Podcast 35

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 craziest match of the Premier League season so far. And the language focus is on linkers, which are words and phrases that we use to link sentences together.   

Jack: Rich will make another Premier League prediction. And, of course, you have another chance to win a Samsung Galaxy tablet in our ‘What’s my Team?’ competition. This week, we’ve put the competition at the beginning of the podcast and you can also read the text at the top of the page.

Rich: So here you are: This week, our Premier League fan is Adam. Listen to Adam’s riddle and try to work out what’s his team?

Adam: We’ve come a long way in a short time and now we’re one of the biggest clubs in the world. We moved into an amazing new ground a few years ago and signed some of the biggest names in football like Sergio Aguero from Argentina, Yaya Toure from Ivory Coast and David Silva from Spain.

Rich: Another easy one?

Jack: Aguero, Toure. and Silva; who’s the best out of those three. I think that’s a future discussion! Good luck to everyone in this week’s competition.

Rich: We’ve added the competition text to the site so you can read it as well as listen to it. So we’ve got  a question for you.

Jack: At the bottom of the page, there’s a vote. We’d like you to let us know what you prefer. When you’re learning new vocabulary and language in English do you prefer to listen to the new language or read it.

Rich: Click on the poll to vote and let us know. Your opinion will help us plan new materials for the website.

Rich: What was the answer to last week’s riddle Jack?

Jack: Last week, Martin spoke about my team - Arsenal. Arsenal’s nickname is, of course, the Gunners and the Professor that Martin spoke about is the Arsenal manager - Arsene Wenger. If Wenger could get a few more wins against Chelsea we might have won a few more trophies in recent seasons.

Rich: It was a bit disappointing for Arsenal fans to lose to Chelsea at the weekend, however, I’d prefer to be in Arsenal’s position than Chelsea’s.

Jack: Yes, you’re right but it was still a disappointing result. Anyway back to last week’s competition.

Rich: We have selected a winner at random from the correct answers and the seventeenth winner of the What’s my team? competition is Gerdo, a Manchester City fan from Italy. Congratulations Gerdo! We’ll be in contact with you this week.

Jack: Well done Gerdo!

Rich: Last week we asked you about the January transfer Window and we had some interesting responses from you. AssemJuve from the United Arab Emirates would like to see Steven Gerrard back at Liverpool and some players from Borussia Dortmund, which is where Liverpool’s manager Jurgen Klopp made his name.

Jack: SalvaGH from Spain would like to see Manchester City buy a defender because he’s worried about Vincent Kompany’s injury.

Rich: Amaral from Albania would like Mathieu Debuchy to return to Newcastle from Arsenal and Edmond Eloyan from Armenia would like Manchester Utd to also buy a defender - maybe Mats Hummels from Dortmund.

Jack: Abdallah from Kuwait would like Chelsea to buy Ronaldo from Real Madrid. I think quite a few fans would like to have Ronaldo in their team! And, finally, I agree with Nikosonris from Ukraine and Aragorn1986 from Montenegro who say that Arsenal just need to get their injured players back in the team and don’t need to buy anyone.

Rich: Thanks for all your comments. We’re really happy to read them and that you are replying to each other. We’ve noticed that a few of you are using the @ symbol to reply to specific people on the website. We agree that this is a good way for website users to see that a comment is directed to them.

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

Rich: It’s all changed at the top of the table again. Arsenal started the weekend at the top of the table but are now third after that 1-0 defeat to Chelsea. Manchester City are up to second place after a 2-2 draw against West Ham. Sergio Aguero got two goals for City and Enner Valencia, from Ecuador, got two goals for the Hammers in a great match.

Jack: But, it’s this season’s surprise team - Leicester City who are back on top. The Foxes beat Stoke 3-0 and Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez, who was named Algeria’s player of the year this weekend, were back in great form.

Rich: But this week we’re going to speak about the craziest game of the season so far. It finished Norwich City 4-5 Liverpool  It was the first 5-4 match in the Premier League in over 10 years, the lead changed hands three times and there were two goals in injury time.

Jack: I saw Liverpool’s manager lost his glasses in the celebrations. It was very funny. He said after the match he had an extra pair of glasses but couldn’t find them. He said ‘You can’t find glasses without glasses.’

Rich: It was a spectacular match. And a lot of newspapers in England chose the headline ‘What a spectacle!’ to describe the match.

Jack: Spectacular is an adjective that means something is very good or impressive and a spectacle is a noun to describe a performance that was spectacular.

Rich: And spectacles is an old word to describe glasses so lots of newspapers chose the headline ‘What a spectacle!’ with a photo of Klopp losing his glasses when celebrating Liverpool’s winning goal.

Jack: This week the language focus is on linking words and we’ve chosen a few sentences to describe the Norwich - Liverpool match. The first sentence is ‘It was a great match despite some bad defending’.

Rich: The linking word here is despite and we use despite to contrast two different things. It was a great match which is a positive thing and bad defending which is a negative thing and we use despite to link the two things together and show that one thing doesn’t change the other thing. Despite is usually followed by a noun.

Jack: Let’s look at another couple of examples, you could say, ‘The player continued despite his injury.’ or ‘Despite his injury the player continued’, or we could say ‘I enjoyed my holiday despite the rain.’

Rich: Let’s look at another sentence: ‘The result leaves Norwich just a point above the relegation zone whereas Liverpool have moved up to 7th place in the table.’ The linking word here is ‘whereas’ which we use two compare or contrast two different, sometimes opposite facts.

Jack: Another example might be ‘Leicester are having a great season whereas Chelsea are not’ or ‘I really like the Harry Potter books whereas the films were really boring.’ So, is it right that you can use whereas instead of the word but?

Rich: That’s right Jack, and another word you can use to replace but is however.  Norwich City thought they had got a point with a 92nd minute equaliser, however Liverpool scored the winner in the 95th minute. We also use however to contrast two ideas.  It is a bit more formal than ‘but’.

Jack: Another example might be I’ve never seen Manchester United play at Old Trafford, however I have seen them play away.

Rich: Another phrase we can use is on one hand and on the other hand to contrast two ideas when we want to give a balanced argument. For example we could say: On one hand I think Norwich will continue to score lots more goals this season but on the other hand they will concede lots of goals if they defend like they did against Liverpool.

Jack: On one hand is used to introduce one idea and then on the other hand is used to introduce another idea that is often the opposite of the first idea. Another example might be thinking about my next holiday: “On one hand it’s fun to go to the beach but on the other hand it’s interesting to stay in a city.”’

Rich: This next sentence is a little bit different;  I think both Norwich and Liverpool need to concede fewer goals, otherwise Norwich will be relegated and Liverpool won’t get into the top 4. The linking word is otherwise and it’s used to show what will happen if the action is not taken. You could say ‘Norwich need to concede fewer goals because if they don’t they will be relegated.

Jack: Otherwise is quite formal. In most cases, if you want to be less formal, you can use the word ‘or’. When speaking you would probably say; ‘Close the window, or it will get cold’ but you might hear a teacher say ‘You need to revise new vocabulary at home, otherwise you will forget the new words.’

Rich: If you want to know more about these types of linking words, have a go at the activities that I have put on this page or take a look at the activities and explanations on our Learn English website. I’ve put a link on the side of this page.

Jack: Which brings us to our questions for you this week. Question 1. Can you tell us about a match that had an unexpected or surprising final score?

Rich: Question 2. Have you ever enjoyed a match or a trip to watch your team play despite your team losing or playing really badly?

Jack: Question 3. What things do you need to do in your everyday life, and what will happen if you don’t do them? When you answer the questions, try to use some of the linking words that we’ve been speaking about in the podcast.

Jack: Right, for the next minute we’d like you to listen very carefully. We are going to use lots of linking words and we’d like you to listen and try to hear all of them that we use. I was a bit disappointed with your prediction last week. If you had gone for a Chelsea win, Arsenal might have got a better result.

Rich: Haha, yes maybe, but I doubt it.

Jack: Not many of our website users predicted a Chelsea win either. However, AssemJuve from UAE, Messaouda from Algeria, Kwesimanifest from Ghana, Rasha Nahas from Saudi Arabia, Ruslanjon from Uzbekistan, Nyinyi from Myanmar, and. AleksanderR from Montenegro did predict a Chelsea win, although none of them predicted the correct score.

Rich: Despite Chelsea’s recent form they still managed to beat Arsenal. Arsenal haven’t beaten Chelsea in their last 9 Premier League matches.

Jack: Right, what about your prediction this weekend, Rich? There aren’t any Premier League matches!

Rich: There are no Premier League matches this weekend, however many Premier League teams are in action in the FA Cup. On one hand it’s disappointing we have to wait for the next round of Premier League matches, but on the other hand it’s a chance to see if a  smaller club can shock one of the Premier League teams. Despite the FA Cup usually providing lots of surprising results, in the last round, only Swansea City lost to a team from a lower division. However, this weekend many of the Premier League teams are away to lower division teams so the chances of shocks increase. Manchester Utd, Tottenham, Bournemouth, Watford, Everton and Chelsea are all away to lower division teams. I think the Premier League teams need to play their best teams otherwise they could lose. I predict that Bournemouth and Watford will lose to Portsmouth and Nottingham Forest in the weekend’s shock results. What do you think, Jack?

Jack: I’m not sure but I think Manchester Utd have a difficult cup-tie. Right, anyway that’s it for today - we’ve run out of time! Thanks for listening. And don’t forget to write your answers to the competition, our questions, your predictions and anything you want to say about the website or football English in the comments below.

Rich: Don’t forget if you sign in, you can score points to see if you can get your club, your country and your name to the top of our leaderboard.

Jack:  Bye for now and enjoy your football.