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Steve: This evening I have with me my wife Carmen. Hi Carmen.

Carmen: Hi.

Steve: And, you know, I want to talk about…  First of all, I should say that it’s the 14th of July and so Carmen and I went out for dinner.

Did we have a nice dinner?

Carmen: Very nice.

Steve: Very nice and we even had a glass of champagne, but it wasn’t French champagne it was Spanish sparkling wine.

Carmen: I couldn’t tell the difference.

Steve: Alright.

You know, one thing that’s interesting is, Carmen, both you and I, we speak a number of languages.

What was the first language you spoke in your family?

Carmen: Cantonese.

Steve: Cantonese. And then you went to school, I think a little bit in English and a little bit in Cantonese.

Carmen: No, all in English.

Steve: All in English.

Carmen: English immersion.

Steve: English immersion, but you did go to a school in Chinese at one point.

Carmen: But even English immersion, in the playgrounds it is usually Chinese spoken and I later on went to Chinese school, yes.

Steve: But now you also…and, of course, your mother spoke Spanish.

Did you hear Spanish at home?

Carmen: Very little; once in a while.

She had friends come over to visit and they would chat in Spanish.

We would be outside playing, we weren’t too interested.

Steve: Yet the most recent language that you learned is French because we had very good customers in France and they visited and we traveled around British Columbia.

You were in the back of the car with this lady who spoke no English, day one could you understand what she was saying?

Carmen: Not entirely, but gesture and everything helped.

Steve: Mind you, you had studied a bit of French when we lived in Ottawa, but then by day five you were doing fine.

Carmen: Yes, we started to understand a little bit more of each other.

Steve: When we visit France regularly you have no trouble when we are invited to dinner or you’re socializing with people over there.

Do you worry about whether they understand what you have to say?

Carmen: No, I don’t worry.

Steve: What about when they say things that you don’t understand?

Carmen: Well, I just try and pick a few words that I understand and the rest I don’t care.

Steve: So, on that basis, you speak Cantonese and, of course, Mandarin and then we lived in Japan for nine years and I think your Japanese is pretty fluent.

Or is it sort of specialized for certain things that you’re more interested in?

Carmen: No.

When we lived in Japan I had to learn some Japanese because nobody else spoke English and if you didn’t speak any Japanese you wouldn’t get anywhere.

Steve: So, in all of your shopping and occasionally at parties, did we have to speak Japanese?

Carmen: Yes.

Steve: I guess so.

Carmen: Regularly.

Steve: Regularly.

Carmen: You’d have to use Japanese almost on a daily basis.

Talking to a taxi driver, you take a lot of taxis there.

You have to be able to direct them to where you’re going and you know how the Japanese addressing system is, it’s not easy to find a place.

Steve: It’s nonexistent.

Carmen: No.

Steve: No.

What is there system?

You, basically, have to know a landmark somewhere to direct the taxi driver to and after that you’re just guessing.

Carmen: It’s ah…

Steve: Although, if you give them a map he could figure it out.

Carmen: Well, they divide them into blocks and numbers, right?

But it’s really hard to figure out Japanese addresses.

Steve: Right, so…and Mandarin.

Well, how did you learn Mandarin because you didn’t have Mandarin in Hong Kong?

Carmen: I didn’t really learn it.

I just picked it up here and there listening to people talk that’s all.

Steve: Yeah?

Carmen: I’m still not that good at it.

Steve: No, but your Mandarin pronunciation is a lot better than a lot of Cantonese people’s.

Carmen: Well, I have no trouble pronouncing things.

Steve: Why is that?

Carmen: I have more trouble understanding.

Steve: Why is that?

Why is it that…like a lot of Cantonese speakers who went to school in Chinese have trouble speaking Mandarin, their pronunciation is terrible, not terrible, but very typically Cantonese, that you don’t have that strong Cantonese pronunciation, why do you think that is?

Carmen: I’ve been exposed to more languages than the average Cantonese person.

Steve: You know I think that’s right, I think our brains get a little more flexible.

If we only have one language, whether that be Cantonese or English, then the second language we learn we struggle with the differences.

But if we have a lot of different languages we’re a little more flexible.

What is the next language you want to learn?

Carmen: Perhaps learn up my French better and Spanish.

Steve: Yeah, Spanish.

I mean how good is your Spanish?

Carmen: Not very good.

Steve: Not very good.

But we were talking about maybe going to Mexico in the fall and I bet you if you were down there for a few weeks you would start talking to the local shopkeepers and so forth and you would develop.

Carmen: Oh yes, it wouldn’t take long.

Steve: Okay.

But you have interests in music, you have interests in food, travel, I think people who are interested in different cultures their attitude is one that they’re more open to different languages.

Don’t you think that’s your case too?

Carmen: Yes.

Steve: When you watch, for example, the food channel, you’re interested in the cooking from different countries and so forth.

I think language is part of just being interested in what’s happening in this world.

Carmen: Yes.

Steve: Would you agree?

Carmen: Yes.

And then food goes with wine, etc., etc.

Steve: And travel.

Carmen: And then the regional foods are also interesting.

If you go to Spain you get a lot of very fresh seafood and some shellfish you’ve never seen before and then, of course, the spices they use are different.

For example, saffron is a very unique spice used by the Spanish to make their saffron rice.

Steve: (Paella).

Carmen: Some other countries use it too, but that’s very typically Spanish.

So when you’re traveling in those areas that’s the kind of thing that’s interesting.

Steve: Yeah, we like to go to Spain.

When we were in Marbella, Malaga, some of those restaurants where you go in and you see the fresh fish just there on the counter and you point to what you want and then they make it the way you want it.

Especially that shell food restaurant in Marbella was delicious.

Carmen: Yes, it was very good.

Steve: They had those…what were they called?

Those razor clams, no, those long…

Carmen: Razor clams.

Steve: Razor clams, yeah, yeah.

I think the other thing too, I guess, is if you are more comfortable in different languages then you don’t feel…I mean when you go to Spain, even though your Spanish is not fluent, at least you don’t feel out of place, you don’t feel stranded.

Carmen: Oh, no, no.

No, I can make myself understood and I can usually understand what they say to me.

It’s just that I haven’t been speaking it regularly, so I’m a little shy at using it, plus a few grammatical mistakes, so you’re no so comfortable that’s all.

Steve: And that generally makes…the fact that you know, in the worst case, you could communicate makes you feel more comfortable in the country don’t you think?

Carmen: Yeah.

Steve: I mean if we go to a country where we have no clue about the local language you always feel a little more uneasy.

You feel more like a tourist, you feel more separate from the people; whereas, if you can communicate then you feel a little more comfortable.

I do anyway, would you agree with that?

Carmen: Yes.

Especially if you go to a place like Japan where English isn’t heard, you do have to speak Japanese.

Everything is written in Japanese, all the stations…

Steve: …train stations, yeah.

Carmen: …train stations is written in Japanese and if…

Steve: The announcements, yeah.

Carmen: If you don’t know the station name then you’re out of luck.

Steve: You could be going for quite a while.

It’s interesting, people who speak English only they kind of think that everybody everywhere is going to speak English.

Sometimes they’re a bit surprised when they go to Japan and find out that most people don’t speak English.

Okay, well we’ve had a short visit here with Carmen.

We’ve just come back from our dinner and now we’re going to go and see what we can find in the way of a little bit of dessert.

What did we have for dinner tonight?

We had some kind of a Brie melt tapenade salad and what was the other course we had?

Carmen: Well that’s really like a sandwich.

Steve: Right.

Carmen: Open-faced sandwich with Brie cheese and chicken on top.

Steve: And mushrooms.

Carmen: The tapenade, that was very good.

Steve: Well there were mushrooms too.

Carmen: Yes the tapenade.

Steve: There was the olive tapenade and the mushrooms and then the other one was their own version of salad niçoise.

Carmen: With tuna.

Steve: Their tuna was a very sort of almost raw, but seared ahi tuna with salad that had sun-dried tomatoes and olives.

And then the other dish we had was?

Carmen: The sushi roll.

Steve: Oh, that was very good.

We had a sushi roll with a little bit of like the nori, the seaweed…

Carmen: On the outside.

Steve: …was sort of done like tempura.

Carmen: Well, basically, they made a tuna sushi roll with nori on the outside.

Steve: Nori is seaweed.

Carmen: Seaweed on the outside and then they breaded and deep fried the outside of the seaweed.

Steve: But the sushi was still raw on the inside.

Carmen: Yeah, but that was very good.

Steve: Yeah. And then we had that pasta capellini pasta dish…

Carmen: That was very good.

Steve: …with pesto sauce and we had that with our Spanish champagne and I also had another glass of wine, California wine, Zinfandel, so that was a nice dinner.

Okay.

Carmen: So that was to celebrate Steve’s affiliation with France.

Steve: You know I spent three years in France.

I studied there; it’s a big part of my life.

I mean there’s many countries that have influenced me with their culture, their language, France is one of them.

Japan, obviously, is another one: China, Spain, Sweden.

Yeah, but I have a soft spot in my heart for France, so this is our July the 14th Bastille Day podcast.

Okay, bye for now.

Carmen: Bye-bye.

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Steve: Hi Annie.

Annie: Hi.

Steve: I’m sitting here with my granddaughter Annie.

Annie, I want to talk to you as well about your school.

And what kind of a school do you go to?

Annie: Ah, French Immersion.

Steve: And what grade are you in?

Annie: Grade 5.

Steve: So how many years have you been going to this same school?

Annie: Well, I have been going since preschool, but I guess that’s…that’s in English, so kindergarten to grade 5.

Steve: What’s the name of the school?

Annie: Pauline Johnson School.

Steve: Aha.

And what is its official name in French?

Isn’t it called “L’école”?

Annie: ”L’école Pauline Johnson.”

Steve: Okay. And do you enjoy school?

Annie: Ah, I guess, sometimes.

Steve: Sometimes.

Do you speak to your friends in class in French ever?

Annie: No.

Steve: In class though, if you’re there with the teacher?

Annie: Well, if she can’t hear…well, if she can hear us, um, then we speak in French.

But if she’s…like, yeah.

Steve: Okay.

So, for example, does it ever happen in class that the teacher asks one pupil to speak to another pupil in French?

You know, Annie would you please ask Mary a question?

Is there no conversation in French between the students and the class?

Annie: Well, um, I don’t know, she doesn’t really ask.

She doesn’t ask one person to ask someone else something.

But we do sometimes because she sometimes has these programs that if you speak French you get like points and the tables and stuff and so you want to speak French if she can hear you.

Steve: And do you ever ask the teacher questions in French?

Annie: All the time.

Steve: Aha.

Annie: Except in English class.

Steve: And what kinds of questions would you ask her?

Annie: I don’t know, like I don’t have my book.

Steve: Okay.

And how would you say that?

Annie: “Je n’ai pas mon livre.”

Steve: Okay and then what?

That means what?

Then you have to go home and get it or you…?

Annie: No. Well I guess if it hadn’t been passed out or something maybe.

Steve: Oh I see, okay.

Annie: Or if you lost it.

Steve: And so what kinds of things do you do mostly in the class in French?

What’s your typical class?

Annie: Ah, well we do Math.

Steve: In French?

Annie: Yeah, in French.

Well everything’s in French, except for once a day…

(CELL PHONE RINGS)

Steve: Never mind that, go ahead. Okay.

Can you turn it off?

Oh, that’s, that’s…

Annie: That’s my dad’s cell phone ring.

Steve: Oh no, that’s his ring?

Annie: That’s my sister.

Steve: Okay, that’s fine. Alright, so yeah, typical class, so you do Math and French?

Annie: Yeah.

Steve: So you do all your multiplication, division and everything in French?

Annie: Yeah and we do Science in French.

Steve: And the teacher explains things on the blackboard all in French?

Annie: Yeah.

Steve: And you sometimes see movies in French about Science, for example?

Annie: Yeah, um, yeah.

Steve: And you do your assignments, you have to answer in French?

Annie: Yeah.

Steve: Do you have poems to recite like Kylie?

Annie: I did in grade 3.

Steve: Aha, but not now.

Annie: Not now.

Steve: So do you ever read poems?

Annie: No.

Steve: Not in English, not in French.

Annie: No.

Steve: Do you like to read?

Annie: Yup.

Steve: Do you like to read in English or in French?

Annie: In English.

Steve: Do you like to read in French?

Annie: No, not so much.

Steve: But you also enjoy reading in French.

Annie: Um, it depends on the book.

Steve: It depends on the book. Now are you allowed to choose what to read?

Annie: Yeah, well there’s a school library and we go there once a week or something and we go and we get to pick out three books.

Steve: In French.

Annie: Well yeah, there’s English books too, but like you have to get at least one French chapter book and, yeah.

Steve: And when you read the French book does the teacher ask you questions about the book?

Annie: Um, no.

Steve: Do you like it better when you are just allowed to read whatever you want or do you like it when you read and then you’re asked questions about the book or does that even happen?

Annie: It does happen.

Um, I don’t know, I like reading just alone, but every day, every day, there’s like 20 minutes every day and it’s for reading in French and you just read your own book.

Steve: In the class.

Annie: In the class.

Steve: That’s good.

Annie: Aha.

Steve: And do people sometimes ask the teacher questions if they don’t understand something?

Annie: No, I don’t think so, maybe.

Steve: You don’t.

Annie: No, I don’t.

Steve: So what do you do if you’re reading in class and there’s something you don’t really understand?

Annie: Well I kind of just keep reading; I keep going to see maybe if…what makes sense in that sentence, yeah.

Steve: So, I mean, if you’re reading and you find parts that you don’t understand you just keep reading and eventually you kind of get a picture of the overall?

Annie: Yeah.

Steve: Even though there’s a few words or sentences that weren’t so clear?

Annie: Aha.

Steve: That doesn’t bother you.

Annie: No.

Steve: Me neither.

That’s good, that’s exactly how I am when you’re reading in another language.

It’s even true sometimes reading in English, you might come across a sentence that’s just not very clear, right?

Annie: Aha.

Steve: And I think good readers just read on.

Did you have the same strategy-type classes that Kylie had?

Annie: With the numbers kind of?

Steve: Yeah.

Annie: Um, I don’t really remember that, I might have.

Steve: If you come across a word and it’s a new word, do you try to go through those same thought processes as Kylie described to try to see whether it’s a word within a word or whether it’s similar to an English word or do you just either understand it or not understand it?

Annie: Well, if I don’t understand it then maybe I’ll like try a little, I don’t know.

I guess, um, well if it’s like an English word I’ll kind of know right away and if not I guess I just keep reading.

Steve: But sometimes a word that looks like an English word, in fact, might mean something different from an English word.

Annie: Yeah, I know, yeah it does.

Steve: So…  No, that’s interesting. And do you do grammar in French in class?

Annie: Yup.

Steve: What sorts of grammar study do you do?

Annie: Verbs, like “conjuguez le verbe.”

Steve: And how do they handle that?

What do you do?

You have to look at lists?

Annie: Yeah lists; “je”, “te”.

Steve: Right. And then do you have to use verbs in sentences to make sure you remembered them?

Annie: No, I don’t know. I don’t know…

Steve: So you just study the tables?

Annie: Well we don’t really study grammar that much, but we do have them in our Spelling tests.

She gives us a verb and we have to do the list of it.

Steve: The whole list.

Do you have dictation where she reads something out and you have to write it down in French?

Annie: Yeah, yeah.

Steve: “Dictée” as it’s called?

Annie: Yeah, we’ve been doing that since grade 1.

Steve: And do you like doing that?

Annie: Aha.

Steve: Yeah?

Annie: Aha.

Steve: What do you like most in class other than recess?

What do you like most at school?

Annie: English class.

Steve: English class.

Because it’s…why?

Annie: Um, I don’t know, I guess I understand it the most and most of the work’s actually quite easy.

The teachers, I don’t know, they…I don’t know, they kind of go easy since we’ve been doing the last five years or so in English, I mean in French.

They kind of assume you’re not that good and they…

Steve: In English you mean.

Annie: In English. And like the Spelling tests are so easy like “car” and “log”.

It’s kind of funny.

Steve: But you read a lot.

Annie: Yeah, I do, yeah. My English is really…

Steve: So your English is probably quite good.

Annie: Yeah.

Steve: And that’s interesting; probably a lot better than your French?

Annie: Yeah.

Steve: Because you read all the time.

Annie: Yeah, it is.

Steve: Yeah, that’s interesting.

And would you rather be studying Science in English or in French?

Annie: I don’t know.

Well, um, I’ve never studied Science in English, so, I don’t know.

Steve: Do you sometimes read books about Science in English?

Annie: No.

Steve: So you read your lesson in French?

Annie: Actually, maybe, like if I find a book in the library or something and it’s about Science; if it’s in English then I guess I do.

Steve: You wouldn’t, for example, read…  If you really had to understand this English subject on Science, say the parts of the body or something and if you didn’t understand it so well in French, would you then go and read about it in English just to make sure you understand it?

Or you don’t need to do that you basically understand it just from the French text?

Annie: I basically just understand it from the French text.

Steve: Okay, well thank you very much.

We’ve had a little discussion about school and stuff.

And so what are you going to do for the rest of the afternoon?

Annie: I don’t know, I guess play with my dog.

Steve: Play with your dog? Okay, well say goodbye to everyone.

Annie: Goodbye.

Steve: Bye, thank you for listening.

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Steve: I’m sitting here today with my grandson Kylie and I want to talk a little bit about language learning with Kylie because Kylie goes to what kind of a school?

Kyle: French Immersion.

Steve: And what does that mean?

Kyle: It means that the school is in French.

Steve: And so every class is in French?

The teacher speaks in French?

Kyle: Um, yeah, unless you have a bit of English class.

Steve: Okay. And all the kids in class, do they speak French with each other or do they speak English with each other?

Kyle: Well, they’re not supposed to speak English with each other, but they do anyway.

Steve: Aha.

But when you’re listening to the teacher and when you ask the teacher a question you have to ask in?

Kyle: French.

Steve: French. Is that difficult?

Kyle: Sort of; it depends.

Steve: It depends. And what year are you in?

Kyle: Grade 3.

Steve: Grade 3. So you’ve been doing that for three years?

Kyle: Um, yeah, well if you count preschool and grade 1. You don’t do much French in them.

Steve: In those first couple of years.

Kyle: Yeah.

Steve: But the teacher just starts talking in French.

At first it must be difficult to understand what the teacher is saying.

Kyle: Um, she kind of explains it a little bit.

Steve: And what kinds of assignments do you get in French?

Kyle: Um, like grammar and like reading projects.

Steve: For example, what would be a typical example of a grammar assignment that you would get?

Kyle: Um, like ah, like um, different things like verbs and like names.

Steve: So they would, for example, show you some sentences and then ask you which is the verb and which is the noun that kind of thing?

Kyle: Yeah.

Steve: But they ask you in French or in English?

Kyle: French.

Steve: And do they sometimes have you sort of fill-in the blanks?

Kyle: Yup, that’s what we do.

Steve: And when you fill-in the blanks do you fill them in writing or do you have to speak up?

Kyle: Writing.

Steve: In writing. And do you always get them right?

Kyle: Most of the time.

Steve: Most of the time.

So do you spend more time doing those kinds of grammar exercises or do you spend more time just listening and reading in French?

Kyle: Well we don’t listen at all.

Steve: Except to the teacher.

Kyle: Um, yeah.

Steve: Okay, but you sometimes watch movies.

Kyle: Yup, sometimes, but that’s if you’re lucky.

Well, it depends, if you’re doing a movie like for fun for like a school party or like a science movie or something.

Steve: So you do get, for example, a science movie in French?

And do you normally understand it?

Kyle: Well, yeah I do.

Steve: Okay.

And when you read in French you were saying that you have some kind of a strategy thing that you do.

Kyle: Yeah.

Steve: Can you explain or describe how that works?

Kyle: Um, well, so she gives you a sheet of…well, you get a story and you have to read it and you have to figure out what some words that you don’t really know mean.

Steve: Are these words that you choose or the teacher gives you and decides which words?

Kyle: The teacher decides which words.

And so you have two lines, you have to write what you think it means and then you have to write how you found out.

And you write a 5 if you figured it out by looking at one of the pictures in the story and then you do a 4 if you read the whole sentence and figured out what the words before or after it helped you figure it out and you do a 3 if there’s like a small word and a big word.

Steve: What’s an example of that?

Kyle: Like, um…

Steve: You mentioned the other day, like what?

Kyle: Oh yeah, like s’en volé.

Steve: Right.

Kyle: And you have “volé” in there.

Steve: Right or “volent” even.

Kyle: “Volent”, yeah, so then you’ve figured it out.

It means like it went flying, right?

Steve: Right.

Kyle: And then 2 means that because most of us the language that we speak at home is English, so then she says if you figured it out like “banane”, which is banana in English, so it kind of is the same.

Steve: Right.

Kyle: And then 1 is if you already knew it before you read the book.

Steve: How about if you couldn’t figure it out at all?

What number is that?

Kyle: You don’t have a number.

Steve: But there must be some of them that you don’t know what they mean.

Kyle: Yeah, but then you get an X on your test and then you get one wrong.

Steve: Oh, I see.

Kyle: And then she has to tell you what it means.

Steve: I see, okay. And do you do that quite often?

Kyle: Um, yup.

Steve: And the stories that they give you to read for these tests, are they interesting?

Kyle: Well, not really.

Steve: Do you prefer to read in English or in French?

Kyle: English.

Steve: Do you like reading in French?

Kyle: Sure, sort of.

Steve: Do you like reading in English?

Kyle: Yup.

Steve: So if you’re at home and you have some free time and you’re going to read, are you going to pick up an English book or a French book?

Kyle: An English book.

Steve: Is there any situation where you would pick up a French book?

Kyle: Homework.

Steve: Only homework.

How about if it was Asterix and Obelix?

Kyle: Maybe, except you can get those books in English and they’re really funny.

Steve: And they’re not so much fun; they’re not funny when you read them in French?

Kyle: Well.

Steve: It’s too much trouble.

Kyle: It’s a bit harder to read them.

It’s a bit harder to understand because they use complicated words in books like that and, yeah.

Steve: And so do you sometimes have to give a presentation in class in French?

Kyle: Yeah, every Monday.

Well not now because school’s almost over and we have no homework.

But we used to have to recite a whole poem in front of the class and you have to learn it over a week and you had to have it in your head and you’d have to recite it to the whole class.

Steve: And do you like poems?

Kyle: No, not really.

Steve: Do you like poems in French?

Kyle: No, not really.

Steve: Do you think that if you remember those poems by heart that…can you remember now any of the poems that you did earlier in the year?

Kyle: Ah, no.

Steve: No.

(Annie I’ll have you later.)  Are there any poems that you enjoy while you’re learning them?

Kyle: Sure.

Steve: Which ones?

Why sure?

Like what kind of poems do you like?

Kyle: Um, most of them don’t make much sense and so some of them are kind of funny.

Steve: Oh, so you like them if they’re funny.

Kyle: Yeah.

Steve: That’s the best kind of poem, I agree; I agree.

Okay, that’s interesting.

You know I’m also going to talk to Annie.

And you’re in what grade?

Kyle: Three.

Steve: Grade 3 and so next year you’re going to grade 4.

And what do you like doing more, reading French or playing hockey?

Kyle: Playing hockey.

Steve: Okay.

What’s your most favorite thing to do?

Kyle: Playing hockey.

Steve: What about eating?

Kyle: Eating is my second or third.

Steve: Okay. What’s second, if eating is third and hockey is first?

Kyle: Video games.

Steve: Video games.

Video games?

Like Wii?

Is that fun?

Kyle: Yeah.

Steve: Do you play games with your sisters?

Kyle: Yup.

Steve: Aha. And can the dog play?

Kyle: No.

Steve: Okay. Alright, thank you very much Kylie.

And now we’re going to sit down with Annie and we’re going to do the same thing.

But first, say goodbye.

Kyle: Goodbye.

Study this episode and any others from the LingQ English Podcast on LingQ! Check it out.

Mark: Hello again, Mark here with Steve.

Steve: Hi Mark.

Mark: Hi Steve.

Steve: You know I’ve heard people say that they think our voices sound too similar.

So what I should do is I should hold my nose and kind of talk like this so that people can tell us apart.

Mark: That’s a good idea. I think that’s good training too for all our listeners.

Steve: Right.

Mark: A little different sound.

Steve: Well, you know, we’ve had people as for…who was it now?

Someone…oh yes, we had a learner from Japan who was living in Hong Kong and working for a bank where all the English speakers there were either English or Australian.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And he spoke excellent English; I can’t remember who it was.

And he said can’t we get some content in Australian and English.

Mark: Right.

Steve: We do need some different accents.

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

Steve: Should I imitate an Australian accent here? No, I don’t think so.

Mark: I’m not sure that that would cut it.

Steve: Not the same.

You know before we get into our subject, whatever the subject is going to be, I would just comment or thinking to myself, boy, everything looks nicer when you have nice weather.

Don’t you think?

Mark: For sure.

Steve: We get quite a bit of rain here in Vancouver and the last few days it’s been sunny and you just look at the trees and the ocean and the colors and everything seems nicer.

Mark: Well maybe that’s partly a function of us having such crummy weather a lot of the time.

But this June, in particular, has been quite bad weather wise, so now when we get some nice days back-to-back everything looks great.

I mean it is summertime, everything’s flowering, everything’s green.

I mean all that rain we do get certainly makes everything very green here.

Steve: And, of course, variety too.

I think if we had nothing but sunny weather every day we’d get tired of it.

Mark: Yeah, that’d be no good.

Steve: We wouldn’t want that, no. You know it makes me think of soccer.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: When you look at the different countries in the world where they play soccer, now the English, they have to play in the rain all the time.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Okay? Whereas the Spanish and the Italians they get to play in the sunshine.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I mean I would think that has to make the Spanish and the Italians better.

Mark: I’ve got to believe that’s the case.

I mean it’s much easier to handle a ball when it’s dry; when the field’s dry, when the ball’s dry, when your shoes are dry.

I’ve got to imagine that would have an impact on your skills.

But, you know, it’s not like it rains all the time in England either.

Steve: No, but a lot of the time the only thing you can do with the ball is kick it down the field, I would think.

Anyway…

Mark: Maybe it’s good training to try and handle it when it’s wet.

Maybe they develop better skills that way, I don’t know.

Steve: Possibly; although, they’ve had their difficulties in the European Cup.

Mind you, the Dutch did very well until their recent loss.

Have you been following the European Cup at all?

Mark: Well I haven’t watched a lot of it, but I’ve watched some of the last handful of games.

I mean it is exciting once you start watching, you know, especially when you start in a tournament format with how ever many teams there are.

I don’t know how many they start with, but then to follow it as different teams get eliminated and, obviously, you have your favorite teams that you’re hoping do well.

I did see Holland and Russia and that was an exciting game.

There were a lot of good chances both ways and goals were scored, which is not always the case in soccer.

And, of course, I thought the team that played the best won that game which, again, doesn’t always seem to happen in soccer.

Steve: No; although, it’s interesting reading the paper because I’m not such a keen student of soccer.

But it seemed like the Dutch were playing a very offensive and attractive style of soccer and they did well until they were eliminated.

And the Portuguese were playing an open and offensive kind of soccer and they were eliminated.

And the Spanish had been playing a very, again, offensive style of soccer and they were almost eliminated.

I mean they were a 0-0 game against the Italians, so you kind of get the impression that there’s no benefit in having an offensive style.

It seems that the odds are in favor of the team that plays a defensive but uninteresting style of soccer.

Mark: Yeah, I mean you hear that.

I also don’t know enough about soccer to judge, all I can judge by is when I watch the game, you know, who seems to be having more chances.

I mean certainly in the Holland-Russia game I thought the Russians had more offense than the Dutch did.

I thought the Dutch weren’t very effective in trying to make plays.

They seemed on their heels a lot of the time and they finally managed to tie it up and then, I don’t know, they didn’t have much offense after that.

Whereas, the Russians seemed to have a lot of good chances around the other teams; maybe that’s because the Dutch were trying to force the play and turn the ball over and the Russians then…maybe that creates openings.

I mean I know in hockey very often that happens.

If one team has a lot of pressure on, doesn’t score and the puck gets turned over, that creates opportunities for the other team, so teams do play that defensive style looking for the turnover.

Steve: But the other thing I’d like to ask you about having played a lot of competitive hockey or sports, specifically hockey in your case, it seems for the fan it’s difficult to understand that a certain team can play very well for two or three or four games and then come out on the fifth day and just play terribly.

That there seems to be, not only at the level of individuals but at the level of a whole team, this momentum shift that takes place.

A team can be riding this very positive momentum and all of a sudden they just come out and look terrible.

How does that happen?

Mark: You know probably if I could answer that question I could make a lot of money in the sports psychology business, but I mean that just is the way it is.

Some days you feel great, some days you don’t feel so good and what’s funny is that very often it sort of affects the whole team.

It’s not like one individual doesn’t feel good today, it’s sort of like everybody is kind of nervous.

Steve: Well you can get one individual and he gets carried by the team.

Mark: Right, but as you say, there are times when it looks like the whole team is nervous.

They look like they’re running in quicksand; they just don’t seem to be able to play.

I mean I guess it’s largely confidence, for whatever reason the expectations get too high or…

Steve: It can even be the luck in a particular game.

I mean you can’t say Team A beat Team B three-nothing and Team B beat Team C three-nothing, therefore Team A should just annihilate Team C.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Very often Team C comes back and beats Team A.

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

And very often, I mean you see it in hockey anyway where teams that are eliminated from the playoffs are all of a sudden very loose because they have nothing to lose and they just go out and play the game.

If they’re playing against a team that’s battling for a playoff position very often the team that’s out of contention who are playing loose win; they just play better.

They’re not worried about oh, if we don’t win then what’s going to happen.

Very often you hear coaches and commentators saying, you know, you’ve got to play to win, don’t play not to lose.

It’s sort of that mentality of playing not to lose that I think maybe Holland had in that game where they weren’t relaxed and just playing their game.

Steve: The other thing with Holland was that they had rested their number one team in the previous game because they had already qualified, so you wonder if that doesn’t take some momentum.

Whereas, the Russians who began by losing to Spain, I believe, had to fight and claw their way back, so they were still on sort of an upward path.

Whereas, the Dutch had reached a certain level and they’d sat back, now they had to go and find that spirit again.

I don’t know I’m not a psychologist, as you say.

Mark: Yeah, that definitely happens.

You sort of relax a little bit and it’s such a fine line at that level and too many other things sort of run through your head instead of just going out and playing your game.

You know a lot of the time when I was playing you start thinking about too many things and you just don’t play as well as you could have.

Sort of later on in my career I started to just not worry about things and just go out and play like a kid will play when they go out and play on the playground; just go play.

Steve: You know I hate to drag everything back to language learning, but there certainly is a parallel there with children, specifically, you gave the example.

In speaking I often think, you know, what is it that prevents people from speaking a language better.

Very often people will, you know, can understand, they have good listening skills and good reading skills and they just don’t speak well and there is some kind of a block there.

Whereas, children have no inhibitions, children just want to communicate, they’re just happy, they don’t want to think about anything, whatever they have they use.

Adults may have a lot in terms of vocabulary and knowledge and phrases, but they can’t get themselves to use it.

So I think the psychology of sports, the psychology of anything, any of our activity, even something like riding a bike, if you’re afraid that you’re going to fall off the bike — as easy as it is to ride a bike — you say holy cow, I’m on two wheels here, I’m going to fall over, you will fall over.

Mark: Yeah, for sure; for sure.

Steve: The other thing too, I remember watching you play when you were a kid, well when you were young, I guess 16 and you had a game against Russia in a tournament in Quebec City.

Your team, which was basically the British Columbia and Alberta team, put up a tremendous fight against this Russian team, which was the most powerful team at the tournament and so you played it very, very, close.

And then you came out the next day to play against Quebec, which was not as strong a team; you guys were spent, flat and I think you lost like 9 to 3 or something.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Steve: So there is that timing.

Was it Shakespeare who said there is a tide in the affairs of men?

Mark: Sounds like Shakespeare, I don’t know.

Steve: There is a tide in the affairs of men, which if seized at the crest…  I don’t know, I think it’s out of Julius Caesar.

But, yeah, you’ve got to catch the tide.

Mark: Well in that example that you just gave, I guess the point was there, we were in the semifinals against the Russians with the goal to make the finals, obviously.

We ended up losing that game, we just didn’t care that much about the Bronze Medal Game and we just came out flat.

No matter how much your coaches yell at you, you wakeup and even, you know, try to get yourself going, subconsciously you’re not going because you weren’t trying to win the Bronze Medal.

Very often you see that in Bronze Medal games where the team that thought they were going to make the finals comes up flat and the team that is happy to be in the Bronze Medal Game will come out and win that game.

Steve: Plus Quebec was playing in Quebec.

Mark: For sure.

Steve: So that was an additional incentive for them to perform in front of their friends and relatives.

Mark: Exactly.

Steve: For sure, yeah.

But it’s interesting this whole issue of the psychology of achievement, whether it be in sports or language.

We have a visitor.

We have a visitor here.

Come on in here!

Hi, come here Kylie; quickly, because we’re having a very important discussion here.

We’ve just had our special guest arrive.

Come here Kylie; now here, okay.

Mark: Here you go Kyle.

Steve: Now I have here a special guest who made a special trip back home from school just so he could be here.

Kylie, how was your day at school?

Kyle: Good.

Steve: Is that all you have to say?

Kyle: Um, no.

Steve: What did you learn today?

Kyle: Um, we did some art at the end of school.

Steve: Are you Leonardo da Vinci the second?

Kyle: No.

Steve: Okay. Do you know who Leonardo da Vinci is?

Kyle: Yup.

Steve: Who?

Kyle: He was like an artist and he did a bunch of other things.

Steve: Hey, very good; that’s right.

Okay, well you know what, I’ll have a separate one with Kylie.

So listen, have you got 10 minutes?

Kyle: Yeah.

Steve: I’m going to have a discussion with you.

Oh, here’s Gordie.

Say something Gordie.

Gordie’s a dog, by the way, and he’s wet, okay.

Hi Olivia.

Olivia: Hi.

Steve: Are you going to say hello? Let Olivia say hello.

Kyle: Okay.

Olivia: So you’re on the podcast?

Steve: You’re on the podcast.

What did you learn in school today Olivia?

You can’t spend forever thinking about it.

Olivia: Ah…

Steve: A lot?

Olivia: Yeah.

Steve: Okay. Was it fun?

Olivia: Yeah.

Steve: Okay. Say goodbye.

Olivia: Bye.

Steve: Oh here’s Annie.

You get to say something too Annie.

Kyle: You’re a podcaster.

Steve: You’re a podcaster.

Annie: I’m on the podcast?

Steve: Yes. Okay, hi Annie.

Annie: Hi.

Steve: How was your day at school today?

Annie: Good.

Steve: Are you glad you’re home?

Annie: Um, yeah.

Steve: Would you rather be back at school sitting in class?

Annie: No, but we went to the beach today.

Steve: You went to the beach and you didn’t sit in class?

Annie: No.

Steve: Boy, I never got to go to the beach when I was at school.

Kyle: She was on a field trip.

Annie: I was on a field trip an end of the year field trip.

Steve: Oh, very good. Okay, now I guess say goodbye to everyone.

Annie: Goodbye everyone.

Steve: Okay, bye for now.

Want to study this episode as a lesson on LingQ? Give it a try!

Mark: Hello everyone, welcome back to EnglishLingQ.

It’s Mark here and I’m joined by Kindrey again today.

And today I guess we thought we’d talk about the various activities that our kids will be taking part in in the summertime, just to give those of you in the rest of the world an idea of what kids in North America, kids in Canada, do in the summertime.

Kindrey: I guess we should start by saying first, kids here in Canada generally go to school from September until the end of June.

There’s two weeks off at around Christmastime in December and over New Year’s and another two weeks — they call is Spring Break — in March and then school ends at the end of June and they have two full months off, July and August, to enjoy the summer.

So that’s where we’re headed right now, we’re into our last week and a half of school and everybody is looking forward to being free for the summer.

Mark: Absolutely, I remember that feeling well.

Kindrey: Counting down the days on the calendar.

Mark: As school is about to end and summer vacation is about to start the weather is starting to get nice.

Kindrey: Well in most places in the world.

Mark: It’s been nice the last three days.

Kindrey: Yes, the last three days and that’s about it.

Mark: We’ve kind of had a very poor spring here.

Kindrey: A lot.

Mark: Cool.

Kindrey: Cold.

Mark: Yeah, cold spring.

Kindrey: And lots of rain.

Mark: Lots of rain. It’s never a good sign when the heat comes on every morning.

Kindrey: In the house.

Mark: Then, actually, even today we thought it was quite a warm day, but it probably didn’t get above 21-22.

Kindrey: No, 22 maybe, 21-22?

Mark: Yeah. Anyway, it looks like the weather is maybe turning now, so…

Kindrey: We’ll cross our fingers for some warm weather and start enjoying summer.

Mark: Either way, the kids are excited to get out of school.

I mean it was interesting, actually, I heard recently that in the states they get out of school at the beginning of June.

Kindrey: Well, I’ve heard that too.

I’ve heard that particularly in the southern states when it’s just so hot, it costs too much to keep the schools air conditioned and they release the children early.

Mark: Release the children.

Kindrey: Release them.

Mark: Just sounds funny.

Kindrey: From their jail?

Mark: That’s right.

So, yeah, I think at least here, so it ends up being just over two months of summer vacation.

I guess some people go away for a lot of the summer; the major of people go away somewhere.

Kindrey: Have a vacation.

Mark: Have a vacation of some kind; either, you know, go stay at a lake in the interior of B.C.

or some people may have a summer or a vacation place up the coast or on a lake as well.

A lot of people go camping in the many parks.

Kindrey: Or some people get in their car and go all the way to Calgary for the Stampede or just go see a different part of the country for what they call a road trip.

Mark: Right.

Kindrey: Where you get in your car and see where the road takes you.

Mark: Right and end up maybe going down to California or down the west coast of North America.

Yeah, all those things people do as well as places further a field like going to Europe, you know.

Kindrey: A lot of people take their European vacation right now.

Mark: Yeah, I mean this is the only time really when…

Kindrey: You can get away?

Mark: Well, you can get away.

When you have a family and if you’re going to go to Europe or to Asia or Africa or anywhere far you’re not going to go for a week.

It’s expensive, there are so many people to bring and so if people are going to do a big trip like that they normally do that in the summer and that’s, I guess, why.

Not just a guess, I know why, in Europe that’s their busy tourist season because that’s when the kids are out of school.

I guess, in our case, we have not taken the kids to Europe.

Kindrey: Not yet.

Mark: Not yet.

Kindrey: One day, maybe.

Mark: One day, but we have some plans this year to visit friends who have summer places, which is a great way to go.

Kindrey: That’s right. We’re very fortunate to have a lot of friends that have summer cabins.

Mark: We hope they’ll still like us after we leave.

Kindrey: We’ve been invited back to a few.

Mark: That’s true.

Kindrey: So that’s our big plan, I guess.

Mark: That’s like the expression “fish and house guests go bad after a few days.”  That’s not the case with us?

Kindrey: No, you know, I don’t know.

Mark: Well, we normally aren’t there that long anyway.

Kindrey: No.

Mark: So we’re looking forward to that.

We’ll be going up the coast here north of Vancouver in this Archipelago near Vancouver.

Kindrey: It’s called the Sunshine Coast.

Mark: Right.

We’ll be on an island one trip and we’ll be on the coast itself another trip.

But there are no roads leading up there, so you end up having to take the ferries to get up there, which just makes it that much…

Kindrey: But a ferry that you drive your car onto.

Mark: Right.

Kindrey: It connected you.

Mark: Right, but it feels quite remote.

Kindrey: Yeah, it does.

Mark: Even though distance-wise it’s not very far.

Kindrey: Not far at all.

Mark: But you can’t get there accept by boat, so it’s…

Kindrey: Feels more of a journey.

Mark: Feels more of a journey, for sure.

And so we’ve got a couple trips planned like that and then besides that, obviously, the kids will have quite a few days in which to do nothing.

Kindrey: Which is how we like it.

Mark: Right and bug each other.

Kindrey: We’ll go to the beach and they can fight.

Their cousins are coming from England, I believe.

They always look forward to the visit from the cousins that they see once a year.

Mark: Absolutely.

Kindrey: That will be fun.

Mark: Besides that they’ll probably get into some kind of camps in the summer.

Kindrey: Well I haven’t organized anything yet; we’ll see how everybody’s doing.

If they’re bugging each other too much and too bored then we might have to do some kind of camp.

Mark: Yeah, I mean I remember going to quite a few hockey camps, of course, and then even the regular sort of summer camps, you know.

We’ll see what they end up doing, but there are all those kinds of options.

Very often a lot of kids will go to at least one week of camp of some kind during the summer, if not a couple weeks.

Hockey schools, soccer schools, regular summer camps, I mean there’s all varieties; all manner of programs available when your kids are getting on your nerves because they’re home all day fighting each other.

Kindrey: And it’s not always easy to find friends to play with because the friends go away or whatever.

They end up spending a lot of time together, which is good too.

Mark: For sure.

Kindrey: The dog will be happy to have the kids here all day.

Mark: Yeah.

Kindrey: Entertain him.

He will benefit from summer vacation.

Mark: And then the two months goes pretty quickly.

Kindrey: It sure does.

Mark: It’s funny though, as a kid I always seem to remember summer vacations being so long, but really two months…

Kindrey: …flies by.

Mark: It files by, yeah.

Kindrey: Yeah.

Mark: So, other than that, I guess I can’t think of any other special things that we, I mean, or what other people…  Anything you can think of that other people might be doing?

Kindrey: Not really.

Mark: No.

I mean it’s so nice actually here in Vancouver in the summertime.

It’s the only time really when we get nice weather.

Kindrey: And we live close to the ocean.

Mark: Yeah.

Kindrey: It’s nice just to walk down and have a little swim at the beach.

We always stop at the 7-Eleven on the way home and get a slurpee for the kids.

Little things like that everyone looks forward to.

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

I mean when the weather is nice here in Vancouver there’s no better place.

Kindrey: We like to stay close.

Mark: The summer tends to fly by.

Anyway, I’d be curious to hear from all of our listeners what sorts of things you or your kids do where you live, you know, let us know on our Forum.

I mean I’m sure many things are similar, but many things are quite different depending on where you live, so come on the EnglishLingQ Forum and let us know.

And, again, I just want to remind you all to let us know if there’s anything in particular you want us to talk about.

Again, let us know on the EnglishLingQ Forum.

I guess that’s all for today.

Kindrey: That’s all for now.

Mark: We’ll talk to you later. Thanks for listening.

Kindrey: Bye.

This and all episodes of this podcast are available to study as a lesson on LingQ. Try it here.

Announcer: This week on the program we’re going to meet a Vancouver man who thinks that the conventional way of teaching language is all wrong.

Steve: I think one of the major problems we have in language instruction — and this is certainly true in our school system – is that we try to get people to produce the language too early and they’re bound to fail.

Announcer: Steve Kaufmann has developed an alternative way of learning languages and it sure has worked for him.

He speaks French, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish and Swedish.

He’s also fluent in German, Italian and Cantonese and these days he’s working on his Russian, he’s reading Pushkin.

Steve Kaufmann is a former diplomat, he owns a lumber company in B.C., but his real passion is a Website that he’s created for language learning, it’s called LingQ.com.

You spell it l-i-n-g-q.com.

I reached Steve Kaufmann in Vancouver.

Steve Kaufmann, hello.

Steve: Hello.

Announcer: So tell me, you came to Montreal from Sweden when you were a small child.

Steve: Right.

Announcer: What was it like experiencing another language?

Steve: Well, you know, I was five years old and so I have no recollection of moving from Swedish to English.

I went to school in grade one, I had my friends, I probably had an accent, I wasn’t aware of it and within two years or so I couldn’t speak any Swedish.

My parents said, we’re in Canada now and you’re going to learn English.

I mean we were in the English part of Montreal and so I became a Montreal Anglophone painlessly.

I have no recollection of speaking Swedish, although I did for the first five years of my life.

Announcer: And in the house what language did your parents speak?

Steve: Well they spoke English with my brother and me, but they were originally from Czechoslovakia, so they actually spoke mostly German to each other, German and Czech, because we’re a Jewish family.

I mean you have to remember my grandparents were born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Announcer: Ha, so there was no attempt at all to maintain a sense of family tradition or language and culture.

Steve: No.

Announcer: You were coming to Canada and that was it.

Steve: Absolutely.

Announcer: Yeah.

Steve: And bear in mind that they had left Czechoslovakia to go to Sweden and so then in Sweden we spoke Swedish.

I must say in my family, including my uncle who lives in Sweden, the approach has always been if you’re in Sweden you speak Swedish, if you’re in Canada you speak English or perhaps today it would have been French, but basically.

This is quite topical in Quebec these days, but yeah, you fit in, you’re here now.

Announcer: That’s it.

Steve: Yeah.

Announcer: Okay, so now you’ve learned English, how did you come to learn French?

Steve: Well, as I say, I was a typical, you know, Anglophone.

We had French at school, I wasn’t very interested, I couldn’t speak it, but we had a professor – I went to McGill – and he had a course in French Civilization and, of course, French Civilization is attractive in itself, but he was an excellent professor.

I’ve always said that the key role of a teacher is to turn on the student.

Announcer: Absolutely.

Steve: And he turned me on.

Announcer: Oh great. What was the key element that made it possible for you to learn?

Steve: My enthusiasm.

Announcer: Yeah?

Steve: Because, you know, if you’re in Montreal you can learn French.

So once I was turned on I would go and read Le Devoir and I would listen to French radio and I went around trying to meet Francophones and try to speak French.

Announcer: Okay, so let’s continue the progress, how did you come to learn the next language?

Steve: Well, you know, what happened was I got so keen on French that I went to France and I studied there for three years and then at the L’Institut D’Etudes Politiques in Paris.

I took the Foreign Service Exam, which was offered at the Canadian Embassy in Paris, I was accepted as a Trade Commissioner and I got wind of the fact that they were looking for someone to learn Chinese.

Having learnt French and, you know, once you’ve transformed yourself from someone who doesn’t just dabble in another language, but actually speaks it comfortably, then you feel confident that you can do it again.

So I said they’re going to send someone to learn Chinese and that’s going to be me.

So I started taking lessons on my own, didn’t learn very much, but then I announced to the management there that I had been learning Chinese on my own, so why not send me, you know?

And they said yeah, that makes sense, so they sent me to Hong Kong where I studied Mandarin Chinese.

Announcer: Okay, and the other languages?

Steve: Well, after my stint in Hong Kong and in and out of China then I was posted to Japan, so I learnt Japanese largely in Japan.

Then once you discover that you’re good at doing something then, of course, you want to do more of it.

So, you know, my bookshelves are lined with books for learning and CDs and, of course, in the old days, cassette tapes in German, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Swedish, you name it and most recently Cantonese, Russian, Korean and Portuguese.

Announcer: So that will make a total of …?

Steve: Yeah, once I get to Korean.

I’ve dropped it because I’m doing Russian right now, but it would make 12 eventually, but I say 10 right now.

Announcer: Okay, so when you go about learning a new language what’s your approach?

Steve: I am…you know, my approach…let’s take the most recent language, which is Russian.

I’ve been learning it on my own for two years an hour a day when I have time and I hardly ever speak.

My belief is that you have to first take in the language and you have to take in a lot of the language, so I’m now at the stage where I can read…you know I’m reading and listening to Pushkin right now, you know, The Captain’s Daughter, which is a great story.

So I am enjoying the language, I’m doing what I want to do with the language, I don’t feel any pressure to speak, but when I…

Announcer: But how do you know…

Steve: Yeah?

Announcer: I’m sorry, but I’m just wondering, how do you know that you’re pronouncing the words properly?

Steve: Oh, I know.

Because, first of all, I have YouTubes of myself speaking Russian and I get complimented on my Russian.

But having spent such a long time listening to Russian, when I go to make the sounds of Russian, I do a better job than if I’d tried too hard at the beginning.

I think one of the major problems we have in language instruction — and this is certainly true in our school system – is that we try to get people to produce the language too early and they’re bound to fail.

Announcer: Oh, so then you look at the words and where do you go from there?

How do you acquire the ability to read the words?

Steve: Well, I mean in the case of Russian, obviously, you’ve got to spend a little time understanding their alphabet, but it’s not that different.

It’s not like when I learned Chinese, alright, so if I use our system LingQ, for example, which is what I’ve used for Russian, we have very simple content that’s 30 seconds long, so I can listen to it.

We have that same content available in English, so I could even listen to the Russian and read in English.

I have a sense of what it’s about, then I listen again and I read along and then I save words that I look up again on the computer.

You can immediately see the meaning and then I save that to a database of words and phrases, which then I review using flashcards.

I might listen to that first 30 second content 30 times, so I do what I call intensive listening, in other words, frequently listening to the same content for the beginning stage.

Then as you get better you don’t have to listen 30 times you listen six or seven times and read and save words and then review the words and flashcard them and so forth.

Announcer: Right.

Okay, I’m sure there are people listening in and saying yeah, okay, that’s fine for this guy.

I mean he can speak 12 languages; he’s got a special gift.

I’d never be able to do that.

What do you think?

Steve: Well, I think just about anyone can.

I think the key is listening, you’ve got to hear what people are saying, how they’re pronouncing it.

I mean I know unilingual English people here in Vancouver who went to Japan and spent a lot of time with Japanese people.

I mean we have a girl who works in our office, she speak with an Osaka accent.

If people are willing to listen, if they like the language, if they can visualize themselves as a speaker of that language, they can do it.

Announcer: Where did you get the idea to create a Website?

Steve: You know it’s a combination of two things, one is I had all these books at home that were full of words that I didn’t know and when you look up in a dictionary no sooner do you close the dictionary then you’ve forgotten what the dictionary definition was, so I said I need a more efficient way to improve my languages.

It’s a combination really then of discovering the wealth of audio books that are out there, the convenience of MP3 technology, the convenience of the online instant dictionary and all the things you can do with e-Text and sound files.

So we said we can create a much better way of learning, so that was one part of it like the selfish, I want to do it for myself.

The other part was that we had an immigrant from China who had high scores on the test of English proficiency, etc., but his English…we had an employee and his English was very poor.

I realized that a lot of the professional immigrants, in fact, have a lot of trouble with English and that the established ESL instruction, you know, classroom-based system doesn’t serve them very well, so I said hey, you know, I want it for myself, plus this could be useful to this group of people, so why don’t we try and do something and that was about six years ago.

Announcer: Okay, so what makes your approach different from others?

Steve: Well I think, first of all, we put the learner at the center, you know.

People choose the content that they want to listen to, so we basically fill up our content with a range of material, always sound and text.

I mean you should never work on something where you don’t have the sound.

And then the learner chooses the words and phrases that they want to learn and it’s just very efficient, because we keep statistics on the words you’re learning.

You set goals, you can flashcard these and largely it’s fun.

People enjoy doing it and we don’t demand any sort of standards of performance and people just learn more quickly.

Announcer: At the beginning you said that when you were starting teaching yourself Russian you might look at something and do it over 30 times.

I’m wondering, how much time does one, for example, someone wanting to learn French here in Canada, how much time would one have to use the program to be able to acquire the language?

Steve: Yeah.

Now the average person going at French in Canada probably had some French in school, so they would be at a bit of an advantage over me going into Russian, but I think 45 minutes to an hour a day.

But let’s look at where I do my studying, I do my studying when I’m gardening, when I’m doing the dishes, when I go for a run, when I’m in my car.

The portability of the MP3 Player just makes learning languages so convenient.

I don’t sit down in my chair at home and say I’m going to listen to Russian for an hour now, I don’t do that.

If I were to take the time then I would read, so it’s the convenience of the MP3 Player and the quality of the sound and the availability of good content.

Announcer: So when you’re in your car with your MP3 Player you’re listening and you’re repeating the sounds?

Steve: I may, occasionally, especially in the early stages repeat along.

On our site we’re going to have little phrases that you can click on and hear and repeat, but I tend not to do that.

It’s probably not a bad thing to do, but, you know, I guess I’m lazy to some extent.

Announcer: It’s just basically listening I guess.

Steve: I’m just basically listening and, initially, they’re short stories that I’m listening over and over to.

Now I’m at the stage where I’m looking forward to the next chapter in whatever story I’m listening to.

Announcer: So 45 minutes a day?

For how long a period of time?

Steve: Well, you know, in the case of Russian I’ve been at it for two years.

Announcer: Yeah.

Steve: But, you know, I have no immediate need to go out and speak, so I’m happy doing it; it’s something that I enjoy doing.

I’ve gone from Tolstoy to Turgenev to Pushkin, so I am doing what I want to do in the language.

Announcer: Right.

Steve: Now for someone say with French, if they have a specific goal, then I would recommend, certainly if they were at LingQ, that they do take on a tutor so that they can speak to the tutor via Skype.

In fact, I was speaking to a lady from Montreal this morning in English; she’s learning English with us.

I would also recommend writing, so if you’re in a hurry to produce the language then it’s probably a good idea to have a tutor and to do more writing and speaking, but still the bulk of the time is listening.

I think with French, given the fact that we’ve all had some exposure to it and the fact that there is more common vocabulary with English than is the case with Russian, I think six months you would start to see some really significant improvement.

Announcer: Why do you think that your approach is more effective than the way it’s taught in schools, for example?

Steve: Well, my feeling is that if…okay, why I think mine is better is because it’s based on enjoying the language.

If you say to kids who probably aren’t that motivated, you’re going to have to learn this, you know, parts of speech and these rules and then we’re going to test you on it, I don’t think that gets too many people interested.

It’s like myself when I was at school.

Even my kids, I tried to get them to learn French, they weren’t interested until my son ended up playing professional hockey in Europe.

So he was playing in Germany and Italy and he started to see some benefit in learning another language, now he’s interested in French.

I think the problem in school is they don’t put enough emphasis on what I said at the beginning, the need to turn people on to the language.

I think our approach…if we can find content that’s of interest and if we allow people to choose things that are of interest and we just encourage them to listen and read and to build up their vocabulary and in our system you can actually see the statistics as your vocabulary is growing, that gives people a sense of satisfaction.

All of that I think is more positive than trying to force them to remember rules of grammar or to produce the language correctly, which just takes a lot of time and a lot of input and is better done, I believe, through a process of getting used to the language rather than a process of trying to logically explain the language.

Announcer: And visualizing yourself as a speaker of the language.

Steve: Well that’s right, the motivation is the beginning.

Until you say I want to be a French speaker and even visualizing yourself.

When I speak Chinese or learnt Chinese or Japanese or French I was one of them.

You know you can’t see yourself as an Anglophone timidly trying to learn to say a few words in another language; you’ve got to say I’m going to be part of their group.

Announcer: Now you’ve been a diplomat, you have a lumber company in British Columbia, why is it important for you to start this Website and language training?

Steve: It’s not, but it’s become an all-consuming passion.

We had this employee from China, we started out developing something that would serve the needs of this sort of immigrant community, in fact, that has not been our market.

What has happened because we’re on the Internet we, in fact, have more people in Japan, Brazil, Europe, Latin-America joining us than immigrants here.

Announcer: How many clients to you have so far?

Steve: Well, part of the thing to get this going we offer the bulk of our functionality free, so we have about 24,000 free members.

It’s really only if you need a tutor that you have to pay, so we have a much smaller number of people who are paying for the use of a tutor.

But at this stage that’s fine with us, we’re hoping to expand and hoping that people will tell their friends.

We’ve got to come up with a value-added proposition that people are also willing to pay for.

I think the model on the Internet is that a small number of premium users sort of pay for a large number of free-riders.

Announcer: That’s the new trend, that’s how you make money on the Internet.

Steve: I don’t know about the making money part yet, but that’s what you do, in any case.

Announcer: Right. Hey Mr. Kaufmann it’s been great speaking with you.

Thank you very much.

Steve: I’ve enjoyed it, thank you.

Announcer: Steve Kaufmann is the founder of a language-learning Website called LingQ.com, that’s l-i-n-g-q.com.

There’s a link to it on our Website and our Website is CBC.CA/Cestlavie.

This and all episodes of this podcast are available to study as a lesson on LingQ. Try it here.

Mark: This podcast is brought to you by LingQ, simply the best way to learn languages.

After you listen to the podcast, sign up for a free account at LingQ (l-i-n-g-q.com) and study the full transcript using LingQ’s revolutionary learning tools.

Hello everyone, welcome to the EnglishLingQ Podcast once again.

It’s Mark here today; I’m joined by Kindrey.

Kindrey: Hello.

Mark: We thought today we would talk a little bit about dogs, because I know many of our members have dogs.

I know for certain of some of our members in Japan who are really a little bit nuts about their dogs.

So, anyway, we got a dog about a year ago.

Well maybe you can start by telling everyone a little bit about our dog.

Kindrey: Well, our dog is about a year old; a little over a year old.

We got him a year ago, so he’s a year and a couple months and he is a big dog.

That’s the first thing you have to kind of decide when you’re trying to decide what kind of dog to get.

I guess you have to decide what suits your lifestyle.

I think you and I both decided that we weren’t really small dog people.

We needed a big dog to run around.

We live in this great city with lots of parks and trails and walking areas and we have a good size backyard, so we got a big dog.

He’s a bit of a mutt.

He’s a mix, he’s half Lab and he’s a quarter Golden Retriever and a quarter Flat-Coat Retriever, but everybody who sees him thinks he looks like a big black Golden Retriever.

He’s very easygoing and just lots of fun.

Mark: He’s basically a big black…

Kindrey: …bear…

Mark: …shaggy bear, yeah. He weights about 75 pounds.

Kindrey: No, he’s got to be like 80-85 now.

Mark: 80-85 pounds and he’s a good size.

We know that he’s really a kitten at heart, but…

Kindrey: He’s a big chicken.

Mark: People we come across who are not dog people are a little nervous.

Kindrey: A little intimidated by his size.

Mark: Just because he’s a good-sized dog.

I mean he’s not huge, he’s no Doberman.

Not Doberman, but Great Dane.

Kindrey: No.

Mark: But he’s a…

Kindrey: He’s like a big Golden Retriever.

Mark: Yeah, he actually looks like a black Golden Retriever.

That’s what he looks like.

Kindrey: Exactly.

Mark: Although, he’s half Labrador Retriever, Black Lab.

Kindrey: But he’s got the long hair.

Mark: Yeah.

Kindrey: But it’s just interesting all the different dogs out there.

We went and got a mutt from a family, but we know lots of people who are getting designer dogs.

Very expensive dogs some of the mixes they’re doing now and they’re great dogs too.

It’s amazing the different dogs that are coming around.

Friends of ours just got a Schnoodle, so he’s a cross between a Schnauzer and a Poodle.

He’s a funny little guy; he’s a nice dog.

Mark: Which dog is that?

Kindrey: (????? 3:35)

Mark: Oh, he’s a Schnoodle?

Kindrey: He’s a Schnoodle.

Mark: Okay.

I must say, I don’t pay a lot of attention to the designer dog thing, but I guess you come across a lot of them when you’re with Gordie at the dog park.

What we didn’t realize before getting the dog is that there’s a whole other world of…

Kindrey: … dog owners out there.

Mark: Once you have a dog all…

Kindrey: You see the world a little differently when you have a dog in the neighborhood.

Mark: Well yeah, you go to the dog park and everybody has to stop and talk to you about your dog and you find out about their dog.

People get to know each other essentially through their dogs.

What’s interesting is that if you walk through that dog park without a dog nobody is going to talk to you.

Like yeah, they’ll say hi or whatever, but they’re not going to stop and chat.

Kindrey: It’s a very social thing with a dog in the dog park.

I’ve met many new friends over the last year.

Mark: It’s amazing.

I must say, I don’t go that often to the dog park like you do.

You take the kids to school and then you’ll go to the dog park and that’s sort of like the social hour at the dog park.

Kindrey: A lot of my friends go with their dogs.

Mark: Yeah, but not just your friends, but just other people who have dogs and you sit there.

Kindrey: Oh yeah.

Mark: While the dogs are playing you chit-chat, obviously, but what’s interesting is every once in a while when I do go to the dog park people seem to know me even though I’ve never met them.

They certainly know my dog.

Kindrey: You’re Gordie’s dad.

Mark: They know my kids and they know you and it’s just kind of funny.

Like wow!

How do you know all this about me?

I don’t know you, but it’s just the doggy world.

And, I guess, as you sit there and the dogs are playing you’re chatting and yeah, learning about each other.

Anyway, it’s just a neat thing.

Kindrey: It’s a very friendly world out there with a dog; more friendly than without, I think.

Mark: Absolutely.

Kindrey: It was just funny to watch them all play and some get along and some don’t.

Some dogs like puppies and some dogs don’t like puppies.

Some Poodles are…I don’t know.

Gordie is our dog.

I think he’s scared of big Poodles; he doesn’t like them.

A lot of the Labradoodles he’s not crazy about.

He’s gotten a little better; he was quite a chicken when he was younger.

Mark: Not much…

Kindrey: He’s getting a little braver.

Mark: …which is good.

Kindrey: Not much.

He makes a lot of noise.

He does a lot of growling in the house.

Outside he just growls and comes running for the back door.

He likes to be inside.

Mark: Yeah, that’s good though, because you don’t want a dog that’s aggressive and always trying to fight other dogs and run away and whatever.

Basically, he stays close and comes when we call him.

Kindrey: He’s stays close. He’s just a big friendly guy.

Mark: Happy. Yeah, he’s a great family dog.

Kindrey: He loves the kids.

Mark: Yeah and what I like he’s happy; go for a run.

You know like I’ll take him for a run a couple times a week or in the winter I take him snowshoeing.

It’s fun to have someone to go do those things with and he’s always keen.

Kindrey: He’s keen to go any time; he’s always keen to go.

The other amazing thing about dogs is they actually get you out more.

I mean every day this past winter I’m out there in the rain walking the dog; whereas before I would have never done it.

Mark: No, that’s true.

Kindrey: It gets us both out.

Mark: No, what’s great about him I was just going to say is that his Labrador side is very evident in that he loves to swim.

Any body of water he’s just in there, it doesn’t matter how cold, which I like to see anyway.

Kindrey: Me too.

He’s always wet this dog.

He’s wet most of the day.

Mark: From a young age, I guess at an age when puppies wanted no part of the water, he was just in there loving it.

Kindrey: He’d charge in.

Mark: Maybe that’s because he’s black and furry and especially now when the weather is warming up a little bit I think the only way he cools off is if he’s in the water.

Kindrey: He’s got his fur coat on; he needs to cool off, aye?

Mark: The minute he sees any water he makes a beeline for it and you can just see him awh, cooling himself off in the water.

Yeah, so that’s… I mean, essentially, when we first (?????

8:46) because you never had a dog as a kid and you’d had cats.

I was keen to get a dog, but kind of left it up to you and finally you…

Kindrey: …knew what was involved.

Well I knew that I would get stuck with the brunt of the care giving for the dog, because I’m around the most.

You know the kids say they’re going to do all this stuff, but they go to school.

Mark: No.

Kindrey: They’re just little kids; they can’t take care of the dog.

So, yeah, you end up having another child when you get a dog.

Mark: Well, I mean I think it depends how much time you have to deal with the dog.

Kindrey: He’s like our youngest child now.

Mark: They’ll take up probably as much as you have to give them, but he’s pretty lucky.

He gets treated pretty well, but everybody likes having him.

Kindrey: Yes, he follows me around all day.

Mark: I guess you’re pretty happy now. We can’t see not having a dog.

Kindrey: Yeah, he’s part of the family.

Mark: Yeah and I’m sure a lot of you listeners out have dogs, so please write in and let us know any feedback you have about dogs, about anything, what you’d like us to talk about.

With that, probably, we’ll sign off, so talk to you next time.

Bye-bye.

Study the transcript of this episode as a lesson on LingQ, saving the words and phrases you don’t know to your database. Here it is!

Steve: This podcast is brought to you by LingQ, simply the best way to learn languages.

After you listen to the podcast, sign up for a free account at LingQ (l-i-n-g-q.com) and study the full transcript using LingQ’s revolutionary learning tools.

Hi Mark.

Mark: Hi Steve.

Steve: You know, today we were thinking that we would talk a little bit about what we’re trying to do here at LingQ, how our education model, our business model, how it all works.

You’re the one who comes up with all these bright ideas and one of your ideas now is to take advantage of the podcast not only to generate content for our listeners, but to do more than that.

Can you explain what it is your thinking is?

Mark: Well, specifically, today what I thought we could talk about was the podcast that we offer in other languages.

Obviously, for us to do an English podcast isn’t very difficult, but we also have a FrenchLingQ, GermanLingQ, SpanishLingQ, JapaneseLingQ…

Steve: …ChineseLingQ, SwedishLingQ, RussianLingQ, PortugueseLingQ, ItalianLingQ.

Mark: Exactly.

We have, obviously, quite a few and we’re not native speakers of those languages; although, you participate in a few of those.

Ideally, we would have other people who understand LingQ, who understand what types of podcasts, sort of our style of podcasts or fit our style of podcasts.

I was thinking, we were thinking, that our EnglishLingQ listeners might be the perfect feeding ground for potential podcasters.

Steve: Let’s mention what has happened with SpanishLingQ, for example, where for a while we had trouble getting going.

I would phone different people and with Skype the sound quality wasn’t perfect, plus I’m not a native speaker of Spanish, so it wasn’t ideal.

Then we were able to find people, one in Argentina, one in Uruguay, a couple in Mexico who were — I think he was Mexican and she was Chilean — I’ve been talking to some people in Spain, so we’re thinking that we could have a variety of people.

Ideally, they’re located in the same physical premise like we are here because then we get the best sound quality.

If we go through Skype it’s not quite as good and if people can give us, when they have the time, in Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese, whatever language.

Mark: Exactly.

So if you’re sitting there listening right now we’re having a conversation about this subject and, as you know if you’re a regular listener, it could be about any subject; current events, what’s happening locally.

We talk about, obviously, a variety of things, whatever strikes our fancy and that’s what we are looking for from our podcast creators.

That’s what we would be looking for in the other languages, so if you’re sitting there right now listening and you could see the possibility of sitting down with your friend or your wife and recording a conversation about what you did this past weekend that’s exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for.

Really the only requirements that we have are that the sound quality is good and that the content is interesting, understandable.

Steve: I think people maybe are a little bit concerned.

You know they’re not experienced at speaking into a microphone, they don’t think it would be of interest, but if we take some of the discussions we’ve gotten… Again, in the Spanish we had a fellow and his friend in Buena Aries who were talking about nightclubbing and they were lined up for an hour at some nightclub at 4:00 in the morning.

I guess they have a pretty active nightlife down there in Buena Aries, so that’s of interest.

We had the couple in Mexico talking about the food they like to make, some Chilean food, some Mexican food.

Even though it was a monologue, a very interesting Swedish monologue, we prefer dialogues, but she spoke about the seasons in Sweden.

It really can be anything.

Mark: Absolutely, it can be anything and very often it’s the more sort of day-to-day type conversations that are of most interest to people.

The topics that come up in your regular day-to-day life are more real to people.

Like what do Argentinean people really do?

I don’t necessarily need to hear a conversation about the Argentinean…

Steve: …economy, which is okay though; nothing wrong.

Mark: There’s nothing wrong with that, but what we’ve learned at EnglishLingQ is a lot of the more popular content relates to discussions on every-day subjects.

Steve: And, of course, once we get going there may be people who have specific requests; we occasionally get requests.

But mostly I think people are just happy to tune-in and find a new discussion on some other subject: daily life, what people do, I go to work, I do this, I take this form of transportation.

Insofar as the sound quality, if people have a PC what do you recommend that they use insofar as a microphone?

We use this Logitech digital USB headset microphone, which costs the equivalent of $50.

Mark: Yeah.

I mean, essentially, your sound quality in general with a USB microphone is going to be better, but you can still have good quality sound with a regular analogue microphone.

Steve: What’s the software they should use?

Mark: It’s essentially just a matter of trial and error.

A big factor that can influence your sound quality is, unfortunately, the sound card in your computer.

Some computers have good sound cards; some computers have less good sound cards.

Obviously, if you have a desktop you can replace your sound card if you really want to work at getting better sound.

There are a number of things you can do.

If you’re on a PC the software that we use is Audacity.

Anyway, you can look it up on Google, Audacity.

Steve: a-u-d-a-c-i-t-y.

Mark: Right. For the most part, when we record on our Macs we use WireTap Studio, which you have to pay for.

Audacity is free and actually does a very good job.

WireTap Studio is, I don’t know, $60 or something and is only available for Mac.

Steve: It’s very good.

Mark: It’s just much more convenient, but Audacity is very good too and, as I said, it’s free.

Steve: One thing we should point out is that I hope that many of you who listen to EnglishLingQ occasionally come to LingQ and read the transcript and save words and phrases.

Maybe some of you have, at times, thought that you would like to talk to one of our tutors which, of course, requires points or that you would like to write and have your writing corrected, which requires points.

I think we were thinking that would be an idea to offer points.

Mark: Well not just an idea that’s what we are going to do.

Steve: Well maybe you can explain exactly.

Mark: We would like to pay you for doing this and we’ll pay you with LingQ points.

We hope all of you are members and study the transcripts and would like to earn points, so here’s an opportunity to earn points by providing podcasts which, of course, are also added as content in the Library.

For each 10 to 12 minute podcast we will be paying 1,000 points, which is the equivalent of two events or two conversations on our system.

We think that’s an attractive reward and we’d like to see some of your podcasts.

Steve: Again to stress, you said 10 to 12 minutes?

That’s kind of the length that we would like?

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: The other thing is we want them to be natural.

This is not for beginners, it should be natural.

Don’t speak too quickly, but speak naturally like we’re speaking right now.

Mark: Exactly, exactly.

We’re not looking for, you know, the typical at the post office or at Customs at the airport type conversations that you very often get in language courses.

We just want natural day-to-day topics like we discuss here.

Steve: Well, exactly.

What we’re trying to do or our model is that we have some very easy podcasts using the Power of the Linguist and easy stories like that, but the others we want them to be natural conversation because that’s no so generally available.

We talk as if we’re talking to native speakers and we feel that with the aid of the transcript and with the aid of LingQ’s functionality you can use these natural conversations to acquire the words and phrases that you need to speak naturally.

The other thing that I like about this model is that one of the things we wanted to do at LingQ is to have people help each other.

Here you help other people by creating these podcasts in your language and you even get points so that you can use them to improve your own language skills, so that’s the idea.

And people who are interested, what should they do?

Mark: Just to sort of finish off… From our perspective, obviously, we are trying to put these podcasts out because we are hoping to attract people to LingQ and also it creates content for our site for the Library at LingQ.

That’s why we’re interested and if you are interested you can get in touch with us through our Support, Support@LingQ.com.

That’s how you should contact us.

We will ask you to provide us with a sample just to check your sound quality.

I mean you can do a sample podcast, send it in and we’ll give you some feedback and let you know whether we’ll accept it or not.

Steve: And we provide the transcripts, so you needn’t worry about doing the transcripts; we look after the transcripts.

Is that true?

Mark: Yeah, all we need is the sound file.

Steve: All we need is the sound file.

And if you are in a language, if your native language is a language that we don’t yet have at LingQ like, I don’t know, Mongolian, Finnish, some language like that, maybe in the future.

Mark: Hopefully in the future.

Steve: I’m serious, hopefully in the future.

Korean is one we want to move to; I mean every language is worthwhile learning.

We eventually want to do native languages of the Americas and so forth, but we aren’t there yet.

We have to sort of stay with the languages that we have up on the site right now, but maybe in the future some of you speakers of languages that we don’t have — Arabic is a big one, Hindi — that’s something for the future.

Mark: Alright.

Steve: Okay. We look forward to hearing from you and thank you.

Mark: Absolutely.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them on the EnglishLingQ Forum at LingQ and we’ll be happy to answer them.

Any technical questions related to the sound or any questions about content or how this whole thing is going to work, so we look forward to hearing from you.

Steve: Thank you, bye for now.

Study this episode and any others from the LingQ English Podcast on LingQ! Check it out.

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Hi Mark.

Mark: Hi Steve.

Steve: You know, I think today we should try to respond to some of the questions that we’ve received.

Mark: Well, yeah.

We very often suggest that our listeners send us feedback and we have had some fair amount of feedback lately on the EnglishLingQ Forum, which for those of you who may have trouble finding is located on LingQ in the LingQ Forum Section, but you can only see it if you’re actually in the English Section.

If you’re in the section trying to learn English then it’s listed there; otherwise, it’s not listed in the other languages.

The other languages would have the Forums to our other language LingQ podcasts.

Steve: Do they actually have a LingQ like a SpanishLingQ or a FrenchLingQ Forum?

Mark: I believe there is.

Steve: Okay.

Because if some of you are listening to English, but you’re actually studying French you can also send in any requests and we’ll try to answer them.

Mark: I guess Robert had a question, he was asking about silent letters.

He, obviously — and he’s not the only one I’m sure — finds the silent letters in English to be rather difficult.

I’m not sure; I guess there are silent letters in other languages as well it’s not just in English.

Steve: Well, in some languages, you know, every letter is pronounced; Spanish is a good example.

But in French there’s lots of silent letters.

Mark: Yeah there is.

Steve: I don’t want to go through them all now, but I’m sure there are.

There are also lots of languages like Russian where depending on whether the syllable has an emphasis or not the vowel can be weakened much like happens in English, so it’s not unique to English, but it’s particularly bad in English.

Do you know why, by the way?

Mark: Because it’s not consistent.

Steve: And do you know the spelling of English is probably the least consistent of any language?

Mark: No.

Steve: Well I read once that it’s because originally, of course, the poor people who lived on the British Isles — the Celtic people — were doing their thing and speaking their Celtic language and having a good time when the Romans arrived.

Mark: Right.

Steve: So then they decided to try and write that Celtic language using Roman letters, which was the beginning of, you know, writing I guess in the British Isles.

Then the Anglo-Saxons invaded and they tried to apply it to their language.

Of course, queen used to be written with a “c”, I think, c-w-i-n or something.

That makes sense “cwin”; we can deal with that right?

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: So then the next thing that happened was that the Normans arrived, who spoke French, so they brought the “q” and other sort of French-type writing into the situation.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Then they had somewhere around the 14th or 15th century a thing called the Great Vowel Shift so that, you know, whereas words like “light” or let’s say “bite” b-i-t-e, in fact, used to be pronounced “bita”.

Mark: Really?

Steve: Yeah.

And then somehow “b” became “bi” became “bite” and so there was a very rapid sort of change in how vowels were pronounced, but the writing system didn’t change because the writing system was basically frozen based on the way things were pronounced let’s say in the 12th century, which already had all the confusion of the Celtic and the Norman and the whatever else.

So it’s a mess; such is the language.

Mark: But similar things didn’t happen to other languages?

Steve: Well, you know, I don’t know, but I think the tremendous sort of juxtaposition, you know the layering of Celtic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, German language.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And then the Norman-French language and all of that occurring at a time when all of a sudden, you know, this was followed-up then with the Vowel Shift.

I don’t know; we’re onto English.

I don’t want to talk about other languages.

Silent letters, what’s the worst example?

What’s the easiest one?

Mark: I mean one that immediately pops into my mind is the “k” in like “know”, “knowledge”, “knife”.

Steve: Or “g”.

Mark: Or “g”, yeah, “gnat”.

Steve: “Gnat”, “gnaw”, I mean you’re almost tempted to say “g-naw” when you’re chewing on something, you know, because you do say “ignore”, “ignite”.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: But when the “gn” starts the word the “g” is not pronounced.

Mark: Right.

Steve: How about “k”?

“Acknowledge”, well you get a bit of a “ck” there.

If it were “k” just…I’m trying to think if there are any words…

Mark: Yeah, I mean you can say “hackneyed”.

Steve: “Hackneyed”, yeah.

But when it’s at the beginning “k” disappears; “kn” it disappears.

Mark: Now I guess that combination exists in other languages; similar words and it’s pronounced.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: It’s normally pronounced.

Mark: So for whatever reason that “k” has been dropped.

I don’t know about the “g”, but certainly…

Steve: But, you know, I think the silent “k” and “g” is relatively easy.

What, I think, is a little more difficult is the “gh” because the “gh” is so inconsistent.

It can be “rough”, in which case it has the sound of “f”, it can be like “although”, “thorough”, “thought”; all of those words.

Mark: Well and that’s what’s especially confusing is it can be “thought”, but it can also be pronounced as in “draught”.

Steve: There you go.

Mark: You can see “draught” spelt with a “ght”.

Steve: I think you just have to be aware that sometimes it’s silent and sometimes it’s pronounced “f”.

Why is “gh” pronounced “f”?

That’s another mystery, so you just have to learn those individually.

It’s somewhat related to silent letters, but I think what’s perhaps very useful for people to notice in English is that a lot of vowel consonants are not pronounced.

I find this to some extent in Russian.

Mark: The vowel consonants?

Steve: Sorry, the vowel syllables.

Mark: Vowel syllables, yes.

Steve: The vowel consonants.

That’s a good one; that would send our learners to their dictionaries.

Portuguese is a bit that way too where the vowels disappear.

So you could say “silnt”; it’s not “silent” it’s “silnt”; “walkd”, “lttrs”.

Mark: And a lot of learners seem to have problems with “walked”.

You know instead of saying “walked” they say “wak-ed”.

Steve: Right.

I think it’s very important to listen many times; it’s something we stress all the time at LingQ.

Listen without reading because when you read you have a tendency to be influenced by the writing system of your own language, so you want to say “lin-ked” because in your own language it would be “lin-ked”.

But if you get used to hearing it over and over again then you start to accept it, in fact” it’s “linked”, “talked”, “walked”.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I mean I think, you know, we always get back to the same idea, just save words and see what they do, listen to what they sound like and don’t try to impose any rules, particularly rules that come from your own language.

Mark: I do wonder whether at some point there would ever be some kind of standardization to English spelling; somehow I doubt it.

Steve: Well, Alejandro asked us that question.

Mark: Yeah, he did.

Steve: He did.

Mark: He did on the EnglishLingQ Forum as well.

I think some of the examples he mentioned were…

Steve: Well, “write” would be one.

Mark: You mean not having the “w”, which is another silent letter; yup.

Steve: You know the pressure…if the only reason for doing that is to accommodate non-native speakers maybe that’s not enough.

Mark: No.

Steve: Or the non-native speakers…because you do hear this term “International English”.

They could form their own language and, perhaps, if there are enough of them, where the non-native speakers outnumber the native speakers, they might pull it off and have an international form of English that is spelt rationally.

Mark: But I guess that’s unlikely to happen because there’s so many English native speakers that are writing and participating on the Internet, especially in all these forums.

Steve: It wouldn’t be difficult with modern technology for someone to write in either style and from the context software would immediately convert it so that if you were writing in real English, native-speaker English with the silent letters and the “gh’s”, you’d just click a button and it converts to simplified English.

Mark: Right.

Steve: The Chinese did this.

They have their traditional Chinese characters and their simplified Chinese characters.

Mark: Yeah, well you never know; stay tuned.

Steve: I don’t really mind it either way.

Mark: No, I don’t think so.

I think people are going to mostly do whatever everybody else is used to, which argues in favor of just staying with the existing spelling.

It’s just unlikely that that many people are going to start spelling a different way but, as you say, if enough non-native speakers sort of banded together and start writing that way.

For that matter, you know a lot of native speakers when they’re in chat windows and stuff certainly don’t type out fully all the words or use the more simplified spelling, so maybe in time it will.

Steve: I mean the fact is that we place so much emphasis on correct spelling and, in a way, spelling is a useless skill.

Mark: Well as long as people can understand what you’re writing.

Steve: As long as people can understand; but they have proven that you can actually put letters in the wrong place and people can still understand what you’re saying.

Mark: Right.

Steve: There are many examples of countries where they have simplified the language — whether it be in France or Italy or Germany — where they had so many dialects in different parts of the country they just simplified and they sort of standardized on one.

I mean I understand that in English, for example, there was sort of a Scandinavian-influenced language and then the German-Anglo-Saxon-influenced language.

The Scandinavian-influenced language was more on the East Coast where the Vikings were dominant and in some of the words the Scandinavian word survived.

Like we now talk about an “egg”, but the Germanic term or the Anglo-Saxon term, which was more common in Southern and Western England was “ei” or something closer to “ei”, which is closer to the German word for “egg”.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And also in word order; the Scandinavian word order prevailed in English as opposed to the Germanic and all of these things ended up being standardized.

It’s not impossible that, as many people say, as more and more speakers of English are not native speakers…

Mark: Right.

Steve: I’m sure lots of people who struggle with spelling would welcome a streamlined and standardized spelling.

Mark: For sure.

What’s interesting is when you read documents from, I don’t know, the 17th century in English the spelling was quite a bit different than it is now.

Steve: And it wasn’t standard either.

Mark: And it wasn’t standard; people spelled things different ways all the time and these were educated people.

Steve: Educated people.

Mark: Yeah, no, I know, now all of a sudden it has to be spelled this certain way.

I mean, really, there is no reason for it.

Steve: And it’s silly, in a country like Canada they make a dig deal like you must spell “neighbor”, “o-u-r”.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Big deal; “o-u-r”, “o-r”, whatever; “center”, “r-e”, “e-r”, whatever.

It’s not so important.

Mark: No, it isn’t.

Steve: I guess you should be consistent, but I read so many things now in both English spelling and American spelling…half the time like “exercised” with a “zed” or an “s”; I don’t know anymore.

Mark: Right, no, I know.

Steve: Well, Alejandro, that dealt with the future of English.

We don’t know what the future is going to be.

Mark: Yeah, that’s right.

We have a few other examples, but maybe we’ll take them up next time.

Steve: Well, we could give Anna, who’s a very…I’m very partial to Anna because she’s so active on our Forum and she asked a question.

Mark: Sure.

Steve: “What’s the difference between “shy”, “coy” and “timid”?”

Mark: Well, “shy”…they’re all slightly different.

Steve: Yeah, I think they’re quite different.

Mark: “Shy” just means you’re…maybe not…I mean you’re shy.

Steve: I think you’re lacking in confidence.

Mark: Lacking in confidence, yeah.

Steve: You’re easily embarrassed; you’re afraid to look people in the face.

There is almost an implication of you’re holding back what you have to offer.

You know you’re a “wallflower”, as they say, at the dance.

Mark: Right.

Steve: So that’s “shy”; you blush easily.

Mark: You don’t maybe want to draw attention to yourself.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Yeah, “shy”, and I guess that’s probably the easiest of the three to understand.

“Coy” suggests maybe that you’re being a little, I don’t know, playful about being shy or you have an ulterior motive.

Steve: Well yeah, I think too, yeah, it implies you’re deliberately being clever or cute in some way.

Often we use the word “coy” with a girl, who is sort of being kind of…I wouldn’t say necessarily teasing, but is trying to be cute.

I think that’s the expression I would use.

Coy is much more of a deliberate thing.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Whereas shy…I mean people who are shy probably struggle to overcome their shyness.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Whereas coy is a deliberate strategy.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Yeah.

“Timid” I think just means…

Mark: “Timid” I guess is somewhat like being shy, but timid suggests that you’re scared.

Steve: Afraid.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: I mean sometimes you’ll see a little boy or a little girl playing sports and they’re afraid.

If they’re playing soccer they’re afraid to get into where the action is because they’re timid; it’s not because they’re shy.

Mark: No.

Steve: They’re afraid of the ball is going to hit them or someone might hit them.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Basically, it implies a lacking in courage.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Right, yeah.

I don’t know Anna whether that satisfies you.

Again, I always come back to the same suggestion, save these words in LingQ.

You can even import all three of them and then go looking for examples and see what kinds of examples you find.

Mark: Yeah, I mean absolutely.

I don’t know if we have enough examples in LingQ, but if not…we probably do.

Steve: I think those words are there.

Mark: There should be lots of examples of those words.

It’s just a matter of seeing them used enough times that you understand the differences.

Steve: Okay.

Mark: Okay.

Steve: We’ve covered that.

Mark: That’s good.

Steve: Thank you, bye and send us more questions. Bye for now.

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Well, here we are again for another EnglishLingQ Podcast.

Steve and I, Mark, are here today.

It’s actually quite warm in the office with the sun beating through the windows.

Steve: You know what?

I would like to talk a bit about the world economy and some of the changes that we’re seeing.

Before that I just want to briefly mention that on Thursday I am giving a little talk at a bookstore.

There’s a lady there who wrote a book about language learning where she emphasizes the importance of grammar and, of course, I represent a different point of view.

We’re going to have a debate and as a result of that I have been on the radio and I’m going to be on television on Wednesday in preparation for this big debate.

What was it when Ali fought the rumble in the jungle?

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Well it will be the rumble in the bookstore on Thursday night.

Mark: I guess any of you who are listeners to the FrenchLingQ Podcast will hear an interview that you did on the French CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) on the radio last week, I guess it was.

Steve: It was, yes.

Mark: If any of you are interested you can also maybe check that podcast out.

Anyway, I guess that should be interesting.

I’m still not clear what you’re on TV for the day before.

Steve: Well, again, it’s a follow-up I guess.

Again, it’s the French CBC and there are not a lot of viewers out here in Vancouver, but still all the PR we can get is good.

I guess they just thought, having heard the radio program and being aware of this discussion in the bookstore, this was topical and so they want to do a little story on it.

Mark: On the TV news.

Steve: On the TV.

Well, it’s more than news; I gather it’s almost like a program.

I’ve got to be down there for an hour and a half on Wednesday.

Mark: Oh wow.

Steve: I mean, obviously, we would love to get this kind of publicity elsewhere.

Given that the French radio here has a very limited audience there were a lot of people who called in.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: So if we ever got a radio program in English here, for example, a majority language or in Japanese in Japan — I’m going to Japan in mid June — then you know, obviously, that would be good for us.

But, yeah, we’ll see.

I’m looking forward to hearing what this lady has to say.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: And the people have heard my arguments.

Mark: You’re not going to be speaking in French though.

Steve: Probably, I wouldn’t imagine. I don’t know, I don’t know.

Mark: Why? Is she French?

Steve: No, she speaks French.

Mark: Oh.

Steve: She’s English speaking and she claims that it’s important to learn grammar and that when she discovered that then she learned how to speak French better.

My point, of course, is that most people spend 10 years trying to learn French, trying to learn grammar, and never learn to speak it.

But I am sure that there are things that she says that will be very interesting and, hopefully, some of what I say will be interesting.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But, anyway, getting on to the economy.

We are now reading in the newspaper about the dramatic rise in the price of grains, in particular, but also food oils, meat.

You know a number of food products have risen significantly in price.

Mark: Because of the rise in grain prices, I guess, with the meat and the oils.

Steve: Yeah, but some of the same reasons and, of course, very quickly people start to point fingers.

Either it’s because of biofuels, the diversion of whatever percentage of corn or soybeans into biofuels then, of course…

Mark: I’m not sure how that affects the price of rice.

Steve: Well to the extent that…no, but that’s only one of the factors.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Another factor is that, first of all, it appears this sort of gradual decline in world food stocks has been going on for quite a few years, so a lot of people were aware that it was going to happen.

Mark: Right.

Steve: It didn’t just happen.

Also, countries like China and India there are two things happening there and probably in other developing countries, but they are finally developing, so they have a better diet, which they should have.

There’s no reason why a small part of the world should eat lots of meat and the rest of the world should not.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I mean they’re going to want to eat more meat and they do.

In China I think the consumption of meat has gone up 150% like more than doubled over the last 20 years.

And, as we know, it’s less efficient to consume grain via an animal.

Mark: Right.

Steve: In other words, the direct of feed to an animal and then eat the animal, so that’s a consideration.

In China I think they’ve lost something like 6 or 7% of their agricultural land because they’re building factories and so forth.

Presumably, if we convert crop land to growing fuel, if we consume more meat which requires more grain, if crop land is converted to factory or industrial land, I mean all of these things cumulative have to have an affect.

Mark: Right.

And I guess the ability of people to increase yields for these crops, obviously, is not keeping up with the diversions that are occurring through energy production and also I guess loss of crop land and so on.

Plus there exists this resistance towards genetically-modified crops, which supposedly could increase yields, whether because of resistance to pesticides or because of just generally increasing yields per, I guess, plant.

Steve: …per hectare…

Mark: There are a number of factors or per hectare.

I don’t know whether that’s because they’re resistant to pesticides or more resistant to pests and, therefore, not is much is lost or whether they actually yield more, whatever, grains of rice per plant or whatever it is that they do.

Steve: I mean who’s to know.

Obviously, if you take the case of China, which has 1.3 billion people at least, probably 100 years ago — I don’t know the number — maybe they had a population of 200 million people, so at that time they thought they were crowded.

Mark: Right.

Steve: At that time they had famines.

They had more famines then than they have now.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Today China is self-sufficient in grains; I mean, obviously, it’s not unlimited.

But if you look around the world are we sure that all countries are maximizing their potential as far as agricultural production is concerned?

I suspect not.

Mark: I suspect not and I think partly it’s because in a lot of places it hasn’t paid to be into agriculture.

The money is in working in a factory or moving to the city, so maybe food prices should go up to incent more people to get into agriculture to keep them there.

Steve: The trouble with that is that the people who are suffering now because of the rise in the price of food are people who live at a subsistence level.

Mark: Right.

Steve: They don’t have the luxury of paying more so that a Canadian farmer will take some land that’s been lying fallow and start growing wheat.

They don’t have that luxury.

Mark: No.

Steve: So I think the issue there is can they improve the efficiency of their agriculture.

I think there also are some short-term issues here like crop failures or you know weather-related things in Australia and people hording and so forth.

Mark: Plus, I guess, the issue of biofuels.

I mean that’s got to have an affect.

Steve: It has to have an affect.

Mark: Whatever percentage goes into creating ethanol of the corn harvest…I mean I’ve read in Mexico where their major food crop is corn people can’t afford their tortillas anymore or whatever it is.

That makes sense if the U.S. is…I don’t what percentage of their corn crop or how much corn they’re mandating has to be converted into ethanol.

But the one thing there that seems a bit funny is that my understanding is that it takes something like six gallons of gasoline to make eight gallons of ethanol so that really it doesn’t make sense.

Steve: Everything that I’ve heard I have trouble understanding the whole ethanol argument; it’s not tremendously energy-efficient.

Mark: No.

Steve: The vision of poor Mexicans unable to eat their tortillas so that fat, western, European, North Americans, etc.

can drive around in big cars is not a very nice image.

Mark: No and I guess if ethanol was not so power-hungry maybe it would make more sense, but if really all it is is a feel-good exercise, which I suspect it is.

Steve: It’s partly that; it’s partly a strategic thing too.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I mean, obviously, a lot of places would like to be able to rely more on domestic sources of energy.

I think a lot of these things they get sort of a life of their own.

I mean if a major agricultural company in Brazil, for example, makes a major commitment…it’s not just the Americans who are into ethanol the Brazilians are big on it.

Mark: No.

Steve: Even in China and India people are looking at biofuels, but people should be looking at non-food stock.

I mean the forest industry that I’m involved in we should be into biofuels, sugarcane waste, but to actually grow food crops with the intention of producing fuel and, as you point out, it’s not very efficient anyway.

Mark: Right.

Steve: It’s kind of a marginal return.

Mark: Yeah, it seems that way to me.

I must say I don’t know enough about it, but I have heard that it’s very inefficient, the production of ethanol, in which case why are we doing it.

I guess this issue seems to be increasingly in the news, so maybe things will change if it has that kind of an affect on world food prices, which then causes those at a subsistence level to not be able to afford to eat and that, apparently, is the case.

They’re eating less; they’re eating not as well.

Steve: But the thing that surprises me is the big one is rice.

Rice and wheat are the ones that have increased the most in price.

I mean, yeah, wheat, I guess conceivably wheat feeds beef, corn is a feed, so I can see…I’m not an agricultural economist and there might be a crossover between corn and wheat, but rice?

Why has rice gone up so much?

Mark: I have no idea.

Steve: The other thing you hear people say is it’s the price of energy.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Because as a lot of these products have to move around then the price of energy is driving up the price of food.

Mark: Well and fertilizer is all petroleum-based.

Steve: Much of it is, yeah.

Mark: Much of it is, especially in the west I think and as the price of oil keeps going up, yeah, and shipping it, as you say.

I mean it’s going to drive the price up.

Steve: Right. Now, of course, you mentioned the genetic foods.

All the food we eat today is genetically modified compared to the wild wheat and wild cattle that existed for most of mankind’s life on the planet.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But people get all excited about genetically-modified food.

Of course now then people say well you know the modern way of life is destructive of the planet and so forth.

The fact of the matter is that we’ve got 6 ½ billion people.

Mark: Right.

Steve: So from the point of view of human beings we’ve never had it as good as we have it now.

Mark: Right.

Steve: People live longer and the air is less polluted in Japan and Europe and North America, so it’s not all bad.

Mark: I guess the angle of your average environmentalist-type is that yes it’s obviously good for humans, but that is in itself bad.

Not necessarily in itself bad, but their point is we shouldn’t be doing everything that’s just good for humans; we should be looking out for nature, for the other species.

Yeah, it’s good for us, but it’s bad for other species, so that’s where we’re failing, if you will, but at the same time we’ve got 6 ½ billion people that all have to be fed.

I don’t see too many volunteers to lead the charge to reduce that number.

Steve: No, nor are people willingly giving up on their motorcar either.

Mark: No, exactly.

I mean some people are, but until individuals take it upon themselves to do that not much is going to change.

If we’re talking about greenhouse gases, you know, like we have the Kyoto Accord set these targets that are more or less unreachable.

Even if they were reachable the net affect wouldn’t be very much at reducing, so it’s really, again, just sort of…I don’t know, we’re doing something.

Steve: But you know I think the big thing — getting back to the food price crisis — is to remember that if we take the big countries of India and China where there were tremendous famines throughout much of the 20th century and the 19th century and the 18th century as there were in Europe, tremendous famines in Europe as well, we don’t have the big famines now.

Mark: No.

Steve: We have a problem, but let’s put it in perspective.

Mark: Exactly.

Steve: Yeah.

Have we dealt with that one?

Mark: I think so.

Steve: But, hopefully, people will come up with a solution and maybe it will pass.

Because I agree with you, I mean if I’m a Bangladeshi and I can’t afford rice if that’s my staple food I’m in trouble and I have no ability to influence.

Mark: No.

Steve: It’s not like a North American can decide I’ll ride my bike to work today I won’t drive my car; the Bangladeshi, he’s got no options.

Mark: Exactly.

Steve: So something has to be done.

Mark: You’d think so. I mean the solution isn’t to send a whole bunch of food there.

Steve: Well, short term it is.

Mark: Short term it is, but if fundamentally it’s because of increased consumption, high oil prices, this ethanol scenario, something has got to give somewhere I guess.

Steve: But I do believe…like I saw some American suggest that well if we Americans are going to cutback on driving our cars then the Chinese should go back to eating rice and don’t eat meat.

Well that’s just completely stupid.

Mark: Silly, yeah.

Steve: You know it’s not in those kinds of simplistic terms that the problem is going to be solved.

Mark: No.

Steve: The Chinese are going to eat more meat, more and more meat.

That’s a fact, deal with it.

Mark: Just like their demand for petroleum is greater.

They’re going to drive more as they get more wealthier and the same thing would happen in Bangladesh if they got their act together.

Steve: That’s right.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Okay.

Mark: Alright.

Steve: Alright then. That gives people some economic terms to deal with and hopefully they find this interesting. Bye for now.

Mark: Bye-bye.