Episode 117 - International Women's Day Celebration And Discussion On The Impact Of English

Happy International Women's Day! In this episode I'll go into why I wanted to do these three readings for International Women's Day and what I think the value of learning English. I talk a little bit about my frustrations with our modern world and how I think English can help and I get a bit motivational (I hope!). I am always impressed by how much time and effort my students have put into learning English over the years. I know, to you, it often feels like it isn't enough or you haven't got as far as you'd have liked, but I find it inspiring and impressive. I'm grateful you put all of that time and effort in. I hope it helps you change your life. And maybe, in a little way, I can help you keep going on this journey. Vocabulary Stressed out - a phrase we use when we feel stress right now broaden your horizons - the horizon is the point where the land meets the sky. This is an idiom which means we want to increase what you can see and what you know. perspective - view or way of seeing things different sources - from different places or people major commitment - big or important task, or job or thing you have decided and agreed to do. fantastically - very great or wonderful super impressed/super guilty - the use of 'super' like this is very American and quite a recent slang development, it just means 'really'. infamously - if something is 'famous' we all know about it, if something is 'infamous' we all know about it but because it's a bad thing. have a gateway - we can use this term to mean 'a way in' or 'access point' to information or a different perspective or opinion that we otherwise couldn't see. looming - something that is big, so big we can't really see around it. We often say 'looming on the horizon' to describe something that is going to be a big problem soon. preachy - this is from the verb 'to preach' which is what religious people do. By adding a 'y' we make it more casual and instead describe when a person is trying to tell you to do something or change something in a way that is too obnoxious. indigenous - groups of people who are native to a country or land downhill from here - idiom - riding your bike up a hill is hard right? But riding it downhill is easy. So if something is 'downhill from here' then it's going to be easy from now on.