you the whole story. Basically, in 2006, a few years ago now,

Kurt Vonnegut, who was 84 years old at the time, wrote a lovely letter to a group of high school students. I think they'd written to him. Let's have a look at this to get the whole story. I'm reading this now from a website called highexistence.com. This story was written by Jordan Bates, August last year. It says this, Make your soul grow. 84-year-old Kurt Vonnegut's wonderful letter to a group of high school students. So...

In 2006, a group of students at Xavier High School in New York City were given an interesting assignment to write their favourite authors, write to their favourite authors. In American English, you just write someone. In British English, you write to someone. So anyway, the assignment was to write to their favourite authors and try to persuade them to visit the school. That's a good exercise, right?

Writing to your favourite author to try to persuade them to come to the school. That's a good exercise because it forces the kids to write in a persuasive way. Plus, writing to your favourite author is going to be quite a motivating task, I would say. Good idea. So, five students...

opted to write to none other than Kurt Vonnegut, the inimitable author of numerous hilarious, mind-bending, darkly satirical sci-fi classics such as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle. Wily old Kurt, wily means kind of clever, witty...

Smart. Wiley Old Kurt was the only author to reply to the high school students, although he opted, he chose, not to visit the school, noting that he no longer makes public appearances because he now resembles nothing so much as an iguana. You know, being 84 years old, he looks like an old lizard, so he doesn't like making public appearances anymore. But he did take time to write the students a marvellous letter.

So here is the letter from Kurt Vonnegut. Let me read it to you. Right, we're going to read the transcription because the original letter is a bit difficult to see. I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer in his sunset years. Meaning you really know how to make an old man in the last years of his life happy. How to cheer up a really old geezer.

To wit, to wit basically means specifically this, right? To wit, practice any art.

Music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly. Not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming. To find out what's inside you, to make your soul grow. Seriously, I mean starting right now. Do art and do it for the rest of your lives.

Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms Lockwood and give it to her. Dance home after school and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you're Count Dracula. Here's an assignment for tonight. And I hope Ms Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do it. Flunk you is sort of American slang meaning fail you.

If you flunk, you fail in a test or something. So he says, I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don't do this. Write a six-line poem about anything but rhymed. Okay, the poem has to rhyme. Six lines, and it can be about anything at all, but it has to rhyme. No fair tennis without a net. No fair tennis without a net, meaning...

You know, a game always has to have some sort of limitation or challenge in it. In this case, it's to make the lines of the poem rhyme. Make it as good as you possibly can, but don't tell anybody what you're doing. Don't show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms Lockwood, okay? Tear it up into teeny weeny pieces. So rip it, right? Rip it up.

into teeny weeny pieces and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. So after you've written your poem that you've really tried to make good, rip it into pieces and take those pieces and put them into various different rubbish bins or trash cans. OK, you will find that you've already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming

learned a lot more about what's inside you, and you have made your soul grow. God bless you all. Kurt Vonnegut. If you appreciated this, please pass it on. Okay, so that's actually quite inspiring and heartwarming, I think. So let me just remix that slightly here at the end of this episode, but for learning English.

Okay, here's what I want you to say. Here's what I want you to do. This is your assignment, in fact. Now, what you could do is you could do the Kurt Vonnegut assignment and do a six-line poem about anything. Try and make it good, make it rhyme, and then never share it with anyone, if you like. Simply the act of doing it is its own reward. Now, you could, if you want, share your poem in the comments section of this episode. Be my guest.

But another thing you could do is this. Just write something in English, of course, anything at all, even if nobody reads it. It's good to practice putting your thoughts, feelings and experiences into words. Write a poem if you like. But there's not even any pressure to do that. Just write something today. Now, here are some ideas. You could write a diary.

in which you describe what you did and how you felt. Just practice expressing yourself in English regularly. Why not start writing a diary in English? Write about things that happened in that day and a few things about how you felt. Try and do it regularly. Imagine if you did that maybe every day. No, it doesn't have to be every day, but regularly for a year. How, to what extent would you find your voice in English? And how much would you practice that?

expressing your ideas, thoughts, feelings and descriptions into words in English. It would really, really help. The other thing you can do is you don't even have to write it down. You can just think it in your head. You can just spend any time of the day and just sit there and think and just describe what's happened that day. What did you do? How do you feel about it? What are you going to do? How are you feeling about that in your head? Or you write it down.

Okay, another idea, write a story. Even if it's crap, just start with a premise and make it up as you go along. It's fun. And also, I promise that you will be surprisingly pleased with the result. Just put absolutely no expectations on yourself. So it could be like, write a story about a guy who gets lost in a train station. You know, a guy who takes a wrong, who somehow ends up on the wrong plane.

and goes to a different destination to where he planned to go. Just write a little story about what happens. No expectations. You'll be surprisingly pleased with the result, I predict. I've done that before as an English teacher. I've had to just write stories because I needed to give examples. These days we have ChatGPT that does everything for us. But trust me, simply the act of trying to do it

is worth it for its own rewards and it's terrifically good for your English. Another thing, write a letter to someone you respect telling them why you respect them. You don't even have to publish it. I mean, you don't even have to send it if you don't want to. Write an email to yourself and then reply to it. You could do that quite regularly. Have a whole email conversation with yourself. Write yourself an email and

and then reply to your own email and keep it going. Just write something in English, then consider doing it every day and imagine the results. It will be very beneficial to your English. And also, by expressing yourself, maybe even turning it into art in some way, it's good for your soul. It will help your soul grow. Just like Kurt Vonnegut said. Okay, I feel like this is the natural ending for this episode.

um food for thought i hope and the end of bits and bobs um part one um when will part two of this come along soon soon enough i think it'll turn up uh in your podcast feed soon enough when i when i do it i don't think it's going to be the next episode actually because i think the next one what is it um it's going to be halloween soon it's going to be halloween

So in a couple of episodes time, it'll be the end of October and I've got a Halloween story episode planned and maybe I'll do bits and bobs too for the next episode or maybe I'll do something else. I've got I wanted to do an episode with some jokes in it because that's that's a lot of fun.

So anyway, Bits and Bobs 2 will turn up in your podcast feed at some point. But I hope you enjoyed this episode and it gave you some inspiration, some motivation that you learned a thing or two.

And, you know, consider what I said about writing something in English on a regular basis. It could be a really good idea. I look forward to reading your comments in the comments section. Tell your friends about Luke's English podcast if you care about them. Or maybe just keep it secret. I don't know. Maybe you've decided, I don't want to tell anyone else about this. This is just my thing. Fair enough. Otherwise, you could, you know, drop a like, drop a comment, subscribe to the show.

wherever you get your podcasts. And if you feel moved to do so, consider writing a review somewhere like iTunes. That would be nice and it would really help the podcast as well. Thank you so much for listening and I'll speak to you next time. But for now, it's time to say goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for listening to Luke's English Podcast. For more information, visit teachaluke.co.uk.

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