1: Icebreakers and table manners

Excuse me, sorry, do you speak English? No, I don't, sorry.

podcast hello that was weird hello and who are you so i'm izzy i'm a german living

No. Oh, God. You can't get past the first set path. We caught this forever. But I hate introductions.

I actually hate introductions. Yeah, I just want to start this without the feeling that we're starting something. I want it to feel like we're in episode 10 already. I always hated introductions. I hate it when you go to a conference or in a classroom or so.

please stand up and say two to three sentences about yourself and just your name, your age, where you're from and a few of your hobbies. What do you like to do in your free time? That's a great idea. What we should do instead then, because I also don't like doing this. We should do what I do.

when I was at school for icebreakers, where you have to turn to the person to your right, and if they find out something, then you have to introduce each other, and you have to remember something about them. That would be really fun with the two of us. You introduce me, and I'll introduce you. Okay.

Who am I? So Mitch is... Oh God, this is so hard. Mitch. Come on. Which is originally from Manchester, now living in the south of England in Brighton. And he's a film nerd. He loves films, especially horror films. Can I say that? Yeah, that's a really important part of my life. Oh God. Yeah, I think everyone feels no sorry for me. You love music as well. You make music yourself. You love the outdoors.

where we spend a lot of time together with our dog, Nola. And you love the sea and you love our free nature-ish happy life. Nice. Did you miss anything? I think you got it all, really. Well, let's say, Mitch, I think the people will get to know us in this podcast. So I don't want to say everything about you because you will find out, guys. Should I describe you? Yeah. Easy is a German national born in Münster.

That's correct, isn't it? Yeah. Yes, over the first hurdle. And what I see your interests are, you are a big fan of music, and quite specifically English music, I think. Yes. I think... You're probably your top three favourite bands are probably all British, I reckon. And... Yeah? Yeah. Hurdle 2. Hurdled. And...

I'd say your favourite things are, outside of British music, I think that's your number one thing, I reckon. What? It's one of my favourite things, but in life it's not my favourite thing. It's very important, though. It's not your favourite thing. Music? No. I would say, what do I do all day long and where do I feel the most? I shouldn't tell you that. I mean, okay, here's the things I see you doing the most. Listening to Foles music, your favorite band.

Two, cuddling our dog, Canola. And three, looking at sunsets or being... Our dog's just generally just having a sneezing fit. I think she does purposefully get attention.

what's going on okay and uh yeah being by the sea or generally just looking out out of the window at like uh like daydreaming on a vista on a nice sunset on like the horizon line right a dreamer a dreamer so what we want to tell you guys first is that we are not only doing a podcast so that you can listen to very natural English and to us talking about a lot of things, but we also want to give you some perks.

And yeah, if you become a member of Easy English, we will have a podcast membership now, which will include Mitch. So if you're struggling to understand or keep up with our conversation, then you should be heading over to Easy English. .video forward slash membership and you can become a member and get an interactive transcript which will live translate this conversation into an array of different languages. Yeah, go get it.

Yeah, I think it's really great. It's not even if you can't understand this, but also maybe you don't know some certain words that we use. Mitch, for sure. as a native uses a lot more slang words. And so if you just want to live see it in your own language or in any other language that you speak or learn, that is really...

Yeah, nice feature, isn't it? You can just read it in the other languages as well and learn new English, British English words. So what we'll do in our podcast is we will have different categories. We will slowly introduce them to you over the next podcast. So we will not always do the same ones. Some will appear again and again. Some might be only some visitors. I guess one of the main ones is the topic of the week. Segment intro? Yep. Let's try it now. Here it comes.

Topic of the week. So there's only one topic that's not only, but there's one huge topic that was very present during the past weeks, and that was the death of the... Queen of Britain. And we watched it on the TV, didn't we, while we worked? Yeah, we had it on the whole day. Oh, her funeral, by the way. We didn't say what happened, right?

We didn't watch her death, we watched her funeral. Yeah, we watched her funeral. And obviously there was like this whole state mourning phase, which was 10 or 12 days. For me, that was very interesting. Obviously, as a German, I don't know monarchy. I didn't live in a monarchy in my life. But the Queen... Yeah, it was really interesting for me culturally to observe these past weeks how people were really grieving, mourning for the Queen.

You can really say their beloved queen. I went around our district here and made photos from, not even funny. I did this as a cultural. documentation now because i found it super interesting what um the people had in their stores um maybe you can put a For our members, a photo album, sorry. Or some of my photos. Because in every store there was like a letter. They all said about obviously being closed on the day of the funeral. There was a lot of this out of respect.

It was the key word to put, out of respect. Yeah. So, yeah, nearly all stores were closed in that day. And also, every store or restaurant had a... picture of the queen in the window. They'd all printed it off using their office printer. Yeah, you could see who had a good printer. Barry, you've printed it in colour. Black and white, she's dead. Have some respect. It was very, very interesting to observe. And I did come to an understanding of what this woman, Elizabeth.

meant to the people and still means to the people because I think she was constant that gave them safety in a way because Britain has been in quite... Next topic. Oh God, I will only talk here. In quite uncertain times during the past years with Brexit and all those things. And I think the queen was still, the queen was the queen. She was always there representing the country.

being lovely and yeah it's it's weird for a lot of people also 70 years on the throne to not have that anymore and change is never easy for anyone isn't it It wasn't just weird for you. I find it quite weird. I mean, we weren't here for the Jubilee, right? We were away for her Platinum Jubilee. And there were street parties, right? There was one in the small town where we live.

There was an arranged street party, which for me is culturally weird. I've never really noticed a country doing something together.

Her funeral felt just really massive. It was very bizarre, to be honest, even for me, even for myself, because you start to realise how many people actually... really care about her and how much she means to people and like even I found myself getting involved in her story a little bit and I guess really I kind of I actually was quite sad just because of the fact that as much as I don't agree with the monarchy,

But she took it on so early on. I was 25. And yeah, like someone said it really well in one of the episodes we recorded that she really never got a chance to... Sorry, because she was 96 now, right? all right go on that she never really got a chance to like experience being a person like a mother or grandmother yeah she did just sort of take on this mantle which sort of seems a bit like a weight and yeah she she did it until the day she died

There's obviously a horrible side to the royal family with the British Empire. Oh, yeah. But one thing that you, if you look at Queen Elizabeth's timeline from when she took the throne to now... It's in her title now that she's no longer the Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain.

Queen Elizabeth well she was Queen Elizabeth of the Commonwealth and she kind of it was her thing really her thing was taking apart the British Empire and giving back independence to these countries so yeah I wonder whether we'll actually look back and look back at her like her reign and be actually you know she's like the queen of peace or the queen of you know she was giving she was actually slowly dismantling the monarchy in a way and i wonder whether king charles will carry that on

Yeah, well, I don't know too much about it if she really was the Peen of... Peen of... The Peen of Quiz. King of Queens. No, but I can't really say much about it. Yeah, we both are not qualified enough to really speak about the British Empire. I just wanted to say that I do understand. Let's say it like that. I now do understand what role she played and will still play in this country's history. Her parachuting out of a plane with Daniel Craig was incredibly funny.

Okay, so it only makes sense because of this week's YouTube episode. And if you're not even aware that we do YouTube, then go over to youtube.com forward slash Easy English Videos.

where you'll find a whole array of videos that we're also doing alongside a podcast where we interview people from the streets of Brighton to help you learn authentic British English. And we also do sometimes... home episodes if you want to call them like this which is like videos about grammar topics about vocabulary topics something that we focus on and mitch always has amazing ideas to connect it to all his film nerdism

So you're always inspired to bring in something that comes from one of your films. If you want to learn about English conjunctions made to the theme of The Shining. Yeah. I learned to do a really fun trick. To make it look like you're being possessed. So maybe you want to be the possessed person. I can do that, yeah. That would be lovely, wouldn't it? Yeah. Okay, the past episode, which is?

Well, it only came out now as well, same time. Yeah, and it makes sense to talk about this topic we're discussing now, which is podcasts. Past week's video. So I basically, if you've watched the video already, then you'll know. But if not, then I went out on the streets of Brighton and find out what podcasts people regularly listen to. Yeah, so should we just...

Well, obviously we now started a podcast, so that's why we did this topic. But Mitch, what is your favorite podcast? You listen to a lot of podcasts. I do listen to a lot of podcasts. Actually, podcasts play a huge role in our daily life, don't they? Yeah. I mean, I've been into podcasts for ages. I think it was before the word podcast even existed, is when...

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, who made The Office and Extras and all these other amazing TV programs. They started, it was basically a radio show, but there was, I could be wrong. I think there was music, but it was... Usually with radio shows, you listen to more music than talking, but this was 15 minutes of talking and one song, and then 15 more minutes. Yeah, it's...

In England, I guess, invented the podcast. And I listened to that. The Ricky Gervais thing really got me into the idea of listening to comedy on the radio. And then it went from... Ricky Gervais to Russell Brand when he had a radio show on BBC Radio 2. But that was also just talking. And then from him, I went to Adam and Joe. And Adam and Joe, they are like the king.

Kings of podcasting in my eyes. Give your podcast recommendation now, please. I actually do listen to a lot of German podcasts. Probably. Oh, I don't know. Eight or ten podcasts regularly. But they are nearly all German. And the biggest one I listen to, which all Germans will know now, is Fest und Flauschig. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's the music. Mitch has to listen to that a lot when I'm like...

In the bathroom or so. Yeah, I hear it in the shower. When I'm cooking, yeah. So I do listen to a few English ones, which are actually all British ones. And one that was kind of a surprising find.

was the podcast called Table Menace, which is a really nice setup, I think. The host is, or the two hosts are Jesse Ware, who is a... pop musician i think and her mom and i have to say with this i have no idea of her music i really don't know one song nothing yeah not in an offensive way not in an offensive way i should have checked it out maybe but she's really fun um

And her mom is really fun. And they together invite people, really, yeah, quite huge names, really. And they prepare a dish. And I sit together with them. At a table, mostly it's a dish that... the guests kind of likes or from their kind of like cultural background and then they talk all things from food to their life and anything and it's really fun because they're really really witty and really like

Yeah, really fun. It's really, really good. I think we searched for some podcasts with people that we wanted to listen to as guests, and then we found them. Yeah, when we could travel between Germany and UK rules.

Use them as our means to conquer boredom in the car. It's a really, really good recommendation if you like interview podcasts, if you like food and... nice conversations they are a podcast to aspire to because they have no formalities right it feels like it feels like you're there at the dinner table and you just

chatting shit yeah you get a huge glass of wine and just um talking to them that's how it feels and that's why it's so good it's really really good so let's play the next how do you call it the next segment let's play it So you have heard it. It's called unhelpful advice. And that was Mitch's idea. And I think it's an amazing idea. And it basically means...

People should write us, so you, you people, should write us something you are struggling a life with. It doesn't have to be deep. It can be deep, though. Or any... Little question, it can also be like, do I have spaghetti or pancakes for dinner? Yeah, I want people to write in asking us to name their pets because I feel like I have a really good ability to name pets.

Okay. If you want to move house and have two options, it can be anything. But please, please, please write us an email to podcast at easyenglish.video. One of our patrons picked up on the fact we were looking for unhelpful advice questions and his name is Creighton. And Creighton is infamous across the Easy Languages universe because I think he's also an Easy German member, right? Yes, he is. And he has great tips on beverages, right? He does.

I think he calls himself the cocktail king of easy German. Self-proclaimed. Now I put it out there, Creighton. Sorry. I'll name pets and Creighton will teach you how to make the best cocktails. Oh yeah, he has a lot of knowledge in that. Actually, I wanted to create a podcast, a cocktail for today, but I'm on antibiotics. I mean, if you want a wild night, then go for it.

Do you want to know what Creighton's question is? Yeah, tell me. So his question is, and let's just take it at face value. His question is, how do I appear less American in my next trip to the UK?

Pretending a British accent would be good. Don't do that. Please don't do that. Maybe people won't notice. I mean, to appear less American... I mean, I can see Creighton's face on the Patreon, and the only way I could say he could appear less American is to show his teeth less, because I think he has probably really perfect American teeth.

that would be the key thing that would make me realize he's maybe not a Brit. Because most Brits have teeth like peasants. Don't say that. Not everyone. That's also a stereotype. I do. No, you don't. You have beautiful teeth. I would say a good tip for appearing less American or appearing more British, and maybe it's quite liberating, is that I feel like in America, you have this...

American dream and this thing where you can self-promote yourself and in England if you self-promote yourself it always for some reason comes across as snobbish or like you're blowing your own trumpet or you're being a bit big-headed. There are some three phrases I've just nailed right there, which you can look at in the transcript. And in England, it's a really honourable thing to be...

The more self-deprecating you can be, the better. And maybe in America, if you self-deprecate, people will feel sorry for you or maybe you'll look like you're trying to... gain some kind of um you're like fishing for compliments basically but in england you can be self-deprecating and it can be really funny The more self-deprecating you are, the better. For example, your appearance. You can take the mickey out of your appearance. You can take the mickey out of...

Anything to do with yourself, like if you're loud, say, oh, I'm so loud today, bloody hell, someone shut me up, I'm like a trumpet, and people will find it really funny. So that would be my one only tip, I think. great and let us know if that if that is helpful or unhopeful probably unhelpful yeah that's what it's all about put yourself down but don't do it so much that then you have less respect for yourself

Yeah, so I think we are at the end of our first podcast, which was actually, in the end will probably be shorter, but we talked for a long time. If you listen to the podcast and you're thinking, why is the energy dropping off so quickly? It's because we recorded this for an hour and had to... More than an hour. More than an hour. And this has to be edited down to 20 minutes. So lesson learnt for episode two there. So what I would really like to say at the end is...

It would be so amazing to get feedback by you guys. If you could just write us an email with some feedback, how you liked it, if you didn't like it or whatever, what we can improve or any topic that you would like us to talk about.

helpful advice that you need or really just anything, any question about our podcast, write us an email to podcast at easyenglish.video amazing so um yeah and also it would be really really nice if in your podcast app that you're using you follow us and you rate our podcast because that is really really really really nice for us It would be great to get some love. Yeah, it would be nice to know what you think of it because I do feel like now we have a community.

If you go to our YouTube channel, you'll see we have a nice community of regular viewers who want to engage in conversation. So hopefully we can start that up with our podcast. Yeah, and obviously our members. Well, they're always in support. Thank you. Yeah, and if you want to become a member, which not only helps support our work here at Easy English and helps us to carry on making podcast episodes and video episodes, but in return, we also give you back.

some learning extras. And for the podcast alone, you'll get this interactive transcript to translate into many different languages. Please, please become a member. That would be great. And I guess. See you, hear you next time. Yeah, I think we'll be talking to you from Germany in our next episode. Yes. So we might have some stories to tell on our trip over on the ferry. Ferry trip.

And listening to Table Manners in the Car to abstain from boredom. Thank you, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. See you next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. mingli