This week I have something a little different for you. Last year my family and I went to Castle Howard. This is an English country home in Yorkshire that puts on a special Christmas display every year. They take a story and decorate the house with that theme. Last year the story was JM Barrie's Peter Pan. I'll show you the dramatic road in to Castle Howard using Google Maps, and then some of the pictures and footage I got last year. Castle Howard was built between 1701 and 1811 by the Carlisle branch of the Howard family. The gardens were designed by George London in 1699. While you can't see a lot of the normal house behind the decorations, this will definitely give you an idea of the size and luxury of these big English houses. I visited with my family and my niece, who didn't know anything about Peter Pan. Luckily we were able to go at a quieter time, usually there would be many more people at this place because families come from all over the country for this experience. As far as I understand Castle Howard still belongs to and is lived in by the Howard family. #emmaseslenglish #englishlisteningpractice #englishchristmas

Wow! Here we are again, at the end of the year!

For those of you who have been with me for a while, you will know what's coming, review and plan.

In this episode I'll give you some tips and thoughts on how to review your year in English.

This is an important step. So many language learners feel like they're not making any progress. It's important to take a little time to recognise how much work you've put in and any progress you've made. Honestly, even if you feel like you haven't made any progress, take time to recognise all the hard work you've put in (and yes, I'm counting watching TV shows and movies with subtitles as hard work 😉).

Let me know how you get on in the comments.

This week we're analysing last week's reading. I'll talk you through some of the references and vocabulary. I'll also put the vocabulary list below.

In the first video I referred to the illustrator as Paul Kirby, which is actually not just confusion because the names sound similar. Terry's original artist who did about half of the covers of the original books was called Josh Kirby. When he passed away in 2001 Terry worked with a few authors but eventually settled on Paul Kidby,who I believe he met through the Discworld Conference and was a big fan.

Vocabulary List

Ticked off - slang - to anger or frustrate someone

Satire - a form of humor that reshapes real life so we can laugh at it

Sledge - a vehicle on sleds that is used to move people and goods through snow (Santa rides one)

Lavatory - Toilet

Deference - polite submission or request (so they are submitting to their age)

Underpinned - to be held tightly underneath something

Minstrel - a singer or song creator

Scribbling - writing quickly and untidily

Wince/Flinch - in the book Terry uses 'wince' which is when our face clenches in response to something we see that looks painful or worrying. I used 'flinch' in this episode is when our whole body clenches for the same reason or when we're surprised or scared.

Henchman - Harry has some stupid henchmen. Henchmen are the bad guys (often not smart) who work for the really bad guy and do everything he says.

Steed - the thing you're riding, usually a horse

Started with humble means - he began with small or not very expensive things (in this case a shed!)

Revert - to go back to a previous place, situation or state

Vicinity - the area around here

Marmalade - a British sort of jam made from Oranges (I'm sure we didn't invent this because we didn't have oranges in the UK for a long time (there's some disagreement about whether the first oranges arrived in the 1300's or the 1500's.)

a dig on our modern world - 'a dig' is when someone tries to make fun of something or to be rude about it.

Concubine - a woman who is married to a man but is not the main wife, emperors often had many concubines.

Never got the hang of dying - to 'get the hang of' something means you get good at it.

This week we have the inevitable Pratchett Christmas reading. I hope you enjoy. This is taken from The Last Hero, a book about Cohen The Barbarian (that'll be the hero!). In this excerpt I'm reading a conversation between him and his old friends as they make their way up a giant mountain in the centre of Discworld with the goal of returning fire to the Gods 'with interest'. I'll read today and then next week we'll do an analysis and look at the vocabulary. I think the only possible new vocabulary this week is 'to get jumped' which is another way to say you were ambushed or someone caught you by surprise with the intent to hurt or attack you. Cohen the Barbarian is a character based on Conan the Barbarian, and Terry extends his joke by adding other references to Arnold Schwarzenegger who played Conan in the 1982 film. If you don't get this reference check him out in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwdYd_RdLCQ In the story we meet a minstrel, there are several names for this job. One of the most recent and famous ones is The Bard, who we meet in The Witcher: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9HW-Z3F7jo Hope you enjoy this. There's lots more reading episodes for you in the English Listening playlist on YouTube. #emmaseslenglish #englishreading #englishlisteningpractice

A few weeks ago one of my students brought me some phrases. She couldn't really work out what they meant, and the context wasn't helping. I was very quickly able to work out that the writer she was reading was using only half an idiom. Helpful! So today let's take a look at a couple of these examples so you can see what might happen when a native speaker isn't thinking about all the hard working international speakers of English out there!

The idioms we'll cover today are:

Spill the beans/Tea - to tell a secret or gossip

Not my circus, not my monkeys - to say we're not getting involved in something because it's not our business or not related to us

Additional Vocabulary

to gloss over something - phrasal verb - to quickly cover over something, to carry on as if nothing happened

clarification - to make something clearer or easier to understand

Osmosis - this is a biological function where cells can pass through a membrane, however, we often use it like this to mean we learned something without trying and in the natural course of our life. This is a common colloquial use of this word.

All the way back in Episode 4 I covered the idiom 'Spill the Beans' I also cover a lot of other common English idioms in this episode.

In Episode 37 I shared how Shakespeare influenced English and in Episode 38 I covered some vocabulary and idioms that we can track back to Shakespeare.

#emmaseslenglish #learningenglishidioms #english #englishidiomsandphrases #idioms

This week we're reading another Engoo Article: Level up your language skills by thinking in English. I'll give you some ideas about how you can use the https://engoo.com/app/daily-news website regularly to practise your English both by yourself and with a tutor. I'm also going to read the article and talk a little bit about what it means and how you can use it. If you'd like to read along you can find the article here: https://engoo.com/app/daily-news/article/level-up-your-language-skills-by-thinking-in-english/q0hpYo9CEe-3xxcbdEJNTg The article also talks about three other resources you can use. The first is Rachel's English, this is a great YouTube channel and website that is particularly useful if you want to improve your accent or pronunciation. https://rachelsenglish.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvn_XCl_mgQmt3sD753zdJA Repetery, where you can find English teachers. This site would be particularly useful for beginners or people who aren't confident with a Native English teacher, instead you can find a teacher who speaks your native language but who is qualified to teach you English. https://repetry.com/ And English teacher Keith O'Hare who focuses on teaching IELTS and runs live classes. https://keithspeakingacademy.com/author/keithohare/ As I mentioned, I have covered Engoo and learning from all kinds of articles before in Episodes 83, 118, 119, and 155. #emmaseslenglish #english #englishvocabulary #englishreading #englishlisteningpractice

This week we have a bit of a silly episode focused on the pronunciation of the 'f' sound.

Episode 87 covers more pronunciation.

You can find the YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/N2BZg718a-8 Note: I filmed this video before the American election so...sorry, hopeful moment included😨😭 I'll explain it in the video but the words we're covering this week are: Fond, Find, Fund, Fend, Fanned And Fill, Full, Fall, Fell, Fowl/Foul The phrases we'll review are: To bid a fond farewell To fend for yourself To find yourself To fan the flames To fill your cup (and my cup runeth over) To fall foul of something To fall over/He fell over To fell a tree A foul fiend/A foul mood Additional Vocabulary A cheeky one - showing a lack of respect or politeness in a way that is amusing or appealing - in this case because my final word doesn't follow the first rule I set for myself. To fall into obscurity - to go from being relevant to no longer being relevant, important To trip us up - of course this might mean actually falling over, but we can also mean getting into trouble or making something more difficult or harder to succeed at. To put something in our way - to put an obstacle or situation in the way and make something harder. Personification - giving human characteristics to something that isn't human I hope this is fun and useful for your pronunciation. Let me know if you'd like more pronunciation videos. #emmaseslenglish #english #englishpronunciation

This week we're looking at animal idioms. Surprisingly there's not as many of these as you might imagine (there's far more of the body part ones from last week!) This weeks idioms are: A frog in your throat: Have you got a cold? It sounds like you've got a frog in your throat. As mad as a box of frogs: Watch out for that one, he's as mad as a box of frogs. At a snails pace: Come on! Let's go! You always walk at a snails pace! Watch like a hawk: Careful, he's watching you like a hawk. The world is your oyster: Just remember, the world is your oyster. Hold your horses: Wait! Hold your horses! We're not in a hurry! Pet peeve: Being late is one of my pet peeves. Additional Vocabulary: erratically - doing something in an unpredictable, random or even dangerously irregular way predictably - doing something in a way that we can figure out what will happen next homing pigeon - these are birds who have been trained to find a particular location, they are often in races to see which birds get home fastest. Mad as a box of ferrets - idiom - used just like 'mad as a box of frogs' to mean someone or something is crazy Mad as a hatter - idiom - as above, same meaning and use. Slow coach - idiom - used to mean someone is always going slowly Bird of Prey/ hawk - large birds who hunt small animals or other birds, in the UK our biggest bird of prey is the Golden Eagle in Scotland, you can now commonly see Red Kites in Wales and Southern England after a very effective reintroduction program a few years ago. #emmaseslenglish #english #englishgrammar #englishidioms #englishidiomsandphrases