36: UK vs DE - Childhood

03/04/24 • 22 min

Easy English: Learn English with everyday conversations

Mitch and Isi discuss a topic recommended by Easy English Member, Marketa; childhood. Isi explains how her street was a construction area for skate parks, igloos and prison cells. Whilst Mitch tells of crossbows, conker fights and... offensive language. Did any of it happen, or are these just tall tales, recollected from hear-say and distant memories? They also answer Georgia's question about the Royals, in their regular section of Unhelpful Advice.

Interactive Transcript

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Show Notes

Opinions on the Royal Family: What Do English People Think of the Royal Family? (Easy English 98)
Reacting to the Queens Jubilee: The Queen's Platinum Jubilee (Easy English 123)

Transcript

Intro

Mitch:
[0:23] Welcome to the Easy English Podcast. Today, we are doing, we're sort of catching up with some requests of things that you've sent us in. We wanted to cover a topic, which one of our members of Easy English; Marketa, one of our longest standing, dearest members, requested us to do a topic, comparing our childhoods from the perspective of growing up in the UK to growing up in Germany.

Isi:
[0:51] That's a good topic.

Mitch:
[0:51] Which is interesting. And they mentioned school and birthday parties, specifically.

Isi:
[0:58] Perfect. I mean, obviously, the kindergarten school system is different. I think that should not be part of it, though. That could be an own topic. What is the difference? I would say in general, the upbringing in both our countries are similar. There's definitely countries where we would find bigger differences.

Mitch:
[1:18] It's hard to compare a little bit, because you grew up in a a 300,000 city and I grew up in a 30,000 town.

Isi:
[1:24] Yeah you're the village boy

Mitch:
[1:27] I'm the cauliflower-eared, village boy.

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Interactive Transcript

Support Easy English and get interactive transcripts and bonus content for all our episodes: easyenglish.fm/membership

Show Notes

Opinions on the Royal Family: What Do English People Think of the Royal Family? (Easy English 98)
Reacting to the Queens Jubilee: The Queen's Platinum Jubilee (Easy English 123)

Transcript

Intro

Isi:
[0:51] That's a good topic.

Mitch:
[0:51] Which is interesting. And they mentioned school and birthday parties, specifically.

Mitch:
[1:18] It's hard to compare a little bit, because you grew up in a a 300,000 city and I grew up in a 30,000 town.

Isi:
[1:24] Yeah you're the village boy

Mitch:
[1:27] I'm the cauliflower-eared, village boy.

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Previous Episode

35: The Car-Cast

This week, Mitch and Isi bring you the podcast from the Easy English-mobile. Mitch is drving whilst Isi navigates the infamous Antwerp bottle-neck into the JFK tunnel. And what better situation than to discuss driving in the UK. The duo discuss, roundabouts, service station, exploding tyres, car fridges, speed limits and drunk French drivers.

Interactive Transcript

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Transcript

Intro

Mitch & Isi:
[0:27] So, welcome to the Easy English Podcast from the streets, just entering Belgium. From the A67 in Belgium. Today is a special episode. - It's a special episode. - Is this even legal, what we're doing? - Why? - Are you allowed to podcast while driving? -

We're not watching anything or listening to anything, we're just talking. - I know, but multitasking is hard. - We normally talk in the car. As we were talking about public transport, this is not public transport, I mean for Nola it is, kind of, but it is transport.

And we thought, as we, so many times go back and forth between Germany, and England and France also, sometimes, around Europe, that we will do an episode from the car.

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Next Episode

37: Royal Family in the UK

After a question last time round from listener Georgia, Mitch and Isi discuss the influence of modern day influencers; the Royal Family. From backing British made products, influencing the EU referendum and championing mental health and environmental awareness. They also discuss the controversial topics surrounding the armed forces and the love/hate relationship they have with tabloid media.

Interactive Transcript

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Transcript

Intro
Mitch:
[0:23] Hello, welcome to episode... what is it? Oh God.

Isi:
[0:27] 30...

Mitch:
[0:29] 30, what would you think? 31? No, don't be silly.

Isi:
[0:34] Oh God.

Mitch:
[0:36] Episode 37. (Wow!) Of the Easy English Podcast.

Isi:
[0:41] Hello.

Mitch:
[0:41] I planned for us to do an episode about Georgia's question from the last episode, asking; how much the royal family affects our day-to-day life, in the UK.

Isi:
[0:52] Didn't we talk about the royals before? We did a video episode about the queen's jubilee with Cari from Easy German who's a big 'Crown' 'The Crown' fan and Netflix series.

Mitch:
[1:04] Yeah I mean that is already one way in which the royal family affects, their part of (The world.) Yeah, they're like... they're back they're back again into common culture. There was a period I think between Diana and now, where they're kind of had a bit of a dip. But now they're kind of like, influencers. They live a life of influencers, in a way, don't they?

Isi:
[1:26] I guess they're representatives of the monarchy. But in a way, I think they see themselves also as representatives of Britain, of the Commonwealth.

Mitch:
[1:37] They have some power, in the sense of they don't have any...

Isi:
[1:41] They're influential.

Mitch:
[1:42] Yeah, exactly.

Isi:
[1:42] To a lot of people still.

Mitch:
[1:44] If they mention a brand or something, then they can have... or talk badly about a brand.

Isi:
[1:49] But they don't do that, on purpose, they don't they don't want to be political and they are actually they shouldn't be, right? From the legal stand.

Mitch:
[1:59] They shouldn't be, but obviously like, if you think of Harry and Meghan they had a Spotify and did Kate and William also have a Spotify. (No, I don't think so.) Harry and Meghan had a Spotify podcast right, exclusive.

Isi:
[2:09] Do they still have that.

Mitch:
[2:10] No. (I've never listened to it.) It got dropped. (Okay.) Because they're so boring. (Are they?) But Spotify obviously has like...

Isi:
[2:18] I actually like their Netflix series. I found it quite entertaining.

Mitch:
[2:22] That was good. (Yeah.) But if you think they have these brands... that they promote, they put their stamp on things that they agree with, principally, things that are British-made.

Isi:
[2:33] Ah, true, yeah. Like very old, traditional products, like brown sauce.

Mitch:
[2:39] Twining's tea?

Isi:
[2:40] I love Twining's tea.

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