In this podcast I talk briefly about the Beijing Winter Olympics and share some of my childhood memories of skiing and snowboarding.
Keywords in this episode
tricks
ski slope
chair lift
timberline
glacier
snow boarding
ski lodge
The Shining
Stanley Kubrick
Mount Hood 
adrenaline
abdominals
quads
frozen fingers
moguls
wipe out




Streetwise English

SWE 1 Beijing Winter Olympics & Childhood Skiing Memories

ROMANIAN

Rutina mea de zi

Listen to me reading a short news article about the pros and cons of internet dating, as part of my Conversational English course.

Listen to English with Pip

News article: online dating

Story = '2000 most common words in English'. 

It was 10am on a cloudy Friday when Bobby was struck by inspiration.  It was a day like any other. Bobby was sitting on his bed, curled up in a ball and Afsane was nearby reading a new book.

Bobby was deep in thought. His eyes were closed but his mind was active. His little tail was wagging softly. Occasionally he got up, turned around and sat back down again. This was part of his creative process. 

Then Bobby’s eyes shot open. “Yes! That’s it! I’ll… I’ll…” Then he rested his head again on his paws.  “No… it’s gone.” 

Asfane turned her attention back to her book and turned the page. The book was called, How to Live with An Extraordinary Dog. She wanted to better understand Bobby’s gift.

“You’ve done so many projects,” said Afsane. “Why don’t you revisit an old idea and explore it from a different viewpoint?” 

All over Bobby’s room were his photographs. They were all in special frames. He had taken photos of almost everything: parks, sports, markets, transportation, roads—whatever Bobby saw, he snapped a photo. But he didn’t know what to do for his next photography project. 

Bobby needed to refresh his mind. He jumped off the bed and walked over to his food area. On the wall in front of his red drinking bowl was a picture of his previous drinking bowl, a blue one. 

“I’m looking for a special subject, Afsane,” said Bobby after drinking some water. “Something which speaks to my soul. Something which lifts my spirits.” 

Afsane shrugged her shoulders and put down her book. “That sounds very serious, Bobby. Why don’t you just take a photo of… oh, I don’t know, that.” 

Afsane pointed to the open window. 

Bobby felt curious, so he jumped up and looked out the window. He didn’t see much. He watched the traffic and the dark clouds. But then, something caught his eye. 

Bobby barked and howled! “That’s it! That’s it!”

“See, I told you. There’s nothing boring about windows,” said Afsane.

“No. There! Children!”

Being a Cloud

Bobby the Dog

The Step Pyramid of Djoser

A

The pyramids are the most famous monuments of ancient Egypt and still hold enormous interest for people in the present day. These grand, impressive tributes to the memory of the Egyptian kings have become linked with the country even though other cultures, such as the Chinese and Mayan, also built pyramids. The evolution of the pyramid form has been written and argued about for centuries. However, there is no question that, as far as Egypt is concerned, it began with one monument to one king designed by one brilliant architect: the Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara.

B

Djoser was the first king of the Third Dynasty of Egypt and the first to build in stone. Prior to Djoser’s reign, tombs were rectangular monuments made of dried clay brick, which covered underground passages where the deceased person was buried. For reasons which remain unclear, Djoser’s main official, whose name was Imhotep, conceived of building a taller, more impressive tomb for his king by stacking stone slabs on top of one another, progressively making them smaller, to form the shape now known as the Step Pyramid. Djoser is thought to have reigned for 19 years, but some historians and scholars attribute a much longer time for his rule, owing to the number and size of the monuments he built.

C

The Step Pyramid has been thoroughly examined and investigated over the last century, and it is now known that the building process went through many different stages. Historian Marc Van de Mieroop comments on this, writing ‘Much experimentation was involved, which is especially clear in the construction of the pyramid in the center of the complex. It had several plans … before it became the first Step Pyramid in history, piling six levels on top of one another … The weight of the enormous mass was a challenge for the builders, who placed the stones at an inward incline in order to prevent the monument breaking up.’

Part 2 will be added later today. Stay tuned.


The Habits of Highly Effective English Communicators

Cambridge IELTS Reading & Comprehension

Oi gente, aqui é Aneleh, sua tutora de português favorita. No podcast de hoje falaremos sobre a diferença entre os verbos “saber” e “conhecer”. Se você é iniciante e está se sentindo perdido, pode pular direto para a parte em que explico tudo isso em inglês em um minuto e quarenta segundos.
Se quiser acompanhar o script do podcast é só clicar nesse link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sb3f4OiI6qgwqprPslZOlvPsedEoUgrhDHoBTvyEzzM/edit?usp=sharing
Vamos lá?
Hi everyone, this is Aneleh, your favorite Portuguese tutor. In today's podcast we will talk about the difference between the verbs "saber" and "conhecer". If you're a beginner and you're feeling lost, you can skip straight to the part where I explain all this in English in one minute and forty seconds.
If you want to follow the podcast script, just click on this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sb3f4OiI6qgwqprPslZOlvPsedEoUgrhDHoBTvyEzzM/edit?usp=sharing
Let's go?

Portuguese Drops 

Saber x conhecer 

Konnichiwa! Welcome to Slow Japanese! What do you do in your free time? Maybe game? Today I talk about Japanese tabletop games!

Usage of Slow Japanese:
STEP 1. Listen to the episode without seeing scripts.
STEP 2. Go to mochifika.com/podcast/ and check "Key vocabularies of this episode", listen again to the episode while seeing the list.
STEP 3. Check the whole script, it'll fill the gap in your understanding.

Scripts and key vocabularies of this episode are here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/slow-japanese-15-63474320?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copy_to_clipboard&utm_campaign=postshare

Slow Japanese

Slow Japanese – Episode #15 – Tabletop game

In this episode I talk about the use of The G.O.A.T. in popular culture.
Take an English Lesson with Carl https://italki.com/teacher/1947582

SWE 149 He's The G.O.A.T. 

・Floor
何階　3階：≪なんかい・なんがい≫≪３かい・３がい≫どちらもいう事ができる。


・Times
何回　3回　　”がい”　はいう事ができない。


・Intonation
回　上がるイントネーション、下がるイントネーション、どちらもOK
階　上がるイントネーションだけ　OK



日本の階に”グランドフロア(ground floor) はありません。　
In Japan, there is no 'Ground Floor.'