Plastic packaging is hurting our planet!
Angela reads the basic text from this lesson, (transcript available when you take this lesson).

This topic is also available for intermediate and higher-level learners.


English with Angela -  conversation 

TASK 24 - TOO MUCH RUBBISH FOR PLANET EARTH 

En titt på én av de norske vikingkongene og hans eventyr

Norsk fakta

Harald Hardråde

In der ersten Episode von "DU & DEUTSCH" entdecken wir ein mysteriöses Geheimnis im Westen von Deutschland. Was geschah mit Deutschlands teuerstem Bauwerk, das niemals eröffnet wurde?

DU & DEUTSCH

Der geheimste Ort in Deutschland | DU & DEUTSCH

In this episode, I explain how to ask your friends "You good? Are you bored?" in Japanese. There are some cultural differences between Japanese and English. 

Takeshi's 2 minutes Japanese!

How to say "Are you bored?" in Japanese without offending anyone!

5岁的马克向妈妈告状：“我们的小狗把我的皮鞋咬破了。”
 “那我们要惩罚它一下。”母亲回答说。 
“妈妈，我正是这样做的。我把狗盆里的牛奶全喝光了，让它饿一天。 看它下次还敢不敢这样。”

5 year old Make complain to his mother: our puppy bit my leather shoes.
"then, we need to punish him."mom said.
"yes, mom, definitely I did,I drank up all the milk in the dog bowl, let him hungry. see if he dares to do this again next time."

开心一刻 Jokes

惩罚（chéng fá, punishment)

Como decimos acá "ningún exceso es bueno", nos adentramos en el tema junto con Martín! Y vos... ¿sos extremadamente autoexigente? 

Perfil de Martin, profe acá también en Italki: https://www.italki.com/teacher/5211013

Dale Play al Español

Debatimos sobre "la autoexigencia"

3. Offering a new product/service to reach new customers

Your business might be doing well, but there is no growth or development and there is a risk that your competitors might take away some of your customers. Innovation sometimes means developing a new product that targets a different market. Although video games were often played by boys, in 2006, video games giant Nintendo introduced the game console Nintendo Wii, successfully targeting girls and older customers with games like Cooking Mama and Brain Training.  

4. Changing the way you provide a service

By looking at the changes to the customer's lifestyle and needs, we sometimes realise that there might be better ways to serve them. Customers who do not have a lot of time might prefer to have their food or their shopping delivered to their homes, or they might like to do their banking online rather than in an actual bank.

Not all innovation will bring success to our businesses, but it can give us the opportunity to grow and learn more about what we do and what our customers might want.

What is it that keeping you buying from certain companies over others? Is it a price? A service or something special that you don't even know? Explore and let me know :)

To your success!!!

The Habits of Highly Effective English Communicators

Innovation in business Part 2.

Working from home and avoiding the journey to and from the office is saving many of us at least an hour every day, according to a 2023 study.

But we're not always using that saved time for ourselves — we're actually spending a lot of that time working.

The US-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) did a survey that looked at how workers in 27 countries used their time when working from home.

On average, the daily time saved by working from home was found to be 72 minutes.

Workers in China saved 102 minutes per day, while in Japan it was 100 minutes, and in India it was 99.

But the study also found that, on average, 40% of that saved time was spent working — either on the worker's main job or on an additional one.

Workers in Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan said they used more than half of their saved time to work.

So what happened to the rest of that extra time?

According to the study, an average of 34% was used as leisure time — with people in Germany and Austria using almost half of their extra time for leisure.

And 11% — about eight minutes per day — was spent looking after children or other family members.

The NBER said children had gotten a better deal with parents working from home — but that the big winners were employers, who got extra work time from their employees.



Practice Listening, Reading & Comprehension

Work from Home Study: We Save Time but Work More

In this episode we will talk about 【lie down V.S. involution】, you will learn how to say 【irrational,be involved in,God rewards the diligent. 】 ect.
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It is recommended that you study in the following ways:
1st time: listen without looking at the text.
2nd time: look at the text and write down the new words, later look up the dictionary. 
3rd time: listen again without looking at the text.
4th time: repeat after it without looking at the text.
大家好，我是Yuli。欢迎收听我的播客。
今天想和大家聊一聊【内卷和躺平】的话题。
“内卷”原本是一个人类学的学术用语，原意是指人类社会在某一特定的发展阶段，处于停滞状态，或者不能转换成其他更高层次的形态。这几年“内卷”的概念开始在中国的年轻一代中流行起来，它指的是一种非理性的竞争。
举个例子，孩子们在学校里，有一个同学报名参加了补习班，所有人都报名了。最后的结果是，所有人的分数都提高了，但是排名没有太大的变化，反而是补习班赚钱了。又例如在公司，本来大家都是6点下班，有的同事为了在领导面前表现，开始加班到8点，其他同事为了不让领导觉得自己不够努力，也开始加班，而且加班到更晚。结果就是大家加班的时间越来越晚了，但是工资却没有涨。我们现在经常用“卷”来形容一个行业、一个公司或者一个人，指的是非理性的过度竞争的状态。
随着社会竞争越来越激烈，很多人无形中被卷入到工作和生活上的“内卷”，一些人采用“躺平”方式来回应“内卷”压力，成为“躺平”一族。躺平的意思是拒绝竞争，选择轻松的工作和生活。
那么我们应该选择内卷还是躺平呢？来听一听他的看法。
躺平还是内卷，其实没必要争这个问题。内卷的本质是竞争，而躺平的本质是放弃竞争。永远有人想成为人上人，也有人只想隔岸观火。但竞争的前提是学会互相尊重，在良性对比中找到努力的方向。而放弃竞争意味着你得比大多数人更明白自己想要的是什么。比起极端的天道酬勤，更要明白如何扬长避短。如果鱼在岸上快要渴死了，就不要在岸上努力进化了。如果猫在水里快要被淹死了，就不要待在水里努力适应吧了。内卷和躺平，选什么不重要，你想要成为怎样的自己才重要。
你会选择内卷还是躺平呢？留言告诉我吧。我们下期见。
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人类学	/	rén lèi xué	/	anthropology
学术用语	/	xué shù yòng yǔ	/	academic term
停滞	/	tíng zhì	/	stagnate
非理性	/	fēi lǐ xìng	/	irrational
补习班	/	bǔ xí bān	/	cram school
无形中	/	wú xíng zhōng	/	invisibly
被卷入	/	bèi juǎn rù	/	be involved in
人上人	/	rén shàng rén	/	superior people
隔岸观火	/	gé àn guān huǒ	/	look on sb.'s trouble with indifference
良性对比	/	liáng xìng duì bǐ	/	benign contrast
极端	/	jí duān	/	extreme
天道酬勤	/	tiān dào chóu qín	/	God rewards the diligent. 
扬长避短	/	yáng cháng bì duǎn	/	Promote strengths and avoid weaknesses
进化	/	jìn huà	/	evolution