Episode 76: Texas: The Price of Doing it Your Own Way

Every October, a few unpredictable weeks decide whether New England's small towns have a good year or a bad one, and it all comes down to a color scientists still can't fully explain. In this episode of English, please, you'll learnthe real science, the "leaf peeper" vocabulary, and what's actually at stake, all in clear, intermediate English. Press play on this page to listen, or read the transcript below.

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under ten minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host, Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

Before we begin, I want to mention something free. Two guides are waiting for you at comullen.com/free. One covers 25 everyday idioms and the other covers 60 common English phrases. Both are written specifically for intermediate learners, [00:01:00] and both are completely free.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about a season. Every autumn, the trees in one part of the United States turn bright red and orange, and for a few weeks, the whole region looks like it’s on fire. During this period, the color determines whether local towns have a great year or a difficult year.

We’re talking about New England: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Here’s what’s strange: the reason the leaves turn such a vivid red color isn’t just the cold. One of New England’s most common trees is the maple, and maple trees are full of natural sugar. In the fall, when a maple tree’s leaves are dying, the tree uses that sugar to make a brand-new [00:02:00] red color. Most trees just turn brown, and the leaves fall off the branches, but maple trees do something different. And here’s the part that surprises even scientists: nobody fully knows why the tree does this. The most likely reason is the red color protects the leaf a little longer, giving the tree time to pull out a few more nutrients before winter. But in general, it’s still a real mystery.

People noticed New England’s colors a long time ago, but the word for obsessing over them is newer than you would think. It first showed up in print in 1966 in a Vermont newspaper column called “Thoughts of a Leaf Peeper.” By then, New England’s tourism industry was built around fall color and had already been running for decades.

Which brings us to a word you’ll [00:03:00] only ever hear associated with this one specific activity: leaf peeping. To “peep” at something is to take a quick look at it. A leaf peeper is a tourist who drives around in autumn, stopping the car every few minutes to look at trees. It sounds a little bit like a joke, but it’s a real widely used term, and small towns in New England take it very seriously.

The seriousness makes sense once you see the numbers. For towns with a few thousand residents, a three or four-week period in October can be the difference between a good year and a bad year. Hotels that are mostly empty in July are fully booked the moment the leaves begin to change. Small shops and restaurants plan their whole calendar around this one narrow time of [00:04:00] year. Local businesses aren’t just hoping tourists show up, they’re counting on it.

And that’s where the story gets a little tense.

Peak foliage isn’t a fixed date. It shifts a little bit every year, depending on the temperature and rainfall, and in recent years, that shift has become harder to predict. A warm September can push the color change later or make it less vivid than usual. Some towns build their whole year around tourists arriving during one specific week. For these towns, a late or weak color change isn’t just disappointing, it’s a real financial problem.

This is more than a beautiful season for photos. It’s a regional economy that depends on something no one can control: the weather. [00:05:00] Every October, small towns across New England watch the trees closely because so much depends on what happens next.

And there’s still something remarkable here, even without the tourism. Every year, for a short time, an entire region turns bright red and orange. People who only see photos often don’t believe the colors are real. Then, they see it in person, and they understand.

So is New England in autumn worth a visit? Nature never makes promises. The colors might be early, they might be late, or they might not be as bright as usual. But if you want to understand why an entire region depends on a few unpredictable weeks this might be exactly the season for you.

If today’s episode felt useful and you’d like more structured practice, [00:06:00] that’s what the English, please Accelerator is built around. You listen first, try to understand the English on your own, and then check yourself against the transcript. You can find it at comullen.com/listen. And if you haven’t already, two guides are waiting for you at comullen.com/free. Twenty-five everyday idioms and sixty common English phrases, and they’re both written specifically for intermediate users. And yes, they’re completely free.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as always, for listening.

See you soon! 

Want to improve faster? The English Listening Accelerator is a $7 workbook and audio course that teaches you how to listen closely and understand more English, in conversations, shows, movies, or anywhere you're listening. It's a simple way to keep building your English skills!

Thank you for being part of the English, please community!

Episode 75: New England, and a Color Scientists Can't Fully Explain

Every October, a few unpredictable weeks decide whether New England's small towns have a good year or a bad one, and it all comes down to a color scientists still can't fully explain. In this episode of English, please, you'll learnthe real science, the "leaf peeper" vocabulary, and what's actually at stake, all in clear, intermediate English. Press play on this page to listen, or read the transcript below.

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under ten minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host, Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

Before we begin, I want to mention something free. Two guides are waiting for you at comullen.com/free. One covers 25 everyday idioms and the other covers 60 common English phrases. Both are written specifically for intermediate learners, [00:01:00] and both are completely free.

In this episode, we’re going to talk about a season. Every autumn, the trees in one part of the United States turn bright red and orange, and for a few weeks, the whole region looks like it’s on fire. During this period, the color determines whether local towns have a great year or a difficult year.

We’re talking about New England: Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.

Here’s what’s strange: the reason the leaves turn such a vivid red color isn’t just the cold. One of New England’s most common trees is the maple, and maple trees are full of natural sugar. In the fall, when a maple tree’s leaves are dying, the tree uses that sugar to make a brand-new [00:02:00] red color. Most trees just turn brown, and the leaves fall off the branches, but maple trees do something different. And here’s the part that surprises even scientists: nobody fully knows why the tree does this. The most likely reason is the red color protects the leaf a little longer, giving the tree time to pull out a few more nutrients before winter. But in general, it’s still a real mystery.

People noticed New England’s colors a long time ago, but the word for obsessing over them is newer than you would think. It first showed up in print in 1966 in a Vermont newspaper column called “Thoughts of a Leaf Peeper.” By then, New England’s tourism industry was built around fall color and had already been running for decades.

Which brings us to a word you’ll [00:03:00] only ever hear associated with this one specific activity: leaf peeping. To “peep” at something is to take a quick look at it. A leaf peeper is a tourist who drives around in autumn, stopping the car every few minutes to look at trees. It sounds a little bit like a joke, but it’s a real widely used term, and small towns in New England take it very seriously.

The seriousness makes sense once you see the numbers. For towns with a few thousand residents, a three or four-week period in October can be the difference between a good year and a bad year. Hotels that are mostly empty in July are fully booked the moment the leaves begin to change. Small shops and restaurants plan their whole calendar around this one narrow time of [00:04:00] year. Local businesses aren’t just hoping tourists show up, they’re counting on it.

And that’s where the story gets a little tense.

Peak foliage isn’t a fixed date. It shifts a little bit every year, depending on the temperature and rainfall, and in recent years, that shift has become harder to predict. A warm September can push the color change later or make it less vivid than usual. Some towns build their whole year around tourists arriving during one specific week. For these towns, a late or weak color change isn’t just disappointing, it’s a real financial problem.

This is more than a beautiful season for photos. It’s a regional economy that depends on something no one can control: the weather. [00:05:00] Every October, small towns across New England watch the trees closely because so much depends on what happens next.

And there’s still something remarkable here, even without the tourism. Every year, for a short time, an entire region turns bright red and orange. People who only see photos often don’t believe the colors are real. Then, they see it in person, and they understand.

So is New England in autumn worth a visit? Nature never makes promises. The colors might be early, they might be late, or they might not be as bright as usual. But if you want to understand why an entire region depends on a few unpredictable weeks this might be exactly the season for you.

If today’s episode felt useful and you’d like more structured practice, [00:06:00] that’s what the English, please Accelerator is built around. You listen first, try to understand the English on your own, and then check yourself against the transcript. You can find it at comullen.com/listen. And if you haven’t already, two guides are waiting for you at comullen.com/free. Twenty-five everyday idioms and sixty common English phrases, and they’re both written specifically for intermediate users. And yes, they’re completely free.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as always, for listening.

See you soon! 

Want to improve faster? The English Listening Accelerator is a $7 workbook and audio course that teaches you how to listen closely and understand more English, in conversations, shows, movies, or anywhere you're listening. It's a simple way to keep building your English skills!

Thank you for being part of the English, please community!

Episode 74: Las Vegas: A City That Doesn't Feel Like the United States

Curious about Las Vegas, or wondering why it feels so different from anywhere else? In this episode of English, please, I take you through the city's fake landmarks, casino culture, and the real people who live behind the lights, all in clear, intermediate English. Press play on this page to listen, or read the transcript below.

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under ten minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host, Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

Before we begin, I want to mention something free. Two guides are waiting for you at comullen.com/free. One covers 25 everyday idioms and the other covers 60 common English phrases. Both are written specifically for intermediate learners, and both are completely [00:01:00] free.

In this episode, we’re going somewhere strange: a city built in the middle of a desert where the casinos have no windows and no clocks, and where you can walk past a fake Eiffel Tower on your way to a fake Venice.

We’re talking about Las Vegas, one of the strangest cities in the United States, and honestly, one of the strangest cities anywhere.

If you’ve never been to the United States, don’t judge the whole country by this place. Las Vegas doesn’t feel like the rest of the US. In fact, it barely feels like a real place at all.

Las Vegas sits in the Nevada desert, hours from any other major city. One hundred years ago, there was almost nothing here. Then, in the 1930s, gambling became legal in Nevada, and the city [00:02:00] started building itself around one idea: give people a reason to come to the middle of nowhere and spend money.

That idea never really changed. It just got bigger and stranger.

Walk down the main street, called The Strip, and you’ll pass a small version of the Eiffel Tower outside a casino called Paris. A few minutes later, you’re beside canals with real gondolas and singing gondoliers at a casino called The Venetian. Keep walking, and there’s a black glass pyramid modeled after Egypt, and that’s next to a golden lion the size of a building.

None of it is real. It’s all built to impress you for a few seconds as you walk by, not to be authentic. [00:03:00] Yet somehow, people love it anyway

There’s a word for this kind of place: tacky. Something “tacky” is loud and a little embarrassing, but some people enjoy it anyway. Las Vegas has made tackiness into an art form. Every hotel wants to be the brightest, the biggest, the most over-the-top, much bigger and louder than it actually needs to be.

Some travelers find this charming, almost like a theme park for adults. Others find it exhausting or even sad, once they notice how empty the illusion is. Either reaction makes sense. But one thing is true either way: nothing about Las Vegas is forgettable.

Underneath all the lights, Las Vegas [00:04:00] exists for one reason: gambling. “Gambling” means risking money on a game or a bet, hoping to win more than you started with. It’s the entire economy of the city, and it’s given English some expressions you’ll hear far outside any casino.

If you “take a risk,” you do something that might fail, hoping it works out anyway. People say this about money, but also about careers, relationships, and big life decisions. For example, “She took a risk and quit her job to start a business.”

The “odds” means how likely something is to happen. “The odds are low” means it probably won’t happen. Inside a casino, the odds are built to favor the casino, not the player, [00:05:00] no matter which game you choose. That’s not an accident. It’s math, and it’s why casinos can afford buildings the size of small cities.

If someone wins a huge amount at once, we say they “hit the jackpot.” This phrase is used outside of casinos all the time. People say it for any surprising stroke of luck. “He hit the jackpot with that apartment. It’s huge and it’s cheap.”

And then there’s “breaking even,” which means finishing with the same amount of money you started with. No win, no loss. Most gamblers hope for this on a bad night. Most casinos are designed so that almost nobody actually does.

One detail says everything about how seriously Las [00:06:00] Vegas takes this business. Casinos have no windows and no clocks. This isn’t an oversight. It’s intentional so that once you’re inside, you forget whether it’s morning or midnight, and you keep playing much longer than you meant to.

Las Vegas isn’t only casinos and tourists passing through for a weekend. Real people live and work there, raise families there, and never set foot inside a casino, except to go to their jobs.

The city is also famous for something less obvious: weddings. Nevada has some of the easiest marriage laws in the country, and Las Vegas built an entire industry around it. Some couples plan their wedding for a year. Others decide on a Tuesday night, and they are married an hour later, sometimes with [00:07:00] an Elvis impersonator singing as they walk down the aisle. Neither type of marriage is considered strange in Las Vegas.

Strip away the lights and the gambling, and there’s an ordinary American city underneath: suburbs, schools, traffic, grocery stores. Almost no tourist ever sees that part, and most locals are happy to keep it that way.

So, is Las Vegas worth seeing even though so much of it is built on illusion? If you’re looking for something authentic, somewhere that reflects real history or culture, Las Vegas will probably disappoint you. But if you’re looking for something that exists nowhere else on Earth, right in the middle of a desert, it might be exactly the strange, unforgettable experience you didn’t know you wanted.

Either way, you now know some [00:08:00] real English for talking about risk and luck, and you have a much clearer picture of one of the most unusual cities in the United States.

If today’s episode felt useful, and you’d like more structured practice, that’s exactly what the English, please Accelerator is built around. You listen first, try to understand the English on your own, and then check yourself against the transcript afterward. You can find it at comullen.com/listen. And if you haven’t already, two free guides are waiting for you at comullen.com/free: 25 everyday idioms and 60 common English phrases, and they’re both written specifically for intermediate learners.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. [00:09:00] Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as always, for listening.

See you soon! 

Want to improve faster? The English Listening Accelerator is a $7 workbook and audio course that teaches you how to listen closely and understand more English, in conversations, shows, movies, or anywhere you're listening. It's a simple way to keep building your English skills!

Thank you for being part of the English, please community!

Episode 73: How to Read in English Without Stopping to Translate

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under 10 minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host, Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work, or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

One quick thing before we dive in, two free guides are waiting for you at comullen.com/free. One covers 25 everyday idioms, and the other covers 60 common English phrases. Both are written specifically for intermediate learners, and neither will [00:01:00] cost you anything!

Here’s something a lot of English learners do without even realizing it. The moment you don’t recognize a word while reading, you stop and translate it before you’ve even finished the sentence.

If that sounds familiar, today’s episode is for you.

Let’s talk about how you go from translating every unfamiliar word to reading a full page in English without stopping once. 

The first stage is where most people start, and it’s completely normal. Your dictionary or translator is open the whole time, and when you see a word you don’t recognize, you stop and look it up. This works, but it’s slow, and it breaks your focus constantly. If you’re at this stage, that’s fine, but here is a small change worth trying. [00:02:00] Instead of stopping right away, finish the sentence first. Sometimes, the rest of the sentence already tells you what the word means, and you won’t need to look it up at all.

Here’s an example. Imagine you read this sentence: “She felt a wave of relief when she saw her lost dog waiting by the door.” Maybe you don’t know the word “relief.” If you stop right there, you lose the sentence. But if you keep reading, you already know she lost her dog, and now she’s found her dog. What kind of feeling would you have in that moment? Probably something close to relief. The sentence already gave you the answer, but you just had to finish it!

The second stage is where you close the dictionary, but you allow yourself to check a word [00:03:00] occasionally when it really matters. This is where a simple rule helps a lot. If you don’t recognize a word, keep going. Most of the time, that single word won’t stop you from understanding the sentence, the paragraph, or the page. But if the same word appears again three or four times and it keeps getting in your way, that’s when it’s actually worth looking it up, not the first time you see it.

This stage is also a good moment to notice whether what you’re reading is too difficult for you right now. If you’re stopping more than once or twice a sentence, the text itself might be the problem, not your English. Choosing something slightly easier for a while is not a step backward. It’s what gives this new habit time to [00:04:00] work.

The third stage is reading without looking up any words at all, at least not while you’re reading. Instead, you circle or underline unfamiliar words as you go, and you check them once you finish. By that point, you’ve already understood the overall story or the main idea. Often, when you go back to look up a word, the meaning is already obvious from everything around it, and you don’t even need the dictionary anymore.

One thing that helps at every stage: fiction and nonfiction give you clues in different ways. In a story, an unfamiliar word usually gets explained later through what happens next, not through a definition. Think back to that sentence about the lost dog. A novel would probably show you the same feeling again a few pages later in a different scene [00:05:00] until the word’s meaning is completely clear on its own.

In an article or an email, you don’t have to wait that long. The explanation is often close by, in the same sentence or in the one right after it. Either way, the answer is frequently right there if you just keep reading instead of stopping.

If reading English has felt slow and exhausting, that doesn’t mean your English is weak. It usually means you’re stopping more often than you need to. Trusting yourself to keep going is a skill, and like any skill, it gets easier with practice.

If you’d like structured practice with exactly this kind of skill, guessing before checking, that’s exactly what the English, please Accelerator is built around. You can find it at comullen.com/listen.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to [00:06:00] join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as always, for listening.

See you soon!

Episode 72: How to Understand Podcasts and Audiobooks Without a Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under ten minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host, Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work, or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

Before we begin, I want to mention something free. If you go to comullen.com/free, you can sign up and get two guides sent straight to your inbox. One has 25 idioms native English speakers use every day, and the other has 60 common English phrases. Both are [00:01:00] written specifically for intermediate learners, and they’re absolutely free.

In this episode, we’re talking about something a lot of you have probably experienced: understanding podcasts and audiobooks without a transcript in front of you. With a movie, even with the sound turned off, you still have a face, body language, and action on the screen to help you guess what’s happening. With a podcast or an audiobook, you don’t have any of that. It’s just your ears. That makes it one of the hardest, and most useful kinds, of listening practice there is.

Here’s something worth saying clearly: podcasts are not all the same type of listening. Some podcasts have one person talking the whole time, planned out in advance, which is a lot like this show. Other [00:02:00] podcasts have two or more people having a real conversation with interruptions, side comments, and sentences that stop before they’re finished. If you’ve ever found the second kind exhausting to follow, that doesn’t mean your English isn’t good enough. It means you chose the harder version. Focusing on single speaker shows is a smart choice, and it’s absolutely nothing to feel bad about.

Let’s start with tips for the more difficult kind, podcasts with more than one speaker having a real conversation. The first thing to notice is that people repeat themselves more than you would think. When someone is explaining an idea out loud, they’ll often say it once, and then say it again in slightly different words. Sometimes they’ll even say it a third time, too! This isn’t [00:03:00] because they think you’re confused. It’s just how people naturally speak when they’re thinking as they talk. So if you miss the first version of an idea, stay calm. There’s a good chance you’ll hear it again, a few seconds later, said in a different way.

The second thing is about certain small words that show up constantly in conversation. Words like “so,” “anyway,” and “look.” These can feel like clutter at first, like they’re not really saying anything. But they’re actually doing something very useful. They usually mean a new idea or a change of topic is about to happen. Once you begin to notice these words, they work almost like signals telling you when to expect a shift, and that can make a whole conversation easier to follow, not harder.

Now [00:04:00] let’s talk about the other kind of listening: single speaker podcasts and audiobooks.

Here, the sentences tend to be longer and more carefully put together than in a casual conversation. There’s no, “um,” or “you know,” or “anyway” to give you a break halfway through. A useful skill here is to practice how to hold on to the beginning of a sentence in your mind while you’re still waiting to hear how it ends. This takes practice, but it gets easier the more you do it, the same way it did for native speakers when they were first learning to understand complicated sentences.

It also helps to remember that a calm, clear narrator and a fast-moving conversation ask two different things of you. A narrator rewards patience, since the pacing is steady and deliberate. A fast conversation asks more of [00:05:00] you. You have to catch the general idea of what’s being said, without needing to understand every single word along the way.

One last tip, and this applies to everything we’ve talked about today: if you miss a sentence, whether it’s in a podcast or an audiobook, the best thing to do is usually to keep going, instead of pausing or rewinding. It’s tempting, especially now that every app makes rewinding so easy. But pausing constantly to catch every single word actually makes it harder to follow the big picture, not easier. Missing one sentence rarely matters as much as it might feel like it does in the moment.

If you’ve ever felt lost listening to a podcast without a transcript in front of you, that doesn’t mean your English is weak. It means you need practice matching your ear to what you’re hearing, [00:06:00] which is exactly the kind of practice the English, please Accelerator is built around. Each lesson has you listen first, try to understand it on your own, and then check yourself against the transcript afterwards. The same listen first, check second approach we just talked about today. You can find it at comullen.com/listen.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as always, for listening. See you soon!

Episode 71: Guess Before You Know: The Trickiest Word Pairs in English

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under ten minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host, Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

Before we begin, I want to mention something free. If you go to comullen.com/free, you can sign up and get two guides sent straight to your inbox. One has twenty-five idioms native English speakers use every day. The other has sixty common English phrases. [00:01:00] Both are written specifically for intermediate learners, and they’re absolutely free.

Today, we’re trying something new. Quick challenges with word pairs that English learners mix up constantly. For each one, I’ll read you a sentence, and somewhere in it, I’ll say the word “ blank” instead of the real word, and that’s how you will know a word is missing. Then, I’ll give you two choices, and I want you to pause and guess which one fits before I tell you the answer. Some of these have real rules behind them. Pay attention because they’ll help you get the answer right, and more importantly, they’ll help you use and understand these common pairs of words on your own.

Okay, let’s begin!

Listen to this sentence: I’ve been working at this company _____ five years.

Pause here [00:02:00] and guess. I’ve been working at this company SINCE five years, or I’ve been working at this company FOR five years?

The answer is FOR five years. I’ve been working at this company for five years. Here’s the rule, and this one holds up every time. Use “for” with a length of time, an amount, a duration. For five years, for two weeks, for a long time. Use “since” with a starting point, a specific moment something began. Since 2019, since last spring, since I moved here. A quick test: if you can put a number in front of it, like five years, it’s for; if you’re naming a point on the calendar, it’s since. Learners whose first language uses one word for both of these [00:03:00] ideas often confuse these words. But once you hear the difference laid out this way, it tends to stay with you.

Here’s one that confuses almost everyone. Listen to this sentence: “She didn’t _____ me the truth, so I had to _____ something to change the subject.”

Pause here and guess. Did she TELL or SAY the truth? And did the speaker TELL or SAY something to change the subject?

The answer: “She didn’t tell me the truth, so I had to say something.”

Here’s the rule. “Tell” always needs a person as the object. Tell me, tell him, tell your boss. “Say” doesn’t take a person directly. You say something, you say hello, but you don’t say me or say him. If a person immediately follows the verb, it’s always “tell.” [00:04:00] If the sentence goes straight to the words or to the topic, it’s “say.” This is one of the cleaner rules in English, which is exactly why it’s very satisfying when it clicks.

The next one is about two sides of the same event. Listen to this sentence: Could you _____ me twenty dollars until Friday? I promise I’ll pay you back.

Pause here and guess. Could you BORROW me twenty dollars or could you LEND me twenty dollars?

The answer, LEND me twenty dollars. Could you lend me twenty dollars until Friday? I promise I’ll pay you back. This pair confuses people because both words describe the same transaction, just from opposite sides. “Lend” is what the person with the money does. They give it temporarily. “Borrow” is what the other person does. They receive it [00:05:00] temporarily and plan to give it back. So you lend money to someone and someone borrows money from you. The same event, two verbs, depending on which side you’re describing.

Here’s one about direction. Listen to this sentence: Can you _____ me to the airport tomorrow? And on your way back, could you _____ my mail in from the porch?

Pause here and guess. Which one is TAKE and which one is BRING? The answer, TAKE me to the airport then BRING my mail in. Can you take me to the airport tomorrow? And on your way back, could you bring my mail in from the porch?

The rule is about direction relative to the speaker or the main point of conversation. “Take” moves something away from here. “ Bring” moves something toward [00:06:00] here. If you’re describing a movement away from where you are, or where the conversation is centered, use “take.” If it’s movement toward that point, use “bring.” Native speakers get this right without thinking, but naming the direction explicitly like we just did is usually enough to help learners remember this.

The next one is a little trickier. Listen to this sentence: Just _____ the documents on my desk, and then go _____ down for a few minutes. You look tired.

Pause here and guess which one is LAY and which one is LIE. The answer: LAY the documents on the desk, then go LIE down. Just lay the documents on my desk, and then go lie down for a few minutes.

You look tired. Here’s the difference. “Lay” needs an [00:07:00] object, something you’re placing somewhere. You lay a book. You lay the documents. You lay your keys on the table. “Lie” doesn’t take an object. It’s about a person or thing resting. You lie down. The cat lies in the sun. This pair is really difficult, even for native speakers, partly because the past tense of lie is also lay, which makes it worse.

For now, the test that helps most: if there’s something being placed, it’s lay. If nothing is being placed, it’s just resting, use lie.

One more. Listen to this sentence: Before the meeting, I _____ a few notes. Then I _____ some coffee, and later, I _____ the dishes before everyone gets home.

Pause here and guess. Where does MAKE go and where does DO go?

The [00:08:00] answer: I MAKE a few notes, I MAKE some coffee, and I DO the dishes.

This one’s different. There’s no real rule here, just pairs that you need to remember. Make a plan, make coffee, make a mistake. Do the dishes, do homework, do a favor. If you try to reason your way through these pairs, you’ll get it wrong about half the time because making coffee and doing dishes aren’t really different in any way that helps you choose the right word. The only real fix here is repetition. Hearing “do the dishes” often enough that “make the dishes” starts to sound wrong to you, the same way it does for a native speaker who never thinks about which word to use.

If you’ve noticed something here, it’s that some of these have real rules you can apply immediately, and at least one, [00:09:00] you just have to hear enough times before you know it. Both are normal parts of learning a language. 

If this kind of practice was useful, it’s actually the idea behind the English, please Accelerator, a guided 10-lesson course that trains you to understand real, natural English. Each lesson has you listen first, try to understand it on your own, and then check yourself against the transcript, which is the same guess-first, check-second process we just did with these six pairs. You can find it at comullen.com/listen.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as always, for listening.

See you [00:10:00] soon! 

Episode 70: The Strange Contradictions of Los Angeles

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under ten minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work, or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

Before we begin, I want to mention something free. If you go to comullen.com/free, you can sign up and get two guides sent straight to your inbox. One has 25 idioms native English speakers use every day. The other has 60 common English [00:01:00] phrases. Both are absolutely free.

Today we’re talking about Los Angeles. Even if you’ve never been there, you probably already have a picture in your head: palm trees, sunshine, maybe some celebrities. And that picture isn’t wrong, but it’s only part of the story. Los Angeles is a city full of contradictions, and once you notice them, the city becomes a lot more interesting.

Let’s start with the setting. Los Angeles sits right next to the Pacific Ocean, with mountains rising up close behind it. On a clear day, you can see the water and the hills in the same view. It sounds like paradise, and in a lot of ways it is. But this beautiful landscape sits directly on top of a fault line, which is a place where two pieces of the Earth’s surface meet and sometimes slide against [00:02:00] each other. That means earthquakes. Small tremors or small shakes in the ground, happen fairly often—so often that a lot of people barely notice them anymore

In truth, there is the real possibility of something bigger. People in Los Angeles live with that risk in the background, and most of them just carry on with their days. That’s the first contradiction: a stunning, peaceful-looking place that is quietly unstable underneath.

Then there’s the industry. Hollywood is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, but the word “Hollywood” means something much bigger. It’s shorthand for the entire American movie and television industry. Think about what that industry actually does. It builds fake worlds, spaceships, castles, [00:03:00] small towns that don’t exist, and it convinces millions of people around the world that these places are real for two hours. A single street in Los Angeles might be dressed up to look like a completely different city, or even a different planet, and then taken apart again the next week for another film. People drive past studio lots every day, ordinary-looking buildings that hide entire fake cities and spaceship interiors behind their walls. Somewhere behind one of those walls, someone might be filming a war scene, or a wedding, or the end of the world, all in the same afternoon. Los Angeles is a city built partly around the business of make-believe. That’s the second contradiction: a very real city that spends its time creating illusions.

And then there’s daily life, which [00:04:00] is much less glamorous than the postcards suggest. Los Angeles is famous for its traffic. The city is enormous and spread out, so most people depend on cars to get anywhere. Driving across town can take an hour, even if the distance is short on a map. Underneath the sunshine and the movie studios, there’s just a lot of ordinary time spent sitting in a car waiting for the traffic to move.

So you have three things layered on top of each other: natural beauty with a hidden danger underneath it, a city that builds fantasy for a living, and a daily reality that’s often just traffic and patience. These three things don’t cancel each other out. They all exist at the same time in the same place, which is part of what makes Los Angeles such a strange and specific city.[00:05:00] 

If you’re ever able to visit, it’s worth seeing in person, not just through movies. The light there really is different, and the geography, with the ocean on one side, the mountains on the other side, is something you feel immediately, even before anyone tells you it’s special.

If you want more practice with real-life topics like this one, the English Listening Accelerator has 10 lessons built around everyday situations, with a repeat-after-me section in every lesson to help you with pronunciation. There’s a free sample lesson at comullen.com/listen if you want to try it.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as [00:06:00] always, for listening.

See you soon!

Episode 69: Why It’s Harder to Speak Than to Understand

[00:00:00] Welcome to English, please, the podcast where we explore interesting topics in under ten minutes in clear, intermediate English. I’m your host, Christopher. I live in New York City, and I’ve always been passionate about languages and how we learn them. Whether you’re listening on your way to work or while cooking dinner at home, this show is designed to help you with your English listening and comprehension skills.

Before we start, I want to mention something free. If you go to comullen.com/newsletter, you can download two guides. One has twenty-five idioms native English speakers use every day. The other has sixty common phrases. Both are totally free, and they [00:01:00] connect directly to what we’re talking about today.

Okay, let’s get into it!

A lot of intermediate learners tell me the same thing. They can watch a show in English and follow most of it. They can read an article and understand it. But when it’s their turn to talk, the words don’t come out the way they want. It feels slow. It feels clumsy. And it’s confusing because if you understand so much, why is speaking still so hard?

Here’s the reason: understanding and speaking use different parts of your brain, and they build at different speeds. When you listen, you’re recognizing. Your brain hears a word and matches it to something you already know. That’s a fast process, and it gets faster the more input you get: more podcasts, more shows, more [00:02:00] reading.

When you speak, you’re producing. Your brain has to find the right word, put it in the right order, and say it all in real time without a pause button. That takes a completely different kind of practice. Listening a thousand hours won’t automatically make speaking easy. It certainly helps, but it’s not the same skill.

Think about it like this: you can recognize thousands of songs when you hear them without being able to sing a single one from memory. Recognizing and producing are just different.

So what actually helps you close that gap?

First, talk to yourself. It sounds strange, but narrating your day in English out loud, in your head, or even to your dog, forces your brain to practice [00:03:00] production instead of only recognition. Describe what you’re cooking. Explain what you saw on a walk. Talk through your plans for the weekend, even if it’s just a grocery list. You can do this in the shower, on the subway, while you’re making coffee. The sentences don’t have to be perfect, and nobody’s checking your grammar. The point isn’t the content. The point is giving your mouth and your brain the repetition they need to work together in real time.

Second, slow down on purpose. A lot of learners rush their sentences because they feel embarrassed about pausing. But native speakers pause, too. A short pause to find your word is completely normal. It’s not a mistake. It’s just how real conversation works.[00:04:00] 

Third, repeat useful phrases until they’re automatic. This is actually why the vocabulary guides I mentioned earlier can help. When a phrase like, “I’d rather not,” or, “That makes sense,” is already stored and ready, you don’t have to build the sentence from nothing in the moment. You just use it.

And fourth, accept that speaking will always feel a little behind understanding. That gap doesn’t fully close, even for advanced learners. The goal isn’t zero gap! The goal is a gap small enough that you can still communicate comfortably.

This is actually why native speakers sound so relaxed when they talk, even when they’re not saying anything special. They stopped worrying about being perfect a long time ago. The sentence comes out, and maybe it’s a little messy, but they [00:05:00] just keep going. That’s the version of speaking you’re aiming for. Not perfect English. Comfortable English.

If you want more structured practice with real situations—ordering coffee, small talk at work, asking for directions—the English Listening Accelerator has ten lessons built exactly for this, with a repeat-after-me section in every lesson to help you practice speaking, not just listening. There’s a free sample lesson at comullen.com/listen if you want to try before deciding.

Again, I’m Christopher, and I want to invite you to join me in future episodes of English, please to hear about a variety of topics, all focused on helping you with your English. Subscribe now wherever you listen, and let’s continue this adventure together in clear, understandable English.

Sincere thanks, as always, for [00:06:00] listening.

See you soon!