Charity

Welcome 

Rich: Hello my name’s Rich and welcome to this week’s Premier Skills English podcast. 

Jack: Hi everyone. I’m Jack and every week we talk about football and help you with your English.

Rich: This week we’re going to talk about the Community Shield which will be played on Sunday at Wembley Stadium between Leicester and Manchester United. The language focus is on phrases and collocations that we use to talk about giving money to charity.

Jack: We’ll also have our pronunciation, fantasy football and football phrase sections for you. And we have our final pre-season mini-course for you to complete.

Rich: Well done to AssemJuve from Palestine who was the first to complete our second pre-season course last week. Well done to the rest of you who completed it, too. We hope that you found it useful.
 
Jack: If you haven’t started the course yet, don’t worry. Just go to the fans section at the top of the page and click on courses. You will find all the courses that are available on Premier Skills English.

Rich: This week’s course is on the side of the page. Just click ‘join course’ and you are ready to start.

Jack: We’re going to look at some of the different parts of the course in this podcast. Don’t forget to click on the mark as complete button when you finish each section.

Website news

Rich: What’s been happening on the website this week, Jack?

Jack: Our second pre-season course has been on the site for a week and we’ve been talking a lot about midfielders.

Rich: Yes, we’ve got a new midfielder vocabulary page with some pretty difficult vocabulary on there.

Jack: Yes, a 'through ball' is tricky to describe. It’s a type of pass that is played in front of the attackers and gives them space to run into.

Rich: I thought that this was the most difficult word in the article. If you want to learn more, check out the midfielders vocabulary article - you can see it on the side of the page.

Jack: We also asked you to use the vocabulary to describe a Premier League midfielder. 

Rich: Elghoul from Algeria wrote a good description. Kwesimanifest from Ghana thinks that he is describing Alexis Sanchez but Aragorn1986 thinks that it’s Mesut Ozil. Go to the page to make your guess and Elghoul - don’t forget to tell us the answer!

Jack: There have also been lots of comments on our Fantasy Football page but more about that later.

Premier League News - Language Focus

Jack: What’s been happening in the Premier League this week, Rich?

Rich: There have been more transfers this week. The most exciting transfers were probably at Stoke CIty. Stoke have paid Liverpool £13 million for the midfielder Joe Allen. Allen played for Wales at Euro 2016 and was named in the team of the tournament. Stoke have also bought Ramadan Sobhi from Egyptian club Al-Ahly for £5 million. He looks like a very exciting winger, who is fast with great dribbling skills!

Jack: I think dribbling is a word that everybody should know.

Rich: Yes, dribble can be a noun or a verb and it’s the action of running with the ball at your feet, often taking the ball past defenders.

Jack: Nothing about babies?

Rich: No, nothing about babies. Babies also dribble but not with a football. Dribbling can also mean when liquid comes out of your mouth and dribbles down your chin.

Jack: So let’s imagine in our heads a dribbling dribbler. What do you see in you mind?

Rich: I imagine a baby running with a ball.

Jack: Cool. In my head I’m imagining a footballer running with the ball but wearing a bib because he’s dribbling.

Rich: A bib? Nice. So, a bib can be something that babies wear to catch food or what footballers wear when they are playing a practice match.

Jack: Surprising similarities!

Rich: Yes. Right, moving on, this weekend is the traditional start of the new season - the Community Shield.

Jack: The community shield is played every year, on the weekend before the start of the season.

Rich: It’s played between the winners of the FA Cup and the Premier League Champions.

Jack: So, this year, the Community Shield is between Manchester Utd and Leicester City.

Rich: Man Utd have won the Community Shield a record 20 times but Leicester will be playing in this match for the first ever time.

Jack: It’s played at Wembley Stadium and it’s not a major trophy but it’s more than a friendly and is also the last chance for the teams to prepare for the new season.

Rich: And another important thing is that all the money from the match goes to charity. It actually used to be called the Charity Shield up to 2002.

Jack: It’s great that clubs can help their local communities by giving money to charity. 

Rich: Let’s look at some phrases that are used to talk about giving money to charity.

Jack: The word donate is quite common. To donate means to give something to someone for free. People often donate to charities. The noun is donation and when we give money to a good cause we say that we make a donation.

Rich: For example, you could donate money to the WWF, which is the World Wildlife Fund or make a donation to the NSPCC, which is the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in the UK.

Jack: I’ve seen that all the money from Wayne Rooney’s  match against Everton this week is being donated to the NSPCC, which is great.

Rich: Charity when it’s a countable noun is the institution or organisation that helps give money or things to people or sick. But, when charity is uncountable it means organisations in general or the idea in general of giving to those who are poor or ill.

Jack: The difference between raise for and give to is also useful to know. When you raise money for charity it means that you collect money, asking people to give money to charity. People often do something special like run a marathon in order to raise money for charity. They ask people to donate money for every mile or kilometre the person completes.

Rich: So, raising money for charity is collecting money to give to charity.

Jack: The Community Shield is an example of a charity match and you often see other nouns after the word charity like charity auction, charity concert or charity appeal. The purpose of these events are always to raise money for good causes or specific charities.

Rich: Let’s hope that the Man Utd Leicester City match raises lots of money for charity.

Club of the Week

Jack: This week’s club of the week is Liverpool. What’s new at Liverpool this season?

Rich: Well, there have been lots of changes - that’s for sure.

Jack: It’s the first summer that Jurgen Klopp has been manager, what changes has he made?

Rich: Quite a few, Sadio Mane has arrived from Southampton for about £35 million. I think he’s going to be great on the wing this season for Liverpool.

Jack: You’re a Liverpool fan but you’ve only predicted the Reds to finish fifth.

Rich: I know. I would be happy to see them win the Premier League, of course, but I’m a bit pessimistic. They don’t have to play any European matches this season so that could help them do better.

Jack: Like Leicester last season. You should be more optimistic!

Rich: I know. Liverpool have a very difficult start to the season. We have to play Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea and Leicester in the first five matches. If we do well in those, I will be much more optimistic!

Jack: The Liverpool club page is part of our pre-season course this week so go to the Liverpool page and tell us if you agree with his prediction.

Pronunciation

Rich: Each week we’re going to help you with your pronunciation. Sometimes we will look at individual sounds, sometimes at words and phrases and sometimes linking sentences together.

Jack: This week, we want to help you with something called connected speech. In English, what you say is not the same as what you read. English speakers drop or lose lots of sounds when they speak this can make it difficult when listening to people. Let’s look at an example. Rich is going to say a question and I want you to think how many words are in the question.

Rich: Where are you from?

Jack: Sorry, Rich. Can you say that again. That was very fast.

Rich: Where are you from?

Jack: How many words did you hear? Three? That’s OK, but there are actually four words. Ask the question using full forms Rich.

Rich: Where are you from?

Jack: I’m from England. Where are you from Rich?

Rich: I’m from England, too.

Jack: the problem is that people don’t speak using full forms they use things called weak forms which is when we sound like we are not saying words. Weak forms are usually the grammar words and are seen as less important in a sentence.

Rich: And we often use something called the schwa which is the /ǝ/ sound. In the question ‘where are you from?’ there are two schwas together. ‘Are’ becomes /ǝ/ and ‘you’ becomes /jǝ/.

Jack: It can be difficult sometimes, especially in conversation. 

Rich: In class, a few weeks ago I was speaking about jobs with my students and I asked them a question. The question includes a weak form and a contraction and my students had a few problems understanding it. I’m going to say the question and I want you to tell me what the question is in the comments section below.

Jack: Tell us the question then.

Rich: What does your dad do?

Jack: That was quick. Say it again.

Rich: What’s your dad do?

Jack: OK, if you know what the question is, let us know in the comments section.

Football Phrase

Rich: Last week’s football phrase was goal drought. A goal drought is a long period of time or many matches that a player or a team play without scoring a goal. You can say a team or a player is suffering from a goal drought..

Jack: Well done to Alex from Ukraine, Kwesimanifest from Ghana, Abdullah Hussein from Egypt, and Hassan_Raja from Pakistan. All of you got the correct answer!

Rich: Have you got  a new phrase for us this week?

Jack: Yes, this week’s football phrase is a *********** *****. I think it might be one of the most difficult football words we’ve had in the podcast. A *********** ***** is a match that is played to show admiration for a specific player and to thank him for staying with a club for a long time. A *********** ***** is usually played after a player is with a club for 10 years or more. In the past, the money from the *********** ***** was for the player’s future life after football but these days the money raised is usually given to charity. 

Rich: Yes, I’ve got it. This week Manchester Utd played Everton in a *********** ***** for Wayne Rooney. All the money has been given to children’s charities and other good causes.

Fantasy Football

Jack: We’ve started to build our Fantasy Football team on Premier Skills English. We’ve now got our strikers and midfielders, check out our fantasy football section to get involved. Go to the fans section at the top of this page and you will find it in there!

Rich: As part of this week’s course - Pre-season course 3 go to the discussion on defenders and goalkeepers and help us choose five defenders and two goalkeepers for the Premier Skills Fantasy Football squad!

Jack: Remember to enter your own team in our Premier Skills League on the Premier League website, too! The Private League password that you need is at the bottom of this page and our fantasy football pages.

Rich: Fantastic! Right, well,  that’s all we have time for today!

Jack: Don’t forget to write your answers to our questions and the football phrase in the comments below. And remember to join this week’s Premier Skills English course by clicking on Pre-Season Course 3 on the side of this page.

Rich: Bye for now and enjoy your football!