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Mark: Hello, again, and welcome to another episode of EnglishLingQ.

Mark here with Steve.

Steve: Hi there Mark.

Hi everyone.

Mark: Today, I thought…well, we had some input from Vera.

She asked us to talk about food, which I think is a great suggestion; a little change of pace from our usual topics.

Steve: You know, first of all, I want to really thank Vera for asking for a topic.

I wish more people would tell us what they’re interested in.

We’re quite happy to, you know, talk about subjects that are of interest to people.

Mark: Absolutely.

Steve: And sometimes we just drone on here and we don’t know if it’s of interest to people or not, so thank you very much Vera.

Food…

Mark: Yeah, I mean I think that’s probably a common theme of interest because it’s one of those things.

You wonder, what do people eat in that country or this country?

You know not just at a restaurant, but at home.

What does the average person in…I’m sure Vera’s interested – the average person in Canada, what do they eat at home?

Steve: You know what’s interesting too is in the subject of food is that, to some extent, people are more and more eating the same kinds of things, at least some of the time, just about everywhere.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I mean we lived in Japan and, well, we both love Japanese food.

We love going for sushi and we like eating, you know, even the grilled fish and the deep-fried chicken — karaage — and miso shiro soup.

This is going to be difficult for our transcriber, but in Japan Italian food is very popular and Chinese food is very popular.

Mark: Right. Yeah, absolutely, all kinds of food.

I mean, obviously, everything is more internationalized these days.

You can get any type of food.

Not anywhere, but certainly here and in Japan and in Europe.

Actually, when I was in Italy I found it to a lesser extent.

Steve: Mostly Italian.

Mark: Mostly Italian food, but there were Chinese restaurants and, of course, McDonald’s.

Steve: …and the inevitable Turkish cabob house…

Mark: Yeah, right.

Steve: …and Donair where they’re slicing whatever it is.

It’s not pork I know.

I don’t know, but it’s some kind of meat.

You know last night, for example, I was at home because my wife has gone away on a trip with her family – her sisters – so I was able to, first of all, I opened a can of Portuguese sardines that we bought in Portugal.

Mark: Right.

Steve: They were so good in olive oil.

So I said to myself, I’m going to go down to Commercial Drive, which is the Italian sort of part of town…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …to buy some canned fish, because the canned fish we get in our supermarkets here I don’t like very much.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And then my wife had prepared some stews like a beef bourguignon, which is, you know, a French-type stew which I made with a bit of rice and I had a little glass of wine with that and a bit of a chocolate bar as my, you know, dessert treat.

Mark: Right.

Steve: That was my meal.

What did you have last night?

Mark: Ah, let me think.

Ah, we had chicken.

I guess they were chicken thighs baked in the oven in some kind of a curry sauce on top of rice with some asparagus on the side, which was really nice.

Steve: You know I should mention that I also had salad last night.

I had a variety of three different types of salads.

I had the ordinary romaine lettuce, I had arugula and I had radicchio and I sprinkled pumpkin seeds in that and then in my dressing of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, just to let you know.

Mark: You’re trying to impress me with how sophisticated you are in the kitchen?

Steve: Absolutely.

Mark: That does sound pretty good.

Steve: However, once the pre-prepared, pre-cooked dishes run out I’m kind of…

Mark: The quality dropped off a bit?

Steve: The quality will drop off.

Mark: Oh, yeah.

Steve: But I’ll be baking in the oven…

Mark: So you did go down to Commercial Drive and find some canned fish?

Steve: No, I want to go down there.

Mark: Oh, you want to go down.

Steve: I want to go down there and when I go down there I will also stop at…what’s it called Fujita?

Mark: Fujiya.

Steve: Fujiya.

Which is a tremendous shop that has all kinds of Japanese food and I was thinking I’d bring you some stuff too.

Mark: Oh, yeah? That’d be good.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: I know my wife met some friends who were here for the Olympics — who had been in Japan when we were in Japan — and they found this little Japanese store downtown that had all the snacks and treats that they had been used to buying when they were in Japan.

So they were all quite excited and brought some of that stuff home.

They did have great treats in Japan.

Steve: The dried squid…

Mark: No, no.

Steve: …with peanuts and beer on the train?

Mark: No. Not so much that, but just their chocolate bars…

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Mark: …and different sweets that they make.

Steve: But, I mean, you will often eat Chinese food at home?

Mark: Yeah, we eat all kinds of things.

You know, whether it’s…

Steve: And the kids love nori — seaweed?

Mark: …spaghetti or, you know, lasagna, Italian food, pizza or, you know, hamburgers, Mexican food, you know, enchiladas, tacos and that kind of thing…Chinese food.

Steve: I notice when I eat at your place we’ll often have a meat of some kind.

Very often you barbeque it if it’s potentially in the summer…

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: …or it’s prepared in some way.

Often it’s, you know, you might let it sit in a mixture of soy sauce and something or other beforehand.

Mark: Yeah, marinate it and put it on the barbeque.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: I mean we cook a lot on the barbeque too, for sure, and eat that with potatoes or roast potatoes.

Steve: Yeah.

And you’ll normally have at least two vegetables, sort of maybe a salad plus another vegetable dish?

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Asparagus or root vegetables often; a mixture of root vegetables.

Mark: Yeah.

And that’s not to say that everybody eats the same as we do.

I mean everybody kind of does things a little differently.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Some people are keener at cooking on their own.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Other people are quite happy to buy prepared stuff in the grocery store or order in or, you know, eat frozen food.

I mean you get quite the range, but all I can really speak about is what we do at home.

Steve: Well, certainly, the same at our place.

I mean Carmen cooks.

She never buys prepared, you know, whatever.

Mark: Or rarely.

Steve: Rarely.

Mark: Sometimes you do get some of that.

I remember you had that stuff from your golf club.

Steve: Oh, from the golf club.

Because we have a quarterly allowance that we have to spend.

Mark: Right.

Steve: So when we haven’t eaten there we’ll go down and buy a pizza or lasagna and take it home and eat it so that we use up the money; otherwise, the money, you know, is lost to us.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But, no.

And, in fact, in the fridge right now I have fish, I have meat sitting there and I’m going to have to decide what to do with it.

My favorite tool is the oven…because less can go wrong.

Failing that, the other great thing for people when they’re on their own is you can go into a supermarket and for like $6 you can buy a whole barbequed chicken.

I mean I don’t know how they do it.

Mark: Yeah, that was also popular in Austria and Switzerland when I was there.

It also was cheap and good.

Buy a roasted chicken with some bread rolls and…

Steve: …you’re away.

Mark: …away you go.

Steve: Make a little salad.

Mark: Yeah, that was always good and that’s good here too.

It’s cheap and good and yeah.

I mean it’s easy enough, obviously, to order in pizza.

Or there are a lot of sushi shops so a lot of the time, if we’re going to bring food in, we’ll stop and get some sushi and bring it home.

Steve: You know it is amazing just how popular sushi has become.

It’s a standard.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: You know when I first ate raw fish in 1969 I thought I was taking my life into my hands.

Mark: Right.

Steve: That I would die of food poisoning right there on the spot in Tokyo.

You know, it was almost like…I mean raw fish?

Are you kidding me?

Like raw fish?

Like a fish?

You know you kill it and then you just take the meat out and eat it?

But now it’s as popular as pizza just about.

Mark: Yeah?

Steve: It’s almost become more popular than Chinese food…

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: … in terms of take out.

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

It used to be Chinese food and pizza for the longest time and that was it, right?

Steve: Right.

Mark: And now, yeah, there’s a lot.

A lot more variety, in general, in which you can take out…

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: …but, certainly, there’s the explosion of sushi shops in the last 10 years.

Steve: A small percentage of which are run by Japanese people.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And the rest are run by enterprising Koreans and Chinese and so forth.

Mark: Yeah. I mean and that’s all over town.

Steve: But you know what has surprised me too is, first of all, we have this tremendous variety now of foods which reflect, of course, the ethnic makeup of Vancouver to a large extent, but also the variety of food that’s now available in the supermarket.

The variety of fruit and vegetables, different cuts of meat and fish, it’s just amazing.

And it used to be you’d almost have to go to a specialty delicatessen to get some of these things and now, I think these supermarkets, they can’t be in business if they don’t provide…

Mark: Right.

Steve: This, ah…

Mark: More variety.

Steve: More variety, yeah.

Although, I will say that the supermarkets that I’ve seen in France and Spain are more spectacular than here.

Mark: Aha.

Steve: I mean the variety of cheeses and in Spain you’ll have this great long row; fifty feet long of nothing but hams.

Smoked hams hanging, you know?

And, of course, anyway…

Mark: I mean, obviously, for different kinds of things you’re going to have…like people are into eating all those different kinds of things there that they have at the market.

Steve: Right.

Mark: But, I mean people here probably don’t differentiate much between different types of hams.

I guess it’s not… I remember when I was in Italy our hockey team used to stop on the way to another town where we had a game.

We’d always stop in the same place for these famous sandwiches.

You’d get in there and half the place was different varieties of ham and salami and whatever they were all called.

Different cuts of dried, cured meat and then the other half was the different types of cheeses.

You’d go in and point to pick out some kind of ham and some kind of cheese and the guy would give you these thick slabs of bread with the ham and cheese in them, nothing else.

No mayo, no lettuce, no nothing, just bread, ham, cheese.

Steve: Right.

Mark: It was great.

It was great.

I still remember that funny place kind of in the middle of nowhere.

But, as you described, the variety of sausage and ham and cheese that they have in Europe is something we certainly don’t have here.

Steve: We don’t have it here, but we are starting.

In terms of restaurants, we see more variety.

Like one of the things we’re seeing now are different types of Japanese restaurants.

Where instead of having the traditional Japanese restaurant you have this izakaya-type restaurant where they have all kinds of little dishes like they have in Japan.

And there’s a lot of these now in Vancouver.

Mark: A lot and ramen shops.

Steve: Ramen shops, yeah.

Where we see less variety is in the Chinese restaurants.

The Chinese restaurants all seem to follow the same formula.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Big round table, you know, scroll on the wall with the smoke rising over the little village and the phoenix.

Mark: I mean that’s kind of how their… I mean I don’t know.

I’ve never been to China or not that I remember, but I mean that’s how they do it.

Steve: Yeah, but in Japan there seems to be more different sort of modern adaptation, fusion; looking to do different things.

I had the impression, actually, that there’s more of that in China than there is here.

That you find more call it experimental fusion-type restaurants with Chinese food in China than here; whereas, here it seems to be this sort of set formula.

Mark: Right.

There’s certainly sort of the standard Chinese restaurant that does a lot of take out business.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Yeah, but, I mean, I think there are some fusion-type places, I think. I don’t know.

Steve: When you look at the kind of ethnic restaurants we have here, we have a lot of Asian restaurants, a lot of Italian restaurants, some French restaurants, one or two Russian restaurants.

I have to know that because I’m interested in Russian.

Mark: Right.

Steve: There might be one or two German restaurants.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: But that used to be more popular.

Mark: Right.

Steve: There used to be, you know, Wolfgang’s Haus or something.

H-a-u-s (Haus) with the, you know, edelweiss decorations and stuff.

Mark: Right.

Steve: That seems less popular nowadays.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: We have the Arabic, you know, Eastern Mediterranean, call it Lebanese, whatever.

There’s a fair amount of Persian restaurants because we have a large Persian population.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Thai restaurants.

Mark: Indian restaurants.

Steve: Greek, India, yeah.

Mark: Greek used to be more popular.

It seems to be fewer.

Steve: There’s still a fair number.

Mark: I guess there are, yeah.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: Thai is quite popular.

Steve: Thai, Vietnamese as well.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: What have we left out?

You know Turkish, which is supposed to be one the great cuisines of the world; I don’t know that we have a Turkish restaurant in Vancouver.

Mark: Isn’t that what Bonaire’s are?

Steve: Sort of, but that’s kind of common

Mark: Right.

Steve: Everywhere from Greece to Afghanistan from what I can see.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I don’t know.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: I don’t know, yeah.

But, you know, purely Turkish as opposed to say Lebanese or Iranian.

I don’t know.

It’s all quite similar I guess.

Mark: I guess so.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: I mean I guess here, especially, you can pretty much find anything restaurant wise it seems to me.

Steve: You know one thing I was thinking, we should probably talk a little bit about the different ways of cooking because there’s different, you know, terminology there.

So you can bake something in the oven and you can fry it in a frying pan and you can let it simmer at low heat in the frying pan.

So these are all common terms.

Mark: You can grill stuff on the barbeque.

Steve: You can even use a spit if you have a very sophisticated barbeque…

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Steve: …so it will turn on the spit.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: What else can you do?

You can broil, which is very strong heat from up above as opposed to the whole oven heating it.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: You can deep fry.

Mark: Yeah, which is cooking things in a boiling pot of oil.

Steve: In a way, you can use a wok (w-o-k).

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: People do that even for western food.

Mark: Yeah, like stir frying in a wok.

Steve: Stir fry.

Mark: You can obviously boil food.

Steve: You can boil. You can steam.

Mark: Yeah, steam.

Steve: Very often, if you’re going to put something in the oven, you may want to sear it first in the fry pan just to close it in by getting some heat to it and then finish it off in the oven.

What else can we do?

Mark: That’s probably reaching the extent of our knowledge in the kitchen.

Steve: Good enough for now.

Mark: You’d have to ask someone a little more skilled.

Steve: Right.

Actually what we should do is you should do this interview with Kindrey.

Mark: Yeah, that’s right.

Steve: That might have been a better idea.

Mark: That’s right.

Steve: From a couple of clowns talking about cooking here.

Mark: This is a good start though… You know, you’re not going to get the terminology from one episode.

Steve: Right. No, no, no.

Mark: Anyway, with that we’ll probably leave you.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: Keep the suggestions coming.

Steve: Right. Even if we didn’t do such a good job on the food, as us to talk about sport and we’ll do better.

Mark: Okay, bye-bye.

Steve: Bye for now.

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

Mark: Hello and welcome to EnglishLingQ.

Here we are for another Olympic podcast.

Steve: Hello there.

Mark: Mark here with Steve again.

Steve: Yup.

Mark: As always.

Steve: We are in Vancouver, the Olympic City.

Mark: I know.

Steve: We’re looking out the window and it’s raining and overcast.

Mark: Which it started out with the Olympics being raining and overcast, but then we had a great string there; about a week of sunny weathers.

Steve: Unbelievably glorious weather and Vancouver was a festival city like I have never seen.

It was extraordinary and, I think, partly because we were helped by the weather, there was just this outpouring of enthusiasm for the Olympics and, of course, people waving the Canadian flag and wearing Canadian colors.

Mark: Well, it’s not…

Steve: But very good natured; you know they’d run up against some Swedes or some, whatever, Dutchmen, USA…

Mark: …and only beat them up a little bit.

Steve: No, they didn’t.

Mark: No.

Steve: No, it was extremely good natured.

I mean I thought, you know, with tens of thousands of people coming into the city…

Mark: Tens of thousands?

You mean downtown?

Steve: Downtown.

Mark: People downtown?

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: It’s not tens of thousands; I mean it’s just mobs of people.

Steve: Okay, but it’s not millions, okay?

Mark: It’s hundreds.

Steve: You think so?

Mark: I don’t know. Maybe not quite, but…

Steve: I think it’s tens of thousands of people on any given day.

Mark: No.

You’re down there and every street you turn down is full of people.

Steve: Full of people, yeah.

Mark: I’ve never seen it like that.

Steve: You know and it’s a very interesting phenomenon.

People will go and line up for like five hours for something that they would normally not even bother doing.

Mark: True, because you’re looking for a reason.

Like people are downtown…

Steve: Right.

Mark: I mean most people are just downtown milling about.

Steve: Right.

Mark: And then a few people go downtown because there’s lots of people…

Steve: Right.

Mark: …and they’re looking for something to do.

Okay, well, I guess we’ll line up for this thing.

Steve: Right.

Mark: I must say, I haven’t been in any of those attractions.

Steve: No, I haven’t been in any of those lineups either.

Mark: I mean I’m not going to get in line to go…

Steve: People line up for six hours in order to get on that zap line or whatever it’s called.

Mark: Zip line.

Steve: Zip line.

Where they hook themselves up to a cable and in 30 seconds they shoot across the…whatever it’s called…square there.

Mark: Robson Square.

Steve: Robson Square.

Mark: I mean it’s kind of neat, you’re way up high.

Steve: Six hours?

Mark: I wouldn’t wait there for six hours, but obviously some people are happy.

Steve: I know.

Mark: They’re just happy being there.

Steve: I know.

Mark: Happy in line.

Steve: Amazing.

Mark: It’s been amazing and it’s not because we had the glorious weather.

They were out there before the weather got nice.

Steve: Right, but it was nicer with the nice weather.

Mark: There were more people, yeah; although, they’re still out.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: It’s not like they’re not out.

Steve: I know.

Mark: I mean it’s every night.

Especially a lot of young people, they’re just down there every night.

Steve: But they’re all ages.

Oh, but the young people are there every night.

Mark: They’re there every night, yeah.

Steve: You know I think the whole thing was worth it.

I think the Olympics…it’s positive.

You know I said I might start a blog on this whole issue of national identity or whatever, but people feel positively about their country.

It doesn’t matter which country it is.

We were talking about the money that governments spend – that they invest — in training.

Because, I mean, if you’re going to be in any of these events, bobsled, for example, well, I mean…

Mark: It costs a fortune.

Steve: It costs a fortune.

But in all of them…in skiing it’s not like it used to be where you train, you know, on weekends and expect to make it to the Olympics.

I mean it’s a full-time job and you’ve got every scientific evaluation instrument working for you.

Mark: Equipment and…

Steve: Equipment and stuff.

And, so, is it really worth it?

But, you know what, you were saying it is and I tend to agree with you.

Mark: I think it is.

I mean we see it in Canada, but I’m sure it’s the same throughout the world – how much enjoyment people get from seeing their fellow countrymen do well.

Steve: Right.

Mark: You know whatever the event, events that, at least from our perspective, no one here would ever watch most of these events, but they’re in the Olympics now.

Canadians are in the events and it’s exciting and people are watching and when Canada does well everybody is fired up and it’s a big party.

Steve: Okay, but then the question becomes alright, like Canada, Norway, yeah, Russia probably, the US, Germany, these countries can afford to spend a lot of money on this.

As you work your way down the list some countries don’t have the means…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …to do that, so the Olympics comes down to how much money you can spend.

Mark: That’s basically what…I mean it’s been that way for quite a while now.

Steve: Except in some great events like the…

Mark: …hundred meter dash.

Steve: Well, the hundred meter dash or, I was going to say, those long-distance events…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …where it seems like the athletes from the poorest countries do the best.

Mark: Ah, not necessarily so.

Steve: Well, the marathon is owned by the Ethiopians and the Tunisians and Moroccans and Kenyans.

Mark: Well, obviously there it’s not about the money.

I mean you’ve got to train, but there’s not much equipment required to run and so there you have natural ability.

Steve: Right.

Mark: And, you know, your Jamaican sprinters, but they have a tradition there.

I’m sure they have a program, but at the same time you don’t need that much in the way of equipment.

Steve: Right. And the same if we look at other sports like soccer.

I mean Brazil; they’ve got a couple of hundred million soccer players so that the best ones will come forward.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: And, again, we don’t know how much money some of these countries will spend on their athletes.

Like maybe the Brazilians spend a lot of money.

Not so much on their soccer, although they probably do.

There’s a slot of money in Brazilian soccer, I’m sure, relative to everything else in Brazil.

Steve: Well, I’m sure that they get a couple of hundred thousand people out to watch each match.

Mark: Exactly.

Steve: So that I’m sure those guys are not amateurs, they’re top soccer players.

Mark: No and they’re in these special development programs and so on.

Steve: Yeah, well that’s it.

Mark: I mean I’m sure there’s a lot of grassroots soccer that they originally start playing, but at a certain age I think they’re worked on.

Steve: Mind you, you know if you look at hockey in Canada, I don’t think those…I mean their parents spend a lot of money on them, but I don’t know that all of the…

The problem with government spending money is I can’t imagine they’re any more efficient in spending money within these sports associations then they are in any other stuff that they do as a government.

So once you have bodies and you’ve got the head and the chairman and the subdivision and committees…

Mark: Yeah, sure.

Steve: …and the rules and regulations and you have to have your level 3 coach — they introduce so much bureaucracy.

Mark: I mean, I guess, you don’t know.

You don’t know what these associations are like.

I think different associations have different levels of bureaucracy.

A lot of the Olympic sports, you know, those athletes they don’t have much.

They don’t get paid much.

They train hard.

I think most of the money probably does get spent properly.

The bigger associations like probably the alpine skiing and, you know, Hockey Canada…I know there were a lot of issues with Soccer Canada or whatever it’s called where there was money being spent or not spent well.

Steve: I don’t know.

I just see a lot of the people coming here with the Olympic Committee and whatnot.

Mark: But that’s not the same…

Steve: I just think it must be full of bureaucrats.

Mark: That’s not the same.

That’s another issue, though.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: This whole issue of the Olympic…whatever the…whatever they call it.

Steve: IOC?

Mark: IOC (International Olympic Committee) members.

I mean you go to any venue and you see it in the hockey arena.

I guess Kindrey and the girls went to the figure skating last night and, there again, half the rink is taken up by this special section of seating for the press and the IOC.

A lot of the time those seats are empty.

They take up more room than the equivalent number of seats outside that area.

Like there’s more space.

There’s a desk set up.

People come and go as they please.

They obstruct seats along side that viewing area because there’s like a wall set up.

Your fans are paying a lot of money to go and these guys — fat cats — get prime seats, pay nothing.

On top of that they get picked up; like all the IOC members are being squired around town by volunteers in the donated cars from GM wherever they want to go.

I know someone who’s involved.

He owns a ski resort and somehow, I don’t know exactly how, but he’s involved in the Olympics.

He’s got special rights.

Steve: Right.

Mark: So he’s got more tickets than he knows what to do with.

He’s giving them to his kids.

The kids are going with their friends.

The Olympic vehicle is coming to pick up his kid and his friend and take them to whatever venue.

Steve: That’s ridiculous.

Mark: Like it’s ridiculous.

Steve: Ridiculous, yeah.

Mark: Those tickets should be available to people — to the fans who will pay money and don’t need to be squired around.

It’s just this sort of special treatment that these IOC members get.

It’s ridiculous.

Steve: You know there should be some kind of ‘freedom of information’ thing.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: I would like to know how many hangers on, useless, you know, snouts at the troth.

(I’m sure our transcriber can get that one).

You know, how many useless hangers on there are.

How many bureaucrats are there here that are just enjoying the party…

Mark: I know.

Steve: …at somebody else’s expense.

Mark: And there’s no tickets available for anything, unless you want to pay above face value now, because they’re all sold.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Either they’re controlled by the IOC or people have them or scalpers have them.

Scalpers are people that buy and sell tickets.

All the tickets are gone, but in the figure skating, in a few different competitions that we’ve seen, tickets that everybody would love to have, there’s empty seats.

And last night was the Women’s Final…

Steve: Yeah?

Mark: …empty seats.

My wife was saying that she was in seats and just below them was a big empty area and nobody was there.

So their seats were obstructed by this judging or the IOC area, so they moved down into the empty area.

Steve: Were they chased out?

Mark: No, they weren’t, but eventually it all filled up.

It became not completely full, but people started arriving; all the volunteers.

They have a section set aside for volunteers.

I’m not exactly sure how it works, but the volunteers, the blue-jacketed guys…

Steve: Yes?

Mark: …they can go to any event they want because they’re a volunteer.

Steve: Right.

Mark: That means they’re driving people around in the cars.

Steve: Okay, but the volunteers work hard.

Mark: They do.

Steve: They work hard.

They can be up moving garbage around at 4:00 in the morning some of those people.

Mark: Right. That’s true.

But they can go to anything…

Steve: Right.

Mark: …and they can sit in any empty seat…

Steve: Right.

Mark: …because they want the seats taken.

But the seats aren’t taken because somebody has the tickets who’s not interested in using them.

There’s just a whole lot of this kind of stuff going on and there’s people who would be dying to go and pay.

Steve: And, you know, I was talking to this judge who was actually Slovakian and we were talking about this incident, so-called, where the Russian skater was very upset that he didn’t win Gold.

Mark: Oh, yeah.

Steve: So this Slovakian who, in fact, was a judge, he was explaining to me why according to the system in place that they had no choice but to rule the way they did.

And so it was a perfectly correct decision, even though some people would prefer to see more, you know, quadruple or whatever.

But he was complaining.

He said that in Torino he could go to any event whereas here he can only go to skating events.

Like he is a judge, therefore he’s an official and therefore he can go to any skating event, but he can’t go and watch, you know, luge or downhill and he was complaining that he was being restricted here.

Mark: Did you say I can’t go to any event, unless I pay?

Steve: Well, no. I mean I don’t know what the deal is.

He’s probably not paid that much to be a judge.

Mark: Maybe, yeah.

Steve: He was a very nice guy, a very nice guy.

Mark: Plus they get scorn down on them by everyone who doesn’t get the result they were looking for.

Steve: Well, I know.

It’s a major political issue.

Putin, I think, has declared Plushenko the winner, you know?

Mark: Well, I’ve got to say, the Russians can’t be too happy.

They’ve got to be crying in their vodka over there.

Their team is not doing well.

They hockey team got smoked by Canada in the quarter finals.

Steve: I know. They’re not happy.

They certainly have their work cut out for them for Sochi, because if they have these kinds of results in Sochi.

But I was listening to my Russian radio program and, yeah, I mean there are some issues.

They said right away ‘we’re going to build ourselves a bobsled track in Sochi and we’re the only ones who are going to use that bobsled track’.

Because it’s laid down and this is what the Americans did in Salt Lake and this is what the Canadians did and you’re only required to allow other people access to it.

So you’ve got to hand it to the Germans.

Apparently everybody in the world trains in Germany.

Six of the perhaps half dozen or six of the 10 tracks in the world are in Germany.

Mark: Right.

Steve: All the technicians, all the designers, everything related to bobsled is in Germany and everyone trains there.

But if you have your own track then presumably you have an advantage.

Mark: Now is there not a track in Calgary from the last time we had the Olympics?

Steve: There might be.

Yeah, there probably is.

But I guess the advantage is that you get to train all the time on your own track.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Although, there was a rather unfortunate what we call ‘yellow journalism’ under the UK where they were trying to blame the unfortunate deadly accident involving the Georgian luger on Canada in some way, which is completely ridiculous.

First of all, the track was designed by a German and then there were suggesting somehow that this guy, if he had had more experience…he had actually been down it 40 times.

Mark: Twenty-six times.

Steve: Twenty-six times or whatever.

Mark: Right, they’re allowed to go 40.

He had been down 26 times already before he lost control.

I mean it was a totally freak thing.

Freak things happen.

Steve: And there’s a lot of sniping around, I saw this sort of ‘Worst Olympics Ever’.

The British were the first to say it and, of course, that gets picked up right away.

So the Russian thing, they’re saying the ‘Worst Olympics Ever’ and stuff like that.

I mean I guess it depends on your perspective.

If you’re a journalist and you got rained on or your bus was late then you get unhappy, but from the point of view of the average Vancouverite who’s paying the bill here — most of it — I think it’s been a tremendous success.

Mark: And there were some early comments by the British Press I understand, but I think now the perception is quite a bit different.

I mean people are saying this is one of the best ever and I mean as far as the community support — people getting excited and the Olympic spirit – they say the only Olympics to rival it was the one in Australia and that was the Summer Olympics, so.

I mean there are a lot of positive things happening.

I heard firsthand from one of the players on the Swiss National Team.

I mean he said this is his third Olympics.

He was in Torino, he was in Salt Lake and he said hands down it’s night and day.

This is by far the best.

Steve: But, you know, I think it depends on, again, what sport you’re in and what happened to you.

Mark: Sure.

Steve: Certainly, from a hockey perspective, this was the best because you’re staying in luxury apartments down on Falls Creek with a bird’s eye view of the mountains and the whole city.

You’re playing in a …

Mark: …on the water and the hockey rink is around the corner.

Steve: And it’s an NHL, world class.

Mark: And you’re downtown, right downtown Vancouver and the Athletes’ Village in Vancouver, they’re basically million dollar condos on the waterfront.

Steve: Right, on the waterfront.

Mark: I mean that’s what they are.

Steve: But I gather the village in Whistler is not…

Mark: …not as nice.

Steve: It’s a little more Spartan.

Mark: Right.

Steve: More along the traditional lines; it’s more of army barracks.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And the other thing is that some of the events…I mean, yeah, it was unfortunate with the weather conditions here at Cypress and even some of the cross-country events.

When I saw that Slovenia cross-country skier slide off the track down into a ravine, just about…

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: and she then had broken ribs and kidney damage or whatever and she still competed and won the Bronze Medal.

Mark: It’s amazing.

Steve: But how can they have it so that you can just slide off the track and fall down this ravine?

Mark: I don’t know.

Steve: I don’t know either.

So I think there were some technical issues.

My biggest beef with the VANOC, which is the Vancouver Organizing Committee, is that it stuck me as very arrogant.

Like they chased some poor Greek who had a pizza parlor called Olympic Pizza and he had to change his name.

Mark: No, he didn’t in the end, but that was a long time ago too.

Steve: Yeah, but there’s arrogance.

I just felt that they were very pushy in their whole approach.

Anyway, that’s…whatever.

Mark: Anyway, I think we don’t need to discuss the nuts and bolts.

Steve: No, no.

Mark: It’s more about the competition.

Steve: Well, that’s right.

Mark: There’s been some great stories and it’s been lots of fun watching the Olympics.

Steve: Lots of fun.

It’s extraordinary, for example, it was interesting watching the Chinese curlers because, obviously, curling is not a popular national pastime in China.

Mark: Right.

Steve: It is in Canada. I mean probably Canada has more people curling than anywhere else in the world.

Mark: I’m sure. Not probably, by a factor of 10.

Steve: You know every little community has curling.

I mean curling is what you do in the winter, right?

Mark: Right.

Steve: But in China…they may be the only four curlers in China, I don’t know.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: And, yet, they are the world champions.

And I gather that they were long-distance speed skaters.

Mark: Oh, really?

Steve: And, of course, the Chinese Government said hey, you know, curling, there’s a medal.

We’ll pick some people with some good athletic ability, you know, and we’ll train them and there they are world champions.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Four of them.

Mark: I understand that they spend the winter in Edmonton or something and curl over here.

Steve: Oh sure.

Mark: Because they’ve got to play against somebody.

Steve: Well, that’s right.

So if you pick people who have this basic athletic ability and the right frame of mind and they learn it and then they come out here and they get some topflight competition and, there you are, they’re internationally competitive.

Next thing you know we’ll have a curling team from Ethiopia, you know, that spend a couple of winters in Edmonton and they’re ready to go.

Mark: It is a bit of a funny sport, really, as sports go.

Steve: You know your mom is totally into it now.

Mark: Really?

Steve: She’s there watching now, Canada-Sweden.

Mark: Oh, it’s the finals.

Steve: It’s the finals and she loves it.

That’s one of the things she most likes watching.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I don’t understand it.

I still don’t understand it, but it’s just about a national sport.

Mark: Yeah. Well, especially small towns.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: It’s not so popular in the cities, but in the small towns they’re crazy about it.

Steve: Well, I know.

I mean in Manning, Alberta, a thousand people, I mean they followed the Canadian championships that led up to the selection of Kevin Martin.

I mean that was big news.

That was bigger than hockey.

That was bigger than anything there.

Anyway…

Mark: Well, we’ve got a few days left, a few days left, but of course the big event for us will be that Canada hopefully beats Slovakia tonight and makes it to the Gold Medal Game again the U.S.

Steve: Surprising, surprising, I would have called Finland to beat the U.S., but anyway.

Mark: Anyway, we’ll see.

We’ll be back after — next week — and then we’ll either be happy or sad.

Steve: That’s it. Okay.

Mark: Talk to you next time.

Steve: Bye for now.

Mark: Bye.

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

Mark: Hi everyone, welcome to another EnglishLingQ podcast.

Mark here with Steve.

Steve: Hello there.

Mark: We have the sun shining today.

Steve: You call that sun?

Mark: Sort of.

Steve: It’s trying to peek out from behind a big, ugly cloud.

Mark: A lot sunnier than it has been and warm; is it ever warm.

I mean, apparently, world wide that’s making the news — that we have the Winter Olympics coming and it’s warm here.

Steve: You know it’s the warmest that I can remember.

I mean, normally, I go cross-country skiing up at Cypress or downhill skiing right through to March.

Mark: Yeah, right.

Steve: So it’s really unfortunate.

Mark: Well, yeah.

Like nine years out of 10 there’s three meters of snow up here.

The only issue is the local Vancouver Mountain where they’re having the freestyle events.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: They don’t have much snow.

We had a lot of snow before Christmas, but it’s been so warm and a lot of rain and it’s washed most of it away or a lot of it away.

It’s the worst possible scenario.

I mean it happens.

We have years like this where they don’t get snow.

Steve: But this is the worst.

This is the worst I’ve seen.

Mark: In a long time.

Steve: Yeah. And, yet, the rest of Canada has been cold with lots of snow.

Mark: Well, I know.

And I saw where, of course, David Suzuki has come out and said that we have no snow because of global warming.

David Suzuki is a local environmentalist…

Steve: Environmental activist.

Mark: …jumping on the opportunity to promote his cause.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: I mean, come on.

Steve: Where was it…?

I think it was in Austria one year they had no snow for the Olympics.

I mean it’s not the first time that this has happened.

Mark: No.

Apparently in Lake Placid they had to truck in snow from a lot further away than here.

Steve: Is that right?

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Yeah.

You know, I must say, it’s a bit surprising though.

I was on the highway here and I see these huge dump trucks full of snow.

Mark: Oh, yeah.

Steve: Hauling snow in. Normally we haul snow away.

Mark: Right.

Steve: We don’t haul snow in, so.

Mark: I know.

The thing is we get so much rain here that we just need a couple days where the temperature drops two or three degrees…

Steve: Exactly.

Mark: …and then there’s a meter of new snow up on the hillside.

Because we do get warm periods and cold periods every year, but so much snow falls during the colder periods that it doesn’t really matter.

But we’ve had a steady sort of warm period since January when it began and we just haven’t had snow locally.

Although at Whistler, where they’re having all the alpine and the Nordic events, they’ve got lots of snow it’s not an issue; it’s further inland.

Steve: But we often have the experience in the winter, even in February, that we’ll go through like a week of solid rain here and it’s just, you know, cloudy and rainy and dark and then all of a sudden we’ll get a sunny day, but it will cool like zero centigrade and we look up at the mountains and they’re just covered in snow.

Mark: Right.

Steve: It’s almost like this layer of ice cream has been put on top of the mountains.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Whereas, we’ve been deluged with water and we haven’t seen the mountains for a week.

Mark: Yeah, I know.

Steve: And all of a sudden we get a clear day and they’re just covered in snow.

Mark: Most years.

Steve: Most years, but that’s what needs to happen.

Mark: We just need that, but, I mean, you look at the weather forecast; it looks like it’s staying warm.

Steve: I know.

I mean and the worst, too, is going to be if it’s raining and warm and people are up there watching these Olympic events.

And it’s just raining…

Mark: I know.

Steve: …and people are standing there in the rain watching this.

Mark: I know.

Steve: Anyway, whatever.

Mark: Anyway, it’s the worst possible weather scenario, but, I mean they trucked in snow and they’re doing whatever they can; it should be fine.

Steve: Well, whatever it is.

Mark: It will be what it will be, at this point.

Steve: It will be what it will be and since I only care about the hockey, I don’t really care and that’s indoors.

And, of course, we see flags all over the city.

I’m afraid to go downtown because there are so many traffic restrictions and I haven’t checked to see which roads are closed to traffic and which aren’t, so I just stay out in our little suburb here.

Mark: My understanding is that the traffic is fine in most areas.

It’s just some areas that are closed off like around Olympic Village and around the venues and around the Canada Place there, but we’ll see.

I mean people still haven’t started arriving.

Steve: Well, some people are here.

Mark: I mean it’s just the athletes and support staff, but I mean…

Steve: …the bulk of the tourists…

Mark: …the bulk of the tourists…

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: …won’t come until later.

Steve: But it’s going to be very interesting.

Right near by we’re going to have a bit of a center here with whatever, so.

One thing I was commenting to you, you know, I see all these Canadian flags everywhere.

My view is, you know, we’re receiving the world, we should have all kinds of different flags out there; be a little more hospitable.

I don’t like it when we get too sort of national…I wouldn’t say nationalistic, I mean it’s all in good spirit sort of thing.

But, yeah, we hope the Canadians do well, but I mean there are athletes from all over and we should welcome them with their flags.

Mark: Well, I don’t know which flags you’re referring to.

I mean I’m seeing the car flags, I don’t see the guy going and buying the…

Steve: No, no, here in Dundarave all the shops have Canadian flags.

Mark: I haven’t been there.

Steve: Alright, okay.

Mark: But the flags I’ve seen are on people’s cars.

I can’t imagine most people are going to go out and put a, you know, Russian flag on their car.

You can only put one.

Steve: I will.

Mark: If they can put one flag they’re probably going to put a Canadian flag.

Steve: No, no, that part of it I agree with; that part of it.

I just think the stores, though, the restaurants and that, should have the different flags.

Mark: Oh, I see, yeah.

Steve: It’s more colorful.

Mark: Which ones should they have?

Steve: Well, the main countries; you know, Italy, France, Austria…

Mark: There are lots of countries there.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: There are lots of countries there.

Steve: Pick some. I don’t know, Japan.

You name it, China.

Mark: I’m sure downtown there must be a bunch of different flags everywhere.

Steve: Yeah. Sure.

Mark: We’ll see. I mean it’s getting exciting.

I mean, obviously, there’s a lot of buzz around town.

Everybody is talking about the Olympics and who has managed to get tickets to what.

I understand there’s going to be a lot of free events and activities and so on, both locally here in our little part of town, but downtown, especially, a lot of big sponsors and governments have pavilions and activities and events, so I’m looking forward.

I think it will be a lot of fun.

Steve: They’re going to have the ‘Cultural Olympics.’

Mark: They are?

Steve: In other words, they managed to get a bunch of, you know, programs.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: I don’t know. I get a little bit cynical about those things.

Mark: Right.

Steve: That’s fine.

We’ll have folk dances from here.

That’s good, the Cultural Olympics.

The trouble is it’s nicer if they have like some kind of traditional stuff that people actually like, but a lot of this stuff is this sort of avant-garde.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: You know; strange music and people dressed as skeletons falling from the rooftops and stuff.

I don’t know, shock, you know?

Mark: Yeah, I have to say, for the most part, it’s the Olympics.

It’s the Olympic Games.

It’s the different sports and the best athletes are here to compete.

Forget the Cultural Olympiad, have that as a separate event.

It’s like they’ve got that…

Steve: They’re piling so much stuff.

Mark: …and then they’ve got the Pair Olympics.

Steve: Well, the Pair Olympics is another issue, but they’re just trying to pile so many events onto the Olympics.

Mark: I know. Yeah.

Steve: But, hey, you know, actually, a majority of people in Vancouver, I was reading, are actually not very happy about the Olympics or something.

That the press is reporting on this — that the people here are kind of jaded…

Mark: Oh, yeah?

Steve: …or somewhat negatively-exposed towards the Olympics.

Mark: I don’t find that in the people that I talk to.

I don’t come across too many people that are anti the Olympics.

Steve: Yeah, but you’re not a newspaper reporter.

Mark: That’s true.

Steve: So if you found one guy who was anti the Olympics that’s your story, right?

Mark: Yeah, right.

Steve: Boy, you know, newspaper reporters are pretty bad.

Mark: They’re pretty bad, yeah.

Steve: They really are pretty bad; always digging for dirt. Not like us.

Mark: No, we always see the rosy side.

Steve: The bright side; the rosy side of things.

Other than that, yeah, we were trying to plan our possible trip in the summer because someone suggested to us that this home exchange was the way to go.

Because then you can go and stay in someone’s house, they stay in your house and then you’re not spending the money to stay there.

But that’s proving a little more difficult to do, because the likelihood that you’re going to find someone where you want to go…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …that wants to come and stay in your house…

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: …at exactly the same period of time and that’s going to find you…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …it’s not so easy.

Mark: No.

Steve: So after our initial enthusiasm…

Mark: But it’s interesting.

I mean never having looked into it before, it’s interesting to see those sites and those kinds of things made possible by the Internet.

Steve: That’s true, yeah.

Mark: I mean it’s neat, connecting different people all over the world and families and people tell a bit about themselves.

If you do find the right situation I mean I think it will be great.

You get to use people’s bikes and cars and the house and they use yours and, obviously, it’s a very economical…

Steve: Finish off their liquor cabinet?

Mark: Finish off their liquor cabinet.

Obviously, it’s a very economical way to travel.

So, I mean we’ll see what ends up happening there.

We’ll keep you all posted, of course.

Steve: Right.

Mark: But it’s just interesting.

Steve: But even, you know when I went traveling with my wife, Carmen, in Portugal and Spain, the Internet, this Bookings.com, was just so useful because they rate the different hotels.

You can find it by price level, by nearby hotels and then there are so many people that use the site that the ratings are very up to date.

So someone will say, you know, this hotel is very nice, but it’s very noisy because they’re building next door.

And this is like two weeks before you’re planning to go or a month before, so it’s very up-to-date information.

So, yeah, it’s tremendous.

I think the Internet is…I mean it’s amazing.

Well, we lived without it, you know?

Mark: Right.

Steve: We could go back to living without it, but it is tremendously convenient.

Mark: Yeah, absolutely.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: Absolutely.

Steve: I mean any time you think of something… It’s almost a distraction, because you’re reading something and it talks about some issue in history.

For example, I like to read about history and then I sort of say gee, I’d like to know a little more about that.

I drop my book, I go to the Internet and I look it up.

Mark: And an hour later you’re still there.

Steve: Well, yeah, that can happen.

Mark: Now you’ve gone and checked your email and this and that and, yeah.

Steve: So, it does tend to invade your lives.

Mark: Plus, what about when you go on the Internet and you can’t find what you’re looking for that should be there?

Steve: I know.

Mark: How can that not be on the Internet?

Steve: Well… Although, I must say, you know while the quality of the information on Wikipedia is sometimes a bit spotty, it is there just about all the time.

Mark: Yeah, it is.

Steve: It’s amazing.

Mark: Yeah, it is.

Steve: Whatever you put up you get a Wikipedia.

Mark: I know, yeah, yeah.

Steve: And I mean, in most cases, it gives you what you need.

Mark: Exactly.

Steve: It’s really quite amazing. Yup.

Mark: Oh, did I tell you that my old hockey coach from Switzerland might have a ticket for me…

Steve: Wow!

Mark: …to the Canada-Switzerland hockey game?

That would be pretty good.

Steve: Well, you know I have a ticket to Russia-Latvia, I’ll trade you.

Mark: Yeah, for sure.

Obviously, the hockey tickets for games where Canada is playing are very hard to come by, so if that comes through that would be great.

Steve: Well, the level of competition, too, for the hockey is going to be unbelievable.

I mean there literally are six teams, any one of which could win.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And for all we know maybe Slovakia or someone is going to sneak in there, but I don’t think so.

Mark: Right.

Well, I mean Canada is going to win.

Let’s get serious.

Steve: Okay.

Mark: No, as you say, there’s lot of…

Steve: No, you know I think people are quite realistic.

Mark: Oh yeah, for sure.

Steve: I asked my buddies on the Old Timers Hockey Team (this is our over 60 group) and they said they think that’s it three teams…

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: …Sweden, Russia, Canada.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But any one of them could be in the final.

And, for all we know, it could be the Czechs or the Americans or the Fins, who are not to be discounted, so…

Mark: Right. Yeah, I mean that’s the thing.

I mean in Italy Canada came seventh.

Steve: Yeah, pretty bad.

Mark: That’s pretty bad, so there’ll certainly be a fair bit of pressure on them here.

Steve: There will be.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: There will be, indeed.

But, I mean, the Olympics has some pretty spectacular events like sky jumping.

I mean that is pretty spectacular.

Mark: Yeah, I like it.

I enjoy them.

The speed skating, long track and short track I really like.

I think the biathlon is a neat event to watch.

There are lots of events that are fun to watch.

I mean it’s fun.

I like watching the Winter Olympics.

The downhill skiing and…

Steve: Yeah, the downhill is pretty exciting.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: And there are just so many events.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Ah, in a way, I like them better than the Summer Olympics.

I mean you can’t say that, you’ve got gymnastics and stuff that’s pretty good.

Mark: Especially because Canada does a lot better in the Winter Olympics.

Steve: Canada is way down the list in the Summer Olympics.

Yeah and then there’s countries like Norway, they’re amazing.

I mean they do very well.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: You know?

Mark: Yeah, they do.

Steve: And Germany, Russia, Norway.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: But Canada did quite well the last time; they were up near the top.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: So, figure skating is fun; although, I find it a bit boring after a while.

It’s pretty much the same after a while.

Mark: Yeah, I always have trouble with the sports that are decided on judging alone, because it’s kind of arbitrary.

It doesn’t seem fair.

I don’t know them that well.

Steve: I can’t tell.

I see some girl that finishes ninth and, to me, she did just as well as the girl that finished first.

Mark: Well, I know.

And a lot of it’s based on who you are and what you’ve done before, but a lot of people that’s the event for them in the Olympics is the figure skating.

I mean everybody has different preferences.

Steve: For some people it’s curling.

Mark: For some people it’s curling.

Yeah, I know. I know.

Steve: I know, especially in small town Canada, western Canada.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: I mean in the Town of Manning where we have our mill, I mean to them the big event is curling.

Mark: That’s a big event?

Steve: Yeah.

I don’t even know the names of the Canadian curlers.

Mark: No, I know.

Steve: But they know.

Mark: They know them all.

Steve: And the whole lead up, the elimination to get there is followed almost like religion.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: I mean that’s all they talked about up there, so…

Mark: Right.

Steve: But it’s good that people are different…

Mark: Absolutely.

Steve: …interested in different things.

Mark: I heard that downtown the Australians, whatever athletes are here already, have put out some huge flag they’ve hung from their dormitory, which is causing some kind of issue.

Steve: They have a Winter Olympics team?

Mark: Apparently.

Steve: Oh.

Mark: Well, they have that Canadian guy that skis the moguls for them…

Steve: Oh, okay. Oh, that’s right moguls, yeah.

Mark: …who used to ski for Canada and then, for whatever reason, left and went there.

Steve: Hey, there is a guy who skis… You know there’s a Ghanaian skier?

Mark: Really?

Steve: Yes and he’s like legit.

He’s not like Eddie the Eagle.

Mark: Oh, really?

Steve: Yeah, he has actually beaten some people.

Mark: Really?

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: Downhill skiing?

Steve: Downhill skiing.

Now I think he was not born in Ghana, but he has, obviously, a Ghanaian name…

Mark: Right.

Steve: Kwame Nkrumah or something.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But he’s genuinely a competitive skier.

Mark: Wow.

Steve: And he called himself the Snow Leopard and he wears… You know how they all have these tight uniforms?

Mark: Yeah?

Steve: His is like a leopard skin type of thing, right?

Mark: Really?

Steve: He says his main objective is to have somebody below him, you know?

Like when he first skied in international competition he finished last.

Mark: Yeah?

Steve: But then the last two times there were two people below him.

So, I mean, which is great, you know?

Mark: I know. I mean those kind of stories make it fun.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: Eddie the Eagle was fun…

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: …even though he was a notch below the rest of the field.

I think they brought in rules where he wouldn’t be able to…

Steve: No, you have to qualify.

Mark: Right.

Steve: So this Ghanaian guy has legitimately qualified.

Mark: Well that’s good. That’s fine.

Steve: And the first Ghanaian African.

Do they have any snow-capped mountains in Africa?

Do you think they would have any areas?

Mark: I have no idea, they must.

Steve: I have no idea, they must.

Mark: Do they not?

Steve: I don’t know. I have no idea.

Mark: I have no idea.

Steve: No idea. Anyway, we’ll probably report back in a couple of weeks on the Olympics.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: We should know a little more about snow conditions at Cypress.

Mark: They should be in full swing by then, yeah.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: With any luck, the temperature can drop here a few degrees and we can start to see some snow up there.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: I mean the very tops of the hills are getting snow, but obviously not where they need it.

Steve: Not in the local mountains.

Mark: No.

Steve: Anyway, we’ll see.

Mark: Yup.

Steve: We’ll see how the different countries and how the different competitors do.

You know we mentioned this before, there’s like a billion dollar security budget, so I gather everyone has to, you know, be at their bus three hours ahead of time.

Mark: It sounds it.

Steve: It’s just going to be unbelievable, unbelievable.

So, hopefully, there’s no incident.

Mark: Well, I think that’s for any of the events that require busing into it like they’re doing for the local mountains and I think they’re also doing for Whistler; that you’re not allowed to drive there, unless you have a parking spot or a place to stay or something.

So, anyway…

Steve: …we’ll see.

Mark: We’ll see. We’ll let you know how it’s going.

Steve: Absolutely. Okay.

Mark: Talk to you next time, bye-bye.

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

Mark: Hello, again.

Welcome to another episode of EnglishLingQ.

Mark here with Steve, as usual.

Steve: Hi there, nice to be here.

Mark: Yeah.

Oh, the sun is shining today, which is a bit of a departure from the weather patterns we’ve had for the last couple weeks.

Steve: Well, we’ve had very warm weather here, most of it wet.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Which is not good, because we need cooler weather and we need snow for the Winter Olympics.

I think it’s less of a problem for the downhill events at Whistler, but for the local mountains where we’re going to have the freestyle, I think there’s a real problem or there could be.

Mark: I think there could be.

We got a lot of snow before Christmas, but then since Christmas I don’t think we’ve had a lot.

And then the last 10 days or two weeks we’ve had what they call “The Pineapple Express”, which is the weather system that comes in off the Pacific like, I don’t know, drop from Hawaii or wherever it comes from, which brings a lot of warm rain and washed away a lot of the snow on the local mountains for sure.

Steve: You know I went up there to have a look, because I go up there cross-country skiing.

Then I went and visited and chatted with some people and apparently they’re stockpiling snow all over the mountain.

They have been doing so for quite a while and then they cover this snow with a tarpaulin.

And the idea is that if you get a great mound of snow that that creates sort of a refrigerator effect and, of course, you cover it with something so that the rain can’t melt it.

And so they claim that, regardless of what happens with the weather, they’ll have enough snow for the freestyle events.

Mark: Oh, I think that’s the case.

They’ve been stashing snow, they say, at the higher elevations.

Plus, I mean today you look up the hill, I mean the tops of the mountains it snowed up there.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Even though it rained hard down here it did snow up there.

Steve: Right.

Mark: And they don’t need that much snow for the freestyle events.

Steve: No.

Mark: I mean nothing there is very long; the runs aren’t that long.

Steve: No.

Mark: They have the mogul competition and then like the…

Steve: …half pipe or whatever it’s called.

Mark: Well, that’s the half pipe.

Steve: Pipe? I don’t know.

Mark: Yeah, I guess.

That’s a snowboard event.

Steve: Yeah. I don’t know what all those things are.

Mark: And then they have the, whatever they call it, the aerial?

Steve: Yeah, aerials.

Mark: Aerials?

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: That doesn’t need much snow either.

Steve: No.

Mark: So, I mean, I don’t think it will be a problem, it’ll just be too bad.

Steve: No.

Mark: Because most of the time there’s plenty of snow up there, so it just won’t seem very wintery as they won’t have a lot of snow.

Steve: Well, that’s right.

It will be pretty bad, too, if everybody is standing around in the rain watching Winter Olympic events.

Mark: Yeah, that would be bad.

Steve: But, I mean the whole Olympics, I must say, though, you know I was just thinking about this.

You know the Olympics are so commercial.

It’s so commercial.

I mean I think they’ve got a lock on the use of the name “Olympic”, so some local Greek guy who had a pizza parlor called Olympic Pizza had to change the name of his pizza.

Mark: That’s true, isn’t it?

Steve: Something like that.

Mark: Something like that.

Steve: I mean that’s just ridiculous.

It’s so commercial.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: It’s so commercial.

And it’s interesting because they have lots of volunteers, but it’s a big money business.

Mark: I know.

Steve: Big money. Anyway…

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Kind of too bad, but I guess it’s unavoidable.

I don’t know.

Mark: I don’t know. I mean, yeah.

It’s maybe not a business; they’re not trying to make money at it.

Steve: The athletes make a lot of money.

Mark: But the athletes do well, yeah, for sure.

Steve: And, obviously, the sponsors feel that it’s in their commercial interest to be sponsoring.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And they sponsor on television and they sponsor their beer hall.

You know Heineken has a pavilion.

Mark: And, obviously, the TV companies obviously make money at it or they couldn’t afford to pay as much as they do.

I mean does the Olympic Organization or whatever it’s called, International Olympic, they must make money?

Steve: Well, they need to make money to pay, because I don’t think many of their people, first of all, I don’t think they travel in ones and twos.

Mark: No.

Steve: And I don’t think they stay at the YMCA.

Mark: No.

Steve: I don’t think they travel by, you know, the lowest possible…

Mark: The lowest buggy.

Steve: No. So they obviously live pretty high off the hog.

I don’t think they go back home for a bowl of noodles every evening either.

Mark: No.

Steve: But, no.

And then, of course, whenever you see the athletes interviewed they’ll always hold up their skis so that you can see the name of a manufacturer and so it’s a pretty commercial event.

Mark: Well, that’s not specific to the Olympics, though.

Steve: No.

Mark: In any of those downhill or skiing events, those guys have their sponsors.

That’s their livelihood.

I don’t have a problem with them promoting their sponsors.

Steve: But, you know, this makes me think of something.

Here we are in the world today where we are so closely connected through the Internet, through television, through whatever.

We’re all living in the same time, almost in the same space and here we are talking about the Winter Olympics.

And we’re talking about weather and we’re talking about the money that’s all sort of flowing around the Olympic Games and at the very same time you go down to Haiti and we’ve got… We don’t even know the number, is it 50,000 people dead?

Is it 100,000 people dead?

How many people have nothing to eat, have no water?

Apparently it seems as if there’s marauding gangs and total disorder down there.

Mark: Sure and dead bodies everywhere.

Steve: Dead bodies lying around.

Mark: And injured people and, yeah, I mean it’s…

Steve: Unbelievable.

Mark: I mean I think it was pretty bad before the earthquake, so since the earthquake… Because I think last year they had some kind of serious flooding…

Steve: They had a big tsunami or…

Mark: A tsunami or something happened last year.

Steve: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: …that they’re still trying to recuperate from and then this happens.

Now, I mean, I guess because of the whole interconnectedness of everything the international response has been pretty big.

Steve: But, again, it’s such a rapid response and so you have this sudden arrival of all kinds of airplanes and boats and hospitals.

And, of course, the UN is there and there’s all kinds of, apparently, regulations.

You can’t have a military hospital because it’s a peacekeeping thing.

Well what does it matter?

If a person is dying on the street he just wants access to medical care.

Mark: Well, yeah.

I was reading an article where some of aid organizations were complaining that there’s no efficient way of getting the aid out to people.

People are dying, even though the aid is there.

People are there ready to give it and the problem is you’ve got the Americans there, you’ve got the UN there and they’re pretending that they’re operating on orders of the Haitian Government, which is essentially…

Steve: …nonexistent, if it ever was existent.

Mark: So nobody is really stepping forward and taking charge, which then makes things not work smoothly.

These people were saying that the U.S.

should just take charge.

Not that they were Americans, but they were saying they’re the ones that can make it happen they should just make it happen and the UN is not going to do it.

Steve: But the difficulty there is and I saw some complaints.

I think the French were complaining that their aid planes weren’t coming in and the Americans, having taken over the airport, were giving priority to the American planes.

And that insofar as evacuating citizens, the Americans had taken over the airport with a single landing strip and that they were giving priority to their own citizens, which is kind of almost hard not to do.

I mean if the French, say — we’re talking about the French here — or the Russians or the English or anyone had taken over the airport, they probably would give priority to their own citizens, so it raises a lot of difficult questions.

Mark: Yeah. I mean I guess you would.

I mean you shouldn’t.

Steve: You shouldn’t.

Mark: It’s not your airstrip; you’re just coming in to manage it.

Steve: I know.

But it’s easier to lean on someone, you know, that you know where you have connections and so forth and so on.

So, yeah, it’s quite a mess, quite a mess.

And then you read about…I mean the people are upset, the Haitians are upset.

They’re demonstrating in the streets and creating barricades and stuff and, yet, the planes and the boats are not being unloaded.

I mean why don’t they go off and help unload and carry?

Each person carry.

Of course, the poor person that grabbed the first bit of supply from an airplane probably won’t get very far before he would have his throat slit, you know?

Mark: Well, yeah.

I must say, I never quite understand the people protesting in the streets when there’s been a disaster.

Like I think the same thing happened in New Orleans when they had that disaster.

People are trying to help, but nobody owes you anything, really.

Steve: Right.

Mark: I mean these are other countries coming in to help you, just appreciate whatever they can do for you.

Steve: Exactly.

Mark: How can you possibly be protesting?

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: I mean at a certain level you have to look after yourself.

Steve: Well, exactly.

Mark: And these people are coming to help you.

Wow, is that ever great.

Steve: And, and, yeah, there will be problems and imperfections.

I mean do you think a group of angels have arrived that all operate perfectly like robots?

Mark: Yeah, right.

Steve: The other thing, if you’re talking about that, is if the same magnitude of earthquake had happened just about anywhere else there might have been 5,000 people killed.

Mark: Well, exactly.

Steve: So, to some extent, the people there have to take responsibility.

Now it’s not the fault of the poor person that they’ve been governed by a corrupt, you know, people over the many, many years.

But I understand, too, that the colonial buildings built by the Spaniards – I haven’t confirmed this, but I heard on Russian radio where I was listening — that those buildings are still intact.

It was a 7.2 on the Richter scale and there have been other places where they had an earthquake of 7.2 on the Richter scale and there was no where near the…

Mark: But then they showed like the government buildings collapsed.

Presumably, those were built by the…

Steve: No, no, those are more recent.

Mark: Oh, is that right?

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

They showed some old cathedral that collapsed that looked like it was fairly ancient.

Steve: Oh, well, maybe, so then I can’t…because, as I say, I can’t vouch for it.

Mark: I mean I don’t know.

I did read that, I mean, Haiti is one-half of the Island of Hispaniola…

Steve: Right.

Mark: …and the other half being Dominican Republic where the standard of living is, I don’t know what, 10 times what it is in Haiti, so it suggests that they have doing a lot of things wrong there over the years.

Steve: Well, that’s right.

Now that’s not fair then to sort of visit the sins of all the previous governments on the people who are there right now.

Mark: Oh, absolutely not.

Steve: And there must have been some shocks felt in the Dominican Republic.

But I was reading actually in the paper today comparing the two places and one of the things is that in the history of course, Haiti, they revolted against the French Crown.

And, of course, there was a pretty severe sort of plantation economy there so, obviously, there was a lot of resentment on the part of the Black, you know African slaves and so they basically got rid of their Europeans.

Whereas, Dominican Republic remained a Spanish colony for longer and they actually opened themselves up to immigration.

So they have people there from different countries, you know, whether it be from Europe, I gather there’s Koreans and Japanese and people from the Middle East, so it’s more of a mixed community there.

Whereas, you almost have the impression that in Haiti, more than anywhere else in the western hemisphere, you’ve got some kind of a sudo, voodoo, almost, you know, anti-modern culture going there.

I know nothing about the place.

I know no one from Haiti, so I can’t, but from what I read, not a very constructive, you know, environment it seems.

Mark: No, obviously not.

I mean they don’t have much going in the way of industry.

Steve: Apparently there’s 2,000,000 Haitians living in the States.

There’s 100,000 I know just in Montreal.

So there is quite a diaspora of people, but I don’t know if those people eventually go back and try and improve things there.

I don’t know.

Mark: I don’t know.

I mean it’s tough when it sounds like nobody is in control.

Not just now during the earthquake, but most of the time it’s pretty lawless there and pretty tough, probably, to get things done and turn things around.

You wonder whether something like this couldn’t be used to help turn things around.

But I guess it’s centered in Port-au-Prince, which I don’t know how many people live there.

Steve: Nobody knows, probably.

Mark: Nobody knows, probably.

It sure is built up.

I mean I don’t know how big Haiti is, but you picture a Caribbean tropical island.

But there’s not much in the way of trees and greenery that you see in the pictures.

Steve: No.

Apparently, I was reading that Dominican Republic, which is two-thirds of the Island, has a better climate, more rainfall.

Mark: I saw that too, yeah.

Steve: Yeah, so it’s not an ideal environment.

Is it likely that as a result of this terrible disaster they’ll suddenly be able to sort of sort things out?

I tend to believe that the reconstruction will take a long, long time.

I think it’s pretty desperate there.

Who knows?

Mark: Who knows?

Steve: Who knows?

But we’re all vulnerable.

I mean we could have an earthquake here in Vancouver.

They had that terrible earthquake in China, but I mean China has greater means, is a much better organized society.

Still, there was a tremendous loss of life there and there were also similar issues of substandard buildings.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And I think in China I think there’s a greater likelihood that… Maybe in Haiti they’ll start building a better quality of building, but there’s no economy in Haiti.

In China there’s an economy.

There’s wealth, there’s money, there’s educated people, a greater number of them then in Haiti.

So I don’t know what the future holds for Haiti.

Mark: No, pretty tough.

And there are a lot of people there; there’s 9,000,000 people in Haiti.

Steve: Wow, on a basically very poor…I mean there’s nothing there.

Mark: There’s nothing there, amazing.

Steve: It’s amazing.

Mark: So I think they still have a few issues to sort out, even once reconstruction gets going.

Steve: Yeah.

I mean it is extraordinary that the world can respond in this way to a disaster.

So you would say, well, it would be great if the world could respond on an ongoing basis to help places like Haiti.

But then you say, okay, but there are a lot of places like Haiti.

And the record in Africa, for example, if we look at places that have developed, China has gone from being very poor to having probably the highest rate of economic growth in the world; they didn’t do it through foreign aid.

You know India is now developing.

Now they’ve received a lot of foreign aid, but I don’t think the development there has been, you know, based on how much foreign aid they’re getting.

Africa has got a lot of foreign aid and hasn’t done very much with it.

So, I mean I don’t think there’s any normal-thinking person in the world that wouldn’t want all of the poor countries in the world to be better off.

Mark: Right.

Steve: That people have a decent living there.

That those countries can operate and function property with economies and jobs and proper health systems and education systems and so forth.

The question is how do you achieve it?

And I’m not sure that massive foreign aid is the way.

Mark: Yeah, I don’t think that’s proven to be the way.

But what’s also true is that we’re unlikely to solve it here on an EnglishLingQ podcast.

Steve: This is true, this is true.

We don’t solve much here.

Mark: No, but we’re happy to hear any of your thoughts on this issue.

We’re going to end things here, but what are your thoughts on Haiti or developing nations or really anything else that comes to mind?

We’re always happy to hear from our listeners.

Steve: Well, one thing I was going to add is that people going to Haiti have to learn how to speak Creole.

One day we should maybe have Creole on LingQ.

Mark: That’s a good idea.

We’ll get to work on that.

Any of you Creole speakers, get in contact with us.

Okay, bye-bye for now.

Steve: Bye for now.

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

Mark: Hello everyone and welcome to the first EnglishLingQ podcast of 2010 or twenty-ten or whatever people will end up calling it.

Steve: Happy New Year.

Mark: Happy New Year.

Steve: Happy New Year.

Yeah, it’s the first year of the next decade. Is it? I think it is.

Mark: I’m not sure how these things work, but it makes sense to me.

Steve: Well, it becomes an issue, you know?

Is 2011 the first year of the decade?

I think that was a problem as to what’s the first year of the century.

I don’t understand it.

Mark: Well, it brings me back to the conversation you were having with Annie about your first year being when you’re age zero.

Steve: Right.

Mark: So, therefore, presumably the first year of the decade is in the year zero.

Steve: So, therefore, 2009 is not the ninth year of the decade; in fact, it’s the last year of the decade.

Mark: That’s right.

Steve: Alright.

Mark: This is a very important point, I’m glad we covered it.

Steve: Well, the other interesting point is what we call the year and I think in different languages they do it differently, but I think most people are going to say 2010.

Mark: 2010 or twenty-ten.

I mean here we have the Olympics coming and everybody calls it the twenty-ten Olympics.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Nobody calls it the 2010 Olympics, so I’m assuming that’s an early insight into what people are going to call this year.

Steve: You know I think that our discussions are more interesting if I disagree with you.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And so I disagree with you.

Mark: Okay.

Steve: I think people will call the year 2010 and they’ll call the Olympics twenty-ten, so there.

Mark: Well, that could be. That could be.

Steve: Who knows?

Mark: We could probably spend the next 10 minutes discussing this…

Steve: But we won’t.

Mark: …because it’s…

Steve: …it’s important.

Mark: People always have trouble or want us to just use numbers and ask for content containing numbers because numbers are very often one of the more difficult aspects of a new language.

Steve: I know.

Mark: So that’s why we’re doing it.

Steve: Right; alright.

I mean what we could do is we’re looking at this counter of the sound of our sound file, I could go one minute fifty-eight, one minute fifty-nine, two, two zero three.

Anyway, we won’t do that.

Mark: We’ll save that for another occasion.

Steve: We’ll save that for another occasion.

Christmas and New Year.

Now, of course the world is a big place.

Christmas is not a holiday in every country of the world.

Also, some countries have different New Year’s and Russia has a different Christmas and stuff.

There are different calendars, traditional calendars, although everyone, at least officially, is on the same sort of international Gregorian or whatever.

I don’t know what it is, Julian calendar.

But it seems that the end of the year and the beginning of the year coming is kind of a holiday everywhere and people are getting time off from work and so did we.

Mark: And so did we.

We had a great vacation.

Our family of kids and grandparents went skiing, which has become an annual custom or an annual event.

We all go to Big White, which is in the interior of British Columbia near Kelowna.

I’m sure we’ve spoken about it in previous podcasts in years gone by.

We did that again and it was another great event; skiing, downhill skiing, playing hockey outdoors, cross-country skiing…

Steve: …snowshoeing, eating meals together…

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: …and, yeah.

It’s a nice drive too when the weather is nice.

It’s about a five-hour drive and you drive over two mountain passes.

And the first mountain pass, basically, is through the coastal mountain range where you sort of cross from the area of very large trees and the sort of rainforest of the coast into the dry hinterland where the trees are smaller because the climate is colder and dryer.

But then I find that’s it’s the second, the connecter between Merrit and Kelowna, that is so spectacular.

You’ve got these trees just covered in this heavy snow and you can see these large vistas of forest.

A lot of young trees, because it’s an area where there has been a lot of logging.

And so you’ll see forests that are 10 years old, 30 years old, 80 years old, spruce, pine, which I guess the average person doesn’t pay much attention to.

Mark: Most people probably don’t differentiate between the species.

Steve: Or nor the ages.

Mark: I know people that essentially refer to all evergreen trees as pine trees.

Steve: At any rate, it’s a pleasant drive out there.

In Kelowna we visited with some friends there and it’s the wine country, so you can see the vineyards and sample the wine.

So really we’re quite blessed here, in terms of…yeah?

Mark: And, actually, what was great about the trip when you can see the trees and admire the vistas that’s just that the weather is not too bad.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Which when you’re driving through those mountains is a good thing.

Steve: Yes.

Mark: It started out a little hairy coming home.

Coming out of Kelowna it was quite foggy going up to….

Steve: Oh, really? Oh, we didn’t have a problem.

Mark: …the connecter and blowing snow and I thought oh-oh, this is looking bad.

The roads were good because it had warmed up so they were just wet.

It ended up being a little bit foggy, but wet.

So it was fine, but it’s when you have the blowing snow or slush or the hard-packed ice.

Remember that year you got a flat tire on that washboardy ice?

Steve: That was no fun.

We had ice, it was washboardy, which means it was bumpy, and then I had a flat tire.

And because it was so bumpy on this ice I didn’t realize that I had a flat tire, I just said, “Boy, this is really bumpy.” And then eventually I pulled over and… Oh, and it was very funny because we had an empty wine bottle.

Because we always take a little bit of cognac and wine and so forth, so we had some empty or at least some open liquor bottles in the trunk.

And so we were pulled over and I was changing the flat tire and the wind was howling and snowing and everything.

And so this car stopped behind us.

Very nice family; these people were native, aboriginal family.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And the lady said “Oh and here you are, you’re stuck” and she gave us candles.

She gave us about eight little candles, just in case we should…you know, we wouldn’t be able to get it done that we could heat ourselves in the car.

And then when she saw the open liquor bottles in the trunk she said “No!

That’s the worst thing you can do.” She was very concerned that we were going to be drinking the liquor there.

So we assured her that we weren’t and we thanked her for the candles and she drove off.

So that was an event.

Mark: Yeah, there always seems to be an event or two.

Actually this year was relatively uneventful…

Steve: Yes.

Mark: …in the event department.

I remember the one year we had the rock through the sunroof; shattered our sunroof on the highway.

Steve: Did that rock fall from the hill or was it something that a car sort of…?

Mark: It must have been bouncing along the highway.

Because there’s so much salt and gravel that they spread on the road to make it drivable, you get the odd bigger rock that bounces up.

It must have bounced up somehow and just hit the sunroof in just the right place and shattered it as we were driving along.

That was a little unnerving.

Steve: That’s not very nice.

Mark: We spent the next three hours listening to the wind whistle through the sunroof on her way.

Steve: Brand new car, thinking about how much money you were going to have to pay.

Mark: Well, yeah.

Steve: And then, of course, the time when I had Eric and his family, our older son who lives in London and his family, so we squished all the skis and cross-country skis and poles onto the roof rack.

And I guess I hadn’t clamped it down properly and we’re driving on the highway and all of a sudden it just sprung loose and so our skis just scattered over the highway.

So we pulled off…

Mark: You’re lucky nobody was driving behind.

Steve: Well, no, no, they did drive over some stuff.

And we had pulled over and there we were out on the highway, cars going past us, picking up our skis.

Really, it was quite a dangerous thing.

Mark: Yeah, I’ll say.

Steve: But we survived that.

We survived that and we had a great holiday.

Of course Eric and his family, his two kids, they didn’t have a chance to participate this year because they were back in London.

Last year they were living in Boston so it was closer.

Mark: Right.

Steve: The other family member that always is left out, of course, is Gordie the dog.

Mark: Gordie the dog, who would have such a good time up there in the snow, but he doesn’t get to come.

But there are lots of dogs up there at Big White, actually.

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Mark: And, too bad, he would have had a great time going cross-country skiing.

Steve: But he can’t come because, basically, most people who rent up there don’t want dogs.

Mark: No.

People don’t want dogs in their places and also it’s a bit of a pain.

I mean you’re up there, it is completely snowbound, so you’ve got to try and find a way to get out with the dog, even though you can’t, obviously, go downhill skiing.

I mean it would be nice to have him.

I don’t think he would really enjoy the five-hour drive in the car.

Steve: No, no.

Mark: Plus, he’s quite a big dog and takes up a fair bit of room and we were jammed to the rafters as it is, so…

Steve: I know. Well, inevitably, we take up more food than we need.

Mark: I know.

Steve: Because the thing is, up there it’s quite expensive to go out to eat and not necessarily very good.

Mark: No and there’s not much in the way of restaurants.

Steve: No.

Mark: I mean most people bring their food and you’re renting a condo and you make your own meals.

Steve: Which is part of the fun too.

Mark: Absolutely, yeah.

Steve: Yeah.

And, yeah, so, anyway, that was a nice holiday now we’re facing our new year.

We see, hopefully, some continued strength in the economic recovery, time will tell.

Mark: It’s always interesting to come back from the interior where, you know, you’re in winter there and you come over the Coast Mountains and you’re back to Vancouver where it’s…

Steve: …seven degrees…

Mark: …seven degrees and green and usually raining.

Actually it kind of helped that it was pouring raining.

It was pouring rain when we got off the Coquihalla connecter, but it kind of cleaned the car.

It got all the salt and muck and road grease off the car, so that was kind of handy.

Steve: By the way, for the purpose of our transcriber, Merrit is m-e-r-r-i-t. One “t”, I think.

Mark: I think, yeah.

Steve: Kelowna is k-e-l-o-w-n-a.

Coquilla is c-o-q-u-i-l-l-a.

Mark: h-a-l-l-a.

Steve: Oh, is it?

Mark: Co-qui-halla.

Steve: Oh, Coquihalla, right you are.

Anyway, close enough.

Anyway, back to it.

Yeah, actually, I stopped for gas and there was a no-touch car wash.

Mark: Oh, yeah.

Steve: So I went in there with the ski rack.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Cleaned off all the muck from the skis.

And it does the underbody, because you don’t want all the little gravel in the wheels and all that stuff.

Mark: And all the salt…

Steve: Salt, yeah.

Mark: …that rusts the underbody of the car, so I maybe should have done that myself.

Steve: Yeah.

Anyway, I felt quite happy and I drive a clean car into my garage rather than driving all the muck into the garage.

Mark: Well, yeah.

Steve: Well, in the past I’ve driven and left it outside and then I have a little spray power washer and then I try and clean the car a little bit before putting it in the garage or else you get all the little gravel and stuff.

Mark: Well, there’s so much grime off the road when they’re salting and sanding and so on.

Actually both ways this year were great for the drive; hardly any snow on the road in either direction, so that was great.

Although there was lots of snow on the mountain, so that’s where you want it.

Steve: It was great in that sense, yeah.

I wonder, speaking of snow, what’s going to happen with the Whistler Olympics.

We have the Winter Olympic Games here and because Whistler is only…well, it would be 100 kilometers inland.

It’s got sort of a partially mountain climate and partially kind of coastal climate.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And so they can get warm periods where the snow melts and it rains instead of snowing, so…

Mark: But then at the same time because it’s coastal they can get, you know, 100 centimeters in a couple days of snow, just because they just have a lot more precipitation there then they get in the interior where we were.

Although, having said that, where we were apparently like in the last week they’ve had 70 centimeters of snow at Big White.

I don’t know what’s happening at Whistler.

They’re probably getting snow too.

Like 7 degrees here, they’re getting snow at Whistler.

Steve: Yeah. Well, I hope so.

Mark: It has to be warmer than that here for it to rain up there.

Steve: And we need some snow here on the local mountains because the Olympics are going to take place sort of in three or four locations.

Any of the sort of stadium events like speed skating and figure skating and hockey and curling are in the City of Vancouver.

The freestyle skiing is up here on a local mountain called Hollyburn.

Mark: Cypress.

Steve: Cypress rather.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: It’s Hollyburn Mountain. Is it?

Mark: I think it’s Cypress Mountain.

Steve: Anyway, Cypress Bowl, Cypress Mountain, whatever.

Okay.

Mark: Hollyburn is where the cross-country is.

They’re beside each other, but they’re different mountains.

Steve: Oh, no, but, oh, I see.

But the cross-country for the Olympics is at another location.

Mark: Is up at Whistler.

Steve: Which is at Callaghan.

Mark: Or at the Callaghan Valley.

Steve: Callaghan Valley, which is just, I guess, west of Whistler or south of Whistler.

And then the alpine events are at Whistler itself, so there’s four different locations.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But we will need snow on the local mountains, presumably.

Although, I guess for the freestyle they can use more artificial snow.

Mark: Well, I mean they have snow.

All the mountains have a pretty good base because it snowed quite a bit before Christmas.

Steve: Right.

Mark: It’d be nice to get some fresh snow, obviously, during the Olympics.

Although, I think for the alpine events they kind of prefer hard and icy as opposed to fresh snow.

A lot of times up at Whistler they can have almost too much snow.

Steve: Yeah.

It’s unbelievable how they ski on that ice, unbelievable.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: When they miss a turn and go flying that’s wild.

Mark: Well that’s why, apparently, some of the top Canadian downhill skiers are injured right now.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Because when they do fall they really hurt themselves quite badly.

Steve: But I gather it’s not just the Canadians.

Mark: Oh, really?

Steve: I gather there’s a number of top competitors who have hurt themselves.

It’s interesting, you know, how do you prepare for the Olympics?

If I were preparing for the Olympics I would not go all out in the lead-up events to the Olympics.

(A) I want to peak at the Olympics.

(B) I don’t want to risk injury.

Mark: You know it’s tough, I think, in any sport.

The minute you try to ease back and not go so hard that’s almost when you get hurt.

I think you just want to go and try as hard as you can and hope for the best.

Also, if you’re foot is off the gas in the lead up, it’s kind of hard to just turn it on again.

I mean I think you’re trying to prepare yourself …

Steve: But, still, the psychological preparation I think is quite important.

I mean you played a lot of competitive hockey and you yourself know that if you really key yourself for a particular game, say your team does and the whole team comes together and plays extremely well for this game against a key opponent, the next game it’s very difficult to reach that same level.

Mark: Well, yeah.

Steve: So, I mean these kinds of things, I guess they have teams of psychiatrists working or psychologists.

Mark: Yeah, I mean who knows?

I guess the thing is they’re in the World Cup circuit.

I mean I think they have injuries every year.

Steve: Aha, we will see what happens.

Anyway, that’s a little bit of a New Year podcast.

We do hear from people that they like our podcasts.

We would like to hear if they have any particular requests in terms of what they would like us to talk about so that we generate the vocabulary that maybe they want to be working on, so don’t hesitate to let us know.

And how would they let us know?

Mark: They can let us know on the forum on LingQ.

Steve: There you go.

Mark: Anyway, we’ll talk to you again next time, bye.

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

Steve: However, if we’re looking at language learning…

Mark: And BlackBerry didn’t let you make apps for the longest time.

Steve: Oh, okay.

Mark: It’s more of a recent thing, but having said that I mean iPhone the apps thing is exploding.

Steve: I mean listen, if BlackBerry catches up and they allow people to build apps they will undoubtedly try to copy some of the features that iPhone has.

Mark: Oh, they have done so already.

Steve: But the interesting thing is that, again, this Japanese professor from Hawaii showed, you know, he said “Let’s look for German flashcards.” In terms of looking there’s an apps store or whatever they call it, right, on the iPhone; over 100 apps having to do with learning German, just learning German.

That’s today.

And they list by most popular and stuff like that.

And he, himself, is devising special apps for handwriting characters and recognizing characters and, you know, voice…

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Well, you name it.

So that’s one extreme.

And he’s obviously a mid-30s, techie kind of guy.

But then I’m leaving that discussion and there’s a lady, she’s probably in her 50s, Chinese lady and she teaches Chinese.

And she has developed a whole range of things that she does for her class all of whom have iPods or at least iPhones or iPod touches, including flashcards for characters, everything related to the lesson.

She’s figured out their mentality and if she gives them stuff to do that isn’t specifically required for Friday they won’t do it.

And her teenage daughters have shown her how to track what they’re doing on their iPods: most frequently, you know, visited or recent, whatever.

You would look at her and say she’s not likely to be an early adapter, but she is.

Mark: Right.

Steve: All I’m saying is that once people decide that they want to use this technology it’s really not that difficult to use.

Mark: No. That’s the same with any technology.

If you’re motivated to use it you’ll figure out how to use it.

Steve: Including LingQ.

Mark: Including LingQ.

Well that’s right.

Steve: Right.

Mark: You know we’ve talked about having an iPhone application for LingQ and one thing about people, I think, one thing about people that do have iPhones or iPod touches is that they want to use them.

Like it’s a neat device and they’re looking for excuses to use them, so that’s where, you know, an iPod application might be a good thing.

Because if people are looking for an excuse to use it and it does what they need then they’ll use it and people will see them using it because they’re out in public with it and it might be a good way to help spread things, but that’s an aside.

Steve: Well, I mean we were looking at my iPod touch, which I bought, by the way, from an automat from a vending machine.

I went to a vending machine with my card and bought this product, which cost $200.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Unbelievable.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Anyway, we were looking at my iPod touch and of course we can access LingQ from it.

So I can actually do my flashcards on my little iPod touch…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …which is extraordinary.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: And there are perhaps…you know people have different preferences when it comes to flashcard systems.

And we are looking at exporting our lists from LingQ into different flashcard systems so that those that like Anki or SuperMemo or whatever they like they can then use their preferred.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Because people do have preferences.

Mark: However, we’ve been talking about exporting our flashcards for quite a long time, so in the meantime…

Steve: Yes?

Mark: …it works on the iPhone.

Steve: Well that’s right.

It works on the iPhone people.

Now some of the, you know, actions are a little more difficult to do on the iPhone screen.

Mark: Sure.

I mean…or you just have to zoom in…

Steve: But the flashcards work fine.

Mark: Yeah, the flashcards are good and even the linking does work.

Steve: It does work.

Mark: It does work.

Steve: But you have to be very skilled …and have long fingernails.

Mark: It’s just a small screen is all, but it does work.

Anyway, that was neat to see.

Really, I guess, we should have been more early adapters on the iPod touch, iPhone.

Steve: Right.

Mark: We should be testing these things.

Steve: I know.

Anyway, people, go and use it and tell us what you think.

One thing I wanted to finish off with about that language conference, one thing that I thought was very interesting, is the extent to which certain countries are totally committed as a matter of sort of foreign policy to promoting their languages.

So the Spanish Embassy had a huge presence there.

The Chinese, I mean it was dominated by the Chinese; the Confucius Institute Hanban, which is another Chinese government, you know, institution that promotes the Chinese language.

The Italians were very well organized.

I spent an evening with a group lead by the Italian Embassy Consulate and they’re connected to the Italian public radio and television system RAI.

And they have a tremendous range of Italian learning programs that are available free of charge for kids, you know, on history, on cooking, on you name it.

So, I mean…and the French they had a big splash there and yeah.

So it’s interesting to see that there is this effort to, yeah, to get languages out to people.

So I think everything that surrounds language learning is just getting a lot more exciting.

It’s not some obscure thing you do in a classroom that’s sort of frustrating and annoying.

Mark: Well a lot of people still think it is, unfortunately.

Steve: Yeah.

Mark: But we’re trying to change things.

Steve: And it’s not just us.

I mean the French have this TV5…TV Cinq.

Mark: Right.

Steve: They have a lot of different programs.

In fact, the French government has a language learning site that approached the University of Texas and asked for permission to use some of their Spanish and Portuguese content.

In other words, the governments are getting into promoting language learning and coming up with different video and, you know, worksheets and stuff like that, so there’s a lot of stuff.

Mark: But they’re competing with us.

Steve: I know that they are.

Mark: But they’re subsidized by the taxpayer.

Steve: I know.

Mark: That’s a problem.

Steve: No it’s not.

I think that 99% of people think they have to go to a classroom.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I continue to believe that the more people…oh and I’ve got to remember one other thing.

The more people that realize that language learning depends on them and that there’s a tremendous number of resources out there…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …the better.

And many of these resources we can, in fact, integrate into our functionality at LingQ.

And some people will like our functionality and some people will like some other functionality.

Mark: Right, absolutely.

Steve: I have no trouble with that whatsoever.

Mark: The more people that want to learn languages online the better.

It doesn’t matter where they’re doing it.

Steve: Which reminds me…

Mark: They’ll eventually realize that ours is the best.

Steve: Well, it’s the only place I like to go.

No, I think ours is more practical.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But people have their preferences.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: You know Sunday was the last day and everybody was kind of packing up their exhibits and there were no more seminars to go to and I had nothing else to do, so I went to the Rosetta Stone booth.

Mark: Yeah?

Steve: Because I had commented about Rosetta Stone on my blog.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And I said you know my son used it and, from what I gather, it’s not something that I would use.

And so someone actually contacted me from Rosetta Stone and said we’ll send you a free copy if you will review it.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: So I got a copy of Arabic, which is what I asked for, but I haven’t bothered doing much with it because of the nuisance of putting stuff in my computer and whatever, so I thought I’ll go there and walk through it.

So they didn’t have Arabic, but they had Korean so I went through Korean.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: And my impression was that it’s extremely well done.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: And if you want to get sort of jumpstarted in being able to say a few things like, you know, this is a tree or your ladder is falling down…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …then it’s good.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: But all of the content is chosen by them and so I fast forwarded.

Like you begin by having multiple choice pictures of a boy drinking juice or eating a cake, whatever and at some point you sort of read or try to answer and if you get it correct or whatever you go forward and stuff and then I said yeah, yeah.

And then we went to the advanced thing and they had two workmen and the ladder falling down and you were supposed to say stuff and it’s not obvious to me that I want to talk about ladders.

So the thing about it is it gets you saying things and if that’s the goal then perhaps that’s good, but the vocabulary that they can provide you with is so very, very limited.

And so I did not come away feeling that this was necessarily the way to go.

Mark: Yeah.

I mean that’s my impression from when I used it for Japanese.

I mean it’s fine.

And it’s like, you know, there’s all kinds of different language courses that you can buy, whether it’s teach yourself or Rosetta Stone or whatever and they all get you started.

Steve: Right.

Mark: That’s all they do.

Steve: Right.

Mark: And after that you’ve got to listen and read a lot and do the stuff that we do.

Steve: And, you know, we can finish off with a commercial.

But one lady who was the head of the San Diego Language Center said something, which I firmly believe in and I hadn’t heard it expressed quite that way.

She said “Language learning comes down to three things: time on task, motivation and attentiveness.

Those are the three.”

It’s a lot of time and that’s why we try to make it more interesting and more enjoyable, it’s motivation and there again if it’s interesting content you’re more likely to be motivated and attentiveness.

And I think that our flashcards and, you know, our discussions…

Mark: …highlighting…

Steve: …and corrections and all of these things help to make you just a little bit attentive because the language can flow by you and you miss things, so I think, you know, we’ve kind of zoomed in.

The other thing too about time on task is we make it possible with LingQ because the audio portion, which is the biggest use of time, is something you can do anywhere.

Whereas, if you’re obliged to sit in front of your computer the amount of time you’re going to have available is less.

Mark: Right.

Steve: So, time on task…

Mark: And I guess we feel that your time spent doing what we ask you to do is time spent more efficiently, obviously.

Steve: Because it makes you more attentive.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Because it’s more motivating.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But people might be motivated to watch movies, but they’re not going to watch movies three hours a day.

They can’t watch a movie while walking down the street they’ll run into a telephone pole.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Whereas, I can walk down the street and listen to languages and then review the words and phrases at LingQ.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Anyway, a little bit of a chat there.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: We’d love to hear from you.

I’m sure there are some early adopters out there who are doing different things with technology.

Mark: Maybe using LingQ on their iPhones.

Please let us know how you find it.

Steve: Okay. That was a long one.

Mark: Bye-bye.

Steve: Bye for now.

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

Mark: Hello again.

Welcome to another episode of EnglishLingQ.

Steve: Hello.

Mark: Steve is here again with Mark.

I’m Mark, of course, for those of you who don’t know.

Steve: Of course, right.

We need to have a television camera or something, yeah.

Mark: Something.

Steve: And then we’d lose our audience.

Mark: Don’t let the cat out of the bag, so to speak.

Steve: Alright.

Mark: Anyway, we haven’t had a podcast together for a while.

Steve: Right.

Mark: I know you’ve just returned from the, whatever, American Teachers Conference, whatever…Language Teachers Conference in San Diego.

Steve: It was a very interesting conference in San Diego.

When you live in Vancouver the chance to go to San Diego for five days is nice.

Because all five days that I was down there it was like 18 degrees Celsius, whatever that is in Fahrenheit.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Sixty or something, sunny, not a cloud in the sky and here in Vancouver it rained hard and the wind blew.

Mark: The whole time.

Steve: The whole time. So that was kind of nice.

It’s called the American Council for Teachers of Foreign Languages.

Mark: Yeah, okay.

Steve: And they have an annual convention and this one was held in San Diego.

It was an amazing experience for me.

I’ve been to other language conferences; this is the biggest one I had been to.

They had hundreds of seminars every day and, you know, there was a whole range of experiences.

A number of things that surprised me, I have to say, all of the American teachers — in other words, not native speakers of French, Spanish, German, Chinese, Japanese — that I came across were very fluent in the language they were teaching, which was astounding because I have had so much experience with teachers teaching French when I was a kid in Canada who couldn’t speak French very well, so I was very impressed.

There were some rather boring presentations.

Many of the presentations were like unilateral.

Some guy gets up there and drones on, which is surprising because I kind of feel that teachers nowadays want to engage the audience a bit more.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But there were some interesting presentations.

But what I want to get into with you is this whole issue of modern technology, the iPod touch, iPhone and the impact that I think that is already having on language learning and where we think that’s going to go.

And of course you’re much more technical than I am because you’re my son and your son is much more technical than you are because he’s 10 years old, but that’s where things are headed.

Mark: Well I know.

And I know you just got an iPod touch because you’re inspired by your trip to San Diego and you’re hoping that my son will be able to help you use it.

Steve: I know. Now that I’ve got it I need help.

Mark: I’m not so sure if he’ll be able to help you or not, but if he had one of his own and used it for a while he probably would.

Steve: Right.

Mark: But, at any rate, I know you mentioned that there was a significant portion of the conference attendees that were more traditional and were talking about traditional language teaching-type things, but then there was the 20% of attendees were doing neat things with technology and you were telling me that those were the guys that you were most impressed with down there and saw the most potential for, I think.

Steve: Well exactly.

You know the first day I was there someone who was supposed to run a workshop — talk for an hour and a half and then have a workshop for an hour and a half — droned on for four hours talking about research into language learning with conclusions like advanced readers read better than intermediate readers.

You know things of that nature.

Mark: Now somebody had a gun to your head making you stay in this four hour conference?

Steve: No. What happened was I got there a day early because I had a deal on the hotel tied in with my air.

Mark: Right.

Steve: There was nothing much happening.

There were five seminars; this was the only one that wasn’t sold out.

Mark: Oh!

Steve: So I went.

Mark: Okay.

Steve: So that was kind of a bit of a low note the first day.

There were others, you know, they were talking about drama and, you know, Immanuel Kant and all kinds of, you know, obscure things that were kind of, to my mind, I had trouble relating to, but some of the really good ones starting talking about this idea of open education.

The University of Texas Language Center, for example, has a tremendous collection of audio/video/text content and they just make it available to anyone, open education.

There’s someone at Rice University who is on the same path.

Of course MIT has stuff out there for people.

You want to learn, just get on and learn.

That whole open education thing was interesting.

But I’m not sure they are the dominant voice because apparently even at the University of Texas the other lecturers will get up at a lecture and say “You cannot copy this.

I own the rights to what I’m about to tell you.” So there’s a real struggle there between those professors who are trying to protect their rights to whatever they say and think even though, of course, everything they’ve read they got from somewhere else, right?

Mark: Right.

Steve: But now that they’ve put it together in some format they own it.

That as opposed to this other group that is saying it should all be open.

Mark: Right.

Steve: So that whole debate was interesting.

Then there were university people saying – more than one speaker saying — that learning has changed.

It’s not the professor doling out knowledge to the students it’s very often the professor learning from the students; for example, how to use the iPod, iPhone, students finding content that the professors didn’t know about, excellent content, you know, authentic things relating to culture, relating to language, whatever it might be, so it’s become much more of an equal relationship.

So there were a lot of people saying those kinds of things and I’m sure they represent the vanguard, not necessarily everybody.

Mark: I’m sure.

Steve: By the same token I’ll get into later on some of the exciting things people were saying about the iPod touch and the iPhone.

But there was a conference on how to use the iPod for language teaching, there were 80 people in this huge room, the presenter didn’t show up.

So then half the people left, but a bunch of other people, including me, we stayed around and we started talking.

Like there were two of us who had used an iPod.

The majority of the people there didn’t know what an iPod was.

Mark: Was or did?

Steve: Was. I showed them one.

“Oh, that’s an iPod?”

Mark: That’s unbelievable.

Steve: Yeah. I mean sure.

But what was so impressive is this thing is growing so fast that there are some people who are very advanced and we’ll get to them, but there’s a large number of people who know nothing.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And then there’s a bunch of people in between who maybe use it a little bit to listen to music.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And my impression is that all those people who didn’t know what it was they’ll know soon, those that were there.

And next year if I go to another one of these conferences — it’s going to be in Boston next year — like three times as many people will be using it.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I just think it’s an exploding phenomenon.

Now I have a tendency to get excited about things, but…

Mark: Well, I mean it’s not just you saying these things.

Obviously the iPod already has exploded.

I mean these people are at the tail end of it, I guess.

Steve: Yes.

Mark: They may have been in a cave somewhere.

I mean it’s not like it’s something that’s come along in the last year or so.

I mean the iPod has been around for years.

Steve: I mean here were these language teachers and they said “What’s a podcast?” which is not so surprising.

Mark: But you know that’s the thing, if you’re not involved in one, if you don’t listen to them.

Perhaps you’ve heard the term, it’s a bit like the iPod, but if you’re not motivated to go out…

Steve: And if it’s a strange new term you’re actually turned off by hearing of things that you don’t know.

Mark: Yeah, you know I don’t need an iPod.

I’m happy with whatever I’m doing and maybe they are.

Steve: Sure. They’re still listening to RPM records.

Mark: Yeah, sure, they’re happy.

And maybe they don’t listen to that much music or they’re happy with their records or whatever the case may be.

Steve: Right.

Mark: And until you feel a need to actually use new technology…I mean there are some people that whatever new technology is out there they want to use it right away, whether they have a use for it or not.

Steve: Correct.

Mark: And there are other people that, no, if I don’t need the thing I’m not going to bother.

I don’t need to learn about it.

I don’t need to buy one.

Steve: One of the most interesting conferences I went to was on the last day there were two professors of Japanese, one from Dartmouth and the other from Hawaii and the one from Dartmouth had done a study on what the learners wanted to do with their iPod.

And I can’t remember all of it, but that was kind of interesting.

She’d actually, you know, what are they prepared to do with their iPod.

They’re prepared to do a lot.

They’re prepared to read books on their iPod for gosh sakes.

Then the professor from Hawaii, who was also a professor of Chinese, or Japanese rather, he had some interesting statistics on the growth of the iPhone versus Blackberries.

It’s dramatically in favour of the iPhone.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And the most dramatic difference is that there are over 100,000 apps (applications) that have been written for the iPhone, there are 300 that have been written for the Blackberry, 60 for Samsung, 20 for Nokia.

I don’t remember the exact numbers, but it’s that range and that order of magnitude.

Mark: Sure.

Now the thing is it’s the type of people that are on iPhones versus on Blackberries that probably determines a lot of those statistics.

Like your iPhone type is your early adopter-type tech keener who likes all of his gadgets, likes all these applications and so on and your Blackberry is basically a business device.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Business people use it to keep in contact with each other, send emails.

Steve: This is true.

Mark: So it’s a different type of user.

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

Steve: Hello there, today Mark is away.

And, besides, we’ve had a lot of complaints that people have trouble telling Mark’s voice from mine, that we should have a female voice.

So I’ve gone and recruited Kate, who’s normally busy on the lumber side here, and I’m going to talk to her about swine flu because she recently had some swine flu immunization shots.

Didn’t you, Kate?

Kate: Yes.

I got the regular seasonal flu vaccine for the first time in my life and at the same time I got the H1N1 vaccine, which is the one that is causing the controversy all over the world.

Steve: Now, there was quite a bit of controversy here because the Calgary Flames Hockey Team managed to get all their players and their family members vaccinated when there are all kinds of people who are waiting for the vaccine.

So are you a professional athlete?

Do you know someone?

How did you manage to jump ahead of the others and get this vaccine?

Kate: Well, you see, that really is the issue.

When I went in to the community center, just across the road from our office earlier in the week, I really felt quite…I was wondering whether, you know, people would be screaming and picketing “We want the vaccine” because they’re rolling it out.

They’re vaccinating people here in B.C.

on a sort of need-to-be-vaccinated basis.

So the first group to be vaccinated would be those with, they say, chronic conditions; for example, diabetes or asthma.

I have asthma.

Now I’m a very healthy person.

I exercise.

I am in good health.

Steve: Right.

Kate: But I do have asthma.

If I exercise in the cold, if I exercise very hard, suddenly it feels like there’s an elephant sitting on my chest.

So I do take a daily medication — a puffer — and I have an emergency puffer.

Steve: So this is not an asthma of convenience in order to get a vaccine?

Kate: No.

Steve: I’m not accusing, I’m just asking you.

I’m taking notes and you will be reported.

Kate: Exactly. This is a real issue.

This certainly has come up that anyone could walk in and say well, I have, you know, whatever…asthma, diabetes, kidney problems, whatever and get the vaccine ahead of people who really do have problems.

Steve: And they don’t ask you to verify it or prove it.

Kate: Well, you see, they do have nurses, apparently.

Either you can go to your doctor, who presumably would know your medical history and know whether you’re in the priority group, because I believe the first week the priority group is those with these chronic conditions that would leave you vulnerable to the H1N1 disease.

It does apparently really affect the lungs and the chest, so, okay, that’s why asthma makes the list.

But then if you go to the community centers they have sort of addressed this concern of people jumping the queue.

They do have a nurse there, so the first person I had to speak to was the nurse and everyone had to speak to the nurse.

There were a lot of people with young children there because another priority group is immediate caregivers of young children.

So when the nurse asked me sort of, you know, “What are you here for?” I said well I suppose the seasonal vaccine is probably a good idea and I have asthma, so I understand that’s an underlying condition.

Steve: Did you tell her that you parked in the handicapped spot?

Kate: Yeah. No, no, I was pretty good to walk across the street.

Steve: Alright.

Kate: You know I cycle, I’m in good health, but when I go cycling in the fall when the air is chilly I have to make sure to take my medication or I’m on the side of the road doubled over going “eeekkk.”

Steve: Right.

Kate: But, you know, I know how to deal with it.

Steve: Okay, I’m just joking.

Kate: Well, but she did ask me and I said, you know, I don’t know how to prove it.

I said I have my medication with me, it has my name on it and she said, basically, “okay.” I mean I think I looked pretty straightforward to her.

Steve: No, that can’t be the reason.

It must have been some other reason.

Kate: Yeah.

You know me too well, Steve.

You know me too well.

Steve: You slipped her a couple of five dollar bills.

Kate: Well, certainly there have been…

Steve: I mean you have to trust people, too.

Kate: Well…

Steve: I mean for a society to operate there has to be some level of trust, really.

Kate: There has to be, but, still, people seem to be so desperate and so angry about the availability or lack of availability of the vaccine.

I can certainly see that and there certainly have been stories in the news about well, you know someone could just borrow a puffer.

Well, exactly.

My puffer has my name on it, my doctor’s name, everything.

So I said to the nurse, I said, you know, “Do I need a doctor’s note or what?” And she sort of said, you know, “No.” If she had said “boo” I was prepared to leave.

I’m not going to fight for it.

But two weeks ago I probably would not have gotten the vaccine with all the contradictory information on the side effects, everything, but I guess in the last week or so talking to my sister who has three small children, talking to friends, my husband saying “You know we’re going to be traveling at Christmas, we’re going to be on planes, it will just be no fun.

I really think we should get vaccinated with anything we can.” Steve: Right.

Kate: It does sound like the H1N1 can be nasty.

As I said, a couple weeks ago I thought well, the flu is not that bad.

You know you’re sort of down for three or four days, you know, it happens.

Steve: Right.

Kate: But then B.S.

You hear the stories of people who have been healthy and then within three days they’re in the hospital in very bad condition and/or dead.

Steve: Yeah.

Kate: So the H1N1 seems to strike very quickly.

Steve: I read something in the paper this morning that it might have passed its peak, according to some expert. Who knows?

Kate: Who knows? Who knows?

Steve: Yeah, who knows?

Kate: A friend was just diagnosed with it yesterday and he’s at home with apparently such a splitting headache he can’t even move without throwing up.

His doctor wants to see him again.

He’s been sick for a week and it got worse after five days, so, you know.

And he has apparently severe chest pains, so that’s not pretty.

Steve: Not nice.

Kate: And he’s a very healthy guy in his mid 40s, so it can hit anybody.

Steve: I mean it is amazing this whole flu thing.

I mean I remember reading once that more people died from the so-called Spanish flu in 1918 than died in the First World War.

So you had all these people massacred during the First World War and then this Spanish flu hit and millions of people died from it.

So I mean, yeah, we are pretty vulnerable.

So, at any rate, so you’re healthy.

Where you are going?

Assuming now that you won’t get the flu, where are you going over Christmas?

Kate: I’m going to visit my sister with her three small children.

Steve: Right.

Kate: You know children, big germ factories.

Steve: And where do they live?

Kate: They’re in Ontario.

Steve: Oh, I see.

Kate: So it’s about a five-hour plane ride from Vancouver.

Steve: Oh, I thought you were going on a bicycling trip across Siberia.

Kate: No, no, not so much biking in the winter.

We’d have to get our snow tires.

Steve: Yeah, no.

Kate: No, just Christmas with the nieces.

Steve: Oh, okay.

Tell me, you know there are all these sorts of things, these events that affect sort of all of the world it seems.

Like we have the swine flu issue, there’s lots of controversy about the global warming issue, then we have the present economic crisis, so it seems like we’re beset by all these sort of events that our outside our control.

So we live our little lives, we plan our little trips, we meet with our friends or family and we eat and yet there’s all these other storms out there.

And I think nowadays with not only, you know, mass media but also the social networking and all this stuff, everything seems to be, you know, more dramatic than maybe it was before.

I don’t know.

Kate: Well I agree with you in that the information travels so quickly and can become a big story so quickly so that…I mean hundreds of years ago an epidemic of whatever in Europe no one in Asia would ever know about it.

Steve: No.

Kate: No one exploring out where it takes a month and a half or six months to go across an ocean would ever know what’s happening on the other side of the world. That’s it.

Your whole family could die of an epidemic and you’d never know it if you were an explorer, but now I mean you’d have a Twitter or an email or a text message within seconds.

Steve: Well that’s right.

And, of course, we travel and so we’re bringing, carrying all of these things.

Kate: How did you find Europe then?

Steve: Well, Carmen and I, we were in Portugal and Spain.

I mean both Spain and Portugal have swine flu or H1N1.

We just made a point of washing our hands a little more often than normal.

We didn’t get anything.

We didn’t really see anyone that looked to be sneezing our way, you know, so it was okay.

We didn’t really have a…

Kate: And you didn’t see…how about the media?

Because that’s it here they’re talking about shortages of staff and…

Steve: Yeah.

I mean there was a media…because, as you know, I am learning Russian, so on the Russian news program that I listen to the Russians, earlier in the summer, their health minister had issued an edict that kids who were planning to go to the U.K.

to study English would not be allowed to go.

Kate: Oh?

Steve: Yeah, the U.K.

Because at that time they figured the U.K.

was the real center of swine flu.

And I think someone mentioned that now Italy has also come up with some kind of a notice about not traveling to the U.K.

But we were in the U.K.

visiting with my son and his family.

I mean we didn’t feel threatened.

They didn’t feel threatened.

But, yeah, it’s out there, it’s out there, but, still, more people die from car accidents.

That’s not to say that one shouldn’t take precautions, but I think to walk around in dread of catching the swine flu.

Yeah, every time, you know, obviously a very tragic story, a 15 year old girl or a boy, you know, a teenager in the prime of health gets this thing and dies, so that’s on the front page and then the funeral and the family weeping and grieving.

And so then you say gee, that could happen to my grandchildren or to me or whatever, but people also get hit by cars.

You know I’m not trying to minimize it, but it’s…

I also believe that…there was an article in the paper the other day explaining that they really hadn’t defined this particular virus until, whenever it was, six-eight months ago and then it takes a certain period of time to develop.

First of all you’ve got to find out what exactly it is then you have to come up with an antibody, some kind of a vaccine.

That doesn’t happen overnight.

Kate: No.

Steve: No.

And so then the health officials have to make certain decisions: How much of the seasonal flu vaccine are they going to make or order, how much of this other are they going to order and how are they going to distribute it and where are they going to distribute it.

It’s not such an easy thing to do.

I, of course, don’t know, but I’m not ready to be persuaded that the government botched it, that the health system botched it.

Kate: Well, as you say, it’s such a huge decision with so many factors and that’s it, I think, going back to your point that things become bigger perhaps because of the media exposure.

They’ve been doing their best in Canada to convince people to get the H1N1 vaccine and they may have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

Steve: Beyond their ability to supply.

Kate: Yeah.

Because there are certainly a lot of people who do not believe in vaccines and believe vaccines whether they have mercury or the thimerosal or fish oils or I don’t know what.

Steve: Yeah.

Kate: There are things in vaccines that people don’t believe are good for them.

Steve: Right.

Kate: So some people are just simply anti vaccine.

Steve: Right.

Kate: And then there are people who, you know as I certainly was thinking, ah, you know the flu, not a big deal.

Steve: Right.

And then there’s the usual, ah, it’s just the pharmaceutical companies trying to make money.

Kate: Exactly.

Steve: So there’s always those conspiriologists who see a conspiracy.

Speaking of conspiracies — you know I enjoy people who see conspiracies everywhere — we came home and my in-floor heat system wasn’t working properly, so we called the plumber and the plumbing company sent over a plumber; very knowledgeable guy whose name is Ali and he’s originally from Iran.

Nice guy.

I like accents and try to identify where people are from.

He’s been here a long time and, you know, totally with it.

You know, “Hi, Steve.

Okay, where’s your problem.” But he speaks with his accent and I said “Ah, you’re originally from Iran.” “Oh, yes,” he says.

Then he goes on.

He goes “Oh, you know we’ve got these crazy Mullahs” and blah, blah, blah.

And he said, “But you know it’s not our fault.” I said, “It’s not your fault, for sure.” “Well, you know the Mullahs?

You know who put them there?” I said “No.” “The British.”

Kate: Oh? I had no idea.

Steve: So the Mullahs are an instrument of British foreign policy or something.

Because of course the British in the previous century and in the early part of the previous century…

Kate: The British Empire.

Steve: …they were all over plotting and scheming and doing their thing.

Kate: Well the sun never set on them.

Steve: Well, that’s right and they were playing one off against another I’m sure, yeah, but today in Iran the idea that the Mullahs basically were planted there by the British.

I thought that was in terms of conspiracy theories and I bet you he’s not the only one who thinks that.

I think there’s probably quite a widespread, you know, this is obviously the Mullahs…like he doesn’t like them.

I said “But I understand in Iran that you have, you know, part of the population, particularly the urban population, who aren’t so very religious, but that in the countryside people are quite religious.” “Oh, no, no, no, no, it’s just the British.” Well, okay.

And then he said, “You know we are not like the Saudis, our women wouldn’t wander around with their faces covered.

Iranian women are very strong and they may be the ones to take down the Mullahs.” I said “That’s good.

You know, that’s a good theory.” And I’m sure that there are women like that.

But I was in an Iranian restaurant here.

Every so often I go to an Iranian restaurant because I’m attracted by exotic food and then I end up with…

Kate: Iranian food is fabulous.

Steve: Well not to me.

I end up heartburn for the whole afternoon, but I keep on going back, you know?

Eggplant stew with gosh knows what.

Kate: Oh, yeah.

Steve: But this lady serving, who didn’t speak English very well, so I chatted with her.

Of course gave her a LingQ card and told her to go to LingQ.

But I said, “Well how do you like it here in Vancouver?” She’s been here like four months or something.

And she said, “I like it.” “Well why do you like it?” “Because of the law.

Because in Iran women have no rights.” And so I’m saying to myself, who is probably closer to the truth, this lady who is serving in the restaurant or Ali?

Kate: And he’s been here how many years.

Steve: And he’s been how many years, yeah.

Kate: And she’s been there a little more recently and gets it.

Steve: Right.

Kate: It affects her.

Steve: Yeah, but I’m sure…everything that I’ve seen would indicate that women in Iran are much freer than they are in Saudi Arabia.

Kate: Yes. Well, ah…

Steve: But I’m sure that the women in Syria are much freer than they are in Iran and she said so.

She was in Damascus and there the women you don’t see so many hijabs and stuff and the women are, you know, basically allowed to be more free.

But I don’t buy the idea that somehow the women are going to bring down the Mullahs and that the Mullahs were put in there by the British.

I think that’s kind of stretching it a bit.

Kate: I really have never heard the British thing. That’s interesting.

Steve: And then he went on to say that in Iraq, of course, the Americans are the ones behind the Curds wanting to be separate or whatever.

I mean there is enough of a, you know, ethnic division there.

It may serve the Americans there I have no idea, but to suggest that it’s exclusively created by the Americans.

I always find that in countries where they try to pin the fault or blame for their own problems on others that that quality is in itself probably the main reason why they’re in trouble in the first place.

You know whatever the circumstances it comes back to you, your group.

Kate: It’s not an outside force which is driving that.

Steve: I mean there are outside forces, but yeah.

Kate: But not completely. I mean I don’t think…

Steve: Exactly.

There’s got to be…you’ve got to begin by looking at yourself.

Anyway, so that was the conspiracy theory.

So the conspiracy theory, certainly there’s lots of conspiracy theorists here who feel that…I mean I’m sure there are people who believe that the H1N1 flu was created by the big multinational pharmaceutical companies so that they could make money.

It wouldn’t be hard to sell that theory.

Kate: No, no.

There are certainly some people who believe that probably all illnesses were concocted by the drug companies.

Steve: So you are vaccinated. Now I don’t need a vaccine you know.

Kate: Because you were born before 1957, perhaps, maybe.

Steve: Fifty-one even.

Kate: Ooh!

No, I didn’t say that, did I?

Steve: I know. But apparently if you’re born before 1951 you’re immune, they say.

I don’t know.

Kate: Okay. I had heard ’57, I think.

Steve: Is that right, ay?

Kate: Who knows?

Steve: I qualify for both.

Kate: There you go. You’re good.

Plus you’re just healthy.

Steve: Well, but being healthy there’s no guarantee.

Kate: No, you’re right. That’s the whole point, yeah.

Steve: A number of the people we’ve seen, teenagers or even middle-aged people…not middle-aged, but people in their 30s have been extremely healthy, like your friend in his early 40s.

Kate: Exactly. Well then you’re lucky, because actually the vaccine really hurts.

Steve: Oh, it does hurt?

Kate: Well I got it…not the vaccine itself, but you know I got the seasonal in one arm and the H1N1 in the other.

And the one that I got the seasonal in is from four days ago a teeny bit achy, but the one that I got the H1N1 still feels like I basically tried to go through a brick wall…

Steve: Oh, really.

Kate: …shoulder first.

Steve: So it feels like a bruise?

Kate: Yeah. It feels very bruised.

Steve: Not like a bee sting?

Kate: No. Well, no, because it goes into the muscle.

Steve: Right.

Kate: So the whole sort of upper arm muscle is very sore, so putting my, you know, shirt or sweater on for a few days was very, very painful.

Steve: Wow.

Kate: It just feels like a really, really badly bruised and/or overused muscle and I’ve heard that from other people.

The aches are apparently sort of four or five days for the H1N1.

Steve: Really? Still, preferable to having the flu.

Kate: Absolutely.

Steve: Kate, thank you very much for visiting with us.

And, we’ll see, maybe people don’t want Mark to come back.

But then you have your work to do too, don’t you?

Kate: Yes.

And Mark’s coming back whether anybody likes it or not.

Steve: Well he’s coming back here, but he doesn’t have to come back on our show here. Okay.

Thank you very much, Kate.

Kate: Thanks Steve.

Steve: Bye.

Kate: Bye.

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

Hello everyone.

And welcome to the English LingQ podcast with me Elle.

Remember it.

If you want to study this video as a lesson on LingQ, the link will be in the description every time.

Today I am joined again by LingQ member, LingQ team member, Eric, Eric.

How’s it going?

Eric: I’m good. How are you?

Elle: I’m good. Thank you.

Um, I wanted to chat with you again because the first time we chatted for this podcast, we talked about Japan.

Of course, we both lived there.

You lived there for two years and I lived there for three.

Uh, different places you were in Tokyo.

I was in the North East of Japan.

And we could have talked for a lot longer.

Uh, I think we capped it at half an hour in that episode.

And so I thought it’d be fun to chat again, share our experiences and give any advice for anyone who’s interested in Japan, Japanese living there, visiting.

So at first though, I want to say happy new year.

And, uh, I see that you have a very ambitious and inspiring Japanese language learning goal for 2021.

TEll me about that.

Eric: Yeah.

So, uh, this is the year I make a breakthrough, I guess you could say.

Um, no, but I just want to continue reading, but, um, yeah, I think last year I kind of went up a level, you could say, so now I’m reading more and this year I want to read even more.

So I kind of, uh, noticed the more I became,… uh, comfortable in reading Japanese, the more I want to read Japanese.

Um, so this year, 10,000 words a week is my goal.

And that’s probably from my experience that’s about one to two hours a day for reading.

Um, generally speaking to put into context, like at NHK, easy news article.

Uh, those one of those is probably 150 words.

So that’d be reading about, uh, maybe eight or nine of those articles a day, or in some other cases, depending on what book I’m reading, it’s going to be like one chapter.

Uh, so that’s kinda like my, uh, goal.

And then I’m starting read articles and novels and all this stuff.

So.

Yeah, 10,000 words.

By the end of this a year, I can speak Japanese and maybe in one of these upcoming videos.

I don’t know.

We’ll see.

Elle: Yeah.

Wow.

That is very cool.

Very inspiring.

I need to get on it with my French study.

That’s for sure.

Um, so you, you mentioned novels, I’m just interested.

Do you have any, so you have the NHK articles that, you know, for sure what you want to read over the year.

Are there any goals in terms of novels or other content?

Eric: Well, um, actually have this book, let me see.

Okay.

So I have some stuff here.

Elle: Okay.

Eric: I went to library.

So I got this, I got some movies.

I got this one called Ramen Shop.

Um, it’s in Japanese.

I find, I really want to get to the level where I can actually comprehend movies.

You Tubers and podcasters who are probably around the intermediate stage are okay because they know they have an audience such as myself.

They speak slower.

Movies are a little bit more difficult right now.

Um, so I want to kind of get good at that.

Um, I think that’s less, less about reading, but a lot more about listening and watching dramas.

Um, I found this book too, um, that I thought was hilarious.

It’s called Making Out in Japanese.

So this is an awesome book.

It’s just amazing.

But, uh, it’s actually, for some like, surprisingly, it helps with a lot of the everyday conversation.

Um, like how does, how to say things in a very natural way.

So I was surprised how actually helpful this book is, and it’s not just about making out, there’s like a small section about that, but, uh, there’s a lot of things that I’m like, Oh, that’s how you say this and that.

And there’s a lot of material that you can’t find online too easily.

So this is another book.

Um, those two, I want to get through like movies and books like that.

Um, but in general yeah, just throwing myself into the Japanese ocean and swimming into the language, as you could say.

Excellent.

Elle: Well, best of luck with it.

I’m sure you will update us on, uh, on the forum and on the, this LingQ YouTube channel, your progress.

We’ll be interested to see that for sure.

So let’s talk more about Japan.

I have been thinking since our last conversation about things we didn’t mention.

Things, I want to ask you, uh, things that people might find interesting who, um, haven’t been there or lived there.

Um, one thing that came to mind was definitely earthquakes.

So, uh, I am from the UK originally.

I mean we do have earthquakes, I guess everywhere has earthquakes kind of, but I’ve never felt one.

There’ll be slight tremors in the UK every now and then, uh, of course you’re from… you’re from Vancouver and Canada.

So there are earthquakes here.

Had you experienced any earthquakes in Canada before you went to Japan?

And then did you experience any while you were in Japan?

Eric: Oh, um, good question.

That’s a common question.

I think a lot of people talk about or ask when they go to Japan.

Vancouver, a little bit, but not too much.

Oh, Japan, it was frequent.

Um, yeah, it happened, I would say it happened more times living in Japan for a couple of years than it has in my entire life in Vancouver, small tremors and whatnot.

Japan is a, I don’t know what the reason why.

Um, but they have quite a bit of earthquakes.

Fortunately, they’re not anything serious for the most part.

Thankfully Tokyo is, for some reason, always, uh, getting the smaller earthquakes and.

Uh, things like that.

So there are a couple of times where I was like, Oh man, is this building stay up or what’s going on?

What’s going on here.

But for the most part, yeah, you experience it.

You get used to it.

But I would see if you’re in the countryside or in certain high risk areas, it can be a little bit more scary.

And I don’t know exactly what those areas are because every year, and that’s unfortunate, but every year I was there there was like a natural disaster in some small town in Japan.

So that’s something you have to kind of brace yourself.

Thankfully with technology, you get kind of warned beforehand, like storms and stuff like that, landslides.

So in that sense, it’s kind of a bit safe to be, uh, wherever you are, it’s safe, but you just got to be prepared.

Um, but yeah, no earthquakes are a thing in Japan.

One of the culture shocks a little literal culture shock that’s for sure.

Elle: And what was the, uh, was there a particularly big one you recall?

Eric: Um… you know what, not really.

I felt like the rain, the rain storms were worse.

Like the rainstorms and… typhoon, definitely typhoons were harsher than my opinion.

And I think.

I think the one thing that actually caused the most trouble when I was in Tokyo was, uh, so I was there for almost three years, like two years and like just about three years.

But, um, every winter there was like one or two days of snow.

It only snowed once or twice a year, but every time it snowed it shut down the city.

And that I think caused the most havoc.

That shutdown, trains, people couldn’t get home.

I was fortunate enough enough, I got home early one of those days.

Um, it was a pain to walk through the snow.

It snowed quite a bit in Tokyo.

And I had friends who didn’t get home.

It took them like five hours to get home instead of 20 minutes.

Like, uh, yeah, it was the snow days, watch out for those.

And I saw cars and people can’t drive, in Japan, I think they’re not used to these snow days.

The, you see the guys in the, well whoever’s driving the cars, they’re just spinning because none of them have snow tires.

Elle: No. And the cars are tiny in Japan too.

Most, for the most part, they’re like these little boxes.

I…

Did you drive in Japan?

Eric: No, just the bike, like a bicycle, but nothing, no car.

Uh, nothing like, no, nothing like that.

Elle: I had to drive for six months,

I think.

My first school contract, I was in the middle of nowhere in like a small town and I worked in a high school in the town

across the way.

And I had, so I needed a car and I drove a Suzuki Wagon and, uh, it was really cute, but it was literally like a box and not a very powerful engine.

And I was in the Northeast, like I said, so there was snow, there was lots of snow, uh, when it snowed and, um, that was quite scary.

I remember.

Yeah.

It’s a long time to get to school a couple of times.

Had some kind of hairy experiences.

Eric: I’m sure.

Elle: The ice. But uh, yeah, that’s

probably, I guess it didn’t really surprise me too much the size of the vehicles in, uh, In Japan, especially since now I live in North America.

In Canada, they’re huge trucks.

They’re like buses and yeah,

there’s little dinky cars in Japan.

Eric: For sure.

Yeah, no, that’s, that’s, uh, especially in Tokyo where everything’s so small and compact, it’s a bit more convenient to have those, uh, boxes, little boxes, boxes with wheels.

Elle: Yeah, basically. Yeah.

So you mentioned there with um, the natural disasters, this the warning system, I found that quite helpful and also really stressful.

I was up in the Northeast of Japan when the big, um, tsunami and earthquake happened.

And I remember the sound… did you have the app on your phone, the sound for, you know, earthquake coming.

Eric: Yeah, but I think, it might’ve went once or twice, but it wasn’t… I don’t even know why it went off.

I think it was a test or something, but Oh, it might’ve been North Korea shooting missiles over Japan.

I don’t know what the heck was going on that day, but it’s just like what?

Elle: There’s that whole thing too.

Yeah, it’s a crazy place.

Eric: So yeah.

Anyone who was in Japan, you got to watch out for earthquakes, snow and missiles from North Korea.

Elle: Yeah.

When I was there, I remember there was a, they did a test and some, one of the missiles landed in the sea of Sea of Japan, Sea of China.

And, um, yeah, it was a real, it was a real concern for a while when I was there.

Yeah.

Eric: I was going to ask me, so how was your experience with, um, um, I guess it was the Fukushima natural disaster that the whole world saw.

So you were in Japan.

Where were you in Japan?

Uh, where, where are you during that time?

And how was that like handled when you were there?

Elle: Um, it was,

I was living in Sendai at the time, which is basically the epicenter of the earthquake, but I was on a trip.

I was in Nico the place with see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil monkeys.

I was actually visiting that shrine, that building, and I was about to buy a ticket to get in and the earthquake started.

And I remember the woman behind the, at the ticket desk just like looked at her colleague and looked at me and just shut the window.

Cause I was literally handing her my money to, to get tickets, to go up and see.

Um, she didn’t know what to do.

And then, so we stood in the middle of this clearing and there was like a 3000 year old pagoda,

just creaking.

Um, it wasn’t, it wasn’t as it was, it was big, people were screaming and it was quite alarming.

We kind of huddled.

I was with my husband, my now husband and our friend, we just kind of huddled and looked around, it’s all we could do.

And then, um, the whole… whole Journey after that.

We couldn’t get back to Sendai because, um, because everything was destroyed and, uh… not destroyed, but you know, it wasn’t advised to go back up there anyway.

So we stayed down, we went down to Tokyo, we went down to Hiroshima.

We went to Nagoya and stayed at our company headquarters there for a bit, and worked at the head office.

Then we eventually got back to Sendai two weeks later, and it was… intense.

Um, the schools, two of the schools that I worked at, one of them, the water from the, um, from the tsunami reached just across the road, but the place was just an absolute, like there was stuff everywhere, everything had fallen down and was broken.

And so, uh, and that the other school, we, my husband and I rode our bikes there.

It was totally destroyed.

Like the, everything was all over the place then broken down, but to the ceiling and right across was where the, um, the tsunami had reached.

So we saw that and it was just awful.

We rode through it actually to get to the school, to, to help clean up the school.

And it was, yeah, it was just awful, awful, awful, sad.

Just like being, like riding through a movie set.

Heartbreaking to, to think about what had happened there, Natori is the place, uh, just outside of Sendai.

So, um, yeah, it was an awful, awful time.

Um, we stayed and we helped out, uh, we were scrubbing oil off houses in, um, In, I can’t remember the name of the area

now, just outside Sendai.

There was an oil refinery and then the tsunami had brought in oil in the water.

So people’s houses were just covered in sludge.

Um, uh, what else did we do?

Oh, and then the most alarming thing.

And then I’ll stop talking about it cause it’s, Oh, it’s awful.

I don’t know how people live, honestly, with the threat of earthquakes cause it’s a genuinely terrifying experience.

Uh, we were there in Sendai then for the, the big aftershock, which was, I think a five point something or six point something magnitude earthquake.

Happened at 1:00 AM.

So we were in bed and all of a sudden, you’re fast asleep and all of a sudden just, of course, your world is shaking, shaking, so violently, um.

We, all we could do is just jump out of bed and we kind of hunkered down by the side of the bed.

I thought I was going to die.

That was for sure.

I was like, this is it.

Okay.

It’s been great.

Eric: Geez.

Yeah.

I can imagine that.

Elle: Shorter than I thought.

But, um, but I, yeah, it was just terrifying.

Terrifying.

Eric: Did you leave soon after that?

Were you’re just like, Oh, I got to go home or did you stay longer?

Elle: Um, we stayed for another, uh, until August.

So it happened in March.

So yeah, We stayed until August.

Eric: Because so many foreigners left during that time I heard. Yeah.

Elle: They did. Yeah.

A lot of our friends, um, were bused out of Sendai.

Well, there was like, there was no food, they were alone, a lot of them.

They were teaching and living alone.

So the, I think British embassy, American embassy, whichever countries, embassy sent up buses to bring people down to Tokyo.

And then they flew home.

I may have done that if I had been alone, but I had my husband and we were from we all from different countries and, um, We didn’t have our passports stupidly when we were on the trip to Nikko.

So if we wanted to leave before going back to Sendai, we would only have been issued emergency passports for Canada and the UK, and we didn’t want to do that.

So, um, yeah, we stayed.

And also like Sendai was, our home had been our home for a couple of years up until that point.

So we were really anxious to get back and see what was, what, what had happened, what it looked like and see if we could help in any way, see how kids, our students, you know, our fellow teachers, Japanese and, um, the, the foreign, uh, foreign teachers that were there.

So, yeah.

Eric: Wow.

That’s crazy.

That’s a… interesting experience to have, especially living abroad and, um, but you stuck it out.

Um, um, that’s impressive.

Like that would be.

For me, I guess, yeah, it depends if you’re obviously in your situation.

I know for me, my family would tell me to like, leave right away.

Elle: Yeah.

Yeah exactly.

There’s no shame in, like, there was a bit of a, um, divide, I guess you could say, you know, the foreigners who stayed and the foreigners who just like deserted Japan.

It’s like, come on.

There is, uh, an active that Fukushima nuclear plant, a whole other disturbing issue.

Um, it’s okay to want to, to want to go if you can, you know, um, But yeah, we, we were worried about Fukushima

of course, too.

We were, there was a while where we were trying to, we were eating foods that were good for deflecting nuclear radiatio, anything like… okay, we won’t eat food from Fukushima, of course.

And lots of spinach or seaweed I think it was.

Anyway, it was stressful.

Eric: Yeah.

Elle: Yeah. Anxiety-inducing time, for sure.

Um, I don’t know what the situation is right now with Fukushima.

I mean, I know the area, um, around Fukushima is still… not… nobody lives there, right?

It’s totally…

Eric: That’s a good question.

You know, there are people who still don’t have homes I think, like a lot. Yeah.

So I don’t know, but you don’t hear much about it.

I think the Japanese media kind of throws it under the bus, meaning that hey don’t talk about it too much.

I don’t know why that is, but, um, yeah, they just, uh, there are, there, there are lots of built like temporary housing.

So I don’t know how many people are in there, but there’s, if you ever look on YouTube and you search for a few videos, people have gone through and documented, uh, what what’s there, which is not much so.

Elle: Um, yeah, I’ve seen some videos of people who’ve gone in and, um, you know, you see that animals have reclaimed it, you know, there are packs of wild dogs and deer and everything’s overgrown.

I really feel for the people who.

That’s it, they left and they went ..Never able to go back.

They couldn’t have known that they would never, they would never be able to return to their homes.

It’s terrible, terrible event, it really was.

Um, anyway, let’s talk about something more positive.

Yeah, exactly.

I wonder, um, what your favorite trip was while, cause you lived only in Tokyo, right, when you were in Japan?

Eric: Uh, yeah. Only in Tokyo.

Elle: And did you visit anywhere outside of Tokyo that you fell in love with?

There were so many amazing places to visit in Japan.

Just spoiled for choice.

Eric: Yeah, that’s true.

I didn’t go to too many places.

I spent time outside, like I traveled around Tokyo so Nikko, um, Gunma, Saitama, but they’re not really the most interesting places.

I think like Gunma, for example, is just a very small

I guess countryside, uh, city, you can say countryside, city, um, just a very quiet place, but it does have, uh, a really good onsen.

Um, I think the name is Setsu so, um, I think that’s hwo you say it, Setsu onsen.

And, um, Nikko has a lot of valleys and mountains for hiking, which was good.

Saitama, Not so much, there’s not much really to do there.

I think it’s, it’s more for people to live, to commute to Tokyo, but they don’t want to be in the, in the city center.

Elle: Right? Yeah.

Eric: Um, I never have gone North.

LIke the height, the farthest North I’ve ever been is Niigata and that’s on the opposite side.

Pretty much of Tokyo, but it’s a little bit more North it’s above Nagano.

And I’ve been to Nagano.

Uh, one time then I also went to Osaka and Kobe.

Kobe I liked a lot.

Kobe’s cool.

It’s like a, it’s like a little Vancouver.

Cause you get the, the water, you get the nice scenery.

Elle: Yeah, that’s true, actually.

And what did you think of a Osaka?

What did you do there?

I found that place.

I went to your in Golden Week, which is a holiday in Japan for anyone who doesn’t know when everyone travels in Japan.

And it was so packed full of people.

I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing.

It was tough.

And I drove there.

I was the driver, phew, do not recommend.

Yeah.

What did you think of Osaka?

Eric: It was a pretty fun.

I liked the people.

Thy’re more energetic.

They have a bit more free time it seems than Tokyo, uh, people living in Tokyo.

It’s a little bit more, I think, rough in terms of the scenery, you get more small shops, food stands.

People are just crowded around certain areas.

Um, not as a, unlike Tokyo where it’s kind of like everyone’s in their own…

they go one path and everything’s clean.

Well, everything’s clean, but still Osaka, I would say isn’t a, like a Tokyo in that sense, but they, I think the people from Osaka have their own way of, uh, just approaching life.

It’s interesting.

It’s cool.

Because they’re more, I feel talkative.

Um, so I found that was interesting.

Elle: Yeah.

Could you tell, I know this, I know Osaka-ben, right?

Eric: Oh Kansai-ben?

Elle: Oh Kansai-ben, yeah I couldn’t, I, my, I couldn’t tell the difference.

Um, when I went and listened to people talk.

Could you tell the difference?

Eric: No, I can’t.

I can’t really tell the difference.

There’s a… there’s a few things now that I could hear, but it’s, for me, it’s difficult to pick up.

Um, For sure people who have studied the language a lot, who are fluent, they could probably tell.

But for me, there’s a few things.

Um, just the way, especially with their verb endings, they say things a little differently.

Um, but at the time, No I could not cannot tell.

I just, I could tell they’re from Osaka because of their personality.

Just, they’re more outgoing.

Elle: Oh Interesting. Huh.

And, uh, did you pick up any new hobbies or learn anything new in terms of, uh, I don’t know, sports or…

Eric: Oh yeah.

So in Japan, um, like Mark, I played ice hockey.

I played in, uh, the Tokyo S League it’s called, so it’s just a few teams.

These are company teams.

So I played for Marubeni and there is Densu,

there is, um, Uh, what’s the car company that I’m thinking of?

There’s a couple of car companies like Mitsubishi.

I think she has a company, um, and a few others.

And we play, uh, we played game… we played games in Higashi Fushimi, is on the Keiō-sen and it’s, it’s, it’s still in Tokyo, but it’s going towards Saitama.

So it’s kind of on the way to Saitama, but.

Um, that’s where we played our games and we practiced in Takadanobaba, which is where I was living.

So it was great because I could walk to practice and to go to the game was easy because it was the same… uh, I lived in a station near station called Shimo-Ochiai , and that’s the same line, Keiō-sen.

I could go to a game play a game easily.

So I was, I lucked out when I moved to, near Takadanobaba, I wanted to play hockey and I found the practice… uh, practices were, uh, walking distance and the games were just a train train ride away.

And I would just take my stuff.

It’s weird.

Carrying your bag, like in Canada, you drive with your gear and stuff, but I, in Japan, I was carrying my, my hockey equipment, my sticks, trying not to hit people on the train.

Um, but it was fun.

I mean, yeah.

We had a fun team.

We had a mix of foreigners and Japanese.

I think most teams were Japanese players.

Um, but, uh, it was cool.

It was awesome.

It was great a way to meet new people.

Like I think that was one of the best things I did.

I think if anyone goes to Japan or a different country, a hobby is a great thing to do.

And, uh, I, uh, yeah, I just happened to find hockey, which is not too easy to find in Japan.

Um, and then we had tournaments games, met friends, uh, Yeah, no, I really enjoyed it.

It was, uh, it was good.

And one surprising thing about that is that adult league in Vancouver, there’s not, it’s not in contact cause you don’t really need to hit just for fun.

But in Japan it was full on contact.

So I haven’t played contact in like eight, nine years.

So it was a weird, like, it was like, what the heck?

And like, I was like, okay, here you go.

Like, this is.

I gotta, I gotta keep my head up.

Like, it was just funny that, that, uh, in Japan of all places, especially in a league, that’s not professional, they had contact hockey.

And I thought that was interesting.

It was fun.

I was sore, but it was fun.

Elle: I’m surprised by that too.

You’d think it would be the other way around.

In Canada, I know.

As I spoke with mock in aprevious episode, the violence is very much a part of the game, but Japan is a more reserved and…

Eric: Which is interesting yeah.

Cause Mark played professional, which is hitting, but they’re still reserved compared to yeah, compared to North America.

Even the league I was playing in it, it wasn’t too anything too crazy.

Maybe a fight here and there, some players would fight once in a while, but.

I have one story that I can share that was pretty funny, but…

Elle: yeah

Eric: like my players or whatever, they probably won’t care.

I don’t even know who it was, but so in this league, um, because it’s a rec league, you have to volunteer to ref a game.

So they, they always picked two players from a team to ref another game.

Another team’s game.

I didn’t ref because I didn’t speak Japanese and they’re not going to choose me.

I don’t have experience refereeing to.

We had two players, who were doing ref.

And by chance that… like the same night they had a party.

So they went out to an izakaya and got very drunk.

Let’s just say like, just way too, too many drinks.

And they actually ref this game, but they were, they couldn’t even skate on the ice.

Yeah.

So there’s a big, we had, we had a big talking to from like the league, um, Because apparently after you hand in the score sheet, they just drew obscene characters and like all these cryptic messages.

I wish I was at that game would have been funny.

But, um, that was like kind of a funny story.

Elle: Oh no.

Eric: Yeah. I wasn’t playing.

It was just, it was two teams and two of our players who happened to ref, but I was laughing cause it was just a funny, funny story, like who goes to the game and refs can barely skate because they drank too much sake.

One of those things only in Japan.

Elle: And do you still play hockey now here in Vancouver or…?

Eric: Yeah, I played last year having played this year, uh, waiting to, uh, the leagues I think are shut down at the moment.

So I don’t know.

I don’t know exactly if I’ll be playing this year.

We’ll see.

I’d like to, I like to just actually just practice around, but, um, I think that some of the facilities are closed, unfortunately.

Elle: Yeah.

Yeah.

I think a lot of things are on hold for a while, but yeah.

Yep.

We’ll get back into them.

Well, Eric, as usual, we could talk more and more and more about Japan.

Maybe we’ll do another episode, um, but let’s call it a day there.

Thank you so much.

Pleasure as always.

And yeah, really looking forward to your posts on this.

So 10,000 words of reading a week throughout 2021 in Japanese.

Wow.

Okay.

Good luck.

Eric: Thank you.

Thank you.

Elle: Ganbatte!

Eric: Exactly.

We’ll be speaking one day.

We’ll be speaking.

Well, you’ll be learning French.

So, um, yeah, maybe we’ll have, we’ll get Steve to interpret for us.

You’ll speak French.

I’ll speak Japanese.

Elle: I have to, one day I’ll pick up the Japanese again.

I mean, I do love it when I’m studying French and when I try to speak French, I come out with Japanese all the time.

I don’t know how Steve speaks all the languages he does, but yeah, it’s definitely the language that’s on my mind.

It’s, it’s at the forefront, uh, in front of French, you know, but I’m actively studying French.

So anyway, one day, one day for sure.

Thanks.

Okay.

Cheers Eric.

Bye

Bye-bye.

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

Allison: Hello everyone.

Welcome to today’s talk show on “How I Met My Husband.” Today’s guest is Liz, one of our brilliant English tutors here at LingQ.com, simply the best way to learn languages.

So, Liz, welcome to the show.

Liz: Well, thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Allison: Well, we’re glad that you could make a special appearance here on our show.

So, tell me Liz, how long have you been married now?

Liz: Let’s see, Mike and I have actually been together for about 14 years now.

Allison: Wow.

Time sure does fly, doesn’t it?

That’s fabulous.

So, let’s cut to the chase.

How did you meet your husband?

Was it love at first sight, an arranged marriage, a blind date?

Please share your story with our audience and don’t leave out any details.

Liz: Well, I guess it’s time to give it a shake and spill the beans here.

Mike and I got together in 1998 and we were married in 2004.

I embarrass myself trying to remember our first encounter.

It wasn’t some enchanted evening or anything.

I’m afraid I’m not that much of a romantic anyways.

Mike is a friend of a friend who has, I guess, always traveled in the same circles as me.

I think our first conversations came about because he had a truck and my friend volunteered him to help us move props.

Yeah.

It was that he had volunteered him to help move some props when I was working for a theater company.

Actually, though, that’s his side of the story.

My mind’s a sieve and I plead innocent on the fact that he had a beard at the time and he was my friend’s ex and I wasn’t looking.

We saw each other a few times at potlucks and parties and finally invited me to go to a coffee house with him and I was late.

This isn’t sounding so good.

He has the more romantic take on it, I think.

The poor guy fell for a total skeptic.

But I guess, for me, Mike’s always just been around.

He and a good friend were roomies back in the ‘80s and he dated another friend, so he knows all the same folks.

It was kind of a safe harbor and I was feeling like a rolling stone.

Whoops, I guess I’m mixing metaphors there.

I was really kind of lost without an anchor, maybe.

But I guess he fit the bill.

He was a constant, reliable, sweet, gentle, outdoorsy, lefty from back home and the wrong side of the track.

Really, no wonder it felt right.

At least it felt safe, anyways.

But meeting your significant other is just scary business.

Sometimes I really envy those arranged marriages.

So, that was tough.

Here’s your turn, Allison, tell me your tale.

I love asking this question, it always tells me a lot about people; although I imagine it would cross the line in some places.

Allison: Well, it’s funny, really.

I wasn’t looking, but everyone else around me was.

They kept trying to set me up, saying things to perspective guys like, “Hey, what kind of car do you drive?” Or, “What’s your net worth?” I would just give my friends that I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that look and walk away.

Then they would say things to me like, “Well, what do you think about him?” Or, “How about him?” I would just laugh and say, “No, this isn’t how it’s done.

When the time comes I’ll know.”

It was just like those stories you read about.

I wasn’t supposed to be there that night, but I was.

Dennis was walking from across a crowded room.

When I saw him I secretly thought to myself now that’s the kind of guy I could marry.

I didn’t dare tell anyone, though.

Then, before I could bat an eye, there he was standing straight in front of me and at first all I could say was, “Hello.” We hit it off right away, though, as if we’d known each other our whole lives.

My friends just kept looking over smiling, whispering to each other and giggling.

“He hasn’t taken his eyes off of her the whole night,” they would say.

I just ignored them.

It was like time stood still and nothing else in the world mattered.

Liz: Okay.

Allison: While we were talking we somehow got on the subject of electronics.

He was telling me that he needed a mini keyboard for his palm pilot.

Hum, I used to work at a company that sold computer electronics, so I happily offered to get him a discount on the keyboard.

Little did I know, though, that there was a catch.

My friend, who was still working there, agreed to get me a discounted keyboard for Dennis if I agreed to have dinner with him first.

Could this situation get any more complicated?

Well, I did it and Dennis called me the next day to thank me.

He had heard about what had happened and offered to take me to dinner to make up for it.

Liz: So, let’s see if I understand you correctly.

You went on a date with another guy so you could get a discount on a keyboard for Dennis, the guy you liked, who ended up being your husband?

Allison: Yes, that’s right and to make a long story short, the rest is history.

We’ve been happily married six years now with two adorable boys.

Next year will be our seven year itch.

Liz: Oh.

Allison: Let’s share a secret with our audience, though.

The secret to finding the right husband is to not be looking.

Like my mother always said, “If you chase two rabbits you’ll never catch one.”

Liz, it’s been a pleasure having you on our show today and I look forward to our next talk soon.

Thanks again.

Liz: Ah, thank you.