Emma's ESL English

Mnemonics is the word we use to describe rhymes or phrases we can use to help us remember things. In today's episode I will talk about a few common things that we use to remember things in English. Some of them are about remembering spelling or language, one is a business phrase and others are just for fun. Maybe you have some of them, or something similar, in your own language, I'd love t...

There's a lot of very busy bees in my garden right now. In honour of all their hard work I wanted to talk about so phrases and idioms we have in English that use the word 'bee'. Many of these are very common and you may hear them in a casual or office environment.  Head to YouTube to see the video of the bees on the lavender plant in my garden.  Do you have a garden, or a park nearby?...

Today we're talking about a tricky punctuation point: apostrophes ' We will be discussing how to use them when we talk about possessive nouns. This episode was particularly tricky for me because, like most native speakers,  I really hate apostrophes! The rules actually aren't that complicated, the trouble is remembering the rules! 😣 See you next week! We often use apostrophes in Engli...

This episode will be particularly useful for people who are serving customers or clients and wish to address them directly. These two situations are different because usually, with a client, you will know their name. There are some appropriate ways to refer to people, however they do vary depending on whether you are addressing an American or a British person. We previously covered when it was app...

Hello! This is my first video episode! Let me know if you like it and would like to see more. If your podcast provider doesn't allow videos, don't panic! You can just head over to my YouTube channel and watch it there: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZuUr-gK1KmiuKirvVEEhRQ In this episode I am talking about the business phrase 'to manage your expectations'. This is a very common...

Today we have the final reading of the review. I'll read it with all the punctuation included, see if you can hear the difference between today's version and Tuesday's version.  In this episode I also talk about how you can use punctuation to help you when you have to give a speech or read something out in public (or perhaps just your kid's bedtime story!). The punctuation can help...

Today I'll read the review again, this time with commas, full stops and exclamation marks (points). Tomorrow we'll be finishing off the review with parentheses (brackets, dashes or commas). In tomorrow's blog you will be able to see the whole piece complete with all the punctuation.  Try reading the review aloud to yourself to help you work out where you should put commas and full stop...

This week we're talking about punctuation. We'll cover full stops (or periods, as the American's call them) today, commas tomorrow and brackets or parentheses on Thursday. If you would like to take part in the quiz, look below and take a look at today's version of the writing. It has no punctuation at all! Listen to today's podcast and decide, where do you think the full stops...

We've been prepping for today's episode all week! Finally all the vocabulary and phrases we learned will be used in context. Are you ready? Today I am reading from the Bloomsbury 1997 edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, just the first three pages of the novel.  I hope you enjoy the reading. Let me know if you'd like me to read more in the future and if you have any...

Today we are going to review some more phrases from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Remember none of the vocabulary from this week is magical and many of these phrases are commonly used by native speakers. Vocabulary ' The nerve of him ' - we use this to say 'how dare he' or 'I can't believe he did that' but especially for things that we think that person...

Today we are going to review some of the phrases that appear at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. None of the vocabulary from this week is magical and many of these phrases are commonly used by native speakers. Vocabulary ' Just don't hold with such nonsense. ' - You disagree with or don't approve of something ' They didn't think they could bear...

This Sunday (31st July) is Harry Potter's birthday. In honour of that day we're going to study the first few pages of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the very first Harry Potter book. Today we will review some vocabulary, tomorrow and Thursday some phrases and on Friday I'll be doing another bonus reading.  Only one word from all of this vocabulary is magical and many of...

Today's episode is really for people who are working in office environments who will be having short small talk conversations with colleagues at the water cooler or when making tea or smoking. I also give you some tips on how to end those conversations. I mention 'the episode from last week about making conversations'...only that wasn't last week!😫 For more on having conversations...

Today's episode is really for people who are working in office environments or perhaps you're planning on having visitors over and you might have to make drinks for them. If you drink tea, or coffee, then I'm guessing all of today's episode will seem really obvious. However, you can still listen in to enjoy how hilariously bad I am at this, and pay attention, at the end I'll te...

This week's episodes are relevant for anyone living in the UK or working with British professionals. Tea is an important part of our working culture and has quite a few points of etiquette, which we will talk about tomorrow and on Thursday. In this episode I give a lot of details about the history of tea from a British perspective. I would like to apologise for the speed of this week's epi...

Surprise! I'm here again! Just in time to start your Friday! This bonus episode is a reading of the opening scene of Shakespeare's Macbeth and the opening scene of Terry Pratchett's Wyrd Sisters. I hope you enjoy this short and fun episode. See you again next week. Have a fantastic weekend! First, Macbeth : ACT I SCENE I A desert place. [Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches] Firs...

Today we are looking at some of the phrases that appeared in Shakespeare's plays that have become common idioms in the English language.  I know I say goodbye at the end of this podcast, but... remember there is a fun bonus episode you can listen to. I hope you have time to tune in. Remember, if you've found any of this useful, please consider sharing with your friends.  Vocabulary 'Th...

Today we're learning some of the vocabulary that was first captured in Shakespeare's plays. Many people think Shakespeare invented all of these words, however, these days people suspect many of the words were in common use already and Shakespeare was just the first person to write them down. You might be surprised by how normal they sound! Tomorrow we're talking about some of the phras...

Today I'll be introducing Shakespeare. I'll talk about the history we know and tell you about some of the influences Shakespeare has had on British culture and the English language.  This is introducing this week's topic, tomorrow we will talk about some words Shakespeare invented and then on Thursday some of the idioms first heard in Shakespeare plays.  Thanks for tuning in, see you t...

Today we're thinking about your business. If you're trying to build your business, or make some business connections then we need to have a little bit of a different conversation compared to yesterday's focus. This time we're really thinking about how to talk about what you do.  Remember in English 'What's your job?' and 'What do you do?' are exactly the same qu...

This time we're thinking of ways to extend your conversations with colleagues or new friends past 'Hi, how are you?' There are lots of ways you can extend a conversation after 'Hi, how are you?' In the UK we love talking about the weather. You can find out lots of different ways to talk about the weather in Episode 9. We often ask people: What did you do last night? What did yo...

We have already covered some vocabulary and options related to this topic all the way back in episode 6 , but here we are looking specifically at answers to the question 'How are you?'. I hope it's useful, see you tomorrow! Also remember that as a beginner we need the structure of rules to know where to start and how to build sentences, but as a native speaker we rarely know as many ru...

In the UK we have a lot of words for meal times and it can get pretty confusing with different people using the same words but for different meals! Hopefully this can be your guide to figuring out what meals we're talking about. Breakfast is easy, it's the first meal of the day. In the UK it's usually cereal and toast. If you had a night out partying and you don't wake up until 10a...

Today we're looking at using 'ish' (tenish) when making appointments. We also cover a lot of vocabulary that might be useful if you're working in an international company or with native speakers such as 'one minute!' or 'Can you give me a minute?' When we want to make an appointment but don't feel the need to be very accurate we can add ' ish ' to the en...

This week I thought we'd do a few time related things. This episode is really a review of what you learned in school and covers different kinds of time and telling American and British time.  As I mentioned in the podcast, I hope all of this is just a review for you and you can mostly remember what you learned at school. 1. Digital time In this case we just read the numbers: 5:30 - five thirty...