English Across The Pond - Podcast Transcript Episode 37 Favorites Dan: And... we... are... live! Hello everybody. Hello the internet. Hello YouTube. Hello our English Across the Pond friends. We are -- Jennifer: Hello Ponders! Dan: Hello Ponders. We are back for another episode. If you don't know who we are, if you've never heard of us before we are English Across the Pond. It is a Podcast by me Dan from the UK, and my lovely partner Jennifer from the USA. Jennifer: And me, Jennifer! Just like the introduction, yes. From the US, happy to be here with you again Dan for another live episode, this is exciting. Dan: Fab to see and it's going to be a great episode. If you want to learn, you're in the right place. There's far more than just our podcast, there's our website at englishacrossthepond.com, if you go there you can get free transcripts, you can join our forum, you can download old episodes, you can even subscribe and become a member, a Ponder of English Across the Pond where you can get transcripts and free videos from us too. So much nowadays on our website, it's amazing! Jennifer: Our website is killing it, that means it's doing a great job. Dan: I didn't use to be so good, but it's good now! Jennifer: Hey! We all have to start somewhere, even our websites. Dan: Very true. This week I'm really excited. I've chosen this topic so I'm really excited. Sometimes Jennifer chooses and sometimes I choose, but this week, we're talking about favourites. We're going to chat about some of our favourite things. After our chat, we will have a language focus, so stay tuned, but let's get this podcast rolling. I'm going to ask you a favourites question Jennifer, are you ready? Jennifer: Can I interrupt and first ask you a spelling bee question? Dan: Yeah? Jennifer: How do you spell "favourites"? Dan: Yep umm, I'm not pausing for time because I don't know how to spell favourites, I do
know, but we don't really have spelling bees in the UK. What's a spelling bee Jennifer? Jennifer: You don't have a spelling bee!? Dan: Not really... we've seen the kids - we've seen YouTube videos of kids doing it in the US, but we don't really have spelling bees. What is it? Could you clarify for me and our listeners? Jennifer: Yes. So I know we're talking about favourites today, but let me just do a quick opposite and say one of my worst memories -- Dan: Oh no, yeah? Jennifer: My least favourite memory is losing this spelling bee in third grade. Dan: WAHMP, WAHMP WAHMP Jennifer: So a spelling bee is a spelling competition where people - typically children or students are in this group, they're usually on a stage, one person comes up to a microphone, the judge or the person in charge says, "Jennifer, please spell cupboard." And you have to listen to the word, and then you have to say the word so you can say, "Can I get a definition please?" To help you and then they give a definition and, "Can I hear it in a sentence?" And maybe they can give it to you in a sentence and they say, "Alright. This is it, times up!" Quit stalling for time, please spell cupboard, and my third grade self spelled it, c-u-b-o-a-r-d, I missed the P, it's actually cup-board and I missed it. Dan: Which is actually sort of like a totally illogical way of spelling cupboard, but then I guess if English spelling was logical there wouldn't be such a thing as a spelling bee. Jennifer: Yeah, exactly. So, that's what a spelling bee is so Dan, you're up at the mic, please spell "favourites". Dan: In British English we spell favourites, f-a-v-o-u-r-i-t-e-s. What about on the other side of the pond? Jennifer: On this side of the pond in Merica we spell it, oh, f-a-v-o-r-i-t-e-s. So we just - we cut out that U, we don't have that U. Same thing for colour, c-o-l-o-r. Dan: C-o-l-o-u-r as we spell it. Often with the OU America misses out the U, so yeah. But I think we say favourites, do you say favourites? Jennifer: We say favourites. Dan: Yeah, so pronunciation is pretty much the same. Jennifer: Yes. So Ponders your first tip of the day in this podcast live episode or podcast is... spelling differences in America and British English. British English often uses the - oh Dan, please hit me with your first question? Dan: You ready?
Jennifer: I'm ready as I'll ever be. Dan: Well the picture for this week's podcast is a picture of three ice creams and I think ice creams are something that we always think about having your favourite kind of ice cream is so exciting. When you're a kid, but pretty much when you're an adult too, so I'd like to know first of all, what is your favourite kind of ice cream? Jennifer: Delicious. I love ice cream. I love cashew ice cream. Dan: Oh wow. Jennifer: Cashew milk ice cream. So as you know my dear friend, and as most of our listeners probably know I don't - I'm a vegetarian and I actually lean more towards veganism, in that I don't really consume too many animal products, we won't go into details about that. However, I don't consume dairy products and that includes milk, and I don't have regular ice cream so I have cashew milk ice cream. It's so delicious and my favourite flavour is caramel and chocolate chunk. Dan: Wow. Jennifer: Well I should say caramel, because I am an American right? Caramel. Or caramel as some people will pronounce it. Chocolate chunk. Dan: Sounds good. Jennifer: Do you have ice cream? Dan: Yeah I, like you, don't consume dairy products. So I don't have cow's milk ice cream, but we have a lot here of coconut milk ice cream. And me, I'm very traditional, I just love vanilla. Jennifer: Vanilla? Wow. Dan: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Vanilla is the king of ice creams. So yeah... you can get raspberry and chocolate and you can even get apparently, caramel and chocolate chunk ice cream. But me personally, vanilla. Plain, simple, ice cream perfection. Jennifer: You're kind of a plain and simple guy. Dan: Thanks. Jennifer: When it comes to ice cream. Dan: Very much so. I'm a traditional ice creamist. Jennifer: Are you ready? Dan: Ready.
Jennifer: I shared with you one of my least favourite childhood memories to kick off this episode. Will you please share with me your favourite childhood memory? Dan: Yeah with pleasure. It's actually maybe my first ever memory? I don't know if we've talked about this on the podcast before. I was maybe about four or five years old in my back garden with my big plastic tractor. It's got wheel on, it was like red and blue, primary colours. And my back garden went sort of downhill on a slope. And I would just sit on this tractor, and it would roll down the garden path and then I would pick it up, carry it back up the hill, sit on the tractor, roll down the garden path, pick it up, walk back up the hill and I'm not sure in my memory I did it for days and days and weeks and weeks and months and months. I don't actually know how often I did this, but it is - I think it's my earliest memory. And I also think that that moment was the happiest I've ever been in my whole life. Jennifer: What a magical, magical moment! I saw the glimmer in your eyes as you were talking about that too. And anyone watching live will also see that glimmer. Dan: Yep. Yeah very happy days. I had a really nice childhood. I think then of course you're not burdened by adult problems, or teenage problems you know. You're so innocent and so young. So it was just the joy of like, there was a blue sky, a nice breeze. The memory is very vivid and very clear. I'm obviously not sure really how accurate the memory is, but it feels like it's real. Jennifer: You know what? If you believe it and you remember it that way, then it is 100% accurate my friend. Don't take away your experience! Dan: Thanks very much. Thanks for the validation. Ready for another one? Jennifer: I'm ready. Dan: I would like to know, bringing things right up-to-date. I would like to know your favourite emoji? Jennifer: Ooo! I am a emojiaholic. As - huh? Dan: You love them? Jennifer: I love them. You know, if you're an anything aholic, then it's just an expression that means of course you love something. But the thing is it's impossible... let me back this up. I'm a very indecisive person, so to say one thing that's my favourite to make that real strong decision and commitment - little bit tough for me. So I'm going to say I'm sorry, I cannot choose one favourite emoji. I have a favourite emoji for situations. I really love for any given day cat heart eye emoji. Dan: Ahh. Jennifer: That just speaks to me, you know. It's like, that's like my way to smile, say I love you, say I'm happy, like agree with what you say, like what you say you know. Kind of across the board, general favourites going to be cat heart eye emoji. Second favourite, yellow heart, okay?
Dan: Ohh. Jennifer: But then we're getting into like actually expressing something, I love this one. Watching live you're going to be able to see it but Dan, you're going to explain to the people listening what you think this one is and means. Dan: Yep. Ahh. Jennifer: Ignore my neck. But it's that one. Dan: Yeah. Jennifer: Like... Dan: Lots of teeth? Jennifer: Oops! Lots of teeth and it's kind of like a... oops! Is what I imagine that to be. Dan: Because there's two with like the big row of teeth. Can I just say if anybody's thinking, "What on earth are they talking about?" Emojis are the little icons you can use on your phone when you're texting, just to make that clear. Jennifer: Yeah. An emoticon. Maybe people know it as an emoticon? Dan: Maybe yeah. I think we say emoticon. But yeah, emoticon. In case people are thinking, what did you say cat heart eyes was it? Jennifer: Cat heart eyes, yeah. We'll have to put them into the episode guide. Dan: Umm people who know what they are thinking, "I love cat heart eyes!" And other people are thinking "She just said cat heart eyes..." Jennifer: And a Estella in our live chat right now put the umm smiley - or not really a smiley, a teeth emoji that I'm talking about right now. So Estella you got it! Dan: Yay! Jennifer: You got it. Dan: As I say, as I was saying I think there are two with loads of teeth, there's the one that's just got like normal eyes which I think is like - means sort of like oh no, something terrible's happened, but there's another one with kind of like shaped eyes? And I think that means like you've done something naughty or you've been like - you've done something a little bit cheeky or a little bit wrong. I think there are two with the teeth. Which one did you mean? Do you mean the sort of like oh no or do you mean -- Jennifer: I usually use it as like a, oh no I'm being cheeky. Dan: Ah yeah.
Jennifer: Yeah. And then my final favourite one is monkey hands over the eyes, like, ahh! And that's going to be, oh I'm embarrassed, oh I'm ashamed, also oops! I'm being very cheeky, I know I shouldn't have done that. So yeah. Dan: The whole monkey series, is it ears? Is it like blind, deaf and dumb? Is it mouth, ears -- Jennifer: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil? Dan: Yeah yeah. All three of those are winners. Jennifer: Yeah I got them. And Estella is continuing it in the chat. Anne Sophia mentioned the like zippered mouth emoji. Zip it. Zip it up. Zip it. Dan: You know what? We're going to have to have an emoji -- Jennifer: Episode? Dan: Totally going to have to have an emoji - because I haven't even said mine and I've got you know - so it's a great questions. Thanks guys for joining us, you know for joining in on Facebook - on Facebook I mean here on YouTube and we will dig deep into emojis in a future episode, because they're umm, it's worth investigating. Jennifer: Yep. I want to know your favourite item of clothing. Actually, I know what this is because we've talked about things that make us happy. Can I guess what your favourite item of clothing is? Dan: Sure weirdo. Guess away my friend. Jennifer: Now this is as raw, and as live as you can get. And our students who are loyal listeners will also know from our -- Happy episode.. Dan: Come on. Out with it Jennifer: On our happy episode, you love socks. Dan: I do! You know what? I'll tell you the truth! I've actually forgotten that that was my favourite thing. I tell you what, ahh they're not here. I had some brilliant socks on today. Jennifer: Guys. If you are watching in the live chat, you know that I am losing it, I am coming undone with laughter right now, this was hilarious. This is why I love going live. If you are listening to the replay come join us live and you can have this much fun with us as we record. We are having a ball over here. Socks? Dan: Yeah socks yeah. And honestly when you said, "Can I guess I know?" And I thought I don't know! I'd forgotten. But you're right. To catch people up it was - what were we talking about... Christmas presents was it?
Jennifer: No we were just talking about things that make us happy and you specifically said a brand new pair of socks makes you happy and that's what I mean. Plain and simple my friend, it's just nice, it's good! Dan: And I said that they're only - they're only brand new once. Jennifer: Yes. Okay. Dan: Yeah. They're only brand new once. So there's only like that first time. You're right my favourite item of clothing, thank you for reminding me. I bloody love socks, there's no two ways about it. I'm sock mad. Jennifer: That's what I'm here for. Shall I ask you another favourite? Or is that kind of yours? Dan: Umm I'm just thinking we should do a podcast on socks as well. Jennifer: I love socks. I'm wearing some fun socks right now. Dan: Oh. I actually haven't got any socks on now. Jennifer: Oh. Well you're going to catch a cold! Dan: No it's alright it's evening here, I'm winding down after a busy day. Jennifer: Got it. Okay. What's - yeah. Dan: I'll ask you one. I'd like to know - it's kind of a difficult question really but see what springs to mind. Your favourite photo? Jennifer: Hmm my favourite photo is definitely going to be this beautiful photo that I have captured with my son. So my brother-in-law is a photographer so luckily while he was in town after I gave birth he took some maternity - not maternity that's while I'm pregnant... he took new-born photo shoot photographs, so we did a photo shoot. And he took this beautiful picture of me and my soon and it's just like, I'm looking at him and it's like he's looking up at me with those four day old eyes and it was just magical. So that's one of my -- Dan: Oh ya.. how old he was, like four days old? Jennifer: He might have been like six days old but it was under a week. Dan: And anyone whose had kids will know that they stay - those initial first week, second week, third week, kids change so much and it's only a matter of - it seems like a matter of hours that they're such a tiny baby. They sort of blow up and inflate very quickly so umm, yeah beautiful to have captured those first moments of your son's life. Jennifer: Yes. So I am going to come back to you and I know that you're very artsy. You love music and you love the arts. So if you had to choose one of your favourites artists, who or what if it was a band you know because artists are also bands, so who or what is your favourite artist?
Dan: Well I'll go for like a traditional sort of - like you know a painter, the sort of normal idea of an artist and there is a British artist, but he lived I think... in California maybe? For a long, long time. His name is David Hockney. Do you know David Hockney? Jennifer: No but I'm going to get weird again and connect this back to another episode. Dan: Right. Yeah. Jennifer: Of you talking about seeing him. Dan: Oh yeah I did! Yeah I did. Umm yeah I saw him because he's from the north of England, he's moved back here now. But I think during the 60's and 70's he lived in America. He does all sorts of different pictures. Huge, huge pictures of sort of like, forests and woods. But he also does photography, and sketches and I think most of our listeners, there's a couple of pictures, his paintings that are really, really famous. And yes I saw him in a hotel and it was that moment where I knew it was him and I recognised him, and he went back inside the hotel. He just popped out and popped back in again and I thought, "Oh my god, oh my god! It was him, that was him!" And I didn't go and say hello. I don't really regret it, I was amazed that I saw him, but yeah. He's probably - I like lots of artists. There's quite a few English artists I like, but I like David Hockney. He is English, but he's a nice choice because he lived like I say, I think in California, he lived in California for a long time, so he lived across the pond. Jennifer: Yeah. Very cool. I don't remember what episode that was but it was talking about - I saw George Clooney and you saw George - Ahh David Hockey. Dan: Yeah. Wow. Well that's what happens when you've had 35 episodes and six months of podcasts together. Jennifer: I know! So if you're interested in his full David Hockney sighting story or you want to learn more about me seeing George Clooney, you better listen to those old podcasts our Ponders! Dan: Yeah and slowly make your way through like 18 hours of us chatting together to try and find a moment where we talk about famous people that we saw. Jennifer: Yes. Dan: I honestly could talk about favourites for another hour or two, we should maybe have another show about favourites. I think it's such a great topic. Of course we'd love our listeners or our viewers to email us or go on our forum, on our website, and let us know about their favourites. Particularly maybe, emojis, because that's a topic that's really current and really kind of exciting and something we can all relate to. But we do need to do a language focus and I thought a good language focus for this week would be the use of adjectives. Favourites is a very sort of passionate topic, something that we all get exciting about when we talk about our favourites and we naturally use better or stronger adjectives when we're talking about our favourites. So for example, Jennifer described her ice cream as being delicious. This of course, makes your conversations sound more interesting when people listen to you,
they will engage more with you and you'll become a sort of more confident speaker because people are paying attention, but also it's really great for exams as well. So if you're going to take a TOEIC exam or an IELTS exam, you may know that in the speaking you've got to push yourself, and not just say, "It was good. It was nice." Try to use these stronger, more colourful, more beautiful adjectives, such as delicious. Jennifer: Umm there are a lot of other ways to describe as delicious as well. So perhaps students can go to the thesaurus - thesaurus.com - or look for synonyms and type in delicious and see some other ones, like scrumptious. Dan: I was going to say there is scrummy as well. S-C-R-U-M-M-Y, which maybe comes from scrumptious, but is another way to say delicious. Jennifer: I've never heard of that before, so many a British English... thing. Dan: Yeah we say scrum for delicious. Jennifer: How about tasty? Dan: Yep, yep. Sure. And umm, do you say tantalising? Is it tantalising maybe... umm. Jennifer: That can also be very interesting. Dan: Yeah I think it's more like exciting isn't it? But you could maybe use it for food too. Jennifer: Absolutely. Dan: Okay. Jennifer: So a couple of expressions that I would love to also add... Dan: Yeah. Jennifer: Bloody. You said bloody. Dan: I did. Jennifer: And American English, bloody as an adjective would mean blood coming from the body, covered in blood. But you use bloody in a different way, what does bloody mean in your neck of the woods? Dan: Well bloody - in certain very formal circumstances could be considered a bit rude, not really... I mean it's 2016 you know - 2017! It's not really rude anymore. But bloody, it's intensified, it means very. So if you use it positively like, bloody delicious, bloody beautiful, bloody gorgeous, bloody amazing, it just means very. It's very - it's informal - informal language. Say ahh it's bloody fantastic! But if you said something was bloody terrible, then that would be a little bit rude maybe, because it's - you know it's a negative thing anyway and you're making it more negative. So bloody just means very, it's an intensifier. Jennifer: Nice. Huh?
Dan: You wouldn't say that? Jennifer: I would never say bloody. I would say, "That's bloody great!" If I was mocking a British person. Dan: Thanks. You wouldn't do that though. Jennifer: But I'd never do that. If I did it would only be in a fun, entertaining and sweet way. Dan: And you had another language point? Jennifer: I had another language point, another task for our listeners to do with this episode. So we talked a lot about favourites. You used the example of you know, us describing adjectives, saying delicious and we've given the tip that you need to, you know... increase your vocabulary by finding words that are more than just good or nice. So one way you can do that we mentioned was using the thesaurus. But what about - how can they use this episode to increase their vocabulary of adjectives? Dan: Are you asking me? Jennifer: Kind of a rhetorical question if you wanted to put any -- Dan: I mean you carry it on and I'll see what you say and add a little bit. Jennifer: So, you can go back and listen to this episode as many times as you want as of Friday, Friday when this is released on our new episode on itunes or on the website. So go back and really listen for the adjectives that you hear in this episode and write all of them down. So write down all of the adjectives that you hear in this episode and then try to use them to describe your own favourites, use them to find more synonyms, utilize them to learn new vocabulary and use them or you know, try to figure out how to use these adjectives, how do we use them? We use them before nouns sometimes, sometimes we use them after a linking verb for example, so you can utilize our conversation to see how native speakers really utilize adjectives. Dan: I was going to say exactly the same thing. Jennifer: I thought so, great minds think alike. Dan: Yeah I was going to say - just to sort of reiterate and go over what you said again. What I was going to say to sort of go through what we've said. Particularly you'd be at an advantage if you had our transcripts from our website, just click on subscribe on the homepage, look through, find the adjectives, maybe underline them and see what other adjectives you could put in place of them. If it's a boring adjective like good, which I'm sure we must have said in this episode at some point, then you can substitute it for a stronger one, or you could you know, just play around with the adjectives and try to drop different ones in. It would be really, really great for your English. Jennifer: Absolutely.
Dan: Been great hasn't it? It's been fun. Jennifer: Absolutely and you did mention that transcript right? Dan: Yes. If you go to our website englishacrossthepond.com, on the homepage you can get our free episode guide, just click the big blue button. A little bit further down on the homepage you can click to get details about the transcripts. You can also click on subscribe at the top of our homepage. If you're not sure what a transcribe is, it's the written words that we say, everything that we say in this episode is written down in the transcripts, so helpful if you're trying to improve your listening and of course, your speaking and reading skills, everything really, transcripts are great. Jennifer: Absolutely. So get those transcripts now, sign up to be a gold member, don't forget to join us live every Tuesday at this time and it's been so much fun sharing our favourites and having a really good laugh with you today, thank you. Dan: It's been really good fun. Thank you so much. Thank you everybody for watching this live broadcast, thank you if you're listening later on in the week. We will be back next Tuesday on YouTube and then next Friday as normal we'll publish our podcast on itunes, Stitcher etcetera. See you guys! Thank you very much! Jennifer: Thanks so much! Have a good day! Bye!