Luke's ENGLISH Podcast - Learn British English with Luke Thompson

Amber & I teach you 12 idiomatic English phrases while attending the filming of an episode of Paul's TV show on the street in Paris. Click the link below for videos and photos, and a list of the idioms with definitions - http://wp.me/p4IuUx-7n8 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A rambling conversation with Amber about Christmas and more! http://wp.me/p4IuUx-7ld Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amber & Paul are back on the podcast and we do the usual catching-up session and go off on a few tangents about Amber's play, Paul's showbiz life, marshmallows, microphones, tea & coffee, accents and more... Visit the page for this episode to see a couple of videos - link coming soon. https://teacherluke.co.uk/2016/12/13/408-catching-up-with-amber-paul-4-videos/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode you'll hear me talking to Kristina from Russia, the winner of the LEP anecdote competition this year. We talk about her work as a translator and interpreter, her reflections on language learning, how she learned English to a good level and some other bits and pieces! Click here for more info http://wp.me/p4IuUx-7ht Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

More responses to questions and comments from listeners, including a comparison of past continuous & past simple verb tenses, comments about bias in the UK's media, the BBC, the newspapers, the Chapecoense Plane Crash in Colombia, and more. https://teacherluke.co.uk/2016/12/04/406-grammar-past-continuous-tense-uk-media-bias-brazil-football-tragedy/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we continue to analyse the various British accents that you can hear in the film version of The Lord of the Rings. Let's consider the accents of some of the main characters, such as Frodo, Sam, Pippin, Merry, Treebeard, Elrond, Boromir, Gandalf, Saruman, Legolas, Gimli and the orcs. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-7fL Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talking about the different British accents you can hear in the Lord of the Rings movies. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-7fu Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The final results of the LEP Anecdote Competition, some podcast admin and responses to some comments & emails from listeners including a war story, some grammar (noun phrases, possessives & apostrophes) and a question about my Dad's accent. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-7es Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talking to my Dad about recent news, and we talked about Brexit, post-truth politics, the US election, the right-wing press in the UK, the political landscape in the EU, the rules of international cricket and the music from Tetris. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-75O Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome back to the podcast. This is episode 401 and it’s about developing your fluency in English. I’m going to talk about creativity, open and closed thinking and about how turning off your internal editor can help you to make more progress in your language learning. https://teacherluke.co.uk/2016/11/21/401-switch-off-your-editor-to-improve-your-fluency-in-english/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've decided to celebrate the 400th episode of LEP by making up an improvised comedy story, just for fun. In fact, this is the long-awaited sequel to The Pink Gorilla Story from episode 125. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-78D Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talking with two American friends about journalism, how the internet works, the US presidential election results, California's new marijuana laws and puffins. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-776 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I want to talk about two things: My first impressions of the US Presidential election result, and then some things I said in the last episode of this podcast. I just want to clear up some comments I made last time. I just want to get straight into it. So here we go. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-73G Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Talking spontaneously about gloves, mittens, OO7, Bob Dylan, an LEP app, The Walking Dead, Oasis, Black Mirror, The Crown, a bit of politics and some 10-year cave-aged cheddar cheese. Click here for the page for this episode http://teacherluke.co.uk/2016/11/07/397-ramble-on/ ‎ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is round 2 of the LEP anecdote competition. You'll be able to hear the 10 anecdotes that got the most votes from round one and some language feedback afterwards. Click here to vote for your favourite stories in the poll http://wp.me/p4IuUx-72K Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I'm joined by Paul Taylor and Robert Hoehn and we do a speaking exercise that I often use in my classes to help my students to practise using different grammatical structures in their speaking. I thought it would be interesting to record some native speakers doing the exercise too, so that's what you'll hear in this episode, as well as various little anecdotes, a few jokes and general chat. The conversation contains swearing and a few humourous comments which shouldn't be taken too seriously. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-71a Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here are some more of my favourite podcasts. You might like to listen to them too, even if they're difficult to understand because they're not specifically for learners of English. It's good to challenge yourself sometimes, so why not try listening to these. If I like them, you might like them too. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-70z Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I'm going to recommend some other people's podcasts that you might also enjoy. Last time, in episodes 236 and 237 I recommended some of my favourite podcasts. I recommended a mix of British and American podcasts. This time I'm going to tell you about some more but we're focusing only on British podcasts this time - ones that are produced in the UK and on which you can listen to British voices. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-5gQ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is full of what I hope will be more useful insight and advice on how to learn English as an adult so that you don't end up sounding like a robot, because you're learning English or at least maintaining your English and it's a long-term process, there are right and wrong ways of doing it and I want to support you along the way. The main aim of this podcast is to help you stay on track as you continue to develop your English, trying to find new ways and improving the old ways so that you get a grip on this language. This episode represents not just my ideas but also the thoughts, conclusions and recommendations of plenty of other linguists and polyglots who certainly should know what they're talking about because they've either studied the process of language acquisition or they've learned multiple languages themselves. Contained in this episode is a distillation of lots of experiences, research and common knowledge about language learning, including my own thoughts and practical tips which I've picked up after 15 years of teaching English as a foreign language. I hope this will be a motivating, inspiring and interesting episode for you to listen to as part of your English learning journey. So, let's go. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-2NT Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here's a conversation with a friend of mine who originally comes from the Netherlands but he has lived all over the world. You're going to hear us talking about cultural differences, Dutch stereotypes, doing business in France, the UK and the USA, the different communication styles in those places, doing stand up comedy and getting Darth Vader's signature. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed recording it. Click here for the episode page http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6YN Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is a conversation with my dad about recent news, including a Brexit update, the US presidential election, Obama's plans to send people to Mars and back and more... Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6YS Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is part two of my conversation with Sarah and Sebastian from the USA about the upcoming presidential election. In this episode we turn our attention to Hillary Clinton. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Yd Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The presidential election in the USA is about a month away and I've been meaning to talk about this subject on the podcast for ages. So in this episode you're going to hear me in conversation with a couple of American friends of mine who you might already know from their previous appearances on this podcast - Sarah Donnelly and Sebastian Marx. We sat down in my flat today to talk about the elections, Hillary Clinton, DonaldTrump, their thoughts, feelings, opinions and predictions on the whole thing. Click here for the page for this episode http://teacherluke.co.uk/2016/10/11/388-us-presidential-election-2016-trump-vs-clinton-with-sarah-and-sebastian/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Voting is now open in the first round of the LEP Anecdote Competition. You can listen to all the anecdotes on the page for this episode and vote for your favourites using a simple poll. I'll give you the full details and instructions in this episode. I'm also going to talk about the results of the podcast survey I did recently and a couple of other things, including the top countries for LEP this week. Click here for this episode's page http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6W3 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here's part 2 of this episode about ways you can push your English to higher levels even if you feel that your progress is stuck or moving very slowly. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6WB Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is about ways you can push your English to higher levels even if you feel that your progress is stuck or moving very slowly. I'm talking about a very common phenomenon in English learning called the intermediate plateau. This is where you seem to stop making progress and can't reach and advanced level. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Wl Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I'm talking about recent things I’ve been teaching in my classes including some grammar and some social English. There's an absolultely massive amount of grammar crammed into this epsiode and quite a lot of silly improvisation too! http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Vm Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode you are going to hear part 2 of my conversation with Ian Moore and I've decided to call this one "More Ian Moore" - do you see what I've done there? "more Ian Moore" I bet nobody has ever made that joke about his name before, right? Before we listen to Ian Moore, I just want to mention a few things... Click here for the page for this episode: http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Tj Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is just a 'quick' message from me to you about a podcast survey on the website, a reminder of the anecdote competition, a new video I've made about the Russian joke and some more rambling about things like The Beatles and conspiracy theories. The next 'proper' episode will be uploaded in a few days. Click here for the page for this episode to take the survey: http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6U5 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on the podcast I'm talking to Ian Moore, who is a professional stand up comedian, published author and mod from London. Ian is probably the best dressed man ever to appear on this podcast. He is also a professional talker with many things to say. In this part we talk mainly about mod culture. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6RQ italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I'm talking to my friends Amber and Paul about cultural differences, particularly in the ways we communicate with each other in different countries. Details: http://wp.me/p4IuUx-5wO italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode the PODPALS Amber and Paul are back and we're going to have the normal catching up session in which they talk about what they have been up to recently. As usual we sit on the terrace and get interrupted by insects, the sun, neighbours on their balconies around us (including a naked man eating his lunch) and the inevitable references to a certain Russian joke that always comes up in our conversations. Episode page: http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Qk italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Details of a new LEP competition / Competition rules / Advice & Tips / Inspiration / Some Funny Anecdotes Transcript & videos here: http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Pr italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Here is part 2 of this description of my recent holiday in Thailand. In this one you can hear more stories and descriptions about different parts of the country, learning how to cook, a conversation with a monk, doing yoga every day, a couple of messages from listeners and some reflections on gratitude, forgiveness and guidance. Transcript and notes here http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Ol italki offer http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode contains stories and descriptions of my recent holiday in Thailand. You'll hear some facts about Thailand, some descriptions of Bangkok and a few stories about funny experiences that happened while we were there. Part 2 is coming soon. More details and transcriptions below. Enjoy! http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6O7 italki offer http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is not a full episode of the podcast - I'm just letting you know that I'm going away for a few weeks so there will be no podcasts for a little while. We're getting away from it all for a few weeks. I probably won't be online much, perhaps not at all. A couple of places we're going to don't have any internet at all. It's going to be a bit of a digital detox. So, I won't be uploading episodes for a while, and I won't be responding to comments and stuff, but I look forward to reading your comments when I get back. More details here http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Me Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode my brother James and I go for a game of mini golf in the local park, and then head to the pub for a pint of beer. While doing that we have a discussion about English history, life in the countryside vs life in the city, the London riots of 2011 and how James feels about being a guest on my podcast. I've uploaded a lot of new episodes recently but that's going to stop soon when I go away on holiday for a few weeks. Click here for more details and a transcript of some sections of the episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Mh Audible offer http://www.audibletrial.com/teacherluke Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this conversation Alex is in Edinburgh in Scotland and I'm in Warwick in England. In the previous episode we talked about pub quizzes and how they're a common part of pub culture in the UK, so I thought we would play a kind of pub quiz with each other. The only problem is that neither of us are in a pub, but that doesn't matter - this is a podcast and you can use your imagination. Details here http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6M2 Audible offer http://www.audibletrial.com/teacherluke Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I talk to Alex Love in Edinburgh about his show, some details about the culture of pub quizzes in the UK and we go off on several quite instructive tangents about stag and hen parties, male strippers, The Smurfs and the anatomy of giant squid, which are large sea creatures with tentacles. That sounds quite random but it's not really. It's actually perfectly logical and it will all become clear as you listen to the conversation, and I think there's quite a lot to learn about British culture in this episode as you'll see. I've also highlighted a lot of vocabulary for you to watch out for. Click here for the details http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Ls Audible offer http://www.audibletrial.com/teacherluke Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is a game show hosted by my Dad, with me as the contestant. The aim of the game is to see how many words I know. My Dad designed this quiz for his students of journalism at the university where he works sometimes. The quiz is specifically designed to highlight what he considers to be common misuses and misunderstandings of words. His opinion is that journalists writing and presenting on television should use words in exactly the right way, even if many people use those words to mean different things in general everyday use. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6LA italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of the podcast is all about telling anecdotes in English. Anecdotes are little stories about our experiences that we share while socialising. It's important to have a few anecdotes of your own and to know how to tell them properly. In this episode I'm going to give you some advice for how to tell an anecdote and then you're going to listen to some true anecdotes told by members of my family that I recorded yesterday evening during dinner. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6KT italki offer http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is part 2 of my conversation with Rob Ager from Liverpool, who makes documentaries about films and publishes them himself on his website Collative Learning. If you haven't heard part 1 yet, you should check that out before listening to part 2. In this conversation we talk about Rob's approach to film analysis, hidden meanings in films, the work of Stanley Kubrick and the conspiracy theory about the moon landing. More details here http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6Ji italki offer http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today on the podcast I'm talking to Rob Ager from Liverpool, who is probably best known for his film analysis videos on YouTube in which he discusses classic Hollywood thrillers, sci-fi and action movies in quite astonishing levels of detail, often focusing on deep psychological and political themes and hidden messages that most viewers probably wouldn't even notice. His videos are carefully constructed documentaries, made for educational purposes and all of them feature a voice-over commentary by Rob in which he analyses the film and gives his observations. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6J3 italki offer: Http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today I'm talking about Pokemon Go. It's a global phenomenon and there are lots of things to say about it. It's not just a stupid game, there's a lot more to it than that. So, in this episode I'm going to describe Pokemon the game, then talk about Pokemon GO, including what it is, how it works, what people are saying about it, why it's so significant, what some of the good points and bad points are, and what this might mean for the future. Notes & transcript here: http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6IB italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the LEP Annual Meeting 2016, which actually doesn't take place on an annual basis. In this meeting I'm going to deal with various points of admin (including a language point about words like 'annual', 'biannual', 'biennial' etc, Pokemon Go, Transcript Collaboration, LEP Meet-Ups, Comedy shows, music, torrent sites and a comment from a vampire) and I'm going to ask you various questions during the episode. Please give your answers to the questions (any of them) on the page for the episode here: http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6FP italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to part 2 of this conversation with my friend Alex Love. If you haven't already heard part 1, I suggest you go back and listen to that. I've divided this episode into two parts just because I thought it was a bit long and that it would be easier for you to deal with two slightly shorter episodes than one epically long one. Click here for the episode page http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6HQ italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the podcast today I am in conversation with Alex Love, who you might remember from some previous episodes of this podcast. Alex Love regularly performs stand-up comedy gigs in London and in Manchester where he now lives. At this moment he's preparing for the Edinburgh Festival where he will be performing a one-hour show which he has written himself, called "How to Win a Pub Quiz". The show is a mix of stand-up comedy and pub quiz trivia and it has had some good reviews at previous festivals. If you're in Edinburgh this August you can see Alex's show at a venue called The Stand in rooms 5 & 6 (venue 319) at 12 o'clock midday from 4 to 14 August. Click here to visit the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6FV italki offer: http://www.teacherluke.co.uk/talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, in this episode I'm just letting you know that I'm very busy at the moment, which is why I haven't uploaded an episode for a while. Normal podcasting will resume soon. In the meantime, you can listen to the audio track from a video I did in 2009 at the Notting Hill Carnival. There are 40 phrasal verbs in the video. Can you find them? You can see the video below, with a full transcript and all the phrasal verbs in a list + definitions. You're welcome! Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6FH Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode I finish the series I've been doing about Brexit in the same way that I started it, by having a conversation with my Dad. First I'll highlight some vocabulary and phrases, then you can hear my Dad giving his comments about what has happened since the UK voted to leave the EU three weeks ago. http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6DX Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

LEP is back after a two-week absence. This episode is about top tips for learning English. Here are some ideas about learning English that have occurred to me in the last couple of weeks of teaching intensive general English classes at school. Click here for the page for this episode http://wp.me/p4IuUx-6D2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.