Welcome to The A to Z English Podcast, where we take you on a journey from learning the basics to mastering the nuances of the English language. Our podcast is designed for non-native speakers who are looking to improve their English skills in a fun and interactive way. Each episode covers a wide range of topics, from grammar and vocabulary to slang and culture, to help you navigate the English-speaking world with ease. Join us every week as we explore the A to Z of the English language and help you build confidence in your communication skills. Let&#39;s get started!

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/19/4/e3d9c22a-0819-471d-9338-e4cb075b612a_topic_talk_27_recurring_dreams.mp3

Topic Talk | Recurring Dreams

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/16/22/a9b5c02a-005d-4233-b46e-bac998b74d91__corner_15_what_do_you_hate_about_your_culture.mp3

Culture Corner | What do you hate about your culture?

In this exclusive episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about the future of AI and how it is going to affect people&#39;s jobs. Transcript:00:00:56JackWelcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I&#39;m here with my co-host social. And today we are doing a topic talk and today&#39;s topic is the future of AI and how it&#39;s going to affect jobs and.00:01:11JackI feel like you have a kind of first hand experience with this, or at least first hand knowledge of this and maybe you could share it with our listeners.00:01:21XochitlJack UMI know that when AI was first coming out, I believe that we had hope as a culture, that automated technology would be used to take over the more laborious and difficult tasks, and that as humans we would have a more peaceful and easy existence with production being relied on by machinery.00:01:43XochitlPrimarily, and things like art, poetry, philosophy and all the fun things could be for humans to dwell on and.00:01:55XochitlWait. Unfortunately, it&#39;s kind of gone the other way, and now AI AI is being used to produce art and poetry and screenplays. And so that was a huge reason for the writer strike in Hollywood. If you&#39;re familiar with that. And and it&#39;s a huge reason that artists are striking.00:02:15XochitlAnd not producing their content to be available on the Internet anymore because their art is getting stolen, said to AI artificial intelligence and then artificial intelligence is creating art styles from a lot of these profiles.00:02:31발표자So.00:02:31JackAnd I&#39;ll just want to add one more thing about the Hollywood strike. It also is that they want to be able to use your image. So let&#39;s say, for example, there&#39;s there&#39;s a scene in a coffee shop.00:02:44JackAnd there they won&#39;t. There will no longer be extras.00:02:49JackIn the background.00:02:51JackIt&#39;ll just be a green screen of of a of basically.00:02:56JackThey just have, like lots of different examples of of people sitting in restaurants and then you&#39;ll have your actors at the table and then the green screen in the background will just be filled in with AI people.00:03:11JackAnd so that&#39;s where they&#39;re heading to. So heading to the point where you no longer need that many people for a production, you just need, you don&#39;t need background at characters and stuff. You just, they just those will be superimposed through AI in the background and it&#39;ll fill the the cafe or the.00:03:31JackRestaurants or the movie theater or whatever will just be there won&#39;t be any real people there. It&#39;ll just be all put in afterwards through.00:03:41JackRight.00:03:42XochitlI had no idea about this. That&#39;s insane. On top of that, I know that AI is being used.00:03:52XochitlTo produce like deep things which are confusing because they can like recreate like they AI could virtually at this point, if Jack and I.00:04:03XochitlWere interesting enough.00:04:04XochitlThey could take our voice saying multiple different things and they could create a podcast episode of A-Z.00:04:11JackRight. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, yeah.00:04:11XochitlAnd they could, with AI create that and use deep fakes basically to to mock our voices, like imitate our voices, and they could use the video footage to recreate our faces, making different expressions and talking. And so they&#39;re becoming more and more realistic, which is a problem.00:04:30XochitlOn top of that, they&#39;re they&#39;re starting to use AI influencers too, so, you know, influencers age out or they stop becoming trendy or what have you. And they&#39;re also expensive because.00:04:44XochitlCompanies have to pay influencers to promote a product for every single appearance, for every single story mentioned, yeah.00:04:51JackEven like travel time, getting on an airplane, airplane tickets, that sort of stuff, it&#39;s just expensive staying.00:04:57JackAt hotel, yeah.00:04:59XochitlSo now they can make AI, or they&#39;re trying to make AI influencers.00:05:06XochitlAnd one thing.00:05:07XochitlWhere it affected me recently, I wasn&#39;t even aware of is someone suggested I take up a job doing AI annotation which I will not be doing, but essentially it&#39;s a job that you can take where you annotate translations done by AI. So I is interpreter, translator.00:05:25XochitlI would be fixing and tweaking responses or translations and interpretations that AI has created.00:05:33XochitlIn order to make. Yeah, I&#39;m TA I yes.00:05:33JackTeaching the AI right, teaching the AI.00:05:38JackA. How to steal your job, basically.00:05:40XochitlYes, which I don&#39;t want to do. And so at that point.00:05:42JackRight.00:05:48XochitlIt&#39;s just.00:05:49XochitlWild to think that so many of these jobs that are.00:05:54XochitlKey to our survival, to our human relationships, to the way we interact with the world. The reality as we know it is can be completely simply taken over by AI. And I think we&#39;re going to have to see legislature, which means laws come into place in the near future regulating what AI is allowed to and not allowed to do.00:06:15XochitlAnd which jobs AI will be allowed to and not allowed to take over, and hopefully that will benefit us. But you just think about the amount of energy and funding that was put into AI being able to take over jobs that are kind of easier on the body.00:06:32XochitlAnd whatnot and realizing that all the hard labor that is acting. Yeah, yeah.00:06:38JackYeah. Ditch digging. Yeah, construction.00:06:42JackUsed to be, yeah.00:06:43XochitlUnderpaid labor that gets paid a terrible wage for such a completely exhausting job that wears you down is not being replaced by AI. It&#39;s things like art and translation and interpreting and screen writing and acting and all those fun.00:07:04XochitlHuman beings are going to be taken over by AI. It just really makes me.00:07:08XochitlThings.00:07:08JackAnd it&#39;s all mediocre, mediocre arts, mediocre translation. Mediocre. You know, it doesn&#39;t. You take away the human, the human touch to it. I I just don&#39;t think AI is able to.00:07:21JackI I don&#39;t know. I I don&#39;t think an AI poem is ever going to be able to come close to a real poet, you know?00:07:32XochitlIt can. It can replicate what we&#39;ve captured so far of the human experience, but it cannot think and ponder on on new experiences.00:07:43JackI&#39;ve been told it&#39;s like this. I&#39;ve heard it explained like this, it&#39;s like UM.00:07:48JackIt&#39;s like a, it&#39;s like a glorified uh auto fill.00:07:53XochitlKind of.00:07:54JackYeah, I mean, that&#39;s what we&#39;re talking about here. We&#39;re. Let&#39;s not. I don&#39;t think we should be in such awe of chat. Sorry, I&#39;m not going to say the name of the the company, but I don&#39;t think we should be in such awe of these like AI programs or platforms or what.00:08:11JackWhatever. And I, you know, to the point where where we think it&#39;s magic, like it&#39;s just algorithms and and data bases and things like that. And it is amazing like it it can do a lot of stuff and I use those platforms you know, but I&#39;m also not.00:08:31JackYou know, to the point not to the point where I&#39;m like, oh, I can&#39;t wait till there&#39;s no need for real poets anymore. And then we just get all of our poetry and our screenplays and our our books, all written by, you know, AI.00:08:47JackThat seems like such a dull, sad world. Like I, you know.00:08:52JackI want my heart to come from human people from you know? Yeah.00:08:57XochitlRight.00:08:59XochitlYeah. All right, listeners. Well, I hope you enjoyed this topic. Talk, Jack, and I definitely had an interesting time addressing some of the issues with AI and our opinions about AI. Make sure to leave a comment down below to let us know what you think and how maybe it&#39;s affecting your country, your culture, your job.00:09:16XochitlAspects we&#39;d be really interested to know. You can also shoot us a listener e-mail Jack and I again. We really love getting listener emails. If you want us to read them on the pod, we&#39;re more than happy to umm. If you want us to omit your name, just let us know in the e-mail. And again, we really love receiving bills and make sure to join the lead China WhatsApp group so you can talk to us directly.00:09:37XochitlJoin our exclusive podcast.00:09:41XochitlProgram. I don&#39;t know what to call it. If you can spare the dollar 99, we have some exclusive episodes just for subscribers and we are working on a project where we will include some kind of loosening comprehension test and fun things for you guys to get a little bit.00:10:02XochitlUse and yeah, we will see you guys next time. Bye bye.00:10:07JackBye. 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Topic Talk | The future of AI and its effect on people's jobs

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/14/20/03509feb-562c-44c3-8ed5-14c2b045e60b_topic_talk_25_spoon_theory.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about spoon theory:Spoon Theory: The Spoon Theory is a metaphor used to explain the limited amount of energy and resources that people with chronic illnesses or disabilities have to accomplish daily tasks and activities. It was coined by Christine Miserandino in 2003 in an essay she wrote to explain her experience with lupus to a friend.Transcript:00:00:01JackWelcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I&#39;m here with my co-host social and today social and I are going to talk about something called Spoon theory and I don&#39;t really know what this is, to be honest. I am kind of ignorant on this topic, but social is going to explain.00:00:22JackThe meaning of spoon theory and then we are going to complain like a couple of old people about all of our physical ailments that we&#39;re dealing with, right? So, OK, awesome. Alright. What is spoon theory? Social.00:00:34XochitlYes.00:00:39XochitlSo spoon theory is a metaphor, and it describes the amount of physical or mental energy that you have available for daily activities. So if you live with chronic pain or chronic illness, whether it&#39;s mental or physical or both, you&#39;re kind of limited in a way that other people aren&#39;t. And so.00:00:59XochitlThe idea is that you have a set amount of spoons. Let&#39;s say you have 10 spoons for your day, and then things that other people don&#39;t realize take up energy because they have.00:01:09XochitlA more fit body do take up energy for people with chronic pain. So let&#39;s say getting up and out of bed, taking a shower, making something to eat.00:01:23XochitlEven getting ready for bed, getting dressed, all those things can put strain on your body and eat up your spoon. So maybe by the time you even get ready to go to work, you&#39;re down 5 spoons and someone who doesn&#39;t have chronic illness might have just used a spoon or half a spoon of energy to do all those.00:01:44JackYeah. And let&#39;s just, uh, quickly, uh, unpack a little bit of the vocabulary. Chronic means, like, always constant. So chronic pain means you&#39;re always in pain from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. You have some kind of pain.00:01:54발표자Yes.00:02:04JackIssue.00:02:05JackAnd and so social was describing like, like the spoons are not literally spoons. We&#39;re not talking about real spoons. We&#39;re saying, like, they&#39;re like metaphors. Like, you got 10 spoons and.00:02:19XochitlThey&#39;re like units of energy, basically.00:02:21JackUnits of energy. Right. Exactly. And so.00:02:24XochitlLike hit points on a video game when your character has like a little green.00:02:28XochitlR.00:02:30JackYeah, right. Energy. Your power gets, you know, goes down and down and down, yeah.00:02:30XochitlAnd then yeah it.00:02:35XochitlIf your character is a healthy character, let&#39;s say they did all their tests and their bar is still green. But if your character has chronic illness, then by the time they&#39;re done with their morning routine, they might be down to yellow. They might be.00:02:47XochitlDown to half points.00:02:49JackRight. And let&#39;s say your energy level for the day for a person with chronic pain is 10 spoon.00:02:55발표자And.00:02:56JackLike social said, getting ready in the morning, making breakfast, taking a shower, getting dressed, that might be 5 spoons, which means you only have 5 left for the whole day, so you get the bus, get to work, open your computer. You know, there&#39;s three more spoons now. You&#39;ve got 2 spoons.00:02:56XochitlYes.00:03:17JackLeft, you don&#39;t even have enough to get home, you know.00:03:20XochitlRight.00:03:22JackUntil you hit the wall right and you&#39;re so exhausted.00:03:22XochitlAnd.00:03:24XochitlRight.00:03:26XochitlAnd a lot of people get through their day-to-day on like a spoon deficit. So you&#39;re, but you&#39;re the concept basically suggests you&#39;re borrowing spoons. You&#39;re borrowing energy from your next day, which is how people who have chronic illness might end up pushing through of five day work week and doing 40 hours a week.00:03:46XochitlBut then on the weekend, they&#39;re just laying in bed the whole 2 days.00:03:50JackRight. They&#39;re just totally wiped.00:03:52JackThat out. OK, I love the idea of spoon theory. I think it&#39;s a really good. I&#39;m not sure why they call it spoons. Like use spoons as the as the example, but it could be anything. Yeah.00:04:02XochitlRight. I don&#39;t know. I think I think because you run out, you run out. I don&#39;t know if this is true or not, but you know when you&#39;re doing dishes like you only have a certain amount of spoons and you have to do the dishes again.00:04:13JackOhh yeah, that&#39;s right that that&#39;s probably it. Yeah. I think that makes sense. Yeah, so.00:04:16XochitlYeah.00:04:20발표자So.00:04:22JackUh, I&#39;ll, I&#39;ll. I&#39;ll start with myself here first. Uh, I&#39;ve been. I&#39;ve been dealing with. Uh, a chronic chronic back pain for probably 20 years, I would say.00:04:34JackI had my first.00:04:36JackMy first surgery, my first back surgery for disc.00:04:42JackProblems when I was 27.00:04:45JackAnd and then, uh, probably about 10 years later, maybe 15 years later, I had another back surgery for more disc problems. And now for the last like maybe three weeks. I&#39;ve been dealing with some serious chronic pain just all the time.00:05:07JackWith my back and my discs again. So what? What I find is when you&#39;re in pain all the time.00:05:16JackYou&#39;re more tired.00:05:18JackYou can&#39;t exercise, so when you eat you get bored. You just sitting around. So. So in for me, I&#39;ll eat more to, like comfort myself, which makes me.00:05:30XochitlHave something to do right? Yeah.00:05:32JackGain weight, which makes my back hurt more, which makes me more depressed, which makes me want to eat more, which makes me not exercise more and it&#39;s like a a horrible spiral. You know, as I just go down the drain, you know, and things are getting worse and worse, so.00:05:48발표자Right.00:05:50JackSo.00:05:51JackYeah. So I so I I know what the spoon theory thing you&#39;re talking about is like there are times where I go to work and I run out of spoons, you know, by the my third class, I&#39;m just like.00:06:04JackI don&#39;t. Whatever. You know what, guys? Just take a rest and, you know, draw a picture on your paper or whatever you wanted to, you know, talk with your friend like I&#39;m completely. I&#39;m done. Like I I don&#39;t have the the mental capacity.00:06:15XochitlAll right.00:06:23JackOr the physical capacity to do this anymore?00:06:27JackAnd and it&#39;s a really, it&#39;s a really depressing way to live because living with pain all the time means you&#39;re kind of always thinking about the pain. It&#39;s always in your mind. And then that leaves a little bit of space for you to think about and deal with other people. So I find that I&#39;m really short tempered.00:06:38XochitlYeah.00:06:47JackWith my wife, I&#39;m like, short with my wife. You know, my wife will ask me a question. Like what? You know, what do you want for dinner? What? You know that. That&#39;s my response to something like that. And it&#39;s like it&#39;s so rude.00:06:59JackAnd so disgusting of a response. But it&#39;s not. It&#39;s not because I was mad at her or anything to do with her. It&#39;s just cuz I was in some pain. I&#39;m just like not able to focus. Like what? What did you say? Like I I can&#39;t. I can&#39;t even hear what other people are saying to me. And I really hate being like this. Like it. Really.00:06:59XochitlRight.00:07:18JackIt really makes me frustrated and I and I.00:07:21JackCan&#39;t get good.00:07:22JackSleep because I can&#39;t lie on my side. It hurts if I lie on my back. It hurts if I.00:07:27JackLie on my other side, it hurts.00:07:28JackSo it&#39;s really I&#39;ve I&#39;ve been dealing with this and and I know that you also have understand what I&#39;m saying, cuz I think you&#39;ve dealt with some like physical issues as well.00:07:38XochitlYeah.00:07:39XochitlDefinitely, Jack. I I completely understand what you&#39;re saying. I was born with.00:07:45XochitlBorderline hip dysplasia and both hips, and that just means my anatomy is wonky, so my bone is like here instead of being here, it&#39;s like on the edge of where it&#39;s supposed to be. And every time I walk it, like beats up the other bone I.00:08:01XochitlSo it like pinches and it&#39;s really bad in one hip specifically, which has become weaker due to the pain, but it&#39;s really hard to do physical therapy with it because.00:08:09발표자MHM.00:08:14XochitlI&#39;m in pain, so it&#39;s hard to start doing exercises around it because it hurts more and it&#39;s more tiring and I have like a very limited.00:08:25XochitlAmount of what I can do in one day.00:08:28XochitlWhich means that I&#39;ll if I feel like I have energy to do something, I&#39;ll do as much as I can in one day and then I&#39;ll end up borrowing spoons for the next day. So I&#39;m totally crashed out the next day. I have no energy and I know what you mean. I can also get really short tempered. Uh, one thing, a lot of people don&#39;t realize is that.00:08:47XochitlIt affects your sleep.00:08:49JackRight.00:08:49XochitlSo imagine that you had really poor sleep for like a week straight. At that point, if you&#39;re only sleeping.00:09:01XochitlFar less hours a night than you&#39;re supposed to be, far less comfortably. You probably start getting confused, agitated, irritable.00:09:12XochitlAnd unfortunately, people around you suffer because.00:09:15XochitlYou can snap at them unexpectedly.00:09:18JackYou&#39;re not gonna snap at strangers. You know you&#39;re gonna snap it. You&#39;re the people that you love because you know that they can&#39;t abandon you. You know, it&#39;s like.00:09:25XochitlRight. You&#39;re comfortable with, you&#39;re comfortable around them and you&#39;re also interacting with them?00:09:29XochitlMore, yeah.00:09:30XochitlOn a daily basis than you would with any strangers, right. So.00:09:34XochitlIt does. It is really hard. It it&#39;s one of the reasons that I have a hard time.00:09:39XochitlFinding a full time job that I can do is because.00:09:45XochitlI only have so many spoons in a day and I really struggled with college when I was in college for the same reason. It&#39;s not that the work was too hard.00:09:52XochitlFor.00:09:53XochitlMe. It was that I would just get so burnt out in a day from I didn&#39;t. I like. I won&#39;t sleep well. I&#39;m not eating well. I feel terrible. I can&#39;t walk well. Some days I really have to drag myself around.00:10:08XochitlGet anywhere and I think.00:10:12XochitlIt really puts a strain on what you can do in any given day and a lot of people just don&#39;t understand.00:10:17XochitlAnd especially when it&#39;s kind of an invisible disability. So like people like Jack and I, we might look fine to people on the outside, but we&#39;re suffering internally through all these physical and emotional stressors because it does affect your mental well-being as well.00:10:35JackYeah, chronic pain is is a it. It doesn&#39;t just affect your body, it it affects your mind as well it it. It plays games with.00:10:42JackYour.00:10:43JackWith your mind and and changes your personality and and your outlook on life and and everything so.00:10:49JackOhh yeah trying trying to overcome it. If you can find some way of dealing with like physical therapy or some kind of you know if there&#39;s a if there&#39;s a way out of it. I highly recommend pursuing it if it&#39;s possible and staying away from like painkillers and opiates and that sort of stuff.00:11:12JackBecause that stuff is.00:11:13JackJust uh masks the pain for a little while, but then that&#39;ll send you down a whole, you know, could send you.00:11:20XochitlOhh, their wormhole, right? Yeah.00:11:21JackYes, exactly, exactly so there. You know, there isn&#39;t really necessarily always a good solution to our problems. You know, sometimes they can throw painkillers at it. That&#39;s not gonna solve the problem.00:11:33XochitlYeah.00:11:34JackYeah.00:11:35XochitlIt&#39;s like seeding the monster temporarily, then it like rears its ugly head again.00:11:40JackYeah, it it gives you, you get a week of, you know, like a kind of uh. But then you&#39;re foggy, you know, you you&#39;re not yourself, you know, so.00:11:48XochitlAnd you can also get your table like as soon as you&#39;re off the pain meds or as soon as anything. Yeah, and you get dependent on them. So I think it. Yeah, I I really haven&#39;t had much. I did get an injection, A cortisol injection in my hip.00:11:52JackAll right, absolutely, absolutely.00:12:03XochitlThat worked for about two weeks, and then the pain is back, I suppose, to work for average to three to six months. So I&#39;m like, well, totally didn&#39;t work. So I burned through that. So we shall see. But yeah, it is. It is a frustrating condition and I think.00:12:11JackYou&#39;re like, whoops.00:12:23XochitlFirst world so-called first world countries are just now starting to treat chronic pain as its own condition, not just the underlying cause, but managing it on its own. And we&#39;re just now making strides and.00:12:37XochitlMaking accommodations for it in the workplace, and I think we&#39;re making big leaps, but yeah, I&#39;m curious to know about your guys&#39;s experience as listeners. Do any of you suffer with chronic pain or chronic health conditions? Obviously, only share as much as you&#39;re comfortable sharing, but yeah, I&#39;m just curious to know what, what are things like in your country?00:12:56XochitlUM, how does it operate in your country and your culture?00:12:59XochitlThere.00:13:01XochitlYeah, I&#39;m very interested to know. So leave us a comment down below at AZ englishpodcast.com. Shoot us an e-mail at at ozenglishpodcast@gmail.com.00:13:10XochitlAnd make sure to join the we chat and WhatsApp groups to talk to us directly. If you can spare $1.99 Jack and I are making exclusive episodes for subscribers. This really helps us to be able to increase the level and amount of content that we&#39;re making. So we really appreciate your support and thank you so much to those of you who have subscribed.00:13:31XochitlReady. And I&#39;ll see you the next.00:13:33XochitlTime. Bye bye.00:13:34JackBye bye. Podcast Website:<a href="http://%EF%BB%BFhttps://atozenglishpodcast.com/topic-talk-spoon-theory/" rel="nofollow">﻿https://atozenglishpodcast.com/topic-talk-spoon-theory/</a>Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Topic Talk | Spoon Theory

In this exclusive episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack recommend some apps that will help you get around if you decide to visit the United States. Transcript:00:00:00JackHey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.00:00:03JackAnd if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.00:00:23JackAnd be careful, don&#39;t hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.00:00:42JackEach week.00:00:44JackSo make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.00:00:52JackNow let&#39;s get on with the show.00:00:55JackWelcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I&#39;m here with my co-host social. And today we are in the culture corner and social. We&#39;re talking about like what apps you would need if you were going to live and navigate the United States.00:01:16JackYou know.00:01:16XochitlOK. Jack, I have some good ones that I think you really need one that I would like to say is that Google is king in the US and I know that in Korea and and China and some other certain countries, you guys use a different search engine, which means kind of like a a web page where you can look up anything.00:01:36XochitlYou guys don&#39;t usually use Google. You might use like uh.00:01:40XochitlWhat&#39;s the Korean 1 gun?00:01:42JackThere&#39;s neighbor and there&#39;s Dom. There&#39;s a couple of different ones, yeah.00:01:43XochitlNeighbor. Yeah. And so there&#39;s a few different ones.00:01:47XochitlI know China is the same way. I know a lot of countries are the same way. They have their own search engine, but in the US, Google is the key search engine. So you want to have Google Maps on your phone.00:01:57XochitlIf you don&#39;t have an iPhone, if you have an iPhone you want to have Apple maps, that will have everything accurate. You definitely need a maps app on your phone because you&#39;re gonna navigate right when you go to the US.00:02:12XochitlThis and those apps, both Google and Apple, can tell you how to get around using public transportation is kind of like local maps in Korea or neighbor maps, so it&#39;s really beneficial in those ways. Another thing I would say that you absolutely need is a Facebook, you know that a lot of people don&#39;t have Facebook in their home.00:02:32XochitlCountries don&#39;t really use it, but here in.00:02:37XochitlThe US we use Facebook as a primary method of communication. The Messenger app, which is associated with Facebook, is one of the primary ways people message each other and communicate kind of like how other countries use WhatsApp or WeChat. We use Facebook Messenger.00:02:55JackOK.00:02:56XochitlYeah, I would say those are a few big ones that you definitely have to have.00:03:00XochitlYes.00:03:01JackNow Facebook and Instagram are actually owned by the same company by Facebook, right? Or by? Yeah, I forgot. What&#39;s the Facebook&#39;s company name? It&#39;s it&#39;s called meta. Yeah, right. Or meta. Meta. Yeah.00:03:06XochitlYeah. Messenger, Facebook, Instagram. They&#39;re all owned by.00:03:13XochitlNada. Nada. I think. Nada. Nada.00:03:18JackSo if you have an Instagram account or a Facebook account, you can still message people through Instagram or through Facebook, right? As my daughter seen told me, she likes to message message people through.00:03:27발표자 3Hmm.00:03:32JackProgram.00:03:33XochitlYeah, it&#39;s common to message people through Instagram. Another really common way to message people is on Snapchat. In the US, I&#39;ve never liked Snapchat. My generation and younger generations really use it a lot to communicate, but I really never could get into it. It&#39;s so it&#39;s like there&#39;s usually little videos and stuff. People send each other.00:03:54XochitlAnd stories and like.00:03:56XochitlIt just.00:03:58XochitlIt&#39;s always loud. You you never know what? Yeah. You never know what you&#39;re going to get in a message. So I.00:03:58JackToo much?00:04:03XochitlJust don&#39;t like it.00:04:05XochitlI like just being able to read like a wall of text and then kind of go from there versus having to like, listen to something on a loop a few times.00:04:12XochitlOr, you know whatever. Yeah.00:04:12JackYeah, you just like good old American, old fashioned American Facebook. You know, the boring your aunts and uncles are all on there and you know, it&#39;s just, it&#39;s the old people app. But I I love it. You know, I it&#39;s.00:04:18XochitlYeah.00:04:27JackIt&#39;s my speed.00:04:28JackYou know, I can handle it, yeah.00:04:29발표자 3Yeah.00:04:31발표자I think a.00:04:31XochitlLot of the younger generations still uses Facebook. I had some younger generations from other countries like Canada and stuff don&#39;t, and so I had some Canadian friends that were my same age when I was in Korea and I remember they used to make fun of me. Like, what are you, a grandma because you still have Facebook, but a lot of younger people in the US.00:04:51XochitlStill have Facebook and they use Facebook or Messenger or whatever.00:04:55JackYeah, I never saw it as like an old. I mean it. It became an old person&#39;s thing. But what it became is like like a like.00:05:03JackA platform that everyone has, but it&#39;s like a boring. Uh, it&#39;s like having a telephone in your house. You know, it&#39;s like.00:05:10XochitlOr.00:05:10XochitlA e-mail.00:05:12JackIt&#39;s like a utility, exactly like, uh, like having a yeah. Yeah. It&#39;s like I have, of course, I have a Facebook account. It&#39;s like I have a phone. I have a Facebook account. I have an e-mail account. Yeah, it it&#39;s not cool. I don&#39;t, you know, go on there to like, you know, hang out and stuff. But it&#39;s a very functional.00:05:14XochitlYeah. What do you do there?00:05:22XochitlI have an e-mail.00:05:24XochitlYeah.00:05:32JackKind of easy platform to use.00:05:35JackAnd so I feel like it&#39;s more, it&#39;s more of like a utility, you know, just just, just something everyone needs in America.00:05:46XochitlAnd everything. A lot of people have is TikTok, people message through TikTok and also it&#39;s just a short form video platform and I think it&#39;s really useful if you&#39;re like in the US you will get content from the US on your TikTok and I think it&#39;s helpful because it kind of gives you some cultural.00:06:04XochitlInsight and and besides that, I think it&#39;s really important to use things like Yelp, Google Reviews, Reddit because you can look up recommendations for wherever you are about like what restaurants to eat at and you can.00:06:18XochitlSee how they&#39;re.00:06:18XochitlReviewed Reddit, you can kind of see what other people suggest. Sometimes there will be subreddits.00:06:24XochitlFor your city that you&#39;re living in. So if you&#39;re like an exchange student, or if you want to visit a city like let&#39;s say you want to plan a trip to Chicago or New York or something, you can check out the subreddit.00:06:35XochitlIt&#39;s a way that I planned my trip when I went to Seattle.00:06:38XochitlIs that I?00:06:40XochitlLooked up the subreddit and looked up what would you eat if it was your last day?00:06:44XochitlIn Seattle and.00:06:45XochitlThere&#39;s a big thread of people writing like what specific place they.00:06:49XochitlWould go to.00:06:49XochitlEat. And so then I made a note of all those places and mapped them out. And so that I could.00:06:54XochitlHit them all up in order.00:06:56XochitlAnd yeah.00:06:57JackWas it worth it? But they&#39;re good, right?00:06:59XochitlAnd they were all good, really.00:07:01발표자 3Hmm.00:07:01발표자 3Like.00:07:02JackYeah, people are are pretty passionate. You know about. If if people are pretty passionate about restaurant visit and there&#39;s so much so that they will actually post on online about it, you know it&#39;s probably good like it&#39;s probably good. I was just thinking like we we covered like entertainment like eating and stuff like that.00:07:16발표자 3Yeah.00:07:23JackAnd like things to see and things to do, you could go to Reddit or Yelp, you know, to get, you know, ideas of places to go.00:07:31JackUM navigation using Google Maps will tell you like walk, you know, uh 100 meters and turn right you know so it it gives you very good directions.00:07:41JackWhat about safety? Is there any like safety apps or anything like that? So just like things that where you could, do you think that like giving your location is a good idea or is that is that actually?00:07:52JackWriting danger into your travel situation, I&#39;m kind of conflicted about that.00:07:59XochitlI think if you have Snapchat, you should turn off your location because anybody that you have added on Snapchat can look at your location and find out exactly where you are at any given moment, which is.00:08:10XochitlNot a good thing.00:08:11JackNo.00:08:12XochitlBut there are certain apps you can look them up because there&#39;s a variety of them that will alert, like an inner circle of people.00:08:19XochitlAbout where your location is or you can also share your location on WhatsApp or a couple of other apps like that and on Facebook Messenger. I believe you can also share your location or send your location. I think that it&#39;s good.00:08:32XochitlTo have an option to share or send a location with a few close, I would say family or friends or something so someone knows where you&#39;re at at all times.00:08:39JackYes.00:08:42JackAbsolutely. I think like don&#39;t just broadcast it to everybody. You know, the whole, you know, public or whatever, make it public. But if you could give your location to a few close family members, if you can, if you can do that, use that function.00:08:58JackI think that&#39;s a that&#39;s a really, really important because you&#39;re in a new city, you&#39;re you&#39;re navigating it. You might be alone, you you may not know exactly the dangers that are lurking, you know, beneath the surface, wherever you may be. So it&#39;s good that that people know where you are.00:09:19JackAnd so, yeah, I would say that&#39;s that&#39;s one thing you have to think about too.00:09:24JackBut yeah, there you go.00:09:26XochitlAll right. I think that we&#39;ve hit up all the major ones and if you have any more travel questions for us or questions about.00:09:34XochitlNote the US or any comments. Leave them down below at A-Z, englishpodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at at Oz English podcast at.00:09:42XochitlGmail.com.00:09:43XochitlAnd join the we chat and WhatsApp groups where you can talk to Jack and I directly and ask US direct questions and also Jack and I have started an exclusive episode section for subscribers.00:09:55XochitlIf you guys are interested in donating $1.99 to us, that would be really helpful, because then we can create more content for you guys. We would really appreciate it. So check that out. Talk to you guys next.00:10:06발표자 3Bye bye. Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Culture Corner | Apps you need to navigate the United States

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/12/20/2d870cbf-aeda-4d31-8ec4-9c89f5eeb174_dear_jack_32_accent_anxieties.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack help out a listener who is anxious about having an accent when speaking English.Dear Xochitl and Jack,I recently moved to an English-speaking country to pursue my studies, and while I&#39;m confident in my academic English, I find it challenging to engage in casual conversations with native speakers. I often feel self-conscious about my accent and worry that I might not be understood clearly. How can I overcome this fear and improve my spoken English in informal settings?Sincerely,Accent AnxietiesTranscript:00:00:00JackHey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.00:00:03JackAnd if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.00:00:23JackAnd be careful, don&#39;t hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.00:00:42JackEach week.00:00:44JackSo make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.00:00:52JackNow let&#39;s get on with the show.00:00:55JackWelcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I&#39;m here with my co-host social. And today we are.00:01:03JackDoing a dear social and Jack episode where one of our listeners has written or sent us an e-mail.00:01:12JackWith some kind of problem that they need help with and it is something language related and so.00:01:18JackUh, and I know I know what you&#39;re going to say already, because I&#39;ve read this before, so I can kind of predict what your answer is going to be social. But I I like I you&#39;ve said this before and I I like it so much. I I hope you say it again. So here&#39;s the here&#39;s the letter. Here&#39;s Social and Jack.00:01:36JackI recently moved to an English speaking country to pursue to pursue my studies.00:01:43JackAnd while I&#39;m confident in my academic English, I find it challenging to engage in casual conversation with native speakers. I often feel self-conscious about my accent and worry that I might not be understood clearly.00:02:01JackHow can I overcome this fear and improve my spoken English in informal settings? Sincerely.00:02:10JackAccent anxieties.00:02:13XochitlAlright, acts and anxiety. Well, I think the fear that you&#39;re having is really valid. It&#39;s really normal. I think anyone who learns a new language feels this way. I know I certainly did when I moved to Korea. I&#39;m going to tell you.00:02:28XochitlThe way that you&#39;re going to see the most improvement.00:02:32XochitlIs jumping head first just nose diving into that fear?00:02:39XochitlAnd trying your hardest anyway. Yes, there will be uncomfortable and awkward moments where people don&#39;t understand what you&#39;re saying. Yes, sometimes people might correct you, some people might be jerks and make fun of your accents. I had people laugh at me in Korea to my face.00:02:55XochitlYeah, it stings a little bit, but how many languages could they speak fluently so you know, most of the time, any. Yeah. Most of the time, people who can speak two languages fluently are not going to be the same people laughing in your face because they can appreciate how difficult it is to learn a second language. And they&#39;re going to be respectful.00:03:02발표자Yeah.00:03:02JackYeah, yeah.00:03:15XochitlAbout it.00:03:16JackAnd what? What does your mom say about people that speak two languages?00:03:21JackDo you remember? Ohh you forgot. Ohh OK. God love. I&#39;ll never forget this because your mom, your your mom said like what? The only thing that means is when when you have an accent it just means that you can speak two languages.00:03:22XochitlI forgot Jack.00:03:34XochitlAnd.00:03:37XochitlRight, right. That&#39;s true.00:03:38JackYou know that&#39;s, that&#39;s all it means. Like if you have an accent and you&#39;re speaking English with an accent, it just means you speak multiple languages. You&#39;re you&#39;re smart, you&#39;re, you know, more than the the people you&#39;re talking to, you know.00:03:46XochitlRight. And that&#39;s part of.00:03:50XochitlRight, so don&#39;t be ashamed. Just.00:03:53XochitlJust launch in there and I don&#39;t hold back. I know it can be daunting. I know it can be embarrassing, but you&#39;ll never learn if you don&#39;t try. And I see this with my mom and her sisters. I see that. I think my mom.00:04:08XochitlAll her sisters and her moved to the US around the same time and started learning English around the same time. But my mom? Really.00:04:18XochitlKind of launched into using it. She didn&#39;t really care what people said. She wasn&#39;t embarrassed if people made fun of her accent or said they couldn&#39;t understand her. And I think that that&#39;s what led her to develop her English the best because she wasn&#39;t bothered by the comments or the people making fun of her. And in Korea, it stung me a little when people made fun of my accent.00:04:40XochitlLaughed at me.00:04:43XochitlAnd then I shook it off and I was like, hey, I&#39;m trying my best here so that I have nothing to be embarrassed about. So don&#39;t hold back.00:04:51JackI think it&#39;s interesting that you&#39;re, you know, of your, your mom and her sisters, not everyone developed at the same rate because I&#39;m assuming, you know, and this is.00:05:03JackUh.00:05:04JackI think this.00:05:05JackIs a correct assumption.00:05:06JackIt&#39;s not. They&#39;re all equal, and they&#39;re all of equal intelligence. You know? They&#39;re, they&#39;re all you know, they&#39;re, they&#39;re they&#39;re cognitively very, you know, healthy or whatever. And there there&#39;s no, there&#39;s no. The issue is not it&#39;s not that it&#39;s it&#39;s an attitude.00:05:10XochitlYes. Yeah, I would say yes, yeah.00:05:20발표자Thanks.00:05:24JackIssue almost. You know what I mean? It&#39;s like this. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.00:05:28XochitlOh, go ahead. I was just gonna say her two sisters are are are more shy than she is. And one of them even took formal English lessons far longer than my mom did and got, like, a.00:05:42XochitlSome kind of I don&#39;t want to say in a degree, but she does. She passed some kind of course.00:05:48발표자Hmm.00:05:49XochitlStill, if you compare her English and my mom&#39;s English, my mom&#39;s English is far superior, and it really can&#39;t come down to my mom uses it every day. My mom incorporates new words every day. My mom isn&#39;t, like, scared or shy to engage with people in English, and my mom never says I can&#39;t do it. And her two other sisters sometimes have a attitude of like.00:06:10XochitlOhh I can. I don&#39;t know if I can. They like more. You know, my mom has a very can do attitude. She&#39;s very straightforward. Yeah, lady and I really think believing yourself and having that confidence it will lead you to be better in the long run.00:06:24JackThis is gonna sound cheesy and cringy, but my basketball coach had a a.00:06:31JackAn expression of a banner that had this expression up hanging in the gym when I was in high school and he said attitude, not aptitude, determines your altitude. And I always remember that, you know, and I think it&#39;s very true.00:06:44XochitlRight.00:06:50JackAnd sometimes we think, oh, I&#39;m not smart enough. Ohh, it&#39;s I&#39;m not good at languages. I&#39;m not this. I&#39;m not that. It&#39;s those are just excuses. It&#39;s like what you&#39;re really talking about.00:07:01JackIs fear you&#39;re afraid?00:07:03JackAnd if you can just put that fear aside and face your fear you, you&#39;d be surprised just what you can accomplish, you know, and I think that we&#39;re and that I think that&#39;s universally true for everything, not just language learning, but just like learning anything.00:07:03XochitlRight.00:07:21JackIn general is that I think everybody has to start with the kind of incompetent.00:07:27JackLevel. You know when you&#39;re first learning a language you&#39;re like I&#39;m incompetent, but as you just keep fighting and fighting and fighting and and working hard, you become competent and and it&#39;s it&#39;s, you know it it it does feel like a.00:07:32발표자Right.00:07:43JackSometimes impossible journey I I think learning a language is kind of like climbing.00:07:49JackI don&#39;t know Mount Everest or something. You know? You can&#39;t. You can&#39;t look at the peak. You can&#39;t just be like, hey, I just want to jump up to that peak there and then pop back down. You know, it&#39;s like, no, you gotta go to base camp one base camp, two base camp three. You gotta go. You know, you&#39;ve gotta go through all the stages.00:07:52발표자Right.00:08:09JackFirst, before you get to the where you want to be, so I think I think anxiety accent anxieties is just feeling a little bit overwhelmed, but it sounds like he or she is already so far down the road.00:08:26JackObviously, don&#39;t even think about the accent thing like you&#39;re fine.00:08:26XochitlRight.00:08:29XochitlRight, yeah. Don&#39;t be embarrassed. You&#39;re already doing really well in academic English, which is one of the hardest things. Pat yourself on the back and don&#39;t be afraid to.00:08:39XochitlYou know, just put yourself out there because I guarantee that those students that you&#39;re learning with, I mean, you&#39;re learning in a foreign language.00:08:47XochitlSo you pat yourself on the back for that because that&#39;s something I wouldn&#39;t.00:08:52XochitlWant to do?00:08:53JackIt&#39;s like doing it with like two hands tied behind your back, you know?00:08:57발표자Yes.00:08:57JackIt&#39;s.00:08:57JackLike and I&#39;ll I&#39;ll like, I&#39;ll. I&#39;ll, I&#39;ll tell you what I&#39;m from Minnesota.00:08:59XochitlIt&#39;s hard.00:09:04JackAnd I didn&#39;t even know I had an accent until I moved to California and everybody started making fun of the way that I spoke English. So even as a native speaker, my own accent, I had to change it because I was. So I&#39;m. And now if I had more confidence, if I had had more confidence as a young person.00:09:24JackI probably would have just kept my accent, but the Midwest accent is very specific as social knows what I&#39;m talking about because she&#39;s from the Midwest as well.00:09:27XochitlMm-hmm.00:09:35JackAnd when I moved to California, I would say really weird things like that. My pronunciation was really strange and people would be like, where are you from? Are you from, you know, are you from Minnesota? Are you from Wisconsin or something? And and I I thought I was saying it normally, you know. And then I I realized that I wasn&#39;t. And so I even worked on my own.00:09:58JackAccent as a you know, as an American to have a more kind of generic American accent. So this is, you know, don&#39;t don&#39;t worry about it, you&#39;ll be fine.00:10:09XochitlYeah. Don&#39;t sweat yourself. You&#39;ll be OK anyway, if you have any questions, make sure you leave them down below or any comments at A-Z. Englishpodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at AZ englishpodcast@gmail.com and make sure make sure to join who we chat and WhatsApp Group so you can talk to Jack Knight directly. We&#39;ll see you guys next.00:10:27XochitlTime. Bye bye.00:10:28JackBye bye. Podcast Website:<a href="http://%EF%BB%BFhttps://atozenglishpodcast.com/dear-xochitl-and-jack-im-anxious-about-my-accent/" rel="nofollow">﻿https://atozenglishpodcast.com/dear-xochitl-and-jack-im-anxious-about-my-accent/</a>Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Dear Xochitl and Jack | I'm anxious about my accent

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/12/7/fb689dca-a833-40f8-bf2d-d88c4e70a38a_of_the_blue__grain_of_salt__and_give_it_a_shot.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack discuss the following three idiomatic expressions: Out of the blue:Definition: Unexpectedly or without warning; something happening suddenly and unexpectedly.Example: &#34;I hadn&#39;t spoken to my old friend in years, but then out of the blue, she sent me an email asking how I was doing.&#34; Take it with a grain of salt:Definition: To be skeptical about something; not to completely believe or trust something.Example: &#34;The tabloids reported that the celebrity was getting married again, but we should take it with a grain of salt until we hear it from a reliable source.&#34; Give it a shot:Definition: To attempt or try something; to give something a try, especially when facing uncertainty or difficulty.Example: &#34;I&#39;ve never played golf before, but I&#39;m willing to give it a shot and see how it goes.&#34; Podcast Website:<a href="https://atozenglishpodcast.com/vocabulary-spotlight-out-of-the-blue-take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt-and-give-it-a-shot/" rel="nofollow">https://atozenglishpodcast.com/vocabulary-spotlight-out-of-the-blue-take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt-and-give-it-a-shot/</a>Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Vocabulary Spotlight | Out of the blue, Take it with a grain of salt, and Give it a shot

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/9/18/e84cbab1-043c-4379-be7a-9df6a2b4ebba_asons_you_re_never_too_old_to_learn_a_language.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about why it&#39;s still important for adults to learn a new language.Transcript:00:00:00JackHey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.00:00:03JackAnd if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.00:00:23JackAnd be careful, don&#39;t hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.00:00:42JackEach week.00:00:44JackSo make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.00:00:52JackNow let&#39;s get on with the show.00:00:56JackWelcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I&#39;m here with my co-host social. And today we are doing a topic talk and the topic of today&#39;s conversation is why you are never too old to learn a language and such a I just went online and did a little bit of research.00:01:18JackAnd I found five pretty interesting reasons why you&#39;re never too old to learn a language, and the first one is about near neuroplasticity.00:01:29XochitlOh, interesting.00:01:30JackAnd so yeah, and it&#39;s it&#39;s it says here while it&#39;s true that children often have an easier time picking up languages due to their brains, high level of neuroplasticity, which means ability to adapt and change, adults can still learn new languages.00:01:50JackEffectively, research has shown that the adult brain remains capable of forming new neural connections.00:01:58JackActions and adapting to new linguistic challenges, albeit at a different pace than children, so it&#39;s not like we have zero ability to learn a language and and build new neural pathways, but it&#39;s not the same as when we&#39;re like in the the critical age when you know.00:02:18JackWhatever that might be, five to three years old.00:02:21JackYou know, I don&#39;t know. Thirteen years old or whatever, so yeah.00:02:25발표자Right, right.00:02:26XochitlYeah. OK. I think that&#39;s very interesting. I&#39;ve heard before on theories that if you learn two or more languages as a balanced bilingual from childhood that you&#39;re also more able to pick up new languages. But even if you hadn&#39;t, even if you are monolingual.00:02:44XochitlAnd you never learned more than one language growing up. I think research shows that adults, it&#39;s it&#39;s beginning to show at an increasing weight that adults still retain quite a bit of neuroplasticity. Right, so I think.00:03:02XochitlYeah, that just gives you every more reason to have faith that you can learn another language and a lot of the world has light up on us because they have learned two or more languages.00:03:15XochitlFrom a young age so.00:03:17JackYeah. And this one kind of dovetails nicely. It connects with the one later, which is cognitive benefits. You know, like the like, holding off dementia and stuff like that is creating new neural pathways in your brain, you know, so neurons are making new connections.00:03:28발표자Yep.00:03:36JackThis is a good thing, like it&#39;s a it&#39;s a good practice. It&#39;s like exercise for your brain, you know, it&#39;s like working out your brain. So yeah, definitely a good thing. And I also I wanted to say one more thing about what you said about bilingual children.00:03:44XochitlRight.00:03:56JackCause my daughter is a a balanced bilingual just like you.00:04:00JackBar and I think there&#39;s something that children learn early that that we don&#39;t, that I didn&#39;t learn till I was older and that is that language is arbitrary and what arbitrary means is there&#39;s no reason for anything to be called anything like trees.00:04:20JackJust the sound that we decided as English speakers to mean tree.00:04:23발표자This can happen.00:04:27JackBut it means nothing to Spanish speaker, you know.00:04:27XochitlRight.00:04:31XochitlIt might even mean something else, like if a one word might mean something completely different in another language.00:04:37JackExactly, exactly. Those are called false cognates. I believe you know when they they don&#39;t line, they sound the same, but they&#39;re totally unrelated.00:04:47JackUM, and I think that, uh, you learned, you know, when you were young, you&#39;re like ohh table is table and table is also the Spanish word for table is Mesa.00:04:58JackIf I&#39;m not mistaken.00:04:59JackYeah. So you&#39;ve got you&#39;ve got 2 words and you&#39;re like, oh, OK, so things can have multiple names depending on their.00:05:06XochitlRight.00:05:07JackCultural significance.00:05:09JackAnd you learned that just probably before you even knew you learned it. You you knew that. And my daughter.00:05:14XochitlRight. That was a fact of life, basically. Like, you don&#39;t really think that too much.00:05:17JackYeah.00:05:19JackYeah. And in my little tiny English speaking world, where I&#39;m a monolingual person, I probably was like, you know, a teenager when I had that epiphany. And I&#39;m like, ohh you, the world is not all table is not just the universal term for, you know table it was it was always it&#39;s always been a table since the beginning of time.00:05:35XochitlRight.00:05:39JackYou know, so you you just don&#39;t. You don&#39;t get that epiphany that that realization until until.00:05:40XochitlRight.00:05:48JackNumber two, life experience, this one. I&#39;ll just read the first sentence. Adults bring a wealth of life experience to the language learning process. So how? What do you think about that? Like, just like life experience.00:06:03XochitlI think life experience can help you in any way, because if you already have practice studying other things like in university or high school, then you probably already know how to study.00:06:16XochitlMe and that helps a lot. Like you gave a tip in an earlier episode about writing things down and how that helps retain information and for example, things like flash cards. You&#39;ll have all those tools at your disposal and you&#39;ll be way more organized. So I think that will definitely help. And it&#39;s also something to look forward to in the sense that it&#39;ll open your life experiences.00:06:37XochitlToo.00:06:38XochitlLike you&#39;ll have way more experiences and be able to appreciate cultures at a different level. If you speak another language fluently.00:06:47JackI I see it as like this, like beautiful secret skeleton key to an entire entirely new world. Like you. You put it in. You open that door and it&#39;s like the Wizard of Oz. Like you walking into another world that you can understand.00:06:57XochitlYeah.00:07:07JackYou know, without that, without the language, you&#39;re missing just so much. It&#39;s so it&#39;s so it&#39;s so dull and and dreary and and you you can&#39;t really appreciate.00:07:19JackI&#39;m speaking no, you go ahead. You go ahead.00:07:20XochitlIt&#39;s like an.00:07:20XochitlApple, sorry, good.00:07:23XochitlI&#39;m just gonna say it&#39;s like when you go to the grocery store in the US, there&#39;s like a wax cap on the apples. Like there&#39;s a thin wax on it, and then you can wash it in hot water and melt it away. And the apple tastes way better. That&#39;s like the language. Like, you can see the culture and appreciate it to some extent. But that whole flavorful life of a culture that you can appreciate with language is locked away.00:07:45XochitlUnderneath that wax.00:07:46발표자Yeah.00:07:47JackThat&#39;s that&#39;s exactly right. There you go. Perfect metaphor. So yeah, life experience, learning a language #3 diverse learning resources. So access to information and knowledge that you might not have had available to you in.00:08:07JackWithout being able to speak that second language, that new language.00:08:11XochitlYeah, yeah, I definitely agree. That&#39;s another thing I see a lot with, like migrants or actually I see it a lot with my family.00:08:20XochitlThey my mom speaks good English. My aunts, English is is kind of mediocre and she struggles with. It&#39;s like a whole world in the US that&#39;s locked away from her as far as the resources and being able to navigate certain things on her own because her English lacks.00:08:39XochitlAnd so.00:08:41XochitlThat&#39;s not really her fault. It&#39;s very hard to work a full time job and learn a new language when you move to a new country at the same time, I really struggle with that.00:08:48JackSure.00:08:49XochitlIn Korea, you.00:08:50XochitlKnow, but again, it does really hinder you from being able to navigate things independently. The way that you would in your home country.00:09:00JackNow you gave us some really good examples a while back in in older in older episodes about like remedies.00:09:09발표자This.00:09:10JackYour mom has these, like, certain remedies from her region of Mexico where she grew up and like, there would be no without without your momma&#39;s. You know, as a, as a gateway to that information and your mom and your and your grandparents.00:09:30JackThat information, that knowledge.00:09:31JackWould be totally locked away from.00:09:33JackYou, you know, and you said like ohh, when you have a stomach ache, your mom would make a certain herbal potion, you know, kind of.00:09:34발표자Right.00:09:43JackThing or whatever.00:09:43XochitlYeah, yeah.00:09:44JackSorry, potion sounds more magical, but it&#39;s not feature. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, and I think that that wisdom, there&#39;s, like a lot of wisdom that is locked into language.00:09:46XochitlNo, you&#39;re fine with the concoction. Uh. A mixture. Yeah, yeah.00:09:58JackAnd and without it you there&#39;s just no way you you have access to any of those things so.00:09:58발표자Yeah.00:10:04JackSo yeah, that&#39;s that&#39;s a beautiful aspect of the of learning another language #4 we touched on already, but the cognitive benefits in adults, there&#39;s reducing the risk of developing dementia or delaying the onset of dementia is is is a.00:10:25JackIs a benefit of learning a second law.00:10:28JackWhich so yeah. So I mean, even if you&#39;re just looking, it&#39;s it&#39;s almost like to me, like, you know, if you&#39;re like, oh, I gotta hit the gym, I better. I better do, like P90X or something like that. It&#39;s like, well, I gotta hit the mental gym. I&#39;m going to learn Spanish. I&#39;m going to learn French.00:10:29XochitlRight.00:10:29XochitlYou work.00:10:46XochitlRight can do some verb conjugation, yeah.00:10:50JackYeah, exactly.00:10:52JackThose are your push-ups, you know, for everything. Yeah. Yeah. Your pull-ups are your, you know, the grammar, your verb tenses or whatever, you know. But yeah, I. So I think for cognitive benefits, definitely it&#39;s worth it. And the last one is cultural enrichment. Learning a new language opens the door.00:11:12JackTo experience an.00:11:14JackExperiencing and understanding different cultures more deeply and so.00:11:19JackWould you agree with?00:11:20JackThat I think you&#39;ve already touched on that before.00:11:21XochitlYeah, we have touched on that and I would agree. And as you said about like for example, the whole herbal medicinal part, if I didn&#39;t speak any Spanish, I would be completely locked out of that or, for example, my boyfriend speaks Zapotec, he would like, I wouldn&#39;t have been able to talk with my grandparents and learn all their wisdom if I didn&#39;t speak Spanish, he wouldn&#39;t have been able to talk with his grandparents if he didn&#39;t speak Salpa tech.00:11:44XochitlAnd so it&#39;s like a whole other world that you would have been completely excluded from in a way. And I do see the effect.00:11:53XochitlOf like Latinos that grew up in the US that don&#39;t speak Spanish or don&#39;t speak some kind of language that connects them to the culture because really we&#39;re we&#39;re an indigenous culture as well they have.00:12:06XochitlIt&#39;s just there&#39;s like a wall there. So that&#39;s why I think, yeah, I agree, there&#39;s a lot of culture locked into language.00:12:13JackAbsolutely, absolutely. It&#39;s where the wisdom is locked in the language. I I think you can try to explain to the, you know, you could try to explain some of these things in English, but they&#39;re going to lose. You&#39;re going to lose a lot in the translation.00:12:30JackAnd so you know, getting it in from the original source is really important. All right, that&#39;s our. Those are our five, yeah.00:12:40XochitlAll right, listener as well. If you enjoyed that, make sure we do comment down below at A-Z newspodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at at ozenglishpodcast@gmail.com and join our WeChat and WhatsApp groups in order to join the conversation and we&#39;ll see you next time. Bye bye. Podcast Website:<a href="https://atozenglishpodcast.com/topic-talk-five-reasons-why-youre-never-too-old-to-learn-a-new-language/" rel="nofollow">https://atozenglishpodcast.com/topic-talk-five-reasons-why-youre-never-too-old-to-learn-a-new-language/</a>Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Topic Talk | Five reasons why you're never too old to learn a new language

In this exclusive episode of the A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about outdoor markets in each of their countries. Transcript: 00:00:00JackHey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.00:00:03JackAnd if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.00:00:23JackAnd be careful, don&#39;t hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.00:00:42JackEach week.00:00:44JackSo make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.00:00:52JackNow let&#39;s get on with the show.00:00:55JackWelcome to the Adas English podcast. My name is Jack and I&#39;m here with my co-host social. And today we are in the culture corner and we are talking about markets and social, having lived in both Mexico and the United States and Korea. And I think those are the three big ones, right?00:01:17XochitlYes, yes.00:01:17JackOK. What do you think about market culture? Like what, which which country strikes you as the most?00:01:27JackWith the most having the most vibrant markets where you get to like, you know, bargain and bar, you know, barter, not barter, but bargain and negotiate and things like that.00:01:39XochitlI think Mexico by far of those three countries that I&#39;ve lived in, because I went to the market, but this is also because I speak the language like fluently. And I went to the market in Korea and I felt very intimidated. But the market in Korea didn&#39;t strike me as.00:01:56XochitlDramatically cheaper than the supermarket.00:01:59JackHmm.00:01:59XochitlUM, I know a lot of people say it is, but it didn&#39;t really strike me as being dramatically cheap and there&#39;s a lot of stuff that I didn&#39;t even know, like what it was or how to prepare it. So I was kind of like scared, you know.00:02:10JackWith vegetables like in in the Korean market, you could get like a dollar or two off, but it&#39;s not. You&#39;re not.00:02:15JackGoing to get like a huge discount.00:02:18XochitlDirt cheap, like vegetables or anything. Yeah, be kind of similar, but groceries are just pretty expensive in Korea anyway, so I think that&#39;s kind of why.00:02:20JackYeah.00:02:29XochitlAnd I didn&#39;t. I didn&#39;t speak fluently enough like to the point I was kind of scared to like, miss, say something. That&#39;s a big reason why it&#39;s so important to learn another language because.00:02:41XochitlI just didn&#39;t feel confident, especially being alone. I was like and and I would see like.00:02:46XochitlFish and stuff, there&#39;s.00:02:47XochitlThese long, long, like skinny silver fish that they sell at the market.00:02:53XochitlYou know, I&#39;m talking about. I don&#39;t even know what it is. I don&#39;t know how to prepare it at.00:02:54JackYeah, yeah.00:02:57XochitlAll so like.00:02:59XochitlI just didn&#39;t know. You know what to do, but.00:03:02JackI forgot what the name of it is, but they&#39;re, you know, you gotta be careful because some are really nice, you know, but it&#39;s better when they prepare it for you and then you just bring it home like you let them cook it.00:03:10XochitlYeah.00:03:11XochitlFor you. Yeah, right. And like the side dishes or whatever. But I found side dishes to be like, expensive as well. Like, I bought like, some an egg side dish for, like, 4 bucks. But it was a really small.00:03:22XochitlPortion and I was like it just it&#39;s more expensive, Korea and the groceries are in general are are quite a bit expensive. And then I I feel like.00:03:31XochitlLike.00:03:32XochitlThe market is cheaper and more authentic than the supermarket in Korea still, but in the US it&#39;s like.00:03:38JackHmm.00:03:41XochitlThe market is like a luxury experience. Am I wrong? It&#39;s like it&#39;s like you&#39;re gonna find it cheaper at Walmart than you will at a farmers market at this point.00:03:51JackYou know I&#39;ve.00:03:52JackI have no experience at a farmers market. I&#39;ve never been to 1.00:03:56XochitlIt&#39;s all artisanal hipster stuff now, basically, and it&#39;s expensive. Like everything is expensive and because it&#39;s all locally produced and locally owned, and a lot of it is organic and whatever, handmade.00:04:11XochitlIt&#39;s just quite expensive whereas.00:04:14JackIt&#39;s like premium they. They&#39;re saying it&#39;s since we don&#39;t put any chemicals on this, this is we&#39;re going to charge you a premium, whereas in most other countries they would be appalled by that because it would be like this is this you&#39;re skipping the middleman here, you know the the person that&#39;s in between the distributor or whatever.00:04:16발표자Yeah.00:04:30XochitlRight.00:04:34JackWho&#39;s buying the the the groceries or the the foodstuffs and then selling it to the the supermarket? You you&#39;re cutting it out, you&#39;re going straight from the farmer to the customer, and yet they&#39;re charging you a premium.00:04:48JackThem based on the fact that they grew it organically, but I don&#39;t know like are they being greedy or is it just like that&#39;s what it cost to?00:04:54발표자Wait.00:04:58XochitlIt&#39;s just like the cost of doing business now or I don&#39;t know, but it it is quite expensive. Everything is just the, but you&#39;re just gonna get it cheaper at the supermarket in the US and so like, yeah. And so in the US, anything that&#39;s like owned by a big corporation like Walmart.00:05:15XochitlOr target or whatever is going to be cheaper than going to a locally owned store like a small business and that&#39;s why it&#39;s so hard to support small business in the US versus I feel like in Korea or Mexico you can still get things cheaper from small businesses. And so in Mexico, it&#39;s a very vibrant culture and the market is way cheaper.00:05:35XochitlAnd the supermarket.00:05:36XochitlFor most things.00:05:37JackYeah. And I would say in America, we just generally speaking, we don&#39;t have a market culture like it&#39;s just it&#39;s it&#39;s gone, everything is super chains, super stores, supermarkets. I mean that&#39;s that&#39;s it, you know, for the most part you will find the farmers market here and there, but they&#39;re more of a kind of luxury.00:05:44XochitlNo, we don&#39;t.00:05:51XochitlYeah.00:05:58JackThe middle class, kind of like Saturday afternoon. Let&#39;s go to the.00:05:59XochitlNiche.00:06:03XochitlYeah, like an upper middle class Saturday afternoon thing. Yeah, any.00:06:06JackRight, right. It&#39;s just not a regular person&#39;s, you know, place to go, you know.00:06:12XochitlNo. It&#39;s like for people that have time and have money to go grocery shopping and not like and throw five things in your cart real quick. That&#39;s Walmart. So yeah, we just don&#39;t have the same culture versus in Mexico. You really can&#39;t get a discount. You can also find certain things that are you can find a lot of produce that&#39;s a lot fresher at the market than the supermarket.00:06:16JackYeah, yeah, yeah.00:06:32XochitlYou can find a lot of organic produce and chicken and beef, and it&#39;s a lot more flavor.00:06:36XochitlCool.00:06:37XochitlThan it is at the supermarket. You can get really good product and for a cheaper price than you would at the supermarket. And you can also get like shoes and clothes. I mean, I just went. I&#39;m in Mexico City right now. So I went to the tangis, which is like a daily well, it&#39;s like a weekly market. So they put it up Saturdays.00:06:58XochitlUM in the area that I&#39;m in. And so there are vendors from all over that come to sell like clothing.00:07:05XochitlOr like fruit food, prepared food like drinks, all kinds of stuff you can eat there and shop there. And it&#39;s a lot of fun because it&#39;s very vibrant and it&#39;s cheap. So you should actually enjoy it, yeah.00:07:22JackWell, The funny thing is that I I I draw a lot of parallels between Mexican culture and Thai culture. I mean, I know that there&#39;s there is a weird connection there because, like spicy food, wonderful cuisine.00:07:28XochitlYes, yes, yes.00:07:36XochitlLoud hot market like.00:07:37JackAbout hot markets weekend markets, it&#39;s a market.00:07:41JackCulture and in Thailand, if you can speak the language, even just a little bit, if you learn the numbers and you learn some of the expressions like oh, that&#39;s expensive, I want it cheaper. They will. The price will drop like like 50 percent. 75% because they&#39;re just going to start. They&#39;re starting it in a egregiously high number, like a ridiculously high.00:07:57XochitlRight, yes.00:08:03JackNumber and then these foreign people will come and go like, well, let me calculate euros to that. Well, it&#39;s only $12.00 that&#39;s not that expensive, but $12.00 for this in Thailand is like yeah, $1,000,000 like it&#39;s crazy.00:08:13XochitlCheap actually.00:08:20XochitlRight. They&#39;re like ripping you off, basically.00:08:22JackYeah, they&#39;re ripping you off. And these stupid, stupid, ignorant foreigners will come in and pay these high prices. So when they see that you&#39;re a foreigner, they&#39;re gonna start you with this crazy offer. And if you&#39;re, if you&#39;re savvy enough, if you live there long enough.00:08:37JackAnd know some of the language you know, like that&#39;s. That&#39;s ridiculous. That&#39;s too expensive. And then you put the number. There&#39;s always a calculator. So you type in the number that you want to pay and then they go well, that&#39;s way too low. And then you they type their number and then you.00:08:52JackNegotiate and that&#39;s very.00:08:54JackHard for Americans to do, I find because we&#39;re.00:08:56XochitlYeah.00:08:57XochitlSo embarrassed.00:08:58JackWe&#39;re so embarrassed to negotiate. We feel like just awful people for.00:09:02JackYou know.00:09:03XochitlTo yeah. Bring a price down. I think it really depends what part of Mexico you&#39;re in as well, because here in Mexico City and also in back in the day, the culture was more about haggling, which is a phrase that we use for making the price cheaper, right, like negotiating a price. But now.00:09:03JackNot.00:09:23XochitlAnd wahaca, which is the South, it&#39;s like seen in poor taste to haggle. But here in Mexico City, you can definitely still haggle and also things are really cheap here compared to what I just found out. It&#39;s like crazy. How cheap. I think I got.00:09:36XochitlBut four avocados for like a dollar or like $1.50? And then.00:09:45JackYou and I gotta. We gotta start a new avocado company here. You gotta start sending those to Korea and I&#39;ll sell them. I&#39;ll sell for 10 bucks for one, you know.00:09:52XochitlI was like.00:09:54XochitlI know it&#39;s crazy. And then like in wahaca, it&#39;s like.00:09:58XochitlUh, 2 bucks for like a buck each basically, but you have like, $0.25 per avocado almost or $0.30 per avocado here in Mexico City. And that&#39;s the same with everything. Umm, this lady got three big fish to take home and it was only like 10 bucks. Probably. And I got 6 fish fillet.00:10:16JackYeah.00:10:19XochitlFor 10 bucks. So it&#39;s, it&#39;s just so much cheaper and then we&#39;ll have to.00:10:24JackWell, there&#39;s more competition. You know, it&#39;s like you got more vendors all fighting over, you know, business and they&#39;re willing to take a lower price so.00:10:34JackThat&#39;s Thailand. You know, just everyone&#39;s fighting with everyone else, each vendor. So they&#39;re just like, you know, who they&#39;ll go bargain basement prices if you, if you. If you&#39;re just smart enough to to, to walk away, you know, because you.00:10:42XochitlRed.00:10:48XochitlAnd I find.00:10:50XochitlOhh sorry go ahead. I was just gonna say find soul is more like Seoul. Korea is more busy like that but like.00:10:50JackNo, no.00:10:56XochitlWhere I was in Ulsan. It&#39;s like, way more chill. I think in the in the market there&#39;s not a lot going on. It was pretty quiet and like in Mexico, it&#39;s like you need to watch where you&#39;re going and then like, yeah, I think it probably the same.00:11:01발표자Yeah.00:11:10XochitlIn Thailand, because you.00:11:11JackNew wallet will get snatched.00:11:12XochitlCould easily like into of of that of. Oh yeah, someone could ****** your money, but you can also just walk.00:11:18XochitlRight into a VAT of boiling oil that someone&#39;s like cooking pork rinds in the street, like all that kind of stuff, you could just burn yourself on a.00:11:22JackOh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.00:11:23JackYeah, you gotta be safe.00:11:27JackThat&#39;s why I love the markets, though the danger, you know, like the.00:11:29XochitlI know the risk. It&#39;s like, oh, I went out for my Sunday shopping to hear some hot coals right next to me, like on fire. So yeah, it&#39;s so I think that&#39;s a really interesting part of the culture. I think Americans were not used to these. Our streets are so sanitized and so carefully curated because you, like, Sue the city or sue people if you garden.00:11:48JackYeah, well, you spilled a little bit of oil on my arm and.00:11:49XochitlYour solver fall into the hole.00:11:53JackGive me $1,000,000.00:11:55XochitlYeah. So yeah, because it&#39;s not quite as common here. There&#39;s a lot of the situation like it&#39;s just not as sanitized. It&#39;s not as clean cut. So there&#39;s just a lot.00:12:05XochitlMore action going on, yeah.00:12:06JackAnd I find in Korea. Oh, sorry. I&#39;ll just add one last thing is if I don&#39;t if I do.00:12:10발표자Yes.00:12:13JackWalk away. They don&#39;t chase after me like they did in time. What about in Mexico? Will they? Will they come after you? If.00:12:16XochitlNo, they don&#39;t care. Yeah.00:12:20JackYou if you walk away.00:12:22XochitlHow come they really don&#39;t? Well, so they really don&#39;t. In Mexico City, they do the wait. Wait, I we can talk prices.00:12:30JackOK. OK, let&#39;s feel like, wait, wait, wait, wait. OK, let&#39;s talk. Let&#39;s talk about conversation. Yeah.00:12:35XochitlCalm down, we.00:12:37XochitlWe can fix the place. You&#39;ll find something you like. You know? So. Yeah. So I can I do find that a lot? Anyways, I&#39;m very curious to know what it&#39;s like in your countries. Do you guys haggle? Which again means negotiating prices?00:12:53XochitlIs the market loud and hot? Is it lively? Is it more quiet? Do you usually go to the market or do you usually go to the supermarket to do your groceries? Leave us a comment down below at 8 is englishpodcast.com shoot us an e-mail at A-Z, englishpodcast@gmail.com or join our we chat? What&#39;s up groups to join the conversation and we&#39;ll see.00:13:11XochitlYou guys, next time. Bye bye. 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Culture Corner | Markets

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/7/21/9e256bbc-3142-4abf-90dd-ad77bbdf80f5_vocabulary_spotlight_20_fillers.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about fillers English speakers often use. English language fillers are words or phrases that people use in speech to fill pauses or gaps in conversation. Here are some common ones: Um / Uh: Used to indicate hesitation or to fill a pause while thinking.Well: Often used to introduce a statement, express agreement, or to indicate that you&#39;re considering something.So: Frequently used to transition between topics or to start a new thought.You know: Used to seek validation from the listener or to emphasize a point.Like: Often used as a filler word, especially among younger speakers, to pause or emphasize a point.I mean: Used to clarify or rephrase a statement.Actually: Used to add emphasis or correction to a statement.Basically: Often used to simplify or summarize a complex idea.Well, you see: Used to begin an explanation or to introduce reasoning.In a way / In a sense: Used to qualify or add nuance to a statement. Podcast Website:<a href="https://atozenglishpodcast.com/vocabulary-spotlight-fillers/" rel="nofollow">https://atozenglishpodcast.com/vocabulary-spotlight-fillers/</a>Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Vocabulary Spotlight | Fillers

In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack give some advice to a listener who is struggling with idioms.Transcript:00:00:00JackHey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.00:00:03JackAnd if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.00:00:23JackAnd be careful, don&#39;t hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.00:00:42JackEach week.00:00:44JackSo make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.00:00:52JackNow let&#39;s get on with the show.00:00:55JackWelcome to the ADOC English podcast. My name is Jack and I&#39;m here with my co-host social and today we have a dear social and Jack episode and this is where listeners of the program will write in with their ESL problems. Usually it&#39;s not like their life problems because.00:01:16JackYou know, goodness. Enormous, yeah.00:01:18XochitlNo different though. Why am I the judge? We we will bring that back. If you guys want it on.00:01:23XochitlPopular demands, though.00:01:24JackThat&#39;s true. Yeah, we will. We might have an I am I the jerk coming down the pipeline here pretty soon, but OK, so dear social and Jack, I have been learning English for a few months now. And while I have made progress, I still struggle with understanding.00:01:43JackIdiomatic expressions.00:01:46XochitlMm-hmm.00:01:46JackIt seems like native speakers use them all the time, and I often find myself feeling lost in conversations.00:01:55JackHow can I improve my understanding of idioms?00:01:59JackAnd use them appropriately in my own speech.00:02:04JackIt&#39;s frustrating, feeling like I&#39;m missing out on important nuances in communication sincerely lost in idioms.00:02:17XochitlOK, lost and idioms. I have a I have a couple of suggestions. I think one of them is that there are books like of idioms where they just list them out like a dictionary almost, but it&#39;s commonly used idioms with the definition where it breaks it down in plain simple English. And if you don&#39;t have the money or don&#39;t want to spend the money.00:02:37XochitlIn a book you can also look up a similar thing on Google, and they&#39;re usually like 20 or 25 idioms per page, and it&#39;ll break them down in really simple English, and that&#39;s usually free.00:02:50XochitlU.00:02:50XochitlM.00:02:51XochitlAnother thing I can suggest are YouTube videos. You can watch people who explain idioms. We have some podcasts as well here at A-Z where we talk about idioms in depth and we&#39;re going to have a we&#39;re going to add a listening comprehension panel to our exclusive episodes where we.00:03:12XochitlHave a conversation using idioms and using plain typical English and then listeners can strengthen their listening skills that way.00:03:23XochitlAnd and I guess finally I would say practice makes perfect. Try using some idioms yourself. Try listening to some music, reading literature, watching shows in English, and don&#39;t be afraid to pause when you hear them use an idiom and just Google it. We have Google at our fingertips these days that makes things a lot easier.00:03:45XochitlUM, so don&#39;t be afraid to use those tools to your advantage. Yeah. What do you think, Jack?00:03:51JackYeah, I think first.00:03:52JackFirst and foremost, I want to kind of, UM, separate the meaning of like expression versus idiom. And I think like in expression in English is when it is logically decipherable and what I mean by that is that like.00:04:12JackIf you think about it, you can understand the meaning. So for example, if I said to social I have a speech tomorrow, I have butterflies in my stomach.00:04:23JackUM, the idea of like butterflies flapping their wings in my stomach. Kind of.00:04:32JackEvokes a sort of like feeling of nervousness. Right? Like, yeah, so that would be more on the expression side of of things like. Like you can understand what that means just by thinking about it.00:04:34XochitlImage.00:04:48JackOther idioms are completely disconnected from any logic or reason you know. If I say kick the bucket social knows, then I mean die. But a non-native speaker would be like what does kicking in a bucket have anything to do with death?00:05:08XochitlRight, right.00:05:08JackYou know, it&#39;s it&#39;s totally disconnected and I think what you&#39;re talking about, uh writer is.00:05:16JackThe idioms, not the expressions, because the expressions and I what I would do is, I would try to figure them out in context because the only way to learn them is in context. If you try to just memorize a list of of idioms, it might help you, but I would say there&#39;s so many.00:05:36JackYou&#39;re gonna. It&#39;ll take you a year just to get through the.00:05:37XochitlYes.00:05:39JackA&#39;s.00:05:40XochitlRight, right. Yeah.00:05:41JackAnd then the next year, you&#39;re gonna go through the B&#39;s and then the C&#39;s, and then you&#39;re gonna forget the A&#39;s. A better way, maybe, is to try to try to understand them in context.00:05:50JackNext, and what what I&#39;ve the people who are successful in learning languages at a high level.00:05:58JackAnd uh, who aren&#39;t balanced. Bilinguals like social grew up hearing a lot of Mexican, sorry, Spanish idioms. And because she comes from a Mexican family and mixed family.00:06:11JackAnd so you also grew up hearing American English expressions. And so you, you&#39;re familiar with those since childhood for those who are starting, you have the upper hand there. But if you&#39;re just learning, you&#39;re learning idioms as an adult. What I would do is I would really have a notebook, and when you.00:06:16발표자Right.00:06:20XochitlThey have an upper hand beard.00:06:31JackCome across one that you don&#39;t know the meaning of. I would ask the person what does that mean? And then I would as soon as I I can. I would get my journal and put it. Put that entry and write it down because there&#39;s something about writing something. When you write something down.00:06:47JackWhen you remember it, you retain it much more deeply than if you just try to just hold it in your in your memory. Yeah. And so then you&#39;ll have your whole little journal of idioms, your idiom journal, the ones that you come across.00:06:48XochitlYeah.00:06:59XochitlGreat. Great.00:07:08JackThat&#39;s one strategy that I think will works really well. And if you&#39;re if you&#39;re lazy like me, do it in a voice note like picture record, write it down, you know, say it into your your phone so that you have it recorded and then write it down. Listen and write it down.00:07:15발표자Yeah.00:07:24JackHere.00:07:25XochitlThat&#39;s yeah.00:07:26JackYeah. And I think that that is because that&#39;s the only way to learn idioms is in context. If you try to learn them isolated away from meanings in regular, like regular conversation, I think it&#39;s going to be more difficult, but.00:07:33발표자Mean.00:07:43XochitlIt could be a warning for sure.00:07:44JackYeah, but if you listen to our podcast, we always give examples of the idioms you know, in context. And so you can find the context. But I think, you know, if you&#39;re talking about daily life, somebody says something and you&#39;re like I have. You know, you&#39;re like.00:08:00JackMy my horse kicked the bucket last night. And you&#39;re like.00:08:06JackWhat? What&#39;s the big deal? If your horse kicked the bucket? Yeah, that&#39;s not a bad thing. And you&#39;re like, no, it&#39;s a very bad thing. My horse died, you know? Yeah.00:08:08XochitlBut.00:08:10발표자Right.00:08:15XochitlRight.00:08:17JackSo yeah, that was my long answer. Yeah.00:08:21XochitlYeah. No, no, I think it was a great answer because it definitely whenever there&#39;s a dilemma about language learning, it requires a lot of thought to think about how you can apply into your life. But I think Jack did a great job. So if you guys want more tips, make sure to follow our podcast. Leave a comment down below at A-Z.00:08:37XochitlWhich code?00:08:38XochitlDot com shoot us an e-mail we love to receive listener emails. We really do. I love the dear social and Jack. Whenever you guys ask us ESL questions or any kind of questions, those are what some of the episodes I most look forward to recording. So don&#39;t be shy. Shoot us an e-mail at at ozenglishpodcast@gmail.com.00:08:58XochitlAnd make sure you join the WeChat and WhatsApp group. Uh to talk to us directly. And if you have any questions, you can also send them in the WeChat or WhatsApp groups and Jack and I will make note of them so we can address them in.00:09:07XochitlThe podcast see you guys. Next time. Bye bye. Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Dear Xochitl and Jack | Lost in Idioms

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/6/9/ff836ba4-2ea7-40b1-bb2b-40aca00e1dbe_grammar_zone_09_phrasals_with_push.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack explain the meanings of several phrasal verbs using the verb &#34;push.&#34; Push around: This phrasal verb means to treat someone in a bossy or unfair manner, often by using one&#39;s authority or physical strength. For example:&#34;The new manager likes to push around junior staff members to assert her authority.&#34;&#34;Don&#39;t let him push you around like that; stand up for yourself!&#34;Push for: This phrasal verb means to advocate for or strongly support something, often in a determined or persistent manner. For example:&#34;The environmental activists are pushing for stricter regulations on pollution.&#34;&#34;The union is pushing for better working conditions for its members.&#34;Push through: This phrasal verb means to overcome obstacles or resistance in order to achieve something, often by using determination or force. For example:&#34;Despite facing numerous challenges, she managed to push through and complete her project on time.&#34;&#34;We need to push through these difficult times together and come out stronger on the other side.&#34; Podcast Website:<a href="https://atozenglishpodcast.com/grammar-zone-push-around-push-for-and-push-through/" rel="nofollow">https://atozenglishpodcast.com/grammar-zone-push-around-push-for-and-push-through/</a>Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Grammar Zone | Push around, Push for, and Push through

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/5/1/b7924740-ab8c-41b7-9f3d-74f73f52f849_ead_on__dead_to_rights__and_dead_as_a_doornail.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack explain the meanings of several expressions which use the word &#34;dead.&#34;Dead on: This phrase means exactly accurate or precise. For example:&#34;You were dead on with your prediction about the outcome of the game.&#34;&#34;Her aim was dead on, hitting the target every time.&#34;Dead to rights: This expression refers to being caught red-handed or being unmistakably guilty of something. For example:&#34;The thief was caught dead to rights with the stolen goods in his possession.&#34;&#34;She was caught cheating on the exam, caught dead to rights by the teacher.&#34;Dead as a doornail: This phrase is used to emphasize that something is completely lifeless or inactive. For example:&#34;After the accident, the engine was dead as a doornail.&#34;&#34;The party was so dull, it felt dead as a doornail within minutes.&#34;Podcast Website:<a href="https://atozenglishpodcast.com/vocabulary-spotlight-expressions-using-the-word-dead/" rel="nofollow">https://atozenglishpodcast.com/vocabulary-spotlight-expressions-using-the-word-dead/</a>Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Vocabulary Spotlight | Expressions using the word "dead"

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/5/2/17/eb14f126-2f61-4190-992c-8050051ccb47_topic_talk_23_celebrity_crush.mp3

Topic Talk | Celebrity Crush

In this exclusive episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Jack tests Xochitl on her knowledge of several Australian slang terms.Australian English is rich with colorful and unique slang terms. Here are some examples:G&#39;day: A common Australian greeting, short for &#34;good day.&#34;Mate: A friend or companion.Fair dinkum: Authentic or genuine.Barbie: Barbecue.Bloke: A man or guy.Sheila: A woman.Brekkie: Breakfast.Dunny: Toilet.Bikkie: Biscuit or cookie.Maccas: McDonald&#39;s.Thongs: Flip-flops or sandals.Shout: To buy someone a drink or take turns buying rounds.Ripper: Excellent or fantastic. Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Vocabulary Spotlight | Australian Slang

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/4/30/20/ea767544-49a2-443d-b389-156d537f1aba_spotlight_18_punch_in__punch_out__and_punch_up.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack explain the meaning of several phrasal verbs which use the word punch.Punch in: To enter data or information by pressing keys on a keyboard or keypad, often used in the context of clocking in at work.Example: &#34;Don&#39;t forget to punch in when you arrive at the office.&#34;Punch out: To exit a time clock or record one&#39;s departure from work by pressing a button or card.Example: &#34;I&#39;ll punch out at 5:00 and then we can grab dinner.&#34;Punch up: To improve or enhance something, often by adding more energy, excitement, or impact.Podcast Website:<a href="https://atozenglishpodcast.com/vocabulary-spotlight-punch-in-punch-out-and-punch-up/" rel="nofollow">https://atozenglishpodcast.com/vocabulary-spotlight-punch-in-punch-out-and-punch-up/</a>Social Media:WeChat: atozenglishpodcastFacebook Group: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/</a>Tik Tok: @atozenglish1Instagram: @atozenglish22Twitter: @atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:<a href="https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcast</a>Check out our You Tube Channel:<a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8A</a>Become a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!<a href="https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670" rel="nofollow">https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670</a>Join our Whatsapp group: <a href="https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7" rel="nofollow">https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7</a>Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Free<a href="https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/" rel="nofollow">https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/</a><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode" rel="nofollow">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode</a> Support this podcast at — <a rel='payment' href='https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content'>https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/exclusive-content</a> Advertising Inquiries: <a href='https://redcircle.com/brands'>https://redcircle.com/brands</a> Privacy & Opt-Out: <a href='https://redcircle.com/privacy'>https://redcircle.com/privacy</a>

Vocabulary Spotlight | Punch in, Punch out, and Punch up

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/4/29/18/3798cff9-e3b3-4e84-8c69-5c3acaff9132_vocabulary_spotlight_17_texting_slang.mp3

Vocabulary Spotlight | Texting Slang

In this exclusive episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack talk about personal space in the United States. Transcript: 00:00:00JackHey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.00:00:03JackAnd if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.00:00:23JackAnd be careful, don&#39;t hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.00:00:42JackEach week.00:00:44JackSo make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.00:00:52JackNow let&#39;s get on with the show.00:00:56JackWelcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and I&#39;m here with my co-host social. And today we are talking about, well, we&#39;re doing a culture corner episode. So we are in the culture corner.00:01:09JackAnd we&#39;re talking about.00:01:13JackIt&#39;s like interesting or unique American habits or traits.00:01:21XochitlTheir norms.00:01:21JackYeah. Cultural habits, yes.00:01:24JackAnd one of the things that Americans really value is their own personal space. So since you.00:01:30XochitlFinally, true.00:01:31JackWhy don&#39;t you?00:01:32JackTell me what you think about that. Like what? How describe that for our listeners.00:01:37XochitlI think if you&#39;re from most other countries, well at least.00:01:42XochitlCountries outside of like the West, like I guess, Europe, Canada, the US, that kind of area.00:01:50발표자Mm-hmm.00:01:52XochitlYou.00:01:54XochitlDon&#39;t really appreciate or consider personal space as much like you might be in Korea, and it&#39;s like a line and there&#39;s someone like right behind you like this and you&#39;re like, stuck together. Basically. There&#39;s like less than an inch of space between you or on the subway or when people talk to you, they get like, really close to your face. And they&#39;re like 2 inches away from, like, talking.00:02:06JackOr on the subway.00:02:12JackYeah.00:02:14XochitlYou know.00:02:15JackWe&#39;re like, I hope I.00:02:15JackPut a breath mint in, you know, like, Oh my God.00:02:18XochitlYeah.00:02:20XochitlAnd in the US, like, that&#39;s not a thing like we want like about an arm&#39;s length or about an arm&#39;s length of space between us, like when we talk, when we&#39;re on the subway, when we&#39;re in line, when we&#39;re at the store and someone passes by us. And that&#39;s why you hear people say things like.00:02:28JackYep.00:02:40XochitlExcuse me. I&#39;m sorry. When they, like, invade your personal space because we have quite a large.00:02:47JackLike circle. So like if you yeah like if you pick your if you stick your arm out in front of you and just turn around spin in the 360° circle, that&#39;s your. That&#39;s your cylinder like that&#39;s your yeah, that&#39;s your that whole circle.00:02:51XochitlFeel the face.00:03:06JackIs yours in America like we that&#39;s your space.00:03:08XochitlYeah.00:03:11JackYou own, you own it, quote UN quote, you know.00:03:11XochitlRight.00:03:15XochitlRight. So like when people say a lot of people in other countries are like, why do Americans only say sorry and excuse me? Like, it seems really weird to them. It&#39;s because you&#39;re technically invading that person&#39;s personal space when you like, swipe by them. Let like, less than half a foot away to get past them, squeeze by them in the store.00:03:23JackYeah.00:03:35XochitlOr you stand right behind them in the aisle to grab something. It&#39;s not, like, super socially appropriate unless you say, excuse me. You&#39;re sorry, then it&#39;s OK. But if you&#39;re just, like, standing right behind someone, it&#39;s like creepy.00:03:39JackMHM.00:03:48XochitlSo.00:03:49JackYeah, this you&#39;re invading someone&#39;s personal space, right? That&#39;s that&#39;s called an we call that an invasion.00:03:58발표자Right.00:03:59JackI never, you know, this is like interesting. I&#39;ve never heard it described this way before. The way you&#39;re describing it, which is perfect.00:04:08JackIt&#39;s like I I never understood why we say sorry or uh, you know, excuse me so much. Like, so often we do, we say it all the time. Like we say it so much that no, we don&#39;t even mean it really. You know, it&#39;s just like basically you&#39;re you&#39;re saying like I&#39;m going to.00:04:27JackInvade your personal space because you&#39;re in my way and I and I want to grab that box of cereal. But I don&#39;t want you to move your whole cart and everything out of the way. I&#39;m just going to reach by you. But to give me to, to, to make it acceptable. If I say excuse me, then I can.00:04:34XochitlRight.00:04:49JackGo into your personal space for a moment and then just leave again quickly.00:04:53XochitlYeah. And when you say, excuse me, the other person will usually back away a little bit to give you more room.00:05:00JackYeah.00:05:00XochitlBut yeah, especially if you&#39;re a man, you have to be really careful about invading other people&#39;s personal space. And this is also a factor for couples. I find like couples from Korea or Mexico like they&#39;re really attached at the hip. And like your snacks.00:05:06JackRight.00:05:19XochitlOr your food is my snacks and my food. Your clothes is my clothes. You&#39;re like your space on the couch. On the whatever is my space. Your drink is my drink. Like everything is really shared in in a lot of other cultures and in the US like.00:05:38XochitlIf you&#39;re dating someone famous, I&#39;ll probably be annoyed if you eat their snack, they&#39;ll be annoyed. If you, like, borrow their jacket without asking and stuff, they&#39;ll be annoyed. If you&#39;re like constantly sitting right next to them on the couch, or like constantly clinging to them in public like those are things that are not.00:05:56XochitlUh, it&#39;s just a weird thing to do.00:05:59JackWe value our personal space and our it kind of it could go effects who are our independents, our individuality we don&#39;t like. Here&#39;s an example like I think this is a difference between like Europe and America is.00:06:04XochitlIndependent.00:06:16발표자It&#39;s.00:06:19JackAt least from where? Where I&#39;m from in the Midwest, uh, we would never kiss.00:06:25JackA person on the cheek twice to say hello.00:06:29XochitlNoble.00:06:29JackLike, that&#39;s a total that&#39;s so uncomfortable it&#39;s it&#39;s happened to me several times with my international friends right now, not not in Asia. In Asia, you would never, you know, do that, but with Europeans and Australians and and you know ohh really.00:06:42발표자Even.00:06:47XochitlExperience.00:06:49JackOK.00:06:51JackYeah. So when you you.00:06:52XochitlThe culture is really vary, but in central Mexico you do that in Oaxaca.00:06:56XochitlIt&#39;s a little bit less, especially if you go to rural communities. Usually there&#39;s a lot more distance saying hello.00:07:03JackYeah. Yeah. Because you when you say hello to someone, you know you you lean in and you, you know, kiss on the left cheek, kiss on the right cheek. Sometimes there&#39;s kiss on the left, right and left again. And to me it&#39;s the it&#39;s just the most awkward, uncomfortable thing. I&#39;m like, you know, the most I want to do is like a hand.00:07:23JackTake but since coronavirus a lot of people are doing a fist bump, you know which I I love. And if we could get to Korea and level where you just bow or Thailand level where you do a why you know that I love that like no touching is is the best.00:07:35XochitlAll right.00:07:43JackYou know, in my opinion, I just I I don&#39;t like.00:07:48XochitlPhysical contact.00:07:48JackEmbracing. I don&#39;t like physical contact. Yeah, even with, like, friends and strangers. Anyone. I don&#39;t want to. I just want my personal space. I I really value it so much. So that, like, my best friend and I, if we went to see a movie, even back when we were in, like, high school and stuff, we would just go watch movies.00:08:09JackYou would, we would never sit next to each.00:08:11JackOther.00:08:12JackWe would always stagger.00:08:12XochitlNo, that&#39;s a weird thing with men. Women do sit next to each other, but it&#39;s there&#39;s a meme because men only have, like, a seat in between each other so that people don&#39;t think they&#39;re gay buffer. And it&#39;s like it&#39;s really weird. But women will all sit next to each other. I find out.00:08:20발표자Yeah.00:08:23JackA buffer guess maybe.00:08:31JackOhh OK.00:08:32XochitlMore comfortable being a little closer than guys.00:08:34JackI just did. I just did it cause I just I like I want. I don&#39;t want to share an album.00:08:38JackSo you know, room with anyone.00:08:40XochitlYou&#39;re a big guy, so that&#39;s fair, but some other.00:08:42JackYeah, I wanna. Yeah, yeah. I&#39;m. I&#39;m. I&#39;m gonna, you know, my let my knees kind of go off, you know like spread out.00:08:51XochitlYeah, that&#39;s fair. You&#39;re a big guy. I mean it it. Otherwise, if your sexuality is threatened by sitting next to a man movie theater that&#39;s come on, that&#39;s not the no. But no, that&#39;s not Jack&#39;s case. But that is the case for some men. And it&#39;s just weird. But Jack Griffin got.00:09:01JackNo, no, no, I&#39;m.00:09:02JackI&#39;m not, yeah.00:09:06JackOK, maybe it is, maybe it is a form of what we call homophobia, but.00:09:11XochitlYeah, it&#39;s like weird. I&#39;ve seen guys talk about that like the buffer seats, so people don&#39;t think they&#39;re a couple and it&#39;s just weird.00:09:18XochitlBut with Jack I get it. Because you&#39;re a big guy, so you need that.00:09:21XochitlExtra elbow space so.00:09:22JackAll my friends are over 6 feet tall, so you know we&#39;re all a bunch of trees walking around, you know? So we need, we need our. We need our buffers and our our space personal space.00:09:30XochitlYeah.00:09:33XochitlYou do? Yeah. You need that personal space. Alright. Well, listeners, we would love to hear what personal space is like in your country. Is it similar to America or more similar to Mexico or more similar to Korea?00:09:34발표자So.00:09:45XochitlLet us know in the comments down below. Shoot us a e-mail at AZ englishpodcast@gmail.com. Leave us a comment@azenglishpodcast.com or join the channels of groups to talk to Jack and I directly and we&#39;ll see you.00:09:59XochitlGuys, next time. 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Culture Corner | Personal Space

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/4/28/9/ab080de3-f770-4e1e-8247-25749d278e78_topic_talk_22_my_dream_house.mp3

Topic Talk | My Dream House

https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/pod-public-media-files/2024/4/25/23/cf263117-8a66-4082-ac35-874f98d5a536__when_meeting_your_significant_other_s_parents.mp3

Become a monthly subscriber for just $1.99 per month and receive an additional two to three episodes per week!<a href="https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content" rel="nofollow">https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/exclusive-content</a>In this episode of The A to Z English Podcast, Xochitl and Jack give you a list of dos and don&#39;ts when meeting your significant other&#39;s parents for the first time.Transcript:00:00:00JackHey A-Z listeners, this is Jack here.00:00:03JackAnd if you would like to become a an exclusive subscriber to the show, you can hit the link in the description and that will take you to our Red Circle page, where for $1.99 a month you will get access to an extra two or three episodes each week.00:00:23JackAnd be careful, don&#39;t hit that donation button if you want to become an exclusive subscriber because the donation button is just a one time donation. However, the exclusive subscriber button will give you access to the extra two or three episodes.00:00:42JackEach week.00:00:44JackSo make sure you hit that exclusive subscriber button if you want access to the extra episodes.00:00:52JackNow let&#39;s get on with the show.00:00:55JackWelcome to the A-Z English podcast. My name is Jack and today we are and I&#39;m with my co-host social of course. And we are in the culture corner and we&#39;re talking about what do you do when you meet the parents of your, of your boyfriend or girlfriend for the first time, you know?00:01:14JackWhat&#39;s the what kind of etiquette do you like behavior? Should you display? What? What should you do? What shouldn&#39;t you do so social? Do you have like a list of dos and don&#39;ts?00:01:24JackFor for our our listeners out there who may be like meeting their significant others parents for the first time.00:01:33XochitlYeah, I know. I we just had an episode talking about how you can dress like a slob anywhere in America, but a first date and also meeting a parent. Parents are two occasions where I would.00:01:39JackYes.00:01:44XochitlNever do that.00:01:46XochitlSo you want to go and kind of business casual attire, which means a nice dress shirt usually, or a polo. Or it could be a crisp, a clean looking solid color, no logos, no designs well fitted T-shirt and then neutral.00:01:54JackYes.00:02:06XochitlDone.00:02:07XochitlAnd a pair of either nice clean, no tears, jeans or a pair of slacks. Kind of casual khaki, black, neutral tone slacks. And you can wear, you know, a pair of clean, crisp white sneakers or some casual dress shoes. Don&#39;t.00:02:19JackYeah.00:02:26XochitlGo in as a man wearing like rocks or like sandals. And and if you&#39;re a woman, just go in a nice.00:02:37XochitlKind of also neutral toned or it can be.00:02:42XochitlPattern and it doesn&#39;t really have to be a neutral tone, but just kind of a tasteful dress. Nothing too crazy, nothing too extravagant.00:02:51XochitlMight wear something neutral, might wear something in a light pink or blue or something like that, but just a simple casual floral dress with a little cardigan is and your footwear is also more relaxed. You can wear a pair of clean tennis shoes like white, crisp tennis shoes, a pair of.00:03:01JackYeah.00:03:11XochitlLittle sandals if it&#39;s hot anything, but just make sure you look presentable.00:03:18XochitlAnd that&#39;s a big one for.00:03:21XochitlLooks duos.00:03:23JackAnd I&#39;m going to say most of the time we we have an expression. Don&#39;t don&#39;t judge a book by its cover, but in this situation your, the, your boyfriend or girlfriend&#39;s parents are definitely.00:03:38JackJudging the book by its cover, so make your cover look good.00:03:40XochitlYes.00:03:44XochitlYeah, want to look.00:03:44JackBecause you are being judged.00:03:47XochitlYeah, you want to look presentable. You want to look clean. Clean cut is the phrase we use really often in the US, which means somebody who is, they&#39;re, well, shaved, their hair grew.00:03:57발표자 3No.00:03:57JackLook like me right now is.00:03:59XochitlYeah, don&#39;t have this crazy beard. Or like, if you&#39;re a woman like, you know, do your hair nicely. You don&#39;t have it, like, looking really disheveled, show up, clean, fresh, showered, looking simple, easy makeup for women and.00:04:14XochitlAnd just keep it really, really simple. Don&#39;t over complicate it, but just look nice. And then for other does for cultural and social does, I would say they&#39;re gonna ask you questions about yourself. So be prepared to answer questions like what your major in college is what you do for work.00:04:35XochitlHow long you&#39;ve been working there, questions about what your parents do. They might ask you, oh, you know, what does your dad do? What did your?00:04:41JackAnd you what are your ambitions? What are your goals? Yeah.00:04:45XochitlYeah. One of your inventions, it&#39;s kind of old fashioned to be like. What are your intentions with my daughter back in the day, people did that. But and now I think you can be relaxed. They know that if.00:04:50JackYeah, yeah, yeah. Well.00:04:59XochitlYou&#39;re bringing someone to meet the parents is usually a serious relationship in the US and and so.00:05:06XochitlYou know, don&#39;t be too intimidated. Get to know them. Ask them questions about themselves too. What do they do for?00:05:12XochitlWork and and humor them. They&#39;re probably going to tell embarrassing stories about your significant other or show you embarrassing pictures. Just kind of chuckle along. Be a good sport.00:05:24XochitlDon&#39;t get into politics. Don&#39;t get into religion.00:05:27JackYeah, no politics, no religion for sure. Yeah, avoid that.00:05:29XochitlNever. Never. If they try to beat you. Like if you&#39;re from a different religion or other politics and they try to bait you into a conversation, which means they try to say something to upset you.00:05:41XochitlJust ignore it and change the subject.00:05:44XochitlIf they keep trying to do it, look at your SO.00:05:46발표자Like.00:05:48JackYeah. Get Me Out. Help me out there. Yes.00:05:49XochitlThat, yeah, you don&#39;t have any, you know, reason to stay if you&#39;re being disrespected. And I know it.00:05:55JackRight.00:05:55XochitlCould be but.00:05:56XochitlAlso keep an open mind because a lot of times.00:05:59XochitlPeople are going to be meeting you with the best intentions and they&#39;re not going to do anything to be intentionally rude, but because you&#39;re from two different cultures, they might accidentally offend you. So just keep a an open mind and if you find anything weird or offensive, just ask your significant other about it later.00:06:15JackYeah. And go see, listen to our other podcast about table manners, because all those table manners apply.00:06:22JackYou know, again, no slurping, no burping, you know, no chewing loudly with your mouth open, no cursing. Don&#39;t swear. Watch your language. OK, some people.00:06:22XochitlPlease.00:06:34XochitlIt&#39;s OK to accept a drink because a lot of times they&#39;ll offer you a drink. It&#39;s OK to say yes if they offer you to drink, but don&#39;t get drunk. You know, this is like a one drink of.00:06:43JackDon&#39;t get drunk. Yeah.00:06:45XochitlThere maybe a 2 drink. I would say one just stick to 1 drink. You know you won&#39;t get drunk and just stick to that.00:06:52JackYeah. And you and most likely you drove there. So you know you, you know, drinking and driving is you know it it might be a test like you know ohh is this person going to drink and drive with my daughter in the car or my you know that that could be another another thing so you know there there could be traps.00:07:13JackSet for you.00:07:14발표자 3That.00:07:15JackDon&#39;t fall into these traps, you know.00:07:15발표자 3Yeah.00:07:18XochitlRight. I think it&#39;s OK to accept one drink, especially if it will be a while before.00:07:21XochitlYou drive, I think.00:07:21JackYeah, yeah, yeah, one like you said. One, it&#39;s a one drink affair. It&#39;s not a party. It&#39;s not a party. It&#39;s not a cagar. Yeah.00:07:25발표자 3The one in one? Yeah. Instead of. Don&#39;t get lost. Don&#39;t.00:07:34XochitlCompliment do do compliment their home. Say oh you have such a nice home. Bring a gift if you know they drink. You can bring a bottle of wine or you can bring some flowers for them.00:07:44XochitlMom, those are two gifts that usually go over well, or you can bring something from your home country, like traditional candy, something like that. So.00:07:54JackYeah. Don&#39;t show up empty handed. That&#39;s terrible. Bring a gift. Yes, that&#39;s a good point.00:07:58XochitlIt&#39;s a bad match.00:08:01XochitlAnd gift and.00:08:05XochitlUh.00:08:07XochitlI guess that&#39;s pretty much it. Do a firm handshake. This is if you&#39;re a man. This is a really big thing in US culture. When Father offers a hand for a handshake, it has. You have to do a firm handshake. Don&#39;t give him a death grip like you&#39;re trying to rip his hand off, but don&#39;t give him this limp, weak handshake. They won&#39;t make a firm handshake.00:08:12JackYeah.00:08:25JackYeah, we call that the dead fish where your hand is like a dead fish, you know? No, you gotta. You gotta squeeze back. You gotta give a firm handshake back. That&#39;s uh, that&#39;s important. Yeah.00:08:26발표자 3Thing.00:08:28발표자 3But.00:08:35발표자 3Right.00:08:38XochitlAnd if you don&#39;t drink, UM, it&#39;s OK to say no. Like, if you are a person who doesn&#39;t drink and they are free to drink, it&#39;s it&#39;s OK to be like, Oh no, thanks. I don&#39;t drink. That&#39;s fine. And if you have any kind of restrictions of your diet because of your religion or your culture or your allergies or whatever, it may be, make sure to let them know ahead of time if you&#39;re going to be eating there. So, like, tell your significant other so they can.00:09:02XochitlInform their family.00:09:04XochitlAnd then you won&#39;t have to worry.00:09:07JackYeah. Don&#39;t let the mom prepare a a huge meal of pulled pork and then you show up and go ohh. By the way, I&#39;m vegan. It&#39;s like that should have been told to her a long time before. So.00:09:14XochitlRight.00:09:18XochitlYeah, or I&#39;m Muslim or something. And then they&#39;re like, oh, my gosh, I&#39;m so sorry. And they&#39;re embarrassed. You can watch that if you&#39;ve ever seen twilight the movie, you can watch the scene where she meets Edward.00:09:20JackYeah.00:09:31XochitlFamily for the first time. And then she eats before going because she knows they don&#39;t eat because they&#39;re vampires and they&#39;re making this big Italian meal for her and then everyone gets angry. So yeah, just avoid. That&#39;s a great example of how to meet the parents because she dresses nicely and they&#39;re trying to be polite and everything. So just kind of.00:09:52XochitlGo with that.00:09:54XochitlNo, not too much PDA.00:09:57XochitlIt&#39;s kind, it&#39;s inappropriate, so please first time.00:10:00JackMaybe holding hands about, that&#39;s about it. That&#39;s the most you do, yeah.00:10:02XochitlYeah, holding hands is even like that&#39;s that&#39;s that&#39;s a good level to keep. Only at that you know.00:10:09JackThat&#39;s the highest level. Yeah, holding hands.00:10:11XochitlThat&#39;s the highest level.00:10:15XochitlYeah. And again, just just take it as an opportunity to get to know them. If there&#39;s a serious relationship, you&#39;ll probably be seeing a lot of their families. So you want to get to know them and complement, Slattery gets everyone places you want to flatter the mother. That&#39;s the easiest route.00:10:28JackYeah, this is this. Food is amazing. This is delicious. Thank you so much. You know? Yeah.00:10:29발표자 3So.00:10:34XochitlHave such?00:10:34XochitlA beautiful home. This food is amazing. You.00:10:37XochitlLook so young.00:10:39JackYeah, you don&#39;t wanna. You don&#39;t wanna. You don&#39;t want to. You don&#39;t want to pack it on too thick there or whatever. But.00:10:40발표자 3Look at.00:10:46XochitlYou don&#39;t want to be too obvious, like if the lady looks 80, then don&#39;t say wow. You look so young. But if she actually looks young, like if she&#39;s 15, she looks 35. She&#39;s gonna be over the moon to hear that. You know, so don&#39;t do the cheesy line. The man walks and he goes. Oh, are you your sister? Please.00:10:48발표자Yeah.00:10:56JackYeah.00:11:06XochitlDon&#39;t do that. That&#39;s so cheesy.00:11:06JackYeah, don&#39;t do that. Yeah, that one.00:11:12XochitlAnd yeah, just you know, compliment her on her home, her food. Uh, thank them for their generosity at the end.00:11:19XochitlOf.00:11:19XochitlThe night? Yeah. And try not to overstay your welcome. Be that a reasonable hour.00:11:25JackThat&#39;s usually not a problem usually. Usually you want to get out of there as soon as you possibly can, yeah.00:11:28발표자 3There&#39;s still.00:11:31XochitlYes, you smell good, right? But you know, so, yeah, I think those are the big meeting, the parents dues and don&#39;ts. If it, how does meeting the parents go in your cultures? I&#39;m really curious to know because in the US, once it&#39;s a serious relationship.00:11:46XochitlThat&#39;s when we progress to meeting the parents. I know in other cultures you might meet them right off the bat. The parents might actually meet each other, and then you&#39;ll meet your significant other later. You might not meet the parents at all until the wedding. It just depends on the culture. So we&#39;re very interested to know, leave us a comment down below at AZ englishpodcast.com. Shoot us an e-mail at AZ English.00:12:06XochitlPodcast@gmail.com.00:12:08XochitlAnd join the WeChat. What&#39;s the group? So you can talk to Jack and I directly and see you guys next.00:12:12XochitlTime. Bye bye.00:12:14JackBye. 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Culture Corner | Dos and don'ts when meeting your significant other's parents

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Welcome to The A to Z English Podcast, where we take you on a journey from learning the basics to mastering the nuances of the English language. Our podcast is designed for non-native speakers who are looking to improve their English skills in a fun and interactive way. Each episode covers a wide range of topics, from grammar and vocabulary to slang and culture, to help you navigate the English-speaking world with ease. Join us every week as we explore the A to Z of the English language and help you build confidence in your communication skills. Let's get started!