Emma's ESL English

In this episode we have a brief overview of bureaucracy or the English of government. This is the English that you'll find in diplomatic and government offices, it's the English of infrastructure and systems and you'll likely need to read it if you have to do anything related to government offices, support systems or people. If you work in a field that is regularly using Government Eng...

Today on the podcast we have a short episode introducing Technical English. In general this is a branch of English that you don't need to worry about. It's a simplified English to help people understand instructions. In most cases you will be reading Technical English rather than creating it. In this episode I also suggested using ChatGPT at work. Scrolling through Instagram I follow a lot...

Today on the podcast we have the second episode about Travel English. This time we're talking about speaking English in foreign countries where English is NOT the common language and might not even be taught in schools at all. This is no excuse not to try using and practise your English. I recently met a Chinese student who's just moved to Thailand so his kids can go to an International sc...

This week we have two episodes about Travel English. This first episode is specifically about traveling to predominantly English speaking nations. I'll go into a little bit of detail about why you might struggle to speak English in these countries and give you lots of tips to help you get ready to travel. Don't be afraid to support yourself with an English phrasebook, TripAdvisor and Googl...

Today on the episode we were talking about Financial English. This is a branch of English that serves the finance and accountancy sector. For most of us, the basic Financial English will suffice. We might need to know how to talk to our bank and access our account and that's it. But if you're interested in investing, or you work in the Finance sector, then learning Financial English must b...

In this episode we were talking about Academic English. This is an internationally recognised branch of English that often has longer sentences and more complicated vocabulary. In general, unless you are in or want to be in the scientific or academic field, you won't need to be fluent in this branch of English. However, if you do want to study abroad or plan to a be an academic, then it's...

In this episode we look at how we can talk about music. It's always a good idea to know some different music categories so that you can have an easy conversation with people about music. I'll also give you some conversation starters and questions to keep the conversation going. This is a great conversation topic for parties, dates, business outings and other situations where you're hav...

In this episode we're looking at how to use your tone to make your English more polite and consequently more acceptable in business situations. I'll also give you some tips for places to find more Business English to practise with and several different ways you can make your English more polite. BBC English At Work Playlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_48gP7OPnjU&list=PLcetZ6gSk969...

On the 29th of October everyone in the UK will be changing their clocks. We'll move them one hour back. This is very frustrating for many of us who struggle to adjust to the new time and often forget to change the clocks. This week on the podcast I'll be looking at why we do this, where the idea came from and how much daylight hours really impact our daily lives. As someone who's lived...

This week is Angela Lansbury's birthday. This wonderful actress had a very long and varied career which included playing two famous detectives. During her life Angela Lansbury played both Agatha Christie's famous Miss Marple and the fabulous Jessica Fletcher, murder mystery writer and amateur detective from the TV show Murder, She Wrote. In celebration of Angela Lansbury's birthday we...

Over the last few weeks we've talked a lot about culture and what to expect at weddings, but I forgot to talk about the English! So this week I'm giving you loads and loads of conversation topics for weddings. Whether you're going to a wedding that will mostly be in English or any other kind of wedding this episode is filled with ideas to keep the conversation going all day. Small talk...

Today on the podcast we're completing the conversation about weddings. I'll talk what you can expect at the wedding reception, which is the party that comes after the marriage ceremony. In addition, I'll talk about some differences between British weddings and American weddings, which includes some events and also a major difference in the legal side of the wedding. And, of course, we...

A few weeks ago I went to my cousin's wedding. It was held at a wedding venue in the woods. This week we'll spend two episodes talking about British weddings. Today I'm going to be focusing on before and during the wedding ceremony and tomorrow we'll talk about what you can expect at the wedding reception after the ceremony. I'll also talk a little more about some other vocabul...

This week on the podcast we're studying some commonly occurring vocabulary that I found in two RomCom (Romantic Comedy) movies on Amazon. These movies are not difficult to understand and have a lot of useful conversational English in them. I noticed though, that in both cases there was 5-10 minutes of each movie that had a lot of less common vocabulary. We'll study that vocabulary in this...

There are many things that can make learning a language easier or more difficult. In this episode I'll talk about three things I think are vital if you want to learn a language as an adult. One of the important things we need to know about ourselves, is our learning style. This is something we may easily not know yet, especially as it's something that many modern education systems don'...

In this episode we will look at a very common mistake in Taiwan. This mistake has come about because many people commonly directly translate from their own language to English. And most of the time, that works OK. But sometimes English doesn't have exactly the right word, or idea to translate too. In this case Taiwanese people are using 'help me' in mandarin to soften the impact of the...

Today is Queen rock star Freddie Mercury's birthday. In celebration we have a listening episode all about him, his bandmates and his songs. Did you recognise the lyrics from the beginning of the episode? Which songs did you think they were from? Answers at the bottom of the page. You can head to the YouTube channel to find my Queen Playlist, and dance your heart out. During this episode I ment...

Today is the original Judgement Day as stated in the 1984 film Terminator. Check out the original trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k64P4l2Wmeg To celebrate we have a little listening episode covering a summary of the Terminator series, Isaac Asimov's 3 Laws of Robotics and the current challenges with AI. Vocabulary Wipe out humanity - phrasal verb - to 'wipe out' means to...

This week on the podcast we're celebrating the birth of famous British (Scottish) Civil Engineer, Thomas Telford. This is a great lesson to practise your English listening skills. There are quite a few unusual phrases that you might find useful. We're talking a little bit about British history around the 1700's, British infrastructure, including bridges, roads, canals and aqueducts, an...

In this episode, similar to episode 155, we're going to look at Meta Thread's Launch, but this time, instead of looking at written articles online, we're going to consider videos. We're going to look at the vocabulary from three very different news reports on YouTube and see how the vocabulary differs, to help decide which report is good to study. In this episode I'll help you...

This week we're answering a student's question about 'even'. This word seems so small and innocent, but...you know, it's still English!🙄😬 So, of course it's not so simple! Today I'll show you several different ways we can use 'even' and how that changes our meaning in a sentence. Let me give you some correct examples of sentences using 'even' together...

Today we're reading an article from Reuters about the release of the online App from Meta, Threads and it's competition with Twitter. You can find this article here: https://www.reuters.com/technology/metas-twitter-rival-threads-hits-100-mln-users-record-five-days-2023-07-10/ Engoo also has an article about this thing. You might find that easier, although it is one of their advanced articl...

This week I'm showing you how I would use two articles as learning sources to practise English. Remember, you can use this system, or take it apart and find a different way to do it. Also you could split this over two days or two weeks, depending on your schedule. The article I've chosen for today's episode was out of House Beautiful. I chose this because it was conversational and the...

A while ago I made a short as part of the Escape the Plateau series on the YouTube channel, giving you tips to help you get unstuck with your English. The short where I talked about being more deliberate when you speak got a lot of feedback, but everyone was confused about how to go about it. So in this episode we'll think about what steps you can take to be more deliberate about your English....

In Episode 128 we talked about making good goals for your English. In this episode we're going to talk about how to break those goals down into easier pieces so you can create a learning plan. I'll give you some example easy, measurable goals you could use and then show you how to break down two of those goals into learning plans. I'll give you some different ideas about how you could...