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Mark: Mark Kaufmann here, how’s everybody?

Jill, how’s it going today?

Jill: Good, thanks, how are you?

Mark: Good, welcome to the EnglishLingQ Podcast.

Well, it’s not raining right now.

We were just talking about how…

Jill: Don’t jinx it!

Mark: …it’s been extremely miserable around here lately, although, right now there’s this bright thing sort of shining in my eyes through the window.

Jill: I don’t know what it is.

We haven’t seen it for a while.

Mark: No. I hope somebody does something about that because it’s hard on the eyes.

Jill: Oh gosh, yeah, it’s terrible.

Actually, I think it was on Thursday we had several nice hours because I went out for a walk at lunch and there was blue sky.

Maybe it was Friday, I can’t remember, Thursday or Friday, because it was the only day in the last two weeks where there was some blue sky.

Mark: Right.

Jill: So I went out for a walk and it was really beautiful, but then I notice by the time I left at the end of the day it was raining again and, basically, has been raining ever since with a few breaks here and there.

But, apparently, it’s supposed to start being nice tomorrow for a few days.

Mark: Oh really?

Jill: Yes.

Mark: I hadn’t heard that I was expecting more of the same.

We’ve got to be setting some records.

Like it’s not just raining, it’s raining hard.

Jill: And windy and, I mean, I guess… See, the temperatures are quite high.

Mark: Right.

Jill: There’s been a lot of sort of 8-9 degree weather, so it’s not really cold, but it’s damp and it’s gray and dark.

Mark: The problem is when it’s that warm then it’s not always snow up on the mountain.

At least if it’s a little cooler you can justify it by saying boy, is the skiing or snowshoeing ever going to be great this weekend.

Jill: Yeah, exactly.

Mark: Chances are it’s been raining up on the ski hills also, which is too bad.

Jill: It was just sort of very wet snow on Saturday; I went up snowshoeing.

Mark: Oh you did, yeah.

Jill: And so in the morning when I was up there and it was pouring rain down here it was, you know, probably just zero degrees up there, because it was barely snow, kind of icy snow or wet snow.

So, yeah, it’s not getting that cold up on the mountains either.

Mark: Although, it looked like they had fresh snow up there.

Like driving in today you could see up the hill.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: I guess even to 2 or 3 above, very often, snow will still fall up on the hill.

It doesn’t have to be zero for snow to fall, like it comes down if it’s cold enough…

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: …or close to zero.

Anyway, I think there’s still a lot of snow up there.

I didn’t quite get up there this weekend I was busy watching soccer in the rain.

Jill: Like most other weekends in the winter.

Mark: That’s right.

What was funny is, as you say, on Saturday it cleared up for a couple hours and I thought oh, it’s going to be nice.

I went to the soccer game without my raincoat or umbrella or a hat or any type of rain protection.

Jill: And how long have you lived in Vancouver?

Mark: Yeah, it really wasn’t very smart, but maybe I’m a bit optimistic.

Jill: Yes, yes.

Mark: The minute her soccer started it started raining and rained the whole time.

I was pretty damp by the end of it.

Jill: Ah, that’s not pleasant.

Mark: Anyway, that’s how it is here.

Jill: And it can change so quickly the weather here.

It can go from being sunny and nice and an hour later it’s pouring rain outside or vice-versa.

Mark: You find that?

I mean there’s some change but, in general, if we’ve got nice weather we have nice weather for a while.

If we’ve got bad weather we get bad weather for a while.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: We get weather systems that kind of stick around, I thought.

Jill: Well yeah, for sure, but within a day it can be decent out for a while and the next time you look out all of a sudden it’s hailing or something.

All these weird things can happen very quickly.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: Usually, though, you’re right, you get a system that is there for a few days or a week or whatever, but it’s been particularly bad the last couple weeks.

Mark: It has been; I can’t deny that.

We’ve got Henry our programmer…any of you who have been listening to the French LingQ Podcast will know Henry…anyway, he’s from France and he’s now here in Vancouver working with us.

I think he’s wondering what all this weather is about here in Vancouver.

Jill: Although, he said it’s very much like this where he’s from in France.

Mark: Oh, is that right?

Oh, okay.

Jill: He said the weather is very similar, wet and rainy in the winter.

Mark: I mean a lot of places in the winter if it’s not snowing it’s kind of gray and raining, yeah.

It’s wintertime, what can you expect?

Jill: That’s right.

Mark: We should all move somewhere more south.

Jill: No, I love it here.

I don’t want to move, I just want to get away once in a while and see some sunshine.

Mark: I thought you were going to say I’m just waiting for global warming to kick in.

Jill: No, no, I won’t hold my breath.

Mark: No.

Anyway, we thought today…because in the last I guess six months or so both of us bought new cars, not necessarily new, but new to us…I thought that might be an interesting topic, something that many of our listeners experience in their own countries or if they’re immigrants to North America experience here or immigrants anywhere for that matter, just to sort of give people a bit of a sense of what it’s like here when you go car shopping.

Not that I know what it’s like everywhere else, but I thought why not talk about that today.

Jill: Sounds good.

Mark: So you, I guess, got a car in the summer.

Jill: Yeah, we ordered… Well, we got it from the states because right now with the Canadian dollar being so strong cars in the states cost a lot less money than they do in Canada.

I think that’s changing a bit, manufacturers, car manufacturers and dealers, maybe independent dealers, are offering rebates and very low financing options and stuff in Canada to try to keep people here.

But we actually bought a car in the summer and another one about a month ago off eBay from the states.

I know it’s kind of a big purchase to do through eBay and not everybody would feel comfortable doing that, but we’ve done it twice and it’s worked out really, really, well and we’ve saved a lot of money.

We didn’t buy brand new cars; both of them are 2004s, so a few years old, but in great condition.

We bought them through reputable dealers who had a history on eBay as being very good to deal with, always 100 percent positive feedback and yeah, it’s just worked out really well for us.

Mark: Well, good for you.

In this Internet world, why not?

I mean, yeah, especially given the big difference in car prices because of the big change in the value of the Canadian dollar.

Yeah, if you can get on the Internet and save yourself, you know…it’s significant; it’s like 25 percent, like it’s a big difference.

Jill: It’s a big number, yeah.

Mark: When you’re talking about cars that’s a big number.

And, yeah, there’s a bit of hassle at the border bringing it in, but I think you said really not too bad.

Jill: No and I mean this last one that we got there was no trouble at all, no hassle at all.

It was very easy, it went very smoothly and we probably saved about $8,000 even after paying our shipping and paying duty and Canadian taxes and all of that.

At least $7,000 anyway we saved and it really wasn’t a big hassle in any way.

Mark: Yeah, it’s amazing.

I mean, I guess prices will eventually reflect the change in the dollar, but I tell you, the dollar has been strengthening for a few years now and prices have not adjusted for anything as far as I can tell.

Even at the bookstore you look at books and books here are still 25 percent more expensive than they are in the states.

Jill: At least 25 percent.

I have noticed though that a lot of stores here are putting things on sale.

Some places are even offering if there are two prices to charge the American price.

Mark: Oh, is that right?

Jill: Because I think the retailers and the merchants are realizing that — especially places close to the border like Toronto and Vancouver — it’s so easy to get across to the states that people go down there for the day and shop and they’re losing all of that.

Mark: Yeah and it’s quite a touchy issue or a prominent issue right now.

People are complaining about, you know, why are prices here not the same?

I guess the merchants are saying well, you know, we paid what we had to pay…

Jill: And they did.

Mark: …for these goods when we bought them and very often they’re buying ahead, you know, six months, a year, in advance so that “What are they supposed to do?” type of thing.

Jill: That’s right.

People feel ripped off, especially when you can see two prices.

Mark: I would imagine they move more quickly when it’s time to raise prices.

Jill: Well, this is the thing, yeah.

Mark: It’s not like it’s a surprise.

I guess people always assume that we don’t want to cut prices and then have the dollar go the other way type of thing.

But, anyway, yeah, no, I thought that was neat to buy not one but two cars on eBay.

Jill: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: Yeah, I mean why not?

I think from what I can tell there’s a lot of people…not a lot, but the number of people buying cars on eBay, especially Canadians buying cars from the states on eBay, is increasing rapidly.

And people buying cars in the states, in general, and importing them; there’s been a big rise in people doing that.

Jill: I think some people…especially high-end vehicles and probably brand new high-end vehicles – things like Porches and Mercedes and very expensive cars – I think you save a lot of money.

Like I think you can save $20,000 on a new one.

Mark: I would think so.

Jill: And so I think some people even buy them and then sell them here.

Mark: Yeah, right. Yeah, I would think that happens, for sure.

I know that some car manufacturers forbid their American dealers from selling new cars to Canadians to protect their Canadian dealers which, again, seems kind of unfair.

Jill: Well, especially given the fact that for years when the Canadian dollar was low Americans came up here left, right and center to buy vehicles here because for them it was a good deal.

Mark: Yeah, exactly.

Jill: You know, so what’s the difference?

Mark: Yeah, now I don’t know if they tried to prevent Americans from doing that then.

Jill: Yeah, I’m not sure either, but I’ve read some articles that say that was happening a lot.

Mark: I remember that, for sure.

Americans would come up here and buy cars before when the dollar was the reverse; when our dollar was so weak, yeah.

I know that the car that we bought when we looked at getting it in the states they wouldn’t sell a new one because it’s a North American car and they said no.

Jill: Really?

Mark: Yeah.

We can’t sell you a new one, but we have some 2007s that they can sell.

So they can sell used cars, but not new and so we ended up getting a 2007 anyway, but we got it here.

Jill: Well, because like I said, they’re offering such low financing now, right?

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: Rebates and all sorts of different…

Mark: So there were a number of incentives that they brought in, obviously, to get people to keep their money in Canada and buy here.

The financing was a nice option because, obviously, if you’re buying on eBay you’ve got to buy it you can’t borrow the money.

A lot of car manufacturers here when you buy a new car you have the option to buy it outright or to lease it or finance it, which means you’re borrowing the money from the manufacturer, basically.

They offer quite low rates, so why not?

Why wouldn’t I?

Jill: Yeah and then you’re not dealing with, you know, any of the headache of importing a vehicle.

Mark: Well, that’s right, you avoid that.

To be honest, after your stories about buying cars on eBay we definitely were looking on eBay.

We were kind of thinking yeah, you know what, we probably will do that and then we looked at the particular car that we got and liked it and it turned out that for that car it wasn’t such a great…

Jill: You weren’t going to save much, right?

Mark: We weren’t going to save that much, so it wasn’t worth the hassle.

Jill: And I think you were saying that for the same year any of the cars you saw in the states had way more miles or kilometers on it.

Mark: That’s right.

Jill: And, actually, we found that too.

The two vehicles we bought and all the other ones we’ve looked at or most that we’ve looked at on eBay seemed to have a lot higher mileage on them then the same year of vehicles here in Canada.

So I don’t know if people have longer commutes in the U.S.

in general or what, but generally I find there’s definitely more mileage on American vehicles.

Mark: I’d be interested to see statistics on that because I just had the feeling when I was in Los Angeles recently that boy, people spend a lot of time driving and you’re driving long distances.

You’re on the freeway so you’re moving quickly, but you’re driving long distances.

Jill: Every day to and from work.

Mark: Yeah and I just remember thinking wow, people here must drive a lot more than we do, at least in Vancouver.

I mean in Toronto I assume they probably drive a lot because it’s that much bigger.

Presumably, the bigger the city the more driving you have to do.

Jill: Right.

I guess in Canada we don’t really have any huge cities.

Toronto is the biggest and it’s, whatever, four million people or five million people and Vancouver is a couple million and, you know, Calvary’s a million, so they’re small in comparison to a lot of American cities, so I guess people don’t have the distances to travel.

Mark: Yeah, I really don’t know.

I mean, obviously, in Canada there’s long distances between cities.

If you do much of that kind of driving then you’re putting a lot of kilometers on your vehicle.

But I did notice that on eBay anyway that wow, these cars have been driven a lot.

Jill: Two-year-old cars and they have, you know, 60,000 kilometers on them.

Mark: Yeah, I know, I know.

Jill: You wouldn’t find that very often here.

Mark: Yeah, I know.

It just may be that’s the kind of car that gets traded in after two years.

Jill: Well, probably a lot of them are leased vehicles.

Mark: Right.

People drive them, they know they drive a lot, they drive them for two years, three years and then they turn them in and get another one, right?

Jill: Right.

Mark: Anyway, I know you were quite sad to get rid of your old car.

Jill: To part with my little Honda? Actually, it’s still in the family.

Mark: Is it?

Jill: I’ve passed it along. I’ve given it to my little sister…

Mark: Oh really?

Jill: …who’s just 16, so she has her learner’s permit.

In April when she turns 17 she graduates to the next level where she can insure a vehicle and drive without an adult present or without…whatever the regulations are, I’m not even sure.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: So I just gave it to her.

Mark: Right.

Jill: It needs some work it’s a ’93 Honda Civic.

It was a great car; I put so little money into it.

It was just awesome, but I didn’t want to put any money into it now.

It just didn’t make sense when it’s that old, so I’ve given it to her and she’s going to get a few things fixed on it.

Mark: But aren’t those cars that the young punks like because they can soup them up?

Jill: Oh yeah, yeah.

Mark: Isn’t it all the Honda Civics and whatever that the teenagers and street racers like to soup-up?

Jill: Yeah, a lot of times they are, yeah.

Mark: It’s always those…

Jill: …little Honda Civics, yeah.

Mark: Yeah, Honda Civics.

Jill: But they’re really good cars that last such a long time so, hopefully, she can get a couple years out of it now.

Mark: Oh yeah, Hondas go forever, aye?

Jill: Yeah, they’re great.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, it was a bit like our old Durango that we got rid of; our kids liked it better.

Jill: They liked it better than your new one?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, I mean you know how they are.

Jill: They’re just used to it.

Mark: They’re used to it, right.

Yeah, they liked it; except for the new car has a DVD player in it.

Jill: Oh, that must be a big hit.

Mark: Oh yeah, so that’s the only thing they like about it.

Yeah, kids are funny.

Jill: Oh, that is funny.

Mark: Yeah, no, it didn’t owe us anything either.

We’d had that car for, I don’t know, nine years I guess, so it was time.

Jill: Stuff starts going wrong.

Mark: Yeah and then you have to make a decision whether you want to put money in to fix everything up, fix things up that are going to start to go wrong or give someone else that problem.

Jill: Exactly.

Mark: So that’s what we chose to do.

Anyway, I hope this has been interesting to our listeners.

We’re sort of hitting that time when people’s workouts are over, so we’ll let you go and talk to you again next time.

Jill: Bye, bye.

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

Steve: Hi Jill.

Jill: Hi Steve.

Steve: How are you this afternoon?

Jill: I’m alright, how are you?

Steve: Not too bad.

What shall we talk about today?

Jill: Well, I’m not sure; I think you have some ideas.

Steve: Well yeah, we were talking a little earlier.

You know, one of the subjects that comes up, actually, there’s two that are, perhaps, in a way related.

One is, you know, how do you learn a language from scratch?

That’s the English expression “from scratch”, in other words, starting from zero.

And can LingQ be used as a method of learning from scratch?

I know that you’ve been studying some Spanish, a little bit of Spanish, a little French, with LingQ.

I’ve been doing Russian, but neither of us, I think… Well, we weren’t starting from scratch.

Jill: No, no.

Steve: Recently, I’ve been doing some Portuguese and I find that with a language like Portuguese, where I understand most of it because it’s so similar to Spanish, I end up using LingQ in a different way.

I save more phrases, because I know the words, but I just want to save some phrases that are going to help me along.

But, have you tried, Jill, doing a language from scratch with LingQ?

Jill: No, no, I haven’t.

Steve: Well, perhaps sometime between now and when you have your baby, would you please learn Russian using LingQ?

Jill: No problem.

Steve: Would you do that please?

Then maybe you can report back.

Jill: Between now and three months from now.

Sure, I’ll get right on it.

Steve: Okay.

Although, you know with Russian, I did start Russian from scratch.

I didn’t start it with LingQ from scratch, because I started before we had Russian on LingQ.

But I would say after about two months of using some of the material, some books and CDs that I found in a bookstore — there’s the Teach Yourself Series and then there is the Colloquial Series and they’re $30.00 a book and a CD — and I just listen to the CD over and over again.

A lot of that content is similar to the beginner content that we have at LingQ, but then I went to The Power of The Linguist.

Our Programmer Mike who is from Russia and, of course, his wife Anna is from Russia, they kindly translated The Power of The Linguist and they also recorded it.

I listened to that 50 times.

I can even remember where I was when I was listening to it, I was on holiday.

I listened to it jogging.

I listened to it doing the dishes.

And, of course, in The Power of The Linguist the first five episodes are very easy.

The next one is a little more difficult and I think in all there are 26 or 27 episodes and it gets progressively more difficult.

Because I knew the text in English I was able to understand it and listen over and over again, so that worked for me.

Jill: And so if you hadn’t known the text in English, what would have been the result?

Would it have been harder, obviously?

Steve: I think so.

And if I look at what happens when I buy a book in the bookstore it has the English.

It has the text in English there in the book and it also has a list of the words and it has some explanation.

In LingQ we don’t provide the translation, except for The Power of The Linguist and a few other items where the text exists in English and Spanish and German and in other languages, in French, in Japanese and whatever.

Jill: So you could just change your language and go get it in your native language and study it and understand it and then study it in the language you want to learn.

Steve: Exactly and that’s what I did with Russian.

I even experimented with taking a sentence of Russian and then putting a sentence of English underneath it.

I stopped doing that because I found it distracting, but different people, you know, might like doing it different ways.

I just found that once I had read it in English – an episode, which is only 30 seconds long – I kind of understood what was there.

Then I did it in Russian.

I looked up the words that I needed to learn.

I then was able to study these words.

The structure is not very complicated, but if it were complicated I could ask the tutor, you know, why is this?

It may be that for an absolute beginner it might still be a good idea to invest in a book, you know, a beginner book or to borrow a beginner book from the library just to get you started.

Jill: Yeah, I was just going to ask you that.

If, for example, we didn’t have The Power of The Linguist…and I don’t think it’s translated into all languages that we have on the site…or, for example, you were a native French speaker and you wanted to learn Japanese, which has totally different characters and everything and if you’ve never had any exposure to them whatsoever, would you need to start with something before LingQ?

Steve: Well, you know again, LingQ can’t be the only thing that people do in their language learning and LingQ can’t deal with every language in exactly the same way.

If you’re going to learn a language which has a different writing system, if that writing system is an alphabet like the Cyrillic alphabet for Russian, well you have to go somewhere to learn that.

If the writing system contains, you know, characters like the Chinese or if it has a syllabary like Japanese – again, the Korean writing system is an alphabet much like the Russian alphabet except it’s more different from our western alphabet – you have to go and look those things up.

You have to get other resources.

You may need a dictionary.

I mean there are a variety of things that people are going to do.

I don’t expect that people would only work with LingQ.

I think for a beginner some people will be comfortable just starting with our material, just listening over and over again.

I believe that’s effective, but some people might be more comfortable getting a book which helps them a little bit more.

These books, typically, are available at libraries or they can be bought.

I think it almost doesn’t matter what you do, once you get past that first little hurdle then I think the fundamental activity remains the same and that is a lot of listening and reading using material that you have chosen and where it gets progressively more and more difficult.

Jill: Right, okay, yeah.

Steve: And I think one of things that I found with LingQ was that once I got over the beginner’s stage, which was, basically, The Power of The Linguist…I mean I was on that for three months.

There are 26 episodes.

It took me a long time to get used to the different expressions and so forth.

From that I was able, fairly quickly, to move into authentic material.

Because with LingQ, because you have the audio, because you can listen over and over, because you can look up every word you don’t understand, because you can ask a tutor, it’s possible to access quite difficult material earlier than would otherwise be the case.

I could deal with content that had 40-50 percent unknown words and it didn’t bother me.

Whereas, if I picked up a newspaper with 40 percent, 50 percent, unknown words I would be lost.

If I went to a reader, you know, your traditional sort of language reader, if every second, third, word I had to look up the word list, you know, I’d forget them all.

It just wouldn’t work.

What I found with LingQ is that A) I could spend a lot of time listening, 20-30-40-50 times, to the same content in that initial period.

Then once I’d been through that stage I found that I could go after authentic content which was directed at native speakers – podcasts, news articles, literature – and I could work my way through this more difficult content using LingQ.

I guess in summary, I say at the beginning… It depends on your taste.

You may want to get a traditional starter-type book.

I would say, don’t use books where all they give you is disconnected phrases.

Make sure the books have actual dialogues or contents.

A context…

Jill: A context, yes.

Steve: We need a context.

We need to contextualize.

We can’t learn things in isolation.

Jill: Otherwise, you’re just trying to memorize and it’s too hard.

Steve: It’s too hard and so, unfortunately, all of this content for the beginner is going to be a little bit artificial.

It’s going to be about the mythical Mrs. Jones and Mr. Smith and they meet over coffee and it’s not real.

You have to go through that stage, to some extent.

With The Power of The Linguist what we tried to do…and there are others too, you know, going out for dinner.

There’s a bunch of them, some of which have been translated.

We try to create some continuity, so there are 26 episodes gradually getting, you know, more and more difficult.

There’s some incentive to go to the next chapter because there’s some mystery as to what’s going to happen and so forth.

We try to make it a little bit better.

Jill: Try to peak people’s curiosity a little bit so that…

Steve: So, yeah, I think so.

I think the simple answer is that yes, you can do it from scratch with LingQ where we have content that exists in a language that you’re familiar with other than the one you’re trying to learn.

Where that is not the case or even where that is the case, you might still want to get a beginner book.

Take the CD, you know, listen to it over and over again.

If it’s possible to import, if the text exists in electronic text, then you can import it into LingQ, which is even better and then move quickly over to our beginner material and then you’re on you way.

Jill: And I think, too, what you said about when you’re an absolute beginner having to spend a lot of time on the same content item.

You can’t just look at something once or twice and move on.

I think a lot of people don’t spend enough time on each item.

They read something once, listen to something once and that’s it and they maybe are board or think they’ll be bored if they listen over and over, but that’s really the only way it’s going to sort of stick.

Steve: I mean, I think that’s a very good point and the way I visualize it in my brain is that, you know, I picture my brain and there are lots of neurons there and there are sort of two phases.

One phase is the phase where I am trying to connect neurons.

I’m trying to break a path, to create a path, from one neuron to the next.

That’s when I’m struggling.

I’m struggling to understand.

I’m struggling to hear, to differentiate sounds, to remember phrases and I still don’t remember and it’s a struggle and that’s where I’m, basically, making new roads and new connections.

The second phase is once I’ve made that connection I’ve got to go over that path many, many, times, just like, you know, a cart creating a rut in a field or something.

You’ve got to groove; you’ve got to groove that connection that you’ve made.

My test is if I’m still having trouble understanding something, that’s good; basically, then I have to keep on going over it.

I don’t have to get to the point where I understand 100 percent, but I have to get to the point where I understand most of it then I can move on.

Jill: Right.

Steve: But when I’m more advanced and I understand it the first time I hear it I don’t need to hear it the second time.

Jill: Right.

Steve: There’s less benefit, there’s less return, on hearing it the second or the third time.

That’s where, you know, you gradually start listening less and less frequently, but certainly in the first few months you have to listen 10-20-30-40 times and then you review words and phrases, then you look for them when you are listening and you look for them when you are reading and you observe them more closely, yeah, for sure.

Have we covered that?

Jill: I think so.

Steve: We don’t need to go over it again and again and again?

Alright then, thank you very much Jill.

Jill: Bye, bye.

Steve: 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!

Mark: Hello again, Mark Kaufmann here for EnglishLingQ joined by Jill Soles.

What’s new today?

Happy New Year, Jill.

Jill: Yeah, Happy New Year and Merry Christmas, belated.

Mark: That’s right.

Jill: All that jazz.

Mark: I know we’ve had a few podcasts over this Christmas-New Year’s period, but they were, of course, recorded ahead of time and so this is our first live podcast of the New Year.

Jill: And I guess we’re going to talk about our holidays and what we did, but you’re going to mention something else first, I believe.

Mark: Yeah, just before we get into it, I just wanted to talk about the new Help Teachers and Translation Teachers that we’ve built into the site.

For those of you that are active LingQ members, you’ve probably already seen at least the new Getting Started screens, which appear on almost every section of the site.

Those are meant for new users.

Anyone who’s already figured out how to use the site doesn’t really need them.

And, of course, for those of you who don’t need them there’s a little link at the bottom of each of those Getting Started windows that says “click here to not show me this again” or something.

I can’t remember exactly what it says, but if you click on those links it will close those windows and you won’t ever see them again.

For those of you who haven’t been to the site, if you do go, I think those Getting Started windows will be very helpful and you’ll see that the main activity on each page will be identified.

As well, you’ll be able to easily click and see a video demo of each section, which should also explain very well what to do on the site, so do check those out.

Jill: And, of course, I just want to mention that they’re all in English for the moment but, hopefully, within a week or so we will have them translated.

We will have all the URLs going to the correct places.

We will have all the formatting, you know, the same, so we’re still working on that section.

Mark: That’s right.

That’s the Help section.

Jill: Sorry, that’s the Help section, right.

Mark: For those of you before who have tried our Help section, up until now we just had all the Help on our LingQ Central Blog and so clicking on the Help button just took you to the LingQ Central Blog.

Now we’ve created Help pages for each section and we’re gradually adding more and more FAQs to those pages.

As well, you can access the video demo of each section from Help.

Jill: Except for I think the links might not be correct on those pages yet.

I think I still have to change those.

Mark: They will be.

Jill: By tomorrow.

Mark: That’s right.

It’s a bit of a work in progress, but before long the Help files should all be there.

You’ll be able to see the video demo on the Help page so that even if you did close the Getting Started screen and wanted to see the demo again you can always access it in the Help area.

I think, yeah, we’ve covered the Help and Getting Started stuff.

We think it will help people get started.

We are going to translate all that stuff too and on the subject of translation we’ve now built a Translation tool to enable us to translate all of the text on LingQ, which has been an issue.

Up until now it’s only been in English and what we’d like is for our members to help us by translating the site using this tool, so we have asked in an email for volunteer translators and we’re going to ask again here.

Any of you out there who would like to help translate LingQ into your language, the user interface and the menu items and all the text on the site, please send us an email to Support@LingQ.com and let us know and then we can give you access to our Translation tool and you can get to it.

We hope, before long, to have the site translated in how ever many languages we offer.

By all means, if you don’t see your language up there and you’d like to translate it into your language, also let us know and we may start to add other native language options for people.

With that, how was your Christmas break holiday in Prince George or where ever it is?

Jill: Nukko Lake outside of Prince George, yeah.

Yeah, it was great.

It was wonderful, relaxing; we had great weather, lots of sunny, clear days.

Mark: Oh nice.

Jill: A couple of days where it snowed, which is nice.

I like to see the snow.

We don’t get much of it in Vancouver.

Mark: Not below the highway anyway.

Jill: No.

Mark: Kate, here in our office, drove in today and was quite miffed, I guess, by the fact that down here, lower down the hill, there’s no snow, whereas she was shoveling her driveway this morning.

Jill: Yeah, apparently some areas of the lower mainland, which include many suburbs, many cities outside of Vancouver, the higher elevations and some of the suburbs that are further away from the ocean, will get snow even when the City of Vancouver won’t get it.

Mark: Right.

Jill: So, I had none at my house, there’s none at the office, but I guess there was quite a bit at Kate’s place, which is only 15 minutes from the office, but it’s much higher elevation right at the mountains, yeah.

Mark: I mean you can look up the hill here or the mountain and when I say above the highway, the highway is about halfway up the hill.

Jill: Right.

Mark: And above the highway, I mean, it’s just white.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: I mean it looks really nice.

Jill: Beautiful and, actually — sorry to cut you off – the day turned out to be quite nice.

It was kind of sort of a semi-sunny day today, so I think it was actually a lovely day.

Mark: It was a nice day.

Jill: A little chilly.

It was only I think maybe 3 degrees or something like that, but it was quite nice.

Yeah, so up there we got some snow.

We had sun.

It was mild for… I mean that’s quite a northern part of Canada, so for there it was quite mild.

There were days when it was just, you know, not much below zero, minus 2, even overnight, some days where it was minus 10, but it’s very, very, dry it’s not like Vancouver.

It’s very dry and they get very little wind, generally.

There were a couple days where it was quite windy but, generally, they get very little wind, so even at minus 10 it really doesn’t feel colder than plus 3 or 4 or 5 degrees here in Vancouver where it’s so damp.

Mark: Well, you know, that is true because we were up in the interior as well skiing and last night we came back and it was whatever, 2 degrees and raining, and it was minus 8 up there, but it felt cold last night just because it’s damp.

Yeah, it’s not warm either, but the dampness makes a big difference.

Jill: It makes a big difference, a huge difference.

I don’t know, maybe when we go to these colder areas too maybe we’re just better prepared so we stay warmer.

Mark: Maybe.

Jill: But, I mean I went snowshoeing.

We were up there for nine days and I went snowshoeing six days, six of the nine days, and the one day where the wind was howling my face, which was always sort of exposed, did stay cold, but the rest of me got warm.

Mark: Right.

Jill: But the other days when there was no breeze I had my gloves off, I had my jacket undone with just a thin shirt underneath and I was sweating.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Jill: And I was not running.

I mean I’m pregnant and I was with Chris’ mom some of the time, so we weren’t going very fast.

Mark: Right.

Jill: We were simply walking and it’s on a lake, so it’s flat and I was still sweating, so to me that was quite warm.

Mark: You can warm up, I mean, snowshoeing you get warm in a hurry.

Jill: You do, yeah.

Mark: Yeah, okay, you’re not sinking through the snow, but you’re still sinking in.

Like it’s not quite like walking.

Jill: You’re still working, yeah.

Mark: You’re working and taking long steps or whatever you want to call it.

Jill: Yeah, and then I went snowshoeing actually on New Year’s Day here.

I was back in town and went up to one of the local ski hills here and went snowshoeing.

There I actually prefer that you’re in the forest and it’s hilly, so you’ve got up, down, everything in between, so I enjoy that.

I like to jog a little bit on the flat stretches and the downward stretches.

At this point, my lung capacity is not so great so on the uphill I walk, but I’m still getting a good workout.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Jill: Some of those hills are very steep, actually, so I think a few people looked at me like I was a bit crazy because I’m obviously pregnant now.

But I really don’t find snowshoeing difficult.

Mark: It’s not difficult at all.

Jill: I mean, I don’t really feel like I lose my footing.

A couple of times when it very steep and I was going down, I was extra careful to dig in the spikes and to maybe search out deeper snow if I needed it rather than the path or whatever but, in general, I mean I’m not going to fall snowshoeing.

Mark: No, exactly.

I mean you’re walking in the woods on snowshoes.

I mean I guess the hills give it a little extra.

Jill: Yeah, exactly, and maybe if you’ve never done it before.

It’s not something you would maybe take up while you’re pregnant.

Mark: Right.

Jill: But, some of the looks I got, I think people thought I was a little bit irresponsible or something.

Mark: Oh really?

Jill: Yeah, I don’t know.

Mark: I mean it’s fun; going down with snowshoes is fun.

You can, obviously, slide down on your bum but, yeah, you can ski down on the backs of them.

Jill: Yeah, it’s fun.

Mark: You know, especially in deeper snow you can… It takes, whatever, twice as long going up than it does to come down.

Jill: Oh, it sure does, but it’s fun, so.

Yeah, so Christmas was great, relaxing, ate too much, like usual and sat around too much and, you know, just relaxed, really.

Mark: You were up there for Christmas.

Jill: For Christmas, yeah.

Mark: For Christmas.

Jill: We were there, yeah, a few days before Christmas until the 30th or 31st I think, so.

Mark: Yeah, well that’s good.

Jill: It was very quiet and relaxing… and you were here for Christmas.

Mark: Yeah, we were here for Christmas.

I mean I guess we did have a bit of snow on Christmas.

Jill: I heard.

I was so disappointed because I think we’ve had snow on Christmas maybe once in the last 10 or 12 years and the year I’m not here we get snow.

Mark: There wasn’t much, but we did get some, so we could say that we had some snow for Christmas.

Jill: It’s a lot nicer than the rain.

Mark: Much nicer than the rain, for sure, and it was good.

We went up to the local mountains a couple times snowshoeing like you.

Gordie my dog obviously loves it.

Jill: Oh yeah.

Mark: I mean he’s just in heaven.

It’s a lot of work for him though, he doesn’t have snowshoes.

Jill: No.

Mark: He gets off the trail into the deep snow.

Jill: He must come home and just sleep.

Mark: He does, he’s pretty done by the end of it, which is good.

Jill: That is good, yeah.

Mark: He needs that.

Jill: You guys need that.

Mark: That’s right, so that was lots of fun.

And then we went up on New Year’s Eve to Big White, which is in the B.C.

interior here.

My parents and my family we went up skiing and that was great.

I mean it’s always nice to get out and be in our little chalet there on the ski hill.

What’s great about skiing is that everybody can do it together and the kids are getting better so that we can all pretty much ski together now, which is great.

Even my mom was keeping up to the kids, which is good.

Jill: Really? Oh good.

Mark: They’re pushing her to go a little faster.

It’s touch because my mom never skied her whole life, right.

Jill: Wow! Well to learn as an adult is much harder.

Mark: So she learned as an adult.

I mean she skied with us as kids, but she grew up not skiing, not seeing snow ever in Makow, so to learn to ski as an adult is very difficult.

Jill: Well and I just think you’re so much more fearful as an adult.

Mark: Well that’s the biggest thing, right?

As a kid someone tells you to go down the hill on these two boards.

Okay, I guess so.

You’re telling me to do that, I guess I will.

Whereas as an adult I think you know what, are you out of your mind?

I’m not going down that hill.

Jill: And kids bend, so even if they fall they don’t necessarily hurt themselves, but adults can hurt themselves pretty easily.

Mark: For sure.

The biggest thing with skiing is not being afraid to just go for it and then, obviously, you’ve got to learn how to do it, but if you don’t want to really do it then you’ll never learn how, so.

Jill: No.

Mark: But, like I said, she’s having to keep up to the kids now, so.

Jill: Oh no, they’ll surpass her pretty soon though.

Mark: They already have, yeah, yeah, but that’s alright because she did well.

Jill: Good for her.

Mark: She did well.

They were all doing well.

It was fun.

As well, there’s an outdoor rink there so we played hockey at nights on the outdoor rink, which was nice.

A couple of nights were really snowing heavily, which makes it kind of tough.

Actually, did you see the hockey game in Buffalo?

Jill: I didn’t see it, but I heard all about it.

Mark: Yeah, the NHL, which is the National Hockey League, major professional hockey league in North America, had an outdoor game in a football stadium.

Normally, NHL rinks hold may 17 to 20,000 people and they’re, obviously, all covered and so they had a game in a football stadium that held, I don’t know, 70-75,000 people and they built this rink in the middle of this outdoor stadium in Buffalo and Buffalo and Pittsburg played.

Jill: And it was just freezing, wasn’t it?

Mark: You know, I don’t think it was that cold.

On the day of the game it was around freezing, but it was snowing like crazy.

It’s just very hard to play when there’s an inch of snow on the ice.

Jill: Well, yeah.

Mark: And so they had to bring the Zamboni out like mid period a couple times to pick up the snow, but it was a big success.

Like the stadium was full and got a lot of play in the media because it was kind of a unique event.

Jill: Yeah, that’s great.

I wish they could do that here, but it’s just not cold enough to have an outdoor rink.

Mark: No, and really we don’t even have an outdoor, uncovered, outdoor stadium.

Plus, most likely, that it would be rained on.

Jill: Exactly.

Mark: It’s one thing if it’s snowing, but if it’s raining you couldn’t… I don’t think you can play in the rain.

Jill: No, no.

Mark: The ice would just get wrecked.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: Maybe not, I don’t know, but it would be not good.

The only other time they did that was in Edmonton years ago.

Jill: Wasn’t it last year, I think?

Mark: It wasn’t last year, but it might have been the year before and there it was really cold.

It was minus 20 or 30 and the guys looked cold out there.

Jill: Yeah, I don’t know how the people sat out there.

Mark: And all the people watching, they sat there for six hours.

It was like minus 30.

Jill: Yeah, I don’t know.

Mark: Anyway, it’s sort of a novelty, so it was fun.

I didn’t watch much of the game, but I saw the highlights and I thought that was kind of neat.

It reminded us of being on the big white pond there shoveling the puck through the snow drifts.

Jill: Playing outdoors, yeah, which is how a lot of young Canadian hockey players learned to play hockey.

Mark: Oh, for sure.

Jill: They grew up playing on outdoor rinks in Ontario and wherever.

Mark: Well that’s what makes it so fun for everybody is so many people have done that.

Jill: Have memories.

Mark: Have memories of doing that and, of course, they didn’t have a Zamboni to come out, but you’d have the board that you’d drag across the ice to clear the snow and then back to the game, so.

Yeah, that was neat to see.

Yeah, all in all it was good; good trip.

Jill: It’s always nice to be on vacation no matter where you are.

Mark: Absolutely, absolutely and just relax.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: Not that it was that relaxing because we were either skiing or playing hockey.

Jill: Or cooking meals for the kids, but it’s a break from the regular routine.

Mark: Exactly. You’ve got to come back to work to relax.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: With that, we should probably get going.

We’re reaching the end of the time when people are…

Jill: …losing interest?

Mark: Yeah, I think so, the time of the usual commute to work say and so with that, we’ll finish off and we’ll talk to you again next time.

Jill: Alright, bye, bye.

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

Mark: Here we are again at EnglishLingQ; Mark Kaufmann with Jill Soles.

Jill: Hello.

Mark: Today we are going to talk about baby names or, I guess, names in general.

Jill: And how we name our kids and maybe what our favorite names are.

Mark: Yeah, we’ll see what we touch on.

I guess, obviously, we’re talking about it because Jill has an impending arrival and, obviously, you and Chris are talking about names.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: Which is a fun activity in anticipation.

Jill: We haven’t talked that much because Chris kind of is sort of like always ah, you know, that’s a long ways away.

I don’t know, I think maybe men are like that whereas women are kind of well, no, I want to talk about this and I want to figure this out and it’s not that far away and it’s going to come faster than you know it.

Mark: Yeah, I think that’s probably true. I know that I’m the same way, like how about we worry about it when the time comes.

Jill: So, he would probably just wait until the child was born and oh well, what do we want to call it?

What do you want to name it?

Mark: Then you have a situation like me where the child has no name for two weeks.

Jill: Oh, I know, my girlfriend who had a baby a year ago they didn’t name their child…I think you have 30 days, you have a month, and then you have to name it and they were down to the wire.

Mark: Really.

Jill: They just couldn’t decide on a name. It was 28 days later or something.

Mark: Yeah, I know that I think I was supposed to be a girl.

My parents were convinced that I was one, so they had a girl’s name picked out.

When I came out a boy…

Jill: That really threw them off, hey?

Mark: Yeah, they were pretty sure I was going to be a girl.

Jill: And your mom, why, she just had a feeling?

Mark: I don’t know, I don’t know, I guess I should ask her.

Jill: Yeah, because back then they didn’t do ultrasounds I don’t think, did they?

Mark: No, no, no, she just thought I was. I don’t know, maybe I felt different than my brother did.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: I don’t know why, but I guess they were pretty sure that I was a girl, yeah.

I guess the mind can convince you.

Like if you really want to believe that…let’s just put it this way, they wanted a girl.

Jill: And you’ve just been a disappointment ever since.

Mark: You know, my whole life; it started early, yes.

Jill: Oh no, not true. Do you remember what the name was that they were going to give you?

Mark: They were going to name me Annie, yeah.

Jill: Oh, after your dad’s mom.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jill: Oh, that’s great, because I was asking you about that the other day. Your daughter’s name is Annie.

Mark: That’s right and after my dad’s mom who I never met, because she died when he was quite young.

For whatever reason, Kindrey, my wife, has always kind of liked to give names that are meaningful that are related to someone in the family.

Whereas, to me, I never really thought of naming kids that way.

I would just pick a name I like and name the kid whereas, I guess, she’s more traditional or likes to, I don’t know…

Jill: I guess, traditionally, people did sort of…you know, I know often boys for sons were named after their father, so Mark Senior, Mark Junior, whatever.

Mark: Right.

Jill: In my family on my dad’s side the son’s middle name is always the father’s first name, so my granddad’s name is John and my dad’s name is Patrick John and my brother’s name is Christopher Patrick.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Jill: And so now my brother when he named his son he followed that same.

Mark: Oh yeah, I mean that’s kind of neat to have a tradition like that. The Ken Sr., Ken Jr., that’s a tough one.

Jill: I’m not a big fan of that, I have to say.

Mark: It doesn’t seem to happen much anymore at all.

Jill: No, no.

Mark: I don’t know of any juniors in my kids’ generation.

I’m sure it happens still, but it used to happen more, for sure.

Jill: Yeah, so then Kindrey was keen on Annie then?

Mark: Yeah, Kindrey really liked the name Annie and, typically, Annie is a short form for Ann, Anna…

Jill: …Annabelle.

Mark: I think my dad’s mom, my grandmother’s name was Anna, but Kindrey didn’t like Anna or Ann and wanted just Annie’s name to be Annie.

So, in fact, that’s not a nickname that’s her name.

Jill: That’s her full name. On her birth certificate it’s A-n-n-i-e, Annie.

Mark: Yeah and her middle name is, actually, Kindrey’s mom’s name, so she’s Annie Patricia.

Jill: Right.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: And then so what about Kyle, your son?

Mark: Kyle was just…we just picked a name, Kyle Matthew. He has no name sort of tied to anybody, but then Olivia’s middle name is my mom’s name.

Jill: Carmen.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: Oh really.

Mark: Actually, you know it’s Maria…there’s the phone.

Jill: We always like to add a little color to these podcasts.

Mark: Right. Hopefully, he doesn’t phone back again.

Jill: So, it’s Olivia Carmen.

Mark: Olivia Maria. My mom’s name is Maria Del Carmen.

Jill: Oh really? So how come she always goes by Carmen?

Mark: Well, that’s just how she’s always gone, yeah.

Jill: Oh wow, I didn’t know that.

Mark: So, anyway, the Maria comes from her.

Jill: Oh that’s pretty, Olivia Maria. And Olivia was just because you guys liked the name.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: Right.

Mark: And, in fact, we were talking about this earlier that Olivia, we liked the name and, actually, she goes by Liv, which is a short form.

Although, I still call her Livia, but it turns out that it’s quite a popular name now.

Jill: Very popular.

Mark: We didn’t choose it because other people were choosing it but, for whatever reason, we thought it was a nice name.

It turns out there’s like at least two other Olivias in her class and there’s lots in the school, so it’s quite a popular name.

Jill: Yeah, I know quite a few little Olivias.

I think there was quite a period of time where it wasn’t common.

Growing up, my generation, I don’t remember knowing any Olivias, maybe one, my whole life.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: But now there are a lot of little girls named Olivia.

Mark: There are.

Yeah, I knew none either, except that when I was at university one of my friend’s girlfriend was Olivia and probably the only Olivia that I knew.

Kindrey met her too and at the time we thought oh, that’s a nice name, so it’s funny.

Jill: Yeah and we were talking too that Chris and I we love that name for a girl.

It’s one name we can agree on.

There’s not many that we do, but Olivia is a name that we both really like and we like Liv and Livie as well too.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: They’re nice, short, names and most people with more than a one-syllable name will get some sort of shortened version and some of them aren’t very nice.

Mark: Right, or at least you don’t like them.

Jill: Yeah, exactly, I shouldn’t say they’re not nice, but maybe I don’t like them.

So, that’s important to us too is finding one where they’re going to be called something that we actually like.

Mark: It is a funny thing when you’re talking about naming kids.

You know, you come up with a name that you really like and then your spouse, for whatever reason, is death on that name.

Like, oh no, and often it’s because they knew a Lisa at some point who was whatever and there’s no way, you know.

Jill: It’s so true.

You make these associations with people, ex-boyfriends, ex-girlfriends, people you knew that maybe you really didn’t like or whatever and you can never like that name ever again.

Mark: Never, yeah, I know.

It’s so funny and it ends up, as you say, there aren’t that many at the end that you both agree on that you want to use.

Jill: Yeah, exactly.

I mean Olivia we both like, but it’s extremely popular, so I don’t know that we’ll do that.

One I really like, which isn’t popular and I don’t think has ever been popular, is Chloe.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: I really like Chloe. Chris isn’t a big fan.

I think it’s growing on him a little bit because I don’t let it go and just because I like it and it’s not popular.

Mark: I would say, I mean, it didn’t exist when we were little.

Like you didn’t hear it at all, whereas, you hear it now.

Jill: A little bit.

Mark: There are some Chloes around.

Jill: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: I think there’s one in Livia’s class.

Jill: Yeah, but it’s certainly not…still, if you look at top 10 or top 50 names it’s not in there so, you know, who knows.

But I know Chris’ preference if we have a girl is, actually, he would love to name the little girl after his mom.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Jill: He loves his mom’s name.

Mark: And what’s her name?

Jill: Her name is Clara.

Mark: Oh yeah, that’s a nice name.

Jill: It’s a very old-fashioned name; very few Claras.

There are a lot of Claires; very few Claras.

He just loves it.

He thinks it’s a beautiful name and he just loves his mom and I love her too and, like he says, you know, who is there that you would rather name your child after than my mom.

But he’s really not a momma’s boy.

He’s not at all like that; very independent, always has been, but just she’s an extremely caring, loving, thoughtful, person.

So, I don’t mind it; I don’t dislike it.

There are other names I like better so, I don’t know, we’ll see what will happen.

Mark: We will see. We’ll find out after.

Jill: And if it’s a boy…

Mark: I was going to say, we haven’t heard too many boys’ names thrown out.

Jill: You know, we don’t really…neither of us are keen on really any boys’ names.

We find that it’s a lot harder with boys.

Mark: We found that too.

Jill: We’re sort of to the point where we’re trying to find names that we don’t mind.

Mark: Right.

Jill: There are really no names that we just love.

Mark: The issue with boys too is you end up saying we can’t…you’ve got to be a little more careful because, in a way, there’s a little more leeway with girls.

There’s a wider variety of names that are sort of okay, whereas, with boys you feel like if you name them something a little weird and he’s going…

Jill: …be teased his whole life.

And, no, I would never do that.

Mark: Yeah, you know, whereas girls aren’t going to tease each other about their names.

Jill: With girls, in some ways, it’s almost cool or neat to have a unique name.

Mark: Right.

Jill: That could be a really great thing, but with boys not so much.

Mark: No.

Jill: So, I don’t know, we’re thinking of maybe Jacob.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: I really like the name Luke.

Actually, personally, I like the name Luke, but Chris doesn’t like one-syllable names.

He thinks that’s not a real name that Lucas is a real name and then we would call him Luke.

Mark: Right.

Jill: So he says if we do Luke, we officially name him Lucas and then just call him Luke, but I was always the type of person who said why do people do that?

Why do they name their child a name and then never, ever, even call their child that name?

Mark: Right and shorten it.

Jill: Well then just name them that.

Mark: Right.

Jill: That’s kind of what I always thought.

Mark: Right.

Jill: So, I don’t know.

Mark: Ask him what the long form is of Mark.

Jill: Yeah, exactly.

Mark: That doesn’t exist; Marcus?

Jill: Marcus, that’s right.

Mark: Marcus I don’t consider an English name really, necessarily.

Jill: No, isn’t it a Scandinavian-type name?

Mark: It seems like, yeah, or German.

It’s not really an English name, Marcus, you don’t hear it very often.

Jill: But we have made it English by spelling it M-a-r-c-u-s.

I have known Marcuses in school.

Mark: Yeah, that’s true.

I mean, no, it’s not that it doesn’t exist, but there are a lot more Marks than there are Marcuses.

Jill: Yeah, for sure.

Oh yeah, Mark is a very common name, yeah.

My little brother’s name is Mark, actually.

Mark: Oh yeah?

Jill: So, I don’t know, we’ll see.

The other thing with Clara is I feel like it’s a little bit unfair to my mom that we’re, you know, naming the first name but, you know, my mom’s really great.

Mark: Right.

Jill: I’ve already talked to her about this and she’s not at all upset or offended and it doesn’t bother her at all.

Chris always says well, it’s too bad your mom has such a bad name because if she didn’t have such a bad name we could name it after her.

Mark: That’s not very nice, what’s your mom’s name?

Jill: My mom’s name is Sheryl.

Mark: What’s wrong with that?

Jill: Sheryl Ann, so I mean it’s just that Ann is very common, very plain, you know, whatever.

It’s not bad it’s just average and, actually, my grandma who I was extremely close to and who just passed away a couple years ago, I would really like to have had her name as like a middle name.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Jill: Unfortunately, and we’ve had some good laughs about this, she was called Penny.

That’s not her name…

Mark: Penelope?

Jill: No, no, her name is actually Marlene and her middle name is Gladys.

Mark: Wow.

Jill: So, Marlene Gladys.

Mark: But that was another time.

They’re just very old-fashioned.

Jill: Which are both names that we’re not fans of and she was always called Penny because my grandpa gave her that name when they were like 15 years old or something.

Mark: Is that right?

Jill: But, Penny is not a real name either; it’s short for Penelope often.

Mark: Yeah, right.

Jill: But she wasn’t Penelope.

Mark: No.

Jill: So, who knows, I think our kids’ names are not going to really have any sort of significance.

Mark: Yeah, you know, getting back to that issue about your mom versus Chris’ mom, Kindrey always wanted to have names of significance and so, you know, we ended up…Annie is named after my dad’s mom and Kindrey’s mom.

When Olivia came along we were okay, we should probably name her after my mom and my mom didn’t care at all.

She was just like no, don’t.

She didn’t really want it, you know.

Everybody is different and I don’t think people are offended.

I mean, you’ve just got to pick a name and whatever name you pick, even if it seems like…it always seems a bit funny because the child isn’t there and you pick a name, but…

Jill: …they grow into it, yeah.

Mark: Pretty soon, yeah, they can’t be anything else.

That’s who they are, right?

Jill: That’s what they are, yeah, exactly, so.

Mark: Anyway, we’ll be waiting to hear.

We should have a pool on EnglishLingQ.

People can guess which names.

Jill: I was thinking of having a pool just to guess if it’s going to be a boy or a girl because so many people are so convinced it’s going to be a boy and there have only been a couple people who are adamant that it’s going to be a girl, so I might get a pool going.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, that’s a fairly common thing to do.

Jill: Is it nowadays?

Mark: To have a baby pool?

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: In an office?

Jill: Oh really.

Mark: At least when I was playing hockey if anybody was having a kid we’d have a baby pool for sure trying to guess the date.

Jill: Yeah, we did that, actually, with a cousin who just had a baby.

We did try to guess the date and the sex and it was kind of fun.

Mark: Yeah, we should do that.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: I guess with that we’ll sign off, but we’ll tune in again in the spring when we have more information. Bye, bye.

Jill: Bye.

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

Steve: Steve: Hi Jill.

Jill: Hi Steve.

Steve: What are we going to talk about today?

Jill: Well, Rosie would like us to speak a little bit about phrasal verbs, which we’ve done before on some other podcasts and so, I guess that’s what we’re going to speak about, phrasal verbs.

Steve: Well, you know, phrasal verbs is one of these subjects that is talked about a lot in English learning just as modals, okay: would, could, should, might, may, whatever, can.

Phrasal verbs, it’s really not that difficult.

I mean I have a book here.

It’s Longman’s Phrasal Verbs Dictionary and if we look through it, basically, what we’re talking about is the combination of a verb with a preposition or a direction.

So, we can, you know, “knuckle down”, “knuckle under”.

We can “knock out”, “knock over”.

We can, you know, “hold together”, “hold up”, “hold to”, “hold up as”.

The problem with the phrasal verbs is that it’s not always obvious.

If you just took like “hold up as”, you know, you hold someone up as an example of, you know, hard work or something.

You know, “hold to”.

You’re going to hold someone to something.

You know, you said you were going to stay late and finish your work.

Now you want to go home early, no, I’m going to hold you to it.

Jill: Exactly.

Steve: So, hold to, yeah, it’s not obvious. Short of taking this dictionary and studying it…

Jill: …and memorizing a whole book.

Steve: And my experience is that you won’t be successful in using them.

What I think people should do is to become, as we always say, become a little…you know, start to notice these phrasal verbs.

If there are some that you see and you don’t understand what they mean, you can either look them up; you can get yourself Longman’s Phrasal Verbs Dictionary.

Jill: And I think there are thousands of phrasal verb dictionaries.

Steve: You can go and Google phrasal verbs and you’ll find online phrasal verbs dictionaries and if it’s “going in”, “going up” or “bump into”, “bump off”, “bump up”, just look up “bump” and you’ll get all of the, you know, phrasal verbs.

Jill: The bottom line is sort of that there are thousands of phrasal verbs, so there’s no way we could possibly teach them all to people.

Steve: And, you know, people get frustrated for no good reason.

You know, if you see a phrasal verb and you say I know the word “bump” and I know the word “up”, but I don’t know what “bump up” means and then you get frustrated.

Don’t get frustrated.

It’s a new term for you; you’re not going to know what it means.

Look it up, which is easy enough to do on the Internet.

If our dictionary provides you with a translation for that term, that’s great.

It won’t always do that, unfortunately, because the dictionary…we may get a better dictionary, but right now it doesn’t always do that.

You may have to go to Google, put it in, save it as a term “bump up”, save it in your system.

You’ll probably find more examples within our library of where these terms are used.

If that phrasal verb doesn’t generate a lot of examples in LingQ, probably it’s not that common; don’t worry about it.

There won’t be, necessarily, a carryover.

Like “bump up”, to “bump up” is to push someone up, you know, you bump them up in terms of seniority or in terms of importance or priority.

Jill: But if you bump into somebody…

Steve: Exactly, you meet them on the street.

But I was going to say that, you know, “kick up” may not relate to “bump up”.

Jill: Right.

Steve: Because we say kick up a storm.

Jill: Kick up your heels.

Steve: Kick up your heels, so there’s a very good point.

You know, sometimes the phrasal verb has to include more than the verb and the preposition or the direction word it also includes the next word, so we’re now talking about a full-blown phrase.

I think the only advice I would give is if you’re interested in phrasal verbs save them.

If our dictionary doesn’t give a definition, look on Google and put the meaning into your Hint and start noticing them and start noticing the examples and reviewing the examples of where they’re used.

You may not find much of a pattern.

Jill: That’s the thing and as we’ve mentioned many times before, the individual words, generally, have nothing to do with the meaning of the full phrasal verb.

Steve: Well, I wouldn’t say that they have nothing to do with it, but it’s difficult to come up with the meaning in your own language based on “go up”.

Yeah, “go up”, maybe.

“Give up”, no, no.

Give up means to yield, so I think “throw up” means something else.

As we say, I think they have to be looked upon individually.

There is no overarching theory or explanation there that’s going to help.

So, I don’t know if that helps, but that’s where we would like to start the discussion on phrasal verbs.

If people have other comments we’d be very happy to hear them.

Jill: I was going to say too, if you are a LingQ member, a Plus or Premium member, you can also — when you save a phrasal verb like that — click on the Ask Your Tutor link right in the LingQ widget and then you can post on the Ask Your Tutor Forum: Please help me with this verb, I don’t understand it.

Steve: Right. Now, I think the same person who asked you about phrasal verbs also asked about adverbs and adjectives.

Jill: She mentioned adjectives, yeah.

Steve: You know, again, we don’t have more information than that to go on but, to some extent, yeah, obviously when you look up a word in the dictionary it will tell you whether it’s an adjective or an adverb.

Typically, an adverb is used to describe a verb or an adjective.

Jill: Adjective, yeah.

Steve: I think if this distinction is important to you then you might, you know, use your Tags, collect all your adjectives in one Tag List, so that you can review your adjectives.

Obviously, there are certain endings that suggest it’s an adjective.

If it ends in “ive”, adjective, okay, adjective, “ive”, so: active, impulsive, repulsive and so forth.

Jill: An adjective always describes a noun.

Steve: Yeah, an adjective always describes a noun.

Jill: So, a person is beautiful. You know, that girl over there is beautiful, so that’s an adjective, beautiful.

Steve: Right. You could have more than one adjective.

She’s tall and beautiful or she’s short and beautiful.

I think one of the issues is where do the adjectives go.

I think that causes some problems because in some languages they come after and in some they come before.

Jill: And in French it depends on the length of the adjective.

Steve: Right.

Jill: Usually the shorter ones come before and then the longer ones come after.

Steve: Right.

But, here again, I think these are things that, yeah, if you again Googled adjectives you’d probably find some rules.

How useful those rules are will depend, you know, on the person, but if you were to save some common adjectives where you already know the meaning, you know, as I say over and over again, don’t just save words that you don’t know, save words in order to create examples.

If you have trouble with adjectives, whatever the difficulty might be…

Jill: Save “nice” and “pretty” and “beautiful.”

Steve: “Green.”

Jill: “Green”, yeah.

Steve: Because you know you’re going to get 25 examples and then you can review each example.

Not only will you have a chance to review these examples and see the order in which these adjectives show up, very often, if these examples come from content that, hopefully, you’ve been listening to it will be a familiar context and all of this will help trigger that ability to remember and to remember it when you need it.

So, by all means, you know, if you are the kind of person who likes to have more of an explanation than we’ve given you here off the cuff, because very often the native speaker doesn’t have a lot of these explanations, if you like more explanations there’s no shortage of explanations on the Web.

If you looked up adjectives and rules and stuff you’ll find lots, but I would still recommend, with or without the explanations, that you use the functions of LingQ to create some real examples that come from context that is familiar to you, so you can see how these adjectives are used.

In our Vocabulary Section use the Tags, you know, or you can even search by “ive” or “al” and so forth, which are adjective endings and so forth.

And I think you have to go to an appointment.

Jill: I do, I’m sorry.

Steve: So, we’re going to stop it right there.

Thank you very much Jill.

Jill: Thank you, bye, bye.

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

Steve: Steve: Hi Jill.

Jill: Hi Steve.

Steve: What are we going to talk about today?

Jill: Well, Rosie would like us to speak a little bit about phrasal verbs, which we’ve done before on some other podcasts and so, I guess that’s what we’re going to speak about, phrasal verbs.

Steve: Well, you know, phrasal verbs is one of these subjects that is talked about a lot in English learning just as modals, okay: would, could, should, might, may, whatever, can.

Phrasal verbs, it’s really not that difficult.

I mean I have a book here.

It’s Longman’s Phrasal Verbs Dictionary and if we look through it, basically, what we’re talking about is the combination of a verb with a preposition or a direction.

So, we can, you know, “knuckle down”, “knuckle under”.

We can “knock out”, “knock over”.

We can, you know, “hold together”, “hold up”, “hold to”, “hold up as”.

The problem with the phrasal verbs is that it’s not always obvious.

If you just took like “hold up as”, you know, you hold someone up as an example of, you know, hard work or something.

You know, “hold to”.

You’re going to hold someone to something.

You know, you said you were going to stay late and finish your work.

Now you want to go home early, no, I’m going to hold you to it.

Jill: Exactly.

Steve: So, hold to, yeah, it’s not obvious.

Short of taking this dictionary and studying it…

Jill: …and memorizing a whole book.

Steve: And my experience is that you won’t be successful in using them.

What I think people should do is to become, as we always say, become a little…you know, start to notice these phrasal verbs.

If there are some that you see and you don’t understand what they mean, you can either look them up; you can get yourself Longman’s Phrasal Verbs Dictionary.

Jill: And I think there are thousands of phrasal verb dictionaries.

Steve: You can go and Google phrasal verbs and you’ll find online phrasal verbs dictionaries and if it’s “going in”, “going up” or “bump into”, “bump off”, “bump up”, just look up “bump” and you’ll get all of the, you know, phrasal verbs.

Jill: The bottom line is sort of that there are thousands of phrasal verbs, so there’s no way we could possibly teach them all to people.

Steve: And, you know, people get frustrated for no good reason.

You know, if you see a phrasal verb and you say I know the word “bump” and I know the word “up”, but I don’t know what “bump up” means and then you get frustrated.

Don’t get frustrated.

It’s a new term for you; you’re not going to know what it means.

Look it up, which is easy enough to do on the Internet.

If our dictionary provides you with a translation for that term, that’s great.

It won’t always do that, unfortunately, because the dictionary…we may get a better dictionary, but right now it doesn’t always do that.

You may have to go to Google, put it in, save it as a term “bump up”, save it in your system.

You’ll probably find more examples within our library of where these terms are used.

If that phrasal verb doesn’t generate a lot of examples in LingQ, probably it’s not that common; don’t worry about it.

There won’t be, necessarily, a carryover.

Like “bump up”, to “bump up” is to push someone up, you know, you bump them up in terms of seniority or in terms of importance or priority.

Jill: But if you bump into somebody…

Steve: Exactly, you meet them on the street.

But I was going to say that, you know, “kick up” may not relate to “bump up”.

Jill: Right.

Steve: Because we say kick up a storm.

Jill: Kick up your heels.

Steve: Kick up your heels, so there’s a very good point.

You know, sometimes the phrasal verb has to include more than the verb and the preposition or the direction word it also includes the next word, so we’re now talking about a full-blown phrase.

I think the only advice I would give is if you’re interested in phrasal verbs save them.

If our dictionary doesn’t give a definition, look on Google and put the meaning into your Hint and start noticing them and start noticing the examples and reviewing the examples of where they’re used.

You may not find much of a pattern.

Jill: That’s the thing and as we’ve mentioned many times before, the individual words, generally, have nothing to do with the meaning of the full phrasal verb.

Steve: Well, I wouldn’t say that they have nothing to do with it, but it’s difficult to come up with the meaning in your own language based on “go up”.

Yeah, “go up”, maybe.

“Give up”, no, no.

Give up means to yield, so I think “throw up” means something else.

As we say, I think they have to be looked upon individually.

There is no overarching theory or explanation there that’s going to help.

So, I don’t know if that helps, but that’s where we would like to start the discussion on phrasal verbs.

If people have other comments we’d be very happy to hear them.

Jill: I was going to say too, if you are a LingQ member, a Plus or Premium member, you can also — when you save a phrasal verb like that — click on the Ask Your Tutor link right in the LingQ widget and then you can post on the Ask Your Tutor Forum: Please help me with this verb, I don’t understand it.

Steve: Right.

Now, I think the same person who asked you about phrasal verbs also asked about adverbs and adjectives.

Jill: She mentioned adjectives, yeah.

Steve: You know, again, we don’t have more information than that to go on but, to some extent, yeah, obviously when you look up a word in the dictionary it will tell you whether it’s an adjective or an adverb.

Typically, an adverb is used to describe a verb or an adjective.

Jill: Adjective, yeah.

Steve: I think if this distinction is important to you then you might, you know, use your Tags, collect all your adjectives in one Tag List, so that you can review your adjectives.

Obviously, there are certain endings that suggest it’s an adjective.

If it ends in “ive”, adjective, okay, adjective, “ive”, so: active, impulsive, repulsive and so forth.

Jill: An adjective always describes a noun.

Steve: Yeah, an adjective always describes a noun.

Jill: So, a person is beautiful.

You know, that girl over there is beautiful, so that’s an adjective, beautiful.

Steve: Right.

You could have more than one adjective.

She’s tall and beautiful or she’s short and beautiful.

I think one of the issues is where do the adjectives go.

I think that causes some problems because in some languages they come after and in some they come before.

Jill: And in French it depends on the length of the adjective.

Steve: Right.

Jill: Usually the shorter ones come before and then the longer ones come after.

Steve: Right.

But, here again, I think these are things that, yeah, if you again Googled adjectives you’d probably find some rules.

How useful those rules are will depend, you know, on the person, but if you were to save some common adjectives where you already know the meaning, you know, as I say over and over again, don’t just save words that you don’t know, save words in order to create examples.

If you have trouble with adjectives, whatever the difficulty might be…

Jill: Save “nice” and “pretty” and “beautiful.”

Steve: “Green.”

Jill: “Green”, yeah.

Steve: Because you know you’re going to get 25 examples and then you can review each example.

Not only will you have a chance to review these examples and see the order in which these adjectives show up, very often, if these examples come from content that, hopefully, you’ve been listening to it will be a familiar context and all of this will help trigger that ability to remember and to remember it when you need it.

So, by all means, you know, if you are the kind of person who likes to have more of an explanation than we’ve given you here off the cuff, because very often the native speaker doesn’t have a lot of these explanations, if you like more explanations there’s no shortage of explanations on the Web.

If you looked up adjectives and rules and stuff you’ll find lots, but I would still recommend, with or without the explanations, that you use the functions of LingQ to create some real examples that come from context that is familiar to you, so you can see how these adjectives are used.

In our Vocabulary Section use the Tags, you know, or you can even search by “ive” or “al” and so forth, which are adjective endings and so forth.

And I think you have to go to an appointment.

Jill: I do, I’m sorry.

Steve: So, we’re going to stop it right there. Thank you very much Jill.

Jill: Thank you, 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!

Mark: Welcome back to the EnglishLingQ Podcast.

Mark Kaufmann with Jill Soles today, as usual.

I guess not every time, but…

Jill: …most of the time.

Mark: We are getting closer to Christmas.

I know Jill you’re quite anxious for Christmas morning, have you been a good girl?

Jill: Yes and I had a long, long, list and I better get everything on my list.

Mark: Did you send a letter to Santa?

Jill: Well, not this year, I didn’t have time.

Mark: You didn’t have time?

Jill: No, no, but I’ll have to get on that for next year.

Mark: Well, you know, Santa is not a mind reader.

Jill: No, but Chris has explicit instructions.

I told him the stores, the sizes, everything, so there are no excuses.

Mark: Wow! That’s organization.

I must say that lists like that are helpful, yes.

Jill: Well, this is what I thought and I gave my mom a list too.

My mom is very good at picking stuff out for me.

I find women, in general, there’s more you can buy for women than for men.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: Because, you know, women will wear jewelry or wear perfume or bath stuff or they like little pretty things.

Mark: Yeah, I would agree with that, but what’s interesting is that I find my son much easier to buy for than my daughters.

Like my daughters, I don’t know what to get them; like it’s hard.

Him, any sports equipment, whatever, videogame, he’s just happy.

There’s so much stuff I could buy for him.

Jill: Boys, you’re right, for boys.

Mark: And girls, I don’t know, I guess clothes and I don’t know.

I mean they play sports, but they’re not…

Jill: …diehard…

Mark: …diehard keen on them and most videogames yeah, they’ll play them, but they’re not super keen on them.

Jill: Lots of little girls I know really love things like stuffed animals, Webkins, Barbies, My Little Pony and art supplies.

Mark: Yeah?

Jill: They like to be crafty and so, you know, that kind of stuff.

Mark: But we have so much of that stuff already, but yeah, they’ll get more of that stuff, but you look for other things to get them.

Jill: Probably once they start getting a bit older, and even Annie being 10, a lot of girls start getting interested more in clothes and it is exciting for them to get new skirts and tops and pretty things they can wear to school.

Mark: Yeah and I think that’s the case now even.

She’s starting to know what she wants to wear and look for stuff and ask for stuff.

Jill: Right.

Mark: Whereas Kyle, I mean I don’t think he knows what he is wearing most of the time, you know; it’s just different.

Jill: A t-shirt and a pair of pants and it doesn’t really matter.

Mark: Yeah and whatever, hopefully, a jacket if he remembers, because it’s cold out.

Jill: Yeah, but kids don’t feel cold.

Mark: No.

Jill: They’re immune.

Mark: He doesn’t, his sisters certainly do.

No, that is funny and I think you’re right it’s much easier to buy for women than for men.

As you say, there are many more options, different things.

Jill: Yeah, I mean there’s so many of these little stores around that have just knickknacks and trinkets and just little things and a lot of women like all that kind of stuff.

It doesn’t have to be functional.

Mark: No.

Jill: It doesn’t have to be practical, it’s just something sort of different, sort of pretty, unique, and women like that, but men have no time for stuff like that, in general.

Mark: No, pretty much, yeah.

Jill: And Chris has no time for me getting stuff like that either.

Mark: Does he have time for him getting you stuff like that?

Jill: No.

Mark: How about that?

Jill: No, no, no, because he hates clutter.

He just doesn’t want our house just full of little things which, actually, I kind of agree with now; I like that.

My mom is always buying things.

She loves to shop that’s where I get it from and she’s always, you know, every year too she decides she’s got to change all her decorations and furniture and stuff and so she buys all these things and a lot of them aren’t cheap.

Mark: Right.

Jill: Something, a statue sitting here and this is sitting there and it doesn’t look cluttered.

She doesn’t go crazy, but she used to always buy me those kinds of things too for presents and I quite liked them, but now that I live with Chris and he’s totally against them, he’s banned those sorts of things, I realize yeah, actually, I don’t have any use for this just to go and this thing to sit here and collect dust.

I don’t like to dust.

I don’t need more things that are going to collect dust.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: So, I sort of understand that and so my mom this year did buy me…I wanted a food processor, actually, and an apron.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: So, she bought me those things.

Mark: Nice.

Did you tell her that, you know, maybe this year to hold off on the knickknacks?

Jill: Well, yeah, I told her a couple years ago, no more knickknacks and so this year she did end up giving us this heavy, beautiful, sort of statue I guess, of course, of a mother holding a baby.

You know, she’s very into that sort of thing.

As she gave it to me she said “Now, I know you guys don’t like this kind of thing, so if you don’t like it give it back to me because I love it and I’ll keep it.”

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: I mean I do like it, but…

Mark: You gave it back to her.

Jill: No, we kept it.

I mean right now in our place we just don’t have room.

We don’t even have a proper bedroom for the baby.

It’s just like a small office, so we’re not going to be setting up a whole bunch of things in there.

Eventually, when we move, we’ll put it in the baby’s room somewhere.

Mark: Yeah, no, actually, we don’t have much in the way of knickknacks either.

Kindrey’s not big on knickknacks and I’m certainly not, so we don’t have that problem with collecting knickknacks; although, Kindrey’s I guess step-mom has given us some very strange knickknacks the last couple Christmases, I guess.

One in particular stands out.

She’s an artist and she’s involved in the arts community in Squamish, which is a town 45 minutes from here.

They live nearby, they live in Furry Creek.

Jill: This is Kindrey’s dad?

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: I thought they lived in Calgary.

Mark: No, he finished off working in Calgary, but they always have had a place here at Furry Creek.

Jill: Oh, okay.

Mark: Now they’re basically here and they spend some time in Calgary, but mostly they’re here.

At any rate, yeah, she gave us like a copper…it looks like a basket-weave type of copper thing.

Jill: It’s like a copper basket?

Mark: Strips of copper woven together into like this lump of stuff.

It’s just horrible.

It’s just what is that?

Jill: So is that the gift you bring out only when they come to visit?

Mark: Pretty much.

Jill: And you bring it out to make it seem like you actually use it?

Mark: Yeah, exactly.

It’s like what is that?

You don’t want to be rude, but I mean it’s one thing to be artistic and to like different artsy stuff, but that, I mean, it’s truly…my inclination is just to melt it down so, you know, at least it can…

Jill: …be used for something else?

Mark: It’s truly amazing.

Jill: That’s the problem with very unique or very artsy-type things is you really need to know somebody’s taste and people have very different taste.

Mark: You know, people often say don’t buy other people art.

Jill: No and you shouldn’t buy other people perfume, unless you know the one that they wear, because scents are so different on different people and some people really have bad reactions to certain smells and there’s just things that you just shouldn’t buy for other people.

Mark: And most people like particular perfumes and don’t like, strongly dislike, in fact, others.

Jill: Exactly.

Mark: Well, we get the garbage truck in the background.

Jill: It’s a little loud today.

Mark: It is.

Jill: So, yeah, you have to be careful with presents.

Mark: For sure.

Jill: Don’t waste your money.

I mean I’d rather somebody gave me nothing.

Mark: Totally, absolutely, I mean now we feel like we have to keep this thing out on display when it’s just, honestly, a total eyesore.

Jill: It’s hideous.

Mark: It’s terrible and, in fact, I think it’s like spray painted a bit.

Jill: It’s got the gold spray paint?

Mark: No, it’s like a blue or maybe that’s just a discoloration of the copper, but I don’t even think it is.

Actually, I think it was spray painted to look like discoloration of the copper.

It’s just horrible.

Jill: And who knows, she might have even spent quite a lot on it.

Mark: I’m sure it cost something, yeah.

Jill: It wouldn’t have been twenty bucks, probably.

Mark: No, probably not, you know.

Jill: You know what, if ever in doubt, just give a woman chocolates.

I mean you can’t go wrong with that.

Mark: I think pretty much most people, give them chocolates.

Jill: Yeah, even men.

Mark: Very rarely, oh darn, a box of chocolates.

You don’t hear that very often.

Jill: No, no, so.

Mark: When a box of chocolates shows up in the office it doesn’t linger very long.

Jill: No kidding, even if there’s only two women here, the box will be gone pretty quick.

Mark: I don’t think it’s just the women eating the chocolate.

Jill: No, that’s what I’m saying, even if there are only two women, the box is still gone pretty quick when the rest are men.

Mark: For sure, for sure.

One thing I was going to ask you, you mentioned that your place is kind of small and you don’t have a room for the baby, what are you going to do?

Jill: Well, as Chris points out frequently…

Mark: Here we go.

Jill: Being the practical, engineer-type that he is, our place is still much bigger than what most people have in the world and that most people live in places as big or much smaller than ours with whole families and they do just fine.

This is certainly the case, I think.

We have people making faces at us right now in the office, sorry.

Mark: Very childish.

Jill: Very childish people we work with here.

But, anyway, so I mean it’s not bad, our place is pretty close to 1,000 square feet.

No, maybe I’m wrong, about 900 square feet and a big huge rooftop deck, so it’s not a small, small, apartment.

Mark: Right.

Jill: You know, the living room is really big, so yeah, with one kid we could certainly stay there.

Mark: Right.

Jill: Like I said, there’s a small office that we’ve cleaned out and we can fit a crib in there and we can fit a little dresser or whatever and so that’s fine.

Mark: You can fit a crib?

Jill: We can, yeah, we can fit a crib and, you know, maybe a little dresser and that’s about it.

Mark: Right.

Jill: So, you know, that’s fine for now, but we definitely are going to move into something bigger.

Mark: Right.

I mean, obviously, when the baby is small it’s not like it’s crawling around.

Jill: It doesn’t need any room anyway.

Mark: No and, I guess, the argument that most people in the world…I don’t know if that’s true, but maybe it is.

Having not done the research, but…

Jill: Most people don’t live in 2-3-4,000 thousand square foot houses like we live in.

Mark: No, for sure.

Jill: I think that’s his point is that you don’t need to expect that much, because you’re not getting it.

Mark: However, most people here do.

Jill: Yeah, that’s kind of what we’re used to.

Mark: We don’t live in the world, we live here.

Jill: Right.

Mark: You know?

Jill: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: I’m giving you some ammunition.

Jill: Yes, thank you.

I’ve already told him as much, but no, you know what, honestly, I don’t want a big house because I’m not interested in cleaning.

I don’t want to be cleaning a whole bunch of bathrooms.

I absolutely hate it and I don’t want to be heating a bunch of rooms we don’t use, it’s wasteful and I don’t want a 3,000 square foot house, I absolutely don’t.

Mark: Yeah, in actual fact, it’s not that much more wasteful if the house is properly insulated.

Jill: Yeah, I guess that’s true, but I don’t feel that I need that much room.

I never had a house that was that big and I never felt like I needed more.

Mark: No.

Jill: So, I don’t have any big desire to have a huge house.

I just want a nice little house that is big enough that gives us enough room.

Mark: Yeah, I often feel and, as you say, it’s not the size of the house, but when I was growing up we lived in a house with a yard on a street where you could run around and play.

I know in much of the world most people live in apartments and you’re in an apartment condo-type of a situation there and so yeah, that’s fine too.

I’ve lived in apartments as a kid and it’s fine.

You go and do your thing on the street and whatever, but it’s nicer to have a yard and to be in a neighborhood.

Jill: And nice for parents to let their kids just go out in the yard and you don’t have to worry about them.

Mark: Exactly.

Jill: In our place, fortunately, we live so close to so many parks and the beach and so it’s not like we’re a long way off, a long ways away from good places for them to play at, but then you still have to take them there.

Mark: Right.

Jill: It’s not like you can just let them go out in the yard.

Mark: It’s busier; it’s in the city, yeah.

Jill: Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, if we could buy a house in the area that we live in we would actually stay in that area.

Mark: Right.

Jill: But, I mean the cheapest house over there is a million dollars and that’s for this tiny lot that has a house that you have to teardown and build on.

Mark: Right.

Jill: And the lots over there are much, much, smaller than the lots over here.

Mark: Right.

Well, that’s the thing, in any city the closer you are to the center of the city then it’s more expensive and you get less room.

Jill: Yeah, exactly.

Mark: That’s just how it is, so if you’re away from the center a little bit then you get more room.

Jill: Yeah, so yeah, I think, you know, we’re definitely going to be looking in the New Year, but we’re not in a huge rush and, at this point, I’m six months pregnant now.

Mark: For sure.

Jill: I don’t know, to start moving now and to have a home that we’re going to want to do maybe some renovations to or whatever, I just don’t really want to get into that right now.

Mark: And, as you say, your child is not going to be requiring that room any time soon, nor are you likely to have it go outside and play on its own any time soon.

Jill: No.

I’ve got the deck for that.

If it won’t shut up I just lock it upstairs on the deck.

Mark: Exactly.

Well, that’s good, that’s something to look forward to.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: That’s good.

With that, I think we’ll probably wrap her up.

Jill: Alright and I guess we will…

Mark: Over the Christmas period we’ll try and keep putting out the podcasts.

We may do some sort of in advance and play them sort of later, so they may not be actual up-to-the-minute like always.

Jill: They’ll be there nonetheless.

Mark: They’ll be there nonetheless and, with that, we’ll sign off.

Jill: Bye, bye.

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

Steve: Hi Jill.

Jill: Hi Steve.

Steve: How are you today?

Jill: Great thanks, how are you?

Steve: Good thanks.

I gather that we have had some listeners who have asked you for some help on some subjects having to do with the use of English.

What exactly do you have in mind?

Jill: Well, on the EnglishLingQ Forum a few people, in particular, have posted some topics that they would like us to talk about.

One post was from the user Vicki and she wanted us to speak about when we use “speak”, “tell”, “say”, just like we did on another podcast with “to look” and “to see” and “to watch”.

These words are very confusing I think to a lot of people, so maybe today we will start with that.

Steve: Alright. Now you don’t give me any warning here.

Maybe you have had time to think about it.

I mean, right off the bat, as we say in English, you know, the first thing that comes to mind is that we tell someone something, but we speak to someone.

We don’t tell to someone, so we always tell someone something.

Jill: Right or tell a tale, tell a story.

Steve: Tell a story, but we can also tell him about something.

Jill: Right.

Steve: We can tell him or her that, you know, her pants are dirty or something she might not be aware of, you know.

You’ve got a smudge on your blouse.

We tell people something, a story or some news.

We tell someone that either their house is burning or that, you know, Italy won the world cup of soccer or something, but always we tell someone we don’t tell to someone.

Jill: And we don’t say…we can say to someone.

Steve: We only say to someone.

Jill: Right. We can’t say we say someone.

Steve: No, exactly, and I think that is the first distinction that I think people have to focus on.

I often hear non-native speakers say “I told to him”.

Jill: Yes.

Steve: Or “he said me”. The key thing, I think the first thing, is I “say to” someone.

Jill: Right.

Steve: I don’t “say” someone I “say to” someone, but I “tell” someone.

Jill: Right.

Steve: Okay.

“Speak” is also I “speak to” someone”, but the “speak” is not about communicating any particular information it’s about the fact that you and someone else…your mouths are opening and closing and you’re making sound at each other.

Jill: Right, right.

Steve: So, it is not connected to a specific message.

Jill: Or you speak to somebody about something.

Steve: But when we tell someone the suggestion is that we’re delivering a message.

Jill: Right.

Steve: And when we say something to someone, again, it seems to be more a specific message.

Jill: Right.

Steve: Whereas, we “speak to” someone means we’re having a conversation.

Jill: Right.

Steve: Right. I don’t know if that’s helpful to people, because in other languages the words say and tell often are translated with the same word.

Jill: Right. That’s probably why so many people have problems.

Steve: Right. Let’s just look at it.

If say I want to tell you that, you know, you’re late I want to say to you that you’re late.

I mean they are kind of similar, but when we have a specific message to deliver we tend to use tell.

Or what…I don’t know.

Jill: It’s hard to explain the way you just used something so naturally when it’s your native language.

I think really the main thing is — what we said initially – you can’t say someone you have to say to someone, say something to someone, but you tell someone something.

Steve: But, if I say to you “tell me something” then it implies that I want a meaningful message from you.

If I say “say something” it almost just means make noise.

For example, if someone is unconscious, let’s say that you’re lying there unconscious, I come up and I slap your face and I say “Jill, say something!” But, I wouldn’t say tell me something.

Jill: Yeah, that’s true.

Steve: You know.

I might say “speak”, but I’m more likely to say “say something”.

Jill: I just had a thought and I’ve lost it now.

I was going to say that’s kind of a very specific scenario, because you could also say “say something” when you do want a real message.

For example, you tell somebody something, you say something to somebody and they just look at you with the blank stare on their face, so you might say, you know, say something, meaning give me some sort of reaction, respond in some manner to what I’ve just told you, so you could want a meaningful response if you say “say something”.

Steve: Another use of the word say or said, you know, the past tense of tell is told, in what’s known as reported speech, alright.

If we read a book and the detective says to the criminal, we don’t say the detective tells the criminal.

Well, we might, but the most often used term for reported speech is “said”.

You know, “What can I do for you?” said the shop owner.

“Whom do you want to speak to?” said the receptionist, not “told” the receptionist.

Jill: No.

Steve: I think one thing to think about is tell has to do with a tale, to some extent; there has to be a story.

We tell a tale.

Jill: Exactly.

Steve: We tell a tale.

We tell a story, whereas, saying is I think, in a sense, sort of a neutral word for the fact that someone is expressing themselves.

Of course, we always say this, save the word in LingQ.

Save “say” or “said” or “saying”, because they’re all going to be slightly different in terms of tense and in terms of how they’re used.

Jill: And save them also like as a phrase too.

“Said something to”…

Steve: Sure, they can save the phrase, but even saving the word will generate the phrase in LingQ.

Jill: Yeah, that’s right.

Steve: So, I think it’s just a matter of getting used to it, but I think the biggest thing of all, what I find jarring, is when I speak to non-native speakers and they say “I say him”, “I told to him”, that’s the biggest problem.

I think if people can get beyond that then they will get a more natural rhythm and they will start to be more sensitive to how those words are used.

I think the person Vicki who asked us, if she starts saving the word, if she’s a little sensitive to “I said to him”, but “I told him”, she’ll start noticing it and pretty soon she’ll start naturally using it correctly.

Jill: Right.

Steve: I think that’s more useful than us trying to come up with all the possible situations and contradictions and exceptions and so forth.

Jill: Exactly, I agree.

Steve: I don’t know if that helps, but that covers that subject I hope satisfactorily.

Thank you very much Jill.

Jill: Thank you.

Steve: Bye, bye.

Jill: Bye, bye.

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

Mark: Mark Kaufmann here again for the EnglishLingQ Podcast with Jill Soles, Jill?

Jill: Hello.

Mark: What’s new today?

Jill: I hate that question.

Mark: You should be prepared, you know something’s coming.

Jill: But there’s really not a lot new, what can I say?

Mark: Over the weekend; nothing?

Jill: Not really anything. I mean I did some things on the weekend, but…

Mark: More Christmas shopping?

Jill: A little bit, but I’m mostly done.

No, I went to a production of Beauty and the Beast at one of the theaters in Vancouver.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Jill: I took my little nieces there and that was good; that was fun.

It was a long, so even for a 6 and 8 year old they were pretty fidgety and bouncing around in their chairs a lot by the last hour.

Mark: When I go to productions, I’m like that too.

Jill: Well.

Mark: Yes, I have that problem like at a show, right?

Jill: Ants in your pants?

Mark: Yeah, it’s tough; knees start to hurt.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: I don’t have that problem at movies so much, but I’m just not a big production, live theater fan, so I can sympathize…

Jill: Yeah, well it was good though.

Mark: …with your nieces.

Jill: Yeah, but they’re 6 and 8; you should be able to control yourself.

Mark: I have to stand up; go to the bathroom.

Jill: Well there was an intermission, but it was quite long, I have to say.

I mean I was ready to leave when it was done too, but that was good.

And just got together with my family one night and had a big dinner with all my siblings and niece and nephew and mom and then last night got together with some good friends for dinner at a new French restaurant in Vancouver and that was very good.

Yeah, that’s about it.

Mark: That sounds pretty good.

Jill: It was a good weekend.

Mark: Myself, we didn’t get up to much. The kids had their sports events.

Jill: Are they on all week? Is there a break for Christmas at some point?

Mark: Yeah, yeah, although Kyle’s hockey seems to be on this week.

The soccer is done as of this past weekend, but he’s got a game on the 23rd, which is crazy.

Jill: That’s on Sunday.

Mark: I know. It’s like, what?

Jill: Oh wow.

Mark: I know, so they were trying to reschedule it, but apparently they didn’t, so Sunday at like 8 in the morning.

Jill: Well, I guess you get it over with so if you do still have lots of things to get ready for you’ve got the rest of the day.

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

Jill: It’s not at noon or something.

Mark: No, I know, I know.

I mean that’s the thing, at that time of year you’ve got events to go to and you’ve got to prepare for Christmas and shopping and, you know, whatever food you’ve got to buy for Christmas dinners and…

Jill: …decorating.

Mark: I do most of that stuff at home, that’s the thing, so I’m going to be busy.

Jill: Sure.

Mark: Still, even for me it’s not ideal timing, but anyway he’ll be happy.

Jill: Yeah, he loves it, so.

Mark: For sure.

Other than that I didn’t get up to much.

I went snowshoeing with my dad yesterday, which was fun, up on the mountain.

Took our dog; he was quite excited in the snow.

Jill: I can imagine.

Mark: Quite the workout for him if he got off the trail where the snow is quite deep.

I mean he’s got four legs, but he’s working hard.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: It’s kind of funny. Yeah, other than that…

Jill: You took it easy.

Mark: Took it easy, yeah.

Jill: Well that’s good too this time of year if you can actually manage to take it easy on a weekend and have downtime.

That’s a rare thing I think this time of year.

Mark: It is. What’s nice is — as the kids’ events stop happening — yeah, it’s funny how all of a sudden you’ve got lots of time on the weekend because usually we’re running around.

Jill: Yeah, from soccer to hockey to dancing.

Mark: It’s amazing; it’s amazing.

Other than that I thought today we could maybe pull a few examples off the forum; questions that our members have been asking on the Ask Your Tutor Forum and expand on them a little bit.

Jill: Good idea.

Mark: And so the first question was asked by Rosie.

She was asking about starting a sentence with “but”, which is a question that actually comes up fairly often because a lot of English teachers…and I know when I was a kid you were always told never begin a sentence with “but”.

Jill: And or but.

Mark: And or but.

Jill: Yeah, that’s right.

Mark: I’d get that wrong. You’d get that wrong, right? No, you can’t start a sentence with “and” or “but”.

Jill: Right.

Mark: But, you see that now.

Jill: You do, all over; writers, authors, people begin sentences with “and” or “but” all the time.

Mark: And the question is, why are you not allowed to start a sentence with “and” or “but”?

Somewhere along the line someone decided that was a rule.

But, you know, really, a lot of the time the first sentence really has ended and at least when you’re speaking you are starting a second sentence with “but” and really, what’s wrong with that?

Jill: Yeah, I’m not sure how it evolved, but I remember one English teacher in particular in high school hated it.

He hated “and” and “but” and he would say use, you know, “however”, “on the contrary”, “nevertheless”.

There are all these other transitional words you can use that are so much better than “and” or “but” and maybe just because they’re bigger words, I don’t know.

They sound more sophisticated and that’s fine.

It is good to use those words, but you can overdo it.

If you use those words constantly in one paragraph it sounds ridiculous too.

It’s totally redundant and it just doesn’t sound good to use them too often either.

Mark: Right.

And a lot of the time “and” or “but” is just fine, although for the rest of our conversation I’m going to try to use “nevertheless” as much as possible.

Jill: “On the other hand”; “however”.

So yeah, what I told Rosie is that now it is perfectly acceptable.

I know that some of our writing correctors will still correct that, will change it, if you do that in your writing.

Mark: Right.

Jill: That’s because they’ve been taught that way.

Mark: And, technically, maybe…I don’t know even what to say.

Technically, is it still wrong?

Jill: I don’t know.

Mark: I don’t know. You see it a lot. I mean the thing is language…

Jill: …evolves.

Mark: That’s right. It’s not fixed, so what’s for sure is you didn’t used to see “and” or “but” starting sentences at all 20 years ago.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: You just didn’t see that and you see it now more and more.

Jill: I see it all the time.

Mark: All the time and it’s not going to go back the other way again.

Jill: No.

Mark: Basically, that’s becoming…

Jill: …the norm.

Mark: And so, you may get that wrong in your corrections sometimes from some of our tutors; you may not.

I guess what we’re saying is don’t worry about it.

If you want to start your sentences with “and” or “but” go ahead.

Jill: Again, like with any of the other words, you shouldn’t use the same words over and over and over again, so if you have a paragraph that’s five sentences don’t begin three of them with “and” and “but”.

Mark: Right.

Jill: You know, try to have a variety in there, but I think it’s fine to start a sentence.

Mark: As I think about how I use “and or “but” or if I use them to start sentences, I probably try not to use them to start sentences that often, but if there’s a situation where I have to do that I have no problem doing it.

Jill: Right.

Mark: And so, I mean, maybe that’s a good rule of thumb.

Don’t make a habit of starting all your sentences with “and” or “but”.

Try to keep them…

Jill: …to a minimum, maybe…

Mark: …but if you have to it’s certainly not something to worry about.

Jill: Yeah, I agree.

Mark: With that, why don’t we move on to the next question and that was “the powers that be.” That was Serge asking about that phrase.

Jill: It’s quite interesting because I can understand why he would be confused and why anybody would not understand what that means; it’s kind of abstract.

I think it’s fairly useful.

It’s maybe not really common, but it’s still useful to know.

Mark: For sure.

It’s one of those phrases that you can’t understand just by understanding its constituent parts, individual words.

For whatever reason, those words put together mean a certain thing.

“The powers that be” refers to the people that are in charge; the people running things; the powers that be.

Jill: The people that are controlling everything.

Mark: Right.

It’s a fairly common expression and one that’s probably worth knowing anyway.

You don’t have to use it, but you want to understand it when you hear it.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah, that’s basically all there is to it.

There’s no real explanation as to how it came to be or why it means what it does, but it refers to those in charge.

Jill: Exactly.

Mark: Lastly…

Jill: I think it was Rosie again.

Mark: Was it Rosie again?

Jill: I believe so.

Mark: That was asking about…

Jill: …sticking needles in your eyes?

Mark: Yes. I think on one of our previous podcasts you said “I think I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.” Not that you would rather stick needles in your eyes than be in a podcast with me.

Jill: Right, no.

Mark: It was referring to something else.

Jill: Rather than playing football in the snow; that’s what it was referring to.

And, I mean, of course too, like I said, I was being dramatic and I didn’t mean I would actually physically take needles and put them in my eyes; stick them in my eyes.

Mark: But it’s a nice image there to get your message across.

It was that you really don’t want to play football in the snow.

Jill: And I’d pretty much rather do anything else, even stick needles in my eyes.

Mark: That’s right.

Now having said that, I think probably you would be in the majority there.

The majority of people would rather not play football in the snow, but you’re all missing out.

Jill: I’ll take your word for it.

Mark: Yeah; yeah so.

Jill: There are so many different things you could say to mean the same thing that are very dramatic and you’re exaggerating.

My aunt…I have this aunt who’s very, very, funny and she’s quite witty.

One time she said to me and I mean it sounds kind of horrible, actually, and I can’t remember what we were talking about, but she said “Oh, I’d rather set myself on fire”, so it was the same idea.

Mark: Right and I think those kinds of expressions…or people say the same kinds of things I would assume in all languages just to make your point.

Very often you can understand what they mean even if you haven’t heard that expression before.

Jill: Right, the context.

Mark: Obviously, you’re not really going to stick needles in your eyes and light yourself on fire, but you’re trying to make a point.

Jill: That you really, really, don’t want to do something.

Mark: That’s right.

Jill: So yeah, and, actually, playing football in the snow would not be the worse thing in the world.

I mean I enjoy the snow and I love being in the fresh air, but with a bunch of men where I’m probably going to get maimed…

Mark: Not so many girls would really want to do that, no, no.

Jill: No.

Mark: I wouldn’t expect it, yeah.

Jill: I’m glad you understand.

Mark: Yeah, that’s right.

Do we have time for one more?

I think we can probably wrap it up.

Should we just see what else?

We can see what else we’ve got…

Jill: … on the forum.

Mark: Yeah, “the nuts and bolts.”

Jill: Oh, that was something people asked about on The Linguist as well.

Mark: ‘Newalb’ is their user name.

I don’t know who that is, but asked a question about the expression “the nuts and bolts” of how to learn languages.

Jill: The basics.

I mean the “nuts and bolts” when you’re putting something together, a table or I don’t know, whatever, they’re the smallest part, right?

Mark: Exactly.

Jill: And they’re your building blocks. You start with the nuts and the bolts.

Mark: Exactly.

Jill: And you have to have to have those to actually put whatever furniture together you’re putting together.

Mark: So, it just refers to starting with the smallest pieces and sort of building from there.

Jill: Right.

Mark: In this case it refers to learning languages, but you hear that expression used in many different contexts.

Alright, well we’ll end there today and we will talk to you again…

Jill: …on Friday.

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!

Mark: Hi again everyone, Mark Kaufmann here for the EnglishLingQ Podcast.

Today I am joined by Jill.

How’s it going Jill?

Jill: For something completely different.

Mark: Yes, a new wrinkle.

Jill: I’m well thanks, how are you?

Mark: I’m good; although, it’s kind of ruining our theory about the sunny podcast day today. It is 1 degree and raining.

Jill: No, it’s actually 6 degrees, apparently.

Mark: Is it?

Jill: But I think up on the mountains it’s snowing; it’s cold enough that it’s snowing higher up.

Mark: Yeah, you can see it.

At least over night the top half of the hill or the houses on the top half of the hill are snow covered, anyway.

Jill: Yeah, that’s better than the rain. I wish it was colder and snowing.

Mark: Absolutely, it would be great if it snowed all the way down to where our office is; sea level; but, maybe this weekend I’ll go and snowshoe or something up on the mountain.

I haven’t done that yet this year.

Jill: That would be nice; that would be great.

Mark: Head up there snowshoeing or maybe cross-country skiing. My dad will be keen to do that.

Jill: It’s supposed to be wet all weekend, so it will probably be snowing up on the mountain basically all weekend.

Mark: Yeah, I think if it’s up to 7-8 degrees down here then it’s snow up top so, if that’s the case, it should be great conditions for everything up there with skiing, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing; everything is better in fresh snow.

The skiing would be good, but on the weekend up here it’s so busy it’s just not enjoyable between the waiting in line to get on the chairlift and getting hit by people that can’t ski.

Jill: Yeah, that’s the thing.

None of the runs are very long, so you’re done very quickly and then it takes quite a while, not always, but it seems like it’s a while to wait in the line to get up the chairlift.

Mark: For sure.

Jill: And you’re down the run in two minutes.

Mark: In no time and the runs can be, you know, they’re regular runs, but there are a lot of people on them.

A lot of people that start skiing start locally and they’re up there; it’s a little bit dangerous.

Jill: Especially the beginner snowboarders.

Mark: Oh yeah.

Jill: They really have no control usually.

Mark: Well and snowboarders have trouble seeing in one direction, right?

Jill: Right.

Mark: You see fine when you’re heading down the hill or when you’re facing down the hill, but then when you turn and now you’re facing sort of up hill you don’t see what’s behind you as you make your turns; it’s a little dangerous.

You’re a snowboarder, aren’t ya’?

Jill: Well, no, wanna’ be; I’m going back to skiing.

Mark: Are you?

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: I’ve never tried snowboarding.

Jill: I think once you get it it’s fine, but there seems to be more of a learning curve than there is for skiing, at least for me.

Mark: Is that right.

Jill: So, because I already know how to ski and I don’t get out enough in a year to really get good at snowboarding, so every year it’s just not fun.

I have got all my equipment, which is a shame but, I don’t know, maybe I’ll try to sell it or give it away or something and go back to skiing.

Mark: Yeah, that’s what I think too. I’ve never tried it, but I don’t ski very much, so when I go I don’t want to spend three days falling down.

I’ll just go and ski, which I can do and have fun.

Jill: Yeah.

Mark: As I say, if I go five times in a year I don’t want to waste it learning something.

It’s different if you’re doing it all the time, but anyhow.

Maybe this weekend I’ll get up and snowshoe anyway.

Jill: That would be fun.

Mark: Yeah.

I guess before we go on, one thing we did want to talk about today was the frequency with which we do these podcasts.

Right now, between you, me and my dad, we’re doing three a week.

We were doing two a week and then in the last couple months we’ve upped it to three a week.

We’re just kind of wondering how our listeners feel about that, so what we’d like you to do is let us know.

Did you prefer it when it was only two?

Is three good for you?

I know one thing we’re thinking is that any of you who are listening and then reading the text on LingQ and looking up the words and phrases and reviewing and so on, it could be quite a bit of work to try and keep up to three podcasts a week so, for that reason, we’d like to hear from you.

Jill: On the EnglishLingQ Forum is a good place.

Mark: Yeah, on the EnglishLingQ Forum.

In LingQ itself in the forums area there’s an EnglishLingQ Forum and any feedback about the show that’s where we would like you to share it with us.

Certainly, regarding the number, the frequency of the podcasts, if you could let us know your thoughts.

Do you want us to cut it back down to two?

Do you want us to do 10 a week?

Jill: No, that’s not an option.

Mark: Fifteen a week? We’re just constantly doing them.

You know, let us know and, as usual, any suggestions on topics.

We have had some suggestions recently and we are going to be implementing those.

We had a suggestion…I can’t remember right now who made it.

Was it Enrique, maybe?

Anyway, someone in Mexico, the name escapes me right now, but he wanted us to have the odd guest in here, which is a good suggestion and we’re going to try to do that.

He is also an architect and was interested in having a guest on who was maybe an architect or a builder or us discussing those topics.

We’ll see what we can do for you there in the next, hopefully, week or so.

As well, we had some suggestions from Vicki or a request to discuss specific words, which she put in her post on the EnglishLingQ Forum which, again, escape me.

Jill: I think “tell”, “say”.

Mark: “Say” and “tell”.

Jill: “Speak”.

Mark: “Speak”, “say”, “tell”; the differences between those similar words.

I think you’ll cover those probably on Wednesday; Jill with my dad.

But, anyway, please keep that feedback coming.

We do and will respond to it and do let us know about the frequency, because we certainly don’t want you to feel pressured that you’ve got to listen to every one and work on it in LingQ and then feel like you’re running out of time, because the podcasts end up being quite long, you know, anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes and that’s a lot of text to work through if you’re saving words and phrases.

Jill: The only other thing I think we were maybe going to talk about… We don’t really have any LingQ updates to mention.

Mark: No, unfortunately.

We’ve got some good stuff coming, but nothing was added this week.

We definitely have some improvements in the works, including an improved profile section for each member where, eventually, you’ll be able to see more information about other members.

You know, if you’re signing up for a discussion you can click on a member’s user name and depending on whether or not they’ve shared the information, their name, a picture, a bio…

Jill: …where they’re from…

Mark: …maybe some statistics on how they’re doing at LingQ, those sorts of things.

We’re in the process of developing the User Profile and, hopefully, we’ll have something in the next week or so there.

As well, many of you have been after translation on the site.

We are getting close to having a tool that will allow us to implement the translation at which point we will be asking our members to help with the translation, but the tool should be very easy to use and I think many of you will quite enjoy being involved in translating the interface in LingQ.

Otherwise, yeah, so, hopefully, next week we’ve got…

Jill: …some updates to talk about.

Then just something we were talking about around the office today a little bit is this whole issue of Merry Christmas, saying “Merry Christmas” and how so much…at least in Canada and I think in Britain as well I’ve heard that it’s like that there; I’m not as sure about the U.S.

Mark: I think in many western countries it’s an issue.

Jill: Where I think we feel, not you and I specifically, but we feel somehow that saying Merry Christmas is excluding or disrespectful to the people who live here who do not celebrate Christmas and so it’s become the norm in schools and Christmas cards and many things to say happy holidays or seasons greetings instead of Merry Christmas.

I know on our email cards and we’re going to be sending one out for Christmas from LingQ and we’ve had them from The Linguist in the past, I think we’ve always said Merry Christmas because to us that’s what it is.

We grew up saying Merry Christmas and we still believe that it’s fine to say Merry Christmas.

Mark: Right.

And really, and it’s not the same for everybody, but speaking for myself and I think for you as well, I don’t really see Christmas as a religious holiday necessarily, it’s more of a tradition; it’s certainly a Canadian tradition.

That’s what we’ve grown up with; that’s what the majority of people celebrate.

It’s this whole politically correct movement that we’ve been well, basically, suffering through, in my opinion.

I’m not big on political correctness.

I believe in being fair to everybody, but we have our traditions here and I certainly don’t see why we should be changing our traditions in hopes of not offending someone.

Because if I’m somewhere else where they have certain traditions I’m very accepting of those traditions and happy to celebrate those.

Jill: And I’m not offended by them.

Mark: And not offended.

Jill: Exactly.

I would not move to another country and expect that they would change their traditions because I don’t celebrate or have the same traditions.

Mark: I mean absolutely not.

In fact, I would be disappointed if they didn’t celebrate and carry on the way they always have because part of going somewhere different is to experience what happens there.

To be fair, I don’t think that it’s the immigrants or new Canadians or Muslims or whoever it is in Canada that are making noise and expecting this.

Jill: Yeah.

For the most part, I think you’re right.

I don’t think it is actually them.

Mark: I think it is your “do-gooders”, politically-correct types, who feel like they have to bend over backwards to make sure we don’t offend anybody.

It’s just, you know, we have to not say Merry Christmas because they don’t celebrate it.

They know; they understand what we celebrate here and they don’t care, most people.

They’re happy.

We celebrate our thing, they celebrate there thing.

There’s no need to sort of bend over backwards for people.

Jill: And, you know, as I was saying, my dad is married to an Indian woman; a woman who was born in India and has lived in Canada since she was a child, but still really values her Indian roots and culture but, at the same time, celebrates Christmas and is perfectly happy to celebrate Christmas.

Her children have grown up with it; she’s certainly not offended by it.

My mom has a couple of very good friends as well who are of Indian descent and celebrate Christmas and enjoy it.

It by no means means that you can’t also have your traditions and the things that you celebrate; Hanukkah, Ramadan, whatever it is, I’m not offended if people want to celebrate those holidays.

Mark: What offends me is we are supposed to feel like we have to hide or not promote the fact that we celebrate what we celebrate.

We do; that’s what we do here.

We have Christmas, “Merry Christmas”, nobody is that fussed about it.

No, I agree.

When you all get your LingQ Christmas cards you’ll know why.

Jill: It says Merry Christmas.

Mark: If you would like to wish us something else back we’re more than happy for you to do that too.

Jill: And to tell us about your holiday if you like.

I really enjoy listening to or hearing about the traditions that other people have.

It’s very interesting to me, so that’s great.

Mark: Yeah, so a little bit of a deeper topic this week.

Jill: Hopefully we didn’t offend anybody.

Mark: Yeah, I’m sure we didn’t.

Jill: It wasn’t our intention anyway.

Mark: Other than that, I think, not much planned for this weekend myself.

It looks like it will be a wet one.

Jill: Just getting ready for Christmas, I guess.

Mark: Not too long now.

We’ve got a week’s shopping left.

I better get out there.

Jill: This is early for you.

Mark: Yeah, I know.

Jill: What are you talking about; you’ll wait until next Friday.

Mark: Christmas Eve is a good day to go because nobody is in the mall, especially in the afternoon.

Jill: That’s right.

Mark: Yeah, there’s not so much selection.

Jill: I was going to say, there’s really not much left at that point, but what is left is usually on sale for at least 40 percent off.

Mark: See, another good reason to go at that time, yes.

Jill: Well, good luck with that.

Mark: And you’re all done, I guess, all your Christmas shopping.

Jill: Pretty much.

I think I have a couple of little things to get, but yeah, I’m pretty much done and I did it all for Chris as well; for Chris’ family, for my family.

So, last night we were talking — we’re going to my mom’s actually tomorrow night with my brother and sister and niece and nephew and all of us to have our own little Christmas because we’re going away on Friday for Christmas – so, he said oh, so I don’t need to do any more shopping though?

I said no, I’ve got you covered and what do you mean do any more?

You haven’t done any!

Mark: And a big sacrifice that you made because you don’t like to go shopping, I know that.

Jill: Yeah. Okay fine, I like any excuse to shop.

Mark: Right.

Jill: So, yeah, just pretty much finished.

Mark: Yeah, same for me, really.

Kindrey does most of the shopping I just have to get something for her.

Jill: Right.

Well, Chris said that I’ve already got my Christmas present because a few weeks ago our dryer broke and when I came home from New York he surprised me with a brand new dryer.

Mark: Well there, you see?

Jill: And he said yeah, and this is your Christmas present and he kind of keeps bringing that up.

Mark: Yeah.

Jill: I think if he knows what’s good for him he’ll find something else.

Mark: You’re not buying it?

Jill: No. Thanks, because I love doing laundry so much.

Mark: Is it a nice dryer?

Jill: Oh, it’s fine, it’s nothing fancy.

Mark: There you go.

Jill: I hang all my clothes to dry anyway.

Mark: You do?

Jill: Most of them, yeah.

Mark: Just out of principle?

Jill: Just because things stay nicer.

Mark: Right.

Jill: The colors are nicer and the fabric stays nicer.

Mark: Don’t get worn.

Jill: Yeah, so I usually hang everything.

I put all his stuff in the dryer; he doesn’t care.

Mark: So, he bought the dryer for himself then?

Jill: Yeah, pretty much.

Mark: So, he better get out there.

Jill: That’s a good point. I’ll have to say that.

Mark: Alright then, I guess we’ll…

Jill: …talk on Monday.

Mark: Sounds good, bye, bye.