English Speaking Learning
Today we have an English lesson focused on English speaking. Learning to speak English fluently can only really start when you have done enough English language listening practice and this lesson will help you with this. But before we talk about that I just want to say sorry to the 300,000+ Spotify listeners who have not been getting updates to the podcasts since episode 292, that's since the 6th of January, eek! It's all fixed now.
All the other podcasts stream providers like Apple, PodBean, PlayerFM, TuneIn and Stitcher (and a lot more) were all fine, and it appears the problem was just with Spotify. So thank you for all the emails from our Spotify listeners. If you find a problem like this, then please just email support at adeptenglish.com and we will get right on it.
During this lesson we will ask you to speak in English (out loud) and it might be best if you do this when you're alone, we don’t want people looking at you funny on the bus or train to work :)
Most Unusual Words:
Klimt
Meghan
Chime
Sonic
Most common 2 word phrases:
| Phrase | Count |
|---|---|
| English Speaking | 9 |
| To Practise | 8 |
| Adept English | 4 |
| Claims Were | 4 |
| Big Ben | 4 |
Listen To The Audio Lesson Now
The mp3 audio and pdf transcript for this lesson is now part of the Adept English back catalogue . You can still download and listen to this lesson as part of one of our podcast bundles.Transcript: Lets Practice Your English Speaking-Learning English By Listening
Hi there and welcome to this latest podcast from Adept English. It’s a while since we did any speaking practice in a podcast. When our pronunciation course comes out later this year, there’ll be lots of opportunity to practise English speaking. Learning English means understanding first of all, but you do need to practice speaking too. You can already do this with me on Course One, Activate your Listening, our English speaking course.
There’s speaking practice on there, using sentences with vocabulary covered in the course, as well as lots of listening practice too. That’s Adept English Course One, Activate your Listening – available to buy right now on our website at adeptenglish.com. Adept English answers the question How to learn English speaking?
Buy an Adept English Podcast Bundle
So how to learn English speaking at home, even if you don’t have anyone to practise with yet? Well, pronunciation practice is one of the things you need to do. So for today’s podcasts, we’ll do some pronunciation practice. It’s best to listen though, while you’re somewhere where noone can hear you. There’s nothing more off-putting when you’re working on your pronunciation – that’s how you say the words – nothing more off-putting than having an audience, especially if it’s your family listening to you, when you’re trying to pronounce English words. So save this podcast for when you’re sure nobody is listening, nobody is going to overhear!
Video
English Speaking Sentence Practice
For our sentences today, let’s take some news stories from the last week – and use those.
So here they are. I’ll give an explanation of each sentence, so that you understand it, and then when you have them all, we’ll do some English speaking practice with them. First one then:-
Military plane damages houses
Claims were made after a sonic boom, caused by a military aircraft "shook houses", damaging windows and ceilings.
This is a story about military aircraft, a military plane flying over parts of London, Herfordshire and Bedfordshire, those are counties near London – and the ‘sonic boom’ is the sudden noise of an aircraft, breaking the sound barrier. And the claims were that it ‘shook houses’, that means made houses vibrate and apparently cracked windows, broke them - and ceilings. A ceiling is at the top of a room, usually painted white. It says ‘Claims were made’ and this means I think that ‘people claimed that it had happened’, but also it means that people tried to claim money from the government, to compensate them for the damage. Another news sentence?
📷
A photograph of a military jet on an aircraft carrier, helping to explain a UK news article about sonic booms.
News about Big Ben
Big Ben will not chime on Brexit Day.
So this story is about the bell, in the clock tower by the side of the Houses of Parliament in London. Both the clock and the bell, Big Ben are being refurbished, repaired at the moment. And there was an idea to get both working again, in time for Brexit happening on 31st January. But that’s been dropped, because there’s just too much work to do and they can’t meet the deadline. ‘To chime’ is a verb, and it means to make a ringing sound, like a bell or a clock. And ‘to chime’, C-H-I-M-E is used especially of clocks, marking time. Another news related sentence to practise on?
Klimt painting found inside a wall
A painting discovered by chance last month is a Gustav Klimt original, that was stolen nearly 23 years ago.
So this painting in the news, ‘Portrait of a Lady’ by Gustav Klimt, was believed to have been stolen from an art gallery in northern Italy in 1997. But this week it was confirmed that last month it was found inside a wall at the gallery - outside. Nobody seems to know why and the painting is estimated to be worth...wait for it….sixty million Euros!
One more news related sentence to practise with?
Harry and Meghan on the move
Harry and Meghan want to relocate part-time to Canada for a better life.
So this is of course the story about our own dear Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan, saying last week that they want to ‘step back’ from their duties and live part of the time in Canada, away from all the scrutiny of the newspapers.
Pronunciation Practice
So let’s take those sentences and use them to practise your pronuncation with. I’ll repeat each one – and you can use the spaces in between to practise repeating after me. I’ll break them down in the middle, where they’re long ones.
Claims were made after a sonic boom caused by a military aircraft "shook houses", damaging windows and ceilings.
Big Ben will not chime on Brexit Day.
A painting discovered by chance last month is a Gustav Klimt original, that was stolen nearly 23 years ago.
Harry and Meghan want to relocate part-time to Canada for a better life.
Download The Podcast Audio & Transcript
So there’s your opportunity to practise English speaking. Learning English is 75% learning to understand, and around 25 % learning to speak English. Speaking, learning to speak will happen automatically, if you do enough English listening. But it’s good to practice your pronunciation and focus on that sometimes. So run this podcast back again and have another go at the pronunciation. You’ll find the more times you do it, the sentences just start to roll off your tongue. They come easily.
Goodbye
Learn English speaking and improve your spoken English with Adept English. All you need to speak English – well perhaps apart from someone to practise with!
Enough for now. Have a lovely day. Speak to you again soon. Goodbye.
P.S. The Weather
It’s true that the English talk about the weather all the time. I know that in the past we’ve explained why this is in a podcast. The short reason is we’re an island and our weather changes all the time and really quickly.
So you might start your day thinking it will be dry and sunny only to get clouds and rain for an hour then sun then rain. We are used to it, but that doesn't mean we don’t want to talk about it :)
The reason for bringing this up is that actually if you are ever in the UK or talking to a British person and you get stuck for something to say, talk about the weather. It’s like a default option to fill in a conversation that gives you an opportunity to think of something else to about.
I say this because as I queued outside (another British pastime!) for some fresh bread at the local bakery. While I was waiting the person in front wanted to speak to me and the conversation ‘opener’ was “I can’t believe how warm it is for January…” to which I replied and we spoke to keep ourselves occupied.
"Weather forecast for tonight: dark." George Carlin, Comedian
The funny thing is, just one day later before I started this podcast, I was scraping ice of my car windscreen at -2c. That’s just the way the weather is in Britain, and that’s why we talk about it all the time.
